Don't Blame Me! - BAIW: Kicking Out A House Guest

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

Melisa thinks singing should be banned on planes and Meghan wants allergens put on menus. They then discuss if listeners were wrong in the following situations: Stepmom mad that you thank her in an email Houseguest outstaying their welcome Friend getting mad that you like her friend better Boyfriend and his mom not lowering your rent And in "But Are They Wrong" AKA "Rachel of The Week" they discuss Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle and Revolve Festival. Write In: [e-mail] Weigh In: Vote in the weekly poll on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/by.meghan.and.melisa/ Buy Our Merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/don-t-blame-me Join Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme Listen to Don't Blame Me: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dont-blame-me/id1223800566 Follow Us: https://www.instagram.com/by.meghan.and.melisa/ https://vm.tiktok.com/TTPdYV7J5p/ Follow Meghan: https://www.instagram.com/meghanrienks/ https://twitter.com/meghanrienks https://www.youtube.com/c/meghanrienks Follow Melisa: https://www.instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa/ https://www.instagram.com/diamondmprintproductions https://twitter.com/SheIsNotMelissa Hosted on Acast. See ⁠acast.com/privacy⁠ for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit ancestry.ca for details. Terms apply. Hello. Welcome to But Am I Wrong? Starring two people who, I mean, you've never been wrong. Find receipts if I have been. Find the receipts. Don't think you can. Show me the screenshots. uh we my name is megan i'm joined by my co-host and producer and the diamond of every season melissa diamond motts hello how are you doing i'm good speaking of receipts i got a notification from apple yesterday saying that they were having trouble backing up my messages because i have

everything backs up every 30 days because i do keep my receipts and i pull out screenshots from years ago and I was panicking but then it was able to back it up so it was good yeah but I'm good I'm happy to hear that yeah you sound so you sound so uh spirited in good spirits I did stuff this weekend what did you do surprise surprise I went to an art gallery on Saturday fun and then Sunday i saw uh my friend katherine and alex and the babies koia and anton they were very cute they're very cute babies i forgot that it was easter yeah yep fully forgot that it was easter you know what i've decided though i've decided that when i have like a family that even into adulthood i want to be that family who does like easter egg hunts like i lived for an easter egg hunt like i wish

i could do that now like i think they're so fun and so cool i mean there's no reason why we can't exactly now you have a big backyard that we haven't talked about that yet on because you announced it on friday right yep i announced it friday so if you only listen to this podcast we close on a house we have a home that we're moving into we're hope maybe guess by the time that you listen to this yeah we will actually be close to fuck every why do we do this every fucking episode where we come you you'll be moving in a couple days by the time they hear this okay yeah so i will be moving send your well wishes and also if you're looking to buy any furniture please just keep an eye out on my instagram because this is going to be the crunch

time of me selling and donating shit because I don't want to we can't move everything yeah I'm overwhelmed I mean if somebody bought my massage chair then I would take your pink chairs but nobody's bought it so I don't have room for your chairs right now yeah we're figuring out there's just a lot to do in a move and I've never like I didn't move at all growing up unlike you and but i moved a ton like i feel like i really made up made up for it by the time that i turned 18 like moved into a dorms moved into an apartment moved into another apartment then moved into uh back home then moved into a different apartment like i've like probably within la like i lived every i moved like every year for a long period of time

and then once we moved here i used to live in the downstairs unit for a year then i moved upstairs and we've i've been here for like seven years something in total yeah because when we first met you were moving like that week and you're moving from downstairs to upstairs and so i'm kind of just like oh i've never moved like six years of my life and also in typical adhd fashion instead of like instead of going through all of the shit from my old apartments that i needed to get rid of i just put it in my garage so my garage just is storage of shit that i haven't looked at in like it's from not even the last it's from like moves prior yeah than the one that into this place so it's just like fuck that makes total sense to me because kind of my parents not kind of they

we when we moved by the time we ended up back in arkansas the final time the whole garage was just stuff and it was you know like probably like three because it was three car garage so three times as big as the one that you have i think so it was just filled with stuff and then one weekend they just had like a junk person come and just clear out the thing we've lost so not a lot well like a lot of things that we probably wanted to keep hold of were taken up but then it's like why why are we carrying this around with us I'm trying to like give myself enough time that and McMaster's like trying to like work on that and I was like no that's the last thing we do because like worst case scenario we just call up a truck and donate every single thing in here

as opposed to like in the house like in our current place i'm like we have to get things out like yeah we have to leave we have to end this lease so very excited again if you didn't listen i talked about it in this week's episode of don't blame me but i have a vlog where i did a spying house i also filmed an empty house tour which i don't know when the fuck i'm gonna edit it people are like i'm so excited for moving vlogs and i have a question how do people have the fucking time you'd have to hire somebody or like have like a vest that just has as you're walking around like a live stream gopro footage and then later like much later you sit down and edit after you've like maybe just yeah set up a gopro inside the house as people are moving things in i have so

many questions but maybe it's they have more time i think it's editors they right they have to have time to do that yeah there is a little microphone that i let you borrow a long time ago that i forgot about but i actually if you find it let me know if not i will yeah if any if i have anything of anyone's you gotta reach out to me now um because it might just get perfect time those toe socks you sent me i texted most of the other day this picture everyone like remind me i will put it on the uh instagram story today where it says so i just sent her this picture of this small hot pink grippy sock but it doesn't have any toes like it has like individual spaces for all of the toes and i said is this your sock no that's my nightmare okay good it made me picture

your vienna sausage toes individually wrapped and then you said like pigs in a blanket so yeah i'm going through but i found one of like liza's denim jackets from like years and years and years ago and i literally was like okay i need to ask her she wants this but like simultaneously i'm gonna be like this is also ugly so like please tell me you don't want this like i just like it'll come back in like 10 years it'll not be ugly anymore yeah but i was like i want you to know that i have this but like also um i it's okay i'm gonna donate it on your behalf because this is ugly honestly you could probably sell it and then have enough for you oh my god can you imagine i'll try and find a little a little a little koshi curly hair i'll be like hey

that is so funny okay well i guess we should explain what this podcast is this is but am i wrong where we just talk about people being wrong never us except sometimes maybe where we have our first segment but am i wrong where we bring up things that have happened in our personal lives recently or hot takes things that we've been thinking on stewing on and then we will read your submissions and then we have our final segment which is but are they wrong aka rachel of the week where we nominate the absolute woat of the week the worst of all time the the the shithead all of it and then one of our personal favorite parts is then we put up all of the things we talked about into polls on our instagram story so you can vote and we can see what you if you

agree with us, if you disagree, like what your thoughts were on all of this. So those go up on Friday, sometimes a little bit later, but probably Friday because weekends are way busier for me while moving and you vote on everything. And then and yeah, we ask that you read every single one before you vote. And please, if you vote wrong, send us a DM, let us know. And if you vote with the unpopular opinion, we'd love to hear the reasoning why. And yeah, I guess we should read the results you are not the father all right melissa versus the narrative around jury duty one percent said i was wrong 99 said i was not wrong correct i i i side with all of that and we also had a good discussion about that on um the facebook group oh i missed it yeah well

people were talking about how they've seen like a lot of podcasts have just been like talking about jury duty recently and especially people in la like it feels like everyone in la is getting called well they kind of like if it wasn't urgent they were pushing things during covid so that's part of the reason i did see a news story though that so my jury duty after figuring out so they don't they like a lot they like didn't send the summons like the next one and so something happened where they were like oh we're gonna send another one so like don't worry about it and so i'm waiting for that to find out but part of me i'm like i wonder like i felt like it was in the springtime because i remembered that i think it was around the time we were going to be

trying to move and i was like well that's going to be really stressful yeah it was yeah so this is what i think i wonder if this could have been me that i just saw the black china versus the kardashians lawsuit they like just were going through and finding all of the jurors now and like asking them all these questions and stuff and that happened this past like week and i was like maybe that would have been mine interesting so we'll never know but we can create that narrative for me okay next up we have me versus the demonizing of hormonal birth control two percent said i was wrong and 98 said i was not wrong got a lot of wonderful messages from people who also experienced you know the same feelings that i had which i see you all right writer number one

versus their best friend who is dating a candace owen supporter two percent said the writer is wrong and then 98 said their best friend is wrong good picture thank you it's a great one next we have writer number two versus sending a bikini picture to your friend's parents five percent said the writer was wrong and 95 said the friend was wrong yeah this one was just weird yeah you know very weird where do you find what do you type in when you're looking for pictures it takes me too long so like i just need everyone to know that while i'm moving that you're am i gonna see a lot of the same pictures over and over and over again no so i essentially like deep dive on every like twitter pinterest reddit like for all of these reaction photos and they're really funny

but yeah i spend way too much fucking time on them so like i don't even i need to i'm gonna be reusing a lot in some uh current times this one is my favorite reaction photo ever writer number three versus homophobic uncle who is wrong one percent said the writer is wrong 99 said the writer is not wrong and would you like to describe the photo to people is this a person i should know um i don't think so okay maybe i haven't if it's from a tv show which it probably is. I haven't seen it. But it is a lady with a nice puff ponytail

holding a phone in her hand that says, do you want to fight? As the note screen saver, whatever. It's a good picture. And the face, like just the facial expression is just, because it's unreadable. And you could read that face as being like completely joking. or as like totally serious but it's just funny and also like they're in front of like a computer

so it just makes me think that like this is something i would have put on my phone if we were in like computer class and some shit and like middle school and i just would have like shown it to my friend and like it's just it it feels so funny like that unfortunately when i was in computer classes we had no kia phone so you wouldn't have been able to read it yeah yeah okay then we have writer number four versus lack of trigger warnings in books who is wrong four percent said that writer is wrong they are anti-trigger warning and 96 said writer is not wrong pro-trigger warning got a lot of messages from people who um had said that like there are these specific websites you can use that will do trigger warnings and then someone said that

there is like a option or like the section in books where people do that but it's like on one of like those early first pages and like really tiny font and like there's no regulation so like sometimes they leave things out but yeah i think the point is that it should be readily available in the book and you shouldn't have to search for it yeah the same thing that is in like television shows like yeah we just need that some regulation of that all right wrong of the week is Valencia Lavagna Browning, who is wrong? 93% said LLB is wrong. 7% said LLB is not wrong.

What the fuck? Seems kind of high, to be honest. I think a lot of people were confused by the what the fuck, and they thought it was like as a judgment of her as opposed to a judgment of them for voting for that. So I will take onus of that. Okay, next we have my wrong of the week where i nominated 7m films management company 99 said that uh 7m 7 fmc is wrong and one percent

said they are not wrong okay so those are the results we hope you all vote for this episode another great tip that people have had is they take notes during the episode while they listen to it and then they can know that they are voting accurately because like i'm sure the ego boosts when you don't vote wrong for not a single one is great. Like, I'm sure you just like finish that and you feel so accomplished. So don't you want to try and have that feeling? Yeah, I like to feel accomplished. It doesn't happen that often, though.

No, because I start 15,000 things all at once. Yeah, but then that one time that you finish something, it's great. Yeah, you get things done during the week. I just don't think you count your little. No, I don't. Yeah, you should count your little. No, I need to make a rule for myself that I can't add more things on my to do list while the day is happening, because like it just keeps getting longer, even though I've accomplished things. Do you do one the day before?

Yeah, but then I forget shit that I had to do for mine. I'll do things day before at it, but then I'll make like mine is broken up by day. So like if it's something that I need to add, I'll just add it to the next day to do that instead of adding it to your current day. No, I don't do that. You should do that. I probably should. And then if you don't finish something, just move it to the next day. And then you just keep moving it until you eventually finish it.

Funny that you use that word specifically. I have like to do today, tomorrow, and then like days of the week. And then at the bottom, I have just eventually. And I have like a whole list of things that I need to do eventually. Eventually. They're not pressing right now. So why should there's only a certain amount of hours in a day and we rarely sleep as it is. So don't beat yourself up over things like that.

Thanks. All right. Should we get into the episode? Yes. Now it's time for But Am I Wrong? So we're each going to do our own things that are either hot takes or things that have happened to us recently. I think I started last time.

You did. I made a note. So I'm first this time. So mine is sinking should be banned from airplanes. All mine today are going to be airplane related. So strap in, you're in for a bumpy ride. Singing should be banned. And I'm sure at this point, everyone has seen the video of, I guess, a Christian group that was on an airplane that had guitars out standing in the middle of the aisle singing and sharing their joy for the Lord. what they were doing and I am a Christian they're being an annoyance to everyone and I think like singing as a whole should be banned because even a few years ago I don't know if you remember this

but like the cast of Lion King from Broadway were singing on a plane and I was like this is so I would be so aggravated and annoyed people have their mouths open I am a very nervous flyer so this would have made me even more nervous I need to be with my calm app doing meditations and we've got these people just being dis that we're in a closed place that I can't escape from and you're singing I don't want to hear this and as far as this Christian group like you shouldn't be trying to force religion on other people it's just not cool it's not the christian way if you're actually a christian this is just it's just not it also that's a safety hazard you're making all your spit particles that are flying out there you guys are all fucking assholes it reminds me of when

james corden and the cast of cinderella got in the middle of the street and were blocking traffic and forcing themselves on other people with their singing and probably made a whole bunch of people late because la traffic is horrendous as it is already and that's a horrible intersection same but i i agree with you i would like to take it one step further i think group singing should be banned like in general i think unless i am choirs i like no but that's that's a choice okay that's like unless i am like signing up to like attend a concert a performance a play i think spontaneous group singing oh yeah in public spaces agree with that should be illegal like i think like acapella groups that hang out in just corridors yeah and are suddenly saying no yeah no i think

that should be banned um and also just to add if any other religion did this yeah any other religion holy fucking shit the response from like the the praising there would be no praise like it would be it also i don't think they would have been i think airlines would have stopped them it would have stopped and i think that people on the plane would have stopped them and i think you know it was so weird and also i'm like so cringy how are you not embarrassed like that's so embarrassing type of people don't get embarrassed they should they should but they're like missing that embarrassment thing that goes off in your brain wow i'm glad i have that me too because like i'm already embarrassing and like i know when i'm being embarrassing but like just imagine just like

you don't have like those kids in school that were in like that did all the musicals that they would just be singing all the time yeah that's where i got my hatred of spontaneous group singing from yeah so like it's the it's those people all together yeah and then you add in white jesus see that's like i already hated like i was like the anti-musical theater theater kid like i was like i'm not anti-musical theater but like i was just like i did not fit the bill of like who was in my drama department but like i was a big part of my drama department and there was no religious aspect of that but if you added in the yeah religion to that like i was annoyed enough with like everybody being like did you see last week's episode of glee and they would just like start

singing the song and i'd be like well i'm out of here but like i had a friend who was the sweetest person she was lovely but she was one of those singing people and she sat in front of me in our math class and she'd be singing during tests and like wouldn't even notice it and i have to kick the back of her like shut the fuck up because it's just giving such leah michelle like oh i'm so sorry i didn't even notice i just like or like i think we all sing in the words of victoria justice wow so you're not wrong i wholeheartedly agree with you thank you okay so mine um i am like looking at my list of things i have and i just like need people to know that i fluctuate between things that are like very serious topics and other things that are just like

me being an asshole. So I'm picking something that's like decently more serious. My hot take is that America is not obsessed with health and wellness. They're just insanely fat phobic and obsessed with obesity. And I listened to a wonderful podcast called maintenance phase, and I recommend it for absolutely everybody. And I really, really recommend it for thin people specifically because it gives such an insight into how fat phobia similarly to ableism is like so ingrained in our society that like we don't see it and like we don't recognize it when it's happening and like just like everyday acts perpetuate all of this and so I have like lots of thoughts and feelings on like the obesity epidemic and they did a great episode on that

But the fact that they passed a law that made restaurants have to have calorie counts on the menus, but you know what law they have never been able to pass? That they have to have allergen lists on menus. There's absolutely no regulation of that for restaurants. So restaurants are not legally required to provide food allergy warnings for people who are allergic to ingredients in food. Food products at the supermarket will list major allergens, but at restaurants and like chain restaurants, everything.

So Congress designed the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004 to cover packaged food items, but it does not require retail or food service companies that make food to give allergy warnings to customers. That means like anywhere that you go, they don't have to tell you if there's allergens in there. they can also lie about having allergens in there and the same thing with like cross contamination they don't have to warn you they will do it voluntarily they can like let you know but also because there is no regulation like they can just lie with no like penalty for doing that but the

only time that they will do that if it's like packaged packaged goods but yeah so in the massive health care reform act that obama signed it had restaurants with more than 20 locations must post calorie counts on print display and drive-through menus, but there are absolutely no regulations requiring restaurants to post allergen information. And this statistic, this is from allergyeats.com, more than 12 million people in the U.S. have food allergies, 4% of the population. That number is even higher for children under the age of 3 and 6%, and another 3 million people have been diagnosed with celiac disease. Some of the terminology of this was individuals who regularly eat high calorie restaurant meals will likely gain weight over time and are setting

themselves up for significant health risks possibly including earlier death down the road obviously nothing to take lightly however individuals who accidentally eat a meal containing a food they're allergic to can have a severe health effects immediately potentially even fatal has anyone tried to that they talk about anyone trying to pass anything or is there any legislation that's been been written so far from what i've seen and i will do more research and add it in the show notes that hasn't like it was hard it was hard to get the package good ones and like it seems like we've kind of hit like a stagnant with that and it feels like every it's everything prioritizes obesity and like it's just like I'm just gonna say the obsession with obesity

gives like it's icky to me like it feels like beyond fat phobic it feels like I don't want to say like a kink or something but like these people who have this like absolute like hatred of like fat people they're like inherent like obsession with them is just really unsettling like it's not only just like really like gross and dangerous and cruel it's unsettling the shit that you'll see that like people will say and like go out of their way to find fat like it is creepy as fuck I just think that like, we see the world being like ableist in current times with COVID and all of that stuff. And like the thing that everybody wants to focus on immensely is obesity. And but in reality, and you can hear this on the episode of maintenance phase, a lot of the correlations that people have with these early deaths and all of these things or life's like ailments or diseases that can come or heart problems from that is mostly due to the fact that fact that like fat people, overweight people don't have the same access to effective health care. Like so drugs aren't tested on people above a certain weight limit. So like all of these

things, like it is a problem that the medical community has created. And then they are blaming people for their weight, for the reason why that they're not going to get good health care. And then saying that those people are unhealthy, even though they're not providing good health care. Right. And also like not just health care, but also providing the food or money and access to the food and the fact that organic food is cost more than GMO foods. And it's just all a circle. yeah and like food deserts and like everything like it's all it's capitalism and then you have doctors who are signing on to this and like no one's unpacking their own implicit their own personal biases and their own like bigoted belief system and i am just done with that shit like you can't claim that you're about health and you want all of this shit when our country doesn't even

have regulations for people who have like food allergies like that like no you don't give a shit like you truly don't give a shit and like when i went to europe uh and went to the uk specifically they have to list everything it was the greatest thing in my life like i've never been able to eat like that like they have to list everything that's on the menu they have to have like a certain percentage of their menu that is completely allergen free can be made allergen free like there is no cross and contamination issue like you don't have to have cross contamination just don't do it like there's no like just don't like what the fuck like and it's just and that leads to a cleaner kitchen too yes and also it doesn't just benefit it benefits

people who are kosher it benefits people who like have different like food practices for different religions that had all of that shit like it benefits everyone you know if it's not christian they don't care exactly exactly it's christian and capitalism like those are the top two things that are like controlling absolutely all of this shit that it is all encompassed by and like when you take the like the most hateful aspects of both of those things then that's where you get bigotry through all of that as well because they use those things as an excuse and oh it just makes me mad i'm honestly surprised there hasn't been like some celebrity that's like gun hoe on this and going and lobbying about it me too it's probably it probably would have been

like a jessica biel thing but then she got too big with like the vaccine mandates yeah but someone like that but you know not like that even like the whole thing of like i i like don't bring nuts on like planes anymore because i'm nervous if like someone has an allergy because like i put i'll get them and if they offer them i'll get them and put them in my pocket and just and don't eat it till i get off the plane yeah i just worry that like if someone had to like get rescheduled on a flight or if like a flight attendant doesn't like make the call yeah i mean like i've been on so many flights where they don't say anything and i've got all my niece half of them are like allergic to pretty much everything. So I'm always careful about it, but that's because I'm aware of

it. And then some people just push the awareness because they don't care. And then a lot of people don't even know that they're allergic to things that are, that add to, you know, it could be even the opposite of that, that could add to what they think is obesity. And it's actually not, it's a food allergy. Yeah. I just, I just think that we all need to, not me, because we're not included in this but all these fucking people need to stop pretending that they um care about the health and well-being of people and they clearly don't and like just say just be like hey my name is susan i'm incredibly fat phobic and i'm a cunt just say that like don't stop pretending you're worrying about people's health because like you're not and it just pisses

me off yeah so that's my not so hot take all right so let's get into but are you wrong and that's when people write in and share if they're wrong in this situation. And you can send us emails at butamirongpod at gmail.com. Keep it to 300 words or less. If you don't, your email will not be used and you'll receive an email back saying, make this shorter. And if you send it back twice and it's not, we will not use yours at all. All right. Anything you want to add to that? Make sure that you are doing fake names, not like letters, because that's hard for us to follow. And yeah, let us know pronouns, people involved, as well as ages and all the relevant info. All right, here we go.

First one. Hi, Megan and Melissa. I, 23, she, her pronouns was recently called out by my stepmom, 54, she, her pronouns for hurting her feelings. Some background. She had emailed me a Kindle book about finding the right career after we discussed how difficult it was for me to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I woke up the next morning to this Kindle book in my email and a message from her about how it was highly recommended and that she believed in me.

I didn't respond. I figured I would say something to her when she got home because we live together. Fast forward to her getting home and saying she had to say something to me and that it happened one too many times. She had sent me something in an email and I never responded to it and it was simply etiquette to send something even a simple thank you got it. Quick note she isn't saying I need to text her or call to say thank you. She's specifically saying I need to respond to an email with an email of my own. I apologized and she said I didn't realize that she was expecting a response and I didn't know that my not responding made her feel unappreciated. End of

conversation. But am I wrong for not responding to these emails? Again, we live together. Why can't I just say something to her when she gets home from work at the end of the day? Is this some missing link between me, someone in her 20s, and her, someone in her 50s? Thank you both and have a great day. So it's kind of funny how like we've been in so much like us growing up, like this technology has been here for most of our lives. And we kind of feel like it's better to communicate in person or, you know, in real time. I think this is like an older people thing. They I don't it's kind of like Facebook like they see Facebook as like real life shit and like going through real life things and like if you don't respond then this isn't real life etiquette like they really

like think that this is all virtually is like the end all be all and I am someone who I got off Facebook because of this because people were saying like you didn't tell me happy birthday or you didn't respond to my post or you didn't do blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Facebook is not real life. I don't business wise. Like I, I understand like emails, not real life, but if you're sending, first of all, like, I don't really like send personal emails. That's something I never understood. Like why people send emails about personal stuff, like send me a text message, send, call me about it, wait till we get home and talk about it. I think it was a nice gesture that she sent it but i would have done the same thing i would have been like thank you so much like when

she got home and said thank you for this i really appreciate it i feel like that has more weight than sending an electronic mail i don't think you're wrong i don't think you're wrong either but this is making me rethink my entire life because like i am this way completely like i don't like someone can send me something through an email i don't look at my email like like you said like my email is for work if you're sending me personal stuff to my email I'm like that's on you I'm not gonna read this and I'm not gonna respond like you have my phone number and like but even beyond if you're gonna text me if you have something that you really need me to see and you really need me to respond on like you can call me and like tell me and then we can have like

a conversation like that but I think in general if you are sending a text message or an email and you're doing something that is written and you're throwing it out into the universe for that i do not think that that should be something that you desperately need a response on like i think if unless you're talking to someone in person like you might not get a response they might never open it they might never respond to a dm like all of that kind of shit and like you can't take that personally because if you really need a response call someone facetime someone or talk to them about it in person. Yeah, I feel like especially since you live together, like once you got home and you're like, oh, my gosh, thank you so much. Thank you for believing in me. This book. Can't

wait to read it. It's going to be super helpful. I feel like that's way more personal than responding to an email that says, thanks, I got it. But I also got in fights over people of not saying things on Facebook. So I get it. I would truly just be like, what? You're mad? okay also if like she sent you a kindle book that means most likely unless she's like tech savvy she it's like an automated one through amazon so then you have to craft a new email like to her that's not from like an amazon automated one right unless she was just sending the link for the writer to buy the book like just sending a link to the book i thought she sent you the book like a kindle she emailed me a kindle book oh i'm so sorry if she just sent you a fucking link

to kindle and then was like thank you for the like i would understand it slightly more and like what i thought this whole time was that like she bought the kindle book for you and sent it to you that could be it but if she truly just sent you the fucking link to buy the book yourself then she's like why don't you thank me for sending you that link i'd be like but i didn't get an email thank you for teaching you how to use face id like come on what's the new face id on the phone that like supposed to work with your mask doesn't work oh i haven't set it up yet i just did it the other day and i look like a fool i'm pretty used to entering in my passcode though because it also doesn't recognize me with sunglasses on and so mine does i don't know you're not wrong i do know

that for sure you are not wrong people need hobbies what if you had like a card and like a gift basket waiting for her when she got home and then she and i'm not saying that you should have done that but what if like you did do that and then she was just mad because you didn't send an email like i was waiting i wanted to look in your eyes and thank you so fucking weird i actually feel like this might be controversial really i think some people are really into emails unless my job does not require me to have an email address and i only use my email address for personal shit like it's like leaving the same way like it's like leaving a voicemail on a work phone like it's just not like i don't check my email when i'm i mean i do but like i don't i don't

routinely check my email as if only when i'm expecting work stuff like i'm doing that for work like i'm not i literally have in my signature on my email like don't expect an email back within 24 to 48 hours especially because of the work i do i'm not sitting people really think that like you're just sitting on your computer checking emails all day no no i need people to be like did you see that call me like did you see this email and i'll be like no let me go check like it's just weird okay okay your turn i've she her been with my husband leo he him for seven years leo's bff since high school Johnny he him has lived with us since October we're all 29 Johnny's roommate kicked him out he said his only choices were to live in his car or move in with his parents which

was worse he talked for months before about how he hated living there and wanted to leave but he never found a place I discussed with Leo that wasn't a good idea but he truly felt bad for him so I caved now we want him to move out for several reasons he's a mooch always has been we buy everything except meals. He talks like a pseudo intellectual and hogs conversations. I'm introverted and I like my space. He's a part-time driver and sets his own hours, but he only works during my work hours. So I'm literally never home alone or just with Leo because Johnny has no other friends or family nearby. He got a kitten, but doesn't clean up after her. We also have a cat. So we told him we should take turns cleaning the litter. He always brushes it off or says something

ridiculous like how am I supposed to know which poop is hers and he quotes Joe Rogan but I digress Leo complains just as much so we agreed to June 1st as the move out date last night I overheard Leo say to Johnny we're looking at summer June but if you need more time like July I walked in there and said no June 1st Johnny replied well that's specific and it was awkward I felt completely unheard after I told Leo that I was annoyed he didn't talk to me for the rest of the night am I wrong for getting upset? You could not be less wrong. Right. I'm sorry. Are you still having sex with your husband? Because I don't think I would be attracted to my husband at this point. My friends that listen to this podcast, you know who you are. You're hearing this right now.

This happened to you. Maybe you guys can call it for some insight. This is like not OK. No, it's not i have a theory that the vast majority of like straight men are friends with people they don't really like that much or like don't have like really great personality traits moths has this one friend they don't listen i'm not gonna name them by name actually i wonder if like we're gonna find out that like some of them listen because like some of his friends listen because they're gonna be like is this about me moths has this one friend too like i fucking hate like i've always hated like they just suck like i just don't like them and i never have and mott's was like i just don't like why and i was like listing all of the reasons and i was like

why do you like him like what and he's like well i just you know i was like what are his good traits and mott's couldn't name one good trait at all except that like he's consistent and i go yeah he's consistently horrible i did like yeah and like what no and like it was like the consistent and he was like no but like you know in like the sense that like he's like always been around like he's we've been friends for so like this much of time like blah blah blah and i was like that's not a personality trait that is a circumstance like what is a good thing about and it was kind of like oh you accept these like annoying like shitty kind of qualities and in friends but then also like we wonder then why men don't talk to their friends about like really deep personal

stuff a lot of the time and like why toxic masculinity like continues to prevail over and over again is that a lot of straight male friendships are like based purely on like obligation and i'm just like you don't even like this person like just stop doing this shit like don't do like i just can't believe that like october to june that's already too long yeah and somebody that's not even pulling their weight in the house and then brought a animal into the house that they don't clean up after no i would kick them out a long time ago yeah this is like your husband is behaving like a child well yeah also like they didn't want to go move in with their parents because it would be bad for them but then they moved into your house and made it bad

for you it's not it's not a fair trade-off it's not math ain't math and no and your husband like if your husband being mad at you for being like setting a firm line like you already didn't want to do this and this is like an i told you so moment like look how fucking horrible this is going like this whole this is just like an absolute shit show and you're not he's not helping anyone like all your husband is doing is alienating you in this situation yeah there's no way you're having sex either like i was like i don't want to have i'm like not attracted i mean it smells like cats in here and no yeah you're not wrong at all at all i'm like her i don't like people in my space me neither i would be exhausted yeah and with like able-bodied people that can like do better

and he's not trying to do better no no like yeah you i understand it would be harder for you to live in your car like in your parents house in your car then you have a friend who lets you in you are so gracious you do like above and beyond and you work you you do you only let that you only do it for like a month yeah because i don't think he thinks he's gonna leave at all right all right time for a break And we're back. We're back, we're back, we're back. Let's get in to the rest of these.

Met, I like this, they left off a letter to keep it short. Met and became best friends with April and Jess in college and we got a house together. April and I took one room and Jess got the primary. Things were great for a year until Jess told us her childhood best friend Katie would be staying in her room for the summer. Jess was never home as it was so April and I decided it wasn't a big deal.

April, Katie and I were always home though. So naturally we bonded as roommates cooking together and watching TV in the living room. Jess never said anything, but her behavior obviously indicated that she hated that April and I were becoming friends with Katie. We decided that if she didn't feel strongly enough to say something about it, that we wouldn't either. Katie moved out as planned and a year later Katie reached out to April and I asking to grab lunch to catch up April and I genuinely liked her and agreed to meet that one time thinking no big deal

months later Jess calls us screaming with Katie crying in the background Jess went through Katie's phone while she was sleeping and found out about the lunch Jess demanded we stop being friends and communicating ever again with Katie immediately or our friendship with her was over I felt like i was property rather than a human being and declined both friendships to avoid future drama 100 we should have made her aware of the lunch looking back but i also i genuinely feel like jess majorly overreacted and was out of line for going through katie's phone and then giving us an ultimatum instead of having an adult conversation and also never communicating her actual feelings dynamics were off but am i wrong i don't think you're wrong at all just as a loser just as the

one that brought katie into the dynamic as it is like don't introduce like if you're lame and like you're a loser and you're not cool don't introduce your friends to like your other friend who's cooler than you because like they're gonna like her more than you right right sorry why are you mad that like we're friends with her and you clearly don't like her and you were it was evident to the writer that jess was mad about how close they got with katie so like if i knew that she was mad that we weren't friends i wouldn't have invited her to the lunch either because then she would have been pissy during lunch and when it was just for you guys to catch up with katie i also don't think that you needed to have told her like that you like katie was the one who invited you to lunch

like i also think even if you invited her to lunch with you in april like i don't think that you owed jess an explanation or like to let her know ahead of time like at all no like i don't owe anyone an explanation for where i choose to spend my time i wonder how long jess and katie's friendship is going to last after this because this is like wildly controlled like i commend the fact that i totally understand we were like not neither of this is it's not worth it for you to maintain friendships with either of them to avoid future drama agree but i wonder at what point kate if katie will get to that point because but if she's crying like getting yelled at and being cried and forcing her to cry it feels like that she probably isn't friends unless she

doesn't realize yet how much of a cunt that just is this is so weirdly controlling and i'm sure if they were friends before then they've probably like had lunches together without you guys and i i would think that this might have happened before with her that people always like katie more so she's like very controlling of who katie hangs out with yeah why would she bring katie in if you can't bring your cool friends around and then you not be cool too yeah like if you are a loser you can't have you can't expect people to not like people know like and you've if you have cool friends like they are going to be like they're so much cooler than you even if they of course i'm sure that you guys didn't say this out loud but you were thinking

it in your head and she knows like we all know if we have a friend who like oh my god this is my cool friend like this friend is really cool and like if you're insecure about that or like you don't want like no yeah i have a friend that i introduced to my other friends and they hang out more because they are into more of the same type of things i don't care that doesn't change what our friendship is yeah i love that my friends all get along yeah me too because i'm awesome and i'm not a loser that's what you should want yeah i think jess needs to focus on herself and why she sucks so much and why people don't like her like this is like i can't even express how embarrassing this is for her like i this is so embarrassing and like you can't recover from

this like you don't you're you have to like change your name like go somewhere else because like no one's gonna think you're cool this follows you fucking weird weird weird ass behavior i hope that katie gets out of that yeah okay hi megan and melissa i'm 19 years old with the pronouns she her the situation involves my boyfriend 19 he him call it brady and his mother 44, Tammy. I am in college and commuting while living with my boyfriend. My boyfriend, Brady, has a full-time job and makes $1,000 more than I do monthly. Being a full-time student, I only work three to four days slash 22 hours a week and I'm financially independent. Tammy, his mom, charges me rent of $300 a month while Brady doesn't have to pay rent. His mother is only home

one to two months out of the year because she is a traveling nurse. So I, yes, just me, take care of the house for her. The past month or two, I've been struggling financially and all of my money slash paychecks have been going to her for rent. And then I only have about 20 to $50 to live on for the month. I brought it up to him the other day and he instantaneously got upset with me and initiated an argument. He told me that I should be capable of taking care, taking on more work. And that's just life. I mentioned asking his mother to lower my rent for a few months until I'm back on my feet, but he instantly shot back at me and told me I need to grow up and figure it out when i did ask tammy about lowering it when i thought she'd be understanding as she went to

college herself and knows to struggle her response is very cold and told me to move out in a few months if i couldn't pay but brady agreed with her wholeheartedly and said i should be capable am i wrong for being upset about the situation and what should i do the only thing that you are wrong for is dating this man and that's it and even that i'm not going to victim blame you at all like this is like anytime that someone writes in and just like in such plain language says how horribly someone in their life is like treating them and it doesn't it's not like we broke up and whatever like that to me just like screams you've been conditioned to this behavior because this behavior has been like constant this is like so wildly unacceptable

like absolutely unacceptable that like move out and break up with him because like I don't think you're wrong at all like I also think that like when I am a parent and I'm older and I've like my kid has a partner who is in college and working and is financially independent and doesn't have whether it doesn't have people nearby like guardians who they grew up with who can like help them financially nearby or if they like have like a bad home situation like you're coming home with me like come on woman like I just think that like this notion that people who don't have like the same support system just need to like work harder at something that they like can't change while simultaneously she's watching her own son who is she is supporting people will support

their own fucking kids and then watch people who didn't have that same support system and just pull it by the bootstraps work hard and that's what americans do and it's like you're not doing that for your kid though because that mentality only applies to people who you don't think deserve that help like this is that shit I'm probably gonna get some flack for this oh god when you enter into agreement of living with someone that changes the relationship dynamic it turns from a personal relationship to a business relationship I do not like how any of this was handled I do not I think they're completely wrong about how they're responding to you how he's responding like you shouldn't be dating this person. But if you move out and go somewhere else, you're still going to

have to pay rent. And I don't know where you live or where you're going to go or what the cost of living where it is. But like I paid more than three hundred dollars in college. And I'm not saying that it was right, but like in my apartment. And so I feel like if you move out, you're going to end up paying more. I don't think you should stay with these people. But like when you have already agreed upon paying something that changes the dynamics of what's going on and i don't think that that's i don't think it's right but that's what they're expecting and i don't know what their whole living situation is i don't know what her mortgage is if what you're paying helps subsidize that but it just changes things i don't disagree with you on that but i do think and i think you

probably agree with me on that like i think all of that onus is on tammy like i think that like it's like the same kind of thing i feel with like uh people kids who take out student loans like when you are like the younger person in that situation like you are reaching out like you're living with your boyfriend and like he lives in this home and that's his mom's home and like all of that kind of stuff so like it is the mom's responsibility to like that is not a tenant that is your boyfriend's girlfriend and like that should have been on her but like i understand what You mean that like the relationship is muddied, but I don't think I don't think that's your fault. No, I don't think that's your fault, but like you should move out.

But you're most likely like if you reached out to a landlord, they wouldn't let you. They wouldn't be like, hey, yeah, of course, which they should. I think like you're like, I'll eventually pay it back, which I think they should. But like if you were renting from somewhere, they wouldn't be like, yeah, you can pay 50 less this month. I would reach out to, like, your school to see if they have, like, financial aid options that involve housing, which, like, a lot of them do. And then if that's not able to work and you don't have, like, a friend who you can, like, crash with for a bit or, like, something like that, then I would also recommend applying for low-income housing, which is, like, based off – which all rents should be, which is based off of your income. Right. So I think that like it is one of those things that like I think that the the true villain in all of this is like you said, is like the treatment of you.

It's not necessarily like it's being put in a financial situation that's like tough and having to work through that. Like, I think that will always be better when you are with people who support you. The things that they said to you is just not it. It's not nice. It's not how you should be treating someone that you love. like i don't he's not someone that you should continue to be with he doesn't respect you at all and his mom doesn't respect you either but it just feels like they're using you and like that like her son was living there rent free all that shit and he's making all this money

and so then his mom was like okay how much is our mortgage payment do we have or whatever and like had you move in and have you do that so like she can pocket the money essentially and like it's just one of those things that like it's like the same thing that i feel like when like couples move in together and like someone who makes way less money moves into the person who makes way more money their place and then the person's like we're gonna split it evenly right and it's like but you were already living here and like why am i being used to subsidize your costs when we could then go out and find a place that would like you should always be living in a place that it is affordable for the person who has the lowest income right like always and so like it just

feels like really using unless you're open to paying more and you know that and that's an agreed upon decision yeah that's i mean if you're going to split it like if you're going to split it and you're going to have it be even then it needs to be what is affordable for the person who makes the least amount of money right and like this just feels like they're both using they've both been using you so like since she's rarely there and you've been keeping the house if you hadn't moved in would he have gotten someone else to move in and then they would have paid rent and but then that person i'm just thinking of it from that perspective like if you weren't living there they would have had someone else move in and then pay rent my perspective is she wouldn't have done

that and she would have hired a cleaning service or a house manager to that she would be paying like three hundred dollars a month to do yeah this is just like horrible and like your boyfriend is horrible i hate this you're not wrong and if anyone has any um info or resources or knowledge on like low-income housing for like college students or like any resources specific to where she lives so unless she tells us where she lives well if you're in the facebook group I'm sure that people might be able to help but they should if you go to your financial aid office at your school

they should be able to put you in contact with all those people wow now it is time for Don't Blame Them aka Rachel of the Week where we're each going to nominate the absolute worst person

this week person, place, or thing what would you like to nominate person It is Catherine Kimball Mizzell, and this is a Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida who was the person that made the decision that we will no longer be wearing masks on plants. And she said, and I quote, wearing a mask cleans nothing at most it traps virus droplets but it neither sanitizes the person wearing the mask nor sanitizes the conveyance which yeah that's true because

like masks aren't sanitizing but that's not their job that's not the job of what masks do they do trap water droplets from getting on other people and then other people getting it on you that's what they do that's the job that's how a respiratory virus spreads she's like supremely stupid like supremely stupid i say that in an insulting way and like just purely factual like she's actually like supremely unintelligent the only trial that she ever was a part of was while she was an intern and the american bar association prior to her being appointed said that she was not qualify because they cited her lack of experience there could be some hope the justice department said that they may make an appeal for the ruling it typically takes a couple days to review and

make the assessment and that was according to political so at this point american delta united southwest alaskan jet blue frontier all the big ones have all released statements saying that last masks are no longer required. It just makes me sick because like there were videos of people literally while like on planes and the announcements being made and people were cheering and taking off their mask and even like pilots and flight attendants were cheering. I was like, this is fucking ridiculous. Even today, Uber said that they're not requiring their drivers or passengers to wear a mask either. Also Amtrak, the train, don't have to wear a mask either, Which is even worse because at least with planes, they have some type of filtration system and they don't with the trains or cars.

There's a biodefense professor at the Scholar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University that argued that masks, masking up is important in enclosed spaces for lengthy periods amid the uptick in COVID cases. which looking back from today, like new cases, we're at 19,379 cases. And the seven day moving average cases is 35,212. We also have to keep in mind that people are self-testing at home. So these aren't even as accurate as it could be. Compared to last month, there were 10,000 cases. So we've got almost twice as much as we had last month for new cases. So this is just because people are traveling. So they're going to be moving all these germs around to different places. It's just going to be a shit show.

Yeah. And like so many people are like, oh, my God. Well, like this indicates like this just means that like we're coming out on the other end of it. I'm like, no, it doesn't. We're not. It doesn't mean that at all. like why are you like of all these people who are like don't trust big government i'm like but you trust this now like you're picking and choosing what you're saying is done in the best interest of

the people right and also anyone who wants to say like well the numbers have gotten better i'm like do you remember at the absolute worst with the numbers we're at do you realize that better does not mean good like when you're like in the like when it's like so fucking horrible slightly less horrible is better a trajectory of that so like that's my issue with all these fucking graphs and shit that i'm like first of all the same thing you said like we're self-testing people aren't sharing it they're not reporting any of that shit and one of the things that they're doing at the nhs and not the for the one of the european ones where they was like what they're testing now is like sewage and like samples of like the sewage and that's how they're being able to predict like

how many more people are actually having it because a lot of people aren't even like getting tested and all that and then it's like the numbers are drastically drastically higher and that's happening here as well and like people are so comfortably ableist like right and like violently ableist and you would think that a pandemic where you watch people you know or people like your friends family members die and all of that like that it would change and it doesn't and it's like a really terrifying realization that i like you have about people yeah it's like ridiculously sad and like i saw this tweet that diet prada posted in their carousel on instagram about this and it was like a mom who was like i'm with my i'm on an airline as this is

happening they make the announcement and all these people whip their masks off and i'm just looking at like my kids who are under five years old who aren't vaccinated and just like the whole notion that people are like well if you're sick or if you have like a compromised immune system like just don't travel that's ableism if you have cancer just like don't get on a plane and i'm like what no you can't say that like that's not like that in itself is ableism and those are the first people who fucking turn around and are like what do you mean i can't be in black spaces as a white person like what happened to like what happened where's international men's day and it's like you want to feel so included in absolutely everything that is not about you

but the second that someone tells you that like your choices could kill everyone else you're like well they should just live in a bubble outside because like doesn't fucking affect me it's just unfair and selfish well i agree with you on all of it obviously i'm very upset about it and i am a road trip girly got my p funnel but like it's just and i'm lucky that like i you know as of now i don't even want to think about having to travel for work on a lighter note my rachel of the week who i would like to nominate is revolve fest so if anyone has been keeping up uh with coachella weekend one revolve i've done a bunch of tiktoks on this kind of like explaining the difference between like revolve fest and coachella if anyone's interested but these videos came out

where everybody was comparing revolve fest to fire fest and revolve fest is a festival that revolve the website um clothing website they're call themselves like attainable luxury um that they put on during coachella weekend and it's this like invite only for like influencers and celebrities and they do all of this content creation photo booths pop-ups like all of this stuff like it's this whole mini coachella they have their own performances and everything and they obviously didn't have Coachella last year. So they really amped it up this year. And they, from my perspective.

So is it like at Coachella too? Like it's a event at, this is completely separate. Completely separate from Coachella. So basically brands wanted to get involved with, like influencers were going to Coachella and it was like, people were interested in it from like all over the world. And like, it just became this whole like spectacle.

Cause like, it is this very, like I, the actual festival coachella festival itself like if i was able to like tweak things like a not make it run by golden voices um and also like have because i can't eat anything there so like have allergen for allergen friendly foods have better transportation have like better security systems have like more readily available drug testings for people because there's a lot of people who like like there's a lot of paramedics you see there all the time i love the festival in itself like during the day like so much fun like it feels magical like it's so cool like it's great i love that but coachella is like a huge stickler for not like essentially like not

promoting other things while you're there so you can't bring in like big cameras like you can't do these installations and all that stuff like they own like everything their contracts are like super tight too you'll notice that for performers who perform at coachella that like there's lots of places they can't perform after like it's all of this shit so brands wanted to get in on this because people were obsessed with Coachella like viewers are obsessed with watching people go to Coachella and so Revolve built their own thing and it's always oh it's at this manor it's like Greystone Manor or something it's something that they talk somewhat I googled it and it's also like a Real Housewives thing that's what I was gonna say Greystone Manor is I was because Moss was

asking me and I was like I think it's Greystone Manor and then I looked it up and I was like oh it's something it's something that's also in the because graystone manor is in new it's in this revolve fest is on the west coast right yeah okay graystone manor is dorinda's house and she lives in she's a new york person oh i'm conflating this with the post i saw on my graystone mansion is that it because that's in beverly hills no it's in palm springs okay oh merg griffin estate oh yeah yeah oh they have on real housewives who stayed there they had a thing there but that graystone manor is somebody else's house i'm conflating two things because i saw i think the graystone manor one was like an airbnb raffle or they were doing something for something about

that i don't know it was on like uh on my finsta one of the things popped up there but yeah this one in the article it said something about real housewives i think maybe kyle rented it out for them to stay but she also now she has a house there so they usually stay there but yeah so they've done this here for this is like where revolves always done this for as far as i from my experience and so it's coachella in itself like coachella valley like everything's really spread apart and far away from each other so they're like where you stay it takes you have to take a bus to get to coachella like the actual festival like nothing is close by it is all like a hassle to get to but this year i guess from what i have seen from social media is that they

allegedly what people think happened was they over invited like way way way way way too many people and they just were giving pretty much everyone an invite to this like vip exclusive event and then they didn't have the infrastructure there to make that work and so people were jumping these security lines and like they were like storming to get to the bus like people were fainting there was like no food and no water people are waiting in line for like eight hours and they were like people that like revolve reached out to them and invited them to come and so they would like fly out to palm springs to go do this thing because it's like the way it was talked about like it was like this invite only exclusive thing and then a couple weeks or like a week before it actually

happened they sent like an email out to revolve customers saying that they could get a ticket if they spent $2,000 at revolve. Like if you paste an order for that. And so I guess there were three lines, there were influencers and celebrities. And then the second line was VIPs, which was like most of the micro influencers and people that they invited. And then the third line was the customers who had done that. And so during, cause I saw some girl that had like a hundred followers on Instagram. I was like, how is she here? Maybe she's a friend to somebody, but that would make more sense. Okay. And the, so from my knowledge, from a lot of people who I've seen commenting on things who were invited as like micro influencers to go to these things there they don't have like

huge followings and this is like not a knock to micro influencers at all i think micro everyone starts as a micro influencer like who's in this space and i think that like micro influencers can actually be like the most influential because people trust them and they have an audience that they're like actively building at that time but micro influencers get fucked over like fucked over fucked over fucked over like from just seeing what i've seen on tiktok on twitter people talking about what the the deals that they accept like brands just take advantage and brands rely on these micro influencers to get so much content for them at an insulting rate like so it's kind of like it's kind of like an mlm scheme they're able to with all of the drop like all of the the numbers

that those people drive through and all the content that they're pushing out they're able to then use that money and use that like roi essentially to secure people like kim kardashian to come like it's like what is it robbing peter to pay paul like that kind of like that saying it's very much that and so the people who were getting onto the bus were i think from what it was been told it was a lot of the people who are in the mostly like influencer line who are being favored to get on and or felt most confident that they should be the ones getting on so they like took initiative and would kind of just push ahead but apparently like buses like there was no one really doing anything or managing the line at all and so then people like the buses were just like

fuck this and then they would just like leave with nobody on them because they were like everybody's like storming and screaming and it was just like a mad house then the all these people who like actually went and like got in who are then making videos being like that wasn't my experience like my experience is great blah blah blah and I'm like like this just so sus and weird and odd and like come on and like the whole thing of being like well if they were on time blah blah blah and so the pinnacle of revolve from a consumer and like an outsider standpoint is everything they do is like cool girl like that's what you want to be like they have that really exclusive like really cool thing like oh it's like mysterious and awesome and like it's on everyone's vision

board to work with revolve do revolve that's an all that it feels like the creme de la creme like it's like when you're there you've made it like that's it because it feels so exclusive and it feels like that when you are attending as well they that's how they keep their consumers buying shit is because it's like you'll be like these people if you're cool but they do the same thing to the influencers like and the people who are invited to those things that like they have a select few people who they will treat really well but other people it's like being in a sorority where you're getting like you're not being treated nicely you're watching them treat other people badly but like you will keep doing more and more for them in hopes that you will become one of the

people that they do treat well because you see that like you see them these treating these other people well and like there's all this like talk about influencer culture and people have so many feelings about that. I will say something that I have come to the realization in the last like 24 hours. I think my perception of influencer culture is really different than other people's because I don't think that I think mine is dated. I think that like, I don't have a huge knowledge of people who are currently in the space and like what they've done to kind of get there. Like my bread and butter is longer form content creation. And a lot of people have been messaged me and be like, hey, by the way, like, I don't think, I think you're grouping yourself in with this group of

people that like, I don't see you as doing the same thing. Like, and people having a very different viewpoint of what a content creator is versus an influencer. So I will say I'm not like defending influencer, like the influencers as like a whole, I will say that I'm really lucky that the people that I I've worked with some horrible people, but I also like the people who I surround myself with and I work with, I guess I need to re like, think about how I describe some of these people, because I'm like, I would think of grace and I both as like, as in, you know what I mean? And I'm like, but I don't think other people are feeling that way. But is it more like, cause you were in it pretty early, but, and you don't really, I mean, because of COVID, but you haven't

really done any of those trips recently. I'm also really, I hate those things and I'm really not into that but I also I guess I didn't perceive that that was a choice that other people saw and that that was something that was not just me choosing it like I didn't realize that that kind of puts me in a different category because like grace doesn't go on any of those trips either so that's why I'm I think it's different I think it is too and I think that's what I'm realizing because I think my the term influencer I've never liked but it's always been used for people who make money online it just has been so like yeah and also I feel like you're I'm not saying that some people don't have substance but your stuff has substance and other people like you have like

meaning to the things that you're doing it's not just like here's my house and here's that you're like presenting like these are the struggles that I went to to get my house some people it's just like they just want to see lifestyle porn and I think those are the other the lifestyle porn influencers is the other category I think you're right I think that I have associated the term influencer with like influencing for anything where I'm like influencing people to get out and vote influencing people to like check in with their mental health and everybody else is like no that is a commission link that is all that is is all you're doing is making and I was like oh okay yeah so that's a very and I also will say that I think the age of TikTok has completely

changed what it means to become an influencer. Like, I think that before you couldn't stumble into this and like become famous with pretty much little to no effort. And I've always kind of stood by that, that I'm like people who like content creators work really hard. Like you do all of this work before, like to even get the opportunity to get sponsorships and like that brands working with you, like you do all of this, like we're marketing in ourselves, like we're marketing our own, we're doing research on like what audiences want, like what's trend, all of these things, like we're doing all of that and that it doesn't happen accidentally. You can have a video go viral or like people can resonate with what you're doing, but like you're doing something. You're

creating something. But with TikTok, you're just putting something up and if it hits, it hits and then people are reaching out to you. And there's no logic to the algorithm. Like you can crowdsource once and understand once you have an audience. But like it's an algorithm that favors you that has like been proven time and time again to like also be like incredibly like fat phobic and racist algorithm so like i used to really think before like in the terms of like youtube like content creation youtube like there are formulas or there are people who perform better on youtube than others but you can't accidentally become successful because you have to you can't make content by accident yeah you have to put work in but tiktok you can yeah make it you can make it by accident

and that I think it's made content creation and being an influencer so much easier that I think that's kind of where the entitlement stereotype has come from because I don't feel like most creators I know no matter how big they are on YouTube are really entitled from like the crowd or the era that I came up from because like you were made fun of for being that person who films themselves in their bedroom like but being famous on TikTok is cool now like so it feels like it's just blown up into this whole other thing so I will say though that like I don't think that the issue is like influencer culture as a whole or the I don't think the influencers are to blame for influencer culture it's I think we need to like focus on the brands like the brands who are

doing this if they did better with organizing if they had people that were saying get in line if they weren't also if they weren't separating people by the different it's essentially classes within influencer lifestyle or buying into the class which is what happened specifically for revolve fest then you wouldn't have these different hierarchies and then you would treat every if you treated everybody the same then you'd have better results because if people are having a good ass time they're gonna share good ass content when you make your focus the influencers and not your customers and the consumers and you make your entire brand based off of like being invited to the cool girl's birthday party like you want to be cool like uh it's like it's just so bad and so

horrible and also i will say that like the thing that like really pisses me off about revolve and a lot of some other brands do this, but Revolve specifically, they have said, and I will link it. I don't, I, I might miss say this. And so I will link the exact TikTok, but they did like some article. Actually, I think I screenshotted it. So from media kicks, I'll link it. But in an article, it says at present, the social media marketing of Revolve is a business unto itself. It is poured and continues to pour money into the influencer marketing budget, accruing an enormous roster of over 3,500 influencers who collectively drive an estimated 70% of sales

for the company, despite only making up for 25% of the annual marketing budget. And do you know what that means? That means that you are taking advantage of the people who are creating content for you so you do not have to spend money on marketing. And like, that's what I'm like, I think that people who work in the social media space,

like content creators and marketing people, I'm like I need us to be on the same side because sometimes like when you get these brand deal like the shit that they are asking you to do you're like I know that you are reaching out to me to do the job of a hundred people because you can pay me less no pay your marketing team to do this pay your marketing team to do this better don't think that you can then then they're never getting promotions they're never getting any like the pay that they are getting is so much less because you can pay these other people less than them and like let's just stop we can both coexist there's a time and a place for both but like when you ask individual content creators to do the job of

somebody else for a much lower pay rate and then you brag about like yeah we have all they drive this amount of sales and like we don't even spend that much money on a marketing budget because they do it for us for free like that's just like it to me i'm like oh you don't give a shit about them you don't like they're just numbers to you but then you make influencers feel like it's about personal relationships so they work their ass off to impress you they do all of this free content for you they're constantly doing that to get notice and get attention from you and in reality you're just using them and making them feel like they need to be grateful for the opportunity to make you money and like the asks for this stuff a lot of people don't have like an understanding

of like what a social media like ask is and they're like well the fact that people are getting paid this blah blah you're getting paid because it's what you are making the company so like it's the return on investment so it's like the sales the click-through that they're all going to get and like when i saw people who like were doing like they in the span of three days at revolve fest they did 10 no they did 12 instagram posts they did about 100 instagram stories all of the all they're doing is creating content the entire time and when you're inside there and you're inside the festival all you're doing is creating content constantly like and that's it it's not fun. It was the least amount of fun that I had of all the Coachella's I ever went to. And there

are wonderful perks. Yes. Free clothes, all of that. But when you know that the perks that you are getting do not equal the amount of money that they are making off of you, it feels gross. And it also feels gross because like, yes, capitalism, people who work for Amazon, you're knowing that you're making Jeff Bezos all this money. And it's not all of that. Like it's not happening in there. And then it's just that the actual personal interactions where they go out of their way to make you feel like you have to like earn their acceptance into something that they invited you to and it's like just a mind game yeah and I hate it I people see it as being like easy money and it's this really simple and easy thing to do and like first of all when I think when I hear someone

complain about their job at or like talk about the faults of their job or the hardships at no point ever do I think that they are saying that their job is the hardest job in the world like it's just like i think if we don't let anybody vent about the current struggles in their own workplace a we romanticize these careers that like actually have a lot of like hardship to them and we also like can't fix problems like that occur there but your job isn't a real job though so i know that was sarcasm in case somebody thought that i was being serious no but like when you know like i personally would rather have somebody talk about the hard parts of their job of a job that looks so glamorous than the whole time to like, I think people think that you need to be loudly grateful and like

quietly critical. And I don't think that that does a service to anybody. And like, especially in the age of social media where everything is a highlight reel and everything looks amazing and great. Like, I don't think that it makes you ungrateful to point out how things aren't always as they seem. And like, as someone who consumes that stuff, like I fall for that shit all the time like i i love when people talk about like this wasn't all it's cracked up to be and i think that the issue is is a lot of the time that people who are within influencer culture who are critiquing it will say like will not recognize that like they will conflate money in the sense of like well money doesn't make like bring happiness or whatever and i'm like okay that's the same thing

as throwing the white privilege thing around where it's like yeah that is like having money now for me it doesn't bring happiness but it doesn't i i've eliminated an entire subset of problems from my life because i have money like unless something changes for me financially like that is an entire subset of problems that i don't have so any problems that i have doesn't make them any less valid but it just means that i don't have those ones and people who i'm speaking to they have those ones right money gives you emotional it can give you emotional stability that that's still it's not like a mental health, but it can affect your mental health. If I didn't have enough money to eat, then that makes, that puts a strain on my body. But you eliminate, if I have enough money

just to eat, that eliminates something. If I don't have enough money for housing, that, you know, it's just like different tiers. Yeah. And I, and I think people see things like as you've got your basic needs met, so you're fine. But I also think in the same sense, I think the people who do critique i think influencers when they complain about things or they talk about things or whatever i think when they themselves directly relate it to well money doesn't buy happiness essentially tells poor people that like we you can have problems regardless of your income situation but not having income is a problem that like it does that does not differ to anyone like the poorest person in the world will it like that they have financial struggles that don't go away

no matter how good they're meant to like it affects every aspect of your life and that's the part where i think is completely like out of touch like i think that is one that i'm like i and i'm sure i've probably said it at some point or another when i was like in a very dark place but like it's just one of those things that like if people want to critique which i think we should continue to critique influencer culture and system everything but i think if when we are a part of it and you and you are a part of that doing so and unless we can acknowledge that money is a privilege then there's no way that we're going to get anywhere with anything because i also think that like i when i didn't have money i viewed financial stability financial success and

independence as something that was going to make me happy and that would fix all of my problems and because we don't talk about the privilege of money enough when it didn't fix all of my problems it fixed it fixed some of them it fixed enough where you could have the access to physical and mental health assistance health care that helped with the other things and that's where i think capitalism comes into play in all of this that it becomes like hustle money hustle money hustle money blah blah blah where it becomes we all need to have our basic needs met but when we strive to when you reach a certain tax bracket that capitalism romanticizes wealth when in reality like what what wealth what what but what having money does is it eliminates the struggles that

no one should be facing the whole thing is just like wildly just wildly wildly fucked and i think also for people, if it helps you to unfollow creators, content creators, when you see them complaining about all of this stuff, like Revolve Fest and blah, blah, blah. Oh, okay. This was the last thing I was going to say to this. I really do understand though, the anger of people complaining and how they probably didn't think through what they are saying, but people don't want to talk about like the job side of influencer-ness as much. But my thing that was running through my head is I'm like, oh, these people are panicking because they signed contracts that they have to create all of this content at revolve fest about revolve fest and they can't get in and they are

in breach of their contract that's true and that's gonna go on them so i am curious to see what will happen with that um i did a wonderful tiktok with my suggestions to the raw pr team if anyone wants to watch it's quite funny but yeah the duolingo owl and scrub daddy also did a little parody they also had a few scrub babies so check that out that's funny yeah I love it well positive thing of the week oh yeah I guess my positive thing would probably be that we bought a house and like we're moving and it's such an out-of-body experience because the in California but everywhere home ownership is becoming like a more and more distant goalpost for people and the fact that like we had the access and the privilege to be able to like make this work is just wild

I can't believe it so I'm that is my good thing of the week and the other good thing of the week that's pertaining to that is I found out that our house has a giant avocado tree and a fig tree oh they produce a lot apparently yeah they do and so um i'm also going to work on when we're eventually move everything in and do everything like i really want to do like a garden so i've been looking into that excited you can get some of my tomato seeds oh what's your good thing of the week i do want to give a shout out to our editor coco she know what she did but she's great Coco and Melissa robbed a bank together. She's at Coachella right now, but she did some cool stuff.

Coachella! So this man, what happened to him was bad, but he was at work and they threw him a surprise birthday party and he told them like the week before that he didn't want to have a party because he has severe anxiety and they did it anyway and he had like a breakdown and then got fired from work because of it. He got fired? the guy that they threw the birthday party for even though they he told them like he can't like

he doesn't like that yeah i hate surprise parties so i can understand that and so they awarded him a jury awarded him four hundred and fifty thousand dollars fuck yes yeah 27 years old his name's kevin berlin so what company was it gravity diagnostics a lab testing based in covington kentucky he suffers from anxiety disorder and feared attention would trigger a panic attack and so like if don't put people in situations that will trigger their mental health clearly the party wasn't for him it was for their own egos it was for their own egos and they still stand by it too like they think that they like terminate like the reason they terminated him is still like valid i wonder if they'll get a fine from someone yeah so it's i feel like it's a win

for recognizing that uh you have to take people's mental health seriously congratulations on the payday yeah well that is now officially it for our episode we hope you all enjoyed if you want to send us an email submission send it on over to but am i wrong pod at gmail.com and this episode comes out on thursday but we have the votes will be up friday or before monday most likely they will be up on friday so head on over to vote and if you have any suggestions for rachel of the week or good news of the week or anything tag us on tiktok instagram send us a dm shoot us a tweet all of the above and yeah okay we will circle back next time oh we'll circle back but am i wrong is a production by me megan rinks and me melissa demonts plus diamond

imprint productions post-production by coco lorenz and production assistance by melanie d watson