Don't Blame Me! - BAIW: My Boyfriend is Too Close to His Family

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

Meghan discusses the sexism in parent vlogs and Melisa hates people sharing her contact information. They then discuss if listeners were wrong in the following situations: Telling your sister-in-law that your wedding is on her birthday Fear of spiders keeping your from a potential relationship Thinking your boyfriend is too close with his sister Being rude to people you are morally against. And in "But Are They Wrong" AKA "Rachel of The Week" they discuss the book, "Where the Crawdads Sing," and The Slap. 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

hell the fuck oh hell the fuck oh okay fucking hello welcome to the podcast coming in lukewarm i just want everybody to have the satisfaction of the reason why this podcast is rated explicit it right off the start your kids in the car and you're like god damn it megan welcome to but am i wrong a podcast starring two people who've never been wrong melissa diamond motts and me megan ranks you weren't gonna give your full name no because i have i have a hard time saying my middle name with only one of my last names because i technically have two last names but i like never go by megan rose ranks like that just sounds odd like then i have to i go by megan ranks or like my full full name you used to go by megan rosette rosette megan rosette here

reporting for duty with my blue tiffany blue room with my brown accent wall like in high school or middle school or like did you have a room that was like painted after you saw because you stopped moving after i stopped moving but i was so used to having white walls that i didn't that's why we never painted we never really hung up pictures we were very minimalist before people were talking about minimalism because we move so much. And also when people walk into a house that has pictures of Black people hanging up, the value of houses goes down. So we never hung pictures. It's a court case in Marin right now. Yeah. Yeah. So this is odd. When I went to college, I think came back home during the

summer. I painted my room like a seafoam green. Of course. And it was the only painted room in our whole house but I loved it there was the colors in middle school or high school that people painted it was like that Tiffany blue a seafoam green some people were like purple or pink oh I actually take that back Melanie did paint her room she was at home it was pink cute one of my friends her mom was an artist and so she had like a literal like sunset cloud mural of like her favorite colors in her room sydney had like a because her dad is like he's like an artist and so you know jerry rebelled and had an entire wall that she like pinned up photos of justin bieber like floor to ceiling like it looked like an episode of hoarders like it was a lot

but they were very much like they always had like beautiful furniture like very nicely styled and like the kids always had taste because like their parents you know have taste but sydney's room growing up was burnt orange and I was like what fucking like eight-year-old is like I love this burnt sienna color it was gorgeous absolutely gorgeous but like everyone else had lime green rooms and she was out here with her burnt orange and her like restoration hardware like rustic dresser and like it was just like I was like this is so chic her parents like pottery barn kids nah nah that's that's not the look we're going for so fucking funny but I had three different bedrooms in my house like I not at the same time but like I moved between them because

once I was once I was allowed to move rooms once I could stop having this is so on brand for me I had to have a gate on my bed up until did you fall out of your bed every night if I didn't have that I would roll off my bed and I had a gate up there up until probably sixth grade I would roll off how big was your bed a twin and I was you know I'm like a decent sized human and so like I'm long I'm lengthy and then when I moved to my to an upstairs bedroom after that which then I had a trundle bed that for my for a while I would just sleep sleep with the trundle out so if I fell off so you just roll into the next bed exactly I definitely had sleepovers where I rolled onto my friends and I'd be like oh my bad you should take the low into the trunk I probably should

of i think i maybe did after a while but yeah then i did each wall was painted a different like pastel color i was very into it but everybody comment on the instagram post that we just posted what your middle school slash high school room color was because i feel like it's an identifying personality trait like the people who had like the hot pink and like zebra themed room or like the purple and black like paris themed room like it's it's a whole style i did put up a lot of posters of boy bands and things like that JT yeah well when I was in that age of putting up posters I wasn't a JT fan yet what were your things I had a lot of Backstreet Boys I did have NSYNC but it was before I liked Justin Timberlake okay he was in NSYNC not Backstreet Boys okay wow sorry

I had a Britney and Christina, like all the hits from the time Tyra Banks was up there. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. This was before America's Next Top Model. So it was just modeling. It was modeling without the problematic part of it. Also, that was when the Got Milk campaign was hot. And so it was mostly those, the Got Milk posters.

I still think those are so fucking weird. They are weird. Big Milk was like, you know what? We need to get all these people that are in the pop culture zeitgeist and paint fake milk mustaches on them. And this is a thing. And it was like a huge thing. They like brought it back recently, too, for like a small era. We've talked about it on this podcast before when you came after Big Milk.

What are those things called where people just like stick up posters on the side of buildings? Are there names for that? Yeah, there's a name, but I don't know what it is. But anyway, there was one talking about Big Milk, but then a car drove next to me, so I couldn't take a picture of it. But it was it was funny. Yeah. They see you. You see them.

It's a whole conversation. Right. Speaking of conversations, this is a podcast. You know that you clicked on this. But am I wrong where we tell you, like the title says, if you were wrong, we'll tell each other if we were wrong. We will also tell celebrities and current events, pop culture events, people if they were wrong. they're definitely not listening unless lena dunham has decided to like search her name and somewhere and find all the negative things people have said about her we are going to decide who's

the hero and villain each of the stories if you want to submit for the but are you wrong segment send us an email over at but am i wrong pot at gmail.com keep it under 300 words and if you have someone you want us to nominate for rachel of the week aka but are they wrong the pop culture current event shit tag us on whether it's like a tiktok or on twitter instagram send us a message and let us know we've gotten a lot of a lot of those the one that i have picked for this week is actually one that someone tagged me in oh cool and i appreciate it for every episode you can vote on who you think was wrong if you head on over to our instagram and these episodes go up on Thursday and we usually have the votes up by Friday if not they're up before Monday and we

have highlights so because the stories are very long they don't always show up for that 24 hours all of them in sequence on like just the stories feed so head on over to the highlights you got 24 hours to vote and that's what you need to follow so you can know when they're up so you can vote them and then we will read the results right now. Yeah. Would you like to kick us off? I will. Melissa versus delivery people coming five hours early. 7% said that I was wrong. 93% said I was not wrong. I didn't like the people arguing with you about this. Yeah, me either. Because I said I should have called when they got there, called the company. And I said the reason why I said they were wrong is because they lied. I couldn't predict that they were going to lie.

yeah i didn't like it next up is me versus international women's day 96 said i was not wrong and four percent said i was wrong i did get a chunk of people who are saying that they are in different countries and they had no idea that it wasn't like predominantly used as like a day of protest or anything political with like that change behind it and they were like wait i had no idea that it really wasn't that because like that's how it's used where i live and i was like yeah that's I didn't know that that's how it was used in other places until I looked it up America yeah I mean we were one of the last countries that you know see themselves as the rulers of earth that was like we should even make this an international women's day and it came from

like I told in the last episode a woman that's not even at the time she wasn't even American so Yeah. And leave it to America to hallmark everything and monetize it. See it through a capitalist lens. Writer number one versus grandma who says they didn't pay back money. Who is wrong? 4% said the writer, 96% said grandma. Great picture. Thank you. Everyone go look, even if you've already missed voting, because it is a great photo. Next up, we have writer number two versus the friend who bought concert tickets without her consent. Who is wrong? 3% said the writer and 97% said the friend. Some people did reach out and they were like, oh my gosh, I do this for my friends, but it's only like $25, like blah, blah,

blah. I personally think that like, unless you have had like a conversation that it goes back and forth where it's like, oh, like these concert we want to go to and blah, blah, blah. But if you are constantly springing $25 expenses on people without like having cleared ahead of time that they're like, anytime you see a concert that we want to go to, like just buy the tickets. Like I'm so I'll pay you back. It'll be great. Like blah, blah, blah. I would also probably still get annoyed. Yep. I agree. I think that if you're going to do something like that, you should be prepared to eat the cost. Always. It's like loaning money, you know, if you don't have it then don't loan it. If you don't have it, don't buy it. Yep. Writer number three, verse leading

on boy in, you know, quotes that tried to force the writer into a relationship. Who was wrong? 2% said the writer, 98% said the boy. Hoping that these were some incorrect votes, but you know, again, as we say, if you voted wrong, let us know. And also if you voted what is considered the vast unpopular opinion, I would love to hear the reasoning. Why? Next up, we have writer number four versus boyfriend who went on their usual couple date with his online friend. 6% said the writer was wrong and 94% said the boyfriend was wrong. We got an update for this. Let me find it. Oh, I missed this. Hi, I'm the one who wrote this one. To clarify slash update, he went with his college roommate. So 10 years of friendship. He just lives about an hour away and life is busy,

so it's hard for them to coordinate hanging out in person. Hence the online hangouts. We talked about it and he didn't realize that I valued going together as much as I did. And the pot pie is only Tuesdays, which is why he wanted to take his friend that day. I just felt upset because we planned to go together. He changed the plan same day, but we're all good and make a point to have a dedicated weekly date, even if it's not Tuesday. And thanks for hearing my submission. I love hearing your unbiased feedback. Makes way more sense. You know, it's not like her boyfriend's just like trolling on Reddit and like befriending strangers and taking them to pie. That would have been valuable information to know though true so our mutual wrong of the week jane campion

who's wrong 97 said jane three percent said jane is not wrong i also hated the people being like you know i just think that she was nervous and blah blah i hate not no why would you bring them into the conversation of all the people that are there why would you bring them into the conversation and in that way yeah in a category that doesn't even make sense for comparison exactly i'm like if you're like starstruck by them and you're just like oh my gosh i can't believe i'm accepting this word in front of like venus and serena like i just like this is this is wild like oh my gosh like blah blah blah i loved their mood like i loved that they were able to share their story for king richard like oh you know what i mean like that's the word vomit if

you get up there and you're so obsessed with them and you're so starstruck it's complimentary right You know, like this whole notion of like, you know, and it's white women defending her and this notion of like, obviously, the big thing that everyone says, like intent versus impact, but also that like your internal bias, you somehow just don't have you don't have that. and you don't have those like microaggressions that you would do or anything like that, that like you should just assume that people have wonderful and great intentions, even though that is like nothing of what they said and like nothing of what they did.

It's like, instead of listening to what they said, think of like the exact opposite of that. And that's probably what it was. And it's like, there's no evidence of that. Like why? No, just apologize and just be like, I fucked up. I can't. And if you're defending that,

you're also just probably doing that in your own life. Okay. And then we've got Tim Leissner, Kamora Lee Simmons, soon-to-be ex-husband for Rachel of the Week. And we said 99% Tim is wrong, 1% Tim is not wrong. Did you see the update? Mm-mm. I mean, it's not like he messaged us, but it was something in the news that happened. Let me pull this up.

This one is from their divorce trial, but this is like ex-Goldman's banker's wife created shell company to launder millions. so tim lessinger was this guy's boss and like that is a part of this thing too so like i don't know if he's in a divorce case and also like a money laundering embezzlement case at the same time or if they're tied together yeah oh here's on his wikipedia it says that he pled guilty to he sold 200 million dollars from malaysian sovereign wealth fund yeah it says here that He had a $41,000 per month side gig that he never disclosed. And he's been banned for life from the Securities and Exchange Commission and forced to pay a $43 million fine. And he faces up to 25 years in prison and testified against his former deputy, Roger N.G., in a trial.

And he's portrayed in a book, Billion Dollar Will, The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World. so he's a scammer can you just imagine that on top of all this coming out like you have to like tell a court that you also catfished like they're like oh my gosh you are also just embarrassed like this is so embarrassing for you his lawyer's probably like oh and then you did what oh and here's the thing all of this keeps coming out week to week to week so like who knows if more is gonna come out the new york times ex-goldman sachs banker testifies in one mdb trial says he lied a lot that's the quote you don't say that's so funny yeah so there's two separate trials going on well if anything else happens we will keep you all updated on um the embarrassments

of tim tim's l's tim's public l's i wonder if he has kids i don't know if they have kids together but he does have two kids okay according to his wikipedia too fucking funny so it's just like he's first i've never heard of this man in my life and he is having a he's he's having a time he's going through it yeah it wasn't his former wife of like billionaire too i think so like an heiress or something yeah okay then my wrong of the week slash rachel of the week was the Bob Saget Death Spiritors. 98% said everybody with these conspiracy theories are wrong, and 2% said the conspiracists are not wrong.

I will say that, you know, heart goes out to Bob Saget's family, who now is also being used in tweets and shit that is completely unrelated to this, where thank God that those photos and all of that shit didn't get released, because even without all of that, people are still finding a way to bring up his death yeah okay well we are gonna move on to the

but am i wrong segment where we each essentially pitch each other uh our hot takes or things that have happened in the past week and we will ask the other one if hey do you think i'm wrong and then again you will head on over and vote on the instagram stories i guess it's my turn to go first and this is a hot take okay i've kind of dabbled in this hot take i don't even know like we've dabbled in this hot take like talking about it together I don't know if we've ever talked about like or alluded to some of this on the podcast I might have talked about like alluded to this a little bit but my hot take is the anti-mommy vlogger and mom creator platform people who are so against that actually does more harm than good and it is first of all I just want to say

that i am not for exploiting your children by any means i'm not for it in any realm in when it comes to like child actors i'm not for it when it comes to any child who is too young to make the choice or to choose a job and like to work and make money and perform and even if a child actor or like someone wants to do that stuff, like not having the family rely on that income or anything like that. Like, I think that there's also, you know, there's a privilege when it comes to being a child actor that like, you know, you have to have a parent quit their job and like do all this and blah, blah, blah. But there have been with the start of like the rise of TikTok, there's like the whole genre of people putting their kids on TikTok. We've talked about this before. And

naturally, there is like a life cycle of fandoms where you like go from absolutely loving someone and stanning someone and then you go to like absolutely hating them and trolling them and mommy vloggers and people who put their moms who put their kids online their comment sections and the hate they get compared to men who do that with their kids don't receive any of it there's so much sexism rooted in the desire to like take down these people and they put it under the guise of like protecting these children and that they're preventing like abuse. And I think that like if a parent is abusing their child, yes, please report that. But when you call having a kid do a video on YouTube and you're calling that like, not even on YouTube, but like you're having

like a kid who's like participating in like whatever, someone like having a video of them like feeding their baby and you're calling them recording a video and posting it online of their kid not doing anything embarrassing or bad, just like living their life. And their kid is just happens to be in that and you call that abuse. I think that it just diverts a lot of attention and kind of minimizes like real abuse that is happening and going on. And there are so many children who are being abused and are in horrible situations. But when people latch onto these famous people who show these pictures of their kids or whatever and it's just about protecting those kids and then it also feels like the same fan behavior that they're upset with people being

so obsessed with these kids but then they in turn become so obsessed with hating these like families these moms or whatever instead i think if you are so anti having people make content involving their underage kids, regardless of what the, again, I'm saying like the content is not abusive or harmful. It's just the act of them being there on camera. I think that you're, the tactic needs to be addressing people who watch those videos in the audience, because when you come after the people creating that, all you then do is make those content creators bitter, more angry, and want to prove you wrong. And then they overhaul in doing all of this kind of shit. When I think like the conversation needs to be that like we need to be more conscious about the content that we

consume and as consumers we should be understanding that more versus villainizing like individuals and people who are making content with their kids on it don't watch it and if there's like talk to their like if you're trying to get someone to stop making videos and this is the other part I've seen is that even when those people stop making videos, that hate doesn't stop. They're still obsessed with finding out what they're doing now. They're still this, this, this, and this. And it becomes like, oh, this isn't about protecting kids or anything like that because there's nothing that this person could do that would satiate you. You have a specific fascination with this specific person, not the concept. You're not trying to pass legislation. You're

not calling your senators and being like, you shouldn't be allowed to post children here. You're not calling like platforms and doing all of that. It's like an obsession with these people. And I think that that is equally as unsettling as people who are positively obsessed with a family channel or a family content creator and their kids. I think the people who hate them are a little scarier because it's still a personal obsession. it's just on the negative side and i just don't like it and you know i obviously don't want people to take advantage of their kids in that way and like monetize them and do all of this stuff where it's like centered on their kids because like yeah i'm sure psychologically not great once those kids grow up and i'm sure there's going to be things that they deal with but i think that like when you essentially berate specifically the mom who is doing that over and over and over again all you're ensuring is that that kid now has a mom who's like bitter and hates the world and

that is going to affect her relationship with her kids far more than it is gonna necessarily make her stop making videos you know yeah yeah what you were saying about how people treat the moms versus the dads it reminded me of this comic that i saw that i don't know how to pronounce the name correctly but it looks like shawnee bruce brucey c-h-a-u-n-i-b-r-u-s-i-e but they have this comment called that's like mom versus dad and it has like a dad at the park with his kids and he's on the phone and then a mom at the park at the kids and she's on her phone and like people are gossiping like wow what a good dad taking his kids to the park when the mom's on the phone wow she's not even watching her kids it's like that same energy that people just put fathers on a different

pedestal a different way that people judge because they feel like mom should always be there and then dads anything they do is just bonus and so yeah I don't think you're wrong the internet is still relatively new and people especially the video components and sharing your lives and people still don't exactly know how to balance what should be on the internet. There's still a lot of judgment that goes into that. This is only the second, I guess we're going into third generation of, actually, I think it's more second generation of having kids that are like putting there, because like millennials were really putting themselves on the internet, but now it's the kids of that putting on the internet. So I think in 10, 15 years, it'll be just the norm and people

won't be as judgmental, but right now people are being super judgmental on that. Yeah. And I also think it needs to be addressed the origin of why people post content on the internet and why especially women are doing this. It's because a lot of the time the women are at home by themselves all day with these kids with no adult interaction and they have no community. They might not have people who like live near them, especially like first time moms. And they're at home with a fucking baby all the time. And so like, there is this need for connection. And I think a lot of people think that the origin of people who are making like mom content or whatever, it's because like, oh, they're just trying to like make money. Okay, here's the thing. I'm sure if you see

someone who is like, late stage in the game has like a bunch of kids and is like done this for years has like family by has friends by has like all of this and like has a very supportive from the outside, even that can be an incredibly lonely experience. But the reason why you go to the internet is for connection and relatability and to like meet people who can like understand you and it's the same thing that's like i give so much shit about the mlm community but i don't give shit about the people who who get swindled into it because there's a reason why they target stay-at-home moms it's because like there's this like feeling of like i don't have a purpose because also men believe or traditionally this idea that like oh i am i'm the man in this cis

relationship and i'm going to work and the wife stays home with the kids which that as if that's not a full-time job right you know and so like the reason why people start doing this is not always as nefarious as people think and like yeah there are some people who are absolutely horrible and horrendous but if you just start attacking every single parent who puts their kid online and you are calling like it abuse then the stuff that's actually happening where parents are putting videos of their children online in very indecent outfits and they're aware that they're being used on like nefarious sites and all of that that gets overshadowed by people being upset that a mom is formula feeding her baby when you're calling both of those things abuse one of those things is then

becoming like you hear someone be like oh formula feeding is abuse and you're like well it's not abuse and then you're like oh yeah this mom was like posting like very like sexualized photos of their kid that's being used on like child pornography websites and you're like oh it's not because it just becomes like when you call these things the same thing, you devalue both of the meaning of that for both of those instances. And yeah. And I mean, we've talked about this offline, but I think one specific thing that it's like if you still hear all of this and you're like, I don't think so. If you look at the fact that there is a guy who has a podcast called the Dad Challenge podcast where he has literally made his money on calling out people who put their kids

online and he makes videos about that so like you're monetizing the negative negativity around that so if that whole thing blew up and went away which he's saying is his goal i'm like then what's your job right like then what are you doing like you're making money off of this and he's also specifically coming after moms and he is also you know he's one of the canadian convoy dudes and has a bunch of problematic views so and i think the true solution to all of this is you know having like you know equal pay having people like women have access to like child care also having like better birth control access and and all of this kind of stuff where it's like you you're not going to have you're going to have people who don't necessarily feel that the only

way that they can make a connection with people is online and having it so they're supportive whether it's financially through the entire pregnancy if they don't want to carry a pregnancy so they're not home by themselves do you mean like there's all of this stuff like people get upset with teen moms for making teen mom YouTube channels. And I go, how else the fuck do you think that these 16 year olds think that they can make money being at home with their kid? Like until we have resources across the board for people who are like carrying pregnancies or getting pregnant, having like this extreme form of judgment to how they provide for their children, you know, you're doing more harm than good. You're just going to have these people

come back at it and you're making their parents angry yeah you know yeah very good topic I think about this one a lot a lot a lot you know the two things I've been thinking about not as deep as yours but I was watching Bridgerton this weekend and I was thinking about how much they smell and they're just okay with it it's just like people of that time period just smelled all the time And then I was also thinking about how up until I mean, it's actually still going on. It's just more regulated how just like people are just walking around high all the time because medicines just had like cocaine and MDMA and just like, yeah, just like regular like cough medicine or just like this is what we use because we're feeling sad. We're just going to put heroin in here. So cough medicines, just like heroin.

So these are things that I was just thinking about a lot this weekend. Hey, Bridgerton will do that to you. I have not watched it, but I have watched Trixie and Katya watch it. And I watch them watch it on Netflix. And they brought up the same thing. They're like, all these people smell so bad. They're just stinky. I was like, valid.

They are beautiful dresses, though. Oh, yeah. I'm going to a Bridgerton ball this Friday. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. But what are you going to wear? I bought a dress. We'll see what it looks like.

It hasn't come yet. It'll be here today. Wait, I'm so excited. Are you going to wear gloves? Mm-hmm. Of course. I'm going to wear gloves because I don't want to touch anything. Good call.

Yeah. I also got a, like, I'm wearing, of course, my regular mask. But then I've got, like, a gold satin thing to put over it. So I'll be protected. Holy shit. This is, I better see pictures. you'll see pictures. So my turn, mine's going to be very easy. Not, not really any explanation to it. So someone sent me a message last week and was like, Hey, I want to put you in contact with

this one person. Can I give them your contact information? I guess I didn't respond fast enough. Cause I mean, I was working and an hour after they sent the message, I had phone calls from this person they were trying to connect me to. So they gave them my contact information without me okaying them to give me the contact information. Also, this person, it's not really a benefit to me. So I'm not seeing why it was more a benefit for them. Like a favor. Yeah. And so I'm not seeing why they would just go ahead and give my contact information out. And I don't want to talk to this person. So am I wrong for not responding back when I did want to respond in the first place? It's just it's more of me just being petty because I'm like my information

was given out and I didn't want it given out. So am I wrong for being petty? Not at all. I think that like I've had so many people who like will be like friends of friends or like my friends will be like, oh, someone wants to reach out or blah, blah, blah. And I'll be like, no, don't give my contact or yes go for it or whatever but also like said friends will also filter that where it's like yeah they will tell the other person like oh yeah like let me like or like oh you know like they're not really doing that thing anymore like you should try blah blah blah or blah blah but it is 2022 if you need to contact someone there's a reason there's public contact information instagram dms email that you see in there looking up a person and then looking up their email on

their LinkedIn like when people try and use like that personal connection you can use that personal connection in an opening of an email that you found that is public that I assume people like you are going to find it but like no you don't get to do that if it's like a phone number or something that's not out there like that's just that makes you look bad who's reaching out to like makes me not want to respond to you right no you're not wrong at all okay I absolutely hate that shit like just in general even when it's something that like you know I could do or I'm okay with like whatever but it's always like a favor and it's always like something that you they would pay anyone else to do to like consult or like just to ask questions like pick your brain

about something and when it's a friend I'm like yes I want to see you succeed great wonderful or if it's like someone who like this could be a mutually beneficial partnership and like you have some like you do something really interesting like that I could use like your experience with but otherwise it's just like this is unpaid charity work exactly and then you feel like you have to like be good and like do it because you have an obligation because it's like you have a mutual friend or you have someone that you like might actually care about yeah but it's like you couldn't just wait till I responded you just gave my information out after you asked why'd you even ask right because you clearly weren't actually asking for my permission because you didn't get

it and you didn't care not wrong not wrong thank you okay well now it is time for our but are you wrong segment and this is where we read the email submissions from all of you and we let you know if we think that you are wrong and like i said at the beginning send it on over to but am i wrong pot at gmail.com gotta keep it under 300 words just copy paste it into a word count yeah i feel like people don't know that they can do this on google if you're sending it straight from your phone this is where i'm sending i'm seeing a lot of it when people are sending it through email from their phone download the google drive app type into google docs and then go up and look at word count click on that and you can see how many words you can also click on it to like always show

the word count and you can see as you're typing what the word count is please do that and that will save you time and us time you can even just google word count and then go to any of those websites copy and paste what you're going to say in there and it will tell you how many words it is because we're not going to cut we're not going to summarize these things so yeah when you are sending the submissions we ask for as much information and detail as possible because it helps us accurately say if we you know we might we might miscast you the hero or the villain depending on the information that you give us so i guess i'll kick it off hi eminem names have been changed me 28 she her my fiance dave 29 he him my brother jordan 24 he him and my sister-in-law

bella 24 she her dave and i wanted a september wedding but our dream venue only does october through May. As a compromise, we want to do the first weekend of October. Where we live, October gets twice as much rain as September does, so pushing it further into month is not ideal. We would rather change venues. If we go ahead with the first weekend of October, this would be on Bella's 27th birthday. When Jordan and Bella got engaged, we found out through a Facebook post and had no formal roles in their wedding. We were not part of the wedding planning. Jordan and Bella's wedding planning was chaotic, and the actual wedding day was also chaotic. As we expected, we got called to do a ton of running around the morning of to help them out, which we did because

we love them, but had moments of annoyance with them and generally felt left out of their wedding. I feel like the grownup thing to do is ask them about the date, but I really worry that they will make a fuss no matter how nicely I try to explain the situation. And then I would be stuck either going against their wishes by booking the date or changing my date because they are being fussy. But on the other hand, if I just book it and I don't say anything and then play dumb when they get to save the date, it just feels wrong and childish on my part. But this also feels on par with how they acted during their wedding planning. I think you would be wrong

if you booked it on her birthday without asking because I think that like the reasoning is when you're saying like, this feels like on par with what they did, that is very like tit for tat. And like, you were upset about that, but you also can't control, you can control your response

with how they treated you with their wedding, but you can't control how like they react. So like you might see it as like a, okay, now we're even thing, but that's not up to you to kind of decide. Right. I don't know. I mean, like, I don't know what the rainy season is

and how long it lasts that, like, you couldn't just, like, what's more important to you, the venue or the month that you're getting married? Because if you love that venue, if it's rainy in October, could you wait until May? Like, does it mean to be in the fall? Like, can it be? I mean, November?

Yeah, like, can it be pushed a little bit farther? Does that, like, what matters more to you? like the season the venue or what because like if it's September like then pick a different venue and it just feels like if it rains on your wedding day and like it's an absolute mess because it is like the first weekend of October and October is like more rainy than September and like October isn't September like you're still getting married after the month you wanted to I just feel like there's a chance that a lot of things cannot go how you want them to and one of those is including the reaction of your sister-in-law and your brother. So I think it's rude, like, especially

because it just feels like you don't care about her birthday or you don't know what her birthday is. Like, if you ask, I also think that it's important that it's not an empty gesture of you asking and then you just go ahead with it anyway. Yeah, because this is setting up anyway for years to come that your anniversary is always going to be on her birthday. So it feels like it's not just going to be this is going to be like the wedding day thing this is going to be every year it's going to be something that comes up it feels like that you're trying to justify you doing this because of how they treated you during their wedding which I don't think is fair at all maybe they didn't foresee that things were going to get as chaotic maybe they tried to cut down costs for

everything by not having you guys be part of their wedding there might have been other reasons that maybe just because you were blind. You felt blindsided at the time, but there were things that they didn't know were going to happen. So I would talk to them. I think it's wrong to play dumb, pretend like you don't know what's going on when you clearly do and you already think it's going to be an issue. Have a conversation with them. So, yes, I do think you'd be wrong if you just went ahead and did it. Unpopular opinion. I also think if you decide to have like a big wedding or like a wedding wedding where it's not just eloping and about you two the wedding is mostly the wedding's about the other people who are attending and like you can't really say

like fuck it it's about us unless it is only about you two and you're going to a courthouse or you're eloping and it's just you two like it can't by nature of like an event and that people have to pay to attend or like whatever it is but like when you include other people you have you you can't just include them like as like a ceremonial like gesture like it has to be like catered to that and yeah I also can't imagine you would have been happy if the exact same wedding situation that your sister-in-law had also happened to fall on your birthday like I just don't think you would have been happy with that and like I feel like the only reason why you're toying with this idea like you said is because you feel slighted by how they behaved for their

wedding and you feel kind of hurt and yeah i just think it's one day that i don't know that you will think is worth it to go through all of this shit for potentially years to come because again it's not like your anniversary happened like your the date that you met happened to be the date that is her birthday and like it's your perfect venue it's like never going to rain that time of year and it's like on the day that you met and like the location is exactly where you met do you mean it's not this like serendipitous thing that like it feels like you're already settling for like the timing of it all so like why then settle for her birthday right if i was her i'd be like what like just pick a different day or a different venue like

if you can't wait a week to get married and like because you're just saying it's gonna rain if i do it a week later like just pick a different venue then that's what i would say so i do think you are wrong my condolences next one hey megan and melissa love the podcast i have an issue please let me know if i'm wrong i 24 female she her have been talking to male 28 he him for two months now we text phone call facetime often i'm in texas he's in new york we would consider each other friends right now are and are getting to know each other we do like where things are but ask a lot of relationship-like questions. He told me when we started talking that he likes snakes and spiders. I told him I hate them and I'm seriously arachnophobic. He understood and said

hypothetically down the line he wants a place outside of his home when he has more money and moves where he could take care of them if he ever got them, which made me feel better. Well, today he went to an expo and bought five huge tarantulas. I asked him where they are staying and he said with him. I got so mad I cried. We aren't even dating yet. I spiraled to I don't want to be around them spiders. I am so scared. What am I going to do if this goes further? I guess I have to stop liking him now. Everyone can find love except for me. I'm a Cancer. He's a Virgo. The only thing I told him was happy for you but please never show them to me. He understood. I haven't talked to him for the rest of the day. I hate this because I'm starting to like him but I am terrified

of spiders and snakes. I don't know if I could ever live with him. Am I overreacting or no and what should I do especially if things move further down the line thanks in advance. I think you are overreacting you guys aren't even dating you don't even live in the same state one of you lives in new york one lives in texas you have no labels on your your relationship i don't think that he's thinking about you living with him at all and so he did not factor you into what this like him getting these spider these what were they tarantulas he didn't factor you into this because he doesn't you guys aren't even dating he doesn't see you living with him maybe yes down the line if you guys were actually dating and spending time with each other in the same state and you

were serious about each other he'd be like okay i'll move the spiders outside the home but at this point i think you're overreacting i don't disagree with that i do think that what this has kind of brought to light is that like you might see this as something a bit more serious than he does because like you are envisioning moving there and like you are like you're envisioning all this stuff without having those conversations and that usually means that like you know you have like strong feelings for him I mean I'm just gonna level with you I think you're talking to for two months with someone who like have you ever met in person we would consider each other friends but we're getting to know each other like it seems like you were you really like him and like

you're kind of doing that like maladaptive daydreaming where like you're just like too like you know mashing your own life and um that is totally valid and i think like we do that a lot but this reaction is a reaction of someone who like clearly is kind of very into this person envisioning your life with him and so like you either need to be like make a plan to like meet up and like actually date or don't do yourself don't like put yourself through this like emotional turmoil by like having a talking relationship with someone who you know that it's never going to get to a relationship because there's like this big barrier there that is like these fucking spiders and snakes and all of that shit but also physically they're nowhere near each other that's

what i mean but it's just like of all of the things so like i am all for having like a fun texting buddy for someone to like flirt with or whatever but like i just feel like this one just struck out like I feel like this one is just not it because if you are actually like wanting to eventually like date this person and like move there or whatever like then to have them not be like a spider collector and or even if it's someone you have no intention of meeting and like you don't want to date them or whatever I think that your fear of spiders is too great to even just like talk about like talk with someone with no intention of meeting who is like very into spiders and that's okay like but i just think that like this is he's probably like what

what is happening like you just it's a lot for the current situation where you're at with like the lack of relationship but yeah i think you like him like i think that you're picturing like if you're picturing moving there have you had that conversation with him but yeah i i don't know i'm just i don't love the we're texting and talking and facetiming and for two months and we're just friends but we're seeing where it goes i just don't trust people enough for that i'm like so were you sleeping with other people? Is he sleeping with other people? Like, would that make you upset? Like, what is happening? How did you meet? Why are you forming a friendship over text message? You know? You're also half a country away from each other. Yeah. What's the point?

What's the end goal? Like, are you going to move to him? Is he going to move to you? Yeah. There just doesn't seem like a lot of intention behind this. Yep. I feel like this is a waste of your time. Unless you just want a friend. But I don't think you could be friends with somebody who collects tarantulas. you're because you're spiraling which is i yeah it's totally all right let's take a break real canadian superstore has everything you need this back to school season save on lunchbox savers like ziggy's sliced deli meat products for always 375 and get life Brand Pure Vita Shampoo or Conditioner for $8 each.

At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready. With a whole world and more. And we're back from... It's okay. We can say it together. It's fine. We're back from our break and we're going to get into the rest of your submissions and the episode.

Okay. Hi, Megan and Melissa. I am a huge fan of both podcasts. Getting right into it. I'm 25 and my boyfriend is 24. We've been dating for about a year. He is so kind and supportive and we treat each other so well. And we've even talked about eventually getting married.

He is super close to his family, which I love, but I mean really close. He lives at home while saving for medical school. When he sleeps over at my place, his mom will call him just to check in and say she hasn't seen him in days when it's only been over 12 hours. I think she's awesome and she loves me, but this always seems kind of odd and annoying. But the worst is his sister. She's a very sweet 15-year-old, 10 years younger than my boyfriend, but acts much younger, as in she will sometimes want to hold his hand at family events.

They're very close, and he's even said that he wants her to be his best man at his wedding. That's sweet. She'll call when we're hanging out just to chat with him and tell him she misses him, and sometimes she gets upset that he's coming over to my place instead of staying home. He's frequently late or has to change plans because he's promised her he would do something with her. Anytime I broach the subject, he gets super defensive. am i an asshole for thinking for their family dynamic is annoying and a little weird or do

i just need to get over it i think you're an asshole i agree i think that deeming a 15 year old is like acting younger than their age is gross and i think it's also like arbitrary and has this like concept of like girls need to grow up fast and like be mature or whatever and it's also like it has like a it's a twinge of like you know sexism and expected ideas of girls and also like a tinge potentially ableist if she's just happens to be you know a little bit more have a little bit of a younger spirit and like you don't know what that's related to and your own concept of like what a 15 year old is like you know i mean like you you can't everyone's like very different and like develops at different rates and i also think in general when people

tend to be around like family you can like you can fall into those like big brother little brother kind of things it's like when kids go home for like i don't know go home for christmas like they they kind of adapt back to like their teenage selves yeah like my sisters expect me when we go out to eat to pay for them yeah because i'm older yeah so if i was your boyfriend i would be i would also be like incredibly defensive my niece who's the same age calls me at least once a day She says to check on me, but I know it's because she like wants to talk about things, but it's, that's her way of saying, you know, I need to talk to somebody, but she calls me pretty much every day to see how I'm doing and talking about things that are going on in her life. And when I'm in Arkansas, then she's very like wants to hang out with me every moment of the day. So I don't think there's anything wrong with this. I think that this is totally normal behavior. And I think it's odd that you're jealous of his sister in this, especially a teenage girl in this context. and he is saying that he's like late for things because he's promised her something that means

that he had plans with her first and it just ran over and I think you should just be more flexible and adaptable to that yeah I don't think you like how close he is with his family I would also say that like I don't know if you want kids but if you do like would you how would you feel if your son's girlfriend was saying this about like your son and daughter's relationship together like it just feels odd and i think when you're living at home and you're like saving money and all that like there are expectations that come with that and like yeah calling in and checking in if he doesn't have an issue with it then that's on you and like you don't need to point out an issue that he doesn't have that's there like he's a grown-up if he has a problem with all of this

like it's his family and unless it's a hap unless like they're being horrible to you like you're not really involved in it and then you are policing his relationship with his family which like is it probably not your intention but it's also a massive red flag for like potential future like alienation and abuse is like you know cutting people off from their family or implying that like you know their family really their family dynamics are wrong or weird or trying to take that away and like if you want to end up with this person that all that is going to do is make his 15 year old sister and his mom hate you yeah i don't know and you also didn't mention if there is a second parent in the picture you really specifically mentioned both mom and the sister so

if there is a dad there you know i i would wonder why you specifically have issues with like the women and or if they are again if there is a dad there it seems like they are heavily relying on your boyfriend as a like male figure in the house so that might also mean that there's some history there and again if it's a single parent household yeah like he sounds like a really like all this is done is i'm like yeah you seem like you found a really great guy and don't don't mess this up yeah in that sense of like that would be a red flag to me if someone said that i don't have that but like if i did you know yep to melissa and megan since the situation happened i've been dying to write in my boyfriend's parents live across the country and now that the pandemic

restrictions are being lifted they decided to come for a trip in our area at a ski resort they really wanted to spend time with us so they paid for our whole trip to see them His parents have these rich friends who gain all their wealth from flipping houses in our city, which is also going through a major housing crisis. And they invited us over to celebrate a big sale they had made recently. My boyfriend and I are being impacted by this housing crisis. And I told him I would rather not attend this dinner because it feels so wrong to celebrate people who are getting rich while we can barely afford rent because of it. I'm very outspoken so I would probably question them on their unethical practices and I purposely gave him this out of me not going so there would be no judgment from his parents. He really wanted

me to go anyways because his parents would think it's weird if I didn't. I understood his position and told him I could not promise I would act fake and civil but I would try my best. Obviously I ended up commenting on a few things, but I was gracious and polite the whole time. His parents took him aside the next day and asked him why I was being so rude. And now he is upset at me for starting something between them. Am I wrong for acting the way I did, even though I gave my boyfriend a clear out to avoid the situation? No, you're not wrong. You morally did not feel obligated to go to this thing you warned him that if you went then you would make your thoughts on the situation clear and you did so you know you you told him your boundaries you let him know

what would happen you were still polite but not polite enough for him or his parents and so now they're mad but i don't think you're wrong who cares i don't think you're wrong either i think that like yeah there are certain times where like we have to we're in situations we don't want to be in and like obviously you don't want to make situations harder for like other people but i also think of like the times that i've been in those things i'm we're all in it together like if you haven't had this conversation with his parents like if this is your boyfriend just like retelling that information and stuff like you might also have fundamental moral differences between his parent like with his parents and like then that is something like to address but like i think this

probably should have been a conversation with all of them because right now what i'm sensing is maybe your boyfriend uh was also kind of trying to protect his parents in this situation that they might be not morally aligned with you on this and then also is he morally aligned with you on this because it kind of feels like you're the odd one out and I wouldn't feel comfortable in that situation. Like the only time I'm comfortable doing these things that I don't want to do, it's because I know the second we get in the car, we're all on the same page. Or I know that like, when we make those comments, like they're for each other to be like, Oh my God. Okay. Or like, we'll say that. And we're all, we can all make those, like the whole thing. Everyone can make

those like little comments together and we're all on the same team and we're all on that, but it's not you know just you versus this like it's just I think his parents are probably like that yeah but I also think that since he was he thought that his parents would be mad if she didn't go I think it was his responsibility to tell them ahead of time oh 100 percent and also like I think he's posing this as the as it's like oh these are my parents friends like it's them but I'm like I don't think that you're probably being honest with yourself that your parents also probably align morally with these people and so instead of addressing that there are some extreme moral differences between your girlfriend and your parents you're being like oh my girlfriend is

being difficult because of my parents friends and now it's blah blah like no they they had a right their parents also had a right to know if this was going to be how you were going to behave and that was his responsibility to tell them this just makes me not trust your boyfriend like to be fair and i wonder how he aligns with that stuff yeah you know i think like he might be like because he's affected by it he's a little like on the same page but not completely like he's like half on the page with you but because he's probably benefiting from it too yes he seems sees it more like at this moment i can't think of a better example and it's probably not what this is but how a lot of people that vote for Republican don't realize that they're voting for

things that don't benefit them. Yeah. Because they see how it could be down the line of what they one step away from being a millionaire. And they think that this is something that's obtainable. So they see it more as a goal and something to, you know, aspire to as opposed to fighting the system yeah and i think in general people who have a close proxy to the ultra wealthy and to that system not all but a lot of the time the animosity towards that usually comes not from like morals but kind of comes from jealousy and that is something that like is not permanent and like lots of people can unpack that and like realize that like oh shit i'm being jealous of something that's not like ethically or morally sound but like when i grow up near it and i see

all of this stuff like i really i really want that because like that's aspirational and then people who have never benefited from it by proxy like can see it for more but like black and white of like good and bad but yeah i think this is probably a time to have like a conversation with your boyfriend about this yeah i don't know the whole thing is just giving me like spooky ooky rich vibes like you're at a ski resort and they paid like i don't like this but my main thing is like why do his parents care so much about you going to a party for their friends that's what i mean like this whole thing just gives me like old money kind of like oh we're like visiting you and like we're going to a ski resort for a week and you're gonna stay here and

like now we have this dinner with our friend it's just very much like perform it like ha ha ha ha and that to me i'm like do you know enough about like his family and like their social circle that is this like a life that you want to have is this where he pictures his kids do you know what I mean like when you look at it as like a bigger picture thing that like this one incident I don't think has really much to do with anyone besides you and your boyfriend and like what your expectations are yeah I mean I my family knows my parents would be like are you going to be an asshole about this thing and I'll be like and they already know like they they're asking but they already know the answer and I was like yeah and they'd be like okay fine don't come you know like they know what my

boundaries and limits are so whatever yeah no and I think that like unless your partner is like like they're wanting to cut their family off if you can't be yourself and like express your honest like feelings and opinions around your partner's family that that to me is like okay then you might want to recognize that you might not actually align with your partner as on as much as you think that you you do i've i've also i will say i've been in stuff i've said stuff and like everybody knew i was gonna say something and i did i've also gotten like little kicks under the table and i've just been like i said it i'm not i i don't care you can you can nudge me till i'm black and blue i'm gonna keep saying it which is very it probably happened because you bruise easily

oh yeah no without a doubt just one little tiny kick probably yeah not sorry oh i get pinched oh i can't i hate that okay now it's time for but are they wrong aka rachel of the week where we pick someone in pop culture or just in the zeitgeist that we feel like has been the villain this week so who you got so mine was something that someone actually tagged me in thank you a couple people did i don't know i don't have their usernames on hand but there's a movie being made adapted from the book where the crawdad sings so i've heard of this book but i didn't really know anything about it so it's a kind of book that like i don't know you like see it at like the bookstores and it's like oh there's a little gold thing like every book choice and blah blah so like

I just know of the book and I've known like, oh, people like that book. I should eventually read that book. But I know nothing about like what it's about. And so I guess they're doing a movie adaptation of the book. And not only is the book problematic, but the author is like a level of, I don't even know if you can call it problematic other than alleged murderer. Like this isn't like some uncovered tweets. like this is some like next level like evil evil fucking shit and i had no idea about this book and i probably could have read the book just purely based on like people saying like oh this book is

great or like hearing about this book alone and doing that but it is now being adapted into a movie so the people who are adapting it into a movie they are not just hearing about the book word of mouth and they have to do the google searches they have to like meet with people like you have to do your due diligence with this and when I tell you it is hard to avoid the mass documentation of how problematic the author and the book is it's not an oversight like it can be an oversight for a consumer who's heard a friend recommended a book and then you just pick it up at the library which again I think we should all and I've learned now like I'll be doing our due diligence before we I do it but before I like support something publicly like I will look into

that kind of stuff. But the ultimate thing of supporting something publicly is making a movie about it. And so the book is a New York Times bestselling author, blah, blah, blah. And the author is Delia Owens and her former husband, Mark. They are wanted for questioning over the murder of an unidentified man in Zambia and a previously called for human population control in Africa so this is like a well-documented like article prior to this book being released so in 2010 almost a decade before the books released the New Yorker published a lengthy article written by Jeffrey Goldberg called The Hunted which details Delia's time in Africa alongside her then husband and his son and the piece asked the question did American conservationists

in Africa go too far as it explores the family's involvement in the death of an unidentified victim believed to have been a potential poacher they've been wanted for this since this was aired in 1995 and there's also a turning point episode and they were on the tonight show so in one scene the production company accompanies a patrol at the owens conservation and a gun is fired at a trespasser the scout who fired the shot has his face electronically concealed and three more shots are heard off screen as the man they shot dies. Delia's husband, Mark, appears to be dismissive of the death in an interview later in the documentary saying, it's the reality, the messy reality, I'm afraid. She responds, it's very messy. It almost gives conservation a very ugly name,

but that's the reality. It's ugly why? It's ugly because of the elephants. They haven't done anything wrong. It's people who make it ugly. It's a very dirty game. It's a measure of the desperation in the situation. The victim's identity was never revealed, nor was it ever confirmed that he would have been a poacher or a trespasser so it is like alleged that they think that it is her ex-son-in-law her ex-husband's son who shot it and her ex-husband has also been accused of attempting to cover it all up and there's just a absolute fuck ton of more shit that they have been accused of for all of this and then we move on to their absolutely archaic ideas about africans So one critic claimed, allegedly claimed their mindset was nice continent, pity about the Africans. They called for human population control across all of that. So she wrote the book Where the Crawdad Sings. And so I, again, knew nothing about this book.

and someone had pointed out, critics have pointed out since the book came out, how it has a lot of parallels between that story and the fictional one that she wrote. So trigger warning, this is some discussion and spoilers of the book ahead. I mean, trigger warning for talking about sexual abuse and spoilers for the book,

but it's about a girl who lives in North Carolina and she prefers to be with animals instead of people, spends her time in the wilderness. and then a local football player is murdered and then she's the suspect but the big twist reveals that she did kill him but it was only because he tried to assault her seemingly offering a moral justification

for a heinous crime which in itself not I mean we've got promising young woman we have all that but when you parallel it with her response to someone who she was once married to or was once the stepmom of murdering a poacher

and justifying it as like a harsh reality, like murder as being a harsh reality of the poaching game that they partook in, it feels, yeah, again, like a moral justification just in a way that is actually much more of a moral justification. Like those are not two of the same things. The author who wrote the New York piece

said, I got a copy of Crawdads and I have to say I found it strange and uncomfortable to be reading the story of a Southern loner, a noble naturalist who gets away with what is described as a righteously motivated murder in the remote world and then in addition to all of that the black characters in the book jumpin and mabel are accused of being racist stereotypes with one critic noting that they are the kind of comforting they are the kind that are comforting to white people that may prove

disconcerting for african americans aka magical negro is the term in the book that's just what it's kind i think it was coined by spike lee but when you have black people that are there just to facilitate white people and make them feel better about themselves is called magical negro Yes, that makes sense. Yeah. So Reese Witherspoon is adapting this and Taylor Swift has a song on the soundtrack. And both of them have been very vocal about how they are massive fans of the book. And I just am upset that there has there's like never been any excuse for me as a white woman and fellow white women to be ignorant. but it just feels like there's never been any excuse and right now especially there's no hiding behind any of it there's no justification it feels and always has been but i think this is one of the most like blatantly like this is like feels very overtly offensive and violent like this just feels like a big fuck you and like just gross and so so so so fucking avoidable like so avoidable

like so avoidable to again the point you would have to go out of your fucking way to not read or see any of this stuff and i think that the argument people are doing of like separating the art from the artist and like these people like they don't know blah blah blah there's no way that they didn't know there's no way they didn't know and if they didn't know then that means that they don't do their due diligence when they're researching their project and that means they actually don't really give a shit about the projects they're attaching themselves to or doing that and like then it means that other people are doing all of the hard work for them which i don't you know that's also that's not a compliment then you're saying that they're not actually doing any

of the work but then it's also saying that all the people that they surround themselves with and hire on their team are people who look exactly like them have the same viewpoints as them or even worse are telling them these things and then they're choosing to ignore it or they are not fostering a work environment where people feel comfortable sharing these things with them it's it's just hard and like it's it's one of those things that like i hate seeing like specifically taylor swift fans and reese but there's been fans but taylor swift fans that's where more i see on like my for you page justifying is separating the art from the artist when you know you're only doing that because it's her you're not doing that for casey affleck you're

not doing it's you're separating her art from the artist because you like her art and that is just doing everybody a disservice and i just wish we didn't make celebrities again as a swifty as someone in the fandom i wish we didn't make these people so um untouchable and free from criticism because all you're doing is enabling and hindering them from like growing and learning and i just think that like that is their responsibility to do but just again justifying and rationalizing all of this kind of shit is just like it's so offensive for so many people but it's also like so fucking offensive for like that man's family and just like this shit that like you can't catch a break of like this woman is now she's blown up she had a new york like wasn't that enough that

she had a new york times best-selling fucking book and like her and her husband got away with like murdering someone and like that family never got to have justice or whatever semblance of justice they could have and now it's going to be made like now this is being made into a movie and it's just like it just feels like a circle jerk of white women and ignoring all of the actual problematic shit of it and it's just it's embarrassing and that's why there's like a fucking vast majority of us who voted for trump because like there's this we we hide behind feminism and like being like i have been oppressed as a woman and that only factors in in select instances and that's like the only time that we are not privileged is in a group of men but even

in that room we're only not privileged if we're the only women there where it's only white women and only white men like that's it but like any other room like you we have privilege and it's just i just hate this it just makes me like it just makes me upset you know yeah didn't they sell the company like a couple like last year maybe but she's still the head of it yeah and she's a very heavily involved like person and i just think that like people talk about like inclusivity and diversity as like not as a box you need to check but as like a hill you need to climb and as if it's like really hard and like that like it would be like I don't know when I think of anyone who has like a team and it's just like all people who look exactly like them like that's

also that's a conscious choice like your your life is only as like tunnel vision of people who look like you because that's what you do like it's not happening to you do what I mean like yeah that's what I was trying to see who but it seems like they have it so you can't search for who actually works there i'm looking on linkedin yeah and you can't see who actually works there and they don't have who works there on their website either it's just disappointing but yeah i really hope that this is like a a learning moment for them and i hope that it's addressed and yeah i will also say that i saw a lot of people who are like using the defense of being like why are we getting more mad at like Reese Witherspoon and like Taylor Swift than we are of like the actors who are in it

there is a huge difference between someone who is seeking out a book and opting it which is hard and really fucking expensive to do it's a very like competitive market and someone who is getting cast and getting a job on that like it just it is different and it's not necessarily that means that they are completely absolved of fault but you know if they're lucky enough and privileged enough that they have financially can turn down a role I think that's great to do and I do it all the time for auditions that are problematic like with a hundred percent but there are sometimes when yeah you you audition for things that you don't you don't necessarily align with because you need the money you need the money and but the people who are producing and doing all of this

stuff they are making so much more money than the actors in this you know it pisses me off and also just the discourse of everyone defending it pisses me off like you can love taylor swift you can love reese witherspoon and just be like this was now i really hope that this changes and i can't believe that fucking woman all right so we're recording this on march 29th two days after what has now been coined in quotations the slap like the failed tv show from a few years ago i was just saying i was like someone needs to pay to get that billboard back but they just do the photos and it's the entire world's like all of those people just standing there but it's just all will smith and chris robbins i would die and so i'm not picking either of them because this is

just a more nuanced conversation than that should be had especially since we vote on these things and i just don't just doesn't sit right for me with our majority white audience to be voting on this no we'd be blocking so many yeah but anyway so i'm gonna pick jed apatow who is someone who I don't particularly like most of his films because he punches down on women a lot and makes fun of his own wife a lot in his films or just women in general. But I respected the work that he did to get to where he is and how he usually works with the same people and has been responsible for helping start a lot of people's careers. So I've read several of his books and I've taken a writing class that he's had this is somewhere where like I said I don't like most of

his films but I respect him as a professional and he just he said problematic things before and he just continues to disappoint so he went off on a series of tweets after the slap and they've now been deleted but of course it's the internet and people are screenshotting because they knew it was going to get deleted so the first tweet he said was alert at amy schumer do not go to the vanity fair party will smith wants to talk to you about the monologue chris i think you should take him for all his king richard i mean hitch money so he's like saying that he didn't make any money off king richard saying to come after him for hitch money everyone needs to stop bringing venus is trained into the ship yes they do also like why is he i guess because amy schumer was

the white comedian that was there he didn't say he didn't at wanda sykes who's also a comedian i'll give virginia a pass from being included in that since she's not really comedian she's more of an actor and then his next tweet he could have killed him that's pure out of control rage and violence they've heard a million jokes about them in the last three decades they are not freshmen in the world of hollywood and comedy he lost his mind this is not the first time that chris rock has said something about jada he said things before he's talked bad about her for boycotting the oscars in the past when i mean they were kind of on the forefront of oscars so white So he's talked bad to her about her about that. Also, I just can't see myself defending a man that told Louis C.K. that it was OK for him to use the N-word and allowed him to use the N-word and called him the N-word.

also a man that made a documentary about black women and their hair and has profited from that also a slap i'm not saying that like dude i mean like will smith has trained to be a boxer when he was being muhammad ali so like he could have whipped the shit out of him if he wanted to but he slapped him against the face so like there is no way that he was going he was not going to kill him there is no yes he was wrong and i'm not saying that he should have slapped him but he if he wanted to punch him in the face he would have this is also a man who in his book that he wrote it's in the first chapter will smith's book he talks about how when he was growing up one of his biggest regrets was his his father was abusive and he never stood up to his dad when his dad

was abusing his mom and he talks about like one of his biggest regrets was not being there and standing up for his mom and yes people have been making millions of jokes about them for years a lot of uncalled for jokes and so he got tired of it and I'm not saying it's okay but he was tired of it and this again chris rock is someone who has been making a lot of these jokes about their families also chris rock has made a joke that sometimes people need to get their asses kicked so he said himself nobody is above that including me yes also so yes yes to all of that anyone who didn't watch it like i'm sorry you see as soon as matz and i saw that i was like is that real which was everyone's narrative was and then when we saw the extended one

Mats was like oh my god over this I go there's history in this yelling and their fate like there's something there is long time contention like this is a boiling point clearly and obviously and you can just tell by how they're talking that this is they're not saying like he's repeating the same words it's like an acting exercise where it's like what are your intentions behind that you know that there's years of shit behind all that so the hypotheticals have actually been killing me so you know like like the slap would have killed you but ready just a reminder that if will smith had slapped betty white for a joke she made however insensitive she easily could have fallen backward cracked her skull and died of a brain bleed same with bob saget obviously

violence is never okay and then i'm gonna read you my other the one that really fucking i was dying you would not be laughing if will smith slapped peppa pig and then chopped turned to tiny bits added three-fourths of a cup of minced onions a dash of paprika and just a sprinkle of Gouda then cooked her for breakfast on a warm Sunday morning in Delaware would you like it is just like oh I mean here's the thing I think that like a lot of people are having like very um this op-ed on uh Teen Vogue wrote about this so I'll we'll link it and I'll also read this but it's an op-ed Will Smith isn't your abusive daddy or ex-boyfriend and Chris Rock is not an abuse survivor claiming to be triggered by a single slap that there's a lot of people who are comparing

this like domestic violence and all of this kind of stuff that is just is not a situation like you have two fully grown adult men who got in a fight and got physical and my belief system my belief system is Jada were you embarrassed did that give you the ick are you happy are you good like that's literally all like truly all it is I'm like is that what you is that because here's the thing would are there instances where if Moss said that I would be like completely upset with him and like so icked and be like i hate you why would you do that yes are there instances where i would be like thank you so much like pull your pants down like gluck gluck yes like jada how do you feel like what is what was this but like just the fucking notion that people think it is like oh my god it

is so much more abhorrent to nobody is talking about how they're lying in the sand that they're drawing it down as violence not ableism and jokes about is not ableism like your your hard line is physical violence your hard line is not ableism and also verbal abuse and ableism there is no ranking of what abuse is worse but when you are doing that especially in a fucking pandemic where all we have done is tell disabled people like we don't give a shit about you this is like so absolutely fucked and you know that these people i mean it would be a much different tune if they were two white guys but also would it be a much different tune if if jada had lost her hair due to cancer no one would have had an issue with that but nobody thought this was a joke because

it wasn't a joke it was a dig right it was an ableist dig and it was intentionally for that nobody laughed nobody in that room fucking laughed and he knew there's nothing funny about that g.i. jane is such an old fucking move it's not good he's a better comedian than that which we all know so it's not a joke it's not a joke that didn't land it was an intentional dig that landed as he intended it to do and then what the fuck did you think was going to happen right if The idea that you think that you can say ableist shit and you're not going to get slapped, that's on you.

That's on you. That you think that you are so fucking comfortable to say spew, horrible, stupid fucking ableist shit and you are so comfortable in that room that you think nothing's going to happen to you. Tough fucking shit. Tough fucking shit. Like I truly, truly,

oh, it just makes me so fucking, fucking mad that people have this like, yeah like i said this line in the sand that like this is oh this is too far this is too far no no no no you don't get to make that call you don't get to make that call and this idea that like well if we're condoning violence here blah blah like we're condoning violence everywhere really really is this is giving me police brutality vibes right this is giving me that vibe because like and they've seen so many white people but white liberal people who like this is like oh my god this is this is and every single one is riddled with racism and riddled with ableism

like they're just two birds one stone and just like shut the fuck up if you have ableist and racist views in this you don't even realize that they are just literally sit down and be quiet like it's not the hot take that you think it is this isn't like empowering as like what you think it is at all all you're doing is having people who are disabled or are not white reading this shit being like oh cool okay so you can make jokes at my expense but the second that i retaliate you think that my reaction is not you don't think that that's worth it you think that no that's not worth it the jokes are fine take as much verbal abuse as you want take as many digs as you want and then you can't do anything about it also hot take i think it's great that comedians are now

afraid that the next time that they say something offensive someone's gonna walk on stage and slap them amazing as they should amazing because it's not funny you can be funny without offending someone without making fun of someone because of a medical condition there are other ways to be funny and like why would you there was no jada wasn't up for any awards why are you even acknowledging her gi jane's not even like that's not even like a relevant joke and let me read the next judd apatow tweet seems like will smith's plan to get comedians and the world to not make jokes about him is not going to pan out the williams family must be furious so you're just guessing speculating how people feel pure narcissism also gi jane was gorgeous what

exactly is insulting about being compared to a ripped stunning demi okay jada is ripped and stunning as well like there there shouldn't be a comparison but also judd where's the joke there you're not even saying it like it's a joke either like we all know that this isn't a joke and you're choosing to see it as a compliment also gi jing chose to buzz her i mean she had to because of it's a war movie but also that was a decision that she made jada has like patches of hair missing and so she shaved her head so that she wouldn't have clumps of hair missing and i hate this whole thing i'm like well maybe he didn't know maybe he didn't know no hollywood is small you know hollywood is small you know and again you saw you looked at their eyes and you

heard them during that slap they know each other they know each other it was a personal dig yeah it was personal and then here's his final tweet or there were more but this is the last one i'm gonna read I have more hair on my back than on my head and I can take a joke about it it's not the same fucking thing it's because he kept triple and double downing on all these things and now he's let out a half-half apology that like you don't actually mean this apology because you kept going on about what you were saying and this was after someone he was responding that tweet is actually a response to someone else that said I have hair loss issues and that is unhinged behavior also you can have alopecia as a side effect or as like a comorbidity with a ton of other things so

like this notion it's like well it's not deadly first of all anyone who suffers from alopecia or any medical condition disability in general it is your choice and your own case is always going to be different and how you view it will be different than other people who are literally experiencing the exact same thing but you don't get to like police who is more or less valuable whose disability is more or less valuable in your eyes. And Black women get policed about their hair all the time to the point where just a few weeks ago, a law was passed that you can no longer discriminate against women. It's called the Crown Act about their hair. And Chris Rock made a whole fucking movie about it. That's why it's a dig, because you as an audience member might not know

it's a dig because you don't know the history of this. If you're a white woman watching this, You don't know that history. You don't know that he produced that movie. You don't know that she had struggles with alopecia. You don't know that they definitely know each other. Now that you know all of this information, he knows all of that information. That's not a joke.

And stood on the fucking stage in front of millions of people who were watching across the world. That's how we got to see the extended clips because they weren't on a 10 second delay like that we are in the US. He did that on purpose after he's been making digs at them for years.

and this is the first time he's done it to their face. But the last thing I'll add to that, even though this is your thing, but now the Oscars, the Academy is rumored to have been, I don't know if they made an official statement, that people are calling for them to remove Will Smith's Oscar. And someone pointed out wonderfully saying, wow, Roman Polanski and Woody Allen still have so many Oscars.

Interesting. Yep. And Harvey Weinstein. Harvey Weinstein, yeah. Yeah. There was this one TikTok that I was like, I relate to it. It was this guy going, you know what? But I've learned in the last couple of days, echo chambers are not bad. I like my echo chamber and I don't want my echo chamber to ever touch your echo chamber. It's embarrassing. But that's it.

That's it. It was like 25 minutes long. I'm just, it just makes me so upset. Can't wait for the red table talk that will inevitably happen. yes okay that is it for this episode again if you want to go vote head on over to our instagram stories make sure you follow us there so you know when we post when the votes are all up and yeah go comment on the latest instagram post who you would like to nominate for your rachel of the week and let us know anything else you want to talk about in these episodes again always tag us in

things subscribe leave a review anything else no i'm good okay well that's it and uh we will circle back next week goodbye 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