Everything Is Content - Dogs vs Children - who is allowed in the pub?

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

This week on Everything Is Content - Ruchira, Beth and Oenone have been glued to Netflix watching Richard Gadd’s new drama-thriller Baby Reindeer. Meanwhile, Coachella fashion has become increasingly uninspired, Joe Lycett’s been planting fake news and this week’s debate on X has been about whether pubs should be allowed to be ‘child free’. Got something to say to us? Cool! Get involved with our Instagram @everythingiscontentpod - we’re also on TikTok under the same username! —DAZED: Why ‘girl’s girl’ feminism is bullshitSISTER WIVES DAZED: Coachella is having a fashion identity crisisTHE GUARDIAN: Joe Lycett discloses four fake stories he planted in UK media NEW STATESMAN: Joe Lycett’s self-serving fake news stuntJOE LYCETT: More, More, More - How Do You Lycett? How Do You Lycett?KYLE: Found My New Local NETFLIX: Baby ReindeerANATOMY OF A STALKER: Apple LinkANATOMY OF A STALKER: Spotify LinkDIGITAL SPY: Why Baby Reindeer's Teri was so important to the showTHE GUARDIAN: ‘I was severely stalked and severely abused’: Richard Gadd on the true story behind Baby Reindeer—Follow us on Instagram:@everythingiscontentpod @beth_mccoll @ruchira_sharma@oenone ---Everything Is Content is produced by Faye Lawrence for We Are GrapeExec Producer: James Norman-FyfeMusic: James RichardsonPhotography: Rebecca Need-Meenar Artwork: Joe Gardner  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

okay i think i'm gonna start this one thank you so much i know i'm sorry i got stuck stage fright i'm gonna do it guys i'm beth i'm richara and i'm anoni and this is everything is content this is the podcast where you join us to dive into the discourse every week and unwrap the stories that everyone is talking about there's nothing nothing off limits for us. If it's pop culture, we are all over it. Think of us as the scrunchie on the slick back bun of content. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at everythingiscontentpod so you can get even more from us. So girls, what have we been loving this week? So this week i loved an article in dazed by helima jabril which was titled girls girl feminism is bullshit open quotes the phrase

believed to uplift other women has encouraged some to police and riddle those who do not fit into their idea of what makes a good woman end quotes and this piece was kind of inspired by this tiktok video that went viral of a girl being interviewed by a guy on the train asking her like i think it was like what men like and everyone kind of piled onto her calling her pick me the piece is really good it just kind of deep dives into how we can sometimes weaponize these ideas of like what makes a good woman to actually just tear other women down so I would recommend that as a good little read I'm definitely going to read that I saw it online and it looked amazing so yeah thanks for reminding Beth what have you

been loving I have been loving a short film that you and I actually went to see this week called Sister Wives which is a short film written, directed and kind of created by Louisa Connolly Burnham. It stars her as well alongside Mia McKenna-Bruce, who was amazing in How to Have Sex, kind of the film of last year. Yeah, film of last year. And it's a short film about two sister wives in a relationship with one husband and kind of like a fundamentalist situation who fall for each other it was very beautifully shot I think it was amazingly performed I don't see a lot of short films to be quite honest so I don't know what you thought Richa but I was very pleasantly

surprised that I enjoyed it so much yeah you might have already said this but I can't believe it was half an hour and they also packed in some nuance with the characters you kind of understood their motivations for certain decisions and it also managed to get in humor and resolve to the story which was yeah kind of shocking that you're you know you're getting like two and a half hour films these days that are like really taking their time and you could get a full story in like half an hour agreed if i would like to watch it because as you know i have fomo now how do i get involved also sounds quite fun i'd quite like to have a husband with another wife who i then fall in love with the wife sounds like a fun plot yeah so i believe that it's now going to be shared at various film festivals and they're rallying support to make it a full feature film fun okay so can if

you want me there please can, can I come? Can. Ruchira, what have you been loving? I didn't think that I had many opinions on Coachella this year, but I read a really funny piece by Elliot Host for days called Coachella is Having a Fashion Identity Crisis. In it, he talks about how there's a divide between the two camps of fashion dresses of Coachella this year. You get the kind of influencers who are copying the old style, going in like, you know, insane outfits, glitter, sequins,

doing the full hog of like turning up as if it's like, they've spent days planning every single outfit. And then you have the new camp, which is like Hailey Bieber, Kylie Jenner, Emilia Gray, all the models, all the like hayley bieber kylie jenner amelia gray all the models all the like quote unquote cool people dressing like really laid back really casual kind of almost wanting to go undetected with their fashion which is you know a massive stark contrast to maybe like 10 years ago maybe five years ago i should say and the kind of fashion that they helped to usher in which was festival style dressing the tide is changing with what is cool and uncool at the moment.

It kind of made it seem like it might be considered gauche to go to a festival dressed like kind of insane and sparkly, which I don't know if I agree. I don't think I care that much, but it's an interesting point. Because Coachella, especially, I think the fashion had such a language. It was like Vanessa Hudgens in sort of like suede and fringe and it was different from british festivals i'd say in that like everyone at coachella there was very much consistency but this year like taylor swift and katie perry it was like what i used to wear when i was 16 and we were gonna go smoke behind the bike sheds in town do you know what i mean like yeah like band t-shirts which i'm wearing right now now, actually, so I shouldn't speak.

Yeah, it's a weird one, isn't it? It's interesting to see how times have changed. It feels like, I don't know, there's a new era with Coachella, I guess. I did also see a tweet that said, Coachella is just Urban Outfitters the musical. Oh! That is savage last week joe lysett returned with series two of his chat show late night lysett for anyone who

isn't aware of joe he's a stand-up comedian and tv host and artist and in recent years has become very well known for his consumer activism and his work drawing attention to various political and social issues via quite elaborate pranks. One example in 2022 he pledged 10 grand to charity if David Beckham agreed to step down as football ambassador for the Qatar World Cup. He was reportedly paid £10 million for the role. For a country voted one of the worst places in the world to be gay. When David Beckham didn't step down, Joe live streamed himself putting the money in a shredder, later revealing that it was part of the stunt. He'd actually donated it to an LGBTQ plus charity. Joe's latest stunt, which was also part promotion for his

show Late Night Lysette, saw Joe tease that he had planted fake news stories up and down the UK press. People, including us three on the pod, have been speculating about which stories these might have been. Did Alan Titchmarsh's, what's his name? Alan Titchmarsh's jeans get blurred for North Korean TV? Well, you had to watch the show for that revelation. Did you guys see what the fake stories were? There were four of them. This will be a live reveal for me because I didn't actually tune in.

So I don't even know what the fake stories were. They were quite silly stories. And as Joe said, he wanted to take up space with silly stories to kind of transplant hateful stories. So it was the erection of a life-size statue of H from Steps that was fake. And like a fake Banksy. And something about Birmingham having the longest penis size in the UK, which I'm sorry to the men of Birmingham, it's false. So they were quite silly ones I hadn't seen any of the stories that he'd faked so it was a bit for me it was a bit of a bummer yeah what about you Ruchira had you seen the the Willie story or the the H from Steps statue or the fake

Banksy all of these passed me by so yeah I guess I don't know the reveal kind of falls a bit flat when it comes to it being such a you know hyped stunt I think one thing that stayed with me is because there was so much speculation and because you had to watch the show it kind of tarred everything with this fake news brush and because you then had to watch the show unless you did watch the show and find out like everything kind of remained tarred like I went in before I checked I was like oh I don't actually know what was true and what which kind of feels anti to what he was trying to do so I had the same thought as you then any kind of slightly silly story I saw I saw I was like oh it's probably Joe it didn't it didn't have the right effect I don't think on me there was also the story about John Richardson and Lucy Beaumont who are two comedians who like sadly are getting

divorced and a lot of people were commenting about that being like this is definitely Joe There was also the story about John Richardson and Lucy Beaumont, who are two comedians who like sadly are getting divorced. And a lot of people were commenting about that being like, this is definitely Joe. And it wasn't. It was like a very real, obviously very painful thing in their lives. And I just thought, horrible timing. So it did stir things up a little bit. Yeah, stray shots for those guys. That's really unfortunate. Can you imagine your DMs and your like comment section and you just getting dragged into this whole situation very sus well did you guys watch his last special no fill me in so basically he organized over the course of four years like a gay pride event in where he's from

in birmingham and he got them to rename where he lives kings heath and birmingham to the to gaybor hood and created like a gabor hood foundation so it's this whole like long prank i took four and a half years no one knew it was him behind it i watched the special it was amazing i think i cried i maybe watched it like last year or the year before and that kind of went slightly under the radar because you had to buy this special to watch it and it was amazing because it was kind of like he'd really gone undercover to do the stunt it'd taken so long and it really paid off and it was amazing because it was kind of like he'd really gone undercover to do the stunt it'd taken so long and it really paid off and it was kind of beautiful for the gay community in

Birmingham and it was like it was just an amazing watch I think what was so amazing about that was you hadn't really seen that it was such a long a long shot for an amazing payoff and now it's like okay we get it you're just you're just being annoying now I feel like the reason a lot of his older pranks work so well is because there's such a clear bullseye and the bullseye is punching up to some kind of corporation, you know, some kind of social injustice, some kind of politician. I feel like with this, it's so unclear who the victim of this prank is. If anything, it almost feels like it's punching down on everyone who fell for the stories.

You know, as you know, many have said online, the news organizations that are like struggling to keep on top of the news cycle and with the influence of AI and like redundancies and cuts and media layoffs. At a time when fake news is so, it's such a dangerous kind of driver of like, you know, geopolitical instability, we're like hovering on the edge of war constantly and that's you know a tool for that it felt like it could have been this really well executed comment he could have spent more than i think it's like eight minutes on the show itself he talks about this and then it's done he really could have done something very clever and stuck the landing as you say ruchir it kind of feels like he is just laughing not like the big wigs of the media but the people who who do fall for these press releases and who do rely on like kind of PR spaff instead of like proper news stories they just don't have the time

they don't have the resources it just feels slightly ill thought out because as one of you guys said earlier the whole point of it from his point of view was i'm gonna i'm gonna flood the media with silly stories so that we're not getting i don't know these kind of rage bait stories that people get whether it's the media stoking transphobia or racism or whatever it might be and that's a valiant goal but as you said right now fake news is like one of the biggest issues we have media literacy is completely failing us especially when we're seeing all the stuff about like deep fakes and fake stories it's just it's if anything it's kind of undermined the work we're trying to do in terms of making people trust in the media and trust in stories and it's just kind of backfired I'm sure he had good intentions but the fact that no one

thought that this might be read in a bad way or could actually have a negative impact is interesting it's really difficult this because i really like joe leiser i'm a big fan of a lot of the things he does and i kind of reading interviews it seems very clear that this comes from a great place and actually his life would be easier and he could still promote his stuff if he didn't do this but i think this one has been a real swing and a miss and we should talk about Sarah Manavis's piece in the new statesman which kind of it makes a great case and it's really compelling case for why this is kind of an empty PR stunt so she writes this is a faux educational self-righteous prank that shouts about its own importance without saying anything at all and that's just kind of one

yeah just really searing line in the piece um she kind of as we're saying she's there's nothing educational in it it doesn't kind of look at how fake news proliferates it just looks kind of like haha now look at me she says in the piece that he doesn't offer any solutions he just kind of points adds to the misinformation that's you know rampant already and then it's kind of like a job well done there's like no even like moving forward from it which might have salvaged the situation if that had been a part of it yeah this kind of just said fake news is real and anyone with like a facebook account and a grandma we know fake news is real like everyone is well aware i think what

we need now especially from someone who like is positioning themselves as activist we need a little bit more and it maybe would have been good for them to consult like maybe the people that have been fooled or like journalists in that role I don't know if you want to watch Late Night Lysa is on channel 4 at 10 p.m on Friday nights for the next few weeks okay girlies quick fire round babies or dogs baby dogs poo cheese what did you say blue cheese i said poo cheese i was like that was not an option i would love some blue cheese a post has gone viral on x this week because a user called kyle posted found my new local with a picture of him that pointed to sign outside a pub that reads dog friendly child free i think this is one of the most beige posts anyone's ever done on the history of the internet but hell no the world has responded with um with vigor the comment section of the tweets been wild and it's had over 60 million views at the time of the recording and everyone

seems to have an opinion on this up top girls what are your thoughts oh my god i didn't think i felt so above this i did not think i would get sucked into this but I am in and I'm getting sucked um I actually thought I had I thought I had no opinions on this but actually I sense that I do Ruchira are you in yeah I'm in I'm up for talking about it I feel like I am not emotionally invested so I feel like I can argue either way depending on where the wind strikes so that's that's my vibe. We asked you guys on Instagram if you had any thoughts or feelings. And someone said, it's giving live, laugh, love, but the alternative millennial version

from the anti-baby pick me crowd. Someone else on the same vein has said, hate this. People are so set on being child free that they're actively mean. Many seem to forget that they were once kids. Someone else said, yes, love dogs, hate screaming screaming kids dogs are more well behaved in my opinion uh someone else said i want to get that sign for my house haha now i personally think that it's okay for pubs to be child free because in my mind the design of a pub is to get drunk best nodding that's what i do there anyway i feel like you have child-friendly pubs,

like the ones that are a bit gastro, you know, on a Sunday, there's going to be little whippersnappers running around. Often I won't go to those if I'm in a rosé drinking, baby Guinness shotting frame of mind. If I'm in a sticky toffee pudding and custard frame of mind.

Best mind. That is a good frame of mind to be in you'll go there well that's a really good point though because this is one pub it is not like a new law sweeping the land um there are and will always be child-friendly family-friendly pubs and there will always be dog friend there will always be every variation dogs and kids kids and dogs with that with adults just kids just dogs that everything is catered for so I did when I saw the picture I thought well surely you just go somewhere else yeah we're not quite short of pubs but also I think what's so funny that people have

got so up in arms about it is there's been a lot of people basically saying that oh my god people who don't want children you're so selfish blah blah blah and I completely understand that babies and children need to be in public spaces I'm fine with babies on planes on trains they've got to get from a to b as much as we do they've got jobs they've got a social life and they need public transport what they don't necessarily need I don't think is a cold glass of stout well that's where I'm going to argue against you reach here is raised on a cold glass of stout well that's where i'm going to argue against you richa is raised on a cold glass of stout exactly it's kind of unspoken right there are pubs that you know are child-friendly and pubs that aren't i just why do you think people are so up in arms about this people really are people are taking it very personally i think for the reason and quite

rightly parents especially mothers of young babies the world is can be a very hostile place um ask any like breastfeeding mom maybe it's different now but someone will be an arsehole to you about it the world is kind of not set up to be child friendly or mother friendly so i i think there was a sensitivity a nerve was touched and i do get that i just take umbrage with the fact that it was this picture that sparked the debate like poor guy in this picture thinking he's just gonna post a cute selfie oh my god Kyle bless his soul so I get it I get it yeah I agree I'm I'm surprised this really angered people to this degree I feel like the issue is not this singular pub for I don't know if maybe I've got this wrong but I feel like people on either side of the debate are like so militant about this so what like one side is

like children should be allowed everywhere or people shouldn't shame us for having children anywhere which I can understand and I think the other side is we should have a right to be in spaces without children and we shouldn't be shamed for wanting those spaces that are child free so I feel like those two things are like rubbing each other up the wrong way at the exact same time. And I feel like I get both sides. I agree. I think what's happened, and I do feel very bad for Kyle. Funny that he hasn't taken it down.

It's got 14,000 quotes. Could you cope with that? Oh my God, I'm dead. I'd be up all night just reading them. But yeah, I think it's because people have taken it to mean whatever they want it to mean. So some people have been like, yeah, I hate children. And then everyone's like you are a fascist to take it and make it really serious it is a very vulnerable group of people and like

i didn't think of it like that and i the worst thing in the world to me is to align with the kind of people that call kids crotch goblins what what is a crotch goblin it's a very particular subset of like child-free individuals who use the word crotch goblin and it's just people who hate kids and make it into their personality and they aren't some of the worst people out there and so i was forced by dint of not wanting to be aligned with them to think of the other side which seems to have been also this is a i'm going to change tact immediately why are they kind of pitting children and dogs babies and dogs against each other neither of those two groups wants to be in this fight. Rightly so.

How unfair. Straight shots. They're quite similar though, aren't they? Because like they do make similar like smells and noises and messes. As a dog owner, I do think it makes more sense to not allow dogs because people could have allergies or have fears of dogs and like a baby. It's like if you've had a baby, you can't leave at home. This is one of the reasons why I'm not sure if I want a baby because when i go out i can just leave astrid my little trower

at home in her crate if i had a baby i can't put that in a cage and then go to the park yeah you can't do that yeah so people feel judged by this don't they yeah i feel like people feel like victimized on either side of it because it's like i feel like they think their lifestyle is coming under attack by the virtue of this tweet and in a way i get it because it's like, I feel like they think their lifestyle is coming under attack by the virtue of this tweet. And in a way I get it because it's like, this whole issue is so big. As you said, that like, I don't know, when you see parents with a crying kid on a plane, like I've started to literally feel the energy change with like the glares and I start to feel really bad for the family. And like, I don't know, I get both sides of it. I just feel like people need to not think of this as like a gunshot to their heart and their lifestyle because it's it's just Kyle sat outside a pub

it's just Kyle I think it probably points to definitely the pub thing is like it's just such a funny medium for us to be having this argument but I think there is this hostility like you said towards mothers towards community which we've spoken about like countless times just that we don't have that village raising a child thing anymore and so I think this just reinforces probably the loneliness and the individualistic society that we live in but again it's not Kyle's fault no god bless him yeah and maybe we do maybe like it's a good signal that we can all think a little bit more about like mothers and public places how accessible things are um and also about you know the children i think we it's just not a very very safe world for children and i i don't know anyone that would

argue against like the protection of children and the considering of children a little bit more because they really just can't you know they don't have much power or agency or like money they kind of you know i'm sure they didn't ask to go to the pub they didn't go god I've really got to go down like the old eagle like they're there because their parents brought them there but it's also so cultural because I remember being in um Italy last summer and we'd be like out for dinner late at night and there'd just be kids everywhere but they just like Italian kids are really chill they just sort of like hang out they're like talking to each other I think you know Brits are like larglouts like screaming by the kids they're like running around having tantrums and you go to europe and all the children are there sort of like smoking pipes and playing cards oh my god they're so chic the kids of italy

so chic that is a really good point actually what are french children like i haven't seen many i must say i don't know where they're keeping them they're all at boarding school i've honestly seen like two not a good sample size did you go to pubs as children? I was in the pub, not often, but we definitely went there. And we were running around. Yeah, we used to go to the pub, especially like with my grandparents, like the Irish pubs. But maybe it wasn't that late.

I think that's the difference. I understand like pubs being like you can have kids up until 6pm or something. And then get out of here. Get them out of here. No, I don't really remember that happening for me. You were too drunk. Yeah, that's obviously what it was. I don't recall the memories, but I know it happened.

No, I don't. Yeah, I don't know. I do feel like there is, with this whole argument, I feel like there is something slightly just like off key about some of the response people have to I don't know I feel like there is a big anti-kid vibe around the other side of it too I don't feel like that side comes off especially well some bits of it especially when they're like annoyed that they're having to like share their space there is something about that that I find quite quite bad taste do you know

what I mean it reminds me of um Samantha in quite quite bad taste do you know what I mean it reminds me of um Samantha in Sex and the City do you remember she has that whole like tizzy because she's in a restaurant and then there's a kid next to her and I think the vibe of that is like oh Samantha's being a bit of a bitch isn't she like I think that's what the show was trying to do I always think like because the one thing I have to say is I think people are really mean when they're mean about children on planes because I think like if at some point you have a baby or if you were a baby like it's a long time put your noise cancelling headphones on also like my favorite game on a bus or plane or train is to try and catch the eye of like a tantruming child and make them smile and it does work and it's like fun so

I think like in those environments I do think people I'm like grow up you can't not like kids but I think the reason this is just so funny is because it's about a pub, which inherently like, you can just not go to that pub. There are so many pubs where you can have kids. One thing that is built into the country and the identity of everyone in this country, regardless of creed, gender, age, is their right to be at the pub. So true. I will defend that till my dying day and i did read in my research for this i think it's like 29 pubs a week closed in the uk so whatever whichever pub it is kids babies dogs we've got to get to them um on the subject of dogs though i think the tide is turning now on dogs in in pubs and public places i think we were quite chilled about it after covid

and now there seems to be a sentiment of like actually your dog does not need to come to the bar the XL bully thing is demonized dogs where I live when I'm in London is very dog friendly like the whole high street now where I live you can take a dog anywhere so I have got quite shocked when she can't come in Paris is dog dogs are allowed everywhere in Paris and I mean everywhere the only places they're not allowed is the parks. Wait, what? Literally every park has a dog, no dog sign.

There's like five parks in Paris where you can take a dog, but you can take them to the supermarket. Every single restaurant is dog friendly. Like even the nicest restaurant you've ever been to, like everywhere is dog friendly apart from the parks. It's hilarious. Oh my God.

So French. I have one request. Please, if you have a a dog please send us a picture it will make my entire life in the pub or not bath and mature both have cats and sorry they are clearly the the community that have been fully left out a cat in a pub is always a good thing i mean i can't imagine like a pub cat is one of the most sacred things of all time but you bringing your cat I mean like putting it on a lead no no no no oh my god cat and dog owners are so funny because cat owners you're like no way I'm like if I can bring Astrid anywhere with me I'm like she can come to the club Astrid want to go though whereas

cats in general they don't want to go anywhere you want them to go they want to go if you go to the pub they'd leave the pub without telling you a french exit oh totally they would pretend not to know my i've seen my parents cats i used to see them walking up down the street and they would pretend they'd be with their little friends and they would honestly turn the other way whereas a dog will come bounding up even if you haven't seen it in 45 years love dogs love cats different temperaments exactly same okay cat friendly pubs petition open now on, what's it called? Change.org. This next section contains references to sexual assault. This week, the comedian Richard Gad's new drama thriller series, Baby Reindeer, has been sitting

at number one on the Netflix charts in the UK and US. The series also achieved a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes, which I feel like is pretty rare for a show in our lifetime. Baby Reindeer began life as a one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe, where the Scottish comedian explored his real-life experiences of being stalked. Now in seven parts on Netflix, Gad plays a fictionalised version of himself, Donnie Dunn. The story follows a failing comedian who develops a complicated relationship with a woman he meets in a bar where he works. She's initially friendly, but then it's revealed that she is stalking him, both in real life and online. The series explores themes of mental illness, culpability and the role that the police play in handling stalking cases.

I know you both have watched the show. What did you think about it? I loved it. I gobbled it down and was like badgering everyone else to watch. I sort of acted like I was the first person that had ever seen it and I was like guys you've got to watch this. Obviously everyone else had as well. You were the first person that had ever seen it and I was like guys you've got to watch this obviously everyone else had as well you were the first person you sent it to me before it got onto my radar and then I hadn't got around to watching it and I think it's one of the best things I've watched I watched all seven episodes in a go last night I mean actually I did the same are you guys not traumatized oh my god yeah obviously like it really hurt my feelings and like my room my sleep I had to I was compelled same i i needed resolution and also i wasn't watching on my own

you said you'd watched on your own i think you definitely need a uh companion because i i was putting a blanket over my head like quite a few times oh my god i was yeah i was like trembling i've only got to episode three so don't worry for anyone listening we will keep this spoiler free because i don't i don't have any spoilers to give you. But I had watched it alone, as you were saying, and I was like shaking watching it. I was so scared. Ruchira, considering that you have done,

like you know a lot about stalking. I'll let you explain. Like, do you think that this was a good portrayal? Do you think it was quite accurate? Sorry if that makes you sound like a stalker. Like, I don't know how to say it that isn't suggestive um I can confirm I I'm not a stalker but I have done a podcast that was commissioned by A&E network called anatomy for stalker which in it basically we kind of break down the motivations the reasoning the psychology behind

stalking and why honestly rates are going up quite considerably and they have been going up especially since Covid. Having recently just finished that actually having like had that come out this year in January this was such an interesting one because we really took a focus in that of women who were stalked by men so this already flipped the narrative that I'd I guess gotten quite familiar with which still is a massive issue more more than men women are stalked by men and often that is tied to domestic violence but this kind of storyline was a complete opposite to the the story that we explored the thing I will say is the thing that was definitely a consistent was just the ways

the stalker in this show starts small starts with love bombing starts with flattery of his comedy career and you know really flattering him by laughing at all his jokes and the way that she just kind of engulfs his life and before you know it even within the three episodes I've watched she almost possesseses him. She's like swallowed him completely. And that is completely, you know, the stories that we were hearing from victims is the main consistency before you know it, somebody almost owns you and your life. And it feels like there are no exits from it. It's really interesting because I always wondered what is the MO or how is an MO different like male stalkers, femaleers and i guess that is interesting but i suppose when the end point is the same like life totally taken over every part

infiltrated sort of life ruined you know it kind of doesn't matter i think what's so harrowing about watching this is obviously it opens with this is a true story and then so like probably everyone else i went on to google how much of it is true and pretty much I think Richard says a lot of the facts about who the stalker is have been changed but the emotional truth that the baseline of it is is basically what happened and I think what's so difficult about it is because stalking is such like you said it's so much about mind games and and control so it's really difficult to define and really difficult to escape because it's not like clear cut it's not like someone's come into a bar and they've stabbed me it's like oh you've committed a crime it's like this very small series of repeated emotional terrorism committed against you and I think

seeing that depicted in a way that I've never really seen it depicted was incredible and having a guy as the main protagonist and it be so emotionally vulnerable and shockingly so I'd say as well was incredible one thing that stuck out to me which I think is consistent with a lot of people who experience stalking but isn't necessarily you know like a core part of it for everyone is the way right at the beginning she she plays on him feeling sorry for her and like really weaponizes that oh you're not going to leave me on my own here or like I don't know that kind of like emotional manipulation and blackmail of like really really utilizing somebody feeling sorry for you and kind of taking a mile from that I guess it is it's using like the normal parts of someone's life like I read that in reality she sent him like

over 40,000 emails like what's one email what's two okay what's 30 like emails just that kind of it's woven into every part of the day and then by the time it's that mountain of things it's completely like corrupted one part of normal life same with text messages same with voicemails same with like the digital spaces like even before she was following him home and like sending him gifts there's that infiltration and it's so easy to reply to one email and think but you know what could go wrong and it's just that single action it sparks the fuse I found that so just worrying I like I I've never been stalked or cyberstalked but I was sort of peripheral to a cyberstalking case, which got some coverage at the end.

I think Vice did long reads about it. And I just watched like friends of mine, people I follow on the internet be like hounded by one man and like tens of thousands of emails. You think, how do these people have the time? Like for them, it is a fixation because every moment of the day you have to be doing it. I'm just blown away by like the scale of it. the gendered aspect of it I found really interesting so one thing that I

have heard from women is that you know people won't take them seriously they'll start blaming them for you know the clothes they're wearing all that kind of stuff for why they're stalked which is abhorrent quite frankly but with this it was really interesting to see the people he worked with at the bar making light of it from the beginning. And I think there is a unique approach when it is men who are stalked, which is probably people just thinking, oh, but you're like physically bigger than a woman or, you know, whatever. Like, what's she going to do to you? Like, she can't do anything physical to you. But as the show highlights highlights that is not true what was so interesting was his level of empathy towards her was because of that inbuilt belief

that women can't harm men and that played a role in how it escalated so much because he is quite vulnerable and honest about how much he i hope this doesn't sound like i'm victim blaming him but he does interact with her a lot and he even talks about the ways that he kind of i don't know how to speak it's almost like that this it's it's so specific to what happened here the gender um kind of switch it makes it kind of all happen in a weird way i completely understand what you're saying you're not victim blaming at all it's kind of just dissecting the ways that this this got so far and it's like all of our inbuilt biases, I guess. And yeah, there is just a bias that women can't hurt men, which we know to not be true. There's also the kind of perfect

victim or the ideal victim myth, which is mostly something that we talk about in regards to women when they're assaulted and we kind of go, well, what did you do wrong? He says that he did things wrong and he made the situation worse. And that never ever equals oh okay you deserved it but it's a really nuanced thing where you know your behavior can exacerbate a situation i think in the in the show he sort of is aware that there's an obsession building and he goes well i you know i like that obviously i don't know where it's going to go but you like the attention you like this the character of Donnie and this whether you've seen three episodes of the whole thing like that is a very imperfect person that is a person who is doing wrong by the people in his life is kind of you know has had wrong done to him and I think

it's brilliant in the way that it portrays like you can be a victim without being faultless let's talk about him being a flawed character because i really want to talk about um terry the woman that he's dating who's a trans woman and the fact that donnie has a lot of prejudice that kind of comes out throughout the show and he treats her appallingly he just is terrified of the people around him kind of seeing what's going on with them and just his fear of all of these, I don't know, these insecurities that he's dating a trans woman. I think the fact that the show goes there is uncomfortable. But I think in being so honest, is amazing because it's willing to go there. It's willing to have that conversation about

what men might feel. I think this was like a lot of the power of the show. Everything was in the gray. There was no right or wrong. And even in the way that Martha, the stalker is portrayed, is like she's also never seen as the sole perpetrator. Very much it's kind of like she's suffering with some sort of mental illness.

There's real grace when it comes to her character. And then actually it's quite harsh, the light that Donnie's portrayed in and you see all of his flaws to a level which I found quite excruciatingly vulnerable with the issue of kind of like the his internalized transphobia people were talking about it online and they were like feel like this is cruel I feel like maybe they've kind of used her as a means to um I don't know it feels denigrating to her but actually I think that it's more useful because it's like that obviously does happen people have these prejudices people have these fears which are wrong but watching them played out on on a screen like that might help other people who do have these sort of like

internalized phobias and ideas to be like shit why am i why do i think like this why am i behaving like this i actually thought it was incredible but it was supremely uncomfortable i was cringing in like a um way quite a lot of the show i think most people have said similar that like loved the show even if they loved it it was so hard to watch and a big part was the way he treats other people the way he's treated i really think terry is a great character i think she's very fully formed i think she's very interesting i know that they worked with an lgbtq plus consultant just to make sure that they weren't accidentally or kind of by

their own sort of um prejudice like straying into territory that was exploitative or like made her not a character, but like a plot driver. And I think they really achieved that. And you just come away thinking, this is a man who via his own internalised homophobia has made his life worse and kind of lost himself love. And I think that's what I came away thinking.

Like what a shame. And like, it's an inbuilt lesson. Like this is the outcome of not addressing those within yourself. You lose light in your life and you lose good things. Rather than, you know, that kind of sinking feeling when you know that something's going to be used as like a plot device. It's like when, you know, queer characters are always given tragic endings or things like that it's so tired this felt refreshing yes which maybe talks about like the state of our media that we have so few fully realized trans characters

that has to change but i think this was an example and the right direction i agree and i also felt that this is more powerful than just pretending that people don't have inbuilt biases and don't exhibit transphobia because as soon as that happens and he loses Terry he learns and I think it does become quite a teachable thing for viewers who maybe I don't know might watch it and just realize that maybe they do exhibit some of these things and there is a way to move forward it's not demonized it's not shamed it's a learning lesson and it just shows that yeah as you said he lost he lost happiness as a result of being transphobic towards terry i know rita has only seen up to episode three but episode four

onwards i say it really starts to amp up a lot in terms of it's quite triggering there's a lot of scenes of substance abuse and sexual abuse and you see Donnie as a male victim of sexual violence and abuse which is again something which is not explored as much I'd say in in TV similar to how I May Destroy You which was you know that amazing Michaela Cole a BBC drama which I think came out in 2020 and has stayed with me since looks at the nuances of of sexual assault and kind of turns on its head the idea the very antiquated idea that assault looks you know like a person is assaulted they know they've been assaulted they heal from the assault it's all very linear this paints a accurate picture of, you know, how in fact often you don't know what's

happened or you can't reckon with it. You might stay in touch with your abuser or the person that's committed, you know, violence towards you. And just as he kind of seems to encourage his stalker and people go, why is he doing that odd behavior there are scenes when you you might go why is this character not cutting off this person when they've so clearly done something unspeakable and the reality is that's just not how it works and i think it's so important to see that on screen and i it's that and i i think i may destroy you come to my mind i've seen people comparing this to i may destroy you and fleabag and i have to say i completely agree i think it's that and I think I May Destroy You come to my mind. I've seen people comparing this to I May Destroy You and Fleabag and I have to say I completely agree. I think it's one of those shows that it's just extraordinary. I completely agree. For anyone who hasn't watched yet the entire

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