Might Delete Later - Ep 12: Marie Le Conte

Episode Date: September 3, 2020

This week Gina and Stevie revisit the lost world of Tumblr with political journalist Marie Le Conte. They discuss what it's like to be in the eye of a twitter storm and the power of deleting tweets.���🏼Remember you can find all posts discussed on Instagram @mightdeletelaterpod and we're on twitter too @mightdeletepod.Follow Marie Le Conte on Twitter: @ & Instagram @youngvulgarianCheck out her Tumblr here.Buy Marie's book Haven't You Heard?: Gossip, Politics and Power here.Follow Gina on Instagram @ginamartin and Twitter @ginamartinukFollowing Stevie on Instagram @5tevieM and Twitter @5tevieMWant to help us make more episodes? Support Might Delete Later at https://supporter.acast.com/mightdeletelaterHosted by Gina Martin and Stevie Martin.Photo by Joe Magowan.Artwork by Zoe Harrison.Recorded and edited by Naomi ParnellProduced by Plosive Productions.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/mightdeletelater. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you love Mike Delete later? I bloody hope you do. You can support our show by using the new ACAS supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give and there is no regular commitment. Just smash that link in the show description and support us now so we can keep making this podcast. Thank you. ...who feels social media is the bad guy in the movie of life that you really want to see. And me, Gina Martin, who's Stevie's little sister and who feels it's actually the protagonist

and the script just hasn't been written right. Our guest today is a French, Moroccan political journalist who used to be the Evening Sanders political diarist and BuzzFeed's media political correspondent before she went freelance and then just worked for literally everyone from like Al Jazeera to The Mirror to just any newspaper you've ever heard of she's written for it. She's written a lot of words. She's also written the book, haven't you heard, Gossip's Politics and Power, which is all about the importance of gossip and rumours in politics and how that's central to it. And it makes politics really accessible and funny for people and I've just bought it. It's a lovely episode. We talk about, oh my God, we talk about Tumblr for the first time.

Which we've completely forgotten about. She's probably the person who's been at the other end of one of the biggest Twitter pylons and when Twitter turns against you that I've ever really seen. And she talks about that as well and is very, very eloquent and very balanced. Also, like, really liked how we chatted about deleting tweets because deleting tweets is often seen as kind of a sin in the social media world, even though this entire podcast called might delete later. but it wasn't deleting tweets as in when you've tweeted them it was going back to your history and backlog and wondering is it really great for me to have these 18 year old tweets on here when I'm a journalist so I found that

the way she is empowered and just does what she wants with their own platform quite cool. Yeah it's a really cool episode so before we get to on a guest what is in your social media draft this week Steve Lloyd Martoin? I hate TikTok I'm really sorry I've tried to like it I like it or academically so I'm like oh fun dancing I've only been on it like properly twice, but on it and then I've been like, oh, seven hours has gone by and I don't need that in my life. I don't need something else. You don't need another scroll hole. No, that's true. Exactly. Another platform of guilt. That is not needed in your life. TikTok is not your,

your priority and I don't want it to be. What's in your job? I went viral on TikTok. Wow, fuck off. I'm sorry. I was posting Vip and P and stuff and then I did that kind of story on Instagram about dressing how you want to dress, which we've already talked about, in an environment that wants you to assimilate into like a male archetype of power. I thought, you know what, I'll speak really, because I talk very, very fast, and I've been told my whole life to slow down and never have. And I thought, yeah, I'll just go real fast and do this mad little, hey, you know what? And just do the whole conversation I'm doing Instagram, but just try and do it in like 15

seconds. And I just did that on TikTok, just to see. And it just went viral and it's got like, I know, two, something, half a million views and some shit. And I realized that, hey, look, this is actually probably a good platform because there's a lot of young people on here that aren't having these conversations. And like when you, you know, I'm not Gen Z and I'm engaging in Instagram, Twitter, which they're probably like, see as like LinkedIn now. So I'm like, why don't I just do these 50 seconds really fast? Like, hey, you ever thought about blah blah blah. And I'm just educating on the upskin. That's all I'm doing. But there's loads of kids on there. So hopefully that'll be good for educating some young people on their rights around their body. Well done. Thank you. Firstly, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Marie. Thanks having me.

You are very much an interesting social media person that I have thought I wanted to get on for quite a while. We normally start by deciding things that we would like to delete in the week. I feel just for like to set the bar, I'll go first because mine's incredible. low and lame. I would like to delete foundations that don't have SPF in them. Because then you have to put sun cream on underneath, which is like a thing that I like to, I like to wear SPF. And my foundation got cancelled.

No, not cancelled, discontinued. So, my favourite. It got cancelled. It was, it was proper foundation. Yeah. That was my one. I've used it for years. Now to find a new skin.

That's hard. And it doesn't, the one I found is Ex-Im doesn't have SPF in it. See, this is like a thing that keeps coming up with you is that remember when we had that conversation about wearing SPF and I said, yeah, you have to put it on every day even if it's not sunny. And you were like, really quietly, you were like, what? Yes. And this was like two years ago. Yes. She was like, oh, so I haven't even been doing that right.

And you got really upset about it. I was really upset. It was like, well, no one told me that. So I'd like to delete all foundations about SPF. And so then the only options help you protect your face against the same. Skin. What's the son? That's a good one.

I'm deleting ethical deodorants because Oh. The In Jordy ha... Well, okay, maybe not all ethical deodents, but maybe the ethical deodents that are rubbish, which is most of them

because me and Jordy, my partner have been trying to find one. And we've bought like, I don't know, probably spent like 50 pounds on like over a period of months. And I just ended up with like lots of like... BEO. B.O.

Of like, yeah, lots of BEO. Lots of bars of just like, nice smelling. and then you put it on your armpits and it's like, well, I've just got waxy armpits that smell like kephylime leaves or whatever, but only for about four minutes and then I just smell like gross again and they just don't work. I just don't believe in them. I don't believe in them. I don't think the technology's there, yeah, and I want a formula that blocks my armpits from sweating. Yes, good. Marie, what would you like to delete? And is it beauty related? I think now you've

inspired me because actually you reminded me of one of my biggest pet peeves. The Neno, which is okay, right? Why do beauty brands just cancel that, like, you know, discontinue? their products all the time and I feel like such an old lady complaining about this. But I swear that, you know, I'll find like an eye wrap a pencil and be like, yes, it suits me. It works. Great. And then go back to buy it again, like four months later. And it stopped.

And it's all very confusing and there's new ones. And I hate that. So there you go. So I think, you know, I'm actually building up on your foundation thing. I think just stop. You know, products are good. There's no need for new products all the time. Life is complicated.

I'm very tired. I don't always go like, you know, what, yeah. Like with mascara. they had like, they went through that period of time. I don't know if they still have it now, where there's like one side is white and the other side is black. And you put the white on furze and you put the black. It was like a very French thing that apparently everyone was doing.

Not French. That is not French. On behalf of France. Nationally, I would like to say that one is not on us. Many things are on us. Good. Good to know. Actually, you just brought up something. There's quite, is there a difference between French Twitter and UK Twitter?

Because obviously I wouldn't know, because I don't speak it, but you are multilingual. Oh, that's a good question. I'm not sure I really follow enough people on French Twitter to really know that, because I only kind of follow, like, a few French political journalists and journalists in general and, like, my actual friends, but that's it. So I'm not sure. I'd say there's definitely a lot less chatting about class, I would say, that that is not

a thing that's one-stars, which is so nice. It's so nice, you know, to just be able to tweet and not have someone say, well, you know, sounds like someone's very middle class. And it's like, no, I don't, you know, I was tweeting about Shpoove, please don't. French media Twitter, above all, enjoys talking about French media Twitter. And that's nice, because, you know,

that's not Britain, you know, journalists everywhere, just really enjoy talking about each other and about themselves and about genderism. But yeah, but from that, yeah, it's quite similar, I think. The class thing is quite interesting, because that is something that you cannot move on Twitter for that. Like I'm to the extent where often I get worried that I've got, I think I'm the wrong one. And I have to, I've looked it up and like.

I've done the online test of like, what class are you? Because I'm like, I'm a foreigner. I'm not actually sure. Like I thought it's quite straightforward. It turns out there's so many different markers. Yeah, no, I agree. Like, I've been like, am I, yeah, am I lying? Am I very confusing?

But also, again, you never know what you're going to say. And then it's just going to be like, it's now about class. That's surprise. Yeah, I hate that. That is the baseline, isn't it? Class is the baseline. So it seems to always come back to that almost. Yeah, I find it interesting when someone does very well because of like a creative pursuit or something. And like, I don't know, it's a great TV show or great. And you just know that immediately, and I do it sometimes. The first thing that most people are doing it like on the Wikipedia page, like, how rich are their parents?

How we be like, oh, wow, that's why it's so good. Which obviously there's a big classified of the arts. But it is funny how much it like immediately happens. like, okay, so we're supposed to cancel that person because they were born to a rich family. It used to be, it used to be like in the 90s and naughtys. It was like, I remember everyone was like with the celebrity or someone in the public eye. It was like how much they'd their way, which was like the most Googled thing, which was really problematic and not cool. But now it seems to be like, where did they go to school? Just for people who obviously know you now and not all the work you've done and you've written for almost every platform,

pretty much and you've published a really successful book as well. So how did you get into journalism and where were you before and tell us a bit about how you got into the job you're into in now and why you're so well known? Oh, I think I'm going to do a slightly longer story, but I think it's sort of relevant to the theme of this podcast, I guess, given that it's about the internet and everything. But so when I was 15, so I really loved like indie music and stuff like that, you know, so like boys and bands with guitars and so on. And I really wanted to launch, because my whole thing was that, obviously, Britain had, you know, the NME, obviously, and had lots and lots of different blogs, but France didn't really have any,

so it had clearly that a demand, like, those bands were quite successful in France, but didn't really have media catering to them. And so with the, you know, sort of typical bravado of a 15-year-old, that was at, well, you know, and here I come. So I will launch a website, which I, deeply embarrassingly called MDMA, despite obviously never having done MDMA because I was fucking 15. But yeah, but I thought it was cool. I mean, obviously, terrible as well because French people didn't know what that meant or how to pronounce it.

So I just have to deal with people who are like, Mde Maisagne, which is mortifying. But, yeah, so I did that. And actually, in a sort of not to brag, but I think, basically, my bet was the right one and that the website ended up being quite successful. And so by the time I was 17, that we had a team, so, like, between France and Belgium and Switzerland and covered lots of gigs and lots of, like, different things, interviewed lots of bands, et cetera. So I kind of did that.

Actually, MD Amazing for a short amount of time. Had a Wikipedia page not created by us. And which was deleted after a month. Amazing hallmark. Yeah. Yourself, that's great. It was. However, it was deleted after like three weeks for being not relevant.

So, you know, swings and roundabouts. But, yeah, so I kind of did that. And that kind of, I guess, got me into journalism. And also, obviously, helped me practice my English because I interviewed quite a lot of bands and that's basically, a better way to learn English than just learning it at school. And yeah, so I can have ended up in Britain and then studied journalism

because that was kind of like my thing. And I was going to know, I actually joined Twitter in 2010, 2011, during the student protest. Yeah, because, is it 20? Oh, yeah, God, you've got the data. Reject, yeah. But yeah, in 2011, during the student protest because obviously, you know,

these were the first sort of like proper, like, big social media. and like if you're part of the movement, you know, it was kind of the dumb thing to have a Twitter account and you saw like live tweet the protests you went on and where the police was, etc. So kind of yeah, creating an account for that. But then actually really enjoyed it because I'd always enjoy social media anyway. And then, yeah, so graduating 2013 and then worked at a bunch of places, including the mirror and the telegraph, etc. Then ended up at the evening standard diary in 2015, which is a sort of like gossipy column. and then not kind of doing politics there.

So I became the political diarist at the evening standard, did that for a while, had a lot of fun. Then was the bus feed politics and media correspondent for a bit. That was less fun. And so I left that just over three years ago and when freelance are now write features about politics as a freelancer and I do, I don't know, I do stuff. It's a weird thing about being freelancer.

I do things. I do things. I do things. I provide services. You make politics quite accessible, I think. think as well, because you're quite, because you're really, apparently, I haven't read your book. I actually just ordered it this morning when me and Steve were talking about it. I was reading about it. But it seems like it's really funny and there's like humor in it and it's made accessible because I think a lot of people are intimidated by politics.

And to have someone like you who's talking about it in a way that feels accessible, it's almost like, you know, you have the word gossip in the title of your book. And it's like it feels like you can get into it a bit more because a lot of stuff is quite dry and quite intimidating. I feel like that's very, like, valuable. Especially on Twitter as well. That is something that you do very, very well. because you sort of tweet very like incisive political commentary amid fun stuff. Yeah, it's relatable and accessible.

It's probably partly because, so I didn't, obviously, I didn't study politics. The reason I got into politics, which is a very long story after many times, but I can do the short version of it, which was that when I was 18 and it was at end of the 30 of my degree, I went to the gig of a band where I fancied that one of the guys. And then after the gig, he was just like, hey, we're having an after party in my house. you should come and I was like oh my god it's funny going to happen I'm finally going to get with that guy and so we went to his house and then the second we got there he started hitting on someone else which was very awkward for me because I didn't know anyone there but also out of weird stubbornness

I'm not leaving I'm here now you never know what may happen and turns out it was the night of the 2010 election which was on the telly in the corner for some reason because occasionally the telly is on that house parties you never know why and yeah and so I just sat down with a bottle of wine and watched the election out of social awkwardness And just found it really fun. And that was kind of that. I don't seem to slightly ashamed to admit this, but I'm actually not at all. But a lot of what I know about political history is basically that I fell into a rabbit

hole of like politics tumbler, which is a big thing in around sort of like 2014-2015. It was called Lolletics, which was very old internet now. And basically a lot of what I know is just having had to like try and reverse engineer memes of being like, I don't know who that person is or why that's funny. So try and Google and be like, Neil Kinnock, right, got it. But yeah, so basically I think, like, because my, you know, what I know about politics,

I did not learn in a normal dull way. So I couldn't really talk about it like that, I think, because that's not how I learned it. That makes a lot of sense. I can't believe this. That's the first time we've talked about Tumblr on this podcast. The best website, the best website. It's so great.

Just not Tom Hiddleston would often crop up. When I was a celebrity journalist, I'd have to find something funny. I'd be like, I guess I'll just search Tom Hiddleston on Tumblr and something funny will, like, come up because he was so prevalent on there. But I would see how, yeah, how like the memes and stuff like that, like how that, it was so much more, what's the word, community base than I was using it in like 2013. I would just be like, dear diary. And I was like, do a diary entry. And then leave Tumblr and be like, very good.

Like, no one was reading. There's a whole, like, culture on there. And it felt like a nice culture as well. I mean, Taylor Swift still uses it like prolifically now. and that's part of her huge fandom base is that she's created this community that's like, people aren't using it there, really and she's still got that massive Tumblr community base.

I had no idea that it had a politics. What, Lolletix is just brilliant. It was great, so it was a weird mix of like, so I had a slightly fraught relationship with the Lollettics fandom. Because some of it, and so, like, you know, part of it, I was like, you know, I'm genuinely enjoying this.

This is interesting and funny, but other stuff was like, come on. Like, there was a massive George Osborne fandom for a while. It's just a bunch of weird teenagers who were extremely horny for George Osbourne. I was like the Ed Miliband thing. Did that come from Tumblr? Like, the Ed Miliband. Well, that was the vibe.

So, like, the mini-fandum, like, in terms of vibe, that very much came from the Tumblr thing of, like, the photoshopping flower crowns and politicians and stuff. That didn't really start with a mini-fandum. That was already something that existed on Tumblr. And I remember, like, one of the ones that haunted me the most, I think, and to this day still, was a picture of Andy Burnham. I want to say there was a flower crown

and slightly like Kauai eyes because you know he's got very long eyelashes. And the caption was, you know, written in sort of like pink, gloopy, like, glittery thing was like my eyelashes are longer than your dick. Oh my. I saw that in like 2014 and I'm still just like, I'm not okay, fundamentally not okay.

Oh my God. So that is basically how I got. I don't think people understand this stuff's happening. It's like kids in a playground being like this, what about this? What about this? It's something quite joyful about it. And I feel like, it's something. So I've been on Tumblr for longer than I've been on Twitter or Facebook.

So I joined Tumblr in 2008. So I'm a Tumblr grandmother. I'm a Tumblr elder. But no, but so what I really like about it is I think it sort of teaches you sort of like quiet acceptance of life. But you know, you'll read something and be like, you know, you know what? I don't understand it. I don't understand why it's there. I don't get why anyone would write it or what it's about.

And that is fine. That is okay. So every episode, I go back with a little code and I try and find each guest's first ever post. And I literally couldn't find yours. I delete my tweets. Marie deletes their tweets. Tell us why. I think partly is just that, you know, on a very basic level, you know, the reason why I used Twitter now is not the reason why I used Twister then.

So, you know, in 2011, I was with a student and activist and I was kind of that. And obviously then I became a journalist. And I think obviously it's, while it's entirely fine, I think, for people to have had political opinions while they were at university while they were young and to then become an impartial journalist that obviously that's fine but also I didn't feel sincerely comfortable with all the opinions I had you know as someone who publicly had political opinions to still be there so I kind of didn't want them to be there I think that's partly as well you know that the general risk of like could I remember everything I tweeted you know when I had sort of like a hundred and twenty

followers and I still had the novelty of being ah ha ha ha ha it's 3 a m I can tweet whatever I want yeah I didn't want to sort of like be surprised at some point by so like Gido for or whatever being like, and did you see what Marie Lecom tweeted on like the first of February at 2am in 2012? Yeah. Once you read that sort of weird status of being sort of like popular on Twitter, I suppose, of like, you know, being an account that has a certain amount of followers, I think that you do end up tweeting in a way that's very, very different from the way you tweeted when

it was just, you know, because at first when I had my account, it was anonymous. And even then, I think for quite a long time, I just had like a bit of a picture, but then only my first name, not my last name. So I do think the platform, your user the platform is always naturally going to evolve if you had, say yeah, 500 followers, all of whom were kind of your friends or people had no idea who you were

because of anonymous account to having 70,000 followers with your full name and your picture and your places of work in the bio. You know, and in the days of like blogs and the blogosphere, like pre sort of like proper social media, I remember, you know, we were new teens that we always used to change blogs.

I'd change blogs roughly every sort of like seven or eight months because I was like, no, you know, new Marie, new me. I haven't thought. that in ages. But that is like it's a natural human need, especially in, I don't know, I would say it goes well into your 20s now, but like, especially when you're younger to find out who you are and play with your identity. You still change so much how you want to be perceived. Yeah, and how you express. Yeah. And now once you've got your Twitter handle or your TikTok or whatever, you're supposed to just now like stay like that because you've got to build the numbers. So if you change it,

then how will you ever grow that clout? And it's so, you're supposed to like brand from like 15 onwards and then you should be like stick to your brand. And it's so hard. It's really nice to see like, it's nice to talk to someone who's like, yeah, no, I deleted all stuff because I wanted it to be this new start and I'm doing this work. And like it's nice to see someone take ownership of that platform

because actually a lot of conversations on social media, people feel like they don't feel in control of their own platform a lot of the time. They feel like they're at the behestable. of anyone who may follow them and they have to appear this way and to take control of that is actually quite cool, I think. So let's move on to your worst post and this is very much the worst post that you have brought.

This tweet from 2019. I remember you tweeting it, I liked it and I actually liked it. It was in relation to the documentary knocked down the house with AOC and I just watched it and I was like oh yeah and it was just a really, I thought it's a funny use of word. So Marie tweeted

apologies for the blatantly mean tweet, but this is what AOC's boyfriend looks like, incredible scenes, truly representing all the ambitious and stunning millennial women, shackled to boyfriends who look like bin raccoons out there. Now, Bin Raccoons is one of the greatest phrases that I've personally ever heard.

And this was just like, obviously, like a comment on how, you know, AOC has, she's so manicured and she's so, like, always in a suit and she's so... And her boyfriend is very... It looks like he's just sort of, you know, climbed out of bed and his living life. You know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of the...

Ed Shear and Beyonce performance conversation. Yes. Of like, and the AOC talks about it in the house at the beginning. And there was that shot up in front of the mirror and she's saying like, look at all the things I have to do just to show up. And so it felt like a tongue and cheek comment on that.

But obviously people received it as a you insulting someone for the way they look. But clearly that it was a broader concept there. Do you want to talk about that? So I was reviewing the documentary for ID Magazine. And so I was watching it one at Wednesday, I think, really you were like, weekday morning, which as a side note was great,

because I was like, I can't believe I'm in bed watching Netflix for work. Like, I feel like, you know, I've won at life. You know, is that quite a funny thing when you watch the documentary? Because she is so, you know, she's not so OEC is not just beautiful. She's also, you know, she dresses incredibly well. Her hair is incredible. Her makeup is always on point. She's got the gold hoops, etc.

So you're going to follow her around. And then it was just, yeah, that the shop pans out at some point. And then there's this van with this sort of like fucking that bush beard and like t-shirt that's, if I remember correctly, like offensive shade of purple. But you know, one of those t-shirts who probably got for free somewhere. You know, the t-shirt woman would be like,

fine, I can use it for pajamas. And men are like, yes, this is my t-shirt now. I will wear it every day. And yeah, and I just, you know, just tweeted it. And actually, weirdly, I think, tweeted it. And a few people are like, oh, that's a bit mean. And I was like, yeah, it is.

You know, and sort of moved on. But I think what was interesting about it was that it only really exploded when the US woke up. So in sort of like early mid-ATTS. afternoon UK time. But when, you know, and again, I think, you know, that that's something that comes back again and again

when discussing kind of tweets that go bad viral. When it's clearly that people who had no idea who I was. And so I had no idea that, you know, I would never say earnestly something like, you know, a woman is shackled to someone. Like, you know, I was clearly joking. It was clearly meant to, yeah, to be read quite lightly. And, yeah, and so it assumed, I don't know, yeah,

it was just like, you know, it went completely insane. What was the moment that you realized like, oh, this is actually quite bad? Like, you had my mentions basically on lockdown at the time, so I could only see tweets from people, replies from people who followed me. And so I knew it was getting a bit of traction, but not much. But then I think, I can remember, I think, and then I actively clicked on the tweet. And I saw like thousands of replies. And I was like, oh, no, oh, oh, no.

But then the second thing was my friend Dave, who messaged me and who was like, I don't want to make you panic but I think we're getting near the bit of the cycle where AOC will clap back and I was like, oh no no no no no no no so that's when I panicked and deleted it a few days later she posted a video on Instagram

of her boyfriend getting his haircut while someone heckles him bin raccoon and they all laugh they all laugh so they couldn't have it funny they found it funny again it means crappy it doesn't mean ugly I think that was the other things that I meant to say but like a lot of people took it to mean

that I was calling her boyfriend ugly when I was like, no, he's just this cruffy man. She's very polished. He's very cruffy. And I think that's not really an insult. I mean, it's not a mean insult to say, you know, because if anything, the comments were weird, people being like, well, you know,

he didn't ask to be born with that face. That's very mean of you. And it's like, that is not what I said. That is not what I said. You're being the mean one here. But yeah, so she did that. But then, no, oh, my God. So there was, like, a big vote profile of AAC

a few months ago. That's all, you know, was it at 24 hours with or like a week with or whatever. And anyway, and there's a point where I think they do talk about the boyfriend. And there's a line about how the boyfriend's mum keeps trolling him by sending him bin raccoon memes. Stop. Stop. We've become part of their life. Like, you've become, oh, my God, that is so funny.

I'm glad that they find it funny and they're enjoying it. If they're fine with it, why is everyone so hell up about it? You've had like a few kind of, or maybe two, maybe, um, instances of Twitter where you've really felt what Twitter can be like when you have some sort of standing on there and you say something that some people just take out of your hands. How did I deal with it? Not well. Not well. I think I drank quite a lot but you know when you sort of like do like stress drinking and just I'm just just wine wine wine wine is fine wine. Wine help. Yes. And so yeah the healthiest kind of

drinking I like to think. And yeah no it was just shit. No sorry I feel like I should be you know, because it happened a while back now, I should be able to say, well, you know, looking back, I have all these deep thoughts. But no, it's just really blowed. Essentially, I don't know how I would be able to cope with that. And I think it's very, it's, you kind of, you've got your own, you've got a private Twitter account now. Was that in part because of that to kind of get a bit of control back? Like how basically, because you still tweet excellent, excellent, good free, free tweets on your main account. And I'm always really like, I admire that because I think I would have, I would run away. And I'm not saying that you should have done at all. I'm saying that like,

I'm just amazed that you kind of got through it. I think again, that comes back to the fact that like, you know, I basically use Twitter for me. I make myself laugh, basically. And obviously it's a nice bonus when people all find me funny, but I just find myself very funny. Um, no, but more seriously, I don't know, I think, you know, I do enjoy, like, I get, so I get a bit annoyed at the people who always go on about, you know, the hell side and why am I here and it's so depressing, why do you log on, whatever? And it's like, well, you know, if you really do hate it to that extent, surely you can actually stop logging on. Whereas, you know, I think that, you know, I'd rather be quite honest about the fact that I actually really enjoy Twitter.

So, you know, in a lot of different ways, you know, in that A, I've met so many my friends on there. I've met people I've dated on there. But also, you know, I laugh, you know, I laugh several times a day at dumb tweets. I've learned a lot. I've, you know, had access so many interesting articles I never would have seen otherwise. Great. And going back to obviously lockdown, so I spend three months, you know, in lockdown by myself as one of the most extroverted person, people who's ever lived.

You know, and obviously, I would have, you know, I would have completely lost it without Twitter. And I think, you know, that there was a sense of community to that. But then even, you know, in terms of work, so a lot of the work I found has been through Twitter. I found my agent, my literary agent through Twitter. So, like, you know, it's, I would not be where I am, but in so many different areas of life,

if it weren't for Twitter, if I hadn't been for Twitter, the other account, it's not, yeah, it's a bit of a weird one because I think I'd had the idea for quite a long time when I wanted, basically wanted to go back to having about a thousand followers because I thought that was the sweet spot where people suddenly like, you know, interact with you. And you're not coming to the void, but also you don't just get, you know, you don't have that thing.

So I think I got to the point with 70,000 followers, of, you know, anything I tweeted. I was like, okay, well, you know, what's, what was the angle here? What am I going to be attacked on? Like, you know, which random corner of Twitter is going to attack me for this? So, yeah, so I think it got to the point where I was like, there is nothing I can tweet, you know, completely stress-free. Because there may always be, so yeah, so eventually I was actually, you know, fuck it. And I still do use my accounts occasionally, but a lot less, a lot less.

So in terms of the best tweet, I think I actually really struggled to think of what was that my favorite tweet. Because again, I tweet so much. Like, you know, I have tweeted probably like, they're not probably tens of thousands of things over the years. But so I kind of, you know, and also I don't have a memory anymore because I think the lockdown has broken my brain. So I had to go to quite a recent one. My tweet was, oh God, I can't really even have to say that out loud. I'm also quite embarrassed because it's a weird thing that it's one thing to type it and send it to 75,000 people. It's another to say that allowed to two people.

Okay, to be fair to Rishi, it's true that eating out can help mitigate a weak pound. It's so good. It's really clever. And obviously we're talking about Rishi Soodak, Chancellor of the Extracker, just so everyone knows. The reason why I picked that tweet was not just because it's very funny, even though it is. It was that I think that, you know, that's kind of what I enjoy about Twitter. and I think really those two tweets are the AEC one and that one exists in the same space, in that I think that what I'm both quite good at and quite bad at on Twitter is just posting stuff that's a bit too much.

And I think that's why my Twitter experience became kind of attainable for, like, you know, intennable, sorry, after a while, because actually when you do end up tweeting stuff, that's like a bit too much. Occasionally, like the Rishi thing, people will just be like, that was fucking funny. Congratulations. I enjoyed this, you know, even though I probably shouldn't have. I had people like journalists, like lobby journalists, DM me and be like, I obviously can't possibly retweet this, but I laughed a lot. You know, but on the other hand, I can clearly, the problem with that is, you know,

I do clearly end up on the wrong side of a bit too much quite often in terms of like jokes or whatever. And yes, it was no longer worse the hassle. It is an excellent tweet. Also, I was going to ask anything to do with sex that I ever tweet. I always will get one man called like Jeff and his. He has, like, father of two beautiful daughters in his bio. He has two followers. And he goes, hello, dear, in my DMs.

And it's a sexual thing. And that could be, like, I've even just said the word sex, but I meant it in, like, a gender way. Like, it could be anything. It just, anything. Actually, once I've talked about this on the podcast before, I tweeted a tweet about bread, and someone was like, you like, bread, do you?

Winky face. It's like, right, okay. So when you tweet something about sex and you have, like, 70-odd thousand followers, do you get people sliding into your DMs? Do you get like... Yeah, so I think my favourite one of all time in that category was that years ago, actually. But I tweeted, so I think I'd been ill.

I'd had a cold for quite a long time. And I tweeted something along the lines of, wow, just managed to breathe through my nostrils for the first time in seven days. I swear I was better than about 80% of all the sex I've ever happened. Which was, you know, true. It was true. It is also a comment on my ex-boyfriends.

But, you know, and someone just very earnestly, this man saying this or like middle-aged man replied incredibly honest he was like don't despair little one it'll happen one day oh so i think you genuinely thought i was complaining about not having had you know about having had such bad sex that breathing through my knottles was actually better and it's like you ruin everything you just ruin everything yeah uh no so that's what i didn't really tweet that much about sex kind of for that reason even though like you know it's it's a topic i found interesting and briefly to come back to Tumblr. I think one of the reasons

why Tumblr is that it's one of the few places on the internet where sex is just a part of, that is just one of the topics and one of the things that happens, which, you know, which mirrors real life, you know, sex is just an aspect of adult life. And I think that it's deeply unhealthy that in most parts of the internet, sex has to be hidden

and put in different corners of the internet. Not the normal ones, they have to be hidden in the dark. And, you know, and yes, as a result, you know, it is a topic it's quite like to talk about more. But even in terms of policy and stuff, you know, we've a lot of stuff about choking recently and kind of like the kind of policy changes around the rough sex defence, etc.

But yeah, I just didn't really do it on Young Bulgarian because I was just like, no, I am a lady. I am a lady on the internet and it will not end well for me if I, yeah, if I tweet anything that implies in any way, you know, that I have taken my clothes off in front of someone else at any point in my life. Well, it's just nuanced those conversations. And social media just isn't the place for that because we have such a black and white view on sex

as a topic anyway and it's like it just like you know the upskating thing like all I was talking about was being upskated for two years and most of my DMs were like oh yeah did you just saw your knickers before it happened I'm hard

like do you know what I mean and you're talking about being sexually assaulted so like there's clearly not a place for for any discussion you haven't told me that did you not tell me that because you thought I'd have a panic attack imagine if I told you everyone I'd got

we'd never start Thank you so much, Marie. That was really fun. We love telling you on. I love that you having to reintroduced Tumblr. Tumblr is back. I love that. Please do follow Marie, and it's at Young Vulgarian on Twitter.

You're on Instagram, aren't you? Is it at Young Bulgarian as well? It is also at Young Bulgarian. Yeah, and my Tumblr is Young Bulgarian, so I've not used it in a bit. Great brand. Also, you should definitely buy her book. Haven't you heard Gossip Politics and Power if you haven't?

to support it so you should invite to. Yeah, paperback coming out in September. Woo! Please do follow us at Mike Delete Later Pod on Instagram and at Mike DeletePod on Twitter and email us any guests you'd like to see on the podcast, Mike Delete LaterPod at gmail.com. Look, also, maybe subscribe, maybe give us a lovely review. That would be nice. And remember, social media can be funny and silly and it can be Tumblr. But it can also be a lot of people screaming at you for a fun joke. But however you feel about it, if it starts making you feel about it, you can always just delete and do anything like that.