Reply All - #116 Trust the Process

Episode Date: February 15, 2018

This week, we meet a dominatrix who dominates computers, instead of just people. Plus, the story of a man who hatches a plot to destroy a beloved NBA team, using the best advantage he has — the fact that he’s their general manager. Further Reading: Mistress Harley's Website (very NSFW) The Yes Yes Nos tumblr The tweet in question The Code Switch blog The Code Switch podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Gimlet, this is Repai-All. I'm PJ Vote. And I'm Alex Goldman. So, Alex. Yes. You've been mostly out sick this week. Yeah. Yes, I have.

Well, so we did something that was a little bit unusual, which is, like, normally when somebody makes a mistake in one of their stories and there's like a correction, it's the reporter's job to handle it, obviously? Yes. But you've been out. And so there was sort of an error in episode 115, the Bitcoin Hunter, where you, tried to help somebody find their lost Bitcoin. There was a mistake in that episode, which we've been fixing without you. What? What?

Well, first of all, I feel like I'm in the principal's office. I feel like I'm in trouble. Like you're about to get punished somehow? And second of all, what was the mistake? So I'm just going to play you the part of your episode that has the mistake in it right now. Okay. You had found this Bitcoin Hunter, and you were just explaining how the guy was going to help you. Jeremy lives in San Francisco, but I had him remote into my computer so we could take a look at G.S. Harddrive together and try and find the lost Bitcoin.

It's cool that you finally found someone, a new person to remote into your computer. I feel like you're like a remote into my computer fetishist. And every story you do is just an excuse to give like, ooh, remote access. So the premise of that joke was that thing doesn't actually exist. There's no such thing as a remote into my computer fetishist. like where this is going. Also, so far, this doesn't feel like a mistake I made. Both things are true. So it turns out there are such things that are remote into my computer fetishes. What?

Shruthy spoke to a dominatrix named Mistress Harley. And I'm just going to play that for you. Oh, my God. I'm so overwhelmed. So I think all you need to know is that Mr. Harley says the first time she encountered this fetish was a few years ago. and she'd just been like going about her normal life as an online dominatrix. I was doing kind of your typical pro-dom sessions, which look like Skype sessions, you know, where you're dominating someone via cam. And people started to ask me if I could dominate their computers. Is that the words they use, like dominate my computer?

Yeah, dominate my computer, take over my computer, lock down my computer, install parental controls on my computer. These were the kind of requests I was starting to get to take remote control of people's devices in order to dominate them in a BDSM context. So when you first started doing this and the first time somebody asked you to like, okay, like dominate my computer, like what did you think? Oh, I thought it was the most boring thing in the world. Like, so my background is computers and IT. I worked in the game industry for many years, and I have a master's in library science and information technology. Library science. Wow. Okay. Yes. Yes. So having come from a technical background,

to me, it felt like being an IT person again, where it's like, oh, this system thinks that my parental control software is malware. Now I have to disable your antivirus. Oh, you actually like, you have to do a bunch of text before things just to be able to like. Oh, yes, absolutely. So the actual act of taking over computer, I think, is really really boring. But then once you have someone under your control, like for me, that's when the fun part begins. I have made people like install nest cameras in their house so I can watch them 24-7. I put key loggers on their computers so I can get all of their passwords and logins for every website. You know, I get banking information. I get their email. I get all their contacts.

You know, I'll transfer files to myself and I'll tell them that, hey, oh, I found your tax return. I'm just going to take that. Oh, here's your resume. I'll just take a copy of that as well. And then the more fear that they have, I call this like the fear boner. The bigger the foot boner is like then the more exciting all of this is. And now they're thinking about like, oh my God, Mr. Sarley knows where I work. And she's got my mom's phone number. And if I don't do what she says, then things are going to get really, really bad. And it kind of puts them into that state where they're super obedient and super submissive. I guess I'm wondering, like, what kind of person would be into this and why? Like, is it a really powerful person or a really, like, tech savvy person? Like, what, what person is,

like, I want my computer to be taken over? I do think tech savvy people find it intriguing. But ultimately, I really think it's people who crave this real life domination, but from a distance. So a lot of my submissives, they've never even spoken. to me on the phone. Like you're speaking to me right now. They've never met me in person. At best, they've seen pictures and videos of me. But what they really want, you know, they don't want to have like a phone sex dominatrix relationship where they call and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to make you do stuff and then you hang up the phone and now your fantasy is over. This is literally the translation of your fantasy into reality because now I can see your Facebook. I can see your LinkedIn.

I can see your email. There are no secrets. And it's a really, really intimate experience without ever having to shake my hand. Uh-huh. And like, what does your day look like? I wake up whenever I wake up, so usually between 10 a.m. to noon. I check my emails. Usually sitting in my emails when I wake up is $2 to $300 that people have owed me.

You know, they know they owe me this money and so they pay me. And so when I wake up, there's this money sitting there. waiting for me. And so I think, okay, that's nice. And then I make a cup of tea. And I have my husband is a homemaker. So he makes me all my meals and stuff. So he makes me breakfast. And then I mean, can I just say, of course he makes you breakfast? Of course he makes me breakfast. Okay. All right. So after I check my emails, I turn on my phone lines. And so my submissives can call me. And it's a minimum of $5 a minute to speak to me on the phone. Although, depending on where you live, like, I have a lot of slaves in Germany.

Oh, come on now. That is amazing. In Germany. Oh, I have slaves everywhere. I have slaves in Kuwait. I have slaves in Germany. I've got slaves all over America and the UK. Oh, my God, guys in the Middle East in places that are sexually repressed, they love me. And they love computer takeover because it's like this real way they can interact with the dominatrix. Uh-huh. So let's say Muhammad, living in Kuwait, he finds my website and he sends me an email and says, Mr. Sarley, I love the idea of being controlled by a strong, powerful woman. Can I book a computer session with you?

And then I would say yes. Booking a computer session is $100. Go to my website, Mr. Harley.com, pay me. And then we will set up a time for the session if it's not immediate. And then he would give me whatever remote desktop sharing software he's using. using, he would give me the login information for that. We would discuss limits. You know, if he says, look, you can do anything you want, but do not email my wife. Like, okay, great, I won't email your wife. And then once we start, it's like any BDSM play session where now we've negotiated, so now I'm not

going to be polite anymore. And now I'm going to do whatever I want within the realms of what we discussed. The guy I'm thinking of in particular, who is Muhammad from Kuwait, he likes to be, exposed. And so when I go on his computer, I open up his camera on his computer and start taking pictures and videos of him. And then I start posting those pictures and videos to my Twitter, where I have like 50,000 followers, or I might post them on my loser hall of shame on my website. And then, you know, now his computer's locked down and he's exposed. And this is all very exciting to him. So when you say he's excited, like, how is he showing it? Oh, I mean, usually there's a little text chat in the corner where he's like, oh, my God, what are you doing? And then me like,

oh, well, I'm, you didn't say I couldn't go on your Facebook. So now I'm in your Facebook and now I see all your friends and now I see where you work. And oh my God, this is so, this is so, you're so powerful. This is so exciting, they'll say to me. And I'm like, yeah, of course, I'm very powerful. I own all your shit now. You know, it's just like ransomware, except the ransomware is consensual. These people ask for it. And it's legal, right? Well, there's nothing illegal about inviting someone to install software on your computer and them doing that. I liken it to like, if I broke into your house and stole your television, that's a crime. But if you open the door and you tell me to come take your TV, there is no crime. Yeah. And I'm just curious if there's cases like,

where you feel sorry for the person or something happens that makes you feel like, oh, this is like not good or healthy in this particular situation? Well, I've always said if, like, if I ever see child porn or something on someone's computer, I would immediately inform the police. Yeah. So there are definitely those cases where I think people are unstable. I feel the most sorry for people with obvious gender dysmorphia who do not have the kind of therapeutic help that they might need in order to turn.

that one of the common requests with computer control is for feminization. If I take over your computer, I can force you to feminize yourself to be more like a girl instead of a boy. But then, of course, like these things do have real life consequences. And I've definitely had some submissives like kind of get all the way up to a point where they were starting to talk about fully transitioning into being a woman. And then they really freak out and, you know, get really. really upset and start talking about, you know, hurting themselves or, you know, just not knowing what to do. And I always, at that point, I always tell them, look, I am a dominatrix. I'm not a mental health professional. You know, you need to talk to a therapist about these feelings. And I have, I've sent a lot of

clients to therapy. So these relationships, especially long-term ones, they do turn into real relationships. And, and like, what do you get out of it? I mean, besides, like, being paid twice as much as I got paid to go to an office. Yeah. You know, I live completely autonomous in the independent life. I sleep when I want. I don't have a boss. I make men support my lifestyle.

And now I have all these slave machines that have to pay me all the time. You have a good life, Harley. You know, I really do. I don't hate to brag, obviously. Mistress Harley. According to her Twitter bio, she is a model, producer, CEO, Domitrix, Financial Dom, TechDom, author, sexpert, and bad bitch. After the break, a man hatches a plot to destroy a beloved NBA team using the best advantage he has. He's their manager.

Welcome back to the show. We are now joined by our boss, Alex Bloomberg. Hello. So we used to have a segment on the show called Yes, Yes, Yes, No. People liked it. It worked. I mean, it was, what do you mean used to? We used to before somebody destroyed it.

Before, before the dottering old man who's confused by the internet decided that instead, this was a sports talk radio podcast. And that rather than yes, yes, no, we were going to do something called sports, sports, sports. You come to us with sports tweets that you don't think we'll understand and then bully us about it. that bully no all right i think what actually is going on here is that i have a tweet that i think is one of the most delightful sports internet related stories to come along in a long time and um and i'm very excited to share it with you okay so the tweet is it's a person named joel mbead or mbid is that right joel mbid joel imbid and and bid and joel mbd and and bid and and and he's tweeted trust the process, hashtag he died for our sins.

And then he's embedded another tweet. But the first thing I have to say is just this tweet is 9,200 retweets. Juel also has 1.2 million followers. Wait, could I just stop you before we go further? Do either of you know who Joelle M.B. It is? No. No.

Okay. All right, good. Is it famous sports commentator or actor? Sports actor? This is already better than I thought it was going to be. Let's continue. And I should note that the header of Joelle M. Bede's Twitter feed just says the process. Weird.

Yes. Okay. And then the embedded tweet is by a guy named Sam Hinky. And he's saying, I love it when a plan comes together. And then he's referencing an article about Sports Illustrated, which says, why did Sports Illustrated, the Astros would win the 2017 World Series in 2014. And that tweet has 7,149 retweets. Right.

What is this? All right. Alex Goldman, do you understand this tweet? No, I am zero percent comprehending this. PJ Vote, do you understand this tweet? I do not. Alex Bloomberg, do you understand this tweet? Yes!

We're in reverse yes, yes, yes, no, everyone. I guess we're at no, no, no, yes. We're at no, no, no, yes. I have a beautiful tale to unfold for you. To really do it justice, though, I'm going to bring on a guest into the hallowed inner sanctum of the yes, yes, no. All right. Who's the guest? The guest is a guy named Gene Demby, who's at NPR.

He runs the Code Switch blog and hosts the Code Switch podcast. And I want him to be here because he has relevant expertise. Is he part of the process? Is he part of the process? We're all part of the process as you can find out. Hello? Hey, Gene. Hey, Gene.

How are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me on. Good. So I brought you on because I felt like I can explain this tweet, but I don't feel the tweet in my bones the way you might. Oh, man. It's been a long, emotional journey. How much do you guys know about the way the NBA works?

Like, are we starting at zero? I know that if you stand behind a line, you can get a three-point shot, but within that line, it's two points. Oh, that's correct. Okay, so it's not zero. You don't know zero. So I think to begin to understand this, I feel like we have to go back a ways. Yes. And I think we might have to go all the way back to 1983.

The story of this tweet starts in 1983. I mean, it probably starts even further back than then, if you really want to. But I think for our purposes, it's. We're going to start in 1983. So in 1983, that was the last year that the Philadelphia 76ers won the championship in the NBA. Yes. I was two years old, I don't even remember it happening. But it was a big deal.

I'm from South Philly. I grew up a couple miles away from where the Sixers to play back then. So my family is full of diehard Sixers fans. The Sixers are like this story team, right? At least, you know, they were. There was a little stretch in their early aughts. and which they were very good, thanks to Allen Iverson. But for the most part, they've been like, you know, kind of trash.

And so as a fan after the Iverson years, in those, like, sort of like that wasteland era of the Sixers, like, what was that like to be a fan around that time? So the thing you have to understand, and this will make the rest of this makes sense, is that the kind of worst place to be as an NBA team is mediocre. Not bad, but mediocre because you might be good enough to make the playoffs and then you win the right to get your ass kicked by some really good team in the playoffs. Right. But you're not so bad that you get a really high draft

to pick a really good player. So the way it works is it's literally a lottery. If your record is really bad, you have more balls in the lottery to win the number one pick in the draft. And so... And that can be game change. That can be huge.

So Cleveland was like a horrible, horrible team. they got the number one pick, they pick LeBron James, and they became a finals contender. So this relates to something that I understand, which is like, if you guys ever play Mario Kart, like they, as you're driving, you get like random items that you can attack the other racers with. And first place gets like banana feels, and then last place gets the purple shell. The heat-seeking shell, right. So it's almost better to be like eighth place than fifth place. Absolutely.

And so the Sixers, after the Iverson era, were basically, In fifth place. They were basically, they had neither the banana pill or the heat-cheeking red shell, right? So in the early teens, they hired this guy named Sam Hinky. He was like assistant GM general manager for the Houston Rockets. And he's this weird kind of like socially maladept dude who thinks of himself as a numbers guy. And he's basically like, we're going to strip this team for parts. Have you guys ever seen Moneyball?

Yeah. I read it. So the money ball, like the whole thing about like where baseball got the advanced stats and all these quants and geeks started coming into baseball and sort of like looking at people and realizing that the way they'd been choosing players was wrong and there's different ways of building teams. That same thing was happening in basketball around the time and Sam Hinky was one of these guys. Right. Exactly. And his idea is basically what if we make the Sixers as bad as conceivably possible, right? Like, what if we get all of the red shells, as it were, right, for several years?

And it wasn't, I mean, he's a really bad communicator. Like, he famously, during his tenure with the Sixers, did not have a lot of press conferences. So he sort of spoke in this weird, anadine, sort of, like, sterile business speak. And he would talk about, you know, it's a process and you have to trust it. He never actually said trust the process and sort of became a thing that became associated with him. but he would say this, and he basically made it so the team had only like two or three passable NBA players on the Sixers roster for a while. And he would do these things where he would trade away like pretty good players, like

who had good careers, and he would trade them for like... He was trading them for nothing. But like, Hinkie went further than that. Like he wasn't even trading away good players. Any player who did anything functional on a basketball court, like anything, like if someone did something that possibly inhibited the chance that you would lose a. basketball game that possibly made it possible, like marginally more likely that you will win a basketball game, basically interrupting the process that we're all supposed to be trusting.

What was that like for you? Being a fan? I come from a basketball family, and so sometimes I go up to Philly, and my mom and I will go to a game, right? And we went to this game, and they were playing the Phoenix Suns, and it was like in the sort of beginning part of the process, as it were. And the arena must have been like, probably like a third full, but it did not feel that full. You could hear the players talking. We were like 20 rules up.

Wait, you could hear the chatter on the court. Yeah, you could just hear them like talking to each other. It was like, it felt empty. And there was like three or four minutes of like reasonably competitive basketball. Like it was like seven and seven or something like that. And then it just like turned into this. It's not even like ass kickings that are fun to watch. They just like the slow attrition.

Like I mean like it wasn't like they were getting the other team was playing so well they were destroying. And then the other team is just like playing at half speed and the lead was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It sounds so depressing to be a member of that team. It's like you're on the bad news bears, but you don't band together and succeed. You just kind of are deliberately bad. If you were to band together and try to succeed,

the front office would have actively tried to get rid of them. There will be no banding together on this damn team. That's not why you're here. It was a, it was like, there was this weird black, black hole where the team should have been, the absolute bottom of it was 2015, 2016, when they won 10 out of the 82 games that they played, which I think Ty's the worst record ever. And in this moment, did you, as a 76ers fan, trust the process? I was the most deeply anti-hinky person, like, on Sixers' Twitter.

There's a bunch of stuff that's out of your control. Like, what if the draft coming up is full of, like, marginal or, like, mediocre prospects, right? what if you draft someone really high who gets injured? I mean, you still have to, like, get really lucky. But so, like, when they do finally, like, cash in their draft picks, like, what happens? Like, do they get lucky? Well, so a bunch of weird things happen. So there's this kid from Cameroon named Joel Embed.

He didn't speak English six or seven years ago. He didn't play basketball six or seven years ago. But he's, like, seven feet tall, and he's 16. And another NBA player spots him, and he brings him to the States. He goes to University of Kansas. He plays incredibly well. Like, he's a prodigy. He learns English really quickly.

He blossoms. And the Sixers, I think, have the third pick in the draft, I think, that year. Because of the process, it should be said. Because of the process, right? Yeah. But Embed gets injured. So he falls to number three in the year the Sixers have the third pick, and they draft him. And at the time, he was a long shot, right?

I mean, he was like, he might never play an NBA game. That was, like, really a thing that was on the table. His first two years actually in the NBA, he never actually set foot in the court. And they drafted Ben Simmons, this Australian kid, who turned out to be very good, but he was injured too. And so he didn't play his first year. And so the tanking sort of, I think it was supposed to end when they drafted an MB. I think he was supposed to offset it. The process was theoretically over, but these injuries sort of like dragged it on until last year.

And that was the time in which, like, the process trusters started to be validated. What happened? Joel Embed came back, and he played his first NBA games, and he was fucking amazing. He was unbelievable. I mean, he was, like, he's this massive human being who is fluid and agile and can block shots and can dunk and can shoot threes amazingly. And so suddenly, like, they put him in the lineup, and the Sixers with their sort of like hodgepodgey roster start winning games. games. Like, they just start winning. And almost overnight, like, I think his first game back, like, it was a sellout, but, like, almost overnight, the Sixers became a big draw again

because they were competitive. They weren't winning all those games, but suddenly, like, they were in games. And they were fun to watch because he would dunk on somebody and talk shit. He's hilarious. Like, he's, like, if you get a chance to follow him on Twitter, he's just hilarious. Like, he asked Rihanna on a date. She's out and shot him down. She was like, you're not even an all-star, right? He's like, why would I date God with you? Not even an all-star. So this year he was an all-star, and he's like, I don't want to date her now because she wasn't with me before. He's like this massively hilarious dude who like, again, did not speak English six or seven years ago, but it's now like just like one of the funniest interviews in the league.

But he's also incredibly socially media savvy and just really, he's just like sort of understands the whole thing. And so he nicknamed himself the process. Yeah. Wait, really? Oh. Yes. And so when he comes out to warm-ups, I mean, when the starting lineups get announced, they said, you know, Joel, the process, M.B. He is, like, completely, like, don the mantle.

This is a guy who was a cornerstone, potentially generational talent, right? The Sixers will be in a few years, like, a championship contending team so long as he stays healthy. Because he is that good. Sam Hinky could not have dreamt up Joel M.Bee. So we're leaving out one, we're leaving one key part of the story. Which is that Sam Hinky got fired. Before or after Joel and Bede stepped on the court. So he drafted Joel and Bid, but he did not last long enough to see Joel and Bid finally make it onto the court.

And why did he get fired? Year four of tanking. They were finally like, you're out of your Yankee. And it was the league actually. I mean, like, you got to understand. Like, the NBA thought that this was a bad, like, it is not in their best interest for a team in one of its major markets to actively embrace being as shitty as possible for as long as possible. Right. And so the league basically sort of ganked the front office.

And Sam Hinky was thrown out on the street. On the way out, he wrote this scree, this weird sort of like TED talky. infamous, infamous. I think it's 13 pages long. And like, depending on who you ask, it was this really smart, like, screed about thinking outside the box. Or it was just like, you know, corporate bullshit. And if we were to ask you, Gene. Oh, it was definitely corporate bullshit. Well, it's also just like, it's also so annoying that the guy who wrote that 13 page letter, the smug, sort of like weird, like sort of,

was right isn't it though? Right? Like it's so, yeah. It's like, he's this punchable dude and he's like, he's this punchable dude.

And he's like, he's kind of vindicated. And I hate that Sam Hinky was right. But at that opening game, at that away game against the Wizards here in D.C., every time Joel N.

B. step to the line to shoot a free throw, you would just hear this chant. Trust the process. Trust the process. So I think we are ready to come back to this tweet. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Right. I feel ready. So do you want me to do it, PJ, or you want to do it? Go for it. Okay. So the tweet in question is a tweet from Joelle M. Bede that says, trust the process, hashtag he died for our sins. And it is a quote, quote tweeting, a tweet from Sam Hinky that says,

I love it when a plan comes together. and it is a link to a sports illustrated article called, Why Did Sports Illustrated Predict the Astros would win the 2017 World Series in 2014? What this tweet means is the Philadelphia 76ers who have not won a championship since 1983 hired a, is he a coach or a manager? General manager. Heired a general manager. general manager named Sam Hinky, who was very much a quant and decided to employ something he called the process, which was essentially he would try and put together the worst team possible

in order to get the best draft picks in the hopes that he could get a couple of amazing players and win a championship. This went on for a couple of years until he was fired by the organization, but he managed to get two great players, Joelle Embed, and what's the other guy's name, Ben Simmons. Ben Simmons, who even though they had injuries their first two years, are now playing and are incredibly good. Joelle Embed himself has given himself the nickname the process because he's such a great player and the end result of this quote-unquote process. And so in the tweet that Joelle Embed is quoting, Sam Hinky is talking about another sports team, the Houston Astros, who also went from being very bad to very good. I'm assuming using a similar process type plan. And he's referencing them as like a sub-tweet of the Philadelphia 76ers basically saying, this is what happens when you trust the process.

And Joel M. Bid is saying, yes, trust the process. Hashtag he died for our sins. He being Sam Hinky, and him dying for our sins means that he got fired from the 76ers so that they could make this incredible new lineup. Did I get it? That's right. That's right. That's pretty good. All right.

All right. We're at sports, sports, sports. Sports. Thank you for having this is fun. Thanks, Gene. Yeah. Thank you so much for doing this, Gene. Thanks, Gene Denby.

He's the co-host of NPR's excellent Code Switch podcast and the lead blogger on the Code Switch blog. Repile is hosted by me, PJ Vote, and Alex Goldman. Our show is produced by Shruthy Permanani, Fia Benin, Damiano Marquetti, and Caitlin Roberts. More production help this week from Krista Ripple. Our editors are Tim Howard and Sarah Saracen. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our intern is Devin Gwyn. Special thanks this week to Luke Malone, Olae Melhus, and Princess Chloe.

And congratulations to our senior producer, Fia Benin, who just had twins, Nina and Camille. Fia loves being the center of attention and has gotten tons of sleep. So definitely take time to tweet congratulations at her. She'll send you a long handwritten note back. We were mixed by Rick Kwan. Our theme songs by the mysterious breakmaster cylinder. Matt Lieber is candy you've never heard of from some other country. You can visit our website at repile.com.

And you can find more episodes of the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts wherever you listen. Thanks for listening. We'll see you in a couple weeks. I told you not to touch my drama machine. Those are my private projects.