Reply All - #142 We Didn't Start The Fire

Episode Date: May 23, 2019

This week, an epic Yes Yes No spanning an entire galaxy of internet fights. Plus, Alex Goldman reveals a dark personal secret. And an update on Sal’s quest to get into college in Canada. See the tweet here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Gimlet, this is Reply-All. I'm PJ Vote. And I'm Alex Goldman. Welcome once again to Yes Yes, No, the segment on the show where our boss, Alex Bloomberg, comes to us with something he doesn't understand from the internet. And we do our best to explain it to him, Alex Bloomberg. Question mark? Welcome. What do you want for me?

Welcome to the show? Would you like to be welcomed? Oh, man. Why do I do this? People are bad at knowing what's going to bring them pleasure and what's going to bring them pain. I think that's what it is. I think that's true. Yeah.

Shall I just dive in? Yeah. Let's do it. It's a tweet from their handle is LXDX. Oh man, nothing about this tweet makes sense. Yes. LXDX at Wocused Bloke. Here's the tweet.

Showering in classes now. People mad at Aparall. Uber strike, Wicken Life, Gamer Blocked his elf wife. We didn't start the 9,000 retweets. 40,000 likes. So, Alex Bloomberg, do you understand this tweet? No. Any of it?

I understand the form that it is taking. It is that Billy Joel song, we didn't start the fire. Okay. So I understand that. Yeah. That's it. That's it. None of it?

I knew there was an Uber strike. Yeah. Alex Goldman. I'm at about 30% on this one. I'm not very yes on this. I'm more no than yes. Ooh, la, la. PJ vote?

Fully understand this tweet. Wow. partly because so many people tweeted us saying that we had to do this for yes yes yes now I was like I should Google some things That is like a characteristic difference between the two us I think because people kept tweeting it at me and I was like you know what out of defiance I'm not going to learn about this you have oppositional authority disorder we have that a thing yeah It sounds like a thing so we're at yes no no yes kind of now yeah I know with the gamer and his elf life You say that with such disgust for the knowledge.

Like everybody knows about that. All right. Okay. So like maybe the first thing you have to know is like this is the category of tweet that we run into sometimes on yes-as-noe where it's just sort of like an omnibus bill of memes. Right. Like none of these things are related to each other. They are all just themselves things. So we're going to go on a meme tour.

Yes. We're going to go on a meme tour. And it's actually a meme tour of a series of fights that all happened on the internet on one week, a few weeks. ago. Some high stakes important fights, mostly small, ridiculous, petty fights. Right. Okay. So, showering is classes now. I have to say, I find this one pretty enjoyable. So there's this like, there's like certain, um, there's certain debates on the internet. There's certain questions you can ask at any time that just strike some deep chord in being a human being. And every single person, no matter what they're doing.

Like, they're like an EMT at the scene of a horrific accent. And they look at their phone and they see that this debate is happening. They just, like, have to drop what they're doing and, like, run towards the argument. Mm-hmm. Like are our hot dog sandwiches? Declot. Should you declaw your pets? I didn't know that was one.

Oh, my God. No one feels more strongly about anything than pets being declawed. Okay. So one of these, which has been around for a few years, is, and it comes from Black Twitter. It's literally just a question. I feel like I already know the answer for both of you. Do you wash your legs when you shower? Do you wash your legs when you shower?

Yeah, like when you take a shower in the morning, do you use soap specifically on your legs? No, yes. Shockingly, the opposite of what I thought I was going to get out of that. Wait, people wash their legs with soap? Yeah. See, this is a thing about me that I think is genuinely pretty cool. I present as like a filthy, terrible monster.

If you end the sentence right there, I totally agree with you. But I'm actually pretty clean underneath these. I'm actually pretty clean under these stained clothes. So I feel like you guys can enact this right now, probably. Alex Bloomberg, why do you feel like you don't have to wash your legs? Like the Alex Goldman's of the world? Well, I already know the answer to this. I don't know.

It's because the soap rolls down your body, thereby washing your legs by dint of rinsing. Right? No. That's what I thought you were going to say. No, no. Just because like soap, like, you don't, like soap, there's nothing. I don't know, the water's enough. Like, it's not like, I don't know.

What are you rolling around it on your legs? Like, there's nothing. Like, I wash my legs if, like, there's, if there's dirt on my legs. But normally you're just, like, walking along. You've got clothes on. Your legs don't get, they don't get dirty. They get sweaty. Yeah.

And so then, like, you don't use it. The fresh water rinses it off. You don't want your legs to be fragrant? fragrant? Is that how you really feel? I just feel like if I'm going to use soap on my body, I'm using it on my entire body. Also, you use a washcloth to exfoliate. Well, by the way... What's going to your skincare measurement? It's really not what I would have expected.

But if it was so important, then people would have been like, hey, did your legs are smelly? Like, somebody would have pointed out to me in the 52 years I've been on the planet. I mean, the other thing that I think encourages me to wash my legs is, is I, um, the one great joy in my life is sitting in the shower. Sitting in the shower. Okay, we're back to, we're back to normal Alex Colton's air. Sitting in the shower is the best thing in the world. You just sit down in the shower? Yeah, crisscross applesauce.

Put on a podcast. I don't want, clean the hell out of my legs. One of my little interior goals for this was to not have a vivid mental image. And I really have it now. So just like, this is. Like, of all the years that we've been doing, yes, yes, no's, and, like, exploring the most horrific corners of the internet and the images that arise. And, like, that is, like, really one of the most, I can't, I wish I didn't know that. Yeah. You can't unknow it.

I know. Just to make sure we fully know it, though. You get in the shower, Monday morning. Every morning. Turn on probably local news radio or a podcast. I put on a podcast. Turn on the water. You wait for it to heat up. You take your clothes off. Water's a good temperature. You get in. Close the door.

Then I sit down. You're making your legs dirtier by sitting on a mildewy shower floor. Listen, you animal, my floor is not mildewy. I regularly clean it with bleach. It's fine. I guarantee you if people were to swab our legs. coming out of showers, your legs would be dirtier. Wait, so just to continue with this.

You're sitting on the floor, crisscross, avalsauce. And then you put soap on yourself while you're sitting down? Yeah. Do you stand up at any point when I'm done? Did you grow up in like a different kind of household? Like what was the day where a young Alex Golden was standing in the shower was like, this is a waste of muscle mass? You know what it was?

It was when I was in high school. and I was like, I'm really tired. I bet I can catch a few winks if I sit down and lean forward. So I did, and I fell asleep for a few minutes. Oh, God. And there's not even like a moment where you just stand up and have a normal shower for a second before you get out. No. What that tells me is you have a dirty butt.

Wow. I don't do it in stranger showers. Wait, why? I don't know how often they clean their showers. That's gross. Hotel showers? Yeah, no. I don't know who's using it.

I don't know their cleanliness level. Wow. So as you guys can see, it's a question that really teaches you a lot about people that you thought you knew. I feel like we got really derailed. Wow. No, I think that was exactly where we were supposed to go. Wow.

Okay. So like every, it feels like, I'm sorry to just making this up, but it feels like every six months, This just comes up. Like, someone will just ask the question, and then thousands of people will chime in and start, like, yelling at each other because it'll be like, oh, men don't watch their legs

or, like, whatever. Like, people really dig in on it. Usually it's like 80% of people say they do, 20% say they don't, is what I've noticed. Who's the weirdo now, Alex Bloomberg? You're definitely the weirdo now. Yeah, I know. All right, so wait.

So this comes up with the internet all the time. Yeah. Like, leg washers versus leg not washers. Yeah. Historically, it's been a thing that exists on Black Twitter, but then this just like random guy, Connor Arpwell, he tweeted a poll that was this poll was like, do you wash your legs in the shower? And for some reason, this just like made it explode in a way that I think it hasn't before.

This one got, he literally just asked, do you watch your legs when you take a shower? 80% yes, 20% no. 2,500 retweets. This was early May. And then a week after this, this woman, she's, an internet writer. Her name's Sophie Weiner. She writes for Splinter. She retweeted the poll, and the first thing she said in her thread was, got to stand up for the dirtbag women out there yet again. And she goes on to basically say, she's like, I don't like use soap on my whole body

when I shower. I don't think I'm gross. I pretty much just watch my face and my armpits with soap, and I shower like once a twice week, L.L. I think it's fine. But do you think people already started to kind of react against? But then she said that she wanted to acknowledge that as a middle-class cis white woman. She has a lot of privilege, not worry about stuff like body hair. And then she said that if people thought she was stinky in real life, she's open to feedback, but she thought that the obsession with kindliness was weird classist bullshit, which everyone just lost their minds over. Does she, does she explain her argument?

Not well. Basically, it sounds like what she's saying is that cleanliness is something that belongs to, like, rich people. And so shaming people for not being clean is unfair and it's like class warfare. And a lot of people chimed in. They were like, dude, as a person who grew up, like, really poor, please don't argue for my right to be stinky. Like, you are not helping me. You're not on my side. The argument that cleanliness is classist is a classist argument. The argument she's accidentally kind of making is that you can't get mad at people who stink because they stink because they're poor. Yes. And then she was sort of like, she realized she stepped in it. I was like, I get it.

I'm the asshole on the internet this week. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please stop yelling at me, whatever. But it was like too late. It was like thousands of people. And there was also, I think the other thing about it is just there's so many times on the internet, particularly in like 2019 where your last acceptable prejudices get taken away from you. Like you're like this thing.

And somebody's like, well, there's like a intersectional reason why your dislike of that is not cool. But she had overstepped that. I think people were excited to be like, no, no, no. We don't like smelling body odor. That's fine. You are wrong. Uh-huh. She, like, privilege checked too far.

Yes. She, like, aimed the wokeness gun wrong, and it exploded and hit her. Right. But the weird thing is, like, actually, like, in the middle of this tweet thread, she tweeted a link to this article, which I'm very sure nobody read. She tweeted this link to an article that was just, like, talking about how a lot of, like, a lot of what we think of as hygiene has been constructed by companies to convince us to buy stuff. Like, clone and, like, perfume and, like, you know, listerine, telling people that calatosis is the thing.

Like, I think that is valid. Huh. All right. So that's showering his classes now. Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay.

What's the next one? Let's see. People mad at Apparel. What is Apparel? What is Apparel? What is Apparel? No. It's like a bitter, I think you called an Apertief.

It's like, Pari. Oh, it's like a, what are this things called? Is it called a Deja Steefe? No, it's a Degestief. Oh, boy. I can hear us getting yelled out by somebody who knows. We're going to get in trouble with cocktail Twitter. Yeah.

Cocktail Twitter is not a Twitter that I would like to engage with. Okay. So the big fight about Aparol is ridiculous for a lot of reasons. One is just like, I feel like most people haven't heard of Aparol. I certainly hadn't. But then what happened was a couple years ago, the company that makes it decided to do this huge marketing push. Let me show you an ad from that marketing push. So it's a beach and there's a band playing happy together by the turtles.

They also all look like what an old person would think cool young people look like. Like they all look like they got kicked out of Coachella for not being cool enough. Yes. And they're all running toward each other. So the ad is cheesy, but the other thing was I think they just got bartenders to push Apparel really hard, which that part worked. And so last summer, every single intimidating literary person who I was scared of was suddenly just drinking this obscure European drink. And the big fight that this tweet is about, it's actually not like everybody versus Apparel. It's Apparel versus the New York Times.

And the reason is that a few years ago, the New York Times started doing this thing, which they claim, is not on purpose, and to me seems extremely and obviously on purpose, but like you have to believe people when they say things, I guess, which is like, like once a year-ish, they'll post, usually it's a recipe. Like, so like a few years ago. Oh, the guacamole and peas. Yeah, they were like, hey, guys, we got a great new recipe for guacamole. You put peas in it.

Right. Everybody lost their minds. Everybody lost their minds because it's like a weird. And also they were just treating it as if it were normal. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think it like worked. Like it like generated lots of traffic. People talked about it.

It was like sort of a meme. At the time, like Obama tweeted. about it. He was like, I love the New York Times, but I wouldn't put it. I remember the Pia in in Guacamole controversy. So then there's one after that, there was one where they were like, we have a ramen recipe using American cheese that also kind of got people like that's, right. Why are you ruining everything? Wasn't there like a, um, was there a coleslaw one or like? I think there was a coleslaw one. Yeah. And sort of in that vein, they published this like, polemic of you very recently

that was just like, all these people are drinking apparel spritses and apparel spritses are garbage. What a dumb thing. They were like drinking at April Spritz is like drinking a hot Capri Sun on like a summer day, but worse. Basically they were saying that like all these people who were enjoying this very, very niche cocktail

were like, you know, slovenly morons who are drinking like juice packs and couldn't figure it out. Which is a weird piece because it's like the Vend iron people even know what that drink is is already pretty small. And then the amount of people who want to be told that this weird niche thing they like is the wrong thing

and they suck is like even small. Who wants to be told that anything they like sucks? People want to be told that something somebody else likes that they don't like anymore sucks. But I don't think there's anybody who's like, I've moved on to a better sprits already. Is this like a crossword where the thing in the first sentence is going to apply in some weird way to the second sentence? Because this is what's classist. Yeah, this was classest. Or at least like very snobby.

But like aimed at rich, it's like, your monocle dealer is the wrong monical dealer. And so the group of people who had started drinking up oral spritzes. were just like, fuck you, the New York Times. Like everyone was just, everyone who reacted to this article on Twitter was unanimously just low-key mad about it. Like, this is a bad take and it's one thing everybody gets to agree on for a second. So that's Apparel. Let's move on, shall we?

Yes. Uber strike. Uber strike. Okay. So you know that there was an Uber strike. I know there was an Uber strike. Yes. So I actually find the dynamic that's going on pretty fascinating.

Basically, drivers who sign up for these ride-sharing companies, whether it's like Lyfts, Uber, Juno, like, whatever, like, local ones are in different cities. They're in this really weird position because the companies don't want to acknowledge them as employees. And because they're not employees, they don't have to, like, offer them health care or, like, give them minimum wage. Like, they're all independent contractors. And the companies they're working for are just constantly losing money because they're, like, venture capital backed, so they don't have to be profitable, I mean, until very recently. And so the companies just want to acquire as many customers and drive everybody out of business. So they're trying to lower prices for customers.

And the way they do that is to, like, lower wages for drivers all the time. So the drivers decided to do this multi-city strike. For a few hours in New York, L.A., like all these major cities, there's, like, a lot of our drivers are not going to drive. This is a driver talking at a press conference at the New York strike. I used to make $37 in 2014. He's talking about, like, how, for his experience, which is a lot of people's experience, is he took this job. In the beginning, it was lucrative. And then once he was hooked in, they just started paying.

him less and less money. He actually has, I think, graphs of how his wages have gone down. Anybody wants a copy? I'll give you the copies. For $10 an hour, does it pay? How many of you will work for $10 with your car? That you have to buy the car, you have to buy the insurance, you have to maintain the car, and you have to buy the gasoline. And I still have to take out of the tolls out of $9.87. So people are really mad. Right. And part of the reason that there are also so mad. It's like both they had a hard job where their wages have been progressively going down, but also Uber and Lyft just did their IPOs. And so the executives of the company made tons of money. And also in the IPO, you have to say the obstacles your company is facing.

And Uber really straightforwardly said, we know our drivers are pretty dissatisfied. One of the ways we're going to make more money is to pay them less, and so they're going to get angrier. And that's just a thing that we're forecasting, which was public. Like the drivers read that. It just feels very cynical. That's so crazy. And I remember when Uber first came out, because I was, I think I was still doing Planet Money around that time or I'd just come off of it. And so I was like, interesting new business and how is this working for the people who are driving the cars? And I would ask people like, how do you like it?

And everybody was like, in my experience, like every Uber I got in back around that time was like, it's great. I make a lot of money. You know, they were like, they felt really good. and I remember thinking like, this is weird. It doesn't normally work this way, but that seems pretty great, but I wonder if it's going to keep on going that way and obviously.

Yeah, I mean, this guy's saying it, like the difference between 37 bucks an hour and nine. Yeah. Yeah. So that's an over strike. Depressing. Depressing. Okay.

What's next? Wiccan Life. Oh, okay. So this was the one where when people started tweeting at us about this tweet, I had no idea what Wicked Life was. I asked producer Anna Foley. She didn't know either.

And so we just spent the better part of the day just trying to figure out what this was. Anna figured it out. So Wiccan is a Marvel superhero. And he sort of figures into this fight that is taking place about Marvel superheroes. Best way I can explain it. Have you guys seen the new Avengers movie, Avengers Endgame? Yes. No.

Okay. There was one scene in the thing that flew by my head, but that was very important to people on the internet. Which I'm going to show you. I got a bootleg that somebody taped off like a, it's like, it's like. I think it's from maybe Sri Lanka. Like some theater has like subtitles. It's really great. I watched the whole thing that way.

Really? Yeah. Why don't you go see a movie? I saw the movie too. Why you were sitting in the shower? How am I supposed to watch TV in the shower? You put an iPad in a large Ziploc bag. I've thought about this.

Sometimes you're binging. Why are you bootleg in it? It's the bit out for the... You only get the bootleg if it hasn't been out yet. Sometimes, no, you get the bootleg. If it's not out at home yet. But you saw in the movie theater and then you're like, I want to watch this again,

but shaky and with people laughing over it. Yeah. So literally, like, what were you going back for? I just, there were a couple of things that I wanted to see again. Like, what? I don't want to get into it. The scenes that gave you feelings that you wanted to have again?

It's too personal. No, not scenes that gave me feelings that I wanted to have again. I just, I had some plot hole questions that I had to go back and look at. You had plot hole questions that you had to go back and look at?

Well, I was wondering, In all the other ones, people can't even hold the infinity stones. If they do, they, like, actually can't hold them. But in this movie, they're all running around with them. Hawkeye, a straight-up human with no superpowers, is running through fucking the Avengers' secret hideaway in upstate New York for like half an hour holding the infinity gauntlet. How is he doing that?

Wait, he has no superpowers? He can shoot arrows really well. Well, how does he do it with that accuracy? Practice. Were you waiting for the moment where they were like, oh, it's cool that we got these special gloves or whatever. Like, were you trying to find some justification that you'd miss the first time? Yes.

I was trying to see if there was, like, something that would have indicated. It was like that and a couple other things. Anyway, the point is, I bootleg the Avengers to show you guys this one scene. Okay. Which, as far as I know, it contains no plot holes. And, like, this is not a big spoilery scene if somebody hasn't seen it. But, like, it takes place after this big apocalyptic event has happened. Yes.

Okay. It did anywhere. Yeah. They like come back and like they're showing you all the people that you saw survived the first movie just like what they've been up to since then. And Captain America, instead of being Captain America, runs a group therapy workshop. Okay. So this is just like a sound like a show. Panning over an empty stadium.

So I went out day down. It's first time in five years. You know, it's a different. I didn't know what to talk about. So he's just a guy in therapy, talking about this guy that he went on a day with. He did you talk about. Same old crap, you know, things have changed. My job, his job, how much we missed the mess.

And then things got quiet. And he cried as they were serving the salads. What about you? And I cried just before dessert. But I'm seeing them again tomorrow. That's great. The reason this was a big deal for people was because of the first time in a Marvel movie that there was just a gay character at all. Oh.

And you've heard all of the lines of that character. Like, they're not like a superhero. They're not like a main person or whatever. But there are people who are just like really excited about representation. There are also people who are like, the filmmakers bragged a lot about this, but it's a very small role. Actually, the guy playing it is one of the filmmakers. And he was like... One of the directors.

He was like, it's so important. I want to be there. And there were people who are like, in a movie with like 300 superheroes in it, you could have had a gay. gay superhero. Like, I don't think... Not in a movie with 300 superheroes in it, in the 18 movies that preceded this one. Yeah.

Yeah. Some people were excited about it. A lot of other people were like, come on, you guys could do better. But then people found out that, like, Marvel has had this whole plan where they're like, there's like four phases and there's going to be like, Iron Man 1 and Thor 1 and then Iron Man 2 and Thor 2.

And then eventually it's going to end in this end game movie and, like, the cycle will be complete. But because there's like an amendment in the U.S. Constitution that says that we have to watch superhero movies every year we all die. They're rolling out a new phase with the like young Avengers who are the newer superheroes. Right. So do you know about Hulkling, Alex? What? Hulkling? No. Okay. So Hulkling, it's not like, oh, this is Hulk's son. It's just like, here's a young character who's also like the Hulk and we'll call him Hulkling. He's a character. And there's a character named Wicken who's somehow related to Vision, I think. This is like on

the outside of my comic nerdery. But basically, so these characters were written like the early 2000s and the writer wanted them to be a gay couple. Wiccan and Halkling. Wiccan and Halkling. Got it. And he was worried that Marvel would just be too conservative. They wouldn't let him do it. And so he came up with this whole complicated story, which is that Wiccan is a shapeshifter. And when you first met her in the comics, she'd be a woman. But then over time, she'd like go on this journey and she'd realize that her true unshaped, shifted self was a man. And then the two of them would have to decide if they were really in love and if it like crossed gender lines and all this stuff and he pitched it to his bosses. And they're like, that's really complicated, man. Why don't you

just make them both men and they could be in love? And he's like, okay. So they're a gay superhero couple and people are excited because they're like, oh, we're going to get a Wiccan movie. We're going to get gay superheroes who are in love with each other. I think. That is meaning as best guess for Wiccan life. That is the most sort of Wiccan bubbling up story that has happened this week. So Wicc, it has nothing to do with actual Wiccans. Not that I know of. If people know better than me, they should tweet it Alex Goldman. No.

Okay. All right, Alex Bloomberg, what's next? What's next is, okay, so we've gone showering his classes now. We've gone people mad at Aparall, Uber strike, Wicin Life, and we are now on Gamer Blocked His Elf Wife. Right. So Gamer Blocked His Elf Wife. This is the one I know.

Yes. Okay, so there's this guy named Jared Knaupin Bauer. In his former life, he was a snobby assistant manager at a GameStop, which is not a rare thing. The way he got out of that job was that he started posting video game reviews online, which he got sort of famous for on the internet. This is like the trailer for his YouTube page. One minute review. Ready, go. Here's an indie game.

that's worth a damn. Myoshock Infinite is one of the most ripping games I've ever played. These trees are trying to kill me. Fuck you, nature. Anyway, that's Jared. Okay. He reminds me of everyone I worked at a video store with, including myself. Yes, yes, exactly.

Everything you like is bad and everything that's obscure is good. Right. But video games. So, he has a big following, over a million subscribers. His fans really like him. They also really like his wife. This woman named Heidi O'Farrell. She is a cosplayer.

Do you know how cosplayer is? Dressing up. You dress up. In costume. In costume. In costume. Coss. It's short for costume. So it means that she has these YouTube videos.

She sort of has two types of YouTube videos. She plays video games. But also, there's a lot of videos where she's explaining to people how to make, like, for a Sailor Moon costume. Oh. So this is her, she's doing like prep for DragonCon. Hello, and welcome to DragonCon. Hello and welcome to DragonCon Crunch Time in my workshop.

It's like always her in front of her sewing machine and her spindles and stuff. She's a workshop. She's a set. Yeah. You guys get the idea. Anyway, so the two of them, Heidi and Jared, for years, have just been this sort of happy nerd couple online people really like until very, very recently. Got it. So about two weeks ago, he posted something on his Twitter, which said it was called a statement.

And, oh. I have it. good. Yeah. I can read it. A statement. My wife Heidi and I have filed for divorce. I know this may come as surprising upsetting for many of you, but know that we do this so that we may both seek happiness for ourselves. During this time, you may see a lot of rumors, speculation, and gossip going around. I ask that you make your own observations to come to your own conclusions. I will add that this decision was reached after extensive individual therapy on my part and couples therapy together. With that said, this is all I plan on saying publicly regarding this matter. Heidi's privacy,

mental well-being, and discretion has always been and will remain my highest priority through all this. is my hope that we both exit this marriage with Salon Grace. I plan on continuing to do everything I can on my part to make this happen. Thank you for your understanding, patience, kindness, and respect for her privacy. All right. Yep. Seems fine. So he tweets that.

Half an hour later, his wife Heidi tweets, uh, she says, I'm not quoting her, but she says like, she's like, apparently my husband tweeted something about me. I can't see it because he fucking blocked me.

It goes downhill from there, pretty sharply. So first of all, people were very amused by the idea of someone blocking their wife. Yeah, right. It just feels like a severely internet-y thing to do. But she proceeded to say that it was not an amicable split. And in fact, she said that he'd been cheating on her with... With another YouTube gamer.

The other woman, who his wife said he'd been seeing... She started releasing stuff on the internet. She said it wasn't cheating. It was an open-in-relationship. But then Heidi said, no, we did have an open-in-a-relationship, but we closed it. And so it was cheating. I think at one point both women accused the other of being both abusive and gaslighting. It just got very, very messy. Right. And then... Oh, then there's another and then. There's another and then. Things got substantially worse for him. He had a tumbler where his fans would follow him. And in a way that was sort of seemed joking, sort of honestly did not see. He would constantly say that people should send him nudes, like nude photographs. On his tumbler.

On his tumbler. And fans have come forward and said that they did send him naked pictures. What happened was Jared's fans considered him to be kind of a heartthrob. Got it. So some of them made a video game. Do you know what a dating simulator is? A dating simulator? Yeah.

No. It's a genre of video game. A lot of times it takes place in a school. And basically what you do is you have conversations with someone. Potential suitors. A potential suitor that you might want to date. They're like conversation trees. So if you answer correctly to whatever they say to you, then maybe you can get further flirting with them.

And eventually, like, the way you win the game is if you guys get together. Uh-huh. So in this game, you play a Japanese high school girl. You're choosing who to date. But all the people that you can date in the game are actual YouTube personalities, including Jared. This is the intro for it. It's a lot. So it's like an anime schoolhouse.

And then it's almost like the intro to like a 90s sitcom. Like it's all these like... Yeah, establishing shots of the exterior of the school. This schoolgirl is the character you play, Hannah. An empty classroom. Then there's Hannah, looking, having various expressions. Of almost all shyness. And then these are the boys.

Oh. Wow. This is some full beards for high school boys. Well, because they're really video game YouTubers. Oh, right. So there's John with his catchers that could have made it. you, PBG, here, take my hand and don't let go. And Jared, you captivate me, Hannah.

And, like, his illustration in the game is significantly more dreamy than him in real life. Fandom is insane. It's a fan-made video game about having a crush on a real-life person named Jared. Got it. The fans of this game, according to a bunch of them, what happened next was that he already had his public Tumblr where he was joking about wanting to see everybody naked. According to them, and they have screenshots that they gave to The Daily Beast,

he allegedly set up an additional private tumbler called Sin Jared, and he called his fans his sinners. And what they said is that he would ask them to send naked photos of themselves, he would send naked photos of himself, and also asked them to draw erotica for him. Okay.

Even in the screenshots they provided, this private tumbler had a notice that said that he didn't want to hear from underage fans. the women who came forward, they said most of these fans were very young. And there was even one woman who said, look, I sent him naked pictures. I was underage. He did not seem particularly concerned with checking to see if I was 18.

Right. And this came out in the wake of all these like flying adultery things. But after this, I think people were like, it doesn't really matter what kind of open, polyamorous relationship he had with various cosplayers. This is a guy who is facing accusations that he was swapping naked pictures with young fans. Like, people just did not want to be involved after that. So he had had over a million subscribers. He lost a couple hundred thousand.

Like, he seems like a complete priant at this point. Huh. Gamer block to self-wife. Wait, what, elf? Oh, because she dresses up. She cosplays as an elf. Oh, God. Alex Blumber, you ready to go back to the tweet?

I am. Yes. So, showering's classes now. People mad at Apparel, Uber Strike, Wicked as an Elf Wife. We didn't start, though. Showering is classes now. There was an internet debate about washing her legs that spun into side conversations. One of those side conversations is by a young woman on Twitter who is trying to sort of establish that she's checking her privilege.

And she says that and she talks about how showering is classist. And then everybody's like, wait, what the fuck are you talking about? Showering is not classes. Showering is just the way you get clean. And you're saying that it was classist is actually showing that you're a classist. Yes. Then next, people mad at Apparol. There was an incredibly classist article in the New York Times, taking issue with a fancy drink that people drink in Fonty places in New York.

And then the fancy people who drink that drink, the Aprol Spritz, got mad at the New York Times for publishing that. Uber strike. Uber drivers feel exploited, but they can't unionize because they're not employees. and so they did a strike. Yes. Wiccan Life, we think, is about people, we think, is about people's excitement about an upcoming Marvel movie

with a same-sex superhero relationship. Yes, we think. And Gamer blocked his elf wife. That is one where there is a YouTuber who reviews video games, and he posted this very mature Twitter statement about his divorce, then blocked his wife,

and then everything spiraled into a sex scandal. And his wife dresses up as an elf. And his wife dresses up as an elf. And there we have it. All the weeks, memes. The only other thing that I have thought about this tweet

is I feel like the meta joke of it that I like is like we didn't start the fire was like all these like cultural references all these things that happen and I feel like it spans like a decade or something like that. It spans several decades.

This is a week. Like these are things that happen on the internet in a week. The very first reply is we didn't start the fire in 1989. Events spanned 40 years. Song is four minutes long. We didn't start the fire 2019.

Events span a week. Song is 28 minutes long. We didn't start the fire 2021. events span two hours. Song is somehow three hours long. Okay. Are we at? Yes, yes, yes.

We are at yes, yes. Thanks, guys. No problem. After the break, we checked back in with one of the callers from our call-in show, Sal, about his quest to get into college in Canada. Hello, Anna. Hi. What are we here for?

So you guys remember a couple of months ago, we did the call-in episode? Yes. Episode 139, the Replyle Hotline, we basically just, asked listeners to call in with their questions. It could be tech questions, not tech questions, like whatever it was, we were just going to try and answer it. And one of the people that called in was Sal. Yes. He's an 18-year-old Syrian kid living in Turkey. His family has been there for a couple of years. They fled because of the Civil War. He desperately wants to go to college in Canada. His dream school was actually McGill. The school that I went to weirdly. But he was running into this

problem when he was trying to submit his application online, the system just wouldn't even recognize his name? Let me play you guys a clip from that episode. I tried to register to the best of my ability on the internet. And I just, like, there was the websites. All of them were so bad and like... Just like hard to actually use? Like so many problems. I've kind of missed all of my deadlines now. And it's been like these three months that have been super depressing for me. I've been like searching for counselors on the internet.

I literally can't find anyone. And like, I don't know if that's even something that, like, you said to anything. Yeah, totally. I don't know what I'm doing. So we said we would try and help him and we weren't totally sure how. So we put out a call out to our listeners.

Turns out a lot of our listeners. out a lot of our listeners work in college admissions. Yeah, like a ton. We heard from people like in the U.S. and Canada and like the U.K. and Ireland like all over the world. So, so that all happened. And then actually after the episode came out, I kept in touch with Sal. We've been DMing on Twitter. And I thought it would be nice for him to tell you guys what he's been telling me. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought we would give him a call. Sounds great. We chat. Okay.

I think I did it. Sal? It's just saying calling. Oh, okay. It doesn't ring. It's super unhelpful. That is super unhelpful. Have you watched the Chernobyl show yet?

I don't think that's for me. We're already talking about Chernobyl. Hey! How's it going? I'm doing great. Have you watched the Chernobyl show? No, I heard about it, but like, I don't have an HBO subscription, okay? Come on.

How are you doing? I'm doing great. You sound great. Yeah, you sound good. Really? Yeah. Do I not sound extremely dehydrated? I don't know.

Are you extremely dehydrated? Kind of. Why? Ramadan faster. Oh, right. 16 hour fast, okay. But how have you all been doing? Pretty good.

Yeah, fine. Yeah. How about you? Again, I've been doing all right. It's been, I don't know where to start. What? Start at everything that's happened since the last time we talked. Yeah, sure.

So I got connected with the people at McGill, and they were fairly nice. And I ended up getting rejected. Oh, I'm sorry, man. What did they say? Why? I'm pretty sure it's because of my grades. Oh, that sucks. And here's why it sucks.

So I went in ninth grade, I went to a Turkish school. And so I really wanted to do well, but I ended up doing terribly. Because your English is a lot better than you're Turkish. Yeah, like I told you guys all about it. And so my grades were obviously not too good. And so like I decided to go back to one of the refugee centers in like 10th grade. and there I did fairly well. I was catching up.

By 11th grade, I'm pretty sure I got, I was like second in my class. But then by 12th grade, they decided to shut down our refugee centers, like educational centers, our schools, basically. And we all had to go to Turkish schools. And so I was back in a Turkish school, and my D.P. and got screwed over again. That sucks. Yep.

I mean, McGill's not the only school in the world. Have you thought about any others? There's plenty of other school fish in the sea. I had heard. Right. It's, again, like, it's pretty depressing that I have, like, ended up with really bad grades towards the end. I mean, when you think about it, like, if I was born a year or two earlier,

if I was just a bit older, our schools would not have been closed. I probably would have done better there and I would be banned from certain places but like I don't know it's weird but you just have to get in and then you will never ever ever ever ever think about your high school grades again

I promise if you have a million years it'll never ever matter hopefully also yeah about the whole process Anna had sent me a list of colleges

that of like people that had reached out through email to help. And I got in contact with a, it was like kind of pretty much the only university that still is open for the false arm. Mm-hmm. I got in contact with them. And I talked to them. Are you allowed to say what university is? Yep, it's Concordia. Concordia is great.

Okay, so in Montreal, let me just tell you this. in Montreal, McGill is like the sort of like the school that Americans think is prestigious. Concordia is where like all the cool kids go. If you go there and you like are out at a bar or something and somebody asks you what school you go to, Concordius is the cool answer. I know this is someone who never got to give a cool answer. Well, that's promising. And anyway, yesterday I got my letter of admission. Get out of here.

Holy shit. That's fucking awesome. Oh my God, dude. And I got accepted into my first choice, computer engineering. Oh my God. That's amazing. How do you feel about getting in? Yeah, it's pretty good. And hopefully, yeah, I'm pretty happy. I was like trying to figure out, I was like, for a person who didn't get what you wanted, you sound, you're laughing a lot. You seem like you're in a pretty good mood. Yeah, it's been a lot. I got injected from Miguel, kind of got over for it.

Dude, that is so cool. That is so cool. Yeah, that's great. Also, by the way, they had a decent website. I could like, for the first time, I didn't feel like a complete idiot. Like, they had everything in the same page. Like, I just had to click next and fill it all up. And that's pretty straightforward.

I don't know. Okay, again. What's the next step? I mean, obviously, I'm still trying to get into all sorts of colleges. But now the next step is to get like a visa, try to get a visa. I don't know how it's going to work. My passport is long expired. But hopefully now that I have an admission, I can actually start my application for the visa.

So you have to find if you can get a visa. Like, how long is the process? Is Concordia, can they help at all? Like, just figure it out and walk you through. it? I have no idea, but again, one of the people that Anna had connected me with was like an immigration officer in Canada, and hopefully I'm going to be emailing him like today, tomorrow. That's great. Be asking him about the whole process. If you get in and you go, I have a lot of advice for you about Montreal. I thought you were going to say I'll come visit,

which I will come visit you. would have not been invited. I'm going to. I don't care if I've been invited. Alex is going to stay with you in your dorm. I'm not going to stay with him in his dorm, but I'm going to go visit. I'll go visit if you invite me.

Also, last thing, Alex, if you sent over anything, I know you told me you were going to do that. Make sure, like, if you have a tracking code for it, send it over because, like, my door doesn't work. Okay, got it. So you're just going to one day open the door and there will be like an enormous cardboard box and you'll open it. It'll be Alex will pop out with like a cot.

I'll be like, sleeping in the hallway. God, I don't know how to go on with this bed. Fair enough. Do you mind if we just like keep checking in? Yeah, obviously. I'm totally down with that. All right. So thanks a lot.

Bye, guys. Bye. Bye. Reply All is hosted by PJ Vote and me, Alex Goldman. The show is produced by Shruthy Pinnaminani, Fia Benin, Damiano Marquetti, Anna Foley, Jessica Young, and Emmanuel Jochi. Our editor is Tim Howard. We're mixed by Rick Kwan. Fact-checking this week by Michelle Harris.

Our theme song is by The Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. This is our last episode with interned Christina Ayela de Josa, and we are going to miss her terribly. Christina, thank you so much for all your help. and for recommending to me so many good horror movies. Also, Christina is figuring out her next move right now, so if you work in radio and you have a job opening, hire her. Matt Lieber is assembling a piece of furniture and not having any screws mysteriously left over.

You can listen to our show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. We'll see you soon.