Reply All - #155 Friendship Village

Episode Date: January 16, 2020

A scandal at Teen Vogue, a mysteriously disappeared TikTok star, and the competing viral dances of Mayor Pete and Mayor Bloomberg. Yes Yes No is back. Tweet #1 Tweet #2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Happy New Year. Thank you. Happy New Year to you. We're back. We are. Do you have New Year's resolutions? You know, last year I said I wanted to get knocked out. I didn't end up getting knocked out.

You had an exercise plan which was to take up boxing so somebody would deck you. I mean, I did do boxing for a while, and then I kind of fell off. And nobody knocked you out? Nobody knocked me out. Mostly it was like. Nobody snacked you in the kisser? It wasn't really sparring. It was more just like getting the technique.

That's the thing. All the things that seem like they'd be. cool. Like when I was a kid, I really liked Star Wars, then I took like three fencing classes in Philadelphia. And they're like, okay. So we're going to do six months of footwork, and then we'll give you a glove. Why couldn't I have just walked into the gym and then just someone immediately punches me in the face? That's a better gym. Okay, you really, you have no New Year's resolutions. No, I don't want to do a resolution this year because I feel like I failed so badly at getting knocked out. What about you? Do you have a New Year's resolution?

Last year, I think my resolution must be more confrontational. All right. How'd I go? Let me think for a second if I confronted more people in the last year. What I remember is like a couple weeks ago I was driving and this guy took my parking spot. Like I was backing into it and he swooped in and took it. And I was like, dude. And he was like, oh, I was looking at my window and I saw this parking spot.

I really wanted it. And I was like, okay, that makes sense. And I was driving. I was like, that made no sense. That's great, great. You got way more confrontational. Okay, so I guess this year my news resolution is to stand up for myself again. Wait, actually, I just realized that my last year's resolution, that was actually an old resolution.

My last year's one was to engage in less feuds. Oh, right. Yeah. And how, who are you feuding with? I don't think I should say. No, I think you should. No. Okay, so no resolutions, nothing.

There's not one thing you want to have in this year. There's not even a self-improvement thing. Zip zero. All right. This feels, I feel like every time, I just feel like you don't realize it, but you're setting me up. I don't think I'm setting up all the times.

I think sometimes I'm setting up. I don't think this time. I know. That's the thing that's so frustrating about it, is if I answer this honestly, it's going to be hard for you to resist, like, making fun of me. Well, let's try.

All right. Okay. Is this to make like an album of synthesizer music? It's on that track. Okay. I really want to be able to automate several parameters on mini synthesizers simultaneously from one central digital audio workstation so that I can make them all all play autonomously and I can edit the parameters so that the filter moves at a specific time or like the decay changes.

Did you steal your resolution from a robot? Midi CC is really difficult, and I'm trying to learn it. If it makes you happy, I support you. See, I knew it. If it makes you happy, I support you. You said that after the thing about the robot. But that is the thing I'm focused on learning this year. If it makes you happy, I support you.

Honestly, I feel like you have a better chance learning this obscure nerdy thing that I do at changing my personality even one degree. So probably next year, we can open the show with some weird synthesizer music, and I'll still be feuding non-confrontationally with the world. Fair enough. And it's not that, it's not that obscure. Uh-huh. All right. Before we start the show, one bit of housekeeping, because we've heard from people about this. Yes.

We didn't do our year-end extravagance of this year. Past, present future. Past, present future for anybody who's listening is the end-of-the-year show where we sort of go over updates of episodes that. that have happened in the past year or several past years. And I didn't realize how beloved it was until we didn't do it. Me neither. And as we've said in the past, we don't do it on years that are the beginning of a new decade, but we do it every other year.

This is a very convenient lie you've just made up. No, we just got busy with the big end of year series. But we're going to do it again next year. And in the next few months, there are some stories that we've reported that have had really interesting developments in them. So we're going to do some updates, even though it won't be in one big, end of year extravaganza, we will be looking back a little bit. But we've learned our lesson. We'll do it at the end of the year.

Yeah, we're sorry for disappointing you. Okay, enjoy the show. Enjoy the show. From Gimlet, this is Reply-All. I'm PJ Vote. And I'm Alex Goldman. Alex, Bloomberg. Yes.

Welcome to the studio. Thank you. 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. We do our best to explain it to him. and sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don't. Man, that was the best one you've ever done. Yeah, that was a concise.

I find no fault in that explanation. That was amazing. Thanks, guys. Five years in. Five years in. You nailed it. Can't just let it be, huh? All right.

So, yeah, so I am, after five years of doing this with you guys, I now understand the internet perfectly, so I no longer have any questions. But sometimes what I do is I send out a tweet to my legions and legions and legions of followers. Confused followers. And I asked them, hey, can I help you with some answers to some of your questions? And people respond by sending me tweets that are confusing.

Can we just burst this fiction right now that you understand what's going on on the internet? Yes, we can. Okay, thank you. I don't understand what's going on the internet still, less now than in the beginning somehow. You know, I feel like there was like a steady, increase in your understanding of things and then, uh, and it like crested and then dropped off really shortly because you like, I don't know, because life got in the way. Wait, really? Yeah, I feel like he started understanding stuff more for a minute. Yeah. And then it went away. I feel like you're talking

about Alex Wilmer, like he's a child in a developmental phase or something. He wasn't a developmental phase. I was. I was. I think that's, I think it's an accurate metaphor. You know he's like flowers for He got really smart there for a minute. Now he's worse off than when he started. Okay, so here's the tweet. Are you ready? All right, it's from Twitter user Dave Jorgensen.

Verified. And it says, The Teen Vogue article is going to come back as Troy Becker. Oh, man, this one's really good. Alex Coleman, do you understand this tweet? I'm at exactly 50% comprehension. Alex Wilmer, do you understand this tweet? No.

PJ vote, do you understand this tweet? Yes. So we're at yes, 50% now. Yeah, we're at yes? No. So this is one of the ones that I sort of like where I understand every word individually, but together they make no sense. Well, I don't actually understand every word. I understand almost all the words except for the words Troy Becker.

Okay. I don't know who that is. And... I assumed that was. a football player for some reason. I was like that sounds like a sports name. It does sounds like a, it sounds like a sportsman of some kind. It sounds like a quarterback or it sounds like a weird code for Tribeca. Or, okay. Or the kid who beat you up in high school. Yes, it does sound like the kid who beat me up in high school. Yeah. This name was Phil. Zandy Crab. Zandy Crab was your bully. Yeah. Wow, Zandi Crab was somebody else's bullied. Yeah. And then he, that's how they were on the food chain.

Like you were bullied by a bully. I was also a nerd who got bullied by slightly more cool nerds. It was so bad. One time I was like standing up to this kid who had been messing with me and I was like, I was like finally staying up for myself. And then a much cooler kid was there. And he just pulled up a joke and was like, nerd fight. That's so mean. It was so mean.

God. It's like you can't even be like even when you're standing up for yourself, when you're taking a stand, you're immediately delegitimized by some third party spectator. Oh, that sucks. That's awful. All right. The tweet. The tweet.

Okay, so Goldman, what is your, where is your 50% in this tweet? My 50% is the Teen Vogue article. Okay, let's start there. Alex Blume, are you familiar with, like, do you know the whole thing that, like, happened to Teen Vogue in the past couple years? I interviewed for this other podcast that I host called. without fail. I interviewed Elaine Weltroth. Oh, cool. Who is the editor of Teen Vogue and sort of like oversaw its sort of like somewhat surprising to many people transition from like, you know, beauty tips and secrets for teens to sort of like cogent political analysis of our current moment. I didn't know you interviewed her. That's so funny. Yeah. That was like that was like the big sort of like post-Trump thing was like Teen Vogue became sort of like politically progressive and woke. I think a lot of people first were like, this is sort of funny. And they're like, yeah. You're going to doing a good job.

All right, welcome, Teen Vogue to, like, thoughtful, progressive internet. Right. And then the magazine version got shut down. And they just became a website. And they became a website. Okay, so you know that. Yeah. So this week, Teen Vogue posted an article that had a title like,

these women are securing Facebook for the 2020 election. How Facebook is helping ensure the integrity of the 2020 election. How Facebook is helping ensure the integrity of the 2020 election. With the company's huge platform comes huge responsibility. And, hmm, everybody read it and immediately was like, this is very fishy. This is very puff PC. It feels like sponsored content. It does.

And it sounds like a press release. It felt like a press release. It was like a glowing profile of like five women who work at Facebook. And it was just like, you know, in an environment where most people at this point don't feel good about Facebook, particularly when it comes to like safeguarding elections, it was just an article. It was just like, Facebook, they're doing a great job. Everybody knows that. Let's talk to them about what a great job they're doing.

And the great people who are doing a great job there, who would ever feel a different way? What else would you say in an article like this? And was there any reference to the fact that, like, Facebook was implicated in a lot of, like, sort of like trolling and Russian botting and like sort of like problems in 2016, any of that stuff? No, it was like the article that Facebook would have written about itself in a world where people had access to no other news sources. And it also came. And it had 90-day memories. Yes, yes. And it also came in a week when a memo was leaked that was written by someone who is pretty

eye up at Facebook. What is his name, Bosworth? Bosworth. Yeah. Bosworth. His name is something, I think he's Andrew Bosworth. Okay. Andrew Bosworth.

Yeah, Andrew Bosworth. I wanted to just be Bosworth. You want to just be like. Bosworth. Bosworth affects my Facebook memo, please. A bumler who probably did the murder. So Andrew Bosworth wrote a memo that was meant to be internal and, and got leaked. It, like, just was very mealy-mouthed, but essentially said, like, we're not,

we're not going to change anything, really. We're not going to disallow politicians from lying on our platform. We're not going to stop accepting political ads. And, like, the really sort of spectacular admission he made in the memo was, like, he said, do I think that Donald Trump won his election because of Facebook ads? Yes, I do. Whoa. But not because he, like, cheated, not because of Cambridge Analytica, but, like, yes, I think he won because he ran an incredible ad campaign on Facebook. Oh. So not because he was lying, but because he was, it was just like, I think the lying probably helped.

Right. But like what Bazaworth is saying is that like, he's like, they ran an incredible ad campaign. We're not going to do anything about politicians lying on our platform. Right, right, right. We're not going to do the thing that they do on the airwaves and they do everywhere else, like, where, you know, which is like you have to, you can say things, but you have to say the truth. Right. Got it. Okay.

And so it felt weird, like one day after that happened for the. article to come out about like how great they are at securing the election. Okay. And so it went up, right? It went up. Immediately a lot of people were like, this looks like sponsored content, but it's not labeled as sponsored content. Like it looks like an ad, but you guys are acting like it's an article, what's going on?

Also, the article didn't have a byline on it. Like there's no author attached to it. So what happened was it goes up. Cheryl Zandberg from Facebook, she posts about it. She's like, what a lovely article that was written about us by Teen Folk. I'm so happy with it. This New York Times reporter asked Facebook, like, what is the deal with this? And Facebook says something like, you know, this isn't sponsored content.

It's just a great article that happened to be written about us. The problem was Teen Vogue had already put up a thing saying that this was actually sponsored content. Yeah, they like slapped a sponsored content tag on the article. Then how long after the article went up? Maybe a few hours? Yeah, okay. Then they took it off. Then I think they added a byline and took the byline off.

And the byline person was like, I didn't write this one on what you're talking about it. Oh, my God. And then finally, by the end of the day, like the article, they just took the article down. It was deleted. Wow. And so. That is crazy. Oh, the other thing that happened was great is somebody tweeted at Teen Vogue and was like, guys, what is this?

And the Teen Vogue Twitter account tweeted back at this Twitter user. Did you say literally IDK? Literally, I don't know. Literally, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Wow. So I was like, So the, the, the, the, the, the Twitter presence of Teen Vogue was like, what the fuck is happening on Teen Vogue?

Exactly. And like, their former editors were like, whatever, like, advertising is done to editorial, like, is messed up. Like, editorial does great work. This is horrible. This is horrible. This is horrible. But, like, nobody knew what it happened. Okay.

So what happened was, and this is according to Peter Kafka from Recode, he had a source who gave him the story. What happened was, I guess, like a year ago, Facebook had sponsored some event for Teen Vogue, and they were supposed to be sponsored content associated with that event. But then Facebook had said, actually, we don't want you to do this. Because usually it groups people out.

Like, it doesn't persuade anybody. Everyone's just like, why are you hijacking my news source? So they don't like forget it. But then somebody in the advertising site at Teen Vogue had the piece written anyway, and then they put it into their CMS, like the tool that publishes their articles on the internet, and then just like left it there.

is a draft. And then months later, by accident, apparently, somebody was just like, oh, nobody publish this article. And they hit it and set it out. Get out of here. Oh, no. It's so bad. Oh, no.

Yeah. So that's what they say happened. What do you think of that? It feels dumb enough to be true to me. I know. Anytime there's like a thing happens and it's like, okay, either this is an organized conspiracy or somebody hit the wrong button, I always believe they hit the wrong button thing. I just, yeah, that's been my experience of life on earth.

Hitting the wrong button. Hitting the wrong button. Yeah, people just make stupid mistakes. And like, this felt like a stupid mistake. I don't know, do you, Alex, do you buy it? As a person who's accidentally published an episode of our show. That was a test episode. Friendship Village.

Friendship Village. I was making, I was running a test on the CMS, and so I made a fake episode of the show that was called Friendship Village. It was just a copy of another episode we already had. published, thousands of people downloaded it. We're like,

what the hell is friendship village? Right. So I believe that pressing the wrong button feels very much within the wrong possibility. Yeah.

Okay. Human error. Human error. So that's like the first half, like a story of weird ham-fisted screw-ups that look like conspiracy but are in fact not conspiracy,

possibly, we think, maybe. Also, one thing to say is, I'm pretty sure this tweet was posted as, you know, Teen Vogue was like in the middle.

of like publishing and unpublishing and messing with this article. Okay. Part two. Part two is very enjoyable. Just to remind people, the tweet again reads, the Teen Vogue article is going to come back as Troy Becker. So we've established what the Teen Vogue article is. Yeah, 15 minutes in worth four words into the tweet.

Oh, Troy Becker. Okay. So, Goldman, have you ever used musically? You mean TikTok? Yes. Yeah. But you never used it before it was TikTok? Uh, I knew about it before it was TikTok because there were like 13 year old influencers who basically would just like lip sync to a song.

And then they'd get like 15,000 comments of people being like, he's so beautiful. I can't believe it. I love him so much. What was the name of it? There's one in particular whose name I'm trying to remember who for like a second was like the hottest. It's like the same name as every influencer. It's like, Sebastian Shaw. So, Alex, just to make sure you understand this, a few years ago, there was this app that became very popular among young teenagers called Musically.

And the whole point in the app was just you take a video of yourself, lip syncing to a song. And that's it. You don't sing the song. You just, you just lip sync. Yeah. That makes sense to you? It doesn't make sense to me. No, it makes so much sense to me because, so, okay.

Yes. How old I am. I am so old that I remember a time in the West before karaoke. And I remember when karaoke first came to our shores. Really? Yes. I think karaoke was always with us. I remember it too.

No. And I remember people explaining karaoke to me. And I remember the explanation. Yeah, they play the song, but the words are taken out. And so you sing the song. and I was like, oh, that person's got it backwards. Like, why would I want to hear myself singing the song? It must just be that you lip sync the song.

Because I would never want to hear myself singing somebody else's song, but it would be fun to sort of lip sync the song. And so for a long time, before I had done karaoke, I thought people were just like telling it to me wrong. And then I went to my first karaoke bar, and then I saw people singing the words themselves. Yeah. And I was like so mad.

I could not believe. I was like, why do I want to live? listen to you, mangle this song. And then... I got really into it and started singing myself. And that it was really fun. As a person who's done karaoke with you, can I just say how glad I am

that it's not just lip syncing because of your beautiful singing was? Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, musically comes out. It doesn't make sense to me. It makes a lot of sense to you. It's the thing that you thought karaoke was. That it should have been.

Finally. It's real karaoke. The karaoke we all wanted is here. And there's this guy named Paul Zimmer, he's in his 20s, who becomes kind of like instantly, like a huge star on musically. Like he amasses, he starts in 2015. Within two years, he has seven million followers. Oh. And his videos are like very much, like, let me just show you one.

Okay. Okay, so he's like standing in front of a blank white wall, like, probably in a bedroom or something like that. He's, like, dancing, at lip-sinking and doing sort of sexy moves, prancing back and forth. He's got these, like, frosted... Prancing. Frosted tips. He has a big quaff of hair.

He has the highest hair of anyone I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, now he's, like, showing his abs. He does a little shoulder shimmy. He looks like a cute boy who works at the mall and, like, combs his hair along, in my opinion. Also, he doesn't have a lot of money. moves. It's like he chooses his hoodie string. He puts his hand to his mouth like he's singing and then he touches his hair. And then sometimes

he kind of like mimes the words a little bit. And that's it. That's the whole thing. And it's all in the same bedroom. Okay. So that that is Paul Zimmer. That is what 8 million people got really excited about. They got 8 million people got excited about that kid. That kid. Yes.

Wait, actually, sorry. 7 million people. That is wild. That is that's so interesting. That's sort of like, that is like, it's like literally it's a vehicle for eighth grade popularity to go viral. Yes, Alex? Nothing. I'm just feeling my bubbling resentment for popular kids in eighth grade coming back. You were just back in eighth grade for a second.

I hate you Baltimore! I've always been like this. And they've always been like that. And I'll never forgive them for him. So he becomes like huge on Musically. Musically actually got bought renamed to TikTok. So then he became immediately, like, as soon as TikTok on, she was like one of the biggest people on TikTok. He had a big Instagram channel.

He had a big YouTube channel. And how old is he? He's 24 now. He looks younger, right? He looks a lot younger. Oh, interesting. Okay. So something that sort of surprised me about Paul Zimmer because he's like, he comes across as like literally just a pretty face.

Like he doesn't seem to have like a lot of personality, but apparently does these comedy videos. Um, they're really bad though. So like, uh, this is from the clip is actually from another YouTuber making fun of him. But it's Paul Zimmer. The clip starts with him just like talking on the phone to a friend of his walking through what looks like a school. Yeah, no, for breakfast, I just had some beans. Seriously? So wait, the, the video was him saying on the phone, I just had some beans and then a fart sound.

Yeah. There's a fart sound. some passerby goes seriously, and that's the whole video. You know, in addition to always having resented popular people, I've always found farts very funny, so I was totally fine with it. He's winning you back with that one. You know, Paul Zuma, you're all right. They were not that different after all.

Yeah, but his farts come out of a beautiful popular bud, Alex. No, I'm not again. My theory about him up to this point is he's just like one of those people who is very good looking who kind of maybe on one hand understands that they're very good looking because like he's taking videos of his face every day. But in another way it's like doesn't understand that like some of the privileges and ease of life that he's accrued has to do with his face. Like he posts these like completely unfunny comedy videos but they get tons of views because people are like, oh, it's another pulse over thing, whatever. Right. Got it. So in 2016, uh, musical.

had launched this other app called Lively, where, because the problem with having like 7 million followers on music Lately is there's no way to make money off of that, really. Okay. But Lively came out and it was like, your fans could buy these stickers for money. They could give you the stickers, then you got proceeds from the money.

So it was a way to, like, hit up your fans. Gotcha. And Paul Zimmer started just charging people for like whatever you could think of. It was like, if you send me stickers, I'll, like, share your videos, I'll send you a DM, just like any micro-social interaction on the internet, he would monetize. The problem is, when people paid him to do those things,

those people said that oftentimes he would just not do them. Like, hundreds of people were saying this. Uh-huh. And so his fans started getting very angry. There was this whole, like, this whole, like, ban Paul Zimmer movement. Like, he kind of, like, couldn't say anything without getting screamed at by, like, a horde of disappointed teenage girls. Got it.

So, like, any reasonable adult, he did the only thing that made sense, which is to completely flee the internet and stop. posting completely. Never to be heard from again. Really? Yeah. So he's gone? He's gone.

Didn't apologize, just like left. Wow. Yes. That's actually sort of an unusual ending to that story. More unusual things will happen. So... When was this? This was 2017.

Spring 2017. So, like, he is like a 21st century. flimflam man who's like basically he breezed into town sold a bunch of people his snake oil sold a bunch of people his like uh photo shares and dms and then picked up his stakes and moved on yep moved on okay and then uh two years later uh-huh he makes another post okay on instagram um i find this part very So, so October of 2019, he says, he posts a picture of himself and a picture of this actor. Mm-hmm. And the whole post is just like, doesn't this actor kind of look like me?

Like he says like, hey, this actor at Troy Becker IG kid literally looks like a younger, sexier version of me, crying, smiley face emoji. I don't even use social media anymore, but had to post this ha, ha, ha. And then he posts a side by side of them. This is Paul. This is the guy, Troy. They're the same person. They're exactly the same person. I mean, Paul, he tried to make it look as different as possible because the quote-unquote

Paul photo is sort of like dimly lit and it's very like, it's a very candid photo. It's just like on a cell phone and he's like, he's got like a lot of stubble and he's like sort of like not as polished. And then the Troy photo, quote unquote Troy photo is like very, it's like a headshot. It's got glam. It's got that sort of like spherical gray thing that they do in the background of like school photos and it's like he's definitely got makeup on and like but they're not even different enough if like they're still obviously yeah nobody would be like did you get a haircut yeah it's not different enough for the did you get a haircut exactly because they didn't it's the same haircut and then he he makes

another post where he says hey it's paul's ever this is probably going to be my last social post ever i've just come to a place my life where being in the spotlight and being an entertainer is no way in my passion although it deeply saddens me to leave so bluntly especially that so many of you have watch me for so many years. I didn't want my social media pages just sitting to die. So I've decided to give my social media accounts to Troy Becker. I don't know what you guys are laughing at. Subtle.

This was in October? Yeah. Because he's one of the dopest people I know. And he's literally my younger twin, my much younger twin. I believe Troy is 15 or 16 years old. Ha, ha, ha, ha. So this is a 24-year-old man trying to convince people he's a 16-year-old boy. There's a certain kind of like, there's a certain kind of internet scam where like it's so brazen that like I really, really, there was a, I feel like there was this heavy metal musician who was like doing a solo tour across Europe and basically I feel like made a bunch of fake accounts and like made up a fake agent.

There was like this very big thing. He convinced people that he was in a real band that had tons of listeners. and then he would show up at these dates and he had like a face, like, fake like fan accounts on the stuff, and he would get himself booked and he would show up at venues and nobody would show up because his band didn't actually have any fans. Like, it was just him and some musicians who he'd hired who didn't realize, like, what he was actually up to.

Right. It is that level of audacity. Like, it just, there are some people who really shoot the moon. They're just like, you know what? I'm going to figure it out when I get there. And like, that's what this feels like to me. Do you guys want to meet Troy Becker? You want to see his introduction video?

Yes. Hey, what's up? My name is Troy Becker. I'm an actor. Paul Zimmer reached out to me and asked to record a video because he says he really, really looks like me and he wanted to post it onto something called TikTok. So there you go, Paul Zimmer. Wait, he's 15 or 16. Yeah. It's October of 2019 and he doesn't know what TikTok is. He doesn't know what TikTok is. There's also a lot of videos where he'll be like, it'll be like Paul Zimmer says we really look like, but I don't know. I don't really see it. Wow. So everyone notices. Like everyone knows it. Yeah.

We're a very visual species. I love that he made the plot problem of everything from like Shakespeare to Superman to three's company. The fact that you can easily disguise yourself, which in reality you can't do. He took that problem and made it his like, that was his plan. Yes. The other thing I want to say about the scam is that. I kind of fell for a version of this like in my lifetime

which is that when I was like a kid I was like an extremely extremely gullible child like like really really the most like one time at camp a bunch of kids told me there's a rumor going around that I wore diapers to camp and the only way I could disprove the rumor

was like pulling down my pants in front of everybody super simple I was like well I'm like stupid I'll do that But when I was like 10, my aunt, my cousin moved to Philly and they like stayed with us for a while with they're getting on their feet. And my cousin just like loved to tell me elaborate lies because I believed every single one of them. Right. And one day he came downstairs and I was like, hey, how's it going?

And I said his name. He's like, that's not my name. I was like, what? And he's like, my name's Jack the Bulldog. And he told me that he was a man named Jack the Bulldog who looked exactly. my cousin, but it flushed my cousin down the drain. And the only difference between my cousin and Jack was that Jack talked in an artificially gravely voice

and he wore sunglasses all the time. And I was like, but those are my sunglasses. You really would have benefited from having an older sibling. But you were like, but I guess it's true? I guess it's true. You know, I totally thought, I thought that a murderer lived in my house and then I couldn't tell anybody. How old were you?

Ten. Oh, my God. Too old. That is so funny. But you know what? My son, who's nine and a half, would totally be the same way. Really?

Oh, yeah. I think there's something about, it's funny because I think you've overcompensated and now you're like, shifty and skeptical. But probably, there's something about, like, when you're young and you have no instinct towards guile at all.

Like my son, it's baffling, like why anybody would ever do that. Yeah. And I wonder if you were that kind of kid. I think so. Also, it's just like if you love stories, you'll believe bullshit stories for a long time. And then when you realize people make up bullshit stories, you're like, oh, well, that seems fun too. Yeah, yeah. I convinced my next door neighbor that there was a boy living in the walls of her house. Really?

Yeah, when I was a kid. I was probably, couldn't have been older than nine because I moved when I was nine. It's like the only two kinds of kids are liars and chums. Yeah, I know. Totally. Getting back to Falzimmer. So basically, as soon as he posted that second, quote-unquote, Troy Becker post, everybody just started making fun of him. So, okay, so, okay, so, so people, this does not go unnoticed. This is not going to notice. The uncanny resemblance.

Every single time he tries to post anything as Troy, all these fans show up, just like, thousands of comments, every single comment, either being like, dude. Somebody was like, what was it? Like, you're like the CEO of pretending to be somebody else. Or the other thing they'll do is they'll be like, they'll just quote back Paul Zimmerlines where they'll be like, man, Troy, you were. really look a lot like Paul Zimmer, like a younger, sexer of your Paul Zimmer. So like does not work remotely?

And I don't know how it was supposed to work in his head. Like, I don't know what, I don't know what the plan even was. Oh, I thought the plan was like, I will just be able to carry on. He wanted to collecting money from the internet. He wanted this new person. He wanted to Dick Whitman Don Draper scenario where he was going to take over his life and just like, he would have all of that person's accolades and needs and design. and be able to exploit their platform to get more money. Right.

He no longer has the baggage. It's a rebrand. He no longer has the baggage of having not fulfilled all of those things that he got paid for. Companies get to do it all the time. Like, they're like, we're not cigarette death company anymore. We're fresh air company. Right, exactly. We sell those cigarettes.

We're not Blackwater. We're XE. Right. There was GE Financial that became Ally Bank. I thought Alli Bank was a New Bank. No. So the bank was the rebrand. they did a good job. They were one of the most bailed-up banks of the financial crisis.

Really? Allied Bank is no long. It sounds friendly. They're your allies. Exactly. Like, what kind of idiot would fall for this thing that I definitely fell for? Also, the rebrand is like, I was like, I've never heard of this bank. Why do they buy so much advertising on everything? On NPR. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Also, the rebrands like visually, it's like purple. It's got like this sort of like moderny look to it. It does not look like it. They're like a younger version. They're like a younger, sexier version of cheap. Financial. No, is a G,

wait, hold on one second. Is it G or GM? Hold on. Yeah, Alley Bank was like the GMAC, which was the financial arm of GM General Motors. God. Yeah.

Huh. Yeah. So in Troy Becker's case, he was, I think he was just trying to like just smile through all this. And then this journalist for the new statesman

wrote just like a huge piece. That's the reason I know about this. Uh-huh. And after that, he shut down everything. Like, Troy Becker seems to have disappeared as thoroughly as Paul Zimmer did before him. Got it.

I mean, that'll probably be it until Troy Becker notices that there's a musician who looks a lot like him who's a little bit younger and sexier and decides out the goodness of his heart to hand over his accounts to him. That's amazing. Alex Blumber, do you want to try to go back and explain this tweet to us? Yes, I do. Okay, so this tweet, the tweet, again, Dave Jorgensen tweeted this, the teen vice. Vogue article is going to come back as Troy Becker.

Okay. So the idea is basically there was an article post on Teen Vogue that looks suspiciously like sponsored content. They took it down. And it was caused a little bit of a brouhaha. That's the Teen Vogue part. And then there's this, the Troy Becker part is there was this TikTok star named Paul Zimmer who made a bunch of promises that he didn't deliver on.

His fans got really, really mad at him. He disappeared. Then came back. Months later? Years later. Years later. Years later. It took them years to hatch this plan. Good God. Anyway, and then he came back years later saying, like, I found this guy who looks a lot like me, except he's just younger and handsomer, and he's going to take over my account. See you guys later. And then the new guy was named Troy Becker. The new guy, air quotes, new guy was named Troy Becker. And then he looked exactly like, the old guy, Paul Zimmer, and everybody on the internet noticed and was like, you're the same person. All right. Are we at yes, yes, yes. Yes.

I understand. I also understand 100%. All right. I think we're at yes, yes, yes. Coming up after the break, more yes-yes-yes now. Alex, you have another tweet for us? I do. I have another tweet.

It's from a Twitter username John Cardillo. And the tweet goes like this. Hashtag moves like Bloomberg Gate whistleblower at Nick Thorelli. deserves our support. Parentheses, best controversy I've seen in a while, and parentheses, hashtag moves like Bloomberg, hashtag drop out Bloomberg. Do you feel implicated by this?

No. It's a different spelling of Bloomberg, I think. But it's got a bunch of retweets, a bunch of likes, and I'm, I don't know. What's going on here? So, PJVote, you understand the tweet? I do. Alex Bloomberg, do understand the tweet? No.

I was going, do you understand this tweet? I do. All right. We're back where we're supposed to be. Okay. I think it starts with Pete Buttigieg, right? Yeah, well, yeah. Do you know about the Mayor Pete dance?

The Mayor Pete dance? Yeah, you know about Pete Buttigieg, right? I know about Pete Buttigieg. Mayor Pete. I did not know he had a dance, though. Oh, he does. Oh. Okay.

All right. Let's do the Mayor Pete dance. Can I do it? Do you know, it's like, it's like this. Wait, can you put on the song? Hi-ho. Yeah. Okay.

So the dances to the panic of the disco song, High Hopes. Which I'd never heard before the mayor Pete does. Oh, yeah, no, I know this because my kids like it. What? The song, High High Hopes. So just so you know, like, this is a thing that the Mayor Pete campaign thought would be, like, a great motivator for Mayor Pete campaign volunteers, right? Yeah, like, when they're, like, out in the field, they're feeling bored or, like, when they need to get, like, fired up before a meeting. Like, they play this song, and they do the dance that Alex is about to do for you.

You know how to do the dance fully? Oh, I've watched the videos of this so many times. Wait, it's like a line dance? It's like the Choshas Sliders thing? It's a dance that's simple enough that you can pick it up after watching it once or twice. I would call it a sub-macarena, macarena.

Okay, okay, okay, okay. I've got panic at the disco. Can I just preface by saying that, like, my mom, her entire life, has done a dance that is specifically designed to embarrass me in public, and it is remarkably close to Mayor Pete dance. Okay, you're going to do it. Bloomberg can describe what's happening.

All right. All right. In one, two, three, show time. So it's just like, oh my. So it's just like in a quadrant. The hands move in the four quadrants. High, high, low, low. And they do, sometimes they point.

Sometimes they do the, like, we're moving wheelie motion. Sometimes they clap. It's just like you're just going to high, high, high, high, high, down, down, down, down. Up right, upright, up right. It's like YMCA a little bit. It's sort of like YMCA. But there are videos of Mayor Pete volunteers in great big lines. Yeah, yeah, check this out.

Oh, what? Hold on. This is them doing it at lunch break at the hashtag Pete Summit. And just like a drab hotel conference room. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Everybody, there's, it's like literally like, just like picture the drabist conference room with like this chairs and the raised podium and like the, the land. Lanyards and all the people sitting there, and then all of a sudden they're standing up and doing this dance.

It looks like an S meeting or something. It does. It looks really creepy. It looks like when I took Calvin to do the basketball game, and they saw the cheerleaders come out and do their routines. He was looking at it, and he was just like, Daddy, it's pleasing to the eye to see people doing the same thing all at the same time. I was like, yeah, you nailed that. But it is pleasing in some situations, but then it's also creepy in some situations. And so, like, that and, like, North Korean political rallies, it's, like, really creepy to see people doing the same people doing the same thing in unison. It feels like forced fun.

Yeah. I wonder what the political calculus of that kind of thing is. It feels to me a little bit like there's so much grassroots support to this that everybody knows that they can spontaneously break out into a, into a choreographed dance. I was listening to Pod Save America, and they were talking about it, and they were like, it was funny. think they're trying to side with any of the Democratic candidates in the primary season. So they're like, we're not trying to say anything bad about Mayor Pete. The dance is really nerdy. And then one dude was like, well, if you've ever like door knocked or like done grassroots stuff,

it's just really, really boring and soul-sucking. And so like anything you can do to just like, here's the fun thing we do. Like, you're just constantly trying to make people more energetic. And so he saw it is just like that. That it's not, it's not for Twitter, even though they're putting it on Twitter. But it's like just like a rah, rah, rah, let's go get them. I don't know, man. If I were doing that, I just wouldn't let it end up on the internet.

But also, like, I'm coming across snarkier about this than I want to, actually, because, like, I'm glad that those people are dancing in that conference room. Yeah, so, but people made fun of this. And I think also part of the reason people made fun of this is, like, Mayor Pete, he doesn't do well on Twitter. Like, the world of Twitter, at least the Twitter that I see is, like, conservatives who obviously aren't going to, like, a Democratic presidential candidate. But then people, if they're on the left, they tend to be, like, far on the left.

And he's kind of seen as, like, insufficiently progressive and insincere and dweeby. Right. And so the dweeby dance kind of plays into that. Right. And so people were like, there were lots of videos of people just doing the dance, but they were, like, they were pretending that they thought it was cool, but they didn't think it was cool. Right. There was a lot of people doing the dance to just, like, different songs. And it's just sort of funny under any song, but it works under almost any song.

But it was, it was like a cycle. It was like, I think they started posting the day. dance online in September, and, like, it felt like September through the winter, there was a lot of making fun of this. Okay. And then, Michael Bloomberg enters a presidential race. No relation. No relation.

Different spelling. And he is kind of disliked, actually, in a similar way to Mayor Pete on, like, progressive Twitter. You know, he's a billionaire. He was really into sobbing frisk. He's like, this is not who a lot of people want. So there's a comedian named Nick Sirelli. post the following tweet,

a tweet that has 2721 retweets. Look out, hashtag Team Pete, because us Bloomberg heads have our own dance, taken at the Mike Bloomberg rally in Beverly Hills, hashtag Bloomberg 2020,

hashtag moves like Bloomberg. One important thing to know before you see this video is that at the time he made this tweet, he had changed his Twitter avatar to look like a young political aide and changed his Twitter bio to say they worked for the Bloomberg campaign.

So he tweets this out. Okay, you're ready? Yeah. Bluebird. Okay, do you want to just try what you've seen? So it was like, it looked like, it looked like sort of like a studio audience. Like when they, like, pan the camera

and you're looking at it, it's like a bunch of people in sort of a narrow or darker room. It's not like a conference room. Yeah, they're on bleachers. They're on bleachers. They're on bleachers. Like, yeah, they're on bleachers in a smaller room.

There's a whole bunch of them, and they're like the songs playing and the first move. And it's like the same thing. It's like, move to the right, move to the left, down low, down low, up high, up high. Same sort of like, it's the same sort of thing except instead of what they're doing, is they're like sort of like doing this finger waggy thing? It's kind of a disco point. It's like a disco point, but it also seems like shame, shame, shame, shame all a bit. Like with this finger is just like you and you and you and you and you and you in sort of a finger waggy way.

Yeah. And then at the end, they do the thing where you hold your nose and your nose. pretend to go underwater. Can I just say that when I first saw this, I was completely taken in. And I went into the group chat that I'm in and was like, guys, you will not believe this. And posted it and they were like, yeah, but it's a joke.

And I was like, oh, I'm an idiot. I would, the only reason I didn't fall for it, honestly, is because the place where they recorded it is Operate Citizens Brigade, L.A. theater, and I've been there. Oh, right. I just recognized the room. It was fully on that uncanny valley satire line.

The other thing that sort of makes it convincing is that, The demographics of the people at this comedy show, which are, like, young, pretty male, pretty white, look like how you would imagine people working in the Bloomberg campaign. Right. But everybody, everybody, everybody fell for it. Oh, really? Everybody fell for it. Like, besides Alex Goldman, just, like, all these journalists and writers who work on the Internet

and are, like, good at reading the Internet. Like, Jeet here, Hunter Walker just had to quote, Bloomberg Heads, because they refer themselves as Bloomberg Heads in Beverly Hills. Even Maggie Haberman tweeted it. She put a question mark on it, but she tweeted it. Uh-huh. So just like everybody felt for it. Everybody fell for it.

But so the next thing that happens, OK. Team Bloomberg campaign has to do something. Yes. And they try to do something in like a good-spirited, we're not mad way. So they tweet, to clarify at Nick Sorrelli is not an interim for our campaign, and he does not have moves like Bloomberg.

Nick, apply to work for us here. And then there's a link to where you can work for the campaign. Got it. Fine. And then Nick does an incredible, just like a tiny bit of world building. Yes. You remember the tweet? I don't.

He says, wait, are you firing me? So then Nick tweets, as a creator of hashtag moves like Bloomberg, I disavow it and the Mike Bloomberg presidential campaign, read the truth about the dance here. Hashtag drop out Bloomberg. And then there's a tweet. where he says, I have plenty more to share, but what people are saying is true. The moves like Bloomberg dance was orchestrated, drive out Bloomberg.

And then he has a note, like a fake email that says, budget to pay dancing actors. Hey, Nick, I've just received approval from on high for you to hire 50 to 60 actors to pose as supporters during the moves like Bloomberg dance you choreographed.

We want to create the impression that enthusiastic young people are excited about Mike, and they came up with the infectious dance spontaneously. We've walked out eight hours for you to rehearse with actors next week, and we can allot $20 an actor. They must all sign NDAs.

Also, unrelated, we are discontinuing your gas stipend. As part of the all-round crunch that's been happening. Brad Evans, social media coordinator, Bloomberg 2020. Okay. So, like, I think at this point, like, most journalists realize they've been trolled, except for the right. Like, Breitbart writes a story about it. They're like, the Bloomberg campaign made this super embarrassing video,

and then they fired the guy who made it. Oh, my God. There's certain corners of, like, alt-right internet that love the idea that, or they like often whenever there's signs of like progressive grassroots support they're like they're paid their crisis actors whatever right right right and it's just like so served right at their existing beliefs so seb gorka tweets apparently not a parody uh Donald trump junior favorites the tweet with the like crisis actor email in it so okay so that's the full that's like the full troll of it um okay john cardillo who did the tweet he's he's sort of like a fixture on conservative on like alt-right internet. He used to be in NYPD, which he talks about constantly. And the thing he's kind of famous for is, uh, in response to this like protest in the city, he posted a picture himself on Twitter, pointing a gun at the camera, essentially threatening any protesters who came near him. Got it. Okay. Charmer. Um, he was one of the, I think, early wave people. Like,

at the point he's tweeting about this, he believes that the Bloomberg team has fired their crisis actors and their crisis actors have fully. So the John Cardillo tweet is, he's in the midst of, this is during the action, and he believes that the moves like Bloomberg thing is real. Yes. And that the drop out, Bloomberg thing is real. I mean, it's like, what would be more fun than somebody you politically disagree with being so unpopular, they hired actors to pretend to support them, but then were so cheap that they didn't pay the actors enough. And, like, the thing backfires and the actors are, like, going public because they don't care about 20 bucks an hour and telling everybody what to happen. end.

Right. It's like a very enjoyable fiction. That would be, yes, yes, that would be. Got it. I think we are at yes, yes, yes. So, all right. So this tweet again, hashtag moves like Bloomberg Gate, whistleblower at Nick Sirelli deserves our support.

Parentheses, best controversy I've seen in a while. Hashtag moves like Bloomberg, hashtag drop out Bloomberg. I now know that this tweet is not a joke, but a sincere expression of, feeling on Twitter by this guy John Cardillo, who is a conservative right-wing person who's rooting against the Democrats generally and rooting against Mayor Bloomberg in this particular instance because he believes this controversy that this guy Nick Jind up about Mike Bloomberg and his awkward dance. But it was just a joke. Okay. I think we're at yes, yes, yes. Yes, we are. Yeah. One last thing before we go.

Okay. Alex. Oh, what? You want to dance this out? No. Come on, buddy. What? I'll do it with you.

I'll play a song you might like. Oh, yeah. He can't resist the music. Wow. Those are some moves. Also, this is a synthesizer song that Alex Goldman wrote. Yeah, I made this song. Wonderful.

Repai is hosted by me, Fiji Vote, and Alex Goldman. We're produced by Shruti, Pinnaminani, Fia Benin, Damiano Marquetti, Anna Foli, Jessica Young, and Emmanuel Jochi. Our executive producer is Tim Howard. We're mixed by Rick Kwan. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our intern is Rachel Cohn. Oh, one final announcement. Next Tuesday, we are going to be taking phone calls again.

If you have a technical problem that you would like solved or a technical problem. technical question you would like answered, give us a call. The phone number is 862-367-9356. We're going to be there from 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock p.m. Eastern time. The theme song to our show is by the mysterious breakmaster cylinder. Our ad music is by build buildings. Matt Lieber is a part of the year where the days finally start getting longer again. You listen to the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.