Reply All - #68 Vampire Rules

Episode Date: June 16, 2016

It’s an old story. Two people date, they break up, they both go on Tinder. And on Tinder, one of them stumbles across an incredibly creepy photo, taken inside the apartment they used to share. 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. And this week, Super Tech Support returns. So, PJ, normally the way it works with Super Tech Support is that someone comes to me with tech problems and I resolve that. Because I have a history of supporting people, technically. But I'm coming to you with a problem that's like from a part of the Internet that I don't really know anything about because I've been in the same relationship for so long that I just don't know anything about online dating,

so I figure like... I have online dated. Which part of the online dating universe are we going to? We are going to Tinder. Okay. You're familiar. It's like the most popular dating app. I mean, I know what it is.

Have you never used Tinder? I've never used it. What am I going to use it for? I've been married for six years. Married people have this thing about like, let me see your Tinder, let me Tinder for you. A lot of them where they'll take your phone and they'll just start like, they're like, yes, no,

whatever. And it's like, you're inviting people on dates for me. This is my life. Would you stop? It's like treating people like video game characters. It doesn't matter if I kill you. You'll just regenerate. It doesn't matter if I'll send you on a bad date.

You'll bounce back. You're not married. Your life has no value. Okay. So what's the thing? Here's the background. Okay. So a woman named Molly.

She lives in Brooklyn. Okay. Two years ago, she moved in with her boyfriend. And about a year after that, they broke up. So I moved out. And a month and a half after that, I got a text from him with a screenshot from Tinder. So there was that. I was learning that he was using Tinder after a month and a half.

And it showed a picture of a girl that I had never seen before sitting in my dining room, hugging my dog. just surrounded by my stuff. That's like a horror movie. How were they sure that it was their place? It was a picture of a woman sitting on an IKEA bench that they bought together on top of a old ratty sheepskin that her ex-boyfriend owned, holding Molly's dog. That's weird.

I'm assuming that Molly didn't know who this person was. Molly didn't know who this person was. Somebody had been in their apartment who neither of them. knew and had taken a picture of themselves or and had a picture in their apartment and that picture was their Tinder photo? Yes. That's so weird. Did he swipe right on her?

Yes, he did. And is the way, is the way that Tinder works that the other person has to swipe right on you as well before communication can be initiated? Yes, I can't, if I, if you don't swipe right on me, I can't message you. Right. She did not swipe right on him. Got it. So all that Molly had to go on was this woman's profile.

It says her name is Jennifer. She was 28 years old at the time that screenshot was taken. She's interested in, it's always sunny in Philadelphia. And that was about all the information that was included there. And my ex texted it to me with the caption, Do you know who this is? We have no common friends. And I've never seen her before.

Yeah, I mean, that must have been, it must have been very complicated because he came to you with something that was kind of tantalizing, like a mystery. He didn't know who this person was. but I mean there must have been some end of relationship calculus to that too he had an excuse to contact you and also the subtext was I am dating now yeah definitely and I was trying to figure that out at first I was like oh you're just reaching out because you want to show me this in like a a fairly cool and interesting way. This is just an excuse to show me that you're using Tinder and you're totally moved on.

I, of course, immediately went and did some revenge tindering, but we don't have to go into that. Going back to Jennifer's picture, you know, when you're on a dating site, you are trying to basically summarize your personality and three photographs or whatever. And so posing with someone else's dog and someone else's house kind of feels like misrepresentation. That's what I think too. And I understand that there's significant pressure on Tinder to have a pick of you with a cute dog. I get that. But that's my cute dog. I work very hard to keep him cute. You're posting a picture of yourself surrounded by somebody else's life. Not just my dog, but my apartment, my furniture, like everything that belongs to me. And you're using that to represent yourself. Oh, that's creepy. Follow questions.

Do they ever Airbnb their place? No. But? She had people house sit a couple times, and she asked a barista who worked at the coffee shop around the corner once to, like, walk her dog and paid that person. Was that the barista? No. Initially, she thought she knew who it was. She thought it was a friend of a friend who had watched their house.

Uh-huh. She went to the friend and was like, hey, is this a picture of your roommate? and she's like, no, I have no idea who that person is. I'm sure that I can find her in real life. I'm really good at, I mean, everybody is really good at this, but given three pictures of a person on Tinder and their name and age, I can find her in real life. Is that what you're asking?

Yeah, I want you to find her and figure out what she was doing with Molly's dog. Yeah, I can do that. I feel very confident that I can find her. All right, so how long did it take you to find this person? When I figured out how to do it, it didn't take long, but it took a couple different. methods. I actually feel like this is one that you could have solved. The whole reason I employed you

to do this in the first place is I was like, PJ knows Tinder. He would be less afraid to swipe on someone. Okay. Well, do you want to hear how I did it? It didn't have anything to do with swiping. Well, you just wait. Okay. So you know about Tinai, right? Yes. Okay. So I feel like not everybody knows about Ten I. But there are these websites that let you do reverse image searches. And what that means is you can plug in you can just plug in the URL for somebody's picture and it will show you

every other place on the internet that picture appears. People who online date I think are actually pretty used to doing this or at least the people that I know you see somebody's picture you want to know who they actually are

you take the picture you plug into reverse image search seven times out of ten they use the same headshot for everything and you'll be on their Twitter page and you'll know who they are. So I tried that and it didn't work like nothing came up

which really confounded me because I had this theory looking at her pictures that she seemed like a graphic designer or a photographer, and those are usually people who have web presences. What are you basing that on? She was very stylish, and the pictures she had of herself looked like they were, there was one in particular that just looked like it was taken by a photographer instead of by like someone's cell phone. Is that the black and white one? Yeah. Yeah, it does.

It looks like it was taken in the middle of an art project. Yeah. So when that didn't work, I just literally started searching her name's Jennifer. So I was like, Jennifer, photographer, Jennifer, photographer, Brooklyn did not work. And then I kind of went back to the drawing board. And I looked at the Tinder screen grab again. And one of the things Tinder does is it shows you the interests on your Facebook profile that you have in common with the person. I was like, maybe they both like something that's really rare and obscure.

They only have one interest in common. It's always sunny in Philadelphia. massively popular network television show. Yeah, that's not much of a help. So I realized that the only things I knew about this woman was her first name, her age, that she liked It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and that she did not like Molly's ex.

Because she didn't swipe right on him. Right. Did you go on Tinder and swipe right on her? Well, here's what I did. Basically, I found out everything I could about Molly's ex, and I made a Facebook, or I made a Tinder profile that was the opposite of him. So, like, he's short, my fake person was tall.

He has blonde hair. My fake person has dark hair. He is very thin. My fake person is very fat. And the only thing they have in common is that they live in the same neighborhood, and they both like, it's always sunny in Philadelphia. And then you went and found her and swiped right? And she swiped right back.

What? I'm like a tall, fat guy. Okay, I'm lying. That's not what happened. Wouldn't it be great, though? That would be great. It seems so implausible. I would love it to be true.

What did you do instead? I remember that there's another reverse image search I hadn't tried, and I pulled her picture into there, and I found her immediately. So this whole process was like 10 minutes. So basically, I now had the last name of the Jennifer in the picture. And so I was able to see a lot of things about her.

I knew it turns out she's not a photographer. She works in music publicity. And the picture of her in Molly's apartment, that picture was also on her Instagram. But there wasn't a caption that had some great clue. Like, oh, another great day sneaking into people's apartments and dognapping their dogs for pictures or whatever. Is this going to be one of those things where, like,

someone sends you on sort of like a semi-scripulous task? And then is it going to be like she's all that? They're like trying to turn her into like a real popular girl, and then you're going to fall in love halfway along the way, and then she's going to find out your plan and get mad at you, but then you guys are going to end up together anyway? Is that what you want to happen? No, not at all.

It just, you have sort of said, like, you know, she seems really cool. She's very fashionable. I, like, have a girlfriend. Yeah, that's true. What do you think my life is like? Does every non-married person just seems so sinful to you that they're, like, just like, Adams waiting to attach to each other? It just seems like, if this were a movie script, this is how it would end up.

Sure. So the question that we started with was just, why was Jennifer, who doesn't know Molly, in Molly's apartment, taking a picture with her dog. And it turns out the answer's actually pretty simple. So I messaged Jennifer on Instagram and got her on the phone. She's friends with the barista who Molly asked to walk her dog. And Jennifer said that the barista was very, very, very scared of what she'd been asked to do. She didn't want to do it.

So my friend already thought it was weird that you would just ask your barista to dog sit for you and give you keys to your apartment. Why did she say yes? I don't know. I really don't know. But my friend had never had a dog or interacted with dogs. I grew up with the dog. So I just went over with her, and the dog was so cute, so fluffy. And while I was petting it, she took that photo of me.

Huh. And that's it. So she was just hanging out with the dog, a friend took a photo. But then she answered a question that I did not think was going to get answered. Which was? Why didn't she swipe right on the guy? Oh, why didn't she swipe right on the guy? So it was nothing personal.

The only reason she had an account was because of a trip that she'd taken. I went to Norway with some friends. And when we were sitting down and just taking a break, they said, you have to like see what Norwegian men on Tinder look like. And so I had to download the app and make an account. And in order to make the account, I just pulled a couple like really random photos. And one of them was me with that dog.

Oh, and what are Norwegian Tindermen like? A lot of, a lot of like heavy metal dudes. Really? Heavy metal is huge in Norway, yeah. So I got in touch with Molly and I asked her to come in the studio so I could just tell her what it happened. And then this very weird thing happened, which is that in the lobby of the building, she ran into Adam, her ex, who she has not seen since they split up. he was going to some event involving drones on another floor.

He seemed pretty caught off guard, which is fair. But he agreed to come into the studio so I could tell them both what happened. This is so weird. Okay, so pull this very close. Can you hear? Oh, yeah. Okay. So I said, you know, it was a priest all along.

And Adam was like, oh, God, I remember that. I was totally against this whole stranger walking the dog plan. I just don't like people in my apartment. when I'm not there who are like randoms. Like, I don't know. I have stuff that's small. I guess I'm a bad girlfriend. I was like, I understand your frustration.

Also, good to ignore it. Well, how would you have solved it? Wait, not tell you. Did I not tell you? You didn't tell me until after I was like, who is this? No. I never knew you had actually had a random person walk the dog. Are you sure?

Yeah, you said, fine, I'll get a friend or something. I do not remember you saying, oh yeah, by the way, I gave the keys to the person who gives me my call. I didn't hear that part. I'm sorry. Damn. So, Alex, you know how in the dark ages barbers were also doctors? Like you'd go to your barber and they'd give you like a haircut and like leeches or whatever.

Yeah. So in the end, I think this is a story about a person who in the modern age believes that bristas are also dog walkers. I mean, I feel like that was like prevails. wisdom though in the dark ages. I don't know that. Ideas have to start with one person. Oh, okay. Somebody must have gone to get a haircut or a bloodletting and said, hey, also, can you hook me up with the other thing? So when I worked at Subway when I was like 16 or 17,

one of my customers actually asked me to watch her cat while she was on vacation. And I did. Wait, what? Yeah. Is this normal? I don't know. It's like, I feel like there's a certain amount of familiarity you get with people who are and customer service jobs where you start to feel like you might know them, especially if you see them like every day. I mean, the subway I worked at was in the Michigan University of Michigan Students' Union.

So it was like a place where the kids would use their meal plans and they would be there every day. Why did you do it? Because you say no to stuff. I don't know. I think it was for like the sheer strange novelty of it. That's a good reason to do it.

But I will say that in addition to like cleaning the cats, litter box and feeding it, they had some good Nintendo games. I played some Nintendo. Is that weird? I mean, here's what's weird. It is weird, but you're so far out of the,

you've, like, gone off road as far as, like, normal social rules apply. So, like, I don't know what's weird anymore. All right. I assume if someone is alone in my apartment, they've done all the weird stuff. What do you mean by all the weird stuff? Like, rubbing their butts on your books or something?

Like, what? I feel like if you're a person who is average to more than average curious about people, it's just like, it's such a trove of information about somebody. Like, you understand things about someone by being in their home that you will never understand otherwise. It's like, I completely expect it. I completely expect it. So you expect everybody to do all the weird stuff, but you don't do all the weird stuff yourself? I snoop. I am a person who snoops. People should not leave me in their homes because I will look at their stuff. Don't worry. I won't. But it's not like

The things that I am really interested in Are not I think like the cliche snoop things Like diaries? Yeah, like I mean I'll look at a diary But there is better stuff than diaries There's weirder stuff I'll give you an example Okay

When I was in college I was dating somebody who was subletting someone's apartment For like a month In Union Square Okay And so I stayed there with her and when you opened the wardrobe, there was these taped up printed instructions

with a diagram about how to tie a tie. That does tell you a lot about a person. Yeah, like I felt like a real, I still think about that person. Like I think about that person and like with like a real fondness, like that they were, I don't know, there was something really human and vulnerable

about imagining this person like carefully tying their tie in the mirror reading the tie tying instructions. But it's not like, I didn't want to, like, see their underwear or, like, look at their bank statements. It was just, like, I knew something, like, private and human about that person because that thing was there. You're almost making yourself not sound like a weird. And then I smelled all their underwear.

Yeah, there we go. Okay, here's my final say on this. This is vampire rules. It would have, all these things would have been transgressions had she not been invited across the threshold of their home, the same way, like, a vampire needs permission to come in your home. But once you've told someone who's a stranger that they, that they, that they'd be. They can go in your home unrestrictedly. After that, nothing's weird. It's definitely not weird to take a picture with somebody's talk.

All right. Well, I've learned a lot about you. I've learned a lot about society. And close the ticket. Isn't that what they say in technical support? Close the ticket. Yeah. This trouble ticket has been resolved.

After the break, Alex Bloomberg continues to be confused about the internet. Welcome once again to yes, yes, no. The segment on the show where our boss, Alex Bloomberg, comes to us. with tweets that he can't make heads or tails of, and we inflict upon him the answers to those tweets. Inflict. I know. It's a form of penance.

For my ignorance. From my internet ignorance. I come here and I'm flogged with your knowledge. Flogged with your knowledge. That's a great title. So do you have something for us this week? I do. Somebody tweeted it.

meme, actually. So it's a guy named Kyle Mahan, Mahan, sorry, Kyle, at Kyle Mahan. And he says, I just, I needed yes, yes, no for this one at reply all out at Rex Bloomberg. So it's fully, this is fully just sort of like, we are, this is service

journalism at its finest. And the tweet in question, a Twitter user named Caro, C-A-R-O, and her handle is at, so Caroline says, And here's the body of the tweet. HRC social media manager, colon.

We just tweeted, delete your account. Hillary, colon, mom. Hillary, colon, yes, YAS. Hillary, colon, drag him. Okay. Where are you at on this? Where does your level of comprehension start and where does it end? Well, I know what a social media manager is.

Okay. And I know that HRC stands for Hillary Rodham. Clinton. Yes. We're getting ahead of ourselves here. Oh, we are? Oh. Yes, we are.

Wow. PJ vote. Do you understand this tweet? Yes. You're looking at me like you want me to ask you a question. I would. It's how this thing works. Alex Goldman, do you understand this tweet?

Yes. Alex Bloomberg. I think we know. I think we know if Alex Bloomberg understands this tweet. I do not. All right. Flog me, fellas. Okay, so wait, so you were...

I hope that doesn't become a thing. So you were, you know it as social media managers. You're familiar with Hillary Rodham Clinton. I am. What else have you got? Nothing. Nothing. This is pure.

It is pure. It's the driven snow. I find it's, I find this so sweet. Like, legitimately, I feel like an incredible fondness for you right now. Oh, God. So are you familiar with, have you ever seen anyone on Twitter say delete your account? I have seen people say delete your account. Right.

And what I've taken it to mean is just like the Twitter equivalent of shut up. Yeah, and sometimes in like a sort of jokey way. Like someone will express an opinion, something that's not that important, like saying that they love a food, you think it's gross. You'll say, yeah, delete your account. Got it. So sometimes it's like you're an angry, bitter person, delete your account, and then sometimes it's sort of like your friend just said, I really love whatever. I don't get why Hamilton's so good.

And you would say delete your account. Gotcha. Hamilton's ever rated to delete your account. I feel like it's important to note people say delete your account to me fairly regularly. Can you just tell me the last tweet that somebody told you to delete your account about? Let me see if I can find it. Hold on just a second. This shouldn't be hard.

Twitter advanced search. There's an advanced search on Twitter. Delete your account to a goldmund. I didn't know you could do that. Here it was. You tweeted, have you heard my podcast reply, Owl? It's a real hoot. Oh, my God.

I deserve that. I can't believe you guys. I don't know what you're laughing about. I love that. It's like if like if like some weird borschbelke comedian from like the 20s got transported to the 21st century and was on Twitter and that would be you. That's the best compliment I've ever received. So somebody said delete your account to that. Yes.

Exactly. Okay, gotcha. So last week. Hillary Clinton was endorsed by Barack Obama Donald Trump tweeted Obama just endorsed crooked Hillary he wants four more years of Obama M-Dash

but nobody else does exclamation point and Hillary Clinton retweeted that with the comment delete your account whoa yeah people loved it people went crazy about it it's displaying

a fluency with Twitter that, well, I mean, obviously it's not her. It's her social media manager. Right, right, right, right. She doesn't really pretend that she is tweeting stuff from her own account. Like, she has a social media team.

She talks about it. When she does tweet stuff, she signs it. So it's not like everybody knows that she's not the person tweeting that or that like a committee of people have decided to tweet that or whatever. Right. There's no, like, pretense that she is actually fluent in the slang of the online universe. So, the joke of the tweet that you actually found, which is referencing this original Hillary Clinton tweet,

the joke of this tweet is that, yes, Hillary Clinton's like social media manager or whatever wrote the tweet for her, but then when they, like, report that news to her in the world of this tweet, she is responding with like a deeper internet slang vernacular than delete your account. Oh, okay. Does that make sense? Got it.

Okay. So when Hillary says mom in that tweet, it's something that people frequently do to celebrities. They say mom or dad. Like, I love you so much. And you are like an older celebrity that I would like you to be my mother or my father, basically. People do it to, you know,

Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato every time they tweet hundreds of times. They don't do say Ariana Grande, do they? Sure. Really? Yeah. I feel like she's too young for that, man. All right, so people have told you

to delete your account has anybody ever tweeted mom or dad at you? No, absolutely not. Has anybody ever treated dad at you? No. No? No.

I'm going through Ariana Grande's tweets right now and here are a couple. Do you love me, mom? Love you, mom. How are you? Love me, love me, love me,

love me, mom. I adore you, mom. Wow. So Hillary is saying this to our social media manager. Yeah, that's good. So mom is like a big compliment. Yeah, and it's also

like a compliment implying that Hillary is like younger and hipper than her social. No, no, no, I get that. But like, mom is like to put it in my, it's like, like, respect. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Okay. So then, yes.

Wow, yes. Okay. Do you want to take this one? It's just like an emphatic. Yeah, it's just like, yes. Yes. Right. And then the last one, drag him.

Uh-huh. Does that mean anything to you? Is that a video game reference? No. No. I don't know where it comes from. I don't either. I always thought that it was, when I imagine it,

I imagine someone literally being dragged around by their hair. Oh, I don't know. But somebody getting dragged means, like, they're just being like thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly criticized. Like, what would that look like? So, like, last week, this Vox, there was a Vox writer who tweeted something that was misogynist. Then he said that he'd be misunderstood,

that he wasn't a misogynist, and another writer came out and said, You know, in the past, you literally called me a hobag. And, like, hundreds of people retweeted that. And, like, everybody came out and just, like, everybody criticized this guy for his history of behaving in this way. He got dragged. Got it.

Okay. So, do you think you understand this tweet at this point? I definitely, I definitely feel like I understand this tweet. Okay, ready? All right. So Caroline says, HRC social media manager, colon, we just tweeted, delete your account. Hillary, Mom, Yaz, drag him.

So what's going on here? So what that means is it imagines the world of which this conversation took place. Hillary Clinton's social media manager came to her and delivered the news that they had just tweeted, delete your account. And in contrast to the traditional image

of Hillary as a stodgy, non-internet fluent baby boomer, this Hillary, in the imagined world of this tweet, is so fluent that she answers fully in internet slang by saying, Mom, Yaz, which is another way of saying yes, great job. And then says drag him, which is another way of saying

Por it on. I think we're at yes, yes, yes. We're very much at yes, yes, yes. And pour it on is a really nice turn of phrase. Good work. Thanks, you guys. You've been fogged. Dad. Reply All is hosted by me, PJ Vote, and Alex Goldman.

The show is produced by Shruthy Pinnaminani, Fia Benin, and Chloe Prasinos. Our executive producer's Tim Howard. The show is edited by Peter Clowny. Production assistance from Tom Cody. The show is mixed by Rick Kwan. Matt Lieber is a nap in a park. Our theme music is by the mysterious breakmaster cylinder, and our ad music is by build buildings. You can find more episodes of the show at iTunes.com slash Reply All

or in the Google Play Music Store. our website is replyall. Thanks for listening. We're all for the next couple weeks working on stories, but we'll see you after a couple of Wednesdays.