Reply All - Introducing: Stuck with Damon Young

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

We'll be back with a new episode next week, but in the meantime, we're featuring an episode of a new show from Gimlet and Crooked Media: Stuck with Damon Young. You can listen to episodes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/42kxHmWquXQBJCxG0rXvu6 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey folks, Emmanuel here. We're hard at work on a new episode for you that will be out next week. But in the meantime, I just wanted to drop in and tell you about a new show that some of my colleagues at Gimler have been working on. It's called Stuck with Damon Young. If Damon's name sounds familiar to you, he's an award-winning writer and author who I really love because he is just so brutally honest and funny about race, religion and so many other things. and he brings a lot of that to this new show. He has all these conversations with a lot of really smart people about issues that are often really difficult to pass. The show comes out every Tuesday and you can find it on Spotify. We're going to feature an episode of the show on our feed this week.

It's about what being on the internet, especially if your public figure does to your sense of self, specifically about what it's like to be a black public figure on the internet. In his episode, Damon explores the weight of being a member of so-called Blue Check Black Twitter with Jamel Hill, and then he talks to one very online couple, Joel Anderson and Jeney Desmond Harris, about the politics of defending yourself

and the ones you love online. I hope you enjoy it. We'll be back of that episode right after the break. So for a long time, the internet me, well, at least when I've been on the internet long enough to have a persona, was the persona. Someone a little wittier, a little snarkier, and would humor a little darker.

than I was in person. I mean, I wasn't a catfish. Those characteristics of Internet me were a part of the real me, too. But the in-person me had needed the platform nor to comfort my own skin to reveal those parts of myself. The distance between Internet me and in-person me began to shrink as I received more in-personal validations for my Internet persona. Money, opportunities, and random niggas calling me king and asking me to build. The more of it that came, the more I felt myself becoming in person, the person I'd only been online.

So, yeah, the first time internet me was invited to speak, I was terrified. I mean, it was 2009 for a panel in D.C. about dating, sex, and relationships. And I needed to take five shots to Henney just to get comfortable enough to get on stage. And I fucking hate Hennessy. Hennessy tastes like old jock straps and new pennies. It tastes like bad credit. And 10 years later, when I was on my book tour, I still get nervous before getting in front of audiences

and I still drink a little sometimes to settle down. But I was much more sure by myself because I had like a decade's worth of validations for my work and my writing. I also drank better bourbon. It reminds me a bit of the fallacy about how money changes people, when the truth is that money just allows someone to be

who they've always wanted to be. But sometimes I still feel like I'm stuck in the Matrix. Like, is that internet me? The persona I conjure and allow myself to grow into, the real me. Or is it an exaggeration to overcorrect years of unactualized personality? And if I wrote myself into existence, what happens if someone or something hits the leap.

So this is stuck with Damon Young, the show where we don't catfish, we eat catfish. On today's episode, we talk about the performance of internet behavior, and whether our personas online and in person, which I think we assume are distinct, are actually collapsing into each other. I'm Jamel Hill, and a testament to my lameness is that I have, never not had a professional screen name. My screen name has always been Jamel Hill. It's never been like Detroit's finest. I was never a hot girl doing it big. Even on Facebook, you know, you have like Reggie getting money Jackson. Like that ain't never been me. I have always been just Jamel Hill.

So that's Jamel Hill. She's a contributing writer for the Atlantic and host of the podcast. Jamel Hill is unbothered. And I want to talk to her because she's very popular. on Twitter and very often gets criticized there too. And I guess I'm just curious how personal that feels for her. I'm wondering if you've ever felt a distinction between your digital persona and your in person persona. And if so, I guess, when did you first realize that? And have you tried to rectify it if it's the thing?

Well, you know, I think early on, Like, I first joined Twitter in 2009. That was when Twitter was like really fun and also real ratchet, like much different than it is now, you know, where it's a certain level of seriousness. But then it was like, you know, super fun. It was just dumb topics all the time. And people were just, you know, it just seemed, it was really light. And a lot of that changed, I think, after, at least for me, in terms of the digital

persona becoming, there being the expectations being different when, you know, I got into the thing with Donald Trump because that is where my, however people knew me was mostly through, you know, ESPN at sports. So the conversation was usually about sports and sports things. And then suddenly, even though from time to time, I would comment on things outside of sports for sure. But that all shifted because there was a brand new set of eyeballs that was watching me. And I became more aware of that because things that I considered to be kind of benign started to become new stories as people started to write about and think pieces. And I was just like, oh, so everywhere they're watching, got it. Right. And what happened is people started to really look at me as just

being this super serious angry person all the time, which is not who I am in real life at all. I mean, there are things that definitely outraged me, things I'm passionate about, but it felt like people were, there was this expectation that I was, you know, kind of upset all the time. And that just wasn't the case. I mean, I get in and I get out. I'll engage, but I just want to make sure that people see more of a balance in who I am. is that yes, there are things I think very seriously about and take very seriously. But I also like to shame people who put sugar in their grids.

People take how you are digitally and it's like they amplify it by 1,000 and think that that's who you are like all the time. And I'm much more nuanced and well-rounded than the person that they see on social media. And it's just like, oh, okay, I'm going to say my quick two, three little Twitter comments and then I'm going to go back to watching, you know, below deck. Like, it's okay. Like, I can do that, right? And so I think that allows me to always keep a certain amount of distance between digitally what's happening and, you know, my real life.

You know, it's taking everything in me not to respond to your, to your grits comments. So I'll just, I'll just table that and we'll come back to that. Are you a sugar grits person? I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, if you want to, if you want to, if you want to, if you want to eat. We can't have this. If you want to eat it with sugar, with salt, with, with. with watermelon with, with, with whale, large, like, whatever you want to eat your grits with, eat your grits with them, you know.

I'm sorry. I'm, I'm not there yet. You're much more progressive. I mean, it's not, it's not about being progressive. It's about just, you know, responding to my palate. And if my palate is in the mood for, for sugar and grits, I am not going to be like, well, you know, you're not, I'm not supposed to eat this. I have to check in. Let me check in. See, again, we're gotten off track in the grids discourse.

So I'm curious because, you know, you're a public critic, but you also get criticized pretty publicly too. And, you know, much of that comes from the left or comes to the right. We're conservatives, white people, whatever, trying to troll. But some of it comes from us. And, you know, that coming from us reached a fever pitch. When you amplified a piece that I wrote about five years ago, straight black men are the white people of black people. And I guess I'm curious how you feel about the criticism you get from us. Yeah, I mean, between all those criticism buckets that I tend to ignite, I do think about the ones that our people say about me much more seriously because they're my people.

So, of course I do, right? So it does bother me. So starting with your article. And I had faced this criticism before at different points in my career, depending on what was said, is because I found there to be a lot of truth in what you wrote in your commentary, people reacted mostly to the headline. A lot of people didn't even read what you had to say. But this is, I mean, this is what we do. So that's not a surprise.

So from that, I then get accused of hating black men. and I'm called All Manor of Ben Winches, Biscuit Eater's, Aunt Jemima's, all this, right? Which only proved your point of what you were saying, which they seem to miss. Like, you really just proved this point. And the reason I could relate to what you wrote is because being in sports, there are times where there have been black athletes who have done things that I find to be reprehensible. And when I say something about it, that same criticism is levied at me. And it doesn't matter if 99.9% of the things that I say about black male athletes is completely positive, right perspective, very nuanced, thoughtful, whatever, does not matter.

I say the one wrong thing, the one time about the one guy that everybody loves. And then suddenly it's like, oh, okay, you're just doing the masses bidding. And it's just, it's disappointing for me. and especially since some people have drugged my family into it as well because I've been very open about the fact that my father is a recovering addict and that yes, at one time we did have a very strange relationship that is not the case anymore and has not been the case for some time. But people want to use that as being the reason why I have it in for black men,

black men despite the fact that I more often than not express my love and appreciation for them. Hell, I married one. I mean, so, I mean, and I don't really, I don't want to sound like, oh, I got a black friend, so that means X. But, you know, this supposed track record of me hating like men is just not accurate and it's not there. And it's hurtful for me as a black woman who like a lot of black women have done, we feel like, whenever black men go through something, whenever they are being persecuted, whenever they are being disrespected. We are on the front lines all the time. And the whole point of what you wrote and what a lot of us feel is that when there are intercommunity issues that we need to discuss and because we are

mostly around our people and, you know, yes, there are black men that have heard us. And whenever we want to talk about that, then it becomes an entirely different story where we're told to swallow our pain, swallow our trauma, shut the fuck up, stop being, stop trying to ruin the black men, we're told all of that. And so if it seems as if when, you know, black women need that support and protection that I go overboard to give it to them, it's because I know based off what I've experienced, what they will face once they begin to speak to, some of the some of the issues happening inside of our community. Yes, we do have misogyny issues. We do have abuse issues. We have all that. And none of that is saying that only black men are the ones with

these issues. It's societal issues. But in our community, it's a bit more tricky and nuanced because we have the heavy shadow of racism over all of us. Long-winded way of saying is that, yes, it does bother me. Because I know what, I know how. I feel about black people. I know how I feel about black men. And for somebody who doesn't know me and doesn't know shit about me to come in from another direction and try to accuse me of or question what that love is, you damn right will be pissed off about it.

Yeah. And I see, you know, sometimes. And I see this with you, I see this with other black women who are friends and peers, where the sort of criticism that y'all. receive, just has a different bite to it. Like, even if you, you know, you tweet a joke that, that is corny. Right? Right. Which I do. Which everyone, which we all do, I'm corny as fuck. I'm 42 years old. I'm a dad. Dad. I laugh at Dad jokes and I tell a dad jokes for days. I'm corny. I'm corny as hell. Um, and we all do that. But I, but you see that when black women kind of just step

outside the line either way, like, oh, that was little, that joke was a little late, or that comment was a little off, then this sort of pushback and sort of criticism just doesn't, like, match. It's like, it's like someone who kind of hit you with a feather, and then you respond to them with an uppercut. It's like, yo, what, where the fuck? There's, there's no scale here. You know, I wonder if, you know, when that happens, if you ever feel, I, I guess, I, kind of outside of yourself. Like, who is this person that they are responding to? So at the end of the day, I just, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I have been a journalist for over 20 years, because on a smaller level, you saw examples of that all the time. I mean, I've been getting yelled at and cussed

out and call racial slurs about stories for 20 years, right? And it's the same thing is that to them, you are not a real person who's written a story and said something that they just don't like. You are, are just this journalist I can't stand or this public figure I can't stand and that's all you are to them. And so I try not to take most of it personally, but every now and again when it's such an avalanche, you just, you know, because if I respond to one thing, realize 500 other people have said the same thing. And so I'm just like, okay, now y'all on my nerves. And it puts you in an interesting spot because you know that when people discuss you, when they criticize you, your humanity basically isn't even part of the equation. I think the internet, because there's so much performing, there's so much like, okay, I'm going to present this very best version of myself, the self that I want people to see. Okay, if I want to be known as like this petty motherfucker, then that's who I'm going to be on the internet.

That's the persona that I want to portray. If I want to be seen as like super woke or one of the LLC Twitter niggas who, you know, rise and grind, whatever, then I'm going to portray that on the internet. But then you step back and you just question, okay, how authentic is that? we are literally splitting ourselves, versions of ourselves, between so many different things. And, you know, that's why each, I think, social media forum and platform has such a distinct personality. You know, you know that a lot of people on Facebook, for example, that's usually where most of their family friends, you know, high school friends, college friends, that's what they all congregate. I'm the most me. On the social media platforms that are the most me, that is Facebook.

I feel the freest. I feel the freest on Facebook. I can sprawl. I think on Twitter I'm probably the most me because that's the one I probably frequently use the most. So people are getting more of me. And Instagram is probably a close second because Instagram has the variety

that shows my personality. Yeah, I put up video clips from my podcast, but also things that people should think about, but also silly things about, you know, I just put up this one video about, I mean, it feels like everybody black was kind of raised the same way, but about how, you know, if it's a stack of cups, we just take from the middle. Like, we never take from the top. The top cup is evil.

Yeah, the top, you don't take the top cup. The top has cooties. The top has cooties. We all know this. So you go from middle, like, on down. Yeah. That is a fact. Right.

I mean, that's a fact. But we all, like, kind of built this way, just like with the microwave. Like, how many people, because this was also part of the video, is that instead of hitting. two and a half minutes on the microwave, we just hit 35 times. Why do we do this? I don't know why. On the subject of first AOL screen names, I am a woman of a certain age. So I was kind of obsessed with the Spice Girls.

And my first screen name was Ghetto Spice, but I spelled it G-E-D-O-S-P-I-C-E. My screen name used to be top-ro-line dime, inspired by Mike Jones, the one the only. My first email address was superstar at peoplePC.com. PeoplePC was the original went-to-own computer. Yeah, I've redeemed myself since. My first ever screen name was Moon Tanned One, because I guess I thought it would be cool if you got a tan by the moon. It was sixth grade.

I was watching MTV and the world premiere So Birdie Licious came on I printed to the computer room I thought this song is going to change the world I have to get this screen name

My hands were trembling As I typed it out Trying to be the first Blue Elishous on AIM I was not I did get Booty Licious 88 It's AOL you're like right in Jolly all your friends and your crushes and stuff

and like very, very proudly using Bootylicious 88. So we've been talking about the distinctions between online and in-persones. But what happens when both you and your partner are very, very online? Are there predetermined rules to follow? Do you perform partnership for your audience?

For some answers, I reached out to one of my favorite very online couples, Jeney Desmond Harris and Joel Anderson. Janey is Slate's Dear Prudence of Vice columnist. It was my editor when I wrote for New York Times. And Joel, who also works for Slate, is a writer and reporter in a host of the Slow Burn podcast series. So when did you decide to go public with your relationship? Or was it like more, was there an intentionality behind it or was it more of it like an organic sort of thing?

I guess if by public. Social media, particularly Twitter. Twitter. We're talking specifically, I guess, today about Twitter. When you decided to go Twitter public. I remember going Instagram public when I went to a BuzzFeed holiday party with you and we posted pictures. That was like a big moment for me. As far as Twitter, I think it was after we got engaged. That sounds right. There were people that did not know that we were even together and then they found out we were engaged. And I was like, oh, you know, you just realize

nobody's paying attention to you. You know what I mean? I thought you kind of saw you saw my Instagram. You know, we kind of interact a little bit. I moved to D.C. I live with her. You all didn't know, but yeah, that's, I think, I think you're right that our engagement really kind of tipped everybody off that we were together. So the IG, I guess, public thing happened before the Twitter thing. Was there a reason for that?

Again, was it just an organic thing? Because I know that there are also roles that govern Instagram revealing some relationships. They're like the soft, open where you you share ear or you show her shadow in a story or something or I'm on a date with something you know you just do all this you know all this slick shit um it's like that picture of someone like clearly someone you love took it of you across the table and you're like great dinner and great company yes it's like the the Liz Taylor white diamonds treatment basically yeah you know you get that as like who the fuck is

taking this picture. With all these filters, you've never looked better. Do you think that Twitter has maybe a similar dynamic? Or is it just kind of like the Wild Wild West where you just do what the fuck you want? I feel like Twitter, I feel much more vulnerable sharing things on Twitter than I do on Instagram or Facebook. Because, I guess just because of like my privacy settings or the way I've selected my friends and followers, I assume most people on Instagram and Facebook like me and want the best for me.

And I don't feel that way about Twitter. So deciding to be public there means you're exchanging like the dopamine hit that we're all addicted to when you share anything on Twitter for the fact that you know that some people who hate you are taking note or rolling their eyes or whatever. Right. You got to be strategically vulnerable on Twitter. There's no need in opening up your heart and bearing your soul because it can only be used against you later on Twitter. That's what I think. So tell me some more about the strategic vulnerability because I'm curious too because I am terrified of Twitter. Like I'm on Twitter, you know, to tweet my shit out and to read stuff. But I don't really engage.

I never really have engaged there either because it gives me more anxiety than it's worth. to do that. Was there ever a time when you were on it like that, even in... There have been stretches where, like, maybe I'll laugh, tweet a show, or I'll respond in a conversation or I'll start a conversation. But I've never been active on Twitter. Like, I've never, never have been. That's interesting.

I always thought that was a sign of your discipline, not being scared. Nah, it's a sign of my anxiety. About getting about, you know, and, you know, to your point, And, you know, people who are on your IG page should be your friends. But again, Joel, what does strategic vulnerability look like? Well, I mean, if I have like a larger point to make, I just think about all the times when I talk about health care, if I have some sort of issue with my mother. Like usually, for me, it relates in some sort of way where, you know, I have a larger point to make about how the health care system or the hospitals or. the way they treat black women when they come in there, or, you know, we're not getting the service you need, or even related to the pandemic today.

Like, I was just, I basically made reference to the fact that, you know, one of the reasons my mother's procedure took so long is just people continue to pass around this damn disease. And so I, like, me revealing that about my mother is like me being strategically vulnerable, even though I would never show her picture. I would never show her name on there, you know, that sort of thing. It's for me in service of a broader point, but I would never just go on there and be like, man, Jeney yelled at me, dog, and I'm hurt. I'm sitting down here on the couch. You know, I mean, like, you know, I would never,

there's no benefit to that, you know what I mean? So I just have to be real about it. Like Jenae said, you know, we have, you know, I guess this not insignificant a number of followers, and I don't presume that even a decent plurality of them love me. You know what I mean? Or like me. Like, there's a lot of people that probably follow me

and screenchat my tweets or hate me or whatever. And so I don't want to give people material to hurt me with later that, you know, that actually that I am vulnerable about, I guess. I think one of the most brave and, like, transparently vulnerable things people do on Twitter, which I've never done, is to just go on there and say, like, I'm feeling horrible about myself. Can someone say something nice to me? It's a little bit daring to see that explicit request, but I actually think that's behind what we're doing if we share a tweet thread about something difficult that's going on in service of a larger point.

A lot of what you're getting back from that is people affirming you and comforting you. And I think that's what a lot of people want, and we all just go about it differently. what you're speaking of is kind of like a Trojan horse vulnerability. And where you're able to kind of shield yourself from the fuck shit by making about this larger point, but you're still receiving the dopamine. And you're still getting to retweets. You're still getting to retweets. You're still getting to well wishes. Exactly.

Like I think in, I shared that I was going through IVF with like, and it had some misdweights. carriages in a larger conversation about, you know, how we don't talk about this enough or whatever the point was, Black women's health care. And I made the point, which was fine, but what I got was a million DMs from women who were comforting me and opening up to me and offering support and eventually, like, sending me baby clothes. And so I really, I got a lot out of that strategic vulnerability, even if I wasn't explicitly thinking, I'm doing this because I need some people to rally around me. I think on some level, I knew that would happen. Have you all encountered any, I guess, any sort of indication that people have a parissocial relationship with

you? And I really tried not to say that word because I felt like 2021 ran out word into the ground, but that's the only word that fits here. Well, I know that we both have like those settings where, where you only see replies from, I think, people who follow you. Oh, you. Right. Or maybe even people you follow back. So that's my way of protecting myself from stuff that I just don't want to hear that won't make me feel good.

Because to me, Twitter is for fun. I'm on there to have a good time to get that dopamine hit. It's a shortcut as someone who identifies as a writer. It's easier than pitching a piece, submitting it, publishing it, having it edited. you throw out two lines and you get feedback and it feels great. You're also crowdsourcing answers for prudence, I've seen. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's for fun and it's also very helpful for work. So because of that, I really try to protect myself from anything that's going to upset me because I'm on here voluntarily to have a good time. So I don't actually want to hear from people who I don't like or who are, you know, being intentionally annoying or critical. Right. And in fact, she encouraged me to do that because I think early in our relationship, I was a little bit more combustible on Twitter.

Is that maybe, you know, I was more willing to get in there and fight with people. And I think that's, I spoiled probably more than a few evenings, you know, being fixated on trying to get the right tweet or being mad at somebody. And so eventually she was like, you know what, why don't you set your filters up? And so eventually I did that. And I had to admit, like, it's been a much better experience. because even like the barrier for entry to respond to me now, you just got to follow me. But like a lot of people don't want to do that, right?

And so like, you know, those are the only people that I guess I'm really interested in interacting with, not people doing a one-off or something like that. So I feel like for you all as a couple, you're coming out party had to do with someone. You know, she was a colleague of Janais. and apparently there was a, she had invited you to lunch. And can you tell a story, please, if you don't mind.

Sure. So I think she's a terrible person. Therefore, I didn't want to interact with her beyond what was required professionally. I also think she's a dishonest person, so I certainly didn't want to be one-on-one with her without, like, a mediator. So when she asked me to go to coffee, I politely declined because I had too much work. And she reported me to my boss. And I got called into his office.

But I wasn't allowed to tweet about this because New York Times social media policies. So I just had this, like, bizarre story that seemed to fly in the face of everything she would stand for and that I couldn't tell because my workplace rules wouldn't allow it. And when, you know, she did something else terrible one day. and Jolns would be opportunity to share my story with my permission. Well, I think the thing that was happening is there was a big staff meeting or something at the New York Times. And she was airing out what was company business. Like she was basically live tweeting, you know, a staff meeting and talking about how she felt isolated or within the department because people were treating her a certain sort of way. And I'm like, you know why people are treating you like that.

Like nobody really knew who you were before you got to the New York Times. was no reason for anybody to have any resentment to that person. And so when every, you know, the way she got treated is the way she got treated. And then she's complaining about it on Twitter. And I'm like, you want some bullshit. I know exactly what you did to my wife. And I, yeah, I worked the tweet up. I had to run it by her first because I didn't want to get her in trouble with her people. She still had to go to work. I want her to still be in good standing with the times. But when she gave me to go, you know, I was like, let me go ahead and shoot this out here real quick. there was so much chaos going on that day.

I was like, it wouldn't even make a difference. There's so much going on. Just go ahead. Right. I never thought anybody would pay attention to it or would care. We would say that, yeah. And actually, this relates to Twitter, too, and that part of the complaint that I was confronted with in my boss's office was

she also says your husband called her racist on Twitter. And I just remember saying, I can't help you with that. I don't think he actually did use that word because we tried to be careful about that because people are so sensitive. But I just said I can't help you with that. I'm not, I don't monitor his social media account, although, of course, I do. Right, right. Yeah, I didn't think it would be such a big thing, but it was funny that people started calling Joel a wife guy and stuff. And I was like, oh, he's always been great.

This isn't like the best thing he's ever done for me. Yeah, the reaction was really funny. Do you feel like either of you have aged out of any conversation? Oh, probably I love that. Most of them. Like, all of the dating questions,

all of the dating questions, for instance, because, like, I've never used a dating app. You know what I mean? Like, I'm old enough that I've never been on a dating app. So any questions about $200 dates

or somebody finessed you on Tinder or something like that? I was like, I have no, I have a fake outlines. Your expertise is a, as a presumably happily, married couple. Very, very happy.

You know, you might have some. valuable insights there about dating. And I've never been on a dating app either, but, you know, about tender. And I would imagine that the dynamics aren't that different than offline dating, I guess, whatever you call, the opposite. I think we have good insights. I don't know if that's just because of my job. Like, I'm paid to feel confident in my insights about dating and relationships, but Joel is always like, no, we can't get cocky. We don't know anything. We've only even married four years. We haven't had any challenges. We don't know. Don't get coffee. So I think

I have plenty to offer. Joel thinks like we don't know anything. I just, I just think that, you know, life is very long, you know, and as much as I love Jeney and want to spend the rest of my life with her and raise our children together. And that is what I'm intending to do. That is my, you know, like, I don't want anything to get in the way of that. Like, that is how I want to live the rest of my life with her. But she may get sick of me, man. You know, one day she may just look up and be like, I don't like that nigger, man, you know. And I got to deal with it. So that's all I'm saying.

Or, you know, just life gets hard. So I just think that, you know, being intentional and being in the moment is more important for me than, you know. I think the internet has done a lot to make Joel, like, paranoid and self-conscious in a healthy way. Remember all the articles a few years ago about emotional labor and, you know, women do all the emotional labor and men don't take responsibility. for anything. He really absorbed those and like became obsessed with them. And he's also

a very competitive person. So he will like try to do more around the house to not be a bad person but also to beat me. Like if I do something he's like oh shit you're ahead now I'm not so whatever works.

We'll report back in like 40 years and tell you if we have like a formula to offer. If that day were to come where you wake up one morning, she's like, yo, this nigga stinks. If she leaves me, it won't be because I stink because I smell great. I shout twice a day. We're too shallow a day household.

But yes. If it gets to that point, how do you think you would handle that just in terms of your public, you know, I guess personas? That would be the absolute least of my concerns. I think I would be devastated no matter what, you know? I don't think the internet, you know, of course it would be embarrassing on the internet, but I would have to live with that heartache and hurt for the rest of my life. You know what I mean?

So I just think that the pain of it all would be so intense, so long-lasting, that I would probably not give much of a shit about Twitter. Now, I probably would disappear for a while off of social media. Like if I, you know, because I probably want to face the world. But, you know, people talk so much about branding, you know, the fear of branding their relationships and don't put too much out there or whatever. And I think it's just a fear of being embarrassed and being hurt. But my rejoinder to that is that you're going to hurt regardless.

Like if you lose somebody that you love in that way, it's going to hurt you. And I really don't think that people are going on the Internet being. told you, oh, I guess I ain't going to brunch no more. Like, I mean, you know, what would that really? You know what I'm saying? Like, what would they actually mean in the context of, like, I've lost the love of my life? I don't think it would register that much. That was such a good answer.

I was going to say I thought we might put out a short little statement with the news. So the first thing I'd do when waking up in the morning, before yawning, sitting up, stretching, and even getting up to brush my teeth, it's reaching over to out of my bed for my phone and checking to see what I missed in the five hours since I last looked at it. And not just text or phone calls, but emails, tweets, Facebook posts, likes on recent IG posts, and updates to Reddit threads about Kyrie Irving. And then I'll do whatever shit humans need to do to prepare for today.

But then most of the rest of my time awake will be spent online. I guess my point is that it might be silly now to have any anxiety about it. the distinctions between a virtual me and the physical real world me because the distinctions between a virtual me and a physical me are so minute so inconsequential that they barely exist. And even if I tried to have distinct personas, the time I spend online and my reliance on the internet to make the money that allows me to live in the physical world would make that impossible. Internet B has to be the real me because it's the choice I made. and also because there's no other choice.

Stuck with Damon Young is a Spotify original podcast from Gimlet and Crooked Media. It's hosted and written by me, Damon Young. Ruben Davis is our executive producer. Our producers are Ashley Belize, Morgan Moody, Carlton Gillespie, Priscilla Alabi, Stephen Hoffman, and Corinne Gilliard. Mixing and sound design by Jesse Knauz, Charlotte Landis, and Veronica Semenetti. Theme music and score by Open Mike Eagle.

From Crooked Media, our executive producers are Tanya Sominator, Sarah Geismer, and Katie Long. From Gimlet, our executive producers are Rosie Garen, Crystal Halls Dressler, Colin Campbell, and Lydia Pohlgren.