Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - Is it ever okay to film strangers in public? + Trump’s new TikTok + MrBeast hits #1

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

The record-breaking Instagram account @world_record_egg has returned to publicly express its support for Palestine. Trump joins TikTok and immediately amasses millions of followers. Mr. Beast becomes the most subscribed to YouTube channel. Plus, Taylor Lorenz breaks down the 2022 deal TikTok offered the U.S. government, which included a “kill switch” to shut down the app. Later, Vox’s Rebecca Jennings joins Taylor to discuss crowdsourced surveillance and the ethics of filming strangers in public. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Trump's TikTok takes off, the world record egg returns, and our main topic. When, if ever, is it okay to film strangers in public? I'm Taylor Lorenz, and that's all coming up right now on Power User. All right, I'm here with my showrunner, Zach Mack, and we're going to talk about some of the big stories this week. All right, let's do it. All right, Zach, I don't know if you remember the World Record Egg from 2019, but it was basically this Instagram account that generated the most liked photo of all time, which is basically just a stock photo of a little brown egg. The goal was to get more likes on a single photo than Kylie Jenner, who at the time had the most liked photo. And it kind of just blew up and became this overnight viral phenomenon. It was

founded by this UK marketer and a couple of his friends. They basically pivoted the account to raise awareness about mental health. It kind of petered along and everyone muted it and forgot about it until earlier this week when it came out in support of Palestine. Yeah. I actually remember I think five years ago, however long it was. You were the one who told me about the World Record Egg, and I was like, I don't get it. And you were like, it's just, it's just for a record. It's just stupid internet, which is. Yes, I spoke to the person behind it and all of that. I mean, it was a dumb stunt, but, but it's back now. And the account has come out in support of Palestine. Now, this is not the first time the account has gotten political. The World

Record Egg was actually working with F. Jerry back in the day, the other big viral memes are on Instagram. And they had this plan to criticize Donald Trump, actually. Since then, though, the World Record Egg account was sold. It was actually sold pretty recently to this Dubai NFT entrepreneur. And so he's the one that's running the account now. And one of the first things he did was post in support of Palestine. He posted this little egg that has the Palestinian flag on it. Yeah, it's always more interesting when these viral phenomenons like have something to say instead of let's just beat this record for nothing. Well, it was never let's beat this record for nothing. It was sort of meant to be a commentary on social media, right?

Like, the original concept was supposed to be this sort of meta-commentary about the silliness of social media or kind of like the vapidity, right? Now Leo Messi, the soccer star, has the most liked photo. So they've got to beat him. And I think he has about 70 million likes. Yeah, they have a tall test. So they had to beat Kylie Jenner at 18 million. And now they have to beat Leonel Messi at 70 million.

Yeah, the platform has grown significantly. Do you see any real significance to meme accounts being political? Like, I feel like people aren't really looking to the world record egg. So, like, what significance does this have? They're like, who do I vote for this November? What has the egg said? Yeah, I mean, meme accounts have been getting political for a while. Not only are there tons of politicized meme accounts,

let's not forget back in 2020, when Mike Bloomberg actually paid dozens of high-profile meme pages to post in support of his campaign. The fire fest of political campaigns. The comparison to fire fest is not lost, yeah. You know, the Biden admin has done in terms of partnership stuff with meme accounts. Obviously, Trump works very tightly with a bunch of other meme pages. I think that there's just an increasing war for attention on social media.

And Palestine especially is something that meme accounts have weighed into. I mean, it's interesting that the world record I previously tried to partner with F. Jerry after October 7th, F. Jerry was disseminated. memes to post on other pages that were pro-Israel memes. He's, you know, that there's definitely this sort of like behind the scenes, I guess, negotiating over political power. It's unsurprising to see the account come out in support of Palestine giving the new owner and the fact that he's based in Dubai. I mean, people in Dubai are overwhelmingly pro-Palestine when I was there a couple months ago. There's Palestinian flags all over. The UAE flag also looks like the Palestinian flag, but it's

actually not the same. But, you know, I think in the Middle East, broadly there's a lot more support for Palestine, whereas in America, it's a more contentious issue. Yeah, that makes sense. Another big internet milestone this week, Mr. Beast finally became the most subscribed to YouTube channel on the platform. This is a kind of a big achievement. Obviously, he's been the most subscribed to content creator for a while, but he finally surpassed T-Series, which is this big Indian comedian media, Bollywood conglomerate, basically, that posts hugely popular Bollywood trailers. It's the channel that famously went neck and neck with PewDiePie

several years ago back in 2018 when there was this big drive to try and get PewDiePie to become the most subscribed to channel ultimately PewDiePie lost and now Mr. Beast has avenged PewDiePie's loss and Concord T-Series to become the biggest channel

on the platform. Yeah and I saw he shouted out PewDiePie on his tweet to like celebrate. He said after six years we have finally avenged PewDiePie. Yeah, I mean, did you see any like significance in the fact that he shouted out PewDie Pie during this like huge moment for himself. The subscribe to PewDie Pie movement if you were

on the internet in 2018 was dominant. I mean, it was famously like it became a meme. And also, Peaty Pie really inspired Mr. Beast. I mean, Mr. Bees talked about watching PD Pie videos when you grow up. PewDie Pie is really like the OG big YouTuber and he got so far. So I think it's like, you know, PewDie Pie walked so Mr. Bees could run. I, I remember the whole, Putify versus T-series thing. It was always like propped up as like man versus machine, you know, like this big unstoppable corporate machine versus like the, you know, lowly single YouTuber in their bedroom kind of thing.

Yeah. And I think, yeah, maybe Mr. Beast wants to be seen that way too as like kind of the underdog. I think ironically, like Mr. Beast is more machine than many machines. Like he's automated his process and his entire. channel is so contrived that it's not it's not the puty pie like vlog stuff that we were used to i mean i think that that's kind of the lesson here right is that to reach that level you have to basically operate as a massive media company you can't just be a singular vlogger in the same way that pdipi was i think that era of the of the internet is just i don't want to say over because tons of people are still doing that but

you're just never going to reach those heights right yeah just seems like since 2018, the industry has just professionalized so much. And Mr. V's like really exemplifies the professionalization of YouTube content. Exactly. And he's just so like maniacal about like growth and metrics and optimization and all of these things that frankly, I don't think Pity Pie, I mean, sure, he thought of them. He had a staff himself. But yeah, he wasn't as, you know, single-mindedly driven in that way. After PewDiePie lost to T series,

I completely lost track of him. Like I literally have not. Oh, really? You're not watching his little baby dad vlogs from Japan? No, I'm not. What's he doing? He had a kid. He's a dad. He moved to Japan.

He's thriving. Another really popular content creator has recently entered the sphere. Donald Trump joined TikTok. And there was this long discussion and sort of back and forth on whether he would join Kelly Ann Conway, the Trump advisor famously pushed him to join. Other members of his staff were more critical, you know, especially with the China connection

that the company has. Ultimately, I think he recognized that it's a valuable political tool. He joined and in under a week, he's already amassed five million followers. And he's just doing laps around Biden. I mean, the Biden campaign, Biden joined the platform back on Super Bowl Sunday in February, and he's only managed to amass around 350,000 followers and something like 4.5 million likes, which is absolutely pitiful for the president of the United States.

Trump is just skyrocketing. And, you know, obviously, RFK Jr. as well has already amassed over a million followers on the app and is hugely popular there as well. I think political content remains popular on TikTok. TikTok is actually much more progressive app. It's full of a lot of young progressive people. But I think that the Republicans,

recognize that this is a valuable political tool and they want to reach young people who are hugely disaffected and do not support Biden right now. Well, I also just think Trump is much more tailor made for social media. Like one, he's pretty online. He's a lot more outrageous. He's more memeable. He's more polarizing. Those are all things that play well on social media.

Totally. And that's always been the case. I think a lot of it has to do with positioning as well. I mean, Biden's bio on TikTok is groves the. economy. Like, do they know who they're talking to? Young people can barely afford their rent. And who cares if someone grows the economy for a bunch of billionaires? Like, I just, I've heard from several TikTok content creators that that bio specifically, like, really rub them the wrong way. And I think the content that he's putting on the app just is not hitting.

But that being said, I watched Trump has one video up there. I watched it. It's just Dana White introducing him. And there's like nothing to it. It doesn't have anything. to say. Oh, no, let's be clear. Trump has no coherent social strategy, but I think that's what makes him compelling to people is you don't know what to expect next. He's unexpected. As you mentioned, he's kind of tailor-made for social media. He's always going to perform well online. Trump has really been absent from a lot of social media aside from true social. Why TikTok? Why now? I think Kelly Ann was just ultimately successful in getting him on to the app. I think that he knows that he's facing big challenges, obviously legal challenges. He's now a convicted felon. I think he just

knows that he needs to do everything that he can to get out the vote. And I think that he recognizes correctly that TikTok is a powerful tool to reach young people. Whether those audiences will be amenable, who knows, but there is a side of TikTok that is very pro-Trump. So recently, Instagram has been testing this new feature that will insert unskippable ads into your feeds, Basically, a bunch of users took screenshots of this thing called ad break with a countdown time. Unlike Instagram's current ads and stories, these ads can't be skipped. They're going to force you to watch them in Instagram stories or reels, depending on where they roll this out. Meta did give a statement to TechCrunch saying that this was just a test.

They're always testing new formats that can drive value for advertisers because, of course, that's the most important thing in the world is driving value for advertisers. I hate this so much. I think that doing this would just further destroy an already broken platform. Yeah, ads have really kind of interrupted the flow of Instagram as is. Think about how fast you're scrolling through TikToks and Instagram reels and like everything. And then suddenly having to like halt and just go five, four, three, two. It happens on Snapchat and it's so slow.

It's so slow. It's annoying. Yeah, I imagine this is going to. I'm annoyed that you just counted that down. That was too long for me. I didn't even get through the five seconds. I don't even want to hear one number. I just want to tap, tap, tap. You know, Instagram, as you mentioned, it's already so bloated with advertising that this would just be a nightmare. And I also think it shows how they're willing to basically deprecate the user experience as soon as their biggest rivals are out of the picture like TikTok. I got to imagine this is going to screw up engagement, right? Like more people are going to get annoyed and log off the app because it is so.

And go where? And go where the app, their main competitor that's been banned. And YouTube is a totally different use case. Yeah. I mean, to be honest, I use YouTube a lot less because of all the ads. There's just so many ads. There's ads to watch a trailer. No, I don't pay for YouTube. Do you not pay for YouTube premium?

I don't pay for YouTube. You're doing free version of YouTube? That sounds a horrible. Yes, I'm tired of paying for everything. I got so many subscriptions. YouTube is something I'll always pay for just because I spend so much time watching YouTube videos. But they are, I get it.

They are annoying. You know, I met somebody recently that has the free version of Spotify, and I could not last more than four minutes in the car. Wow. Because it was every, it felt like listening to the radio in the 1980s. I guess this is ultimately like just the problem of as these social networks scale, they need to monetize. And I wonder if in response to this, they'll also roll out some sort of paid ad-free tier. That would be great. I mean, it would suck.

I don't want to have to pay for Instagram, but I don't want to deal with ads. Just ban all advertising everywhere. It's always annoying. So my colleague Drew Harwell had a big scoop recently about this secret deal that TikTok proposed the U.S. government back in 2022. Basically, amidst all of this escalating political drama, TikTok proposed this deal that I would say is completely unprecedented in the history of tech companies and the U.S. government. Basically, TikTok said that if the U.S. government would agree to it,

the company would allow U.S. federal officials to pick TikTok's U.S. operations board of directors. TikTok would give the U.S. government veto power over each new hire. TikTok would pay an American company that contracts with the Defense Department to monitor its source code. And TikTok even offered to give United States federal officials a kill switch that would shut the app down if they felt like it was being a national security threat. The U.S. government declined, basically forfeiting potential influence over one of the most popular and powerful apps in the world to just ban it. That's crazy. You have Facebook and Google fighting tooth and nail, you know, not to allow the government, like even the slightest

inch or influence, right, over their operations. And then you have TikTok turning and being like, hey, look, we're willing to do all of this stuff that is completely unprecedented. And they're like, no, we're just going to ban it. I just, I think this could really end up coming back to bite them if one of these court cases does make it to the Supreme Court. Because to, you know, especially with the free speech argument, you really have to show that you have pursued all of the less restrictive options before resorting to this ban, which I think arguably violates major civil liberties. I think now that this has become public, it might end up sort of affecting that decision.

But who knows if it'll even, you know, be taken up by the court? Has the White House weighed in on this at all, this story? So a senior Biden official responded to Drew and said that basically they determined more than a year ago that this solution was insufficient to address the issues that they had raised and that they constantly engaged with the company over their concerns and potential solutions. Color me skeptical, to be honest, because it's a vague. It's a vague answer. It's also just like this was the proposal. You could have negotiated. You could, you know, to just reject it to me seems a little disingenuous.

But then again, you know, we know that they wanted to pursue this as a ban. And that's ultimately what it resulted in. I'll be really interested to see as their case works its way through the courts, whether any of this information is brought up. In the meantime, we're just stuck watching Trump and Biden TikToks. Yeah, exactly. All right, Zach, well, thanks for chatting with me. We'll be back to talk about crowdsource surveillance

and filming strangers in public right after the break. We all know that anyone can become the internet's main character overnight. It doesn't even matter if you have social media yourself. You can be out in public and all of a sudden become the subject of a viral video that reaches millions. This week, we're talking about surveillance culture online and asking the question, when, if ever, is it okay to film strangers in public? Rebecca Jennings covers social platforms at Vox and she wrote a great piece asking this very question. Rebecca, welcome to Power User.

Thank you so much for having me. All right. So you wrote this great piece about filming strangers in public and the ethics and the history of all of it. Can you talk to me a little bit about where this began? Because it seems like almost overnight we went from filming people, taking their picture and putting on the internet as maybe weird, rude, difficult to now every time I step out in public, I feel like I'm being filmed. Yeah. There's such anxiety with it. And I think it really started with Tumblr and Instagram.

there was like even like back in the early days there was content that would go viral where it's like oh like these look at these people in walmart i think people of walmart is a is a kind of the original example of this there was a blog started in 2009 i believe basically like collected photos of people in walmart wearing you know weird outfits or you know maybe like doing kink or something and obviously you know a lot of like 10th graders got a lot of entertainment out of that but But, you know, looking back, it's sort of like so much of this relied on, you know, really fatphobic, really transphobic, really racist stereotypes. A lot of it was just like, look at this ugly disabled person, you know, shopping for groceries.

And I guess it's not 100% always visual. But a lot of early viral Twitter moments were built around sort of revealing personal information, people sitting next to someone else in live tweeting a date or live tweeting a breakup or there was that famous plane interaction, right? Plain Bay. Yes. So Plain Bay, I think, is another, like, kind of, like, kind of sea change moment. What started out as a simple seat swap on an airplane quickly became an overnight viral sensation.

Alaska Air passenger, Rosie Blair, switched seats with a fellow passenger, then live tweeted as the woman who took her seat, flirted with a handsome man next to her. And when the story really blew up, it came out that, like, the woman, like, really felt like her privacy had been violated. And, you know, they got calls to go on, like, the Today Show and the guys. was there, but the woman was like, I don't really want to do this. And I think after that became known that she just wanted to stay out of the public eye, people really started to think, like, hey, like, is what I'm consuming here, like, you know, ethically sound? And would I want this happening to me? Because probably you wouldn't. Yeah. What changed since the pandemic started? Because I feel like really in the past year or two, this trend has escalated at the same time as we have more

awareness about privacy than ever. Yeah, I think TikTok is so crucial here because not only does TikTok, you know, incentivize making, you know, really crazy videos or like doing something, you know, to prank someone. Obviously, prank culture has been around forever. But, you know, TikTok is like really kind of dangles that carrot of fame in front of you in a way that these other platforms haven't been able to. But what it also does is allows people on the other side to actually have a voice and be like, hey, like, this is the side of that story that you didn't see in that one little video where I was caught off guard. And because those videos are now going viral on TikTok, people are now understanding like, oh, like, maybe we need to think about this stuff as we're consuming it.

Yeah. I think prank culture, specifically that era of YouTube from like 2016 to 2018, 19, which is sort of like the worst of the worst of prank culture, also kind of normalized using people for content in a toxic way. where I think when someone comes up to you on the street with a phone now or a film, you know, a DSLR camera, my first inclination, and maybe this is because I live in LA, but it's like, I'm about to be pranked or I'm going to get money for something. Yeah. And I think because, you know, people have seen how rich you can get if you have a really successful channel and by doing a lot of these, either a man on the street interview, which is like,

you know, less weird because usually you're asking permission. But just any kind of channel where you're getting like surprising reaction from people. Like that can be incredibly lucrative. Like you look at accounts like influences in the wild or subway creatures. Like they all have like pretty lucrative businesses attached to them that are, you know, making people's livelihoods. And so people see that and they're like, well, that's more, you know, like if I can actually do that, then who cares if someone gets their feelings hurt? I think sometimes though it's beneficial, right? Like I mean, I'm thinking of the account watching New York, which is just sort of, it's these street style blogs, which I guess you could actually think back to even the blogging era when that street style blog era sort of started to explode, right? You had people taking pictures of people on the street, almost always with their consent because they would be posed. But even getting on some of these street style Instagram accounts can really help you make it, especially if you're trying to launch a career as like a fashion influencer or a content creator. So, I mean, is this always bad? Is it also an opportunity for the people being filmed to themselves? get some cloud. Yeah, totally. I think in so many cases, it can go that way. And I think with street style,

especially, like, there's a case actually basically like affirming the right to take a picture of someone in public and sell that photo. So like, that's like Bill Cunningham's like entire thing. Right. And like that's beautiful. I think that should, I think street style forever. That's great. And yeah, and I think especially in cases like when you think of Alex from Target, that was 10 years ago now, it was this kid who someone took a picture up because he was like, this cute teenage boy that was working at Target, and then he got on the Ellen show. Like, Ellen doesn't exist anymore. I think that was so interesting because somebody took a, I think it remember there was a picture or video of him when he was working at the checkout

line at Target, and then it went so viral on places like Twitter that he became this kind of overnight celebrity before eventually backing away from the public eye. Wow. Well, you're a very good-looking guy, but I just think it's strange that people are just taking pictures of random people they don't know. I mean, are you open? overwhelmed by this? Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we have that a lot where it's like, hey, this person's viral for being handsome or cute or attractive, right?

I mean, we did an episode a couple weeks ago about kindness influencers and filming essentially unhoused people without their consent. In that instance, it's really exploitative. Yeah. And I think, like, sometimes the intention matters, just like with, you know, quote unquote kindness influencers. Yeah. What sort of like legal complications is that happening now? guess, because it seems like it's increasingly these videos that we thought were fun, or maybe you're out at a protest, like filming yourself and your friends. It's like that can then be used by the police

or subpoenaed. So how do you see the sort of like legality of all of this playing out? Yeah, I think the legality stuff is so interesting because everything you say, you also have to imagine your ideological enemy being able to throw back at you. And so I think like in this country, you are literally allowed to film anything in public. That is, that's a very big First Amendment right. is ultimately a very, very good thing. It allows us to film like abuses of power, especially when it's like a matter of, you know, filming the police if they're doing something. So you, you know, have this record of what actually happened. On the other hand, you also

have extreme invasion of privacy. And, you know, as much as you would like to say, like, you know, I would have sent someone to cease and desist and take this photo down or take this video down that someone took of me. It's like you really don't have a case there because it is, it is legal. Not in America because we have, yeah, free speech. Yes, which I think is extremely important. But like, I think that's why this is such a matter of like ethics and etiquette rather than a legal question because legally, yeah. I couldn't agree more. I mean, I think anytime we're asking the government to step in and solve problems like this, it's, it's bad. I mean, right? As journalists, we need to be able to film things in public. And that's, I mean, a huge part of what we both do for our jobs.

what do you think TikTok and Instagram and all these other platforms like responsibility is and all this? I personally wish that there was like a button that I could click that when I do upload public footage or whatever, it could just like blur everyone in the background's face or like you could just tap people and it could like blur their faces on Capcut or something. Maybe you can do that and I don't know how to do it. But I think it's kind of time consuming right now. And I feel like if that was just an easy push, I don't know, could be really useful. Totally. I think there's like technological stuff they can do with editing tools like that. or they could prompt something where it's like, hey, like, did you get this person's permission?

That might be a little clunky. I don't know. Yeah, I feel like that is a barrier to posting, which they will never do. Right, right, right. But there's also, you know, they could demonetize accounts that, you know, repeatedly kind of invade people's privacy or seem to be. I don't like that either because I'm thinking of accounts like film the police and others. I mean, in that sense, you're directly filming someone with power. But I do think all of these things really, any sort of like top-down regulation or restriction from the platform level, I worry because it's going to be used against journalism.

Right. Totally. And I think that's the thing with any of this kind of discussion. Like you have to imagine someone throwing your same argument back in your face when you want to use it. And I think, yeah, as people that believe in freedom of speech and as journalists, it's really, really hard to make any blanket statements about this kind of stuff. Like other than the fact that some of it, a lot of it, is really icky and makes people, like,

feel bad and has and is not speaking truth to power in any way. it's just used to shame people that are living their lives. And I think that's the issue. Yeah. It's also just things are just so easily taken out of context online. Right. It's like you can see something, even when you see something in person, right? You might film something that you think is entertaining or funny or or scary or whatever. And it's like you don't know the context always behind it. I feel like we're, I mean, hopefully we're getting in a better place. It's like simultaneously more regular people content is going viral than ever. But we're also having these important. important conversations around privacy. I don't love the like over private and I'm the most privacy

freak person ever. But I also think there's this kind of like narc culture of like when you take your camera out to film something. I mean, I was at a event recently that I went to film and, you know, somebody's like, um, excuse me. Like, you know, did you think about who you're filming? And I'm like, yeah, I'm actually a journalist. I am thinking about it. But thank you for flagging. But it's like, I don't know. It's also kind of like there's this other instance where I think, people have this idea that anytime anybody is being filmed, that is inherently bad. And you hear this around, especially children or young people too. It's like, oh, this person could go viral and that is bad. And it's like, well, sometimes it's good. I don't want to, I mean,

sometimes, most of the time it's bad. But it can be a positive thing. Some of these people do go viral. It's a quick little boost of fame. They get some free products and it's fine. Yeah. I also think that like we may sometimes be, and I think about this because I did a story a couple months ago on like the nine month cruise and how there was like this war brewing between the content creators on the cruise and the non-content creators and they were the non-content creators were like, you're filming me without my consent when like that was barely happening at all. And they were just like, you know, in the background. And it's like I think you're overestimated like how much people care about what someone is doing in the background of a video that's not about them at all. The people on this

cruise ship continue to give me dirty looks everywhere I go because I have my phone on the gimbal recording myself, but know that I will not record anyone without their permission. I think that stuff is just like, oh my God, like you're so allergic to the internet or whatever that it becomes like a real issue when people are just trying to like, you know, make a funny video or whatever. Totally. Totally. Also, it's a losing battle.

Guess what? We're all going to be wearing meta glasses soon. Everything is going to be recorded. We're going to live in the Black Mirror episode. Like part of me thinks that this is just. a lost cause, you can increasingly film somebody without them ever knowing. Yeah. And we are, in fact, being filmed all the time, but we don't have access to that footage, obviously. The government does and, like, you know, whoever else. Yeah. So that's why I think it's so important to have tools.

Like, that's why I think this, like, this is my, like, quest to get a, you know, these platforms to build these, like, face blurs. But I just think it would be such an easy step to give people tools to help others maintain privacy. But then again, maybe the video wouldn't perform. as well. See, we always have to, we always have to juggle with that. Rebecca, tell me your personal etiquette, and I'll tell you mine, of kind of how you decide when and where it's appropriate to film someone without their consent. Yeah, so I, I actually got this, I'm stealing this from one of my sources, but basically it's the golden rule. Like, if you are, you know, if you are in a situation where, like, if you were in their position, you wouldn't want to be

filmed, then, then I probably wouldn't do that. And if I would, it would be to a group chat. and not to post on TikTok for Cloud. Yeah, I agree. I think especially if you see somebody that's doing something embarrassing, I tend to be careful to, if I do record anything, it would be to such a private group that I know is not going to share anything. I also feel like anytime I share something, if somebody ever asks for it to be taken down,

and it's, you know, a person without their consent is featured in the video, like, prominently. I'm totally happy to do that. I mean, I don't know. I do a lot of, like, on the ground reporting from a video. And I remember filming a bunch of people in the line at VidCon a couple years ago for Dream or something. It was like a ton of people lined up. And this one girl actually said, oh, you actually not post that video. I saw you filming. But I don't know if her parents knew she wasn't there, whatever. She had some reason why she didn't want it. And I was like, totally,

100%. You know, like this is not urgent and newsworthy. I think the times to kind of let that go is if you are filming injustice, something bad happening, I don't worry so much about the background figures because the point of the video is to communicate something urgent. Right. All right. Well, this is a great conversation. Thank you so much for chatting, Rebecca. Thanks so much for having me.

All right, that's the show for today. You can watch full episodes of Power User on my YouTube channel at Taylor Lorenz. Power User is produced by Travis Larshuk and Jalani Carter. Our video producer is Brandon Kiefer. Our executive producers are Zach Mack and Ashok Kerwa. Power User is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you like the show, give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And we'll be back next week with another episode of Power User. See you then.