There Are No Girls on the Internet - A TANGOTI Announcement We've Been Sitting On

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Something has been in the works. Bridget shares what's next. LoveAtFirstPrompt.AI    Let us know what you think by emailing [e-mail] or leaving a comment on Spotify! Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media!  ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet || bsky.app/profile/tangoti.bsky.social See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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There Are No Girls on the Internet as a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. So this is going to be a little bit different from our normal Tuesday episodes that usually have an interview or a conversation of some kind because we have a little announcement here at There Are No Girls on the Internet

that is, I guess I'll say, pretty important to me, to us, to the team. I've got producer Mike here to help me with it. Yes, it's a big announcement. big day at There Are No Girls on the Internet. Thanks for having me here to share this with the listeners. I'm pretty excited about it. So without further ado, we're writing a book. Actually, we have written a book.

It is written. It is currently with an editor as we speak. There are No Girls on the Internet. We have a book coming out. Yeah, we have a book coming out. Exactly. It's pretty exciting. I never thought that we would write a book.

I'm pretty excited. I, you all are kind of hearing this first as listeners. The publishing company just went live with the Instagram announcement, mere moments before we got on the microphone. So if I sound a little out of it, today's been a bit of a whirlwind of announcement and then feeling, I'm an anxious person and sometimes when I get good news, my first inclination is, oh shit. The way that I feel big feelings is to retreat. But I'm having to navigate feelings that are feelings that are weird for me. And I'm trying to do my best and not just go to my natural inclination, which is just to retreat.

You need to be public when you're doing a book. So that's what this is. The book is called Love at First Prompt, AI in the Future of Intimacy. So you're probably wondering what is this book actually about. I have been describing it as the movie, Her, meets the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma. Folks might remember we did an episode about people who are finding themselves in intimate connection with AI. A lot of that looks like romantic or sexual connection, but not all of it. Sometimes it's platonic connection. Sometimes it's the use of AI for therapy. Side note, Bravo Watchers will know there's a character on Southern Charm who exclusively uses ChatGBTBT for therapy. But the book definitely explores that use case for AI. So folks who listened to that episode of the podcast about connections with AI like that might recall that we were trying to approach it from a very specific lens, which was non-judgmental,

leading with curiosity, leading with empathy, and really just trying to understand what folks were saying when they reported finding benefits or finding themselves in these kinds of connections with AI. And when we did that episode, part of the reason why I took that stance is just that I think that an empathetic, curious stance is always a good stance to take on a subject that you don't know a ton about. But part of it was also that I had not done a deep dive into the available research. There are people who specifically research the impacts of intimacy and AI on, from a public health perspective, from a individual perspective, the harms, the benefits. I at that point of the episode did not know any of that. So I say that to say that from where I began,

with this topic to where I ended to radically different places. I went, and I actually would be curious for your take too, Mike, because when we started writing the book, I had a deadline of my first 10,000 words, and the first 10,000 of those words were written before I had really dug into the research. It was just sort of setting things up in the introduction and all of that. It was 10,000 words about how people who find themselves

an intimate connection with AI are really lonely and that AI companies are profiting from this loneliness. Now, that second part, I think, is still true and that the book really deals quite heavily with that. But I was really surprised by the fact that the research did not really bear out my anecdotal, uninformed opinion about what is driving people to intimate connections with AI. So we ended up having to scrap those first 10K words,

which you know I took pretty rough. I know that you know that was not a good day for me, the day that we had to make that big change. but, you know, the research is the research. That's right. Yeah, I had the same experience getting into it. You know, I started one place really with a lot of assumptions about the harmfulness, I think, of people talking with their AI companions.

You know, assumptions that it was reinforcing loneliness and pushing people apart. And as we got into the research that really just wasn't borne out by the research that people have been doing. So like you said, we wrote a bunch and the narrative sort of evolved as we were learning more about what the research had to say about this. And then really changed. Yeah, we had to just throw a bunch out, which was painful. But I guess, you know, just all part of the process. And, you know, where we ended up, I think, tells a much more interesting story than if we had just written the whole.

based on our starting assumptions without like actually learning more about what is going on with this. Yes. Not necessarily great for hitting publisher deadlines, but really good for telling an honest and authentic story that is rooted in research. And one note on the research is that I was really surprised to find out that there are people who have been researching this, this intersection of AI and intimacy for a long time. Probably one of my favorite and also most surprising interviews in the book is from Dr. Kate Devlin, who was someone who got to this research very early. She started her researching what you might consider to be sex bots, so like ex-Makita, companion, you know, hot physical bots, not AI.

And y'all might remember that we kind of live through a bit of a moral panic about sex bots, physical sex bots, that people were going to be spending thousands and thousands of dollars for these hyper-realistic AI-enabled sex bots and have relationships with them. Well, that really didn't turn out to be the case. There are a few people who do that. However, mostly it's just niche. Like, it's not a spreading phenomena.

When Dr. Devlin looked into this, she realized, okay, the bot angle of this is just not going to happen. The part of it that I think is going to happen is the AI connection bit of it. because a lot of these physical bots, people are going to be taken with AI's ability to mirror and learn as it pertains to emotional connection and romantic connection. So the sex bots, no, the AI, yes.

So she really got there early. And I was genuinely surprised by a lot of her research. We dive quite deeply into a lot of the risks and the harm. So, you know, I don't want to make it sound like I'm saying, there are no risks and there are no harms because, boy, howdy, are they? And we definitely get into it in the book, as does Dr. Devlin's research. But I think that our conversation with Dr. Devlin grounded the entire thesis statement of the book, which is that pretty much every researcher, every expert, every technologist, every journalist that we speak to for this project said some version of the same thing, which is that the risk is real. However, the why, the, the, the, the, the risk is real. However, the widespread risk of harm is not necessarily that individuals are going to be pushed into deeper and deeper isolation or loneliness or things like that. The widespread risk of harms is what are these companies doing? What are these companies profiting from?

Are these companies behaving in ways that are ethical? Are these companies misleading people and misleading people about risk? And so I really started to see this as a moral panic. It's so tempting to dunk on people who are self-reporting relationships with AI or self-reporting intimate connections with AI. I absolutely get it. These people are easy targets. They're being vulnerable about the intimacy. So they're easy targets in the way that we're all easy targets and we open off about intimate parts of our lives.

However, we are spending so much time gawking at people who are self-reporting their relationships. relationships with AI and intimacy with AI, that we are missing that these companies are profiting from their control over these emotional and intimate connections. I think from the beginning of the book to where we landed, it's really about changing that perspective and shifting the lens away from individuals and really asking questions about corporate harm and what is the risk of harm here. So again, these kinds of intimate connections with AI are not without harm. but that harm is corporate.

That harm is companies capitalizing off of people. That's right. And it's a framework that we've talked about on this show pretty often, I think, that there is often an attempt to blame the harms of technology on the victims. And I think that tendency

allows companies often to skirt accountability. And it's aided by the fact that it can be really, salacious, dramatic, interesting to focus on the interpersonal stories or the personal stories of people who are harmed. In the book, Bridget, you make the analogy to the I-Cloud photo hacks when a bunch of celebrities had their personal photos hacked and leaked. And rather than focusing on the people who had committed these hacks and the social media the platforms that happily allowed these hacked sexual photos to be spread across the internet,

a lot of the discourse focused on the individuals and their own culpability for even taking these photos in the first place. And I think that's a good analogy here to describe, you know, this phenomenon as we are coming to terms with what it means that AI chatbots exist in the, world here. And people are talking with them, right? Like, like it or not, this is a phenomenon that's happening. And there's, like you mentioned, there's a lot of scorn and ridicule focused on the people who are experiencing this. And that just feels misplaced from where the actual harms are occurring, according to the experts that we spoke with. Exactly. I'm glad that you brought up

that moment in the book about the photo hack. I think I've said this on the podcast. I shoehorned into every conversation even when it doesn't fit. I shoehorned it into the book. I sure did find a way that when the ICloud photo hack happened, the then New York Times tech columnist tweeted, like, oh, a man tweeted, I have a helpful tips for women celebrities who don't want their photos to be leaked. Don't take nude photos. And he did later delete that tweet and apologize. I'm sorry, very much not accepted because I feel that

that really highlights exactly the thing I am trying to get at in this book, that when there are harms that are institutional or corporate, it is so easy

to blame the people who are targeted or who get caught up at it. And while we're doing that, these companies are like, thank God that they're just blaming these people and not blaming our systems

that enabled it and the way that we made money from it. And I guess with the book that I'm really trying to write what I feel like is an institutional wrong and kind of pump the brakes on blaming or ridiculing or gawking at people who are self-reporting these kinds of intimate connections with AI and really

turn in that lens over to companies like replica, OpenAI, that run them, that I would argue enable them, that say, oh, emotional intimacy or sexual intimacy is a great way to be using our platform until it no longer serves them and then they turn right around and say, oh, this is an inappropriate use case for our platform. They want to have it both ways. And yeah, I just, I think we should be talking about that. And I think that one of the reasons why I have a B in my bonded about this a little bit is that because it's something that I think is salacious and like easy to gock at and easy to ridicule, the people who could probably tell us the most about why they have turned to AI for therapeutic support or romance or companionship, we are hearing from them the least,

right? I, like, people, there are millions of people for whom that is the case for. And because of this dynamic where they feel they are going to be ridiculed, sometimes they're not doing interview. Sometimes they're not, you know, like talking to researchers. And I do think that we can learn a lot about where we are right now and where we might be headed from what these folks have to say. But right now we don't have a dynamic that allows for these folks to really be heard. And I think that that needs to change. And, you know,

I don't think anybody listening to this podcast will be surprised to know that I'm a, what you might call it, AI critic, AI skeptic, whatever you want to call it. However, you know, when you have somebody like Mark Zuckerberg going on a podcast and saying, oh, in the near future, the majority of your friends will be AI and you'll love it. When he's saying something like that, side note, it's AI that I run, that I profit from. It's AI that I'm giving you as a substitute for friendship after my platforms really eroded friendships. So I'm causing the problem and I'm selling you the cure. Even with all of that, I don't think that he is necessarily wrong.

That is not a future that I necessarily want. Like, I don't want a future where the majority of my friendships are AI. Certainly not. I don't want a future designed by Mark Zuckerberg. I don't think that my idea of a good future and Mark Zuckerberg's idea of a good future are aligned. However, I do think there's some, I don't think that he's wrong in pointing out the ways

that more and more people are turning to AI for intimacy. So we should be talking about it. We should be looking at it. We should be like asking questions about how it's going. And yeah, I guess that's what this book is an attempt to do. That's right. And when the conversation is focused on, you know, salacious stories, making fun of the people who are involved,

Not only does it allow Mark Zuckerberg and the people who run these companies to avoid accountability, but we also miss out on a lot of interesting things that we might learn by actually engaging in a more thoughtful, inquisitive way. And I think one of the really interesting things that I learned in the process of writing this was just how the people who feel like they are in intimate relationships with AI companions, really don't view it as a replacement for humans. For the most part, with some big exceptions that we cover in the book, these are healthy, non-delusional adults that view it as a different type of thing.

And I think that's really interesting and exploring the ways that they, how they think about this thing that they are doing and what the research has to say about it, I think, can shed a lot of light not just onto this phenomenon, but about the bigger questions of what it means to be in a relationship period. You know, it's like having this other type, this totally new other type of relationship, I think gives us a slightly different perspective to understand the relationships that we have

with each other with other humans and what makes them so unique and valuable. Yes, and we do interviews in the book with people who have had. had intimate connections with AI or used AI in that way that you've just described, Mike. So the common anecdotal attitude is those people are really delusional. I was really surprised to hear how clear-eyed they think about AI and how deliberate they are about the roles that AI play in their own personal lives in ways that, like, I certainly am not. And it kind of made me think, not only are a lot of these people not delusional, they have a firmer grasp on what AI is and what it isn't and what it can and what it can't be for them emotionally than I had ever thought about myself.

And a firm grasp on how it shows up in their life and what they want from it, like how they want it to impact their life. One of the surprising things for me was how several of the people we spoke with described how talking with their AI companion actually allowed them. to connect with other humans, either through finding online community among people who are similarly talking with their AI companions or by boosting their social confidence or their self-esteem or helping them work through something so that they were better able to show up in their

IRL human-to-human life, which, again, was not something that I expected going in at all, but came through pretty clearly in the research. Yes, pretty much everything I thought I knew about this subject is kind of wrong. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman,

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So we're talking about my new audiobook, Love at First Prompt, being published by Simon & Schuster, which you can pre-order now. And basically, everything that I thought that I knew about intimacy and AI was wrong. Like, I assume that people who foster intimate connections with AI are doing so in an attempt to replace human connection. But actually, the research really clarified that their human connections are often deepened by whatever their connection is with AI. When we talked to Dr. Devlin, she talked about this experience of getting emails from people, like strangers from all over the world, where the stranger will say, I think I'm in love with AI. I'm writing to you because you research this. I know you'll understand what should I do. And she'll say like, wow, these people, they seek me out another human to confide in.

You know, like they're connecting with me and emailing me and reaching out to me another human because of this connection they have with AI. And so the idea that, oh, the AI would be enough for them. They're going to use AI to replace their human, a human connection. If that was the case, they wouldn't be reaching out to Dr. Devlin, who was very much a human, right? And so all of these ways that connections with AI actually pushed people to be in deeper relationship with the humans in their life, I found fascinating. Again, all of this sounds hunky-dory. But when people put these kinds of connections and emotional weight in the hands of companies like Replica and Open AI, that's when things can really get risky.

And so we do obviously have instances where people were genuinely. harm by intimate connection with AI. We talk quite a bit about some high profile cases. And so certainly that is part of the conversation. But I don't think that these high profile tragedies are the only harms that these companies should be accountable for. Doing the research makes that super clear. You know, we do have these horrible instances, these horrible tragedies where young people are harmed or they die by suicide because of connections with AI. Yes, and those are not the only kinds of harms that these companies need to be accountable for. And I feel like right now the conversation is really based on these high profile harms,

understandably so in some cases, while kind of missing the bigger picture of, well, can we trust these companies to hold connections so intimate? Can we trust companies run by people like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and Sam Altman with our deepest, most intimate connections and feelings and the most human part of, of ourselves. That privacy risk, I think, is a really big one that we talk about quite a bit because, yeah, a lot of people really share deeply personal stuff with their AI chatbot. And we have a whole chapter talking about how people engage with them almost like therapy. And it's complicated because a lot of people are getting a lot of value out of it. And independent studies have said that

a lot of that information have said that a lot of the feedback that their chatbots give them is actually pretty good from like a clinical perspective. But not all of it is. And then there is that existential question of like, what does it mean to be sharing your deepest, darkest secrets with a company that is just going to hold onto your data and use it for, you don't even know what, right? Like maybe they're going to use it to train models, which means that it's in there and it might be accessible to other people to find.

They might sell it to other companies who would be even less, have even fewer scruples about what they do with it. So I definitely left feeling like that is perhaps one of the biggest, scariest pieces that we as a society need to tackle related to this, one of several. That was probably one of my favorite chapters to write in the book. I was very proud of the title of that chapter.

So the book is sort of about, we use romance as the jumping off point, but then we dive into all of these other kind of AI connections. And that using the romance theme, that chapter is called the hardest part of breaking up is getting back your stuff. If you know or that, if you get that, if you are as old as me and you get that reference, leave it in the Spotify comment so I can sneak a heart in there. But it's true. if you're thinking about AI as something that you can have an intimate connection with, but AI companies are like, we'll tell, we'll use whatever you tell it, however we want, and you have no idea what that's going to be, is that really intimacy? And if we're using the theme of a romantic relationship,

wouldn't that be kind of a bad relationship if you're in relationship with something that's going to, you have no idea how what you are sharing is going to be used? Is that really intimacy? You know, we have the sort of coup de grace. the book is a conversation with one of my favorite journalists, Karen Howe, who wrote the book Empired AI. And people who run companies like Sam Altman, I think, in my opinion, really cannot be trusted. And what does it mean when we have more and more people who are trusting the most intimate parts of ourselves with people who, in my opinion, really cannot be trusted, who go out of their way to speak in these terms that obscure what they're actually saying.

what they're actually going to do. And I think the book really teases at some of the existential problems with that dynamic. Yeah, like we don't trust those individuals who are leading those companies. But even if it were other individuals, we shouldn't trust those companies, right? Like, we just, it's just fundamentally flawed to trust companies with that level of our intimate secrets, right? Like, they've put it over and over again, they can't be trusted, right? Like, we need privacy laws. But that's digressing a little bit from the book, right?

The book doesn't really get so far into that. So I wrote this book. Mike is our co-author. We did write it together. We make the podcast together every week. How was it writing a book with me? Just out of curiosity. You can be honest.

I know we had the ups and downs. It was exciting. Yeah, I was really grateful to be invited to be your co-author and help, you know, bring some social science into the book. It was fun. It was exciting. I have such a love-hate relationship with writing. A quote that you've said before is like, I love having written.

I hate writing. That really resonates. It's so hard. I think that's Dorothy Parker. Oh, that wasn't a Bridget original. That was Dorothy Parker. No, that's a Dorothy Parker original. I wish I was that clever.

But it's really true. It's like writing is so difficult, especially this. book because it was an incredibly fast timeline, right? Because it's such a timely topic. The publisher wanted to get it out right away. And so it was just a little bit under two months that we had to write this thing. And that time period included Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. So it was really intense, really fast. It was interesting working with you, Bridget, just seeing the different ways that we write. You know, I come from more of like an academic background where the main type of writing is academic articles and scientific journals where a team of co-authors revises and revises and endlessly revises. And by, you know, at the end, you've spent tens of hours, if not more, to end up with, you know, maybe a 15-page article. And it's just so interesting seeing that juxtaposed with, I think, your experience writing in various media formats or you just have to get stuff out.

And just watching the words like fill the document as you were typing was kind of amazing. Yes. I would say what I learned is that I write fast, but not always. I subscribe to the axiom, write drunk, edit, sober. Is that it? Yeah, write drunk, edit sober. So I'm like, just get it on the page. We'll deal with it later.

So we would be, we would say like, we're just from the whole afternoon in writing. I'd be like I've written 5,000 words. 2,000 of them are maybe okay, you know. You'd be like, I've written a paragraph, but that paragraph is phenomenal. It's a really great paragraph, yeah. It's like tight, starts one place goes another. The readers are going to love it. Or the listeners, I guess, because it's an audio book, right?

Yes. Yeah, we, I just realized I have not even said the name of the book, which is, you see how good I am at promoting my own stuff. I should probably say the name. The name of the book is Love at First Prompt, A.I. in the future of intimacy. It is a audio original through Simon and Schuster. So it is not a physical book.

It is an audio book. You can pre-order it if you go to love at first prompt. AI, which is a domain name that we bought that we were really stoked to have. So that is the book. But yeah, writing it with you was interesting because you really learn. It's one thing to make a podcast together. It's quite another thing to write a book together. And ultimately, we got it done.

And that timeline, I think I signed the contract the week of Thanksgiving and the full thing was due at the end of January. So really had to write it fast. And also just that because as we know from doing the podcast, news with, it changes so quickly. So stuff that I would write in December, within a week it was outdated. And so it really was, I understand why we had to get this in so quick. because it's just such an evolving topic. Yeah, I'm really pleased with how it came together. I think the format is really interesting, the audiobook format,

because it's not like a standard audio book where the listener is just hearing the author or a voice actor read what's on the page. But there's actually interviews and conversations with people embedded throughout. So I think the format is pretty interesting and kind of innovative. And I also feel that the substance of how you talk about, told the story. It's quite masterfully done. I mean, this is why I like making a podcast with you. I think you're really good at telling these stories about technology in ways that are both personal and grounded in the science and the reported facts. And it ends up feeling like something

sort of in between, you know, it's not just a narrative bunch of bignettes. It's not a collection of essays. it's not a textbook. It's something that I think is character-driven, but also informative, if I might say that, about our work. Yeah, I'm glad that you put it that way because it is a very personal work to me. Not only is it just a lot, there's a lot of myself in this book, but also I talk about my own grief journey

and the way that AI showed up in that journey, which I think might be a surprise to some listeners, but, you know, I am not someone that I would say that I'm in or have had any kind of, like, intimate connection with AI. However, I am someone who had what you might describe as a mental break. Is that too? Maybe that's too strong. So I, like, and I think that when you, I'm fine now. But I guess I'm someone who, at my lowest moment, I know what it feels like to turn to anything for comfort.

And that's sort of my starting place in this book is that at my lowest moments, when I'm searching for just anything that will be helpful in me feeling better, I know what it feels like to turn to things that in the moment might offer comfort, but then you take a step back and say, well, what's that good for me? You know, what was I participating in in looking for that moment of personal comfort? So the book is a blend of research and other people's stories, but also very much my own story, navigating tough shit and the way that AI played into that.

Yeah, you're quite personal in the book. You know, I really commend you for how much you were willing to share about your own personal life and some of the darkest moments that, you know, we've shared a little bit with listeners over the past two years or so, but there's a lot more of it in the book. And I think it was quite brave of you to share all that. Yeah.

I just, I don't want anyone to think that I'm coming from this, from a place of not really getting it. Because I feel like I do really get it. And that is really what I think drove me to not just want to write this book, but also my interest in these use cases of AI, right? Like, I have been drawn to this topic, even before I had done any of the research because of my own personal connection to it. And I am glad that Simon & Schuster, who is our publisher, saw something in this. And I'll brag on myself a little bit if that's okay, which is that I signed to a literary agency at the same time that this offer for the book came to be. And those two things happened independently, which was unusual.

And I was talking to someone, just chik-chatting with someone, and they were like, wait a minute. So someone at Simon & Schuster heard your podcast episode. and thought that should be a Simon & Schuster audio original, got in touch with you, and then you wrote it. And I said, yeah, that's what happened. And they were like, that's incredibly unusual. Most writers are, like, submitting stuff and getting rejected, and it sucks, and it's awful.

The fact that not only did your literary agent come to you, but then Simon & Schuster came to you, that's a nice situation. And I did not realize that. And I agree that is a nice situation. So I don't mean it braggy, but it just feels good that, people are listening to these stories and it feels good that people see value in them.

And I guess I say that to say that you never know who's listening. If you're out there and you make a podcast, you write a thing, you have a blog or a substack or whatever, a beehives. You never know who is engaging with what you have to say in the world. And even though if it feels like no one's listening, an editor from Simon and Juster could be listening and reach out to you to do a really cool project. So that was really cool. podcasting is my main thing, my main hang.

I will always be an audio girl, audio forever, you know that. But I am very interested in, you know, print, in writing, in film, especially, other kinds of media. And so it's really nice to have an opportunity to branch out a little bit. It's still an audio first project. So I felt kind of comfortable making that transition. But it felt good to have the opportunity to flex in these different style a little bit. Yeah, different style and different lengths, different format. You know, we make this podcast every week, twice a week,

and it was just such a different process to write a book, right? Like, just a much longer thing where the beginning and the end are so much further apart, right? And there's so much more opportunity to cover ground in the middle than we get in a typical podcast episode. Yeah, I remember when Simon and Schuster told us how many words they thought the book should be. I was like, I don't think I could, I've never written anything at this length before. Am I ever going to be able to fill this many words? By the end, I was like, oh no, it's double what they asked for.

Is this going to be okay? I cannot believe. If anybody listening wants to write a book and they're thinking they cannot fill a certain number of words, yes, you can. Yes, you can. You will be surprised. Once you get going, you're like, oh, actually I have a lot to say. Good luck shutting me up. Let's talk about the sequel.

More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Who's the worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right?

That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle-aged. One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get.

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And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing

and we're still chasing it and we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid?

Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines, is we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free iHeartRadio app.

Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. What's up, fam, it's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reed.

I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night bases on offense.

And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He run up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball like, after you go through a training camp with that Isaiah, you figure it out real quick.

Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. I think that when you are a self-employed creative, you really get a mentality in your head that you can never really just take a minute

and be happy about something. And when we sign the book deal, I was pretty happy. The signing felt so good. And then I was like, oh shit, now I have to write it. And that part was a little bit rough. And now it's turned in. And I'm trying to be intentional about trying to like,

just be a little happy for a little bit. And maybe people will read it and hate it. And that's fine. But in this moment, nobody's right up with me and you and the editors. So I can just sort of basket it a little bit. Yeah, basking it, take it in. It's been a real emotional roller coaster. Like it was a very intense period.

of time trying to write this thing. It was all consuming, right? Like we spent most of our time working on it almost every day. Other projects kind of got reshuffled around so that we could make space for it. It was very all consuming. And then all of a sudden, it's written and it's done and it's turned into the copy editor. I think we've both over the past couple days been feeling with a little bit of that like roller coaster of emotion and attention where this big thing that was demanding our time and energy all of a sudden is no longer demanding it. And so I guess I can speak for myself. I feel I felt a little bit like I have a lot of energy that all of a sudden I need to figure out where it goes. And that's been a new experience. Yeah. I was crying this morning. I don't

even really know why. I just felt it just feels weird. It just feels weird. And I think part of it for me is like, you write a book and it's like, my parents aren't here to see it. And the book is very much about my parents and grief and wrestling with all of that. And it's weird to have this accomplishment that is about them and they're not here to see it. I was telling someone earlier, I actually think I was telling you this that when I was a kid, whenever we had to do any kind of like, go door to door and sell stuff. My parents would just like take the thing to their work and just like make their coworkers

buy it. I'm sure people listening are like, oh yeah, my coworker does that with Girl Scout Confuse and it's annoying as hell. Those are my parents. And I know that they would be like, can we just buy a million copies? Obviously that is the wrong thing to do. And like, it doesn't even work if that's how you do it. But I know that my parents, their first thing

they would say was like, let's just buy a million copies. How can we buy a million copies to make this thing a best seller? Yeah. You know, I had the opportunity to meet your parents and they were both really tremendous people and I think they would be so proud of you for writing this book and I can only imagine how much it sucks to not be able to hear them say that but regardless of whether you get to like hear and feel their their praise you know that you have done something that they would be very proud of and I think that's really the important thing right

Like as we age and our parents are with us for a while until all of a sudden they're not, are we continuing to take what they taught us and lead the lives that they would have wanted us to lead? And I think you know that they would be so proud of you for having written this book. I appreciate that. And as I was writing, writing anything, putting anything out into the world is hard. but something about writing a book really inflamed a lot of my self-esteem and imposter syndrome stuff. And I really looked back. I actually have saved all my emails with my dad because we emailed quite a bit and we're in correspondence quite a bit.

And something about my dad was that he was that parent who everything I did was so amazing. I would send him when I was working on MSNBC, part of my job, job sometimes would be to write these like very low-lift listicles. The kind of thing that AI would probably, is probably doing in newsrooms now, where there's like a sentence of my, like a sentence introduction and that everything else is a collection of tweets. So very little writing. And he would say, oh my God, brilliant. You're such a good writer. You're such a good writer. Everything I, and in writing the book, I really was just like hyper aware of, I mean, I don't think I'd be a creative professional if I did not have that kind of parent, the kind of parent.

who even if they don't necessarily understand what it is that you do is just your cheerleader on your side, in your corner, everything you do. Oh, so great, so great. Keep it up. Keep it up. Keep it up. I got to have decades of that voice in my head, in my ear. And so I guess I'm grateful that for this process that was quite trying, I had that. I, that, you know, because you really doubt yourself a lot and, like, you need to have the voices in your head that are like, keep it up, keep it up, keep it up.

But I'm really lucky that my dad, like, implanted that I had his voice in my head telling me, keep going, keep going, keep going. And so thank you for saying that. On me, flip side, over the weekend, I went for a walk around my neighborhood. And I bumped into completely randomly a professor from my grad school, who at the time was, like, a professor that I really, I really loved his class. Like, it was a big, he was a impactful professor to me. And I thought, this is Kismet.

I'm supposed to tell this professor. about my book because I'm at the phase where I can start telling people and here is somebody who was impactful in my in my life to tell. And the first thing that he said, and I don't, I'm not like, it's, it is what it is. But he said, oh, you have a book deal? You've written a book? I have a novel that I've been trying to get published, but no one's taking it because I'm too white, too old, too male. And I was like, oh, he makes the reason that I got this book deal is because I'm a black woman. What a terrible thing to say to you. What a bitter old man.

Damn. No, I took it on the chin. I don't want to say too much because he might reveal who he is. I'm pretty sure he's not listening to this podcast. He's definitely not listening, for sure, is not listening. But I guess what I'm saying is that it probably is hard to watch a new generation take up space and get opportunities. And it goes back to what we said in the news around up about how we're in this, dynamic where for a certain population of white men, especially, if you want something and you

don't get it, it's a very convenient scapegoat to be like, oh, the reason you're not getting it is because of black people or women, right? That, oh, if you don't get that job, it's because a black person probably got it and they're underqualified. If you don't get that book deal, it's because there's too many black folks and women in publishing. My problematic favor, Joyce Carol Oates, that is an attitude that she believes. So it was, it was, it was, it was fine. I just thought it was funny that the first person that I told about this book, the first like person that's not in my inner circle had that reaction that we've talked about on the podcast so often. It is. Yeah. I'm so curious what other reactions we're going to get to this. So I think it comes

out in July, right? July 14th, best deal day. Yes. It comes out on July 14th, 2026. Great. It's, it'll be a fun beach listen. It's not too heavy of a book I promise. And this is where I have to give the, the, the, the plea, which is that pre-orders I have come to learn are really, really important. So, yes, you can get it in July. We'd love to have you order it anytime, all of that. But I really want this book to be successful. I know times are tough, so I'm not going to say like, you know, do what you got to do. I know times are, we're all feeling economic crunches. And so spending money on pleasure listens, I get that's a big ask. If you can, pre-order it, it would mean the fucking world to me. Apparently, pre-orders are the thing.

You can go to love at first prompt.a.i, and it'll take you right to the place to pre-order. If you do pre-order and you send us a screenshot of your pre-order, you can email it to us at hello at tangoia.com. You can tag it, tag us on social media at Bridgett, Marine, D.C., on blue sky at there are no girls on the internet, all the social stuff. If you find a way to get the fact that you've preordered to us. We will send you a sticker. I will personally write you a thank you card and mail it to you.

I guess some people already got stickers. You know what? If you already got us, maybe we'll do magnets. We've got magnets. Is that too much shipping? I don't know. We'll figure it out.

We'll send you something. It'll be something. Okay. Magnets are pretty pricey. We can't just be given out magnets. We have a bunch of magnets, no? Okay, you don't need to get into it now. We'll send you a sticker.

We'll send you a sticker. We'll send you a sticker. They should let us know that and we'll send them something else. Yes. Tell me what you want. I've got to, I don't know. Bridgett will come to your house and cook you dinner. Please pre-order the book.

I feel like that would be a detriment. It's like, oh, it's like a threat. Like, if you don't order this book, we're just coming to your house to make you dinner. They better order this book. We're just going to come to your house and order some really good stuff. There we go. There we go.

I'll get the good sushi from Wegmans. Yeah. You know what? You are a good cook, though. Don't sell yourself short. I am a good cook. I am a good cook. I like to go.

So are you. We both, that's something that we share. So yes, please pre-order it, tell a friend, share it. This is a little out of my comfort zone because I'm not, I'm even fighting the inclination to be like, buy it or don't. But I do want people to buy it. I think it might be a little bit of a growth edge for me to self-promote as much as I have gleaned that you're meant to be doing

and need to be doing when you have a bookout. If y'all catch me downplaying it, please hold me accountable. And it's funny because obviously, like you tell all your friends, like, girl, own your accomplishment, brag on yourself, take up space. But then when it comes to yourself, sometimes there's like an inclination to avoid self-promotion. If anybody has tips on navigating this, I would love to hear them. Let's see, what else? Oh, I should mention there are no ads. So it wants you, if you, if you get the audiobook, you'll get to cure just content, no ads, which I know I love.

Yeah, that's a good point. There are not a lot of great ways to get ad-free Bridgett content at the moment. But this might be the only one, right? And it's pretty long. I think we actually haven't sat down to record all of it yet. It's all written, but we estimated it out. And it's going to be like eight to ten hours, something like that. I think Simon & Schuster said six hours.

We'll see. Sounds a little short to me. Yeah. So it's like getting six to ten episodes of the podcast, add free. Think of it that way. So go to love at first prompt.aI. Please pre-order. It would mean the world to me.

This book performs well. It would really open up a lot of doors to be able to continue to tell the kinds of stories that I love telling here on the podcast. I cannot thank you all enough for listening and really, I mean, it's really the listeners who made this opportunity possible for me. So I cannot thank you enough for continuing to rock with us. It means the world.

Yeah, just to underscore that, I mean, when Simon and Schuster reached out, A big part of why they were doing so was because they knew about the show and the listeners. And yeah, like you said, this would not have been possible without the listeners of this podcast, demonstrating that they want to hear what you have to say. Well, I am so grateful. I want to hear what all of you have to say. Let me know in the comments. Yeah. Thanks so much for listening.

Please pre-order the book. I love you all. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at Hello at tangoody.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoody.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, write and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smygel and Friends.

Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends

on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your performance. Podcasts. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on, a Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud. But how long can this alliance last? Tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva and on my new podcast, How Hard Can It Be? I call on my Gen X squad

from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate Midlife's most fantastic BS. Unfiltered conversations from night sweats to fupas to scheduling sex. Wait, what sex? Is it just me or does every woman my age want to look at Pinterest instead of having sex sometimes? They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. It's Ryder Strong and Wilfridell from PodMeets World. And now the PodMeets Twirled podcast.

We're two men who were completely clueless to reality TV, and we're gearing up for the season finale of Survivor. I know we annoyed a lot of our listeners by our severe lack of survivor knowledge. That is the point of the show. I'm just going to remind you. Ah ha, ha. Again, we are experts. Listen to Pod Meets Twirled on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.

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