There Are No Girls on the Internet - A woman tweeted about enjoying coffee in her garden and Twitter hated it. Is everyone miserable right now or what?

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Here in the United States, we’ve got a lot to be anxious and overwhelmed about. Are these feelings coloring how we respond to the happiness of strangers on social media? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from 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.

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 IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than adds supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. Learn how podcasting can help your

business. Call 844-844-I-Hart. American soccer is about to explode. The World Cup is coming. Ramo sending on to Ernie Stewart the chip. I'm Tav Ramos. I'm Tom Boca. On our podcast, Inside American Soccer, you'll get the real storylines, the biggest decisions, and the truth about the U.S. national team. It wouldn't be a huge surprise

if our team ends up in the quarterfinals or potentially a great run into the semifinals. Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tab Ramos on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Strayed,

author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. So we, too, can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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. Probably no surprise to find out that the Internet, particularly social media, is linked to all of us not feeling so great. And I have a theory about this that I want to bring to you all. And to do that, I am joined by my producer, Michael Amato. Michael, thank you so much for being here today. Thanks for having me, Bridget. I'm excited to talk about being miserable.

It's like your favorite topic. You know, not really, but yeah, kind of. I mean, it's funny that we're talking about this. Like, I think of myself as a fairly, like a person with a fairly sunny disposition. I'm pretty smiling. I'm kind of a look on the bright side type. But I definitely feel lately like something is up. I don't know.

I think that we're more miserable, more tense, more stress, and we're bringing in that more and more to our online spaces. And so I'm looking forward to really talking through what I think is going on and what it means for all of us. Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it because I totally agree. It's hard out there. There's just so much heavy stuff going on and a lot of it feels totally intractable. And yeah, so I'm glad you got it. I'm glad you got to figure it out. What's the story, Bridget? So first, I should say that this is not totally new ground. I think I've mentioned this on the show before, but a study out of Harvard Business School found that negativity travels much further and

faster on social media, particularly Twitter, much faster than positive stories, because, you know, we all just love to hate. But my question is not just about social media. I am more wondering, is it us? Are we, both as individuals and as a collective citizenry of the United States, Are we in such a state of fear and anxiety and overwhelm and exhaustion right now that when we show up to online spaces, that we're just bringing more anger and negativity with us on top of all the ways that we know social media platforms and algorithms are made to amplify things that we hate and negativity, of course. But I'm asking something else. I'm asking, is it us? And I want to be clear. I usually show up to these kinds of conversations with lots of research and studies to back up what I'm saying. I want to be clear, this is pretty much 100% anecdotal. I have a few recent examples that I think demonstrate a little bit of what I'm talking about and what I'm seeing

online. And if you are very online like I am for better or for worse, you might have actually seen some of these examples play out in real time. And I think the way that people reacted to them and the discourse that popped up around them on social media tells us something about where we're at right now as people. I know, Michael, you are not someone who really identifies as being very online. Am I right? Yeah, that's right. I historically have not been very online.

I, in the early parts of, like, the Internet and the 90s and the early aughts, I was a lot more. And then I just really took a pretty big step back. from social media, much to the betterment of my mental health, I think. But over the past year or two, I have really increased my use of Twitter a lot. And, yeah, you know, the question of, like, is it us?

You know, how much of it is the platforms, but then how much of it is us being affected by the platforms and then bringing that back and just continuing, uh, continuing that feedback loop? you might actually be the most offline person who is kind of in my peer group. Like if I don't include my parents and people who are not in my peer group, not contemporaries of mine, sometimes we'll have our podcast planning meetings and I'll be like, oh my God, did you see this thing on the internet?

Like this cat is being accused of being ableist on Twitter and you'll be like, I don't know what any of these words mean. I don't know what you're saying. Like what's happening here? And so I, you do have a, it seems to come. with a level of bliss that I envy. Yeah, I mean, I stress about other things. Yeah, you're always stressing about something.

I want to be clear, you're not like, Mr. Zen, just not, you're just not stressing about something that strangers are doing on the internet necessarily. Yeah, like whether or not the cat is ablest, you know, like, it shouldn't be, right? We should all be inclusive and work for universal design, but like, you know, you know how cats are. Okay, so I want to get into these. I've got them laid out as sort of three vignettes, if you will. The first, I'm calling, Woman enjoys coffee in garden, comma, with husband.

So this was the tweet that the first tweet that really stopped me, and I had to contend with what I think I would describe as an outsized reaction to what I thought was a fairly normal tweet. A woman tweeted something pretty innocuous. She said, quote, my husband and I wake up every morning and bring our coffee out to our garden and sit and talk for hours. Every morning, it never gets old. We never run out of things to talk about. Love him so much.

And, you know, I think most people might see a tweet like this and they might think, how nice for her. What a nice morning. Others might see a tweet like this and think nothing. I think it's, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that somebody might see this tweet and think, You know, oh, she's bragging. I don't like it. Feels braggy. But then keep scrolling, keep moving on. No big deal. But the thing is, a lot of people had a very visceral reaction to this tweet. They did not just keep scrolling. They expressed themselves. So pretty much all hell broke loose on Twitter because of this tweet. And I have a couple of samples of responses that I witnessed with my own eyes. Right. So I only want to talk about things that I, actually saw interview time because as I said, I'm very online. So I watched all of these things unfold interview time. I don't know what that says about how I spend my time, but whatever, here we go. The sad ways that I spend my time is your gain, because I'm here to tell you about them if you miss them.

Well, you know, when you were saying, like a lot of people said nothing, and I was thinking, just sitting here thinking, like, what does it mean that so many people reacted to that tweet that you read about this woman sitting in the garden with her husband, you know, and like, okay, maybe it's a little twee, but like, it's pretty innocuous. She's not really like, she's certainly not harming anyone. She's not making any controversial claims. Like, and so the fact that so many people would, like, have that reaction and actively write a response to it, I was like, wow, how sad for them.

But then here you are paying attention and thinking about what those other people are writing. And so, like, you're pretty far. in it. Oh, I'm in it. No one is saying that, listen, I, just before we even get into the vignettes, I am very much contextualized within this very online culture. I am, the call is coming from inside the house. I am critiquing it from within. I am not, I don't want anyone to think that I see myself as, you know, kind of above it moral high ground. I'm in it. I'm in them. I'm down in the muck. I'm with all of you. Okay. So here are some of the reactions that I saw.

to that tweet. The first bucket was people basically being like, oh my God, you must be rich. You know, people saying that she must be independently wealthy or very rich and very privileged if she's able to enjoy coffee, have a garden, and spend her and her partner are both able to spend their mornings not working. I saw a tweet where someone was like, don't y'all work? Don't you have jobs and she said, oh, I have a small business. And so I'm able to make my own schedule. Then I saw another reply to that where they said, oh, okay, so you're able to have your peaceful mornings because you're exploiting the labor of your employees and that gives you the ability to enjoy your mornings, terrible. And she replied, I'm the sole employee of my business.

So just a lot of assumptions about her economic status and her privilege, all via her having a garden, her drinking coffee, her spending the mornings talking to her husband. Yeah, all assumptions coming from the worst possible place of like giving her no benefit of any doubt, just like people actively wanting the most, like, meanest and worst possible way it could be true to be the case. Yes, that she's definitely exploiting her employees in, order to have, like, she must be doing something bad if she's able to be enjoying this, like, these, like, nice mornings consistently. So another kind of bucket of responses that I saw were

contrasting how she described her own mornings and what they look like with their mornings. And so people whose mornings didn't sound great, you know, plagued by things like insomnia, anxiety, loneliness, chronic pain, or fatigue. And yeah, when you compare. waking up in the morning, feeling lonely and in pain and really exhausted and drained, that does not sound as nice as waking up in the morning and having coffee in a garden. Sure. But again, interesting how when someone puts their pretty innocuous, happy thing out into the world, people's responses can sometimes be like, well, good for you.

I'm not having a happy morning. My mornings aren't that happy. I don't have a garden. I don't have a partner. So yeah, like a very personalized response to her kind of unacuous happy tweet. Which I guess it's like fair, right? Like she tweeted it publicly. People can tweet back if they want.

But yeah, it's like you're like, oh, you're happy. How I'm not, you shouldn't be either. The thing that you feel good about, you should feel bad. Yeah, I saw one response that was so specific that they replied to her tweet about the garden and the coffee and having coffee in the garden in the morning. Where I live, the winter snow is already starting and my patio is uncovered. I was like, oh, wow, like, tough break. Can't afford a covered patio, like one of those capitalist fat cats. Right. Out here with the common people with the uncovered patio. Right. So another bucket of response

that I saw were people saying that it's completely unrealistic to enjoy talking to one's spouse for hours because most people hate their spouses and don't want to spend any time talking to them. And other people saying that like that sounded really braggy and insensitive because so many people are lonely and single. And then just the claim that like people, I guess people went back to her, you know, wedding pictures and stuff and gleaned that she had only been married for a couple of months. And it's like, well, yeah, two, three months in, sure, you still think your husband is brilliant and you enjoy talking to him. Try 10 years and maybe you'll think he's an idiot and you can't even stand the sound of

its fucking breathing. You'll want to hit him with that coffee cup, you know? Like, yeah, that's probably going to happen, but let her enjoy the moment. Yeah, I mean, also it's like, she's a newlywed. Like, she's allowed to still be in the phase where she enjoys the company of her husband and then, like, talking to him

as a fun time. One thing that I should know is that in my depths of all of this, I did see accusations that the original garden lady poster, who definitely gives off, like, spiritual Earth Mama vibes that she posts anti-vax content and Treadwife content, which if you don't know what that is, we did an episode with Joe Piazza all about it, so definitely check it out.

I have to say, I cannot confirm or deny any of that from just the cursory look that I took at her social media. But I almost wonder if it was a pylon first, and then people find the tweets that, quote, justify why they did the pylon, if that makes sense. I almost wonder if it's like, well, are you saying that it's okay to pile up to pile on someone for like tweeting something innocuous because six months ago they also had some bad takes on vaccines or whatever or is it like like like are you are you using this to justify some behavior that maybe now you're like oh i'm looking at that i kind of wish i hadn't

tweeted that yeah i mean i looked at it after you sent it to me ahead of this episode and uh i saw a lot of people criticizing the garden tweet i didn't see anything about you know correcting misinformation or putting out, like, accurate vaccine information. Because, like, how is that even relevant to this lady tweeting about drinking coffee in her garden? It's not. It's not. This is not going to make me sound great, and I'm fully aware of that. But I just know the vibe of really going all in on criticizing something or someone.

And then needing to justify that to be like, well, I'm not the asshole here. she actually said this back in 1999, and that's why it's okay that here in 2022, I've done this to her, you know what I mean? So I just, I really, viscerally get that experience because I've, I've been there. Yeah, we've all been there. We can identify with it.

Yeah, the idea of finding, finding some post hoc justification. We humans do that all the time. So probably my favorite response to all of this, the tweet and the discourse, came from Asia Barber, who if you don't know who that is, they are a brilliant writer on fashion and sustainability and influencing an online culture, definitely give them a follow because they're brilliant. And also by their book consumed, because it's also really good. But they made this

really interesting point that people's reaction to a coffee garden lady is actually an understandable reaction to an online culture built on comparison. Asia writes, quote, I genuinely think social media has gotten us to this miserable place where folks are tired of being happy for other people, it's the impact of comparison culture while everyone pretends it doesn't exist. Basically, they go on to argue that we're all trained to be happy for people when good things happen to them, but especially if things in your life are not where you want them to be, it can be really draining to have to have that expectation of performing happiness for others. And since the opposite of happy is, you know, bitter or jealous or rome.

or spiteful, that kind of becomes the default other response. And so they argue that we should all be more comfortable with just having a neutral reaction in those situations, that we shouldn't feel forced or have the expectation of cheering people on all the time if, frankly, we just don't have it in us. But that doesn't mean that we have to then project all of our hangups and our challenges and perceived failings and anxieties onto strangers via the internet. As Aja writes, quote, instead of being a society where we've normalized feeling neutral about other people being happy, this app instead tells you that you have to have an emotion. And if it isn't good, it must be bad.

So quick, make shit up because you genuinely just don't want to feel happy for this person. And I think that Asia is really onto something that we are, I think there's something about social media that trains us that if we see something, we have to have a real reaction to it. We have to either like it and smash like or hate it and like leave a mean reply or whatever, download it, whatever. Like we have kind of lost that you can just see something and feel neutral about it. And I can understand why that is making us kind of emotionally drained and exhausted where, you know, we just don't have a lot of other emotions to give other.

than anger and spite and bitterness because of that, because of that constant expectation that we always be reacting. But it's okay to not have a take to be like, okay, this woman's having our coffee. I'm going to keep scrolling, next thing, you know? And I have to say, even though I live in the middle of the city in D.C., I do actually have a garden in my apartment. And I have been known to spend a morning out there with a cup of coffee from time to time. And seeing this visceral reaction that everybody had to this coffee garden lady, I'm almost afraid to ever tweet a picture of my garden because I don't want the internet coming after me. Yeah, and she did eventually tweet a picture of her garden and it's, it's very nice. She's done a, you know, her and her husband

is a great job of transforming their suburban lawn of their modest home into a little garden. But it certainly doesn't read like, you know, she's some super rich out-of-touch person. She just looks like a normal house where normal people live. Yeah, it's not like she said, oh, every morning I fly to Paris so I can have authentic Parisian espresso or whatever. And I think that we're so drained and so exhausted and so tense and tired as Americans that the littlest stuff, somebody expressing. The smallest bit of, I'm not even sure I would call this luxury. The smallest bit of something that's not toiling. The smallest bit of something that's not the misery that I think so many of us are rightfully feeling.

It hits a nerve. It's a real trigger point for us. I get it. I'm not happy that I get it and identify with it, but I do understand it. Yeah. And like you were saying, it's two things. It's the having that emotional reaction of like, anger or jealousy or resentment or whatever it is.

And then also saying something about it. You know, like not just like feeling annoyed and scrolling past. You know, like I said before, I look at Twitter, you know, probably a couple hours a day if you add it all together. And I see shit that I find annoying all the time, but I don't need to weigh in on it. Oh, my God. And it's, I spend, I mean, even just like literally, before you and I got on the mic before you were recording, I was like, have you heard about this tech bro who took an Uber from Manhattan to Philly?

And he says that the three different state governments charged him all these fees. And I was so meticulously, he included a screenshot of the different tolls and fees that he was charged. And I was so meticulously going through this. I was like, this isn't adding up. Something's not right here. I lived in New York. This is, what is this route? And I do think there's something about the Internet that invites,

too much scrutiny and too much emotional investment into the ongoings of strangers and people and it's partially due to the way that algorithms work like the reason why I saw Colin Tunnel tweet was because Twitter it was a trend right and so you know someone can it's so easy to gamify that gamify people's willingness to become emotionally invested in the business of strangers it's so easy to gamify that against us. Yeah. There's the algorithm that really incentivizes negative content, right? Because it's just an empirical fact that algorithms reward negative content with more likes, more visibility. But maybe just blaming it all on the algorithm is kind of letting us as a population off a little easy, right? Like, why are we showing up that way?

Exactly. And that's, I mean, that's exactly what I'm hoping to get at in this episode. Yes, it's algorithms. Yes, it's the way that tech leaders have designed these platforms to continue to keep us on edge, angry, and divided for their material benefit. But what's going on with us? Are we, are we good? Are we all good? So let's take a quick break. And then I want to get into our second vignette. 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, SNLs. 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 IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think

iHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-844-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-8-44-I-Hart. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change.

We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The story I've told myself about love or relationships can then shape my behavior, and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection. This Mental Health Awareness Month, tune into the podcast deeply well with Debbie Brown, explore the journey of healing, self-discovery, and returning to yourself. We explore higher consciousness, emotional well-being, and the practices that help you find clarity, peace, and self-mastery in a world that can feel overwhelming. The world is becoming lonelier. We're not becoming more social and

connected. We're becoming more individualized, but we actually meet people in connection. If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become holy, This podcast is for you to hear more. Listen to deeply well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And we are back. So we were just talking about the viral Garden Lady tweet. And after I saw the Garden Lady tweet, I realized that this kind of highly personal,

aggrieved response to the innocuous happiness of others was everywhere on social media. Like this garden lady tweet, once I saw that, I was seeing this kind of response everywhere, which brings me to our next vignette, which I'm calling, Professor Gifts Students with Books. So in this situation, a college professor who has this, like, very inspiring backstory. He's the son of two incarcerated parents, first in his family to go to college, and now he's a professor. He tweeted a picture of his campus office, which I have to say is. It's just gorgeous. It's like one of those offices from a movie, you know, with the built-in bookshelves where all the walls are shelves and it's just gorgeous. It's like very meticulously decorated and it's one of those offices that anybody would die for. It's gorgeous. And he tweeted, quote, my rule. Any student who comes to my office hours can keep any book on my shelf that they like. All they need to do is ask. I had a professor who used to do this back in college.

and I've always remembered how special it made the teacher-student relationship. Let's continue this tradition. That's nice, right? That's very nice, yeah. I went to grad school. It's been way more time there than I should have. And what he's describing sounds like the ideal professor's scenario. Like, it sounds nice, it sounds friendly, it sounds supportive, it sounds generous.

It sounds like a nice thing. I also went to grad school. I don't think I ever once went to office hours ever, which is probably not surprising that I ended up dropping out, had my professors acted like this and been like this and cultivated the kind of environment where they were giving out these books as a token of our academic relationship, I might have stuck around grad school, but alas,

I remember seeing this tweet and thinking how nice it was, and, you know, I got warm fuzzies. and for a while, all of the responses were other academics, basically being like, this is really nice, this is really the ideal situation that you want between, you know, students and teachers where they feel this kind of connection and that connection is crystallized and symbolized in this way. Everyone was loving it.

But then another professor responded. Let's call him Professor Petty. Professor Petty responded accusing book professor of telling everyone what a great guy he was via what he called, quote, lifestyle porn. Professor Petty wrote a whole bunch of tweets. It was a whole back and forth, which I witnessed the entire thing go down. Professor Petty, he's a couple of Professor Petty's responses, says, you've got a lovely office, dude, and you're rich enough to be able to give away the props that you decorate your office with.

That's not political. That's gauche. I'm a cis white man who's working in an academic environment. without a giant office bigger than my living room, nor with enough money or budget to give away the things that I need to do my job to any student who asks. Check yourself. He goes on to say, just seems to me like highly curated, performative humble brags made superciliously from positions of extreme unexamined privilege. Don't form the basis of inherently radical politics. You may disagree, I guess. How can I do more than one thing at once if I've given the books I need,

for my job away. You seem to treat books as props and window dressing rather than tools of the trade. Super weird. I donate things that I don't need or have dupes of, but giving away books on request, odd. So Professor Petty did not like this and he really wanted like, this was, I read them as one paragraph, but this was like a bunch of tweets. He was like back and forth, really digging in. super sillious even I know I also love like what a like academic e sounding drag

this is I guess I'll say yeah it's it's so petty I don't know I don't know how many people you follow in like academic Twitter but definitely professors like tweeting about what it means to be a good professor and providing good mentorship

and like different ways to be a good mentor that's like a common thing that people post about Right. So book professor is, I think, totally within those normal boundaries of talking about it. And, you know, sounds like things are working out pretty well for book professor. And that's great. You know, lots of people have nice things happen to them. It doesn't mean that they're bad. Yes. And I should also reveal one of the reasons why the optics of this just weren't great was that book professor is, is black and Professor Petty is white. And so the optics of a white professor scolding a black professor and calling him privileged and saying, you know, you've got all this unexamined privilege and I don't have a big office and you do and that's bad. It's just not a great look.

It's really not. And also being a professor who like can't do his job without his books, it sounds pretty grim for Professor Petty. Yes. And, you know, I also think that the way that Professor Petty framed those tweets and his responses really strip away a lot of the context of Professor Books. You know, his background as an academic who faced all of these challenges to get where he is, kind of returning the favor of this kind gesture that a professor did to him when he was coming up, Professor Petty really just flattens that situation and takes all the nuance out of it and turns it into someone humble bragging on the inner. But that's not really the spirit of what Professor Books said in the first place. Yeah, it really isn't. And, you know, I don't know where Professor Petty works, but it's probably not like a 14th century monastery where there's like three books that a team of monks has been working on over generations, you know? Like there's a lot of books. Most professors I know who have offices and universities have more books than they know what to do with, right?

And so giving away books to students, it's pretty common, I think. Yeah, it is completely common. And so as they do, Black Academia Twitter really came together to gather Professor Petty and support Professor Books. And eventually, Professor Petty deleted his tweets and apologized, saying that he was taking his frustrations with academia out on the wrong. person, which, yeah, obviously, I think I could tell you. I mean, this person, yeah, you didn't do anything wrong. You're taking all your anger out on him. And partially, I get it, right? If you're an academic sitting in your tiny office, watching everybody give props and accolades to another academic in their big, gleaming, beautiful office, of course, I think it's a little bit

understandable for that to feel sort of personal. You know, and I am super, again, I don't love that I sort of partially get it, because I am super familiar with that feeling of why not me? Why do I have to cheer on others who have the things that I want but don't have access to? Part of me gets that because, yeah, I'm a petty bitch. I've definitely felt that, thought that before. Who hasn't? But I also think that it seems like it's very easy to get riled up by something that a stranger posts as a proxy for your feelings about a systemic or institutional frustration, right? Because sometimes the villain is something like big and lofty. You know, the college that you teach at is underfunding your department or not investing in infrastructure. So your office is horrible and

tiny. But those things do not have, you know, visible Twitter accounts that you can yell at and like yell your grievances toward. Other academics tweeting pictures of their big, cool offices, they do. They're much more visible and easier to take your frustrations out on. Yeah, I can understand there's plenty of things in academia to be frustrated and angry about. But like you said, don't take them out on a professor who is just trying to do something nice for students. You know, maybe it is a little eye-roly, you know, if that's how you feel fine. But I guess after all this, I kind of feel sorry for professor, petty that he's in such a bad dire emotional place that like just like bubbled over and he felt

that he had to express his frustration on on professor books well this is exactly what i'm saying i think that we're all i think that we're in a state of constant emotionality and and and and kind of like I think that for a lot of us, it's feeling bleak right now. And so we're on this hair, we're showing up to online spaces on this hair trigger that I don't know that I've really felt the same way before. And I guess that's exactly what my claim is. Yeah. Professor Petty probably would have had a much nicer night if he just like went out and talked with his friends, you know? Yeah.

Or when scrolling Twitter saw that picture, had the whatever reaction he had. clocked it, asked himself a couple of leading questions, like, oh, this is really, you're really annoyed about this, why? That would lead him to the result of like, oh, I'm frustrated with my own situation in academia. I have frustrations about what's happening on my own campus. And that's, I think that would be so much more productive. And maybe he, it sounds like he got there eventually. But I think he could have had a much nicer time if he got there without being dragged by all of black academic Twitter with like withering fucking takedowns, you know. Black Twitter users are like a like a sharp-tonged bunch too.

So I'm sure some of those had to hurt. Yeah, that probably sucked. If he felt bad before, he probably feels worse now. Exactly. And so this actually reminded me of, you know, I said earlier that it's been a while since I feel like I've seen people showing up on this like hair trigger with misery and anxiety. And it actually reminded me of the way.

that I felt in the early days of the pandemic. You know, I, and like, that was a hard time for all of us and easy for me to be in my, you know, apartment garden feeling whatever I was feeling. But, you know, I remember I would get super upset and super angry about all of these pictures of maskless patrons at crowded bars and restaurants. And this was during the part of the pandemic where I was like pretty deeply distancing. And so I was really feeling the emotional and physical and mental strain of all that distancing. It was not a great time.

And I would get almost like deeply, irrationally rageful at these images. And I would have to do the work of reminding myself like, okay, Bridget, are you really mad that this like 19-year-old college student in wherever, went to this crowded bar? Or are you mad that institutions and people with power and political leaders should have made better options to support people, right?

Maybe our political leaders should have taken bolder action to keep those bars closed and like meaningfully paid and supported people to stay home and, you know, made better decisions to keep people safe. Like there was no picture of that on social media.

What I did have was pictures of like 19 year old college students partying. Let's be real. When I was 19, I probably would have been partying during a pandemic too because I wasn't very smart. But I had to really work to remind myself that just because the people I am seeing partying every single time I open my social media apps are so visible, the actual thing that I am angry about is not them partying is that our leaders have failed us so bad that it turned it into like a personal choice and that those places were available to be overcrowded and all of that. But it is work. And I think that so often we are using people who are visible as a proxy

for our anger, which is oftentimes rightful about something that is institutional and not so visible, which brings me to my last vignette, which we'll get into after a real quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite, unhumor me with Robert Smygle and friends, me and hilarious guests from 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. 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 IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts. and ads-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined.

So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com.

You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change.

We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The story I've told myself about love or relationships can then shape my behavior, and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection. This Mental Health Awareness Month, tune into the podcast deeply well with Debbie Brown and explore the journey of healing, self-discovery, and returning to yourself. We explore higher consciousness, emotional well-being, and the practices that help you find clarity, peace, and self-mastery in a world that can feel overwhelming.

The world is becoming lonelier. We're not becoming more social and connected. We're becoming more individualized, but we actually need people in. connection. If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole, this podcast is for you to hear more. Listen to deeply well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Let's get right back into it. So we were talking about how sometimes our anger on social media, we're using visible people as proxies for our anger that maybe would be better direct.

toward institutions, which brings me to my last son yet, which I'm calling, woman complains about male shoppers for grocery delivery app. Let me set the stage for you. So are you familiar with the joke, women be shopping. Women be shopping. Is there more to the joke? No, that's the whole thing. Okay, I'm familiar with it then.

Okay. Well, this is basically that in reverse, which is men don't be shopping. So it's this pretty well-worn online discourse that pops up online fairly regularly. And it's the idea that men are bad grocery shoppers. They pick bad fruit. You know, you can't trust them to pick a good avocado. We'll get the worst one. They don't know where stuff is.

If you don't give them a meticulous list, they'll come back with the wrong thing. Women need to essentially FaceTime men and like walk them virtually through a grocery store for them to get to be able to do anything right. to the point where it's almost better to just do it. If you're sending a man to shop for you, it's almost better to just do it yourself because he's going to do a terrible job. And so this discourse definitely plays into a lot of like hot button topics

around gender and things like that, right? It deals with domestic labor, like grocery shopping, being kind of assigned as female labor. You know, the idea of men weaponizing their incompetence, which basically means like being so bad, at grocery shopping that they won't even do it. And so like the woman will just do it herself. Even if they are a sensibly being paid to, the person who tweeted the tweet I'm about to read didn't say what grocery delivery app that she was using, you know, whether it was go Puff or

Instacart. But it really dips into our expectations around how we treat gig workers who are mostly being like paid suboptimal wages and likely being misclassified as an independent contractor to do the labor of someone else and just the general ethics around gig work in general, which I know is a hot button issue. All of this is to say that you already know this is going to be a topic where everyone has an opinion, just a flashpoint of a bunch of different things. So last week, a woman tweeted, quote, my last time using grocery delivery and I got a man, he started refunding stuff that I knew dang well the store had. I was so pissed. I got in the car and went to the store he was at.

Bro was literally standing in one aisle on the phone. The tweet got over 70,000 likes, almost 4,000 retweets, and too many responses to count. So he was just standing there on his phone? Yeah, I think he was just, I think that she's trying to say he was just standing there on his phone, saying things that she knew that they had in stock were out of stock and, like, being like, oh, refund, oh, refund. If you have not used Instacart, if they go to the store and they don't have, a thing that you want, they just refunded. And so she's saying that he was just like, refunded, refunded, refunded, and not actually shopping, just like refunding everything.

Well, of the three finettes, I'm pretty sympathetic to, to, what are we calling her? Unhappy grocery lady. Unhappy grocery lady. I mean, that does sound kind of annoying. I'm with you there. And, okay, so these are the buckets of responses that I saw. So some people thought, you know, everyone, some people kind of are like you, right? That like everyone, like, everyone has a right to expect that if they're paying for a service, that service should be done correctly. Like, if you paid to get a haircut and the barber messed up your hair, most people will be like, oh, well, it's reasonable to complain about that because you should get what you pay for. Other people thought that the woman who initially made the tweet was coming off as, like,

lazy and entitled, right? Like, if you're going to complain about the person shopping for you, you should get the groceries yourself. And one of those responses came from Jorts the cat. You may remember Jorts the cat. Are you familiar with Jorts the cat? Yeah, I'm familiar with Jorts. We're buds. So you may remember Jorts for the cat. He rose to Twitter fame after a viral Ask Reddit post about two cats, one named Jeans and the other named Jorz, who lived in an office together. And Jorz has turned into something of a, I guess, a leftist celebrity cat on Twitter at Jorz or whoever is running this Twitter page on Jorz's behalf replied to his over 200, thousand followers, idea, go get your own groceries. And this response did not go over well. Some disability advocates pointed out that, especially during a pandemic, that not everyone actually can go get their own groceries. And so Jorts was accused of perpetuating ableism for this response. And so the entire discourse kind of got a little complicated after that.

And some of the accusations that I saw were like, it sounds like this discourse has reached a weird conclusion where some folks are, you know, defending an able-bodied woman in confronting a gig worker at a grocery store, you know, by using the fact that people with disabilities need to sometimes have to rely on services like Instacart to do so. So the converse, the discourse just got very complicated and very big and very involved. And I think it's a good example of exactly what I was talking about before, how anything except the visible individual. are kind of just removed from the conversation, right? And so most people are either blaming the, quote, entitled grocery lady

or the, quote, lazy, bad male shopper because that's so much easier and more visible than grappling with any kind of like bigger picture. So looking at the politics of apps like Instacart or GoPuff, for instance, or the people who design the app. And I also think when gig apps like Instacart oftentimes have, exploitation built into them as a feature, of course nobody is having a good time. The person who is being underpaid to shop is probably not having a great time. The person who feels that they are getting suboptimal service because that person is underpaid for that labor, it's also not having me

a great time. And so I think it's one of those situations where the real villain is the app, Or the more specifically, the tech leaders who build the app and get rich off of it. Yeah, absolutely. And people have complained about poor working conditions at Instacart for a long time. And there was a unionization effort, I think, like, what was that, like a year ago now, that they, you know, fought and suppressed. And yeah, maybe if they paid their workers decently, called them workers, treated them as workers. you know, work with them,

they would be able to provide the level of service that grocery lady is looking for, but they choose not to do that, you know? It's like, it's hard to really fault, you know, some gig worker for not taking the gig work seriously because it's gig work. And, you know, it's probably not how I would have done it,

but I don't know what's going on with this guy. And I also think this idea, you know, when people talked about people, disabilities and the fact that they often do have to rely on services like Instacart to get their groceries, I think, again, that's a situation where the failing is institutional because people with disabilities should have accessible, reliable, affordable services to help them live their lives and to get them the things that they need in their lives. And instead, they're given this a private app like Instacart that really functions more like a pricey luxury service. And so

it's not super accessible. It has all this exploitation built into it. Never mind the fact that I'm sure there's lots of disabled folks who work, who are forced to do gig work and are being underpaid. And so, again, I think these are issues are really institutional, but so often it's easier to blame the visible parties. You know, it's not the tech leaders who get rich off of apps like Instacart or the institutional failings. These people and things are not, so easy to find and yell at on Twitter. But the person who tweeted about having a bad experience on Instacart, well, she sure is. She's very easy to find.

She tweeted about it. Yeah, absolutely. And there's more of that same post-talk justification like with Garden Lady where after the fact, after people were already piling on, they were searching for reasons to dislike her, you know, like, oh, she's anti-vax, which maybe she is, maybe she's not. I have no idea. But obviously the whole reason that everybody was tweeting. about her wasn't because of her positions about vaccination, right?

It was just some justification people found after the fact to justify what they already wanted to do. And, you know, suggesting that this seemingly able-bodied person just go and get her own groceries, it's, you know, it's like a level of snark that one would exist on the internet. But it does feel like people were piling on and like looking for reasons. to support one side or the other because of problems caused by those larger systemic forces and Instacart itself or I guess I don't know if it was Instacart but whatever the app was like you said they're not visible uh grocery lady is visible jorts is visible uh fortunately the gig worker wasn't visible i know i what if he tweeted his side of the story like lady i'm getting paid nothing to do this okay he's probably out there has no idea any of the

this is happening. He's probably knowing how men grocery shop probably out there stuck in the aisle trying to pick a good avocado. He was just trying to call somebody to come help him find his way out. Meanwhile, there are celebrity cats tweeting about him. We live in such a weird, weird timeline. Like this is such a weird timeline. And that cat probably makes way more than he does. Oh, for sure. No question in my mind. That was that, George is an office cat. Like, Jorts is making money. He's given books to little kittens. I know.

I want the controversies to fold back in on themselves where someone is angry that Jorts has a nice office and is gifting books to kittens. Yeah. And doing it in a garden. Mm-hmm. That's the worst part that he's doing it in a garden. So all of this is to say that, you know, I saw lots of people in response to all of these vignettes being like, wow, people are so miserable, you know. I would never share my happy moment with the internet because people are so miserable. They're just going to crap all over it.

And I kind of agree not in the, you know, kind of snarky, like, oh, you're so miserable, log off, touch grass kind of way. I meet it in the real way. I think that we as Americans are just really miserable right now. We're living through a pandemic, economic instability, climate instability, worsening division, political anxiety, and our institutions who are ostensibly here to provide us support really showed us that we're kind of just on our own. And I think everyone is exhausted. We're working more and more and more. The cost of everything is going up. And so this is not

sustainable. People have less leisure time, less time to rest, or even just process things. And so I feel like as a result, we're all just showing up tense and anxious and on edge. And when we are showing up online, we're bringing all of that tension with us. And of course, this is all exploited by social media platforms that we already know specifically feed us content that enrages us and encourages us to pile on strangers and turn them into proxies for our pain. And I guess I just want better for us. I want better for all of us. Yeah, we deserve it. I mean, it is kind of a great American tradition to like find proxies and blame them for our problems. But it to really be showing up in a different way now that we've got social media.

Yeah, I mean, and to be clear, people have been miserable since forever. There's going to be miserable people out there until the end of time, and they've always been there. But I think social media obviously is inflaming something in us. And I think as we grapple with, you know, what it means to be a person in 2022, which is not always so fun, I think it can put us in a situation where it's really locking us into a cycle of misery where we're angry, intense, algorithms are showing us things that are making us even more angry intense, and the cycle continues. And I just want better. And we all realize it. Like, it's kind of surprising when you say it like that, that like, we all know it makes us angry, intense,

and anxious, uh, and, you know, reduces our ability to pay attention to things. It doesn't really seem sustainable, right? Like, wouldn't you think, like, irrational people would figure out something else? I don't know what that is. Like, obviously, I like the internet. You know, I work on this show. But, like, I don't know.

It feels like this isn't it. This ain't it. This ain't it. I can tell you, I can tell you this is not it. And honestly, this is a lot of, like, wild speculation and anecdotal evidence on my part. This is not a typical show that we do. You can probably tell.

But I also just really want to know what you all think if you're listening. Have you been feeling this palpable anxiety in misery online or off? I've seen people say that you shouldn't share any of your happy stuff with the internet because they're just going to crap all over it and tear it apart. Do you agree? Do you keep your happy stuff offline because you don't want someone to turn you into the next garden lady or the next book professor? I'm really curious. Let us know how you feel, how you've been dealing with all of this.

If I'm way off base, I want to hear that too. You can hit us up at hello at tangoity.com. I cannot wait to hear from you. And Michael, thank you so much for being here. I know when something is going on on the internet. And I want to have a kind of offline perspective. I can always count on you. Yeah, it's generally a pretty offline perspective. Well, thanks for having me. I love talking with you, and it's an interesting topic. I'm glad you brought it up and wanted to talk about it, and I'm looking forward to seeing and hearing what listeners have to say. Me too.

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. Tarah 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, rate 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. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends.

Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and Head, writer Street or 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-Hart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHart Podcast presents soccer moms. So I'm Leanne. This is my best friend, Janet. And we have been joined at the hips since high school.

Absolutely. A redacted amount of years later, we're still joined at the hip. just a little bit bigger hips. This is a podcast. We're recording it as we tailgate. Our youth soccer games in the back of my Honda Odyssey. With all the snacks and drinks. Why did you get hard seltzer instead of beer?

They had a bogo. Well, then you got them. Listen to soccer moms on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes,

adventures and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. So we too can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Listen to Mind Over Mountain

every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. American soccer is about to explode. The World Cup is coming. Ramos sending on to Ernie Stewart. The chip! Score!

I'm Tab Ramos. I'm Tom Boehler. On our podcast, Inside American Soccer, you'll get the real storylines, the biggest decisions, and the truth about the U.S. national team. It wouldn't be a huge surprise if our team ends up in the quarterfinals

or potentially a great run into the semifinals. Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tabramos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.