There Are No Girls on the Internet - Amanda Knox asks: Who gets to own their story?

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

In this season opener, exoneree, activist, new mom, and host of the podcast Labyrinths Amanda Knox imagines a healthier media landscape.Check out the work Amanda does alongside her husband Chris: https://www.knoxrobinson.comRead Amanda's Medium piece, Who Owns My Name: https://amandamarieknox.medium.com/who-owns-my-name-93561f83e502Amanda and Chris' podcast Labyrinths is very good, but this episode is my favorite: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-half-life-of-prejudice-malcolm-gladwell/id1494368441?i=1000497457213Want more TANGOTI? Subscribe to our newsletter: TANGOTI.com/newsletter Help support the show at our merch store: TANGOTI.COM/store Want to say hi? Hit us up at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was hungry. You just understood.

That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Marquis come in to you, he's like, you know, I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your whole job is to be about, like, empathizing with the human experience enough to be able to tell a story that resonates with people.

and yet, like, here's a real human being going like, hey, hey, I'm over here, call me, and no. DEMs are open. DEMs are open. There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. You're listening to the brand new season of There Are No Girls on the Internet. And if you've been with us since the beginning, thank you so much for your support. It means a lot.

And if you're one of our new listeners, we're so glad you're here. I'm Bridget Todd. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the internet and how we show up on it. When we share parts of ourselves online, what gets lost? By now you know the drill that nobody's online presence tells the full story of who they are. We're all creating a digital highlight reel and none of it is really real. But what about the ways the internet itself flattens out who we are and the full scope of our humanity? When you're viewing them through a screen, it's easy to see people as one-dimensional caricatures,

distortions of who they really are. And if you think about your own online experience, I'm sure you felt this one way or another. Now, imagine what that would be like as an exonerary, exonerated for a high-profile crime, of which you were falsely accused. That's Amanda Knox's reality. Amanda Knox's name is still synonymous with a crime that she did not commit. the murder of her roommate Meredith Kircher by Rudy Goudet in Italy in 2007. Amanda spent almost four years in prison before being acquitted in 2015.

Since her release from prison, Amanda has worked to change the conversation around the criminal justice system and the people caught up in it through writing, advocacy, and her podcast labyrinths. But in an online landscape that profits from distorting people, according to the most salacious stories attached to them, sure or not, Amanda continues to be flattened into a boxy-noxie caricature, the same caricature that led to her being locked up for a crime that she didn't commit. Understandably, Amanda is particular about what parts of herself she shares with the internet. For instance, concerned her story would become fodder for tabloids and online trolls.

Amanda and her husband, Chris, waited to reveal to the world they were expecting their first child until she was already born. Soon after I gave birth, and of course I didn't immediately tell the world that I had given birth because I was, I didn't want to emotionally and psychologically navigate the difficulty of tackling how the internet and how the broader world was going to react to my daughter in those first weeks of having given birth. Like I just needed to like be chill and secret and hidden and no one to know. But of course that means that no one knows and I still have to keep doing my job and responding to the world as if I don't have a two-week-old baby that's keeping me up at night

and who's suckling on me constantly. I loved how you chronicled your journey to become parents on Instagram. Did it have the desired effect you were looking for? Like revealing it in that way where by the time you were like, oh, we're expecting your child was actually already here. Did it have the desired effects of just giving you all a little more space? to not have to wonder how the internet would react to this, this change in your life? Yeah. And then it also did a sort of, I sort of did a bait and switch kind of thing. Like I was, when I was doing, when I was sort of revealing on a daily basis like week per week photos on my Instagram, it was sort of like giving that sense to my, my followers,

but also to like the greater internet in general, because of course I know that the tabloids are constantly scanning my Instagram in order to like, steal, you know, photos of me and strip them of context and then vilify me. Like, I was anticipating this, um, and sort of addressing directly, this feeling of like anticipation and wanting more and wanting, like, acknowledging that like, like, as I'm getting bigger and bigger, it's very human and natural to be like, oh my God, the baby's next. The baby's next. And then my goal at the very end of it was to show one image of my child and explain why I was not going. to be sharing any other photos of her on the internet because of how I knew both the internet

to be a thing that maybe you should opt into instead of automatically put into by your parents, but also because of how much my own social media and internet life has been mined for content and mined for exploitation by tabloids. And I did not want to sort of offer my own daughter on platter. And so I wanted to like give the sense of like, yes, we're all in it together and we all are really excited, but also this is why I'm sort of withholding something from you. And I was hoping to like make a point by revealing my pregnancy that way. Yeah. I mean, what is it like to be Amanda Knox on the internet? Like what does that experience like for you? Well, it means that I am in, you know, when I came home from prison after I was first acquitted, I knew that I was walking

into a world where there would be a version of me in people's minds no matter what. Like, that's just a reality. People heard of Foxy-Noxy now. They have a very clear idea of who I am, except it's not who I am. And so I'm going to be perpetually in conversation with that, like, prejudice about me that as I'm walking through the world. And it made me acutely aware of how much my identity as it had been constructed, especially in the digital space, was not actually a product of my own making. And I think this honestly is very, very true of everyone. We all aren't totally the authors of our identities, especially online. We like to think, I think we have this like false sense of security that like, oh, my Instagram feed is my own. And oh, you know, when I present myself

online, people will understand what I mean when I say a thing. And the reality is that's not true. And we all are facing certain kinds of prejudices as we encounter people, especially across the distance of the internet. As much as it brings us close, it also keeps us distant from each other because we're not physically there. And so I feel like I have a unique perspective of, like, I feel like I have, because I've been such, like, pushed to such extremes through the internet that, like, utterly vilified and also, like, totally reached out to by people, like, total random strangers who just say, oh, my gosh, I'm so inspired by what you went through and how you've dealt with it.

like I have personally felt all like and pushed against all of the edges of the internet and the way that it works. So I feel like I appreciate in a sort of fine-tuned way how the internet works and how much of myself and therefore everyone else is a construct of these like interplaying, you know, impulses and, um, and that sense of ownership that really, really, we have a false sense of ownership of ourselves online, and we really don't own ourselves online. Actually, there's a really interesting,

did you hear about the woman who was an artist, and she had like, you know, as an artist does, she has an Instagram account. I think it was called the Metaverse. Her Instagram account was called Metaverse, right? And, like, Facebook decided, oh, we're the Metaverse now, so we're just going to delete you. They have that power.

And they have that power, which, like, again, reinforces that sense of, like, well, do we own ourselves on the internet? Do we own ourselves on the internet? So W.E.B. Du Boi has this concept of double consciousness, whereby black folks experience consciousness in two distinct ways at once, the way that we understand and see ourselves, and the way that we are aware of being seen by a white supremacist society. And I've always felt this concept was really useful. not just in navigating the IRL world, but in navigating my own online experiences as well. When I share myself online, I'm very aware that it's a convergence of two consciousnesses,

who I actually am and who people are perceiving me to be. I don't even really consider my online persona to be me. I think of her as my avatar, a stand-in for my digital experiences completely distinct from the real me. I spend a lot of time thinking about our digital experiences and the experience of showing up online and just what that's like for us. And I often refer to my online self as my avatar. You know, I don't even see her as really myself.

I see her as a stand-in. And so I can only imagine what that experience is like for you as a person who has been vilified and really turned into a caricature, how you might feel that there are all these different competing versions of yourself out in the world. But at the same time, really knowing, you know, this isn't me. like having this composite sketch version of yourself of what people see you as, all these different projections of people's understandings of who you are or who they want you to be or need you to be. When I was preparing for this interview, I was reading some headlines,

and there was this one tabloid story that had clearly taken a picture of you and your husband, maybe when you were out at a party or something. And there are so many pictures of you and your husband that anybody could use to accompany a story about you. But they had clearly gone out of their way to choose a picture where y'all were at a party to kind of add to this media-created idea that y'all were weird. You know, it's like they went out of their way to say, look at these two, aren't they weird? Look at this weird picture. But it's like they chose the picture. This is obviously something that you wanted to use to create to tell the story that you were trying to sell.

And that story was, these two are weirdos. And for you, it must be so difficult to retain. and protect your sense of self, when there are so many forces out there projecting all of these competing negative out-of-context versions of who they think you are or who they want you to be or need you to be. Yeah, no, it's true, especially because, and I think this is true of other people as well, like it's not like it just limits itself to the internet space. Like, it definitely has repercussions in my actual real life.

It makes it so that it's difficult for me to. them make friends or to get a regular job. Like, these are all ways that the stigma of whatever, that person that, that idea of me that's in someone else's mind impacts me on an actual level. Like, I actually went to prison because people were, you know, cherry picking moments of my life and portraying him in the worst possible light. And like, I went to actual prison for that. So, like, and, you know, to this day, you know, I'm not being put in a jail cell because of people talking badly about me on the internet and portraying me as a weird person. But it does mean that, you know, if I go and take a meeting with

someone, I'm wondering, are they taking a meeting with me because they want to see how weird I am? Or they want to, you know, or are they actually seriously interested in my professional work? Do they even know about my professional work? Because of course, the tabloids are really happy to tell stories about me going to parties, but they don't ever talk about the work that I do because that doesn't go with their story. So I don't know. It's made me acutely aware of how powerful storytelling is, and it's made me think about like, well, who is allowed to tell stories and what stories are they telling us and how are we complicit in them, the choices they are making as storytellers in selling us a product.

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At our back. Last year, Amanda spoke out about the film Stillwater, which stars Matt Damon as a father who travels to Europe to see his daughter, who has been in prison for the murder of her roommate and lover in France. There's going to be a spoiler for the film in just a moment. Director Tom McCarthy said he was, quote, inspired by Amanda's experience.

I was pretty fascinated with the Amanda Knox case back a long time ago and did a pretty deep dive into it. Okay, so here's the spoiler. In the film, the character inspired by Amanda is revealed to have been withholding relevant information about the murder that she has not shared with authorities, that she paid the man who actually killed her roommate and told him to get rid of her. But it was a miscommunication. She meant to throw her out of the apartment, not murder her. Amanda says this isn't so much a fictionalization as it is trafficking in a specific falsehood that still persists all these years later. that even if she didn't actually kill Meredith Kircher,

she must have been involved in some way. On Medium, in a piece called Who Owns My Name? Amanda writes, I continue to be accused of knowing something I'm not revealing, of having been involved even if I didn't plunge the knife. So Tom McCarthy's fictionalized version of me is just a tabloid, conspiracy, guiltier version of me. By fictionalizing away my innocence,

my total lack of involvement, by erasing the role of the authorities and my... wrongful conviction, McCarthy reinforces an image of me as a guilty and untrustworthy person. And with Matt Damon's starpower, both are sure to profit handsomely off of this fictionalization of the Amanda Knox saga. It is sure to leave plenty of viewers wondering, maybe the real life Amanda was involved somehow. Yeah, I mean, that was one of the reasons I was so interested to talk to you today. Your tweets about the film Stillwater, you know, I had never really thought about the idea of profit, right? So who, not just who is telling someone else's story,

but who is making money off of it? And it seems to me that so many different Hollywood executives and actors, et cetera, et cetera, are, it's okay for them to tell this, like, deeply fictionalized story that purports to be about your life and make money from it. And it's like everyone else, it seems like everyone else is allowed to, A, tell your story. And then, profit from it except for you. You know, what does that like to experience? Well, it's so surreal that most people just assume that I am profiting off it, right? Like, the number of people who reached out to me to be like, oh, congratulations on Stillwater, so great that you're getting another project. And it's like, nope, nope, no one, no one talked to me about that.

Like, I have nothing to do with that. And no, I am in no way benefiting from it. In fact, I am just bearing the cost of whatever story they liked to tell about me this time. So. And, you know, thinking about the Netflix documentary, this is something that I thought was interesting where the filmmakers reached out to you and they said, we are not interested. We only want to tell this story if you are part of that storytelling process. I could imagine folks coming to you and saying, listen, we're going to tell this story whether you want me to tell it or not. So you've got to decide whether we're telling it for you or if you're going to be a participant. It almost kind of feels like a shakedown, you know, and it's like, oh, it totally is.

How can we get to a place where, like, you're not being shaken down to be forced to participate against your will in a story that is meant to be about you? I mean, I just like, I can't even imagine what that must be like to experience and how difficult that must be to navigate. Yeah. And again, it's not just a thing that happens to me. Like it happens to a lot of people. A lot of like, you know, exoneries, wrongfully convicted people come out of prison and they're told, if you don't tell your story right now to us, like you're never going to have another chance and no one's ever going to believe you.

And of course, you're walking out of prison, you know, you've been exonerated, but you're still carrying the stigma of the accusation. You still are trying to like figure out how to get back on your feet. And you, like, to be put on the spot and asked to process the worst experience of your life for someone else's entertainment product is, and like the, I guess like what I was hoping to do by writing that essay for the Atlantic and, you know, doing like the tweets about Stillwater in particular was because I wanted to point out that this is a way that we are treating real human beings without, and I don't know if the people who are doing it realize what the human cost is, because they're in

their own little like echo chamber. Journalists are in their echo chamber and they're thinking, well, I have to get the scoop. And if I don't get the scoop, and if I don't get the now, I'm going to move on to the next story and try to get that scoop. Or the, you know, the Hollywood filmmakers are thinking, oh, well, I'm just going to, like, be inspired by something that happened in real life, and then I'm just going to let the writer's room do what it does, and that's just how stories are made. And why would someone who is my inspiration feel any kind of ownership over that? It's my art.

And it's like, well, did you pause to think how this was going to impact the human being, who is your purported source or inspiration? Like, do you, as a storyteller, as someone who is sharing information, oh, the person who is the source of that inspiration or your story, anything? And that's a question. Like, I'm asking the question. And I'm offering a new perspective, which is, well, maybe you didn't think about this before, but here's how it's impacted me.

Here's how when you keep telling a story over and over and over again about a girl-on-girl sex crime, you are actually misrepresenting what happened to my roommate, who was raped and murdered by a man, and me who had no part in a girl-on-girl sex crime. So do you understand that when you keep telling that story over and over again, that is what ends up being the definitive story about me? whether you intended that or not. And do you understand that that's also what's happening to people who are even more disempowered than me?

Because I can't tell you the number of people that I've tried to advise and who've reached out to me saying there's only one person who's ever interested, like been interested in my story. And I don't know if I trust them. Should I trust them? Is this my only chance to tell my story? I don't know if I'm ready yet,

but they're telling me that I have to do it tomorrow. And if I don't do it, like, these are all huge red flags for me that are just showing how like other people's lives are being taken from them in various different ways. And the last thing I want to see for someone who just spent years in prison for something they didn't do is for them to feel like, oh, now my story is being stolen again from me, but in a whole new way. We owe exonerese and the wrongfully convicted so much better. Like, they deserve so much better than as soon as they're out being put in these situations where they can be, I mean, they're already so vulnerable. They deserve, they don't

deserve this. And I have to, I mean, do you think it's possible to have a different kind of media landscape for exoneries where they don't feel like they have to immediately continuously retell this traumatic thing that happened to them or else, you know, maybe the tabloids will make up their own story about what happened, you know? Do you believe in a world where a different kind of landscape is possible for these folks? I mean, sure, I'm trying to invent it along the way. But I think that, like, the thing that I'm sort of experimenting with with my own journalism and my own podcast labyrinths is this sort of more like collaborative experience between the storyteller and their subject because I think that there's been this longstanding perspective that if you are at the

center of your own story, you can't have a storyteller's perspective of that story. Like you, you, you, you can't have authorship over your own story because you're going to be biased or you're going to misrepresent things. And I, and you can't be objective. But first of all, I want to point out that the storyteller is not by definition objective. Just because they aren't personally in the story doesn't mean that by telling the story, they aren't putting themselves in the story and they aren't approaching that story

from a certain perspective. And it's also totally discrediting the idea that someone who's at the center of their own story might have a valuable perspective about it. Like they might, having felt this human experience firsthand have some interesting human things to say that is worth being a part of the story. And so I'm just trying to like convey that, yeah, not all of us are professional storytellers, but professional storytellers can help people tell their own stories. And of course, everyone

should be held accountable to the truth, like as long as we're not like making up crazy, you know, conspiracy theories to account for non-evidence, like, you know, evidence still matters and the truth still matters. But it's okay for you to give, like, as a storyteller, to offer someone the opportunity to voice their own experience. And that's still a valuable story. Oh, absolutely. You know, we're all experts in our own experiences. And I hate this myth of objectivity that if you're close to a story or if it's happening to you or to your community, you couldn't possibly be objective. I feel like it's really, at least in journalism, I feel like it's really been used to create a really like sexist, racist, classist narrative that like, oh,

it is straight white men who are objective. Everybody else is just going to be biased. You shouldn't even list. Like, they're not going to be a reliable source of something that happened to them or their community. And it just really erases the fact that like people know what's up with themselves. people know people are like give people the space to be experts in their own experiences and their own stories and don't pretend that you don't have your own baggage that you're bringing to the story by who at being whoever you are exactly you know so just take ownership uh like be self-aware like do enough like self-auditing to be aware that maybe i might be approaching this story or that story from a certain perspective and let that be like acknowledge that in your own storytelling

process and as you are encountering the person, because they might be coming from a whole completely new perspective that you don't have access to. And if you are automatically defining yourself as the objective party and them as the subjective party, you are automatically making, like doing a hierarchy of whose prejudice and whose bias counts more than another's. I find it interesting that your story is not often framed as a story of someone who was wrongfully convicted and then exonerated, right? I think there are probably so many people out there who, like, think they know the Amanda Knox story, you know, heavy scare quotes, but they probably, you know, don't know Meredith Kircher's name. They probably don't know the name of the Italian

prosecutors who like bungled this case. They don't know the name of the actual guilty party. And it's just so interesting to me how what you went through, obviously, you, like, was a huge, huge part of your life. But the way that that story is told often, I don't know, it at the same time denies agency of the actual major players of what happened to your roommate while also giving you this like outsized role in that story. It's like, like, why aren't, why aren't these other hugely, like huge major parties of what happened? Why are they not household names? Why are they not the names that are like connected to what happened there. Why is it just you who like actually was kind of a like side character and all of that? Yeah, that's one of the things that I've always

like pushed back against with people is like when you when you think Amanda Knox, the first thing that you think of is murder because that's, you know, that's ultimately what it comes down to. Amanda Knox murder. And my, like I have never witnessed a murder. I've never participated in murder. I've never been, you know, the closest I've been to murder is I maybe what could have been murdered that night if I hadn't met Rafael A five days earlier and was spending the night at his house. Like that's, that's my experience of murder. And the fact that that action, that horrific action that that happened to, first of all, my friend Meredith, who is the victim and people don't remember her, the fact that that action is not actually prescribed to a person.

her murderer and instead people think of me when they think of her murder, that just goes to show that it really does matter what you call a thing. And when you call Meredith Kirchers murder, the Amanda Knox saga, you are doing a disservice to the truth because I played no role in that. The Amanda Knox saga for me is I'm on trial for something I didn't do and now I'm trying to reclaim my life in a world that doesn't want me to reclaim my life. You know, like that's my experience. But, like, it drives me crazy that it's so, so often that the person who actually committed this crime is referred to as an afterthought. Like, he's either not named it all. He's called the other guy who was accused, you know, whatever.

Like, no one cares about that. And it's, and to me, that conveys that, like, people don't actually really care about what happened to Meredith. They care about the scandal. and they care about the sexiness that they can, you know, portray, you know, project onto, like the sexy idea is what resonates with people more than the actual human experience. Yeah, and I just, it's impossible to not see all the ways that you've become this character. So either it's like, she's weird or she's like a American loudmouth or like a temptress. It's like you kind of become this thing that, this character that anybody can project whatever they want onto.

And it doesn't, like, who you actually are as a human who went through something traumatic is just gone in the conversation. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, even when I'm, you know, it's found out that I'm innocent and I'm held fully innocent. The, again, that like mystique of who is Amanda Knox really. It's like, well, here's an idea. Like, I have a podcast for. where I talk really openly about all my ideas and all my experiences. Have you considered listening to that? No, no, of course not, because then Amanda is actually authoring her own experience. We want to talk about her. We don't actually want to talk to her.

And it's just like, I mean, you aren't, obviously. You're talking to me. And I greatly appreciate that because honestly, like, what a freaking gift in the world to just talk to another human being like a real person. Like, I can't tell you enough how much it means to me that you reach out to me and say, I actually care about what your experience is. I, you know, I don't want to just talk about you. I want to talk to you.

Like, thank you for that. It means a lot. I mean, I deeply appreciate that. I really do. But again, like when the Stillwater conversation was happening, I think something that was so frustrating is it's not like you're not like, yeah, you have a great podcast that's critically acclaimed. You have a huge body of work.

The fact that they wouldn't even reach out to you, like, I just randomly DMD you on Twitter and you replied. It's not like it was hard. I'm one person who makes a podcast out of my kitchen, right? It's not like you're making it difficult to find yourself or, and it's not like you're not having these public conversations about who you are and your story and your experience. And I think it is. People just don't want to hear it. It's more gratifying to talk about you than it is to give you space to talk about. your experiences. And I think that's so clear. I don't think people, I just think that people are just

really wrapped up in the story they have in their head and retelling that over and over again. And I really appreciated that you pointed out that film. They weren't just fictionalizing it. They were kind of parroting the salacious, you know, girl-on-girl sex crime, like lie that was told to have you locked up for so many years. And that's not. apolitical. That's not neutral. That's not fictionalizing something that was not like, it's different to, I guess I feel like the fact that they relied on what was the dominant narrative that led to you being falsely imprisoned is so hurtful, but also like deeply political and not neutral. Like that's a real choice. And to not even acknowledge or deal with that,

again, is a real, you know, just a real choice. Like that's, I guess I didn't like how in interview, I think it was Matt Damon, he was like, oh, well, you know, we got to thinking like, what if it was like this? And it's like, no, you just, you just parroted the incorrect lie that led to you being falsely imprisoned. Yeah, no, they, it was just lazy storytelling on their part. Like, they were like, oh, we're inventing things. And it's like, you didn't invent shit, my friend. Like, good job. You invented France as opposed to Italy. Like, good job. Yeah, it's lazy. It's lazy. It's lazy. It's lazy. It's lazy. It's lazy. It's lazy. Yeah. And it's too bad because like honestly, again, my position in all of this has been I'm really easy to talk to. And I'm actually like, I think we could have a really worthwhile conversation here. I feel like maybe I was overlooked, but like here's an opportunity to not overlook me. And that's okay. Like let's talk about that. And nothing, just cricket.

Still today. Nothing. Oh yeah. Nothing. Nothing. Yeah. It, you know, they've moved on to the next story. And it doesn't matter. that there are repercussions in my life. So, I mean, it's just insane. Like, how, like, how removed do you have? Like, you're a storyteller. Your whole job is to be about, like, empathizing with the human experience enough to be able to tell a story that resonates with people. And yet, like, here's a real human being going like, hey, hey, I'm over here.

Call me. And no. DM are open. DMs are open. Like, I'm really nice. I don't know. It's, it's a fascinating experience. And I feel like, again, it's, it seems like it's this weird extreme thing because it's not every day that, you know, someone's life is turned into a Hollywood movie. But I feel like there are versions of this that happen all the time to people all the time. what story is being told about you and what circumstance by whom and how are they not allowing you to be a part of the conversation? Like that, that happens all the time to lots of people. And it's something that I always have a little bit of a red flag for because it just seems like it's, it's one of it's, it's, it's gaslighting, honestly. It's when you're not allowed to have a voice in

the story that defines who you are, you basically are being told by the rest of the world that you don't matter and your perspective doesn't matter and we're going to tell you who you are and what you mean and why you matter. 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 Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman

helped make you funnier. week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter, 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 Lauren. is 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 844-84-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-844-I-Hart. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and your 20s, they can feel like a lot. On the psychology of your 20s podcast, we unpack the anxiety, the overthinking, the heartbreak, the identity crisis, all of it that comes with being in your 20s. Because if you've ever thought,

is anybody else feeling this way? They definitely are. I feel like my 20s was a process of checking off everything that I was not good at to get to what I was good at. Oftentimes we take everything a little bit too seriously and we get lost in things that we later on decide weren't even important to us to begin when.

There was a large chunk of my 20s that I like was just so wanting to like be out of that phase out of my skin. And I just like really regret not living in the present more. Each week we break down the science behind what you're going through and give you real tools to navigate it. Your 20s aren't about having it all figured out. They're about understanding yourself just a little bit better. Listen to the psychology of your 20s 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, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes and life experiences that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. I also bring a bit of advice into the mix so we, too, can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pull out what you already have inside.

coming into this world, fighting for our lives. All I'm going to do is pull out what you already got inside. We're there to support and celebrate each other. And that's not like your story versus my story. You're going to walk up and over that dang mountain. You're not just going to put your mind over it. Yep, yep, exactly. And if I can't walk up and over it, I'm going to go through it.

Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. Who gets to have a say in their own story? In a media moment where we're looking back on the way that women from Pamela Anderson to Monica Lewinsky were unfairly maligned by society, it's a question worth asking. And I first reached out to Amanda because I saw her tweets about the New York Times documentary framing Britney Spears. Now she wasn't condemning the film or the filmmakers, but rather posing a complex question.

She tweeted, with all these new Britney Spears documentaries out, I'm asking myself, Did Britney participate in any of them? Did she consent to them? Did she want them to exist? Does anyone care? The answer to the first two questions is no. She did not participate or grant her approval. And while I'm sure the documentary of filmmakers

would have preferred that she gave them her approval, when she didn't, they plowed ahead anyway. Is that okay? She goes on to say, I'd like to live in a world where Brittany and Britney alone, guessed it aside if she wants her personal legal drama to serve as your next Netflix binge. When filmmakers Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn

reached out to Amanda about making a Netflix documentary, they said they would only go through with the film if she participated. And it's a big part of why she agreed to do it in the first place. They had the ethical sense to understand that I would be deeply impacted by that film and that my consent and participation mattered. They decided it was better to make no film than one without me, she tweeted. When I first reached out to you, I was in the first reached out to you, I was in the process of researching an episode for the podcast about the free Britney movement.

And when I saw your tweets, it really, so I stopped my research because one of the points that you made was, you know, hey, this documentary was made without Britney Spears's consent. And I really had to have to really have a deep think about what that meant, right? Like I was very happy that Britney Spears' conservatorship was overturned. I was happy to see the role that that documentary maybe played in some public awareness of it. But I never even thought to ask, what does it mean that this content was just released without her say, without her voice against her will? And I think we're in this moment where there are so many different pieces of media asking us to look back to how women were maligned, you know. And I guess I wonder, like, what does it mean that so many of. those, you know, documentaries, podcasts, what have you, are created about the, about a woman without

her side of the story, without her voice. And then sometimes against her will, like, what do we do with that? How do we find a balance to be like, oh, well, maybe it's good that this documentary helped her overturn her conservatorship, but it's also fucked up that it happened against her will. Like, isn't that just another way of violating someone who's already been, like, so maligned and violated? Yeah, yeah. Like did Brittany ultimately want her, you know, horror, like family drama to be so public? Because like she didn't get a choice in that, right?

Did it make a difference in her trial? Is she grateful to all the people who supported her? Of course. But it is interesting to me. And I think it is, again, one of those moments where it's worth pausing and asking like, wait, what is her perspective in a lot? all of this. Like, since everything is going to be impacting her the most, shouldn't she have some kind of say? And, you know, I'd be curious to know, like, how Britney feels today about the fact that there were documentaries made without her consent. And yet they played a, you know, a supportive role towards her. Like, that's an interesting, you know, mental space to be in in terms of like over the course of your own life again there's it's but again

it's almost like a hint of that conservatorship right like we know what's good for you so we're gonna do it even if you don't want us to like oh it's just uh it hurts me it's like a weird it's like a weird thing to have to unpack right and i guess i i'm i want to see more public like media makers with it because I feel like, yes, it's a complicated square to circle, but I want to see that you're aware of this, you know, aware of this dichotomy is a thing that exists and the thing that we should be asking questions about and pushing up against. Exactly. I think that if there were, again, it's that like self-auditing, that introspection, that awareness that you could have, that your actions could have unintended consequences and that you are thinking about the people

who, like, you know, you presumably, if you're a documentary filmmaker who's making a documentary about Brittany, you can presumably assume that whatever it is that you end up doing is going to impact her. So, like, maybe think about how and why and how you can mitigate potential harm. Because that's what you don't want to do as a storyteller. You don't want to just harm other people for the sake of a story. I mean, at least I would hope so. Yeah. And I mean, I think in this moment where we're really interested in like looking back

at the way that media, the way that media, our media ecosystem harmed women unfairly. So I, full disclosure, live for a like, you're wrong about style podcast as like, oh, let's go back and like revisit. But part of me wonders if we are so busy. looking back that we're not seeing the ways that's happening now. Like, okay, Britney Spears was unfairly maligned. You were unfairly maligned. Janet Jackson unfairly maligned. All these people. But are we, are we like what's the point of that kind of content if it does not prime us to see it happening before our eyes in real time? Like I don't want to have to wait five years down the line

for the podcast that tells us not that the media shouldn't be profiting off of the pain and, you know, shittiness to like a vulnerable person. I don't want to. I have to wait for a look back retrospective on that. What's the point of this media if it doesn't allow us to do this now? That's a really great point. And I think that that is another way that if we are going to be spending time looking back, because I think it's a worthwhile thing to do, let's not do it just for a sake of like nostalgia. We can all feel good about ourselves today because we're not doing that like they did in the 90s.

like that there's the danger of it approximating that where it's like oh man we were terrible to women in the 90s we can feel totally we can pat ourselves on the back today there is nothing wrong with the way that we're treating women today because look at what we did in the 90s like it's important to to take stock of how things were how things have changed but also how things haven't changed And if we can see echoes of what happened in the past happening today and try to be better. Definitely. I mean, this brings me to one of my last questions. You know, what kind of world, like just given what we know about how the media and the Internet can treat women, what kind of world do you want for your daughter to grow up in?

And like, what will you tell her about your life? And what will you tell her about the kinds of experiences that she can expect from the world? Yeah. Well, what I'm hoping that we're heading towards is a world where everyone is more media literate and understands not just how the industry functions. Like how does it even just, how do you on a day-to-day basis put content out into the world? Like, well, there are, you know, there are incentive structures and there's a monetary aspect to it. And like there's a whole business side of it that's important to know when you're consuming information. There's a human psychological role to it, like what stories, quote, resonate with people and with whom and why.

Why do certain stories get uplifted and others get squashed? Why are some people's stories just, you know, discarded as if they aren't valuable and other peoples are constantly in the headlines? Like, these are all really important questions that I think as consumers we should be asking because we as consumers ultimately have the power to say, you know what, I'm not going to tune into your style of content anymore. I'm going to tune into something else that I think is more responsible or ethical or truthful. And that that's worthwhile. So I hope that that's the world that we're gearing towards because as social media has democratized content creation, we all feel like, like we can have a hand, not just in consuming media, but also in producing it.

That's my hope. I don't know if that's actually going to happen, but I'm hoping that I'm going to let my daughter sort of take the lead in how much she wants to know and how important my experience is going to be for her, because one thing that I'm worried about is her feeling like, you know, as much as I feel very much in the shadow of the worst, experience of my life, like, I don't want her to feel like she's forced to live in the shadow of the worst experience of my life. She should be able to have her own life if she wants. And if, and I hope to raise her as a very curious, thoughtful person. And so I, my guess is that she's

going to be curious. And of course, if she's going to be coming to the Innocence Network conference with me every year, meeting other wrongfully convicted people, like, she's going to start to notice that there's a, there's an interesting pattern happening. here like, oh, you were in jail, you were in jail? Why has everyone been in jail? You know, she's going to notice and she's going to ask questions. And I think I'm going to be honest with her 100% of the time, always answer her questions. But of course, I'm not going to like give a six-year-old a tutorial on crime scene footage. You know, like, wait until she's seven. Yeah, I'll wait until she's seven when we're all, that's, that's the appropriate.

So, yeah, I think that, like, I want her to feel like she, it's not a taboo subject. It's absolutely like anything about me and my experiences on the table for her should she need it and want it. But that she doesn't need to feel like it needs to be an important part of her life. Because honestly, like, no one's trauma, no one should feel like they are bound to their trauma as if it's the most important thing in their life either. So I think that's another important thing. Yeah, that's such a good point. There are so many interesting pieces of who you are that, like, that's just one of a quilt of who you are. And, you know, thinking about your daughter, you've written so beautifully about sort of long prison sentences and for you, how it was a kind of like forced infertility.

Do you see criminal justice and reproductive justice as like linked in that way? Absolutely. And I think that nobody's noticing that. I mean, and it's hard for like the, it's hard for men to, right? Like, sure, men are no are not limited in that way. Like they don't have a very specific window when they're fertile. But they do have very specific window when they're capable of forming the kinds of relationships that would turn into families even. And so like for me, I think that especially with the way that there are prison sentences in this. country where they just are nonsensically long. Like, no one should be sentenced to 300 years in prison. Like, it just doesn't make any, like, just be reasonable. Like, let's, let's consider what the sentence is going to mean for an actual human being's life and take that into consideration when we're thinking about sentencing. And I think that the ways that women have sort of been pushed into a justice system that was built by and for men and their needs and and physical realities aren't really taken into consideration in that process is an incredible disservice to and an incredible harm that we're

committing as a society like it it matters that by sentencing someone to such a long amount of time you are effectively limiting not just their freedom but so much more about their life that is fundamental to being a human being. Like, I never should have faced the prospect of never getting to have a family of my own because I was accused of a crime I didn't commit. And yet, I did. Well, Amanda, thank you for using this platform to speak up for other wrongfully convicted folks.

And even rightfully convicted folks, because, like, here, The other reality is, like, a lot of the women that I met in prison, they did commit crimes. They were also victims of crime before they ever committed crimes. And how is it that society had let them fall through the cracks and had refused them good opportunities to be productive people and just punished them in the process? Like, the amount of, like, you know, I was one of the most fortunate people in that circumstance. and I say that as an innocent person who is wrongly accused in put in prison. So, like, you know, it matters.

We're all sort of implicated in the way that society limits the opportunities of people. And we should be mindful of that. Oh, absolutely. I feel like every time you talk to women who are in prison, it's like, oh, you were obviously coerced or like you are a survivor of, domestic violence or trafficking. Like, it is, and just, I mean, I'm, I'm, this is such a long, a longer conversation, but I'm right there with you. I think like, when you actually look at who we are locking up, sometimes for like just comically long amounts of time and the circumstances

they came from, it's clear that we are not making our community safer. We are just spreading more harm. And I'm right there with you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's, it's a difficult thing to look at, I think a lot of us would just like to think, oh, we'll just put the bad people in somewhere else. We'll just take bad people and put them away. And it's like, that's not, it's not just good people and bad people. It's not just who gets put away versus who doesn't get put away is not, doesn't also fall neatly along those lines. Like, let's be real.

It's way more complicated than that. And oftentimes it's actually just the most vulnerable people who end up get putting away. Amanda, where can folks keep up with labyrinths and all the amazing work that you are doing? Well, thank you for asking. You can go to noxrobson.com to follow all of the work that me and my husband do. We have a Patreon. So patreon.com slash Knox Robinson. You can follow me on Twitter at Amanda Knox and on Instagram at a mama Knox. This season on there are no girls on the internet. You can expect more conversations about what it means. for marginalized people to show up online and in technology. If you'd like to stay connected with the show,

you're in luck because you've got a brand new newsletter with stories that go way beyond what you hear on this podcast. You'll get links to other shows I'm listening to and exclusive takes on the latest news impacting marginalized folks online. Sign up at tangoity.com slash newsletter. And while you're there, pick up one of our new t-shirts, mugs, notebooks, and other merch at tangoity.com slash store.

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. 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 I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Why are we all so obsessed with romance? On the Radio 831 podcast, join us,

Sanjana Basker and Tyler McCall, as we unpack all the trending tropes, fuzzy adaptations, book talk drama, and celebrity love stories with hot takes and sharp guests. Each episode digs into what these stories reveal about desire, fantasy, identity, and how we love now. Listen to the Radio 831 podcast on the IHeart 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 futas 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 turn, 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. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHart Podcasts 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 hit a bogo. Well, then you got them. Listen to soccer moms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.

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