There Are No Girls on the Internet - BlackOutDay2020

Episode Date: July 7, 2020

July 7th is Blackout Day 2020, an initiative meant to protest police brutality and racial injustice. Here’s the complicated story behind the original Black Out Day created by Mars Sebastian. In an interview that’s both hilarious and heartbreaking, Mars talks about her fight to be more than a footnote in the digital movement she created. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast. and for Mental Health Awareness Month, we'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car, and then my car got stolen. I was having panic attacks. I was agoraphobic. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations

about what happens when the brain goes off course. Listen to Intercosmos 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. In recent weeks, we've seen demands for racial justice reach an unignorable roar,

and a lot of it is played out online. If you were scrolling Instagram back on June 2nd, you probably saw people posting a black square as a way to pause normal social media chatter and make room for voices calming for change. And today, July 7th, is Blackout Day 2020, a boycott campaign urging people not to spend any money unless it's at a black-owned business. But where did these initiatives come from? And how did we get here?

The story about that is confusing and familiar at the same time. It's a story about how easy it is to erase black women online, even as we're supposedly trying to make room for our voices and affirming that our lives matter. More on that at a moment. But first, let's go to Mars. My name is Marissa, Mars Sebastian. I go by just Mars.

I am a writer, an author, and a social media manager. I just say that I like to have fun on the internet. internet and crack jokes. Girl-centric web games like Neopets and Polly Pocket cemented Mars' lifelong love of being online. And when she discovered all the cool, weird nerds congregating on the social media platform Tumblr, it was so affirming that she describes it as a rebirth. Being a nerd on Tumblr is really like my second, I call it like my second internet rebirth.

Like, because I was on the internet as a little one, but really joining Tumblr gave me true sense of what, like, having friendships that were internet-based were like. And so that's always been my favorite part. Mars was on Tumblr in 2015 when just like today, police and state violence against black people was impossible to ignore. She and her friend Tavon Green decided black folks just needed a break. We were in a societal moment where a lot of us as young people were reckoning with what anti-blackness really looks like, specifically anti-black violence.

and police violence. We were dealing with the fallout and the realities of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown, Eric, Eric Garner, and Sandra Bland. And things were heavy. Conversations about what it means to be black in America were so, so heavy. And he was like, you know, we just needed to have fun. We were like, what if we just have fun? And because Black Tumblr was already sort of this nebulous pocket where a lot of black people were, creating content and chatting and having conversations around all of this stuff, we're like, what if we just, you know, took a break? And so he proposed the idea of just taking a bunch of selfies and posting just so that you can feel beautiful. Everybody wants to flex. Everybody wants to feel celebrated and loved. And so we were like, just love on each other, share each other's pictures, and, you know, we'll take it from there. And so we really did not intend for to get as large as it did, much less jump from Tumblr to Twitter to Instagram and sort of have this lasting impact that's lingered since. But yeah, that's really what we set out to do with

it was just to provide an oasis a space where we could just celebrate. They had clearly tapped into something people were craving, and Blackout Day was a viral smash. Twitter Analytics Service Topsy said the hashtag Blackout Day was one of the top-trending hashtags on Twitter and Facebook with over 58,000 tweets by noon alone. It sparked offshoots for other black folks to show up in their online communities, like Blackout K-pop for Korean pop music fans, or Blackout eyed for Black Muslims. Mars was part of creating something really special online. But as it took off, it was a struggle to make sure she was credited with the very thing that she had helped create.

So let me rewind. When Blackout Day really started to pop off, it started to spread all over Tumblr, people were really excited about it. You know, the bigger things get, the harder it is to, you know, trace the origin. And when our third team member, New Kirk, joined us, he actually was writing down, like, he created a master post. That was like, you know, this is what Blackout Day is. And like, this is the guy who's doing it, yada, yada. And I actually had to go and ask him to add my name to that post and say, like,

By the way, like, I am also a person who is doing this. Like, this would not be named Blackout Day if it hadn't been. Like, it would not be blackout if it wasn't, like, for me. Because, like, you'll see on the original post, like, and I had to go. And I pulled receipts. And I sent him the post because he asked for receipts to prove I wasn't lying. And then, yeah. And so that was pain point number one.

And then pain point number two came really quickly when we went viral and places like, BuzzFeed were picking it up. And it was like, oh my gosh, this is such a huge deal. And I was actually in my dorm room because I was still at NYU. I was a senior just about to graduate. And I was in my dorm room, like giving media training, like flying off. Like, this is what I think you should say to the two guys while they were interviewed. And like, that became pain point number two, right?

And I don't necessarily fault them for that. It's the responsibility. people who are doing reporting to try to do their due diligence. But that became pain point number two. And then that lasted for months. Like people were like, who are you? Whenever we wanted to like get together and try again and do another thing, I would speak semi, you know, authoritatively on something. And they'd be like, but are you, who are you? Like, what do you have to do with blackout? What? And it was like, why am I the only one getting this smoke? Like, why aren't the guys? Like, Why aren't you, like, roasting them and grilling them for, like, there were accusations of me trying to, like, bandwagon.

There were accusations of me trying to scam. Like, I'm just some random girl who doesn't really know that. Like, it was just so weird. Okay, so this is where the story gets kind of difficult to keep straight. And it's a really good example of how everything online can sort of be turned into one massive digital game of telephone. Mars' initial blackout day, the call to populate social media with images of black folks that I just told you about, started in 2015. Last month, Brianna Ajiman and Jamila Thomas, two Black women music executives, created what they called the show must be paused campaign,

asking people to take a beat for an honest, reflective, and productive conversation about what actions we need to collectively take to support the black community. It's not entirely clear how, but their call morphed with calls for people to post a black square on social media, which people then talked about as Blackout Tuesday. But posting a Black Square was never in their original call to action, to action. On their website, the women's campaign asks are for folks to donate to bail funds and educate themselves about anti-racist resources. They never asked for anyone to post a black square. And as well meaning as it might have been to post a black square on Instagram showing

solidarity with Black Lives, many critiqued the action as performative at best, and at worse, potentially blacking out the Black Lives Matter hashtag, a tag that was once full of anti-racist resources and protest information. So clearly, there is a lot of anti-racist resources and protest information. So clearly there was some confusion. And in case that's not confusing enough, Calvin Murder announced another campaign called Blackout Day 2020, a boycott asking that people not spend any money today unless it's at a black-owned business.

Atlanta rapper T.I. promoted it on his social media, which led to media outlets incorrectly reporting that he was the originator of Blackout Day 2020. Like I said, a massive game of internet telephone. and a real cluster fuck for Mars to deal with after the success of her 2015 Blackout Day. Five years later, I, you know, I'm getting messages like,

hey, do you know that there's a guy on Facebook with like thousands of like Facebook followers on this page that's called Blackout Day 2020? And I'm like, what? Who? And then, you know, the media then crediting that movement to TI. Oh, my gosh. And I'm like, okay.

like what really is up? Like, I don't know what else I have to say or do to prove to people that this was a thing that happened. And like, I don't know. And it became weird. It was hard for me to even put into words what I was feeling because I didn't want to feel selfish. You know, I don't want to say like, you know, I don't want to seem like a kid throwing a tantrum when there's actual work to be done, you know? And like there are so many other things that are more. more important and like that are happening right now that I care about.

But it did sting. I was like I am so and so I'll also see that happened with the ladies with what became known as Blackout Tuesday, which was a complete departure from their original branding. I was like, well, nice to, like, not nice, but like nice to know other black women experience this and I'm not like crazy or making it up, you know? After finding out about the new Blackout Day 2020 boycott, Mars and her team tried to revive their Blackout Day in May in an effort to regain control of the digital infrastructure they created. But at a time when their voice was most needed, it seemed like their work was being erased. It's just that confusing.

So what we have always faced with Blackout Day is that the word, we don't own the word blackout, right? We definitely do not. Blackout is a word that existed. I could, one could say, okay, you don't even own the concept of when black people mobilize online. Like, I don't own that. I don't. Like, that is a phenomenon that no one owns. It's just us getting together and mobilizing for a greater good, right? But Blackout Day specifically did not exist, like as a phrase, as a tag, like before us.

So we were actually preparing to try to archive the work and leave the pages up as a sort of museum and a reminder that they happened. But we were actually saying, okay, we maybe we should make a comeback because people were obviously with the success of Blackout Day 2020 and how quickly that man's movement was growing. We're like, people are obviously hungry for some sort of action. We are also reentering a societal moment just like the one in 2016. You know what I mean? Like, we are currently now living in that sort of moment again. Maybe this is the time. Like, maybe we should just try again.

You know, it gets discouraging to try to do this for so many years and sort of feel like you're screaming into a void. And so we're like, okay, let's try again. But the issue is, is that. This guy knew that our hashtag existed and then was just like, I'm going to just do my thing using a hashtag with the year on it. And unfortunately, we are now too, like, we're so confused with each other that people send me hate mail that is meant for him. Like, which is a crazy thing to think about. Like, our email gets emails meant for this man. And I have never spoken to him before.

I don't know him. I don't like, I don't know how TI got mixed up in this. It does sound like the media was just like, yeah, TI reposted this thing from Facebook. And now he's a, you know, move. He's a thought leader, which is, you know, a whole other conversation to have in and of itself. It's like, where is the bar?

And like, I know that I am probably shooting myself in the foot. I am very, I'm very aware that rocking the boat in this way. But like, why do we keep making thought leaders of people who are really just doing their due to, like they're just doing what is right. They're just doing what is, you know, thing, amplifying the voices of other people. But all of a sudden, I'm supposed to really, really listen and hone in as TI comes up with this, like, grand economic plan to save black people. Which, using the hashtag that for five years of my life, I have been gutting called slurs for. Like, it is really odd.

It's like I felt like I was in the twilight zone because the whole thing really exploded the day after my birthday. And I was like, what is going on? Like, happy birthday to me, a project that you really wanted to sunset and like keep sacred is now back with a vengeance being led by a man you don't know. And then the whole, you know, the show must be paused. That was like adding fuel to a fire already, you know, because. We were already having the weird tension and confusion between us and Blackout Day 2020 and then Blackout Tuesday. And I read really as a scholar of the internet and thinking about how content travels. The show must be paused is a perfect example of how you can be really, really, really tight with your messaging.

but as soon as your messaging reaches a certain threshold, it's out there in a wild. Like, you don't know how people are going to interpret it. You don't know how it's going to change and how it's going to morph. And so, yeah, the Black Square thing across very many industries, that that didn't make sense. And then people were coming and asking me, like, what do we do next? And I'm like, I have no idea. That's not me. What was it like to sort of be forced into making a statement about Blackout Dayton?

2020, an initiative you had nothing to do with? It was actually so panic-inducing. To be really real, I was terrified. Just because I am, although I've done, like, I could say like, oh, I've done a bunch of, like, really cool things. I don't necessarily have a spotlight shown on me very often on the internet. Yeah, my Tumblr following is pretty hefty, but, like, Tumblr's pretty, like, Tumblr's returning to being kind of niche at this point.

And so having a massive Tumblr following doesn't mean much outside of a Tumblr, right? But really, like, I got almost 3,000 Twitter followers in two days and was like, what's going on? I hope you guys, like, aren't following me because you think that I'm going to have, like, a super well-put-together plan about what's happening because I can't answer those questions. Again, we get emails that are meant for everyone else. I have really had to think seriously about how to move forward. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends.

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Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast, and for Mental Health Awareness Month, we're dedicating a series to understanding the mind when it struggles. I'm joined by doctors, researchers, and those with lived experience. We'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car, and then my car got stolen.

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And we're back. Mars was supportive of the spinoffs and offshoots of Blackout Day, and she gave them her blessing. But the Blackout Day 20-20 boycott, with its massive virality and celebrity endorsement, this was different. It makes it hard for her to imagine doing anything else online using the name Blackout Day. For me, it makes very little sense to continue with, blackout as a like as our name just because it's kind of like you know they have the story that's what is it it's it's like escalators didn't used to be called escalators it was really the brand escalators but then everybody started calling it escalators so now every moving staircase is an escalator and they lost

their copyright like that's literally what it feels like is now everybody's got a different version of blackout and that's been a thing for years you know blackout ead is one it's my favorite one um every Eid where, you know, as Ramadan is ending, like, black Muslims show out. Like, I love that one. There's a blackout for K-pop fans, you know, black BTS fans, blackout BTS. That's what it is. And they're all, those are all considered like direct spinoffs. We've supported them over the years. It's been cool. But no one's ever really known, like, what those actions were mimicking on a grand scale. And so I am just so now used to black out this, blackout that, or like blackout, even this Blackout Day fiasco that I'm like, you know, I really am like at this point, I don't know

if there's ever, if there's ever going to be a point where what we were doing before will ever make sense again. Do you think that the organizer of Blackout Day 2020 like intentionally camped at on this infrastructure that you built? Or like, do you wish they had reached out to you? Like, what, like, what do you think is going on with that? I really, I have no idea. I haven't spoken to him beyond, like, a Twitter exchange where he, I think he saw my thread about TI and felt a little defensive. And so I was just like, no, like, I stand by what I said in my thread simply because I was explaining to people how, like the mechanics, the actual mechanics of the erasure that happened here.

I was, you know, pointing out that the media, you know, gave T.I. credit for a thing that's happening on Facebook. The thing that's happening on Facebook is our name with a year on it organized by someone I do not know. Like, none of the thing I said was a lie. I don't, I haven't spoken to him since. He has not reached out again. I've kind of buckled down and prepared for the worst, I think, in terms of like any kind of pushback or fallout, um, spam mail or like hate mail in my, my DMs or anything. Um, but I haven't, I haven't spoken to him since and I, but I find it hard to believe that he didn't see our tag at all in the internet, like on the internet.

Like I find it incredibly hard to believe just because we're Googledable. Like we have a Wikipedia page. Like it's there. And then nevertheless, the fact that he did see this whole thing happening, he did see like this conversation I was having and then has not reached out again

and has continued trucking and is selling merchandise and is like doing whatever. Like that kind of tells me what I need to know. And like, yeah, you could say, well, Mars, why don't you reach out? But I'm tired of doing that. Like, again, I have this whole, from five years ago on up, I have been the one to reach out to the other person, advocate for myself. And like, at this point, I'm like, you know, I'm going to sit here and I'm going to wait. And if it works out, it works out.

If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. But I'm going to put the onus on the black man to do that, like to be the initiator here. Just because they've kind of gotten away, like, you know, with erasing me, like from the very start, you know, it's frustrating. It's hurtful to think about. And also, like, I'm always.

only saying this because I'm not scared anymore. You know what I mean? Like, I used to be scared. Like, oh my gosh, what do they think I'm bitchy? What do they think I'm complaining and I'm detracting and like yada, yada, yada? But at the end of the day, you can do the right thing and like reach out and ask me what I think and like actually say, okay, you know what? I am actually causing problems for this person. Let me do better and do right by her.

or you cannot. That's just it. I mean, until then, I'm just hanging out. I have other things that I've got going on and other things that I'm working on than that I care about. And at the end of the day, we all want the same thing,

which is better for black people in America, better for black people all around the world. Mars was genuinely hurt. And on top of that, she felt a lot of pressure to put on a happy, PR-friendly version of how she felt. On Twitter, she said she was tired of the expectation that she'd just be grateful to be a footnote on something that she created. While men, she's never even spoken to, got the credit.

And I'm still, it's a thing that I'm still actively processing, but essentially, like, look at the state of, look at the difference between, like, a T.I. and I, right? T.I. is a multi-millionaire, successful, like, heralded, like, out here does not have to worry about health care or paying his rent or anything like that, right? And I was just, I'm actually just coming off of the tail end of what I've been jokingly, but not jokingly, calling the toughest year of my life. The year, 25, like, I turned 25 and then the breaks, like, broke. Like, that year, it was so painful. and so hard for me. And so here I am, like, watching Blackout Day get kind of erased and, like, become a footnote again because it happens all the time. But the difference here now is that, like, holy crap, like, there are people with so much, like, so many more resources than I have at my disposal, actively celebrated for, like, doing a thing that is, like, confusing people. So we also have our long-term community who is like, Mars, what's going on? What's happening?

Because we do still have people who care about the work we do. We do still have people who we consider our Blackout Day family. And they're like, what's happening over there? And I'm like, I have no clue. And so part of me was like, it really does hurt because here I am a 26-year-old freelancer. I have like scraped by like, you know, like Black women do, like making. spinning gold out of straw, constantly just grinding and grinding. And I'm out here. Just trying to get people to read my writing and just trying to, you know, keep my piece. And then you have like, yeah, I don't want to see a multi-millionaire, like, hip-hop celebrity, like superstar getting called like a hero. Like that's so annoying. It was so, like from, it was hurtful. It was annoying. It was frustrating. I was just like, I had no, like, I have no health care. You know what I mean?

Like I am surviving the day-to-day, like, grind for a creative. And it really does, like, it hurt and it stung. And I'm just like, I can't be silent about this anymore because if I keep this inside me, I'm going to explode. And I was not expecting the level of support that I got in response. I was like, this is nuts. Like, I wasn't expecting anybody to care. if that makes sense, which is a really sad thing to say.

But, like, you know, I wasn't expecting people to really be as passionate as they were about it. And then, like, knowing that I'm also, you know, knowing that I'm not alone in this was, it meant a lot. But, yeah, it hurt. Like, it's more than just, like, give me credit. Like, whatever. But yeah, I cried. I cried it, I cried it, I cried.

And, you know, I'm really lucky to have been quarantining with my parents because I think if I was dealing with this particular, you know, unfortunate piece of, I don't even know what to call it. Like, if I was dealing with this unfortunate thing alone, I don't know how I would have coped properly. I think it's also like a culmination of like a bunch of years of this happening, right? I think it was just kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back, which seems to be the theme of the societal moment.

Like we are living and like, listen, we are fed up, honey. But yeah, I was really deeply hurt by it. When I saw Mars's tweets, I was furious on her behalf. I wasn't alone either. The community she built online was ready to flip tables to make sure she got credited and had support. It's a good reminder that sometimes we're all we got. It was amazing. I mean, it's so weird, too, because I don't feel like I'm, like, I don't feel a scene.

Like, I forget people see me. You know what I mean? Like, and I don't know if other black women have experienced this, but I definitely forget that when I throw a tweet out into the universe or when I write something, when I create something, when I make something, that other people do see me. You know what I mean? And I think that might be a combination of just, like, you know, the active erasure of black women

in a lot of our work spaces and a lot of the things we make and create, but also just kind of a little symptomatic of like going viral for your work. You know what I mean? Like, I want to be those cool writers who are getting all those cool, like interviews

and yada, yada, yada. Like, I think I got so caught up in wanting to sit with the cool kids. I think about it this way. I try not to get so caught up wanting to sit at the cool kids lunch table that I forget that there are very many people who are inviting me to sit with them. Like there are so many people who would go, hey, Mars, over here. And I'm so focused on wanting to

try to get to the cool kids table that I miss out on that. And so this was also just like, one of the silver linings was like, oh my gosh, you are seen and you are loved. Like people see you. People went up for me. And I was like, this is so great. And you know what? And there's also like, we need to stop trying to take things on, and by we, I mean black women, trying to take things on all by ourselves, because for real, the energy and the love you feel when you just let people go up for you,

just let people start a fire for you. It's okay. It's going to be okay. Let people be your defense squad. You know what I mean? Like, especially other black women, especially the, like, women and femmes, really, and like the people from Tumblr who were like,

oh, nah, nah, nah, no. Like, I know y'all are not out here. Try to disrespect Mars. And I was like, this is so, like, I cry. You know, happy tears. But that's just, it's crazy. Let people go up for you and remember that the cool kids' lunch table is like overrated. You know what I mean?

Like, cool, cool, cool. They have a New York Times bestseller. Cool, cool, cool. They went there on vacation or they're speaking there or yada, yada, yada. But, you know, comparison is a thief of joy. just, and, you know, I had to process all of that, of course, because I was like, am I just mad that TI is getting attention? Like, let's unpack this, you know, like becoming your own therapist, sitting down on the metaphorical couch in your mind and being like, okay, what are you really feeling? It really comes down to feeling accepted, celebrated, and seen.

That's what Mars was looking for on Tumblr, and it's what drove her to create Blackout Day in the first place. And it's what she thinks makes online movement so special. and getting right back down to the heart of what I hope a lot of these movements think about going forward is how do you make the people who felt like me, who forget that people see them? How do you make them remember that people see them and like expand their expectations for and like for themselves? Like what do they want for themselves? and just within the context of the internet. Because, you know, this is a thing that I think could be applied, like should be applied everywhere in real time.

And what I think a lot of campaigns and a lot of sayings like representation matters are getting at is how do you make the people who feel forgotten, who feel unseen, feel seen and celebrate it in a way that's authentic and amazing and empower them to want more for themselves? And like, if I were to pivot and, you know, blackout day probably can't exist as it has, but if I were to pivot the project, that would really be what I would want to get at, whether it's, you know, completely scrapping the whole thing and starting fresh with a new project. Like, that is always what I've wanted my work to do, is you feel forgotten, you feel like no one loves you.

I want this thing that I make for you. I want this organization that I build for you. I want this poem that I wrote. I want this TV show that I create. I want this thing I sing to feel like a love letter specifically to you. That's really how my brain works and how I approach everything is how does this feel like a love letter to the person I'm talking to? You know, to the audience that I'm seeking to create. Thank you.

I'm a poet. I don't know if you know that. More, there are no girls on the internet after this quick break. podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. There's the worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, uh, you only got in because your parents made a huge.

donation. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yard. They're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged, one erection.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not think. thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHeart's 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. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano and our podcast Point Game is about defying the odds.

Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to

give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He run up the court, licking his fingers why he got the ball. Like, after you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Gat. on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast, and for Mental Health Awareness Month,

we're dedicating a series to understanding the mind when it struggles. I'm joined by doctors, researchers, and those with lived experience. We'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car, and then my car got stolen. I was shoplifting, I was having panic attacks, I was agoraphobic. And making it through hardship. To be present is a learned skill, and it's hard to be present. We'll talk with John Nelson about clinical depression and the brain implant that saved his life.

What I learned is that procedure made me happy because I'm disease-free. And we'll talk with leading experts like Judd Brewer about anxiety, and John Hirschfield about obsessive-compulsive disorder. and the science of how the brain can change. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations about what happens when the brain goes off course and what we can do about it. Listen to Inner Cosmos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Anyone can make a Black Lives Matter post on Instagram. But how do you really and truly affirm Black lives? How do you show up for black people, especially the black people who are likely to go marginalized or overlooked. You might love to consume black content and black culture, but do you really love black people?

To me, love looks like love for black women, especially, looks like giving us credit. Like, it looks like giving us credit. It looks like giving us space. It looks like giving us opportunity. And it also looks like recognizing when you take up too much space, right? Because I have been seeing, like, in this recent wave of like, oh my gosh and then we're like you know we're dedicating this space to doing black like black creatives and that it on supporting black lives there's always always like in blackout

too there's always always cream that rises to the top quote right like end quote like there's always the people who are going to be you know chosen first for the kickball team which sometimes that's not great because sometimes that means that like the powers that be are tokenizing you and that is garbage. That is a horrible position to be in. I don't wish that on anybody. But also, sometimes it looks like you having a ton of access and then not leaving space for someone who might not have as much access to get that opportunity and to have that conversation open up for them as well. And it's hard to have that combo because like sometimes, like, especially on Twitter, if I tweet that, you know, it's like, why are you at such a hater?

Who are you sub-tweeting? Like, I don't know. And it's hard, too, because as a black woman, people are also projecting this, like, either this snobbiness onto you, like a catiness. Or for me, it's like the mammy, right? I'm everyone's emotional support, like, blogger, which is I'm honored, but it's also exhausting. So having this kind of conversation about like who gets where and who and does what and yada yada yada is near impossible on the internet. But I think it's a conversation worth having for sure. Mars is right.

We should be having conversations about who gets credited for their creations. But those conversations are often difficult to have, especially online. And when black folks make things online, the assumption is it just belongs to everybody. Think about viral sensations like kombucha girl, real name Brittany Tomlson, whose hilarious TikTok of her taste-testing kombucha landed her lucrative brand deals, including a Super Bowl ad. It really smells like a public restaurant. From the first video I ever posted, I have like 50,000 followers, which is so many. So many.

And then from there, I just kind of kept posting. The kombucha video was like the ninth video I ever posted. Compare that with 14-year-old Jolila Harmon. Jalila's renegade dance challenge on TikTok went much. mega viral, with everybody from Lizzo to ARA doing it. But another dancer on TikTok was initially credited with starting the dance trend. And people on social media had to go hard just to make sure Jalila was given credit at all. Mars wants to know why it's so easy for Black Women creators online to not get credit for our contributions.

And have tough conversations about the role of power in cultural exchange. We had to go up for a little baby girl to get credit for that, right? And like watching that, I'm like, oh my gosh, you see people like, and I actually just made a post about this. Like you see people like, no shade at her, kombucha girl, right? I actually still don't know her name. I'm so sorry. But like you see, like, she ended up in a Super Bowl commercial. Like, hello?

And like, that's nuts. Like, how is it that when people who aren't black go viral, it seems that like it's a life-changing. type deal, right? And then like black people have to actively make sure that our names are like plastered all over everything so that we can, or like people have to make a tweet that's like, so-and-so made this, but y'all don't want to have that conversation before we get to those types of opportunities. And especially like with black women, maybe it's because, you know, maybe it's just a small fraction of a piece of the phenomenon that black people are just essentially the ghost writer. of popular culture, right? Like maybe it's just a tiny little subset of that issue. Just like there was, oh my gosh, I remember back in the day, Tumblr would have this argument about the word fuckboy. And like there was like this rumor that it was a homophobic slur.

And it was like, what are y'all talking about? Like it really is just like life is the biggest game of telephone. And like once really and truly like, no. No offense to them, but also if you're offended, it's the truth. But once non-black people latch on to something, and that's exactly what happened with, like, the show must be paused. Because the CTA was two black people in the music industry. That was the CTA and that was the audience. It was an A, B conversation.

But as soon as C, D, and E, which were non-Black people, join in, the whole thing is just, like, stripped of its original CTA, removed from its context, and then completely bastardized and corny, right? Yeah, corny and not effective and confusing. Ineffective and weird and confusing. And, like, I think that is just what black, like, that's what the world just does. to black people creating things all the time, especially black Americans, especially African Americans. Like, child, as soon as any,

like as soon as black people like or do anything that seems cool, as soon as it comes, like, crosses that boundary. And then people are like, oh my God, you don't want like your slang to cross, like, generations. You don't want it to cross races. Like, that's beautiful. That's cultural exchange.

And it's like, okay, well, what do I get in exchange for all, for all of the white women going, yes, sis, yes, queen, work. Like, what do I get in exchange? If it's cultural exchange, like, I don't have any privilege. You're not giving me your privilege. You're not giving me your money. Y'all aren't hiring me. Like, what is the cultural exchange that people keep referring to

when they talk about the ways in which black creations are, like, disseminated and bastardized on their way out of black spaces? You know what I mean? Like, please, I didn't, you gave me nothing. And I am dealing with you guys. arguing about like Karen being a slur like oh come on you give like you give me nothing culturally I am black like we create this cool like we create all this cool shit although I will say Dungeons and Dragons snaps because Dungeons and Dragons is my favorite hobby so I guess that's

the exchange part for me on a personal level but okay I mean from a systemic point of Come on. I'm making this podcast because I want to make sure all the marginalized voices that make being online what it is don't go erased or overlooked just because of our identities. Mars has had a big impact on how folks show up online. And if I were writing a history book about the Internet in the 2000s, she'd be all over it. But Mars wishes there were some way that other marginalized people could measure the impact they have online.

Because our impact has been huge. And we deserve to have that impact celebrated. and affirmed. I would love it if I could build a thing or someone, somebody somewhere could build a thing where we teach people, we teach black women especially how to, like black women within internet spaces, like black women who are shaping the internet essentially. Like if we could have a collective where we all just like, number one, just get together and like key, that'd be great.

Number two, really teaching people how to make their impact quantifiable. Because I think that's always been my issue, right? That's always been the thing that's been hard for blackout, especially, is how do I, Mars, make my impact on the internet quantifiable? Even when, you know, even being asked to do this podcast, I was like, but I'm not a big deal. And then people would like, but no, you are. And I'm like, I don't actually understand. I don't think I've internalized how I'm a big deal.

deal. You know what I mean? So, like, how do I measure my impact? How do I make that impact? And then, like, the last step is how do you make that impact work for you? Because that's the problem is that Black women will be super amazingly impactful. And people will benefit greatly with, like, you know, rich, rich benefits from the work that Black women have done. But how do we make it work for ourselves? Like, speaking specifically back to movement work, it's like Black Lives Matter was founded by three queer black women. Like, that's amazing. But guess who's actively erased from the what has been heralded as the, quote, main Black Lives Matter movement? Black women, black LGBTQ folks.

And like, how do we make the thing that we make work for us? you know, and so I would just want to, I'm thinking, you know, way far into the future when this era of the internet is over. What I want to be remembered for is like making cool things that made people happy, made people feel loved, made my people, black people feel loved, made girls like me, fat girls, black girls, dark skin girls, like made us feel loved. made us feel loved and happy, but also got credit for and, like, made my mark and was able to carve out space so that it's easier for the next person. I mean, that's the eternal question of how we do that. That's a beautiful goal. That's always, and, you know, in everything I do that's really, I want to, I want to be able to, and I'm no longer ashamed of saying that. I want to be able to eat and sleep.

and rest and take care of myself and buy myself a coach bag when I want to, just as a little treat because I worked hard. You deserve it. Oh, you know what? No, not coach. We black-owned. What is it that everybody wants right now? Tel-Far.

I was like, oh, my God, the peer pressure. I want one too. Then I found out they were black-owned. And I was like, okay, gag. But, you know, like, I want to be able to rest on my laurels. And that's not a bad thing. and for black women, I want us to really internalize. Like, it is not a bad thing to want to be credited.

And it's also not a bad thing to want to have the basic necessities of your life and yourself cared for, period. Like, whether it be, you know, being credited properly or cited properly for your work. You know how many times I have seen amazing black writers on Tumblr? Amazing black writers. Women, too, have their words lifted and posted on Twitter. and I know it's the internet I know it's public and gadi yada yada

but like oh my gosh please like to see people who say care about black women protect black women this edada this is how I'm supporting a black women today you are actively repeating the words like stealing the intellectual thought like the intellectual property and thoughts of black women and that black woman

you know that black woman goes to bed a little hungry than she should while you know you have people who are benefiting actively from their work you know in rooms with celebrities like you know some people are going to want to aspire to celebrity

and that is on them to want to aspire to that but like to do it while stepping on the hands and the backs and the necks of black women is just I I cannot abide. And I'm tired of being nice about that frustration. I have resorted to being angry out loud about it.

Because it's like if you're going to call me angry anyway, I might as well get my licks in. You know what I mean? Like if you're going to call me Big Mad or jealous or a hater because I'm not the quote influencer type, you know what I mean? And for a while, that's what I aspire to. I did want to like pivot to not specifically within the realm of like blackout, but I did want to like pivot to being like cute and quirky and fun and like happy attention. But I don't like that's, I've tossed that in the garbage bin.

It's like I, I'm not trying to be famous. All that to say. Like it's a dangerous thing in a hard line to tiptoe across when you're asking to be credited and then having to kind of fight the clout monster too. You know what I mean? Like I don't, I'm not saying this for clout. I'm not doing this for clout. but also you're going to know who I am

because what I did was important, you know? Making a specific effort to support Black-owned businesses is a great call to action. As we show support for Black Lives on Blackout Day 2020, let's also honor and amplify the Black women whose labor and talent laid the foundation for us to do so. To support Blackout Day 2020, don't spend any money today, July 7th,

unless it's had a Black-owned business. To support Mars, follow her on social media at Mars in charge on Twitter and at Mars in Charge underscore on Instagram. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeart Radio 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. For more podcasts from IHeart, 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 IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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 crying. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Marquis come until 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.

Hey, everyone. It's Ryder Strong and Wilfredel from PodMeets World. And now the podcast. Meets Twirled podcast. We're two men who were completely clueless to reality TV, and we're gearing up for the season finale of Survivor. I know we annoyed a lot of our listeners by our severe lack of survivor knowledge. That is the point of the show. I'm just going to remind you. Again, we are experts.

Listen to Pod Meets Twirled on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast, and for Mental Health Awareness Month, we'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car, and then my car got stolen. I was having panic attacks. I was agoraphobic. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations about what happens when the brain goes off course. Listen to Inner Cosmos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.