There Are No Girls on the Internet - BONUS: Why TANGOTI?

Episode Date: August 15, 2020

After 1 month of TANGOTI, we're doing a bonus interview with host Bridget Todd about why she created this podcast and what's next. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Bridget Todd. And this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. This is Bridget Todd, host of There Are No Girls on the Internet. It's been about a month since we started this podcast, and it's already been such a challenging and fun experience. To celebrate, I sat down with our contributing producer, Michael, to give you all more information about who I am and why I make this show. Oh, hi, Bridget.

Hi, Michael. Thanks for making time for me today. Thanks for being willing to sit down and talk. Sure. So, Tangote, critically acclaimed podcast. You know, how do you feel about how the launch is gone? It's been good, you know. For folks who listened to my previous podcast,

stuff, Mom never told you, you'll probably know this has been a long time coming, so I'm really happy that it's finally in people's earbuds. And the response has been really great. It's been very fun. It's been very challenging. It's been really cool to tell the stories of people that I think deserve more attention

and just to center marginalized folks, you know, women, people of color, in conversations about what it means to be on the internet. Why was that important to you to tell these stories? Well, you know, when I first got the idea for Tangodi, there was a lot of different things going on. I remember seeing these awful instances of public acts of violence, you know, like mass shootings and things like that.

And the thing that so many of them had in common was that the perpetrator, in most cases, you know, men, they had a history of violent rhetoric online, rhetoric about women. And it seemed to me that anybody who was paying attention would think, like, oh, this is a warning sign we should take seriously. And I thought, gee, if only somebody had taken that seriously. If only somebody had thought about what this person was writing online about women and looked into it, maybe this wouldn't have happened.

Then I remember hearing about this woman, Shafika Hudson, who had been making noise about the fact that somebody on social media was impersonating black women in her online spaces. And then I remember hearing that story and thinking, oh, okay. And then flash forward a couple of years to the election, seeing a Senate inquiry that confirmed that those same tactics had happened and that they were an attempt to shift our election. And I thought, gee, if only anybody had taken her seriously when she talked about her experiences online, maybe the election could have been different.

Maybe things could have been different. I saw those two big things happening. But in my own life, even though I was someone who had worked in tech spaces, spends a lot of her time online, I still was sort of compartmentalizing my own experiences in tech. I thought of myself as someone who, you know, wasn't really involved in the internet, wasn't really involved in tech, despite the fact that I worked at tech companies. And I really saw those things as related. The fact that these experiences that marginalized people have online were so overlooked and so ignored

and that the consequences for ignoring them were so huge. But then in my own life, I still was having trouble sort of centering my experiences online. I still thought like, oh, well, what right do I have to, you know, say anything to a tech leader or what right do I have to make an argument about the online experience. And so one of the reasons why I wanted to make Tangoti is that I want people to stop doing that. I think that as marginalized people, it's so easy to believe, it's so easy to

internalize that our stories don't really matter and that our experiences don't really matter. And I just want to be part of a cultural paradigm shift that says, no, we are the experts of our own experiences. If you use the internet every day, if you're listening to this podcast, you have a right to demand accountability from tech leaders, from tech platforms, you have a right to expect that the experiences that we have, and by we, I mean, other marginalized people, are going to be told, thoughtfully, and centered because that's what makes being on the internet great.

The internet is so much richer because there are so many different identities that make the experience that much more rich. I love that. So these stories need to be told and make us all richer by hearing them. Why are you the person to tell these stories? That's a great question. I've spent most of my life amplifying the stories of marginalized people, specifically black

women, but also other marginalized identities. I think that I'm the right person to tell these stories because for so long, I yearned for them. Tony Morrison has this quote that she became the writer that she needed when she was younger. And for all the experiences of had online, I just wish that there was someone who was compiling them and archiving them and amplifying them. And so why not me? You've been making podcasts for a while now, right?

Oh, yes. My first job, so I've been a long time podcast appreciator. But my first job in podcasting was like back in 2011. And so if you know anything about podcasts, you know that like the big sort of shift in podcasting that we thought about podcasting is like a real medium was when serial came out. but my time in podcasting predates that.

So I think of myself as like the old guard, you know, the OG. Yeah, my first job in podcasting was working as a producer on a show called The Flaming Sort of Justice. It was a podcast about activism and organizing. And yeah, I've just been, it's, it's, I've loved it ever since then. I've been a long time podcast appreciator. What are some of the foundational podcasts that you listen to? If you had a name two, maybe three. Okay, well, number one will always be Starly Kind's Mystery Show.

Unfortunately, it was short-lived. There's only a handful of episodes, but if you're looking for an episode to start with, the episode about Britney Spears, I think is the pinnacle of what the medium can be. You know, when I first heard it, I thought, like, this podcasting is going to change everything. I had never heard storytelling like it. And so the idea is that Starly Kine, the host and producer, she gets a new mystery every episode, a mystery that can't be solved by just like Googling it.

And so she has to go through these deep dives of solving these mysteries. And it really is just something really special. And unfortunately, they're no longer making new episodes. But Starly Kine is like, in my mind, she's like the Beyonce of podcasting. She's just so good. You said you've never heard stories told like that. what is it about podcasts that you think is different from other medium? That's a great question.

When I first got really into podcasts, so this is going to sound kind of depressing, and depressing and also extreme, but I mean it the way I say it. When I first got really into podcast, I had moved from the East Coast to San Francisco, and I moved there for work, and I moved there, Sa'd Ancina. I never visited. I never been before. And I moved there for a job, a kind of tech-adjacie. and job at a mobile phone company called Cretto Mobile. And shout out to Cretamobile.

And, you know, it was a hard, it was a tough time in my life. I had a really hard time meeting people. I had a really hard time making friends. I, you know, spent every day thinking, like, did I make a mistake moving out here? Also, this was, you know, San Francisco, this was like the heart, like the beginning of San Francisco's tech boom really changing. the landscape of what San Francisco was. And so, you know, I grew up thinking San Francisco was this, like, hippie wonderland, and I was excited for that. But when I got there, it was something very different.

And truly, this sounds like very over the top. And maybe it is, but it was podcasts that really kind of saved my life. Like, if it wasn't for podcasts, I don't know how I would have gotten through that time. What podcasts are you listening to then? So at that point in my life, the podcast, I was like, listening to the most was one called, uh, yeah, dude.

Um, full disclosure, it is not, it is a, it is like purely a comedy podcast. It's, it's, I mean, it's more than that. It's,

you know, they're, they're documenting their own American, American experience. Exactly. Exactly. So I don't, I don't want to make it seem like,

this is like when you ask somebody like, oh, what's your favorite movie? And you, they feel pressure to be like, citizen cane, but really, but really, but really it's like clueless, you know?

So it was just, it was, it's not, it's not. not like, it was not like a very, like, highbrow show. But, but like, something about it made me feel like I was talking to friends. And I would, I would, like, go to sleep listening to this podcast and headphones. You know, when I was, after work, I would, like, rush home to my empty apartment to listen to this podcast, right? Like, it was the thing that made me feel connected to the world

and made me feel like I wasn't so alone. Why? What is it about podcasting that makes that connection? There's a lot. You know, I think it's a very intimate. medium. I think for me, there is something about hearing people's voices, hearing, hearing someone grappling with a new concept for the first time and hearing all the ums and likes and, you know, weird sounds that come with that. I really, really like that. Not everybody likes it. I try to, I try to edit. Luckily, we have, as you know, we have, you know, a superstar product. We have Tari. We have Tari. Shout out to Tari, who's name you here in the credits. Luckily, we have a genius editor who makes everybody on the show sound like they're just brilliant and they just

rolled out of bed brilliant and everything they say comes out brilliant and perfect. But, and I appreciate white people like that. For me, it's the exact opposite, right? I love the awkward pauses and the noise, the like throat clearing because I feel like those are the signals that you're like hearing someone really have a, have a like real conversation. I also think I like podcasts a lot because I've been a fan of them for a very long time. And I feel like when I first fell in love with the medium, it was so new and so different. And even when I was working as a podcaster, we didn't know what the fuck we were doing. It was like we were like a rag tag group of people who really just were making it up as we went along.

I'll never forget sort of like fibbing on my resume about knowing how to edit audio and then being like, oh, fuck, they're going to expect me to know how to do this. than having to like learn to do it. There was something about the, there was something about the podcast landscape when I first got involved in it back. I'm like, you know, the 2000s, the early 2000s, that was,

it just felt like the Wild West. And it just felt like you were hearing conversations that you would never hear any place else. And even though that's changed, you know, as the medium has gotten more slick and more professionalized, I still feel like, I still feel that.

You know, I think at the end of the day, it'll always be a medium for weirdos, and I think of myself as a weirdo, so it feels like home. Yeah, your interviews, you do a good job connecting with people and getting them to, not just open up,

but express themselves and say things that they want to say about their own experience, but maybe don't always get the chance to just sit down and talk about it. How do you, approach that, the episodes, the interviews that you've done for this season, what's your strategy? Well, first and foremost, as women, as people of color, as people who are marginalized, we don't often, it's not a given that someone's going to thoughtfully deal with our stories,

right? And so if someone is down to sit down with me for the podcast or for an interview, the first thing that's most important to me is making sure that I treat their story with care and intention, because unfortunately, we can't always, that's not always a given that someone that we're talking to is going to treat our story with that kind of care. And I take it very seriously. I take it very seriously. You know, it is someone, listening to someone tell their story for me is a real privilege. And the fact that people trust me to put their stories into the world, to new audiences, to like package the idea. is that they're that they're spitting and that, you know, the things that they're saying,

to package them for folks to consume, that's a lot of trust. It's, it's, I don't, I don't take it, I take it very seriously. It's a lot of trust. So really it's about, it's about that. I think I've also been very lucky that all the people on the show so far, all the guests we've had this season are brilliant and so interesting and just have such an interesting perspective. And they introduced me to new concepts that I didn't know. They helped me understand myself better. So I'm very lucky that everybody is so smartest. It's hard to not make people sound interesting and smart when they are legitimately interesting and smart.

Treating people's stories with respect and care and listening to them. It reminds me of something Claire Evans talked about on the first episode of the season about a culture of care. And if you want to look for a place on the internet where there is care, look where women are or something like that. Yeah, she says you look for the women. And I think that's true, right? I think no offense to the men out there listening,

but the stories that I love the most are the ones that are told by marginalized people because I can just tell that they're told from a perspective where you aren't sure if you're going to get that care, the kind of care that Claire Evans talks about in our first episode. And so people who share their stories, even when they're not so sure how the reception's going to be, I see such a bravery in that. Yeah, and that's kind of a common theme across a bunch of the episodes this season. Oh, definitely. the people that we've talked to this season,

you know, people like Ottawa and Boya who in our second episode spoke up when she was just a grad student at MIT against the director of MIT's Media Lab, you know, that takes bravery. And that kind of takes knowing that people are going to,

you know, hate you for speaking your truth. People are going to malign you. You don't even know if you, like, are physically safe. You know, let alone people are going to be mean to you on the internet or whatever. her physical safety, she was taking great risks. And yet, you know, as grateful as we all are to Ronan Farrow for bringing that story to light,

I don't like the fact that he wasn't risking anything to do that, any kind of comfort, and that he is the one that's remembered as sort of like breaking that story as opposed to Ottawa, who was taking great risks, great personal risks, and did it first. So I just want to, I think it really is for me about culture shift, about, about just remembering that for every big story you hear, there's probably someone who's part in that is going overlooked or unheard. And we should hear them.

What's something that you think we're not talking about enough today? Oh, I'm so glad you asked. I have a very clear answer. We are recording this right after Biden named his running mate, Harris. And I would say especially in light of that, but also just in general, even before that, we need to be talking about disinformation on online

and how it impacts marginalized communities. We did a whole episode about Shafika Hudson, how she tried to blow the whistle on bad actors, using classic disinformation tactics to sow chaos online. A Senate inquiry now confirms that those kinds of bad actors from, you know, Russia were trying to do the same thing to influence the 2016 election. We see it in Latinx communities. You know, we already know that with, when black women run for public office, they deal with a disproportionate amount of disinformation and harassment online.

And I think that because we don't really talk about race, we don't really talk about the internet or technology in a way that centers marginalized voices. It's just going overlooked. And, you know, one of the reasons why the show is called There Are No Girls on the Internet is the kind of, I mean, I'm going to be. It's sort of an inside joke with myself a little bit to like, I'm the only person who, like, is cracking up about it. But the phrase, there are no girls on the internet, has a lot of different meanings. But one of the meanings that it has is this idea that, you know, on the internet, there is no such thing as gender. Everybody's genderless. And it would be great if that was true, but it's not true, right?

It's the same thing people try to say that, like, people are colorblind. It would be great if that was true, but it's not true. And when we obscure the ways that our identity, show up online and we're like, oh, there's no such thing as identity on the internet. We're all the same. We, that just erases what we know is, what we already know is true that that people's identities make their online experience different. And I think that because we don't talk about, we're not comfortable talking about race.

We're not comfortable talking about gender sometimes. We are allowing for these very, these very targeted attacks on marginalized groups online to just go sort of like unscrutinized. And we should be talking about the role that people's identities, race, gender, all of that have in this, but we're just really not. Within hours of Kamala Harris being declared the VP,

there were attacks that were race-based about her character as a woman. And like, you know, I'm sure they had a stockpile of heckles to release against whoever the nominee was, But the fact that she was, you know, not just black and not just a woman, but a black woman, there's so many more opportunity for them to use those sort of stereotype-based attacks. Absolutely. She's a black woman. She is the child of immigrants. You know, there are so many aspects to her identity that people are going, that we already know, people study this.

We already know we're going to be used disproportionately to attack her online. Yeah. And so, Biden isn't getting the same level of attacks. Trump isn't getting the same level of attacks. And so we need to be talking about what that means. In one of my day jobs, aside from hosting this podcast, I work for a women's group called Ultraviolet, where I lead up our work in the disinformation space. And, you know, I think in absence of the leadership

of tech companies and tech platforms to take this seriously, it's really up to just everyday folks like me to create resources and create tools to make sure that we're talking about this kind of misinformation and disinformation and that we can curb it because we can't wait for these tech leaders to do the right thing. We're going to have to step up and do it ourselves. It's a serious thing. It's a serious thing. Well, thanks for doing that work. And thanks for making the show and let me be part of it and help amplify these stories.

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 tangoity.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 IHeartRadio 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, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their Between Songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, and on my new podcast, How Hard Can It Be? I call on my Gen X squad from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate Midlife's most fantastic BS. Unfiltered conversations from night sweats to fupas to scheduling sex. Wait, what sex? Is it just me or does every woman my age want to look at Pinterest instead of having sex sometimes? They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try.

So let's get blunt with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHeart Podcast presents soccer moms. So I'm Leanne. Yeah. This is my best friend, Janet. Hey.

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?

Oh, they hit a bogo. Well, then you got it. Listen to soccer moms on the eye. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. American Soccer is about to explode. The World Cup is coming. Ramos sending on to Ernie Stewart the chip. Score!

I'm Tab Ramos. I'm Tom Boca. On our podcast, inside American soccer, you'll get the real storylines, the biggest decisions, and the truth about the U.S. national team. It wouldn't be a huge surprise if our team ends up in the quarterfinals or potentially a great run into the semifinals. Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tabramos on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.