There Are No Girls on the Internet - From those judgy bridesmaids to West Elm Caleb, has TikTik surveillance ruined gossip?

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

In this special episode taped from the iHeart Music Festival in the Bose recording booth, Bridget and Mike talk about the rise of many-to-many social surveillance via social media and what it means for all of us.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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producer Mike and I headed out to the I-Heart Music Festival in Las Vegas, where we recorded a live episode of There Are No Girls on the Internet from the House of Music booth. Ironically, our conversation was all about why so many people are surveilling the behavior of strangers on social media platforms like TikTok. And we had that conversation from a recording booth right on the strip where passers-by could stop and check out our recording. So we were talking about social surveillance while being very much surveilled ourselves. So you might hear a little bit of music and festival noise in the background of this episode. Taping like this was a real first for me, but it was super fun and I hope you enjoy it. Hey there, we're recording live from the IHeart podcast studio powered by Bose at the House of Music at the IHeart Music Festival.

Okay, so a real quick fact about me is that I am a very nosy person by nature. And if somebody has gossip about a stranger, you can rest assured that I am interested in it. I want to know details. Who said what? And then what did she say? Who did what? Why did she say that? And then what happened? I want follow-up. I want details. I'm very invested. And I don't think I'm alone. I actually kind of think this is just human nature. You know, people want to know what's going on in the world around them. But what happens when it goes too far. And we start projecting entire worlds and motivations on the people we've never even met. Here's a great example of what I mean. A few weeks ago, this TikTok of a woman relaying a conversation, that she overheard at a cafe blew up. The woman said that she overheard a nearby table of women essentially talking major crap about a bride who was their friend and they had all been bridesmaids in her wedding. The women thought the bride didn't look good.

The women thought the bride was rude by not letting them pick their own hairstyles. The women thought that using rosé instead of champagne for her toast was like tacky and cheap. And worst of all, these women said that they were not jay. genuinely happy for this bride. All of their smiling, bright faces in the pictures and in the video, they were faking all of that because in reality, they thought that this bride looked terrible and that her wedding was tacky, cheap, and awful.

Like, apparently, it just went on and on and on. So the woman who made this TikTok said that she just overheard this conversation and that she was relaying it to the entire internet because she wanted this woman to know that this is how her friends and her bridesmaids felt about her, and that perhaps they are not her real friends. And I think that might partly be true. This woman might have genuinely wanted to find the bride to let her know what her friends really thought about her wedding. But this TikTok racked up over 30,000 likes and was stitched and duetted a bunch,

with people in the comments being like, oh, we got to find this bride, where's this bride? Like, I want to follow up. What happened? Find the bride. But, and I am fully aware, that this might be a bit of an understanding. popular opinion. I think if we're being honest, obviously it's not nice and I don't love the idea of friends talking crap about one another. But if we're being honest, I actually think that complaining about people that you love, sometimes blind their backs, is sometimes just part of being in relationships with other people. You know, I am not too proud or too big to admit

that I have done it a time or two, hopefully not with an earshot of somebody who was going to live-tweets the whole thing. But I think it's just part of being friends with people sometimes is that you have conflict and that, you know, you meet over drinks to complain about a friend and just vent and get it out. So I can almost hear people listening saying, oh, that is not true. You should never talk badly about a friend or a loved one. And in that I say, be so for real right now. Like, come on. I think that most everybody, all of us at one time or another, has vented about a friend or a family member or a spouse or somebody that we love. And I don't necessarily think that a stranger transcribing everything that you might say during event session over drinks and then blasting it to the entire

internet in the hopes that it might get back to the subject is really that helpful. Like I don't think that this TikToker really did a good thing for this bride. I actually think like if I had seen that, I would be mortified. I would be horrified that my friends were talking about this. I would be horrified that the details of my wedding were blasted to the internet and the way that my friends felt about them were blasted to the internet. I'd be horrified. And so I don't necessarily think it's like that helpful. I also think it's possible that this stranger maybe doesn't have the context of their particular

relationship to know like the context of what's being said, right? There might be history there that she doesn't know. There might be more to the story. I think just eavesdropping for 10 minutes into someone's vent session over drinks where they don't know that someone else is listening might not tell the entire full magnitude of what's going on. And certainly, I don't think maybe gives you enough information to comfortably and reasonably blast this to the entire internet. And here's another maybe unpopular opinion about all this. This TikToker maybe did just genuinely want to give this bride a heads up that her friends felt this way about her wedding and maybe one. her real friends. That might be true. But I also think that this TikToker probably maybe might

have realized that she had a juicy story on her hands, one that people would naturally want to chime in on and she, and that it would spread this video far and wide. Like, I think that she knew people were going to have opinions about this or were going to be leaving comments, and that this video would blow up like it did. And here's my point. This phenomenon that I'm seeing more and more on social media, where people take content about the behavior of strangers and people get very, very invested in like finding them or getting a follow-up or getting a part two or knowing what happened next as if they are following celebrity gossip or watching a movie. But here's the thing. These people are not celebrities. They're just regular people, strangers even.

In a really interesting piece for the conversation, Dr. Jenna Drenton, Associate Professor of Marketing at the Quinlan School of Business at La Hoya University, Chicago, who studies social media behavior, doves this, the TikTok tabloid. She writes, together, these stories represent the emergence of what she calls TikTok tabloids, in which users collectively manufacture and dramatize stories like an investigative gossip reel. Traditional tabloids place the lurid limelight on celebrities and public figures,

but the TikTok tabloid targets everyday people. So according to Dr. Drenton, This phenomenon is related closely to the dynamics of social surveillance, which is using digital technologies to keep a close watch on one another while producing online content in anticipation of being watched. So this sounds very like draconian, like tech dystopian, but it's kind of nothing new. Obviously tabloids have been around for kind of a long time. If you lived through the 2000s, which was the golden age, or depending on who you ask,

dark age of the online tabloid, you probably remember how tabloids like TMZ and Perez-Hilton would publish the minutia of celebrities like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. It was ugly, it was racist often, it was misogynistic, it was all kinds of like negative things. It just was not a good time in media. But I do think that back in the 2000s and the 2010s, there was this, I don't know, I think this feeling that because these were celebrities, because these were famous people and public figures, that they weren't real people like you or me as a real person. So it was fair game to photograph them and obsess and surveil them online

whenever they went in public. But Dr. Drenton says where tabloid culture used to be about the many watching the few, where a few people who are celebrities are surveilled by all of us and we get to pick apart their behavior, today there's been a shift where that same dynamic has translated to everyone watching everyone all the time. We're both their surveillers and they're surveilled. That's kind of chilling.

Yeah, I mean, it's actually especially funny in that we're in the IHeart podcast studio here at IHeart, the IHeart Radio Festival. So, like, we are podcasting in a little bit of a fishbowl. I feel, I mean, we are certainly the surveilled right now. Yeah, people keep stopping by, and I can't tell if they're looking into, like, watch us recording this episode or just Marvel at the Bow's headphones. They are quite nice. You know, that, like, bridal party debriefing from the wedding, I think you absolutely nailed it about why the person would have blasted that on TikTok and, like, spread it far and wide.

it's all about her, the person who posted that, like trying to get some likes, trying to get some engagement, trying to be like part of this story. Clearly it's not about the bride. Like, she doesn't know anything about the backstory of these women in their relationships. And the thing that she doesn't,

like they, you know, all the bridesmaids were not saying is how much they love this person, which clearly they do because they went to her tacky, boring wedding and pretended to have a good time for probably like eight hours. Okay, well, let's not further crap on this woman's wedding, but yes, here's my thing. Sometimes being in a friendship or having a loved one or being in a relationship means doing stuff that you don't want to do or don't enjoy or don't like or don't agree with because this

person is your friend and you love them. And so you're not going to go to brunch after, and also, let's be real, wedding, when you're in someone's wedding, oftentimes it is like, eventually. after event after event. Like, it's like a week-long celebration of this person and their love. And listen, I have been part of weddings that I was not thrilled to be part of. I have gotten up early to go play cornhole with people that I didn't like and had ever met before. I have soldiered through while hung over and done activity after activity after acetine activity. I don't want to get to, if I, if I like go down this rabbit hole, I will, it'll list this whole episode.

It'll be me complaining about one particularly involved wedding that I went to. But here's my thing is that you do it. You do it out of love. And so when you go to the big brunch after all the wedding stuff is over, you're not going to be sitting there talking about how much we love the bride. No, that is implied because you just did all this stuff that you didn't want to do out of the obligation of love. Like sometimes that's what relationships are like.

And that feels like a really good example to talk about this sort of broader phenomenon that you were talking about, the, like, the many on many surveillance that is happening with social media, with TikTok and everything, that, you know, there's so much that gets lost there. And, like, what is, what are the motivations of the surveilers? Exactly. And so, yeah, I think that the woman who brought this to TikTok, it's possible that maybe she just, like, wanted this bride to know what was, what was going on. But I also just think that like, realistically, she also knew she had a juicy story on her hands and she wanted to blow it up.

She probably wasn't unhappy that this video got almost half a million people to like it. And I think that when we're bringing the stories of other people, strangers, people we have no connection to onto the internet to be surveilled in this way, whatever context or nuance or history might be present in our relationships because relationships are complicated, relationships do have nuance. All of that gets lost and instead is replaced by the projections of people who don't even know these people. So today's culture of social surveillance means that we're all always being watched and also watching. Not just celebrities.

We're all tabloid fodder now, baby. As media scholar, Alice E. Merrick puts it, social surveillance is the ongoing eavesdropping, investigation, gossip, of an inquiry that constitutes information gathering by people about their peers made salient by the social digitization normalized by social media. Back to Dr. Drenton because she puts it really well. She writes, in social surveillance, everyone online is both a guard and a prisoner, constantly consuming online content and producing content for others to see. This always-on dynamic works to control behavior.

Everyday people have the power to orchestrate what other users see, read, and believe. not only about traditional celebrities, but also about regular, everyday people. So this is not always like a nefarious or negative thing. Like, you know, I happen to think that like what this woman did via TikTok, like, if the bride did see that TikTok, she would be devastated. But it's not always like a nefarious or negative thing where like someone if they see what someone has said about them is going to be devastated. Barstool Sports, which is this huge social media platform on TikTok, I know, we don't really care for them over here in these parts.

They're not great actors. Yeah, they're definitely not great actors, is a good way to put it. Well, Barstool Sports, they're huge on TikTok. They reposted a video that somebody took of an older woman leaving a movie theater. She's got a cane and she's walking pretty slow. After seeing the movie Barbie by herself, the caption says, wholesome moment. And it does, it, it's interesting because, like, when I saw that video, it is, like, sweet.

Like, I definitely was like, oh, this, like, old woman went to see Barbie, which was, like, the feminist, like, age unity movie for women of the summer. And, like, I understand what they are going for and what they are trying to say. However, it seems like a way to really project a story onto a stranger. who was just living her life. Like being out and about and going to see a movie is just automatically cute or sad or wholesome just because an older woman is doing it.

Right? Like did the person who took that video and uploaded it to the internet and then gave Barstool Sports permission to use it, did they check in with her to get her consent? Did they... Is that how she would have described that outing that it was like sad or wholesome

or something to be like pitied or projecting all these, like, emotions onto? Yeah, and, like, who knows what's true, right? Like, we don't know this old woman. She could be a raging bitch. She could be. She could be... Let's take a quick break.

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best friend Janet. And we have been joined at the Hips since high school. Now a redacted amount of years later. We're still joined at the hip, just a little bit bigger hips, wider. This is a podcast. We're recording it as we tailgate. Are you? soccer games in the back of my Honda Odyssey with all the snacks and drinks. Sidebar. Why did you get hard seltzer instead of beer? Oh, they had a bogo.

Well, then you got it. Do you want a white color or something here? Just take it. What are y'all doing? Microphones? Are you making a rap album? Oh, I would. Come on.

I would buy it. Cuts through the defense like a hot knife through sponge cake. That sounds delicious. Oh, you're lucky. I'm not a drug addict. You're lucky I'm not an alcoholic. You are.

I'm not a killer. I love this team, and I'm really trying to be a figure in their lives that they can rely on. Oh. Listen to Soccer Moms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Something that you know about me is that I absolutely love to go to the movies by myself. It is my, nothing makes me happier than going to see a matinee double feature sneaking snacks into the movies. and then just like going by myself.

So I don't have to worry, it's like, oh, do the person I brought like it or not? Are they enjoying it? Do they have to pee? Like, are they gonna be annoying? Are they gonna talk? Are they gonna be on their phone? Blah, blah, blah.

I find nothing more like pure than the joy of going to a movie alone. So I'm a woman. I am aging because that's the thing that humans do. How many more years do I have to go see movies by myself until someone's gonna get a video of me doing it? And then now it's like,

look at this saddle. old woman trying to go to the movies by herself. Hashtag inspiration. I know. Like, maybe I'm just trying to go to a movie. Maybe I'm not trying to be someone's like inspiration porn or someone's like wholesome moment or someone's like, like, wow, look at this old woman. Just like hasn't laid down and died and still going to see movies.

A real triumph, right? Like, how many years do I have until that is the case? Listeners, write in. We'd love to hear your opinion. Just kidding. Do not write in. Yeah. At what age will Bridget be like just being out?

Like I do feel like for women like at a certain age, just like existing is, you know, actually like slight spoiler for the movie Barbie. They kind of play with it in the movie Barbie when Barbie sees that older woman and she's like, you're so beautiful. And the woman's like, yeah, I know. Like it kind of plays with this assumption that we are all, I don't know. I think that this kind of content trains us to automatically project something onto people who are just existing. Like, oh, my God, you're so inspirational for daring to be an older woman out living your life.

And of her really being real about, like, you know, the many surveilling the many, who gets surveilled? It's, oh, it's women. It's women. We're not looking at dudes. It is, yes, it is absolutely women. Like that, I completely agree. So a very similar thing to what I was just talking about, the older woman going to see Barbie by herself,

happened with an Australian influencer who does these stunts where he kind of like does things in public with strangers that are meant to be kind or wholesome. Only in this case, we actually know what the subject, who was also an older woman, felt about it, because she's told us. So this influencer goes up to this older woman who is eating alone in a food court

and he hands her a bouquet of flowers. And it's clearly meant to be like a wholesome or heartwarming moment, like a young guy, brightening the day of this lonely old woman eating by herself, a random act of kindness. And all the comments are like,

oh my God, like that is so sweet. Like she really deserves those flowers. He's really doing a nice thing for this. He probably made that old. woman's day and she really probably like needed those, needed those flowers, needed that smile, needed this pickup. You know who didn't feel that way? The woman who was got the flowers. So she actually didn't like it at all. The woman told ABC Radio Melbourne that she had no idea that she was being filmed until she received messages from people telling her the video had gone mega viral.

She basically said that she was like eating at this cafe, minding her own business, when this influencer comes up to her and asks, can you hold these flowers for a minute? So she didn't even necessarily realize that, like, he was giving her flowers because he was like, can you hold these for a minute? And she was like, oh, sure, I guess, thinking that, like, he needed somebody to hold these flowers. Then she sees this camera crew filming her, and she didn't know she was being filmed at first. And then she asked them, are you filming this guy giving me flowers?

And they said no. They said no. They said no. They lied to her? They lied to this woman. Deception is like, that's the red line for, like, most things. Oh, completely agree. So in this interview, this woman says, quote,

I actually even said to them, look, do you want these flowers back? Because I really don't want them. I don't want to carry them home on the tram, really, to be quite frank. Also, side note, I love this woman. This, like, old Australian woman who is not interested in these flowers. Also, having men to Australia, I can, this is, like, classic Australian lady. like women in Australia, and I say this with like deep love and admiration, they have a bluntness that I think is really amazing and they really just like say how they feel and I really dig it.

Like if you're if you were Australian, if I'm getting this like way off the mark, write it and let me know, but I've met a lot of Australians who are just like very direct into the point and this sounds like one of them and I love that for her. I love that for her. I love that for me. I love that for all of us. Yeah, like she didn't go out to get lunch at the food court. by herself so that some guy could give her flowers. She wasn't hoping, like, today will be the day. Yeah, and so she actually says that this was a little bit of an inconvenience for her because she thought that this guy was kind of intruding on her quiet, private time.

She said, these artificial things are not random acts of kindness. So she said that she was kind of offended that they were projecting this story under her that she was like this sad, broken down, lonely old woman just because she was having a cup of coffee by herself, right? Like, I do think it's wild to me that just existing in public by yourself means that these strangers, and someone filming that, means that strangers can come up and project all kinds of stuff. Frankly, that is not super flattering.

She was like, I'm not a lonely, sad old woman. I'm just getting a cup of coffee. Yeah, that's like, pretty reductionist of a person. Yeah, it's reductionist is a good way to put it. You know, I just, I just don't think it's cool to package content like this to have folks project all of this on to other people that they don't even know. Yeah, and connecting it back to that guy who filmed this video,

uh, clearly his motivation was not to like uplift and reaffirm this. woman, right? Like, that might have been his facade motivation, but it had nothing to do with her. It was all about him. He was using her as a prop. Okay, first of all, if you want to reaffirm a woman in public, leave her the fuck alone. Like, don't come, like, give her, like, don't do any of this. But the influencer in his defense, he did apologize, and he said that if she wants him to take this video down, he will, he didn't want to offend her. But he did double down on his random acts of kindness content. And to your point, Mike, it is a little bit complicated because we know that TikTok is a platform that does reward positive content.

And so it would be nice to think that this influencer was just doing this to be altruistic or sweet or he genuinely wanted to like affirm this woman and like make her day. But the reality is that he is an influencer who makes money from his social media platform. And if you want to build up your platform, making heartwarming random acts of kindness content is a way to do it. It is a way to boost your individual profile. And especially if you're doing it without consent, that really tells me that you're not really genuinely interested in like reaffirming or making the day of this random woman. It is about you. It is about building your platform and your profile. And in her interview with ABC, she actually says,

I have a sense that this influencer probably made money from this video of me that I actually found deeply offensive. Yeah, that says a lot. You know, he's making money off it. He's getting likes. He's getting engagement. He probably didn't share that money with her, and he offered to take the video down,

but that's not really what it's about. I guess now I'm going to take a turn just projecting onto this woman based on nothing, but like I have to imagine that the thing that made her uncomfortable was not like being seen by millions of TikTokers that she doesn't know, but just the general vibe of the thing that she was made to participate in without her consent and that they lied to her about during the thing. Yeah, and I think that that's one of the things that I really want to push back against in our sort of, rapidly digitizing culture, digital culture, is that anybody who goes out in public is just consenting to be a character

in someone else's story about them, just by the sheer act of leaving their house, going out their front door. I think that people have a right to privacy. I think that people have a right to, like, go have a sad coffee by themselves or something or, like, go to a movie alone without someone being like,

oh, look at this poor soul just really hanging on there, really inspirational to all of us, right? Like, sometimes people just want to live their lives. They don't want to go outside and accidentally become somebody else's inspiration porn just by living their life. You know what this is making me thinking of, and this is a bit of a sharp left turn. Oh, left turn, no signal. Left turn, no signal. But those TikTok accounts that are being NPCs, like, being NPCs, where they're just kind of like bopping around.

Ice cream, so good. Ice cream, mm, so good. Yeah, like. I know what you're talking about. I think about the Spider-Man guy pretty often because he's not just like. The one where you, do you see the one where you broke character? I did not see that one. Oh, my God.

We'll have to talk offline. We'll have to talk offline. It's amazing. But I love his because he's not just like reacting to the TikTok gifts that he receives, but he's saying like Spider-Man things. Like, ooh, this city is really seeing some dark times, you know? I really miss my aunt. Yeah.

Like maybe that's a reaction to this, like, constant surveillance vibe of people, you know, wanting to put themselves out there and choosing how they show up. I don't know. Well, I do think that everybody deserves the right to choose how they show up. I think about this a lot because, like, I am someone who leaves my house looking pretty bummy a lot of the time. and if someone got a video of me when I was out and about just trying to get a cup of coffee

not looking my best which is often I would be horrified if somebody took a picture of me like suggesting something about me that wasn't true just based on a glance of me I just think that it invites us to boil people people who are complex beings

into like flatten them into a character based on a 10-second, like, observation of them out on the street, which I don't think, I think that we should be resisting. Yeah. And like you said, it's just going out in public should not mean an invitation to be recorded and made a character in somebody else's, like, story or account, especially when it's an account that they are monetizing as an influencer.

It's so easy to project onto people. And it's worth interrogating, like, what are these stories that we. project onto them. Like, I remember I saw this thing a little bit ago online. Somebody posted a photo of a woman reading a book at a bar. She was sitting at the bar reading her book. And the caption was something with the effect of like, ooh, look at this pick me, like, trying to act all smart and, like, sit at the bar and read her book. And the person who was in the photo responded. And she was like, first of all, that photo was from like several years ago. So whoever took this, without my consent, they've just been sitting on this photo for years

and chosen to circulate it now. And I was waiting for my friend who was the bartender to get off her shift. Like, I would go there a lot, I would hang out. And so it just says so much that somebody like chose to post that photo and chose to be like, oh, look at this pick me, this, you know, vapid, pathetic woman. Also, it's wild to me in that story that people assume automatically that this woman is pretending to read

or is like performatively reading because she wants to look a certain way in public. Projecting that, I feel like that can only come from someone who has done that and is like deeply insecure about it. Some people are just genuinely enjoying reading. Like, yeah, you don't have to

project all kinds of weird stuff and her just going to a bar and bringing a book does not, like she's not consenting to be a character in this fan fiction that you've written about her, about how she's a pick-mee trying to look deep at the bar, when in reality she's like, I was just waiting for my friend.

I can't read a book, damn. Yeah, people love projecting stuff onto others. Okay, so speaking of projection, we have, we cannot have this conversation without talking about the pinnacle of internet projection and projecting things onto strangers. You might not, you're not very, online, Mike. So you might not have seen this. This is a story that I followed, like, relentlessly. You might not have seen it. Do the words West Elm Caleb mean anything to you?

Oh, they do. Yeah. I know this story. Tell me what you know. You don't know this story. Now you're on the spot and you don't actually know. Tell me what you know. Okay. Well, let me give it a shot. Now that I'm feeling surveilled. You're double surveilled. You're surveilled in the fishbowl of this recording studio and you're surveilled because I'm putting you on blast. Okay. Uh, So West Elm Caleb was a guy who lived in New York. He would, like, go out on dates, and he was not a good date. He was, like, disrespectful to the women that he was dating. I feel like he was not, like, abusive or violent or anything, but just, like, would, like, you know, hook up and then not call them, like, that kind of thing.

Okay, so I am genuinely surprised. Like, I don't know who filled you in on West Elm Caleb, or if one of the same. I'm not around to like, bet, like, bore you with internet stories if you're actually, like, following TikTok and, like, you know all the drama. You're like, here's what the girlies are up to you. You actually know all of it in great detail. I know some things. You know some things.

Okay, well, that was more or less right. So West Elm, Caleb, he was this guy in New York City. He worked as a furniture designer at the furniture store West Elm. He, yeah, basically just like you said, he was on hinge. He is like a, like, like, 6'4. He has a mustache, furniture designer. Basically, his whole thing was matching on Hinge. Yeah, just generally, like, not being a good date,

telling women like, oh, you're the first person I've dated from Hing, gone on a date was from Hinge, when, like, in reality, he was, like, Hinge dating at the fuck up. But another thing that they said is that he would make up, he had a Spotify playlist that he would send and be like, hey, I made this playlist for you. And really, he was sending it to all the women. Basically, this guy, it sounds like he was, like,

doing a, like a hinge date numbers game where he was like, I'm trying to like get with as many women as I can. So I'm just going to like go on as many dates as I can. And the main thing that I think caused this to be like a story that we're talking about now is that he, they accused him of like love bombing, that he would text them lots of complimentary stuff. Be like, oh, I like you so much. I'm so serious about this.

I want to be serious with you, blah, blah, blah. And then goes to them, which, Isn't cool? Like, you know, is it a good way to date? No, it's a, it's lying, right? It's saying things that aren't true to get what you want in a sexual way. Like, that's not cool. That's gross.

It's not cool. So I want to be clear that I'm not saying that West Elm Caleb's dating behavior is great. And I can tell you one thing. If he ghosted a friend of mine, you can bet your ass that you would hear me, overhear me talking so much crap about him at brunch. If he did this to a friend of mine, absolutely. but the internet came for Caleb in this completely over-the-top way. They made him the, he was like the internet villain for a week.

They published his full first and last name and his workplace. The dating app Kepler even made a billboard that reads red flags, 6-4, mustache, furniture designer, in an obvious reference to Caleb's dating profile. So I think people got very invested in the West Elm Caleb saga because it was like a live action in real-time movie plot. Like, if you've ever seen that movie, John Tucker must die, it kind of seemed like that movie where, you know, three or four girls from like different walks of life.

Like that athlete girl, the cool girl, the nerd girl, all come together when they realize that they're dating the same guy and John Tucker is playing all of them, and they overcome their differences to, like, come together and, you know, get revenge on him. I love that movie. I love that plot. I love that as a trope. However, and I get how what, feeling like you're using the Internet to watch this play out in real time is, like, very satisfying.

But here's the thing. We shouldn't be treating real people navigating their real lives, like characters in a movie playing out for us because that's not what's happening. These are strangers, people that we don't know, and projecting them and casting them into this like movie plot that we've, that we've cooked up with them as the main characters isn't really that healthy. Yeah, it's definitely not. You know, people didn't sign up for that. And even if it feels good, like an act of justice in the case of West Elm Caleb, if you're someone who finds his behavior, like particularly egregious and feels that women in Manhattan, like, needed to be warned.

That's... It's still, like you said, like taking ordinary people and making their lives, like, characters in a movie and projecting onto it in a way that is, like, part of a pattern that's not serving all of us. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guide. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert.

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I'll bet you a paramedipausal chin here you do. So let's talk about it. Join me on my new podcast. How hard can it be with the Adamia Riva, where I call on my Gen X squads from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate midlife's most fantastic BS. All of a sudden, I'd had hanginess happening on my own. I was like, what the hell is that?

I was married when I had her, so I didn't even consider how empty that nest was going to be. Suit swings, night sweats, fupas, sex drive. Wait, what sex? Dating at 45. How hard can it be getting naked at 50 with the new guy? That one's kind of hard. Well, that's lighting.

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, and dive into it, unfiltered and unbothered and ask, how hard can it be? I cannot believe I'm about to say this out loud in public. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva as part of my Culturata Podcast Network available on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. I found this really interesting.

All of the different instances that we've talked about in this episode have all taken place on the platform TikTok, not Facebook, not Instagram, TikTok. And I think that is not by accident. And a piece for Wired, Mark Hill argues that TikTok is actually the platform that lends itself most to this kind of thing because the platform really, lies on a kind of digital world building and digital collaborative play. And that, you know, when we were all young, we had dolls to act out dramas on when we were kids, you know, projecting these like made-up dramas and motivations onto like dolls is how we played

as kids. As adult, we basically do the same thing, but instead of dolls, we have real people via TikTok. In the 2020 paper, TikTok and the algorithmized sub. Well, researchers argue the platform is different from other social networking sites because it's less about connecting with a network of friends and more a site for public performance heavily built on interpersonal engagement while creating content for a trending algorithm. While similarly egocentric and concerned with the performance and management of self-identity, TikTok rewrites the mechanisms of this process

through a design that guides users in a different direction than other social media sites, they write. Essentially, it's a digital sandbox that invites make-believe. The unplanned back-and-forth motion between creators makes the app an incredible social media playground. TikTok users play and perform in simulated characters and settings. This video creation app is an escape from reality. So this really goes back to what you were saying about the non-player characters and sort of how people are looking for this escape from reality. And like performing that, TikTok is a specifically good place for that kind of performance. And I think that's why we see TikTok becoming this platform where it's so easy to project entire worlds or attitudes or motivations or whatever onto strangers.

We are the surveilled right now, but we love it. For those of you listening at home, Bridget is connecting with a fan outside the booth. Fan might be strong. I'm sure she's just heard of this podcast list like Pass Her By might be more accurate. But I'll take it. I'll take what I can get. But, you know, we signed up for this. No, I love it.

This is, I love it. I'm loving it. Taking a little pick right now. We're cutting all of this out in the real episode. Don't worry. No one will ever hear this. It'll just be you, Mike, the producer on the other end, who I'm sure is like, please stop.

You know, I'm not people. But yeah, so, I mean, it actually is like, it's fitting for the episode about what it feels like to be hyper surveilled. I'm actually kind of enjoying this, but I signed up for this. I knew coming here, I was going to be, like, surveilled and looked at by people while I was podcasting. I knew that was what I was going to be getting into.

That'd be totally different if I was just waking up, walking to get a coffee, or trying to online date and doing it badly and doing it, you know, like a little bit of a louse. I don't think that you're necessarily should be signing up to have the way that you behave in these situations be blasted to the entire internet. I'll tell you another example that I saw. I saw this example where a woman had matched with somebody on a dating site

and they sent her this, I thought it was charming. I would have texted this guy back, but he sent her this voice note that basically made him sound, if I'm being honest, it made him sound like kind of my type, like kind of maybe a little bit

he sounded like a human equivalent of a golden retriever, kind of like eager and dumb, which is definitely my type. It's a type. And so basically he leaves this like voice note that is very nice, but it's like, hey, so I just want to leave you a voice note.

I yeah, I just like liked your vibe thought you had a cool vibe I would love to take you out maybe we can get a macha yeah if you're into that I just got back from an art show

you like art let's go see some art and get some matcha all right peace and basically this guy sounded stupid you would date that guy oh my god you have no idea

what my we've not really talked about it you have no idea what my dating history is like that I would have called him back with the quickness. I would have gone to see art and gotten matcha with him, for sure. The art would have been so bad.

It would have been so bad, and his opinions about it would have been bad. I'm not saying this guy was goddamn or Albert Einstein or anything. I'm just saying, like, he sent an earnest, sweet voice note. And her and her friends, basically, they made a TikTok where they were kind of reenacting the voice notes. They were playing his voice note, and they were lip-sinking to it while, like, doing a little like funny bit and that was their TikTok. And I get that that's funny and I get that like dating is hard.

But I also think that if somebody is genuinely trying to connect with you, even if you're not interested, blasting him on the internet for his genuine, non-creepy, non-scummy, non-abusive voice note to you, I don't think it's very cool. Yeah. It feels mean. But I guess it does kind of highlight that there's kind of a gray area, I guess. I follow this Instagram account Tinder date disasters or something. Oh, no.

And it's bad. And it's like, it's mainly men sending, like, really offensive bad messages. And it's funny to see them dunked on. But there's, you know, this story makes me think that there's, I don't know, a continuum from, like, really bad, worthy of being blasted to the internet to, like, just kind of silly and maybe dopey. and like we could have some fun making fun of it, but maybe that is mean? Well, so, oh, God, it's complicated. I agree with you, right?

I think that dating, particularly online dating, is a hellscape. I think that people will say growth, messed up things to you. I don't really have a problem with those people being aired out. Like, if you send some, like, untoward stuff to somebody, I think that, like, you get what you get. But if someone is just sending you, like, a earnest, message of trying to connect with you, I think that online dating, you are automatically in a little

bit of a vulnerable place. And if you're coming to try to connect with somebody in a real way, even if you're not interested, I think it's one thing to make fun of the message with your friends, the group chat. It's another thing to make a public TikTok. Like, I don't know anybody in this TikTok and I saw this. It's like, why was that necessary? But I do think that your point highlights how complicated online connection and online dating is in this day. and age. I think that like people have to put up with a lot of behavior that maybe doesn't rise to like being abusive, but doesn't feel good. Like it doesn't feel good to be ghosted. I got ghosted once and I hated it, right? Like it doesn't feel good. Once? I mean. How many times they've been ghosted? Oh, it was just like not a thing that I would count. That was just like par for the course with online dating. Oh my God. I. Maybe it's me. Oh, I don't think it's me

So I mean I've heard different ghost philosophies that like Some people say You know if we just like match on Tinder I don't owe you I don't owe you being like hey I don't want to meet up This is like I don't owe you that message

I don't know how I feel I haven't online dated enough To like have a real opinion about this I believe that like If you I don't know I don't even want to say like I've only been ghosted once And it stuck with me

And I it was it was It stuck with me enough that I was like, you, you, you, it's a five minute text. It's like, hey, it's not working out. Good luck. You know. Yeah, I guess, you know, so I haven't been online dating in years, but back when I was, it kind of was a numbers game.

And like, I didn't want some sort of long, drawn out explanation of like why it wasn't going to go on. Just, yeah, like, don't write back. I get the message. So you're fine with being ghosted. Yeah, I mean, with like a. casual thing. It would be different if it was like, we've gone out several times and then all of a sudden

you disappeared. That would be a different thing. But like, you know, we go out once or maybe like don't even go out once, right? Because like on, you know, you match with somebody on Tinder, you exchange some text messages and then they just like stop replying, right? Like message received. Well, I guess if that's your definition of ghosting, maybe I have ghosts in some people. Yeah, maybe it's just a difference of definition.

I think that's true. But I guess my point is that. But like... What was the one that stuck with you? The time that I had concrete plans to meet at a specific place, at a specific time. And I went there, and not only does this person not show up, they didn't have the courtesy of texting me to tell me that they weren't going to show up. That was a ghosting that sticks with me because I was like, you could have texted that you're not going to come. And get this, this motherfucker had the nerve to text me a couple weeks later, like, hey, what are you up to?

guess who didn't reply? Me. Anyway, my point is that I think that navigating online dating especially is really complex and it's like full of feelings that don't feel good, vulnerability putting yourself out there. And I think that that can lead to this feeling

where people feel like it's okay to make public what is said to them in the context of online dating. I think if somebody is being abusive or awful or be on the pale, absolutely. But someone just being like a bit dopey, like, whatever happened to just talking shit with your friends, you know, whatever happened to like, just like making fun of somebody in the

group text, you got to make a TikTok? You got to bring me into this, a stranger who doesn't even know anybody involved in this? Yeah, maybe, maybe like the existential question there is like, what do we owe strangers? Like, is a stranger fair game for, you know, talk, about in public because we're just strangers. Like, I'm essentially a member of the public to them. But then again, if we have an interaction, we're no longer strangers, and maybe we do owe something. You're listening to There Are No Girls on the Internet, live at the IHeart podcast studio,

powered by Bose at the House of Music at IHeart Music Festival. And we were just talking about what we owe strangers, and why so many times it seems like these dramas and situations involving people we do. don't even know get served to us on platforms like TikTok. And one thing that is interesting is that I do think that TikTok has some unique features as a platform that make this kind of everyday people tabloid content that we're talking about really take off.

The language that is used on the platform and has really been normalized on the platform, I'm talking about things like story time, or if you are so-and-so and you live in such and such, listen up because I just heard your friends, da-da-da-da-da. Like there's a certain kind of, language or, you know, way of speaking on TikTok that I think triggers our brain into thinking that we have a kind of faux intimacy. And that just gets your brains like wanting to hear that like juicy gossip.

Like it gets your like gossip center and your brain kind of tingling. Yeah, faux intimacy. That feels right. I feel like there's something there. I can't tell you how many times I've been up late, really inventing. in a story about people that I've never met, that I will never met, in a place and a part of the world that I don't live in, that I've never even visited, that I'm like, I got to find what happened, I need to know. And it's like, yeah, it's like a faux intimacy. Why do I feel like I should be this in, like, why should I be this invested in the, in the dramas of people that I don't know? So as Dr. Denton points out, TikTok's storytelling practices mimic exclusive reports, hot takes, and cliffhanger media. TikTokers dangle tantalizing bits of stories in front of viewers with caveats like

like for part two or by serializing their content. These stories then take on lives of their own becoming culturally embedded memes. And I'm sure if folks listening are on TikTok when somebody says, it's telling a story and you're invested in it, and then they're like, oh, I'm running out of time, I'm going to do a part two. And you're like, oh, well, that was a letdown.

I'm like you don't get that, whatever that brain thing is that happens when you get a story completed, you don't get. And I think that TikTokers on the platform specifically are like using that, keep serializing stories and keeping us invested. And that's one way that TikTok is specifically well poised to get us all invested in the dramas of strangers. And of course, the more of this content that we consume, the more we're training algorithms, that that is the kind of content that we want to see and engage with. It's this cycle where we are the never-ended surveyor and also surveilled. And that is my big point, that most of the content relies on projecting these stories

onto strangers. The more that we consume that kind of content, engage with that kind of content, and normalize that kind of content, the more we are going to be trained to, like, see the world in this way when we're out and about, right? The more we're going to see, like, when we see an older woman out enjoying a movie, we're going to think, oh, not only is it normal, but it might be sweet and wholesome to, like, whip out my phone and get a video of her without her consent and blast it to the whole internet, right? I think that the more that we consume this content, the more we normalize this cycle,

the cycle of us being both the surveilled and the surveyor. It invites us to see strangers as characters in worlds that we have built in our heads and putting that on the internet for thousands to feed into as well. But people don't exist to be unwitting characters in the fictionalized dramas that people cook up for them. That is not how the world works. We are all just trying to get through the fucking day. Speaking of getting through the day, you know, that's something that has helped me get

through this complicated podcast taping in the I-Heart, podcast studio here at the I Heart Music Festival. I could think of a couple things. Are you talking about these amazing Bose headphones that we're wearing? Why do I think you were going to be like, is it the gin and tonic that you had before the taping? Yeah, I'm talking about the Bose headphones. These things are nice.

These are definitely a step-up from what I usually use. And I was a little bit skeptical of their noise-canceling qualities, but these really canceled the noise. like, we're at a music festival, the bass is pumping, but I can only really hear myself clear and loud. They are great. Chin up, shoulders back, music blasting. Press play and take charge of the music

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Talk about shutting out the world. We are shutting out a loud music festival to focus on this podcast, and Bose has given us the ability to do that. So thank you, Bose. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoady.com.

You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangooty.com. 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. Taray Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.

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

Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Street or Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14, season of Family Secrets. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move, and he went out the front

door and he jumped in a car and drove off, and that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program.

Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.