There Are No Girls on the Internet - Karoline Leavit’s lip filler in Vanity Fair; Man Arrested for Charlie Kirk Meme; Heated Rivalry; WaPo AI slop – NEWS ROUNDUP

Episode Date: December 20, 2025

Bridget and Producer Mike cover the week's tech news that you might have missed in this final News Roundup of 2025. Vanity Fair Goes to the White House, takes some unflattering photos https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/vanity-fair-goes-to-the-white-house-trump-2-edition Washington Post releases an AI-generated podcast. It's filled with errors and hallucinations. https://www.semafor.com/article/12/11/2025/washington-posts-ai-generated-podcasts-rife-with-errors-fictional-quotes Meta arbitrarily shuts down hundreds of accounts over reproductive and queer content. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/11/meta-shuts-down-global-accounts-linked-to-abortion-advice-and-queer-content  Tennessee man jailed for 37 days for refusing to take down a Facebook post critical of Trump in the days after Charlie Kirk's assassination. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-larry-bushart-arrest-charlie-kirk/86313013007/ Bridget loves the new Netflix show Heated Rivalry, which bucks the trend of "casual viewing" in streaming. hfilm.com/2043077/canada-heated-rivalry-destroys-worst-trend-american-streaming-tv/ If you’re listening on Spotify, you can leave a comment there to let us know what you thought about these stories, or email us at [e-mail] Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media!  ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet || bsky.app/profile/tangoti.bsky.socialSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as, Castro 1021. And I'm Kunky, his best friend and business manager. And we've got a new show called The 1021 podcast. I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers. We also love sports. And with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA.

Listen to the 1021 podcast 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. Welcome to There Are No Girls on the Internet, where we explore the intersection of technology, social media, and identity. And this is another installment of our weekly news roundup where we dig into all the stories that you might have missed on the Internet so you don't have to. I cannot wait to talk to you about that Vanity Fair article and spread. all I can really say is woof.

Let's talk about it. First of all, did you see it? Did you see the Fadity Fair Spread and accompanying article? I did, and I was blown away by both of them. The article and the stuff that Susie Wiles was saying was wild. I don't know how that happened. And then also, like seemingly separately, those photos were also I don't even know what the adjective is.

Like disturbing, I guess. I can't imagine that any of the subjects of those photos were happy with what they saw. What were your thoughts about it? Before I even get into the photos, because that's really what I want to talk about, the fact that Susie Wiles said, I mean, some of the things that she said about Elon Musk,

he's an avowed ketamine user who sleeps in a sleeping bag in the executive office building adjacent to the White House, else, you know, he's an odd duck, he's not helpful, this and that. And then her saying, I never said that. I would never say that about Elon Musk. I don't know if he uses drugs. And then they're being like, oh, really? Because we got it on tape.

Here's a recording of you saying it. I reject the idea that somebody who is as seasoned as Susie Wiles would not know that this would be recorded. Like my understanding is that this profile was almost a year. in the making 11 months. I have to imagine that she is thinking that they have some sort of backup to confirm what they've said. So her just quickly going to disavow and distance herself from those words was really, I'm not even sure what to make of it.

I've heard different takes from different political and media insiders, but to this day, I'm not sure what that was. Yeah, and you and I talked about it because she didn't just have unhelpful things to say about Elon Musk, because she talked about. a lot of people, including J.D. Vance, you know, she had some unflattering things to say about him and other people in the administration. And once the story came out, like you said, she seemed to try to deny some of it, and then that didn't work because they had recordings. And then she made a big deal about, like, there was additional context and things were taken out of context,

like really trying to distance herself from things that seemed like they were direct quotes. from her and it's really puzzling like how she as someone who has been in politics like and not just politics adjacent but like bare knuckles knees deep in politics for decades how she could let this happen is really baffling my personal theory

is that it's hubris and it's just like from being in the White House with Trump in a culture of sycophancy and flattery, it like poisoned her mind and she let her guard down around this reporter, I guess. I don't know, it's a little hard to believe, but the whole thing is difficult to believe. Yes, and let's talk about the photos.

My favorite comparison that I've seen about the photos is, I know you don't watch this show, but the episode of Sex and the City, when Carrie is out all night hanging out and partying with her friends the day before she's meant to be at New York Mag to shoot a cover photo and she shows up late to the shoot.

She's hung over. She doesn't put out of makeup. And so she's sitting for what she is told artist's test shots that they're not going to use. But then she sees the cover and she thought the cover was going to say single and fabulous exclamation point. But the photo they use on the cover is hideous and it says single and fabulous question mark.

That is the only comparison that I can make here. That's a good comparison. I have not seen that show, but man, what a difference punctuation can make, huh? Seriously. So nobody's photos in this thing look good. Everybody looks bad. I think Rubio, there's a photo of Rubio that you clearly understand that the argument being made, the visual argument being made by the photos, the way that they're staged.

It's not just that the people in them don't look good, which they don't. It is a set of photos that is clearly making a claim and an argument about the lack of leadership in the White House. Like, staging someone where they're standing defiant next to an empty chair, but the chair is posed in such a way where the eye goes right to the empty chair. And it just really makes it, it just, you cannot look at these pictures and not, instantly get the point that they are trying to make visually. I guess I'll put it that way.

Like there are all these stances meant to telegraph leadership, yet there's visible cords plugged in behind them and like mismatched, askew lampshades right beside them. Just really, nobody looks good here.

That photo of Rubio that you mentioned, the angles are strange. And like, he's not a tall guy. I'm not a tall guy either, right? But like, he's a pretty, pretty short guy on a team with like a bunch of big tall guys who are into being tall I guess and the angles make him look extra short and he's like looking down it is it's almost like a disturbing photo to look at it's like a portrait of dejection or something I don't even know

it's like an artful photo it's like it's shot through a one house mirror lens or something. So the photo that really everybody is talking about is the one of Caroline Levitt. It is a lot of the photos are taken with this super close up stance, so like very, very close. Nobody looks good in pictures like that, so nobody looks good. But one of the pieces of her photo that's really been making the rounds online is the fact that it's so close up that you can see around her lips, what are, I think pretty clearly injection sites, like she gets lip fillers. I want to be careful with what I have to say here.

First of all, I don't begrudge anybody getting filler, any kind of cosmetic procedure, plastic surgery. I don't want anybody thinking that I'm shaming people who opt to get that kind of stuff done. I think it's great. I'm happy that we live in a time where people have those kinds of choices available to them. However, I have been frankly sort of surprised by how many people, and especially women, are like, rushing to defend Carolina leave it. I completely get it. I think that it's a totally gendered thing where women are more likely to be dragged for their looks, for aging, for our weight, especially professional women. It is absolutely a gendered thing, and I don't think it's like good when we live in a culture that shames women for these things.

But I do wonder if we've kind of lost the forest for the trees of when we just blanket, say, no one is allowed to talk about the looks and physical features of anybody else, right? I think that, you know, I've seen a lot of women say, oh, well, it's anti-feminist to talk about injection sites around her lips in this photo that were visible. And I'm just not so sure about that. I think it's, I mean, it's something that came up on our episode around Taylor Swift. I think that we've sort of, it's very kind of easy to rebrand feminism as feminism is never saying a mean thing to a woman. And that's not really what it's about, I think. So this is my opinion.

I get that it might be unpopular and I genuinely want feedback. I want to hear what people think. But one, I think for the vast majority of people, not everyone, but for most people, cosmetic procedures are voluntary. On another podcast on the co-host of Citicast, D.C., all about sort of what's happening in D.C., we did a whole episode about the rise of what we call Mar-a-Lago face in D.C. How people who are part of Trump's world, both men and women, are getting specific types of plastic surgery because that's what everybody in Trump world looks like, right? So men are getting jaw implants and chin implants to give them more sort of square jaw lines. women are getting facelifts and getting stuffed under their eyebrows and lifts. And, you know, there was a time where plastic surgery was something that you would want to look natural

and you would want people to look at you and think, you know, maybe you didn't get plastic surgery. But that's not, these people are intentionally doing a different thing. You know, if you look at people like Matt Gates, like there are people who, when you look at them, the first thing you see is that, oh, you've had plastic surgery, right? And so I think for me, when we're talking about voluntary cosmetic procedures, in my opinion, that's very different than something like a physical feature that somebody can't control, right? Their race, their height, their weight, all different kinds of things where it's like, oh, you're born this way, you can't control it. It's how you are. To me, leave it going to a med spa and getting lip injections and paying for them.

That's not something she can't control. Quite the opposite. That's a voluntary procedure that she paid for. And I think especially when you layer that into what I was just talking about, the way that specific physical attributes have been weaponized and prized and explicitly talked about by this administration in the way that they are making policy decisions and deciding who gets to be involved in policy decisions, I think that's worth talking about. I also think these are people who believe in like their racial and genetic superiority.

above the racial and genetic superiority of other people, people like me, right? And so that being part of their ideological framework, I think the way that they physically present and the choices that they make around their physical presentation is like fair game to be part of that conversation. You make a compelling point, Bridget. These people talk about people's physical appearances all the time. You made a great point before we started recording that Trump has explicitly said things like, oh, I want my cabinet to look straight out of central casting and things like this.

He, the administration very explicitly is using physicality and the way people look and cosmetic procedures in a certain kind of way. And I just, I don't think that anybody should be shamed for the way that they look. However, I do think that, you know, in an administration that has talked about this in this way, I think it's, It behooves us to look at that. And I obviously don't love tearing into a woman for her looks. A move, by the way, leave it herself defended when Trump called a female journalist a pig. But I just think that when we blanket say, talking about someone's cosmetic procedures is not fair game, we're not allowed to talk about any of the other stuff that directly ties into how our country is being run by whom.

Yeah, it's a good point. And it is a complicated thing, you know, as. a man. I'm pretty I've gotten the memo that I shouldn't be commenting on women in politics looks

but you make a great point that they have brought this into the conversation. Trump brings it up all the time a lot of Maga types like you said are into racial superiority, racial superiority, racial comparison.

you know, it's, they've brought it into the conversation. And it's, it's a tricky thing because, like, I certainly wouldn't want the, the bar for the conversation to be set by Donald Trump, who is, like, one of the worst humans I've personally ever known about existing. But, like, Caroline Leavitt is carrying water for him every day. and like you said, backing him up when he calls reporters pigs or disparages other reporters.

It's often reporters, and it's often black women reporters. And so they've made appearance part of the conversation. Right. When asked about calling a female journalist a pig, Leverett said, oh, well, I think that we all know that Trump calls it like it is.

he calls it like he sees it. He tells the truth. And it's like, okay, so if that's the case, we can't tell the truth about the fact that you've got visible injection sites, visible in this image. And I will say this is, this is just an aside. Part of my beef with it is a makeup choice. Because if you have injection sites and you're getting a photo taken, why are you wearing translucent lip gloss? Wear a matte dark lip. That was my big. And we've already had confirmation that each of the subjects, they did their own styling, costuming, and makeup. So it wasn't like vanity fair, put her and a translucent lip gloss and have her looking crazy

with those injection sites showing. That was her choice. And it's also not like they went in to photograph her in her office in the back of the White House or something. It's like her job is to be up on the podium

talking to the press every day. She's arguably one of the most photographed people in the government. And the idea that someone taking a photo of her would be inappropriate or unethical. I'm not even sure what the complaint is. I guess unethical is the complaint that like the photographer shouldn't have taken that photo. I guess you were telling, you were showing me some

discourse online that people were suggesting that the photographer should have airbrushed it or like use Photoshop or AI to hide those injection sites, right? And that seems ridiculous to think that a photographer for an independent journalistic outfit is going to touch up photos to hide what is real and instead present a fantastical presentation to their readers. Like that doesn't sound like good journalism. So the photographer Christopher Anderson answered exactly that in an interview with Shane O'Neill from the post.

O'Neill asked Anderson for his response to people who thought the photos were unfair, specifically mentioning the photo of Leave It and, quote, what appeared to be injection sites. Anderson said, I didn't put the injection sites on her. People seem to be shocked that I didn't use Photoshop to retouch out blemishes and her injection marks. I find it shocking that someone would expect me to retouch those things. That's the makeup that Leavitt puts on. those are the injections she gave herself. If they show up in a photo, what do you want me to say?

Which I have to say, iconic. If you can see them, they were there. She put them there. I didn't tell them to put them there. What do you want for me? So he goes on to say, Vanity Fair is a magazine that has its feet in two worlds, right? One is the journalism world and one is the celebrity entertainment machine.

Obviously, celebrity portraits on the cover of Vanity Fair are not really about journalism in the way that you and I think about journalism. But then there's the other side of Vanity Fair, which is real journalism. I'm surprised that a journalist would even need to ask me the question of why didn't I retouch out the blemishes? Because if I had, that would be a lie. I would be hiding the truth of what I saw there. And that is exactly what you're saying that, you know, I think that people maybe forget that photojournalists are journalists. And why he's not a Kinseniera photographer. He's not a glamour shot photographer. It is not his job to make her look her best.

It is his job to visually communicate the truth that was in that room, which I think he did quite well, frankly. Yeah, I mean, clearly it is the truth, right? Like, clearly, her lips do have those many regular injection sites along them. It's a disturbing photo, honestly. I mean, you know, I guess you let off this segment saying that people should feel free to get whatever cosmetic surgery they want. And certainly they should. you know, but like she didn't look good in that photo. Kind of kind of kind of wonder about the choice.

Well, that's what I'm saying. I think the fact that so many people who are in Trump's orbit make cosmetic procedure choices that come off this way is worth talking about. And just a day ago, the House passed a bill criminalizing gender reforming care for minors. And I cannot not see these things as related. Lip injections are gender affirming care. I avail myself of gender affirming care.

I'm sure plenty of our listeners avail themselves of gender affirming care. People in the Trump administration talk about the gender affirming care that they make use of all the time. Right. And so I'm not going to play this game where we don't talk about the fact that leave it is getting lip injections as she should if that's her choice while making it so that minors, some of the most marginalized and vulnerable among us, cannot avail themselves of the gender affirming care that they need. And let's not forget when we're talking about trans use, oftentimes that care is life-saving and is critical. And I think that expecting a dynamic where the gender affirming care of others is endlessly scrutinized, endlessly weaponized, but theirs, it's not polite to even bring up. I won't have it. I won't have it. That's not a dynamic that I think is one that will serve us well. So while I understand where folks are coming from when they say it's not good to talk about her injections, and her looks and all of that.

I totally get it. I think ultimately, if you follow that thread while they are doing the exact same thing to the most marginalized and vulnerable among us, they are creating a dynamic where it's uncivilized for us

to give them any scrutiny. And the scrutiny they're getting is, sorry, your injection sites are visible on this photograph in Vanity Fair. Like that's not even a criticism. It's just truth. It's just reality of what's happening per our eyes.

Yeah. Yeah. It reminds us. to me, I know I told you about this. I read this anecdote that Trump regularly will use scotch tape to tape the small end to the big end of his neckties. And then I googled it. Y'all, if you Google it, there's photographic evidence that he does in fact do this. I think there is something about the idea when somebody who you're being told is like a genius is genetically superior, all of these things shows up with their necktie scotch tape together in the White House. And then it's like a test of whether or not you're going to say any. or whether or not you're going to laugh at them or whether or not you're going to be like get a load of this guy. Like that's what I feel like we're asking. We're being asked to do.

You know what I'm saying? I can't. There is nobody in this world that I could see who I'm being told is very important and more important than me and smarter than me. If they showed up with their necktie scotch tape together, that I would not be like, you look like a moron right now. Do you not see how you look? That's so comical, just picturing like, I don't even have to picture it.

Yeah. I could pull up the photos. there they are, he's got tape holding his tie to itself. It's like something a childish buffoon would do, or rather a buffoonish child. Yeah. I just wanted to quickly mention a couple two more things about the photographer who took these photos.

So he said that of all the people that he photographed, that Stephen Miller was sort of the most concerned about how he was going to look. And he says that when they were finished, Miller came up to me and said, you know, you have a lot of power. and the discretion you use to be kind to someone in your photographs, Anderson recalled. And I look at him and I said, you know, you do too. I don't know how much he related to that, Anderson added, which I feel like says so much

that it's like, I have power and how I relate somebody in photography. So do you. You have a lot of power and discretion to be kind. And the fact that that was apparently lost on Stephen Miller, not for nothing, he looks ghoulish in his oh no yeah but we knew that I mean of course

he's going to look like a ghoul he is a ghoul he regularly feasts on human flesh to nourish the dark cravings within him I mean that's just that's just the kind of guy

Stephen Miller is so of course he's going to look awful I don't really have a seamless transition but I just came across this anecdote from threads about the photographer who took those pictures and it really struck me, so I have to share.

I found this from Derek Guy, who you might know as die workwear on threads and on social media. He says, in 2020, 44 Haitian refugees boarded a small handmade boat they called Believe in God and tried to set sail for the U.S. Somewhere along the journey, the boat began to sink, but they were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard. Toward the end, some of the men were so dehydrated

that they drifted in and out of consciousness unable to stand. On that boat was Magnum photographer Christopher Anderson, who, 25 years later, took a photo of Stephen Miller for Vanity Fair. Anderson took the photos in the final moments when everyone on the boat thought they were going to die. This is what he had to say about that experience. Quote, a couple of days into our journey, the boat began to sink. We were doomed and we knew it. We started saying goodbye to one another.

Strangely, it was quite calm on the boat. There was not much to do except resign oneself to the inevitability of it all. Up to that point, I had not taken many pictures. Everyone on the boat knew I was a photographer, but it somehow had not felt right. It's difficult to explain. But as the boat sank, David, the Haitian whom I'd followed on this journey, said to me, Chris, you better start making pictures. We only have an hour to live.

And so, without much thought, I began making pictures. We were saved at the last moment by a U.S. Coast Guard cutter that happened upon us, but that's another story. Much later on, back home safe, I reflected on this question. Why make pictures that no one will ever see? The only explanation for me was that the act of photographing had more to do with the explaining of the world to myself than explaining something to someone else.

The pictures were about communicating something about my experience, not about reporting literal information. This would be the single most transformative moment of my photographic life. It's a pretty deep thoughts about photography. I just wanted to share that because I think, especially in the age of Photoshop and airbrushing and AI and manicured images,

it's just a good reminder of the power of photographs and why we take photographs. And I think the fact that these Vanity Fair images got, they really struck a nerve and really struck a cord with people just shows how powerful they are. And the importance of having a press that's not going to be afraid, that's going to be fearless and not feel like they have to communicate a lie. when it's a medium about communicating some larger truth,

even if not in a literal sense. Yeah, I love that. You know, thinking about photography and, I guess, journalism writ large, but specifically photography as a tool for understanding the world and communicating truth. It's kind of beautiful. Let's take a quick break.

Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from 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 you're, Parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right?

That's the name. The Harvard Yard, but 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 Smygel 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 thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, 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 iHeart Advertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying,

and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions,

the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the... highlight reel. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok.

Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kier Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross,

because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth, or are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines,

as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free, our heart radio app. Search, learn the hard way, and listen now. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On hurdle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness,

professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't belong. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it.

An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladecki. The ability to show gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile that means the world to me and that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level at this scale like being able to

fail in front of the entire world like I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports.

And we're back. Well, on the flip side of the possible authenticity of media, let's talk about what's happening at my hometown paper, The Washington Post, owned by Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos, because they are really continuing their race to the bottom. And this time, it's their podcasts. So CMO4 has this juicy report into what the Post is calling, their, quote, personalized AI podcasts. Earlier this week, the post said they were rolling out

these personalized AI-generated podcasts for their mobile app. The idea here is that using AI, listeners could pick their preferred topics and their preferred AI hosts and sort of make their own podcast. Quote, they could shape their own briefing, select their topics, set their lengths, pick their hosts, and soon even ask questions using Ask the Post AI technology. And how is that going for the post?

In the words of Durenda Medley from Real Housewives of New York, can you guess? Not well, bitch. Not well, bitch. This is from Seymophore. Less than 48 hours since the product was released, people within the post have flagged what four sources described as multiple mistakes in personalized podcasts. The errors have ranged from relatively minor pronunciation gaps to significant changes to story content, like misattributing or inventing quotes and inserting commentary,

such as interpreting a source's quotes as, the paper's position on an issue. Even that journalists from within the paper are cringing about this. According to four people familiar with the situation, the errors have alarmed senior newsroom leaders who have acknowledged in their internal Slack channel that the product's output is not living up to the paper's standards. In a message to other staffers shared with Seymohor, head of standards Karen Pinsero wrote that the errors have been frustrating for us all. It is truly astonishing that this was ever allowed to go forward at all, one post editor wrote on Slack. Never would I have imagined that the post would deliberately warp its own journalism and then push these errors out to our audience

at scale and just days after the White House put up a site dedicated to attacking journalists, most notably our own, including for stories with corrections or editor's notes attached. If we were serious, we would pull this tool immediately. Yeah, pretty big L for the post And just being in the podcast sort of media game, I do know that the Post has really been trying to compete with other papers of like comparable size and stature when it comes to audio in particular. Like if you think about the New York Times, the Daily is one of the most important podcasts around. Like it's one of the biggest, if not the biggest podcast in the world. It's the podcast that a lot of people start their day with.

Wall Street Journal has a really respected podcast division. The Post just, it seems like they're really struggling to get it right. Yeah, and I feel like trust in the post is pretty low these days. It's just like one story after another diminishing their credibility, honestly. Like I know that they have a lot of really good journalists who work there in the news department still, and I feel for them. But every story that comes out about their editorial department is awful. And now there's this story about them pushing AI,

slop that is not accurate. It's, it's, it's, you bring up a good point that like, why do their competitors have these really powerful, widely listens to audio products and the post doesn't. It, it feels like they're, frankly, like, on the wrong track, I guess. I don't know. They're, they're probably not taking, like, strategic, uh, business. decisions from us, but like, it's just one L after another. Yeah, I mean, I can sort of give you my sense of what might be happening here.

I just don't think it's a really, it's not a chill time in media or journalism more broadly. And I want to be super clear that I know personally and work with and love many, many, many of the journalists at the post. They have a, they have great reputations. This is not anything against them. It is the decision makers. It's the higher up. It's people like Jeffrey Bezos. I would argue that I don't think that he had any real interest in being in the newspaper game at all.

I think that he bought that paper to buy influence and to buy Trump Sear. And I don't think he cares that it's losing money. I don't think he cares that it's putting out error and lie riddled AI generated podcasts that are an embarrassment that their stellar journalists then have to answer for, right? Because you don't want to be a great journalist at a shop that's putting out lies via AI-generated podcast, that's so embarrassing. And so I think it really is a leadership culture problem. I also think when you think about, you know, it came up in the episode that we did with Karen Atia, the last remaining black columnist at The Post, who was pushed out after Charlie Kirk's

death, I would say like completely unfairly. I think that it's a problem where when you have a culture that nobody wants to be part of, or for people who are smart or dedicated or hardworking or forward thinking or innovative are pushed out, I think this is what you're left over with, right? Like the former editor at the post, Sally Busby, she was apparently working on a lot of early stage audio concepts before she was pushed out of the paper in 2024. I think like, this is what happens when you push out the good people who actually want to make good stuff. You have to turn to AI podcasts full of errors and lies. But it is that it's such short-sighted leadership to not see how that's so much worse. It would be better to not have a

podcast, in my opinion. Yeah. It has the feel of leadership, viewing this as like news-flavored content without recognizing the special considerations that the journalism needs to adhere to to make sure that readers and listeners trust it. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about this, that audio. is supposed to build trust and intimacy. I think Pew did a study that found that people who

get information from podcasts have a higher expectation that that information will be accurate and true versus other kinds of digital content. So the content and the media they're getting on social media, they don't have a high expectation that that will be accurate. But when it comes to podcasts, they do. Right. And so if the post is just handing over that trust to AI so that it can invent quotes and make up lies, it's really a problem. And I think that's what happens when experienced editors are like, nah, I don't want to be involved in this. I also think there's an element here of news versus tech products. Seymol-4 had this little bit of reporting that I found very interesting about the tensions that have arisen between the Newsroom division and its

product division, right? And so the perspective from some of the post-product team is that AI podcasts, even if they have errors, that just represents a normal part of the rollout of features that are still being tested. And unsurprisingly, the journalists at that newsroom feel otherwise. That is really interesting. And I can totally see that playing out for a newspaper that is owned by Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, which famously works at some employees, like really. hard and is, you know, very focused on metrics. That works great if you're running a company that delivers products to people and, you know, you make a few errors that some people, you know, 0.01% of people don't get their packages on time.

It's not that big a deal. But with a newspaper in journalism, the math is very different because, when you lose trust, it is really difficult to gain back. Yeah, absolutely true. Side note, Seymophore also did report as part of the story that the post was eyeing Larry Summers to be one of their podcast hosts for a while, but that deal fell apart. This was obviously before the emails unsurfaced about Summers' connection with Epstein. Boy, part of me is like, I don't know if that was a decision to not go with Larry Summers.

a podcast host or if that just like didn't work out. But that kind of is like a little bit of a saving grace that that, but they didn't have to pull that podcast down. Yeah, I guess they dodged a bullet there. Yeah, it's curious. And it's also curious that like he is a pretty big name. So they presumably would have had to pay him as opposed to these AI podcasts, which like, you know, they're probably paying the engineers who work on it,

but they don't have to pay a hundred. host, and I wonder if that's part of it here, too, just trying to turn the screws and do things on the cheap, maybe, question mark? I know I'm biased, but throwing a few bucks on a human host might be worth it if it's going to save you from this level of embarrassment as on paper. Yeah, human hosts wouldn't make these sorts of errors that you listed off of misattributing the, some, a quote from a source as the official position of the. paper.

Like, that's a pretty elementary mistake that a human host probably would not make. You would hope. You would hope. Anyone who was listened to this pod will probably not be surprised to hear this, that meta is targeting accounts related to abortion providers and queer identity. We did a whole episode about the scale of this kind of thing where meta shadow bans or takes down or restricts content from accounts that provide medically accurate information about things like abortion, even in places where abortion is perfectly legal. But now the Guardian has a new

report from the organization, Repro Uncensored, that shows it is still an ongoing and escalating issue with meta. So Repro and Censored, they track digital censorship against movement's focus on gender, health, and justice. And they said that they have tracked 210 incidents of account removals and severe restrictions affecting these kinds of groups in the last year compared with just 81 last year. so this does seem like an escalating problem. Meta has removed or restricted dozens of accounts belonging to abortion access providers, queer groups, and reproductive health organizations

in the past week, in what these campaigners call, quote, one of the biggest waves of censorship on meta in years. The takedowns and restrictions that they looked at at started in October and targeted the Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp accounts of more than 50 organizations worldwide, some of which serve tens of thousands of people. Now, many of these groups

are in Europe or the UK. However, bans also affected groups serving women in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. So given what we talked about in our previous episode about this, it does seem that this is an escalating pattern with meta. In this latest purge, it blocked abortion hotlines in countries where abortion is perfectly legal, banned queer and sex positive accounts in Europe, and removed posts that even had non-explicit cartoon depictions of nudity. I saw one of the images that it removed. The post was just a cartoon image of two naked people from behind holding hands. And it would only, the only nudity that would have been shown is butts. However, the image, the cartoon image has hearts over the butt. So it's like, you can't,

there's not even really any nudity. That was the kind of image that Facebook said, no, no, that's got to come down. So, so this is like two different types of censorship, right? Like there's censorship of anything. related to nudity in what seems like a pretty prudish way. But then also censorship of conversation about abortion and other reproductive services, which it's weird that that gets linked up with censorship of nudity. Yeah, it is weird that I think it just goes to show how much tech leaders like Mark Zuckerberg, how much power they have in determining what is the kind of thing that needs to be censored and, like,

whose sexuality, whose gender issues, whatever, are okay and allowed, and whose need to be taken down and censored from the platform. But they just, like, really have all the power there. Martha Demiratu, the executive director of repro and censored, told The Guardian, within the last year, especially since this new U.S. presidency, we have seen a definitive increase in accounts being taken down, not only in the U.S., but worldwide as a ripple effect. This has been, to my knowledge, at least one of the biggest waves of censorship we are seeing. So I want to make sure that people get what I'm saying here because keep this in mind. If we are talking about organizations that are abortion providers or help connect people who need abortions with abortion services,

social media is a key way that people are able to get access to information about something that is not only life-saving and critical, but also time-sensitive. Arbitrary takedowns like this threaten the ability of these. kind of providers to do their jobs, which is critical. And, you know, something else that they said in the piece is that META is a company that is historically not easy to work with. They will take down accounts that have not broken any of META's rules. They will take down accounts that are not breaking the law.

And then they won't be transparent or clear on what the thing was that got that account removed or what to do next or how to appeal. So really, if you don't know somebody who works at META, if you don't have a friend or a cousin that works there, you might just be out of luck. There's one organization that they talk about from the Netherlands called Women Help Women, which is a nonprofit offering information about abortion to women worldwide, including in Brazil, the Philippines and Poland. It fields about 150,000 emails from women each year, says the executive director, Kinga Jolinska.

Women Help Women has been on Facebook for 11 years, and they said that while their account has been suspended before, this time around, it was outright banned. Kinga, the executive director, said this ban could be life-threatening and push people who need abortion care toward dangerous, less reliable information sources. And the frustrating thing is that META doesn't even really tell people what they've done to get banned. A message from META to the group dated November 13th said that its page does not follow our community standards on prescription drugs, adding, we know this is disappointing, but we want to keep Facebook safe and welcoming for everyone. The report then says that the providers who are impacted have to go into

meetings with META. I've personally been at meetings like this, and they are basically useless. This is from The Guardian. META has come under criticism after a leaked email showed a consultant inviting reproductive health organizations to a private briefing about problems with META's content moderation. While explicitly saying the meeting was not a place to criticize the company or suggest any policy changes, critics say these closed-door sessions reinforce a power imbalance where big tech decides which voices are heard and which are silenced. I can personally confirm my own experience in these meetings and that is exactly what's going on. And it speaks to what I was saying earlier where meta is the sole arbiter of whose voices are allowed to persist on the platform and

whose are silenced. And they don't feel the need to give anybody transparency around that. I'm really reminded of the segment we just covered about the Washington Post where there's just a real sense of them like not realizing or not acknowledging the responsibility that they have as, a big platform where so many people get information that is of critical importance to, like, their health, their financial well-being, so many areas of their life, they're just like not concerned with making arbitrary decisions that prevent people from getting that information. You know, in Meda's case, they just want the clicks, I think. Let me tell you how not concerned they are.

They told one organization that was impacted that they should leave META altogether and start a mailing list and that their bans would probably continue. Now, META denies sending that email, but imagine telling an organization doing critical, life-saving work connecting people who need abortions with abortion care, but you've built up an audience for years and years, just start a mailing list. Like, these are not serious people. No, they're certainly not taking the concerns of their. these organizations seriously, which is pretty offensive, really, because if you, like, I don't know

any of these organizations, but I feel like I've known people at similar organizations who've done this kind of work, and people involved in nonprofits that serve people, they're not getting rich out there. They're trying to help people, and it is really disappointing. But not at all surprising to read a report like this about meta just not being at all concerned about getting in the way of their work. And as someone who was followed this kind of thing for a while, a weird thing that meta loves to do is say that they do allow posts about abortion on their platform as long as those posts don't break the rules. But then they take down accounts that are not breaking the rules and they don't even say why. because according to Meta, even they agree that some of these accounts are taken down by mistake. Because when Repro Uncensored flagged some of the accounts that they said were taken down that should not have been,

meta said that more than half of the accounts flagged by Repro Incensored have been reinstated, including Women Help Women, which Facebook said was taken down an error. So basically, you know, they like to say on the one hand, oh, we allow posts about abortion. why were these posts about abortion taken down, even though they don't violate our policies? That was a mistake. It's been reinstated. But if that mistake happens, there is no transparency around why it was taken down unless there's some sort of uproar, unless somebody flags it for them. And then, too, it's incredibly difficult to appeal it. And so even if these are mistakes,

it's not a mistake that can be easily rectified if there's no clear, transparent appeal process. It just seems like meta doesn't actually really care. And I think, you know, whether it's, a mistake or an error or whatever, the impact really is the same, that these platforms have total control over these digital public spaces arbitrarily, and that ends up silencing abortion providers and queer organizations and really put people at risk from being able to access time-sensitive, light-saving information. And I think having a system where there's no transparency, there's no functioning appeal process, I don't think these are glitches. I think that they're structural problems that are built in

and it's vulnerable people who are paying the price. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guide, 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 acapella band with their between songs banter. There's a more singer in the group. The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard,

you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard herds, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but 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. me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio.

Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying,

and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions,

the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo SlicLife 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist,

Kear Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tript Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough.

Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust.

I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free, our heart radio app. Search learn the hard way and listen now. Life throws hurdles big and small.

The question is, how do you conquer them? On hurdle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain.

It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't feel on. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladeki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile, that means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything.

Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Let's get right back into it. Okay, so Mike, do you remember back when Charlie Kirk was murdered and we talked all about the wave of crackdowns on free speech and expression that followed? Oh, yeah. I mean, I feel like we're still.

living through the repercussions of that crackdown on speech. Well, let me tell you. So back when Charlie Kirk was first murdered, Larry Bushart, who was a 61-year-old former cop, posted a meme on the Facebook group, What's Happening in Perry County, Tennessee? He posted this meme on a thread about a visual for Charlie Kirk. So the meme shows a picture of Donald Trump saying, quote, we should just get over it, which depicted Trump saying this about a a school shooting at Perry High School, which is a direct quote.

He actually did say that. Bushart included that image with a comment that said, this seems relevant today. Dot, dot, dot. That is literally all it took to land Larry in prison for 37 days because he was unable to make his $2 million bail. He got out of prison in late October. Wow, that escalated quickly.

Wait, so what was he arrested for? According to The Intercept, that post got the attention of the Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems, who, I should add, had mourned Kirk's passing on his own personal Facebook page. This is from Ars Technica. Supposedly, Weems' decision to go after Bushart wasn't due to his political views, but to receiving messages from parents who misread Bushart's post as possibly threatening an attack on the local Perry County High School. To pressure Bushart to remove the post,

Weems contacted the Lexington Police Department to find Bushart. That led to Larry's arrest and his transfer to Perry County Jail. So Weems, the sheriff, justified the arrest by claiming that Bushart posting this meme on Facebook represented a true threat

since, quote, investigators believe that Bushart was fully aware the fear his post would cause and intentionally sought to create hysteria within the community, the Tennessean reported. But as the Intercept points out, there was no evidence of any kind of hysteria. There weren't even any comments on the meme

that suggested that anybody thought it was anything resembling a threat. And that's when people started to look a little bit closer at this sheriff's story. Probably the most suspicious thing here is that Weems, the sheriff, claims that Bushart had callously refused to take down his post,

even after law enforcement told him that people were scared that he was threatening a school shooting. They actually, the local news has body cam footage of his arrest. The footage clearly shows that the arresting officer did not understand why the Perry County Sheriff had taken issue with Bushart's Facebook post. He says, so I'm just going to be completely honest with you. I really have no idea what they are talking about. He just called me and there was some concerning post that was made. Bushart clarified that it was likely his Facebook post,

laughing at the notion that somebody called the cops to report his meme. The officer then told Bushart that he wasn't exactly sure what Facebook post that you're referring to, but they said something about insinuating violence. Bushart said, no, it wasn't, and confirming that he wasn't going to take it down. The arresting officer declined to even glance at the Facebook post and told Bushart, quote, I don't care. This ain't got nothing to do with me. Now, none of this indifference kept this officer from taking him into custody and booking him

where he was charged under a state law passed in July 2024 that makes it a Class E felony to make any kind of threat against schools. This is reporting from the Tennessean. Wow, they're really like making a meal out of this threat against the school thing, which seems to be completely made up. Like this just seems to be, is this a new thing that cops make up when they want to arrest somebody? Like, oh, he was threatening a school. Well, here's how we know it was made up because the sheriff later admitted to the local news,

News Channel 5. that, quote, investigators knew the meme was not about Perry County High School and still arrested him anyway, supposedly hoping to, quote, quell the fears of people in the community who misrepresented it. Apparently, that was as close as the sheriff came to basically admitting that the intention was to censor the post. So now Larry Bushard is out of prison. He has lost his post-retirement job and now he is suing the police department. Now, the department said that he had to be arrested because this post caused all this mass hysteria from people who were worried they were misinterpreting this post as a threat of violence against Perry High School with this meme. But his lawsuit notes that none of the commenters on the Facebook thread left any kind of comment indicating that this meme was being taken as threatening some sort of violent act at a school.

And so far, no public records show any concerned citizens who were flagging the meme as violence. violating any laws protecting schools. A request of the school district turned up no records, and so far, police have not produced any evidence of this mass hysteria that they said was the reason that he had to be arrested. This is all according to Larry Bushard's lawsuit. Instead, what they say is actually going on is the sheriff, who we know posted a tribute to Kirk on his own personal Facebook page, was just using his capacity as sheriff to arrest Larry over a meme that he didn't like about Trump.

yeah, that seems to be what's going on. You know, this mass hysteria that the sheriff keeps talking about, I feel like you need, like the term mass hysteria implies a lot of people. If you had to guess, how many people do you say live in Perry County, Tennessee? Oh, God.

I, I will, how, do you know? Well, I just looked it up while you were reading that segment. In 2023, there were 8,500 people in Perry County, Tennessee. So, like, I feel this whole story is like, these two guys know each other for one thing. Like the sheriff knows this cop. This is not their first time talking.

The arresting officer knows both of them. Yeah, I'm so sure that like this story is so much juicier and more interesting. Just like the small town dynamics that are at play here. I feel like we are just scratching the surface of, uh, this story. And as somebody who grew up in a small town, I really feel for, uh, Bouchard,

the guy who got arrested here, who, it seems like acted perfectly within his rights to make some political speech that does not seem like it was threatening anyone. And, uh, then has to go through this whole regular role of spending 37 days in jail, which probably was not super fun for him as a,

an ex-cop, right? Like, I couldn't say, but my understanding is that, like, ex-cops don't have a great time when they're in jail, especially, like, older guys who, you know, he was retired. But I got to say good on him for standing his ground for the First Amendment against this extremely anti-American censorship. I'm so glad that you brought the context of someone who grew up in a small town. Side note, do you remember that time that we were in a small town? And there was somebody who was from the town, and we watched someone go riding by in their car.

And they said, oh, that's that teenager who's always up and down Main Street in his hot rod. And I was like, wow, this guy knew exactly who that was just from the make and model of their car and how they were driving. And you were like, welcome to a small town. Welcome to a small town. Like, you know, you have specific nemesis in their car and you know it just by the sound of it. Yeah, you know everyone who lives in the town because there's just not a lot of you. It's a different way to live. So you were right that the story does get kind of wilder.

And I'm sure there's juicy stuff that we don't even know because according to his lawsuit, Larry says that the sheriff colluded with another investigator to be able to arrest Larry. To get Larry jailed, Wings allegedly collaborated with an investigator, Jason Morrow, to omit a key detail from the affidavit that served as the entire basis of his. his arrest. Morrow supposedly left out the fact that the meme referred to a 2024 school shooting, allegedly helping Weems manufacture probable cause, including that detail would have made Larry's arrest less likely, as a reviewing magistrate who was a non-lawyer who has no legal education, would have possibly understood that they were just trying to arrest Larry for protected speech. His complaint reads. So shout out to Larry, like you said, for standing up for free speech. Larry's legal team got in touch with us and they sent us a press release where it has this quote from Larry.

He says, I spent over three decades in law enforcement and have the utmost respect for the law. But I also know my rights. I know that's right. And I was arrested for nothing more than refusing to be bullied into censorship. His legal team, one of his attorneys were his legal team, fire attorney, David Reuben, says, this lawsuit goes way beyond Larry. It's about making sure police everywhere understand that they cannot punish or intimidate people. for sharing controversial opinions online.

Law enforcement across the country should be on notice, respect the First Amendment, or prepare to face the consequences. And another one of his attorneys from Fire, which is the foundation for individual rights and expression, said, if the police can come to your door in the middle of the night and put you behind bars, based on nothing more than an entirely false and contrived interpretation of a Facebook post, no one's First Amendment rights are safe.

And I really agree with that, that it's really not just about Larry or this post. it's about whether or not a sheriff who likes Charlie Kirk can take umbrage with your perfectly legally protected Facebook post and come arrest you for a month. Totally. And that was the whole, such a big part of the fallout from Charlie Kirk's murder

was the right, you know, in my opinion, really overstepping in trying to use it as an opportunity to shut down any speech that they didn't like. And I'm really grateful to Larry, who I don't know, for standing up and, you know, not backing down here. I hope that sheriff, like, faces some sort of consequences for this.

What I think is unfortunate and more likely is that he probably won't. And instead, Larry will win his lawsuit and the taxpayers of that county will be on the hook to pay for that sheriff's illegal actions of arresting somebody who said something that he didn't like. I fear that you are right. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygle and friends. Me and hilarious guests from 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 Acapella band with their between songs banter. The worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah. Me.

Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open to change. 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 IHeart 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 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, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message.

Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-844-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-8-4-I-Hart. Last night, a blown call changed the game. This morning, the internet lost its mind.

Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves.

Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants.

answer. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kier Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Trip Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase

that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross. Because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid?

Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway.

Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search, learn the hard way, and listen now. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On hurdle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness. Professional athletes, coaches,

and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going from the WMBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't feel on. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it.

An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ledecki. The ability to show gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile, that means the world to me, and that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard.

Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Let's get right back into it. Okay, so really quickly, I just started watching this show He Did Rivalry. And I wanted to talk about it because, as I know that you know, a while back, I was part of a team trying to pitch a documentary project. And it was unsuccessful, but that is still very much a goal of mine. It's my dream to produce a documentary project. I met with all of the big streamers.

And even though it did not result in a project being greenlit, it was super interesting. And it was a process in which I learned a ton. And one of the things I learned is that there is a rising interest in movies and shows that people can watch, essentially while they do something else, essentially be on their phone. Weirdly, I will sort of say this kind of works for the medium that I'm interested in making. You know, documentary might kind of work without having to visually see what's happening on screen. But apparently this also goes for non-documentary projects. So like fictional television and movie projects, too. just this assumption that people are not going to be paying close attention to whatever this thing is that they're watching, they might not even be watching what's happening on screen.

So make projects that work for people who are watching them distracted. Just really embrace the ADD brain that all of us have that is being actively cultivated by social media. Have you ever seen that thing where it's the movie Oppenheimer, but in one corner it's got like somebody playing Mario Kart, like all the different. kind of distracting things that some people might need to focus on the screen just to keep them locked in. In In Plus One magazine, film writer William Tavlin said the exact same thing that screenwriters who worked for Netflix told him that a common note that they were given by the company's executives was have this character announce what they're doing so that the viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along. So if a character is like writing a text

message, even if what they're writing is being shown on the screen, have them say out loud what that message says. I actually hate this kind of exposition. And when I'm watching something where I know that they're doing that or they're saying something out loud that you wouldn't ordinarily say out loud, it is very distracting to me. I hate it. Oh, it's so clunky. I always notice it, or at least I feel like I do and I always hate it.

it like takes the the axiom show me don't tell me and just completely inverts it and is like no don't don't even bother with showing just tell everything must be told just tell just tell i mean i do have a whole slate of stuff that i have on my hulu or whatever that i i do kind of treat as background you know a lot of bravo content that i've got it's kind of comfort viewing i'll put it on the iPad while I clean my apartment or do laundry or do kind of like work that you can do half paying attention like menial tasks. So I'm not above this, but for an actual show that you're watching for the first time, I'm the kind of person who I like to be locked in for the most part. So this piece in slash film is breaking down heated rivalry, which I don't know if you

have been watching it, but it's this hockey romance. And the piece is really fascinating to me because it says that he did rivalry is essentially bucking this trend by being a show that rewards people carefully watching what's happening on screen. And it's working because it's actually super popular. So Heated Rivalry is like this steamy hockey romance where two major league hockey stars have a sports rivalry but also a lot of kind of sexy tension. This is from Slash Film. When Isla realizes Shane has forgotten his water bottle. He silently offers his own. Ila dangles the bottle in front of Shane, letting their fingers graze in a way that appears to be anything but accidental. Shane tips the

water into his mouth without letting the bottle touch his lips, and Ila watches him, absorbing every subtle tick. More, Ila mouths, fairly audible, and Shane obeys instantly. The camera catches the moment just above Shane's arm, half of Ila's face, lit by the white of Shane's long-sleeved t-shirt. His whispered command lies in plain sight for anyone not glued to their phone. So a lot of the sort of steamy stuff that's happening, you really have to be paying attention to see. There's also all kinds of like micro expressions and like lingering looks and text messages that are typed and shown on screen but not vocally narrated. So all of the hallmarks of steamy, will they, won't they romance, you have to see it to really appreciate what's going on. You wouldn't fully get it if you were on your phone or like doing your laundry or something.

That's interesting. And it's interesting with the subjects matter too where I haven't been watching the show, but I do enjoy hockey. And I feel like two players who had sexual tension between them would probably feel pressure to not be super overt about being loud and noticeable about that on the ice. And so I wonder, like, the fact that the viewer of the show needs to, like, pay close attention to note these things, otherwise they would be missed if it creates a similar vibe to what's going on between the characters. Yes, as you know, one of my favorite themes in film and media generally, like books as well, is homoerotic undertones and homoerotic tension. and it's not a homoerotic undertone if it's like,

I am putting my hand on your side now. I'm moving the hand up now. Like it doesn't work the same way. Looking at you, Saltburn. Yeah. I love that you that you referenced that. Because actually our producer Joey, we had a whole conversation about this before I had seen it.

And my favorite ever movie, I guess, is the talented Mr. Ripley. And the reason why I like it is because it's so subtle, right? like subtle looks of like lingering, lingering looks and things like that. I love the subtlety. Saltburn is like, okay, I'm struggling here because I can't think of anything that's on a spoiler or like really graphic. Just trust me what I say. There's not a lot of subtlety in the movie Saltburn. It's a fun movie, but they're just not doing that.

You know, you could be on your phone and you wouldn't miss anything. You know, you would know what's going on. Slashfilm writes, a distressing trend in American streaming is the popularization of what Netflix calls casual viewing, or the idea that shows and movies need to be crafted with the understanding that people aren't actually watching. It's a creatively bankrupt approach to storytelling that allows the most disinterested people to become the arbiters of what is prioritized by the biggest streaming platform in the world. It's a uniquely American approach, placing more value on the capitalistic benefits of capitulating to laziness rather than what is best for the story. I like that dig at Americans because I believe heated rivalry is a Canadian production. So I guess the Canadians are like, oh, we want to pay attention to our media. Especially if it's about hockey. Yes, that actually makes a lot of sense. They go on to say that it's arguably a natural

consequence of what happens when engagement numbers are the only thing that matter. So if you've got two people who watch Netflix, one whom likes to really focus on what they're watching, and another who likes to leave their TV on autoplay all day while they're doing chores around the house, of course that second person is going to have higher engagement numbers. They're streaming for many hours every day, which makes a lot of sense. And, you know, I watched a lot of movies, and I definitely like to watch movies that you have to really pay attention to. I remember you and I, and I don't want to put you on the spot, but do you remember when

we watched the science fiction thriller coherence? And I was like, okay, it's a really good movie, but it is a film that rewards careful viewing. And you were like, okay, better get fucked up before we watch. I've since rewatched and you were correct. It does reward careful viewing. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for giving it another chance. Because if you were like not paying attention, you would be so confused. Yeah, it just wouldn't be a very good movie at all. And I guess I'm, now I'm like curious what would be an example of a good movie or show. I feel this casual viewing trend is more about like, series than movies, but like, is there one that would be good that does this very overt,

you know, announcing everything that is happening, like telegraphing it? Because I think about shows like the office, for example, is something that people stream a lot. I think it's like one of the most streamed shows ever. And, you know, I personally know multiple people who will just put it on for hours. But they, but they, are like in that show it's it's not like super complicated what's going on but there are lots of little jokes that you will miss if you're not paying attention and it's okay for that show because you can miss the little jokes but still understand what's going on in the episode uh but they are there to pull you in and uh you know i would i have to feel like i probably wouldn't be

very interested in a show that didn't try to do that. Does that make any sense? It makes sense. I actually can't think of any shows that I watch that do it. All of the shows that I do watch while I'm doing something else,

the reason I'm able to do that is not because they're announcing what they're doing. I've just seen them a hundred times. I've seen every episode of the office 100 times. I've seen every episode of Real Housewives of New York a hundred times.

I'm not watching it to really pay attention. I don't even really know why I'm watching it now that I'm saying it out loud. I don't know. I don't know why doing chores is better with a glass of wine and the iPad playing a show that you've seen 100 times. If anybody knows the science of why that is, I don't know why, but it is. It just is. It's just better.

You know, there's this, a really interesting question in human preference is when we want novelty and when we want familiarity, it's not as like cut and dry as you might think. Hmm, I believe this. I believe this. Yeah. So I guess not really any sort of answer. for you, but, you know, interesting thing to think about. Well, Mike, thank you for being here as always.

Where can folks keep up with us? Well, people can keep up with us on social media, but they can also listen to the mailbag episodes that we're going to be publishing next week over the holidays. We are finally doing those people who emailed in. Your stickers are in the mail. This includes our friends in Canada and Europe.

It was interesting, about 25% of the people who emailed in were outside the U.S., which matches the distribution of who listens to the show. So we love you guys. We appreciate you listening, so you get stickers too. No problem. Yeah, I'm really excited to do these mailbag episodes. We've been making the show for five years. We've never done one of these episodes before.

I'm a little nervous. Are you nervous? I am nervous, mostly because the questions we got are like, genuinely thoughtful, good questions. I thought people were going to be, you know, I don't know what I'm expecting, but people gave us very good questions. And now I feel a slight pressure to perform.

So we'll see. Be kind. Yeah. I think it'll be good. We're going to do, we got so many that we're going to break it up into two episodes, one with just me and you,

and then another one where we're going to bring Joey in because a lot of people had questions for Joey as well. So we've got that coming up. And other than that, We've got our usual social channels, Instagram and TikTok at Bridget Marie in D.C. YouTube and Blue Sky. There are no girls on the internet, easy to find.

And you can always email us. Hello at tangoati.com. And you can leave comments on Spotify. People have been doing that. We appreciate it. I read every single one personally. She does. And sometimes takes them personally.

That's true. I mean, I do. but y'all will never hear about it. 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 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. Edited by Joey Pat. I'm your host, Bridget Todd.

If you want to help us grow, write and review us on Apple Podcast. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends.

Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Wife is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headlines. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear.

Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicalife-Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1021. And I'm Conky, his best friend and business manager. And we've got a new show called The 1021 Podcast. I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular. streamers. We also love sports. And with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA. Listen to the 1021 podcast on the IHeart

Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHeart Podcasts presents soccer moms. So I'm Leanne. Yeah. This is my best friend, Janet. And we have been joined at the Hipsons 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 IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.