There Are No Girls on the Internet - Nicki Minaj stans doxxed a cultural critic online. Now, she’s fighting back against doxxing and online abuse!

Episode Date: October 5, 2022

Kimberly Foster is taking legal action after obsessive fans of rapper Nicki Minaj attacked her online.  Charismatic leaders, from musicians to certain former presidents, openly organize coordinated attacks online with impunity.  Will Kimberly set a new precedent for what’s considered acceptable behavior online?    SUPPORT KIMBERLY’S GO FUND ME: https://www.gofundme.com/f/kimberly-takes-a-stand-against-online-harassment?utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer   Want to support the show? (thank you!) Subscribe, tell a friend, leave a review, or buy some merch at There Are No Girls on the Internet’s store: TANGOTI.COM/STORE Join our newsletter: Tangoti.com/newsletter Say hello at [e-mail]  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just a quick heads up. Today's episode talks about pretty intense harassment. My first instinct was they always get away with this, and they're just not going to do it this time. 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. If you're on the Internet, then you probably are familiar with the term Stan. Originally popularized in Eminem's 2000 song of the same name, Stan tells the story of an obsessive Eminem fan. In the song, Stan's obsession. drives him to express his fandom through violent behavior. So, fast forward to today, where we've kind of dropped the fact that Stan's love of Eminem is not a healthy one.

Today, a Stan is more of a garden variety superfan, masking the term's dark origins. So I started out this episode wondering, when did fandom get so toxic? But maybe the truth is that it's always been there. But what happens when I'm sorry. excessive fans express their love of a particular celebrity in ways that are dangerous, or even illegal. Last week, cultural critic Kimberly Foster found out.

So you may remember Kimberly Foster from an earlier episode of There Are No Girls on the Internet we did about Janet Jackson. Kimberly is a cultural critic. It's her job to put opinions and critiques about popular culture into the world via the internet. And she's been doing it for decades. But when she tweeted about rapper Nikki Minaj, Kimberly found herself at the heart of a targeted harassment campaign, waged by obsessive Nicki Minaj fans, collectively known as the Barbes. Now, I'm not talking about casual fans or even huge fans. The Barbes are something else entirely. People who make their entire online identity a shrine to Nikki Minaj.

Their Twitter bios include details like retwee. tweeted by Nikki on April 14th, or Nikki follows. So when Kimberly tweeted critically about Nikki Minaj, her personal information was posted online, known as doxing, and worse, she and her family got violent threats. And for a lot of us, the story might end there. But Kimberly is pursuing legal action. So you might be thinking, who cares?

Isn't this just stupid celebrity drama? But in taking a legal stand, Kimberly may very well be setting a precedent that shapes online discourse for years to come. My name is Kimberly Nicole Foster, and I'm a culture critic and YouTuber. So first, I just have to start by asking with everything going on, how is Kimberly? How are you? I am surviving. I'm okay. I mean, I've definitely been better, but I've also definitely been worse. So that helps me maintain perspective. But not the highlight, not the pinnacle, the zenith of my life for sure right now.

So tell us what happened on September 12th. Yeah. So early in the morning on Monday, September 12th, I was scrolling my Instagram and I came across one of those Instagram blogs and they posted something about a new, beef that Nikki Minaj appeared to be and she was saying something on some new app and other young women rappers were responding and it was just a new thing brewing and I went to my timeline on Twitter as I want to do and I tweeted out something about it and went to sleep I mean it was three or four o'clock in the morning. I'm barely awake. And I wake up the next morning because I'm super excited to go to my niece's school and bring them lunch. They were having a kind of friends

and family day and they had invited me to go and I was so excited because I'm obsessed with being the best aunt in the world. And I remember picking out my outfit that morning and doing my hair and my niece had even warned me. Yeah, dressed like a mom, Kim. Don't dress like a young person. Just like a mom, you know, no prop tops, no short shorts. And so I'm trying to pick out my best cool aunt outfit. And all of a sudden, my phone starts that, you know, very classic iPhone, that tone. And I'm hearing it. I'm like, who was texting? You know, what? And then I keep hearing it. keep hearing it. And then I hear the FaceTime tone. And I'm like, whoa, something is happening. And I pick up my phone, of course, my lock screen. And all on my lock screen, there are six or seven

messages. And I don't know what's happening, but I see the word Nikki on one of those messages on the lock screen. And I knew exactly what it was. It was like I was in a movie. I'd heard about this. I'd seen it happen. I never paid that much attention to it when it was happening, but I've been vaguely aware, but I knew exactly what was happening. And so I'm trying to, I still have to go to my niece of school. I have to bring them lunch. I promised them. And so I'm trying to simultaneously focus on getting myself together, getting out of the house, being on time and deal with all of this stuff that's coming in. And initially, I saw the word Nikki, and I thought, oh, okay, whatever.

I mean, did I think, I mean, I thought, okay, I can deal with this. I can deal with this. Like, let's focus. And then I remember looking at the phone and it was violent. It was, I mean, I was. I'm going to shoot you, I'm going to kill your family, I'm going to murder you, I'm going to kidnap you, I'm going to find where you live, and you're not going to be safe, and then it becomes scary. Kimberly pretty quickly realized this was not just a few people giving her snarky, mean replies on Twitter.

This was something else entirely. then it gets to be uh-oh um because i don't know what they know i don't know how they found my phone number at that point but you can change a phone number um but once it gets to i know your address and multiple multiple um text messages to and even you know the end initial phone number violation is like, whoa. That's where I'm like, oh, because if this was just tweets, you log off Twitter. You close. Like, okay. I have a like. But this is my phone number. The phone number that I've had since I was 17, 18 years old. I'm 33 now. I'm not giving it out willy-nilly. I don't know where they've gotten it. And if they found the phone number, what else do you have?

about me, about my family, that you're threatening to kidnap and mutilate and murder and sexually assaults. And so, yeah, there was just a lot going on. I do have to show up for my nieces. I'm completely distracted the entire time that I'm there. Afterwards, I get in my car. I call the police. The police say, you can't come in. We can't accept anything over the phone. You have to do it online. So then I'm not. I have to drive the 30, 40 minutes back home and sit down and fill out that first police report, which is like, there was a frustrating process. I'll say that. I won't go too much into that. And yeah, it just continued. And then I saw the screenshots of where things were coming from,

you know, people circulating my phone number, these Nikki Minaj fans, Barb's, right? Because if I haven't made it clear, the Nikki is Nikki Minaj. And I realize that this is a coordinated campaign of harassment via the quote-unquote barb community. And people are sending me screenshots of this person shared your number and they shared it over here and here and here. And I see some of these Twitter accounts have thousands of false. I saw one Twitter account that had almost 16,000 followers of let's text her and show her and you're not going to get away with this and she'll know better next time. And then I see them circulating a screenshot of my phone number and what is fortunately my previous home address. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's scary.

That's scary not only for me now, but it's scary. for the person who currently lives there. Amidst all of this, the threats, the harassment, the slurs, Kimberly's first instinct was physical safety. She needed to make sure that her, her family, and the people living in her building were all okay. And so, yeah, that happens. And my first thoughts were,

my first thoughts were, I have to make sure I'm safe. They are telling me they know where I live, so I also had to contact my building. As soon as I got back home, I went to the building manager's office and explained to her, and she was like, you know, because people who aren't extremely online are like,

what's happening? What? And then I have to, you know, email her exactly, you know, what's in my phone. And she's like, oh, my, like, you know. And they have a responsibility. to protect the hundreds of other people who live here. You know, the police stuff. And then, of course, people send me screenshots of someone tweeting,

I'm going to find the kids' school. I'm looking up the kids' school address right now. And that, of course, anybody who knows me knows that how much I love my nieces and would literally die to protect them and jump in front of a moving train. I alerted the FBI about that stuff. I mean, it was just overwhelming in the truest sense of the word. Yeah. And so, but I, you know, I was like, okay, you have to keep this together. I'm trying to publicly document this because I felt like that is, that was my only hope. I felt like, um,

I'll say this. In the last couple of weeks, I've gotten so many messages from people about this kind of stuff happening to them from that particular stand community. And the recurring theme is when it happened to me, people's nude photos have been leaked. Their phone numbers have been leaked. In fact, on that Monday, I wasn't the only person who the barbs docks. And they said I didn't do anything about it because I couldn't. Nobody was going to listen to me. I didn't have money to afford a lawyer. I only have a couple hundred followers. I don't have a platform. And my first instinct was they always get away with this and they're just not going to do it this time. And so that really motivated my desire to really lay this out and make sure that I was going to pursue it via whatever avenues were available to me. I have to say, I talk to a lot of people, usually black women who are at the center of

this kind of coordinated harassment and online abuse, and they all say that. Like, nobody, either A, it was so difficult to describe what was happening, the people who were not extremely online, and that was incredibly isolating. The people that I would go to for help, didn't really understand what I was talking about, so I wasn't able to get that help. I didn't have money, support access to fight back, and so I just had to deal with it. And I think why I'm so interested in what you're doing is because I think it sets a clear precedent that this is not acceptable. This is not acceptable online discourse. This is not acceptable online behavior. And people, it should not just be the cost of, for you, Kimberly, really doing your job as a cultural

critical critic. Like, this is what you're supposed to be doing. This is what you, this is why I follow you. This is like what, like, this is your job. It's how you make money. That should not just be the cost of Kimberly doing her job, having these kinds of threats. And another misconception that I've seen online a lot is that, oh, Kimberly's a public figure, you know, people are allowed to have pushback. The kinds of things that I saw with my own eyes are violent threats. It's things like, I know the kid's school address. I saw one where someone was saying, like very specific things about the building that you lived in. Like, oh, you think you are safe because you live in a secure building.

Well, yada, yada, yada. Like, this is not discourse. This is violent threats and it's against the law. And even, like, you should not have to put up with it just because you angered the wrong, toxic stand community. Like, that's, that's, that's, I'm just in awe that you are trying to set this new precedent that just draws a line in the sand for what is it is not acceptable online. Yeah. I have to say, though, I was rather impressed by how coordinated, not only the dissemination, the distribution of my phone number and previous address were, but also the messaging that they used around doxing me and harassing me and sending me these terroristic threats from.

account to account to account. And these are old accounts, right? And another thing people try to push back on, these are trolls. This account is from September. There's accounts years old, old, that they are using the same language. They are using the same talking points. The word unprovoked came up a lot. Yes, you're right. They said, you are in public. How, why do you think that you get to say these things publicly and nobody gets to say anything back to you or why do you think that you get to harass Nikki Minaj and you don't deserve harassment? And I'm like, um, one, that makes no fucking sad. Like that's, it's nonsense. Those are nonsensical arguments, but seeing it dozens of times, hundreds of times at this point over the last couple of weeks. I'm like, whoa.

And maybe a week ago, a Cardi B. Stan account tweeted me and said, they get together in group chats and they figure out what they're going to say. And I said, oh, that makes perfect sense. That is why I'm seeing the exact same language from these well-established stand. accounts with thousands of followers and created in 2015. They're all coming together to descend, share these details, and say the exact same things. It's so well organized. Imagine if you put this work and effort and intentionality into something that's not illegal. But yeah, that I say my opinion's in public.

I don't say things that are false or defamatory. I don't say things that are untrue. I talk about my feelings. I analyze things. I'm very, very careful. I'm really, really good at my job. And no, that does not mean that I deserve to be doxed. That does not mean that my family deserves to feel whatever they feel right now.

I'll tell you something else. The day that I had to email my nieces principal and vice principal and say, these are my two nieces, they're in this grade, this is what's happened to me. Here are screenshots of what I received. This is what I sent to the police. This is the police report number. This is what I sent to the FBI. C-seeing my sister on that, it wasn't a good day.

It wasn't. And they didn't deserve that, and I didn't deserve that. Absolutely fucking not. Absolutely not. 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 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. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.

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Hey, I'm Jared Adano. You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, help on the internet. Help! Somebody! Please! But there's so much more to me than me. I'm an actor. I'm a comedian.

And recently, I've become quite the helper myself. And on my new podcast, hope from a hypocrite, I'll be changing lives, helping people in need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Sike, I'm a comedian. I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice.

One ring is too scary. Oh, cream of chicken suit. Hey, cream. Cream and chicken soup. This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from Hypocrite as part of the Mike Coutura Podcast Network available on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Diana Maria Riva, actress, mother, lover, and a Gen X woman walking through life one hot flash and hormonal crying jag at a time.

You ladies know what I mean. I'll bet you a perimenopausal chin here you do. So let's talk about it. Join me on my new podcast. How hard can it be? with the Animani Areva, 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. Mood swings, night sweats, fupas, sex drive. Wait, what sex? Dating at 45. How can it be getting naked at 50 with a 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 Cultura podcast network available on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. It's so interesting that you talk about the coordination because like I said, like I feel like I watched this happen. Like I watched it unfold and I watched it get like, you know, blow up. And I, so one of the talking points that I saw repeated quite a bit was that Kimberly put her address and phone number on the internet herself.

If you do that willingly, that means it can't be doxing. And I saw that so many times repeated that I almost was like, well, maybe that's true. Then I took a step back and I was like, wait a minute. I actually know quite a bit about doxing. That's not correct. You know, one thing that people might be surprised to learn is that pretty much anybody in the United States, our public information is for sale via really sketchy people finder websites. And I hate to say it, but nine times out of ten, the reason why our information is on those

websites is not because we put it there. It's because our local city services, you know, the DMV, you know, our voter registration polls, they often sell, bundle and sell that data to third-party sketchy websites. And so it is terrifying, but I just need to make very clear that pretty much all of our personal information is for sale if somebody wants to buy it online. And so the idea that that would mean that it's not then a legal to disseminate that information just doesn't make any sense. Like that's absolutely not true. And the fact that I saw that that untrue claim repeated so many times

just lets me know how savvy folks are about disseminating I will give them accurate sounding but not accurate information that makes them look bad, that makes them look like they haven't done anything wrong and makes you look bad. Yeah, it's miss and disinformation

because some people definitely share false information intentionally. But there's a couple of things here. Right after this happened, I immediately went to, how did they give my phone number? Like, what? How did that happen? And I can totally admit now that my first instinct was to blame myself. Like, where did I?

I must have put it up somewhere. There's no way that people are digging and looking and searching. Like, it's got to be, you know, I've been on the Internet for a long time. It's got to be somewhere. And I just say it's got to be somewhere on my YouTube channel. And then I went back and I checked all of the places. I checked my social media. All of the pages that I've had for, I've been an internet person for over a decade,

it's not anywhere publicly accessible. It's not anywhere even privately accessible. And so that claim that, honestly, I think people are trying to, they might have heard something that I said and then they're repeating it back to me as back. It's not true. It's just not true. I mean, I checked and double checked and went through. I probably have 30 Facebook pages, Twitter accounts. It's not there. It was not there. And so, yes, they very, they had to be very intentional about seeking out that information. But also, it's not there. It's not there. It's a very, they very intentional. They had to be very intentional about seeking out that information. But also, it's, it's very intentional. It's. It's It's not just about the finding of the information because, yes, Bridget, as you said, unfortunately, millions of people don't know that it's pretty easy to find out your phone number and your home address, at least the last phone address that's on any public, I mean, your home address, at least the last home address that's on any public record. But seeking out that information and sharing it with the intention of. harassing somebody and threatening them is 100% unequivocally illegal. The distribution of personal information with, I mean, people literally explicitly said, I'm doxing today.

Give me Kim's number. I got something I want to say to her. I mean, there's a long, we got my drop box with the screenshots. Right? It's a lot. It's a lot, right? And so when you set out to create this, as I said, like almost militaristic, so careful, organized, I'll call it a campaign of abuse, 100% unequivocally open and shut case. I mean, there's just, that's not even something that I feel the need to go back and forth about. But I will say this, that I have spent hundreds of dollars now to have my information scraped from the internet.

People should not have to pay hundreds of dollars to make sure that they are not susceptible or vulnerable to what happened to me on September 12th, 13th, 14, 15, 16, right? That should not be the case. The Barbes falsely maintained that Kimberly must have put her own information online, voluntarily herself at some point or another. Otherwise, how would they have gotten it to spread? So it can't really be doxing if she put her own personal information out there, right? Wrong. Look, the scary reality is that pretty much all of our personal information is for sale in the United States. Whether you put it out there yourself or not.

We spoke to Shauna DeLavu, CEO of the Anti-Doxing Service Brightlines, and here's what she had to say. It is state agencies, whether they're DMVs, that's pretty well documented. if they're utilities, if they're law enforcement databases that are getting sold to data brokers who are then selling them back to us if it's like ICE or some other federal agency. But they're also selling them to data brokers. Just to make sure I understand. So state agencies, the DMV, my utilities company, my PEPCO, whatever, they might be the ones who are selling this data and making money off of it that is putting people at risk. they are the ones that are doing. Wow.

This is shocking information to me. You're probably like, oh, yeah, buckle up. It gets worse. But I think that would be shocking information to most people. Right. You would never know it until you went to FOIA it. And I'd say, in addition to utilities, we know that courts sell court records. And those usually, like, so you imagine that you get a parking ticket because I live in D.C.

And I can never remember which side of the street is street cleaning this week. I get a parking ticket. And then there's a traffic court date if I want to go. I don't even think about it and pay the ticket. It's like done, but there's a record, right? That has my name, my home address, the VIN number of my car, probably my date of birth. The information for my driver's license plus my car. And so that's a court record that would get sold.

We interviewed this woman, Sean Adelillo, who runs a company called Bright Lines, which specializes in scrubbing people's information off the internet when they become run for office. or get targeted. And she talks about how it's not cheap. The price point is high. And it creates this situation where some people are able to take the steps necessary to protect themselves. And it creates this kind of permanent,

vulnerable underclass that would never have that access. And we're talking about if you've ever had a driver's license, if you've ever voted, if you've ever turned on the heat or the water in an apartment, odds are, unless you've taken great steps to prevent it, your information is available for sale. That's just the reality. It sucks, but it is what it is.

It should not be that way. And you, Kimberly, should not have to incur the pretty high personal cost of doing this just to be able to do your job as a cultural critic. Like, we really have to take a step back and wonder what kind of world, that digital landscape we want to have where some people can show up safely if they have the money. And the rest of everybody else is just vulnerable. Who is that serving? Absolutely.

And I will say, you know, I feel a responsibility as somebody who has not only a platform, but access to resources, a great social network to do as much as I can to make a very clear statement that there are a very clear statement that there are, As I mentioned before, and I am incredibly privileged. Even before this, I feel like I've, I spend a lot of time wrestling with those privileges and trying to be of service, trying to extend myself, trying to share what I have in a thoughtful way, in a responsible way. and I'm only at this point because of all of these gifts and access and resources and things that, frankly, I did not earn coming together. And I feel very, I feel very resolute in the fact that what I am doing is the right thing to do. You know, people say, just let it go, you know, like, okay, you're on the other side of it.

You have what you need to get, you know, I have two phones now. You're good. They, nobody found you. Just, you nobody found your need. And I'm like, no, I can't let it go. Because all of these people who had to, you know, they didn't have any choices. So yes, I definitely feel that way. And also, you know, not to wave the, you know, not to get in my patriotic bag or anything like that.

But after having so many conversations with lawyers over the past couple of weeks, with constitutional scholars, right, people who have, like, deeply studied this stuff and had so many conversations about the First Amendment and the rights and protections that we are afforded, not only as citizen, but as somebody who does what I do for a little, which is, you know, just talk about things, hopefully in a responsible manner. And I do think I'm very responsible. But a bedrock of our Constitution, a bedrock of our values as Americans, is that we can speak freely. And you speak freely and you don't anticipate any illegal kind of backlash.

You speak freely and that does not give anybody the right to threaten you or harm you. I expect when I say whatever I want to say people to go back and forth, I expect banter. And sometimes on Twitter, that banter can get a little feisty. That's like, okay, we're feisty. We're jousting. I love a little witty repartee. I definitely did not expect this level of an invasion of privacy or this level of trauma. And I don't accept it.

It's unacceptable. And I think you're right. I think the point is the silencing effect. I think what it's trying to do is to make it clear that negative cult critique of certain people will not be tolerated. And if you do it, this is what's going to happen to you. And I think it takes a certain kind of person to say, no, I'm allowed to do my job. I'm not going to accept this. And I was talking earlier before you and I got on about how excited I was to talk to you because I think this could set an entire, a real digital precedent about how discourse works on today's Internet.

I think what you're doing, I think it's going to set a really interesting precedent. I think it's going to like, this feels like legacy building stuff. Like I think people will go back and be studying this in like media and digital criticism courses. Yeah. I'm trying to right size this in my mind because we're talking about sub pop culture commentary is what we're really talking about here. But I agree with you, Bridget. When I have talked about what happened and the doxing and the threats of murder, sexual assault, kidnapping, more than a few people.

Honestly, a surprising number of people who I thought were relatively reasonable said, well, if you knew that these people do that, why would you even talk about that person? I'm like, wait, what? We're talking about a global superstar. We're talking about a person who regularly releases music. A lot of the music that I have said that I like and enjoy, a person who, less than a couple of weeks before this thing happened, was on the VMAs accepting the video vanguard. award and doing a 15-minute perform?

I mean, the idea that if you know that this particular stantom, this fan community is rabid, why would you say anything about their person? It's just, it makes absolutely no sense. And yes, the idea that forever and ever, nobody, and, you know, again, we're not I'm very aware of things that are happening like globally, right? People's, I mean, literal lives are at risk and their rights are being stripped. And even in the United States, right, with what's happened. It's not that.

I understand it's not that. But it really is an attempt to strike fear in people's hearts, right? Like it's on this kind of micro scale, it is about fear and intimidation and, you know, the words you mentioned silencing and just like of the pettiest shit imaginable, but also it's like really important. It's really important also because since this has happened, I've seen other, I mean, have witnessed this happened to. another pop culture YouTuber, but also I have seen other writers and journalists and YouTubers, podcasters who have experienced similar things, not only from this fandom, definitely from this fandom, definitely from this fandom, but from others as well. And eventually, we got to say enough is enough, right? Somebody's got to, not necessarily punishment, because that's not my

orientation in the world. But I am certainly about justice, and sometimes justice means consequences. I'm with you, and I want to be clear, this is me saying this, this is my opinion and my take. I, the reason why I think what you're doing is so important is because I cannot ignore the ways that I have seen the same kind of strategy creep into our, political landscape. And so, yeah, we're talking about Nikki Minaj, a pop star, a celebrity. That's the meat of this conversation that we're having, you and me. But I have seen the way that the same strategy, like it's, it reminds me a lot of how Trump used, Trump used social media, right? And so the way that the same exact thing is creeping into our political discourse and

becoming acceptable, I see a lot of parallels. And I think that we might be in a very different political and social situation today in 2022, if we had not established a precedent that this was a acceptable way to behave online, that if one powerful, big-voiced figure gives the right kind of wink, wink, nod, nod signal. They don't come out and say it. They never come out and say it. I'm being very clear about that. But they might give the right kind of signals. The people who are obsessively following that one figure know exactly what to do. They know exactly how to coordinate and it's very effective. That is a precedent that I feel like has become more and more acceptable in our online discourse. And I think that we would be in a very different political

situation had somebody said, wait a minute, not acceptable. And so I know that it might not seem like, you know, it might seem like we're talking about celebrities and pop culture and stands. But I think it's so much deeper than that. And I think it really illustrates something else going on politically, socially, and digitally in our culture. And again, this is my opinion. and this is me saying that. This is what I have witnessed, just to be clear. Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying. That polarization is ubiquitous. It's everywhere. And it leaves us unable to determine boundaries, you know, reasonable boundaries and where we will go and where we won't go and what we will do. and what we won't do and what we shouldn't, shouldn't say.

And that loss of the ability to right-size things in our minds to assess responsible discourse, it has really, really dire consequences. I have to say, you know, jousts and jabs, you know, verbal jowls and jobs I love. I live for. I, you know, I don't have a problem. You know, going back and forth with people about why I don't like somebody's music or why I disagree with their actions and behaviors. But what this experience for me has made clear, over the past couple of weeks, I've done a lot of reading and research and so many different people have brought all of these resources to me and books and podcast and documentaries about fanatic violence, fan violence. extremism.

And it's so clear that even when we're just talking about something like a pop culture figure, that there is so much opportunity for this stuff to escalate in ways that are devastating, life-changing, tragic. I feel incredibly traumatized from the many days of harassment and abuse and threats that I experienced. But there are so much more than that at stake. People have been killed over fanatic violence. I mean, even somebody recently brought up, you know, John Hinkley Jr. I was born in the 80s, so I don't know.

People don't know this, right? But, you know, the person who shot Ronald Reagan, right? And he was, like, obsessed with Jody, Jody Foster. Right. And, yes, that was decades ago. But there are so many examples of people literally showing up, I mean, the fact that my former address was circulating in that way, caused me such cause for concern because there have been numerous cases of fans showing up at people's homes to defend the honor of the person that they stand.

I had to share the threats with the FBI because I know I live in Texas months after Yuvaldi. I mean, like, this stuff is real. It's real. People die. People are traumatized forever. They're harmed. They have to move. Fortunately, I didn't have to move. But like that stuff, I mean, people's, when some people are telling me about their new photos getting leaked and then they have to tell their parents or their job about these images are circulating me about me online and you're never going to be able to live that down, that's real. That's life-changing stuff. And I wish that the people who hold this enormous influence and who recognize that they hold this enormous influence because they understand how to activate their fan base and they're really intentional about doing it for all kinds of reasons.

I wish that they would be much more cognizant of the fact that, yeah, right now it's just, you ugly monkey big. I guess you're going to have to bleep this out. And I also got all kinds of slurs. Oh, I'm a black woman from Texas. I have never seen the N-word directed at me hard ER that many times. Oh, it's crazy. Right now it's, I'm going to, I know where you live. I'm going to kidnap you.

I'm going to mutilate you. I'm going to put a bullet in your sibling's brain, but it could easily. be death or disfigurement or real physical bodily harm. And not actively discouraging the people that you understand you have all of this influence on, not actively discouraging it strikes me as not right, I'll say. It's not right. More after a quick break.

from some SNL late-night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

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You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, help on the internet. Help! Somebody! Please! But there's so much more to me than that. I'm an actor. I'm a comedian. And recently, I've become quite the helper myself. And on my new podcast, Hope from a Hypocrite, I'll be changing lives, helping people in need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions.

Sike! I'm a comedian. I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, Rant, recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Oh, cream a chicken suit. Hey, cream.

Cream a chicken suit. This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from Hypocrite as part of the Mike Cultura podcast network available on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, actress, mother, lover, and a Gen X woman walking through life one hot flash and hormonal crying jag at a time. You ladies know what I mean. I'll bet you a perimenopausal chin here you do. So let's talk about it. Join me on my new podcast.

How hard can it be with Deanna Maria 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 Ness was going to be. Mood 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, no. 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 Cultura Podcast Network available on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. How do you think fandom and stand culture got so toxic?

What do you think happened that got us here where someone out of the love of a musician or a public figure who they do not know would behave in this way? Because for me, and I think for most people, there is not a person. on this earth who is not a blood relative to me, that I would have this kind of reaction about. Certainly not anybody that I don't know. And so it seems like for some of us, it's probably so difficult to even imagine what you're going through.

What do you think got us here? Like, how did we get here? I think people are incredibly isolated. People are lonely. They're looking for a community. and the way that you express your fidelity to this particular community is by behaving in very extreme ways. I think the pandemic exacerbated this,

but obviously it existed before that. You just brought up the Donald Trump example. But I've learned a lot about the way that these stand communities, work. And it's almost like they operate as like chosen families. You know, I don't want to misappropriate that language from the LGBTQ plus community, but it's like they support each other. I mean, this is public so I can say this. I, after I was tweeting about what happened to me, I saw one of the stand accounts tweet to somebody, don't apologize to her. We'll raise money for you.

If you need a legal defense, we'll raise money for you. Don't apologize to her. Don't take it back. Don't delete it. And I was like, oh, y'all are really, like there's very much a feeling of we're in this together. It's all of us against the world. It's all of us against any attack or outsider. And it just so happened that on that Monday I was the quote unquote threatening force.

But yes, that's how they mount up together. And I just think that I'm sure that you've seen the new studies, the scholarship, about how just generally sad people are, you know, in 2022, despite us seeming to have all of these new means of connection, despite us being online all day, every day, and the surveillance state expanding every second of every day, people just do not have that many deep, intimate relationships, those connections that really ground us and keep us mentally well. And I think that these kind of banned communities,

these obsessive communities are a byproduct of, Our culture in the United States and honestly globally, we're just not dealing with these technological evolutions the way that we thought we would. It's just I have realized over the past few years, especially since the pandemic, that my IRL community, my family, the new friends that I've made, the old friends that. that I've had, romantic relationships, that is what sustains me. I love my job. I love the building community digitally. It saved my life in a really bad time, but I got to see people and hug them and look them in the eyes and share a meal with them. That is what brings me the most joy. And I think I realize that's an incredible privilege that I don't take for great. granted. And a lot of people are not privileged in that way.

Wow. What empathy. I have to, I'm reminded of this Janelle Monet quote, we come in peace, but we mean business. You're like, I'm looking for justice, but I have empathy. Like, I, I don't know if I would be able to be capable of the kind of empathetic assessment of what's happening emotionally with some of these people the way that you are. I think that really speaks to your character. Oh, yeah. And I'll say, You can find that community and find joy in being able to use that community to exercise violent expressions of power. Right. Like I think that the communities that we are able to build and take part in, we are empowered by them.

We feel power within them. And that guides so many of our actions. And some of those actions are good, positive actions. And some of them are objectively. I won't say objectively. Some of them are potentially very harmful. And I think that people are using the communities that they've built for negative ends. And I definitely do not.

I do not have empathy for that whatsoever. I can empathize with what draws you to a community, but I do not empathize or understand at all the desire to rally around abuse and threats and harassment. And yes, Janelle Monet, 100% right. My natural orientation in the world is empathy. That guides my politics. I believe in grace. My dad died when he was 50, but before he died, he said, the only thing you can't come back from

his death. And I believe that. You make mistakes and you do bad things. You hurt people. And then you do whatever you can to make it right. You invest yourself in repairing harm and making amends and explaining to your community why what you did was wrong and why you shouldn't do that in the future. And I think that the people who participated in this against me, this organized campaign of abuse and harassment, I don't think they have to suffer for the rest of their lives. I don't want to ruin somebody's life forever. I don't want to make sure you can never rent an apartment or that you can never buy a car or you can't get into college or that your children have to suffer. that's not my aim.

But my aim is to my aim is to encourage people to invest in the things that I believe in, which is you cause harm, you make it right. Words to live by. That is a good motto. Kimberly, how can folks support you? Are there ways that people can support you

in what you're going through right now? Yeah, I do have a GoFundMe, which I went back and forth a long time about, but after maybe about a dozen people asking how they could support, I did set up the GoFund Me. And now I am just so incredibly grateful for the, this is now 100 people who have donated to the GoFund me to help pay for lawyers.

Oh my goodness, I did not know how, I mean, I guess I knew, but I didn't really know. how expensive retaining lawyers is and investigators. And, oh, I've already spent thousands of dollars. So I appreciate everybody who has given to that. You can follow me in social media. I actually am not going to be tweeting about it as much anymore since things are rolling. And my counsel has said, you got to, you got to reel it.

And it's like, okay, you're right. We're right. We'll set this aside. for a second. But yeah, if you're interested in supporting the cause, I definitely welcome anybody who, you know, can spare a couple of dollars. You don't have to support, sharing the story, talking about it, advocating on behalf of other people who have experienced that. That is enough for me. I'm going to be okay. I am. I have such a great support system, and I'm so grateful. I have such great networks and I could not thank them enough. I would not be here if not for them.

But if you see this happening to somebody else, please reach out to them, support them, help them in the ways that you know how because most people aren't me. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoody.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoody.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeartRadio and unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, 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 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 acapella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk

ever again, I was finally. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Marquis come in to him, he's like, you know I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

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on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats.

So we too can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Thank you.