There Are No Girls on the Internet - Satanic panic is dominating TikTok conversation around Travis Scott and Astroworld

Episode Date: November 21, 2021

Almost immediately after the Astroworld tragedy that left 10 people dead and hundreds more injured, conspiracy theories began popping up claiming the festival was a "demonic ritual." Researcher Abbie Richards explains the roots of satanic panic and why it is so dangerous. Read Abbie’s Media Matters piece.Satanic panic conspiracy theories about the Astroworld Festival are going viral on TikTok: https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/satanic-panic-conspiracy-theories-about-astroworld-festival-are-going-viral-tiktokFollow Abbie on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tofologyAstroworld Festival: How to Help Those Impacted by the Tragedy: https://www.gofundme.com/c/act/astroworld-festival-fundraisers Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

about what happens when the brain goes off course. Listen to Intercosmos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are no girls on the internet as a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, And this is there are no girls on the internet. In the wake of the AstroWorld tragedy,

a music festival led and headlined by rapper Travis Scott that left 10 dead and hundreds more injured, TikTok exploded in conspiracy theories that the event was actually a titanic ritual where people were being intentionally sacrificed. After the tragedy, I was glued to my phone, watching increasingly horrifying first-hand accounts of young people who were there.

And pretty quickly, these videos went from people sharing stories of overcrowding and two little staff with too little training, and other man-made elements to disaster. To people saying they felt they had been hypnotized into a trance by the dark music, or speculating that there were clues hidden in plain sight that the festival was actually part of a satanic ritual.

Because of the way TikTok functions, continuously surfacing new videos and users as 4U page, I didn't even really have much control over the increasingly more extreme videos I was consuming. It raises a question. In the wake of a tragedy like AstroWorld, what responsibility do platforms like TikTok have to not amplify content that pushes conspiracy theories? Now, satanic panic is nothing new.

The moral panic where thousands of unsubstantiated allegations of satanic ritual abuse and sacrifice have been around since the 80s. But researcher Abby Richards says it never really went away. My name is Abby Richards, and I am a TikToker and a TikTok disinformation researcher. I've seen so many TikToks sort of claiming that this was, What happened in Houston was like a ritualistic sacrifice by Satanus. And, you know, I guess my first question is, what kind of imagery or iconography are people pointing to to support these outlandish claims? There was a bunch. I think a lot of it was like there was a portal on the stage.

There was writing kind of on the stage within that portal that said see you on the other side. and they were also pointing to the cross-shaped stage, which just for reference is a pretty normal shape of a stage, as well as the shirt he was wearing and the slow rhythm of the music. When I was growing up, I was definitely like a goth teen, I guess you might say. And so I liked black clothing. I liked sort of, I guess, like demonic imagery and that kind of thing. And I grew up in the kind of household where my parents would be like,

oh, this is Titanic, don't listen to this, don't listen to that. And as an adult, I realize that occult imagery can sort of be just like a marketing thing. Like a lot of the bands that I like, I'm sure they chose the specific imagery that they did precisely because they knew it was associated with like the occult. And so now in light of this tragedy, I feel like people are looking for all these different like symbolisms and meanings. And it's like, well, it's not unusual for certain alternative artists to, choose iconography that is associated with the occult as like their brand. And so you seeing a

conspiracy theory on it, it's kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy or like a feedback loop. Do you know what I mean? Absolutely. I mean, it's very much become a part of different cultures. I mean, you've seen it in hip-hop culture, and this is what we see at the show, of adopting that kind of imagery because they've already been accused of it so much that it kind of starts to fold in on itself. They're definitely better people than me to speak about the history of hip-hop. I'm not that girl, but it's certainly become a part of some of the marketing campaigns that they use. Yeah. So in terms of these videos and how they're taking off on TikTok, in your piece with Olivia Little for Media Matters, you talk about this unprecedented reach that we're seeing with conspiracy videos on TikTok about the festival.

Can you tell me a little bit about how they're taking off from a platform? Conspiracy theory TikTok is so mind-bogglingly huge. It's really hard. to articulate just how big it is. It's so popular and so easy to go down those wormholes because I think that like those videos can be really gripping. So they get high engagement. People love watching them and you can gain a lot of followers pushing them. People don't necessarily understand that they can be harmful. They don't necessarily understand they can like be truly hateful in origin. But we see them all the time. So when we saw these like conspirators, theories essentially break out immediately after the astro-world tragedy, it's not necessarily

surprising because there's already such a strong kind of framework for that type of thinking on TikTok already. Do you think that TikTok should be doing more to curb these kinds of videos? Yes, they should be doing more to curb these types of videos, like absolutely without a doubt. Conspiracy theories at the moment in and of themselves are not against the platform's moderation guidelines, but a lot of the time, a lot of the time that means that they can just kind of thrive completely unchecked and there is no understanding of different kind of scales of harm that they can cause. In general, the app should be doing more to kind of add friction to those videos so that they don't go so viral so easily and just take over entire for you pages.

Well, on the one hand, I can kind of understand why these videos are so compelling. I know that in the days after AstroWorld, I really caught myself kind of stuck in a loop of watching these videos over and over and over again. And there really was something kind of compelling about them. They were so disturbing and so dark. And I noticed that initially I was being surfaced videos from people who were there who were just saying, this is what it was like, this is what we had to face. And eventually, as I continued scrolling on TikTok, the videos I was being surfaced were more and more extreme and becoming more and more laden with satanic conspiracy theories. But again, I can sort of see how people can be easily taken in and easily down a rabbit hole just watching video after your video like that. Absolutely.

I think, especially on TikTok where it just feeds them to you, it's not like you made the choice to go click on those videos. It was just like, oh, you watched this video of a perspective from inside the crowd and how terrifying it is. Other people who watch that are also interested in this theory of it being a ritual and then it feeds it to you. And the other thing to point out is that conspiracy theories exactly like this are really common in the wake of tragedy and terrifying disasters, things like when we try and process horrible, horrible events that are truly just like too much for our brain. Conspiracy theories offer very simple answers to these kind of complex problems and also offer some sort of like sense of meaning to it. Like it was intentional. There's some sort of story behind it that your brain can connect the dots into. Oh, my gosh.

I think you really said it. You know, I can kind of understand why, oh, this was a satanic, ritualistic sacrifice. It's somehow more comforting than it was good old-fashioned capitalism. And it just turned out that the organizers of this event cared more about making money than they did about safety concerns. And I guess if it's Satanist, I feel like it's much less likely that I'm going to run into a cabal of Satanus than it is that I am going to like encounter shoddy craftsmanship from somebody who didn't care or like a system that didn't care enough about me and it hurt me. You know, I feel like it's more comforting to believe the first one than it is to be like, oh yeah, it's capitalism. We can't escape it. It's all around us, you know.

It's somehow bleaker. It's definitely more. reality is more grim in the situation. I also think that, you know, as everybody does, we all suffer from this sort of main character syndrome. And if the narrative in your head is, it's an evil group that's out to get you, then you are somehow involved and they are concerned with you. And their actions are a reflection of somehow, of how they want to go after you. You are still somehow involved in that, but when instead it's just they literally didn't think about you. They're so concerned with making their own money that they never thought about your safety. You weren't a concern. You

are just an object that produces money to them. That is so much worse for our brains to try and comprehend than like evil group is trying to get you. That's way harder. It's brimmer. It's grim. It's grim. It's also just so lonely. It's so lonely to feel like your humanity is not recognized. Yeah, it's very, it's inhuman. It's, it really loses the humanity when you think about it in that framework versus if you just go with like evil villains and good guys who are in like this fight against evil. I feel like you get to kind of feel like your humanity is still relevant to them. Obviously those kids' humanities didn't, like, was not obvious to the organizers at this event. Like, they were being treated

like chattel. You know, it's like, you know, this idea that that their individual humanity and souls or whatever that, like, the organizers would be really into that. It's like, no, they don't, I don't think they even clock you all as humans who they need to care about in that way. No, you're just numbers. And the higher the number, the more the revenue is. And they wanted to stream it. And yeah, the whole thing is, So, so grim and just like so fucked up that I think people have an easier time adding a storyline to it. Because then at least there's some meaning behind it and it's not quite so fucked up. It's literally less fucked up if it were a demonic sacrifice. 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, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter, 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. 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.

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like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series

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Listen to the Radio 831 podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At our back. something else I've learned from your work is this idea of conspiracy theories often are a way to talk about or a way to demonize people for their identities without actually like saying that. And so in this situation, I've noticed people saying like, oh, they're sacrificed by celebrity. And I can't help wondering if they're using celebrity as like a stand-in for, it sounds like anti-Semitic and racist to me. Like the way that they're talking about it, it almost seems like a more palatable way of coding explicit anti-Semitism or racism. Yeah, absolutely.

When they like dog whistle at Hollywood, like, you know, Hollywood is controlled by evil elites who are using these celebrity clones. And of course, they only ever go after hip-hop artists. It's generally black artists. And it's usually narratives about them being cloned, about them being somehow under control of some Illuminati shadow elite supreme force. And oftentimes, like, there's just so much coded racism and so much coded anti-Semitism in both of these. And they just fold together into this awful combination of dog-whistled hate. Yes. And I think it's one of those things where they don't have to.

come out and say that they're talking about Jewish people or they're talking about like rappers, you know what that's code for. It kind of makes it more palatable. And then when you call it out, they have a very convenient, you know, it's like, I never said, I never explicitly said that I was talking about Jewish people. I like, you know, I feel like the way it kind of gives them a plausible deniability to continue trafficking in this kind of hate without being called out. And if you call it out, it's like, oh, well, you're just trying to suppress my, you know, my, truth. Oh, absolutely. And like, there are also parts of what they're saying that, like, are rooted in reality and very real problems. And so then they can kind of hide under those as well. Like,

there are issues in Hollywood with, like, people having too much power. And those are often, like, old white men who are making decisions about, like, mass media. And, like, that's an issue, right? And, like, In general, do we idolize celebrities a bit too much? Like, probably. Like, those are, like, real conversations for us to be having. There are real systemic issues to, like, be looking at here, but they often kind of hide under them or, like, vaguely reference them in a coded enough way that it, like, to an on marker might not look problematic.

And it, like, gives them kind of a blanket to hide under. Yeah, I've noticed that. And it's so frustrating because it makes it so hard. to call out. It's like another reason why I appreciate the work of yourself and other folks who speak out against us on TikTok because they, I think that they make content that is specifically hard to call out. And so like, it takes a little bit of nuance to do it well. And so I so appreciate the work that you're doing in terms of saying like, well, let's actually unpack what's going on here. Thank you. I appreciate it. It takes a lot of time. So I genuinely appreciate it. You see it so much.

Like there was one big debunk that I did a couple months ago, I think, but there was a viral video about ancient civilizations in Antarctica. And the end of that rabbit hole was like esoteric Nazi shit. And I had to do this like three minute explanation of like, okay, like here's like what is actually going on here on like the surface level. They're saying like Antarctica like maybe had humans on it before. but then if you look at like the actual language they're using and they're saying like hyperborea, which is very much a part of kind of esoteric Nazi mythology. So what people engage with as if it's like just a normal, fun conspiracy theory like on TikTok is actually literally Nazi mythology.

And I think that really helps us see how these conspiracy theories might seem harmless, but actually can be a pathway to a much more dangerous and extreme. lines of thinking. I can at least anecdotally say that like when I engage with one or two conspiracy theories on TikTok, then all of a sudden I'm fed more and they get more and more extreme. I think that like there's absolutely a link. Like we know that conspiracy theories almost always end in anti-Semitism. And they they decrease kind of your trust towards other groups of people who might not be like you. And they decrease your pro-social behavior. and they have kind of all these effects on society at large.

But it does kind of also seem like they are changing the way we think, like where so many people have just like opted out of reality and are choosing kind of just like these escapist conspiracy theories to believe in rather than accepting that like right now reality is pretty tough. Yeah, it's so interesting how you put that. I do feel like an entire subsection of the world has just checked out of reality and it's like, it's like easier to live in a conspiracy theory because, like you said, reality is pretty scary. The fact that, you know, it's not really some Satanist group, it's just capitalism trying to get your money and that's what killed eight people.

That's pretty grim. I can understand wanting to check out of that reality and instead believe something that is like weirdly more comforting, you know? Yeah, absolutely. reason, like for the human brain, it is more comforting to believe that there's like a shadow elite trying to get you because at least that's a simple answer, right? That has a pretty simple fix. If there were some like unimaginably powerful group in charge of the world, like that would be kind of great because like they're clearly doing a bad job. Like let's get rid of them. But no, like there's a lot of systems that are like interwoven with each other

and causing problems that we are like reliant on those systems and we're complicit in those systems. And like we all have to also change our own behaviors to like fix these huge problems. And they're going to take years to fix. There is no like on off switch for fixing these things. Like it's years and years of collective work. And that is so much more mental energy and like long term physical energy. than just being like, oh, it's just evil Jews and control of the world. Right.

I guess I have one kind of tough question that I've been wrestling with is, is there a line between telling people who were at AstroWorld that they can't recount their own understanding of their experience? Like, I'm sure you saw that video of the young woman who was like, when I bought this ticket, I didn't notice all the different, you know, iconography, or hints that this was a sacrifice, and I believe that was there. like it was demonic, all the hypnotic noises.

Is there a line between telling someone that they're allowed to have their own perspective of their experience and like allowing room for that, but also not spreading harmful, damaging conspiracy theories and trafficking in them? Like is there a line where we can make space for both? Or do you have any thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I think that people are allowed to have their own experiences. and they're allowed to kind of talk about those. The question is, do we amplify them?

I don't think that we should ever tell somebody, no, you aren't allowed to think this. But the question is, do we then spread that to another 15 million people who weren't there and are just going to kind of take your word for it and also believe that? The power that something like TikTok has when it comes to virality and spreading a message

is really kind of unprecedented. So we have to be having conversations and honestly tough questions about like what is doing the most harm versus the most good in this sort of situation. And it's like all of it is going to be shitty answers. Like I wish that there were ways that everybody can be happy. And the whole thing is just like awful to think about in general. So yeah, it's a tough question. You're not wrong. More after 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 I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 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. Call 844-844-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-840. 4 Iheart. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast, Point Game is about defining the odds.

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

He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers why he got the ball. Like, after you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball.

So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us. The United States will not stand by and allow any power, however great, take over another country. From IHeart Podcast, Saigon. Please allow me to introduce Joseph Sherman. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam? I should stop talking so much. I like hearing you talk.

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and it's going to burn out everything. Listen to say. Saigon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. Satanic ritualistic sacrifice were not the only kinds of unsubstantiated claims that we heard in the aftermath of AstroWorld. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner initially said in a televised press conference that an unidentified attendee caused a panic by injecting a security guard with a needle full of an unknown drug, causing him to pass out.

Finner said that the security guard was revived after he was given narcotics. a prescription to treat opioid overdose. And he also said that medics confirmed he had a needle mark on his neck. Now, as soon as I heard this, I thought it sounded kind of like the drug scare horror stories I'd heard during my adolescence growing up. And one rogue bad actor causing a panic that led to a deadly stampede is a pretty convenient explanation that kind of lets the organizers off the hook

for their part in the deadly festival. But later, Binner walked back those statements, saying the security officer had not been injected with drugs after all and instead had just been hit on the head. Conspiracy theories cast blame on boogeymen instead of on the actual real-world systems and individuals who are at fault. Kind of the flip side of that for me is that so many of the firsthand videos on TikTok are from people who were there.

And in terms of what we amplify and what we don't, I feel like some of the most compelling TikToks that challenge the organizers and the authorities, you know, like very convenient. version of events. When the tragedy first happened, I was like, oh, the cops were saying that somebody was like stabbed with a needle and that they caused a stampede. And I was like, that's a very convenient narrative. And then when you go to TikTok and see these firsthand videos of obvious overcrowding, like obvious, like dangerous conditions, part of me was like, I am glad that young people have access to platforms like TikTok where they can say, no, no, no authorities, here is what I

experienced. And rather than amplifying conspiracy theories, I wish that we were seeing more, you know, more accounts that challenge the authorities and the organizers very convenient narrative of what happened to get accountability. And so I think it's interesting how it can be like a double-edged thing. It can be used to spread conspiracy or used to challenge official narratives that let people off the hook who had power to stop this. Oh, absolutely. It's one of my favorite things about TikTok is just like there's good and bad. And I think obviously just like my work of analyzing, you know, misinformation and disinformation on TikTok is oftentimes people look at that and then assume that I hate the app.

And I really don't. Like there are really phenomenal things that it offers. Like when it comes to like learning and like being exposed to different ideas than you might already have. Like, TikTok really is capable of doing that if you create that sort of deed in general. And if you are that type of person who goes looking for that. And it absolutely, I think even with AstroWorld, like, there is both. There is the conspiracy theories and the ideas that it is a satanic ritual.

And then there's also people who are looking at that and just seeing the overcrowding and the poor management that went on. So, like, yes. And again, top question. because how do you balance those? How do you have an algorithm that can tell the difference and promote what is like honest, you know, experiences of what happened versus like conspiracy theories about it?

Yeah, it's a tough question, but I'm happy that there are folks like you who are asking those questions and sort of creating those conversations that I think that we need to have. Yeah, we definitely need to be having them because this conspiracy theory environment on TikTok is not sustainable for democracy or, or just like a healthy environment

for a lot of kids to be growing up in like they should be challenging the narratives. Absolutely. But I don't think conspiracy theories actually challenge the narratives. They just are kind of, how do I put this? Conspiracies don't challenge narratives. They are just dressed up as something that does.

That is, I completely agree with you and know what you mean, right? It's like, like with AstroWorld, challenging the narrative would be holding the people who have, power accountable. If it's Satan, then, like, we're not going to be able to sue Satan. So it just, like, lets people who let this happen off the hook. But it's dressed up in this way of, like, oh, this is like an edgy, y'all aren't ready

for this, like, edgy take. You know what I mean? Like, it's, like, dressed up as if it is challenging a narrative. But in fact, it is creating a convenient, a supernatural scapegoat so that those who actually had the power to prevent this can continue to, like, a lot of. avoid accountability. Absolutely. That was so, oh, so well put, you took my words out of my mouth. That was really, you nailed it there. Because like, if you subscribe to this idea that it's a satanic ritual, then like that offers zero answers about like, what cost it? What were all the bad

decisions that led up to this? And then it offers also no solutions for how do we prevent this in the future? The only thing that it tells you to do is except Jesus is your Lord and Savior. That's it. And like, that doesn't fix any problems about concert overcrowding. Also, and like this is something that a lot of the times I think we miss when it comes to covering conspiracy theories, but on a much kind of smaller scale, not on the societal scale, but on a smaller scale of like there are real victims here. Like there are people who die and people who have very severe injuries and a lot of people who are traumatized and all of those people have families. And then when you go around saying it was part of a satanic sacrifice.

Like, how is that going to make them feel? And like, what are the consequences for that of now you have family members who are grieving their loved ones? And if they go look for their loved ones online, they're going to see them incorporated into conspiracy theories about this being some sort of like Hollywood hip-hop sacrifice. And even worse, like if they are a religious person, and they buy into that themselves, like, what would that do to them? So, like, those are really heartbreaking, very real-world effects

that these types of conspiracy theories can have on the victims and their families. Yeah, and I think that you're exactly right that we don't talk enough about the people who are harmed when we traffic and conspiracy theories and spread them in this way. The people, like, the actual real-world harm that it's causing. Yeah, I mean, there's the ideological harm in the way it's, like, harming society. at large to think this way because like this again solves no problems offers no solutions and lets people check out it lets really the organizers and the people who are responsible off the hook in a lot of ways but then it also causes harm to like real humans who are in the process of

like even processing trauma and grieving and trying to understand what happened and now if they go looking for it they see satanic ritual but that's not fair to them It's really not. I mean, I'm so happy that you're in this fight. Friend of the show, you know, I look to you, whenever there's a big thing happening that involves conspiracy theories, I always look to your content and it really helps me put it in perspective.

So thank you for that. Thank you. I'm happy to be able to help. I love your show, always listening. I love coming on here. Yeah. Where can folks keep up with all the amazing work that you're up to? So my TikTok is topology,

and I make a lot of kind of like longer form TikTok videos, debunking different conspiracies on there. My Twitter is Abby ASR, and my Instagram is Abby SR. All of them are resources, and I hope that they can help people. 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 IHeart Radio and Unbossom. 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 helped make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel,

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