Tomorrow - 111: Changing the Narrative with Casey Johnston

Episode Date: April 6, 2018

We’re here to tell you our terrible takes, unless the Scottish government steps in to stop us. This week Josh and Ryan discuss leaky Grindrs, Ivanka Trump’s Instagram aesthetic, and anti-Semitic dogs. Then Josh sits down with Outline luminary Casey Johnston to discuss the way the media has covered the horrible tragedy at the YouTube offices. Hope you brought your all-gray trucker hats! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to Tomorrow. I'm your host, Joshua Tpholsky. Today on the podcast we discuss fake blackberries, grinders, and Hitler pugs. I don't want to waste one minute. Let's just get ready. I'm here with Ryan who will hand me delightful, lovely, the... The Lopsuous. The Lopsuous Ryan who will hand me a high-rion. Hi, Josh. And we're coming back from, I'm not in L.A. anymore,

which is very disappointing to me. Mm-hmm, and for the City of L.A. And very sad for all of the people in L.A. Every 55-year-old man wearing like boot cut jeans and a tight shirt, a tight like Ed Hardy shirt. It's very disappointed for all of those people. He's gonna have to get an extra green juice today. He's gonna have to get several green juices and a salad with a dressing on the side. But anyhow, back in New York, we're supposed to have a snow apocalypse this week. I'm told, which is fucking insane.

It's April. So I don't know what's going on. But you know, maybe Trump's right. Maybe climate change is fake. Fake news. It feels pretty cool to me. Anyhow, so look, there's a lot of stuff to talk about. Yeah.

I'm having a midday, I'm having a midday scotch. Yeah, you came in with the scotch and I was like, seems about right. Do you want? Did you want something? No, I mean, it seems about right for the week. That's a good reaction. It's been a long, it's been a hard, long, just shitty week. But that's kind of like every week. Yeah. You know, one thing I realized is I mean, I was in LA. I really didn't, I was in a lot of meetings and Lauren and I were kind of hanging out trying to have a little bit of like downtime in between the meetings. And I really didn't look at the internet that much.

Yeah. And two things in Lauren, I've been talking about this a lot this week. Two things that are I think really significant about that. One is, um, didn't matter if I looked at it or not. Yeah, the things happened. Yeah. The world kept spinning and I had no control over them. And no real input in them. Right? And we have an amazing team here.

So every time I look at the outline, we have an incredible, I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back, because I actually feel like last week was a good example of where I'm like, I don't know what's going on in the outline. Let me check it out. And every day I was like, wow, this is super fucking interesting. These are great stories. But I had no real material connection to them for the week. You know, I was just like kind of out of the mix.

You had a bit more objectivity. But so one, everything happened. Yeah. And there were stories that were heartbreaking. And there were stories that were, I mean, I don't just be on the outline just around the internet, you know, in stories that were interesting and useful and whatever. But then also, you know, like, I do think I felt better, just not, like what I realized is, you know,

the only thing that can stop this, the government that is currently in control and every day there's something, I mean, literally every day there's something that I just think it's so bad. Like the Scott Pruitt, you know, the stuff with him and now there's who he's gonna be fired, and who will be the horrible person that replaces him,

or whatever it is. And I think it is horrible. And we can't lose sight of the fact that the country is being run by some of the worst thieves and crooks in history, at least in a position of power in a government. And by the way, most people in positions of power in governments are awful,

but we've gets into the truly worst here. The worst of the worst, as Trump might say. They're truly amazing. They're actually, they're actually like, when he described, when Trump described the Mexicans flooding into the, flooding the streets with drugs and raping people, I feel like he was actually describing his cabinet.

He was actually describing his cabinet. He was actually describing his staff. You know, the guy bros icing each other and doing coke off of the fucking oval office, you know, of side tables and whatever bullshit is going on. But what I realize is this, and we can't lose sight of this. It's important to stay alert and to stay aware. But the most important thing we can all do is get ready is plan for voting. Yeah, voting. Because the only thing that really will fix this, it just is gonna keep going until we vote these people out of,

they have to use a mechanism that exists, which is art right now, because we can't count on Mueller to come up with the perfect, maybe it may not be there. There may not be a connection, you know? With only power, we really do truly have is voting. I mean, and that even that's being eroded. Yeah.

Right now, it's the most crucial time to like really, and this is what I was thinking about a lot this week when I was kind of replaying like how I felt last week, which is I came back to the news. And I was like, you know what? I didn't see all this and some of it like really shocks me, some of it really depresses me. But what I know is like no matter how, if I had been shocked in the moment, or I'm shocked later, the only thing that can actually change it

is that we, the people, same people in this country, look at what's happening and look at how corrupt and fucked up everything is and just go, we're gonna vote these people out, we're gonna do it piece by piece, we're going to immobilize, because that is it.

Like, if all the people who can vote and want to find solutions do vote, we will fix a lot of the problems that we're having right now. We will solve this insanity that we're all feeling. And so the crazy thing is, and they say, I don't know how you tell the American electorate, maybe if they just listen to the tomorrow podcast, I don't know how you tell this electorate like to do it and I believe people do feel like motivated now,

but it's like there is nothing more important if you care about democracy in America and nothing more important if you care about your fucking sanity every day to vote like a motherfucker and vote these people out because we can actually do that. We actually have the power to do it. And so that's something I've been thinking about a lot

and it kind of made me feel in one way better because it's like, hey, we could do this. Like, we just have to wait and do it. And so that's something I've been thinking about a lot. And it kind of made me feel in one way better because it's like, hey, we could do this. Like, we just have to wait and do it. And then it kind of made me feel worse is like, what if we don't? What if like the one lever we have that can actually be pulled by the American people isn't pulled? Yes. And that's the scary, that's the scary part. It's like, would we be, are we going to be apathetic again? Because what apathy is what got us to Trump? I think we need to all of us of us, the kind of like daily michigan's and like being mad and tweeting are like 90 thread

opinions to our 500 followers, that all that energy we need to find a way to, as a group, redirect it into things that we know we can control, like local elections. I mean, screaming on Twitter doesn't, and then I, listen, I'm all about, you know, bitching on Twitter, but that doesn't, I had to stop. I just stopped with opinions.

It's not real. And by the way of a joke, give a joke. Otherwise, I start writing tweets all the time now. I'm like, it's not worth it. You know, I'm like, I'm like, oh, it's your time story. It's my opinion. Yeah, I mean, it's like, oh, I'm gonna tweet this.

I gotta tell people about it. It's like, do I? I mean, people know how I feel. The important thing is that, the important thing is that actually we do something with the information. June Diane Rayfield, who's an amazing comedian, did give a gift to the public recently when she said

the phrase, I'm not taking that on. She got her car stolen and someone said to her, how are you dealing with that? And she said, my car was stolen, but I'm not the kind of person who's gonna have a stolen car. So like, don't take on the emotional baggage. Deal with them, though, with it, you have to deal with, take the action you have to take,

but you can't take it to bed. I'm not taking that on. And I have said throughout this year, sometimes there's stuff I can take on, and sometimes there isn't. Our first story that we're about to talk about was something that I was like, I can't take this on.

Right. And that was the YouTube shooter, which we're gonna talk about in a second, but I saw that happening on Twitter, and I was going to a social event with a friend that hadn't seen a long time. And it was like, I am mad about this and I will read about it later, but I Twitter makes me feel like I have to process it

and have an opinion right now. And I don't. I mean, what could I do? Look, exactly. I mean, and the truth is like, understanding the futility of screaming on social media is actually a really important piece of the beginning of the healing. Like I do think, you know, our inclination is that

we are shouting like children. I mean, and I feel this way sometimes. I'm like, I just need to tell someone. I just need to tell someone how fucking insane this is. And I feel like the other night I was like, it's a crazy hot batter government is. And it was just like, I just need to, I just want to say, it doesn't do anything.

It's like, I actually said for a long time, I had this idea that there should be a, there should be something like that's like a comedy, like an open mic night. Maybe we've talked about this before, but instead of open mic, it's like complaining. It's like a night where you go up to a room full of people. Maybe by the way, this is ultimately

what comedy is when you think about it. You go to a room full of people. Maybe by the way, this is ultimately a comedy as when you think about it Yeah, you go to a room full of people and you're like, I'm so fucking I took this virgin flight And so fucking annoying I they like put me in the wrong seat and some he's gonna drink on me And just you get to like complain you should start a podcast Yes, yes, why you're in luck And so you know, but it's like it is like you just want to just like you just want someone you want to be heard You want someone to be like You know you need a's like, it is like you just want to just like, you just want someone, you want to be heard. You want someone to be like, you don't need a response, like just let me get it out.

And I don't even think that's necessarily unhealthy. It's just the impulse to do it all the time. It's therapy is what it is. Sorry, but like, yeah, I mean, I think that we have to recognize in the limits of what social media and like the public's, that internet public sphere does for us day to day is actually really important to like, how we,

and I've talked about this a million times, the etiquette of the way we use the things that we use. Like, and this is all changing really rapidly. Facebook is, you know, all the shit that's going on Facebook has helped to move that narrative. But it's like, we need to now understand where the usefulness is in these communication tools and then also understand where it ends.

And like, think about it in our daily, in our lives and use it smartly because like we are, I think we are spending a lot of cycles as human beings on things that don't help us and don't make us feel good and are feeding into this kind of dark energy that exists in the universe. Well, it feels like we're doing the thing like we have a sense of control. Like I'm the one talking so I can't be affected by this. But at the end we found out that like it's really easy to hack people if they're looking at something all day long as long as you control the thing they we have a sense of control. I'm the one talking, so I can't be affected by this. But at the end, we found out that it's really easy to hack people if they're looking at something all day long

as long as you control the thing they're looking at. Yeah, well, it's like what it's there. I mean, it's like, so it's like one of those things where you, what are you worried about people seeing? What are you putting in there? What is, you know, I'm not saying like you shouldn't be worried because you should have privacy.

Anyhow, we should talk about this stuff. The YouTube story, the YouTube shooter, which is extremely sad and confusing and upsetting story, we actually just published a story on this. Of course, this is Thursday. You'll be hearing this Friday. We just published a story on this that Paris Martino wrote, which is interesting because there's this media narrative that's been created about this shooter, which is like, I mean, some, not every person in the media,

but there's this like, oh, she was driven insane by the YouTube's demonetization scheme that they just started doing like not long ago, which is a thing that all a lot of YouTubers have been out of shape about. But, you know, if you actually dig into it, that narrative is not correct. And it's like, there's a much longer history of a person here who's like, very sick person who's had other, you know, if you actually dig into it, the narrative is not correct. It's like there's a much longer history of a person here who's like,

very sick person who's had other, you know, there's like, this is not, I'm not saying that it looks always surprising to be, start shooting people randomly, but like, it's not like, oh, we have this simple answer for this problem. Like, oh, here's why it happened. You know, YouTube is to blame in some weird way. It's like, that's not, you know, I think like, you know, it is that media, what we were just talking about,

that idea of like knowing when and where to pay attention and what to listen to and actually, you know, like this is, this is why media is so fucked up right now. You know, it's like, it's like the sound bite, we somehow turned the TV sound bite into the internet sound bite and it's like way worse, way more viral and way more effective. And we've never figured out how to have some media literacy

about what we're actually getting. And if we're like, how much value we're putting in it. This was a good example. And I'm gonna talk to Casey Johnson, who's gonna be on later. And we're gonna talk about a handful of things, but that will be one of them. So I don't wanna go too far.

Yeah, we'll get to that soon. But yeah. Also, this week, which is one of those things that I didn't weigh on on because I was like, this is stupid and I have nothing to contribute to the people who follow me. We'll already know. But Ricky Dervace is standing by that Nazi pug and it's right to be a man. So let's just talk about Ricky Dervace for a second. Okay.

First off, like, so I was in LA, there's like billboards for his special, which I've also seen on Netflix and it's like terrible. I would terrible. Okay, I haven't watched it because I gotta tell you, the art, the art, the photography that advertises this special is so fucking bad. I mean, it is like, I can't tell if it is like some extremely high level parody,

where like, like Rick, like Rickageurvais and his marketing team are on some level where they're like we're going to like Imagine if like Dane Cook Remember that name remember Dane Cook was that a band? Imagine if Dane Cook the 2004 Myspace Dane Cook was like imaginative Tucker Mac was time was time was like transported in a time machine an aged time was time was like transported in a time machine and aged, well, the walls being transported.

I don't know that he imagined Dan Cook runs Ricky Jervais's marketing team or whatever. Okay. Like, it's like, here's, here's the art. I'm going to paint a picture of you if you haven't seen it. I want, if you're listening, I don't want you to see it. Don't look. I'm going to paint a picture that I want you to look and tell me how it matches up. The overall color tone of the billboard and also of the kind of like screen, the kind of slap splash screen on Netflix is called Slate Gray. Ricky Jervais says,

I wanna say, and I'm from memory, is dressed in a slate gray outfit against a slate gray background. The outfit is something like a tight shirt he shouldn't be wearing in slate gray. There might be a dragon on it. I'm not really sure if there is. He's wearing, it's tucked into a pair of slate gray

or maybe charcoal gray jeans with a belt buckle, large belt buckle in the middle of his, you know, jean section. And he's wearing a trucker cap, okay? And he's shouting. He's grimacing or shouted. And he's, you know, Ricky Traveys is not, he's old. He's British. He's not like a sexy guy.

He's got a good-looking man. He's just a fucking British guy. And it's like, it's like, it says what it says is, it's like, it's like I've got something to say, and it's loud and annoying and dated. It's the guy with the worst take that is ensuring that you hear him say it. He's like, I've got the worst take.

And I want you to tell party. And I'm gonna make sure everyone, he's like, I've got the worst take and I'm the worst guy because I got a fucking trucker cap on and I'm shouting, but also, it's gonna be pretty boring. Like it's gonna be my take is the worst.

It's gonna go on for 12 minutes, but it's that fucking lame. It's so you're like, oh, okay. It's like a take about, it's like he's doing a monologue about Shunato Connor. Yeah. Okay, that's so you're like, oh, okay, it's like a take about, it's like he's doing a monologue about Shunato Connor. Okay, that's, it's like that would have been good in 1993 when she ripped up the Pope's picture. Like that to me is what his specials about. I don't know what it's about. He looks like a guy who's telling you about millennials. Anyhow, he exactly. He's like these millennials,

right? Whatever. He's fucking nice. Very tight. You know, like me. Oh, by the way, I did watch the trailer for it. And he's still doing this thing where he's like, he's like, you're clapping for me. Oh, you should. But I am the best. It's like, no one cares about that shit anymore. He's so bad.

And you know what, I have to take the original office. What's fine? Isn't that good? Doesn't justify the Americans a bullshit. There's a hot, I have fucking nuclear take. There's a nuclear fucking atomic bomb take.

American office. Much better show. Much better take. American office, much better show. Much better show. Much better. Much better show. Maybe that's not a nuclear take. I don't know. Is that a nuclear take? You're a, you're a, you're a, you study the arts.

Yep. I do that. So is that a nuclear take or what? I think they're different shows. Without time and time, it's a whole show. I'm gonna work. Don't give me that. Wishy washy.

Different shows. Which one is better? Boy, the scum aren't just really taking effect. It's really night and day. The American one. Yeah, there it is. Anyhow, it's case. Only one of those had Kelly Kapoor. This case is still in the room.

Oh, she is. KC, do you have an opinion on American versus British office? American versus British. Yeah. American is better. Yeah, it's better. It's better. I guess it's different. Yeah, okay American versus British office. American versus British. Yeah. American is better. Yeah, it's better. I guess it's different. Yeah, okay, that's true, but different and better.

This is not the nuclear take, I guess I thought I had. I guess this is the regular take. The nuclear take would be the British was better. Well, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let's talk about this pug video and the Nazis. Like, can I say something really quickly? Ricky Gervais' best thing ever is extras.

Oh, sure. Oh, yeah, definitely. The Patrick Stewart episode. Yeah. A fucking brilliant. Fantastic. Everybody should watch that show. Extras is, and I think people kind of, I feel like it was kind of glossed over.

Yeah, it was. Like, I feel like it was like a post office, like people just didn't really, what was airing, like when weeds was airing and we wasn't really the tone. It's the perfect show for Ricky Gervais because he plays a character who's this like intolerable, like is it getting sufferable dickhead in the way that his character was in the office, but he's much more like Ricky Dervais, I imagine.

Yeah, because he's slowly rewarded for it and you see how awful that is. Yeah, exactly. All right, anyhow, so what do you tell me about this? He's got a Hitler pug. So there was a video of a Scottish vlogger made Mark Meachan. I love that we live in a world where Hitler pug is a thing.

Just I'm not saying I like Hitler because I don't. I'm not a fan. We're in the ready, we're in the worst ready player one universe. I want to state this, I want to state this now because I feel like it's not out there. I'm not pro Hitler. I want people to know that I'm anti Hitler. I got to really make that clear now, but Hitler pug is want people to know. Yeah, I want people to know that I'm anti-hidler. Gotta really make that clear now, dude. But Hitler Pug is like, you know.

Right, so this guy made his Pug, he trained the Pug to respond to like, sig Kyle and gas the Jews and do like, tricks to those words. Cause you can make Pug's really do anything. And he made videos of it and put it online and he was like, I'm hilarious, call me Count Dankula. And the government was like,

It's pretty good day. Count Dankula's pretty good. Nobody's saying the name isn't good. I don't know if this guy is a neo-Nazir, what? But Count Dankula's a very good hit. Obviously, I think the Scottish government was jealous of his dank name. I'm just kidding.

I want to give credit where it's to. Okay. You know, if Ben Shapiro has a good opinion, just can't he tell us that everything comes out as a mouth is literal human waste. But no, credit words do count to calculate good screen name. Well, the government came down on count, thank you, Len, not over the screen name,

but for the Nazi puggery of it all. And they said, you can't do that, that's illegal. That's like, we don't have Nazi talk, cut it out. And Ricky Dervace is like, it was a joke actually and my bad jokes. Also like punishable by law. That's a very bad British accent. Well, so it's Ricky Dervese. I gotta tell you,

that was a surprisingly bad British accent for you. I haven't practiced. It's fine. I mean, I could do it if I was doing least of Andropomp. Listen, she's not British, is she? Yeah, she's too. Oh, really, I didn't know that. Yeah.

I thought that was just like a really hard core California accent. No, it's actually never seen a show. So I don't know. I saw one episode of it. People were like, you've got to watch it. Oh, hold on. First off, who cares, who cares, who cares,

who cares, who cares, who cares, that's the most important thing. Well, what's crazy is people are mad at him for making transphobic jokes and he's like, actually freedom of speech. No, the freedom of speech is that we can say that that joke is transphobic. That's what freedom of speech is therefore not for you

to be like, Caitlin Jenner's this, that and the other. I, so here's what I think, a king comedy. I mean, first of all, here's what we all have to accept. Okay. One, comedians are, they all have to and want to and badly are desirous of this, of being like, I say, I say the things that no one else will say. I'm a bad boy. They're like, I'll fucking say.

We're all thinking it. I just put it, yeah, you're thinking it, but I'm saying it. You know, they're all like Lenny Bruce. It's like, you're not fucking Lenny Bruce. You're not. If you're making like trans jokes, you're just, well, that, you're just kind of like a guy making trans jokes. Like, you may, you may be able to use like the Lenny Bruce argument,

but Lenny Bruce got fucking arrested. He got fucking taken off stage and handcuffs for fucking swearing, okay? But the thing is, I mean, I don't know if that happened, actually that's my idea of what happened with Lenny Bruce, but if that actually happened, that did happen. Okay, right, that's like real,

you're really pushing boundaries, you get arrested. Bigger trans joke is you just, you being a dick. But it's the Mel Brooks, but all of the people are like, well, you know, Mel Brooks did great Nazi comedy. It's like, well, Mel Brooks's family was in concentration camps, so you're not Mel Brooks. I all of the people are like, well, you know, Mel Brooks did great Nazi comedy. It's like, well, Mel Brooks's family was in concentration camps. So also, you're not Mel Brooks. I want to blow your mind.

You're not Mel Brooks. Also, like, there's a, there's a self awareness to that. There's a deep kind of meta level to the Mel Brooks, like the spring time for Hitler's shit. You know, it is not like Hitler's hilarious. It's not like your dog can. Responses. know, it is not like Hitler's hilarious. It's not like your dog can responses. But it's also about the take on it. The take on his thing with the Nazis was that he

took their obsession with being constructed and put together and very buttoned up. And he made it the opposite of that. You can't necessarily. The joke was good is basically what we're saying. Yeah. Like if it's a good joke, if you're not Mel Brooks, then your jokes on Mel Brooks, are Mel Brooks jokes. And I don't mean like, like, right, if you, like, and I don't mean like, Dane Cook Good, I mean, like, oh, you got some, some, some, some chads to laugh. Like, that's not a successful joke.

Yeah. A successful joke is one where like, really smart people who have read a book are like, that's smart and interesting. And you can do a, there's probably a trans joke out there that is somehow effective on multiple levels, where it's like, on its face, it's a trans joke, but in another way, it's actually making fun of people who make trans jokes or whatever.

So if you're a trans person and you're punching up, it's really great for you to write that joke. I'm not saying Ricky Jervais can't do a trans joke. I think the question is, but first off, you can make a joke about whatever you want. Like I don't fucking care. The truth is, like you're going to have to decide what is a funny joke to you, and other people will have to tell you if it's a funny joke or not. And there is obviously a line between you are pointing out the absurdity of something

or you are making commentary, and the line of where you go over to you are, you know, being offensive with no real point, you are like using some kind of low hanging fruit to take a shot at something because you know, it'll get it easy laugh. Yeah. There's the there's the smart stuff and then there's not some. Now I personally like look, you know, I'm trying to imagine the trans joke that's funny because I watched Dave Chappelle and he does some trans shit, and it's like, terrible.

It's not funny. It's actually like, just, it's like, his points are an old guy talking about shit, an old guy doesn't understand it. It sounds like that. But I don't understand that if you don't have anything to really, really say, and you're not doing something positive, there's so many things you could joke about. Why do you have to go after the one that,

if the joke fails, it does actual damage to people. Well, I mean, the, the, the, the, the, like, like, like, we have to draw a line where we call things jokes are not jokes. And I guess the Scottish government is doing that because you could say anything was a joke. You could be like Milo, Jan and Apollis and say my entire thing was a bit. It's a, it's a performance piece. You can't come after me.

Yeah. And that, we have to draw a line where it's like, well, you damaged people. So it, it wasn't very funny. Well, I think there is, I think there is a, there's some common sense that comes into this. And I think you can tell the difference between Dave Chappelle and Miley on an opalus. One is a very talented and successful comedian. The other is Dave Chappelle. I think jokes about, like if you're like, I have a whole handicap bit that I do, you know, about people in wheelchairs or whatever. Yeah. Or eight, it's a, I don't know,

I'm maybe handicaps, not the right word. I'm, you tell me, I don't, I feel like I don't know. But here I am, now I'm rigging your vase. Thanks a lot, Ryan. Maybe you have a bit that's just super fucking hilarious about, but I feel like, is that the best you can do? Yeah. Is like, take a shot at like some subset of humanity

that you've decided is like worthy of like your jokes. Like I just feel like that's a pretty, like to talk about your personal experience and to make it funny and to make it like what Mel Brooks was doing to your point. Yeah. To talk about his family's experience and to look at the Nazis in a way that's like relatively intellectual and like turn that on its like on its ear, right? That's like smart. I'm not saying it's perfect, but there's some intelligence there. It's like, there's commentary. You know, with comedy, it's like one of those things where it's like, you can get a laugh and it's a bad joke. Sure. You can get a laugh and it's fucking offensive and it actually is really offensive.

Roseanne pulled in an 18-chair or whatever. I mean, I don't maybe go back to Roseanne, but I watch your fucking garbage show after you told me about it and after we talked about it. Sorry. So just to say, like the fucking Nazi pug, most importantly, offensive or not is stupid. It's not funny. That's where I think I go to jail. The important thing is, I don't think he's a good jail.

You should go to jail for not being funny. But also, I don't think Ricky Jervais needs to leap to his defense. It's like, you know, you can just say nothing because it doesn't fucking matter. You're worried about freedom of speech. I'm much more worried about hate crimes. Yeah. I don't feel like we've got, I don't know about Scotland because I don't fucking matter. You're worried about freedom of speech. I'm much more worried about hate crimes. I don't feel like we've got, I don't know about Scotland, because I don't live there. But like in America, I feel like we've got

an amazing freedom of speech. I don't feel like we've had any problem with that. Okay. What I feel like we have a problem with is neo-nazis running people over with cars and the president going, like, well, they're pretty cool. That's a fucking problem. So like, you don't have to endorse the need for free speech.

You should be like, you should spend your time, if you're fucking whoever you are, I can't believe how long we've talked about Raheem Jervais, by the way. Spend your time worrying about, like if you want to talk about a problem, be like neo-Nazi shouldn't be allowed to fucking run people over with cars.

Let's talk about that, okay? Just make that your thing you want to talk about. Don't defend the pug, the Hitler pug. I can't believe this is the conversation we're having. Anyhow, also I think we should ban comedy because everything, we should just not. It's not doing anything good. What is the use these days?

Okay, let's move on. The next story, we have two health related stories that I have. The big kind of health. Grindr leaked bundled together location data, phone IDs, HIV status that people were using the app. There are orientation, all this information they were leaking to two companies purposefully and all that completely on, there was no protection on it. It wasn't encrypted. There was no, there was just a same text file filled with every grinder uses information. I mean, I don't want to be a dead horse here, but, you know, we should, I don't know,

like we should put way last trust in tech companies. Yeah. I mean, we should just stop assuming that anybody there has your best interest in mind. I'll say this, and I've talked about it before, but I put a lot of trust in Google. But Google has for 20 years or so proven to me that the worst thing that happens to me that I can tell with Google so far is I get a lot of ads targeted for things

I've been shopping for, which is annoying, but not much. I'm not saying Google's perfect. But like, grinder, who owns grinder? All the reason why? Who owns grinder? Is it IAC? No, I think I don't even think a conglomer owns it. Yeah, it's like Mark Zuckerberg.

Who the fuck is Mark Zuckerberg? But what's tough with this is that there's not a lot of places for queer people to turn. So in desperation, if you live in the middle of nowhere, you kind of get exploited. Like your desperation gets exploited. I get it, but like, but part of not giving that trust isn't just going like,

don't use grinder. It's us saying someone needs to fucking regulate grinder and anything where I put in my personal information into it, I have a fucking fit bit. Like what do I know about what they can do with my- I recently just helped do this stuff. Everything, I just wiped it all, I disconnected every service, I have a fucking Fitbit. Yeah. Like, what do I know about what they can do with my... Well, I recently just helped it. We just helped it. Everything. I just wiped it all, I disconnected every service, I did.

I have a Fitbit connected scale. And I don't use my, I actually have a Fitbit but it's in a drawer. And I haven't logged in my, I shouldn't even say this. I haven't logged in my Fitbit account for a while. You know, like, it's just collecting my weight data. Yeah. For what?

Why am I even doing it? Honestly, I should delete it. But the point is, you know, we regulate so many things. The food we put in our bodies, the drugs we put in our bodies, the cars we drive, the way that houses are built. Now it's got periods EPA. I thought it's... He's got, he's like, the car should just be, he Now, Scott Perkins, EPA has nothing to do with it. He's like, the car should just be,

he's like, what I wanted. Remember, lead was great. He's like, I want the engine. What I wanted for you to actually, the seat is inside of a giant engine. Your city inside, it gets one mile per gallon, but it has a 400 gallon tank. And that's the car.

We're gonna make Volkswagen EVO again. And it goes really fast. It's a fast car, one mile a gallon, 400 gallon tank. You sit inside a divot in the tank. There's a couple of bucket seats. It's like this fucking, by the way, I love the government. I love governments. I'm gonna be all for the first,

I don't know from the first person to say, I will be, I have a cramland fan over here. I'm happy to say, I will be. I have a cramland fan over. I'm happy to say. No, governments are awesome. They've done so many amazing things. America is America because it had a government. Yeah. That was like, here's what we're gonna do.

And if you like it, you love America. If you're like, these colors don't run or whatever fucking bullshit you say, it's because of the government. So yes, the people have been part of the process, but they were like, dear George Washington, please help us have a fucking country. Like I of the government. So yes, the people have been part of the process, but they were like, dear George Washington, please help us have a fucking country. I love the military, but the rest of the government,

I don't really understand why that. No, the military is crushing, but you gotta get rid of the government. Fire, fire, there is no military without the government. There is no control of things like that. Love firefighters. Right, no. And so what I want to say,

just like regulations are fucking awesome. The regulations are for, because not everybody can figure out if they should take a drug or not on their own. They're not going to have a fucking lab at home. They're like, let me check this out. Regulations rule because it allows you to go, hey, to the entire populace here in this country, we're letting you know this is good and this isn't. And here's what we think you should do with it.

And we're making these companies adhere to standards because we want to make sure that like, that they're actually doing their part to not, you know, damage or kill people. Like, on, like, so look, you may hate the FDA for some reasons, but the FDA definitely has a real role to play in our daily lives. The EPA, you may disagree with some of their policies, but they do way more good than they do bad.

If you had an unregulated environmental situation in this country, it's not like we have some limit of competition. You literally, everything you sit down and share, your legs would disintegrate. You literally would be acid sandwiches for lunch. You know, it's like, anyhow, the point is, I don't know what that means, I really don't.

An acid sandwich kind of sounds good to me. It's like a pop rocks. It's like the bread is made of pop rocks. I was gonna think the drug. So like an acid sandwich kind of sounds good to me. It's like a pop rocks. It's like the bread is made of pop rocks. I was gonna think the drug. So like acid sandwiches like you know. Well the one Molly, a bit of acid, a little more Molly. In the middle is the meat. The meat is a sheet of orange sunshine

or whatever you call it, whatever the acid is. Is that an acid? I think so. Okay, cool. Is that an acid? There's our title. Hello. Wait, what was this topic again? We were talking about Grindr.

Yeah. So my point is, let's have some fucking regulation of the tech companies, please. Like I want to know what they're doing. I want them to be, I want them to have to answer to someone. Yeah. I want Grindr to say to somebody who's in charge, like I just fucked up the insurance plans for years.

We do. Here's what we do. And here's how we're going to be held accountable. And like, we don't get to fucking just be like, oh, whoops. One of our engineers like put the wrong. This is going to be an unpopular thing to say for anyone that follows me on Twitter and here's this. But they also own a magazine where a lot of queer writers write called into, which is

actually a really great magazine. But what bothers me a little bit is that if you have any interest in freelancing or working with Grindr in the future, you're not gonna cover the story in the way that it needs to be covered. So from a media perspective, it was in Grindr's best interest to do this

because now they have a bunch of people who aren't gonna talk as candidly as the, in my opinion, as they would have about the issue. And that's an important part of like having this discussion or holding companies accountable. Yeah. And it's just not, it's not going to exist the way that I went. Well, listen, I mean, all I'm saying is bigger government speaking of bigger government. Wow. Ivanka and Jared Kushner tried to bribe Fahrenheit. Tell me, I'm sorry, give me the, the, the, the, give me the outline of the story. So Cecil Richards recently said that when she met

with Ivanka and Jared in January of 17, they offered her to continue their fund, she would keep her funding, they could come out and support Planned Parenthood, it would be over all of this would be resolved if that they just stopped doing abortion services. And basically trying to bribe her and the organization financially

to stop doing their court issue. Well, all of this is like, okay, yes, sure. But what really I zoned in on was the fact that Jared and Ivanka aren't the liberal coastal, she likes women. She's like four equal pay people like they're extremists. And this is a perfect example of being a fucking extremist or like some of people in the in the sphere of Donald Trump. They're so desperate to continue their whatever their whatever their role is that ultimately is like definitely about

getting money somehow. I mean at the end of of the day, all of this is about money. Yeah. It's about money and power, but power as a means. It's about Instagram likes. As a means to, yeah, as a means to money, really. You know, that they're so, I'm not by the way, I'm not defending them in any way. Like, I doubt that they have any good opinions,

whatsoever. And I've never, never felt like they probably have some good opinions. Like, whenever the liberal coastal. The liberal coastal thing is that, well, her clothes are kind of chic. And it's like, I want to blow your mind. No, they're not.

She's a start there. Ivanka has a gay friend. Like, no, I know. No, this is, I don't, they're not stylish, they're cool. They don't fit in at dinner parties. See, it's never, that is. They're gross. I've never been like, oh yeah, they're,

they're, how is this happening? They're so cool. They're, they're not fucking cool. Like, I don't know what else to say. But I picked the right shade of toner. We're all supposed to let her go. What I mean, I mean, it's like, look, Donald Trump is a cartoon character.

His daughter is the progeny of a cartoon character. And like, no point was I ever like a wanker, so fucking cool. She built herself based on Instagram trends, the most boring Instagram trends. And so like, I don't know where this comes from. No, but the point is, I mean, this in no way surprises me. This sounds exactly like what is going on

all the time in Trump's government, which is like these shady, weird, underhanded, gross backroom deals that are meant to serve the needs of a very corrupt and deranged president. Yeah. You know, he wants to be able to have his cake and eat it too. He's like, just offer them the fun thing. But he just said was needs was because I don't even think that Trump doesn't give a shit

either way. He just wants to get enough people to clap for him. I think no, no. And he wants his colleagues to be like, great job, Donald. No, I think actually, if I can, I'm going to give him a weird bit of credit for reasons that I don't really understand him. And when I'm finished, maybe you can tell me I'm an idiot. I think that Donald Trump at least realizes that that deep down real Republicans fucking hate his guts.

And in order to get them to be allies to him, which they all are, because they're complete pieces of shit. They are total viable garbage piles that he has to like buy them. And the way he buys them is by copy do you think Donald Trump cares about abortions. He does. No, he's like Mr. abortion. Yeah. Donald Trump is probably paid for more abortions than any man in America. Okay. He's loves, he loves abortions. Uh, a boy was punch cards. He's had a special many, many, I'm sure many, many of his abortions have kept him out of court cases, you know, and there's nothing wrong with getting an abortion

and there's nothing wrong with a guy who pays for someone to get a, I'm not saying. The problem is that hypocrite. There's anything wrong with it. Yeah. I'm saying does Donald Trump care if people get abortions? My answer is I doubt it. No, but he cares if Mitch McConnell cares.

He's like, we're done, we really don't get this abortions out. How would whatever he talks like? I don't fucking know because there are a bunch of dumb ass kicks. Jeff says, like, we got to do something out of these portions, Donald. Whatever their voices are, I don't know. Like a blob, like a blob person. Like, like, he's like, he can't actually move his own.

He's like an X-Men that guy gets the jellyfish power. You know what I'm like to, I don't like to get physical with people. I don't like to talk about their physical attributes because everybody's got their challenges, okay? You know, I have a hook nose, a huge, giant, Jewish hook nose, there, I said it, all right? And I don't like people to talk about it.

I'll live in Newton John up in here. I actually don't care about talking about it, and I really like my nose. You know what's funny about my nose is you think I have a great sense of smell and actually I can't smell anything, it's insane. It's like the cruelest trick of all time. It's like, God's like God,

cause God made my nose. God was like, this knows for this guy. That's how God works. By the way, as an assembly line, he's like picking things out on an iPad. It's like actually when you do character creation, the game, that's what God's doing 24-Seph, it didn't happen. He's like, doing the thing where it's like,

should I give him a mohawk? Anyhow, yeah, the... I was like, when you said in your mind, baby's come out with mohawk. Put it in. Naturally. It's like God's like putting huge nose on it. That it's like, but make it so he can't smell anything. That'll be funny.

That's that's the Ricky Jervisla. That's fucking that's a Hitler pug. You know, same thing. Freedom of speech, my man. All right. All right. Anyway, how do we? You guys get into a point.

I think I was getting to a point with Trump, but I don't know what it is. Boy, poor Casey, she's going to get me completely in here. Completely pickled state. What happens if you play monopoly with real money? We've got to pay the pipe. Okay, let's pay the pipe. There are no fruit watches in this completely reinvented game of an object. What does space sound like? What happens when you overwork yourself?

Do you believe that work-related stress has increased? It reflects the fact of how little value we place on the well-being of human beings. The Outline World Dispatch Every Monday through Thursday, we bring you a new story on the theme of power, culture, or the future. And picked from theoutline.com. Find us an Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify, your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing, or wherever you download your podcasts.

Also you can say, okay Google, play me the news, and we're right there. Oh my God, yeah! Make your mornings a little weirder. Okay, Casey Johnson is here. She is the editor of the future section of the out outline.com, a website, which I've heard about. I've never really read, but I understand it's the best thing on the internet. Casey, you walked, I would say, 20 feet, 25 feet to be-

Little farther. 35. It's a good size office. 20 feet. You walked about a 550 feet from one end of the office to the other. Yeah, a huge office. Actually, I don't know. I don't know. It was like two football fields. I don't know end of the office to the other. Yeah, a huge office. Actually, I don't know. I don't know.

It was like two football fields. I don't know how long the office is. I should look at our architectural drawings. I mean, it's like one hour of walking from one end to the other. So it's like pretty big. Yeah, it's pretty big. So anyhow, you're here. Yes.

And we're going to talk about the future, but also some other things. Sure. So anyhow, thank you for joining me. Wait, how many times you've been on the Tomorrow podcast? I've never been, I think. No, that's not sure. I think we did an episode, didn't we? Didn't we do an episode?

No. KC, I never do an episode. No. I find that impossible to believe. You never asked me to do an episode. Do a Google on that right? You had to leave. I'm pretty sure.

I really feel like we did an episode. Never? No. Wow, I guess it was one of those things where it's like do you ever think you send an email then you don't This this is not like that. I don't think yeah It's like I was like it's like oh yeah case it was on But I never happened no. Yeah, maybe you just like you dream you dreamed about it. I have had several you like Lengthy dreams. Yeah, it's like almost like it was real. It felt so real. Well anyhow, okay, fine, that's insane.

So let me first apologize for never having you on the twirl podcast. It's okay. Now we're on your time and you're paying me for it. So that's like ideal. It's all really working out. Yeah. So tell me what's going on.

Tell me what's happening. You guys just did a story on this YouTube shooter, which is like obviously a huge story this week. Paris just wrote this story about the narrative that's been crafted around this shooter. Can you give me like paint a little picture of that? And like, paint a picture of the narrative and what you guys kind of,

or what Paris sort of figured out as she was writing this. Yeah, totally. I mean, I think there's like a lot of discussion to be had about the sort of reaction to the event of the shooting. The first narrative that came out of the news was that it was a woman attacking her, attempting to attack her boyfriend, which turned out to not be true at all. There's like zero, that is not it. Yeah, I think zero truth.

Like an invented, that just invented. Who invented it? I'm who could say it? And just came out of nowhere. Yeah, it's insane I mean, it's like there aren't many female shooters. So like yeah, I assume it was like sort of a sexist Presumption that a woman would not pick up a gal in except to well This is exactly the thing. It's like this these ideas of like a still arena Bob it of it all right Oh, like she must be motivated some man having to a scribal logic to an illogical thing to do. Well, and the logic for a woman is like, all a man is the target. Right. Yeah. So what has sort of the sort of secondary wave of theorizing about why she did what she did is, and it stems from things her family has said, her father has commented to various news outlets saying,

this woman was very angry at YouTube. She tried to make money from YouTube. She made videos, and she was very upset about there was an event a year ago, maybe less where YouTube started, quote unquote, demonetizing a lot of YouTube videos, meaning like they were taking in way less ad revenue than they had been previously. So her dad said that she was very upset about this. And that was why she attacked the YouTube campus. And the trigger just to on them demonetization thing. The impetus for that for YouTube was there was a, and correct me if I'm wrong, there was a thing about a year ago where there were ads on videos like beheadings, like where people were posting beheading videos. And somehow that there was like a chase ad on the video, you know, pre-roll on the video. And all these brands and all these agencies,

these ad agencies freaked out and were like, what the hell is going on? How, the brand safety alarm went off. And it was like, how could you allow a chase ad to be leading this beheading video? And so they kind of like, correct me if I'm wrong, that's kind of the thing that started the demonization. I hadn't heard that specific story, but yeah, that's like the, yeah.

There's like sort of, they sort of started applying a broader filter to what was getting the premium ads. And I think that for, I mean, to me, that's like common sense. YouTube had a massive brand issue where they were like, hey, you're monetizing all sorts of stuff and people feel like you can't, if you run it out on YouTube, you don't know where it's gonna end up right?

But it was a very for a lot of people on YouTube It was it actually for people that maybe were on channels that were controversial or edgy But not like outrageous They felt like they were unfairly sort of hit with this like demonetization right yes, and so he. And so her father's narrative is like, this demonetization thing happened and it sent her over the edge. Right, that was sort of, that was what he sort of implied.

We tried to talk to him and he would not talk to us, but I think it's probably safe to assume that he doesn't know a ton about the intimate inner workings of YouTube. Like I barely know what the demonetization and adpocalypse sort of whole thing is about. So I think he heard, he saw and heard and experienced her emotional reaction to it, but I don't think he had a grasp on it himself of like what was really going on. So that's sort of what he described it to.

And that narrative became, started to become, has become the dominant narrative about the motive. And there are lots of people saying like, wow, it's so sad that like, you know, people, people stake their whole livelihoods on, on their YouTube channels, and then YouTube just cuts it out from under them and takes it away, and it's like, that's way more... I mean, that's such a fucking bullshit. Yeah.

I mean, I'm sorry. That's like, wow, like all these people went out to Hollywood to become famous actors and they didn't become Brad Pitt and of course they go crazy and shoot a bunch of people. Right. Not, no. That doesn't make sense. People in, here's life. Okay, let me talk about life.

Life is this. You want something really badly. It will make you feel good and maybe make you rich and or famous. This is most a lot of people, not every person, but a lot of people are like, I wish I was rich and famous. I want it really badly. Some people try. Most of them fail. Some people never try. But like the idea that somehow being rich and famous for being on a video, in video, being a celebrity essentially, that the failure to achieve that goal,

and no matter what the circumstances are, create an environment where you are suddenly a mass shooter, is totally insane. Like there's no logic there. suddenly a mass shooter is totally insane. Like there's no logic that you are owed something for having tried is not a logical. Well, that you were owed for having tried but also that your reaction,

you're a reasonable reaction would be, I'm gonna kill someone. Is none of those things are true. You know, it's like people try and fail things all the time. A normal reaction, a sane reaction is to be disappointed, to be hurt, to be upset, to be angry, and then to move on to whatever the next thing is. You know, there's no situation where a person like this, a person who goes to the, to the into the, I mean, I'm just saying, I'm not a psychologist, I don't know, but like, I'm, my view is a person who's like, I'm just saying, I'm not a psychologist, I don't know. But like, my view is a person who is like,

I'm gonna shoot people at some point and they do it. There's something, they're sick, they're ill, right? There's a mental illness there that needs to be addressed on some level and it doesn't matter what the trigger is. The trigger could be anything, it could be a traffic jam, it could be a breakup, it could be YouTube demonetizing your channel. The trigger is not the important thing.

The important thing is like there's a person here who is in pain and ill, and something is going to be the thing that pushes them if they don't get help. And the idea that we're trying to craft a narrative where it's like the responsibility of YouTube, or Google, or whatever, or somehow we can create this through line that, you know,

this simple, which is very salacious, YouTube demonetized her channel. She lost her mind. The next thing you know, she's dead and people are shot up, you know, she's dead and people are shot up. You know, that's such bullshit. And so the piece that Paris wrote is very much about the truth of this narrative, which is much more complicated.

Right. Yes. So the piece she wrote was a very, like, it was a sort of big technical lift on Paris's part, because as soon as this happened, YouTube and, well, Google, like, a bunch of different services, like, took down all of these channels. She had several YouTube channels. She has a website that's still up

and she had a telegram channel where, like, all of her videos were archived. She had a daily motion channel. She had a lot of stuff online. But a lot of it was taken down immediately following the shooting. So they, YouTube pulled down. YouTube pulled a lot of it was taken down immediately following the shooting. So they, they, you two pulled down. You two pulled a lot of, all of her channels down.

And what the reason it is there? I mean, this is, we're actually like a low-key preview, but we're like, we're now doing sort of a follow-up. We've talked about this before, this is going to be on on Friday, so I don't know what we're working on right now, but. Well, I mean, this will be probably next week, but we're working on a piece now that's like, why do we take down things that have sort of like significance rather than like leaving them up or sort of preserving them in a way that's like-

Well, this is, I mean, this may be an offline thing, but like, you know, after 9-11, there was this huge thing where, you know, it was like movies that had the twin towers in them. People were going back and doing re-edits of them where they took the twin towers out of them. And like, this whole thing where you were trying to erase, like people were trying to erase the existence of it in the past because it hurt to think about it now, which is a really fucking weird thing, like a kind of wrong to me. You know, it's like the things exist, they're real,

and then your present or whatever happens in the present or future changes, your perspective on what those things are, but like you can't erase them. So it's odd to like put that to me is interesting that YouTube or Google, whoever, let's just say Google, somebody there was like, we got to take these videos down. The videos weren't like, I'm going to kill a bunch of people. No, no, no. They were related to the, yeah. There was nothing that was like indicative of the shooting or like even her own violent

behavior as far as we can tell there was none of that. But I get locking the pages. I get saying like no more comments. I get saying like, we're going to, these are what they are and we're going to freeze like interaction with them because we don't want people to begin to deface these or whatever. Right. The idea that you would like try to revise what existed in the moment of a dramatic, violent crime is seems fucking insane to me.

Yeah, it's actually bizarre. Yeah, I don't know why that's like, I mean, well, that's why we're doing this piece is to be like, why, why is that the like reflexive reaction to just like take everything down? Right, but yeah, but what is the reason? Is it, we don't know. No, I mean, I can understand like, you don't have people to deface it,

but it's like you've controls against that. Right, it's like there's a middle ground between, like it didn't use to be, I think like a year, like I don't know, 10 years ago, like you could either sort of have, like to shut everything down would have been like a harder thing to do on the original version of YouTube, but now it would be very easy to just sort of like turn off things.

Well, it's also just like, it just to me is like, you're trying to like, I mean, you're trying to like manipulate a narrative in real time, like you're trying to change reality. That's like, to me, that's what it feels like. Like by YouTube going, we gotta take her videos down. It's like, oh, this horrible thing happened,

and her videos existing now will be either a reminder of it or will people will try to derive context from it or whatever, and we don't want that. We want to move it away so that people can concentrate on something else. And it's like, it's like going like, it's like, you know, the unibomber had these manifestos. Right. If they like burned them. It's like going like, okay, he or like, if we never, if no one ever published mind-conf

because like, yes, or Osama bin Laden if you like the tapes of him talking about You know America and talking about terrorism if we were like no like he did this horrible thing And now we have to get rid of the tapes right of him the be the person right because it's no longer relevant or present That seems fucking crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm very interested in that story. So anyway, yeah, that's that's something we're going to sort of unpack. But she Paris had to do a lot of sort of trawling through different internet archives to like reconstruct like which is so crazy. Like her videos were online like Monday. Now everything was crazy. Now it's like a reconstruction. It makes it doubly crazy. Which is like here

we are trying to tell a story about a narrative of what happened here and to actually debunk a common narrative that is out there in the world that may not be true. And the way to do it is to utilize the historical record of this person's presence online. And because it's on YouTube. And because YouTube has decided for some reason

that no one actually fucking knows the answer to, to move it away, to take it away. We don't, we can't establish the fucking story. It's insane. Yeah, it was hard. So she, she did a lot of work to sort of piece all this together. And what she found was that this person had a, extremely, had a lot of animosity toward YouTube and Google for years, going back years before the ad apocalypse before she did this. Yes, she had felt victimized by the YouTube platform and algorithms and felt that she wasn't

getting adequately monetized for the content that she was putting out there and she called them Satan's of the earth and like all of this, all of the stuff she had, she had a very like contentious relationship with the platform. So her, so her, so essentially, I mean, the then obviously you can read this piece on the outline dot com. But in essence, the narrative is actually here's a person who was agitated for literally years about YouTube and Google. Yeah. And you could find content from her where she is upset specifically about the quote unquote ad poccalips where she, that like, so if you only sort of dug to the various surface level

of her, you would be like, oh, so that's what she was mad about. But that's like, but it became like a sort of convenient event for this like crusade that she had already been on for years. Yeah, that's like saying like you, you are like, the government is corrupt, the government, we need to more checks and balances, we need more regulation or whatever, for years and then Trump takes off.

And you're like, look at this guy, he's, here it is. Like here's a perfect example, but it's like, but you already assumed that there was all this corruption. Right. You know what I mean? It's like, you can't just suddenly say, oh, there was a breaking point. I mean, but is the near, I guess all of this, and you tell me your take on it, or paris is take

for that matter, but is it that the narrative is, yeah, of course, she was always mad at YouTube, but this thing was the breaking point? Or is it this thing happened and that was what triggered this situation? There's one piece of sort of evidence that Paris came across was, at one point, this woman posted a screenshot of the monetization of her account that some video had gone like 300,000 views or something like that and her monetization from it was like 10 cents and she was like, the ad apocalypse is so awful doing this to us but it turns out that that screenshot

was from two years ago. So it was really just like, it wasn't a breaking, there was nothing really to break. It was like her, that was like already her relationship with YouTube that she felt she was not getting a hearing on it. This is like an ongoing thing. Right. I mean, I think the interesting, I mean, and this is what is interesting about the story and what I find so kind of troubling

is this quick dance to conflate to kind of just have the easy answer. And this is by the, I see the press do this all the time. I mean, I see mainstream media and I'm not, you know, like we're not obviously mainstream, but like I see large outlets do this thing all the time where they're like, this thing and this thing kind of add up, so that's the narrative.

And that becomes the fucking narrative. And it's not, you know, I hate to, God, I don't want to, I do not want to go down to the fucking rabbit hole where I'm like, Donald Trump was right about fake news. Like, but what is true about this idea is, and mostly it is, I will say, it's not like CNN and the New York Times, I think they are's not like CNN and the New York Times.

I think they are bad at framing sometimes and that can create a narrative that is actually really unhealthy. There is actual things that are made up. There are new stories that are invented. When you say fake, fake means invented, right? It means this is not true. That's mostly actually like things like Alex Jones

or Bright Bart of these kind of like right wing, you know, alt-right, whatever the fuck you want to call them. But there is this other thing that happens that I've always thought was so interesting. And I've talked about this before in the podcast, I think, but I remember when I was at, I think I was still at N Gadget, and there was a story about Obama's Blackberry. And it was like Obama is keeping his blackberry. And CNN ran the story. It's like Obama's keeping his blackberry. And then the story was about them.

They detailed some kind of device, some kind of smartphone that was Windows Mobile Base, which is like a Windows phone. It's like the thing that came after it. It's like it's so a such an old thing, but it's like an old phone OS after it. It's like, it's so, it's such an old thing, but it's like an old phone OS. Yes. That the device they talked about in the article

was this Windows Mobile-based high security thing that the NSA had created for like, presidents to use as like a smart device. And they're like, Obama's keeping his Blackberry. And it's like, this is in a blackberry. A blackberry is a specific thing. It's like a device that I can buy a Verizon store. And he has one.

He has one of those. Like that's the thing that he uses before he's president. Your story is about how he is like gonna get some kind of new secure device that the NSA has like commissioned or whatever. Those things are, those pieces of data don't match up. One is like here's a consumer device he's going to use the other is this thing. So like, but what I thought was weird is they sold the story.

It was on, you know, it was on CNN. They might have reported it on the news. We wrote a story about it. I think actually it's like, um, you guys are saying one thing in the story is actually something else. And for you, it's easy to conflate them because like maybe you don't understand it or it doesn't seem like an important detail. Right. But the conflation is everything. Like the, you can flate a consumer device. The, because the fear is a president with a consumer

device. Yeah, it's like open. Yeah. This is like Trump with the his Android phone or whatever. You know, it's like, that's a fucking hackable device. Who's worrying about security on it? Yeah. But over here, you've got some other secure thing that has nothing to do with the blackberry. And you're like, oh, it's a blackberry. It's like, no, it's not. And like the details fucking matter. Yeah.

The idea that this woman had a longstanding dispute with YouTube that maybe was the adpocalypse thing was a part of it. Versus the adpocalypse thing began her descent of it. First is the adpocalypse thing began her descent into madness, which led to the shooting. Very like I can see how you can inflate them. I can see how you can ignore the first part of it because the second part of it makes more sense.

Right. But to do that is so fucking unfair to an audience. It's so unfair to us to understand what is going on, right? That to me is like gets to the heart of so many of the, how fucked up like the media is right now, which is like, it's not like you did it maliciously. It's not like you even understood what you were doing, but you did it and it's stupid. Right. It's like, it's's like the inclination to package something neatly is just so reflexive and everybody right now.

I mean, it's the time's approach to Hillary's, the Comey Hillary thing, where their story was like, we have to tell it in this way because it just seems like it's part of this narrative. Right. And we gotta be like, oh my God. But actually, if you had investigated that moment, you went, if looked and said, well, this is not, this doesn't open up a can of

worms. This is like, well, I mean, come here. There's a whole other thing with coming. But like, but I do think they overstepped. They conflated previous stuff with current stuff and it turned into this like fucking narrative that was actually kept going on this narrative that was Damaging right. It's so easy to a mass information and like tell it really really good story when you're sort of aligning all of these like nuances that Would make it less neat Sort of so yeah, well look. I mean, you know, this is like, obviously very, it's like a very dark and depressing and upsetting topic. But like, I think the, the underlying, I mean,

what I like about Paris's story and that we're on, that, you know, we, I think we've, we've talked about this stuff before. But there is like, and I'm not trying to be the watchdog for the media. I don't think we were like, where the media watchdog, we're going to tell you what's going on. But there is this fucking thing. It's like, if we're gonna get better at this and be better for an audience and better for people who are trying to figure things out and understand the world,

there's gotta be some kind of like awareness of what this industry does, like what the media industry does. And to me, this story is actually about, it's not about her, it's not about the shooting, it's not about you two's practices. It's about the way people tell stories when these things happen. And if we're going to actually make it better,

it's got to be some recognition that what feels good and sounds good in the moment for a headline or for a narrative is often is often like inaccurate and correct and like changes it changes people's ability to grapple with what is actually happening. It's real. And that's fucking dangerous. You know, it's like really damaging. So I'm not just patting you at B on the back or whatever. I mean, you guys this story has like came out of Paris's brain and your brain, I'm glad we're writing it, but I do think it speaks to this larger issue, which is like that distrust and media that people have, the feeling that we've got all these sources of information

that are require a second and third and fourth deep reading to know if they're actually accurate. This is a great example of one of those stories where this narrative doesn't have to be this way, but we've made it this way. Right. And now we have to fight back against the bullshit, the lie, to prove the thing that is true, which is not the way information should flow. No.

Well, look, I don't have anything more to say about that. I'm just depressed about the state of the internet and the fact that we can't get a, you know, we can't actually shape a story. I mean, we can't, because we are. Yeah, no, the outline can. We're doing it. But everybody else is blowing it. Yeah.

Well, I'm actually losing my voice, I'm just insane. I did finish that, which, I mean, I almost finished with it, which is insane, because I feel completely drunk off my ass. Anyokase Casey, thank you so much. Thank you. And please come back.

I will. OK, good. Well, that is our show for this week. We'll be back next week with more tomorrow, and as always I wish you and your family the very best. Though I've just been told that your family has been subjected to 24 hours straight of Ricky Jervais comedy and as a result they're functionally brain dead.