WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Social Mediators: Lessons Learned from The Social Mediators

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

This week we discuss Garrett Goolsby and Jillian Parks through the eyes of social media and a Google Search, respectively. Tune in to the final episode of our undergraduate years as we look back on the insights and lessons that we gleaned from producing 80 episodes of the show. 

This is The Social Mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale 1-1.1.7 FM where we examine the truth disparity between what's in social media and what's actually true. I'm Julian Parks. And I'm Garrett Gulesby. And let's just address the elephant in the room. This is our last episode. Ever. Of the social mediators. Very sad.

Which is crazy to think about because what do you mean it's the last episode? It can't stop happening, can you? We're on episode 81, which means we've done 80 previous episodes. Yeah, about 20 a year. It's pretty good. We're averaging. Which is insane. It's good that we get to have a cool log of all the things that were popular and prevalent during our time in college.

Yeah. Well, really, we could sum the whole show up in, we're filling in gaps between stories about what Kanye is up to. Yeah, true, true. Like that benchmark yearly Kanye episode and then everything else in the middle is just kind of like, I wonder what's next. So for today's episode, we thought we'd do something fun, something different, something we've never done. before where I went to social media to look up Garrett. Oh my.

Did you, I'm curious if you were able to find anything because it's been quite a long time since I was on social media. No, I'll tell you what I found. And Garrett went to, I assume, the internet to find information about me. Just the regular old internet, yeah. So we stuck with our original formats, the ones we're comfortable with. I'm not, what I will say is that the only info I was able to find on you is from social media.

There's not like other internet stuff. Except for if you read his Collegian article. which I guess you could do and probably learn something about him. Yeah, maybe. He sabbaths. I do do that. You find that in the Collegian.

But otherwise, the information I found, it's all from social media. Oh, this is terrifying. So Garrett's going to give you some information about me. I'm going to give you some information about him. I will say, I know more about Garrett than what I have here. This is just what's available readily on the internet. This is if you do a 30-minute search on Garrett Goolsby,

this is what you'll find. And then we'll talk a little bit about some of the takeaways we've had for doing this show for four years. Just a crazy thought. But I'm going to start. You went to Logos Preparatory Academy. I did. Since early elementary school.

It's true since first grade. And you looked kind of like a nerd for a chunk of time there. Kind of still do. Yeah, true, but in a different kind of way. That's true. Back then you really looked like a movie nerd. Yes. There are pictures of me between the ages of, okay, let's say second grade till about fifth grade,

looking very much like young Harry Potter. Yeah, I did see this. I had circle glasses. No, I saw them. So, yeah. How did you find those? I'll tell you later. Okay.

He's from Houston, Texas. Is your mom's name Julie? She is Julie. Is her maiden name, Westerland? That is true. How did you find that out? I'll tell you later. There are six kids in your family, three boys, three girls.

You attended your 100 days of school celebration looking like you were 100 years old. Excellent. Ah, my mom's Facebook. Yep, which is super classic. There's a good amount of information there. You have what looks like, I didn't have a name, but he looks like a miniature schnauzer. Is that what he is? Pepper.

Yes, he's still with us. Oh, thank you. goodness he is extremely old and you have a big white dog too chip chip and pepper those are the two you can't find their names on the internet i looked but you can find what they look like and the reverse google image searched them to figure out what similar is dogs there you and your brothers were all boy scouts at some point we were and altogether at least one point and your dad was involved in some capacity because he wore that little shirt but i don't know what he did was he just there at the ceremony to say hi he was just he was the what do you call it like the troop leader for i think

a little bit, but for the most part, he was just a dad that helped. Well, he definitely wore that special little shirt at some point. Well, he was a Navy kid, so any chance to get back in uniform is like, you know, harketing back to his youth. I know Garrett has at least held a guitar, but I don't know if he's ever actually played one. I have. Okay, there you go. I've performed live in Sugar Land, Texas Town Center.

But are there videos of this performance? I looked on YouTube, and I didn't find him. Highly unlikely. Bummer. Well, he has held a guitar, at least. I was 10. But obviously, there's no video, so I can't tell you if there's, I can't tell you if he played it.

I just know he held it in his hands. I can indeed hold it and play it. Okay, good to know. Not extremely well, but. Um, when it, we moved into his LinkedIn now. So here's some information about current Garrett.

He's an ODK. That's true. I didn't know. You didn't know that. So that's a new info for me. Yippie. Um, he's a children ministry director at Pine Ridge,

at least right now. Yes, I am. Actually, this Sunday is my last Sunday. Your last Sunday. Since the beginning of this year is when he started. Correct. Um, he's the host of a nationally recognized college radio show.

Hey, wonder what that could be. Look at that. He's worked as a wilderness backpacking coach. Coach? It says coach. Guide. I'm moving forward too quickly.

Yes. Wilderness backpacking guide. I did do that. Two summers. A swim coach. Did that a lot. And a lifeguard. I do know you swam.

Have I said that already? I think. No, that's the first time. Oh, okay. Well, he definitely swam because he attended. He was a tap state swimming champion. It was. I think both the girls and boys teams were champions, though, the year that I saw

on the internet. Yes. So congratulations. My sister was on the women's team. So it's fun. We both got to, our teams won the state championship. Exciting.

Which was fun. You are interested in doing, in making bombs one day. Oh, I am? No, but you do follow Lockheed Martin on LinkedIn, and that's what they are infamous for. At least in my brain is that they make bombs. I think they reached out to me, actually.

To make bombs? They said, you know who will be able to help us? A children. minutes. We want... He knows about explosive situations. The guy from the church to come make bombs. So that's the information that's out there about you, Garrett.

That's more than I thought you were going to get. I didn't realize my mom's Facebook was going to come into play. Your mom's Facebook, your LinkedIn, your tagged photos on Instagram. That's basically where I found the bulk of the information. I looked on Twitter and TikTok and your Instagram. Nothing interesting. Nothing, nothing, nothing. So that's what I have for everybody, for those of you who don't really know the, I don't know, background information on Garrett Gulesby.

That's some fun stuff for you. So Garrett, take it away. What did you learn about me? Gillian Parks. First of all, I had to use, I cheated a little. I had to use some of my outside knowledge to delineate you from Gillian Parks, the photographer. Yeah, she comes up. I guess a Michigan native maybe.

There was one that was a Michigan native. another that's a psychiatrist. Okay, nope. And then another that is what I gather to be a high school softball player graduating in 2028. Well, one thing that's helpful is that with social media, there are photos of these people. So I can very quickly tell who's not you, because I've seen your face before. I had to, once we got to the word softball, I said, ah, this isn't her. This is not her.

No way. If this show has taught us anything is that Gillian's involvement in the sports world is completely virtually, if at all. So most of what I found was on Hillsdale related stuff because actually when you search Gillian Parks, the Collegian is the first thing that comes up. All right. That's only fitting, don't you think? So our beloved Hillsdale newspaper is filled with Gillian Parks. It's true. I'm all over that. I found 21 pages worth of articles that you have written over the last four years.

Yes. And the first one I found had to do with covering the women's softball team here. Oh my gosh, yes, I was the beat writer for like my first couple semesters here. I seemed to recall that was not your most favorite. No, but the coach was so nice and all the people were so nice. I just had to ask stupid questions every week to be like, so what does it mean if you get a home run? And they're like, really? Are you joking?

Is the ball, why is the ball so hard? It's not soft. I think I actually asked that at one point, terrible. Not intuitive at all. So stupid. So, an extensive history on the Collegian, I don't know that you could learn all that much. about Jillian herself from the Collegian, other than maybe some things about writing style,

which for the most part, I have to say, they're pretty good. Thank you. I did find an interview while you were in Washington, D.C. with some historian guy? Yeah, Alan Galzo. Gelsso.

I wasn't going to try to say the name. I didn't want to embarrass myself. But yeah, how was interviewing him? What was he like? Yeah, so he was actually, he was a nice man. He's, I don't want to say he's old, but he's older than me. Yeah.

So we did like a call interview, and that was the story behind that interview is that I had to miss the trip that we do on WIP where we go to Gettysburg. When you go to Gettysburg, Alan Gelsso gives you a tour and he tells you about the place

because he's like the leading scholar on Gettysburg. And I had to come to Hillsdale for that weekend to interview for the editor-in-chief job. And I was unwilling to do like a Zoom. They didn't understand. The people on WIP did not seem to understand

that I was unwilling to miss this. So I was just like, you can figure out any sort of alternative assignment for me, but I will not be here. So you have to figure something out or else I'll just take the grade deduction basically. And so I came here, I got the editor-in-chief job, which is such a relief. And then they were like, okay, so as your alternative assignment, you can interview Alain Galzo and ask about Gettysburg, and then we'll put your interview online and stuff,

and then it will be mutually beneficial. But yes. And you did that. I did. What else did I learned that you were the editor-in-chief of the Collegian? That's classic. And I kind of cheated because LinkedIn is both like kind of the internet and kind of social media. So I did go on your LinkedIn. Okay. Fun place. I'm just going to read the about me. Don't.

Don't. No, I think I'm going to. Don't. Because it's perfect. I'm going to kill you. It starts with extra, extra, read all about me. The word extra describes my outlook towards every important facet of my life. Academically, socially, and as a journalist, I am always known to go the extra mile.

I am genuine, competent, and relational college student looking to apply those skills to the field of journalism. Whether I'm editing or co-hosting a podcast, hey, that's what we're doing. right now. It's true. Writing cultural reviews or interviewing artistic personalities for a profile or feature story, my organizational, creative, and social skills are crucial. When I'm not busy with my journalistic endeavors, I am reading or writing for my own enjoyment. Do you do that? Yeah, I do all the time. Fantastic. I plan to pursue print journalism after I graduated in May 20, graduated, graduate. It's very soon to be graduated. Yeah, true. One week, May 2025 with a degree in rhetoric and media and journalism. Is that

Is that all one thing or is journalism like a minor? No, rhetoric, media and then journalism is minor. I see, I see. From Hillsdale College. To me, this came as no surprise, but this was also included that you've done musical theater for 19 years, which you being 22 years old means that you started when you were between the ages of two and three. Well, the thing is that I am counting kind of a cheating thing in that, which is that

when I was a baby, I was like involved in, because my dad was. doing shows still. So I was around. They put me in a bucket for singing in the rain. They put you in a bucket? That's so precious. I was definitely around it my whole entire life when I was born. But I didn't start doing shows shows until I was like six or seven. So I also found that you have taught kindergarten age children to sing, act, and dance. And I read that and I had to think, okay, I've spent actually quite a lot of time teaching kindergartners various things, whether it be swimming or about the Bible. And it's pretty hard to teach them to do basically anything that is more than one step. And so I'm curious what kind of success you had

in teaching kindergartners to sing, dance, and act, all of which are skills that are as a college student still beyond me. Yeah, fair enough. I will tell you, I've had extraordinary success. I've been doing this for like literally probably 10 years since I was like 12 years old and helping with the little ones. I took over as like their main teacher when I was 17. So I've been doing that even for like five years. And I've had great success because the kids that show up typically

are kids who won't stop singing, won't stop dancing. So that's already in. Our drama at their core. Was this you? Oh, of course. I thought it had to be. Of course. I was doing shows in camps since I've like four years old.

And the kids, you just kind of have to do your best to distinguish between this kid's really drama and fun on stage, so we'll give them a line. This kid is really coordinated, been in ballet since she was one years old. We'll definitely put her in the front for the dance. And then this kid can carry a tune, not tone deaf, so we're putting her on the solo. So like not all the kids can do all three. That would be insane. But all the kids learn pieces of all three.

And they do get better at each of them in some way throughout the week that I work with them. Excellent. Yeah. I read that and I thought. how in the world does one do that? How do kids do a box step? I don't know. You give an hour and a half of foot here, foot here, foot here, foot here.

Eventually it goes in. Eventually they're doing it. Okay, well, so I have some more broad, thematic questions about the show itself and what we've been doing here for the last four years. Totally. So my first question is, what is your impression about the themes or topics

that social media seems to struggle with getting right? I think one thing that I learned, this is like a semi answer to your question, but it will make sense why I'm saying it, is that we talk about social media narratives a lot, right? We talk about stories, but social media in my experience over the past four years has never been a narrative. It is always piecewise. It is always, I have this piece of the story here, this piece of the story here, this piece of the story here, this piece of the story here.

And that's what I'm looking for it. If I'm just scrolling, I'm getting half the information here, half the information here, over, over. And then eventually you come to kind of what you think is a narrative. but you're missing a lot more pieces than you think because when you research, I assume you're researching in a more narrative sort of way. You're engaging with narrative, whether they be articles, stories, books, that sort of thing. Even like I would consider like lawsuit documents that they have a narrative to them that they're trying to tell. Social media is not a cohesive narrative.

It's so fragmented with different people telling their stories that you're getting pieces of information, you're not getting a story. And so social media struggles. with those in-between points. Social media struggles with taking us from start to finish with all the facts we need to make an informed decision. Social media is really good at showing us the most important parts. I think if we look at honestly our last 80 episodes, most of the episodes, there are exceptions to this rule, obviously. But generally the episodes, I get the high points. I get the main stuff. I get the main pieces, bullet points. What I miss is the minutia and the details that make it 100% accurate. And what happens there is that I fill in the blanks,

people on social media fill in the blanks for me, the comments fill in the blanks, and whatever they don't fill in gets filled in just by kind of assumption. And assumption is obviously kind of a dangerous tool. It's a great tool as well. It helps us make judgments on things that we don't have all the right information for, but it can be really dangerous of social media. So I would say that's where social media struggles just in terms of form. It's interesting that you bring up the concept of narrative because it is true. Most of the research that I do is actually just a comparison of a couple different narratives. Part of the slightly boring part about researching for the show is that I'll read the same story like four or five times.

Right. And sometimes, I would say, let's say 80% of the time, the story is identical, no matter what source I'm going to, whether it's a news outlet or some other document that I've found or whatever. typically the narratives are really similar. Some will pepper in some extra quote from this person or that or some other detail, but by and large, the narrative stays the same. It is interesting that when you encounter social media, it is serialized, and the only way you're getting a narrative is when you're looking for a narrative. You're going to have to go through and put together a narrative.

I think that maybe could tell us something about what's perhaps the most healthy way to approach social media if you're going to use it to learn anything. or to be informed about people or situations and events. And that's one thing that I actually found when I was reflecting on some of the things that I learned is that you do have to approach social media cynically. You have to approach it with an eye for, well, this doesn't look right, but the only way that you develop that eye productively is by being on social media. Like the only reason I'm able to go up to things in social media and then come to you and say, I found this, but it doesn't look. quite right because of XYZ, which I do a lot more now in these latter two years. In the beginning two years, I think I was just like putting information out there. I mean like, what do you think?

But I've gotten a little bit more confident discerning what maybe is true and what maybe is some sort of like bias or people's filling in the blanks and sort of assuming. And I'm able to kind of identify that when I'm scrolling through social media to be like, okay, so I did see this thing on Twitter. But if you went to the comments and you went to the eighth comment, this person directed you to this different TikTok page that I was able to watch and it gave me some of the information that I was missing. But most people probably aren't reading that. No, most people are not like discriminant with it.

But I've learned that the only way for me to engage with it in a way that actually teaches me anything at all is to go at it very cynically and to be like, okay, so this is probably wrong information. Let's see how much right information I can find or how much probable information I can find. Because a lot of times the best we can do is probable, even with news stories. The best we can do is, but this is what probably happened. And also approaching with that language of uncertainty and not regurgitating what I see on social media

as like, this is what happened, but rather bringing it to whoever I'm speaking to, whether it be you or a friend in a conversation, and just being like, this is what I found, but I know it's social media, so I know the X, Y, Z thing probably wasn't accounted for. And, you know, what's interesting about doing primarily internet research in this show we framed it as more likely to be objectively true.

I think that's the premise of the assumption that we've been running off of to do the show. But there's a little bit of danger in that assumption as well, because it's especially when news is your source, every news outlet has a brush that they're painting with. They're coloring a certain color, right, whether that be political or ideological, whatever you want to call it. And so even for those of you that are not on social media, they're going on to the internet, that are reading the news,

that are kind of trying to get to the quote unquote more primary source information about what's going on. Every time that I go about doing that, I have to take what I kind of have called in my head the political average. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've got to find that like super hard right source that's going to give me the right wing take on something. Then I got to find the super left source and then let me start to find something kind of in the middle and see. Typically the narratives will be similar. but the way I've put it to myself is the narratives will be similar and the adjectives will be different. Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Every now and then you'll encounter vastly different narratives. And I think that the narrative becomes different when you start to aggregate stories together over time because then those adjectives start to matter a little bit more than in an isolated story. So certainly when news is your source, there are just as many pitfalls as social media. if you don't have an eye for that little bit cynic, like, okay, I'm going to read this and keep in mind that this person has this political leaning, whether I agree with it or not and know, like, they're going to bias this way. They're going to like this person and not like this person. They're going to be in favor of this event that's just happened and not in favor of that. But how are they talking about it, you know? So that's kind of how I've approached some of the assumptions and the challenges that go in with doing quote unquote normal research as opposed to social media research. And I think what I've found is something similar, but like the value of social media, it's not zero. I don't want anyone to come away from this show and ever. I mean, you could, you would have to not listen to the show and just read the title in the description and be like, oh, so they're saying social media bad because we never say that. We never say social media bad because that's just not the case. Sometimes social media is wrong. Sometimes social media is incomplete. Sometimes social media is funny and not quite accurate. But social media is always valid.

in its ability to document the conversations around the different current events, pop culture events, people, political happenings, all of it. The conversation that surrounds that is what social media captures in ways that news articles can often capture microcosmically, but not to the extent, obviously, just space-wise, that social media can. And so if I'm going to say any good word on behalf of social media, it's going to be that it's are, it's documenting people's thoughts on things and how people engage with what they see. And that is, in my opinion, just as important as what's actually happening is what did people think

about it. Like, because when I do even political, not political, when I do historical research for any class and I'm doing any sort of rhetorical archaeology, what I'm interested in is what did people say about it though? I understand prohibition happened. I get it. What did people think about prohibition though? Like that's the more interesting article.

And so I think social media is helpful for that where it becomes controversial. alluded is where we have this glut of information we have to sift through and when is it actually valuable at any point. It takes a careful eye to handle but it's a powerful tool right like you said if you're going to get a 360 degree view of a particular topic what kind of the aggregate opinion of just regular people is on it the news is actually like the worst place to go because you're getting the opinion of a pretty homogenous group of people and that's classic um I would give social I would give our show in A-plus. I think I would.

That's the grade that I'm going to end on. No need to grade anything else moving forward. We hope you've enjoyed the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM for the last four years. I'm Julian Parks. And I'm Gary Gouldersby. We'll never talk to you again.