Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Coldplay affair saga, Alex Warren vs. TikTok music critics + Vereena Sayed is back!

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MINI SCROLL: Coldplay affair saga, Alex Warren vs. TikTok music critics + Vereena Sayed is back! · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Hi everyone. Welcome to Mini Scroll, the
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  daily Internet culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories
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  from social media, the creator economy and the digital space.
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  Every Monday through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
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  I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, the founder of the youth digital
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  media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Scroll
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  everyone. Oh my God, you cannot believe
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  how desperate I felt on Friday that I was not doing a regular
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  mini scroll and couldn't talk to you guys about the first story
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  that I have for today. We need to get right into it
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  because this is going to be a huge story and I still have two
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  others after it. But obviously I need to talk
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  about the Coldplay Kiss Cam cheating scandal and how
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  absolutely viral this has gone. This was truly the top story of
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  the whole weekend. We all know the video, But
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  essentially, a man and a woman were in, like, a romantic
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  embrace in what appeared to be maybe a box at a Coldplay
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  concert last week. And the Jumbotron landed on
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  them. Their faces went absolutely
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  panicked. The man literally ducked down,
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  like, dropped to the floor to get out of frame.
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  The woman turned her whole body, like, shielded her face.
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  And then Chris Martin was like, all right, come on.
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  You're OK. Oh, what?
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  Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy.
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  OK, so this was uploaded to TikTok by a random user named
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  Grace who was filming the Jumbotron in case she got on it
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  herself. She uploaded this interaction to
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  TikTok with the caption Trouble in Paradise.
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  And then the video immediately went viral.
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  It's now sitting at 116 million views.
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  And also, this is such an aside, but the video was just a few
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  seconds short of a minute long, meaning she has made essentially
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  $0.00 from this video. OK, so what's that saying?
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  Kris Jenner works hard but the Internet works harder because
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  within like minutes, maybe not minutes, maybe like an hour of
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  this being uploaded. Users had identified the man as
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  Andy Byron, the CEO of a tech company called Astronomer, and
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  the woman as Kristen Cabot, the CPO, as in chief people officer
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  of the same company. Both are reportedly married to
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  other people. Andy also reportedly has
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  children. Obviously this is spicy enough
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  to begin with, but the fact that they are C level executives and
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  Kristen is the head of HR that just made all of this snowball
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  into something so much bigger than I think it would have been
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  right away. Two major Internet rumors
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  started circulating. 1A statement was blasted across
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  Reddit, TikTok, and some of those like click farm AI
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  generated news sites. That was claiming to be a
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  statement sent out by Andy in which he basically blamed the
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  Internet for exposing his private business and then ended
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  with a Coldplay lyric. This was a fake statement, but a
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  number of people that I follow that I know personally were
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  posting this. Some people have big followings
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  that were posting this and that to me was really shocking
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  because it was so obviously fake.
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  It was like made by AI basically this statement but people were
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  taking it as fact. Second, someone essentially
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  cross referenced the astronomer team with other people who were
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  in the clip that appeared to be in the same box as Andy and
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  Kristen. And a massive viral rumor
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  started that an HR employee named Alyssa Stoddard was in the
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  box with them. And when they got caught, she
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  was laughing and smiling, basically being like, oh, my
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  God, no way type of thing. So people were like, that's
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  Alyssa Stoddard. So then the Internet started
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  digging up Alyssa's information, her work history, and they found
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  that she had allegedly worked with Kristen at several
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  companies and was recently promoted after six months at
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  astronomer. So the narrative then became
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  that Alyssa Stoddard must have known because she was obviously
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  close with Kristen, having worked with her for, you know,
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  several companies. She only just got promoted
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  because she obviously knew about this affair.
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  Both of these are absolutely wild assumptions.
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  And I do think a lot of the people who were buying into this
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  narrative or perpetuating it maybe like don't work in
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  corporate because it is actually quite normal for a senior leader
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  to like, quote UN quote, bring in their people when they move
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  companies. I'm not saying that's right, OK,
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  But I'm saying it is super common.
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  It is not some like type of weird corruption that Kristen
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  has brought in Alyssa at several different companies.
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  That is kind of how like mentorship works in corporate.
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  Like you work for a boss, your boss loves your work, they can
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  trust you, whatever. And then you develop this
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  relationship and as they get promoted in their career, they
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  kind of bring you along with them.
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  And a huge part of that is it's incredibly important for you to
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  have really competent people working for you.
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  The more senior you get in corporate, right, like the
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  pressure is on, the more senior you get.
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  You need to have people working for you that you know, you can
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  trust, who are really competent, all of that.
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  So that's the first thing is like, there's so many cries of
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  like corruption based on Alyssa having worked for Kristen
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  multiple times when that is honestly incredibly common in
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  this kind of industry. The second is that there are are
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  even more people absolutely dragging Alyssa's name through
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  the mud because, you know, she must have known.
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  She obviously isn't saying anything that makes her
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  complicit. Again, we have no evidence or
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  reason to believe that Alyssa Stoddard knew anything, and I'm
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  going to say even if she did know and didn't do anything, I'm
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  not surprised. I get that it's a bit of a
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  trickier situation because Kristen is head of HR Alyssa
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  also works in HR. However, in general, I would say
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  it is not on anyone to sacrifice their job or their career over a
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  colleague's unethical personal decisions.
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  And I'm not saying the CEO and CPO, so having an affair hasn't
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  impacted the workplace culture and all of these other things
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  because I'm sure it absolutely has.
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  It's not just, you know, it is not just a personal decision.
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  I understand there are ramifications for the
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  organization at large. However, in this case, Kristen
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  is Alyssa's direct supervisor. You know, Kristen is allegedly
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  having an affair with the boss of bosses, the CEO.
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  So that really only leaves the board of directors for Alyssa to
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  go to. But Andy is a on the board of
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  directors. The board would be partly the
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  founders, often times a lot of their friends.
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  In many cases, Alyssa would probably actually just lose her
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  job. I mean, with a giant severance
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  package to keep her quiet, but still, you know, she would
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  probably lose her job for bringing this to the board of
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  directors. This could tarnish her
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  reputation in the industry because now all of these
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  high-powered people, these executives would ever know that
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  she has snitched on this situation.
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  Anyways, this is all incredibly hypothetical because we have no
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  idea if Alyssa knew or not. And I feel the outrage around
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  her possibly knowing and saying nothing is unfortunately, you
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  know, like that's just kind of how the world works.
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  I know the fact that they're in HR, like I've said, makes it a
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  little bit more tricky. But at the end of the day, would
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  you sacrifice your career, your job, like everything that you've
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  been working for, especially in this economy, OK.
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  Like the job market is so difficult right now.
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  Would you sacrifice that if you found out that your boss was
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  having an affair just to like, I don't know, do the quote UN
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  quote right thing? I don't know.
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  However, all of that is a moot point because the person in the
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  video actually wasn't Alyssa. Astronomer confirmed that it was
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  not her and that Alyssa was not even at the concert.
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  So now this random HR executive named Alyssa's daughter who
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  works at Astronomer has all these news articles about her.
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  There are millions of people that believe that she is like
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  complicit in this affair. There's millions of comments
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  about her on social media just absolutely like dragging her
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  name through the mud, calling her corrupt and like shitting on
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  her, all these horrible things. I feel so bad for her.
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  I mean, I obviously also feel bad for the spouses and the
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  children in involved in this affair, but, you know, I feel
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  very, very bad for Alyssa's daughter because there is this
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  absolute false narrative. And, you know, they're still
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  going to be millions of people around the world who will never
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  know or never believe that it's not her.
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  Since the video went viral, astronomer put out a statement
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  saying they are launching an investigation into the matter.
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  And then they followed up with a statement saying Andy has
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  resigned. Now, I have seen a lot of
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  comments and discussion around how they like, quote, UN quote,
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  let him resign rather than firing him.
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  And they should have fired him to like set a standard.
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  I'm going to make a very educated guess and say they did
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  fire him. They gave him, you know, the
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  option to save face a little bit.
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  But I presume that he will also get a very nice severance
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  package to keep him from talking.
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  And this is just how it works. We see this in like reality TV
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  all the time too, right? Like a Bravo star will get fired
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  and they get to say like, I'm not coming back.
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  I've decided to move on. But we know that they've been
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  fired like it's I'm going to assume it's the same thing
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  happening here. Another bit of interest
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  information that I saw is that Astronomer just raised their
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  Series D in May, reportedly closing $93,000,000 in funding.
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  Now the problem is that a chunk of that money, if not all of
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  that money would still be in escrow.
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  And they do this in fundraising for situations honestly like
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  like this where investors will take a bit more time to be able
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  to do more due diligence, like look into scandals, lawsuits,
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  things that didn't come out in the middle of like the
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  fundraising round. There would also probably be
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  some clauses in any contract, you know, so people in the VC
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  world are like, Oh my God, like how is all of this going to
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  impact their funding that they just closed?
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  Now the final bit of the story that I wanted to cover.
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  There are several young people on TikTok making accounts
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  claiming to be Andys children. One account in particular is
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  going super viral and it's by the name of Marina quote UN
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  quote. Marina posted a video standing
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  by campfire to the song fix you by Coldplay with the caption
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  Reconnecting with life after your dad's affair makes national
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  news. This was the first video that
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  this account posted and this account now has 190,000
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  followers, millions of views. OK this was a brand new account
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  2 days ago. This account was made two days
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  ago. The catch is this account is not
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  real. OK, Marina is not the child of
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  Andy. Whoever created this account is
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  stealing content from singer Julie Touzette and using her
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  likeness to pretend to be Andy's daughter, putting their own
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  captions and text over it to kind of suit this narrative.
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  And if you take a closer look at the account, you will see why
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  they're doing this to promote a travel deals platform called
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  Trips with two eyes. So someone at Trips, whether
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  it's the founder, the social media person, whatever, thought
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  this would be a good idea to capitalize on the scandal, make
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  a fake account pretending to be Andy's daughter to drive people
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  to this platform. But they are using a real
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  person's videos and likeness to do so.
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  And this actually is what we should be more mad at than any
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  of the other stuff. I mean, OK, we can be mad at
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  some of the other stuff, but like this, this is, I honestly
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  think this is like horrifying. I think this is horrible.
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  So Julie has spoken out about this and here's what she said.
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  Guys, I am. Not the C OS daughter.
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  You've probably seen this video of me at a fireplace
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  reconnecting with nature. It's just someone who stole my
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  videos and my content from TikTok to create this fake news
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  and it's going viral. Literally even virgin radio
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  reposted it. I'm like guys this is not me
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  please help me report that person because she blocked me
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  so. All in all, culturally, I think
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  there are few things that the Internet can universally agree
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  on. But cheating as kind of like a
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  judgement on someone's morality is one of those things like a
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  cheating scandal truly unites the Internet like no other.
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  And I actually don't really have an answer as to why.
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  I'm interested to hear from you guys why you think that might
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  be. Because if you consider all of
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  the things that we talk about even just on this podcast in
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  terms of like quote UN quote scandals, I think many of those
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  things deserve a lot more heat than a cheating scandal.
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  I'm not saying cheating is not bad.
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  I'm not saying that there's not multiple people that are hurt
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  that are involved in it, but the fact that cheating scandals get
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  more heat than when we find out that, I don't know, some giant
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  Hollywood actor has abused his wife and children, Brad Pitt or
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  like domestic violence, Chris Brown, sexual assault
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  everywhere. You know, like cheating
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  scandals, they get so much heat. I'm interested to hear from you
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  guys why you think that is. But of course, Andy being a
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  multimillionaire and these people being like 2C level
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  executives, that makes it all more kind of salacious, I guess.
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  And obviously her being part of HR.
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  But if you guys are interested in this kind of, I don't know,
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  tea, I guess, then you should listen to the corporate Gossip
• 13:13
  podcast. It's one of my favorite podcast.
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  That sounds like a paid plug or something, but I promise it's
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  not. She did an emergency episode on
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  this and she kind of ended it off with something that I think
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  ties it all together nicely, which is like affairs and
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  scandals happen all the time in corporate, you know, especially
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  when you're at that level, having that much money and
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  power, she says. And I love how she articulates
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  this literally takes ice cream scoops out of people's brains.
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  You know, when there is research on that, that when you have that
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  much money and power for that long, it impacts your judgement,
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  it impacts your empathy, it impacts like so many things, OK,
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  you feel invincible. So of course these types of
• 13:54
  scandals happen constantly in corporate.
• 13:57
  But what we should be taking away from this is the fact that
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  the CE OS, the shareholders, the C level executives, you know,
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  they are getting compensated like 300 times the average
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  worker at their company is something insane like that.
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  And they're out here putting the company at risk, making really
• 14:16
  horrible decisions half the time, you know, being like messy
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  as fuck. And a lot of times, the
• 14:22
  justification that were given as to why senior leaders are making
• 14:27
  so much more than everyone else in the company is like, well,
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  they're worth it. Like they're bringing that much
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  value to the shareholders. And so, you know, part of
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  corporate gossip and like, their mission is to show that that's
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  not true and to show that the decisions that they make at the
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  top actually have so much more of a negative impact on and the
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  shareholders as if we really care about that.
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  But, you know, if you're going to use that as like the
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  justification for why these people are where they are, then
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  we need to be holding them to an obscene standard.
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  And they are not living up to that standard.
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  And it just shows you that people at the top who are
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  getting paid, who have all this power, all these accolades, you
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  know, they're not necessarily smarter or better or more savvy
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  or more sophisticated than the rest of us.
• 15:11
  So there is no update on Kristen yet.
• 15:13
  I presume she will also, quote UN quote resigned with a big
• 15:17
  severance package, But I will keep you guys posted if any
• 15:20
  other like Major T comes from this.
• 15:23
  I really hope that trips with two eyes ends up getting in some
• 15:26
  type of trouble for what they're doing with Julie's likeness and
• 15:30
  her videos, because I think it's abhorrent and I really hope that
• 15:33
  something happens there. OK, the next story that I have
• 15:35
  for you guys is that Alex Warren has been called out for a
• 15:39
  doctoring footage of music critics to play at his concert
• 15:43
  Tik toker turned musician. And Alex Warren is literally
• 15:47
  taking the fuck off right now for his music career.
• 15:50
  He has one of the most popular songs of the year so far with
• 15:52
  Ordinary and he is quite beloved now.
• 15:55
  But you know, he got his start as a Tik toker in the hype
• 15:58
  house. He was constantly accused of
• 16:01
  copying David Dobrik's like entire shtick.
• 16:03
  Like his origins definitely made people a bit skeptical of his
• 16:07
  music career. But then his single ordinary
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  coming out taking off. People are obsessed with it as
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  this love song. And now he has the song with
• 16:14
  Jelly Roll. Like he is just like going
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  strength to strength. I think people are very
• 16:18
  pleasantly surprised about his music.
• 16:20
  So anyways, he played his biggest show yet over the
• 16:23
  weekend at Alexandra Park in London.
• 16:26
  And as part of his entrance, a compilation video played on the
• 16:29
  screen behind the stage and it clipped together a bunch of
• 16:32
  music journalists and TikTok critics basically reviewing his
• 16:35
  single Ordinary. And all the clips were negative.
• 16:38
  Why is this song going viral? I can't believe this song.
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  With #1 I feel like. I've heard this song.
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  At other times this. Song is fearfully tacky is.
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  One of. The most?
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  Self. Indulgent Now this type of like
• 16:50
  underdog marketing is becoming more and more common, especially
• 16:55
  among people with big followings because obviously they do get a
• 16:58
  lot of criticism and feedback and hate.
• 17:00
  Of course, the flip side of that is if you have a big following
• 17:03
  to begin with, you're kind of like 100 steps ahead when you're
• 17:06
  releasing a new project, new music, whatever.
• 17:08
  So yes, people might be a little bit more harsh on you because
• 17:11
  it's like, OK, we knew Alex Warren as like, this TikTok kid
• 17:14
  from the Hype House, this vlogger, and now he's trying to
• 17:16
  be a musician. And so, yeah, like, music
• 17:19
  critics might be a little bit harsh on him.
• 17:21
  But also, Can you imagine your first single being reviewed by,
• 17:24
  like, every major music publication and big TikTok
• 17:27
  journalist? ANYWAYS, so where it gets
• 17:29
  interesting is it turns out that one of the clips used in this
• 17:33
  intro was doctored to make Australian music creator Sam
• 17:37
  Murphy say something he didn't actually say Talk about.
• 17:40
  Alex Warren making his terrible music.
• 17:43
  The clip, I found it extremely funny because I think if you're
• 17:45
  going to lodge criticism at somebody, you've got to expect
• 17:48
  to get it back as well. But the clip that they'd used
• 17:51
  and what I said in it, I actually didn't think I'd said
• 17:55
  it. And so I went back and found the
• 17:57
  original clip and I'm going to play what I actually said
• 18:00
  unedited. Fast forward a year, things are
• 18:03
  looking very different on the charts at the moment.
• 18:06
  We have names instead, like Alex Warren, Benson Boone, Teddy
• 18:10
  Swims, Morgan Wallen and these. I don't want to group all these
• 18:14
  together and say that what they're all making is terrible
• 18:17
  music, because that's not the case at all.
• 18:20
  But what they are representing is a shift towards something far
• 18:23
  more safe, far, far more traditional and far more
• 18:26
  conservative. And when we talk about Alex
• 18:28
  Warren's Ordinary, it will probably go on to be one of the
• 18:32
  biggest, most defining songs of 2025.
• 18:35
  I. Feel like this could teeter the
• 18:37
  line of like defamation? I don't know.
• 18:41
  Alex has now addressed the situation in his own video,
• 18:44
  saying he hired someone to create this sizzle reel and he
• 18:47
  has apologized to Sam and they are all good.
• 18:50
  I hired someone to make a intro for me and it would be a series
• 18:54
  of clips of people making fun of me or critiquing my work or
• 18:57
  whatever, and then it would cut to who would even go to an Al
• 19:00
  Torn show and then it would cut to the audience.
• 19:03
  It was my biggest headline show. I thought this would be special
• 19:05
  and so I got it back because I hired these people.
• 19:08
  I expected them to put in the work.
• 19:10
  And turns out that one of the clips was not how it was.
• 19:15
  I guess it was edited together and I didn't know that.
• 19:18
  I don't watch videos of me getting critiqued or anything on
• 19:21
  the Internet just because I'm pretty sensitive.
• 19:24
  But yeah. So the next day I saw a video of
• 19:27
  one of the guys who was in the video, and he was upset because
• 19:29
  it obviously wasn't what he said.
• 19:31
  And I didn't know that. And so immediately saw him.
• 19:33
  I was like, fuck, dude, I feel terrible.
• 19:35
  And so I, I messaged him. I said, hey, I'm so sorry, blah,
• 19:38
  blah, blah. And you know, he was fully
• 19:40
  understanding of the whole situation.
• 19:41
  I explained it to him, but it was on me.
• 19:43
  It was my fault. I didn't.
• 19:45
  I didn't check to see whether or not the footage was right.
• 19:48
  I kind of just trusted the people I was paying to do it.
• 19:50
  I've also. Seen some Alex Warren fans
• 19:52
  trying to compare this to Taylor Swift using all of the stuff
• 19:56
  around her to come back with reputation and I completely
• 20:00
  disagree with that. Like Taylor was quite literally
• 20:03
  run off the Internet for like an entire year.
• 20:06
  She had celebrities coming after her.
• 20:09
  She had like the whole Internet coming after her.
• 20:12
  You know, like Alex Warren releasing a song and some.
• 20:15
  Music journalist being like, I don't know about this.
• 20:18
  That's not the same. That is not the same as
• 20:21
  reputation like Taylor Swift had a listers releasing receipts
• 20:27
  trying to get her cancelled. That was a very different
• 20:30
  situation. I actually ended up in one of
• 20:33
  these sizzle reels. If you guys are an OG listener,
• 20:35
  you might remember, but when James Charles announced that he
• 20:38
  was coming out with his beauty brand Jordy, and I talked about
• 20:41
  it on the podcast and I said obviously some not very nice
• 20:44
  things about it. I guess.
• 20:45
  I think I said it was like a little bit, I think I said it
• 20:47
  was like too late. And I was like, who's gonna buy
• 20:49
  this? I don't know.
• 20:49
  It wasn't like super negative, but it wasn't super positive.
• 20:52
  And then when he did his launch video for Painted, he used that
• 20:56
  clip at the beginning. And my friend messaged me like,
• 20:59
  have you watched James Charles painted video like his
• 21:02
  announcement? I think you should go watch it
• 21:04
  right now. And I was like, Oh my God, I'm
• 21:06
  dead. In that case, I did say exactly
• 21:09
  what was posted in that video. So OK.
• 21:12
  And the last story that I have for you guys.
• 21:13
  This is a bit of happy news. But Varina said has returned to
• 21:18
  YouTube. So if you're unfamiliar with
• 21:21
  Varina, she is a 22 year old creator who has been around for
• 21:24
  quite a while now. She first rose to viral fame on
• 21:26
  YouTube back in 2018-2019 for beauty and fashion content.
• 21:31
  While Varina's content and style changed over the years, she
• 21:35
  built a super loyal following on YouTube.
• 21:37
  She had started posting on platforms like TikTok and
• 21:39
  Snapchat and was also growing pretty big there.
• 21:42
  Toward the end of 2023, she ended up getting a motorcycle,
• 21:45
  which had long been a dream of hers.
• 21:47
  She posted a fair amount of content about the motorcycle
• 21:50
  where she would share clips riding it and also sharing how
• 21:52
  she customized it and all that kind of stuff.
• 21:55
  Unfortunately, Varina ended up getting in a tragic motorcycle
• 21:58
  accident on February 28th, 2024. She was on the bike with Bryce
• 22:03
  Gage, and Bryce ended up passing away from the accident, while
• 22:07
  Verena was taken to the hospital in critical condition.
• 22:10
  Ever since then, Verena has been offline.
• 22:13
  Verena's family and management initially confirmed that she was
• 22:16
  involved in the accident via Instagram, and her sister and
• 22:18
  dad would go on to share sporadic updates about her
• 22:21
  progress. Her dad specifically had been
• 22:23
  leaving comments and responding to questions about her condition
• 22:26
  on the last video she posted on YouTube before the accident.
• 22:30
  Toward the end of 2024, Verena started posting on her social
• 22:33
  media channels again. So she first posted on
• 22:36
  Instagram, writing hi to her followers, and she also started
• 22:39
  posting about her journey on TikTok as well.
• 22:42
  Over the weekend, however, Verena posted a video to
• 22:44
  YouTube, something her followers had long been hoping for.
• 22:48
  In the three minute video, titled It's Been Over a Year,
• 22:51
  she was putting on some makeup and talking about how she's in
• 22:54
  recovery. She said she was initially
• 22:56
  embarrassed to come back online and she didn't really want to
• 22:58
  get into the nature of her injuries, but she did share that
• 23:01
  she was in a coma for two months and had broken her jaw.
• 23:05
  She also shared that one of her arms is now paralyzed.
• 23:08
  That being said, if Arena also added that she is making this
• 23:11
  video as a birthday present for her dad, who is clearly one of
• 23:14
  her biggest supporters. And she finished up the video
• 23:17
  saying that she hopes to do AQ and A next and asked viewers to
• 23:20
  leave her questions. The response to her video has
• 23:23
  been really positive. So many of her longtime
• 23:26
  followers are happy to see her return to the platform and do
• 23:29
  something that she's always loved.
• 23:31
  Anyways, so happy to see her back online, especially because
• 23:34
  people are being so kind to her. You know, obviously hope she
• 23:37
  continues to recover. And I thought that was just kind
• 23:39
  of a nice happy story for us to end on.
• 23:42
  Anyways, guys, that's it for Mini scroll today.
• 23:44
  Thank you so much for listening. I love you guys.
• 23:46
  Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
• 23:49
  I love you and I will talk to you tomorrow.
• 23:51
  Bye.