Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: James Charles & Kayla Malec speak out, PopeCrave, AI job interviews + Mormon Madoff TikTok series

Transcript

MINI SCROLL: James Charles & Kayla Malec speak out, PopeCrave, AI job interviews + Mormon Madoff TikTok series · Mini Scroll

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  Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
• 0:04
  culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
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  media, the creator economy and the digital space every Monday
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  through Thursday. I'm your host, Lauren Meisner,
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  the founder of the youth digital media brand Centennial World.
• 0:19
  Welcome back to Mini Scroll everyone.
• 0:21
  OK, as some of you guys might have heard yesterday from
• 0:23
  Annabelle, she is going on a month long trip to Europe.
• 0:27
  She's doing a bit of a concert tour.
• 0:29
  She's going to see some of her favorite artists and just like
• 0:31
  take a proper break. So this is her last week for a
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  month. So I'm going to be taking over a
• 0:37
  mini tech scroll while she's gone on Wednesdays.
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  But I will be actually taking a two week break off of the
• 0:44
  podcast at the end of her trip. So I'm still going to be going
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  for the next like 2 weeks and then I'm going to take a two
• 0:50
  week break. So that'll be our mid year
• 0:52
  break. We didn't really do a mid year
• 0:54
  break last year, although I did go away for a friend's wedding
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  in September so there were two weeks off of the then.
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  I don't have any trips planned this year.
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  Like we are staying put. I was tired and we need to save
• 1:07
  money. So that's going to be my break
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  for this year in the middle. And I really wanted to make sure
• 1:13
  that I take a break like before I need a break because that is
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  something that I learned last year is I felt so so, so
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  insanely burnt out by the end of the year.
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  So this year I'm trying to take better care of myself.
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  So I'm going to be taking a two week break off the podcast so
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  that I can recharge and come back for the second-half of the
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  year. All right, let's get into the
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  stories for today. The first way that I have for
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  you guys is I have an update on the Kayla Malik abuse hearing
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  against Evan Johnson. And James Charles has actually
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  addressed all of the allegations floating around about him and in
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  relation to that whole situation.
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  So I gave a full recap of this situation on Monday's episode,
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  but super high level. Kayla Malik is an influencer and
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  she was dating a man named Evan Johnson for about a.
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  James and Kayla were like friendly.
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  They had collaborated on content together but they were not close
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  friends. Last month, Evan was arrested
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  for domestic assault against Kayla.
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  In the lead up to his hearing, Controversial TikTok creator Be
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  Better did a sit down interview on YouTube with one of Evans
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  alleged ex best friends named Zach Seller.
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  In this interview, his ex best friend claimed that James
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  Charles was supporting Evan through this time despite
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  knowing about the abuse allegations against him that
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  involved involved Kayla again, who James was kind of friendly
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  with. He also claimed that James and
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  Evan were seeing each other romantically.
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  So yesterday James addressed the accusations in a very short
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  Instagram story. He said I do not support Evan
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  Johnson. I am hoping and praying that
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  Kayla gets justice tomorrow. So her hearing was overnight our
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  time in Australia, as I promised her privately, I will not be
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  responding publicly to anything until after the hearing is over
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  on May 7th and minutes after she said she was going in, she came
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  out saying that she had won. And just like that, justice was
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  served. Justice was served.
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  So exciting. No word yet on Evan's
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  sentencing, but Kayla said he was arrested and she was the
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  last face that he saw. And that is so vindicating.
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  And I'm just so proud of her for going the distance with this.
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  It's so difficult because the justice system so rarely gets
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  behind women in these situations.
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  It is like I have friends who have tried to go the distance
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  with situations like this and despite mountains of evidence,
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  they don't get their justice. So I'm so happy for her.
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  And now James Charles has made his own video responding to
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  everything as the hearing obviously is done.
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  I. Do not support Johnson in any
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  way, shape or form. Let me make that fucking clear.
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  I don't support him. I don't support violence against
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  women, and I sure as hell do not support the disgusting,
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  deplorable, violent, heinous acts that he committed against
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  Kayla Malik behind closed doors. Me and Kayla Malik just weren't
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  close friends. I don't say that to take away
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  from her feelings about this. I don't say that to undermine
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  what she went through. We've only met a couple of
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  times. I really fucking hate to admit
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  it, but I did have a brief friendship with Evan Johnson
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  that started and ended well before I ever learned about any
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  of the violence that was going on behind the scenes.
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  First and foremost, Evan Johnson and I did not in any way, shape
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  or form have a physically sexual relationship.
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  We did not have sex while he was here, and I did not, under any
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  circumstances, pay Evan Johnson for sexual favors.
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  Not in person, and certainly not online through a secret OF
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  account where I'm apparently funding his entire life.
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  Second, there's a rumor going around that I paid Evan
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  Johnson's bail. This is not true.
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  It is a public record that it was Evan's family who got him
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  out. Third, there's a new narrative
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  started by Be Better that I am trying to to silence anybody
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  that talks about this issue. First and foremost, this is
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  literally the biggest thing on talk right now.
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  I don't understand how anybody could possibly assume that I'm
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  trying to silence people but Be Better made a video basically
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  saying that I'm working with YouTube behind the scenes to
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  manipulate their algorithm and get their video hidden.
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  I I truthfully wish this was possible.
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  Zach has also now made a video claiming that my lawyers have
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  reached out to him to threaten him, to silence him and offer
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  him hush money. This is not true Zach.
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  My lawyers cannot contact you directly.
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  So instead they emailed your modeling agency because that is
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  the only contact you have listed.
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  There was no threat, there was no offer.
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  They were simply asking for the contact of your lawyers.
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  I told you I was going to sue you, and this is what the
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  beginning of that process looks like.
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  In general, the response to his video is pretty positive.
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  Or like, neutral, You know, it's people saying like, OK, I'm
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  hearing what you're saying. I'm accepting it.
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  I get it. If I was Zach, I'd be very
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  scared. I would be very scared to be
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  sued by James Charles. I'm so happy for Kayla.
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  I hope she sleeps well tonight. I hope that she feels the, like,
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  kind of power of the Internet behind her, like the love and
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  the support and everybody is just so, so, so happy for her
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  and, like, cheering her on. And I hope she feels somewhat of
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  a weight lifted. I imagine, you know, it's never
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  really going to go away, the weight of what happened to her.
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  But I hope she feels a little bit of relief.
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  OK, the next story that I have for you guys, Annabelle is
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  forcing me to report on this, but there's a new Pop Crave
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  style account that is going viral for the Pope.
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  It is called Club Con Crave, Con crave.
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  Get it? Pop crave Also known as pop
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  Crave, the account began in January 2025 and has since
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  racked up over 55,000 followers. From what we can gather, it
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  started as a conclave the movie fan account, but Pope Crave has
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  since started covering the real life conclave.
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  For example, yesterday they posted a tweet reading quote
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  Black smoke emerges from the Sistine Chapel, meaning no Pope
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  has been elected yet. They've also been sharing a live
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  smoke reaction, with the caption breaking no Pope.
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  Another notable tweet was when a cardinal was quote UN quote
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  spotted where Pope crave yacified him to maintain his
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  anonymity. This is so deeply unserious.
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  They definitely seem to have someone on the ground that is
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  like reporting on this. They even shared a clip from
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  their quote on the ground with local correspondent where they
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  posted a video made by a user named Senator Adriana seemingly
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  walking around the Vatican. Many people on the app are
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  confused by whether Pope Krave is a legitimate update account
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  or a meme. And it's kind of a bit of both.
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  I think Pope Krave recently did an interview with a KQED, which
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  is associated with PBS, explaining the intention behind
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  the account quote. We're going to have a fun time
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  memeing and hopefully we're going to be memeing to a
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  progressive Pope. If it's a fascist Pope, there's
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  no memes. There's no more memes coming
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  from the account. Honestly, I love that stance,
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  taking a stance. Journalistic integrity.
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  Honestly, we need more of that in mainstream media.
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  So maybe they can take a page out of Pop Crave's book.
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  Anyways, this just goes to show the ongoing connection between
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  memes, news, entertainment, and just how like chronically online
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  people consume news. OK, the next story that I have
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  for you guys is that AI interviews are going viral all
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  over TikTok. Candidates are vlogging their
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  job interview experiences with AI recruiters as their
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  interviewers. Over the last few days, several
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  videos have gone viral online of candidates showing up to virtual
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  interviews, like on Zoom or video interviews.
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  And unbeknownst to them, the interview ends up being
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  conducted by an AI recruiter or hiring manager.
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  And in a few of these videos, the AI person like glitches.
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  And they're saying like the same sentence like over and over and
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  over again. And the candidate like, can't
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  stop it and they can't intercept.
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  And I saw one where they're like, thank you for the
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  interview. And the guys like, it hasn't
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  even started because you were glitching the whole time.
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  Hi. Thank you so much for joining
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  the interview today. I am so excited to talk to you
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  and get to know more about you. For our first question, let's
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  circle back. Tell me about a time when, when,
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  when, when. Let's let's let's circle back.
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  Tell me about a time when, when, when, when.
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  Let's let's. Let's circle back.
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  Tell me about a time when. When, when, let's.
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  I think the internet's breaking up or something about a.
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  Time when? So some of these are definitely
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  parodies, like some of these are like satire and making fun of
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  this trend. But there's enough of these
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  going around that there's a reason to be making fun of this,
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  right? So apparently the fitness
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  industry is 1 industry that is particularly adopted AI
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  interviews to help with recruiting for their studios.
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  I saw a lot of people say, so some of these interviews are
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  from like fitness companies. But these videos, understandably
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  have sparked a ton of discourse, especially because many of the
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  candidates posting them claim that they were not made aware
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  that they were going to get interviewed by an AII.
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  We have lived 100 lives, as some of you guys know, and my early
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  career, when I first left university, I ended up in
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  recruitment for a few years. It was really cursed.
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  Don't recommend, but I obviously have some experience with, you
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  know, recruiting and hiring and the candidate process.
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  I can't believe how like deeply unethical this is.
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  If candidates are showing up to interviews and they're being
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  interviewed by a computer, it's so unethical.
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  I understand. I'm sure it's recorded and I'm
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  sure real people watch it after when they have time or whatever.
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  And I'm sure AI gives them like a summary.
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  So then they decide who they watch and stuff.
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  I think is so unethical. I don't care if it saves your
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  team like hundreds of hours. It is such a horrible way to
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  treat people who are, you know, the people are your biggest
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  assets at a company. When I was in recruitment, the
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  concept of doing like a video, not interview, but like a video
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  application almost with your resume was first starting to
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  like take off. And even that we didn't really
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  agree with in any of the recruitment agencies, companies
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  that I worked for, some of like it was implemented somewhat here
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  and there throughout the industry.
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  But asking people who are not used to being on camera,
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  presenting by themselves to a camera to do something that is
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  so scary, like job interviewing and like pitching yourself
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  essentially is already such a harrowing experience for most
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  people. Asking them to perform in this
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  way that they are not comfortable with, not used to is
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  not going to be a good result for anyone.
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  Like you're not actually going to be able to gauge if someone
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  is right for this role, like who they are are, what their skill
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  set is, if you're asking them to do something that is so
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  unnatural to them and they're having to like learn this new
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  skill while they're interviewing for this job.
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  So that's, I think in my opinion, why the concept of
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  putting together like a video application with your resume
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  never really took off. This is one step further where
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  you're being interviewed by a computer.
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  And I don't care if they end up having, you know, the second,
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  the next step in the process is you meet with a human.
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  You know, I'm sure that is the case for some of this and I
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  don't care or if it's a screening process, like I don't
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  care if this is like instead of doing phone screens for 10
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  minutes with a recruiter, you're doing this with an AII think it
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  is so disrespectful to the candidate to be interviewed by a
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  literal computer. To me, if I was a candidate that
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  received this experience, I would think, OK, you don't care
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  about people, so why would I want to work for you?
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  If you are not investing in finding good talent, you're not
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  even putting a human being on that job.
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  I'm thinking, OK, this is not going to be a company that
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  respects their workers. This is going to be a company
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  that gets rid of me as soon as some type of AI comes, you know,
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  into play that can, quote UN quote, do my job.
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  So that already to me would be like a huge red flag.
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  There's no way that you can gauge.
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  Again, similar to video interviews really that much
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  about a person, if they're being interviewed by a computer,
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  there's so much of that kind of like a soft interpersonal skills
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  and interactions that you have with somebody, even if you're on
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  the phone with them, even if you're on Zoom with them, you
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  can't build any type of rapport and they're not going to learn
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  anything about the company either.
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  And I think that is like the biggest red flag to me here is
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  right now, it is very much an employer's market, but the
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  markets flip. So it will be a candidate's
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  market at some point. Again, once it flips back to a
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  candidate's market, Candidates are not going to put up with
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  this because part of a job interview is the candidate
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  understanding if they want to work at the company too.
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  You spend like 40 hours a week at your job.
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  It's like the thing you do the most.
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  It's so disrespectful as the company to think that when
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  anybody is coming in for an interview that it's a one way
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  experience that you are deciding if you want to hire them.
• 13:51
  It's also them deciding if you're the right fit.
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  How can a candidate engage anything about your company if a
• 13:57
  computer is interviewing them? They can't ask questions to a
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  computer that will give them like valid answers.
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  They can't suss out anything about the company vibes, the
• 14:07
  culture, the person that they'll be working with, anything.
• 14:10
  And I understand it's one probably blip in the process.
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  It's one step in the process and I'm sure they'll meet people
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  later, but I still think that wastes those candidates time.
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  And when you are looking for a job, you don't have time to
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  waste. You know, whether you're
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  employed full time and looking for a job on the side, that's
• 14:29
  like a scary place to be. Or if you are completely
• 14:31
  unemployed, again, that is a scary place to be.
• 14:34
  You are wasting people's time if they have to get to another
• 14:38
  stage in the process to speak to a person to fully understand if
• 14:42
  they want to work for you too. And again, because it's an
• 14:44
  employer's market, candidates are a little bit more desperate,
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  so they can kind of get away with that right now and being
• 14:50
  like, well, you know, there's a lot of people who are in a
• 14:52
  position where it's like any job they're offered, they're going
• 14:54
  to have to take. And employers know that, which
• 14:56
  is why they can implement stuff like this.
• 14:58
  But again, it's short sighted because markets always flip.
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  And when it is a candidate market, those companies that did
• 15:04
  implement these types of like AI interviews are going to have to
• 15:07
  backtrack on that and re strategize and spend even more
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  money fixing their processes, changing their processes to be
• 15:15
  more human focused because candidates are not going to put
• 15:17
  up with this. It's so dystopian.
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  It's so fucked up. Like I, I think it's so
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  disrespectful. If I was a candidate that
• 15:23
  received an AI interview, I would feel so disrespected.
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  Like people already feel like numbers at companies, especially
• 15:31
  big companies, They feel so disposable the way that like
• 15:34
  corporate has just absolutely, I mean probably not just
• 15:36
  corporate, probably like every industry has just absolutely
• 15:40
  made the workforce in general feel like the bottom of your
• 15:45
  shoe. Like everybody just feels like
• 15:47
  scum. There is no loyalty.
• 15:50
  Companies are doing layoffs like 2 rounds of layoffs a year like
• 15:53
  minimum. Like it's we are in hell, OK,
• 15:56
  And this is actually the final straw.
• 15:59
  This is the final straw for me. OK, The last story that I have
• 16:03
  for you guys is the newest Who the fuck did I marry series is I
• 16:09
  think in my opinion, this is like a trend spotting moment is
• 16:12
  about to pop the fuck off. It's already like mildly kind of
• 16:14
  popping the fuck off, but I think it's about to like pop
• 16:17
  off. And it's about the Mormon made
• 16:19
  off. So a woman named Andrea has
• 16:21
  started gaining traction online after she started her own
• 16:24
  version of Who the Fuck Did I Marry?
• 16:26
  As she retells the story of her husband running a Ponzi scheme
• 16:30
  behind her back for 15 years, turning himself into the FBI and
• 16:34
  basically destroying her whole life in the process.
• 16:37
  I'm Andrea Merriman and I was married to the man dubbed by the
• 16:42
  media as the Mormon made off for 20 years.
• 16:45
  So Andrea started her TikTok account two weeks ago.
• 16:48
  So this is like ground floor, you guys, like we are at the
• 16:51
  bottom. We are here from the beginning.
• 16:54
  Her first video was hand delivered to my For You page.
• 16:58
  Because somebody up in heaven in the universe, some angels are
• 17:03
  looking out for me. They know that I needed to hear
• 17:06
  this one million part series that combine two of my
• 17:10
  hyperfixations, pyramid scheme, ask fraud and Mormonism.
• 17:15
  So Andrea's husband was Sean Merriman, who was dubbed the
• 17:19
  Mormon Madoff after Bernie Madoff.
• 17:21
  Obviously, Sean was the head of an investment firm and a Bishop
• 17:24
  at his LDS church. On March 18th, 2009, Shawn
• 17:29
  turned himself into the FBI. He had been running a Ponzi
• 17:32
  scheme, stealing $20 million from investors, some of which
• 17:36
  included friends and family, even his mother.
• 17:39
  So in her series, Andrea talks about how she thought that they
• 17:41
  were worth $10 million and basically it was obviously all a
• 17:44
  sham. She tells the whole story like
• 17:46
  it's so fascinating. She should, I don't know if
• 17:50
  she's written a book, but she should write a book.
• 17:53
  She is playing this content. And she said that the reason why
• 17:57
  she's able to recall like very specific details for this series
• 18:01
  is because she spent the last few months going through her
• 18:03
  journals. So she's been journaling since
• 18:04
  she was like 12, she said, which doesn't surprise me.
• 18:07
  That's a very LDS practice. It's very encouraged in the LDS
• 18:10
  faith to journal, which is why so many of the early bloggers
• 18:15
  like Rich Parcell and like all those girls were Mormon or like
• 18:19
  LDS because it's like, so a part of their culture, I guess.
• 18:22
  So yes, she has journaling like her whole life.
• 18:24
  And so she said she's been pouring over her journals for
• 18:27
  the last several months knowing she was going to launch this
• 18:29
  series. This has all been planned.
• 18:31
  Like slay. She is honestly killing it.
• 18:33
  OK, so he was sentenced to 12 years.
• 18:37
  And over the years, Andrea has done a little bit of press, I
• 18:40
  found. And there was also some
• 18:41
  Hollywood coverage on this story, like an episode of
• 18:44
  American Greed. But now, as I mentioned, Andrea
• 18:47
  has taken the story to TikTok and she's telling her story in
• 18:50
  multiple parts straight to camera.
• 18:52
  And I think this is going to blow the fuck up.
• 18:55
  I think you guys need to get on it.
• 18:56
  It's so interesting. She's such a good storyteller.
• 19:00
  Someone get her a brand deal right away because I think she's
• 19:03
  about to have millions of followers.
• 19:05
  Anyways, guys, that's it for many scrolls today.
• 19:08
  Thank you so much for listening. I love you guys.
• 19:11
  Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe.
• 19:13
  Please subscribe to us on YouTube.
• 19:14
  We're almost at 10,000 subscribers and there's actually
• 19:17
  gonna be a deep dive for you guys tomorrow for the first time
• 19:20
  in a little while. I'm really excited.
• 19:22
  I have to get to editing that. So I love you guys and I will
• 19:25
  talk to you on Monday. Bye.