Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Legacy and Fandom Ethics

Transcript

Legacy and Fandom Ethics · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Never Told You reflection of iHeartRadio, and today we are
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: thrilled to be joined by the amazing of the wonderful Joey,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: who helps us with TikTok and researching and episodes. Obviously,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: so glad to have you here. Thank you. Yeah, I'm
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: excited to be here. Yes, yes, yes, um, we're very
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: excited to have you. You know, heads up, probably by
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the title, you can tell this is very controversial topic
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: for sure. Not a sponsor also, I hope obviously, but
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: you know, not a sponsor. Um, we're gonna be a
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: fire if they were. Yes, but this is something, uh,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: we really wanted to talk about and I had been
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: intending I had an episode kind of planned about it,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: but it was going to be much more of a
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: like personal I know we're gonna talk about this later,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: but kind of a personal take on like grieving and
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: fandom and what that that looks like. But yes, all
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: of that said, very excited to talk about this. No,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: it's controversial, but come with us on this journey listeners. Joey,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: do you want to introduce yourself anything that I missed
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: that I should have said, um, yeah, hi, I'm Joey
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: A good I don't think you're really missening. I think
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I'm a producer here at iHeart, So I do research
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: for Smith you from time to time, and I also
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: run the TikTok. So you guys should all go follow
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: that if you haven't already. M yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: You have been such a good sport because we just
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: essentially send you very random long clips and are like
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: maybe this or really that, you have to go on
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and make it with amazing like any crying, it's fine everything. Yeah,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I didn't get to do that. I don't know the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: only when there's a little Valentine'sday when I did so
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: far with the So it's fun. It's fun. Definitely giving
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: me an excuse to like spend a lot more time
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: on TikTok too, which is you know, positives and negatives
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: to that. But it depends, well, there is a lot
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: of ground to cover with this. So can you let's
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: get into can you tell us what we're talking about today? Yeah?
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: So quick, just trigger warning off the top. I'm going
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to be getting into a lot of like transphobic violence,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: both like interpersonally and on a state level, some brief
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: discussion of sexual assault, nothing too explicit, the just transphobia,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: the big thing. Yeah, I'm going to talk about the
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: whole ongoing I guess controversy regarding the Harry Potter franchise
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: as a whole, but particularly this video game that came
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: out recently. And yeah, as Annie had kind of mentioned,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: also getting into like talking about fandom and what you
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: do when this sort of thing happens, and how to
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: kind of ethically or you know, somewhat ethically interact with
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: this kind of media and yeah, yeah, yeah, and I
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: I think we're gonna have some personal stuff throughout, but
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I'll just say, like at the top, this is a
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: very We've talked about this several times because not this specifically,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: but like, you know, everything has its problematic issues, and
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: everybody I always say, like people can do a lot
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: of mental gymnastics, and I guess what I'm saying ultimately
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: is there's no like ones set, one thing fits all,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: prescriptive thing. And I know that a lot of her
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: has been done by this, so just to acknowledge that,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: but oh yeah, sure, I don't know, it's just kind
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: of like it's a complicated issue. I mean, and we're
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: gonna get into like I don't think there's like there's
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: not really a right answer, which is the frustrating part.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: And again, like you'll see what I go through a
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: lot of the background. It was really first frustrating writing
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: this whole thing because it's like it really is a
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: lot of like back and forth between like a lot
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: of this really violent, terrible things that are happening to
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: trans people and then talking about like nostalgic culture and
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: pop culture and how that affects people, which also is important,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: but you know, like it again, it's it gets really complicated,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to deny the experiences of anybody
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: or like kind of yeah, like there's a lot of
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: layers to this as we're going to get into. Yes, yes, um,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: well let's get into it. Can you give us kind
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: of overview of what has been happening, what has brought
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: us to where we are today? So yeah, this this
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: whole I'm going to keep using the word controversy. I
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: don't know how to feel about the word, but anyways,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: this whole controversy started around twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, when
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: fans of the Harry Potter series and noticed that JK.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Rowling had liked a number of tweets attacking the trans
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: rights movement, particularly tweets attacking trans women. Apparently at the
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: time she said this was a mistake, but I mean again, like,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: we'll see where this is going. And then December twenty
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: nineteen it really started. JK. Rowling had tweeted her support
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: for a woman who had been fired from the Center
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: for Global Development in the UK for her transpopic comments,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: and despite responses from LGBTQ plus activists and allies, Rowling
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: refused to back down from her stance. And then twenty twenty,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: things really starting to spiral funnier for everybody in tune,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Rowling and tweeted something, Honestly, I'm just gonna say I
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: thought it was a pretty childish response to an article
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: that came out that was titled opinion creating a more
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: equal post COVID nineteen world for people who men Straight.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Rowling was upset over the use of the phrase people
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: who men straight rather than women. The article in particular
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: was pointing to how you know, women on binary, people
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: transpend people who men stright have been unfair like particularly
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: affected by the COVID nineteen pandemic and kind of a
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: lot of the dangerous consequences of this taboo on menstrual health,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: which I think is a pretty you know, I think
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: that's a thing we should be talking about. I think, yeah,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: like I haven't read the article, but I'm sure it
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: was you know, pretty well put together. But yeah, Rowling,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: instead of you know, promoting that kind of thing, just
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: decided to take issue with the phrase people who went straight,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: which I think it's important to remember because when we
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: talk about this, we talk about like turfs that all
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: love like transphobic arguments in particular, I think it's important
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to remember they usually end up hurting CIS women too
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: and end up promoting patriarchy and like weird kind of
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: ways where it's like yeah, like again, this was an
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: article that was talking about a real issue that was
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: affecting a lot of CIS women and trans people and
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: not women too, but like, yeah, I don't know. And
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: then also just really quick note, I think like the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: word TURF has made its way into the mainstream kind
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: of along with like the you know the fact that
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the trans rights movement has gone a lot more attention.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: TURF stands for trans exclusive radical feminist. I think it's
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: kind of become a catchall for like transphobe, but yeah,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: it particularly is talking about a brand of transphobia that
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: like disguises itself as feminism, usually pretty like light feminism,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: you know, generally exclusionary feminism. But also yeah, I think
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: and when we talk about the harm that like turfism
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: in particular has caused, it's important to remember that it's
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: like in disguises itself as feminism, and that's part of
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: where a lot of the harm comes in. Yeah, So
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: back to Rowling. Following those tweets Deck Rowling, in twenty twenty, JK.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Rowling had posted an article on her blog detailing her
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: transphobic views, making a lot of really terrible comments I'm
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: not going to get into because I don't think there's
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: many benefit and sort of just parenting those ideas. But yeah,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: she at the time, again kind of going back to
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: this whole like turf thing, she takes a very like
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: liberal quote unquote stand like it's a very like well,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: it's because I support women and because like she does
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: at one point say like I support trans people who
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: are victims of assault and like all the in violence,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: So all that I just think that, like, and then
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: gets into like basically being like, here, I don't know.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: It's it's a very like weird argument where sort of
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: like I support trans people except for the fact that
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: I don't. But yeah, I think at the time, like
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: she was using a lot of like fake niceties to
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: be like, I'm still progressive, I just don't think these
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: people should exist in public, yeah, and saying that like
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: trans women were basically just men and all this like
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: other terrible stuff. Yeah, this article is kind of a
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: turning point. A bunch of factors in the series ended
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: up speaking out against her, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, like
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: notably we're both, you know, the leads of those movies.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: So I think it was interesting a lot of the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: younger generation, particularly we're speaking out against her. Other celebrities
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: were speaking in support, which was not fun. And also
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: at this point, the Fantastic Beast movies were still coming out,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: which for spinoffs from the original Harry Potter franchise. I
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: think she had actually written the screenplay for those. Eddie
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Redmain was the lead of those, and he made like
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: a really vague statement basically being like I support trans people.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: He literally like became super famous because he's played a
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: trans woman in the Danish Girl, So like, I don't know,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: it was that was definitely a weird about it too,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: where he was sort of like like a lot of
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: people pointed out this is especially when we talk about
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: like sis actors playing trans characters. This is a reason
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: why people are so critical. It is because a lot
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: of time it was like great, like this guy gained
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: so much fame from playing a trans woman and then
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: refuses to like actually make a statement in supportive trans people,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: refuses to remove himself from the series that is benefiting
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: this person. Yeah, anyways, frustrating. Yeah, there's a lot of
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: exploitation when it comes to bettering their own careers without
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: having any sentiment or actual courage to be allies for
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: things like this. And that's the big problem when it
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: comes to overall usage of nonrepresentatives for characters that should
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: be representative. Right, And I bring up this franchise in particular,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: like we're gonna talk about the video game because that's
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the most recent thing that's kind of come out of
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the Harry Potter franchise, but this was the Fantastic Beast
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: movies for a while. We're like the main thing that
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: was coming out from the series that was continuing jk
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Rowling sort of like relevance at the time. So then
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: since twenty twenty jk Rowling is just double down in
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: her hate comments. She's totally dropped that sort of like
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: faked nicety, like I support some trans people, and just
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: like she started also like outright targeting specific activists on
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Twitter and sometimes just trans people, like sometimes not even
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: like activists in particular to literally just be like trans
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: people trying to live their lives. She's also like used
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: her platform to speak out against specific legislation, notably this
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Scotland's Gender Recognition Act in twenty twenty two, which we're
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: going to get to because that's all of it. And
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: then also so this past year in twenty twenty two,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the third Fantastic Beast movie came out, and that movie
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: ended up flopping and they ended up canceling like any
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: further movies that would end up coming out. I don't
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: know if this was like because of I think at
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the time I was sort of like, this is great,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Like people are actually responding to the fact that like
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Dick Carawling is saying all this terrible stuff and then
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: not seeing the movie and then this video game made
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: me like maybe not. There were a lot of other
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: issues with those movies. I also just like, don't think
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: they were very good. I don't know. I didn't end
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: up seeing them, so like, who's to say, But yeah,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: that's kind of like where we were at the beginning
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty. Sound to the topic of this episode.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Development of the game began in twenty eighteen, so kind
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: of before this became at least like a widely known issue.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: I guess it officially came out last month. Jaki Rowling
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: wasn't involved in the development of the game, but she
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: gets royalties from it, which I want to point out
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: because I've seen a lot of really ridiculous Twitter arguments
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: of people being like, well, she wasn't directly involved in
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: the game, so it doesn't matter, and it's like, no,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: she's still like royalties, she still makes money from it. Yeah, yeah,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: you have to admit, no matter what, she's a smart
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: businesswoman and she makes sure to copyright the hell out
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: of this series and makes millions of dollars. And she
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: even tweeted in response to people who are criticizing her
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: in her comments that it doesn't matter. I'm still gonna
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: make money, like literally taunting people. So that's kind of like,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I have very strong opinions. That is not nice, So
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna leave it at that. But because of things
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: like that, it's kind of like, no, she knows, she
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: knows she's gonna make money, and she makes sure to
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: let you know no matter what you do, she's gonna
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: stay rich, oh for sure. Yeah. So basically like boycott's
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: or there were calls to like boycott the game in
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: the months leading up to it coming out, and that
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: was the thing that people, yeah kept pointing out was, Yeah,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: there was that tweet from her where she was like,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I still make money, so I don't care like I
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: can say, I can say whatever I want, which is
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: like part of the problem because yeah, I don't know.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I think it's important for people to remember that because
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: I've seen again, like I've seen a lot of I'm
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: a very like online person, so I spent a lot
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: of time like reading through Twitter arguments and stuff like this,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: which is probably not good for my book or whatever,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: but like I've seen a lot of people that are
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: just like so caught up in this whole Like, well,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: she wasn't directly involved in creating it. It's like, but
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the point is the money. The point is like she's
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: making money, You're keeping irrelevant. She sees this money as
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: like I can keep saying all this stuff and there's
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: no consequences. I don't know. Yeah, So there was a
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: trans YouTuber named Jesse Earle who had tweeted any support
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: that Harry Potter franchise current projects while JK Rowling is
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: in charge of it and using her ongoing platform to
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: target and also just by her continued targeting of trans
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: people is harmful to trans people. I think this was
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: like the end of twenty twenty two, and then jk
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Arling like responded to it on Twitter with like a
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: really nastier response and that sort of again sparked like
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of the discourse quote unquote about it, like
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: leading up to its release. Also just really quick about
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: this video game, because everybody forgot this really quickly. Back
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: in like May last year. I remember there was some
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: article that came out about the like plot of the
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: video game. So the video game came on to fire
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: because it was using a lot of like really anti
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: semitic tropes. A lot of it were from the Harry
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Potter series, but they like really really like we're focusing
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: in on that sort of plot, particularly with like the goblins.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: So I mean that's kind of a there's a big
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: conversation and that people were willing to ignore so much
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the original and I'm one of them because I also
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: really enjoyed. I didn't. I wasn't at the beginning because
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I was college years when this was happening when it
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: first started, but I was towards the middle, and then
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: as you start looking at it, they're like, oh, you
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: see that she's actually being racist and anti semitic, and
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: oh she talks about like enslaved people's and what is happening,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: and nothing is really bad about it, Like even the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: quip about it is like just taken out and you're like, yeah,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: or why are we okay, Like we've ignored it for
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: so long until she outright said something and then you're
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, yeah, we really really were blind to
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: her darkness for really Yeah, And again with the whole
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: thing about like again like yeah, like a lot of
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: this was coming from the series, and I was a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: kid when these were coming out. I remember like I
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: don't know how to pick up on this, and I
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: think a lot of people didn't either. I will say
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I do understand the whole like an, it wasn't that
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: long ago, but it was a little bit of a
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: different type. So people make mistakes sometimes, Like there's a
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: whole conversation we had about like we're focusing on the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Goblin stuff, like a lot of that is just from
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: European mythology being very anti semitic, rather then I think
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: jk Rowling in particular, although I do also think that
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: she's gonna be ani semitic. But anyways, like I think
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the books came out like twenty years ago, he's also
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: came about twenty years ago. Whatever. She had time to
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: be like, oh I made a mistake and whoops, Like
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: my bad, I will but no, like it's gone to
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the point where like again, she wasn't directly making this
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: video game, but like the company that was making it
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: was like rather than being like, hey, people have pointed
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: out that this is kind of like problematic, they're just
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: using it, and I don't know, I feel like that's
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: like I'm willing to be like if you made a
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: mistake twenty years ago and are like I'm sorry, we'll
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: try and like make the series more inclusive. That's one thing.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: If you're still going to continue to like perpetuate that,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's weird. I mean, there's one thing
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: about accountability and taking responsibility. When when you don't see
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: that at all, then it doesn't really help the situation.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: It definitely garners some more criticism, and it should for sure.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: So yeah, leaning up to the video game's release, there
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: was like a variety of different responses for people. I
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: guess around January again, Okay, disclaimer real quick, I don't
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: know how anything about video games. We went over this
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: before we started recording, but I'm not a big gamer,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: so Annie and Samantha feel free you to correct me
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: any of this. But I guess some users were posting
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: reviews on Steam, which is a distributor. Yeah, using tags
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: in the reviews that would make the game less popular,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: so like psychological horror, nft W. Apparently capitalism was one
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: of the tags. I don't know. I just thought that
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: was funny, and then they also created a transphobia tag
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: for the game. Unfortunately, this like kind of campaign wasn't
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: super successful. But I don't know, I think it's a
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: unble that people were trying to like protest the game,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: and you guys have talked about review bombing and how
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: review bombing can be bad podcasts. But also I don't know,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: I feel like sometimes I don't know, it can be complicated,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: So I'm not totally mad that people were trying to
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: do that with this game. A couple of streamers also,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: like a couple of really prominent streamers, We're talking about
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: streaming the game to raise money for a trans charity
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: organization and then ended up receiving a lot of backlash.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: I think a couple of streamers ended up actually doing this,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: but Hassan Piker it was one that was like really prominent,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: and again, like I don't play video games. I know
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: who he is, Like he's like he's a pretty prominent
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: like social media person. He apparently had said that he
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: was like thinking about streaming it and then was like,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: never mind, I'm not going to do it because people
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: are bulling me online, and I was like all right,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Like I think people were just like maybe that's not
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the best way to like I don't know, like if
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: trans creators are asking people to boycott it, maybe you
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: should just boycott it instead of streaming it, I don't know,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: and then it'll lasted effort to appease critics, The game
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: added a trans character, which so it's like a side character.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I guess they show up in like one scene. The
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: character is named Sobrone Ryan, which I guess Sir Rona
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: is the name of a Celtic god for healing and rebirse,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: and that's where the name is from. But yeah, as Samantha,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned, um, jk Rowling is a bit infamous
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: for her like vilely and the nose names for minority characters,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: and this was one where people were like, Hm, you're
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: naming your trans character sir Rona, Like that sounds like sir.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And then Bryan, which is like a male first name. Again,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: I don't think jk Rowley wasn't one naming it. I
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: don't think she would have wanted this character to even
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: be involved in the game. But um, I don't know.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of like really funny tweets of
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: like rejected names. They were all like very like they're punished. Yeah,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: they're punish, but yeah, I mean there's so much, there's
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: so much to unpack with that, like how that could
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: just go so wrong? I kind of would have been like,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: all right, we get it, you made an effort, but
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: maybe it's just a better not to just let it.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Just let it be because the people who you are
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: trying to hate or two are gonna be the most
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Like this is more insulting because this is like a
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: level of lights, such a patronizing attempt to be like,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: but here we did something, yay. Is she's still going
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: to get millions of dollars. Yeah, but there's a character
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: for you that you're really not going to play here
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: you go for sure? Yeah, yeah, Like I don't even
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: think it's a character you can play, like. I think
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: it literally is like like a bartender come across. So
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: it's yeah, And I don't know. It was so weird.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: It was a really funny day on Twitter. But yeah,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: it was. It was weird. It was a weird decision, definitely. Yeah,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: So by is this all matters? This is a video game.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Going back to Jesse Earl, who's that YouTuber that Rowling
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: had publicly harassed on her Twitter, she had told The
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Washington Post that buying this game quote keeps Rowling relevant,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: and then she went on to say she's equating the
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: relevancy with people supporting her views, and her views are
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: directly harmful and attacking and doing damage to the trans community.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Which again, like as I said, part of the reason
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: that Decay Rowland keeps doing this is because so far,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: we use the audience, have shown her that there's not
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: going to be any like financial harm to her doing
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to continue like saying these kind of things and you know,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: harassing trans people and really becoming this like spokesperson for
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: a hate movement. Again, I pointed that tweet from Rolling
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: where she sort of was like I don't care. I
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: get my royalty techs and I'm fine, So I don't know.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: So yeah, there's the one side of it is it's
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: keeping her relevant, it's showing her that she can use
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: her platform to continue spousing hate and normalizing that hate.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: But then also it goes a lot deeper than that.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: The same Washington Post article stated that in twenty twenty,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Senator James lank Board in the US voted against Senate
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: consideration of the Equality Act and LGBTQ Plus LGBTQ Civil
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Rights Bill, citing a rallying blog post that bill, by
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the way, still hasn't I think it passed the House,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: but it's kind of in limbo with like the Senate
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: right now. And then the article also printed to last month,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: the British government blocked a Scottish bill that would have
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: made it easier for people to change their legal gender.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: That was that Scottish gender quality bill that Rolling was
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: really outspoken against. And in her twenty twenty blog article,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: she had said that the bill in effect means that
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: all a man needs to quote become a woman. It's
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: just that he is one, which isn't accurate. And to
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the actual bill. Yeah, and again that that bill last
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: month was blocked by UK Parliament. I did read one
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: source that said that the particular legislation they used to
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: block it, this is the first time they've used that legislation, so,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: you know, cool, super fun. And again, yeah, the Equality
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Act in the US still hasn't passed, so it's going
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: back and forth between the US and the UK here.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: But it's sort of like the on both. Her rhetoric
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: is being used to argue against specific legislation that literally
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: would just make it easier to exist as a transperson.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Neither these legislations get into like healthcare or anything like that.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: It literally just makes it easier the Scottish bill in particular,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: would have just made it easier to change your name
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: on official documents and change your gender on official documents.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: There's one side here where it's just like, obviously the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: rhetoric she's putting out is bad and it is hate
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: speech leads to violence, and both in her personal and
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: then on the legislative level, where like again her speech
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: is being used to just buy bills being shot down
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: that would make it easier to exists the transperson. None
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: of this stuff exists in a vacuum. All of it
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: affects each other. Again, Yeah, hate speech fuels violent crime,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: if that's in her personal or on a state level. Well,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I'm going back to what you said earlier. I think
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: part of the real damage is too that she for
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: a long time was able to present herself as a feminist,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: and so she was like on this other side of
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: you know, people would write articles like she described Donald
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Trump as bolder morn or like you know, had all
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: this stuff, and so now you're seeing like these really
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: extreme conservatives use what she's saying but being like, but
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: remember you liked her so much, Like that's part of
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the the damage of a terfism or like yeah, yeah,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I think that's that's what scares me because like when
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: we talk about transphobia coming from like the really fat right,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: it's easy to just be like, Okay, well they're like
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: really conservative, Like I don't know, like I'm not going
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: to take obviously it is also serious and has like
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: serious impacts on people's like perception of trans people. But
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, I'm expecting it to come from like
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: a Tucker Carlson type person or like even that senitor
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: that I mentioned in the in the article who is Republican,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Like it's there are going to be the people who
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: are going to expect to say this kind of stuff.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: When it's somebody like jk Rowling, it's like who, by
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: the way, I just want to say it, Like she
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: calls herself a feminist. I don't know about Like I
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: have a big believer and you need you need to
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: actually practice feminism. You can't just say her a feminist
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: and I don't know, Like I remember when when the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: back last spring, when when the stuff about like Roe
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: versus Wade was coming out and they were like with
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. One thing that I saw that it
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: was interesting with somebody who was like, hey, take her all.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: It is one of those people that keeps saying she's
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: a feminist and she sports like women's autonomy and and
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: not harming women's bodies and all this stuff, but then
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: she's completely silent on this issue that is like affecting
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of women and not women too. But like,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: maybe this isn't about feminism, Maybe this is just about hate.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: And there's a million other examples you can find in
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: like pretty much any turf argument of how it's just
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: like it is patriarchy under the facade of feminism and
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: women's rights. And I really would like encourage people to
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: like look deeper into a lot of those arguments and
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: how they specifically end up harming CIS women as well
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: as trans folks. Yeah, it's as a whole mess. And
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: I think another thing that has to be said about
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: where she was pre quotes and tweets, I guess is
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: that she really worked as if she was an ally
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: to the queer community, talking about like you know, oh,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: yeah Dumbledore is definitely gay and all these things, and yeah,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: absolutely Hermione could have been a black woman, what are
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: you talking about? And she gained the trust of so
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: many young people who for so long felt like they
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: were alone and isolated. And the reason and I'll never
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk a little more, but like the
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: reason they loved the Harry Potter series, it was a
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: light in this darkness because they saw as an outcast,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: you can be special like less the message all kids
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: want to hear. But then to hear her go on
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: to say yeah, and I'm an ally for the queer
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: people and they definitely were part of the Wizarding World,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: which we all wished was a real thing. Maybe it is,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but it was a real thing, and
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: felt so so much love for the series and fell
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: in love with a series which we've talked about previously
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: about what happens when you really love the characters that
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: out there, that you have created, even for yourself, a
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: different world, and you put yourself in this world, and
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: then have her come and slash it, literally murder the
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: hopes and love and dreams of these kids who grew
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: up and maybe even found themselves a little bit through
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: her series. The betrayal of that in itself is so dangerous,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: and we have come back to from being like Alli
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: and giving hope and giving someone and out and lights
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: to darkness of like, yeah, oh my god, she hates
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: me or she hates people like me. Everything that she
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: has said is falling apart, and she's celebrating it. She's
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: celebrating it by using her influence in society, in politics
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: and policy. She's using it as a way of gaining
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: more attention through the news media and all the media,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: and then also teaching those parents who have already been
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: against the kids to once againe double down. And then
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: when we come to see a game that celebrates it's that.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: But there's no way we can I mean, no, you
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: really can't. Even when people tell me they buy it,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: or they did they're thinking of buying it, the first
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: thing they say is I know, I know she's bad.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: So when that's the first statement that comes out of
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: your mouth, you know there's no way to separate this
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, And that's what makes it complicated, I think.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: And again, like I grew up with the series and
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: like it was my favorite books and I was a kid,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I definitely like have a lot of like really good
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: memories attached to it. I totally understand that aspect and
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: also like amas but involved in like the fandom today
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: so like I got thought too, but um yeah again
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: it just really good. A couple of stats too about
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: the state of trans rates as of right now, this
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: is gonna be focusing on the US just because it
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: shows based in the US. I don't know as much
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: about UK politics, although I've heard it's kind of a
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: show from friends that are there. But yeah, again, like well,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: actually one thing really quick with the UK, so the
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: and again going back to the whole like people buying
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: the game and being like I know, like I know,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: which's terrible. I know't the weekend this video game came out,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: there was a sixteen year old trans girl that was
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: murdered in the UK. Does that murder have anything directly
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: to do with the video game? No, I don't think, like,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: but at the same time, it's like this is a
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: lot of people on Twitter and on social media we're
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: pointing out kind of the sort of this weird feeling
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: of like you have this, you have all these discussions
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: about this video game, and like can you support playing
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: this video game or buying this video game or like
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: all of that are still like being a fan of
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: the series, but then the reality of the situation is
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: like this sort of hate speech the jk Rowling is
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: championing is what ends up getting people killed, is what
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: ends up like literally, like a sixteen year old girl
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: was killed because of the kind of hate speech that
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: jk Rowling has turned into her entire brand at this point.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: According to a twenty twenty report from every Town for
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Guns Safety in the US, the number of trans people
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: we've been murdered doubled between twenty seventeen and twenty twenty one.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's and again, it's not just k Rowling.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of like people across the political spectrum
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: that I think, like have responsibility for this rise in
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: hate of trans people. But she is a very provident
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: spokesperson here a lot of the people of use so
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: we're like moral panic when talking about this, I would agree,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: like I think we're in the middle of like a
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: full blown moral panic around queer people in particular, on
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: LGBTQ plus people in general, but like particularly trans people
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: and particularly trans women. I think, yeah, again, like it's
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: affecting everybody, it's affecting all trans people, but I think
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: trans women are sort of just like that's the main
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: group that jk Rowling's targeting that has been the main
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: group targeted in a lot of like grooming groomer like
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: stuff that's going around and all that. But yeah, as
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: of right now, the ACLU is tracking three hundred and
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: seventy one anti LGBTQ plus bills throughout the US. A
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: number of them particularly target trans people and trans kids. Literally,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: like in the Times, I began putting together like research
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: for this episode, Tennessee passa bill the band drag performances
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: from public spaces or locations where they could be viewed
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: by a minor. And if you look at the bill,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: the language that they use is super vague. I would
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: argue that's on purpose, And a lot of activists are
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: worried that like this kind of combined with the sort
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: of like transphobic view that like trans women are just
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: men in drag or vice versa, this bill could be
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: used to criminalize like trans people simply existing in public
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: or in spaces around children that are private. It's again,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: it's it's not just public at this point now, it's
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: also private because it is like it could be a
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: private entertainment menu. It could literally be like your home
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: if you have kids, or like you know, ore had
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: children and your family unit. Yeah, and this isn't like
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: the only bill like thought that's going around. Tennessee also
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: passed a bill limiting, not limiting banning genderperving care for
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: trans kids in Tennessee, which, again really quick I think
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: says people get confused when we talk about like gender
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: affirming care for kids in particular, because I just assume
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: that it means like physical transition. That doesn't necessarily mean that,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: like sometimes it can mean like puberity blockers, which aren't permanent.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: And I'm also not a doctor, so nobody like take
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: my particular word for this. But sometimes that literally just
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: means like being able to like acknowledge that your kid
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: doesn't identify as the gender they've been assigned, which like
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: usually just means like letting them change how like their
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: hair looks, or how they dress, or like how they
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: want to be addressed in public, none of them. Like
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: if people people get so caught up and they're like, oh,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: it's not reversible, Like I don't know about Like I'm
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: somebody who's changed the names that I've gone by, and
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: like that's reversible, Like that is really easy to change.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I have short hair, I can grow it out really easily.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Or cut it again, and I changed my outfits every day.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, guys. I thought that was
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: a pretty normal thing, but I don't know. Yeah, so
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: it's frustrating. We are living at like a really scary
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: time to be a trans person, to be a queer person,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: but particularly to be trans person. Like yeah, and both
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: like legislatively on a state level, and also just like, yeah,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: there are more and more trans people that are being murdered,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: particularly trans women. Yeah, it's it's a mess. Yeah, but
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: let's talk about a video game. So yeah, the game
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: is doing well, which is unfortunate. And again, like the
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: frustrating thing, like Samanthony said, like as soon as everybody
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: breaks up, it's like, I know, like there really is there.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Most people know there's a pretty much strong argument against
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: getting it or against supporting any sort of like Harry
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Potter franchise content, and yet people still do. And as
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: much as I want to be like everybody, look at
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: all of the facts, all this terrible stuff that's happening,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: how this connects to hate speech, how it's connects to
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: this particular woman's platform. Let's stop, like, let's just like
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: pretend that this doesn't exist, that's not going to happen,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Like if it would have happened, it would have happened.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: At this point, I'd rather just focus on like the
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: reality of the situation than like what I'd want in
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: an ideal world. So yeah, I think this does kind
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: of get the question. I'm also like, I don't want
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: to like vilify anybody that has gotten the game or
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: anybody that does continue to like enjoy this kind of content.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: I will say the people like I keep saying on
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Twitter that are like making these really elaborate excuses of
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: like here's why I particularly should be allowed to enjoy
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: the game or how I should Like that's dumb, Like
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know, that's another story. I will argue with
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: you about that, but whatever. I mean. At the same time,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: like I get it again, Like I have no interest
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: in buying the video game. I don't think people should
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: buy the video game, but I do get being attached
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: to this universe, Like, yeah, I grew up with it.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: I was a huge fan when I was a kid.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I have been somewhat involved with like the fandom stuff
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: on TikTok, and actually I have like a lot of
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: really close friends that are really involved with like TikTok,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: like cosplay content and fan fiction and all that, and
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: like I get being attached to this series. And also
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: again because it's so popular like worldwide, there's a lot
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: of people that are just like casual fans and like
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: grew up with reading it or like you know, are
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: going to get it for their kids because it's like
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: a staple now sort of childhood like reading these books.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: So it's hard. There's not like there's not an easy answer,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: which is the fresh training part of all of this. Yeah,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: I mean just the things, Like I obviously have very
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: strong opinions when it comes to morality issues. The biggest
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: thing to me is like, you know, just admit it.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: It's fine, Like we get it. It's hard. Like the
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: game is set up beautifully. I have seen YouTube videos
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: previews of it and be like, people are so excited
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: because this is your Tiffany, so you can tell me
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: if I'm wrong. But the design of it is unique,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: and the way they really created this world apparently is
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: really pretty and beautiful. The way you can play it
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: is newer, kind of like people's love for Elden Ring.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry for those who think I'm being awful. For
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: compare the two, but the graphics of it is different
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: and has been upgraded over the years. So a lot
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: of the video gamer people, gamers as we would say,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: try to say that's the reason, Like I literally has
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: say like, oh, they can do this in this world
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: and that's never been a thing, or you can do
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: these things on this level, and you know, people love
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: anything spectacular and new and changing, So whatever they have
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: created for this game, I get it. I get that
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: that's an appeal, but yeah, it is really hard not
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: to see when you see a community hurting, suffer and
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: being persecuted on such a depth level. Constantly hearing stories
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: of people being murdered or heard or kicked out, being
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: threatened to be removed from a family, like being threatened
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: to be arrested because you do support your family. It's
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: kind of hard to see. But it's also some of
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: these same people who would probways say that, but this
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: world when I was younger really weren't for me and
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: really helped me see some things. So the complicated place
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: that they are at it is it is painful because
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: you have this decision of like how do I grieve
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: but I don't want to let it go, yeah, and
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I just just to know, I don't think you realized
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: you did this, that you did look at me via
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: this video call and say this is your turf Annie,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: which give very very funny. That's the thing we should do, though,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: is we should try to reclaim like to you are,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: I just make whatever people share about like, I don't know,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: this is your whelm, this is you, this is your
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: specially who well you have it on videos, we can
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: play it back. But I was very like, wait a minute,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: I know actually you did make a face and I
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: didn't get it at that point, but yeah, your I
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: will say too when it comes to like also like
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: the fandom spaces and like the being your turf to
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: you are of the kind of thing and somebody like
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time in online fandom spaces,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: and I think in general they tend to be pretty queer.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: This may also just be like my bubble, but like,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: they tend to be pretty queer bubbles. I've seen the
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: same with the Harry Potter fandom. Like I think the
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: like online social media, very like fandom space usually tends
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: to be very queer, and I think that also makes
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: it complicated because like it can be frustrating as a
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: queer person, like feeling stuck and feeling yeah, I'm like
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know, like I just I recognize that's that's
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: that can be particularly frustrating. Is again as somebody else
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: or who is who's queer and like trans like it's
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: it's it can be frustrating. It could be really really
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: really frustrating. Yeah. Because also along with that, I've seen
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of like trans masculine people in particular speak
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: out and be like, well, I'm really attached to this thing,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: so I'm just going to continue to sort of like
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: ignore it and like enjoy this media because it's really
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: important to me personally. I think it's important to recognize that,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: like the majority of the people that are being really
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: really harmed are trans women. It's going to be transmulin general,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: it's going to be queer people in general, but like
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: it's trans women, Like trans women are going to be
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: particularly targeted by this, and I think, I don't know,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: I guess like I just would ask people to like
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: use this as a time to likely reflects on like
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: how do we stand up for one another within the community,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: because I have also seen the argument of people again,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Like I've seen a frustrating number of videos of people
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: being like I'm trans and I'm saying that you can
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: buy the studio game it doesn't matter, and it's like
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: usually they're trans masculine people. I don't know. I just
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: I would encourage people to like really think about who's
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: being affected, who is being harmed, and just like stand
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: up for other people in your community. Like, this is
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: the time when we need to like have each other's backs. Again,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: we're in the middle of a full blown oral panic
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: around trans people. We need to have each other's backs.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Queer sis queer people too, we need to have each
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: other's backs. You guys are not saying from this either,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, it's yeah, I mean, and that's
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: absolutely when it comes down to it. When it's attacking
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: any type of marginalized community in general, it comes down
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: onto all of us. And obviously women are a part,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: not necessarily of the overall marginalized, but they are marginalized.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: You are not a sisman, so therefore you or do
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: not have the power, So yes, this will come down
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: onto you, which we've seen it is. It goes hand
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: in hand. When they go for one, they go for all,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: and what we're seeing is when we're not banning together,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: it allows for the breakdown. And then if we think
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: one aspect or one injustice is more important than the other,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: then you've got a problem because you are not truly
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: seeing the fact that you're a part of the problem.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: And it's really naive to think that you're one issue.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: And I'm talking to women in general. It's just like
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I'm a woman and trans women are affront to me
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: because that takes away from my woes and my inability
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: to get all the rights, which is not true. Then
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: you are woefully ignorant of the fact that you are
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: part of the problem. Absolutely, But yeah, I don't know. Again,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I yeah, with the whole kind of conversation about then,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: like what do we do with this piece of media now,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: like and I'm talking about Harry Potter and general in
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: any sort of Harry Potter thing, because again it's not
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: it's not just the video game. The video games like
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: the most obvious version of like here's this thing that
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: people can buy that people can give their money too.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: But it was also like in all the like arguments
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: about it, people bring up like the attention economy, which
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: you got again going back to like the whole dayk
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Rowling thing, like she's benefiting from the series being really
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: popular and benefiting from the attention economy. Like, but also
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say, like people just can't enjoy
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: this because I don't know. Again, like I think, I
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: do think people can enjoy things as long as it's
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: not like hert make somebody. I don't know, I think
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: it gets complicated, but like I do think, like I
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: get the whole like people just wanting to enjoy the
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: series too, And I mean, I think the sort of
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: obvious answer is like figuring out a way to like
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: be involved in fan culture and fan them and not
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: giving money that's going to go to jk Rowling, like
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: not buying merch that's directly going to benefit jk Rowling.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: There's lots of an independent artists out there. Personally, I'm
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: a big advocate of fan fiction. I think like fan
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: fiction is always a good thing if definitely read some
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: like transversions of characters too, which is fine, um and
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: all of that. But yeah, I don't know, I don't know.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear you guys. We have suggestions.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: We had reader we had listeners who sent their own
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: and some really good uh rewrites of Harry Potter. Should
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: I would yeah, oh my gosh. Um. Uh So originally
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: this was you did a much better job than what
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: I was gonna do. I was literally just going to
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: have a conversation about grieving and what happens because for me,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: like I you know, I graduated high school when the
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: seventh book came out, I graduated college from the seventh
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: movie came out. It was there on like my darkest times.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: I loved it. I liked travel to lond the idea,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: the whole I was like, like I said, fan doesn't
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: describe it. And it was such a big part of
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: my identity. And that's the danger. Because I've talked before
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: on here, I use fiction to cope with trauma. Um,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: and it's very important to me when you let something
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: get that close and then it hurts you so bad,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: and that's normal. Like I mean, I do this fare
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: but I think plenty, like it's a pretty common thing.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: I'm like, that's the thing I keep trying to bring up,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Like I don't plan people for being fans of the series.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of there's a lot of good stuff
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: in it, and like yeah, and people do use this
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: sort of stuff to cope with trauma. Again, I've seen it,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Like I've read a lot of fan fiction, so I
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: know a lot of people use like fan fiction and
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: the sort of stuff to also deal with like their
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: identities as like queer people and as trains people and um.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: And that's impacted me a lot too, Like that's definitely
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, I get that side of it.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: And that's why I'm like, I never would fault anybody
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: for being attached a series because again, now it's on
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: the hypocrite, but also like media affects us and we
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: can't always you know, none of us can predict where
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: these authors are going to go with their lives, unfortunately.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: But yeah, well that's kind of the interesting thing because
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: I was like, you know, there's a lot of what
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: about is them that happens in this argument where they're like,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: well you'd like that though, right, And that's problematic too,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, yeah, but JK. Rowling is like the
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: heart of this, Like I can't I can't even read
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: fan fiction anymore, Like I can't not think of this
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: when I consume any of the media, and like I'm
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: not saying I'm like holier than that at all, because
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: it was like twenty twenty. I knew she was probably
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: meant before them, but that was when I was like, Okay,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: I can't, I can't do this anymore. And like we said,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge It's true. There's so many like personal
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: experiences and mental gymnastics and all of these things that
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: go into consuming a thing. And so I also, you know,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: I have friends that have got the game, and I
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: don't fallow them, but for me, it's become like I
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: literally shut down when people bring it up because it
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: was so important to me and it hurt me so bad.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: And so many listeners have written and I'm like all
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: kinds of the whole spectrum of this over the years
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: and now, like I think of what the stories they've sensed,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: and it's just it's upsite, Like I guess what I'm saying.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: It's like I get I get all sides of this,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: and I also get if, like you're really hurting and grieving,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: because that's kind of where I am, right, Oh for sure, Yeah, yeah,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: I think that's that's the thing. It's like, You're not
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: the only one I've known people in my age group,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: it's gonna say generational, like, I'm not doing this to
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: myself who use that too? Like literally, we're so traumatized
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: by family, by love, by abuse that held onto that world.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: And I keep saying that as a world because it
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: is it was something that was created to keep them safe,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and then they created it as a bigger part of
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: themselves so they be who they were and who they are.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: And then we look at the fact that she destroyed it.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: She destroyed it, I think for those people, for all
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: of us because I liked it. I liked it. I'm
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: a casual person. Don't get me wrong. Now. I you
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: would watch Harry Potter the first one, especially as a
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Christmas movie, like I liked it. I was not a diehard.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: I that is not my escapism. But I as even
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: almost like the social work side of watching people being
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: able to really have a coping mechanism in a healthy way,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: even though I'm like, oh, you're really really in this
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: imaginary world. But it's also good for you because it
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: is doing so much for you. And then to have
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: that go for a flip, it's such a disruption. It
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: takes the wind out of everything. It takes your breath
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: almost of the jarring turnaround of what it was. And yeah,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: I again, I have a lot of opinions, and I
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: don't want to it sounds very critical. I sound very critical,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: and I hate to be that way. When I'm like
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: this game, you don't have an excuse. But the fact
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: that the matter is that this goes hand in hand,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: and it is it has been tainted, this, this reality,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: this fiction, this conversation, something that was so pure at
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: one point in time, what we thought has been really
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: tainted and we can't not see why, so affecting everyone
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: her whole conversation. She had garnered so many right wing
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: people under her support group that it's overwhelming. The same
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: people she was tweeting against and yelling at in twenty
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: seventeen suddenly flipped and have become a part of her team.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: And then we see women who have forever tried to
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: villainize trans women. It's being feeling justified because here's an
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: icon saying exactly what they've been saying for so years,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: and now they have someone to justify that. And then,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: also knowing that she's successful, there was no cancel culture
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: for her. She tried to pretend like there was there wasn't.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: And then we also see that people like you Joey
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: and people like you Annie, who have so much emotion
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: and so much pain from people saying like, I'm sorry,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: but I still want to be a part of it,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: not because they're doing something against you, but they're definitely
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: not supporting you. Like that's if you're If you're not
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: doing something that is to be an ally, that means
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: you're not supporting them. I mean, that's kind of how
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: it turns out to be. And it's harsh and it's cruel.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: And I say that to myself as well. I know
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: that hearing you as the people in my life that
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: I care about to do something that is going against
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: the community who are hurting because of this community, that
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: means I'm going against the support. I'm not supporting you
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: like I said I would. And that's the conversation and
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: things that you have to think about. And in this
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: it's just a game. I get it. It's just a game,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: but it's also people's lives. It's also people hearts in
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: all of this, right, And that's one of the things
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: I think this episode I want to do because one
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: of the things I also keep saying is like a
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: lot of people that I think our allies and their
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: heart and our supporters, but just haven't like connected the
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: dots exactly between like they know, like O. Jk. Rowling's
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: really transphobic, but they haven't like totally realized, like no,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: here's how the specific things that she's saying are affecting
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: people's lives, are affecting legislation are affecting like the general
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: kind of conversation that we are having about trans people
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: and about trans women in particular. And I think I understand,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: Like that's it is a hard sort of thing to
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: really connect because it is a lot of like, yeah,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: it is a lot of also just like how do hate?
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: How do these like cultures of hate happen? But it's there,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: and this is like what I want to do is
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: sort of like connect those dots for people and again
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: also like remain sympathetic. I do understand, and yeah, again
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: like totally understanding it to the series. I'm not saying
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: people should just throw there. There was I had like
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: a bit like a TikTok break talked about this and
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: somebody like commented and was like I'm throwing away my
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: books right now, and I was like, no, you don't
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: have to do that, Like that doesn't do anything what
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: you think it does. This is an important conversation to
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: keep having, and it is a conversation that we do
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: keep happening because they're just keep There's been a Harry
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: Potter content that's been coming out like more or less
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: consistently for the past couple of years. There was a
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Team Folk article I saw that kind of got into
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: the same thing that I came out a year ago
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: because of the twentieth anniversary special that was on HBO
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Max that I had totally forgotten about it, but there
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: was again I remember like there was a whole conversation
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: around that too, um and people being like yeah, like
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: the same sort of conversation about like nostalgia and being
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: attached to the series, but then also like recognizing like
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: people's lives aren't being put in danger or like literally
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: physically armed or guilt and like that is also something
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: that is important to remember. Yeah. I don't think that
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: there's not an easy answer, and that is that's frustrating
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: about all this, but it is like I think the
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: best thing people can do is like just continue to
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: keep having this conversation, continue to keep acknowledging that what JK.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Rowling is doing is harmful, and beyond that too, like
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: continue to stay informed again, Like there's all of these
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: bills in the US right now that are targeting trans
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: people and queer people. Pay attention to that. Like, I'm
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: sure wherever you are listening to this, there's something in
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: your state right now that he's either past or is
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: like in consideration right now, Like, look into that. Pay
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: attention to what's happening. If you want to be an allay,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: be an ally, that's more important than whether you're going
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: to like burn your boer merch that you bought in
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: twenty eleven, Like, I don't know. I like I still
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: have like a griffindor blank that I bought when I
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: was eleven that I'm like, I'm going to keep this
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: because I like it, and yeah, like me throwing it away,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: it's not going to affection, okay. Rawlings like annual income right, yeah, exactly,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: and just the annual income I I was looking this
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: up apparently for the standard apparently for a writer's royalties
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: is fifteen percent. So when the book sales happened, I
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: think as of twenty twenty two, she made one point
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: one five billion dollars, So we know she was a
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: savvy businesswoman, especially when it came down to the movies.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Likelihood of her making that much money off of this
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: game alone, it's pretty high. And because she is a
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: supporter of anti trans bills, the likelihood that she's giving
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: money to that very high. So oh and she has, Yeah,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: she's definitely given so as a reminder that money does
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: go specifically against trans people. Yeah, happy days. Yeah. And
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: this is also where with this when we're talking about money,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: like independent rich shops exists and didn't like we love
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: buy book second hand? Yes, I know, like streaming is
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: the norm now, so it's sort of hard to do
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: the whole like buy your DVD second hand, but like
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know, like there's other options. Does eBay still
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: do that? The second hand buying? What did that used
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: to be? I know, y'all, y'all are not old enough
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: in collod books and I think it was pre Amazon
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: and it was eBay and then it became Amazon. Oh
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: my god, I'm dating myself. I'm still talking yea, Oh
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: my god, Oh wow, my jello and put myself to
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: bed early. I mean wow, I mean that sounds nice. Yeah,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: it is. It's like I feel like we could come
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: back and do a revisit because it is so complicated.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Because there's also a part of me that like, I
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: hate that she's done this because it's the movies weren't
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: made in a vacuum. Like sure, if some people agree
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: with her, but there was a lot of people who
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: didn't and who have come out against it. So I
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: hate that that's happening. And then I I would love
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: to bring someone else who knows more about this than me.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: But there's been a lot of articles about what's going
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: on with trans women, specifically in the UK. It's not
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: it's still it's bad, but it's not quite the same
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: as what's going on in the US, so that is
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: a larger conversation to be had as well. Yeah, Like, again,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know as much about UK like politics and culture.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: I spent my entire life in the US. But at
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: least from what I've heard, it's like it doesn't I've
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: definitely like seen articles when I pointed too, like jk
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: Rowling in particular, in her attitude towards this, like it
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: doesn't come that also doesn't come out of a vacuum,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: like that is very much reflective of how like the
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: culture around trans people and around career people is in
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: the UK. But again, I'm not an expertal of this.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: While like I don't know, but yeah, above to hear
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: somebody's thoughts, who who knows more on this, because yeah,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: and it's scary. It's it's a scary world to live in.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: I do try to be an optimist against my better judgment. Um,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: so like I am hopeful that I don't know, I
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: do the fact that we're having this conversation at least
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: like to me is like people are talking about it.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: It's not like this is just something that's happening and
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: like nobody really cares, like there are there wasn't there
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: was an effort to boycott and it wasn't particularly successful,
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: but like it was there, and I have seen a
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: lot of people like sharing information about it and and
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: sharing information about like a lot of these like anti
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: trans and anti career bills that are going around, and
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: that gives me hope. I don't know. Again, it's everything's
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: about right now, Like, yeah, I don't know. I feel
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: like that's the overall Yeah, okay, job, Yeah, I mean
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: it is. I think like that's a good a good
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: takeaways to stay informed because I think a lot more
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: people know now at the very least where they they
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: didn't before, that this is something we should be talking
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: about or paying attention to. Oh yeah, and I want
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: to clarify, like I said before, like I want to
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: say realistic and just be like I do recognize that
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: I think at this point, like we can't just be like,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: here's all these bad things and this is why everybody
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: should just forget the series exists and like make Jaker rawling,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: like I don't think that's gonna work. But also the
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: fact that I don't think that's gonna work, I don't
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: think like it hasn't worked at this point, that doesn't
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: mean that like there aren't things that we can do
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: with that are going to like at least be like
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: harm reduction, you know, like, yeah, we shouldn't keep talking
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: about this. We should keep talking about all this stuff
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: that's happening, because that's always going to be better than
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: just ignoring it. And yeah, or like even if like
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: maybe a mass white cot isn't going to work, that
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: does not mean that you should just like give your
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: money to the corporations they're going to go directly rack
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: to Chaker rawling like you should or like whatever franchise
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: was what I am on the side of, Like, I
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: think if people enjoy the series, I under stand that,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: and I respect people's ability to, like you consume the
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: media that works for you, but also have some responsibility
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: and think about how your actions and where you're putting
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: your money are affecting other people and are affecting the
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: queer community and the trans community. Um, and like what
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: are some alternatives that. Yeah, I think everybody should just
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: read fan fiction and everything will be fine. Yeah, yet
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: doub Joey, don't tell people. Yeah, I know you afections
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: like Luke Skywalkers of particular for it of like, so
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: you're gonna send me these right, I'm outing her. You
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: really did experiments to see like what gets more clicks.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: It's been fun, I was what I was putting together.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: This is because I think the one like internet fandom
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: thing that I had some I don't have a huge
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: chicks Doc account, but I have friends that are big
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: on like Harry Potter TikTok and like Marauder's TikTok in particular.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: And this is like the point where I was like, oh,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: my god, somebody's gonna find my TikTok through list Like,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: somebody's gonna like I've set myself up, Oh my god,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: like because there's gonna be some video that I was
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: in that my friend Typo that's gonna lead my account
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: and somebody's like, you're criticizing JK Rowling and yeah, you
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: make I don't know. That's the that's the worry. That's
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: the concern people find people find, Oh my god, especially
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: when you get out in which I guess that brings
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: us to wrap up, Joey. Thanks is always for coming on.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: I know there was even more stuff we could talk about.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: So come back any anytime, um to revisit this or
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: anything else where. Can the good listeners find you for sure? Yeah,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: you guys can find me on Twitter or Instagram at
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: Pat not Pratt. That is Pat t which is my
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: last name, and then not an ot and then pr Att,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: which is not my last name. I have mentioned my TikTok.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: I will not be telling you guys my TikTok, but
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: if you can find it, good for you. But you
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: should follow the stuff Mom never told you tiktoka. Yes
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: I do that too, Yes you are we always love
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: having you on here, so thanks for coming. Thanks for
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: all this work on such a sensitive topic. I know
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: this is emotionally taxing. Yeah, and it's a lot, it's
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: a lot going on. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: If you would like to find us listeners, you can
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: or emails Stefania mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter, Mom Stuff Podcast, or Instagram
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: and TikTok at stuff Mom Never Told You, also on
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: YouTube now. Thanks as always to our super producer Christina,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Christina. Thanks again to Joey who helps with
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: TikTok and research and this episode, and thanks to you
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: for listening Stuff on Ever Toldy's direction of iHeartRadio more podcast.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: In my Heart Radio, you can check out the Hurt
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: Radio app pop a podcast wherever you listen to your
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: favorite shows. H