Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Cody Ko & Tana Mongeau, YouTube family vlogger updates, TikTok tradwives rebrand + Sabrina Carpenter's Please, Please, Please

Transcript

MINI SCROLL: Cody Ko & Tana Mongeau, YouTube family vlogger updates, TikTok tradwives rebrand + Sabrina Carpenter's Please, Please, Please · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
• 0:03
  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 Meissner,
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  the founder of the youth digital media brand Centennial World.
• 0:18
  All right, I forgot to say last week that Monday, so yesterday
• 0:22
  was a public holiday here in Australia for the King's
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  birthday, which is why there was no mini scroll.
• 0:28
  But weirdly enough, I am actually recording this on
• 0:30
  Monday because I have a full day tomorrow and I just like have no
• 0:35
  time to do mini scroll. So these stories are from over
• 0:38
  the weekend. Hopefully nothing major breaks
• 0:40
  overnight, but I guess I'll talk to you guys about that on
• 0:43
  Thursday if something really crazy happens because obviously
• 0:46
  tomorrow, Wednesday is let the girls game.
• 0:49
  Anyways, over the weekend I actually did watch Dancing with
• 0:52
  the Devil, that seven M TikTok Colts Netflix docu series.
• 0:57
  I was going to talk about it today.
• 0:59
  I have a lot of stories so I'm not going to talk about it
• 1:01
  because I'm also considering making it into a bigger episode
• 1:05
  like a deep dive or something. So we'll see, stay tuned for
• 1:11
  that. But no, I did watch it.
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  I have lots of thoughts. It was good.
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  I recommend watching it. It was pretty wild.
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  The fact that it combined literally all of my interests
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  like TikTok, religious trauma, cults, like nothing gets me
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  going. Like basically those 3 topics.
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  So it was right up my alley. Anyways, guys, like I said, I
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  have a lot of stories today and some of them like bleed into
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  each other and whatever, so let's just get right into it.
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  So the first story that I have, I want to do a full breakdown
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  for you guys on the Cody Co drama.
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  So Cody is a 33 year old YouTube podcaster and musician who got
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  his start on Vine. He has over 6,000,000
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  subscribers and is now married to fellow creator Kelsey Krepel.
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  Cody's name has been circulating all over social media this past
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  week because of two major allegations against him and one
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  was brought about by Tana Mojo. So about two years ago, Tana
• 2:08
  revealed on her podcast Cancelled that she had slept
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  with Cody Ko. She also revealed that she was
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  maybe 17 or 18 at the time. So she kind of said it in like
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  this throwaway, like, oh, I was maybe 17 or 18.
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  People did the math. They found that Cody would have
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  been around 25 at the time of sleeping with Tanna.
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  So this was a minor scandal. But because she said she might
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  have been 18, it didn't really go very far.
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  Cody allegedly did limit the comments on his channel to
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  filter out Tanna's name, and he also apparently took about two
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  weeks off of posting at the time.
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  But aside from that, nothing much came of it.
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  However, this particular situation was brought back up
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  this week when a clip from the canceled podcast Tour Live went
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  viral. So the clip was from Tana and
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  Brooks Show in Sacramento on May 30th.
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  In the clip, Tana is asked who has the smallest Dick that she's
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  ever slept with and she says Cody Ko.
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  And then she says that she's allowed to say that because she
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  was 17 when they hooked up, essentially confirming that she
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  was a minor when they slept together and he would have been
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  around 25 S. This viral video has now really
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  put a spotlight on Cody and his past behavior, which has in turn
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  led to the resurfacing of allegations against his friend
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  Kobe, who used to film vlogs with Cody.
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  So Kobe and another man were accused of sexually assaulting a
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  woman at university and filming it without her consent.
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  I'm not going to go into the details.
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  You can Google it. It's all over Reddit.
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  There's news articles about the update because the woman did
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  actually press charges against them.
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  But it's quite upsetting. And Cody did continue to be his
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  friend. He continued to film with him
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  and he was also a groomsman in his wedding.
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  Like Cody asked Kobe to be a groomsman in his wedding to
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  Kelsey. So that's a very high level
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  breakdown for you guys. But I'm sure a lot of you have
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  been seeing stuff about Cody KO and maybe questioning what's
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  going on. I think it's a contentious thing
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  to talk about because of the allegations against his friend
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  Kobe, but also because Cody got married to Kelsey, who is quite
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  beloved. You know, she seems like a very
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  nice girl. They make this nice little
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  family. They just had a baby.
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  So people are kind of like, how can you, you know, bring this up
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  when they're this young family? They're trying to start this new
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  chapter. Think about their mental health,
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  all of that. But I think it's valid to bring
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  these things up if they are what happened.
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  Like if Cody Ko slept with Tana when she was a minor and she's
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  still bringing it up. She's still mentioning it
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  several years on, and then several years on from that,
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  bringing it up again. Like it was obviously a very
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  horrible experience for her. I mean, I think Tana's kind of
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  at the stage right now where she's coming to terms with how
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  she has been treated over the course of her career because
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  yes, she was like this wild child party girl for a lot of
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  it. And she still kind of has that
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  reputation, of course. But when she was really young,
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  she was literally like a teenager partying and hanging
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  out with all of these adult content creators because she
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  didn't have. And she's been open about this
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  very strong parental figures in her life.
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  I don't know if she even speaks to her biological parents
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  anymore. So, you know, she was thrust
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  into this spotlight, into this industry, into this environment.
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  And I think she was taken advantage of a lot.
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  I mean, we've seen other instances where I think it was
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  Trisha Paytas got really mad because I don't remember if it
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  was Jason hooked up with Tana. I don't know.
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  It's been happening a lot throughout her early career.
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  Like stuff like this happened a lot to her, it seemed.
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  And I'm sure she's just, you know, growing up, she is in this
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  new phase of her life, her career, and she's just
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  realizing, like, truly what happened to her.
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  So, and I think that's valid. I think it's valid for her to
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  talk about it and I, you know, kind of share her side of the
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  story. I understand it might be hurting
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  a young family right now, but I think it's also valid that she
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  shares that. Anyways, the next story that I
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  have for you guys is that TikTok family creators Matt and Abby
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  have come under fire for a viral Father's Day clip.
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  So Matt and Abby are an influencer couple who post
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  primarily family oriented content.
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  The two have two children and they host a podcast called The
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  Unplanned Podcast. I was actually introduced to
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  them through the Della vlogs, like adoption drama that
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  happened. I don't know if you guys
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  remember that, but this family vlog channel, the Della Vlogs,
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  they were having trouble conceiving for a long time, so
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  they thought about adopting. I think they made that public on
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  their channels and stuff. They got reached out to by a
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  woman who said that she was pregnant and wanted to give
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  them. I think it was twins.
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  I think it was twin girls and they went through the whole
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  process with her and, you know, they like, met up with her and
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  all this stuff. They were going to adopt her
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  babies and it turned out that she wasn't actually pregnant.
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  And then it turned out that she had done this to several other
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  couples. So they went on Matt and Abby's
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  podcast when this happened like a couple years ago and talked
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  about it. So that's how I was introduced
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  to Matt and Abby. But their podcast goes
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  consistently viral. They post these clips all the
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  time on TikTok and Reels. And they go really viral because
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  they definitely post or choose to post the, you know, the most
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  kind of like rage baby bits, which everybody does.
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  But some of the things they talk about are pretty outrageous and
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  it's pissing a lot of people off.
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  Also, I do want to say, because I have another story about
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  family vloggers in a minute, but Matt and Abby, one really great
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  thing about them is that they actually don't show their
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  children's faces in their content at all, despite being
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  like family vloggers. And I think they're a good
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  testament to the fact that you can have a very like a thriving
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  career as a parenting creator, as a family channel without
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  showing your kids faces. So I just wanted to give them
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  kudos for that. Anyways, last week, Matt and
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  Abby posted a clip from their podcast where they say that they
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  are boycotting Father's Day this year.
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  In the clip, they say they'll celebrate Father's Day in
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  September to avoid celebrating too close to Matt's birthday.
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  Last year while Abby was pregnant, she threw a
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  celebration for both his birthday and Father's Day at the
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  same time, and he did not like that, so he has requested that
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  they don't celebrate Father's Day in the same month as his
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  birthday. We've decided as a family that
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  we are not celebrating Father's Day this year.
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  Father's Day, it's always in June and it's like always around
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  June. 18th, which is Matt's birthday, so he had Father's
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  Day, Anna's birthday on the same day.
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  And I will say I did kind of combine the holidays.
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  You did combine the two of them. It's OK though.
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  I mean, you were pregnant, you were uncomfortable, you were
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  close. We've.
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  Gotten back from our baby moon that day I got you a cake from
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  DQ. I guess we had just gotten our.
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  Family over and grilled. Well, I grilled, but I know a
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  lot of dads grill on their birthday.
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  But yeah, we had Father. 'S day, your child, you.
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  Did grow my child. All day, every day.
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  But like Father's Day, my birthday were the same exact day
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  and it kind of was a bummer to. Be honest with you, I failed
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  you, hey. But you know what?
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  This year we're boycotting Father's Day for the month of
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  June and celebrating it three months after my birthday.
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  The couple explained that they quote talked about it and we
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  think it's best if Matt celebrates Father's Day in
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  September and plan to make a big hoopla about it since nothing
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  goes on in September. OK, so this is of course causing
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  so much backlash. The fact that this man is being
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  such a whiny baby about his pregnant wife, not making a big
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  enough deal about these celebrations for him separately.
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  I just think that's like red flag central to begin with.
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  People are really upset to see how Abby is like coming down on
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  herself about it, him saying that he felt so sad when the
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  celebrations were combined. People are also like, tell me
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  you've never had real problems without telling me you've never
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  had real problems. But again, they've had some of
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  this like similar type of backlash in the past with their
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  podcast. And they definitely just
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  sometimes it's hard to tell, like if that's actually real.
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  Like I do believe they're celebrating in September, but
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  it's hard to know if everything they're saying is like rooted in
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  truth or if they just know that coming to that decision to
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  celebrate in September will be good content.
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  It will blow up, which is what's happened.
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  Everyone's talking about it, which is what's happened.
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  Like there's a People magazine article about it.
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  Like it's pretty wild. So it's hard to know with these
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  family vloggers like what's true and what's not.
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  And I don't know why, but it feels like it's more so a
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  problem with family vloggers than other types of creators.
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  But on the topic of family vloggers, this is a really quick
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  one, but there is actually a three-part docu series about
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  Micah Stauffer coming out. So it aired or debuted or
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  whatever at the Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday.
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  It's called An Update on Our Family.
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  So for anyone that doesn't remember, this is very high
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  level. We actually talked about this in
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  a viral news episode from season two, I think it was.
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  But the Stauffers, they were family vloggers.
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  It was Micah and her husband James.
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  They had four biological children.
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  And then they started talking about on their channel for a
• 11:14
  while that they wanted to adopt. They said in their vlogs that
• 11:17
  they wanted to adopt A child from either China, Uganda, or
• 11:21
  Ethiopia, which raised a lot of red flags because it sounds like
• 11:25
  you have a white savior complex. But regardless of that
• 11:28
  criticism, they got a lot of that.
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  They adopted, they adopted a boy from China and they were
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  actually warned. They also revealed this in their
• 11:36
  vlogs that they were warned against adopting him by many,
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  many people like in the adoption agency and like medical
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  professionals and stuff because he was so high needs.
• 11:45
  So they called him Huxley. Huxley was on the spectrum and
• 11:49
  he also apparently had possible brain damage.
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  So when they adopted him, they, you know, shared the whole
• 11:55
  adoption process and then they shared tons of content about
• 11:58
  him. Three years later in 2020, they
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  made a video, I think it was called.
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  It was either called exactly an update on our family.
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  I think it was, which is why the documentary is called that,
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  where they shared that they had quote UN quote rehomed Huxley.
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  And I forgot to say that Micah in some of the vlogs talking
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  about like how people were warning them against adopting
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  Huxley. She said, you know, I will love
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  my child no matter what. And children are not refundable.
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  And then three years later, they quote UN quote, rehomed him,
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  whatever that means, as a person.
• 12:32
  So they said that they reached out to an adoption agency and,
• 12:35
  you know, they worked with them to find a mother that would be
• 12:38
  better suited for his needs because they said his special
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  needs were so much bigger than they were led to believe.
• 12:44
  This got so much backlash. And I'm pretty sure that they
• 12:48
  are kind of like off the Internet now.
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  She ended up making a statement like a notes app apology,
• 12:52
  apologizing for like being naive about the adoption process and
• 12:55
  stuff. But, you know, lots of people
• 12:58
  were like, oh, OK, so they adopted a kid for content.
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  Like they adopted a kid because they're a YouTube family.
• 13:05
  And they knew that this adoption process and then documenting the
• 13:08
  experience of having a child that doesn't look like the rest
• 13:11
  of their children would be good content.
• 13:14
  That's literally what it seems like.
• 13:16
  And then when it was too difficult, they rehomed him.
• 13:20
  So now there's a docu series about this whole situation, and
• 13:24
  I think it's more so about like the topic of family vloggers,
• 13:27
  which will be really, really good.
• 13:28
  So I will definitely need to watch that.
• 13:31
  I hope it comes to a streaming service.
• 13:33
  Sometimes these docu series and things that premiere at these
• 13:36
  film festivals, like just I don't know where they go.
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  Can anybody tell me where they go?
• 13:40
  Sometimes I feel like they don't go anywhere, but hopefully a
• 13:42
  streaming service will pick it up because I'm very, very
• 13:45
  interested to watch that. I also saw that they've
• 13:49
  interviewed a lot of Youtubers that I recognized, like Shannon
• 13:52
  Rose, that guy, I think his name is Matt, that does like he
• 13:56
  teaches you how to like do a YouTube channel.
• 13:58
  He's like a YouTube expert. I don't know.
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  There was just like a lot of loggers in the trailer that I
• 14:02
  watched where I was like, oh, I know that person.
• 14:05
  So that's the latest on Family Channels.
• 14:08
  The next story that I have for you guys is that Sabrina
• 14:10
  Carpenter has released a new single Please Please, Please.
• 14:15
  So following the massive success of Espresso, Sabrina Carpenter
• 14:18
  has released her new single Please, Please Please.
• 14:20
  Produced by Jack Antonoff, the single is off her new album
• 14:23
  Short and Suite, which she announced last week and featured
• 14:26
  a music video starring her boyfriend, Barry Cogan.
• 14:29
  I'm sorry, I think that's how you say the name.
• 14:31
  I did Google it. And then I know that the actual
• 14:33
  like Irish way to say it is different, but I think in
• 14:37
  Hollywood he says Barry Kogan. I actually have no idea.
• 14:39
  I've also never heard him speak. I don't really know who he is.
• 14:42
  Does anyone else feel like that about him?
• 14:45
  Also, I need to take back what I said last week.
• 14:47
  So last week I was talking about how espresso was so like bubble
• 14:51
  gum pop. And it's possible that Short and
• 14:53
  Sweet will be kind of like her pop girly, like sell out era
• 14:57
  just so that she can like reach the pinnacle of success that she
• 15:00
  is striving for and deserves. And then she can start releasing
• 15:04
  songs that feel more like her style.
• 15:07
  Because I would say her style is like definitely pop, but it's
• 15:10
  also like pop. I would say it's like pop
• 15:12
  ballads mixed with like a bit of like country and folk.
• 15:16
  Now though, please, please, please, is that like please,
• 15:19
  please, please. Is not that like hyper bubblegum
• 15:21
  pop the same way that Espresso is?
• 15:23
  It reminds me very much of her typical like music and her
• 15:26
  sound, which I really appreciate.
• 15:29
  So I think that this album will be like a mix of all of it.
• 15:32
  But yes, I like the song. The music video is very fun.
• 15:36
  I like it a lot. They have a lot of chemistry.
• 15:39
  What the fuck? I know that they kind of started
• 15:41
  off as like allegedly PR, but it's working out for them.
• 15:46
  I do believe that they are actually dating now after seeing
• 15:48
  that music video. I'm like, yes, something is
• 15:51
  going on here. OK, And the last story that I
• 15:53
  have for you guys, this is like not really one specific story,
• 15:57
  but it's more just like a cultural shift.
• 16:01
  I would say that we are seeing that has started to make waves
• 16:04
  on TikTok. So we know there's been so much
• 16:07
  discourse this year about trad wife accounts and how so many of
• 16:11
  them are kind of like disingenuous.
• 16:13
  A lot of them are married to very wealthy men where they can
• 16:18
  just have access to so much more than like what a typical quote
• 16:22
  UN quote trad wife or like stay at home mother stay at home wife
• 16:25
  would be. There's also a lot of discussion
• 16:29
  around the fact that like women who are stay at home moms and
• 16:32
  stay at home wives are not inherently trad wives.
• 16:35
  But like sometimes the women on these apps that are creating
• 16:38
  trad wife content are branding themselves as that trad wife is
• 16:41
  like an ideology, a very sinister ideology.
• 16:44
  So there's a lot of kind of confusing messaging, I think now
• 16:49
  online about like a stay at home mom versus a trad wife.
• 16:54
  And of course a lot of these creators that are making trad
• 16:57
  wave content and pushing this ideology and this lifestyle.
• 17:01
  They have their own careers. Like they are creators.
• 17:04
  And if they're based in the US and other, there's some other
• 17:07
  regions as well that have the creator fund.
• 17:09
  But especially in the US where the creator fund is so
• 17:11
  lucrative, like they are making possibly hundreds of thousands,
• 17:16
  if not honestly millions of dollars themselves between brand
• 17:19
  deals, the creator fund, all of that kind of stuff.
• 17:23
  So, you know, they're not actually trad wives.
• 17:25
  Like they are working like very lucrative jobs.
• 17:28
  And if anything goes awry in their marriage, they have a
• 17:31
  massive safety net to be able to take care of their children.
• 17:35
  So anyways, that's like a very high level summary of why that's
• 17:41
  not necessarily an accurate representation of trad wife
• 17:44
  life. So because of that, there's been
• 17:46
  a lot of deconstruction around these accounts and like what the
• 17:49
  trad wife ideology actually represents, like I said.
• 17:52
  And now we're starting to see a shift in some of these creators.
• 17:56
  These creators are starting to like move away from making
• 17:59
  videos glorifying domestic labor and starting to make videos that
• 18:03
  seem more authentically like here's the day in my life.
• 18:06
  Like they're starting to kind of, I guess, pull back from like
• 18:09
  the trad wife or even like stay at home labels because of so
• 18:13
  much of the discourse. I believe this year.
• 18:16
  And I do believe a lot of these like trad wife creators don't
• 18:20
  really realize what a trad wife means.
• 18:22
  And I think over the course of the last six months, a year
• 18:25
  where we've been talking about a lot more, some of them probably
• 18:28
  are like, OK, I don't want to be associated with white supremacy.
• 18:32
  Like I'm that's not what I'm trying to actually share.
• 18:34
  I'm trying to share like recipes and homesteading and things.
• 18:37
  And I know, I know, I know more than anyone.
• 18:39
  It's a slippery slope. The crunchy to all right
• 18:42
  pipeline is very real. But regardless, there are a lot
• 18:46
  of women that make this content who I imagine would have been
• 18:50
  learning over the last however many months that like labeling
• 18:53
  themselves as that and pushing that ideology is possibly
• 18:56
  harmful. And maybe this is me giving them
• 18:58
  the benefit of the doubt, but like, I'm going to okay, I'm
• 19:01
  going to. I believe that they're pulling
• 19:03
  back because they don't want to be associated with the trad wife
• 19:05
  label because we're learning more about what it means.
• 19:08
  And also, I think that they are pulling back because they don't
• 19:11
  want to be promoting like a harmful ideology and a harmful
• 19:16
  way of life to women that don't have the safety net that they do
• 19:20
  possibly. So creator Carol Claire Burke,
• 19:23
  who has been at the forefront of debunking TikTok trad Wives,
• 19:26
  articulated the shift in a new video this weekend, saying that
• 19:30
  basically Trad wives, these creators, their brands right at
• 19:33
  the end of the day, and they're adapting to audience feedback.
• 19:37
  Yes, we've noticed a pretty major change and I think all of
• 19:40
  the tradway for domestic labor accounts that we have been
• 19:43
  talking about throughout this discourse, they're paying
• 19:46
  attention to you, their brands and businesses and they are
• 19:48
  going to adjust to market forces, which are what you are
• 19:52
  thinking and talking about. So they're going to do what they
• 19:55
  have to do to keep you interested and they're going to
• 19:57
  make adjustments in order to make their their brands and
• 20:00
  their accounts more palatable. It's all a business decision and
• 20:04
  it's been really interesting to watch.
• 20:05
  I have been fascinated by it. Anyways, guys, that's all I have
• 20:08
  for you today. Thank you so much for listening
• 20:11
  to Mini scroll. I hope you liked this episode.
• 20:14
  I hope you like this podcast. If you do, please rate, review
• 20:17
  and subscribe. Subscribe to us on YouTube.
• 20:19
  Please, please, please, please. I'm trying to grow the YouTube.
• 20:21
  Please also subscribe on YouTube and I will talk to you guys.
• 20:26
  Well, tomorrow will be a Let the Girls Game episode and then
• 20:29
  Thursday will be a mini scroll. All right, bye.