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Lolcows and the Internet's "Digital Freakshow" · Never Post

0:10
Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
0:14
podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike
0:16
Rugnetta, and we have a lullzy episode for you this week. Jason
0:22
chats with doctor Jess Rosberg, assistant professor in the
0:26
department of communication, media, and the arts at Seton
0:29
Hall University about so called lull cows, about digital
0:35
freakery, and how social media platforms repeat and recreate
0:39
strains of ableism present in society since the middle ages.
0:45
But first, we're gonna take a quick break. You're gonna listen
0:48
to some ads unless you're on the member feed.
0:50
And when we return, Jason and doctor Roschberg.
1:08
Jason Oberholtzer: For a while now, I've been looking for a way
1:12
to cover the phenomenon known as Lolcows, that's l o l cows on
1:18
Never Post. I find it to be a particularly complicated corner
1:24
of the internet that illustrates a lot of complicated parts of
1:29
human behavior. We will shortly get into a more nuanced
1:33
description of what a Lolcow is, but in short, it's a streamer
1:37
whose audience is there largely to gawk at their behavior and
1:42
interact with them in ways that might be spurring the streamer
1:46
on to increasingly bizarre or dangerous behavior. Towards the
1:51
end of last year, there was some news from the world of Lolcows
1:55
vaguely speaking that got some traction in outlets that
2:00
normally wouldn't cover such things. Unfortunately, the event
2:03
that precipitated that news was the death at the young age of 34
2:09
of Joshua Saunders, also known as Gothic King Cobra.
2:14
Now I was most familiar with King Cobra through clips that
2:17
would find their way occasionally to my feed. He was
2:20
a self proclaimed goth, like you might imagine. He sort of had an
2:24
Ozzy Osbourne affect to him. He would wear this black crumpled
2:28
up cowboy hat, and he liked black leather, and studs and
2:33
spikes, and wearing eye makeup, and had a long beard, and
2:38
shredded on the guitar, and he would spend his time on stream
2:42
seemingly mostly drinking and smoking and chatting with his
2:48
audience, and occasionally cooking truly bizarre meals
2:52
often involving Doritos. And one feature that seemed to be
2:56
present across all of these videos was this ambivalent
3:00
relationship that his audience seems to have with him, where
3:04
they were both pushing him in the way typical of Lolcows to do
3:11
more outrageous and extreme things, drink more, smoke more,
3:14
cook weirder things.
3:17
But also this affection that they seem to have for him,
3:20
because he would say truly phenomenal one liners. He would
3:24
have really astute observations about himself in the world. I
3:29
found myself drawn to a lot of the clips I would see of him.
3:33
But there was also a darkness to these interactions. People would
3:36
send him prank gifts, like the can that you open up and the
3:40
little snake like things fly out at you, and would try to
3:43
convince him on stream that this time in fact, like Lucy putting
3:47
the football down, it was actually Pringles, and he would
3:52
let himself be talked into opening it and then be
3:55
disappointed and surprised that once again he was tricked.
3:58
They would swat him sending police to his house. And these
4:02
are all typical interactions between Lolcows and their fandom
4:06
or whatever you can call it. But I always found there to be a bit
4:09
of warmth and protectiveness in his fan base as well. And I
4:13
certainly found a lot of moments where I was empathizing with
4:16
him. Now this isn't to say he's without his controversies.
4:19
I don't know exactly what they are, but I know they're there.
4:22
This is a complicated figure with a complicated relationship
4:25
to the Internet. But I genuinely liked when his clips would show
4:28
up, and found myself liking him in many ways. So I was pretty
4:33
sad when I heard the news. And I thought about if then was a good
4:39
time to do a story on Lolcows, but I didn't really know what I
4:42
wanted to do, and I didn't really know if I wanted to do
4:45
anything.
4:46
Especially because the next thought that would come to me
4:50
was usually along the lines of, I wonder who is gonna die next.
4:56
And the first name that often would come to me was Joshua
4:59
Block or World of T shirts as he's known on TikTok where he
5:03
first established his notoriety. And then a couple months ago, I
5:08
came across a paper, Lolcows and the Mediation of Digital
5:12
Freakshow by Jess Rosberg, an assistant professor at Seton
5:16
Hall University. And the paper was covering not only Lolcows,
5:20
but specifically Joshua Block, World of T shirts. And so I'm
5:25
particularly grateful to Jess for wading into this territory
5:29
and for agreeing to come on the show and talk to me a bit about
5:33
her paper.
5:33
So Jess, thank you so much for joining us.
5:37
Jess Rauchberg: Thank you so much for having me, Jason.
5:39
Jason Oberholtzer: So first off, I am interested. Let's help set
5:41
some stakes here in what exactly a Lolcow is, and how that term
5:45
has evolved over the years. But first, would you be able to
5:48
describe the quintessential Lolcow video?
5:53
Jess Rauchberg: So first and foremost, a Lolcow is an
5:56
Internet persona who is perceived to be highly
5:58
exploitable and someone who can be instigated or antagonized for
6:04
another Internet user's entertainment. And so this is a
6:07
portmanteau of the phrase lols and cows. So you're milking them
6:11
for your entertainment. I think for me, and I've most closely
6:14
looked at the live streamer and content creator, Josh Bloch,
6:18
also known as World of T shirts, is a moment where he's on a live
6:23
stream sitting at a cafe in New York City and somebody passerby
6:28
screams, put the fries in the bag. And that's a phrase that's
6:32
often used to insinuate that he's not capable of doing
6:36
anything more than minimum wage labor and Josh is shown on the
6:40
livestream biting himself, hitting himself, and threatening
6:44
to attack this this young woman who's who has yelled at him.
6:48
And at the same time, she's said that because she knows it'll get
6:52
a rise and maybe even a viral moment.
6:55
Jason Oberholtzer: Let's go, Josh. Let's How dare you? And
6:58
clearly, what is terrifying at this moment is that it has
7:00
escaped the containment of The Forum, and this is now affecting
7:05
his real life. And one assumes the viewers of this stream are
7:08
having a great time.
7:09
Jess Rauchberg: Yeah. I think the form is a great analogy.
7:11
It's more like an an arena, and we are all at in the front row
7:17
seat.
7:18
Jason Oberholtzer: And what is the general response to this
7:19
interaction? What do the comments look like?
7:21
Jess Rauchberg: This is a very common interaction with this
7:24
particular creator. The comments repeat, put the fries in the
7:28
bag, bro. Maybe they'll make comments on what they speculate
7:33
Josh's mental capacity or his mental abilities to be or not
7:37
be. And in these types of videos, because they've happened
7:41
so often, we'll see a smirk from the fry buyer who's who's
7:46
screamed at Josh. Sometimes if he's hit them, there's another
7:51
video where a woman at a club says that to him, she fry bites
7:55
him and he smacks her on the head and she's stunned.
7:57
And it's almost this belief that, oh, Josh has agency. He
8:01
can do things back. Not things that are nice and things that
8:04
are pleasant, but he can create a reaction and yet people still
8:09
do it because there's that promise of entertainment and
8:12
amusement.
8:14
Jason Oberholtzer: Okay. So let's take a moment to do a bit
8:16
of the biography of Josh Block here, who is someone we've
8:19
referenced a bunch already and probably will reference more.
8:22
You reference a lot in your paper.
8:24
Jess Rauchberg: Yeah. So Josh is a pretty young creator. He's in
8:27
his mid twenties now, and he gained notoriety on TikTok as a
8:32
teenager. And so Josh has a socially awkward affect, but,
8:36
really use the platform to try to connect with other people. So
8:39
he would create dancing videos, he would go out into public and
8:43
shout things.
8:44
He was living in Long Island with his grandparents at the
8:47
time, and so he would take the train into Manhattan and record
8:51
himself singing in Times Square.
8:56
Jason Oberholtzer: Jungle wet dreams are made of
9:00
Jess Rauchberg: Some of those mentalities that his audience
9:03
has now that he's reached full Lolcows status, they were there,
9:07
but it was a little bit more endearing. Like, oh, Josh, he's
9:10
so cute and innocent and awkward. It is perceived that
9:13
Josh is autistic or has some kind of developmental
9:17
disability. It is not clarified. He has never come out and said
9:22
that, but his following sees him as a disabled person.
9:26
And so in my research, I use the language of apparency that he
9:30
appears to be or he's perceived to be because that's something
9:34
that shapes how people interact with him.
9:36
Jason Oberholtzer: Mhmm.
9:36
Jess Rauchberg: When Josh turned 21, he started drinking
9:39
excessively and during this time, he began working with his
9:43
first handler and these when by handlers, I'm referring to a
9:47
term that's used in Josh's fandom or community or anti
9:52
fandom if we can call it that. Usually older men and now
9:55
usually streamers who act as a manager for Josh, but it's a
10:00
little bit more because Josh becomes really much attached to
10:03
this person. And I think the term handler is used to almost
10:07
dehumanize him, that he could not do these things on his own.
10:10
And it's not the same as, you know, a neurotypical creator
10:13
having a manager or an agent, but rather this is someone who
10:17
provides not only a professional, but an emotional
10:20
and personal caretaker role for Josh. Josh has had a very
10:24
interesting climb to notoriety and the ways that he uses
10:31
digital platforms has changed, especially as he moved away from
10:34
short form content to live streaming.
10:36
But I think what has become more pronounced is his fans, whether
10:41
on a live stream or in person, try to instigate him or even so
10:45
his handlers try to instigate him, especially when he is most
10:49
of the time very heavily under the influence of alcohol.
10:53
Jason Oberholtzer: And so you in your paper sort of liken this to
10:56
a legacy of behavior that this is maybe made more accessible
11:00
now because we can follow this person on their livestream as
11:04
they walk around New York City, but that in fact, this is core
11:07
human nature behavior and has been for a very long time.
11:10
Jess Rauchberg: Yes. I've been conducting some research on the
11:13
history of freakery and freakery as a form of entertainment. And
11:18
so to understand the contemporary locale, we have to
11:21
go all the way back to medieval Europe and thinking about the
11:24
image of the the natural fool, Somebody who's what we would now
11:29
call disability or neurodivergence in medieval
11:32
Europe, their purpose divinely ordained is to entertain what we
11:37
would now call probably neurotypical people. And this
11:40
was a way to be part of communities. They were often,
11:44
you know, accepted by patrons, nobles, kings, kind of like
11:47
pets.
11:48
And they were taken care of, but are they on the same page, or
11:51
are they in on it? And oftentimes, I think that depends
11:54
on each individual locale creator in a contemporary sense,
11:57
but oftentimes, no. They are not. And sometimes that is
12:00
interpersonal, and many times that's structural. You are kept
12:04
out of being part of the social structure.
12:06
You don't really have a say in how you're exploited even if
12:09
that's what it appears to be. And so a thousand years later or
12:13
so, we still have these same issues where these creators are
12:17
gaining notoriety. Some of them have millions of followers.
12:21
Josh, for example, has 4,000,000 over 4,000,000 TikTok followers.
12:25
He had a exclusive contract with Party, which is a web three
12:30
point o streaming platform that aims to be a competitor with
12:33
Twitch.
12:34
But it's uncertain about how much power he actually has in
12:38
his role as a digital worker and as a creator that has a pretty
12:43
prominent following. And really, what is speculated is that his
12:47
handlers or the streamers that kind of steer him around the
12:50
country from event to event are the ones that have the power.
12:53
Jason Oberholtzer: It seems like the image that is emerging here
12:56
is of, like, an infrastructure needed to both, like, support
13:01
the popularity of and the logistics of being a content
13:05
creator at the scale of a Josh Block, as well as I think
13:09
murkier areas of guiding and possibly enabling and I think
13:16
even taking your original analogy here of the medieval
13:19
court. The characters that have to appear to assemble that court
13:23
and fill it and give it the resources it needs to support
13:27
merriment, I suppose. I suspect this is sort of contested
13:31
territory or at the very least unclear, but what is the general
13:36
sense about the network of handlers and hangers on in the
13:41
life of, I suppose, Josh Bloch most specifically, but also in
13:45
this ecosystem? Are they helping? Are they enabling?
13:49
Are they mooching? What what what is it?
13:51
Jess Rauchberg: Yeah. This is a common discourse. There's some
13:54
really interesting conversations about what purpose do they
13:56
serve. What I can speak to is his relationships with them. As
13:59
I mentioned,
14:00
you know, a couple
14:00
moments ago, he is working with these people very closely in
14:06
ways that I think are very distinct from a traditional
14:10
celebrity or or influencer who has an agent or has a management
14:15
team. Mhmm. These people step in for Josh in in so many other
14:19
capacities. And I think we use the term handler be almost like
14:23
Josh is an animal, that he cannot handle himself when he
14:26
does not have intervention from Tony or, he was previously
14:30
recording a lot of his content with Jason Itzler. People may
14:34
know him as mister Baste who has a very notorious background.
14:39
And they would put Josh in hotels or take him to the
14:43
doctor. I know when he was making content with mister
14:46
Baste, Josh had a monkeypox scare, so they made a lot of
14:49
content of him going to the doctor and testing out some
14:52
growths on his body. Other than that, if they these handlers are
14:57
not around, Josh is often seen, you know, sleeping on a public
15:02
transit system or just roaming around the city. Some of his
15:05
fans claim to really miss those days and others have have
15:10
different speculations on the handlers. Mhmm.
15:12
I think also what's important here is that the handlers act as
15:14
liaisons to his followers. So for example, Josh was just in
15:19
ten days of court ordered rehab, and so even some of his former
15:23
handlers continued to talk with each other, and they helped
15:26
shape some of the speculation that might emerge platforms
15:31
where people talk and write about Josh, and they help create
15:36
again the lore, the myth about about who Josh is and how he
15:40
needs to be controlled. They will try to intervene. Some of
15:43
those interventions do not work. So we can see in in Josh's
15:48
current status, he's navigating a legal case after assaulting a
15:52
woman in Newport Beach, California on July 4, where he
15:57
was placed under arrest and he's, you know, navigating that
15:59
court case.
16:00
He probably could not do that without Tony and the other
16:03
handlers. While Josh does have a relationship, I I don't know how
16:08
strained it is with his grandparents. His his parents
16:11
are also not in the picture. His mom unfortunately passed away
16:15
from ovarian cancer when he was a teenager. This is something
16:18
that Josh has spoken about on his platforms and I think
16:21
something that does elicit a lot of sympathy from his his
16:25
followers and and watchers that an audience that they feel for
16:28
this this person who has been very wounded by by the loss
16:32
tragic loss of a parent.
16:33
And I believe Josh's dad has had his own battles with substance
16:38
abuse and is is not in the picture. So Josh doesn't really
16:41
have a family life. The handlers act in as a family. And in some
16:44
ways, some may see the handlers as a plus, whereas others
16:48
believe he is being exploited. But at the same time, I I'm
16:54
curious about what that means because are you frustrated that
16:57
he's being exploited on the platform itself and that you're
17:01
upset that he's a Lolcow or are you upset that you think he's
17:04
boring now because of who he's who's handling him and so
17:07
therefore, the content is less amusing.
17:10
And so when people have approached Josh and his content
17:15
or other locals as as these moral issues in Internet
17:18
culture, I often think, you know, is this the issue with the
17:22
locale or are you not being entertained enough? Which again,
17:25
goes back to this analogy of the court jesters or even the rise
17:28
of asylums in, you know, enlightenment era Britain where
17:31
you could go visit inmates on Sundays and pay, and they'd put
17:35
on a show for you. Josh provides that for viewers, but you don't
17:38
have to go physically to the asylum where there are set hours
17:40
for when you could visit. Now in 2026, you log on party, you log
17:44
on to the streaming platform of choice, and Josh is there for
17:48
your exploitation and pleasures.
17:50
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Let's talk about these platforms for a
17:51
little bit. I guess Yeah. The court in which this is all
17:53
happening. There's a line from your paper I particularly liked
17:56
here.
17:57
Platform economies and affordances reconfigure the
18:00
reach of freakery. Here, Lolcows are positioned as media objects
18:03
that can now be mocked, belittled, antagonized, trolled,
18:06
or stereotyped from anywhere, anytime. You say platform
18:10
economies and affordances here. So it's not just that they are
18:15
providing the arena in which this happens, but they are also
18:18
providing some of the tools that makes the behavior what it is.
18:22
What are those?
18:23
Jess Rauchberg: Before I go there, any media object is
18:26
designed to solve the time and space issues. So how do we share
18:31
information or connect across time and space? And a digital
18:34
platform does that very well. It accelerates that time space
18:37
collapse. If we think of a platform as a digital public
18:41
square or a digital environment, when we do things in our
18:45
physical environments, there's some kind of reaction or some
18:48
kind of change and then that impacts all of us.
18:50
And I think that's something that we see a lot in in platform
18:54
economies and and live streaming, particularly in the
18:58
Lolcows space. So one feature of of live streaming platforms that
19:02
are often used to instigate what we would call the meltdowns, the
19:07
crash outs if you will, are is a feature called text to speech or
19:11
TTS. And so this is a freemium feature on most platforms, at
19:14
least it is on party where there's a chat alongside the
19:18
stream where different viewers can interact with each other and
19:20
interact with Josh. But if you pay a little bit more to the
19:23
account yours or creator you're subscribing to, you can have
19:28
your comment read aloud on the stream to everyone. Sometimes
19:31
that's a couple thousand to 30,000 people depending on the
19:35
stream.
19:36
Jason Oberholtzer: You steal your phone, Josh. You will not
19:38
be able to stop me or find me. Yes, I will.
19:40
Jess Rauchberg: I'll beat your ass. I'll your I'll beat your
19:43
ass. Ass. That's read aloud for him and everyone else. So that
19:47
not only instigates other people to act that way, but it also
19:50
means you get a rise out of Josh where he will appear to bite
19:53
himself, hit himself, scream, start those crash outs that are
19:58
really what people are watching.
20:00
And so Mhmm. The platforms can really exacerbate things that
20:06
we've always been doing, but they become intensified and and
20:09
and how we can exploit these people.
20:12
Jason Oberholtzer: Is part of that intensification the direct
20:17
transactional relationship of the views, the emotions involved
20:24
in those directly tied to those views on these platforms?
20:28
Jess Rauchberg: I think that's a that's a fair assessment. And
20:30
particularly when he was working with Jason Itzler or mister
20:34
Baste, we saw a lot more of those crashouts and they would
20:37
make quite a bit of money per stream on Josh having reactions
20:41
and having crash outs. And Josh was making a profit. So he would
20:44
often say that he had this huge contract, he was making all this
20:48
money with party and that is uncertain about, you know, how
20:53
truthful that is, and it's a little bit difficult to
20:55
empirically prove it. But what we can ascertain is that he is
20:59
in some way benefiting from this exploitation.
21:02
And more so, the handlers are also benefiting it too. Because
21:06
he has some kind of again, we don't know the details of the
21:09
contracts, but we know that they have a working relationship.
21:11
Jason Oberholtzer: I think this certainly makes more complicated
21:14
counter criticism you hear frequently when people are
21:17
wringing their hands about Lolcows. That if they didn't
21:21
like it, if they weren't benefiting from it, if this was
21:24
indeed triggering them so hard, they could just log off. But it
21:27
is certainly more complicated than that when there are
21:31
presumably contracts on the line with this series of handlers or
21:35
network of people, and they're making a living.
21:38
Jess Rauchberg: Yeah. This is something that is not just a
21:41
criticism of locals, but and again, not every locale is
21:44
disabled or neurodivergent, but I do study disability and
21:47
content creation. And so when I'm looking at other facets of
21:50
disability and creative work, this is a common reaction that I
21:54
get to. Well, if disabled people are being harassed on the
21:57
platform, if they are being suppressed, can't they just make
21:59
their own platform? Can't they just log off?
22:02
And I don't think that's fair because one, I think you're
22:06
right. Contracts are contracts. And if you wanna keep your
22:09
contract, you gotta keep making money and and vice versa. I also
22:12
think that physical working spaces, particularly during the
22:16
COVID nineteen pandemic and onward, which are that's still a
22:20
reality for for most disabled people. The pandemic never
22:23
ended.
22:24
It just, you know, most people forgot about it. Physical
22:26
working environments are not always accessible. And the
22:29
creator economy with its flexible hours, it's, you know,
22:32
certainly with the advent of short form content and in app
22:35
editing features that go on with it, it it becomes a lot more
22:38
easy to enter. There's no huge gatekeeping that's happening
22:42
anymore. Lookout creators who may or may not be
22:45
neurodivergent, disabled, yes, they're being exploited, but at
22:48
the same time, it may not be easy to leave.
22:50
It's also, these are often individuals who may not have
22:54
support systems outside of their handlers and their their
22:57
community. And I think it's a lot more easy to to make that
23:02
suggestion than to consider, well, this is imbued in a larger
23:08
structure and it can be very difficult for particularly for
23:13
disabled locale creators to find work outside of content creation
23:17
because those working environments may not be
23:20
accessible to them in in various ways, or they lose all sense of
23:24
support and connection and community. And I think we also
23:28
may not think of disabled creators as workers in that way
23:32
too. Because if we are saying, well, can just log off, then how
23:37
are they supposed to support themselves and how are they
23:39
supposed to contribute to our world? I think about throughout
23:43
the nineteenth and twentieth century, most US cities had
23:46
these unsightly beggar ordinances, which are
23:49
colloquially known as ugly laws.
23:51
I'm being very facetious here, but it made it very difficult to
23:53
be a visibly disabled person in public, whether you're
23:57
physically disabled or you appear to be neurodivergent. And
23:59
we don't have those laws anymore, but I think the the
24:02
sentiments still stay and remain. And I often think of
24:07
that when I hear that, that counter critique. So like, yes,
24:10
it would be great if Josh and Daniel Larson and these other
24:14
creators who, you know, appear to be disabled and occupy the
24:18
Lolcows status. It would be great if they couldn't be
24:20
exploited, but also, do we have other infrastructure for them?
24:23
And the answer is no. Mhmm. Daniel Larson's incarcerated. So
24:26
that that was the infrastructure for him.
24:28
Jason Oberholtzer: I think it's really interesting that you
24:30
bring up the shift in accessibility here around COVID
24:35
nineteen and after that. Because in many ways, I'm thinking that
24:39
this mirrors other sorts of online behavior and indeed like
24:44
online mindsets and politics that mainstream themselves after
24:50
COVID. In particular, I'm thinking of another quote from
24:53
your paper here. It says, Bloch's popularity is not
24:56
related to inclusion, diversity, or agency. His disability is a
25:01
resource which platforms and other creators can extract from
25:04
in a political moment where disabled people are openly
25:07
dehumanized.
25:09
Engaging both theoretical analysis and close readings of
25:12
sample livestream recordings and other social media artifacts, I
25:15
suggest that authoritarian politics and eugenics shape
25:18
platform economies, ultimately rendering Lolcows creators into
25:22
digital freak shows. I would love to know more of the detail
25:28
you found on some of those close readings, and and in particular,
25:33
where you think this political energy comes from in the
25:37
discourse around these creators.
25:39
Jess Rauchberg: Yeah. Absolutely. So this is this
25:42
research is part of a book I'm working on about algorithmic
25:45
ableism and creator culture. And so I to understand algorithmic
25:49
ableism as ableist attitudes, values, and politics that shape
25:54
our on offline working culture and public life and cultural
25:58
life. And what happens when they those ideas now begin to shape
26:01
how we work on platforms?
26:02
Jason Oberholtzer: Mhmm.
26:02
Jess Rauchberg: And it's not just disabled creators are
26:05
censored, but also how do we treat each other? And I think
26:09
about some of our reactions to COVID nineteen that that
26:14
centered anti mask politics or also thinking about some of the
26:20
intersections between the Black Lives Matter resurgence in 2020
26:24
in The United States and elsewhere alongside COVID
26:26
nineteen, we had this moment where it seemed like, wow, we're
26:29
having a cultural shift. We are starting to think about race and
26:32
structural violences or or or political oppression in way
26:37
where maybe we can change something, where maybe the world
26:40
can be more accessible across, you know, political
26:43
demographics. And I I don't mean necessarily how you vote, but
26:46
how you move through the role Sure. Race, gender, sexuality,
26:48
class, disability, etcetera.
26:50
And then that did not happen. And I I think about TikTok, for
26:55
example, which was accused of in in 2019 and 2020 of of asking
27:00
their content moderators to train the For You recommendation
27:04
infrastructure to censor disabled creators and their
27:09
response was, well, we're trying to prevent cyber bullying, we
27:11
don't do that. And then they had all these events to support
27:14
diversity, equity, and inclusion. But then, that's not
27:17
really what's reflected on the platform. And, you know, we see
27:21
this this rhetoric, this mouthpiece of, well, we look at
27:24
all these things that we're doing, but then it doesn't
27:26
actually change.
27:27
In terms of of disability, that has has become, I think, more
27:32
and more pronounced. And it's also platforms reflect and and
27:37
are shaped by, and media more generally is shaped by the
27:40
political environment we're in. Mhmm. And I promise I'm I'm
27:42
coming full circle here. I also think the ways that we not
27:46
having in person communities and relying on the digital for so
27:50
long during lockdowns and and during the majority of the COVID
27:54
nineteen pandemic, I think that changed how we interacted with
27:57
each other where we think of our interactions as more
28:01
transactional, more exploitable.
28:04
And my argument in in this book project is not that it's just
28:10
disabled creators. The way we treat disabled creators can
28:12
actually teach us a lot about how we're treating each other
28:15
online. And Mhmm. I think in environments where there's
28:18
little room for context or nuance, it becomes really easy
28:23
to respond with hate or to respond with animosity or to
28:28
think of people as I think of this idea that now we all
28:32
consider each other NPCs.
28:34
Jason Oberholtzer: Mhmm.
28:34
Jess Rauchberg: And that's not a good thing if we are not
28:36
thinking about that's a human on the other side. So we the the
28:40
TLDR of algorithmic ableism and this idea about how does
28:43
disability shape the creator economy, it shows us how ableism
28:47
is pretty pervasive in creator culture because now we don't see
28:51
people on the other side of the screen as human.
29:14
Jason Oberholtzer: You know, speaking from my own experience,
29:16
I find these videos difficult to engage with. I have never really
29:21
gone to the livestream itself and taken it in raw. They feel
29:25
cruel to me, but also it's it feels more complicated than
29:29
that. Like, can't just sit on, oh, this is cruel and bad. It is
29:32
like interactive and human, and to me at least complicated in
29:38
who is gaining what, where, and why this is happening.
29:41
And so perhaps, like, it's not, to me, at least, simple enough
29:45
to just say, this is an exhibition of cruelty.
29:49
Jess Rauchberg: For sure. There's an inhumanity to it, and
29:52
I think it begs us to ask, do we see and again, not every locale
29:56
is disabled, but many of them are perceived to be or are. Do
30:00
we see disabled people as humans?
30:02
Jason Oberholtzer: It's striking me that maybe that
30:04
dehumanization cuts both ways though. Don't these people have
30:07
the agency to engage in the marketplace of content creation
30:12
and be subjugated to an audience's reaction? And it
30:16
would be cruel to, like, assume that they don't have the agency
30:19
or sufficient agency to participate like that?
30:22
Jess Rauchberg: This is why I'm a little bit reticent to say,
30:24
it's just cool. And, yes, there are many ways that we interact
30:28
with Lolcows creators that are really cruel and really
30:31
horrible. But at the same time, as shitty as that might be, it
30:35
also is wrong to deny that these creators have agency. That even
30:40
if that agency might be different than a, you know, a
30:43
different type of creator or maybe more neurotypical or less
30:46
exploitable creator, we're still all getting exploited by the
30:50
creator economy and the platforms where
30:51
Jason Oberholtzer: we work.
30:52
Jess Rauchberg: The platforms encourage us to post a certain
30:54
way, behave a certain way with how we interact with other
30:57
people. And and I see this all the time, not just with disabled
31:01
content creators or locale creators. And so I think to say
31:06
that it's okay to treat locals like this is cruel, but it's
31:13
also another type of cruelty to then believe that they don't
31:17
have any agency or they're not making choices Right. Because
31:19
they are. They just may not be choices we ourselves would make.
31:24
Jason Oberholtzer: And the cruelty is within the machine
31:26
somewhat. This is not like, you know, an a non cruel platform
31:30
wielded or weaponized in a very specific way towards somebody.
31:33
Jess Rauchberg: Yeah. It becomes part of what we would call in
31:37
social media research platforms, logics, meaning that, you know,
31:41
when we post on Instagram, we're gonna post a certain way. And
31:44
sometimes that's at our own expense. And to do that is to
31:48
also be part of this community and to connect with other
31:51
people. But that means we're gonna style ourselves in a way
31:53
that might not feel right or might feel icky.
31:55
It might feel wrong. And yet, if we don't do it, are we really
31:59
part of something? So it is beyond these particular
32:03
interactions. It impacts all of us.
32:05
Jason Oberholtzer: Do you think that there's things that the
32:06
platforms could be doing, or does this ultimately boil down
32:09
to human nature apparently, you know, millennia of human nature,
32:13
where just this is an impulse that a lot of people have?
32:16
Jess Rauchberg: Yeah. I I think this is a great question, Jason.
32:19
I think this is a larger issue with the creator economy. Mhmm.
32:23
You know, we have about a 162,000,000 Americans who
32:26
identify as creators working in some capacity, whether they're
32:30
streamers, bloggers, influencers, or or making other
32:33
kinds of of digitally shared content.
32:36
This is a late type of labor and work where there's no union.
32:40
There's no protections. And thinking as well of the 1996
32:45
Telecommunications Act in section, I think it's section
32:47
two thirty, which, you know, the 30 something words that change
32:50
the Internet, where basically the platform is just hosting
32:52
your content. They're not responsible for you. So they can
32:55
wipe their hands.
32:56
I don't know if that needs to change because if we do sunset
33:00
this section of the law, that can create some pretty dangerous
33:04
things for creators. But I do think that having ways to
33:08
protect and ways to regulate content creators is helpful
33:12
because it's not just these local creators that are getting
33:15
exploited or even visibly marginalized creators who are
33:18
getting exploited. We all get exploited by the creator
33:20
economy, even those who are at the top. And creative labor is
33:24
interesting because it is sold to you with the promise of
33:27
optimization and advancement and aspirational labor. If I work
33:30
really hard now to do this, I can go viral.
33:33
I can make it big and I can make a living out of this. And you
33:35
know, some people do make a lot of money and they're able to
33:38
segue that into more substantial forms of work. But many of
33:44
specifically Josh's audience, speculate that in a couple
33:46
years, he might be homeless and on the street Mhmm. When when
33:50
all of this dries up. I don't think the creator economy is
33:53
going away.
33:54
It's such a powerful media industry at this point that it
33:57
it will change and it will go through shifts. But I do think
34:00
that that it's here to stay and in order for it to be successful
34:05
and for people to thrive as much as they can in it, they are
34:10
going to need protections. We're gonna need unions. We're going
34:14
to need a creator bill of rights. And I wonder if we had
34:18
those kinds of infrastructures in place, Josh and other
34:21
creators like him might have a really different experience.
34:24
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. I would speculate that a fair amount of
34:26
the intrigue, the draw of the Lolcows as a set of streamers is
34:31
a certain sense of there but for the grace of God go I. And I
34:35
think that is especially true when you narrow it down to the
34:39
creator economy. With all these stresses, all the reward
34:44
structures put in place, all the enabling features of the creator
34:49
economy, truly, this is an outcome that seems like
34:54
predictable and almost undeniable if you get too close
34:58
to the center of that economy.
34:59
Jess Rauchberg: I I think that's spot on and at the end of the
35:02
day, platform these platform companies, because again, their
35:05
domains are are legally, at least in The United States, only
35:09
really entitled to host our work and they profit off of our
35:12
attention. So the more time we spend looking at Josh or looking
35:16
at any creator, at the end of yes, we might be lining those
35:20
creators pockets, but we're really lining that that
35:23
platform's pockets because they profit off of our attention.
35:36
Jason Oberholtzer: Let's endeavor to have you, Jess
35:38
Rosberg, profit off of some attention as well. Where can
35:41
people find you assuming you wanna be found on the Internet?
35:47
Jess Rauchberg: I am very much on the Internet. I am on
35:49
Instagram and blue sky under Jess Rauschberg, full name, all
35:53
one word, and always happy to connect with listeners and and
35:58
those who are interested in these things that occupy our
36:01
minds on the Internet.
36:02
Jason Oberholtzer: Well, thank you so much for coming in, Jess.
36:04
Jess Rauchberg: Thank you so much for having me.
36:21
Mike Rugnetta: That is the show we have for you this week. We
36:24
are gonna be back here on the main feed on or around Thursday,
36:28
April 2. Hey, can I borrow $4 every month indefinitely? Head
36:40
to neverpo.st to become a member. Never Post's producers
36:45
are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the mysterious
36:49
doctor first name, last name.
36:50
Our senior producer is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is
36:54
Jason Oberholzer and the show's host, that's me, is Mike
36:57
Rugnetta. The world is between tips. We say so to know. We go
37:05
look over or out to its pivot, to its wobble and drift.
37:12
Terrible. We are leaving. Excerpt of 39, The Polar Circle
37:20
by Lynn Hajianian. Never Post is a production of Charts and
37:24
Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia.