Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Francesca Farago x anti-Hailey Bieber campaign, Gabby Windey vs. Clayton's dancing + Dr. Esme Lousie calls out Cosmo

Transcript

MINI SCROLL: Francesca Farago x anti-Hailey Bieber campaign, Gabby Windey vs. Clayton's dancing + Dr. Esme Lousie calls out Cosmo · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Two weeks ago we celebrated a huge milestone, the launch of
• 0:04
  the Centennial World Podcast Network, and we couldn't have
• 0:07
  done it without Tempest One, our exclusive drinks partner for
• 0:10
  this new era of the brand. Tempest Ones Prosecco Spritzers
• 0:13
  are the perfect ready to drink pick, whether you're
• 0:16
  celebrating, going on a night out with friends, or even
• 0:19
  catching up at some chilled after work drinks.
• 0:22
  With a lineup of flavors that look just as good as they taste,
• 0:25
  they're not just fruity and refreshing, they are the best
• 0:28
  aesthetic addition to any event. A massive thank you to Tempest
• 0:32
  One for keeping the support going and for sponsoring this
• 0:35
  week of Mini Scroll. If you haven't tried Tempest 1
• 0:38
  yet, consider this your sign. And as always, drink
• 0:41
  responsibly. Hi everyone, welcome to Mini
• 0:44
  Scroll, the daily Internet culture podcast bringing you the
• 0:48
  biggest stories from social media, the creator economy and
• 0:51
  the digital space every Monday through Thursday.
• 0:54
  I'm your host, Lauren Meissner, the founder of the youth digital
• 0:58
  media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Scroll
• 1:02
  everyone. You guys, I am in my insomnia
• 1:04
  era and I feel like the production of yesterday's
• 1:08
  episode could probably tell you that the YouTube video
• 1:12
  yesterday, the production, not only did the video at the end
• 1:15
  have a full 3 minutes of just like black screen blank that was
• 1:20
  exported with the video. Also, I noticed this morning
• 1:24
  when I was just looking through YouTube that the title I put
• 1:27
  YouTube arrested for and then I just continued on with the rest
• 1:31
  of the title. Like I didn't finish the thought
• 1:33
  of like what the YouTube was arrested for.
• 1:35
  I just put YouTube arrested for and then I put plus and then
• 1:39
  like whatever the next story was and I was like Oh my God, I am
• 1:42
  not OK. So yes, I am in my insomnia era.
• 1:45
  Things when you run a business, they're just like stressful.
• 1:47
  I don't know. I don't know what else to say.
• 1:48
  Like I'm just, I just don't sleep.
• 1:51
  I woke up at 2:30 AM this morning, couldn't get back to
• 1:54
  sleep. That is just like my journey.
• 1:56
  I go to sleep really easily, but like I always wake up in the
• 1:59
  middle of the night when I'm in these phases and I just like
• 2:01
  cannot go back to sleep. So I'm functioning on like 3 to
• 2:03
  4 hours of sleep, like at all times when I'm in one of these
• 2:06
  periods. So I feel a little bit
• 2:08
  delusional, but we're going to power through.
• 2:10
  OK. The first story that I have for
• 2:12
  you guys is that Francesca Ferrago, I think that's how you
• 2:15
  say her last name. I've actually never heard it
• 2:16
  said out loud, so I'm really sorry if that's not how you say
• 2:19
  it claims that creators are being paid to post anti Hailey
• 2:23
  Bieber content. So Francesca is a reality star.
• 2:26
  She was on Too Hot to Handle and she's become this big
• 2:29
  influencer. You know when there's like an
• 2:31
  influencer that goes on a reality TV show once every
• 2:34
  couple years, you get one that like really skyrockets and just
• 2:37
  is able to build like quite a big influencer career off the
• 2:40
  back of being a reality star. So she is one of those and she
• 2:43
  posted this very interesting Snapchat today, just a couple
• 2:46
  hours ago, claiming that she knows influencers have been paid
• 2:50
  to post content making fun of Hailey Bieber lately.
• 2:53
  Everyone's calling themselves Hailey Bieber because they
• 2:56
  stopped their man or whatever their man and that's how they
• 2:58
  got him or whatever. So sometimes me and Jesse get
• 3:02
  paid to do a trend on TikTok. Like the person who started the
• 3:06
  trend or the person who owns the song with that's on the trend
• 3:11
  will pay creators to do that trend.
• 3:15
  And to you use that song that that trend, whoever either the
• 3:21
  song or who created it or someone else that wants to like
• 3:27
  push a narrative who knows is paying creators to do that
• 3:30
  trend, like making fun of Haley. And I think that is so me.
• 3:35
  And I just think that like if it's a trend that's taking off
• 3:38
  on its own, whatever. But the fact that they're paying
• 3:41
  creators to do the trend, like I got offered to do it and they
• 3:46
  offered me a decent amount of money to do it.
• 3:50
  And I. Was like no.
• 3:52
  Now on Reddit, users are pointing to an alleged leak
• 3:56
  e-mail that shows a similar type of quote UN quote influencer
• 3:59
  campaign that was allegedly organized to smear Meghan
• 4:02
  Markle. Again, this is all very alleged,
• 4:05
  but I'm going to read some snippets from this e-mail for
• 4:07
  you guys. So the alleged title of this
• 4:10
  alleged e-mail, I don't know. Like who knows if this is fake
• 4:13
  or not? Like I have no idea.
• 4:14
  But it says campaign exposing Meghan Markle's hypocrisy and
• 4:17
  agenda objective. This campaign aims to highlight
• 4:21
  inconsistencies and quote UN quote hidden motives and Meghan
• 4:24
  Markle's public appearances. It will use her recent show with
• 4:27
  love Meghan and recent public events to question her
• 4:30
  credibility and paint her as a divisive figure.
• 4:32
  Influencers will focus on making the case that her actions
• 4:35
  contradict her public image. And then it has like key
• 4:38
  messaging that the influencers are supposed to deliver.
• 4:41
  So when you get a brief, whether you're like a publisher and
• 4:43
  influencer creator, whatever, like you'll be given key
• 4:46
  messages from a brand when they pay you for a campaign of like
• 4:49
  things that you're supposed to say about the product or
• 4:50
  whatever. So there's key messages.
• 4:53
  I'll read some of them. Public persona versus private
• 4:56
  behavior. Royal disrespect emphasize
• 4:59
  moments interpreted as a tax on the royal family celebrity
• 5:02
  victim complex Divide and distract suggests that her
• 5:06
  actions are meant to create division in the UK and distract
• 5:09
  from quote UN quote real issues. Comparison to others highlight
• 5:13
  how other Royals Kate William don't complain drawing false
• 5:16
  equivalencies. Key resources So this is the
• 5:19
  next section. Key resources linked to viral
• 5:21
  tweet threads or cherry picked interview clips meme templates
• 5:25
  portraying her as cringe, inauthentic, phony or
• 5:28
  unrelatable. And then it has influencer
• 5:30
  policies so it says like you must submit deliverables by the
• 5:32
  deadline or forfeit payment. Do not contact the team about
• 5:36
  campaign choice. Focus on delivering targeted
• 5:40
  content is interesting. Do not hide likes.
• 5:43
  Content must follow campaign talking points.
• 5:46
  Pages must be public. OK so I don't know if this is
• 5:49
  true or not. I mean honestly I wouldn't be
• 5:52
  surprised I'm sure if you guys were online at all when love
• 5:55
  Megan, is that what it was called with love Megan came out
• 5:57
  just a few weeks ago. I mean, anytime Megan does
• 6:01
  anything, it is just, it just erupts with criticism.
• 6:05
  And yeah, like there were just so many hit pieces.
• 6:08
  There's constantly hit pieces about her.
• 6:09
  But like especially when she launched the show, people were
• 6:12
  like just honestly, all those things that were said in these
• 6:15
  key messages, like people were freaking saying, and I don't
• 6:18
  agree with any of them. By the way, I didn't watch the
• 6:19
  show cause like that kind of shows.
• 6:20
  Not my vibe. But it's not because I don't
• 6:23
  like Meghan Markle because I actually love Meghan Markle and
• 6:25
  like everyone needs to fuck off. I think if there is one thing,
• 6:29
  and I don't want to bring up the blank lively Justin Baldoni
• 6:32
  situation because that was like, honestly, I'm sure traumatic for
• 6:36
  them. I'm sure it's traumatic for
• 6:37
  them. It's it was traumatic for me
• 6:39
  when we covered that and like the concept of smear campaigns
• 6:42
  at the beginning of the year. So I don't want to judge that
• 6:44
  back up, OK. But I will say I learned a lot
• 6:48
  in researching that episode and putting that episode together
• 6:52
  with my team. Like not just about the Blake
• 6:54
  Lively situation, but just in general like Hollywood smear
• 6:57
  campaigns and how calculated they can be in you.
• 7:00
  It's kind of reminds me of like when we all slowly started to
• 7:03
  realize that like paparazzi shoots are like 9 times out of
• 7:06
  10 set up. You really grow up thinking
• 7:08
  that's not the case, that celebrities are just or that,
• 7:10
  like, a paparazzi are waiting for celebrities, like at any
• 7:13
  given place. And it really has only been in
• 7:16
  the last maybe like, 5 to 10 years where the public is
• 7:19
  starting to kind of get a better grasp on, like, the PR machine
• 7:24
  behind celebrities. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised
• 7:27
  if these types of campaigns exist.
• 7:28
  I have no idea who's paying for them, but there are some
• 7:32
  theories if the Hailey Bieber situation is true, if people are
• 7:36
  getting paid to post like nasty clips of Hailey and like think
• 7:40
  pieces, quote UN quote about how she's cringe and things like
• 7:43
  that. So some people think that it is
• 7:47
  probably Scooter Braun and his team because as we know, Scooter
• 7:52
  Braun lost a big majority of his clientele.
• 7:56
  I mean, I think he said that he was like closing his business,
• 7:58
  but it allegedly seemed like they left and Justin Bieber was
• 8:02
  one of them. And yes, so some people think
• 8:04
  like, as we know, so I also haven't covered this on Mini
• 8:06
  because it kind of feels a bit icky.
• 8:08
  It's like, I think it's pretty clear that right now, like
• 8:10
  Justin Bieber is having a bit of like a mental health crisis.
• 8:12
  If you look at the stuff he's been posting on social media,
• 8:15
  he's definitely been having like a bit of a crash out.
• 8:17
  Obviously people are like, oh, he's crashing out because of
• 8:19
  like Selena and Benny Blanco's album.
• 8:22
  I think he's just going through a lot.
• 8:24
  I think that maybe as part of it, I don't know.
• 8:27
  I think the Diddy stuff, I think becoming a new dad, I think his
• 8:31
  wife constantly getting smeared all over the Internet.
• 8:35
  No matter how you feel about Hailey Bieber, you can't deny
• 8:38
  that that constantly happens to her.
• 8:40
  And I'm sure there's lots of other stuff that we just don't
• 8:42
  know. So, yes, a lot of people think
• 8:46
  that because of the Scooter Braun situation, that it's
• 8:49
  possible that him and his team if if this Hailey Bieber thing
• 8:53
  is happening, that they could be behind like these campaigns.
• 8:56
  Somebody on Reddit said, isn't it just Scooter Braun and Co?
• 9:00
  Are we shocked he would try to reassert power over his former
• 9:03
  client via disseminated online misogyny?
• 9:05
  I don't know. What do you guys think?
• 9:06
  Do you think that these could be calculated attacks against
• 9:13
  Haley? Do you think that influencers or
• 9:14
  creators could be paid to cover this kind of stuff?
• 9:18
  I've never come across it. Just like for your own
• 9:20
  information, I've never come across anything like this.
• 9:23
  But I think it's probably different running a publication.
• 9:25
  I think, I don't know. I was going to say, I think
• 9:27
  maybe these PR strategies because like, we cover pop
• 9:31
  culture, so you'd think at some point maybe we'd come across
• 9:33
  something like this. But maybe being a publisher like
• 9:36
  protects us a bit from that. Or maybe we're just like not big
• 9:39
  enough or I don't know. Let me know what you guys think.
• 9:41
  The next way that I have for you guys is that Gabby, Wendy's ex
• 9:44
  Clayton, has called her out for bullying him about his dancing.
• 9:49
  OK, so you guys know, I would normally never cover like
• 9:52
  anything Bachelor related. That's just like way too
• 9:54
  mainstream for us. It's just like just feels
• 9:57
  honestly irrelevant at this point to like anything going on
• 10:00
  in pop culture, but especially like Internet culture.
• 10:03
  But Gabby is truly like, the internet's a girl right now.
• 10:07
  So I had to cover this. So we know that Gabby Windy is
• 10:11
  in her moment. But before she was a popular
• 10:13
  podcaster, Gabby was on the Bachelor in 2022 as a contestant
• 10:17
  on Clayton's season. He broke up with Gabby and
• 10:20
  another contestant, Rachel at the same time because he was
• 10:23
  still in love with Susie. I never watched the Bachelor.
• 10:26
  Still like these names don't really mean very much to me.
• 10:28
  So let me know in the comments if this was like Big T at the
• 10:31
  time. It seems like it was because
• 10:33
  then I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think then Gabby
• 10:35
  and Rachel became like Co bachelorettes, I think on the
• 10:38
  next season. And that was like a big moment.
• 10:42
  OK. So obviously Gabby just won the
• 10:45
  traitors. She's having this big moment.
• 10:47
  She's like woman of the hour. So she's been doing a lot of
• 10:50
  press and she was just on Las Culturistas.
• 10:53
  I definitely butchered that with Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers.
• 10:57
  In the episode, Gabby made fun of Clayton's dancing on
• 11:00
  Instagram. So I guess he posts a lot of
• 11:03
  like dancing content. And I don't know, I thought he
• 11:05
  was on Dancing with the Stars. I thought she was making fun of
• 11:08
  his dancing on Dancing with the Stars.
• 11:09
  And I was like, well, that's kind of valid.
• 11:10
  Like that's kind of the point is to be like judged for your
• 11:14
  dancing on this. But no, like, he just makes
• 11:16
  dance content. Like he just loves to dance and
• 11:19
  he expresses himself on Instagram on Reels with dancing.
• 11:23
  And she talked about this on this podcast.
• 11:26
  So here's the clip. Have you?
• 11:27
  Seen his dancing videos. Oh my God, they will make you
• 11:30
  run. I'm going to send you one and
• 11:32
  you wish you didn't have eyes. So I was like, this is it.
• 11:34
  I'm at the age I've done the work.
• 11:35
  I can fall in love with this toe looking ass.
• 11:39
  You know, skinny Jean wearing this is my guy.
• 11:42
  And now Clayton has hit back, saying that Gabby is bullying
• 11:46
  him. Thankfully, through healing and
• 11:49
  going on this journey with my dancing, which has brought so
• 11:53
  much self love and self-confidence, that I'm truly
• 11:56
  so grateful to have found something that I get to work on
• 11:59
  myself every day and challenge myself.
• 12:01
  And I'm not the greatest at it and I'm aware of that.
• 12:03
  I'm not delusional, but it's me versus me.
• 12:08
  Every single day I get in that studio, I have to stand up for
• 12:10
  myself. And that's why I'm making this
• 12:12
  video. Gabby, what you're doing is
• 12:15
  bullying. There's no other way around it.
• 12:17
  You're attacking me for my physical appearance.
• 12:20
  You're attacking me for a passion that I love that's
• 12:22
  changed my life. It's it's unnecessary and it's
• 12:25
  not funny. And you know, videos with like
• 12:28
  what you make where you comment, you have such a large platform
• 12:32
  and you're setting a really bad example.
• 12:34
  OK so again I'm not a bachelor girly so for those of you who
• 12:38
  are please give me the context. Let us know.
• 12:42
  Like did he treat her poorly? Does he deserve this kind of
• 12:46
  like, I don't know, like savage treatment from her?
• 12:49
  Because I honestly think it depends.
• 12:52
  Annabelle and I were talking about this when I was writing
• 12:54
  the story. And I was like, I don't know how
• 12:56
  I feel about this because I don't know the context of like,
• 12:58
  who he was to her. And if he was like a trash man,
• 13:01
  then I think, OK, fine. You can like, make fun of his
• 13:03
  dancing. Like, that's pretty harmless in
• 13:05
  the scheme of what he could have done to you, what men can do to
• 13:08
  women, you know? But if not, I do think her
• 13:12
  comments were like, a little bit savage.
• 13:13
  But I also think the thing about Gabby is she can hide.
• 13:17
  I don't want to say hide, but she can kind of hide.
• 13:19
  It's not the right word, But she, like, can hide behind kind
• 13:22
  of the veil of, like, comedy, right?
• 13:24
  Like, she's kind of like a comedian or like a comedic
• 13:26
  creator now. So I think she can get away with
• 13:30
  saying a lot more than what others could.
• 13:33
  I don't know, maybe he's trying to have, like, a bit of a famous
• 13:35
  moment off the back of this, you know, like trying to get a bit
• 13:38
  of press. I mean, it worked.
• 13:39
  There's headlines all about it. I'm talking about it.
• 13:43
  The most famous pop culture podcast in the world is talking
• 13:47
  about him. So.
• 13:48
  Yeah, OK. And the last story that I have
• 13:49
  for you guys is that popular author Doctor Esme Louise James
• 13:54
  has called out Cosmopolitan magazine for allegedly
• 13:57
  plagiarizing her recent video essay.
• 14:00
  Doctor Esme Louise James is a British Australian sex
• 14:03
  historian, author and creator of the Kinky History series on
• 14:06
  TikTok, which explores human sexuality.
• 14:09
  She has built a platform of over for 2.4 million followers, and
• 14:13
  at the end of last week she uploaded her first video essay
• 14:16
  onto YouTube about fictosexuality, which is the
• 14:20
  concept of basically falling in love with a fictional character.
• 14:23
  A few hours later, cosmopolitan.com published an
• 14:27
  article with the title. Does crushing on your favorite
• 14:30
  smut talk hero make you fictosexual?
• 14:32
  Unpacking a niche sexuality that might be more relatable than it
• 14:36
  seems. So AS maybe made two videos
• 14:38
  calling this out. She said fictive sexuality isn't
• 14:42
  exactly a trending topic, so she found it interesting that their
• 14:47
  article was published so soon after her deep dive went up.
• 14:50
  And then she put side by sides showing that she believes they
• 14:53
  allegedly plagiarized. Her main hooks are like kind of
• 14:57
  how she explored the topic with a few different angles.
• 15:01
  So they looked at it. Both of them looked at it from
• 15:04
  the perspective of 19th century literature, discussions of
• 15:07
  asexuality and the impact of book talk on this topic.
• 15:11
  She claims the article reads quote like an AI summary of my
• 15:14
  video with some lines just entirely paraphrased.
• 15:18
  OK, so now Cosmos TikTok section is literally flooded with people
• 15:22
  just coming for them and calling out this alleged plagiarism.
• 15:27
  I'm not going to come out here and say it was plagiarized, OK?
• 15:29
  Like I'm not trying to get sued. So I don't know.
• 15:33
  But if inspiration was taken from Esme's video essay, this in
• 15:38
  general, this situation reminds me of the type of like content
• 15:42
  farm journalism that we see a lot lately, where articles will
• 15:45
  basically just like paraphrase A viral TikTok video or like
• 15:48
  anything else that's like quote, UN quote trending in youth
• 15:51
  culture right now. And honestly, I sometimes got
• 15:54
  stuck in that trap in the early days of Centennial.
• 15:56
  And it can take some reflection to make sure that, you know,
• 16:00
  you're not like passing someone else's ideas off as your own in
• 16:04
  the attention economy. Everyone is like a fighting.
• 16:06
  You guys would all like understand this, but like, we're
• 16:08
  all fighting for like a sense of legitimacy.
• 16:12
  And I think publishers like legacy publishers like a Hearst
• 16:15
  or whatever are kind of in that boat even more because like
• 16:19
  realistically, our Gen. Z readingcosmopolitan.com, like,
• 16:25
  I'm going to say no, but are they watching video essays about
• 16:29
  fictive sexuality? Like probably yes.
• 16:31
  But honestly, the longer that I do this job, the more I realize
• 16:35
  that people have way more respect for you when you do cite
• 16:38
  your sources. And I think all of this will
• 16:40
  become so much more important and relevant in the era of AI.
• 16:45
  It's just, it's super disappointing if that's what
• 16:47
  happened here. And I'm proud of her for calling
• 16:50
  it out. It can be really hard and to go
• 16:53
  against something like that, especially when it can be hard
• 16:55
  to prove. And you guys know, last year,
• 16:57
  one of our deep dives, our scripts for one of our deep dive
• 16:59
  episodes was like essentially fully plagiarized by someone
• 17:03
  else. And it was so frustrating trying
• 17:05
  to fight with them about that. So we actually just let it go
• 17:08
  because it was so frustrating, like trying to convince them
• 17:11
  like, OK, you took our work. Like you putting it through AI
• 17:16
  is still plagiarism. And then they were trying to say
• 17:18
  that we were using AI to write our script, which we don't.
• 17:22
  And I know every once in a while, some random person will
• 17:25
  come across one of our deep dives and be like, I can't
• 17:28
  believe you just wrote your whole script in ChatGPT.
• 17:31
  And it's like, I'm sorry that we just have like, academic writers
• 17:34
  at this institution who know how to write properly.
• 17:38
  And I don't know, like, they're not using AI to write our
• 17:42
  scripts. Anyways, whatever.
• 17:42
  OK, This is like a very sensitive topic to me.
• 17:45
  But yes, I think I'm proud of her.
• 17:47
  I'm proud of Doctor Esme for calling this out.
• 17:52
  If it is the truth, Cosmo has not addressed it.
• 17:55
  I don't, I don't know what normally happens with
• 17:57
  organizations like this. I don't think they normally
• 17:59
  address it. But yeah, that's that on that.
• 18:02
  Anyways, guys, thank you for listening.
• 18:05
  I love you. Please rate, review and
• 18:06
  subscribe. We're trying to get to 1000
• 18:08
  Spotify star ratings. Annabelle will talk to you guys
• 18:11
  tomorrow and I will talk to you on Thursday.
• 18:14
  Bye.