Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Saccone Joly vloggers backlash, 'Unhinged Podcast' divorce + Pope Francis x Trisha Paytas meme
Transcript
- 0:00Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
- 0:04culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
- 0:07media, the creator economy and the digital space every Monday
- 0:11through Thursday. I'm your host, Lauren Meisner,
- 0:14the founder of the youth digital media brand Centennial World.
- 0:19Welcome back to Mini Scroll, everyone.
- 0:21OK, I have something exciting to tell you guys.
- 0:23So next week it will be like a normal week for podcasting.
- 0:27Oh, also Friday, this Friday is a public holiday here in
- 0:30Australia. So there will be no podcast on
- 0:32Friday. I know we had like 2 public
- 0:35holidays for Easter and then one right after.
- 0:38And that is like a cheat code for anyone that works in like
- 0:41corporate in Australia or just like in general.
- 0:44You can take like I think it's three annual leave days off and
- 0:47you get like 10. So yes, we have another like
- 0:51national public holiday on Friday.
- 0:53So they'll be no podcast this Friday, but next week it will be
- 0:56like a regular podcast schedule week.
- 0:59However, if you guys don't follow me on Instagram or
- 1:02LinkedIn, first of all, please follow me on Instagram,
- 1:04LinkedIn. I don't really care about it.
- 1:05So I am really excited because I have another like big founder
- 1:10moment thing I am doing next week.
- 1:12I am going to be participating in Blackbird VCs Sunrise
- 1:16festival. I am doing 6 different things
- 1:20for Sunrise festival and it's over the course of two days.
- 1:23So I am presenting my founder journey, building Centennial
- 1:27World on the pitch stage, which is really, really exciting.
- 1:30We've never really entertained like getting any type of
- 1:34investment or anything like that before.
- 1:36But I've started like toying with the idea and then they
- 1:39reached out and asked me if I would want to do that.
- 1:42And I was like, that is actually insane.
- 1:43So of course, yes, I would never say no to an opportunity.
- 1:46Blackbird VC, by the way, is one of the biggest VC firms in like
- 1:50all of Australia, like venture capital firms.
- 1:52So it's like a huge deal that they've asked me to be such a
- 1:56big part of this startup festival.
- 1:58So I'm doing that on the first day.
- 2:00On the second day, I am speaking on a panel about like the
- 2:04evolution of media amid the tech boom and AI and all of that.
- 2:09Then we are doing as part of like a small media campaign with
- 2:13Blackbird. We're doing 2 on the ground mini
- 2:16scroll episodes. So each day I'll be recording
- 2:19Mini Scroll live from the festival.
- 2:21They have guaranteed that I will get a quiet spot.
- 2:25So hopefully it won't be like the Web Summit interview where
- 2:27it was like so loud, but I will have like regular mini stories
- 2:32like I'll just be like live from the festival.
- 2:34And then at the end of each mini episode for those two days, I
- 2:37will have a founder interview with a female founder who is
- 2:40like at the festival as well. So I'll have like those little
- 2:43things. And then I'm also doing an ask
- 2:45me anything with the high school and university students who are
- 2:49attending. So Blackbird gives away hundreds
- 2:52of free tickets to this festival for like young people in
- 2:54Australia who want to learn about like startups and business
- 2:57and tech and media and whatever. And so I'm doing like an ask me
- 3:01anything as well during one of those days.
- 3:03And then I'm also doing a media interview myself.
- 3:06Like I'm being interviewed by, you know, like an industry
- 3:09publication for a story. So anyways, it's going to be
- 3:11like the craziest 2 days of my life.
- 3:13So that's April 30th and May 1st.
- 3:15I feel like there could be big opportunity there.
- 3:17So that is the project that I was working on.
- 3:19So that presentation, like the big presentation that I'm doing,
- 3:22the main thing I'm doing is like presenting on the pitch stage,
- 3:25right? Like what Centennial World is
- 3:27our podcast network, like the evolution, our journey of the
- 3:30brand and all of that. So I'm doing that on the 30th.
- 3:33So I do get to get that over with on the first day, but that
- 3:37presentation is like a full 20 minute presentation and that was
- 3:40due end of day Thursday. So that's like, I mean, I think
- 3:44also just like having to put that presentation together.
- 3:47It was a very emotional experience for me to like have
- 3:49to go back and like reflect on the entire brand journey and
- 3:52like where we've come to. So I that probably did
- 3:54contribute a little bit to my mental breakdown anyway.
- 3:56So yes, I wanted to give you guys that small update, but
- 3:59there should be no disruption to the content schedule next week.
- 4:03It will just be like a little bit different for those two
- 4:05days. All right, let's get into the
- 4:06stories for today. The first story that I have for
- 4:08you guys is the Saucony Jolie family is under fire once again
- 4:13for TikTok content, this time featuring their children.
- 4:17So this is actually a story that one of you guys asked me to
- 4:19report on. The Saucony Jolie family are a
- 4:21YouTube vlogging family. They're like OG family bloggers
- 4:25and and they've had their fair share of controversies in the
- 4:28past. They are based in the UK now,
- 4:30obviously they have TikTok and they post on TikTok all the
- 4:33time. So they're kind of being exposed
- 4:35to like a whole new audience, which is bringing their
- 4:38problematic content and behavior to light.
- 4:41So the parents, particularly the father, Jonathan has been
- 4:44accused of exploiting his children for content for years.
- 4:47And I think that's actually kind of unique because a lot of times
- 4:50with family vloggers, it's the mothers like the women who get
- 4:53accused of exploitation and of being these kind of like
- 4:57problematic like stage moms for social media.
- 5:00But Jonathan really seems to be the one that people feel is like
- 5:04the main problem. So there was actually a
- 5:06documentary. They were the they were part of
- 5:08a documentary in the UK by Stacey Dooley a few years ago.
- 5:12And this documentary raised even more questions when it came out
- 5:15as Jonathan apparently seemed very controlling in the
- 5:18documentary. And the kids admitted in the
- 5:20documentary that they do not like being filmed.
- 5:23So now Jonathan is under fire again.
- 5:25Then after one TikTok started going viral of a woman pointing
- 5:28out that the thumbnails used in Jonathan's personal TikTok
- 5:32account, his Like Jonathan Jolie TikTok account, are almost
- 5:37exclusively stills of his young daughters with their mouths open
- 5:41in the splits in like gymnastics gear.
- 5:44I guess they do a lot of gymnastics.
- 5:46For context, Jonathan has nearly 4 million followers himself.
- 5:50This really is off the back of what we talked about with the
- 5:53whole Piper Raquel situation last week with the Netflix
- 5:56documentary. We talked about Ren Eleanor last
- 5:58year. Like there's so many of these
- 6:00families and these children and like, no matter how much press
- 6:03comes out about them, like it doesn't really seem to, I'm
- 6:05going to say, be doing very much.
- 6:07I think all we can do is like, keep talking about it, keep
- 6:09pointing it out. It's almost like we need to
- 6:10villainize them and make them feel like in embarrassed and
- 6:14like creepy themselves to maybe get them to stop this type of
- 6:18stuff. And of course, there needs to be
- 6:19more pressure on the platforms for allowing people to be
- 6:23posting their children like this, for allowing children to
- 6:26have accounts. You know, like you're not
- 6:27technically supposed to have an account until you're, I think
- 6:29TikTok is 13. So parents who make accounts for
- 6:34their children. That was the issue with Ren
- 6:35Eleanor is like it was run by her mother and it was very
- 6:37obvious, but it was a Ren Eleanor account, you know, and
- 6:41then putting pressure of course on like legislation.
- 6:44But kind of in the same vein, another one of you guys messaged
- 6:47me and asked me to cover the Sweet Sisterhood content house.
- 6:51But this is Gen. Alpha's like quote first content
- 6:55house. So it has 9 mega influencers and
- 7:00it's just girl influencers who are like Gen.
- 7:03Alpha. So they're between the ages of
- 7:058:00 and 12:00, and they have formed their own content house.
- 7:10People are understandably very concerned about this.
- 7:13So in a Teen Vogue article covering this, it reads, quote,
- 7:17the moms involved in the Sweet sisterhood are aware of the
- 7:20backlash against kid influencers and content houses, but they
- 7:23don't think the sweet sisterhood will turn into another
- 7:26cautionary tale. I think our content will speak
- 7:28for itself once we start actually posting, and people
- 7:31will see just how wholesome it is, one of the moms said, So
- 7:34they actually won't live together.
- 7:35They'll just like meet up it says around the country, country
- 7:38and do collaborations multiple times a year.
- 7:41So they've basically created like a collaboration group
- 7:43without like living together. I don't know you guys 8 year
- 7:46olds being part of like TikTok collaboration groups like this
- 7:50is too far. This is so fucked up I can't
- 7:54even imagine. Like I got Facebook when I was
- 7:5713 and social media has absolutely derailed my entire
- 8:01life, my mental health like it has for all of us.
- 8:03I can't imagine what it's going to be like for every other
- 8:06generation that's growing up and they have social media and like
- 8:09content houses and influencers at the age of 8 years old.
- 8:13Like, what are we doing? I cannot believe that this is
- 8:17just allowed. You know, like, I actually, when
- 8:20I think about like the early platforms, this is like a kind
- 8:22of a tangent for another day. But when I think about the
- 8:25platforms and what they've been able to get away with, it's
- 8:28stuff that like the audacity, the audacity.
- 8:32And I guess they just know that there's no laws or regulations
- 8:37that technically prevent them from allowing influencers who
- 8:40are 8 years old to be posting. You can say that about the type
- 8:44of content that is posted on Reddit or Tumblr or whatever,
- 8:47But you know, it's so true. It's like when you think about
- 8:50the audacity of the tech Bros that have created these
- 8:53platforms and the disregard for human safety, children's safety,
- 8:59it's actually astounding. Let's get on to some like
- 9:03juicier news. I wouldn't say it's more
- 9:06positive, but it's definitely not as bad as like child
- 9:09influencers. So I need to break down the
- 9:13unhinged podcast drama that is taking over social media.
- 9:17OK, so I don't know about you guys, but this podcast breakup
- 9:20has been all over my social media.
- 9:21People are calling this like a call her daddy level breakup.
- 9:25So the unhinged podcast was a show by two creators, Chloe
- 9:29Madison and Emma Page. So last week Emma uploaded a
- 9:32video on YouTube in which she accused Chloe of stealing their
- 9:36joint podcast. So Chloe and Emma had a podcast
- 9:39together for over a year called the Unhinged podcast.
- 9:43They didn't really know each other apparently when they
- 9:45started this podcast, but they went in on this business venture
- 9:48together. 5050 ownership and workload.
- 9:51They launched Unhinged in June 2023 and it was literally like a
- 9:56Cinderella story. They grew so fast.
- 9:59They like quickly went viral. They gained this huge audience
- 10:03and within a year they had 700,000 social media followers.
- 10:08It was like a call her daddy ask story.
- 10:11However, within three months of launching the podcast, so they
- 10:14were based in New York City. Within three months of launching
- 10:17the podcast, Chloe decided to do a cross country move to Los
- 10:21Angeles. So the podcast almost
- 10:23immediately became remote. Regardless, like I said, the
- 10:26podcast kept growing even though it was remote and their social
- 10:29media kept like exploding. Emma said she struggled with the
- 10:32dynamics of their working relationship, but she did try to
- 10:35make it work by the end of December.
- 10:37Remember, however, December, like this past year, so 2024,
- 10:40she was feeling burnt out and she was considering leaving the
- 10:43podcast. She then gets this text from
- 10:46Chloe and you know they were obviously having issues but she
- 10:49said like so it's not like this text came out of nowhere but she
- 10:51said it felt like an ultimatum. Chloe said I've asked since last
- 10:56week to find a time that works. I shouldn't be the one
- 10:58initiating this convo. If you can't find a time
- 11:01tomorrow that works that's fine, but don't expect to film next
- 11:04week. Emma then responded saying over
- 11:07the past month I have consistently asked you to set a
- 11:09date for filming and can provide screenshots if needed to refresh
- 11:12your memory. I will not engage with threats,
- 11:15ultimatums, or toxic behavior. She then went on to say that
- 11:18Chloe didn't upload the episode that she was supposed to that
- 11:21day and that was unacceptable and then and she was willing to
- 11:24work through their issues, but the dynamic had not improved.
- 11:27She finished by saying they needed to discuss how to end the
- 11:30podcast fairly because clearly it was not working.
- 11:34OK, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that at this
- 11:38point, like they kind of had to end the podcast.
- 11:41Like the hostility in these messages, I don't know how you
- 11:45could continue to like create content together, put out
- 11:48entertaining, engaging, fun content together.
- 11:51Like put on this public front when this is how you're speaking
- 11:54to each other behind the scenes. This is like honestly crazy as
- 11:58somebody who was in a business partnership with somebody who
- 12:01was like obviously my friend, my Co host, my Co worker, like I
- 12:05cannot imagine if we had been on terms like this how we could
- 12:09have continued doing the podcast together.
- 12:11So January 2nd, 2025, Chloe sends Emma a message and says
- 12:16let me know about the above or if you are quitting the podcast.
- 12:19So she just like ghosted her for a couple days, didn't answer
- 12:22what Emma said and then was like, OK, let me know about the
- 12:24above. As in like when you can record
- 12:26or if you're going to quit. Emma said she was not quitting
- 12:28the podcast because the podcast would not exist without the both
- 12:31of them and they need to dissolve it basically for it to
- 12:34be fair. The following day Emma sends an
- 12:36official e-mail that she is leaving the podcast and she gave
- 12:40different options to dissolve the company or for her to be
- 12:43bought out. OK, this is when it gets wild.
- 12:44Chloe then ghosts Emma for 24 days.
- 12:49During those 24 days, Chloe allegedly continued to post on
- 12:53their joint accounts without Emma's consent.
- 12:56A brand also reached out to them during this time, and Chloe
- 12:59responded without consulting Emma.
- 13:02And she kind of insinuated in the response to the brand that
- 13:05there were issues between the two of them.
- 13:07So Emma was like, that's so unprofessional and unacceptable.
- 13:09During these 24 days, Emma started working on her own
- 13:12podcast and was just like waiting for Chloe to get back to
- 13:15her. But obviously at this point, she
- 13:16knew like, she was not going to be part, they were not going to
- 13:19be doing a podcast together. So Chloe continues to ghost her.
- 13:22And then she posts on their joint accounts that their
- 13:24podcast is on hold because of the LA fires.
- 13:27Because remember, Chloe lives in LA, even though all of this,
- 13:30Emma says, started before the fires.
- 13:33So Emma reaches out to lawyers and they said that even though
- 13:36there's no contract in place. So this is definitely a problem.
- 13:39They didn't have a contract in place, but, you know, just based
- 13:42on the workload and how everything was divided, like,
- 13:44the women would have been 5050, they would have actually been in
- 13:47like a legal partnership. So after two more weeks of
- 13:50ghosting, Emma asks an attorney how she can make Chloe respond
- 13:54to her. This attorney tells her that she
- 13:56can change the passwords on a couple of their joint accounts
- 13:59and then e-mail Chloe right away and offer to give her the
- 14:03passwords if she responds. So changing these passwords
- 14:06would only be illegal according to this attorney's advice, if
- 14:10she didn't offer Chloe the passwords after receiving this
- 14:14e-mail. Chloe then changed the passwords
- 14:15herself. She was like, I don't even know
- 14:17how she did that of literally everything.
- 14:19Like they're Spotify, they're hosting like everything.
- 14:22And Emma has literally been locked out ever since.
- 14:24So I'm assuming this was like January.
- 14:27Chloe finally responds to Emma after Emma launches her own
- 14:30podcast. So Emma was like, OK, our last
- 14:32episodes were going live. I think it was like January
- 14:3514th. And she wanted to have the
- 14:37consistency of her own podcast going up from then.
- 14:40So she had, was working on, on it and like launched it.
- 14:42So Emma had a very successful like first week of launch and
- 14:45then Chloe finally responded to her.
- 14:46Chloe said that she would give Emma 15% of three months of the
- 14:51podcast revenue to buy her out or 50% of the next three brand
- 14:56deals. Emma was like, at this point
- 14:58everything was 5050. Like why would I get 15%?
- 15:01And you know, she said like I, we were making $20,000 a month
- 15:06at this point. We were quoting brands between
- 15:088:00 and $12,000 for a single ticket talk.
- 15:11So like, no, I'm not going to take 15% of that.
- 15:15So she said that she was going to come back to her with a
- 15:18counter offer. And she also said, please stop
- 15:21posting on our joint pages until we've, you know, like dealt with
- 15:24this negotiation. And then Chloe, I guess was
- 15:26like, no, I need a response by Monday.
- 15:29And Emmas, like, you literally ghosted me for 24 days.
- 15:31Like you can wait longer than two days for my response.
- 15:36On February 4th Emma wakes up and Chloe had changed all of
- 15:40their joint accounts to a new podcast name, allegedly the
- 15:44unbothered podcast. Emma says she feels like Chloe
- 15:47stole the podcast from her. She stole the following, the
- 15:50backlog, the audience, everything from her and changed
- 15:53the names to her own solo podcast Unbothered and has just
- 15:58been going with that ever since. She says Chloe also blocked her
- 16:02and she wiped her. OK this is something I noticed.
- 16:04She seemed to wipe her from her social media.
- 16:06So I was looking at their TikTok and I was like, why are all of
- 16:09these clips just Chloe? And then I'm like, OK, if you
- 16:13Scroll down, like there's actually not that many clips.
- 16:15And I was like, Oh my God. Does she archive or delete all
- 16:19of the other posts? Like all of the tick tock
- 16:21content over the last like, year and a half that featured Emma as
- 16:24well. So it's just like podcast clips
- 16:26of like, Chloe saying something funny or whatever, like, you
- 16:29know, just like a quick little quip.
- 16:31But there doesn't seem to be any that feature Emma, as far as I
- 16:34could tell, which is so insanely petty.
- 16:36Chloe finally addressed things kind of on Instagram Stories,
- 16:40she wrote. I've remained silent because
- 16:42we've been in the middle of a confidential legal settlement.
- 16:45Unlike the other party, I followed legal counsel and
- 16:48respected that process. A handful of you have seen one
- 16:51side out of context screenshots and have formed opinions without
- 16:55seeing what has actually transpired behind closed doors.
- 16:59I have many receipts ready to go and I'll be sharing my side.
- 17:02Obviously, this is very much like a he said, she said.
- 17:05I mean, Emma definitely had like receipts, like she was sharing
- 17:07like all the screenshots of their Gmail and like all this
- 17:09stuff. And I would say the general
- 17:12consensus online is people are like, you know, team Emma.
- 17:15But I think it's so wild as somebody who has been through
- 17:18like, you know, buying a business partner out and that
- 17:22included a podcast, obviously that was part of our business.
- 17:25It's so like wild to me that these things get so out of hand.
- 17:29I just think to myself like the worst way to end a business
- 17:32relationship, a personal relationship that you would have
- 17:34built over that time, like would be for that to just end in such
- 17:38a bad way. And I just, I feel like it's so
- 17:42short sighted when these and it happens a lot with like
- 17:44influencers, we see a lot of like feuding and stuff.
- 17:46And I don't know if it's just because we see that publicly.
- 17:49Like I imagine in business there's like a lot of drama that
- 17:51you just, it's just never made public.
- 17:53Like we just don't know. But you know, with influencers
- 17:55and stuff, it often is made public.
- 17:56But I just think like it's very short sighted to burn bridges at
- 18:01all. Like these two women are in the
- 18:03same industry. They have basically the same
- 18:05job. They would have so many of the
- 18:07same business relationships, probably friends, all of that.
- 18:09Like it is so wild to me that and obviously like Emma, if, if
- 18:16what she is saying is true, I get like everything that she's
- 18:18had to do to just like get out of this and like stand her
- 18:21ground. So I'm not necessarily making a
- 18:23judgement on what she's done. Because if what she is saying
- 18:26is, like, completely fact, then at the end of the day, like her
- 18:29hands were kind of tied. But yeah, I think to, like, burn
- 18:32bridges at all. Like the way that Chloe has
- 18:34acted, like who? I don't know.
- 18:35It's just, it's wild to me. I'm like, that's like one of the
- 18:37biggest things my parents taught me, especially when I first
- 18:40started in my career, you know, like when you first enter the
- 18:44workforce is like, never burn a bridge.
- 18:47And there is a big difference between like, standing up for
- 18:49yourself, standing your ground and burning a bridge.
- 18:52And it does seem from the information that we have that
- 18:54Chloe was down to burn that bridge.
- 18:56But yeah, I just, I can't imagine that like, in the
- 18:59dissolution of a partnership like this, your top priority
- 19:01wouldn't be to, like, come out on OK terms.
- 19:04OK. The last three that I have for
- 19:06you guys, this is a very stupid one, but, you know, I had to
- 19:09include it, OK. We're like on the journey of
- 19:12this conspiracy theory together. We've been tracking it since day
- 19:15one. The Tricia Paytas baby
- 19:18reincarnation memes are back. So as we know, I'm sure all of
- 19:22you guys know, Pope Francis died yesterday.
- 19:24I was at dinner and I went to the bathroom and I was on
- 19:26Instagram and I saw that he died.
- 19:28And I was actually like in shock.
- 19:30It hit me and I was like, Oh my God.
- 19:32He died on Easter weekend. That feels like symbolic
- 19:35somehow. I was raised Catholic in case
- 19:37you couldn't tell. I'm not practicing, but I did go
- 19:40to Catholic school and it was like, my mom is Irish Catholic,
- 19:43so that tells you a lot. Internet users are now going off
- 19:47about how Trisha Paytas is going to give birth to the Pope
- 19:51reincarnated. This Internet conspiracy theory
- 19:54started when Tricia gave birth to her first baby, Malibu
- 19:57Barbie. Shortly after Queen Elizabeth
- 20:00died in 2022, fans started making jokes that she gave birth
- 20:04to Queen Elizabeth reincarnated. I don't even, I mean, this joke
- 20:07started on Twitter, but like, I don't even know why.
- 20:10It's just one of those memes that just like popped off and
- 20:13everybody thought it was like the craziest and funniest thing
- 20:15ever. Tricia actually spoke out at the
- 20:16time and was like, this makes me uncomfortable because like,
- 20:19you're kind of making a joke about someone's death, which is
- 20:22fair enough. But now Trisha is pregnant with
- 20:25her third baby, as we know, and the conspiracy theory has
- 20:28reemerged as Pope Francis died this weekend.
- 20:31The main joke is that people are saying she is collecting world
- 20:34leaders at this point, which is crazy.
- 20:37OK, I'll read you some of the top tweets.
- 20:39You're laughing. Pope Francis is about to be
- 20:41reincarnated as Tricia Paytas's baby and you're laughing.
- 20:44Another one says, Oh my God, I just remembered Tricia Paytas is
- 20:47pregnant. Welcome back, Pope.
- 20:49But yes, so far Tricia Paytas has not addressed the rumors
- 20:53that she will be giving birth to Pope Francis reincarnated.
- 20:56Anyways, guys, that's it for mini scroll today.
- 20:59Thank you so much for listening. I love you guys.
- 21:01Please rate, review and subscribe.
- 21:03Please also subscribe to our YouTube.
- 21:04We are trying to get to 10,000 subscribers.
- 21:07We're almost there. I love you guys and we'll talk
- 21:09to you tomorrow and I will talk to you on Thursday.
- 21:12Bye.