Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Hailey Bieber mystery repost update, Chiara Ferragni acquitted + Pop Crave turns 10

Transcript

MINI SCROLL: Hailey Bieber mystery repost update, Chiara Ferragni acquitted + Pop Crave turns 10 · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Hi everyone. Welcome to Mini Scroll, the
• 0:03
  daily Internet culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories
• 0:07
  from social media, the creator economy and the digital space.
• 0:10
  Every Monday through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
• 0:13
  I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, the founder of the youth digital
• 0:17
  media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Scroll,
• 0:22
  everyone. All right, before I get into it,
• 0:24
  Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
• 0:27
  Please Spotify star rate US. It helps us so much.
• 0:30
  It helps us grow. We're trying to get to 1000
• 0:33
  Spotify star ratings and let's just get into the stories for
• 0:37
  today. Oh, also, everybody say happy
• 0:40
  birthday to Annabelle in the comments.
• 0:41
  OK, it's her birthday today. OK, let's get into the stories.
• 0:45
  The first story that I have for you guys is that Julie Seiss has
• 0:49
  claimed that Hailey Bieber is trying to silence her with a
• 0:53
  cease and desist over her TikTok video.
• 0:57
  So a few days ago I covered the Hailey Bieber repost mystery
• 1:01
  situation that was taking over TikTok.
• 1:04
  A very quick refresher, pop psychology creator Julie Theis
• 1:08
  posted a video on TikTok in which she used Hailey as an
• 1:12
  example of a quote tolerant codependent woman in her
• 1:16
  marriage with Justin. And then this video by Julie, it
• 1:19
  was downloaded and re uploaded to like a random spam account.
• 1:24
  And then Internet users claimed that they saw Haley herself
• 1:28
  repost this re upload. And it turned into this whole
• 1:31
  debate online with half of the Internet saying that they saw
• 1:35
  this repost, they can still see the repost and the other half
• 1:38
  saying they never saw it and it's not there for them.
• 1:41
  So this repost discourse really amplified the video.
• 1:45
  And because of this, Julie, the original creator of the content,
• 1:49
  now claims that Haley and Justin have sent her a season.
• 1:52
  I received a cease and desist letter from attorneys
• 1:54
  representing Hailey Bieber in attempt to intimidate me and
• 1:58
  silence me. Of course, that's in my opinion,
• 2:00
  which I am legally allowed to have.
• 2:02
  What I shared were my opinions. It was a psychological and
• 2:05
  sociological thought piece on why some relationships last.
• 2:08
  And being offended by the opinions that I have does not
• 2:10
  entitle you to erase people's voices.
• 2:12
  This is so elitist to me. Truly.
• 2:15
  Behold the temper tantrums of the rich.
• 2:17
  And this is how smaller voices are taught to shut up.
• 2:20
  I also want to clarify before I keep going, we cut the clip of
• 2:24
  Julie's TikTok out of our recent episode a couple days ago where
• 2:27
  I did cover this, not because we received a cease and desist as
• 2:31
  well, but because if this legal situation escalates, I don't
• 2:35
  want our channel, our podcasts, our brand to be impacted because
• 2:39
  we have that clip publicly available still from that
• 2:42
  original video. So it was a cautionary decision
• 2:44
  that we made to protect ourselves possibly in the
• 2:47
  future, not because we got a legal letter ourselves.
• 2:50
  OK? So I wanted to discuss this
• 2:51
  because there are three main schools of thought here that
• 2:54
  have kind of spun out from the cease and desist situation.
• 2:58
  Now, first, that this has become the Streisand effect for Haley
• 3:03
  and Justin. So the Streisand effect, this is
• 3:05
  directly from britannica.com quote, is a phenomenon in which
• 3:09
  an attempt to censor, hide, or otherwise draw attention away
• 3:12
  from something only serves to attract more attention to it.
• 3:16
  The name derives from American singer and actress Barbra
• 3:19
  Streisand. Her lawsuit against a
• 3:21
  photographer in 2003, which drew attention to the photo she was
• 3:24
  suing to have taken off the Internet.
• 3:26
  So yes, basically when a celebrity tries to hide
• 3:28
  something and that attempt to hide something draws more
• 3:31
  attention to it and makes that situation worse for them.
• 3:34
  So a lot of people are saying that this cease and desist now,
• 3:38
  Julie having brought it to the Internet like this has created
• 3:41
  the Streisand effect now for this video that Haley obviously
• 3:45
  doesn't want us to be paying attention to. 2nd to Julie's
• 3:49
  point, there are a lot of Internet users and commentary
• 3:51
  creators saying that this is a misuse of celebrity power, that
• 3:55
  opinion is protected and it shouldn't become the norm that
• 3:57
  celebrities can send legal letters to people creating
• 4:00
  content online given the imbalance of power in the
• 4:04
  celebrity fan relationship. With this, I will say, sure,
• 4:07
  opinion might be protected. What Julie said in that video
• 4:11
  might not be illegal, but I do think there is a case for, yeah,
• 4:14
  it might not be illegal what you've done or what you've said,
• 4:17
  but like, is it also the ethically right thing to do?
• 4:20
  Like, I do think sometimes the speculation around celebrities
• 4:24
  can get so intense. And Hailey Bieber is definitely
• 4:27
  a case in point. Like, the things that people
• 4:29
  speculate about her and her relationship are really extreme,
• 4:33
  you know? OK.
• 4:33
  And then third, there are some really good points floating
• 4:36
  around about how our commentary on celebrity relationships is
• 4:40
  damaging, obviously not just to the celebrities, which, you
• 4:43
  know, we could all understand and agree with probably, but
• 4:46
  also to us. So take this specific example.
• 4:50
  While we may have reason to believe that Justin doesn't
• 4:53
  treat Haley well from like what we've seen online, we actually
• 4:56
  don't know anything about their relationship.
• 4:58
  And the speculation that Haley is trapped in this, like
• 5:01
  loveless, toxic marriage enforces the fallacy around
• 5:05
  domestic abuse and toxic relationships that you can quote
• 5:08
  UN quote, always tell. So this specific point was
• 5:11
  brought up by creator Sara Siegel.
• 5:13
  And she argues, we know that that's not true.
• 5:16
  We know that you often cannot tell if somebody that you're
• 5:19
  close with is in an abusive relationship.
• 5:22
  Sometimes you can, but sometimes you can't.
• 5:24
  And creating commentary content, using a real celebrity couple as
• 5:28
  an example of an abusive relationship based purely on
• 5:31
  what we've seen publicly can enforce this narrative that if a
• 5:35
  woman is being abused, there will be sides.
• 5:38
  We will know it, which obviously can put more women in danger
• 5:41
  because we know that's not true, even if we don't mean to be.
• 5:45
  I suppose forwarding that narrative through this content
• 5:48
  and of course, there's always an element of righteous indignation
• 5:51
  here, right, where Internet users get to feel superior to a
• 5:54
  celebrity in some way under the guise of quote UN quote concern
• 5:57
  for that celebrity. When really I do think it often
• 6:01
  comes down to it just making us feel better that somebody as
• 6:05
  aspirational as Haley Bieber actually doesn't quote UN quote
• 6:08
  have it all. So those are the three main
• 6:09
  schools of thought that are coming out of this.
• 6:12
  I see a case for all of these points, honestly.
• 6:15
  And I've also seen people question if Haley regrets
• 6:18
  sending the cease and desist now, especially because Julie
• 6:21
  didn't back down. And it's really amplified this
• 6:24
  whole situation. It's not been great PR for
• 6:26
  Haley. I think it's possible that after
• 6:28
  like a decade of being bullied online by Selena fans, by just
• 6:32
  and fans and now just people in general, I feel like it's
• 6:36
  possible that Haley may not actually care what this makes
• 6:39
  her look like. I think it is possible that she
• 6:41
  may be going the litigious route just to set a precedent and send
• 6:45
  a message to those that she believes have been bullying her
• 6:48
  or defaming her. And again, I do think in some
• 6:51
  cases it is acceptable for us to look at the behavior that we see
• 6:55
  exemplified in public figures and say, OK, this is an example
• 6:58
  of behavior that's actually not OK to tolerate in your
• 7:01
  relationship. You know, there are many
• 7:02
  instances that we at least have seen publicly from the context
• 7:06
  that we have, right? These could be taken out of
• 7:08
  context, but the context that we have of moments when it appears
• 7:11
  like Justin is maybe not treating Haley the best, OK,
• 7:15
  sure. We can use that as examples to
• 7:18
  teach other women, especially young women.
• 7:20
  This is an example of a partner not treating you well.
• 7:23
  But I do think that there is a very Gray area here when we go
• 7:27
  into speculating about if a relationship is allegedly
• 7:30
  abusive, toxic, you know, what's actually going on behind the
• 7:34
  scenes inside of someone's marriage because we don't
• 7:36
  actually know. OK, The next story that I have
• 7:38
  for you guys, this is niche, but you guys know I have been
• 7:41
  keeping track of this, OK? Kiara Ferragni, she has been
• 7:45
  acquitted of charity fraud in the Pandora Gate case.
• 7:50
  So you guys know, I have been parasocial with Kiara Ferragni
• 7:53
  for like 15 years. And I know a lot of people do
• 7:56
  not like her. When I first covered this
• 7:58
  situation and I was like, I'm so parasocial with her.
• 8:00
  Like I followed her for so long. She was literally my first
• 8:02
  Instagram follow, like first Blogger follow.
• 8:05
  So many of you guys were like, what the hell?
• 8:08
  Like she is very polarizing, I suppose.
• 8:11
  I don't know, a lot of people really don't like her.
• 8:13
  I think they really don't like her in Italy specifically.
• 8:16
  But I'm going to give you guys the update anyways because this
• 8:18
  actually was one of our most popular mini scroll episodes
• 8:21
  last year and our most popular TikTok clips that we posted last
• 8:25
  year. So even though a lot of you guys
• 8:27
  don't like her, it still popped off for us.
• 8:30
  And I've been following this situation.
• 8:32
  So Kiara, she was on trial in Milan for aggravated fraud over
• 8:36
  accusations that she misled consumers by promoting holiday
• 8:40
  products in a sponsorship campaign, specifically a limited
• 8:44
  edition Christmas Pandora cake and branded Easter eggs.
• 8:47
  Basically, the implication here that the prosecutors claimed was
• 8:51
  that consumers were led to believe that purchasing these
• 8:54
  items in this collaboration would directly benefit a
• 8:58
  children's charity, a Children's Hospital, as in a portion of the
• 9:02
  sales would go to this hospital. So it came to light that that
• 9:05
  was not the case when an investigative journalist
• 9:09
  revealed that the hospital had actually received a single
• 9:12
  €50,000 donation from the cake maker Balaco before the
• 9:18
  campaign. So the sales actually did not
• 9:21
  directly increase charitable funding as consumers were led to
• 9:24
  believe. Chiara's fee for this
• 9:26
  collaboration was €1,000,000. And amid the backlash, she
• 9:30
  committed to donating all of that to the hospital.
• 9:33
  And she also ended up paying millions of euros in fines
• 9:36
  related to this whole situation. And then she still ended up
• 9:39
  going to trial. So this is from the BBC, quote.
• 9:42
  Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of one year and eight
• 9:45
  months in prison for for Agne, but the judge rejected their
• 9:48
  accusation that the fraud should be seen as aggravated.
• 9:51
  The Milan court found that no aggravation had been involved as
• 9:54
  a consumer group had withdrawn its original complaint.
• 9:56
  Fragne had agreed with a consumer organization that she
• 9:59
  would compensate consumers and donate money to a charity for
• 10:02
  women who had suffered gender violence.
• 10:05
  And then Kiara. When she was leaving the
• 10:07
  courthouse, she did speak to reporters.
• 10:09
  She said that this has been like 2 years of how and that justice
• 10:12
  has been served. I do think we will start to see
• 10:14
  more and more of these types of cases.
• 10:16
  This was really extreme, but I know there's tons of
• 10:19
  influencers, especially in the UK that have recently faced
• 10:22
  fines for, you know, promoting their own brands and not
• 10:25
  disclosing that as paid partnerships even though they
• 10:28
  own the brand and things like that.
• 10:29
  Like I think the industry at large, it's like the Wild West.
• 10:33
  And I do believe as we figure out how to properly regulate it,
• 10:37
  I think both not on a national level and a global level, we
• 10:41
  will continue to see more of these instances that are trying
• 10:45
  to like set the tone or set the precedent or make an example of
• 10:49
  until we kind of have, I suppose, more regulation across
• 10:53
  the board. I also think the brands need to
• 10:54
  be held responsible a little bit here too because I read
• 10:58
  somewhere, I think it was CNN said that the company that makes
• 11:01
  the cakes, Bolaco, didn't face any of us, which is T OK.
• 11:05
  The last story that I have for you guys today, this is a bit
• 11:07
  random, but I thought it's relevant, especially, you know,
• 11:10
  as the founder of a media company, Pop Crave, has turned
• 11:13
  10 today. The wildly popular news Twitter
• 11:16
  account Pop Crave turns 10 today.
• 11:19
  And this milestone is indicative of how impactful the account has
• 11:23
  been on shaping like quote, UN quote new media in the digital
• 11:27
  age. For better or worse.
• 11:29
  Pop Crave started as an anonymous stand Twitter account
• 11:32
  for pop music and has evolved into one of the most impactful
• 11:35
  new media brands of the decade, particularly when it started
• 11:38
  entering politics. They claim that they've been
• 11:41
  covering politics since the beginning, but I would say they
• 11:45
  really started covering politics around like 2022.
• 11:48
  So as we know, news journalism has been increasingly difficult
• 11:52
  to find. And I think Pop Crave and its
• 11:54
  success is one of those early examples of how new media brands
• 11:59
  can build their reputation. When you don't have a lot of
• 12:02
  money, like you basically have $0.00, but you can still become
• 12:06
  culturally influential through what Vox journalist Christian
• 12:10
  Paz calls, quote, incidental exposure.
• 12:13
  So incidental exposure refers to coming across news and
• 12:16
  information without intentionally looking for it.
• 12:20
  Algorithms complement this process by actively pushing
• 12:23
  content out that they think will resonate to individual users.
• 12:26
  And Pop Crave has really benefited from this phenomenon
• 12:29
  while also trailblazing an emerging area of news media,
• 12:32
  which is news gathering where outlets report on other people's
• 12:36
  work and other people's stories rather than finding the stories
• 12:40
  themselves. Again, because there is so
• 12:42
  little funding in this space anymore, news gathering and
• 12:45
  incidental exposure, they're very controversial topics in the
• 12:49
  world of media. It's a constant conversation
• 12:51
  between my peers and I like, can you really call a company that
• 12:55
  aggregates other people's work a media brand?
• 12:59
  And I totally recognize that Centennial often falls into that
• 13:01
  category as well. But aside from the funding
• 13:04
  issues, which has led to more of these kind of new media brands
• 13:08
  having to be news aggregators and relying on incidental
• 13:11
  exposure, another reason why we've seen the success of
• 13:15
  companies like Popcrave is the result of this broken media
• 13:19
  ecosystem that we have that has become worse with the rise of
• 13:22
  social media and the pursuit of going viral.
• 13:25
  So this is from Vox quote. These outlets have so far
• 13:29
  remained in the genre of aggregation and niche news
• 13:32
  gathering, but expansion into conventional news reporting is
• 13:35
  possible. For the moment, they are filling
• 13:37
  a gap on Twitter as older digital outlets like Paper
• 13:40
  Magazine and BuzzFeed News have folded, Traditional
• 13:43
  entertainment sites hold less sway, and Elon Musk's X Premium
• 13:47
  promotes verified accounts like the Pops.
• 13:50
  Goldfein, writing for Study Hall, calls this the natural
• 13:53
  consequence of a broken digital media ecosystem.
• 13:56
  Pop Crave isn't the problem quote.
• 13:58
  It's the usual suspects, tech and media executives who built
• 14:01
  the system where riches could be gleaned from making stories go
• 14:04
  viral on social media. Now this system is falling
• 14:07
  apart. Journalists will suffer.
• 14:09
  But there was something broken all along.
• 14:11
  I tend to agree, but as Pop Crave and its counterparts enter
• 14:14
  more of the hard new space and try to inform followers about
• 14:17
  politics and elections, the standards should probably be
• 14:21
  higher. I think there's also something
• 14:23
  to be said for accounts like Pop Crave.
• 14:25
  That post, You know, half baked out of context tweets, right?
• 14:30
  Like they'll post a random sentence or two, they'll post a
• 14:33
  random photo and it's for us as the users to discuss and create
• 14:38
  the meaning behind it, which can often lead to misinformation and
• 14:42
  speculation. That is all really fueled by
• 14:45
  prioritizing speed and spectacle and these like bite sized news
• 14:50
  tidbits. And it also means these accounts
• 14:52
  don't often have to be held accountable for spreading this
• 14:57
  because they can't really say, oh, we're a tabloid.
• 14:59
  They can't really say that they, you know, defamed anyone.
• 15:02
  They can't really say that they spread intentional
• 15:04
  misinformation or disinformation.
• 15:06
  It really was all up to the end user and what they discussed
• 15:09
  from the updates that these accounts are putting out.
• 15:11
  So all of that to say, happy 10th birthday to Pop Crave.
• 15:16
  You have really been a trailblazer for better or worse.
• 15:18
  Like I said, I think this topic is really interesting.
• 15:21
  Actually, if you guys want a deep dive on this, we could
• 15:23
  definitely look into doing a deep dive on kind of the shift
• 15:26
  in new media, the pop cravification of news, all of
• 15:29
  that. I thought it was interesting.
• 15:31
  Speaking of half Baked stuff that you're putting out on the
• 15:34
  Internet, I feel like my thoughts are a little bit half
• 15:36
  baked in this, but yes, please let me know if you guys want a
• 15:39
  bigger deep dive into this. But I will say, given Pop Crave
• 15:43
  lives on Twitter and they're not doing original reporting and you
• 15:47
  know, they're not really reporting on anything that other
• 15:49
  people aren't, I think it is really fascinating that they've
• 15:52
  become such a powerhouse. They're so well known.
• 15:55
  They are so part of the zeitgeist when it comes to pop
• 15:57
  culture, for better or worse. Happy 10th birthday to Popcrave.
• 16:00
  All right, guys, that's it for mini scroll today.
• 16:02
  Thank you so much for listening. I love you guys.
• 16:05
  Please remember to rate, review and subscribe, please Spotify
• 16:08
  star rate US and I will talk to you guys tomorrow for a Friday
• 16:11
  mini scroll. Bye.