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Who is Candace Owens? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: What this stuff? Never told? Your production of iHeartRadio. And
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: we are so, so, so so happy to be joined
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: once again by the excellent, the exemplary Bridgete Todd. Welcome back, bridget.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. Every time I come back
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: to hang out with you. All the intros that you
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: give are my favorite thing. They just leave me feeling
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: so pumped up.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, I was worried I would stumble over exemplary, but
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: I think I think you did.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: You have that prepped ready to go, like what are
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the what are the descriptors that I will admit sometimes
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I do it off the cuff and sometimes I'm like,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: you know what, today I want to really pull something
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: out that I haven't used before. Also, you know, you
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: have to be thoughtful because it has to be true.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: We don't li on this podcast, not least nothing.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Not purposely. Not purposely. No, bridget how have you been.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Well as someone who lives in the District of Columbia,
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: that's always a loaded question. Yeah, it has been weird.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: The vibes in DC are no one's having a good time,
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: but you know, we're hanging in there. I think it's
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: been interesting. The ways that people are coping and like
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: leading into community, leading into like what's happening in there
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: in there on their block, things like that. I think
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: people are really kind of focused on like what's happening
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: at the local level to sort of distract from all
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: of the dread happening at the national level here in DC.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: So it's been a lot. How are you all coping
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: feeling hanging in there?
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of stress and anxiety, for sure. I
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: will say today I have had a fun distraction at
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: my friend's expense because her snake got out of it's
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: aquarium and she can't find snake, and so I've been
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: getting a lot of updates today about the search for
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: the snake, and that's given me a lot of fun distraction.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: I do feel bad if you're listening, Katie, I'm really sorry.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Did you say you can't find snake? She can't find
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: the snake And she said this has happened before. Last time.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: It took her five days to find the snake. So
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: the snake is out there, the snake is in the house,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: and she's telling me like they can open cabinets and
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: they can do all these things, and I was like,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, wait what that's what she told me.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: She's giving me a lot of fingers. I believe that
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: she would know, but I guess so. I've learned a
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: lot about snakes from her over the years. She also
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: had to like take the snick to a vet once
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: because it was overweight. So basically she had a diagram
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: she showed me and this was like she she was like,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: this is how you can tell the snake is overwell,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: so basically finding my distractions where I can, but very stressed.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: She has got to find that snake.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: It's probably I mean, like, if they can open cabinets,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: what can't they do it? Probably doing her taxes and
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: she's gonna get audited.
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: Can you find the snake?
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: I know, what could the snake be up to?
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that's a cartoon. I need to set.
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I have an amazing idea. I'm so in this little glasses
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: and a little type okay.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: Little a visors And I don't know why. It's she
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: being an old timey, but it.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Is a a for a long time.
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: How long do they live?
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: I'm like so invested in the snake and in the
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: snake story me too.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: This has been like my whole morning. They live alone.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: That she's had him for at least at least fifteen
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: years I think. And she's big. Her name is Penny.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and she's a really big snake. But I've
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: been told they can can they could really compress themselves
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: into small shapes.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's what I'm like. It's with outside of
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: the house. I wouldn't be surprised.
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: Are you all snake snake people?
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: Would you entertain having a snake in your home voluntarily?
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Hell?
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: No, I had one as a kid.
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: I do not know this about you.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it did escape. Actually, now that I.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Think about it, did you ever find it?
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: No? I never. I never found it again.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it might be one of those things where your
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: parents were like.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Oh I actually I suspect did that before. Actually, and
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: then my brother had a snake, but I had a
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: pet turtle. But my pet turtle ate his snake turtle.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Turtles don't mess around. I'm telling you.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: I had a pet fish that we kept in the
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: same I guess like terrarium as a turtle and the turtle.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: One day we came and the fish fin had been.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: There was a nip out of it and then one
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: day we came and that the fish was just gone.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: We probably should have removed it.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: This is a terrible stormoved it after that first nip,
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: But I was like, what's going on with this fish?
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: It did not occur to me that the turtle had
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: a been.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Snacking turtles the villain here, Yeah, turtle, they don't mess around.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: Watch expected.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Franklin told us lies. But yeah, so I will say,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: allergies have gotten me. I've been lamenting this for the
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: past week. So if I cough, I'm so sorry. I'm
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: trying not to do it on Mike. I'm trying also
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: not to sniffle on Mike. My voice is it's gotten better,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: but it's still a little lower than the typical sound
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: from myself. But also we did get a victory here
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: in Georgia in which we tabled House Bill four forty one,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: which is the Georgia Prenatal Equal Protections Act, and it
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: would have outright it was an outright abortion man with
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: no exceptions whatsoever. But the fact that that got that
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: wasn't even voted for because there were so many people
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: who were against it. Small victories, So we were celebrating
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: that here. A lot of activists went and protested at
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: the state capitol. So you know, I feel like that
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: glimmer of hope is pushing us through.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and like, honestly, take your w's where you can.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: It goes back to what I was saying earlier, like
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: you have a little more control over what happens locally,
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: So like that's where you got to focus your inturgy.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: I feel like right now, if you're looking or something
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: to do, that feels like you could have an actual impact.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Right And the fact that that actually seemingly worked gives
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: us a little more inspiration as we keep finding because
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: you know, Georgia has a lot of work to do
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: that soils the country.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Amen. Yeah, well it's quite a doozy of a topic today, Bridge,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: but I'm really interested to learn more about it. So
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: tell us what are we talking about today?
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: Okay, we're talking about the one, the only Candace Owens
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: speaking of villains? Am I kidding?
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: We'll see, So, like I should say up top, like
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: I am weirdly fascinated with her.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: What do you all have thoughts?
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: If she's somebody who is on your radar, what is
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: your experience what are your experiences with Candace Owens?
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: Or do you have any.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Minor negative minor most negative? But I most of most
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: stuff I know is more recent. Uh, And I didn't
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: know a lot of what I know we're going to
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: talk about in here. But I will say generally, she's
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: someone I'm very aware of and that have a lot
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: of negative associations with.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I will say, yes, I do know of her.
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: Of course.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I immediately put me on
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: high alert is that she is one person that my
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: racist Trump supporting backwards brother has used as a token
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: in saying, see, we love black people.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: Oh that is like that that has probably been the
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: experience of so many folks listening. And I guess what
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: I want to talk about today might actually answer why.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: That is because she is someone that people in my
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: life have like cited or mentioned or like, oh I
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: saw I saw Candace Owens talking about this, and I'm like, what,
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: like why are you watching Candace owe Are you listening
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: to her podcast? So like I am like weirdly fascinated
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: by her. She is somebody who has a legitimately fascinating
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: story and like where like from where she started to
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: where she wound up? I just find deeply interesting. I
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: don't want to focus too much on her like personal background,
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: but there are some pieces of her early story that
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: I do think are important context for like understanding who
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: she is and sort of the role she has gone on.
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: To occupy in the world.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: So Owens grew up in Stanford, Connecticut, and while she
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: was a high school student there, she was like racially
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: harassed in a pretty gnarly way. A classmate left her
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: a racist death threat on her voicemail that ended up
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: turning into like a pretty serious local scandal because it
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: turned out the person her classmate that left that voicemail
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: did so in a group of students that included the
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: son of the then mayor and future Democratic governor of Connecticut,
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: Daniel Malloy. So it got it was really really blown
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: up into like a little bit of a scandal. Kendicce
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: got lots of support from the local chapter of racial
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: justice organizations like the NAACP, and our family ended up
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: suing the Stanford Board of Education in federal court for
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: failing to protect her rights, which resulted in a thirty
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: seven thousand, five hundred dollars settlement. After that, she goes
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: on to study journalism at University of Rhode Island before
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: dropping out. So this is really the part of her
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: story where I have to be honest, I see some
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: parallels between me and her. You know, we're both black
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: women who were sort of early adopters of the Internet
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: to talk about things like race and culture and politics
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: like me. For her, that seems to have manifested in
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: a lot of like low hanging fruit posts about you know, politics,
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: like dumb jokes, like you know, the early days of
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: blogging about politics online, it really was dumb jokes, was like,
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: and like stupid memes were the lifeblood of that. And
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: so in twenty fifteen, she was writing blogs making fun
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: of Trump's penis size to give you a sense of
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: the kind of thing that she was writing about, which
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: honestly is something I would I wasn't doing that, but
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: I could see myself doing it great.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I would definitely chuckle yeah if I saw it.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: So some people might be surprised to know that Candice
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: actually started her career as a public intellectual or republic
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: opinion have or commentator or whatever you want to call it,
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: as a leftist, like a progressive. In twenty fifteen, she
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: was writing this blog called Degree one eighty, where she
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: wrote pieces criticizing conservative Republicans, writing about quote the back
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: crazy antics of the Republican tea Party. Something that she
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: wrote in her blog was, quote the good news is
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: they will eventually die off peacefully in their sleep, we hope,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: and then we can get right on with the obvious
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: social change that needs to happen immediately. So you really
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: get a sense of her as someone who was just
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: like young Obama era progressive, using the early Internet, blogging
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: and things like that to really put her voice, in
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: her perspective into the world again, something that I, frankly
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: I can really see myself in.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Is it surprising it is? I guess it is her origins.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Just I just knew as you came out swinging on
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the opposite end.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, what's interesting about that, and I can definitely
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: speak from my own experience here, is that I connected
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: with a lot of her early writing when she was
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: still sort of like writing about the tea Party and
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: blah blah blah, but certainly nobody knew who like she
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: wasn't like a known voice or a no name, right,
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: And I do think it speaks to the fact that
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: like when she switched up her ideology and her perspective
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: and what she was talking about. She got so much
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: more attention. Like I like, as a black woman leftist
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: who talks about, you know, lefty stuff on the internet,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: we are a dime a dozen. Nobody is really paying
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: that much attention. But when you do the switch up,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: you really become a much bigger name and you get
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: a lot more attention and a lot more engagement. And
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: I think it's a lot more lucrative to be a
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: black woman right winger than it is to be a
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: black woman leftist.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: I was actually reading about this recently. Is the shadow
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: of gamer Gate when it comes to the Internet and
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: how it looks today and how it's still like the impacts,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: just the fallout of it is still here. And that
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: was a part of candice owned story.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so I am like you, Annie, gamer Gate
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: and everything surrounding it is my Roman empire. It is
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: the thing that keeps me up. And I did a
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: whole series with cool Zone Media about how gamer Gate
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: and just general harassment against women and women of color
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: and minoritize people. You could draw a direct line from
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: that to like our political and social climate today, Like
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: this is the stuff that I am like making a
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: stringboard a bad and being like and then this happened,
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: and then that happened, and then ten years later this
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: happened like this is my white whale, and Candace Owens
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: was really like, this was a gamer Gate was really
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: sort of like well mean. She describes it as like
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: a radicalizing moment for her. So in twenty sixteen, when
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: Gamergate was in full swing, Owens launched a Kickstarter for
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: a project she called Social Autopsy, which she described as
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: a way to catalog the abuses of trolls and cyberbullies online.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: The kickstarter for this project is still up today. Here's
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: a little taste of Owen's describing it in her own words.
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: It takes a nanosecond, a mere push of a button,
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: to share our ideas, opinions, and emotions across the world instantly.
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: But for every cat meme, your best friend tweets at
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: you were, for ever I miss you, comment, your grandma
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: leaves on your Facebook wall, there are literally thousands of
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: instances of hate speech being circulated online. Because when communication
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: happens through a screen, and when moments are experienced through relents,
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: a terrifying extraction takes place. The age of technology and
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: social media has slowly disintegrated individual accountability, the consequences of
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: which are devastating.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: So that should give you a little bit of an
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: idea of what I mean. It's interesting because it really
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: feels like a time capsule from a different time. You know,
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Like hearing Candice Owens talk about how bad things like
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: hate speech are and how it's dividing us is like
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: just very interesting.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, throw off, Like like wait, what same parcels? Okay?
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: No, So the plan for Social Autopsy was basically it
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: was a project meant to like de anonymize online commentation
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: and then connect them with their real life names and
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: then real life employers. And it's funny because this is
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: still an argument that people make when they want to
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: restrict the Internet today, that like, all the problems that
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: happen on the Internet, from harassment to child exploitation material,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: all of that could all be solved if you needed,
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: like your government ID to access the Internet. And so
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: it's funny how these ideas there are people pushing that
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: concept today and even I mean, like some people who
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: are well meaning but in my opinion incorrect, are still
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: pushing that idea. And so it's funny how some of
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: these ideas never really die, they're just recycled, Like Cannece
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: Owens was talking about this in twenty sixteen, and here
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: we are in twenty twenty five, still talking about it.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes we are, but oh my goodness, speaking of things,
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: we're still talking about. Another thing we've talked about a
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: lot on this show. Another thing I've been thinking about
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: a lot lately is the radicalization that can happen online.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: And Candace Owens kind of talks about this. This is
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: sort of her experience with Gate.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: So when she exactly that, So when she came out
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: with Social Autopsy, pretty much everybody hated it right like
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: it was like a universal digital.
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: Boo or like thumbs down.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: And one of the people who was like really not
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: into this idea was Zoe Quinn, whose name you might
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: know if you know about Gamergate, because she was someone
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: who was pretty viciously attacked in Gamergate. So after all
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: of the backlash from this project that Candace tried to
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: put out into the world via Kickstarter, she herself was
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: doxed and harassed, and Candace actually blamed Zoe Quinn and
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: other feminists for this harassment and started saying so publicly.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: You can probably guess who loved this and like seized
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: on it. That's right, people like Miloianapolis, people who were
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: promoters of gamergate and like doing the harassment of Gamergate
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: really hyped up Owens's claim that yeah, it's the feminists
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: who are the ones who were doing the actual online harassment,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: not you know, these gamer bros and like right wingers.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: It's actually feminists who are the bad guys here. And
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: this event Owen's credits with her turn from progressive to
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: being what she calls a red pilled radical. She says, quote,
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: I became a conservative overnight. I realized that liberals were
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: actually the racists. Liberals were actually the trolls, and so Annie,
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: you're exactly right that Like she describes this as like
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: an overnight turning point of her going from being a
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: progressive who was collaborating with the NAACP and writing about
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: how awful Republicans and Trump and the Tea Party Republicans were,
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: to like overnight waking up and being like, no, it
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: is liberals who are the real enemy.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: I have so many thoughts because I don't I was
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: not a part of the gamorgate world, like I did
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: not understand what was happening out there in the internets
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: because I was case managing and like groveling in my
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: own like everything's worse, but like her being dogs and
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: all this, because I'm sure just as many like people
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: who were feminists and who were victims of gamer gait
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: and such, there were more probably jerks out there who
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: were like, no, we were definitely against this idea and
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: harassing her because they don't want their name out there,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: which is what she was trying to do, right, So
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: but she just picked a group like no, it's definitely
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: after she got so much support totally.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: So my understanding is that like and if folks listening
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: are like I was there, remember, as far as I know,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: this was like feminists having good faith disagreement with Candace's project,
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: and then Candace probably pumped up by some of these
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: like right wing bro gamer guys who were behind a
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: lot of this harassment and like we have all the
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: receipts for that, probably pumped up by some of them
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: just like just like assumed that these feminists were the
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: ones behind it. So like, as far as I know,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: she this was not a documented thing, but you know,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: certainly like like I was, I was like.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: Pretty in the mix on the internet in these days.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Certainly this feud between Candace Owens and feminists like Zoquinn
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: about Gamergate was something that like got her name into
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: the conversation in a way that I don't think it
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: had been before and.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: For a lot of attention seekers. Not that she is
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know this person. I don't know candas Owns
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: in real life. But if this is what we're seeing,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: negative Titchen is just as good as good.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: So it's so interesting that you say this because she's
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: not someone that I would take at her word. I
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: guess I'll put it that way, Like I don't know
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: how reliable of a narrator she is. However, when she
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: says like, oh, overnight, I realized that feminists were the
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: real enemy, and the people that I should be allying
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: myself were people like Maloganapolis, I don't think that she's
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: outright lying, but I think that what she's saying is
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: probably a lot closer to what you've just said, Sam,
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: that like what she realized was like when I was
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: just a feminist online, I didn't get a lot of attention,
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: but when I started publicly beefing with these other feminists.
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: I was getting a lot of attention.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: These these right wing extremist types like Miloganopolis, who had
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: huge platforms, started paying me more attention and giving me
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: more support, giving me more engagement, and like, I think,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: I think there's something to this idea that Like, I
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: wouldn't necessarily say that she.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: Changed her ideological ideas.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: I think that what she realized was like, oh, if
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: I align myself with people on the right, that comes
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: with attention.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: Again, this is just my opinion. I don't know her,
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: but that's my sense.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: I like, I don't think that she's outright misrepresenting this shift,
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: but I think it's not necessarily about an ideology so
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: much as it is like, oh, like public spats and
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: rage bait and like spectacle gets me engagement and attention,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: and that can translate to dollars out right, I can
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: play this game. That's that's my sense of what's going
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: on here.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like she was finding a brand,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: and we like, she is a brand, whether or not
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: we want to admit that's the case, but she is
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: a brand, and she's starting to hone in on this brand,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: and she's going to go for what gives her the
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: most uh success.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and this was successful.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: Like once she starts doing this, you know, and she
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: starts promoting right wing viewpoints on YouTube. She had a
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: YouTube channel called red Pill Black, which, like I gotta say,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: is actually like a pretty good name. Credit where credit
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: is due. It's like, I get I like that branding.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: She catches the attention of Charlie Kirk, who founded Turning
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: Points USA, just like big right wing media entity, and
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: he hires her. So at this point, Candice goes from
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: like a little no blogger blogging about lefty politics that
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: nobody's ever heard of, to like making huge viral videos
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: that are getting so much attention, where she's doing things
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: like dismissing the twenty seventeen White Supremacists Unite the Right
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: rally in Charlottesville that left Heather Higher dead. Alex Jones
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: invites her to co host some of his Info Wars shows,
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: and again like, keep in mind these I know they
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: seem like fringe media entities, and in some ways they are,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: but they get so many viewers, Like Alex Jones at
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: his height was getting tons and tons and tons of eyeballs.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: She starts doing stints on Fox News, So like that's
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: a little more mainstream than Info Wars, right, And in
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, she joined The Daily Wire with a
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: ton of fanfare, like this was a huge deal. She
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: ends up moving to Nashville, and when she does that,
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: the state even introduces House Joint Resolution three fifty, a
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: resolution in the Tennessee government to congratulate Candice Owens, a
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: relocated to Tennessee for work at the Daily Wire. That
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: reads quote whereas miss Owens has earned the admiration and
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: respect of millions of Americans through her activism and support
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: of President Trump as a black woman, and her perceptive
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: criticism of creeping socialism and leftist political tyranny.
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: Imagine moving to Nashville, and.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: It's such a big deal that, like the government of
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: Nashville makes it an official like proclamation in Tennessee government.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: And if she steps outside of downtown Nashville, she's gonna
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: get threatened for sure. Oh I feel threatened outside. I
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: felt threatened in a lot of places. But like, yeah, so,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: and as a person who was the only Asian person
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: in a crowd, the tokenism is so loud.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that proclamation like, oh, like we're proclaiming
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: that she's great because she's a black woman who likes Trump.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: Like I mean, ad to things like this is one
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: of the reasons.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: Why I think a lot about Candace Owens is like
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: a kind of seductive quality that can come with being
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: a person of color who is being uplifted as like
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: some special thing, right, some special one.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: And it's it's.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: Such a trap because I don't want to be anybody's token, right,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: I don't want to be anybody's like, oh, like, this
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: is a black woman who's doing X y Z, But
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: I understand the seductive lure of that, and so, like,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I guess I almost sort of see
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Candace Owens as like a fun house mirror version of myself,
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Like if like I, like if I were someone who
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: was really moved or swayed by being uplifted because of
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: these things that make me tokenizable, I can sort of
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: see liking this, And so I sort of see a
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: lot of like of my shadow self and Candice Owens.
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: I guess I should say, does that make sense?
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: I probably no, Yes, No, I think I understand because
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: like my younger self, my younger self seeking desperately to
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: be white seeming to be accepted by white people. So
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: when I in high school not understanding the depth and
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: depravity of white supremacy and how dark it is, like
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: sitting there arguing, no, not arguing, but agreeing with my
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: young racist brother about this, like, yes, affirmative action is
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: so awful. I want to earn it. I don't want
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: to be, you know, given special treatment because of my race.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: And that's not the case at all, that's not the
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: conversation at all, but because of what I've been fed.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: And the minute I said that, he's like, see, she
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: knows she's Asian, Like he literally said that out loud,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: and being so proud of me for understanding white supremacy,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: like in like in that way, but wanting to like
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: liking that moment. Now look with Shane, But at that moment,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I was like, yes, I'm one of you.
• 26:54
  Speaker 6: Yes, exactly as you.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: It's so seductive and if you like, I was the
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: exact same way when I was younger, Like, and it's
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: like nobody likes feeling excluded or like the other, or
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: like they don't belong. And so in those glimmers where
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: you do feel like someone is saying like see, it
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: feels good, and I think it's it's like doing the
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: work of training yourself to really see those moments for
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: what they are and not like being pulled into the
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: good feelings of like well this I'm getting feedback from
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: my brother that's making me feel accepted and that he
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: sees me and whatever whatever. But like, you know, you
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: really have to do the work to be like, well,
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: is this actually what I want to be seen for?
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Like you know, right, I don't want to agree with you.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Now I understand what I'm agreeing with. This is completely
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: wrong and against humanity.
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: What if.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Candice Owens is pulling the best grift of all time
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: and just taking all the Conservative money, Like if that
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: was the end story to this, I'm like, if anybody
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: deserves the Republican Conservative money as a black woman.
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: So I can't really I hear that, right, Like this
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: is smart? I mean it's not smart.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: It's like it feels like a betrayal, but for her
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: on her individual level coming in and being token to
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: being all these multi million dollar shows. Because you know,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: we know that Alex Jones made a lot of money
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: from his hatred. We know that we've seen it, he
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: talks about it. We know Charlie Kirk as well. Her
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: coming in and taking their money's kind of like, you know,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: I don't hate it for you, like I hate what
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: youter saying.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I used to think, and again, this is
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: my opinion. I don't know her like that or anything,
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: but like I used to think, like, certainly she's playing
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: these people.
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: She doesn't believe this. Now I don't know. Now I
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: think she's like a true believer.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: But like maybe I go back and forth and again
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: it's one of those things that one of those reasons
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: why I find her so deeply fascinating, right because like,
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: like as a black woman, I am tempted to like
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: project like, well, certainly this is some sort of a
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is a grift, don't get me wrong.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: And it's like, for sure a grift like she grifted.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: Can't confirm, but like I it really made it really
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: promised me to look back at myself to be like, well,
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: why am I like why like am I low key
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: rooting for her?
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: Like what is this?
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Like you're the like you're not my favorite, but you're
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: not the worst worst exactly get out where you are
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: in this in the spectrum. But you know, on top
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: of all of that, as we were talking about in Nashville,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: being like, if you go outside of the city, escape
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: and no people don't know you, You're not going to
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: get this love that you think you're getting from this
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: very uh again, white supremacist patriarch that you are representing
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: and are trying to play for, Like all these things,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: eventually they're gonna turn on you.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: Well, that actually happens in her story. So you know,
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: when she's working at Daily Wire, you're thinking, like, you know,
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: she's got this huge gig, probably making a ton of money,
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: should be smooth sailing, but there is a huge, messy
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: public fallout just a few years later.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: So she's working at Daily Wire.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Last year there was this public friction between Candace and
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: Ben Shapiro, one of the founders of Daily Wire, the
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: network that Candace had used to be on.
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: Now it's not one hundred percent.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: Clear exactly what caused attension between the two, but at
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: least publicly there it seemed to be some kind of
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: a reaction to the situation in Gaza. Ben Shapiro is Jewish,
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: and Owens has said a lot of anti Semitic stuff,
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: like even before October seventh, she was going hard doing
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: things like defending Kanye West, but things really seemed to
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: kick into high gear with her anti semitism on October seventh.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Now it is important to make a distinction here that
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: she's not like criticizing the actions of the Israeli state.
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: She is getting into stuff like blood libel.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: Conspiracy theories, which is this anti Semitic conspiracy theory that
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Jewish people drink blood for power, and like other deep
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: deep conspiracy theories. Right like, she said that Judaism was
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: a quote pedophile centric religion that believes in demons and
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: child sacrifice, and that people are waking up to the
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: fact that pedophiles are in power. So she is saying
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: some like truly out of pocket wild stuff, and then
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: things start taking kind of a bent toward her employer.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: She wrote on Twitter quote, no one can serve two masters.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: You cannot serve both God and money, to which Ben
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: Shapiro Comma. Her boss replies, Candace, if you feel that
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: taking money from the Daily Wire somehow comes between you
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: and God, by all means quit. Now I gotta say, like,
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: I don't find myself agreeing with Candace Owens or Ben
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Shapiro much but I kind of thought Ben Shapiro kind
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: of has a point here, Like this is her boss
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: and she's publicly getting into sabbats with him on Twitter.
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: Not a good look.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Could have maybe maybe done that a little bit more privately, Yeah.
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: Like sit an email.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: But like that's the thing about Canvas is like Canus
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: wouldn't be Candace if she didn't if she did if
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: she did this privately.
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: Cannus wouldn't be Candace if she avoided this.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: Like her career got a jumpstart from Spectacle on Twitter,
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: so like she that is something that is like her
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: bread and butter is like Spectacle on social media. So
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: it gets absolutely messy as hell and it's all public.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: Owens claimed that Ben Shapiro had quote been acting unprofessional
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: and emotionally unhinged for weeks now and said that Shapiro
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: crossed a certain line when you come for scripture and
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: read yourself into it, I will not tolerate it.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: She goes on Tucker.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: Carlson Show, saying that Ben Shapiro was attacking her using
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: ad hominem attacks. She then tweets that she wants her
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: and Ben Shapiro to sit down and have a discussion
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: moderated by this podcaster Patrick Bette Deavide.
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: Ben Shapiro was.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: Having none of this, and again, I can't say that
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: I blame him. Like challenging your boss to a debate,
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: a public debate on Twitter, it's just like not a
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: good look. So when she was like debate me, bro,
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: Ben Shapiro tweeted Candice, I can see why you'd want
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: to hide behind a moderator, particularly one who said we
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: should rename our company. Quote the Daily Jewish Wire just yesterday,
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: no one on one Monday at five pm, we can
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: sit down and have a healthy debate like adults and
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: will live stream it on x and YouTube. Take it
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: or leave it. So they're really going back and forth.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: And I gotta give a little side note here for
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: what it's worth. This is just like my personal opinion
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: as somebody who has been around the block and worked
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: in the media for a really long time.
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: The reason I.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Am not saying that the actual root of their disagreement
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: was Israel or Judaism like one hundred percent is because
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: I I just smell some kind of a contractual dispute here.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Something about the way that they are going back and
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: forth reads to me like Owens maybe had like an inflexible,
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: ironclad contract that maybe she felt like she could make
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: more money on her own and that she had to
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: get out of this contract or vice versa. Maybe Daily
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: Wire wanted her out. Something about the intensity of the
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: public escalation with her boss just suggests to me that
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: something else might have been going on. Again, this is
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: just my sense. I don't have any inside information. It
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: just seems like a lot to be doing. It just
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: seems like a lot to be doing. But again, this
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: is Candice Owens. We're talking about the very definition of
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: doing the most on social media.
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: But that's just my sense.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's one again once, like the fact
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: that they work so hard on like the conservative right
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: wing side that knowing that one person being Jewish and
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the other person being a black woman, I'm like, they're
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: not on your side, Like no, they just are just
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: like wanting you to find it out. This is what
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: they want so that they can obtain more power. But
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: you two, I mean, it's just it's just is it ironic,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know, or is it just Sam.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: I was like watching this like you know, like like
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: I was like let him fight, like I was my love.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: And every minute, was like favoring every tweet.
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: Reading it like you know how it used to be
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: on Twitter. You could like go to like show more
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: to see like you that I need to.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: Start from the beginning. I was eating it up and again, like.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Obviously Kennas has hit on something because like these this
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: public spectacle, these public spats, even with her employer, they
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: do generate engagement. Like she's she's she's not new to this,
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: she's true to this, Like she's been using.
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: This kind of thing to get negative attention.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: To boost herself for a very long time, and she's
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: very good at it. So the seems to be like
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: the red line here was when Rabbi Schmooley Botice criticized
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: Owen's for her defenses of Kanye West. Owens then like
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: to tweet, asking the rabbi if he was quote drunk
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: on Jewish blood again. A few days later, Daily Wire
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: and Candace Owens officially ended her their relationship with Owen's tweeting,
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: the rumors are true.
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: I am finally free.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Just there's so many things that I like, there's so
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: many things to this level of conversation that yes, it is.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: It's just like the Song of Francesca Ramsey did with
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: like that lepers or you know, like they didn't think that,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: you know, And I'm like yeah. But at the same time,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: with the way she ended, it does sound like it
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: was a whole play to get out.
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: I just I mean, like I don't know, but like.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: She had to, Like, there is no way that Candace
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: did not think that, like she was putting her job
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: at risk, right, So I just do not buy that.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: She was like, I'm gonna be I just these are
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: my convictions and I can just say what I want
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: and it's free speech and it'll be fine. There is
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: no way, like I just if anybody listening has the
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: real tea, I just can sense there's something else here
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: and it just it just it gives contract dispute to me.
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: That's all I'll say.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: So this is where the story gets interesting to me,
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: because she kind of fell off of my radar after this.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I guess she's out at Bailey Wire.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: Hadn't really heard much from her. I guess she's like
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: doing her thing. And it wasn't until I was trying
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: to make sense of the dispute between these two Hollywood
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: A listers. Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni that she popped
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: up on my radar again, So I gotta give a
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: big PSA. This is not meant to be a definitive
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: breakdown of what is happening with Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively,
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: which probably could be like its own episode. It is
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: not a situation that I have followed super closely, so
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: I am like not the right person.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: To dig in on all of that. I don't have
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: any kind of like take or anything.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: Like like like it's just it's not It's not a
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: situation that I am super read in on because it's
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: a little bit like complicated and I can't.
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: Quite follow it.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: But that dynamic where I'm like, oh, I don't really
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: know what's going on, but I'm sort of like casually
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: trying to find out. That is actually how Candice Owens
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: got back on my radar.
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: So do you do?
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: You all know what's happening between Blake Lively and Justin
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: Baldoni's is something that's like bet on y'all's radar.
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: It's been against my will.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Literally today I was like, thank god, I haven't
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: heard anything about Blake Lively and Justin Baldonia and then
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: you see the outline.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: So here we go, Like everything I've learned about it
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: has been against my will. I'm like why, it's like what,
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: like it's just like not something I don't know, it's
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: just like not.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: I mean in the end, like because you were trying
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: to compare it to the Johnny dipp amber Herd case,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: which I'm like, yo, back off. There's so many things
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: that the implication of that alone makes me think I
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: don't want to take this seriously because it's not to
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: that lifele We have this conversation because like we spoke
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: very quickly before it blew up to this, like the
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: very beginning of the conflict, mainly talking about how domestic
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: violence victims and survivors really were offended by the way
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: that the movie which is the center of this controversy
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: was portrayed, and then the how the ad marketing went
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: for it and like made it all girly, these good times,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: all these things that then we were like, this is
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: really kind of offensive, Like this language of this entire
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: language of sometimes it's very serious that people have taken
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: very personally and have like a lot of familiarity with
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: and trauma with and then it felt like flat, especially
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: like with how it is now, especially because it's no
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: longer about the movie, no.
• 39:49
  Speaker 6: But like it's it was.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: We took a small take on that and why romanticizing
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: domestic violence is such a such a problem in Hollywood
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: and just in our environment in general. But like this
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: was way before everything happened, and the back and forth
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: and back and forth. I will say, there's a lot
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: of disdain for Blake's lively on Ye.
• 40:15
  Speaker 6: Yes, again, I did not choose this.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: Okay, So it's so funny that you say this. I
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: have experienced the exact same thing. So so if folks
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: don't know what we're talking about, if you aren't, like Annie.
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: Blissfully unaware of like what is going on, it's it's
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: a situation. It's like a little bit complicated, and it's ongoing.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: But it's actually like a pretty interesting story, and it
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: does include a lot of things that I am interested in,
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: like how celebrities use social media, how easily social media
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: platforms can be like weaponized for or against a specific person.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: Email correspondence where people make themselves look terrible in writing
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: because they currently do not expect these emails to be
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: like in a deposition or in the New York Times.
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: That is my personal favorite thing.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: Nothing when whenever it's like, oh, we have the emails,
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm gonna read every single one of the like,
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: please continue to put your wrongdoings in emails and in
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: writing so that my notes can read them later in
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: a deposition.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: So I do think.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: That folks should like if that seems like the kind
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: of situation that you are interested in, Like it is.
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: It is a meaty situation, so like, definitely listen to
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: podcasts about it or whatever. But for our purposes, a
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: quick and dirty summary of what's going on is that
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: Blake Lively and Justin Buldoni we're in a movie adaptation
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: of the popular Colleen Hoover novel called It Starts with Us.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: In December, Lively filed a legal complaint against Boldonni, accusing
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: him of sexual harassment and starting a sneer campaign against her.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: Now he strongly denies that and has sued. In response,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: both camps are releasing information like text messages and emails
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: and like videos and voicemails to make each other look bad.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: So the case has turned I mean kind of similar
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: to the Johnny Depp Amber Heard thing. It's one of
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: those situations that has turned into like an ink block test.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: That change is depending on what version of the story
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: that you buy. In version one, Blake Lively was being
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: sexually harassed on set by this like fake feminist male ally.
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: Who was actually an abuser.
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: In version two, Blake Lively is like this egomaniac who
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: is using her star power and like a list celebrity
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: network like her husband Ryan Reynolds from those Deadpool movies,
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: to control the narrative around her being a nightmare on
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: set and steamrolling everybody.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: Else on this project.
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: So Sam like you kind of similar to the Johnny
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: Depp and Amber Herd thing in some ways, I think,
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: depending on what silos of the Internet you are in,
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: you might be be algorithmically being given the idea that
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: the public sentiment leans one way or another, like on TikTok.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: For whatever reason, my TikTok algorithm thinks I hate Blake
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: Lively and that I want to see like lots of
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: videos like pouring over every nuance in the ways in
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: which she.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: Is a fraud, which is not true.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: She's not someone who like I spend really any time
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: at all thinking about, but It's interesting that the algorithm
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: thinks like, oh, this is somebody who hates Blake Lively.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: Right, I agree?
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: For some reason, I am getting all of the tea
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: on all the awful things that Blake Lively is and
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: all the people who hate her and why they hate her,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, I have never once. I don't know
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: if I've ever seen a Blake Lively movie. I don't
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: think I have.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: If I of the Traveling Pants, no, okay, that's usually
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: the one people know like that or I will say,
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: say whatever you want to about Bla Lively the movie
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: A simple favor slaps.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: She's great in that.
• 43:32
  Speaker 6: Did you get the tea on how much they hate
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: each other?
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: On that?
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: What I did see? I did see an interview where
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: who is the hair coastar in.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: That Anna Kendrick right?
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: And Kendrick were they asking.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: Her about Blake Live and she does have a very
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: weird response.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: They hate each other and that's that's what I'm understood.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: That's what they're telling me because they don't ever show
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: up together on the red carpet. So when I say,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: my feed really feeds to the fact that I must
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: hate Lively when I don't know this person, and I'm like,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: I like, not that I know any celebrity like that,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: but I'm like, but I never, at one point have
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: I looked her up or like, she's not on my feet.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: I don't look around all my like searches. I guess
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: the one time it was for the it ends with us.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Damn it.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Every time I research something for the show, it messes
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: me up.
• 44:21
  Speaker 6: But anyway, yeah, but.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that is I'm I'm like, I guess we
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: really don't trust Blake Lively. We being a TikTok, Yeah,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: my TikTok.
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: The same as you.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Like.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: I was trying to get to the bottom of like
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: what was going on with this this Justin and Blake
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: thing and one of my cousins who I would like
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: lovingly describe as a normy and that she's not like
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: super online, She's not you know, deep in the depths
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: of like extremism or anything like that.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: Like the way that I am my cousin is like, oh.
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: There's this black girl journalist who has really been following
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: the story and breaking it down. We will tag you
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: so you can figure out what's going on. That journalist
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: was Candace Owens, And.
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: I was like, what like what Like, I could.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: Not believe that my cousins who were like not at
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: all in like, they're not people who are like pouring
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: over the minutia of what's happening on the Internet and
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: extremism the way that I am, Like, they're pretty offline whatever.
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: Like I was like, how did.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: You even get Candace Owens on your radar to be
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: like listening to her podcast or watching her YouTube? And
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: the reason is because she has introduced herself to a
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: brand new subset of listeners and audience by covering this
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: Blake Lively thing. So her coverage very clearly takes an
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: anti Blake stance. As The Cut put it in a
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: piece called Candace Owens has gone mainstream quote, the right
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: wing commentator's coverage of the Blake Lively Justin Boldoni case
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: has reached millions of viewers. Owen's podcast was hours and
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: hours of analysis of the case, deep dives into court filings,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: tabloid news stories, even Ryan Reynolds's recent appearance on Saturday
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: Night Lives fiftieth anniversary special. She's really been able to
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: go in and pinpoint discrepancies in some of the things
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: Blake Lively said. Rather than having us go through it
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: on our own. When Listener says, though she recognizes that
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: Owen seems to have a pro bowl Doni bias, she
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: doesn't care. Candace is urging us to look past the
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: fact that this is not a feminist issue at all,
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: that it's about getting justice for whoever is being wrong.
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: She's uniting the left and the right. So, I mean,
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: it's just like it is. I mean, on the one hand,
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: it seems.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: Surprising that this like celebrity story would be the thing
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: that like would galvanize an audience of mostly women and
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: introduce Candace Owen's on who she is and her ideologies
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: and all of that to a new audience. But on
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: the other hand, like that's pretty much exactly what they do.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: That what they did at the Daily Wired, Like nobody
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: was more obsessed with celebrity than people like Ben Shapiro.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: They loved taking down woke Disney, woke Star Wars like
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: you had had a big few with Meg the Stallion Beyonce.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: Like just because it's negative doesn't mean it's not sandom.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: It's just like going in the other direction.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Right, Actually, we knew we need to say he had
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: a one sided being with him because they did not
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: get like it just makes me laugh. You know, the
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: other part of this was as much as my algorithm
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: wants to show me all the anti b Lively stuff
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: as well as all of the controversy, because yes, I
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: would get updates about the SNL thing about how everybody
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: snubbed Brian Reynolds. I was like, did they.
• 47:43
  Speaker 6: Okay?
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: But like, interestingly I did get content not from Candis Owans,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: but other creators reminding me and everybody listening that Candice
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Owans is a right winged fanatic and that they need
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: to be wary of the information she's giving about the
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: specific case.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: Yes, so I think that's like why I wanted to
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: make this episode just as a general reminder of who
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: Candice opens is, and like we all love celebrity gossip,
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: I know I do, but like, let's just remember who
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: she is and the source, and like she might want
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: to rebrand herself, but let's just keep it at the front,
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: forefront of our minds who she is and what she's about,
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: And like, she really has exploded in popularity from this coverage.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: You know, it's been attracting a lot more viewers beyond
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: her normal right wing extremist bace like you were saying, Sam,
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: It's like Nor means like my cousins. My cousins who
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: might not have any idea who she is. They just
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: think she's an entertainment journalist. All of this has meant
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: explosive growth and engagement for Owen's Here's how The Cut
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: put it in that piece. Since Owens started covering the
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: Lively Baldoni case, her YouTube channel has exploded in popularity,
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: allowing her to attract a much larger fan base than
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: the audience of hardcore conservatives. She is a mass over
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: the years, each episode about Lively and Baldani racks up
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: at least one point five million views. In the past
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: month alone, Owens has a mass more than four hundred
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: and fifty thousand new subscribers on YouTube, and her total
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: video views have quadrupled since this time last year, according
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: to data from the analytics platform social Blade. Over the
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: past three months, her audience on YouTube has also started
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: skewing sixty five percent female, according to data provided by
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: a spokesperson, a market shift from her past fan base.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: So this has all been great news for Owens and
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: where her audience used to be like men, you know
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: like probably like your brother right, like like right wing men.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: By covering this story, she's really interacting a lot of women.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: Oh my stomach kind of hurts. It is really interesting
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: that this came in with gamer Gate as well, because,
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: like we were saying, Gamergate was such a mess, and
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: there were so many men who would be like, see
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: this woman agrees with me, And I hate it because
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: sometimes I'm like, why can't I just want to have
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: a conversation about why I don't like this game, And
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: now you've made it into this woman agrees with me,
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: and now you're using it to attract more women to
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: be like, see if we're on the if we are
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: correct and you are wrong. And so when you see
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: things like this where she started out with mostly men
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: and then she's attracting like all of these women, I
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: feel like it's worth asking why do you think this
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: took off for her?
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: This story so one I will say that, like Camus
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: actually is pretty interesting to listen to, Like I don't
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: agree with what she's saying, but she does, Like even
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: when she was a progressive blogger, she does have like
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: a point of view and a clear voice, and I
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: think that really comes through in her coverage of Blake Lively.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: You know, she has this way of speaking that signals
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: to you like, oh, this person who's really breaking it down.
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: It's the same reason why things on TikTok, things like
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: story time or like I'm spilling the tea really holds
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: people's attention. I think that Candice really does know how
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: to do that one. I think the second kind of
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: gets at what you were saying, Annie, that we just
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: love misogyny, and I think if that massogyny can be
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: laced with a threat of conspiracy, it's even better. Right,
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: Like social media platforms are always going to amplify things
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: like misogyny or massogynore racism or transphobia. I think all
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: of that is just baked into what it means to
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: show up on social media. And I think Owen's really,
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: in a savvy way, takes that a step further by
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: breaking all of this down, like she's explaining a conspiracy. Right,
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: So it's not so she's not just saying like, here's
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: my take on Blake Lively, or here's what's going on
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: with the Blake Lively case, or you know, here's why
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: even like here's why I don't like Blake Lively. She
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: has this tinge of like she's uncovering this dark truth
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: about this successful woman to take her down. Like, of
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: course that's going to take off. People love that. So
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: the fact that she's not just giving information about Blake Lively,
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: she's doing it in this way that's like, let's go
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: back through fifteen years of footage of her speaking and
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: dive through the minutia of everything that she's said on
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: camera to highlight the discrepancies, to show what a dark,
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: twisted person she is.
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: Like, of course people are gonna love that. And I
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: think that one of the reasons why people.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: Like conspiracy theories is that it really does allow for
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: like fantasy and world building to become part of this coverage. Right,
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: Like Canvas's coverage of Blake Lively is wild because she
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: is a truly wild person. And so if you're someone
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: who was just like wants to get the brain rush
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: of like going down a deep rabbit hole, whether or
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: not it's true or whether or not it's like made up,
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: that's gonna be enticing for you.
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: As Owens herself puts it, she does not follow a
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: quote traditional style of reporting.
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: That's putting it pretty lightly.
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: She will amplify rumors, right, Like she once even read
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: a letter that she said was from Ryan Reynolds's acting
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: coach from when he was twelve years old, and that
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: acting coach allegedly said Ryan Reynolds was obnoxious as a
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: twelve year old. Like there are side characters and stuff,
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: Like she really fleshes out this world of what she's saying.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: Is it real? Is it accurate? Who cares?
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: Of course people are coming to hear that tea on
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: a story they're invested in, right.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: I feel like though, like this is definitely in her alley,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: in her willhouse, in that this fees into the Hollywood
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: demon's kind of trope as well as like her response
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: to the Me Too movement, I know, like she was
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: definitely anti feminist in that movement as well. Like this
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: kind of all fees into that perfectly for her.
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: Yes, So I think that's another reason why this has
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: taken off, Because I think that, like there is something
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: inherently inviting about the power of like making a contrarian
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: stance on something like after Me Too, lots of women
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: got engagement by taking a contrarian stance. Ironically, Blake Lively
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: praised both Woody Island and Harvey Weinstein. That last one
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: is going to be interesting to note for later. So
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: I think there is this attitude where like going against convention.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: You know, if if there's a convention that says we
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: automatically got to support the woman in any situation, it
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: probably makes people who are turning to Owen's as coverage
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: and her breakdowns feel like free thinkers who are going
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: against the grain and like willing to take an unpopular
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: opinion which feels good, Like it feels good to think
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: of yourself in that way, which then could obviously connects
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: to some of her more like odious stances about trans
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: people and women and Jewish people, like you, if you
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: can get people introduced to the idea that it's like
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: good to take an unpopular opinion when you're talking about
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: a celebrity that people don't like, imagine how then you
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: can walk them down to be like, isn't and also
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: don't you not like trans and also don't you think
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: women should not have jobs? And also don't you not
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: like Jewish people? Like it's like kind of all coming
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: from the same place.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so she's very engaging and she it's sort
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: of like you know, here's some celebrity gossip. Let me
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: give you this conspiracy theory and also kind of this
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: hate on the side. Right, But it's been very successful.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: But has has the new audience changed her stances at all?
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: That's a great question.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: According to Owens, she has not really changed her views
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: despite her rebrand. She says, in terms of my perspective,
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: I haven't changed anything. I've been anti me too since
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: long before it was cool. When it comes to the
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: which like oh as like feminist media makers, do you
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: think like I just I'm so curious about that take
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: of likes of all just the assumption that like it's
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: cool to be anti.
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: Me too right now.
• 56:04
  Speaker 6: I mean, I don't know.
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: I just have a lot of questions.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: This is definitely the whole like red pill level of
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: women trying to be the I hate this term, but
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: like the pick me like we're like I it's now
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: cool because the boys like me like it. It doesn't
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: want it sounds like most women who have been through
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: these processes or her survivors would never say it's like
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: the level people. I'm not even just like survivors, people
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: with conscious like like that in general, that's not a
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: that's not a statement you want. That's not a winning statement.
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: It's not that's a good way to put it. It's
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: not a winning statement.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: And when it comes to the success of the content
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: that she's made around Blake Lively, Kenda says that she
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: thinks her new fans, especially the ones coming from the left,
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: have quote just kind of gotten wise to the fact that.
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: Maybe women lie just like men.
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: And do you Ken, do you want to know what
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: her next big issue is going to be like after
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: she moves on from Blake Lively, She's already signaled to
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: what it is.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Oh really, because we're still in the middle of this.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: The lawsuit hasn't been settled, but okay what is?
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: But she's already looking I mean like it's not gonna
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: last forever. She's already got a sense of like where
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: she's going next. Her next bigu she was going to
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: be championing Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced filmmaker that really did
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: kickstart the Me Too movement. She's been interviewing him by
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: phone since twenty twenty two. Here's how the Hollywood Reporter
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: explains it. Kansas's takeaway is that while Harvey Weinstein is
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: an immorl man. He's also a victim of the justice system. Owens,
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: a long time and persistent critic of the me too movement,
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: of which Harvey, of which the Harvey Weinstein saga served
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: as the watershed, noted that quote, I've always had faith
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: in our court system, and now that's beginning to change.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: Now I'm wondering if our courtrooms have been politicized.
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: I love that.
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: It's Harvey Weinstein being convicted that She's like, are.
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: The core It's not on the money?
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: I no, I'm sure there's some of the serial killers
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: that she should represent as much like this is okay
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: to be fair, she has has she has her fingers
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: on the pulse in that knowing this is gonna drive
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: up attention, like she is gonna get the publicity that
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: she wants with that, Like how bigger could you go
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: outside of being like I'm gonna go dig up Hitler
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: and interview him and tell him I miss him like
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: that that's the yeah, you know, I.
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: Mean, she she agrees with you.
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: She said that she's putting out a series called Harvey Speaks,
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: and when asked about it, she said, quote, it will
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: explode the world.
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: That's a direct quote.
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: Oh my God.
• 58:54
  Speaker 6: She's a businesswoman for sure.
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we all have that to look forward to.
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: I mean again, like she sad, like I cannot deny
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: that this is smart, Like I don't. I don't agree
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: with it. I don't think it's good. I don't think
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: it's good for the world. But like, I think she
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: has her finger on the pulse of what is actually
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: going to be projects to put out that will capture
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: people's attention, for.
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: Better or for worse. And I think she's really got something.
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: She's like cracked into something.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for better or worse. Indeed she has. And you know,
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: every time we talk to you, Bridget, we always talk
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: about how the algorithms and so many of our social
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: media pushes this content up and how we engage in it.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: So she's figured it out. She's figured that out.
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: I think you're exactly right.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: And I think, like that's the so what of this
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: story is that you know, Candice has so many other
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: things going on, Like she's pivoting into other kinds of
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: program she's branding out into doing a book club for
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: paying subscribers and a fitness program, And I think that
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: I do I believe her when she says that she's
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: not like rebranding. I think rather she is trying to
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: rebrand her followers. These new followers, many of whom are
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: just like women, who are interested in this scandal. I
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: believe that the point is for them to be walked
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: down a pipeline that includes her other extremist attitudes, really
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: using this Blake Lively celebrity scandal as the hook. And
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: I think because celebrity stories, especially ones that involve women,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: are so often just like considered fluff, so a lot
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: of people who care about like extremist content or ideology
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: might not be paying that much attention to hell, these
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: stories that you might see on US Weekly are tapping
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: into those ideologies and un leading those ideologies on a
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: brand new audience. And so I think that's especially concerning
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: when you're talking about things like celebrity, because you know,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: when I'm reading celebrity scandals or like reading US Weekly,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: I might not be primed to have my like BS
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: detector on and up because it just is, like you
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: think of it as a less charge space. And so
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: I think that it really can be more dangerous because
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: it lends itself to people being more susceptible to ideological content.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: They might not be expecting without even realizing it.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: And like, I think it's very easy for Candace Owens to.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: Go from like saying Blake Lively is lying to like
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: women lie to, women can't be trusted to like women
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: should not have jobs, which I'm not just like pulling
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: that out of nowhere. That is a stance that Candace
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: Owens has explicitly advocated for, that women should not have employment,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: they cannot be trusted with work, despite herself obviously being
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: a working woman. So like, basically, you just can't trust her.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: She's not someone that you can trust. Don't let her
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: rebrand as a celebrity journalist fool you if somebody tags
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: you in a video of hers, to be like.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: Oh, she's really breaking it down.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: Just remember that she is trying to soften what it
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: is that she advocates for and believes in, and like
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: we shouldn't let her do that. We should really remember
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: who she is and what she's about, because she's made
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: it very clear.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Right, I Mean, she's definitely on the same lines of
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: what we've seen as a new generation talking about young
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: men on podcasts and how they've been able to influence
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: young men, like this is coming in as influencing young women.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, just today, I'm seeing a lot of content
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: about how young the younger generations are talking are being
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: red pilled, as they would say, which is fitting here,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: and things like the soft life content being a beginning
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: for a lot of young women not realizing that getting
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: that kind of brand. We've talked about that with like
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: self care, We've talked about that with yoga and the clean,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: clean lifestyle type of thing. How that easily becomes a
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: pipeline for the conservative right wing community. And this is
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: kind of that big sway except that we see her
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: branding and we know who she is, but if you
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: don't know from the jump her stance, this is definitely
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: a worrisome tactic because we know things like true crime
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: Time and celebrity gossip, like it's geared towards young women,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: it's geared towards women in general, and they also spend
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of money and they spend a lot of
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: time in it, investigating and taking part of it. So
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: it's really worries something like it is comical, as we
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: were talking at the beginning, like what is this to
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: very concerning and understanding that when we let this stuff go,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: like you were saying, like, this is fluff content, but
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: in actuality is feeding into a conservative ideal that becomes
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: mainstream and it's usually really dangerous.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: So when people are like, oh, I just want to
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: listen to my true crime podcast, I don't want to
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: get political, or.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: I just want to read about celebrities.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: I don't want to get political, I hate to break
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: it to you, all of that stuff is political.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: All that is all political, and like it is.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: It can be harnessed to shift attitudes of people who
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: are being like, oh, this is not political into more
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: extremest ways of thinking. And so if you are a
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: savvy consumer of media, or a savvy consumer of anything,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: whether it's true crime content or celebrity content, or yoga
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: or wellness content or of that, we really got to
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: be primed and thinking about the ways as content can
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: be so easily weaponized to supread a certain ideology that
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: we might not want to get mixed up in.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Oh every time you come here, Bridget, I'm like,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: we have fifteen million other topics we need to talk about.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: But thank you, thank you as always for coming on
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: and taking the time. We love to have you. Where
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: can the good listeners find you well.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: You can listen to my podcast on iHeartRadio called There
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: Arnal Girls.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: On the Internet.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: You can check me out on Instagram at bridget Marie
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: in DC and uh yeah, we'd love to hang out there.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: Yes and go do that listeners. If you haven't already,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: you can find us. You can email us at Hello,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: Stuffnever Told You dot com. You can find us on
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: Blue Sky at Momstuff podcast, or in Instagram and TikTok
• 1:04:52
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• 1:04:54
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• 1:04:55
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• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: as always to our super producer Christine or executive ducer
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: Myne and a contributor Joey. Thank you, Thanks to you
• 1:05:02
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