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Happy Hour #187: Untangling the Knitting Controversy · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I know all this stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Never told you a protection of my Heart Radio.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: And welcome to another happy hour where I talk about things.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I'm still excited, That's all I got. I have no
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: idea what it is.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: I'm excited to see what you know. And I'm also
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: excited to hear from our listeners because i know you
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: all will have opinions on this. But before we start,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: this is a happy hour. If you do any of
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: the happy hour things, do so responsibly. Annie, are you
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: doing anything responsibly?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I am. We're recording pretty late right now this dinner time.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I am still working on some of the wine my
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: mom gave me for my birthday and for Christmas she
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: gives me. She gives me bottles of wine.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, yeah, nice enjoying that. Well, I'm sticking
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: to my diet doctor pepper or crime soda or zero.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: That is one of my favorites. Right now, giving me
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: a little bit of pep because we have been recording
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: for a minute, and we were going in late and
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: I woke up early because I went to bed early
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: last night. Anny, Oh yeah, like nine thirty. It was surprising,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: like the entire household my partner and my dog and
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: I went to bed that early, fell asleep. It was
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: odd all of that to say yes. So we are
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: not currently sponsored by anything, including what I'm about to
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: talk about, but it has a lot of controversy. So
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: any have you ever heard of Focus Friends?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I have not heard of that.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, So this is an app that was created by
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Hank Green. Do you know Hank Green?
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Do you know?
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: I do?
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: He's kind of our I guess, younger generation of like
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Bill Nye the Science Guide level of like with different
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: levels of information and such. Anyway, so he with developers
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: and other creators started this app orated this app for
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: the intention that it would help you stop doom scrolling.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: So because you people do so much, including myself, that
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: he's like, hey, what if we give them something cutesy
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: and something to do, like occupy their phone so they
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: can't get to it so they won't scroll so much.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: So essentially, and I'm describing this on my own without
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: looking at the app, and I'll pull it up for
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: you in a minute, but like, essentially, what this is
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: is a bean that you need that knits, and in
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: that time, while it knits for however long, you said it.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: It creates a certain amount of sucks and then you
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: can take these socks and turn it into like transactions
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: to create and decorate their room. So and it's only
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: one room right now? No, actually I just saw I
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: just got an update and there's now a living room,
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: so you can do that. Because I was like, what
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: happens when you finished doing this? And had I finished it?
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Because when I get focused on something, I truly focus
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: on it. But people are actually very upset about this
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: because a lot of the knitters in the knitter world
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: are like, ay what because they decided to add a
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: paid part to this app because there's no ads thus
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: far that if you want to pay a subscription or
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: if you want to pay a thing, they will give
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: you access to be able to make scarves, which is
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: more in value and harder to do than the socks. Immediately,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: do you already know? Our riders around the world were like, A,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: you know, it's way more difficult to make socks than
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: it is to make scarves. And that is very very,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: very very true because I have made a small scarf
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: in my three months focusing of trying to knit. And
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I say a scarf, I just mean just a pattern
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: of rectangle. It's still like tied off to my ball
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: of yarn because I don't know how to end things
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: because I didn't get that far. I need to pick
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: it back up. But it's a thing, but it is.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: It's very difficult. So to actually make a pattern like
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: a sock, it takes a lot of intricacies and workings
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: that I don't think I will ever graduate to. Like
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: I want to because I want to have a survival
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: skill and this seems like a good one to make clothes.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, like it's really hard. I
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: don't know if I can do this. It's so people
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: who are like, hey, you might want to rethink this.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: So at first it was just a cute conversation of
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: like you just flip this, do the scarves and then
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: the socks because this makes more sense in the Netterer world.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: You know, you can do all these things whatever, whatnot.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: It was okay for a minute. Then he got onto
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: his show, which is a YouTube show called side Show,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: which talks about science. Great, he does a lot of science,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: He does a lot of research on different things. Ever,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: in this show, he pissed off a lot of knitters
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: like they were angry because not only did he try to,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: as some people would say, man's plain knitting because he
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: obviously doesn't know how to knit. And I say obvious
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: because they were like, if you think socks are easier
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: to make than scarves, and you have no idea what
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: you're doing in general, just in general, but also because
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: of the way that he tried to too many kind
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: of infantilize the art of knitting, saying almost undermining the
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: math that goes behind it, the science that goes behind it,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: the layers of understanding patterns and directions and equations and
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: what it looks like to actually be able to create
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: items from knitting. And so people are really really upset,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Like I went through and looked up the Reddit comments
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: because at first I couldn't find the articles. I think
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: a new articles have showed up, and I've seen several
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: TikTok videos where people are like, Hey, you'all need to
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: talk about this, and how it's just misogynistic. There's just
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: an underlying level of misogyny that you're putting to imply
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: that knitting is not of worth value, again, undermining something
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: that women like to do as a mere little hobby.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Essentially again, We've talked about this previously, when we talked
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: about they don't credit like fans or any of those
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: hobby type of things as being of importance because a
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: woman doesn't or it's dominated by women. And they went
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: through and they were like, hey, so I don't understand
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: why you would do it this way. Not only did
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: you infantilize what we do, you also kind of undermine
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: what we do and trying to take out some of
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: the science that does go behind knitting. Also, you were wrong.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: You are so blatantly wrong in what you're talking about
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: that all of these other YouTubers who are to dedicate
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: their channels to knitting and how to knit, which I'm
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: grateful for them because they taught me how to start
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: again haven't gone far enough to figure out how to end,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: but you know, they taught me how to start. But
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: they were like, came back and be like, these are
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: the things that you got wrong. So they fact checked
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: him essentially to that. But like some of the Reddit
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: people are upset. One says, did Hank Green just Man's
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: plain knitting and in that people in that red it
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, y'all are being too sensitive and making
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: jokes and undermining people being offended by his video and
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: saying that they are making a drama out of nothing.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Not allowed for this, and also, by the way, in
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: another TikTok video which I love a creator I know,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: a black creator I know, was like, oh, these white
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: women are understanding intersectionality about the fact that he's trying
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: to explain something to you and saying that this is
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: this without understanding like the intricacies and the knowledge and
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: the depth and how it can undermine just because he's
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: liking something, but he's trying to explain it without knowing something,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: and then also trying to make excuses. They're like, oh,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: it's so funny. It's a good video too, I think
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: a great parallel. But again, so this show undermined the
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: app that he created because he tried to use this
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: as a way to explain why he's not completely wrong
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: of using socks instead of scarves, it says from this
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: article Vulture. They actually did write about it a couple
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: of days ago. It says YouTuber Debora Nitz call this
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: sid show video main explaining and generally pushed back on
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: the idea that science would legitimize knitting more than it
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: already was. Knitting has historically been devalued because it's women's work.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: She says Hank could have said knitting is being used
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: in physics, how cool. Instead the way he said it
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: came across as knitting's kind of silly, but physics makes
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: it serious again, undermine all that. Debra also pointed out
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: that trial and error is also the backbone of scientific
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: inquiry and denigrating it as inferior to computer modeling is whack.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: And it goes on to say one small detail knitters
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: have pointed out about Green's video, turning the hill in
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: a sock isn't the simple thing he claimed, it's real
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: rubicon of knitting and a make or break that separates
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: the true pearl heads from those who say, get I'm
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: just making scars for the rest of my life. People
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: have died, but like that's that's the thing. And he
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: tried to undermine what this was and what it looked
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: like and like the level of where it's coming from
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: and saying yes, signs applies, so that makes it cool
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: and steatified. But knitting is just cool. So there's so
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: many things to this that he is getting under wraps,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: and people like, is he getting canceled for this knitting,
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: and he did come back and I did actually recently
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: see a video, So there's a lot to this as
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: well of like him as a creator, having creators on
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: pedestals without recordizing that human infallible. There's a lot to
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: that because like, yeah, people love him. I'm just not
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: one of those people. Sure, Like there's nothing about him
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: that's like I'm offended about, But I also don't think
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: he's the answer to be Like he comes off as
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: the genius and I'm afraid people upset because Hank Green
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: lovers are very passionate about defending him, but like, like
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: he's just a man. It's fine, and he's got a
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: lot of intelligence and reads a lot and gives a
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: lot of great information, and I listen to his information
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: and that's great, But like I don't cling to everything
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: he says like that, but I know some people will.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: But with that in that level of like taking something
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: that he knows nothing about and then integrating it, because
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: what he's created has kind of not necessarily insulted it,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: but just kind of like it's not rational. It's easier
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: to make a scarf over a sock. I feel like
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: that's in general, would it be an obvious.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: It feels obvious to me.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Maybe we know knitter, I can't die.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I can't do either, but I can barely do one,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and both require skills, yes that I don't have. But
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I feel like a scarf is a pretty like standard
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: right pattern and straight, but a sock you have to.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: There's nuance that I don't understand, so like to see,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: like to understand when a knitter says this is easier
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: than that, I feel like, yeah, okay, that makes sense.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: So instead of hearing that, he decided to take this
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: show and do this thing, and there was no apology
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: and no like you're right. He does a contrition in
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: his video when it's addressing the size show issue, but
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: he doesn't really apologize and he doesn't really offer a correction.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: He did get challenged at one point and said you
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: should you should try to learn, try to yourself knit
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: a sock without pattern and see what happens. And he
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: was like, please don't make me do this. So I
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: don't know what that means. I don't know if he's
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: going to take that except maybe maybe not. So the
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: producer of the show, she did kind of apologize and
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: recognize like, maybe they did this incorrectly, but it again,
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: there's a lot when it comes to a community that
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: feels like they have been taken for granted. And also
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: in that conversation, they also talked about the fact that
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: this was a sign of resistance. Knitting was a sign
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: of resistance. Knitting and sewing is a show of resistance
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: to a lot of things. We've seen this what they did.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: A lot of this art that they do is a
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: show of resistance as well and survival if you really
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: want to talk about it. And yeah, so the producer
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: did say in an interview, as quoted by Daily Dot,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: they admitted that some terminology and visuals were incorrect. A
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: mislabeled visual of reverse stuck in net doesn't invalidate the
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: trustworthiness and value of the science lessons in this video.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: They also emphasized that side show often simplifies material for accessibility.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: In this case, however, the simplifying language may have alienated
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: knitters was just not their intention. So there's a like
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: one of the producers did acknowledge it. Hank Green, who
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: is the face of that episode, didn't acknowledge it or
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: hasn't really acknowledged it, And people are upset. People are upset,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: So it's finding. It's interesting to see because I think
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: people in the knitting world have the right to be
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: represented in a good light and in a correct light,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: and if they have criticism, they should be able to
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: do this. But it's interesting that it came from an
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: app that was about doom scrolling and focusing that involved
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: the bean that I have named mind Blurt Blurt, the
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: bean that my partner has, a bean named Tomo.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Has it helped with your dune scrolling?
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: I've decorated things, Okay, it helps when I'm like working,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: it does help.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, there you go.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: So I'm gonna need you to look up on the
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I need you. I don't need you to look it
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: up because you don't need you focusing, but like.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Just look at the bean.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the bean, I'll show. I'll see direct of my bean.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Please, Okay, yeah, I do have to say real quickly,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: I had not heard about any of this, but it
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: is funny to me because I do really love this
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: YouTube show that Seth Myers does, called Corrections, and it
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: started in the pandemic as just the kind of absurd
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: comedy of reading YouTube comments and trying to correct things.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: But he was first attacked by the Lego community and
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: oh god, it's legos, and then he was the knitting
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: community came for him. It's all in good fun. So
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: when I say game for him, it was a very
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: like here's what she got wrong to say correctly, here's
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: how to say it correctly. And it ended up being
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: really funny because knitters kept sending him stuff and he
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: would wear it on the show. I feel like the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: knitting community sounds fantastic and I love you all.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I stand with you.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Oh I am so with you. And after that, I
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: was writing a chapter of fan fiction and I had
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: something about knitting in there and I wrote at the
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: bottom like correct me because I know I didn't get
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: it right, and they wrote in and I was like,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: thank you, that's all we need. It's fantastic. I enjoy it.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I can't do it. It's a very valuable thing. I
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: stand by the Knitters.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, we're on the side of the Knitters.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: We are we are. So if any of you listeners
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: are knitters, please let us know or any creative endeavor
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: you have. We love hearing from you. You can email
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: us at Hello at Stuffwhennever Told You dot com. You
• 16:13
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• 16:16
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• 16:18
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• 16:24
  Speaker 1: We're ready to get earbooks. Thanks as always to our
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: super producer Christina or executive producer and sure to Joey.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks to you for listening. Stuff Never
• 16:33
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