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