Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "Public Shaming" with Clare Stephens

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"Public Shaming" with Clare Stephens · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  Get a humans, welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas and expressing dangerous ideas
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  online certainly became pretty hazardous over the past decade with pylons and public shamings
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  and cancel culture and so forth. What exactly happened? What was the psychological and
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  sociological phenomenon of the public shaming moment? Do we have enough perspective on it now
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  to try to analyse it coolly? Today's guest is a journalist who has been studying pylons and
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  public shaming from the very cold face. Clare Stevens was a senior editorial lead at Mama Mia,
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  which is Australia's largest independent women's media company and so faced an enormous
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  brunt of backlash both from sexist men and finger-wagging, sensorious feminists alike. She's
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  written a novel now about public shaming and feminism and digital culture. The book is called
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  the worst thing I've ever done and she also has a podcast called The Pylon where she interviews
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  prominent people about experiences that they've had in public being publicly shamed. I myself
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  am an upcoming guest on that show. Clare is fascinating. She has a sub-stack, Clare Stevens or NQR
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  for not quite right if you're looking it up and I wanted to talk to her about public shaming,
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  pylons being a woman online, being a man online and what we might expect from the next generation
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  of online warriors. I hope you enjoy it. As much as I always do, the one I'm only Clare Stevens.
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  Nobody looks at the totality of the person's work or of my work. They find the thing that
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  most agrees them or frames me as a villainous or offensive to them and then they ignore
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  your body of work. Not even, I was going to say the body of work, but even other parts of
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  the same interview or the same column or something. But you said there's one line,
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  like yeah, but read the thousand words that led up to that line or listen to the hour that came
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  up before that little 15 second clip. I'm in trouble at the moment. There's a somebody's taken
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  part of my interview with Tim Minchin and played it and done some commentary about it and
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  is this for your current podcast? Yeah, and called me out because I didn't challenge one of the things
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  he said. And it's interesting because I'm like, I guess the question is what's the purpose of an
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  interview? You know, it's not a debate necessarily. Obviously it's to force your opinion on the
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  gets to make them shut up. Yeah, like if somebody's sharing their emotional experience or their
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  perspective, I don't know when it is necessary or sometimes somebody said something in a conversation
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  and you're like, yeah, okay. And then afterwards you think, oh, actually, I would have said this.
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  That's just being human. Yes. Yes. You don't think of it in the moment. And I'm not a combative
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  person. So it's not your job. Yeah. To pull up everything. No. To litigate. What was Tim?
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  So for people who are in the States who might not know or remember, Tim, he's a Tony winning or
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  certainly Tony nominated a Olivier award-winning musician and comedian and beloved Australian treasure
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  who wrote Matilda the musical on the West End and Broadway and of which there was a movie made of
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  it and many, many other great things. And people should go back and listen to his appearance on this
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  podcast as well because it's just hours of like him being a galaxy brain about how we can be more
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  humane to each other. But how was he misunderstood on or was he what was he saying on your
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  channel? He was saying that friends of his get message at women get messages on Instagram with
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  like rape threats, death threats, all of that. And they're obviously terrified by them. And he was
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  just saying that when he talks to his friends who get those, he says try to imagine that it is not
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  someone who genuinely wants to rape you. It is somebody who wants to say that they want to rape you.
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  Like it's not like he was basically saying these are kids who are ridiculous and trying to get
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  trying to provoke a response. These are not people who actually want to do that to you. And so the
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  criticism is like don't tell women how to feel about their own experiences. And like yeah maybe
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  now I think like oh maybe I would have said yeah but getting those threats is pretty bloody
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  confronting. Like it it kind of comes to your core vulnerability as a woman. But I also do agree
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  with what he was saying that I've had those threats and you just go that's stupid. You know like
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  like I don't I consider those threats on the internet to be very different from those threats
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  in real life. I do not think they are the same thing. And the argument was basically the
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  the same thing. Right. Was he trying to make a distinction between what violence is in the
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  claim that words of violence the same way that violence is violent. So was he just sort of saying
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  social media is a toxic swamp and you shouldn't pay it any. That's what he was saying. Basically it's
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  a toxic swamp. Don't pay attention to it. And don't be like these people are trying to scare you.
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  Yes. That's what they're trying to do. And that's and him saying that I was like yeah a lot of the time
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  when I've experienced it and I've seen people doing the calling out and doing the piling on
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  I'm like all they want is attention. Yeah. And the most irritating thing it could do is not pay
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  attention. You see them be like bit bit. Come on. And you're like no I don't owe you anything.
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  No that's right. I don't I don't I'm just doing my thing. You can do your thing. But I don't
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  actually it's the engaging with it that they want. That's right. Also if you're going to be
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  particularly literal and precious about one example of violent intimidating threats you have to
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  be equally precious about all of them. And it's quite likely that people who are really
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  opposed aggressively opposed to nasty sexist threats were giving a pass to when people on their
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  own side said things that could be coded as being I don't know anti-Semitic about Palestine or
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  whatever anti-wized during the racial reckoning or something like that. It is interesting to note
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  like if you heard about the snafu at the moment between this this democratic candidate in the
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  States who has a Nazi tattoo on his chest. No. One of the I think it's in Maine the the moderate
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  Republican Senator Susan Collins I believe who's been an a sort of mildly anti-Trump you know
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  sort of lefty Republican for decades is up against a Democrat who it turns out when he was
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  in the military got a Nazi tattoo tattooed on his chest and to listen to the people on the left
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  I would explain away how this guy well you know it doesn't mean anything it's just a symbol it's like
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  you know he did it for fun it was a provocation he was probably drunk he was a kid it's
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  excusable I'm like but hang on a second you have been you've spent the past five or ten years
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  telling us that there is no excuse for a speech and the symbols are important and that like
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  symbolic communication is a form of violence and intimidation why is it okay when you're guys
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  yeah exactly I I've found that so like have you seen the conversation happening at the moment
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  between so Louis Thoreau interviewed a guy on his podcast and I cannot remember his name I saw
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  the fall out because he's been dropped by British Airways Louis Thoreau's podcast has been
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  dropped by its main sponsor British Airways oh my gosh over this okay I don't I didn't listen to
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  explain who the guy is he's interviewing this musician and the only reason I don't know his name
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  is because I genuinely know nothing about music I'm just not but this guy because he's black and
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  wildly racist carry on he was on stage and he started a chant that was death to the IDF
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  this was last year I think and Louis asks him about it and and Louis says what did you mean by
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  that and this guy says what it what do you think I what do you think I meant by it it's pretty
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  obvious and Louis says I think I'm against any chant that starts with death to like even if it was
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  death to pedophiles it like just death to I I feel funny about that and this guy is like well you
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  know other things didn't rhyme like ha ha ha like death to the IDF had to be the chant and Louis
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  is getting torn apart that it's basically that that basically everybody's like you're a Zionist I
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  find it so ironic because if anybody knew anything about Louis Thoreau's career wait he's getting
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  torn up I thought he was getting torn apart for platforming someone who maybe there's that
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  don't get to defend themselves well maybe maybe there's that too but I just inferred that from
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  a headline I know nothing about it so the I see so his pushback against a person who was asking
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  who was calling for his right soldiers to be killed yeah people have torn him apart and said like
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  he shouldn't have pushed back again so you should have said of course the IDF should be killed
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  because their child murderers in Gaza yes and so everybody's like Louis he like he's been silent
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  blah blah blah and I'm like Louis Thoreau in terms of journalism in the last 10 years probably
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  more than 10 years there's been one of the most consistent and profound people on this issue his
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  documentary where he went to Israel Gaza looked at the whole situation that is one of for me as
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  somebody who does not have the world of context him doing that I'm like that was taking my hand
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  and explaining the story and to then turn around and say that based on this tiny 30 second clip
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  he doesn't he he's a pro Zionist guy it's just so bizarre but it does it does make you think like
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  when you're in those when you're in those interviews and you're challenging something I do think
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  it's fair to say I don't think a productive conversation starts with death too yes I don't
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  is that is that not and also he's holged dick is like being the curious alien he's just
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  planked in from out of space and he's asking questions from a place of a blank slate it's this
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  strange phenomenon where where it's like the choice of guest if it's if there are if there are
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  bad enough person everybody will understand that there's utility in interviewing them yeah like he
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  one of his most iconic documentaries was where he went and stayed with neo nazis yeah and at one point
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  he's like with a whole bunch of neo nazis in a room I think it's late at night they're on the
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  source and getting drunk and one of the masks him if he's a Jew and there's like this tense moment
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  where he refuses to answer the question and they all start getting suspicious about him
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  it's electrifying because he's with people who are totally beyond the pale and he's not really
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  pushing back and arguing against white nationalism white supremacy that's what makes it so interesting
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  but the moment you you change you swap those neo nazis out for someone who is just a little bit
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  extra about the idea f then all of a sudden he's expected to like be this finger wagging judge
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  jury and executioner it's like it's strange there's this never-world of people who I often think
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  this like if I had Tommy Robinson the anti-immigrant UK activist on this show I would get so much more
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  flat than if I interviewed the Christchurch shooter or like you know the poor Arthur massacre shooter
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  and I know and and yeah there is this idea that by having somebody by interviewing someone
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  you're giving them a platform and you are tacitly endorsing everything they've ever done
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  everything they've ever said everything they say on your show you endorse and it's very very very
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  odd because I don't think that's the way humans work and that's the way human conversations work
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  and certainly not the way journals are model no no what are you interested in the concept of
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  cancel culture and mobs and basically so working I was working at my mayor for a decade and I was
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  explain my my so my mayor is Australia's largest independent women's media company and I started
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  as an intern did not study media did not know anything about media so coming in was quite funny
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  and what did you want to do what were you doing so I was studying I did an honors in psychology
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  and I was doing my masters of research in psychology and struggling with the pain and hopelessness
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  of academic writing and then realized I loved writing on the internet and that it was basically what
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  I wanted to do was bridge the gap between academic ideas and mainstream media and I kept seeing that
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  there was you know this massive disconnect where I'd be learning such exciting things at uni
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  and then be looking on the internet and it's just dribble which is still the case
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  it's interesting just as an aside how did you because you're a very good writer and a plain spoken
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  writer in a way that's catchy and readable for people how did you write that way if you'd spent
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  years doing an honors and then writing theses and stuff how did you unlearn academia's
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  I think so just my twin sister and I wrote together so I the way we started writing on the internet
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  was that my masters of research was in the connection between obesity and eating disorders
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  and the fact that they're treated as two separate health problems but there's actually a lot of
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  commonalities and that when we do public health campaigns to tackle obesity we're often triggering
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  eating disorders and when we do public health campaigns to tackle eating disorders were kind of
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  triggering obesity right so it was it was this really interesting idea and Jess and I were watching
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  the biggest loser at the time and I was like I want to communicate these ideas through the
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  prism of the biggest loser because that's what everyone's watching like I can spend years doing
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  an academic study and it can go in a journal and no one's going to read it but these ideas are
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  really interesting and we don't know them because we're all watching the biggest loser so we would
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  sit and recap the biggest loser through that prism and basically the idea was hey you're trying to
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  get all these people to lose weight and in so doing you're giving them really really dangerous
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  ideas about food and exercise and weight so I think basically the way I unlearned a lot of the
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  academic stuff and tried to make it more accessible was that writing was really a conversation between
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  Jess and I and we were trying to make each other laugh we were trying to make each other and
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  Jessi didn't study psychology so we were trying to you know help each other to get something so if I
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  wrote something and Jess was like what the hell that's you can you don't need to cite an academic
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  study to make that point right so I think we were very lucky in that we had a built-in editor okay
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  so you start writing about popular stuff and how does that turn into a career so then Mayor Friedman
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  who owns Mamma Mia read one of our biggest loser recaps found her in Mamma Mia hence Mamma Mia
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  yeah Friedman very celebrated and well respected Australian journalist yeah so she read one of the
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  recaps and sent an email to me and I thought it was a joke because you know she was a big person in
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  media and I was no one and I was like this is so mean that somebody would troll me by pretending
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  to be Mayor Friedman anyway it was actually her and she was like I think you're really funny
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  I like your writing so Jessi and I both came into Mamma Mia started writing for the first year I
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  reckon I was pitching the most earnest like why aren't there more women in trades like those sorts
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  of things and the editors would very kindly say no one gives a shit about that story and I'd be like
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  yes they do and then they'd let me write it and I'm like no one's clicking so I think I learned
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  very quickly what people click on and I don't know if you felt this in media but the most satisfying
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  thing is the combination where you can write about something important and get people to pay attention
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  yeah that was the most because you can write a lot of you know you can write all the stories about
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  the royals and all the stories about the Kardashians people will click but when you write about
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  something that actually matters and people click it's the best feeling in the world that must be
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  amazing I mean I've never had that because I've never had the click as the metric but luckily I've
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  never I'm I just never entered that ecosystem yeah really how about it how post how post live was
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  good at insulating us from that obviously internally they cared about it but we were run by an editorial
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  team who were extremely keen to keep metrics from us and so we just did out and just let us do our
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  things and they just had faith that if we did a good 30 minute interview then the clippers would be
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  able to find the clicky thing and then that could go up on the front page of the main half post site
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  and drive traffic back to half post live that was the thinking about it I mean how about how about now
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  when you're independent how about the sub stack with this no I try not to well that because it requires
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  people to actually pay a subscription every month they have a more long term thinking about how about
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  the value of your work so I think that as long as I'm producing something that each person at
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  least once a month gets a kick out of then I don't actually have to worry about whether they love
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  everything so it's not like how many clicks can each thing get and I try not to pay attention I
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  mean I don't analyze you know I should I do better if I analyze closely every single little thing
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  and I tailored it perfectly towards my audience but I think people tune in I just have faith that
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  overall people will tune in for authenticity and non-click baitiness because I because I do wonder
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  now with the rise of like independent media I think you can see it sometimes where the creator
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  writer podcaster they start to figure out what people click on and then follow that and then you
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  end up in a really weird place yeah because it's like the most base human instincts where it's
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  you're going you're becoming more and more radical and more and more extreme and with sub-stack
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  I remember I was getting good traction and then I wrote one post and got a few dozen unsubscribes
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  and I was like oh well I'll never touch and it was more of an earnest more earnest than things I
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  usually do and I was like oh well I'll never touch that again and I was talking to a friend about it
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  she's like no no no no no that's how you end up in a really bad place yeah if you're losing your
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  integrity in order to chase metric yeah which is really hard not to do when the fact is you're
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  trying to make a living yes I mean I do it does it does it is painful when like you know we saw
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  a significant drop off in subscribers after I wrote a piece in a in the newspaper about Israel
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  which was critical of Israel and so you know some whatever three or four percent of paid subscribers
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  will like fuck you we're not here for this kind of nuance like ra ra ra but I just have to have
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  faith that like you don't want that'll come back we're growing every month my people will be
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  replaced by other people I'll just keep doing good things and then they if they've unsubscribed
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  then they won't see the thing that I'm about to produce next month which I know that they would
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  have thought was great exactly exactly and that actually your original question was how did I become
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  interested in all the pile on cancer culture stuff and your story brings me back to that um
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  but at my mayor I would see that there would it was this interesting world where you are tracing
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  metrics and you're in this capital a system of media where page views matter and advertising
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  matters and so you're chasing that and often in chasing that you do something a little bit questionable
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  like you you would write something that in hindsight you're like oh that's I just knew that
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  that had all the keywords that people would click on and I don't even know if I agree with that
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  and so I would see these fallouts where we would be attacked people love
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  to criticize our women's media organization I was thinking the other day
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  can you think of any of the big women's media organizations that existed in the 2010s
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  that are still around today the Jezebel's kind of disappeared reductor so many of them didn't
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  survive because when we had this reckoning about about women and girl bosses and women having
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  power and women abusing that power none of them survived we don't like women having
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  we don't like it so I did notice that my mayor you were just you were disproportionately
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  targeted for things that might be just traits of journalism might just be traits of media
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  things that existed elsewhere you know I remember at my mayor there was a constant thing about
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  unpaid internships unpaid internships my mayor exploits people I'm like the A base at the time
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  I base it unpaid internships like it was a normal part of media but when women do it
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  it's disgusting and exploitative interesting and but if any you know gender neutral
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  media platform does it then it's just part of the way there are a couple of things there that
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  I just want to pick out and get your thoughts on one is the disproportionate attention that
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  women will get for doing the same thing that men do and that is a criticism that correct me
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  if I'm wrong it might come from snarky people on social media and or the elite media institutions
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  especially if they're conservative leaning like the Murdoch press but then the other thing
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  that you said was that the women's publications are fallen over because people don't like powerful
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  women maybe or the women who are the target target readers maybe came to find that
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  tone shrill or unfulfilling or insufficiently captivating or optimistic or something like I
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  think it's a little bit potentially like chip on your shoulder tried to be like well society at
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  large has decided that we don't like powerful women I mean maybe the offering to women it's not
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  like men were not reading these things men were never reading these things it's the women who
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  were reading these things who found that they were not being reflected yes I think it's internalized
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  internalized misogyny to some extent and I do think that the first and anything about women is
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  that they love really hard but they also turn really hard I think you're right there are there are
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  certain publications that didn't date well that you look back at the sorts of things they were
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  writing and my issue with a lot of women's media and still is if I if I pick up certain magazines
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  is that I think there are a lot of women who think why is women's media all fluff why why do I go
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  to SM age and we're talking about you know politics and we're talking about that's the
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  mainstream that's red mainstream publication broadsheet so this mainstream media is talking about
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  really big stuff yeah and then I look at women's media and we're talking about makeup and gossip
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  yeah maybe it's not internalized misogyny exclusively maybe it's a feeling of being infantilized
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  and caricatured yeah yeah yeah and I I felt that growing up I remember looking at magazines and
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  I'd never resonated with magazines at all and then that's kind of why I liked the online space
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  because I felt like there was more scope to it was broader and you could be more radical and more
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  candid than you ever could be in like I never liked the magazine speak like that I was like that
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  is not how I speak to my friends I don't get it but I do think I am always fascinated by why
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  that is what has succeeded for women do you know what I mean like like why don't we have the
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  equivalent of you know really popular you know the Tim Ferris would like those kind of sinky
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  podcasts why don't we have that for women oh honestly honestly is a bit like that yeah there's
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  very wise but there's also like who's the let them woman who's really popular you know there's
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  like robbins yeah they're like self-help but isn't Tim self-help it's like I had to get you
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  in water and like but he like can get a little bit political yeah every like like I do think I
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  mean it's there's like kind of Ferguson here in Australia true true actually I think younger women
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  yeah younger women are emboldened to do it in a way that like for example your podcast I was saying
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  to you off mic your conversations are the ones I want to listen to I would never do it I could
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  never ever do it I could deal with the backlash criticism and also just a self-help that I think I'd
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  be scared about making the wrong decision or interviewing the wrong person and allowing them to
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  say the wrong thing you know like like I would be I'd be way too I don't you seem comfortable with
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  uncertainty in a way that I'm not like you will say I don't know what I think about this I'm
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  still figuring it out yes I don't think I don't know if I don't know if women give themselves
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  that grace or if we don't allow women that grace I don't know that's a very good point I think
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  there is a discrepancy there because if you think about the women who are successful I'm just
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  thinking about the Australian social media context mostly so Hannah Abbey Chatfield they're very
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  yeah yeah exactly Jen Fran these are all people who I who I like and admire but they do have a certain
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  like feistiness that I even find like puts me on my back foot I'm like how can you be so you know
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  passionate about this thing that is really complicated that people have found to be extremely
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  complicated for a very very long time Antoinette Latouf is another one who I just love talking to
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  and hanging out with but I'm like almost in awe of the level of kind of intellectual firepower
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  that they'll bring to their certainty about something and I'm like there there's almost nothing
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  in the world that I'm that's okay yeah okay yeah but why can't you allow that ambiguity and
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  uncertainty to be the context in which you have the uncomfortable conversation because I think
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  with women a little bit me and I don't know if this is just me but I think maybe we read that
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  uncertainty as malicious or we read the the most bad faith interpretation of that uncertainty
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  and maybe with I don't know with like because I like I look at those women and I'm like I could never
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  stand in the same space as those women because I'm just not as certain and I'm in awe of them and
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  I've interviewed Hannah Ferguson and could listen to her talk all day but I'm just not as you say
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  I'm not there's very few things in life that I'm certain about coming back to the the way that
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  people treat men and women differently in the media space it is also possible that uncertainty
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  from a woman is likely to trigger a perception of ignorance, naivety, foggy headedness,
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  air headedness, ditsiness, then it does in a man that people give a man the benefit of the
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  doubt of being like oh he's very thoughtful because he doesn't know something whereas a woman
• 28:47
  would be like ah what's she talking for she doesn't know shit exactly and it's like why why you
• 28:51
  occupying that space if you don't know what you think and if you don't think what I think I think
• 28:57
  the fact that feminism is still you know obviously occurring in real time it's very very recent in
• 29:05
  human history we're still grappling with a whole lot of issues and what this movement looks like
• 29:13
  and when you see a woman in any position of power you think there are limited seats at the table
• 29:20
  and if you're going to take that seat you better represent all the things I need you to represent
• 29:26
  like I think that's what we do in politics in media in business that we really whereas
• 29:32
  men are the default so there's not that kind of questioning about you like even you think about
• 29:39
  a male politician whether or not they have kids whether like all of that stuff doesn't matter
• 29:45
  as much but for a woman it's like I need you to represent my life circumstances and how are
• 29:51
  you going to have any empathy for people who are mothers if you're not a mother like you know
• 29:57
  we really do a lot of that so I think it's also it's also that it's the thing of
• 30:03
  wanting a woman who's occupying a position of power to be doing a perfect job at it
• 30:09
  yeah that's probably true and to be yes and to show some swagger so the cancel culture thing so
• 30:16
  you notice when you're working at mama mea that there's this phenomenon arising this is in
• 30:20
  the early 20 terms yeah like I remember it very early on and there would be in hindsight like
• 30:29
  some of it's funny like some of it's ridiculous the things that that would be said
• 30:35
  mea often talks about a time where she was on television cadet Evans had won the tour de France
• 30:42
  and she made said something like yeah but who cares about cycling and absolutely got slaughtered
• 30:48
  like absolutely torn apart and I think the other thing I noticed was that there would be women
• 30:55
  who were sharing very vulnerably who then got absolute vitriol back so sharing about loss or
• 31:05
  grief or you know grappling with parenthood and you would and just the stuff that came back and
• 31:12
  what I found interesting was that on the one hand whenever you write opinion online whenever
• 31:18
  you write something personal opinion whatever you have a level of like obviously people aren't going
• 31:23
  to agree with this and I'm fine for people to debate it that's what an opair is but then there's
• 31:30
  the other stuff of the personal abuse the dehumanisation the total contempt and I watched how it
• 31:36
  built over time and how there was a glee in tearing down a woman when somebody kind of
• 31:44
  took a misstep there was a transgression it was like people waiting to say oh thank god yes not I
• 31:50
  hate those bitches but they were waiting they were waiting um and this is on social media or
• 31:56
  also regular media or in the comments on articles that you're publishing social media but also
• 32:02
  I think within media that people you felt a bit look down upon which was really hard because
• 32:10
  sometimes I'd be looking at somebody criticising the place I worked for or the kind of work I did
• 32:17
  and I'd think oh I admired I do this job because of you like because I admired you and I wanted to
• 32:23
  be like you and now you think I'm a joke you just want the people you respect to respect you bad
• 32:28
  exactly yeah exactly so I saw a lot of that um and I've had it uh you know as you know as I did more
• 32:39
  like podcasting and writing my my twin sister lots of podcasting lots of writing I think I
• 32:45
  actually get more hurt when it's her being attacked I get I there is a certain feeling that is like
• 32:52
  I it's just you just want to yell and when she gets called names or the the names she's been called
• 33:01
  that you just think in the service of feminism like that she's a like she'd share something an
• 33:09
  opinion on her podcast which is I think it's the most listened to women's podcast in Australia it's
• 33:16
  it's up there it's in the top three whatever very very big podcast so when she would share something
• 33:22
  the things that would get said about like crumb maiden of the patriarchy and pick me girl
• 33:30
  and just all these things that I was like why are women using these terms against each other
• 33:35
  and this is from women yeah against her for being insufficiently devoted to the feminist
• 33:41
  cause they see it yes and not kind of practicing feminism in the way in the way that they do yeah
• 33:49
  and so I would get so so so frustrated by that and want to you know sometimes I did argue back
• 33:56
  which never never ends well um you're never going to win that on the internet um but I wanted to
• 34:02
  evoke like the reason I became fascinated with this was that I wanted to evoke that feeling
• 34:07
  never experienced it because I don't know if you feel this it feels exactly like being bullied in
• 34:14
  your right exactly where you're like you can't say that that's not you're making fun of me you're
• 34:21
  mocking me that's mean like like you just feel so ridiculously powerless and so I wanted to
• 34:30
  evoke that feeling and so I wrote a novel about it yes which I'm halfway through oh yeah
• 34:36
  very much that when you said that like it's really hurtful when people who you respect
• 34:42
  sort of throw some jai about you for the fact that you're doing clickbait trashy you know girl
• 34:47
  journalism or something like that was the hurt exclusively because they were mean and you felt
• 34:54
  disrespected or was there also a grain of and they're sort of right because I am stuck
• 35:03
  that's when it hurts the most when you when you when you have done something
• 35:09
  that you feel a bit funny about I am quite fine there there are things I've written things I've done
• 35:17
  where I'll get backlash to it and it is like water off a duck's back I don't care because I'm
• 35:23
  like no I stand by that I'm quite confident with the argument I made there are other things where
• 35:30
  there is a bit of a grain like it it does kind of touch on an insecurity of yours and that's when it
• 35:38
  and is that an insecurity about the the status of the way the media is set up or is an insecurity about
• 35:47
  yeah like so for what like I think I mean I think when wherever we are in our careers and whatever
• 35:56
  we're doing we're always plagued by a bit of self doubt of like is this you know I in my family my
• 36:03
  parents are teachers my brothers are early childhood educators I go home on the weekends and it is
• 36:12
  a family who is making the world a better place like they are tangibly just just changing the
• 36:20
  world in very good ways with their work and so I have that internal crisis all the time but I'm like
• 36:26
  what am I doing am I making the world better or am I just writing about the Kardashians
• 36:32
  I have that so then when you're kind of mocked you're like oh god yeah I don't know I don't know
• 36:38
  what I'm doing yeah but then but then I do believe and I still believe that I look at somewhere like
• 36:45
  bummer and I'm like hey not that long ago women's experiences were not recorded like miscarriage
• 36:55
  was not something that was ever written about losing a child was not something that was ever
• 36:59
  written about there are all these aspects of the female experience that have no place in human
• 37:06
  history and I do think it matters I do think women's experiences matter and if that is an
• 37:10
  imperfect journey of how we you know how we went about sharing those hmm then that's okay like
• 37:18
  it is it is going to be imperfect and so I do believe that there is a very important utility
• 37:26
  yes yeah yeah that's right I mean I sometimes feel like I can't remember but someone
• 37:33
  ripped me apart I said something mean I think it was in the daily male the male online right
• 37:39
  and I was about to get upset about it and then I googled the journalist's name and the 1%
• 37:48
  paragraph bio and Google just made me feel made me flip instantly from sort of hatred and hurt
• 37:57
  to pity because this was somebody who had had a long career in like illustrious broadsheet
• 38:03
  newspapers and had obviously been retrenched during the shrinking of newspapers over the past few
• 38:08
  years and was now working for probably a fraction of what they could have what they were
• 38:14
  earning in their heyday and they're just trying to make ends meet and they know that they're
• 38:18
  churning out crap and like they probably don't need to be reminded about the situation that they're
• 38:24
  in but they don't they don't want to drive an uber so they're writing clickbait for the daily
• 38:27
  male that's and so I'm like am I really going to kick down on this person for producing what the
• 38:34
  machine wants them to produce is like toiling in a in a coal mine basically I think the exact same
• 38:40
  thing because I can be out of all the publications I can be snarky about daily male because
• 38:45
  there are certain things that have been written about people I love that break my heart but I think
• 38:50
  the exact same thing I look at it and I'm like these are people who study journalism this is
• 38:58
  what they want to do and this is what's available and I don't think that in this job market
• 39:03
  we can critique that and there is a lot of there is this kind of moral
• 39:10
  puritism that people have and they haven't not just about media but about any company where if there's
• 39:16
  a problematic person if there's a say a problematic CEO or you look at yeah daily male and you think
• 39:23
  some of the things you've been responsible for the actual person who's just writing the articles
• 39:30
  I don't think you can hold them no exactly that's right they're just yeah there might be a single
• 39:35
  mum just trying to support their family and I don't think they should pay the price of whatever
• 39:41
  hellscape we've we've found ourselves in I mean the reason I'm interested in the hurt of the
• 39:47
  public shaming or the pile on or the criticism being starker or sharper if it is true then if it's
• 39:54
  not true is just to interrogate during this time at maramiya when the you know we're beginning to
• 40:01
  see this phenomenon of what we now understand as cancel culture or public shaming like how much of
• 40:07
  it is I think I mentioned on I may have mentioned when I was on your excellent podcast about the
• 40:13
  difference between the feeling of having a pile on that is purely mean and deranged where it feels
• 40:21
  like you're back in eighth grade and you're feeling like well hang on why are you being so mean to me
• 40:26
  but you're also in that case often able to dismiss the hurtful comments as being really outside
• 40:35
  of the bounds of what society agrees is proper conduct versus what then happens during the
• 40:42
  greater wokening starting in probably 2014 2015 and peaking in the late teens and early 20s of
• 40:51
  feeling like you're being attacked and inundated and swept away and demonized by people who are not
• 40:58
  schoolyard bullies but are on but are carrying the banner of what the whole of elite society
• 41:07
  in its media institutions and in hollywood and its editorial pages and has come to agree is the
• 41:15
  right way of thinking about things and that's I found more hurtful and pernicious because there's
• 41:22
  a grain of truth in the criticism yeah like you actually are not marching in lockstep with this
• 41:29
  new set of ideas about race or gender or whatever it might be and so you actually are a dissenter
• 41:35
  and they are right to to some degree to point that out which I found like a more and I'm speaking
• 41:44
  from a position of privilege obviously as a white male I might feel differently about it if I was
• 41:49
  a trans woman of color but the the attacks that I've gotten from Jew haters or gay haters I'm
• 41:57
  more easily dismissed emotionally than the ones that I've got from people who are pointing out some
• 42:04
  genuine transgression I think that's exactly it because that that latter feeling is one of ex
• 42:13
  communication like it's it's being excommunicated from your tribe and that used to mean you know
• 42:19
  I think there's our evolutionary history that used to mean death like so there is this visceral feeling
• 42:26
  of I thought these were my people and they clearly don't see me as one of as as a line with them
• 42:37
  and that is such a sickening alienating feeling that and you just want to you want to scream like
• 42:48
  we have 99% of things in common though like we you know we might disagree on one tiny slither of a
• 42:56
  of a thing and there is I don't know if you feel this but I feel there is
• 43:03
  profound injustice in it so for example someone I've interviewed on the podcast episode will be
• 43:11
  live by the I think by the time this goes live um she interviewed somebody on her podcast about
• 43:20
  who who was from reality TV and was problematic and that he was you know did did things that were like
• 43:28
  semi like used language in the domestic violence adjacent space like he didn't you know he didn't
• 43:35
  hit anyone but he you know was the kind of guy toxic guy she interviewed him
• 43:42
  her career her reputation was completely completely destroyed
• 43:49
  and podcast ended um all her you know she was doing stuff online all her partnerships ended ended
• 43:58
  up in a um in an impatient clinic because her mental health was so bad one people don't remember
• 44:06
  that guy's name I don't remember his name and two her kind of whole thing she was excommunicated
• 44:14
  by her own community which was women saying how dare you do this it's outside the bounds of what
• 44:19
  we believe is the right thing to do and she was like I kind of stand by the fact that I'm not
• 44:28
  the villain here like like that was the little bit of tension because it's not it's not that you're
• 44:33
  turning around and thinking you know you're it's like we do have a fundamental disagreement here
• 44:39
  I'm it's not that you're running with a lie I genuinely think that there is a difference between
• 44:47
  interviewing someone who is problematic and being responsible for domestic violence I think
• 44:51
  there's a difference there and there are people who are like no I don't see where the line is
• 44:56
  and you're like oh if my sense of reality is that different I don't belong anywhere right because
• 45:03
  I don't belong I don't belong on some I don't know some corner of the internet that believes
• 45:09
  domestic violence is fine I don't know well come and join the uncomfortable conversations
• 45:14
  band of Mary misfits you don't belong anywhere and creating a team of them of their own
• 45:19
  get a human as well if you've listened to this much of the episode then you must enjoy it
• 45:24
  presumably unless you're just losing from massacistic reasons so you should listen to the
• 45:28
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