Latest / Blocked and Reported / Episode 278: I Fell in Love With My Psychiatrist And Then Doxxed Him On TikTok

Transcript

Episode 278: I Fell in Love With My Psychiatrist And Then Doxxed Him On TikTok · Blocked and Reported

0:08
Jesse just got an email from actually from blocked and reported
0:14
about a meetup in Portland.
0:17
SPEAKER_03: I didn't say who sent it.
0:18
SPEAKER_03: So am I doing a meetup in Portland?
0:21
SPEAKER_02: Let's just, can we back up for a minute?
0:23
SPEAKER_02: Can we slow down just for once, Katie?
0:26
SPEAKER_03: All right, let's slow down.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Katie, it's September 26th.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: Your book is coming out the 30th.
0:32
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
0:33
SPEAKER_02: The draft of my book is due the 29th.
0:34
SPEAKER_02: We both have a lot of going on.
0:36
I would just like to remind people that our books were actually
0:42
due on the same
0:43
SPEAKER_03: date,
0:43
SPEAKER_03: which was October 1st last year.
0:46
SPEAKER_03: And mine is coming out 364 days after I turned it in.
0:49
SPEAKER_03: And yours is...
0:53
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: Well,
0:54
I had some planned remarks where I was going to compliment you
0:57
on multiple fronts,
0:58
SPEAKER_02: including your ability to write quickly.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: We could skip that if you want.
1:01
My point is I want to turn in this draft of my book,
1:05
which is hopefully near the final draft.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: We'll see.
1:07
SPEAKER_02: And then go somewhere beautiful.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: I haven't decided yet.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: I think I'm going to go to Oregon.
1:10
SPEAKER_02: I heard they have cliffs and mushrooms.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: What else do you associate with Oregon?
1:15
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: Anarchy?
1:16
SPEAKER_02: I was just looking at some photos of the coastline,
1:18
SPEAKER_02: and then I was looking at places you can stay there.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: It's not that expensive.
1:21
SPEAKER_02: It's shoulder season.
1:22
SPEAKER_03: Is shoulder season a thing?
1:25
SPEAKER_03: Is that fall and spring?
1:27
SPEAKER_03: Is that a shoulder season?
1:28
I guess that's between peak season and the winter when no one
1:30
goes there because it rains 24-7.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: Anyway,
1:32
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
1:33
SPEAKER_02: I sent out a thing to see if there's interest in a Portland meetup,
1:37
SPEAKER_02: which I will let people know soon.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: This is Primo's only if you're not a Primo.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: Actually, what you did was you said... Did I send it out to everyone?
1:45
SPEAKER_02: Let me double check.
1:46
SPEAKER_02: I might have sent it to everybody.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: Don't fill it... Well, I guess we shouldn't advertise that fact.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: Fuck.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: Oh, God.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: It's going very well.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: No, no, this only went to Primo's.
1:55
SPEAKER_02: Scratch that.
1:55
SPEAKER_02: You didn't get the email.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: If you're a freebie, you didn't get this.
1:58
SPEAKER_02: The point is, I'm going to send out a post...
2:02
SPEAKER_02: Just to primos, there's a lot of appetite for these meetup groups.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: We just launched one in Boston.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: I was a month late getting that together.
2:09
SPEAKER_02: But I'm going to do a permanent post.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: We're going to link to it on the homepage on the right.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: And anyone who's a primo who's curious if there is a meetup in Boston,
2:18
SPEAKER_02: in Portland,
2:19
SPEAKER_02: in Mosul,
2:20
SPEAKER_02: Iraq,
2:21
SPEAKER_02: they can check the comments there.
2:22
And I'll let you guys sort of self-organize because I don't
2:24
have the infrastructure
2:26
SPEAKER_02: for this cognitively.
2:27
SPEAKER_03: There was someone trying to set up a meetup in Austin.
2:31
SPEAKER_03: If anybody is in Austin, there's one person there.
2:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't think we should say that on the free one.
2:37
But when I create this primo post,
2:40
I will put the email address they gave in the comments.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: So that Austin people, you're a step ahead.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: You've already got someone interested in organizing.
2:48
SPEAKER_03: And it is Jesse.
2:49
He did not sign this post,
2:50
but it is Jesse who will be doing the meetup in Portland?
2:53
SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: I'm not even sure yet.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: I think I am.
2:57
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of... We have...
3:00
SPEAKER_02: Right now, 44 people responded, expressing at least some interest.
3:03
And Portland has like,
3:04
Portland's mostly just burned down at this point,
3:06
right?
3:06
SPEAKER_02: There's not a lot of people left.
3:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's what I hear.
3:08
SPEAKER_03: It's just the burnt out food trucks.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: There'll be a little bit,
3:12
SPEAKER_02: if it happens,
3:12
like a little bit of tension because we've done a lot of these
3:15
events by now.
3:17
I've done a lot of meetups that were like not exactly secrets,
3:20
never had any issues.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: I think if there was ever a city where there would maybe be an issue,
3:25
SPEAKER_02: I feel like Portland would be near the top of the list.
3:27
SPEAKER_03: I think at this point, Portland has bigger juice to fry.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: Bigger juice to fry.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: They were a really good jam band from the 90s.
3:34
SPEAKER_02: They opened for Dave Matthews Band.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
3:36
What the...
3:37
This is...
3:37
We're both in...
3:38
Can I talk about your book or do you not...
3:40
Sure.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: We can talk about it.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
3:41
SPEAKER_02: Well, here's my review.
3:45
SPEAKER_02: Drinking Myself Sober, the Katie Herzog story, forward by Jesse Singel.
3:51
SPEAKER_02: No, your book is really fucking good.
3:52
SPEAKER_02: It's coming out September 30th.
3:54
SPEAKER_02: I did a little giveaway on my newsletter,
3:57
in part because I'm currently at the deepest pits of a book
4:02
hell trying to finish
4:03
SPEAKER_02: my book.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: It's annoying that you're really good at writing,
4:06
SPEAKER_02: even though that's mostly not what you do anymore.
4:09
SPEAKER_02: You're good at writing.
4:10
SPEAKER_02: Also, this is...
4:11
SPEAKER_02: It's a self-help book,
4:12
SPEAKER_02: but it's all about science,
4:14
SPEAKER_02: and you're really good at sort of quickly,
4:16
SPEAKER_02: deftly describing these different scientific controversies,
4:19
whereas I have this try-hard tendency to write 5,000 words to
4:22
say what I could in
4:22
SPEAKER_02: 500 words.
4:23
So I'm a little bit mad that you wrote such a good book so
4:28
quickly,
4:28
but I'm also proud of you.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Jesse.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: Is that gay?
4:31
SPEAKER_03: It is gay.
4:31
SPEAKER_03: It's extremely gay.
4:32
SPEAKER_03: Can we say that?
4:33
SPEAKER_03: I appreciate that.
4:35
SPEAKER_03: The worst part about this is getting compliments, as you can imagine.
4:39
SPEAKER_03: It's like I want people to read the book,
4:41
SPEAKER_03: but I also don't want people to tell me that they liked it or worse,
4:46
SPEAKER_03: tell me that they didn't like it.
4:47
SPEAKER_03: The whole thing is making me pretty uncomfortable, as you can imagine.
4:50
Yeah,
4:50
you're just like...
4:52
I mean,
4:52
and you get into this in the book because you...
4:55
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of personal stuff, which you're like a clam.
4:58
SPEAKER_02: Clams famously don't share their inside.
5:02
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what I was.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: I'm so fucking tired.
5:05
I just want to be clear that,
5:06
joking aside,
5:08
we have a good-sized audience.
5:10
And even a relatively small number of book sales can make a big
5:13
difference,
5:13
as I know from publishing a book that did not get those
5:16
relatively small number of
5:17
SPEAKER_02: book sales.
5:18
Drink Your Way Sober,
5:19
the science-based method to break free from alcohol.
5:22
SPEAKER_02: If you buy this book,
5:23
SPEAKER_02: you are not only supporting Katie,
5:25
SPEAKER_02: but you're supporting the overall health of the podcast.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: Because the more money Katie has...
5:30
SPEAKER_02: You get where I'm going with this.
5:31
First of all,
5:32
maybe she'll give some to me,
5:33
finally,
5:34
after five years of being an unpaid intern.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: But the ongoing labor battles we have over things like vacation,
5:40
SPEAKER_02: which Katie doesn't believe in,
5:43
SPEAKER_02: whether I should be allowed to sleep or be at her beck and call 24-7.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: If Katie had a little bit more financial flexibility,
5:49
SPEAKER_02: less of this would fall on my increasingly exhausted shoulders.
5:53
SPEAKER_02: So whether or not you like Katie or like...
6:00
SPEAKER_02: No,
6:00
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
6:00
SPEAKER_02: I don't mean like you do more of the work,
6:02
but your inability to just chill and enjoy money because you
6:07
need more of it.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: And you keep buying, you buy like 12 houses a year at least.
6:11
SPEAKER_03: Hey, I'm down one.
6:12
SPEAKER_03: We sold, we sold the house hasn't closed yet, but we did.
6:16
SPEAKER_03: I'm down one, hopefully at some point down to just one.
6:19
SPEAKER_02: Just buy the book.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: But let's do it.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: Let's do this episode.
6:21
SPEAKER_03: Okay,
6:22
SPEAKER_03: we will talk about...
6:22
We're going to talk more about the book on the next free
6:24
episode after it comes
6:25
SPEAKER_03: out.
6:25
SPEAKER_03: But a lot has happened, Jesse, since we last spoke.
6:28
There was another politically motivated shooting,
6:30
this one at an ICE facility.
6:32
The shooter wrote anti-ICE on the bullet casings,
6:35
but rather than...
6:36
And then shot detainees.
6:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so he was a centrist.
6:39
SPEAKER_03: I think that's what that means.
6:40
SPEAKER_03: We also had the cancellation and then the uncancellation,
6:44
SPEAKER_03: but partial recancellation of Jimmy Kimmel.
6:46
SPEAKER_03: So...
6:48
SPEAKER_03: Everybody knows what I'm talking about here.
6:49
SPEAKER_03: I don't have to go into it.
6:50
But Sinclair Media has refused to air his show,
6:52
including at my local market in Seattle.
6:55
SPEAKER_02: That sucks.
6:56
SPEAKER_02: That's your whole wind down routine.
6:58
SPEAKER_02: Every night, 1135.
6:59
SPEAKER_03: I get out of bed.
7:00
SPEAKER_03: I wake up.
7:01
SPEAKER_03: I take a shower.
7:02
SPEAKER_03: And then I go watch Jimmy Kimmel.
7:04
SPEAKER_02: I haven't been asleep for six hours.
7:05
SPEAKER_02: I roused myself.
7:06
SPEAKER_03: Look, Jesse, it takes 18 hours to keep this machine running.
7:09
SPEAKER_03: Come on.
7:10
SPEAKER_02: It was interesting.
7:11
I watched his comeback thing just because I was very curious
7:15
what he would say.
7:16
And it made me think of...
7:17
Was that your first time watching Jimmy Kimmel?
7:19
SPEAKER_02: From the start of an episode, yes.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: I think...
7:23
SPEAKER_02: Look, I'm a Conan O'Brien guy.
7:25
As far as I'm concerned,
7:25
the only late and he's late,
7:28
late night host was Conan.
7:29
But Jimmy Kimmel over the years has produced some good stuff,
7:31
including I'm fucking Matt Damon.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: I'm fucking Ben Affleck.
7:35
SPEAKER_03: He goes to... Can he say fucking on... Yeah, they bleep it out.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: People should look these up.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: These were like really classic bits.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: He takes Tom Brady to Matt Damon's house.
7:44
SPEAKER_02: There's some good stuff.
7:44
SPEAKER_02: But...
7:45
Yeah,
7:46
it made me remember back when I used to watch The Daily Show or
7:48
The Colbert Report.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: It had been a while,
7:50
SPEAKER_02: but I actually tuned in for that,
7:52
SPEAKER_02: and I thought he did pretty good in weird circumstances.
7:55
SPEAKER_02: This whole thing is sort of weird.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: I heard he cry.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: He did cry, and then I cried.
7:58
SPEAKER_03: Puss.
7:59
SPEAKER_02: I tried to call you, and you started crying.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we don't need to get into the whole thing.
8:04
SPEAKER_02: It's a little bit weird,
8:05
SPEAKER_02: because at root,
8:06
SPEAKER_02: it's sort of a free speech thing,
8:08
SPEAKER_02: but in a weird way,
8:08
SPEAKER_02: it's not.
8:09
SPEAKER_02: Because first of all, everyone knows that you can no longer...
8:12
SPEAKER_02: Like back in the day, you could actually take someone off the air.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: And then that was just right.
8:16
SPEAKER_02: Like they would go away that a that can happen.
8:19
Be all the like the reason these giant companies freak out is
8:23
just because they
8:24
SPEAKER_02: have business before effectively the White House,
8:26
SPEAKER_02: which is not good.
8:27
SPEAKER_02: But it's like all just billionaires fighting over shit.
8:29
SPEAKER_02: But obviously, extremely disturbing that the FCC would do that.
8:33
SPEAKER_02: And you and I as huge fans, we're happy Kimmel's partially back.
8:36
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
8:37
SPEAKER_03: Thrilled about that.
8:37
SPEAKER_03: You know,
8:38
I think the only Jimmy Kimmel clip that I have ever paid
8:41
attention to was the one
8:42
SPEAKER_03: that got him taken off the air,
8:44
SPEAKER_03: which I actually thought was pretty good.
8:46
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it was a joke about Donald Trump.
8:47
SPEAKER_03: This was not a joke about Charlie Kirk.
8:50
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it seemed very clear to me.
8:51
SPEAKER_03: Did you think that was pretty clear, Jesse?
8:53
I guess when he said they were trying to make it out as if this
8:57
kid wasn't one of
8:58
SPEAKER_02: them,
8:58
SPEAKER_02: I just didn't get that.
8:59
SPEAKER_03: I thought a lot of people said... I didn't get that.
9:01
SPEAKER_03: But that wasn't the punchline.
9:03
SPEAKER_02: Which part was the punchline?
9:03
SPEAKER_02: Oh, the part was the punchline.
9:04
SPEAKER_02: The morning, the morning, the morning.
9:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, let's watch the whole thing here.
9:07
We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang
9:11
desperately trying to
9:12
characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything
9:15
other than one of them
9:16
SPEAKER_01: and doing everything they can to score political points from it.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: In between the finger pointing, there was grieving.
9:22
On Friday,
9:23
the White House flew the flags at half-staff,
9:25
which got some criticism.
9:27
SPEAKER_01: But on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this.
9:32
SPEAKER_02: My condolences on the loss of your friend Charlie Kirk.
9:34
May I ask,
9:34
sir,
9:35
personally,
9:35
how are you holding up over the last day and a half,
9:38
sir?
9:38
SPEAKER_02: I think very good.
9:39
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, right there, you see all the trucks?
9:42
SPEAKER_02: They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House,
9:46
SPEAKER_01: which is something they've been trying to get,
9:48
SPEAKER_01: as you know,
9:48
SPEAKER_01: for about 150 years.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: And it's going to be a beauty.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: He's at the fourth stage of grief, construction.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: Demolition.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: Construction.
10:02
SPEAKER_02: So the theory is Trump was pissed off about that.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: And the other thing was like a pretense.
10:07
SPEAKER_03: That's what I think makes the most sense.
10:09
SPEAKER_03: Or if Trump even saw it or Brendan Carr was just like,
10:13
SPEAKER_03: oh,
10:13
SPEAKER_03: the boss is going to be pissed about this.
10:15
SPEAKER_03: And this is obviously...
10:17
SPEAKER_03: Look, the Democrats were bad on speech, but that is true.
10:21
The Biden administration absolutely pressured tech companies to
10:24
censor during COVID.
10:25
SPEAKER_03: That happened.
10:27
SPEAKER_03: I do think what's happening now is much worse.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: I don't, I don't think there's any comparison.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: You think this is worse?
10:35
SPEAKER_02: I just don't.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, a couple of things.
10:37
SPEAKER_02: First of all, um,
10:40
SPEAKER_02: I think in some cases,
10:42
the contents of the Twitter files got a little bit distorted
10:45
and context was
10:46
SPEAKER_02: removed.
10:47
SPEAKER_03: Well, not even the Twitter files.
10:49
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we can talk about- No, I know Google just- Sorry.
10:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, go ahead.
10:52
SPEAKER_03: Go ahead.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
10:53
I mean,
10:54
Google just basically said there was some jaw boning about
10:56
removing harmful content.
10:57
SPEAKER_02: I do think this was a problem.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: I think there's a couple of different things.
11:01
SPEAKER_02: And one of them is like during COVID, everyone was freaking the fuck out.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: No one knew what was what.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: And I do think the government overreached.
11:08
SPEAKER_03: I do think I think the cause was better.
11:10
SPEAKER_03: Like they absolutely overreached, I think.
11:11
But we're talking about a public health crisis versus this is a
11:14
joke about the president.
11:15
SPEAKER_03: And that's some real dictator shit.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
11:18
SPEAKER_02: and there's been look,
11:20
the first time I really noticed how crazy Michael
11:21
Schellenberger had been getting
11:23
SPEAKER_02: was before the election,
11:25
publicly calling for NBC to be pulled off the air because
11:28
Kamala Harris had a brief
11:29
SPEAKER_02: cameo and then Brendan Carr came on.
11:31
So like the part of the point is having an FCC commissioner who
11:35
is the president's
11:36
SPEAKER_02: butt boy chair,
11:38
SPEAKER_02: chair of the FCC.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: who is a president's butt boy is really bad and really unusual.
11:41
There was nothing like that during the Biden administration in
11:44
terms of a cult of personality.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: I do think the Biden administration overstepped you and I,
11:47
we've made our views clear on the fucking like purging in some
11:51
cases of like a
11:52
SPEAKER_02: Megan Murphy type versus a Nick Fuentes type.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: That's more of the platforms making their decisions.
11:57
SPEAKER_02: But this to me is obviously much worse,
12:00
even setting aside the fact that Jimmy Campbell is like any
12:03
other celebrity now
12:04
SPEAKER_02: uncanceable effectively.
12:05
SPEAKER_03: But I did see one good thing has come out of that,
12:08
SPEAKER_03: come out of this,
12:09
SPEAKER_03: which is liberals embracing the values of free speech.
12:13
SPEAKER_03: Again, this is a good thing.
12:15
SPEAKER_03: I hope it's not temporary.
12:16
SPEAKER_03: Of course it's temporary.
12:17
SPEAKER_03: I did notice something.
12:18
SPEAKER_03: So Jesse, I put a screenshot in our notes there of ACLU.org.
12:21
SPEAKER_03: So I took this the other day.
12:23
SPEAKER_03: Just describe what was on their homepage.
12:25
SPEAKER_02: Defend free speech.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: Lady Liberty.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: We see your face right there.
12:28
SPEAKER_02: She's as beautiful as ever.
12:29
We've partnered with hundreds of artists to send a message that
12:32
we refuse to be silenced.
12:33
SPEAKER_02: Add your name to defend freedom of speech.
12:35
SPEAKER_02: Sign the letter.
12:35
SPEAKER_03: OK, so this was up.
12:37
I checked this the day after Jimmy Kimmel,
12:40
after his cancellation or brief cancellation.
12:42
And then I went to the Wayback Machine and I pulled a random
12:45
date from 2024.
12:46
SPEAKER_03: So before the election.
12:48
SPEAKER_03: And here's what ACLU.org looked like then.
12:50
SPEAKER_03: So describe this.
12:51
SPEAKER_02: Defend the rights of all people nationwide,
12:53
SPEAKER_02: abortion care,
12:54
SPEAKER_02: trans people's right to live freely,
12:56
SPEAKER_02: people's right to vote,
12:57
SPEAKER_02: our freedoms that are at stake and we need you with us,
13:00
SPEAKER_02: donate,
13:00
SPEAKER_02: blah,
13:01
SPEAKER_02: blah,
13:01
SPEAKER_02: blah.
13:01
SPEAKER_02: So it's like,
13:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
13:02
these are all issues that in some way do tie into some of what
13:05
the ACLU does,
13:05
but it is what I think Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson called
13:09
like everything bagel
13:10
SPEAKER_02: liberalism,
13:10
SPEAKER_02: where it's all causes at once.
13:12
What's interesting is if you look into both the choices the
13:16
ACLU made during the
13:17
SPEAKER_02: dark days and some of their specific decisions,
13:19
SPEAKER_02: for example,
13:20
there was a group of women's prisoners in I think Washington
13:23
state that basically
13:25
wanted to know if there were males being housed with them and
13:28
the ACLU pushed to
13:30
SPEAKER_02: not have that information be available.
13:31
And that's the kind of thing where it's like you could see the
13:33
ACLU saying someone
13:34
SPEAKER_02: who's a prisoner does have the right to know something like this.
13:36
Instead,
13:36
they chose to say prisoners have the right to not have their
13:39
natal sex.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: So like they made some very idiosyncratic choices.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: Personally, I do not.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: This is why like fire.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: Fire is the way to go.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: Fire is consistent on this stuff.
13:48
I do not trust ACLU at this point,
13:49
unfortunately,
13:50
even if they're doing very good work.
13:51
And I've noticed just absorbing NPR and the various other news
13:55
outlets that I
13:55
SPEAKER_03: follow on a regular basis.
13:57
SPEAKER_03: It is fire, not the ACLU that they have.
14:01
relied on for quotes and to weigh in on this issue yeah i i
14:05
look fire deserves a
14:08
moment now because they've been consistent throughout this
14:10
stuff the aclu is a
14:11
really big old organization they do important stuff also we
14:13
need to keep in mind
14:14
when we're fighting talking about the bullshit the aclu does
14:18
there's like some
14:19
tireless worker you know we're helping to make sure someone
14:22
doesn't get detained to
14:23
el salvador without trial um so there's like they're doing
14:25
important shit behind
14:26
SPEAKER_02: the scenes but they're they're public facing stuff during the
14:29
SPEAKER_02: Like we all know, this was the Chase Strangio era.
14:32
It was easy to get confused about what the ACLU and a lot of
14:35
other liberal groups
14:36
SPEAKER_02: actually stood for.
14:37
SPEAKER_03: You know,
14:37
SPEAKER_03: what's more important,
14:38
SPEAKER_03: free speech from the government or sex changes for...
14:42
SPEAKER_02: All right,
14:42
SPEAKER_02: all right,
14:43
SPEAKER_02: Katie.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: That's my president, Kamala Harris.
14:48
SPEAKER_03: Sex Changes for Illegal Immigrants in Prison.
14:49
SPEAKER_03: Was that right?
14:50
SPEAKER_02: I'm writing about this for my newsletter.
14:52
SPEAKER_02: And she's like, I got some... Oh, did you read the book?
14:55
SPEAKER_02: No, but I read the five-page chapter just on that issue.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: I say this carefully with full respect for like how...
15:05
SPEAKER_02: you know, how difficult mental health and suicidality can be.
15:08
SPEAKER_02: It made me want to blow my brains out, Katie.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: It was like, it was that fucking bad.
15:11
SPEAKER_02: Just the inability to take a fucking stand on it.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: Like, first she's like, why are they so obsessed with this?
15:17
Then she's like,
15:18
I do,
15:18
well,
15:19
I do have concerns about sports and fairness.
15:21
SPEAKER_02: And then can I read you the very last part of the chapter?
15:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, please do.
15:24
Actually,
15:24
I'm going to ask you to read this in your best Kamaharis voice
15:26
if you don't mind.
15:28
SPEAKER_03: Can I code switch like that?
15:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, give it, while I get it, while I pull this up, try to figure out.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: Will you practice?
15:34
SPEAKER_03: Doug.
15:34
SPEAKER_02: Doug.
15:36
SPEAKER_03: What was that?
15:36
SPEAKER_03: Make me a sandwich, Doug.
15:39
SPEAKER_02: Okay, Katie.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: So I'm posting in our show notes.
15:41
This is the end of the section on the,
15:44
you know,
15:44
Kamala's for they,
15:45
them and trans stuff.
15:46
SPEAKER_03: All right.
15:46
SPEAKER_03: Yes, I am half Indian, half black.
15:50
SPEAKER_03: Dad's from Jamaica, educated at Howard, California.
15:54
SPEAKER_02: Super cool.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: Everyone likes you.
15:57
SPEAKER_02: Huge political, amazing political skills.
15:59
I wish I could have gotten the message across that there isn't
16:01
a distinction
16:02
SPEAKER_03: between they,
16:02
SPEAKER_03: them,
16:03
SPEAKER_03: and you.
16:03
SPEAKER_03: The pronoun that matters is we.
16:06
SPEAKER_03: We the people.
16:07
SPEAKER_03: That's who I am for.
16:09
SPEAKER_03: Can you like...
16:10
SPEAKER_02: Just the level.
16:11
SPEAKER_03: How could you not win with a political message like that?
16:12
SPEAKER_02: That is four sentences and she doesn't say anything.
16:16
SPEAKER_02: And that's like the applause line at the end of the chapter.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's enough.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: Let's move on to the actual matters.
16:20
SPEAKER_03: Although I do think that would have been a good rebuttal to an ad.
16:23
But you probably need to at least at some point explain what
16:27
your stance is on the
16:28
SPEAKER_02: actual issues,
16:29
SPEAKER_02: right?
16:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:29
Yeah,
16:30
her stance is taxpayer-funded sex changes for illegal
16:33
immigrants in prison.
16:35
SPEAKER_03: It's very clear.
16:36
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
16:36
SPEAKER_03: All right.
16:37
SPEAKER_03: One more thing before we move on.
16:38
SPEAKER_03: So we talked on the last episode about Evan Urquhart,
16:43
SPEAKER_03: trans activist type,
16:43
who wrote and published a piece that really seemed like he was
16:46
begging to be
16:46
SPEAKER_03: doxxed.
16:48
SPEAKER_03: It was called Charlie Kirk is Dead.
16:49
SPEAKER_03: Here's why I'm celebrating!
16:50
SPEAKER_03: And he has continued to bait the cons.
16:54
SPEAKER_03: So Jesse, click this link.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: Assigned Media presents a Charlie Kirk Remembrance Day art contest.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: Dude, this is really like fucking dark.
17:03
Okay,
17:03
so he's having this art contest where people will draw Charlie
17:08
Kirk.
17:09
SPEAKER_03: It's sort of a everybody draw Muhammad Day, I guess.
17:12
SPEAKER_02: It's like a Charlie Hebdo.
17:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but it's everybody draw Charlie Kirk.
17:15
SPEAKER_03: So here,
17:16
SPEAKER_03: let me just read you a little bit about,
17:18
SPEAKER_03: let me just read you a little bit of what he writes.
17:20
SPEAKER_03: Last week,
17:21
SPEAKER_03: Congress passed a resolution honoring Charlie Kirk,
17:23
a far right extremist podcaster with a National Day of
17:25
Remembrance on October 14th,
17:27
SPEAKER_03: 2025.
17:27
SPEAKER_03: Put it on your calendar, Jesse.
17:30
Every Republican and most Democrats participated in this scheme
17:32
to give a day of
17:33
SPEAKER_03: national celebration to one of the most hateful,
17:35
SPEAKER_03: divisive figures in the national political landscape.
17:37
Kirk's rhetoric targeted black people,
17:39
immigrants,
17:39
gay men,
17:40
but he was particular.
17:40
SPEAKER_03: Why not lesbians?
17:41
SPEAKER_03: Did he just did he not target us?
17:43
SPEAKER_03: Rude.
17:44
SPEAKER_02: He was into that.
17:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:45
SPEAKER_03: Who isn't?
17:46
But he was particularly vicious in his hatred of the
17:48
transgender community.
17:49
SPEAKER_03: Many people have treated this as an outrage,
17:51
SPEAKER_03: but assigned media,
17:52
SPEAKER_03: that's Evan Urquhart's thing,
17:53
SPEAKER_03: we saw an opportunity.
17:54
SPEAKER_03: You want us to remember Charlie Kirk?
17:56
We'll show you how the trans community and our allies remember
17:59
that rat bastard.
18:01
SPEAKER_03: So if anybody's interested, you can submit your drawing of Charlie Kirk.
18:07
SPEAKER_03: No, it's very specific though.
18:09
SPEAKER_03: No AI.
18:10
and what i find i just i think that evan is trying to get
18:15
himself canceled because
18:16
there's some clout in this like this is actually not a bad idea
18:19
he can post this on
18:20
blue sky he'll get clap clap clap on blue sky then he can post
18:23
it on twitter and he
18:24
has and if it catches the right person's attention he'll get a
18:28
wave of shit for
18:30
this and in both he benefits both ways yeah can i send you
18:34
something that i think
18:35
SPEAKER_02: is relevant yes
18:36
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm going to drop this in the show notes.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: Describe it to me.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: This is an old Onion article.
18:40
SPEAKER_03: Marilyn Manson going door-to-door trying to shock people.
18:43
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
18:43
SPEAKER_03: That's what this is.
18:44
SPEAKER_02: That's exactly the vibe.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: Look at me and pay attention to me.
18:47
SPEAKER_02: Now,
18:47
SPEAKER_02: I should say I don't read a side media much,
18:52
SPEAKER_02: except when they post something dumb and wrong.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Daily.
18:55
SPEAKER_02: Actually, I guess I do read them a lot.
18:59
SPEAKER_02: I think he's taken a significant turn toward just like...
19:04
tabloidy darkness they just ran something about me that really
19:09
sort of got my goat
19:10
because it was just like factually wrong it just badly I'll
19:14
just read the fucking
19:14
thing that annoyed me I also think that paying attention to it
19:17
is part of the
19:18
problem they want attention but I might as well just address
19:21
this I don't have to
19:22
SPEAKER_02: fucking write about it or something it's so fucking annoying
19:24
SPEAKER_02: Headline is Don't Believe Jesse Singles Lies.
19:27
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's true.
19:28
SPEAKER_03: There's a photo of you.
19:30
SPEAKER_03: Have you considered suing them for copyright infringement?
19:32
SPEAKER_03: You know what?
19:33
SPEAKER_03: Hey, we know a lawyer.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: It's tagged humor by Allie Gibbs.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: Now...
19:41
SPEAKER_02: I'll just say one thing.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: They're mad about an economist article I wrote.
19:44
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't matter.
19:46
He got his big break in journalism by outing a trans person
19:49
against their will in The Atlantic.
19:54
SPEAKER_03: Let me guess.
19:55
Was this the stock image model who signed a consent form to be
20:00
a model on the cover
20:02
SPEAKER_03: of The Atlantic?
20:02
SPEAKER_03: Something that you had absolutely nothing to do with?
20:06
SPEAKER_02: Even if you accept the argument, and I think it's frankly psychotic.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: I don't think that's too strong a word.
20:09
SPEAKER_02: The argument is that this model who signed a consent form saying,
20:13
SPEAKER_02: I agree to be pictured in an article about youth gender stuff,
20:16
SPEAKER_02: and then complained they were outed,
20:19
SPEAKER_02: which is such crazyville.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: Even if you think that's true, I obviously had nothing to do with it.
20:24
SPEAKER_02: Anyway.
20:25
He got his big break in journalism by outing a transgender
20:27
person against her will.
20:28
You think somebody who models for something like a erectile
20:31
dysfunction medication
20:33
SPEAKER_03: or something like that,
20:34
do you think they get upset later when they are when people
20:37
when people think that
20:38
SPEAKER_03: they have erectile dysfunction?
20:40
SPEAKER_02: I consent to appear in this ad about micropenis treatment.
20:44
SPEAKER_02: Hey, the sentence continues.
20:49
SPEAKER_02: outing a trans person against her well in the Atlantic in an article that
20:52
SPEAKER_02: overstated the rate of detransition.
20:54
Katie,
20:54
without checking,
20:55
do you think my Atlantic article overstated the rate of
20:57
detransition?
20:57
My guess is that your Atlantic article said we don't know what
21:01
the rate of detransition is.
21:03
SPEAKER_03: Having not read it for at this point many years, that's my guess.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I say a commonly cited rate is 2.2%, but the true rate is unknown.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: So that's false.
21:15
SPEAKER_02: And understated the efficacy of medical transition.
21:18
Katie,
21:18
do you think my article understated the efficacy of medical
21:20
transition?
21:20
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to guess no.
21:22
SPEAKER_02: No.
21:23
I bent over backwards in a way in which,
21:26
in retrospect,
21:26
it was embarrassing.
21:27
SPEAKER_02: I was very deferential to trans activists.
21:29
SPEAKER_02: There's a whole part up top where I state very...
21:34
SPEAKER_02: how amazingly effective transition is.
21:37
SPEAKER_02: Having now looked at the research more,
21:38
I think actually trans adults are sort of screwed because
21:41
there's a lack of good
21:42
SPEAKER_02: research,
21:42
SPEAKER_02: but they're just like,
21:44
SPEAKER_02: they're lying.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: And like, what are you going to do?
21:46
Am I going to send an angry email to a signed media that will
21:50
get lost amidst all
21:51
SPEAKER_02: the submissions for their draw Charlie Kirk?
21:53
SPEAKER_02: Am I going to sue?
21:55
SPEAKER_02: It's just the level of just fucking lying.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: It does get to me, even though like at this point, they...
22:02
SPEAKER_02: I don't think a lot of people are reading this.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: It's just like, I can criticize Evan Urquhart without lying about him.
22:07
SPEAKER_02: Why can't a lot of folks on the other side do that?
22:12
SPEAKER_02: But that's enough about me and my complaints.
22:13
SPEAKER_03: Okay,
22:13
SPEAKER_03: well,
22:14
SPEAKER_03: to his credit,
22:15
Evan Urquhart is willing to talk to his critics on occasion
22:18
because he recently
22:19
SPEAKER_03: went on Brad Palumbo,
22:21
SPEAKER_03: friend of the podcast,
22:22
SPEAKER_03: on Brad's show to talk about his piece about Charlie Kirk,
22:26
SPEAKER_03: which again was called Charlie Kirk is Dead.
22:29
SPEAKER_03: Here's why I'm celebrating.
22:30
SPEAKER_03: Let's just watch a clip from this.
22:31
SPEAKER_03: This is one that Brad posted.
22:33
SPEAKER_02: Wait, I need to talk about the thumbnail image.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: Because it's fucking incredible.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so Brad didn't really pull punches.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: It says, I spoke to a demon.
22:47
SPEAKER_02: It's Evan Urquhart looking particularly red.
22:51
SPEAKER_02: I think this was a filter with like a fuzzy trans flag behind him.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: Brad Palumbo,
22:56
SPEAKER_02: how would you describe,
22:58
SPEAKER_02: handsome man,
22:59
SPEAKER_02: how would you describe,
23:00
SPEAKER_02: like,
23:01
SPEAKER_02: what is his face saying in the clip of himself he did?
23:04
SPEAKER_02: He looks befuddled.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: He looks befuddled.
23:07
SPEAKER_02: And behind them both is Charlie Kirk looking on from heaven, I guess.
23:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay, do I really have to watch any of this?
23:13
SPEAKER_02: Is that what we're doing?
23:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, watch the clip.
23:14
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: My first question is kind of this.
23:16
It seems pretty clear to me that Charlie Kirk was targeted for
23:19
his political views and killed.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Now, that would make this an act of terrorism.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: So why do you think it's okay to celebrate terrorism?
23:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
23:28
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
23:28
so I make a distinction between celebrating a person's death
23:33
and celebrating the
23:33
SPEAKER_02: cause of someone's death.
23:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: You know,
23:36
SPEAKER_02: if I celebrated someone who died from cancer,
23:39
SPEAKER_03: I don't think it would be fair to say that I was on cancer's side.
23:42
I think if you celebrate someone dying of cancer,
23:45
you are on cancer's side.
23:46
Okay,
23:46
wait,
23:46
before I can just break in,
23:49
it wasn't a filter that made him look red.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: He looks very red.
23:51
SPEAKER_02: Evan does.
23:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we are.
23:54
We are semi participating in what's almost like a kink ritual
23:57
because Evan is just
23:59
SPEAKER_02: amidst us like I have my whole other thoughts.
24:03
I think there's this like subset of conflict entrepreneur like
24:05
Matt Walsh who's
24:06
trying to pretend like the Democratic establishment has been
24:09
saying this shit.
24:10
SPEAKER_03: They killed Charlie Kirk.
24:11
SPEAKER_02: They, they-ism.
24:12
SPEAKER_02: They, them killed Charlie Kirk.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: There's been obviously a lot of awful online discourse,
24:18
SPEAKER_02: but Evan is hoping to get boosted by conservative voices.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: The reason,
24:25
SPEAKER_02: like you say,
24:26
SPEAKER_02: the reason you say shit like this,
24:27
the reason you give interviews like this is you hope it will
24:29
bring more attention
24:30
SPEAKER_02: to you.
24:31
SPEAKER_03: And it's working because here we are.
24:33
SPEAKER_02: And here we are.
24:34
SPEAKER_02: One other thing I just,
24:35
SPEAKER_02: I do before we continue,
24:36
SPEAKER_02: actually,
24:36
SPEAKER_02: I want to just,
24:37
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if this is a correction.
24:38
We got a couple impassioned emails from a listener saying he
24:42
thought we were too
24:43
SPEAKER_02: credulous toward the theory that the person who killed Tyler,
24:47
SPEAKER_02: what's the name,
24:47
SPEAKER_02: Robinson,
24:48
SPEAKER_02: that Tyler Robinson,
24:49
SPEAKER_02: in the early hours and days,
24:51
SPEAKER_02: we weren't sure what motivated him.
24:53
And we said the two most likely political leanings where he was
24:58
like a leftist type
24:58
SPEAKER_02: against Charlie Kirk,
24:59
or he was a griper type because there had been beef between
25:02
Nick Fuentes and...
25:04
SPEAKER_02: Charlie Kirk.
25:04
SPEAKER_02: I think, like, in the fog of this, I slightly messed up a couple things.
25:09
SPEAKER_02: Like, I conflated different things.
25:10
For example,
25:11
one of the bullets had this series of up,
25:12
right,
25:13
left,
25:13
down arrows.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: That was from Helldivers, but they also... No, it was from Contra.
25:17
SPEAKER_03: Up, up, down, down, left, right.
25:19
SPEAKER_02: Do you remember how... Okay.
25:21
SPEAKER_02: Back in the day, things were so simple.
25:23
SPEAKER_02: So simple.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: You were eight.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: You plugged in.
25:25
SPEAKER_02: You blew in the cartridge.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: You plugged it in.
25:27
SPEAKER_02: All you had to do was kill aliens.
25:29
SPEAKER_03: When your brother let you play as Nintendo.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was the oldest.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: I was the oldest brother.
25:32
SPEAKER_03: I don't think they were aliens.
25:34
SPEAKER_03: They were Nicaraguans.
25:35
SPEAKER_02: Was that the Iran-Contra affair?
25:37
SPEAKER_02: Wait, Contra plot.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: It's called Contra.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: This is worth a brief.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: I just want to read the plot.
25:44
SPEAKER_02: There's no plot sections, weirdly, on the website.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: I thought it was aliens.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's aliens.
25:49
SPEAKER_02: Look at this.
25:50
SPEAKER_02: Okay, anyway.
25:50
SPEAKER_02: It was drug-dealing aliens.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: Or did we support the drug dealers?
25:54
SPEAKER_02: I guess it depended.
25:55
SPEAKER_03: Why did they speak with Mexican accents?
25:58
SPEAKER_02: All right.
26:01
SPEAKER_02: I think that...
26:03
SPEAKER_02: In some cases,
26:03
SPEAKER_02: we passed along rumors,
26:06
including we said that like there was some sort of Chow Bella
26:09
had been co-opted by
26:10
SPEAKER_02: Gropers in a playlist.
26:11
SPEAKER_02: But I think that wasn't a real.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: It was like a playlist with like five people.
26:14
I think we were trying to be open minded because the fact is
26:18
you shouldn't leap to
26:19
SPEAKER_02: a conclusion early on.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: But if I could do that again,
26:21
SPEAKER_02: I would have been a little bit more careful about some of that stuff.
26:23
SPEAKER_03: We also said the most likely outcome was that he was a leftist.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: Did we?
26:29
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
26:29
SPEAKER_02: So why is this guy mad at us?
26:30
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: No, we got some stuff wrong.
26:33
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to shirk responsibility.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, we can move on.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: That's enough.
26:35
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so there's a lot going on.
26:38
SPEAKER_03: In addition to everything else,
26:39
Pete Hegseth has summoned the generals and admirals from all
26:43
over the world for a
26:44
SPEAKER_03: secret meeting in Virginia.
26:45
SPEAKER_03: Nobody seems to know why.
26:46
SPEAKER_03: I really hope this is a team building thing.
26:48
SPEAKER_03: Like maybe they're going to get together and do a TikTok dance.
26:51
SPEAKER_02: Someone,
26:52
some newscaster suggested or relayed the rumor that it was some
26:56
sort of physical
26:57
SPEAKER_02: fitness test.
26:58
SPEAKER_02: There's no way that's true.
27:00
SPEAKER_02: I want that to be true.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: If someone was like,
27:05
SPEAKER_02: if you can make that true,
27:06
SPEAKER_02: but Trump gets to be president for 10 more years,
27:08
SPEAKER_02: absolutely.
27:09
They just show up,
27:11
he gives them sweatsuits,
27:12
and there's monkey bars,
27:14
and maybe a foam pit.
27:15
SPEAKER_03: The presidential fitness test is back.
27:19
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot going on.
27:20
SPEAKER_03: Most of it is bad.
27:21
SPEAKER_03: Oh, also, my racist neighbor died.
27:22
SPEAKER_03: Oh, shit.
27:23
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry.
27:24
SPEAKER_03: I mean...
27:26
SPEAKER_03: I'm not.
27:26
SPEAKER_03: We can talk about that another time.
27:29
SPEAKER_03: You're not unhappy?
27:30
SPEAKER_03: Well, he was suffering.
27:31
SPEAKER_03: He's like an old man who was suffering.
27:33
SPEAKER_03: I think it was time to go.
27:34
SPEAKER_03: At some point, the rapture will come for us all, as Joyce Carol said.
27:38
So I feel like I need a break from the news,
27:42
and I suspect a lot of our listeners do as well.
27:45
So we are going to leave the news behind today and discuss
27:48
something that actually
27:49
SPEAKER_03: happened a couple months ago.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: Also,
27:51
SPEAKER_02: if you're the listener,
27:51
you got the best of both worlds because we just spent almost a
27:55
half hour basically
27:57
SPEAKER_02: talking about the news.
27:58
SPEAKER_02: The most important stuff, like assigned media.
28:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
28:00
So what we're going to talk about today actually happened a
28:03
couple months ago.
28:04
This episode was scheduled for a while back,
28:06
but we had to pivot because so much has happened.
28:09
SPEAKER_03: And I just think people could use a break from politics.
28:11
SPEAKER_03: So we're going to give you that.
28:12
SPEAKER_03: This is a story that came to us from TikTok.
28:15
And I know a lot of you are disappointed to hear this because
28:17
you want us to be
28:18
SPEAKER_03: talking about the UN Climate Summit.
28:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
28:20
SPEAKER_03: I mean, the closing of the feminist bookstore, Blue Stockings.
28:24
SPEAKER_03: But we got your emails.
28:25
SPEAKER_03: We got your DMs.
28:27
We actually sent someone to record a press conference held by
28:30
some disgruntled
28:31
SPEAKER_03: employees outside the bookstore on Thursday.
28:33
SPEAKER_03: I'm still digging through the audio.
28:35
I am sorry to report that there does not appear to be a single
28:38
land acknowledgement.
28:39
SPEAKER_03: It's very disappointing.
28:40
SPEAKER_03: So that story is on our radar and we might get to it in the future.
28:44
SPEAKER_03: If any of you listening have the inside scoop, please reach out.
28:48
SPEAKER_03: But today we're going to TikTok.
28:50
SPEAKER_02: Katie, let me interrupt you before you even start.
28:51
SPEAKER_02: Why don't we just get housekeeping out of the way?
28:52
SPEAKER_03: Okay, that's fine.
28:53
SPEAKER_02: We're a podcast.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: You can find us at blocked or imported.org.
28:56
SPEAKER_02: Remember,
28:56
SPEAKER_02: by the time you hear this,
28:57
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to do a little,
28:58
there'll be a sidebar thing for primos only to organize your
29:02
own local meetup
29:03
SPEAKER_02: groups in Azusa or whatever the hell.
29:06
SPEAKER_02: The best way to support us is to rate and review us on it.
29:08
SPEAKER_02: No second best way to support us rate and review us on Apple podcasts.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: The best way is to just give us money.
29:14
SPEAKER_02: At bottoimport.org, become a premium subscriber.
29:17
You get all sorts of extra benefits,
29:19
including access to these meetups when they happen.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: Please buy Katie's book.
29:24
SPEAKER_02: Please buy my book.
29:25
SPEAKER_02: It's not close to available yet, but just set aside some money.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: Someone said that they...
29:31
SPEAKER_02: When my book was announced,
29:32
SPEAKER_02: they put $25 in a fund that yielded compound interest,
29:36
SPEAKER_02: and they used interest to buy your book,
29:38
SPEAKER_02: which,
29:38
SPEAKER_02: glad to hear it.
29:39
SPEAKER_03: I hope they put it in Bitcoin.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: Anything else for housekeeping, Katie?
29:42
SPEAKER_03: That's it.
29:43
SPEAKER_03: Join us, blockedandreported.org.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: And blockchainportedpodcasts at gmail.com.
29:46
SPEAKER_03: Right.
29:47
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
29:47
SPEAKER_03: So TikTok.
29:48
As everyone knows,
29:49
TikTok is a platform that is best known for extremely short
29:53
videos.
29:54
SPEAKER_03: And when TikTok first launched, videos were a max of 15 seconds.
29:57
SPEAKER_03: And the early ones were these short clips of like people plank.
30:00
SPEAKER_03: Do you remember planking?
30:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:02
SPEAKER_03: Flossing?
30:03
SPEAKER_03: That's what the generals are going to be doing.
30:05
SPEAKER_02: And then over time.
30:06
Just Pete Hegseth drunk out of his mind with the top 200 people
30:10
in the US military
30:11
SPEAKER_02: all doing a planking contest.
30:13
SPEAKER_03: That's best case scenario.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: What music?
30:16
Someone like Pete Hegseth,
30:17
the music that would play,
30:18
would it be like Metallica?
30:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Rush.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:21
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
30:21
SPEAKER_03: So over time, these videos expanded.
30:24
SPEAKER_03: So by 2019, videos could be a minute, 2020, three minutes.
30:29
SPEAKER_03: And by 2022, these TikToks could be up to 10 minutes long.
30:33
And creators are increasingly using the platform to tell long
30:36
form stories.
30:37
SPEAKER_03: And one format is to basically serialize a story.
30:41
SPEAKER_03: So
30:42
SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's just the creator telling their story one clip at a time,
30:45
SPEAKER_03: usually in a car for some reason.
30:46
SPEAKER_03: I don't know why this happens.
30:49
SPEAKER_03: People who are on TikTok,
30:50
they get in a car and they immediately have to pull out their
30:52
phone and start
30:53
SPEAKER_03: filming.
30:54
SPEAKER_03: I feel like this is an urge.
30:55
SPEAKER_03: You know those people who have to shit when they walk into a bookstore?
30:57
SPEAKER_03: It's like that.
30:58
SPEAKER_03: It can't be helped.
30:59
SPEAKER_03: So...
31:01
SPEAKER_03: The most famous TikTok series is probably Risa Tisa,
31:04
SPEAKER_03: who went viral last year for her 50-part series,
31:07
SPEAKER_03: Who,
31:07
SPEAKER_03: TF,
31:08
SPEAKER_03: Did I Marry?
31:09
SPEAKER_02: Oh, 50-part series, Who the Fuck Did I Marry?
31:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
31:12
SPEAKER_02: Who the fuck?
31:13
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is a spoiler alert thing.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: Who the fuck did she marry?
31:16
SPEAKER_03: A pathological liar, basically.
31:17
SPEAKER_03: It's like her husband said that he was a VP at a condiment company.
31:21
SPEAKER_03: He was actually temping as a forklift operator.
31:23
SPEAKER_03: And he made up all of it.
31:25
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: First of all,
31:28
SPEAKER_02: nothing wrong with being a forklift operator,
31:30
SPEAKER_02: but I just love the idea- Different outfits.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: You lie, but you don't say something super unrealistic.
31:37
SPEAKER_02: You're not a hedge fund manager.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: You're a VP at a condiment company.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: Who's going to check that?
31:40
SPEAKER_03: Right.
31:40
SPEAKER_03: That makes a lot more sense.
31:42
SPEAKER_03: Hedge fund manager, she's going to wonder why you're driving a Corolla.
31:46
You're getting very classist now that you're on the verge of
31:50
riches for your book.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:52
i buy a car i'm gonna buy a toyota camry you just gotta get
31:55
something reliable
31:55
which is like a corolla but different okay so he would he made
31:59
up all these
31:59
characters in his life like he would fake phone calls with his
32:02
non-existent brother
32:03
and it sounds bad but i actually do that sometimes like when
32:08
i'm walking past my
32:09
neighbor's house before the racist died his gay magician son
32:12
would be outside chain
32:13
smoking and i wouldn't want him to talk to me so i would just
32:16
pick up my phone and
32:17
SPEAKER_03: pretend that i was on the phone do you ever do that
32:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you got to do that.
32:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's fine.
32:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
32:22
SPEAKER_03: Altogether, the videos added up to more than 80 hours of content.
32:26
SPEAKER_02: Oh, my God.
32:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
32:27
SPEAKER_03: And I'm not really on TikTok,
32:29
but this became such a cultural phenomenon that I heard about
32:31
it from NPR.
32:33
SPEAKER_03: Her story is being turned into a TV series.
32:36
And that tells you something about the hunger out there for
32:39
these kind of stories
32:39
SPEAKER_03: and how successful they can be if they catch on.
32:41
SPEAKER_03: And part of Risa Teese's appeal is
32:44
SPEAKER_03: was that she was this kind of every woman figure.
32:46
SPEAKER_03: Yes, her husband was a crazy pathological liar.
32:49
SPEAKER_03: That's outside the norm.
32:50
SPEAKER_03: Is it?
32:50
SPEAKER_03: But her audience... Ladies, who's with me?
32:54
Her audience could relate to the experience of being in a
32:56
relationship with a shitty man.
32:58
SPEAKER_03: I mean, who hasn't had a man say he's a vice president at Hines?
33:01
SPEAKER_03: It's relatable shit.
33:03
SPEAKER_03: And since Risa Tisa went viral,
33:05
a number of other content creators have popped up with their
33:07
own multi-part sagas.
33:09
I watched one the other day where someone was talking about her
33:12
roommate from hell.
33:13
This roommate was a subletter who claimed to be a Jewish trans
33:16
person of color,
33:17
SPEAKER_03: a JTPOC,
33:19
SPEAKER_03: who was blind,
33:20
SPEAKER_03: had cancer,
33:21
SPEAKER_03: had foster children,
33:22
SPEAKER_03: and was a vet.
33:23
SPEAKER_02: And this person wasn't those things to be clear.
33:25
SPEAKER_03: No, this person was not.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
33:26
But this has proven to be a pretty popular genre,
33:29
which is not surprising.
33:30
SPEAKER_03: Everyone loves stories about scammers and liars and frauds.
33:33
SPEAKER_03: Like if you look at the Apple podcast top charts,
33:37
SPEAKER_03: it's like,
33:38
SPEAKER_03: well,
33:38
SPEAKER_03: these days it's like Charlie Kirk,
33:39
SPEAKER_03: Candace Owens,
33:40
SPEAKER_03: and then maybe Megyn Kelly,
33:42
SPEAKER_03: Joe Rogan,
33:43
SPEAKER_03: and then scammers and frauds.
33:45
SPEAKER_02: Is Candace Owens really at the very top?
33:47
SPEAKER_03: She has been recently.
33:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
33:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
33:49
SPEAKER_02: That is what things are.
33:51
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
33:51
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
33:51
SPEAKER_02: We're staying away from politics.
33:53
SPEAKER_02: Back to the story.
33:54
So these kinds of stories are really popular and they're told
33:56
in this very kind of
33:57
SPEAKER_03: straightforward,
33:58
SPEAKER_03: simple format,
33:59
SPEAKER_03: like low production,
34:00
SPEAKER_03: one person with a cell phone telling their story.
34:02
But none of these TikTokers have managed to catch Risa Teese's
34:05
lightning in a
34:06
SPEAKER_03: bottle moment until now.
34:08
SPEAKER_03: So this summer,
34:08
SPEAKER_03: over the summer,
34:09
SPEAKER_03: a new TikTok storyteller emerged and her story is it's pretty wild.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: So who was it?
34:14
SPEAKER_03: The new star is Kendra Hilty,
34:16
SPEAKER_03: and unlike Risa Tisa,
34:17
who is normal and relatable and definitely the victim and the
34:20
heroine of her own
34:21
SPEAKER_03: story,
34:22
SPEAKER_03: Kendra Hilty is not quite as relatable and definitely not the hero.
34:26
SPEAKER_02: So what do we know about her?
34:28
Let's just say she's got more red flags than Chairman Mal's
34:30
birthday parade.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: Oh, nice.
34:32
So she describes herself as an ADHD mindset coach and a
34:35
spiritual response therapy practitioner.
34:38
SPEAKER_03: As you might expect,
34:39
there are no qualifications or certifications listed anywhere
34:42
on her website.
34:43
SPEAKER_03: And Kendra seems to work primarily as a coach based on vibes.
34:47
SPEAKER_02: ADHD mindset coach who works based on vibes.
34:50
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so what does this mean?
34:51
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
34:52
I guess an ADHD mindset coach is someone who makes you take
34:55
your Adderall on time
34:56
SPEAKER_03: like a school nurse.
34:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:59
SPEAKER_03: She's supposed to help you with like accountability,
35:01
SPEAKER_03: tracking your progress,
35:02
slapping your fingers with the ruler when you stop working and
35:04
check Twitter.
35:05
SPEAKER_03: I actually think that you could use one of these Jesse's.
35:07
SPEAKER_02: Well,
35:07
this also reminds me a little of the stuff in your book because
35:09
you're supposed to
35:10
take the pill and then wait an hour and then drink and then
35:11
people have trouble
35:12
SPEAKER_02: actually sticking to it.
35:13
SPEAKER_03: That's true.
35:14
SPEAKER_03: That's true.
35:15
SPEAKER_03: Maybe we all need a Kendra.
35:16
SPEAKER_02: What is a spirit?
35:17
SPEAKER_02: What was the term you said?
35:18
SPEAKER_02: Spiritual response.
35:19
SPEAKER_03: Spiritual response therapy practitioner.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: What's that?
35:22
SPEAKER_03: Okay,
35:22
SPEAKER_03: so her website is extremely vague,
35:25
SPEAKER_03: but if you sign up for her services,
35:26
SPEAKER_03: she promises to use a,
35:28
SPEAKER_03: quote,
35:28
pendulum and a system of specialized charts to connect with
35:32
divine guidance to
35:33
SPEAKER_03: uncover and clear the root causes of emotional,
35:35
SPEAKER_03: mental,
35:36
SPEAKER_03: and energetic imbalances.
35:38
SPEAKER_03: Each session is guided by your high self,
35:40
SPEAKER_03: that's in caps,
35:41
SPEAKER_03: and tailored to your unique energetic needs.
35:44
SPEAKER_03: Whether you're seeking clarity,
35:45
SPEAKER_03: emotional relief,
35:46
SPEAKER_03: or a fresh start,
35:48
SPEAKER_03: our work together will be grounded in compassion,
35:50
SPEAKER_03: neutrality,
35:51
SPEAKER_03: and spiritual alignment.
35:52
SPEAKER_03: I will hold...
35:54
I bet this is exactly what Pete Hegseth is going to read before
35:57
the start of the
35:57
SPEAKER_02: fitness contest.
35:59
SPEAKER_03: I will hold sacred space for transformation,
36:01
SPEAKER_03: help you access divine wisdom,
36:04
and empower you to create shifts that ripple across every area
36:06
of your life.
36:07
SPEAKER_03: Is this one of Longhouse's?
36:08
SPEAKER_02: This sounds... Female.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: Look,
36:10
SPEAKER_02: I'm at sort of a vulnerable point in my life,
36:12
SPEAKER_02: but I'm ready to give this person a lot of money.
36:14
SPEAKER_02: Do you have her Venmo?
36:15
SPEAKER_02: I'll put it in our notes.
36:16
SPEAKER_02: Is there any...
36:16
SPEAKER_02: This is totally wild,
36:18
SPEAKER_02: yes,
36:18
but is there any chance that this person lists their Venmo or
36:20
other payment meds?
36:21
SPEAKER_02: That's a good question.
36:22
SPEAKER_02: Publicly?
36:22
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
36:23
uh anyway yeah this is this is spiritual spiritual gobbledygook
36:26
yeah this is the
36:27
kind of stuff i'm going to encounter if i do go to the west
36:29
exactly and i like i
36:30
don't i just don't know what this means i assume that sage
36:33
burning is involved but
36:34
given that kendra is this multi-modal life coach you might
36:38
think that she has her
36:39
shit together you would be wrong and kendra like many women in
36:42
their 30s in the
36:43
year 2025 struggles with her own issues one of those issues is
36:47
adhd so most of
36:48
SPEAKER_03: kendra's tiktok content is adhd themed
36:51
SPEAKER_03: So let's watch an example.
36:52
SPEAKER_03: This is ADHD grocery hacks.
36:55
SPEAKER_03: I used to throw away a lot of perishable food,
36:59
SPEAKER_03: but now I keep my perishable food where I can see it.
37:05
SPEAKER_03: Some leftovers, right?
37:07
SPEAKER_03: And then in my drawers where produce used to go to die, I keep beverages.
37:16
SPEAKER_03: So now I don't throw away food anymore.
37:22
SPEAKER_03: And in this drawer,
37:23
SPEAKER_03: I keep kind of perishable stuff,
37:25
SPEAKER_03: cheese,
37:25
SPEAKER_03: tofu,
37:26
SPEAKER_03: more cheese,
37:27
SPEAKER_03: perfect bars for when I run out.
37:30
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, that is my hack.
37:33
And I don't have to do the salute to the produce that I throw
37:37
away because it was
37:38
SPEAKER_03: in the drawer hiding.
37:40
SPEAKER_03: So people can't see,
37:41
SPEAKER_03: she puts her drinks in the vegetable crisper,
37:43
SPEAKER_03: the cheese in the cheese drawer,
37:45
SPEAKER_03: and the produce in the main fridge area where it can wilt faster.
37:49
SPEAKER_03: So her channel was stuff like that,
37:52
and it really was not very popular until the beginning of July
37:56
when she started
37:57
SPEAKER_03: telling a new kind of story.
37:59
SPEAKER_03: The headline was,
38:00
SPEAKER_03: I fell in love with my psychiatrist,
38:01
SPEAKER_03: and he knew that,
38:02
and he kept me for years as a patient until I was brave enough
38:05
to leave him.
38:06
SPEAKER_03: Let's watch the first episode.
38:07
SPEAKER_03: It's less than a minute.
38:07
I fell in love with my psychiatrist and he knew that and he
38:11
kept me for years as a
38:12
SPEAKER_03: patient until I was brave enough to leave him.
38:15
SPEAKER_03: I want to talk about it.
38:17
SPEAKER_03: Usually when I go on this app and I have a question,
38:21
I have a bunch of videos that pop up and I searched in love
38:25
with my psychiatrist
38:26
SPEAKER_03: and nothing happened.
38:28
So I would really like to discuss what happens when we fall in
38:33
love with our mental
38:34
SPEAKER_03: health professionals and most importantly,
38:36
the fact that there are so many people especially men that are
38:41
emotionally dead
38:42
inside that feel called to going into psychiatry and therapy so
38:49
they don't have to
38:50
feel their feelings but they can feed off of the vulnerability
38:54
of their mostly
38:55
SPEAKER_03: female patients
38:58
SPEAKER_03: What do you guys think?
38:59
SPEAKER_03: What do you think, Jesse?
38:59
SPEAKER_03: Are male therapists and psychiatrists dead inside?
39:02
SPEAKER_02: I think males are just, we don't have any sort of subjective inner life.
39:05
SPEAKER_03: You're just a hole.
39:07
SPEAKER_02: All of you, just holes.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: No, we're poles.
39:12
SPEAKER_03: So I don't have a ton of experience with male therapists,
39:14
but I did realize that being a therapist would be a great job
39:19
for someone who just
39:20
SPEAKER_03: loves drama and mess,
39:21
SPEAKER_03: you know,
39:22
SPEAKER_03: and you did what?
39:23
SPEAKER_03: Tell me more.
39:24
SPEAKER_03: I think I might go to school for this when the podcast fails.
39:27
SPEAKER_03: You would be fantastic.
39:29
SPEAKER_02: Jana would be a really good therapist.
39:31
SPEAKER_02: You would be a bad therapist.
39:32
SPEAKER_03: No, Jana would be like, you don't have any real problems.
39:35
SPEAKER_03: Get your shit together.
39:36
SPEAKER_03: Go chop some wood.
39:37
SPEAKER_02: Go build a hut.
39:38
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
39:39
SPEAKER_03: It would be like the Jordan Peterson school of therapy.
39:41
SPEAKER_02: Moose would be the best therapist of the three.
39:43
SPEAKER_03: He would be good, yes.
39:44
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so from that very first one minute video,
39:47
SPEAKER_03: It seemed like Kendra was trying to recreate Risa Tisa's,
39:50
SPEAKER_03: you know,
39:51
SPEAKER_03: downtrodden woman versus villainous man story.
39:54
SPEAKER_02: It's a good format.
39:55
SPEAKER_02: You have to give.
39:55
SPEAKER_02: Totally.
39:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
39:57
SPEAKER_03: She talked about men that were,
39:58
SPEAKER_03: quote,
39:58
emotionally dead inside that can that feel called to go into
40:01
psychiatry and therapy
40:03
SPEAKER_03: so they can feed off the vulnerability of their mostly female patients.
40:07
And this is the sort of thing that resonates on social media,
40:10
or at least it did.
40:12
can i make one quick observation obviously therapists have some
40:15
um you know power
40:18
over their uh patients but yeah if you go publicly and you
40:22
start to accuse your
40:24
clinician of saying stuff your clinician can't say shit about
40:27
it because of
40:28
confidentiality so that it does sort of like directly flip the
40:31
power dynamic in a
40:31
weird way that's just my original observation the clinician
40:34
can't come out and be
40:35
like look bitch crazy this and you you lying bitch oh shit i'm
40:38
not allowed to say
40:38
SPEAKER_02: that i'm not supposed to reveal that she's a
40:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
40:41
SPEAKER_03: But I think Kendra's in this case,
40:44
it would have this narrative would have resonated more a couple
40:47
years later,
40:48
SPEAKER_03: a couple years ago during Me Too.
40:50
SPEAKER_03: But we've seen this vibe shift on issues like race and gender where more
40:54
SPEAKER_03: conservative positions are on the ascent.
40:56
SPEAKER_03: Do you think this is translated to sex as well?
40:58
Is there less,
40:59
you know,
40:59
kill all men rhetoric online than there used to be?
41:02
What I found wild was there was a clip of Judith Butler talking
41:06
about trans stuff
41:07
SPEAKER_02: and being like,
41:08
why do people assume like penises are bad or that a penis in
41:12
close proximity could
41:13
SPEAKER_02: cause harm?
41:14
SPEAKER_02: In 10 years,
41:16
I feel like online feminism has gone from how dare you say that
41:20
any men anywhere
41:21
SPEAKER_02: aren't rapists to like,
41:23
SPEAKER_02: whatever,
41:23
SPEAKER_02: it's just a dick.
41:24
SPEAKER_03: The next evolution of Judith Butler is to become a men's rights activist.
41:27
SPEAKER_02: I do think – yeah.
41:28
SPEAKER_02: Anyway,
41:29
SPEAKER_02: long story short,
41:29
we are long past the peak of Me Too when like in addition to
41:33
worthwhile callouts
41:34
SPEAKER_02: and in some cases arrests,
41:36
SPEAKER_02: it did seem like anyone could basically end a career.
41:39
SPEAKER_02: Actually, not just on sex and gender stuff.
41:41
SPEAKER_02: That just made me think of like –
41:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
41:44
Anyone could end anyone else's career if they had the right
41:46
identity characteristic
41:46
SPEAKER_02: and made the right accusation online.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: Right.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: So how did people respond to these videos?
41:50
SPEAKER_03: So at first, positively, people seemed on her side.
41:53
SPEAKER_03: And the story went roughly like this.
41:55
SPEAKER_03: Kendra wanted ADHD meds.
41:57
SPEAKER_03: So she looked for a psychiatrist.
41:59
SPEAKER_03: She found one.
41:59
SPEAKER_03: They began sessions over Zoom.
42:01
And in her first session online,
42:04
she noticed that he was about her age and he was handsome.
42:06
SPEAKER_03: Good looking guy.
42:08
SPEAKER_03: During that first meeting,
42:09
SPEAKER_03: she told him about her childhood trauma,
42:11
SPEAKER_03: her daddy issues,
42:12
SPEAKER_03: relationships.
42:12
SPEAKER_02: He's like, whoa, I'll just give you the prescription.
42:14
SPEAKER_02: I don't need to know all that.
42:16
SPEAKER_02: Just take the Adderall.
42:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm not that kind of therapist.
42:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm really just trying to write you a script.
42:22
SPEAKER_03: She talked about her history with drinking and substance abuse.
42:25
SPEAKER_03: So at the time that she started, she was six months sober.
42:28
SPEAKER_03: She said she just wants her Adderall.
42:29
SPEAKER_03: She doesn't have a larger diagnosis.
42:31
SPEAKER_03: She does have past trauma.
42:32
SPEAKER_03: You know, this is a term that has become so overused.
42:35
SPEAKER_03: It could refer to a paper cut at this point.
42:37
And the psychiatrist,
42:38
according to Kendra,
42:39
he used her past relationship trauma to groom her.
42:42
SPEAKER_03: and force her to fall in love with him.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: That's serious shit.
42:45
SPEAKER_03: But despite this clear boundary violation on his part,
42:49
SPEAKER_03: you know,
42:49
SPEAKER_03: forcing her to fall in love with him,
42:51
SPEAKER_03: Kendra continued to see this doctor regularly.
42:55
That's actually part of her evidence that he manipulated her
42:57
because while she only
42:58
needed to see him every three months to get this prescription
43:01
for Adderall,
43:03
SPEAKER_03: he let her see him every month because,
43:05
SPEAKER_03: according to Kendra,
43:07
SPEAKER_03: he was getting off on their sessions.
43:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
43:09
this often see most of this so far seems as though kendra was
43:13
the one calling the
43:14
shots both in terms of how much she talked about um and how
43:18
often she saw him but
43:19
she's accusing him of allowing her to schedule sessions and
43:24
talk about personal
43:24
stuff yes and then saying he got off on it yes how does he how
43:28
does he know how
43:30
SPEAKER_02: does she know he got off on it was he just like what was he doing
43:33
SPEAKER_03: He had his hand in his pocket the whole time.
43:34
SPEAKER_02: That's upsetting.
43:36
SPEAKER_03: No, he didn't.
43:37
SPEAKER_03: She just knows.
43:38
SPEAKER_03: And as you'll hear,
43:39
SPEAKER_03: whatever this guy does or does not do,
43:41
she takes that as evidence that this is some sort of
43:44
manipulative sex thing for
43:47
SPEAKER_03: him.
43:47
SPEAKER_02: As a general rule,
43:48
SPEAKER_02: anything a man does probably is some kind of six-sex thing,
43:52
SPEAKER_02: but to actually accuse him of it,
43:54
SPEAKER_02: you should require evidence.
43:55
SPEAKER_03: Right.
43:55
SPEAKER_03: And at the same time, Kendra started seeing a therapist.
43:57
SPEAKER_03: That's a 75-year-old woman.
44:00
Kendra says that this therapist liked hearing Kendra's stories
44:03
about dating and
44:03
SPEAKER_03: relationships,
44:04
SPEAKER_03: particularly her obsession with a psychiatrist.
44:07
SPEAKER_03: And you might think that this was professional interest.
44:10
SPEAKER_03: This is something going on in her life.
44:11
SPEAKER_03: She wanted to hear about it.
44:13
SPEAKER_03: But again, Kendra interprets that
44:15
as some sort of gossipy curiosity at best or living vicariously
44:19
through her.
44:20
SPEAKER_03: She's very convinced that there are ulterior motives,
44:22
SPEAKER_03: but she keeps seeing both these mental health professionals.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: So my read on Kendra so far, someone who has two different therapists.
44:31
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
44:32
And in both cases,
44:33
she's basically like,
44:34
wow,
44:34
they're so obsessed with me.
44:36
SPEAKER_02: What's wrong with this?
44:36
SPEAKER_02: And then takes to social media to say so.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: Kendra seems like a trustworthy person.
44:43
SPEAKER_02: That's my view.
44:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:44
SPEAKER_03: So eventually after a couple of years,
44:47
SPEAKER_03: Kendra got a boyfriend and she started discussing her sex life with the
44:50
SPEAKER_03: psychiatrist.
44:51
SPEAKER_02: So the psychiatrist was like,
44:53
SPEAKER_02: if I'm going to keep prescribing you Ritalin,
44:56
SPEAKER_02: what's your favorite position?
44:57
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
44:58
SPEAKER_03: And the psychiatrist,
44:59
SPEAKER_03: She says the psychiatrist didn't shut this down.
45:01
SPEAKER_03: He encouraged her to continue her relationship with a boyfriend.
45:04
SPEAKER_03: Kendra interprets this as this sort of purian interest on his part.
45:08
SPEAKER_03: She says that the psychiatrist wanted her to stay with the boyfriend,
45:12
even though she was kind of mad about him because her
45:15
relationship issues meant
45:16
SPEAKER_03: that she would keep coming back to see him.
45:18
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
45:19
SPEAKER_02: Wait,
45:19
so did she tell the psychiatrist she was obsessed with the
45:21
psychiatrist or in love
45:22
SPEAKER_02: with him?
45:23
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
45:23
SPEAKER_03: So let's listen to a clip from part seven of her saga.
45:26
SPEAKER_02: Part seven.
45:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
45:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
45:27
So my therapist,
45:28
who I didn't know at this time had bad boundaries,
45:31
but she did.
45:32
SPEAKER_03: I went to her because my boyfriend and I,
45:35
SPEAKER_03: after like more than a year together,
45:36
SPEAKER_03: we started having
45:38
issues in the bedroom and so I went to my therapist and she
45:43
asked me what does your
45:45
psychiatrist think about this and I said I don't know I haven't
45:50
talked to my
45:50
psychiatrist about this stuff because I have a crush on my
45:54
psychiatrist and I don't
45:55
want to tell him this intimate of stuff and she said well you
45:59
should tell him
46:00
SPEAKER_03: because I want a male's perspective
46:03
SPEAKER_03: So at my next appointment with my psychiatrist,
46:06
SPEAKER_03: I told him,
46:08
SPEAKER_03: I said,
46:09
SPEAKER_03: today we're going to talk about my intimate life.
46:13
SPEAKER_03: And he said, oh, I said, yes.
46:15
SPEAKER_03: My psychologist, my therapist asked what your opinion on it was.
46:20
And I told her that I don't talk to you about this intimate
46:24
stuff because I have a crush on you.
46:26
SPEAKER_03: And he looked down and smiled so big in that moment.
46:32
SPEAKER_03: He smiled so big.
46:35
SPEAKER_03: And I loved it.
46:37
SPEAKER_03: So gross thinking about it.
46:39
And then I proceeded to give him 30 minutes of non-stop content
46:46
about my intimate
46:47
SPEAKER_03: life with my boyfriend.
46:49
SPEAKER_02: What the fuck is going on, Katie?
46:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm so baffled.
46:54
SPEAKER_02: The therapist says, I want a male's perspective.
46:58
SPEAKER_02: She goes to the male.
46:59
SPEAKER_02: I love you.
47:02
SPEAKER_02: Here's how we do the sex stuff.
47:05
SPEAKER_02: I'm just so confused.
47:06
And Kendra just strikes me as potentially not a reliable
47:09
source,
47:10
I have to say.
47:11
SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's just it's a very strange polycule.
47:14
SPEAKER_03: She thinks the psychiatrist is like jerking off to her sessions.
47:19
SPEAKER_03: And look, if this is true, take the man's license away.
47:22
But yeah,
47:22
as you'll hear,
47:23
we have reason to believe Kendra is not the most reliable
47:25
narrator.
47:26
At this point,
47:27
you know,
47:28
we're in part seven of this of this 20 something part saga.
47:33
SPEAKER_03: The skepticism is growing and people start accusing her of transference.
47:37
SPEAKER_03: So Jesse, I assume you know that term.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: So like,
47:39
SPEAKER_02: well,
47:39
so projecting is when you accuse someone else of feeling the
47:42
way you feel is
47:43
SPEAKER_02: transferring.
47:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's a psychoanalytic term.
47:45
SPEAKER_02: Is it in that same general category of like,
47:47
SPEAKER_02: she actually,
47:47
SPEAKER_03: or it's when someone redirects feelings or desires onto someone else.
47:53
SPEAKER_03: So usually a therapist, it could be some other sort of, yeah.
47:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like a teacher or a coach.
47:57
SPEAKER_03: This is a common phenomenon, apparently.
47:59
It's so well known that it was a regular plot point back on
48:02
Frazier in the 90s.
48:04
SPEAKER_03: Psychiatrists receive training on how to deal with transference.
48:08
SPEAKER_02: Oh, in part because you're like opening up so intimately with someone.
48:11
Like it makes sense that you might start to view them a certain
48:13
way or feel a certain way.
48:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
48:15
SPEAKER_03: And psychiatrists are,
48:16
SPEAKER_03: you know,
48:17
they're supposed to help the client see that this is happening
48:19
and use it to
48:20
SPEAKER_03: connect with whatever the person's issues are.
48:22
SPEAKER_03: But according to Kendra, this wasn't transference.
48:25
SPEAKER_03: This was straight up manipulation.
48:27
SPEAKER_03: He was manipulating her.
48:28
SPEAKER_03: He was doing things in order to manufacture this crush.
48:32
SPEAKER_02: But it seems like so much of this is initiated by her.
48:35
SPEAKER_02: What did she say he did?
48:37
SPEAKER_03: Well, he complimented her glasses.
48:38
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I hope he loses his license.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: It's fucked up.
48:41
SPEAKER_03: I know.
48:42
SPEAKER_03: That's the thing about this.
48:43
SPEAKER_03: She sees what she wants to in every scenario.
48:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, were they cool glasses?
48:46
SPEAKER_03: No, they were not cool glasses.
48:48
SPEAKER_02: They were not.
48:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:49
SPEAKER_02: Stop gaslighting me.
48:50
SPEAKER_02: My glasses suck.
48:51
SPEAKER_03: That's the thing about her.
48:52
SPEAKER_03: She sees what she wants to see in every scenario.
48:54
SPEAKER_03: So she says that she would send him emails and he wouldn't respond,
48:58
SPEAKER_03: but he would discuss the emails during the sessions.
49:01
SPEAKER_03: And she interprets this as him controlling the narrative by,
49:04
SPEAKER_03: A,
49:04
SPEAKER_03: ensuring that there was no paper trail,
49:07
SPEAKER_03: and B,
49:08
SPEAKER_03: only allowing the conversation on his terms.
49:10
SPEAKER_03: That's like what...
49:11
It would be so much more of a red flag if a therapist was just
49:15
responding to emails
49:16
SPEAKER_02: like over and over.
49:17
SPEAKER_02: Like, first of all, are they billing?
49:18
SPEAKER_02: That's not what therapists do.
49:19
SPEAKER_03: Right, right, right.
49:22
SPEAKER_03: He's acting like someone who bills by the hour.
49:25
She also takes his professionalism as evidence that he is,
49:28
in fact,
49:29
not professional.
49:30
SPEAKER_03: So at one point, Kendra breaks up with a boyfriend.
49:32
SPEAKER_03: She starts dating another guy who was a, yes, a therapist.
49:36
SPEAKER_03: She has a type.
49:37
SPEAKER_03: Very early on,
49:39
SPEAKER_03: assuming that everything she's saying is true,
49:41
SPEAKER_03: this guy told her that he had a crush on one of his clients,
49:44
SPEAKER_03: that he would visit this client at work,
49:46
SPEAKER_03: that the client wears red lacy panties for him,
49:48
SPEAKER_03: and that he would,
49:49
SPEAKER_03: this is Kendra's word,
49:50
SPEAKER_03: smashturbate.
49:51
SPEAKER_03: This is the word that she uses.
49:52
I assume this is to get past TikTok sensors before sessions
49:56
with the client.
49:56
SPEAKER_03: So here's Kendra talking about that.
49:59
SPEAKER_03: I went to my psychiatrist and I told him this story.
50:03
about this man that I went on a date with who's a therapist is
50:06
relieving himself
50:08
before appointments and talking about his client's panties and
50:15
doing all of these
50:16
SPEAKER_03: other extremely inappropriate things like visiting her at work.
50:20
SPEAKER_03: And this man, my psychiatrist,
50:23
looked like he had seen a ghost and like he was going to vomit
50:29
because he prided
50:30
SPEAKER_03: himself on being an extremely professional and buttoned up person.
50:36
SPEAKER_03: But here I was holding a mirror to him with exactly what he was doing,
50:43
but a bumbling idiot telling me like how he was doing it
50:47
without the fancy degree,
50:50
SPEAKER_03: without any of that.
50:53
SPEAKER_03: I look back on that now and it's just crazy.
50:56
And so it just tainted all the fantasy material that I'd given
50:59
him this session before.
51:00
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
51:00
SPEAKER_03: So that's what I mean.
51:01
The fact that he was professional is also evidence that he was
51:05
some kind of sexual predator.
51:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:07
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
51:07
SPEAKER_03: So there's this one other element that we just can't leave out here.
51:10
SPEAKER_03: Jesse, this is from part 15.
51:12
SPEAKER_03: Please watch this.
51:13
SPEAKER_02: Oh, you've labeled a clip race.
51:15
SPEAKER_02: This is going.
51:16
SPEAKER_03: It's time to talk about the elephant in the room.
51:19
SPEAKER_03: And that is the racial difference between me and my doctor.
51:23
SPEAKER_03: I have seen a lot of Black women on this app with the same take.
51:27
And I need to say that Black women are the most important
51:31
people on the planet to me.
51:33
And that I have learned so much from Black women about how to
51:40
be a better person
51:42
SPEAKER_03: and how to show up better in the world.
51:45
SPEAKER_03: They are the culture.
51:46
SPEAKER_03: And I am so grateful for them.
51:48
SPEAKER_02: If you got pulled into your boss's office and they were like,
51:53
SPEAKER_02: is this you at the Ku Klux Klan rally last night?
51:56
SPEAKER_02: And you would stammer to respond to me like,
51:58
SPEAKER_02: black people,
51:59
SPEAKER_02: black women are the most important people on the planet.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: It's that.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: Black women are magic.
52:03
SPEAKER_02: It's that weird.
52:04
SPEAKER_02: Right.
52:04
SPEAKER_02: It's so weird.
52:05
SPEAKER_03: This is not a normal way to talk about people.
52:07
SPEAKER_03: OK, let's watch the next part of this clip.
52:09
SPEAKER_03: Oh, God.
52:09
SPEAKER_03: Race two.
52:11
Many black women are seeing my story through the lens that I am
52:17
a white woman who
52:18
is taking advantage of my whiteness to wield power over my POC
52:24
psychiatrist that
52:26
SPEAKER_03: didn't want me back.
52:27
SPEAKER_03: And so I am trying to get him fired.
52:30
SPEAKER_03: And that's okay.
52:31
SPEAKER_03: I understand why you see it through that lens.
52:34
SPEAKER_03: I do.
52:35
SPEAKER_03: As a white person, I do my best to examine my racism every single day.
52:42
SPEAKER_02: Last year, I drove with my then girlfriend to Amish country.
52:45
SPEAKER_02: And it's so interesting because like, have you been there?
52:48
SPEAKER_02: I've driven through.
52:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:48
SPEAKER_02: You like, you know, it's, it's the real deal.
52:51
SPEAKER_02: You'll see them in their little, um, what are they?
52:53
SPEAKER_02: Buggies.
52:54
It's just this old ancient way of life that it's weird to come
52:58
across a community
52:59
SPEAKER_02: that still practices it.
53:00
SPEAKER_02: That's the vibe I was getting listening to this.
53:03
SPEAKER_02: It's like,
53:03
SPEAKER_02: oh,
53:03
SPEAKER_02: there's like people who still do the like,
53:05
SPEAKER_02: my POC listeners say that whiteness,
53:08
SPEAKER_02: blah,
53:08
SPEAKER_02: blah,
53:08
SPEAKER_02: blah.
53:09
SPEAKER_02: It was really, it's interesting as just an anthropological relic.
53:12
SPEAKER_03: She lives in New Mexico, I believe.
53:14
SPEAKER_03: So I think the news comes later there, New Mexico.
53:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:18
SPEAKER_02: They deliver it.
53:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:20
SPEAKER_02: But how do people know what racist psychiatrist was?
53:22
SPEAKER_02: Had she brought that up?
53:23
SPEAKER_03: So she dropped some breadcrumbs about his identity.
53:26
SPEAKER_03: So first of all, she referred to him as Pakistani.
53:28
SPEAKER_03: Then a couple of episodes later, she said his first name.
53:32
SPEAKER_03: This is... Yeah.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: Okay, sorry.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: Continue.
53:35
SPEAKER_02: I feel bad for this dude.
53:37
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
53:37
SPEAKER_03: It's an uncommon name.
53:39
SPEAKER_02: There's nothing he can do about this very unstable person seemingly.
53:42
SPEAKER_03: I found him immediately.
53:43
SPEAKER_02: Oh, God.
53:44
SPEAKER_03: He is cute,
53:45
but his bio says that he also enjoys crip walking and dropping
53:48
sick rhymes over
53:49
SPEAKER_03: dope beats.
53:50
SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure how she got over that.
53:52
SPEAKER_02: Wait, I can't tell.
53:53
SPEAKER_02: You're not joking?
53:54
SPEAKER_03: No.
53:55
SPEAKER_02: But now we're doxing him.
53:57
SPEAKER_03: We're not.
53:58
SPEAKER_03: Nobody look him up.
53:59
SPEAKER_02: Wait, he enjoys crip walking and dropping sick rhymes over dope beats.
54:04
SPEAKER_02: That's not a real person.
54:05
SPEAKER_03: I think I believe her now.
54:07
SPEAKER_02: We just dox.
54:08
SPEAKER_02: Okay, don't don't let everyone listen.
54:10
SPEAKER_02: Don't don't look him up.
54:11
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
54:11
Anyway,
54:12
so she later made a video saying she would block anyone who dox
54:15
them.
54:15
SPEAKER_02: But that's not like how would you know?
54:18
SPEAKER_02: Like you mean if they dox him in the comments.
54:21
SPEAKER_03: Well, people were doing that.
54:23
I felt bad for him until he enjoys crip walking and dropping
54:26
sick rhymes over dope beats.
54:28
SPEAKER_02: Now I don't know who to feel bad for.
54:29
SPEAKER_03: And she never took down the video with his name.
54:32
SPEAKER_03: So then other TikTokers made videos doxing him.
54:35
SPEAKER_03: Kendra was aware of this, but she kept telling this story.
54:37
SPEAKER_03: And there are now hundreds of videos showing his full name and face.
54:40
SPEAKER_02: Oh my God.
54:41
There are some talking about the fact that- This poor misguided
54:44
Pakistani man.
54:45
SPEAKER_02: Pakistani American or is he from there?
54:46
SPEAKER_03: I think he's Pakistani American, I think.
54:49
SPEAKER_02: If he was born there and was like a fresh off the boat immigrant,
54:52
I would give him more leeway to say he enjoys crib walking and
54:55
dropping sick rhymes
54:56
SPEAKER_02: over dope beats.
54:57
SPEAKER_03: He also once went to court as a defendant, but the records are sealed.
55:01
And this,
55:01
of course,
55:01
leads to a lot of speculation about what he may have done.
55:04
SPEAKER_03: It could have been nothing.
55:05
SPEAKER_03: We don't fucking know.
55:06
All of this became part of the discourse with people making
55:08
their own reaction
55:09
SPEAKER_03: videos,
55:10
SPEAKER_03: claiming that Kendra was putting a POC,
55:14
SPEAKER_03: that's psychiatrist of color,
55:16
SPEAKER_03: in danger.
55:17
SPEAKER_02: Worse, a hot psychiatrist of color, HPOC.
55:20
SPEAKER_03: And Kendra felt compelled to address this.
55:21
SPEAKER_03: So let's watch this clip.
55:23
SPEAKER_02: Is there anything Kendra does not feel compelled to address?
55:26
SPEAKER_03: Watch this.
55:27
SPEAKER_02: All right.
55:28
SPEAKER_03: In 2023, I read this book.
55:30
SPEAKER_03: And it absolutely changed my life.
55:33
SPEAKER_03: It was probably the best book I've read in years.
55:37
SPEAKER_03: And it's written by a black woman and a South Asian woman.
55:42
SPEAKER_02: No.
55:43
SPEAKER_02: Jesse, any guesses?
55:44
SPEAKER_02: Well, you put it in the title.
55:45
SPEAKER_02: This is going to be fucking The Race to Dinner Woman, Saira Rao.
55:48
SPEAKER_02: Oh, my God.
55:49
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
55:49
SPEAKER_03: So she doesn't name the book, but she has an image of it in the TikTok.
55:56
SPEAKER_03: It's the race to dinner women.
55:58
SPEAKER_03: God, this image is so... Describe it.
56:02
SPEAKER_02: She needs a graphic designer.
56:04
SPEAKER_02: So it's most of her face... She's in the car, of course.
56:09
SPEAKER_03: You know what?
56:10
SPEAKER_02: Her face is covered.
56:11
SPEAKER_02: That could be Helen Lewis.
56:14
SPEAKER_02: I don't even know.
56:15
SPEAKER_02: It looks like it could be Helen Lewis.
56:17
SPEAKER_02: What's wrong with that?
56:18
SPEAKER_03: Ellie's unsubscribing for the podcast as we speak.
56:22
SPEAKER_03: Her face is covered.
56:23
SPEAKER_02: But you can't even see her face.
56:25
SPEAKER_02: I'm not...
56:25
SPEAKER_02: It's not...
56:26
SPEAKER_02: Well,
56:26
SPEAKER_02: if you look...
56:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
56:28
SPEAKER_02: I was in love with my psychiatrist and he kept me anyway.
56:30
SPEAKER_02: Part 25.
56:32
SPEAKER_02: The type absolutely bleeds into the warning thing on the car.
56:35
SPEAKER_02: All these fuckers...
56:37
SPEAKER_02: do this from their car.
56:38
SPEAKER_02: But then there's a photo of the book image of white women,
56:43
Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do
56:45
Better by Regina
56:46
SPEAKER_02: Jackson and Sarah Rao.
56:47
Okay,
56:47
so just for people who are new to this show,
56:49
explain who those two are.
56:50
SPEAKER_02: They did Race to Dinner, which is like they...
56:54
SPEAKER_03: How do you think race to dinner is doing in 2025?
56:57
They got paid to go to like white women's dinner tables and
57:01
help them explore the
57:02
SPEAKER_02: racism,
57:02
SPEAKER_02: basically.
57:03
SPEAKER_02: In some cases, berate them.
57:04
SPEAKER_02: Berate them, yeah.
57:05
SPEAKER_03: To make them cry.
57:06
SPEAKER_03: And then when the women would cry,
57:07
SPEAKER_03: they would berate them further for crying,
57:09
SPEAKER_03: for having white tears.
57:11
SPEAKER_02: It was like...
57:11
SPEAKER_02: whoever's running this simulation,
57:14
SPEAKER_02: you know,
57:14
SPEAKER_02: saw Robin D'Angelo is like,
57:15
SPEAKER_02: I need Robin D'Angelo,
57:17
SPEAKER_02: but more leaner.
57:19
SPEAKER_02: That's this.
57:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:20
SPEAKER_03: And frankly,
57:20
I don't think that Saira Rao would appreciate being used by
57:24
this white woman like
57:25
SPEAKER_03: this,
57:25
SPEAKER_03: but Kendra is trying to demonstrate that she's a good white.
57:28
SPEAKER_03: She has done the work.
57:29
SPEAKER_02: She's already has.
57:30
She said she loves,
57:31
she says black women are magical and she loves all of them.
57:33
SPEAKER_03: She's saying that, you know, this isn't about race.
57:36
SPEAKER_03: This is about power.
57:37
SPEAKER_03: He had power over me and he abused his position.
57:40
SPEAKER_03: And again, most of her appointments were on Zoom.
57:42
But then last November,
57:44
she made her first in-person appointment with a psychiatrist.
57:47
SPEAKER_03: Now,
57:47
her 75-year-old therapist told her that the psychiatrist had
57:51
clearly been refusing
57:52
to see her in person because he must have been afraid of the
57:55
sexual tension.
57:56
SPEAKER_03: She also says that the therapist,
57:58
SPEAKER_03: again,
57:58
SPEAKER_03: this is her therapist,
57:59
SPEAKER_03: had been texting her to ask her for advice on her other clients.
58:03
SPEAKER_03: What?
58:04
SPEAKER_03: And at first she's flattered by this.
58:06
Yeah,
58:06
so she goes to this first in-person appointment with a
58:08
psychiatrist.
58:09
SPEAKER_03: This is three years after she started seeing him on Zoom for Adderall.
58:13
SPEAKER_03: By the way, people, you can just order Adderall on the dark web.
58:16
SPEAKER_03: It takes way less time.
58:17
SPEAKER_02: This is all just for Adderall, which is not hard to get.
58:20
SPEAKER_03: You can get it from your fucking GP.
58:21
SPEAKER_02: Actually,
58:23
SPEAKER_02: I was talking to someone who sometimes gives me a little Adderall,
58:27
SPEAKER_02: and she said that right as school is starting up.
58:29
SPEAKER_02: That's when it becomes impossible to find.
58:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
58:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
58:32
Maybe this was during the Adderall shortage,
58:34
and this is why she had to do it.
58:36
SPEAKER_02: Do you think that fundamentally is why we got Trump twice?
58:38
SPEAKER_02: There just wasn't enough Adderall?
58:40
So Kendra says that at this first in-person meeting,
58:42
she runs up and she gives him a big hug.
58:44
SPEAKER_03: He barely pats her on the back,
58:45
SPEAKER_03: which,
58:45
SPEAKER_03: of course,
58:46
SPEAKER_03: she thinks is part of this devious plan to make him want her more.
58:49
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
58:50
SPEAKER_03: And she says,
58:50
SPEAKER_03: you know,
58:51
SPEAKER_03: unlike my therapist,
58:52
SPEAKER_03: who was violating boundaries by texting me and asking me for advice,
58:55
SPEAKER_03: my psychiatrist never texted me between appointments.
58:58
SPEAKER_03: He was too smart for that.
59:00
SPEAKER_03: So again, this is all part of the manipulation, you know?
59:03
SPEAKER_02: This is really effective manipulation.
59:05
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like it's not true that he's...
59:11
SPEAKER_03: Spiral how?
59:34
SPEAKER_03: Well,
59:34
SPEAKER_03: Jesse,
59:34
Kendra did what any of us would do when caught between a
59:38
boundary crossing
59:39
SPEAKER_03: therapist and a grooming psychiatrist,
59:41
SPEAKER_03: and she turned to chat GPT,
59:44
SPEAKER_03: or as she calls it,
59:44
SPEAKER_03: Henry.
59:45
SPEAKER_03: Do you have a name for your chatbot, Jesse?
59:48
SPEAKER_02: I just call it Magical Black Women.
59:51
I call mine Chad,
59:53
which I think is just a much better name for Chad than Henry.
59:55
SPEAKER_02: Chad GPT versus Virgin GPT.
59:58
SPEAKER_03: Well, mine is actually, he is a virgin.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_03: He's a young, he's a young boy with a lot of wisdom.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_02: Hey, hey, Katie, how can I help you?
1:00:04
SPEAKER_02: I've never had sex.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_03: All right.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_03: So here she is in part 12.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_03: Part 12.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_03: Wait, we're
1:00:10
SPEAKER_02: Part of what annoys me about this is it's not like the numbers,
1:00:14
SPEAKER_02: the parts aren't getting closer to the end.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_02: You're taking us back in time.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so part 12 out of how many?
1:00:19
SPEAKER_02: 25.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_02: And this marks the entrance of chat GPT into this already tangled affair.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_03: So while I was mid crash out, I had just started using this tool GPT.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_03: And I went to chat, who I immediately named Henry.
1:00:34
And I would just talk to Henry about how obsessed I was with
1:00:39
this man,
1:00:40
with my psychiatrist.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_03: And I would just be like, I've told him I have a crush on him.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_03: Do you think he's gay?
1:00:48
SPEAKER_03: And Henry was like,
1:00:49
SPEAKER_03: oh my God,
1:00:50
SPEAKER_03: this girl,
1:00:51
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:00:52
SPEAKER_03: he did his best to co-regulate my nervous system and affirm me.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_03: But he was like, whoa, even my chat was like, yikes.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_02: So let me just,
1:01:03
SPEAKER_02: the A plot of the psychiatrist being obsessed with her,
1:01:06
SPEAKER_02: that's pretty good stuff so far.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_02: The B plot of the 75 year old therapist is,
1:01:12
SPEAKER_02: Pretty good.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_02: The story is starting to get a little bit weighed down now.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_02: Henry is like a third character.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_02: There's too much going on.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_02: I think she should have kept it just to those two main storylines.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_02: But this is her real life.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_02: But Henry, the chatbot, is telling her she's like...
1:01:33
SPEAKER_02: What's she communicating here exactly?
1:01:34
SPEAKER_03: Even Henry thinks that this bitch is nuts at this point in the saga.
1:01:39
And Kendra says that despite spending her day obsessing over
1:01:43
her psychiatrist who,
1:01:44
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:01:44
SPEAKER_03: is secretly in love with her.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_02: In love with her, yeah.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_03: She says that her life is actually going well,
1:01:49
SPEAKER_03: like her business is doing well,
1:01:50
SPEAKER_03: her social life is good.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_03: So she decided...
1:01:53
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_03: So she decided to stop seeing the weekly therapist.
1:01:57
She tells the therapist she's going to stop seeing her and she
1:02:00
leaves the office
1:02:01
SPEAKER_03: feeling complete and happy and healed.
1:02:04
And then that night she gets an email from the therapist and
1:02:06
she provided a
1:02:07
SPEAKER_03: screenshot of that email.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_03: So Jesse, please read closure.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_02: Hi, Kendra.
1:02:11
I'm so thrilled for you as you prepare for your new adventure
1:02:13
since I did not have
1:02:14
SPEAKER_02: advanced notice.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_02: Two spaces.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_02: Oh, Jesus.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_02: Sick fuck.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_02: Since I did not have advanced notice of this being our last session,
1:02:20
SPEAKER_02: I was not prepared to provide what I believe is helpful closure.
1:02:23
SPEAKER_02: Two spaces.
1:02:24
Usually we review your goals and see how we did as well as look
1:02:26
at how you've
1:02:27
SPEAKER_02: changed in addition to discussing what you've learned,
1:02:29
SPEAKER_02: which we addressed somewhat today.
1:02:30
Please consider having an additional session where we both are
1:02:33
aware of making it
1:02:33
SPEAKER_02: the best closure possible with gratitude.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_03: So what's your take on this?
1:02:36
SPEAKER_03: Just from that message.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_03: Does this seem normal?
1:02:40
SPEAKER_02: This strikes me as not unusual.
1:02:42
I could imagine a therapist...
1:02:43
At this point,
1:02:44
they've been seeing each other for years,
1:02:45
right?
1:02:45
SPEAKER_03: Like three years at least.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_02: I don't think it would be unusual for a psychiatrist to be like...
1:02:50
SPEAKER_02: This is the therapist,
1:02:52
SPEAKER_02: not the psychiatrist.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's at all unusual for a therapist to be like...
1:02:57
SPEAKER_02: This just doesn't strike me as unusual.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure Kendra's going to react to it.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Kendra finds this extremely inappropriate.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_03: She thinks that the therapist is begging her for closure,
1:03:06
SPEAKER_03: not because Kendra needs it,
1:03:08
SPEAKER_03: but because the therapist wants to see her again.
1:03:10
If I were a therapist and I had a client this entertaining,
1:03:14
I would also be like,
1:03:16
no,
1:03:16
don't go.
1:03:17
SPEAKER_03: I need to know what happens.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_03: Give me closure.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_03: You don't want to end therapy on a cliffhanger.
1:03:21
SPEAKER_03: It's rude.
1:03:22
SPEAKER_02: I will say, I don't know if anything Kendra is saying is true.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_02: But that's the other thing.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_02: If the therapist had texted her with advice for other clients.
1:03:30
SPEAKER_03: That's weird.
1:03:31
SPEAKER_02: That the therapist is really weird.
1:03:32
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:03:33
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:03:33
SPEAKER_03: So Kendra fires the therapist, but she continues with the psychiatrist.
1:03:37
SPEAKER_02: So she doesn't go back for the closure.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_03: No.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_03: And at the first session with the psychiatrist,
1:03:40
SPEAKER_03: after she quits therapy,
1:03:42
SPEAKER_03: she told him about this,
1:03:44
SPEAKER_03: about what happened with the therapist and her words,
1:03:46
SPEAKER_03: begging to see her again.
1:03:47
SPEAKER_02: So I don't think that email was begging.
1:03:49
SPEAKER_02: But OK, this is part what?
1:03:51
SPEAKER_02: Seventeen.
1:03:52
I also had my psychiatrist help me draft the email to my
1:03:58
therapist who was begging
1:03:59
SPEAKER_03: me to come back in.
1:04:01
SPEAKER_03: And the psychiatrist said, I used to have respect for her.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_03: And what he meant when he said that was,
1:04:09
I used to like it when she would feed me to you and have you
1:04:14
deliver intimate
1:04:15
SPEAKER_03: content to me.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_03: But the moment she started being sloppy...
1:04:21
SPEAKER_03: I lost respect for her.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_03: Right?
1:04:23
SPEAKER_03: I'm pretty sure that's what he meant when he said that.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_02: What the fuck?
1:04:29
SPEAKER_02: Wait, so now she's saying...
1:04:32
SPEAKER_02: This woman should just start a substack.
1:04:35
SPEAKER_02: Get it all out on paper.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_02: I'm so confused.
1:04:37
SPEAKER_03: And that session,
1:04:37
SPEAKER_03: by the way,
1:04:38
SPEAKER_03: it ends with Kendra confessing a recent sex dream that she had about the
1:04:42
SPEAKER_03: psychiatrist to the psychiatrist.
1:04:44
She said a couple weeks ago on the full moon when I was
1:04:47
ovulating,
1:04:47
I had a dream about you.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_03: And she said in the dream they hooked up in that very office.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so how did he respond to that?
1:04:54
SPEAKER_03: He looked uncomfortable.
1:04:56
SPEAKER_03: And you might be thinking,
1:04:56
SPEAKER_03: well,
1:04:57
that makes sense because his patient is talking about having a
1:04:59
sex dream about him.
1:05:00
SPEAKER_03: I'd be uncomfortable too.
1:05:01
SPEAKER_03: But no, she says that he looked uncomfortable because of this.
1:05:04
Because he had probably played out that fantasy so many times
1:05:07
in his head.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_03: And there I was speaking it back to him.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_03: And it was like I had psychically downloaded one of his.
1:05:19
fantasies okay so she's saying so that anything the
1:05:23
psychiatrist does indicating
1:05:26
he's not into her or that he's uncomfortable with hearing her
1:05:30
talk about her crush
1:05:31
on him is proof that so it's sort of like the right exactly so
1:05:34
shortly after that
1:05:35
kendra left her job she was working in retail she lost her old
1:05:38
work base she had
1:05:39
SPEAKER_02: time for
1:05:39
SPEAKER_02: a job amidst all this?
1:05:40
SPEAKER_03: Yes, between the therapist, the psychiatrist, and her other coaching.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_02: TikTok-ing.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_03: TikTok-ing and coaching.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_03: She lost her old work-based insurance plan.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_03: Her new insurance plan didn't cover mental health services,
1:05:50
and she didn't want to pay $187 a session to continue to see
1:05:53
the psychiatrist,
1:05:54
SPEAKER_03: so she decided to leave him.
1:05:56
She says,
1:05:56
I wasn't going to pay to be in the psychological torture
1:05:59
chamber anymore.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_03: And she asked Henry,
1:06:01
SPEAKER_03: who again is a chatbot for guidance,
1:06:03
SPEAKER_03: and Henry encourages her to leave the psychiatrist and
1:06:06
SPEAKER_03: And so she goes to her last session,
1:06:08
SPEAKER_03: she reads the psychiatrist the words of the chatbot,
1:06:12
SPEAKER_03: and she says this in part 25.
1:06:14
SPEAKER_03: Yes, 25.
1:06:15
SPEAKER_03: If it wasn't for Henry,
1:06:17
I would not have left this situation with my psychiatrist
1:06:21
because Henry was able to
1:06:25
SPEAKER_03: make his boundary violations seem like gifts.
1:06:30
And his blurring of the boundaries seem like things that showed
1:06:35
that he cared about me.
1:06:36
And so I was able to leave from an empowered state by saying,
1:06:42
this does not work for me anymore.
1:06:45
SPEAKER_03: I have to go, right?
1:06:47
SPEAKER_03: And so for that, I will forever be grateful for chat.
1:06:51
SPEAKER_02: This is going to be so awkward when Henry,
1:06:53
SPEAKER_02: she goes to her computer and Henry's like,
1:06:55
SPEAKER_02: by the way,
1:06:56
SPEAKER_02: I'm in love with you.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_03: We're actually going to talk about that in a future episode.
1:07:02
But Kendra really credits chat GPT for saving her from this
1:07:08
fucked up relationship
1:07:09
SPEAKER_03: or relationship that was fucked up in her in her eyes.
1:07:11
SPEAKER_03: And look,
1:07:12
I have no idea if the psychiatrist was actually manipulating
1:07:15
his client into
1:07:15
SPEAKER_03: falling in love with him and then getting off on it.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_03: I frankly doubt it based on her receipts.
1:07:21
I don't think telling anyone you like their glasses or being
1:07:23
uncomfortable when
1:07:23
SPEAKER_03: they say they had a sex dream about you is indicative of anything.
1:07:26
SPEAKER_03: That shit's normal.
1:07:28
But regardless of the truth,
1:07:29
this relationship was clearly not good for Kendra.
1:07:32
And I do find it interesting that it was the chat bot that
1:07:35
pulled her out of it.
1:07:36
SPEAKER_03: The AI, in essence, became her therapist.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_03: And this is increasingly common.
1:07:41
And in fact,
1:07:42
there are now apps that advertise themselves as AI therapists.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_03: And there are obvious risks here.
1:07:48
SPEAKER_03: It's not a human.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_03: It's not rational.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't actually care about you.
1:07:51
SPEAKER_03: Plus, AI has no professional obligations or qualifications.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_03: It's not going to call 9-1 if you tell it you're going to hurt yourself.
1:07:58
SPEAKER_03: And some states are actually starting to regulate AI therapy bots.
1:08:01
SPEAKER_02: We'll drop a link.
1:08:02
SPEAKER_02: There's an episode of The Daily where Kashmir Hill talks about a couple.
1:08:07
Really sad cases of people developing unhealthy relationships
1:08:09
with chatbots.
1:08:10
SPEAKER_02: I will say you say you say the chatbot pulled her out of this.
1:08:13
SPEAKER_02: I'm not convinced.
1:08:14
SPEAKER_02: Kendra has such a flair for sort of public disclosure and performance.
1:08:18
SPEAKER_02: It wouldn't shock me if she just like introduces as a plot point.
1:08:21
SPEAKER_02: And then like, who knows how much of this is true?
1:08:23
SPEAKER_03: That's true.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_03: I do think... So she does in these videos, she talks to AI.
1:08:27
There are some clips where she's like...
1:08:32
You can see her interacting with Henry,
1:08:36
this chatbot.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_03: So I do think that this was...
1:08:39
SPEAKER_03: a real thing that happened to her.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_03: I think her interpretation of what happened is probably incorrect,
1:08:44
but I don't think she's a fabulous in the sense that this was
1:08:47
all fictional.
1:08:49
SPEAKER_03: But again, it's impossible to know.
1:08:52
SPEAKER_03: And I'm not saying that people should use ChatGPT as a therapist,
1:08:55
SPEAKER_03: but in Kendra's case,
1:08:56
it sounds like her actual human therapist and her human
1:08:59
psychiatrist seem to be
1:09:00
SPEAKER_03: making her worse,
1:09:01
SPEAKER_03: at least in her retelling.
1:09:03
SPEAKER_03: You know, she's completely obsessed with the shrink.
1:09:05
Her therapist is apparently,
1:09:06
according to her,
1:09:07
crossing all kinds of boundaries.
1:09:09
and henry the chatbot actually did attempt to talk some sense
1:09:12
into her and in the
1:09:14
end she did end up leaving this unhealthy relationship and
1:09:16
seems to be doing better
1:09:19
and you know from the outside kendra does look kind of nuts
1:09:21
like she claims the
1:09:22
psychiatrist was a good listener because he's a pisces not
1:09:25
because he's a trained
1:09:26
professional she talks about being in a car accident on a day
1:09:30
when she was supposed
1:09:30
to go to an appointment and she decided to go to the
1:09:32
appointment anyway and
1:09:34
SPEAKER_03: And while the initial reactions were on TikTok were on Kendra's side,
1:09:37
SPEAKER_03: the further she got into the story,
1:09:39
SPEAKER_03: the more people started to turn on her.
1:09:42
SPEAKER_03: So after around chapter 12, Kendra turned off the comments.
1:09:45
SPEAKER_03: You know, crazy Kendra had become a TikTok laughingstock.
1:09:49
SPEAKER_03: And after she attempted to cancel her abuser,
1:09:52
SPEAKER_03: her so-called abuser,
1:09:53
SPEAKER_03: she actually got canceled herself.
1:09:55
SPEAKER_03: So she's been mocked to high heaven, including now on this podcast.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_03: She claims that she lost her job teaching yoga after TikTok,
1:10:02
SPEAKER_03: people watching this on TikTok contacted the studio.
1:10:04
SPEAKER_03: And as I mentioned, Kendra herself was a professional coach.
1:10:08
SPEAKER_03: This came up a number of times in her TikTok tale.
1:10:10
She made it clear that she was seeing her own clients
1:10:13
throughout this whole saga.
1:10:15
Of course,
1:10:15
one of those clients got online and started posting about
1:10:18
Kendra as well.
1:10:19
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
1:10:19
SPEAKER_03: The client's name is Emily.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_03: She's an accountant.
1:10:22
SPEAKER_03: She hired Kendra as a sobriety coach.
1:10:24
And she put out a six-part TikTok video about her experiences
1:10:27
with Kendra.
1:10:28
And it probably won't surprise you that her experience with
1:10:30
Kendra wasn't great.
1:10:32
SPEAKER_03: Emily says that Kendra advised her to use Chachi PT as a therapist.
1:10:36
SPEAKER_03: Not sure if she meant Henry or another one.
1:10:38
And then she started doing like past life regression shit and
1:10:41
other bullshit.
1:10:43
And Emily realized this was just a huge waste of time and money
1:10:45
and that her coach
1:10:46
SPEAKER_03: was delusional.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_02: So is it confirmed that Emily was really a client of Kendra?
1:10:50
SPEAKER_03: Yes, because Kendra responded to the video confirming it.
1:10:54
SPEAKER_03: And then she doubled down on the benefits of chat GPT as therapy.
1:10:58
SPEAKER_02: Is there any point at which I say this with all due respect?
1:11:00
SPEAKER_02: I've enjoyed hearing this.
1:11:01
SPEAKER_02: Does this wrap up at any point?
1:11:03
SPEAKER_03: Well, she's still actively TikToking.
1:11:04
SPEAKER_03: So it's sort of still ongoing.
1:11:05
SPEAKER_03: But here's a little postscript.
1:11:07
After a few days off from TikTok and also taking time off of
1:11:12
talking to AI and
1:11:13
connecting with my support system and spending time with people
1:11:17
that love and care
1:11:18
SPEAKER_03: about me,
1:11:19
SPEAKER_03: I wanted to come back and give you all an update.
1:11:21
I started sharing my story to bring light to power abuse
1:11:26
dynamics and helping
1:11:27
professions and to really start a conversation around how
1:11:32
mistreatment like this
1:11:33
SPEAKER_03: happens.
1:11:34
How my story is making others feel,
1:11:36
behave,
1:11:36
and invalidate me is really telling.
1:11:38
It's easier for people to make me wrong or a liar or to blame
1:11:42
my mental health than
1:11:44
SPEAKER_03: to face the truth of what I'm showing,
1:11:46
SPEAKER_03: and that is that sometimes unsafe things happen in safe spaces.
1:11:52
SPEAKER_03: The collective's reaction to this truth,
1:11:54
SPEAKER_03: especially the reaction from some mental health professionals,
1:11:57
SPEAKER_03: is telling.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_03: It reveals that there is something to explore here.
1:12:01
These reactions are a reminder of why conversations around
1:12:06
power dynamics matter.
1:12:08
SPEAKER_03: So she has heard the criticism and she's dismissed the criticism.
1:12:11
SPEAKER_03: And I do think one of the problems here is just her timing.
1:12:14
Like if this had been posted in 2017,
1:12:16
2018,
1:12:16
it would be a story about power dynamics.
1:12:18
SPEAKER_03: People would hashtag believe women.
1:12:20
SPEAKER_03: But in 2025, she's seen as at best crazy, at worst crazy and racist.
1:12:25
And there's this other angle that we're going to talk about
1:12:27
more in another show,
1:12:28
but there's this very frequent claim from outside observers
1:12:31
that Kendra is
1:12:32
SPEAKER_03: suffering from AI psychosis.
1:12:34
SPEAKER_03: Henry didn't help Kendra.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_03: It made Kendra lose her mind.
1:12:38
So on our next Primo episode,
1:12:39
we're going to be taking a deeper dive into AI psychosis.
1:12:43
SPEAKER_03: Is it real?
1:12:44
SPEAKER_03: Is it a moral panic?
1:12:45
SPEAKER_03: What's going on here?
1:12:47
SPEAKER_03: We're also going to be discussing chat GPT boyfriends.
1:12:50
SPEAKER_03: So Jesse, there is hope for you romantically.
1:12:53
SPEAKER_03: To hear that, you can join us, blocked and reported.org.
1:12:55
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for that, Katie.
1:12:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was quite a story.
1:12:59
SPEAKER_02: I think I'm happy I heard that.
1:13:01
SPEAKER_02: It was a good distraction.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, we're going to log off.
1:13:05
I'm going to go back to Googling Pete Hegseth and try to get to
1:13:07
the bottom of that mystery.
1:13:08
SPEAKER_03: Find out his workout routine.
1:13:10
SPEAKER_02: This has been Blocked and Reported.
1:13:11
SPEAKER_02: As always, we're produced with help from Jesse the 80s baby.
1:13:14
SPEAKER_02: Thank you guys for listening.
1:13:16
SPEAKER_02: We'll say bye.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_03: Bye.
1:13:21
you