Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Teachers vs. social media, Leaked Labs returns with refunds + Hallmark backlash over mahjong film
Transcript
- 0:00Coming up today on mini scroll Australian teachers versus the
- 0:04Internet. Should teachers be quote UN
- 0:06quote allowed to post publicly online?
- 0:09More from the lipstick lesbians on the controversial launch of
- 0:12Leech labs and social media users are calling out hallmark
- 0:16for whitewashing its new film all's fair in love and mahjong.
- 0:21Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
- 0:25culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
- 0:28media, the creator economy and in the digital space every
- 0:31Monday through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
- 0:34I'm your host Lauren Meisner, the founder of the Australian
- 0:37youth digital media brand Centennial World.
- 0:41And thank you to today's sponsor, The Commons, Australias
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- 1:27thecommons.com dot AU. I'm sorry, more change, more
- 1:31structural change with the beginning of the episode.
- 1:34I know that really upset some of you guys.
- 1:36And honestly, fair enough. I would be upset too if there
- 1:39was a podcast that I listen to as frequently as some of you
- 1:41guys listen to many and they change the intro.
- 1:43I would be like caught off guard.
- 1:45I would not like that. But I feel that this structure
- 1:49is what will help us continue to grow and build.
- 1:52So that is why we have decided to change the intro.
- 1:55But welcome back to Mini Scroll everyone OK, before I get into
- 1:59it, Please remember to rate review and subscribe.
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- 2:15like parasocial esque content from us and subscribe to our
- 2:18newsletter. Keep scrolling for OK, so
- 2:20yesterday I asked if you guys wanted me to cover the Emma
- 2:23greed situation with her book tour and the sound bites coming
- 2:26out of it, and a lot of you guys said yes.
- 2:29However, one of you suggested that I do a mini deep dive into
- 2:32Emigre and this whole situation. So I'm going to do that.
- 2:35I will do it as Friday's episode.
- 2:36And the reason being is that I am still reading her book.
- 2:39So I figured, you know what that's actually like a good
- 2:41idea. There's no deep dive this month.
- 2:43There's no infinite scroll episode this month.
- 2:45We just needed like a month, you know, like we needed a month
- 2:48off. We needed like a little break
- 2:49from the deep dives. So there's already no deep dive
- 2:51this month. And because I'm still reading
- 2:53the book, I thought that will give me the week to finish the
- 2:55book and then I can bring you guys like a proper episode about
- 2:59it. All right, let's just get into
- 3:00the stories for today. So the first story that I have
- 3:04for you guys today, there is a huge debate going on right now
- 3:08mostly on the Australian side of social media, but it's
- 3:11definitely extended beyond that as well over if teachers should
- 3:15be allowed to have public social media accounts.
- 3:19So this debate started after Australian mega influencer Abby
- 3:22Chatfield made a video criticizing Haley back and
- 3:26shared her opinion that teachers should not have a public social
- 3:29media accounts. Now, two things that I want to
- 3:31note here. First one is that this is the
- 3:34extent of what I'm going to cover in terms of Abby's
- 3:36involvement in the story. I know there's a lot of people
- 3:38fighting over like the semantics of what she said versus what she
- 3:42actually meant and all of that kind of stuff.
- 3:44And in my opinion, that's not the point here anyways.
- 3:47She's getting a lot of backlash for this and I don't want to
- 3:50contribute to that. And 2nd, I have purposely
- 3:53avoided talking about the Haley Beck situation for a few
- 3:55reasons, but obviously to understand the context of this
- 3:59story, I need to share. So Haley Beck is the 27 year old
- 4:02sister of TikTok star Noah Beck. She worked as a psychology and
- 4:06sociology high school teacher in Arizona and has been accused by
- 4:10the school board of grooming one of her students before he turned
- 4:1318. This is directly from e-news
- 4:16Quote. In addition to adding the
- 4:17student on Snapchat under the name Sneaky Link, she allegedly
- 4:20exchanged more than 4000 texts with him over the summer of
- 4:232025, including messages about quote, oral sex, meeting up to
- 4:27have sex, drinking alcohol, smoking weed, and about the
- 4:31student, filming Haley provides, getting him oral sex and showing
- 4:35it to her other students. According to the school's
- 4:37statement of charges, Haley, who allegedly called herself a sugar
- 4:41Mama and him a sugar baby, sent him a total of $630 on Apple
- 4:46Pay, including one transaction allegedly captioned.
- 4:49This money exchange just felt like straight prostitution.
- 4:52Per the document, she is also accused of retaliation against
- 4:55the boy's girlfriend, allegedly telling the girl that she
- 4:58wouldn't date him if she was her.
- 5:00OK, so the Superintendent obviously suggested dismissal
- 5:03and the board adopted a quote statement of charges against her
- 5:07thus far. So, since social media was so
- 5:09heavily involved in this situation, it sparked a lot of
- 5:11discussion online right now about whether it's appropriate
- 5:14for teachers to have public social media accounts.
- 5:17And as we know, teachers having social media accounts and
- 5:21building followings for themselves has become more and
- 5:24more common since TikTok exploded.
- 5:26There's countless creators on TikTok sharing the behind the
- 5:29scenes of what it's like to be a teacher, their day in the life
- 5:31content. Sometimes they're recording in
- 5:33the classroom, they're showing their full face using their
- 5:36government name. Sometimes you can even hear the
- 5:38children in the background or like they're speaking back to
- 5:41them. You can't always see the kids.
- 5:43I would say most of the time you can't see the children, but you
- 5:46can usually see the classroom and sometimes hear them and
- 5:48stuff like that. Those who are against teachers
- 5:50having public social media platforms, they feel like it's a
- 5:54security and safety concern for both the teacher and the
- 5:57children. Even if the teacher doesn't
- 5:59share the students in their content, which I think we can
- 6:01probably all agree if they are doing that, that is very wrong.
- 6:06But knowing so many identifiable elements of these creators, like
- 6:09their names, sometimes their location, and even being able to
- 6:12like see their classroom and all of that kind of stuff.
- 6:15Like you would never know As your platform grows, like the
- 6:18more and more parasocial weirdos that are like going to come out
- 6:20of the woodwork and that puts you at risk because they might
- 6:24easily find out where you work. And that obviously also puts the
- 6:27children at risk and then those who are for this type of
- 6:29content. One of the main arguments here
- 6:32is that teachers don't make enough money, so they should be
- 6:34allowed to build a side hustle as a content creator just like a
- 6:37lot of other people. My first point, because I'm
- 6:38going to give you a couple of points of why I think like this.
- 6:42The world has changed, honey, the world has changed, OK?
- 6:46Kids are having so much access to things that I, I'm an adult.
- 6:51I'm having access to it and I'm like, wow, this is a bit much.
- 6:55And they're having access to it. They're watching the same things
- 6:57as me. They come to school and they
- 6:59tell me the things I've watched. I'm like all guys, I don't want
- 7:02to hear about it. Please do not tell me this is
- 7:04inappropriate. I don't want to talk about it.
- 7:06But this is something they're bringing to me.
- 7:07They're seeing it as I'm seeing it OK and everything that I post
- 7:12personally, these things they already know about me.
- 7:15I don't see why having a personal life makes you less
- 7:19professional. Now, if you are a grown adult
- 7:21and you've been on this platform and you've been on the Internet
- 7:24and you've seen a lot of situations, you should have
- 7:26enough cognitive capacity to get enough social cues about what
- 7:31Abby was saying in her video to be like, I should probably not
- 7:34take that literally. I should probably not take what
- 7:37she said about people having social media literally and just,
- 7:42and then use that one point that she made to ignore everything
- 7:46else she said in the video. And that's why I come in.
- 7:49I want to fill in the blanks about the rest of the video
- 7:51because I'm, I may not be a teacher and I may not be Abby
- 7:55Chatfield, but I am nooks who is a youth worker, well qualified
- 7:59youth worker. I don't work in that space
- 8:00anymore, but I definitely am qualified to speak in that space
- 8:03as someone who's working for a lot of young people.
- 8:06Youth workers, just like teachers, just like doctors,
- 8:08nurses, mentors, coaches and sports.
- 8:13We all have a position of power now we we are in positions of
- 8:18power to young people. We have a role as responsible
- 8:22adults to teach young people how to be safe and how to make not
- 8:26the right decision, but to be empowered to make their own
- 8:28decisions so they can improve the quality of life in teaching.
- 8:31You as a teacher, you're in a position of power because
- 8:34children trust you. Children believe you.
- 8:36Teaches recording in classrooms, recording in spaces where
- 8:40there's a lot of young people, young people who they might not
- 8:43know, could be refugees, could be victims of domestic violence,
- 8:47could be people running away from home, could be young people
- 8:50that in youth crisis accommodation, right?
- 8:53A young person through mental health crisis situation, whether
- 8:56it be with themselves or with their family members or with
- 8:59their parents or whatever, you might not know that as teachers,
- 9:02people going, oh, but teachers should have social media.
- 9:05We're not saying you shouldn't have social media.
- 9:07But what we're saying is when you have those powers, because
- 9:10you are in a position of power, you lose a bit of individuality,
- 9:14You lose a little bit of privacy because you trade that for being
- 9:18in a position of power. And that's what people don't get
- 9:21me. When I was doing youth work as a
- 9:23youth worker, I had to change a lot of things.
- 9:26Now, I will say, I've been following this debate over the
- 9:29past couple of days and I've seen nobody saying think that
- 9:31teachers should not have social media, full stop.
- 9:34I know that's something that people believe.
- 9:35Abby Chatfield said initially. She has since come out and
- 9:38corrected what she meant by that.
- 9:40The opinions are more based around if teachers should have
- 9:42public social media accounts and if they do have public ones, if
- 9:46being a teacher should be allowed to like be part of their
- 9:50online brand. I also understand that teachers
- 9:53don't want to hear any takes or opinions about like their
- 9:56career, their job, from people who have never done their job
- 9:59before, especially from people who maybe are privileged in
- 10:02terms of like their career opportunities, their financial
- 10:05opportunities, and also people who don't have children.
- 10:08Like I can imagine that hearing opinions from the wider Internet
- 10:12and influencers and people that don't have any skin in the game
- 10:16because maybe they don't have kids yet, like all this kind of
- 10:18stuff. I get that.
- 10:19That would be so annoying. That would be so frustrating
- 10:23that everybody feels like they can have an opinion on like what
- 10:25you are doing and like your career.
- 10:27I will say this argument is definitely not unique to
- 10:30teachers. There's so many professions that
- 10:32you would get fired from if you were recording in the office or
- 10:36sharing details about your job. Especially because a lot of jobs
- 10:39also don't let you generate other income while you are on
- 10:42company time and like using their resources.
- 10:45Like somebody on Reddit explained it like writing a book
- 10:47during your 9 to 5 on your company laptop.
- 10:50Like you could argue that teachers who are doing like
- 10:52influencer content around being a teacher, if they're in their
- 10:56classrooms, if they're using school resources, location, IP,
- 10:59all that kind of stuff. Like it's similar to that
- 11:03comparison. I think these are meaningful
- 11:05discussions to have. So many people, not just
- 11:07teachers, are blowing up and building these like very
- 11:10lucrative and exciting side hustles off of sharing what it's
- 11:14like to like work in their profession and sharing
- 11:16professional advice on TikTok and things like that.
- 11:18So I do think it's a very fine line when you are using social
- 11:22media to build your career if you're not like self-employed or
- 11:25whatever, I guess even if you are self-employed, but you know,
- 11:27like when you do have an employer, it can be a bit
- 11:29different. It can be a bit like trickier.
- 11:31But I would say it's an important conversation to have
- 11:32and it's also not exclusive to the teaching profession.
- 11:36Let me know what you guys think, if you think teachers should be
- 11:38allowed to have like public social media or where you fall
- 11:40in this debate. I think 100% teacher should be
- 11:43allowed to have public social media.
- 11:44I do think it gets a little bit dicey if they are using teaching
- 11:48as like a corner stone of their public social media profile, you
- 11:52know, as something that is like attracting followers.
- 11:54But I don't think that means every single teacher should have
- 11:58to have like a private Instagram account.
- 11:59OK, the next story that I have for you guys today is the
- 12:02Lipstick Lesbians are offering to issue refunds to unhappy
- 12:07customers. So it seems the Lipstick
- 12:10Lesbians are taking feedback on board from their first launch
- 12:12under their makeup brand Leaked Labs.
- 12:15I fear you guys don't need me to reiterate what the problem with
- 12:18Leaked Labs was and if you do or if you don't remember or you
- 12:22need a refresher, the most recent update that I did about
- 12:25two weeks ago, I think it was about Leaked Labs.
- 12:27I did like a full recap breakdown.
- 12:29So go listen to that episode. I think it was 2 weeks ago.
- 12:32So now when half of the Lipstick Lesbians Alexis is back and
- 12:35addressing everything and she is letting their followers know
- 12:37what the future of the brand could look like.
- 12:39So in this new video, she essentially says that they took
- 12:41some time off to absorb the feedback and decide, I guess
- 12:45what they were going to do with it and how to make some changes.
- 12:48She also clarified that there are two types of product
- 12:51launches that Leaked Labs plans to do, Which I thought was
- 12:54interesting because I don't even know if I was like fully across
- 12:56this. The first are products that are
- 12:59discovered like flexi powder, which was their first launch.
- 13:02So these are products that were developed for another brand.
- 13:05They didn't make the cut for whatever reason, and the
- 13:08lipstick lesbians are taking them and launching them anyways
- 13:11to see what customers think. And then the second type is
- 13:14products that were developed by the lipstick lesbians themselves
- 13:17for Leaked Labs, which is what they say their next launch will
- 13:19be. The creators are also currently
- 13:21filming a docu series about this experience, and Alexis says that
- 13:25will still go ahead. But the most interesting thing
- 13:28about all of this is she ends the video by saying we never
- 13:32want anyone to feel unhappy with the products that we're putting
- 13:34out. So if you want a full refund,
- 13:36contact us down below. In my opinion, that is a very
- 13:40good way to make this right. Did they need to issue a refund?
- 13:45I'm not sure. But I know because they are so
- 13:48visible and it's people fronting the brand, you know, it's not
- 13:52like just a nameless brand owned by some other conglomerate.
- 13:55Like we obviously have that kind of parasocial relationship with
- 13:58them. I think this is a very good idea
- 14:01to do. I'm sure it's going to cost them
- 14:02a lot of money, but I think it's a very wise decision in terms of
- 14:07PR and like making it right with their followers.
- 14:09OK. And the last story that I have
- 14:10for you guys today is the Hallmark Channel is facing
- 14:13backlash on social media after revealing its new romantic
- 14:16comedy, All's Fair and Love and Mahjong because the main cast
- 14:22are almost all white actors. And that is obviously deeply
- 14:27unwell because the movie centers on mahjong, a game with deep
- 14:31roots in Chinese culture. This is directly from National
- 14:34Geographic quote. Mahjong was developed in
- 14:36southern China in the mid 1800s toward the end of the King
- 14:40Dynasty, one of the many male dominated gambling games that
- 14:43emerged at the time. The word mahjong means Sparrow
- 14:47in southern Chinese dialects, referring to the bird like
- 14:49clacking sound the tiles make during reshuffling.
- 14:53Well that's really cute. It's widely believed to be
- 14:55derived from the ancient Chinese card game Madiao.
- 14:59In the early 1920s, American businessman Joseph P Babcock
- 15:02brought the game to the US, where became a quote enormous
- 15:06national fad that reflected the country's shifting gender and
- 15:09cultural norms. Of course, I'm a random
- 15:11businessman named Joseph brought it to the US.
- 15:15The film is set to debut on May 9th, and it stars Fiona
- 15:18Gobelman, Paul Campbell, Yankee Kristolo who is of half Chinese
- 15:23descent, Tamara Mowry and Melissa Peterman.
- 15:26It follows a school nurse who turns her enthusiasm for mahjong
- 15:29song into a fresh opportunity which blossoms into romance.
- 15:33And lots of people on social media are questioning why a
- 15:36predominantly white cast was chosen for the film, especially
- 15:41because it is releasing during Asian American and Pacific
- 15:44Islander Heritage month. So let me read you this post
- 15:47from Diaprada. For a movie centered around
- 15:50mahjong, people are side eyeing the casting choices.
- 15:53The poster shows a mostly white cast with just one Asian actor,
- 15:57Yankee Crystal Low, who is of Chinese Scottish descent.
- 16:00Meanwhile, the mahjong tiles featured on the poster are from
- 16:03the Films branded set, which Hallmark plans to sell on its
- 16:07website through a collab with Miss Mahjong.
- 16:10The Kansas based game company says it was founded by a trio of
- 16:13mahjong obsessed friends and neighbors named Anne Marie
- 16:16Morgan and Betsy. Although the founders don't
- 16:19share additional details, the optics are giving the same
- 16:22energy as the whitewashed mahjong brands.
- 16:25We previously called out Oh my Mahjong just three weeks ago and
- 16:29the mahjong line back in 2021. I remember the 2021 situation.
- 16:33So one of the pinned comments on the Diaprada post is from user
- 16:38JTCF 1981, who wrote I'm just so exhausted from all of this.
- 16:43We're not liked when there's a crisis that originates from
- 16:46quote UN quote, Asia, the giant monolith.
- 16:48And then when we're liked, our collective cultures are
- 16:51exploited, appropriated and sold without any consultation in the
- 16:55laziest, tackiest and inauthentic way possible, and
- 16:58then made out to be some sort of grand old wisdom or philosophy.
- 17:02Just stop. Include us.
- 17:03We speak English. We also speak and read the
- 17:06languages that you seem to be too lazy to translate on the
- 17:09mahjong tiles slash fear your audiences will be turned away
- 17:12from on the tiles because it's considered too foreign.
- 17:15Our culture is not your cosplay. And here are some takes from
- 17:19TikTok. So this was the first thing that
- 17:21popped up on my feed this morning and it's even suggested
- 17:24for me and I wonder why it is so clear what is wrong with this
- 17:29picture? And I feel like maybe it's just
- 17:31probably rage bait at this point.
- 17:32I'm sure there are people who are going to look at this,
- 17:34including a lot of Asian people who are going to say, oh, isn't
- 17:37it so great that more people are going to learn about mahjong
- 17:40this way and we get to share our culture and that will be so good
- 17:44for us as an Asian community. Thing is, we know that broader
- 17:47acceptance of Asian culture is not to our benefit.
- 17:51We're not going to be the ones benefiting from that.
- 17:53Take a closer look at who exactly was tagged in this
- 17:56particular post. So the Miss Mahjong official,
- 18:00OK, who is that? Let's check them out.
- 18:02Oh it's these 3 white women. Fascinating.
- 18:07I hear every week basically about small Asian owned mom and
- 18:11pop shops going out of business, Chinese newspapers going out of
- 18:14business, China towns being gentrified.
- 18:17But sure, let's keep supporting things like this in the name of
- 18:20getting Asian culture out there so that white people can just
- 18:23profit off of our culture. You've got to be fucking kidding
- 18:27me. You people have officially lost
- 18:31the damn pot. Y'all want to be a so bad but
- 18:36don't want to give us credit with not a single Asian person
- 18:40insight. This is embarrassing and to
- 18:43really sit in May during AAPI heritage month.
- 18:48You have us all fucked up and up in arms about this Hallmark.
- 18:54Hallmark homework. Now, as Die Prada said in their
- 18:57caption, this is definitely not the first time that mahjong has
- 19:00been Co opted by white people. Recently in 2021, a Dallas based
- 19:04company called The Mahjong Line reported reportedly led by three
- 19:07white women, received pushback online after redesigning and
- 19:10selling the game. The company was accused of both
- 19:12cultural appropriation and gentrifying mahjong after
- 19:15redesigning the tiles and billing the sets as Not Your
- 19:18Mama's Mahjong. As Business Insider reported at
- 19:22the time quote, many of the statements in the company's
- 19:25marketing copy suggested that the original game design with
- 19:28Chinese symbols is not suitable for what it termed the stylish
- 19:31masses. Many people were quick to
- 19:33describe this whole situation as extremely ignorant and
- 19:36disrespectful. Of course, diet product
- 19:38included. And in the piece for Business
- 19:40Insider, the Mahjong line did issue a statement.
- 19:43They said quote. The Mahjong line released a
- 19:45statement to Insider apologizing for quote, our failure to pay
- 19:49proper homage to the game's Chinese heritage using words
- 19:53like refresh. We're hurtful to many and we are
- 19:55deeply sorry. You want to know something crazy
- 19:57though, guys? When I was researching the
- 19:59history of mahjong for this story, I just like typed into
- 20:02Google history of mahjong and the mahjong lines website was
- 20:06literally like #2 search results on it.
- 20:08And I was like. I don't think that this is a
- 20:13Chinese owned website. Like there was just something
- 20:15about it that I was like, I feel like I should not get my source
- 20:18from here. It was like #2 on like the
- 20:20history of the game, at least for my search results.
- 20:24I don't even know how Google search works anymore with AI, so
- 20:27I don't know if that's like valid, but it was really
- 20:29shocking to me when I realized the tie there.
- 20:31I was like wait that is how I know this website because they
- 20:35were selling the game and it was 3 white women selling this game
- 20:37and I think we covered their backlash.
- 20:40I was trying to find my old notes from our previous podcast
- 20:43but I couldn't. But anyways, this is so shit and
- 20:45so far Hallmark has not responded.
- 20:48Anyways guys, that's it for mini scroll today.
- 20:50Thank you so much for listening. I love you guys.
- 20:53Please remember to rate review and subscribe.
- 20:55Please Spotify star rate US. It helps us so much.
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- 21:00tomorrow and then I will talk to you on Thursday.
- 21:02Bye. Centennial World podcast network
- 21:04operates on Gadigal land. We would like to acknowledge the
- 21:07Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of this
- 21:11land, and pay our respects to elders both past and present.