Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Tradwife influencer 'Patriarchy Hannah' exposed, Trisha Paytas' new gig + Reddit paywalls are coming

Transcript

MINI SCROLL: Tradwife influencer 'Patriarchy Hannah' exposed, Trisha Paytas' new gig + Reddit paywalls are coming · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Hi everyone. Welcome to Mini Scroll, the
• 0:03
  daily Internet culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories
• 0:07
  from social media, the creator economy and the digital space
• 0:11
  every Monday through Thursday. I'm your host, Lauren Meisner,
• 0:15
  the founder of the youth digital media brand Centennial World.
• 0:20
  Welcome back to Mini Scroll everyone.
• 0:22
  OK, before I get into the stories for today and Oh my God,
• 0:26
  do I ever have a story for you today.
• 0:30
  I cannot wait to share this story.
• 0:32
  But before I get into it, I wanted to share two things with
• 0:35
  you guys. First we're going to be doing a
• 0:36
  mini scroll promo for female founded brands where basically
• 0:41
  we will give any brands that come to us that are female
• 0:44
  founded. Doesn't matter what size you
• 0:45
  are, doesn't matter how many people are on your team doesn't
• 0:48
  matter like what stage you're at.
• 0:51
  We will give you a almost free ad we need to cover like the
• 0:54
  production cost, but that's it. This is my year.
• 0:57
  This is like the female founder year for me and we are trying to
• 1:02
  give back as much as possible. If you guys are a female founded
• 1:05
  brand, if you work at a female founded brand, if you're
• 1:08
  interested in podcast advertising at like an
• 1:10
  incredibly credibly discounted rate, then you can either e-mail
• 1:15
  hello at centennialworld.com or you can just like DM me and let
• 1:18
  us know and I will connect you with our team.
• 1:21
  So this promotion, we do have a limited number of spots.
• 1:24
  We're just like doing a tester. We're just doing like a little
• 1:26
  trial. So yeah, let us know.
• 1:29
  And if it goes really well and you know, the brand see results
• 1:33
  and you know, we get a lot of interest or whatever, then we'll
• 1:36
  kind of decide how we want to integrate this long term into
• 1:40
  the brand. This is kind of like a passion
• 1:42
  project for us on the side as a completely, well, a female owned
• 1:47
  company, obviously Centennial, but then also just like everyone
• 1:51
  that works here is a woman. So, you know, we want to give
• 1:53
  back. OK.
• 1:54
  The next thing that I wanted to say is I've been getting some
• 1:57
  questions about like my talk next week and if it can be live
• 2:01
  streamed. So it will be live streamed.
• 2:02
  So I didn't actually say like what I'm doing.
• 2:06
  So I am speaking at Web Summit in Doha next week and I'm going
• 2:11
  to be moderating a panel on the future of media consumption.
• 2:14
  I met with the panelists last night at midnight because
• 2:17
  they're on a different time zone and I had to be accommodating
• 2:20
  being in Sydney. No, you're always on like the
• 2:22
  most rogue time zone over here. But no, it is going to be so
• 2:25
  good. So there is a live stream
• 2:27
  available for every single panel and speaker.
• 2:30
  However, you don't get the link until I think the day of.
• 2:33
  So I might put it in the community tab on YouTube.
• 2:35
  But I also think it might be like the middle of the night for
• 2:37
  you guys. But if anybody is interested, I
• 2:40
  think I'll try and remember to put the link up like somewhere
• 2:43
  for you guys. OK, let's get into the stories.
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  I'm just going to go head first into the big story because I am
• 2:49
  sure a lot of you guys are here for that story.
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  The first story that I have for you guys is that Twitter famous
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  trad wife Patriarchy Hannah AKA Harmonized Grace has been
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  exposed as a fraud. You guys, we were only sent this
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  story today. Like, I'm not kidding.
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  Like two hours ago we were like, what is going on here?
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  And for Annabelle and I, we were locked the fuck in.
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  Like this was our Super Bowl. We were like, this is literally
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  everything that we care about at Centennial.
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  Like niche Internet drama, like citizen journalism exposes trad
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  wives fraud. Like, it has everything.
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  OK, so for context, patriarchy. Hannah presented herself as a
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  trad wife who was raising fourteen children.
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  She also said she had a husband named Tony who owned a
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  construction company. She started her Twitter account
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  in June 2021 and she amassed around 30,000 followers on the
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  platform and she also ran a Discord server.
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  So she like I said, she was kind of like Twitter famous in this
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  very specific niche of like patriarchy first charade wife
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  women. To be honest, we had not heard
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  about her until this all broke. So much of this information that
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  we learned has been taken from like various subreddits with a
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  focus on trad wives and snarking about them.
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  So definitely like keep that in mind.
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  There might be some details that are not fully fleshed out, but
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  for the most part I think we're pretty good here.
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  OK, so as one user explained, quote patriarchy.
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  Hannah has been around for years and pretended to be your typical
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  homeschool mom, except with 14 kids.
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  She says her husband Tony is a black felon who has been
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  reformed and they have adopted and fostered many children, some
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  of whom are also black. Note that this is not possible.
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  Felons cannot foster nor adopt. Hannah claims her husband Tony
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  bought a town and named it after himself.
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  Like a literal town called Tony Town.
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  Tony Town. Tony town.
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  I was like laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes when I was
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  reading Tony Town. So this seemingly all went
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  viral. It's been hard for us to kind of
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  figure out the source of how this came to be.
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  It seems like there were just a lot of inconsistencies and
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  people who followed her started to talk about it.
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  And then this one ex user, Ryan Duff, shared an entire thread.
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  Like he dug into it and then he shared an entire thread exposing
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  all of this. In this thread, Ryan goes
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  through a number of like sketchy instances that tipped off users
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  to Hannah's lies. Through the thread.
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  He went through different official records and used
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  reverse image search to validate his claims.
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  I'm not going to go through all of his discoveries, but the
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  first one he mentions is a house that Hannah claimed was built by
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  her husband, Tony. According to Ryan, the property
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  records confirm it was built by a woman and her sister in 2020.
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  Ryan also detailed a number of connections between Hannah and a
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  37 year old woman named Jennifer Baze.
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  For example, Hannah had shared an address at one point that,
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  through property records, could be linked to Bobby and Jolyn
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  Baze, Jennifer's parents quote. She also shared a picture in her
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  Discord which just happened to match the Zillow pictures for
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  that address, Ryan wrote. On top of this, Hannah would
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  frequently refused to video call people and fans that she had met
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  online, according to Ryan quote. At one point, those close to her
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  asked for proof of who she was and she provided a photo.
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  Unfortunately, the photo she provided was pulled from someone
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  else's Facebook profile. The profile in question was a
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  woman named Allison Brown. OK, so to make matters worse,
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  Allison had met Jennifer in real life and they were friends for a
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  time. And I did see somebody say that
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  they met in jail, but we were not able to confirm if they
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  actually met in jail. But regardless, they apparently
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  did know each other in real life despite how they met.
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  So Hannah, AKA Jennifer, met Allison in real life and when
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  she would be asked online for photos of herself or like proof
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  that she was real or whatever, she would allegedly send
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  Allison's photos. And apparently this was working
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  because Allison did not have Twitter or X.
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  And so yeah, she was unaware that she was basically being
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  catfished. Ryan also looked into the death
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  of Hannah's grandmother, which was the same day that Jennifer's
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  grandmother passed away. Quote in September, Hannah's
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  grandmother passed away. As it turns out, it is the exact
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  same day Jennifer's grandmother passed away.
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  In Jennifer's grandmother's obituary, there is a mention of
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  a Haiti Education Foundation as a place to send donations.
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  Hannah joked about this in Discord.
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  The obituary also clarified some details on the family.
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  It confirms that Bobby and Jo Lynn Bayes are the parents of
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  Jennifer. It also clarifies that of the
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  four grandchildren that Jennifer is included in, there are only
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  three great grandchildren. So looking at the obituary, Ryan
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  therefore concluded that Hannah, AKA Jennifer, did not have 14
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  kids and was not married. Now, according to various social
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  media user slash creators who spoke to Allison, Jennifer did
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  have a So remember Allison and Jennifer met in person, possibly
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  in jail. Jennifer did have a boyfriend
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  named Tony at the time, however, he died of an overdose years
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  prior apparently. So I guess the name Tony was
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  real. That was like her partner at one
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  point, but he was dead. And some people are saying that
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  she was using like a Tony's likeness and like identity, I
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  suppose, and using it as like her husband who built Tony town.
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  OK, are you following? And like I said, this rumor that
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  Jennifer and Allison met in jail, like a lot of users on
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  social media maintain that she was arrested and in jail at some
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  point because in 2011, there's a newspaper clipping that is like
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  going around on X that a 24 year old woman named Jennifer Bayes
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  had been arrested for identity theft.
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  So I assume that's like where the connection is coming from
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  because obviously this woman will not.
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  Obviously, allegedly this woman is, you know, committing
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  identity theft with a few people here.
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  I don't actually really know what constitutes as, like
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  identity theft, but she is like catfishing with people.
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  And so, yeah, this is not something that Ryan revealed in
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  his thread, but this is something that seems to be a
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  very like, well known thing on social media that she allegedly
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  went to jail. At some point, after all this
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  started going viral, the Patriarchy Hannah account was
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  deleted, but it has since come back online.
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  So Hannah or Jennifer or whoever this person is, she first
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  started defending herself against the allegations,
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  retweeting posts seemingly by friends, quote UN quote, saying
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  that they had Facetimed her and seen pictures.
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  But Jennifer has since issued an apology to her followers.
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  So on February 18th, she wrote. I just want to say that I'm
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  sorry for the lies I told and the hurt I caused.
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  I never intended for this account to become as big as it
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  did. And once things started
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  snowballing, I enjoyed the relationships I'd built and
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  didn't know how to put it to an end or how to put an end to it.
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  It was wrong of me. I have repented for this
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  behavior and will not be back on X.
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  I'm sorry to everyone I hurt with my lies.
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  Some things that have been said are true and some things are
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  wildly inaccurate, but I don't see a point in sorting it all
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  out. The bottom line is that I am not
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  who I presented myself to be. I'm not going to be giving my
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  reasons for why I started because I am not looking for
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  sympathy here. It was wrong, and I humbly hope
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  that you can all find it in your hearts to forgive me for the
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  future. And then she continued and
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  explained what prompted her to create this account.
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  This is the last thing I have to say.
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  This account will be deactivated for the last time tomorrow.
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  As in tomorrow, today, tomorrow, like literally our time
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  tomorrow, it will be deactivated, she says.
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  I want to start by saying again how deeply sorry I am for lying
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  and for the hurt that I have caused people.
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  When the original Hannah profile got started, it was just
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  something fun with a friend and I.
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  It got out of hand. And then Patriarchy Hannah came
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  about. At one point there were four of
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  us running the account. We meshed together different
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  aspects of our lives and that became the character.
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  As I grew in my Christian walk through being on Twitter
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  actually, I became increasingly convicted but had no idea I had
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  to end it because I was attached to the relationships I had
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  formed when I started doing spaces and such.
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  I am sorry. I know people were hurt by this.
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  It was never my intention. Please know that I am praying
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  for the people I have hurt and I hope that one day you can
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  forgive me. Which doesn't mean letting me
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  back into your lives obviously. OK so Hannah's whole thing
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  right? Aside from pretending to have
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  like 14 kids and a husband that builds towns and things like
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  that is, you know, she was like very vocally like pro
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  patriarchy, anti feminism. You know, she was helping kind
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  of spread that really damaging conservative messaging across
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  the Internet. But like two groups of women and
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  I have watched a few different videos and you know, content
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  from women that followed her or that are in those spaces and are
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  like talking about her being exposed and how this is like
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  damaging. They're saying that the women
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  who were putting her on this pedestal and using her as an
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  example of this model trad life, this model woman that has so
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  many children and that like puts her husband first.
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  It was all fake, which I find really like interesting because
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  in general, like the standards that these women are holding
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  themselves to are so deeply unrealistic.
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  Like of course it has to be fake.
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  And I did see a lot of people to say that it's interesting
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  because a lot it seems like I actually have not really thought
• 12:31
  about this very much, but it seems like a lot of people
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  believe that the very obviously pro tradwife content or like
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  accounts are not real. They're people that are like
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  pushing this agenda for shits and gigs for engagement because
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  it makes so much money. We know that that kind of
• 12:48
  content just absolutely pops off because it's like rage bait
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  essentially for one side of the Internet.
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  And then the other side of the Internet is like exactly.
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  And it like confirms all of these like toxic beliefs and
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  stuff. So anyways, it's it's a very
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  high engagement niche. And so there is this kind of
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  pervasive belief that a lot of people that have these accounts
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  or a lot of these accounts are not actually led by the people
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  who claim to lead them. But a lot of people are like I'm
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  actually shocked that it was a woman leading this account and
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  not some dude. You kind of don't think that
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  it's going to be a woman that is spreading these really harmful
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  beliefs if she doesn't actually hold them herself?
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  I've also seen and this is like full speculation could not
• 13:28
  confirm this but a lot of people seem to believe that her day job
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  is being like an only fans model.
• 13:36
  I could not confirm this but that would give serious Gwen
• 13:40
  Gwiz vibes. If you guys know, you know.
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  So based on all of this, my opinion here, I don't I don't
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  know if what Hannah or Jennifer or whoever said at the end
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  saying, you know, I started to get into these beliefs the more
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  I was in it. I mean, that's possible.
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  I'm going to say that might not be totally true.
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  I'm going to guess that's not totally true.
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  I feel like what happened here is it was a woman trolling maybe
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  or a group of people, as she said, kind of trolling and
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  seeing if they could build out this like really larger than
• 14:15
  life caricature of a trad wife. You know, she has like 14 kids.
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  Her husband built a town and named it after himself, Tony
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  Town. Like this doesn't sound real.
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  Like this doesn't sound real, you know, So I, I wonder if this
• 14:29
  was kind of like a troll to see how far they could push it and
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  see how many followers they could get and see how many
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  people who believe in this kind of ideology would actually
• 14:40
  believe it, you know, would like follow and, and, and believe
• 14:43
  something that felt so obviously out there.
• 14:47
  And then I think she probably got kind of addicted to the
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  engagement. Like she said, the
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  relationships, like just kind of having that attention and that
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  notoriety maybe. And so then it just kind of kept
• 15:00
  snowballing and it just became a part of her life.
• 15:03
  It reminds me of sweet Bobby. Like Sweet Bobby was really
• 15:06
  damaging to a select few people it seemed, whereas this was more
• 15:11
  like spreading like really toxic messaging on mass.
• 15:15
  But it reminds me of that where it's like, there's no like real
• 15:19
  tangible reason. I feel like that sometimes these
• 15:21
  people can give as to why they do this.
• 15:23
  It's just validation thing. And then I think it just becomes
• 15:27
  almost like a part of your life and you don't really know why
• 15:29
  you're still doing it or why you do it, but you just do.
• 15:32
  That's my theory here. Like I said, this all just
• 15:34
  happened like right before I started recording.
• 15:36
  So I haven't had enough time to like sit with this and process
• 15:39
  and really consider like what this means on a broader scope
• 15:43
  for like Internet culture, the patterns that we're seeing
• 15:48
  online in politics, how polarizing everything's
• 15:51
  becoming, how this type of ideology online is becoming more
• 15:55
  and more popular. And yeah, I'm not I'm not
• 15:58
  totally sure where all of that lands, like where I land on all
• 16:00
  of that. But that is a summary of the
• 16:05
  patriarchy Hannah expose and how she is apparently allegedly a
• 16:09
  woman named Jennifer Baze who has no children, no husband, who
• 16:14
  built a town, and has just basically been lying about being
• 16:19
  this hella conservative trad wife for years.
• 16:23
  OK, the next story that I have for you guys is that Trisha
• 16:28
  Paytas is set to perform at World Pride Music Festival in
• 16:33
  June. So I know some of you guys don't
• 16:36
  love when I cover Trisha and honestly that's fair enough.
• 16:40
  But I think when there's big moments like this, I will cover
• 16:43
  her in the context of like Internet culture and like the
• 16:46
  creator economy. But like, I do understand why it
• 16:50
  rubs some people the wrong way. So Trisha will be performing at
• 16:53
  World Pride Music Festival in Washington, DC in June alongside
• 16:58
  This is a big deal because alongside Jennifer Lopez, Troy
• 17:02
  Sivan, RuPaul, Tanashi Grimes, Zed, like what the hell?
• 17:10
  Trisha and Jennifer Lopez performing at the same festival,
• 17:16
  both on the lineup poster is actually insanity.
• 17:20
  Like I think if you told me five years ago that this is where
• 17:23
  Trisha would be, I would have never believed you in a million
• 17:28
  trillion years. Like I'm not even kidding.
• 17:30
  It's so wild. And I need to show you guys this
• 17:32
  because while I was recording just now, I heard something at
• 17:36
  the door at the studio door. And I was like, Oh my God, who
• 17:38
  is about to try and come in? And then this paper just slid
• 17:41
  under my door from Annabelle. She wrote Trisha dropped an EP
• 17:47
  should include in mini heart. So I guess she just dropped an
• 17:51
  EP and she was like, I want to you mention it when you talk
• 17:53
  about her performing. OK, so apparently she just
• 17:55
  dropped an EP. That's basically all I have to
• 17:57
  say about that. But I thought it was actually
• 17:59
  wild that she is her name is on this lineup of like genuine
• 18:03
  music performers. It's wild.
• 18:05
  Okay, so the last way that I have for you guys is that the
• 18:09
  Reddit pay wall is going to be implemented this year.
• 18:12
  It has been confirmed. So Annabelle saw this story
• 18:15
  yesterday after she recorded and it just felt so relevant, like
• 18:19
  we couldn't wait until we're back for her to cover it.
• 18:22
  But Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has confirmed in a pre recorded Q&A
• 18:27
  that Reddit will be implementing paywalls on certain subreddits
• 18:31
  at some point this year, 2025. This was first suggested last
• 18:35
  year as a way for Reddit to diversify and increase its
• 18:38
  revenue. Now, on this same call, Huffman
• 18:41
  also suggested other ways the platform is considering
• 18:44
  diversifying its revenue, like introducing a marketplace for
• 18:48
  users to purchase products through the platform.
• 18:52
  Like we need more e-commerce. Like every single social media
• 18:56
  platform is just turning into, I mean, Redis, not really a social
• 18:59
  media platform, but it's like a community platform.
• 19:01
  Like I love Reddit. It's like my favorite and
• 19:04
  everything is just turning into this commercialized freaking
• 19:09
  like capitalist hellscape. Or we're just expected to just
• 19:13
  buy, buy, buy, buy. He said this would be down the
• 19:15
  line, but it's definitely something they are considering.
• 19:18
  On the call, executives also stressed the importance of
• 19:21
  Reddit's licensing deals with AI chat bots and creating a
• 19:25
  financially secure future for the platform.
• 19:27
  So we reported on that as well at some point.
• 19:30
  I don't know if it was this year or last year, but Reddit, but it
• 19:32
  has entered into these deals with like Google and people that
• 19:35
  are making AI chat bots or whatever to train their models
• 19:39
  given how much like information, you know, Reddit has obviously
• 19:43
  all over its platforms. I mean, I get it.
• 19:46
  Like companies have to stay afloat.
• 19:48
  I get it. I understand sometimes you just
• 19:50
  need to sell out a little bit because you just need to like
• 19:53
  get by, but I don't know, paywalled subreddits just feels
• 20:01
  like the antithesis of like the platform in general.
• 20:04
  Like it feels like the absolute antithesis of like the culture
• 20:08
  of the platform of like why the platform was created in the 1st
• 20:11
  place. I don't know.
• 20:13
  What do you guys think about that?
• 20:14
  And would you pay for a paywalled subreddit?
• 20:17
  I guess it depends on. Like what the subreddit was, if
• 20:20
  I was like really passionate about that thing, maybe, but I
• 20:25
  don't think there's any subreddit that I can think of
• 20:27
  right now that I would willingly pay for.
• 20:30
  I don't know. Anyways, guys, that's it for
• 20:33
  mini scroll today. Thank you so much for listening.
• 20:36
  I love you guys. Please rate, review and
• 20:39
  subscribe. We're trying to get to 1000
• 20:41
  Spotify star ratings and yes, I will not talk to you next week
• 20:47
  because I will be off doing founder girl shit.
• 20:50
  But there will be a deep dive tomorrow and it is very long.
• 20:54
  So it is a big, I'm sorry and thank you for being patient with
• 20:59
  us. But we will talk to you when I'm
• 21:01
  back first week of March. But yes, there will still be a
• 21:04
  big deep dive for you guys tomorrow.
• 21:06
  OK, bye.