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Misinformation, TikTok and Birth Control · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Hanny and Samantha and welcome stuff. I've
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: never told you aflecture of iHeart Radio, and we are
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: once again thrilled to be joined by the intrepid, the
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: insightful Bridget Todd. Welcome Bridget.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you for having me. Love the I descriptor
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: word theme very alliterative.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I've been trying to think of new words.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Helps me sleep at night sometimes. Yes, how have you been, Bridget,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I'm doing well.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: We were talking off Mike a little bit about how
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: I feel like.
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: So.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I love Halloween, I love fall. October is my favorite month.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: But I do feel that it took spooky season a
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: little bit of time to really take and I feel
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: it's just I'm just now starting to feel the spooky
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: season vibes. I watched a horror movie under a blanket
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: last night, so I'll really trying to get my Halloween
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: vibes on.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I feel the same way. I am a
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: huge Halloween person. I love October. I love the weather,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: and there's been some really great horror movie watching weather lately.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: But it took a minute for me to set in
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: and now I'm trying to I have a lot of
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: horror movies on my list that I've got to get through.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: It's kind of daunting, but I'm sure that I will
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: do it. Yes, I have. So are you a big
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: horror movie person, Bridget? Is this something that's new? I
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: have long time habit that you have.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: I love horror movies. I like that. I mean, I obviously.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Like elevated horror, I love Hereditari, I love Midsummer all
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: that I like. But I also have a soft spot
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: for just bad, campy horror as well.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: There's just something about.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: A late eighties early nineties horror movie that gets me.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: I do like it. How about you? How about you all?
• 2:10
  Speaker 5: Oh?
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I have tried to figure this out with a good
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: friend of mine who we've enjoyed horror since we were
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: eight or nine years old. Where did that come from?
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Because it's not our families don't like it. We're the
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: only ones in our families that like it. But I
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: was sneaking into horror movies when I was nine years old.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I was playing these horror games when I was nine
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: years old. I don't know. The most scientific explanation I
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: can give is that I also really love roller coasters.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: And there's a scientific reason for loving things like that.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: It's called you stress, and it's like a safe stress.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: It feels like a safe place to relieve stress. I
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: don't know why at nine years old that was something
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: that I felt I needed. But I've been into it
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: for a very, very long time, and I have so
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: many horror movies now. I love the elevated horror, I
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: love dissecting horror, and I love campy horror too. We
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: were talking about this before. I have delved the dips.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I have found some things no one knows what I'm
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: talking about. You surely have, some of which we've talked
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: about on this show.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: Yes, and we will continue to talk about on this
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: show soon as in fact, I think but yeah, I
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: think it has something to do with also the same
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: people who love like crime shows as well as the
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: single who love to cry and just be completely destroyed
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: by a show or a movie. There's something therapeutic and
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: being able to see it, live it, but not be
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: a part of it. I have a conversation in this
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: kind of the whole horror movie film. For me, I'm
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: very specific in my horror movies. I don't like slasher films.
• 3:55
  Speaker 6: I never have.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: I don't like any so it was never really big
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: in the ninth these like Halloween, not even the Fridi
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: Kuger movies because it was just too much for me.
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: But I love a good haunting. I love a good
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: possession movie, which is odd. I remember also watching a
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: couple like a good friend of mine and I would
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: watch all of the the Bad Things at her house,
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: like that was the thing. You know, you have that
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: one friend where you know you can get away with
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: the MTV watching when your religious parents would not let you.
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: And also the horror movies, which are like, you know,
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: you're inviting demons into your mind type of conversation. But
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: we would watch some of the oddest ones, and I
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: don't even remember half of them because they were so
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: like out of the realm. It wasn't like we weren't
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: watching Grimlins. It wasn't that it was something like CAMPI
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: or like we would watch the dude from Grimlins. We
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: would watch him in a lot of other horror movies
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: that I don't know the name of. One of them
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: was like House of Wax. So it was the nine
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: eighties nineties rendition of House of Wax, which kind of
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: scarred me. And then also there was a movie with
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: clowns that scared me. And then another movie where the
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: ending is a woman serving these people pies and face explodes,
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: like that's the ending, And like the the main character
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: who's a white woman and a black man walk out
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: all covered in like bruises because you know they've been
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: through hell, and you see them walking off into the
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: road into the sun. But you see this scene of
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: this old white woman killing her husband somehow by making
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: his face explode because of apple pie.
• 5:22
  Speaker 6: Do you know a movie I'm talking.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: About any I have no idea any of you.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know specifically a movie you're talking about. What
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: there is a movie that is similar called The Stuff.
• 5:33
  Speaker 6: I wonder if something like that.
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: So, like, I have memories of those types of movies
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: that still play in my mind, obviously because I'm telling
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: you about it. But those are the types of movies
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: that I remember watching and loving. And they were all
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: VHS recordings I don't know from where again.
• 5:47
  Speaker 6: We would watch that. We were all the same.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: We were also the same group of people who would
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: get that scary tales or scary stories in the mountains
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: of Appalachian mountain stories and read it to each other
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: in the middle of the woods. It's in the trailer
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: by ourselves at nine o'clock at night. And what I
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: would think is one of the most haunted places because
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: all I see is pictures of old people, like faded
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: old pictures everywhere.
• 6:09
  Speaker 6: With like Christian memorabilia.
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure it was haunted and we were like
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: really testing the ghost there.
• 6:16
  Speaker 6: So but those are the time I don't know what.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: That's what I like more than anything else, and I
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: will find a way to like, yes, let's get into that.
• 6:24
  Speaker 6: Is it scary scary or is it kind of catchy scary?
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: What's funny to me is both of you had to
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: sneak to watch horror as youth. I grew up in
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: the opposite household I was. My dad was the person
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: who was taking a much too young child to the
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: theater to see horror movies, and we would this, this
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: is not gonna make him sound like a great parent,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: which I swear he was, but we would stay up
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: late to watch Tales from the Crypt together, which to
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: this day I loved Tails from the Crypt. It's hard
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: to find. You can watch it probably bootleg on YouTube.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: But there was a time in my life like maybe
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: a year ago when I was having a really tough time,
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: and I was like, would it be weird to buy
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: myself a cameo from the Cryptkeeper where it's just like
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: a cameo to me from me, where the Cryptkeeper is
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: giving me a message.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: Would that be weird? I decided it would be.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: But like, that's how much I love Tales from the
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Crypt and horror anthology in general.
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you know, I remember, as you say that,
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: I remember sneaking episodes of that as well as the
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: newer Twilight Zone.
• 7:31
  Speaker 6: Do you know what I'm talking about.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: It wasn't the old one, it was a newer version
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: that also really twisted, Like I remember the Lottery was
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: do you know what I'm talking about? That episode of
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: the Lottery on the Twilight Zone and everything ends up bad,
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: kind of the same thing with a caper, and I
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: remember a haunted house on that one, Like I remember
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: those episocause they were like short shots of something haunting.
• 7:54
  Speaker 6: That never really had a good ending. And you're just
• 7:57
  Speaker 6: like me more than that.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a sucker for the Twilight Zone and horror
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: anthologies in general where it has some sort of a
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: twist ending where oh no, it was.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: Do you know what I'm saying.
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: It's like, oh yeah, yeah, like the real monsters were.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: Man all I love. I'm a sucker for a like
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: artistic twist.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: And they even make one of them on the Futurama
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: where time enough to read.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: I broke my glasses. Oh well, I can still read
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: the large the large print books. My eyes fell out.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: I'm a sucker for that.
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: Yes, well, I think you should also definitely buy that
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: cameo because sometimes you just need a pep talk. I
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: may not have that in one of your favorite like
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: childhood memories.
• 8:53
  Speaker 6: That's the best.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: Oh my god.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: When I was a kid, I used to do a
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: cryptkeeper impression. I used to do this is so such
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: a tangent impressions of the crypt keeper and the way
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: that the Martians speak on Mars attacks.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: And my brother would die laughing. You would be bowled over.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: That was.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Those are my two the two impressions I had when
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: I was a child.
• 9:14
  Speaker 6: I wanted.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: To extra money doing a crypt Keeper cameos.
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: I would be there, I'd been why, I would pay Yes, yes,
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: this through this?
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, I love that so much. Oh well, this
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: is kind of an unfortunate segue. But it is true
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: that every time Halloween comes around there's kind of a
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: strange tension for me because usually there's both an election
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: coming up, but also, uh you know, when you talk
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: about like what you're really afraid of, there's sort of
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the horror movie answer, which is very scary, and then
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: there's like the real world answer that we're living in,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: which is also scary. Uh So it's sort of every
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: time I'm always like, I love this more Halloween seasonal
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: horror movie thing, but there's also this real world horrific
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: thing that's happening.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: Oh yes, yeah, what a scarier than things like misinformation?
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, if there could be an evil cackle right now,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: there should be.
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: Amazing, we're gonna we're gonna say use that as like
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: a meme or something. I don't know how to do
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: with this. Someone put it as a sound cover.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: That was amazing so much. But yes, we are talking
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: about a lot of information today, and specifically around a
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: certain topic, right, bridget.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: That is right because if y'all have spent any time
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: at all on TikTok lately, I probably don't need to
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: tell you that social media platforms are awash in misinformation
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: about hormonal birth control. And I actually find it interesting
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: but also kind of very telling that I'm not talking
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: about content that is warning about some specific side effect
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: really about birth control. What I'm talking about is sort
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: of this content that has a fit looking young woman
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: influencer type promising that you will kind of get a
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: vague feeling of feeling more like you if you go
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: off birth control. And so the question they sort of
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: ask is, who am I without birth control? Will I
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: feel some sort of a positive difference if I stop
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: using it?
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah? And you know this is not new, but it's
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: definitely been amplified by social media and these influencer as
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: spreading the message.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, And I guess that like the thing that
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: social media is specifically flooded with is this sort of
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: vibe based reasoning for coming off birth control? Right, It's
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: not I'm having this specific side effect or this specific
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: issue or use case.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: It's no. The vibes are all are terrible for birth control.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: And there was a really great piece in the New
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: York Times called who Am I Without birth Control? That
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: I looked at that really examines how misinformation around birth
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: control is impacting real women. They chronicled a young woman
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: named Ashley, who was twenty six. They write she had
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: started taking birth control pills a decade earlier, when she
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: was fifteen. Now, as she browsed her social media feeds,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: she kept stumbling on videos of women saying how much
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: better they felt when they stopped taking the pill, content
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: she was not seeking out. The post typically went like this,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: a glowing blonde and a workout top the picture of health,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: saying that she stopped taking birth control pills and immediately
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: felt more clarity of mind, like an emotional fog had lifted,
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: like she was a brand new, much happier person. So Ashley,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: seeing all of this, decides to go off birth control
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: pills cult Turkey, which is not recommended by doctors, even
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: though she is in a newish relationship with someone and
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: they both agreed it is too early to even be
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: thinking of about kids. So who is Ashley without birth control? Well,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: turns out she's a mom because just one year after
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: she stopped taking your pill, those pills, she became a mother.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Her baby was four months old when that article was written.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And so I thought that was such a funny way
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: for the article to start, thinking that if I go
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: off the pill, I'll have some vaguely better life, and
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: it's like, no.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Who are you not on the pill?
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Probably a parent, to be honest, if you're having sex,
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: probably a parent.
• 13:54
  Speaker 6: A mean and then other things.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: There's so much to this conversation because I think we've
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: already kind of hinted towards things like this in our
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: talk about chidwives, and then also the yoga pipeline, the
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: influencers in that wellness circle where we talk about this
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: level of misinformation and being like, if you do all
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: these things naturally that you're going to be so blessed
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: with just being a stay at home mom and being
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: able to take care of your family and yourself, you're
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: going to feel healthy and light and young and feel complete.
• 14:42
  Speaker 6: But all this is in a rhetoric.
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: To a very very dangerous conversation about the loss of
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: rights for those who are marginalized and specifically those who
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: have uteresses in this moment. But they are really doing
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: a great job and changing, like feminism is is being
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: able to be a MoMA, stay at home. Wouldn't you
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: rather do that than have to struggle by yourself in
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: a world that doesn't appreciate you. Type of conversation, so
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: it seems like this is one more narrative for the
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: wellness chain, which is an odd and very tricky, tricky conversation.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you put that so well, and you know,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: there is nothing wrong with wanting to become a parent.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: There's nothing wrong with staying at home and not doing
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: wage earning work if that is your choice and you
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: can swing it. All of those things are great, and
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: the point of feminism is that people should be able
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: to have the choices that work for them. However, having
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: an entire media ecosystem that essentially rebrands having less control
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: and less autonomy into good things is not a dynamic
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: where people get to make their own decisions. Really, when
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: you are being algorithmically fed and serviced. Because remember Ashley
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: said that she was not even seeking out content about
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: the dangers of birth control, that content found her. When
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: you are a wash in that kind of rhetoric and
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: that kind of misinformation, I would argue that you are
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: not really in a dynamic where you're able to make
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: real choices for yourself. And yeah, social media content and podcasts,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: they are an entire media ecosystem spreading and amplifying misinformation
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: about birth control and interestingly, they're not exuplicitly warning against
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: birth control for religious or political reasons, right the same way, Sam,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: that you were saying, Oh, it's so easy these days
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: to just have a.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: Boi'm just into yoga and wellness.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Three swipes later and you're looking at Nazi content, right, Like,
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: it's so easy and a lot of that stuff. They're
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: able to use things that feel not non political and
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: they're not being talked about exuplicitly as political, but they
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: are political. And so with this kind of birth control
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: misinformation that we're seeing increasingly on social media, it doesn't
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: come out and say, hey, we're anti birth control for
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: political or religious reason. It's because birth control is bad
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: for you. And so I think that that is a
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: pretty insidious approach because just like wellness other kinds of wellness,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: it doesn't just appeal to people who are political or religious,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: it also just appeals to people who are concerned about
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: their overall.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: Health or wellness.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: And so increasing this message that's that being on birth
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: control is at odds with being healthy well and quote
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: pure like that is the underlying message being presented here.
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: That makes me want to throw my computer because I
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: swear to God it took us so long to get
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: to the point that women can say this is a
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: hormonal imbalance issue for me. And I have been struggling
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: all of my life as a teen having pains where
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: it took me out for two or three days, or
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: having this mood disorders that did not make sense, and
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: feeling like I'm in hell every period or rough three
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: weeks out of the month, Like I remember growing up
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: being told these are the things you're just that's just
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: being a one. And it took us so long to
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: finally get to a point and be like, oh, maybe
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: we should. There should be research and there should be
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: medical actions that can happen that could help us. And
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: I felt like we go there for like just the
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: split second, like we were actually accepting that as an okay,
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: that might be okay for us to have.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm glad that you said that, because I
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: want to be like very clear, hormonal worth control is
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: not for everyone. It can have side effects. Case and point,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: it was not a good option for me because it
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: gave me headaches. So this is not me saying everybody
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: should go out there and get on hormonal birth control.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: People should talk to their doctor and figure out what
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: kind of birth control is right for them. If birth
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: control is right for them, there are all kinds of
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: non hormonal birth control options to consider. Again, people should
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: be talking to their medical professionals. They should not be
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: trusting random influencers on social media or random podcasters. But
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: right now, those people who are really speaking the loudest
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: and frankly kind of owning the conversation about birth control,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: and people are listening.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: They really have an audience.
• 19:10
  Speaker 6: And it's coming back, coming back to that old school
• 19:14
  Speaker 6: thought of you just need to deal with it.
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: It's putting more things in your body doesn't help you
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: all these things and really being like you need to
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: let your body work itself out, and really telling people
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: to suffer because it's a wellness thing.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: It's like, literally, yeah, you want to be pure, you know,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: it's just birth control is just bad for you. And honestly,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: the kinds of stuff that people say about birth control
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: is crap, just a little bit of a summary. So
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Alex Clark, who hosts Culture Apothecary, which is sort of
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: a conservative wellness podcast on the Late Charlie Kirks Network,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: turning quints to USA. She has suggested that the way
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: that women are prescribed birth control is linked to fertility issues,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: which it isn't. She's also even said that birth control
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: pills can false make women feel that they might be bisexual,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: which I don't think I need to tell anybody, but
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: just in case that's not true, birth control pills cannot
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: turn you queer or gay.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: Genuine reaction.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: I was already.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: On an episode of Joe Rogan's podcast, Callie Means, who
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: now is an advisor to help Secretary Robert F. Kennedy
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Junior basically said that the medical industry views worth control
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: as recurring revenue, and that the reason that they're trying
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: to get people to take the pill is because it's
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: recurring revenue, and that, oh, if you can get somebody
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: to be on the pill, they're going to be taking
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: it for most of their lives. And that's it's this
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: implied conspiracy that no, no, this is not medication that
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: might genuinely help somebody or might genuinely give somebody more
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: autonomy or more choice. No, no, no, no no, it's a way
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: to just make big Pharma is making money off of
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: you to harm you.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: God, they are so good about taking this type of
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: rhetoric and I say they as being like anti abortion
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: slash anti uterus, anti marginal arts people group community and
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: taking things and making sure to do a conspiracy to
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: really freak everybody out. Be like, no, no, but this
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: is what's really happening. It's not because I'm being anti abortion.
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: I don't know what you're talking about.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And so it's it's so true because when you
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: look up birth control on TikTok, you'll find women talking
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: about how birth control like room into their bodies quote
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: unquote by making them gain weight or taking their libidos.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: And these are things that actually can be symptoms of
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: hormonal birth control.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: So they're not wrong.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: But the thing is, like, if I were to make
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: a TikTok about how my doctor took me off birth
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: control because it was giving me headaches, this is not
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: gonna be advice for everybody, right, Like, it's it's very
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: specific to me and my body. And importantly, the dominant
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: messages on social media frame birth control a conversation that
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: is not like, oh, talk to your doctor if birth
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: control is giving you this specific side effect. No, no, no,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: it is your doctor is in cahoots with the government
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: to lie to you by actually forcing you to be
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: on birth control that is harming you.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Right, It's I honestly wouldn't have a problem. Well, I
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: don't know.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: I guess I feel like it gets dicey when you're
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: putting medical advice online if you're not a doctor. But
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: I honestly wouldn't have that big of a problem with
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: it if it was just like, here's my side effect
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: and this is what I did. Instead, it's this purposely
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: conspiratorial thing that is so obviously being phrased in the
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: most inflammatory way to get engagement. Like The New York
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Times spoke to one of these influencers who has like
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: just under one hundred thousand followers, who went on TikTok
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: and talked about birth control as being evil.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: And then said, well, obviously I exaggerate on social media.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: You can't have a lukewarm take.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, do you really want to be taking
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: medical advice from an influencer who is openly telling The
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: New York Times that she needs to make things as
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: spicy and inflammatory as possible to get views on social media?
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Like do you not see the way that she's incentivized
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: to essentially tell the most extreme story of something as
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: important as your health.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: Again, it goes back to also in my mind, like
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: they're not completely wrong when it comes to women's health.
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: They don't care, so they they being pharmaceuticals. I sound
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: very very conspiratory right now in that level of like
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: they do want to make money. It's the same reason
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: why period products are not offered for free and there's
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: an increase and there's tax on it because they can
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: make more money and they know that it's needed. And
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: instead of helping to have a cost efficient way of
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: treating women as well as actually researching on how the
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: best way to help because some of the beginning of
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: birth control was real gross, real eugenics what like, it
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: was real gross, like let's let me real clear on that,
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: but instead of actually seeking to help women, it kind
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: of had turned the other way of like, eh, we
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: don't care enough about helping people with the uterses. We
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: don't really want to help them, but if we're going to,
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: we're going to make it as least effective or as
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: many side effects so we can also make money and
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: let them know this is your only solution.
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: Like there's this.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: Level of like, you're not completely wrong, but instead of
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: helping in a right way, you're just making us go
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: back twenty steps.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and bad actors are so good at exploiting that
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: kind of kernel of truth. That's what they do, right,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: And so I get it because listen, Traditionally, margin bized people,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: especially women, are often not listened to by medical professionals,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: are often not treated with respect or care oftentimes when
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: you're talking about medicines and medical things, these are things
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: that we're not tested or researched on our body specifically.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: So all of that is true, and we're right to
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: be pissed off about that, we're right to call that out.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: But what these content creators.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Do is that they swoop in and except like that
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: very real problem, that very real issue, and use it
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: to push potentially harmful, untrue messages about our health. And so, yeah,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: I completely agree that they're not wrong, and they're not
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: wrong to be skeptical, paranoid all of that. But then
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: you have these influencers basically filling the void with lies,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: lies that lead to people feeling more anxious and more suspicious.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: When The New York Times surveyed women about how our
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: current social media climate is making them think about birth control,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: these messages did not just make them want to stop
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: using birth control. It made them fearful, paranoid, anxious, suspicious,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: specifically suspicious of their own doctors, and made them feel
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: more trust toward random influencers or podcasters. So you can
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: see why exploiting that kernel of truth would materially benefit
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: bad actors who are pushing these lives about birth control.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think there's so much going on right
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: now with the erosion of trust that has been ongoing.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: But you got like RFKA Junior, and he's just pushing
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: out all of these these things about you know, what
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: feel like conspiracy theories to me, but to other people
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: seem like truths. I have a friend who worked at
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the CDC and she was seeing, you know, COVID really
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: exacerbated a lot of things because we were trying to
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: get this vaccine out, but every day, like what we
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: knew about it was changing, and so people started to
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: view that with mistrust. So you've got like this building mistrust.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: And then as we talked about in the episode we
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: did about chat GPT and people seeking out health advice
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: from chat gpt, where it's so expensive to go to
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: a doctor or to go to a hospital, and so
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: people are turning to technology, and people are turning to
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: these influencers and they're telling you like, this is what
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: you have to do. This is like it worked for
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: me us, and it's very It's a nice thing to believe.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: It's a nice thing to think, Oh, I could control that.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: If I just stopped taking birth control, then maybe I
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: will be more in control of my body. And you know,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: you couple that with like lack of sexual education. It's
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: just a real mess that we have going on right now.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: And I think I like that comparison to the chat
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: gept example, because you know, I don't want to shame
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: anybody who was using chat gept or doctor Google to
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: figure out what's wrong with them in a climate where
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: just having access to medical care is so inaccessible. However,
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: the answer to me is not here, take this unreliable
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: tool chat youpt and use that. The answer is, let's
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: make healthcare more accessible for everybody. And I think similarly,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: the answer here should not be, oh well, let's just
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: have an entire ecosystem of podcasters and influencers who are
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: personally incentivized to make people fearful.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: It's let's have a medical.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Industry that actually listens to people and that people feel
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: like they can actually trust, Like it's it's such a
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: it's it's just not a real solution. I understand how
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: in a climate where it is confusing to figure out
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: decisions for your own health and your own body, and
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: we have people who I would say are influencers at
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: the highest level of government making our health decisions, I
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: understand it is a funky climate. But the answer is not, oh,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: just empower the influencers and podcasters to essentially act as doctors. Now,
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: it is how do we have a more reasonable climate
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: that people can trust when it comes to our health
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: and our bodies.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, And I really found this next part you have
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: in your outline really interesting because I never heard of
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: it before. I'm very familiar with the placebo effects, but
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: I was not familiar with its polar opposite.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Yes, the no cibo effect.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: So that comes from doctors Rebecca Webster and Lorna Reed,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: the co authors of a first of its kind study
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: in a journal called Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: So they coined the no cebo effect, which is kind
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: of the opposite of the polacebo effect, where when people
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: start taking a medication, they then start associating that medication
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: with negative impacts. Right, So placebo effect is I have
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: not been given a medication.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: But I think it's working for me.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: I think I have positive impacts because of it, even
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: though I didn't really take it. The opposite of that is,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: I am genuinely taking the medicine and now I am
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: associating it with negative impacts.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: And so their.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Study found that the no cebo effect involved four psychological
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: factors that were associated with women having a negative experience
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: of her birth control pills. They were an expectation at
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: the outset that the pill would be harmful, low confidence
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: in how medicines are developed, a belief that medicines are
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: overused and harmful, and a belief that they are sensitive
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: to medicines. So, yeah, it is interesting that you know,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: when people are taking medication, they would then be reporting, Oh,
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: it has made me fearful of this medication, and it
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: has made not trust this medication.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: And social media.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: We almost kind of can't talk about this phenomenon without
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: talking about social media because it's definitely a factor. Earlier
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: this year, a study by public health researchers at Latrobe
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: University found that among the top one hundred TikTok videos
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: about reproductive health, just ten percent were from medical professionals.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: About fifty percent of creators made comments rejecting hormonal contraception.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: The top one hundred most popular tiktoks about birth control
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: had to mass some five billion views. And so think
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: about that.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: There's just there.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: It's just that much more difficult for accurate content, lot
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: alone accurate content that is being made by an actual
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: healthcare professional to get traction when you're talking about a
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: climate like TikTok, where overwhelmingly the content that is doing
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: well and performing well and being a surface for folks
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: is content that is made by influencers and content creators
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: that is not based an actual fact about reproductive care.
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm starting to getting a lot of stuff on
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: my specific TikTok where I'm like Oracle, I feel like
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: it's already having a.
• 31:33
  Speaker 6: Lot of influence.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: And I'm sure Bridget you may have already talked about
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: it on your show or you're thinking on it, whatever
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: whatnot with the whole new takeover with the company that
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: is very much associated with the Trump administration, Peter Pill,
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: all those people, and then there's even more bet worst
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: players that I can't remember their name because they're so dark.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: To me, it's funny that you mentioned Peter Teal because
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: that podcaster I was talking about that the time spoke
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: to Alex Clark from the conservative wellness podcast Culture Apothecary.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: She says something that I hear quite a bit. She says, Oh, well,
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: I don't use birth control, and you don't actually need
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: birth control if you just track your period. She says,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: we are not given full informed consent when it comes
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: to the pill. Clark began taking her monal birth control
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: as a teenager and stop in twenty eighteen, eventually switching
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: to tracking her menstrual cycle on her phone. She says
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: she has used the app's Flow and twenty eight the
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: last of which was founded by the creators of the
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: conservative EV magazine, which we talked about you and I
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: all on the show, and backed by right wing kingmaker
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Peter Teal. Both are a fast growing, multi billion dollar
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: market for women's health technology. So this is something that
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: I often hear in this space, like, oh, you don't
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: need birth control if you just track your cycle, and
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: conveniently you can use these apps owned by billionaire Trump
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: crony and if you watch that South Park episode, like
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: anti Christ expert himself Peter Tea, or apps like Flow,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: which just this year, a California jury found that Meta
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: illegally collected user health data from Flow, violating the state's
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: wiretap law. This verdict found that Flow, Google, Meta, and
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: another app analytics company called Flurry we're collecting people's private
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: menstrual health data without consent for targeted advertising. So yeah,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: super convenient. Don't use hormonal birth control because it's so dangerous.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Instead use this app owned by a Republican technocrat. Or
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: this app that the court says will share your intimate
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: menstrual data for money.
• 33:35
  Speaker 6: Oh goodness, is a nightmare in horror movie.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: I told you, I will say the cryptkeeper would never
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: get mixed up in any of this.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: He's very pro reproductive rights for women.
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: Social media has done so much for good and bad.
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: Like there's so many things, like we were able to
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: access so much more and seeing around the world and
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: get a little more information and data and truth, but
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: also a lot of the misinformation and disinformation that we
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: have continually had to talk about because it's only getting worse.
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: But like it reminds me again of like people talking
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: trying to use the ejaculation or the minute that sperm comes.
• 34:25
  Speaker 6: That's killing a baby.
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry laughing at myself in this context. And for
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: so long I've heard my own people, like my age
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: group of people, very intellectual, like even like pro choice
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: before tell me after they had a baby. No, yeah,
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: I can't use hormonal birth control because it kills you know,
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: it has spermicide, and that means it's killing babies, and
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: I cannot do that as a part of my religion.
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: But now it's flip that because it it may have
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: worked on a few, but it's starting to work less
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: and less, and so now that I feel like this
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: is its way of new talk, like no, no, no,
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: we're not gonna talk about that as the actual problem.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean we had that.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: That's a very common piece of misinformation about contraceptives is
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: that they are the same as abortives or abortions. The
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Trump administration just this year was trying to falsely claim
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: that certain forms of birth control are essentially the same
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: thing as abortions in an effort to restrict access to contraceptives.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: And so there's nothing wrong with abortion, but abortion and
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: birth control, as hopefully we all learn into health class
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: are two different things. And so if contraceptives are trying
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: to prevent in like a like an egg being fertilized,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: if you have no fertilized egg, it's not the same
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: thing as an abortion.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: But the Trump administration was trying to.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Use this sort of tricky false logic to essentially further
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: restrict birth control and reproductive health more generally.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: Like that's really what it was.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: But so like that is an incredibly common piece of misinformation,
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it's just that we're in a place where
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: it's not just being traded around the back of the
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: bus or you know, on TikTok, it is in our government.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we are seeing the fallout and impacts of this.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: One thing I find interesting is I do I have
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: some friends who are nurses, and they told me before,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: you know, people come in. People have always come in
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: since the internet has been a thing and been like
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I saw on WebMD, I have this. But
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: now they're kind of coming in with this I saw
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: on TikTok.
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: Is this a thing?
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Should I be worried about this? And it's just just
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: another task for them to take on of almost educating
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: like no, no, no, no, that's not that's not what's
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: going on. But there have been some fallouts, some more
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: measurable than others.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, So the question that I had is, well,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: it definitely seems like misinformation about birth control is it's
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: our platforms are washing it. But is it having an impact?
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: And it's a little bit hard to say. It depends
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: on who you ask. So the New York Times work
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: with this company trily into Health, a healthcare analytics company,
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: and they conducted an analysis for The Times and found
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: a decrease in the use of hormonal birth control pills
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: among women age eighteen to forty four. In twenty nineteen,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: thirteen point one percent of women said that they use
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: the pill. In twenty twenty four, that number fell to
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: ten point two percent. But researchers at the Goutbacher Institute,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: which is like an abortion rights organization, they say that
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: they have not seen an indication of a population level
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: decrease in hormonal contraceptive use per their analysis of data
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: from the National Center for Health Statistics.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: And so it's not.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Totally clear if this is having a specific impact that
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: people actually are abandoning hormonal birth control. It's possible that
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: even if they are, they're using some other kind of
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: birth control. But we can't not talk about the way
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: that this is happening against this backdrop of an administration
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: that is clearly just hostile toward birth control and reproductive
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: health care in general. This spring, more than a dozen
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: public health organizations sued the Trump administration, arguing that it
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: was undercutting access to health services, including birth control, by
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: withholding Title X funding. And then when you take into
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: effect things like Medicaid cuts, those things would leave millions
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: of people without access to health coverage, which obviously also
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: threatens to limit things like contraceptives and birth control. And
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: so all of this stuff is not happening in a vacuum,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: and I think that that's what scholars are sort of
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: worried about, right this one two punch of this growing
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: media climate that spreads fear lies and misinformation about birth control,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: also combined with these policy decisions that restrict birth control.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: The New York Times spoke to Amanda Stevenson, a sociologist
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: at the University of Colorado Boulder, who said those two processes,
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: stigmatization and legal restrictions, are mutually reinforcing.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: And I guess I would say the piece of this
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: that I find.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: The most interesting to me and the most telling is
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: just sort of the way that social media has reinforced
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: being critical or skeptical or not on birth control as
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: a kind of identity. And here's how Doctor Jennifer Penna,
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: the chief medical officer for the reproductive telehealth platform WISP.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: She says that she sees dozens of patients each year
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: who come to her with worries rooted in misinformation. They're
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: asking her things like, is an IUD going to make
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: me infertile if I go off birth control? How long
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: will it take me to get out of my system?
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: How can I do this naturally? With an aora ring?
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: I want to be pure, right, like all of these
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: things that seem so identity based, And she really traces
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: that back to these online wellness influencers. She says, there's
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: a cry for identity. Social media is becoming the algorithm
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: for education, and once there's a trend, it becomes the
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: norm for topics of conversation inside clinics. And I think
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: that's really the thing, is that people are watching all
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: of this content and the same way that I, you know,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, maybe I'm somebody who should start.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: Wearing more ath leisure, or maybe I'm somebody who should
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: drink smoothies.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: The same way that social media can influence me in
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: that way, it is also influencing people to be incredibly
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: critical and concerned about this medication. And doctors are saying, listen,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: we have people coming in asking us these questions that
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: I know are rooted in online misinformation about birth control.
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: That work pure. That's such a red flag. I want
• 40:31
  Speaker 6: to be pure.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: It's bad.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: And what's so funny to me is that the piece
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: talked to another young woman, like a black college activist,
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: who was like, listen, I worked my ass off working
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: retail to pay for birth control when I was in
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: high school myself, because I wanted to have the freedom
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: that birth control allowed me in my life, and I
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: wanted to have the control that it allowed me of
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: my life and my choices. And so she talked about
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: how going to colleg now and hearing from her friends
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: who are the same age as her, who are basically
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: saying like, oh, I don't want to be on birth control.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: I don't want to, you know, put that stuff into
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: my body, and how.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: Sad it makes her that.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: In this day and age, this way of helping us
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: control our lives, our finances, our plans, our futures is
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: being so stigmatized and demonized that it makes her sad.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: And so she became a college activist who tables on
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: her campus to help people get access to birth control.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: And she described it like this.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: She said, the biggest thing I see on social media
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: is this earthy, green girl lifestyle type. Shebang, It's like
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: a trendy aesthetic. And I guess that is my point.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: If you speak to a doctor and birth control is
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: not for you, more power to you. But I don't
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: think that rejecting birth control should be a trendy identity
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: aesthetic that you get from TikTok. Right, these are healthcare
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: and medical decisions. This is a decision whether or not
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: to take a prescription drug. That is a decision that
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: you should be making with your doctor, not with some
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: rando on TikTok. Because you liked her green, earthy girl esthetic, right, you.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: Got a fifteen second glimpse of her made up and
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: seemingly happy in the Golden Hour shot.
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: That is not truth.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and who knows what her life is really like?
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: Who knows why she is telling you this? Right?
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: And I just think that we should really be concerned
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: about what happens when rejecting birth control becomes this trendy
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: identity aesthetic on TikTok. More and more women are going
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: to be losing control and autonomy over their bodies, their plans,
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: their futures, their finances, and their lives without even necessarily realizing.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: That that's what's happening. Right.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: The woman that The New York Times spoke to, Ashley,
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: who was like, I wonder who I am if I'm
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: not on birth control a parent who had a child
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: before her and her partner were ready to have that, per.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: Her own description of the situation.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: And by the way, after having her child, the New
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: York Times check back in with her, and she was like, oh,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: I'm on birth control.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: Now I can't have another kid, you know.
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah that was that was a follow up.
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: I really wanted to know, honestly, And now you're back
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: on Are you good now?
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, she like, I it's s I really don't
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: want to make it seem like I'm saying everybody should
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: be on birth control. But the same thing that we
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: talked about with the tradwives thing we should not be
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: pushing young people into giving up autonomy and giving up
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: the things that give us choices. And even if you're
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: not somebody who wants to or needs to be on
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: birth control, we should not be creating a climate where
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: it's stigmatized, where somebody who does need it is going
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: to look twice at it, or I think that's that's
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: unsafe for me, that's dangerous for me. If I put
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: this in my body, I am I might turn bisexual,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: or I might be making myself infertile, or any other
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: kind of junk that is being amplified on social media
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: platforms so responsibly right now when it comes to birth control.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: Right and again this comes back into this bigger layer,
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: like we probably need to do a playlist of all
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: of these episodes with you, because to connect these thoughts
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: once again, there is a connection to the Chadwives conversation
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: that we've had the misinformation about abortion from the jump,
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: the misinformation from things like WhatsApp who tell you it's private,
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: but it's not using things like this as well as
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: this conversation, like this is a bigger chain. This is
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: a bigger picture in a small detail that they don't
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: actually they don't tell you that, but when you start
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: looking at who's behind that and why this information is coming,
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: it is a bigger picture and it's propaganda.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, these bad actors aren't wrong.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: We are being lied to you, just not the people
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: they necessarily want us to be fearful of. And I
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: think that's exactly my point, that all of these things
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: are related.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: Tech companies are tech.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Companies, and bad actors are materially benefiting from all of
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: us being fearful and less informed about these choices that
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: are so important for the way that we live our lives.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: And you know, I birth control.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: I'm at the stage of my life where it's not
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: a huge concern for me in general.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: But that's just the thing, birth control.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: It's not just about side effects or hormones or the
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: ability to have sex. It is about those things, but
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: it's also about autonomy, the ability to make informed decisions
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: about our own bodies based on facts and not fear.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: You know, that is something that generations of women fought for.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: My own mother or my own late mother, God rest
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: of your soul, she fought for that. And I just
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: don't think we should just give that up because an
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: influencer told us to. And I think that as these
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: algorithms get louder than actual medical experts, it is really
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: worth asking who is benefiting when we stop trusting our
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: doctors and start putting our trust in influencers and podcasters instead.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: And so if the question is who are you without
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: birth control? Hopefully not just content for somebody else's wellness
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: grift right our wellness brand. The better question is who
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: could we become when we start demanding care and content
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: that is honest, evidence based and actually centered on us
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: and our bodies and what we truly actually.
• 46:06
  Speaker 6: Need big on the centered on us please, yes.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Oh absolutely well a very a very spooky episode indeed,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: and as always, so many other things we could talk about.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: We always love having you on. Thank you so much
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: for coming on and hallucinating these things for us as
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: much as they can be in our wild times.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my pleasure. And yeah, if anybody, if the cripkeeper,
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: if you're listening.
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: Oh yes, let us know about me out call me.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Don't call me, and you probably prefer to get called
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: by the ghostream voice ghost space.
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a hot line right when the movie
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: was coming out that you could actually send a message,
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: So I put Annie's in photo she got that call.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: It was fun, yes, and we played it in the episode.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: It scared me very very because you told I would
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: never answer a number that I didn't recognize, and you
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: sent me a text, Samantha that was like, answer the call.
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: You need to answer this fun call.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: It was a New York number. Dream Yeah, like.
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: You have it. You need to answer this call.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: I did, and it scared me and I loved it,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: so thank you.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: I hope that you have more excellent horror movie times
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Halloween times, uh, and we're looking forward to talking to
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: you again. But in the meantime, Bridget, where can the
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: good listeners find too?
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: Well?
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: You can find me on Instagram at Bridget Marie in DC.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: You can find me on TikTok at Bridget Marie and
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: DC on YouTube at there are no girls on the Internet,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: and you can listen to my podcast there are no
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: girls on the Internet. If you like spooky conversations about
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: our social media landscape, sure, I mean.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Honestly yes, yes, Oh well go do that, listeners, if
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: you haven't already, if you would like to email as
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: you can or email as hello it's stuff I never
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: told you. We're also on Blue Skype moms to a
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Told You. We're also on YouTube. We have new merchandise
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: accomp Hero, and we have a book you can get
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: wherever you get your books. Thanks so start a superducer,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Cosine or executive pducer my undercontributor Joey, Thank you and
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told You
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: is fuction my Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio, you can check out the heart Radio app,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: a podcast wherever you listen to your favorite show.