0:10

Jessie, hi. How's it going? Katie, I'm

0:13

feeling particularly grateful today. So

0:15

I would like to- You, grateful. I know. Not

0:17

an emotion I'm used to. I find

0:20

it a little off-putting, but I'd like

0:22

to return the favor.

0:23

By making me grateful? What is this trick?

0:25

Well, I don't want to make you grateful. It's more that ever since

0:27

I've been imprisoned, where we're not allowed

0:29

to use Twitter, you have shown

0:32

me, kept me updated every week on what's

0:34

going on on Twitter. You've

0:36

been doing such a great job keeping me abreast of Twitter nonsense

0:39

that I want to make sure you've seen the most important

0:41

content. I've been able to access Twitter. So

0:43

please, will you click that first link

0:45

in the doc and describe what you're seeing? Okay,

0:47

clicking, loading. Thank

0:49

you for narrating the clicking and loading part. Loading,

0:52

loading. Okay, this is an account called Wall Street Silver.

0:54

It is verified, so you know it's important.

0:57

It's notable. I am

0:59

seeing early signs of a bear market in housing

1:01

prices. It's

1:04

a video of somebody driving

1:07

down these streets and there are

1:09

bears, two bears in a driveway doing

1:12

it. Doggy style? It appears to be doggy

1:14

style. Berry style. Berry style. Is there

1:16

audio with this that we can

1:18

embed or is this just the visuals?

1:20

Well,

1:21

there's really riveting audio of

1:23

car noises. So that's

1:25

good enough. Anyway, click the next one. Just read that one to me. Can

1:29

I tell you first? So Moose is,

1:31

he's not like too horny,

1:33

but he's like a little bit horny because he still has his

1:35

balls. Just horny enough. Just horny enough.

1:38

And his best friend, Bruce, Moose attempts

1:40

to do what these bears are doing all the time, but he never

1:42

actually like makes contact when he's humping

1:44

Bruce. So he does this thing we call air humping.

1:47

You can imagine what it is.

1:48

Is it like grinding on the dance

1:50

floor or less contact than that? It's

1:53

humping like a dog, humping, but

1:55

just the air. But that's why. What

1:58

gratification does Moose get out of it? None.

2:00

It makes me laugh. Okay, I'm clicking the

2:03

next link. Okay, this is a New York

2:05

Post Tweet. And

2:07

they've got a little gold check next to them. I want it.

2:09

Is that what does that mean? That means super double verified That's

2:12

when you pay a thousand dollars a month to get verified

2:14

and I'm not kidding about that It's a thousand dollars.

2:16

I totally thought you were kidding about that. No,

2:18

why would the New York? Oh, do you think Elon

2:20

gave it to the New York Post? There's no way the New York Post

2:23

would agree to pay a thousand dollars a month to be there.

2:25

This is they so it's this the yellow the yellow

2:27

check is this like organizational verification

2:30

and Once you get that you can

2:32

verify your entire staff I was thinking

2:34

about instead of paying you your your thousand

2:37

dollars for the month I was thinking about getting

2:39

that for the blocked and reported account. Is that okay

2:41

with you?

2:41

Wait, I got a rate I got a raise to a thousand Okay.

2:45

Anyway, the tweet reads We're

2:48

conjoined twins and share of vagina, but

2:50

only one of us has a boyfriend Jesse

2:54

No This is what this is what's

2:56

we going on on Twitter. Oh my god

2:58

There's photos this appears to be real unless

3:00

it's some sort of AI thing these poor

3:03

poor women I'm not sure about the boyfriend

3:05

though. Is that like good for him or not?

3:07

Very difficult

3:08

Katie There was a book about

3:10

about conjoined twins Chang and Eng

3:12

what used to be known as Siamese twins They were they

3:15

were the reason that they're called Siamese twins because

3:17

they are from a SIAM and

3:19

they I think they only had Well, they

3:21

might have had two dicks. Anyway, they married sisters

3:23

non conjoined sisters non conjoined

3:26

sisters Yes But they were they like you

3:28

did have to be physically present while the other one was

3:30

having sex and they did have

3:32

a bunch of children

3:33

There's no they fucked Unlike

3:36

moose they fucked unlike there's a

3:38

lot of human experiences that are hard to imagine That's

3:41

one where I just I

3:43

I drop like I can sort of imagine

3:45

myself in all sorts of wacky situations But

3:49

as a Siamese who would you if you had to

3:51

be a Siamese twin with someone who would you be? Would you would be Jenna

3:53

your wife would be moose? Would it

3:55

be me

3:56

in both would be horror? It would definitely not be you. I

3:58

mean all of these options are terrible a lot

4:00

of alone time. Yeah. That's why I

4:02

probably honestly, it'd probably end up being a

4:05

murder suicide situation with whoever I was conjoined

4:07

with. I'm an actual twin. It definitely wouldn't be

4:09

my turn.

4:10

Katie, what is the name of this increasingly perverted

4:13

podcast? This is blocked and reported.

4:15

I'm Katie Herzog and I'm Jesse single. And

4:18

this week we're going to talk about a very

4:21

hard to describe tick tock outrage.

4:23

And we're also going to talk about the latest

4:25

developments in the Jamie Reed whistleblower

4:27

case. Couple things before that,

4:30

uh, one of which is pretty sad, but I want to

4:32

talk about something sad for 30 seconds. One minute. I

4:35

guess there's this guy I knew

4:37

named Connor Skelding. He was a journalist who lived

4:39

in Brooklyn and, uh, he died and

4:42

it's pretty bad. He was 31. He

4:44

died of pancreatic cancer, sort of came

4:46

on out of nowhere. And I don't know. I just want

4:49

to, I didn't know him that well.

4:51

I hung out with him a few times, always in group settings. He just seemed like

4:53

a really solid dude. I met his fiance.

4:55

They got married. Like when it

4:57

was clear he was dying, um, a month or

4:59

two ago. So yeah, I just hope Connor Skelding's

5:02

friends and family are doing okay. It's like, I

5:04

don't know. It's easy to take shit for granted. The kind

5:06

of stuff we complain about day to day, especially you. Um,

5:09

I mean, I live very much in the moment. I never complained. You

5:11

complain a lot, but the idea of like, I

5:13

don't know shit like that happened. Someone just gets

5:15

diagnosed with cancer out of nowhere, being young and

5:17

healthy, and then they die. So, uh, I don't know.

5:20

What should we do with that information?

5:21

Uh, we should settle

5:23

our business agreements. One

5:26

of us dies, which I've been trying to do for

5:28

weeks now. So it's that if one of us dies, um, my wife

5:30

isn't left destitute. Let's talk about that after the show.

5:32

You have had this

5:34

like real, okay. And,

5:37

and serious part cause that was serious and, and

5:40

it's horrible. And I've been caught it. You've had this real

5:42

fixation lately. What

5:44

if one of us dies

5:47

and what should we do about the finances that honestly

5:49

makes me think I'm at the start of like a really bad

5:51

murder mystery movie where I die a quarter

5:54

of the way through. If you just keep peppering

5:56

me with questions, what are we gonna do if you die? What are we gonna

5:58

do if you die? I expect you're gonna die.

5:59

I'm not worried about you dying. If

6:02

you're dying, I've got a plan. What I'm worried about

6:04

is me dying. Basically,

6:06

I have a doctor's appointment for the first time in

6:09

a long time, and I'm worried that they're going to take one

6:11

look at me and be like, get your affairs in

6:13

order. So anyway, we need to

6:15

get that business agreement settled. Okay.

6:18

Well, you immediately... All

6:20

right. I feel bad that this immediately went into more

6:22

shtick, but... This isn't shtick. We need to get

6:24

it settled.

6:25

Connor Skelding, a good guy. Rest

6:27

in peace and all that. People can Google

6:29

him. I'll leave a link to the obituary

6:32

in the show notes. Let's move on. I

6:34

just want to read a couple responses to our last episode, which

6:36

was a somewhat skeptical take on Ed

6:38

Yong's latest article about long COVID.

6:41

One listener wrote in who was pretty unhappy with us. So

6:44

let me read that. I listened to this one

6:46

and it was discouraging. I am a somewhat recent

6:48

subscriber and did so because I really appreciated

6:50

some critical thinking applied to sacred cows,

6:53

the rejection of quote unquote team sports in

6:55

so

6:55

many discourses right now, the courage

6:57

to question what is too easy to accept by us

6:59

liberals, not to mention what we are being

7:02

bullied into accepting. So I guess I have to

7:04

swallow it when you point all of that at Ed Yong. I

7:06

am as confused as anyone about COVID and how much

7:09

we don't know and are still figuring out. I agree

7:11

with Jesse's concern at the heart of his argument with Ed Yong's

7:13

piece, but really with everything

7:15

out there right now, this is what you aimed your courage at.

7:18

To begin with, if you're going to introduce Ed Yong,

7:20

you might mention the sabbatical he is on because

7:22

of what he refers to as the toll of his work on COVID, which led to

7:24

his Pulitzer.

7:25

I mean, since he

7:27

both went at the Pulitzer with plenty of snark over and

7:29

over, it wasn't really that funny the first

7:31

time you snarked at it and wouldn't have been even if either of you had one of your

7:33

own, which we don't.

7:36

Although you came close a couple of times, right? Oh yeah, definitely.

7:39

Pulitzer for and be phobia.

7:42

Then what then whether or not long COVID

7:44

is a thing, if it is early days to know, then it

7:46

is early days to dismiss it. Katie was at

7:48

least a little bit sympathetic to the reality of trying to explain

7:50

vague and multiple symptoms to a doctor

7:52

and the subsequent problem in good faith for both the doctor and patient. Twelve

7:55

years ago, I didn't have any of the famous warning

7:57

signs of cancer, but I told my doctor I was going to be a little bit more confident in the case

7:59

of the doctor. I felt like a switch on my energy

8:01

had been pressed down. And if I could get the switch

8:03

back on, I'd feel better. Nothing big, nothing

8:06

specific, nothing more articulate than that. Good

8:09

thing. She went with it, passed me to another doctor who continued

8:11

with it and passed me on to another doctor who diagnosed

8:14

stage four cancer. I was quote unquote,

8:16

lucky. Okay.

8:17

I don't want to interrupt you, but

8:20

having less energy is a symptom of stage

8:22

four cancer. Well, let's get to that for a minute.

8:24

That's actually an interesting question. I'm getting

8:26

very worried right now. I mean,

8:29

don't get me started. I can't move. I

8:31

was quote unquote lucky. And I'm glad I overcame

8:34

feeling stupid and inarticulate and kept

8:36

with it until we could get to real evidence as

8:39

opposed to my lived experience, snark snark and

8:41

onward to treatment. And I'm grateful to say recovery.

8:44

So just, I'm really disappointed

8:46

and much less enthused about your podcast concerning

8:48

all things COVID I'm so sick of team minimizer.

8:51

Um,

8:52

okay. A couple of things. First of all, I don't,

8:55

I feel like that was

8:58

overstating how much we denied

9:00

that long COVID was a thing. I feel like we're pretty clear that long

9:02

COVID seems to be a thing for some people, right?

9:04

Yeah. Apparently, um, bisexuals

9:07

in particular, did you see this latest study? No,

9:09

I sent you this like four times. Okay.

9:12

It turns out the CDC, CDC has,

9:14

I was busy dodging your hit men. The

9:16

CDC has done some polling

9:18

on a long COVID and according to this latest

9:20

CDC data and according to this

9:23

latest data, over 22%

9:25

of

9:26

respondents who are bisexual

9:28

also have long COVID. Oh,

9:34

interesting. Okay. That's why would bisexual

9:36

people be more likely? I feel like you're derailing us, but that is interesting.

9:39

I am derailing us,

9:40

but isn't that interesting? It is interesting. So bisexuals,

9:42

gays and lesbians also more likely to have long

9:44

COVID 17.2% and then,

9:47

uh, this is as

9:49

of February and then straits,

9:51

the heterosexuals 14.1%.

9:52

We're super healthy. I bet that this is just that same

9:54

way of asking where you count anyone who has long COVID. has

10:00

any of like myriad symptoms as having long

10:02

COVID. But yeah, transgender 20.

10:05

So you're even more likely to have it if you're trans,

10:08

the population least likely

10:10

to have long COVID. What

10:12

would you what would you guess? Not Jews because we're

10:14

sickly population least likely.

10:17

I mean, gamers don't go outside

10:19

and they're opposed to like, okay,

10:21

not gamers. I don't know what who is

10:23

it cisgender males 10.9 versus 18.2% cisgender

10:26

females 23.5% transgender, which I think I

10:32

find this interesting. I'm sorry, I did do realize, but

10:34

I do find this interesting. Because

10:36

it's

10:38

you're

10:41

basically you're

10:44

saying something that doesn't really

10:46

connect to what you're talking about. But it's just provocative

10:48

enough that someone will take it the wrong way. Wrong

10:51

way. Possibly the person

10:53

who's thoughtful if a

10:55

little bit I rate email or responding

10:57

to. Yeah. So you're combining

11:00

not contributing any substance

11:02

with chumming the waters for angry people

11:04

who are riddled with long

11:06

COVID.

11:07

I just want to know if this person is bisexual. That's what

11:09

I want to know. Well, okay, I'll respond to it.

11:11

Um, the thing she talked about was

11:13

obviously really scary. Surviving stage four cancer

11:15

is not easy to do it. Like,

11:18

so if you're really tired, and you have these nonspecific

11:20

symptoms and you turn out to have cancer, sure,

11:23

that might happen. But also, although

11:26

our whole point was a lot of people have these symptoms

11:28

for a lot of different reasons. So

11:30

to me, the counter example is like, let's say

11:32

that she had found her way to an online chronic

11:35

Lyme community, a lot of chronic Lyme

11:37

people, people who think they have chronic Lyme, it's

11:39

because they're really tired and they find the wrong online

11:41

community. That

11:42

becomes part of their identity. We talked about Molly Fisher's

11:45

article. So if this woman, our correspondent found

11:47

her way to that community and found her way

11:49

to a quack chronic Lyme doctor injecting

11:52

her with God knows what for $1,000 a week,

11:55

that would kill her because the cancer would have gone

11:57

undetected like there's different ways this can

11:59

go.

11:59

And I'm

12:01

obviously thankful it worked out for this person,

12:03

but like that example doesn't really prove the general

12:06

point that if you have nonspecific symptoms,

12:08

your doctor's not necessarily doing you any favors

12:11

by, you

12:12

know, just assuming your self-diagnosis is

12:14

accurate. And in this case, she didn't have, I don't know, I

12:16

just thought that was an interesting story. Yeah,

12:19

there is one thing that you

12:21

said on the podcast, and I sort of agreed to

12:24

probably because I wasn't listening to you that closely

12:26

that I sort of regretted when I was editing the show and

12:28

listen to it later. You

12:30

said something about doctors. It's

12:32

not the doctor's job to believe symptoms.

12:36

And I think that was just

12:38

phrase sort of inartfully. Yeah. You

12:41

see what I mean? Like I do think doctors need to believe

12:44

people. You need to hashtag believe patients.

12:46

Yeah. Maybe not their self-diagnoses.

12:49

If doctors believed all of

12:51

my self-diagnoses, I would have gone through chemo

12:53

and radiation 15 times already because

12:56

I am constantly afraid that I have cancer

12:58

myself.

12:58

The vast majority of

13:00

people who come into a doctor's office and say, I

13:02

have bad headaches, have bad headaches.

13:05

Hardly anyone is like making it up. Yeah, I did.

13:08

I might have phrased that

13:08

in our pool. Is there a headache TikTok? I

13:11

wouldn't be surprised at this point. Yeah. Yeah,

13:13

there's always a small fraction of people who are like a little bit

13:15

crazy and fabricating symptoms,

13:17

but most people who say they have a headache have a headache.

13:20

They experience a headache. Yeah. I

13:22

don't believe patients in terms of taking their symptoms seriously,

13:24

but I have a headache because

13:27

of 5G. You're

13:30

not doing the patient any favors by being like, okay, let's

13:32

treat you for 5G poisoning.

13:34

Right. It's also probably coming from

13:36

the plastics in your food. Yeah.

13:39

We all, let's see. I think we all eat a credit card's

13:41

worth of, I found that stats,

13:44

whatever. I don't even know if it's a real stat, but it's just so

13:46

low key disturbing. Just I don't know. I

13:48

hate thinking about

13:49

that shit. What's that? Bisexuals?

13:52

No, bisexuals have 20 pounds of plastic

13:54

in their gut. No, what's

13:56

that a time? There's like a stat that every

13:58

day or week, I don't.

13:59

remember. We eat a

14:02

credit card's worth of plastic because

14:04

it's... Oh, really? You weren't making that up? I shouldn't

14:06

tell this to a hypochondriac. No,

14:08

you shouldn't. I love plastic, so that's fine with me.

14:10

I really enjoyed the taste. I'm eating some right

14:12

now. Anyway, just to our correspondent,

14:15

yeah, we didn't mean to come off as insensitive. We're very

14:18

glad you got better from your cancer, but I don't

14:21

know how much we actually disagree because it sounds like you

14:23

also think there's some uncertainty here

14:25

about long COVID. Here's another email

14:27

we got, more sympathetic to our argument and

14:29

more critical of Ed Yong. Quote, I think Ed

14:31

is a very good essayist and he's used his perch to elevate

14:34

public health problems. I also hesitate to criticize

14:36

him, blah, blah, blah. But

14:39

I think Jesse's on to something about how Ed engages

14:41

with data. For instance, Ed had a 2021 article

14:44

premised around the idea that, quote, one in

14:46

five health workers has left medicine since

14:48

the pandemic started. Katie,

14:50

that would be a crazy stat, right? If 20 percent

14:53

of all medical workers fled medicine because things

14:55

were so bad on the ground during early COVID. Yeah,

14:57

absolutely. This correspondent points out that

14:59

this article led the Atlantic's homepage

15:01

for a day or two and I checked

15:04

the archive page. We'll put a link to it. It

15:07

says, quote, I think I'm done.

15:09

About one in five health care workers has

15:11

left medicine since the pandemic started. This

15:14

is their story and the story of those left

15:16

behind. The correspondent

15:18

argues this is fairly misleading. And if you dig

15:20

into the polling, Katie, look at the notes.

15:23

See, go down to morningconsult.com

15:25

and see that graphic there.

15:27

Just read just read the top of that chart.

15:28

Pandemic is a top reason medical

15:31

workers were laid off for quit since early 2020. Subhead

15:34

health care workers said the following reasons are why

15:36

they quit or were laid off since mid February 2020. And

15:39

then 54 percent said COVID-19

15:42

pandemic.

15:43

But then read the next two. And then 50 percent

15:45

said wanted more money or better benefits.

15:47

And then 50 percent said

15:50

found a better opportunity. How many percent are in this

15:52

chart? So these people were given multiple.

15:54

They were allowed to give multiple reasons.

15:56

Yeah. And the point is, if you dig into this data,

15:59

this.

17:59

I think it's a bit of a pattern that he miscommunicates

18:03

on some of these studies. Yeah, and I think it was

18:05

inevitable that we would get a lot of pushback

18:08

from that because of course we have people in our audience

18:10

who are experiencing long COVID. It's not

18:12

uncommon. And I

18:14

think that the tension there is, and Ed

18:17

Young sort of gets to this in his piece

18:19

is that for those of us who don't have long COVID,

18:21

for whom life has really,

18:24

really has returned to normal, we're not masking

18:26

anymore, we're

18:27

going to gatherings. Well, I'm

18:30

going to gatherings. What do you

18:32

mean? Fine. You openly

18:34

admit that you don't do anything. Hey,

18:37

I went to a women's retreat

18:39

last week. Hello. What

18:42

is that? What is a woman? It was

18:45

one of Megan Dalm's retreats, which was actually

18:47

quite fun. I recommend it for any of vagina havers

18:49

in the audience. I'll

18:50

go. Can I come? No,

18:52

no, no. Your vagina is too big.

18:55

It's an outie.

18:57

I can see that this would

18:59

be that for like, if you are suffering

19:02

from this illness, the

19:04

fact that so much of the world really has

19:07

moved on has got

19:09

to be immensely frustrating. But

19:11

on the other hand, there are like, there's

19:14

this group of people who want perma masking,

19:16

you know, but the data that we have, as far as I know, shows

19:18

that the map is like paper mask or the fucking

19:20

handkerchief around your face that everybody was wearing for

19:22

a year or two didn't work. And

19:25

so there's this, you know, there's

19:27

some population, and I see a lot of

19:29

them on Twitter who just sort of are insistent

19:32

that if you're not willing to, for instance,

19:35

wear a mask, you're killing people.

19:38

And that is also, you know,

19:41

masks sucked. They

19:43

really sucked. They sucked for people

19:46

who have breathing problems. They sucked for kids

19:48

in kindergarten who were learning to read. They sucked

19:50

for people with hearing problems.

19:51

People like me who can't read social cues.

19:54

Yeah, stay stuck for people who just don't want to smell their breath

19:56

all the time. Masks sucked. They

19:59

really did. we railed against mass

20:01

from the beginning if you go back to our earlier work. Wearing

20:05

it in 95, it also sucked. It sucked even more.

20:08

There's this natural tension here

20:11

between people who want to return

20:13

to the heightened protocols

20:16

and people who just don't because it feels

20:19

like it's over. It's an interesting sociological

20:22

phenomenon that's going on right now. I sympathize

20:25

with absolutely everybody involved.

20:27

Do you believe that? That's

20:29

not true.

20:30

Literally, everyone

20:33

involved here is correct. Moving

20:35

on. Katie,

20:37

you said you had some bad news for me.

20:39

I did have some bad news for you, Jesse. I know

20:41

that you have definitely not been lying onto

20:43

the Barpod account to

20:46

check Twitter, but I fortunately am still on

20:48

Twitter, so I was there to see that

20:51

someone thinks you're full of shit. Someone thinks

20:54

I'm full of shit? Me? The

20:56

least full of shit guy on these streets? You

20:58

are so full of shit it's bubbling out of your mouth

21:01

at any given time. Okay, yes, Ryan Cooper.

21:03

There's an image. Managing Editor of the American Prospect.

21:06

He tweeted this,

21:07

Jesse Single and Barry Weiss are completely

21:10

full of shit, WashU says. He

21:13

posted a link to an article from KansasCity.com.

21:17

Respond? He got me. The

21:21

only person more full of shit than me is Barry Weiss. No.

21:25

I mean, I

21:27

guess we should revisit this Jamie Reid stuff

21:29

a little bit. That's what it's about. This latest

21:31

chapter is a little bit tiring and

21:33

a little bit revealing. I'm so tired, y'all. Maybe

21:35

it's long COVID.

21:37

Yeah, Cooper's pointing to an article in

21:39

the Kansas City Star. It's one

21:42

of a handful published in the last week or so. Responding

21:45

to the Washington University Transgender

21:47

Center internal review summary

21:50

of conclusions, or if you take

21:53

all the first letters,

21:55

what's your sock? What's

21:57

your sock? Nice ring to it.

22:00

rolls off the tongue. Katie, how

22:02

much of this fucking story do I need to refresh everyone? Can we just

22:04

point people to the old episodes? No, unfortunately,

22:06

I think you need to at least give the like 30 second

22:08

version because every time that we

22:10

put out a new show, we have new listeners.

22:12

Jamie Reed was like, okay.

22:15

Okay. Jamie Reed was a case

22:17

manager at the Washington University transgender

22:19

center. She came forward in

22:22

a sworn affidavit, uh, with all

22:24

these accusations. She also wrote a column for Barry Weiss's

22:26

website, just saying that they were doing terrible

22:29

job with kids at this transgender center, a

22:31

youth gender clinic,

22:33

sub park, care side effects, not

22:35

really, um, you know,

22:37

warning people about, uh, what could happen

22:39

to them if things go wrong. So a lot of accusations

22:42

will include links in the show notes.

22:43

We did a 17 part series about this.

22:45

So everybody stopped now and go back. That was a

22:47

couple. That was couples. Um,

22:50

okay. So what happened

22:53

is the hospital investigated

22:55

itself

22:57

and found that it is innocent of all accusations.

22:59

Okay. I guess that wraps this up. Yep.

23:02

They did it. Uh, no. So

23:05

it won't surprise anyone. This was another frustrating moment

23:07

for me with regard to how journalists write and

23:09

tweet about this story. The problem isn't

23:11

just Ryan Cooper, who to

23:13

be clear is both a giant goober and a

23:15

rub or a rubber. Is that a new

23:17

word? Yep. Is a goo,

23:20

is a goober a rub by definition? I'm

23:22

going to have to check urban dictionary for that one.

23:25

Um, so the problem isn't just giant

23:29

Reuben, Cooper, Ryan Cooper, but rather like

23:31

the lack of basic competence and, uh,

23:33

skepticism in covering the story. So the Washington

23:36

university transgender center, internal

23:38

review, comma summary of conclusion,

23:41

what's your sock? I'll just call it the summary of conclusions.

23:44

It's a four page document. The first sentence

23:46

of the conclusions section

23:49

reads after careful consideration

23:51

over the course of a more than eight week period.

23:53

The university has concluded that allegations

23:56

of substandard care causing adverse outcomes

23:58

for patients at the center.

23:59

are unsubstantiated. Cool.

24:03

But a couple things. First, the document

24:05

contains basically no details about how

24:07

the Washington University and

24:10

St. Louis Children's Hospital structured this investigation

24:12

or why they're confident in their findings. They

24:15

also didn't interview Jamie Reed herself. And

24:18

Jamie Reed and her lawyers have said, we're happy to

24:20

talk to them if they want to talk to us. It's

24:22

a little bit unclear like how could they could investigate this

24:24

thoroughly without talking to the person who leveled

24:27

the accusations. That's one thing. If

24:30

you read the document closely, not only does it

24:33

not really debunk Reed's precise claims,

24:35

it actually validates several of them. This

24:38

was pointed out in a couple of press releases

24:40

Reed's lawyers published and

24:43

Reed sent to me. These press releases

24:45

were where the lawyers were like, yeah, Jamie would be happy

24:47

to talk to you if she's invited. She hasn't been. So let

24:50

me just give one example. Here's paragraph 48 from

24:53

Jamie Reed's affidavit. Other

24:55

centers who prescribe cross sex hormones and puberty

24:57

blockers require parents to issue written

24:59

consent. Several times I asked

25:02

the doctors to require written consent. They

25:04

repeatedly refused. The entire time

25:06

I worked there, the center had no written informed

25:08

consent and none that was provided to or

25:10

signed by

25:11

patients. Do you get what that means?

25:14

Yeah, but I do have to pause there to

25:16

ask you one more question. Do you know

25:18

how to pronounce the word written? What

25:20

did I say? You say it written.

25:23

Like with a D. Written. You

25:27

say it like Kyle Riddin house noted

25:31

American hero friend of the power.

25:35

No. So, but you understand her claim here

25:37

is that she thinks they should have written consent

25:39

before kids go on these treatments

25:42

and the hot. She's claiming the hospital has not done that. You got

25:45

that? Yes, I got that. Read that paragraph

25:47

from the internal review

25:48

in the notes

25:49

while appropriate parental consent has been

25:51

obtained verbally and documented in the medical record.

25:54

The additional protocols recommended by the oversight

25:56

committee for documenting parental consent to

25:58

ensure a consistent

25:59

is followed by all staff and physicians who

26:02

interact with patients under 18 should be made

26:04

permanent." That's quite a sentence. Specifically,

26:06

the university has decided to take the additional

26:08

step of requiring specific written consent prior

26:10

to prescribing gender-affirming medications. The

26:13

university has reviewed the consenting process

26:15

and has made updates to the center's protocol. Okay,

26:17

so they didn't require written consent. They're

26:19

just—they're confirming Jamie

26:22

Reid's allegation. Now,

26:25

there's a whole other can of worms here in terms of which

26:27

procedure should and shouldn't require informed

26:29

consent and what that consent should look like. We

26:32

don't—it's complicated. Wait,

26:33

you just said informed consent rather than written.

26:36

Does that matter? Yeah, so—right.

26:38

So

26:39

informed consent is like a concept in medicine

26:41

that someone, A, consents to something and B, really

26:44

makes an informed decision about it. Like they've been informed

26:46

of uncertainties in the research

26:48

or side effects and so on. Now, written

26:50

consent means you sign a form that explicitly

26:52

lists that out. The hospital claims it got verbal

26:55

consent. Whether or not that was

26:57

sufficient would depend

26:59

a lot on how the doctors and psychologists

27:02

and everyone explain this to the kids

27:04

and their parents. If you have a written document

27:06

where you're like, you have to read this, this says exactly

27:08

what the side effects could be, blah, blah, blah, that

27:11

might be a sturdier form of written consent.

27:13

God, every time you say that word, I think of Kyle

27:15

Ritter. I know. There

27:17

isn't a clear answer on exactly when

27:20

you need written versus verbal informed

27:22

consent. But the point is like she was

27:24

telling the truth here. The hospital admitted that. So

27:29

read in the press

27:31

release,

27:33

Reed's lawyers also

27:35

point out that the hospital seems to confirm

27:37

Reed's claim about sloppiness with regard

27:40

to custody. Who has custody over

27:42

kid and who can therefore consent to

27:44

them being seen at the clinic and their medical

27:47

procedures and so on. So here's reading her affidavit

27:49

and then I'll ask you to read the conclusions document

27:52

affidavit. The center was also intentionally

27:55

blind about who had legal authority to consent.

27:57

I wanted the center to ask parents before the.

27:59

first visits about and request

28:02

copies of custody agreements because

28:04

custody agreements often spell out who among

28:06

divorced parents must consent to medical procedures.

28:09

I was told not to ask for custody agreements

28:11

because quote, if we have the custody agreement,

28:13

we have to follow it, end quote. So Katie,

28:15

read just that, those two sentences from the

28:18

investigation.

28:19

The center has adopted a process of requiring

28:21

a family to provide custody agreements before an

28:23

initial visit at the center by a patient under

28:25

age 18. Prior practice

28:27

had been to obtain the custody agreement before

28:30

medical intervention in cases where decision-making

28:32

authority was in question.

28:33

So again, they're agreeing

28:36

with her claim. Her claim was that a patient could start

28:38

being seen at the clinic without

28:40

it being entirely clear whose custody they

28:42

were under and which parent had decision-making authority.

28:45

The center is implicitly saying, yeah, we did

28:47

not check that before kids started being seen at the clinic.

28:49

So again, this doesn't seem to

28:52

really debunk what she was saying if you actually read

28:54

what she said closely. There's

28:56

also a pretty basic import dispute over

28:58

numbers here. In the document, the

29:00

hospital's like, we have this many patients over

29:03

this span. Reads team claims that

29:05

they're vastly underestimating what

29:07

that number is. Reads team is claiming

29:09

that they're distorting the percentage of kids who actually

29:11

went on blockers or hormones. We

29:13

don't need to get into that. You can just read the press releases. You'll

29:15

see the exact numbers. Here's

29:18

one of the more disturbing parts. Katie, read

29:20

that one more sentence from

29:22

the summary of conclusions.

29:24

Interviews with center providers in a review of medical

29:27

records identified no patients who had adverse

29:29

physical reactions caused by medications

29:32

prescribed by center providers.

29:33

Okay, now read this excerpt from an NBC

29:35

news article by Joe Yerkuba, who we've

29:38

mentioned before there at a very activist

29:40

journalist who unfortunately NBC has given

29:43

this beat to them.

29:43

Kate Hensley, who uses they and she

29:45

pronouns and worked at the center from August 2020 to May 2021

29:49

as part of getting their masters in social work at Washington

29:52

University, said they reported directly to read.

29:55

They said they could identify some cases redescribed

29:58

in her affidavit, but that read miss. misunderstood

30:00

or misinterpreted them. For example, Hensley

30:03

said they remember the medical team discussing a situation

30:05

Reed describes in her affidavit in which a patient

30:08

experienced vaginal lacerations after

30:10

having sex while on testosterone, which

30:12

can cause thinning of the vaginal tissue. But

30:14

Hensley didn't want to discuss it in detail because it

30:16

is private patient information.

30:18

How does that excerpt compare

30:20

with the excerpt from the review saying

30:23

we're not aware of any adverse physical reactions

30:25

from any of our patients?

30:26

Okay, yeah, this doesn't make any sense.

30:28

I mean, if

30:30

the investigation didn't find

30:32

any patients with adverse

30:35

physical reactions, they must not have been

30:37

looking very hard or they didn't interview the correct

30:39

people or possibly they

30:41

interviewed this Kate Hensley person and this Kate Hensley

30:43

person didn't bring up

30:46

this particular case.

30:46

I mean, whatever it is,

30:49

there's now two clinicians, Jamie

30:51

Reed, former clinicians, Jamie Reed in this Kate Hensley

30:53

person saying that

30:55

this one patient at least had adverse physical

30:58

effects. So how can the hospital

31:00

publish a document saying we're

31:02

not aware of any adverse effect? I mean, I don't really

31:04

understand this. So I mean,

31:06

it shows that they did not do a very comprehensive

31:09

review. If they didn't they didn't interview Jamie Reed, if they'd

31:11

interviewed Jamie Reed, Reed could have pointed them

31:13

to this this patient who she mentioned in the

31:15

affidavit. Right.

31:17

Okay, so

31:19

actually, I'm going to ask you to read one last bit

31:21

from the university's findings and I'll explain it that

31:23

we can move on. Can you can just read that?

31:24

In addition to recommendations directly related

31:26

to the allegations, the university also

31:29

determined in the course of its review that there is an opportunity

31:31

to be more intentional about public engagement

31:33

on the topics of gender dysphoria and transgender

31:35

care. The university will review its procedures

31:38

for engaging with members of the community, particularly

31:40

as it pertains to guidance provided to local

31:42

school administrators and educators.

31:44

Do you have any idea what that means? No, I

31:46

mean, it sounds like they realize that they have

31:49

done a bad job communicating. I don't know.

31:50

You read this and you get a sense

31:53

that the

31:54

transgender center is changing some policy,

31:56

but it's so vague. You have no idea what they're talking about

31:58

and they don't provide any details.

31:59

I asked Jamie Reed what she thinks

32:02

it's about is she pointed me to a

32:04

Fox news article that was about

32:06

the following chain of events. Uh,

32:09

school district is in contact with the transgender

32:11

center. They're trying to get advice.

32:13

Some of their kids have lost consciousness

32:16

due to binding their breasts. They have passed out. They

32:19

asked the clinic, should the parents be informed?

32:21

The kids are breast binding. Sarah Garwood,

32:23

head of the transgender center, a co-founder,

32:26

uh, and co-head of the transgender center

32:28

says, no, don't tell the parents. So

32:31

don't tell the parents that the kids passed out

32:33

or don't tell the parents that kids are like,

32:35

how do you, you can't tell them they passed

32:38

out because that'll reveal their own binding, their binding.

32:41

So whatever you think about this broader

32:43

question of when

32:45

kids, gender concerns should be disclosed. And we've

32:47

talked about it. I think it's genuinely complicated. Imagine

32:50

not telling parents that their children passed

32:52

out at school, that they lost consciousness. I

32:54

think the average person,

32:57

the average human would be very disturbed by that.

33:00

So the hospital seems to be covering

33:02

up something like very controversial

33:05

with layer after layer of vagueness and corporate

33:07

speak, which does not suggest transparency on the

33:10

hospital's part. So that's

33:12

what Reid thinks that paragraph is about. I

33:14

think it matches actually pretty exactly because

33:16

we're talking about our outreach and educational stuff.

33:19

We can't know for sure. I reached out to watch you with

33:21

two specific questions. First about that vague language

33:23

and whether it was about the binding thing. And second

33:25

about how they can be so sure there

33:28

were no adverse physical effects. When they missed the vaginal

33:30

laceration thing, two of their former staffers said

33:32

happened, I didn't hear back. They also

33:34

didn't respond to your Kuba either. So I don't, I

33:37

think they've just embraced a blanket policy of not responding

33:39

to reporters, regardless of where those

33:41

reporters are coming

33:42

from. But, um,

33:43

this was not a debunking of what Jamie

33:45

Reid said. I think people just need to like,

33:48

Be willing to have a little bit of patience. And

33:50

if you're like, if you're someone like Ryan Cooper, who's a hack

33:53

and who has very strong feelings on this, but no knowledge about

33:55

it, you should just. Just shut up

33:57

for a little bit until like we have more information.

34:00

and not respond to every new thing that comes

34:02

out as though Reed has been discredited,

34:05

even though your whole goal here is to destroy her for

34:07

Twitter points. That's my read, maybe it's not charitable.

34:09

No, I think you're right about this. The problem

34:11

is that, so this is the university

34:14

investigating itself, right? So you can see

34:16

clear bias here. I don't think that we should discount

34:18

the investigation because it has

34:21

conclusions we don't agree with or just because it

34:23

came from the university. I think that impulse

34:25

is dishonest. That said- I

34:28

do

34:28

think we should, I think all else being equal,

34:30

our prior should be that if an institution investigates

34:33

itself, we shouldn't take that as seriously

34:35

as, I'm gonna get to some complexity here in

34:38

a minute, but we shouldn't take that as seriously as a truly independent

34:40

investigation.

34:41

Well, here's what's gonna happen. People

34:43

who hate you and hate Barry and

34:46

hate Jamie Reed are going to see this

34:48

and they're gonna say, look, this is proof that

34:50

Jesse is full of shit, Barry's full of shit, Jamie Reed's

34:52

full of shit. And at the same time, people

34:55

who think that there are real issues with caring for gender

34:57

as for kids or kids who say they're gender dysphoric

34:59

or trans,

35:01

they're gonna say,

35:02

and I saw this happening on Twitter,

35:04

discount this because this is a university

35:06

investigating itself, you can't trust it. At

35:09

the same time, if the

35:11

state of Missouri, which is conducting their own investigation,

35:14

when they come back with their summary of

35:16

findings or whatever, and they find that

35:19

there is wrongdoing and even, I don't

35:21

know, malpractice, you're gonna have the

35:23

reverse phenomenon where people

35:26

who are on Team Jesse and

35:28

Team Jamie Reed are cheering that one

35:30

and people who aren't say, no,

35:32

this is bias because it came

35:35

from the state of Missouri.

35:36

I don't even like being lumped in like that. I'm not on Team

35:38

Jamie Reed. I've said like, because of my

35:40

other... But this is how it's going to be perceived. But the

35:42

problem is,

35:44

it, the situation is so fucked and

35:46

so politicized. So there's multiple investigations

35:48

underway. There's the Missouri AG, the

35:50

Missouri Department of Social Services, and

35:53

there's also the something called the Board of Healing

35:55

Arts within the Department of Commerce and Insurance.

35:58

There's multiple investigations. Here's the...

35:59

thing. Um, Missouri

36:02

attorney general,

36:04

Andrew Bailey clearly sees this as a

36:06

political issue. It's like a fight against wokeness

36:08

that can benefit fit him. Cause he has an

36:11

election in early 2025. He's AG

36:14

cause he was appointed. Um, the old AG

36:16

became a Senator. So why

36:19

should we trust his investing? I mean, it's so

36:22

bad that there's like nobody in this. We can

36:24

just fully trust you get to the bottom of what happened.

36:26

Bailey just put out this ridiculous policy,

36:30

uh, unilaterally restricting

36:32

access to gender medicine for all Missourians,

36:34

regardless of their age. And you

36:37

might be asking like, how can a state attorney general

36:39

do that? And the answer is just like America is

36:41

dumb. He just executives

36:43

have this weird random power. He announced an emergency

36:46

regulation on the basis of like anti-fraud

36:49

concerns. Um, if

36:51

this is followed and held up in court, it'll basically

36:54

be hard for anyone to get access to transition care

36:56

in Missouri. So this whole thing

36:58

is incredibly fucked and almost

37:00

everyone involved is a

37:02

political actor of one sort or another, including

37:04

Jamie Reed's lawyers who are conservatives, I

37:07

presume cause who the what fucking liberal

37:10

lawyer in their right mind in 2023 would take

37:12

on a case like this. So, um, it's

37:14

so bad that this really important issue

37:17

has been this politicized and

37:19

I don't think anyone is going to trust any findings

37:21

from anyone that don't support their priors.

37:24

And I think there's some, some reason not to trust

37:26

it.

37:26

Sure. Definitely. So I want to, I want

37:29

to pause on this, uh, this Missouri law

37:31

for a second. So this, if you read on Twitter,

37:33

uh, what you're going to read is that Missouri

37:36

has banned transgender

37:38

care for, for both minors and

37:40

adults. That's not actually true, right?

37:43

Can you explain a little bit about the details

37:45

of the law?

37:45

So yeah, this was, um, there's a headline from CNN

37:48

Wednesday, day before we recorded Missouri

37:50

judge temporary blocks limits on gender affirming care

37:53

for trans youth and adults from going into effect. We

37:55

don't know how this is going to work its way through the courts,

37:57

but Bailey's ideas.

38:00

like they're very restrictive. They would

38:02

in effect, I think, ban it if

38:04

providers actually had to follow them. You're

38:06

talking about things like proving someone has had

38:09

consistent gender dysphoria for three years.

38:12

That's hard to do if someone's on medicine

38:14

that treats their gender dysphoria effectively,

38:16

they're going to have less symptoms. So I don't

38:18

know how you could even let someone stay on

38:21

hormones, for example, if you're following this letter.

38:23

There's also like weird stuff where you

38:25

have to prove kids aren't don't have social

38:28

media addiction. That's not even a DSM

38:30

condition. How do you prove someone isn't addicted

38:33

to social media? There's stuff where you have to like prove

38:36

there isn't social contagion. It's

38:38

written in a way.

38:41

There's versions of this where whatever the issue is

38:43

about, like who has authority to make it, it would be hard

38:45

to complain about if he's just like kids

38:47

need to have a comprehensive thorough assessment over

38:49

three appointments. That would be one thing. He went

38:51

well beyond that. And I do think it's not a ban.

38:53

That's true. It's not a ban. People shouldn't call it a ban. I

38:56

think if it actually had a force of law, it

38:58

would be pretty close to a ban in practice.

38:59

Okay, one of the stipulations here of this emergency

39:02

order is that patients have to have at least 18 months

39:05

of therapy

39:06

with a psychologist or a psychiatrist

39:09

before receiving puberty blockers or surgeries. I'm quoting from

39:11

the New York Times here. What do you think about that? That

39:13

to me sounds onerous, but it also

39:15

I mean, it kind of sounds sensible.

39:18

Yeah.

39:20

No, I just think it is too onerous. So the

39:22

way it's written, the patient has to get

39:24

15 separate hourly sessions, at

39:27

least 10 of which

39:29

are with the same therapist over the course of not

39:31

fewer than 18 months.

39:34

And this is for adults and kids.

39:36

I think that for kids to me, that sounds fine

39:39

for adults, maybe not. But for kids, that to me sounds

39:41

fine. I think that you should really have to

39:43

demonstrate that you have persistent gender dysphoria

39:45

over a long period of time. I mean, also, however,

39:48

they should also make healthcare easier to get, which

39:50

in Missouri, I don't think they have.

39:51

Well, I mean, it's just yeah, I

39:54

there's other parts of this that I'm more

39:56

worked up over. But 15

39:58

separate hourly sessions.

40:01

over not fewer than 18 months. I

40:03

don't know. I think that's probably too long a

40:05

process. I think we should have comprehensive assessments.

40:07

I think they're really important. I think it just seems arbitrary

40:10

and too honorous, but these are the parts

40:12

of the Senate I think are worse.

40:13

Well, you did write the law, so do better,

40:15

Jesse. Yeah. But I mean, people keep

40:17

forgetting that until my 2018

40:19

Atlanta story, Republicans love the

40:23

LGBT community. Well known for it. Until

40:26

I wrote that article, until I wrote that article, I had lied

40:28

why Republicans start hating trans people,

40:31

blah, blah, blah. Katie, should we do housekeeping? Let's

40:33

do it.

40:35

We're blocked reported or podcast. You

40:39

can email us at blocked reported podcast at gmail.com.

40:41

You can check out our Reddit blocked

40:43

reported dot reddit dot com.

40:45

Hey, speaking of the Reddit, somebody

40:48

on the subreddit somehow found

40:50

my freshman year high school yearbook

40:53

photo.

40:53

Hell yeah. I saw that. How does

40:55

that mean that's the docs? Yeah, it docs me. Does that mean

40:58

that somebody I went to high school with listens

41:00

to our podcast or can you find

41:02

those somewhere? Is there a repository for

41:04

embarrassing yearbook photos somewhere?

41:06

The photo screams lesbian,

41:09

extremely low level weed

41:11

dealer who is caught as soon as they start dealing

41:13

weed. Like the first time, like the

41:16

first person you approach to try to sell weed is just

41:18

like the chief of police and that's it. And it's

41:20

a real high school career.

41:21

And the weed might also be oregano stolen

41:24

from your parents pantry.

41:25

Yeah, so

41:27

good job. Keep a subreddit. Keep trying to dig

41:29

up all the dirt you can on Katie so we can use

41:32

future negotiations because she is trying

41:35

to kill me. Bar

41:37

pod merch dot com for our merch.

41:39

What else, Katie? Oh, you should become a primo blocked

41:42

reporter dot org for a very,

41:45

very modest fee. You can become

41:47

a primo and you'll get three extra episodes a month,

41:49

one of which we're recording tomorrow. Be part

41:52

of an incredible community of like eleven

41:54

thousand five hundred people. I don't know how the fuck

41:56

we got there.

41:59

But it's

41:59

It's pretty awesome.

42:00

Yeah. Best comment section

42:02

in the game. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. Best

42:05

comment

42:05

section in the game. Anything else, Katie? I think that's

42:08

it. Katie, when is the last time

42:10

you went to a baseball game?

42:12

Oh, like an official baseball

42:14

game or like a playing. What's

42:16

an unofficial baseball game? You know, it's just like

42:18

playing ball with your boys or girls.

42:21

Just finding some local neighborhood kids. Yeah.

42:24

I do that every day. I'm playing them with fruit tricks.

42:26

I pick them up in my van. Kids. Hey,

42:29

get over here. We're playing sports. Get in my van.

42:31

It has been a long time since I went to a baseball game.

42:34

I was probably, I don't know, 10. Went

42:36

to a Atlanta, can we say the B word?

42:38

Bitch, the Atlanta bitches. The Atlanta

42:40

bitches. The Atlanta Braves. I went

42:42

to a Braves game when I was a kid. Do you want to give me a little Tomahawk

42:45

chock? I'm doing it right now. Oh, without

42:47

sound. That's how. Proseable deniability.

42:50

If you did go to a baseball game, how many selfie

42:52

videos would you post to TikTok?

42:53

I would just record the whole thing and post the whole thing.

42:55

Can you do long form video on TikTok?

42:57

I have no idea. I never used TikTok and

42:59

I never will. The latest deranged

43:02

blow up in the world of public shaming comes

43:04

to us from the heart of America's favorite pastime.

43:07

That's really not true anymore. Used to be. I

43:09

don't think ratings are good. A little sport.

43:11

What's America's favorite pastime now? Internet?

43:13

Gaming? I'd say masturbation

43:15

and football. Slay the spire. Oh, you

43:18

remember the name of the game. Unfortunately,

43:21

yes. So this whole thing

43:24

started with a TikToker named Jackie

43:26

LaBonita, who according to Instance

43:29

Sider had two hundred fifty eight thousand

43:31

followers. That has now ballooned significantly. She

43:33

posted this video to TikTok. Katie, as

43:36

you watch this, will you describe it to me?

43:37

Watch my confidence disappear after these

43:39

random girls make fun of me for taking

43:41

pics. OK, feeling

43:44

my spice vibes. OK,

43:46

so we have a young woman. She is

43:48

sitting in the stands. She

43:51

is taking selfies,

43:53

it looks like. And there are some people

43:56

behind her. So young women and

43:59

they are.

43:59

like photobombing her. One

44:02

of them is doing the bird, the finger bird.

44:04

Um, she zooms in on that.

44:07

And, um, yeah,

44:10

that's it. There's more people behind her. There's

44:12

some guys that are also possibly

44:14

talking about her. Maybe not. One of the girls

44:16

is now videoing her. Um,

44:20

so it looks like a little, some girl on girl. This

44:23

is what they mean by girl on girl action,

44:24

right? Yep. Uh,

44:27

so yeah, this is apparently at an Astros game

44:29

at mid made park in Houston. Um,

44:32

at one point she clearly has someone holding the camera

44:35

to video her and she's

44:37

like a little bit dolled up. And I don't know, I can imagine

44:39

if I were sitting behind someone like that at a sporting

44:41

event and they were all dolled up

44:43

and vamping for the camera for the sake of social

44:46

media. I can't guarantee

44:48

I wouldn't make fun of them. If I was caught in the shot,

44:50

what do you think?

44:51

Oh, you definitely would make fun of them. What

44:53

would you do? Me? I would just, I would,

44:56

I would make fun of them in my mind. I'm

44:58

too, I don't like conflict though. If

45:02

you and I were involved in this, there might be some racial

45:04

dynamics at play that would put us in a losing

45:07

position, I would say. So I would probably do

45:09

absolutely nothing.

45:10

Jackie Labanita posts this video,

45:12

which includes like her talking about how much she

45:14

was hurt by it. As you could hear in that audio

45:16

and that weird Tik TOK voice, I can never get used to

45:19

it. Everyone starts

45:21

freaking out about how horribly she was

45:23

wronged. Um, this obviously percolated

45:25

on Tik TOK, tens of millions of views. Twitter,

45:28

certainly threw some fuel on the fire. The

45:31

video was posted by someone named at cupid

45:33

for June accompanied by the text.

45:36

Yeah. Ain't nobody gone survive. If

45:38

that shit happens to me, no

45:40

one's going to survive. If they make fun of me on social media,

45:42

that tweet got 90.5 million impressions.

45:46

So Cardi B then quote, retweets it and

45:48

says, quote, look, what they did was rude,

45:51

but there's no need to bring violence into this. Folks

45:53

should just relax and not take stuff so personally,

45:55

I'm just kidding. She tweeted, quote, I would,

45:58

I would have put that ring to use. quote,

46:00

the alleged victim here was wearing a very large and

46:02

blingy ring. So I would have put that ring to use

46:05

means I would have punched those girls in the face.

46:08

That tweet got more than 30 million impressions.

46:11

So I guess

46:12

before we look at the aftermath, I should ask

46:14

Katie, do you

46:15

understand exactly why

46:18

this set people off the way it did? Cause I'm really struggling

46:20

here. I absolutely don't. I mean,

46:22

the girls in the background, like, just look like they're

46:24

kind of making, I mean, they're just like having a good

46:26

time. I really don't understand the like, flipping

46:28

somebody off. That's like a, like a level of rudeness.

46:31

That's maybe exacerbates the situation.

46:33

But I mean, it's a baseball

46:36

game. Like, what are you going to do? Watch the fucking game. They're

46:38

boring.

46:38

They did just literally Institute

46:40

a pitch clock to speed things up this year. That

46:42

was like the big news. Uh, yeah,

46:45

I, this honestly reminded me a little

46:47

bit of like the concept of honor culture, which

46:49

like liberals view as sort of outdated.

46:51

It's like the province of like white descendants of

46:54

Scotsman in the South. Um, but

46:56

it seems to be alive and well online.

46:58

It's like, it's this idea that attacks on your own

47:00

honor have to be vigorously defended.

47:03

So is it,

47:03

is it, okay. So

47:06

I'm just going to bring up race here. None

47:08

of the people in this, in

47:10

this conflict

47:13

were white. And

47:16

what I'm saying is perhaps

47:20

honor culture might

47:22

not exist in like liberal

47:25

white Newton, Massachusetts

47:28

suburbs, but perhaps it exists

47:30

not just online, but within, for

47:32

instance, I don't know, letinks cultures.

47:35

I guess I'm looking at the video. I mean,

47:37

I don't have my calipers with me so I can't tell exactly

47:40

what race they are, but I guess everyone involved

47:42

is not white. So you think that, yeah,

47:44

which I think that the racial dynamics

47:47

here had the racial dynamics been different

47:49

had, for instance, the, the

47:51

girl who posted the video, the victim of this

47:53

bullying,

47:54

had she been white and the women behind

47:56

her, making fun of her, been Brown.

47:59

She would have been a Karen.

48:01

Oh, look at this Karen.

48:03

Yeah, I think you're right. Look at this Karen trying to film

48:05

herself we're making fun of her. Right. Had

48:08

it been the women making fun of a brown

48:10

woman been white, that would have

48:12

been, they would have been racist.

48:14

They would have been white supremacists.

48:15

Interesting. So the fact

48:17

that everybody was brown in this, I

48:19

think like as crazy as the

48:22

fact that this is like a stupid TikTok video God

48:24

shared so much is, you're gonna tell us

48:26

what happened. But I think because everybody

48:29

was the same race, I think that takes

48:31

an element of like

48:34

absolute toxicity out of

48:35

the story. You think it could have been even worse. It

48:37

would have been about this. Oh, totally, totally. I mean,

48:39

imagine a white person posting this and

48:41

like, and saying like, get them, Twitter

48:44

do your thing or whatever, TikTok do your

48:46

thing. Karen, she's a Karen.

48:48

I just like, I can't imagine

48:50

such a minor incident, like a couple

48:52

of girls who were probably drunk, flipping

48:54

the bird. I can't get why that should

48:57

warrant this sort of reaction.

48:59

So you're saying that Jewish

49:01

gamers don't have honor

49:02

culture. Jewish gamers don't

49:04

have honor culture. That's a good question. Or honor.

49:07

We have our own pathologies, mostly having to do with our mothers,

49:09

but it's very different. I

49:12

don't know, man. It also just seems unhealthy

49:14

to me, like the way this influencer was like, look

49:16

how this damaged my self-esteem. Oh

49:18

yeah. When we were growing up, it's like, if

49:20

someone says dumb shit to you, ignore them. You're

49:22

giving them power. It's like, it's your

49:25

choice to be offended. Who cares? Who

49:27

are these girls? What do they have to do with you? You're a successful online

49:29

influencer.

49:29

But do you think that her self-esteem was

49:32

actually damaged by this? Or that she, and

49:34

I'm asking you to mind right here, or that she

49:36

just saw an opportunity to post?

49:38

Yeah. Well, you know

49:40

what? Content is king, baby.

49:42

But we know from various experiences we've

49:44

had that those two tend to blur into one another. Like

49:46

if you keep acting like something over time,

49:49

you sort of become that thing. Or like,

49:51

when you've seen people freak out at you online, I

49:53

think some of them actually feel

49:56

the freak out is warranted in the moment, right?

49:58

Oh yeah, probably. They're wrong. But

50:00

it's not it's not like strictly speaking designs.

50:02

Of course Aron kid. You've never done. Yeah, thank you

50:06

So all this was driven partly by the fact

50:08

that like once something like this like this becomes

50:10

an event Everyone has to chime in like all

50:12

sorts of random commentators need to have their say

50:14

and that keeps things going for days and days so

50:18

Here's one example at the beginning of it. Oh here this

50:20

user Stitching in part of the initial video

50:22

and then responding to it

50:23

Confidence disappear after these random

50:25

girls make fun of me for taking pics This

50:28

video was really upsetting and it always

50:30

hurts me to see girls being mean

50:33

to other girls and you know what? We're all human

50:35

like no person is perfect, but

50:37

I just think behavior like this is deplorable

50:40

And the girl who made

50:42

this video she's beautiful even the girls in the

50:45

back are also beautiful But maybe they're just not attuned

50:47

to that Because it's very

50:49

clear that they're operating out of insecurity when

50:51

you're operating out of insecurity You

50:53

are so unhappy with yourself and misery

50:56

loves company So you want to do any and

50:58

everything possible to ensure that other people

51:00

are also unhappy with themselves

51:01

Especially in instances

51:03

where you see that they are Confident

51:06

they like their outfit. They want to show it off.

51:08

They want to take cute photos your first

51:10

thought instead of thinking hmm

51:12

I admire her beauty because they do admire your beauty

51:15

But because they're not comfortable with themselves their first thought

51:17

and act is okay What can I do to

51:19

make this

51:20

person feel small? Because

51:22

her sense of self is making me feel uncomfortable

51:24

in this moment But the reason why they feel

51:27

uncomfortable is because they're not self assured

51:30

period

51:31

Period so I just encourage you to keep

51:33

taking your photos Keep sharing keep

51:36

posting doing what you like to do and

51:38

don't focus on people that like

51:40

to hate Because they're suffering

51:42

enough by existing in a mind

51:45

frame and

51:46

mentality That

51:48

lends them to think that the only way

51:50

they can navigate the discomfort they feel

51:52

within themselves is to make other people feel

51:54

uncomfortable

51:56

That's a miserable existence. It

51:58

really is truly confident and happy

52:01

people don't tend to do

52:03

things like that. It's

52:07

just reality. But keep

52:09

doing you, you're beautiful, and

52:11

we all just need to do better and be better people. Come

52:14

on, this is very childish. This woman seems like

52:16

a future or current self-care counselor.

52:19

This is a... It's just like... I

52:21

don't know. There's just like a lot of armchair

52:24

psychoanalysis. What if the girls

52:26

were just like fucking around?

52:28

They're just drunk. People have thrown

52:30

the middle finger for like no reason. That's

52:32

what makes it fun is how unpredictable. I'm doing

52:34

it right now. Tomahawk chop

52:36

and one arm middle finger on the other. You

52:39

could combine those two actually. I'm doing it now. And

52:41

then you could give the finger, that's the only way to give

52:43

the finger to someone to your left or

52:45

right without them realizing. This

52:48

is a good arm exercise. I just joined Planet

52:50

Fitness. It's the helm of the Judgment Free Zone.

52:52

I'm going to try it there. Ma'am, that's racist.

52:54

You just tap the side. No judgment.

52:56

I thought this was Judgment Free. Did you actually join Planet Fitness?

52:58

I did, yes.

52:59

What are you going to work out? My

53:01

entire body. What do you think? I'm going

53:03

there just for my ankles. I go to a gym and all

53:05

I do is the bike and the treadmill. Oh, no. I'm

53:08

doing full body. Yeah. She calls the

53:10

behavior deplorable, which is funny. That doesn't

53:12

really leave us with the language to describe actual

53:15

deplorable stuff.

53:16

Also, ignore the haters is not compatible

53:19

with what you and everyone else are doing. But

53:21

anyway, as a result of all this, this is

53:24

this insider article by Andrew Lloyd.

53:27

Andrew Lloyd. It's

53:28

a great name. Classic American name. Some

53:32

users took it further and tried to track down

53:34

and reveal the identities of the women featured

53:36

in the video and shared their findings online

53:39

in an act known as doxxing dot dot dot. One

53:41

take talk seen by insider, which showed a screenshot

53:44

of a personal Instagram account purportedly

53:46

belonging to one of the women was viewed six

53:48

point nine million times. Jesus.

53:51

Many more users circulated what they believe to be the identities

53:53

of the women, including details such as where they

53:55

studied at college, LinkedIn accounts and

53:57

businesses where they believe they were employed.

53:59

Prompting internet users to leave a slew of

54:02

one-star reviews on the company's yell page So I'm gonna

54:04

downvote your company because I think

54:06

someone who gave the finger to an Instagram

54:10

Insider reached out to the business identified in several

54:12

ticktocks But was unable to confirm whether either

54:14

woman worked at the company Inside it was also

54:16

unable to confirm whether the woman identified are

54:19

in fact the women of the video and was unable to reach them for

54:21

comment one tick talker appeared

54:23

to get caught in the docks in crossfire as

54:25

she said viewers mistooker for one of

54:27

the Women in the video the uploader who goes

54:29

by at nice you you six

54:32

received 1.3 million views When

54:35

she stitched the ticktockers video on April 23rd

54:37

and wrote it an on-screen caption that she'd received

54:40

insults for something She didn't do and asked

54:42

people in her caption to stop harassing her

54:44

and her mother in a follow-up video She

54:47

said she and her family had received so much abuse She

54:49

had to private her Instagram account, but

54:51

people simply took this as proof of her guilt

54:53

quote You can never win and quote she said

54:55

in the video. That's a good way to wrap

54:57

this up You could never win with online

55:00

bullshit. I guess my main takeaway is like

55:02

I don't know John Ronson So you've

55:04

been publicly shame came out in 2015 It

55:06

does not feel like people have really taken

55:09

this lessons to heart things seem to have gotten Significantly

55:12

crazier if anything

55:13

did you see Freddy de Boers call him today? He

55:15

argues the exact opposite that things are getting

55:17

better Yeah, and his he cites

55:20

so John Mulvaney has a new comedy special

55:22

out and apparently watched it last night Very funny.

55:24

So apparently was Dave Chappelle in the special?

55:27

No, okay, so apparently

55:30

Dave Chappelle Mulvaney

55:32

during his tour. He brought Dave Chappelle up

55:34

on stage and Freddy was

55:36

saying that he hasn't seen the

55:38

level of outrage that you would have seen about

55:41

this a year or two ago I think that's true. I haven't

55:43

seen any outrage about this Although I'm blocked

55:45

by I think everybody who would have would

55:48

feel some outrage about this So Freddy

55:50

thinks that it's burning it out. I mean all of this is

55:52

like totally anecdotal you could look

55:54

at this Astros tech talk

55:57

Scandal as as proof that it's not

55:59

burning

55:59

itself out, John Mulvaney is proof that it is. It's

56:02

really hard to quantify this stuff. Maybe some

56:04

of the

56:05

culture war stuff here and there, but elsewhere,

56:07

no. And I think people's overall

56:09

desire to engage in witch hunts

56:11

hasn't gone down, but I don't really have any way of quantifying

56:14

that.

56:14

It's such a human desire. I mean, yeah, that's the

56:16

thing you can't quantify. And Freddie was saying that

56:18

his argument is that people have

56:20

realized that this doesn't work in the

56:23

end, that nobody cares. He has a great

56:25

line in the piece, something like you can only

56:27

tense a muscle for so long unless you go

56:29

to Planet Fitness, Judgment Frieza, tense

56:31

it as long as you want. Yeah,

56:34

John's book was so prescient,

56:37

written in 2015 or published in 2015.

56:39

We didn't have the word cancel culture then. And

56:41

he writes about the history of public shaming,

56:43

how this isn't

56:44

just a modern day impulse.

56:46

Of course, social media makes ... We're

56:49

not putting people in stocks in the town square. We're

56:51

sharing them on TikTok instead. It's

56:54

tangential, but do you know the YouTube

56:57

show Binging with Babish? No. This

56:59

is what you're doing

57:00

now that you're off Twitter, I heard.

57:03

Binging YouTube. No, it's a really good cooking

57:05

show. He's got more than 10 million followers.

57:08

He had an ad. He must make a

57:10

shit ton off of ads. He had an ad for Hogwarts

57:12

Legacy, and everyone

57:14

fucking went after ... Oh, not everyone. I shouldn't say that. A

57:16

bunch of very angry people really

57:18

went after him because he's beloved by a lot

57:21

of people. People have a very strong parasocial relationship

57:23

to him because he's a very engaging

57:25

cooking guy who just seems liked

57:27

by everybody. He seems

57:30

to have completely ignored that controversy.

57:32

And then he was just on the

57:35

Adam Friedland show. Do you know what that is? I've heard of him,

57:37

but I don't know what it is. It's Kumptown.

57:39

Why do they call it that? It's disgusting.

57:41

Why do they call it Kumptown? Let's shame them for that.

57:44

I don't like it. That's a hot take.

57:47

But there's this thing where if you're

57:49

influential enough, what

57:52

are the consequences of just ignoring

57:54

the bullshit? And so as far as I know, like, Andrew

57:57

Ray is his name. I don't think he

57:59

came out It was like, I'm letting the ad stay up

58:01

because of free speech. He just literally ignored all

58:04

of it. As I would imagine, he will ignore

58:06

people

58:07

mad at him that he went on, you know, the sequel

58:09

to come town, which is seen as like incredibly offensive.

58:12

So there's something to be said for just

58:14

ignoring this shit. I think.