0:05

How's your life? How's my life? Yeah.

0:09

It's okay. Summer's good. I like summer.

0:12

How's your life? Terrible. Really? It's

0:15

just like two money things going on at

0:17

once. Yeah, that's... You

0:20

know? Yeah. It's like measured out in coffee

0:22

spoons life. Hey

0:24

everyone. I know I just said my life was terrible,

0:26

but I'm here for you with all of

0:29

my energy. And this week, before we

0:31

get to our usual episode, we have a treat for

0:33

you. Everybody's been talking about the

0:35

new Barbie movie, and I happen to be friends with someone

0:37

who knows a lot about the making of that

0:39

movie and Barbie lore. So

0:42

I invited her on the show to tell you all

0:44

about it.

0:47

This week we are joined by the amazing

0:49

Willa Pasken of Dakota Ring, the

0:52

smartest, I guess you would say pop cultural

0:55

criticism melange in

0:57

the podcasting world. Hi Willa. Hi

1:00

Vanessa. That was very flattering. That

1:02

was really nice. That was nice, but I liked it. Thank you. It's

1:06

all true. You are

1:08

the foremost authority in America

1:10

on the movie of the year,

1:13

which is Barbie.

1:14

Hey Barbie. Can

1:17

I come to your house tonight? Sure. I

1:19

don't have anything big planned, just a giant blowout party

1:21

with all the Barbies and planned choreography and a bespoke

1:24

song. You should stop by.

1:25

So cool. I could not believe how

1:27

good this movie is. I thought it was going to be really

1:30

stupid, to be honest. Yeah,

1:32

I mean it's

1:33

very easy. Like

1:35

if you close your eyes and imagine

1:37

a Barbie movie, it's really easy

1:39

for it to be really dumb seeming, right? Yeah.

1:42

What do you think of when you close your eyes? Just

1:44

like some sort of,

1:46

like just spon-con, you know, like basically

1:49

just a commercial like for

1:51

kids. It

1:53

was all really pink and cloying

1:55

and you knew everything was going to happen. Right.

1:59

I mean, I took my- seven-year-old daughter to go see it. I

2:01

think she had like a Barbie or two, but she was really

2:03

into the Bratz dolls. And she used to say to

2:05

me, mommy, why don't you look like a Bratz?

2:08

Oh my gosh. Sorry. I

2:10

was like, because I'm not trash? Is

2:13

that me? But also just like, I mean, the Bratz

2:15

dolls are their own incredible wormhole

2:17

and they live on today as LOL dolls,

2:19

which my kids have. But yeah, they don't

2:21

even look like people, so. No, they

2:24

are definitely misshapen in the same way

2:26

that the morphology of Barbie

2:28

doesn't exist on this planet.

2:29

The Bratz definitely don't. But

2:32

anyway, I took her because I just thought to myself,

2:34

oh, the pain of this movie will at least

2:36

be lessened if I take my child. I feel

2:39

like I'm doing something good for her. And

2:41

then, you know, of course halfway through the

2:43

movie, I was like, this is maybe the most important

2:45

movie for women since

2:48

TAR. I think we can say.

2:51

Not for teenagers, but I take your point. I

2:53

take your point. You hung out with Greta

2:55

Gerwig, who is the director of this movie.

2:58

And I'm assuming we're one of the first people

3:00

on earth to actually see the movie. Tell me how this all

3:02

happened. Yes, that is basically

3:04

what happened. I was assigned

3:07

this piece by the Times Magazine. It

3:10

was in late May that sort of came together,

3:12

but they really were holding onto

3:14

it. You know, for film critics, there's sort

3:16

of like this famous thing that happens, which is that if a

3:18

movie is like a real turd, they

3:20

just don't show it at all. So like, if

3:23

there's no screenings, it's a bad

3:25

sign. And then obviously if it's like a good-

3:27

It's really true. Like it'll just come out on a Friday

3:30

and no critic will have seen it. Yeah, and the review comes

3:32

out on Saturday and it's like terrible. That's a thing

3:34

they do. And there's been sort of a sea change

3:37

because a lot of the very big, biggest

3:39

movies, the Marvel movies, they don't want to show

3:42

because

3:42

they're really, really concerned about spoilers

3:44

because while probably critics, reputable

3:46

critics for publications that are reputable

3:49

aren't just going to see it, to tell everyone what

3:51

happened in it, there is a huge audience for

3:53

that. And some

3:54

people who see the movies are. So they basically will

3:56

hold it till the Wednesday before and it comes

3:58

out on Friday deadline. That

4:02

is what ended up happening actually with

4:04

Barbie and Oppenheimer both, but

4:07

it's weird because when a movie is as good actually

4:09

as Barbie is and Oppenheimer, oftentimes

4:11

you're just like, oh no, like we should show it to critics

4:14

early because it'll only be good word of mouth and it'll be good.

4:16

But because of the nature of the frenzy

4:19

around it and because of how interested people were

4:21

in what was sort of in spoilers, they kind

4:23

of kept it close for longer than a movie

4:25

of its quality usually is, which is just a

4:28

very long winded way of saying

4:29

when I saw it, yes, very

4:31

few people had seen it. So wait, did you

4:33

get a screener with a watermark

4:35

on it or what was the procedure to see this

4:37

movie? No, the editor of the piece and I

4:40

went to the production office

4:42

where they were working on it, which

4:45

is like in Chelsea and like watched in a two person

4:47

like screening room. Edit bay?

4:49

Yeah. No, like in a screening room it had the good chairs

4:52

and like, but Greta was there because

4:54

it's where she was working, like nervously being

4:56

like, the color is not going to be right. And I'm like, I promise

4:59

I'm not going to be able to tell. That's

5:02

crazy. Yeah. She wasn't in the room with

5:04

you when you were watching it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean,

5:06

I think that would have been torture for everybody. That's like, you

5:08

know, sometimes they do for like the

5:10

listening parties for new CD, for like for new

5:13

records. Yes, absolutely. I have listened

5:15

to a Bjork album

5:18

with Bjork in the room

5:20

with me. And I kept turning to her and being like,

5:22

this is amazing. And she eventually was you don't need to

5:24

keep saying that. But why are you here? Like I can't

5:27

have an authentic reaction. Like this is totally

5:29

insane. It's horrible for them. It's a part.

5:31

So yes, she was not in the room. So because

5:33

we are the infamous podcast, we specifically

5:36

want to talk about Mattel and

5:38

Ruth Handler, who was the creator

5:40

of Barbie and how bananas

5:44

and scandalous she is. Can you

5:46

tell us about that? Did you know about any Barbie

5:48

history? No, I didn't. When

5:50

I started to

5:52

think about whether I could actually find the time

5:54

to do the piece, I really wanted to. I started

5:56

looking into it and it just immediately did

5:58

become clear there was so many

6:00

good stories in the story. And one

6:02

of them is that the Mattel story is a very

6:05

fascinating business story, just what's

6:07

happening with Mattel and has been happening with them for

6:09

probably the last decade. The 2000s

6:11

is a pretty incredible business story just in terms

6:13

of them turning it around. Not that I'm always so

6:15

happy for businesses to turn it around because some part

6:18

of me has left. That's the cognitive

6:20

dissonance of this whole movie. It's like, it's a great movie.

6:23

Now a whole new generation of girls can play with

6:25

Barbie. Yes, exactly, 100%. But

6:28

tell us what Mattel, how did it even

6:29

start? So basically

6:32

Barbie's origin story, which like all business

6:34

origin stories

6:37

has been repeated so many times that probably

6:39

it's been polished into a gleam. Massage,

6:41

yeah. But the story goes

6:44

that this woman Ruth Handler, who was a Jewish

6:46

business woman who had started Mattel

6:49

with her husband, a man named Elliot Handler, it's

6:51

actually named after Elliot and

6:53

this short-term business partner they had

6:55

whose first name was Matt, so it was Matt and

6:57

Elle. They had a toy company that started in 1945. They

7:00

started out of their garage, like all

7:02

California companies are meant to. And they

7:05

were doing pretty well. They made a bunch

7:07

of music toys like a Mickey Mouse

7:09

guitar. And she overheard her

7:11

daughter whose name is Barbara, but she

7:13

was Barbie, the first Barbie, playing with paper

7:15

dolls with her friends and sort of realized

7:18

as she was listening to them that there was no three-dimensional

7:21

doll

7:22

that girls could do the same with. There was only baby

7:24

dolls. Like that was the only kind of really popular

7:26

doll that I would get. So

7:28

she was like, we should make a doll that looks like a person,

7:31

like a grown-up for girls. And

7:34

everyone was like, I don't know. And then she basically goes

7:36

on a family vacation to Switzerland and comes

7:38

across this doll called the Build Lily, which

7:40

is essentially like, basically like

7:43

a sex doll for grown-up men.

7:45

I mean, that's kind

7:47

of what it is, like a pinup doll. But

7:50

it's a tiny, tiny pinup doll. Yeah,

7:52

like it literally looks incredibly like Barbie.

7:54

Like Barbie,

7:55

they ended up settling with them after Barbie went

7:57

for sale, but they basically took whatever.

8:00

like blonde like that's her proportions

8:02

and stuff she was like a

8:04

character in a cartoon

8:06

strip but for grown-ups it was like

8:08

a sexy doll for men so

8:10

she's like let's

8:14

bring it back to California

8:16

yes and basically sell it

8:18

to children yeah that's right I think

8:20

she slid right past this she was just like

8:22

this is sort of proof of concept this is the kind

8:25

of thing I'm talking about we could make a doll

8:28

and it could be this size you know and also I think

8:30

there ended up being quite a bit of manufacturing

8:33

hurdles with plastic molding like how

8:35

to get their fingers made just stuff like

8:37

that in the early weird

8:39

fingers yeah and there was like and it was quite

8:42

they had someone who is another total character

8:44

who actually ran a sex dungeon who's like the

8:46

guy who actually designed the Barbie

8:49

doll and like has all these patents for its joints

8:51

and stuff it's like a lot of stuff like that I think basically

8:54

it was important to say like we

8:56

could do it

8:57

almost not just like this is we could

8:59

do it theoretically this

9:01

is what it theoretically could look like but literally physically

9:04

here's an example we could sort of

9:06

figure out how to make it but that obviously

9:08

sort of is like the whole thing in a nutshell right it's

9:10

like from the very beginning

9:12

Barbie is both this sex toy

9:14

for men and this like aspirational object

9:17

for little girls and like both things have

9:19

always been true but I love that

9:21

Ruth was sort of running the business right

9:24

yeah with her husband but you you

9:26

have the sense that she was actually you know

9:28

she was she was the businesswoman and she was the

9:30

one who made this all happen and I mean that's pretty

9:33

weird for a woman in

9:35

1959 right

9:36

totally I mean I think they were very well

9:38

married is my sense they were together for a long time

9:41

and I think they were good

9:43

collaborators mm-hmm but yeah

9:45

totally she was running a

9:47

company I also didn't know that Barbie

9:50

is the name of well her daughter's

9:52

name Barbara and then her son

9:54

is named Ken I mean that's

9:59

I think it was like a little

10:01

fraught for both of them actually. In the

10:04

fullness of time. I can only imagine. Yeah,

10:06

totally. But yes. And

10:09

then so later on, you know, she I

10:11

guess takes Mattel to all sorts of heights

10:13

and makes herself a ton of money and then she

10:15

like defrauds her own company?

10:18

Well, this is all like very fuzzy,

10:21

but basically

10:22

she had breast cancer. And

10:25

so again, the narrative around this is that in

10:27

the early 70s when she

10:30

first had breast cancer, she sort of was not

10:33

running the company day to day.

10:35

And in that period,

10:38

they started to have some financial troubles.

10:40

Basically, they just sort of covered up the extent

10:43

of the financial troubles. They kind of like cooked the books

10:45

a bit and they ended

10:46

up running afoul of the SEC.

10:49

And it's one of those things where like she did end up having

10:51

to do community service, but she never

10:53

had to say she was guilty. She did not

10:55

plead guilty. So she didn't go to prison. She

10:58

just had to do a lot of community service. And it's not that she

11:00

didn't do something. You

11:02

know, but like it maybe it wasn't just like

11:04

it sounds like it was a lot of you know, there was a bunch of

11:06

people involved. But yes, they did get

11:08

pushed out of the company. But you know, it's

11:10

like any company that's been around

11:13

for as long as Mattel has will have these ups and

11:15

downs. And also, I mean, that is the thing about the doll

11:17

too is it's so

11:19

incredibly rare for

11:22

a doll to be a going concern

11:24

for like 10

11:25

years or 20 years, let

11:27

alone 60 years. It's not done. It's

11:30

not important. It's an important doll. Yeah,

11:33

but like it's just like there isn't some other doll

11:35

from like when our parents were children, when our parents were

11:37

children actually Barbie didn't exist. But you know, there's not some other

11:39

doll from 1959 that we still play with.

11:42

No, absolutely. This is

11:44

the doll. I mean, I thought it was amazing though

11:46

that you write in like 2015 there, you know, that's like

11:50

the nadir of Barbie sells, right?

11:52

Yeah, this idea that they had done some market

11:54

research or something and like mothers

11:57

were saying they didn't feel comfortable

11:59

giving.

11:59

Barbie dolls at birthday parties. They thought

12:02

that said something bad about themselves.

12:04

Oh, yeah. So it's well known that Mattel

12:07

was on very hard times at that point. And

12:09

actually, I think because of what's happened since and the

12:11

change in leadership, they're very open

12:13

about

12:14

talking about that moment as this pivotal

12:16

point in a way that you could imagine a company might

12:18

not be if it wasn't part of their new narrative. But

12:21

I talked to a bunch of people at Mattel, and yes, the

12:23

birthday party anecdote was from one of

12:25

them. I mean, they're constantly doing work at research. They're

12:27

constantly testing the doll. And this really

12:30

seems so obvious that it stood out to her. Moms

12:34

don't want to

12:35

be associated with what Barbie stands

12:38

for. That is a red flag

12:40

for them. That's

12:42

definitely a red flag. I mean,

12:45

so basically, can you describe what that early

12:48

one with the black and white

12:50

bathing suit looked like? What did that original Barbie

12:52

look like, and how did it morph? The first ever

12:54

Barbie came out in 1959, and she is blonde. And

12:59

she actually has bangs

13:00

and a ponytail. And she's wearing this

13:03

black and white striped.

13:05

I tried to describe it as zebra, and Mattel

13:07

corrected us from fact checking

13:09

that it was chevron. It's alternating

13:12

lines. Stripes. Yes. It's a better sort of

13:15

slanted towards the center, on a diagonal.

13:17

And it's like a bathing suit. And she has hoop earrings

13:19

and sunglasses and high heels. And

13:22

that was the first one. It was like the teen fashion model.

13:25

One of the early key

13:26

Barbie Mattel employees was

13:28

this woman, Charlotte Johnson, who designed all

13:31

the outfits that lived in Japan for a year, because

13:33

that's what it was in production, to make it. And

13:35

I mean, the story of Barbie's clothes is like 100% the

13:37

story of fast fashion, which is to say these early clothes

13:40

had miniature zippers and snaps, just like

13:42

impeccable, perfect. And now they're just like

13:44

literally, I mean, like a piece of polyester, whatever.

13:49

Yeah. So over the years, until

13:51

sort of the recent makeover, the

13:53

doll has changed. She had her eyes

13:56

had been downcast.

13:56

And in the early 70s, along with feminism,

13:58

she started to look out.

13:59

like she looked at, you know, and there've

14:02

been some changes like that. And then

14:04

and it started in the early 1980s, they

14:06

introduced a black Barbie and an Asian Barbie

14:08

and a Hispanic Barbie, but they sort of were

14:10

the secondary Barbies. There had also earlier

14:13

been there used to be other Barbie characters, some of

14:15

which are in the movie. Now there's just Barbies

14:17

and Ken's. But and there's also why is there never a baby

14:19

Barbie? Why does she never have a baby? Basically,

14:21

they decided they Ruth

14:22

Handler didn't want to do it. But I don't

14:25

know. Just baked in

14:27

now. Barbie doesn't have a baby. That's not

14:29

Barbie's thing.

14:31

Basically, they come up with this idea that

14:34

I guess they get new CEOs and blah, blah, blah, blah. OK,

14:36

they make a bunch of different skin colors, right? Which

14:38

is obvious they had to do that.

14:40

It was 1980 before Mattel released the

14:43

first black and Latina dolls actually

14:45

named Barbie. And

14:47

in 2016, three new body types

14:49

were introduced. Curvy, petite

14:52

and tall.

14:53

And then they come up with this idea like we should

14:55

have a movie like Barbie is

14:57

IP. Well, I think that with both

14:59

of those ideas, those ideas have been

15:02

around, I think, for a long time. There's

15:04

a very good Hulu documentary about

15:07

the 2015 2016 sort of remaking of Barbie like

15:10

with the different skin tones and hair colors

15:12

and facial shapes and also body sizes.

15:15

And and they mentioned in that that like this is not

15:17

the first time they were like, we could do

15:19

that, right? It's just the first time they were threatened

15:22

enough that they

15:23

had to do it. And the movie is not

15:25

totally dissimilar. There had been a movie

15:28

in the works since 2009. And

15:31

it's possible they've been talking about it for much longer.

15:33

The IP stuff is so, so, so

15:36

all around us that like

15:38

it's not possible that they didn't consider it. I mean, they're

15:40

pretty there. I mean, the whole thing

15:42

that's interesting about the movie and its

15:44

success is like also that they're extremely late,

15:47

right? Like they are right to this game. Like Hasbro.

15:50

I mean, there's honestly one of their like eight Transformers

15:52

movies. Like I don't like, you know, like

15:54

they're late here. They have

15:57

been late

15:57

but like caught up like not, you know, have. announce

16:00

themselves with a splash. Although we can talk about it, I don't

16:02

know how well it's going to work for them going forward, but needless

16:04

to say. Hot Pockets, yeah, I don't think

16:06

Hot Pockets is like a... Poly pocket. Poly

16:09

pocket. Poly pocket. I'm

16:12

sorry. Hot Wheels, Poly Pocket, whatever. Hot

16:14

Wheels could do something. My son would love to watch some Hot

16:16

Wheels movies. So then they get Greta Gerwig

16:18

and then they get this incredible movie that is like

16:21

so smart in so

16:23

many ways and weird

16:25

and funny and makes fun of the doll.

16:28

So you see the movie and do

16:29

you think to yourself, oh my God,

16:32

this is the most massive hit ever? Or

16:34

did you not? No, I thought something like,

16:36

oh, that was like good. Do you know what I mean?

16:39

I was like, I liked that. It

16:41

seems to do everything it's supposed to do.

16:43

The editor I was with, she liked that. And then it's actually

16:46

just a funny thing where you're like, we think that was good.

16:48

That was good. Are we right? Do

16:50

we know if it's good? It seemed good. Because

16:53

also, this is, as you said, the cognitive

16:56

dissonance of something like this is like,

16:58

we thought it was good. But also it is just such a weird

17:01

undertaking in this way because it is to

17:03

sell Barbie. And also there was

17:05

this funny thing that was happening just simultaneously,

17:08

which was that for like a month, a

17:10

couple of weeks after I'd seen it, everyone

17:12

was just like, seemed so amped about it still.

17:15

And then it sort of started to

17:16

micro turn. I mean, this is just like one of those things

17:18

you could just tell if you're like on Twitter too much

17:21

or on. Which is people started

17:23

just be like, I'm feeling force

17:25

fed the

17:26

publicity for this because it's so, so

17:28

everywhere. And it's just started to feel like, oh,

17:30

right. This is actually a lot.

17:33

It is inescapable. And if

17:35

it had been anything but extremely good. I

17:38

think it was starting to the point that some people were

17:40

starting to be like, okay, I'd be happier

17:42

with this to be bad now. Well,

17:45

I mean, you say this on the daily, but I went on Google.

17:48

There's pink sparkles for Barbie. For

17:50

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling

17:52

and Greta Gerwig. All of their names do

17:54

it. That's

17:56

actually one of the things that's really interesting about

17:58

it is that and it's media too,

18:01

and this is why it was everywhere, which is that

18:03

Barbie has something like 98%

18:06

recognition across the world, and it's

18:09

run by a huge company that has their

18:12

shit together basically. And so

18:14

in this very, very fragmented

18:17

cultural universe, that is something that everybody

18:20

wants a piece of. So there's a way that it was like

18:22

a no-brainer for all of these

18:24

people to sign these licensing deals and marketing

18:27

agreements with Mattel, and we all

18:29

need something that people care a lot about, and you

18:31

can see the amount of interest in

18:33

it that gets more interest because it's just,

18:35

well, everybody knows what this thing is. It's like a rising

18:38

tide. No, no, no, totally. And everybody feels

18:40

like they have to go see this movie because everybody else has

18:42

seen the movie. So what do you think happens?

18:44

Obviously, it's going to make billions of dollars,

18:47

but do you think that

18:49

there's a long tail and it wins the Oscar,

18:51

or do you think this is just

18:54

one of those American feverish

18:56

summer things where people just think about

18:59

this thing all the time for a couple weeks and then they're like,

19:01

oh, what was that? Now I'm back to school. Yeah, I mean, I obviously

19:03

have no idea, but I think all of those things,

19:05

I actually think

19:05

all of those things will happen. I think

19:07

it will be a long feverish summer

19:10

of it, which is irregular for a movie.

19:12

I think it will win some Oscars. I don't

19:15

know that it's going to win Best Picture because Oppenheimer

19:17

might, but I think Greta Grohweg

19:19

definitely could win Best Director, and it'll probably win for

19:21

whatever screenplay awards up for, you know what I mean?

19:23

And it'll be nominated for a bunch of stuff

19:25

because it is going to make a billion dollars, which is insane

19:28

for a comedy, basically. And then I actually think

19:30

it just ... I said this

19:33

in the piece and I mean it, this to me is just

19:35

such obviously, among other things,

19:37

just such a slumber party movie.

19:40

Right, for sure. You're just like, kids are ...

19:42

It is, you know? Thirteen-year-olds are going

19:44

to be watching it for a long,

19:47

long, long time. So is

19:49

there a sequel?

19:50

And what happens in it? I have no idea

19:52

what happens in it. I mean, I think the

19:54

pressure for there to be a sequel is exorbitant,

19:57

and I'm sure they want one

19:59

to exist.

19:59

And I would guess that there will

20:02

be one. I don't know who will be involved, you

20:04

know what I mean? The last line in that movie is

20:06

so great. The last sequence in that movie

20:09

is so good. She's gonna become a real girl.

20:11

I

20:11

mean, she has a vagina. It's like such a great joke.

20:14

And so I don't know where they go from there, you know

20:16

what I mean? Like... How

20:18

can you be Barbie if you have that piece of anatomy?

20:21

It's true. That's the whole... That is the

20:23

er thing about Barbies. But

20:25

the whole thing they did is, like, no one else would have

20:27

dreamed that up, so they could come up with something else. Thank

20:30

you so much. You can hear Willa Paskin on

20:32

Decoder Ring, which is an amazing

20:35

podcast that's been running for forever. Thank you

20:37

so much, Willa. Thank you. We'll be

20:39

back after a break with a story, not

20:41

about dolls, but about the people who usually

20:44

play with dolls. I'm

20:46

talking about children.

20:55

Our national parks and forests are

20:58

home to some of the most picturesque views

21:00

on the globe. But sometimes

21:02

the most beautiful places hide the

21:04

darkest secrets. I'm

21:06

Delia D'Ambra, and in my show, Park

21:09

Predators, that's what I'm here to warn you

21:11

about. Join me every Tuesday,

21:13

all summer long, as we dive into cases

21:15

that continue to haunt the histories of

21:17

these beautiful destinations.

21:20

Listen to Park Predators now, wherever

21:22

you listen to podcasts.

21:25

From Tenderfoot TV, the creators of the hit

21:27

show Radio Rental comes an all-new

21:29

Scary Stories podcast, Rattled

21:32

and Shook. Rattled and Shook is a

21:34

weekly horror comedy podcast. You

21:36

can think of it as a variety show, filled with creepy

21:38

vibes and balanced with some lighthearted

21:40

fun. Join hosts April and Meredith

21:43

every week as they discuss new scary stories,

21:46

play horror-themed games, invite special

21:48

guests, and more. Listen for free on the

21:50

Odyssey app, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts,

21:53

or wherever you get your podcasts. You're

21:56

listening to Infamous.

21:58

campsite media.

22:01

So there's this school in

22:03

New York City. It's a really fancy private

22:06

school where tuition costs tens

22:08

of thousands of dollars a year. And

22:10

the kids? They have a lot

22:12

of power. They just pick on us because they can,

22:15

because no one says not to. That's

22:17

one of the teachers. You see, at this

22:20

school, there's sort of a reverse power

22:22

dynamic. Very different than you would expect.

22:25

The teachers are scared of the students.

22:28

And

22:28

if you try to fail them, between

22:30

your laptop and the office, an F becomes

22:32

a C. And a C becomes valedictorian

22:35

in a top spot at the ivy of their choice.

22:37

Because when the students happen to be

22:39

the kids of some of the most powerful

22:41

people in America, teachers

22:44

can quickly become pawns.

22:46

The school has always been a breeding ground

22:48

for the worst kinds of people. Is it really

22:50

their fault they inherited power and influence

22:53

the minute they were born without any examples

22:55

of how not to abuse it? The teachers you're

22:57

hearing from are from HBO's Gossip

22:59

Girl reboot. But the story we're

23:01

about to tell you is real life.

23:04

And as it turns out, Gossip Girl

23:06

wasn't too far from the truth when it comes to

23:08

life behind the walls of elite private

23:10

schools.

23:13

From campsite media and Sony Music Entertainment,

23:16

I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis. I'm

23:18

Gabe Sherman. And this is Infamous.

23:29

If you think about the sorts of elite private schools

23:31

that are out there, well, there's essentially

23:34

two kinds. There's the dead poet

23:36

society kind where teachers inspire

23:38

and shape even the most cynical students.

23:40

And there's

23:41

the Gossip Girl kind where the cynicism of

23:47

money

23:52

and elitism corrupts the education. And

23:55

this story is about a kerfuffle that happened at

23:57

one of those

23:57

Gossip Girl schools. named

24:00

Horace Mann. It's in the Bronx,

24:02

about 10 miles north of Times Square, and about 15

24:05

years ago, teachers,

24:08

students, the administration, and

24:10

the school board all locked horns.

24:13

The dispute was about a social media scandal

24:16

and a book called Academy X, and

24:19

it all resulted in the resignation

24:21

of some teachers. And it showed

24:24

who holds the real power

24:26

in elite education.

24:29

Now, Horace Mann is not just any

24:31

prep school. It's one of the premier

24:33

prep schools in New York City, which you know means

24:35

that they take themselves very seriously. Horace

24:38

Mann kids go on to

24:40

Ivy League universities, and then they go

24:43

on to run the worlds of finance

24:45

and business and media and politics.

24:48

I mean,

24:49

these are the Nepo babies of tomorrow.

24:52

So what happens at this high school

24:55

matters. So Gabe, have you seen

24:57

Gossip Girl? I mean, is that a trick question?

25:01

I work in media. I live in New York.

25:04

Come on. So what did

25:06

you think about it? I thought it was

25:08

compulsively watchable because this is

25:10

a world that, you know, is very

25:12

secretive and rarefied, and we get glimpses

25:15

of, but to live in it was kind

25:17

of enjoyable and also horrifying. The

25:19

town cars, the black town cars dropping kids

25:22

off at their private schools. The Spring Break in St. Bart's,

25:24

Summers in the Hamptons. Exactly. Just

25:27

being raised by the English nanny because

25:29

your parents are too busy going

25:31

to special events and their board

25:34

meetings. And so I'm

25:36

fascinated by the adults and the children

25:38

on Gossip Girl and their relationships and the way

25:40

they're like, you know.

25:41

Well, the kids are like mini adults, right? Yeah.

25:44

So there's all these dynamics, right, in

25:46

a private school. There's obviously

25:48

the parents who are paying the bill, and then there's their

25:50

children who are apples of their eye. And

25:52

then there's also the administration who

25:54

serves at the pleasure of the

25:57

board, right?

25:58

So the story I want to tell you... is about that relationship.

26:01

What do I think of when I hear the words horseman? I

26:05

think of openness

26:07

to learning. I think

26:09

of a warm, supportive environment.

26:12

I think of great teachers, lots

26:15

of characters. You get

26:17

off the one train and there's bodegas and

26:19

little restaurants there.

26:20

Right, and it's the Bronx. And

26:22

then you go up the hill and you're in these beautiful

26:25

Tudor and Victorian houses, and it just

26:27

feels like when you're there, you're sealed

26:29

off from the rest of reality. Right. Which

26:32

I think feeds on this idea that when you're there, you

26:34

live in this world where the rules don't apply.

26:36

I believe in a bright future for

26:38

my kids because of horsemen. I

26:41

believe in equal opportunity and empowerment.

26:44

I believe in diplomacy and compromise.

26:47

I believe in precision and

26:49

focus. I believe

26:50

in having fun. One thing

26:52

I like to think of it as it's like

26:55

the junior division of the New York elite, right?

26:57

You have like Puff Daddy's kids went

26:59

there, but then you also have like investment bankers'

27:01

children's and white shoe law firms' children. So

27:03

you have this like agglomeration

27:06

of like the culture and media and entertainment

27:08

elite, and then the financial elite. And so

27:10

when you go there, you really come out

27:12

of there from the kids I've met thinking that like, you

27:15

run the world.

27:16

Right, I mean, I was talking

27:18

to another friend of mine who has a kid at one of these schools

27:20

and I was like, is this school, like you

27:22

said, actually diverse now? And he was like, yeah,

27:25

it's pretty diverse. I mean, there are people there whose

27:27

hedge funds aren't doing that well.

27:28

Don't think

27:31

that was our measure of diversity. Yeah.

27:34

Horseman used to be a very different kind of place,

27:37

much more dead poet society than

27:39

Gossip Girl. I mean, Jack

27:42

Kerouac and William Carlos Williams

27:44

went there, but over the years,

27:46

became more and more about money

27:49

and power and privileged Bratty students

27:51

running amok. Let

27:54

me take you back to the mid aughts.

27:57

Low rise jeans were in. Charles

28:00

Berkeley's song, Crazy, was nonstop

28:02

on the radio. And Facebook

28:05

was this cool, exclusive new thing

28:07

that you could only join with a school

28:10

email address. And that's when

28:12

Gabe caught wind of a wild story.

28:15

I'm at lunch at Michael's, which in

28:17

the mid 2000s was like the media cafeteria

28:21

for Conde Nast and all the big Midtown

28:24

media companies. And I was gossiping

28:26

with someone over lunch and they said, you know, by

28:28

the way, there's this incredible scandal happening

28:30

at the Horace Mann School, where all

28:33

these rich kids created these racist Facebook

28:35

pages and misogynistic

28:38

pages. And they were posting like the most insane

28:40

things on the internet.

28:42

And when the teachers found out about it,

28:44

the teachers got in trouble, not the kids. I

28:46

was like, all right, well that like, even if half

28:48

of that is true, that's a story. So

28:50

I start reporting and I find out

28:52

that

28:53

there's a teacher named Peter Sheehy,

28:55

who was a history teacher, who is married

28:57

to the former Us Weekly editor Janice Min. Amazing.

29:01

And already I know this is gonna

29:03

be a good story. And so I start

29:05

talking to people in the Horace Mann world. And

29:07

as these people start to lay out, what happened

29:09

was that one morning at the start of the school

29:11

year in 2006, Peter's

29:15

at home, just, you know, kind of getting caught

29:17

up before the school year starts. So

29:19

he logs into Facebook and he

29:22

clicks around and he discovers

29:23

that there's these Facebook clubs, like

29:25

one's called the Men's Issues Club.

29:28

And on these pages, kids

29:30

just post the most obscene, racist

29:33

and misogynist. Oh no. And kids

29:35

on it were the sons and

29:37

daughters of both trustees and,

29:39

you know, prominent members

29:42

of

29:42

New York's power elite.

29:44

And one club member referred to an English

29:47

teacher as a crazy ass bitch and

29:49

a French teacher as an acid casualty. Another

29:51

boy boasted that he's the only person here who

29:53

actually beats women when he's drunk. No

29:56

joke.

29:56

Oh my God. That's a direct quote. Oh my God.

29:59

And another one bragged.

29:59

that he had banged a teacher in the music department

30:02

bathroom and will get a great college wreck

30:04

for the accomplishment.

30:06

Men need to have a voice. We aren't meant to

30:08

be seen and not heard.

30:10

Let freedom ring, bitches. Oh

30:12

shit. Oh my God. So

30:15

Peter is in his bedroom at home scrolling

30:17

this and he's horrified what he sees. And

30:20

then he finds another club called McGuire

30:22

Survivors, and it's another student Facebook group

30:24

dedicated to his colleague, Daniel McGuire,

30:27

who's a 33 year old history teacher. One

30:30

kid refers to Daniel McGuire as quote,

30:32

the official minority rights officer and

30:34

head of protection for feminist society.

30:37

And McGuire is quote, the representative

30:40

of oppressed Indians of America.

30:43

So Peter finds out about these things

30:45

and he's like, holy shit, these are really rich and

30:47

powerful kids who created these disgusting pages.

30:50

And he does what any

30:52

normal thinking person would do as he reports

30:55

it to his superiors. At Harzman. At Harzman.

30:57

Yeah. So Peter reports it to the headmaster.

30:59

Okay, I'm just going to jump in here for a second

31:02

to let you know that the headmaster of Horzman

31:04

was a guy named Tom Kelly.

31:06

Now he wasn't just hired because of his background

31:08

in education. I think it also helped that

31:10

in the past he'd run a huge construction

31:13

project while he was the head of the Westchester

31:15

School District. Harzman was expanding

31:17

and the board wanted somebody who could see that construction

31:20

through.

31:20

I think this is really important to understand why

31:23

somebody like Thomas Kelly, who was the Harzman

31:26

headmaster, got the job. Search

31:28

committee had looked at other private school

31:30

headmasters. And I think the board

31:32

wanted somebody like Thomas Kelly, who is

31:35

not of the private school world, who would maybe be

31:37

a little more starry eyed about getting

31:40

invited into this club and would be more,

31:42

you know, at the bidding of the board. I think,

31:45

you know, there's always this tension when you're the headmaster

31:47

of a school of, are you in charge

31:49

or are you just serving at the pleasure of the board?

31:52

But they don't want somebody too autonomous,

31:54

right? I mean, it just seems like they wanted

31:57

somebody who would pose no threat to

31:59

them whatsoever.

31:59

would be just happy to be there. Like

32:02

the kind of guy that just feels lucky to

32:04

have the job. And this is what

32:06

I find the most disgusting part of the entire story.

32:09

Rewinding the previous year, the

32:11

head of Horace Mann's technology department

32:14

held a seminar

32:15

for all of the faculty.

32:17

And he basically said,

32:19

you guys need to be aware of what's happening on social

32:21

media. Like nothing that

32:23

gets posted on the internet is private. Like here's

32:25

how you can monitor Facebook groups.

32:28

And he showed them how you can log in using

32:30

like your middle name and your

32:32

Horace Mann email address. Cause back then, if we

32:34

remember, Facebook was like only for students.

32:37

So this was sanctioned by the school. They

32:39

showed, they literally showed teachers how

32:42

to snoop on Facebook. So Peter,

32:45

she is doing exactly what the school has

32:47

advised them to do.

32:49

So a few days after finding

32:51

out about these clubs, Peter calls

32:53

Tom Kelly, the head of the school. And so Tom

32:55

Kelly calls an emergency meeting after school

32:58

that's attended by the faculty, basically

33:00

like the grievance committee, which is like the teachers

33:02

that are meant to deal with student issues.

33:05

And within hours of this meeting, several

33:09

of the children of board members are

33:11

mysteriously taken off the clubs

33:13

pages. Like somebody had tipped them off. And

33:15

so like the really powerful kids suddenly are like erased

33:18

and I don't know if they took screenshots, but like they

33:20

were clearly starting the coverup.

33:23

Then all of a sudden the headmaster calls

33:25

Peter Sheehy into a meeting and says, I'm

33:28

getting a lot of pressure. The board thinks

33:30

you guys overreached and we're spying on the kids

33:32

and that's fucked up.

33:33

As Peter's processing this, he finds

33:36

out that a kid has written a letter to

33:38

the student newspaper,

33:39

basically saying, this

33:41

is also fucked up that the teachers were spying.

33:43

And suddenly it seems like there's this political campaign

33:46

from the board and also students who are

33:48

trying to like change the narrative and make

33:50

this a debate about free speech

33:52

rather than like the substance of racism and

33:54

misogyny. And this is where Andrew Treese's book

33:57

comes into play.

33:59

So Andrew Treese. was a teacher at the

34:01

school, and his novel would end

34:03

up becoming ammunition for the students

34:05

and for the parents who were embroiled in

34:08

the Facebook scandal.

34:10

That's after the break. Casey

34:20

Shane was murdered in the middle of an August night,

34:22

shot point-blank while idling in his Dodge

34:25

pickup truck in North Indianapolis.

34:27

There was no physical evidence, no

34:30

known motive, and no one coming

34:32

forward with information. Except one woman

34:34

who swears to this day she saw Leon

34:37

Detroit Benson pull the trigger. Leon

34:39

Benson was sentenced to 60 years in prison,

34:42

all because one person swore they saw something.

34:45

But what if she was wrong? And what if we could

34:47

prove it? From Wondery and Campside

34:49

Media

34:49

comes season three of the

34:51

hit podcast Suspect, co-hosted

34:54

by me, Matt Sher, alongside

34:56

attorney Laura Basilon. This

34:58

is a story of a botched police investigation,

35:00

the dangers of shaky eyewitness

35:02

testimony, and a community who feared

35:05

law enforcement. With good reason. Listen

35:08

to Suspect, five shots in the dark,

35:10

wherever you get your podcasts, or

35:12

binge all eight episodes ad-free

35:14

on Wondery Plus. Find Wondery Plus

35:16

in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

35:20

In New Orleans 2012, Bruce

35:22

Kechera drove to an address someone had

35:24

given him that didn't exist. As

35:27

he stood in the parking lot where the address should

35:29

have been, he was shot and killed. I'm

35:31

Delia D'Ambra, join me for the newest

35:33

season of Counterclock as I dive into the

35:35

motive behind Bruce's murder, and

35:38

a series of events that have never been fully

35:40

investigated until now. Binge

35:42

all 14 episodes of Counterclock season 5,

35:46

wherever you listen to podcasts.

35:55

with

36:00

the Facebook groups and the teachers supposedly

36:03

spying on the kids. There'd been

36:05

a different free speech debate on

36:07

campus. And it was all

36:09

about a book this teacher, Andrew

36:12

Tries wrote.

36:13

Andrew Tries is a teacher at the Horace Mann School

36:16

and like both of us is fascinated and you

36:18

know a little horrified by the culture of excess

36:21

and extreme wealth. And so he decides

36:23

to write a satirical novel about

36:26

a New York City private school called

36:28

Academy X. And the

36:31

book publisher and its like infinite wisdom

36:33

of marketing decided to like sell

36:35

this book as a New York City private

36:37

school teacher was going to like blow the whistle on

36:39

what it's really like. And so then

36:42

you know he had to tell Horace Mann that

36:43

he was writing this book and suddenly

36:46

the board is like, wait a minute, you're a teacher at our

36:48

school and you're writing a tell all

36:50

even if it's quote fiction about the school.

36:53

One of our producers wrote a recap of the novel.

36:56

It's a shitty English teacher who's trying to keep his head

36:58

low at the end of the year. And he's

37:00

sort of attracted to the 16 year old rich girl in

37:02

his class who is bright but she's not

37:04

the brightest in the class. That's another girl and that

37:06

girl hates the rich girl. But there's basically

37:08

like there's an essay contest and both girls are

37:11

up for it. And then you

37:13

know there's a plagiarism scandal and

37:17

one of these hot girls tries to seduce

37:19

the teacher.

37:20

Part of me reading this was like I don't know

37:23

if this guy should not have

37:25

gotten into trouble for this. I mean there

37:27

is stuff in this book where he's like

37:30

talking about you know creamy shoulders

37:32

and stuff like that where you're like wow

37:35

okay you're looking at that girl you know she's got

37:37

a very skimpy outfit on. So

37:40

basically there is this teacher he's written

37:42

this book.

37:43

The board is sort of pissed about it but

37:45

the administration is standing behind him right like

37:47

the headmaster who we were just talking about. He's

37:49

like

37:50

no you know what this is a fictional

37:52

book.

37:53

I'll stand behind this guy.

37:54

I'm not sure why. Do you know why?

37:56

I mean I think the idea was

37:58

like A I don't think the

37:59

sold very well. So the idea was that it's going

38:02

to blow over and, you know,

38:04

sometimes these scandals take like firing

38:07

him might actually give more oxygen to it than

38:10

just ignoring it. So I did get a tape

38:13

of one meeting where the headmaster

38:15

Tom Kelly is meeting with Andrew

38:17

Trees, basically saying, I

38:19

don't think

38:20

the book is that big of a deal. Exactly.

38:23

It's very, I do believe

38:25

most of the administrators understand that. You know,

38:27

we're such a intellectual population. It's not legal

38:30

or illegal, but does it

38:31

speak to a mature respectful

38:33

climate? Does it speak to life of the mind? Tom

38:36

says, well, I'm just trying to referee there.

38:38

And I said to the board, guys, take

38:40

a deep breath. You know what? If

38:42

after you read the book, really a panic, come

38:45

on up, we'll talk. The

38:46

kids were pretty, pretty

38:50

aware of the fact that satire and

38:52

it is what it is. Other

38:55

kids feedback. No one's come to me. No

38:57

one said anything. My number one

38:59

battle cry, particularly to the administrative structure

39:01

has been to remind them

39:04

you are an employee.

39:06

And Kelly even joked to the board. He said

39:08

that he had toyed with the idea of writing a tell all

39:10

himself. Tom Kelly says, you know, they're

39:12

nervous about me

39:13

because I joked with one of them and I said, what

39:16

are you kidding me? I got out to only two years

39:18

left on my contract here. I'll do Academy

39:20

X uncensored. And they're like, that's not

39:22

funny. We'll

39:23

hear from we'll hear from New York, the

39:26

New York Times by the way. We'll

39:28

hear from the Wall Street Journal right away.

39:30

And someone says, Tom, what

39:32

if you get hijacked in the media? Tom, if you

39:34

get hijacked by the media, I said,

39:37

look, my response to Larry, Larry

39:39

King. I just got here. I'm trying

39:41

to clean the ship. Our response

39:43

within the walls is

39:48

going to be why would the heart

39:49

and soul offer common on a novel? We

39:51

don't need book reviews. One kid

39:53

in the building has an advanced readers copy.

39:56

And I was surprised. I heard one of

39:58

three kids had said, you know, they're

39:59

Dr. Kelly, I've actually

40:02

seen the cover. And I said, well, that's online.

40:04

So one family must be in the publishing business. You

40:07

think these guys are either their erudite

40:09

or their apparatchiks,

40:10

but they're not this. He sounds like a boob.

40:13

I mean, he's like. He really sounds

40:15

like some sort of middle management dude who

40:19

just runs like a car dealership.

40:22

Yeah, exactly, like a used car salesman. I mean,

40:24

it really is, to me, so

40:27

it's just fascinating that the board would

40:29

want this guy to be the headmaster

40:32

of Horace Mann. So basically, as the scandal

40:34

unfolds, the kids start to say, well,

40:36

wait a minute, why can a teacher write

40:38

creepy things about us and write a novel

40:41

and profit off of a book about

40:43

our school, but we can't say racist

40:45

and sexist things and private on Facebook?

40:47

I mean, that's the crux of the debate.

40:49

That's such a weird argument that, okay.

40:51

But- I mean, there is a privacy. There probably is

40:54

a privacy issue there. There

40:56

is, I guess, a First Amendment issue. But

40:58

I mean, that's not- Or

41:01

do you think there is?

41:02

No, I mean, I just like the idea that,

41:04

yeah, that's a hill you want to die on. You want to defend

41:06

your right to say racist and misogynistic

41:09

things. I mean, again, I'm struck

41:11

by when I look back at this story, just at how

41:15

rapidly campus politics have changed,

41:18

but it did become a debate about free

41:20

speech because of this book that was written. And

41:23

so Tom Kelly, the headmaster, calls a whole

41:25

school assembly and he says, listen, let's

41:27

just dial the temperature down and

41:30

we need to have a debate about free

41:32

speech and appropriate speech,

41:34

and let's just start

41:36

a dialogue.

41:38

But that assembly didn't cool things

41:40

down. In fact, it ended

41:42

up doing the opposite. At just

41:45

an FYI, we reached out to Tom

41:47

Kelly for comment, but did not hear

41:49

back. More after

41:51

the break.

42:02

This is Infamous from Campside

42:05

Media. Two

42:07

Horace Mann teachers, Peter Sheehy

42:10

and Daniel McGuire, told the administration

42:13

about some Facebook groups that targeted

42:15

teachers on campus with racist

42:18

and misogynistic posts.

42:20

Almost immediately, the administration

42:22

faced this intense pressure from

42:25

the board of trustees. And some

42:27

of the board members were parents of students

42:29

in those Facebook

42:30

groups. They wanted the teachers

42:32

punished for spying. The headmaster,

42:35

Tom Kelly, he called an assembly

42:37

to cool things down. But

42:40

while Kelly addressed students, board

42:42

members also held a meeting,

42:45

just across campus.

42:47

As Peter Sheehy and Daniel

42:49

McGuire are leaving this assembly, they're

42:51

walking out on the quad on campus,

42:54

and they're accosted by a board member whose

42:56

daughter had formed the anti-Daniel

42:58

McGuire Club. And this woman, she's

43:01

wearing alligator sunglasses and says, you

43:03

know, you two, you logged into Facebook under

43:05

a false name. And then Danielle

43:07

says, well, I had a right to defend myself against defamation.

43:11

And then this woman in the alligator sunglasses

43:13

says, well, students are just blowing off steam. They're

43:16

very stressed. It's

43:17

not unusual for them to say racist and sexist

43:19

things. The site is private.

43:21

Danielle says, you got to be kidding me. Facebook's

43:25

not private at the time. It had nine million users.

43:29

And then incredulously, the alligator

43:31

sunglass board member says, well, what you did was

43:34

like breaking into my daughter's room and reading her

43:36

diary. And Danielle snaps

43:38

back, no, what your daughter did

43:40

was the equivalent of posting something in Times Square.

43:43

The head of the history department sees this altercation.

43:46

He walks over to try to like diffuse the situation.

43:49

And alligator sunglass board member says

43:52

that Maguire is totally out of control and alleges

43:55

that Danielle called the kid a Nazi

43:57

in class. Oh, my God. So now suddenly,

43:59

Danielle.

43:59

Danielle McGuire is being investigated for antisemitism.

44:02

Oh, Jesus Christ, what a shit

44:04

show. Which creates even more of a shit show because

44:07

as Danielle told me at the time,

44:09

she had been a seeker a lot

44:11

of her life and has actually converted to Judaism

44:14

and married a Jewish doctor. Wow, okay.

44:17

But now suddenly she's the antisemite. Right, right, right.

44:19

And she's like not even feeling safe to come

44:21

to school anymore. And now there's

44:23

a rumor she hears that they're claiming

44:26

that there's a tape of her saying this. Jesus.

44:29

She basically says to the school, either

44:31

produce the tape or not, but I'm not coming back.

44:34

And of course there is no such tape

44:37

and the whole thing was bullshit. But

44:39

she had basically, the kids

44:41

had marshaled both the newspaper, the board,

44:44

and their parents to make this teacher feel completely

44:47

bullied and unsafe on campus. So in November

44:50

of that school year, the school clears

44:52

Danielle McGuire of making any antisemitic remarks.

44:56

And then the kids are finally punished. The

44:58

creator of the men's issue club, the one who said,

45:01

where do women belong? In the kitchen. Well,

45:03

that kid withdrew from the school, but the rest of the kids

45:05

on the Facebook club, only two of

45:07

them served a one day suspension and the

45:10

rest were just asked to apologize.

45:12

Oh my God. The tragedy at the end

45:14

of this entire story is that all

45:16

three of those teachers, Andrew Trees,

45:19

Peter Sheehy, and Danielle McGuire

45:21

left the school. So the

45:23

kids all thrived and the teachers

45:25

that tried to bring all of this ugliness

45:28

to light were the ones who were forced out.

45:30

The thing I found sort of heartbreaking

45:33

is Peter Sheehy loses his job.

45:35

So like, what's that all about?

45:38

Yeah, I mean, that to me was the, that

45:41

was very heartbreaking because he, by

45:43

all accounts, loved the school.

45:45

His students loved him.

45:47

And

45:49

his wife was very financially successful

45:52

and clearly he was doing this

45:54

job not for the money, but because

45:56

he loved teaching. And so

45:58

I just, I think it's a true.

45:59

tragedy that

46:01

power and influence can

46:03

warp a school's values

46:06

where a beloved teacher is the one who has to

46:08

leave because a bunch of bratty

46:10

kids, like,

46:11

you know, they're being kids and all of the teachers

46:14

who, all the teachers looked at these clubs

46:16

were punished for spying on the

46:18

kids rather than actually judging the content

46:20

of the clubs themselves.

46:21

It's so weird. Why did they do that?

46:23

The kids who created these, these

46:26

clubs or who are on them were, their parents were on the

46:28

board. And if you're a board member, you're like, holy shit,

46:30

this will like blow up my entire kid's future

46:33

if, you know, this ends up in New York magazine.

46:35

So they almost overreacted.

46:37

I think if they had just quietly like

46:40

disciplined the kids, it wouldn't have been a scandal,

46:42

but that's what happens is like, when your values

46:44

are that warped,

46:45

you make decisions that end up blowing

46:47

up. Right. So I went to one of

46:49

these schools, you know, I actually went to a public

46:52

school until ninth grade and

46:54

then I transferred into Dalton,

46:56

which is like...

46:57

So tell me about that ninth grade when you parachute

47:00

in. Oh my God, it was so bad. I have

47:02

to say, I mean, there's nothing that

47:04

has more made me the person that I am today

47:06

than going to Dalton. And that is, that

47:09

is to say, like the horrible parts of me are,

47:12

you know, I attached to that school. I

47:14

went in there at 13 years old and I

47:17

was sort of goth, right? Like I used to use

47:19

like white powder to make my face whiter

47:21

and then black eyeliner and make like a cross

47:24

at the end. And, you know, I walked

47:26

into this place where like all the girls had like

47:28

straightened sort of highlighted hair

47:30

and, you know, ripped jeans

47:33

and like a blazer. And I was just like, I

47:35

don't even know what this... What is this look?

47:37

Like, I don't even know where you get these clothes.

47:39

I really didn't fit in at Dalton. You

47:42

cannot be popular at

47:44

Dalton if you're not rich. Period.

47:46

There's like, there's nothing else

47:48

to even discuss. We're talking like

47:51

triplex on Park Avenue.

47:52

Private jet bridge. Private jet. Everything

47:55

was outrageous, right? And

47:57

huge and flashy and, you

47:59

know,

47:59

has really only gotten worse.

48:01

I think the school is a microcosm for how

48:03

New York City has changed, right? Starting in the 80s

48:05

and then accelerating in the 90s and in the aughts.

48:07

You had just this flood of new

48:09

money coming into the city, whether

48:11

it was Wall Street, law

48:13

firms, tech companies, private

48:16

equity. You had people

48:18

suddenly who were completely anonymous,

48:20

but they thought, well, if I'm super

48:22

rich, my kids should go to Horace Mann. Historically,

48:25

Horace Mann was a place where you had like very prominent

48:28

Jewish families would send their children. And now

48:30

you had basically the only ticket

48:32

to entry was whether you had money. That was the major

48:35

change. If you were a rich person and you sent your

48:37

kid to a boarding school, there was like the rough

48:39

assumption that these teachers were there

48:41

to whip the kids into shape, right? But

48:43

because of like so many millionaires

48:45

were minted in the 80s and 90s and aughts,

48:48

they thought they could buy their kids into the Ivy League.

48:50

And so the teachers ended up feeling like the hired

48:52

help.

48:52

And then as people, you know, gathered more

48:54

wealth, like the college admissions got more

48:57

and more competitive, right? Because there were so many more people

48:59

who wanted to get into this very selective group

49:01

of colleges.

49:01

Yeah. I mean, it just creates this kind of Darwinian

49:04

struggle where parents think,

49:06

well, if my kid gets to Horace Mann and I donate

49:08

money to the board and they get,

49:10

you know, the right relationships with the college counselors,

49:12

it really becomes like a pay for play system.

49:14

I mean,

49:15

part of the arms race, right, around college

49:17

admissions is around having the best science

49:19

lab, the best sports fields, the best

49:22

theater and drama department. And so schools

49:24

like Horace Mann have spent hundreds of

49:26

millions of dollars to build these

49:28

campuses that would be better than most college

49:31

campuses. And to do that, they

49:33

require, you know, huge donations

49:35

from their board, which gives even more power

49:38

to the random white shoe

49:40

lawyer who, you know, his kid might be a

49:42

fuck up, but has $10 million to

49:44

donate.

49:45

And I do think there are some ways in which you could

49:47

see the students sort of losing

49:49

out, right? They're sort of being pressured too hard

49:51

by their parents to be, you know, adults

49:54

at a time when they're really just youngsters

49:57

and they're, yeah, they're bratty kids, but they

49:59

are. are also just kids, right? And

50:02

they're sort of

50:04

being expected to perform at a really high

50:06

level.

50:06

And I think it's, you know, they are private

50:09

schools, but ultimately they are accountable

50:11

to the values of right and

50:13

wrong. The thing is, even

50:15

if they're just kids, their parents are

50:18

not just ordinary parents. They're

50:20

some of the most powerful people in America.

50:23

And that's what makes this story so revealing. Because

50:26

even though it's about one school in one

50:28

city, it's really about how the world

50:30

works. Because Horror's Man doesn't

50:32

just teach Latin or political

50:35

philosophy or any of the wonderful

50:37

things advertised on its website. The

50:39

story's lesson is that those

50:41

with power, like these kids and these

50:44

parents,

50:44

can get away with almost anything.

50:47

And those without power are left to

50:49

pick up the pieces.

50:50

Next time on Infamous, a celebrity, an optometrist,

50:56

and

51:02

a dangerous collision on a ski slope.

51:05

We're diving into the most infamous

51:07

trial of the year. And he has

51:09

deterred you from enjoying the rest of

51:12

what was a very expensive vacation.

51:16

Well, I lost half a day

51:18

of skiing.

51:21

I have to go.

51:25

Hi everyone, before we go this week, I

51:28

just want to say thank you to all

51:30

of you for listening to Infamous. We

51:32

hope you're loving the show as much as we love making it

51:35

and we want to hear from you.

51:38

So we have a survey up. It's

51:40

at infamous.fans. Yes,

51:44

that's infamous.fans,

51:46

not .com. And you can answer

51:48

a few questions there. It's a little

51:51

long to be fair, but your feedback goes

51:53

a long way and we are so excited

51:55

to hear what you think.

51:55

It'll really help us picking

51:57

the kinds of stories and topics that you want.

52:00

on the podcast in the future. And again,

52:02

thank you so much for being here. It

52:05

is really so essential, obviously, to

52:08

us keeping this show going. So many,

52:11

many, many

52:12

happy returns.