0:00

Hey, quick favor. We are conducting

0:02

an audience survey. We'd be really grateful

0:04

if you could take just a few minutes and answer

0:07

it. Please visit survey.prx.org

0:11

slash gossip to take the survey today.

0:13

That's survey.prx.org

0:16

slash gossip. Thank you. Hi,

0:18

and welcome to Normal Gossip.

0:21

I'm Kelsey

0:23

McKinney.

0:26

In each episode of this podcast, we're going to bring

0:28

you an anonymous morsel of gossip from the real

0:31

world. I am so thrilled

0:33

to have with me today, Dr. Eve L. Ewing.

0:36

Dr. Eve L. Ewing is a writer, scholar,

0:38

and cultural organizer from Chicago. She

0:41

is the award-winning author of four

0:43

books, and she has written several projects

0:45

for Marvel Comics.

0:47

Ewing is an associate professor in the Department

0:49

of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity

0:52

at the University of Chicago. Her work has been

0:54

published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New

0:56

York Times, and many other places. She's

0:58

currently working on her next book, Original

1:01

Sense, The Miseducation of Black and Native Children

1:03

in the Construction of American Racism. Eve,

1:05

welcome to the show. I'm so glad you're

1:07

here.

1:08

Hey, thank you. Thanks for having me. I

1:10

am so excited to have you here. How are

1:12

you doing today? I am thrilled.

1:15

I am a frequent and enthused listener.

1:17

Oh my God, that's so nice. Generally a messy

1:20

person. So I'm

1:22

geeked to be here.

1:23

I love that because then usually people have takes

1:26

because they've been listening to other episodes. Oh

1:28

yeah, I have takes. Oh great. Okay, well

1:30

let's start basic and can you

1:32

tell me what your relationship with gossip is? Yeah,

1:35

okay. So here's my first hot take. Hell

1:37

yeah. So I think

1:40

that in a lot of episodes on the show,

1:42

people are like, oh, gossip is

1:44

like

1:45

a progressive way to undermine

1:47

social structures of power and like

1:49

a way for people in vulnerable social positions

1:52

to warn each other about scary

1:54

and bad people. And I'm like, no, that

1:56

is just like, to me categorically,

1:59

that is like just... important information

2:01

sharing and when we call that gossip,

2:03

we're stigmatizing it in a way or

2:05

belittling it or sidelining

2:07

it. To me, if it is not like slightly

2:10

petty, questionably sourced,

2:13

ultimately inconsequential information,

2:16

then it is definitively not gossip

2:19

in my personal opinion. That's fascinating.

2:21

And so when people are like, yeah, like gossip is important. Like

2:23

when you tell your coworker that this person is like

2:26

a serial predator, it's like, no, that's not gossip.

2:28

That's actually like an important warning

2:30

that has to happen. And to me,

2:32

gossip is like messy

2:35

half truths about people you tangentially

2:37

know that are salacious and ultimately

2:40

like hopefully not harmful. Right.

2:43

And I think that that's different from

2:45

like malicious talk.

2:48

You know, like to me, yeah, like slander

2:50

and libel and other such things. So

2:53

maybe a lot of people read this article in The

2:55

New Yorker by Rachel Aviv that came out about

2:58

these philosophers who are my colleagues

3:00

at the University of Chicago. Oh great. I

3:03

do not know them personally, but I will just, as full

3:06

disclosure, who are in this like complex

3:08

marriage situation. But Rachel Aviv quotes

3:11

this literary critic Phyllis Rose and she

3:13

says, quote, gossip may be

3:15

the beginning of moral inquiry. We

3:17

are desperate for information about how other

3:19

people live because we want to know how to

3:21

live ourselves. And so I think gossip,

3:23

oh, you have it right there. Oh my god, you literally have a

3:25

book. Yeah. So like I

3:28

think it's really interesting, right? Like I think that like historically

3:31

the reason that things like Socratic dialogues

3:34

are so famous is because in asking questions

3:36

about how to live a good life or what would you

3:38

do in this scenario, that's how we kind of

3:40

suss out our own principles and what it means

3:43

to like make just choices in

3:45

a society. And that's also

3:47

why advice columns are popular, right?

3:50

Because like you want to be like, oh, well, what would

3:52

I do? And that person is like mad wrong.

3:55

And they're a terrible person. But in having

3:57

these kinds of scenarios, kind

4:00

of moral and ethical dilemmas of what it means

4:03

to, you know, to quote the great philosopher George Costanza,

4:05

live in a society. Part

4:08

of what allegedly categorizes gossip

4:10

is that you don't fully, it's unverifiable

4:12

information, right? Or like challenging

4:15

to verify. I mean, you're like a for

4:17

real journalist, right? And so like, that's part of it.

4:20

But like, you

4:22

know, I would push back not to like take us

4:24

to a whole other place, but a lot of

4:26

other information that we see as being

4:28

objective or that

4:31

doesn't require like secondary proof

4:34

is also maybe unverifiable, right?

4:36

So like one obvious example is like police

4:38

reports of crimes, right? Like all

4:40

over the country, local newspapers

4:43

and journalistic outlets basically published

4:45

whatever the police say, that's what happened, right? And then

4:48

many times after the fact, we find out that that is indeed

4:50

not what happened. But there are

4:52

certain people that are in a social position in our world

4:55

where if they say something is true, it's true.

4:57

And that has to do with

4:59

like state power. That also has to do with relational

5:01

power, right? Like you believe something differently

5:04

if you have a proximal relationship to somebody.

5:06

But I basically think like TLDR,

5:09

like from a certain point of view, like

5:11

all things have these traits of gossip, right?

5:14

Because for the most part, we are not in the habit of

5:16

like deeply verifying the information we consume

5:19

on a daily basis.

5:20

Do you want to completely dodge the question

5:23

about how gossip functions in your personal life

5:25

or would you like to answer it? Yeah,

5:27

I think that so my primary

5:30

social communities are

5:32

writers, especially poets,

5:35

very poets. Oh my God. Oh

5:37

my God. Not only gossipy, but like

5:40

with a flourish, you know what I mean? Very

5:42

beautiful. Very beautiful gossip,

5:44

but like super messy. And

5:47

then academics who also have like-

5:49

Lots of gossipy. Absurd, ridiculous.

5:52

And so, you know, like I

5:55

think it is often fun to

5:57

partake, but I also am

5:59

proud that I think- I think I try to mostly surround

6:01

myself with people who are

6:04

really also concerned with people's well-being and so

6:06

like I think I have a good squad

6:08

of peeps around me that straddle that line

6:11

pretty well. Perfect. Are you ready

6:13

to do this story? I'm totally ready.

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all states and situations.

7:14

Today's story is about a girl who might

7:16

have just the worst luck in the entire

7:18

world. So

7:21

our friend of a friend will call her Micah.

7:24

She's like in her mid 30s,

7:26

mid to late 30s. And

7:28

right before the pandemic, she moved to like a new

7:31

biggish city because she had gotten this new

7:33

job. We're talking like 401k, healthcare. She

7:36

finally has enough money to save. Oh, good job.

7:39

Good job, Micah. We're so happy for

7:41

her. She's like finally stable enough

7:44

that she can achieve her dream, which is

7:46

to get a dog. Yay. Okay.

7:49

I just want to say, I think a lot of people do not realize how expensive

7:51

dogs are. They're so expensive. So I'm happy for

7:54

her

7:54

that she feels like she can add a special, special

7:56

little somebody to her life. Did

7:58

Micah have a lot of friends?

7:59

in her new city? Is that part of what she moved? This is a good question

8:02

and no. So she's in like kind

8:04

of a bad situation in that she moved

8:06

to this new city, was planning to make a bunch of friends

8:09

and then come to the pandemic kit. But

8:11

now, you know, the

8:12

pandemic kit, so she's at home all the time. And

8:14

so she's like, now is literally the perfect

8:17

time to get a dog because I can like train

8:19

it. Yeah, it is. And also probably

8:21

necessary to maintain her mental health because she hasn't

8:24

got no friends. So yes, exactly.

8:26

Would you like to tell the people about your dog? I

8:29

would love nothing

8:31

more. Funny, you should ask.

8:33

I am an enthusiastic dog owner.

8:37

Our dog, his name is Charlie Brown Christmas.

8:41

It's a perfect name and I love it so much.

8:42

Like the special. We

8:45

got him December 2019. And

8:48

so he's not fully a pandemic pup, but like

8:50

his early socialization was definitely like he

8:52

was

8:53

four months old when the no, he's born September.

8:55

So he was six months old when the pandemic started. Still

8:57

maybe. Yeah, still definitely a little baby.

9:01

And he's a shelter dog. People

9:03

ask what type of dog he is. He is a

9:06

creative may launch of many different

9:08

dog breeds. I'm going to take this because

9:13

some people get really offended when you

9:16

say that your dog is a mutt. Yeah. For like reasons

9:18

I don't understand. And so I'm always being

9:20

like, oh, my dog's a mutt. And then some people are like

9:23

that he's going to hear you and his feelings are going to be here.

9:25

Yeah, no. Yeah. No, he's like illiterate.

9:28

Yeah, she doesn't know what that means. No, he's like

9:30

an old country buffet of dogs. It's like a little

9:32

a little bit from here, a little bit from there. Yeah.

9:35

So he's he's great. He about

9:39

halfway through the pandemic was diagnosed

9:41

by a vet with

9:43

what is known clinically as global

9:45

fear. Same.

9:47

I was like,

9:50

oh, everybody has that

9:52

like hard same. So

9:55

that basically means that he because

9:57

he was he was abandoned as a baby and he didn't have

9:59

he was abandoned like

9:59

without his dog mom. His

10:02

trauma. Yeah. Yeah. So he basically

10:04

has mad trauma. And he. Poor

10:07

Jimmy Brown Christmas. You know, he's

10:10

doing well. He has worked hard. But his,

10:12

basically, global fear means that if

10:14

he doesn't know what something is, his default is that he's

10:16

scared of it. So he's not curious.

10:19

He's not goofy. He's very serious.

10:22

People who follow me on Instagram will see he's a deeply

10:25

serious, often frightened dog,

10:27

who is basically Velcroed to

10:29

my body, or the body of my husband at

10:32

all times. So yeah. He sounds

10:34

perfect. OK, so our friend of

10:36

a friend is like, I want a dog. And

10:38

she's like, she begins the most dangerous

10:41

of games. She begins to look

10:43

at Pet Finder. My experience

10:45

with Pet Finder is that it is just like emotional

10:48

warfare. She finds a

10:50

dog. She wants the dog. She can't

10:52

have it. She finds another

10:53

dog. She wants the dog. She can't have it. Eventually,

10:56

if she goes to the closest shelter to

10:58

her, calls him on the phone, and is like, I want

11:00

a dog, my only qualifications

11:02

is that I want a kind of small dog, because I live

11:05

in an apartment. And I want young,

11:07

but not a puppy. I will take whatever

11:09

dog you have.

11:10

And that is how she ends up with Churro. Churro,

11:13

Chordito, we love you already. Is

11:16

this a pug? Is Churro a pug? No, he's

11:18

like a Dachshund mix. I

11:21

love him. Does he have a little short, little stumpy legs?

11:23

Yes. Tiny little legs, short

11:26

hair, little spots

11:28

around the eyes. Adorable.

11:30

Oh, I love him.

11:32

Micah loves Churro. Me

11:34

too, Micah. She is so

11:36

lucky in this instance. She's

11:39

like, Churro's perfect. I would die

11:41

for Churro. I love Churro. And Churro's the name that came

11:43

from the shelter, or that was her name. Yes, but she

11:45

kept it. Great, great, great. Because

11:48

he kind of looks like a Churro. So

11:50

it's perfect. Like

11:52

an overly generous Churro that is

11:55

just very wide, but not that long.

11:57

Exactly, but very quickly.

11:59

micah is lake okay is i've always

12:02

wanted a dog i'm realizing that

12:04

wanting a dog and believing in dogs

12:06

and loving dogs it's not exactly

12:09

the same as knowing how to train a dog

12:11

yeah especially alone yes ensure

12:13

always like mildly misbehaved

12:15

like not misbehaved in a super bad way but like

12:18

pulls on a leash paid skateboards

12:21

like one murder every wow

12:23

so familiar this a familiar to my

12:26

life so michael legal

12:28

looks for trainers because she's

12:29

like a trainer would help me but the trainers are

12:32

like super expensive area so

12:34

she watches like a lot of you tube videos

12:36

and like a bunch of tic toc dog trainers

12:38

and she does learn like kind of these basic

12:41

things that she needs to know that skirt does

12:43

she'd start giving chereau buttons to talk

12:45

with because is also oh my god do not

12:47

what thick to i literati know

12:50

i've only actually tree

12:52

and like i already know that my dad that ago

12:54

i have yeah i know

12:56

my dog once all the time he will just

12:58

sit next to me or he wants a

12:59

snack agree my

13:02

guys like okay i've got like some of it but she's

13:04

like i need a community

13:06

of dog people rate she has all these questions

13:08

that are like what

13:09

dog food do i buy right

13:11

and like what kind of treats are

13:14

cheap and good rape is kind of like

13:16

issues the dog food she bought for true

13:18

church does not like she bought a different

13:20

kind sure through it up true

13:22

has like food issues really double she gone

13:25

to the vets yes

13:26

actually went to the vet and the that cause you know three

13:29

hundred dollars athletes not a nature man

13:31

as yeah can say is now fighting games with dogs

13:33

and the vets like you know

13:35

feed your dog this very special fancy food

13:37

and she's like i do not have money for that

13:40

and also the seems like a scam

13:42

i

13:42

need to like find people

13:45

to talk to mike as violating

13:47

the number one millennial rule which is

13:49

you

13:49

have to extensively yelp

13:52

and reactors he is going to

13:55

read it every single thing so like the

13:57

solution to a wet food should my doggie

13:59

work coach of my dog wear, what leash my

14:01

dog have is all like, you need

14:03

to spend four hours on Reddit slash

14:06

Yelp slash Chewy dot com, read

14:08

and reviews. And you need to use a data

14:10

informed strategy to select

14:13

this single best thing. Data informed crowd

14:15

source from strangers on the internet. She is getting her

14:17

mid 30s millennial card revoked

14:20

if she does not resolve this quickly.

14:21

She's like, I want to talk to people. I

14:24

don't just want to read things. So she's like, I'm going to find an online.

14:26

Can't relate. Can't relate, Mike. Very unrelatable.

14:29

So far away from you. She

14:31

joins. It's going to get worse. She joins

14:34

a giant Facebook group

14:35

about dogs.

14:36

I'm sorry. Can we pause and pour some out

14:39

for Micah and her. Truly. Because

14:42

I know always not if

14:44

you listen to this podcast, but also if you just have common

14:46

sense that is always the wrong

14:48

choice. And this is like a big

14:51

Facebook group, right? Like huge. No.

14:54

And so Micah like joins the group and she posts a little photo

14:57

of Churro right onto the page and like introduces

14:59

herself. Right. She's like, here's

15:01

who I am. Here's who Churro is. And she adds a question. She's

15:03

like, as a new dog owner, does anybody

15:05

have a food brand that they recommend that's like

15:08

good for people on a budget? Micah,

15:10

you are out of your gourd. I

15:12

do not. The

15:16

worst possible choice. It literally

15:18

would have been better to go to a pet

15:21

store

15:21

and be like, hi, employee

15:23

who works here. Which

15:25

of these

15:26

vaguely reputable brands? How about this? Here's

15:28

how I know. OK, here's here's how I know Micah has

15:30

also never truly been broke. She

15:33

needs to look at the per unit cost of

15:35

the dog food at the store

15:38

and then narrow it down to three like

15:40

sufficiently cheap dog food. And then ask

15:42

which of these? Ask a person

15:43

who's stunned. They don't do my

15:45

best self with dog food all day. This

15:48

is the worst choice. I my

15:50

opinion of her has plummeted. If she is listening,

15:52

I am sorry. I'm just still,

15:54

but this is really troubling. Very troubling.

15:57

This, as you can imagine, immediately goes haywire.

15:59

Yes. Because the group is like,

16:02

you should buy raw food. And then it's like, raw food

16:04

is dangerous. Raw food is elitist. Raw

16:06

food has plastic waste. And then it's like, you should get

16:08

grocery store brand. It's cheap and fine. And

16:10

it's like, no, grocery store brand is like tantamount

16:13

to abuse. Grocery store brand

16:15

is full of carcinogens that will kill your dog.

16:18

And all of these people are freaking

16:20

out. This was entirely predictable. Everything

16:22

about this outcome was foreseeable.

16:25

And then there are other people in the comments

16:27

who are like, how dare you post this? You

16:29

should have searched the group before asking

16:31

this. You should have checked the pins.

16:34

And Micah feels like very overwhelmed

16:36

and bad. I have a question about Micah. Is

16:39

Micah in

16:40

Cino Man portrayed by Ben Fraser

16:43

in the classic film with Sean Astin

16:45

in Poly Shore? Is she frozen

16:48

from the pa- is she Steve Rogers? Good

16:50

question. Was she frozen in a block of ice while

16:53

hunting with her Neanderthal

16:56

partner and has now been thawed left

16:58

to survive in our modern world? It seems like

17:00

maybe. That is the only explanation

17:02

I can fathom for why she

17:04

made such a horrifically bad choice. Micah,

17:08

to her credit, does leave this Facebook group.

17:10

Upon seeing this drama, she's like, no.

17:14

She reads some articles online. And she's like, you know

17:16

what? I just think that I need to find

17:18

some other dog owners that I can talk to, right?

17:21

Real dog owners that I can look at. And

17:23

so she's like, there are parks near my

17:25

house.

17:26

Parks are outside. I could take Churro

17:28

to the park. And maybe I can ask people there

17:31

what they're feeding their dogs, right? And how they're

17:33

training them and what the whole thing is. Sure,

17:35

Jen. OK. So she goes. She

17:38

takes Churro to this little dog park in

17:40

her neighborhood. And there are other dogs

17:42

there. And there's even another little Dachshund.

17:45

And the Dachshund's owner is named Preston.

17:48

And she's like, hello, Preston. Can I ask you a question?

17:51

And Preston's like, sure.

17:52

She's like, I'm a bit lost. I'm a new dog

17:54

owner. Preston's like, what's up? She's

17:56

like, what do you feed your dog? I'm

17:59

sorry. Sorry, Micah, you sound deranged,

18:02

Micah. I don't know what. Okay, go on, go

18:04

on. And then she proceeds to try and tell him about this

18:06

Facebook interaction. Like she's like, I tried to figure

18:08

it out. I went into this Facebook group and then everyone got into a fight

18:10

and like people were yelling about raw food and da da da da. Preston

18:12

like holds up both his hands

18:15

and is like, one, do

18:16

not feed your dog raw food. It is $5

18:19

million and clearly stressing

18:21

you out. He's like, this is the brand

18:23

that I use. It has a wolf on it. Like

18:25

go get that. It's fine.

18:28

And he's like, what Facebook group did you

18:30

join anyway? Like I didn't see

18:32

this post. Preston's questions are my

18:35

questions. And she's like, oh, I joined

18:37

this, you know, giant Facebook

18:39

group.

18:40

And he's like, oh, you're not talking about our

18:42

Facebook group. Okay, wait a minute, Preston.

18:44

All right. And she's like, what? And he's

18:47

like, oh yeah, a bunch of the people that have been in this neighborhood

18:49

forever created a Facebook group

18:52

for like our dogs at this

18:54

park.

18:55

Okay. All right. I do not

18:57

approve of this at all. But go on. So

18:59

he's like, it's much smaller. You know, it's like 50 people

19:02

max. And he's like, I'll text

19:04

you the link.

19:05

And she's like, great. I would love to give you my number so you

19:07

could text me this link. Right.

19:10

Mm hmm. Do you think the small Facebook group can be any

19:12

better? Like, how are you feeling? I

19:15

feel that this is once again an abysmal choice

19:18

on Micah's part. I think that no Facebook

19:20

group is ever a good idea.

19:22

It can only end in sorrow and

19:24

tragedy. That's

19:27

how I feel. Or with screenshots

19:29

of your group being sent to the normal gossip at Defectored.com

19:31

email. Again, absolutely. Absolutely.

19:34

Absolutely. I think that like, you

19:36

know, I understand that it's tempting when you are

19:38

part of a really small like

19:41

there's a there's a black runners group, black

19:43

Chicago runners group that really only works

19:45

on Facebook. And I feel I feel like sadness

19:48

every day that I can't really fully participate.

19:50

But it's like, you know what? She's gonna take some L's

19:52

in life because it's not worth

19:54

it at all. I

19:57

also wonder if Micah thinks she's like

19:59

spitting game in the

19:59

this moment by looking

20:02

up to, like it seems clear that she's

20:04

like, oh, this has worked out great for me. I'm like, fam,

20:06

you walked up to a dude and you're like, how

20:09

do I keep my dog alive every day? How

20:11

do I feed my dog? The number

20:14

one most basic thing that your dog literally

20:16

needs for survival. You are

20:19

openly confessing that you do not know how to provide

20:22

and that your strategy for seeking this information

20:24

in, in a world where we live

20:26

with the, you know, relative to the information superhighway

20:29

where all the world's knowledge is available

20:31

to us at the, you know, at our

20:33

fingertips at the, we don't even have to press about, you

20:35

can use your voice, you can use Siri. And

20:38

you're asking a random, yeah,

20:40

that's embarrassing. That's embarrassing.

20:43

And I, I did not think my opinion

20:45

of her could decline further, but,

20:47

but yeah, and still here we are. I'm so sorry.

20:51

She clicks on the link in the like text and

20:53

that brings her to the Facebook page. The top banner of the

20:55

Facebook is like a bunch of dogs in Halloween

20:58

costumes. Okay. They're

20:59

all wearing the same little like,

21:01

yes, thing with the legs, the thing with the legs

21:03

in front. And then, yes, yes. Like

21:06

the little farmer outfit. Yes. Okay.

21:09

So my kick clicks join. She's like, all these dogs

21:11

look so cute. I can't wait to be in this Facebook group. And

21:13

immediately there are like hoops to jump through.

21:15

You know how some Facebook groups have like questions to make

21:17

sure you're real. Yeah.

21:19

And the questions are like, what's your dog's name,

21:21

age, and breed?

21:23

I'm lying. I didn't know that cause I don't use Facebook at

21:25

all, but I'm like, yeah, yeah, okay. It exists.

21:27

Okay. So it's like answering these questions. So the moderators

21:29

can make sure you're a real person. Sure. Sure. Sure. What's

21:32

your dog name, age, and breed?

21:34

What is your address? Like what are your cross streets?

21:36

So we know that you're in this neighborhood.

21:39

And which celebrity dog do you wish you could

21:41

be friends with? Celebrity dog.

21:44

How do you feel about this? Um, yeah,

21:47

I cannot name a single quote celebrity dog

21:50

unquote. So, um, that

21:52

would be a challenge for me, but I guess I would

21:54

go. My immediate question is like, does

21:56

that, it sounds like celebrity dog means a dog

21:58

that is a celebrity as opposed.

23:59

People are like, no, no, that's not

24:02

allowed. I also like this

24:04

subreddit called Cozy Places and

24:06

it's pictures of cozy places. But it's

24:08

great. Your picture will be taken off if

24:11

your pet or your drink, like

24:13

your coffee or your glass of wine is too prominently

24:16

displayed in your photo, because then it's not

24:18

a photo of the place. It's a photo of your cat

24:20

or you're going to love these rules. OK, great.

24:22

I'm going to read them to you. OK, great. There are 10

24:25

rules. I'm delighted.

24:26

Rule number one, do not

24:28

be rude. There is a difference between disagreeing

24:31

and forcing your beliefs on other people. We maintain

24:33

a kind and courteous space. I

24:36

have questions, but go on. OK.

24:38

Rule number two, no solicitation or spamming.

24:40

OK, fair, legit. Rule number

24:42

three, no politics. Dogs

24:44

cannot vote. Dogs cannot see

24:47

blue or red because dogs are colorblind.

24:49

OK, this is where ding. Hello,

24:52

bus driver. This is my stop. Let me out.

24:55

I would like to go. I would like to

24:57

leave.

24:58

Rule number four, all posts should be primarily

25:00

about dogs. Other animal posts

25:03

are OK, but this is a dog

25:05

group. Please keep the focus on dogs.

25:07

Another animal can only appear in one out of 10

25:10

of your posts. OK, that requires

25:12

someone to do like retroactive analysis of your

25:14

posts, which is I assume there's some really

25:17

eager mods here that are going to really do that.

25:19

OK. Yes. Rule number five. All

25:21

pet sitting requests must go in the weekly

25:23

thread. Do not begin a new thread. There is

25:25

a system in place. Please respect it. That's

25:28

good. That's important, because otherwise you're basically

25:30

spamming the whole thing with pet sitting requests. Yes.

25:33

Rule number six, it is good manners to comment

25:35

on twice as many things as you post yourself.

25:39

OK, rule number seven.

25:42

No Cesar Milan. OK,

25:44

good. Yeah. Yeah, he's he's wild.

25:47

Rule number eight, no blocking the moderators.

25:50

OK.

25:52

Rule number nine, no memes.

25:54

OK, I think I take Umbridge with no memes,

25:56

but I also understand they're like, look, this is a

25:58

purpose. This is an information. sharing group

26:01

and memes would just take up

26:04

everything all the time if you did that so that's fine.

26:06

I feel good about these rules except for

26:08

the politics thing which I

26:10

find offensive. Yes, dog

26:13

whistle literally. Yeah, it's a little bit of

26:15

a dog whistle. It's also like fascinating

26:17

that they immediately reduce politics to like

26:20

presidential or like party voting when it's

26:22

like okay well what if we're trying to you

26:24

know vote for a city council member that is gonna

26:26

give more money to the dog park or it's gonna

26:28

have a leash ordinance or something like

26:31

those are mayor or any any literally

26:33

anything race yeah right there's there's

26:36

there are a lot of pretty obvious like parking

26:38

there are a lot of really obvious reasons why a dog

26:41

group should care about politics

26:44

yes so that is a major red flag

26:46

for me in the unlikely event that

26:48

I have already gotten this far I

26:51

have I have now taken

26:53

my leave

26:55

rule number 10 is no screenshotting

26:57

posts from this group and adding them to community

27:00

that's funny

27:02

you know we call that we call that town on yourself

27:04

that's like that's like saying

27:07

we know that people are in here absolutely

27:09

deranged and people should not

27:11

be held publicly accountable for the unhinged

27:14

things that they're saying do not

27:16

send them to normal gossip at defec2.com

27:18

yeah exactly but really

27:21

do that but really do the Micah

27:23

is like whatever right like these

27:25

rules are kind of crazy I

27:27

just literally need a place to like ask

27:30

my questions and Micah is also like this

27:33

group seems like it has drama that

27:35

I can watch because it is my neighborhood

27:38

so she is like I'm gonna

27:40

stay okay

27:41

for the first time I find myself

27:43

in kindred spirits with with Micah

27:46

Micah posts like her photos of churro and she's

27:48

like here's churro this is my dog like

27:50

we live in the neighborhood churros new

27:52

I have some new questions as a new dog owner and

27:54

everyone is like super welcoming they're like hello churro

27:57

please show us more photos of churro right like

27:59

Great. Okay.

28:01

The moderator of this group is

28:04

a woman named Chloe. Okay.

28:07

Chloe seems nice. She posts a

28:09

lot. Is she moderating alone? She's the

28:11

sole moderator? She is the sole moderator. Red

28:14

flag. Red flag. She answers

28:17

every question. She is

28:19

horny for the rules. Okay.

28:22

She kicks people out of the group if

28:24

they are talking about politics near the election. She's very

28:27

strict. Did she start the group?

28:29

No. And Preston tells

28:32

my guy, he's like, you'll never

28:35

meet Chloe. She never comes to the park.

28:37

She's super secretive. She stays in

28:39

her house. You'll see her on rare occasions,

28:42

but mostly where you will

28:44

see her is

28:45

on this block. Essentially. Chloe

28:48

is a robot. No.

28:50

Chloe. That was built by

28:52

members of the past society and left

28:54

to now moderate this Facebook group

28:57

until the end of time. Got

28:59

it. The other thing about Chloe, and truly

29:01

thank you for doing my foreshadowing for me, is

29:03

that Chloe's dog is a rescue

29:06

corgi mix. Okay. Named

29:08

Diana, Princess of Wales. Okay.

29:11

I love Chloe's choice of dog names.

29:13

And you must call the dog by its full name.

29:16

Okay. That is not a rule we maintain in my

29:18

head. If you think if you give your dog a ridiculous name, you

29:20

got to let people call the dog, whatever they're going to... Our

29:23

dog comes back from daycare and his stuff

29:25

is labeled. They just take all his stuff and write CBX

29:27

on it.

29:28

That's

29:31

his name. That's his name, CBX. You can't

29:34

be picky about that. It's true. Fascinating.

29:36

Corgi, rescue corgi mix could

29:39

be a

29:40

little anxious. Could be a little anxious. Now

29:42

as a cowboy bebop fan, I obviously

29:44

love all corgis,

29:47

but it's also interesting because also

29:49

wasn't Queen Elizabeth, isn't she super into

29:51

corgis? But then didn't she hate Diana?

29:54

Yes.

29:54

Oh, okay. So there's like,

29:57

there's like a spicy intrigue baked into

29:59

the very naming of it.

29:59

the dog. And the other thing

30:02

about Diana Princess of Wales is that

30:04

the dog or the person, the dog, then not

30:06

the humanitarian who lost her life. Tragically,

30:09

the dog, the rescue corgi is

30:11

Chloe, like a few months ago found

30:14

Diana the dog on the street

30:17

and like,

30:17

took Diana Princess of Wales to the vet, no

30:20

chip,

30:20

no home, like couldn't find her

30:22

family. She didn't have a collar. And

30:25

Chloe was like, my dog now.

30:27

That's definitely somebody's dog. Can

30:29

I tell you that that happened to me once that I found

30:31

a dog? And the dog lived with me

30:34

for like a week. And

30:38

there was a viral Huffington Post article

30:40

about me and the dog that I found. And

30:42

as a result, the owner

30:45

found

30:45

out that I had their dog and contacted me and

30:47

I returned the dog

30:49

to the home. That was really nice of you to babysit

30:51

that dog for a week. Thank you. I loved her.

30:53

And people I've written several books,

30:56

I have a doctorate from Harvard. People

30:59

care about the dog. People care about the dog so much.

31:01

I do events and people are like, Hey, remember

31:03

when you found a dog? And I'm like,

31:05

Yes, I do. And you know what? I'm delighted to talk

31:07

about that. So you

31:10

want to talk to me about that one time I found a dog that

31:12

is totally cool with me. But I

31:14

relate to this, but also like when you find a dog

31:16

like that, that's clearly like, especially

31:18

a dog that is like

31:19

a little bit of a prestigious breed. Like,

31:21

yes, that is somebody's dog, bro. Like,

31:24

that is not your dog. But

31:26

at this point, Chloe has had the dog for like five

31:28

months. And she's like regularly

31:31

posting photos of Diana, Princess of Wales.

31:33

Yeah, but on the closed group that she moderate.

31:35

Yes.

31:37

And members have like met

31:39

Chloe and Princess Diana, right? But Micah

31:42

doesn't meet either of them until Princess

31:44

Diana's first birthday party, which is held at the

31:46

park. Wait, so this is a super puppy puppy.

31:49

Yes. Oh, how does she know when

31:51

I guess she's just estimating when she doesn't.

31:54

She gives Princess Diana of Wales

31:56

the dog Princess Diana of Wales the

31:58

real princess birthday.

31:59

OK, OK, this is now weird.

32:03

This is now

32:05

weird. I also like don't you

32:07

see those viral videos about like people

32:09

finding their dogs like 10 years later or

32:11

also like literally every movie we watched

32:14

in the 90s as kids. Yes. Homeward. Like,

32:16

you know, lucky. There's so many bingo. Like

32:19

this is somebody's dog, bro.

32:22

They all beat at the park for Princess Diana, the dog's

32:24

birthday. And Chloe has like gotten

32:26

balloons. She's ordered pizza. She's

32:28

gotten treats for every dog that are shaped like

32:30

crowns. OK, Diana, the corgi

32:33

is like adorable, clearly kind of a fancy

32:35

dog. And Micah is like she makes

32:37

her look like a street rat. Right. Because she

32:39

was just like scampering around and he's

32:42

so short. No justice for Chiro.

32:45

But overall, the party is like fun.

32:47

OK. A few months pass. Things are

32:49

going well. Chiro learns to shake.

32:52

Chiro learns to lay down. Chiro

32:54

does not learn to heal, but he's working on it. Can

32:56

he do loosely shwalking?

32:58

Yeah. OK, that's a. He's getting really good.

33:00

He's getting good. Does he have food that doesn't make him barf?

33:02

Yes. Great. He's really growing up. Is

33:04

it literally some random food that she picked because

33:07

of random food? Yes, it's the one with the

33:09

wolf on it. OK, cool. Sure.

33:11

Then one day in September, Chloe

33:13

posts to the group.

33:15

She has received the worst news of all.

33:18

Diana's original family has

33:20

gotten in touch. Of course. Of

33:23

course. Diana is not a quirky mix. She

33:25

is a quirky purebred. Diana has

33:27

worth a bazillion, faux fillion,

33:29

a million dollars. Yes.

33:32

Oh, girl, you in trouble. This

33:34

is obviously like devastating for Chloe,

33:36

right? Because she's like my dog.

33:39

Yeah. Goodbye. The members of the group are like,

33:41

we'll bring one to the dog park. Right. And

33:43

she's like crying at the dog park. Right. Like I miss

33:46

Princess Diana. Wait. So she's already relinquished

33:48

the dog.

33:49

Yes, she does give the dog back when the family finds

33:51

her. That's good. I mean, she had to because

33:54

that was their dog. It's their dog. Yes.

33:57

The other problem here is that the landlord,

33:59

Chloe.

33:59

landlord made an exemption for Princess

34:02

Diana because she was a found dog on

34:04

the street. So she can't get another

34:06

dog? Yes. And Chloe decides,

34:08

I'll move out at the end of my lease. I'll get

34:10

a different apartment where I can have a dog.

34:13

But in the meantime, she's going rogue as the moderator

34:16

because she's really sad. So she's banning

34:18

people at random. People

34:20

are like, Chloe, you have to stop. And eventually,

34:23

she calms down. There needs to be some

34:25

checks and balances against Chloe here. I think that

34:27

the ratio of 50 people to one moderator is

34:29

not acceptable.

34:29

And I think in general, one

34:32

moderator, there's just no check on her

34:34

choices here. She was enraged

34:37

by her grief and was just kicking people

34:39

off, hither and thither. That's not cool. Yes.

34:42

So Chloe moves apartments. It's now winter.

34:45

Still in the same neighborhood. Still in the same

34:47

neighborhood, but moves apartments so that she can have a dog.

34:49

A week after she moves apartments, she posts

34:52

a photo to the group.

34:53

It's a photo of a spaniel. And

34:55

she's like, does anyone know who this is?

34:58

Stop. OK, Chloe, you are stealing people's

35:00

cars. There is no

35:02

way. Lightning has not struck twice.

35:04

This woman is a thief. She's like,

35:06

I found her on this street.

35:09

No. No microchip. She'll tell us on Alapolise. OK.

35:12

No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no,

35:14

no. Also, I call BS

35:17

on Princess Diana, who was a registered

35:19

dog with papers that cost all that

35:21

money. That dog didn't have a chip. I don't

35:23

believe it.

35:25

No.

35:26

This dog, the spaniel.

35:28

Another purebred, fancy dog.

35:31

Chloe names Camilla Duchess of

35:33

Cornwall. OK. OK. OK.

35:36

All right, Chloe. It's like a little funny. You know

35:38

the way spaniels are a little funny looking?

35:40

Their eyes are a little far apart. And

35:43

everyone is like, this is a really cute dog.

35:45

But also, how did you find another

35:47

dog in the street? What's going on here? Also,

35:50

a spaniel has very silken

35:52

tresses. And so if

35:54

it's really been in the street, it's going to look raggedy.

35:58

I just don't.

35:59

don't buy this in the slightest.

36:01

Chloe adopts Camilla, Dushes of Cornwall. Quote,

36:04

adopts, or quotes, she stole this

36:06

dog. Which

36:08

is kind of great. Everyone's

36:10

partly happy for Chloe, because they're like,

36:12

oh, you've got another dog. But they're also like, why

36:15

couldn't you just

36:16

get a dog in a regular way instead of,

36:18

quote, unquote, finding one on the street? No.

36:21

The only problem with Camilla is that Camilla hates

36:23

men. Hates them. And

36:26

so Chloe's like, yeah, I can never bring her to the park

36:28

because she hates men. OK.

36:31

For a couple months, that's the only drama

36:33

is that Chloe is posting about trying

36:35

to train Camilla out of hating men. Then

36:39

in March, something happens that tears the group

36:41

apart.

36:42

["Hates Men"]

36:49

I went to an outdoor concert last summer, and it was

36:52

like 500 degrees outside and 500% humidity. And

36:56

I had had, let's say, a reasonable

36:58

number of beers. And I was like,

37:01

I'm so thirsty, I'm going to

37:03

die. And I went to

37:05

the little bar, and I was like, why is there

37:07

no water here? And the woman behind the counter was

37:09

like, well, those aren't beers. And I was like, excuse

37:11

me, that's a tall boy. And she was like, no, that's

37:14

a liquid death. Liquid death. It

37:19

looks just like a

37:19

tall boy, but actually, it's water. Or

37:22

tea. Or sparkling water,

37:24

which is thrilling. Liquid death

37:27

tall boys will brutally murder

37:29

your thirst. And because

37:32

they are all packaged inside tall

37:34

boys, that means that their

37:36

containers are infinitely recyclable,

37:39

unlike plastic bottles. You could shotgun

37:41

one, but you would just be really hydrated. So that's another

37:43

benefit. I got to say, I'm holding a liquid

37:45

death in my hand right now. It's

37:48

an armless Palmer.

37:49

Ooh.

37:51

Also, this just looks sick. I want you all to know that

37:54

if she was holding this on the street or on

37:56

the subway, I would be like, ma'am, there are open

37:58

container laws. I'm going to crack.

37:59

this open.

38:03

What's it taste like? Describe it.

38:05

It tastes like lemonade and iced

38:08

tea. It tastes like an Arnold Palmer. But

38:10

like I know that there's vitamins in it. And

38:12

as a girlie who is sensitive to caffeine,

38:15

I'm excited to have some B vitamins

38:17

to help with my energy. You can find liquid deaths

38:19

healthy beverages on Amazon or at a retailer

38:21

near you and normal gossip listeners get 20% off

38:24

their first liquid death apparel purchase

38:27

available exclusively at liquiddeath.com

38:29

slash gossip. Alex and I are both really

38:32

eyeing a beautiful black

38:34

hoodie that has some

38:35

metal font on it and says liquid death.

38:38

We can't wait to sport it exclusions

38:40

may apply that's liquid death.com slash

38:42

gossip murder your third

38:45

liquid death.

39:04

What do you know about Joe Biden's dogs?

39:07

Oh, so Joe Biden has, I think

39:10

two dogs. They're like

39:12

Belgian Shepherds

39:15

that are I think like decommissioned

39:17

military dogs or injured military

39:19

dogs. Somehow they're like dogs that are affiliated

39:22

with the military. Yes, cop dogs kind

39:24

of. Yeah. Yeah. Except maybe not

39:26

like, are they cop dogs or are they like army dogs? Army

39:28

dogs. Either way, they're dogs that have like

39:31

some sort of like training

39:33

relationship

39:34

to cart to like violent

39:36

organized state. And

39:40

I do not recall the dogs names, but

39:44

I thought that one of them there was some cutesy story like

39:46

one of them like ran up to him or something.

39:49

Yeah. Am I getting any of this right? Yeah, this is all

39:51

right. The only dog whose name you need to know for

39:53

this particular incident is

39:55

major major was like the older

39:57

dog. Right. That

39:59

passed away. Yes. And then he got a new one. Yeah, OK.

40:02

But before that, Major had a little

40:04

biting incident in the White House.

40:06

I remember this. Which was a

40:08

little bit chaotic, because there were all

40:10

these rumors about Major biting. And it was like, should

40:13

Major be sent somewhere else? What

40:15

do we do? Also,

40:17

a dog bite, not a nip or

40:19

a snap. A dog bite is

40:21

a really serious thing. And I think

40:24

it was a Belgian shepherd or a German shepherd. I think it's Belgian.

40:26

Yeah. Yeah. But that's a big thing. A

40:29

big, frightening dog that,

40:31

obviously, for people who

40:33

are people of color, or Jewish, or black people,

40:37

is very traumatic, scary.

40:41

Yeah, a big dog, but also has a historic, there's

40:43

a historic salience to being bitten

40:46

by a Belgian shepherd. Like

40:49

you said, it's like a cop dog. It's like a Birmingham

40:51

Selma type dog. Yes. But

40:55

even regardless of the specific breed, it's

40:58

a pretty serious thing to be bitten. For

41:00

real straight up bitten, that's not OK. The

41:03

problem in this particular instance

41:05

is that this descends the group into

41:07

chaos, right? Because people are

41:09

fighting about the dog. Wait,

41:11

I have a question. Somebody posted this article. Yes. And

41:14

that's allowed from the rules? No, it's

41:16

not allowed.

41:17

But Chloe is MIA.

41:20

So people are like snipping back

41:22

and forth. Much like Major. Yes,

41:25

just like Major. They're biting back and forth

41:27

at each other. They're biting, snarling. Barking.

41:30

It's going on and on and on. Everyone is like, where

41:33

is Chloe?

41:34

Oh my gosh. This is not fun. This does not need

41:36

to be happening in this group. What would

41:38

you like to do about this? Would you do anything? Me

41:41

personally? Yeah.

41:42

I think I am going to seize the

41:44

moment to initiate what

41:46

should have been happened a long time ago, which

41:49

is the age of Chloe needs to end. And

41:52

I would post, I might make a, why

41:54

can't make a burner? Because they have all these verifications.

41:57

But you know what? I can't tell you what Michael

41:59

would do. I'd be like, look, everyone, I

42:01

think it's time for us to confront a really tough

42:03

subject. Right now,

42:06

we have a situation where the group desperately

42:08

needs moderation and our moderator is not

42:10

present. All of us have many different

42:12

commitments as adults with busy lives

42:15

and it's simply unreasonable to expect a

42:17

sole person to carry all the

42:19

responsibility of managing what is a

42:21

very active, thriving group. Therefore,

42:24

I would like to suggest that now

42:26

is the time for us to start thinking about a process

42:29

for choosing one to three additional

42:31

moderators. The

42:34

problem is that Chloe is also probably the only admin

42:36

so she can add people. Exactly. This

42:39

is not what Micah does,

42:40

but it is almost

42:42

exactly what Preston does. I

42:45

told you from jump Preston was my guy. Preston

42:47

was like, absolutely not.

42:49

He's jumping in there. He's like, Chloe

42:51

seems to be missing, but this group does

42:54

have rules. Clearly it needs more moderation.

42:57

I am saying as a member of this group,

42:59

as community enforcement, shut

43:01

it down.

43:02

This is democracy. This is what the

43:04

people ... This is a grassroots movement. Everyone

43:06

is like, you're not Chloe. You're not our

43:08

boss. You can't make us stop. Preston

43:11

DMs Chloe sends her a little

43:14

Facebook message and is like, Chloe, focus.

43:17

There's chaos happening here. Chloe's

43:19

like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I

43:21

was dealing with some drama with Camilla. I'm

43:24

actually just going to make you an admin and

43:26

a moderator temporarily and you can just

43:28

delete the post. Preston's like, great.

43:31

Yes. I hope Preston does not go mad

43:33

with power, but I want to say even though as

43:35

I said, I do believe that Chloe is a serial

43:38

dog thief, even

43:40

if that were not the case, there are legitimate

43:42

reasons why a single person might just be busy

43:44

or have things going on in their life. It's

43:47

a job you're not paid for, right? Moderating. Exactly.

43:50

Exactly. He's like, hate

43:52

of major Biden has no place here. He's

43:55

like, I am now in charge. And

43:58

Micah's like, this is great.

43:59

like Preston, my friend, is now

44:02

in charge of this group.

44:04

So now Preston is kind of the moderator

44:07

of this group, right? Chloe's like coming

44:09

in sometimes, but Preston is the captain

44:11

now. Exactly. Okay. Then

44:14

like that summer,

44:15

only like six months later, Camilla

44:18

runs away. To

44:20

her real home. Chloe posts in the group

44:22

and everyone is like, oh shit. Like

44:24

she's like, can you guys help me? Like I've lost Camilla.

44:26

She ran out the front door. Like Camilla is gone.

44:29

Oh, and so they're like making

44:31

posters, right? They're like canvassing the neighborhood.

44:34

They're stopping people on the street to be like, have you seen

44:36

a picture of Camilla? Like, please take

44:38

a photo of the sign so that if you run into her,

44:40

you can text us. So there are just like photos

44:42

of Camilla and her like weird eyes everywhere

44:45

in this neighborhood. Okay. This

44:47

is a major city. Like, would you say it's like a

44:49

top 20 metropolis? Yeah. Okay.

44:52

This seems incredibly inefficient to me. And

44:56

there are other, I

44:58

would say most, you know, major metropolitan

45:01

areas have other preexisting systems

45:03

in place where people are already tapped

45:05

in to be primed for

45:07

this type of thing. Like

45:10

in Illinois, there is like an Illinois lost and

45:12

found dog registry that

45:14

you can. That's nice. Yeah.

45:17

I just think there's probably something that already exists that's

45:19

not like their little Brady Bunch posters, but

45:22

go on. But this is a group that is like self-important,

45:25

right? So they're like, here we go. And

45:27

this is a thing that helps them make

45:28

collective meaning because it gives them a purpose.

45:31

Yes. A week passes, no Camilla.

45:34

Two weeks pass, no Camilla. Chloe

45:36

is very sad. The whole group is very

45:38

sad. Chloe like makes a rare appearance

45:41

at the dog park to like receive hugs, but

45:43

Camilla is gone.

45:44

Oh.

45:47

After Camilla's disappearance, Chloe is around

45:49

like less and less.

45:50

Preston is now doing all of the monitoring. She's not

45:52

getting another dog, even though she's in a dog safe

45:55

apartment. Oh, no, she is. She gets another

45:57

dog. Like two months after this, she gets

45:59

another dog.

45:59

It's a staga. Let me just guess. This

46:02

dog is like a, I'm trying to think of the most

46:04

prestigious, fancy dog I can think

46:06

of. But I don't know enough about like

46:09

a, like, pinky, pink, American

46:11

chemical. She gets a purebred

46:14

corgi puppy. OK. OK.

46:16

That she claims she rescued, but everyone's

46:19

like, no, you did not. You did not

46:21

rescue a purebred corgi puppy.

46:24

And she names the puppy Kate Dutchess

46:26

of Cambridge. OK. I

46:28

was waiting for a Prince Charles

46:29

thing. Immediately,

46:32

everyone in the group is like, oh, gee, Kate Middleton.

46:34

And everyone's like, no, no, no, no, no. Do not use the

46:36

name Middleton. Call her by her title. She's

46:38

a royal. Dutchess of Cambridge. Cambridge.

46:42

Got it. I have to

46:44

know at what point people are going to start investigating

46:47

what is obviously a pattern

46:50

that this

46:51

person allegedly finds,

46:55

where, finds dogs that

46:57

people have invested thousands upon

46:59

thousands of dollars into. And

47:03

also, like,

47:04

dogs, like, it

47:06

just is not adding up. The math ain't math in here. It's

47:08

not.

47:10

At all. After six months, like,

47:12

about six months after Chloe adopts Kate,

47:15

someone in the group posts like an exciting announcement.

47:18

And they're like,

47:19

they're a Portuguese water dog or whatever, right? They're

47:21

like, fancy little dog had puppies.

47:24

Oh, yay. Like, would anyone, like, first

47:26

dibs if you want a puppy in this group?

47:29

Wow. And Chloe responds and is like, me,

47:31

I want a puppy. She raises her little hand.

47:33

She's like, I want one. So she wants an additional dog. Now, Portuguese

47:35

water dogs are large. Yes. So she

47:38

wants a large dog for her apartment, in addition

47:40

to her small stolen dog. Yes. And Preston

47:43

is like, this girl, she is

47:45

always up to something. Like, he's like,

47:47

I'll believe that she's going to adopt this dog when

47:49

I fucking see it. Like, she is

47:52

on one. And our friend of her friend Micah is

47:54

like, what do you mean? And Preston's like,

47:57

it's just a whole thing. Like, she's just a whole thing.

48:00

Nobody thinks anything of this. They can see

48:03

people arranging to meet the dogs. There's

48:05

a plan for the dogs to come to

48:08

the park to meet the puppies to make sure they get along.

48:10

Oh, they're probably so cute. They have a little

48:12

curly hair. They're so cute. Oh,

48:15

gosh. And they're allegedly

48:17

hypo ... I mean, there's no such thing as a hypoallergenic dog, but

48:19

they're like a low shedding dog. Allegedly,

48:21

yes. So cute.

48:23

Right before

48:26

Chloe is supposed to bring Kate Douglas of Cambridge

48:28

to the park to meet these Portuguese water dogs,

48:30

Chloe posts, Kate

48:33

is stolen. Someone puts Kate in

48:35

a van and drives her away. Five

48:37

exclamation points. Dog nappers. She's

48:40

token. So I just want to say there

48:42

are ... I know people that this has happened to them.

48:45

It does happen. It does happen. I

48:48

think Chloe is the calls coming from inside

48:50

the house. Chloe is the dog napper. So

48:52

Micah is like concerned, right? Micah

48:55

is like, it makes perfect sense

48:56

to me that someone would steal a purebred

48:59

corgi puppy. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

49:01

And Preston is like, I think that

49:03

this girl is full of shit. I think

49:05

she's lying.

49:07

I agree. He's like, sure, someone

49:09

could steal Kate,

49:11

but did they? Did

49:14

anyone ever meet Kate? No.

49:16

Ah, okay, okay. Micah

49:20

is just, bless her heart, right? Micah

49:22

is like, I feel really bad for her that she got

49:24

her dog stolen. And Preston is like, wake

49:26

up. This is the third dog

49:29

in as many years that has appeared

49:32

in Chloe's life and then disappeared

49:35

in an unexplained circumstance. Right. A

49:37

fancy dog, not a little bed drag old

49:39

dog that you found wandering in the park that had

49:41

a mustard stain on it and like, you

49:43

know, that like, and a tooth missing

49:46

and three legs,

49:46

like a fancy, fancy,

49:48

fancy dog that costs a lot of money. And

49:51

that also has like, well, the corgis could be longer short

49:53

hair, but in some of these cases, like very,

49:55

like, yes, fancy fur and stuff.

49:57

I just don't buy it. I don't buy it.

49:59

Yeah, Micah's like some people are just unlucky.

50:03

Micah is a simple, simple

50:05

summer child. I don't know what to think of her at this

50:07

point. She is so generous in

50:09

a way that is undeserved. I

50:12

would say credulous more than generous.

50:14

I would say gullible and

50:17

not wise. While they're having

50:19

this conversation,

50:21

someone posts in

50:23

the group and is like, we

50:25

want to get a painting of Kate,

50:28

Duchess of Cambridge, and the other dogs made

50:30

for Chloe, like Venmo us X

50:32

amount of money to

50:33

get this painting made for her because she's

50:35

been through so many tragedies. Like of all of

50:38

her dogs? Yes. So Photoshop the

50:40

dogs together and then make it. This is garbage.

50:42

OK, go on. Preston is like, Micah,

50:45

do not send them that money. Do

50:47

not send any money. Also, this is a solicitation. This

50:49

is a solicitation. This is a violation of the rules.

50:52

Yes. Great point.

50:54

I did not even think about that. That's a really good point. Preston

50:57

is like, do not send this money. We have

50:59

things to figure out. And Micah's like, figure

51:01

out what? And Preston's like, listen,

51:03

I'm not sure yet, but there's something that we need

51:05

to figure out.

51:08

What is your move here? Do you think that

51:10

there is suspicious activity? Am I Preston

51:12

or Micah or me? Be whoever

51:14

you want to be. I'm me and I live in this neighborhood.

51:17

I am with Preston. I

51:19

love an investigation. I

51:22

also think that all of our dogs, well, not

51:24

my personal dog because nobody's going to take my dog. Other

51:28

dogs are in danger in the neighborhood because I

51:30

think that Chloe is up to no good. I

51:32

think that her, I think

51:35

there's a lot of stuff that just doesn't pass the smell

51:37

test about what she's doing. And I

51:39

just don't believe that she has found any of

51:41

these fancy dogs on the street. So how

51:43

do you? Either she's stealing them or, well,

51:47

at the very least, I'm not contributing to this painting

51:49

situation. This is Tom Foolery. Yes.

51:53

I, you know, it's

51:55

not my business to be the police. So

51:57

I don't feel like I want

51:59

to be the police.

51:59

to try to solve the crime of the Providence

52:02

of the Dogs, but I no longer want to do

52:04

anything that enables Chloe. And

52:06

so I'm not going

52:09

to maintain the fiction

52:10

that everybody else, there's no way Preston's

52:12

the only one here who doesn't believe

52:14

this. I'm not going to play into what is, to

52:16

me, an obvious fiction. Preston is like,

52:19

tells Mikey to come over. Preston

52:21

has his two desktop computers

52:24

set up, right? And she's like, we're going community

52:26

enforcement mode. We are going to look into

52:29

everything. Preston is the police. Yes. Preston

52:31

is like, we're going to figure this out.

52:34

He's vengeance. Preston

52:37

is Batman. He is Olivia

52:40

Pope.

52:40

He is like, I'm going to solve

52:43

this mystery. He's like, OK, if

52:46

I were to do this, right, I'd

52:47

be a reporter. What I would do is say, wow,

52:50

someone stole a purebred corgi.

52:52

There's probably a police report for that. And

52:54

I would try to find the police report. Preston is

52:56

not a reporter. So Preston is like, what

52:58

we are going to do is we're going to look at Chloe's Instagram.

53:01

We're just going to see what we can find here. Chloe

53:05

has most recently posted a slideshow

53:07

with photos of Kate that is like, I miss my

53:09

beautiful dog, bring Kate home. So

53:12

he's scrolling, right? He's like, looking at all these photos

53:14

of Kate. He's

53:15

like, scrolling through them one at a time kind of slowly. The

53:17

seventh photo in this slideshow is

53:20

a photo of Kate sitting on a picnic

53:22

table bench at a brewery. And

53:24

in the background of this photo is the ocean.

53:28

They don't live by the ocean. They do not

53:30

live by the ocean. And

53:32

Preston is like, huh,

53:35

that's weird. This is so weird. And

53:38

Micah's like, yeah, and what brewery

53:40

is that? And so he zooms in.

53:42

You know how the cups have the little logo? He

53:44

zooms in on the cup logo. They Google

53:46

the brewery. It is in San Diego.

53:50

They're both like, she did not

53:52

go to San Diego. She doesn't go

53:54

anywhere. Right.

53:57

She would have told everybody, oh, me and

53:59

Kate are going to San Diego.

53:59

in Diego. These are our pictures. So,

54:02

this dog is a little catfish dog. So Micah

54:04

goes to the brewery page, right? He like types

54:06

in the brewery onto

54:08

their Instagram. He goes

54:10

to the tagged photos and

54:12

there in the tagged photos is Kate. Except

54:15

it's not Kate. It's an Instagram

54:18

dog named Tater Tot with 5,000

54:21

followers and a Chewy sponsorship.

54:22

Shout out to Chewy.com. Do

54:25

highly recommend their great products. I

54:27

am not being paid to say this. Wow.

54:30

Wait, also low key so you can get a sponsorship

54:32

with only 5,000 followers. I'm messing up.

54:34

I'm not in charge here. Wow.

54:38

Tater Tot,

54:39

more like Kate or Tot. More

54:41

like Kate fishing, am I right?

54:44

So Micah's like going through the photos on Tater

54:46

Tot's profile, right?

54:47

All of the photos of Kate

54:50

are screenshots from Tater Tot's profile. Oh

54:52

my god, I knew it. I knew it. I knew

54:54

it. I knew it. They have like the

54:56

side by side receipts, right? Oh my god.

54:59

Of like her post and Tater Tot's pose

55:01

with like... Tater Tot as he's known on the streets. Tater

55:04

Tot. Can I just say when you first said he was

55:06

scrolling through the carousel, I thought you were going to

55:09

say that one of the pictures just had

55:11

like a Getty Images.

55:12

And I was going to be like... I

55:15

could basically have that. Literally

55:18

like a Wikimedia Commons photo of a

55:20

dog. It still

55:22

says stock in like the watermark. It just

55:24

stuck on it. Dude,

55:27

I am... I

55:29

wish I could say I was surprised, but you

55:31

know what, Chloe? Oh my god. You

55:34

have the receipts.

55:36

What do you do now? Oh yeah, blow it up. Burn

55:38

the house down. How? Well,

55:41

okay. I need a little more information. So Chloe has been

55:43

a terror as a moderator. Yes. Is

55:45

she a bad person? Like is she an unkind

55:48

person? Has she harmed anybody in the community?

55:50

No.

55:51

And we now know that she did not

55:54

steal this dog. So what she's

55:56

doing is she's telling internet lies

55:58

in order to...

55:59

to, we don't know what, fill a void

56:02

in her life, make herself important,

56:05

maybe to participate. I don't know what happened

56:07

with the other two dogs, like maybe

56:10

something else happened and then she felt like this

56:12

is her main social support network and she needed

56:14

to continue to participate in that.

56:17

Despite my initial instincts of going

56:19

full Khaleesi and absolutely Dracarys-ing

56:22

the whole situation and just burning it down,

56:24

I actually think, you know, like this

56:26

is pretty sad. This is a person

56:29

who is lying to her neighbors

56:31

in order to continue participating in a social

56:33

group that clearly means a lot to her. And that's

56:36

not a healthy choice, but I

56:39

don't want to be unkind to her. So

56:42

I would,

56:43

I'm not sure, to be honest, like

56:47

I think if we were close, I would maybe confront

56:49

her

56:49

or, but we're not close.

56:52

And so I might just maybe

56:54

start to like let other neighbors know

56:56

surreptitiously, or I honestly might just be like,

56:58

you know what? She's a liar on the internet.

57:01

I mean, it's a day that ends in Y. I don't

57:03

know, you know? Like if she's not hurting

57:05

everybody and maybe that she

57:07

clearly needed an out from this situation so she can

57:10

get another dog that is a three dimensional dog that

57:12

she owns and keeps in her house. So

57:14

like, you know, she had

57:17

to dispose of the other dog. Yeah,

57:21

I do think, okay, the one wrinkle in my attempt

57:23

to be kind here is that she

57:25

has alarmed other people in the neighborhood

57:28

and wasted their time. So she scared

57:30

them. She created a sense

57:32

of, you know, chaos and uproar

57:35

among her neighbors. And she also

57:38

like had them out here making these signs when

57:40

they could have been like watching a movie with their

57:42

friends or playing a game

57:44

with their kids. So this is like the devil

57:47

angel dynamic that's going on between Preston

57:49

and Micah, right?

57:50

Preston is like Dracarys.

57:53

We post these photos in the group.

57:56

We are like, look at what she's doing. Like

57:58

do not spend time.

57:59

trying to find Kate.

58:01

Right. Kate doesn't exist.

58:05

Right. Kate is actually Kate or Todd. Yes.

58:07

And Micah, our sweet summer child,

58:10

is like, well, maybe she's having a hard time. Right?

58:13

I think that that is the first logical

58:16

thing I have heard from Micah's fool mouth this

58:18

entire episode.

58:20

So Micah and Preston fight about this.

58:22

And where they kind of come down is

58:24

they're like, the people whose cell phone numbers

58:26

we have, right? So the people who we like the

58:28

most, we are going to discuss

58:31

this with and be like. Are we now making a massive

58:33

group chat? Yes. We are making a group

58:35

chat of like 10 people to be like,

58:37

what do you think we should do here? Here's the information

58:40

we had. Also, do not be afraid that

58:42

your dog is going to be dog napped because

58:44

that's not real.

58:46

Right, right, right. Oh, this is

58:48

so messy. OK, so they're chatting, chatting,

58:50

chatting in this group chat. This is going on

58:52

for like 24 hours, right? People

58:55

are chatting back and forth really, really quickly.

58:58

They're like coming to the conclusion that they need to confront

59:01

Chloe about it, right? They're like deciding that they

59:03

need to confront Chloe about it when Chloe

59:05

posts to the group. Oh, no. Oh,

59:08

no. I am now going to share

59:10

my screen with you. Yes. To show you

59:12

what she posted.

59:16

Bear with me for just one second. You

59:18

know, it is a violation of the norms of this

59:20

group to share screenshots to outside

59:23

parties. Can you see this?

59:25

Yes, I can. Can

59:28

you describe to the listeners what you're

59:30

seeing? Oh, my God. OK.

59:34

OK. First of all,

59:37

it's not an actual screenshot. The production

59:39

team has made a very nice PowerPoint. She

59:42

posted a PowerPoint in

59:44

the Facebook group. A slide

59:46

deck. I love

59:48

this energy. OK, first of all, the PowerPoint is

59:51

titled, in my defense, Let

59:59

OK,

1:00:02

she has made an interesting choice

1:00:04

of layouts. We have like a

1:00:06

hot pink Malibu Barbie

1:00:08

situation. It has come to my

1:00:11

attention

1:00:12

that there are some things going around

1:00:14

about me. Exclamation point. Subhead.

1:00:18

I will not be falsely accused. Exclamation

1:00:21

point. Next slide, please. Figure

1:00:25

one. Oh, oh my

1:00:27

God. OK, describe to them what you're seeing. I'm going to describe

1:00:30

what I see. OK, so this slide features

1:00:32

three figures. Each is labeled figure one,

1:00:35

figure two, figure three. And each one features

1:00:37

the dogs in question. And

1:00:40

they are labeled figure one, Diana, Princess

1:00:42

of Wales, figure two, Camilla, Queen, Consort,

1:00:45

figure three, Kate, Duchess of Cambridge. And

1:00:47

then there's a clip art of a banner like

1:00:49

a pink silk banner and some diamonds

1:00:52

just to give you that extra zhuzh that

1:00:54

all these dogs are royal dogs.

1:00:56

OK, don't get it twisted. And

1:00:59

the first picture features,

1:01:01

I guess, a corgi, which to me looks like a

1:01:04

purebred corgi, which I guess that's what we found

1:01:06

out. That's the dog was the second one

1:01:08

Camilla, Queen, Consort. You had said that this dog

1:01:10

was funny looking. I did not

1:01:13

grasp how funny looking this

1:01:15

dog is. She

1:01:18

is a spaniel and she

1:01:20

is funny looking.

1:01:22

The third photo is Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, who

1:01:24

we now know to be Tatertot, aka

1:01:27

Katertot, aka

1:01:29

Kate fishing. And this

1:01:31

is a normal iPhone

1:01:33

photo of a dog sitting in front of an oven

1:01:35

in a kitchen with like one of those mats

1:01:38

that's supposed to like keep your feet from hurting when you're standing

1:01:40

at the stove for a long time and a bowl

1:01:42

of something. And the dog is like looking in the camera.

1:01:44

Also, this dog is absolutely adorable

1:01:47

and has fat little feets and

1:01:49

fat little legs, and I just love her

1:01:51

so much. But it is a normal photo

1:01:54

of a normal dog, which makes sense because it was stolen

1:01:56

from a normal person's Instagram. Yes.

1:01:59

Wow. ready for slide three. Yeah,

1:02:01

I just want to say also, in addition, aside

1:02:03

from the labels on these figures, there is no

1:02:06

evidentiary material presented here. This

1:02:08

is just a picture of Doc. It's just photos of the three

1:02:10

dogs. It's just pictures of the dogs. And

1:02:13

it also, if anything, makes

1:02:15

it clear, these are not, it

1:02:18

adds suspicion to her. It does not help her case. Yeah.

1:02:21

It's extremely funny to have the first slide

1:02:23

be like, it's come to my attention that there were

1:02:25

rumors. Slide two, background. And

1:02:27

then it's the same slide two. Pictures

1:02:29

of dogs. And then it says no information.

1:02:32

And also, the last thing I'll

1:02:34

say about this is there's a contrast between

1:02:36

the first two, which are clearly professionally

1:02:38

taken photos, and the third one, which is

1:02:40

a dog in a house. Yes.

1:02:43

OK, ready? I could not

1:02:45

be more ready. But am I really ready? Oh

1:02:47

my god! Oh my god!

1:02:51

OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK. So

1:02:54

this slide. So

1:02:58

this slide on the right has a clipart

1:03:00

of a sad tree that has

1:03:02

no leaves, like a silhouette of

1:03:05

tree branches that have no leaves

1:03:07

that you would put if you were like, if

1:03:10

you were doing an elementary school play of Edgar

1:03:12

Allan Poe adaptations, you would

1:03:14

use this clipart. If you were doing

1:03:17

like a spooky,

1:03:19

like you were inviting people to a Halloween

1:03:21

party,

1:03:22

you might use this clipart.

1:03:24

If you were like a seventh grader who

1:03:26

wrote a poem about a sad

1:03:29

event in your life, you might use this clipart. Yes.

1:03:32

What's the other clipart on this page? The

1:03:35

other clipart is that, so there's four sentences.

1:03:37

And each sentence is divided by a little

1:03:40

bone

1:03:41

clipart, which is like, it's like

1:03:43

wingdings. You know, it's like an outline. It's

1:03:45

like somewhere between clipart and like an emoji.

1:03:49

And this slide has four sentences,

1:03:52

which I shall now read. Great.

1:03:55

I invented Kate

1:03:57

to deal with some stuff I was going

1:03:59

through. The boldness of this revelation I was

1:04:02

not prepared for. I'm

1:04:06

also immediately bothered that this is not in

1:04:08

chronological order. Yeah, so we're going in

1:04:10

our reverse order. Okay, I invented

1:04:12

Kate to deal with some stuff I was going through.

1:04:15

Bone emoji. My

1:04:17

ex and I adopted Camilla when we

1:04:19

were together. Bone emoji.

1:04:22

He paid the adoption fee, but she

1:04:25

was my dog.

1:04:27

Italyx on my, she was my

1:04:28

dog. Bone emoji.

1:04:31

When we broke up, he took Camilla

1:04:33

and ruined my life. That

1:04:35

is very sad. I am confused

1:04:38

because I forgot which dog is which. Okay, so

1:04:40

Camilla is funny looking Spaniel. And

1:04:43

her story about funny looking Spaniel

1:04:45

was that,

1:04:46

what was the story? Her

1:04:49

story was that she found her on the street. But

1:04:52

then where did she go? She ran away. She

1:04:55

ran away. Okay, okay. So, okay.

1:04:59

She did kind of run away.

1:05:01

I don't know why she wrote

1:05:03

this in reverse chronological order. I think it would have made

1:05:05

more sense to go dog by dog. Good at it. It

1:05:08

also does not account for Diana, but

1:05:10

I guess we know what happened to Diana, which was Diana.

1:05:13

I don't believe she found Diana. So we

1:05:15

need to get to that. Maybe the final slide will explain this,

1:05:17

but yeah.

1:05:19

This is a weird, also

1:05:21

this is weird because her initial theme made it seem like everybody

1:05:23

was lying. Nobody was lying. Everybody

1:05:26

was absolutely telling the truth about

1:05:28

her. I feel sad about

1:05:30

the X thing. That happens. I

1:05:33

know people have that's happened too. That's rough.

1:05:37

I mean, this corroborates my theory that

1:05:39

she was going through some things. I

1:05:41

think the choices she made to cope

1:05:44

were not healthy choices. I

1:05:46

assume that Chloe was doing the best with

1:05:48

the emotional skills that she has available

1:05:50

to her. And therapy

1:05:53

is expensive and not always fully accessible. And

1:05:56

in pandemic times, like I said,

1:05:58

people have meltdowns.

1:05:59

I do. She owned up to

1:06:02

it. I am ready for the fourth

1:06:04

and final slide, which I hope will explain.

1:06:07

Oh my God. Okay.

1:06:10

Okay. Okay.

1:06:13

I'm sorry

1:06:15

for throwing

1:06:17

off the levels by screaming. Everyone

1:06:25

does.

1:06:25

Oh my God. Are

1:06:29

you going to be okay? Oh my gosh. Yes.

1:06:32

Are you crying? She's

1:06:35

wiping tears from her eyes. I am

1:06:37

weeping. Okay. It's

1:06:39

because the slide is so beautiful. She

1:06:41

loves art. Okay. Okay.

1:06:44

Okay. Okay.

1:06:47

Um, I really was hoping this slide would explain

1:06:49

what happened to Diana, but it does not. Instead,

1:06:52

by way of conclusion, this slide

1:06:54

has a left and a right part. On

1:06:57

the left part, it has a clip

1:06:59

art of a rose, like a weird, like

1:07:01

airbrushed rose. And then on top of that, a clip

1:07:03

art of a

1:07:04

little corgi. Clip

1:07:09

art of a little corgi that

1:07:11

stylistically does not match the rose. So

1:07:14

it's like awkwardly

1:07:16

layered on top. And

1:07:18

then please put this in the show notes.

1:07:23

And then on the left, it has, you know, in

1:07:25

keeping with her color scheme, it has the same

1:07:28

hot pink for the first slide. And it has a bullet

1:07:30

pointed list and it says, what I did

1:07:32

was colon,

1:07:34

super weird bullet point,

1:07:36

kind of crazy question mark, unnecessary.

1:07:41

On the right, it says what I did

1:07:43

was not

1:07:44

bullet point mean spirited or coming

1:07:47

from a place of negativity. Bullet

1:07:49

point two, got to disagree with you here, Chloe, in

1:07:52

attempt to get empathy or attention from this

1:07:54

community.

1:07:55

Um, beneath that, it says,

1:07:57

thank you all for the portrait of Kate. I will

1:07:59

try. I will treasure it. Kate,

1:08:03

not your dog, so the treasure,

1:08:05

the portrait is puzzling because

1:08:08

of the three dogs, this is the only dog, this

1:08:10

is Kate or Tot, this was never your dog, you have

1:08:12

never interacted with Kate or Tot. So,

1:08:14

but

1:08:15

I will treasure it. I feel like she

1:08:17

had to throw that in as like a pro forma, like

1:08:20

y'all did a nice thing for me. Yes.

1:08:23

And then it says Finn,

1:08:24

that Fent would

1:08:26

be the correct pronunciation. Like

1:08:29

signaling the conclusion of the slideshow, which

1:08:31

we know to be over because it's a slideshow that's

1:08:33

over, there's no more slides, you don't have to write that. She

1:08:36

did not apologize at all.

1:08:40

She did not apologize. I

1:08:43

am so disappointed in Chloe because I

1:08:45

think it's, yes, she took

1:08:47

responsibility for places, sort

1:08:50

of, or she did not. Actually what she did was she

1:08:52

provided an explanation for why she did the

1:08:54

things that she did. I do

1:08:56

not believe her explanations were honest because

1:08:58

she absolutely

1:08:59

wanted attention from the community and

1:09:01

it would be okay to admit that. Yes.

1:09:03

Like that is understandable. And what

1:09:06

she did not do was apologize, she did not apologize

1:09:08

for scaring anybody about the dog nappers, she

1:09:10

did not apologize for lying, she did not

1:09:13

apologize for wasting people's times, making

1:09:15

these posters. Okay, they had to use

1:09:17

toner or they had to go to their work and like make

1:09:19

copies on the low. And the time. And

1:09:21

they had to go to FedEx, and the time, yo, time is like

1:09:23

very precious. So I think

1:09:26

it is very bogus. She did not apologize

1:09:28

at all. And she did not

1:09:31

explain the dog that from jump, I maintain

1:09:34

the provenance of this dog is a lie.

1:09:36

Diana, I have

1:09:39

questions. I also just think it's important

1:09:41

to note that she posted this

1:09:43

in the group Facebook at

1:09:46

random

1:09:47

and 30, 40, 50%, more than 50%. 70% of

1:09:51

this group had no idea that

1:09:54

anything was going on. Okay, so that also means

1:09:57

that somebody in the circle of trust

1:09:59

group chat.

1:09:59

Absolutely is a snitch. There is a mole.

1:10:02

There is a rat inside. It just goes

1:10:04

to show you should not make friends from Facebook and

1:10:06

you should not

1:10:08

be involved with Facebook anywhere whatsoever

1:10:10

because these people were not trustworthy. They

1:10:13

told they went and they told and

1:10:15

maybe they did it. Honestly, it could have been Micah.

1:10:17

I'm not going to front. It absolutely could have been Micah who

1:10:19

like maybe she was trying to either give Chloe a heads up

1:10:22

or see if there was like a perfectly reasonable explanation

1:10:25

that she could then take to Preston and avoid. So

1:10:27

I honestly think it was Micah that snitched. I

1:10:31

do. I think it was absolutely Micah that snitched. I

1:10:34

think that Chloe, I'm

1:10:36

curious to know about what the rest of her life is like that

1:10:38

her

1:10:38

approach to this was a PowerPoint. She

1:10:40

could have gone with the classic note tap screenshot.

1:10:42

She could have. But it seemed important.

1:10:45

The funniest part about the slideshow was that

1:10:47

the pictures of the three dogs sets you up to

1:10:49

think that she's going to be like

1:10:51

exhibit a clearly. This is not the same dog

1:10:53

or this dog was not like the photos are supposed

1:10:55

to somehow disprove the allegations, but they do not. But

1:10:57

they do.

1:10:58

Just pictures of the dogs. This this

1:11:01

melts down the group,

1:11:02

right? Like I'm talking hundreds

1:11:05

of comments within like an hour. Like

1:11:07

people are losing

1:11:09

it. You know, everybody is at work. Yes.

1:11:11

Telling their coworkers. It's like midday. This

1:11:14

is like the best. Honestly, this is a great

1:11:16

day for every single person in this group. Everyone

1:11:18

is losing it. Oh, my. Everyone

1:11:21

is posting. Preston is like

1:11:23

this is out of control. Like all

1:11:25

of this is crazy. People are texting.

1:11:28

No, but this allows crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. This

1:11:31

allows Preston to do a Palpatine and seize power

1:11:33

in the moment of chaos. Yeah. Now become the

1:11:35

autocratic dictator that he always dreamed of being.

1:11:37

It is also easy for him to seize power because

1:11:40

after posting this, Chloe leaves

1:11:42

the group

1:11:42

and locks her a pal. Her couch. Of course,

1:11:45

of course, of course she does. Thus violating

1:11:47

one of the rules of the group, which is that you can't block the

1:11:49

mods. Yeah.

1:11:52

Wow. Wow. Chloe. Wow. Wow. Now, the thing that

1:11:54

is sucky about everybody's situation.

1:11:57

And this is why, again, you shouldn't mess with Facebook is

1:11:59

that. Like you can close the account all you

1:12:01

want my good friend.

1:12:04

This is your actual neighborhood that you can live

1:12:06

in. And so you can't close

1:12:08

your life. You

1:12:10

can't close your life. Like now you have to go

1:12:12

to like a different grocery store. Now

1:12:15

you have to like only go out at night when

1:12:17

undercover of death is when no one will recognize

1:12:19

you and be a pariah because

1:12:22

this was banana grams. I feel like

1:12:24

she should have just apologized. Why

1:12:26

didn't she just say she was sorry? I think that's

1:12:29

the key part of it is that there's no apology

1:12:31

anywhere in the slideshow. It is in

1:12:33

my defense, I lied. Yeah,

1:12:36

in my defense, people are saying I lied. I

1:12:39

did. In fact, I did. Here's

1:12:42

pictures of dogs. We are at

1:12:44

the end of our story. Oh

1:12:47

my gosh. First off, how are you feeling at this

1:12:49

point? I feel this

1:12:51

is everything I could have wanted out of it.

1:12:53

So like, my dream every

1:12:55

day in interacting with the people I know is that

1:12:58

one of them will be like, hey girl, let

1:13:00

me tell you. This is an amazing

1:13:02

story. I really hope that Micah

1:13:04

learned some lessons about how you really can't trust

1:13:06

everybody because right now you could sell her

1:13:08

a beach house in Idaho and she would absolutely like it. I

1:13:11

hope that she learned, I'm glad Micah made friends.

1:13:14

I'm glad that they had

1:13:17

some bonding over this shared absurd

1:13:19

experience. I agree with Chloe

1:13:22

that nobody really got hurt assuming that

1:13:24

nobody like jumped out and stabbed

1:13:26

somebody when they thought they were a dog napper walking

1:13:28

down the street, which like, that's the side of the

1:13:30

story they don't want you to know. The

1:13:32

dog napper stabbing. Whose side are you

1:13:34

on at this point? I

1:13:37

mean, I was really sympathetic

1:13:39

to Chloe until she

1:13:42

did not apologize. And I

1:13:44

feel that there were some low ball apologies here.

1:13:47

I feel that there's a way she could have done even

1:13:49

like a whack, like halfway apology

1:13:52

that would not have required her to fully

1:13:54

account for what is clearly a deep well of unresolved

1:13:57

issues. But even to just be like, I'm sorry,

1:13:59

I wasted your time. I'm sorry, I lied. Or

1:14:01

like, you know, I really respect everybody in this group

1:14:03

and you know, I really, I'm grateful for the time

1:14:06

we shared. Just like, just like some

1:14:08

gesture of, of

1:14:10

like even the mildest accountability. Yeah,

1:14:13

acknowledgement, not even accountability. So she

1:14:15

really, I was feeling for

1:14:17

her until she failed there. Yes.

1:14:21

I think that Preston's

1:14:24

carceral tendencies are, you

1:14:27

know, questionable. He wanted

1:14:29

to punish her, but ultimately he didn't.

1:14:31

Like I do think he, you

1:14:33

know, managed it. He brought it to a community process.

1:14:36

It really shows, you know, on that day, Preston really became

1:14:38

Facebook moderator. Like he really

1:14:40

grew and he built a community

1:14:42

panel to like come up with a way of adjudicating

1:14:45

this. So, you know, I feel like he

1:14:47

handled it relatively well and was open

1:14:49

to feedback given that what he wanted to do was slash

1:14:51

and burn. And I feel like we need

1:14:53

better mental health resources because,

1:14:57

yes, we had a strange

1:14:59

meltdown. Would you like the final

1:15:02

update?

1:15:02

Oh my God. Yes. Okay.

1:15:05

So like two

1:15:07

days after this all goes down.

1:15:10

Wait, you're telling me the world continued to turn. Yes.

1:15:13

Yes. Mika texts Preston and

1:15:16

is like, wait a fucking second. What

1:15:19

about Princess Diana? Right.

1:15:22

There's nothing in the slideshow about

1:15:24

Princess Diana. Mika, I'm sorry,

1:15:26

you were so slow. That was the best. Preston

1:15:29

is like, yeah, but like we met Princess

1:15:31

Diana, like Princess Diana exists.

1:15:35

And Mika's like, but this woman lies

1:15:37

all the time and the story never made sense. Oh, look at Mika

1:15:39

growing. Look at Mika growing. How did she get

1:15:41

this purebred corgi without a chip? And

1:15:44

like, Mika is like losing it,

1:15:46

right? She suddenly is like, I have, a

1:15:48

scammer has been revealed to me and now

1:15:50

I will find the end of the scam. Mika

1:15:53

became middle-aged on that, at

1:15:55

that moment. Like she crossed over her, her youth

1:15:57

ending. Yes. Precious.

1:15:59

Yeah, people lie, Micah.

1:16:01

Preston is like, yeah, I want to know about this too.

1:16:04

But Preston is very busy recruiting

1:16:06

other people to become co-moderators

1:16:08

of this group and create a system. Good.

1:16:13

So Micah takes it upon herself. She

1:16:15

starts asking around in person

1:16:18

at the dog park, being like, what do you know?

1:16:21

Who do you know? Did you meet Princess Diana? Kind

1:16:24

of going through all of this stuff. And

1:16:26

she finds the answer.

1:16:29

From like an older

1:16:31

woman at the park. Do

1:16:35

you remember the rule about

1:16:37

how you can't block the moderators? Yes.

1:16:42

Turns out that that rule exists

1:16:44

because this woman that Micah

1:16:47

meets at the park found out

1:16:50

that Diana was not Chloe's

1:16:52

dog. Diana was a

1:16:54

dog that Chloe dog sat for

1:16:56

sometimes. Oh, this

1:16:58

is so sad. Oh.

1:17:02

She posted that to the group, like this

1:17:04

older woman posted it to the group and blocked

1:17:07

Chloe so Chloe couldn't see it. But

1:17:09

whoever is the secret narc in this group.

1:17:11

The snitch. Snitched. Told.

1:17:14

Told her. And then they get booted. And then

1:17:17

she got booted. Oh, OK. So

1:17:19

wait a second. So

1:17:21

was the story about the family taking

1:17:23

her back, was that totally fake? Yeah. It

1:17:26

was just. It was all

1:17:28

made up. It was just like that person was like, I don't want

1:17:30

to hire Chloe anymore. Yeah. Or just

1:17:32

that person took their dog back from vacation.

1:17:36

Oh

1:17:37

my gosh. This is

1:17:41

shocking news. I

1:17:43

am frustrated that I did not think of it in advance.

1:17:48

Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow,

1:17:50

wow. The only final update

1:17:52

I have for you is. So Chloe has no dogs.

1:17:55

No dogs. Well, she did have Camilla.

1:17:58

She did have Camilla.

1:17:59

But how do we know? Because here's the other

1:18:02

thing. There was the ex. Oh,

1:18:04

my ex took her. Prove it. Like there was never

1:18:06

mention. Yeah, there was never a mention of a partner.

1:18:08

Nobody mentioned that she cohabitated with anybody.

1:18:11

Like I have questions

1:18:14

about that dog, too. I

1:18:16

Chloe is giving like

1:18:19

seven year old first grader vibes. Like,

1:18:21

yeah, I have a dog. This is my you know

1:18:23

what I mean? Like, yes, is. Oh,

1:18:26

Chloe, Chloe, Chloe, Chloe, Chloe. I

1:18:28

really hope and pray that you get the help that

1:18:30

you need, because this isn't even

1:18:32

like a scam because you don't get anything.

1:18:35

The only thing she got was social interaction,

1:18:38

which is a painting like the

1:18:40

painting of a random dog from Instagram

1:18:42

that you don't know. I

1:18:45

she clearly, you know

1:18:47

what? Like right now somewhere, let me

1:18:49

tell you where Chloe is. Chloe is joining

1:18:51

a Facebook group for like like

1:18:54

tortoise owners. Yeah, cat

1:18:56

lovers. Like she really needs

1:18:58

social connection. She's

1:19:00

starved for social connection. And she

1:19:02

has found this weird way of getting it, which

1:19:05

like super messily. She

1:19:07

opted to do this in a way that is tied to her residence.

1:19:10

Yeah, she lives, which is a poor choice. Awful

1:19:12

choice. Again, giving me

1:19:15

like I'm seven to eight years old vibes. Like

1:19:17

just didn't really think this through. But

1:19:20

yeah, she didn't really scam anybody. She was

1:19:22

lying because she needed social,

1:19:25

a social work. In which she like then

1:19:27

like gain importance. Yeah,

1:19:29

she corrupted it, but she like gained importance because

1:19:32

she was only one willing to put in the time

1:19:34

to moderate, which she had time to do

1:19:36

because she didn't have to walk a dog because she didn't own any dogs.

1:19:40

Oh, my God. The only fight I do

1:19:42

not have an update on Camilla. Sadly, the

1:19:45

only final update I have is that

1:19:47

Preston and his group of like his

1:19:49

cabal of new moderators added

1:19:51

an 11th rule to the group, which

1:19:54

is no dog fishing. Wow.

1:19:59

Wow. Wow.

1:19:59

I'm so glad that as per usual,

1:20:02

no dogs were harmed. No dogs were ever

1:20:04

harmed on this podcast. Yes,

1:20:06

yes, yes. Great news. Eve, thank you so much

1:20:08

for coming on Normal Gossip. This was a delight.

1:20:11

I'm so happy you came. Thank you

1:20:13

for driving me to tears. I

1:20:16

can honestly say I do not believe in PowerPoint

1:20:18

presentation. You know, I'm a professor. I've never

1:20:20

created that amount of emotion. I'm a professor at a university.

1:20:23

I see a lot of PowerPoints. I do not believe

1:20:25

I have ever wept for a PowerPoint.

1:20:28

And I will always cherish this

1:20:29

moment that we shared where I cried.

1:20:32

It was beautiful. Thanks. It's

1:20:34

been real.

1:20:40

Thank you for listening to Normal Gossip. If

1:20:43

you have a gossip story to share with us, email

1:20:45

us at normalgossip at defector.com.

1:20:48

Or you can leave us a voicemail at 2679GOSSIP.

1:20:52

If you love this podcast and want us to keep making

1:20:54

it, become a friend or a friend of a friend

1:20:57

at supportnormalgossip.com. You

1:20:59

can follow the show on Instagram and TikTok

1:21:02

at Normal Gossip. You can follow Kelsey

1:21:04

on all social media at atmckinnykelsey.

1:21:07

This podcast was produced by Alex Sujung

1:21:09

Laughlin.

1:21:10

Diana Moskovitz is our story editor. Justin

1:21:13

Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Jasper

1:21:15

Wang and Sean Kuhn are Defector's business guys.

1:21:18

Tom Lay is our editor-in-chief. Jay

1:21:20

Toulviera is our production assistant. Dan

1:21:23

McQuaid runs our sweet merch store, which

1:21:25

you can find at normalgossip.store. Tara

1:21:28

Jacoby designed our show art. And

1:21:31

thanks to the rest of the Defector staff. Defector

1:21:33

Media is a collectively owned subscriber-based

1:21:36

media company. Normal Gossip is

1:21:38

a proud member of Radiotopia. Normal

1:21:41

Gossip is hosted by Kelsey McKinney. Is

1:21:44

that everyone? Cool. I'm Steven Sandberg,

1:21:46

and remember, you did not hear this from me.

1:22:02

Radio to piano

1:22:05

from PRX.