0:00

Welcome to another episode of Internet Hate

0:02

Machine. I am joined by my producer, Sophie

0:05

Hey. Sophie heybrid It, and

0:08

we are so excited to be joined

0:10

today by our guests prop probably

0:12

no PROP from his amazing podcast Hood

0:15

Politics or his amazing coffee

0:17

company. Thank you so much for being

0:19

here. Dog. I can't wait to do

0:21

this and just be physically outraged

0:24

by all this stuff. Y'all gotta

0:26

go through. Oh, you're about to be outraged.

0:28

Before we get into it, I have to ask you

0:30

tweeted about losing followers since

0:33

must took over Twitter? What have you? What has it

0:35

been like to be on Twitter since must

0:37

took over? In your in your view, I mean honestly,

0:39

I was like, I don't want to get involved

0:42

with the like I don't

0:44

want to feed I don't want to feed it. So I was like, I

0:46

honestly pulled the like, well let's

0:49

see, you know what I'm saying, let

0:51

me let me see what it is, and every once in a

0:53

while kind of go through my own like sort

0:55

of bought purging whatever

0:57

right. But definitely, at

1:01

first I saw a complete surge

1:03

of like porn bots,

1:06

and then a complete surge of like these like

1:08

anybody's got like an American flag and patriot

1:11

in their bio. Like I just had a surge

1:13

of that, and I was like, why are y'all here?

1:15

Right? And then yeah,

1:18

and then I just started like just handful

1:21

of day, you know, saying. So I'm down like five followers,

1:24

which is fine, but it

1:26

was more like, dude, I used to lose followers because

1:28

of like what I said, not just

1:30

like out of nowhere, like

1:32

what is this about? I wish I could earn my losing,

1:35

you know what I'm saying, But definitely like

1:37

I haven't seen a lot of the like upticking

1:40

like hate and like vitriol.

1:43

I guess because I was already a public figure. So

1:45

I feel like I've already seen like I already

1:47

went through my fair share of that, you know what I'm saying.

1:50

So to me, I'm like, like when they talk about

1:52

like crime wave, I'm like, crime

1:54

is not up. I lived through l A in the nineties.

1:56

This is fine, right, So

1:59

so for me, I'm like, oh baby, just saying

2:01

nothing. But I will say I

2:04

have enjoyed all the like fake

2:08

or the Twitter blue stuff and

2:11

like people like paying for their

2:13

verification and creating trolls

2:15

and then realizing now you could click it and it could

2:17

say like not this fool is actually verified,

2:20

or be like not that food paid for it, you

2:23

know, but generally like it's it's kind

2:25

of been, except for just the losing of followers.

2:27

Like for me personally, it's kind of in the same Yeah,

2:31

yeah, it's been. It's been. It's such a weird

2:34

spot that we're in. I completely

2:36

agree with you. I've been seeing an uptick in horn

2:39

and pytose scams. One

2:41

of my favorite podcasters, Lazy Got

2:44

was was hit by like a crypto scammer,

2:46

and I think we're in this no

2:48

man's land right now where scams

2:51

and pranks and trolls

2:54

have I think really been empowered and emboldened.

2:57

I don't necessarily see Elon

2:59

Musk making it seriously, and I think it's a it's

3:01

a real problem. I think it can really you

3:04

know, open up the platform to be mifused. He

3:06

definitely has the like the way the

3:08

way I've been linking thinking about it is like this

3:10

fool is still a seventh grader, right

3:13

and being like I can jump

3:16

off that roof and then like all

3:18

the homies being like, bro, you don't have to

3:20

jump off the roof that it's cool, Like why

3:22

you feel like you gotta do that? No, I could do it, And

3:24

the homes are like, all right, do it. You know

3:26

what I'm saying. Now that's full climbed on the

3:28

roof and it's like, oh shit, niggie,

3:32

okay, do it like you're gonna if you're gonna do

3:34

it, do it, you know what I'm saying, and him realizing

3:36

like I immediately read it's it's it's

3:38

Ron Burgundy jumping into the bear trap,

3:41

you know what I'm saying, and being like, I immediately

3:43

regret this decision. And to me, it's like

3:46

I will say, my Twitter experience, maybe not my personal

3:48

one, but my like as a user have

3:51

been the scamps have been

3:53

so funny to me, like seeing people

3:55

like all the other fake Elon Musk like

3:57

accounts, the fake Lebron James

4:00

account and just and wondering

4:02

how, Like I think we talked about

4:04

this before in the episode we had with politics,

4:06

Like if you would just take like

4:09

an extra second to like

4:11

once you see the name and the check and

4:13

then just read the person's app mentioned their

4:16

actual handle, and you're like, oh,

4:19

this is a joke, you know, and just or like

4:21

it'll be it was like Lebron James with a

4:23

Z at the end, So I'm like, that's clearly

4:25

not Lebron James. But people don't do that

4:28

though, time to do that. Yeah,

4:31

And I think where we're at right now is

4:34

the funny stories are what are

4:36

getting pressed right now? Yeah, but

4:39

right, and that's what's that's what's you know,

4:41

forward facing. But in reality, like

4:44

clearly security and safety

4:47

or not priority.

4:49

And as we know from the show, the

4:52

people that are going to be affected from this most

4:54

are marginalized people. And

4:57

uh, that ship stuck and

4:59

and that's the it. Yeah, that's that intersection

5:02

man, right, Like like you said, it's like like obviously

5:04

this the show is about the experience

5:06

of like marginalized you know, specifically

5:09

women of color, and it's like of course on Mars

5:11

List, but I'm also not a woman of color,

5:14

so I'm gonna have a different experience.

5:16

And I think that, yeah, like that that it's

5:18

important that you know, That's

5:21

why I'm glad this show is happening, you know what I mean, because it's important

5:23

to like, so yeah,

5:27

it's perfect. Yeah, this may mean my

5:29

experience, Yeah, this may gonna

5:31

be my experience because I'm definitely like a lot

5:33

of the stuff that I did, like even you

5:35

know, surviving my upbringing was like I was very

5:38

good at staying out of stuff. Like I'm like, yeah,

5:40

I just don't. I just stay out of it unless

5:42

I need to be in it, you know what I'm saying, until

5:44

like you know, somebody

5:47

turns turns to me, like even like you

5:49

know, to carry the metaphor like you

5:51

know, if it's a if it's a if it's a woman

5:53

of color, like I'm gonna stay out of it until

5:56

she looks at me like hey,

5:58

youn say something. It's like, right, I'm

6:00

gonna break this nigger's jaw, like just you, I'm

6:03

not gonna move until you tell me. You know what I'm saying, Like, if

6:05

you tell me, then let's go. But if not, I'm like, oh,

6:08

she got it, you know what I'm saying, Like I stat

6:10

like I'm usually not worried, like oh she got

6:12

a she fing a drag y'all, you know. And and

6:14

and for me, it's like I'm I'm ready for the show,

6:16

which is what what which I love about

6:19

this Leslie Jones episode because I

6:21

don't know if we're not supposed to reveal that yet, but like

6:24

I was like in that hole. I

6:26

remember that saga and I was like, yeah,

6:29

I was like she dragging them and it was funny.

6:32

I remember how it

6:35

was weird and random to me, where I

6:37

was like I don't know when it started,

6:39

like how all this started or why

6:41

her. I was like did she

6:44

do? Like why are y'all this

6:46

seems so it seems so out of nowhere to me, like

6:48

this is so random, and but

6:50

I also knew she was very funny.

6:53

And for me, I was like, she

6:55

like, y'all picked on the wrong person because

6:58

I'm like, she forn a drag, y'all. And

7:00

to me, I

7:03

was the fact that like she

7:05

wasn't like, man, I'm

7:07

so sorry, Dave, Like why is everybody picking

7:09

on me? She was like nigga, your mama

7:12

got funny feet, you know what I'm saying. Like, and I was like,

7:14

you know, fuck you your head pointy, and I'm

7:17

like she's I was like to me,

7:19

I was like, okay, y'all, look y'all,

7:21

y'all to poked the bull, you

7:24

got the wrong one. She not the one. And to me it

7:26

was funny. Well what was funny

7:28

was her the way that she was dragging

7:30

them back. It wasn't funny what was happening

7:32

to her. But her answers were

7:35

like, we Leslie Jones is

7:37

like one of the funniest people. She's one of

7:39

the She's just there. And I

7:41

was like, I understand what y'all problem with her is. She's

7:44

hilarious, Like, but what

7:46

what's the problem. Okay,

7:48

this is a perfect segue. The

7:51

problem this is her.

7:53

I could not have set the segway up better.

7:55

So let's get into it. Okay. So on

7:58

the heels and our last few episodes, we were

8:00

talking about gamer Gate and all

8:02

of these tensions around marginalized

8:04

folks. I guess I would

8:06

say the perception that there invading

8:09

these spaces that have been traditionally

8:11

thought of as like very white and very well

8:14

right video games, tech, and

8:16

film. So you have all of these like

8:19

largely white dudes who are frustrated

8:22

and angry that they feel like they're being

8:24

kind of threatened in these spaces.

8:26

Just the idea of like someone who's on a white

8:28

dude entering these spaces and thing

8:30

in these spaces. And so enter

8:32

one of our major players for this conversation,

8:35

Steve Bannon. I

8:37

know, all right, how this starts at Steve

8:39

Bannon. It starts with Steve Bannon. We got, we

8:41

got, we gotta. You're probably thinking, like we're talking about Leslie

8:43

Jones, where I was trying at Steve Bannon. And it's

8:45

because Steve Bannon was an early

8:48

figure who really saw what a powerful

8:50

force these frustrated, disaffected,

8:53

you know, rangel threatened white

8:56

guys could be and he thinks, Wow,

8:58

we need to harness this and web and eyes and

9:00

consolidate their political power.

9:02

So it sounds a little bit about why that is. It's gonna get a little

9:04

I'll breathe through this. It's gonna get a little bit technical.

9:07

I'm gonna warrn folks, but I found this fascinating

9:09

and if you let me, I feel like we

9:12

need this part bridget Like I feel the entire

9:15

technical timeline of this higher

9:18

mess. Yeah, okay, so let's do it. So you

9:20

might be thinking, why did Steve Bannon,

9:22

like, why was he mixed up with all of these

9:25

male gamers. Well, it's because he saw

9:27

the power of these gamers firsthand himself.

9:29

Before Bannon was in

9:32

the Trump White House or possibly maybe

9:34

going to jail, he was a successful

9:36

Wall Street dude. In two thousand five,

9:38

Steve Bannon cooked up with a Hong Kong based

9:41

startup called Internet Gaming Entertainment

9:43

or i g i GE was his company

9:45

that was making millions and millions of dollars

9:48

through selling virtual goods for real

9:50

money within video games like

9:52

ever Test or World of Warcraft? Did you

9:54

ever play any of those games? Bro? I Once,

9:57

once the remotes went from like four

10:00

to like eight, I was out,

10:03

literally literally just assume the dad

10:05

responds from Prop on certain things like

10:08

getting at the getting When Prop is like Yama said,

10:10

out of this, I was like, okay, dad, um

10:12

yeah yeah, but yeah

10:14

yeah, not for real. I was like yeah, this

10:17

game like once, it was like you know,

10:19

I checked out pretty

10:21

early on because I was like,

10:23

man, it's too much, and because it was like, man, I'm already

10:26

into so many niches, Like I'm already

10:28

like, you know, neck

10:31

deep in coffee, I'm neck deep in hip hop,

10:33

and especially at that time, I'm

10:35

like, I mean you

10:38

the beat starts, I'll tell you what machine

10:40

they used, what side chain compression?

10:43

Where this rapper from you know,

10:45

other side project. I was so deep into

10:47

a niche already that I was like, man, I got time to learn

10:49

it. Yeah, you don't need another rabbit hole. So

10:52

I was like, I can't keep up dog. Yeah. So

10:54

essentially what this company i g

10:57

E. Was doing is selling these like in

10:59

game capes or wands or

11:01

tokens that would allow players

11:03

to pay real money to immediately

11:05

level up within the game, rather than having to

11:07

work their way up to a certain level. So if you if

11:10

you ever played games that involve levels,

11:12

some people, you know, if you have

11:15

money to spare but not a lot of time,

11:17

you might pay to just like enter the game

11:19

at a higher level. I G

11:21

E. Was not the first company to do this. It's actually

11:24

a common practice called gold farming, where

11:26

low paid workers in places like China will

11:28

play these games like World of Warcraft for hours

11:31

to acquire what they call gold

11:33

or currency within the game and then sell

11:35

it to other players.

11:37

So the problem with this is that it's

11:40

not totally it was at the time, it was

11:42

not totally legal. It was actually

11:44

prohibited by the companies that make the

11:46

games, and so it was sort of in this legal

11:48

gray area. And Steve Bannon

11:51

came on too I G E. To try

11:54

to turn this from you know, a practice

11:56

that existed in a legal gray area to really

11:58

legitimize it by selling

12:01

the companies that made these video games

12:03

on the idea that players would

12:05

be willing to spend like real money

12:07

to level up in their game play in this way.

12:10

Um, I know we're talking about like gaming

12:12

and video games, but this ship was like

12:14

big business bandoned that Holman Sex

12:16

to invest ten million dollars

12:18

in the company. I g e. No,

12:21

I'm like this. This the type

12:23

of stuff that like also turned me off with video games.

12:25

I was like, wait, I gotta I need to buy

12:27

this sword. I'm good

12:30

exactly like I have to spend my real money

12:32

on a virtual sword. And the kind of game

12:34

is this? The game don't come with what I need?

12:37

I gotta buy this now, I'm good totally.

12:40

I mean you're you're not alone in this. And so KA

12:43

head as game game

12:47

like what kind of what what out of the product

12:49

can you buy and just comes not put

12:51

together like with not every like what I

12:53

don't have everything I need even though I bought it. Now I'm

12:55

good anyway, going when you go to the i

12:57

KA show room and you see the dresser I'll put the

13:00

other and then you buy it and it comes

13:02

in that flat box like, wait a minute,

13:04

wait a minute, what is this?

13:06

I bought a couch, what

13:09

is this box? So

13:12

Steve Bannon, he was really brought on to

13:14

be the adult in the room in this video

13:17

game company, right, he was gonna be the money man who

13:19

was gonna get all this sweet

13:21

sweet goldman SAX financing, and also

13:24

get the companies that made video games

13:26

on board with the idea that they should be

13:28

in the business of selling this

13:31

this this pay to play kind of scheme with gaming.

13:33

His first big fish was a Blizzard. They

13:36

make the game World of Warcraft and back in two

13:38

thousand and five, Like, this was the game

13:40

I was in college in two thousand and five, Like I

13:43

played it a little bit because my then boyfriend

13:46

whole a whole long story. But then boyfriend was

13:48

obsessed with it, and I was like, oh, learn

13:50

to play this game. So why can you know, connect

13:53

with him. I'm not surprised that of

13:55

all the video game companies to come into the

13:57

story that it's Blizzard because Blizzard has

14:00

Activision. Blizzard has so many lawsuits.

14:03

Oh my god, many lawsuits.

14:06

Yeah, so many, Like

14:09

still like still this is

14:11

still happening. This is like where you go to

14:13

like a place, you know what I'm saying, A whole

14:15

bunch of laptops in your computers and you're playing

14:17

World War crap. I remember walking in and being

14:19

like, yeah, I'm good, just

14:23

like I'm just here for the coffee. But I'm not trying to

14:25

hang out with you. I

14:27

got coffee. I am sad

14:30

to say that. You just described of

14:33

an environment where I spent an inordinate amount

14:35

of time in college, not because I

14:37

particularly enjoyed it or wanted to be there,

14:39

because I thought that's how you got like dudes

14:42

to be interested in you. I'm

14:45

really enjoying being at this Land party.

14:47

I don't want to be home watching Real World and listening to my

14:49

carry. I'm having a great time. I

14:54

know it wasn't It wasn't hang with us,

14:57

man, it wasn't great. You're come

14:59

to this open Michael. So,

15:03

Steve Bannon is his big fish

15:05

as Blizzard. He's hoping that he can get these executives

15:08

on board, and in fact

15:10

it was quite the opposite. Blizzard executives

15:12

were not on board with this idea of

15:14

having users pay to level

15:17

up within the games, and in May of two thousand and six,

15:19

they actually cracked down on that scheme, calling

15:21

it cheating, and they put out a press release saying

15:23

that they had banned over thirty accounts on

15:25

their games who were engaging in that practice. I

15:28

G E and their suppliers suffered a

15:30

huge loss after this crackdown. He

15:33

was losing five thousand dollars a month,

15:35

and so this was like a huge like

15:37

they were hemorrhaging money because of this this crackdown.

15:41

And something to know about gamers is that they

15:44

really hated this pay

15:46

to play scheme. Gamers got organized,

15:49

they you know, ended up delivering another

15:52

big blow to I g S business. World

15:54

of Warcraft users actually sued

15:57

I G E. In two thousand and seven, a gamer in

15:59

Florida lodged a class action

16:01

lawsuit against I G E. M. According to The

16:03

Washington Post, the lawsuit alleged

16:05

that I G E had received tens of millions,

16:08

if not hundreds of millions of dollars selling

16:10

the World of Warcraft of virtual property or currency

16:12

generated by cheap labor in third world

16:14

countries. So, you

16:17

know, and like what's interesting about this

16:19

is that I G E settled

16:22

that lawsuit, and as part of that settlement,

16:24

they promised not to sell virtual

16:26

currency in World of Warcraft for five

16:29

years. Uh Bannon then becomes

16:31

the CEO of I G E. In two thousand seven.

16:34

He moves the company kind of away

16:36

from this gold farming scheme to

16:38

focus on things like gaming chat rooms

16:40

and gaming websites, some of which he had acquired

16:42

during this like gold farming operation.

16:45

These in these chat rooms full

16:47

of gamers, full of people who were passionate

16:50

about gaming. They were super

16:52

super vocal about how much they hated

16:55

I G e. S pay to play schemes.

16:57

You know, they were Something to know about

16:59

gamers is that they kind of consider

17:01

themselves to be kind of I

17:03

guess values based, you know. They

17:05

felt that it was unfair and that

17:08

like this scheme went against what they saw

17:10

is the egalitarian spirit of gameplay.

17:13

They were fervent. They used these

17:15

websites that Bannon was running to organize

17:18

and the pressure companies who were operating

17:20

these these games not

17:22

to partner with I G. E. And Steve Bannon.

17:25

He saw all of this. He saw the ways

17:27

that these gamers hate and pay to play.

17:29

They were successful in rallying

17:31

each other to keep you know, gold farming

17:33

out of their games. He saw firsthand

17:35

that gamers were this big, powerful,

17:38

passionate community that would

17:40

really dig in around an issue

17:43

that they felt highlighted their shared values.

17:45

In a book called The Devil's Bargain by journalist

17:48

Joshua Green about the rise of Bannon and Trump's

17:50

presidency, Bannon said, these

17:52

guys, these rootless white males,

17:54

had monster power. So he

17:56

definitely early on was like, wait, these gamers,

17:59

they're serious, yo. This is

18:01

like two things I camp on. One is

18:03

like I still don't understand the five year number where

18:05

it's like we'll stop selling for five years. It's like, no,

18:07

fam, no,

18:10

it's you can't do this. What do you

18:12

mean Okay, well, okay, we'll chill for a

18:14

little bit. Like, no, fam, you can't know. Okay,

18:16

we'll chill. We'll chill, no problem. So I'm

18:18

like, where did this five year number come from?

18:21

That you just agree to stop doing something illegal

18:23

just for five years. And then secondly, um,

18:26

it's definitely like an interesting like things

18:29

to witness, like the birth

18:31

of a villain. It's like when

18:33

you're like, oh, where this was?

18:35

When this is like

18:37

attack of the Clones. It's like when the

18:39

sixth when the when the dark Side switches

18:42

and all the clones become evil. Like

18:45

I was like, Oh my god, this is it. You just

18:47

turned them into stormtroopers. This is the moment.

18:49

Oh my god. That's such a So that's

18:52

such a good analogy for where this conversation

18:54

goes, because it's so it's so

18:56

true how you can take this

18:58

disaffected group and really

19:01

successfully radicalized

19:03

them and turned them against a common

19:05

enemy, even if it's not necessarily a common

19:07

enemy that they had before all of that. No, you just turn them

19:09

in stormtroopers. Yeah,

19:14

such a such a good comparison. And so Bannon

19:16

takes over at bright Burt News in twelve. If

19:18

you don't know what Brightburt News is, it's an extremist right

19:20

wing media site that Steve Bannon himself once

19:22

declared as quote the platform

19:25

for the alt right. And I really have to give

19:27

it to Steve Bannon here because he's very

19:29

savvy. He sees the potential in

19:32

building out Bright Bart into this digitally

19:34

savvy, plugged in outlet with a

19:37

young audience base. And he also sees

19:39

huge potential in marrying what he

19:41

learned during his time running gaming

19:43

chat rooms with i GE with this toxic

19:46

white supremacist ideology. He's like, wait

19:48

a minute. If I combine these things, my

19:50

power like this will be very powerful, and

19:53

he was right, yeah,

19:55

he yeah. Another thing, like if I'm gonna give

19:57

them any credit, is the fact that like he's

20:00

not, He's very upfront of what he's

20:02

doing. He's like, not easier, this

20:05

is all right. These are white boys, and

20:07

I can feed them racism and they'll make us

20:09

they'll give us power. Ye, that's what

20:12

I'm doing exactly. It's

20:14

very open about it. But he's like, yeah, that's what I'm doing. So

20:17

this is where another major player in the harassment

20:19

of Leslie Jones emerges. Milo your

20:22

novelist. We've talked about this a little bit, Sophie

20:24

and I um. On October, ripe

20:27

Bart launches a tech vertical that will

20:29

focus on Internet culture and video

20:32

games, and Steve Bannon recruits Milo

20:34

to run it as tech editor. Most

20:36

of the articles like It's

20:38

funny because I when I was doing the research for this,

20:40

I was like, what did Milo

20:43

have to do with tech? But actually I was said, correct,

20:45

he actually did have a background

20:47

as a tech journalist before all of this. The

20:50

website that Milo founded, called The Colonel, was

20:52

actually acquired by the Tech website The

20:55

Daily Dot, so he he actually

20:57

did have some like bona fides

20:59

in actual tech journalism.

21:02

However, when he got to Bripe bart I

21:04

think that's calling the stuff

21:06

that he was writing tech is

21:09

a little generous because it's all kind of

21:11

framed as these conversations.

21:13

It's all very reactionary, right, and so

21:16

all the articles that he writes on Ripe bart On

21:18

this tech article are not really about tech

21:20

so insomuch as they're about all of

21:22

these different ways that white men are

21:25

being pushed out of technology and video

21:27

games and culture, which is just nonsense.

21:29

Like every article is about, you

21:31

know, making fun of feminists

21:34

or women or fat people. Like it's all

21:36

very reactionary. But I guess

21:38

like that's the kind of tech

21:41

storytelling that

21:43

that Milo and Steve Bannon were

21:45

interested in because they know

21:47

this is going to get these young white

21:50

males round up at works. So

21:53

Milo has a lot of appeal with exactly

21:55

the kind of young men that Bannon is looking

21:57

to port as a resource and weaponize.

22:00

My loom is young, he's active online, and

22:02

most importantly, he revels in being

22:04

offensive and insulting people. And I

22:06

have to say, just like a lot of

22:08

gamers, like if you look like video games. I'm

22:11

not saying all gamers do this by a

22:13

wide margin, but that's certainly one

22:16

of the cultural nuances of gaming,

22:18

is like, you know, calling

22:21

each other slurs and talking shit right

22:23

like, and that's part of it. I could

22:25

see like gamers being into him,

22:27

but I don't think like Milo

22:29

probably doesn't give a shit about gamers. I

22:32

was like, yeah, no, I can't see him. Yeah,

22:34

He's like exactly

22:38

so you're you're exactly right,

22:40

Mileo doesn't give a shit about gamers or

22:42

any of this stuff. The same year that

22:44

Milo starts up at right Bart, we see

22:47

the rise of another big figure who loves being

22:49

online and revels in being Can

22:52

you guess who I'm talking about? Donald

22:56

Trump? Trump announces

22:58

his bid for presidency. The same year

23:02

editor thanks,

23:04

Hey, my my socials are I'm

23:08

I'm done. I'm done. I'm not. Yeah,

23:12

So Bannon told Joshua Green, the

23:14

journalist who wrote that book about his rise,

23:17

quote, I realized Milo could connect

23:19

with these kids right away. You can activate

23:21

that army they come in through gamer

23:23

Gate or whatever else, and then they can get turned

23:25

onto politics and Trump. So, as

23:27

Sophie said, Milo does not give

23:30

a ship about gamers or video games,

23:32

and actually, early on in his career

23:34

he sent a lot of time mocking video

23:36

gamers and belittling them. But Milo

23:39

does understand that gamers

23:41

are an easily riled up, easily

23:43

stoked audience, and that he can stoke

23:45

their sense of victimization around things like gamber

23:48

Gate or threats posed by like

23:50

woke PC culture and basically

23:52

get them on board for anything. I'm

23:55

still trying to like figure out how

23:57

they figured out to go from

24:00

games to racism

24:04

to voting Trump in the office that thread,

24:08

although it's now in

24:10

hindsight you're like, oh, yeah,

24:12

you know what I'm saying, but totally how

24:15

did you? Because they saw white

24:17

male rage and like mass

24:20

because because I'm just like nerds,

24:23

Yeah, I'm saying I like, like, you know, in the

24:25

most like you know, if

24:28

I'm going to be as basic as possible,

24:31

I'm like, are you thinking like and

24:33

the nerds is really riled up? I

24:36

bet you they can make somebody president like

24:38

how you Yes? Basically yes,

24:41

yeah, And again I have to

24:43

really give it to Steve Bannon because I

24:45

don't think a lot of people that

24:49

like who like it really does take a kind

24:51

of savvy guy to see that. And so, as

24:53

you said, you know, when you look at Milo's

24:55

writing, it kind of becomes clear how

24:57

he was doing this um dey

25:00

not really being involved in gamer Gate. Milo writes

25:02

about it constantly, and he really frames it

25:04

as these PC leftist culture

25:06

police attacking these poor,

25:09

powerless gamers who don't have any social capital.

25:11

But paradoxically, his writing

25:13

also really flatters

25:15

gamers in these like over the top ways.

25:18

He writes constantly about how they are, you

25:20

know, have this unchecked, unseen

25:22

power that only he sees. I

25:24

went back and read a functon of Milo's

25:26

writing, which was not not so pleasant

25:29

but not fun at all. But you really,

25:31

the radicalization tactics are super clear.

25:34

He speaks to their grievances of this audience

25:36

and then connects those grievances to these

25:39

big politicized boogeyman and

25:41

tells them, Oh, Trump, who

25:44

Milo refers to as Daddy pretty

25:46

often. I know it's

25:48

bad, it's bad. He

25:51

tells them Trump is the answer

25:53

to their disaffection. And you know, Trump

25:56

probably doesn't give a ship about gaming

25:59

or game journalists him. But you know, I'm

26:01

like a mama's He didn't even know what does having

26:03

Exactly yeah,

26:06

anyway, exactly so Trump he

26:08

doesn't care about ethics and gaming journalism

26:10

or gaming or any of that, but he does often

26:13

attack the you know, crooked media.

26:15

He does talk about jailing journalists. So you can

26:17

sort of see how these grievances that

26:19

these gamers had are kind of being stoked

26:23

and then replaced by these

26:25

other political grievances.

26:33

Let's take a look at him. Of Milo's writing from Ripe Art

26:35

in twenty fourteen, right after a gamer Gate, he wrote

26:38

quote, it's easy to mock video gamers

26:40

as dorky loaners in yellowing underpants.

26:43

Indeed, in previous columns, I've done it myself.

26:46

But the more you learn about the latest scandal

26:48

in the games industry, the more us heart to sympathize

26:50

with the frustrated male stereotype, because

26:53

an army of sociopathic feminist programmers

26:55

and campaigners, abetted by achingly

26:57

politically correct American tech bloggers,

27:00

are terrorizing the entire community, lying,

27:02

bullying, and manipulating their way around

27:04

the Internet for profit and attention. So

27:07

you can sort of see how like he is

27:09

able to stoke these concerns and

27:12

then politicize them in like a very

27:14

particular way. He goes on to say, quote,

27:17

gamers should concentrate on the very real

27:19

concerns they have had for a decade with a

27:21

press that swamped with the discredited

27:23

far left ideology and unintelligent,

27:26

poorly trained writers refuses to

27:28

tell basic truths. So you

27:30

can sort of see how even if you were a video

27:33

gamer who had some grievances

27:35

with the gaming space, what he's

27:37

saying is like, you're mad about gaming and

27:39

also the far left and also

27:41

democrats and also what

27:44

first of all, what a great writer, which is what part

27:47

is what sucks about. It's like he's actually a good writer.

27:49

But like, but yeah, that move

27:51

of like man, it's

27:53

like it's to me, it's like mass about a hustle from

27:56

a mile away when somebody's like, yeah,

27:58

that's crazy, man. How do they how do they make fun of y'all?

28:01

Like, you know, yeah, Dode, they do be making fun of us.

28:03

May think you just you know, you just know nothing.

28:05

This and this and this and you know what, you know, you're trying

28:07

to open up the book. You want to talk about the game. They're talking

28:09

about something else. It's like yeah, man, like I'm more

28:11

interested in the game, and it's like, yeah, it's because

28:14

you know, and we know we hate to woke left that be doing

28:16

that to you. And you're like, wait, wait

28:18

a minute, wait,

28:21

that's what we're mad about, Like okay,

28:23

yeah, that's what What's what we're mad about? And and

28:25

like, I guess I'm just putting myself in the shoes

28:27

of a person who may it far off it is, but like that

28:30

first few times you read it, you was like, what,

28:33

that's what we're mad about, and then after

28:35

a while you're like, oh, yeah,

28:37

yeah, that's what we're mad about. It's that you

28:40

know what I'm saying, because you started off with stuff

28:42

that I actually am mad about, which is like yeah, man,

28:44

exactly. Yeah. It's such an effective

28:46

radicalization tactic. And honestly,

28:49

Milo basically says as much in

28:51

one PC Rights Women and you won't

28:53

hear this anywhere else are screwing up the Internet

28:56

for men by invading every space we have online

28:58

and ruining it with their engine seeking and

29:01

the needy, demanding, touchy feely form

29:03

of modern feminism that quickly comes

29:05

into conflict with men's natural tendency

29:07

to be boisterous, confrontational and

29:09

delightfully autistic. And

29:11

so you really exactly what you said,

29:14

prop he. He really is

29:16

connecting these men in their

29:18

feelings around gaming to be these

29:20

broader political grievances. So it's

29:22

not just about gaming journalism, even

29:25

even that is like dubious, but it's also

29:27

about you know, hating leftists

29:29

and the media and institutions

29:31

and telling these people like you are being

29:33

bullied and ignored and attacked

29:35

by the culture. And it really creates

29:38

the situation where these

29:40

spaces, you know, gaming culture film

29:42

are turned into a battlefield like

29:45

like a whereby Milo is kind of selling

29:47

these men on the idea that resisting

29:49

kind of social justice warriors and

29:51

taking back video games and taking

29:53

back tech spaces and taking that film

29:56

is a kind of activism in and of itself.

29:58

Yeah, you're speaking their language

30:01

but in a weird way and then twisting

30:03

the same words and to mean something else. And

30:05

all of a sudden, it's like, now we're so far

30:07

down the road. It's like, well, now I'm here,

30:09

I guess I do believe this stuff, man that Yeah,

30:12

this is so sinister, dude, Like and

30:14

again it's like, first of all, these kids ain't

30:16

victims number one. You know what I'm saying, And

30:19

they are you know what I mean, they've

30:21

been weaponized, you know what I'm saying. But it's like

30:24

my my brain goes

30:26

to a place to where it's like, I

30:29

don't know if you had the sort of like socio

30:33

cultural just societal

30:36

engineering and experiences to know

30:38

when you're being swindled, you know what I'm saying,

30:41

to be able to step back and be like, hold on, man,

30:43

speak for yourself. Holmy, that I look, that's that

30:45

ship. You won't. That's not what I'm all like, you know what

30:47

I'm saying, Like and and I

30:50

feel like that whether I don't know street smarts,

30:52

whatever it is, it's just like I know

30:55

how to be like hold up, now, speak for yourself.

30:58

You know what I'm saying, Like wait, nah, Holmie, that not

31:00

why I'm here. You know what I'm saying, Like, I

31:02

mean, I like the game, but

31:04

like, no, that's not why I'm

31:06

here. You know what I'm saying. Like walking the club, it's done

31:08

club right? You like this music? Yeah, we've been get funked

31:11

up. Could you know what I'm saying, Hey, we're gonna smash

31:13

a thousand girls, and it's like whoa, whoa,

31:15

whoa, Wait a minute, whoa. I'm

31:17

just you know what I'm saying, Like, Man, I'm gonna get a

31:20

a little bit of honey and listen to some music like

31:23

that ship you all, that's your that's your problem,

31:26

you know what I'm saying. But like maybe

31:28

it's I'm like and I'm I'm trying to say, like

31:31

maybe they didn't have that experience, you know what I'm saying,

31:33

to be able to like know when this is

31:35

happening to you to stop and be like hold up because

31:37

like that wait, no, that's

31:40

you. You speak for yourself, homie, you know what I'm saying.

31:42

Yeah, that's such a good point. I

31:45

think it's very easy to

31:48

get sucked in when someone

31:50

is it's like flattering

31:53

you, telling you that you are

31:55

you know, you have values that

31:57

other people don't have, and you don't

32:00

anyone get Yeah, but you don't only want to say

32:02

that nobody else is validating you exactly.

32:05

And I think it speaks to this sort of intoxicating

32:08

power of feeling seen. I think that also

32:10

utilizes this very well of when you

32:13

take people who you know genuine

32:15

or not feel unseen, feel

32:18

unheard, whether or not that

32:20

that actually is true, because I would argue that, like he

32:22

did that with white people, and

32:24

it's like, well, what society are you living in where white

32:26

people are like unseen and unheard? Not a

32:31

right, but but the power. I think that

32:33

when you take people who feel unseen whether

32:35

they really are not, and make them feel seen,

32:38

I think that can be a really intoxicating

32:41

thing. And if you don't, yeah, if

32:43

you don't know what to look out for, you

32:45

can really get people on board with stuff.

32:49

I'm sorry to say that very easily. Yeah,

32:53

So this is where Leslie Jones

32:55

comes in. You know, Milo and Steve

32:57

Bannon have have made it so that take

33:00

back these spaces, taking back video

33:02

games and movies and all of that. That

33:04

is a that feels like a form of activism.

33:06

So if folks don't know who Leslie Jones is,

33:09

first of all, you should because she's hysterical. She

33:11

is a comedian, probably best

33:13

known for her time on Saturday Night Live. This

33:16

is not really related to the story, but I just want

33:18

to include it. Leslie Jones she has a

33:20

very interesting educational background. She went

33:22

to Chapman University on a basketball scholarship

33:25

until the team's coach left to go

33:27

to Colorado State, and she liked this coach

33:29

so much that she followed him and transferred

33:31

there. While yeah, I think that's

33:33

I don't know why. I was like, oh, well, that's that. She was

33:36

like, oh, I'll just come with him. While she was

33:38

at college, she worked as a DJ and R campus radio

33:40

station and side notes. So today I

33:43

liked that, and she,

33:45

you know, she bounced around majors, and her

33:47

majors included accounting, pre

33:50

law, and computer science, and so I

33:53

don't know, I wanted to include that because I think it

33:55

speaks to the kind of dynamic

33:57

person. She's actually

34:00

interesting. Yeah. Back

34:02

in the like, Leslie

34:05

Jones was sort of one of those kind of I

34:08

guess i'll say good at Twitter

34:10

celebrities right, Like, she was one of those celebrities

34:12

that when she tweeted, people paid attention, and

34:14

she generated a lot of goodwill for

34:16

the platform um and really showed

34:18

like how the platform could be used in these

34:20

fun and new ways. During the Olympics,

34:23

she was known for live tweeting the events

34:26

and like posting her reactions and everybody

34:28

loved this. Hupping and post wrote an article

34:31

call it saying watching Leslie Jones

34:33

watched the Olympics is better than the actual

34:35

Olympics, so she was beloved.

34:38

Yeah, I followed her

34:40

because she was Yeah. Because of that, I was like, that

34:42

was when live tweeting was something that we enjoyed.

34:45

So I'm like, dude, she's the best at it, because I'll

34:47

be like, um, yeah, I'm watching It felt like he

34:49

was like out of barbecue withter, you know, it

34:51

was so fun. Yeah. So

34:54

in short, Leslie is just doing her

34:56

thing, minding her business and

34:58

her own damn business, and everyone

35:01

loves her, right, She's everyone loves

35:03

her, So it's not like she's like doing

35:05

anything wrong other than existing

35:07

and minding her business. In director

35:10

Paul Fage announced that he's going to be directing

35:13

a reboot of the movie Ghostbusters. Sonny

35:15

initially wanted to do a sequel, but Bill

35:17

Murray wasn't interested and Harold Rames

35:20

had passed away, so they ended up doing a

35:22

reboot with four female leads, Kristin

35:24

Wig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon,

35:26

and Leslie Jones. Now, almost

35:29

as soon as this is announced, there is

35:31

backlash. The trailer for the Ghostbusters

35:34

reboot became the most disliked

35:36

trailer in the history of YouTube. The

35:38

rate of dislike is remarkable. An

35:40

article on screen Crush breaks it down how

35:42

it ranked among other hated videos on

35:44

YouTube. The number one hated video

35:47

on YouTube at the time was Justin Bieber's video

35:49

for the song Baby, which had six million

35:51

thumbs down, and

35:54

the Ghostbusters trailer. When you compare it

35:56

to other disliked videos from the platform,

35:59

it's remarkable in that it has a high ratio

36:02

of dislikes. The trailer had

36:04

five and seven thousand six dislikes

36:07

on just twenty eight point seven million views,

36:09

So that's a staggering fifty six to one

36:12

ratio in terms of dislikes per view.

36:14

So you kind of get a sense that, like, it's

36:16

not just that people are disliking it, they are disliking

36:19

it at a highly disproportionate rate

36:21

compared to other videos that people don't like.

36:23

This is not an organic thing. People are

36:25

definitely gamifying hate

36:28

watching the trailer by vote brigading.

36:31

This could honestly be its own episode, but

36:33

pbs that are really interesting. Interview with The Daily

36:35

Dots managing editor Austin Powell, who

36:37

describes vote brigading as overwhelming

36:40

and manipulating rather rudimentary

36:42

online systems to influence or disrupt

36:44

public perception. So basically places

36:47

like Reddit and four chan and other right circles

36:49

are that are aggressively masculine. We're

36:52

really down voting anything

36:54

that had a viewpoint that could be linked

36:57

to like their ideology. And so because

37:00

of the way that these platforms exist, it's

37:02

not always easy to say, you know, where

37:05

is this Where is this inorganic hate

37:07

coming from? You can't always tell the source,

37:09

but the numbers make it

37:11

clear that this is not you know less,

37:13

more people are disliking this video than are

37:15

watching the video, So something weird is going

37:17

on with how people are responding to it. Yeah,

37:21

there's definitely like the knee

37:23

jerk like where all

37:25

these weirdos come in of like when

37:27

you just slightly change something that

37:30

doesn't remind them of the nostalgia that they're

37:32

from, it's like, oh sucks, you ruined it.

37:35

You know. So, like, yeah, people arguing

37:37

that like Middle Earth shouldn't have

37:39

black people, like what the

37:41

Middle Art is not a real place? Number one, you

37:44

know what I'm saying? And then who I

37:46

forget homeboy, but he's he's the one that like

37:48

makes me laugh the most homies, like, well, scientifically

37:51

speaking, you know, a

37:53

mermaid would not have a black skin

37:56

because she lived on the bottom of them. Like did you

37:58

just start this sentence about a mermaid with Scientifically

38:00

speaking? I believe that was Ben Shapiro,

38:03

who was really you know, it's so funny. These

38:05

people are like like, oh,

38:08

snowflakes, blah blah blah, and then it's

38:10

like a black mermaid and it's

38:13

like, yeah, but we're the ones. But we're the ones fragile,

38:16

right, like we don't want okay word, yeah, we're

38:18

we're we're the snowflakes. Yeah you're mad. Okay,

38:20

you're mad that Game of Thrones got black people. But

38:22

I'm like, and that's unrealistic, like

38:24

the dragons Matt

38:29

did the Like scientifically speaking, I was like,

38:31

bro, I was supposed to take you serious. How can anyone

38:34

take you serious after this? What is you

38:36

mad about? So like, so I say

38:38

that to say, okay, you've turned

38:40

the Ghostbusters into girls. Well

38:43

sucks just supposed to be Okay, It's like all

38:46

right, you're all right,

38:48

all right, let it go, okay stupid, Now

38:50

go watch the movie because it's actually very funny and

38:52

all four of those women are hilarious,

38:55

and you know they're hilarious, Like, so

38:57

like, relax, Okay, you got it

38:59

out, you got it's not exactly

39:01

what you remember. Sorry, you

39:04

know what I'm saying. Now, Now let's enjoy

39:06

it. That's what I thought was going to happen.

39:09

You know, I will never understand. So like

39:11

with the Ghost, but with with any reboot,

39:13

really it's not like they're making it illegal

39:15

to own the original. So if you're like, oh, I

39:18

was like very into the original, I don't like

39:20

this reboot, that's fine. They're not there. You

39:22

can still just watch the original. It's not going anywhere

39:24

this because this because they've added a reboot or be

39:26

make or they've made a Black Mermaid or whatever,

39:30

nobody is forcing you to watch it. And you're

39:32

the thing that you loved isn't going anywhere, Like what are you so

39:34

upset about? Yeah? What's the And it's

39:36

like, okay, what's your percentage

39:39

of the shareholding of that movie? Right

39:42

in the zero point zero zero? What

39:44

the hell? You care? What's

39:46

this doing for you?

39:49

You know what I'm saying, Like, are you serious? Fan? You?

39:52

You? You? You? You this route up over something

39:54

you don't own all right, yeah,

40:03

and enters the chat

40:05

next on this. Oh my god,

40:08

I hate I hate to say it, but you

40:10

did not just put this man on my screen right now.

40:13

Even Trump got in the mix.

40:15

This is the weirdest video. Yeah, play

40:17

that. It's the weirdest thing. Oh I see the hashtags

40:20

already. Okay, they're remaking

40:22

Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford.

40:24

You can't do that, and now they're

40:26

making Ghostbusters with only

40:29

women. What's going on? It

40:31

looked like somebody told him to say that. Why is he yelling?

40:34

Why is he yelling? It's so weird?

40:37

And the video stops where he's just like, what's

40:39

going on? Time?

40:42

They're remaking Indiana Jones without

40:45

Harrison Ford. You can't do that, And

40:47

now they're making Ghostbusters with

40:49

only women. What's going on? Oh

40:53

my god, that's so weird. So

40:55

like, man, what the hell are you talking? What this

41:01

is? That? Look, it's it's that same energy

41:03

that like, I mean, it's not the same, but it's like you

41:06

go go to like Budapest, Hawaii

41:09

and be like, hey, where can we get a hot

41:11

dog? It sucks hot

41:13

dogs. It's like, I'm sorry, it's not exactly

41:16

like the place you left. The

41:18

hell are you talking about? Fam It's

41:20

a different it's

41:23

what percentage of what percentage of Indiana Jones

41:25

do you own? It's so strange. So

41:28

obviously Ghostbusters the reboot

41:30

really tapped into all of these hot button

41:32

issues around race and gender

41:35

that movements like Gamergate had exposed

41:37

and inflamed. And what's interesting is

41:39

that not everybody didn't

41:42

like Not everybody didn't like the reboot

41:44

of Ghostbusters because it was like they

41:46

were being anti woke. Some people thought

41:49

the jokes were bad, some people thought it was you

41:51

know, they didn't like that it was a remake. Some people

41:54

didn't like Leslie Jones's character, some people

41:56

just don't like reboots. Whatever. But the

41:58

issue is that when bad actors and extremists

42:01

hijacked these conversations because they

42:03

want to grind a political acts, it creates

42:05

a situation where waiting into

42:07

it at all makes people feel

42:09

like they have to pick sides because it becomes so charged,

42:12

right, and so you either have to hate

42:14

the movie for being like a woke PC remake

42:17

or you feel like you need to defend it up

42:19

against these like racist, sexist attacks. And

42:21

so folks who are you

42:23

know, maybe just want to like watch the

42:25

movie and not necessarily have this kind

42:27

of like a weighty opinion about it. They're

42:30

completely drowned out. And people

42:32

who you know, just want to talk about

42:34

this movie on its merits, they are also

42:36

drowned out, and you know, it creates this thing

42:38

where the conversation

42:40

turns into this highly charged proxy for

42:43

culture wars. I think I remember. I think it was

42:45

Roxanne Gay tweeted like I'm gonna buy

42:47

a hundred tickets to this movie because

42:49

just to support it, because it's being attacked, and it

42:51

creates a situation where just supporting

42:54

or not supporting a movie is seen as

42:56

a kind of activism or a statement, which

42:58

I just hate so much. Yeah that's

43:01

the Yeah, so like that, yeah, getting

43:03

it. I remember, I remember all this happening, and I remember

43:05

being like again, like faminists,

43:08

it's a movie, like

43:10

it's a movie about catching ghosts with

43:14

like eo plasm,

43:16

Like y'all like we what are

43:18

we talking about? Like in okay,

43:22

Like I'm just like yeah, I'm like I just want to

43:24

see it because I think they I think they're funny,

43:27

Like I think all four of those women are funny.

43:29

You know what I'm saying? And Ghostbusters was funny

43:31

because all four of those dudes were funny. That's the only

43:34

reason, Like I'm and I was a

43:36

baby and Bobby Brown was in

43:38

Ghostbusters too, so I wanted to see. So

43:41

I'm like, I don't understand this

43:44

when I'm like, when the last time you talked about

43:46

Ghostbusters before you heard that this

43:48

was coming, Like you don't, well, you've gotten pared

43:50

from now, you've got some. You got some like hitting the room in

43:52

here, where you got where the ship mean that

43:54

much? You like, you don't even care that much? Right,

43:57

And it to me, it was like what you're probably

43:59

gonna get to is like and why y'are singling out

44:01

leslie so much? Like why

44:04

you know exactly why you know what I'm saying. And it's like

44:06

and even on top of that, I'm like, because,

44:10

Okay, not only do she like you

44:12

know, she's the you know, she's

44:14

uh part of the season

44:16

their food club, you know what I'm saying, who actually

44:19

washed their legs? You know what I'm saying, Like, not

44:21

only is she a part of that, but

44:23

at the same time, like, Okay, I'm sorry, she don't

44:25

look like Carrie Washington. What I'm saying,

44:28

she won't you know what I'm saying, So she don't look like Beyonce,

44:30

because I'm like, okay, she looked like Beyonce. Would this be a

44:32

whole day? Would this be a different situation? You

44:35

feel me like? And that to me was like

44:37

even more infuriating

44:39

as to like why y'all going after her, because it's

44:42

like, already know why you're going after but now now

44:44

I really know why you're going after Yeah,

44:47

you put that so well, and she will

44:49

get to it later, but like she acknowledges

44:52

this, Like I feel like when these attacks

44:54

happened, because when you attack

44:57

black women, you don't want

44:59

to be the per sin who is talking

45:01

about it, what is happening publicly

45:04

or loudly or vocally, right, And so because

45:07

that creates a situation where it's like, oh, well, maybe

45:09

she was being aggressive, Like maybe she like

45:11

it's just so hard to talk about these things and so

45:14

often even like I

45:16

think that as a society, we're more

45:18

comfortable talking about racism

45:22

against black folks. I think

45:24

the conversation that can be not we're not

45:26

super comfortable within I

45:28

think that we're more comfortable with that than

45:30

the conversation of like it's also because I'm

45:32

a black woman who has dark skin, So I

45:34

think it's I think it's not just racism, it's colorism

45:37

as well. And I think that that conversation

45:39

is like harder to have and

45:41

people are less willing to have that conversation

45:44

openly, absolutely and just doesn't

45:46

fit like traditional beauty standards, even

45:49

because like Loupete, Loupete is dark

45:51

exactly, she's gorgeous, you

45:53

know what I mean. So I'm like, Okay, so there's a lot

45:56

going on here that you're not willing to

45:58

say. You feel me, it's

46:00

a lot of unsaid stuff happening

46:03

that we're really invested in just pretending

46:05

is not happening well while we could all see it

46:07

and feel it happening. So

46:10

on Breitbart, Milo published a review

46:13

of Ghostbusters, and I don't think it's a surprise to anyone

46:15

that it's clear that this review is not just interested

46:18

in getting into the merits of the film.

46:20

A couple of standout lines. He writes, the

46:23

spattering of negative and lukewarm reviews

46:25

that are now piling up is brave for the

46:27

leftist establishment media. These writers

46:29

are risking being labeled as sexist bigots,

46:32

A fate worse for a liberal than running out of Keen

46:34

Waugh and hummus while your vegan boyfriend

46:36

is staying over. I used to think he was a good

46:38

writer ten minutes ago. Ian, Yeah,

46:41

this, this review keep him for

46:44

him, A little phoned in, a little um.

46:47

He goes on to say, um. But most

46:50

of the press realizes that whatever shreds of credibility

46:52

it has left would be utterly lost by giving

46:54

this film and unqualifiedly positive review. He

46:57

singles out Leslie Jones's character, Patty.

46:59

He says, Patty is the worst of the lot. The

47:01

actress is spectacularly unappealing, even

47:03

relative to the rest of the odious cast. But

47:06

it's her flat as a pancake black styling.

47:08

So I thought to have irritated the social

47:10

justice warriors. I don't get offended by such things,

47:12

but they should. And so all

47:15

of the hate that is being directed at the film

47:18

to all of the leads, it's so

47:20

much worse for Leslie, and that is to

47:23

be expected. The research is super

47:25

clear that black women disproportionately are

47:27

targeted for abuse online when compared to their

47:29

white counterparts. Uh, and Leslie

47:31

is is really getting

47:34

it, like she's not like the rest of the folks in the

47:36

film are not getting it as vocally

47:38

as she is. Um and

47:40

so Leslie Jones, you know, she is

47:43

a Twitter super user, and so she

47:46

that part of that is like replying to tweets,

47:48

engaging with tweets. I remember seeing

47:50

this unfold. She got like

47:52

a few critical tweets about

47:55

Ghostbusters that were pretty run of the mill,

47:57

people saying like, oh, I didn't like this movie. I

47:59

didn't think you were funny. There's a black woman

48:01

who tells her, I thought that Sherry Shephard

48:03

or Lonnie Love would have been better in this movie than

48:06

you were. So like not not nice,

48:08

but they're not, you know, it's just like to be expected

48:13

exactly, Like they're all within the scope

48:16

of like what you would expect if you're a public

48:18

figure who's put out a movie. Um, and it's

48:20

not. It's not like Leslie Jones is falling apart

48:22

and wizering at this criticism. She's engaging

48:25

with it. She's replying like she's it's fine.

48:27

And then Milo retweets Leslie

48:30

complaining about people not liking the movie. He

48:32

retweets it with if at first

48:34

you don't succeed because your work is terrible. Play

48:36

the victim. Everyone gets hate mail for

48:38

fox sake. He follows it up with Ghostbusters

48:41

is doing so badly that they've employed Leslie

48:44

Jones to play the victim on Twitter. And

48:46

this is all a real callback to his

48:48

style of writing on Breitbart that he spent

48:51

years beating the drum

48:53

around this idea that it is men

48:56

who are being oppressed by women, and that women

48:58

play the victim for attention or for cloud

49:00

and when they do, the corrupt, biased

49:03

media rewards them from it. And

49:05

he's been spending all of his time

49:07

like beating that drum

49:09

and seating that as a narrative in his writing

49:12

to these like disaffected men that he's been according

49:14

and talking about how this sort of goes

49:17

against the idea of quote meritocracy

49:19

that Milo has been so long telling

49:22

gamers that they value more than others.

49:24

Oh my god, So

49:27

it gets worse. Milo then

49:29

retweets completely fake

49:32

doctor tweets that appear to show

49:34

Leslie saying racist and anti

49:36

Semitic things. Um, these are not

49:39

her, Like she's this is

49:41

like several fake tweets. Then she blocks

49:43

him. When she blocks him, Milo tweets

49:45

rejected by another black dude and

49:48

shows the screenshot of

49:50

the block screen. So at this

49:52

point the tenor of the criticism

49:54

clearly changed, and it goes from run

49:57

of the mill, like I don't like this movie. Two

49:59

things like her website being hacked

50:01

and having pictures of her driver's license

50:04

and passports published to her website,

50:07

ex iplicit personal photos of her

50:09

that were stolen posted to her website,

50:11

which by the way, is a sex crime um

50:14

and then pictures of her on her website

50:16

being like her head being

50:19

replaced with the gorilla harambe. And

50:21

so this is not criticism, you know, this

50:23

is not It's too way too far.

50:26

So she tweets, I have been called apes,

50:28

sent pictures of asses, even got a

50:30

picture with siemen on my face. I'm trying

50:32

to figure out what human means. I'm out.

50:35

I feel like I'm at a personal hell. I didn't do anything

50:37

to deserve this. It's just too much. It shouldn't

50:39

be like this. So hurt right now. And so

50:41

it's clear that when this was just run of the mill

50:43

movie criticism, Leslie probably

50:45

didn't like it, but she was engaging with it. And

50:48

then Milo completely changed

50:50

the tenor of those interactions by introducing

50:52

these inflammatory racist, fake tweets

50:55

and racializing the conversation. Ye

50:58

see, this is the part that like, this

51:00

is why maybe in the beginning I

51:02

may have spoke out it because I didn't know the

51:04

rest of this. I just saw her

51:07

cracking jokes with people, you know what I'm

51:09

saying, and I was like, oh, she's funny, dude,

51:11

she got it. Like I don't remember the rest of audience.

51:13

I didn't realize all this other stuff happened. Dang.

51:17

So in the in the beginning, when it was just you

51:19

know, I think Lonnie Love would be funnier

51:21

like she like she was like clapping

51:23

back, and it was it seemed

51:26

like it was all in good fun. But the way

51:28

that Milo entered

51:31

the conversation and changed the tenor

51:33

and like turned the temperature up and made it so racialized,

51:36

all of that like back and forth that she was engaging

51:38

in took a very different turn.

51:41

And this is all outlined and a piece that Milo

51:43

wrote on Breitbart where he essentially blames

51:45

Leslie for her own harassment because she

51:48

responded to it, and he frames what

51:50

is happening as regular people

51:52

not being able to criticize the elites. He writes,

51:55

in the words of a man who thoroughly triggered Leslie

51:57

Jones to express different opinions from

51:59

the elite is the real sin in this story.

52:02

But when you look back at his tweets, he's not expressing

52:04

a different opinion than Leslie Jones. He's

52:07

not like criticizing her skills as an actor.

52:09

He's calling her a man and spreading

52:11

doctor tweets that one of which

52:14

purports to show her calling

52:16

the executives at Sony the company,

52:18

that she had just made a movie for a slur for

52:20

Jewish people. Like, that's not a difference

52:22

of opinion. That's a very different thing. And

52:26

you know what's funny is that even

52:30

per Milo's own rundown of the

52:32

situation, he himself points out

52:34

that Leslie was just fine when the conversation

52:36

was just legitimately criticism. When the

52:38

tenor of the conversation changed, she

52:41

obviously like, like, that was a different

52:43

situation. And so for all

52:46

of his you know, going on

52:48

and on about free speech, it

52:50

was Milo who came in

52:52

and stifled the legitimate criticism of

52:54

the film. Leslie Jones had to

52:56

pull down her website after it was hacked. She stopped

52:59

tweeting after being harassed and you

53:01

know, the actual critique that she had been engaging

53:03

in was silenced because of it. So if anybody

53:05

was like stifling the speech, it was Milo.

53:08

Here is Leslie talking about it to Laverne

53:11

Cox. What a blessing to have

53:13

it come later in life,

53:15

because I think about me when

53:17

I think I wasn't ready as I thought,

53:19

you know, when I moved to New York, necting that

53:21

in a few years I would be a superstar. And

53:24

what I understand about not having been ready,

53:26

it's not even just doing the work of being an actor,

53:29

but the fame part. Just

53:31

dealing with the fame and for you

53:34

when Ghostbusters happened and

53:37

the trolling and people

53:41

have to really know how specific that. Yeah,

53:45

none of none of the other girls got trolled like

53:47

I did. And I hate to say it like this, but

53:50

it is was because I was a black woman, and

53:52

I hate to say that. I think it's

53:54

also that you're a dark skinned black woman. Yeah,

53:57

yeah, I really hate to say that because it's

53:59

truth. Though it's it's like I wanted to be

54:01

like, I don't want this to be about that, but

54:04

it was, and it was a

54:06

shame. And the reason I say

54:08

it all the time is because I think people need to hear

54:10

this. I was getting videos of white people

54:13

spitting on on my picture, um,

54:17

hanging me, hanging my doll. They're

54:19

gonna kill me, They're gonna find out

54:21

where my family. They're gonna kill me and my family.

54:23

They're spitting they would

54:25

they would sending my pictures with where they jacked

54:28

off on it. Like it was just horrible,

54:31

horrible for a movie. And

54:33

the reason that you that

54:37

that I got cast, I'm so sorry. So

54:39

my important thing was like

54:41

everybody was like, well, you know, ignore it block.

54:44

No that I'm not gonna ignore. Accountability

54:47

is what needs to be set in this society

54:50

right now. Ya can't just do the people

54:52

and think you could just get away with it because

54:54

you wouldn't say that my face. You

54:57

would not say that in my face, and I know you

54:59

wouldn't because profile don't

55:01

even have your picture on it has a cartoon.

55:03

So you're coward and I'm gonna

55:06

call you out. So I would take screenshots of everything

55:08

that was sent to me and I would post it and

55:10

I'd be like, yeah, this is the type of that's coming

55:13

to me. This is the type of community

55:15

that y'all like, what's wrong with y'all.

55:18

That's why I arrived for her. That's

55:20

exactly it is. She's like, nah, I are you a coward?

55:22

Like I'm gonna call you on it again. I So I was like,

55:24

you messing with the wrong one. That's what That's what

55:26

I thought about her. I'm like, you know, you're messing with the wrong one.

55:28

She ain't gonna she ain't gonna let you'all

55:30

like do her like this. Yeah,

55:33

And listening to her talk about it,

55:36

I'm on the one hand, she

55:39

should not have to go through at all at

55:42

all. But on the other hand, I'm

55:44

happy that she like

55:47

the advice of like just ignore it, don't pay

55:49

attention to them. I'm glad that she did not take that advice

55:52

because there has

55:54

to be accountability. There has to be accountability.

55:56

Um. And So one of the questions that people

55:58

ask a lot in this conversation was did

56:01

Milo actually lead the charge

56:03

of harassment against Jones? And this

56:05

is a little bit of a tricky situation because it's

56:07

another hallmark of online harassment where

56:10

users that have these big platforms, they

56:12

don't come right out and say attack this

56:14

person, because that would clearly violate Twitter's

56:16

rules against coordinated harassment. So it's

56:19

very like wink wink, nudge nudge.

56:21

Trump was also very good at this. Um.

56:23

You know. Milo writes a scathing review

56:25

about Ghostbusters where he singles out Leslie Jones

56:27

specifically, he introduces racist,

56:30

inflammatory attacks on her. He quote

56:32

tweets her to his followers and says, this

56:34

person is playing the victim for Cloud, and then

56:37

he demonstrates that she blocked

56:39

him so that he cannot continue harassing

56:41

her. Um and he says this to his

56:43

millions of followers, who he has ripped

56:45

up into a frenzy. I would argue

56:48

knowing that they will understand what

56:50

they are being called to do. But

56:53

it's so savvy because when people point

56:55

out his role in this, he's able to be

56:57

like, oh, they're lying about me. It's

57:00

just another piece of evidence of this biased

57:02

media. And I believe people like

57:04

Milo they know exactly what they

57:06

are doing. They are purposely amassing a following

57:09

of a grief sycophants that they have inflamed,

57:11

and then they point them out a specific target. Step

57:14

back, let them attack this person. And

57:16

then they say I had nothing to do with

57:18

it. Prove I had it. Where's the tweet or I told them

57:20

to do this. I had nothing to do with it. God, yeah,

57:23

that's the worst type. Man. Well,

57:25

you could be like, what do you what are you talking about? What

57:28

did I do? Okay, what did I do?

57:30

You're like, bro, yeah,

57:32

that kind of goes back to what we talked about before we started

57:35

filming about oh boy, yeah

57:38

it's and also I mean to yeh

57:42

like it's like a like a I would have respected

57:44

so much more of it. If you're gonna be about it, be about it,

57:46

don't be about it. And then when you're called out and

57:48

be like, I just know such thing. You know, it's so cowardly,

57:51

She's exactly right that it's so coward And

57:53

she was like, y'all even y'all even got

57:55

photos on your profile. I was like, yeah,

57:58

yea, that's during that season. Yeah,

58:00

when you just had the little black and white circle

58:03

shadow. That was definitely the situation when

58:05

like, man, he even got it. You don't even got

58:07

an Abbey bro like I'm good. So

58:10

eventually Leslie Jones takes a pause

58:12

from Twitter. She says, I leave Twitter tonight

58:14

with tears in a very sad heart. All of this

58:16

because I did a movie. You can hate the movie, but

58:19

the shift I got today is wrong. And

58:21

eventually Jack Dorsey, who then was

58:23

the CEO of Twitter, personally got involved.

58:25

He met with Leslie about the harassment, and

58:27

Twitter permanently banned Milo from

58:29

the platform as a result. In a statement,

58:32

Twitter said people should be able to express

58:34

diverse opinions and believes on Twitter, but no

58:36

one deserves to be subjected to targeted abuse

58:38

online and are rules promhibit inciting

58:40

or engaging and targeted harassment or abuse

58:42

of others. Um This actually ended up kick

58:44

starting a wave of Twitter

58:47

sort of cracking down on like white

58:49

supremacist all right Twitter users. In November,

58:53

they suspend Richard Spencer

58:55

and other white supremacists figures, and they

58:57

rolled out a series of action succurbed hate speech

58:59

and abuse on the platform. Here's Leslie

59:01

talking about the aftermath of how

59:04

this all ended up. What's scary about

59:06

the whole thing is that the insults didn't hurt

59:08

me. Unfortunately, I'm used to

59:11

the insults. That's unfortunate. But

59:13

what scared me was the injustice

59:16

of a gang of people jumping

59:19

against you for such a sick cause.

59:22

I mean, it was like, like, I mean, they just

59:24

like everybody has an opinion and it all

59:26

comes at you at one time, and

59:28

their stay. They really believe in

59:31

what they believe in, and it's so

59:33

mean, Like it's so gross

59:36

and mean and unnecessary.

59:38

So it was just like one of those things of like, okay,

59:41

so if I hadn't said anything, nobody

59:43

would ever knew about this. And

59:46

it was one of those things of like, hey, you

59:48

know when I when I approached Facebook,

59:50

day was on it. Twitter, I was

59:52

on them. I was like, Yo, it's okay.

59:55

It's like, that's my favorite restaurant. I love

59:57

the food there. Three people just got

59:59

shot in to me, y'all

1:00:02

need to get scarity.

1:00:10

You know, there's a lot of

1:00:12

really smart people at that company, and

1:00:14

they really need to try to start sorting out

1:00:16

not just how to protect people like you, but the people that

1:00:18

don't have this public forum, because I think it happens

1:00:20

to so many people. So it's definitely

1:00:23

a good thing that Milo was kicked off the platform.

1:00:25

But here's the thing. Leslie Jones is

1:00:27

a wealthy celebrity. She was also like

1:00:29

a Twitter super user, so it's not surprising

1:00:32

that Jack Dorsey would step in and like personally

1:00:34

meet with her about these experiences. But

1:00:36

what about all the black women and girls who are not

1:00:39

celebrities right, who have not personally

1:00:41

been involved in like high engagement

1:00:43

for the platform, who don't have the money to hire

1:00:46

a digital security person to take down intimate

1:00:48

photos if they're posted. I think that because

1:00:51

people who are marginalized are the ones

1:00:54

who are often targeted on social

1:00:56

media platforms, they shouldn't have to be

1:00:58

like rich, or famous or well connected to

1:01:00

show up on these platforms. All different

1:01:03

kinds of people who are attacked

1:01:05

and harassed on social media platforms. Black folks,

1:01:07

transpolkes, queer folks, sex workers, activists,

1:01:09

doctors who perform abortions. These are the people

1:01:11

who are being attacked and they deserved safety

1:01:14

on these platforms, even if they are

1:01:16

not celebrities. And that really

1:01:18

brings us to today. You know, Elon

1:01:20

Musk is already publicly signaling that

1:01:23

these are the kinds of people responsible for

1:01:25

these kinds of attacks he wants to bring

1:01:27

back to the platforms. Last month,

1:01:29

Jordan Peterson, which if you don't know who that

1:01:31

is, listen to behind the Bastards. Yeah,

1:01:34

good for you, but listen to behind the Bastards.

1:01:37

He was kicked off of Twitter for intentionally

1:01:39

mis gendering the actor Elliott Page,

1:01:41

which is against Twitter's terms of service. His

1:01:44

daughter tweeted last month, Uh,

1:01:46

to Elon Musk, will you bring my dad back to the

1:01:48

platform? Elon Must replied, anyone

1:01:50

suspended for minor and dubious reasons will

1:01:52

be freed from Twitter jail. And so think

1:01:54

about all the people that represents Milo

1:01:57

Peterson, folks like Gavin mckinnis, who

1:01:59

was the founder of The Boys, Alex Jones, and Margie

1:02:01

Taylor Green, all these people who were

1:02:04

kicked off the platform. Musk is

1:02:06

signaling that he might reinstate

1:02:08

them. He very well might reinstate

1:02:10

Donald Trump. In a text exchange between

1:02:12

him and Twitter's former CEO, Must

1:02:14

says, Oh, it would be great to unwind permanent

1:02:17

bands except for spam accounts and

1:02:19

those that advocate for violence. And at a conference,

1:02:21

Musk said that he thought that banning Donald Trump

1:02:23

was a mistake. Yeah, but it's so like

1:02:26

it's so stupid, like out of his own mouth,

1:02:28

except for bots and like people that stoke

1:02:30

violence. I'm like, literally everybody they banned,

1:02:33

we're stoking violence. Like what is you talking

1:02:35

about? Like I don't understand. And that's what

1:02:38

I mean by like again earlier, or I could

1:02:40

jump off this roof. It's like, okay, go ahead

1:02:42

and do it. Now. Now you see why none of

1:02:44

us are jumping off this roof. Now you see

1:02:46

why what happened, why we all climbed down

1:02:48

the second time, because we realized when

1:02:50

you up there, oh, it's not

1:02:53

what it's not what you thought it was. So you're gonna have to walk

1:02:55

all this ship back everything you're saying

1:02:57

you're gonna do. And and it's funny to watch that happen

1:02:59

in real time, you know what I'm saying, Like, you

1:03:02

gotta walk all this ship back, so like and

1:03:04

fam we try to tell you, like, no, bro,

1:03:06

you don't want this smoke dog, you don't have you don't have to do it.

1:03:08

You don't have to do it. Okay,

1:03:10

go ahead, then you know, jump

1:03:13

off the roof. It's

1:03:15

such a good analogy. And I

1:03:17

think we're seeing Elon Musk grapple

1:03:20

with exactly those questions.

1:03:22

You know, he called himself a free speech

1:03:24

absolutist, and it's coming to see

1:03:26

what pretty much every person

1:03:29

who has ever run any social media

1:03:31

platform that's see it is that it's really fucking hard,

1:03:33

and it's involved, and you have to like really

1:03:35

like consider a lot of stuff, and you can't just do

1:03:37

it on a whim. And so it's interesting to watch

1:03:40

him realize this will

1:03:43

accept for and then also

1:03:46

and then maybe if y'all was doing it, but

1:03:49

then if we want to advertisers, then yeah, it's

1:03:51

gonna be space. So you can't really say

1:03:54

and then so yeah, but I'm

1:03:56

an absolutist though, Okay,

1:03:58

fab exactly, And so here's

1:04:01

where we are now. You know, the question really becomes

1:04:04

what are you going to allow on these platforms? Who

1:04:06

has served when extremists are welcomed

1:04:09

onto platforms that are allowed to harass and attack

1:04:11

people who were just mining their business

1:04:14

like Milo and his supporters did. And you

1:04:16

know, I think for a lot of these these people

1:04:18

in prop I think that you really clocked this. It's a grift.

1:04:21

It is an engagement strategy. It is I am

1:04:23

going to harass people on

1:04:25

Twitter, get lots of engagement, and that

1:04:27

is going to meeting that's going to be lucrative for

1:04:29

me. And I don't think that platform should be incentivizing

1:04:32

that kind of a dangerous grift. Yeah,

1:04:36

I have to end by saying you might be wondering, well,

1:04:39

where is Milo. Now, while after being

1:04:41

kicked off of Twitter, that was only one part of his downfall.

1:04:44

It was not the Leslie Jones harassment campaign

1:04:46

that killed off his career. Um, he

1:04:48

kind of maintained golden boy status within

1:04:50

the right until seen where he

1:04:52

was slated to speak at Seapack and that

1:04:54

a video surface of him, I

1:04:56

guess like kind of endorsing pedophilia.

1:04:59

This was a it's too far for the right. He

1:05:01

was booted from the seat pack lineup, he

1:05:03

lost a lucrative book deal, he resigned from Breitbart,

1:05:06

and today he's broke. He

1:05:08

doesn't have anywhere near the

1:05:10

platform. And

1:05:13

listen when I look when you send us

1:05:15

this script and I scrolled down to the bottom

1:05:18

and it said today Milo is

1:05:20

broke. I was like, this is the greatest, this

1:05:22

is the dopest last book. It never

1:05:26

it never happens. Yeah, it rarely happens where

1:05:28

somebody finally, like finally

1:05:30

hits their downfall and you're like, all

1:05:34

of my good home training

1:05:37

says I shouldn't revel in your laws.

1:05:40

However, this

1:05:43

was like, no, you earned that. You know what I'm

1:05:45

saying. That's that you earned that, brother, You know what

1:05:47

I'm saying that's your ship sandwich that you put together

1:05:49

yourself. So enjoy your ship

1:05:51

sandwich. Enjoy it, bro, So

1:05:55

thank you for being here today. It

1:05:57

was a pleasure getting into this infurior

1:06:00

in but enlightening conversation. Tell us

1:06:02

about hood politics and do

1:06:04

you know anyone where can get a good cup of coffee? Oh? I

1:06:06

know a bunch of um

1:06:09

so politics with

1:06:11

prop also on cool Zone media. Uh.

1:06:14

It's essentially like it's kind of evolved.

1:06:16

I kind of like the way it's evolved. It's a started

1:06:18

off as just like, oh, like there's these

1:06:20

weird headlines, hot takes, like what are these

1:06:22

people talking about? How do I how do I make sense of

1:06:24

this? And just really wanting to help people

1:06:27

tap into like their street knowledge to

1:06:29

understand that that's just as legitimate as

1:06:31

their book knowledge, you know what I'm saying. So just really

1:06:34

helping you understand just the political landscape.

1:06:36

But it's really evolved into like more than just politics.

1:06:39

It's like sociology, cultural

1:06:41

studies, history, economics, just essentially

1:06:43

like I just want people to understand

1:06:46

it. You know, you're smarter than you think

1:06:48

you are, and these people are not smarter than you. You know

1:06:50

what I'm saying, So, you had a very relevant

1:06:52

tweet that you posted in the

1:06:54

last week where you you talked about how people

1:06:57

voted for things that they

1:07:00

that they didn't think they were voting for because they

1:07:02

purposely try to confuse. Yeah,

1:07:04

so that's yeah, Like that's that type of like I'm

1:07:06

trying to give y'all game where it's like, you know,

1:07:09

um, whether the tweet was like, hey,

1:07:12

you know a lot of y'all voted yes on stuff

1:07:14

that you meant no and voted

1:07:16

no on stuff that you thought meant yes,

1:07:19

and it's because they worded it wrong. So what

1:07:21

I want to do is come in with her politics is be like, hey,

1:07:23

honey, you're trying to hustle you that means yes, you

1:07:26

know, and just being like hey, think about

1:07:28

it. Like you know, when somebody

1:07:30

was like, hey, you don't want dinner tonight foods

1:07:33

being like no, yes,

1:07:36

no, I no, I do want

1:07:39

dinner. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, like, look, they're

1:07:41

not smarter than you. It's the hustle. You just gotta like pay attention

1:07:43

to the hustle. So yeah, the politics are prop Also,

1:07:46

I do have my own cold brew. It's called

1:07:48

Terraform Cold Brew. You go

1:07:50

to Terraform coldbrew dot com.

1:07:52

It's can itself stable. You ain't gotta keep

1:07:55

it in the frieze, although it takes better if you keep it in the frieze.

1:07:57

But yeah, Terraform coldbrew dot com gets used

1:07:59

to get you some of that good in your book and

1:08:01

the book is also called Terraform Collection

1:08:03

of Poetry and Short Story. With the holidays

1:08:06

coming up, I can't think of a better gift. You need

1:08:08

to get Terraform coffee and Terraform

1:08:10

book. That would that's

1:08:13

compared book and coffee.

1:08:15

It's a good. Yeah, thank

1:08:17

you so much, thanks for being appreciated.

1:08:21

This is help. Internet

1:08:25

Hate Machine is a production of cool Zone Media.

1:08:28

For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, check out

1:08:30

our website cool zone media dot com

1:08:32

or find us on the I Heart Radio app, Apple

1:08:34

Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.