0:20

Hey, and welcome to What Future. I'm

0:22

your host, Joshua Tapolski, and I

0:25

guess say we have a real treat today. I'm excited

0:27

we managed to get a guest on

0:30

that frankly was a pretty

0:32

you know, pretty hard booking to lock in and

0:35

not surprising due to all the all

0:38

the excitement swirling around this person.

0:40

But you know, I do have a little bit of an inn and so you

0:43

know, I'm excited to say that today on the show

0:45

we have the former editor

0:47

in chief of Threads, Katie

0:50

Natopoulos, who also is a

0:52

former senior reporter at BuzzFeed

0:55

and a general like internet

0:57

personality, I think, a well known and well

0:59

loved and also probably hated internet

1:02

personality. I'm excited to

1:04

talk to her. I should also say that, you

1:07

know, she is my sister in law, but

1:09

that's just an icing

1:11

on the cake as far as I'm concerned, because Katie,

1:14

long before she was my sister in law, was an iconic

1:16

figure online and so I'm excited

1:19

to get her back on the show and

1:21

talk about her latest adventure, which involves

1:23

a wild ride with the

1:26

one and only Mark Zuckerberg.

1:28

So let's just not waste any more time let's just get into

1:30

this thing. What

1:48

is that coffee over there, Katie? You drinking a coffee

1:51

late in the day.

1:51

That's actually it's a beer.

1:53

Is it beer? You hiding it? You're concealing

1:56

your beer?

1:57

Well? Does that keep it cold?

2:00

Yeah, because otherwise it was like gonna

2:02

get like warm in the can because it.

2:04

Reads, Yeah, it reads this concealment. But I do understand.

2:07

I understand what you're saying.

2:08

For Father's Day, we got like Thermoses

2:10

to drink beer in the park, which

2:13

sounds also now sad, but to

2:16

conceal it well, so there's

2:19

like every Sunday there's like a concert

2:22

in the park here, and like everyone

2:24

brings like beer and wine,

2:27

but like this way it can be

2:29

like it has like a lid so it doesn't spill.

2:33

So it's mye So now I found it very convenient,

2:36

keeps things frosty.

2:37

That's great, Katie.

2:40

I'm glad that I could get you back about

2:42

to keep back on the show. Even though

2:45

we are you know, related, and

2:47

you know, in a family together, it's hard to connect.

2:50

You were just saying, you're just saying before we started that

2:53

you guys hadn't been to a swim we have a

2:55

pool, and you hadn't been over to swim, and that is that

2:57

is true, not all summer long, and we're

2:59

in We're in mid August right now.

3:01

It's true.

3:02

I've been I've been waiting for an invite,

3:04

but my million box is strangely

3:06

empty.

3:07

Ow.

3:07

Well, you know, it's a standing invite, you know,

3:10

basically. But I guess you're right.

3:12

We could be more proactive about it. So on that issue,

3:14

I guess I am fully to blame. But but

3:17

you've had a busy you have personally had a very

3:19

busy summer, and I wanted to talk about it. I

3:21

don't remember the date exactly, but this

3:24

was the summer of Threads. I think, as everybody's

3:26

been referring to it, it's the uh

3:29

I.

3:29

Think we've all been talking about Meta

3:31

introduced.

3:32

It's Twitter competitor threads

3:34

and you know, too much fanfare.

3:37

It's built a huge following a huge amount

3:39

of followers quickly on threads. Hundreds

3:41

of millions of people have joined, at least one hundred million.

3:44

I don't know.

3:45

And you were, you know, early on, you

3:48

were really setting the tone on threads

3:50

as Meta's Threads

3:52

editor in chief.

3:54

Yeah, first off, could you talk about.

3:56

The experience of what that was like building,

3:58

you know, working with the team with

4:00

Adam and Zuck to build the product,

4:03

and just talk a little bit about the creation

4:05

of Threads.

4:06

So, Josh, first of all, thank you for

4:08

having me on.

4:10

I'm your sister in law and I've been

4:12

a tech reporter

4:15

for a long time, previously at BuzzFeed News, which

4:17

unfortunately shut down at the end.

4:19

Of April, and I was so lucky to

4:22

get.

4:22

A wonderful opportunity to become

4:24

the editor in chief of the new Threads app

4:27

which launched in the beginning of July.

4:30

And you know.

4:32

I was just so excited to really

4:34

get to work with the phenomenal

4:37

team over at Meta.

4:39

And just seeing them work was like wow,

4:42

you know, it was like it was like watching

4:44

the Miracle on ice

4:46

hockey team.

4:47

Oh okay, wait, hold on, wait,

4:50

who is who

4:52

is the miracle?

4:53

Ey?

4:53

Is that like a show where like people are

4:55

doing like they're like dancing or whatever.

4:57

What is miracle? What is the miracle on eyes?

4:59

If you could just sure, I believe it was

5:01

the nineteen eighty USA

5:03

hockey team in the Olympics that, against

5:06

all odds.

5:07

Beat Russia. Okay, oh, okay,

5:09

in.

5:09

Eighty four, but I think it was eighty.

5:11

So not like a Harlem globe trotter situation,

5:14

like that's in my head that's what I went to

5:16

immediately, but it's actual thing

5:18

that happened in history. Okay, that sounds like Vega.

5:21

There's actually I believe there's even a move, a fairly

5:23

recent movie about it called Miracle, But

5:26

it was I think the idea was that they were sort of like

5:28

the underdogs and the people, which is strange.

5:30

It's like, why would people think that the

5:33

US was not good at hockey? I men, I guess

5:35

I don't know.

5:35

I don't know the history. I a

5:37

lot of ice rush, fairly famous sports

5:40

thing.

5:40

And also someone's going to like respond to this podcast

5:42

and be like two Olympics,

5:45

idiot.

5:46

So listen.

5:46

So you were there at the beginning, you were working with

5:48

the team, and then of course the app launches.

5:51

Everybody's freaking out about it.

5:52

You know, Elon Musk is going crazy

5:56

threatening lawsuits, and Azuka

5:58

is cracking hilarious. Joe suddenly, Mark

6:00

Zuckerberg, you're at the time your

6:03

boss, your by at least your boss's boss

6:05

is suddenly.

6:07

That's what I call him.

6:07

Yeah, he's suddenly become a little bit of a folk hero.

6:10

The he's the David that's laid

6:12

Goliath. He's actually like Goliath. He's like

6:14

actually like the Goliath that slaid David

6:17

or whatever. I guess anyhow, you know, he's

6:19

like, it's like the bad guy won in

6:21

a way, but also yeah, they're both bad

6:23

guys. So like, you know, again,

6:26

as I as I put on Threads in the early

6:28

days, I posted the

6:31

Alien versus Predator poster from

6:34

the when the film came out, and it's of course has the

6:36

famous tagline whoever wins,

6:38

we lose, And I said, this is

6:40

the only way to think about the thread situation.

6:43

Right, It's like, ultimately you're you're rooting

6:45

for a guy who should be tried at the Hague.

6:47

They say they say the enemy of my

6:50

enemy is my friend or something like that. I

6:52

think that's like, I don't know, all these

6:54

guys are shitheads who suck. But okay, so getting

6:56

back to it, I mean very successful and accomplished

6:59

shitheads who suck. So you're the

7:01

Threads editor in chief. A couple of

7:03

questions, One is, can you tell me a little bit about

7:05

what the job entailed? In that role,

7:08

give me a little like flavor of what was going on

7:10

right around launch as you were, you know, sort of really

7:12

putting the pieces together.

7:14

Sure, so I think that, you know, really

7:17

a big important thing was I

7:19

would consider my role there. It's like a vibe

7:22

some some milia, you know,

7:26

a vibe curator. Really, you know,

7:28

it was it was a lot of like welcoming

7:31

celebs on. It was like, hey,

7:33

guys, we've got Eva

7:36

Longoria.

7:36

Yeah, that's amazing. We've got George

7:39

t Que. He's just threatened it up.

7:41

You're almost like a You're almost like a

7:44

you wanted to bring the the quality

7:46

posters to the forefront.

7:48

You were sort of a facilitator in a way

7:50

exactly.

7:50

And so when someone like Gary Vee shows up

7:52

on Threads.

7:53

And there, I'll never

7:56

forget that day, you know, when he was

7:58

finally on and I'm like, finally culture

8:00

has arrived on Threads and yeah,

8:03

it was it was amazing. But then listen,

8:05

it was all going great. The early days were fantastic,

8:08

mm hmm, but then there was a little bump in the

8:10

road. Can you talk about the

8:12

situation that that went down and which

8:15

ultimately led to your spoiler

8:17

alert but your dismissal as editor in chief, can you talk

8:19

a little bit about what happened?

8:21

Yeah, unfortunately, this this all

8:24

unfolded in my first day officially

8:27

on the job.

8:28

But you know, that's I was.

8:31

I was just posting, because you don't say tweet

8:33

on threads. Its posting lots

8:35

of threads about how I'm the new editor in chief and this

8:37

is my new job and I'm so happy

8:39

and excited and a lot of like, you know,

8:42

s full of thread you know, emoji totally

8:45

r you know, muscle.

8:46

Arm emoji, rocket ship emoji.

8:48

Yeah.

8:49

I thought your energy was amazing because it was really

8:51

like the kindest, most

8:53

welcoming, like most pro

8:55

threads energy that anybody could put out there.

8:58

Yeah, and

9:01

and then two things sort of went

9:03

wrong for me, so, you

9:05

know.

9:05

And of course I was, you know, just doing my job.

9:08

But a journalist from the

9:10

Intercept, Ken Clippenstein,

9:14

I think, so.

9:15

That sounds right. He's got a great, great newsletter,

9:17

got a great newsletter.

9:18

Yeah.

9:18

He he posted a picture of Mark

9:21

Zuckerberg shaking hands with

9:23

NBS. The Crown Prince of

9:25

Saudi Arabia committed

9:28

horrible uh.

9:29

Acts, And so I said something

9:32

like, you know, every time.

9:33

We should just continually keep posting

9:35

this picture every like in response

9:37

to Mark, you know, Zuckerberg every time he posts.

9:40

Ken's trying to keep mind it right.

9:43

And I think a little bit you know, pointing out hey,

9:45

because for a moment, you know, one

9:48

sort of uncanny thing about the threads is that all these

9:50

Facebook executives who like never tweeted

9:52

or like posting it up, you

9:55

know.

9:55

Trapping Itch

9:57

in particular, is was incredibly active

10:00

on threads.

10:01

Oh yeah, remains incredibly active.

10:03

So you know, I think that I think that a little bit people

10:05

were like excited by that. It was sort of funny, you know,

10:07

he was doing a little like you know, riffing on Elon

10:10

and uh, you know, seeming like a cool guy. And

10:12

you know, I think Ken wanted to remind people that you

10:15

know, he's complicit and some very

10:17

bad things. I responded to you know, of course,

10:19

you know, as editor in chief, I responded to him,

10:21

you know, waving hands emogie.

10:24

Hey, Ken, I know that

10:26

you know you didn't know this, but

10:29

actually bullying is

10:32

not allowed on this platform, and

10:34

so bullying you ever post

10:36

this picture again, We're going to have to deactivate

10:38

your account.

10:39

Yeah, Threads is a product that's kind

10:41

of build out of Instagram, and you have to remember that Instagram

10:43

has a very strict moderation policy, and

10:46

so I think you have to remind people

10:48

like Threads, it's not the same it's not the same situation

10:50

as Twitter.

10:51

Not It's not just like any kind of bullying is.

10:52

Going to be I can't just bully billionaires.

10:55

We don't toperate that here on Threads. Bullying

10:58

is bullying, that's right. You can't not bully

11:01

Mark Zuckerberg. And so I think a lot of people,

11:03

you know, were they're a little surprised

11:06

by that as official Threads policy.

11:07

Yeah, okay.

11:08

And then someone else had responded

11:11

to me, asking are you going to

11:13

ban the Nazis from Threads? And

11:16

you know, I took a page from my

11:18

boss, Mark Zuckerberg, who you know, in

11:22

the past has said that he would be

11:24

happy to allow Holocaust

11:26

deniers because it's simply a different

11:29

viewpoint.

11:29

That's right, that's right, Fame.

11:30

I think we should remember famously, Mark

11:33

Zuckerberg, who is a Jew,

11:36

famously told I think Kara Swisher, I

11:38

want to say on a podcast that he

11:40

was like, yeah, like, if there's Holocaust and ires

11:42

on the platform, Like that's okay because they just are

11:44

sharing.

11:44

They don't have to view.

11:45

Them, right.

11:46

I think they're wrong, but I'm not going to

11:48

ban them.

11:49

I mean it was fair.

11:50

You know, you got to see it, got to see from every side. Like

11:52

there's the side it's like, hey, this thing happened.

11:55

It like a horrible genocidal atrocity

11:57

happened. You know, that's the like the fact

11:59

base, science based side, you know. But then

12:01

on the other hand, there's like an opinion

12:04

like it didn't happen, which I think is also like a valid

12:06

argument.

12:07

Right right.

12:08

And I think at the time his reasoning

12:11

here was I think it was in the discussion was sort of about

12:13

misinformation, and he

12:15

was he was His argument was that people

12:18

who are Holocaust deniers aren't

12:20

intentionally trying to misinform

12:22

other people when they say the Holocaust int happened.

12:25

They genuinely believe this edroneously,

12:28

but they they're just they just

12:30

happened to be mistaken. They you know, kind

12:33

of like how I thought the Miracle on Ice happened

12:35

in nineteen eighty but it was really nineteen.

12:36

Eighty two, that's right.

12:38

I mean, I mean, who amongst us hasn't

12:40

hasn't believed it something that was

12:42

incorrect and then shared it widely

12:45

on a social network, Right.

12:47

So, I mean I do believe

12:49

that the stance on Holocaust

12:51

deniers has changed.

12:52

Yeah, they reversed a sand.

12:53

Since that interview.

12:54

I thought it was.

12:55

It turns out if you say something

12:58

totally stupid, embarrassing.

12:59

It's off you for like months

13:01

about it.

13:02

It's obviously wrong, you will reverse your

13:04

stance on it.

13:04

I think, yeah, I do think that their

13:07

their policies on that have have evolved

13:10

since that interview.

13:11

But anyhow, but.

13:11

Getting back to the point, you were taking a cue from

13:13

mar.

13:14

So, someone said, will you will you ban the Nazis?

13:16

And I said, here on Threads, you

13:19

know, we welcome diversity of

13:21

viewpoint and we

13:23

welcome everyone. This is an

13:25

inclusive space, and

13:27

that includes being welcoming

13:30

and inclusive of people who choose

13:32

to live a Nazi lifestyle.

13:37

And a lot

13:39

of people got upset from that.

13:42

Well, I think, as I think in a

13:44

situation where you're representing you

13:46

know, the Threads app really, when

13:48

you think about it, like as the editor

13:50

in chief, in some ways you're the most vocal

13:52

representative of the of that

13:55

space. I mean, I get it, you

13:57

know, I think saying like you know, we

13:59

we we the Nazis here is a

14:01

little controversial, I guess. I mean Mark,

14:03

it doesn't sound like it would have been that big of a deal to Mark.

14:05

But but then what happened, uh

14:08

so, you know, I.

14:09

Mean, well, a couple of interesting things happened, so that

14:11

particular post sort

14:14

of it went like viral.

14:17

But I can't really tell because Threads

14:19

doesn't show you like retweet

14:22

count.

14:23

Or like, it doesn't really allow

14:25

you to see, and you.

14:26

Can't search, so it's really actually hard

14:28

to see how far something is traveling.

14:31

Like I could see that a lot of people

14:34

were commenting on it. I could tell that a

14:37

significantly above average number

14:39

of people were commenting on.

14:40

And this was at this point. At this point, had the app hit

14:42

one hundred million users at this point, I

14:44

think.

14:45

No, I think that's a good day or two later.

14:46

But I could also see that people

14:49

back on Twitter were sharing screenshots

14:51

of it.

14:52

I could see the people.

14:55

We're talking about, sorry, just to be clear, so

14:57

people off platform or screenshot

14:59

and and they were sharing on other platforms,

15:01

Like the editor in chief of Threads just said this,

15:04

right, So that's incredible.

15:06

God, Katie, it was a lot of.

15:07

Like, you know, hey, I'm

15:09

I was considering checking out Threads

15:12

because this was you know, it was like the first day or

15:14

something.

15:14

A lot of people were like should I try it? Should I go for

15:16

it?

15:17

And then people would be like sharing the screenshop

15:19

being like, no way, I'm not going to join this

15:21

app because look what the editor in chief says,

15:24

right yeah.

15:25

I feel like at.

15:25

This point, Josh, I feel

15:27

like I have to spoil the bit, and for

15:30

anyone who's listened this long time, really, really

15:32

I need to make it clear that.

15:34

Like I was joking, I was not

15:36

the editor in chief of Threads.

15:38

Okay, fine, all right, fine, let's let's spoil the bit.

15:40

Katie was pretending to be the

15:43

role that doesn't exist, the editor in chief of Threads.

15:46

And then I mean, I actually, I mean

15:48

I was hoping we continue the bit through to the point where

15:50

you were called into I believe

15:52

you said you were called into Mark's office, but maybe it

15:54

was Adam.

15:56

I mean, I you know, I think that I just I feel

15:58

bad for any listener who's like tuning in, being

16:01

like, why is just talking to this Like.

16:05

Well, I don't think I think my audience is savvy

16:07

enough to see through the veil of humor

16:10

that we've dropped on them.

16:22

But so yeah, to be clear, you were doing a

16:24

bit.

16:24

So it was a bit like it was basically

16:27

like the first day I like sign up for an account and

16:29

I was like, you know what am I gonna do here? And I was

16:31

like, immediately my brain went

16:33

to like I've got a fuck around, like I've

16:35

got a troll lightly.

16:36

On you, because I think people

16:39

have to understand that you are

16:41

a professional poster and

16:44

like I think a lot of people don't realize like

16:47

what that means, and what it means is when you

16:49

get on a platform, you're gonna you're gonna

16:51

post, and uh, you

16:54

went right to the to the heart

16:56

of the matter. You went right to the heart of posting,

16:58

which was pretending to be an employee,

17:01

pretending to be an employee of threads.

17:04

Uh.

17:05

And and because you have like a you

17:07

know, you have a following, and people like started to following

17:09

you immediately.

17:10

It was like, I mean, everybody.

17:12

Who was following you, who knows you and your

17:14

thing, was like this is the greatest

17:17

bit of all time. Like everyone was

17:19

like playing along with the bit and

17:21

uh and so yeah, I mean it quickly

17:24

spiraled out of control.

17:25

From what I can tell.

17:25

Well, you know, I feel a little bad because I I

17:27

think I probably overestimated

17:30

the quote.

17:31

Everyone who knows me like knew

17:33

it was a bit, because I think that like people

17:36

who know.

17:37

Me well knew it was a bit

17:39

people who maybe were like vague

17:42

acquaintances. And it keep in mind, Threads

17:44

hooks into your Instagram friend graph,

17:46

so it was like, you know, my friends on there were like

17:48

people who you know, like

17:50

like real normies, like not

17:53

people who were maybe familiar with my work or.

17:56

Your Twitter graph and your Instagram graph are a bit different.

17:58

Right, And also like there's just plenty

18:01

of people who like maybe

18:03

they followed me on Twitter or something, but they don't like

18:05

know me. And you know, like if I'm saying something

18:08

that sounds like a conceivable truth

18:10

and then I'm like, haha, you suckers. I was

18:12

lying, Like I don't know, It's not their fault

18:14

for not knowing that, right, Like, I

18:17

think what was funny about it to me, at least, was that the

18:19

idea of an editor in chief

18:21

of Threads was both ridiculous but plausible.

18:24

Plausible and I think widely

18:26

accepted by many people.

18:28

To be honest, there was

18:30

this sort of I mean, like there is not an

18:33

editor in chief of Threads, but there was

18:35

a time, you know, in

18:37

like twenty fifteen or something where it seems like every

18:40

app had like an editor in chief, you know, or

18:42

like there was always some sort of like former

18:44

journalist person, and that was for a while

18:47

a very lucrative thing to do, to

18:49

like be a journalist and then go

18:51

be the editor of like Snapchat

18:54

or something.

18:55

Right, Yeah, and so that moment

18:58

is sort of over.

18:59

Yeah, By the way, I went back while

19:01

you were telling the story and just went

19:03

to look at some of the posts

19:06

you're doing. What strikes me is

19:08

particularly, like I think

19:10

resonant about them is that you are

19:12

basically doing like

19:14

what Linda Yakarino's been doing

19:17

on Twitter. Like it's

19:19

like a person who is so on

19:21

the fucking payroll, like so obviously

19:24

embarrassingly on the payroll for like kind

19:27

of a shithead, but has to be like

19:30

everything's going great, right, It's like if this

19:32

is fine type of tweeting or posting

19:34

or whatever. If you're like, you know,

19:37

just got out of a big meeting with Zuck and the Meta team. We're

19:39

absolutely loving all the great posts you're all doing

19:42

here. Keep up the great work everyone, artie

19:44

this and make sure you follow me. And then you're

19:46

like, you know, Keith Edwards, Threads hit thirty million

19:48

users in ten hours, My god, and you are

19:51

like quote quote posting this and you're.

19:53

Like, amazing, great work everyone on my

19:55

threads. Teap.

19:55

Then you've got like the arm, the

19:58

bodybuilding arm in the rocket red

20:00

z emoji. It's like it's

20:02

just very it's just very like you

20:04

know in a way, it's like you know, blink twice

20:07

if you know you need help or whatever, like

20:09

yuh.

20:10

I feel like my one of my favorite ones is

20:12

I think I said something like I just want

20:14

to like say, how many amazing posts

20:16

are especially from brands.

20:18

Yeah, I know, actually I just went past

20:20

that. One thing I'm

20:22

loving is how funny brands are on here. You

20:24

guys are killing it. That's a post that

20:26

you did on threads. I like this one too. This one is

20:28

amazing. It's a repost of

20:31

mister Beast, who's like to celebrate threads

20:33

launching. I'm gonna give this tesla to a random follower.

20:35

And you're like woo hoo. The Threads team

20:38

and I worked hard with Tesla and mister Beast to make this

20:40

awesome contest happen. Thank you to Elon

20:42

for donating the car and your support of the silly

20:44

little app.

20:45

Then it's the Threads emoji, a thread

20:47

emoji, the.

20:48

Rocket ship emoji, the strong

20:50

arm emoji, and the car emoji.

20:53

It's just so fucking perfectly

20:55

bland cheerleading of

20:58

like the product that it is. I

21:00

would say, like largely all that, like Linda

21:02

Yakarino has done on Twitter. It's

21:04

like, I'm not sure that she has any power, but she definitely

21:06

goes on Twitter and is like, We're so excited

21:09

about what we're building here, and it's like, are you She's

21:11

just cashy the check anyhow. But

21:14

yeah, so so, but then you went through a whole thing where

21:16

you got fired, Like you went through a whole bit.

21:18

So the Nazi thing, in particular,

21:21

I could tell was like getting

21:23

a little out of hand.

21:24

And I say out of hand.

21:25

It was like all my

21:28

friends and people who sort of like knew me knew

21:30

this was very clearly a joke, and

21:32

that the joke is about how Facebook

21:34

and platforms have kind of actually.

21:37

Yes, viewed that.

21:38

Yes, you know, the joke is the joke is

21:40

this is the answer that they actually fucking give

21:42

a lot of the time when you're like are you going to

21:45

moderate rights Nazis or are you

21:47

going to moderate like hate speech? Are you going to moderate

21:49

lies? And they're like, well, we welcome all viewpoints,

21:52

and it's like.

21:53

Yeah, And I could tell it

21:55

had traveled outside of that bubble

21:57

of people who know me and knew it was a joke,

22:00

and it was onto something bigger where people

22:02

were just generally aghast by it,

22:05

which you know, again, I think

22:07

is a good thing because I think people should

22:10

repeatedly feel agast by

22:12

like the poor

22:15

content moderation decisions that are happening

22:17

on platforms.

22:17

But wait, hold on, hold on a second, Hold on a second. Is

22:19

this real?

22:20

There's a fucking oh, there's like

22:22

some Economic Times dot India Times dot

22:24

com. Who's Katanatopolas know

22:26

about? Editor in chief of Threads now fired over

22:28

a controversial post. It's just like I think

22:30

an actual article from some like oh it is

22:33

okay. Taking to Twitter on Friday, July said

22:35

seventh, Katie atopol has announced on Twitter that

22:37

she has now fired as editor in chief of Threads met as new

22:39

social media app there recently wanted, okay, whatever

22:41

this is like one like if you search

22:44

for Nazi lifestyle, hold

22:46

on, oh this is okay, these

22:48

are your Nazi lifestyle Threads app. That's

22:50

like the second there's multiple

22:52

articles. There's actually multiple articles

22:54

written about I.

22:55

Think what happened was that it

22:57

basically like you know how you know the a

23:00

famous tweet about how like.

23:03

Everyone's goal on Twitter is to not be

23:06

the person of.

23:06

The day, right, yes, yes,

23:09

I was the Threads person of the day for like

23:11

a moment, and like, I

23:14

think it got to the point where it's probably

23:16

somehow hit some Google metric

23:18

of trending, like

23:21

and so these seo like

23:24

sites that kind of you know, like what's the one like

23:27

breaker or like.

23:28

I don't know, they're all anything.

23:30

That basically is just like sensing

23:32

whenever there's a blip in the like.

23:34

The site Dexero, do

23:36

you know the same Dexerto?

23:38

I feel like, no, don't worry.

23:39

There's a Katie in the topless one now because of this

23:41

too.

23:41

And who is who is Kaane? The topless

23:44

troll. Threads editor goes viral

23:46

with controversial posts. I mean they did like a full

23:48

on BuzzFeed style like fucking

23:50

slide show ship on this, Like

23:53

it's so really.

23:53

Funny because it feels very AI generated

23:56

too.

23:56

Yeah, I'm not sure that these aren't, to be

23:58

honest, Like it.

24:00

Just attracted enough Google information. I

24:02

think that the post on Threads

24:04

had traveled enough that people enough people

24:07

were googling who is Katie to topless

24:09

because they were trying to figure out if it was legit, right,

24:11

I think, right, I think a lot of people were like unclear.

24:13

Well, Also, the fact that you had been for

24:16

a long period of time a reporter

24:18

at BuzzFeed made the plausibility

24:21

of you becoming the editor in chief of Threads

24:24

just absolutely perfect.

24:26

I mean it was like completely acceptable to believe

24:29

that.

24:29

Oh yeah, like yeah right, like BuzzFeed

24:31

News shut down like she got a new job, is like editor in

24:33

chief of Threads like completely By the way, I'm sorry,

24:35

I'm reading a sports keyted dot com

24:37

some fun. There's some these crazy spam,

24:40

random fucking gout. The internet is full of

24:42

such guardas.

24:43

Oh definitely.

24:44

Well, one thing is a couple of them said

24:46

that incorrectly they thought my

24:48

account was taken down.

24:49

What ended up happening.

24:50

Yes, they did say that.

24:51

That's right, the Nazi

24:54

post was taken down, that

24:56

one single post that was

24:59

the post.

24:59

Were you pretending to be, as

25:02

a joke, the editor in chief of Threads,

25:04

a role that does not exist. Were you were

25:06

telling a person a

25:08

thing that you had zero actual power

25:11

to do or implement, which is

25:13

letting people who leave a Nazi lifestyle

25:15

post on Threads.

25:17

They took that post down just to be clear.

25:20

That that is krreshed.

25:22

So and what was the rationale? Was it impersonation?

25:24

What was the no.

25:26

When you get a post taken down, it doesn't tell

25:28

you, like exactly why, And you know, there's

25:31

a very clear reason for that, because a lot

25:33

of the time Facebook doesn't want you to know

25:36

exactly its rules, right, Like

25:38

they keep it fuzzy for a reason because as soon as people

25:40

know the exact rules, they're going to gain the system.

25:43

Right.

25:44

So it just said like this was in violation of

25:46

our policies or whatever. My

25:49

guess would be that it would

25:51

fall under like you're

25:54

not allowed to like encourage

25:56

or show support of hate groups.

25:59

To can't say I like you

26:01

can't say I'm not a Nazi, but I support.

26:03

Them, right, sure, yeah, okay,

26:06

fair.

26:07

So I have a feeling it probably fell

26:09

under that.

26:10

I mean, I

26:12

wouldn't be totally surprised

26:15

if the fact that I was also impersonating

26:18

Threads employee played some context.

26:20

I think there's sort of two versions.

26:23

One is that like people.

26:25

Probably reported it, you know, like people

26:27

report things race. It flagged to some

26:30

outsource moderator who had to make

26:32

a decision in point five.

26:34

Second, guy in a sweatshop who

26:36

has to look at.

26:37

The possible this you can't

26:39

like you're not allowed to praise Nazis

26:41

or show support of them, Like does that count as praising

26:44

Nazis? I don't know, maybe like sure, take it

26:46

down whatever, like but you know, frankly, you know what

26:48

better safe than sorry? Fine, I'm happy with

26:50

that, you know. Or

26:52

it's possible, I think much less

26:55

likely that, like there

26:57

was a higher level discussion

26:59

about whether or not to allow that

27:02

very misleading, an inflammatory

27:04

post about meta itself

27:07

to continue.

27:08

Well, I think I think in a way it

27:10

would. It exposed.

27:11

First off, was a very funny bit, and everybody who does

27:13

know you thought it was very enjoyable to watch

27:16

it play out. But I think what it exposed

27:18

is like you touched on it already. Is the

27:21

real and sort

27:24

of absurd reaction that these

27:26

companies have to things that

27:28

twe a person, a normal person seem

27:31

obviously like addressable.

27:33

And I think you brought up the thing where

27:36

Zuckerberg said, you know,

27:38

well it's a different opinion or whatever about

27:40

like holocaust and ires, and I think like there

27:42

was also as a part of that, and it may

27:44

have been that interview, or it may have been

27:47

a separate post that he did on Facebook or something

27:49

where he was like, I don't believe

27:51

I should be you know, the person

27:54

who decides what speech like should

27:56

be allowed and shouldn't be allowed on this platform

27:59

or whatever. It's like rationale is like, well,

28:01

it's such a big platform and there's so many people on it, Like

28:03

I can't be the one, you know, the guy who decides.

28:05

And it's like, well, you know what the thing is. It's a

28:07

publicly owned company that is a for

28:10

profit business, and like ultimately you

28:13

actually get to say as the CEO

28:16

what you won't, will and won't allow on the platform.

28:18

And they do it all the time, right, Like there's

28:20

a ton of shit, there's a ton of shit you cannot put

28:22

on Facebook, Like a million different

28:24

horrible things you cannot post on Facebook, and

28:26

it's like you could decide

28:29

and just have you just have to deal with the fact that people

28:31

will go like, you're not letting all the viewpoints

28:33

on here, but like so fucking what right,

28:36

But they don't want to do that. They want to play this like weird

28:38

middle ground, like for what reason. I don't

28:40

really know. I understand like the concept, but

28:43

it's not hard.

28:44

To be really I think the reason is clear, right

28:46

Like that. Ultimately, Mark Zirgerber doesn't

28:48

really care about the moderation. He cares

28:50

about getting hauled in in front of Congress and having

28:53

Republicans yolotan because he moderated too

28:55

much, right, right, So this gives him the

28:57

whole excuse of like we created

28:59

this out outside the Facebook

29:01

Oversight Committee and basically just punt all

29:03

those hards. He does not do

29:06

anything to not have to be the one to make the decision

29:08

about banning or not banning Donald Trump.

29:10

I would love I would love to

29:12

be in front of Congress and have someone

29:15

be like, you know, question

29:18

the why or why you ban a Nazis thing,

29:21

you know, and just be like, look, dude,

29:23

you know if somebody's clearly posting

29:25

Nazi shit, like I don't know, seems.

29:27

Pretty straightforward, like if you think

29:29

otherwise, like I'm all yours. I just don't understand

29:32

the argument.

29:32

You know, it's it's never okay, so it's never going to be

29:34

the Nazis.

29:35

No, but you can use the Nazis. You can use

29:37

the Nazis.

29:38

To be fair, Facebook has banned

29:41

Nazis for a long time, okay,

29:43

and so his Instagram and like, frankly, the question about

29:45

like are you're gonna be Nazis on threads, it's

29:47

like, yeah, you know what they've had, Like you're.

29:49

Not allowed to like already ban a Nazi for a

29:51

long time, right, Like the.

29:52

Only place where Nazis aren't banned is Twitter.

29:54

That's the right, or you know, honestly,

29:57

technically they probably are.

29:58

No, I don't think they are. I don't think they are.

30:00

I don't I have a feeling if you are, like literally

30:03

I'm a Nazi like that stuff,

30:06

it's probably a no. But

30:08

I think where you get into trouble is

30:11

all these edge cases things

30:13

like like libs of TikTok is the perfect

30:15

example of something that's this like really

30:18

frustrating edge case for these things where

30:20

it's like she's constantly

30:22

towing the line of like, oops,

30:26

I'm going a little bit over what you said

30:28

the rules were, Oops I'm not you

30:30

know, back and forth. And if it wasn't

30:32

someone who had like millions of followers and all of a sudden,

30:35

like a lot of eyes on her, they would have banned her a long time

30:37

ago. But now it's like now

30:39

she's this like nightmare person who's

30:41

so popular that if she gets.

30:43

Banned, and like Josh Hawley's gonna

30:45

yell and like.

30:47

It's not necessarily just like the Nazis,

30:49

because I just like the reason everyone sort of uses

30:51

that as an example. It's like, of course you

30:53

bann the Nazis. The question is like do

30:56

you ban the transphobes? Like do

30:58

you ban there's a lot

31:00

of stuff that doesn't fall under h

31:03

beats that is very objectionable,

31:05

right or.

31:06

That like they

31:08

wiggle there.

31:09

They're really right up against that of

31:11

the line of you know, hey, maybe

31:14

some of the posts get flagged.

31:15

Some of their posts, don't you know.

31:17

Yeah, so that's where they run into

31:19

problems, you know, that's where

31:21

people are like annoyed by them

31:24

for not being a little bit stricter on

31:26

that stuff, right, I mean, like, you

31:28

know, content moderation and trusted

31:30

safety and policy is not easy, right,

31:32

Like I think that like it sort

31:35

of does a disservice.

31:36

I think to make it also seem like it.

31:38

Would just be so easy just bend lots of people,

31:40

Like that's not purely the answer,

31:44

but clearly Facebook has done

31:46

a very like there's a there's

31:49

a lot to point to about how they fail,

31:51

right, Yeah, they've

31:53

They've.

31:54

Done a lot of unforced errors, sure.

32:08

At any rate, So you know, it was a good run.

32:11

You'd a great run.

32:12

It was a good run.

32:13

But I started getting like a little bit like once I

32:15

started seeing the like SEO stuff pop

32:17

up. Yeah, a couple people were really

32:20

like aggressively. There was one guy

32:22

who I was like, buddy,

32:24

what's what's what's going on here? Like

32:26

he was just messaging me on every possible

32:28

platform to be like, Nazi jokes

32:31

not funny, You're disgusting. And I think

32:33

at first he didn't know it was a joke,

32:35

so he was just like he didn't think.

32:37

It was a joke.

32:37

He was like, you're disgusting, you support Nazis.

32:40

Yeah, and then eventually.

32:41

He realized that it was a joke, and he was like, Nazi

32:43

jokes.

32:43

So not funny, but he was, you know, he

32:46

was sending me LinkedIn messages, he was emailing

32:48

me. I was like, buddy, like,

32:51

I agree, I don't like the Nazis

32:53

either, Like, but please

32:56

stop bothering me. Right, he was getting

32:58

like a little I could tell I was in a my head

33:01

and so I was like, I gotta fire realself.

33:03

I can't keep this joke up much longer.

33:05

Interesting, Okay, I didn't realize I sort

33:07

of missed the whole. I mean I maybe saw somebody

33:09

share the Nazi thing, like laughing about

33:11

it or saw you do it, and I was like, well, clearly,

33:14

you know she's making this joke. I

33:16

guess I didn't realize that the reason you stopped

33:18

was sort of because of this outside sort

33:21

of weird shit that was going on, Like well.

33:23

Some of amazing.

33:23

I mean, I wasn't gonna keep up the gag forever. It was

33:26

also like funny for one day and then

33:28

like it wasn't you know, it wasn't gonna

33:30

be that much funny right anymore anyways,

33:33

But but it is weird that like because

33:36

threads doesn't show you the

33:38

you know, likes and reposts

33:41

numbers. It's hard for an outsider

33:43

to tell if something is actually going viral

33:45

or not. So like, there's no reason you would have known that this

33:47

was actually like blowing up right.

33:50

The only reason I could know is because I was seeing

33:52

some of the notifications of like the responses

33:54

and the thing, and I was seeing

33:57

the chatter on other platforms, like

33:59

I had people like texting me weird stuff.

34:01

Like honestly, it tricked a lot, like it tricked

34:03

Walt Mosburg.

34:05

Like yeah, like, oh really did about

34:07

it?

34:07

Like I don't think this threads thing is gonna be very

34:09

good because of look at this, like

34:11

there was a screenshot that was sort of like a distant

34:14

bodies and like balth Mosberg doesn't know who I am.

34:16

He doesn't know that I'm kidding, Like right, Waltmarpha,

34:19

of course, is a very famous uh techtern.

34:21

But you know what's funny is that Walt Mosburg and I

34:24

love Walt, but one of his big

34:26

projects he works on now is news literacy.

34:28

Like he has this whole thing that he's doing around news

34:31

literacy, And I just want to say, pretty

34:33

amazing that he saw that didn't

34:36

fact check who the person was, didn't

34:38

know who the person was, and then like.

34:40

Just I mean I have to say, like justice

34:42

for Walt here, because like, how is he going to

34:44

fact check Katie de toopolss is a little piece of

34:46

shit? Right?

34:47

Like no, I mean you could just google Katie to

34:49

topless and they'd.

34:50

Be like wow Alden seeing oh she

34:52

is a former reporter at BuzzFeed, she

34:54

probably works like that makes me chicks out.

34:56

She's gone on the dark side. I guess, Okay, maybe he

34:59

did. You're right, Okay, no

35:01

reason.

35:01

For him to know that, Like I'm

35:03

a gremlin who likes fucking around,

35:06

you know.

35:06

Yeah, yeah, did you feel you were in danger at

35:08

any point? Did you feel like it had gotten so?

35:10

I think it was a mix of Like part

35:13

of what I felt bad about is like I

35:15

was dunking, like the dunk. I mean

35:17

it wasn't even a dunk, right, Like it

35:20

was upsetting people whose viewpoints I agree

35:22

with, right, Like people who are like

35:24

I don't want Nazis on my platform,

35:26

and this upsets me.

35:27

I'm like, yeah, I agree, like

35:30

and.

35:30

So well, that's the point. That's the joke.

35:32

Sometimes there are people who are being like a little too

35:35

like gullible and earnest about

35:37

it, but also like.

35:38

No, I get it, I get it, But like

35:40

the problem is the reason why it penetrated

35:43

and the reason why people were upset is because

35:45

it sounds exactly like something that some

35:47

fucking editor in chief of Threads hired

35:49

by Mark Zuckerberg and Adamasiri might

35:51

actually say.

35:52

And like that's the thing.

35:54

It struck a nerve both internally,

35:56

I'm sure ed Metta, and also with the

35:58

audience because it rang

36:01

true and and and by

36:03

the way, I'm not saying you shouldn't have killed the joke.

36:05

That makes a lot of sense, but I think what is

36:07

more telling is it rang

36:10

so true and so many people reacted

36:12

in earnest to it, and that's not an accident.

36:14

And I actually think like at the heart of your joke,

36:16

which obviously was you ultimately and I know for

36:18

a fact you had no ulterior motive of doing anything

36:21

smart or.

36:22

You know interesting.

36:23

I know that I know I know you well

36:25

enough to know that you were just fucking around

36:27

and being funny and thought it

36:29

was like a good gag.

36:31

But like the at the heart of it, what

36:34

it really exposes.

36:35

Is like the actual underlying bullshit

36:38

of these platforms and and like in a way

36:40

like was it's the most effective possible

36:43

critique of their shit. I mean, you know,

36:45

people are always like comedians are the modern day

36:47

philosophers. But you know, I think

36:49

like you're your like parody

36:52

or whatever worked because people

36:54

think it's completely reasonable that that's

36:57

what a representative of Threads would say, and

36:59

that's actually like a Mark Zuckerberg

37:01

problem that like they have yet to really effectively

37:03

solve.

37:04

So yeah, you know, and to be perfectly fair,

37:06

also, I mean, like I you know, I

37:08

did think I was being like a little bit smart.

37:11

And cheeky, but I will also say that I feel like I was old.

37:12

Look kay, I mean I'm not saying it wasn't clever, but

37:15

I'm just saying, like, I don't think you were like trying to make

37:17

a major point about like society

37:20

or anything.

37:21

I think I saw that like my eight friends

37:23

would think it was pretty funny, and they did,

37:25

and they did anyway, So yeah, So then

37:27

I think the next day my plan

37:29

to get out of it was I said, you know, oh

37:32

boy, I have an unscheduled meeting

37:34

in my calendar to meet with Mark

37:37

this morning, so.

37:38

Excited to go and see what the big boss.

37:39

Says, and then you know, thirty

37:41

minutes later, I said, oh my god, I can't believe this, but

37:44

I've been fired.

37:45

You played out who the whole narrative.

37:47

Yeah, it was a lot of fun for me.

37:51

I'll tell you something.

37:53

Your thing that you were doing was one of the few

37:55

things in the early days of Threads that really made

37:57

me feel like this could

37:59

work. I was like, oh, like, Katie's

38:02

doing her thing and everybody's kind of like reacting

38:04

to it, and we're all, like, you know, where

38:06

most of us are in on the joke, some of us are

38:08

not, But like, it just felt like weird, you

38:11

know, it felt like weird Twitter. It felt like like, you know, the kind

38:13

of shit that goes on where it's it's loose,

38:15

you know, and like it's posting. But honestly,

38:18

like, you know, I don't see a lot of that on Threads.

38:20

I don't see a lot of anything of like sparks,

38:22

any kind of real like delight.

38:24

At this point.

38:25

Yeah, I mean, Threads has definitely.

38:28

I mean, all the

38:30

indicators showed that, you know, it's been dropping

38:33

and users. Although it's hard,

38:35

I don't know, I still check it multiple

38:37

times a day.

38:38

Yeah, I'm looking at threads like on a

38:40

more regular basis than I'm looking at Twitter.

38:42

Yeah, I mean, like, I don't

38:44

know, it's I think it's still like hard to

38:46

say what will happen. Like it's not a surprise

38:49

that people who came for the first day to like

38:51

be like, oh my favorite Hollywood

38:54

celebrities and Instagram influencers are on

38:56

here, and then of course those

38:58

people sort of dropped off off like and

39:01

are active. I think the

39:03

question is how many people will

39:05

stick around who were like I've never

39:07

been on Twitter, or like maybe I joined

39:09

Twitter once and smith like

39:12

I left, but hey, goods, thing

39:14

is kind of fun. And how many people

39:16

are like I'm on Twitter and I hate it, So

39:18

what is this a good place for me to go

39:20

instead? You know, Like yeah, I think

39:22

between those two things, like there's it's

39:24

kind of it's you know, I think it's

39:27

still got a chance.

39:28

Yeah, I mean, I think the thing about

39:30

it is, you know, not that we can really know what

39:32

the future holds, but just seems

39:34

like the the value of it and the utility of it is just

39:36

going down and down. The

39:39

question is like can I mean, to me, it's like

39:41

can the threads app figure

39:43

out some of the basic things that people

39:45

want who are migrating or who want to use

39:47

something else, which is like I need to find all

39:49

the people that like I want to follow, and they

39:51

need to be able to find me, like the real people

39:53

that I follow. Not like no diss to

39:56

my Instagram folks, but like that

39:58

graph is not reflective of like who I.

40:00

Want for like information and jokes.

40:02

It's more like things I like to look at

40:04

or family members who I want to see, like pictures

40:06

of like they're like what they're doing on vacation or their.

40:08

Kids or whatever. You know what I mean.

40:10

It's not like, Yeah, it's definitely a different

40:12

use case, and like I think they need

40:14

to have some solution to that, and they need to have some solution

40:16

to making it feel like there's an active, real time conversation

40:19

going on. One other thing I think actually kind of sucks.

40:21

It's like Twitter tells you when there's new posts,

40:24

like it's like there's new posts and you're like, oh

40:26

shit, I gotta check those out.

40:27

Yeah, Threads doesn't seem to do that.

40:29

When I can tell like if you sit on threads and just

40:31

like check out what's going on, it

40:33

doesn't like prompt you to.

40:35

I mean that actually feels like something that might

40:37

be intentional, Like I feel

40:39

like that's sort of like we want to make

40:42

this a healthy place. It doesn't make you feel like you're

40:44

like addicted and have to refresh constant.

40:46

Well, then it won't work. You need to be addicted. That's

40:48

the whole point of this type of service.

40:49

I believe that they are working on more

40:52

product features that will address a lot of

40:54

the.

40:54

Complaints that people have right now.

40:56

I think the thing is like they clearly

40:58

launched is such a bare boe owned version

41:01

that it may have actually been a turn off to

41:03

a fair amount of people, because you know, when you launched it as

41:05

a like you couldn't even see like just a following feed.

41:07

It was like it was only the sort of four year yeah right.

41:09

I Mean the funny thing is like had

41:11

they waited a few more weeks finished

41:13

out those extra features they were working

41:16

on, Elon would have done something justice.

41:19

There's no shortage, Yes, there's no shortage

41:21

of stupid shit that guy's going to come up with.

41:23

I mean I think that, like, I think the idea

41:25

that they had to jump on that timing of like

41:28

oh, shit like Twitter's down,

41:30

like let's get our replacement

41:32

thing out right away.

41:33

It is like people still would have.

41:35

Liked it because Twitter is still just

41:37

as fucked up and you know, even worse.

41:40

Yeah, I mean it's all bad.

41:42

I do think, you know, not to not

41:44

to be a downer or whatever, but I do feel like we're

41:46

just at the period of like the social media

41:49

thing has just become so such a chore

41:51

and so like un fun. I find

41:54

more than anything, like what is just bums

41:56

me out is there was a period, a pretty long period

41:58

where at least for my purpose, which is

42:00

like funny jokes and

42:02

like you know news stuff or

42:05

like you know story stuff that people are like posting

42:07

or talking about, it wasn't the way it

42:09

is now, Like it didn't feel that way.

42:11

It wasn't always combat.

42:13

Yes, there would be like the character of the day or

42:15

whatever, but that was like one person, not everybody

42:18

was like in the site, you know, it really

42:20

wasn't even that fucking popular, like

42:22

by comparison to an Instagram or a Facebook

42:25

or like I think they're like fucking TikTok

42:27

or snapchat.

42:28

They're all way bigger, oh way

42:30

bigger. But it served a.

42:32

Purpose and it was like pretty fun most of the time.

42:34

It could occasionally be horrible, but it was like fairly

42:37

fun like most of the time. And then like you

42:39

know, I would say, coinciding

42:41

with like the Trump campaign for sure,

42:43

that definitely upped the temperature on the

42:46

service. And through those

42:48

years I just became like really degraded

42:50

in like the kind of discourse. It was just people

42:53

who were made. And

42:55

Elon took that in, like he

42:57

took all of the anger and the vitriol

42:59

and the like brokenness and the

43:01

context collapse and everything and just magnified

43:04

it in a way that makes it feel really shitty

43:08

and like a bombery, you.

43:10

Know what it's like.

43:11

You know Ghostbusters too, I'm

43:14

familiar with the film.

43:15

So you know the premise there is like there's

43:17

this haunted painting of the Vigo.

43:19

It's it's a it's a painting of a guy named

43:21

Vigo.

43:22

Yeah, I think his name is like Vigo the Destroyer

43:25

or Vigo the Annihilator or something.

43:28

And he's a sort of you know I've

43:30

in the terrible type historical persona

43:33

or whatever, and and

43:35

he is, you know, a haunted

43:38

ghost and he his power.

43:40

He grows more and more powerful by feeding

43:42

off hate and anger.

43:45

And you know, it just so happens

43:47

his painting has come to the met in New

43:49

York City and there's this sort of great scene where it's

43:51

like the subways are just flowing with

43:54

this pink slime and it's like, oh, it's

43:56

because everyone, you know, New York City is

43:58

so angry, like all the

44:00

time, cabs honking or whatever. Yeah,

44:02

I feel like that's you know, that's kind of a metaphor for

44:05

Elon Musk and Twitter is like feeding off

44:07

this.

44:08

I agree.

44:09

And by the way, the guy's name is Vigo the Carpathian.

44:11

That's the name of the of the painting. Yeah.

44:14

Anyhow, but I'll tell.

44:15

You what, Josh, I feel both

44:18

similar and different to you.

44:20

And here's how.

44:20

Okay, I too mourn

44:24

the loss of Twitter. I loved Twitter,

44:26

like it was so much.

44:27

Twitter was your home. Twitter was your playground.

44:30

Well, I think a.

44:31

Lot of people enjoyed it when it was good,

44:33

right, I agree, a lot of really when you think

44:35

when you remember all the fun times we

44:37

had on there, right, Like it was a great

44:40

place to be for like jokes

44:42

and like it was a really useful place

44:44

for news, Like if there was like a breaking

44:47

I remember, like it was really useful in Hurricane

44:49

Sandy.

44:50

Like yeah, no, I mean there was real

44:53

there were real time moments on Twitter that were

44:55

really quite valuable.

44:57

Yeah, and like there was a lot, like there

44:59

were a lot of like really fun things, and

45:01

I like I really enjoyed

45:03

having wonderful, positive connections

45:05

with other people and like that

45:09

was great, and I like, I, like

45:11

you am sad that it is like

45:14

kind of going. I

45:16

don't know if it's not gonna shut down tomorrow, but like

45:19

it's not that anymore. It's not the fun,

45:21

delightful place. A lot of the people that

45:23

I enjoyed communicating with have already

45:25

left. It's you know, it's

45:28

not as much fun. Like fifty

45:30

percent of the tweets on there are about

45:32

Twitter or X. However,

45:35

I think, unlike you, I feel like I have some

45:38

optimism because I feel like the

45:40

demise of Twitter and like sort

45:42

of as you described, like the end

45:45

of a sort of social media

45:47

moment where it's like Facebook

45:50

has stunk for a long time, and

45:52

like I think a lot of people have Instagram fatigued

45:54

too, and like I watch a ton

45:56

of TikTok, but it's nothing that like my friends

45:58

were.

45:59

Using right now talk is it for

46:01

me?

46:02

It's a it's a solitary.

46:04

Yes, it's a private You're not sharing, you're

46:06

not fucking reposting, you're not responding,

46:09

You're just experiencing the TikTok.

46:11

It's pure consumption. I enjoy

46:13

it, but I feel like there's no

46:15

there's not much social going on there for me at

46:17

least. Yes, but I do think that like this

46:19

has left an opening for something new,

46:22

and I do think that, like, I

46:25

think there's reasons to be optimistic about.

46:27

What new is next.

46:28

You know, Wow, the

46:31

idea of replacements for Twitter

46:33

that are you know, conceivably smaller,

46:35

like blue Sky massed on even Threads.

46:38

Yeah, I mean this is spoken like spoken

46:41

like the future editor in chief of some social

46:43

network.

46:43

I have to say this is the mark I'm

46:45

available for hire.

46:48

I mean, look, I'll I'll say this,

46:50

and then we got Unfortunately, we do have to wrap up.

46:52

As much as I'm enjoying this.

46:53

The biggest mistake they made was

46:56

not hiring you immediately to actually

46:58

be the editor in chief of Threads.

47:01

In my opinion, the greatest move

47:03

in the world would have been for them

47:05

to immediately be like let's do

47:07

it.

47:07

Let's hire Katie. And also, by the.

47:09

Way, I think I for a moment

47:11

I was like, what if they have to say face and I'm

47:14

right, no, But like, I don't think that's a job I

47:16

would want.

47:16

I do think you would bring a lot of great insight

47:19

and ideas into a place like that. And

47:21

frankly, like I think a service like and not by the way,

47:23

I'm not like making a pitch for you, but like a service

47:26

like Threads would be better for having a person

47:28

like you there who actually like knows

47:30

why things like threads the

47:33

way it could be, like why it's good because

47:35

I don't think a lot I think there's a lot of people there

47:37

who don't didn't ever really get or care

47:39

about Twitter, who are like, we build

47:41

a thing that's kind of like it. It's like yeah, but like you maybe

47:44

don't actually understand some of the key things

47:46

that make it useful and interesting anyhow.

47:49

But Katie, as always,

47:51

I have just tremendously enjoyed our conversation.

47:54

Unquestionably, you're

47:56

one of my favorite people to talk to. And I'm

47:58

not just saying that because you are the mother

48:00

of my of my niece and nephew.

48:03

It's also because you're a genius, a great genius.

48:05

But it is a nice perk that you're the mother

48:07

of my niece and nephew. I think they're pretty cool, and

48:09

I think it's a pretty cool situation all

48:11

things considered.

48:13

All things considered, it is, Josh.

48:15

You are also one of my favorite people. Thank you to

48:17

You are one of the only people in my family

48:19

who actually appreciated

48:22

my threads prank.

48:23

Oh well, anybody who anybody, including

48:25

Eric who didn't fully appreciate. I could see Eric

48:28

being like, you, guys, stop guy, knock that off, like you probably

48:30

getting very upset about it.

48:31

But I like rolling

48:33

his eyes a little bit.

48:34

Right, I mean, I can't imagine what it's like to

48:37

be dealing with you on a twenty four to seven basis when

48:39

it comes to your like present.

48:40

The problem is it's exactly what you would imagine,

48:42

which is incredibly annoying for Eric, my

48:44

husband, which is that like it's it's

48:47

me on my phone giggling to myself

48:49

and it's just like.

48:51

And then like I assume at some point you're like, oh, like

48:53

I'm getting death threats or whatever, because like right,

48:56

because that definitely has happened on more than one to

48:58

you.

48:59

There was only one point where he was like, do

49:01

we still lock the doors?

49:03

Like you up?

49:05

I lock it up. I lock it up.

49:06

You should get some home alone style traps around

49:09

your house just in case. You never know when these guys are going to

49:11

try to go bust in there, you have to hit them

49:13

with some paint cans or whatever.

49:14

Yeah, exactly all right, Katie.

49:16

Anyhow, thank you for joining me, and

49:19

I expect that you'll be back soon to tell us of your

49:21

new adventures online.

49:26

No response to that, thanks Joss

49:29

you around.

49:34

Well, that is our show for this week,

49:36

and I think what more can be said? I think

49:39

Katie has said it all, and then I said

49:41

a little bit extra to so I guess there could be

49:43

more said.

49:43

But you know, I think we're good now. I think we've said it

49:45

all.

49:46

We'll be back next week with more what future, and

49:49

as always, I wish you and your family the

49:52

very best