Image via Getty
After Jesse provides Katie with a Dead Dog Update, and Katie fills Jesse in on some important details about the female reproductive system (he’s still not interested), the hosts talk about Brianna Madia’s attempts to turn the tables on the losers and the haters who have been tormenting her online. At what point does anonymous online trolling get so bad that perpetrators deserve to be unmasked?
Show notes/links:
Dog stuff
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/nyregion/dog-attack-park-slope-brooklyn.html
https://abc7ny.com/dog-attack-prospect-park-victim-killed/12377255/
Mediclit :(
History of targeting
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If you look in a mirror and say “A TERF Literally Fingered a Corpse to ‘Prove’ a Transphobic Point About Genitals” three times God sends you straight to hell, and deservedly so
Our last episode about Madia
Madia’s 40-minute video
This one’s dark
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/18/my-mother-troll-of-madeleine-mccann-parents
NOTE 1: On the first verision of this episode that went out to Primos only, I said that Brianna posted the names, locations, and *employers* of her haters, rather than the *jobs* of her haters. It has been updated as of 11 AM PT on April 1. Apologies for the error. It was, as always, Jesse’s fault. —KH
NOTE 2: The corrected file I uploaded (see Note 1) did not include our jaunty theme song. This too was Jesse’s fault. Apologies for the error. —KH
This episode is cliteral violence.
I can’t seem to find where, though.
Just like Moynihan!
Some time back, after a lady friend and I randomly read the list of side effects for an over-the-counter medication, we agreed that the best name for an all-female punk band would be “Menstrual Disturbance”. “Cliteral Violence” is now a close second.
"Cliteral Violence" will be the name of their LP.
I'll go on the record and say a vaginoplasty vulva is not a female one. Mediclit lady is odd and not a great spokesperson, but she is right.
Yeah- I'm actually shocked that would even be controversial.
I'm shocked you're shocked. I mean, I saw a Reddit comment today that said that women loving women-only lesbians were just something terfs invented on Tumblr in the 2010s. Not much shocks me anymore.
Since the whole point of the project was to show what natural no surgery vuvlas look like it makes no sense to show surgical replicas of vulvas.
It actually has nothing to do with trans, because she wouldn't show real but "rejuvinated" vulvas either.
Also its just so obvious that a surgical replica of a vulva is not the same as a real functioning organ. I feel like the entire society is being gaslighted! We KNOW they aren't them same, but half of the USA thinks we have to pretend that we think they are the same. And if you don't you need to be shunned. Lose your job, put on a burlap sack and head out of town to re-education camp.
I saw a meme the other day that read:
A surgeon will take a scalpel and says "I will now create a vagina" and then he will proceed to make a hole that can only be used for sex, and will perform none of the other functions of a vagina, nor be connected to any of the organs a vagina is connected to, and the world will say "behold, a woman." This is a perverse misogyny.
That's why euphemisms like "bottom surgery" and "gender affirming care" are used, to obscure the details of what's actually occurring.
It’s so ridiculous. I’m so tired, y’all.
Same. Yet I will never concede.
I know. I KNOW. It's like arguing that an artificial limb is the same as a real limb.
Don’t confuse the dark recesses of the internet with 50% of the USA.
You mistyped 90 percent lol
Please tell me this was.a 13 year old. I am guessing they think that lesbians married men because they liked dick. Not. Well. Being closeted.
I actually wonder what percentage of lesbians are into post op trans women
And what percentage are into prep op or non op trans women.
Sexual attraction being what it is I’d imagine it’s as tiny a percentage as that of straight men who’d actually partner with a trans woman.
The vast majority simply would not. Some would say they would, but mysteriously never do. A small minority do…..but secretly feel a little odd about it and are trying to prove their open mindedness, and a tiny, tiny minority actually do and have a healthy relationship.
No rigorous research here, just what I see.
I'm guessing it had to be someone very young.
>I actually wonder what percentage of lesbians are into post op trans women
And what percentage are into prep op or non op trans women.
You do? Really? No, you don't. C'mon. I'll go with zero to none.
My instinct is to say that of course lesbians are inherently not into dick
But then I read a whole thing on I think autostraddle by a trans woman teaching a class on lesbian sex. And how a penis can be part of it. And regular lesbians attended.
And there are the trans women in relationships with actual lesbians
So it must be at least kind of a thibg
Nuh-no. They lose their Lesbian Card. If a vegetarian decides to start eating meat, can they still say they are a vegetarian? Words have definitions.
Yeah I agree with the frustration with postmodernism. I just refuse to get in the weeds myself because at the end of the day I’m only taking applications from cis straight men and that’s that on that!
May we assume the forms have to be filled out by hand and in ink? To keep that clear, you may want to put “PEN IS REQUIRED” at the top.
I think this begs the question of if they’re their lesbians or bi.
If a man has a sexual relationship with a pre-op trans woman….is he straight?
I got a 100 dollars for what just about 100% of heterosexual men who don’t sleep with people with penises would say.
I saw a tweet by the NYPost yesterday about a trans influencer who doesn't tell men that she's a male. Why is this behavior promoted? They can't seriously think this has nothing to do with the cases where a man freaks out and kills a TIM when he's been lied to about who they really are. The comments on it were nuts, from women, about why they have to do this because it's safer (?).
Once again, I'm at a loss.
I don’t know. How often does this actually happen?
Men aren’t generally murderers. And even a trick like they doesn’t turn them into one.
*edit*
Now….a little violence is totally buy if the person fooled around with them before telling them.
Given that many of these encounters are happening alongside prostitution and drugs.... people freak out & kill people. Some blue states have put laws in place to keep people from being able to use it as a defense in court.
Law or no law, it certainly shouldn’t be a defense for murder.
Reading this paper on the trans defense (it leans towards LGBTQ ideology), and rolling my eyes at how the supposed wave of violence because "2 or more" trans individuals killed each month (96% TW), when at least 3 women are killed each DAY by an intimate partner in the US.
Murder is never NOT tragic, but one group is held up on a pedestal lately.
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/american-criminal-law-review/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2020/05/57-4-Lee-The-Trans-Panic-Defense-Revisited.pdf
Strap-ons are popular so it doesn’t surprise me. And some folks really do fall in love and figure out the rest later. Dating is a frontier I think people just need to keep away from politics because nobody can realistically be pressured to romantically entertain a person just because they’re of a marginalized group.
Every dating app documentary I watched spent time on who wasn’t getting matched because of “discrimination” and it’s so obvious that it’s a lost cause. At most you can make a super niche app for a group like All Asian Men or something.
Women are different from men, shocking to say, I know. There are a lot more bi-sexual women than there are bisexual men. Women are more motivated to please others than men are--this is a broad generalization. This is why there are more women in "lesbian" relationships with men than there are men in "gay" relationships with women. And those men seem to be more obviously humoring their partners than the women are.
"by a trans woman teaching a class on lesbian sex"
Of course. This is the conversion therapy (well, "class" not therapy) they're all talking about, except it's the same shitty kind that affects actually gay people.
"I actually wonder what percentage of lesbians are into post op trans women
And what percentage are into prep op or non op trans women."
They're called bisexuals.
Right? I mean. I guess the logic is that trans women are women. Women are females. Therefore trans women are females.
That's the "logic"
It just gets worse and worse
I can't remember if it was here to Twitter where I saw a screenshot of a TIM from Reddit asking about the positioning of the neo-vag bc it's more forward than on real women (of course they used that dumb word "cis"). The distance between the neo-vag (ha, autocorrect stopped correcting me with "new-bag"), and the anus is all off -- real term being "anogenital distance." They can whine all they want about the fauxlabia, but none of it is accurate.
They can hate & dilate. (Heard this as a specific version of cope & seethe for TIMs).
Also, yeah, that lady is odd. I used to follow her and got annoyed with something a year ago (or I was tired of all the clit-specific content) and unfollowed.
So many pink-haired manga avatars on Twitter telling gay men that we are problematic for not wanting to date trans men who have had bottom surgery. As if a phalloplasty is some magic bullet that will make them have actual, attractive and functioning penises. Not to mention male bodies are still very different too.
It's as if we have a generation of virgin activists whose only knowledge of sex and attraction comes from what they've read online from other virgin activists.
That was a perfectly acceptable response to Katie from whoever this lady is -- y’all did laugh at her. I don’t think she was threatening Moose. And also I personally think it’s entirely fair for people who spend their days endlessly tormenting others online to not expect that their identities should stay anonymous. The snark subs are evil, I mean genuinely genuinely disturbing and evil. I’m a nobody and I’ve been targeted before for saying something nice about the wrong influencer (the sub posted my picture after i did and it was extremely scary.) The posters feel emboldened to say and do whatever they want. There should be no expectation of anonymity if you are making someone’s life a living hell.
Also want to add that I don’t think Katie understands these subs. They aren’t just a bunch of people saying somewhat mean things. Generally they whole point is in fact to run a targeted harassment campaign against people they see as problematic. Influencers will get and lose sponsors the day of because the sponsors will be hounded by the redditors. They critique every single moment of these people’s lives and dig up all the information they can find about them. They often essentially digitally or IRL stalk them. It’s seriously deranged.
The whole question of anonymity that Katie and Jesse got into I feel is besides the point: it never should have reached the point where the target of the harassment needed to take matters into her own hands. Reddit administrators exist, they respond to concerns relatively quickly, and they should be expected to shut down harassment no matter who it’s targeted at. Reddit isn’t a small website any more, it should be talked about in the same breath as places like Facebook and Twitter who have also dealt with these problems.
I also think the comparison to Kiwifarms is off. I’ve read a bunch of stuff on KF and, with very few exceptions, there’s no contemplation or endorsement of real-world fuckery of the sort that seems to have been openly endorsed on Reddit (maybe I’m mistaken about that part - maybe it was all behind the scenes). I’m not saying they’re nice on KF, or that people don’t freelance-harass based on information there, but they do seem to draw a line.
I don’t know what’s worse--the twelve antisemitic jokes Katie managed to cram into one episode, or the casual penis-hate. As a gay Jew, I found it all very triggering. But what else should I expect from a podcast steeped in white supremity and toxic masculinacy?
White supremity!
That should be a new item of merch.
Agreed! I was yelling at the top of my lungs in the car, while frothing at the mouth “the world is full of beautiful penises!”
I haven't managed to listen to the episode yet, and now I'm scared.
Edit: Oh. Oh no.
Now I know what Justin Whang (the only Twitter account I occasionally look at) meant by "pussy phrenologist".
It’s a doozy for sure, filled with shadenfreude, vengeance, and genital judgment. Proceed with caution but by all means proceed!
Follow up question: Were your windows down? Because I'm laughing...
It was a beautiful spring day, so the windows were absolutely down!
I saw one just this morning, in the shower!
Best ever comment on any BarPod episode, Benjy. Too bad I'm a homophobic Brit in France or I'd be straight round to yours with beers.
White supremity and toxic masculinacy are worth messing with my future autocorrect, just for the joy of typing them.
Had me in the first half, etc
Yet again we hear Jesse and Katie talk about the BARpod Reddit but never a peep about the commenters on Substack, who actually pay to comment (a sure sign of quality).
Silence is violence, I've been told. ;-)
I noticed it, too. Fucking cheapskates get all the love.
Freeloading SWINE.
If nothing else, vulvagate has maybe taught people that the part they can see isn't called a vagina.
All worth it, then!
(An educated friend of mine once posted about teaching her daughter during potty-training that she pees through her vagina. It really surprised me, but then I realized that nothing in my formal education had taught me otherwise. I think I learned the correct explanation at an early age from my mom, then got the details later from the many human anatomy illustrations in books in our house. If you didn't have that type of mom or those sorts of books, you might easily make that mistake.
ETA: I did take AP biology, which I assume included the correct info, but I'm probably not alone in having forgotten a lot of what I crammed for the exam!)
I’m embarrassed to say I only learned the correct names on Mumsnet, after I was pregnant. My parents raised us to say front bottom, so it’s maybe not surprising my knowledge of anatomical terms is pretty poor.
I'm even more embarrassed to say I learned correct names from Orange is the New Black's Sophia/Laverne Cox explained it to everyone! I was steeped in perimenopause and on my way to the big show (full menopause)!
That hurts.
I did not have that kind of parent and never had any public school education on parts/vocab much beyond vagina, uterus, fallopian tubes. I was probably in my mid twenties before I ever learned, tbh. Now my kids use correct terminology, much to the dismay of our southern families (and some friends) who would much prefer a toddler talking about their "privates" and "girl parts" than their vulva or labia.
Love your Substack handle!
For incels, the “part they can’t see” is apparently called “the woman”.
Unimportant to the story but still worthy of mention is that Brandon Sanderson is a) one of the most prolific modern authors of fantasy, the dude churns out content relentlessly, and b) has successfully created original fantasy worlds, not just derivations of Tolkien’s (itself derivative, which is not a knock, he made the genre what it is, and I adore him). If you like fantasy I highly recommend Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series.
Also, he finished "The Wheel of Time" series after Robert Jordan died. (Will be do the same for "A Song of Ice and Fire"?!)
(Even though I've read the first seven books, like, six times each, eight and nine probably two or three times each, I've only read ten and eleven once each, and have never gotten around to finishing the series. Thank you streaming services for ending my ability to read.)
Sanderson can be our sweeper, moving in to close things out. Maybe he’ll help Rothfuss with the King Killer chronicle.
He’s like a super hero whose power is to always have an emotionally appropriate response to any event.
Not as flashy of a superpower as many others, but substantially more valuable in my estimation
I would love to have it.
Thank you for the recommendation! I just added them to my library wait list.
Try Mistborn also! (Just my problematic opinion but I think women tend to like that more that Stormlight Archive)
Really? That’s interesting, why do you think that is?
Stormlight is fantastic but Wheel of Time is the Goat. Tolkein is the original but Robert Jordan & Sanderson perfected the genre.
I see the article as a kind of old-school hipster take. High fantasy has had an amazing gain in popularity in mainstream culture since the LOTR movies 20 years ago. I think the author was trying to find a contrarian take, as in "yeah actually this is just dorky nerd shit." Maybe he sensed a moment where the Amazon series, including the Wheel of Time, weren't quite the smashes that were anticipated, and felt it was the time to pounce. Then again, "Honor Among Thieves" seems to be having a pretty decent opening weekend.
Old-school hipsterism feels like a solid assessment of it, but it also felt like regular old elitism at times, which is sort of weird given that the writer talks about how much money Sanderson makes. The disdain of dorky nerd shit was definitely palpable, but it also had this attitude of "look at these middle of no where rubes" that was additionally off-putting.
You say potato, I say potahto. What else is hipsterism than cultural elitism? I guess there's still a certain amount of disbelief that fantasy is a popular and successful genre.
Ok, but "you are incapable of picking your own pussy out of a lineup" is an amazing insult.
Completely awesome insult!
I might not be the first to say this, but I was kind of annoyed about J & K hemming and hawing about the shooter's pronouns. This shouldn't even be a consideration worthy of any matter of discussion. She murdered innocent children and staff trying to protect those children. F her pronouns. If they can't even say "ordinarily I'd be respectful of pronouns but this person didn't respect the lives of 3 children, 3 adults, and any number that will forever be traumatized by that day" -- it's pathetic.
Women in the UK are being forced to use their rapists' preferred pronouns instead of the ones you'd associate with a dick-wielding human, which is insane. The hand-wringing about the Nashville shooter isn't much better.
I thought that was odd too, since Katie had refused to give a previous trans sex offender the courtesy of their pronouns and for the very reasons you mentioned. Its interesting.
People who troll online should fully expect to receive the same treatment in return. There's no such thing as a one-sided weapon. I have no sympathy for the subreddit users who went after Madia and then cried when their own tactics were used against *them*.
Heat and kitchens, glass houses and stones.
Most blades are only sharp on one side.
I'm reminded of this great piece from 2014 in which Kathleen Hale went after one of her Goodreads trolls: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/18/am-i-being-catfished-an-author-confronts-her-number-one-online-critic
Pooh. First post I am listening while walking my little angel rescue dog. (I do not like saying she is a rescue dog but I mention it due to the story about the vanlife chick). Anyway .I wish Katie were a little less sarcastic. The first Twitter story - so Wired did a mean story about a fantasy author. What does Twitter have to do with it? And why were they mean?
Hell's Kitchen really is the new Chelsea. So fucking gay.
The homeless in NYC - there are many now with serious mental illness threatening people. Huge problem on the UWS.
The labia lady (perfect, ha) - if she IS targeting black ob/gyns, I wonder if it is because they work with African immigrant populations, which are more likely to do female circumcision then other groups ).
ETA: my blood pressure went up hearing the Brianna post from 2020 about the long overdue racial reckoning. That btw was when I truly thought I had lost my mind
As if Ferguson had no happened and police departments had noy made changes that DID save lives. As if nothing had happened. Ugh. Everyone in this story is distateful
I remember an Amy Shumer skit about adopting shelter dogs. Every one was bragging about how pitiful their rescue dogs were and Amy adopted a dead one and was carrying it around.
Yeah. It’s one of the ways the viral is shaping the irl. Everything you do is virtue signaling because social relationships have become intrinsically performative. Everything must square with everything else or you are problematic. Progressivism has always championed “difference”, but what they actually want is ideological oneness in diverse iterations. There is no room for privacy, ambivalence, or failure in the contemporary discourse. The world is plug and play.
Although I do disagree that internet virtue signaling is truly at play in animal rescue. Animal (specifically dog) rescue has been a cause du jour among American elites since the 1920s. Perhaps the internet has introduced it to areas and populations not previously as exposed, but an affluent animal lover in LA in the 60s or Aspen in the 80s was probably just as eager to talk about their rescues.
(And living in those parts present day, I wouldn’t be so jaded as to say people’s love of underdogs is insincere. Maybe some internet influencers seem incapable of sincerity, but talking to a 65yo retiree about her rescue at the park is one of the good, warm things left.)
Good point that it didn’t start with the internet. I finally accepted the reality of virtue signaling when I noticed that half the people on my neighborhood blog would say “my rescue dog” rather than “my dog”.
Ha. Yeah. It is always oh is yours a rescue? Blah blah blah
Yes. Think of the long, convoluted narratives any liberal who actually went to a breeder (even an ethical one--not some mill)....blah blah blah....
I think it is better to get a dog via via rescue. But it Is a lot of work. So if people get their dogs from a breeder I totally get it. Also. The rescue thing...people act like you or they are some kind of hero. It just makes me uncomfortable.if that makes sense
Emily Yoffe had a good column a decade ago about how a lot of rescue groups take gatekeeping to the extreme and make it really hard for people to adopt rescue pets. I get that they want to make sure the pets go to a good home, but some of the examples in the story are crazy.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/01/animal-rescue-want-to-adopt-a-dog-or-cat-prepare-for-an-inquisition.html
As I go through my phase where my rejection of academic feminism seems like leaving a cult, I remember a moment when I became part of Great Dane Rescue (its infancy) while steeped in grad school postmodern notions of the self. I was doing home checks for potential placements and thought about how that didn't quite jive with attitudes towards mothers (my blip thought was wow--we are expecting more of these future dog owners than mothers).....where the problem lies is something I'm finally trying to untangle now, years later!
Perfection.
That fact that you use the subjunctive mood makes me want to deify you.
Admit it - you teach Latin or something.
That's hilarious! Alas, no :). Comp Lit & Core in the English department. I just have to give a shoutout to a baller high school French teacher (yep--even in the 80s in South Carolina)!
Every time I step on the subway there’s some homeless asshole there. Every time!
Hearing that Jesse dresses like a Peanuts character is going to have me giggling all day. That image will be permanent in my mind and nothing is going to overwrite that.
I imagine Jesse walks from his home to the local pizza shop all slow and slumped over, like George Michael walking home after getting dumped
::plays 'Christmastime Is Here' on piano::
I immediately heard the Vince Guaraldi music in my head.
damnit, now I do, too. I’m gonna be whistling that for hours now…
I'm also doing the dancing so my evening is full.
I’m on the homeless lady’s side here. Did she go a little far in response? Possibly. But John Wick did too. John Wick did too.
A *fucking* peeincil.
Your Russian accent is impeccable
Spacibo. :)
Yeah, but John Wick didn't run over his own dog and then lie about it to get sympathy and money.
She's not the most awful person in this story, but she sounds pretty awful.
If I remember the first episode correctly, it was the ex-husband who dui-ed over the dog, not Brianna.
As always, Keanu Reeves is an aspirational figure, not one you can perfectly imitate.
So, more evidence that social media turns people into characters from Lord of the Flies?
Lord of the flies was written for a reason. And it was long before social media. People are people, social media just gives them another place to be shitty
If I remember correctly: With that story, William Golding was trying to argue that boys are uniquely sadistic compared to the gentler, fairer sex. Except I think he's completely wrong about that. Boys are just more physically violent.
Yes, of course, I'm not a technological determinist, just being a bit cheeky ;-)
Can we discuss how Madia’s story is a modern day retelling of Euripides’ Medea?
Hahaha. A very postcmodern one. Though I do not think anyone killed the dog to punish the spouse. I do not know that her husband is much of a Jason character
Team: G-Spot DOES exist but requires technology to access.
Ladies, my name is technology. (Cheesy eyebrow wiggle)
Trolls need to be clubbed. The only way to shut down on-line dog piles is to do what Brianna Madia did, no matter how annoying she may be. Anonymity to attack people, ruin their lives and make them suicidal will only stop if there is a real threat of being found out. If anything, Brianna appears to have been creative by sending a message to A-holes that there may be a cost to sitting in your yoga pants shit talking complete strangers on-line after your shift at the local hospital or school. And as for being pissed, I would be vengeful if this was done to me. Stop being so nice and considerate. She doxed the people who doxed her. Fair game. How else to restore civility into the on-line discourse where there currently is no "virtual" slap in the face, when you are mean and disrespectful to a complete stranger. But Brianna shouldn't get another dog. The current one appears to need its own therapy dog for PTSD. Car wheels on a gravel road.
Regarding the URLs: You should set up subdomains.
You can have https://blockedandreported.org as your Substack URL
And https://merch.blockedandreported.org as your Guten Tog URL
You could also redirect https://reddit.blockedandreported.org to Reddit
And use something like podcast@blockedandreported.org for Gmail
Then it's all consistent and no one has to memorize multiple domains.
Listen to Martin.
Brianna’s statement about leaving social Madia amid all the george floyd stuff actually seemed perfect to me and not cringe. Maybe it seems odd now but back then it makes sense bc that was probably the craziest moment ever on social media and I think she’d have been called racist for it so there was no winning in that situation
totally agree. contextually, i felt it was reasonable. even normies with no followers would have been skewered for posting the wrong thing or not posting anything. she did what she could given her divorce timing and extreme number of followers
Something that really annoyed me about the vulva lady is that she admitted in some tweets that she lied to the doctor who did her labiaplasty about having pain/discomfort from her labia! I can’t speak to whether her surgery was botched or not, and if it was then that’s awful regardless of whether she lied to the doctor, but you can’t blame a doctor for believing their patient? I’ve been that exact patient and I’m glad that doctors did believe me! Obviously I don’t want anyone to have labiaplasty because they feel there is something wrong with how their vulva looks, but I had one because I actually did have discomfort/pain and it has really improved my quality of life, I don’t have any sexual dysfunction, and I don’t think I’m “mutilated”.
I didn't know labiaplasties were anything other than cosmetic, so that's interesting! Glad it really improved your quality of life.
Oh good, I briefly looked into this Mediclit situation on Twitter earlier this week before tapping out and hoping Katie would just explain it to me on the podcast.
Influencer who tracks down and exacts revenge on all her internet trolls has ten-part Netflix young adult drama written all over it. If I had contacts in the industry I’d be pitching it immediately.
"Roast beef curtains of this episode" just almost killed me.
Ditto. And then between "she's the Aella of vulvas" and "pussy phrenologist" I started to wonder if Katie was demonically possessed by Anna Khachiyan.
Legal scholar Josh Blackman refers to his abandonment of Twitter as his "Twitter sobriety".
Ok I realize that I'm super late to this episode, I just want to say that Pin's definitely right about trans women's labias and this is just more biological sex denial on the left. At the same time though one of the first things I learned in medical school term 1 was that we should not do weird unauthorized stuff with the cadavers that we use to learn anatomy just for kicks or whatever it seems like a bad thing to do especially since we desperately need to encourage people to donate their bodies for science. That was highly highly unethical.
and also GROSS
If only someone would invent a kind of van which has a toilet and shower in it. But I guess such sci-fi miracle technology simply will not be possible within our lifetimes.
I emailed bullshit into the pod and had it in my earbuds within days. Something within new has awoken. Am I...a podcaster?
Talk me out of quitting my career and picking up the mic. I have a voice that yearns to be heard!
Seems like every online attention seeking narcissist is named Brianna now. It's getting pretty hard telling all these B*s apart. Can we please have a few episodes B free for relief?
Oh boy, Jessica Ann Pin. She is a smart woman who does interesting work, and she is also a completely incompetent public relations figure. She was an early TikTok follow for me because clitoral anatomy is important, and I appreciated that very early on she immediately said “no” to any gender ideologues who were trying to complicate her work and message— that women deserve knowledgeable care providers and sexual pleasure. One day, she and another user got into a fight about consent. Pin’s position was basically, “I’ve never felt disempowered to say no, therefore other women need to empower themselves to say no.” Okay, some merit. But also hugely dismissive. I was willing to ignore these posts until she just kept taking the bait and digging herself deeper and deeper into the “victim blamer” plot. I didn’t believe she believed what she was saying, it was clear she was drowning. I unfollowed. Sounds like she really is the type who needs to put down the phone during conflict and touch grass (or cadaver pussy— just not the phone).
So, since you've been following her, can I ask: has it been addressed how creepy it is that
1) her dad is a plastic surgeon and she seems to have grown up with deeply internalised feelings of disgust about her own body which led her to
2) have labiaplasty at the tender age of 18 - with whose money, since most teens aren't able to earn the substantial funds required for plastic surgery on their own? Did her dad pay for it? Or did he have one of his friends do the surgery? and then
3) she proceeded to pivot into genital exploration and sexual advocacy work in close collaboration *with the aforementioned dad*.
😬
So basically, it's Nip/Tuck in real life?
Ya, I gotta side with Briana. She sounds like a really annoying wokie but I *hate* bullying especially cry-bullying. So if she’s telling the truth, her bullies were living by the sword and got what they came for.
Especially, when they came for her money, that escalation would require response. Her response was text book deterrence. Especially since no one was helping her via legitimate channels.
She was treated horribly. She deserved none of it. But going after people who were mean to her on social media is not ok .going after people who got her fired,. That I understand
Agreed.Though, I can appreciate that since they were not measured in their dealings with her and were all of a community. i can understand her scorched earth approach. She seemed to want to make an example of her tormenters to deter others so inclined.
Oh man, thanks Katie for at least alluding to the Brandon Sanderson profile!
I don't know anything about Sanderson, but this piece is the cruelest and pettiest profile I've ever seen, and the only one who actually comes off as bad in it is the Wired author (seems comically narcissistic). I've had a fun afternoon reading responses to it.
https://www.wired.com/story/brandon-sanderson-is-your-god/
There appears to be actually a good piece of journalism on Sanderson that came out this week too, and the author there got to make an easy dunk on the Wired guy,
"Jason Kehe, a senior editor at WIRED magazine, who spent even more time in Sanderson's orbit than I did. In his viral profile, “Brandon Sanderson Is Your God,” Kehe criticized Sanderson’s prose, reputation, clothing, eating habits, state of residence, faith, fans, friends, and family for being—among other adjectives—“depressingly, story-killingly lame.”"
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a43438119/brandon-sanderson-profile/
Idk what happened to wired but between this and the Harry Potter review it's hard to take it seriously at this point. I don't know why every online publication is trying to be jezebel when the profit is clearly in the alternatives that stuff.
Silent first 10 seconds - did you forget to put the theme tune on? Or is that explained later on as I'm only 5 mins in!
Shit, fixing now
She DOES read the Substack! We have proof now.
Thank you, distant overlord for giving us a sign.
*Wayne's Word GIF, "we're not worthy"*
Brianna Madia is back on Insta.
It makes wonder if Influencers are biologically incapable of leading anonymous lives.
They can't make money that way.
They can always move on to a normal job [after some discreet resume tweaking] like at an advertising agency.
BUT no one seems capable of doing that, even after they've been traumatized.
They just can't stay away!
As Nietzsche said “if stare too long into the instagram, the instagram will stare into you”
I just couldn't help but cringe when they were playing her Instagram videos on the episode this week... like, girl, please please please get some *serious* help, and for god's sake, do NOT proceed to make an Instagram video out of your suicidality, FFS.
Oh totally. Most celebrities are pathologically extraverted people. They can't cope without constant approval from a large group of people.
I just looked and a screenshot of Katie’s email and her response is on her IG story.
She's in a bad place mentally and dealing with it in a vindictive way that no therapist would consider healthy. I do feel like her Moose comments were, if not outright threats, red flags. This is someone who ran over her own dog while trying to get attention online, lied about it to get (a huge amount of) money from people and is now playing the victim, complete with crocodile tears. She's deranged and veering towards dangerous. This doesn't excuse the other psychos who followed her around but their behaviour doesn't make hers normal either.
Her husband was the one who ran over the dog, no? She just lied about it to bilk her fans on gofundme or whatever.
I think she eventually admitted that she was making the dog run alongside the van for an IG video when it got (accidentally but predictably) run over. Which puts her in the car (and IMO makes her responsible, even if she wasn't at the wheel).
People are still convinced that anyone in a windowless white van is out to kidnap their children. If you spend any time on FB local groups or NextDoor you will see posts like I SAW A WHITE VAN DRIVING SLOWLY ON SMITH ST.
A while back there was a claim going around that if a van had a circular lock on it it was so they could keep kidnapped kids inside. A few people pointed out that, no, contractors and tradesmen put those locks on their vans so people don't steal their expensive tools and equipment.
I own a windowless white (mini)van, so I'm overly sensitive to this stuff. I decided to embrace the stereotype and bought a "free candy inside" sticker for it.
OMG I love that!!!
Re: Jesse dressing like a Peanuts character. A friend of mine was once told by a snarky teen that he looked like “Garfield’s owner.” John Arbuckle hate is just wrong.
Something that I find very funny about Brandon Sanderson/high fantasy fandom:
Judging by his comments during The Reckoning on the podcast he started with some other writers (Writing Excuses) which gives advice on writing AND the publishing industry in general, he is more into things like affirmative action than, say, us. But he is certainly less woke than the typical person in the industry.(I'm looking at you "I automatically reject query letters that address me as Mr. Literary Agent even though I have he/him pronouns in my Twitter bio because the author is POSSIBLY assuming my gender based on the fact that my name is Jeremy")
At least five-ten years ago there were three big names in fantasy, Sanderson, Martin (who we will not be discussing) and Rothfuss. Sanderson is an INSANELY prolific writer (I mean, I think he must have a time turner), but not really into any type of social media activism or social justice type stuff. Rothfuss wrote two VERY very popular books but has not finished his trilogy and instead spends his time on Twitch being very social justice-y. (He used to spend more time on Twitter being social justice-y, but not anymore). He has the Right Opinion on everything, and is very loud about it. Whenever someone asks him why he's not working on the third book instead, he gets very defensive and starts talking about mental health.
If their primary fandoms were made of women, and Twitch was Instagram, I think that Rothfuss would be much more popular. But as it happens, their primary fandoms are male. So people pretty much hate Rothfuss now and will defend Sanderson with their lives.
Also, if you want a laugh, watch this (and all the nerdy reaction videos): https://youtu.be/6a-k6eaT-jQ
Jesus, the fucking narcissism.
Katie/Jesse/Trace/Lex, whom do I have to bribe around here to keep you and your PI from doxxing me when the next Wednesday open thread goes off the rails? Have mercy!
Since nobody else has said it...Katie, it's *Aiden,* not Adrian.
Yeah I saw she was literally calling herself "Aiden" and I was like: 😐
I'm confused as to how these van people can't find parking and toilets. This country is dotted with RV campgrounds, truck.stops and rest stops (free) that have tons of overnight parking and toilets/showers.
The caveat is that you just can't drive around randomly. You have to carefully map out your trip using the tons of websites that list the locations.
I think the deal is they don’t want to pay for it. Spots at an RV park or KoA can be as much as a hotel.
Point well taken about the KoA network. But highway rest stops and truck stops are free and plenty of them are busy, well-lit and safe. (Not the sketchy places of 1980s horror movies)
Lol Maybe some of them but they still look pretty sketchy to me.
But you have to distinguish between "truck stops" (kinda sketchy) vs. highway rest stops (designed for families but don't have showers)
At this point, I’d prefer a 24/7 truckstop to a state reststop.
A lot of highway rest stops prohibit overnight parking.
Oversized vehicle parking is actually really hard to find at a lot of truck stops, and a lot of truckers aren't too thrilled with having to share spots with campers when they are stopping because they are working and are legally required to stop after a certain number of hours. The lack of truck parking is actually a major problem for truck drivers.
County campgrounds are also a good option. You can usually get a free shower if you're not staying the night. They're usually the cheapest campgrounds if you are staying.
and this, everyone, is why you have different account names for EVERYTHING. all of these people got caught because they shared the same username between their reddit account and their instagram and they posted images on both. if youre gonna talk shit, use a burner. its not that hard to make one. if you want protection from the feds, use a burner and use tor and/or vpn.
Why no links re: the Hell's Kitchen hate crime? ("It was a hate crime, cuz he hated the owner" is a sublime line.)
Seems like a good job opportunity to become an Internet forensic expert. I wonder how one goes about learning how to do that job.
I think one trains on a site called KiwiFarms.
For a split second when I heard that part I was like, "shit, I could do that." But then I remembered I already know too many things I wish I didn't.
First thing I always think of when someone doxes their trolls:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuBWbpTJRqk
obviously with regards to the schoolshooter, using his preferred pronouns is the way to go. however getting upset when someone does not do that is beyond crazy.
I am not sure why using preferred pronouns IS the way to go,? Like 3 kids are dead. I dunno
I don't see it as an courtesy to this vicious killer, but rather its information we know, and by using it paints a more full picture of this tragedy.
If the start using the "original" pronouns and treating them as the original gender whenever a horrible crime is committed I would assume this would effect crime stats?
anyways, I havent given this much thought, I might be wrong.
The information we know is that the person was female, just as 99.9 percent of us are unambiguously one sex or the other. Playing along with anyone's delusions to the contrary is what messes with statistics.
I don't really care about gender- it is sex that is relevant.
Everyone can pretend to be whatever they/it/them want to be. They/zie/zem can't require anyone else to comply.
The information we know is clearly seen from a photo. Humans can tell sex from facial features. She's a she. She was born a she, she died a she. I hope SHE rots in hell.
"I havent given this much thought." Obviously.
YES, it will affect crime stats. It's not accidental that in a report commissioned by the state of CA after they instituted SB132 putting males into women's prisons, with no requirements to do anything... in the FAQ section they have the question paraphrased as whether women (females) have been sexually assaulted by males moved into the prisons. The answer points out that they're not keeping information on gender identity... which is very CONVENIENT.
"CDCR’s reporting mechanisms do not track assaults by gender identity. All staff receive training on Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) protocols and PREA data is reported; however, the data is tracked by institution and not by gender identity. CDCR’s COMPSTAT reports include the number of assaults and batteries."
https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/prea/sb-132-faqs/
Yes. Expect an uptick in sexual assaults being committed by "women." Then women will be gaslight by the MSM wondering why this is happening, and we'll wonder "WTF is going on?" until one brave TERF speaks up "Democrats say that anyone can be a woman now."
Ah, reading comprehension not your strong suit is it? wipe the foam from your mouth and try to understand that in order to change things we need to engage etc.
You are quoting data that supports my very point.
You make a really good point.
"obviously"?
OBVIOUSLY?
No, it's not the way to go.
The whole Brandon Sanderson thing is super funny. As a person who reads SciFi/Fantasy, I know just how big he is in that world. But, I also know that he hasn’t had the same sort of impact on the general culture as people like Tolkien, GRRM & JKR.
Why? Well I would never recommend Sanderson to a person who didn’t read fantasy because they’re not great for people who aren’t already interested in the genre. Part of it is that he really is all about “world-building.” Part of it is that his prose *is* bad. Very few authors are able to do really well at the “world-building” and still create literary fantasy.
At the same time, the bad prose is also probably at least partially intentional. Sanderson’s books revel in being basically middlebrow. That’s part of the reason he’s so successful. Most people aren’t intellectuals. They want to read the fun story about the magic sword and the good heroes who always win in the end.
The reason he doesn’t get big glitzy profiles in major publications, is the same reason they don’t do big profiles of people like Tom Clancy or Norah Roberts. These publications believe themselves to be highbrow, and market themselves to an audience of people who are or at least want to be seen as being highbrow. They, by their nature, are supposed to ignore popular things to talk about smart things.
The biggest problem with the Wired piece about him was that the author was to convinced of his own intellectual superiority to have a good time around an author he admittedly enjoys. Like the sixth-grader who tries out swearing to prove to his friends that he’s actually cool, and doesn’t like Star Wars too much, the Wired author seems to be dumping on Sanderson because he doesn’t want to be tarred as “that guy who thinks Stormlight Archive is good literature.”
i never heard of the guy until he broke the record for the most funded kickstarter. i said "well ive never heard of this dude but i guess ill give him a shot because if he raised that much money clearly hes got something going on." and his free online short stories reminded me why i liked reading in the first place. his novels are fun, the characters feel human, and the world is spectacular. when i read the wired piece, it felt like a Sanderson Slanderson (im sorry), and then i rememberd that these are probaly the people who simped for rowling up until june 2020 and now say that shes a failure and a hack.
Yeah that’s probably a reasonable thing to say. People like Brandon Sanderson because they think he’s fun to read. Most people aren’t interested in texts where you have to 👏🏼 do 👏🏼 the 👏🏼 work 👏🏼
I am a Brandon Sanderson reader and had no idea he was a story right now outside of his audience. I love BAR pod. Keeps me in the know.
i want to feel more complicated about briana madia, but i just realized that she is even WEARING THE HOT YOGA GIRL FEDORA IN THE VIDEO. i can’t take her seriously.
will she dox me for saying that?
What if she is hiding male pattern baldness?
Warning ⚠️ Do not eat during certain moments of this podcast.
Sorry Katie, if a troll.is facing consequences for their sins and they kill themselves that's just too sweet.
Eff them.
We DO NOT need anonymousness on the internet. That madness needs to end.
An appetizer story about Cameltoe. Lovely.....
I'm dead. I saw Bon Iver at Red Rocks about 10 years ago. Thanks for the chuckle Katie. Lololol
Jesse, neckbeards don't wear fedoras, they wear trilbies. I know everyone calls it a fedora, but they're wrong. https://americanhatmakers.com/blogs/news/trilby-vs-fedora
I'm mad at myself that I'm so late to post this, because this is IMPORTANT.
"Jesse dresses like a Peanuts character" is one of the best things I've heard in awhile, and I say that with 100% love, 0% ill will, and only roughly 5% familiarity what Jesse actually dresses like.
This made me laugh, remembering how stupid some of the hate hobby anons from my Twitter times were. Figuring out their true identities was fun, especially if you could then drop hints that you were onto them. The little lambs sometimes deleted their accounts and I would feel amused to know that they'd be worried for a while, even though I wouldn't have exposed them.
If you're going to f**k with a f***ker, better crank up your opsec. As Madia demonstrated. But I'm a horrible person.
When that McCann troll killed herself I felt sorry for her family, but more sorry for the McCanns.
DARPA = Deference Around Reporters, Podcasting Allowed
Haven't read the Sanderson interview but it sounds a lot like this classic- https://www.salon.com/2000/02/03/card/
I mean, OSC *was* a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-gay bigot. His books are wonderful, nonetheless.
There was a similar hate sub devoted to Trisha Paytas that was equally unhinged.
I totally agree.
She scammed people out of 100k dollars. Mocking her should be expexted.
Katie didn’t demand she answer her questions. She asked. The other person refused and gave her reasons why. Then Katie reported the results of the conversation fairly.
I was left thinking the influencer had a point and that Katie realized that too.
Yeah those were my feelings as well
All I remember about that episode was that I thought it was boring. I could care less about "influencers." (The Reddit ppl sucked, but that still didn't make this interesting.)