Episode Transcript
This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.
Morgan Sung: Hey guys, welcome to Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Except today, we aren’t opening any tabs. Instead, we’re doing another Save or Scroll.
Occasionally, while scrolling online, I come across a truly wild post, but it might not make sense to spend an entire episode talking about it. Maybe I do a little digging, and it turns out the lore behind it just isn’t compelling enough to justify a deep dive. Sometimes there’s no lore at all. Not everything online is a multi-tab journey. It can just be juicy gossip for the group chat. But that doesn’t mean that these topics aren’t worth yapping about.
So joining us today to do just that are some of my favorite group chat regulars, Daysia Tolentino and Moises Mendez II. Hey, guys.
Daysia Tolentino: Hello. It’s good to see you.
Moises Mendez II: Hi, thank you so much for having us.
Morgan Sung: Thanks for being here. Okay, so you’re both very accomplished internet culture journalists. Do you want to introduce yourselves?
Moises Mendez II: Hi, my name is Moises Mendez, the second, as we are all aware now. I recently was a culture reporter at Time Magazine, and now I am a staff writer at Out Magazine, so I cover everything from movies, television, to the internet, and beyond.
Morgan Sung: Yay, Daysia, what about you?
Daysia Tolentino: Yeah, so I’m currently working at Entertainment Weekly covering podcasts and celebrity stuff, but I historically cover internet culture and I cover the internet for my own newsletter, Yap Year.
Morgan Sung: We love Yap Year here. So we are here to play a game called Save or Scroll. Save as in, when you see a post on TikTok or Instagram or X and you bookmark it because you know you’re going to want to talk about it later. And scroll as in, you keep scrolling and it disappears into the digital ether.
So, we’ve each brought a handful of posts that we cannot stop thinking about. And we’re going take turns to see if they’re just for the group chat. Or if they’re actually worth a deep dive on the show. If we decide to scroll, it means we’ve talked about it, we’re moving on. If we decided to save, it means that we may hold onto the idea for a future episode. All right, any questions? How are you feeling? Are you ready?
Daysia Tolentino: I’m so ready.
Moises Mendez II: I love a game, so I’m ready.
Morgan Sung: All right, let’s jump in. Daysia, what did you bring us? Tell us about the Love Island drama.
Daysia Tolentino: Lord, I don’t know if you guys watched this most recent season of Love Island, but it was basically a mess from the start.
Love Island: Welcome to Love Island! Warning, the following program contains love, lust, and the most attractive unemployed people you’ve ever seen.
Daysia Tolentino: Love Island is a reality TV show that puts a bunch of singles together into a Fiji villa. And basically, everybody couples up over the course of six weeks. And people are obsessed with it because last season was the first USA version of Love Island, which originally started in the UK, to really take off. And then the issues started arising with Yulyssa Escobar getting kicked off early on the second episode of the show, due to resurfaced posts in which she says the N-word.
Another contestant, Cierra Ortega, was also asked to exit the show because of an old Instagram story that she had posted in January 2024 saying the anti-Asian C-slur. And people were upset that action wasn’t taken sooner because apparently it had resurfaced earlier in the season. But essentially, Cierra came out of the villa. She made an apology. Sorry, not apology. She explicitly said it was not an apology video. It was an accountability video. And she agrees that she had to face the consequences and experience a punishment for her behavior.
She was getting death threats, rape threats, and ICE threats. Um, people have called ICE on her family. You know, Cierra is a Latina woman. And she was kind of talking about while showing these screenshots, “Is this still accountability? Is it accountability that you people are still looking for?” But my question is: what is enough? What is the line of punishment when somebody does something wrong? And obviously, there’s no excuse for using racial slurs, and people do need to be held accountable for the things that they say. But that doesn’t justify the messages that she got as a result of this controversy, right?
Morgan Sung: Yeah, I mean, for me at least, you know, being an Asian woman who has been literally called the slur, I do have to wonder how many of the people unleashing this vitriol are actual like allies to Asians, or it’s just easy engagement, you know? I’m like, a lot of times I’m kind of skeptical. I’m like, do you actually care about, you know, the people who were hurt by the use of this slur? Or is it just an outlet? You know what I mean? Moises, what do you think?
Moises Mendez II: I have only two brain cells left, so one of them is dedicated to internet, the other is dedicated to pop culture, but Love Island doesn’t fit in that. So I don’t watch Love Island. But I think that when it comes to this culture of like looking for accountability from public figures online, what is the line? Like where, like if the person is apologizing for the thing that they are being called out for. What more is next, but we’ve talked about how the accountability culture that exists online right now is more just harassment and bullying than it is people actually repenting for their sins or making any sort of tangible change.
Daysia Tolentino: I think obviously with the calling of ICE on Cierra’s family, that to me is almost fighting racism with racism. And at that point, accountability is not the goal. And that’s how we get to a point where this idea of cancel culture or accountability has become so diluted because people would rather have blood than some sort of harm addressed and repaired.
Morgan Sung: Absolutely. So on this, do we save or do we scroll? Moises, what do you think?
Moises Mendez II: I definitely think that we should save. There’s a lot to talk about, not with just this example, but there’s so many others that we can delve into.
Morgan Sung: What about you, Daysia?
Daysia Tolentino: I definitely think that the bones of this conversation are worth saving, which is that ultimately, these internet dogpiles happen almost every week with a different person. And it’s one of those topics where we have to figure out a solution about accountability without basically telling people to die.
Morgan Sung: Yeah. Exactly.
Daysia Tolentino: Sorry, God forbid that’s the solution.
Morgan Sung: God forbid we have actual change and growth.
Daysia Tolentino: Nuance, discussion maybe?
Morgan Sung: No, nuance on the internet? Absolutely not. I’m going with save too on this. I think we should save it. I think this is a conversation that’s going to continue happening for as long as the internet exists because no one knows how to be normal online.
Moises Mendez II: Unfortunately.
Morgan Sung: Okay, let’s move on. Moises, tell us about Grindr and the current Grindr drama.
Moises Mendez II: So Grindr is a queer social networking app, but it’s basically used as a queer hookup app or dating app. It’s a way for people to find the people closest to them, specifically queer people, but it is mainly for gay men, there are non-binary people and trans people that also exist on the app. The thing about Grindr, is that for as long as it’s been around since 2009, there has been some mess that’s going on in the background.
I wrote a story for the Atlantic about how minors are circumventing these age restrictions and finding their way onto these apps and having conversations with adults. It’s been a topic of conversation for child safety advocates about having age verification on these apps, and most recently Grinder announced that in the UK it would be implementing an age verification tool. There is a lot of conversations about whether this is actually to keep minors off the app, or another way to police queer bodies.
But there’s pros and cons to this issue. The pro is that maybe it’ll be a way for kids to have a roadblock to finding their way into having conversations with adults, because there has been so many reports about Grindr in the last couple of years of minors being sexually assaulted or killed through police reports that they found. But the con is, do we want Grindr to have our data? And do we these big tech companies handling our personal information?
Because in the past, Grindr has not had a really great history of handling our data. Back in 2018, they admitted to sharing users’ HIV status to third-party companies. In 2021, they were fined over $6 million in Norway due to data breaches and sharing data without users’ consents. And then 2024, a gay man who is HIV positive said that the app treated user data like a “piece of meat” after his medical data was misused by the app. There’s a lot of conversations about whether or not this is a good thing. I would like for there to not be such an easy route for children to find their way onto these apps, but then I don’t want Grindr to have my personal data and it just becomes this push and pull and we just don’t know exactly how this is gonna play out until it actually is implemented.
But in the US, they said that they don’t have plans right now to implement age verification in the United States. But they said, “We’re always evaluating the best ways to ensure our app is a safe space for adults to make meaningful connections.” So who’s to say? We just have to wait and see.
Morgan Sung: My question is, how is Grindr going to conduct these age checks? Are they going to store that information? And then, great, they’re just going to have a registry of queer people? That seems safe and very normal in this current political environment.
Moises Mendez II: I mean, in the UK, Grindr said in their statement to me that, “Grindr will utilize age estimation and ID verification technology from FaceTech, while independently managing all data processing to ensure privacy is protected.” So it seems like there will be a third party involved, but who knows what that third party is gonna do with the personal data that’s being used.
Morgan Sung: So do we save or scroll on this story? What do you think Moises?
Moises Mendez II: I mean, I’m definitely gonna save. It’s something that I have saved in my back pocket because I’ve followed it for years now and there’s definitely more conversations to be had. I definitely plan to speak with data privacy experts about this issue and what’s the best route forward.
Morgan Sung: What about you, Daysia?
Daysia Tolentino: Yeah, I definitely think save. I think age verification is an ongoing issue among not just people in the UK, but in the US, especially with these anti-porn laws. I mean, data privacy is such a huge topic that we kind of fail to address time and time again, especially in America. And so I think this is definitely one of those examples of why we should be paying attention to these measures to protect kids that are also putting our data at risk.
Morgan Sung: I’m going with save too. I think this conversation is just going to repeat itself like over and over again until the US has any kind of comprehensive data privacy policy, which, you know, who knows if we’ll ever get that? What a pipe dream. We’ll get back to more saving and more scrolling after the break. Okay, we’re back. Daysia, will you tell us about Labubu, Matcha, Dubai chocolate?
Daysia Tolentino: Labubu matcha Dubai chocolate. I just want to say one thing really quickly, which is that I do not subscribe to the Labubu agenda. I have not fallen for the propaganda. And I say this as a Pop Mart girlie. And for those who are unfamiliar, Pop Mart is a Chinese toy company that creates these designer figurines and toys. And Labubu is just one of the characters that have really blown up from Pop Mart. But like any fad, we got to roll everything into one thing to get as much out of a trend as possible. And so we have seen Labubu matcha Dubai chocolate.
Moises Mendez II: Mm-hmm.
Daysia Tolentino: On the rise!
Morgan Sung: For those who are uninitiated into the Labubu cult or into the Pop Mart cult, Labubus are these little plush keychains that you can clip onto your bag. It’s a cute little thing. It’s like a little plosh monster toy. I’ve seen people compare them to like beanie babies or Funko Pops or like Jelly Cats and Squishmallows. But it’s a blind box. You don’t know which one you’re going to get. You just keep buying Labubus until you get the one you want. And it like incentivizes you to buy more and more and more because you’re not trying to collect them all. You’re trying to get the one you want.
Daysia Tolentino: One hundred percent. So, Dubai chocolate is a trendy kind of candy right now. It is chocolate that is full of pistachios and I think phyllo dough and it has kind of taken over my For You pages and everything, but people have started to mold Dubai chocolate into the shape of a Labubu. Which, you know, Labubu is a fuzzy little monster with crazy pointy teeth. So they have created these chocolate molds in the shape of the monster and you know, added them onto like matcha shakes or matcha drinks, chocolate matcha drinks.
I feel like we have these food trends and you know icon trends, if you will, every few years. Every generation has one and now we have this one. And it’s funny because I think this idea of under-consumption core really rose last year as a way to combat these really fast trends that are just clogging up the landfills. They’re taking money out of your wallets. Like it’s very easy to fall for, you know, the hot TikTok shop item of the moment that pops up on your For You page incessantly. And so I think this is a really interesting example of both the worst impulses and maybe… weirdly the best things about microtrends.
Morgan Sung: Moises, what do you think of the Labubus? Are you a Labubu hater?
Moises Mendez II: See, I don’t know if you could tell I was a little quiet because I really don’t like Labubus. I’m trying to just take away that demonic energy out of my space. How long do you have them? How long til you get annoyed of them? They take up space. Like they’re not like family heirlooms that you can pass down to like generations.
Daysia Tolentino: How dare you! Say that to the woman with the 24-karat Labubu.
Morgan Sung: Guys, can I confess something?
Moises Mendez II: That’s my queen I love her. Oh God, don’t tell me you have one.
Morgan Sung: I bought a Labubu. I was back home, I was in Queens, right? Like homeland of the Labubus.
Moises Mendez II: Okay.
Morgan Sung: And so, for journalism, right, out of curiosity, I dragged my sister to Flushing to Tangram Mall. And I was like, “For this episode, I’m going to go Labubu hunting.” My sister and I went to five locations looking for a Labubu. We went to an anime store: sold out. We went to another store: sold out. We went to the Pop Mart vending machine: gone. I go to the last stop. I’m like, “I’m going to go home if this isn’t it.” So I pull up. My sister and I were like, “Okay, they have Labubus.” I bought one. I got the one I wanted. I was delirious. I was like, “Just give, hand it to me. I’m gonna pick out an outfit.” My sister, and I bought little outfits. They were also overpriced. And I took a picture, went home, it was so adorable. And then I flew back to LA yesterday, like last night. And as I was on the plane, my sister texted me, “You left your child at home,” and just sent me a picture of the Labubu left on my parents’ dining table.
Moises Mendez II: No, you know what? No
Morgan Sung: All that toiling, all that money wasted, and it’s just sitting in its little fake Dodger’s hat on my parents’ dining table. Anyway, that was my Labubu story. My sister and I got home and she was like, “I feel sick from consumerism.” She was like, “I need to like cleanse myself. I need touch grass.”.
Daysia Tolentino: That’s what consumerism will do to you.
Moises Mendez II: Exactly. That’s the moral of the story here.
Morgan Sung: So do we save or scroll on Labubus?
Moises Mendez II: Yeah.
Daysia Tolentino: We are scrolling, girl. In a year from now, when Labubus aren’t as crazy and hyped up, are you going to want those 50 Labubus? Scroll girl.
Moises Mendez II: What are you gonna do with them? Yeah. Scroll.
Morgan Sung: I’m I’m scrolling. I already abandoned my my Labubu child.
Moises Mendez II: She can’t even take care of one Labubu, she can’t have more than one.
Morgan Sung: I can’t.
Moises Mendez II: The courts will let her.
Morgan Sung: So I have a story for you. Are you familiar with the video game, Relooted? It’s not out yet, but I don’t know if you’ve seen drama about this. Okay, so Relooted was one of the showcase games at Summer Game Fest last month. What stands out about it is what it’s about. Basically, it’s not repatriating artifacts that were stolen from African countries and are now being held in Western museums. So it’s a puzzle game, you know, and each level you have to go into these like fictional museums and steal back these real life artifacts. So the museums in the game are fictional, but the artifacts themselves are real. And they’re like symbols of a very violent colonial history. Yeah, I guess what do you guys think of it like so far?
Daysia Tolentino: I think it’s an interesting premise. I mean, the idea of returning artifacts back to the countries they’re from, I think, should be a no-brainer in real life, but is obviously more contentious than that in practice. I also think it could kind of raise awareness in a way about the issue if people started playing it a lot and thinking more about the actual real life situations in which, you know, artifacts are kept in colonial museums essentially.
Morgan Sung: What do you think Moises?
Moises Mendez II: I mean, I’m definitely a video game person. I talk about playing Fortnite with my friends and I love a story game. And I definitely would eat this game up just because like the premise is really fun and interesting. I think there’s a lot of games that don’t really have a larger societal issue to talk about. I think it’s definitely exciting to consider.
Morgan Sung: So I saw the videos of the guy presenting it, right, at Summer Game Fest. And the guy who presented the game is the game’s creative director, Ben Myers. And he’s a white South African guy. Moises is shaking his head. And so I had the same response, right?
Moises Mendez II: That felt like really important information.
Morgan Sung: I was like, okay, who is this guy to be the face of a game about repatriation? But it turns out he was the one to present the game because the dev team is from all over Africa, like Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe. The studio itself is based in South Africa. It turns out, he was someone to present a game because the developer who was supposed to be face of it and present, couldn’t get a visa into the United States.
And so, Ben Myers, the creative director, thinks he got a visa because he has a South African passport, an Australian passport, and a British passport and he’s a white guy. And meanwhile, the developer who was denied, they said that the consulate in South Africa kind of like denied them instantly and that they approved a white visa applicant right after denying theirs. And so the game itself is an inherently like political statement, but the circumstances of the game’s debut have also been now the symbol of this cultural war.
Daysia Tolentino: This whole thing opens up a really interesting conversation about many things, right? Which is, first of all, South Africa is still contending with the aftermath of apartheid and to this day, right? And obviously seeing a white man from South Africa present this game, feelings toward that are obviously going to come up. And then you have this added context of, “No, actually, the person who was supposed to actually present the game was denied because of our racist visa system in America.”
And the layers of ultimately oppression in this are just so complex. I mean, the ultimate message of this game is talking about ownership and returning artifacts to where they are rightfully from and the people who want to share this message can’t even go to, like, conferences in the US or, you know, events to continue to share this message. So it’s just a double, like slap in the face of oppression there.
Morgan Sung: Exactly. Yes. So on this, save or scroll, Moises, what do you think?
Moises Mendez II: Um, I think that this is definitely a save because there definitely might be other instances like this and that are going underreported.
Morgan Sung: What about you, Daysia?
Daysia Tolentino: I’m saving. I’m gonna play that game when it comes out.
Morgan Sung: I’m saving it, it’s called Relooted. Who knows when it’s coming out?
Moises Mendez II: One day.
Morgan Sung: One day.
Daysia Tolentino: I’ll order it.
Morgan Sung: Yay! Okay, I’m saving. Last story for today, Moises, tell us about what’s happening with Reddit snark pages.
Moises Mendez II: So right now, a Reddit snark page is at the center of a very interesting controversy. These snark pages are dedicated to specific influencers, to gossip about them, make comments about things that they’re doing, and you know, basically just there’s a community of people who like to talk about someone.
So there’s this influencer named Adam McIntyre, he’s a drama influencer. So he basically recaps pop culture moments, he talks about other influencers and the dramas that they have going on. So Adam is an Irish influencer who came to the US to do a couple shows. He got an O1 visa, but some of the members on his Reddit snark page circulated the photo that he posted of his visa and said that he was issued an R1 visa, which is for people entering the United States to perform religious work, which is not exactly what he did.
Some members of the r/AdamMcIntyre snark page reported him to ICE. So he announced that he was gonna take legal action against the Reddit snark page. And two days later, the snark page was taken down. So it is this really interesting conversation about the way that, not only snark pages, but people who are not fans of certain influencers are trying to deplatform the people that they don’t like, but they’re also trying to put them in harm’s way. Because a lot of what’s going on right now with ICE, especially in Los Angeles and across the country, is a really dangerous moment for immigrants or just people who are visiting here.
Morgan Sung: Yeah, I mean, this just this whole story is like horrific because I mean we’ve heard about the ways people react to people that they don’t like or disagree with — harassing people, never okay. But sending someone hate mail is one thing and then to call ICE on them as an of violence is just on another level.
Daysia Tolentino: It just reminds me again of the Love Island situation. We’ve gotten to a point in internet culture where being a fan of someone or being an anti of someone rather is not enough. Hating on them and talking about them negatively is not enough. I think a lot of people think this is a freaking game and it’s not because people are already being brutalized in ICE detention centers, being held in the most inhumane conditions. And then you wanna subject people to that just because you don’t like them when they’re here legally on a work visa? And whether people understand it or not, what they’re signing up for is enacting harm on these people like Adam.
Morgan Sung: So for me, this is a save. Moises, what about you? Save or scroll?
Moises Mendez II: Definitely a save, for sure.
Morgan Sung: Daysia?
Morgan Sung: 100% a save.
Morgan Sung: And do we have any closing thoughts on the state of the internet after this wonderful Save or Scroll session?
Daysia Tolentino: I’ve been so tired by the internet lately because I don’t understand how people can care this much about that many people who are honestly just random people. Especially with these Love Island people. It’s like, I dunno. That pool boy is a pool boy from Florida. Yeah, I didn’t expect him to have the perfect Instagram history. Like…
Moises Mendez II: Yeah, yeah. I mean, my closing thought would be that people just need to be a little bit more normal online. But given that all of these tech billionaires that own these platforms, that allow for there to be some of the worst, most vile humans to share their opinions online, uh, it’s only gonna get worse from here.
Morgan Sung: Will you be going offline, will you be logging off, given everything you said?
Daysia Tolentino: It’s hard when you’re an internet culture reporter to log off. It’s almost like throwing your job away.
Morgan Sung: It is. It’s physically impossible.
Daysia Tolentino: Everybody needs a break, even if it’s a few days.
Morgan Sung: Thanks so much for joining us.
Moises Mendez II: Thank you so much, Morgan! This was so much fun!
Daysia Tolentino: Thank you for having us.
Morgan Sung: And that’s it for Save or Scroll. We’re keeping tabs on everything we saved, so don’t be surprised if one of these stories shows up as a deep dive on your feed. We’ll be back next week with more Close All tabs.
Morgan Sung: Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. Our producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our Senior Editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts and helps edit the show.
Original music, including our theme song, by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM.
Sound design by Maya Cueva and Brendan Willard. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard.
Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager and Ethan Toven-Lindsay is our Editor in Chief.
Support for this program comes from Birong Hu and supporters of the KQED Studios Fund.
Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.
Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches.
If you have feedback, or a topic you think we should cover, hit us up at CloseAllTabs@kqed.org. Follow us on instagram at “close all tabs pod.” Or drop it on Discord — we’re in the Close All Tabs channel at discord.gg/KQED. And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple podcasts or whatever platform you use.
Thanks for listening!
