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"slug": "musk-v-altman-was-peak-silicon-valley-theatrics",
"title": "Musk v. Altman Was Peak Silicon Valley Theatrics",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For three weeks, all eyes were on a salacious courtroom drama unfolding in Oakland, California. The Musk v. Altman trial had everything you’d expect from a favorite soap opera: Backstabbing? Check! Secret diary entries? Check! Pleading text messages? Check! And two billionaire buddies turned rivals duking it out over who did or did not steal a charity. Morgan and KQED’s Rachael Myrow explore the trial highlights, outcome and the big question: what was it all for?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC1712425236\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/rachael-myrow\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachael Myrow\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, senior editor, Silicon Valley News Desk at KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12084062/federal-court-rules-against-elon-musk-in-his-bitter-feud-with-sam-altman\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal Court Rules Against Elon Musk in His Bitter Feud With Sam Altman\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Katie DeBenedetti and Rachael Myrow, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/fancy-butt-pillows-musk-v-altman-trial/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everyone at the Musk v. Altman Trial Is Using Fancy Butt Cushions\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Paresh Dave, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">WIRED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/932464/musk-v-altman-proved-that-ai-is-led-by-the-wrong-people\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Musk v. Altman proved that AI is led by the wrong people\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Hayden Field, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Verge\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/13/sam-altman-may-control-our-future-can-he-be-trusted\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/05/20/nx-s1-5822419/ai-colleges-commencement-booing\">Advice for 2026 commencement speakers: Don’t bring up AI\u003c/a> — Jude Joffe-Block and Michelle Aslam, \u003ci>NPR\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung, Host: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello Tabbers! Tabbies? Tabhive? We’re workshopping this. Ok? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anyway, if you’re in the Close All Tabs fandom, and you want more of these deep dives, then please rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to this! Post about it! Follow us on Instagram! Tag us! Basically, it would be a huge help to get the word out. Ok, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The tech world has been buzzing over one of the juiciest legal showdowns in Silicon Valley: Musk v. Altman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Basically, Elon Musk, of Tesla and Twitter infamy, accused OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and its leadership of betraying the company’s nonprofit roots. He alleged that instead of sticking to the original mission, which was to build safe artificial general intelligence for the benefit of all of humanity, the company chased profits over AI safety. He says they “stole a charity.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the other side: Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI who co-founded the company with Musk. Once upon a time, they were actually buddies. But today? They’re bitter rivals. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For three weeks, tech billionaires, their legal counsel, their personal security guards, and a throng of journalists packed into a courtroom in Oakland, California. This was a real “who’s who” of the AI industry. The six billionaires who took the stand have a collective net worth of around $850 billion dollars. That’s more than the GDP of most countries. And what did the uber wealthy bring for a long day at court? The hottest accessory in downtown Oakland: Fancy butt cushions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Record scratch]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow, Guest:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You know, I have to admit, I was not looking, uh, anywhere in the vicinity of their butts, so I did not see these butt cushions, uh, that I read about in Wired. But, um, I, I did see some more, you know, sober, uh, sensible butt cushions that the lawyers were using.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Rachael Myrow, she’s the Silicon Valley tech editor at KQED, and she covered the case, trekking out for the grueling 12 days of trial. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I really should have come up with one of my own because we were in that court, courtroom from 8am in the morning to 2 in the afternoon most days.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This trial was one of the courtroom dramas of the decade. Rachael said it was like \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Silicon Valley\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the HBO show, meets a telenovela. Before it even started, Musk got so catty online that the judge threatened him with a gag order.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He went on X on the eve of the trial, popping off about Scam Altman until Judge Gonzalez Rogers dressed him down in front of the court.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s just the start of this gossip feast. We’re talking backstabbing! Personal diary entries read aloud! Secret affairs! Over 20 witnesses airing out everyone’s dirty laundry. And after all of that, the jury sided with OpenAI. So does this count as a crushing blow to Elon Musk?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Musk operates like President Trump. He sues for all sorts of reasons, and he also counts a win differently than normal people would count a win.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he doesn’t need to win in the courtroom to win in other ways. Because nobody walked out of this trial looking great, especially not Sam Altman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The historical record now shows a group of extraordinarily entitled people, mostly men, scrambling to be the tip of the spear for the AI revolution. Uh, I think the benefit of humanity never had anything to do with it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the end of the day, nobody really won here. We’re going to get into that and open a few tabs about the trial, the drama leading up to it, the great billionaire AI industry reckoning and what this really means for the rest of us plebeians. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is 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. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let’s open our first tab: Sam Altman, Elon Musk relationship timeline \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">K-dramas, telenovelas, any CW show, pick your poison. At its core, this scenario is a soap opera classic. Two besties have a falling out, struggle for power, and forgetting what they once meant to each other become embroiled in a years-long feud, hell bent on taking the other down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t know if they ever were friends. But also I wouldn’t say that they were frenemies, and again, this is just from my experience of the trial, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, maybe that was a little bit of fanfiction. But we can’t write off their tech bromance entirely. After all, during the trial, Altman testified under oath that Musk used to show him memes on his phone. That’s pretty intimate, if you ask me. And years before that, they were two very rich guys who shared a dream.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Elon Musk in particular, uh, was very worried about the thought that artificial general intelligence, which is to say AI that surpasses human intelligence, uh, could, uh, come to the hands of one powerful player first, and then they would have, I don’t know, world domination within their grasp. So he got together with Sam Altman of Y Combinator fame or infamy, however you see it, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Y Combinator is the startup accelerator that launched Reddit, Airbnb, DoorDash, Dropbox, Stripe, Coinbase, the list goes on. Sam Altman was part of the inaugural cohort. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the two of them cooked up this nonprofit with a charitable mission. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They launched OpenAI in 2015, as a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. In the first blog post, the company wrote: “Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it doesn’t take long before they realize that if this is gonna be a thing, if this is gonna compete with Google, and whoever else might come along they were gonna need way more money than they were pulling in at the time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Elon Musk was spending millions, but they were probably gonna need billions. They started talking about setting up a for-profit division. And it wasn’t long before they realized in this conversation, collectively, that Elon wanted to be in charge of it, in control of it. And you can tell this because, you know, mounds of discovery, personal texts and email chains and personal journal entries made it abundantly clear that Musk was thinking close to the beginning like, ‘I know what I’ll do. We’ll fold this new this for-profit version of OpenAI into Tesla, where I can work on AGI in secret.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, Sam Altman and the other OpenAI principal co-founders weren’t down for that. Musk walked away in 2018. OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022. A year later, Musk announced his own AI startup, xAI, which eventually launched Grok. Musk has boasted about how Grok is not trained to be “woke”, unlike competitors like ChatGPT. OpenAI, meanwhile, has become the belle of the Silicon Valley ball, nabbing billions of dollars of investment from Microsoft. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And at a certain point, it becomes clear that the OpenAI nonprofit is really a shell of its former self. Right? Like, it’s all of the IP, all of the intellectual property has shifted, uh, from the nonprofit to the for-profit, all of the talent…I think it was kind of sitting there employee-free until very recently, and money was put into it. It’s now estimated to be worth about 200 billion, with a B, dollars. But what has this nonprofit been up to? Precious little. Precious little. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so at some point, Musk decides to sue and to say, ‘Wait a second, you know, um, this is a bait and switch…they’ve abandoned the mission that we cooked up originally and, I want recompense. I want Altman and others, stripped from the board, stripped from their leadership positions. I want, something like $150 billion shifted from the for-profit to the nonprofit.’ But of course, if you’re OpenAI, your attitude is like, ‘Whoa, this is clearly vindictive.’ You know, you didn’t get what you want, that’s why you walked away with your toys and your money, and, uh, you know, we’re gonna see you in court.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This legal showdown has been simmering for years. Between filing in early 2024 and finally walking into the courtroom for his testimony last month, Musk has: filed a motion accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of being a monopoly, led a group of investors in an attempt to buy OpenAI, threatened to sue Apple for giving OpenAI preferential treatment in the App Store, and has gotten into multiple online spats with Altman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was 100% clear there’s no love lost, uh, between you know, the principals. You know, what I like to say is, like, nobody has clean hands in this situation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what exactly happened at this trial? Let’s open another new tab: Musk v. Altman \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> On one side you’ve got Elon Musk. You know, he didn’t come to be the wealthiest person on Earth by accident, right? Uh, even if he may not have been the person to start many of the companies he now owns and controls, uh, he took them into the stratosphere, quite literally in the case of SpaceX.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s very good at doing that, but he’s also well known to be mercurial, to have a kind of Jekyll and Hyde personality, to push other people to the breaking point.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, um, he’s gonna make decisions that, uh, he doesn’t expect to be countermanded on in the slightest. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then you have somebody like Sam Altman, and, uh, I’ll tell you, it wasn’t any accident that The New Yorker came out with a scandalous profile of Sam Altman on the eve of the trial that basically, uh, described him as a compulsive pathological liar, and all of that came out in the trial too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Let’s go through a few highlights from this trial. It got pretty juicy when Shivon Zillis took the stand. She’s a venture capitalist and machine learning expert who started working at OpenAI when it launched, and later joined the board of directors. She’s also the mother of four of Musk’s fourteen children. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In her testimony, she said that their relationship started with a “one-off” at a corporate off-site. When she decided to start a family on her own, Musk offered to be her platonic sperm donor. Their relationship grew, and now, they’re romantic partners. She told the OpenAI board about her relationship with Musk only after Business Insider started reporting on it. According to other testimony, many board members wanted to remove her, but decided to let her stay to, “keep the Elon conflict under control.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think for many people who are not familiar with Silicon Valley shenanigans, going back decades, not, this is not new to AI, um, it’s not just neutral characters on the board. It’s a very insular world. It’s on the level of incest, I would say. And so I, for one, was not shocked to discover that Elon Musk had a, again, like a consigliere on the board making decisions. She seemed to be there in many ways, um, serving as a go-between, between Sam and Elon, helping to smooth over conversations, helping to, to help them reach points of agreement when that was possible, and at the very least, have clarity on what the other side was thinking when that was not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Something else that also g- kind of struck me about not just Zelis’s testimony, but also the other women who had roles in this period of time at OpenAI that was under discussion, is how much even the smartest women were only number twos, number threes, ancillary characters in a drama that starred men. This is all about men, primarily white men, with a tremendous sense of entitlement.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then there are these salacious journal entries. So, Greg Brockman is the president of OpenAI, and today, he has a 30 billion dollar stake in the company. But he wasn’t always so ludicrously wealthy. During the trial, pages of his personal diary from nearly 10 years ago were read out loud. And what he wrote seems to bolster Musk’s argument that they were all in it for the money, not necessarily for the good of humanity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Word to the wise, be aware that if you get sued, they’re gonna come looking for this stuff. You know? Like, when he’s, when he’s writing to himself, “What will take me to $1 billion?” it was pretty clear that it sounded like he was interested in becoming rich. You have a guy who was personally ambitious. Um, is that illegal? I don’t know if it’s illegal. It certainly didn’t look good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The funny thing here about Zelis, and it’s kind of in parallel to, to Brockman, is that, you know, Zelis was taking notes. And also a lot of Zelis’ emails and texts document how early Musk knew that people were talking about a, uh, a for-profit, that Musk himself was talking about a for-profit form of OpenAI. So this kind of ate away at the argument that he was shocked, shocked to discover that self-enrichment had become such a powerful motivator for his colleagues.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Another standout from the trial: texts between Sam Altman and former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati from the night that the OpenAI board voted to fire Altman as CEO. He was reinstated after over 90% of OpenAI employees threatened to quit and work for Microsoft. That in between time period is known as “The Blip.” And the exchanges from the night it started were read in court, and have since gone viral — immediately embedded in the lexicon of internet reaction memes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachael and I are going to do a dramatic reading of the texts \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think I wanna be Mira. Or wait a moment. No, I wanna be Sam. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You wanna be Sam? Okay. Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Can you indicate directionally good or bad? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Directionally very bad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can I come in? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They don’t want you to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you want to make it better? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m still willing to just walk away if that helps. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If they are ramped up for crazy lawsuits against me, then I’m not sure what… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Can you please tell them I just wanna resolve this however, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">and would like to join?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re convinced about their decision.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> For me to be fired or some new thing? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, for you to be gone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Then can I come in and talk about a path forward with them? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you ask why they’ve been saying all weekend they wanted me back?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Still don’t want me? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They don’t want you\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I mean, these read, these read like the kinds of texts that you would send during a really brutal breakup, like when you’re like, ‘Oh, my friend sees my ex in, in public. Can you please go talk to them?’ You know? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do they reveal about the power struggle at OpenAI though?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There was an attempted coup, essentially, precisely because of Sam Altman’s, uh, alleged managerial misbehavior, pitting different people against each other with different stories.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another OpenAI board member, Helen Toner, shed light on this in her deposition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Helen Toner basically said that Altman lied about what kind of safety reviews were done about, uh, models of ChatGPT that were released, that he ultimately cleared for release, and which, you know, she could say really wasn’t about AI safety, It was about this, you know, lack of trust in the communication. Microsoft, uh, CEO Satya Nadella, at one point he characterized the entire blip as amateur hour. Uh, these naive board members thinking that they could, you know, hold Sam Altman accountable, uh, for, for lying to them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Right. I mean, Brockman and Altman were both throwing around some pretty wild accusations about why Musk really wanted control of OpenAI. Um, Brockman said that he wanted to raise massive amounts of money to build a colony on Mars. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, Sam Altman claimed that Musk was planning to pass OpenAI down to his children when he died, like succession style. But I mean, everyone’s dirty laundry was aired out in that courtroom. Like, no one came out with clean hands, including Sam Altman. So what did the witnesses say about him and his character? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my goodness. There were so many people who described him as a liar to the extent that when finally he was directly questioned about being a liar, uh, and he didn’t answer the question directly, it just made him look more like a liar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There were so many people who talked about his lack of, uh, trustworthiness. Sam Altman on the witness stand for hours being asked why he’s such a big liar. His former chief scientist, his former chief technology officer, two former board members, all testifying under oath that Altman exhibited a consistent pattern of dishonesty.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is now in the public record forever.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">all of these guys come off as self-serving and, and, uh, backstabbing and oily. I wouldn’t wanna meet any of them in a dark alley or on the other side of a business deal. You know, like, they’re obviously not out for the benefit of humanity. But then we knew that. Didn’t we know that? I think we knew that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After all that, mountains of evidence, hours of testimony, brutal days spent on those cold, hard, unforgiving courtroom benches, unless you had a fancy butt cushion, the ending of this trial was kind of anticlimactic. It took the jury just two hours to come to a unanimous decision. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The jury decided that Musk simply waited too long to sue. California has statutes of limitations. So you can’t just sit on your claims forever.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, in the end nothing happened! But that doesn’t mean the trial was for nothing. What’s the real outcome here? What did this courtroom drama really reveal? After the break, a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Ok, after the break? We’re leaving the courtroom, and going back to the real world. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We’re back! Let’s open one last tab: Musk v. Altman outcome.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the jury rejected Musk’s case this week. But it’s important to note that they didn’t make that decision based on the legal merit of his case, just that it was too late for Musk to pursue it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the jury found that Musk knew or should have known what was happening at OpenAI by 2020 at the latest. He filed in 2024. He argued in court, you know, that that’s because it wasn’t that he was opposed to any kind of for-profit division. He just didn’t want one that dominated the nonprofit. And that didn’t become clear to him until 2023. So he wanted to essentially start the clock on the statue of limitations later on in the game\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But OpenAI argued and the judge essentially agreed that Musk needed to have made the case soon after what he saw happening at OpenAI by 2020 at the latest. So all three claims, breach of charitable trust, unjust enrichment, Microsoft aiding and abetting, are gone because of the statute of limitations thing, not because they decided on the merits.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hours after the verdict came out, Elon Musk responded in the most Elon Musk possible way, which is he took it to Twitter, uh, sorry, X, to complain. Um, he did a classic tweet and delete. So the first tweet he said, first post, “This illustrates why the ruling by the terrible activist Oakland judge, who simply used the jury as a fig leaf, creates such a terrible precedent. She just handed a free license to loot charities if you can keep the looting quiet for a few years.” And then deleted that. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then followed up, “Regarding the OpenAI case, the judge and jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case just on a calendar technicality. There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman and Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is when they did it.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did this response surprise you at all?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Not in the slightest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So now that she makes clear she agrees with the jury, Musk posted ‘she’s a terrible activist Oakland judge who handed out a free license to loot charities.’ Musk is just not sympathetic. Um, but I’m thinking, like President Trump, it wasn’t necessarily important to Musk to win the case, just to file it, to drag Altman through the mud in a very public way ahead of these two IPOs. If what you what is revenge, that’s not nothing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This trial did a number on Sam Altman’s public image. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It certainly revealed a lot of the circular business deals he was involved in. He may have recused himself from the actual votes with some of these companies but he nonetheless profited from them or could profit in the near future. I think this was a habit he picked up at Y Combinator. Anyway, it was laid bare in the courtroom. I think it put another nail in the coffin. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, there were protesters outside the courthouse with some very funny signs up. And they poked the most fun at Musk, but they also poked a lot of fun at Sam Altman. You know, it’s Sam Altman’s house that got a Molotov cocktail thrown at it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, like, I think there is a great deal of public discontent, even rage over the rollout of AI into all of our lives. And, you know, this train got rolling out of the station through OpenAI, through ChatGPT, uh, and, you know, it was off to the races for a bunch of companies. But there at the forefront, at least in the beginning, was OpenAI, and Sam Altman is the face of OpenAI. And so this trial and all the mountains of evidence just confirm for people their opinions of Sam Altman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, if there’s a fan club somebody’s gotta send me a T-shirt to prove it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A lot of Silicon Valley tends to operate in a kind of bubble, disconnected from the public’s growing discontent around AI. Students are graduating into increasingly unstable careers, thanks to companies pushing to replace human workers with AI, regardless of whether AI can do the jobs better. Nothing shows that disconnect quite like the reaction to commencement speakers who tried to praise AI to a room full of new graduates. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from University of Central Florida Graduation] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaker: The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crowd: Boos \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaker: Woo! What happened? Ok, I struck a chord! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Multiple commencement speakers across the country have tried to proselytize AI this month and they were booed each time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This rejection is not unfounded. While covering the trial, Rachael spoke to one of the protesters outside of the courthouse. Her name is Valerie. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valerie Sizemore:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I used to be a software engineer, but, um, have been unemployed by AI, so now I’m trying to make the resistance happen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this trial, um, these two CEOs are fighting over a piece of a pie that, uh, doesn’t really matter for the world. They’re just trying to make themselves richer, but we’re all gonna lose regardless of who wins.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The AI titans, and they are titans now, keep mistaking public resistance for ignorance. Somebody like Valerie isn’t failing to understand the wonders of AI. She’s recognizing that the costs like higher power bills, strained electrical grids, her job disappearing on, her career disappearing on her. Right? A technology class that treats the question of public consent as an annoying inconvenience. I guess what I’m getting at here, Morgan, is that we’re not talking about a PR problem. We’re talking about class warfare.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was a battle between two billionaires. The trial revolved around this core question: Is OpenAI’s commitment to the benefit of humanity real? Or, is the company’s commitment really to chasing profits at the expense of AI safety? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was supposed to be the trial of the century ended without answers or accountability. And by ruling on timing instead of the actual merits of the case, the trial also failed to establish any legal precedent for AI governance and guardrails. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s not gonna do a damn thing to stop this nightmare. Right? Obviously there’s gonna be an appeal from Musk’s attorneys. Who knows what’ll happen there? But you know, both Musk with his SpaceX IPO and Altman with his OpenAI IPO, they’re just gonna go forward as before. The AI rollout will go on as before.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who knows if we’ll ever get artificial general intelligence per se? I don’t think it matters. I mean, the changes that have been happening have been happening without artificial general intelligence. They’re, they’re disruptive enough. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> How do you think this case will impact future AI cases?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> OpenAI is a strange creature. It started as a nonprofit, maybe because Musk and Altman intuitively knew that, uh, they had a better chance of raising money at that time if they presented it as for the good of humanity as opposed to, you know, just a chance to get in on this gold rush.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right? And, and it must be said, and you know, many of the OpenAI principals said it many times that in the beginning, in the first few years of OpenAI, it was not clear at all it was gonna succeed, right? Google seemed to have such a head start and such a well-capitalized head start. So, you know, OpenAI has only become fabulously valued, um, in recent years, and it, it’s still not making money.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To go back to, you know, like what, what precedent does this set for Silicon Valley? I don’t know that it sets any precedent because who in their right mind would start something like OpenAI again in that way? You would set up a startup like any other group of entrepreneurs and take your chances with that setup.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of this theater ended with no real answers, no real accountability, and no real change for the AI industry overall. So then was the point of taking this case to court in the first place? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The judge put tight, and I mean tight brackets around what this case was going to be about at trial, which raises the question for me, why did she take this case in the first place?Why did she give Elon Musk standing if he had unclean hands? He was a rival. He was a competitor in the AI space. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that Gonzalez Rogers wanted these guys on both sides to be forced to peel back the curtain on how AI came to dominate the world in the way that it does now. And maybe the judge couldn’t give us accountability, but she could give us visibility, and that’s not nothing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And another upside: all those juicy, salacious details that were once just gossip fodder, that’s public record now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is there any legal precedent here? I think maybe the point was the theater.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s it for this episode, but stick around after the credits. Ok, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Chris Egusa and edited by Chris Hambrick. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes producer Maya Cueva and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by my dad, Casey Sung, and recorded on his white and blue Epomaker Aula F99 keyboard with Graywood v3 switches and Cherry profile PBT keycaps.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachael Myrow: Steve Molo, uh, the Musk’s attorney: “Have you misled people with whom you do business?” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman “I do not think so.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then Molo says, “Would they think so?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then Altman says, “I can’t answer that.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Molo says, “You’ve repeatedly been called a liar by people with whom you’ve done business.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman: “I have heard people say that.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Molo: “Are you completely trustworthy?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman: “I believe so.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Molo: “You don’t know?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman: “I’ll just amend my answer to yes.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For three weeks, all eyes were on a salacious courtroom drama unfolding in Oakland, California. The Musk v. Altman trial had everything you’d expect from a favorite soap opera: Backstabbing? Check! Secret diary entries? Check! Pleading text messages? Check! And two billionaire buddies turned rivals duking it out over who did or did not steal a charity. Morgan and KQED’s Rachael Myrow explore the trial highlights, outcome and the big question: what was it all for?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC1712425236\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/rachael-myrow\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachael Myrow\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, senior editor, Silicon Valley News Desk at KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12084062/federal-court-rules-against-elon-musk-in-his-bitter-feud-with-sam-altman\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal Court Rules Against Elon Musk in His Bitter Feud With Sam Altman\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Katie DeBenedetti and Rachael Myrow, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/fancy-butt-pillows-musk-v-altman-trial/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everyone at the Musk v. Altman Trial Is Using Fancy Butt Cushions\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Paresh Dave, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">WIRED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/932464/musk-v-altman-proved-that-ai-is-led-by-the-wrong-people\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Musk v. Altman proved that AI is led by the wrong people\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Hayden Field, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Verge\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/13/sam-altman-may-control-our-future-can-he-be-trusted\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/05/20/nx-s1-5822419/ai-colleges-commencement-booing\">Advice for 2026 commencement speakers: Don’t bring up AI\u003c/a> — Jude Joffe-Block and Michelle Aslam, \u003ci>NPR\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung, Host: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello Tabbers! Tabbies? Tabhive? We’re workshopping this. Ok? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anyway, if you’re in the Close All Tabs fandom, and you want more of these deep dives, then please rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to this! Post about it! Follow us on Instagram! Tag us! Basically, it would be a huge help to get the word out. Ok, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The tech world has been buzzing over one of the juiciest legal showdowns in Silicon Valley: Musk v. Altman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Basically, Elon Musk, of Tesla and Twitter infamy, accused OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and its leadership of betraying the company’s nonprofit roots. He alleged that instead of sticking to the original mission, which was to build safe artificial general intelligence for the benefit of all of humanity, the company chased profits over AI safety. He says they “stole a charity.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the other side: Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI who co-founded the company with Musk. Once upon a time, they were actually buddies. But today? They’re bitter rivals. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For three weeks, tech billionaires, their legal counsel, their personal security guards, and a throng of journalists packed into a courtroom in Oakland, California. This was a real “who’s who” of the AI industry. The six billionaires who took the stand have a collective net worth of around $850 billion dollars. That’s more than the GDP of most countries. And what did the uber wealthy bring for a long day at court? The hottest accessory in downtown Oakland: Fancy butt cushions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Record scratch]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow, Guest:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You know, I have to admit, I was not looking, uh, anywhere in the vicinity of their butts, so I did not see these butt cushions, uh, that I read about in Wired. But, um, I, I did see some more, you know, sober, uh, sensible butt cushions that the lawyers were using.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Rachael Myrow, she’s the Silicon Valley tech editor at KQED, and she covered the case, trekking out for the grueling 12 days of trial. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I really should have come up with one of my own because we were in that court, courtroom from 8am in the morning to 2 in the afternoon most days.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This trial was one of the courtroom dramas of the decade. Rachael said it was like \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Silicon Valley\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the HBO show, meets a telenovela. Before it even started, Musk got so catty online that the judge threatened him with a gag order.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He went on X on the eve of the trial, popping off about Scam Altman until Judge Gonzalez Rogers dressed him down in front of the court.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s just the start of this gossip feast. We’re talking backstabbing! Personal diary entries read aloud! Secret affairs! Over 20 witnesses airing out everyone’s dirty laundry. And after all of that, the jury sided with OpenAI. So does this count as a crushing blow to Elon Musk?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Musk operates like President Trump. He sues for all sorts of reasons, and he also counts a win differently than normal people would count a win.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he doesn’t need to win in the courtroom to win in other ways. Because nobody walked out of this trial looking great, especially not Sam Altman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The historical record now shows a group of extraordinarily entitled people, mostly men, scrambling to be the tip of the spear for the AI revolution. Uh, I think the benefit of humanity never had anything to do with it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the end of the day, nobody really won here. We’re going to get into that and open a few tabs about the trial, the drama leading up to it, the great billionaire AI industry reckoning and what this really means for the rest of us plebeians. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is 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. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let’s open our first tab: Sam Altman, Elon Musk relationship timeline \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">K-dramas, telenovelas, any CW show, pick your poison. At its core, this scenario is a soap opera classic. Two besties have a falling out, struggle for power, and forgetting what they once meant to each other become embroiled in a years-long feud, hell bent on taking the other down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t know if they ever were friends. But also I wouldn’t say that they were frenemies, and again, this is just from my experience of the trial, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, maybe that was a little bit of fanfiction. But we can’t write off their tech bromance entirely. After all, during the trial, Altman testified under oath that Musk used to show him memes on his phone. That’s pretty intimate, if you ask me. And years before that, they were two very rich guys who shared a dream.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Elon Musk in particular, uh, was very worried about the thought that artificial general intelligence, which is to say AI that surpasses human intelligence, uh, could, uh, come to the hands of one powerful player first, and then they would have, I don’t know, world domination within their grasp. So he got together with Sam Altman of Y Combinator fame or infamy, however you see it, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Y Combinator is the startup accelerator that launched Reddit, Airbnb, DoorDash, Dropbox, Stripe, Coinbase, the list goes on. Sam Altman was part of the inaugural cohort. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the two of them cooked up this nonprofit with a charitable mission. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They launched OpenAI in 2015, as a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. In the first blog post, the company wrote: “Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it doesn’t take long before they realize that if this is gonna be a thing, if this is gonna compete with Google, and whoever else might come along they were gonna need way more money than they were pulling in at the time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Elon Musk was spending millions, but they were probably gonna need billions. They started talking about setting up a for-profit division. And it wasn’t long before they realized in this conversation, collectively, that Elon wanted to be in charge of it, in control of it. And you can tell this because, you know, mounds of discovery, personal texts and email chains and personal journal entries made it abundantly clear that Musk was thinking close to the beginning like, ‘I know what I’ll do. We’ll fold this new this for-profit version of OpenAI into Tesla, where I can work on AGI in secret.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, Sam Altman and the other OpenAI principal co-founders weren’t down for that. Musk walked away in 2018. OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022. A year later, Musk announced his own AI startup, xAI, which eventually launched Grok. Musk has boasted about how Grok is not trained to be “woke”, unlike competitors like ChatGPT. OpenAI, meanwhile, has become the belle of the Silicon Valley ball, nabbing billions of dollars of investment from Microsoft. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And at a certain point, it becomes clear that the OpenAI nonprofit is really a shell of its former self. Right? Like, it’s all of the IP, all of the intellectual property has shifted, uh, from the nonprofit to the for-profit, all of the talent…I think it was kind of sitting there employee-free until very recently, and money was put into it. It’s now estimated to be worth about 200 billion, with a B, dollars. But what has this nonprofit been up to? Precious little. Precious little. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so at some point, Musk decides to sue and to say, ‘Wait a second, you know, um, this is a bait and switch…they’ve abandoned the mission that we cooked up originally and, I want recompense. I want Altman and others, stripped from the board, stripped from their leadership positions. I want, something like $150 billion shifted from the for-profit to the nonprofit.’ But of course, if you’re OpenAI, your attitude is like, ‘Whoa, this is clearly vindictive.’ You know, you didn’t get what you want, that’s why you walked away with your toys and your money, and, uh, you know, we’re gonna see you in court.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This legal showdown has been simmering for years. Between filing in early 2024 and finally walking into the courtroom for his testimony last month, Musk has: filed a motion accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of being a monopoly, led a group of investors in an attempt to buy OpenAI, threatened to sue Apple for giving OpenAI preferential treatment in the App Store, and has gotten into multiple online spats with Altman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was 100% clear there’s no love lost, uh, between you know, the principals. You know, what I like to say is, like, nobody has clean hands in this situation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what exactly happened at this trial? Let’s open another new tab: Musk v. Altman \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> On one side you’ve got Elon Musk. You know, he didn’t come to be the wealthiest person on Earth by accident, right? Uh, even if he may not have been the person to start many of the companies he now owns and controls, uh, he took them into the stratosphere, quite literally in the case of SpaceX.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s very good at doing that, but he’s also well known to be mercurial, to have a kind of Jekyll and Hyde personality, to push other people to the breaking point.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, um, he’s gonna make decisions that, uh, he doesn’t expect to be countermanded on in the slightest. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then you have somebody like Sam Altman, and, uh, I’ll tell you, it wasn’t any accident that The New Yorker came out with a scandalous profile of Sam Altman on the eve of the trial that basically, uh, described him as a compulsive pathological liar, and all of that came out in the trial too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Let’s go through a few highlights from this trial. It got pretty juicy when Shivon Zillis took the stand. She’s a venture capitalist and machine learning expert who started working at OpenAI when it launched, and later joined the board of directors. She’s also the mother of four of Musk’s fourteen children. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In her testimony, she said that their relationship started with a “one-off” at a corporate off-site. When she decided to start a family on her own, Musk offered to be her platonic sperm donor. Their relationship grew, and now, they’re romantic partners. She told the OpenAI board about her relationship with Musk only after Business Insider started reporting on it. According to other testimony, many board members wanted to remove her, but decided to let her stay to, “keep the Elon conflict under control.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think for many people who are not familiar with Silicon Valley shenanigans, going back decades, not, this is not new to AI, um, it’s not just neutral characters on the board. It’s a very insular world. It’s on the level of incest, I would say. And so I, for one, was not shocked to discover that Elon Musk had a, again, like a consigliere on the board making decisions. She seemed to be there in many ways, um, serving as a go-between, between Sam and Elon, helping to smooth over conversations, helping to, to help them reach points of agreement when that was possible, and at the very least, have clarity on what the other side was thinking when that was not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Something else that also g- kind of struck me about not just Zelis’s testimony, but also the other women who had roles in this period of time at OpenAI that was under discussion, is how much even the smartest women were only number twos, number threes, ancillary characters in a drama that starred men. This is all about men, primarily white men, with a tremendous sense of entitlement.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then there are these salacious journal entries. So, Greg Brockman is the president of OpenAI, and today, he has a 30 billion dollar stake in the company. But he wasn’t always so ludicrously wealthy. During the trial, pages of his personal diary from nearly 10 years ago were read out loud. And what he wrote seems to bolster Musk’s argument that they were all in it for the money, not necessarily for the good of humanity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Word to the wise, be aware that if you get sued, they’re gonna come looking for this stuff. You know? Like, when he’s, when he’s writing to himself, “What will take me to $1 billion?” it was pretty clear that it sounded like he was interested in becoming rich. You have a guy who was personally ambitious. Um, is that illegal? I don’t know if it’s illegal. It certainly didn’t look good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The funny thing here about Zelis, and it’s kind of in parallel to, to Brockman, is that, you know, Zelis was taking notes. And also a lot of Zelis’ emails and texts document how early Musk knew that people were talking about a, uh, a for-profit, that Musk himself was talking about a for-profit form of OpenAI. So this kind of ate away at the argument that he was shocked, shocked to discover that self-enrichment had become such a powerful motivator for his colleagues.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Another standout from the trial: texts between Sam Altman and former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati from the night that the OpenAI board voted to fire Altman as CEO. He was reinstated after over 90% of OpenAI employees threatened to quit and work for Microsoft. That in between time period is known as “The Blip.” And the exchanges from the night it started were read in court, and have since gone viral — immediately embedded in the lexicon of internet reaction memes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachael and I are going to do a dramatic reading of the texts \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think I wanna be Mira. Or wait a moment. No, I wanna be Sam. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You wanna be Sam? Okay. Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Can you indicate directionally good or bad? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Directionally very bad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can I come in? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They don’t want you to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you want to make it better? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m still willing to just walk away if that helps. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If they are ramped up for crazy lawsuits against me, then I’m not sure what… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Can you please tell them I just wanna resolve this however, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">and would like to join?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re convinced about their decision.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> For me to be fired or some new thing? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, for you to be gone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Then can I come in and talk about a path forward with them? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you ask why they’ve been saying all weekend they wanted me back?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Still don’t want me? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They don’t want you\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I mean, these read, these read like the kinds of texts that you would send during a really brutal breakup, like when you’re like, ‘Oh, my friend sees my ex in, in public. Can you please go talk to them?’ You know? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do they reveal about the power struggle at OpenAI though?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There was an attempted coup, essentially, precisely because of Sam Altman’s, uh, alleged managerial misbehavior, pitting different people against each other with different stories.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another OpenAI board member, Helen Toner, shed light on this in her deposition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Helen Toner basically said that Altman lied about what kind of safety reviews were done about, uh, models of ChatGPT that were released, that he ultimately cleared for release, and which, you know, she could say really wasn’t about AI safety, It was about this, you know, lack of trust in the communication. Microsoft, uh, CEO Satya Nadella, at one point he characterized the entire blip as amateur hour. Uh, these naive board members thinking that they could, you know, hold Sam Altman accountable, uh, for, for lying to them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Right. I mean, Brockman and Altman were both throwing around some pretty wild accusations about why Musk really wanted control of OpenAI. Um, Brockman said that he wanted to raise massive amounts of money to build a colony on Mars. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, Sam Altman claimed that Musk was planning to pass OpenAI down to his children when he died, like succession style. But I mean, everyone’s dirty laundry was aired out in that courtroom. Like, no one came out with clean hands, including Sam Altman. So what did the witnesses say about him and his character? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my goodness. There were so many people who described him as a liar to the extent that when finally he was directly questioned about being a liar, uh, and he didn’t answer the question directly, it just made him look more like a liar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There were so many people who talked about his lack of, uh, trustworthiness. Sam Altman on the witness stand for hours being asked why he’s such a big liar. His former chief scientist, his former chief technology officer, two former board members, all testifying under oath that Altman exhibited a consistent pattern of dishonesty.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is now in the public record forever.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">all of these guys come off as self-serving and, and, uh, backstabbing and oily. I wouldn’t wanna meet any of them in a dark alley or on the other side of a business deal. You know, like, they’re obviously not out for the benefit of humanity. But then we knew that. Didn’t we know that? I think we knew that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After all that, mountains of evidence, hours of testimony, brutal days spent on those cold, hard, unforgiving courtroom benches, unless you had a fancy butt cushion, the ending of this trial was kind of anticlimactic. It took the jury just two hours to come to a unanimous decision. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The jury decided that Musk simply waited too long to sue. California has statutes of limitations. So you can’t just sit on your claims forever.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, in the end nothing happened! But that doesn’t mean the trial was for nothing. What’s the real outcome here? What did this courtroom drama really reveal? After the break, a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Ok, after the break? We’re leaving the courtroom, and going back to the real world. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We’re back! Let’s open one last tab: Musk v. Altman outcome.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the jury rejected Musk’s case this week. But it’s important to note that they didn’t make that decision based on the legal merit of his case, just that it was too late for Musk to pursue it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the jury found that Musk knew or should have known what was happening at OpenAI by 2020 at the latest. He filed in 2024. He argued in court, you know, that that’s because it wasn’t that he was opposed to any kind of for-profit division. He just didn’t want one that dominated the nonprofit. And that didn’t become clear to him until 2023. So he wanted to essentially start the clock on the statue of limitations later on in the game\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But OpenAI argued and the judge essentially agreed that Musk needed to have made the case soon after what he saw happening at OpenAI by 2020 at the latest. So all three claims, breach of charitable trust, unjust enrichment, Microsoft aiding and abetting, are gone because of the statute of limitations thing, not because they decided on the merits.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hours after the verdict came out, Elon Musk responded in the most Elon Musk possible way, which is he took it to Twitter, uh, sorry, X, to complain. Um, he did a classic tweet and delete. So the first tweet he said, first post, “This illustrates why the ruling by the terrible activist Oakland judge, who simply used the jury as a fig leaf, creates such a terrible precedent. She just handed a free license to loot charities if you can keep the looting quiet for a few years.” And then deleted that. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then followed up, “Regarding the OpenAI case, the judge and jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case just on a calendar technicality. There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman and Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is when they did it.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did this response surprise you at all?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Not in the slightest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So now that she makes clear she agrees with the jury, Musk posted ‘she’s a terrible activist Oakland judge who handed out a free license to loot charities.’ Musk is just not sympathetic. Um, but I’m thinking, like President Trump, it wasn’t necessarily important to Musk to win the case, just to file it, to drag Altman through the mud in a very public way ahead of these two IPOs. If what you what is revenge, that’s not nothing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This trial did a number on Sam Altman’s public image. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It certainly revealed a lot of the circular business deals he was involved in. He may have recused himself from the actual votes with some of these companies but he nonetheless profited from them or could profit in the near future. I think this was a habit he picked up at Y Combinator. Anyway, it was laid bare in the courtroom. I think it put another nail in the coffin. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, there were protesters outside the courthouse with some very funny signs up. And they poked the most fun at Musk, but they also poked a lot of fun at Sam Altman. You know, it’s Sam Altman’s house that got a Molotov cocktail thrown at it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, like, I think there is a great deal of public discontent, even rage over the rollout of AI into all of our lives. And, you know, this train got rolling out of the station through OpenAI, through ChatGPT, uh, and, you know, it was off to the races for a bunch of companies. But there at the forefront, at least in the beginning, was OpenAI, and Sam Altman is the face of OpenAI. And so this trial and all the mountains of evidence just confirm for people their opinions of Sam Altman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, if there’s a fan club somebody’s gotta send me a T-shirt to prove it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A lot of Silicon Valley tends to operate in a kind of bubble, disconnected from the public’s growing discontent around AI. Students are graduating into increasingly unstable careers, thanks to companies pushing to replace human workers with AI, regardless of whether AI can do the jobs better. Nothing shows that disconnect quite like the reaction to commencement speakers who tried to praise AI to a room full of new graduates. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from University of Central Florida Graduation] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaker: The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crowd: Boos \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaker: Woo! What happened? Ok, I struck a chord! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Multiple commencement speakers across the country have tried to proselytize AI this month and they were booed each time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This rejection is not unfounded. While covering the trial, Rachael spoke to one of the protesters outside of the courthouse. Her name is Valerie. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valerie Sizemore:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I used to be a software engineer, but, um, have been unemployed by AI, so now I’m trying to make the resistance happen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this trial, um, these two CEOs are fighting over a piece of a pie that, uh, doesn’t really matter for the world. They’re just trying to make themselves richer, but we’re all gonna lose regardless of who wins.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The AI titans, and they are titans now, keep mistaking public resistance for ignorance. Somebody like Valerie isn’t failing to understand the wonders of AI. She’s recognizing that the costs like higher power bills, strained electrical grids, her job disappearing on, her career disappearing on her. Right? A technology class that treats the question of public consent as an annoying inconvenience. I guess what I’m getting at here, Morgan, is that we’re not talking about a PR problem. We’re talking about class warfare.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was a battle between two billionaires. The trial revolved around this core question: Is OpenAI’s commitment to the benefit of humanity real? Or, is the company’s commitment really to chasing profits at the expense of AI safety? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was supposed to be the trial of the century ended without answers or accountability. And by ruling on timing instead of the actual merits of the case, the trial also failed to establish any legal precedent for AI governance and guardrails. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s not gonna do a damn thing to stop this nightmare. Right? Obviously there’s gonna be an appeal from Musk’s attorneys. Who knows what’ll happen there? But you know, both Musk with his SpaceX IPO and Altman with his OpenAI IPO, they’re just gonna go forward as before. The AI rollout will go on as before.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who knows if we’ll ever get artificial general intelligence per se? I don’t think it matters. I mean, the changes that have been happening have been happening without artificial general intelligence. They’re, they’re disruptive enough. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> How do you think this case will impact future AI cases?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> OpenAI is a strange creature. It started as a nonprofit, maybe because Musk and Altman intuitively knew that, uh, they had a better chance of raising money at that time if they presented it as for the good of humanity as opposed to, you know, just a chance to get in on this gold rush.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right? And, and it must be said, and you know, many of the OpenAI principals said it many times that in the beginning, in the first few years of OpenAI, it was not clear at all it was gonna succeed, right? Google seemed to have such a head start and such a well-capitalized head start. So, you know, OpenAI has only become fabulously valued, um, in recent years, and it, it’s still not making money.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To go back to, you know, like what, what precedent does this set for Silicon Valley? I don’t know that it sets any precedent because who in their right mind would start something like OpenAI again in that way? You would set up a startup like any other group of entrepreneurs and take your chances with that setup.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of this theater ended with no real answers, no real accountability, and no real change for the AI industry overall. So then was the point of taking this case to court in the first place? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The judge put tight, and I mean tight brackets around what this case was going to be about at trial, which raises the question for me, why did she take this case in the first place?Why did she give Elon Musk standing if he had unclean hands? He was a rival. He was a competitor in the AI space. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that Gonzalez Rogers wanted these guys on both sides to be forced to peel back the curtain on how AI came to dominate the world in the way that it does now. And maybe the judge couldn’t give us accountability, but she could give us visibility, and that’s not nothing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And another upside: all those juicy, salacious details that were once just gossip fodder, that’s public record now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is there any legal precedent here? I think maybe the point was the theater.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s it for this episode, but stick around after the credits. Ok, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Chris Egusa and edited by Chris Hambrick. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes producer Maya Cueva and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by my dad, Casey Sung, and recorded on his white and blue Epomaker Aula F99 keyboard with Graywood v3 switches and Cherry profile PBT keycaps.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachael Myrow: Steve Molo, uh, the Musk’s attorney: “Have you misled people with whom you do business?” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman “I do not think so.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then Molo says, “Would they think so?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then Altman says, “I can’t answer that.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Molo says, “You’ve repeatedly been called a liar by people with whom you’ve done business.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman: “I have heard people say that.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Molo: “Are you completely trustworthy?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman: “I believe so.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Molo: “You don’t know?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman: “I’ll just amend my answer to yes.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "iran-is-winning-the-slopaganda-war",
"title": "Iran Is Winning The Slopaganda War",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI-generated LEGO videos have become a tool of war. Since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began in late February, increasingly elaborate videos featuring LEGO figures and catchy rap lyrics have been flooding our feeds. They’re shareable, surprisingly high quality and they’re deeply critical of the U.S. and Trump. They’re also propaganda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to the age of “slopaganda” — where AI Slop meets information warfare.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michał Klincewicz, assistant professor of computational cognitive science, joins Morgan to break down the rise of slopaganda, what it’s doing to our information ecosystem and why the U.S. is losing the meme war.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5115004196\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/site/michalklincewicz/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michał Klincewicz\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, assistant professor of computational cognitive science at Tilburg University\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://slopaganda-two.vercel.app/#paper\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda: The interaction between propaganda and generative AI\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Michal Klincewicz, Mark Alfano, and Amir Ebrahimi Fard, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Filosofiska Notiser \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/slopaganda-wars-how-and-why-the-us-and-iran-are-flooding-the-zone-with-viral-ai-generated-noise-280024\">Slopaganda wars: how (and why) the US and Iran are flooding the zone with viral AI-generated noise\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Mark Alfano and Michal Klincewicz, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>The Conversation\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/17/vengeance-for-all-how-irans-lego-videos-won-narrative-war-against-trump\">‘Vengeance for all’: How Iran’s Lego videos won narrative war against Trump | US-Israel war on Iran News\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Alia Chughtai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>Al Jazeera\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-team-behind-a-pro-iran-lego-themed-viral-video-campaign\">The Team Behind a Pro-Iran, Lego-Themed Viral-Video Campaign\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Kyle Chayka, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The New Yorker\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-removes-iran-linked-channel-producing-anti-trump-animation\">YouTube removes pro-Iran channel producing anti-Trump videos \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Alex MacDonald, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Middle East Eye\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/31/we-want-the-mullahs-gone-economic-crisis-sparks-biggest-protests-in-iran-since-2022\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘We want the mullahs gone’: economic crisis sparks biggest protests in Iran since 2022\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Deepa Parent and William Christou, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Guardian \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Host Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello! Do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? It would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show! Send it to your friends…your frenemies…that one niche micro influencer you kind of have a parasocial relationship with! Maybe they’ll respond, I don’t know!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let’s get to the show. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I just looked him in the eye and told him what I saw. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait a minute homie, I said Inshallah. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, it’s the straight of Iran.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man. Iran! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let me try to explain what’s going on here. So this is an animated video, and it’s clearly AI. The setting is LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean — and it opens by zooming in on this Davy Jones-type character. You know, the cursed pirate with the tentacle beard? But this Davy Jones also looks a lot like President Donald Trump. Instead of a peg leg, he has a golf club. And he’s steering his ship directly through a LEGO gate labeled “Strait of Hormuz.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, get straight out of Hormuz, little orange man. Get out!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is one of dozens of incredibly catchy, viral videos from a small content studio called Explosive Media. All of their videos follow a similar format: LEGO characters, and taking shots at the Trump administration and the United States. Like, calling the president “the Twitter-finger king.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Twitter finger king, fake ring, cap master with the lies. Always tweeting great success while your whole damn squad cries.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Based on the style, tone, and topics covered, you might think this content is coming from a left-wing American studio. Or maybe a progressive media outlet.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not that different from the kind of stuff the Democratic party has posted to appeal to gen z voters.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there’s a consistent thread through every single video — they all revolve around the war between the US and Iran. And it’s because they’re coming directly \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">from\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Iran. That’s right, it’s all propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wartime propaganda is nothing new. But take a look at the videos spreading across social media today … something feels different.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, get straight out of Hormuz, little orange man. Get out!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to the age of slopaganda. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a combination of “slop” as in AI slop and propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Guest Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> it’s out of the bottle. The genie is out of the bottle and it’s gonna be wrecking havoc for a while. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Michal Klincewicz. He’s a professor of computational cognitive science at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He’s one of the leading experts on slopaganda. He actually co-authored a paper on this last year. And he said that the slopaganda that’s coming out of Iran today is very different from the propaganda of past wars. It’s more potent. It’s churned out faster. There’s a clear, consistent narrative that pulls viewers in and convinces them to keep watching.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda has gotten really popular, making it harder to discern what’s real, and what’s not. When our information ecosystem is flooded with catchy LEGO music videos, what is it distracting us from? What happens when public opinion can be so easily manipulated by AI slop? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is the slopagandapocalypse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopageddon? Is that, is that better, slopageddon? Ooh!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. That’s better. You know, I just coined a term on your show, slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today’s deep dive is all about slopaganda: how it took over our feeds, what it’s doing to our brains, and why the US might be losing the meme war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Plus, we’re going to get into how we might be able to stop Slopaggeddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ready? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By now, you know this goes! Let’s open a new tab: What is slopaganda? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok let’s break this down. First: slop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slop is kind of mid to low quality AI generated content,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that is online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Michal again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So text, videos, images, anything of the sort \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI slop has been flooding the internet for years now, but more recently we’ve seen social media users embrace it, knowing it’s artificially generated, synthetic media. And that’s led to some slop content going viral. A few weeks ago we talked about an incredibly popular TikTok series called AI Fruit Love Island.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Fruit Love Island]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome back to Fruit Love Island. Today, we’ve got a steamy challenge. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was basically Love Island, the reality TV dating show, but all of the contestants were sexy anthropomorphized fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This kind of low-quality AI generated content has become the norm online. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then there’s the second part of the word, propaganda\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">,\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> or content that’s designed to deliver some kind of political message, usually to persuade.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So affect beliefs, perceptions,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">or emotional states of the audience or a political goal in mind. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Propaganda is not always about boosting patriotism on the home front. Across history, countries have used propaganda on their opponents’ citizens, to sow distrust in leadership. Like, during the Vietnam War, there was Hanoi Hannah. She was a Vietnamese broadcaster who recorded English language messages, designed to demoralize Americans GIs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Hanoi Hannah]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">GI your government has abandoned you . They lied to you, GI. You know you cannot win this war. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The US has done it too, and on a massive scale. In fact, the US has done this in Iran. Back in 1953, the CIA helped overthrow Iran’s democratically elected prime minister. They staged riots and planted fake stories in local news outlets to manipulate public opinion. It’s a tactic the US has repeatedly used over the last 70 years: sowing distrust, destabilizing leadership, and engineering a regime change in Syria, Indonesia, Poland, throughout Latin America. I mean, the list goes on and on. Propaganda plays a huge part in it. And when you add AI to the mix? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\nMichal actually published a research paper about slopaganda last year — long before LEGO AI videos went viral. He’s known his co-authors for years — Mark Alfano, a philosopher who studies neural networks, and Amir Fard, a machine learning expert. Among themselves, they’ve talked about how propaganda has evolved with social media, algorithms, and bot farms. But then, in May of 2024, right as the US presidential election began heating up, they shared an experience that changed how they thought about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were all in Poland for a conference. Since it wasn’t too far from where they were staying, they decided to take a trip to Auschwitz. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I think that was a kind of a watershed moment for us because we connected the dots really very dramatically between what was happening and the way that things were talked about in the United States and what we were seeing.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The National Socialist Party of Germany had a propaganda wing. They used the radio, they used the newspapers, but they were delivering a message of disinformation about people that ended up dying there. And I think that for us, this caught fire. We talked about slopaganda right then and there. Eventually, this led up to writing a paper with Amir in November and December of 2024. We sort of channeled that rage and anger. That’s how it happened.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the paper, the researchers detail the one-off deepfakes that went viral during the election: Kamala Harris saying something she never did, the AI generated images that made Taylor Swift look like she endorsed Trump, the voters who got calls from a voice that sounded exactly like then-President Joe Biden, encouraging them to stay home and not vote in the state primary.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip of Robocall sent to New Hampshire voters]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then last year, right after inauguration, President Trump himself posted a video and it wasn’t a deepfake. Michal said that was the tipping point that started the descent into slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a, I guess, a moment when Donald Trump during an interview or something said something about building a resort in Gaza city after the Israelis sort of move in, I guess. And they will build a resort, a Riviera on the coast of the Mediterranean and an AI video came out showing this and Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump sort of drinking margaritas poolside with Gaza Trump hotel in the background.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Donald Trump Gaza video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donald’s coming to set you free, bringing the light for all to see. No more tunnels, no more fear. Trump Gaza is finally here.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That was like the first one that clearly for us was emblematic of this. The first clear case of like, slopaganda as we envisioned it, I think is the Gaza video\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To be clear, this was a video posted by Donald Trump’s official account. The video starts with Gaza, demolished and reduced to rubble. Then, it’s transformed into a tourist destination. It’s gaudy and over the top, like if Vegas was on the beach. There’s a giant gold statue of President Trump, looming over everyone. There are market stands that sell golden effigies of Trump, and children carry golden balloons of Trump’s face. Elon Musk makes a few appearances, throwing cash at beachgoers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Donald Trump Gaza video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trump Gaza shining bright, golden future, a brand new light. Feast and dance, the deal is done. Trump Gaza number one.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s uncanny and it’s almost designed to not take seriously. Right? It’s a way of portraying something abhorrent in a way, something morally problematic, at least, if not despicable, um, through a joke,and it slips past, I think our moral defenses in a way, because we’re fascinated by that, right? Like just kind of watching the train wreck, the moral train wreck in that video, and we watch it to the end. Um, that’s a little bit like maybe reality TV or something.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a kind of thing that happens as you’re watching it. By the end, it’s somehow conceivable. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Trump administration was just the first. Slopaganda flooded elections in Europe, too. Russia’s propaganda machine dates back to the days of the Soviet Union — AI just supercharged it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the defining issues of our times, the use of artificial intelligence. And the risks that it could pose not only to all our jobs, but to democracy itself…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This year, during the Hungarian election for prime minister, the country’s social media feeds were overrun with fearmongering AI slop videos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…a message he’s hammering home with the help of AI…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They claimed that Hungarians would be forcibly sent to war in Ukraine.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video ends with a warning that Brussels could make such a nightmare real…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course, none of it was real. The candidate behind those ads, the incumbent prime minister, has close ties to Vladimir Putin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s the same stuff that we would have seen from Russia. So, you know, disinformation campaigns about candidates, scandals, of corruption. Right? Narratives that are meant to like undermine, for example, the effort to put sanctions on Russia. All of these things are amplified with generative AI content so text, images, videos, and so on. And some of these are very effective or effective in that they’re like high quality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So why is slopaganda flooding our feeds? There’s no escape from it. It’s polluting pretty much every political conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But, in the U.S. specifically especially slopaganda from the White House. well, Michal said that it may have something to do with the ties between the US government and big tech companies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The long-term consequences of mixing corporate power and governance is very well known and studied around the world. It’s called fascism and a classic Italian Mussolini style fascism. That’s what they built in Italy and they kind of with a few tweaks, re-implemented in Germany. The rise of slopaganda or rise of like AI generated content has political consequences, even independently of that, because I think it gives a lot of power to a few people that can create the message. And it takes power away from the individuals that will be at the voting booth casting a vote. The person that controls the prompt, as we saw like with Grok or something, changes the conversation.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, but why can’t we look away from AI slop? What about it is so effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to get into that — after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Ok, more on slopaganda after the break. Stick around. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Let’s open a new tab: Why is slopaganda so effective?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve seen people refer to what’s currently happening between the U.S. And Iran as a meme war, and memes have been very potent vehicles of propaganda and disinformation. There’s a long documented history of memes being weaponized in politics and conflict. What makes this current iteration with slopaganda different? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/strong>It’s generated quickly, the quality is much higher. It’s more persuasive, it’s more complex. It has many layers: an audio one, a visual one, a narrative one, that are done extremely professionally. So all of that has to do with the fact that it’s generated by AI actually. So these tools enable this kind of fast turnaround, high quality stuff to come out. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Explosive Media, the digital content studio behind a lot of LEGO slopaganda, started posting animated political videos on YouTube last year. They had an anti-American theme, but didn’t really catch on. A few months ago, right around the first US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Explosive Media began posting LEGO-themed videos. And they blew up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the earlier videos had no dialogue, just intense music. It showed scenes of people who’ve been oppressed by the American government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Native American riders on horses, dressed in traditional regalia, Japanese villagers gathered in front of a photo of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb, Palestinians in Gaza, West Africans who were chained and subjected to slavery and they’re all LEGOs. They take turns sending missiles to the White House, the Statue of Liberty, and the Titanic? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They gather and cheer, and text appears that says, “One Vengeance For All.” \u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That got some attention, but only went so far. Then Explosive Media added rapping on top of the LEGO videos … and suddenly, they’d cracked the code. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You said you aint no pedophile, but bitch, you are. Yelling worldwide for the Epstein scar. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Iranian videos are using the language of the contemporary dialogue about colonialism, about imperialism about, uh, the Epstein class.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audio clips from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sacred defense, we protecting the soil, while you sacrifice soldiers to pay for your spoil. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We see everything, every secret, every dirty Epstein link you hide \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your government is run by pedophiles, they ordered you to die for Israel. They lied to you all. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> All of these things are the kinds of words or the kinds of concepts that we can hear being thrown around by people in the US that comment on current affairs. This is what Iran is doing. They’re not presenting their propaganda or their message using the language of, say, Shia Islam or the Iran-Iraqi war or any of these that really matter to the old guard. Of the Iranian revolution. This stuff is new, it’s fresh, it hit, and it’s kind of capturing our attention here as opposed to the attention of the Iranians there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The LEGO music videos are so effective that it’s inspiring similar ones, from people in other countries, who also feel wronged by the US.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earlier this month, the US announced additional sanctions on Cuba, which has already been devastated by the American-imposed fuel blockade.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Days after that announcement, an X user, based in Havana, posted this video: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of AI video from Cuba]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Escucha el rugido que Baja del Lomerío Aquí no hay miedo ni rastro de escalofrío Pretenden asfixiar la sabia de esta tierra con garras de imperio y tambores de guerra…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The translation – \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">listen to the roar descending from the hills. Here, there is no fear, nor a trace of a shiver. They seek to suffocate the sap of this land with claws of empire and war drums.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This video’s got it all. LEGO-fied depictions of Havana’s colorful cityscape, the idyllic Caribbean beaches, the vibrant tobacco farms wrapped up with a patriotic message about defending Cuba from an American invasion and obviously, set to a very catchy beat.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a trend now. Criticizing the US in any way? Do it with LEGO! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The White House has also been posting slopaganda to its various official channels. Though the American version is, well … just listen to this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from White House Strike video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here comes the heat from the USA. And boom! Up and down. What a strike. [cheering]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, so that video, again, posted by\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the White House, starts with an ESPN clip of real life bowling champion Pete Weber preparing for his legendary winning strike. Then it cuts to a bunch of animated bowling pins carrying guns and a sign that says “We won’t stop making nuclear weapons.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird playing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re in a desert. They’re marching. And yes, that is Lynyrd Skynyrd’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Free Bird\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that you’re hearing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Suddenly, they’re in a bowling alley, getting into formation … and then a bowling ball emblazoned with American stars and stripes comes hurtling toward them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The pins come tumbling down, and a fighter jet comes flying out of the bowling ball. And as the beat picks up, the video cuts to real footage of American airstrikes on Iran. Fade to black. And then a title card that says “ The White House.” In case you forgot who made the video.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re not really high quality stuff. This is kind of their memes or content for made by, I think, boomers for boomers, essentially. And I think the LEGO videos from Iran are made by millennials for the world. And the White House is using the kind of language and conceptual tools that may have been effective 30 years ago. The messages are kind of mixed. They don’t form a coherent narrative the Iranian stuff on the other hand is very coherent and there is a way in which it’s presenting a narrative from one video to the next. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Gulf is our hood, and we holdin’ the key, Get back on your phone, you, get no pass for free! World is askin’ if the gate is open? Yes or nah? I just smile at ’em…”I said Inshallah!” \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s almost as if these things were episodes that come out every day.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A spokesperson for Explosive Media told Al Jazeera that there are ten people who work on their videos. It’s a Gen Z studio — all of them are between 19 and 25. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would speculate a large team of people that know what they’re doing, have a very keen sense of both the media landscape in the United States and in the world, but also of the themes. So I would think this is probably the tip of an iceberg of some kind of a massive media and propaganda operation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The studio claims to be independent, but has admitted that their clientele does include the Iranian state. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it shows in how the slopaganda videos are used. They’re used to really undermine the war effort in the United States and to, I think, get Americans and other people around the world on their side.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Until recently, a lot of AI generated media has been designed to intentionally dupe people, the deepfaked call of Biden’s voice, telling voters to stay home, the videos of Ukrainian soldiers, appearing to surrender on the front lines.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the Iranian LEGO videos are so obviously AI slop. No one thinks the LEGO guy in the Little Orange Man video is \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">actually \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trump. No one is getting duped into believing that’s really him, dressed in a pirate get up and getting shipwrecked in Iran. So why is this propaganda still so effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perhaps it’s so effective because it appears not to be real. These are not deep fakes. No one is pretending that this is real, that we know it’s AI generated, that kind of sucks you in. And there’s some kind of uncanniness about it. We’re kind of like, wait, what? And that moment I think is the first hook. There’s probably different videos, different styles of slopaganda for different audiences. That’s also one of its powers, that it’s so easy to make a customized version of the same message for a specific audience. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In various interviews, a spokesperson for Explosive Media who goes by “Mr. Explosive” explained some of the team’s processes. He’s talked about how poetry is a pillar of Persian history and culture, so the team writes the rap lyrics themselves. Then, they use AI to Americanize the songs and generate the singing voices.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s clear that they have their fingers on the pulse of American pop culture. The Pirates of the Caribbean, for one, is one of Disney’s most successful franchises. It’s something that’s immediately recognizable and familiar to a lot of Americans. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listen … Lost in our fog, you call us the pirates? Man, check the mirror, dawg, you’re the one that’s biased, Vultures on the water, fiending for the black gold, Straight freeloaders, doing what you’re told! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of these references are the sorts of things you may hear from more progressive liberal parts of our country about the problems of say, you know, wealth inequality or abuse of power, corruption by the Trump administration. This is where this stuff is coming from. So they’re kind of using the message that actually would resonate with people that are already in some ways uncomfortable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, this video, which is an outlier for Explosive Media. Instead of a story about LEGO pirate Trump bumbling his way through the strait of Hormuz, this one starts with an overhead shot of Tehran. A LEGO version, of course. A LEGO figurine smiles at the audience and holds out his arms to the viewer, like he’s welcoming us in for a hug. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We do not hate you, people of the West. We have watched from across the ocean, from behind their walls, and what we see is a people who deserve better than what rules them.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video lays out all these grievances with the American government and mainstream media. These are sentiments that resonate with a lot of Americans: concerns over rising costs, opposition to another war, feeling disempowered by the current political system.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The billionaire who funds the law then writes the law himself, the pharmaceutical machine that keeps you sick for profit and wealth. The school that teaches history with chapters torn away. So you never ask the question, who made it this way? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The previous videos from Explosive Media have always attacked Trump or members of his cabinet. And for the most part, left the American people out of it. This video directly addresses Americans. Instead of taking personal shots at specific leaders, it’s a critique of the systemic failures of American society at large. It’s almost a show of solidarity.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are not your enemies. We’re prisoners of the same cause. We love Americans. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s convincing. It’s supposed to be. This is the kind of emotional appeal that makes propaganda especially effective. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, emotions are the first thing that we may have when we see a message. And if they’re negative emotions, in particular things like fear or anxiety or resentment, whatever it is that we experience or we believe while we have these emotional states, we’re more likely to remember. There’s a lot of research about this and the negativity bias in memory is pretty prominent and once it’s in there, it doesn’t get out. So you form that negative association with a politician or some kind of a celebrity, it’s gonna be very hard for you to get rid of it moving forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When there’s so much noise, it’s hard to pick out what’s real and what’s not. There’s only so much information that a human being can consume and process every day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What breaks through the noise and captures our attention tends to be content that’s emotionally alarming. It triggers our brain’s emotional center before we can process that information rationally. And studies have shown that people remember negative information better … which can ultimately influence our beliefs and reasoning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Between a dry news article and a catchy LEGO video — which one are you going to remember next week? Next month? Next election cycle? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s important to note that these videos are a very effective distraction. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All that stuff is distracting us from the nature of the Iranian regime that literally in January, machine gunned like tens of thousands of its own people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the end of last year, amid Iran’s worsening economic crisis, shop keepers and university students took to the streets in protest of the country’s Islamic leadership. A week later, demonstrations erupted across the country, calling for an end to the religious government, and demanding a secular democracy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Iranian authorities crushed the protests with brutal force. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Tehran eyewitness protest footage]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re shooting us! They’re shooting us! This government is shooting people.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Human rights groups say more than 7,000 people were killed during the protests, with tens of thousands more still unaccounted for.Doctors in Iran estimate that the death toll could be over 30,000.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two things can be true. The LEGO slopaganda videos coming out of Iran make points about the US that a lot of Americans might agree with about its leadership, and how it’s failing its own people while also taking the spotlight off of Iran’s own government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even if you know that the LEGO videos are fake and AI, if they’re hijacking your attention, drowning out other content online then the slopaganda is doing what it’s supposed to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That changes how we consume information, whether we care about truth at all. And that’s very bad for a democracy, actually, if you have a bunch of people that don’t care about what is true and are used to not taking what people say seriously. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what happens when LEGO rap overshadows actual news? When we can’t look away from an AI generated diss track? When a whole population can be so easily distracted? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaggedon. Michal and his co-authors call it the slopaganda shit storm. For our next tab, we’ll go with my favorite: slopagandapocalypse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open one more tab: How to survive the slopagandapocalypse \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michal said it’s not really a question of stopping the slopaganda doomsday scenario — we’re already living it. And slopaganda is, relatively speaking, so new. We’re in uncharted waters here, and we don’t have solid research on the effects that slopaganda will have on society and democracy down the road. But Michal has a few hunches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One real possible consequence of this is that slopaganda is going to be here for, to stay And it will be a tool in the toolbox of every authoritarian regime in the world, just as like batons and riot police have been.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So will this be, uh, it will just be AI generated, slop is gonna be yet another way to bamboozle, distract people around the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda has already wormed its way into LA’s mayoral race, with former reality TV star and current candidate Spencer Pratt reposting AI-generated videos of his opponent. Like this Star Wars-themed one, where incumbent LA mayor Karen Bass, portrayed as Darth Vader, schemes with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who’s deepfaked as Emperor Palpatine. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip of AI-generated video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You didn’t finish burning the city to the ground in the first term. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Make sure you finish the job in your second term. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The only thing that can stop us is someone telling the truth. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As long as they don’t have any hope, the city is ours. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Spencer Pratt appears, depicted as a Jedi, and battles Darth Karen above the Hollywood sign. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[lightsaber sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is peak slopaganda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You could argue that AI tools have, in some way, democratized the creation of propaganda. Anyone with access to a video generator and a taste for pop culture has the potential to make their message go viral. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda itself, and the AI tools used to create it, are morally neutral. Michal joked about how we \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">could\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> have more slopaganda about recycling, or being nice to each other. But instead, we’re increasingly seeing political candidates and government institutions use it to undermine opponents and steer the narrative. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s going to give a lot of power to people that have a lot of money to do this, that will be able to basically create the world in their own image. The second consequence of this, and I think this is maybe optimistic, is that people are going to turn away from the internet. I think that there’s a way in which AI content is kind of really taking over all the spaces on the internet that people cared about. And I think at some point you’re just gonna say, you know what, yeah, I have better things to do in my time. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are there any feasible interventions to stopping the slopageddon? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you were to look a little bit more to Europe, I think there’s some ideas about what this could look like. There’s the Digital Services Act, which is connected to the European Commission, and the AI Act. These are legal instruments meant to police basically Facebook and X and so on from stealing European citizens’ data. The tech companies hate them because they have real bite.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unfortunately, Michal doesn’t see that happening in the U.S.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think there’s gonna be any meaningful institutional interventions from the United States anytime soon\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California, for one, has tried to crack down. Back in 2024, Governor Newsom signed a series of laws that required more disclosure and transparency around political deepfakes, and required social media companies to remove the “deceptive” content before an election.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Here’s the twist: Slopaganda might actually be protected by the First Amendment — it could be considered satire or political speech. Long story short, Elon Musk sued the state, and now my X feed is full of AI Spencer Pratt doing deepfake Return of the Jedi.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Lightsaber sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zooming out, back to the war between the US and Iran, it’s clear that the White House slopaganda, reactive, disjointed, made to appeal to Boomers, is failing to reach a lot of its own citizens. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think it’s working. I think it’s kind of cringey and, and clunky stuff but I think maybe they’re portraying themselves as, as you know, winning the war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So, without institutional change, what can individual people do to be a little more resilient to slopaganda? Not just in this war, but in any political setting? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Slopaganda, again, is neither good nor bad on its own, right? Just remember who is sending this stuff and why. Educate yourself a little bit about the larger context of what’s happening. There’s a history there, There are motivations that are hidden behind the cute videos that we may not know about.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We need to remember why we’re watching this content in the first place, and interrogate its purpose. What kind of reaction is it eliciting? What is it distracting you from? How did it come across your feed in the first place? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you get overwhelmed, well, Michal has one temporary solution. Log off! Touch grass! The slop is never ending but you can still give your brain a break from consuming it.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think we need more love in our life. I mean, seriously, just get away from the internet a little bit from social media and just kind of start, um, hanging out. With each other more, and then this stuff just doesn’t matter.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And with that, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you like these deep dives? Are you closing your tabs? Then don’t forget to rate and review us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show! Maybe drop a comment too! And if you really like Close All Tabs and want to support public media, go to donate.KQED.org/podcasts! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think there just aren’t enough professionals there anymore. Maybe they got rid of them with Project 2025. I don’t know. Maybe there is no more media wing of the White House.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The DOGE cuts hit deep.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The DOGE cuts. That’s why this stuff is clunky and sucks. These memes are not dank! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The war in Iran has led to the emergence of \"slopaganda\" — where AI slop meets information warfare.",
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"title": "Iran Is Winning The Slopaganda War | KQED",
"description": "AI-generated Lego videos have become a tool of war. Since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began in late February, increasingly elaborate videos featuring LEGO figures and catchy rap lyrics have been flooding our feeds. They're shareable, surprisingly high quality and they're deeply critical of the U.S. and Trump. They're also propaganda. Welcome to the age of "slopaganda" — where AI Slop meets information warfare. Michał Klincewicz, professor of computational cognitive science, joins Morgan to break down the rise of slopaganda, what it's doing to our information ecosystem and why the U.S. is losing the meme war.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI-generated LEGO videos have become a tool of war. Since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began in late February, increasingly elaborate videos featuring LEGO figures and catchy rap lyrics have been flooding our feeds. They’re shareable, surprisingly high quality and they’re deeply critical of the U.S. and Trump. They’re also propaganda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to the age of “slopaganda” — where AI Slop meets information warfare.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michał Klincewicz, assistant professor of computational cognitive science, joins Morgan to break down the rise of slopaganda, what it’s doing to our information ecosystem and why the U.S. is losing the meme war.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5115004196\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/site/michalklincewicz/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michał Klincewicz\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, assistant professor of computational cognitive science at Tilburg University\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://slopaganda-two.vercel.app/#paper\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda: The interaction between propaganda and generative AI\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Michal Klincewicz, Mark Alfano, and Amir Ebrahimi Fard, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Filosofiska Notiser \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/slopaganda-wars-how-and-why-the-us-and-iran-are-flooding-the-zone-with-viral-ai-generated-noise-280024\">Slopaganda wars: how (and why) the US and Iran are flooding the zone with viral AI-generated noise\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Mark Alfano and Michal Klincewicz, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>The Conversation\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/17/vengeance-for-all-how-irans-lego-videos-won-narrative-war-against-trump\">‘Vengeance for all’: How Iran’s Lego videos won narrative war against Trump | US-Israel war on Iran News\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Alia Chughtai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>Al Jazeera\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-team-behind-a-pro-iran-lego-themed-viral-video-campaign\">The Team Behind a Pro-Iran, Lego-Themed Viral-Video Campaign\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Kyle Chayka, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The New Yorker\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-removes-iran-linked-channel-producing-anti-trump-animation\">YouTube removes pro-Iran channel producing anti-Trump videos \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Alex MacDonald, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Middle East Eye\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/31/we-want-the-mullahs-gone-economic-crisis-sparks-biggest-protests-in-iran-since-2022\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘We want the mullahs gone’: economic crisis sparks biggest protests in Iran since 2022\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Deepa Parent and William Christou, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Guardian \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Host Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello! Do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? It would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show! Send it to your friends…your frenemies…that one niche micro influencer you kind of have a parasocial relationship with! Maybe they’ll respond, I don’t know!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let’s get to the show. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I just looked him in the eye and told him what I saw. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait a minute homie, I said Inshallah. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, it’s the straight of Iran.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man. Iran! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let me try to explain what’s going on here. So this is an animated video, and it’s clearly AI. The setting is LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean — and it opens by zooming in on this Davy Jones-type character. You know, the cursed pirate with the tentacle beard? But this Davy Jones also looks a lot like President Donald Trump. Instead of a peg leg, he has a golf club. And he’s steering his ship directly through a LEGO gate labeled “Strait of Hormuz.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, get straight out of Hormuz, little orange man. Get out!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is one of dozens of incredibly catchy, viral videos from a small content studio called Explosive Media. All of their videos follow a similar format: LEGO characters, and taking shots at the Trump administration and the United States. Like, calling the president “the Twitter-finger king.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Twitter finger king, fake ring, cap master with the lies. Always tweeting great success while your whole damn squad cries.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Based on the style, tone, and topics covered, you might think this content is coming from a left-wing American studio. Or maybe a progressive media outlet.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not that different from the kind of stuff the Democratic party has posted to appeal to gen z voters.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there’s a consistent thread through every single video — they all revolve around the war between the US and Iran. And it’s because they’re coming directly \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">from\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Iran. That’s right, it’s all propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wartime propaganda is nothing new. But take a look at the videos spreading across social media today … something feels different.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, get straight out of Hormuz, little orange man. Get out!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to the age of slopaganda. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a combination of “slop” as in AI slop and propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Guest Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> it’s out of the bottle. The genie is out of the bottle and it’s gonna be wrecking havoc for a while. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Michal Klincewicz. He’s a professor of computational cognitive science at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He’s one of the leading experts on slopaganda. He actually co-authored a paper on this last year. And he said that the slopaganda that’s coming out of Iran today is very different from the propaganda of past wars. It’s more potent. It’s churned out faster. There’s a clear, consistent narrative that pulls viewers in and convinces them to keep watching.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda has gotten really popular, making it harder to discern what’s real, and what’s not. When our information ecosystem is flooded with catchy LEGO music videos, what is it distracting us from? What happens when public opinion can be so easily manipulated by AI slop? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is the slopagandapocalypse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopageddon? Is that, is that better, slopageddon? Ooh!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. That’s better. You know, I just coined a term on your show, slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today’s deep dive is all about slopaganda: how it took over our feeds, what it’s doing to our brains, and why the US might be losing the meme war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Plus, we’re going to get into how we might be able to stop Slopaggeddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ready? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By now, you know this goes! Let’s open a new tab: What is slopaganda? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok let’s break this down. First: slop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slop is kind of mid to low quality AI generated content,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that is online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Michal again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So text, videos, images, anything of the sort \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI slop has been flooding the internet for years now, but more recently we’ve seen social media users embrace it, knowing it’s artificially generated, synthetic media. And that’s led to some slop content going viral. A few weeks ago we talked about an incredibly popular TikTok series called AI Fruit Love Island.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Fruit Love Island]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome back to Fruit Love Island. Today, we’ve got a steamy challenge. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was basically Love Island, the reality TV dating show, but all of the contestants were sexy anthropomorphized fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This kind of low-quality AI generated content has become the norm online. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then there’s the second part of the word, propaganda\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">,\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> or content that’s designed to deliver some kind of political message, usually to persuade.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So affect beliefs, perceptions,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">or emotional states of the audience or a political goal in mind. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Propaganda is not always about boosting patriotism on the home front. Across history, countries have used propaganda on their opponents’ citizens, to sow distrust in leadership. Like, during the Vietnam War, there was Hanoi Hannah. She was a Vietnamese broadcaster who recorded English language messages, designed to demoralize Americans GIs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Hanoi Hannah]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">GI your government has abandoned you . They lied to you, GI. You know you cannot win this war. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The US has done it too, and on a massive scale. In fact, the US has done this in Iran. Back in 1953, the CIA helped overthrow Iran’s democratically elected prime minister. They staged riots and planted fake stories in local news outlets to manipulate public opinion. It’s a tactic the US has repeatedly used over the last 70 years: sowing distrust, destabilizing leadership, and engineering a regime change in Syria, Indonesia, Poland, throughout Latin America. I mean, the list goes on and on. Propaganda plays a huge part in it. And when you add AI to the mix? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\nMichal actually published a research paper about slopaganda last year — long before LEGO AI videos went viral. He’s known his co-authors for years — Mark Alfano, a philosopher who studies neural networks, and Amir Fard, a machine learning expert. Among themselves, they’ve talked about how propaganda has evolved with social media, algorithms, and bot farms. But then, in May of 2024, right as the US presidential election began heating up, they shared an experience that changed how they thought about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were all in Poland for a conference. Since it wasn’t too far from where they were staying, they decided to take a trip to Auschwitz. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I think that was a kind of a watershed moment for us because we connected the dots really very dramatically between what was happening and the way that things were talked about in the United States and what we were seeing.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The National Socialist Party of Germany had a propaganda wing. They used the radio, they used the newspapers, but they were delivering a message of disinformation about people that ended up dying there. And I think that for us, this caught fire. We talked about slopaganda right then and there. Eventually, this led up to writing a paper with Amir in November and December of 2024. We sort of channeled that rage and anger. That’s how it happened.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the paper, the researchers detail the one-off deepfakes that went viral during the election: Kamala Harris saying something she never did, the AI generated images that made Taylor Swift look like she endorsed Trump, the voters who got calls from a voice that sounded exactly like then-President Joe Biden, encouraging them to stay home and not vote in the state primary.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip of Robocall sent to New Hampshire voters]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then last year, right after inauguration, President Trump himself posted a video and it wasn’t a deepfake. Michal said that was the tipping point that started the descent into slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a, I guess, a moment when Donald Trump during an interview or something said something about building a resort in Gaza city after the Israelis sort of move in, I guess. And they will build a resort, a Riviera on the coast of the Mediterranean and an AI video came out showing this and Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump sort of drinking margaritas poolside with Gaza Trump hotel in the background.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Donald Trump Gaza video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donald’s coming to set you free, bringing the light for all to see. No more tunnels, no more fear. Trump Gaza is finally here.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That was like the first one that clearly for us was emblematic of this. The first clear case of like, slopaganda as we envisioned it, I think is the Gaza video\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To be clear, this was a video posted by Donald Trump’s official account. The video starts with Gaza, demolished and reduced to rubble. Then, it’s transformed into a tourist destination. It’s gaudy and over the top, like if Vegas was on the beach. There’s a giant gold statue of President Trump, looming over everyone. There are market stands that sell golden effigies of Trump, and children carry golden balloons of Trump’s face. Elon Musk makes a few appearances, throwing cash at beachgoers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Donald Trump Gaza video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trump Gaza shining bright, golden future, a brand new light. Feast and dance, the deal is done. Trump Gaza number one.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s uncanny and it’s almost designed to not take seriously. Right? It’s a way of portraying something abhorrent in a way, something morally problematic, at least, if not despicable, um, through a joke,and it slips past, I think our moral defenses in a way, because we’re fascinated by that, right? Like just kind of watching the train wreck, the moral train wreck in that video, and we watch it to the end. Um, that’s a little bit like maybe reality TV or something.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a kind of thing that happens as you’re watching it. By the end, it’s somehow conceivable. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Trump administration was just the first. Slopaganda flooded elections in Europe, too. Russia’s propaganda machine dates back to the days of the Soviet Union — AI just supercharged it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the defining issues of our times, the use of artificial intelligence. And the risks that it could pose not only to all our jobs, but to democracy itself…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This year, during the Hungarian election for prime minister, the country’s social media feeds were overrun with fearmongering AI slop videos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…a message he’s hammering home with the help of AI…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They claimed that Hungarians would be forcibly sent to war in Ukraine.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video ends with a warning that Brussels could make such a nightmare real…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course, none of it was real. The candidate behind those ads, the incumbent prime minister, has close ties to Vladimir Putin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s the same stuff that we would have seen from Russia. So, you know, disinformation campaigns about candidates, scandals, of corruption. Right? Narratives that are meant to like undermine, for example, the effort to put sanctions on Russia. All of these things are amplified with generative AI content so text, images, videos, and so on. And some of these are very effective or effective in that they’re like high quality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So why is slopaganda flooding our feeds? There’s no escape from it. It’s polluting pretty much every political conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But, in the U.S. specifically especially slopaganda from the White House. well, Michal said that it may have something to do with the ties between the US government and big tech companies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The long-term consequences of mixing corporate power and governance is very well known and studied around the world. It’s called fascism and a classic Italian Mussolini style fascism. That’s what they built in Italy and they kind of with a few tweaks, re-implemented in Germany. The rise of slopaganda or rise of like AI generated content has political consequences, even independently of that, because I think it gives a lot of power to a few people that can create the message. And it takes power away from the individuals that will be at the voting booth casting a vote. The person that controls the prompt, as we saw like with Grok or something, changes the conversation.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, but why can’t we look away from AI slop? What about it is so effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to get into that — after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Ok, more on slopaganda after the break. Stick around. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Let’s open a new tab: Why is slopaganda so effective?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve seen people refer to what’s currently happening between the U.S. And Iran as a meme war, and memes have been very potent vehicles of propaganda and disinformation. There’s a long documented history of memes being weaponized in politics and conflict. What makes this current iteration with slopaganda different? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/strong>It’s generated quickly, the quality is much higher. It’s more persuasive, it’s more complex. It has many layers: an audio one, a visual one, a narrative one, that are done extremely professionally. So all of that has to do with the fact that it’s generated by AI actually. So these tools enable this kind of fast turnaround, high quality stuff to come out. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Explosive Media, the digital content studio behind a lot of LEGO slopaganda, started posting animated political videos on YouTube last year. They had an anti-American theme, but didn’t really catch on. A few months ago, right around the first US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Explosive Media began posting LEGO-themed videos. And they blew up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the earlier videos had no dialogue, just intense music. It showed scenes of people who’ve been oppressed by the American government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Native American riders on horses, dressed in traditional regalia, Japanese villagers gathered in front of a photo of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb, Palestinians in Gaza, West Africans who were chained and subjected to slavery and they’re all LEGOs. They take turns sending missiles to the White House, the Statue of Liberty, and the Titanic? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They gather and cheer, and text appears that says, “One Vengeance For All.” \u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That got some attention, but only went so far. Then Explosive Media added rapping on top of the LEGO videos … and suddenly, they’d cracked the code. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You said you aint no pedophile, but bitch, you are. Yelling worldwide for the Epstein scar. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Iranian videos are using the language of the contemporary dialogue about colonialism, about imperialism about, uh, the Epstein class.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audio clips from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sacred defense, we protecting the soil, while you sacrifice soldiers to pay for your spoil. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We see everything, every secret, every dirty Epstein link you hide \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your government is run by pedophiles, they ordered you to die for Israel. They lied to you all. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> All of these things are the kinds of words or the kinds of concepts that we can hear being thrown around by people in the US that comment on current affairs. This is what Iran is doing. They’re not presenting their propaganda or their message using the language of, say, Shia Islam or the Iran-Iraqi war or any of these that really matter to the old guard. Of the Iranian revolution. This stuff is new, it’s fresh, it hit, and it’s kind of capturing our attention here as opposed to the attention of the Iranians there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The LEGO music videos are so effective that it’s inspiring similar ones, from people in other countries, who also feel wronged by the US.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earlier this month, the US announced additional sanctions on Cuba, which has already been devastated by the American-imposed fuel blockade.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Days after that announcement, an X user, based in Havana, posted this video: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of AI video from Cuba]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Escucha el rugido que Baja del Lomerío Aquí no hay miedo ni rastro de escalofrío Pretenden asfixiar la sabia de esta tierra con garras de imperio y tambores de guerra…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The translation – \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">listen to the roar descending from the hills. Here, there is no fear, nor a trace of a shiver. They seek to suffocate the sap of this land with claws of empire and war drums.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This video’s got it all. LEGO-fied depictions of Havana’s colorful cityscape, the idyllic Caribbean beaches, the vibrant tobacco farms wrapped up with a patriotic message about defending Cuba from an American invasion and obviously, set to a very catchy beat.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a trend now. Criticizing the US in any way? Do it with LEGO! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The White House has also been posting slopaganda to its various official channels. Though the American version is, well … just listen to this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from White House Strike video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here comes the heat from the USA. And boom! Up and down. What a strike. [cheering]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, so that video, again, posted by\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the White House, starts with an ESPN clip of real life bowling champion Pete Weber preparing for his legendary winning strike. Then it cuts to a bunch of animated bowling pins carrying guns and a sign that says “We won’t stop making nuclear weapons.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird playing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re in a desert. They’re marching. And yes, that is Lynyrd Skynyrd’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Free Bird\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that you’re hearing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Suddenly, they’re in a bowling alley, getting into formation … and then a bowling ball emblazoned with American stars and stripes comes hurtling toward them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The pins come tumbling down, and a fighter jet comes flying out of the bowling ball. And as the beat picks up, the video cuts to real footage of American airstrikes on Iran. Fade to black. And then a title card that says “ The White House.” In case you forgot who made the video.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re not really high quality stuff. This is kind of their memes or content for made by, I think, boomers for boomers, essentially. And I think the LEGO videos from Iran are made by millennials for the world. And the White House is using the kind of language and conceptual tools that may have been effective 30 years ago. The messages are kind of mixed. They don’t form a coherent narrative the Iranian stuff on the other hand is very coherent and there is a way in which it’s presenting a narrative from one video to the next. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Gulf is our hood, and we holdin’ the key, Get back on your phone, you, get no pass for free! World is askin’ if the gate is open? Yes or nah? I just smile at ’em…”I said Inshallah!” \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s almost as if these things were episodes that come out every day.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A spokesperson for Explosive Media told Al Jazeera that there are ten people who work on their videos. It’s a Gen Z studio — all of them are between 19 and 25. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would speculate a large team of people that know what they’re doing, have a very keen sense of both the media landscape in the United States and in the world, but also of the themes. So I would think this is probably the tip of an iceberg of some kind of a massive media and propaganda operation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The studio claims to be independent, but has admitted that their clientele does include the Iranian state. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it shows in how the slopaganda videos are used. They’re used to really undermine the war effort in the United States and to, I think, get Americans and other people around the world on their side.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Until recently, a lot of AI generated media has been designed to intentionally dupe people, the deepfaked call of Biden’s voice, telling voters to stay home, the videos of Ukrainian soldiers, appearing to surrender on the front lines.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the Iranian LEGO videos are so obviously AI slop. No one thinks the LEGO guy in the Little Orange Man video is \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">actually \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trump. No one is getting duped into believing that’s really him, dressed in a pirate get up and getting shipwrecked in Iran. So why is this propaganda still so effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perhaps it’s so effective because it appears not to be real. These are not deep fakes. No one is pretending that this is real, that we know it’s AI generated, that kind of sucks you in. And there’s some kind of uncanniness about it. We’re kind of like, wait, what? And that moment I think is the first hook. There’s probably different videos, different styles of slopaganda for different audiences. That’s also one of its powers, that it’s so easy to make a customized version of the same message for a specific audience. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In various interviews, a spokesperson for Explosive Media who goes by “Mr. Explosive” explained some of the team’s processes. He’s talked about how poetry is a pillar of Persian history and culture, so the team writes the rap lyrics themselves. Then, they use AI to Americanize the songs and generate the singing voices.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s clear that they have their fingers on the pulse of American pop culture. The Pirates of the Caribbean, for one, is one of Disney’s most successful franchises. It’s something that’s immediately recognizable and familiar to a lot of Americans. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listen … Lost in our fog, you call us the pirates? Man, check the mirror, dawg, you’re the one that’s biased, Vultures on the water, fiending for the black gold, Straight freeloaders, doing what you’re told! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of these references are the sorts of things you may hear from more progressive liberal parts of our country about the problems of say, you know, wealth inequality or abuse of power, corruption by the Trump administration. This is where this stuff is coming from. So they’re kind of using the message that actually would resonate with people that are already in some ways uncomfortable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, this video, which is an outlier for Explosive Media. Instead of a story about LEGO pirate Trump bumbling his way through the strait of Hormuz, this one starts with an overhead shot of Tehran. A LEGO version, of course. A LEGO figurine smiles at the audience and holds out his arms to the viewer, like he’s welcoming us in for a hug. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We do not hate you, people of the West. We have watched from across the ocean, from behind their walls, and what we see is a people who deserve better than what rules them.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video lays out all these grievances with the American government and mainstream media. These are sentiments that resonate with a lot of Americans: concerns over rising costs, opposition to another war, feeling disempowered by the current political system.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The billionaire who funds the law then writes the law himself, the pharmaceutical machine that keeps you sick for profit and wealth. The school that teaches history with chapters torn away. So you never ask the question, who made it this way? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The previous videos from Explosive Media have always attacked Trump or members of his cabinet. And for the most part, left the American people out of it. This video directly addresses Americans. Instead of taking personal shots at specific leaders, it’s a critique of the systemic failures of American society at large. It’s almost a show of solidarity.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are not your enemies. We’re prisoners of the same cause. We love Americans. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s convincing. It’s supposed to be. This is the kind of emotional appeal that makes propaganda especially effective. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, emotions are the first thing that we may have when we see a message. And if they’re negative emotions, in particular things like fear or anxiety or resentment, whatever it is that we experience or we believe while we have these emotional states, we’re more likely to remember. There’s a lot of research about this and the negativity bias in memory is pretty prominent and once it’s in there, it doesn’t get out. So you form that negative association with a politician or some kind of a celebrity, it’s gonna be very hard for you to get rid of it moving forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When there’s so much noise, it’s hard to pick out what’s real and what’s not. There’s only so much information that a human being can consume and process every day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What breaks through the noise and captures our attention tends to be content that’s emotionally alarming. It triggers our brain’s emotional center before we can process that information rationally. And studies have shown that people remember negative information better … which can ultimately influence our beliefs and reasoning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Between a dry news article and a catchy LEGO video — which one are you going to remember next week? Next month? Next election cycle? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s important to note that these videos are a very effective distraction. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All that stuff is distracting us from the nature of the Iranian regime that literally in January, machine gunned like tens of thousands of its own people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the end of last year, amid Iran’s worsening economic crisis, shop keepers and university students took to the streets in protest of the country’s Islamic leadership. A week later, demonstrations erupted across the country, calling for an end to the religious government, and demanding a secular democracy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Iranian authorities crushed the protests with brutal force. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Tehran eyewitness protest footage]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re shooting us! They’re shooting us! This government is shooting people.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Human rights groups say more than 7,000 people were killed during the protests, with tens of thousands more still unaccounted for.Doctors in Iran estimate that the death toll could be over 30,000.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two things can be true. The LEGO slopaganda videos coming out of Iran make points about the US that a lot of Americans might agree with about its leadership, and how it’s failing its own people while also taking the spotlight off of Iran’s own government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even if you know that the LEGO videos are fake and AI, if they’re hijacking your attention, drowning out other content online then the slopaganda is doing what it’s supposed to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That changes how we consume information, whether we care about truth at all. And that’s very bad for a democracy, actually, if you have a bunch of people that don’t care about what is true and are used to not taking what people say seriously. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what happens when LEGO rap overshadows actual news? When we can’t look away from an AI generated diss track? When a whole population can be so easily distracted? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaggedon. Michal and his co-authors call it the slopaganda shit storm. For our next tab, we’ll go with my favorite: slopagandapocalypse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open one more tab: How to survive the slopagandapocalypse \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michal said it’s not really a question of stopping the slopaganda doomsday scenario — we’re already living it. And slopaganda is, relatively speaking, so new. We’re in uncharted waters here, and we don’t have solid research on the effects that slopaganda will have on society and democracy down the road. But Michal has a few hunches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One real possible consequence of this is that slopaganda is going to be here for, to stay And it will be a tool in the toolbox of every authoritarian regime in the world, just as like batons and riot police have been.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So will this be, uh, it will just be AI generated, slop is gonna be yet another way to bamboozle, distract people around the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda has already wormed its way into LA’s mayoral race, with former reality TV star and current candidate Spencer Pratt reposting AI-generated videos of his opponent. Like this Star Wars-themed one, where incumbent LA mayor Karen Bass, portrayed as Darth Vader, schemes with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who’s deepfaked as Emperor Palpatine. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip of AI-generated video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You didn’t finish burning the city to the ground in the first term. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Make sure you finish the job in your second term. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The only thing that can stop us is someone telling the truth. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As long as they don’t have any hope, the city is ours. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Spencer Pratt appears, depicted as a Jedi, and battles Darth Karen above the Hollywood sign. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[lightsaber sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is peak slopaganda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You could argue that AI tools have, in some way, democratized the creation of propaganda. Anyone with access to a video generator and a taste for pop culture has the potential to make their message go viral. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda itself, and the AI tools used to create it, are morally neutral. Michal joked about how we \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">could\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> have more slopaganda about recycling, or being nice to each other. But instead, we’re increasingly seeing political candidates and government institutions use it to undermine opponents and steer the narrative. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s going to give a lot of power to people that have a lot of money to do this, that will be able to basically create the world in their own image. The second consequence of this, and I think this is maybe optimistic, is that people are going to turn away from the internet. I think that there’s a way in which AI content is kind of really taking over all the spaces on the internet that people cared about. And I think at some point you’re just gonna say, you know what, yeah, I have better things to do in my time. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are there any feasible interventions to stopping the slopageddon? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you were to look a little bit more to Europe, I think there’s some ideas about what this could look like. There’s the Digital Services Act, which is connected to the European Commission, and the AI Act. These are legal instruments meant to police basically Facebook and X and so on from stealing European citizens’ data. The tech companies hate them because they have real bite.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unfortunately, Michal doesn’t see that happening in the U.S.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think there’s gonna be any meaningful institutional interventions from the United States anytime soon\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California, for one, has tried to crack down. Back in 2024, Governor Newsom signed a series of laws that required more disclosure and transparency around political deepfakes, and required social media companies to remove the “deceptive” content before an election.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Here’s the twist: Slopaganda might actually be protected by the First Amendment — it could be considered satire or political speech. Long story short, Elon Musk sued the state, and now my X feed is full of AI Spencer Pratt doing deepfake Return of the Jedi.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Lightsaber sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zooming out, back to the war between the US and Iran, it’s clear that the White House slopaganda, reactive, disjointed, made to appeal to Boomers, is failing to reach a lot of its own citizens. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think it’s working. I think it’s kind of cringey and, and clunky stuff but I think maybe they’re portraying themselves as, as you know, winning the war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So, without institutional change, what can individual people do to be a little more resilient to slopaganda? Not just in this war, but in any political setting? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Slopaganda, again, is neither good nor bad on its own, right? Just remember who is sending this stuff and why. Educate yourself a little bit about the larger context of what’s happening. There’s a history there, There are motivations that are hidden behind the cute videos that we may not know about.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We need to remember why we’re watching this content in the first place, and interrogate its purpose. What kind of reaction is it eliciting? What is it distracting you from? How did it come across your feed in the first place? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you get overwhelmed, well, Michal has one temporary solution. Log off! Touch grass! The slop is never ending but you can still give your brain a break from consuming it.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think we need more love in our life. I mean, seriously, just get away from the internet a little bit from social media and just kind of start, um, hanging out. With each other more, and then this stuff just doesn’t matter.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And with that, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you like these deep dives? Are you closing your tabs? Then don’t forget to rate and review us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show! Maybe drop a comment too! And if you really like Close All Tabs and want to support public media, go to donate.KQED.org/podcasts! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think there just aren’t enough professionals there anymore. Maybe they got rid of them with Project 2025. I don’t know. Maybe there is no more media wing of the White House.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The DOGE cuts hit deep.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The DOGE cuts. That’s why this stuff is clunky and sucks. These memes are not dank! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">diving into the world of nonconsensual deepfake porn and why this problem reaches far beyond influencers and sex workers.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When users on X started asking Grok to generate explicit images of real women and girls without their consent, Twitch streamer and OnlyFans creator Morgpie watched the harassment spiral in real time. Cosplayer and software engineer Zander Small saw firsthand how nonconsensual images affected his girlfriend, a SFW creator, and her friends. The two decided to team up to build tools that help creators detect leaks, remove deepfakes, and reclaim control over their images online.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Note:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This episode contains mentions of gender-based violence and nonconsensual intimate imagery, which may be triggering for some listeners. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5643980688\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bigguswombus/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgpie\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, OnlyFans creator and cofounder of Fanlock\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/zander_smalls/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander Small\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cb>, \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">content creator and cofounder of Fanlock\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.dexerto.com/twitch/influencers-take-on-ai-deepfakes-with-new-creator-protection-agency-3324719/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Influencers take on AI deepfakes with their own creator protection agency\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Virginia Glaze, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dextero\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/musks-ai-chatbot-grok-xai-making-sexual-deepfakes-imagine-rcna265855\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Musk’s Grok AI chatbot is still making sexual deepfakes, despite X’s promise to stop it\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — David Ingram, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NBC News\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/deepfake-nudify-schools-global-crisis/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Deepfake Nudes Crisis in Schools Is Much Worse Than You Thought\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Matt Burgess, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">WIRED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://19thnews.org/2025/05/take-it-down-act-signing-explicit-images\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Take It Down Act: How to use it to remove revenge porn\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Jasmine Mithani, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The 19th\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://rainn.org/rainns-recommendations-for-legislators/image-based-sexual-abuse-laws-combat-nonconsensual-ai-deepfakes/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Image-Based Sexual Abuse Laws: Combat Nonconsensual AI Deepfakes\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">RAINN\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://rainn.org/get-informed/issues/ai-tech-enabled-sexual-abuse/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI & Tech-Enabled Sexual Abuse: Risk & Prevention\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">RAINN\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://deepstrike.io/blog/deepfake-statistics-2025\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deepfake Statistics 2025: AI Fraud Data & Trends\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Mohammed Khalil, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DeepStrike\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are you closing your tabs? You can be honest, this is a safe space. If you’re a fan of Close All Tabs and you want more of it, then please rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends about us. It would be such a huge help to get the word out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s get to the show. Just a note, this episode contains mentions of gender-based violence and non-consensual intimate imagery, which may be triggering for some listeners.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know Grok? It’s the AI chatbot integrated with X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter and now owned by Elon Musk. Well, since late last year, Grok has been embroiled in an undressing scandal, generating sexually explicit images of people without their consent. The majority of targets were women. Some were minors, young girls. For a few weeks, it was a pretty disgusting widespread trend. When women or even teenage girls posted fully clothed photos of themselves on X, other users would comment and tag Grok, asking it to ‘put her in a bikini’ or ‘take off her top.’ The chatbot would publicly respond with a generated lewd or completely naked image of the subject. Some users went even further, asking Grok to add blood and bruises, prompting the chatbot to generate graphic, sexually violent images of these women.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh man, it was very much like I was waking up every day and I didn’t want to post.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Morgpie, a Twitch streamer and OnlyFans creator. People who know her IRL call her Morgan. She’s been a porn actress for years, and as someone who makes sexually explicit content, she’s used to creeps harassing her with her own nudes. But the Grok and dressing trend really unsettled her. It was the worst in January.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Being looped in with something that is so violating, and like you said, something that’s even affecting minors is just disgusting. Every day I was going into my comments and just like hiding replies and blocking because I’m like, I’m not going to let you guys just generate these images of me that I did not consent to, especially if it’s being associated with basically creating child pornography on Twitter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was non-consensual, intimate imagery, more commonly known as deep fake porn. A deep fake is content that has been generated or manipulated by AI to imitate someone else. Zander Small, another content creator and a friend of Morgan’s, says that the proliferation of AI tools has started to seriously affect content creators, regardless of whether or not they make adult content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deep fakes can be anything from deep fake explicit imagery with like, a creator doing something or nude content that they didn’t consent to. Or it could be stuff as simple as like, an audio deep fake where a creator is saying something that they don’t consent too, which might have repercussions of them being canceled or stuff that they just obviously wouldn’t consent to saying.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan hasn’t had to deal with deep fake porn of herself as much. After years of being in this industry, she’s developed thick skin. She’s mostly dealt with leaks, or explicit content that she posted behind a paywall that was illegally downloaded and posted elsewhere, without her consent. But the Grok trend is just the tip of the iceberg. Non-consensual deep fake-porn has exploded over the last few years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that for a lot of people, the lack of consent is very attractive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is an issue that overwhelmingly affects women, and these circles are not as fringe as you might think. An annual report last year by the cybersecurity firm DeepStrike found that roughly 97% of all deepfakes online fall under non-consensual intimate imagery, and that 99 to 100% of victims of deepfake pornography are women. Here’s Zander again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it is either fans, if you want to call them that, or just creeps on the internet, wanting to see more out of a creator than they consented to. I know it affects a lot of SFW creators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SFW, or Safe for Work. They don’t show nudity or make sexually explicit content. While NSFW, not Safer work, means adult content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, you know, and I guess from that, you know, if a creator isn’t consenting to do more explicit content, then, you know, these, uh, I guess perpetrators, creeps, whatever you want to call them, you know, take into their hands to do it themselves. And it’s incredibly easy to deep fake content and, you know, as models get better and better and they get quicker and quicker, it doesn’t really require as much of sophisticated technology to run these models.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some of the mainstream models, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, have guardrails that are supposed to prevent them from generating deep fake porn. In January, X announced that it implemented technological measures to prevent Grok from modifying images of real people in revealing clothing. But there are ways to get around these guardraills. Just last month, NBC News reported that Grok is still generating deep-fake porn of real women. And like Zander said, there are so many other models out there that just don’t have these guardrails in the first place.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander hasn’t had to deal with deep fake porn of himself, but he’s seen how much it’s affected people he’s close to, other safer work creators who don’t make explicit content. And Morgan, coming from the porn industry, has seen how this issue affects her fellow adult content creators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So late last year, they teamed up to come up with a solution for other creators. Today, we’re diving into the seedy reality of non-consensual deepfake porn, when it got so bad, why it’s so hard to stop, and how two Gen Z content creators are trying to tackle it. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is 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. Let’s get into it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open our first tab: the reality of non-consensual deep fake porn. Morgan is an award-winning porn creator. Literally, she has multiple Pornhub awards. And when she started years ago, the internet was very different.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s very interesting because when I first started, the climate was very much like, if you opened up Twitter, you would see tweets that are like, ‘sex work is real work.’ Of course, this was kind of around the time when OnlyFans was only just emerging barely.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the world of adult content, there was before OnlyFans, and then there’s after OnlyFans. The platform completely changed the game, lowering the barrier of entry for new creators and giving them new options to monetize their content. Morgan said that before OnlyFans blew up, the only way to make a living as an independent porn creator was to land on the front page of Pornhub, or actresses had to break into the industry by being part of studio productions where they didn’t have as much autonomy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s very interesting the shift between whenever porn was basically widely available, you didn’t really have to pay much for it. When I first started, I was uploading to Pornhub, and that was full length, full scenes that you could see for free at any time. Whereas now, the climate has shifted a lot to where creators like myself have a lot more control. So we’re able to, you know, use OnlyFans as a platform where we are more connected with our audience and that is actually the main pull. Now we’re in this age where these models can kind of take a bit of that control back. They can control what content they make, how much they sell it for. And I think that that plays so much into like the conversation about deepfakes where it’s about control. It’s all about consent. And then with deepfakes, you can make anybody do anything. So you have the control over this other person.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since joining OnlyFans, Morgan and other adult creators have dealt with the same problem: leaks. They consent to paying subscribers accessing certain premium content that’s been posted behind a paywall. Then some unscrupulous subscriber downloads it and posts it publicly without their permission for the rest of the world to see. It was a constant source of frustration for Morgan.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then about a year and a half ago, Morgan noticed the deep fakes. Her friends told her about how they stumbled across videos of themselves online, but it wasn’t really them. Someone had taken explicit content from behind their paywalls and modified it, morphing them into these scenarios that the creators never wanted to be in.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, it all stems back to control. It’s like, ‘oh, you did this thing that I didn’t like. Well, look at this control I have over your image. I’m going to use that against you.’.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think some detractors would say, like, ‘oh, well, if you make explicit content, why does deep fake porn bother you? Or why do your leaks bother you?’ What would you say to them?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it’s it’s all about consent. That’s like saying, ‘oh, because you make porn, if I see you on the street, I can sexually assault you.’ You know, it’s like, consent is a very real thing. And there’s a big difference between me in the comfort of my own home within my own boundaries, producing content that I enjoy, and somebody else taking these things and making content that I didn’t consent to be in.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not just Morgan and her fellow porn actresses dealing with this. Women who don’t make explicit content are also subjected to this harassment. One of the most well-known cases of this was when Atrioc, a Twitch streamer, was live. During his stream, he showed his open tabs for a split second, and one of them included deep fake porn of his own friends and streaming colleagues. He was caught buying this content. QTCinderella, another streamer was one of Atriok’s close friends. She was also a victim of the deep fake porn he bought.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip of QTCinderella]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Atrioc for showing it to thousands of people, the people DMing me pictures of myself from that website, f*ck you all!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pokimane is like a great example of this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pokimane is another Twitch streamer who was also a victim of atriox deep fake porn purchases. She does not make explicit adult content, but as a woman existing online, she deals with harassment constantly. Like, here she is reading comments from her audience.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Pokimane]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yo yo yo, let’s see some ass. This ain’t a club fam, this is just my Twitch chat.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are so many clips of her literally just getting up and standing up out of her chair and that’ll get clipped and posted all over Twitter. And all of Twitter is like, ‘look at what she’s doing. She’s gooner baiting!’.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Goonerbait started as a term to describe video games or anime that aren’t pornographic but contain a lot of sexual imagery like jiggle physics and very scantily clad female characters. It’s media designed to appeal to gooners. Gooners are porn addicts. And now, internet randos love to accuse real-life women of gooner baiting, mainly female streamers like Pokimane.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘She’s, you know, performing for her male audience.’ And it’s like, well, is she really doing anything? She kind of just got up and walked out of the room, but they’re like, ‘oh, her pants are a little too tight.’ So it’s, like, I think this idea of a woman that’s kind of, just not really even doing anything, a lot of people love to just over-sexualize.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In some online circles, there is the sentiment that women like Morgan deserve to be deepfaked because they already make porn, and that women, like Pokimane, also deserve to deepfake because they’re somehow gooner baiting. It even affects people who don’t post online. Non-consensual deepfakes are rampant in schools. A Wired investigation last month found that high school boys have targeted their fellow classmates by spreading fake, generated nudes of them. These are teenage girls.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, the thing is, it’s not going to stop with sex workers. As much as the sentiment these days is very anti-sex work, like, ‘oh, if you make this content, you’re kind of putting yourself up to be distributed in this way.’ But the thing it is, is it’s 100% a slippery slope and it’s going to keep going into Twitch streamers who are known and even just normal people. There’s nothing stopping anybody from pulling up somebody’s Facebook profile, just a normal person who doesn’t produce any content whatsoever, and making explicit deep fakes of them and distributing them. And that can be used as blackmail. The possibilities there are quite literally endless in terms of the harm that they could cause for everybody.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’ve talked about spending so much money on deepfake takedowns, but how did you initially try to tackle this problem of deepfakes and leaked content?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was going in every single week and I was Googling my name and I was going on like Twitter, Reddit, all these other sites, just like searching for my name, um, and seeing pages and pages and pages of all this leaked content that would come up. And back then I was paying over a thousand dollars a month on these takedowns, but I would still have to go in and manually report a lot of stuff. You shouldn’t really have to go in and look at your own leaks and your own deep fakes, which is just awful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan was at her wits end. And then, late last year, she saw that Zander was working on a project that may be able to solve her problem. And she wanted to help. We’ll hear Zander’s story after the break.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. Okay, back to the story after the break. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Now, let’s open that new tab: What is Fanlock?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander had started out as a Minecraft YouTuber back in high school. It was a fun thing he did on the side before he went to college to study software engineering. He was on his high school robotics team and loved tinkering and fixing things. A few years ago, during his sophomore year, he started going to anime conventions with his friends. Here’s the thing, Zander’s really tall. He’s 6’8″. His friend pointed out that he could carve out a real niche as a comically tall cosplayer. He pushed Zander to start posting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was like ‘Bro, it’s gonna be like viral because like, oh my gosh, why is a Gojo cosplayer like as tall as like LeBron James?’ So I did it and it did pretty good. And I guess it just snowballed from there and I just haven’t stopped since.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">About six months after he went viral as comically tall Gojo, he started getting brand deals from anime companies. He gained hundreds of thousands of followers. He flew all over the country, attending cons and meetups. He even hosted a few lookalike competitions. There’s a picture of the Hatsune Miku lookalite competition he hosted. A gaggle of cosplayers in turquoise wigs, and then Zander, towering above the crowd in his own turquois getup. Of course, he was still in school juggling a burgeoning full-time career as a content creator while also attending classes and doing homework and studying for exams.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He considered dropping out, but his parents really, really wanted him to stay in school. They weren’t thrilled at the idea of their son leaving an engineering degree to pursue anime content. So he stuck it out, and last year, while finishing up his last semester of school, He stumbled across this deep fake problem. It struck a very personal chord.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So about a month before I graduated, my girlfriend, who’s an SFW creator, had a huge deep fake problem. Um, you know, there’s accounts popping up on like Threads or Instagram that either use her likeness or just full on non-consensual porn, uh, deep fakes of her, which is super mentally taxing, uh on her, you know, as an SF W creator. You know, she didn’t consent to being in those positions or having these account to DM her fans, like, ‘Hey, send me $400 and we’ll go on a date,’ type of just scam content. So it was from there that I was like, let me see what’s up and see if I can help you. So that’s when I really took a deep dive into DMCA, non-consensual imagery and depending on the platform it’s on what you can do about that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DMCA, as in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It’s copyright law for internet content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I was able to get a lot of her stuff down, which was great. Uh, but then at that point it was like, you know, what are the other players in the space doing about this?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What he found were takedown tools that were very expensive and not that effective. While creator management firms and talent agencies have in-house services for this, they’re inaccessible to smaller creators. After Zander helped his girlfriend, her friends reached out to him. They had the same problem. And then their friends reached out. And all of this coincided with his post-graduation job search. He planned to at least try to use his degree. But the job market for entry-level software engineers was rough.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think by the third final round interview at like some fang company where they rejected me after four weeks and five interviews, I was just so fed up. I was like, you know what, screw this. I’m gonna just do this myself. I’ma make my own company. So, and at that time, you it’s like the overlap of like, oh, I figured out how to do this. I could help more creators like this and really solve a real problem.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so, he started working on it, a tool for creators that would scan the internet for leaked and deepfaked content and automatically send DMCA takedown requests. And if the sites didn’t comply, this tool would have to find other ways to force a takedow.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander knew how traumatic it was for his girlfriend and her friends to be constantly confronted with non-consensual deepfake porn. So, he wanted this tool to take down content automatically, without creators having to see it. And the tool also had to catch the non-consensual deepfakes before they spread to other platforms. But he knew he couldn’t do it alone. He needed the perspective of other creators for it to really work.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I pretty much just posted on my close friends at some point, like, hey, I’m thinking about doing this as like an actual like business or something like that. If anyone will be down to just test it out for free and see how good like my, you know, scanning architecture and stuff like that is, let me know. And Morgan actually swiped up on the story and was like, hey, that actually sounds pretty neat. I’d be down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan and Zander had met at TwitchCon a while back.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we hopped on a call and I was like, ‘would you be down to like do this with me?’ Cause like, I think it’d be pretty sick if we had like two creators doing it that know the problem. You know, Morgan knows firsthand, like the adult space, but as well as like a firsthand account of like leaks and deep fakes and you know, where they live and stuff like that. And you know I guess from there, it just was one of those things where it was like I think this could be a real player in the space and I’m really passionate about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan, what was it like for you to see that story?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve struggled with this stuff for so long. I know so many people that I could tap in on and get their feedback. My scope in this space is so wide because I’ve had my eggs in so many baskets online And that I knew that I would be able to bring a good perspective and good input.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So they managed to raise $200,000, and with that, Morgan and Zander launched Fanlock earlier this year. Zander handles the technical side, making sure Fanlock works, and Morgan handles the creator side, managing outreach to other creators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I guess I get to apply that degree that I was considering dropping out to do content for. And it’s, I guess like a full 360, you know, everyone that was like, you should stay in school and finish it out. I guess it came back to be useful because now I can apply it to helping my friends and other people in the space with this really real problem that they have.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This solution isn’t that straightforward though. That’s a new tab: Why is it so hard to take down deepfakes?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In May last year, President Trump signed the Take It Down Act, a landmark law that criminalizes the publication of non-consensual intimate imagery, including digital forgeries, aka deep fake porn. It’s one of Congress’s first bipartisan actions to tackle AI-generated content. The law also requires online platforms to implement a removal request system and to take down deep fake porn within 48 hours of a request.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of these sites thankfully already had like forms or different reporting mechanisms to report deepfakes, but I think with this act itself, it’s a really good step in the right direction to combat non-consensual deepfake and, you know, props to the government for doing something right for once and actually passing this really quickly.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the Take It Down Act is only enforceable under U.S. jurisdiction, although the EU also has similar laws. But a lot of these sites are based outside of these places, like in Russia.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so for like Russia and Chinese sites, it gets a lot harder because they don’t have any need to comply either like deep fake penalties or DMCA because it’s specifically like USA, EU jurisdiction typically. And that makes it a lot hard to get content down off those sites if it’s even possible at all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a few things you can do for these sites. There’s been some sites I know firsthand that they use, let’s say, a USA-based company for their notification system. We’re able to submit basically a DMCA to those companies, basically being like, hey, just so you know, you’re aiding in copyright infringement by working with this client. If we were to take it a step further, we could always issue a DMC subpoena to them if they use Google Analytics, for example, to straight to Google. And that would help us get more information about… The actual emails of the site, who this person actually is. So if they’re in the EU or USA, we can take those legal routes. Obviously there’s sites I know that are pretty much, they’re built from the ground up for piracy and it’s pretty much impossible to get those stuff down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the more difficult aspects of tackling deepfakes is catching them before Google indexes them, basically, storing web pages in its own database so they appear in search results. Because when something appears in search results, it spreads like wildfire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Google updated its search functions a few years ago to identify deepfakes and prevent them from appearing at the top of search results, but there are still deepfakess that slip through the cracks. Zander said that Fanlock keeps tabs on specific sites that have histories of hosting non-consensual deepfakes. They scan them and send takedown demands, before they hit Google search results.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, no one wants their family Googling them or something and they see deep fakes of them all over Google Images.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know Fanlock also relies on a lot of facial recognition technology to identify leaked content and deepfakes. Obviously, this technology is very controversial. It’s often used in law enforcement and has a lot connections to surveillance. But what are your thoughts on this use of facial-recognition technology?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, obviously, if a creator signs up for our platform and we’re doing it in a consensual manner, I think that’s great. I obviously am big anti-surveillance, but I think the the key word at the end of the day is just consent, which is like the fundamental problem that I think these creators are having. And if they’re consenting to a service to take down stuff that was made non-consensually, I think, that’s why our creators are okay with it. And I think there’s a big differentiation between that and then, you know, some tech company scanning my face to see if I’m a criminal or something like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to talk about some of the technical challenges that still exist. You mentioned trying to build a Telegram scanner right now. A lot of non-consensual deep fake porn is passed around in closed channels on Discord or group chats or Telegram. Do either of you have any experience with this happening? Like, what is the approach here?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we were building FanLock, I was like, Telegram is, like, the final boss of piracy. I really want to build a solution that while we can’t scan a hundred percent of Telegram, I want to build the absolute most, like I guess comprehensive Telegram scanner we can based on like what’s publicly available and what providers there are to us. So for Telegram, typically for like private groups and stuff like that, you’re able to join them if you have like a join link, which we’ve kind of gotten from people being like, ‘hey, I got leaks here, join my channel.’ And after we get the join link we’re able to figure out where copyrighted content is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We already do have our Telegram scanner up. You know, we have about 11 million channels, you know, from our own services, but also third party providers that we use that have kind of indexed Telegram for us, which is great. Discord is a little bit trickier because it’s a TOS breach to use any sort of like bot activity on that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TOS is Terms of Service, the contract between a platform like Telegram and its users.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For now, like on Discord, if someone has a link that they’ve noticed that they want down, they can submit it to us and then we can do it from there. We currently don’t scan Discord because it is like a TOS breach to do, but we’re hoping as, like I said, as we grow that door can open.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Overall, what hurdles still exist when it comes to taking down deepfakes? Like what’s the kind of like technical white whale you’re still chasing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I’d say the biggest thing that we’re trying to roll out is actually identifying who leaked or who deep faked XYZ content. I think if we were able to do that, we might, I wouldn’t say solve the piracy problem, but definitely lower it. You know, we’re really hoping we can get in talks with, you know, platforms like OF, Fansly or Instagram and stuff like that, uh, to roll out a technology that we’re working on where basically it embeds like an invisible watermark into different images and stuff like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So if it is leaked or if it has deep faked or if someone else’s face has put on it, they’re able to know who exactly posted it based off this invisible embedded technology, which already exists for sites like Netflix. It’s how they track like video, uh, I guess leaks or, you know, from studios that maybe have like a trailer for the new Avengers movie and they want to track if it got leaked on X or anything like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think if we’re able to get that done, like I feel like we’d significantly fix the problem and be a lot more proactive. Because I mean, if people start realizing, ‘oh shoot, if I leak or deep fake content, my account gets banned. Like, it’s going to really throw a wrench in the whole leak ecosystem. And that’s what we’re really trying to build towards right now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re coming from very different sides of the internet, kind of, whether in the safe work side or the adult content industry. But this is also a problem that deeply affects both of your spheres of the creator economy. How has the proliferation of deepfake porn changed the creator industry for you? And what would you say to someone who’s afraid to keep posting?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The unfortunate thing is it’s such an uphill battle when it comes to deepfaked and leaked content, especially with AI getting as good as it is right now. But to somebody who is kind of scared to post right now, just know that there are people who are trying to find solutions to this kind of stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And for these people who are generating this kind of content, it’s very much about their own sense of control. It doesn’t reflect you as a creator. You shouldn’t be afraid to post what you want because of this horrible threat of somebody taking your content and basically twisting it into something that you didn’t consent to. And hopefully our government can kind of catch up with this kind of stuff here pretty soon. But there are people like me and Zander who are trying to take real steps to help mitigate this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For creators, I’d say, you know, if you need to, you know, get anything you need for support on it, do it. You know, if you need to take a step back, do it. And then I’d say like, it’s a twofold thing where it’s like, don’t glamorize generative AI video and image content because that only speeds up the industry and then really push for better legislation and, you know, call your Senator, call your Congressman, like get it passed. Because It’s only going to get worse as it gets easier and it’s able to be done for more people. I think those are probably the two biggest things a creator can do right now that has like an actual like tangible impact to halt this problem or make it slow down at least.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, thank you both so much for talking about all of this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, thank you for having us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, for sure.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you or someone you know has been targeted with deep fake porn, there are ways to have it removed. Fanlock also has free guides for creators navigating this problem. Check the show notes for more. We’ll link to a few resources about the Take It Down Act and how to remove non-consensual intimate imagery. For now, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. It was edited by Chris Hambrick. The Close All tabs team also includes producer Maya Cueva and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor in chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink dust silver K84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron red switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">diving into the world of nonconsensual deepfake porn and why this problem reaches far beyond influencers and sex workers.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When users on X started asking Grok to generate explicit images of real women and girls without their consent, Twitch streamer and OnlyFans creator Morgpie watched the harassment spiral in real time. Cosplayer and software engineer Zander Small saw firsthand how nonconsensual images affected his girlfriend, a SFW creator, and her friends. The two decided to team up to build tools that help creators detect leaks, remove deepfakes, and reclaim control over their images online.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Note:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This episode contains mentions of gender-based violence and nonconsensual intimate imagery, which may be triggering for some listeners. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5643980688\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bigguswombus/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgpie\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, OnlyFans creator and cofounder of Fanlock\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/zander_smalls/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander Small\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cb>, \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">content creator and cofounder of Fanlock\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.dexerto.com/twitch/influencers-take-on-ai-deepfakes-with-new-creator-protection-agency-3324719/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Influencers take on AI deepfakes with their own creator protection agency\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Virginia Glaze, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dextero\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/musks-ai-chatbot-grok-xai-making-sexual-deepfakes-imagine-rcna265855\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Musk’s Grok AI chatbot is still making sexual deepfakes, despite X’s promise to stop it\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — David Ingram, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NBC News\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/deepfake-nudify-schools-global-crisis/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Deepfake Nudes Crisis in Schools Is Much Worse Than You Thought\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Matt Burgess, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">WIRED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://19thnews.org/2025/05/take-it-down-act-signing-explicit-images\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Take It Down Act: How to use it to remove revenge porn\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Jasmine Mithani, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The 19th\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://rainn.org/rainns-recommendations-for-legislators/image-based-sexual-abuse-laws-combat-nonconsensual-ai-deepfakes/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Image-Based Sexual Abuse Laws: Combat Nonconsensual AI Deepfakes\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">RAINN\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://rainn.org/get-informed/issues/ai-tech-enabled-sexual-abuse/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI & Tech-Enabled Sexual Abuse: Risk & Prevention\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">RAINN\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://deepstrike.io/blog/deepfake-statistics-2025\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deepfake Statistics 2025: AI Fraud Data & Trends\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Mohammed Khalil, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DeepStrike\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are you closing your tabs? You can be honest, this is a safe space. If you’re a fan of Close All Tabs and you want more of it, then please rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends about us. It would be such a huge help to get the word out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s get to the show. Just a note, this episode contains mentions of gender-based violence and non-consensual intimate imagery, which may be triggering for some listeners.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know Grok? It’s the AI chatbot integrated with X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter and now owned by Elon Musk. Well, since late last year, Grok has been embroiled in an undressing scandal, generating sexually explicit images of people without their consent. The majority of targets were women. Some were minors, young girls. For a few weeks, it was a pretty disgusting widespread trend. When women or even teenage girls posted fully clothed photos of themselves on X, other users would comment and tag Grok, asking it to ‘put her in a bikini’ or ‘take off her top.’ The chatbot would publicly respond with a generated lewd or completely naked image of the subject. Some users went even further, asking Grok to add blood and bruises, prompting the chatbot to generate graphic, sexually violent images of these women.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh man, it was very much like I was waking up every day and I didn’t want to post.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Morgpie, a Twitch streamer and OnlyFans creator. People who know her IRL call her Morgan. She’s been a porn actress for years, and as someone who makes sexually explicit content, she’s used to creeps harassing her with her own nudes. But the Grok and dressing trend really unsettled her. It was the worst in January.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Being looped in with something that is so violating, and like you said, something that’s even affecting minors is just disgusting. Every day I was going into my comments and just like hiding replies and blocking because I’m like, I’m not going to let you guys just generate these images of me that I did not consent to, especially if it’s being associated with basically creating child pornography on Twitter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was non-consensual, intimate imagery, more commonly known as deep fake porn. A deep fake is content that has been generated or manipulated by AI to imitate someone else. Zander Small, another content creator and a friend of Morgan’s, says that the proliferation of AI tools has started to seriously affect content creators, regardless of whether or not they make adult content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deep fakes can be anything from deep fake explicit imagery with like, a creator doing something or nude content that they didn’t consent to. Or it could be stuff as simple as like, an audio deep fake where a creator is saying something that they don’t consent too, which might have repercussions of them being canceled or stuff that they just obviously wouldn’t consent to saying.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan hasn’t had to deal with deep fake porn of herself as much. After years of being in this industry, she’s developed thick skin. She’s mostly dealt with leaks, or explicit content that she posted behind a paywall that was illegally downloaded and posted elsewhere, without her consent. But the Grok trend is just the tip of the iceberg. Non-consensual deep fake-porn has exploded over the last few years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that for a lot of people, the lack of consent is very attractive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is an issue that overwhelmingly affects women, and these circles are not as fringe as you might think. An annual report last year by the cybersecurity firm DeepStrike found that roughly 97% of all deepfakes online fall under non-consensual intimate imagery, and that 99 to 100% of victims of deepfake pornography are women. Here’s Zander again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it is either fans, if you want to call them that, or just creeps on the internet, wanting to see more out of a creator than they consented to. I know it affects a lot of SFW creators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SFW, or Safe for Work. They don’t show nudity or make sexually explicit content. While NSFW, not Safer work, means adult content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, you know, and I guess from that, you know, if a creator isn’t consenting to do more explicit content, then, you know, these, uh, I guess perpetrators, creeps, whatever you want to call them, you know, take into their hands to do it themselves. And it’s incredibly easy to deep fake content and, you know, as models get better and better and they get quicker and quicker, it doesn’t really require as much of sophisticated technology to run these models.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some of the mainstream models, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, have guardrails that are supposed to prevent them from generating deep fake porn. In January, X announced that it implemented technological measures to prevent Grok from modifying images of real people in revealing clothing. But there are ways to get around these guardraills. Just last month, NBC News reported that Grok is still generating deep-fake porn of real women. And like Zander said, there are so many other models out there that just don’t have these guardrails in the first place.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander hasn’t had to deal with deep fake porn of himself, but he’s seen how much it’s affected people he’s close to, other safer work creators who don’t make explicit content. And Morgan, coming from the porn industry, has seen how this issue affects her fellow adult content creators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So late last year, they teamed up to come up with a solution for other creators. Today, we’re diving into the seedy reality of non-consensual deepfake porn, when it got so bad, why it’s so hard to stop, and how two Gen Z content creators are trying to tackle it. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is 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. Let’s get into it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open our first tab: the reality of non-consensual deep fake porn. Morgan is an award-winning porn creator. Literally, she has multiple Pornhub awards. And when she started years ago, the internet was very different.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s very interesting because when I first started, the climate was very much like, if you opened up Twitter, you would see tweets that are like, ‘sex work is real work.’ Of course, this was kind of around the time when OnlyFans was only just emerging barely.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the world of adult content, there was before OnlyFans, and then there’s after OnlyFans. The platform completely changed the game, lowering the barrier of entry for new creators and giving them new options to monetize their content. Morgan said that before OnlyFans blew up, the only way to make a living as an independent porn creator was to land on the front page of Pornhub, or actresses had to break into the industry by being part of studio productions where they didn’t have as much autonomy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s very interesting the shift between whenever porn was basically widely available, you didn’t really have to pay much for it. When I first started, I was uploading to Pornhub, and that was full length, full scenes that you could see for free at any time. Whereas now, the climate has shifted a lot to where creators like myself have a lot more control. So we’re able to, you know, use OnlyFans as a platform where we are more connected with our audience and that is actually the main pull. Now we’re in this age where these models can kind of take a bit of that control back. They can control what content they make, how much they sell it for. And I think that that plays so much into like the conversation about deepfakes where it’s about control. It’s all about consent. And then with deepfakes, you can make anybody do anything. So you have the control over this other person.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since joining OnlyFans, Morgan and other adult creators have dealt with the same problem: leaks. They consent to paying subscribers accessing certain premium content that’s been posted behind a paywall. Then some unscrupulous subscriber downloads it and posts it publicly without their permission for the rest of the world to see. It was a constant source of frustration for Morgan.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then about a year and a half ago, Morgan noticed the deep fakes. Her friends told her about how they stumbled across videos of themselves online, but it wasn’t really them. Someone had taken explicit content from behind their paywalls and modified it, morphing them into these scenarios that the creators never wanted to be in.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, it all stems back to control. It’s like, ‘oh, you did this thing that I didn’t like. Well, look at this control I have over your image. I’m going to use that against you.’.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think some detractors would say, like, ‘oh, well, if you make explicit content, why does deep fake porn bother you? Or why do your leaks bother you?’ What would you say to them?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it’s it’s all about consent. That’s like saying, ‘oh, because you make porn, if I see you on the street, I can sexually assault you.’ You know, it’s like, consent is a very real thing. And there’s a big difference between me in the comfort of my own home within my own boundaries, producing content that I enjoy, and somebody else taking these things and making content that I didn’t consent to be in.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not just Morgan and her fellow porn actresses dealing with this. Women who don’t make explicit content are also subjected to this harassment. One of the most well-known cases of this was when Atrioc, a Twitch streamer, was live. During his stream, he showed his open tabs for a split second, and one of them included deep fake porn of his own friends and streaming colleagues. He was caught buying this content. QTCinderella, another streamer was one of Atriok’s close friends. She was also a victim of the deep fake porn he bought.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip of QTCinderella]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Atrioc for showing it to thousands of people, the people DMing me pictures of myself from that website, f*ck you all!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pokimane is like a great example of this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pokimane is another Twitch streamer who was also a victim of atriox deep fake porn purchases. She does not make explicit adult content, but as a woman existing online, she deals with harassment constantly. Like, here she is reading comments from her audience.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Pokimane]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yo yo yo, let’s see some ass. This ain’t a club fam, this is just my Twitch chat.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are so many clips of her literally just getting up and standing up out of her chair and that’ll get clipped and posted all over Twitter. And all of Twitter is like, ‘look at what she’s doing. She’s gooner baiting!’.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Goonerbait started as a term to describe video games or anime that aren’t pornographic but contain a lot of sexual imagery like jiggle physics and very scantily clad female characters. It’s media designed to appeal to gooners. Gooners are porn addicts. And now, internet randos love to accuse real-life women of gooner baiting, mainly female streamers like Pokimane.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘She’s, you know, performing for her male audience.’ And it’s like, well, is she really doing anything? She kind of just got up and walked out of the room, but they’re like, ‘oh, her pants are a little too tight.’ So it’s, like, I think this idea of a woman that’s kind of, just not really even doing anything, a lot of people love to just over-sexualize.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In some online circles, there is the sentiment that women like Morgan deserve to be deepfaked because they already make porn, and that women, like Pokimane, also deserve to deepfake because they’re somehow gooner baiting. It even affects people who don’t post online. Non-consensual deepfakes are rampant in schools. A Wired investigation last month found that high school boys have targeted their fellow classmates by spreading fake, generated nudes of them. These are teenage girls.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, the thing is, it’s not going to stop with sex workers. As much as the sentiment these days is very anti-sex work, like, ‘oh, if you make this content, you’re kind of putting yourself up to be distributed in this way.’ But the thing it is, is it’s 100% a slippery slope and it’s going to keep going into Twitch streamers who are known and even just normal people. There’s nothing stopping anybody from pulling up somebody’s Facebook profile, just a normal person who doesn’t produce any content whatsoever, and making explicit deep fakes of them and distributing them. And that can be used as blackmail. The possibilities there are quite literally endless in terms of the harm that they could cause for everybody.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’ve talked about spending so much money on deepfake takedowns, but how did you initially try to tackle this problem of deepfakes and leaked content?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was going in every single week and I was Googling my name and I was going on like Twitter, Reddit, all these other sites, just like searching for my name, um, and seeing pages and pages and pages of all this leaked content that would come up. And back then I was paying over a thousand dollars a month on these takedowns, but I would still have to go in and manually report a lot of stuff. You shouldn’t really have to go in and look at your own leaks and your own deep fakes, which is just awful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan was at her wits end. And then, late last year, she saw that Zander was working on a project that may be able to solve her problem. And she wanted to help. We’ll hear Zander’s story after the break.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. Okay, back to the story after the break. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Now, let’s open that new tab: What is Fanlock?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander had started out as a Minecraft YouTuber back in high school. It was a fun thing he did on the side before he went to college to study software engineering. He was on his high school robotics team and loved tinkering and fixing things. A few years ago, during his sophomore year, he started going to anime conventions with his friends. Here’s the thing, Zander’s really tall. He’s 6’8″. His friend pointed out that he could carve out a real niche as a comically tall cosplayer. He pushed Zander to start posting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was like ‘Bro, it’s gonna be like viral because like, oh my gosh, why is a Gojo cosplayer like as tall as like LeBron James?’ So I did it and it did pretty good. And I guess it just snowballed from there and I just haven’t stopped since.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">About six months after he went viral as comically tall Gojo, he started getting brand deals from anime companies. He gained hundreds of thousands of followers. He flew all over the country, attending cons and meetups. He even hosted a few lookalike competitions. There’s a picture of the Hatsune Miku lookalite competition he hosted. A gaggle of cosplayers in turquoise wigs, and then Zander, towering above the crowd in his own turquois getup. Of course, he was still in school juggling a burgeoning full-time career as a content creator while also attending classes and doing homework and studying for exams.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He considered dropping out, but his parents really, really wanted him to stay in school. They weren’t thrilled at the idea of their son leaving an engineering degree to pursue anime content. So he stuck it out, and last year, while finishing up his last semester of school, He stumbled across this deep fake problem. It struck a very personal chord.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So about a month before I graduated, my girlfriend, who’s an SFW creator, had a huge deep fake problem. Um, you know, there’s accounts popping up on like Threads or Instagram that either use her likeness or just full on non-consensual porn, uh, deep fakes of her, which is super mentally taxing, uh on her, you know, as an SF W creator. You know, she didn’t consent to being in those positions or having these account to DM her fans, like, ‘Hey, send me $400 and we’ll go on a date,’ type of just scam content. So it was from there that I was like, let me see what’s up and see if I can help you. So that’s when I really took a deep dive into DMCA, non-consensual imagery and depending on the platform it’s on what you can do about that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DMCA, as in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It’s copyright law for internet content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I was able to get a lot of her stuff down, which was great. Uh, but then at that point it was like, you know, what are the other players in the space doing about this?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What he found were takedown tools that were very expensive and not that effective. While creator management firms and talent agencies have in-house services for this, they’re inaccessible to smaller creators. After Zander helped his girlfriend, her friends reached out to him. They had the same problem. And then their friends reached out. And all of this coincided with his post-graduation job search. He planned to at least try to use his degree. But the job market for entry-level software engineers was rough.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think by the third final round interview at like some fang company where they rejected me after four weeks and five interviews, I was just so fed up. I was like, you know what, screw this. I’m gonna just do this myself. I’ma make my own company. So, and at that time, you it’s like the overlap of like, oh, I figured out how to do this. I could help more creators like this and really solve a real problem.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so, he started working on it, a tool for creators that would scan the internet for leaked and deepfaked content and automatically send DMCA takedown requests. And if the sites didn’t comply, this tool would have to find other ways to force a takedow.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander knew how traumatic it was for his girlfriend and her friends to be constantly confronted with non-consensual deepfake porn. So, he wanted this tool to take down content automatically, without creators having to see it. And the tool also had to catch the non-consensual deepfakes before they spread to other platforms. But he knew he couldn’t do it alone. He needed the perspective of other creators for it to really work.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I pretty much just posted on my close friends at some point, like, hey, I’m thinking about doing this as like an actual like business or something like that. If anyone will be down to just test it out for free and see how good like my, you know, scanning architecture and stuff like that is, let me know. And Morgan actually swiped up on the story and was like, hey, that actually sounds pretty neat. I’d be down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan and Zander had met at TwitchCon a while back.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we hopped on a call and I was like, ‘would you be down to like do this with me?’ Cause like, I think it’d be pretty sick if we had like two creators doing it that know the problem. You know, Morgan knows firsthand, like the adult space, but as well as like a firsthand account of like leaks and deep fakes and you know, where they live and stuff like that. And you know I guess from there, it just was one of those things where it was like I think this could be a real player in the space and I’m really passionate about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan, what was it like for you to see that story?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve struggled with this stuff for so long. I know so many people that I could tap in on and get their feedback. My scope in this space is so wide because I’ve had my eggs in so many baskets online And that I knew that I would be able to bring a good perspective and good input.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So they managed to raise $200,000, and with that, Morgan and Zander launched Fanlock earlier this year. Zander handles the technical side, making sure Fanlock works, and Morgan handles the creator side, managing outreach to other creators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I guess I get to apply that degree that I was considering dropping out to do content for. And it’s, I guess like a full 360, you know, everyone that was like, you should stay in school and finish it out. I guess it came back to be useful because now I can apply it to helping my friends and other people in the space with this really real problem that they have.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This solution isn’t that straightforward though. That’s a new tab: Why is it so hard to take down deepfakes?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In May last year, President Trump signed the Take It Down Act, a landmark law that criminalizes the publication of non-consensual intimate imagery, including digital forgeries, aka deep fake porn. It’s one of Congress’s first bipartisan actions to tackle AI-generated content. The law also requires online platforms to implement a removal request system and to take down deep fake porn within 48 hours of a request.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of these sites thankfully already had like forms or different reporting mechanisms to report deepfakes, but I think with this act itself, it’s a really good step in the right direction to combat non-consensual deepfake and, you know, props to the government for doing something right for once and actually passing this really quickly.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the Take It Down Act is only enforceable under U.S. jurisdiction, although the EU also has similar laws. But a lot of these sites are based outside of these places, like in Russia.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so for like Russia and Chinese sites, it gets a lot harder because they don’t have any need to comply either like deep fake penalties or DMCA because it’s specifically like USA, EU jurisdiction typically. And that makes it a lot hard to get content down off those sites if it’s even possible at all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a few things you can do for these sites. There’s been some sites I know firsthand that they use, let’s say, a USA-based company for their notification system. We’re able to submit basically a DMCA to those companies, basically being like, hey, just so you know, you’re aiding in copyright infringement by working with this client. If we were to take it a step further, we could always issue a DMC subpoena to them if they use Google Analytics, for example, to straight to Google. And that would help us get more information about… The actual emails of the site, who this person actually is. So if they’re in the EU or USA, we can take those legal routes. Obviously there’s sites I know that are pretty much, they’re built from the ground up for piracy and it’s pretty much impossible to get those stuff down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the more difficult aspects of tackling deepfakes is catching them before Google indexes them, basically, storing web pages in its own database so they appear in search results. Because when something appears in search results, it spreads like wildfire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Google updated its search functions a few years ago to identify deepfakes and prevent them from appearing at the top of search results, but there are still deepfakess that slip through the cracks. Zander said that Fanlock keeps tabs on specific sites that have histories of hosting non-consensual deepfakes. They scan them and send takedown demands, before they hit Google search results.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, no one wants their family Googling them or something and they see deep fakes of them all over Google Images.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know Fanlock also relies on a lot of facial recognition technology to identify leaked content and deepfakes. Obviously, this technology is very controversial. It’s often used in law enforcement and has a lot connections to surveillance. But what are your thoughts on this use of facial-recognition technology?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, obviously, if a creator signs up for our platform and we’re doing it in a consensual manner, I think that’s great. I obviously am big anti-surveillance, but I think the the key word at the end of the day is just consent, which is like the fundamental problem that I think these creators are having. And if they’re consenting to a service to take down stuff that was made non-consensually, I think, that’s why our creators are okay with it. And I think there’s a big differentiation between that and then, you know, some tech company scanning my face to see if I’m a criminal or something like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to talk about some of the technical challenges that still exist. You mentioned trying to build a Telegram scanner right now. A lot of non-consensual deep fake porn is passed around in closed channels on Discord or group chats or Telegram. Do either of you have any experience with this happening? Like, what is the approach here?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we were building FanLock, I was like, Telegram is, like, the final boss of piracy. I really want to build a solution that while we can’t scan a hundred percent of Telegram, I want to build the absolute most, like I guess comprehensive Telegram scanner we can based on like what’s publicly available and what providers there are to us. So for Telegram, typically for like private groups and stuff like that, you’re able to join them if you have like a join link, which we’ve kind of gotten from people being like, ‘hey, I got leaks here, join my channel.’ And after we get the join link we’re able to figure out where copyrighted content is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We already do have our Telegram scanner up. You know, we have about 11 million channels, you know, from our own services, but also third party providers that we use that have kind of indexed Telegram for us, which is great. Discord is a little bit trickier because it’s a TOS breach to use any sort of like bot activity on that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TOS is Terms of Service, the contract between a platform like Telegram and its users.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For now, like on Discord, if someone has a link that they’ve noticed that they want down, they can submit it to us and then we can do it from there. We currently don’t scan Discord because it is like a TOS breach to do, but we’re hoping as, like I said, as we grow that door can open.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Overall, what hurdles still exist when it comes to taking down deepfakes? Like what’s the kind of like technical white whale you’re still chasing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I’d say the biggest thing that we’re trying to roll out is actually identifying who leaked or who deep faked XYZ content. I think if we were able to do that, we might, I wouldn’t say solve the piracy problem, but definitely lower it. You know, we’re really hoping we can get in talks with, you know, platforms like OF, Fansly or Instagram and stuff like that, uh, to roll out a technology that we’re working on where basically it embeds like an invisible watermark into different images and stuff like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So if it is leaked or if it has deep faked or if someone else’s face has put on it, they’re able to know who exactly posted it based off this invisible embedded technology, which already exists for sites like Netflix. It’s how they track like video, uh, I guess leaks or, you know, from studios that maybe have like a trailer for the new Avengers movie and they want to track if it got leaked on X or anything like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think if we’re able to get that done, like I feel like we’d significantly fix the problem and be a lot more proactive. Because I mean, if people start realizing, ‘oh shoot, if I leak or deep fake content, my account gets banned. Like, it’s going to really throw a wrench in the whole leak ecosystem. And that’s what we’re really trying to build towards right now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re coming from very different sides of the internet, kind of, whether in the safe work side or the adult content industry. But this is also a problem that deeply affects both of your spheres of the creator economy. How has the proliferation of deepfake porn changed the creator industry for you? And what would you say to someone who’s afraid to keep posting?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The unfortunate thing is it’s such an uphill battle when it comes to deepfaked and leaked content, especially with AI getting as good as it is right now. But to somebody who is kind of scared to post right now, just know that there are people who are trying to find solutions to this kind of stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And for these people who are generating this kind of content, it’s very much about their own sense of control. It doesn’t reflect you as a creator. You shouldn’t be afraid to post what you want because of this horrible threat of somebody taking your content and basically twisting it into something that you didn’t consent to. And hopefully our government can kind of catch up with this kind of stuff here pretty soon. But there are people like me and Zander who are trying to take real steps to help mitigate this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For creators, I’d say, you know, if you need to, you know, get anything you need for support on it, do it. You know, if you need to take a step back, do it. And then I’d say like, it’s a twofold thing where it’s like, don’t glamorize generative AI video and image content because that only speeds up the industry and then really push for better legislation and, you know, call your Senator, call your Congressman, like get it passed. Because It’s only going to get worse as it gets easier and it’s able to be done for more people. I think those are probably the two biggest things a creator can do right now that has like an actual like tangible impact to halt this problem or make it slow down at least.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, thank you both so much for talking about all of this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, thank you for having us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, for sure.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you or someone you know has been targeted with deep fake porn, there are ways to have it removed. Fanlock also has free guides for creators navigating this problem. Check the show notes for more. We’ll link to a few resources about the Take It Down Act and how to remove non-consensual intimate imagery. For now, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. It was edited by Chris Hambrick. The Close All tabs team also includes producer Maya Cueva and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor in chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink dust silver K84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron red switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What happens when your therapist is… a chatbot?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg, it started with a late-night spiral over dating. Instead of texting a friend, she opened ChatGPT and got the kind of calm, reassuring advice she needed. It worked… maybe a little too well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley joins Morgan to dig into the rise of AI therapy, why so many people are turning to chatbots for emotional support, and what they might be risking in the process. These systems promise something traditional mental health care often can’t: instant, affordable, judgment-free access. But there are limits and, sometimes, serious consequences. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Note:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This episode includes discussions of suicide and mental health conditions. Listener discretion is advised.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode first aired on April 23rd, 2025 \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4726760100\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/lesleymcclurg\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley McClurg\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003cem>KQED\u003c/em> health correspondent\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996504/ai-replace-therapist-benefits-risks-unsettling-truths\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can AI Replace Your Therapist? The Benefits, Risks and Unsettling Truths\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lesley McClurg, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5351312/artificial-intelligence-mental-health-therapy\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The AI therapist can see you now\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Katia Riddle, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NPR\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://spectrum.ieee.org/woebot\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woebot, a Mental-Health Chatbot, Tries Out Generative AI\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Casey Sackett, Devin Harper, and Aaron Pavez, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">IEEE Spectrum\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12057327/ai-prophets-and-spiritual-delusions\">AI Prophets and Spiritual Delusions\u003c/a> — \u003ci>Close All Tabs\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202510/new-studies-reveal-mental-health-blindspots-of-ai-chatbots\">New Studies Reveal Mental Health Blindspots of AI Chatbots\u003c/a> — Marlynn Wei, \u003ci>Psychology Today\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/04/07/nx-s1-5771707/mental-health-care-workforce-artificial-intelligence-ai\">AI in the mental health care workforce is met with fear, pushback — and enthusiasm\u003c/a> — Rhitu Chatterjee, \u003ci>NPR\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey! You’re listening to Close All Tabs, and I’m Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">May is Mental Health Awareness Month. With the proliferation of AI tools over the last few years, many people have turned to chatbots for companionship, advice … and even therapy. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It makes sense — healthcare in the US can be completely inaccessible, especially when it comes to mental health treatment. But in some cases, AI chatbots can put very vulnerable users in danger.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In light of that, mental health has been at the forefront of conversations about AI use. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So today, for Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re re-airing an episode that explores that exact topic. A quick heads up: this episode includes discussion of suicide and mental health conditions, which may be distressing for some listeners. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ll have links to resources in the episode description.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I was going through a divorce and started dating after my divorce and hadn’t dated in many years and came home after a date one night and was just really anxious and kind of disheveled and needed some advice. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was late at night and I had used ChatGPT for, you know, other things and found it pretty helpful and I thought, what about for this moment in my life? And so I asked Chat whether or not I should reach out to this person that I had just dated because I was feeling like the night hadn’t gone that well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was late at night. She didn’t want to bug a friend about this, and really, she was feeling pretty vulnerable. She didn’t want to be judged. And so, ChatGPT was right there, ready to cheerfully answer her questions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was surprised that it was so good. I just remember after, you know, a few back and forths, I realized that really I was just nervous, really I just needed to take a deep breath. Basically I had created a big storm in my head. And Chat basically was like, “hey, chill, relax, it could have gone well. There’s another way this could have played out, not the sort of devastating reality that you’re playing out right now. Maybe give it a day or two and then reach out.” And so in that moment, it just sort of helped me take the gas off and come back into myself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was exactly what she needed to hear at the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn’t text the person, which was the right call, and kind of used it as I warmed myself back up into the dating world, and it was really helpful. And so it made me then, as a reporter, start asking, “should I be telling this thing all about my love life? Is this a good idea, privacy-wise, et cetera?” And so that’s where it sort of seeded my reporting going forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley isn’t the only one turning to ChatGPT for therapy. If you’ve ever dealt with any health insurance company, you’re probably familiar with the hassle of getting care. And mental health care is especially inaccessible. AI chatbots though, they’re convenient, cost little to nothing to use, and in Lesley’s case, can actually be pretty helpful. But a lot of people are also wary of turning to AI for therapy, can you trust it? What are you risking when you share your most vulnerable thoughts with a chatbot? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is 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. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Access to actual mental health resources has become so limited. Cost and insurance aside, there’s a shortage of licensed human mental health professionals across the country. But can AI therapy really replace actual therapists? Okay, new tab. Does AI therapy work? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the course of your reporting, did you meet anyone who actually used an AI chatbot for therapy? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I actually talked to quite a few people who used AI therapy and I went online and read a lot of Reddit threads because this is quite the popular topic. I heard more positive stories than negatives. As a reporter, I wanted to illustrate someone who kind of had a nuanced experience, you know, good and bad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, Lesley found a woman named Lilly Payne:. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She had kind of the ideal story to illustrate that, yes, it helped her, but it wasn’t ideal. And so that was sort of like the character that I ended up, you know, focusing on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In your story, you mentioned that Lilly had turned to AI therapy um during the COVID lockdowns, which were a terrible time for a lot of us. But Lilly wasn’t just experiencing, you know, anxiety and depression and loneliness. Her situation was a little more complicated, right? Can you talk about that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean in her words, her life basically fell apart. She graduated from college, she had moved to New York City to pursue an arts career, was very excited. And if we can remember, you know, New York was sort of the epicenter of the early days of COVID. It was really bad. Lockdown was really scary and the hospitals were overflowing and it was not a good scene. And so she left her arts career, abandoned her dreams and moved back home, which was pretty painful, to her parents’ home in Kentucky. And she is sort of tucked away, and it just felt like a big failure. And she was really struggling with like, what’s next for my life? Where do I go from here? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was such a lonely time for so many people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Lilly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was not at a breaking point, but I wasn’t doing awesome. So I was like, “the more help, the better.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so in all of that anxiety, she, you know, initially reached out and leaned on a lot of friends, but eventually she felt like she’d kind of worn those supports thin. And so she read about Woebot, this AI therapy platform in a health newsletter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I gave it a shot because I was like, why not? Everyone’s cooped up in their house. I will talk to this robot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Initially it was really helpful. It did help her calm herself. I think she said she, you know, even just having it in her pocket helped her feel more in control in her life. I think she relied on it quite a bit in those early days to kind of find her ground again and be able to focus on, you know, re-imagining a new life from there while she was back at home with her parents in Kentucky. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s worth noting that Woebot is a therapy-specific AI chatbot, and it doesn’t use generative AI to respond to users the way that other tools like ChatGPT, or Claude, or DeepSeek do. This means that its interactions with users are a bit more predictable. It’s also engineered to respond the way that a therapist might. So instead of immediately jumping into offering advice, Woebot asks specific questions to encourage users to reflect and do the inner work themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it was designed by a psychologist. And so, you know, from that perspective, it it really is designed to focus on your mental health. The goal of Woebot is, you know, as a mental health tool, as a wellness tool, I think is how they market themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woebot is designed to use a set of techniques called cognitive behavioral therapy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, cognitive behavioral therapy helps you reframe your negative thoughts using specific exercises. And, you know, I think as any CBT, which is what it’s acronym is, it feels a little forced, but she did say it did help her reframe those negative thoughts and that she was able to think more more positively. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Can you talk about uh Lilly’s uh other diagnosis that maybe complicated this form of treatment? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and sometimes that makes her fixate on worst-case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of the time when people think about OCD they think of, just the very cliche like, “oh, you can’t stop washing your hands, you’re afraid of germs.” While that is a very real subtype that people experience, typically OCD like manifests in really taboo intrusive thoughts, and then the physical compulsions stem from trying to keep those themes away. And so, logically, you can know that, like, this doesn’t make sense, it’s not actually happening, but it just, it, it’s not just in your head, like physically it feels so real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lilly is also diagnosed with anxiety and depression. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A symptom of depression is suicide ideation eventually, right? So she fixated on the idea that eventually because of her depression, that she may think about killing herself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My brain would be like, “Oh, you’ve struggled with depression in the past. There’s no saying that one day you won’t want to go through with suicide.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so she mentioned that she was worried about suicide in a session with Woebot. And Woebot came back and had a crisis alert and said, “hey, you better call the suicide hotline.” And she said, “no, no no, wait a second.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not experiencing suicidal inclinations, I’m just terrified that I will. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And luckily she knew that, she understood her disorder enough to know that nuance and to know what was happening in her brain because she had done so much previous therapy. But she said, you know, if she hadn’t really understood her disease, having that crisis alert come up may have even added more stress. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would have freaked out and been like, “oh my gosh, this this thing that is supposed to have this mental health knowledge thinks that I am suicidal. I must be suicidal, I must be a danger to myself.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, in defense of Woebot, they came back and said, “hey, we’re not, you know, specifically targeting or for people who have OCD. We really are just a wellness tool. “But her story illustrates where AI doesn’t necessarily have the nuance, the understanding — that a human, like a human therapist would have picked up on that. They would have understood that she had OCD and really understood the nuances of that, whereas in this case, Woebot didn’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. It sounds like Wobot was inadvertently validating this intrusive thought that she was having because she has OCD. And when you’re really depressed or anxious, it might be helpful for your feelings to be validated like that. But how does that compare to the recommended treatment for OCD? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean the recommended treatment for OCD is generally exposure therapy. So you expose yourself to whatever you’re scared of. And so in this case, a therapist would work with her in terms of exposing herself to those ideas, probably walk her through, you know, reality, et cetera, in a way that allows her to lean into her fears so that they’re not as scary and sort of wound up and keep going. And sort of overtake her. Whereas you, like a therapist wouldn’t stand up with a red flag and say, “Oh my God, you really are suicidal. Therefore you should call a hotline.” Right? Which is basically what Woebot did. Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lilly’s case is just one example of the limits of AI therapy. Responding with a crisis alert wasn’t helpful for her specific needs, but it’s probably good that Woebot even has those guardrails in place. But what happens when AI chatbots go off script? How bad can it get? We’ll get into that when we come back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">New tab. AI therapy … worst case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Woebot can’t necessarily respond with the nuance of an actual human therapist. But it seems like it wasn’t giving Lilly bad advice. Um but let’s talk about examples of AI therapy doing the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to do. What happened with the National Eating Disorder Association hotline? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, that didn’t play out very well. They created a bot named Tessa and some of the users found that Tessa was giving them dieting advice. So these are folks \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who have, you know, anorexia, bulimia, and somehow Tessa’s wires got crossed and people were getting the exact advice that would be really dangerous for their eating disorders. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sharon Maxwell: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The recommendations that Tessa gave me was that I could lose one to two pounds per week, that I should eat no more than 2,000 calories in a day, that I should have a calorie deficit of 500 to 1,000 calories per day. All of which might sound benign to the general listener, however, to an individual with an eating disorder, the focus of weight loss really fuels the eating disorder. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was Sharon Maxwell, an eating disorder recovery educator, speaking to NPR about her experience with Tessa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, NEDA, the National Eating Disorder Association, you know, pulled Tessa down and said, “this isn’t working very well.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it sounds like they just didn’t have that kind of guardrail in place. Like they didn’t anticipate that. Um, so even if Lilly didn’t really need Woebot to immediately jump into crisis mode, at least it had that guardrail to say, like, “hey, crisis.” But in the past, other AI chatbots have gotten into serious trouble for not responding to users’ red flags and just validating their responses. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that happened in the case of Character AI, this AI app that lets users personalize an AI companion based on fictional characters, celebrities, historical figures, all that. Until a recent lawsuit, Character AI did not have any safety measures or disclaimers warning users that they weren’t talking to a real person. What led to this lawsuit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, there was a 14-year-old who grew really attached to his character that he had created. Like you said, Character AI lets you create a character and then interact with that character. And, you know, not surprisingly, kind of like I did in my first experience with ChatGPT, it feels so good that you develop a little bit of an emotional connection. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so this 14-year-old did that over the course of several months. And then he started opening up about some of the distress that he was feeling. And the character, instead of steering, you know, this 14-year-old towards help, unfortunately the bot allegedly reinforced some suicidal thoughts and eventually the boy ended up taking his life. And so the lawsuit, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s terrible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly, it was really kind of horrific and it’s not the only one like this. There’s only a handful at this point, but it really is raising the red flag that these very empathetic responses are sort of like, you know parroting back, which is, again, what some AI does. Uh it can play out really, really poorly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> In January 2026, Character.AI agreed to settle multiple lawsuits that alleged that the chatbot contributed to mental health issues among teenagers. Other companies have faced similar lawsuits, after several users died by suicide, allegedly at the encouragement of chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what happened with the eating disorder hotline and Character AI, those are pretty extreme cases. Will most people actually experience those worst case scenarios? In your research, did you find anything about that? Or is it just like, are these just edge cases? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean we don’t have numbers yet. I think it’s really early in the arc of this technology. I think the experts are most worried about platforms that are like Character AI, where you are building a relationship with a character. In their defense, they’re not built as mental health tools, right? These are not marketing themselves as mental health tools. They are, you know, marketing themselves as, “hey, here, we’re going to give you a friend.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yet, you know, like a friend, like you and I probably do with our friends, we lean on our friends. We talk to our friends. We build emotional connections with our friends. We trust our friends for the right advice, right? And these are robots. So that relationship is not uh, you know, built on human connection. And like we can see it can go wrong. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another concern that I have, you know, as a tech reporter is uh privacy. ChatGPT, for example, isn’t HIPAA compliant. Could you explain what HIPPA is and why it’s necessary with medical information? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean HIPAA is the regulation that keeps all of our data safe. So when you go to the doctor, a doctor is required to keep all of your medical information, you know, totally private. It’s not going to be given anywhere. It’s not going to leak away. That is the privacy regulations. Now, some of these platforms, you know, for example, like Woebot, uh Rosebud is one, which is a platform that’s more like a journaling service. Uh you know, they say they’re HIPAA compliant, but there’s no one regulating them. It’s not like the American Medical Association is regulating them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, that data, you don’t really know where it’s going. You’re trusting these companies who are profit driven. You know, I mean, hopefully Woebot and Rosebud, you know, are following their own promises to their consumers. But there might be other companies that, you know, definitely ChatGPT is not, you know, promising that they’re HIPAA compliant. And, you know, that information is being used, is being put out there to retrain the model. And so, you know, hopefully they’re not gonna sell your data to advertisers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, also, I mean, the kind of a worst-case scenario, this fortunately hasn’t happened yet, but, you know, what if your mental health information gets out there, an insurance company gets wind of that, and your premiums start going up because they know that you’re struggling with something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh wow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, again, that hasn’t happen yet. Those are sort of like the worst- case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But again, worst-case scenarios. Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Obviously, the priority of pretty much any for profit company is to monetize. But, do AI companies have any incentive to improve as more people turn to their products for therapy, even if they aren’t necessarily mental health specific chatbots? Um, you know, are there better safety measures, more transparency about data collection, especially given the Character AI lawsuit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they have that incentive. They also have the incentive to keep you hooked. So I think that’s the sort of like fine line. We’ve seen that with all social media, right? They’re getting a lot better at keeping our attention. AI companies have the same needs and incentives to keep people coming back. And so, you know, I think it’s gonna be a gray area and it’s going to be, unfortunately, like the social media companies, it’s gonna be really up to the creators of these products on whether or not they’re gonna have a really ethical orientation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite all of these issues, therapy is so inaccessible that unfortunately, AI chatbots might feel like the only immediate tool that people have when seeking treatment. How did we get here? Let’s open one last tab. The mental healthcare crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You had mentioned earlier the state of mental health care. Why is it so hard to see a therapist? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, the demand for mental health services is really at an all-time high, and it’s surged even more, you know, since the pandemic began and continues to do so. I think there’s something like one in five Americans have some kind of a mental health issue, and yet they have a significant barrier to getting to a therapist. You know, I think it’s 55% of counties, people don’t have access to a psychotherapist or a social worker or a psychologist. They’re just aren’t any in that area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so, you know, I think because of this issue that these sort of mental health deserts, AI is a kind of natural fill-in. You know, It’s available 24-7. You don’t need insurance to get there. You don’t have a high deductible. Uh, you don’t have to prove to anyone that, you know, that you have a mental health condition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You don’t get accepted. Uh, so it’s easy and accessible. And I think that it will mean that more and more people are going to use this and hopefully, they’ll be well-informed consumers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You know, given the shortage of providers, and like you mentioned, insurance issues. Um, since the pandemic started, telehealth therapy has become pretty popular. But I’ve seen a lot of complaints about these kind of quick, one-size-fits-all mental health care platforms like BetterHelp, which matches users with Licensed Therapist or Cerebral, which sets users up with a psychiatrist that can prescribe medications like antidepressants or ADHD meds. And both of these services were created to, kind of fill this void that you’re talking about, but at the same time, they’re kind of plagued with their own issues. It seems like making therapy quick and accessible isn’t always as easy as it seems. What do you think? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think there’s absolutely a role for telehealth. I think there’s absolutely a role for AI therapy. I think anyone would probably say that having a really heartfelt connection with a therapist in an office, live human, feels different than if you are talking to a screen. And the emotional repair that can happen in that session with a live human I think is different and potentially more profound than with a robot. That might change over time. You know, I don’t know how good these things are going to get. They already feel a little bit too good for my own comfort. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, but they might, they might get even better. You know, same thing, I think the telehealth model at this point is pretty early. I think that they are still refining how well those things work. I think it’s similar with AI therapy. And, you know, I think the, the tricky thing here as well with any of these technological solutions is that we are also living in a pretty isolated way in our lives right now. If you’re taking even like your therapy to a computer, that’s one less human that you’re interacting with. And maybe you’re, you know, mental health issues are because you’re dealing with isolation, with estrangement, with disconnection. Those feelings might even become more escalated if you’re, you know, using telehealth or using AI therapy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I saw both responses and reflections when I was reading these Reddit threads, you know, from people who were in rural places. I knew that they were feeling more isolated using an AI therapy and others who said, “you know, it was a godsend because I was so alone, at least someone was listening to me. ” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For your story on AI therapy, you talked to a bunch of psychologists and, you know, real-life human psychologists, um and, you know, someone from the American Psychological Association. Are human therapists concerned about being replaced by AI? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t hear that from them yet. Number one, they’re still really in high demand. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I don’t think they’re feeling that crunch yet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s still a shortage, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s still a huge shortage. And I think, they’re, they’re fairly confident that what they offer is different than what AI therapy offers. And, you know, they can pick up on subtle cues that AI, you know, can’t, say like body language or, you know, pace of speech. These things can reveal a lot about our mental health state, and AI can’t pick up on that stuff. So, and in the deeper bonds, the deeper attachment work that you might do in therapy, I think therapists are quite confident that they’re still better at that. Uh, so in this moment, I would say they’re not, they’re not especially worried. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve talked about the downsides of AI therapy pretty extensively. Um but, you had mentioned like that they can kind of be a tool in a bigger treatment plan while also seeing a real therapist. If someone is going to use AI therapy, how should they approach it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Yeah. I think, that’s the message I hope comes across in my reporting, is that, you know, there are these worst case scenarios. Again, I think that the consumer should be educated on how their data is going to be used and understand how the company operates so that they’re not sharing uh really vulnerable information. But I think as a sort of, you know, addition to your yoga, your meditation, your, uh, you know, walks in nature, I think AI can really be a self-regulation tool. And I think it can be used quite well. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I talked to one company, Rosebud, which is a kind of journaling platform, which it asks you questions to kind of inspire you to express whatever’s going on and help you reflect. And it can follow a thread. So if you mentioned something two weeks ago about your relationship and what was going wrong, it will check in with you about what is happening and help you make sense of that. And I was on it. You know, I’m not a huge pen and paper person. You know, I don’t write anything anymore, so my arm hurts really quickly. And so, I enjoy, you know, I like just would pick up my phone and I would journal just, you know, talking to it and it would ask me questions and it felt, you know, fairly similar to a conversation with a friend. And I would always feel quite a bit better afterwards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, in that sense, I think it can be quite helpful because, you know, maybe I’m in therapy once a week, but I’m having a panic attack on Monday night and my, you know, appointment is not until Thursday. I think in that sense, you know, it’s four o’clock in the morning. I can’t call a human therapist no matter what, even if I do have one. You know, to sit down and have the opportunity to have something that’s engaging me, um, I think can be really helpful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m really curious, since you started reporting on this story, have you used ChatGPT, uh, not necessarily as a therapist, but you know, as this kind of mental health tool that you’re talking about since? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wish I had the positive spin to be like, “yes, I’m relying on it all the time.” You know, I didn’t and I don’t. Um, I felt a little bit like one more thing to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I felt similarly, you know, we talked about Lilly at the beginning of the story, and the reason that she stopped using Woebot was not because, you know, it had the crisis alert or it sort of like poorly dealt with her OCD, she got tired of being on her phone. She was like, “I didn’t want to be on my phone anymore. I wanted to talk to someone.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I feel that. You know, that was, that was, kind of my reasoning, you know, because of my job, I’m on a computer, you know, nearly all day long, and I didn’t want one more thing on the computer or one more thing on my phone. I can imagine, you know, if I was going through a really tough time again, you know, turning to it. Um, luckily, I’m in a bit of a good moment, so I haven’t been using it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You can unplug now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. I’m going to enjoy this moment and ride the wave of goodness. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks again to KQED’s Lesley McClurg: for talking with us about this story. You can check out more of her reporting on healthcare, including this story on AI Therapy at KQED.org. Again, AI therapy tools work best when they’re used in addition to treatment under a licensed professional. But if it’s the only option accessible to you right now, there are AI tools specifically designed for mental health and wellness that might be more useful than the general chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude. For now, let’s close these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>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. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you use. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"description": "What happens when your therapist is… a chatbot? For KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg, it started with a late-night spiral over dating. Instead of texting a friend, she opened ChatGPT and got the kind of calm, reassuring advice she needed. It worked… maybe a little too well.Lesley joins Morgan to dig into the rise of AI therapy, why so many people are turning to chatbots for emotional support, and what they might be risking in the process. These systems promise something traditional mental health care often can’t: instant, affordable, judgment-free access. But there are limits and, sometimes, serious consequences. Note: This episode includes discussions of suicide and mental health conditions. Listener discretion is advised. This episode first aired on April 23rd, 2025. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What happens when your therapist is… a chatbot?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg, it started with a late-night spiral over dating. Instead of texting a friend, she opened ChatGPT and got the kind of calm, reassuring advice she needed. It worked… maybe a little too well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley joins Morgan to dig into the rise of AI therapy, why so many people are turning to chatbots for emotional support, and what they might be risking in the process. These systems promise something traditional mental health care often can’t: instant, affordable, judgment-free access. But there are limits and, sometimes, serious consequences. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Note:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This episode includes discussions of suicide and mental health conditions. Listener discretion is advised.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode first aired on April 23rd, 2025 \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4726760100\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/lesleymcclurg\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley McClurg\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003cem>KQED\u003c/em> health correspondent\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996504/ai-replace-therapist-benefits-risks-unsettling-truths\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can AI Replace Your Therapist? The Benefits, Risks and Unsettling Truths\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lesley McClurg, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5351312/artificial-intelligence-mental-health-therapy\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The AI therapist can see you now\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Katia Riddle, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NPR\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://spectrum.ieee.org/woebot\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woebot, a Mental-Health Chatbot, Tries Out Generative AI\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Casey Sackett, Devin Harper, and Aaron Pavez, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">IEEE Spectrum\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12057327/ai-prophets-and-spiritual-delusions\">AI Prophets and Spiritual Delusions\u003c/a> — \u003ci>Close All Tabs\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202510/new-studies-reveal-mental-health-blindspots-of-ai-chatbots\">New Studies Reveal Mental Health Blindspots of AI Chatbots\u003c/a> — Marlynn Wei, \u003ci>Psychology Today\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/04/07/nx-s1-5771707/mental-health-care-workforce-artificial-intelligence-ai\">AI in the mental health care workforce is met with fear, pushback — and enthusiasm\u003c/a> — Rhitu Chatterjee, \u003ci>NPR\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey! You’re listening to Close All Tabs, and I’m Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">May is Mental Health Awareness Month. With the proliferation of AI tools over the last few years, many people have turned to chatbots for companionship, advice … and even therapy. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It makes sense — healthcare in the US can be completely inaccessible, especially when it comes to mental health treatment. But in some cases, AI chatbots can put very vulnerable users in danger.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In light of that, mental health has been at the forefront of conversations about AI use. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So today, for Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re re-airing an episode that explores that exact topic. A quick heads up: this episode includes discussion of suicide and mental health conditions, which may be distressing for some listeners. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ll have links to resources in the episode description.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I was going through a divorce and started dating after my divorce and hadn’t dated in many years and came home after a date one night and was just really anxious and kind of disheveled and needed some advice. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was late at night and I had used ChatGPT for, you know, other things and found it pretty helpful and I thought, what about for this moment in my life? And so I asked Chat whether or not I should reach out to this person that I had just dated because I was feeling like the night hadn’t gone that well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was late at night. She didn’t want to bug a friend about this, and really, she was feeling pretty vulnerable. She didn’t want to be judged. And so, ChatGPT was right there, ready to cheerfully answer her questions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was surprised that it was so good. I just remember after, you know, a few back and forths, I realized that really I was just nervous, really I just needed to take a deep breath. Basically I had created a big storm in my head. And Chat basically was like, “hey, chill, relax, it could have gone well. There’s another way this could have played out, not the sort of devastating reality that you’re playing out right now. Maybe give it a day or two and then reach out.” And so in that moment, it just sort of helped me take the gas off and come back into myself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was exactly what she needed to hear at the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn’t text the person, which was the right call, and kind of used it as I warmed myself back up into the dating world, and it was really helpful. And so it made me then, as a reporter, start asking, “should I be telling this thing all about my love life? Is this a good idea, privacy-wise, et cetera?” And so that’s where it sort of seeded my reporting going forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley isn’t the only one turning to ChatGPT for therapy. If you’ve ever dealt with any health insurance company, you’re probably familiar with the hassle of getting care. And mental health care is especially inaccessible. AI chatbots though, they’re convenient, cost little to nothing to use, and in Lesley’s case, can actually be pretty helpful. But a lot of people are also wary of turning to AI for therapy, can you trust it? What are you risking when you share your most vulnerable thoughts with a chatbot? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is 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. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Access to actual mental health resources has become so limited. Cost and insurance aside, there’s a shortage of licensed human mental health professionals across the country. But can AI therapy really replace actual therapists? Okay, new tab. Does AI therapy work? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the course of your reporting, did you meet anyone who actually used an AI chatbot for therapy? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I actually talked to quite a few people who used AI therapy and I went online and read a lot of Reddit threads because this is quite the popular topic. I heard more positive stories than negatives. As a reporter, I wanted to illustrate someone who kind of had a nuanced experience, you know, good and bad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, Lesley found a woman named Lilly Payne:. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She had kind of the ideal story to illustrate that, yes, it helped her, but it wasn’t ideal. And so that was sort of like the character that I ended up, you know, focusing on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In your story, you mentioned that Lilly had turned to AI therapy um during the COVID lockdowns, which were a terrible time for a lot of us. But Lilly wasn’t just experiencing, you know, anxiety and depression and loneliness. Her situation was a little more complicated, right? Can you talk about that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean in her words, her life basically fell apart. She graduated from college, she had moved to New York City to pursue an arts career, was very excited. And if we can remember, you know, New York was sort of the epicenter of the early days of COVID. It was really bad. Lockdown was really scary and the hospitals were overflowing and it was not a good scene. And so she left her arts career, abandoned her dreams and moved back home, which was pretty painful, to her parents’ home in Kentucky. And she is sort of tucked away, and it just felt like a big failure. And she was really struggling with like, what’s next for my life? Where do I go from here? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was such a lonely time for so many people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Lilly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was not at a breaking point, but I wasn’t doing awesome. So I was like, “the more help, the better.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so in all of that anxiety, she, you know, initially reached out and leaned on a lot of friends, but eventually she felt like she’d kind of worn those supports thin. And so she read about Woebot, this AI therapy platform in a health newsletter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I gave it a shot because I was like, why not? Everyone’s cooped up in their house. I will talk to this robot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Initially it was really helpful. It did help her calm herself. I think she said she, you know, even just having it in her pocket helped her feel more in control in her life. I think she relied on it quite a bit in those early days to kind of find her ground again and be able to focus on, you know, re-imagining a new life from there while she was back at home with her parents in Kentucky. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s worth noting that Woebot is a therapy-specific AI chatbot, and it doesn’t use generative AI to respond to users the way that other tools like ChatGPT, or Claude, or DeepSeek do. This means that its interactions with users are a bit more predictable. It’s also engineered to respond the way that a therapist might. So instead of immediately jumping into offering advice, Woebot asks specific questions to encourage users to reflect and do the inner work themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it was designed by a psychologist. And so, you know, from that perspective, it it really is designed to focus on your mental health. The goal of Woebot is, you know, as a mental health tool, as a wellness tool, I think is how they market themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woebot is designed to use a set of techniques called cognitive behavioral therapy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, cognitive behavioral therapy helps you reframe your negative thoughts using specific exercises. And, you know, I think as any CBT, which is what it’s acronym is, it feels a little forced, but she did say it did help her reframe those negative thoughts and that she was able to think more more positively. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Can you talk about uh Lilly’s uh other diagnosis that maybe complicated this form of treatment? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and sometimes that makes her fixate on worst-case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of the time when people think about OCD they think of, just the very cliche like, “oh, you can’t stop washing your hands, you’re afraid of germs.” While that is a very real subtype that people experience, typically OCD like manifests in really taboo intrusive thoughts, and then the physical compulsions stem from trying to keep those themes away. And so, logically, you can know that, like, this doesn’t make sense, it’s not actually happening, but it just, it, it’s not just in your head, like physically it feels so real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lilly is also diagnosed with anxiety and depression. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A symptom of depression is suicide ideation eventually, right? So she fixated on the idea that eventually because of her depression, that she may think about killing herself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My brain would be like, “Oh, you’ve struggled with depression in the past. There’s no saying that one day you won’t want to go through with suicide.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so she mentioned that she was worried about suicide in a session with Woebot. And Woebot came back and had a crisis alert and said, “hey, you better call the suicide hotline.” And she said, “no, no no, wait a second.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not experiencing suicidal inclinations, I’m just terrified that I will. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And luckily she knew that, she understood her disorder enough to know that nuance and to know what was happening in her brain because she had done so much previous therapy. But she said, you know, if she hadn’t really understood her disease, having that crisis alert come up may have even added more stress. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would have freaked out and been like, “oh my gosh, this this thing that is supposed to have this mental health knowledge thinks that I am suicidal. I must be suicidal, I must be a danger to myself.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, in defense of Woebot, they came back and said, “hey, we’re not, you know, specifically targeting or for people who have OCD. We really are just a wellness tool. “But her story illustrates where AI doesn’t necessarily have the nuance, the understanding — that a human, like a human therapist would have picked up on that. They would have understood that she had OCD and really understood the nuances of that, whereas in this case, Woebot didn’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. It sounds like Wobot was inadvertently validating this intrusive thought that she was having because she has OCD. And when you’re really depressed or anxious, it might be helpful for your feelings to be validated like that. But how does that compare to the recommended treatment for OCD? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean the recommended treatment for OCD is generally exposure therapy. So you expose yourself to whatever you’re scared of. And so in this case, a therapist would work with her in terms of exposing herself to those ideas, probably walk her through, you know, reality, et cetera, in a way that allows her to lean into her fears so that they’re not as scary and sort of wound up and keep going. And sort of overtake her. Whereas you, like a therapist wouldn’t stand up with a red flag and say, “Oh my God, you really are suicidal. Therefore you should call a hotline.” Right? Which is basically what Woebot did. Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lilly’s case is just one example of the limits of AI therapy. Responding with a crisis alert wasn’t helpful for her specific needs, but it’s probably good that Woebot even has those guardrails in place. But what happens when AI chatbots go off script? How bad can it get? We’ll get into that when we come back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">New tab. AI therapy … worst case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Woebot can’t necessarily respond with the nuance of an actual human therapist. But it seems like it wasn’t giving Lilly bad advice. Um but let’s talk about examples of AI therapy doing the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to do. What happened with the National Eating Disorder Association hotline? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, that didn’t play out very well. They created a bot named Tessa and some of the users found that Tessa was giving them dieting advice. So these are folks \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who have, you know, anorexia, bulimia, and somehow Tessa’s wires got crossed and people were getting the exact advice that would be really dangerous for their eating disorders. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sharon Maxwell: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The recommendations that Tessa gave me was that I could lose one to two pounds per week, that I should eat no more than 2,000 calories in a day, that I should have a calorie deficit of 500 to 1,000 calories per day. All of which might sound benign to the general listener, however, to an individual with an eating disorder, the focus of weight loss really fuels the eating disorder. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was Sharon Maxwell, an eating disorder recovery educator, speaking to NPR about her experience with Tessa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, NEDA, the National Eating Disorder Association, you know, pulled Tessa down and said, “this isn’t working very well.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it sounds like they just didn’t have that kind of guardrail in place. Like they didn’t anticipate that. Um, so even if Lilly didn’t really need Woebot to immediately jump into crisis mode, at least it had that guardrail to say, like, “hey, crisis.” But in the past, other AI chatbots have gotten into serious trouble for not responding to users’ red flags and just validating their responses. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that happened in the case of Character AI, this AI app that lets users personalize an AI companion based on fictional characters, celebrities, historical figures, all that. Until a recent lawsuit, Character AI did not have any safety measures or disclaimers warning users that they weren’t talking to a real person. What led to this lawsuit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, there was a 14-year-old who grew really attached to his character that he had created. Like you said, Character AI lets you create a character and then interact with that character. And, you know, not surprisingly, kind of like I did in my first experience with ChatGPT, it feels so good that you develop a little bit of an emotional connection. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so this 14-year-old did that over the course of several months. And then he started opening up about some of the distress that he was feeling. And the character, instead of steering, you know, this 14-year-old towards help, unfortunately the bot allegedly reinforced some suicidal thoughts and eventually the boy ended up taking his life. And so the lawsuit, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s terrible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly, it was really kind of horrific and it’s not the only one like this. There’s only a handful at this point, but it really is raising the red flag that these very empathetic responses are sort of like, you know parroting back, which is, again, what some AI does. Uh it can play out really, really poorly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> In January 2026, Character.AI agreed to settle multiple lawsuits that alleged that the chatbot contributed to mental health issues among teenagers. Other companies have faced similar lawsuits, after several users died by suicide, allegedly at the encouragement of chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what happened with the eating disorder hotline and Character AI, those are pretty extreme cases. Will most people actually experience those worst case scenarios? In your research, did you find anything about that? Or is it just like, are these just edge cases? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean we don’t have numbers yet. I think it’s really early in the arc of this technology. I think the experts are most worried about platforms that are like Character AI, where you are building a relationship with a character. In their defense, they’re not built as mental health tools, right? These are not marketing themselves as mental health tools. They are, you know, marketing themselves as, “hey, here, we’re going to give you a friend.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yet, you know, like a friend, like you and I probably do with our friends, we lean on our friends. We talk to our friends. We build emotional connections with our friends. We trust our friends for the right advice, right? And these are robots. So that relationship is not uh, you know, built on human connection. And like we can see it can go wrong. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another concern that I have, you know, as a tech reporter is uh privacy. ChatGPT, for example, isn’t HIPAA compliant. Could you explain what HIPPA is and why it’s necessary with medical information? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean HIPAA is the regulation that keeps all of our data safe. So when you go to the doctor, a doctor is required to keep all of your medical information, you know, totally private. It’s not going to be given anywhere. It’s not going to leak away. That is the privacy regulations. Now, some of these platforms, you know, for example, like Woebot, uh Rosebud is one, which is a platform that’s more like a journaling service. Uh you know, they say they’re HIPAA compliant, but there’s no one regulating them. It’s not like the American Medical Association is regulating them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, that data, you don’t really know where it’s going. You’re trusting these companies who are profit driven. You know, I mean, hopefully Woebot and Rosebud, you know, are following their own promises to their consumers. But there might be other companies that, you know, definitely ChatGPT is not, you know, promising that they’re HIPAA compliant. And, you know, that information is being used, is being put out there to retrain the model. And so, you know, hopefully they’re not gonna sell your data to advertisers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, also, I mean, the kind of a worst-case scenario, this fortunately hasn’t happened yet, but, you know, what if your mental health information gets out there, an insurance company gets wind of that, and your premiums start going up because they know that you’re struggling with something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh wow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, again, that hasn’t happen yet. Those are sort of like the worst- case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But again, worst-case scenarios. Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Obviously, the priority of pretty much any for profit company is to monetize. But, do AI companies have any incentive to improve as more people turn to their products for therapy, even if they aren’t necessarily mental health specific chatbots? Um, you know, are there better safety measures, more transparency about data collection, especially given the Character AI lawsuit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they have that incentive. They also have the incentive to keep you hooked. So I think that’s the sort of like fine line. We’ve seen that with all social media, right? They’re getting a lot better at keeping our attention. AI companies have the same needs and incentives to keep people coming back. And so, you know, I think it’s gonna be a gray area and it’s going to be, unfortunately, like the social media companies, it’s gonna be really up to the creators of these products on whether or not they’re gonna have a really ethical orientation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite all of these issues, therapy is so inaccessible that unfortunately, AI chatbots might feel like the only immediate tool that people have when seeking treatment. How did we get here? Let’s open one last tab. The mental healthcare crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You had mentioned earlier the state of mental health care. Why is it so hard to see a therapist? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, the demand for mental health services is really at an all-time high, and it’s surged even more, you know, since the pandemic began and continues to do so. I think there’s something like one in five Americans have some kind of a mental health issue, and yet they have a significant barrier to getting to a therapist. You know, I think it’s 55% of counties, people don’t have access to a psychotherapist or a social worker or a psychologist. They’re just aren’t any in that area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so, you know, I think because of this issue that these sort of mental health deserts, AI is a kind of natural fill-in. You know, It’s available 24-7. You don’t need insurance to get there. You don’t have a high deductible. Uh, you don’t have to prove to anyone that, you know, that you have a mental health condition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You don’t get accepted. Uh, so it’s easy and accessible. And I think that it will mean that more and more people are going to use this and hopefully, they’ll be well-informed consumers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You know, given the shortage of providers, and like you mentioned, insurance issues. Um, since the pandemic started, telehealth therapy has become pretty popular. But I’ve seen a lot of complaints about these kind of quick, one-size-fits-all mental health care platforms like BetterHelp, which matches users with Licensed Therapist or Cerebral, which sets users up with a psychiatrist that can prescribe medications like antidepressants or ADHD meds. And both of these services were created to, kind of fill this void that you’re talking about, but at the same time, they’re kind of plagued with their own issues. It seems like making therapy quick and accessible isn’t always as easy as it seems. What do you think? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think there’s absolutely a role for telehealth. I think there’s absolutely a role for AI therapy. I think anyone would probably say that having a really heartfelt connection with a therapist in an office, live human, feels different than if you are talking to a screen. And the emotional repair that can happen in that session with a live human I think is different and potentially more profound than with a robot. That might change over time. You know, I don’t know how good these things are going to get. They already feel a little bit too good for my own comfort. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, but they might, they might get even better. You know, same thing, I think the telehealth model at this point is pretty early. I think that they are still refining how well those things work. I think it’s similar with AI therapy. And, you know, I think the, the tricky thing here as well with any of these technological solutions is that we are also living in a pretty isolated way in our lives right now. If you’re taking even like your therapy to a computer, that’s one less human that you’re interacting with. And maybe you’re, you know, mental health issues are because you’re dealing with isolation, with estrangement, with disconnection. Those feelings might even become more escalated if you’re, you know, using telehealth or using AI therapy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I saw both responses and reflections when I was reading these Reddit threads, you know, from people who were in rural places. I knew that they were feeling more isolated using an AI therapy and others who said, “you know, it was a godsend because I was so alone, at least someone was listening to me. ” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For your story on AI therapy, you talked to a bunch of psychologists and, you know, real-life human psychologists, um and, you know, someone from the American Psychological Association. Are human therapists concerned about being replaced by AI? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t hear that from them yet. Number one, they’re still really in high demand. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I don’t think they’re feeling that crunch yet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s still a shortage, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s still a huge shortage. And I think, they’re, they’re fairly confident that what they offer is different than what AI therapy offers. And, you know, they can pick up on subtle cues that AI, you know, can’t, say like body language or, you know, pace of speech. These things can reveal a lot about our mental health state, and AI can’t pick up on that stuff. So, and in the deeper bonds, the deeper attachment work that you might do in therapy, I think therapists are quite confident that they’re still better at that. Uh, so in this moment, I would say they’re not, they’re not especially worried. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve talked about the downsides of AI therapy pretty extensively. Um but, you had mentioned like that they can kind of be a tool in a bigger treatment plan while also seeing a real therapist. If someone is going to use AI therapy, how should they approach it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Yeah. I think, that’s the message I hope comes across in my reporting, is that, you know, there are these worst case scenarios. Again, I think that the consumer should be educated on how their data is going to be used and understand how the company operates so that they’re not sharing uh really vulnerable information. But I think as a sort of, you know, addition to your yoga, your meditation, your, uh, you know, walks in nature, I think AI can really be a self-regulation tool. And I think it can be used quite well. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I talked to one company, Rosebud, which is a kind of journaling platform, which it asks you questions to kind of inspire you to express whatever’s going on and help you reflect. And it can follow a thread. So if you mentioned something two weeks ago about your relationship and what was going wrong, it will check in with you about what is happening and help you make sense of that. And I was on it. You know, I’m not a huge pen and paper person. You know, I don’t write anything anymore, so my arm hurts really quickly. And so, I enjoy, you know, I like just would pick up my phone and I would journal just, you know, talking to it and it would ask me questions and it felt, you know, fairly similar to a conversation with a friend. And I would always feel quite a bit better afterwards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, in that sense, I think it can be quite helpful because, you know, maybe I’m in therapy once a week, but I’m having a panic attack on Monday night and my, you know, appointment is not until Thursday. I think in that sense, you know, it’s four o’clock in the morning. I can’t call a human therapist no matter what, even if I do have one. You know, to sit down and have the opportunity to have something that’s engaging me, um, I think can be really helpful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m really curious, since you started reporting on this story, have you used ChatGPT, uh, not necessarily as a therapist, but you know, as this kind of mental health tool that you’re talking about since? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wish I had the positive spin to be like, “yes, I’m relying on it all the time.” You know, I didn’t and I don’t. Um, I felt a little bit like one more thing to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I felt similarly, you know, we talked about Lilly at the beginning of the story, and the reason that she stopped using Woebot was not because, you know, it had the crisis alert or it sort of like poorly dealt with her OCD, she got tired of being on her phone. She was like, “I didn’t want to be on my phone anymore. I wanted to talk to someone.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I feel that. You know, that was, that was, kind of my reasoning, you know, because of my job, I’m on a computer, you know, nearly all day long, and I didn’t want one more thing on the computer or one more thing on my phone. I can imagine, you know, if I was going through a really tough time again, you know, turning to it. Um, luckily, I’m in a bit of a good moment, so I haven’t been using it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You can unplug now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. I’m going to enjoy this moment and ride the wave of goodness. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks again to KQED’s Lesley McClurg: for talking with us about this story. You can check out more of her reporting on healthcare, including this story on AI Therapy at KQED.org. Again, AI therapy tools work best when they’re used in addition to treatment under a licensed professional. But if it’s the only option accessible to you right now, there are AI tools specifically designed for mental health and wellness that might be more useful than the general chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude. For now, let’s close these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>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. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you use. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "somebodys-watching-me-the-crackdown-on-stalkerware",
"title": "Somebody’s Watching Me: The Crackdown on Stalkerware",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2018, researcher Eva Galperin made a discovery about a colleague. He had been sexually abusing women for decades, and threatening to expose their private information using “stalkerware” — hidden applications that allow people to spy on another person’s private life through their mobile device. This set Eva on a new path. She went on to found the Coalition Against Stalkerware, a network of researchers and advocacy groups working to limit the spread of stalkerware and support survivors of tech-enabled abuse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva joins Morgan to talk about how her background in cybersecurity allowed her to help countless survivors of stalkerware abuse, and how activists and researchers are beginning to turn the tide against a sprawling, largely hidden industry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4327771430\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eff.org/about/staff/eva-galperin\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva Galperin\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://stopstalkerware.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What is stalkerware?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coalition Against Stalkerware \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/09/hacked-leaked-exposed-why-you-should-stop-using-stalkerware-apps/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hacked, leaked, exposed: Why you should never use stalkerware apps\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TechCrunch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/21/17035552/sexual-assault-harassment-whisper-network-reporting-failure-marquis-boire\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When whisper networks let us down\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Sarah Jeong, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Verge\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/spyware-company-spyfone-terabytes-data-exposed-online-leak/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spyware Company Leaves ‘Terabytes’ of Selfies, Text Messages, and Location Data Exposed Online\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vice \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/stalkerware-security-phone-data-thousands/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A massive ‘stalkerware’ leak puts the phone data of thousands at risk \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Zack Whittaker, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TechCrunch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/17/support-king-ftc-spytrac/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Support King, banned by FTC, linked to new phone spying operation\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Zack Whittaker, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TechCrunch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/eff-teams-av-comparatives-test-android-stalkerware-detection-major-antivirus-apps\">EFF Teams Up With AV Comparatives to Test Android Stalkerware Detection by Major Antivirus Apps \u003c/a>— Eva Galperin, \u003ci>Electronic Frontier Foundation\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello, do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? Then please rate and review Close All Tags on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends, post about it on Instagram, Blue Sky, X, Discord, Reddit, the comments of whatever random recipe blog you start arguments in. Basically, it would be a huge help to just get the word out. Okay, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just a note, this episode contains mentions of sexual assault and domestic violence, so listen with care. Eva Galperin is the Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In some circles, she’s reluctantly known as the privacy pope.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People would come to me telling me about incredibly privacy invasive stuff that they had done as if they were looking to confess their sins and hoping that I would bless them. And the whole point of this is, in fact, that I am not the privacy pope.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva may not be the privacy pope, but she has been working to protect the privacy of vulnerable people for years. In the early 2010s, she was a security researcher. She compiled information on governments that use surveillance malware to target journalists and activists.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And in late 2017, it came out that the primary person with whom I was doing all of this security research was a serial rapist.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva had been working with his colleague for years. He was a fellow researcher, known for defending human rights activists and journalists in repressive countries. Behind closed doors, he had been secretly abusing and assaulting women for over a decade, and he kept them quiet with a threat of hacking. In a series of articles in The Verge in 2018, many of his survivors explained why they were so afraid to come forward.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It really struck me how much they all described themselves as really scared of what he might do to their devices, because apparently he had threatened to compromise their devices if they came out and said anything about him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The survivors were scared of stalkerware, that software that’s often covertly installed on a device to track and record the user’s activity. It goes further than location sharing. This is software that the user is not aware of and doesn’t consent to. Stalkerware can log messages, internet history, photos, and pretty much any sensitive activity or information. The person who installed it can then turn around and use this information to harass, monitor, and coerce their target. That’s what the victims of this former colleague were so afraid of.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was very upsetting. And as with anything, when you suddenly discover that someone is not the person that you think they are, you go back and think about incidents and go, oh, there were signs I should have known. And you spend a lot of time beating yourself up. But I decided that beating myself up is not best use of my time. And that helping people is the best use my time. I was so mad. So I did what most people did in the year 2018 when they got very angry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Eva did next started a chain reaction, one that led her to build a network aimed at taking down a massive shadowy industry of illegal software developers creating surveillance tools for tech savvy abusers. Today, we’re diving into the fight against stalkerware. What the software really does, how Eva and others have been working together to protect survivors, and the legal gray areas that make this industry so hard to take down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Morgan Sung and this is Close All Tabs. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, before we get into the fight, we need to understand what we’re dealing with. And for that, we need open a new tab: What is stalkerware?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stalkerware is a form of tech-enabled abuse, the umbrella of digital tools and tactics that abusers use to control, harass, and intimidate their victims. A common version might look like parental monitoring apps that can run in the background and provide live access to the device’s location, text messages, and social media activity. Eva said that stalkerware works differently depending on the operating system. Androids and iPhones have different security measures. If you have an Android, the abuser needs to actually download an app onto your phone. To do that, they need to have your phone’s password. Eva says this isn’t the barrier you might think it is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This whole idea of like, well, just don’t give the abuser your password. Uh, you know, I’ve got news for you about how abuse works. So it is very common for abusers to have physical access to the device, to have the password for the device. And when the survivor isn’t looking, when they have their back turned, when they’re in the other room, uh, they download the app.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stalkerware generally isn’t allowed on Google’s Store, so a lot of these apps are downloaded from websites. They don’t appear as normal apps do. They’re hidden. If you don’t know that it’s there, then you don’t know to delete it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The stalker then logs into a website usually and they pay money to the company for access to the portal which gives them information about what is happening on your phone. Sometimes that can be your SMS messages, your WhatsApp messages, all of your passwords. There can be a keylogger on there so just like every key that you hit could possibly be logged, photos being shared. You can sometimes remotely access the camera without setting off a little light that tells you the camera is on, or remotely set off the microphone for recording, which is also very invasive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most people carry their phones everywhere they go, which means that stalkerware that tracks real-time location and sends out GPS data is particularly prevalent. If you use an iPhone, the process looks a little different. Abusers typically steal their victim’s Apple ID password.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, a thing that you can get if you are an abuser because that’s how abuse works.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they may also need physical access to the phone, which abusers likely already have.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then the stalkerware, which is using the Apple ID, then just makes covert full backups of the phone. You will not get real-time information, but you will essentially get information about once every 24 hours if you are spying on an iPhone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stalkerware, for the most part, is illegal across the world, but it’s a tricky field to regulate, especially in the U.S. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Writing stalkerware is not illegal, you know, code is speech, it’s protected by the First Amendment. However, if you buy this stuff and you install it on somebody else’s device and you use it to exfiltrate data from that device, you are violating many different laws at once. Up to and including the CFAA, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To exfiltrate data means to move sensitive information to another location without permission.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are listening in on somebody’s conversations, especially in a two-party consent state, you could be violating the Wiretap Act, which is a state-by-state basis kind of situation. You could also be violating various state laws around stalking, especially if you are tracking somebody’s physical location. Additionally, there are other laws that are potentially being broken. By the company that is selling you the app. Because writing stalkerware, again, not illegal. However, if you write it and then you sell it and market it specifically for the purpose of doing things that are illegal, like installing the app on somebody else’s device, specifically in a way that they cannot see it in order to spy on the things that they’re doing, that’s illegal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this is obviously super illegal in multiple jurisdictions. In 2018 specifically, when you were first kind of really getting involved, how did people keep getting away with it then?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, there are a bunch of different reasons. One of the big problems that I have in my advocacy is that when I describe a problem, often what people say their first reaction is ‘there ought to be a law.’ Law is meaningless if the law does not get implemented. If there are no consequences for breaking the law, why have a law in the first place? Frequently stalking is one of those crimes that very rarely sees consequences. We do not have a lot of support for survivors of domestic abuse or for people who are stalked or spied on in this country. And the fact that people do it so often without consequences leaves other people with the impression that this is fine and legal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So then what do you do about stalkerware? That’s a new tab. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Okay, we’ll get back to Eva’s story and the fight against stalkerwear right after this break. Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome back. So let’s open that new tab: What do you do about stalkerware? Okay, let’s go back to 2018. Eva found out that one of her colleagues, someone she trusted, was not only a serial rapist, but had also leveraged his position as a security and privacy expert to silence the women he abused.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t have any evidence that he actually broke into anybody’s phones or computers as retaliation for this. This is a fear that these people were expressing at the time that they were speaking out against him in public in the press. But he did have a history of breaking into other people’s phones and computers. And also, he had been working for Google for many years and had been publishing security research. In which he was studying the ways in which governments were doing exactly the kind of thing that we were talking about. And this was the research that he and I published together for years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The threat of tech abuse is often enough to silence victims of intimate partner violence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It worth making the point that often when an abuser threatens to engage in this sort of tech-enabled abuse, one of the things that they do is they try to leave their target or the survivor with the impression that they’re omniscient and they’re omnipotent, that they are comfortable with technology and therefore they might be capable of anything. And so the survivor often comes to me imagining all kinds of very technically complicated scenarios in which their privacy or security has been compromised. And let me tell you, almost every time that I actually catch an abuser compromising an account or a device or successfully learning where somebody is located or getting access to the contents of their communications, it’s pretty low tech. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Abusers are lazy, abusers are honestly not terribly competent. And part of that is that they don’t have to be. If they cultivate an aura of, ‘I could do anything at any moment,’ often it’s enough to cause the survivor to censor themselves and to chill their speech and to not go places simply because they’re scared. And they do the abuser’s work for them in this way.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After discovering the truth about her abusive colleague, Eva was enraged. She took her anger to Twitter, posting, “If you are a woman who has been sexually abused by a hacker who threatened to compromise your devices, contact me and I will make sure they are properly examined. “And then I went to lunch. And I came back and my phone was vibrating and it wouldn’t stop vibrating. The notifications poured in, likes, retweets, comments, and then hundreds of messages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I was flooded with demands. Basically, a lot of people came to me and told me the stories about the worst things that had ever happened to them. And this went on for months and then years. The most common kind of thing that I would get is that people would reach out to me and say that, “hi, I’m in a relationship with a person who is very technically adept and highly abusive. And now I am seeing behavior that leads me to believe that my devices have been compromised. What do I do?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Evo was working as a kind of one-woman security helpline, assisting survivors with regaining control of hacked accounts and scouring their devices for stalkerware.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That sort of thing is absolutely not sustainable. Not even that it’s not sustainable for one person, but it wouldn’t even be sustainable for a team of people. This was not a problem where we could effectively fix it, you know, sort of one survivor at a time. And so I spent a lot of time thinking about how to fix the problem in a broader way, kind of, how to punch above my weight.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva helped to form the Coalition Against Stalkerware, which includes digital rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as academics who are leading cybersecurity research at universities around the world. The Coalition also includes companies that make antivirus software. Eva said that it was important that these security companies learn to work with their competitors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the reasons why some of these companies are relatively good at detecting stalkerware is because now these people talk to one another, and that is really helpful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the collective was founded in 2019, a lot of antivirus software was not able to detect stalkerware. It often flew under the radar. Eva said that back then a lots of researchers just didn’t prioritize it. They weren’t as concerned as they were with spyware that could be remotely installed, which was often used by state-sponsored hacking groups to surveil activists and journalists. Part of the fight against stalker ware was getting industry leaders to recognize the scope of the problem. That’s why the coalition also includes groups that do direct support work for survivors of domestic abuse.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are the people who deal with, like, where the rubber meets the road every single day and they give us the most insight into the state of the problem and whether or not the mitigations that we are rolling out are effective. They also alert us to, you know, new problems and new ways in which survivors are being subjected to tech-enabled abuse so that we can come up with mitigations for those.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so far, the coalition’s work is paying off. Eva has been working with this company called AV Comparatives to test various antivirus products to see how well they can detect stalkerware. They’ve done a few rounds of testing over the years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But we recently did this testing again last year, and we found a couple of really interesting things. One is that overall, the performance of antivirus in detecting the stalkerware samples that we gave it improved. Almost everyone did better. We also found that the number of stalkerwear products out there is slightly lower. In the time when I first did my testing we tested 20 different Android stalkerware products. And when I did my most recent testing, I could only find 17. So the market’s getting smaller.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Detection is just one solution. This software shouldn’t be installed in the first place. How do you prevent it? To answer that, we’re honing in on the U.S. In one last tab: The crackdown on stalkerware.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of the times, stalkerware is marketed as a way of monitoring your employees. And if you are an employer, and you have employees who are using your network and your devices, and you install software that allows you to see what is happening on that network and on those devices. That’s legal. This is why it’s generally understood that if you are using your employer’s devices, you should not be using them for anything personal. The other way in which these things are marketed is as a way of providing safety for your children. The idea, of course, being that your children, of course do not have their own devices. You know, your family’s devices belong to you, the person who purchased them. And then one of them goes to your kid and as a condition of having the device, they agree to share a whole bunch of information about where they are and what they are doing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2020, Google banned advertising for apps that track another person’s activity without their consent, but made an exception for apps that help parents monitor their underage children. These apps are perfectly legal, which is why stalkerware can be so difficult to crack down on. A lot of stalkerwear apps masquerade as parental control software. And if you’ve been listening to this show for a while, you may notice a pattern. Child safety in tech is a very hot-button topic. As soon as any issue includes protecting kids online, it can be very difficult to have nuanced conversations about it. Parental control apps will not be banned anytime soon, even if abusers use them to stalk their partners. But many stalkerware companies share a critical flaw, one that, ironically, can land them in legal trouble.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re often not built very well. They often have privacy and security problems. And building a site where you have essentially left the exfiltrated data vulnerable and it is leaked and you are made aware of this leak and then doing nothing is also illegal. And so this is one of the reasons why the FTC has, in the past, taken actions against stalkerware companies. Often the action is not for making stalkerware, but for making stalkerware badly.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Take SupportKing. It’s a consumer spyware company that made an app called Spyphone. It marketed itself as an app to, quote, connect you with your family with features like GPS tracking, call and message logs, and internet history monitoring. The premium version of the app included a keylogger and live screen viewing. All of that data, text messages, selfies, location data was collected and stored in an unsecured Amazon cloud server. Terabytes of unencrypted, identifiable information from over 2,000 users was just floating around online. So in 2021, in an unprecedented move, the FTC banned not only Spyphone, but also its CEO Scott Zuckerman, from ever running another surveillance business again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is actually the very first time that we’ve ever seen the FTC ban a stalkerware company. And they went to this extra trouble of specifically banning the CEO so that he could not do what he later did, which was essentially abandon the business as bankrupt and then start new businesses. And so he ended up under a consent decree which placed a lot of limitations on what kind of business he could start up if he wanted to start up another business. And had a bunch of requirements regarding the kind of privacy and security reporting that he would need to do in order to be allowed to start up new businesses.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Scott would not take the L. Just a year after his initial FTC ban, TechCrunch reported that he was caught running another stalkerware company. And last July, he petitioned the FTC to vacate the consent order.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Saying that, listen, this ban is really a drag. It is impeding my ability to go off and start new companies. And it’s really inconvenient for me, a former stalkerware merchant, to have to do all of these reporting requirements with my new businesses, which have nothing to do with stalkerware.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His new businesses, according to the petition he filed, included running a restaurant and other tourism ventures in Puerto Rico. Eva was not about to let it slide. When the FTC solicited comment she jumped in.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I pointed out that the inconvenience is the point. This guy has, has definitely proved that he does not care about protecting user data or about user privacy. And so he should not be allowed to have businesses in which he is storing people’s private data. That seems bad.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zuckerman’s petition was not approved. And Spyphone is just one of many battles in the fight against this industry. Eva said the coalition against stalkerware has been making some pretty big strides.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the things about the, you know, kind of hydra metaphor is that, you know, you take down one head, you know, three heads come up, but instead, it’s been the other way around. We take down one head, three heads come down. And we have not managed to completely eliminate stalkerware, but we have managed to dramatically reduce the number of companies that are involved. And I think that that is a big victory. And, I think that as long as we can continue to create consequences for running one of these companies that it will look less and less appealing to continue to do so because the people who run stalkerware companies are businessmen. These are people who are out to get a buck. And the moment getting that buck is no longer easy, they will go find something else to do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earlier, Eva mentioned that stalkerware detection has improved since she started this work, and stalkerwear companies aren’t able to operate as brazenly anymore. Since the Spyphone case in 2021, several stalkerware companies have been prosecuted, shut down, and forced to notify victims that their devices have been compromised. It’s a huge leap from where the industry stood when Eva first started this fight. But there are more avenues for tech-enabled abuse than ever before, and stalkerware is just one part of it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A few years ago we saw a real kind of cratering in the use of stalkerware. We saw stalkerware use go down and stalkerware detections go down. And for a moment, I celebrated. I’m like, haha, we’re winning. This is really great. But this happened somewhere around like, late 2020, early 2021. And my theory is not that the amount of stalking has gone down, but that people switched to using Apple AirTags. And so I have spent a lot of time working on the problem of people being stalked through Bluetooth enabled trackers, not just AirTags, but also, you know, Samsung SmartTags and Chipolos and Tiles. And part of the reason for that is because this is a small, cheap, easy way to keep track of somebody’s location without ever needing to get your hands on their phone and without ever having to worry about whether or not their phone can detect it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Even lower tech, and lazier, even.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. I think that really the most important thing for people to understand about tech-enabled abuse is that it’s not the survivor’s fault. One of the things that I hear most often when we talk about tech enabled abuse is like, well, why didn’t you just leave? Or, you know, well why did you give the abuser your password? Or why did let the aboser back into your house? And I think, that that is such a cruel and counterproductive way in which to face the problem and it really just it’s not even that it doesn’t help anyone it just helps abusers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The fight against tech-enabled abuse doesn’t end with only holding companies accountable. There’s a social element too.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that one of the big things that we need to change is we need for people to call each other out when they see this kind of behavior and say this is abusive. This is not okay. It’s not cool. Put that thing down. You know, if you think your partner is cheating, go talk to your partner. And if you can’t talk to you partner, maybe it’s time to break up. It is not time to spy on them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva is not the privacy pope. She will not dole out individualized blessings and hold confession to absolve you of your privacy-violating sins. There is one thing she will give her blessing for: calling out abusive behavior. It can start with a one-on-one conversation with a peer or, if you’re Eva, an angry tweet turned years-long collective action to take down an industry-wide issue. But for most people, just learning about this issue and recognizing when to step in is already helping.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you suspect that your devices have been compromised and that you’re a victim of tech-enabled abuse, we’ll link to some resources in the show notes. We’ll also have resources for stalkerware detection, removal, and prevention. Okay, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional engineering help from Brian Douglas and additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts, And Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor-in-Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2018, researcher Eva Galperin made a discovery about a colleague. He had been sexually abusing women for decades, and threatening to expose their private information using “stalkerware” — hidden applications that allow people to spy on another person’s private life through their mobile device. This set Eva on a new path. She went on to found the Coalition Against Stalkerware, a network of researchers and advocacy groups working to limit the spread of stalkerware and support survivors of tech-enabled abuse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva joins Morgan to talk about how her background in cybersecurity allowed her to help countless survivors of stalkerware abuse, and how activists and researchers are beginning to turn the tide against a sprawling, largely hidden industry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4327771430\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eff.org/about/staff/eva-galperin\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva Galperin\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://stopstalkerware.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What is stalkerware?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coalition Against Stalkerware \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/09/hacked-leaked-exposed-why-you-should-stop-using-stalkerware-apps/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hacked, leaked, exposed: Why you should never use stalkerware apps\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TechCrunch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/21/17035552/sexual-assault-harassment-whisper-network-reporting-failure-marquis-boire\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When whisper networks let us down\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Sarah Jeong, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Verge\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/spyware-company-spyfone-terabytes-data-exposed-online-leak/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spyware Company Leaves ‘Terabytes’ of Selfies, Text Messages, and Location Data Exposed Online\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vice \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/stalkerware-security-phone-data-thousands/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A massive ‘stalkerware’ leak puts the phone data of thousands at risk \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Zack Whittaker, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TechCrunch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/17/support-king-ftc-spytrac/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Support King, banned by FTC, linked to new phone spying operation\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Zack Whittaker, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TechCrunch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/eff-teams-av-comparatives-test-android-stalkerware-detection-major-antivirus-apps\">EFF Teams Up With AV Comparatives to Test Android Stalkerware Detection by Major Antivirus Apps \u003c/a>— Eva Galperin, \u003ci>Electronic Frontier Foundation\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello, do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? Then please rate and review Close All Tags on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends, post about it on Instagram, Blue Sky, X, Discord, Reddit, the comments of whatever random recipe blog you start arguments in. Basically, it would be a huge help to just get the word out. Okay, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just a note, this episode contains mentions of sexual assault and domestic violence, so listen with care. Eva Galperin is the Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In some circles, she’s reluctantly known as the privacy pope.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People would come to me telling me about incredibly privacy invasive stuff that they had done as if they were looking to confess their sins and hoping that I would bless them. And the whole point of this is, in fact, that I am not the privacy pope.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva may not be the privacy pope, but she has been working to protect the privacy of vulnerable people for years. In the early 2010s, she was a security researcher. She compiled information on governments that use surveillance malware to target journalists and activists.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And in late 2017, it came out that the primary person with whom I was doing all of this security research was a serial rapist.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva had been working with his colleague for years. He was a fellow researcher, known for defending human rights activists and journalists in repressive countries. Behind closed doors, he had been secretly abusing and assaulting women for over a decade, and he kept them quiet with a threat of hacking. In a series of articles in The Verge in 2018, many of his survivors explained why they were so afraid to come forward.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It really struck me how much they all described themselves as really scared of what he might do to their devices, because apparently he had threatened to compromise their devices if they came out and said anything about him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The survivors were scared of stalkerware, that software that’s often covertly installed on a device to track and record the user’s activity. It goes further than location sharing. This is software that the user is not aware of and doesn’t consent to. Stalkerware can log messages, internet history, photos, and pretty much any sensitive activity or information. The person who installed it can then turn around and use this information to harass, monitor, and coerce their target. That’s what the victims of this former colleague were so afraid of.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was very upsetting. And as with anything, when you suddenly discover that someone is not the person that you think they are, you go back and think about incidents and go, oh, there were signs I should have known. And you spend a lot of time beating yourself up. But I decided that beating myself up is not best use of my time. And that helping people is the best use my time. I was so mad. So I did what most people did in the year 2018 when they got very angry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Eva did next started a chain reaction, one that led her to build a network aimed at taking down a massive shadowy industry of illegal software developers creating surveillance tools for tech savvy abusers. Today, we’re diving into the fight against stalkerware. What the software really does, how Eva and others have been working together to protect survivors, and the legal gray areas that make this industry so hard to take down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Morgan Sung and this is Close All Tabs. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, before we get into the fight, we need to understand what we’re dealing with. And for that, we need open a new tab: What is stalkerware?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stalkerware is a form of tech-enabled abuse, the umbrella of digital tools and tactics that abusers use to control, harass, and intimidate their victims. A common version might look like parental monitoring apps that can run in the background and provide live access to the device’s location, text messages, and social media activity. Eva said that stalkerware works differently depending on the operating system. Androids and iPhones have different security measures. If you have an Android, the abuser needs to actually download an app onto your phone. To do that, they need to have your phone’s password. Eva says this isn’t the barrier you might think it is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This whole idea of like, well, just don’t give the abuser your password. Uh, you know, I’ve got news for you about how abuse works. So it is very common for abusers to have physical access to the device, to have the password for the device. And when the survivor isn’t looking, when they have their back turned, when they’re in the other room, uh, they download the app.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stalkerware generally isn’t allowed on Google’s Store, so a lot of these apps are downloaded from websites. They don’t appear as normal apps do. They’re hidden. If you don’t know that it’s there, then you don’t know to delete it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The stalker then logs into a website usually and they pay money to the company for access to the portal which gives them information about what is happening on your phone. Sometimes that can be your SMS messages, your WhatsApp messages, all of your passwords. There can be a keylogger on there so just like every key that you hit could possibly be logged, photos being shared. You can sometimes remotely access the camera without setting off a little light that tells you the camera is on, or remotely set off the microphone for recording, which is also very invasive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most people carry their phones everywhere they go, which means that stalkerware that tracks real-time location and sends out GPS data is particularly prevalent. If you use an iPhone, the process looks a little different. Abusers typically steal their victim’s Apple ID password.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, a thing that you can get if you are an abuser because that’s how abuse works.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they may also need physical access to the phone, which abusers likely already have.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then the stalkerware, which is using the Apple ID, then just makes covert full backups of the phone. You will not get real-time information, but you will essentially get information about once every 24 hours if you are spying on an iPhone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stalkerware, for the most part, is illegal across the world, but it’s a tricky field to regulate, especially in the U.S. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Writing stalkerware is not illegal, you know, code is speech, it’s protected by the First Amendment. However, if you buy this stuff and you install it on somebody else’s device and you use it to exfiltrate data from that device, you are violating many different laws at once. Up to and including the CFAA, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To exfiltrate data means to move sensitive information to another location without permission.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are listening in on somebody’s conversations, especially in a two-party consent state, you could be violating the Wiretap Act, which is a state-by-state basis kind of situation. You could also be violating various state laws around stalking, especially if you are tracking somebody’s physical location. Additionally, there are other laws that are potentially being broken. By the company that is selling you the app. Because writing stalkerware, again, not illegal. However, if you write it and then you sell it and market it specifically for the purpose of doing things that are illegal, like installing the app on somebody else’s device, specifically in a way that they cannot see it in order to spy on the things that they’re doing, that’s illegal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this is obviously super illegal in multiple jurisdictions. In 2018 specifically, when you were first kind of really getting involved, how did people keep getting away with it then?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, there are a bunch of different reasons. One of the big problems that I have in my advocacy is that when I describe a problem, often what people say their first reaction is ‘there ought to be a law.’ Law is meaningless if the law does not get implemented. If there are no consequences for breaking the law, why have a law in the first place? Frequently stalking is one of those crimes that very rarely sees consequences. We do not have a lot of support for survivors of domestic abuse or for people who are stalked or spied on in this country. And the fact that people do it so often without consequences leaves other people with the impression that this is fine and legal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So then what do you do about stalkerware? That’s a new tab. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Okay, we’ll get back to Eva’s story and the fight against stalkerwear right after this break. Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome back. So let’s open that new tab: What do you do about stalkerware? Okay, let’s go back to 2018. Eva found out that one of her colleagues, someone she trusted, was not only a serial rapist, but had also leveraged his position as a security and privacy expert to silence the women he abused.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t have any evidence that he actually broke into anybody’s phones or computers as retaliation for this. This is a fear that these people were expressing at the time that they were speaking out against him in public in the press. But he did have a history of breaking into other people’s phones and computers. And also, he had been working for Google for many years and had been publishing security research. In which he was studying the ways in which governments were doing exactly the kind of thing that we were talking about. And this was the research that he and I published together for years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The threat of tech abuse is often enough to silence victims of intimate partner violence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It worth making the point that often when an abuser threatens to engage in this sort of tech-enabled abuse, one of the things that they do is they try to leave their target or the survivor with the impression that they’re omniscient and they’re omnipotent, that they are comfortable with technology and therefore they might be capable of anything. And so the survivor often comes to me imagining all kinds of very technically complicated scenarios in which their privacy or security has been compromised. And let me tell you, almost every time that I actually catch an abuser compromising an account or a device or successfully learning where somebody is located or getting access to the contents of their communications, it’s pretty low tech. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Abusers are lazy, abusers are honestly not terribly competent. And part of that is that they don’t have to be. If they cultivate an aura of, ‘I could do anything at any moment,’ often it’s enough to cause the survivor to censor themselves and to chill their speech and to not go places simply because they’re scared. And they do the abuser’s work for them in this way.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After discovering the truth about her abusive colleague, Eva was enraged. She took her anger to Twitter, posting, “If you are a woman who has been sexually abused by a hacker who threatened to compromise your devices, contact me and I will make sure they are properly examined. “And then I went to lunch. And I came back and my phone was vibrating and it wouldn’t stop vibrating. The notifications poured in, likes, retweets, comments, and then hundreds of messages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I was flooded with demands. Basically, a lot of people came to me and told me the stories about the worst things that had ever happened to them. And this went on for months and then years. The most common kind of thing that I would get is that people would reach out to me and say that, “hi, I’m in a relationship with a person who is very technically adept and highly abusive. And now I am seeing behavior that leads me to believe that my devices have been compromised. What do I do?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Evo was working as a kind of one-woman security helpline, assisting survivors with regaining control of hacked accounts and scouring their devices for stalkerware.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That sort of thing is absolutely not sustainable. Not even that it’s not sustainable for one person, but it wouldn’t even be sustainable for a team of people. This was not a problem where we could effectively fix it, you know, sort of one survivor at a time. And so I spent a lot of time thinking about how to fix the problem in a broader way, kind of, how to punch above my weight.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva helped to form the Coalition Against Stalkerware, which includes digital rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as academics who are leading cybersecurity research at universities around the world. The Coalition also includes companies that make antivirus software. Eva said that it was important that these security companies learn to work with their competitors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the reasons why some of these companies are relatively good at detecting stalkerware is because now these people talk to one another, and that is really helpful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the collective was founded in 2019, a lot of antivirus software was not able to detect stalkerware. It often flew under the radar. Eva said that back then a lots of researchers just didn’t prioritize it. They weren’t as concerned as they were with spyware that could be remotely installed, which was often used by state-sponsored hacking groups to surveil activists and journalists. Part of the fight against stalker ware was getting industry leaders to recognize the scope of the problem. That’s why the coalition also includes groups that do direct support work for survivors of domestic abuse.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are the people who deal with, like, where the rubber meets the road every single day and they give us the most insight into the state of the problem and whether or not the mitigations that we are rolling out are effective. They also alert us to, you know, new problems and new ways in which survivors are being subjected to tech-enabled abuse so that we can come up with mitigations for those.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so far, the coalition’s work is paying off. Eva has been working with this company called AV Comparatives to test various antivirus products to see how well they can detect stalkerware. They’ve done a few rounds of testing over the years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But we recently did this testing again last year, and we found a couple of really interesting things. One is that overall, the performance of antivirus in detecting the stalkerware samples that we gave it improved. Almost everyone did better. We also found that the number of stalkerwear products out there is slightly lower. In the time when I first did my testing we tested 20 different Android stalkerware products. And when I did my most recent testing, I could only find 17. So the market’s getting smaller.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Detection is just one solution. This software shouldn’t be installed in the first place. How do you prevent it? To answer that, we’re honing in on the U.S. In one last tab: The crackdown on stalkerware.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of the times, stalkerware is marketed as a way of monitoring your employees. And if you are an employer, and you have employees who are using your network and your devices, and you install software that allows you to see what is happening on that network and on those devices. That’s legal. This is why it’s generally understood that if you are using your employer’s devices, you should not be using them for anything personal. The other way in which these things are marketed is as a way of providing safety for your children. The idea, of course, being that your children, of course do not have their own devices. You know, your family’s devices belong to you, the person who purchased them. And then one of them goes to your kid and as a condition of having the device, they agree to share a whole bunch of information about where they are and what they are doing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2020, Google banned advertising for apps that track another person’s activity without their consent, but made an exception for apps that help parents monitor their underage children. These apps are perfectly legal, which is why stalkerware can be so difficult to crack down on. A lot of stalkerwear apps masquerade as parental control software. And if you’ve been listening to this show for a while, you may notice a pattern. Child safety in tech is a very hot-button topic. As soon as any issue includes protecting kids online, it can be very difficult to have nuanced conversations about it. Parental control apps will not be banned anytime soon, even if abusers use them to stalk their partners. But many stalkerware companies share a critical flaw, one that, ironically, can land them in legal trouble.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re often not built very well. They often have privacy and security problems. And building a site where you have essentially left the exfiltrated data vulnerable and it is leaked and you are made aware of this leak and then doing nothing is also illegal. And so this is one of the reasons why the FTC has, in the past, taken actions against stalkerware companies. Often the action is not for making stalkerware, but for making stalkerware badly.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Take SupportKing. It’s a consumer spyware company that made an app called Spyphone. It marketed itself as an app to, quote, connect you with your family with features like GPS tracking, call and message logs, and internet history monitoring. The premium version of the app included a keylogger and live screen viewing. All of that data, text messages, selfies, location data was collected and stored in an unsecured Amazon cloud server. Terabytes of unencrypted, identifiable information from over 2,000 users was just floating around online. So in 2021, in an unprecedented move, the FTC banned not only Spyphone, but also its CEO Scott Zuckerman, from ever running another surveillance business again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is actually the very first time that we’ve ever seen the FTC ban a stalkerware company. And they went to this extra trouble of specifically banning the CEO so that he could not do what he later did, which was essentially abandon the business as bankrupt and then start new businesses. And so he ended up under a consent decree which placed a lot of limitations on what kind of business he could start up if he wanted to start up another business. And had a bunch of requirements regarding the kind of privacy and security reporting that he would need to do in order to be allowed to start up new businesses.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Scott would not take the L. Just a year after his initial FTC ban, TechCrunch reported that he was caught running another stalkerware company. And last July, he petitioned the FTC to vacate the consent order.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Saying that, listen, this ban is really a drag. It is impeding my ability to go off and start new companies. And it’s really inconvenient for me, a former stalkerware merchant, to have to do all of these reporting requirements with my new businesses, which have nothing to do with stalkerware.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His new businesses, according to the petition he filed, included running a restaurant and other tourism ventures in Puerto Rico. Eva was not about to let it slide. When the FTC solicited comment she jumped in.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I pointed out that the inconvenience is the point. This guy has, has definitely proved that he does not care about protecting user data or about user privacy. And so he should not be allowed to have businesses in which he is storing people’s private data. That seems bad.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zuckerman’s petition was not approved. And Spyphone is just one of many battles in the fight against this industry. Eva said the coalition against stalkerware has been making some pretty big strides.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the things about the, you know, kind of hydra metaphor is that, you know, you take down one head, you know, three heads come up, but instead, it’s been the other way around. We take down one head, three heads come down. And we have not managed to completely eliminate stalkerware, but we have managed to dramatically reduce the number of companies that are involved. And I think that that is a big victory. And, I think that as long as we can continue to create consequences for running one of these companies that it will look less and less appealing to continue to do so because the people who run stalkerware companies are businessmen. These are people who are out to get a buck. And the moment getting that buck is no longer easy, they will go find something else to do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earlier, Eva mentioned that stalkerware detection has improved since she started this work, and stalkerwear companies aren’t able to operate as brazenly anymore. Since the Spyphone case in 2021, several stalkerware companies have been prosecuted, shut down, and forced to notify victims that their devices have been compromised. It’s a huge leap from where the industry stood when Eva first started this fight. But there are more avenues for tech-enabled abuse than ever before, and stalkerware is just one part of it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A few years ago we saw a real kind of cratering in the use of stalkerware. We saw stalkerware use go down and stalkerware detections go down. And for a moment, I celebrated. I’m like, haha, we’re winning. This is really great. But this happened somewhere around like, late 2020, early 2021. And my theory is not that the amount of stalking has gone down, but that people switched to using Apple AirTags. And so I have spent a lot of time working on the problem of people being stalked through Bluetooth enabled trackers, not just AirTags, but also, you know, Samsung SmartTags and Chipolos and Tiles. And part of the reason for that is because this is a small, cheap, easy way to keep track of somebody’s location without ever needing to get your hands on their phone and without ever having to worry about whether or not their phone can detect it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Even lower tech, and lazier, even.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. I think that really the most important thing for people to understand about tech-enabled abuse is that it’s not the survivor’s fault. One of the things that I hear most often when we talk about tech enabled abuse is like, well, why didn’t you just leave? Or, you know, well why did you give the abuser your password? Or why did let the aboser back into your house? And I think, that that is such a cruel and counterproductive way in which to face the problem and it really just it’s not even that it doesn’t help anyone it just helps abusers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The fight against tech-enabled abuse doesn’t end with only holding companies accountable. There’s a social element too.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that one of the big things that we need to change is we need for people to call each other out when they see this kind of behavior and say this is abusive. This is not okay. It’s not cool. Put that thing down. You know, if you think your partner is cheating, go talk to your partner. And if you can’t talk to you partner, maybe it’s time to break up. It is not time to spy on them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva is not the privacy pope. She will not dole out individualized blessings and hold confession to absolve you of your privacy-violating sins. There is one thing she will give her blessing for: calling out abusive behavior. It can start with a one-on-one conversation with a peer or, if you’re Eva, an angry tweet turned years-long collective action to take down an industry-wide issue. But for most people, just learning about this issue and recognizing when to step in is already helping.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you suspect that your devices have been compromised and that you’re a victim of tech-enabled abuse, we’ll link to some resources in the show notes. We’ll also have resources for stalkerware detection, removal, and prevention. Okay, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional engineering help from Brian Douglas and additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts, And Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor-in-Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "the-h-1b-visa-process-but-make-it-a-video-game",
"title": "The H-1B Visa Process But Make It a Video Game",
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"headTitle": "The H-1B Visa Process But Make It a Video Game | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Life on an H-1B visa — a visa that lets U.S. companies hire foreign-born workers for specialized jobs — is difficult, unpredictable, and has gotten even harder under the Trump administration. A new gaming studio, Reality Reload, is trying to capture that experience in a mobile game. It’s called H1B.Life, and it simulates the difficult choices, competing priorities, and personal sacrifices visa holders face — complete with chaotic design elements, like all-powerful “gods” who control your fate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED reporter Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman joins Morgan to break down the game’s surprising design choices, the mission behind it, and the stories he heard from people navigating the H1-B process. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2401184331\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/adahlstromeckman\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, reporter at \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076756/what-does-it-take-to-get-a-h-1b-visa-this-video-game-shows-just-how-complicated-it-is\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Does It Take to Get a H-1B Visa? This Video Game Shows Just How Complicated It Is \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-google-amazon-microsoft-h-1b-visa-applications-decline-2026-4\">Meta, Google, and Amazon slash H-1B petitions after Trump’s visa crackdown\u003c/a> — Geoff Weiss, Melia Russell, Andy Kiersz, and Alex Nicoll, \u003ci>Business Insider \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/state-policy/2026/01/29/faculty-warn-against-state-bans-h-1b-visas\">Faculty Warn Against State Bans on H-1B Visas\u003c/a> — Jessica Blake, \u003ci>\u003ci>Inside Higher Ed \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.the-scientist.com/h-1b-visa-restrictions-will-hurt-america-s-research-potential-experts-say-74267\">H-1B Visa Restrictions Will Hurt America’s Research Potential, Experts Say\u003c/a> — Shelby Bradford, PhD, \u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The Scientist \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/trump-immigration-visa-secrutiny-tech/\">US Tech Visa Applications Are Being Put Through the Wringer \u003c/a>— Lauren Goode, \u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Wired \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/made-in-china-a-new-game-turns-the-h-1b-visa-system-into-a-surreal-simulation/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A New Game Turns the H-1B Visa System Into a Surreal Simulation \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Zeyi Yang, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wired \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, it’s Morgan. Be honest with me, how many tabs do you have open? Feeling a little overwhelmed by closing them? Well, we have an episode for you. If you like our deep dives and wanna hear more, please rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show and tell your friends about us too. Okay, let’s get to the episode. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quick note: in this episode we use the term “immigrant” in a broad sense to refer to people living and working in the U.S. on H-1B visas. In legal terms the H1-B is a nonimmigrant temporary visa, though many visa holders hope to stay in the U.S. long term. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Every March, a corner of the Chinese social media app Red Note gets flooded with posts about Chick-fil-A. The users go all out, buying Chick-fil-A keychains, changing their profile pictures to the red and white chicken logo, and of course, treating themselves to a hearty meal of a chicken sandwich and waffle fries. You’ll often see the same emojis in each post: prayer hands, a chicken, and an American flag. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of these users are applying for the H-1B visa, a visa for highly skilled immigrants sponsored by an employer. Many come to Silicon Valley to work in tech. Hundreds of thousands of hopefuls apply every year, but only 85,000 applicants are selected. So, what does this have to do with fried chicken? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It turns out that there’s a tradition amongst Chinese H-1B applicants here in the United States that they believe that eating a lot of Chick-fil-A and just generally associating with Chick-fil-A brings you luck and will increase your chances of getting selected in the H-1B lottery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman is a reporter at KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And apparently, if you go to a Chick-fil-A here in the Bay Area around March, you’re likely to see a lot of Chinese immigrants who potentially could be H-1B applicants eating there. And it’s not really clear where this started, but it’s definitely a thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Azul said that this trend, the annual Chick-fil-A frenzy on social media, is part of a much bigger story. To even apply for an H-1B visa, you need an employer to sponsor you, which means that you need to have a job offer. It doesn’t guarantee a visa, just that you can enter the lottery. The process for getting an H-1B Visa has been changing, and a system that was already difficult has become even harder for applicants. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is true that with the Trump administration, there has been a lot of changes specifically to this year’s H-1B visa process. The first is that there’s now a $100,000 fee if a company wants to sponsor somebody who isn’t currently living in the country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In wake of the changes and very steep application fee, some universities and companies implemented a hiring freeze for H-1B applicants. And the ones that are still hiring are sponsoring far fewer visas than in previous cycles. The updated application system isn’t totally random anymore. Higher paid applicants have a better chance of being picked now. But for the most part, the application process feels like a game of luck. At the end of the day, it’s still a lottery. Which is why good luck traditions, like getting Chick-fil-A during the registration window, have become baked into the modern mythology of the American immigrant experience. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It can all feel like a game, one in which the rules seem arbitrary and unpredictable. So when Azul heard about a studio turning that experience into a playable app, it made perfect sense. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H1B.Life is a game that tries to simulate the experience of an immigrant who’s trying to get H1-B visa status. And it’s a pretty early prototype now. Basically, it’s sort of like a text-based decision tree on your smartphone. And I played a demo of it, and it was actually kind of interesting. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So one of the opening scenes of the game says, during high school, you spent hours and hours on your laptop binging Gilmore Girls on shady, unauthorized streaming websites. Everything in your drowsy new town reminds you of the show. If it wasn’t for Lorelai and Rory, you might have never decided to… and then there’s like two decisions, and one is study journalism or come to New England. And I was like, wow, that’s really oddly specific. And it turns out that H1B.Life is based on real-life interviews from H1-B applicants, specifically Chinese immigrants living in Silicon Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re diving into H1B.Life today, the arduous application process, how capricious policy changes impact the trajectory of an immigrant’s entire life, and the cost of chasing a dream, all wrapped up in a mobile game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>This is 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. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Before we talk about the game itself, let’s get into the reality that inspired it. And as always, we’re starting by opening a new tab: Life on an H-1B Visa. Last month, the annual Game Developers Conference took over San Francisco. The Asian Art Museum was hosting a showcase for a game that involved chance, timing, and bureaucracy to, “determine who stays and who is deported.” The game was H1B.Life. Azul had heard about the game and decided to check it out. At the event, he talked to a few people about their own experiences with the immigration system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first person I talked to, his name was Donduk Dovdon, and he’s an ethnically Mongolian, Chinese national who now is a U.S. Citizen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I came to States 12 years ago for my master’s degree in Washington, D.C. And eventually I got H-1B, and then later I got green card. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donduk said the process demands a lot of sacrifice and that it can be hard to ever feel secure about the future. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He told me it is a very hard and arduous process to get H-1B status. And then even once you have H-1B status, you’re still not secure. You have to work towards getting a green card and then citizenship. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn’t see my parents for 10 years. I didn’t see any of my relatives for 10 years. So I think that’s still very emotional for me to say. Like, I eventually went back, I think, two years ago when I became citizen. It was so emotional. And I feel… I miss them, they miss me, a huge chapter of our lives…ten years, like many Americans, it’s just unimaginable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donduk’s 10-year gap without seeing his family may be on the extreme end. H-1B visa holders are technically allowed to travel internationally and re-enter the country, as long as their visa stamp is still valid. But he’s not alone. The decision to stay in the U.S. is often driven by fear of not being allowed back in. Over the last year, given the heightened scrutiny of visa holders and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, some legal experts, universities, and even tech companies who employ visa holders have cautioned against international travel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Concerns about travel aside, taking time off to visit family abroad often depends on your employer’s time off policy. H-1B visas hinge on employment. Changing jobs involves a new sponsor and another mountain of paperwork. Some H- 1B visa holders have spoken out about feeling trapped abusive work environments because of their visa status. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I was on H-1B, I met various shady employers who technically did not pay me, which was illegal. And it was like, if you dare to report me, you will get your H-1B revoked. So eventually, I was lucky enough and I left that organization, but I heard other people, in order just to get one H-1B, worked for three years free. And after work, they work at a restaurant or bubble tea store illegally for three years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Getting picked in the visa lottery doesn’t guarantee long-term stability either. H-1B visas have a 6-year cap and visa holders have to spend a full year outside of the U.S. before they can reapply. Donduk mentioned one of his friends, who’s also Chinese Mongolian. He recently had to say goodbye to her. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She self-deported herself three or four days ago. We were at the airport. She was on H-1B for five years, but no companies was willing to sponsor her green card. She spent 14 years in the States. She even bought a house. And then she sold the house, sold the car, and moved back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Visa status can be all consuming. At the showcase, Azul spoke with another attendee who’s currently on a different work-based visa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He said that whenever he meets up with other visa holders, the number one thing that they ask each other is ‘what visa are you on? ‘ because it has such a powerful determining factor over what you do, who you date, where you live, where you work. You have to keep your employer happy and they have to continue to sponsor you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>You might need to take a job that takes you traveling out of the country, but with the Trump administration, you know, maybe it’s hard for you to get back into the country based on your country of origin. So I think people are constantly taking risks and living under uncertainty, you know, from one presidential administration to the next. They’re not sure how these rules surrounding H-1B status are going to change. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In his reporting, Azul talked to an immigration lawyer based in Silicon Valley, Sophie Alcorn. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The game metaphor made sense to her that the H-1B process is sort of like a game. She said that her two young sons invite her to play video games when she’s home and she says… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sophie Alcorn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You guys, I’m already playing one of the hardest video games. I don’t need to play another game because the immigration system is so complicated as it is. There’s randomness, there’s luck, there’s skill, there is strategy. There’s trying to go around and collect like, badges and items to upskill to be able to get to the next level just like in a game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In games, players are the most affected by the rules, but they also have the least control over them. Right? Players are beholden to the rules but the people that make the rules are not playing the same game. I mean, you could say that we’re now playing on difficulty level hard with the Trump administration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s talk about the game itself, H1B life. Donduk, the guy who just got his American citizenship, actually thought the prototype he played was too realistic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He said that the gameplay was a little triggering for him, it was too real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to get into that after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Okay, more about the game after the break. Stick with us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Welcome back. We’re getting into this game, H1B.Life. Who is it for? How does it work? And can it really help make sense of the immigration process? Let’s open a new tab: How to play the H1-B Visa game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>The immigration system, at times, can seem like a black box to applicants, lawyers, and maybe most of all, to natural born American citizens who’ve never needed to think about this. The seemingly arbitrary rules that can change at the whims of an unseen entity, the gravity of every single decision, the pressure to succeed as the perfect model immigrant, that is the experience that developers are trying to capture in H1B.Life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from H1B.Life Trailer] America the big and beautiful country, but you need a visa. Be talented, big brain, build chips, then you might get an H-1B visa .\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a trailer for H1B.Life, which is still a very long way from being playable. The Kickstarter hasn’t even launched yet, but Azul got to try a demo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s basically like this text-based decision tree. The top half of the screen is like a text prompt and the bottom half is like, a series of choices. And then as you play through the game, you select different choices. There are these like four core attributes that you need to maintain. It’s intelligence, wealth, social support, and burnout rate, right? So this kind of like simulating. The things that it takes to be a person going through the H-1B visa process. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from H1B.Life Trailer] You make smart choices to get that visa and stay. What separates winning from losing is how you react when fate happens. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As you play, you’re presented with these different choices, like you’re done with your study abroad program and you go back home to Shanghai and you want to pursue journalism. But maybe you can get a job in this field and get an H-1B visa, so you decide to put off your dream and pursue something else. And as you do that, your core attributes sort of change. And so you’re having to sort of weigh those choices. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can spend social capital, instead of going to, you know, your friend’s birthday party, you stay late at work because, you know, you’re trying to get sponsored, right? So your social support goes down, but you know your intelligence goes up, right? Like, that’s kind of the balancing act. Then what’s promised in subsequent versions of the game is that if those core attributes run out, it triggers a sort of like slot machine feature where different gods decide players fates, and that’s sort of supposed to describe this random nature of the H-1B visa process. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from H1B.Life Trailer] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And don’t forget the immigration gods: code god, free god, fried chicken god, even orange god.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you tell us more about these different gods in the game? I know there’s one called the orange god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the orange god is the one that caught my eye. The orange god bears a very strong resemblance to Donald Trump. And the orange god claims to control everything and has already changed the policy 500 times before you finish reading the sentence. That’s what the description of the orange is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s the newest God in this universe. He’s very powerful. He can destroy your life any minute he wants, and he usually do. So you have to be very careful of him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Alison Yang, the founder of the game studio, Reality Reload. She told Azul about the other gods in the game. So there’s the code god, who looks like a cyborg and is obsessed with tech and optimization. The free god resembles the Statue of Liberty and is supposed to represent the American dream of a free society. And the fried chicken god? A nod to the annual Chick-fil-A tradition. And that god…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…According to the game description, keeps you surviving through the power of fast food grease. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughter] Reality Reload is a game studio made up of immigrants, developers, designers, and journalists. The founder, Allison, has a background in journalism. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love journalism, but over the years, as an editor and a reporter, I realized less and less people are reading long form, but there’s so much stories and information we want to pass on. I had the luck to step into the game industry for 7-8 years now, and I realized it’s the opposite. Like, people spend a massive amount of time in a the game. They complained one of my games to be too short, play is two hours. At the same time, they would complain that one of my articles is too long. So I thought, what if I turn it around, like a trojan horse. Like we wrap the news or information into a game and people doesn’t have to know that. They’re just playing something fun and they’re exposed to information anyway. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, as Allison told Azul, the point of H1B.Life is to educate people about the complexities of the immigration system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they started with the H-1B visa because it’s like this caricature of the visa system. It’s highly sought after. It’s very competitive, but they realized that it’s not just H-1B visas, it’s the whole United States Immigration System. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Reality Reload team initially designed the game based on their own experiences as Chinese immigrants in Silicon Valley. They conducted dozens of interviews with other Chinese immigrants for storylines in the game. But the team quickly realized that this experience is more universal than they first believed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s kind of funny because there is internal tensions between people of different origin who are competing for the same visa. But when we were talking to them, we realized it’s the same rat race, and you’re competing with each other not because the other party is evil or better, it’s because you have to. And then everyone’s, or every context, country of origin have their own dilemma. Like when we talk to Latino people from Bolivia…here it’s already very hard to find a job, but people at home find it very difficult to believe they couldn’t find money in the States. They have to mitigate through that. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I talked to my physician who is Indian, and she said their problem is even if they get a visa, there are too many Indian visa holders, they have to wait, I’m sure this number is not right, but she said 100 years to get a green card. So it’s like different versions of a game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H1B.Life revolves around choices and rules, which the player may or may not know about until they break one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the rules are changing every day. The player usually the one who has the least power or say, but they are the one we have to play through. So that tension is something we want to focus on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Allison did admit that early versions of the game were maybe too realistic. She told Azul that when they ran play tests, some people, like Donduk, found it a bit traumatic because they’ve dealt with this in real life. Donduk thought the game was triggering and not playful enough for a typical video game. Here’s Azul again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But he did think that it could have an application in like corporate diversity trainings. You could imagine like being at Google and a lot of your coworkers are H1B sponsors, being like, wow, I didn’t know that you had to go through that to get here, you know? And then that’s so different from how a United States citizen would get here. So that’s like, one potential application. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H1B.Life is still a prototype. The Reality Reload team is still interviewing other immigrants to weave their experiences into the story. And they plan to add more fantasy and play to the game before it launches. Azul mentioned one mini game in the works, which involves juggling. Your hands are full with a social life, maintaining grades, and looking for a job that’ll sponsor you, all while checking emails from your immigration lawyer. This is core to the game, managing the tension between competing priorities. It prompts players to consider what they want more: to pursue their dreams, or to fit the mold of an ideal immigrant in order to stay in the country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the beginning we thought we were going to do a simple visa simulation game and now we realize it’s more about how people figure out what kind of life they want, where they want it to be. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which is also a sentiment that almost all employment-based visa holders have to consider. Except, unlike in the game, there’s no decision tree guiding their path. They have to make these choices for themselves. What does life look like when it’s not dictated by a precarious visa status? Let’s open another new tab: the post-visa midlife crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For Donduk Dovdon, he came here as a student and he was pursuing a master’s degree. And now he needs to decide where he’s going to work, not based on what he wants to do, but based on who will sponsor him for an H-1B visa. After you get an H1B Visa, then you’re on a six-year timeline where you have to hit certain benchmarks in order to get a green card. After 10 years of uncertain visa status…once he got his U.S. citizenship, he basically had like a midlife crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because before, when I was on H1B, the only thing I had, my goal was to survive and be in this country. So I do whatever it takes to get a job that sponsors me for H-1B. And I do whatever it takes make my boss happy. But when I eventually got a green card, I finally had the privilege to think like an American, like, oh, what do I actually want to do with my life? I think now I’m still figuring out like what do I actually want to do? Now I’m like a 21 years old American, just graduated from college. I have all the opportunities finally opened up for me and I remember when I became citizen and I decided to quit PhD that was the hardest time in my life because like I’m like now finally I can move to anywhere in the States. I can be a bartender in Miami, but do I really want to be? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>I don’t know. Like I spent two months wondering where should I go next. And I know some other also H-1B workers, they were like of the best coders as a company or program manager or whatever. And then when they got a green card, some guys, I know one guy, he quit and he moved to Midwest and he opened a bakery because that’s what he actually is passionate about. And I think it’s just, it’s like, finally as immigrants, like when we got our green card of citizenship, we finally have the privilege to ponder what Americans did probably around 18 years old, or early 20s, like what do you actually want to achieve? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do I really want to do with my life? It’s a conundrum that American citizens can ponder at any age, but most consider it when they’re teenagers or fresh out of college. Maybe a couple years into your career, you realize that it’s not for you and you can pivot. But if your legal status in this country hinges on being able to do one highly specialized job, you don’t get to pivot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your whole reason for being in the country is holding these special degrees, this special job and at the end of the day, that’s not all anyone is. Nobody is just an H-1B visa holder. Like, they’re complex people with multitudes of desires and I think feeling the weight of that lift can be unsettling for people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donduk, for one, questioned whether this pressure is worth it for everyone. He told Azul that he was glad to stay in the United States, which, despite everything, is a safer and more free place for him as an openly gay, ethnically Mongolian person. But, if he knew that he could live in China without fear of persecution… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the U.S. is getting harder and harder to stay here for immigrants. Like, you have to evaluate, what do you value more. If you can live a comfortable life in your back home country and you value your family connections, do you really want to spend 10, 15 years here just working like a dog to get a green card here? And also we heard many other stories like some immigrants, eventually they moved to Singapore or Canada and they found happiness there. Or even some move to Africa. It’s not like U.S. is the only place you can be happy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fewer international students are interested in studying in the U.S. Last year, international enrollment in American universities dropped 17%. Both Texas and Florida have banned H-1B hiring at public universities. Many scientists have raised concerns that the U.S. will lose its competitive edge in research between DOGE enforced funding cuts and H- 1B hiring freezes. But, as for working in the U.S., outside of academia? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services said that they did hit their cap this year. So obviously there is still a demand for H-1B visas, but the Trump administration has made it a lot harder to get an H-1B visa. A lot of the Reality Reload team are Chinese immigrants and coming here, they’ve had the same experiences as the people they interviewed for these stories. I think it is very personal and part of why they wanted to give a voice to this experience because it is so pervasive in, you know, especially in like, the Bay area or other places where there’s a high need for specialized immigrant labor. This is really a huge thing and I think it’s not something that a lot of American citizens are aware of. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you think the game says about the intersection of technology and very bureaucratic systems like the immigration process? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Immigrants feel the whiplash of American government policies from like, Democrat to Republican, maybe more than most groups here in the country, and how it can upend their lives. And so I think this is a way for immigrants to tell their experiences and for them to feel seen and maybe to inject a little bit of critique into real life. Sometimes, like the experience can feel so arbitrary or so gamified. So maybe a game is the best way to understand and work towards making these processes better, or at least like, explain them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have the privilege of being a natural-born U.S. Citizen. Both of my parents immigrated here when they were young, and I’ve never had to navigate the complexities of the immigration system myself. Many of my close family members have dealt with that, but I admit that even as a journalist, I struggle to differentiate between types of visas and what you can do with them: H-1B, OPT, EB-3, O-1, L-1B, K-1? It’s a dialect that’s unintelligible to a lot of natural born citizens. There’s a whole other world of paperwork and red tape that most Americans never have to think about. But that doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. So how do you get through the doom scrolling and get American citizens to understand the real life impact of these shifting immigration policies?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Like Allison pointed out, people who aren’t inclined to spend 20 minutes reading about visa changes, may be more convinced to spend 20 minutes in a game, trying to avoid the wrath of the orange god. Through surreal slot machines, fickle deities, and some skill juggling, games like H1B.Life can open players up to an unseen reality that exists right in front of them, one that might affect their friends, their coworkers, and their neighbors every day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Special thanks to Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman for sharing this story along with the interview recordings you heard today. You can find a link to Azul’s story and more about H-1B.Life and the immigrant experience in our show notes. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad, Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor in chief. 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. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Life on an H-1B visa — a visa that lets U.S. companies hire foreign-born workers for specialized jobs — is difficult, unpredictable, and has gotten even harder under the Trump administration. A new gaming studio, Reality Reload, is trying to capture that experience in a mobile game. It’s called H1B.Life, and it simulates the difficult choices, competing priorities, and personal sacrifices visa holders face — complete with chaotic design elements, like all-powerful “gods” who control your fate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED reporter Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman joins Morgan to break down the game’s surprising design choices, the mission behind it, and the stories he heard from people navigating the H1-B process. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2401184331\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/adahlstromeckman\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, reporter at \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076756/what-does-it-take-to-get-a-h-1b-visa-this-video-game-shows-just-how-complicated-it-is\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Does It Take to Get a H-1B Visa? This Video Game Shows Just How Complicated It Is \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-google-amazon-microsoft-h-1b-visa-applications-decline-2026-4\">Meta, Google, and Amazon slash H-1B petitions after Trump’s visa crackdown\u003c/a> — Geoff Weiss, Melia Russell, Andy Kiersz, and Alex Nicoll, \u003ci>Business Insider \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/state-policy/2026/01/29/faculty-warn-against-state-bans-h-1b-visas\">Faculty Warn Against State Bans on H-1B Visas\u003c/a> — Jessica Blake, \u003ci>\u003ci>Inside Higher Ed \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.the-scientist.com/h-1b-visa-restrictions-will-hurt-america-s-research-potential-experts-say-74267\">H-1B Visa Restrictions Will Hurt America’s Research Potential, Experts Say\u003c/a> — Shelby Bradford, PhD, \u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The Scientist \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/trump-immigration-visa-secrutiny-tech/\">US Tech Visa Applications Are Being Put Through the Wringer \u003c/a>— Lauren Goode, \u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Wired \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/made-in-china-a-new-game-turns-the-h-1b-visa-system-into-a-surreal-simulation/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A New Game Turns the H-1B Visa System Into a Surreal Simulation \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Zeyi Yang, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wired \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, it’s Morgan. Be honest with me, how many tabs do you have open? Feeling a little overwhelmed by closing them? Well, we have an episode for you. If you like our deep dives and wanna hear more, please rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show and tell your friends about us too. Okay, let’s get to the episode. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quick note: in this episode we use the term “immigrant” in a broad sense to refer to people living and working in the U.S. on H-1B visas. In legal terms the H1-B is a nonimmigrant temporary visa, though many visa holders hope to stay in the U.S. long term. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Every March, a corner of the Chinese social media app Red Note gets flooded with posts about Chick-fil-A. The users go all out, buying Chick-fil-A keychains, changing their profile pictures to the red and white chicken logo, and of course, treating themselves to a hearty meal of a chicken sandwich and waffle fries. You’ll often see the same emojis in each post: prayer hands, a chicken, and an American flag. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of these users are applying for the H-1B visa, a visa for highly skilled immigrants sponsored by an employer. Many come to Silicon Valley to work in tech. Hundreds of thousands of hopefuls apply every year, but only 85,000 applicants are selected. So, what does this have to do with fried chicken? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It turns out that there’s a tradition amongst Chinese H-1B applicants here in the United States that they believe that eating a lot of Chick-fil-A and just generally associating with Chick-fil-A brings you luck and will increase your chances of getting selected in the H-1B lottery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman is a reporter at KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And apparently, if you go to a Chick-fil-A here in the Bay Area around March, you’re likely to see a lot of Chinese immigrants who potentially could be H-1B applicants eating there. And it’s not really clear where this started, but it’s definitely a thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Azul said that this trend, the annual Chick-fil-A frenzy on social media, is part of a much bigger story. To even apply for an H-1B visa, you need an employer to sponsor you, which means that you need to have a job offer. It doesn’t guarantee a visa, just that you can enter the lottery. The process for getting an H-1B Visa has been changing, and a system that was already difficult has become even harder for applicants. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is true that with the Trump administration, there has been a lot of changes specifically to this year’s H-1B visa process. The first is that there’s now a $100,000 fee if a company wants to sponsor somebody who isn’t currently living in the country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In wake of the changes and very steep application fee, some universities and companies implemented a hiring freeze for H-1B applicants. And the ones that are still hiring are sponsoring far fewer visas than in previous cycles. The updated application system isn’t totally random anymore. Higher paid applicants have a better chance of being picked now. But for the most part, the application process feels like a game of luck. At the end of the day, it’s still a lottery. Which is why good luck traditions, like getting Chick-fil-A during the registration window, have become baked into the modern mythology of the American immigrant experience. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It can all feel like a game, one in which the rules seem arbitrary and unpredictable. So when Azul heard about a studio turning that experience into a playable app, it made perfect sense. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H1B.Life is a game that tries to simulate the experience of an immigrant who’s trying to get H1-B visa status. And it’s a pretty early prototype now. Basically, it’s sort of like a text-based decision tree on your smartphone. And I played a demo of it, and it was actually kind of interesting. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So one of the opening scenes of the game says, during high school, you spent hours and hours on your laptop binging Gilmore Girls on shady, unauthorized streaming websites. Everything in your drowsy new town reminds you of the show. If it wasn’t for Lorelai and Rory, you might have never decided to… and then there’s like two decisions, and one is study journalism or come to New England. And I was like, wow, that’s really oddly specific. And it turns out that H1B.Life is based on real-life interviews from H1-B applicants, specifically Chinese immigrants living in Silicon Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re diving into H1B.Life today, the arduous application process, how capricious policy changes impact the trajectory of an immigrant’s entire life, and the cost of chasing a dream, all wrapped up in a mobile game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>This is 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. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Before we talk about the game itself, let’s get into the reality that inspired it. And as always, we’re starting by opening a new tab: Life on an H-1B Visa. Last month, the annual Game Developers Conference took over San Francisco. The Asian Art Museum was hosting a showcase for a game that involved chance, timing, and bureaucracy to, “determine who stays and who is deported.” The game was H1B.Life. Azul had heard about the game and decided to check it out. At the event, he talked to a few people about their own experiences with the immigration system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first person I talked to, his name was Donduk Dovdon, and he’s an ethnically Mongolian, Chinese national who now is a U.S. Citizen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I came to States 12 years ago for my master’s degree in Washington, D.C. And eventually I got H-1B, and then later I got green card. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donduk said the process demands a lot of sacrifice and that it can be hard to ever feel secure about the future. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He told me it is a very hard and arduous process to get H-1B status. And then even once you have H-1B status, you’re still not secure. You have to work towards getting a green card and then citizenship. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn’t see my parents for 10 years. I didn’t see any of my relatives for 10 years. So I think that’s still very emotional for me to say. Like, I eventually went back, I think, two years ago when I became citizen. It was so emotional. And I feel… I miss them, they miss me, a huge chapter of our lives…ten years, like many Americans, it’s just unimaginable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donduk’s 10-year gap without seeing his family may be on the extreme end. H-1B visa holders are technically allowed to travel internationally and re-enter the country, as long as their visa stamp is still valid. But he’s not alone. The decision to stay in the U.S. is often driven by fear of not being allowed back in. Over the last year, given the heightened scrutiny of visa holders and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, some legal experts, universities, and even tech companies who employ visa holders have cautioned against international travel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Concerns about travel aside, taking time off to visit family abroad often depends on your employer’s time off policy. H-1B visas hinge on employment. Changing jobs involves a new sponsor and another mountain of paperwork. Some H- 1B visa holders have spoken out about feeling trapped abusive work environments because of their visa status. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I was on H-1B, I met various shady employers who technically did not pay me, which was illegal. And it was like, if you dare to report me, you will get your H-1B revoked. So eventually, I was lucky enough and I left that organization, but I heard other people, in order just to get one H-1B, worked for three years free. And after work, they work at a restaurant or bubble tea store illegally for three years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Getting picked in the visa lottery doesn’t guarantee long-term stability either. H-1B visas have a 6-year cap and visa holders have to spend a full year outside of the U.S. before they can reapply. Donduk mentioned one of his friends, who’s also Chinese Mongolian. He recently had to say goodbye to her. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She self-deported herself three or four days ago. We were at the airport. She was on H-1B for five years, but no companies was willing to sponsor her green card. She spent 14 years in the States. She even bought a house. And then she sold the house, sold the car, and moved back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Visa status can be all consuming. At the showcase, Azul spoke with another attendee who’s currently on a different work-based visa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He said that whenever he meets up with other visa holders, the number one thing that they ask each other is ‘what visa are you on? ‘ because it has such a powerful determining factor over what you do, who you date, where you live, where you work. You have to keep your employer happy and they have to continue to sponsor you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>You might need to take a job that takes you traveling out of the country, but with the Trump administration, you know, maybe it’s hard for you to get back into the country based on your country of origin. So I think people are constantly taking risks and living under uncertainty, you know, from one presidential administration to the next. They’re not sure how these rules surrounding H-1B status are going to change. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In his reporting, Azul talked to an immigration lawyer based in Silicon Valley, Sophie Alcorn. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The game metaphor made sense to her that the H-1B process is sort of like a game. She said that her two young sons invite her to play video games when she’s home and she says… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sophie Alcorn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You guys, I’m already playing one of the hardest video games. I don’t need to play another game because the immigration system is so complicated as it is. There’s randomness, there’s luck, there’s skill, there is strategy. There’s trying to go around and collect like, badges and items to upskill to be able to get to the next level just like in a game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In games, players are the most affected by the rules, but they also have the least control over them. Right? Players are beholden to the rules but the people that make the rules are not playing the same game. I mean, you could say that we’re now playing on difficulty level hard with the Trump administration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s talk about the game itself, H1B life. Donduk, the guy who just got his American citizenship, actually thought the prototype he played was too realistic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He said that the gameplay was a little triggering for him, it was too real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to get into that after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Okay, more about the game after the break. Stick with us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Welcome back. We’re getting into this game, H1B.Life. Who is it for? How does it work? And can it really help make sense of the immigration process? Let’s open a new tab: How to play the H1-B Visa game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>The immigration system, at times, can seem like a black box to applicants, lawyers, and maybe most of all, to natural born American citizens who’ve never needed to think about this. The seemingly arbitrary rules that can change at the whims of an unseen entity, the gravity of every single decision, the pressure to succeed as the perfect model immigrant, that is the experience that developers are trying to capture in H1B.Life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from H1B.Life Trailer] America the big and beautiful country, but you need a visa. Be talented, big brain, build chips, then you might get an H-1B visa .\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a trailer for H1B.Life, which is still a very long way from being playable. The Kickstarter hasn’t even launched yet, but Azul got to try a demo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s basically like this text-based decision tree. The top half of the screen is like a text prompt and the bottom half is like, a series of choices. And then as you play through the game, you select different choices. There are these like four core attributes that you need to maintain. It’s intelligence, wealth, social support, and burnout rate, right? So this kind of like simulating. The things that it takes to be a person going through the H-1B visa process. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from H1B.Life Trailer] You make smart choices to get that visa and stay. What separates winning from losing is how you react when fate happens. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As you play, you’re presented with these different choices, like you’re done with your study abroad program and you go back home to Shanghai and you want to pursue journalism. But maybe you can get a job in this field and get an H-1B visa, so you decide to put off your dream and pursue something else. And as you do that, your core attributes sort of change. And so you’re having to sort of weigh those choices. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can spend social capital, instead of going to, you know, your friend’s birthday party, you stay late at work because, you know, you’re trying to get sponsored, right? So your social support goes down, but you know your intelligence goes up, right? Like, that’s kind of the balancing act. Then what’s promised in subsequent versions of the game is that if those core attributes run out, it triggers a sort of like slot machine feature where different gods decide players fates, and that’s sort of supposed to describe this random nature of the H-1B visa process. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from H1B.Life Trailer] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And don’t forget the immigration gods: code god, free god, fried chicken god, even orange god.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you tell us more about these different gods in the game? I know there’s one called the orange god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the orange god is the one that caught my eye. The orange god bears a very strong resemblance to Donald Trump. And the orange god claims to control everything and has already changed the policy 500 times before you finish reading the sentence. That’s what the description of the orange is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s the newest God in this universe. He’s very powerful. He can destroy your life any minute he wants, and he usually do. So you have to be very careful of him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Alison Yang, the founder of the game studio, Reality Reload. She told Azul about the other gods in the game. So there’s the code god, who looks like a cyborg and is obsessed with tech and optimization. The free god resembles the Statue of Liberty and is supposed to represent the American dream of a free society. And the fried chicken god? A nod to the annual Chick-fil-A tradition. And that god…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…According to the game description, keeps you surviving through the power of fast food grease. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughter] Reality Reload is a game studio made up of immigrants, developers, designers, and journalists. The founder, Allison, has a background in journalism. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love journalism, but over the years, as an editor and a reporter, I realized less and less people are reading long form, but there’s so much stories and information we want to pass on. I had the luck to step into the game industry for 7-8 years now, and I realized it’s the opposite. Like, people spend a massive amount of time in a the game. They complained one of my games to be too short, play is two hours. At the same time, they would complain that one of my articles is too long. So I thought, what if I turn it around, like a trojan horse. Like we wrap the news or information into a game and people doesn’t have to know that. They’re just playing something fun and they’re exposed to information anyway. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, as Allison told Azul, the point of H1B.Life is to educate people about the complexities of the immigration system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they started with the H-1B visa because it’s like this caricature of the visa system. It’s highly sought after. It’s very competitive, but they realized that it’s not just H-1B visas, it’s the whole United States Immigration System. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Reality Reload team initially designed the game based on their own experiences as Chinese immigrants in Silicon Valley. They conducted dozens of interviews with other Chinese immigrants for storylines in the game. But the team quickly realized that this experience is more universal than they first believed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s kind of funny because there is internal tensions between people of different origin who are competing for the same visa. But when we were talking to them, we realized it’s the same rat race, and you’re competing with each other not because the other party is evil or better, it’s because you have to. And then everyone’s, or every context, country of origin have their own dilemma. Like when we talk to Latino people from Bolivia…here it’s already very hard to find a job, but people at home find it very difficult to believe they couldn’t find money in the States. They have to mitigate through that. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I talked to my physician who is Indian, and she said their problem is even if they get a visa, there are too many Indian visa holders, they have to wait, I’m sure this number is not right, but she said 100 years to get a green card. So it’s like different versions of a game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H1B.Life revolves around choices and rules, which the player may or may not know about until they break one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the rules are changing every day. The player usually the one who has the least power or say, but they are the one we have to play through. So that tension is something we want to focus on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Allison did admit that early versions of the game were maybe too realistic. She told Azul that when they ran play tests, some people, like Donduk, found it a bit traumatic because they’ve dealt with this in real life. Donduk thought the game was triggering and not playful enough for a typical video game. Here’s Azul again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But he did think that it could have an application in like corporate diversity trainings. You could imagine like being at Google and a lot of your coworkers are H1B sponsors, being like, wow, I didn’t know that you had to go through that to get here, you know? And then that’s so different from how a United States citizen would get here. So that’s like, one potential application. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H1B.Life is still a prototype. The Reality Reload team is still interviewing other immigrants to weave their experiences into the story. And they plan to add more fantasy and play to the game before it launches. Azul mentioned one mini game in the works, which involves juggling. Your hands are full with a social life, maintaining grades, and looking for a job that’ll sponsor you, all while checking emails from your immigration lawyer. This is core to the game, managing the tension between competing priorities. It prompts players to consider what they want more: to pursue their dreams, or to fit the mold of an ideal immigrant in order to stay in the country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the beginning we thought we were going to do a simple visa simulation game and now we realize it’s more about how people figure out what kind of life they want, where they want it to be. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which is also a sentiment that almost all employment-based visa holders have to consider. Except, unlike in the game, there’s no decision tree guiding their path. They have to make these choices for themselves. What does life look like when it’s not dictated by a precarious visa status? Let’s open another new tab: the post-visa midlife crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For Donduk Dovdon, he came here as a student and he was pursuing a master’s degree. And now he needs to decide where he’s going to work, not based on what he wants to do, but based on who will sponsor him for an H-1B visa. After you get an H1B Visa, then you’re on a six-year timeline where you have to hit certain benchmarks in order to get a green card. After 10 years of uncertain visa status…once he got his U.S. citizenship, he basically had like a midlife crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because before, when I was on H1B, the only thing I had, my goal was to survive and be in this country. So I do whatever it takes to get a job that sponsors me for H-1B. And I do whatever it takes make my boss happy. But when I eventually got a green card, I finally had the privilege to think like an American, like, oh, what do I actually want to do with my life? I think now I’m still figuring out like what do I actually want to do? Now I’m like a 21 years old American, just graduated from college. I have all the opportunities finally opened up for me and I remember when I became citizen and I decided to quit PhD that was the hardest time in my life because like I’m like now finally I can move to anywhere in the States. I can be a bartender in Miami, but do I really want to be? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>I don’t know. Like I spent two months wondering where should I go next. And I know some other also H-1B workers, they were like of the best coders as a company or program manager or whatever. And then when they got a green card, some guys, I know one guy, he quit and he moved to Midwest and he opened a bakery because that’s what he actually is passionate about. And I think it’s just, it’s like, finally as immigrants, like when we got our green card of citizenship, we finally have the privilege to ponder what Americans did probably around 18 years old, or early 20s, like what do you actually want to achieve? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do I really want to do with my life? It’s a conundrum that American citizens can ponder at any age, but most consider it when they’re teenagers or fresh out of college. Maybe a couple years into your career, you realize that it’s not for you and you can pivot. But if your legal status in this country hinges on being able to do one highly specialized job, you don’t get to pivot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your whole reason for being in the country is holding these special degrees, this special job and at the end of the day, that’s not all anyone is. Nobody is just an H-1B visa holder. Like, they’re complex people with multitudes of desires and I think feeling the weight of that lift can be unsettling for people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donduk, for one, questioned whether this pressure is worth it for everyone. He told Azul that he was glad to stay in the United States, which, despite everything, is a safer and more free place for him as an openly gay, ethnically Mongolian person. But, if he knew that he could live in China without fear of persecution… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the U.S. is getting harder and harder to stay here for immigrants. Like, you have to evaluate, what do you value more. If you can live a comfortable life in your back home country and you value your family connections, do you really want to spend 10, 15 years here just working like a dog to get a green card here? And also we heard many other stories like some immigrants, eventually they moved to Singapore or Canada and they found happiness there. Or even some move to Africa. It’s not like U.S. is the only place you can be happy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fewer international students are interested in studying in the U.S. Last year, international enrollment in American universities dropped 17%. Both Texas and Florida have banned H-1B hiring at public universities. Many scientists have raised concerns that the U.S. will lose its competitive edge in research between DOGE enforced funding cuts and H- 1B hiring freezes. But, as for working in the U.S., outside of academia? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services said that they did hit their cap this year. So obviously there is still a demand for H-1B visas, but the Trump administration has made it a lot harder to get an H-1B visa. A lot of the Reality Reload team are Chinese immigrants and coming here, they’ve had the same experiences as the people they interviewed for these stories. I think it is very personal and part of why they wanted to give a voice to this experience because it is so pervasive in, you know, especially in like, the Bay area or other places where there’s a high need for specialized immigrant labor. This is really a huge thing and I think it’s not something that a lot of American citizens are aware of. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you think the game says about the intersection of technology and very bureaucratic systems like the immigration process? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Immigrants feel the whiplash of American government policies from like, Democrat to Republican, maybe more than most groups here in the country, and how it can upend their lives. And so I think this is a way for immigrants to tell their experiences and for them to feel seen and maybe to inject a little bit of critique into real life. Sometimes, like the experience can feel so arbitrary or so gamified. So maybe a game is the best way to understand and work towards making these processes better, or at least like, explain them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have the privilege of being a natural-born U.S. Citizen. Both of my parents immigrated here when they were young, and I’ve never had to navigate the complexities of the immigration system myself. Many of my close family members have dealt with that, but I admit that even as a journalist, I struggle to differentiate between types of visas and what you can do with them: H-1B, OPT, EB-3, O-1, L-1B, K-1? It’s a dialect that’s unintelligible to a lot of natural born citizens. There’s a whole other world of paperwork and red tape that most Americans never have to think about. But that doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. So how do you get through the doom scrolling and get American citizens to understand the real life impact of these shifting immigration policies?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Like Allison pointed out, people who aren’t inclined to spend 20 minutes reading about visa changes, may be more convinced to spend 20 minutes in a game, trying to avoid the wrath of the orange god. Through surreal slot machines, fickle deities, and some skill juggling, games like H1B.Life can open players up to an unseen reality that exists right in front of them, one that might affect their friends, their coworkers, and their neighbors every day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Special thanks to Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman for sharing this story along with the interview recordings you heard today. You can find a link to Azul’s story and more about H-1B.Life and the immigrant experience in our show notes. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad, Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor in chief. 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. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "save-or-scroll-looksmaxxing-ai-fruit-love-island-bts-arirang-and-meta-lawsuits",
"title": "Save or Scroll: Looksmaxxing, AI Fruit Love Island, BTS Arirang, and Meta Lawsuits",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a spring installment of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Save or Scroll\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Morgan teams up with culture journalist Steffi Cao to dig into the stories they can’t stop thinking about. From \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">looksmaxxing to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI Fruit Love Island, BTS’ new album, and Meta losing a landmark series of lawsuits, they’ve got a lot to discuss. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Save or Scroll is our series where we team up with guests for a rapid-fire roundup of internet trends that are filling our feeds right now. At the end of each segment, they’ll decide: is the post just for the group chat, or should we save it for a future episode?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4630070510\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://stefficao.substack.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steffi Cao\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, culture journalist \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://stefficao.substack.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">More from Steffi Cao\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Substack\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.gq.com/story/inside-claviculars-thirsty-tour-of-new-york-city\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Inside Clavicular’s Thirsty Tour of New York City \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Kieran Press-Reynolds, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">GQ\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.thedailybeast.com/in-gen-z-gym-culture-steroids-are-often-a-gateway-drug-to-the-alt-right/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why Steroids Are Now Turning Young Men into Dangerous Incels\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Steffi Cao, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Daily Beast\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fastcompany.com/91519147/fruit-love-island-tiktok-most-popular-ai-generated-series-now-facing-trouble-in-paradise\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘Fruit Love Island’ is TikTok’s most popular AI-generated series. It’s now facing trouble in paradise \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Jude Cramer, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fast Company \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/theres-something-very-dark-about-a-lot-of-those-viral-ai-fruit-videos/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s Something Very Dark About a Lot of Those Viral AI Fruit Videos \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Kat Tenbarge, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wired \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.teenvogue.com/story/who-decides-if-bts-album-arirang-is-korean-enough-op-ed\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who Decides If BTS’s Album ‘Arirang’ is ‘Korean Enough’? \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Jiye Kim, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Teen Vogue \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://slate.com/culture/2026/03/bts-arirang-album-netflix-swim-comeback-concert-2026.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BTS’s Arirang comeback was supposed to be a triumph. What happened?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Nadira Goffe, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slate \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://19thnews.org/2026/03/social-media-addiction-trial-meta-youtube/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Meta and YouTube ordered to pay $3 million to young woman in social media addiction trial\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Jasmine Mithani, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The 19th\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/what-the-verdict-against-meta-and-google-says-about-the-way-we-live-now\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What the Verdict Against Meta and Google Says About the Way We Live Now\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Jeannie Suk Gersen, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ype6c6DdHQY\">The Truth About the Social Media Addiction Trial\u003c/a> — Taylor Lorenz, \u003ci>Free Speech Friday \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey, it’s Morgan. We just celebrated the show’s first birthday. That’s right, Close All Tabs is a Pisces. Want to celebrate with us? It would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends about us too. Okay, let’s get to the episode.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. We’ve done a few of these now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Occasionally, while scrolling, I come across a truly wild post, but it might not make sense to spend an entire episode on it. Maybe I do a little digging and it turns out that the lore behind it just isn’t compelling enough to justify a deep dive, but I’m still dying to talk about it. And this is the beauty of Save or Scroll, the game where a guest comes to the show and we trade stories from the internet that we’re dying to talk about. Today, we have the one and only Steffi Cao. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you so much for having me, Morgan. I’m so excited. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, Steffi, tell us about yourself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi everyone, I’m Steffi, I am a culture journalist and Slate’s newest dating advice columnist for Unhinged. You can find my writing everywhere from The Atlantic, to Rolling Stone, to The Guardian, to Slate now, so I’m very excited to share all my tabs and work in today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so let’s talk about the rules of Save or Scroll. Save, as in when you see a post on TikTok or Instagram or X and you bookmark it, add it to your save folders or if you’re me, drop it in notes app and hope that you’ll remember it’s there. Basically, you’re holding onto the story because you know you’ll want to dig into it more. And scroll, as you think about it and then move on. It disappears into the digital ether.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Steffi and I have each brought some stories that we can’t stop thinking about, and we’re gonna go back and forth to decide if they’re worth a deep dive on the show. So if we decide to scroll, it means we’ve talked about it, we’re moving on. And if we save, it means that we might hold onto the idea for a future episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, Steffi, please tell us about looksmaxxing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the past few years, looksmaxxing is the subculture of young men primarily who are seeking guidance from other men in terms of how to gamify their looks to become super, super hot. The essence of looksmaxxing is basically ‘the hotter I can be, the better my life will be around other men.’ And the pinnacle of these content creators currently is a man named Clavicular of collarbone fame.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s a 20-year-old white man who has a very soft elfin face and a Dorito-shaped body and has really been associated with a lot of, like, Nazi ideology, has been recently arrested for inciting a fight between two women, allegedly and also allegedly shooting an alligator in Florida. He was kicked out of Las Vegas, I believe, and has become this sort of lightning rod for this entire culture of all these men wanting to get hotter and be hotter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah and Clavicular first went viral for not only his extensive skin care and workout routine, but for also saying that he microdoses meth and would hit his face with a hammer to get a more, I guess, angular jawline. What a man. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What a guy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What a character. Clavicular is so fascinating to me because his political stances are indecipherable. He has gone on some more right-leaning podcasts, and when they try to get him to be kind of transphobic, he said… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clavicular in audio clip]\u003cbr>\nI did a podcast with Michael Knowles the other day and he’s sitting here saying like and getting all mad about transgenders and I’m like bro that’s one more person a mog you know what I mean so like I don’t get too I don’t get too upset when people go trans and all that shit. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s just another person to mog. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How would you describe mogging? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mogging, I think, is the essence of being hotter than somebody else. So if you’ve mogged them, it’s like you’ve shown them up in some way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Clavicular on the Adam Friedland Show] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Clavicular: That’s the goal of the game, right, is to mog other people, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Adam: Tell the boomer cells about what that is. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Clavicular: So, mogging is essentially just, you know, outperforming them, looking better than them, yeah and just sort of dominating, right. It came from something called AMOG, which was alpha male of the group, then it was shortened to just mog, so that’s kind of like the term we use. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the language has become like a bigger than itself sort of phenomenon where, you know, maxxing and mogging have started from this internal community and then now becomes sort of like general ironic gobbledygook for everybody. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s so interesting too, because the whole looksmaxxing thing has become like the peak Manosphere content. All the allegedly straight boys are really into doing all this to impress other men. It doesn’t seem like they actually do this in any way to appeal to women. And like, I’ve seen a lot of like gay men point out, this is literally gay male culture, what they’re doing, the peacocking, trying to show each other up and like only seek validation from other men, which is from a gender perspective, I’m like, what’s going on here? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It feels like horseshoe theory a little bit. They are doing all of these performative things that come right back to a drag of what a straight man is. It’s like it’s heterosexual drag. Like you’re trying to, you know, build up your face a certain way, you’re trying to mog other straight men, like that’s drag, honey. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like that’s gender performance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">100% Yeah, I mean, self-improvement leans so well into fascist ideology because a lot of it is predicated on this idea that you can earn your way into something better, which is exactly what looksmaxxing is, right? You can gamify your looks. Like, If you’re not hot now, all you need to do is do all these steps and gain more points, more aura points, until you have achieved this thing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which is exactly why in Nazi Germany you see a lot of propaganda being espoused about the strongman. That was a huge beauty standard at that point in Hitler’s Germany, was specifically this idea of a man who is super jacked and is super like, is mogged, really, and I have no other word for it really. It’s just like they really..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A mogged man has always been this cultural fascination and in many ways a mogged woman, obviously. Um, has been a huge part of, uh, fascist ideology for a long time. You know, think about all these essays about why Republican women all look the same and they have this specific look about them. And it has a lot to do with this culture of self-improvement and making all these alterations to yourself to try and earn your way or like bootstrap your way into beauty and therefore access and power and all of these things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Okay, well, looksmaxxing, the big thing of the year right now, do we save or do we scroll? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, I’m saving it because I think there’s going to be developments. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, yeah, there are going to be new words that have never been said before. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s going be crazy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But looks maxed as a trend, I think we’re saving. After the break, a new bombshell enters the villa. Unfortunately, she’s AI generated and also made of fruit. Steffi and I are going to explain all of the drama around AI Fruit Love Island. Stick around. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have a story for you now. Are you familiar with AI Fruit Love Island? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, am I! Oh my god, I feel like it came out of nowhere and then it’s sudden, it’s like omnipresent now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, for the uninitiated, AI Fruit Love Island was this interactive AI-slop parody of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Love Island\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> with sexy anthropomorphized fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of Audio from AI Fruit Love Island] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Host: Welcome Back to Fruit Love Island. Today we’ve got a steamy challenge and after over 370,000 viewer votes, our bombshells have officially hit the villa. All right ladies let’s get this started. You’ll be kissed one by each guy and after each kiss you rate it. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so that is one of the episodes of Fruit Love Island. What was happening in that clip? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, it’s basically just a real \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Love Island\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> challenge, but done with fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, they have human bodies, um, but their heads are fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are all like, obviously done by AI. The colors are highly saturated. It’s super bright, super like in your face. And then a grape man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and, uh, board shorts, like comes up and kisses the fruit ladies blindfolded. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of Audio from AI Fruit Love Island] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Host: Grapenzo, you’re up first. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Contestant: That was hot, an 8.5. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You see all these badly done reactions in the background of these AI fruit women laughing and sort of being like, ha ha ha, this is crazy. So it just is like a \u003cem>Love Island\u003c/em> episode, but with fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So for context, this TikTok account kind of came out of nowhere, AICinema021, and they gained about 3.1 million followers in like a week and a half. And now there are so many copycat accounts. The characters include Limeyra, the lime, Bananito, the banana who has abs and is always shirtless, Strawberrina, the strawberry, Coconick, the sexy coconut. And yeah, it’s not good. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The animation and voices are all stilted. There’s zero consistency. It’s pure slop. So viewers gave storyline feedback via Google Form and voted for their faves in the comments. And this account was getting crazy numbers, like 20 million views per episode at its peak and just churning out new episodes every day. I feel like it used to be kind of embarrassing to enjoy this kind of content, but then you had Zara Larsson and Joe Jonas being like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t wait for the next episode.’ Like major celebrities. But yeah, what’s your like initial gut reaction here? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it makes sense why this thing is taken off, because even though young people online want to act like only boomers love watching AI slop, the fact is our brains are primed to watch AI slop. We have all these deep fried memes and internet humor is so self-referential, but it removes a lot of these barriers in our heads of consuming something like this that really feels as though, like, okay, maybe, um, what could be embarrassing previously could be ironically fun now. I love it because it’s fascinating to see how excited people get about it. But like, is the content good? No, it’s trash, but I don’t think it’s trying to be good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Well, have you been following the great AI Fruit Love Island crash out… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…that happened over the weekend? Okay. So this account literally gained millions and millions of followers, three million followers in like a week and a half, which is insane. Like there are human creators who grind for years to get a third of that. But, you know, this account was able to just churn out content so fast and people were invested. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So basically, people were criticizing the account for being AI slop and criticizing viewers for being slop consumers. And the creator did not respond well. In TikTok comments, they complained about how hard it was to make this content and basically implied that like viewers were ungrateful. A real hilarious irony where they were like, it’s really hard because I have to prompt so many times and the AI sometimes messes up and I have to redo it and then I have edit it together. And it sometimes takes me like three hours to make one of these videos. And it’s like, yeah, well… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Imagine how long it must take to film a real TV episode? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s so funny that they’re like, this is so hard, even like having to prompt a generator to be like, and now make Strawberrina kiss the kiwi man is like too much effort. So then their video started getting removed. The creator claimed that it was part of a mass reporting campaign and started crashing onto their story. So this was the first one…they were, I guess, sick of it, right? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were like, “This is it. I’m sick of all of you.” They were getting criticized for like wasting water basically and people were pointing out like, hey, this is like really sh*tty that you’re kind of encouraging this consumption. So they were posting like, “Was a good run, didn’t expect any of this, but here we are from being a nobody to being cancelled. I guess I’ll take it. People hate to see people win,”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s awesome! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…with screenshots from like their episodes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’t the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I’m so glad y’all got what you wanted. Saving the planet three gallons of water at a time, truly inspirational. It’s like, f*ck all y’all, you jealous motherf*ckers, save the planet, OMG, water, OMG. I love water, clean water, please clean water. What y’ all sound like.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s hilarious. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Thanks for 3 million followers though. Wow, I guess some might like it.” Then they posted one final one, basically saying like, this series is over, this is it, with Bananito, a fan favorite, unfortunately, the sexy banana that is never wearing a shirt. Um, and basically they said, “All right, f*ck all you b*tches, no more Fruit Love Island. Since people are so obsessed with it, all my videos banned, I make no money. I guess I am being targeted because no other AI account is getting f*cked. Y’all heard it from Bananito himself. Bye.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bye. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s just really funny because they also got mad that other like copycat AI accounts were like copying their theme, which is a real like, so many layers between like, being mad about the copycats and then being like suddenly like creative integrity matters basically. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then being mad at like the effort it took to make these videos. The layers of complete unawareness just go so deep. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughter] It’s one of those things where I’m like, oh, of course, this is where we are. People are so fixated on this idea of it’s fine until it’s me because passive consumption is just so self-centric, you’re only thinking about yourself. So of course this person’s mad that other people are stealing their AI fruit slop content without contributing to the AI slop database that can then pull out more content. Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s like a content self-eating snake, you know? But I will say, there is one glimmer of hope, despite how many people were obsessed with this slop. I would say there’s an equal faction of people who are really into human-made content. And so this inspired several Fruit Love Island non-AI copycats,. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With real fruit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…which I will show you now, which is really beautiful. I love that people are doing this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of Audio from Fruit Love Island] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Host: Welcome to episode one of Fruit Love Island, that’s not AI. I’ve made sure to gather the juiciest of drama in the villa in the past day. Now let’s see what’s happened. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Contestant: I’m here to break hearts, not to fall in love. Hopefully these guys don’t get too attached. Or I don’t. I won’t though. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it’s basically a similar idea, but it’s not really animated so much as like, there are these photoshopped pictures of like people, human bodies with fruits for heads. It’s a human being that made this and it’s not as refined, but they did get voice actors on Discord to like volunteer their voices and voice all of this. And so I’m just like really encouraged by the fact that this has kind of blown up this non-AI Fruit Love Island. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that’s beautiful. I think we need to reject modernity and embrace tradition in a lot of ways, because we already had Annoying Orange. We need to bring back the original recipes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know. And like Annoying Orange,I hated that content. I didn’t dread it. But you know what? A human being made it.\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nSteffi Cao: \u003c/b>A human-being made it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>So AI Fruit Love Island, do we save or do we scroll?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m gonna scroll on it, but I defer to you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m going to scroll on it too. I think it had a good run. I don’t think we need more of it. I think the crash out was beautiful and hilarious and a real internet moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perfect irony. It’s truly, like, perfect. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tell us about this next story you brought. What’s going on with BTS’ new album? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of BTS music] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Swim swim, \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is how it all begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Swim, swim\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just wanna dive…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BTS was away in the military for four years, and the K-pop group, who was arguably one of the biggest acts in the industry and has been for many years, returned with an album called Arirang, and it was predominantly sung in English, and because of that, as well as the fact that it was a different sound from what they’ve previously put out in the past, it was, I think, personally sonically more mixed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of BTS music] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Watch this, watch this, \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beat going hooligan. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We pop out, we actin’ a fool again \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It became very controversial. It didn’t also help that when they did their first live performance in Seoul after the fact, there were a lot of statistics reported about how many people actually attended. They shut down a very busy intersection in Seoul saying that 300,000 people were expected to show up. Korean officials, some of them said that as low as 42,000 showed up and there were adverse impacts from store owners who expected a lot of influx but didn’t get that. And so now there’s this huge debate happening about this album, what it means for K-pop in the industry and like how things have shifted, et cetera. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think the fandom has aged out of, like, acting like fans? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cem>[Laughter] \u003c/em>I think that the industry has shifted a lot, and what a fan should act like has changed with it. Because I think in the past, the eternal struggle of a BTS ARMY was trying to convince people that K-pop was a serious art form, that it wasn’t just some silly thing that teen girls listened to, that it was corporate slop pop music, that there were a lot of uphill battles, I think, for a K-Pop fan.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I think now, over the past four years, you’ve seen a lot more Western embrace of K-pop as a serious art form, as a legitimate cultural export, and not like a niche subculture. So I think that with “K-Pop Demon Hunters”, you have Blackpink headlining Coachella, you had KATSEYE at Lollapalooza, you had all these bigger acts coming out of a Korean system that I think is legitimized in a different way. And so I think that BTS ARMY doesn’t have to convince anyone anymore that BTS is legit. It has shifted this fan identity of like, okay, well, now what? And now what happens?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, you mentioned that like the entire album is sang in English or like all the lyrics are mostly in English, which is interesting because Arirang is a really culturally important folk song in Korea with a lot of history behind it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of Arirang sung in Korean from Youtube user @Miss_Taex] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think people expected a little bit more of that cultural representation with this album. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I think BTS has also throughout their career really emphasized their Korean-ness, especially because they tend to sample a lot of traditional Korean music, a lot of Korean culture comes into play into their performances. And so I think that it was disappointing for a lot fans to open up this album and hear Teddy Swims in the song. Right? They end on a country song, which is like, possibly the most American form of music that we associate in mainstream culture. We don’t associate country music with Korea. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, right. And it’s a hard thing to follow “K-Pop Demon Hunters.” Just like the way that that movie was such a cultural moment and how it introduced so many people to Korean folklore and Korean culture and Korean language. That was a movie that was in English, but a lot of the songs were in Korean. And a lot people who have never spoken Korean learned those songs. And so it’s interesting that BTS wouldn’t see that and like kind of seize the moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, 100%. I think that it’s frustrating as a fan to feel like the whole reason that you fell so deeply in love with this group has suddenly shifted under your feet and that the intention of the group’s project didn’t align with where you thought they were going to go. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Okay, well, BTS’s new album, do we save or do we scroll? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think. I’m going to personally scroll on it, but I think that there’s a lot to talk about in terms of like Asian artistry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a lot to keep an eye on, but personally, don’t come for me, ARMY. I didn’t like the album. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Me either. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I’m gonna scroll on it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was just bored. I was bored. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m in ARMY. I’m in ARMY-da. And I got the tickets. Any ARMY that wants to come for me and I will see you at MetLife. I’ve got the tickets. And what now? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But you can be disappointed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I’m disappointed in the album. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re allowed to be disappointed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m disappointed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you’re allowed to scroll. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I am allowed to scroll on it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, last story for today. The Meta lawsuits. Okay, so Meta faced two separate lawsuits: one in California over social media addiction and one in New Mexico for child safety. The one in California took place in LA and it centered around this 20 year-old woman who said that she became addicted to YouTube and Instagram as a child. And that that greatly affected her mental health.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Snapchat and TikTok were also both defendants, but they settled before it went to court. And a jury in LA found Google and Meta both negligent because the design of their apps encourages infinite scrolling. And the companies didn’t warn users about the dangers of that. So the plaintiff’s lawyer said that both Meta and Google intentionally target kids and prioritize profit over safety. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\nThe jury concluded that Meta is liable for $4.2 million in damages, and Google is liable for $1.8 million. And then for the case in New Mexico, the state sued Meta over child safety issues. Former employees testified that underage users were shown sexualized content on Instagram and were exposed to predators. And during the court proceedings, they said that Meta’s decision to encrypt Facebook Messenger blocked access to evidence of predators grooming minors. And basically, this is the first time that New Mexico, as a state, was able to successfully sue Meta. So now Meta was ordered to pay $375 million.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So these lawsuits are being celebrated as huge wins for child safety and kind of taking down these evil tech companies. But I’m kind of skeptical of big companies like Meta and Google actually changing their practices. And whenever I hear like child safety social media lawsuit or like child safety and social media in the same sentence, I’m like, everyone wants kids to be safe. Everyone wants to protect the kids. No one wants to expose kids to predators or inappropriate content. But alarm bells are going off in my head where I’m, like, will they be using this to justify more surveillance and more censorship and more practices like age verification, which we’ve covered a lot on this show. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it makes sense that there’s a lot of cynicism around these child safety lawsuits because what we’ve seen over our careers is that every time there has been one of these landmark lawsuits, it’s like, what is it actually put into practice? People have been concerned about this topic for many, many years, but it feels like the people who are in Congress still miss the mark on the concept of social media as itself. We’ve seen endless clips of Congress people essentially asking Mark Zuckerberg for tech help during Senate hearings. Yeah. So it makes sense that this verdict, even though it’s being lauded as a huge case, I’m not convinced on it either. We’ve seen Meta pay up a lot in the past, and it hasn’t seemed to really shift the needle at all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s like, if anything, the practices don’t change. Kids aren’t necessarily safer. And everyone else is a little bit more surveilled and censored, like, with the current wave of age verification requirements, like, sweeping any internet platform whatsoever, where you have to put in your ID to continue using Spotify in some countries and I really distrust that. And, I do kind of worry that like any kind of trying to like ensure child safety on social media will just be used to justify more age verification laws. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, 100%. I think that the solution being trusting big tech to manage more of our data and requests that we give up more of privacy is like, it makes a lot of sense as people who’ve grown up online and we’ve seen this play before. It does, I think, breed more of a culture of surveillance.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think also the problem with this lawsuit is that like, it’s not a silver bullet. Like this is a multi-pronged problem where it’s like a part of it is having adults be smarter about their tech use and teaching their kids to critically analyze the content they’re consuming day in and day out. It’s a lot on the education system.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s on providing structural support for young kids to have more time offline to build all these social skills that when you are isolated and just on your feed even though it can be very fun and exciting to be on Tumblr as a 16-year-old, freewheeling it online, you still need an infrastructure behind you to teach you all these skills that you don’t really get when you are online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it’s like a multi-pronged problem. It really is on every adult, regardless of where you stand, if you have kids or not, to try and train yourself to be better about your own skillset, because they’re kids, they’re just imitating whatever resource is there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, and it’s like, Taylor Lorenz on her Free Speech Friday series pointed out that a lot of kids do still, you still need to let them have agency online in some capacity and just like, you know, a lot kids do rely on these online resources to access information about sex ed or find queer community when they don’t have that in real life and to potentially silo them further and take that away could actually endanger kids. Okay, the child safety lawsuits with Meta and Google, do we save or do we scroll? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I feel like we’re going to have to save it because this is going to continue. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, It’s an evergreen save. This is just collecting more and more tabs every day. Thank you so much for joining us, Steffi. Where can people follow your work? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you so much for having me, Morgan. You can check me out on Instagram at Steffi Cao, S-T-E-F-F-I-C-A-O, and my sub-stack, It’s Steffi. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perfect, thanks so much. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and it’s reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. It was edited by Chris Hambrick. Our team includes producer, Maya Cueva. Additional music by APM. Brendan Willard is our audio engineer. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts. Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you like these deep dives? Are you closing your tabs? Then don’t forget to rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. Maybe drop a comment too. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a spring installment of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Save or Scroll\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Morgan teams up with culture journalist Steffi Cao to dig into the stories they can’t stop thinking about. From \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">looksmaxxing to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI Fruit Love Island, BTS’ new album, and Meta losing a landmark series of lawsuits, they’ve got a lot to discuss. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Save or Scroll is our series where we team up with guests for a rapid-fire roundup of internet trends that are filling our feeds right now. At the end of each segment, they’ll decide: is the post just for the group chat, or should we save it for a future episode?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4630070510\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://stefficao.substack.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steffi Cao\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, culture journalist \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://stefficao.substack.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">More from Steffi Cao\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Substack\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.gq.com/story/inside-claviculars-thirsty-tour-of-new-york-city\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Inside Clavicular’s Thirsty Tour of New York City \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Kieran Press-Reynolds, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">GQ\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.thedailybeast.com/in-gen-z-gym-culture-steroids-are-often-a-gateway-drug-to-the-alt-right/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why Steroids Are Now Turning Young Men into Dangerous Incels\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Steffi Cao, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Daily Beast\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fastcompany.com/91519147/fruit-love-island-tiktok-most-popular-ai-generated-series-now-facing-trouble-in-paradise\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘Fruit Love Island’ is TikTok’s most popular AI-generated series. It’s now facing trouble in paradise \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Jude Cramer, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fast Company \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/theres-something-very-dark-about-a-lot-of-those-viral-ai-fruit-videos/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s Something Very Dark About a Lot of Those Viral AI Fruit Videos \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Kat Tenbarge, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wired \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.teenvogue.com/story/who-decides-if-bts-album-arirang-is-korean-enough-op-ed\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who Decides If BTS’s Album ‘Arirang’ is ‘Korean Enough’? \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Jiye Kim, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Teen Vogue \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://slate.com/culture/2026/03/bts-arirang-album-netflix-swim-comeback-concert-2026.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BTS’s Arirang comeback was supposed to be a triumph. What happened?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Nadira Goffe, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slate \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://19thnews.org/2026/03/social-media-addiction-trial-meta-youtube/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Meta and YouTube ordered to pay $3 million to young woman in social media addiction trial\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Jasmine Mithani, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The 19th\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/what-the-verdict-against-meta-and-google-says-about-the-way-we-live-now\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What the Verdict Against Meta and Google Says About the Way We Live Now\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Jeannie Suk Gersen, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ype6c6DdHQY\">The Truth About the Social Media Addiction Trial\u003c/a> — Taylor Lorenz, \u003ci>Free Speech Friday \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey, it’s Morgan. We just celebrated the show’s first birthday. That’s right, Close All Tabs is a Pisces. Want to celebrate with us? It would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends about us too. Okay, let’s get to the episode.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. We’ve done a few of these now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Occasionally, while scrolling, I come across a truly wild post, but it might not make sense to spend an entire episode on it. Maybe I do a little digging and it turns out that the lore behind it just isn’t compelling enough to justify a deep dive, but I’m still dying to talk about it. And this is the beauty of Save or Scroll, the game where a guest comes to the show and we trade stories from the internet that we’re dying to talk about. Today, we have the one and only Steffi Cao. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you so much for having me, Morgan. I’m so excited. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, Steffi, tell us about yourself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi everyone, I’m Steffi, I am a culture journalist and Slate’s newest dating advice columnist for Unhinged. You can find my writing everywhere from The Atlantic, to Rolling Stone, to The Guardian, to Slate now, so I’m very excited to share all my tabs and work in today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so let’s talk about the rules of Save or Scroll. Save, as in when you see a post on TikTok or Instagram or X and you bookmark it, add it to your save folders or if you’re me, drop it in notes app and hope that you’ll remember it’s there. Basically, you’re holding onto the story because you know you’ll want to dig into it more. And scroll, as you think about it and then move on. It disappears into the digital ether.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Steffi and I have each brought some stories that we can’t stop thinking about, and we’re gonna go back and forth to decide if they’re worth a deep dive on the show. So if we decide to scroll, it means we’ve talked about it, we’re moving on. And if we save, it means that we might hold onto the idea for a future episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, Steffi, please tell us about looksmaxxing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the past few years, looksmaxxing is the subculture of young men primarily who are seeking guidance from other men in terms of how to gamify their looks to become super, super hot. The essence of looksmaxxing is basically ‘the hotter I can be, the better my life will be around other men.’ And the pinnacle of these content creators currently is a man named Clavicular of collarbone fame.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s a 20-year-old white man who has a very soft elfin face and a Dorito-shaped body and has really been associated with a lot of, like, Nazi ideology, has been recently arrested for inciting a fight between two women, allegedly and also allegedly shooting an alligator in Florida. He was kicked out of Las Vegas, I believe, and has become this sort of lightning rod for this entire culture of all these men wanting to get hotter and be hotter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah and Clavicular first went viral for not only his extensive skin care and workout routine, but for also saying that he microdoses meth and would hit his face with a hammer to get a more, I guess, angular jawline. What a man. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What a guy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What a character. Clavicular is so fascinating to me because his political stances are indecipherable. He has gone on some more right-leaning podcasts, and when they try to get him to be kind of transphobic, he said… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clavicular in audio clip]\u003cbr>\nI did a podcast with Michael Knowles the other day and he’s sitting here saying like and getting all mad about transgenders and I’m like bro that’s one more person a mog you know what I mean so like I don’t get too I don’t get too upset when people go trans and all that shit. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s just another person to mog. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How would you describe mogging? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mogging, I think, is the essence of being hotter than somebody else. So if you’ve mogged them, it’s like you’ve shown them up in some way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Clavicular on the Adam Friedland Show] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Clavicular: That’s the goal of the game, right, is to mog other people, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Adam: Tell the boomer cells about what that is. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Clavicular: So, mogging is essentially just, you know, outperforming them, looking better than them, yeah and just sort of dominating, right. It came from something called AMOG, which was alpha male of the group, then it was shortened to just mog, so that’s kind of like the term we use. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the language has become like a bigger than itself sort of phenomenon where, you know, maxxing and mogging have started from this internal community and then now becomes sort of like general ironic gobbledygook for everybody. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s so interesting too, because the whole looksmaxxing thing has become like the peak Manosphere content. All the allegedly straight boys are really into doing all this to impress other men. It doesn’t seem like they actually do this in any way to appeal to women. And like, I’ve seen a lot of like gay men point out, this is literally gay male culture, what they’re doing, the peacocking, trying to show each other up and like only seek validation from other men, which is from a gender perspective, I’m like, what’s going on here? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It feels like horseshoe theory a little bit. They are doing all of these performative things that come right back to a drag of what a straight man is. It’s like it’s heterosexual drag. Like you’re trying to, you know, build up your face a certain way, you’re trying to mog other straight men, like that’s drag, honey. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like that’s gender performance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">100% Yeah, I mean, self-improvement leans so well into fascist ideology because a lot of it is predicated on this idea that you can earn your way into something better, which is exactly what looksmaxxing is, right? You can gamify your looks. Like, If you’re not hot now, all you need to do is do all these steps and gain more points, more aura points, until you have achieved this thing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which is exactly why in Nazi Germany you see a lot of propaganda being espoused about the strongman. That was a huge beauty standard at that point in Hitler’s Germany, was specifically this idea of a man who is super jacked and is super like, is mogged, really, and I have no other word for it really. It’s just like they really..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A mogged man has always been this cultural fascination and in many ways a mogged woman, obviously. Um, has been a huge part of, uh, fascist ideology for a long time. You know, think about all these essays about why Republican women all look the same and they have this specific look about them. And it has a lot to do with this culture of self-improvement and making all these alterations to yourself to try and earn your way or like bootstrap your way into beauty and therefore access and power and all of these things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Okay, well, looksmaxxing, the big thing of the year right now, do we save or do we scroll? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, I’m saving it because I think there’s going to be developments. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, yeah, there are going to be new words that have never been said before. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s going be crazy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But looks maxed as a trend, I think we’re saving. After the break, a new bombshell enters the villa. Unfortunately, she’s AI generated and also made of fruit. Steffi and I are going to explain all of the drama around AI Fruit Love Island. Stick around. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have a story for you now. Are you familiar with AI Fruit Love Island? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, am I! Oh my god, I feel like it came out of nowhere and then it’s sudden, it’s like omnipresent now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, for the uninitiated, AI Fruit Love Island was this interactive AI-slop parody of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Love Island\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> with sexy anthropomorphized fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of Audio from AI Fruit Love Island] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Host: Welcome Back to Fruit Love Island. Today we’ve got a steamy challenge and after over 370,000 viewer votes, our bombshells have officially hit the villa. All right ladies let’s get this started. You’ll be kissed one by each guy and after each kiss you rate it. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so that is one of the episodes of Fruit Love Island. What was happening in that clip? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, it’s basically just a real \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Love Island\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> challenge, but done with fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, they have human bodies, um, but their heads are fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are all like, obviously done by AI. The colors are highly saturated. It’s super bright, super like in your face. And then a grape man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and, uh, board shorts, like comes up and kisses the fruit ladies blindfolded. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of Audio from AI Fruit Love Island] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Host: Grapenzo, you’re up first. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Contestant: That was hot, an 8.5. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You see all these badly done reactions in the background of these AI fruit women laughing and sort of being like, ha ha ha, this is crazy. So it just is like a \u003cem>Love Island\u003c/em> episode, but with fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So for context, this TikTok account kind of came out of nowhere, AICinema021, and they gained about 3.1 million followers in like a week and a half. And now there are so many copycat accounts. The characters include Limeyra, the lime, Bananito, the banana who has abs and is always shirtless, Strawberrina, the strawberry, Coconick, the sexy coconut. And yeah, it’s not good. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The animation and voices are all stilted. There’s zero consistency. It’s pure slop. So viewers gave storyline feedback via Google Form and voted for their faves in the comments. And this account was getting crazy numbers, like 20 million views per episode at its peak and just churning out new episodes every day. I feel like it used to be kind of embarrassing to enjoy this kind of content, but then you had Zara Larsson and Joe Jonas being like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t wait for the next episode.’ Like major celebrities. But yeah, what’s your like initial gut reaction here? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it makes sense why this thing is taken off, because even though young people online want to act like only boomers love watching AI slop, the fact is our brains are primed to watch AI slop. We have all these deep fried memes and internet humor is so self-referential, but it removes a lot of these barriers in our heads of consuming something like this that really feels as though, like, okay, maybe, um, what could be embarrassing previously could be ironically fun now. I love it because it’s fascinating to see how excited people get about it. But like, is the content good? No, it’s trash, but I don’t think it’s trying to be good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Well, have you been following the great AI Fruit Love Island crash out… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…that happened over the weekend? Okay. So this account literally gained millions and millions of followers, three million followers in like a week and a half, which is insane. Like there are human creators who grind for years to get a third of that. But, you know, this account was able to just churn out content so fast and people were invested. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So basically, people were criticizing the account for being AI slop and criticizing viewers for being slop consumers. And the creator did not respond well. In TikTok comments, they complained about how hard it was to make this content and basically implied that like viewers were ungrateful. A real hilarious irony where they were like, it’s really hard because I have to prompt so many times and the AI sometimes messes up and I have to redo it and then I have edit it together. And it sometimes takes me like three hours to make one of these videos. And it’s like, yeah, well… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Imagine how long it must take to film a real TV episode? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s so funny that they’re like, this is so hard, even like having to prompt a generator to be like, and now make Strawberrina kiss the kiwi man is like too much effort. So then their video started getting removed. The creator claimed that it was part of a mass reporting campaign and started crashing onto their story. So this was the first one…they were, I guess, sick of it, right? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were like, “This is it. I’m sick of all of you.” They were getting criticized for like wasting water basically and people were pointing out like, hey, this is like really sh*tty that you’re kind of encouraging this consumption. So they were posting like, “Was a good run, didn’t expect any of this, but here we are from being a nobody to being cancelled. I guess I’ll take it. People hate to see people win,”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s awesome! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…with screenshots from like their episodes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’t the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I’m so glad y’all got what you wanted. Saving the planet three gallons of water at a time, truly inspirational. It’s like, f*ck all y’all, you jealous motherf*ckers, save the planet, OMG, water, OMG. I love water, clean water, please clean water. What y’ all sound like.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s hilarious. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Thanks for 3 million followers though. Wow, I guess some might like it.” Then they posted one final one, basically saying like, this series is over, this is it, with Bananito, a fan favorite, unfortunately, the sexy banana that is never wearing a shirt. Um, and basically they said, “All right, f*ck all you b*tches, no more Fruit Love Island. Since people are so obsessed with it, all my videos banned, I make no money. I guess I am being targeted because no other AI account is getting f*cked. Y’all heard it from Bananito himself. Bye.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bye. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s just really funny because they also got mad that other like copycat AI accounts were like copying their theme, which is a real like, so many layers between like, being mad about the copycats and then being like suddenly like creative integrity matters basically. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then being mad at like the effort it took to make these videos. The layers of complete unawareness just go so deep. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughter] It’s one of those things where I’m like, oh, of course, this is where we are. People are so fixated on this idea of it’s fine until it’s me because passive consumption is just so self-centric, you’re only thinking about yourself. So of course this person’s mad that other people are stealing their AI fruit slop content without contributing to the AI slop database that can then pull out more content. Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s like a content self-eating snake, you know? But I will say, there is one glimmer of hope, despite how many people were obsessed with this slop. I would say there’s an equal faction of people who are really into human-made content. And so this inspired several Fruit Love Island non-AI copycats,. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With real fruit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…which I will show you now, which is really beautiful. I love that people are doing this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of Audio from Fruit Love Island] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Host: Welcome to episode one of Fruit Love Island, that’s not AI. I’ve made sure to gather the juiciest of drama in the villa in the past day. Now let’s see what’s happened. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Contestant: I’m here to break hearts, not to fall in love. Hopefully these guys don’t get too attached. Or I don’t. I won’t though. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it’s basically a similar idea, but it’s not really animated so much as like, there are these photoshopped pictures of like people, human bodies with fruits for heads. It’s a human being that made this and it’s not as refined, but they did get voice actors on Discord to like volunteer their voices and voice all of this. And so I’m just like really encouraged by the fact that this has kind of blown up this non-AI Fruit Love Island. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that’s beautiful. I think we need to reject modernity and embrace tradition in a lot of ways, because we already had Annoying Orange. We need to bring back the original recipes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know. And like Annoying Orange,I hated that content. I didn’t dread it. But you know what? A human being made it.\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nSteffi Cao: \u003c/b>A human-being made it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>So AI Fruit Love Island, do we save or do we scroll?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m gonna scroll on it, but I defer to you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m going to scroll on it too. I think it had a good run. I don’t think we need more of it. I think the crash out was beautiful and hilarious and a real internet moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perfect irony. It’s truly, like, perfect. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tell us about this next story you brought. What’s going on with BTS’ new album? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of BTS music] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Swim swim, \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is how it all begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Swim, swim\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just wanna dive…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BTS was away in the military for four years, and the K-pop group, who was arguably one of the biggest acts in the industry and has been for many years, returned with an album called Arirang, and it was predominantly sung in English, and because of that, as well as the fact that it was a different sound from what they’ve previously put out in the past, it was, I think, personally sonically more mixed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of BTS music] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Watch this, watch this, \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beat going hooligan. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We pop out, we actin’ a fool again \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It became very controversial. It didn’t also help that when they did their first live performance in Seoul after the fact, there were a lot of statistics reported about how many people actually attended. They shut down a very busy intersection in Seoul saying that 300,000 people were expected to show up. Korean officials, some of them said that as low as 42,000 showed up and there were adverse impacts from store owners who expected a lot of influx but didn’t get that. And so now there’s this huge debate happening about this album, what it means for K-pop in the industry and like how things have shifted, et cetera. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think the fandom has aged out of, like, acting like fans? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cem>[Laughter] \u003c/em>I think that the industry has shifted a lot, and what a fan should act like has changed with it. Because I think in the past, the eternal struggle of a BTS ARMY was trying to convince people that K-pop was a serious art form, that it wasn’t just some silly thing that teen girls listened to, that it was corporate slop pop music, that there were a lot of uphill battles, I think, for a K-Pop fan.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I think now, over the past four years, you’ve seen a lot more Western embrace of K-pop as a serious art form, as a legitimate cultural export, and not like a niche subculture. So I think that with “K-Pop Demon Hunters”, you have Blackpink headlining Coachella, you had KATSEYE at Lollapalooza, you had all these bigger acts coming out of a Korean system that I think is legitimized in a different way. And so I think that BTS ARMY doesn’t have to convince anyone anymore that BTS is legit. It has shifted this fan identity of like, okay, well, now what? And now what happens?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, you mentioned that like the entire album is sang in English or like all the lyrics are mostly in English, which is interesting because Arirang is a really culturally important folk song in Korea with a lot of history behind it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of Arirang sung in Korean from Youtube user @Miss_Taex] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think people expected a little bit more of that cultural representation with this album. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I think BTS has also throughout their career really emphasized their Korean-ness, especially because they tend to sample a lot of traditional Korean music, a lot of Korean culture comes into play into their performances. And so I think that it was disappointing for a lot fans to open up this album and hear Teddy Swims in the song. Right? They end on a country song, which is like, possibly the most American form of music that we associate in mainstream culture. We don’t associate country music with Korea. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, right. And it’s a hard thing to follow “K-Pop Demon Hunters.” Just like the way that that movie was such a cultural moment and how it introduced so many people to Korean folklore and Korean culture and Korean language. That was a movie that was in English, but a lot of the songs were in Korean. And a lot people who have never spoken Korean learned those songs. And so it’s interesting that BTS wouldn’t see that and like kind of seize the moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, 100%. I think that it’s frustrating as a fan to feel like the whole reason that you fell so deeply in love with this group has suddenly shifted under your feet and that the intention of the group’s project didn’t align with where you thought they were going to go. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Okay, well, BTS’s new album, do we save or do we scroll? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think. I’m going to personally scroll on it, but I think that there’s a lot to talk about in terms of like Asian artistry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a lot to keep an eye on, but personally, don’t come for me, ARMY. I didn’t like the album. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Me either. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I’m gonna scroll on it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was just bored. I was bored. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m in ARMY. I’m in ARMY-da. And I got the tickets. Any ARMY that wants to come for me and I will see you at MetLife. I’ve got the tickets. And what now? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But you can be disappointed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I’m disappointed in the album. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re allowed to be disappointed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m disappointed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you’re allowed to scroll. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I am allowed to scroll on it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, last story for today. The Meta lawsuits. Okay, so Meta faced two separate lawsuits: one in California over social media addiction and one in New Mexico for child safety. The one in California took place in LA and it centered around this 20 year-old woman who said that she became addicted to YouTube and Instagram as a child. And that that greatly affected her mental health.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Snapchat and TikTok were also both defendants, but they settled before it went to court. And a jury in LA found Google and Meta both negligent because the design of their apps encourages infinite scrolling. And the companies didn’t warn users about the dangers of that. So the plaintiff’s lawyer said that both Meta and Google intentionally target kids and prioritize profit over safety. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\nThe jury concluded that Meta is liable for $4.2 million in damages, and Google is liable for $1.8 million. And then for the case in New Mexico, the state sued Meta over child safety issues. Former employees testified that underage users were shown sexualized content on Instagram and were exposed to predators. And during the court proceedings, they said that Meta’s decision to encrypt Facebook Messenger blocked access to evidence of predators grooming minors. And basically, this is the first time that New Mexico, as a state, was able to successfully sue Meta. So now Meta was ordered to pay $375 million.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So these lawsuits are being celebrated as huge wins for child safety and kind of taking down these evil tech companies. But I’m kind of skeptical of big companies like Meta and Google actually changing their practices. And whenever I hear like child safety social media lawsuit or like child safety and social media in the same sentence, I’m like, everyone wants kids to be safe. Everyone wants to protect the kids. No one wants to expose kids to predators or inappropriate content. But alarm bells are going off in my head where I’m, like, will they be using this to justify more surveillance and more censorship and more practices like age verification, which we’ve covered a lot on this show. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it makes sense that there’s a lot of cynicism around these child safety lawsuits because what we’ve seen over our careers is that every time there has been one of these landmark lawsuits, it’s like, what is it actually put into practice? People have been concerned about this topic for many, many years, but it feels like the people who are in Congress still miss the mark on the concept of social media as itself. We’ve seen endless clips of Congress people essentially asking Mark Zuckerberg for tech help during Senate hearings. Yeah. So it makes sense that this verdict, even though it’s being lauded as a huge case, I’m not convinced on it either. We’ve seen Meta pay up a lot in the past, and it hasn’t seemed to really shift the needle at all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s like, if anything, the practices don’t change. Kids aren’t necessarily safer. And everyone else is a little bit more surveilled and censored, like, with the current wave of age verification requirements, like, sweeping any internet platform whatsoever, where you have to put in your ID to continue using Spotify in some countries and I really distrust that. And, I do kind of worry that like any kind of trying to like ensure child safety on social media will just be used to justify more age verification laws. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, 100%. I think that the solution being trusting big tech to manage more of our data and requests that we give up more of privacy is like, it makes a lot of sense as people who’ve grown up online and we’ve seen this play before. It does, I think, breed more of a culture of surveillance.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think also the problem with this lawsuit is that like, it’s not a silver bullet. Like this is a multi-pronged problem where it’s like a part of it is having adults be smarter about their tech use and teaching their kids to critically analyze the content they’re consuming day in and day out. It’s a lot on the education system.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s on providing structural support for young kids to have more time offline to build all these social skills that when you are isolated and just on your feed even though it can be very fun and exciting to be on Tumblr as a 16-year-old, freewheeling it online, you still need an infrastructure behind you to teach you all these skills that you don’t really get when you are online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it’s like a multi-pronged problem. It really is on every adult, regardless of where you stand, if you have kids or not, to try and train yourself to be better about your own skillset, because they’re kids, they’re just imitating whatever resource is there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, and it’s like, Taylor Lorenz on her Free Speech Friday series pointed out that a lot of kids do still, you still need to let them have agency online in some capacity and just like, you know, a lot kids do rely on these online resources to access information about sex ed or find queer community when they don’t have that in real life and to potentially silo them further and take that away could actually endanger kids. Okay, the child safety lawsuits with Meta and Google, do we save or do we scroll? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I feel like we’re going to have to save it because this is going to continue. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, It’s an evergreen save. This is just collecting more and more tabs every day. Thank you so much for joining us, Steffi. Where can people follow your work? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steffi Cao: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you so much for having me, Morgan. You can check me out on Instagram at Steffi Cao, S-T-E-F-F-I-C-A-O, and my sub-stack, It’s Steffi. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perfect, thanks so much. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and it’s reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. It was edited by Chris Hambrick. Our team includes producer, Maya Cueva. Additional music by APM. Brendan Willard is our audio engineer. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts. Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you like these deep dives? Are you closing your tabs? Then don’t forget to rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. Maybe drop a comment too. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "the-secret-lives-of-mormon-momfluencers",
"title": "The Secret Lives of Mormon Momfluencers",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Only 2% of Americans identify as members of the Church of Latter-day Saints — and yet a striking number of American social media influencers are Mormon. Why? The answer lies in a mix of religious doctrine, early internet adoption, and some surprising financial incentives.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, author and journalist Fortesa Latifi returns to the show to unpack her research for her new book, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. She breaks down the hidden industry behind Mormon “momfluencers,” how these creators both uphold and push against a patriarchal system, and why the trad wife fantasy can be damaging far beyond their audience. Plus, she and Morgan tackle the question hanging over reality TV fans everywhere: “Will MomTok survive this?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4522289126\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fortesalatifi.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fortesa Latifi\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, journalist and author of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Like-Follow-Subscribe/Fortesa-Latifi/9781668080504\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Fortesa Latifi, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Simon & Schuster \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://whatsthevibe.substack.com/p/the-mormon-church-pays-its-influencers\">the Mormon Church pays its influencers\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Fortesa Latifi, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>What’s The Vibe\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.thecut.com/article/mormon-momtok-swingers-drama-explained.html\">A Refresher on the Mormon MomTok Drama\u003c/a> — Danielle Cohen, Olivia Truffaut-Wong, and Julia Reinstein,\u003c/span> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>The Cut \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/taylor-frankie-paul-bachelorette-canceled-controversy\">‘The Bachelorette’ Cast Taylor Frankie Paul For The Mess. They Got It. So, Who’s To Blame?\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Katherine Singh, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Refinery 29 \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/tv-shows/the-secret-lives-of-mormon-wives-season-2-review/\">‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Shows the Trad Wife Reality \u003c/a> — Quinci LeGardye\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Marie Claire \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/08/02/how-lds-church-works-with-pays/\">Does the LDS Church pay influencers? Well, actually, yes.\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Dylan Eubank, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The Salt Lake Tribune\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.thetimes.com/magazines/the-sunday-times-magazine/article/meet-the-queen-of-the-trad-wives-and-her-eight-children-plfr50cgk\">Meet the queen of the ‘trad wives’ (and her eight children)\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Megan Agnew, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The Times \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/12/17/nx-s1-5206673/tradwives-have-taken-over-tiktok-now-ex-tradwives-want-their-moment\">Tradwife life isn’t as good as it looks on TikTok — just ask former tradwives\u003c/a> — Isabella Gomez Sarmiento, \u003ci>NPR\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey it’s Morgan. We just celebrated the show’s first birthday. That’s right Close All Tabs is a pisces. Wanna celebrate with us? It would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends about us, too! Ok, let’s get to the episode. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Have you been keeping up with the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, have I, yes.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fortesa Latifi is a journalist who covers the thorny world of child influencers, family vlogs, and parenting content. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’ve seen my bylines in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Teen Vogue, and many more. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fortesa was on Close All Tabs last year in our episode, Children of the Vlog. She just published a book called Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids, and the Cost of a Childhood Online. And like me, Fortesa also loves watching the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Promo for Secret Lives of Mormon Wives]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Come ye saints and come ye sinners! Ahhh…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My mom is visiting right now and she’s just like, are you seriously watching this? And I’m like, mom, shh. It’s like what my sister calls TV Xanax, like it just is like, just quiets the mind. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know, I’m like, this is my temporary lobotomy for the night. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">100 percent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I put it on and I don’t think for like 40 minutes. It’s beautiful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a blessed experience. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so for the uninitiated, The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives is a reality TV show on Hulu, which follows a group of Utah-based mom influencers known as “MomTok.” They’re infamous for the so-called Mormon swinging scandal. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Youtube User Spill Sesh] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You guys buckle up because we are talking about “Mom Tok.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from TikTok] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now in both her confessionals and conversations with the other wives, Miranda denied doing anything other than kissing at these swinging parties. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Youtube User Spill Sesh] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The drama is insane. It played out all online and now they’ve landed themselves a reality show for just how dramatic they have been and of course there’s more drama now. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To be clear, when we say “momfluencers”, we’re talking about this category of creators whose content revolves around motherhood and family. Like the ones who post the elaborate meals that they pack their kids for lunch, or post about the baby supplies that you, a new mom, actually need, which may or may not be sponsored. The name “MomTok” refers to a group of momfluencers from the show, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Think of it as a friend group, well really, frenemy group. Many of them had started out on TikTok, making videos about their lives as stay-at-home mothers. Since then, they’ve built massive followings online and leverage that to launch their own businesses. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] J\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">en: I’m currently the breadwinner in my relationship. I’m providing for my kids, my husband. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jessi: Being known as a successful businesswoman means everything to me. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mayci: We’re just powerful women trying to change the stigma of gender roles in the Mormon culture. And I’m a bad b*tch. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m talking a prenatal supplement brand, a hair extension salon empire, a Broadway debut, brand deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and one of them was supposed to be the next Bachelorette, and that’s been a whole thing. What I’m getting to is that these women are girl bosses, ambitious, entrepreneurial hustlers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jen: My goal was really just to be able to provide for my family. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mayci, I need you to twerk your ass off! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the show, they joke about being tradwives, the archetype of a homemaker who embraces traditional gender roles and doesn’t bother herself with affairs outside of her domestic sphere. But they’re upfront about the fact that they aren’t really tradwives. However, there is a faction of influencers who portray themselves as ideal, conservative, religious homemakers, while also running massive businesses. This is the tradwife girlboss. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it’s so fascinating because the entire idea of a tradwife is predicated upon a woman staying at home, taking care of her babies, taking care of our house and her husband, and not working outside the house. But it’s a complete contradiction because the tradwives that we know about are all girl bosses. Like you said, I mean, some of them have multimillion dollar empires. So if I think about like a true tradwife, we would never hear about because she’s doing her work quietly and on her own. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are not getting that deep into the current drama with mom talk and the secret lives of Mormon wives. Honestly, we need like another 15 episodes just to cover all of that. Today we’re digging into the industry of momfluencers, the women whose content revolves around parenting and family and their children. Not all creators who make this kind of content are religious, and not all of them identify as tradwives. But here’s something interesting. A lot of mom flensers are Mormon. We’re going to get into why that is and unpack how the Mormon church played a role in carving out an entire genre of content. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ready? This is 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. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open our first tab. Why are so many momfluencers Mormon? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Only 2% of Americans identify as from the Church of Latter-day Saints, which is colloquially called Mormons, but they are so overrepresented in influencer culture. Like almost all of the top mom influencers and family vloggers are Mormon or Mormon adjacent. And it’s just like, how did this happen? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To answer that question, we need to go back to 2007. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was the commencement speech given at Brigham Young University, Hawaii, in which an elder of the church told the Mormons who were listening, please use the internet to your advantage basically. Like, use it to blog, use it share your beautiful life, use it to share positive things about the church. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Elder Ballard in commencement speech] \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And as you graduate from this wonderful university, may I ask you to join the conversation by participating on the internet, particularly the new media, to share the gospel and explain in simple, clear terms the message of the restoration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Elder M. Russell Ballard speaking to graduates at Brigham Young University almost 20 years ago. Let’s lay out some historical context for this. So, back in the 1800s, this guy, Joseph Smith, had a revelation and said that an angel told him to dig up a set of golden plates. These plates, according to Joseph Smith were engraved with a kind of companion text to the existing Christian Bible and contained guidance for establishing a new church. In 1830, Joseph Smith published what he said was a translation of the Golden Plates and called it the Book of Mormon, basically establishing the Mormon religion. He gained a following and started converting people. Local communities were not thrilled. The Mormon theology was considered blasphemous and they also practiced polygamy, a big no-no. They were seen as un-American and chased west to what is now Utah. The Mormon Church eventually denounced polygamy, but still faced a generational PR crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were so maligned for so many years by Americans and they were considered not even to be Christian and barely to be American. And so perfection became a doctrine of the Mormon church because once they did away with polygamy, they basically swung kind of in the other direction where they were like, we have to have the most perfect families on earth so that people can’t malign us anymore as un-American and not Christian. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The church encouraged Mormons to become the perfect, all-American, heterosexual, monogamous nuclear family unit, and not just live it, but also be seen living it, and share their faith while they’re at it. A century and a half later, the internet turned out to be the perfect medium for broadcasting both family and faith. Fortesa, said the church quickly realized how effective the internet could be for proselytizing. I mean, Elder Ballard speaking to new grads? That was in 2007. YouTube was brand new. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Elder Ballard in commencement speech] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can start a blog in minutes and begin sharing what you know to be true.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it seems like Mormons above any other religion in the U.S., or really any other subculture in the US, really took to heart the idea of the early internet as a connector. And so many early mom bloggers were Mormon. I mean, when you think about early mom bloggers, you think of about Natalie Jean Lovin and people like that, and they were Mormon, or you think about Amber Fillerup Clark, also Mormon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why were Mormon women so effective as like the early proto-influencer? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So there are several reasons. One is that in Mormon culture, you usually get married young and you have a lot of babies, both of which are really good for the algorithm. The algorithm loves young mothers and it loves tons of babies. Another thing is that Mormons from a very young age, especially Mormon women, are taught to keep a record. So it’s actually part of their scripture is to keep a record of their lives and to do this kind of intense journaling practice. Like scrapbooking came from Mormons, which is wild. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I know. It’s crazy. When I looked into it, I was like, wait, this makes so much sense. But they’re taught to keep these intricate records and to do beautiful scrapbooks and like what is influencing if not a journal and a scrapbook. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another reason is that beauty is highly prized in Mormon culture. So making yourself beautiful, being perceived as beautiful is considered to be godly. And so it’s really interesting because in other religions, vanity is a sin. Right? And I don’t think that the Mormons would say that they’re vain, but they do consider beauty to be godly. On top of beauty being considered godly, prosperity is considered godly, and so they have this thing called the prosperity doctrine, Which is basically the more godly and the more devoted you are to your faith, the more money you’re going to make. And so making money in that way is considered almost holy. And so when you take all these factors together, it’s like, duh. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it’s like the formula for the perfect influencer. So, Mormon influencers have used content creation as a means of proselytizing. Like that elder told BYU grads, use the new media to share the gospel. Was it effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think so, I mean, I think it’s interesting because many Mormons in their proselytizing online, it’s not explicit, right? Like they’re not getting on and saying, go read the Book of Mormon or go join the church. But what they are doing is they’re showing their perfect, beautiful families, their perfect beautiful lives, and then you know they’re Mormon and so you’re like, oh, well, there’s a connection between the Mormonism and the perfection. Right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fortessa interviewed one former child influencer who grew up in a Mormon vlogging family. And they told her that during their family’s run as popular YouTubers, at least 50 families joined the church and cited their family as the reason why. This strategy was clearly effective and the Mormon church was invested, literally. More on that after the break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome back. So as Mormon family influencers spread across the internet, what role did the church play in all of this? Time to open a new tab. The Mormon Influencer Industrial Complex. While working on her book, Fortesla went deep into researching the Church of Latter-day Saints and its outreach strategy. And she uncovered a major detail: The church was paying influencers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I had for a long time wondered why so many Mormons are influencers. And it’s like the church, which is the richest church on earth (it’s worth hundreds of billions of dollars, the Mormon church) they actually, specifically, give resources and brand deals and help with sponsorships with their influencers. And there’s like this thing where if you’re a big enough Mormon influencer, you’re invited to this like special influencer dinner and they all kind of network and figure things out together. It’s hard to say exactly when it started, but I would say once they saw the power of those early mom bloggers, it was clear that they could have a hand in it, and it worked. I mean, look, like you think of Nara Smith. I don’t know if she still considers herself Mormon, but her husband was raised Mormon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it is so wild. Can you walk us through the process of getting sponsored by the church? Like how do they pick the influencers to sponsor? How much do they pay? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so it’s really interesting because one of the influencers who confirmed this to me, her name is Shannon Bird and she was one of the original mom bloggers and now she’s on Instagram, but she really had her heyday in mom blogging. And she said that the church just reached out to her and they said, we love your work. We want to have a hand in it. And they said how much is your rate for a post? And in my book, she tells me, “You know, I felt weird like charging my church a rate,” you know? So her normal rate for a post was like eight to ten thousand dollars for like a static post. But she was like, this is my church, like, that feels really weird and so she, I think she charged them like a thousand dollars.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then at one point, the church accidentally copied her on an email that listed what other influencers were being paid. I know, I know. And she saw that those influencers were charging their market rate. They were charging tens of thousands of dollars for a post. And it was really interesting because the posts weren’t like, come to church with us on Sunday, hashtag Mormon, hashtag LDS or whatever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like, it was like a little bit more subtle than that, where one of the sponsored posts that Shannon told me about was she was given rotisserie chickens and she was giving them out to unhoused people. And her blonde, perfect, beautiful children were like around her and it was basically like a photo of her with the supplies going out. And it was like, you know, give back this season or whatever but there was no explicit mention of Mormonism or the LDS church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so I asked Shannon, like, what do you think was in it for the church? And she’s like, okay, so this is what I think and then this is she said, so what I think is people saw her post and they’re like this beautiful blonde mother with all her beautiful blonde children going out and like, giving back and then they know she’s Mormon and so there’s that connection there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Shannon told me, well, “One influencer can do a lot more when it comes to proselytizing than, you know, one missionary.” She’s like, “at my height, I had a million viewers of my blog a month. And so what makes more sense putting out missionaries and people don’t even open their door, or getting the beautiful blonde mother to give rotisserie chickens to unhoused people and people make the connection that she’s Mormon.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is so wild. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Shannon made such a good point. Like, she has a million viewers a month. What missionary can talk to a million people a month? Like, nobody. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So legally, influencers do have to disclose when they’re posts are sponsored, according to the FTC. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Aren’t the Mormon influencers doing that? Do they have to? Does it still apply? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would think it would still apply. I don’t think they’re doing it because otherwise it would have been much clearer to people beforehand that the Mormon church was paying its influencers because no one has written about this before I had. So I don’t think that they’re following it to the letter of the law. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Regardless of the legal implications of these undisclosed church sponsorships, there’s a broader social shift going on here. Many of these women were raised to be wives and mothers. Momfluencing has opened doors that didn’t even exist for many women. Like we talked about earlier, they’re girl bossing. That’s huge, right? But is this a conscious act of reclaiming power? Time to open a new tab. Is mom-fluencing actually feminist? You made a really good point in your book about how, for a lot of these women, influencing and content creation is very lucrative, but it’s also one of the only ways that they’re allowed to exercise any kind of ambition or agency without threatening the patriarchy they live in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Within the Mormon culture, which is heavily patriarchal, women are not supposed to work outside the home. And I think that’s slowly changing, but generally they’re not really supposed to have ambitions beyond being a perfect wife and a perfect mother and having nine children, but looking like they haven’t even had one child. And so, I consider influencing to be like this genius kind of loophole because it’s a way for them to exercise their ambition within the confines of the patriarchy because their job is predicated upon being a perfect mother and a perfect wife. And so it’s like, well, I’m still doing everything perfectly. I’m just showing other people about it and making a ton of money. So it’s, like, who can really have a problem with that? And influencing is largely done within the home. And so it’s kind of the perfect career for women who are in this patriarchal society that says, ‘no, you don’t go out and make the money, I go out to make the the money.’ \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fortessa pointed out this one scene in one of the earlier seasons of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. They’re gathered in someone’s kitchen, complaining about their husbands. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know you don’t want to make a TikTok, but we’ve got to pay the bills. I mean, who else is going to pay the bills, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who is currently like the breadwinner at home? I think all of us. Really? Yeah. We all are. Look at us. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s kind of genius, like I really, as a concept, I think it’s really fascinating and I think its really cool that they found a way to exercise their ambition and agency within the confines of a patriarchal society. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, I mean the new season is all about how Dad Tok, the like, husbands and boyfriends of Mormon wives are all like upset. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boo, Dad Tok ! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m such a dad talk hater, but they’re all like, upset and they’re trying to find themselves because they’re like, they only know us as our wives’ husbands and not as our own people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dad Tok’s a lot funnier than Mom Tok, and we have our own place on social media. I think this is gonna be a great opportunity for Dad Tok. I think it shows that our wives don’t have a monopoly on social media. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s fascinating to see that they are in the position that Mormon women have been in for generations. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But they’re not realizing that. Like, they’re not thinking like, oh, for the last five or seven years before Mom Tok, this is how my wife felt while I went out and made money and had a life outside of the home and she was home with our several young children. It’s fascinating to me, especially as a mom myself, to see men have a taste of what it’s like to be a mom and they’re like, ‘Oh, this sh*t sucks.’ Like, okay, let me be clear, being a mother is incredible. Being a mother and having the mental load and being in charge of everything is very difficult. And being the one who’s at home is very difficult. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, Mom Tok and Dad Tok drama aside, forging careers through social media has been so empowering for many women who grew up in conservative, religious communities. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is so interesting to me, because over the course of a few seasons, the women start to understand their own agency. They joke that the group is split between the saints and the sinners. The sinners are the ones who are no longer religious. While the saints still adhere to Mormon values and, more or less, the lifestyle. No drinking, no caffeine, and no divorce.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But throughout the show, even for the saints, you’re watching them deconstruct their upbringings in real time and actually get to exercise their own ambition. These are women who married and got pregnant as teenagers. If they did get to go to college, they were married and get pregnant right after graduation. They didn’t get to experience much of adulthood before they became mothers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now, through the armies of followers they’ve built online, they’ve girlbossed their way into very successful careers. So they are making so much money. They are like the breadwinners of their family, which is so counter to the values that they preach. Which brings me to my next question. Is mommy blogging actually feminist? \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I really grapple with this, because on one hand, taking the unseen and unpaid labor of motherhood and making it seen and paid, I do think is a feminist act. But then again, you’re making it paid on the backs of selling this false vision to other women, which I don’t think can be considered feminist. So it’s like that tweet that’s like, is MasterCard an ally? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laughter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">] yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is this pop singer your friend? Like, it’s like… I don’t know, I don’t think that selling this vision of perfect motherhood to other mothers can be considered feminist, I just don’t think it can. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the last two decades, mom-fluencing has revolved around performing domestic labor. But let’s talk about what it means to portray the fantasy of motherhood. What’s going on behind the scenes? What don’t viewers see? Let’s open one last tab: the trad wife illusion. Time for a case study. We’re going to talk about Ballerina Farm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my gosh, Ballerina Farm. I could write a thesis on her. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You may have seen one of her videos on your feed before. She’s this beautiful blonde woman, usually wearing a linen apron over a gauzy, puff-sleeved dress. She posts these videos of her preparing a meal from scratch, usually no narration, just the sounds of her sprinkling salt on freshly churned butter while her kids run around off camera. Sometimes, a cow in the distance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Hannah Neeleman Instagram Account]\u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we started to farm, I was swept up in the beauty of learning to make food from scratch. It makes sense why I soon fell in love with the idea of a family milk cow. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So her name is Hannah Neeleman. She is the foremost mom influencer, trad wife, blogger in the world. She lives in Utah. She’s Mormon. She’s married to a Mormon man who actually is the heir to the JetBlue fortune…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wild. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…which they don’t ever talk about, which is interesting because it’s very like, we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and started this farm. And it’s like, your father-in-law is a billionaire. So that’s really interesting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What’s especially tragic about her story is that she was a Mormon woman who did have a really promising career as a ballet dancer. Like, she was in Juilliard… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">at Juilliard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which is wild. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a profile of her where they talk about how it’s called Ballerina Farm, but on the entire farm, there’s no dance studio. But I mean, that that Times profile was really wild because she’s like in her senior year at Julliard and her soon to be husband, like, meets her and decides like we’re going to get married. And then like, she’s flying back from New York to Utah and she’s flying JetBlue, which his dad owns. And so he pulls some strings, and gets the seat next to her on the flight. And basically, the way that I read it in the story was, like, she wanted to take her time and like, finish school, whatever, and then it turned out she was married and pregnant by graduation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But she just had her ninth child. She looks like she hasn’t had any children. She is very beautiful in like, a very toned down way. She looks she has that no makeup makeup look, and like, she’s always wearing, like, flowy dresses and like, making sourdough from scratch and making like, butter for sandwiches. She makes everything herself. But now it’s turned into this entire empire. Like there’s the Ballerina Farm store, there’s the Ballerina Farm brand. I mean, they make protein powder and hydration powder and sourdough starter and it’s a huge thing. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What is the appeal of this kind of this genre of content right now? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it makes a lot of sense that as so much of the country is in such a fragile financial situation. I mean, the promise of a one income household broke decades ago, but we used to, you know, when we grew up, it was like, yeah, one person could have a job and support an entire family and like, that’s gone. The middle class is shrinking, like upward mobility is basically non-existent unless you like hit the viral lottery. And so it makes sense that people are like, we want to slow down and like go back to basics. And whether or not this is actually true, they’re looking at a trad wife life as going back to basics. But I also think it can’t be disentangled from the way that culture generally is just shifting rightward. Like the zeitgeist is just becoming so much more conservative. And it’s like, of course, tradwives are surging at this time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, this trad wife content just depicts this really beautiful, idyllic life. What was it like for you to watch this content as a journalist before you became a mother and then after you became mother? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before I became a mother, I was like, oh, I can kind of see the appeal. It does seem like kind of beautiful to just be like in charge of the home and just having to make bread and take care of your babies and like look beautiful. And I could kind of understand it. And then after I became mother, I was, like, this is not real life at all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have one child, I’m pregnant with my second and like, I have never made sourdough in my life. I don’t make my kids baby food from scratch. Like, my hair is usually not done. I’m never in a dress. It’s just the actual blood and guts and effort of motherhood are so disparate from this tradwife life that is shown online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I think, you know, tradwives never talk about the loneliness of mother hood. And that’s something that really hit me when I became a mother myself, because I have lots of family around. My husband is great. We have a part-time nanny. Like I have help, but it’s still like so lonely, especially in those first few months. And, like, if you watch these women, you would never think that anything was difficult ever. Like, all you have to do, mama, is cuddle your baby and co-sleep with them and breastfeed them on demand and make all their food from scratch and, like it just, it really shattered the illusion for me once I became a mother myself. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, you aren’t out there hand-picking berries to, like feed your kids. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, dude, no. Like, maybe I should once in a while, but no, there’s no time. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s a fantasy, and that’s what made me realize these women aren’t being paid for the labor of motherhood, they’re getting paid for the performance of the laborer of mother hood. Because the labor motherhood is by definition unpaid and it’s often unseen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What’s going on behind the scenes of this trad wife content that viewers don’t see? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I found out that many of your favorite mom influencers and family vloggers have full-time nannies, they have around the clock help, they have housekeepers, they have house managers, they have videographers, they have editors. I mean, this is an empire. This is a business. And I’ve said this before, there’s nothing wrong with having help. We have a once-monthly house cleaner. We have a part-time nanny. And I would be less sane than I already am without those people helping us. But I think what is troubling to me is selling this idea of self-reliance and saying, ‘I do it all myself.’ And by the way, if you buy this commissioned protein powder, you can be strong enough to do it yourself too, when secretly they have so much help behind the scenes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beyond the impact that momfluencers have on their audiences, the biggest consequences may fall on the people at the center of it all, their kids. The last time Fortesa was on Close All Tabs, we talked about how children are affected when they’re forced to be part of their parents’ content. Now, the internet is starting to reckon with a reality of sharenting, a portmanteau of share and parenting. Momfluencers have gotten some heat lately over exploiting their children and their content. There’s a vibe shift afoot. And while there will probably always be a demand for this type of parenting content, a growing faction of brands and creators are moving away from showing kids in videos. In an industry that has opened doors for so many women, is there still space for momfluencers who don’t engage in sharenting? A refreshing part of the secret lives of Mormon wives is that their children rarely appear in the show. There’s the occasional shot of someone holding a newborn baby. But the children who can walk and talk are barely in the show at all. In fact, some members of MomTalk have stopped showing their kids in their online content too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they’ve kind of shifted from showing their kids to showing their experience as mothers and especially as working mothers. Well, that’s the thing is I don’t think there is a right way to be a mother on the internet because if you show your kids, people are like, you’re exploiting them. And if you take them off, then it’s like, oh, you just showboating and trying to act like you’re, like, so above this. And also if you’re gonna take them off, why did you ever put them on in the first place? There’s no way to win. People will hate you no matter what you do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In many cases, these women are walking a tightrope, balancing audience expectations, traditional gender norms, and the realities of raising children. Fortesa tries to avoid thinking about momfluencers in simple black and white terms. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For someone who’s reported on the horrors and exploitation involved in family vlogging, you did take a very compassionate approach to writing about the Mormon mommy vloggers and, like, this world of influencers. How do you balance what you know about the momfluencing industry with maintaining empathy for the women involved? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I mean I really do genuinely feel a lot of empathy for these women and I think especially becoming a mother myself has shown me you know to what lengths I would go to give my daughter a great life. A lot of times these women started mommy blogging in a vulnerable situation. They didn’t go to college or they started having kids really young or they were in some kind of financial instability. And so when I look around at my life and the stability that I have, and then I look at other women and the limited choices they have, I think it’s just dishonest to say that I would never make that decision. Like, I wouldn’t make that decision as myself in my experience, but I could see how you could make it in a different situation. And I’m not one of those people who thinks family vlogging and mom influencing is evil and immoral and bad across the board. I just don’t think that. I think it’s much more nuanced than that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mom Tok is on the verge of collapse, all the time. These women have some very fraught friendships. Will Mom Tok survive this? Has kind of become a mantra on the show. The cultural appetite for family vlogs may fade, especially as the debate over child influencers continues and more viewers become disillusioned with the fantasy of trad wives. But the recent seasons of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives have proven that people don’t necessarily watch these creators for the content about their kids and not really for the husbands either. Dad Tok is just not it. People watch because they’re interested in the lives of these women, even the messy uncurated versions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The performance of the perfect mother who feeds her kids freshly baked sourdough topped off with hand-churned butter is not always as compelling as the working mother who’s open about the struggles of juggling a career and her kids. As much as there’s still an audience for the tradwife, there’s also growing demand for creators who are honest with their viewers, both about who’s sponsoring their content and about the reality of motherhood. So as mindful sharenting takes more of a hold on internet culture, will mom-fluencing survive this? Probably. But it may have to change. Let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor, Chris Hambrick, and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music from APM, audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor in chief. 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. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and Gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Author and journalist Fortesa Latifi breaks down the hidden industry behind Mormon “momfluencers.” ",
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"title": "The Secret Lives of Mormon Momfluencers | KQED",
"description": "Only 2% of Americans identify as members of the Church of Latter-day Saints — and yet a striking number of American social media influencers are Mormon. Why? The answer lies in a mix of religious doctrine, early internet adoption, and some surprising financial incentives. In this episode, author and journalist Fortesa Latifi returns to the show to unpack her research for her new book, Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online. She breaks down the hidden industry behind Mormon “momfluencers,” how these creators both uphold and push against a patriarchal system, and why the trad wife fantasy can be damaging far beyond their audience. Plus, she and Morgan tackle the question hanging over reality TV fans everywhere: “Will MomTok survive this?”",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Only 2% of Americans identify as members of the Church of Latter-day Saints — and yet a striking number of American social media influencers are Mormon. Why? The answer lies in a mix of religious doctrine, early internet adoption, and some surprising financial incentives.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, author and journalist Fortesa Latifi returns to the show to unpack her research for her new book, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. She breaks down the hidden industry behind Mormon “momfluencers,” how these creators both uphold and push against a patriarchal system, and why the trad wife fantasy can be damaging far beyond their audience. Plus, she and Morgan tackle the question hanging over reality TV fans everywhere: “Will MomTok survive this?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4522289126\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fortesalatifi.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fortesa Latifi\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, journalist and author of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Like-Follow-Subscribe/Fortesa-Latifi/9781668080504\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Fortesa Latifi, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Simon & Schuster \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://whatsthevibe.substack.com/p/the-mormon-church-pays-its-influencers\">the Mormon Church pays its influencers\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Fortesa Latifi, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>What’s The Vibe\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.thecut.com/article/mormon-momtok-swingers-drama-explained.html\">A Refresher on the Mormon MomTok Drama\u003c/a> — Danielle Cohen, Olivia Truffaut-Wong, and Julia Reinstein,\u003c/span> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>The Cut \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/taylor-frankie-paul-bachelorette-canceled-controversy\">‘The Bachelorette’ Cast Taylor Frankie Paul For The Mess. They Got It. So, Who’s To Blame?\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Katherine Singh, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Refinery 29 \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/tv-shows/the-secret-lives-of-mormon-wives-season-2-review/\">‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Shows the Trad Wife Reality \u003c/a> — Quinci LeGardye\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Marie Claire \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/08/02/how-lds-church-works-with-pays/\">Does the LDS Church pay influencers? Well, actually, yes.\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Dylan Eubank, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The Salt Lake Tribune\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.thetimes.com/magazines/the-sunday-times-magazine/article/meet-the-queen-of-the-trad-wives-and-her-eight-children-plfr50cgk\">Meet the queen of the ‘trad wives’ (and her eight children)\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Megan Agnew, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The Times \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/12/17/nx-s1-5206673/tradwives-have-taken-over-tiktok-now-ex-tradwives-want-their-moment\">Tradwife life isn’t as good as it looks on TikTok — just ask former tradwives\u003c/a> — Isabella Gomez Sarmiento, \u003ci>NPR\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey it’s Morgan. We just celebrated the show’s first birthday. That’s right Close All Tabs is a pisces. Wanna celebrate with us? It would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends about us, too! Ok, let’s get to the episode. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Have you been keeping up with the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, have I, yes.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fortesa Latifi is a journalist who covers the thorny world of child influencers, family vlogs, and parenting content. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’ve seen my bylines in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Teen Vogue, and many more. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fortesa was on Close All Tabs last year in our episode, Children of the Vlog. She just published a book called Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids, and the Cost of a Childhood Online. And like me, Fortesa also loves watching the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Promo for Secret Lives of Mormon Wives]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Come ye saints and come ye sinners! Ahhh…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My mom is visiting right now and she’s just like, are you seriously watching this? And I’m like, mom, shh. It’s like what my sister calls TV Xanax, like it just is like, just quiets the mind. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know, I’m like, this is my temporary lobotomy for the night. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">100 percent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I put it on and I don’t think for like 40 minutes. It’s beautiful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a blessed experience. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so for the uninitiated, The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives is a reality TV show on Hulu, which follows a group of Utah-based mom influencers known as “MomTok.” They’re infamous for the so-called Mormon swinging scandal. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Youtube User Spill Sesh] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You guys buckle up because we are talking about “Mom Tok.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from TikTok] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now in both her confessionals and conversations with the other wives, Miranda denied doing anything other than kissing at these swinging parties. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Youtube User Spill Sesh] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The drama is insane. It played out all online and now they’ve landed themselves a reality show for just how dramatic they have been and of course there’s more drama now. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To be clear, when we say “momfluencers”, we’re talking about this category of creators whose content revolves around motherhood and family. Like the ones who post the elaborate meals that they pack their kids for lunch, or post about the baby supplies that you, a new mom, actually need, which may or may not be sponsored. The name “MomTok” refers to a group of momfluencers from the show, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Think of it as a friend group, well really, frenemy group. Many of them had started out on TikTok, making videos about their lives as stay-at-home mothers. Since then, they’ve built massive followings online and leverage that to launch their own businesses. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] J\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">en: I’m currently the breadwinner in my relationship. I’m providing for my kids, my husband. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jessi: Being known as a successful businesswoman means everything to me. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mayci: We’re just powerful women trying to change the stigma of gender roles in the Mormon culture. And I’m a bad b*tch. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m talking a prenatal supplement brand, a hair extension salon empire, a Broadway debut, brand deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and one of them was supposed to be the next Bachelorette, and that’s been a whole thing. What I’m getting to is that these women are girl bosses, ambitious, entrepreneurial hustlers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jen: My goal was really just to be able to provide for my family. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mayci, I need you to twerk your ass off! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the show, they joke about being tradwives, the archetype of a homemaker who embraces traditional gender roles and doesn’t bother herself with affairs outside of her domestic sphere. But they’re upfront about the fact that they aren’t really tradwives. However, there is a faction of influencers who portray themselves as ideal, conservative, religious homemakers, while also running massive businesses. This is the tradwife girlboss. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it’s so fascinating because the entire idea of a tradwife is predicated upon a woman staying at home, taking care of her babies, taking care of our house and her husband, and not working outside the house. But it’s a complete contradiction because the tradwives that we know about are all girl bosses. Like you said, I mean, some of them have multimillion dollar empires. So if I think about like a true tradwife, we would never hear about because she’s doing her work quietly and on her own. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are not getting that deep into the current drama with mom talk and the secret lives of Mormon wives. Honestly, we need like another 15 episodes just to cover all of that. Today we’re digging into the industry of momfluencers, the women whose content revolves around parenting and family and their children. Not all creators who make this kind of content are religious, and not all of them identify as tradwives. But here’s something interesting. A lot of mom flensers are Mormon. We’re going to get into why that is and unpack how the Mormon church played a role in carving out an entire genre of content. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ready? This is 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. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open our first tab. Why are so many momfluencers Mormon? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Only 2% of Americans identify as from the Church of Latter-day Saints, which is colloquially called Mormons, but they are so overrepresented in influencer culture. Like almost all of the top mom influencers and family vloggers are Mormon or Mormon adjacent. And it’s just like, how did this happen? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To answer that question, we need to go back to 2007. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was the commencement speech given at Brigham Young University, Hawaii, in which an elder of the church told the Mormons who were listening, please use the internet to your advantage basically. Like, use it to blog, use it share your beautiful life, use it to share positive things about the church. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Elder Ballard in commencement speech] \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And as you graduate from this wonderful university, may I ask you to join the conversation by participating on the internet, particularly the new media, to share the gospel and explain in simple, clear terms the message of the restoration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Elder M. Russell Ballard speaking to graduates at Brigham Young University almost 20 years ago. Let’s lay out some historical context for this. So, back in the 1800s, this guy, Joseph Smith, had a revelation and said that an angel told him to dig up a set of golden plates. These plates, according to Joseph Smith were engraved with a kind of companion text to the existing Christian Bible and contained guidance for establishing a new church. In 1830, Joseph Smith published what he said was a translation of the Golden Plates and called it the Book of Mormon, basically establishing the Mormon religion. He gained a following and started converting people. Local communities were not thrilled. The Mormon theology was considered blasphemous and they also practiced polygamy, a big no-no. They were seen as un-American and chased west to what is now Utah. The Mormon Church eventually denounced polygamy, but still faced a generational PR crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were so maligned for so many years by Americans and they were considered not even to be Christian and barely to be American. And so perfection became a doctrine of the Mormon church because once they did away with polygamy, they basically swung kind of in the other direction where they were like, we have to have the most perfect families on earth so that people can’t malign us anymore as un-American and not Christian. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The church encouraged Mormons to become the perfect, all-American, heterosexual, monogamous nuclear family unit, and not just live it, but also be seen living it, and share their faith while they’re at it. A century and a half later, the internet turned out to be the perfect medium for broadcasting both family and faith. Fortesa, said the church quickly realized how effective the internet could be for proselytizing. I mean, Elder Ballard speaking to new grads? That was in 2007. YouTube was brand new. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Elder Ballard in commencement speech] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can start a blog in minutes and begin sharing what you know to be true.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it seems like Mormons above any other religion in the U.S., or really any other subculture in the US, really took to heart the idea of the early internet as a connector. And so many early mom bloggers were Mormon. I mean, when you think about early mom bloggers, you think of about Natalie Jean Lovin and people like that, and they were Mormon, or you think about Amber Fillerup Clark, also Mormon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why were Mormon women so effective as like the early proto-influencer? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So there are several reasons. One is that in Mormon culture, you usually get married young and you have a lot of babies, both of which are really good for the algorithm. The algorithm loves young mothers and it loves tons of babies. Another thing is that Mormons from a very young age, especially Mormon women, are taught to keep a record. So it’s actually part of their scripture is to keep a record of their lives and to do this kind of intense journaling practice. Like scrapbooking came from Mormons, which is wild. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I know. It’s crazy. When I looked into it, I was like, wait, this makes so much sense. But they’re taught to keep these intricate records and to do beautiful scrapbooks and like what is influencing if not a journal and a scrapbook. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another reason is that beauty is highly prized in Mormon culture. So making yourself beautiful, being perceived as beautiful is considered to be godly. And so it’s really interesting because in other religions, vanity is a sin. Right? And I don’t think that the Mormons would say that they’re vain, but they do consider beauty to be godly. On top of beauty being considered godly, prosperity is considered godly, and so they have this thing called the prosperity doctrine, Which is basically the more godly and the more devoted you are to your faith, the more money you’re going to make. And so making money in that way is considered almost holy. And so when you take all these factors together, it’s like, duh. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it’s like the formula for the perfect influencer. So, Mormon influencers have used content creation as a means of proselytizing. Like that elder told BYU grads, use the new media to share the gospel. Was it effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think so, I mean, I think it’s interesting because many Mormons in their proselytizing online, it’s not explicit, right? Like they’re not getting on and saying, go read the Book of Mormon or go join the church. But what they are doing is they’re showing their perfect, beautiful families, their perfect beautiful lives, and then you know they’re Mormon and so you’re like, oh, well, there’s a connection between the Mormonism and the perfection. Right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fortessa interviewed one former child influencer who grew up in a Mormon vlogging family. And they told her that during their family’s run as popular YouTubers, at least 50 families joined the church and cited their family as the reason why. This strategy was clearly effective and the Mormon church was invested, literally. More on that after the break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome back. So as Mormon family influencers spread across the internet, what role did the church play in all of this? Time to open a new tab. The Mormon Influencer Industrial Complex. While working on her book, Fortesla went deep into researching the Church of Latter-day Saints and its outreach strategy. And she uncovered a major detail: The church was paying influencers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I had for a long time wondered why so many Mormons are influencers. And it’s like the church, which is the richest church on earth (it’s worth hundreds of billions of dollars, the Mormon church) they actually, specifically, give resources and brand deals and help with sponsorships with their influencers. And there’s like this thing where if you’re a big enough Mormon influencer, you’re invited to this like special influencer dinner and they all kind of network and figure things out together. It’s hard to say exactly when it started, but I would say once they saw the power of those early mom bloggers, it was clear that they could have a hand in it, and it worked. I mean, look, like you think of Nara Smith. I don’t know if she still considers herself Mormon, but her husband was raised Mormon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it is so wild. Can you walk us through the process of getting sponsored by the church? Like how do they pick the influencers to sponsor? How much do they pay? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so it’s really interesting because one of the influencers who confirmed this to me, her name is Shannon Bird and she was one of the original mom bloggers and now she’s on Instagram, but she really had her heyday in mom blogging. And she said that the church just reached out to her and they said, we love your work. We want to have a hand in it. And they said how much is your rate for a post? And in my book, she tells me, “You know, I felt weird like charging my church a rate,” you know? So her normal rate for a post was like eight to ten thousand dollars for like a static post. But she was like, this is my church, like, that feels really weird and so she, I think she charged them like a thousand dollars.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then at one point, the church accidentally copied her on an email that listed what other influencers were being paid. I know, I know. And she saw that those influencers were charging their market rate. They were charging tens of thousands of dollars for a post. And it was really interesting because the posts weren’t like, come to church with us on Sunday, hashtag Mormon, hashtag LDS or whatever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like, it was like a little bit more subtle than that, where one of the sponsored posts that Shannon told me about was she was given rotisserie chickens and she was giving them out to unhoused people. And her blonde, perfect, beautiful children were like around her and it was basically like a photo of her with the supplies going out. And it was like, you know, give back this season or whatever but there was no explicit mention of Mormonism or the LDS church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so I asked Shannon, like, what do you think was in it for the church? And she’s like, okay, so this is what I think and then this is she said, so what I think is people saw her post and they’re like this beautiful blonde mother with all her beautiful blonde children going out and like, giving back and then they know she’s Mormon and so there’s that connection there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Shannon told me, well, “One influencer can do a lot more when it comes to proselytizing than, you know, one missionary.” She’s like, “at my height, I had a million viewers of my blog a month. And so what makes more sense putting out missionaries and people don’t even open their door, or getting the beautiful blonde mother to give rotisserie chickens to unhoused people and people make the connection that she’s Mormon.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is so wild. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Shannon made such a good point. Like, she has a million viewers a month. What missionary can talk to a million people a month? Like, nobody. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So legally, influencers do have to disclose when they’re posts are sponsored, according to the FTC. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Aren’t the Mormon influencers doing that? Do they have to? Does it still apply? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would think it would still apply. I don’t think they’re doing it because otherwise it would have been much clearer to people beforehand that the Mormon church was paying its influencers because no one has written about this before I had. So I don’t think that they’re following it to the letter of the law. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Regardless of the legal implications of these undisclosed church sponsorships, there’s a broader social shift going on here. Many of these women were raised to be wives and mothers. Momfluencing has opened doors that didn’t even exist for many women. Like we talked about earlier, they’re girl bossing. That’s huge, right? But is this a conscious act of reclaiming power? Time to open a new tab. Is mom-fluencing actually feminist? You made a really good point in your book about how, for a lot of these women, influencing and content creation is very lucrative, but it’s also one of the only ways that they’re allowed to exercise any kind of ambition or agency without threatening the patriarchy they live in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Within the Mormon culture, which is heavily patriarchal, women are not supposed to work outside the home. And I think that’s slowly changing, but generally they’re not really supposed to have ambitions beyond being a perfect wife and a perfect mother and having nine children, but looking like they haven’t even had one child. And so, I consider influencing to be like this genius kind of loophole because it’s a way for them to exercise their ambition within the confines of the patriarchy because their job is predicated upon being a perfect mother and a perfect wife. And so it’s like, well, I’m still doing everything perfectly. I’m just showing other people about it and making a ton of money. So it’s, like, who can really have a problem with that? And influencing is largely done within the home. And so it’s kind of the perfect career for women who are in this patriarchal society that says, ‘no, you don’t go out and make the money, I go out to make the the money.’ \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fortessa pointed out this one scene in one of the earlier seasons of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. They’re gathered in someone’s kitchen, complaining about their husbands. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know you don’t want to make a TikTok, but we’ve got to pay the bills. I mean, who else is going to pay the bills, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who is currently like the breadwinner at home? I think all of us. Really? Yeah. We all are. Look at us. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s kind of genius, like I really, as a concept, I think it’s really fascinating and I think its really cool that they found a way to exercise their ambition and agency within the confines of a patriarchal society. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, I mean the new season is all about how Dad Tok, the like, husbands and boyfriends of Mormon wives are all like upset. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boo, Dad Tok ! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m such a dad talk hater, but they’re all like, upset and they’re trying to find themselves because they’re like, they only know us as our wives’ husbands and not as our own people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dad Tok’s a lot funnier than Mom Tok, and we have our own place on social media. I think this is gonna be a great opportunity for Dad Tok. I think it shows that our wives don’t have a monopoly on social media. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s fascinating to see that they are in the position that Mormon women have been in for generations. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But they’re not realizing that. Like, they’re not thinking like, oh, for the last five or seven years before Mom Tok, this is how my wife felt while I went out and made money and had a life outside of the home and she was home with our several young children. It’s fascinating to me, especially as a mom myself, to see men have a taste of what it’s like to be a mom and they’re like, ‘Oh, this sh*t sucks.’ Like, okay, let me be clear, being a mother is incredible. Being a mother and having the mental load and being in charge of everything is very difficult. And being the one who’s at home is very difficult. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, Mom Tok and Dad Tok drama aside, forging careers through social media has been so empowering for many women who grew up in conservative, religious communities. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is so interesting to me, because over the course of a few seasons, the women start to understand their own agency. They joke that the group is split between the saints and the sinners. The sinners are the ones who are no longer religious. While the saints still adhere to Mormon values and, more or less, the lifestyle. No drinking, no caffeine, and no divorce.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But throughout the show, even for the saints, you’re watching them deconstruct their upbringings in real time and actually get to exercise their own ambition. These are women who married and got pregnant as teenagers. If they did get to go to college, they were married and get pregnant right after graduation. They didn’t get to experience much of adulthood before they became mothers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now, through the armies of followers they’ve built online, they’ve girlbossed their way into very successful careers. So they are making so much money. They are like the breadwinners of their family, which is so counter to the values that they preach. Which brings me to my next question. Is mommy blogging actually feminist? \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I really grapple with this, because on one hand, taking the unseen and unpaid labor of motherhood and making it seen and paid, I do think is a feminist act. But then again, you’re making it paid on the backs of selling this false vision to other women, which I don’t think can be considered feminist. So it’s like that tweet that’s like, is MasterCard an ally? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laughter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">] yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is this pop singer your friend? Like, it’s like… I don’t know, I don’t think that selling this vision of perfect motherhood to other mothers can be considered feminist, I just don’t think it can. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the last two decades, mom-fluencing has revolved around performing domestic labor. But let’s talk about what it means to portray the fantasy of motherhood. What’s going on behind the scenes? What don’t viewers see? Let’s open one last tab: the trad wife illusion. Time for a case study. We’re going to talk about Ballerina Farm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my gosh, Ballerina Farm. I could write a thesis on her. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You may have seen one of her videos on your feed before. She’s this beautiful blonde woman, usually wearing a linen apron over a gauzy, puff-sleeved dress. She posts these videos of her preparing a meal from scratch, usually no narration, just the sounds of her sprinkling salt on freshly churned butter while her kids run around off camera. Sometimes, a cow in the distance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip from Hannah Neeleman Instagram Account]\u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we started to farm, I was swept up in the beauty of learning to make food from scratch. It makes sense why I soon fell in love with the idea of a family milk cow. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So her name is Hannah Neeleman. She is the foremost mom influencer, trad wife, blogger in the world. She lives in Utah. She’s Mormon. She’s married to a Mormon man who actually is the heir to the JetBlue fortune…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wild. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…which they don’t ever talk about, which is interesting because it’s very like, we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and started this farm. And it’s like, your father-in-law is a billionaire. So that’s really interesting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What’s especially tragic about her story is that she was a Mormon woman who did have a really promising career as a ballet dancer. Like, she was in Juilliard… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">at Juilliard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which is wild. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a profile of her where they talk about how it’s called Ballerina Farm, but on the entire farm, there’s no dance studio. But I mean, that that Times profile was really wild because she’s like in her senior year at Julliard and her soon to be husband, like, meets her and decides like we’re going to get married. And then like, she’s flying back from New York to Utah and she’s flying JetBlue, which his dad owns. And so he pulls some strings, and gets the seat next to her on the flight. And basically, the way that I read it in the story was, like, she wanted to take her time and like, finish school, whatever, and then it turned out she was married and pregnant by graduation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But she just had her ninth child. She looks like she hasn’t had any children. She is very beautiful in like, a very toned down way. She looks she has that no makeup makeup look, and like, she’s always wearing, like, flowy dresses and like, making sourdough from scratch and making like, butter for sandwiches. She makes everything herself. But now it’s turned into this entire empire. Like there’s the Ballerina Farm store, there’s the Ballerina Farm brand. I mean, they make protein powder and hydration powder and sourdough starter and it’s a huge thing. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What is the appeal of this kind of this genre of content right now? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it makes a lot of sense that as so much of the country is in such a fragile financial situation. I mean, the promise of a one income household broke decades ago, but we used to, you know, when we grew up, it was like, yeah, one person could have a job and support an entire family and like, that’s gone. The middle class is shrinking, like upward mobility is basically non-existent unless you like hit the viral lottery. And so it makes sense that people are like, we want to slow down and like go back to basics. And whether or not this is actually true, they’re looking at a trad wife life as going back to basics. But I also think it can’t be disentangled from the way that culture generally is just shifting rightward. Like the zeitgeist is just becoming so much more conservative. And it’s like, of course, tradwives are surging at this time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, this trad wife content just depicts this really beautiful, idyllic life. What was it like for you to watch this content as a journalist before you became a mother and then after you became mother? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before I became a mother, I was like, oh, I can kind of see the appeal. It does seem like kind of beautiful to just be like in charge of the home and just having to make bread and take care of your babies and like look beautiful. And I could kind of understand it. And then after I became mother, I was, like, this is not real life at all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have one child, I’m pregnant with my second and like, I have never made sourdough in my life. I don’t make my kids baby food from scratch. Like, my hair is usually not done. I’m never in a dress. It’s just the actual blood and guts and effort of motherhood are so disparate from this tradwife life that is shown online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I think, you know, tradwives never talk about the loneliness of mother hood. And that’s something that really hit me when I became a mother myself, because I have lots of family around. My husband is great. We have a part-time nanny. Like I have help, but it’s still like so lonely, especially in those first few months. And, like, if you watch these women, you would never think that anything was difficult ever. Like, all you have to do, mama, is cuddle your baby and co-sleep with them and breastfeed them on demand and make all their food from scratch and, like it just, it really shattered the illusion for me once I became a mother myself. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, you aren’t out there hand-picking berries to, like feed your kids. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, dude, no. Like, maybe I should once in a while, but no, there’s no time. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s a fantasy, and that’s what made me realize these women aren’t being paid for the labor of motherhood, they’re getting paid for the performance of the laborer of mother hood. Because the labor motherhood is by definition unpaid and it’s often unseen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What’s going on behind the scenes of this trad wife content that viewers don’t see? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I found out that many of your favorite mom influencers and family vloggers have full-time nannies, they have around the clock help, they have housekeepers, they have house managers, they have videographers, they have editors. I mean, this is an empire. This is a business. And I’ve said this before, there’s nothing wrong with having help. We have a once-monthly house cleaner. We have a part-time nanny. And I would be less sane than I already am without those people helping us. But I think what is troubling to me is selling this idea of self-reliance and saying, ‘I do it all myself.’ And by the way, if you buy this commissioned protein powder, you can be strong enough to do it yourself too, when secretly they have so much help behind the scenes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beyond the impact that momfluencers have on their audiences, the biggest consequences may fall on the people at the center of it all, their kids. The last time Fortesa was on Close All Tabs, we talked about how children are affected when they’re forced to be part of their parents’ content. Now, the internet is starting to reckon with a reality of sharenting, a portmanteau of share and parenting. Momfluencers have gotten some heat lately over exploiting their children and their content. There’s a vibe shift afoot. And while there will probably always be a demand for this type of parenting content, a growing faction of brands and creators are moving away from showing kids in videos. In an industry that has opened doors for so many women, is there still space for momfluencers who don’t engage in sharenting? A refreshing part of the secret lives of Mormon wives is that their children rarely appear in the show. There’s the occasional shot of someone holding a newborn baby. But the children who can walk and talk are barely in the show at all. In fact, some members of MomTalk have stopped showing their kids in their online content too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they’ve kind of shifted from showing their kids to showing their experience as mothers and especially as working mothers. Well, that’s the thing is I don’t think there is a right way to be a mother on the internet because if you show your kids, people are like, you’re exploiting them. And if you take them off, then it’s like, oh, you just showboating and trying to act like you’re, like, so above this. And also if you’re gonna take them off, why did you ever put them on in the first place? There’s no way to win. People will hate you no matter what you do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In many cases, these women are walking a tightrope, balancing audience expectations, traditional gender norms, and the realities of raising children. Fortesa tries to avoid thinking about momfluencers in simple black and white terms. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For someone who’s reported on the horrors and exploitation involved in family vlogging, you did take a very compassionate approach to writing about the Mormon mommy vloggers and, like, this world of influencers. How do you balance what you know about the momfluencing industry with maintaining empathy for the women involved? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Fortesa Latifi : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I mean I really do genuinely feel a lot of empathy for these women and I think especially becoming a mother myself has shown me you know to what lengths I would go to give my daughter a great life. A lot of times these women started mommy blogging in a vulnerable situation. They didn’t go to college or they started having kids really young or they were in some kind of financial instability. And so when I look around at my life and the stability that I have, and then I look at other women and the limited choices they have, I think it’s just dishonest to say that I would never make that decision. Like, I wouldn’t make that decision as myself in my experience, but I could see how you could make it in a different situation. And I’m not one of those people who thinks family vlogging and mom influencing is evil and immoral and bad across the board. I just don’t think that. I think it’s much more nuanced than that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mom Tok is on the verge of collapse, all the time. These women have some very fraught friendships. Will Mom Tok survive this? Has kind of become a mantra on the show. The cultural appetite for family vlogs may fade, especially as the debate over child influencers continues and more viewers become disillusioned with the fantasy of trad wives. But the recent seasons of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives have proven that people don’t necessarily watch these creators for the content about their kids and not really for the husbands either. Dad Tok is just not it. People watch because they’re interested in the lives of these women, even the messy uncurated versions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The performance of the perfect mother who feeds her kids freshly baked sourdough topped off with hand-churned butter is not always as compelling as the working mother who’s open about the struggles of juggling a career and her kids. As much as there’s still an audience for the tradwife, there’s also growing demand for creators who are honest with their viewers, both about who’s sponsoring their content and about the reality of motherhood. So as mindful sharenting takes more of a hold on internet culture, will mom-fluencing survive this? Probably. But it may have to change. Let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor, Chris Hambrick, and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music from APM, audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor in chief. 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. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and Gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "bee-movie-we-are-charlie-kirk-and-the-enduring-bait-and-switch-meme",
"title": "Bee Movie, \"We Are Charlie Kirk,\" and the Enduring Bait-and-Switch Meme",
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"headTitle": "Bee Movie, “We Are Charlie Kirk,” and the Enduring Bait-and-Switch Meme | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2007, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> hit theaters with a strange plot and was considered a box office flop. Nearly two decades later, it’s somehow more relevant than ever, not because of the movie itself, but because of what happened next. The script became a meme, then a prank, then, eventually, a tool for protest.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, host Morgan Sung traces the evolution of bait-and-switch memes, from early internet shock images to the rise of the “Never Gonna Give You Up” rickroll, all the way to TikTok-era pranks that burn out as quickly as they go viral. Along the way, she talks to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">co-writer Spike Feresten about how the film\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> became an unlikely internet icon, and to digital rhetoric expert Bret Strauch about what makes a meme actually stick.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC1407643406\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/spikeferesten/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spike Feresten\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, screenwriter and comedian\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.colorado.edu/pwr/bret-strauch-phd\">Bret Strauch\u003c/a>, assistant professor of digital media, University of Colorado Boulder\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZdGGIT3fu0Pad9itT8HZMGkIwtYFQBS1vH5j21rN2Ns/edit?usp=sharing\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Behind the scenes content\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> on the making of this episode!\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2021/10/08/memes-never-gonna-give-you-up\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">MEMES, Part 3: Gotta make you understand\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Endless Thread\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/11/a-complete-history-of-bee-movies-many-many-memes.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A Complete History of Bee Movie’s Many, Many Memes\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Paris Martineau, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Intelligencer\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://gamerant.com/bee-movie-meme/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why Did Bee Movie Become A Meme?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Joshua Kristian McCoy, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">GameRant\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.polygon.com/23984032/josh-hutcherson-whistle-edit-meme-trend-explained/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Josh Hutcherson ‘Whistle’ edit meme, explained\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Ana Diaz, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Polygon\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.themarysue.com/charlie-kirk-ai-song/\">‘His courage our own’: This Charlie Kirk tribute song is blowing up on Spotify. Was it made by a human—or AI?\u003c/a> — Braden Bjella, \u003ci>The Mary Sue\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Those are the iconic opening lines of the 2007 film \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. And the voice you heard reading those lines.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My name is Spike Feresten. Is that really it? Is that what we wrote?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spike is a comedian and screenwriter who’s worked on Seinfeld, written for David Letterman, hosted his own show, and co-wrote the one and only \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. You know, the one starring Jerry Seinfelt as a talking Bee.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Bee Movie] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Barry: I’m going out. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Adam: Out? Out where? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Barry: Outside the hive. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crowd: *Gasps*\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What if the bees discovered the humans were taking their honey? That was one big idea that kind of unlocked a little bit of the plot, but the kind of larger idea was, what would happen if a bee didn’t want to just go into the honey business? Isn’t there, is there something more?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hijinks ensue. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is a surprisingly deep story about exploitation, uncompensated labor, the vital environmental role that bees play as pollinators, and what it takes to break out of society’s mold. That is, if society is a honeybee hive in Manhattan. Oh, and the bee kind of falls in love with a human woman. It’s a whole thing. Spike said that Steven Spielberg asked Jerry Seinfeld if he wanted to do an animated movie. And Jerry Seinfeld said,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What about a movie about bees and we’ll call it Bee Movie.” And he went, “Sold!” It’s the shortest pitch in like film history. And then Jerry called us up the next day and said, I just sold a movie to Spielberg/Dreamworks Animation about bees. And we were like, what is it about? And he goes, that’s what we have to figure out. The very first thing we did was start reading about bees and we came across this fact. It was like, oh, this is kind of remarkable that these guys can’t fly in rain and that their bodies aren’t right and it’s hard for them to fly and everything in kind of fodder for, you know, the world of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was Jerry’s big comeback after Seinfeld, which had wrapped up about five years before development on \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> started. And the movie did well at the box office, but among film critics, it was a flop. Kids loved it, but it didn’t compare to the Shrek franchise or Ratatouille, which dominated early 2000s animation. The plot was weird. The jokes skewed more adult, and the whole romantic vibe between a human woman and a honeybee, maybe a bit too out there for the general public. Jerry even joked about it a couple years ago. Here he is on the Tonight Show:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of Jerry Seinfeld on the Tonight Show] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I apologize for what seems to be a certain, uncomfortable, subtle, sexual aspect of the Bee Movie which really was not intentional. But after it came out, I realized, this is really not appropriate for children.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The world moved on. But today, almost 20 years later, Bee Movie is a cult classic. Because the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script itself has become one of the quintessential internet pranks. Annoyed with someone? Dump the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script in their comments. Protesting against the government’s anti-trans bathroom complaint forms? Spam the tip line with the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script. Here’s Spike again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We couldn’t quite understand, are they making fun of us, which is fine, or are they really celebrating us, or is it are they just taking our weird thing and doing weird things with it? There’s simple ideas like weaponized absurdity, you know, so when some horrible right-winger has got some sort of hotline to expose the trans community or something, and people just load in the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script. To us, like, that’s fantastic. We’re not even gonna engage you in conversation. We’re just gonna drop an absurdity bomb in there and just stop it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script remains a top-tier internet prank. It’s up there with Rickrolling. This is a genre known as bait-and-switch memes. The internet has changed drastically since the days of pranking people with “Never Gonna Give You Up.” And memes have changed, too. Imagine trying to explain today’s trends to someone in 2007. But what hasn’t changed about internet culture is the love of a good prank. The art of the bait-and-switch meme endures. It’s April Fool’s Day, so today, we’re diving into the evolution of these memes. And what makes a meme prank actually stick around. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is 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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s get into it. Before we talk about what makes a good bait-and-switch meme, let’s get into where they even came from. For today’s internet history lesson, we’re going back in time, before TikTok, before Vine, may she rest in peace, and before YouTube, to an era when the internet was simpler and darker. Let’s open a new tab: the internet forum wild west. Dr. Bret Strauch teaches at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he studies digital genres and digital writing, also known as the rhetoric of memes. He’s gonna break down what a bait-and-switch meme is at its core.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bait-and-switch memes are fairly simple, like when you look at it from a genre perspective, usually you have some sort of setup that is directing your expectation towards one thing and then it flips and subverts that expectation, once we either scroll down or click on something or jump to a new video, something to that effect.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What were the proto bait-and-switch memes like? Like before the Rickroll, where were they taking place? How did they work?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the analog era, before we get to our digital internet era, we have culture jammers and all they’re doing is taking a traditional sort of company advertisements and subverting them. So you would see something like, uh, Joe Camel, um, from the Camel cigarettes, but they would subvert the messaging, sort of pointing out some ideological problem or ethical problem. And so instead of Joe Camel they get an image using the camel likeness, but as Joe Chemo sort of pointing out the health effects of cigarettes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first internet forums have been around since the 70s and 80s. This culture of posting and messaging didn’t become widespread until the 90s. The early forums and chat rooms didn’t have anything close to the moderation and rules that we have on social media today. That’s when we started to see the first bait-and-switch memes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve seen people talk about the early internet forums of the late 90s, early 2000s as almost like. This unmoderated last frontier. We had an episode on political online history where we referred to that time period as “the bronze age of the internet.” Can you describe what this era of forums was like and what that meant for meme culture?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I feel this early era so like we get like 4chan but there’s also other sites like somethingawful.com, rotten.com, (please don’t go to those sites) where a lot of this sort of proto-internet meme behavior is happening. And one of the things that we see in this early era is that it’s largely gate-kept in a way. We have a much smaller, more niche audience for these memes. And it’s usually driven through more, obviously, masculine sensibilities and sort of this gross-out culture. And there’s a little bit of a prank culture thing going on as well. We see a lot of shock sites. This is like earlier internet, like 2002, where people would send links to what essentially were just pornographic images as a form of hazing. And a lot people found this funny, but some people were also found it disturbing as well. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of these shock images, which we will not name here, involves…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…a human orifice that is enlarged, so to speak, and usually we get sent like this file and people would click on it and then they would see this sort of grotesque image. Now, some people might laugh at that, but I think the people that found it funny were the people sending it, not necessarily the people receiving it in all cases. But also we see how like This fits this sort of frat boy gross out. Sort of community building, so to speak. I wouldn’t necessarily, it’s a community I’d want to be in, but it definitely has this sort of social function in those groups.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how do we go from that horrific image macro that Brett tactfully described to the family-friendly wholesome rickroll? Let’s open a new tab: pranks in the age of YouTube.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Picture this, it’s 2007. You’re dressed in your most obscure band tee and skinniest skinny jeans, brand new Blackberry tucked in your back pocket. You’re on the family desktop, just made your first Facebook account. You’re scrolling through your feed, poking your friends, and you come across a post that says, “Grand Theft Auto 4 trailer just dropped, watch here.” You love GTA. You’ve been waiting for this. So you click it and…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of “Never Gonna Give You Up” song] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Never gonna give you up. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Never gonna let you down. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Never gonna run around and desert you.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You just got rickrolled. That’s exactly what happened to countless people that year. A teenager posted a link on 4chan claiming that it was a link to the highly anticipated trailer. When unsuspecting digital bystanders clicked it, they were surprised with a video of Rick Astley’s 1987 banger, “Never Gonna Give You Up.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of “Never Gonna Give You Up” song]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Never gonna make you cry\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so the rickroll was born.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The change from sort of this gross out humor meme into something that’s more family friendly, I think comes along with the fact that internet platforms and social media platforms became much more accessible beyond sort of that initial niche computer nerd culture that we see. And so as part of ways in which the community functions, they wanna share. Like, if you receive it, it might be annoying, but I think at some point we find it funny. Where something that’s more gross out, that’s not going to have as much wide appeal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And rickrolling really took off. The hacktivist collective Anonymous protested against the Church of Scientology by blasting “Never Gonna Give You Up” on boomboxes outside of their headquarters. Radiohead announced their new album and posted the download link, only to rickroll everyone. For April Fool’s Day in 2008, YouTube made all of the links on the site’s page lead to “Never Gonna Give You Up,” rickrolling the world. And then for the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade that year, Rick Astley himself appeared on a float and performed what was, at the time, possibly the most widely televised rickroll in the world. Rickrolling was a cultural phenomenon. It was also the last time everyone was on the same internet, before we were siloed by algorithms.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re still at a moment in our media landscape where we’re still sharing media. We have TV shows we’re all watching. We have broadcast television. And even though people can create and share their own content, we don’t see as many content creators and so a lot of the shared cultural texts we have helps build toward this moment where, hey, we can share this meme because people know the reference. We’re not all listening to our own Spotify playlists, right? We’re all consuming the shows that we want on Netflix. We have the shared culture, which helps sort of propagate the fact that we have a meme that’s sort of ubiquitous, at least in the Western hemisphere.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was so appealing about the rickroll? Like, why did that work so well?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming out of the 90s, there was a little bit of this 80s nostalgia, which we see building up in which now we see huge 80s nostalgia. There’s this sort of absurdity of the 80s era and its music that sort of plays into the absurdity of this internet prank, essentially.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And no other bait-and-switch meme from that early YouTube era took off the same way. There was the Trololo guy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Singing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a clip of a Russian singer performing in the 70s. There was also You’ve Been Gnomed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio of animated gnome character]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m gnot a gnelf!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m gnot a gnoblin! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m a gnome!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which was this video of an animated gnome laughing at the viewer while text flashes across the screen. It says, predictably…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio of animated gnome character] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you’ve been gnomed!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Both of these memes functioned like a rickroll. You click a link expecting one thing and, instead, you get another. But there was a historical framework for rickrolling. It was a huge 80s bop coming back around. The other memes lacked that, so they didn’t have the same cultural impact as rickrolling. By the early 2010s, a new challenger had arisen. This underlying media, as Bret put it, was ripe with meme material. Let’s talk about \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> after this break.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what makes a good bait-and-switch meme? What makes that prank work so well? Obviously, we’re opening a new tab: \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and meme dada-ism. Memes were getting weirder, more absurd, and few memes defined the 2010s like \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Bee Movie] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Barry: How should I start it? You like jazz? No, that’s no good. Here she comes. Speak, you fool!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of Jerry Seinfeld on the Tonight Show]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jerry Seinfeld: The bee seemed to have a thing for the girl. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jimmy Fallon: Yeah \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jerry Seinfeld: And we don’t really want to pursue that as an idea in children’s entertainment.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was Jerry Seinfeld on The Tonight Show, acknowledging the taboo interspecies romantic undertones in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Spike Feresten, the screenwriter who co-wrote the movie, got a kick out of writing the pairing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s a funny anecdote from the room: so we were writing this in New York. You know, I was, I was doing a show in LA, but I would fly, you know, to New York every couple of weeks and we’d sit in this big room, Jerry’s office, and work on this. And to us, these characters were just two characters, it was just Barry and Vanessa. And then every once in a while we’d go, hey, that Barry’s a bee. He’s this big. So when you say they shake hands or they walk, you can’t, we can’t keep treating them like two characters who are friends, like Jerry and Elaine, which is kind of how we treated them. We were writing them like Jerry and Elaine forgetting about the size disparity and the species disparity. Yeah, and that’s kind of why it came out the way it came out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The romance is just one of many absurd plot lines in the movie. Like, we’ve got bees going to human court to sue humanity for the exploitation of their labor. But the movie was way too ahead of its time. Critics hated it. It was marketed as a kids’ movie. And instead, it was this story about freeing the bees and seizing the means of production of honey and also toeing the line of bee-stiality. But that’s why it was such good meme material. Here’s Bret Strauch again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People, when they originally went to see the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, were expecting a kid’s Bug’s Life or Ants movie, and they got something much more serious. And so in a way, like the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a bait and switch by itself. The trailers are selling it as sort of like a kid’s movie, but really there’s a lot more adult oriented content that people were not expecting. And so the fact that it sort of functioned as a bait-and-switch by itself made sense that people started using it as just a way to troll people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tumblr latched onto the movie starting in 2011, fawning over the film’s poetic opening lines.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Bee Movie] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Narrator: According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway, because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tumblr users were totally sincere about it, calling the lines inspirational. By 2013, the meme exploded. People were starting to realize how absurd the movie really was. Screenshots from the film became reaction memes. Edits of Seinfeld but with characters from \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> went super viral. And then there’s the fan fiction, which is still going today. I told Spike about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, there is a real moment on Tumblr with people kind of sincerely appreciating the dialog in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and the narration. Then people kind-of ironically started posting the memes, which I’m sure you’ve seen. It broke containment, moved to Twitter, and then it reached the peak of virality, which is sexy fan fiction.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, it did.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, I’m sorry I’m breaking this to you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know about that. This is good.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I am just going to read you a few tags from Archive of Our Own, from \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> fanfics that were written this like this year.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The tags include Vanessa X Barry, typical, Mega Mind X Barry Benson, Top Barry -Bottom Mega Mind, inter-species relationships, hive worship, and improper use of honey drizzler.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laughter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you make of the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> smut?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, smut is a funny, funny word to use from the 50s: smut. Um, it, it kind of plays into what I would love to do. I mean, like, hypothetically, and this will never happen, but I want to do, uh, six sequels to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> all as a series on Netflix or wherever, 40 minutes apiece, Bee 2, Bee 3, Bee 4 , Bee 5, Bee 6, Bee 7. A lot of time has gone by and we’re going to do our six sequels now. What you just described is one of the areas I really want to dive into, which is that relationship, not the smut, but the fun you could have with a bee dating a woman. I think there’s a lot of comedy there and I think the world has changed and I think you could write that in a way that’s not smut but it also kind of celebrates what the world has done with this and, you know, I don’t think we would go as far as South Park, but kind of do our version of maybe a South Parkian take on \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, because I love their relationship. I love that friendship. And I wonder what those conversations would be like should they explore the idea of dating.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. I mean, look, if you ever need a writer’s room, there’s a bunch of people in Archive of Our Own who have already written some scenarios.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that’s cool. No, that’s great. I mean, like any other stuff, you know, you put it out into the world and the world can do with it what it wants. That’s what’s nice about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2013, a Facebook user posted the entire script on someone else’s Facebook wall. That was the start of the bait-and-switch\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script. For the next few years, you might unwittingly open a link to a comment or post only for your phone to freeze and crash because it’s trying to load the entire \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script. It was like a more devious Rickroll. It wreaked havoc across the internet. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Group chats were bombarded with the 9,000-word wall of text. Any email with an urgent subject line could just contain the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script. It even moved offline. One college student pranked his classmates by spending 12 hours writing out the entire script on a chalkboard. The coolest kids in 2016 wore T-shirts printed with the entire strip. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The meme did eventually slow down though. Phones got better and became capable of loading the whole script. Like rickrolling, surprising your friends with 131 pages of dialogue got old. But then the script was weaponized, again, as a form of protest. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2021, Texas passed the Heartbeat Act, which effectively banned abortion after six weeks. The law allowed anyone to sue abortion providers and individuals who sought abortions after the six-week limit. The organization, Texas Right to Life, set up an anonymous tip site to report anyone who violated the Heart Beat Act. To protest TikTok users spammed the site with Shrek porn, lurid fan fiction, and the one and only \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script. Protesters did it again when Missouri opened an online forum to report clinics that provide gender-affirming care. And then, again, when Indiana’s attorney general launched a forum to support schools that teach gender ideology. And then again, when the Trump administration partnered with a far-right group to report schools that had DEI efforts. Any time the government or an organization working with it opens some kind of citizen surveillance tool, it’s a target for \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script dumps. Spike and other \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> writers are big fans of this practice.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, we love it, absolutely love it. It gets passed around, you know, that it’s doing something good for the world, it always makes you feel good. And that we don’t have to be any part of it, that someone’s taking it and just disrupting, like I said, dropping an absurdity bomb on some bad cause. That just makes you feel good. Do it as much as you want. If I can help you, I will help in whatever way, but you’re doing a fine job by yourself.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s funny because back in 2017, for the 10-year anniversary of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, New York Mag wrote this extensive history of the meme and traced the rise and fall of it. And back then, it was like, okay, there was a good year of no \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> memes. And they questioned whether the meme was dead. That was almost 10 years ago. And the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script keeps coming back. The meme has evolved so much, but the core of it is still the script, the dialogue. Why do you think it survives?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s the writing. I think its the weirdness. You know, it’s funny. That movie was out of sync with culture in 2006 and I think still is out of synch with kind of cultural norms in a way.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">uh bee- human, you know…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I know, but it’s still kind of hard to wrap your head around that. You know what I mean? I mean i don’t think anybody really thinks about dating a bee, so I don’t think there has been… and we like bees. To us, the bees are, you know, when you think about the planet, keeping the planet healthy, the bees are one of our canaries in the coal mine, if you will, like, how the bee is doing? I don’t know if you do this, but when you see a bee, kind of, dying on the sidewalk, don’t you get nervous. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah I’m like, let me help it, yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, is this global warming? What is doing this? So we have this special reverence for this insect that stings us occasionally, but still we like them a lot because they make this very sweet, gooey substance that we enjoy putting in our teas. But again, it’s not for me or us to say, it’s you’d have to ask the people who love this movie what they love about it. We’re just the people that put it out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script is the gift that keeps on giving. But other bait-and-switch memes have also blown up. And unlike the trusty rickroll or the evergreen \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, this new generation of internet pranks blow up fast and burn out quickly. They don’t last. Let’s get into that in one last tab: the short form vertical video revolution. Before the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script was weaponized for protest the way that it is today, it had kind of peaked by 2016. And a slew of bait-and-switch memes cycled in and out of relevance. The primary force behind this rapid-fire meme lifespan? TikTok. In 2020, we had Get Stick Bugged. Watching a Minecraft compilation? Surprise, it cuts to a clip of a dancing stick bug.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Funky music playing\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But that fizzled out by the end of the year. In 2022, TikTok users lured viewers in with videos about juicy celebrity gossip. And then…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Moulin Rouge movie] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Gitchi Gitchi ya ya da da\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…you got krissed! It’s a clip of Kris Jenner shimmying in this sequined shirt and bow tie set to a sped up version of “Lady Marmalade” from Moulin Rouge. The Cut said that “getting krissed” is the natural evolution of rickrolling. And then in 2023, we had the Josh Hutcherson whistle edits. Here’s one of my favorite ones. It’s video from inside a plane. The caption says, “Guys, the view is incredible!” The video pans to the closed window, and a hand reaches out to open the shade. And then…[music playing] The view through the window is just a closeup of Josh Hutcherson’s face from a 2014 fan edit set to a cover of Flo Rida’s “Whistle.” Polygon said that this trend was TikTok’s rickroll. And then at the end of last year, another rickroll successor blew up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of “We Are Charlie Kirk Song”] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are Charlie Kirk, we carry…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is an AI-generated ballad about Charlie Kirk, which was first posted to YouTube and streaming platforms days after his death. It’s total AI slop, but unfortunately, very catchy. Like the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script, it went viral at first out of sincerity. People listened to it as a tribute to Charlie Kirk. And then it became a meme. We’re talking remixes, Mongolian throat singing covers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of “We Are Charlie Kirk Song”] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are Charlie Kirk. We carry the flame. We fight for the…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And of course, pranks, like connecting to public bluetooth speakers and blasting cowbell dance remixes of “We Are Charlie Kirk.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio of “We Are Charlie Kirk” playing over loud speaker]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s Bret’s take.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of them, it’s clear that there’s some sort of musical component people can latch onto and all the music itself is sort of absurd or ridiculous in a way. Whether it’s been altered and sped up like the we-are-krissed” or just sort of that funky beat that you’ve-been-stick-bugged has, especially like with the “We are Charlie Kirk.” There’s more levels of absurdity being that it was AI written. So this pathos is literally being manufactured. It’s not something that’s like, necessarily human-generated like emotion being generated, and so it just makes it rife for this type of inversion or subversion.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. We just speed ran so many trends, and none of them really lasted more than six months. Maybe the Charlie Kirk one will last longer because of the current state of the world, but generally, why is the turnover rate for memes so high now?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think there’s a few reasons for this. The first is just the media context and media environment. We’re not sharing the same stuff that we did as a culture. It’s much more small niche cultures where these things are spreading. Another element to this that I believe is important is that it’s easier to create these than it was 15, 20 years ago. And so now more are being created. And so they’re essentially eating themselves out of existence. Um, so as soon as a new mean comes out, um, at least in the early mid 2000s, it stuck around because it took a little bit more technological know-how. You didn’t have the production software and access to it that you do now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I noticed that almost all bait-and-switch meme trends are on TikTok now, maybe Reels. But no one is pulling off a rickroll with YouTube anymore. I saw a video of someone rickrolling their friend by sending a TikTok link, which me makes me wonder, did YouTube ads ruin the rickroll? Kind of spoils the surprise.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, YouTube ads ruin everything. For humor to work, timing is critical, right? And so those ads really disrupt like the genre of humor that’s happening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Would the original rickroll work with modern content consumption habits? When we consume content, it’s a lot of times happening passively to us, algorithmically served, instead of us like actively seeking it out or actually clicking links.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t think so. We need that interaction, I think, for the rickroll to be successful. And it feels like at least it was another person presenting this to us. And now it’s sort of the algorithm is serving it up to a plate on us and we’re not finding these things. And so I think what makes a lot of media content special, whether it’s memes, movies, songs, is it’s stuff that we find, not that someone else or something else finds for us. And so… innately, there’s going to be less meaning for a lot of that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The meme turnover rate is so high that no internet prank really sticks around long enough to rival or recreate the magic of the rickroll. The very format of the rickroll is limiting, especially in today’s digital landscape. Even rickrolling itself is difficult to pull off today because internet habits have changed. But what has endured as a prank is the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">script. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have this take and it’s that the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script is the ultimate bait-and-switch because it’s purely text. There’s no image macro, there’s no video lead-in with ads or that you have to wait to load to ruin the prank. The joke itself is so malleable. It can be dumped in comment sections, in government tip lines or turned into an image macro and then deep fried, or just read by that TikTok AI voice in 2X speed, which makes it funnier. Do you have any thoughts on this, the flexibility of this meme?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, that’s why I think we see certain memes that at least are being iterated and changed upon more, and some that don’t seem to change as much. And so with it being all text, it’s really easy to adapt all text to different formats. I think my favorite of the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script ones is where they do the crawl from Star Wars, and we get the intro to the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. And so the easier that it is to manipulate that initial form of media, like, so text is super easy, makes it much easier to put it into different places, different platforms and distribute it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> came out nearly 20 years ago. Script dumping started in 2013. Last year, 12 years after that Facebook user posted the entire script on someone else’s wall, the DOGE-led government HR email was pelted with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> scripts. At the request of Elon Musk, all federal employees were asked to email the Office of Personnel Management with five tasks they accomplished that week. On x, Musk posted, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” The email leaked online, and internet users responded on behalf of federal employees with pages and pages of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> dialog. Spike was thrilled.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s pretty exciting that anybody’s even talking about it. Really! I mean, you have to look at it, we look at that way. I think that people are still talking about this movie from what 2006 that we made, you know, in that way and that it, that it has these second and third lives. You know, we get excited that people still watching that movie and enjoying it. Like, it’s flattering. That’s the only way to really put it that this movie hasn’t been forgotten. It hasn’t disappeared into a canyon of content and gone forever, that it comes up over and over again in generally a good way. And, you know, if people are making fun of it, that’s fine, too. That’s what we do. We make fun of things you can make fun of us. Go ahead.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You heard Spike, go forth and prank. Let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode was produced by our senior editor, Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. It was edited by Chris Hambrick. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, additional music by APM. Brendan Willard is our audio engineer, audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor-in-Chief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink dust silver K84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron red switches. Okay, and I know it’s a podcast cliche, but if you like these deep dives and want us to keep making more, it would really help us out if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Email us at closealltabs@kqed.org. Follow us on Instagram @CloseAllTabsPod or TikTok @CloseallTabs. And join our Discord. We’re in the Close All tabs channel at discord.gg/kqed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Bee Movie, \"We Are Charlie Kirk,\" and the Enduring Bait-and-Switch Meme | KQED",
"description": "In 2007, Bee Movie hit theaters with a strange plot and was considered a box office flop. Nearly two decades later, it’s somehow more relevant than ever, not because of the movie itself, but because of what happened next. The script became a meme, then a prank, then, eventually, a tool for protest.In this episode, host Morgan Sung traces the evolution of bait-and-switch memes, from early internet shock images to the rise of the “Never Gonna Give You Up” rickroll, all the way to TikTok-era pranks that burn out as quickly as they go viral. Along the way, she talks to Bee Movie co-writer Spike Feresten about how the filmBee Movie became an unlikely internet icon, and to digital rhetoric expert Bret Strauch about what makes a meme actually stick.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2007, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> hit theaters with a strange plot and was considered a box office flop. Nearly two decades later, it’s somehow more relevant than ever, not because of the movie itself, but because of what happened next. The script became a meme, then a prank, then, eventually, a tool for protest.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, host Morgan Sung traces the evolution of bait-and-switch memes, from early internet shock images to the rise of the “Never Gonna Give You Up” rickroll, all the way to TikTok-era pranks that burn out as quickly as they go viral. Along the way, she talks to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">co-writer Spike Feresten about how the film\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> became an unlikely internet icon, and to digital rhetoric expert Bret Strauch about what makes a meme actually stick.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC1407643406\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/spikeferesten/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spike Feresten\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, screenwriter and comedian\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.colorado.edu/pwr/bret-strauch-phd\">Bret Strauch\u003c/a>, assistant professor of digital media, University of Colorado Boulder\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZdGGIT3fu0Pad9itT8HZMGkIwtYFQBS1vH5j21rN2Ns/edit?usp=sharing\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Behind the scenes content\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> on the making of this episode!\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2021/10/08/memes-never-gonna-give-you-up\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">MEMES, Part 3: Gotta make you understand\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Endless Thread\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/11/a-complete-history-of-bee-movies-many-many-memes.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A Complete History of Bee Movie’s Many, Many Memes\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Paris Martineau, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Intelligencer\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://gamerant.com/bee-movie-meme/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why Did Bee Movie Become A Meme?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Joshua Kristian McCoy, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">GameRant\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.polygon.com/23984032/josh-hutcherson-whistle-edit-meme-trend-explained/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Josh Hutcherson ‘Whistle’ edit meme, explained\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Ana Diaz, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Polygon\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.themarysue.com/charlie-kirk-ai-song/\">‘His courage our own’: This Charlie Kirk tribute song is blowing up on Spotify. Was it made by a human—or AI?\u003c/a> — Braden Bjella, \u003ci>The Mary Sue\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Those are the iconic opening lines of the 2007 film \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. And the voice you heard reading those lines.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My name is Spike Feresten. Is that really it? Is that what we wrote?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spike is a comedian and screenwriter who’s worked on Seinfeld, written for David Letterman, hosted his own show, and co-wrote the one and only \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. You know, the one starring Jerry Seinfelt as a talking Bee.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Bee Movie] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Barry: I’m going out. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Adam: Out? Out where? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Barry: Outside the hive. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crowd: *Gasps*\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What if the bees discovered the humans were taking their honey? That was one big idea that kind of unlocked a little bit of the plot, but the kind of larger idea was, what would happen if a bee didn’t want to just go into the honey business? Isn’t there, is there something more?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hijinks ensue. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is a surprisingly deep story about exploitation, uncompensated labor, the vital environmental role that bees play as pollinators, and what it takes to break out of society’s mold. That is, if society is a honeybee hive in Manhattan. Oh, and the bee kind of falls in love with a human woman. It’s a whole thing. Spike said that Steven Spielberg asked Jerry Seinfeld if he wanted to do an animated movie. And Jerry Seinfeld said,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What about a movie about bees and we’ll call it Bee Movie.” And he went, “Sold!” It’s the shortest pitch in like film history. And then Jerry called us up the next day and said, I just sold a movie to Spielberg/Dreamworks Animation about bees. And we were like, what is it about? And he goes, that’s what we have to figure out. The very first thing we did was start reading about bees and we came across this fact. It was like, oh, this is kind of remarkable that these guys can’t fly in rain and that their bodies aren’t right and it’s hard for them to fly and everything in kind of fodder for, you know, the world of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was Jerry’s big comeback after Seinfeld, which had wrapped up about five years before development on \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> started. And the movie did well at the box office, but among film critics, it was a flop. Kids loved it, but it didn’t compare to the Shrek franchise or Ratatouille, which dominated early 2000s animation. The plot was weird. The jokes skewed more adult, and the whole romantic vibe between a human woman and a honeybee, maybe a bit too out there for the general public. Jerry even joked about it a couple years ago. Here he is on the Tonight Show:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of Jerry Seinfeld on the Tonight Show] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I apologize for what seems to be a certain, uncomfortable, subtle, sexual aspect of the Bee Movie which really was not intentional. But after it came out, I realized, this is really not appropriate for children.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The world moved on. But today, almost 20 years later, Bee Movie is a cult classic. Because the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script itself has become one of the quintessential internet pranks. Annoyed with someone? Dump the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script in their comments. Protesting against the government’s anti-trans bathroom complaint forms? Spam the tip line with the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script. Here’s Spike again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We couldn’t quite understand, are they making fun of us, which is fine, or are they really celebrating us, or is it are they just taking our weird thing and doing weird things with it? There’s simple ideas like weaponized absurdity, you know, so when some horrible right-winger has got some sort of hotline to expose the trans community or something, and people just load in the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script. To us, like, that’s fantastic. We’re not even gonna engage you in conversation. We’re just gonna drop an absurdity bomb in there and just stop it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script remains a top-tier internet prank. It’s up there with Rickrolling. This is a genre known as bait-and-switch memes. The internet has changed drastically since the days of pranking people with “Never Gonna Give You Up.” And memes have changed, too. Imagine trying to explain today’s trends to someone in 2007. But what hasn’t changed about internet culture is the love of a good prank. The art of the bait-and-switch meme endures. It’s April Fool’s Day, so today, we’re diving into the evolution of these memes. And what makes a meme prank actually stick around. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is 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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s get into it. Before we talk about what makes a good bait-and-switch meme, let’s get into where they even came from. For today’s internet history lesson, we’re going back in time, before TikTok, before Vine, may she rest in peace, and before YouTube, to an era when the internet was simpler and darker. Let’s open a new tab: the internet forum wild west. Dr. Bret Strauch teaches at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he studies digital genres and digital writing, also known as the rhetoric of memes. He’s gonna break down what a bait-and-switch meme is at its core.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bait-and-switch memes are fairly simple, like when you look at it from a genre perspective, usually you have some sort of setup that is directing your expectation towards one thing and then it flips and subverts that expectation, once we either scroll down or click on something or jump to a new video, something to that effect.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What were the proto bait-and-switch memes like? Like before the Rickroll, where were they taking place? How did they work?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the analog era, before we get to our digital internet era, we have culture jammers and all they’re doing is taking a traditional sort of company advertisements and subverting them. So you would see something like, uh, Joe Camel, um, from the Camel cigarettes, but they would subvert the messaging, sort of pointing out some ideological problem or ethical problem. And so instead of Joe Camel they get an image using the camel likeness, but as Joe Chemo sort of pointing out the health effects of cigarettes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first internet forums have been around since the 70s and 80s. This culture of posting and messaging didn’t become widespread until the 90s. The early forums and chat rooms didn’t have anything close to the moderation and rules that we have on social media today. That’s when we started to see the first bait-and-switch memes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve seen people talk about the early internet forums of the late 90s, early 2000s as almost like. This unmoderated last frontier. We had an episode on political online history where we referred to that time period as “the bronze age of the internet.” Can you describe what this era of forums was like and what that meant for meme culture?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I feel this early era so like we get like 4chan but there’s also other sites like somethingawful.com, rotten.com, (please don’t go to those sites) where a lot of this sort of proto-internet meme behavior is happening. And one of the things that we see in this early era is that it’s largely gate-kept in a way. We have a much smaller, more niche audience for these memes. And it’s usually driven through more, obviously, masculine sensibilities and sort of this gross-out culture. And there’s a little bit of a prank culture thing going on as well. We see a lot of shock sites. This is like earlier internet, like 2002, where people would send links to what essentially were just pornographic images as a form of hazing. And a lot people found this funny, but some people were also found it disturbing as well. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of these shock images, which we will not name here, involves…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…a human orifice that is enlarged, so to speak, and usually we get sent like this file and people would click on it and then they would see this sort of grotesque image. Now, some people might laugh at that, but I think the people that found it funny were the people sending it, not necessarily the people receiving it in all cases. But also we see how like This fits this sort of frat boy gross out. Sort of community building, so to speak. I wouldn’t necessarily, it’s a community I’d want to be in, but it definitely has this sort of social function in those groups.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how do we go from that horrific image macro that Brett tactfully described to the family-friendly wholesome rickroll? Let’s open a new tab: pranks in the age of YouTube.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Picture this, it’s 2007. You’re dressed in your most obscure band tee and skinniest skinny jeans, brand new Blackberry tucked in your back pocket. You’re on the family desktop, just made your first Facebook account. You’re scrolling through your feed, poking your friends, and you come across a post that says, “Grand Theft Auto 4 trailer just dropped, watch here.” You love GTA. You’ve been waiting for this. So you click it and…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of “Never Gonna Give You Up” song] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Never gonna give you up. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Never gonna let you down. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Never gonna run around and desert you.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You just got rickrolled. That’s exactly what happened to countless people that year. A teenager posted a link on 4chan claiming that it was a link to the highly anticipated trailer. When unsuspecting digital bystanders clicked it, they were surprised with a video of Rick Astley’s 1987 banger, “Never Gonna Give You Up.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of “Never Gonna Give You Up” song]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Never gonna make you cry\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so the rickroll was born.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The change from sort of this gross out humor meme into something that’s more family friendly, I think comes along with the fact that internet platforms and social media platforms became much more accessible beyond sort of that initial niche computer nerd culture that we see. And so as part of ways in which the community functions, they wanna share. Like, if you receive it, it might be annoying, but I think at some point we find it funny. Where something that’s more gross out, that’s not going to have as much wide appeal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And rickrolling really took off. The hacktivist collective Anonymous protested against the Church of Scientology by blasting “Never Gonna Give You Up” on boomboxes outside of their headquarters. Radiohead announced their new album and posted the download link, only to rickroll everyone. For April Fool’s Day in 2008, YouTube made all of the links on the site’s page lead to “Never Gonna Give You Up,” rickrolling the world. And then for the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade that year, Rick Astley himself appeared on a float and performed what was, at the time, possibly the most widely televised rickroll in the world. Rickrolling was a cultural phenomenon. It was also the last time everyone was on the same internet, before we were siloed by algorithms.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re still at a moment in our media landscape where we’re still sharing media. We have TV shows we’re all watching. We have broadcast television. And even though people can create and share their own content, we don’t see as many content creators and so a lot of the shared cultural texts we have helps build toward this moment where, hey, we can share this meme because people know the reference. We’re not all listening to our own Spotify playlists, right? We’re all consuming the shows that we want on Netflix. We have the shared culture, which helps sort of propagate the fact that we have a meme that’s sort of ubiquitous, at least in the Western hemisphere.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was so appealing about the rickroll? Like, why did that work so well?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming out of the 90s, there was a little bit of this 80s nostalgia, which we see building up in which now we see huge 80s nostalgia. There’s this sort of absurdity of the 80s era and its music that sort of plays into the absurdity of this internet prank, essentially.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And no other bait-and-switch meme from that early YouTube era took off the same way. There was the Trololo guy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Singing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a clip of a Russian singer performing in the 70s. There was also You’ve Been Gnomed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio of animated gnome character]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m gnot a gnelf!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m gnot a gnoblin! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m a gnome!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which was this video of an animated gnome laughing at the viewer while text flashes across the screen. It says, predictably…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio of animated gnome character] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you’ve been gnomed!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Both of these memes functioned like a rickroll. You click a link expecting one thing and, instead, you get another. But there was a historical framework for rickrolling. It was a huge 80s bop coming back around. The other memes lacked that, so they didn’t have the same cultural impact as rickrolling. By the early 2010s, a new challenger had arisen. This underlying media, as Bret put it, was ripe with meme material. Let’s talk about \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> after this break.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what makes a good bait-and-switch meme? What makes that prank work so well? Obviously, we’re opening a new tab: \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and meme dada-ism. Memes were getting weirder, more absurd, and few memes defined the 2010s like \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Bee Movie] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Barry: How should I start it? You like jazz? No, that’s no good. Here she comes. Speak, you fool!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of Jerry Seinfeld on the Tonight Show]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jerry Seinfeld: The bee seemed to have a thing for the girl. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jimmy Fallon: Yeah \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jerry Seinfeld: And we don’t really want to pursue that as an idea in children’s entertainment.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was Jerry Seinfeld on The Tonight Show, acknowledging the taboo interspecies romantic undertones in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Spike Feresten, the screenwriter who co-wrote the movie, got a kick out of writing the pairing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s a funny anecdote from the room: so we were writing this in New York. You know, I was, I was doing a show in LA, but I would fly, you know, to New York every couple of weeks and we’d sit in this big room, Jerry’s office, and work on this. And to us, these characters were just two characters, it was just Barry and Vanessa. And then every once in a while we’d go, hey, that Barry’s a bee. He’s this big. So when you say they shake hands or they walk, you can’t, we can’t keep treating them like two characters who are friends, like Jerry and Elaine, which is kind of how we treated them. We were writing them like Jerry and Elaine forgetting about the size disparity and the species disparity. Yeah, and that’s kind of why it came out the way it came out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The romance is just one of many absurd plot lines in the movie. Like, we’ve got bees going to human court to sue humanity for the exploitation of their labor. But the movie was way too ahead of its time. Critics hated it. It was marketed as a kids’ movie. And instead, it was this story about freeing the bees and seizing the means of production of honey and also toeing the line of bee-stiality. But that’s why it was such good meme material. Here’s Bret Strauch again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People, when they originally went to see the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, were expecting a kid’s Bug’s Life or Ants movie, and they got something much more serious. And so in a way, like the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a bait and switch by itself. The trailers are selling it as sort of like a kid’s movie, but really there’s a lot more adult oriented content that people were not expecting. And so the fact that it sort of functioned as a bait-and-switch by itself made sense that people started using it as just a way to troll people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tumblr latched onto the movie starting in 2011, fawning over the film’s poetic opening lines.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Bee Movie] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Narrator: According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway, because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tumblr users were totally sincere about it, calling the lines inspirational. By 2013, the meme exploded. People were starting to realize how absurd the movie really was. Screenshots from the film became reaction memes. Edits of Seinfeld but with characters from \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> went super viral. And then there’s the fan fiction, which is still going today. I told Spike about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, there is a real moment on Tumblr with people kind of sincerely appreciating the dialog in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and the narration. Then people kind-of ironically started posting the memes, which I’m sure you’ve seen. It broke containment, moved to Twitter, and then it reached the peak of virality, which is sexy fan fiction.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, it did.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, I’m sorry I’m breaking this to you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know about that. This is good.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I am just going to read you a few tags from Archive of Our Own, from \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> fanfics that were written this like this year.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The tags include Vanessa X Barry, typical, Mega Mind X Barry Benson, Top Barry -Bottom Mega Mind, inter-species relationships, hive worship, and improper use of honey drizzler.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laughter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you make of the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> smut?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, smut is a funny, funny word to use from the 50s: smut. Um, it, it kind of plays into what I would love to do. I mean, like, hypothetically, and this will never happen, but I want to do, uh, six sequels to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> all as a series on Netflix or wherever, 40 minutes apiece, Bee 2, Bee 3, Bee 4 , Bee 5, Bee 6, Bee 7. A lot of time has gone by and we’re going to do our six sequels now. What you just described is one of the areas I really want to dive into, which is that relationship, not the smut, but the fun you could have with a bee dating a woman. I think there’s a lot of comedy there and I think the world has changed and I think you could write that in a way that’s not smut but it also kind of celebrates what the world has done with this and, you know, I don’t think we would go as far as South Park, but kind of do our version of maybe a South Parkian take on \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, because I love their relationship. I love that friendship. And I wonder what those conversations would be like should they explore the idea of dating.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. I mean, look, if you ever need a writer’s room, there’s a bunch of people in Archive of Our Own who have already written some scenarios.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that’s cool. No, that’s great. I mean, like any other stuff, you know, you put it out into the world and the world can do with it what it wants. That’s what’s nice about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2013, a Facebook user posted the entire script on someone else’s Facebook wall. That was the start of the bait-and-switch\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script. For the next few years, you might unwittingly open a link to a comment or post only for your phone to freeze and crash because it’s trying to load the entire \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script. It was like a more devious Rickroll. It wreaked havoc across the internet. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Group chats were bombarded with the 9,000-word wall of text. Any email with an urgent subject line could just contain the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script. It even moved offline. One college student pranked his classmates by spending 12 hours writing out the entire script on a chalkboard. The coolest kids in 2016 wore T-shirts printed with the entire strip. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The meme did eventually slow down though. Phones got better and became capable of loading the whole script. Like rickrolling, surprising your friends with 131 pages of dialogue got old. But then the script was weaponized, again, as a form of protest. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2021, Texas passed the Heartbeat Act, which effectively banned abortion after six weeks. The law allowed anyone to sue abortion providers and individuals who sought abortions after the six-week limit. The organization, Texas Right to Life, set up an anonymous tip site to report anyone who violated the Heart Beat Act. To protest TikTok users spammed the site with Shrek porn, lurid fan fiction, and the one and only \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script. Protesters did it again when Missouri opened an online forum to report clinics that provide gender-affirming care. And then, again, when Indiana’s attorney general launched a forum to support schools that teach gender ideology. And then again, when the Trump administration partnered with a far-right group to report schools that had DEI efforts. Any time the government or an organization working with it opens some kind of citizen surveillance tool, it’s a target for \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script dumps. Spike and other \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> writers are big fans of this practice.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, we love it, absolutely love it. It gets passed around, you know, that it’s doing something good for the world, it always makes you feel good. And that we don’t have to be any part of it, that someone’s taking it and just disrupting, like I said, dropping an absurdity bomb on some bad cause. That just makes you feel good. Do it as much as you want. If I can help you, I will help in whatever way, but you’re doing a fine job by yourself.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s funny because back in 2017, for the 10-year anniversary of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, New York Mag wrote this extensive history of the meme and traced the rise and fall of it. And back then, it was like, okay, there was a good year of no \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> memes. And they questioned whether the meme was dead. That was almost 10 years ago. And the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script keeps coming back. The meme has evolved so much, but the core of it is still the script, the dialogue. Why do you think it survives?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s the writing. I think its the weirdness. You know, it’s funny. That movie was out of sync with culture in 2006 and I think still is out of synch with kind of cultural norms in a way.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">uh bee- human, you know…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I know, but it’s still kind of hard to wrap your head around that. You know what I mean? I mean i don’t think anybody really thinks about dating a bee, so I don’t think there has been… and we like bees. To us, the bees are, you know, when you think about the planet, keeping the planet healthy, the bees are one of our canaries in the coal mine, if you will, like, how the bee is doing? I don’t know if you do this, but when you see a bee, kind of, dying on the sidewalk, don’t you get nervous. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah I’m like, let me help it, yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, is this global warming? What is doing this? So we have this special reverence for this insect that stings us occasionally, but still we like them a lot because they make this very sweet, gooey substance that we enjoy putting in our teas. But again, it’s not for me or us to say, it’s you’d have to ask the people who love this movie what they love about it. We’re just the people that put it out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script is the gift that keeps on giving. But other bait-and-switch memes have also blown up. And unlike the trusty rickroll or the evergreen \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, this new generation of internet pranks blow up fast and burn out quickly. They don’t last. Let’s get into that in one last tab: the short form vertical video revolution. Before the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script was weaponized for protest the way that it is today, it had kind of peaked by 2016. And a slew of bait-and-switch memes cycled in and out of relevance. The primary force behind this rapid-fire meme lifespan? TikTok. In 2020, we had Get Stick Bugged. Watching a Minecraft compilation? Surprise, it cuts to a clip of a dancing stick bug.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Funky music playing\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But that fizzled out by the end of the year. In 2022, TikTok users lured viewers in with videos about juicy celebrity gossip. And then…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Moulin Rouge movie] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Gitchi Gitchi ya ya da da\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…you got krissed! It’s a clip of Kris Jenner shimmying in this sequined shirt and bow tie set to a sped up version of “Lady Marmalade” from Moulin Rouge. The Cut said that “getting krissed” is the natural evolution of rickrolling. And then in 2023, we had the Josh Hutcherson whistle edits. Here’s one of my favorite ones. It’s video from inside a plane. The caption says, “Guys, the view is incredible!” The video pans to the closed window, and a hand reaches out to open the shade. And then…[music playing] The view through the window is just a closeup of Josh Hutcherson’s face from a 2014 fan edit set to a cover of Flo Rida’s “Whistle.” Polygon said that this trend was TikTok’s rickroll. And then at the end of last year, another rickroll successor blew up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of “We Are Charlie Kirk Song”] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are Charlie Kirk, we carry…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is an AI-generated ballad about Charlie Kirk, which was first posted to YouTube and streaming platforms days after his death. It’s total AI slop, but unfortunately, very catchy. Like the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script, it went viral at first out of sincerity. People listened to it as a tribute to Charlie Kirk. And then it became a meme. We’re talking remixes, Mongolian throat singing covers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Clip of “We Are Charlie Kirk Song”] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are Charlie Kirk. We carry the flame. We fight for the…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And of course, pranks, like connecting to public bluetooth speakers and blasting cowbell dance remixes of “We Are Charlie Kirk.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio of “We Are Charlie Kirk” playing over loud speaker]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s Bret’s take.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of them, it’s clear that there’s some sort of musical component people can latch onto and all the music itself is sort of absurd or ridiculous in a way. Whether it’s been altered and sped up like the we-are-krissed” or just sort of that funky beat that you’ve-been-stick-bugged has, especially like with the “We are Charlie Kirk.” There’s more levels of absurdity being that it was AI written. So this pathos is literally being manufactured. It’s not something that’s like, necessarily human-generated like emotion being generated, and so it just makes it rife for this type of inversion or subversion.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. We just speed ran so many trends, and none of them really lasted more than six months. Maybe the Charlie Kirk one will last longer because of the current state of the world, but generally, why is the turnover rate for memes so high now?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think there’s a few reasons for this. The first is just the media context and media environment. We’re not sharing the same stuff that we did as a culture. It’s much more small niche cultures where these things are spreading. Another element to this that I believe is important is that it’s easier to create these than it was 15, 20 years ago. And so now more are being created. And so they’re essentially eating themselves out of existence. Um, so as soon as a new mean comes out, um, at least in the early mid 2000s, it stuck around because it took a little bit more technological know-how. You didn’t have the production software and access to it that you do now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I noticed that almost all bait-and-switch meme trends are on TikTok now, maybe Reels. But no one is pulling off a rickroll with YouTube anymore. I saw a video of someone rickrolling their friend by sending a TikTok link, which me makes me wonder, did YouTube ads ruin the rickroll? Kind of spoils the surprise.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, YouTube ads ruin everything. For humor to work, timing is critical, right? And so those ads really disrupt like the genre of humor that’s happening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Would the original rickroll work with modern content consumption habits? When we consume content, it’s a lot of times happening passively to us, algorithmically served, instead of us like actively seeking it out or actually clicking links.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t think so. We need that interaction, I think, for the rickroll to be successful. And it feels like at least it was another person presenting this to us. And now it’s sort of the algorithm is serving it up to a plate on us and we’re not finding these things. And so I think what makes a lot of media content special, whether it’s memes, movies, songs, is it’s stuff that we find, not that someone else or something else finds for us. And so… innately, there’s going to be less meaning for a lot of that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The meme turnover rate is so high that no internet prank really sticks around long enough to rival or recreate the magic of the rickroll. The very format of the rickroll is limiting, especially in today’s digital landscape. Even rickrolling itself is difficult to pull off today because internet habits have changed. But what has endured as a prank is the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">script. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have this take and it’s that the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script is the ultimate bait-and-switch because it’s purely text. There’s no image macro, there’s no video lead-in with ads or that you have to wait to load to ruin the prank. The joke itself is so malleable. It can be dumped in comment sections, in government tip lines or turned into an image macro and then deep fried, or just read by that TikTok AI voice in 2X speed, which makes it funnier. Do you have any thoughts on this, the flexibility of this meme?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bret Strauch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, that’s why I think we see certain memes that at least are being iterated and changed upon more, and some that don’t seem to change as much. And so with it being all text, it’s really easy to adapt all text to different formats. I think my favorite of the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> script ones is where they do the crawl from Star Wars, and we get the intro to the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. And so the easier that it is to manipulate that initial form of media, like, so text is super easy, makes it much easier to put it into different places, different platforms and distribute it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> came out nearly 20 years ago. Script dumping started in 2013. Last year, 12 years after that Facebook user posted the entire script on someone else’s wall, the DOGE-led government HR email was pelted with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> scripts. At the request of Elon Musk, all federal employees were asked to email the Office of Personnel Management with five tasks they accomplished that week. On x, Musk posted, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” The email leaked online, and internet users responded on behalf of federal employees with pages and pages of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bee Movie\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> dialog. Spike was thrilled.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Spike Feresten: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s pretty exciting that anybody’s even talking about it. Really! I mean, you have to look at it, we look at that way. I think that people are still talking about this movie from what 2006 that we made, you know, in that way and that it, that it has these second and third lives. You know, we get excited that people still watching that movie and enjoying it. Like, it’s flattering. That’s the only way to really put it that this movie hasn’t been forgotten. It hasn’t disappeared into a canyon of content and gone forever, that it comes up over and over again in generally a good way. And, you know, if people are making fun of it, that’s fine, too. That’s what we do. We make fun of things you can make fun of us. Go ahead.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You heard Spike, go forth and prank. Let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode was produced by our senior editor, Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. It was edited by Chris Hambrick. Our team includes producer Maya Cueva, additional music by APM. Brendan Willard is our audio engineer, audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor-in-Chief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink dust silver K84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron red switches. Okay, and I know it’s a podcast cliche, but if you like these deep dives and want us to keep making more, it would really help us out if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Email us at closealltabs@kqed.org. Follow us on Instagram @CloseAllTabsPod or TikTok @CloseallTabs. And join our Discord. We’re in the Close All tabs channel at discord.gg/kqed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"order": 16
},
"link": "/podcasts/rightnowish",
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