Okay, it's time to commit, 2024 is the year for prioritizing yourself. Begin your new smile journey with BITE, and you could start seeing results in just two to three weeks. Just order your at-home impression kit today for only $14.95 at BITE.com. BITE Clear liners are doctor-directed and delivered to your door. Treatment costs thousands less than braces, plus they offer financing options except eligible insurance, and you could pay with your HSA/FSA. Get 80% off your impression kit when you use code WONDERY at BITE.com. That's B-Y-T-E.com. Start your confidence journey today with BITE. Hi, I'm Elise Morales. And I'm Millie Tamaras. And this is Go Touch Gras! The podcast where we log in. So you can log off. Millie and I are two chronically online comedians, and on this pod, we break down the week in Internet Discourse, viral memes, TikTok trends, and niche influencer dramas so that you can go do literally anything else. And if you like what you hear today and want to hear more, we've got to Go Touch Gras! Patreon already up with tons more weekly content, access to our Discord community, and our spin-off series, Search History, where we go back and break down a viral discourse from the past. We've got a hot one coming up soon. The many beefs of Azalea Banks. If you want to hear why Azalea Banks is beefing from a nuanced party, here we go, baby. I'm going to be walking through, Elise, with all the beefs. Yes, our $10 patrons got to vote on it, and that'll be coming out soon. So get signed up so you can hear it. And don't forget to leave us a five-star rating and review. We love reviews. We need more of them. The best review you can give us is to tell your friends about the podcast. Tag us in a local story. We'll repost it. You know that we're online. We're reposting. You know everything. Not to be a Sabrina Carpenter about it, but please, please, please. Please, please, please. Yes, please. You know, there have been times where we've been tagged in a post, and I repost it so quickly. I don't even realize that Millie's already reposted it. So we will... We'll repost it twice. We'll repost it forever. We'll repost it twice. We'll repost it forever. We've got it. Listen, we've got you. We're on there. And it's us. We love me the post. It's us. We're running. Yeah. We're running. No one's running that account, but us. I do. And it's funny when we're DMing. I'm like, "Should I reveal who which one of us the person that we're DMing with is talking to?" I usually will reveal at some point. I will do it. Like, if I use a black hands emoji, I do let them know that it's really... Thank you. And I do appreciate that. I do appreciate that because I don't need that on me. Yeah. No. You don't need that smoke. If it is the one... There's like the white hands emoji and then there's the one shade darker. But darker. Yeah. That's you. That's me. That's you. That's fair. That's fair. There's a emoji in this word. I wanted my hair in it. Yeah. Of course. Of course. There's some white people. There's some... Even Asian people, like East Asian people, they're a beautiful porcelain skin. They're using emojis darker than I use. And I'm like, "What is going on there? What is going on?" What is going on? Yellow. Go lighter. Yellow. When it took a lighter for sure, but when it dealt like yellow, you can always do the Simpson's version. It's always there. Yeah. Sometimes the best choice is no choice. Yeah. You can do that for yourself. That's it. Um, guys, if you can't tell, it's just Milly and I today. We are... Yeah. No guest. We're recording virtually if you can even believe it. And we're going to go through a bunch of different topics because we've got time to kiki, chit chat, et cetera. Yeah. We don't have the dead weight of a guest. All of our guests are amazing. We love our guests. All of our guests are so amazing. It's perfect in every way. But we can go into more things because... Because we don't have to like ask someone else their opinion. Yeah. And hear it. Yeah. And then... This is a podocracy. This is not a... This is not a podocracy. Yeah. Cheerocracy. That's a bring it up. That's a bring it up. Yeah. Reference. This is sometimes a podaki. This pod... Podunism. Podunism. Podunism. A podtatorship. Podtatorship. Podtatorship. Let us know where we're shopping that. Where we're shopping that. Yeah. We're shopping that. First things first. I did want to give an update because on our last episode we talked all about the New York trend as originated by Jules Lebron. And our grass hole last week was Demure Haters, two Demure Haters specifically. And I want to retroactively add someone to last week's grass hole umbrella before we have again. Specifically, some random asshole in Washington state named Jefferson Bates who filed to get the trademark very mindful, very Demure right out from under Jules Lebron. So Jules Lebron had not filed that trademark. She posted a now deleted video of herself crying that honestly broke my heart where she was like, "Oh my." And she was saying she felt like she dropped the ball by not knowing to like file for this trademark sooner and like talking about how much she works for her social media. We already talked about how like she was able to fund the rest of her transition. She wanted to help her family. And I think she was just feeling, yeah, that feeling that it's not, it's not right, but I think she was feeling like dumb or like she fucked up. I mean, yeah, she said she dropped the ball. What that's what she felt. Luckily, a bunch of trademark lawyers have come on and said like she can and should still file the trademark and they're not necessarily like awarded on first come, first serve basis. So she has obviously a pretty good case to just because this guy filed it doesn't mean he gets that trademark. So yeah, hopefully she gets it. Yeah. And I couldn't find anything on Jefferson Bates, but apparently he just does this all the time. And that could be an argument if it was like just Demure, like trademarking Demure, but very mindful, very Demure is specifically Jules is fucked up and Jefferson Bates is a loser. Yeah. And it's just one of those things where again, it like reeks of obviously, I don't know shit about Jefferson Bates, but Jefferson Bates in Washington state, it's giving white man with time on his hands. Yeah, no, he's white. Yeah, that's what that's what everybody's why and rich. Yeah, you can use the law to put out a bunch of trademarks and steal shit out from under people. And then someone who is a trans person of color who doesn't like is suddenly launched into enormous catch phrase based stardom doesn't immediately lock that trademark up. And it's like, yeah, just reeks of how the system is designed for people who already know how to work within it to like reap the benefits and someone who's usually on the outside who doesn't know necessarily like, Oh, shit, I gotta get on my trademark right fucking now before some random man who has nothing to fucking do with this scoops it up. Yeah, it sucks. And it's also like, she's busy. She's been doing a lot of stuff like she's meeting people. She was on like, RuPaul had her, like, I think took over Jimmy Kimmel's desk or something like that. And she was on like, she's really doing a lot and like really taking this moment and hasn't had a second to pause and I can totally so it's just mean spirit and I'm fucked up, but I'm glad that she can still save it and it seems like she, yeah, it seems like she can still get the trademark for herself and I am hoping that that's what happens. So that's our update. We have added Jefferson Bates to last week's grass hole retroactively, and now I would like to do a new edition of our new segment, eDictionary, where we debuted Demure last week, and we are going to talk about a new phrase that is in the zeitgeist. This phrase is homie hopping. Oh gosh. According to urban dictionary, a homie hopper is a person who has sexual interactions with two or more people who are all friends. Before we get into the reason why this is being discussed, Millie, do you have thoughts on homie hopping generally? I know we discussed it on a recent other podcast that we were on, but let's bring it to Grass Nation. Yeah, I feel like what I said on the other pod was like, you know, you can do whatever you want, but it has consequences. I feel like the consequences are severely lessened if, for example, homie, like the friends, it's been years since they dated, how seriously were you dating? Did you just hook up with one, and then you're seriously dating another? Are you guys all in the same industry or career? There's a lot of case-by-case basis things, so there's not a blanket. Is it right or is it wrong? Just know like, yeah, people are, you know, there are consequences to all your actions. What say you about homie hopping at least? Let's say I feel similarly, I think that the morality of the homie hop depends on the details. So like, if this is your best friend and her, this, her and this guy just broke up and he cheated on her and suddenly you're like sliding into his DMs, that's not like, that's fucked up. If it's like someone who's part of your wider social circle, maybe you know them, it was a normal breakup, it's been some time. The person who's their ex might not like you, like you said, like there might be a consequence in that like, that, if you were friendly with them before, you might not be as friendly with them after, but I don't think it's like morally at wrong or whatever to date within a friend group depending. There are also friend groups in this world that are very incestuous, I've never been part of one of those friend groups, but sometimes you meet people and I'm like, all these people fucked. Well, that isn't that the whole premise of the secret lives of Mormon wives, coming on Hulu, or what is a free, free form and two weeks or something like that. Yeah, I'm like, if you can make it work, I guess, I will say that this discourse did remind me that when I first started dating Danny, my previous ex sent me a long message, nasty mean message, that was like, really, you're going to date someone who hosts the improv jam that I attend. Oh, okay. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, I'm a damn and fuck them too. Yeah. Wow. He did a Sunday frequently, I will say he was there every week. All right. Okay. Okay. At least. But again, but again, you know, whatever, whether it's fucked up or not, like also if it's like, I mean, clearly it was a match and you guys did get married. So like whatever, you know, as the juice worth the squeeze, I love that. I love that. So they just want to squeeze and also squeeze and also it could be quite. Yeah. But it did just remind me because I was like, okay, well, how does that, does it count as a homie hop if he hosts an improv jam? Are you homies? If you hosted improv jam, that's a question on between you and the other 500 white people that do it. Yeah. That's, that's a question between you and Del close, the improv jam. Del close. Yeah. And then Del close will be like, why are you talking to me, you're a woman. Okay. So the reason that homie hopping is in the lexicon right now, we'll keep this short because these are a bunch again, this is just like a bunch of random, very pretty white people that we've never heard of in our lives, you know, whatever. But it is because of a love triangle between the influencers, Hallie Kate, Sophia LeCort, a man named Reed Williams, who looks just like kind of any guy. Jesus, of course. TLDR on this is that Hallie and Reed dated for nine months. They split in November of 2023, one month later, Sophia LeCort is seen out on a date with Reed in NYC. Hallie posted some now deleted TikToks at the time saying that she was sad that her friend dated her ex so quickly. But ultimately, those TikToks get deleted, Hallie and Reed got back together. The drama was, yes. So Hallie and Reed are together now. Wow. The drama then reignited this week after Reed appeared on an episode of the podcast Delusional Diaries. That episode has now been deleted in which fans thought he seemed disinterested in Hallie. So I guess, I don't know, I guess he came off weird. I did not see clips of this, and again, they've deleted the podcast episode, but that's what I guess reignited some of this. And then shit really blew up when Sophia LeCort shared her side of the story in a three-part TikTok series titled, "How I Got Cancelled by a Girl I Met Maybe Three Times." And I think we should watch this clip. She now has a viral sound from it. Oh my goodness, some of you guys are acting like I drop kicked someone's puppy. I went on a date with a guy that was single. I guess the paparazzi cared and was commenting on his ex-girlfriend's stuff. They're commenting on her post saying, "Me," Sophia LeCort was with her ex-boyfriend. His ex-girlfriend texts me and says, "Hi, this is Hallie because she knows I don't have her number because we're not friends. I'm getting DMs that you were on a date with my ex last night." Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry I didn't know you owned him, he wasn't wearing a collar. Okay, so the collar line is now a viral sound. How does this clip make you feel? Because I have thoughts. Yeah, I mean, this girl seems like a huge bitch. I don't know, I'm like, it's just very, it's just very like, we were just talking about last time how you can tell on other platforms if something is going to go viral or not. And TikTok is a lottery, but I'm like, you have to know that TikTok is so girls, girls right now, that's like, the culture is very girls' girl. So this is not girls' girl, you have to know that that people were not going to be fucking with this. Yeah, it's interesting because I actually feel like the details she gives falls under a potentially acceptable homie hop to me and that it's like, yeah, I guess this girl didn't have her number, whatever, but her vibe is so rancid in the clip that I'm on Hallie Kate's side immediately because I'm just like, the way she talks, it's like, it's not even a current mean girl. It's like an 80s cheerleader mean girl. It's like vintage mean girl accent that like, I didn't realize he was wearing a collar and like, she's very, the energy on it is so bad that I'm like, I actually don't even care about the details. Like, I don't like you at all. Yeah, it's like, you can't see, listen, technically it's fine, but it's like, you can't see why someone who thought what you guys were friends or like, at least you met and had a few nice interactions with them wouldn't be a little upset about this. Like, okay, she didn't have your number, but she could get it easily because you have very close friends or friends like, yeah, and also it's just like, I mean, why are you telling this story? Did this girl really get you canceled? Yeah, no, you got yourself canceled. It seems like other people just noticed you were out with her boyfriend and then probably my guess, I don't know what Reddit this all happened on, but my guess is the NYC influencer snark Reddit was like, oh, look, these two people are out and they know each other and then people are commenting. And first of all, I like the she refers to it as paparazzi. It's not paparazzi. No, it's like a friend. Yeah, that's insane paparazzi. It's like, no one knows who you are. And also, it was like people who know, who know, like, and white influencers. Yeah, like people who could clock this drama were chatting about it online, but I don't think you were canceled. It seems like this girl other girl, Holly Kate has not been talking about you. Her and the guy are back together like, why are you doing this and why are you being so mean? Yeah. And it was like, hey, guys, just to clarify, like, blah, blah, blah, but yeah, the vibe is off. Fuck you. So now you guys know, if you hear the phrase, homie hopping, that's what's going on. If you hear the names, Hallie Kate and oh, I love the part where she goes and they're saying me, Sophia, the court, like the way she says. Yeah, exactly. And if you, if you hear the audio, I hate that ginger bitch. This is also in reference to that, like that, that's a different influencer saying she has a different. That's a different. So there are a couple of different audios that you are now made aware of. And that's a dictionary for today. Yes. Now you're more educated. Should we get into the discourse? We should. It's merely laughing because this is a big discourse, of course, that has been discorcing for a while. It is time for us for go touch grasp pod to wade into the it ends with us drama. Oh my God. It's time. The dust has kind of settled on this drama. So I feel like now is a good time for us to do a retrospective on what has taken place. If you're online at all, you've probably noticed that Blake Lively is being dragged to hell and back for being rude in interviews and to fans. But this all started with the press tour for her new film. It ends with us. So I have organized this into four narrative phases, okay, five narrative phases that I feel that this, and they don't say we don't do storytelling on this pod. We do storytelling. We do research. We we're doing it all. We're doing it all. You guys don't even know how to what degree we're doing at all. Listen, let me say that. But anyway, let's talk about this five fucking point narrative art that you've done for this online drama. Okay. So we'll start with the background. It ends with us is a very, very popular 2016 novel by the author Colleen Hoover about a steampunk florist named Lily Blossom Bloom. The novel flashes between Lily's past growing up in an abusive household. It's told via letters her teenage self wrote to Ellen DeGeneres. Oh my God. I read this book. I'll give my opinion on it in a second. And it's also about the connection she made with a fellow abused teen named Atlas Corrigan. And then her present day relationship with a man named Ryle Kincaid, who also turns out to be physically abusive. So like I said, I did read this book. I did think it was bad. And I don't have a highbrow taste. I'm reading fourth wing right now. That's a book about dragons and people who fuck like I don't. Wait. Dragons are well, okay. So you bond to a dragon. And if your dragon is fucking another dragon, then you may find that you want to fuck the person who is on to that dragon. Honestly, isn't this 101 Dalmatians, basically? It's exactly like 101 Dalmatians. I have a question. I guess two things. Then how was she steampunk? The steampunk florist got me. So she's steampunk in that like her floral designs are described as like kind of like ulti and like that she uses like black and like metals and like that she's like a florist for people who doesn't like blowers. Okay. Okay. That's kind of how it's described. Yeah. Okay. And then cool. Not what steampunk is. But okay. Because I'm like, is she wearing a top hat? Is she wearing like verticals? No, unfortunately, no, she's not a steampunk interesting. And then, okay, I've seen a lot of memes of like, I blame Ellen for this. And now I know it's because it's all centered around. I will say, to be fair, if this was published in 2016, it was probably written in 2014, 2015. And Ellen was top of culture for that. So yeah, I think, and this is a theory that I did see floated on TikTok that I believe that calling Hoover created this narrative structure where all the flashbacks are letters addressed to Ellen because the teenage version of Lily loves Ellen. And then also her and this guy say, just keep swimming to each other like a law. Oh, I think that it is insane number one. It's insane. But I think that she was trying to get on Ellen by creating this narrative thing where it's like, okay, my book's going to pop up. And then Ellen will find out that she's a big part of the book. And then I'm going to be on Ellen, which again, like you said, 2016, there's no bigger couch to sit on than Ellen's. Did she go on Ellen? Because I'm like, no, it didn't. That's crazy because it didn't take much in 2016. If you wanted to get on Ellen, all you had to do was like, let's think Nicki Minaj or like, where cool shoes, like it didn't take much, I feel like steam punk florist could get on Ellen. And then my third question is, okay, what do you, can you get specifically of like, what was bad about the book? I really do not like her writing style. I found the writing style to be very corny, I think. And we'll get into this with the discourse. I think the story is fundamentally fucked up. The way it handles domestic violence is very weird to me. The line it ends with us is basically like lily spoilers for it ends with us, gets pregnant with her abuser's baby. And then she decides like, okay, I'm going to end the cycle of abuse. But then in the sequel, because I did actually read the sequel, even though I did not like the original book because I do these things to myself, she's like co-parenting the baby with him. Oh, it's like, no, this isn't right. This guy needs to like go to prison. Yeah. This is not, so it's very weird. And at the time, the book was marketed as a love story with a twist, but the twist is domestic violence. Like the guy that you think that she's going to be in love with is, yeah. And then, yeah, I would just say the writing style, the characterizations, it just, none of it hit for me, but this book was super duper popular on book talk. Yeah. And also, things being good are not, does it not mean that it's not popular, you know? Exactly. I'll read a bad book that's popular all day long. I don't think that like everything needs to be a highbrow. This just, Colleen Hoover did not hit for me, I will say. I think she kind of glamorized the domestic violence in ways that I didn't love, but this book is an early example of a book that like got really popular specifically because of book talk and because people were really loving it on book talk. So it's an early, or the book talk community predating tiktok. Um, I think, I think they did pick it up. I guess like is tiktok going in 2016? Probably not, but I know, but Colleen Hoover, her popularity skyrocketed when people on book talk started talking about her. So Justin Belldoni, the doctor who played Raphael and Jane the Virgin, team Raphael. He acquired the rights to the book from Colleen Hoover in 2019. So I think that maybe the pathway is that book comes out in 2016. It's doing fine, tiktok starts popping off, book talks start popping off. The book starts popping off on book talk. And Justin Belldoni pretty quickly gets the rights. I feel like he probably got the rights before I popped off on book talk. Or like pretty simultaneous. Like I think he was writing on the wall and was like, I'm going to scoop this up because Colleen Hoover in general is like a popular, she's a popular but controversial book talk figure in general. And this is her like biggest book. So he gets the rights, his production company gets the rights, he's going to direct and star as ryle concade, the abusive man. And then Blake Lively gets attached to play Miss Lily Blossom Bloom. So we all hear about this movie. I actually auditioned to play a waiter in this movie, did not get it, but Colleen was literally like, here's your soup. It didn't happen for me, but maybe it's a good thing because it seems like the set was stressful. Yeah, but the drama with the movie starts with the press tour. So this is like a very highly anticipated release in general because of the popularity of the book, because of the star power behind it, the Blake Lively of it all, the Justin Belldoni, people are excited for this movie to come out. And fans start to notice that Justin Belldoni appears to be doing all of his press kind of separately from the cast, like he's appearing at different events. And then at the New York premiere, theories really start rolling when everyone notices that like, it's Justin Belldoni is like taking pictures with his wife and the rest of the cast is taking pictures together. But nobody is talking to or interacting with Justin Belldoni at all in any of this stuff. So that brings us to narrative phase one, what did Justin Belldoni do? And starts being like, well, clearly something's up. Why is everyone in the cast not talking to him? He must have done something. And this really pops up after a video of Jenny Slate, who plays Royal King Cade's sister, who becomes like Lily's best friend. She's asked on the red carpet, like, what was it like to work with Justin Belldoni? And she avoids the question. She basically says like, it's so crazy to have two jobs directing and acting. That's crazy. I loved the movie. Yeah, she doesn't really answer it, yeah. And people start really speculating at this point. They're like, what did this guy do that no one's talking to him? They also noticed that while he is following everyone in the cast and Colleen Hoover, none of the castor Colleen Hoover are following him and they were following him in the past. So a mass unfollowing of Justin Belldoni also appears to have taken place. So people also start pretty quickly comparing this to the "Don't Worry" darling drama, which was around the movie "Don't Worry" darling. And that like Olivia Wilde was kind of, she was like the director villain of that story. So people are very quickly being like, "Oh, Justin Belldoni must have done something. Justin Belldoni, what did he do?" Simultaneously with the film's release, negative stories start to come out about Justin in page six. So someone leaks to page six that Justin Belldoni made Blake Lively feel uncomfortable about her postpartum body. It will later be revealed that the full story about this is that he asked someone on set to ask Blake her weight because he has a lower back injury and needed to train for a scene where he picked her up. So take that. Yeah. She tried to say that it was fat, Shami. Yeah. I feel like that's like the most sensitive thing you can do. Yeah, it seems like a real situation, but where we are in the narrative phase one is all we know is that he made her feel uncomfortable about her body. Later it will come out that the actual circumstances. There are also rumors that he lingered too long in a kiss and Blake didn't like it, which is also interesting when you find out, "Okay, actually there was an intimacy coordinator on set." And Blake was like part of that. So the narrative that is coming out, clearly someone is leaking negative stuff about Justin Belldoni to page six. In this article, it also says that he was extremely difficult on set with one person saying it's not just Blake added the industry source, none of the cast enjoyed working with Justin, and they certainly didn't talk to him at the premiere. So that's where we are. But now we enter narrative phase two, which I'm calling, "Wait, maybe it's Blake who sucks." Okay. So increased scrutiny on the press tour leads people to watch more of these press tour interviews, right? And people start realizing that Belldoni and lively have very different demeanors when they are promoting this film. And Belldoni is very strictly on message about this being a movie about domestic violence. He's very respectful of the subject matter. He speaks very highly of Blake. He is on message. And that message is, "This is a movie about domestic violence and how that affects a person." A message that I really like that he said, not just about the domestic violence, but he really wanted to show the charisma of an abuser. And show that there is love there and all that stuff. It's obviously not enough and you shouldn't accept it. But just like those nuances that he feels is left out of a domestic abuse story. So that was something that he talked about that I really like. Yeah. And he also had another good interview where he's like, "What do you want men to take away from this film?" And he was like, "I want that men to stop asking why did she stay?" So he seems very on message to what this film is about. Meanwhile, Blake Lively is like using it to promote her new hair care line that's coming out. She, when the domestic violence gets referenced, she really pushes it to the side if she talks about it at all. And in a now infamous promo, she tells women, "It ends with us is in theaters now, so grab your friends, wear your florals, and head out to see it." And it's just promoting it in this way that is very like it's a rom-com. And like it's going to be like a fun girls' day out and it is not. It's an intense movie about a lot of abuse. People are also sort of finding it odd the way like Ryan Reynolds shows up to the premiere and is with Hugh Jackman and they're he's doing his whole shtick that they do. And she's got Britney Spears' dress on and she did a bunch of promotional tie-ins with the film. Like she did, "It ends with us" themed cocktails using her alcohol brand, Betty Buzz, and Ryan Reynolds, aviation American Gin. So like they have like branded cocktails that are like, "Rile on rye" and it's like that's a domestic abuser. Like they're like premiere parties and stuff, they have themed cocktails, yeah. Yeah. And also a clip comes out where Blake is doing an interview with the other male actor, the one who plays Atlas Corrigan. And she basically gets asked by the interviewer, "Hey, you know, this film deals with some pretty intense subject matter. Some people might really respond to the film." And they're really saying like, "What would you say to a victim of domestic violence who wants to talk to you about the film? How should they go about approaching you about that subject matter?" And she's super dismissive of the question and she's like, "What should I just share my location with them? Maybe they can hop in my car and come back to my house with me?" Like she just doesn't engage with the question really at all and behaves in a very shitty manner. So people start seeing this and a new narrative starts to form. This new narrative, wait, what if Blake lively sucks? Because it starts to come out that like Justin Baldoni got the rights to this film and he had a very specific vision for the film where it was actually centered around the DV. Blake had a different vision more in line with Colleen Hoover's original love story with a twist vibe from 2016. And it seems like she wanted to use this movie to kind of launch herself into the rom-com space, which isn't what the movie is. She also reportedly commissioned her own cut of the film and we actually don't know which of the two cuts is what we're seeing in theaters right now. It comes out in an interview that Ryan Reynolds wrote. One of the scenes, the scene where her character has a meet cute with Justin Baldoni, so people start being like, "Okay, why is Ryan Reynolds so involved in this?" She also chose all the music and costume being for the movie, which some people have said were jarring and out of place. I guess there's a scene where it zooms in on her red bottoms and it's like, "Why does a florist have red bottoms here?" What's going on? She sourced a lot of the items from her personal closet, which is designer luxury items that a florist in Boston would never own. Yeah, it's very strange and I will say that the character, as far as what I remember from the book, she's not like a fashion girlie. Well, I have friends, my really good friend Lydia is a really talented florist and when she's working her flower job, she's wearing all black. She has a tool belt. She has... And a little card time in her steam punk. Well, yeah, I think in the store or whatever, but it's a very manual, physical job. You know, you're not really wearing designer. You're not really wearing red bottoms. It's not a... You're on your feel a lot. It just doesn't make sense. The outfits themselves are also bizarre. It's all strange. And people have said that she really pushed for a lot of inclusion of pop music moments that Justin Bell Joni didn't want and people who have seen the movie said felt out of place. I haven't actually seen the movie, so I can't say one way or another if this soundtrack hits or not. But people start realizing, okay, this is actually weird. This press tour is really weird. People start having a lot of problems with the way the press tour is going, the way the movie is being advertised. One more thing about the press tour is that a lot of the press also was done by Ryan Reynolds. And there's a super cringy thing where they interview the guy who plays Atlas, I forgot his name, Brandon, I think. Brandon Sclanar, Sclanar. So basically, the whole thing is Ryan gets his mom to interview the promo for it is like a bit where Ryan is basically trying to get his mom to fuck Brandon Sclanar. So it's completely inappropriate. It could be seen as a funny quirky thing if it was a rom-com, but it's just not, I don't know, like you could definitely get like a panel of women who survived domestic violence. And the whole "where your florals" thing too, kind of they wanted it to be like Barb and Hymer with Deadpool and Wolverine and also having this at the same time. And this could be the girly movie while Deadpool and Wolverine was the boy movie, quote, quote. So there's a lot of very misguided stuff that I feel like Ryan Reynolds took part in and took the ways and last, last, last thing is that the scene that Ryan Reynolds wrote allegedly was during the strike, which is, oh, I did not hear that. Yeah, it was written during the strike and they had workshops, like they workshoped it where they had people read and do whatever and like got feedback. So it's like, during the strike, it's not only like writers aren't allowed to write, also like you're definitely not allowed to get a workshop and also you're like taking things from union writers and also like costuming is a union job. So they've also been thrown under the bus for union busting. That is a very interesting point. I did not know that about the strike. So basically, at this point Blake Lively quickly posts some Instagram stories about domestic violence and like the national domestic violence hotline. Meanwhile, Justin Bell Doney has had that as like his link in bio this entire time. The narrative is shifting now into phase three, which I call, okay, fuck Blake Lively. So now people are like not into Blake Lively, very much feeling pro Justin Bell Doney. And this is where the narrative really starts to just turn on her as a person because before it was like the entire press tour of this is fucked up. And the way like there was a lot of smoke for Colleen Hoover as well. And now people are like, wait, Blake Lively actually sucks. So it is in this environment that Norwegian journalist, Kirstie Flaw. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that properly, my best to Kirstie Flaw posts a clip of an interview. She did with Lively and Parker Posey in 2016 for their film, Cafe Society, directed by Oli Allen, directed by Woody Allen, that she says made her want to like quit interviewing people altogether. This clip, I'm not going to play it here, but it's pretty viral. You can find it. But in the clip, basically it starts out with the interviewer congratulating Blake on, she says, oh, congratulations on your little bump, Blake had just announced her pregnancy. It's not a secret pregnancy, it's not like, it's not an unknown pregnancy. She is publicly pregnant for, I think maybe the third or fourth time. And Blake responds, well, congrats on your little bump, which is very weird. And also the interviewer later revealed that she's actually like infertile, like she can't have children. So that really hurt. And also it was just like weird, because she was just like, oh, can I not congratulate you on like a known pregnancy, like I'm just saying, saying congrats on your pregnancy that's like out, out there. So the interviewer continues to go on, she asks Blake Lively about the costumes in the film and Blake pulls a, I wonder if a man would ever get those questions. And it's like, well, yeah, if it's about the costumes in the film, like, like I bet Ryan Reynolds gets asked about the Deadpool costume. Yeah. Like it's not, here's what I'll say is that I think what all of this has revealed to me is that Blake Lively is one of those pretty rich, usually white women who misunderstands what feminism is, and they like get the contours of the debate, but they don't actually understand what it is. So she's like, would you ever ask a man that? And it's like, well, yeah, because we're talking about the costumes of your film. We're not saying you're on the red carpet and all the men are being asked about their process and the women are only asked about what they're wearing. That's what that conversation was about, not about you're being interviewed about a film and this person asked you about the costume. Exactly. It's like, when you're so rich, and like, it's not to say that because you're rich or white, you don't experience misogyny. But it's like, it's so deeply misguided and you take every little uncomfortable question as misogynist. It's like you're completely misunderstanding the point. Yeah, it's that it's that thing that honestly, Blake's good friend Taylor Swift has done in the past where it's like misogyny is someone being mean to me or someone asking me a question that I don't like. And again, it's like, she thinks fat shaming is him asking someone to ask her her weight so that he can make sure he can lift her because of a lower back injury. That's not him saying like you're fat. Yeah, she thinks that shaming exactly like she thinks misogyny is asking her about clothes and fat shaming is asking her about her weight. When an example of fat shaming would be like, if she's eating a muffin and he's like, you better put that down. I have to pick you up earlier, like, yeah, that'd be fat shaming. If she tries to talk about her acting or the process and she and the interviewer just keeps going, but how are the closer you look so that would be, you know, but exactly misguided, and misintentioned, displaced anger, you know, on people, and it's like also, there's just the whole group of people who like, if they know they can get away with being shitty to people, they'll do it. And that's very much the vibe of this interview clip. And honestly, it's disappointing to see how Parker Posey acts in that interview too, because it's both of them, basically they start just ignoring the interviewer, they're only talking to each other, they won't look at her and they only, the only times they really address her are to like, make fun of her questions. Yeah. And it just gives people a very, again, to go back to the girl, Sophia LeCort, just this mean girl energy that I think really triggers people. I saw one creator on TikTok talking about it in this way of like, it's this very specific way that women will be mean, where you can't even really describe it. Like you go home and just be like, they were being really mean to me at school. They were not talking to me or looking at me when they talked and they were just like giggling a bunch and people can be like, oh, maybe you misinterpreted it. But then you see it and you're like, no, they're being really nasty to this woman. I know I remember her face. Yeah, I definitely, you know, I was, I had incidents like that at my college reunion. And again, like when I was younger, I'm like, it would take me like some time to be like, were they being mean? But now I recognize it. And I'm like, no, we're not doing this. Like, you're not going to make a comment about my outfit or you're not going to whatever, you know? Yeah, I have one from high school that sticks in my head so clearly of this girl being like, hey, Elise, we were all just talking and we were wondering like, how do you get your hair like that? I was wearing my hair. I was like, I had the emo hair and it was also like curl. I was wearing it curly at the time. I don't think it looked good, but it was also during a time where like pin straight hair was very much the vibe and she said it. She said it in such a bitchy way. And like all of her friends were standing behind her and they were all like, but if you describe it, this girl is just asking me how I do my hair. Yeah, there's that plausible deniability. Yeah, the energy of it was so clear to me that it was her being like, we've all been talking about how your hair looks like shit, but I described what had been said. She was complimenting me actually. So that's the vibe of this clip. Yes. And I totally get that also like, thank you for the cultural context of like in Miami, when I was in high school, everyone would have their bang straight and the rest of the hair curling. They were just straight in their banks and then have the rest of the hair curly. Oh, that wasn't like a thing for me at all. Yeah. I will say that if you wanted to wear your hair curly in Northern Virginia in 2005, it had to be that the crunchiest, yes, wet curls that you feel like you could break the hair into that was socially acceptable. I was not doing that. I was trying to do like a manic pixie dream girl. My hair is, I think it did look bad, but she was a bitch for saying that. No, she was a bitch. No, no. She was a bitch. That's it. I get it. I get it. I'm really can't picture this hair, but I get no, she was. She was on the cheerleading team and she was in her uniform and her name was Michelle. So she was giving, she was giving enormous bitch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's Michelle. Anyway, back to Blake, the Michelle of the Hollywood. Yeah, exactly. Back to the, yeah, to this Michelle. So now we read, we reached a mini, I would say this is a mini narrative, narrative phase four. Oh, okay. Before we get to narrative phase four, actually. So all of this opens the floodgates. Now tons of clips are being dropped of Blake being rude in interviews, being rude to fans on the red carpet. One comes out where a fan tries to give her a friendship bracelet because she's best friends with Taylor Swift. And so I guess the fan thinks Blake Lively also wants a friendship bracelet and Blake's like, I'll wear it later. Thanks. Like all these. That's so like just throw it away later. Just throw it away later. I am also like, I mean, Blake Lively is obviously not going to put on the friendship bracelet. You gave her on the red carpet with her outfit, but you got to play it a little nicer. Yeah. That's Blake. Exactly. But she's not. She's not very good at that. Sorry. People also start dredging up old gossip girl rumors that she was a nightmare on the set of that show. A clip comes out of hilariously enough army hammer basically being like Blake Lively got me fired off the set of gossip girl, which I am kind of like, I mean, broken clock, but also. Yeah. I'm like that. I don't feel like that's the worst thing she's ever done. It's difficult to say that she was wrong for getting army hammers roll reduced on gossip girl. But this is the nature of like, just everything is being dug up now and every clip that she's ever done. Because I even saw some clips come through my take dog where it's like, wow, she's being so rude. And I felt like it was actually just a normal interview and she seemed fine. But it's like she's under the microscope in a major way because of the press tour because of her being rude on the press tour. And now because of this interview where it is like really hard to watch the interview with the Norwegian journalist. But now we get into this mini narrative phase four, which is, but maybe fuck Justin too. So the narrative is pretty squarely in Justin Baljani's court at this point. But then it comes out that he has hired crisis PR manager at Melissa Nathan of the agency group, which is the same crisis PR manager who represented Johnny Depp during the Amber Heard trial. So then some people are like, it's kind of gross for him to hire the PR crisis manager who absolved a domestic abuser for your film about domestic abuse. But I will still say that the narrative still remains pretty squarely anti-black. It just puts like a ding against Justin Baljani when people realize that he has hired this particular crisis PR manager. But I hear that him having Melissa Nathan and Kirstie Flaw of it all is related of like they dug that up, Melissa Nathan dug that up to, you know what I mean, as a pro Justin thing. I don't know. My feeling about the Melissa Nathan of it all is, I feel like it's the same as hiring a lawyer, like you kind of just want the best and these people will work for anybody. Do I think that maybe it's not the best narrative lead to hire Johnny Depp's PR crisis manager? Maybe not. But at the end of the day, I think that Justin Baljani saw the writing on the wall. He saw what Blake Lively was trying to do. He saw where the narrative was going. He saw that she was leaking this shit to page six about him fat shaming her and lingering in a kiss. And he saw people being like, Oh, clearly everyone hates Justin. And I think that he was smart enough to be like, I'm not going to go down like that. And he hired this lady and I think it is impossible to extract the PR teams of both people from all the stuff that has come out from both people. I think Blake's PR team was going hard at the beginning to try to make the narrative against him. And then I think he said, Well, look who I have. I'm hiring this lady and we're going to see what goes down. And I think he hired one hell of a crisis PR manager for fucking sure. Yeah, it's also important to note that like Justin Baljani's whole image from his Jane the Virgin fame, like he has a lot of stuff about breaking down toxic masculinity. Whether you think it's corny or not, like that's his brand. His brand is anti-domistic violence, talking to men about abuse, all of that stuff. He has a podcast. He has round tables where he talks to men about consent and all this stuff. Like he also backs a lot of like he's trying to get into the space of doing like positive stuff. We have a friend and Claire Eub who wrote a screenplay called Empire Waste which is coming out in the end of September about like a fat girl who like gains confidence through making clothes. And Justin Baljani was an exec producer of it like he's backing things that empower women empower people, so I could see it's not like he's just some regular guy like he put and again whether Colleen Hoover is bad or not or whatever like the fact that he's an actor trying to do like a story about domestic violence like not a lot of actors are doing that. So like I could see the skin is in the game for him and you know the fact that he was on message and stuff. It's not just about this thing it's like his whole fucking brand is that he's a good person and I could see one person harming the brand or one incident harming the brand would be dire for him so. Yeah I think Blake Lively miscalculated in a massive way and kind of played with the wrong one because actually going back to her not really understanding feminist issues, the discourse that is being had I think that she just thought well he's the man and I'm the woman and I can spend this and I can do whatever and it's like well actually Justin Baljani is actually really educated about these issues and he actually like understands the conversation as it stands today in 2024 and you don't and you like are actually not up to date on any I think you she literally has this view of like feminism is I'm a woman and so everyone should like everything that I'm doing and I think that she also was like well he can't compete with the star power of me and my star husband and we're going to push him out of his own movie and we're going to make him look bad and he's not going to be able to do anything about it but actually she best with someone who again is educated about these issues saw the writing on the wall and was like absolutely fucking not I'm not going to let you do this to me and I think that's like a conversation that is had all the time with like even female Republican politicians or even whatever it's just like or even black politicians like how the right thought that everyone was going to get a behind his name Walker like the Republican the one in Georgia yeah or just like a player yeah the football player guy or Nikki Haley of like well she's a woman and it's like actually it doesn't matter if the you know if the person's a woman or is black or is gay or anything if they don't actually take steps to back it up like it doesn't matter that Nikki Haley is a woman if she doesn't believe in abortion she's not feminist yeah exactly and I think that Blake Lively just like very much misunderstood this and honestly it's so funny to me because it is one of those things where it's like if she had just played nice on this press tour and not done this weird unfollowing of him post for the fucking pictures and just kept it cute I don't think any of this intense scrutiny would have come her way maybe the stuff about how the movie was being marketed would have still happened but this like complete dudging up of her past and past interviews like she should have just kept it cute yeah is on the press tour and like played nice because people notice this type of shit now but I also feel like her and Ryan Reynolds kind of straddle this like old and new school of celebrity that I think they thought just their A-list status and their star power and their own PR firms would be enough and it's like no TikTok can get the scent of something yeah and you don't control the narrative once that happens like your PR you don't so that brings us to narrative phase five what I'm calling the slow fade so Lively and Eldonie have said nothing publicly about what has been going on as of this weekend Blake just had a giant birthday party at Taylor Swift's mansion in Rhode Island so she seems to be just trying to slow fade the entire thing cast member Brandon Sklinar who we talked about who played atlas posted it an IG post five days ago that read hey everyone I want to take a minute to address all this stuff swirling online Colleen and the women of this cast stand for hope perseverance and for women choosing a better lives for themselves vilifying the women who put so much of their heart and soul into making this film because they believe so strongly in its message seems counterproductive and detracts from what this film is about it is in fact the opposite of the point what may or may not have happened behind the scenes does not and hopefully should not detract from what our intentions were in making this film it's been disheartening to see the amount of negativity being projected online someone very close to me has been struggling with the relationship that has mirrored lilies closely I feel a responsibility to bring this to life and to help spread that message further prior to my involvement in this film she had not heard of the book it was only then that she read it she credits Colleen's book and subsequently this film with saving her life trust me when I tell you there isn't a single person involved in the making of this film that was not aware of the responsibility we had in making it a responsibility to all the women who have experienced generational trauma domestic abuse or struggle with looking in the mirror and loving who they see this movie is a harsh reality check for the men who need to get their shit together and take responsibility for themselves and their actions this film is meant to inspire it's meant to validate and recognize it's meant to instill hope it's meant to build courage and help people feel less alone ultimately it's meant to spread love and awareness it's not meant to once again make the women the quote bad guy let's move beyond that together all I ask is that before you spread hate on the internet ask yourself who is helping ask yourself if your opinions are based in any fact or if you simply want to be part of something let's be part of something better together part of a new story being written for women and all people everywhere lead with love and please be kind I roll yeah that's a whole lot of nothing to me because it's like okay people aren't just hating on ceremoniously on the quote women of the film people have valid criticisms of how this movie was marketed by Colleen Hoover and Blake Lively and also again you guys should have all kept it cute at the premiere and acted nice and not made it so obvious to everyone that there was drama behind the scenes and none of this would have fucking happened why did you all mass unfollow the director yeah it's giving that Blake wanted to like get somebody on her side and get someone on her back and this guy Brandon is like no one's ever heard of him and he's gonna do he's gonna dance for the king and queen which is yeah Ryan and Blake and the whole fucking letter is super condescending and stupid like it's like as if anybody commenting on this doesn't care about domestic violence or doesn't understand the significance and the whole like Colleen Hoover saved my friend's life it's like shut up like I mean whatever I'm sure but I'm also like God like and also for it to be five days ago like it was just like when it was over yeah it was all over and then now you got to like just again like I know somebody wanted to get invited to Taylor Swift's mansion that's whoa someone wanted an invite to Rhode Island but it is and again it comes down to this like sort of infuriating through line of all this stuff with me is that people just think that feminism is never saying anything bad about a woman and people had genuine critiques about the way this film was being marketed given the subject matter and people have genuine critiques of the source material and Colleen Hoover's writing in general and how domestic violence is portrayed so like it's great that it helped your friend and that's a valid we don't know yeah who it is yeah like I mean yeah like that's that's lovely but the people who are making these critiques are women too like women are allowed to have inter-woman dialogue about stuff like this and for you to come through and just be like wow villainizing a woman yet again it's like no actually this very much started with people being like clearly Justin Baldoni fucked up and then people looked into it and were like actually no like that's not where this was going but to round it all out it ends with us grossed over a hundred million dollars in its first 11 days at the domestic box office that's really good Baldoni has said he will not direct the sequel and hinted that Blake might take over that part of it that's where the drama stands as of now it's kind of crazy to me to think that they would star in the sequel together I know I know is a third one I did not engage with that because the second one was like so so bad that I was like okay I can't keep doing this but yeah it is strange to me that I'm like it made enough money for them to make the sequel and it feels like they're leaving money on the table to not make the sequel but it's also crazy to imagine that Justin Baldoni is gonna be in the sequel with Blake Lively because that is basically what the second one is about is that she's trying to date this other guy while co-parenting with her former abuser who acts like he's okay now but clearly is a fucked up person like I just don't know how they do that yeah I mean Blake probably is very pissed but it would be like it would make a lot of money and press if they could somehow get their shit together to this is basically like a big band breakup and it's like if they could get together and like do another album and another tour like it would be good but who knows it'll it'll certainly make a lot of money so if that's what their goal is they've got it all right it's time to move on to Politi TikTok we both brought a Politi TikTok today yeah so my Politi TikTok is also a cursed content it is the video of JD Vance trying to order donuts at a donut shop in Georgia have you seen the video I've seen like sub you know I try not to unmute JD Vance videos but I have I'm aware of the donut video let's watch it this is it from Reddit in full okay yeah she doesn't want to be on field guys to just cut her out of anything okay what we're going to do she doesn't okay yeah we'll just uh you know random sort of stuff here how are you working on it? how do you hear it from the beginning of June last? okay I think so I think so uh I'm almost to you okay good probably no things to do every day yeah I want to be a lot of glazed here some scribble stuff so at least in an old whatever it says yeah if you don't want to be on film you're okay so this was originally a C-SPAN video that got posted to Reddit which we just watched the Reddit I mean there's so much about it that is so cringy number one the woman immediately being like I don't want to be filmed it's important not that woman was black so yeah yeah that woman did not want to be on JD Vance's I think that woman knew exactly who the fuck he was and who was coming to town and was like no because I mean nothing is funnier than him saying I'm JD Vance I'm running for vice president and she goes okay I think that woman knew exactly who the fuck he was and was like I want no part of this and I'm not gonna play ball with you and then he doesn't even he doesn't even order specific donuts like it's so bizarre it's like I guess some sprinkle stuff you got some glazed here just whatever in his defense which I'm not even whatever but it's like I love going to a place and be like what's the most popular or what do people like or what do you like he doesn't ask that he's like whatever makes sense I guess some glazed some sprinkles and it's like Jesus Christ sir you can't even like just no raise just no no raise no raise at all and that's the thing is it's like it seemed very clear that they just wanted to be seen going into like a mom and pop shop and put no thought into like there is that very famous early Veep episode where they spend like the entire episode figuring out what flavor of ice cream she's gonna wear when she goes to the ice cream store and I'm like you needed a little bit of that like you should be like do you have Boston cream I love Boston cream I'm a big glazed guy my kids love sprinkles like you should have something yeah or like you're in Georgia so like well to contrast this to the the Tim walls Runza thing of like he went to which I had never heard of a Runza until the Tim walls thing because I have no knowledge of the Midwest but it's like he went to this he went to the specialty store that only exists in Nebraska and he got this special Nebraska food so if you're gonna go you're gonna be like oh my god what is the Georgia specialty or what's the specialty of this town oh what you know what I mean just like no thought and it's just like nobody here wants to talk to you like you got I'm sure there's some fucking Republican donut shop you can go to where they're gonna at least look happy to see you like exactly did you go in here this woman doesn't even want to be filmed why are you filming when everyone doesn't even want to film yeah call ahead get yeah there's some racist Republican donut shop there has to be and you would have to see JD Vance in there there's a picture with you put it on their wall they're fucking flipping out yeah but it seems like they just picked any random donut top walked in he had not considered what type of donut he likes they didn't call ahead to see if anyone working there would have any interest in this and the result is this very cringy video now Milly you have a politic talk and I would love to hear it as well yes so the next thing is thanks to at Nikki MCR Nikki McCain Ramirez a politics writer for the Rolling Stone and this is all about Trump's meltdown during Kamala Harris's DNC speech the Democratic National Convention which was taking place last week it went for multiple days and during her big speech at the end to like kind of round off the convention Trump was live truthing which is not tweeting he was on truth social live truthing during her speech and ended up posting 47 times 47 times 47 times 47 truths so as come my hair is on stage giving this speech about what she plans to do what she wants to do what you know other stuff he's truthing this is one truth is she talking about me the answer is yes she clearly says Donald Trump multiple times like what are you talking about um at the beginning of the speech she talks about like her background Trump goes a lot of talk about childhood we got to get to the border inflation and crime and it's like okay sir the the speech is 35 minutes i'm sure she's gonna get to it yeah something weirdo and also the purpose of this speech is to introduce herself as the candidate candidate yeah he has an inspiring backstory your backstory is not inspiring to anyone so my grandfather was at a KKK rally in 1937 yeah that's not yeah my father was fine for not renting to black people and then i became rich and i've gone bankrupt a bunch of times yeah so of course he's gonna talk about a border inflation and crime then he says walls was an assistant coach not a coach and to that i say that's still a coach it is so funny how desperate they are to say anything bad about ten walls and like all of it reads us so weird it's weird it's weird then too many thank yous because at the beginning of the speech the the the crowd was so boisterous and so that Kamala couldn't even get a word in yeah she kept being like thank you thank you thank you guys thank you trump was like too many thank yous too rapidly said what's going on with her and then finally my favorite is that Kamala caused the attack of october 7 which is fucking insane that's what i've never heard i've never heard that either he then um is so mad that he calls into fox news and he's so pissed that as he's talking he's like accidentally pushing buttons so let's hear the ten second clip of him on fox news you think that she's gonna give a tax increase of four to five times what people and companies are paying right now that kind accidentally pressing buttons is how you know a boomer is raging into their phone like he can't he's he's raging he's pissed he's reading fox news cut him off because fox news have to end that that portion of the night to get into their show gut filled so he goes into Newsmax he calls Newsmax and says hey you know well we should all go to Venezuela and see how socialism works out there like completely insane and then calls back to fox and interrupts gut filled hard-hitting satirical comedy it is very funny for him to call into gut field i feel like that's not because that's they're like fake daily show that's not funny yeah always hiring and any time you pipe in like comedy job NYC it's like you could work for gut field and i'm like yeah i guess i could yeah no thank you but uh so yeah trump is not he's not feeling good about his chances and he's not feeling good about his chances apparently he's been playing a lot of golf but that's our politic talk and now is it time grass hole of the week so today's grass hole it's a complicated story it's a story about someone who was a grass hole and then a story about grass heroes and then a story about redemption that's beautiful and for anyone for anyone tuning in for the first time a grass hole is the person that we declare needs to log off the most whereas a grass hero is someone who has used the internet perfectly yeah and must be celebrated yes so it all starts with a mixed martial arts fighter by the name of ronda rousing i know of her we we know of her she's pretty famous the event a little event that took place at sandy hook elementary school i'm aware of the event as well well if you don't know if you're not aware there was a tragic mass shooting on december 14th 2012 at sandy hook elementary it was a school in newton kennetiquette which report which left 20 children and six staff members dead all right so that was december 14th 2012 in january 2013 ronda rousing reposted a controversial video from the youtube channel think outside the tv which highlighted a conspiracy theory about the shooting specifically the video questions the official narrative of that day of newton kennetket right it's it's it's just saying that like this is not true like the government it's a government conspiracy to scare us the false flag shit like kind of like what Alex jones was saying and stuff exactly what it didn't actually happen and so one specific instance of that is you know it was uh an alarming recrimination against the victim of the tragedy on the video like one of the things the video did was poke holes in dave rosen's story rosen was a 69 year old retired psychologist who found six little children and a bus driver at the end of the driveway of his home in newton kennetiquette he lived like near the school they said to him we can't go back to school uh one one little boy told rosen our teacher is dead rosen then brought the children inside and gave them food and juice and toys he called their parents and sat with the children and listened to their shocked accounts of what had happened just down the street inside sandy hucka lamentry close enough that rosen heard the gunshot from his house so rosen after did press about the incident in the hours and days that followed ro you know again he did a lot of interviews and he said quote i wanted to speak about the bravery of the children and it kind of helped me work through this he told salan he said i guess i kind of opened myself up to what happened after and what happened after was that he was getting a lot of prank calls a lot of hang up calls uh he's getting like emails non-direct threats and accusations that he's lying that he was a crisis actor how much he's being paid people posted photos of his home outside online there have been phone new phony google plus hello 2013 google plus and youtube accounts created in his name messages on white supremacist message boards ridiculing quote the emotional jewish guy and dozens of blog posts and videos exposing him as a fraud one email purporting to be a business inquiry taunted how are all those little students doing you know the ones that showed up at your house after the quote shooting what's the going rate for getting involved in a government sponsored hoax anyways so that's the result of the video that ronda ralsy shared that video had nearly nine million youtube views like less than a week later after it was posted uh in the post so ronda retweets this video shares it and writes quote extremely interesting and a must watch video uh that's very much how like elon musk will retweet like like white supremacist stuff and like interesting to consider and it's like oh is it yes so it's important to note that as of today in 2024 the video has since been taken down and that account no longer exists probably because they were sharing sandyhood conspiracy videos a lot of that shit has been demonetized and off right but clearly the post was met with overwhelming anger and criticism from the general public in an attempt to douse the flames ralsy deleted the video and stated in a follow-up post that at blood stain lane thanks i just figure asking questions and doing research is more patriotic than blindly accepting what you're told so funny to me to be like i don't blindly accept what i'm told i believe everything that i saw in a single youtube video like what yeah like that is blindly accepting the most random shit in the world but people are like no you shouldn't listen to what news sources tell you or what multiple interviews and multiple different people and yes the government tell you happen it's actually smarter to believe a random youtube video that you saw this is why she's grass hole she was grass hole because she was posting through it she doubled down again very grass hole behavior grass hole-ish behavior a few days later after much much much much much much like of her getting dragged she posted uh yeah she posted an apology that a quote apology like so basically our manager is like listen she didn't mean any disrespect with tanny hook and then you know she posted an apology she's like sorry to anyone who i offended that wasn't my intention that's what she posted and the manager said she didn't mean any disrespect social media outlets and message boards lit up after that tweets with some fans decrying rousie's text and others suggesting she was simply trying to stir up controversy several hours later rousie removed the like remove that apology in general okay so that's what happened in 2013 so just to recap tanny hook happens she retweeted this conspiracy theory video that was extremely dangerous it caused a lot of people to get harassed caused people to like have real serious doubts about this tragedy then when people like dragged her for it she was like look i'm just like i just like want to get to the facts and research or whatever she gets dragged again she posts like a really shitty apology her manager tries to whatever and then she just deletes it right that happened in 2013 a lot's happened since 2013 right ronda went on to be a top fighter in the ufc she went on to be a wrestler in the wwe she got married and had a child on her own so a lot of things has happened you know everything has happened since 2013 and many things happened since really everything uh i know jesus christ so the thing about the internet is that it lasts forever though and people don't forget so on august 20th of this year ronda rousie took to reddit to promote a kickstarter for her graphic novel and the way that she promoted it was by doing an ask me anything and ask me anything is a thing that people will do on reddit specifically and it typically lasts a few hours and it's basically like this way of like hey ronda rousie will you know or like x person think josh we didn't like a bunch of people especially in like the nerdier spaces will get on it and be like you can ask me anything you want and i'll answer for the next two three hours and it's a good way to promote like you know like again get that authenticity that connection and promote your project and stuff again ronda's promoting a kickstarter for a graphic novel and she didn't ask me anything and well the her ask me anything when exactly is how he thought it was what ended up happening was a bunch of questions like the following og jimmy p says in your graphic novel expecting unexpected when we see something unexpected like you apologizing or acknowledging the families of the victims of the sandy hook massacre or 20 children were rousiously gunned down talked about expecting the unexpected can't wait to read the book somebody else said i heard rumors that wwe had pitch an angle to repackage you as a pirate character the descendant of a well-known swashbuckler supposedly you shot this down did you deny it because your gimmick was going to be the sandy hook oh my god have you ever considering apologizing to the sandy hook parents it's a lot of that stuff did you plan on firing your team for this pr to uh pr team for this dumpster fire or will you see this as a sign that you have a lot of personal growth to do do you can see that the sandy hook tragedy actually occurred any remorse or grief or your tweet may have caused and then my favorite is at killer is jed do you think someone that takes punches to the head for a living should be making public statements about mass shootings of children that was one of my favorites that's that's a great question killer is jed that's a great question it got so bad that she wrapped the AMA early i just want to acknowledge the grass murals have read it you know cyberbullying is wrong but sometimes you can do it for something right yeah this was a moment where you know you did the right thing yeah uh because the sandy hook is actually one of the most vile and fucked up conspiracy theories that you can engage in and it's like the exact shit i mean Alex Jones is like in mega debt now because he has to pay the sandy hook families gazillions of dollars and like it really is just some of the worst shit that the internet has ever produced so it's an example of something where like i don't care how long ago it was you do have to fully account for why the fuck you would share a video saying the sandy hook didn't actually happen well at least thank you because now we have on august 23rd her apology i'm gonna read it and then we'll talk about if it's good or not i can't say how many times i've redrafted this apology over the last 11 years how many times i convinced myself it wasn't the right time or that i'd be causing even more damage by giving it but 11 years ago i made the single most regrettable decision of my life i watched the sandy hook conspiracy video and reposted it on twitter i didn't even believe it but it was i was so horrified at the truth that i was grasping for an alternative fiction to cling to instead i quickly realized my mistake and took it down but the damage was done by some miracle it seemingly slipped under the media's radar i was never asked about it so i never spoke of it again afraid that calling attention to it would have the opposite effect opposite of the intended effect it would increase the views of those conspiracy videos and selfishly inform even more people i was ignorant self-insorb and tone deaf enough to share one in the first place i drafted an a thousandth apology to include in my last memoir but my publisher begged me to take it out saying that it would show overshadow everything else and do more harm than good so i convinced myself that apologizing would just reopen the moon for no other reason than me selfishly trying to make myself feel better that i would hurt those suffering even more and possibly lead more down the black hole of conspiracy bullshit by it being brought up again just so i could shake the label of being a sandyhood truser but honestly i deserve to be hated label detested and resented and worse for it i deserve to lose out on every opportunity i should have been canceled i would have deserved it i still do i apologize that this came 11 years too late but to those affected by the sandy hook massacre from the bottom of my heart and the depth of my soul i am so so sorry for the hurt i caused i can't even begin to imagine the pain you've endured and the words cannot and words cannot describe how thoroughly remorseful and ashamed i am for myself contributing for contributing to it i've regretted it every day of my life since and will continue to do so until the day i die and to anyone else that's fallen down the black hole of bullshit it doesn't make you edgy or an independent thinker you're not doing your due diligence entertaining every possibility by digesting these conspiracies they will only make you feel powerless afraid miserable and isolated you're doing nothing but hurting others and yourself regardless of how many bridges you've burned over it stop digging yourself a deeper hole don't get wrapped up in the sunk-cost fallacy no matter how long you've gone down the wrong word road you should still turn back wow i think that that was i mean well done i it feels yeah yeah it feels genuine to me i mean obviously again as we've talked about with all these apologies sometimes the consequences people just don't fuck with you no matter what and i get if you're if you feel that way but i do really like the last sentence that's like if you've fallen down the black hole of this bullshit like it's never too late to stop falling i think that that is important yeah and like i think that the grass heroes again they got without the grass heroes we would have never got this and this is such a powerful apology of like you know it's also like it's not making excuses but it's like it doesn't make you understand like look i thought you know i've always felt this but i thought that if it would be worse if i brought it up and also like it's that whole thing that you're saying where people do feel like they are being like the true thinkers and true whatever if they don't digest everything that comes to them but in fact like you're just hurting people and you're just isolating yourself further yeah so i just really like this apology and i thought it was great and it was like all because of our grass heroes and yeah even if you're a grass hole you can come back from it say i feel like something she did right if she spent less time on the like this is why i believed this or whatever and i thought it was way more interesting to hear about like i kept talking myself out of making this apology and was told to like buy her publisher not to include it in her book and like this feeling of oh god if i drudge it up again what does it mean and i feel like that's a lot more interesting of a route to explore than if she had just been like i just was dumb then but i'm better now and i i like that she was light on that and heavy on the i really should have done this sooner and i didn't because i was afraid and i have been told not to but like i should this is again she says it's 11 years too late but like i was wrong and i'm just thinking about that as we were talking about blake lively and like you know now people like that publisher advice like it is very old hollywood and old things of you know oh everyone we control the narrative everyone will forget and it's like now the internet and now the public demands different things and we're all like communicating and relating to each other in different ways so you can't just forget something as bad as you know like of course if again it's something different if somebody was like slut shaming somebody you know because that is something that the culture has moved on slut shaming but like if you don't have to apologize for that because we collectively or maybe saying something insensitive about britney spirits like even though the culture has collectively moved away from that like you don't need penance or that but something as horrific as tonight a nice sandy hook is really bad like really bad and it is like funny that yeah this bucking like old-school thinking of this publisher to be like no don't put that in your book it'll overshout of the rest of the book and it's like maybe it should and also like maybe more books will sell if this is in the book and like actually hearing her line of thinking just in this small post like I would actually love a chapter of her reflections in her book that's like I really fucked up and I did a really bad thing and like this is how it all went down and my experience and dah dah dah like like that old-school thinking from the publisher and to bring it back to our full discourse the old-school thinking of like Blake Lively's PR team it doesn't fly in the days where TikTok people can dredge up all your old interviews and watch them and watch them in succession and be like come up with a narrative for themselves it doesn't fly when you can do a reddit ask me anything and people regular people who remember what you did can ask you anything especially because you know Alex Jones has gone bankrupting on this ship but like all of that is very recently you know like all of that shit is very recent and not to give her like you know give her a break Ronda Rousey is 37 now so 11 years ago she was like again not she's still an adult she should know better but also like you know a 26-year-old like MMA fighter like I'm not expecting like that's right it's most nuanced person so I can't imagine there's growth there too so I don't know that this this story like really stuck with me because it was just such a it was one of those things that I was like oh my god that's so funny when they were like bullying her and then to see this this apology is like yeah this was really good yeah a grasshold a hero story I think is an important thing for us to explore here on the pod yeah and I just love again like speaking specifically to that you're not an independent thinker if you if you like don't trust the New York Times but trust a fucking YouTube yeah exactly exactly you are not someone who doesn't question who's like questions everything and like whatever if a random YouTube video is more persuasive to you than like every journalist in the world and actual real people and real grave sites that have little kids in them like come on yeah well well I love I love a grasshold a hero story and I think that that's wonderful and that's the end of our pod for today we really went into it it's good to just two of us I feel we really should get into many topics yeah we could get into a lot more and we're definitely going to be getting into it with the ACLU banks I'm really excited for it because to that to anyone who says are you not capable of separating the art from the artist I'm like wait till you hear about my opinions of azalea and you can hear all of that on our patreon we've got tons of content on our patreon so if you want to hear more from us it's all there and until next time go touch rush that was a hit gum podcast
