Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Steff.
Speaker 2: I've never told your production of iHeartRadio, and we are
Speaker 2: once again, so so, so so happy to be joined
Speaker 2: by the magnificent, the fabulous, the delightful bridget Todd. Thanks
Speaker 2: for joining us.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you for having me. It's been too long.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited to be back with you all.
Speaker 2: It has been too long, and you've been doing some
Speaker 2: really cool things, some really cool traveling.
Speaker 1: Would you like to.
Speaker 3: Share ooh sure. I was on a little bit of
Speaker 3: a whirlwind travel vibe this summer. I went to Denver
Speaker 3: for a psychedelic sciences conference in Denver, Colorado, which was
Speaker 3: the largest gathering of psychedelic medicine advocates and professionals in
Speaker 3: the United States. It was a very interesting time. I
Speaker 3: learned a lot about psychedelics. If anyone has questions, I'm
Speaker 3: not the expert, but it's my new favorite topic. From there,
Speaker 3: I went to Moab or mob I hope I'm saying
Speaker 3: it right, Moab Utah to hike and Arches National Park,
Speaker 3: which was possibly the coolest, most beautiful experience of my life.
Speaker 3: I've never seen. I've never really been out west, so
Speaker 3: it was. It was like the coolest thing have you
Speaker 3: all ever done, like any of the Utah National Parks
Speaker 3: or anything like that.
Speaker 1: I did, and I agree with you. I wasn't.
Speaker 2: I guess shame on me. Utah wasn't on my radar.
Speaker 2: And then when I went there, I was like, this
Speaker 2: is stunning. Like there's so much the colors and the
Speaker 2: like structures.
Speaker 1: It's just beautiful.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Literally, I DMed a friend from Utah and I
Speaker 3: was like, why have you been gatekeeping Utah? This is
Speaker 3: like people don't know about Utah. Yeah. Maybe maybe it's
Speaker 3: just my own ignorance of that part of the country,
Speaker 3: but it was probably the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was so cool. I was sad to leave. I
Speaker 3: cannot recommend those national parks more highly. Also, people really
Speaker 3: prepared me. They were like, oh, archs National Park is
Speaker 3: good luck going there. It's so full of influencers. It's
Speaker 3: so crowded, Like get there early, be prepared to wait
Speaker 3: for hours. It really wasn't bad. When we got there,
Speaker 3: they were actually doing a pilot program with a timed entry.
Speaker 3: We waited in the car to enter the park maybe
Speaker 3: twenty minutes, and then the hike up to the Delicate
Speaker 3: Art which is the loop that we did, which is
Speaker 3: very popular. It was normal, like it wasn't. I wouldn't
Speaker 3: have called I would not have called it crowded, like
Speaker 3: from what I experienced. If people are telling you that
Speaker 3: it's the most crowded place ever and it's not worth going,
Speaker 3: that was not my experience. We also went kind of
Speaker 3: had a weird time. We went around like five pm
Speaker 3: because it was very hot. People should definitely go, that
Speaker 3: is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, on my light list. It's really beautiful.
Speaker 2: I was on a road trip a couple I think
Speaker 2: it's in twenty twelve, I don't know, a while back
Speaker 2: and we my friend and I drove through the West
Speaker 2: and it was cool because we would just see parks
Speaker 2: and we'd be like, let's go through there, and Utah
Speaker 2: had so many that we're like, oh yeah, let's just
Speaker 2: stop there.
Speaker 1: So I agree, it's beautiful. Highly recommends.
Speaker 3: Did you make it out to Zion?
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's my next bucket list Western hike experience. I
Speaker 3: really want to go.
Speaker 1: Yes, your pictures were beautiful. I was very jealous. Well yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Mean the Delicate arched did all the work being beautiful
Speaker 3: over the formation of like millions of years, so all.
Speaker 2: The arch just a little thing of you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: all that time. But yes, we are very excited for
Speaker 2: you to talk about this. This is something I've discussed
Speaker 2: on the show. I'm very removed often from celebrity culture
Speaker 2: because it makes me really uncomfortable. I think it's very
Speaker 2: important to talk about. So I'm happy. I'm happy you're
Speaker 2: bringing these things to discuss, but it is something that
Speaker 2: makes me uncomfortable for a lot of reasons. So with
Speaker 2: that disclaimer, what are we discussing today, bridget So.
Speaker 3: It's been a big week for men who want to
Speaker 3: control the women in their life. Last week there were
Speaker 3: two big instances of high profile women being treated I
Speaker 3: would say badly by the men in their lives, and
Speaker 3: that treatment was facilitated by technology or social media. Any
Speaker 3: I completely get how you feel about being like your
Speaker 3: discomfort around this issue. It's an issue that I kind
Speaker 3: of wrestled with on whether or not it was an
Speaker 3: issue that I wanted to include in the sort of
Speaker 3: lexicon of things that I talk about as somebody who
Speaker 3: cares about social media and whether or not it's making
Speaker 3: us healthier or you know, living more fulfilled lives. One
Speaker 3: of the reasons why I wanted to talk about it
Speaker 3: was that I the listenership of my own podcast, No
Speaker 3: Girls on the Internet exkews young. It's like a little
Speaker 3: bit younger than podcast listenership more broadly, and so I
Speaker 3: realize that, you know, a lot of younger people are
Speaker 3: having experiences where digital media, social media technology, smartphones are
Speaker 3: coming in between them and the people that they're in
Speaker 3: romantic relationships with. That's not really my experience. I've been
Speaker 3: in a relationship with the same person for a while. Now,
Speaker 3: I'm older, I'm not like online dating. I don't have
Speaker 3: a lot of you know, digital baggage in my own
Speaker 3: romantic life and personal life. However, it is something that
Speaker 3: I think people who are a bit younger than us
Speaker 3: that's there every day. And so I realized that my
Speaker 3: not talking about the issue wasn't really doing a service
Speaker 3: to my listenership, because this is something that is that
Speaker 3: is their reality, if people on the Internet are to
Speaker 3: be believed, and so it is a little bit awkward,
Speaker 3: and like, I want to talk about this carefully. I
Speaker 3: want to talk about what kind of digital behavior or
Speaker 3: social media behavior crosses ALIGNE in a romantic relationship. But
Speaker 3: I do want to give a few like clear caveats.
Speaker 3: We're talking about celebrities. I want to be super clear
Speaker 3: that I don't know, We don't know any of these people.
Speaker 3: We are not privy to what is happening inside of
Speaker 3: these relationships. These are not even people that I would say,
Speaker 3: like there are celebrity couples that I am read up
Speaker 3: on that I might feel a little bit more informed
Speaker 3: talking about that is not even the case in that way.
Speaker 3: I am only talking about the specific communications that will
Speaker 3: be outlined in this episode. I don't know what's happening
Speaker 3: in their relationship. I'm not privy to any of that,
Speaker 3: and I'm only really using these celebrity situations as a
Speaker 3: jumping off point to talk about situations that it sounds
Speaker 3: like a lot of us regular folk, non celebrities, might
Speaker 3: have faced in our romantic lives. So I just want
Speaker 3: to be really clear about that. Also, the two instances
Speaker 3: that we're talking about involve women in relationships with men,
Speaker 3: so it's going to sound very heteronormative, and for that
Speaker 3: I apologize in very like cis centered, but I want
Speaker 3: to be clear that that just happens to be the
Speaker 3: situation that these two people have found themselves in. These
Speaker 3: kinds of dynamics can happen with anyone of any gender,
Speaker 3: of any sexuality. Anybody can be a perpetrator of this
Speaker 3: kind of behavior or face this kind of behavior themselves.
Speaker 3: And so even though we're talking about women and their
Speaker 3: relationships with men who are all sis gender, that does
Speaker 3: not mean that those are the only you know, folks
Speaker 3: who are dealing with this, because it certainly spans everyone.
Speaker 3: And also just a huge caveat, I am not a
Speaker 3: relationship expert. I am not a mental health expert. I
Speaker 3: am not a lawyer. I am a doctor. If this
Speaker 3: conversation raises something for you that makes you think like,
Speaker 3: oh I want more information about this, or oh this
Speaker 3: dynamic in my relationship, I'm curious about that dynamic, you
Speaker 3: should a thousand percent be talking to a mental health
Speaker 3: professional or a counselor if you feel like that this
Speaker 3: conversation does that for you. So I know that's a
Speaker 3: lot of caveats, but I do think it's important to
Speaker 3: talk about this in a careful and thoughtful way because
Speaker 3: it is a complex topic.
Speaker 2: It is and myself, as discussed in previous episodes, I
Speaker 2: kind of escaped the social media.
Speaker 1: I was like on.
Speaker 2: The way out of high school when a lot of
Speaker 2: it was picking up. Are in college and I still
Speaker 2: didn't really get involved, but I can I can pinpoint.
Speaker 2: For me, it was more watching like entertainment tonight, but
Speaker 2: I can pinpoint things where I would see actors I
Speaker 2: like doing, exhibiting a certain behavior, being in a certain
Speaker 2: type of relationship, and like can remember how that impacted me.
Speaker 2: So I do think this is hugely important, especially when
Speaker 2: you're young and you're kind of like trying to figure
Speaker 2: out what things look like and just because you know
Speaker 2: the celebrity is a celebrity. Yeah, there's still people and
Speaker 2: this stuff still happens, and it can be really telling
Speaker 2: an informative to break it down. So with that being said,
Speaker 2: let's get into these instances you mentioned.
Speaker 3: Let's do it. So last week Kiki Palmer, who was
Speaker 3: an actor, a podcaster, all around icon. She was in
Speaker 3: Hustlers recently. She's been famous for most of her life
Speaker 3: because she was a Disney star as a child. She
Speaker 3: went to an Usher concert she Keky Palmer just had
Speaker 3: a baby pretty recently and in the videos and pictures
Speaker 3: from this concert, it looks like she was having a
Speaker 3: great time. She was photographed kind of dancing with Usher
Speaker 3: on stage while he serenaded her. Just if folks have
Speaker 3: it's in the video. It doesn't look like anything untoward
Speaker 3: is happening. Like Usher has his arm around her, but
Speaker 3: it's north of the butt, Like it's not like he's
Speaker 3: like groping her. It looks it just looks And honestly,
Speaker 3: this looks like two people who are friendly having a
Speaker 3: moment of like, oh, he's gonna sarenade me, and like
Speaker 3: being into it. But mostly it's like they look like
Speaker 3: two people who are friends. She was wearing this dress
Speaker 3: that was kind of a black body suit with a
Speaker 3: full body mesh overlay. But the dress looks fine, look cute.
Speaker 3: So when the videos of this moment of her being
Speaker 3: on stage came out, the father of her child retweeted
Speaker 3: the video and added, it's the outfit though you're a mom.
Speaker 3: Then he followed up with we live in a generation
Speaker 3: where a man of the family doesn't want the wife
Speaker 3: and mother to his kids to showcase booty cheeks to
Speaker 3: please others, and he gets told how much of a
Speaker 3: hater he is and yeah, that does sound like hater
Speaker 3: stuff to me. Most of the Internet was like, that's
Speaker 3: not we don't want to hear you talk to your
Speaker 3: partner that way, not cool, not okay. I hate this
Speaker 3: for a couple of reasons. Just as a side note,
Speaker 3: As women, I think there's this pervasive attitude that our
Speaker 3: bodies are not our own and were essentially public property,
Speaker 3: that anybody gets to exert control over us and what
Speaker 3: we do with our bodies and scrutiny over us, right,
Speaker 3: Like society loves to look at a woman and be like,
Speaker 3: she is not dressed appropriately, She's doing something wrong. Like
Speaker 3: I think the experience of being women is that that's
Speaker 3: like part and parcel that experience. Unfortunately, and that trope
Speaker 3: is worsened. I believe when you are pregnant or when
Speaker 3: you are a mom. It is telling to me that
Speaker 3: Kiky Palmer's partner was like, well, you're a mom, as
Speaker 3: if moms don't aren't allowed to have a night off,
Speaker 3: to go out, to wear a cute dress, to have fun,
Speaker 3: to be in charge of her own body, As if
Speaker 3: your body autonomy just ceases to exist when you have
Speaker 3: a child or you become someone's house partner, and honestly,
Speaker 3: if anyone deserves to have a night out and like
Speaker 3: put on a fun outfit and go shake their booty
Speaker 3: a little bit, it's moms. Moms work so hard, Like
Speaker 3: give moms a break, give mom's a night off. Moms
Speaker 3: deserve it. And I think it really comes back to
Speaker 3: that trope of once you're a mother, people feel very
Speaker 3: comfortable judging you, exerting control over you, criticizing what you
Speaker 3: do with your body and how you dress. But the
Speaker 3: reality is, like, we're humans. We can go where we want,
Speaker 3: do what we want where what we want. Our bodies
Speaker 3: are our own, and just because you become someone's mother
Speaker 3: or partner or boyfriend or whatever, that still exists. Body
Speaker 3: autonomy still exists. And so I just hate that trope
Speaker 3: so much. And I think that was really at play
Speaker 3: in his comments.
Speaker 4: If you know Kiki Palmer at all, first and foremost,
Speaker 4: why would you do that publicly because she's gonna take
Speaker 4: you out real quickly. But that's a whole different conversation
Speaker 4: because she's she's the queen of not.
Speaker 5: Taking let's just be real, honest.
Speaker 4: But on top of that, it sounded like he's been
Speaker 4: waiting for a moment to use that against her because
Speaker 4: he had nothing else before the fact. You know, it's
Speaker 4: kind of that conversation is that when the whole idea
Speaker 4: of marriage and why people some people have a problem
Speaker 4: with marriage and being becoming a mother, is this idea
Speaker 4: that your identity must disappear and your own by your family,
Speaker 4: your own by your status as the mom or the wife,
Speaker 4: and that is no longer your individuality is no longer
Speaker 4: in play.
Speaker 5: And so he did so many things, like he just
Speaker 5: really set.
Speaker 4: Himself up, especially knowing that her followers are probably going
Speaker 4: to have a mindset like her.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's exactly what happened. Most people were immediately defending Kiki,
Speaker 3: but a few people, like very loud, but I would
Speaker 3: say a minority of voices, but there were very loud
Speaker 3: voices were saying that her boyfriend was right and then
Speaker 3: using that as a springboard despative advocate for Q traditional
Speaker 3: roles in relationships, saying that Kiki was in the wrong
Speaker 3: for not respecting her boyfriend, not respecting her role as
Speaker 3: a mother. And sadly people use this as an opportunity
Speaker 3: to really shame Kiki Palmer. You know, I saw people
Speaker 3: sharing pictures of her Kiki Palmer has PCOS, which is
Speaker 3: which sometimes causes hormonal acne, and she she's been upfront
Speaker 3: about that and shared pictures of what that experience is
Speaker 3: like for her, and people were sharing those re sharing
Speaker 3: those pictures, and the vibe was very much like, look
Speaker 3: how ugly she is, Like she is acting like this
Speaker 3: and thinks she's surprised. When can you believe it? She
Speaker 3: gets acne, her body responds to normal like physical stimuli
Speaker 3: in this way? Can you believe that she has the
Speaker 3: nerve to have a bodily response and still believe that
Speaker 3: she deserves autonomy over her actions. So I don't necessarily
Speaker 3: know if this was her boyfriend's intention, but he really
Speaker 3: did open up the flood gate for people on the
Speaker 3: internet to insult his partner, which really is not cool.
Speaker 4: Right, That was the other part I think When I
Speaker 4: first read that, I was like, wait, did they break up?
Speaker 5: Is he being better? What's what's happening? I don't understand
Speaker 5: did she leave him for usher?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 5: Is that just a chapter that I missed here?
Speaker 4: That was so confused because it was such an outright
Speaker 4: attack again public outright display of attack that I was
Speaker 4: I was like, wait, I missed something. I thought they
Speaker 4: were happily together, co parenting. What's going on? Not knowing again,
Speaker 4: not knowing anything about him, and he is kind of
Speaker 4: like not known. I'm assuming he's not really known in
Speaker 4: the celebrity world.
Speaker 3: I googled him to prep for this episode, and the
Speaker 3: internet has it described him as an internet personality or
Speaker 3: like an right So take that for I had never
Speaker 3: heard of him before. That's take that for what you will.
Speaker 4: I guess we are too, you know. Also, this is
Speaker 4: just taking a one big step into it. But when
Speaker 4: it comes to Kiki specifically, there's definitely a level of misogyny.
Speaker 4: Was again her partner, who is also of the black
Speaker 4: community coming out and attacking her. She should be the
Speaker 4: first one to know that this is gonna go a rye,
Speaker 4: real bad old. Actually being a black young woman who
Speaker 4: is outspoken and in general, like just the fact that
Speaker 4: he did that so openly, it literally set her up
Speaker 4: for all that kind of scrutiny and bullying.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I completely agree. And it's like, I
Speaker 3: don't know, if you all have seen, there's this new
Speaker 3: thing on the internet where people are talking about basically
Speaker 3: just insulting the actor Zindia from Euphoria and I think
Speaker 3: Spider Man. Maybe I don't know, I didn't see that movie.
Speaker 3: But and basically it's like it's the subtext is so
Speaker 3: clear that it's like she is a woman of color
Speaker 3: like that, like that, like that is the subtext of
Speaker 3: the attacks. And what they'll do is they'll do a
Speaker 3: side screen of an image of Zendia when she was
Speaker 3: in Euphoria playing somebody who had substance abuse and be like,
Speaker 3: and then do a side by side of like a
Speaker 3: woman that they say just like works at McDonald or
Speaker 3: was a random girl on the bus, to be like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: this white woman is so beautiful, and you're telling me
Speaker 3: that Zendaya is a model when she looks like this,
Speaker 3: and it's like, well, you chose a picture of her
Speaker 3: when she was portraying somebody who is going through heroin withdrawal. Right,
Speaker 3: So like the job on picking the worst picture that
Speaker 3: you can find. But all of that is to say
Speaker 3: that you're absolutely right, Sam, that there is a toxic racist,
Speaker 3: sexist dynamic on the internet where when people get the
Speaker 3: opportunity to insult or pylon a black woman especially, they're
Speaker 3: going to take it and it's going to be really bad.
Speaker 3: And I think that somebody who is, you know, your
Speaker 3: partner should not set you up to be the target
Speaker 3: of that in this way, because that's really what some
Speaker 3: people did. And I would say, luckily, as you said,
Speaker 3: Kiki was like mostly appeared publicly unbothered about this. She
Speaker 3: posted on Instagram that she wish that she had gotten
Speaker 3: more pictures in that dress, which like, lol, girl, I
Speaker 3: love that. You know.
Speaker 4: She did a little uh sweatshirts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a mother, I want to buy one. Oh
Speaker 3: my god, send me one please. Yep.
Speaker 5: That that is the Kiky.
Speaker 4: She's off your stupidity exactly.
Speaker 3: And then she also clarified something that that was really
Speaker 3: interesting and good contact. She says, me and this person
Speaker 3: we lived together, we're raising a child together. Obviously he
Speaker 3: saw me in this dress before I left the house,
Speaker 3: and he if he had a problem with the way
Speaker 3: that she was dressed, he could have told her that.
Speaker 1: Then.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't I don't love the idea of
Speaker 3: like a partner being like I don't like that dress.
Speaker 3: But certainly if that was gonna be a conversation they had,
Speaker 3: they could have had it face to face in the house.
Speaker 3: And make share together. The fact that he needed to
Speaker 3: tweet about it publicly, I think is really telling that
Speaker 3: he didn't tell her, he told the world, and it
Speaker 3: sounds like, according to Kiki, it wasn't about the dress,
Speaker 3: it was about something else, And it sounds like that
Speaker 3: something else is like insecurity watching his girlfriend be serenaded
Speaker 3: by us, sure, and have a good time without him.
Speaker 3: But I think if you're a guy looking for sympathy
Speaker 3: from the internet public, the internet streets, just tweeting like
Speaker 3: I feel secure that my girlfriend is out without me
Speaker 3: and having a good time, that's not gonna get you
Speaker 3: a lot of sympathy. That's not going to get like
Speaker 3: men's rights and traditional gender roles, people advocating for you. You
Speaker 3: have to be like, no, no, no, I'm not insecure.
Speaker 3: It's that she's a mom and that she's dressed like this.
Speaker 3: I think that that that's really kind of like what
Speaker 3: I think is going on.
Speaker 1: Here, right.
Speaker 4: You know, it opens up so much conversation because soon
Speaker 4: after Winnie Harlow again, this is all about autonomy, because
Speaker 4: I don't care about what I would be very uncomfortable
Speaker 4: if I got just hugged on on stage like I've
Speaker 4: seen a lot of conversation recently of like bands of
Speaker 4: people bringing people up and doing like dances.
Speaker 5: I'm like, I would hate that.
Speaker 3: That would be the worst.
Speaker 5: That would be the worst. That's me personally.
Speaker 3: But there's no band who you would be like, Oh,
Speaker 3: if they brought me on stage, I haven't now every lyric.
Speaker 3: I would be.
Speaker 4: Ready, my anxiety would have the want to melt through
Speaker 4: the floor. Like the truth of it all is because
Speaker 4: I know I'm gonna do something ridiculous, whether it's follow
Speaker 4: a trip on myself or just drool somehow, or you know,
Speaker 4: pass out.
Speaker 5: Maybe I'll just pass out.
Speaker 4: But all that to say, like Winnie Harlowe was talked
Speaker 4: about soon after because she went to a concert and
Speaker 4: when uh shirre approached her, she sat in her boyfriend's lap,
Speaker 4: and so instead of being told that she was being inappropriate,
Speaker 4: she was told you were a pick me.
Speaker 5: Essentially, I remember that that term. I didn't that term,
Speaker 5: but like that whole level of like, wow, why won't
Speaker 5: you let women be? Why can't they just be?
Speaker 3: That's the thing though, and like that's such a good example.
Speaker 3: I saw people being like, oh, what a loser, blah
Speaker 3: blah blah, I don't know much about Winny Harlow, but like,
Speaker 3: that's my point, is that it doesn't really matter what
Speaker 3: you do, because it's really not about finding the right
Speaker 3: way to be quote unquote. It is a system that
Speaker 3: says that women's public behavior, the way they present themselves,
Speaker 3: is just up for scrutiny at all times. Right, you
Speaker 3: can be doing something like shaking your booty and having
Speaker 3: a good time and you'll get heat for it. You
Speaker 3: could be sitting on your lap and very modest and
Speaker 3: you'll get heat for it. It's a trap and a
Speaker 3: game with which there is no winning, only losing because
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter what. It's really not about what we're doing.
Speaker 3: It is about the dynamic that says that women need
Speaker 3: to be controlled. Everybody gets the right to have an
Speaker 3: opinion or a judgment about how a woman is presenting
Speaker 3: in public, whether it's her behavior, how she's dressed, whatever.
Speaker 3: I completely agree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's interesting.
Speaker 2: Like on the flip side, if this it happens gender swap,
Speaker 2: then dudes would have been real mad about like you
Speaker 2: can't you cool down, Like don't you kill at me?
Speaker 1: It was nothing, You're being hysterical.
Speaker 2: All of that stuff, which, Yeah, I'm interested in this
Speaker 2: next example because I saw this headline and I was
Speaker 2: very confused by it. But you, when I was reading
Speaker 2: through that one, you do a really great job of
Speaker 2: breaking it down.
Speaker 1: So who was the other tail you?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 3: So if a KIKI former's boyfriend was like using pretty
Speaker 3: obvious language around, like traditional gender roles and respects and
Speaker 3: all of that in a relationship where he dictates the
Speaker 3: behavior of his partner, it's pretty recognizable. We know what
Speaker 3: that is. We get it. It's clear. But oh, what's
Speaker 3: that Jonah Hill has entered the chat because the Jonah
Speaker 3: Hill situation is very similar, but it's different in that
Speaker 3: it does sound to me like he is trying to
Speaker 3: exert control over his partner, but it's dressed up in
Speaker 3: a very different way. Right. Jonah Hill is a self
Speaker 3: described male feminist. You know, he has sleeve tattoos and
Speaker 3: has bleached hair and has talked about his issues with
Speaker 3: body image and the media and things that I would
Speaker 3: recognize as like, oh, this is somebody who is presenting
Speaker 3: themselves as a kind of progressive male ally feminist. You know,
Speaker 3: he dresses it up using words like respect and boundary.
Speaker 3: But in my opinion, this is still very much controlling behavior,
Speaker 3: even if it's not as obviously recognizable and clockable as
Speaker 3: the behavior that Kicky Palmer's boyfriend was displaying towards her.
Speaker 3: I think it is still controlling. So here's what's going
Speaker 3: down with Jonah Hill. Jonah Hill is an actor you'll
Speaker 3: probably know from movies like Super Bad, Wolf of Wall Street.
Speaker 3: He was once in a romantic relationship with this professional
Speaker 3: surfer and law student, Sarah Brady. This relationship has since ended.
Speaker 3: Jonah Hill has had a baby with another partner, So
Speaker 3: Sarah and Jonah, these two are no longer together. Sarah
Speaker 3: Brady released a trove of alleged text messages from Jonah
Speaker 3: Hill where Jonah makes very clear and specific I would
Speaker 3: call say, demands of Sarah. Sarah has described this dynamic
Speaker 3: as emotionally abusive, like that's the term that she used
Speaker 3: to describe it, and she posted these text message screenshots
Speaker 3: with the comment on our Instagram. This is a warning
Speaker 3: to all girls. If your partner is talking to you
Speaker 3: like this, make an exit plan. Call me if you
Speaker 3: need an ear So this is a little bit of
Speaker 3: a summary of the kinds of conversations that they were
Speaker 3: having Jonah wants her to take down specific images from
Speaker 3: her social media feed and is sending her screenshots of
Speaker 3: specific images and videos of her that he believes need
Speaker 3: to come down. So Sarah says to him, three removed.
Speaker 3: Not the video yet it is my best surfing video.
Speaker 3: Would you feel better if the cover frame was different?
Speaker 3: Any specific ones that bother you? Jonah says, yes, one
Speaker 3: that is not your in a thong. Sarah says it's
Speaker 3: not a thong. But okay, Jonah says, And as far
Speaker 3: as the other pictures of you in a bathing suit,
Speaker 3: surfing or not. Jonah, in response to Sarah saying it's
Speaker 3: not a thong, says, I'm done. There's tons. I'm just
Speaker 3: going back the past month. You want to argue and
Speaker 3: I don't. Sarah says, you're done. Does that mean? Jonah says,
Speaker 3: I'm just over explaining myself. So not great. I don't
Speaker 3: think it's good or healthy to have a partner sending
Speaker 3: you specific images from your social media feed kind of
Speaker 3: pressuring you to take them down. That does not sound
Speaker 3: like a healthy dynamic to me at all.
Speaker 4: You know, I think it's interesting because we've talked about
Speaker 4: domestic violence and different ways of abuse and control and relationships.
Speaker 4: And you know, we talked about financial abuse and that
Speaker 4: was kind of a fairly.
Speaker 5: New type of abuse.
Speaker 4: We talked about emotional abuse fairly new as well in
Speaker 4: conversation and then actually acknowledging it. But with social media,
Speaker 4: there does seem to be a new avenue, and it's
Speaker 4: not necessarily this context, because there's a lot to this
Speaker 4: that I'm like, yeah, this is really bad and this
Speaker 4: could be partially gaslighting again though I don't know their
Speaker 4: situation either. This is really gross language for sure, and
Speaker 4: gross in demand. But I've definitely had friends in relationships
Speaker 4: where the partner and typically do who were well, that's
Speaker 4: not you actually have both uh and just calling that
Speaker 4: I hate this? Why did you like this picture? You're
Speaker 4: following this person, You're doing this? Are you trying to
Speaker 4: cheat on me? And to be honest, there has been
Speaker 4: a lot of the DMS slipping into the DMS Annie,
Speaker 4: which I had to teach her about.
Speaker 3: I thought, you're accusing Annie is slipping into DMS.
Speaker 5: I didn't know what it was, know what it was.
Speaker 5: I had to explained it. She was like, wait, that's
Speaker 5: what they're doing. I was like, yeah, girl, get out.
Speaker 4: But in that level of like like there's this whole
Speaker 4: new level of distrust and concern and control that's happening
Speaker 4: because of social media, and this is one of those things,
Speaker 4: whether it is controlling their partner's content, which again happened
Speaker 4: on Twitch. I don't think we may have talked about.
Speaker 4: I know, Annie and I we did an episode in
Speaker 4: which the partner was supposedly forcing his girlfriend to post
Speaker 4: specific things and then like berating her for being too
Speaker 4: sexy or not sexy enough, all those things. But this
Speaker 4: has become a new conversation that I don't know if
Speaker 4: it's being taken seriously enough, but with things like this,
Speaker 4: which also again I think is kind of one of
Speaker 4: those like oh this is ooh, this feels Yes, this
Speaker 4: is bad, but this is also like there seems to
Speaker 4: be a gray line here too. We'll talk about I know,
Speaker 4: you'll talk more about that, but yeah, this like whole
Speaker 4: level of control, and I don't know is there a
Speaker 4: term for that already social media control?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm using digital control. But I think you're exactly right,
Speaker 3: And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to
Speaker 3: talk about this. I acknowledge that it's complex and some
Speaker 3: of these situations feel gray, like we don't really know.
Speaker 3: But there is a growing body of academic research into
Speaker 3: social media platforms and how that impacts romantic relationships, and
Speaker 3: the research seems to suggest that it doesn't impact them
Speaker 3: for the better, that social media brings an element of
Speaker 3: surveillance and distrust in romantic relationships that is still being
Speaker 3: sort of studied and worked out because it's it's so new, right,
Speaker 3: we haven't had these platforms for too too long, and
Speaker 3: so it's I agree with you, Samantha. I think that
Speaker 3: in the work that I have done, I think that
Speaker 3: whenever we're talking about something that has a digital component,
Speaker 3: whether it's her online harassment or online abuse or online
Speaker 3: hate speech or something like that, there is something about
Speaker 3: the digital interface that really allows for people to not
Speaker 3: take it seriously and to not think that it is
Speaker 3: a real problem. But I think that the fact of
Speaker 3: the matter is is that a lot of people, especially
Speaker 3: younger people, this is how this is how they are
Speaker 3: having relationships with people, This is how this is how
Speaker 3: their relationships are playing out. And so to say, oh, well,
Speaker 3: you know, the digital realm doesn't offer anything that we
Speaker 3: need to really be looking too carefully about at as
Speaker 3: it pertains to relationships that that does not align with
Speaker 3: the actual lived experiences of today's young people, because this
Speaker 3: is like very much dictating the kind of romantic relationships
Speaker 3: they have. I also think that we have really gotten
Speaker 3: to a place where we have normalized a lot of
Speaker 3: behavior that I think is not great. I wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 3: call it abusive, but behavior that is not great when
Speaker 3: it comes to digital autonomy in romantic relationships. The same
Speaker 3: way that for the longest time, things like stalking and
Speaker 3: date rape were fodder for funny plotlines and movies like
Speaker 3: Sixteen Candles or There's Something about Mary, these are actually
Speaker 3: like very unhealthy relationship dynamics, and they're being played for
Speaker 3: laughs and normalized in our culture. I similarly think that
Speaker 3: we've spent the last ten twenty years normalizing a whole
Speaker 3: host of I would argue unhealthy digital behavior in romantic
Speaker 3: relationships and playing it for laughs. Like it's not normal
Speaker 3: for a partner to demand to go through your phone.
Speaker 3: It's not normal for a partner to when you're in
Speaker 3: the bathroom sneak and go through your phone, or write
Speaker 3: down your phone password to go through your phone. It's
Speaker 3: not normal for your partner to be starting huge arguments
Speaker 3: about whose pictures you looked at on social media platforms.
Speaker 3: I think that healthy couples might have issues that are
Speaker 3: raised because of social media, but healthy couples talk it
Speaker 3: out right if you are And I think people really
Speaker 3: need to understand that, Like, you know, when something doesn't
Speaker 3: feel right right, like you, if you have a partner
Speaker 3: who is demanding to see who you've DMed, demanding to
Speaker 3: read your emails, or breaking into your emails or looking
Speaker 3: at your phone, that's not behavior that healthy couples engage in.
Speaker 3: And so even if you are having legitimate questions about like, oh,
Speaker 3: why are you liking all these girls pictures on Instagram?
Speaker 3: What's going on? You should be able to have that
Speaker 3: conversation in a way that feels healthy and respectful and
Speaker 3: it's not full of control and demands. And I think
Speaker 3: that we haven't really had a conversation about what healthy
Speaker 3: digital behavior looks like in healthy relationships.
Speaker 2: We did an episode on cybersecurity and how scary that is,
Speaker 2: Like someone gets your phone and they can install this
Speaker 2: stuff on you and just follow you around. But like,
Speaker 2: you're right, you should be able to trust that you
Speaker 2: know it's as you keep saying, it's about this control
Speaker 2: of this. No, I want to control your image. I
Speaker 2: want to control what you do online. I want it
Speaker 2: to seem like I don't want anybody to get the
Speaker 2: wrong idea. And what's fascinating to me about this case
Speaker 2: there's a couple of things.
Speaker 1: But one is a lot of sports.
Speaker 2: This shouldn't be an issue either way, but a lot
Speaker 2: of sports require you to wear a certain outfit.
Speaker 1: As a woman.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, she should be able to wear whatever she wants
Speaker 2: and it doesn't matter. But I feel like there's the
Speaker 2: kind of as we've been saying, that flip of damned
Speaker 2: if you do, damned if you don't. But then for
Speaker 2: he has so much condescending like you're hurting me kind
Speaker 2: of language, like gasline, like you are actually the one
Speaker 2: that is being unreasonable here I am being reasonable and
Speaker 2: you just don't seem to understand how much you're hurting me.
Speaker 3: Oof. Oh my gosh. I have to like take a
Speaker 3: step back and remember that these are people that I
Speaker 3: don't know, because that was my exact reaction to those
Speaker 3: like I've had men talk to me like that before,
Speaker 3: where they are making demands on me and making it
Speaker 3: seem as though if I'm not meeting those demands, I'm
Speaker 3: hurting them, And actually they're being really reasonable. They're using
Speaker 3: words like respect and boundaries and communicating very clearly and respectfully,
Speaker 3: but what they're saying is actually really not respectful. You know,
Speaker 3: Like I just I feel like I've gotten this text
Speaker 3: message before in my life. I think a lot of
Speaker 3: women recognize this behavior. What is really kills me is
Speaker 3: how good he is at using like certain language to
Speaker 3: make it seem like he's being really measured and reasonable,
Speaker 3: and that she's actually being unreasonable. Doesn't care about their relationship,
Speaker 3: doesn't care about his feelings and all of that. So
Speaker 3: you're exactly right, Andy, that Sarah is a professional surfer,
Speaker 3: a surf instructor, and a model. It's clear that if
Speaker 3: you're in that kind of profession, part of the gig
Speaker 3: is like your Instagram, if you want to get sponsorships,
Speaker 3: if you want, you know, gear companies to sponsor you,
Speaker 3: part of it is how you present on social media.
Speaker 3: You're exactly right that, like I wish that everybody got
Speaker 3: to be able to have control over how they present,
Speaker 3: but like it seems like her digital likeness is very
Speaker 3: much like she has to make choices by virtue of
Speaker 3: being in this field, but will align with her brain
Speaker 3: and to further her career. That just seems that just
Speaker 3: seems like what it is, and so one it really
Speaker 3: seems like Jonah had a problem with this, but this
Speaker 3: has It's not like she started surfing after they met.
Speaker 3: This was how she lived her life digitally before they met.
Speaker 3: He didn't seem to have a problem with it when
Speaker 3: they met, Like she showed a DM where he was
Speaker 3: commenting favorably on some of her pictures of her surfing
Speaker 3: in a bathing suit. So wasn't like this was a
Speaker 3: surprise to him, But when they got together he expected
Speaker 3: her to drop it, and so like. In one back
Speaker 3: and forth, Jonah tells Sarah that he doesn't want her
Speaker 3: to be a model, even though that that kind of
Speaker 3: modeling work is what she had been doing when they met.
Speaker 3: He says, oh, and modeling, which is the last profession
Speaker 3: I would ever view it as a partner, Sarah responds,
Speaker 3: thought picks in quotes. He says, but lol must be
Speaker 3: so hard feeling so trapped, Sarah says, well, maybe you
Speaker 3: should have asked more about what I do for work
Speaker 3: before you decided to date me. It's a little bit
Speaker 3: late now, Jonah responds, I agree with everything you said.
Speaker 3: I am not comfortable with you posting bathing suit pictures,
Speaker 3: nor might I ever want that from my partner. And
Speaker 3: I reserve the right and I'm open about it. Let
Speaker 3: me know. I will respect you either way. But those
Speaker 3: are my boundaries of this romantic relationship. Thanks. I'd love
Speaker 3: to know before the premiere, so I'm not put in
Speaker 3: a position of publicly flaunting our love. If my boundaries
Speaker 3: are going to be continued to be disrespected, that would
Speaker 3: be hurtful and triggering to me. Oh my god. First
Speaker 3: of all, if I had gotten this text message, the
Speaker 3: quickness with which I would have disregarded this man like,
Speaker 3: oh my god. But that's exactly it. That like the
Speaker 3: way that he's using the word boundary, boundary is not
Speaker 3: a demand, right, a boundary, It's completely fine. At the
Speaker 3: boundary that he has set for his relationship is that
Speaker 3: he does not engage in relationships with people who are models,
Speaker 3: then it is his job to exercise that boundary. It
Speaker 3: is his job to keep himself out of relationships with models.
Speaker 3: If that's his boundary, it is not her job to
Speaker 3: be like for him to be like, well, I don't
Speaker 3: have relationships with my and we're in a relationship, so
Speaker 3: guess you better quit your job? Right, Like, that's because
Speaker 3: it's a boundary. A boundary is not in demand. And
Speaker 3: so the way that he's able to really use the
Speaker 3: word boundary as a means of kind of I would say,
Speaker 3: obscuring his behavior and like manipulating her a little bit
Speaker 3: and controlling her, but then also being able to skirt
Speaker 3: accountability of like, well, it's just my boundary, so guess
Speaker 3: you better quit is really something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I think it's quite funny that.
Speaker 4: And I saw this on TikTok, and review of this
Speaker 4: conversation is that the TikToker was like, I take back
Speaker 4: everything I said about men getting counseling. I don't think
Speaker 4: they should go with counseling anymore.
Speaker 5: That they should not go.
Speaker 4: And they should not be allowed to go, because what
Speaker 4: happens is they don't necessarily get fixed, which is not
Speaker 4: the goal.
Speaker 5: But you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: But they find new words to use against you, like boundaries, disrespectful, triggering,
Speaker 4: like all of those big, big words that are now
Speaker 4: fashionable to say not necessarily fashionable because they're true, but
Speaker 4: it's now used on more often. But instead of using
Speaker 4: it as a way of expressing necessarily how one feels
Speaker 4: or dealing with their own trauma, they're using it as
Speaker 4: a way of, uh, controlling another person and making them
Speaker 4: feel guilty because of that.
Speaker 5: But it's like, oh god, what is this. They've learned
Speaker 5: too much.
Speaker 3: There's this joke like men will do X y Z
Speaker 3: instead of going to therapy, Like men will learn everything
Speaker 3: there is to know about ancient Rome instead of going
Speaker 3: to therapy. But this just goes to show you. They're like,
Speaker 3: if you're just gonna use therapy like it's a get
Speaker 3: out of jail free cars and do whatever you want
Speaker 3: and treat people however you want to treat them and
Speaker 3: control them, maybe you shouldn't go to therapy, right, Like
Speaker 3: I saw somebody tweet therapists men who go to therapy.
Speaker 3: There should be like a like you know how when
Speaker 3: you were in school they had back to school night
Speaker 3: where your teachers and your parents talked. There should be
Speaker 3: like a therapy version of that where it's like, well,
Speaker 3: here's the side of him that he's presenting to me.
Speaker 3: The therapist the family should have to hear that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was one of the first things that I
Speaker 2: thought too when I was reading this, was I I've
Speaker 2: encountered this person too in my life. That is very
Speaker 2: much for like, well, I'm in therapy. Well, I've had
Speaker 2: this trauma in my life, and that's why you can
Speaker 2: explain it. You can like have that conversation a serious conversation,
Speaker 2: but you can't use it as an excuse to treat.
Speaker 1: People this way or to manipulate people this way.
Speaker 2: And I feel like his whole thing was like I
Speaker 2: can see him being like, well, I'm in therapy.
Speaker 6: Yes, that therapist said it's so what's so funny is
Speaker 6: that we actually do have a little bit of insight
Speaker 6: into this because Jonah Hill made a whole documentary on.
Speaker 3: Netflix about his therapy journey and his therapists, doctor Stutz,
Speaker 3: and so that's a different therapist than the couple therapists
Speaker 3: reference in the text with Sarah. But the opening I
Speaker 3: kid you not. I went back and watched it. The
Speaker 3: opening line of the documentary is Jonah asking his therapist like,
Speaker 3: why do you think I am making this documentary with you? Like,
Speaker 3: why do you think I want to do this? And
Speaker 3: the therapist is like, I don't know. I think it's
Speaker 3: because it's attempt to control me and to control our relationship.
Speaker 3: And when I first watched that movie, I didn't think
Speaker 3: much of that, but going back and watching it for
Speaker 3: this episode, it was like, yeah, wow, that is like
Speaker 3: pretty insightful from this therapist, but also interesting lens into
Speaker 3: perhaps the way that Jonah Hill forms relationships and uses
Speaker 3: therapy in those relationships. Just really fascinating stuff. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: this is from psych Central. A boundary is something that
Speaker 3: is a norm for how you are going to behave right.
Speaker 3: Psych Central says personal boundaries are simply the lines that
Speaker 3: we draw ourselves in terms of our level of comfort
Speaker 3: around others, and so a boundary should really be about
Speaker 3: your behavior, how you are going to control your behavior,
Speaker 3: not about the behavior of others. And it's so interesting
Speaker 3: that every time he mentions a boundary, it is about
Speaker 3: something that he is so that Sarah needs to be doing,
Speaker 3: not himself, and so a boundary would be like, like,
Speaker 3: one of boundaries is that I don't stay in conversations
Speaker 3: where people yell at me, raise their voice to me,
Speaker 3: or call me names. I can't do it, won't do it.
Speaker 3: So that is not to say that my partner can
Speaker 3: never raise their voice or never yell, that is to
Speaker 3: say that if that happens, I will leave that conversation
Speaker 3: because I don't stay in conversations with people who talk
Speaker 3: like that. And so it is not about their behavior.
Speaker 3: It is about my behavior, how I am going to
Speaker 3: react if this happens to draw that boundary around my
Speaker 3: comfort zone. And it's just very telling that the way
Speaker 3: that he is using boundary to mean a thing that
Speaker 3: she has to do. And I just want to be clear, like,
Speaker 3: your partner should not be sending you messages like this,
Speaker 3: full stop. That is controlling behavior. If your partner is
Speaker 3: sending you screenshots of things offensive things that you've posted
Speaker 3: on your own social media, If your partner is shaming
Speaker 3: you for how you dress for your job, alluding to
Speaker 3: you quitting your job that that will make them happy,
Speaker 3: This is not This is not what respect looks like,
Speaker 3: This is not what love looks like. This is controlling behavior,
Speaker 3: full stop. And I also think that, like I don't know,
Speaker 3: I've been being on thinking about this, I think that
Speaker 3: we are in a really weird place when it comes
Speaker 3: to male female romantic dynamics. I it doesn't surprise me
Speaker 3: that all of this is happening against a backdrop of
Speaker 3: like rising men's rights and manosphere content like Andrew Tate
Speaker 3: or podcasts like that Fresh and Fit that really display
Speaker 3: a kind of obsession with this hierarchy of men over women.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that Jonah Hill or Kiki Palmer's boyfriend,
Speaker 3: I can ever remember his name. I feel bad, I
Speaker 3: haven't even said his name once, but whoever. I'm not
Speaker 3: saying that they are listening to Andrew Tate or these
Speaker 3: podcasts and take notes. But I think that the way
Speaker 3: that that content by those kinds of male men's rights
Speaker 3: influencers is so ubiquitous on social media, Like they'll take
Speaker 3: the clip, they'll put the clip on Twitter, the clip
Speaker 3: will go viral. You don't have to listen to the
Speaker 3: podcast to get the message that they're saying. I think
Speaker 3: that perhaps some of those harmful messages about gender and
Speaker 3: sexuality have trickled down into our everyday discourse and have
Speaker 3: become sort of ingrained in the way that we think
Speaker 3: about each other. And that's kind of the point of
Speaker 3: that kind of content, is to keep people from being
Speaker 3: able to find the common ground, because when you are
Speaker 3: having healthy dialogues, healthy conflict, healthy relationships, you're not going
Speaker 3: to pay some scammer one thousand dollars for his like
Speaker 3: bs webinar on how to pick up chicks or whatever.
Speaker 3: They're really incentivizing us being divided and us thinking that
Speaker 3: the only way that we can have relationships with each
Speaker 3: other is through control and domination and submission, and that
Speaker 3: is just not accurate. People who have healthy attitudes around
Speaker 3: gender and sexuality and dating don't also have obsessions with
Speaker 3: women submitting and who is on top and who is
Speaker 3: in control. That is not what healthy relationships feel like
Speaker 3: or look like. But I think that a lot of
Speaker 3: these Charlatans have done a lot of effective work at
Speaker 3: convincing us that that is a common dynamic in relationships
Speaker 3: and it's just not right.
Speaker 4: Well, it seems like whether it's control or they're gonna
Speaker 4: cheat on you, Like those are the two like big
Speaker 4: things with social media is that either you're gonna dialge,
Speaker 4: they're gonna leave you, they're gonna cheat on you, So
Speaker 4: you better do these things in order to control them,
Speaker 4: which is interesting in itself that that is so dramatic.
Speaker 3: Totally like it's all control, right, Like the obsession of
Speaker 3: like is he cheating? Is she cheating? Are they cheating?
Speaker 3: Like even that is like infidelity and what couples do
Speaker 3: around like what faithful, being faithful looks like in dynamics
Speaker 3: of relationships, people have all kinds of situations that work
Speaker 3: for them. Some people are monogamous, some people are no monogamous,
Speaker 3: some people have open relationships. Like there are all kinds
Speaker 3: of dynamics that work for all different kinds of couple
Speaker 3: and people because we're all different, right, But this obsession
Speaker 3: with cheating and find out if this person is cheating
Speaker 3: and this person is going to cheat, and this person
Speaker 3: should cheat, and like that's just not an obsession with
Speaker 3: that is not a marker of a healthy relationship, one
Speaker 3: where there is trust and communication and infidelity and what
Speaker 3: being faithful looks like within the confines of your specific
Speaker 3: relationship is a big part of relationships. Like I'm not
Speaker 3: saying that healthy couples don't have to figure that out,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't look like this finding a healthy perspective
Speaker 3: on that? Does it look like this tit for tat
Speaker 3: like control. What they're describing are called high control relationships
Speaker 3: and that's not what a healthy consensual vibe or dynamic
Speaker 3: looks like within a relationship, no matter what your relationship
Speaker 3: looks like.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think unfortunately we've been improving, but I
Speaker 2: still see that in so much of our like kind
Speaker 2: of romantic media, and I think people have gotten better
Speaker 2: about realizing like, oh, this is a toxic behavior, but
Speaker 2: I'm still for some reason drawn to those, especially hierarchies
Speaker 2: with gender. But also I wanted to say, I think
Speaker 2: it's important to note because I bet a lot of
Speaker 2: us have experienced this too.
Speaker 1: Jonah Hill, that.
Speaker 2: Whole idea that he, you know, knows what she does,
Speaker 2: and then he.
Speaker 1: Has the problem after they start dating. I feel like
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: Of dudes, and not just dudes, but I feel like
Speaker 2: a lot of dudes do that where they are like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm cool with that.
Speaker 1: I'm cool with that. So they get the date and
Speaker 1: then you start dating, and.
Speaker 2: Then a little way in they're like, actually, I'm not
Speaker 2: cool with that. It's like they get their foot in
Speaker 2: the door and they're like, hey, you know what, if
Speaker 2: we want this to work, you're gonna have to change
Speaker 2: things Like no, I was upfront with you. And again,
Speaker 2: relationships can change. You can have that conversation again later
Speaker 2: and maybe viewpoints have changed. But I feel like a
Speaker 2: lot of it is kind of trickery. It's kind of
Speaker 2: just like, oh, now I got the date, and I'll
Speaker 2: wear her down.
Speaker 3: Huh. Absolutely. So there was a thread in response to
Speaker 3: this whole situation of a woman who had worked as
Speaker 3: a flight attendant, and she talked about how flight attendants
Speaker 3: who are women are like it's seen as like a
Speaker 3: fun career, your jetst you're going to different places, You're
Speaker 3: like really vivacious and usually like conventionally attractive, and how
Speaker 3: men would desire to be in relationships with flight attendants
Speaker 3: and be like, oh, I'm so drawn to how full
Speaker 3: of life and vivacious she is. Then when they were
Speaker 3: in those relationships, demand that she stopped doing that and
Speaker 3: essentially like break her or turn down her shine. And
Speaker 3: I'm here to tell you that the person that is
Speaker 3: for you doesn't want to see you turn down your
Speaker 3: shine for anybody. They love the way you shine. They
Speaker 3: don't want you to turn that off for anybody, least
Speaker 3: of all of them. And I think that you know,
Speaker 3: people like there was a there was a dynamic to
Speaker 3: this that I think is complicated, so I want to
Speaker 3: choose my words carefully. I saw a lot of people
Speaker 3: saying men who want women like this, women who are
Speaker 3: going to be more submissive and present themselves the way
Speaker 3: that they're the man in their life wants them to.
Speaker 3: Those women exist so that these men should just find
Speaker 3: that kind of woman, the kind of woman who is
Speaker 3: going to be submissive and like be cool with being
Speaker 3: whoever this guy wants her to be. Here's I get
Speaker 3: where that's coming from. Here's my problem with that. I
Speaker 3: don't think there is any kind of person who deserves
Speaker 3: to be controlled and who deserves to be like made
Speaker 3: to be somebody that they don't want to be to
Speaker 3: please somebody else. Even if you're somebody who is to
Speaker 3: might describe themselves as submissive, that doesn't mean that you
Speaker 3: are like because of that that you deserve or a
Speaker 3: or are a good candidate for someone to exert control
Speaker 3: over you. Because nobody deserves to be controlled in a relationship.
Speaker 3: That's not what a healthy relationship. And so I would
Speaker 3: posit that there is not a type of person for
Speaker 3: whom it is like okay for a guy to get
Speaker 3: in a relationship with and completely break and change whether
Speaker 3: you're submissive or not so. In his memoir, Trevor Noah writes,
Speaker 3: quote the way my mother always explained it, the traditional
Speaker 3: man wants a woman to be subservient, but he never
Speaker 3: falls in love with subservient women. He's attracted to independent women.
Speaker 3: He's like an exotic bird collector. She said he only
Speaker 3: wants a woman who is free because his dream is
Speaker 3: to put her in a cage. And that really stuck
Speaker 3: with me. I think that's exactly it. It's something about
Speaker 3: getting a woman who is independent and vivacious and turning
Speaker 3: her down for you. Kiki Palmer is a woman, she's
Speaker 3: an icon. She is vivacious, she is hilarious, she is
Speaker 3: someone who shines bright. And getting with a woman like
Speaker 3: that and expecting her to make herself more modest because
Speaker 3: she is yours, I think is exactly the dynamic that
Speaker 3: Trevor Noah is speaking to.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I agree, it's strange too. I've had this experience where
Speaker 2: dudes will tell me when like we start dating, like
Speaker 2: I love that you're independent, and then skip to six months,
Speaker 2: Y're like, actually tone it.
Speaker 1: Down a little bit, Like, wait a minute, is that
Speaker 1: just a line you used? Okay?
Speaker 2: I think another interesting part of this conversation that's been
Speaker 2: ongoing as we have had these relationships in digital media
Speaker 2: is the there was some discussion around her Sarah publishing
Speaker 2: these texs, right Yeah.
Speaker 3: A big question is like, well, is it cool that
Speaker 3: after they had broken up, he's had a new relationship,
Speaker 3: he just had a baby. Is it cool that she
Speaker 3: is releasing these texts from an ex partners at a
Speaker 3: breach of trust? This is tricky and honestly, like your
Speaker 3: mileage may vary, I think it's I think it's a
Speaker 3: fair question, and personally my opinion, just you know, representing
Speaker 3: myself and just myself, I think that Jonah Hill really
Speaker 3: went out of his way to like brand himself as
Speaker 3: a male feminist who has gone to therapy and is
Speaker 3: really like with it and interested in being an ally
Speaker 3: And so I believe if you're going to market yourself
Speaker 3: to the public that way, which he's clearly done, information
Speaker 3: about how you actually meet those standards that you're setting
Speaker 3: publicly does warrant some public scrutiny. That's kind of how
Speaker 3: I feel. People may not agree, and that's totally fine.
Speaker 3: The New Yorker's Emily Nusbaum, who is a critic at
Speaker 3: The New Yorker. She tweeted, it's gross to post your
Speaker 3: ex as private text unless you have a really solid
Speaker 3: reason to do so. And this holds true even if
Speaker 3: your ex was a thin skinned, manipulative weasel. That used
Speaker 3: to be a given, but it clearly isn't anymore. So
Speaker 3: she and other people felt the same way that, like,
Speaker 3: it wasn't cool that she was releasing these texts after
Speaker 3: the fact. I don't know. I mean, Emily might be
Speaker 3: right here that it is a generational thing, but I
Speaker 3: do think that, like, maybe that's kind of the point
Speaker 3: because Sarah released these texts, and so many younger women
Speaker 3: took to social media platforms like Reddit and Twitter to
Speaker 3: talk about how they had experienced the same kind of
Speaker 3: behavior from men, controlling, trying to dim their shine or
Speaker 3: knock them down privately, trying to shame them via social
Speaker 3: media and things like that. So, you know, I don't
Speaker 3: love the idea of releasing an excess private text messages
Speaker 3: after a breakup, But nor do I love this expectation
Speaker 3: that we're meant to just stay silent when we have
Speaker 3: been mistreated in relationships. Sarah believes that she was emotionally abused.
Speaker 3: I would not tell anybody who feels they were the
Speaker 3: victim of abuse to stay quiet about it, because that
Speaker 3: only benefits abusers. And so I also think there's so
Speaker 3: much stigma when relationships are coming to an end. I
Speaker 3: can only imagine what it's like for celebrity relationships, but
Speaker 3: even in non celebrity relationships, there is so much stigma
Speaker 3: around being like the crazy girl, the crazy X. And
Speaker 3: so when you don't just shrink away and you say
Speaker 3: something about how you feel you were mistree, I think
Speaker 3: that we've really stigmatized that. And I don't think that
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't love the idea of outing
Speaker 3: somebody's private text, but I also don't love the dynamic
Speaker 3: that like, okay, well just stay quiet about it, even
Speaker 3: if you feel like you were abused, you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah.
Speaker 2: And I feel like we've seen that also play out
Speaker 2: with dating apps, where women usually will be like, hey,
Speaker 2: this guy's real bad, like the don't damn like they can.
Speaker 2: There's the potential for that to be used in a
Speaker 2: very terrible way, and there's the potential for like a
Speaker 2: lot of context to be lost. Although I feel like
Speaker 2: that would be used more against women than men. In relationship.
Speaker 2: But I also think, yeah, it's if going back to
Speaker 2: that quote from Nusbaum, like I think that is something
Speaker 2: worth talking, Like that is a real reason to talk
Speaker 2: about it, Like I.
Speaker 1: Think that is.
Speaker 2: And it's so insidious because it feels like, oh, it's
Speaker 2: just manipulative behavior, get over it. But because we don't
Speaker 2: talk about it, because we view that as kind of
Speaker 2: a lesser abuse. We we are like, well, just move on,
Speaker 2: like just he's moved on, when it's.
Speaker 1: By doing that we are harming.
Speaker 2: Other people who are watching. You're like, oh, okay, we
Speaker 2: never talk about this, it must just be me or
Speaker 2: something like that. So I think there is like a
Speaker 2: real benefit in talking about it.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean I know a child star has come out
Speaker 4: recently against Jonahill as well because of Sarah's response, and
Speaker 4: there's some allegations floating about whatever it may be. But
Speaker 4: I think there there is that whole level of like
Speaker 4: what's too much when you start sharing everything in social media,
Speaker 4: just like kind of like Kiki's boyfriend, Like, dude, that
Speaker 4: was too much?
Speaker 3: What do you do?
Speaker 5: Like you know, there's there's moments.
Speaker 4: Of like finding those boundaries and sharing too much and
Speaker 4: the reality when it comes to celebrities, is that, Yeah,
Speaker 4: you're gonna get outed very quickly in this day and
Speaker 4: age with social media, so you better be staying true
Speaker 4: and you kind of you deserve your privacy, for sure.
Speaker 4: Everybody deserves their privacy for sure, But don't play a
Speaker 4: character in real life and not expect to be called out.
Speaker 3: That is such a good way to put that. I
Speaker 3: saw so many people being like, you know, the only
Speaker 3: thing that is bad here is that Sarah released these
Speaker 3: private text messages. And my thinking is like, if what
Speaker 3: Jonah Hill said to her is fine and totally normal,
Speaker 3: why is it bad that she released the text message.
Speaker 3: It can't both can't be true. It can't be like
Speaker 3: Jonah Hill didn't say anything untoward, and also she is
Speaker 3: trying to cancel him or ruin his life by making
Speaker 3: it public. And I read in a follow up message
Speaker 3: that she released, she said that not releasing those messages
Speaker 3: was becoming damaging to her mental health. And I don't
Speaker 3: like a dynamic that says that she should sacrifice her
Speaker 3: well being in mental health if that's truly how she
Speaker 3: feels to not cause a problem for a celebrity, Like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I just feel like, like Jonah Hill
Speaker 3: clearly has a pr team I think will probably be fine.
Speaker 3: I don't think that, like, I don't think that's her
Speaker 3: job to keep the Jonah Hill celebrity machine rolling at
Speaker 3: the expense of our own mental health. Yeah, and Sam,
Speaker 3: I think that you put it well that we do
Speaker 3: need to have some conversations around what healthy behavior looks
Speaker 3: like as it pertains to our romantic relationships and social media.
Speaker 3: I don't think that we've had that conversation. And what
Speaker 3: I'm hoping is that this moment can spark us to
Speaker 3: have that conversation a little bit more clearly. Like for me,
Speaker 3: I don't put anything about my romantic life on social media.
Speaker 3: That's an intentional choice for a lot of reasons. It
Speaker 3: wasn't always like that, Like that was an evolution. It
Speaker 3: just works for me. It works for me, it works
Speaker 3: for the people that I'm in romantic relationships with. You know,
Speaker 3: I think people got to find what works for them,
Speaker 3: what feels healthy and respectful for them. And nobody can
Speaker 3: tell you that but you and so is this stuff
Speaker 3: really matters? You know, there's a growing body of research,
Speaker 3: as I said, that suggests that social media can make
Speaker 3: relationships more complicated and more difficult. And separately, one study
Speaker 3: even found that social media triggered jealousy is linked with
Speaker 3: intimate partner violence. I'm not saying that's what's going on
Speaker 3: on either of these relationships, but just something to know
Speaker 3: is that, like, this is not just online drama or whatever.
Speaker 3: This has real world impact and consequences. And again, I
Speaker 3: don't think that we should be just dismissing how relationships
Speaker 3: play out on social media as something that is not
Speaker 3: worth scrutiny, because it clearly is. And so I put
Speaker 3: together a few like tips from this conversation that maybe
Speaker 3: will be helpful for folks, and if it's not, that's
Speaker 3: fine too. One is that your partner should not be
Speaker 3: using social media to shame you. Like, if you have
Speaker 3: an issue in your relationship, healthy couples talk about it,
Speaker 3: they don't tweet about it. Right. If your partner doesn't
Speaker 3: like how you are leaving the house while you're dressed,
Speaker 3: they tell you. They don't tweet it to the internet
Speaker 3: streets and let the internet streets do their thing. That
Speaker 3: is not how healthy couples resolve conflict, right, So that's one. Two,
Speaker 3: You control what you post on social media. If somebody
Speaker 3: is sending you screenshots to that you do things or
Speaker 3: not do things, that's not cool and that's not respectful.
Speaker 3: So you should be in control of how you show
Speaker 3: up on social media. Trust your gut, right, Like, you know,
Speaker 3: the same way that when I read those Jonah Hill texts,
Speaker 3: they kind of the hair in the back of my
Speaker 3: neck kind of stood up because I've gotten messages like
Speaker 3: that from people and it's like, I know that those
Speaker 3: are not respectful. Trust your gut. We all have that
Speaker 3: voice in our head that it's like you're just being crazy.
Speaker 3: He's being fine, Like you're not, Like you're not respecting him.
Speaker 3: You're gonna lose him. Don't listen to that voice. That
Speaker 3: voice has been programmed by decades of patriarchy and sexism
Speaker 3: and toxic gender stuff and all of that. Trust your gut.
Speaker 3: You know when someone is treating you with respect and
Speaker 3: you need to listen to that voice and act on
Speaker 3: that voice. And just lastly, yeah, digital control is still control,
Speaker 3: and everybody deserves auton of over their lives and bodies,
Speaker 3: both online and off.
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh, what's that term?
Speaker 2: I'm so out of touch with all the terms, But
Speaker 2: is it called like vague posting.
Speaker 3: It's like when you post yeah, vague posting.
Speaker 5: And some bad things happening.
Speaker 1: Yes, but you don't say who it is.
Speaker 5: Twitter, MySpace were like Prime Space.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, people on my feet. The one that
Speaker 3: gets me is like, I need your prayers and good
Speaker 3: thoughts right now. Don't ask me what's going on. I
Speaker 3: need your prayers, prayers up. But it's like, well, if
Speaker 3: you didn't want people to ask what was going on,
Speaker 3: there was a way to do that which is not post.
Speaker 3: Is that the one that gets me?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, well, uh yeah, this is such an important
Speaker 2: conversation happened, And once again Bridget like, there are so
Speaker 2: many different paths we could have gone down, and so
Speaker 2: many thoughts. We love having you, uh to talk about
Speaker 2: these things.
Speaker 1: Where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for having me. I knew that I
Speaker 3: could trust y'all to have this conversation with all the
Speaker 3: nuance that it has, so thank you for that. Folks
Speaker 3: can listen to my podcast on iHeartRadio called Their Nobles
Speaker 3: on the Internet. Can follow me on Twitter at Bridget
Speaker 3: Marie or on Instagram at Bridget Marie and DC.
Speaker 1: Yes yes, yes, yes, and we look forward to having
Speaker 1: you back.
Speaker 3: Brigitte Oh anytime, always yes.
Speaker 2: And listeners, be sure to follow Bridget if you're not already.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening. You can contact us at Stuff Media,
Speaker 2: Momstuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on
Speaker 2: Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok
Speaker 2: at Stuff Whenever Told You. We also have a tea
Speaker 2: public store.
Speaker 1: We have a book.
Speaker 2: You can pre order it at stuff you Should Read
Speaker 2: Books dot com or on audible. Thanks as always to
Speaker 2: our super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya, and our
Speaker 2: contributors Joey.
Speaker 1: Thank y'all, and thanks to you for listening. Steffan Never
Speaker 1: Told You is production by Heart Radio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check
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