Laina Morris was 20 years old when she entered a Justin Bieber fan contest in 2012. She uploaded a video of herself to YouTube singing a creepy parody song. She didn't win the concert tickets, but when she woke up the next morning, she had won a very different prize. Reddit, a website she had never heard of, got a hold of the video and turned her into the poster child for obsessive, co-dependent relationships. "Overly Attached Girlfriend" was born, and Laina became one of the most recognizable m...
Jun 25, 2025•1 hr 22 min
When people post online, they usually declare their opinions. And in social media echo chambers, those opinions tend to be validated. But the subreddit r/ChangeMyView *might* be the only place on the Internet where people come in good faith to have their opinions challenged — and perhaps even changed. Topics range from movie fandom to food preferences to history to some of the most challenging ethical and political discussions of our time: abortion, global conflict, mental health, and of course ...
Jun 11, 2025•1 hr 5 min
Grace Helbig was cutting tape in her 2006 video editing class when the professor asked everyone to create accounts on a new website called "YouTube." That's where Grace found vloggers, jump cuts, and an emerging alt comedy scene. She became obsessed (in a good way) and immediately got to work. What began as comedic vlogs and absurd sketches with her improv pals blossomed into a 20 year career of making the Internet laugh. But it wasn't without pitfalls. Grace joins Matt to discuss how she's rein...
May 28, 2025•1 hr 21 min
Video journalists Joss Fong and Adam Cole are rarely satisfied with the results of scientific inquiry. As self-proclaimed "earnest nerds," they are compelled to unpack the process — to learn HOW experts know the things they know. After more than a decade as science communicators at Vox and NPR, they launched their own home on YouTube called Howtown. Their videos on how to measure animal sentience, how we really know the circumference of the Earth, and how hot sauces get so ... hot ... have capti...
May 14, 2025•1 hr 12 min
Dr. Will Bulsiewicz went to school for 14 years to become a gastroenterologist. He loved working with patients, and developed a fascination for emerging research about the gut microbiome -- trillions of bacteria that live in our intestines and digest fruits and veggies. As a young doctor, he realized that public perception of the gut microbiome was lacking. When he gave a talk about colon microbes at his hospital, the intimate event became a standing-room only fire code violation. That's when he...
Apr 30, 2025•1 hr 39 min
This week on INFLUENCE, the double-edged sword of YouTube's ContentID systems, and the explosion of AI-generated ads and voices which have no shame in cloning content creators for profit. Plus: Some changes to the Patreon so you can get more for less! Links discussed in this episode: How to subscribe to a private Patreon RSS feed: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041347732-How-to-use-your-audio-RSS Why YouTube apologized for age-gating Balatro videos: https://www.theverge.com/new...
Apr 16, 2025•48 min
Like many of us, Zoë Ligon worked a retail job after college. But in her case, it was a sex toy shop, where she would have fascinating interactions with customers. Talking sex with random strangers changed her perspective on sex education, and she began writing about her own experiences on Tumblr – back when Tumblr was still a safe haven for NSFW content. Her blogging became paid gigs, which lead to a social media following, and one of her posts in particular catapulted her to worldwide attentio...
Apr 09, 2025•1 hr 16 min
-Original Show Notes from May 20, 2022- Stuart Duncan is the dad of an autistic son, and he's also autistic himself. So when he learned that autistic Minecraft players were being bullied on popular servers, he set out to create a safe and inclusive virtual space for the autism community. The moment he announced it, parents lined up in droves, hoping their kids could join. Today, the server has 15,000 members, and Stuart has quit his job as a software developer to manage, moderate, and customize ...
Apr 02, 2025•1 hr 59 min
A peer reviewed study from the University of British Columbia analyzed the most popular ADHD-related videos on TikTok and found that very few of them contain information that aligns with medical diagnostics. Even more interesting, people who consume this kind of content perceive the diagnosis to be far more widespread - and symptoms far more intense - than in reality. Social media is warping our sense of reality and self?! Inconceivable! Plus: New bi-partisan legislation aims to repeal Section 2...
Mar 26, 2025•35 min
Here’s an idea: Around 2012, YouTube was undergoing a profound transformation from a novelty economy to a loyalty platform. This was largely driven by vlog culture, but another format was emerging: The video essay. But would Internet audiences (notorious for their ShOrT aTeNtIoN sPaNs!!!) watch longform, Socratic discussion of math, democracy, quantum mechanics, and Pokémon? Turns out: Yes. Through the power of public broadcasting, an extremely innovative YouTube show emerged called PBS Idea Cha...
Mar 19, 2025•1 hr 30 min
Elizabeth Booker Houston got a law degree and a master's in public health, with a focus on pandemic policy. Too bad that wasn’t very useful OH WAIT During the Covid lockdowns, she became fascinated by the health misinformation perpetuated by Trump’s first administration and weaponized by social media. So she took to TikTok (as you do) to share her public health expertise and make fun of anti-vaxxers. Elizabeth’s combo of rapid-fire facts, myth debunks, and brutal punchlines drew a huge audience....
Mar 12, 2025•1 hr 20 min
Hi friends! Excited to share this interview from my *other* show, Colette & Matt Have Entered the Chat, where we cover video games and their communities. This one is about the extraordinary legacy of "Minesweeper," which changed the Internet in more ways than you might think. Enjoy! -Original show notes from March 24, 2023- Get the full episode here (or in your favorite pod app): https://haveenteredthechat.com/episodes/100-minesweeper-kyle-orland-diablo-4 When "Minesweeper" and "Solitaire" w...
Mar 05, 2025•1 hr 6 min
If your Reddit feeds seem different lately, you're not alone. Massive "default" subreddits like r/pics — once home to heartwarming photos, hilarious memes, and stunning landscapes — have become a hotbed of anti-Trump and anti-fascist activism. Users there are sharing photos from recent public protests, which you may not have seen on the news, but are tens of thousands strong across every U.S. state. The sea change in political activism is largely attributed to a grassroots affiliation of civil a...
Feb 26, 2025•54 min
True Crime Case Files had 150 videos and millions of views, but not a single true story was real. Also, are we finally seeing real protests thanks to Reddit? https://www.404media.co/a-true-crime-documentary-series-has-millions-of-views-the-murders-are-all-ai-generated/ https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/17/us/politics/trump-musk-protests-50501-presidents-day.html This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts: 🍎...
Feb 19, 2025•36 min•Ep. 40
Social media platforms have become the “default” for most of the world’s 5.5 billion Internet users, which means everything we see and post online is controlled by billionaires and squeezed for maximum profit – shredding democracy, mental health, and human rights in the process. But what if it didn’t have to be this way? In fact, the Web wasn’t this way until very recently. So how did we get here? And how can we claw it back? The bad news is it will take a LOT of work, investment, and convincing...
Feb 12, 2025•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 36
By day, Jason Kingsley is the CEO of Rebellion, an independent video game developer that’s been cranking out hits since the '90s. But in 2017, he noticed a shift in the media landscape. YouTube - once a bastion of cat videos and reaction vlogs - was emerging as a destination for longform educational content. Jason’s obsession with medieval history, background in raising horses, and love of fantasy role-playing games compelled him to start Modern History TV, a channel with rigorous and delightful...
Feb 05, 2025•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 38
This week U.S. tech companies lost nearly $1 trillion in "value" after a Chinese startup called DeepSeek released its R1 large language model, which was reportedly developed for WAY less than Silicon Valley is pouring into the AI bubble. And while it is fun to laugh at tech billionaires losing money, DeepSeek's innovation (if real) could change the model for AI deployment - allowing LLMs to run on local machines (like your home computer) rather than in massive data centers owned by 3 companies. ...
Jan 29, 2025•49 min•Ep. 37
Adopting a rescue animal is a noble pursuit, but dogs who live in a stressful, chaotic shelter may not put their best paw forward when potential owners come to visit. That’s where fostering comes in. It’s the often-overlooked step between rescue and adoption, and it can be transformative for many dogs. Even while young and broke in New York City, Isabel Klee took up this calling, and it changed her life forever. Today, she educates her enormous online audience about the foster process through he...
Jan 22, 2025•1 hr 45 min•Ep. 36
Gary Arndt ignored all the advice for new podcasters. Instead of focusing on a specific topic, he made a show about literally everything he could think of: history, geography, quantum physics, games, technology, and more. Instead of pacing out episodes weekly or monthly, he decided to publish every single day. 1,600 episodes later, his show “Everything Everywhere” has a community of 1.5 million monthly listeners. This success story leaves out that Gary is uniquely (and perhaps exclusively?) qual...
Jan 15, 2025•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 35
When Sky Burkson was a kid, he had two obsessions: drawing and video games. He went on to pursue a career in set design, but his love of games never faded. And when life threw his family a curveball, he knew it was time to recombine his passions. These days, his painstaking recreations of video game architecture and environments delight thousands of fans around the world, including some of YouTube's biggest gaming influencers, who regularly commission new work. His sculptures, which are made mos...
Jan 08, 2025•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 34
Happy Nude Year, one and all! I'm still on holiday break, but wanted to check in with out about the YouTuber(s) who exposed the Honey browser extension (owned by PayPal) as a massive scam, my upcoming guests, and sharing an encore episode from my other show, Colette & Matt Have Entered the Chat, about a small but mighty video game community that did the impossible, just in the nick of time! Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam, by MegaLag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4yL3YTwWk Original S...
Jan 01, 2025•1 hr 46 min•Ep. 33
In 1984, a German teenager recorded a moody new wave song from the radio. The mystery song, with crunchy guitars and English lyrics, was preserved on a cassette and forgotten. That is until 2007, when his sister discovered the tape, and began a 17-year quest to identify it. From Usenet groups, to music identification forums, a Discord server, a popular YouTuber, and a dedicated subreddit called r/TheMysteriousSong, thousands of Internet sleuths have been decoding clues and comparing notes for ne...
Dec 18, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 32
Wikipedia continues to be a modern miracle. Unlike social media platforms — which are rife with misinformation and grift — Wikipedia's openness and non-profit status are key to its two+ decades of value and accuracy. But a new threat is looming. Generative AI now touches everything we read, watch, and listen to on the Web. And some Wiki editors have begun experimenting with it, with mixed results. Where do large language models fit into the pursuit of accurate, reliable knowledge, if at all? And...
Dec 11, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 31
Karen Cassady had finally made it. She was working full time as a comedy performer and teacher, with weekly shows at Atlanta's top improv theater. Then March 2020 happened. She and her comedy cohorts tried to translate their shows to Twitch live streams, but the "lulz" in the chat just didn't cut it. Unemployed and painfully bored, she put on some wigs and began riffing other people's videos on TikTok. But it wasn't until she began improvising an original Rom Com (and playing every character) th...
Dec 04, 2024•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 30
Salutations, one and all! I'm taking this week off, but excited to share some episodes that are on the docket for the coming weeks, and a BRILLIANT piece of media theory that might explain what the world is going through at this political moment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 27, 2024•49 min•Ep. 29
Amanda Lee was a passionate wedding photographer whose business was booming - that is, until, February 2020. Covid canceled her job and income, and to make matters worse, severe stomach pain was preventing her from eating (and pooping). When she finally got an appointment to see a doctor at the height of the pandemic, instead of offering scans or tests, he said it was "a blessing" that she hasn't eaten solid food in weeks, since she could stand to lose a few pounds. Distraught and in tears, she ...
Nov 20, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 28
Mattel's movie tie-in dolls for "Wicked" are being recalled due to the greatest typo ever made. Bluesky adds 700,000 users in one week as Americans flee Twitter, and a new contender might be on track to surpass MrBeast as the most-subscribed YouTuber of all time. Plus: I'm now obsessed with finding the Reddit sleuths who solved one of the oldest musical mysteries on the Internet. This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Listen & subscribe wherever ...
Nov 13, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 27
There was no Internet when Yaya Han first discovered manga and anime in the early '90s. Born in China, she fell in love with this media (which was mostly imported from Japan) at a young age. But when her family unexpectedly moved to Europe, she became an outsider overnight - culturally and linguistically. That is, until she discovered a German anime magazine and started submitting her artwork. That's where she found thousands of obsessed fans just like her. But it wasn't until she attended a U.S...
Nov 06, 2024•2 hr 7 min•Ep. 26
Before becoming Patreon's Head of Online Community, Hayley Rosenblum was no stranger to fan funding. She had worked closely with musicians in their pivot away from record labels, and toward the Internet - where fandom reigns supreme. These days, she helps creators large and small by listening to their needs and communicating pain points back to the Patreon mothership. Many artist conversations have changed the platform, often in subtle and unexpected ways. But even when her work seems "invisible...
Oct 30, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 25
Two very interesting announcements from the Adobe Max conference connect directly back to last week's conversation about digital rights attribution. The company is launching their AI image and video generation model called "Firefly," which has only been trained on licensed and public domain imagery. So: If tools like this could be vetted, would artists and regulators be comfortable with them? Links from this week's discussion: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/10/adobe-unveils-ai-video-generator-t...
Oct 23, 2024•44 min•Ep. 24
