Alli and Matt chat about why TikTok is so amazing and terrifying, and that time Alli went to the "Reptile Super Show" in LA, because why not? Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1P Join the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1p Join the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/ Email us: [email protected] Call the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 14, 2022•41 min•Ep. 203
When life-saving medication costs more than rent, you know there's a problem with the system. The cost of insulin — the blood sugar regulator relied on by diabetic patients around the world — has skyrocketed in recent years. Pharmaceutical patents and the lack of competition are usually the culprit. But one group of volunteers from around the world has been working to reverse-engineer insulin and get the "recipe" into production in order to bring down the cost exponentially. Think of it as an "o...
Feb 07, 2022•43 min•Ep. 202
We already know that Disney theme parks aren't just for kids, and there are communities of grown-ups who take having fun a Disney Land very seriously! Disney Bounders are all about dressing up as their favorite characters without looking exactly like them, which would be a violation of park rules. To avoid confusing other guests (and getting kicked out of the park), Disney Bounders use regular clothes and household items to evoke the style of princesses, famous animals, and Marvel heroes without...
Jan 31, 2022•56 min•Ep. 201
Studying, writing, and remote work can be a lonely time. Add in a dose of global pandemic, and the endless isolation can be overwhelming. It's no surprise to see the growth of streaming communities focused on mundane things: Eating, writing, and today's topic: Studying. Alli and Linsey talk with Giulia Mazza, a study streamer who spends hours a day studying for her Master's degree while hundreds of people watch on Twitch. Her audience is also studying and working, and as Giulia explains, the com...
Jan 24, 2022•50 min•Ep. 200
There's an aisle at your local ALDI supermarket that contains random stuff that rotates on a weekly basis, often without rhyme or reason. So naturally, there's a Facebook group with 1 million people who are obsessed with it. This week, Alli and Lindsey talk with Stefanie Riley and Leigh Caldwell Dunning, friends who've worked in the blogging/journalism space for years until they discovered a shared love for Aldi's "Aisle of Shame." It prompted the blog and group of the same name, where they high...
Jan 17, 2022•57 min•Ep. 199
It should come as no surprise that LEGO is big on the Internet, but one LEGO filmmaking community has been thriving online since 2000, long before YouTube was even a thing. This week, Alli and Lindsey talk with Sean Willis and Chris Wynn, two admins from Bricks in Motion, a forum and Discord community that emerged from the ashes of Brickfilms, which was instrumental in bringing amateur stop-motion LEGO animation online for the world to share. Willis and Wynn explain how link directories brought ...
Jan 10, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 198
The Internet and the World Wide Web began as an open, inter-operable commons with limitless potential and creativity. So how did everything get so corporate? Author and media theorist Douglas Rushkoff believes the next chapter(s) of the Internet could take a cue from Wikipedia or the communal kibbutz, rather than a for-profit metaverse ... if we want it. Alli and Lindsey talk with Rushkoff about the aspirational origins of the Web, what we can do to program a better future, and why millions of d...
Jan 03, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 197
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all who celebrate! We're taking some time off this week for travel and family fun, but looking forward to sharing new episodes soon. For now, a watershed moment for our community: The Macrophilia episode, #93 from July 22, 2019. Enjoy! -Original Show Notes- Macrophilia is a surprisingly popular fetish involving sexual fantasies about giants — specifically, giant women. Being at the mercy of giants, or being coddled or crushed by them are staples of the commu...
Dec 27, 2021•58 min
r/SantasLittleHelpers is the subreddit that fulfills the holiday wishes of kids in need. Alli and Lindsey talk with BackpackWayne, the creator/moderator of Santa's Little Helpers, which has been connecting generous redditors with families that have fallen on hard times for the last 10 years. Wayne recounts heartwarming stories of the kindness of Internet strangers, and shares how the charitable initiative — inspired by his mother — has turned into a yearly juggernaut of generosity. Here's a samp...
Dec 20, 2021•52 min•Ep. 196
The Internet is a place for everyone to have a voice, but we often take the tools and apps we use to access it for granted. Software engineer Ather Sharif became acutely aware of this about 8 years ago when a car accident left him with a spinal cord injury. Even basic things like typing on a keyboard are now an enormous challenge for him and thousands of others with various disabilities. Lindsey and Alli talk with Ather about how this changed the trajectory of his career. He is now an advocate f...
Dec 13, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 195
The only thing bigger than "Bachelor Nation" is "Bachelor Instagram." That's usually where the contestants, stars, villains, and conversations around the Bachelor and Bachelorette franchises go during each season. But educator Suzana Somers had a fresh idea. When she had to start learning Excel for her job, she got bored crunching pivot tables, so she inserted data from The Bachelor instead: How much screen time did each contestant get? Age ranges? Race and ethnic backgrounds? Roses awarded? Ins...
Dec 06, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 194
We hope you're having a fantastic Thanksgiving! We are thankful for YOU, our listeners. Lots of great interviews to come, but for now, please enjoy this hilarious conversation with the genius creator of We Rate Dogs, from June 2020. -Original Show Notes- With more than 14 million followers across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, WeRateDogs is on a mission that everyone on planet Earth can get behind: Rating cute doggos from the internet on a (dubious!) 10-point scale. This blend of adorable dog ...
Nov 29, 2021•1 hr 28 min
National Novel Writing Month has been operating online since 1999! Alli and Lindsey talk with program director Tim Kim about NaNoWriMo's non-profit mission to help writers collaborate and overcome the enormous challenge of getting 50,000 words on the page in a single month. Goal setting and online social accountability are a huge part of it, and the community flourishes across Twitter, Reddit, and Twitch. Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1P Join the 2G1P Discord community:http:...
Nov 22, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 193
Today we learned that Lindsey went to summer camp with Lando Calrissian. Also, Alli went to Panama to take anal photos and swim in trash water. How are you? Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1P Join the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1p Join the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/ Email us: [email protected] Call the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 15, 2021•33 min•Ep. 192
The finance world can seem buttoned-up, even intimidating. But journalist Omar Gallaga found an unlikely (but entirely logical) place for armchair stock market tycoons to share tips and make big plays: Discord. But this community dispenses with the "finance bro" trappings of other day trading services. Xtrades is about learning, teaching, and dare we say it: having fun with the stock market. In the wake of Gamestop, crypto crashes, and the NFT boom, Xtrades is a chill place for legit financial e...
Nov 08, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 191
You'd think a social network only for professional doctors would be a bastion of reason and scientific discussion. Unfortunately as Dr. Paul Malarik points out, doctors are human, too: Full of bias, assumptions, and sometimes bad intent. Dr. Malarik is a semi-retired psychiatrist who spends part of his time helping people get vaccinated against COVID-19, and the other part debunking vaccine misinformation on Doximity, a "LinkedIn" or "Facebook" only for doctors. Alli and Lindsey speak with Dr. M...
Nov 01, 2021•57 min•Ep. 190
Which witch should you follow on WitchTok? Georgina Rose is a prolific creator of occult and witchcraft content, deeply informed by historical research. Despite how witches are depicted in popular culture, wicca (and other spiritual schools) are deeply naturalistic and tend to fill spiritual gaps where "traditional" religions fall short. Through her YouTube channel, Instagram, and podcast, Georgina explains the tenets of occult spirituality, while also drawing firm lines between science and spir...
Oct 25, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 189
We've got the week off, but wanted to re-share one of our favorite episodes from back in the day. Enjoy, and we'll see you next week! -Original Show Notes from August 12, 2019- There's plenty of sexy fan art for any movie, show, or game imaginable, thanks to Rule 34. But there's something about Sonic the Hedgehog that lends the character to very specific and often extreme fetish art, in limitless quantities. Why Sonic? Writer and weird Internet excavator K. Thor Jensen walks Alli and Jen through...
Oct 18, 2021•1 hr 16 min
If you live in a big city like New York, you know that delivery workers on bikes are vital for moving food and other resources from place to place, especially during the pandemic. But workers using apps like Door Dash and Uber Eats often have little recourse when something goes wrong, like a stolen bike or worse, a traffic accident. They're not employed by the tech companies, nor the restaurants they serve. And they're not top of mind for police, especially when many workers are undocumented and...
Oct 11, 2021•44 min•Ep. 188
Most things in the online world are meant to scale big, and reach as many people as possible all over the world. But for locally-grown food, not so much. So when the pandemic accelerated the need for local farms to get online, companies like Fresh Harvest stepped up. This week, Alli and Lindsey talk with Zac Harrison, the founder of Fresh Harvest, and Nicholas and Jeni of Crystal Organic Farm, a local farm in Georgia that distributes through the site. They discuss the importance of locally-grown...
Oct 04, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 187
There are little treasures hidden all over your neighborhood, and throughout the world. You just need a GPS app (and some sleuthing skills) to find them. That's the fun of geocaching, a global phenomenon where people hide containers (large and small) in public spaces and drop the coordinates on a map. Find one, and you might be the first to add your name to the log, get some free swag, or enjoy the experience of a lifetime. Alli and Lindsey chat with Scott Berks, Chad Courtney, and Jessie Brown,...
Sep 27, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 186
After noting cyclical patterns in the news and online discourse, combined with the rise of bots and overwhelming presence of advertising, some skeptical thinkers have proposed the "Dead Internet Theory," an idea that most (if not all?) online content is created by highly sophisticated bots. Where this interesting conspiracy goes awry is that — you guessed it — it's all a government coverup designed to keep us (the remaining human sheeple) in line. Alli and Lindsey talk with Kaitlyn Tiffany, a wr...
Sep 20, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 185
Here's a look back at one of our favorite episodes about sex work inside the still-thriving virtual world of Second Life. We hope you enjoy this one as much as we did, and we'll talk with you next week! -- Original Show Notes | June 22, 2020 -- Cybersex is as old as the Internet itself. But as virtual spaces become more sophisticated, so too has sex work. Second Life is more of a "technology playground" than a video game -- a place where your digital skills can be traded for real money. Many pla...
Sep 13, 2021•1 hr 19 min
We shouldn't be surprised to find huge, passionate online communities about something as mundane as breakfast cereal. Dan Goubert has been sharing his love of cereal and tapping into the fandom for years with his blog Cerealously.net. There, he muses about cereal culture, delicious (and horrifying!) new products, posts meticulous reviews, and occasionally breaks breakfast news. The blog became so popular it caught the attention of podcast maven and cereal eater Justin McElroy. The two teamed up ...
Sep 06, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 184
How's your summer going? We're checking in and sharing some of your amazing emails and voicemails. Join our new "Do Nothing" group, and get a sneak peek of what's to come on 2G1P. Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1P Join the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1p Join the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/ Email us: [email protected] Call the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.f...
Aug 30, 2021•30 min•Ep. 183
We've all read sexy fanfiction from time to time, but a huge community of collaborative writers (and TikTokers) have taken it to a new level over the last decade. Enter: The Omegaverse, a complex, hierarchical world of sexual politics and impregnation, based on the mating habits of pack animals. And despite its fantastical nature, it's now striving to address real-world issues as well. Alli and Lindsey speak with Morgan Sung, Internet culture reporter at Mashable, about her quest to unravel the ...
Aug 23, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 182
We're working out some scheduling snafus this week, but we'll be back again with fresh tales from the depths of the Internet. For now, we have an encore episode about a really fascinating topic we covered back in January. We hope you enjoy, and we'll see you again next week! Original notes: If you're concerned that LOLspeak and text messages are ruining language, fear not, grammar nerds! This week, Alli and Jen speak with linguist, author, and fellow podcaster Gretchen McCulloch, who says we are...
Aug 16, 2021•1 hr 10 min
IKEA furniture is cheap, modular, and everywhere. So it's no surprise that thousands of people on the Internet love to show off their Frankenfurniture on social media. Whether it's upgrading to fancier knobs on your dresser or turning a kitchen counter into a guitar (??), IKEA hackers walk among us all. Alli and Lindsey speak with Jules Yap, creator of ikeahackers.net, a gathering place for superfans of the Swedish furniture brand. Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1P Join the 2...
Aug 09, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 181
Everyone loves a good pair of sneakers. But some people *REALLY* love a good pair of sneakers. And when they meet online, a lot can pop off. This week, Lindsey and Alli talk with Josh Luber, the co-founder of StockX, the largest marketplace for collectibles like sneakers, streetwear and trading cards. Luber discusses the explosion of the online sneaker community, and which pair in your closet might fetch the highest price. Follow Josh: https://twitter.com/joshluber Support 2G1P on Patreon! https...
Aug 02, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 180
The Internet has removed gatekeepers for most forms of media, porn certainly among them. The rise of Only Fans and direct-to-consumer sex work has empowered millions of adult creators (mostly women) to take back control of their NSFW products. But as we've seen across influencer culture, the psychological tradeoffs can be high. Alli and Lindsey talk with Dr. Rebecca Sullivan, a professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of Calgary, who has researched (and written books) about po...
Jul 26, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 179
