114: Fan Cams & CHAZ Fans

from Kathleen. Kathleen writes, I was really hoping you guys would address the Launa del Rey conversation from a few weeks ago on this week's pod, but no, dice. I've listened to the podcast from almost the beginning and I like it a lot, but the law of conversation did

not sit well with me at all. I know that you, particularly Test, said that Lana was problematic for her posts a few weeks ago throwing black women under the bus and subsequent non apologies, but the way the conversation happened made it sound like you are completely giving her a pass for this behavior and essentially saying she's not smart. Enough to realize how bad she sucked up. She's thirty

four years old. There's truly no excuse for her behavior, no pretending that, oh, she didn't really mean to only call out black artists, not to mention that she dated a cop for an extended amount of time, and her name is an effort to exoticize herself. I was genuinely floored by the conversation, especially since you've all been pretty vocal about racial justice and police abolition since the protests started.

I didn't even really want to listen to this week's episode, but I wanted to see if you guys discussed this conversation. I hope you will in the future. Again, I've listened to the show for a while now, but from one white but Latina woman to you all, the optics were bad. So first off, I want to say that we say this after every night email a nightcall, but we really appreciate this night email. Um. I think you know, we

don't have a whole lot of uh. I don't know, negative feedback, like you know, people calling us out for things a lot, and when we do get it, it just I don't know. I like being held accountable for the stuff that we say on the show, it's like, I feel like a great about of respect for a night call listeners. So when we get stuff like this, it makes me like really want to think about what

we're saying on air. Yes, thank you listeners for holding us accountable, because we sunk up sometimes and we're definitely being very cavalier in that segment. And Emily was saying that was maybe like three days before the protests started. Um, so we definitely are in a time where pop culture is not divorced from reality. These two things are in fact the same thing, and celebrities are not the people anyone needs to be listening to primarily right now, especially

not Laana del Ray. I'm going to say, like as a as a fan of hers, like I just don't like and I think that she's proven to be, like other artists have stepped up to be way more essential people to follow and to listen to. If you're going to listen to a celebrity about what's going on right now in the country, um and police abolition and everything else. Like I mean, Laana del Ray had to be told to take down a photo of protesters a couple of days later, Like it's very clear she does not care.

It is not actively a part of any sort of activism moment. Yeah. I think also with this conversation which I had gone back and listened to us um talking, I think it was maybe before we got this email. Yeah, it was like a week before we got this email. For whatever reason, I was listening back to this conversation and thinking about it and what I know that we

got into it kind of accidentally. We hadn't actually planned on talking about Londa Delray that week, and then we did anyway because it's like interesting and we all wanted

to talk about it. But um, it's very interesting to look at our conversation then to look at other writing and other conversations that were had about that, and again like three days before George Floyd was murdered, and um, how much we kind of took that in as an internet happening and kind of like a symptom of quarantine cabin fever and people just feeling powerless and wanting to just wanting to cancel somebody because like, what are we

gonna do? We're all stuck inside. But I think like in a way it's like we got to see very very quickly after that that energy and that frustration with the status quo being used in like a very like a bigger way, and like, I think, a more impactful way than individual celebrity callouts, which I think are also like a function of the culture and like something that is like part of a healthy you know, dialogue between

people who consume art and artists. But I don't know, I think it's like, I think that the change that you saw in what was happening online from that week to the next was really really fascinating and I think positive overall. What do you what do you guys think? Um? I was going to say, I feel like the cancelations didn't stop either, but then we got to get bond up, the bond appetite stuff, which was also like very vindicating

and good, you know, and necessary. Yeah, even though it was a largely online occurrence, it did feel like it was like the conversation moved from being outward facing to being sort of like inward facing for a lot of people. Can I ask you guys a question, Yeah, do you

guys feel like you gave one a del rate a pass? Yeah? Well, I don't think I was trying to say, like, we give her a pass I think I was trying to say, like, if if you like didn't stop giving her a pass, like the first time she fucked up, you probably have stopped like paying attention. I mean, not that you stopped paying attention to like her funk ups, but that it's like liking Woody Allen or something. You're like, no, I know there's no actual, like legitimate excuse for this, but

you know it's sentimental or something. You know, it's I will say, like I think I will cop up to giving her a pass. And I also I think I said something like the fact that she's naive, like it's it was very naive of her to frame this conversation and to list a bunch of non white artists and to then beat Ariana Grande and yeah, yeah and Ariana Grande, and like a lot of people were like, she maybe didn't know that Ariana Grande is white because Ariana Grande

like obscures her own race. Fake tann with a whole other conversation. But I think the appropriation conversation, which is yeah, I mean that's what I was just saying. It's like it's found appropriation, is like foundational Tolana del Rey, So you know she she's super problematic as a human being, but yeah, do you give somebody a pass if you like the music enough? Feels like a more pressing issue

right now. Well, this has been a conversation that's been happening forever, Like you said about Woody Allen about Roman Polanski, like a bunch of different artists that you know are problematic and like, and then there's such a wide range of like what constitutes being problematic too, Like I think the mistake I made personally was being like, well, like she's bad, but like, she's not as bad as Joni Mitchell who did blackface, and it's like obviously still very

much in the cannon, and like people don't talk about that as a factor, and like why she should be canceled. Although I feel free to cancel Joni Mitchell for that, it's in saying she got away with it um at all.

And I think, uh, you can't do the sa adding scale of you know, this isn't as bad as as Roman Polanski, because there's a lot of people do stuff that's bad in a microaggressive like a lot of things that are in as bad as Roman Polanski at the same time, and there's a lot of things that are in as bad as r Kelly, and I think like we're seeing the collapse of, like hopefully we're seeing the collapse of white feminism at the same time as like the Girl Bosses are all like sucking up really bad

and like you know, getting called out for being racist because they're all like horrible white women, and then doing this thing where they're like, now, I'm going to give the company to like a more diverse staff and they can deal with like all the mess I left, which is also really fucked up, you know, like I abdicate responsibility. You guys deal with it and like fix all the

problems that we have. Well, I just was going to get back to Joe World's original question on whether or not we gave Lana a pass, and like I was, I was saying that, like I think that I did as I said. I also think that this is kind of part of something that maybe isn't the most like

I don't know. I I just in general think that a lot of celebrities are really stupid, including one who's whose art I like, And I am more interested in the dismantling of like centering their opinions about things at all. And I think when I am a fan of somebody like Laana del Ray who constantly is putting her foot in her mouth and doing stupid ship, dating a cop, dating a cop for this, um, this live p D show that just got canceled for for for murdering a

black man on camera or allegedly um. But I think that I then have to do the mental work of like, well, how important is this person to me? Like how and how much status do I give them in my estimation of the world. And you know, I'm not playing Laana del Ray records right now. I don't know if I never will again. But it's just like I don't, I'm not, I'm not. I don't care about her right now, even

if somebody who's liked her music. You know, I was just trying to situate her doing some racist ship in the greater landscape of like musicians, a lot of famous and and good musicians are fucked up people who have done a lot of fucked up ship. Obviously a lot of directors too. I personally don't feel like there's anything to be accomplished by like taking those people out of

my iTunes. I just feel like that's like you know, I don't go out of my way, like I'm not a Morrissey person, and I never have been, you know, But I know Morrissey is another one of those people where it's like he's uncancellable even though he's like super openly racist. Um, people's sentimentality or nostalgia for him like overpowers whatever consciousness of that you know, would stop them

from seeing him on tour. But I do think, yeah, I mean maybe we're talking about also it's like there's a limited amount of funds in the attention economy, but

also in the real economy. There's so much to like break down here because like, on the one hand, I feel like Lana is the type of celebrity type of person like wafy white girl who a lot of people perceive as being not intelligent and therefore don't take anything she has to say seriously, like period, and it's very easy to brush off and be like, oh, there's Lana

again being wild. I think Lana does have like a like a sizeable audience of like young, impressionable white women, and I feel like when we call Laana out, we can inform those girls in a way that is sometimes uh not on their timeline. You know, they may not even know who like Brianna Taylor is or anything like that. And I think the other conversation is like when do you, like, do you separate the artist from the crime or the

the mentality, and like what's that line? And like, for me, that line is like R Kelly is a pretty hard line my job, or like a lot of your songs are about like the creepy, awful things you've done, and so when I hear it, it like sense hills up my spine and I don't want to hear and it thing I certainly don't want to give them in any kind of money, Like Lana, It's kind of hard because it seems like, girl, this could easily be your aesthetic in a way where you're actually doing like positive things,

and it's frustrating to me that you're like, I'm hippie, like sixties love childlike out here like just loving people and being radical. And then it's like, you know what, you're dating a cop, and on top of that, like you don't know not to show faces on your huge platform. It's hard to want to support that or or even be like, oh yeah, summertime, which is my jam I can't even front like I love a said, like let's go outside and smoke and date terrible men like very

It's like a deep l a aesthetic totally shake. But it's just like I don't know if I want to hear it right now. I feel you, and I feel like the other deep la Is Dick is like a superficial hippie white woman who you know, well like a lot of like they all in West Hollywood. Um, but yeah, that thing, you know, where the hippie aesthetic has become so divorced from the actual like politics of hippie doom, which um are an actual having a set you know.

And there are people who argue that, like the Tenants. I read a conspiracy theory that was that acid was invented by the CIA so that hippies would stop doing protests and just like sit around self contemplating. Not a bad theory, definitely not true, does not track, but good theory.

You know, Timothy Larry was at Harvard. It's a good theory because it does account for this sort of like you know, what happened between the Chicago Convention and you know the seventies that made people sort of stopped the outward facing protesting activism part of being a hippie, and

it just became this other thing. Um. Obviously, now we're seeing a moment where like it's coming back in this way, this totally organic way where people who never lived through any of these other moments, you know, kids who weren't even alive for the ninety two uprisings in l A, but who know like instinctively that you know this is this is what needs to happen right now. It's just, um,

it feels like, I don't know. I think. On the other hand, it's like I'm I'm happy when those people are like I'm going to educate myself rather than just being like I'm going to double down on being racist and ignorant. As somebody who has followed Lana for a long time, this isn't her first breash with this sort

of controversy. And I mean there's like the time and she was doubling down on playing a festival in Israel and then like, and you can hear it both in her public statements that she has made and then in her music itself she has made reference to this, like this idea of like, oh well, my contribution to the suffering and injustice in the world is going to be to like sing my songs about being sad and in love.

And I don't think that she should necessarily stop doing that, but I think it's it's a very common celebrity, especially white celebrity thing, to be like this is gonna be what solves what like brings about world peace or something. And and I think it's again super naive of her um and and you see her and she that's the doubling down that that that happened. I think after we had our conversation, like the double triple down on this is just she doubled down again by being like why

can fka Twigs do it? And I can't, And everybody

was like, oh my god, you're not bring up. I feel like you even on Twitter like before that, you were like like the obvious, like like like ifk Twigs is like somebody who's like a good example of like like you know, a kind of corollary a lot, And then she like went and called her out too, and it was like so little heard, but he was like k Twigs is like a classically trained dancer who like technician, Yeah, like what she does on the poll is different than what you do on the poll for like a lot

of reasons. And to be like, why is it different and to think that it is like not benefiting you, um is crazy. I was happy that Kailani called Laana out about because it wasn't just that she posted protester. She posted looting and people were like, don't post this is like your aesthetic, Like this is you know, these are real people. You could get them in trouble um. And Kailani was like, you have to stop, and she

took it down. And yeah, I was thinking about Kailani again because I love Kailani and I was like, it shouldn't be Kailani's job to have to tell Laana not to do that, you know. But just also the way that Lanie know, the fact that Lana is like a thirty four year old woman who's still sort of like a girl child, uh presenting, and you know, Kelowny is like twenty five and has lived the life, you know, and definitely gets treated as being like, you know, an adult.

It's it's just like it's the the larger framework of racism in the music industry that allows fragile white women to get away with making themselves the victims. So yeah, we don't want to align ourselves with that connounce not what this podcast is about. I yeah, I mean I definitely. I feel like there's a thing too where it's like, after I watched the Michael Jackson documentary, I couldn't hear Michael Jackson song without having that same like chill up,

my spine is up. I never need to hear this again. And then eventually it's just like you know, after the initial exposure, you kind of get you see it again, and that's bad. I think it's also just part of living in the world. I think when when we're having these isolated conversations about things that artists have done or or any kind of public figure has done. Um, you know,

the initial shock of it is real and visceral. In many cases, like even in the case of the law adul Ray thing, like I was like, come on, when I was watching that third video of hers, was like what And it's this feeling of like it's like, this is why it shouldn't be this way, because it's like, this is my friend who's sucking up in public and it's fucked up that like I identify it like that where I'm like, what are you doing? Like, um, that's this is like the thing that I want to eradicate

from my mentality. It's like thinking of somebody like alt Adulray is my friend, but um, well, I don't know. Don't you feel like it's just like an interviewer you got you don't think of. I mean you know that they're not really your friend, They're just like a stranger. I don't know, you're the person who's who's interviewed LT have me. I don't know. I mean I I have

that with some people for sure. But there's also you know, there's a they're living in a markedly different reality for me, and I think especially somebody like Lana is not that tuned into what's going on, and she's not following threads on you know, um, how to protect yourself from the um surveillance state and stuff when you're able. I have seen so many Silver Lake moms getting like so hilariously militant all of a sudden, and I, for one, and

for it, I think it's fine. You know, like everyone's board their home with their families. Like read about the government murdering the Black Panthers like some co intel pro yeah, you know, like I think it's like the instinct is just to like make fun of that. It's obviously my instinct to make fun of that, even as like, you know, a white lady. But it's better than airying your head in the sand and pretend it's not going on anymore.

And I do think that a lot of people are getting like radicalized in real time, and that is good. You know, some people that were more center before COVID and before the protests I am seeing move in a sort of more like radical direction towards police abolition, and that seems cool and unprecedented. It's getting it's getting reasonable,

it's getting more and more normalized. I would not say it's like fully normalized yet, but like I understand that people who are like I've been here all along, where

the funk were? You? You know. It's but I think that also just happens in in activism circles, where it's like everybody like gets really excited to join, and then you get burned out, and then you get excited again, and then new people join and they're so excited and you helped them in you know, like it's not Yeah, I think like just to to to pivot slightly and going off of this this night email about Lana like and what we want to do as a show going forward,

I think, you know, we don't want to be those sorts of people with their head in the sand about this, and we want to be as informed and as possible when we're talking about our dystopian reality, and also also like the very hopeful and optimistic things that we see happening in our world right now as well, Like we're

not edge lords and we're not cynics. So I think we definitely just want to do better and be better, and we welcome more feedback about that as well as just things you'd like to see us cover and UH guests you'd like us to have on that maybe aren't celebrity focused or pop culture focused, although we are going to have a great interview later in the show about celebrities and pop culture, but I think it's it's worth

your time. But yeah, we we took a week off and we've just been doing a lot of thinking between the three of us with Joel's help. I ups to Joel about um, how to just be UH a more thoughtful and responsible show and still fully nightcall as we

go forward. So as we've announced we're not doing our theme months anymore, we're going to kind of get into some different um timely slash relevant subjects right now and also just try to like own up to our own shortcomings and limitations in perspective and and and try to do the best we can to to learn and be better as two and a half white ladies talking about

occasionally current events and pop culture. So yeah, we just want to be super honest with our listeners and we want to be held accountable by you feedback like this. Uh so yeah, a long way of saying thank you night called listeners. We're excited about the journey ahead, and thanks for sticking with us. Yeah, and thanks Kathleen for hopefully tuning back in because we we we love our listeners.

We want them to love us back. Even though we just talked about how para social relationships aren't real, these ones are. We want to be the boy band of your dreams. We want to be your bias. Um. All right, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're gonna enter the chairs. Hey, my name is Molly. Um, I'm just polling in about autonomous zones. I briefly was part of an autonomous community in London during the Occupy UM protest. We took over a whole

lock in Mayfair. Um, and we would just cook and share things and read and did everything my candle light. Um. It was yeah, sot took ten life experiences. I was like servent seen at the time. Um. Yeah, so sol Arthy Forever Black Lives Mother, Tom the police, thank you for the call. We had put out a request for calls on our Twitter at Night call pod to talk about autonomous zones because this is whom we have seen

in the news this week. Seattle now has an autonomous zone called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone or the CHAZ, also known as Free Capitol Hill, which came together on June nine. Basically started to come together when the Seattle Police Department UH seated UH several blocks around the East Princinct Police Station and UH in Seattle and the Capitol Hill neighborhood, a neighborhood I used to live very close

to and I'm very familiar with. So this has all been kind of like I've been very glued to this this week. Um, but this is uh, yeah, this is a phenomenon and a and A. And there's been a long tradition of autonomous zones and things like autonomous zones that have gone on for years, and I kind of got really into looking into them and deep diving on what an autonomous zone is and what an autonomous zone does, and just like all the different offshoots of things that

come out of the culture of autonomous zone. So, um, I just wanted to chat about that today. Yeah, So there's there are a lot of things that kind of can be seen as as precursors to what we now think of as um the kind of modern or contemporary autonomous zone. I think the Paris Commune is probably like the first example of like a modern autonomous zone, which was a Marxist commune that was formed for about two

months in Paris in eighteen seventy one. UH. And there's actually a long French tradition of these sorts of UH basically encampments on land as a as a form of resistance to law enforcement or the government. UM. And in France they're called z A D s Z A Day's UH zona the Fons with which um, yeah, the most famous is still running now. It's the z I D of the Notre Dame de Land, where there has been an airport that has been planned to be built now

for multiple decades. And commune basically came together of people who had been displaced from the rural communities and farmland in the area UM and they basically came together to form this network of UH kind of sites across this very very large swath of land in the Loire region of France UM and they have resisted multiple attempts at eviction one as recently as UM eighteen and are still there and are I think now working on having their

UM having having their their sites legalized UM. So that that's like kind of a thing that can happen with some of these more long term UM autonomous zones. Freetown, Christiana and Copenhagen is like another another example of that which is now kind of really I think a lot of people who have observed it have seen it as more of like a kind of tourist trap now than an actual political site. But it is still is something that's recognized by the Danish government as like being outside

of UM the country. So I think American people are probably most familiar with this sort of thing happening with the occupy movement and UM mostly and Zuccati Park in New York UM, and these have all been temporary sites and and kind of like extended extended protests temporary sites.

And I think the thing that I find kind of um that I think doesn't get across a lot with these sorts of things is that, like a lot of people who are kind of making fun of the chats now are saying like, oh, so, what's going to happen when you you guys have to like get plumbing or like you know, you're talking about infrastructure and long term

planning for this sort of thing. And a lot of the value I think in setting up something like free Capitol Hill is that it's temporary, Like the it is a it is a temporary utopia basically, And I think that's been a lot of the theory around this sort of action has been an opportunity not intended to be

long term. You're not setting up a new society. You're temporarily suspending society in order to create an environment for new ideas and new ways of doing things, which I think like you've seen happening if you've been following the stuff that's been happening in Capitol hill. Um, that's been that's been kind of going on already. They've they're they've had some law enforcement issues and they had to figure out how to get people to you know, kind of

adhere to the community a loosely defined set of community guidelines. Um, and it's just the sort of site for experimentation, which um, okay, But I want to remake society. Why can't remake society? There are plenty of places where they've done long term remaking sens. I mean the z and and Frances as uh keep saying, Zaddie, Like that's a great example of of a really long term project that is now kind of after multiple failures to overthrow it is like kind

of having legitimacy is like a long term occupation. It's this like, um, when libertarians start militias, but like for good yeah kind of. I mean like like, wasn't there something like this on a right wing thing recently where there was like you know, kind of a weapon stockpile were in in the Pacific Northwest also where it seems like all of this stuff happens. It's always a Pacific Northwest free cascadia, like the Yeah, that's like I don't know so much about the more libertarian end of it.

I think that a lot of these kind of more anarchists, uh, kind of these these movements that have more of an anarchist skew to them or Marxist skew to them, are really more about like not like basically the absence of society rather than a presence of like a militarization or presence of guns. There was a lot of like rumors going around in the chairs of like people, you know,

they're being warlords and it being like mad Max. But I think that when you look at people who are actually there on the ground, it's been mostly just like Raining the Thirteenth, the even do Verne documentary and like um, you know for me, food co ops and stuff like that. It's just been about like meeting people's basic needs. So it's college, it's free college. It's like a it's like a it's like a functional piece of performance art, right like yeah, like in in this context, in the context

of something. And we'll see what long term happens with the chairs. I mean. The other misunderstanding about it right now is that it's like a hostile takeover of a police station. But the Seattle Police department basically seated this area. As I said before to the to them, what I understood it as is that the Seattle police seated this base. UM. And they assumed that it was going to get like

burnt down. There's like leaving it as as bait for protesters to burn it down, And instead of burning it down, they took it over and made it a community center. UM. Yeah. Yeah, My my mom was part of an act in in the seventies in Boston where UM, women took over a building that was in UM, a poor black neighborhood in Boston, and that Harvard was going to buy and turn into

some Harvard building. UM. And it's sort of like brought together just all the threads of civil rights stuff in Boston at this one moment UM, and they took over a They took over the building for like two weeks UM. But their demand was to have a women's health center. So they were like, we're turning this into a women's health education center until you know, until you give us

a place to do that. UM. And I spoke to some of those activists too, I like interviewed them for something that never actually ran UM, you know where I said, like do you think we could do more stuff like this, Like how do we do stuff like this now? You know? And she said, I don't know if you can anymore

with the militarization of the police. And she also said that the reason they weren't, you know, all sort of the reason the police didn't come for them immediately was because of the optics and because it was like, you know a lot of a lot of white women and children, um in this building. And she said, you know, I absolutely don't think that that would happen. Um if this had been like a you know, a militant black feminist group, they would have just the police would have just come

in and rated it immediately. So, yeah, it's interesting to think about, like how can we Yeah, I don't know. It's just like everything's been governed so along by the worst people in the world. What if, um, what if we could take back the streets from from fascism. I mean, I think that like short term actions like that are like there's a huge use for them, Like even if they don't necessarily result in their um the ends that they have stated that they're requesting, Like, I think that

it's the ruption that counts. Like that at least like for the people who are doing it. The disruption, it is sort of half of the statement being made. Um, totally And at this thing, my mom was part of the documentary about it is called Left on Parole, and I really recommend it. It's a great documentary. The Women's Health Center is still there. Um, that's great. Yeah, yeah,

but yeah, I think having demands is key. Yeah. And there was a list of demands that the Capitol Hill, a ton of a Zona has um has posted it. There's a medium post um and they're like they are I would say reasonable and radical demands there include and

they're very very granular, they're very in depth. Like a lot of them involved going back and reopening cases of people who were who are in prison for marijuana possession and stuff like that, and like you know, re examining sentences for for people Like this is far reaching stuff the they're asking for, um, And I think like being able to have that document conjoined with the fact that everybody is watching Capitol Hill right now like that can

send a very powerful message. And I feel like I have no idea, like I could not prognosticate the success of any of this, but I feel like it's the visibility of it is like I've definitely seen a lot of people who are like rooting for it to fail because they're synext you know, and well and because it's very threatening, like in the same way that people root for anything that's not capitalism to fail, Like it's very threatening.

I think there's also some legitimate critiques of it. I've seen some people saying it's like, you know, a lot of white anarchists and that, um. Some people think it's sort of like a burning man, like you know, LARPing, the end of society kind of thing. Um, But I don't know if that's true. I don't know that much about it. Emily, you're at the jazz experts. Well, there's a long history of white anarchy in Seattle, and there's also a pretty low I don't necessarily think it's an

accident that, like, you know, the the black populations. Seattle has a relatively low black population for American cities, and and when you look at pictures of people on the ground at the chairs, it is a largely white group of people. Although you know, it's it's more diverse than I would say Capitol Hill is regularly uh So that's an improvement, right, and the Pacific Northwest UM is very white because that is on purpose. They were formed as

like a racist colony. So it is interesting to think about. Yeah, just it seems like a place where a lot of like white supremacist militia type groups spring up. Um, but also things that are on the total opposite end of the spectrum, like the you know w t O protests in Seattle. Yeah yeah, but some of some of the you know, the people making fun of it for being

like extremely Seattle. It's pretty Seattle, it is, and and and I think that that's like a there's pluses and minuses to that, right, Like the first time I ever encountered like alternate pronouns was in Seattle. I'd never I'd never spoken to any of that, It's it's anybody about that or been exposed to that at all. Like, I think that Seattle can often be like at the forefront, a lot of a lot of the stuff. And also you know, have big blind spots in terms of like

who's actually living in Seattle. But um, but I think you know, it's you know, it's all a mixed bag. I mean, and I'm glad that you brought up Bernie Man, because Bernie Man is not not connected to autonomous zone movements in the past, and Burning Man is like it's extremely white and it costs a lot of money at this point, so at this point, yeah, I mean so there.

So Bernie Man came out of UM, out of a group called the Cacophony Society, which is from the Bay Area of course, um, the same group that incidentally also brought you what we now know is Santa CON. So if you really hate Burnie Man and Santa CN, you

have one organization to blame for it. But they were, you know, they were kind of like a dadaist um culture Jammie type group that came out of a lot of this theory of autonomous zones and like temporarily suspending society, I mean the other there's like very dicey history to all of this, right because like the one of the biggest like foundational anarchist text on this is called the Temporary Autonomous Zone UM by Hakim Bay a k a. Peter Lambard Wilson, who like huge, huge disclaimer is like

a very loud and proud advocate of pedophilia. Uh yeah, so and like and it's a part of the theorization around this as like a libertarian just like a living outside of society. Yeah, as like as a guy living an upstate New York on a trust fund because he comes from like sugar money. Like it's crazy, Like, um, he's like, you know, he was one of these guys who went to India and like himself. Um, yeah, I

mean things like that. That's the thing too, is it's like it does feel like it takes a certain amount of privilege to decide that you can just eject yourself from society, and most people do not have that privilege. And sometimes when you see, like, you know, a white person with green dreads being like, we can all live on the barter system just like we do it burning man,

it feels out of touch with reality. Not because we don't want to live on the barter system, but just because again it's like I'm curious, like if something like this had happened in like Oakland, you know, just having seen what happened with the Moms for housing stuff recently, where you know, groups of unhoused women were taking over houses in Oakland and also in Los Angeles, there was a a movement in solidarity with that, you know, and

the highway patrol showed up immediately with like a million cars and you know, end up just been sitting outside these houses where people are now you know, occupying peacefullies or empty houses owned by the city. Just you see, like when they really perceive something to be a threat to the to the order and to property, um, they

are not shy about coming in to funk it up. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like I just wanted to go back to the temperate Autonomous NWNE for a second, because I like, I mean it's like a it's like very readily available and still highly like highly influential, and a ton of pedophilia advocacy is like woven into it. Yeah, and it's like a thing that a lot of people kind of turn a blind eye too as well, or like they kind of cherrypick from it, which I don't think is

like impossible to do. Like there's some kind of like very interesting ideas in it, but a lot of them are kind of in his context used to be like yes, experiment like no laws, like we can funk kids. Like that's sort of the and has this very kind of peculiar angle to it that I think could easily be

taken out of it. But I think I think it's just something to keep an eye on that the people who like are often advocating for this sort of culture jamming activity for um, you know, like the creating these undefined spaces where anything can happen. When it comes from a certain kind of person, it can start to sound like and I don't want to overuse this word, but like it can sound rapey, Like that sounds like the environment of like, oh, there are no rules, I can

do whatever I want. And there were cases of like sexual violence and stuff at some of the occupy sites and stuff like that that you know, so that's just something to impressia. I think that's also just a hazard of all commune totally, and it's a hazard of being in the world also. I just think that, like, but it's also it's like it comes as more of a shock when it when it happens in the world that's

supposed to be the utopian world. I think there's a lot of you know, failed communes and utopias that you can look to, and I don't think that the fact that they failed means that you shouldn't take lessons from them exactly. Yeah, I think I think that's the right. Like it's very easy to over romanticize this stuff, especially as it's happening right now and everybody's getting their Chaz jokes off. But like there's there's value in this kind of thing, and it can also go sideways, like these

are all human beings who are doing this stuff. This isn't and it's an imperfect process and that that's the whole point of it. It's like an attempt to rethink how this society could work. And and so like there is a huge, huge area where people can funk up. Uh and and and you know, unwise decisions can be made and things that put people in danger like that can all happen. Um. So I think that's important to

keep in mind as this sort of unfold. And like by the time this episode comes out, who knows well what will be happening. I've been trying to stay like as up todate as possible before we record it, just so that like I don't know, that's hopefully like nothing horrible happens on Capitol Hill, um Like, And I don't mean to laugh why I'm saying that. I truly mean that, Like I wish them the best. I hope that the experiment goes well and everybody learns from it, but like

who knows, Like that, that's the whole point. Who knows what's going to happen. So you're saying, we're going to build a new society at sea, Yeah, on top of all the Confederate monuments that have that have been gathering

at the bottom of the ocean. But yeah, I uh, I think this stuff is all super interesting to look into, both because of the real political power that can have in certain cases, like especially in the cases in France, and like the overlap that it has with rave culture and with like kind of party culture and counterculture and all of that. Like that. I've been thinking so much about the cave raves because I've seen so many things since the protests started that gave me like cave rave

vibes in a great way. Um, particularly the Detroit protests from there, just like playing incredible house music during the protests. Yeah. My favorite thing about that was people were posting to be like Detroit as the whole of techno, and then all these people under the post like that's not techno, it's house. It's like yes, um, but yeah, that's that

stuff is great. People are going to fuck up, Um, and just because people are going to suck up doesn't mean that these things aren't valuable to t And I think also as long and and I keep watching it for this reason also, like like I would hope that the Capital Hill Autonomous Own continues to keep Black lives Matter at the center of its purpose because it is

such a white kind of I mean comparatively. Um, there's a lot of white people there, and a lot of white people who are kind of being the loudest about what's going on there, and so I would really hope that they stay on message there. That's my opinion from all the way down here in Los Angeles. And you know that Seattle doesn't give a funk about what Los Angeles thinks. Hey, you you count as Seattle. I'm I'm yeah,

I claim Seattle. I claim Iris City. Uh yeah, but yeah, So I I just thought that was an interesting thing to look into. And I have a feeling I saw some stuff happening in Portland. You know, it's I don't think it's a coincidence, and it's been in Seattle in Portland, but I think like there's going to be more of this and I keep picturing it is like one of the Sonic the Hedgehog zones, because those are all called like the Casino Zone and stuff like that. So I

keep imagining that. Um. I have a proposition for Los Angeles. I think we should take over the Britney Spears the Zone Museum and make that the Zone zone. Somebody like that was one of the first big things to get tagged. I feel like, oh so good. I drove past it to see if it was still there, but it's not. Somebody tagged smash White Supremacy on the Britney Spears on the bright pink wall of the Britney Spears pop up.

It was pretty incredible. Even when I was reviewing it before in the before times, I thought like this was like an empty kmart and I was like, this could so easily be turned into housing. The fact that it's being used for this instead of that is crazy. There have also just been tons of condos that have gone up because construction hasn't halted in the middle of COVID, so there's lots of new spaces out there, like even

and as of like two months ago, there's um. The thing that excites me even more than the autonomous zone, because I think the autonomous zone is cool. Um. But the thing I'm the most excited about is the Minneapolis hotel that you know is being used to house people. Now, Um, that's something we've been trying to do in l A too, is to try and get people housed in all these empty buildings. Um. That to me is like, you know,

something we should all be pushing for. That would really be like a radical transformation of the cities and the way that they deal with their issues. The homeless count just came out last night at midnight. Homelessness in l A went up by like um. And so obviously just like adding more money to the police budget, continuing to militarize the police into harass on housed people hasn't worked ever, um.

And just to get people to see that like housing people is the best for the best idea for everybody, you know, for everyone involved, especially during a pandemic. It's just all the ways that it's like coming out that it's like, well, society is interdependent actually, and nobody can actually like reject themselves from society because we all need each other. Um, and that's great. Well, We're gonna take

a quick break. When we come back, we're gonna be joined by Maria Sherman to talk about K pop, k pop stand Twitter, and how k pop stand Twitter took on the police in a very unlikely but welcome tourn of events, So stay tuned for that. Welcome back to Nightcall,

we are now joined by Maria Sherman. She's a senior writer at Jezebel and author of the new book Larger Than Life, a history of boy bands from New Kids on the Block to BTS, and she's here to talk to us about the recent radicalization of stand Twitter, particularly k pop stand Twitter, which I think has been like one of the most interesting sub stories of the recent Black Lives Matter movement, the recent wave of black Lives Matter movements that have been happening. Uh so, yeah, welcome

to the show, Maria. I'm so glad to have you here. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Um. I'm excited to talk about my favorite subjects, but also one that scares me a little bit. I hope I do K pop fans proud today. Yeah. I think that it's Uh, we were talking a little before we recorded. It's like such a it's such a vast universe. The K pop stand army thing, and it's something that like I think up until a couple of weeks ago, you would just be

you know, browsing Twitter, usually Twitter. I mean, I'm sure that the sixists on other um social media platforms as well, but Twitter is the one I'm at least most used, like most have most experienced with this with and you would just be like in a random threat or looking at the responses in it, and a ocasionally there would just be a zillion gifts of various K pop stars doing choreography, and it kind of just it almost feels like kind of just like a nonsense bombing in in

that in that context, especially if you don't really know any stand more thing, if you just happen into it, it's like if you don't know the lingo, it can be a little impenetrable. Yeah, And there's so many K pop groups, so it's like it's not you know, it can appear monolithic from the outside, but there are all these factions and like I started seeing the little subscript seven over people's names, and I realized that that was

like that's a BTS thing, right, yea yeah. Um, So it's just been like kind of interesting to see this thing that's been a feature of Twitter for a long time now become politicized in a more mainstream way. Yeah,

I'm happy you qualified as as a mainstream wings. I think UM for some reason, even though this has been like nothing but pretty positive press for K pop stands in general, that they have like taken an active participatory role in in Black Lives Matter, UM, is that they think that they've been seen as just sort of like another hysterical fan army as opposed to like a group of very organized UM organized stands who often have political

opinions and participate in like charity and activism and everything. But this this did feel different because it felt like bigger than before UM stand armies that would normally be competitive with one another, we're coming together, which is like shocking UM and and like it felt like they put the competition aside for for the good of the world, which is great. Can you explain what they've been doing, UM with just like bombarding the fan cams to people

and on hashtags? Yeah. UM. So the reason we're sort of talking about them today is m At the end of May, Dallas Police Department launched this app where they asked civilians essentially to share and I think the quote was illegal activity at protests and K pop stands. I know, in particular a lot of like bts there's stand dumb. I guess army saw this and we're like, no, let's bombardo with fan cams and crash the app. Um. And before it even crashed, which was very quickly, you think,

within a couple of hours, as very very bigos. They also they went on the Apple app store and and gave the Apple one star rating. So it's like completely devastated, and it was like you can't find this, but if you did, you would just see like really beautiful images of like junk cook It's like um. And then like the following day, m Grand Rapids Police Department did the same thing. I'm not really sure why. If anybody was online, they probably would have noticed that they were going to

overwhelm their app as well, and it crashed. And then um, simultaneously, when a racist hashtag started cropping up like white Lives Matter, white out Wednesday in response to blackout Tuesday, UM, all that sort of stuff started happening. Fans did the same thing. They started blasting their fan camps and memes what's the fan cam? Yeah, I realized I probably probably should have

started there. Um, So a fan cam um as an internet neologism I think now is just sort of like a video of a celebrity you like, like I see them a lot now referred to like as just really like sexy videos of Timothy Shellomy, which is not their

original definition in the purest sense. Um, it's like um live performance or like an award show reaction, where a fan has filmed one member for the entirety of the performance, So even when they're not dancing or singing or rapping, or still watching your favorite or your bias as they're called in k pop, and they're like so popular. Even Korean television networks will film their own high death versions of this and put them on YouTube and they'll get

like tens of millions of views. Um. It's it's really fascinating, fascinating fan behavior. I did not know that that's what a fan cam was because I just thought it was just like I didn't know it was called a cam because to me, it just felt like a fan edit. Sure, yeah, but that's so interesting that it's just like like if you have a multi cam broadcast of a concert. Yes, there's going to be one that's always on your fave. Yeah, I wanted to ask. I mean, I think this is

such an interesting development. Um, but specifically, you know, K pop has had a lot of issues with racism. UM. So I was totally a little surprised by this because I didn't think of K pop as being sort of like the most progressive or inclusive necessarily fandom. Um. A lot of the K pop stars have gotten in trouble for doing, you know, racist stuff, for being ignorant about stuff like black lives matter. So I'm curious, what what do you think, um, this says about the K pop fandom.

I was just going to add, there's also like, in addition to that, In addition to the behavior of specific CAPE pop stars, there's also been a lot of writing I think about how indebted especially I don't think that it's always been quite as much as it is now.

I think this has been gradual over the years, how indebted K pop the music itself has been, UM to black music, to hip hop, into R and B all boy bands, you know, from the mold of new addition, so I think that is just like part of the DNA of boy bands, and it's interesting to see it's sort of so divorced from the source material like it is in K pop, where some of it is like you know, in interpreting, like the in sync assimilation of

black culture. It's like several levels removed from the original thing, but it's obviously still still there. And yeah, I know there's been issues with some of the individual stars. Do you have any K pop bands responded to this that the K pop stands are doing this in America? It's it's interesting because everything is sort of like specific to

the kind of artist. And what I mean by that is after all of this started happening, you get BTS is company big hit donating one million dollars to Black Lives Matter, But that happens two weeks or so, or maybe like a week and a half after K pop stands are already doing all of this like online activism.

So it's kind of like the artist is subject to whatever the political position is of their stand army because obviously they benefit as from them as as consumers, so they want to like sort of reflect their interest to continue to have their loyalty and support. It's really interesting with K pop. I think they have more direct control they like participate in like what a lot of their

favorite artists do. However, UM, the thing about music specifically like K pop obviously pulls from like hip hop and R and B and also like in New Jack Swing, which I think boy Bend's like Molly was saying, I've done historically, UM, only a few artists have actually said anything about that borrowing, and some of them UM said, so it seems like probably because they had some sort of fan pressure to do so, like I know BTS, UM like their comment on on Black Lives Matter, like

included the hashtag and said that they didn't condone violence, but an artist like c l from twenty one so like a previous generation of K pop. UM specifically mentioned that a lot of her music and a lot of K pop comes from black music, like like all popular music. UM. I also want to qualify that while we're talking about all the wonderful things that K pop fans have done and sort of vocalized their supported Black Lives Matter, some of it is really specific to UM the success of

the artist as well. Like the day after the A like destroyed this really ridiculous UM Dallas app I read about a new girl group called Secret Number, where one of the members had her Instagram and SoundCloud taken down because she posted about Black Lives Matter on her Instagram story. And the belief there's because it was a new group, they didn't have the sort of fandom that could support

a political statement. I'm curious too about the labels, whether the labels are sanctioning this, because we're seeing it kind of go into directions with companies where it's like half of them are like, we have to put out a statement, you know, a sort of corporate pro black Lives Matter statement, and then you have things like you know, Starbucks a couple of days ago being like nobody can wear any

Black Lives Matter gear whatsoever. So I was a little surprised that K pop, which is not necessarily you know, which is known for like the labels having such a tight hold on the artists and sort of controlling their images, that they would let them express uh support for Black Lives Matter because it could be divisive to fans, you know, Yeah, I would say that, like it's it's also interesting in the case of BTS, and I used them as the example because I think that's who most people are most

familiar with. At least in America. UM. A week or so before all this happened, Sugar, one of the rappers in BTS, released a song that used a Jim Jones sample. Yeah, I followed, did you see this? Yeah? And and and that became like a really big, sort of contentious, divisive thing within that army because some people were like, how does Sugar not know about the Jonestown massacre that killed hundreds of black people. Yeah, let's clarify that it's Jim Jones,

the cult leader, not the rapper. Yeah. Sorry, yeah, that that would be that would be helpful. Well, that was my first thought was I was like, oh, he sampled

Jim Jones, like from dip side. And then no, it was not that right, And that was that was interesting to follow because it did seem like there was division within um BTSs army, which kind of speaks to, uh, what Emily was saying earlier about this not CAPOP not being the sort of monolithic thing, because you'd have like fans of color saying, how did he not know this? Or why didn't anybody do like the bare minimum research

to figure out where the sample came from. And then some stands were like, oh, but he didn't know, like this is not like his like knowledge base, and then other fans are saying, how could you even question his artistry? Like how day you're a fake fan for even making

any sort of criticism. And then it seems as though like the fans are most critical or probably the most vocal, or at least they one out because within a week um bts released this statement that gets disseminated and translated because k pop is global, essentially saying they didn't know the origins of the sample and they're sorry. Um And then of course it is also like the timing of

that seems a little like coincident. I don't know, I don't want to put my tin hat on, but like that also this is the place to put on Today's allowed inside here. Great. Well yeah, well, it seems like that statement came out I believe on May thirty, again was the day that the Dallas app came up. So it's very it very much seems like, okay, now we're going to start actively doing something about this. Around the time that K pop stands have taken it upon themselves

to do stuff, this is slightly parallel to that. But I want your opinion as a scholar on boy bands, and I want your honest opinion, and this is not very poptimistic of me, but like, how much artistic control does any K pop artists actually have over their music? Yeah, that's an interesting question because I like, to be completely honest, I think that is obscured, and I think it's like

purposefully obscured. Um though, Like I just watched BTSs docuseries on their social media app wea Verse, and it shows them writing their solo songs like together, but also it's it seems to be their brainchild. Um. But yeah, I it's really like that's that's so opaque, and I for a good reason, I think, Yeah, and that's not limited to K pop obviously. I think it's interesting to see the stars in America who do have enough control and

clout to sort of make the statements themselves. I've just been surprised by, you know, the pop fandom, like rushing in to be part of this, because it does feel like the good cyberpunk universe, where it's like we're using

idolization for something positive. Yeah, Like this is when when I first reached out to you, Maria, I was trying to find this tweet that I remember seeing and I did find what I was thinking of, and it had come out just days, like less than a week before the protests really started, after George George Floyd's murder, and it was it was it was actually about the Barbs. I had thought that it was about K Pops dance when it was at the Barbs, and it was. It

came from a Marxist twink. Um. Uh, if we took Jeff Bezos into saying something negative about Nicki Minaj, the Barbs would have the revolution done by at least October. Um. This was from yeah and then and then down the threat.

There are a lot of responses that that we're both Like a lot of them were just like no, like like imagine fandom Twitter, you know, caring about anything outside of their faves, like a lot of skepticism and some people who are like oh yeah, like they are a force to be reckoned with, like you know, or it's close, it's happening soon. Like I feel like people say that they send something in the water that like standhum twitt stand on Twitter in general was getting organized to do

this sort of thing. Did you sense that at all before all of this really started happening. Yeah, it's it's it's funny because I think maybe I've just like been in it for so long that my gut reaction is like, this is just classic marginalization of like pop fans and how dare they? Because I remember, like even five years ago, there was a like a one direction meme construction that was I joined Twitter because of one direction, and now I'm a communist or like, and now I'm dedicated to

abolishing ice or something. So they're definitely like factions within like stand armies that have always been like dedicated and radicalized. Um, and and that pops up, that crops up in different ways. I think this feels different just because it is something that I don't It seems like more people are becoming radicalized, and of course that is mirrored in in K pop

stand um specifically. UM. I also think that like, if you were to ask a K pop fan how they feel about it, I'm sure that they would say it's not that like music or the fan army radicalize them, but that they're trying to radicalize the fan army, and like slowly but surely that's having effect, as as we saw a couple of weeks ago, and continue to see. Yeah,

there was that quote from UM. Caitl An Tiffany at The Atlantic wrote a piece that um it was also about this whole thing, and there was a quote from a stand on it that said, the phantom has been moving, the phantom has been donating, the fans have been protesting. Um, then the groups have shown support. The fandom paved the way for the groups, which I thought was really interesting. Like I and and that feels kind of new. That feels like a new approach to fandom. Yeah, I mean

I feel like you've seen individual examples of it. The one that I was thinking about was the Taylor Swift stand who was like, oh, I just got out of jail because I wouldn't join the I d F, which was a big one where she was like, you know, by reputation, by reputation, Free Palestine. Yeah. So I think it's also you know what you were saying, It's like people just kind of underestimate pop fandoms because they tend

to be young and email generally. But obviously, like young people are behind a lot of this stuff, so it makes sense that they would also be you know, crossing

the streams. Yeah, I like my focus is typically more on boy bands, and just like even in the life performance arena, it's been interesting to see the shift of like fans getting some of their political opinions or like socio political opinions, I should say from the artists that they're obsessed with versus fans placing pressure on the artist to like speak out um and I think they're They're probably a lot of factors for that, and maybe like a sociologist would do a better job, or like an

ether musicologist, But but I think a lot of it is just because like younger people now are are just more invested in being like over and involved in activism, and it seems like you have to take a stand in some direction at this point, which is very different from every boy band of the past that I can think of, who always had a very squeaky clean sort of no conflict, like just definitely not wanting any conflict about anything, which is you know, I feel like if

I think back to like in Sync and Backstreet Boys and stuff like that, like I can't think of a single political opinion any of those people held, you know, or any just they didn't even have any, Like it's like Disneyland territory. It's like, this is barely about your entertainment, and we're going to depoliticize it, even though in doing that we are actually it is a political statement to

say that these things don't exist here. I mean even those bands are even from Orlando or mean like that, Well, like entertainment first, reality doesn't exist here, no, totally, and like they obviously are political and new addition was like a bunch of teenagers from a Boston housing project. I believe. Um, so it's not like, you know, those things don't play into uh, these groups and their fandoms. But I don't know. I'm surprised by the turn Pap has taken. I'm I'm

stoked on it. I was, you know, I've been surprised by things. I was genuinely surprised that Taylor Swift like said black lives matter, because it's been so hard to get like a real statement on anything out of her. So the fact that she was like I have to, like, you know, I can't do the like let's all be peaceful and like everyone joined together in love thing. It's like, no, you have to say what side you fall on of

this culture war. I feel like the bar is getting raised every day almost of like what we expect from

our faves. I'm not necessarily saying who my faves are personally, but like, um, you know, like how different is Taylor Swift, for example, saying black Lives Matter than like Chase Bank saying we're all going to come together in this time of crisis, you know, Like like I and I think like money is obviously a factor, and the fact that Big Hit bts Is Management company did donate a million too black Lives Matter, which is like I feel like, probably a very very small affection of money, but still

it's like a statement at least, Like I feel like these these fan movements are also mobilizing to demand more, like in a very not just in a tweet the right thing, uh type way, but like do something like put some action behind your words and your stance. It feels it feels very late sixties to me also in that like once it became clear that this was like the popular stance to have, then everybody started jumping on.

Like there's definitely a lot of bandwagoning from you know, pop culture things and corporations, and I think it's because they do think like this is what the young people are into and what they want, and if we want to like sell them stuff, we have to sell it to them on their terms. Yeah, slowly, And I will say that there has been like some skepticism and I don't know how much of this has been sort of written about because it's just kind of nice to focus

on like K pop radicalizing. Um, but a lot of fans, especially fans of color, have been sort of critical of the movement because it seems like it was like, after overtaking hashtag slowly but surely, it just seems like fan armies were starting to compete with one another to get to the top of the hashtag and it became less about what they were actually doing. And then of course with the like sugar Jim Jones sample, there's like dosing

of some fans of color who were saying this was wrong. Um. Yeah, So there's definitely, like I think within any fan army there is like probably an element of anti blackness and racism. But it's just it's it's really it's it's hard to think of it as earth. It's really unfortunate to think about it in this case, because it does seem like anti blackness is so prevalent everywhere. It seems like kay pop was doing a good thing, and yet it's like

a can you practice what you preach sort of deal. Yeah, I this is I think this is the thing that's the most inscrutable about this thing, which on its surface does feel like overall a positive development is that, like I anytime I have gotten in deep into what's going on in K pop stand culture or like you know, gone onto the gossip blogs and stuff like that, the level of toxicity among fans they're often just feels like in a stratosphere that like me, as an American consumer

of pop culture, can scarcely even wrap my head around UM. And this can have to do with race, it can have to do with UM like body image, UM. People just shaming people for looks UM, just like like dairy

very naice and stuff. There have obviously been a lot of suicides within UM K pop groups and K pop stars, and so I'm trying to like hold these two things to other in my mind at the same time that that a fan army that often can be mobilized to do I think a lot of kind of despicable stuff online could also be mobilized to support something as positive as black Lives Matter, and like how I just wonder when you're in the middle of that group, what how you reckon those two things? Like how do how do

you balance those two things? Um? And I don't know if you have the answer to that, but I just like I've been thinking about yeah, I And I also like I get really frustrated because I think so much, especially like Western media when we discuss K pop, is so often focused on the negative. So this felt like, Oh, it's so nice. That's like they're recognizing like these wonderful mobilization efforts from K pop and they have done good. Um.

I was thinking about in preparation for this conversation. Uh, there's a time I guess it was a couple of years ago now that uh BTSs Army like raised something like almost forty meals for kids are like kids in poverty in the UK because there was a children's charity James Cordon supported and it had nothing to do with BTS. They were just like, James Cordon is always so nice

to BTS, so like, why don't we do this? And now they're like and there's so many like gestures like that that happened all the time, there's like, um, yesterday even UM I follow I started following this Twitter account called one in Army where UM a group of BTS fans come together and they organized a charity, like each month they support a new cause. And it's just like they're all these really wonderful things, and yet there's an incredible dark side that is sort of like very much

worth discussing. Uh, And I don't know, it's it's it's also strange that these fans are confronting it now. And like I think back to like end Sync at backstree Points, I wasn't thinking about what lou Perlman was doing to them. I wasn't thinking about like being exploited financially and allegedly

sexually and all these things. And yet like k pop vand's confront the sort of dark side and and all of these great moments of activism at the same time, it's got to be like a lot of cognitive dissonance I even experience. It seems like it's also the way that any group on the Internet is sort of a microcosm of the whole Internet. You know, It's like it kind of doesn't matter what the group is about. It just eventually there will be a schism along some line

in a message board of any kind. So it's interesting to see people mobilizing for something good. But it also seems like this thing that's been happening a lot right now, which is like groups that traditionally fight each other being like, wait a minute, if we team up and fight like the really bad guy, the actual bad actors instead of just like arguing about like my faith versus your faith, we can like use that to also take down a police department. Uh, that feels new. I'm I'm holding out

for I'm holding out for the Amazon basis takedown. I'm I'm I'm waiting for the K pop stands to to completely dismantle am is on like Anonymous coming Together Toto or whatever, just to see like the swarm assemble. Because yeah, it's like you normally, normally people talk about when it's when it happens, and it's it's bad or it's like overwhelming, or people get ducks, or people get bullied because they

insulted somebody's faith. But again, it's like, you know, you don't want to mess with people after your faith has been insulted. They overwhelm you with fan camps, Maria, I wanted to ask um you just one question, unrelatedly but still on the boy band topic. Um, who do you think is the horniest boy band of all time? Oh my wow? No one's ever asked me this before, and I wish I had an answer ready to go. It's also like it, do you have an answer ready to go?

And maybe that I'll start jogging because I'm thinking there's like, I don't know. The Wanted had the like come joke in their un hit. I love that song like one of my favorite boy band songs of all times. Really wow, that's not the reaction I was expecting and so I truly love it. It's great. Liquid Dreams by Otown another

song about ejaculating, Yeah, Otown. Otown was definitely into getting down, even like on making the band there they had girls over all the time, which is not very boy band like. It's not very chaste of them, right, Granted they didn't do much. I'll tell you who I really liked it was pretty ricky Um then humping video that was my all time favorite just boy band and and just like very very good boy bands are such a safe space for like teen horny nous y, which is not a crime. Yeah,

I love it, even like the Jonas Brothers. Like I followed the Jonas Brothers really intensely because I was like out of college and depressed and was like, we're going to dive into this weird fandom because that was when people started posting all these like incredibly filthy memes about

their faves. You know. I was like, Wow, these are like sixteen year old girls and they're being like, you know, I want to lick the whatever off Nick Jonas um and and how opposite of their purity ring wearing abstinate pledge signing. But that's always like the Osmond's too, there's always like that wholesome, you know, horny critical reinterpretation. Yeah yeah, yeah, you got your promised rings, but like this is what

it means to me. And also they turned into total thoughts when they exited Disney, so you took the ring off and then they were like let's talk about S and M and you know what, blessed for it. And I was very interested in the that whole phase of like the purity ring virginal marketing. But then also there was like all this gossip about like these people are kissing each other because they're horny teenagers on a Disney

tour of course, and of course they were. It would be weird if Yeah, Maria, do you have a favorite K pop star? Who's who would your fan camp be of? Yeah? Oh um in in bts Land, I'm a gin stand now And like that kind of was because of this like new docuseries I watched. I just feel like he's just so pure of heart and I never really considered him. But also I'm like not loyal. Mind change changes like

every day. I don't know. I was like that way with one direction too until like I don't know what happened. Maybe Liam Payne said something upsetting that that was all about Harry Styles. I don't know. Um, yeah, I love a group, I'm not. My bias is really all over the place. That's good that as a as a journalist should be. Thank you very much, very objective here. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Um, Maria Sherman.

You are on Jezebel. As we mentioned earlier, you've got a new book, Larger Than Life, which is available wherever books are sold. Um, and where can people find you on the probably Twitter world? Be talking about things relevant to this conversation and that is just at Maria Scherm. Cool. We'll give Maria follow check out her book. I'm I'm gonna check out the book now, I'll send you one. I want you guys to have it. Yeah, oh that would be awesome. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for listening

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