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My guest tonight is a stab writer at The New Yorker and author of the bestseller Trick Mirror, Reflections on Self Delusion. She's here to talk about social media companies monetizing hate and how we can use the Internet as a force for good. Please welcome, Gia Tolentino. So you've written about social media companies and how they monetize rage. Is there any way to Is there any way that they could be incentivized to stop this?
One way that I think about it is like did corporations all throughout this, like the last century until the seventies have any incentive to stop like poisoning rivers and dumping their waist all over the place.
They didn't.
It's like cheaper to be shitty, right like they like it is it is in their financial best interest to just keep poisoning the river until someone makes them stop, which we could, but like you know, it's in their best in just for us to feel bad, right, Like you never hear someone being like I had an amazing day.
I just sat and I scrolled for six hours, right, Like it's like you only do that when you feel you only scroll that long when you feel bad, and when you do that, when you scroll for that long, you feel even worse, and then you do it more, and that cycle is the primary way.
It's like cocaine.
It is like cricket.
It was fun, right, I'm chasing that first one. It's just not going to come back, yeah, exactly. But uh, it's interesting because I see stories pop up that give me outrage, and I realized that they're designed to do it like it took me a second. A friend of mine whose leans a little right exted me this story about how the LGBT community wants to ban natural one. You know, you make me feel like a natural woman,
Marretha Franklin. And I did like two clicks of research, and of course it was from a parody account, right, but picked up from papers. And then the parity account even said afterwards, like nobody called us for a.
Comment, right, right, And then on no one check the about page on the website.
Yeah.
And then on the left, you know, I read an article about the Missouri Senate making women's senators they couldn't wear sleeveless shirts, and I was about to go ape shit, and I went, oh, but the men afterwards, ties and suits. It's just a dress code, but it was designed to make me go bananas and it did.
Right, I mean everything like if you are on a social media platform, that what you see is governed by an algorithm, which is basically all the major ones. It's all designed to make you feel like the best person possible and that everyone else is a dumb piece of shit. Like that's that is, that is what gets us to spend as much time on there as possible.
Yeah, I used to go that righteousness porn yeah yeah, yeah.
And then you realize you don't actually want to see these male log wickers wearing tank tops anyway. You don't want to see it, and maybe we don't want to see anyone's upper arms.
So I just want to be able to say point to someone as wrong and me as right, right, and then you get off on it.
And it's also like there's so many things to actually be mad about, and a lot of the stuff that's you know, it's like some celebrity sets something done. It's like do do we care? Does does this matter?
Does? Like?
I think one of the things that drives me personally nuts about all of it is that there's no sense of scale. It's like everything is presented as equally and maximally enraging, when actually there are some things that matter a lot. Most things matter very little or nothing at all, and we're taught that, you know, we should all be as mad as possible about all of it all the time.
Right.
Well, yeah, I mean, like you went off Twitter a few years ago. Congratulations, thank you so much, thank you, thank you.
I'm so much.
I how it would turn me into like a genius and like a like a great happy person and it you know, just I'm wasting just a little less time, right right.
But I mean, like I definitely like I'm kind of exit only on there now and is that right. I just like will.
Post stuff I need to post for you get in.
Day's or something. But that has made my life a little definitely a little bit you realize that Twitter is not.
The world, right, right, And I mean I got off because like, I don't know if you had this experience, but it was like as soon as the pandemic started, you know, and my life shrank to you know, one room in a weekly trip to the grocery store, and the Internet ballooned to fill the rest of my existence.
And I was like this, this sucks, you know, like the Internet is never supposed to be bigger than your life, and when the pandemic made it bigger than actual physical life, I was like, I gotta, I gotta get out of here.
Twitter is such a cesspool now, it's so negative, there's is there any way to unravel this?
Well?
I think that as long as these companies the primary way they make their money is for us to spend as much time as possible on them. And the best way, as you were saying in that segment, for us for them to ensure that we spend as much time on them as possible is through all of the emotions that make us feel as bad as possible, self righteousness and anger and you know, everyone getting as mad as possible as a group about something you're going to forget about
the next day. As long as that is the economic model, there is no hope. But I think, you know, again, as with the corporations that we're you know, making all the fish dye in the rivers, you can make them change.
We could regulate this.
Right if we put pressure on our government.
Or yeah, I mean I think our government.
Is like, how does also nursing at the teet of big tech.
I think, like one, I think one thing that's necessary is for people to remember that we can you know, we don't have to feel like yeah yeah, like the internet. We all feel insane on the Internet. We all feel so bad all the time. And that's just the way
it is, right. I think that I think that we it is we are capable of getting as mad about this as people did about in the environmental move in the seventies, right, like we're we are capable of generating pressure and putting it on lawmakers and there you know, there are things like you could end automated recommendations, right.
Automated recommendations are the reasons that you know, a mom of two in Cleveland, you know, starts looking up smoothie recipes for her two year old and ends up believing that wayfair is shipping, you know, like orphans in their things, and you know, the wild designed theoreticalize exactly right, and and so much of that, so much of that is automated recommendations because that and people have been recommending for years for that, you know, simply ending those those are
one of the biggest reasons that the Internet has gotten so much worse, so much less fun, so much less surprising, is because these companies just identify the kind of person you and then funnel you towards, you know, whatever the worst version of that person is.
YouTube is bizarre. You know. One time I made the mistake of going like, what is this globalization? Like globalists? What do they mean by globalists? And I became an anti semi Right, it's been like fifteen minutes.
Yeah, it's amazing how well it works, you know, and there are things like, you know, you could end legal immunity for these companies if violence is caused by something
that was generated on these platforms. The worst that actual offline life is the more people spend on the internet, right, And we just have really done very little in terms of public policy to make actual life better for people, right, to give people more money and more freedom, and to give people free public spaces to hang out so the only place so it's not like the only place they
hang out is the internet. You know, We've done so little to improve actual life that I think is one of the things that drives people over and over to just be like yeah, you know, like for hours time, and I mean I feel like a boomer saying that, but I feel like that that would help a lot.
Well.
Yeah.
Also, it's like I feel like social media originally was designed or its intention was to connect, right, to connect people, But instead I think it's kind of put us in silos, and it's given us this existential like do I exist? You know, I mean even on selfies, I feel like are are just a constant question of do I exist? I exist?
Right?
Right?
And you know it's interesting, but there's anger. You know, people make money from our anger, they get clicks from anger. But there's some good anger on the internet where people are organizing, right, you know, So how do you not how do you differentiate? But how do you keep the good anger and get us away from the the shitty.
Angle what you were saying about connection, It's like we the version of connection that is generated through hate is not a kind of connection that makes sense in real life.
It's it's only a kind of connection that is incentivized and sounds good on the internet, right, like in real life where we actually like, oh I want to spend six hours like phase deep in, you know, in the business of someone I hate, no, right, like we form we do our business based on like affinity and the things that we care about and the things that we
like positively want. And I think about, you know, as much as I think the Internet as it's structured right now is kind of inevitably an existential and civic that
negative that there are still these things. I mean, you think about the protests summer twenty twenty, They wouldn't have turned into what they became, right with like a quarter of Americans, you know, hitting the streets at some point if it wasn't for like a continual stream of videos on Twitter of police brutalizing the protesters at the police brutality protests right like these, there is still like radical potential.
You think about what people are doing with abortion access right now on the internet, you know, forming these underground networks and getting people to travel across state lines and making sure anyone can get pills them. You know, I try to remember that, you know, we still can and will try to be human on you know, within a mechanism that wants us to be less so and we can keep doing it.
Well let's Seeah, it's like the Wild West. But the leaders are billionaires and I mean everything, I feel like, every single thing, every conversation I've had here. I feel like boils down to Citizens United, because as long as people can line politicians pockets, they're buying policy and our votes don't. I mean, your vote counts, and don't.
Our votes just simply don't count.
Yeah, but it's it's very frustrating. It doesn't. It's clearly not right, like you know, but of course they name it Citizens Unit. It sounds beautiful. Let's hold for the siren. I'm just kidding to show that I'm in show business and I know how things work.
Well, yeah, and I think part of it. I mean, we see this pushback now, right, there is a fomenting sort of pushback and a dissatisfaction, and you know, the hope is that it bubbles over into actual pressure on lawmakers to do something. But you know, for a long time, we accepted the general model of Silicon Valley, the move fast, break things sort of move faster than regulation could ever
get you. We accepted that as like, oh, that's amazing, we could you know that that will result in us pressing a button and getting like, you know, a car at our doorstep, and you know, and any kind of food we want, Like we've we for a really long time accepted the conveniences that the internet economy provides us sluts. We're such little thoughts are convenient, and then they just and then they just snap those little handcuffs of anger around us, and here we are.
Yeah, you go like, uh, iPhones are made by child labor. I'm gonna, well, you know, let's stay yeah, yeah, less click to or yeah or Amazon. You know, I'm gonna you know, I was like, no, no one's boycotting Amazon. It's too convenient.
Yeah. But the thing is you can And I think that like the real first step in all of this is remembering like we I mean, I have to have it's very ORWELLI and I have a program called self control on my computer and a program called freedom on my phone, and those things because I have neither and both and both of those things lock me off of social media for like fifteen hours a day. And I have needed to do that because I'm such a little
slut for all the things that makes me mad. And it does work, like you can just refuse to participate in little little bits until maybe suddenly your life has changed a little. And I would I would recommend you know, it's it's worth a dry.
Yeah, definitely. I mean they say, like, of course nobody can sleep because you're on your phones. You've got to turn the screens off, and I'm like, yeah, but also no that.
I prefer to drop my phone on my forehead seven times and that is when I go to sleep.
Oh okay, how do we fix the Internet? Is there any hope in all of this?
Yeah? Yeah, I think in regulation, and I think in public pushback, and I think in all of us spending
less time on our phone. Whether that means refusing convenience, you know, certain things that are convenience, I think it means I think all of these things are possible, but we have to maybe accept that in order to resist social media, in order to resist the constant surveillance that's hitting us on our phone, that all these companies are like tracking and reselling to other companies to make money off of everything we do, we have to maybe we have to maybe refuse a little bit of the cheap
pleasure and the convenience that the phone gives us. But I think we can all.
Right, of trick mirror is invariable.
If you're like me, your life is both owned and ruined by technology. So I want to talk to someone about how to break free from it all. Even though I've made a career of standing in front of screens and flailing my arms, I have.
A secret to tell all of you.
I hate technology. Every new gizmo and gadget claims to be highly useful and easy to use. But if that were true, then why are we so frustrated by technology all the goddamn time? I decided to sit down with Marquees Brownlee aka MKBHD, who's been heralded as the greatest tech reviewer on planet Earth, bringing us endless videos of the newest high tech piece of shit. But could he convince me to join his technomania cult? Marquez, you are
like the Kim Kardashian of technology. What you say moves product, and you do have a lot of junk in your trunk to review.
Has that been said?
Or are you just yeah, I'm proposing that. I like that you have dedicated your life to reviewing technology.
Why there's a quote you've probably heard. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic if you have a certain expectation and the tech actually gives you that output you expect.
Yeah, like that?
That working? I love that.
And when it doesn't work, what does it feel?
Incredibly frustrating to me?
It feels like an abomination to society.
It's correct.
Yeah, here's my problem. My brain is melting right now because I have to juggle one hundred apps just to communicate with eight people. When I was in college, there were three ways to get a hold of me. Okay, call me if you're confident, text me if you're shy, email me if you're smart. Now it's one hundred apps. I Message Friends, Android, annoying Friends, Signal, pretentious college friends, WhatsApp, annoying family members, Instagram, DMS, corny randos, Twitter, DMS, angry
political randos, evite psychos, paperless posts, liberal psychos. That's just messaging. Marquez.
Yeah, so you do have the option to not try any of the things you don't.
Want until I go to a restaurant and you go, hey, can I get a menu?
Yeah?
And they go, oh yeah, just scan the QR code and I go, no, no, I went to this restaurant to avoid being on my phone. And then they're like, oh, you have to also pay through your phone. In order to do that, you have to create a username and password.
Oh, Okay, so do you see what I'm saying?
You just made this. I'll have the tuna melt six steps harder.
There's a Goldilock zone of like going a little bit into tech and seeing real benefit before going too far. But we got to try a whole bunch of bad ideas before we find one or two cool things house and might.
Like Marquez wanted to prove to me that tech could be useful and user friendly by doing what he's known for a product demo. Secretly, I suspected it would turn into an episode of this shit Doesn't Work. These new tech enhanced products were a smart toothbrush, smart hover shoes, and a smart printer. And of course, all of these were supposed to be as easy as one, two three.
Sure, right, let's.
See lean sally forward to move forward, slightly backward, to go backwards, and step off to get up. Okay, smart toothbrush, it's got a ton of sensors and it might be able to shed some light on something you can do better.
All right, let's see how easy it is? Sure, look at that sticker reminding you how easy it is. You're gonna plug it in right here, right, all right? What is it yeah, all right, back to the future.
I can't believe there's the straps just twist me. Yeah, where are you opening up? Somewhere around there we go.
There's a tab, you know, because the sticker says effortless. Wait wait wait wait wait, why is it going to?
Why is it possessed.
It?
I connect this to app right, alright, app store app.
The problem is that I just don't want my dentist to have even more info about me. Oh yeah, because I haven't been brushing the full happy birthday.
Oh sorry.
It says do not turn the power off until the initialization is complete. This takes about six minutes, So you're just gonna stay here for six minutes.
Where do I apply?
So if I apply through?
Yeah, so we have to make an account. We do have to type a wife password. There's your key word.
See kind of type.
By the way, there's capital work.
I have to switch between uppercase and lowercase and then down, you know.
Relationships time because of stuff like that.
One, I'll set up my own account. You're gonna use your full government name. Yeah, I'm gonna do exactly what it asked me to. I cook my book, man, I give it a password and then you just straighten your feet. How do you feel? I feel like a baby giraffe to connect with the pass one? Yeah? You want a password again? Yeah?
Can you sign it to me?
Unable to register your user? Please try?
This is what I'm saying.
Try again.
What does it say? Now? It doesn't work? You know what? Man?
How do I get off?
Uh?
You know it's not your thing. It's my thing.
Bro Oh you don't to Please try one more time? Third time? It doesn't work.
Log and fail, log and fail? And where what is the print? Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, let's have our final products, shall we?
I mean, shit doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
It didn't work.
I felt like I had just proved to Marquez that his entire life was a lie. But he had a slightly different perspective.
The goal of tech is really to just work every time and be as easy as possible. So I would just say to have patience with the things that don't work yet, because maybe they will soon hook print users just good blocks s gruners are doing.
So maybe the way to fix shitty modern technology is by becoming more patient and understanding users. Why did you lie?
Here's an app?
Ope and can.
Cloth as you can close. This shit doesn't Why? Thank you Marquez. Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts.
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