Yard Signs, Lawsuits, and Objectification!

Hey! Are you listening? Good. Now that we have your attention, welcome to... Drumroll, please. The Snap! A podcast by me, your host, Katie. And me, your host, Ainsley. Just two girls in their 20s here to bring you a female-centric girl math tone to the Bitcoin, Noster, and value-for-value music space. As artists living in Nashville, we got tired of screaming into the void and tiptoeing around a broken music industry. Looking for a new way forward, we came across this space.

And thought, why not give it a try? In this podcast, we'll deconstruct what traditional success in the music industry has looked like so far. How that definition is changing. And where the space comes in. We'll break down all of the big happenings in both the music and Bitcoin worlds, how they mix. We'll fangirl over our favorite music in the value-verse, as well as prop up amazing voices that have yet to be heard.

We're so glad you're here. So let's get to it. Oh no, what happened? My coffee. That was right on my hand. As soon as you pressed it. I think everybody heard that.

oh and i tried to whisper it too well if i heard it in the headphones all the way over here you know the good people listening in the value verse are gonna hear well welcome back welcome back to the snap we are having some uh some coffee spillage problems but i am hardly one to talk because i just about spill everything in a you know arm's length radius of me so it's it's really okay that is what it is hi how are you i'm good it's it's a nice day finally it's beautiful how are

you doing i'm good actually you know what i have a bone to pick with nashville weather real quick so i was down in florida for the weekend and like florida is florida in november it's florida you don't need to say anything more right that's the weather florida is its own thing and i came back and I was like okay maybe it'll finally be cold and then yesterday I went into the studio to start working on a certain redacted project and I was like I'm gonna look cute I'm gonna put on

tights I'm gonna put on a skirt and then I walked outside and I was like this is not the day you missed it because while you were gone it was super rainy cold 30 degrees sucky you're telling me I missed my Seattle weather in Nashville my my Edward Cohen twilight weather like three days too it was three days straight that's my favorite kind of weather though have you seen that thing about um sad seasonal something depression yeah I think I have reverse sad which is actually a

thing where you feel the happiest when it's dark and cold and rainy I thrive I'm like I'm so happy to be alive on days like that look it's beautiful out today I am like a lizard basking in the sun on Katie's couch right now it is very nice but look my little Seattle heart is just always gonna want that like how you like in the rain girl yeah no I mean I loved it I I was that kid that sat in the like on the porch with my mom when the thunderstorms came in and we would just sit there

with a blanket and literally just watch the thunderstorm and um so I will never turn down rain but Nashville weather just in and of itself is always up and down and up and down and rainy snowy cold hot thunderstorms tornado sun for seven days truly what what are we doing here guys and then also just to if you don't know Nashville lore our local weather girl her name is Danielle Breezy and so with a name like that you are destined to you know just give the Nashville

weather I just that's that's context no everybody has to know about Danielle Breezy because she's a national treasure well so I just got a new ring camera and my parents were in town this is my

first time having a ring camera so all of that means is like I'm getting the neighborhood alerts I'm getting all the different like when somebody's walking their dog past my door I get an alert yeah And so I'm kind of weeding through all of those. And sometimes I'll get the alert and I'll look at it just to be like, okay, well, somebody's on my front door or whatever. And I look at it and I see somebody stop and look in my window and pause and then pull out their phone and Google something.

Now, if you don't know what's in my window. The best sign ever. So I found this sign at my old apartment, literally in the street, when I was walking from my apartment to work. It was in the street? It was in the street, and it literally has a tire mark on it, if you look at it very closely. That's funny. And it says, Couches Against Shady Vans.

And so if you look at it, the amount of times, and that's happened like once or twice, where on the camera I'll see somebody stop, look at the sign, pull out their phone and Google it, their faces, and then keep walking. Yeah. Just, I mean, you're doing... Educating the people out here. You're doing God's work, truly. No, and I think more people need to be aware of, you know, the sinister, villainous, you know, activities of the people who represent us at the highest levels of government.

And I took inspiration from there's a little shop literally right down the street from me that has a sign in their window that says something along the lines of if you're afraid of Tylenol, you would be terrified of what's happening in Gaza. Yeah. And and it was like, OK, if they're going to put a sign up in the window and that's a business, I can put up one. Yeah. I can put up one in my window. Exactly.

that is one thing when i see people just absolutely not caring and being like this is the right thing to say right now i'm like yeah i can say like one little thing that i would have like freaked out over saying like i remember um during the 2020 election i posted one biden harris i wasn't even old enough to vote yet but of course that's who i would have voted for i posted one biden harris hashtag and i lost 30 followers and i could have cared less i was like that's fine they don't need

to follow me and so now I think I'm just you know trying to radically be like you know what yeah if that's what you think if I post one little hashtag or if I talk about something that's basically just like human rights human empathy things that should not be political now nowadays it's like everyone else can can deal with it because I am so tired of just being like afraid to say the literal right

thing for fear of getting like crucified by people online who don't have hobbies real yeah real and i think honestly the best example of that i've been doing a deep dive into zoran mamdani yeah the name

is mamdani m-a-m-d-a-n-i yeah that's my mayor i don't live in new york that's my mayor i love him i think when you do a deeper dive into his history too i think it's interesting yeah that the democratic party has chosen this little nepo baby to be the democratic candidate because let's be real yeah let's be real his mom she is a very famous artist director and so when he was running in the primary you would hear things about how he's never had a resume he's never had a job in

his life blah blah blah blah and you're like what do you mean this kid well not kid because he's older than me obviously but Zoran has done such a good job of messaging marketing branding towards our generation and also doing a deeper deeper dive his wife she's so cool is so cool also an artist yes she's incredible also an artist incredible also has had a big hand in his social media messaging and marketing yeah so I thought it was really interesting that an artist

took their way of branding and applied it to a political campaign and said let's see if this works and it did brilliant absolutely brilliant it's so exciting and he has great ideas for New York yeah his team switching over New York from the current administration to his administration is all women yes we'd love to see it and on that all women team is the lady who we've talked about on this podcast before who took down all of the antitrust companies our hero Lena Khan yeah I

didn't know that that's so exciting yeah oh my gosh it is a great day to be alive it's a great day very starkly different than uh the political tone last november at least for our u.s based listeners i did see one thing last night that i thought was really apt um and that i don't think we can forget we might be really excited about this new wave of candidates like um the first female governor of virginia so exciting um her speech was so powerful oh i didn't see the whole

thing so i mean i've seen only clips of it but her husband essentially turned to their daughters and said your mother is going to be the governor of virginia and in her speech she said and she quoted that and then she goes and that's probably well not probably i know it's the first time that those words have ever been uttered in the state of virginia yeah and chills like you see the whole audience go like oh my gosh and I've seen a lot of comments about like the blue wave yeah how it

came late but it still came but it still came but so one thing that I would say as excited and as hopeful as we are because we have a bunch of candidates that are representing hope and change and you know just a new generation of leadership at the end of the day I saw a video yesterday that it was really good because it reminded me because I was all excited about it too.

At the end of the day these people who we have elected are still politicians and we still need to hold them to accountability and to standards that like just because we so excited that Mamdami won the mayoral race in New York doesn mean when he inevitably does something that isn good for New Yorkers or for us or whoever doesn mean that we can hold the people who we have elected to being um there was a really articulate way that they said it but you get what i'm trying to say

like we still have to hold them accountable and say hey love what you're about but this thing no let's change that so like at the end of the day we cannot like put politicians on pedestals just because they represent a lot of great change it's so great i'm so excited to see the change but they have to do more than represent change they have to actually bring change and i think that is a big topic in in politics today like of course we have a lot of they have to bring change

they have to do it in a way that benefits their constituents yeah but it's also always going to ruffle feathers always yeah so like I understand it is a thankless job like you cannot do I we've even felt it like doing music you cannot do any one thing that is going to please everybody and so in that regard I get it and I understand that being a politician is such a hard job not a job that I would want for myself and I don't know I guess that's just my two cents it's so exciting

it's so hopeful but they are still people who we have to hold accountable well and I think the reason why Zoran got so much negative press is because they're kind of scared of what his ideas are yeah oh absolutely um and i say kind of as more of like a benefit of the doubt you know um because what he proposes isn't out of the ordinary for any democrat i mean upping the taxes on the ultra wealthy yeah supplying health care to the masses daycare um parental leave like um all of

those things for society but how he's posing to do it is also the same way like you tax corporations as well I saw him um on an interview where he was being asked about this all of his policies like how are you going to be able to do all these for free because you're a socialist democrat essentially yeah and he said well I'm going to up the tax on the ultra wealthy and I'm going to up the corporate tax to match to match new jersey which

the the reporter was like well don't you think that that's going to push a ton of business out of new york because that tax is going to push a lot of corporations to say okay well we're not going to base in new york anymore and his response which i thought was so good this guy is very pr trained yeah his response is that's fair I mean there are some businesses that won't be able to withstand that but at the same time a lot of people are coming to me and saying that this job

market sucks we're not able to find talent because they're not able to be in New York they're not able to pay rent they're not able to get health care so the people that we would like to hire and the people that would be the best fit for these jobs aren't able to be here so it's that side of the coin yeah that i think if you are a republican and you don't like zaron's ideas you could hear that and say okay that's reasonable and that's why people are scared

because when a republican can see the same and reason with a socialist democrat in this political landscape terrified oh my gosh and like we're also talking words no that was great because that's also you know people are so shocked by this this idea that we should be able to have like civil conversations and be able to get things done together with people who we don't agree with that should have been it was at some point and it should have continued to be in the last 10 years

but it wasn't the bare minimum of politicians and how we get things done like of course Republicans over the last 10 years have vilified so many marginalized communities that like are not even based in truth or in fact or whatnot and so I understand where a lot of um liberals and democrats and people our age you know and myself included I've struggled with this this idea of well this isn't just politics anymore this is people's basic human freedoms and human rights

so no I don't want to talk and I don't want to um interact in any way shape or form with people who are trying to actively take away the rights of marginalized communities and things that I believe in of course like I understand that but also and I'm not excusing it but we have to continue to talk to each other yeah we have to continue to bridge the gap of what you know the the political sphere however many years ago never really succeeded to create and I mean I'm saying

that loosely because even when we were you know talking to each other and somewhat getting things 0 done across the aisle however many years ago like you could still argue that like no nothing ever 176 00:15:39,1000 --> 00:15:44,880 really got done which I don't know maybe I'm just talking out of my ass now and this is always like me I'm like oh my god I'm saying too much I'm gonna get canceled this is like where I get freaked

out no I hear what you're saying yeah it's essentially you have to keep politicians responsible for what they promised when they were running to be that politician yeah absolutely and you have to have that same sense of scrutiny towards the people in your own party as you would for a Republican party or a Democrat party what have you exactly and if you're not able to do that then you don't see your own bias and if you're not able to have a conversation with somebody who

disagrees with you that's just a different topic that's not even political yeah absolutely so and I but I can understand where politics get a little bit more heated and when you can't have that conversation with somebody else because either they're not listening to you or you're not able to agree on even one point that's where I understand you walk away from that conversation Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. But I think right now, because things have become so polar and you're getting pushed towards either side. Yeah. Which is all a marketing campaign. Absolutely. It's hard to look at somebody that you are related to or have worked with for a few years or have a relationship with and disagree fundamentally. Yeah. And it's hard to continue to have those conversations in an amicable way. Yeah. And I guess what I'm trying to say is that we should, in a sense, be able to disagree with each other.

Yeah. We shouldn't just be so insulated that the only people we surround ourselves with are people who think the same ways that we do because that's not going to get anything done. And that might feel safe and it might feel comfy, but that doesn't push the envelope of change. And yeah, but also I do understand that people are like, this is different today because of how polarized we are. This is different.

Like, no, I don't want to, you know, talk to somebody who doesn't believe that I should have a right to my own body. I get that and I understand that. And so it's a really fine line to toe. It's like we should be able to disagree and be civil about it, but also it's different today. And so where does that leave us?

And that goes back to this whole thing that we've talked about many times on this podcast, how our generation is like if you talk to somebody and just try to sit down and have a conversation with them and people take one thing out of context and they're like, no, you're not one of us anymore.

yeah ah it it really creates this us versus them mentality and you're i think what you're also saying is you're able to have you're able to be a democrat and have some republican views you're able to be a republican and have some democrat views like there needs to be more of in the middle yeah absolutely for sure and also i mean i think you've said it in the past like as I get older part of me is like the two-party system doesn't seem like the most productive way

to go sometimes well and and I've said that and multiple presidents and founding father fathers have also said that yes but I don't think that it's reasonable for us to assume that we could change that in our lifetime oh my gosh no yeah so to me it's kind of a moot point because if that could change then a bunch of other things would change but we're not there yet yeah and so it's this weird like we're living in the gray there is a

lot of potential for change for good and a lot of potential for change for bad so i have seen though is a big push for people our age getting into government. Yeah, it's so exciting for sure. And I don't know how people do that because that seems exhausting. And I feel like I'm exhausted enough from trying to make music. Like it's how, how do people even do that? Well, and I mean, and the rise of class action lawsuits.

The rise of defending rights for integrity, for copyrights for little brands being taken over by like free people yeah you know like those type of things where an artist will design a calendar and then marshals comes out with a calendar you know yeah exact same thing so and i mean class actions you were talking about one with spotify

yeah so speaking of that one of the biggest headlines that i wanted to talk to you about is how a bunch of DSPs but Spotify in particular have been airing ice recruitment ads on their free ad supported models And I am fairly

certain that it was from the U S department of, I'd need to find the article again, cause there are a couple of articles that I've read on this, um, that it was the super targeted, like $60 million dollar push from the ice agency specifically um and spotify has just you know decided that that's okay to you know push to their users it's it's something that we haven't seen before too um that's there's a lot of that happening recently yeah um and i mean it reminds

me of the videos that are playing in airports right now yeah of department of defense which goes directly against the Hatch Act. Yeah. Where a government office cannot use government spending or government off like things to I'm not saying this correctly but they cannot

use a government affiliated property to then post their propaganda essentially. Yeah. That's the patch act so the fact that that's being broken known yeah it's crazy to me and it's the same type of thing with the ice ads like and we've talked about this in a different setting of the military ads that were about a year ago and it's interesting now to see where that has come from Yeah. Because do you remember what we talked about in the military ad? It was Emma. Yes, the Emma ad.

And the Emma ad where she was like growing up, didn't feel like she fit in, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then was able to find purpose with the military. Yeah. Interesting messaging now. So the messaging for ICE ads is, are you strong? Yeah. Are you brave? Are you a patriot? Are you a patriot? Do you love your country? You should come defend it. And so it's interesting. that it went from find purpose to defend your country in one year. Defend your country from what?

Like being an immigrant who is here illegally is no more of a crime than jaywalking. It's a civil offense. It's not like that's I my mind is just baffled by this administration and, you know, Spotify. We have talked about so many of their questionable business ventures in the past on this podcast. But like the music industry, actually, no, I let me take that back. Music period is supposed to be a safe space.

It is one of the only things today that connects us globally and like makes us realize that we have more in common than not. And now with ICE firmly putting a stake in the ground saying, yeah, we don't have a problem airing ICE ads.

they are no longer the music industry who I mean by they are no longer just saying oh the music industry isn't just for artists and musicians and songwriters anymore like we've known that for a long time that the music industry is not on our sides it's being bought out it's being bought out but also they're not for the fans anymore either because Spotify has probably a super wide audience of people who aren't just straight white men listening to Jason Aldean Morgan Wallen like

Bad Bunny who is one of the biggest artists period right now biggest artists on Spotify is about to do the halftime show this is a whole other thing we could talk about how Bad Bunny is not going to tour in the U.S. next year for fear of one date oh is he doing one date well no that so his response

was he's not going to do a tour in the U.S. because he knows his fan base would get ice raids at his shows. Ice raids, yeah. So terrifying. Absolutely horrific. But his response to that was, but I'll do one date, which is the Super Bowl. Yeah. And so incredibly smart on his team. Yeah. Because it has a veil of, you're not going to have ice raids at the Super Bowl. Yeah. Come on.

you have a nationally televised event that has millions of people watching you're not going to have ice no the super bowl of course not if that happens i will eat my words faster um but i think and i love how the nfl defended it and stood their ground because i think it was somebody of a funder of one of the news channels or something said that they would pull funding if Bad Bunny was still the halftime and NFL said, okay. Okay, pull your funding.

We've got a bazillion other people who are willing to pay $180 million for a Dorito ad. Right. Like, pull your funding. Right. What is that going to do? So it's interesting how people have chosen to respond in this political climate. and I would suggest doing your own research on everything. Yeah. Because my own mother, the lawyer, sent me an article from The Onion and that was a hard day. Oh, The Onion. That was a hard day.

So please fact check everything and listen to your local news but at the same time do your own research. Yeah. absolutely

I got a scoop now, baby, a hoop now, honey I thought we needed to tie loose ends But for the right time rest Let me get this right You're on to me You've made up a page So casually, if we wanted this to be a scene Baby, you were like her I got a school now, baby, I'm down, honey I thought we agreed to just be friends Your eyes tell me to undress I gotta scoot now, baby, out now, honey I thought we needed to tie loose ends But further I'll tie our ground If we force the fire so casually

Will the flame be less damaging? Logic seems to be a remedy It's good crafting, so I gotta school now, baby I hope now, honey I thought we agreed to just be friends Your eyes tell me to undress I got a school now, baby, I won't lie I thought we needed to tie loose ends But for the right diagram So, if nothing else, this podcast is really just my platform to hate on Spotify because I have two other Spotify headlines.

So, obviously, with that first one, Spotify airing ICE recruitment ads, what the hell is Spotify doing? Absolutely unacceptable. Moving on. Spotify has another class action lawsuit about basically enabling Payola in their discovery mode setting when people are listening. Which, yeah, of course, like we've been new.

We knew that this was absolutely what they were doing with backroom deals, with labels, with, you know, their big donors and funders who, you know, will pay to have their ads on the free ad supported model. But I'd like to read you a couple of snippets about this lawsuit that is being brought on to Spotify by, which I love, by the way. This is just not an artist, not a songwriter, just a listener, just somebody who listened to music on Spotify who wanted to find new music.

First unveiled in 2020, Discovery Mode, which is what is being put up as Payola, allows artists and labels to get boosted on Spotify in return for accepting reduced royalties.

It was initially met with scrutiny including a congressional investigation over its similarities to Payola or the practice of secretly paying radio stations for airplay but it has become a popular industry marketing tool around the release of new music spotify is facing a class action lawsuit claiming its discovery mode and editorial playlists are a modern form of payola that allow record labels and artists to secretly pay to promote

their music the lawsuit filed on wednesday november 5th in new york alleges that spotify's recommendation tools are a deceptive pay-for-play program but that the streamer misleads consumers into trusting that they are neutral and based on personal musical tastes which i love that this is being brought on by just a regular fan who wanted to find music and was like hey I can't fucking find music that I like on Spotify yeah because you can't it's not organic and authentic and of

course major labels are paying Spotify inordinate amounts of money to get their artists to the top of it it is so rigged and I don't want to sound jaded but I might be kind of jaded um so yeah I'm jaded too. I mean, it's one of those, like, you get here and you realize how that works and you go, really? Are you kidding? Yeah. Like, come on. And then it's like, everything revolves around money. Yeah. And then you go, at the end of the day, this is still a music business. It's

capitalistic and it revolves around making money and making money and making money. I mean, and it's not like I mean we rag on Spotify because they're the easy target yeah it's not like Spotify is the only one that's doing this of course yeah it's I mean and I didn't know that's such a smart loophole because how they did it you technically aren't paying them they're just withholding yeah so it's you're you're not money isn't changing hands technically so it technically

can't be payola it's such a smart loophole that i'm like oh yeah screw you but it's something that i mean the radio business has been doing forever yeah i then and they reference the radio business as payola because it's the easiest form to recognize you pay a radio station 500 bucks yada yada yada yeah how radio stations got around it in the 2000s is they would say hey you want to get your song played 50 times buy this billboard in arkansas for three months yeah and however long

that billboard is up that's however many songs or that's however many spins you'll get yeah for however many months and that billboard is not for you and i've said this before on this podcast it's not for you but it's for that radio station that's payola yeah absolutely it's a way to get around it that's not technically payola exactly and it's how all of the multifaceted music industry businesses work yeah I mean when I was doing my little radio stint over the summer um my contact

at one of the radio stations was like well payola is illegal and i was like okay well it's good to hear you say that but payola is still very much alive and well it's just not as blatant as it was on like 1950s alan freed radio like it's still very much alive and well so here is the last spotify headline of the day uh along the lines of you know siphoning off funds and royalties and

streams um and I'd like to say this before I get into this headline so and this is from the article that I'm gonna like put in the show notes Spotify pays out artists in a pro rata model where all of the streams are compiled together and royalties get doled out based on an artist's percentage of the overall marketplace which we knew that but that's I think just kind of like good bar to like think of uh coming in to what we're about to talk about so I saw this article the other day

drake accused of earning billions of fraudulent streams and class action suit against spotify the suit claims that allegedly fraudulent drake streams alone have cost other artists hundreds of millions of dollars this goes back to streaming fraud this goes back to the conversation about streaming farms this goes back to the conversation about spotify cracking down on indie artists getting their songs on an automated playlist and then saying oh you can't be on spotify anymore

because we think you're fake and then allowing one of my songs it did when did that happen my songs got pulled um which one was it done for sure it was off of my really old ep oh really but they were claiming that um the song got pulled because ai um software was found in a playlist or something and so they just pulled the song completely and that's a whole other conversation oh so it's a playlist that I didn't even make that I wasn't even aware of yeah and

you're gonna pull the entire song which I was making money from and I can't do anything about it yowzas that could lead into a whole other conversation about there was some music industry thing that got passed the other day that said oh as long as a song was made in a majority percent by a human it can still really yeah like it can be like you can have like 30 percent of AI in a song but also how are they going to track that of like oh if it was made by a human but then you

know things were tweaked by AI they capitulated yeah it's absolutely crazy but back to Drake for a minute because that's a whole other existential crisis we could go down sorry of course they will allow millions of fake streams from drake because he is one of their top performing artists and will bring in more money for that you know percentage of the overall marketplace pool like it's so hypocritical that's my big word when it comes to spotify like i i don't even have words anymore i

feel like i'm just a reporter now like right here here are the headlines you y'all know how i feel about it but here's another thing so in this I find it really interesting that I believe this lawsuit was brought on by um Snoop Dogg's brother or somebody who had worked closely with Snoop Dogg and it was really interesting because he was more bringing this lawsuit on to bring awareness to like

Drake himself is not being sued. He is just a beneficiary of all of this bad shit going on. But the lawsuit was really claiming that like, yeah, Drake is the figurehead for this case, but it's so many other big artists taking more out of the pool from the other smaller artists

who don't get paid that much. And I quote, a substantial non-trivial percentage of Drake's 37 billion streams on Spotify during that time frame were inauthentic and appeared to be the work of a sprawling network of bot accounts, which goes back to streaming farms. Which is nothing new to the industry. It's nothing new. But it's also able to flourish with AI and all the different web capabilities now. Like, it's crazy.

Yeah. And I think it's very interesting that the take that they're doing is all of these other artists are doing it. We're just using Drake as the example. Yeah. The sacrificial lamb. Yeah. And I mean, well, Kendrick kind of put him there. Yeah. I mean, in the article that I read, it said that the Kendrick and Drake feud. Gave him more streams. It was kind of a beneficiary of streaming farms.

Like both sides were planting, you know, potentially fake streams so that, you know, their artist would, you know, come out victorious. Well, and all of that, I mean, you have to see some modicle truth that's within their arguing. But at the same time, anything like that you have to be super critical of because it's all marketing. Yeah. It's all spin. It's all spin and like, I fell into it because I love Kendrick. He's one of my favorite artists. Of course.

I was like, Kendrick is always going to be better than Drake. And I would go off. I'm like, do you hear historical references? 40 acres and a mule. Come on. Like, come on. And people, and Drake was on Degrassi. So don't even get me started. But I think there's different layers of bot farms and like the different comments on TikTok that you see. Like the two emojis. Those are all bots. Yeah. Like on the different comments that you see on people's Instagrams, TikTok, all of that.

Yeah. And it's followers, it's likes, it's shares, it's views, it's everything.

so much of it can be bought yeah and i think it's interesting that they're focusing on streams yeah because streams are honestly out of all of that the one that pay the least yeah but for the big artists that's probably one of their bigger incomes especially if you're getting billion 37 billion with a b right like i mean one instagram post could be a million bucks oh my gosh absolutely so but that's only a million bucks because of the millions of bots that are commenting liking

sharing and subscribing because the brands that are paying them are thinking that those are actual people yeah and I mean don't get me started about um you know when this is another like thing that you learn when you move to Nashville some of the biggest the most followed Instagram accounts that just happen to be some of the world's biggest artists a huge percentage of their following is not real it's bots or is bots or did you know that you can change instagram handles with the

same followers duh so yeah so if you think about it who's an artist that went from no followers at all the next year 4.5 million how did she do that bought the instagram from somebody literally Like an OnlyFans creator or somebody that's an Instagram girl that just gains all that millions and millions and millions of followers. That's worth money to an artist or to a creator or to a photographer or somebody. They can go to that person and say, how much for the account?

Yeah. And they'll pay like two, three, whatever for that account. But then boom, now you have 4.5 million followers. You start posting music. people are gonna go I didn't think that I was following this girl but whatever yeah you're not gonna know yeah it's wild also if we're talking about Spotify you said OnlyFans a minute ago so I've been listening to the new Lily Allen record this week which I declined to comment on you know the the gossip and the drama around that album as a work of art

as a divorce record as a divorce record lily allen was married to david harper who is hopper in stranger things have you watched stranger things no okay well that's a bummer it's a great show i there's so much of this lore that i wouldn't understand but i like kind of knowing the bits and pieces okay so they were married and i don't even know where to get into it like it's so much like i've gone so far down the rabbit hole and the album explains it all really well Sparknotes. Sparknotes.

They were married for five years, I think, just within the past month or so. Like, they've officially gotten divorced. Like, I don't even know how much I want to say because it's, like, so crazy. Why did they get divorced? Did somebody cheat? Did somebody, like, who did what? Let me think about a lyric in this album that is going to answer the question.

um I didn't know it was your pussy palace I always thought it was a dojo so am I looking at a sex addict a serial cheater like oh she you know alleges in this entire album that um he opened their marriage she wasn't okay with it he cheated on her with however many women and she was like I don't really want to do this but you know I'm just trying to there's a song on the album called non-monogamami I'll be your non-monogamami like I just want I'm just trying

to be open I want to do what makes you happy and of course it didn't work but anyways all that to say Lily Allen put out this incredible album called West End Girl which I've been listening to like as a work of art as a divorce record not commenting on all of the other stuff it is a phenomenal record like that's my album of the year when it's eligible I haven't listened to it yet so it's incredible my list but the only reason that I saw this was because I'm like deep on

Lily Allen Instagram TikTok whatever right now um she has an OnlyFans account where she makes more money off of OnlyFans than Spotify streams and like girls gotta make her bucks I'm not commenting on that but how sad is it that a really influential artist who has influenced artists like

Maisie Peters Olivia Rodrigo like she's not a hugely known artist over here but she's very influential like her biggest one of her biggest songs is called fuck you which love um like she went out and played um I think it was Glastonbury a couple years ago with Olivia Rodrigo like after Roe got overturned and they went on stage and they sang that song like just like what a statement

what a powerful statement um so again I not commenting on like her going to OnlyFans like girls gotta make her bucks do what you gonna do boo but how sad is it that one of the most influential artists who has influenced such huge artists today cannot make a living off of her Spotify streams off of her you know whatever like I don't know I my brain kind of spins because there's always going to be that like misogyny from my dad

kind of in my head of like a woman should never sell her body and yeah i struggle with that too and like yeah and you kind of have to walk through that of like okay well at the same time of thinking that it's more demeaning to sell your body than it is to sell your soul at the same time interesting argument yeah it's kind of been and work with me here yeah it's kind of empowering that a woman our age could be making more money in a way scamming men

yeah poetic justice and and using that money to then put into her music to be able to record release to her and do whatever like in my mind it's not something that would be my first jump yeah but neither would be mine but i can't knock her yeah exactly because and i'm not saying that you were i'm saying that it's just an interesting world that we live in and when so many influencers are doing the same thing they're going on only fans um when so many people that were on reality

tv are going on only fans because it's making them money like it's or we even see it in the music industry with like artists who like and of course we know that like nothing on social media is organic anymore but we see young female artists going on Instagram and doing basically thirst traps because they know that that's like people aren't sex sells like it's not people aren't going to pay attention to just the music they're just going to pay attention to you know Instagram thirst

traps and whatnot. And so there is that like really hard dichotomy that I've always really struggled with, um, of like, I want to be happy for you and I want to support your choice and your decision. If you feel comfortable enough, you know, um, putting yourself out there like that,

I'm comfortable with that for you. I would not be comfortable with that for me, but also like what that's that's kind of an unfair advantage to the other people who are like no I don't want to do that I want to be known solely for my art but then yeah it is the whole sex sells thing yeah I mean there there's always going to be room for people it's finding your niche and where you stand out yeah and yowzas I mean I think it's also a comment on how right now the landscape for like

culturally like um anthropologically you know using big words like women right now are viewed similarly in the way that we were in the 50s where it's more of the object the item to be owned

the thing that I call mine my tried wife not as much as my partner yeah my team my support system yeah like and you notice that in the way that women are depicted by cars now lately and ads in different fragrances i mean the sydney sweeney thing we don need to comment on the different undertones but even her like yeah i got good jeans like the sexiness of it yeah like okay and not that that's new but it's very easy to see

that in the past few years it's become more towards item more towards object yeah and that's scary and it's interesting to see how women today are responding to that because that is kind of the way that we are viewed in the zeitgeist right now but also I thought I saw a therapy Jeff video this morning I love him he's so great um where he was talking about the dating pool right now for like men for lack of a better term need to step their fucking game up because we are in a point right

now where we have been objectified so long and this is the way that we've been like we have if that's the way that the zeitgeist views us we're all like i don't i don't have a hot take yeah the the vogue like having a boyfriend is embarrassing um that idea of oh i lost my train of thought you go. No, like I know where you're headed. Yeah. And I want to start with, I would be a wife tomorrow. Pause. I would be a wife tomorrow if somebody offered me the emotional, physical, and responsibility

to be a partner. I would be a wife tomorrow. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. But what is being offered to me is make me lunch make me dinner do my laundry be there for me to rant about all of my childhood trauma and know nothing about your middle name yeah and let me see how much i can get from you and how little i can return yeah that's not something i'm interested in women are just not interested and i'm not even willing to even date no because god forbid i give that guy

a chance yeah and you get roped in get further down the line yeah and we're living together and you can't put together a bed frame or you refuse to take the trash out yeah or you refuse the baby throws up and you have to do laundry you have to change a diaper how to use the washing machine like i don't that's somebody that you can't be in a partnership with no and the dating pool right now the guys are wanting to be treated in a certain way that I just am not willing to give

them absolutely not and I think women today are becoming more like no I don't I'm not gonna date but it's not that I wouldn't yeah it's not that I wouldn't I would be a wife choices that were there if the emotional availability was there tomorrow absolutely it's not that I wouldn't it's just that I won't. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Like this day and age that we are living in is so, I don't even have words for it. Like.

I have a body like Aphrodite You can't tell me that you don't love me I can tell my girls agree it's not charming Very alarming How exclusively you hit on me When I fit in two size 14 Shit must be exhausting Not understanding There's no difference between That girl and me As if she didn't need The love that I need So, come correct And don't forget, I might forgive, but it depends On common sense and present tense and monumental confidence They didn't say it would be easy

Didn't tell you how to treat me And tell you how to treat me I have a body that man-made statues of Got no time or space for half to quit Give me something I can't get if it's not you Express the issue Well, that might have worked yesterday I'm starting to take resumes, hey Must be exhausting, not understanding There's no difference between that girl and me As if she didn't need the love that I need So, come go right and don't forget I might forgive, but it depends on common sense

And present tense and monumental confidence I didn't say it would be easy Didn't tell you how to treat me And tell you how to treat me. There's no touch that's between her only as if she'd be to me.

Right. Right. And I saw I've seen a lot of British people post into the song of you'll be back soon. You'll see. I'm like, yeah, honestly, can I come back to the motherland? Because it sucks here. Truly. I'm ready to go. Get me the fuck out of here. Yeah. I want a dual citizenship. That'd be nice. Truly. Just go back and forth whenever you want.

yeah yeah if anybody's offering i'd take it yeah we're here for it any any hot british suitors uh sign up at the google sheet to court us yeah the google the google sheet we'll put it in the show notes um actually i only take formal inquiries by email okay good for you i'll still accepted the google sheet truly if you if your resume attached resume cover letter um pitch deck as to why i should go out with you i'm sick like i'm sorry i want a formal email with a resume

yep and a list of date ideas references i need to know that you can plan yeah that you can be on time and that you actually have some sense of common sense. Yeah. Really, like we're asking for the bare minimum here. Please. Yeah. Well, this has been The Snap with me, your host Ainsley. And me, your host Katie. And we'll catch you next time talking about other things. Hopefully. Sure. Bye.