Leslie Jones: How Milo Yiannopoulos Weaponized A Ghostbusters Remake

about losing followers since must took over Twitter? What have you? What has it been like to be on Twitter since must took over? In your in your view, I mean honestly, I was like, I don't want to get involved with the like I don't want to feed I don't want to feed it. So I was like, I honestly pulled the like, well let's see, you know what I'm saying, let me let me see what it is, and every once in a while kind of go through my own

like sort of bought purging whatever right. But definitely, at first I saw a complete surge of like porn bots, and then a complete surge of like these like anybody's got like an American flag and patriot in their bio. Like I just had a surge of that, and I was like, why are y'all here? Right? And then yeah, and then I just started like just handful of day,

you know, saying. So I'm down like five followers, which is fine, but it was more like, dude, I used to lose followers because of like what I said, not just like out of nowhere, like what is this about? I wish I could earn my losing, you know what I'm saying, But definitely like I haven't seen a lot of the like upticking like hate and like vitriol. I

guess because I was already a public figure. So I feel like I've already seen like I already went through my fair share of that, you know what I'm saying. So to me, I'm like, like when they talk about like crime wave, I'm like, crime is not up. I lived through l A in the nineties. This is fine, right, So so for me, I'm like, oh baby, just saying nothing.

But I will say I have enjoyed all the like fake or the Twitter blue stuff and like people like paying for their verification and creating trolls and then realizing now you could click it and it could say like not this fool is actually verified, or be like not that food paid for it, you know, but generally like it's it's kind of been, except for just the losing of followers. Like for me personally, it's kind of in the same Yeah, yeah, it's been. It's been. It's such

a weird spot that we're in. I completely agree with you. I've been seeing an uptick in horn and pytose scams. One of my favorite podcasters, Lazy Got was was hit by like a crypto scammer, and I think we're in this no man's land right now where scams and pranks and trolls have I think really been empowered and emboldened. I don't necessarily see Elon Musk making it seriously, and I think it's a it's a real problem. I think it can really you know, open up the platform to

be mifused. He definitely has the like the way the way I've been linking thinking about it is like this fool is still a seventh grader, right and being like I can jump off that roof and then like all the homies being like, bro, you don't have to jump off the roof that it's cool, Like why you feel like you gotta do that? No, I could do it, And the homes are like, all right, do it. You

know what I'm saying. Now that's full climbed on the roof and it's like, oh shit, niggie, okay, do it like you're gonna if you're gonna do it, do it, you know what I'm saying, and him realizing like I immediately read it's it's it's Ron Burgundy jumping into the bear trap, you know what I'm saying, and being like,

I immediately regret this decision. And to me, it's like I will say, my Twitter experience, maybe not my personal one, but my like as a user have been the scamps have been so funny to me, like seeing people like all the other fake Elon Musk like accounts, the fake Lebron James account and just and wondering how, Like I think we talked about this before in the episode we had with politics, Like if you would just take like an extra second to like once you see the name

and the check and then just read the person's app mentioned their actual handle, and you're like, oh, this is a joke, you know, and just or like it'll be it was like Lebron James with a Z at the end, So I'm like, that's clearly not Lebron James. But people don't do that though, time to do that. Yeah, And I think where we're at right now is the funny stories are what are getting pressed right now? Yeah, but right,

and that's what's that's what's you know, forward facing. But in reality, like clearly security and safety or not priority. And as we know from the show, the people that are going to be affected from this most are marginalized people.

And uh, that ship stuck and and that's the it. Yeah, that's that intersection man, right, Like like you said, it's like like obviously this the show is about the experience of like marginalized you know, specifically women of color, and it's like of course on Mars List, but I'm also not a woman of color, so I'm gonna have a different experience. And I think that, yeah, like that that it's important that you know, That's why I'm glad this show is happening, you know what I mean, because it's

important to like, so yeah, it's perfect. Yeah, this may mean my experience, Yeah, this may gonna be my experience because I'm definitely like a lot of the stuff that I did, like even you know, surviving my upbringing was like I was very good at staying out of stuff.

Like I'm like, yeah, I just don't. I just stay out of it unless I need to be in it, you know what I'm saying, until like you know, somebody turns turns to me, like even like you know, to carry the metaphor like you know, if it's a if it's a if it's a woman of color, like I'm gonna stay out of it until she looks at me like hey, youn say something. It's like, right, I'm gonna break this nigger's jaw, like just you, I'm not gonna move until you tell me. You know what I'm saying, Like,

if you tell me, then let's go. But if not, I'm like, oh, she got it, you know what I'm saying, Like I stat like I'm usually not worried, like oh she got a she fing a drag y'all, you know. And and and for me, it's like I'm I'm ready for the show, which is what what which I love about this Leslie Jones episode because I don't know if we're not supposed to reveal that yet, but like I was like in that hole. I remember that saga and I was like, yeah, I was like she dragging them

and it was funny. I remember how it was weird and random to me, where I was like I don't know when it started, like how all this started or why her. I was like did she do? Like why are y'all this seems so it seems so out of nowhere to me, like this is so random, and but I also knew she was very funny. And for me, I was like, she like, y'all picked on the wrong

person because I'm like, she forn a drag, y'all. And to me, I was the fact that like she wasn't like, man, I'm so sorry, Dave, Like why is everybody picking on me? She was like nigga, your mama got funny feet, you know what I'm saying. Like, and I was like, you know, fuck you your head pointy, and I'm like she's I was like to me, I was like, okay, y'all, look y'all, y'all to poked the bull, you got the wrong one. She not the one. And to me it was funny.

Well what was funny was her the way that she was dragging them back. It wasn't funny what was happening to her. But her answers were like, we Leslie Jones is like one of the funniest people. She's one of the She's just there. And I was like, I understand what y'all problem with her is. She's hilarious, Like, but what what's the problem. Okay, this is a perfect segue. The problem this is her. I could not have set the segway up better. So let's get into it. Okay.

So on the heels and our last few episodes, we were talking about gamer Gate and all of these tensions around marginalized folks. I guess I would say the perception that there invading these spaces that have been traditionally thought of as like very white and very well right video games, tech, and film. So you have all of these like largely white dudes who are frustrated and angry that they feel

like they're being kind of threatened in these spaces. Just the idea of like someone who's on a white dude entering these spaces and thing in these spaces. And so enter one of our major players for this conversation, Steve Bannon. I know, all right, how this starts at Steve Bannon. It starts with Steve Bannon. We got, we got, we gotta. You're probably thinking, like we're talking about Leslie Jones, where

I was trying at Steve Bannon. And it's because Steve Bannon was an early figure who really saw what a powerful force these frustrated, disaffected, you know, rangel threatened white guys could be and he thinks, Wow, we need to harness this and web and eyes and consolidate their political power. So it sounds a little bit about why that is. It's gonna get a little I'll breathe through this. It's

gonna get a little bit technical. I'm gonna warrn folks, but I found this fascinating and if you let me, I feel like we need this part bridget Like I feel the entire technical timeline of this higher mess. Yeah, okay, so let's do it. So you might be thinking, why did Steve Bannon, like, why was he mixed up with all of these male gamers. Well, it's because he saw the power of these gamers firsthand himself. Before Bannon was in the Trump White House or possibly maybe going to jail,

he was a successful Wall Street dude. In two thousand five, Steve Bannon cooked up with a Hong Kong based startup called Internet Gaming Entertainment or i g i GE was his company that was making millions and millions of dollars through selling virtual goods for real money within video games like ever Test or World of Warcraft? Did you ever

play any of those games? Bro? I Once, once the remotes went from like four to like eight, I was out, literally literally just assume the dad responds from Prop on certain things like getting at the getting When Prop is like Yama said, out of this, I was like, okay, dad,

um yeah yeah, but yeah yeah, not for real. I was like yeah, this game like once, it was like you know, I checked out pretty early on because I was like, man, it's too much, and because it was like, man, I'm already into so many niches, Like I'm already like, you know, neck deep in coffee, I'm neck deep in hip hop, and especially at that time, I'm like, I mean you the beat starts, I'll tell you what machine they used, what side chain compression? Where this rapper from

you know, other side project. I was so deep into a niche already that I was like, man, I got time to learn it. Yeah, you don't need another rabbit hole. So I was like, I can't keep up dog. Yeah. So essentially what this company i g E. Was doing is selling these like in game capes or wands or tokens that would allow players to pay real money to immediately level up within the game, rather than having to

work their way up to a certain level. So if you if you ever played games that involve levels, some people, you know, if you have money to spare but not a lot of time, you might pay to just like enter the game at a higher level. I G E.

Was not the first company to do this. It's actually a common practice called gold farming, where low paid workers in places like China will play these games like World of Warcraft for hours to acquire what they call gold or currency within the game and then sell it to other players. So the problem with this is that it's not totally it was at the time, it was not totally legal. It was actually prohibited by the companies that make the games, and so it was sort of in

this legal gray area. And Steve Bannon came on too I G E. To try to turn this from you know, a practice that existed in a legal gray area to really legitimize it by selling the companies that made these video games on the idea that players would be willing to spend like real money to level up in their game play in this way. Um, I know we're talking about like gaming and video games, but this ship was like big business bandoned that Holman Sex to invest ten

million dollars in the company. I g e. No, I'm like this. This the type of stuff that like also turned me off with video games. I was like, wait, I gotta I need to buy this sword. I'm good exactly like I have to spend my real money on a virtual sword. And the kind of game is this? The game don't come with what I need? I gotta buy this now, I'm good totally. I mean you're you're

not alone in this. And so KA head as game game like what kind of what what out of the product can you buy and just comes not put together like with not every like what I don't have everything I need even though I bought it. Now I'm good anyway, going when you go to the i KA show room and you see the dresser I'll put the other and then you buy it and it comes in that flat box like, wait a minute, wait a minute, what is this?

I bought a couch, what is this box? So Steve Bannon, he was really brought on to be the adult in the room in this video game company, right, he was gonna be the money man who was gonna get all this sweet sweet goldman SAX financing, and also get the companies that made video games on board with the idea that they should be in the business of selling this this this pay to play kind of scheme with gaming.

His first big fish was a Blizzard. They make the game World of Warcraft and back in two thousand and five, Like, this was the game I was in college in two thousand and five, Like I played it a little bit because my then boyfriend whole a whole long story. But then boyfriend was obsessed with it, and I was like, oh, learn to play this game. So why can you know, connect with him. I'm not surprised that of all the video game companies to come into the story that it's

Blizzard because Blizzard has Activision. Blizzard has so many lawsuits. Oh my god, many lawsuits. Yeah, so many, Like still like still this is still happening. This is like where you go to like a place, you know what I'm saying, A whole bunch of laptops in your computers and you're playing World War crap. I remember walking in and being like, yeah, I'm good, just like I'm just here for the coffee. But I'm not trying to hang out with you. I

got coffee. I am sad to say that. You just described of an environment where I spent an inordinate amount of time in college, not because I particularly enjoyed it or wanted to be there, because I thought that's how you got like dudes to be interested in you. I'm really enjoying being at this Land party. I don't want to be home watching Real World and listening to my carry. I'm having a great time. I know it wasn't It wasn't hang with us, man, it wasn't great. You're come

to this open Michael. So, Steve Bannon is his big fish as Blizzard. He's hoping that he can get these executives on board, and in fact it was quite the opposite. Blizzard executives were not on board with this idea of having users pay to level up within the games, and in May of two thousand and six, they actually cracked down on that scheme, calling it cheating, and they put out a press release saying that they had banned over thirty accounts on their games who were engaging in that practice.

I G E and their suppliers suffered a huge loss after this crackdown. He was losing five thousand dollars a month, and so this was like a huge like they were hemorrhaging money because of this this crackdown. And something to know about gamers is that they really hated this pay to play scheme. Gamers got organized, they you know, ended up delivering another big blow to I g S business.

World of Warcraft users actually sued I G E. In two thousand and seven, a gamer in Florida lodged a class action lawsuit against I G E. M. According to The Washington Post, the lawsuit alleged that I G E had received tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars selling the World of Warcraft of virtual property

or currency generated by cheap labor in third world countries. So, you know, and like what's interesting about this is that I G E settled that lawsuit, and as part of that settlement, they promised not to sell virtual currency in World of Warcraft for five years. Uh Bannon then becomes the CEO of I G E. In two thousand seven. He moves the company kind of away from this gold farming scheme to focus on things like gaming chat rooms and gaming websites, some of which he had acquired during

this like gold farming operation. These in these chat rooms full of gamers, full of people who were passionate about gaming. They were super super vocal about how much they hated I G e. S pay to play schemes. You know, they were Something to know about gamers is that they kind of consider themselves to be kind of I guess values based, you know. They felt that it was unfair and that like this scheme went against what they saw

is the egalitarian spirit of gameplay. They were fervent. They used these websites that Bannon was running to organize and the pressure companies who were operating these these games not to partner with I G. E. And Steve Bannon. He saw all of this. He saw the ways that these gamers hate and pay to play. They were successful in rallying each other to keep you know, gold farming out

of their games. He saw firsthand that gamers were this big, powerful, passionate community that would really dig in around an issue that they felt highlighted their shared values. In a book called The Devil's Bargain by journalist Joshua Green about the rise of Bannon and Trump's presidency, Bannon said, these guys, these rootless white males, had monster power. So he definitely early on was like, wait, these gamers, they're serious, yo.

This is like two things I camp on. One is like I still don't understand the five year number where it's like we'll stop selling for five years. It's like, no, fam, no, it's you can't do this. What do you mean Okay, well, okay, we'll chill for a little bit. Like, no, fam, you can't know. Okay, we'll chill. We'll chill, no problem. So I'm like, where did this five year number come from? That you just agree to stop doing something illegal just

for five years. And then secondly, um, it's definitely like an interesting like things to witness, like the birth of a villain. It's like when you're like, oh, where this was? When this is like attack of the Clones. It's like when the sixth when the when the dark Side switches and all the clones become evil. Like I was like, Oh my god, this is it. You just turned them

into stormtroopers. This is the moment. Oh my god. That's such a So that's such a good analogy for where this conversation goes, because it's so it's so true how you can take this disaffected group and really successfully radicalized them and turned them against a common enemy, even if it's not necessarily a common enemy that they had before all of that. No, you just turn them in stormtroopers. Yeah, such a such a good comparison. And so Bannon takes

over at bright Burt News in twelve. If you don't know what Brightburt News is, it's an extremist right wing media site that Steve Bannon himself once declared as quote the platform for the alt right. And I really have to give it to Steve Bannon here because he's very savvy. He sees the potential in building out Bright Bart into this digitally savvy, plugged in outlet with a young audience base.

And he also sees huge potential in marrying what he learned during his time running gaming chat rooms with i GE with this toxic white supremacist ideology. He's like, wait a minute. If I combine these things, my power like this will be very powerful, and he was right, yeah, he yeah. Another thing, like if I'm gonna give them any credit, is the fact that like he's not, He's very upfront of what he's doing. He's like, not easier,

this is all right. These are white boys, and I can feed them racism and they'll make us they'll give us power. Ye, that's what I'm doing exactly. It's very open about it. But he's like, yeah, that's what I'm doing. So this is where another major player in the harassment of Leslie Jones emerges. Milo your novelist. We've talked about

this a little bit, Sophie and I um. On October, ripe Bart launches a tech vertical that will focus on Internet culture and video games, and Steve Bannon recruits Milo to run it as tech editor. Most of the articles like It's funny because I when I was doing the research for this, I was like, what did Milo have to do with tech? But actually I was said, correct, he actually did have a background as a tech journalist

before all of this. The website that Milo founded, called The Colonel, was actually acquired by the Tech website The Daily Dot, so he he actually did have some like bona fides in actual tech journalism. However, when he got to Bripe bart I think that's calling the stuff that he was writing tech is a little generous because it's

all kind of framed as these conversations. It's all very reactionary, right, and so all the articles that he writes on Ripe bart On this tech article are not really about tech so insomuch as they're about all of these different ways that white men are being pushed out of technology and video games and culture, which is just nonsense. Like every article is about, you know, making fun of feminists or

women or fat people. Like it's all very reactionary. But I guess like that's the kind of tech storytelling that that Milo and Steve Bannon were interested in because they know this is going to get these young white males round up at works. So Milo has a lot of appeal with exactly the kind of young men that Bannon is looking to port as a resource and weaponize. My loom is young, he's active online, and most importantly, he

revels in being offensive and insulting people. And I have to say, just like a lot of gamers, like if you look like video games. I'm not saying all gamers do this by a wide margin, but that's certainly one of the cultural nuances of gaming, is like, you know, calling each other slurs and talking shit right like, and that's part of it. I could see like gamers being into him, but I don't think like Milo probably doesn't give a shit about gamers. I was like, yeah, no,

I can't see him. Yeah, He's like exactly so you're you're exactly right, Mileo doesn't give a shit about gamers or any of this stuff. The same year that Milo starts up at right Bart, we see the rise of another big figure who loves being online and revels in being Can you guess who I'm talking about? Donald Trump? Trump announces his bid for presidency. The same year editor thanks, Hey,

my my socials are I'm I'm done. I'm done. I'm not. Yeah, So Bannon told Joshua Green, the journalist who wrote that book about his rise, quote, I realized Milo could connect with these kids right away. You can activate that army they come in through gamer Gate or whatever else, and then they can get turned onto politics and Trump. So, as Sophie said, Milo does not give a ship about gamers or video games, and actually, early on in his career he sent a lot of time mocking video gamers

and belittling them. But Milo does understand that gamers are an easily riled up, easily stoked audience, and that he can stoke their sense of victimization around things like gamber Gate or threats posed by like woke PC culture and

basically get them on board for anything. I'm still trying to like figure out how they figured out to go from games to racism to voting Trump in the office that thread, although it's now in hindsight you're like, oh, yeah, you know what I'm saying, but totally how did you?

Because they saw white male rage and like mass because because I'm just like nerds, Yeah, I'm saying I like, like, you know, in the most like you know, if I'm going to be as basic as possible, I'm like, are you thinking like and the nerds is really riled up? I bet you they can make somebody president like how

you Yes? Basically yes, yeah, And again I have to really give it to Steve Bannon because I don't think a lot of people that like who like it really does take a kind of savvy guy to see that. And so, as you said, you know, when you look at Milo's writing, it kind of becomes clear how he was doing this um dey not really being involved in gamer Gate. Milo writes about it constantly, and he really frames it as these PC leftist culture police attacking these poor,

powerless gamers who don't have any social capital. But paradoxically, his writing also really flatters gamers in these like over the top ways. He writes constantly about how they are, you know, have this unchecked, unseen power that only he sees. I went back and read a functon of Milo's writing, which was not not so pleasant but not fun at all.

But you really, the radicalization tactics are super clear. He speaks to their grievances of this audience and then connects those grievances to these big politicized boogeyman and tells them, Oh, Trump, who Milo refers to as Daddy pretty often. I know it's bad, it's bad. He tells them Trump is the answer to their disaffection. And you know, Trump probably doesn't

give a ship about gaming or game journalists him. But you know, I'm like a mama's He didn't even know what does having Exactly yeah, anyway, exactly so Trump he doesn't care about ethics and gaming journalism or gaming or any of that, but he does often attack the you know, crooked media. He does talk about jailing journalists. So you can sort of see how these grievances that these gamers had are kind of being stoked and then replaced by these other political grievances. Let's take a look at him.

Of Milo's writing from Ripe Art in twenty fourteen, right after a gamer Gate, he wrote quote, it's easy to mock video gamers as dorky loaners in yellowing underpants. Indeed,

in previous columns, I've done it myself. But the more you learn about the latest scandal in the games industry, the more us heart to sympathize with the frustrated male stereotype, because an army of sociopathic feminist programmers and campaigners, abetted by achingly politically correct American tech bloggers, are terrorizing the entire community, lying, bullying, and manipulating their way around the

Internet for profit and attention. So you can sort of see how like he is able to stoke these concerns and then politicize them in like a very particular way. He goes on to say, quote, gamers should concentrate on the very real concerns they have had for a decade with a press that swamped with the discredited far left ideology and unintelligent, poorly trained writers refuses to tell basic truths.

So you can sort of see how even if you were a video gamer who had some grievances with the gaming space, what he's saying is like, you're mad about gaming and also the far left and also democrats and also what first of all, what a great writer, which is what part is what sucks about. It's like he's actually a good writer. But like, but yeah, that move of like man, it's like it's to me, it's like mass about a hustle from a mile away when somebody's like, yeah,

that's crazy, man. How do they how do they make fun of y'all? Like, you know, yeah, Dode, they do be making fun of us. May think you just you know, you just know nothing. This and this and this and you know what, you know, you're trying to open up the book. You want to talk about the game. They're talking about something else. It's like yeah, man, like I'm more interested in the game, and it's like, yeah, it's because you know, and we know we hate to woke

left that be doing that to you. And you're like, wait, wait a minute, wait, that's what we're mad about, Like okay, yeah, that's what What's what we're mad about? And and like, I guess I'm just putting myself in the shoes of a person who may it far off it is, but like that first few times you read it, you was like, what, that's what we're mad about, and then after a while you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's what we're mad about.

It's that you know what I'm saying, because you started off with stuff that I actually am mad about, which is like yeah, man, exactly. Yeah. It's such an effective

radicalization tactic. And honestly, Milo basically says as much in one PC Rights Women and you won't hear this anywhere else are screwing up the Internet for men by invading every space we have online and ruining it with their engine seeking and the needy, demanding, touchy feely form of modern feminism that quickly comes into conflict with men's natural tendency to be boisterous, confrontational and delightfully autistic. And so

you really exactly what you said, prop he. He really is connecting these men in their feelings around gaming to be these broader political grievances. So it's not just about gaming journalism, even even that is like dubious, but it's also about you know, hating leftists and the media and institutions and telling these people like you are being bullied

and ignored and attacked by the culture. And it really creates the situation where these spaces, you know, gaming culture film are turned into a battlefield like like a whereby Milo is kind of selling these men on the idea that resisting kind of social justice warriors and taking back video games and taking back tech spaces and taking that

film is a kind of activism in and of itself. Yeah, you're speaking their language but in a weird way and then twisting the same words and to mean something else. And all of a sudden, it's like, now we're so far down the road. It's like, well, now I'm here, I guess I do believe this stuff, man that Yeah, this is so sinister, dude, Like and again it's like,

first of all, these kids ain't victims number one. You know what I'm saying, And they are you know what I mean, they've been weaponized, you know what I'm saying. But it's like my my brain goes to a place to where it's like, I don't know if you had the sort of like socio cultural just societal engineering and experiences to know when you're being swindled, you know what I'm saying, to be able to step back and be like, hold on, man, speak for yourself. Holmy, that I look,

that's that ship. You won't. That's not what I'm all like, you know what I'm saying, Like and and I feel like that whether I don't know street smarts, whatever it is, it's just like I know how to be like hold up, now, speak for yourself. You know what I'm saying, Like wait, nah, Holmie, that not why I'm here. You know what I'm saying, Like, I mean, I like the game, but like, no, that's not why I'm here. You know what I'm saying. Like

walking the club, it's done club right? You like this music? Yeah, we've been get funked up. Could you know what I'm saying, Hey, we're gonna smash a thousand girls, and it's like whoa, whoa, whoa, Wait a minute, whoa. I'm just you know what I'm saying, Like, Man, I'm gonna get a a little bit of honey and listen to some music like that ship you all, that's

your that's your problem, you know what I'm saying. But like maybe it's I'm like and I'm I'm trying to say, like maybe they didn't have that experience, you know what I'm saying, to be able to like know when this is happening to you to stop and be like hold up because like that wait, no, that's you. You speak for yourself, homie, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, that's

such a good point. I think it's very easy to get sucked in when someone is it's like flattering you, telling you that you are you know, you have values that other people don't have, and you don't anyone get Yeah, but you don't only want to say that nobody else is validating you exactly. And I think it speaks to

this sort of intoxicating power of feeling seen. I think that also utilizes this very well of when you take people who you know genuine or not feel unseen, feel unheard, whether or not that that actually is true, because I would argue that, like he did that with white people, and it's like, well, what society are you living in where white people are like unseen and unheard? Not a right,

but but the power. I think that when you take people who feel unseen whether they really are not, and make them feel seen, I think that can be a really intoxicating thing. And if you don't, yeah, if you don't know what to look out for, you can really get people on board with stuff. I'm sorry to say that very easily. Yeah, So this is where Leslie Jones comes in. You know, Milo and Steve Bannon have have made it so that take back these spaces, taking back

video games and movies and all of that. That is a that feels like a form of activism. So if folks don't know who Leslie Jones is, first of all, you should because she's hysterical. She is a comedian, probably best known for her time on Saturday Night Live. This is not really related to the story, but I just want to include it. Leslie Jones she has a very

interesting educational background. She went to Chapman University on a basketball scholarship until the team's coach left to go to Colorado State, and she liked this coach so much that she followed him and transferred there. While yeah, I think that's I don't know why. I was like, oh, well, that's that. She was like, oh, I'll just come with him. While she was at college, she worked as a DJ

and R campus radio station and side notes. So today I liked that, and she, you know, she bounced around majors, and her majors included accounting, pre law, and computer science, and so I don't know, I wanted to include that because I think it speaks to the kind of dynamic person.

She's actually interesting. Yeah. Back in the like, Leslie Jones was sort of one of those kind of I guess i'll say good at Twitter celebrities right, Like, she was one of those celebrities that when she tweeted, people paid attention, and she generated a lot of goodwill for the platform um and really showed like how the platform could be used in these fun and new ways. During the Olympics, she was known for live tweeting the events and like

posting her reactions and everybody loved this. Hupping and post wrote an article call it saying watching Leslie Jones watched the Olympics is better than the actual Olympics, so she was beloved. Yeah, I followed her because she was Yeah. Because of that, I was like, that was when live tweeting was something that we enjoyed. So I'm like, dude, she's the best at it, because I'll be like, um, yeah, I'm watching It felt like he was like out of

barbecue withter, you know, it was so fun. Yeah. So in short, Leslie is just doing her thing, minding her business and her own damn business, and everyone loves her, right, She's everyone loves her, So it's not like she's like doing anything wrong other than existing and minding her business. In director Paul Fage announced that he's going to be

directing a reboot of the movie Ghostbusters. Sonny initially wanted to do a sequel, but Bill Murray wasn't interested and Harold Rames had passed away, so they ended up doing a reboot with four female leads, Kristin Wig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. Now, almost as soon as this is announced, there is backlash. The trailer for the Ghostbusters reboot became the most disliked trailer in the history

of YouTube. The rate of dislike is remarkable. An article on screen Crush breaks it down how it ranked among other hated videos on YouTube. The number one hated video on YouTube at the time was Justin Bieber's video for the song Baby, which had six million thumbs down, and the Ghostbusters trailer. When you compare it to other disliked videos from the platform, it's remarkable in that it has

a high ratio of dislikes. The trailer had five and seven thousand six dislikes on just twenty eight point seven million views, So that's a staggering fifty six to one ratio in terms of dislikes per view. So you kind of get a sense that, like, it's not just that people are disliking it, they are disliking it at a highly disproportionate rate compared to other videos that people don't like. This is not an organic thing. People are definitely gamifying

hate watching the trailer by vote brigading. This could honestly be its own episode, but pbs that are really interesting. Interview with The Daily Dots managing editor Austin Powell, who describes vote brigading as overwhelming and manipulating rather rudimentary online systems to influence or disrupt public perception. So basically places like Reddit and four chan and other right circles are

that are aggressively masculine. We're really down voting anything that had a viewpoint that could be linked to like their ideology. And so because of the way that these platforms exist, it's not always easy to say, you know, where is this Where is this inorganic hate coming from? You can't always tell the source, but the numbers make it clear that this is not you know less, more people are disliking this video than are watching the video, So something

weird is going on with how people are responding to it. Yeah, there's definitely like the knee jerk like where all these weirdos come in of like when you just slightly change something that doesn't remind them of the nostalgia that they're from, it's like, oh sucks, you ruined it. You know. So, like, yeah, people arguing that like Middle Earth shouldn't have black people, like what the Middle Art is not a real place?

Number one, you know what I'm saying? And then who I forget homeboy, but he's he's the one that like makes me laugh the most homies, like, well, scientifically speaking, you know, a mermaid would not have a black skin because she lived on the bottom of them. Like did you just start this sentence about a mermaid with Scientifically speaking? I believe that was Ben Shapiro, who was really you know,

it's so funny. These people are like like, oh, snowflakes, blah blah blah, and then it's like a black mermaid and it's like, yeah, but we're the ones. But we're the ones fragile, right, like we don't want okay word, yeah, we're we're we're the snowflakes. Yeah you're mad. Okay, you're mad that Game of Thrones got black people. But I'm like, and that's unrealistic, like the dragons Matt did the Like scientifically speaking, I was like, bro, I was supposed to

take you serious. How can anyone take you serious after this? What is you mad about? So like, so I say that to say, okay, you've turned the Ghostbusters into girls. Well sucks just supposed to be Okay, It's like all right, you're all right, all right, let it go, okay stupid, Now go watch the movie because it's actually very funny and all four of those women are hilarious, and you know they're hilarious, Like, so like, relax, Okay, you got

it out, you got it's not exactly what you remember. Sorry, you know what I'm saying. Now, Now let's enjoy it. That's what I thought was going to happen. You know, I will never understand. So like with the Ghost, but with with any reboot, really it's not like they're making it illegal to own the original. So if you're like, oh, I was like very into the original, I don't like this reboot, that's fine. They're not there. You can still

just watch the original. It's not going anywhere this because this because they've added a reboot or be make or they've made a Black Mermaid or whatever, nobody is forcing you to watch it. And you're the thing that you loved isn't going anywhere, Like what are you so upset about? Yeah? What's the And it's like, okay, what's your percentage of the shareholding of that movie? Right in the zero point zero zero? What the hell? You care? What's this doing

for you? You know what I'm saying, Like, are you serious? Fan? You? You? You? You? You this route up over something you don't own all right, yeah, and enters the chat next on this. Oh my god, I hate I hate to say it, but you did not just put this man on my screen right now. Even Trump got in the mix. This is the weirdest video. Yeah, play that. It's the weirdest thing. Oh I see the hashtags already. Okay, they're remaking Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford.

You can't do that, and now they're making Ghostbusters with only women. What's going on? It looked like somebody told him to say that. Why is he yelling? Why is he yelling? It's so weird? And the video stops where he's just like, what's going on? Time? They're remaking Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford. You can't do that, And now they're making Ghostbusters with only women. What's going on? Oh my god, that's so weird. So like, man, what the

hell are you talking? What this is? That? Look, it's it's that same energy that like, I mean, it's not the same, but it's like you go go to like Budapest, Hawaii and be like, hey, where can we get a hot dog? It sucks hot dogs. It's like, I'm sorry, it's not exactly like the place you left. The hell are you talking about? Fam It's a different it's what percentage of what percentage of Indiana Jones do you own?

It's so strange. So obviously Ghostbusters the reboot really tapped into all of these hot button issues around race and gender that movements like Gamergate had exposed and inflamed. And what's interesting is that not everybody didn't like Not everybody didn't like the reboot of Ghostbusters because it was like they were being anti woke. Some people thought the jokes were bad, some people thought it was you know, they didn't like that it was a remake. Some people didn't

like Leslie Jones's character, some people just don't like reboots. Whatever. But the issue is that when bad actors and extremists hijacked these conversations because they want to grind a political acts, it creates a situation where waiting into it at all makes people feel like they have to pick sides because it becomes so charged, right, and so you either have to hate the movie for being like a woke PC remake or you feel like you need to defend it

up against these like racist, sexist attacks. And so folks who are you know, maybe just want to like watch the movie and not necessarily have this kind of like a weighty opinion about it. They're completely drowned out. And people who you know, just want to talk about this movie on its merits, they are also drowned out, and you know, it creates this thing where the conversation turns into this highly charged proxy for culture wars. I think

I remember. I think it was Roxanne Gay tweeted like I'm gonna buy a hundred tickets to this movie because just to support it, because it's being attacked, and it creates a situation where just supporting or not supporting a movie is seen as a kind of activism or a statement, which I just hate so much. Yeah that's the Yeah,

so like that, yeah, getting it. I remember, I remember all this happening, and I remember being like again, like faminists, it's a movie, like it's a movie about catching ghosts with like eo plasm, Like y'all like we what are we talking about? Like in okay, Like I'm just like yeah, I'm like I just want to see it because I think they I think they're funny, Like I think all four of those women are funny. You know what I'm saying? And Ghostbusters was funny because all four of those dudes

were funny. That's the only reason, Like I'm and I was a baby and Bobby Brown was in Ghostbusters too, so I wanted to see. So I'm like, I don't understand this when I'm like, when the last time you talked about Ghostbusters before you heard that this was coming, Like you don't, well, you've gotten pared from now, you've got some. You got some like hitting the room in here, where you got where the ship mean that much? You like,

you don't even care that much? Right, And it to me, it was like what you're probably gonna get to is like and why y'are singling out leslie so much? Like why you know exactly why you know what I'm saying. And it's like and even on top of that, I'm like, because, Okay, not only do she like you know, she's the you know, she's uh part of the season their food club, you

know what I'm saying, who actually washed their legs? You know what I'm saying, Like, not only is she a part of that, but at the same time, like, Okay, I'm sorry, she don't look like Carrie Washington. What I'm saying, she won't you know what I'm saying, So she don't look like Beyonce, because I'm like, okay, she looked like Beyonce. Would this be a whole day? Would this be a

different situation? You feel me like? And that to me was like even more infuriating as to like why y'all going after her, because it's like, already know why you're going after but now now I really know why you're going after Yeah, you put that so well, and she will get to it later, but like she acknowledges this, Like I feel like when these attacks happened, because when you attack black women, you don't want to be the per sin who is talking about it, what is happening

publicly or loudly or vocally, right, And so because that creates a situation where it's like, oh, well, maybe she was being aggressive, Like maybe she like it's just so hard to talk about these things and so often even like I think that as a society, we're more comfortable

talking about racism against black folks. I think the conversation that can be not we're not super comfortable within I think that we're more comfortable with that than the conversation of like it's also because I'm a black woman who has dark skin, So I think it's I think it's

not just racism, it's colorism as well. And I think that that conversation is like harder to have and people are less willing to have that conversation openly, absolutely and just doesn't fit like traditional beauty standards, even because like Loupete, Loupete is dark exactly, she's gorgeous, you know what I mean. So I'm like, Okay, so there's a lot going on

here that you're not willing to say. You feel me, it's a lot of unsaid stuff happening that we're really invested in just pretending is not happening well while we could all see it and feel it happening. So on Breitbart, Milo published a review of Ghostbusters, and I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that it's clear that this review is not just interested in getting into the merits

of the film. A couple of standout lines. He writes, the spattering of negative and lukewarm reviews that are now piling up is brave for the leftist establishment media. These writers are risking being labeled as sexist bigots, A fate worse for a liberal than running out of Keen Waugh and hummus while your vegan boyfriend is staying over. I used to think he was a good writer ten minutes ago. Ian, Yeah, this, this review keep him for him, A little phoned in,

a little um. He goes on to say, um. But most of the press realizes that whatever shreds of credibility it has left would be utterly lost by giving this film and unqualifiedly positive review. He singles out Leslie Jones's character, Patty. He says, Patty is the worst of the lot. The actress is spectacularly unappealing, even relative to the rest of the odious cast. But it's her flat as a pancake black styling. So I thought to have irritated the social

justice warriors. I don't get offended by such things, but they should. And so all of the hate that is being directed at the film to all of the leads, it's so much worse for Leslie, and that is to be expected. The research is super clear that black women disproportionately are targeted for abuse online when compared to their white counterparts. Uh, and Leslie is is really getting it, like she's not like the rest of the folks in the film are not getting it as vocally as she is.

Um and so Leslie Jones, you know, she is a Twitter super user, and so she that part of that is like replying to tweets, engaging with tweets. I remember seeing this unfold. She got like a few critical tweets about Ghostbusters that were pretty run of the mill, people saying like, oh, I didn't like this movie. I didn't think you were funny. There's a black woman who tells her, I thought that Sherry Shephard or Lonnie Love would have

been better in this movie than you were. So like not not nice, but they're not, you know, it's just like to be expected exactly, Like they're all within the scope of like what you would expect if you're a public figure who's put out a movie. Um, and it's not. It's not like Leslie Jones is falling apart and wizering at this criticism. She's engaging with it. She's replying like she's it's fine. And then Milo retweets Leslie complaining about

people not liking the movie. He retweets it with if at first you don't succeed because your work is terrible. Play the victim. Everyone gets hate mail for fox sake. He follows it up with Ghostbusters is doing so badly that they've employed Leslie Jones to play the victim on Twitter.

And this is all a real callback to his style of writing on Breitbart that he spent years beating the drum around this idea that it is men who are being oppressed by women, and that women play the victim for attention or for cloud and when they do, the corrupt,

biased media rewards them from it. And he's been spending all of his time like beating that drum and seating that as a narrative in his writing to these like disaffected men that he's been according and talking about how this sort of goes against the idea of quote meritocracy that Milo has been so long telling gamers that they value more than others. Oh my god, So it gets worse. Milo then retweets completely fake doctor tweets that appear to

show Leslie saying racist and anti Semitic things. Um, these are not her, Like she's this is like several fake tweets. Then she blocks him. When she blocks him, Milo tweets rejected by another black dude and shows the screenshot of the block screen. So at this point the tenor of the criticism clearly changed, and it goes from run of

the mill, like I don't like this movie. Two things like her website being hacked and having pictures of her driver's license and passports published to her website, ex iplicit personal photos of her that were stolen posted to her website, which by the way, is a sex crime um and then pictures of her on her website being like her head being replaced with the gorilla harambe. And so this is not criticism, you know, this is not It's too

way too far. So she tweets, I have been called apes, sent pictures of asses, even got a picture with siemen on my face. I'm trying to figure out what human means. I'm out. I feel like I'm at a personal hell. I didn't do anything to deserve this. It's just too much. It shouldn't be like this. So hurt right now. And so it's clear that when this was just run of the mill movie criticism, Leslie probably didn't like it, but

she was engaging with it. And then Milo completely changed the tenor of those interactions by introducing these inflammatory racist, fake tweets and racializing the conversation. Ye see, this is the part that like, this is why maybe in the beginning I may have spoke out it because I didn't know the rest of this. I just saw her cracking jokes with people, you know what I'm saying, and I was like, oh, she's funny, dude, she got it. Like I don't remember the rest of audience. I didn't realize

all this other stuff happened. Dang. So in the in the beginning, when it was just you know, I think Lonnie Love would be funnier like she like she was like clapping back, and it was it seemed like it was all in good fun. But the way that Milo entered the conversation and changed the tenor and like turned the temperature up and made it so racialized, all of that like back and forth that she was engaging in

took a very different turn. And this is all outlined and a piece that Milo wrote on Breitbart where he essentially blames Leslie for her own harassment because she responded to it, and he frames what is happening as regular people not being able to criticize the elites. He writes, in the words of a man who thoroughly triggered Leslie Jones to express different opinions from the elite is the real sin in this story. But when you look back at his tweets, he's not expressing a different opinion than

Leslie Jones. He's not like criticizing her skills as an actor. He's calling her a man and spreading doctor tweets that one of which purports to show her calling the executives at Sony the company, that she had just made a movie for a slur for Jewish people. Like, that's not

a difference of opinion. That's a very different thing. And you know what's funny is that even per Milo's own rundown of the situation, he himself points out that Leslie was just fine when the conversation was just legitimately criticism. When the tenor of the conversation changed, she obviously like, like, that was a different situation. And so for all of his you know, going on and on about free speech, it was Milo who came in and stifled the legitimate

criticism of the film. Leslie Jones had to pull down her website after it was hacked. She stopped tweeting after being harassed and you know, the actual critique that she had been engaging in was silenced because of it. So if anybody was like stifling the speech, it was Milo.

Here is Leslie talking about it to Laverne Cox. What a blessing to have it come later in life, because I think about me when I think I wasn't ready as I thought, you know, when I moved to New York, necting that in a few years I would be a superstar. And what I understand about not having been ready, it's not even just doing the work of being an actor, but the fame part. Just dealing with the fame and for you when Ghostbusters happened and the trolling and people

have to really know how specific that. Yeah, none of none of the other girls got trolled like I did. And I hate to say it like this, but it is was because I was a black woman, and I hate to say that. I think it's also that you're a dark skinned black woman. Yeah, yeah, I really hate to say that because it's truth. Though it's it's like I wanted to be like, I don't want this to be about that, but it was, and it was a shame. And the reason I say it all the time is

because I think people need to hear this. I was getting videos of white people spitting on on my picture, um, hanging me, hanging my doll. They're gonna kill me, They're gonna find out where my family. They're gonna kill me and my family. They're spitting they would they would sending my pictures with where they jacked off on it. Like it was just horrible, horrible for a movie. And the reason that you that that I got cast, I'm so sorry. So my important thing was like everybody was like, well,

you know, ignore it block. No that I'm not gonna ignore. Accountability is what needs to be set in this society right now. Ya can't just do the people and think you could just get away with it because you wouldn't say that my face. You would not say that in my face, and I know you wouldn't because profile don't even have your picture on it has a cartoon. So

you're coward and I'm gonna call you out. So I would take screenshots of everything that was sent to me and I would post it and I'd be like, yeah, this is the type of that's coming to me. This is the type of community that y'all like, what's wrong with y'all. That's why I arrived for her. That's exactly it is. She's like, nah, I are you a coward? Like I'm gonna call you on it again. I So I was like, you messing with the wrong one. That's what That's what I thought about her. I'm like, you know,

you're messing with the wrong one. She ain't gonna she ain't gonna let you'all like do her like this. Yeah, And listening to her talk about it, I'm on the one hand, she should not have to go through at all at all. But on the other hand, I'm happy that she like the advice of like just ignore it, don't pay attention to them. I'm glad that she did not take that advice because there has to be accountability.

There has to be accountability. Um. And So one of the questions that people ask a lot in this conversation was did Milo actually lead the charge of harassment against Jones? And this is a little bit of a tricky situation because it's another hallmark of online harassment where users that have these big platforms, they don't come right out and say attack this person, because that would clearly violate Twitter's rules against coordinated harassment. So it's very like wink wink,

nudge nudge. Trump was also very good at this. Um. You know. Milo writes a scathing review about Ghostbusters where he singles out Leslie Jones specifically, he introduces racist, inflammatory attacks on her. He quote tweets her to his followers and says, this person is playing the victim for Cloud, and then he demonstrates that she blocked him so that he cannot continue harassing her. Um and he says this to his millions of followers, who he has ripped up

into a frenzy. I would argue knowing that they will understand what they are being called to do. But it's so savvy because when people point out his role in this, he's able to be like, oh, they're lying about me. It's just another piece of evidence of this biased media. And I believe people like Milo they know exactly what they are doing. They are purposely amassing a following of a grief sycophants that they have inflamed, and then they point them out a specific target. Step back, let them

attack this person. And then they say I had nothing to do with it. Prove I had it. Where's the tweet or I told them to do this. I had nothing to do with it. God, yeah, that's the worst type. Man. Well, you could be like, what do you what are you talking about? What did I do? Okay, what did I do? You're like, bro, yeah, that kind of goes back to what we talked about before we started filming about oh boy, yeah it's and also I mean to yeh like it's like a like a I would have respected so much

more of it. If you're gonna be about it, be about it, don't be about it. And then when you're called out and be like, I just know such thing. You know, it's so cowardly, She's exactly right that it's so coward And she was like, y'all even y'all even got photos on your profile. I was like, yeah, yea, that's during that season. Yeah, when you just had the little black and white circle shadow. That was definitely the situation when like, man, he even got it. You don't

even got an Abbey bro like I'm good. So eventually Leslie Jones takes a pause from Twitter. She says, I leave Twitter tonight with tears in a very sad heart. All of this because I did a movie. You can hate the movie, but the shift I got today is wrong. And eventually Jack Dorsey, who then was the CEO of Twitter, personally got involved. He met with Leslie about the harassment, and Twitter permanently banned Milo from the platform as a result.

In a statement, Twitter said people should be able to express diverse opinions and believes on Twitter, but no one deserves to be subjected to targeted abuse online and are rules promhibit inciting or engaging and targeted harassment or abuse of others. Um This actually ended up kick starting a wave of Twitter sort of cracking down on like white

supremacist all right Twitter users. In November, they suspend Richard Spencer and other white supremacists figures, and they rolled out a series of action succurbed hate speech and abuse on the platform. Here's Leslie talking about the aftermath of how this all ended up. What's scary about the whole thing is that the insults didn't hurt me. Unfortunately, I'm used to the insults. That's unfortunate. But what scared me was the injustice of a gang of people jumping against you

for such a sick cause. I mean, it was like, like, I mean, they just like everybody has an opinion and it all comes at you at one time, and their stay. They really believe in what they believe in, and it's so mean, Like it's so gross and mean and unnecessary. So it was just like one of those things of like, okay, so if I hadn't said anything, nobody would ever knew about this. And it was one of those things of like, hey, you know when I when I approached Facebook, day was

on it. Twitter, I was on them. I was like, Yo, it's okay. It's like, that's my favorite restaurant. I love the food there. Three people just got shot in to me, y'all need to get scarity. You know, there's a lot of really smart people at that company, and they really need to try to start sorting out not just how to protect people like you, but the people that don't have this public forum, because I think it happens to so many people. So it's definitely a good thing that

Milo was kicked off the platform. But here's the thing. Leslie Jones is a wealthy celebrity. She was also like a Twitter super user, so it's not surprising that Jack Dorsey would step in and like personally meet with her about these experiences. But what about all the black women and girls who are not celebrities right, who have not personally been involved in like high engagement for the platform, who don't have the money to hire a digital security

person to take down intimate photos if they're posted. I think that because people who are marginalized are the ones who are often targeted on social media platforms, they shouldn't have to be like rich, or famous or well connected to show up on these platforms. All different kinds of people who are attacked and harassed on social media platforms. Black folks, transpolkes, queer folks, sex workers, activists, doctors who

perform abortions. These are the people who are being attacked and they deserved safety on these platforms, even if they are not celebrities. And that really brings us to today. You know, Elon Musk is already publicly signaling that these are the kinds of people responsible for these kinds of attacks he wants to bring back to the platforms. Last month, Jordan Peterson, which if you don't know who that is, listen to behind the Bastards. Yeah, good for you, but

listen to behind the Bastards. He was kicked off of Twitter for intentionally mis gendering the actor Elliott Page, which is against Twitter's terms of service. His daughter tweeted last month, Uh, to Elon Musk, will you bring my dad back to the platform? Elon Must replied, anyone suspended for minor and

dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail. And so think about all the people that represents Milo Peterson, folks like Gavin mckinnis, who was the founder of The Boys, Alex Jones, and Margie Taylor Green, all these people who were kicked off the platform. Musk is signaling that he might reinstate them. He very well might reinstate Donald Trump.

In a text exchange between him and Twitter's former CEO, Must says, Oh, it would be great to unwind permanent bands except for spam accounts and those that advocate for violence. And at a conference, Musk said that he thought that banning Donald Trump was a mistake. Yeah, but it's so like it's so stupid, like out of his own mouth, except for bots and like people that stoke violence. I'm like, literally everybody they banned, we're stoking violence. Like what is

you talking about? Like I don't understand. And that's what I mean by like again earlier, or I could jump off this roof. It's like, okay, go ahead and do it. Now. Now you see why none of us are jumping off this roof. Now you see why what happened, why we all climbed down the second time, because we realized when you up there, oh, it's not what it's not what you thought it was. So you're gonna have to walk all this ship back everything you're saying you're gonna do.

And and it's funny to watch that happen in real time, you know what I'm saying, Like, you gotta walk all this ship back, so like and fam we try to tell you, like, no, bro, you don't want this smoke dog, you don't have you don't have to do it. You don't have to do it. Okay, go ahead, then you know, jump off the roof. It's such a good analogy. And I think we're seeing Elon Musk grapple with exactly those questions.

You know, he called himself a free speech absolutist, and it's coming to see what pretty much every person who has ever run any social media platform that's see it is that it's really fucking hard, and it's involved, and you have to like really like consider a lot of stuff, and you can't just do it on a whim. And so it's interesting to watch him realize this will accept for and then also and then maybe if y'all was doing it, but then if we want to advertisers, then yeah,

it's gonna be space. So you can't really say and then so yeah, but I'm an absolutist though, Okay, fab exactly, And so here's where we are now. You know, the question really becomes what are you going to allow on these platforms? Who has served when extremists are welcomed onto platforms that are allowed to harass and attack people who were just mining their business like Milo and his supporters did.

And you know, I think for a lot of these these people in prop I think that you really clocked this. It's a grift. It is an engagement strategy. It is I am going to harass people on Twitter, get lots of engagement, and that is going to meeting that's going to be lucrative for me. And I don't think that platform should be incentivizing that kind of a dangerous grift. Yeah, I have to end by saying you might be wondering, well, where is Milo. Now, while after being kicked off of Twitter,

that was only one part of his downfall. It was not the Leslie Jones harassment campaign that killed off his career. Um, he kind of maintained golden boy status within the right until seen where he was slated to speak at Seapack and that a video surface of him, I guess like kind of endorsing pedophilia. This was a it's too far for the right. He was booted from the seat pack lineup, he lost a lucrative book deal, he resigned from Breitbart,

and today he's broke. He doesn't have anywhere near the platform. And listen when I look when you send us this script and I scrolled down to the bottom and it said today Milo is broke. I was like, this is the greatest, this is the dopest last book. It never it never happens. Yeah, it rarely happens where somebody finally, like finally hits their downfall and you're like, all of my good home training says I shouldn't revel in your laws. However, this was like, no, you earned that. You know what

I'm saying. That's that you earned that, brother, You know what I'm saying that's your ship sandwich that you put together yourself. So enjoy your ship sandwich. Enjoy it, bro, So thank you for being here today. It was a pleasure getting into this infurior in but enlightening conversation. Tell us about hood politics and do you know anyone where can get a good cup of coffee? Oh? I know a bunch of um so politics with prop also on cool Zone media. Uh. It's essentially like it's kind of evolved.

I kind of like the way it's evolved. It's a started off as just like, oh, like there's these weird headlines, hot takes, like what are these people talking about? How do I how do I make sense of this? And just really wanting to help people tap into like their street knowledge to understand that that's just as legitimate as their book knowledge, you know what I'm saying. So just really helping you understand just the political landscape. But it's

really evolved into like more than just politics. It's like sociology, cultural studies, history, economics, just essentially like I just want people to understand it. You know, you're smarter than you think you are, and these people are not smarter than you. You know what I'm saying, So, you had a very relevant tweet that you posted in the last week where you you talked about how people voted for things that they that they didn't think they were voting for because

they purposely try to confuse. Yeah, so that's yeah, Like that's that type of like I'm trying to give y'all game where it's like, you know, um, whether the tweet was like, hey, you know a lot of y'all voted yes on stuff that you meant no and voted no on stuff that you thought meant yes, and it's because they worded it wrong. So what I want to do is come in with her politics is be like, hey, honey, you're trying to hustle you that means yes, you know,

and just being like hey, think about it. Like you know, when somebody was like, hey, you don't want dinner tonight foods being like no, yes, no, I no, I do want dinner. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, like, look, they're not smarter than you. It's the hustle. You just gotta like pay attention to the hustle. So yeah, the politics are prop Also, I do have my own cold brew. It's called Terraform Cold Brew. You go to Terraform coldbrew

dot com. It's can itself stable. You ain't gotta keep it in the frieze, although it takes better if you keep it in the frieze. But yeah, Terraform coldbrew dot com gets used to get you some of that good in your book and the book is also called Terraform Collection of Poetry and Short Story. With the holidays coming up, I can't think of a better gift. You need to get Terraform coffee and Terraform book. That would that's compared book and coffee. It's a good. Yeah, thank you so much,

thanks for being appreciated. This is help. Internet Hate Machine is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, check out our website cool zone media dot com or find us on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.