Willy Wonka AI fiasco; Google’s “woke” AI fiasco; Tumblr CEO transphobia fiasco; Wendy’s pricing fiasco – NEWS ROUNDUP

you might have missed this week. Just to heads up, if my voice sounds a little bit raspy, because I have been traveling and screaming at parties and concerts and conferences, so I kind of got a little bit of a Kathleen Turner thing happening. That's what's going on with me. Mike. Thank you for being.

Willy Wonka inspired costumes. I don't know if you know this, but there's a new Willy Wonka movie with Timothy Schalomey out right now. So it's kind of hot in the zeitgeist, and you know, I guess all I can say is that it was not the world of pure imagination that these kids and families were promised. So this is one of those stories that you have to see the pictures

to really get what I'm saying. But whatever you're imagining, from what I'm describing, it is worse, It is sadder, it is grimmer than whatever it is that you're picturing. So we'll link to the pictures from the show notes. But it is truly the grimish that I have ever seen in my life. Did you see these pictures?

I've watched them all. They're all they all have such a like I don't I don't know if it's a it's a Scotland thing or what, but like they all have such captivating, realist ways of explaining what the fuck is going on in this Already hilarious grim situation. So the performers are speaking out. They said that House of Illuminati, which is the company behind the event, basically just gave them what they said were AI generated scripts that made

no sense. Here's one of the performer, Paul Connell, talking about it. He says he was cast as Willy Wonka despite having self described big upa lupa energy.

and sort of herky jerky dances around. He got on like a silver eyes wide chut mask and a slash wig and he's dancing around side note, the Unknown has to become a little bit of an icon on social media. Like I feel like we are like a week or so away from somebody doing a drag performance as the Unknown. I saw a video of the Unknown, like I guess

sleeking from behind, slinking from behind a mirror. So also like not even in the walls, Like it's like someone is just holding a Mirror's like, well, that's that's not him coming from the walls. That's coming from a mirror. And he sort of like does this hurkey jerky dance on the kid's face. And the noise that the kids make in response, it's like it's not quite that they're scared. It's that they're unimpressed, unenthused, and maybe a little confused.

Like they're like they're like, oh, it's the unknown, and there's a collective uh from the kids Like it's not quite it's like a like a bored annoyance more than anything. It's like they're not like really scared, they're just like confused.

of entertainment solely written by AI. Like when you go back to the flyer, all of the images are AI generated, Like there has done a single image that actually depicts what you would actually be paying almost fifty dollars to go see everything is and the AI generated images look pretty good, right, Like they if they were real encapsulations of what they would actually be getting, you'd be like, wow, this really is a world of pure imagination instead of

like some tarts hug up, and then I'd watch shut mask coming at you.

a photo, that's another fifty. Get this it's another ten. And he was like the whole thing was like clearly a racket, such a racket bordering on a scam, because then you got your kid there and you're like, well, I don't want to be like, sorry, we came all this way and your dress has a unicorn, but we

can't get the picture, we can't do the thing. And so I do think that this kind of thing where somebody has just almost entirely AI generated an event and used AI to put it together, from the scripts to the advertising and the flyers, I think we're gonna see more and more of people being like, what did I just pay fifty dollars to show up to? It makes no sense?

paid and were there and like actors were hired. Like how like what did it look like to turn this AI generated concept into something that actually existed in the world, even and in this case existed terribly and was a huge flop.

acknowledge the existence of white people. So I do think that there is obviously something funky going on with Google's AI, which we'll get into in a minute. But I also need to be super clear here that this is one of those things where there is like a legit problem or a legit issue, but the framing around that issue is being pushed disingenuously by right wing extremist types. And I think that Google and like some other prominent folks, like media folks who should know better, are really falling

for it. So this entire thing started when the Twitter account and wokeness. Paul's right there, because doesn't that already tell you a lot about about what you need to know? Like this is the framing, the specific framing around this issue started with an account, the account and Wokeness.

So not great, right, Like, I'm not saying that that was a great say obviously something funky is going on, so big caveat here. I am not an engineer. If someone who is, we have lots of it listeners who are engineers. If you are listening and you're like bridget, you're getting it totally wrong, Please let me know. I

want to hear from you. So I'll like to say, I do think I have a pretty good idea of what's going on here, just from somebody who has read a lot about AI, and I sort of like Ben in the depths of some of the cultural complications that come from making AI. So I think that Google is aware that AI tools have gender and racial biases baked inism. Right, if you listen to this show, this is probably not surprising to you because we talk about it all the time.

So I think that what we're seeing is Google's kind of clunky attempt to fix this, which is obviously an overcorrection that is completely missing the mark. Here's a big example of how to think about it. So, if somebody asks Gemini to show pictures of CEOs because of bias and racism and sexism and all the isms that we talk about on this show, there are more white male CEOs than non white male CEOs. That's just a fact

of being in the United States. But there are non white male CEOs out there, and so the argument is, well, should this technology be representing a more inclusive world or should it be representing the world as it is? Right, And so it's kind of like a thorny almost like a philosophical question of what you are meant to see when you ask this technology for these kinds of prompts. So I would say, like, it is not a tech

problem with like a straightforward tech solution. It's like a value judgment question and like almost like a philosophical question about what it is these tools are meant to do and what we want them to do. And I think, like, maybe those are some of the questions, some of the larger questions about why companies like Google are making these tools. I think like those are some of the questions that

maybe have not been answered in their rush to build them. Like, it does sound like a fairly complex problem to me.

And I also think it shows the danger of what happens when big tech companies are just like rushing to put out AI tools to compete with one another, rather than really spending some time thoughtfully thinking about, well, what is it that you want these tools to do, like meaningfully coming up with the philosophy and the value around why you are building these tools for who and for what reason.

And so it's not hugely surprising that they had this like big misstep of bringing a tool to market before it was actually ready for primetime for all those reasons that you described.

mid journey don't have that this problem. They might have this specific use case problem where like people are asking for this specific thing and getting a similar problematic answer, but they have other other instances of bias baked into them, and so like, I'm almost not comfortable with the way people have been framing this as like Google AI bad because all AI is so problematic and like has all this bias baked in and people are people aren't wrong

for lifting that, but like lifting it in this specific way feels disingenuous, and I want to call all that out.

be thinking about. But rather than see it in that way as like this like kind of complex challenge to correct, you have extremists like and Wokeness or Elon Musk accusing Google of like wanting to eradicate whiteness because Google is woke and they do DEI and like making it about framing it in this like way that I think really is not only like very disingenuous, but it takes away from what is like really a problem and like like a challenge that I think that people who make AI

really ought to be wrestling with. And I think that like this framing makes them less likely to wrestle with this complex challenge in a way that gets us to let a bias. It's just like, oh, well, we'll decide s up it all together, right, Like who wants to fall into like a bud light or a target style you know, wokeness campaign, right nobody? And so I think that they're by them framing it this way and doing it successfully, it is really hijacking the conversation.

like thoughtful people could talk about. Extremists don't want to have a nuanced conversation like that, right, they just want to completely flatten it to Google is trying to eliminate white people, which is ridiculous. And also like.

free lunch here. People are making value judgments every step of the way, exactly.

It's just like woke killing like woke mind virus, like it's so disingenuous, and so there are a couple of other instances that folks like this are lifting up that When you ask Gemini who is worse for society, Hitler or Elon Musk, Gemini says it is not possible to say who definitely impacted society more Elon tweeting memes or Hitler. Elon's tweets have been criticized for being insensitive and harmful,

while Hitler's actions led to the deaths of millions of people. Ultimately, it is up to individual to decide who they believe has had a more negative impact on society. There is no right or wrong answer, and it is important to

consider all the relevant factors before making a decision. Another one is that when people asked Gemini whether or not it would be okay to missgender Caitlyn Jenner if it was the only way to avoid a nuclear apocalypse, Gemini said that it is never okay to misgender people, and so like obviously, like again, it comes down to this question of like, why are you building these kinds of tools, and what do you want them to do? And for who?

Like these situations people are asking like who's the worst person? Or like these weird hypothetical gotcha scenarios to test out if the technology gives an acceptable answer or not, and if it doesn't, they're gonna use that to validate their worldview that white man are being like oppressed by technology, Like like, I just don't think that that is a

dance that people should get into. That said, that is like allowing that framing to dictate what is a pretty complex technical conversation I think is like such a mistake. But then you have people who really ought to know better falling for it. Like Nate Silver was talking about the Who's worst elon Musker Hitler thing and he said that it demonstrated that Google needed to shut Gemini down, saying every single person who worked on this should take a long, hard look in the mirror. And ugh, I

don't know. It just like really frustrates me.

is dangerously biased for a long time. Like on this podcast, we talked about women like Portia Woodriff, a pregnant black woman like heavily pregnant black woman who was falsely arrested for a crime she had nothing to do with because bad technology facial recognition told led police to her and was like, oh, this is the person who did it, and she was held handcuffed in front of her kids, held in a jail cell. After she was released, she was like dehydrated and had to go straight to the

er because she was pregnant. So I really cannot accept that the conversation about bias in technology and bias in AI is going to start and begin with this idea that it is being used to eradicate white men like that, like, and so people like Nate Silver who are saying like, oh, like, let me weigh in it. Either they have just gotten here and they have just started paying attention to bias

in AI, or they're just disingenuous. They're just carrying water for these extremists who want that to be the framing. I think Nate Silver is smart enough to know the difference, and so I actually don't think that he just got here and that he just fell out of the coumquatry and doesn't know what's going on. I think this is an intentional decision to align himself with a particular worldview, and I think, like we need to call it out

for what it is. And so I guess all that to say is like I am disappointed, but maybe not surprised to see Google kind of falling for this right, So, like Google's CEO said, I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias. To be clear, that is completely unacceptable. We got it wrong. And so like, I just think that, like time and time again, when you have bad actors and extremists setting the framing and then you accept that framing and you go with it,

you have already lost. I think that like letting them set the agenda is such a mistake, especially for something as important as AI that is so poised to shape all of our lives. And again, like this is a fairly complex situation. I think that Google will say like, oh, we're gonna have it. We took it off, we took it off, we took it down, we're gonna have it up in a couple of weeks. We're gonna fix this. It is not clear to me that this is a

problem that has an easy fix. BBC spoke to doctor Sasha Luconi, a research scientist at Hugging Face who said this is really not an easily fixable problem because it's not clear that there is one single answer to what these outputs should be. She says, there really is no easy fix because there's no single answer to what the output should be. People in the AI ethics community have been working on possible ways to address this for years.

One solution could be asking users for their input, such as how diverse would you like your images to be? But that in itself clearly comes with its own red flags. It's a bit presumptuous of Google to say they will fix the issue in a few weeks, but they will have to do something, and so I agree with that. I don't think this is a problem that has a

hard and fast tech solution. I think the I think the solution, if you could even call it, that, is really having a deep think in a meaningful way, and like going back to the drawing board of answering some of those looming values and philosophical questions of why you are building this in the first place, to what end?

only gonna kill one person. Should you pull that lever? Right, I don't think there is a clear answer to that. People people disagree, and so I don't think we should be looking to AI for answers to those kinds of ethical questions.

so I think these are all conversations to have. But when you have disingenuous people coming into the conversation and trying to make it seem like the face of bias in AI, the face of the person being harmed is not a woman or a black person, or a queer person, or a trans person or an indigenous person. We know that it is. We have so much research indicating that it is. We cannot allow these people to reframe reality

to make themselves victims. And so let's have a conversation about how to make it make sure AI isn't biased. But that conversation is not admit that Google is woke DEI mind virus and it is racist against white men like Elon Musk. Like again, if you give these people an inch and let them set the terms, you have

already lost. And by now we have seen this happen enough times with Target, with bud Light that I think if you are a company and when these people set their sights on you, if you do not have a game plan for how you are going to respond, that does not allow them to just shamelessly and disingenuinely set the terms of what's going on, you are doing it wrong. And Google is a big enough company that I know

they're aware of this. They like just cow twing to these grievance mongers about their technology and what's going on with it. And again, I don't want to make it sound like I'm a defending Google, because what a weird position for me to be taking in that. But you can't just let these grievance mongers set the terms, because once you've done that, you've already lost. The conversation is already over.

user base. So Rita, who is a Tumblr user who runs a microblog called the pres Tyrogen, had been experiencing and reporting transphobic harassment on the platform for a while and was very frustrated that like nothing was being done

about it. Then she posted her frustrations on Tumblr, saying that she helps the CEO dies forever painful death involving a car covered in hammers that explodes more than a few times and hammers go flying everywhere, So like this really sounds like the citizens, you know, uh, like what are you gonna do? Are you gonna sit the dogs on me? And that the dogs have bees in their mouth and when the dogs barth, the bees come out of their mouth and sting me. Like it's obviously a

pretty cartoony, over the top way of expressing frustrations. Like I'm not trying to make it seem like I can done the kind of harassment that I know that people who work for platforms can deal with, but it does seem like this person was pretty clearly kind of like venting in a cartoony way. But that comment got her banned from Tumblr for life. So on Twitter, Rida posted Tumblr ceo threatened to call the police on me and deleted my account when I pointed out that he was

calling law enforcement on a transwoman. Tumblr has not emailed me about my harassment in months. They've done nothing, So Tumblr ceo actually replied to that tweet saying, reporting credible depths of violence or terrorism is actually a legal requirement. So this was like one comment that Tumblr ceo made in like a night of very concerning commentary in public

from him, in posts about the moderation of Tumblr. He revealed something that I actually found like very concerning that a contract content moderator on the team was not only making intentionally transphobic moderation decisions, but was also like taking money under the table aka bribes to make specific moderation choices.

Wang says, as soon as we were aware, that person was fired and we later terminated the entire relationship with that contracting firm and have brought everything in house at great cost, which like side note, if that's if that's what's going on with your content moderation team, Like I don't care how much it costs, Like you clearly have big problems and yeah, it's gonna take money to solve

these problems that kind's running up platform like Tumblr. I don't really want to hear you like patting yourself on the back about how much it costs.

I think moderation and trust and safety is core function that any platform should be like really invested in, and the fact that they're contracting it out just shows how seriously they think about it.

a core function of how these platforms operate. It just is, and so like, it just isn't something that you can cheaply have someone who is not in house managed, not really pay them very well, not give them a lot of oversight because you're not even really their their boss.

Have all of these intentional setups that remove you from their labor because you don't want to call them employees to give them zero support, and then act surprise when that doesn't turn out in your favor and ends up being a costly miss that you later have to spend a lot of money and headaches dealing with. Like of course, so the CEO of Tumblr's most recent behavior really kind of just sounds like an escalating pattern and a pattern

of decisions that have marginalized their LGBTQ users. Folks might remember back in twenty eighteen when Tumblr banned adult content. It wasn't just like pornography they banned. It was really anything that could be considered adult or sexual or gendered in a lot of ways, And so people who were using Tumblr to find like queer community or trans community or resources really did feel marginalized from that sweeping decision.

Elizabeth de Luna at Mashable has a really beautifully written comprehensive breakdown that will link to, which includes this bit that I did not know. So the way that Tumblr enforced the porn ban in twenty eighteen actually led to an inquiry by the New York City's Commission on Human Rights into how the site's moderation practices may have disproportionately

affected LGBTQ plus content and users. When Tumblr was sold to Mullin Wings Company Automatic by Verizon in twenty nineteen, Automatic cooperation in the process constituted a turning point in the investigation. In twenty twenty two, Tumblr and Automatic settled with the Commission on Human Rights, agreeing to train human moderators in diversity and inclusion issues, hire an expert to identify potential biases, and its moderation algorithms, revise its user

appeals process, and review thousands of old moderation cases. And so this is not a new thing. I think it is just a new kind of more extreme instance of some patterns that are pretty troubling for your LGBTQ user base, especially when you're Tumblr, when so many of the folks there like like Tumblr wouldn't be Tumblr without queer folks

and trans folks using that platform to build community. So these folks on Tumblr say that they experience and witness just a bunch of transphobic rhetoric and targeted harassment on Tumblr, which has led to pretty deep criticism of Tumbler's moderation policies and staff who users say, do not tet them

from harmful speech. Trans Users say that they will post images demonstrating like a transition, and those images are routinely taken down because they are flagged as being sexually explicit content, while things like hate speech remain visible on the platform. So this whole situation with the CEO, like going on a public meltdown or whatever, just seems like another mark

in the wrong direction. It's also just not a good look for mull and Weg to be weighing in publicly about individual users and the content moderation decisions around them. Like at one point in his like tweet storm, he revealed the different Tumblr microblogs that that trans user Rita had On Tumblr, it's pretty common to like kind of snag a certain url and just sort of camp out on it, even if you don't use it, and so nobody would know that you have that URL except for you.

But he was talking about this person's what private URLs they have publicly right all while doing it in this like late night typho filled social media post stream like it just is not a good during your sabbatical, no less, it's just not a good look. Tumblr user Allyrium also pointed out that at one point he started like searching for his name on Tumblr and then would dm trans users who were posting about the situation, allarrium rites for

posterity's sake. I want people to remember that during his meltdown last night, he DMed dozens and dozens of people near exclusively trans women for some inexplicable reason, sometimes less than a minute after they left a reply, responded to a post of his, or even just made their own post about it. Pure intimidation tactics at their most blatant

and obvious. Why else would you sit on your name search refreshing and refreshing and instantly jumping into our dms the second we participate in the conversation that is it normal? Not for a CEO, and not for like anyone else for that matter. And I completely agree that is like not is this not okay behavior to be engaging in as a CEO?

One person who was watching this whole thing unfolding said to the Tumblr ceo, you are posting normal things a ceo of a large social network would post and in a tone of respectability and competence, tonight, dude, very cool. And it's like, yeah, this is just like not a

good look. Everyone is seeing it. Stop. And so when Tumblr users were pointing out like all of the transphobic harassment that goes undealt with on the platform in comparison to what Rita was banned for, he was like, oh, well, lots of people who work at Tumblr are trans and queer, and they would have told me if I was doing something that was wrong, but they didn't speak up. And other users were like pretty quick to point out like my dude, it just really does not work that way.

You can't be like, well, none of the trans people who work at Tumblr said anything. So I guess we're all good, right.

are you would let loose in private. And so he put out another post clarifying that he cannot be transphobic because the companies health insurance policies have supported staffs, transitions and things like that, and because he supports like people using different pronouns and things. But Elizabeth Daluna in that

Mashable piece really responds to that well. Writing here, mull and Wang again misses the point Tumblr users continue to express their frustration specifically with the site's treatment of trans people by complating his support of the entire LGBTQ plus community with his support of trans people, mull and Wegg shows he does not yet understand the difference. And I

think that really is true. Like I think when your users are telling you, hey, these decisions are actually harming us, Hey, we're actually not feeling supported and heard on this platform, being like, oh, well, I can't be transphobic because of YadA YadA, YadA policy healthcare policy. It's really missing the point.

if not for you, so thank you. And speaking of moderation, I have a tiny little shred of like good ish question mark news from Twitter, so as y'all might know. One of the first things that Elon Musk did when taking over at Twitter was reversing a change that I personally worked on on a previous job, and that is a policy that Twitter had you ban misgendering on Twitter. Musk removed that like very quickly after taking over, but this week Twitter quietly announced an update to how misgendering

would be handled on Twitter. So, rather than resulting in a ban, posts that misgender people will be deprioritized algorithmically on the platform, so you'll like see less of them, they will not be boosted. One thing to known about this policy is that it puts the onus on the person targeted to report being misgendered, and so like, if I saw somebody being misgendered, I would not as the person who has not been misgendered, I would not be able to report it or flag it if that person

is not on the platform. Let's say they weren't on the platform because they were sick of dealing with like transphobic nonsense, which I think is probably true for a lot of folks, and they don't see it happen there, nothing will happen. So let's say that somebody is being misgendered on Twitter and they had left the platform after not wanting to deal with a lot of transphobic nonsense, which I'm sure was something that is happening to it for a lot of folks. Uh, that person if they're

on they're not on Twitter to personally blag it. I don't think anything will happen in that instance, and so that's not a great policy, Like it definitely puts too much of a burden on the specific person who has been harmed, like see it and do the work and be there. But I do think it's kind of like a tiny step in the right direction. Doesn't even sound like the right word it. I suspect that, like, you know,

Twitter as a platform wants to move back advertisers. I just don't think that people want to show up to platforms where people are being harassed and misgendered in mass and like, I just don't think I don't I think there's I think they're realizing like, oh yeah, we can't have that be a core plank of the platform, and are kind of walking it back in the teenious, tenious, tenious,

tiny little way. When this policy change was announced, Chaia Rachick Limbs of TikTok creator asked Musk about it on Twitter and then misgendered a bunch of public figures to test it out, and Mosque replied, Oh, don't worry, I would never view you from a platform don't worry, So like, I don't want to make it seem like Elon Musk is bending over backward to keep missgendering off the platform completely.

So it's still pretty clear where his values lie. But this is a change that people should be aware of.

I love Ta Madison. That should be great on the show. Can read like nobody's business should be on the show. Andy call Team Madison and I was like, oh, Tea Madison, Like that'd be so cool, like first black trans woman on Bravo, that'd be amazing. And then it was all these people intentionally misgendering her, and I was just like like, I'm not even trans, but it was a fucking bummer. And I was like, I can't even we can't even like I if I feel this way, how must trans

people feel? Just trying to have conversations about Bravo on platforms and it's like it's just like not it just didn't feel good to deal with. I don't know why, but I was just like, I'm not even trying to engage in like a social or political conversation. I'm just trying to talk about housewives and I don't want to, like like, I don't think people should have to see that. It's it's garbage, and I don't think people should have

to see it. So Jenny Olsen of'm Glad told Ours Technica of this change, this is not about accidentally getting someone pronouns wrong. That happens. This is about targeted misgendering and dead name and with the clear intent of expressing hate and disrespect and contempt. Shout out to Jenny. We

work together in a previous life. Jenny is amazing. But yeah, I think that Jenny's comments are important because I think when some people hear about these policies, they think, like, oh, well, now if I just make an accidental mistake, I will

be I will be facing consequences. And so I think it's important to show like, no, there's a difference between that and like intentional targeted misgendering, which frankly, just like nobody wants nobody should have to deal with it, just like not a cool thing.

in California. Thank you for flagging this to us Aaron, I had seen it, and I'd been sort of wrestling with my thoughts on it. But basically, Michael is lovely. He is upbeat, he's enthusiastic, he is passionate for helping kids learn about libraries, and like he's one of those people that his passion for it really is clear, Like it's hard to see him talking about libraries and books and not feel good. He is a black man, which

is notable. In twenty twenty one, numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics show that nearly eighty seven percent of librarians are white and only seven percent are black. And so having this like very visible black librarian is important. Like I don't think I ever saw a black library, Like like, in all of my K through twelve schooling, we did not. I didn't. I did not encounter a

single black library, And I can tell you that. And so that would have meant a lot to me to have a very visible librarian who looks like me, who was like excited about reading in books, that would have meant the world to me as like a young nerdy person growing up. So he's been really passionate about promoting what he calls library joy, which I love this. He says, library joy in its simplest form, is just the joy

of the library. What that means is just what I try to embody and hope that all library workers embody. It is the fostering of the sense of belonging. I keep saying that the library is for everybody, library, kids, library, grown ups, mentally ill, unhoused. I love telling people that they don't have to leave their anxiety, depression or PTSD outside the library. There's no sign that says you can't

bring your anxiety in. And I just like this idea of reminding folks that libraries are for everybody and that like it. It really that is what a community resource means. It is and like here in DC we are blessed to have a very robust library system. You know, you can check out power tools, you can check out music, they can help you with your resume. Like the ways that it is a community resource, it truly is magical. And like the work that he has done of making

that clear, I think is really special. And so like many people who are enthusiastic or passionate about something, there are people out there who just use that as a way to be awful to him. There was a vible quote about him on Twitter that was just a video that he had posted about the library on TikTok taken

to Twitter with the caption, people are getting weirder. People imply that he has autism, which obviously there's nothing wrong with people who have autism, but they were saying that in a way that was like clearly meant to be an insult to him. In a piece for The Washington Post, he talked about being at his grandmother's ninetieth birthday party when all of these posts insulting him, it's harder to go viral and getting messages from his friends being like,

don't look at them, are you okay? While he's trying to like spend time with his family. So when this happened, people really rallied in support of him, which was awesome to see. But then just a couple days ago, another person on social media took one of his videos and like accused him of having a darkness behind his enthusiasm, like I'm not even sure like what she was trying

to imply. This person did apologize, and he accepted that apology publicly, but this week he announced that he's resigning from his position at the library to protect his mental health, which honestly I can understand, and I just hate it so much that we have this person who is doing something that is good, is like getting people passionate about libraries, passionate about reading, advocating for libraries as a resource, doing so in a way that is passionate and inclusive and

all of these different things, and then people just like bullying him out of that position for no reason. And I do have to say that I have really seen

an uptick in this kind of content. It is sort of the libs of TikTok strategy of social media gamification, where somebody who is making a video for TikTok, someone else takes that video, puts it on Twitter with a mean or accusatory or insulting caption, and then it does numbers, It goes viral, gets lots of engagement, and it's generally people who are like authentic or genuine or passionate or

being a little bit weird. Like something I like about Michael is that when he was accused of like being weird, he was like, yeah, I am a little bit weird. All my friends that are weird, We're very passionate. It's like being weird is what makes us who we are.

And like, I don't take that as an insult, which I thought was nice, but like, I think we're seeing more and more of that as like an engagement tactic where these people expect to have their own little corner of TikTok where they can talk to people who are like minded, and then someone comes along, rips it onto Twitter where the context just feels different, and uses it to create a pylon on this person. And so like, he hasn't done anything wrong, like he other than being

passionate about libraries, he's not done anything wrong. And I do think there's something else going on where like there is something about people who you can tell are like living their genuine, authentic lives and like being their genuine

authentic selves. And like you know when you when you are your authentic self, it is clear that you are comfortable and passionate and happy, and like, I think people pick up on that, and I think for people who are not living that way themselves, I think that that

I think that's triggering to them. I think they have to like bully it and smash it because it's like, don't you know that we're all living lives and that you're not meant to be authentic and happy and passionate, and like, how dare you show up as your happy, authentic, passionate self. This is threatening? I need to smash this down. I think. I think it's really something that is within people to like see somebody who is passionate and happy and feel the need to crush that and squash that.

Do you know what I mean?

It feels like everybody goes through. Not everybody, many people go through like an angsty teenage period right where they start to realize that all of the things that their parents and the grown ups in their life have you know, presented them with as like this is what being a you know, this is what a life's supposed to look like.

That's obviously part of the Internet, but like being unabashedly passionate about stuff is part of what makes the Internet the Internet, and if we lose that and only see that as something to be mocked and bullied, we lose something important in all of us, and not to mention, we lose a dope ass librarian at the library, like

like Michael is stepping down. However, there is a bit of a happy ending though, because he announced that PBS offered him the role of resident librarian for a social media series and so this is gonna involve him doing book suggestions, talking about literacy, and of course spreading library joy and so yeah, I'm happy that it has a happy ending, but I'm sad that someone can't just be a really engaged, passionate librarian on the twenty twenty four

Internet without being bullied for it and bullied into stepping down. We all lose when that's the case.

enabled menu changes and suggestive selling. As we continue to show the benefit of this technology in our company operated restaurants, franchisee in in digital menu boards should increase further, supporting sales and profit growth across the system. We will continue setting the pace in generative AI and have now rolled out Wendy's Fresh AI in several restaurants where we see

ongoing improvement and in speed and accuracy. So importantly, that comment, though weird as fuck, I think, but does not say the word surge pricing. It says dynamic pricing, So there is a difference between these two pricing structures. I think that when we hear dynamic pricing, most people are probably most familiar with it from things like Uber and Lyft,

where they like charge more when there's more demands. So if it's like raining and a concert just let out, it's going to cost more than if it's an off season and not many people are using the app. So I think people understandably assume that this meant that Wendy's is going to be charging more for food at times of high demand. I did see a lot of reporting

on this issue that used the phrase surge pricing. However, surge pricing and dynam limit pricing are different things, right, Like surge pricing means like, oh, the price will be higher at certain times. Dynamic pricing. This means, oh, the price can change based on certain factors, not necessarily going

up or down. After this announcement, the phrase surge pricing actually started trending on social media, and even lawmakers were weighing in, Like Senator Bob Casey accused Wendy's of corporate greed. Elizabeth Warren added, it's price gouging, plain and simple. So I did a search of the entire transcript of that Wendy's Q four call, great use of my time, and

it is true. Nowhere in that call did the Wendy CEO ever specifically say that they were planning on doing surge pricing, only dynamic pricing, and there is a difference, right. Wendy's then clarified, saying they do not plan on instituting surge pricing. They said, in a statement, we said these menu boards would give us more flexibility to change the display of featured items. This was misconstrued in some media reports as an intent to raise prices when demand is

highest at our restaurants. We have no plans to do that and would not raise prices when our customers are visiting us. Most any features we may test would be designed to benefit our customers and restaurant crew members. Digital menu boards could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of the day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the

slower times of day. Wendy's has always been about providing high quality food at great value, and customers can continue to expect that from our brand. So here's where Mike and I disagree. Mike, I see you, Why don't you go ahead? What do you think about this?

times of the day. I was like, oh, okay, that makes a lot of sense, that like actually seems like something that people would not be infuriated by. But then it got me thinking how silly we humans are with our like gain loss framing and like loss aversion that the idea that something would increase in price at certain hours of the day is completely unacceptable. I would just never I couldn't tolerate that in my burgers, right, that's

insulting to me as a person. But the idea that I would get a price discount at some hours of the day, Oh okay, cool, Yeah, what's the discount?

and so I this is what I think. Wendy says they would not raise prices when our customers are visiting most. That kind of gets my pr statement brain buzzing, because I think what they're saying is like, well, we never said we work on e raise prices. We just said we work on eraise prices when people are eating here the most. And so I believe what they are saying is we plan to raise prices and then lower them via our dynamic menu, which is subsequently kind of the

same thing. That's what I think is going to happen. So I think that people are like cheering this as like, yeah, we really like bullied Wendy's into doing the right thing. I don't know that I agree. I really don't.

for twenty five percent of I'll never forget it. Yeah, I I There are already plenty of things in society that use dynamic pricing, like airline tickets they're cheaper depending on demand, movie tickets, you know, you buy a matinee when less people are going, it's cheaper, is a thing in our society. But I do think what's interesting here

is that how big the reaction was. And I think that's gotta be that, Like people are so fucking sick rightly, so a feeling squeezed right now, Like it feels like the new model is like anything that can rip people off must rip people, And so I think that people are sensitive to it right now because we're feeling it in multiple different ways. That just feels like the way that it is right now, and I don't know. Our burgers are our last. Like, if we lose the burgers,

what else have we lost? Right Like, this is our last the last thing that we can sort of rely on.

I'm gonna stay on this story. If and perhaps when Wendy's quietly raises all of their prices across the board and their dynamic pricing is rolled out to lower those prices back down to what we are familiar with, which is my argument of what they're doing, we will record this again, and I want I want a I want to say it clearly now so that I can get a clear I told just so from me on the record, and that a clear you were right from you on

the record. We'll have that all as audio forever, so that we'll all, you know, be on the same page.

but restaurant owners hate it. And so there's been this phenomenon in the city of You go into a restaurant and the prices on the menu are the prices, and then when you get your bill there'll be like a five percent search charge that is not a tip. It doesn't go to the servers. It's just for the restaurant.

It'll be like the living wage fee or something. And that infuriates me right that, Like, just raise your prices across the board, if that's what you have to do to keep this business going, don't like deceptively hide it. So I hope Wendy's doesn't raise their prices, But I would rather that than a bunch of like weird gimmicky tricks that make me have to do math when I'm trying to get my food.

Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almada is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us.