Unabridged: I Hated It, Thanks for Asking with Nora McInerny

We're at the end of 2025 and this year we're looking back, not at the best of the year, but at the worst, most hatable moments. To break it all down, Traci teamed up with friend of the pod, Nora McInerny, for a crossover bonus episode between The Stacks and Nora's show, Thanks for Asking. From Taylor Swift to AI slop and so much more, get ready for a whole lot of hot takes and disgruntled energy.

This episode is a collaboration with Nora’s podcast Thanks for Asking.

*This episode is exclusive to members of The Stacks Pack on Patreon and our Substack subscribers. To join a community, get inside access to the show, and listen now, click the links below.

TRANSCRIPT

Traci Thomas 0:00

Hey everybody, it's me. Traci Thomas, host of the stacks, and you are in for another bonus episode, the stacks on a bridge, which is exclusive to Patreon and substack paid subscribers. Today for my end of your episode, I joined forces with the great Nora McInerny to talk about 2025 in hate. That's right, we're talking about all of the things we hated from this year. Many of you have heard a lot of my hates before, maybe in the substack newsletter, maybe on the podcast, but they're gonna be all nice for you in one tidy place. Since Nora and I recorded this episode together, Nora's team has edited and produced this episode, so you're going to get a full intro from Nora right after this, but I just wanted to give you a heads up. That's what you're getting to hear today. All right, that's all. Let's dive into the year in hate 2025 edition.

Nora McInerny 1:05

Hello everybody. Welcome to a bonus episode of thanks for asking. A little note before we start. This is not a normal episode of thanks for asking. Although what is a normal episode of thanks for asking? This episode is very different. This episode is a hater episode. This episode is just, you know, venting. This episode is what some people might call complaining. This is a time of year when everybody is making their best of lists. I love those. Those are great, but at my core also, am I a little bit of a hater? Yeah, that's why I look forward to emails from Traci Thomas of the stacks podcast. She sends out an email with a roundup of what she loves and one thing she hates, and that hated item or hated topic or hated person is behind the paywall for real fans only. And I always love it because she's as smart about what she hates as she is about what she loves, and that is what inspired this episode. The things that I love are already out there in a million different places, but this episode is really a worst things list. This is a hater list for the year 2025 what are the things that ground our gears, that got us riled up, that annoyed us, that just ticked us off. And the most obvious things are not on this list. So obvious things include ICE raids, Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, this administration in general. They're not on this list like we already know the worst parts of the world, we have a big old firehouse of that stuff to drink from every day, and I, myself have chugged it. This is a list of things that we hated this year. They're very niche, a lot of them, and hopefully a lot more entertaining than just watching our country be dismantled by the most idiotic group of dorks who ever existed. So some of these are very light hearted. Some of these are a little bit more serious. They are all, I would say, related to the world at large, pop culture. Now, if that doesn't sound appealing to you, this episode is just not for you, and that is okay. That's okay. This episode was fun for us to make it was fun for us to vent these things. And also, I encourage you to leave a comment. Tell me what you hated. Tell me what you hated about this year. Tell me what you hated about this episode, if you must. And let's get into it. This episode's also a long one, guys, we cut it down, and it is still a long one. Traci Thomas, welcome to thanks for asking. Thank you for joining me. I think you know why we're here, and it's because your show and tell emails are something that I look forward to for so many reasons. One, I always feel like I'm smarter. I always feel like I know a little bit more about the world. And And three, I don't know what number we're on, seven. Seven, I live for. I live for the and one thing I hate, and one and one thing I hate. I I, when I saw that paywall, I said, let me in. Let me in. I'm going to I need to see the thing that you hate. And you know what? We always hate, the same stuff, same things.

Traci Thomas 4:27

Here's my thing. I have to tell you that the fact that people read, Show and Tell is hilarious to me, because I just feel like I'm writing into the void like so much of the work that we do is just feels like, yeah to the void. But when people respond to things like past the paywall, like other I'm always like, Oh my God. People are really reading this. And so many people tell me that they like show and tell. But the hardest part sometimes is the hate. Some weeks I know the hate right away, and then some weeks I write the entire thing and I just sit there and I go. What did you hate? And I Google, like annoying things that happened this week, or like, pop culture this week, and I just try to think, is there something I hate? And then some weeks, I do a bonus hate earlier in the article, because I'm just like, you've annoyed me.

Nora McInerny 5:16

So I saw a Tiktok, which is how the worst conversations always start that said, when I hate it's actually, you know, intellectual I'm hating on an on a different level. I'm hating in a, in a in a critical thinking kind of way. I'm not always I, but I wanted to just let it rip on just what might be just our personal pet peeves. Of 2020 our biggest hates of 2025 biggest hates of 2025 the hater list. I want everybody out there to feel free to make their own, okay, yeah, and to join in.

Traci Thomas 5:57

You can hate ours, but I don't want to hear about it, and I'll talk more about that later. You asked for five. I have 12345678, I have nine. Okay? And I just added one. I just added one as we were talking. So I was like, oh my god, I can't believe this isn't on my list. Okay, okay, I'm ready. I don't know how to start. You know what? I'm gonna start with something that I want to make sure I have enough time to talk about. Time to talk about, and that is, I hate wicked and wicked part two, back in the habit for good. I hated wicked last year, and I talked about it on Sam Sanders podcast in my newsletter, and a lot of people were mean to me about hating it, and I said, okay, it's fine that you're wrong and I'm right. Like, that's fine, and I understand that that can be harder to accept. But I also told everyone last year, even if you like this one, good fucking luck with part two. Because I know the musical, and I know that act two of the musical is not its own story. It's actually, in fact, part two of one whole thing. That's how acts work in a play. Yes, act one and act two work together to have a full story arc. When you take the second half of the thing and try to make it its own story arc, you're already facing trouble. But when that second thing is act two of wicked. It's not possible.

Nora McInerny 7:25

And then the hobbit three movies. It was a novella.

Traci Thomas 7:28

Yeah, we don't need, we don't need so much. I know you want to make money. I get it, and I'm happy to give you my money, but I actually would have just given you the like $70 I paid for the ticket and all the food that I ordered during the movie so I had an excuse to leave the theater to pick up my pretzel bites, just so that I could have had that time back in my life. So I'm going to tell you some of the reasons I hate this movie. One, I just said. Two, Jon Chu hates musicals. He does a thing in Wicked part one and wicked part two, where he takes a song that you know, goes, tra la la, la, la, la, and he breaks for example, for example, and he breaks it up, and he says, tra la la la, let's have a scene here. And then he says, la La, la, another scene. La, la, la, more conversation. And I said, Jon, this isn't a fucking interlude on a CD, my guy, this is a musical. The whole point is that people have to sing an entire song. That's the way the show is written, that's the way the music is written. That's how a musical functions. If you break up the sex scene so that they can talk about how beautiful each other is in unconventional ways, or whatever, or that's just a different way of looking at things. You're ruining the song. It doesn't make the scene work. Drives me crazy. Also, I think the movies are ugly. I'm sorry the lighting is ugly. The CGI is horrific. And I know people love Paul tazewell's costumes. They look cheap to me. They look like Tom Ford knockoffs or whatever. I'm just like, Okay, I get it ugly. So those are just some of the things. I also think they didn't give Cynthia Erivo enough stuff to do. They really didn't. And I know we're not supposed to talk about people's bodies, but I'm going to say this, and I know this is not popular, popular, yeah, exactly, but I think, I think we have to acknowledge that Ariana Grande is very slim and it is distracting.

Nora McInerny 9:35

I wouldn't call it slim. I would call it emaciated, and I would call it alarming. It's alarming. The that's actually that leads me to something else that I hate too, which is the conversation around Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo being like, you can't talk about their bodies, because that's not feminist, that's not body positivity or. Body neutrality. But we are on a on a path to revisit 90s anorexia and early 2000s Tumblr anorexia like we are there. There we are there like the girls are getting thin, thin, thin, scary skinny. You'll never forget that cover of what was it Us Weekly with Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, skin and bones. Rachel Zoe is back on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, okay, the woman who wore bracelets as armbands, okay? Like, yeah, and yeah, I think it's, I think that is okay to say. And I think it's bananas that people are saying, like, No, we actually can't say that. Some people are just naturally some people are naturally skeletal. Sure. I would guess that's pretty rare. And now you think that 100% of the female cast of wicked they all just happen to have, they've always had a skeleton body type, and before their body type was actually that was wrong. When they had muscles and like a normal amount of body fat. That was actually weird. And now it's normal that we can see every bone in their clavicle well or whatever this part of your body is. This is your clavicle, rib cage. What is the sternum? I should not see the ripples in your sternum and to show it off too well.

Traci Thomas 11:18

I think part, part of it is that I think that's a failure of the costume design of the film. If you know that you're working with bodies that are very slim, like that very tiny skeletal, your job is to bulk them up a little bit to make them look appropriate on screen. But the other thing is, and the reason that I feel okay talking about their bodies in this way is that bodies are political, like you're gonna have a hard time telling me that Ariana Grande, not just her her her weight, but her skin color. She used to be tan, and now she's Pantone white. Okay? She's Color of the Year. She is the color of the year, and that's not an accident. Do you know what I'm saying? Like her, she represents something. And like putting her white, white whiteness up against Cynthia Erivo's blackness and or greenness, depending on if it's just talking or if it's in the film, is not an accident. And I just think that, like we are a lot, we should be allowed to talk about how people look when how they look is tied to the politics of the moment. So that's why I feel comfortable bringing it up. But it was extremely distracting in the film, like I kept being like, I am uncomfortable looking at this person, because I am uncomfortable with what this is telling me about witches and oz.

Nora McInerny 12:36

You know, I'm comfortable talking about it because I had an eating disorder. And guess what? I know what it looks like when two girls with an eating disorder go toe to toe in a, you know, a locked in battle for who is going to be the sexiest skeleton. Like, I know that dynamic. I know that friend dynamic. And you know what happens when you're not eating enough, you're very emotional. Everything will make you cry

Traci Thomas 12:59

And also, I do have to hold pinkies when you're like that.

Nora McInerny 13:01

You have to hold pinkies. You have to be touching each other.

Traci Thomas 13:05

It's just like, there's no politics in this, in this movie, in the second movie, especially, it's just the politic is like, it's so obvious, it's so stupid. It's just like, it's dumb. I read the book years ago, years and years ago. I think I read it after I saw the musical in like, 2004 or something, because I saw the musical when it first came out. And I don't think the musical is great, but I think the musical actually, like, tells a story, and the music works to tell the story, and it's useful. And like, if you give Elphaba defying gravity, and you let her just sing it and have the moment, instead of having her fly around while just interlude plays like you actually have a chance of giving Cynthia Erivo something to do, because the music is doing the emotional work for you, because that's how a musical works. Like I just and I know not everybody knows and understand musicals, and I get that, but what I'm saying to those people is, can you trust someone who does understand what a musical is supposed to do and understand that you probably would have liked it more if they had sung the songs all the way through. I know you loved it. I know that you cried so hard, but like, imagine how much harder you could have cried. You really could have been weeping. You could have been in tears all day.

Nora McInerny 14:23

Okay, so I'm gonna piggyback off yours and say that mine is also wicked related, having again, not seen the second movie, but having been inundated with content surrounding the movie, including just interview after interview, where, again, not only ariana's body, her skin color, her eyebrow color, but also her voice has changed too, and now she's like, she's a she's a small, victimized white woman again, you know

Traci Thomas 14:50

I used to think she was ethnic.

Nora McInerny 14:54

I thought she was Latina. I thought this whole time. I thought. Whole time. No, she's not, and I so I've been inundated with but here's, here's what really gets to me, the brand partnerships

Traci Thomas 15:09

The tie ins, oh, my god

Nora McInerny 15:11

The tie-ins. There are over 400 brand tie ins. Over 400 including some that make literally no sense to me whatsoever, like Urban Outfitters, okay, where they've got an exclusive vinyl Puma, so many Abercrombie and Fitch, okay.

Traci Thomas 15:40

Feels like that's feels like that's a competition with I feel like they should have, like, exclusive clause with some of these

Nora McInerny 15:46

Ruggable. Owala. Why, if I'm at anthropology, am I seeing wicked merchandise at anthropology? There's enough whimsy at anthropology. I'm not there for branded whimsy. I'm there for a specific kind of whimsy. And why am I seeing this literally everywhere I was at Five Below. Okay, what's that? It's a glorified dollar store. Pray that your children are never brought to a five below. Because, okay, it's it's a drug for children that is like that is prime shopping for my kids. Pretty much everything is $5 or below. Guess what? There's exceptions. Some things are $15 it's basically just $1 store. Why wicked tie ins at Five Below?

Traci Thomas 16:32

That makes sense to me. That's where you take your fill junk. That's where you take junk.

Nora McInerny 16:37

But it's like you're making it even for five below, and yes, art is funded by by commerce, right? So either you're getting commercials or you're paying for it, but guess what, even if you buy a ticket to a movie, even if you then buy $20 pretzel bites, and you know, $10 dry popcorn with butter flavored topping. What did we do to AMC to deserve butter flavored topping? Melt the butter.

Traci Thomas 17:07

I love butter flavored topping. If it's a chemical, I like it. If it's real, I don't like it.

Nora McInerny 17:17

I love I'm looking from counting down the minutes till I'm allowed to have my diet coke of the day

Traci Thomas 17:23

I had two I had a refill. I got a large at the movie theater. I when I left to get my pretzel bites, after I ate my popcorn, refilled my diet coke, fill it up, and I had to pee, so bad. And at the end of the movie, I was like, Are you guys done? I have to pee.

Nora McInerny 17:40

Are you done? All these tie ins, all these tie ins are part of a movie's, you know, sort of overall value, when is enough enough? When is enough enough? This is all landfill core. It's all landfill core. Like, 400 and in comparison, Barbie had 200 some, which was a lot.

Traci Thomas 18:02

And like, where are they getting the money to do? Like, because they, because, usually how these work is, like, they pay wicked. It's like, we're paying you a million dollars so that we can make wicked, like

Nora McInerny 18:13

Absolut vodka, cosmetics.

Traci Thomas 18:16

Okay, what flavor is that? I'm curious. Okay, I feel like a makeup tie in, makes sense. Because Elphaba is green, so we know she's wearing makeup. I'll go with that. Ruggable. It's a stretch, like I that I'm confused. Like, what do the rugs look like? Are they pink and green? Do they have witches on that?

Nora McInerny 18:37

They're like welcome mats that look like us. Okay, sure, sure. But I'm just like, Con Air? It's a and it's a light up, make it makeup mirror. Okay, fine. Random, a tarot deck, sure. Dawn, Dawn soap, Dawn soap, Dawn soap, Swiffer. I was like, I guess you're trying to say it's a broom,

Traci Thomas 19:00

A stretch

Nora McInerny 19:01

And just this is my old wicked Swiffer. Like, what is what in the landfill is going on?

Traci Thomas 19:08

And are you buying that for yourself, or do you think that's going under the holiday tree, slash, Bush, menorah, whatever. Like mom, Merry Christmas. Here's a wicked Swiffer. I know how much you love to swiffer

Nora McInerny 19:22

Yeah Owala, and also Yeti.

Traci Thomas 19:25

And that feels like a conflict. They should have had an exclusive non compete.

Nora McInerny 19:29

Pillsbury. Pillsbury tie in. Okay, sure, General Mills

Traci Thomas 19:36

Cereal? Yeah, I feel like that's, that's old school. There used to be a lot of tie-ins

Nora McInerny 19:41

You're right. You're right. It used to be a tie-in would just be a breakfast cereal, maybe a McDonald's meal.

Traci Thomas 19:47

Yes, like, sure. That's what Zootopia two did, classic McDonald toy.

Nora McInerny 19:53

Let's rein it in. Let's make let's make partnerships mean something. Let's make them mean something. Okay, because now is Olay. So now I'm getting, I'm getting wicked body wash, like, what are we talking what are we talking about like, what are we talking about like? And I've not even done scrolling through this. This is just, you know, like, and again, Owala, Stanley, Yeti, so no category exclusivity whatsoever.

Traci Thomas 20:20

I do feel like there are certain categories to which I'm like, fine candy, fine Happy Meal, fine cereal. Okay. It's when you start moving into the sort of like adult spaces that it starts to feel weird, like anthropology is decidedly an adult woman store that is not a store for children and wicked these tie ins feel extremely child related, like they were not doing tie ins for Hamnet. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's like one battle after another doesn't have like, they're not like, going to buck Mason and being like jeans. So I feel like when it starts to feel adult, that's when it starts to feel weird to me. So if you tell me that, like, the Owala tie in is for like kids water bottles, I'd be like, okay, but like, I don't, I don't know. I struggle with the like, adult related content, tie ins.

Nora McInerny 21:19

The Barbie stuff even make sense, because Barbie was a toy.

Traci Thomas 21:22

Barbie was, Barbie was a tie in before it was a movie.

Nora McInerny 21:25

Barbie, yeah, Barbie actually, it's, it's a reverse tie in, right? So that makes sense. There's an object already attached to it, but when we're creating, you know, not even, it's not even like related merchandise necessarily, right? Like, it's not like a stuffy or a right? Don't worry, there's plenty of stuffy tie ins as well. Yeah, it's not like a related toy. It's like just semi related objects, you know, wine goblets, like home decor. It's basically just slap it's licensing, where you can slap it on literally anything. And it just means so little. And I would like for things like that to mean something.

Traci Thomas 22:03

Okay, my turn. I'm going, this is this starts small, but gets big. One of my enemies this year, last year, over the years, has been and remains, Ezra Klein. I'm fucking sick of that guy. Been sick of that guy. I read his book abundance. It's bad. I'm mad at Barack Obama for putting him on his list. Embarrassing. Barack, ugh, sickening. Also drop the second list, Barack. We need to know what the fuck you've been reading, because your first list this year was horrible. But I can't stand Ezra Klein. I've been a vocal Ezra Klein hater when others were like oh my god Ezra Klein, I can't stand him. But the broader thing is that, why do all of these white men have these podcast microphones and they just interview each other? Ezra Klein wrote a stupid fucking thing after Charlie Kirk was killed. That was like Charlie Kirk was doing politics, right? Yeah, insane, insane. It's like, Ezra Klein, nobody even wanted your obituary of this guy, like you did this yourself. Obviously, this unlocks this conversation between he and Ta-Nehisi Coates, where Ta-Nehisi Coates is like, was silence not an option? Which, hello, the only question I truly do not think since then, which was three months ago. It was like, mid September. I don't think Ezra Klein has had a black person on his podcast since then. Like, I don't think Ezra Ezra Klein has talked to Gavin Newsom. He has talked to Jon Favreau. Favreau. He's talked to all of these fucking people, and they all are just talking to each other. And then Vanity Fair, or whoever the fuck does, like the future of podcasting, and it's just 97 white people fucking they just released the Golden Globes podcast award, and it's all famous people who are white. I'm just like, I know everybody loves Amy Poehler. I get it. I get it. She's lovely, but smartless and Dax Shepard and Amy Poehler, I'm just like, when is enough, enough. And I say this as a person with a podcast, so I understand I have to hate myself a little bit too. However, I'm not fucking stupid like Ezra Klein. Okay, I'm not fucking annoying. I'm not writing an obituary of Charlie Kirk that doesn't need to be written. And the reason that I can't stand Ezra Klein, among many, is that he is not he has no political ideology that he actually believes in. He just understands that there is a place for a left leaning white guy who's reasonable to be popular, and he has capitalized on that. If you read his book abundance, it is full of right, anti government slop. It is full of deregulation bullshit that does not take into account why the regulations are there. His stuff about Charlie Kirk just shows that it's all about podcast bro solidarity. That's the class that he's in. He's not fighting for the middle class or for people who have left politics. He just understands that he has an opportunity to be who he wants to be, and he's taken that and that's historically true for him. He worked on three campaigns in 2004 2008 three primary campaigns. Excuse me, in politics, you don't do that. You work on one candidate until they lose, and then once they lose, you can jump ship. But you can't have three losing candidates in the primary. It's one primary. How could you be on three campaigns? He's just an opportunist with a microphone and also his glow up, his new glow up. Like, image for his podcast is ugly. Okay, I hate it. You look it up. You look stupid. Ezra, you think you're so hot you're not. And like, he's, I don't mean that about his looks. I just mean, like, you can tell he's like, Oh yeah, I'm gonna have a beard now. And like, be smoldering. Like, Babe, it's embarrassing. Be the nerd that you are, be the nerd that you are, and also be the Republican that you are, because clearly you are one. Sorry, no offense Republicans, but he's one of yours.

Nora McInerny 26:11

Elise Loehnen, of pulling the thread, wrote something on sub stack a few years ago. At this point, about like she looked at all the top male podcasters and who they interview, and found that they interview each other and other men, and that they so rarely, so rarely, engage with anything that a woman has created in any way. She called it the mantle, and I doubt anything has changed. Okay, I am gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pivot to a person. I'm gonna pivot to a person that's also a controversial take. But for me, this year, it is. It's Taylor Swift

Traci Thomas 26:53

On my list, too. Can't wait. Let's go.

Nora McInerny 26:55

It's Taylor Swift, and it is the perpetual victimhood of Taylor Swift, a 37 year old billionaire, billionaire who has trained a legion of fans to defend absolutely everything she does as genius, as deep as feminist simply because she's a woman, it is the you are acting as though these are not just this is not just greed for you, you know, and there is a difference. You cranked this album out while you were also on tour, not because, like, you had, like, a burst of creativity, but because you wanted to continue to hold and break records. When you start to look at the patterns of when she releases things and when she announces things, you see that this is just like a mean woman, like you just, you know, like it's just a mean woman. And I had a problem with this album specifically because it is so boring. It is so boring. It is so boring to be rich and have everything you want and act like you have no agency in your life, as though you are and also I truly, I've never cringed harder than the line the eldest daughter of a nobleman, Ophelia lived in fantasy. That is, I would have written that in fifth grade being like, got to recap this, huh? How do I say What are you talking about? To be as famous as you are, and to be taking swipes at your boyfriend now, fiance's ex girlfriend is so weird and so small to me. Like, you know that you're bigger than her? Like, what are you doing to even be taking, like, a swipe at Charli XCX is just you're almost 40, like you're almost 40, and in a lot of ways, maybe I also have been inspired by Taylor Swift this year, because watching someone so in love with like their own mythology has made me think I have got to get over myself. I've got to every, every, any grudge that I'm holding against somebody. I've got to let it go. Because I am so bored of a woman singing about talking about like ways that she was allegedly slighted 10 or 15 years ago. Yeah, you were never canceled. You never lost anything. And when you keep releasing variant after variant, garbage merch drop after garbage merch drop while you are also cease and desisting your fans who actually make good merch, your merch is the ugliest stuff I've ever seen in my life. Landfill core, landfill core, and you're doing it just to, like, break specific records, stop pretending that it is about, like the expression of art, like this is purely commerce. And it is so boring to me. It is so boring to me.

Traci Thomas 30:18

I find, I mean, one of the things that I hate about the richest of celebrities, like, like, a thing that I talk about all the time that's a big pet peeve of mine is like Meghan Markle and Prince Harry being accessible in any way. I'm like, You guys need to just go be rich in Montecito. I don't want to hear from you or talk to you, because I would like to keep the fantasy alive that you people are Royal and fancy and better than me. And Beyonce generally allows me to feel this way about her, though recently she's been a little overexposed. But Taylor Swift her like accessible bullshit, of like, I'm like everybody else to me, that's what's the most revolting about her. I'm like, You are not an every woman. Babe. You are so far from that and the performance of that and, like, protect, like, trying to, like, be relevant by talking about, like, cancelation, or, like, being rude to your boyfriend's ex. Like, it's just all it's so phony. It's just so phony to me. Like, at least with Oprah, she comes in when she wants to do. You know what I mean? Like, she's like, Oh, I'm in charge here. You think you know me because I was on TV every single day, but you don't know me. You don't know what I've been up to since 2010 I'm just coming in here and there. Sure, doing bad things. Sometimes there's no ethical billionaires. I get it, but like, Oprah has every right to feel accessible to us. And she's like, No, no, I don't want it. And I just wish Taylor Swift would shut the fuck up and just make the albums or, like, why are you going on your boyfriend's podcast so you guys can make more money? There's no reason you could talk to each other at home, you know. Like, that's it's just, it's gross. Also, the art is bad, and that's really badly it if the art was great, if the art was great, maybe I would care. But, like, I don't care. I mean, I think she's, like, pretty low level talent. I know people think she's like, the greatest writer ever, and this, I'm like, her voice is bad. She can't dance. I don't I don't, like, can't dance. She can't if you have a pop star who can't sing and can't dance. What do you have? You have nothing like Dua Lipa. She can sing, she's beautiful, can't dance, but at least she can sing

Nora McInerny 32:30

Also, I will say I saw Dua Lipa live, and she's having fun, and that's what I want to see.

Traci Thomas 32:34

And also, she's smart and has this great book club and is like interviewing Percival Everett. And like, I'm in on Dua Lipa, but I'm saying, like, you don't have to be Jessica Simpson couldn't dance to save her life, but she could sing. Boy, I think I'm in love with you. You know what? I think so too, because, because Jack and Diana needed this sample, okay, I just, I just find her to be so unappetizing in every way. For me, it's just, it's just not my thing. And I know for a lot of people it is. And like, good for you. Enjoy your little bracelet. But again, more junk, more junk.

Nora McInerny 33:05

And I like, I've been a fan since, I mean, since the first album, since watching on YouTube with my cousin. I went to the 1989 tour. I went to reputation. I went to era's night one and two. She kicked it off in Phoenix, Arizona. I just think everything is so blatantly capitalistic. It really, really turns me off. And watching people, like, defend her as though, like, it's, it's an anti feminist take to be like, I'm sorry. I get every email when you are counting down to a merch drop, when you are counting down to like the drop of every CD you could give it away. Hayley Williams just put out an excellent album. She put it up for free on her website first. Put it for free on her website first. Her ticket prices are capped, and you can't resell them for profit. Guess what? If Hayley Williams could do that, Taylor Swift could have done that. She didn't want to. She didn't want to, and so she didn't, and that's why you paid 1000s of dollars for a nosebleed ticket. Like that's not acceptable. And I do think, I do think that she is strategically like bullying other artists. I think the way that she treated Olivia Rodrigo is weird and destructive. And I just, I don't know, I just it went off a cliff. I can enjoy her old music, but I truly like cannot. I just cannot stand like the person right now. I just can't. And I think writing a song about your boyfriend's ex girlfriend when she is so much less powerful than you, socially and economically and like, you know, and and also people, it's about racial tones, racial. Racial tones, racial tones, racial tones. That is weird. That is weird. And to have our government use your song that's right over an ice video and say nothing

Traci Thomas 35:12

And she's gone fully back. She's moved toward the Maga, right?

Nora McInerny 35:15

Maga Barbie and people are like, she doesn't have to say anything. She can't. It's not safe. Shut up

Traci Thomas 35:20

But also she did say something before, right? Like, she was like, Oh, I don't want to be associated with Trump, because she realized whatever. And then she did come out in favor of Kamala Harris, but I'm like, well, keep that energy then, like, if you're everyone's like, you're Maga and you're not Maga. Be like, No, babe. I'm not, like, you're a billionaire. You could, you could never make another dollar and still continue the lifestyle that you have for the rest of your life. Paying your entire staff like billion is so much money. People think a million and a billion are much closer together than they are, but a billion is 1000 millions.

Nora McInerny 36:00

It's 1000 millions of dollars.

Traci Thomas 36:06

And you are worried that if you say something, you're gonna lose future earning. But you already have 1000s of millions,

Nora McInerny 36:14

You could not make another dollar, and you will still your money. Will still make money. You actually can't stop making money.

Traci Thomas 36:19

Yeah, once you pick up a billionaire, it's impossible to stop making money, unless you literally end up saying, are like giving away your money, which even still, when you like Mackenzie, Mackenzie, what's her, fuck it. She's giving away money, but she still has money. Because when you're rich, your money makes money. Yes, when you have 1000s of millions, I just 1000s of millions. People talk about, like, life changing money, and they're like, it would be generational life changing money if I had $5 million or something. And this bitch got 1000s of those, 1000s of those millions,

Nora McInerny 36:54

1000s of those millions, and could and again, has the time to send cease and desist out to fans who are making things on Etsy, yeah, but cannot tell the White House do not use my music over a video about, like, violent, dehumanizing deportations, like to me, like you have, you have all the social and economic power In the world, and you were choosing to do absolutely nothing with it. Yeah, that's not much, that's that's not even close to a significant percentage of what she earned on that tour, or again, on the horrible merch itself. Just we will move on. We'll move on. We'll move on. I had to get that out. I had to get that out.

Traci Thomas 37:37

I'm glad you did. Okay. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go I'm gonna stay on pop star. I'm gonna go darker. I'm gonna go darker. Something I hated this year was all the Diddy stuff. Oh, we don't have to spend a lot of time here.

Nora McInerny 37:55

No, let's do it.

Traci Thomas 37:56

I just want to just go on record that that man's a fucking monster, and for anyone defending him online, you should be ashamed and embarrassed. Your mother should be ashamed and embarrassed. Your kindergarten teacher should be ashamed and embarrassed. And I am not saying that Taylor Swift and Diddy are the same person. But what I am saying is that Diddy's connection between hip hop pop culture and capitalism is connected to Taylor Swift's releasing multiple slightly different versions of the same album. Diddy is the blueprint for a lot of these like mega, mega wealthy pop stars, but the turning of the art into junkyard slop Ciroc, all of this and people feeling like they need to defend someone who is credibly accused of, and we have seen on tape doing horrible, horrible, horrible things because you liked Honey by Mariah Carey, like we've got to let it go. We've got to, I understand that you've got feelings and emotions tied to songs that Sean Combs made. So do I? Okay? I'm a millennial. I'm a black American. He is in the fabric of my life, right? Like you cannot. I was in a workout class the other day, and they were playing like, Shake your tail feather by Nelly. And then all of a sudden I heard Diddy. And I was like, Oh, my God, I forgot he was on this track. I was like, What the He was on everything like, so I get it. But this man, I watched the documentary. Did you watch the documentary? I likes the documentary mostly, but I think it dropped the ball at the end. Personally, I think that they did not drive home. They needed, they needed to have an expert talking about sexual assault and abuse and all of those things to make sense of why Cassie would do what she did, as in, stay and like, send messages or whatever. And I felt like that was a failure of the trial, and I thought that was a failure of the documentary, however, and I also think the other failure of the documentary is that they did not tie all of his violent behavior that like from the 90s to the current moment. So I felt like they sort of missed the ending with the documentary. But that man's a monster, and has been a monster his whole life. And I just, I hate him. I hate all of it. I hate anybody who stands up for him in any way. I hate all those fucking jurors. I just hate the whole thing, his lawyers, everybody like defending that you, because you could just be like, I saw the video, and that's enough. Like, that's enough. You could just be like, I saw this video, and I just can't, I just can't with this. But to be like, well, Cassie, like, there's no, there's no ellipses, no, there's no Well, dot, dot, dot. Like, to me, that's just, it's it. So I don't think we have to go on on this. I think this one's pretty cut and dry. But if we're talking about things I hated this year, this trial, took up a lot of fucking space, all the influencers being like, well and like, the whole targeted campaign of social media against her and in favor of him. Fucking nuts. I mean, brilliant. It worked, yeah, but it worked. It worked.

Nora McInerny 41:32

It doesn't take a lot to hate a woman. And so what happened to Cassie was very real, and we're going, we're taking a step back. Then Rolling Stone yesterday is like, you know, a bot. All this criticism of Taylor Swift's new album was all bots. No, it wasn't, no, it wasn't, no, it wasn't like, misogyny can be real, right? And also, criticism of this powerful white woman is not like a strategic plan to like, take down all women,

Traci Thomas 42:01

well, she's like that again, is like, the agency you're talking about, yes, yes.

Nora McInerny 42:04

It's like, she has no agency. It's like, I just made it. I just made like, I just made these songs and like. So you're telling me she's a mastermind, and she plans out every single thing, and she did not think that. It was that what she said about her boyfriend's ex wasn't like diminishing and racist, no, okay, okay, got it, got it, got it. But what happened to Cassie is 100% just violent misogyny. And I mean juror number 160

Traci Thomas 42:37

Is that the guy?

Nora McInerny 42:39

That's the girl who was like, is he violent? He could be

Traci Thomas 42:44

Oh, the one who was like, No, he didn't make eye contact. But there was, like, definitely some moments where, like, we were on the same page. That one?

Nora McInerny 42:50

yes, I was like, What are you talking about? And yeah, the male juror who's like, I mean, what, you know, you can't have it both ways. You can't have this lavish lifestyle, and, you know, be raped and sexually abused, and then also, like, you know, have sex with him and say you love him. It's like, but what like, there's no like, baseline understanding. This is why sometimes I'm like, is it ever a jury of your peers? No, it's just, it's just a jury.

Traci Thomas 43:15

This is why I fear ever doing anything wrong, because I know I would be like, cooked

Nora McInerny 43:20

Fully cooked. They would be like, well, she is a woman and she was, she's annoying. I think we can all agree.

Traci Thomas 43:25

Okay, I felt like the documentary failed in not saying, like, this is what the legal definition is, because, like, people genuinely believe, just because she sent text messages that said I like this thing or whatever, that she still liked it six years later, or whatever. Yeah, like, to me, it's like, oh, she was running out of that hotel to get away from him, and he beat the shit out of her cut and dry case. He was keeping her against her will. She was literally running away trying to put her shoes on.

Nora McInerny 43:53

And when that the male sex worker was saying, Oh, she would, that was her thing. She'd run away and he'd go get her. She wasn't running. She was creeping. She didn't even have her shoes on, yeah. She was sneaking out quietly

Traci Thomas 44:03

Well, also, that's her thing, because she was trying to run away so many times

Nora McInerny 44:07

She was trying to leave, you know, but it's like, you know, I believe that sometimes you can, like, do, like, a big, dramatic exit. That was to me, like, that was her literally trying to, like, leave with whatever she could carry in, like a shoulder bag and a purse, yeah, and she was putting her shoes on, like at the elevator, like when it came

Traci Thomas 44:25

She literally was doing it while he was in the shower, or whatever he was in the shower, in the towel, or like he was indisposed, and whatever he was doing something, she was trying to buy her time. Like it's just so obvious what was happening. And everyone who's acting like it was anything that it wasn't, you can go fuck yourselves

Nora McInerny 44:39

and truly, again, this is all connected like money and power and the way that people won't say anything because they believe, they believe that this person's immense wealth and power is going to trickle down. And guess what? Never happens. It does not trickle down.

Traci Thomas 44:54

No, you know, correct. A few years ago, a book came out about Biggie. And it's called, it's all a dream, and it's by Justin Tinsley. And I loved it. And in the early chapters of the book, it lays out the stampede situation and Diddy, and like the rise of Diddy, and I was not, I did not know that story. And when I read that in the book, maybe a few months later, the Cassie allegation, or like, another set of allegations, came out, and I said, Oh, for sure, he did it. Like, for sure. Just all I needed to know was what had happened at at that, at the vast city college concert, yeah, like, I was just like, Oh, he did it, he did it, he did it all. He did it all. He did it all.

Nora McInerny 45:38

Did it all. He did it all. And then, you know, it's all, you know, putting putting a business in your mom's name so you never have to pay a victim

Traci Thomas 45:46

Well, also, just like most people, being at fault for something like that would destroy you, right? Like most people would not rise from the ashes of that and be like, now, I have to become a billionaire, right? Like he took the death of nine people and turned it into his like origin story in a way that, like, I don't know. I mean, I think, I think obviously, like, you can't live like tragedies, having whatever blah, blah, blah. But like, the way in which he went from having failed to organize an effective, safe event into wasn't me, like, Oops, we'll do better next time I'm Puff Daddy now is just like, nuts.

Nora McInerny 46:26

This is almost too easy, and I've ranted about this before, but this might be just my number one hate of the year is just the phrase I asked chat gpt

Traci Thomas 46:37

Oh, my God, I have AI slop on my list.

Nora McInerny 46:40

AI slop. And the way that people defend it, the way well, but when I, when I do it, it's actually like highbrow, you know, similar to the way when I hate it is highbrow. It is art. When I use chatgpt, it's because I need it for something very specific. What did you do four years ago? Yeah, what did you do? What did you do? You did your job, okay? Or somebody else did their job, and now that job is gone because this technology, which is not artificial intelligence, it is stolen intelligence, and it is stealing our power grid. Who's paying? Who's paying for those power increases? We are when they build a data center in the middle of the desert. It's 100 million degrees here in the summer, data centers need water and cold air. Why are you building them here? We're almost out of water in Arizona, but okay, we're building those. And what's stressing the power grid that who's paying for it? Us, us. Our power is going up. They're putting those in low income neighborhoods, so and they poison the water, they poison the air. Okay, so now the poor are not just getting poorer, they're getting sicker. Great, cool. But I guess you really had to ask chat GPT how to raise your baby.

Traci Thomas 47:52

Also, like, it's not even giving you good stuff.

Nora McInerny 47:58

It's not even giving you good stuff? Have you been on Facebook as a person lately? Oh, I don't have a Facebook anymore. I made a Facebook just just to creep, just to be, just to be, just to be a person, because I like to be in groups. Okay? I like to be in groups. Everything on Facebook is AI slop. I'll add, I'll add screenshots to the post. I will send you some of these, Traci, you'll be like, shocked, like, we are no longer living in a shared reality because of, because of this, like technology.

Traci Thomas 48:32

I just there's a mom whose kid went to school with my kids, and she was like, I lost my job, can't afford therapy, so I've been talking to chat GPT, and I said, Okay, well, I wouldn't advise that. Okay, wouldn't advise it. She's like, even when I get a job, I'm gonna keep doing it, because it saves me money. I was like, does it? It's not a medical professional

Nora McInerny 49:04

It's not a medical professional and, you know what?

Traci Thomas 49:07

It's trying to crunch, trying to crunch all the ones and zeros that it has in its little computer programming to tell you whatever it is that you want to hear. It's an algorithm. It is going to be rewarded. It is not a person. It does not have a brain. And here's the thing, I know, that AI, I think, I think we get confused. Obviously, you said chat, GPT. But like, there's a lot of AI that is good and great and useful, and like, I want those wands that they're using for cancer screenings. That's artificial intelligence. That's great. Let's use the technology for things that humans cannot do or would make humans' lives better. I would love AI to do things for me that I do not want to do. Can you wash dishes. Would love it if you could. I don't want you making art. I don't want you dealing in communities. I don't want you dealing with people's mental health. I don't want you doing the things that is an art is inherently about the human experience. You're not a human you're a computer program algorithm. So I don't know, for me, would love AI to help with crowd control at a sporting event, so nine people don't get crushed at a basketball game. Don't need AI to make the music we're listening to at the sporting event. Like, I just it's nuts and it's bad and it doesn't sound good, and I don't even, like, care. Like, someone sent me an AI album of something, and I was like, okay, like, that's fine, that it does sound like music. It sounds like music, but, like, I don't care. I'd rather listen to Olivia Dean, an actual human being that I've heard of who's got a body to go along with their voice, right?

Nora McInerny 50:57

I saw an ad on on TV. The kids were watching YouTube with ads. And it was for, who knows what it was, it was a generative ad. That's what we're talking about when we, like, say chat, GPT, these llms, like, we're talking about generative AI. And it was, Oh, I've been saying, Make me a podcast about XYZ. And then she starts listening to this podcast. There's a podcast company run by like, two people who are like, and we've got aI hosts, and we've got, we're going to be making, you know, 100 AI shows every day. And just like we are just making, it's landfill core. Still, this is landfill core. It's just the digital landfill. At some point, it is just pollution that is also creating, like, real pollution. And I agree, AI, people are like, well, in medical settings, it can help predict great, great, great. But I don't want my doctor, when I go in there saying, like, chat, GPT. What should i do, which happens, by the way it happens, and I don't want that. What actually, kind of I understand why people use chat gpt, as therapy, because therapy is so expensive, we don't have enough therapists. Why don't we have enough therapists? Because of the insurance system, because we are not on a single payer system because therapists are not being reimbursed at the right rate, or, if at all, by by health insurance companies, because private equity is getting into hospitals. Our good friends at private equity, like money will ruin everything, and it has. And so that is the most accessible thing that people have. And studies have shown that, you know, these AI chat bots are capable of coming up with empathetic responses that make people feel better. Yeah. Okay, so, so in a sense, like they do work. They work for that purpose. And I think that the purpose of therapy, of being a person in the world, is to relate and connect to another person, person that coregulation that happens, that connection that happens. And when you are using chat GPT or another chat bot, where's your data going, what are you giving it, right? But also, if it's yours anymore, when you're putting photos and videos of your dead husband into chat GPT to make like a chat bot that can call you that belongs to open AI, now your dead husband belongs to open AI.

Traci Thomas 53:41

Yeah, but I want to say, like, therapy, it does work in the sense, like it makes people feel better, or whatever. Like these, these chat things, but that's not the job of therapy. Therapy is not to make you feel better, right? Like, sometimes your therapist actually needs to say things that make you feel worse for a little bit and help you to work through that. And the problem is that there was a New York Times piece about a child that killed themselves because they were doing chat GPT or whatever, whatever. One of those, yeah, therapy and the bot didn't say you need to talk to an adult, right? That is the responsible answer. They did the, let me try to make you feel better answer. ChatGPT is not a mandated reporter. It is something that is built to respond off what you tell it, you like and so that's why your therapist should not be responding to what you tell it you like it. Should be saying to you, you like that thing. Stop liking that thing. Let's work through how you're not gonna like that, you know, like, it's just, it's like, it's really, it's so scary, it's so scary, it's so bad. Like, I know that some doctor's offices have been instituted where, like, the computer will listen to the whole conversation between the doctor and patient and transcribe it, so the doctor has everything in their notes, which, like, is good. Right? But also, at least for me, like, and this, I'm not a doctor, but like, I learn from transcribing. Like, I will retain information when I then go in and write it down. And so, like, I'm like, I'm curious to see. I don't know if this will be good or bad. It might be a huge time saver. It means the doctors get to spend more time with their patient. But like, for me, sometimes, if I say something, and then I hear it back. I'm like, oh, right, that's what I said. Like, I can hear it a second time. So I am curious to see how some of this stuff that's like, supposed to be helpful, but is part of the cognitive process, if it ends up being helpful or not, yeah, in a much less, like, this is a much less the art stuff pisses me off. This, like, Doctor stuff this like, sort of like making things easier for people in some regards. I'm curious to see if it'll work or not. If that makes sense.

Nora McInerny 55:48

I'm curious to see also if it will do anything to actually lower costs or make things easier for people to access. And I am going to guess no, because that's not the point. The point is data collection and the point is money, and that is what scares me so much. And you know, there's, there's also been research that says, you know, these things help people feel like less lonely, right? Like even like speaking to Alexa, if you are home an elderly person can make you feel less lonely, but you are still isolated, right? You are still isolated, and you are still going to feel the physical effects of that human isolation, which also very much worries me when people use and using chat GPT as kind of like a catch all for, oh, find me recipes about X, Y and Z, the way that this is collapsing economies that you don't realize are kind of like the scaffolding for our larger economy. We used to have, we used to have cookbooks, right? And yet, you know, we still do have cookbooks. But you know what kind of like replaced cookbooks? Is food bloggers, yeah, and their websites where they do all this recipe testing, and, you know, they make it beautiful, and, yeah, they tell you a story about their third divorce, and you got to jump to the recipe and get it, and there's 100 display ads. But guess what? Like, that person is getting paid for their labor. And like, you know, the ad seller is like taking a piece of that, that ad revenue from you looking or clicking, or just like even being distracted by that ad, and now all of that is gone, and where is all of the money going? One place, one place, the place that stole all those recipes, right? So they can give them to you with a shopping list and no ads, because you can have access to this for free, but they are collecting your data, and if you pay for it, they're also collecting your data. And when you know, I don't know, I just think, I think people would feel differently if they saw, like, their own work being taken, yeah, and sold by a company that had absolutely nothing to do with it as something else, right, right? It's sort of like people are sort of like fatigued by the conversation.

Traci Thomas 58:14

We're not even having the conversation enough, or you're fatigued by it. Now, Buck up, babes.

Nora McInerny 58:21

Buckle up. Buckle up. And again, like, pay attention to where they are building these data centers and what it will take from you, because the same people who, I mean, it's not, you know, everybody, this is the same. This is corporate welfare. This is corporate welfare. Like we are subsidizing all of this, like there's a huge AI bubble that is going to burst. And who is going to lose, like money and lose value in their in their we are. We're going to bail out a bunch of idiots, a bunch of computers that are wasting water.

Traci Thomas 58:53

And they can't answer a question properly, okay, um, I'm scared to do this one. Okay, I'm gonna do it. We're here. I hate people online. Yeah, guys, we've lost the plot here. Okay, I know you think you know Kim Kardashian, but you don't need to comment on her posts. Oh, my God, Kim, I love you so much. Please like this or Ew, Kim, I can't believe you would do that. How dare you. I'm so disappointed in you. Oh, you don't need to comment on anything you can, you can, but you're not entitled to anyone else's time, energy, opinion. I obviously, Nora and I both, we have a lot of thoughts and opinions that we really. Place into the world, and also that's our job, and we spend a lot of time doing it. We both pay other people to help us do it. It is our it might feel a little off the cuff, but it's actually our profession. We put time and energy into it. And the way that people talk to people online is delusional, not just people who talk online, but strangers. I just saw a post the other day where someone was interviewing a bookstore owner about their favorite books, and the bookstore owner put a bunch of fiction books on their list, and someone wrote something like, fiction, fiction, fiction, Ew, yuck, barf emoji. And it was just like, this is this person's favorite books of the year. Like, You don't need to do that. You don't need to tell someone why they're an idiot all the time. Do you know how many horrible things I want to say to people on the internet? Do you know what I do? I take a screenshot and I send it to Nora, or I send it to Chelsea devontas, or I send it to my other friends in the space and I say, this fucking guy

Or you put it in a substack and you say, pay to see what I hate, and that is and find it that is normal

But you don't have to talk to people online like because honestly, come to LA and say it to my face and see what the fuck happens to you. Okay, because that's the real thing. You guys are fucking playing around on your phones, thinking that you could fuck with me, or you could fuck with Nora. Nora's six feet tall, babe, she'll stomp you so fast. Okay, have you ever said something rude to a six foot tall woman? No, because you're scared, because she'll beat your ass. Okay? I'm scared of Nora.

Traci in high school, a girl who was five feet tall, if that, she had gold braces. She was new to our school. She came up to me at the mall, at a mall I don't go to, okay, different side of town, gold braces came to me in Contempo casuals by the tank tops, and said, Are you Nora? And I said, Yeah. And she said, You've been talking shit about my friend, I'm gonna kick your ass. I said, Here?

Like, do you want to go to go to wet seal, at least, my God.

Nora McInerny 1:00:52

When and also which friend? Like, I guarantee you I was talking but then she named someone. I was like, I don't know her. Like, you know I, I wasn't but I was like, You know what? I'm associated with people who would have been talking about it. So I get it all year, this girl kept announcing she was new to our school. She would announce every time she was like, I'm gonna kick your ass. And I said, okay, like, whenever you're ready, whenever you're ready. It never happened. But you know what? I respect her because she said it to my face.

Traci Thomas 1:00:52

Well, that's what I'm saying. If you want to do it on your phone, yeah, you want to tell me I'm a fucking idiot, that's fine, but fine. It'd be better. It's fine. Came to LA and say it to my face, so I could tell you, you're a fucking idiot right back. You know what? I mean, it would be fine. It would be fine. We used to have fun online and, like, it used to be funny and smart, and it used to be, like, bitchy and like, like, snarky. Bring that back. I don't mind you hating me, but do it in a funny way.

Nora McInerny 1:03:17

This, this ties into one of mine. So we're going, we're connecting the dots here. It's called the bean soupification of the internet. This comes from Tiktok, where this girl, you know, says, Oh, this is a recipe. This is like, you know, for, for if you if you have low iron, if you're anemic, if you need something like cozy. This is a dense bean soup. The comments say, what if I don't like beans? Oh, God, what if I don't like soup? That's right, then this is not for you, not for you. This is not for you. But we believe that everything is for us or should be for us, and it is that entitlement, and I'm sure I have felt it before, which is like, well, this doesn't reflect my exact thoughts and experiences. I know that I've felt that right, and I have to say, is it supposed to or could that be just another person having another experience and another thought? And why do I expect people to produce, you know, a thesis about a specific topic in a 30 second video in a five carousel slide. Could this just be a slice of somebody's thoughts? Yes, it could. I can keep scrolling, and the bean superfication is where we get like, well, you know, I didn't like this, and therefore I don't like you, and you are a bad person this week alone. Traci, people on who follow me on instagram already saw this, this woman named Pamela. It's been years. It's been years since everything online used to hurt my feelings so much because I am, I definitely was more so earnest. Yeah, even when I'm like, being silly, right? I'm like, yeah, like, I am. I am actually kind of just a silly person who happened to make serious work. But at my heart, I'm just a, just a goofball, you know, and things would hurt my feelings, right? Like, my, one of my, you know, OCD thought spirals is like, I'm a bad person. I've definitely done something horrible, and like the police are coming to get me any moment, something horrible, and it's happening, and I'll deserve it. I hear, I hear sirens, I think, lock me up. Yeah, I did it. But this woman, Pamela, has been, I mean, just leaving comments on every platform for years. Traci, right, and I just said, I'm gonna let her go. I'm gonna let her go. Have her thoughts, have her feelings. I don't reply to stuff like that anymore. She found me on YouTube. Pamela found me on YouTube, and this is what she wrote. I only put up my response, okay, so I, and I don't check my YouTube comments that much like I, you know, I just was, I was just, like, dipping in there for, like, a little fun, just seeing what's going on. And I'm getting 10s of views over there.

Traci Thomas 1:05:57

I get, I get in the single digits.

Nora McInerny 1:05:59

Yeah, it's, it feels good. Yeah, definitely, for the investment of it all, it feels good. Hold on, I gotta find those now, come on. Okay, here.

Traci Thomas 1:06:11

I'm so nervous about Pamela.

Nora McInerny 1:06:12

It's so and this is, by the way, it's like, as soon as i She even had a different username on YouTube, but I saw the comment, I said, I know who you are because you've left this comment before. Okay, you will need to delete this comment after reading as part of my self care,

Traci Thomas 1:06:32

I'm dead already, you could have deleted it by not posting it Pamela.

Nora McInerny 1:06:36

I'm going to tell you how I feel about you. I used to love you. When your brand was ttfa, it was essentially about grief, but you didn't call it that anyway. You seem so shallow. Now it's either grief or trivia. Grivia? I'm not going to waste one more unrecoverable unit of time on you. Thank you. I feel better about I feel better now this wasn't about you. It was about me. There, Traci, there was a man I didn't know that there were comments on Spotify. I've never looked again. There is a man who, for three years was commenting on every every episode about how much he hated me and so I responded to Pamela, and I said, Pamela, you've left this comment for literal years on many platforms. Who is holding you against your will and forcing you to listen to my podcast, I will contact the authorities and have you freed. I'm not deleting this comment. It is your legacy. This woman is in her 70s. Like, if I am in my I am in my 40s right now, like, like in my 70s, if I am expecting that, like, everything I see is going to be like exactly what I need. It to be like what is happening, I just that's the bean soup, right? This is, this is you don't like me. You're not gonna like the work,

Traci Thomas 1:07:56

You're not gonna like the podcast, like I have a book club, and every time I announce a book club pick, it's like, you don't have to read the book. This is just reading. You don't have to, like, just put this on the internet, like, I didn't even send it, I didn't even DM it to you, being like, you need to read this with us. You need to read this book. You don't you don't want to read Lolita, great. Don't read it. That's okay. Yeah, that episode, you don't have to read the book. You don't have to tell me about it either, though that's the thing, you don't have to tell me about it like you don't have to.

Nora McInerny 1:08:24

And the weird thing is too it's like, did you like every, what's your favorite show?

Traci Thomas 1:08:28

Favorite TV show of all time, Grey's Anatomy.

Nora McInerny 1:08:31

Did you like every episode?

Traci Thomas 1:08:32

Well, unfortunately, no, but I still watched every episode.

Nora McInerny 1:08:37

Okay, how often after an episode did you find the writer of the episode.

Traci Thomas 1:08:43

The thing about disliking something, for me personally, is I'm never bringing it to that person. This is about me enjoying hating things. I don't care if you hate me. I want you to hate me. I want you to feel the joy of hating me that I am feeling today talking to Nora about all the things I hate. But you know what? I'm not doing. I'm not tagging Ezra Klein in this. I'm not saying Ezra Klein, I spent 20 minutes on how much I fucking hate you and your stupid glow up. This is not about Ezra Klein. This is about me letting you know that I hate Ezra Klein, and I feel like that's the distinction. I don't care what you think about me.

Nora McInerny 1:09:22

Here's people who I think you should bring your like hate to bring it to your Congressman. That's what I every time I feel like I need to exert power on somebody, which is like, that is like to me. And when I look at my own like, when I feel something like that, right, which is like, maybe how you feel about Ezra Klein the way that I feel about Taylor Swift, too, right, like it is like revealing something about like me and my values and my relative powerlessness in this world too, right? If I had all that money, I would fill a dump truck every two hours. I would have such a good shovel, and I would go through. The street saying, Do you need a shovel of money? Shovel of money. Oh, yeah, shovel of money. Oh, it would be so fun for me. I can think of a billion things that I would do with every one of those dollars that would be so fun to do. And when I feel that way, I go over to David Schweikert. That's my and my representative, absolute goon, absolute ghoul of a man. And I just, I just cyber bully somebody who actually could make a huge difference in this world. That's what I do. That is my because that is his. His job is to represent people.

Traci Thomas 1:10:36

If he works for you, you can't bully your employees, but you can bully your congress people, because their whole job is to work for you, and you know what? And they are inviting it by being public servants. They're inviting it. They're Nicole Richie is not inviting you to tell her how stupid she is, or how ugly she is, or how her lip gloss is like, it's like, you guys, please take that to the DMS. And I also feel like, if I feel like some things are inside thoughts and some things are outside thoughts also, and I think we've lost the distinction there. Like some like, if you can find a way to say your thing funny publicly, do it, but it's not funny publicly to be like, Ew, I hate it. Like, you gotta give me some snark. Get enter the chat. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, bring if you've got to rise to the level of the thing, you know? Yeah.

Nora McInerny 1:11:27

Okay, so give me an example. What would that look like if, like, you know, what would that look like in your in your mentions?

Traci Thomas 1:11:36

Well, I think, first of all, it would be like, a quote tweet, you know, like, it would be like, I am, I am publicly talking shit about you, or like a quote thread. Or it would be like reposting into stories and being like, This bitch is so dumb, blah, blah, blah. Like, it would be like, I'm not just here to shit post you. I have something to say. The reason I hate this is XYZ, for example, another person that I hate that I was going to talk about, but I'll just tie it in. Here is Zibby Owens. This is a very deep inside book cut. Most of you don't know who she is. Quickly, I'll tell you. She is the daughter of Steven Schwarzman, who is the CEO of Blackstone, the largest public equity company in the United States, the number sorry, the largest public equity holding like they hold the most value in the world, the number one landlord in the United States, that's her dad. She has a book, quote, unquote empire, a podcast, a bookstore, a publisher that she started because nobody would publish her book because it was bad.

Nora McInerny 1:12:34

And that's why you can't afford a house, by the way, that's why you can't afford a house. That's like why you can't afford anything is private equity, and specifically this company

Traci Thomas 1:12:44

And she sucks, and she has no taste, and all these things. And I hate all these things about her. I will sometimes when she posts crazy things, because she was going full on, racist, Islamophobic, nutso on Zohran Mamdani. I will take her post, and I will put it in my story, and I will say people who go on this podcast are supporting this level of hatred and this person, if you are a book publicist or you are an author who is pitching to go on this podcast, you are supporting this level of Islamophobia, and to me, that is an appropriate rising to the occasion of hating someone. I do not go into these comments and be like, you're Islamophobic. Never. I want to raise the ante. Okay? I am saying bet, let's go. I once commented on something she posted after the election, and I said, this is the exact kind of bullshit I expect for someone who's as self serving as you, because that is true. She then went into my DMs. Do you know what I did? I didn't respond because I wanted to have a public battle with this person, right? So like to me, there are ways to be confrontational online that are appropriate for what someone has done, but I'm not doing that. If you just post a list of books and said, This is my favorite book this year, I don't care. I think you're wrong, but I don't care. But when you start getting racist, Islamophobic, when you start using your privilege for bad, bad, bad things, supporting Donald Trump for one, I and you are my equal right. Like we are contemporaries. We are doing the same thing. We are have similar size followings. We are in the same space. I'm coming for you. I'm not punching up to someone who doesn't give a fuck, and I'm certainly not punching down to someone who is just, like, posting about books for fun, so that's sort of my thing.

Nora McInerny 1:14:35

Yeah, and you're not, you're not in somebody's comments who's like, you're not punching down in the way that something that I don't like online, too is when people will take, you know, a post from someone who is like, waking up, coming into consciousness, and is like, wait, I voted for Donald Trump, and now I don't have health care, and my husband lost his job, and people are like, fuck around and find out

Traci Thomas 1:14:56

Like, if I wanted to talk shit about someone like that that I knew or was related to, or something like, like, was like, connected to, I would take a screenshot and put that in the group chat for sure. Because, like, I will talk shit about you because, like, we fucking told you so. But I'm not gonna try to embarrass you publicly for that. I'm only trying to make people feel bad for publicly being a fucking asshole. If Zibby came out one day and was like, I want to change everything about me, and I'm so embarrassed about my whole life, I would probably post that and be like, let's see how this goes. But I wouldn't be like, zibby, how dare you. You've ruined the world. Like, we already know you've ruined the world. Girl, like

Nora McInerny 1:15:35

I will say, I will say, I like this. I like this. Take, the last time that I engaged with Zibby Owens was January 6

Traci Thomas 1:15:46

2021 or just of this year?

Nora McInerny 1:15:48

2021, and she made a post about the insurrection, and said, I can't believe something like, I can't believe this is happening. I don't understand how our how this is our country. And I commented, ask your dad.

Traci Thomas 1:16:03

And that is appropriate. See, that's funny. This is a bit.

Nora McInerny 1:16:12

Why are we pretending? Why are we pretending otherwise? And this is, again, this, this does connect to, like, the power and money conversation, where people believe that, that, you know, no one said anything to Diddy. Okay, all it, all it would have taken was one guy to punch him in the face. That's right, right? One guy humble him, humble him, and it didn't happen. And people are really uncomfortable with like, people I get a billion dollars, is 1000 million dollars, and I I have a very of a very similar take, a very similar, similar hard time with that person's presence in the literary community. I think it's also I was approached once to write for a magazine that she was launching for free. She has her own authors do marketing for free. I don't ask anyone to work for me for free. People have reached out and said, Can I can I intern with you? No, because I want I would have to pay you.

Traci Thomas 1:17:20

The only people who work for me for free are my kids? Okay, that's my kid. They have Okay, well, my kids don't get paid for clearing their dishes and making their bed. You work here. You keep the house clean, you little brats. Everyone else gets paid. Or I can't work with you. If I can't afford it, I can't do it.

Nora McInerny 1:17:35

If you can't afford it, you can't do it. And guess what? Like, you can afford it, if you you can afford it

Traci Thomas 1:17:43

Here's my perspective on Blackstone: They have, I believe it's over $3 trillion worth of holdings. So that's a million billions, right? Isn't a trillion, a million billions

Nora McInerny 1:17:56

something like that. It's too much. It's too much.

Traci Thomas 1:17:57

Exactly, people can't even fathom the dollar amount.

Nora McInerny 1:17:58

You know, we're gonna put in the description, we're gonna put, like, one of those visualizations that shows you a million versus a billion versus because it's, it's, it's too many, it's too many. But yeah, people are always so sure that like that will trickle down to them in some really meaningful way. Okay, so, again, this one is connected to so many other things, but overconsumption content. Tiktok is filled with videos of like people who own 100 Stanley's in different colors. Oh, my God, pack my purse and it's just a bunch of individually packaged things. And yes, our number one plastic polluters, our number one, just polluters in general, are giant corporations and yet And yet And yet. Must we? Must we? There's just something so gross about it. It's disturbing to me, and I just see everything as a future landfill. I really do. I really do, and we already thrifting is suffering. There's so little good stuff to thrift anymore because everybody is just buying garbage. Everything has been turned into garbage, and it's just like the overconsumption of garbage. This is my least favorite kind of Tiktok. First of all, on Tiktok, every third video is an ad. I don't every third video on Tiktok, on Instagram Stories, tap in, oh, there's Traci, there's Chelsea, there's Caroline AD, AD, AD, AD, there's a friend ad, there's a friend ad. Like constant, constant, everywhere. But Tiktok specifically is like mini infomercials, yeah, because they have made it. It's very brilliant, right? It's very brilliant to make something instantly shoppable, and in many ways, I think that this is, you know, an economic opportunity for people who might not have gotten that opportunity before. That's kind of what, like, you know, influencing at a at a lower level, sort of is, right? Like, how do, like, you asked me about a robe, right? Like, that's what we do. That's what we do for people we know, right? I'm gonna ask you about books. I'm gonna ask you. I'm gonna ask you, know, my sister, about lipsticks, like, all these things like, you might as well make 10% of the sale on that I get that. I think that's great. And these videos start with someone being like, someone's losing their job because the price on this is so low. Yeah, no one's losing their job. That's just, that's just, that's a planned sale. That's the price, that's, that's the price. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? Every single video starts like a little infomercial. And, you know, again, you know, companies used to spend billions of dollars on like, you know, commercial spots, and now they're just, like, sort of sharing a cut of profits with regular people. I think that's great, but like, you don't need, I think you just need one water bottle. I've got, that's right, two water bottles, right now. Why do I have two? Because one is from the fancy grocery store, and I get a $1 Arnold Palmer when I use it. Okay?

Traci Thomas 1:21:18

I have two water bottles. One's for my bag out of the house. And the other is my in the house water bottle. Oh, this is my in the house one, because it has a straw. It has a straw, it has a straw.

Nora McInerny 1:21:28

That's my, that's my Arnie one, and it's over there, that is actually my inside one. It's got the handle, like, over the top.

Traci Thomas 1:21:36

Mine is just like an owala one. It has a little loop. But I never use it because I'm worried that my thing's gonna open, so I just hold it in my hand.

Nora McInerny 1:21:46

Oh, I don't worry enough about that. But, yeah, the Owala is on the go. Straw is for staying staying put. And it's like, that kind of content specifically, just like, stresses me out. It really stresses me out.

Traci Thomas 1:21:58

I find that I'm really bad at a lot of the influencing stuff. Like, I'm not a particularly good influencer for anything but books, right? Like, that's my lane. But if I do find something that I love, I will talk about it. But it's just very rare that I'm talking about anything, because it's just I don't think we need more things. Like, I will talk about a sneaker. I have these leopard print sambas that I love, but now everybody has them, and I'm so annoyed I keep seeing people out in the world with them, and I'm like, What the fuck. And I my, my gripe with influencer culture is, like, it used to be that influencers used to actually have an opinion about things. Like, it would be like, Oh, need jeans. These jeans are cute. These jeans I thought were cute, but they really stretch out after wearing them. Like I actually worn and interacted with this product. Now it's just like, Oh, my God, you have to have these Amazon Levi jeans, and everyone's wearing the same jeans. Everyone's wearing those same jellies, those like low top jelly, high top things, like, everybody has the same clothes, the same best gets from Amazon, but it's the same thing. I'm just like guys. I if you want to, if you want to hustle and sell shit online, great, I respect it. I respect, I respect the hustle, but you've got to provide something different. How can I tell you, apart from everyone else? If you have the same shit, it just makes me not trust any of your stuff. It's the people who have an opinion who are like, those great jeans on Amazon. I got them, and they are weird. I have camel toe. These are the jeans you should get. They're actually flattering. And I'm like, Wow, thank you. A person with an opinion, you don't have to like everything. You don't have to sell everything that everyone else is selling. That's the part that drives me up the wall. It's like, the same voice and the same presentation, yes, and it's like the same hooks. And I'm just, like, get a personality

Nora McInerny 1:23:56

there's like, I It's, I'm pretty consistent with, like, the brands and the items, you know, very consistent, same stuff, right? It's been these headphones and the Bose quiet comfort 35 like, those are, those are the things. Maybe those are the things. And so if, if another company is like, can we send you headphones and we promote them? I won't, because I these are the headphones that I use, these are the two headphones. So those are the ones. Those are the ones. Those are the ones. And I really have a hard time with people where, like, it's always a haul. Yes, it's always a haul. Like you, you don't need to, like, have a whole a house full of, like, new seasonal decor every year. What happened to last year's Christmas stuff, right? You know,

Traci Thomas 1:24:37

like, you had a red Christmas. Now you're gonna have a green Christmas. Like, Christmas like, Christmas is red, white and green. Mix it up. Mix and match.

Nora McInerny 1:24:44

I have the tackiest people this year were like, the new trend is, like, tacky Christmas. It's always been tacky at my house, baby, it's always been tacky. That's Christmas. You think I've ever done a minimalist Christmas? A chic Christmas, a chic Christmas?

Traci Thomas 1:24:58

Well, I do a minimalist Christmas. Because I don't want to put anything up. So it's the stockings the tree. That's it.

Nora McInerny 1:25:06

November 1, our house is overtaken. I've taken down all of our normal tchotchkes. Everything goes, what like? Everything's boxed up. Oh, my God, because I'm putting up the Christmas Village.

Traci Thomas 1:25:19

Will you come to my house with a box full of things and just do it for me?

Nora McInerny 1:25:22

Yes. And honestly, I think you know what I think your kids would find really magical. And I have some. I have some is a department 56 mini Christmas Village.

Traci Thomas 1:25:28

I don't even know what that means.

Nora McInerny 1:25:29

I'm gonna send you a picture of mine, and you're gonna get on Facebook marketplace, and you are going to find them.

Traci Thomas 1:25:34

I'm not on Facebook. You need to find them for me and tell me where to go.

Nora McInerny 1:25:41

I will find them for you. I will. It's so magical, these little ceramic houses that used to be hand painted in the 80s and 90s.

Traci Thomas 1:25:49

We used to have, I used to have some of those.

Nora McInerny 1:25:52

You plug them in and they light up a little bit. They light up into warm glow. And there's like a light Christmas.

Traci Thomas 1:25:57

But like those like pads of like, what's the word I'm looking for? It's not a Q tip, oh, cotton balls. It's like a cotton ball pad. And then there's, like, some people in the town, there's some people carrying their ice skates.

Nora McInerny 1:26:16

Yeah, yeah. There's some people, all our people, happen to get knocked off and broken, and I cry every time. But yeah, there's some people, and there's like, little accessories, and it's just like, that's

Traci Thomas 1:26:25

Do you put your village and one specific place, or are they throughout the home.

Nora McInerny 1:26:29

There's like, Look, if Matthew really loved me, we would have a nook built into this wall, okay, kind of like your bookshelf right behind you, right that had a power source we could push into what is our closet. I've thought about this. Okay, there would be a big, just a big painting on the wall, right? You take off that painting, you pull down a panel, a leg pops out. It's a table. I see that I can set more of them on. But built into those shelves is the power supply. And all other houses are already up, and then the big piece is go out on this display table, and that is what I'm aiming for. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Traci Thomas 1:27:09

I think Matthew has some explaining to do why he hasn't done it. It's weird. It's questionable for him.

Nora McInerny 1:27:17

To me, it's weird to me. It's like your wife told you that one thing matters to her, which is a different thing every day, but today

Traci Thomas 1:27:25

It's this Murphy bed situation.

Nora McInerny 1:27:29

I want a Murphy bed for my Christmas Village. Okay? Because I just don't think it's that much to ask. I don't think it's that much to ask, and it would just keep them. I just think it could do more with it, because I have a train, well, I don't have a space to put the whole track up. So now I'll send you pictures, please. Everybody will see pictures. There's, you know, there's, there's two main displays in the house, but, you know, hoping to make some changes,

Traci Thomas 1:27:57

yeah, hoping to build it needs its own place. What did Marie Kondo say? Everything needs a place. You know?

Nora McInerny 1:28:02

Everything needs a place, and everything should bring you. It sparks joy and delight and like, and it's like, exciting for my kids too, like, even like the older kids are go the village is going up. Our 24 year old had a friend over for dinner, and he walked in, he goes, Oh, Ian told me about these.

Traci Thomas 1:28:20

This is your lore.

Nora McInerny 1:28:22

I was like, now, turn the corner. And he was like, gasp.

Traci Thomas 1:28:25

This is your seasonal lore.

Nora McInerny 1:28:27

This the seasonal lore. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Do you have anything else to hate?

Traci Thomas 1:28:31

Okay, I do. I have something I have to hate. And I sent this to you. Okay, I'm not gonna do the traditional Olivia Nuzzi hate. Okay, okay, I don't fucking care about her. Like, good for her. Fuck whoever you want, do what you want. It's not great for journalism. Maybe don't do it. But like, if you're, if you're fucking, that's you. I don't care. These men are responsible too. My hate is Keith olbermann's hour long rant about Olivia Nuzzi. Keith Olbermann, dated Olivia Nuzzi when she was 18, and he was 52 Okay, so I just want to, I can't do the math, but it's, it's more than five years, it's more than 20 years. It's in the 30s. Me, I think it's in the 30s. It's in the 30s. It's probably 38 or so years. But again, I can't do the math, so maybe 34 who knows? Who cares? It's a whole adult person Keith Olbermann could have dated that could have been born in that time between the two of them, who would be more appropriate, but still, a big age gap from a 52 year old would be that 38 to 34 year old person that I don't know, but he got on his podcast where he talks by himself. And went through first he bashed her book and her writing, which I read a few, a little bit of the book, and it is extremely bad. So he was right there. But he did it in a mean way. He was like, Olivia can't it should have been called American, an American, Olivia Canto, right? Or something like, you know, just meetings talked about her eyes. It was so weird. But then he gets into the meat and potatoes of the relationship, including that they had complimentary tattoos, which means you had fucking matching tattoos with a teenager. My guy, you were in your 50s, and you were so pussy whipped, or whatever you want to call it by this young girl,