Hahah. Yes, let’s get meta here. Who will fact check the fact checkers? What if the entire podcast just became Jessie and Katie doing episodes about each other and things they have said in previous episodes?
I actually believe most of what Mitchell says. God, some of you people are no better than Redditors. I get that skepticism can be a virtue, but after awhile the constant beeping of your bullshit detectors sound like inverse virtue signaling to me.
I have a completely different, but similarly unbelievable life story (wait, one year your family went to Disney world twice, and five years later you're homeless sleeping on relatives floors in Philadelphia? Wait, you were born with brain damage and had to go to Easter Seals, but you got a fellowship for graduate school?) Guess what, contradiction is actually pretty common as most people's lives aren't linear in the kind of episodic fashion people here seem to expect.
Florida IS a whole different world. My parents lived there for a bit and almost every industry has a seedy, sleazy edge to it. I believe that Mitchell is on the spectrum because he seems to be very focused on Rules and Frames and Percentages. A decade ago he would have been probably considered to have high functioning Asperger's.
I haven't finished yet as I am only 38 minutes in, but what is the Abortion video he references? This is why I also believe Mitchell is right when he talks about being on the spectrum, as he does this very spectrumy thing where he assumes we all understand his reference points.
Good job, Katie. This is one of the better eps so far!
In the one area he speaks to that I know a little something about (dog breeding), he makes no sense. Large-scale dog breeding began long before his or his mom's lifetime. He's clearly exaggerating here, so why shouldn't I assume he's exaggerating in other stories he tells?
He also mentions its a distant relative not his mom. It starts around 3:30. And it's the development of the modern puppy mill industry (or commercial dog business). His mom owned the largest privately owned pet store.
It's actually Katie who says she never knew the dog breeding industry was created by someone (around 4:56) and he says to her it existed before. Then like Columba Livia says he clarifies its the broker system.
A lot of what he says checks out like the repurposing of already existing coops, traveling to MO and that it's a very women driven business.
He wasn't a poor kid who also went to an elite private school and also had a second backyard house and also had a mom who has a badass girl boss and also had a mom who was a literal prostitute (purpose of extra house) and also had teenage friends who regularly got paid to get drunkenly assault Peta protestors. He was probably a rich kid who went to an elite school, had lots of connections, and did a lot of cool (sometimes problematic) stuff before he was 25.
I didn’t hate this episode like some of the comments do, but the last fifteen minutes are basically a PR piece for a book and I don’t think the podcast should be doing that, even for people Katie likes.
Don't conflate "this guy is full of shit" with "I don't like this episode." I thought the ep was fine. His story may have been exaggerated BS, but it was damn interesting. Who saw the Bunny Ranch bit coming?!?
“He had 10,000 prostitutes lined up and they spelled in semaphore ‘FUCK VICE’ while a marching band of disabled veterans played the star spangled banner!”
Every story he tells sounds like it could be out of white trash big fish.
The scene described in the interview is perfectly in-line with Dennis Hoff's extensively documented personality and the business practices of the Bunny Ranch.
"She's one of the best writers of my generation....She's a rare talent...She just has such an original voice, where so many people don't...She has a voice...She has a rare voice...It reads like Breakfast at Tiffanys."
15 secs ago the dude explained why journalists are good at PR. They know how to work the media. I was dying for Katie to jump in and say, "I mean, you're her PR agent. You would say all of these things, right?"
The background on Vice and their transition from frat house to woke was awesome. I think there’s material for a lot of stories along this line. That said, I think Mitchell’s own story was a bit underplayed.
But when Mitchell started talking about Calloway it felt like he really slipped into PR mode and started working Katie. He was grinding hard to make Calloway sound like the next F Scott Fitzgerald and kinda dismissed the shady stuff she did that Katie kept bringing up. Like seriously Katie needs to send him a bill for the ad time.
I would be great to pull Mitchell in as a semi-regular guest weighing in on PR strategies of Internet main characters.
Also: claiming to be autistic, endlessly talking about puppy mills, dropping in highly dubious stories...all stuff that Katie would usually very quick to clap back at when not face-to-face with someone.
Very true! Although I guess when you’re interviewing, somebody, to a certain degree, you have to just step back and let them tell their story, and if you think there are dubious claims being made, perhaps the strategy is just let them hang them self with their own rope, especially since she wasn’t really there to test the veracity of his biography, per se.
I’ve met a lot of people like this, who work on the periphery of media (like saying “I don’t even work IN the garbage fire, I work on the periphery of the garbage fire!”).
in my opinion, this kind of heightening of the truth or embellishing stems from the fact that they realize that what they do is meaningless and so they try to bolster their statements with these larger than life stories, as if to say, yes, my job and existence are largely meaningless but listen to all of these amazing things that happened to me. I am spectacular!
It is a weird combination of insecurity and grandiosity that you find in some media types. I have known writers like this, and they just scream mental illness. Like, you can just picture their medicine cabinet full of Rxs.
I have a neighbor who is a “director” and she often tells me stories about this or that person who wronged her or “I’m gonna sue our building manager” and then when you ask a clarifying question or two it’s like, oh the “assault” she’s referring to was that someone from the water company didn’t call her back.
I didn’t love this interview for the same reasons people are discussing. But I did really enjoy learning about PR strategies -- this is very much not my world and I thought it was useful to learn
An odd character for sure. One wishes he were the focus of an episode and not the main interview subject. Also “I can speak coastal elite AND gay AND maga…” I mean, two of those things aren’t really different. And anybody can speak maga/heartland. It’s just called “having met more than 20 people.”
I mean, I wouldn't fully assume he knows what he's talking about. But there is definitely a difference between professional information vs. personal information.
Was it me or did he say what the correct "PR" move was only after revealing what PR moves definitely didn't work? Like.. I think I could come up with the "correct" strategy after you tell me what was definitely a losing strategy.
I strangely agree on the guest thing even though I didn't like the episode very much (I mean, maybe for 30 minutes for this story but not over an hour, I got bored). I don't want to hear him talk about his life but I would enjoy listening to him talk about other people, dissecting their strategies.
Katie & Jesse, I'mma let you finish, but this breaking news has to be shared with the BaRpod community: someone is crowdfunding a Rebekah Jones documentary right now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joshfox/rebekah-jones-whistleblower?ref=section-homepage-featured-project A member of the BaRpod team should back it at $1 so you guys can follow the updates on it if the creator switches updates to be "backers only" like that enemies list project on Kickstarter a few years ago.
I had to stop listening after his gleeful retelling of his puppy mill childhood. I’m not extreme, I have a purebred dog myself, but puppy mills suck and are horrible for both the sick, mistreated dogs and the heartbroken people who buy and fall in love with a dog only to have it meet a tragic and early death due to poor breeding and health screening. I automatically distrust anyone who knows how the sausage is made at puppy mills and doesn’t see a problem. What would Moose say?
I was surprised that Katie did not absolutely eviscerate him for being so uncritical of that exploitative and cruel industry. Dogs are the one thing she confesses to caring about. And this industry is almost always really awful for the dogs themselves.
I've seen photos of the 'best' commercial dog breeding facilities, and they're clean, well-lit, climate controlled and modern. The puppies (may be) physically healthy and cared for but raising dogs in cages indoors like poultry is just the worst way to create animals that are meant to live in homes and have social skills that even those elite places doesn't make commercial-scale breeding of them look acceptable, to me. Though I could see how someone who only saw places like that when they were a child might have rose-colored glasses about it, I suppose.
Also, you can tell a lot about a “purebred” dog breeder (there’s no such thing as a purebred dog - it’s all a scam) by trying to visit the facility unannounced. It’s eye opening and heart breaking. IMO ethically bred dogs are a myth.
I just couldn’t get past that, either. I knew a guy who seems pretty similar— a colorful (if not brazenly dishonest) storyteller, loved to boast about (inflated) family prestige, and was incredibly disloyal to everyone in his life— including pets. His callous disregard for animal life was near psychopathic. Walking red flags, these types. Definitely not interested in spending an hour on this dude.
Well in fairness they could have opposed the puppy farm without calling a child unpleasant names or implying they were going to kill him (assuming that's all true - I'm leaning towards exaggerated). There have been cases of animal rights activists going way too far https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/oct/25/animal-research-animal-welfare. And the story he referenced about the mink being released rang true. There are many examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Animal_Liberation_Front_actions Mitchell is rather dismissive of this action which I think is fair. It's not very well thought out. Even if the mink can survive the impact on the local wildlife, may not be good. For example, the Whiteclaw crayfish is critically endangered in the UK due to the accidental and intentional release of the American Signal Crayfish.
I am not sure how apposite the example is but, Megan Phelps-Roper has talked about her experience as a child in the Westboro Baptist Church. She explains that the counter-protests only caused entrenchment but, people reaching out to her to talk totally changed her world view. Perhaps Mitchell had that experience but, no-one ever reached out to him to talk about the evils of puppy farms.
"The whole world for those of us who live on Twitter and/or in a coastal city," maybe. This podcast and comment sections about it are literally the only times in my life I encounter any of this stuff. My coworkers are just this year starting to hear about trans people.
Yeah I am struck by how on my most recent work trip to a pretty liberal client with very diverse staff-people were openly making pronoun jokes. There also seemed to be zero tension about the fact that the consultants and directors were mostly white and the staff black/Latino the way there is some places. But they also weren’t big and corporate and I am sure most of them were nowhere near an Ivy in college.
On the corporate end of my world it is much more according to twitter/Ivy rules.
I'm thankful that I don't have a corporate side of my world. Last year, the youngest girl in our office asked me casually, "what do you think about that trans stuff?" Almost verbatim. I'm grateful that the horror stories I read about online are as fantastical to me as they are.
Eh, I encounter that stuff daily, this forum and related is when I see pushback (same with twitter, although it also has the worst stuff). I live in the midwest (although, granted, Chicago, but we were normie even in 2010).
Enjoyed the episode, really interested in the story, but it wasn’t really the whole story - it was an entertaining softball interview. Usually Katie does a lot of follow up digging and I get that it’s hard to do that without a cohost for conversational framing, but this guy was so braggadocios that I can’t completely trust everything I heard. He and Katie rail a bit on the nepotism and transactional friendliness of media types, but it almost seem like that’s what was happening here to a degree. I bet most of it is true, but you’ve gotta have your bullshit meter finally tuned and prepared when you speak to people who talk this way. Otherwise, small and important inflated details easily slip through as fact.
"I was discriminated against for being gay but when I went to a stern old gay lawyer he told me to suck it up, we have people that are actually being deported."
Have you ever dealt with lawyers? They will take your money if there is even a scintilla of merit to your claim. Those that work hourly will run up the clock regardless of the merit of your claim.
I am a lawyer. And I don't agree -- no one billing hourly will take a claim if someone is unlikely to be able to pay, and no one sensible will take a contingency case unless they think they can win/settle for an amount that will make them money.
But more to the point, I was referring to the stuff about Vice trying to get clicks by trolling for reaction from RWers.
I might have to listen again but, didn't he say that at least in one instance he had an email where he was specifically instructed to get someone to comment on a video about abortion?
I'm kind of flabbergasted by the autism truthers here.
So I've mentioned before that I have Aspergers and ADHD, diagnosed through neuropsychiatric testing, and I completely believe he's autistic - at least, the same flavor of sperg I am. We'd get along like a house on fire. Probably. There's different flavors of autism - some of us are just socially impaired enough to not be able to adroitly handle complex social interactions in real time, but have other areas where we're more impaired.
The "exaggerating" /"lying"? Some of it is definitely generalizing errors - or at least, the phenomena of having difficulty of judging what people already know (beginning in the middle if the story, sort of), not being able to always understand/communicate what details are important and generalizing the wrong ones, and THEN not understanding that your spergy overly concrete generalization will be not be interpreted in the way you actually intend by your audience. It's the theory of mind issue I struggle with a lot - I either skip steps and lose people, or overly explain minutiae no one gives two fucks about.
Extraverted autists are a thing, some of us find people interesting, and we try to figure out ways to, if we can't be like everyone else, find a way to make our weirdness palatable in social situations, and that kind of flamboyance/theatrical mode is one way people do it.
I'm also not shocked he's in PR, especially crisis management. I'm in marketing research and strategy - those of us who are lucky enough to be wordcels, highly intelligent, and find people and human behavior fascinating tend to be really good at creating models of certain kinds of social behavior. Crisis management is basically predicting what inputs will make certain groups leave you alone. From going through it himself he has good, concrete detailed exoerience to have a pretty good idea on how journalists react, how crowds react, and how a cancelled person should/should not react. Makes sense to me.
I can see how he could have done a lot of sketchy/unethical stuff at Vice and not understood that even if 'everyone' knew they were skirting/crossing the line. I've been in situations where I've shrugged, thought "Oh, I guess this is just how things work" and tried to replicate what others were doing with all the subtlety of a bull in a China shop. I bet everyone else emailing with "the other side" was being much more careful about it, adding plausible deniability or covering their tracks better. I bet he was even chosen for it because of his naivety/lack of guile.
The thing with the lawyer also made me laugh, because that's the exact kind of thing I'd've done when I was younger - "They're breaking the law! Therefore a lawyer will be able to help me!" it's such characteristic autistic naivety.
you, as an autist probably feel in this comment section how I felt in the one about long covid.
"Let me tell you all the ways your sister didn't have a cardiac arrest and arterial dissection from covid and how she must have manifested it due to mental health issues. ACE-2 receptors are fake news and covid is a respiratory disease even if evidence says it is vascular and causes neurological damage, and even if all this was true she did it was her fault for wearing a mask. I know this because someone I find distasteful has long covid therefore they are faking it and therefore your sister is, too. I am very smart and based and rational."
Absolutely no-one suggested your sister was faking her illness.
Katie and Jesse's episode was about the fact that a study might not be reliable because people self-reported their symptoms which included chronic fatigue. This described a phenomenon very different to your sister's experience and that was what everyone was discussing. It is entirely possible for a phenomenon to exist and for a study to be poor.
I engaged with you in good faith and didn't say any of those things and I didn't see anyone else argue that here on Substack.
Yeah, I remember that thread - it was brutal. I wasn't COVID news obsessed, but I definitely heard the reports of neurological, heart, and vascular damage coming out from the first few months of the pandemic - long before any of vaccines was available. And I was grieving my dad's sudden death at the time. This isn't unprecedented either - Swine flu (and it's vaccine) directly caused narcolepsy in a people with a rare genetic mutation in Sweden and Finland.
I have no idea why people, here of all comment sections, completely turn their brains off when it comes to COVID after effects.
How's she doing now, by they way?
To be honest, I feel... Well, I know that us autists communicate often in ways that really make neurotypical people uncomfortable, because even the best of us can give off an "uncanny valley" vibe. Which is why I feel safest online, in text. I guess I just feel pretty bummed that a significant chunk of my favorite comment section probably would not like interacting with me in real life.
She's not doing great. The brain damage is progressive from damage done to the myelin sheath. She has days where she is her old self and days where it is like dealing with a toddler. She needs a rollater to walk at 37 years old.
I see a lot of people hated it, but i didn't mind this episode. I also pinged that there was most likely some exaggerating happening by Mitchell, re: drunk friends fighting PETA, beating up a jock, etc. I got the vibe that these were not outright lies, but embellishments. Which, eh. Kinda lame, but not an egregious offense imo. The REAL issue for me was the 15 minute adulation and unchecked praise by Mitchell of Caroline Fucking Calloway. Like...what is happening??? I adore minor pop culture side characters as well as internet drama, so I'm well aware of Calloway and even find her to be pretty entertaining/undeniably alluring in a manic, WASP-y, unhinged way. That being said...why is there someone on fucking Blocked & Reported ravinggg about her being the great American millennial author?? Like, she is decidedly NOT that. She's smart and semi-entertaining, yes, but has anyone checked Goodreads regarding Scammer? The book has a 2 star rating. It's being ripped to shreds on every reader review site. Isn't BARpod's whole thing being critical of and deconstructing what the mainstream media represents and is presenting to the world? Maybe they shouldn't be completely trusting WaPo reporting on an industry insider like Calloway. I dont know, the Calloway bit was just so jarring and I kept thinking, why is Caroline Calloway being discussed in this manner on this particular podcast?? Bringing up the book is, I suppose, sort of relevant, but letting a PR guy ramble on and on with no pushback about his client/friend being the next Truman Capote was, um....odd, to say the least.
I hadn't heard of her before and read the linked articles and thought "yeah this is bad, she [is? was?] a hustler," but there's been recent noise about Goodreads disingenuous review bullshit. That said having not heard of Calloway before it was jarring to read about her after this episode in which Mitchell fawns over her, especially since he's a PR guy. Smacked of ulterior motive. Otherwise count me among the people who enjoyed this episode with babyfists of salt.
I was curious so I did look up Goddess Bunny and she genuinely was incredible, but she (as far as I can tell) didn't have AIDS and wasn't a "little person" -- she was 5'2". Which is small, but not "little person" small. She died of COVID in 2021 :(
I'm not saying that's not true because I can't read it but, if Mitchell is the source to confirm Goddess Bunny's death, might he not also be the source to confirm she had AIDS?
edit. to be clear if Mitchell is the source then I'm sure it is true as they were friendly and he might well therefore know. I'm just curious.
Ah yes, Caroline Calloway, the true voice of our generation. And a true victim in all circumstances. The thing that makes her at all interesting is how incredibly spoiled and messy she is; to completely write that off makes her boring and no one will want to spend $60 on her self-published book. Also a little disappointing Katie didn’t push back on any of his ridiculous claims about her.
OMG $60? I was going to buy it out of curiosity. Not for.. double checking.. $65 + shipping and taxes. I will wait and get a non-luxury paperback with the other proles.
Oh for sure. But the only way to sell her is to say yes this woman is a mess, don’t you want to gawp at her, not she’s the inspiring voice of our generation. Because, as you point out, she’s a scammer.
I feel like the weird art kid I was never friends with just cornered me and told his life story at our high school reunion.
Extreme accurate
Jesse, can you please do one of your deep-dive fact checks this episode. I don't think I believe anything this guys says.
Hahah. Yes, let’s get meta here. Who will fact check the fact checkers? What if the entire podcast just became Jessie and Katie doing episodes about each other and things they have said in previous episodes?
I actually believe most of what Mitchell says. God, some of you people are no better than Redditors. I get that skepticism can be a virtue, but after awhile the constant beeping of your bullshit detectors sound like inverse virtue signaling to me.
I have a completely different, but similarly unbelievable life story (wait, one year your family went to Disney world twice, and five years later you're homeless sleeping on relatives floors in Philadelphia? Wait, you were born with brain damage and had to go to Easter Seals, but you got a fellowship for graduate school?) Guess what, contradiction is actually pretty common as most people's lives aren't linear in the kind of episodic fashion people here seem to expect.
Florida IS a whole different world. My parents lived there for a bit and almost every industry has a seedy, sleazy edge to it. I believe that Mitchell is on the spectrum because he seems to be very focused on Rules and Frames and Percentages. A decade ago he would have been probably considered to have high functioning Asperger's.
I haven't finished yet as I am only 38 minutes in, but what is the Abortion video he references? This is why I also believe Mitchell is right when he talks about being on the spectrum, as he does this very spectrumy thing where he assumes we all understand his reference points.
Good job, Katie. This is one of the better eps so far!
In the one area he speaks to that I know a little something about (dog breeding), he makes no sense. Large-scale dog breeding began long before his or his mom's lifetime. He's clearly exaggerating here, so why shouldn't I assume he's exaggerating in other stories he tells?
He also mentions its a distant relative not his mom. It starts around 3:30. And it's the development of the modern puppy mill industry (or commercial dog business). His mom owned the largest privately owned pet store.
It's actually Katie who says she never knew the dog breeding industry was created by someone (around 4:56) and he says to her it existed before. Then like Columba Livia says he clarifies its the broker system.
A lot of what he says checks out like the repurposing of already existing coops, traveling to MO and that it's a very women driven business.
He clarifies that his mom came up with the broker system that most puppy mills use to wholesale their dogs, not commercial dog breeding itself.
He wasn't a poor kid who also went to an elite private school and also had a second backyard house and also had a mom who has a badass girl boss and also had a mom who was a literal prostitute (purpose of extra house) and also had teenage friends who regularly got paid to get drunkenly assault Peta protestors. He was probably a rich kid who went to an elite school, had lots of connections, and did a lot of cool (sometimes problematic) stuff before he was 25.
“and also had a mom who was a literal prostitute (purpose of extra house)”
The dude said “hoarding” not whoring.
Hahaha! I wanted to hear more about the hoarding.
I didn’t hate this episode like some of the comments do, but the last fifteen minutes are basically a PR piece for a book and I don’t think the podcast should be doing that, even for people Katie likes.
Don't conflate "this guy is full of shit" with "I don't like this episode." I thought the ep was fine. His story may have been exaggerated BS, but it was damn interesting. Who saw the Bunny Ranch bit coming?!?
“He had 10,000 prostitutes lined up and they spelled in semaphore ‘FUCK VICE’ while a marching band of disabled veterans played the star spangled banner!”
Every story he tells sounds like it could be out of white trash big fish.
The scene described in the interview is perfectly in-line with Dennis Hoff's extensively documented personality and the business practices of the Bunny Ranch.
Agreed. Wild characters are the bread and butter of the show. Being sold the BS firsthand (and not as a retelling) was strange, but enjoyable.
Haha. The Bunny Ranch story sounds like total BS but it was creative and funny. Conveniently, the LATE Dennis Hof is not available to corroborate.
There were several stories involving people who are dead. Very convenient.
And his company’s weird cancellation service thing!
I enjoyed watching him work Katie for the PR. Listening to the episode, I though "I see why this guy is good at PR."
"She's one of the best writers of my generation....She's a rare talent...She just has such an original voice, where so many people don't...She has a voice...She has a rare voice...It reads like Breakfast at Tiffanys."
15 secs ago the dude explained why journalists are good at PR. They know how to work the media. I was dying for Katie to jump in and say, "I mean, you're her PR agent. You would say all of these things, right?"
Yeah, I didn’t hate it exactly, I just didn’t have any context for it and listening to the episode didn’t really make me want to.
The background on Vice and their transition from frat house to woke was awesome. I think there’s material for a lot of stories along this line. That said, I think Mitchell’s own story was a bit underplayed.
But when Mitchell started talking about Calloway it felt like he really slipped into PR mode and started working Katie. He was grinding hard to make Calloway sound like the next F Scott Fitzgerald and kinda dismissed the shady stuff she did that Katie kept bringing up. Like seriously Katie needs to send him a bill for the ad time.
I would be great to pull Mitchell in as a semi-regular guest weighing in on PR strategies of Internet main characters.
Also: claiming to be autistic, endlessly talking about puppy mills, dropping in highly dubious stories...all stuff that Katie would usually very quick to clap back at when not face-to-face with someone.
WE WERE A WHITE TRASH DOG DYNASTY AND ALL MY FRIENDS WERE IN THE CARTEL
I hope we learn Katie couldn't clap back because she actually Meghan Markled the episode. Trace did the interview and she just dubbed over his voice.
Very true! Although I guess when you’re interviewing, somebody, to a certain degree, you have to just step back and let them tell their story, and if you think there are dubious claims being made, perhaps the strategy is just let them hang them self with their own rope, especially since she wasn’t really there to test the veracity of his biography, per se.
I’ve met a lot of people like this, who work on the periphery of media (like saying “I don’t even work IN the garbage fire, I work on the periphery of the garbage fire!”).
in my opinion, this kind of heightening of the truth or embellishing stems from the fact that they realize that what they do is meaningless and so they try to bolster their statements with these larger than life stories, as if to say, yes, my job and existence are largely meaningless but listen to all of these amazing things that happened to me. I am spectacular!
It is a weird combination of insecurity and grandiosity that you find in some media types. I have known writers like this, and they just scream mental illness. Like, you can just picture their medicine cabinet full of Rxs.
I have a neighbor who is a “director” and she often tells me stories about this or that person who wronged her or “I’m gonna sue our building manager” and then when you ask a clarifying question or two it’s like, oh the “assault” she’s referring to was that someone from the water company didn’t call her back.
I didn’t love this interview for the same reasons people are discussing. But I did really enjoy learning about PR strategies -- this is very much not my world and I thought it was useful to learn
An odd character for sure. One wishes he were the focus of an episode and not the main interview subject. Also “I can speak coastal elite AND gay AND maga…” I mean, two of those things aren’t really different. And anybody can speak maga/heartland. It’s just called “having met more than 20 people.”
Yeah! The stuff on PR strategies is really interesting – it’s actually doing PR work in the interview that’s off putting
Agree. I work in a PR-adjacent job and am still amazed at what goes on behind the scenes, especially in the political realm.
Nothing is what it seems and there are so many double-agents!
I mean, I wouldn't fully assume he knows what he's talking about. But there is definitely a difference between professional information vs. personal information.
Was it me or did he say what the correct "PR" move was only after revealing what PR moves definitely didn't work? Like.. I think I could come up with the "correct" strategy after you tell me what was definitely a losing strategy.
I think mitchell is very entertaining but I don't know if I would want him as a semi-regular guest.
Please no.
I don’t want to hear him again, total phony.
He didn't compare her to Fitzgerald, but to Gatsby. A sad, lonely person, swimming in privilege yet drowning in despair.
I really liked the PR strategies part. If we can believe any of them work.
I strangely agree on the guest thing even though I didn't like the episode very much (I mean, maybe for 30 minutes for this story but not over an hour, I got bored). I don't want to hear him talk about his life but I would enjoy listening to him talk about other people, dissecting their strategies.
Agree, when I read about CC all I can think of is Cat Marnell!
Katie & Jesse, I'mma let you finish, but this breaking news has to be shared with the BaRpod community: someone is crowdfunding a Rebekah Jones documentary right now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joshfox/rebekah-jones-whistleblower?ref=section-homepage-featured-project A member of the BaRpod team should back it at $1 so you guys can follow the updates on it if the creator switches updates to be "backers only" like that enemies list project on Kickstarter a few years ago.
There are only 3 languages in America: Coastal elite, Midwest maga, and Gay as a French horn
Southern comfort?
I had to stop listening after his gleeful retelling of his puppy mill childhood. I’m not extreme, I have a purebred dog myself, but puppy mills suck and are horrible for both the sick, mistreated dogs and the heartbroken people who buy and fall in love with a dog only to have it meet a tragic and early death due to poor breeding and health screening. I automatically distrust anyone who knows how the sausage is made at puppy mills and doesn’t see a problem. What would Moose say?
I was surprised that Katie did not absolutely eviscerate him for being so uncritical of that exploitative and cruel industry. Dogs are the one thing she confesses to caring about. And this industry is almost always really awful for the dogs themselves.
I thought this too...
I've seen photos of the 'best' commercial dog breeding facilities, and they're clean, well-lit, climate controlled and modern. The puppies (may be) physically healthy and cared for but raising dogs in cages indoors like poultry is just the worst way to create animals that are meant to live in homes and have social skills that even those elite places doesn't make commercial-scale breeding of them look acceptable, to me. Though I could see how someone who only saw places like that when they were a child might have rose-colored glasses about it, I suppose.
Also, you can tell a lot about a “purebred” dog breeder (there’s no such thing as a purebred dog - it’s all a scam) by trying to visit the facility unannounced. It’s eye opening and heart breaking. IMO ethically bred dogs are a myth.
I just couldn’t get past that, either. I knew a guy who seems pretty similar— a colorful (if not brazenly dishonest) storyteller, loved to boast about (inflated) family prestige, and was incredibly disloyal to everyone in his life— including pets. His callous disregard for animal life was near psychopathic. Walking red flags, these types. Definitely not interested in spending an hour on this dude.
Yes, that part was gross. As soon as he said Amish I knew exactly what kind of breeders he was talking about and its terrible.
Puppy mill adjacent for sureeee
Adjacent?
Like "It's only real puppy mill if it comes from the Mill District of New Jersey; this is just sparkling animal abuse?"
the trolling of PETA was funny but other than that I didn't really like much of that part of the episode.
Well in fairness they could have opposed the puppy farm without calling a child unpleasant names or implying they were going to kill him (assuming that's all true - I'm leaning towards exaggerated). There have been cases of animal rights activists going way too far https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/oct/25/animal-research-animal-welfare. And the story he referenced about the mink being released rang true. There are many examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Animal_Liberation_Front_actions Mitchell is rather dismissive of this action which I think is fair. It's not very well thought out. Even if the mink can survive the impact on the local wildlife, may not be good. For example, the Whiteclaw crayfish is critically endangered in the UK due to the accidental and intentional release of the American Signal Crayfish.
I am not sure how apposite the example is but, Megan Phelps-Roper has talked about her experience as a child in the Westboro Baptist Church. She explains that the counter-protests only caused entrenchment but, people reaching out to her to talk totally changed her world view. Perhaps Mitchell had that experience but, no-one ever reached out to him to talk about the evils of puppy farms.
One thing I found believable was the part about PETA activists threatening to murder the kids.
Assuming PETA ever had them in their sights, of course.
That's how they roll.
disclaimer: not all are....most are good.....it's just a few....blah blah blah
If you're a high profile PETA target, shit can get real. Including actual attacks. Swatting, threats, setting your car on fire, etc.
'The whole world became Sarah Lawrence'. Hilarious. And true.
"The whole world for those of us who live on Twitter and/or in a coastal city," maybe. This podcast and comment sections about it are literally the only times in my life I encounter any of this stuff. My coworkers are just this year starting to hear about trans people.
Yeah I am struck by how on my most recent work trip to a pretty liberal client with very diverse staff-people were openly making pronoun jokes. There also seemed to be zero tension about the fact that the consultants and directors were mostly white and the staff black/Latino the way there is some places. But they also weren’t big and corporate and I am sure most of them were nowhere near an Ivy in college.
On the corporate end of my world it is much more according to twitter/Ivy rules.
I'm thankful that I don't have a corporate side of my world. Last year, the youngest girl in our office asked me casually, "what do you think about that trans stuff?" Almost verbatim. I'm grateful that the horror stories I read about online are as fantastical to me as they are.
Eh, I encounter that stuff daily, this forum and related is when I see pushback (same with twitter, although it also has the worst stuff). I live in the midwest (although, granted, Chicago, but we were normie even in 2010).
You must live near me.
Enjoyed the episode, really interested in the story, but it wasn’t really the whole story - it was an entertaining softball interview. Usually Katie does a lot of follow up digging and I get that it’s hard to do that without a cohost for conversational framing, but this guy was so braggadocios that I can’t completely trust everything I heard. He and Katie rail a bit on the nepotism and transactional friendliness of media types, but it almost seem like that’s what was happening here to a degree. I bet most of it is true, but you’ve gotta have your bullshit meter finally tuned and prepared when you speak to people who talk this way. Otherwise, small and important inflated details easily slip through as fact.
Katie does lots of digging but not normally in interviews, especially interviews where someone is revealing something previously undisclosed.
Is there a reason you don't think the Vice stuff rings true?
"I was discriminated against for being gay but when I went to a stern old gay lawyer he told me to suck it up, we have people that are actually being deported."
Have you ever dealt with lawyers? They will take your money if there is even a scintilla of merit to your claim. Those that work hourly will run up the clock regardless of the merit of your claim.
His account is complete bullshit.
I am a lawyer. And I don't agree -- no one billing hourly will take a claim if someone is unlikely to be able to pay, and no one sensible will take a contingency case unless they think they can win/settle for an amount that will make them money.
But more to the point, I was referring to the stuff about Vice trying to get clicks by trolling for reaction from RWers.
I might have to listen again but, didn't he say that at least in one instance he had an email where he was specifically instructed to get someone to comment on a video about abortion?
I'm kind of flabbergasted by the autism truthers here.
So I've mentioned before that I have Aspergers and ADHD, diagnosed through neuropsychiatric testing, and I completely believe he's autistic - at least, the same flavor of sperg I am. We'd get along like a house on fire. Probably. There's different flavors of autism - some of us are just socially impaired enough to not be able to adroitly handle complex social interactions in real time, but have other areas where we're more impaired.
The "exaggerating" /"lying"? Some of it is definitely generalizing errors - or at least, the phenomena of having difficulty of judging what people already know (beginning in the middle if the story, sort of), not being able to always understand/communicate what details are important and generalizing the wrong ones, and THEN not understanding that your spergy overly concrete generalization will be not be interpreted in the way you actually intend by your audience. It's the theory of mind issue I struggle with a lot - I either skip steps and lose people, or overly explain minutiae no one gives two fucks about.
Extraverted autists are a thing, some of us find people interesting, and we try to figure out ways to, if we can't be like everyone else, find a way to make our weirdness palatable in social situations, and that kind of flamboyance/theatrical mode is one way people do it.
I'm also not shocked he's in PR, especially crisis management. I'm in marketing research and strategy - those of us who are lucky enough to be wordcels, highly intelligent, and find people and human behavior fascinating tend to be really good at creating models of certain kinds of social behavior. Crisis management is basically predicting what inputs will make certain groups leave you alone. From going through it himself he has good, concrete detailed exoerience to have a pretty good idea on how journalists react, how crowds react, and how a cancelled person should/should not react. Makes sense to me.
I can see how he could have done a lot of sketchy/unethical stuff at Vice and not understood that even if 'everyone' knew they were skirting/crossing the line. I've been in situations where I've shrugged, thought "Oh, I guess this is just how things work" and tried to replicate what others were doing with all the subtlety of a bull in a China shop. I bet everyone else emailing with "the other side" was being much more careful about it, adding plausible deniability or covering their tracks better. I bet he was even chosen for it because of his naivety/lack of guile.
The thing with the lawyer also made me laugh, because that's the exact kind of thing I'd've done when I was younger - "They're breaking the law! Therefore a lawyer will be able to help me!" it's such characteristic autistic naivety.
you, as an autist probably feel in this comment section how I felt in the one about long covid.
"Let me tell you all the ways your sister didn't have a cardiac arrest and arterial dissection from covid and how she must have manifested it due to mental health issues. ACE-2 receptors are fake news and covid is a respiratory disease even if evidence says it is vascular and causes neurological damage, and even if all this was true she did it was her fault for wearing a mask. I know this because someone I find distasteful has long covid therefore they are faking it and therefore your sister is, too. I am very smart and based and rational."
Absolutely no-one suggested your sister was faking her illness.
Katie and Jesse's episode was about the fact that a study might not be reliable because people self-reported their symptoms which included chronic fatigue. This described a phenomenon very different to your sister's experience and that was what everyone was discussing. It is entirely possible for a phenomenon to exist and for a study to be poor.
I engaged with you in good faith and didn't say any of those things and I didn't see anyone else argue that here on Substack.
Read the entire section from that episode, and you'll see who told me that it was "nonsense." I wasn't referring to you and I stand by my comment.
Yeah, I remember that thread - it was brutal. I wasn't COVID news obsessed, but I definitely heard the reports of neurological, heart, and vascular damage coming out from the first few months of the pandemic - long before any of vaccines was available. And I was grieving my dad's sudden death at the time. This isn't unprecedented either - Swine flu (and it's vaccine) directly caused narcolepsy in a people with a rare genetic mutation in Sweden and Finland.
I have no idea why people, here of all comment sections, completely turn their brains off when it comes to COVID after effects.
How's she doing now, by they way?
To be honest, I feel... Well, I know that us autists communicate often in ways that really make neurotypical people uncomfortable, because even the best of us can give off an "uncanny valley" vibe. Which is why I feel safest online, in text. I guess I just feel pretty bummed that a significant chunk of my favorite comment section probably would not like interacting with me in real life.
She's not doing great. The brain damage is progressive from damage done to the myelin sheath. She has days where she is her old self and days where it is like dealing with a toddler. She needs a rollater to walk at 37 years old.
God, words cannot express how sorry I am for her, and for you and your family. And dealing with assholes on the internet on top of it.
You've seen me post about my mom, so you know I get it better than a lot of people - it just sucks.
I am very sorry to hear that.
I thought that it was probably as truthful as anyone else relaying their stories. We all bring our own perspectives and spin to our version of events.
The Vice getting hate clicks for their story plot seemed all too plausible.
I see a lot of people hated it, but i didn't mind this episode. I also pinged that there was most likely some exaggerating happening by Mitchell, re: drunk friends fighting PETA, beating up a jock, etc. I got the vibe that these were not outright lies, but embellishments. Which, eh. Kinda lame, but not an egregious offense imo. The REAL issue for me was the 15 minute adulation and unchecked praise by Mitchell of Caroline Fucking Calloway. Like...what is happening??? I adore minor pop culture side characters as well as internet drama, so I'm well aware of Calloway and even find her to be pretty entertaining/undeniably alluring in a manic, WASP-y, unhinged way. That being said...why is there someone on fucking Blocked & Reported ravinggg about her being the great American millennial author?? Like, she is decidedly NOT that. She's smart and semi-entertaining, yes, but has anyone checked Goodreads regarding Scammer? The book has a 2 star rating. It's being ripped to shreds on every reader review site. Isn't BARpod's whole thing being critical of and deconstructing what the mainstream media represents and is presenting to the world? Maybe they shouldn't be completely trusting WaPo reporting on an industry insider like Calloway. I dont know, the Calloway bit was just so jarring and I kept thinking, why is Caroline Calloway being discussed in this manner on this particular podcast?? Bringing up the book is, I suppose, sort of relevant, but letting a PR guy ramble on and on with no pushback about his client/friend being the next Truman Capote was, um....odd, to say the least.
Yes, nobody should be giving Calloway exposure.
I hadn't heard of her before and read the linked articles and thought "yeah this is bad, she [is? was?] a hustler," but there's been recent noise about Goodreads disingenuous review bullshit. That said having not heard of Calloway before it was jarring to read about her after this episode in which Mitchell fawns over her, especially since he's a PR guy. Smacked of ulterior motive. Otherwise count me among the people who enjoyed this episode with babyfists of salt.
Surely the most unbelievable thing is that he knew a trans person who never complained.
I don't find that particular aspect of this story unbelievable. The people I've met who transitioned before 2000 seem as normal as anybody.
Same here. Most trans are fine, the new trans and especially current trans allies are awful.
Who also happened to be a midget and in a wheelchair...
Goddess Bunny is/was a real person, considering his beat I'm not surprised he knew her
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess_Bunny
Or claims he knew her.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/obituaries/sandie-crisp-dead-coronavirus.html
Sorry dude, 30 seconds of googling shows he's a good enough friend that the NYT used him as a source to confirm her passing.
Don't forget the AIDS and the polio
Oh wow, I forgot those parts. There was a LOT going on in that story.
I was curious so I did look up Goddess Bunny and she genuinely was incredible, but she (as far as I can tell) didn't have AIDS and wasn't a "little person" -- she was 5'2". Which is small, but not "little person" small. She died of COVID in 2021 :(
According to the NYT, she did have AIDS
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/obituaries/sandie-crisp-dead-coronavirus.html
Ah okay. That wasn't in the Wikipedia article I spent 4 minutes reading. Thank you for the correction!
I'm not saying that's not true because I can't read it but, if Mitchell is the source to confirm Goddess Bunny's death, might he not also be the source to confirm she had AIDS?
edit. to be clear if Mitchell is the source then I'm sure it is true as they were friendly and he might well therefore know. I'm just curious.
Oh no I didn’t know this :( how sad
a handy capable coblanasian transition hopeful little person you mean.
People in this comment section are wild. “I think this man is lying about autism. Also, these twelve times he acted socially abnormal annoyed me.”
This episode was one of my favourites. Good job.
coño you said the thing I needed to say but didn't know how...
Ah yes, Caroline Calloway, the true voice of our generation. And a true victim in all circumstances. The thing that makes her at all interesting is how incredibly spoiled and messy she is; to completely write that off makes her boring and no one will want to spend $60 on her self-published book. Also a little disappointing Katie didn’t push back on any of his ridiculous claims about her.
OMG $60? I was going to buy it out of curiosity. Not for.. double checking.. $65 + shipping and taxes. I will wait and get a non-luxury paperback with the other proles.
Since it’s self-published, I’m not sure she’ll sell anything reasonably priced. Hopefully someone will scan it and it’ll be available somewhere.
Love you don’t even get free shipping!
Oh for sure. But the only way to sell her is to say yes this woman is a mess, don’t you want to gawp at her, not she’s the inspiring voice of our generation. Because, as you point out, she’s a scammer.
Oh man, I love the Gold Star Gay. What a star. Reminds me of what life used to be like before the Left was overtaken by a cult.
right? remember when we could be sarcastic, shit talking catty bitches? I miss those times.
Same. Listening to this interview took me back. Alas.