"I have a mental illness where I assume all beautiful women are my allies" gave me a good lol of the non-cow variety. beautiful piece! cheering you on 🖤
Personal essay sketching out the connection between a podcast debate and pornography is a Porn World(™️™️) home run.
I has never thought about it akin to sexual education, but as more people interface with politics solely through the social fiction of the podcast, real political education becomes more important.
As soon as you started to describe the show I said to myself "I bet its *that* podcast", and unfortunately was right. I hate the way women are treated on that show, and so many other shows where our realities become engagement fodder for their audiences.
it takes a lot of courage and insight to be able to share something like this, much less understand it and what's going on in such a thoughtful way. generally it's got me thinking about the idea of aftercare, and how important it is to centre care for ourselves more regularly considering how hostile the internet can be. anyway i love your brain and hope you're taking care of it.
I'm sorry that I don't have anything much to add at this point. I have done a few podcasts, very low stakes compared to yours. And providing people with content they will enjoy without becoming a lolcow yourself is damned hard.
But I feel compassion from your story, which like porn, activated my mirror neuron network with some fierceness.
Sometimes I break down because my life choice, to follow a path of epistemic humility, is really really hard and I wish my brain could take the easy route. It can't. So I am trapped in a cycle of radical openness, followed by the predictable shaming and judgment.
This is a really lovely piece that... Intensely clashes with my core conception of creativity of the Internet. What I see in that nugget of conventional wisdom, "a journalist must be an influencer" -- well, now that I type it out, I see how it could well be intended as a careerist requirement, "nobody will buy your words anymore, you have to sell your Brand to the gatekeepers before they'll give you work, and your Brand is measured by Followers and etc metrics." But, bluntly, that's fucked up, and that Metrics-as-ends-in-themselves attitude guides everyone to a lolcow-exploiting race to the bottom. The first thing I saw in that phrase "must be an influencer" hinged on the opposite sense of "influencer"; someone who is capable of actually changing a mind. Not changing an audience, not "doing numbers", not farming lols. One single mind. In that "whoever saves a life, saves the Universe entire" sense, but less grandiose because the nudge, the "influence", can be infinitely smaller than salvation. A journalist (one who produces valuable journalism) must be an influencer; measured by influence, above and beyond the quantifiable analytics. I guess this is a riff on Seth Godin and his "smallest viable audience" idea, among other folks - entrepreneurship as a way out of this zero-sum destruction/lolcow-industrial-complex
I do not know if that moment of catharsis was needed, and I don’t know if sorry is the right word in this situation, but I just hope that from that moment that you’re feeling better, Noelle.
Completely agree with you regarding our current state of media affairs for this constant need to bully people for the sake of virality.
I do hope that one day we can go back to or reform reporting, remove the role that influencers play, and ask questions in a professional, civil manner for the sake of educating, promoting debate, and discourse, not for likes and laughs.
"I have a mental illness where I assume all beautiful women are my allies" gave me a good lol of the non-cow variety. beautiful piece! cheering you on 🖤
Thank you for sharing your story. I don't see you as a lolcow because I take your work seriously in analyzing the art of pornography.
Personal essay sketching out the connection between a podcast debate and pornography is a Porn World(™️™️) home run.
I has never thought about it akin to sexual education, but as more people interface with politics solely through the social fiction of the podcast, real political education becomes more important.
Also "Lolcow animorphism" was a stroke of genius.
can you read my new article...and share some critical feedback.
As soon as you started to describe the show I said to myself "I bet its *that* podcast", and unfortunately was right. I hate the way women are treated on that show, and so many other shows where our realities become engagement fodder for their audiences.
Thank you so much for sharing this, and so eloquently as usual — I love you and your writing so much <3
Love you. Don't give them your most valuable parts. Take a break from the public eye if you can afford it. Keep writing. ❤️🔥
Found your substack through the Jelly Filled Girls' podcast on YT, which I just watched your episode. Very good!
What you're describing is talk shows that also function as To Catch A Predator style entrapment.
Oh Noelle, thank you so much for writing this. I’ve struggled with these same questions so much over the years, and especially lately.
You might like this old piece of mine (paywalled but I’d happily give you a subscription if you want one): https://lydialaurenson.substack.com/p/being-a-kinky-feminist-and-a-messy
it takes a lot of courage and insight to be able to share something like this, much less understand it and what's going on in such a thoughtful way. generally it's got me thinking about the idea of aftercare, and how important it is to centre care for ourselves more regularly considering how hostile the internet can be. anyway i love your brain and hope you're taking care of it.
For heavet's sake, stay a journalist and don't become an influencer. You have the charm and looks to be one, but you can do better than that.
❤️
I'm sorry that I don't have anything much to add at this point. I have done a few podcasts, very low stakes compared to yours. And providing people with content they will enjoy without becoming a lolcow yourself is damned hard.
But I feel compassion from your story, which like porn, activated my mirror neuron network with some fierceness.
Sometimes I break down because my life choice, to follow a path of epistemic humility, is really really hard and I wish my brain could take the easy route. It can't. So I am trapped in a cycle of radical openness, followed by the predictable shaming and judgment.
This is a really lovely piece that... Intensely clashes with my core conception of creativity of the Internet. What I see in that nugget of conventional wisdom, "a journalist must be an influencer" -- well, now that I type it out, I see how it could well be intended as a careerist requirement, "nobody will buy your words anymore, you have to sell your Brand to the gatekeepers before they'll give you work, and your Brand is measured by Followers and etc metrics." But, bluntly, that's fucked up, and that Metrics-as-ends-in-themselves attitude guides everyone to a lolcow-exploiting race to the bottom. The first thing I saw in that phrase "must be an influencer" hinged on the opposite sense of "influencer"; someone who is capable of actually changing a mind. Not changing an audience, not "doing numbers", not farming lols. One single mind. In that "whoever saves a life, saves the Universe entire" sense, but less grandiose because the nudge, the "influence", can be infinitely smaller than salvation. A journalist (one who produces valuable journalism) must be an influencer; measured by influence, above and beyond the quantifiable analytics. I guess this is a riff on Seth Godin and his "smallest viable audience" idea, among other folks - entrepreneurship as a way out of this zero-sum destruction/lolcow-industrial-complex
can you read my new article...and share some critical feedback.
I do not know if that moment of catharsis was needed, and I don’t know if sorry is the right word in this situation, but I just hope that from that moment that you’re feeling better, Noelle.
Completely agree with you regarding our current state of media affairs for this constant need to bully people for the sake of virality.
I do hope that one day we can go back to or reform reporting, remove the role that influencers play, and ask questions in a professional, civil manner for the sake of educating, promoting debate, and discourse, not for likes and laughs.