 All right. Hello, Kat. Thanks so much for joining me. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, absolutely. So before we get started, for those of my audience who are unfamiliar with you, because I usually have authors on here, but you're a different kind of writer. Introduce yourself. Who are you? What do you do and all that jazz? Yeah, for sure. So I'm currently a tech and culture reporter at NBC News. I mainly cover influencers, my beat is sort of built around these very bombastic personalities and sort of peeling back their public persona to investigate what's going on behind the scenes, whether that is something like sometimes that's criminal, sometimes that's unethical, sometimes it's great. You just never know. Yeah. So first question, the reason I brought you on here, can you help me get uncanceled on YouTube? That's a great question. We will figure it out by the end of this, but no, seriously, I did want to start off asking kind of a bit about cancel culture, because something, you know, I have a lot of authors on here who come on and we talk about like, you know, free speech, misinformation and stuff. And like free speech was like largely for like the press, for people like you, right? Yeah. So aside from like free speech, like first thing I want to do, like I always ask like, how do you personally cat, right? You write a lot about cancel culture and all that. How do you define cancel culture? Because you have people who are like, oh, it doesn't exist. No, it's not cancel culture. It's accountability culture, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, so how do you kind of summarize it? Yeah, definitely. I feel like cancel culture, I definitely understand the perspective of people who say it's not a real thing, but I tend to look at it a little bit more broadly as like the same social mechanisms of gossip and call out culture that have existed since well before the dawn of the internet. It's just sort of human nature. We're people who exist in groups. Oftentimes we will pick one person out, target them with accusations and try to sort of eliminate them or push them out of the group. That's just simply how humans communicate and always have. So I think the idea of cancel culture really stems from how the internet has affected these sort of very natural socialization processes. And so what we end up seeing happening a lot of the time is whether it's a celebrity, a private individual, a public figure of any type, when there's some sort of hot button issue that is picking up traction on the internet. A lot of times how cancel culture manifests is one person will suddenly have a deluge of people coming to them sort of to express their discontent with whatever it is that they are accused of doing or have done themselves. So I think like ultimately it's the same sort of social behaviors that everybody is aware of, but we see it play out in different ways because of the tools and the access that the internet gives us. Yeah, yeah for sure. And yeah, you're spot on too. Like when I got canceled in 2019, like that's when I started reading so much and like what the hell is going on and all this. I got into like evolutionary psychology and crowd psychology and all these other kind of things. And yeah, it's kind of like this, this thing that we've been doing and it's, you know, are you with us or against us? Who can we trust and all this? But, you know, like since, since my, my YouTube era, and it's so weird. I was thinking about this before we started talking about it. It's almost like I'm like returning home to talk about it. But it's like a bad town that I'm not a huge fan of. But like, yeah, like with this and especially with you covering influencers and all that, like how much do you see like this kind of tribalism playing into it? Because, you know, you see it like everybody's, you know, a lot of people are talking about, you know, like politics and the polarization, but this happens on micro levels. Like with influencers when you see like these fights between YouTubers or TikTokers or whoever it is. So how do you see tribalism playing into that? Absolutely. I think that when we think of polarization, we tend to think of like social and political issues. But because of the way that social networks function online, polarization, polarization and tribalism have sort of broken into every single issue there is. So if you look at like a TikToker, for example, who has been accused of doing something offensive or maybe an audio clip has leaked of them, let's say saying something offensive. But the way that the nature of these social platforms is like the way that social media functions, it strips nuance from conversations and it's basically you're driven to make a yes or no judgment on things. So on Reddit, there's like the up vote and down vote button on Twitter. There's likes and retweets on TikToks, liking and sharing things. And basically we're fed to engage with it in a very strict limited set of tools. So if it were a real life conversation, people would talk over each other, there would be nuance, there would be dissent in some areas and consent in other areas. But because it's the internet and you can only whittle down your opinion to one statement and then only sort of approve or disapprove that statement when the tools were given. That leads to this intense polarization in all of these online spaces around every single issue. So I definitely am seeing that sense more and more of tribalism. Yeah, you know, and that makes me think of something else that I'm always curious about too. And it's parasocial relationships, right? Like YouTube, like something I realized about YouTube when I started making videos on like really researching is that it feels like one of the reasons YouTube took off was because it was just someone sitting there talking and it's like you're alone in your house, it feels like you're just they're chilling, right? And that's like one of the reasons, you know, when I ask people like why the hell do you watch like mukbang videos, right? Some people just watch someone eating while they're eating and it makes them feel like they're not alone, right? Yeah. But, but, you know, like with the cancer culture and the tribalism and all of this, like you see this like extreme loyalty, right? Like I remember seeing you like during the whole free Britney thing, you went out there girl, right? And stuff like that. And I get it. Like we build these relationships with people we haven't met yet. And I'm curious like how you see that feeding into some of, you know, the cancellation and where people pick sides. And like, I guess one question I want to ask too is like, do you think it's like healthy or unhealthy? You know what I mean? Yes. So when it comes to parasocial relationships, it really is becoming almost a universal experience to have a parasocial bond with someone, whether it is traditionally an influencer or a celebrity. But more and more increasingly we're seeing people form those types of relationships with micro influencers and more niche creators on the internet. So for example, if I follow a bunch of other journalists on Twitter, by the way, sorry for the noise, I live on a very busy street. So for example, I follow a bunch of journalists on Twitter and I started following them when I was in college studying to become a journalist. And I would definitely say that by the time I emerged into the professional world, I already had parasocial relationships with some other people in the media industry. So for example, that definitely influences how I interact with sort of the content that I'm producing and my persona online. And you see that happening, I think particularly with the younger generation, it's like your personal identifiers a lot of times are who you like and who you don't like. And so there are communities around those types of opinions. And you definitely see there being unhealthy layers to it for a lot of reasons. On one hand, let's say you grow up watching a creator and you have a really strong parasocial bond with them and then later in life, you find out that that person may have done things behind the scenes that don't align with your vision and that relationship you've crafted. That can be a very disconcerting experience for people. It can lead to them not wanting to believe an accuser, it can lead to them wanting to defend someone who may be in the wrong, even though they really have no idea what happened in that situation. And you really see that with influencers who live 24 seven online. People feel like they're part of their life constantly. So they then feel like they really know what that person is thinking, what they're doing, what other people are thinking and doing. And that can be very dangerous as well. It's just like at the end of the day, social media is stripping back the nuance from these conversations and making everybody want to put out the most strongly held opinion in the moment so that they can gain engagement from their opinions. Yeah. I want to ask you in a little bit about some of your experience because you've covered some big stories and I'm sure you've had these audiences just come at you, but just like sticking to the psychology of it all for a second. I'm curious what your theory is. Let me give you an example. The other day I shot you a DM. There's a thing going on on YouTube that probably nobody in my audience knows about because a lot of them are. A lot of them have no idea. Girl, I've mentioned Trisha Paytas to people and they're like, who? I'm good for you. I have a whole different audience now. But anyways, I had an experience the other day and I was like, I didn't do there was a situation going on with Gus Johnson and all that other stuff. But anyways, I'm going to share this experience and it's it's something that's kind of normal. So I'm curious why you think people do that. So anyways, I tweeted out like my thoughts about something regarding it. Oh, because I have like a lot of people who are following like politics and social issues and all these other things. I'm like, it's interesting making that transition like you guys. I know you think like, you know, all the people who are following like politics and social issues and social issues and social issues. But this story right here is nuts. This is like a publicly discussed story of two exes who had a like terrible abortion story like and this is being aired out publicly, right? And like I just tweeted that out and some guy who doesn't even follow me, right? He gets up in the replies and starts debating with me in the sense of, you know, one of the two people involved. And anyways, I find that so interesting was that this guy is sitting on Twitter searching to see what people are talking about. And he does not know these people. They're not following him. So what do you, so that's where my question comes in. What do you think drives somebody to get involved to go defend somebody and like the person's not tagged, the person's not gonna see it. Like it just seems like so strange to me, right? Because when you're talking about following journalists and stuff, you're not even on a career. You might get in touch, you know, and stuff like that. So I'm wondering why you think people do that when it, when it seems like there's no way they're ever gonna connect. Oh, absolutely. I think that this is such a fascinating phenomenon and one place on the internet or it's not one place, but something I'm really fascinated by is the snarking communities. So snarking is basically just another slang term for gossiping. And so there are kinds of communities online. Some in subreddits, some in discords, some in like message forums that are basically just built around, let's say in this situation with Gus Johnson and Sabrina, there are entire communities built around like snarking or gossiping around this situation. And so you see people become really, really obsessed with like these specific people who they do not know and they become deeply invested in not only the presumed outcome of their situation, but people become invested in like changing other people's opinions about the situation that nobody is involved in. And so you see this with major YouTube drama. So like for example, Trisha and Ethan when Frenemy's the podcast fell apart and the two hosts were going at each other online. It clearly became so personal for some of their viewers that not only did people side with Ethan, but that each individual on the internet who was aware of this because I still get people coming into my replies like telling me why I shouldn't support Trisha Paytas. And it's like this situation is over, but people are still deeply personally invested in changing each person's opinion about this situation. And I really don't know where that comes from except that I feel like we're seeing a lot of deviant behaviors online where people are either consciously or unconsciously like choosing to invest what they would normally invest emotionally in their real life in these online activities instead. And that does seem unhealthy because it seems ultimately obsessive and to a degree compulsive that you would be seeking out people in their opinions on Twitter to try to change their mind. But I definitely feel like this behavior is something that's going to become more and more pronounced as we over time just continue to shift all of our like social systems online. Yeah, it's probably gotten more extreme since COVID and people are inside and all that stuff. Exactly. And yeah, and you're one of the people that I'm sure can relate to this, kind of like what you were just talking about, like the Ethan and Trisha thing like past, like Kat, like next month it will be officially three years since I got canceled on YouTube. And it's nowhere near what it was like the first year, but every now and then I get somebody like just randomly like just coming at me. And I'm like, yo, you know, you know, this is a while ago. Like some people, I think the most recent one, someone was like, hey, you need to quit making these videos. And I'm like, have you looked at the date on any of those? Like I've been like podcasting and writing and all this other stuff. But yeah, before I jump into some of the stories that you've covered, I wanted to ask you this because not long ago I had a moral philosopher on here, right? And she actually wrote a chapter about online shaming. And she brought up and she brings up an interesting question that I've been thinking about a lot lately. So I want to ask you. So one of the things like we look at with like, you know, cancel culture and online shaming, like somebody like, you know, does something bad and you, you know, you go after him or whatever. Like, so it's not, is it right? Or is it justified? Because a lot of people think it's justified. And I've seen people do this and there are many cases where it is. But what she asked to us, is it effective, right? So with your former place inside of, they just did this whole like beauty community, cancel culture thing. And that's kind of like when I came in and like you've seen these people, you know, James Charles, Jeffrey star, you know, Manny MUA, like Loreley, all these people, right? Like that was a few years ago as well. So we're asking about effectiveness. Like, have we seen them change? Have we seen them like turn into these brand new people? Like this, this situation does totally enlighten somebody like Jeffrey star. So like, do you think cancel culture is effective? And if not, why do we, why do you think we'd still do it? You know? I genuinely, I imagine that in the wide range of incidents that could be termed cancel culture, you have to imagine that someone has some point at some point learned something, right? You have to think like there has to be somebody out there who in response to negative backlash online has evolved in some way. But I think what people are sort of missing when we talk about cancel culture is that for most people weighing in, it doesn't seem to really be about the effectiveness on the person that they're talking about. Like in 90, well, I don't want to generalize, but it just seems like most of the time when you see somebody put their opinion on social media as it relates to another person, whether they're supporting them, shaming them, criticizing them, whatever it may be, at the end of the day, them putting that statement out there is for their own personal engagement. And so even if people don't realize that that's what the motivating factor is. And we kind of see pushback against this. So on Twitter, for example, one of the most common functions of the app is to quote, tweet someone. And it's a very common way to grow your following, get engagement, to quote, tweet someone and like dunk on them or disagree with them. But when you're doing that, it's not to get to the person who you're dunking on. It's so that people see your opinion that you've stated and they either agree or disagree with your opinion. So a lot of times these backlash movements and this online shaming doesn't even, it's as if the people shaming aren't actually clued in to the person who they're shaming. It's done for their own personal gain and they're not expecting to actually connect with that person. So it's kind of futile, but you see why people are driven to do it because our online identities, whatever we put an opinion online, we're continuing to shape our identity. So it's done in a self-serving way, but it's very understandable why you would be motivated to put your opinion out there. And in terms of the effectiveness on the individual who's being shamed, I really think we're starting to understand that in most cases, it's impossible to receive thousands of pieces of feedback and actually sort of digest each one. When you're getting online swarms of backlash, you really cannot process them on an individual level because the human brain can't look at an overwhelming sum of people and individually parse each thing out and evaluate it on its own merit. So I think a lot of times, and again, this is very human, this is very understandable. When people are getting targeted online, I think the opposite effect usually takes place and your defenses come up and you think all of these people are wrong. I have this huge mass of people attacking me and I see some people who are just not understanding the situation at all and so you tend to generalize all of the backlash you're getting and you sort of want to distance yourself from it and disagree with it. And so that's why I think shaming culture really doesn't work because if you actually want somebody to hear you and take you seriously, it has to be some sort of mutual understanding of respect and some sort of mutual understanding of communication and shaming and online responding has none of that. Yeah, you're exactly right. As you were talking, I was just thinking about when it happened to me in 2019, there's nothing that prepares you for it. I had hundreds of thousands of strangers coming after me, talking about my character and what I've done. They were just completely fabricated. There were people making videos saying that oh, I heard he told someone in his audience to go kill themselves when they came doing more depression and just weird. So I'm fighting that. And then there's like, you know, because you've seen it, right? For example, like James Charles or whoever, they make these like hour and a half long videos. A recent one is creep show art, right? There's these hours and hours, right? So somebody comes out and defends themselves. They can address 50 out of 60 things and the group of people will be like, well, what about these 10 things? So it's like impossible to break these things apart. I can say from personal experience, because I've had some people interview me about my experience. And there's definitely things that I learned, but it took me getting distance from it. Like when you're in the middle of it, the defenses go up and you're just like fighting for your life. But I step back and like, okay, how could I have done this differently to avoid some of the situations? There were some aspects that weren't going to be avoided. Like when you start blowing up on the internet, it's going to come, right? And there were certain things that I could have done. But yeah, so now we're going to shift gears into some of the heavier topics, but still in this realm. But those in my audience who are unfamiliar with you, like you've been doing killer work in this realm for a while, but you kind of really got a lot of attention when you broke this story about one of YouTube's biggest creators, David Dobrik, right? So that was, what was it? Was it last year or was it 2020? It was March 2021. So for those unfamiliar with the story, it's a long detailed story. Can you kind of summarize what that story about this big YouTuber was about? Yes, for sure. And I tend to contextualize it right before the story came out. What was sort of going on in David's world was that for years, David was considered not only one of the biggest YouTubers, but sort of the hallmark of the genre and era of YouTube that he was in. He was really at the top of the top. He was extremely well-liked, extremely brand friendly. He was considered to be kind of a YouTube golden child. And in the weeks leading up to this article's release, former members of his blog squad, which was his group of friends that his videos centered around, former members started to come out and express discontent with sort of the nature of the group structure. Some people made allegations of, you know, it was cult-like. It was bad for my self-esteem. It was harmful for XYZ reasons. And people also started to look back at some of David's content and reanalyze it through a lens of, is this kind of joking offensive? Is this perpetuating harmful stereotypes? So that was the environment that the article came out in, was that David was already being questioned and criticized. And my article sort of, it was a completely new event that nobody had heard of up until this point. So I had a young woman come to me with her story of taking part in one of the vlogs back in 2018, where she went over to one of the blog squad members as apartments with her group of friends. And they were responding to an ad placed in social media so they didn't know anyone. And they were kind of thrust into this really high powered YouTube situation as outsiders, where they were immediately being filmed and they were surrounded by all these famous people and the pressure was on for them to create something click-worthy. And throughout the process of filming that experience, according to the girls, some of the members of the vlog squad brought them alcohol to sort of loosen them up and get them into a mood where they would be willing to create more engaging content. And in the process of becoming inebriated, this woman was sexually assaulted. She accused one of the vlog squad members of having sex with her when she couldn't consent. So when this article came out, it was really sort of like the final nail in the coffin of all of this swarming backlash against David. And the way that he responded was in two parts. He put out his first response video the day the article came out, but he didn't address the article. He just sort of loosely talked about the ecosystem of backlash against him. And so that was extremely poorly received. So a few days later, he put out a second apology video that was directly addressing the article and some of the allegations within. And that was received more favorably, but it still wasn't positive enough for him to regain his reputation in that moment. We saw tons of sponsors. It was really a domino effect of sponsors and companies pulling out of their relationships with him, disentangling from him. And so it was in a lot of people's eyes, like a pretty clear cut, like this is a cancellation. David Dover was canceled. And then after the article came out a few months later, David quietly came back onto YouTube. And what we ended up seeing happening was most of his original fan base accepted him back into the fold. His videos weren't getting as many views as they were before. And his star was not as untarnished as it was before, but at least in terms of his fan base and his partnerships, he's been able to regain his place in YouTube and been able to restart the vlog squad. He got like a discovery TV deal. So it really wasn't over for him, but in the moment people viewed it as a cancellation. So that's how I would sum it up. So, you know, one thing too is like, David's strategy, like a lot of, you know, public figures have adopted this strategy too. David's entire strategy leading up to this was don't respond. And you heard that from like some of the people like, you know, in the vlog squad in his group, like he's like, don't respond, don't respond, don't respond, whatever. And like, like you were saying, it was kind of building up with certain allegations and everything like that and there was nothing. Why, why, why do you think this is what made him finally have to come out and, and say something like, I remember just seeing it covered everywhere, right? Like a lot of other things, you know, it was heavily covered, you know, on like the friend of these podcasts, because they were like, go and add and bring it on people and everything. But this seemed to get a little bit like, well, not a little bit, a lot more coverage. So do you think that's what data or what do you think, was it the severity of the accusations? It was, it was really like a domino effect or like a snowstorm of this was what stuck. And I think it was because there were a lot of factors that made it become such a big deal and something that provoked such a strong response. Some of that was, I think because it was a news report, other news establishments felt more comfortable picking up the reporting and continuing to spread it because a lot of times these sort of events are litigated on YouTube. Like a lot of times we see accusers put their statements out through social media, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Every accuser sort of gets to decide how they want to roll it out. But because this accuser stayed anonymous. And so insider was the platform that these allegations came out on that allowed for the New York Times to pick up the story and report on it. And that allowed for really big sponsors, people in venture capital and people in the tech industry who wouldn't necessarily have to pay attention or at least view having to pay attention to YouTube drama. They were like, oh, this is something else. And I definitely do think the severity of the accusations played into it, but I really think that it was the environment where the allegations took place. And in terms of like mainstream media, I think that really elevated it because we do see super severe allegations come out on YouTube all the time and are able to be pushed under the rug. Because people think of it as just YouTube. And whether it's right or wrong, ultimately at the end of the day, they're the same allegations coming from the same people. But there is that sort of idea or that sort of conception that if it's coming out in major media, other major media are going to view it as more trust for the information. Yeah. So, you know, now that I think about it too, I'm curious your thoughts on this. We are doing something that, you know, I've seen just forever, right? Like when I was at the height of my YouTube career, I was legit making more money than I had at any full-time job I had. Like YouTube can make you somebody. And I was small. I was still relatively small. Yeah. Making more money than any full-time job I had. I was like, wait, what? I would just, I could always just imagine what other YouTubers are making. But anyways, do you, do you feel as someone who covers this? And I wonder too, even like in your professional realm, like, like, do you, like, you know, like you kind of mentioned people are like, oh, it's just YouTube, right? A lot of times like I've, I've pitched stories about some things on YouTube because I've written for like Newsweek and some other places and stuff. And they're like, oh, YouTube drama, right? Yeah. Do you feel like this kind of stuff isn't taken seriously? Do you feel like, I don't, I don't know if it's the older generation, like I'm 36. So I'm like, but like, I'm like, do they, do they not see what's going on? Do they not understand how many, like we all know social media is huge. I just don't get why, why people aren't taking it as seriously and understanding the gravity of some of this stuff, you know? Absolutely. This is one of my like favorite topics. I think it's interesting. This like sums up everything. My like whole reporting philosophy. I feel as though this is incredibly important. What's happening online in these spaces and these types of allegations and these types of figures and their drama. It's not only is it important because these are real people and real things happening, but it's important because it really shows how we are shifting our media consumption. And that is what is frustrating and that I don't get about the reluctance. My guess is that when you look at traditional media, and this is sort of a commonly held belief that mainstream media and traditional media are scared of emerging media and are scared of independent creators. And I don't know if it's fear so much as I think it's an unwillingness to put them on the same level. I think a lot of journalists understandably are wary of sort of the independent journalism that's being done on YouTube because they think like, well, as a journalist who works for The New York Times, I have to go through all of these layers of editing and I'm, you know, I'm trained as a journalist and we have ethics that we consider. And when they think YouTube, they're like, well, what if they don't do any of that stuff? Like we can't pretend that they're the same. And I get that, but what how the way that I view it is most of the eyes are already there. Most of the audience is already there. Like you can go back and forth debating on the merit of YouTube as a form of media, but that doesn't change the reality that it is the dominant form of media and consumption. And this is where most people are getting their news and sometimes that news is in the form of drama and sometimes that engagement, it's all on these creators and what they're doing and how people are talking about it. And so to me, it's extremely important and it's probably some of the most substantive coverage that we have today because it's sort of, it's our entire culture, it's the backbone of our society and increasingly in the pandemic, like we've now entered a social era where 24 seven our lives are being conducted on the internet. So it does have ramifications that reach far beyond just the YouTube audience or the individuals in this drama. But we still have yet to see traditional media kind of accept it and cover it accordingly. Yeah, yeah, no, it's interesting. Like, because, you know, since getting into like politics and stuff like that, like all of my news, like every morning I have a routine, like, you know, I don't turn on like CNN or MSNBC or whatever it is. I have independent people that I go to on YouTube, right? Like, for one example, there was like a crystal ball and a soccer, they started breaking points. They left the hill and went there. I watched them every morning. I watched, you know, all these things, right? So I'm shifting. I've, you know, I've seen my own personal shift that way. But, but yeah. So obviously, you know, mainstream media is incentivized to not cover this stuff and pull, pull even more eyeballs over there. But, but something that's kind of frustrating for me too is when we're talking like, it's been interesting shifting from YouTube to covering more of these, like bigger topics, like on social issues and stuff. But when we're talking about anything, whether it's like January 6th or a vaccine hesitancy or anti-vaccine and stuff like that. And people are like, oh, we need to stop misinformation. We need to do this and that. I'm just like, do you guys understand how many millions of views are happening on YouTube, on TikTok, right? Like, you know, Mr. Beast, you know, he's like the top, but tens of millions of views. And what's, what's frustrating for me is these, these public figures, right? These doctors, these politicians, they're not really understanding how many people and how many young people, right? Are on there. It's like, if you put two seconds into researching this, you might be able to get into front, in front of the right eyeballs and all that. And, and yeah, like, do you, do you see that as an issue for like, you know, when people are seeing this like, as just like kind of a drama, just kid's space that we're missing out on some, like public issues that could be addressed on social media. Absolutely. I think something that is so stark to me, when you look at who has made the transition to our new social media sort of environment, like if you look at what traditional spaces have made that transition to social media, if you follow the money, it's the people who have figured out how to capitalize off of it. So for example, right now I'm working on a story about plastic surgery and how plastic surgeons have transitioned their practices in the digital age in some really like shocking ways. And so just even 10 years ago, it was very rare to see plastic surgery advertised because it was still thought of as something shameful. Nowadays, plastic surgery is one of the most engaged with topics online. And a lot of plastic surgeons as well as meds, bars and other providers have completely shifted their advertising model to places like TikTok. And so instead of having an advertisement on the TV or in the radio or in a magazine, you'll have a plastic surgeon give an influencer or even just someone on TikTok who has a couple hundred thousand followers, they'll give them free filler so that they make a TikTok video and direct all these other young people toward them. And so you look at that kind of transition and you think, okay, traditional industries like the medical industry, they can see how to make this work when it's in their financial interest. But I think that we lack sort of like the financial backing, for example, in the media space. A lot of digital startups are underfunded and have a hard time figuring out how to make money and how to actually profit in a way that is ethical in like the news business. And so I feel like if we had an easier way for people to monetize, for news people to monetize their content online, we would see that shift happening already. But it's definitely a possibility. And it definitely alarms me as someone in traditional media. Like for example, and I've tried to explain this to bosses in the past and sort of be like, maybe we should be copying this model because for example, you'll see a drama YouTuber, commentary YouTuber take an article from Insider and make a video about it. And they're making way more money off that video than we, the creator of the article made getting like clicks on the website or ads or whatever it may be. And so you see that and you're like, they have figured it out in a way that we haven't. And we have to figure it out because otherwise we're going to lose to them. Yeah, no, it's crazy. Like, you know, during my day job, like I work in marketing and stuff. And, you know, and I have to tell small business owners or whoever like, Hey, listen, like this is, this is what you do, whether it's influencer marketing or whatever. But speaking of two, like I wanted to ask, like, you know, in reference to like the David Dobrik story and people covering your stories online, everything. So this is something that kept coming up. Like when I got canceled, right? Is because with all of the false allegations going on around me and you know, you've heard people mention like lawsuits and everything. And I haven't, I personally haven't seen one. But like, anyways, what I'm getting at is, you know, this whole realm of, you know, commentary channels, drama channels and all this and some of them do some great research. But as you mentioned too, with this kind of switch, there's there's, I don't want to say there's no journalistic integrity, but there's nothing governing it. Right. So you can, right? Like, I know about journalism, like if you put some wrong stuff in there, like knowingly or even unknowingly, like that is your ass, right? But, you know, what I noticed when I was, you know, getting canceled and the people covering that was there's nothing, there's nothing overseeing that. So as a journalist, how do you see that? Because like you had to cover the David Dobrik story, like with, with certain ethical standards and, you know, sources and everything. But that's not what people have to do on there. And this kind of goes in the conversation of misinformation, right? Because anybody can just hop on and do this and get a bunch of views. So have you thought about this? Are there any potential solutions? Like what, what, what can we do to get those same kind of standards on the internet? You know what I mean? Yes, this is like the other half of all I spent my time thinking about. It's a double-edged sword, right? Because a lot of times I'll get comments from people who like maybe are a fan of someone who I'm writing about and so are unhappy with the unfortunate truth that the article may be painting. And they'll kind of try to pick it apart in the same way that you would imagine a YouTube commentator might try to pick apart a video that they disagree with. And they'll say like, well, where's the receipts? Like you're not showing us the receipts. Like how do we know that you did this? Well, I had to do this because if I didn't do this, I could get sued, fired in that word. So it's like there are tons of things that govern how journalism is made and people don't necessarily see that. And I think on one hand as journalists, we have to be more transparent. And I think we do kind of have to meet people where they're at. So for example, traditionally you would never think to really like show your work as a journalist for a litany of reasons. You wouldn't necessarily put in the article embedded every single screenshot or every single document that you have supporting the information that you've gathered. But I think we're moving toward a place where that would be more helpful than harmful. So I think there are things media can do to become more transparent. But at the same time, like you said, independent journalism, even if people don't necessarily view themselves as independent journalists, you see so much reporting happening on the internet that isn't governed by those standards at all. People who aren't trained as reporters, which you don't have to be. But you definitely feel a desire and a drive to maybe want to educate more content creators and maybe have almost like I have editors. What if YouTube viewed itself as more of a producer with editors and oversight? And it's like YouTube won't do that because it would be opening up themselves up to way too much liability and they don't want to see themselves as a publisher. But I do wonder a lot like how we can make this ecosystem healthier. And I think a lot of it comes ultimately from media literacy education and can we train audiences and creators in the best ethical and useful ways of gathering information and presenting it to others. I feel like as a society, we've fallen really far behind on media literacy because it's moving too quickly the way we gather and process information is moving too quickly for us to educate people. And I think there are lots of really smart people in the field of media literacy who are trying to come up with those solutions. But I know like from my view, it can be so frustrating to see like a YouTube video laying out the same thing that you could do in a news report but doing it in a way where the information is biased or the information can't be trusted for one reason or another or like it's unverifiable. You see people running with claims all the time that are totally not verified and then they won't trust your report because they're like, how do we know that it's real? It's like the cognitive dissonance can be staggering. What's interesting too is like now that I've covered like these bigger topics, whether it's like national or global issues, social, politics, whatever, like there's like those like little books, like everything I learned, I learned from kindergarten, like everything I learned came from YouTube. My whole thing about fact checking and all these things, like I talk a lot about, you know, I have like academics on here who talk about like science denial and learning to like check, you know, bad news and you know, or biases and all that stuff. That all came from me coming from YouTube, especially when it happened to me, because there was so much, you know, quote unquote reporting, but like I love that idea of like, you know, training some of these people or like giving them, you know, a little bit of, you know, a little bit more media literacy for the audience. But the issue that I always come back to is the incentives. Like for example, when I was being canceled, any video that had the rewired soul in the title was getting thousands of views. So you saw YouTube channels with, that were only getting like 100 views per video or less, all of a sudden they're getting tens of thousands of views. So now they're incentivized, right? And their subscriber numbers are going up. So now they're incentivized to look for something, to create stories, to create narratives, right? And it's, so it's like, it's like, you know, we can come in and say, hey, here's how to do a more ethical job. But they're like, uh, no, I'd rather get the views, subscribers and money. And it's like, it's, it's this weird thing about incentives, you know, but, um, part, part of what I want to ask you too about the David Dover story in particular, probably some other stories too. Like you mentioned, some people come in and they question you and stuff like that. Um, you know, you're covering serious topics. And I love that about your work and everything, but like, uh, you were covering sexual assault allegations. And I'm sure you had vlog squad stand coming at you. So like, can you talk a little bit about that experience? Like, I know you had a lot of support too, but with me getting a bunch of shit, I know what it's like to get some girls back in the house. Like what kind of like negative feedback did you get from the people who were like in that, like in that like deeply entrenched group, you know what I mean? Yes. I think so. A lot of times what I've observed happening, interestingly enough, when the news first broke, there wasn't very much pushback. Um, and I kind of thought it would be the opposite. Like I thought that all of the pushback would come at the beginning and then it would trickle out, but I kind of saw the opposite taking place where like day one, like when the day zero, when the article first comes out, like nobody is immediately pushing back because nobody wants to be viewed in that moment as a rape apologist or someone who doesn't believe victims. Yeah. As the weeks went on, I think that is where you, I started to see the blowback because people were sort of like, okay, like we've digested the news. We've processed it. We know this was bad. Like what's he going to have to do to like prove to you guys that he's like a good person and like, what is he going to have to do to earn his forgiveness from the public? And so as some of David's fans, uh, waited in the weeks and weeks went by and like he wasn't back creating content for them, which is a lot of times like as someone who consumes entertainment, um, you may value that entertainment and the joy that it brings to you higher than you value, you know, the controversy that they're in. So people were sort of like, I just want like him back. I want my content back. And in those moments, I think that was when people sort of started to turn on the reporting and question it and question like, well, what were your intentions for publishing this article? And like, did you get the money that you wanted? Like, you know, and I think people then started to kind of turn on like the character of the reporting. And it was also like, if I could go back and do it differently. Oh my gosh, it was such a learning experience. Like in coming in like the incentivization. In the heat of the moment, I felt like I was so incentivized to keep putting myself out there and keep like tweeting about the situation and putting out content about the situation. Cause you're getting positive feedback. Like you're getting, um, Twitter followers, like my following was like doubling like night after night and you're getting so many likes and retweets. And you're like, this is a good thing. Like you're raising awareness for the article. Um, so I know, like, I felt like I was in a position where I was like, I have to keep putting myself out there. And if I could go back, I would be like, that's actually what got like, what gets you in trouble is like putting yourself out there over and over and over again. Um, and that was where I found myself in situations where now, like people will, um, even still, and I'm sure you get this all the time as well. And it's so frustrating. Like people will have a misconception of you or like, of your period of cancellation. Cause I think what really got me, um, was the H three fandom started out very, very supportive of me and the story, but then as the weeks went by and people started looking for something else, but they still saw me like tweeting about the situation, then they're like, Oh, well, the journalist, uh, we're turning, like we're flipping on her. So a lot of people in that fandom like flipped on me and I still get people who are like, Oh, I thought we didn't like that girl. Or like, Oh, I thought that, that reporter like had her own fall from grace. And so it's sort of like, you're like, Oh, well, I've made a bad impression on these people, but at the same time, like the internet is so fleeting. Um, that it's kind of hard to satiate. You can't satiate everyone. Like some people are going to walk away and have a negative opinion of you, no matter what. And so if I could go back, I would have just given them less ammo to like form those opinions with. Yeah. No, especially, yeah, especially like, uh, yeah, I was, I was such a hot mess. Like, you know, my whole thing was like mental health. And I remember cause it happened as I was flying to a YouTube event in Florida and I like did a live stream from my phone in the airport to try to like defend my just, just fully running off of motions. And then you get an accusation to like, I got to respond to this or, you know, and, and yeah, so, so yeah, if it, if it happens again, I'm hoping I'm in a better mental space to take a step back because it's, it's hard. Nothing prepares you for, for that. You know, nothing prepares you. No one tells you what to do when you're receiving a lot of internet backlash. Like there is no playbook. Yeah. I'll tell you the craziest thing and, and it's nuts because it goes back to people not really taking the end, you know, social media. So seriously was like, I dove, I dove into therapy. And like my therapist had no idea what I was talking about and other therapists don't like, this is stuff that can, that can mess with you. You know what I mean? So, so if any therapists are listening, there's a whole, there's a whole niche for you to go through, but I, but you know, speaking of the mental health back and, or a mental health aspect and therapy and stuff like that, like, and I just have a couple more questions for you. But one of the things, one of the reasons I asked you to come on is because we were having a Twitter conversation about this kind of growing, this growing trend of people, you know, coming out and making like serious sexual assault allegations or telling their, or telling their very personal story on, on social media. And like the Gus Johnson thing, that's something totally different. That's someone just sharing a vulnerable story. But we were talking about like sexual assault, right? And, you know, one of the things I love about your work and like, you know, when you talk about how you were like, out there tweeting like, you're like defending the victims and like, that's what I love about you and some of the other people out there. And like, I always, you know, talk about like how I feel for people because I've had a lot of women friends in my life. So many, like more women than not have been assaulted and that blows my mind, right? And I'm always trying to figure this out because like, we were talking about people are coming online to make these allegations. And some of it, you know, some of the backlash they get is like, well, why didn't you go to the cops while you're making a YouTube video? We just doing it for clicks and stuff. So yeah, I just, I'm curious more of your thoughts of why you think people are doing this instead of going to authorities. I covered the whole, you know, a whole situation on my channel where the authorities didn't believe her. That's one of the issues too. So it's a, it's a difficult situation. So I'm just curious like, why do you think people are doing it? Is it effective? Should they try something else first? I don't know. Yeah. And this is definitely like a conversation where I feel like I'm constantly evolving because you, it's so with sexual assault and with allegations of that nature, it is so case by case. And so whenever people make generalizations, I'm guilty of that as well. Then you sort of start to think, okay, well, in this situation, maybe going to YouTube was the best thing they could do. And I think a lot of times when a victim puts out their statement on social media, people, their immediate response is take it offline. And it's easy to tell people to take it offline. But when you kind of sit and think about like, what does that really mean? It becomes a little bit more of a gray area. So for example, a common refrain for all types of survivors is why didn't you go to the police when the reality of situations may be like, for example, when I was going back to the David Dobrik story, a lot of people asked why didn't she go to the police? And it's easy to say that. But then when you think about her actual situation, the assault occurred in a different place. It occurred near her college campus, but that's not where she lives. So by the time that she was able to process the experience, because people also forget that as a victim and as a victim of any crime, it may take a while for you to process that what happened to them and that it wasn't their fault and that someone else's to blame. So in this case, when people are like, why didn't you go to the police? It's like she doesn't live there anymore. So the resources and the time and the effort that it would take to go back to the place where the assault occurred and take it to court. It's something that I think most survivors consider, but there are tons of reasons why it might not be the best option. And so then you're thinking like, okay, your options might be to go to people in your immediate social circle who know this person and try to tell them that what they did was wrong. And it's like, if you think about that for a few minutes, you see why that might not be the best choice for people either. And you also have to remember that for victims of crimes, whether it's sexual or some other sort of violent crime, that's a trauma. And so by explaining what happened, you're going to be able to re-traumatize yourself. And so it's easier to re-traumatize yourself one time and craft a statement or a video and then have that video that many people can watch rather than that may be easier than going to dozens of people and having to explain the situation over and over again and defend your case and argue for yourself over and over and over again. All of that being said, putting those accusations online or putting things that personal online opens up to the people that you know or authority figures, you're facing the entirety of the very unsympathetic internet. And it's just like, it's a battleground and it can be very, very harmful both for the person making the accusation, the person receiving the allegations, and the audience. It can harm everybody when these types of conversations are handled in the wrong way or in the wrong ecosystem. It really doesn't matter how much is happening in front of really young kids and that like really young fans of these people. I know we were talking about Jack Wright and Sienna May. That is one of those situations where it's such a difficult great area and it's so nuanced. But I think back to like if I were 12, 13, 14 and I was fan of someone and they were accused of doing something like this, wow, my 12 year old brain is in that situation. And so when it's being litigated online with all of these young kids and teens and bad actors and good actors and sympathetic people and unsympathetic people, it's really quite a clusterfuck. Like at the end of the day. There's so many different aspects and everything and I always try to do some perspective of taking and understand. But yeah, especially with young audiences because young like nuance and considering biases like when you're that young doesn't even cross your mind, right? Like when Logan Paul filmed a dead body, his fans were defending him to the end of time. You know what I mean? So there's so much of that and it's weird, it's difficult and I understand that. I guess one of the concerns that people like us think and I have a 13 year old son is like the normalization of this and this becoming like the new thing, right? But you know, only time will tell, Kat. And let me ask you just one more question before I let you go because I have to give you some gratitude too while I have you here because some people know the story and some people don't. But I made a YouTube video when COVID started debunking. Like before YouTube took off a bunch of QAnon channels, this guy, huge QAnon figure, made a video. I made a video explaining why he was wrong, right? YouTube gave me a strike for spreading this information. I'm like, what the hell? I'm correcting the information. I appealed it. They gave me some generic response. And thankfully, because I know wonderful journalists like yourself, I came to you and everything. I'm like the second, like literally the second after you like just emailed and said, hey, just checking in on this. It was removed and taken care of, right? But that was like, you know, that was at the beginning of the pandemic and I've heard more stories almost identical to mine. So last question I just want to ask you is overall, whether it's Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, whatever, how do you think they could handle misinformation better? Because I try to also perspective take from them. They're getting insane amounts of content uploaded every second. So I get it, but also it's they're doing such a terrible job because they're just automating everything. So do you have any like ideas where they can help with misinformation without taking down, you know, good acting figures like myself, you know what I mean? Yes. And I think this is, this is such a huge problem. And it all does boil down to basically every social media platform. There's so much more content being put on the platform than there are moderators or the ability to moderate that content. So what we have happening is really insufficient. If not almost, it's like the bots that are moderating instead. It's like they're doing such a bad job. You're like, can you 180 them entirely? Because they're picking all the wrong people. But I do think that in order for social media companies to combat misinformation on the scale, the large scale that it has become, we have to really like fundamentally shift how social media networks operate, which is kind of not a good answer because there's no incentive for them to do that. Unless we provide an incentive in the form of maybe changing how we regulate social media networks and the responsibility that we legally place on these companies to moderate types of content like this. But just in general, I would say that if social media platforms, this is an idea I've been stewing on for a while, it would probably be really unpopular. But if social media platforms like Twitter and many others would restrict the amount of posts that users could post. So for example, if you could only tweet like three times a day, that would knock out so many of these problems. But it's something that they would never, ever do because it would just drastically cut their ability to monetize off of the content. If you put limits on the types of things that people can share online, then you put limits on the amount of money you can make. And so it's like, if we're, but we're viewing these social networks as businesses, when really I think if we wanted to address the root cause of some of these problems, we have to view them both as publishers, but also as public spaces and govern them accordingly. Because you can't go into a school and just start posting fliers with like accusing the principle of like random crimes they didn't commit. But on the internet, you can do that. And there's very few ramifications, if any, if you're an anonymous figure. So we have to start thinking of this ad. Like it's such a common refrain from people like the internet isn't real life, just log off. But that's increasingly becoming not the case. Like the internet is real life. And we have to start treating the internet as a real life space because it has real life consequences. Yeah. No, we're seeing it. We're seeing a carryover, you know, and I could tell you too, when I had the internet coming it was like a real life thing. Like, it's like a real life thing. It's like, I was trying to stay sober saying exactly But I liked that idea. Maybe if you had to pay for every tweet you did or something like that, and people would dial back a little bit, but this is, this was such a wonderful fun conversation. I don't get to talk social media influencer nonsense anymore. But yeah, it was super fun. And I do hope more people will start following your work and looking and seeing what's going on because it's not going going anywhere and it's only getting bigger. But for everybody listening, where can they keep up to date with you, your reporting, what you're writing about and all that kind of stuff? I will plug my Twitter account because I don't have an author page on NBC yet. So my Twitter is just at my first and last name. And that is where I post all of my content and links to other places you can find me. Beautiful. Well, I'll link that down below. Kat, you are amazing. And yeah, next time some stuff bubbles up, maybe I'll have it back on. Awesome. Thanks so much, Chris.