Blocked and Reported

Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boy. Reply All, an excellent podcast, is melting down. What happened? What does it have to do with Bon Apetit? Why does new keep breaking immediately after Jesse and Katie record an episode?  Show notes/Links: Jesse on his rejection: https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1361125261220196356 A couple great episodes of Reply All: T...

Should Gina Carano have been fired from her job on the hit Star Wars show "A Candalabra" for being a dumb conservative with Boomerlike posting tendencies? The whole crew gets together to discuss. Also, Katie talks about her relationship with an old Trump supporter and Jesse looks back fondly on his grad-school trip to Israel and Palestine that solved that conflict once and for all. Show notes/Link...

Jesse and Katie talk about a disturbing bit of listener feedback and the recent departures from the Times, under questionable circumstances, of Andy Mills and Donald McNeil Jr. Are the worst norms of campus culture seeping into major media institutions? To hear the answer, you'll have to listen. (It's 'yes.') (Correction: At around 8:00 in the recording, Jesse originally referred to Rukmini Callam...

After Jesse tells Katie a touching story about shoveling food into his face-hole, and the hosts discuss his latest Twitter-feud -- this one with a noted New Yorker food critic (not staff writer) -- the hosts discuss a Slate article about detransition that seems geared at painting that communtiy in a particularly negative and reactionary light. But Cary Callahan, a detransitioner, therapist, and ac...

After Katie tells Jesse about a very disturbing dream she had about him, the hosts perform some valuable service journalism by explaining to listeners the nature of stonks and bons and hedge funs. Then they turn their attention to the story of Lauren Wolfe, a New York Times gig-editor who was fired after tweeting that watching Joe Biden's plane land gave her the 'chills.' Fair? Unfair? Inconsisten...

Katie and Jesse bring on Ethan Watters, an author and freelance journalist who helped debunk the recovered-memory craze back in the 1990s, to discuss the most recent development in that area: an article in The Cut that Watters does not think does a good and accurate job relating the (scant) scientific evidence for recovered memories. The hosts and Watters also discuss certain arguable therapeutic...

After Jesse addresses the totally baseless rumor that he went to Yale Law School, the best law school in the country, where (in this false scenario) he got very good grades, the hosts talk a bit more about online content moderation and then discuss two recent stories about controversial right-wing media figures: the backfired attempt to deplatform Andy Ngo's book, and the widespread outrage among...

After discussing whether Blocked and Reported led directly to the siege on the Capitol, the hosts discuss that strange, terrifying event. They debate whether it can be safely examined in something of a vaccuum, or should be put in the broader context of what appears to be a rise in political violence in the U.S. They also discuss some of the most unhinged responses. Then they talk about Bean Dad....

After reflecting on what a great year 2020 was, except for the many serious hardships Katie endured, the hosts start 2021 with a bang: specifically, a bang that sounds a lot like a racial slur neither of them can say. A white teenager in Virginia didn't get the memo, though -- what should the punishment be, if any? Then Jesse and Katie turn their attention to a story that is rather 'picante': Hila...

In a very special holiday episode, Jesse relates the story of Hanukkah to Katie, his ignorant Gentile friend, with stunning 100% accuracy. Then Jesse makes a fun announcement and an angry announcement. Then the hosts throw to a lengthy interview they did with Aella ( @aella_girl on Twitter), a sex worker, OnlyFans one-percenter, and occasional rationalist provocateur who has lived a very interesti...

In a true sign that anything is possible in this crazy universe of ours, the hosts note that there were some errors in the previous episode and explain exactly what they were (to see them explained in written form, check out that episode's show notes ). Then they discuss some mental-health-talk from Jesse that rubbed one reader the wrong way and continue on to the show's main event: a major court...

For thousands of years, a small cabal of middle-aged lesbians known as 'TERFs' has been quietly pulling the strings behind the scenes, dictating the outcomes of major world events. They have one goal, and one goal alone: harming gender-nonconforming people. And unlike other political groups, who express their views with patience, reason, nuance, and logic, and who never harass anyone online, TERFs...

A major blowup at at Google led to the firing or resignation (depending on who you ask) of Timnit Gebru and accusations that the company's social-justice efforts are performative at best. But behind the scenes, some Googlers are telling a different, slightly more complicated story. Who's right? Katie and Jesse bring on Jon Stokes, an Ars Technica founder who is much better connected in the tech wo...

One would not expect an online community devoted to discussion of dragons, vampires, and teenage heroes to be a cesspool of almost unimaginable toxicity. And yet! In this episode, Jesse walks Katie through a recent history of young adult fiction Twitter, aka "YA Twitter," and attempts to explain how it got to be such a Hobbesian hellscape. The latest scandal involves Jessica Cluess, a YA author fa...

After a very tense intro during which Jesse berates Katie for not being there when he needed her most, the hosts discuss a Vice News story about staffers at Penguin Random House Canada so overwhelmed by the existence of Jordan Peterson's new book that they broke down crying, and Guardian staffers so overwhelmed by the existence of a debate over certain claims about sex and gender that they drove c...

After the hosts celebrate a major achievement and Jesse goes on a little rant that is Super Political, Katie and Jesse delve into three stories of profound internet nonsense involving privileged white people doing antiracism, a Toronto editor VERY mad about a new broth-joint, and some of Twitter's most neurotic people getting super mad about Barack Obama's college conduct. Show notes/Links: The Ne...

After Katie talks about her new dog-testicles-centered newsletter, the hosts discuss the latest events in the ongoing saga of Helen Lewis's voice getting erased by Ubisoft. Now that Rock Paper Shotgun has sacked a 13-year freelancer for the crime of being sympathetic to Lewis in the site's comments section, it's fair to ask: Does it make sense to fire people for expressing majority opinions? (No....

In a very special episode, Katie and Jesse discuss a long, stupid week in which democracy had its way with the American people, vigorously and repeatedly. What should we make of the fact that, while Joe Biden is on the brink of victory, the election was closer than many expected and the Democrats were denied their "blue wave"? Is it because of the patriarchy? White supremacy? Wokeness? Minorities...

After Jesse tells Katie a harrowing story about his recent journey into the heart of 'Manhattan,' the hosts discuss Glenn Greenwald's departure from The Intercept, an outlet he helped found back in 2014. Was this a case of censorship, as Greenwald argues, or did he overreact to standard editorial input? Then they turn their attention to Section 230, a law that made the internet what it is today (f...

Lotta dicks this week. After addressing some reader reactions to their The 1619 Project segment last week, Katie and Jesse critique the idea of "involuntary conservatives" so enraged by wokeness that they have to vote for Donald Trump. Then the hosts turn their attention to a salacious media story involving a certain New Yorker staff writer and, well, there's no more polite way to put this, but, u...

Well? Is he? Katie and Jesse discuss The Bone Man's recent, controversial tweet, revisit his glorious recent internet-history, talk about their own experiences with left- versus-right-wing haters and obsessives, and -- God help us all -- revisit certain aspects of GamerGate. Ken Bone: "All morning the Trump supporters have been nice to me even though I don't like Trump. The Biden camp has been shi...

Katie and Jesse discuss the recent and not-so-recent controversy over The 1619 project, the reputational perils of getting in constant fights with idiots on Twitter, and the tangled story of Hunter Biden, a blind guy at a laptop-repair shop, and a controversial New York Post story. Along the way, Jesse engages in some shockingly casual anti-Ukrainianism. The New York Times: The 1619 Project - http...

[Update, 12:10 a.m.: For some reason the version I initially uploaded cut off before the actual ending. Apologies, but everything is fixed now. -J]  The hosts discuss the Katie Hill revenge-porn/throuple scandal, which has gotten yet more scandalous in light of a tweetstorm supposedly authored by her former staffers (who are not fans), as well as Facebook's decision to ban QAnon from that platform...

After a  brief and sober discussion about President Trump's coronavirus diagnosis, the hosts devote most of the episode to two stories: a controversy surrounding a partially anonymous Arc Digital review of Kate Manne's new book Entitled that has led to accusations of obsession and WAR, and the blowup that ensued -- complete with a gleeful threat of mass executions in the streets! -- after the head...

After Katie tells the story of her 12-hour banishment from Twitter for a biting piece of political commentary, the hosts discus "TFW No GF," a controversial documentary about losers who post too much online, some of whom are so-called incels, or involuntary celibates. When should we have empathy for people who disgust us (like podcasters)? Then they turn their attention to the controversy over J.K...