Wow If True

Amanda has a new favorite movie of all time, and you can probably guess what it is: Nathan Fielder's documentary about longstanding Wow if True character Elizabeth Holmes, "You Can See Everything." Amanda waited with baited breath until the moment when she could finally talk to Isabel about what we have (or haven't) learned about Elizabeth Holmes. Isabel finally saw the movie. The moment is here....

Having experienced technology and culture in real life, Amanda and Isabel talk about all their travels and the wondrous sights they've seen, like a robot making lemonade, and also, wet Spiderman. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

In which Amanda, Isabel, and special guest Julia Schifini record another episode of long-running Glee recap podcast, Wow if Schue. Yes, this entire special episode, originally made for the Multicrew feed, was based on making that joke. Both Amanda and Isabel have been at various conventions and not "at home" or "recording," so we're pulling this episode from the Multicrew feed (which, if you want...

It's the first ever Wow if True live show! At the Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia, Isabel reads from Sublimation, then we talk about our approaches to writing the future from both a sci-fi and journalism perspective. It's fun. Find Us Online  Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wowiftrue.bsky.social Twitter: https://twitter.com/wowiftruepod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wowiftrue Pat...

Amanda is obsessed with Katseye. Editor Allison™ doesn't understand. Isabel is on vacation. Eat zucchini. Also, BIG NEWS: Wow if True is coming to a city near you, so long as that city is Philadelphia. Isabel & Amanda are doing a book event for Sublimation together on Wednesday, Sept. 9 at the Kelly Writers House on the University of Pennsylvania's campus in Philadelphia. It's FREE. More info...

Good news: Isabel went to Comic Con! Bad news: There is so much AI discourse. Everything is AI. We talk about -- the Hank drama, the new AI friend, the AI crime thriller situation... There are a lot of situations. We are so tired. Find Us Online  Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wowiftrue.bsky.social Twitter: https://twitter.com/wowiftruepod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wowiftrue Pat...

Pangram makes the most accurate detector for flagging AI-generated text, but when your startup is the arbiter of what is real and what is not, you sometimes get into hairy situations. For example, the Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal might say that our country has a Pangram problem. But what's the actual problem: that we can detect AI-generated text, or that so much AI slop exists in the first...

The Enhanced Games are Silicon Valley's version of the Olympics -- the athletes are invited to bulk up with performance enhancing drugs, then gather in Las Vegas for competition, and of course, it's funded by some notorious figures in venture capital. Amanda's colleague, Lucas Ropek, got to attend this carnival of debauchery and is here to tell us all about it. And yes, he saw Byran Johnson there....

In which Amanda makes the worst PowerPoint ever (it's about rationalists and fan fiction, iykyk), Isabel goes on book tour, and we experiment with flip phones. The PowerPoint in question: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ch0rBRdr8PGindVGa0cGQaKDiYR5rFmMiclL58CPci8/edit?slide=id.p#slide=id.p Find Us Online  Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wowiftrue.bsky.social Twitter: https://twitter...

In this collab-isode, we're joined by Dr. Adam Becker of Dreaming Against the Machine, a podcast about envisioning a realistic and hopeful future in the face of tech oligarchs... or, as we call them, Horrible Little Guys. Sublimation is out now!!: https://bookshop.org/p/books/sublimation-isabel-j-kim/75bdbf4afed5475f?ean=9781250376794&next=t Join our Patreon: https://patreon.com/wowiftrue List...

HAPPY SUBLIMATION PUBLICATION DAY! Or, Publimation Day! Isabel's long-awaited debut novel SUBLIMATION is out now. Everyone is very excited. We are proud of Isabel here at Wow if True HQ. Isabel did a billion other podcast interviews about the book, so we decided that on our podcast, we'll ask Isabel some questions that maybe people who are meeting her for the first time via podcast interview would...

Google is broken, and so is Amanda, apparently, because she is seeking validation from an AI chatbot. Also, video games. Sublimation is out on 6/2. This is what we have for you. We'll be back next week for the "Sublimation is out!" spectacular, but you should pre-order it now: https://bookshop.org/p/books/sublimation-isabel-j-kim/75bdbf4afed5475f?ean=9781250376794&next=t Also, ISABEL IS ON TOU...

Party drugs are out, and injecting grey market peptides with your LinkedIn connections at Silicon Valley house parties is in. Yes, the biohacker tech bros have peptide dealers in China who are sending them dubious chemicals to construct things like "the Wolverine stack," which are supposed to make them more alert and/or younger and/or tanner? This doesn't make any sense, which is why we brought in...

Isabel and Amanda talk about raising $1,234,567 dollars for your startup, Giggles, that began as a meme, and also finding your cofounder in Minecraft, along with the latest analysis of which human person Satoshi might actually turn out to be, and also, turning down $175,000 dollars because you can't figure out the wifi, something that happened to a real human person last week. It's ok, though. Sin...

We're talking about Shy Girl, the horror novel cancelled over alleged AI use, the conclusion of a romantasy lawsuit, recent Meta rulings, and a bunch of other random stuff in the middle because come on, you know us, we love to gab. Sources Shy Girl timeline Writers telling on themselves Meta lawsuits Find Us Online  Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wowiftrue.bsky.social Instagram: https://ww...

We have found the literal worst song: "Take the Lead" by Tilly Norwood, who is an AI actor, and is singing about overcoming the oppression that AI actors face. Yes, this is real. Also: we talk about Isabel's wedding. Yay parasociality! Sources AI ‘actor’ Tilly Norwood put out the worst song I’ve ever heard Find Us Online  Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wowiftrue.bsky.social Twitter: https:...

Iz and Amanda talk about Moltbook, a forum only for AI agents (and the humans pretending to be them), which caused a brief moment of panic that our AI overlords were going to rise up against us. Special guest star Iz's fiance weighs in on the eigenvector of evil and also, whether sommelier-ing is anything. Sources Amanda's Moltbook article: https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/16/after-all-the-hype-some...

We made a collabisode with Dr. Matthew Gabriele of American Medieval, a real life historian of medieval history! It turns out that there's actually a significant crossover between internet culture and the middle ages. We are as surprised as you are. Links American Medieval Hyperallergic article about crusadercore Find Us Online  Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wowiftrue.bsky.social Twitter:...

Will you come to our cottage... to talk about Heated Rivalry with us? The beloved Queer Hockey Show ™ has taken over the internet, so who better to talk to us about it than very online Multitude CEO and Heated Rivalry/romance novel superfan Amanda McLoughlin!? (For some reason my audio is ass, but I am saying it is an homage to the amount of ass that appears in Heated Rivalry.) Find Us Online&nbsp...

We're back for the new year, joined by pop culture writer + narrative strategist Eteng Ettah to create a bingo card for the cursed events of 2026 that likely await us. We apologize in advance, both for mentioning possible horrors like "MrBeast IPO" and "Caroline Ellison book deal," but also, because Amanda was at her parents' house and recorded on AirPods. Links Bingo cards! Get your bingo cards!!...

It's holiday time! That means you get a stocking stuffer worth of an episode -- a handful of topics we wanna chitchat about but aren't big enough for their whole episode (Is this how stockings work? Amanda is writing this). So, tune in for: we didn't get 30 under 30 because we didn't do fraud; what do Elon Musk, Luigi Mangione, and Isabel J. Kim have in common; 'Extremely kidpilled' Sam Altman; ra...

We finally give Mr. Don't Die himself, Bryan Johnson, his own episode, on account of him doing some seminal college student activities. You know, like doing drugs while listening to a Grimes set. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

TW: we talk about suicide induced by ChatGPT and lawsuits related to these suicides in this episode! We talk about the lawsuits that Social Media Victims Law Center brought against OpenAI and the ways in which ChatGPT and other AI products can super negatively impact mental health, to deeply worrying degrees. We also talk about the patterns in AI "chosen one" and "religion" narratives—have you hea...

We read a bunch of articles about the state of dating/dating apps and yes, THAT gooning article, and talked about them. It's like English class where you read a bunch of stuff and talk about it except you haven't done the reading!!! But you can do the reading. It's right here. This is the reading. Reading The Goon Squad (Harper's) "But PornosexualGooner101 Died 35 Years Ago...This Very Night!" (Th...

Amanda went viral on Tiktok for having an AI pet. Really, this is the apex of our journey on this podcast. The Moflin is an AI-enabled pet that retails for $430 dollars, and Amanda has just spent a month living with it in her home. Also, we talk about Grimes' new music video. (Behind the scenes supplementary moflin content on Patreon!) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California...