Adam MacLean: Hey Peepadoodles , welcome to Find Your Light, a PostShame podcast. I'm your host, Adam McLean. Find Your light is a show where we shine a light on shame and imagine a PostShame world in Act 1, we'll meet a PostShame warrior. Someone who I think is up to something special and has a tool to teach us to help dismantle shame.

Then in Act 2, we'll play a little game of armchair quarterback by re-examining someone's public shaming through the lens of PostShame. If they had access to this tool before their downfall. Do we think they could have come out a better leader and helped others dealing with something similar? We'll see!

And now on with the show. Hey, y'all welcome back for Episode 2 of Find Your Light, in Episode 1, I mentioned that the format of the first two episodes would be a little different. And for Episode 2, we have a wide ranging and meaty episode with journalist Rich Juzwiak.

The conversation was taped in summer of 2021. And it covers a lot of territory so much that when we usually have Act 2, where we re-examine someone's public downfall and offer that person advice through a PostShame lens, Rich and I discuss Anthony Wiener's Twitter scandal; and that conversation is so wide ranging. It really deserves a standalone Part 2 Episode.

So I'm excited for you to hear the first part of our conversation, and Rich's insights and perspectives on PostShame. I introduced him at the top of the interview. So let's get right to it. Here's my conversation with Rich Juzwiak. Hi everyone. Welcome to Find Your Light, a podcast where we shine a light on PostShame warriors, and imagine a PostShame world today.

My guest is Rich Juzwiak, he is a senior writer for Jezebel . He has a super well-researched sexual advice column called ‘How To Do It’, that's on Slate with his co-writer Stoya. He's also co-host of a podcast called Pot Psychology with Tracy Egan Morrissey. He's written for the New York Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post and Gawker.

I mean Gawker is such a fascinating era. And PostShame comes out of being like an antidote to Gawker. So when you first encountered PostShame, which I always did describe as a way for people to find something in their past, that they worry would leak on the internet. They leak it on their own with context. They share a story of strength and leadership which shows they're ready to lead with radical transparency.

And I developed it as kind of an antidote to Gawker. But when you first encountered PostShame, what did you think about?

Rich Juzwiak: I thought it was brilliant. It's not so for everything, but a lot of stuff is sort of only as powerful as you allow it to be. And if you can jump the hurdle and say, I'm not going to let this defeat me, I'm going to get in front of this.​​ I think that's like a really smart way to exist the refusal to be torn down to the point of destitution. You can only do so much, but to actually like, give that a go and see what would happen if instead of feeling oppressed by this thing, you kind of met it head on.

AM: I like that. It's like a willingness to give it a go that once you do the steps and you like discover something in your past that you're like, Ooh, this would be really bad if this came out.

RJ: Right.

AM: And then you do the thought experiment. I mean, that's what going through the process of PostShame is. Is doing the thought experiment of being like, so if I release this, got it off my chest, said and truly believe that I was over it and knew that there were other people struggling with something similar. Could I help lead them through it as well? You know, what would happen?

RJ: Totally. And we live in a world that, it's something that was really fascinating to me. Is, I did a research project on that Pamela Anderson, Tommy Lee sex tape. Leading up to it all like how sex tapes were engaged with up until that point. Which was like a watershed moment in culture for worse, arguably, but I mean hugely impactful, probably the most important VHS tape that existed in the night. To just go through nexus typing sex tape and see that in the eighties, how they were regarded in the nineties as well. You know people would like, resign from their jobs because a video of them was circulating. You know, nothing illegal was happening. It was a sex video that I read about the sheriff. I mean, he was a Republican, so he probably did some kind of moral grandstanding. Right. But at the same time, it would be considered kid stuff today, you know. Not exactly, but very kind of low on the, ‘this is going to destroy my life spectrum’ in the wake of things like only fans and the way to make a career, basically out of selling this very material. So it was really wild to just go back, you know, some 30, 35 years and see how different the world was.

AM: It was that long. I mean when did Pamela Anderson, Tommy Lee happen?

RJ: 95. So we're coming on 30 years. We're not there yet, but I'm talking about like a little bit before.

AM: 95 96, because those are the Clinton years. And it's leading up to the Lewinsky scandal or excuse me, the Clinton scandal. I can't believe I, oh, how dare I? For the amount of time I spend thinking about one of my heroes, Monica Lewinsky, I can't believe I would call it that!

RJ: I mean, it's hard not to though, because you're so indoctrinated. That's what it was called.

AM: That's what it’s called in the news, but that's not what it was.

RJ: No, no, but you know,

AM: I know. And then Bravo to her for finally getting the courage now to be looking back on it and just slowly say, so turns out I was gaslit.

RJ: Right?

AM: We're going to Wade back into this slowly. I get to do this at exactly my pace. So yes, I love Monica Lewinsky, but 95, 96 was such a unique time where the culture was truly convulsing around sex and Newt Gingrich was leading this whole crusade and our politics was getting so fired up. I guess there's moral panics in every era, but 95, 96 just felt so vivid for like sexual fear.

RJ: Yeah, and you know, I mean, I think it had been leading up to that with AIDS and, I don't know, I was recently kind of like researching erotic thrillers. And that was a really interesting thing to engage with because you know, the erotic thriller basically rose and fell with the play gears of AIDS. I mean, basically you could like date.

AM: Are these like pulp novels? What do you mean by normal?

RJ: I mean, like basic instinct, fetal attraction, you know, there it was for me, like coming of age. Like being in puberty when basic instinct was released. I couldn't think of a bigger cultural event. These movies that market such explicit sex over the backdrop of violence. It didn't really seem like that much of a coincidence that culturally we're hearing sexist deadly. And then in our entertainment, we are seeing that reflected back or at the very least needing to get punished as a result of enjoying the sex. Which is obviously the showcase of these movies. You know, you want to see these people simulating f*cking but with some violence, but with the kind of moral yeah this could go really, really wrong for you.

AM: Wow. I hadn't considered it from that angle. See, now this whole podcast is for me to get smarter. So this is so great. I'm so lucky to have guests like Rich. So actually let's go back to, I mean, you just said you were researching erotic thrillers.

RJ: Yeah. Just the kind of retrospective piece. It really fascinates me that they were like really, really big and a not big. So I kind of like wanted to investigate why that was, why it was such a marketable thing. One year and then wasn't the next. You know?

AM: So one of the ways I discovered this column was that one of your readers wrote in and said that they were being extorted for their nudes. And it was, early pandemic. And with the rise of things, like onlyfans. I was watching culture very closely and saying, okay, wow, this is when the change is going to happen because so much sex work is moving online. Maybe this will help hasten the it's no longer the de-stigmatization of it. And you had a reader saying I'm being extorted. What should I do? And I happened to agree. You said, well, you could consider being PostShame about it. You could release this information on your own, tell your wife and come clean and start to lead the discussion around the fact that this is probably going to happen to a lot more people.

RJ: So to be clear, the writer had been like jerking off on a camsite or something like that. So everybody has their own relationship to their body and what they want to put out into the world. But on the scale of like mild to raunchy, kind of like, you know, would blow my friends' minds if they knew I were into this. I don't think anybody would be surprised to find out that some guy somewhere was jerking off to a camsite, right?

AM: Yeah. I mean, those sites make a lot of money. There's a lot of people using them.

RJ: Exactly. So it just didn't, it seemed like as far as those things went relatively low stakes. From what he had written, it didn't seem like he would actually do it. You know, it didn't seem like he was going to be the one to get in front of this. But I said at the very least consider it. And also maybe if you go to PostShame and you read the different accounts, it might help you not see this as such a cataclysm.

AM: Exactly, and it would start with obsessing the impact in his personal life.

RJ: Yeah.

AM: Like you can tell that, I think in his letter he was like, I'm no longer attracted to my wife. And so being held here in captivity during pandemic, this is one of the ways that I let off steam. And I think you immediately offered advice. Like, yeah, you should probably tell your wife that, right. Like, like couples should. Esther Perel writes all about mating in captivity saying, you have to tell your partner what it is you actually need and want or else your using a campsite will feel like this big betrayal and it doesn't have to. I think there's a huge movement amongst, I mean, polyamory is maybe too far in this example, but you know, people saying, I need more from my sexual relationships and you know, how can we negotiate that together?

RJ: Yeah. And so many questions that we get at the column are, I can't believe that I'm not my partners' sexual world. And it's just like, that is so much to put on one person that's just impossible. Perel writes about this as well.

AM: She says the institution of marriage has like way too many things put on top of it.

RJ: Exactly emotional support, you know, financial harmony, complete, you know, monogamy for the rest of your life and active sex life. It's just like so unlikely that you're going to fire off all those cylinders. Personally speaking, sex is what I would be most okay with reducing for my relationship. The idea that we are a team somehow in virtually every scenario that's important to me, you know, sex is, is different, you know, and, and part of what makes sex fun is the novelty. Humans are incredibly attracted to novelty. So how do you manage that? You can do a lot of different things. Uh, porn is one of them. That's a way that people can feel like they're not committing any kind of infidelity, although some people consider that to be infidelity, I don't know. I mean, I think people need to be,

AM: Do people write into the column saying I saw that, I saw that my partner watches porn and I'm, and I'm upset.

RJ: Why does he need more than me? Cause he needs more than you. I don't, you know, I mean, you had to get rid of the idea that your partner is an ideal. Your partner is a human being who exists outside of your conception them.

AM: That is like one of the hardest things for people to get. This is also like two dudes, like cisgender men in gay relationships being like, this is how sex works.

RJ: Right, right. Yes. Yes. Sometimes communicating with women about this stuff does pose a specific challenge, I think because I have this incredibly male centric view, but I also think that like, for all of the drama and in group backbiting, gay men have certain things figured out that straight people. You know, learn from.

AM: Well, I mean, who do you admire as sex advice columnist? Dan Savage or the OG like was bringing ...

RJ: Who, with whom? With whom I wouldn't exist, you know, I mean, he's a total inspiration, you know,

AM: He's truly the first person. Um, what's that excellent advice? The 3 G's good giving and game and that just hearing your partner's fantasies and being willing to learn about them and then be game to, you know, try them.

RJ: Well, that's the thing about Dan is that he's just so good at coming up with marketable jingly kind of stuff. You know, I mean.

AM: He's a copywriter at heart.

RJ: Like among things, you know, like it gets better. It was a brilliant idea that touched and changed culture and, uh, Santorum. I mean, he just knows how to speak to the masses.

AM: Dan we love you. He'll be in the first five episodes. I'm putting that out there. I'm manifesting Dan Savage as guest. It gets better. It's such a wonderful coming out example that every coming out story is a PostShame moment. Imagine growing up in a restrictive religious household and just an action of saying I'm gay and then all your family members say, but you're going to burn in hell. And you're like, okay. Um, well, I don't think so. Or even if I am. I have to live my life the way I'm going to, you know, that's being PostShame.

RJ: Definitely. And I mean, I do think that like, it gets better, has been rightfully criticized for being a little too idealistic. Not for everybody. It gets better. Some people do end up murdered as a result of being openly gay, you know, still today in this world. But at the same time, I think. There is no coincidence that it resonated with people. And that degree of hope packaged in that way was very, very useful to people and that I admire in itself.

AM: Yes. And any suicide prevention mechanism is helpful when we know that rates of suicide are so much higher in LGBTQ folks.

RJ: Exactly.

AM: And one of the reasons PostShame exists is because, even if it saves one life of one person saying, oh, there's someone else similar to me, struggling with something similar to me, be it getting over drug addiction, sex, you know, money, trouble. It is so not worth it to take your own life. I promise there's someone else in the world struggling with something similar. They're just is, uh, humans suffer from thinking that they're terminally unique and it turns out we're all very similar

RJ: And life is suffering in general, so

AM: Maybe I need to read a little more Buddhist, You know, I'm just like no life can be great. I'm such a ‘it gets a better’ child.

RJ: No, It's true. And I am, I mean, I vacillate. I think between intense disappointment and intense optimism, and I think they feed into each other a lot. But I do think that like, everybody has their shit and that sometimes you see conversations flattened on Twitter, where it feels like people have some kind of entitlement about their pain. And while that is valid to say, to present some kind of pain as being somehow more valid than other people's pain, doesn't really like, everybody's got their shit. Yeah. Some people are dealt a worse hand in life. Some people don't know how to play that hand that they're dealt, et cetera. Life sucks for a lot of people at different times. So yeah.

AM: You know, when you described intense disappointment and like intense optimism that I think our era is just getting so extreme.

RJ: Yeah.

AM: It's not going the other direction. Like it's never going to be less extreme. The internet is the greatest tool we've ever invented. It's the sharpest double-edged sword we've made as humans and yeah. With PostShame, uh, having a PostShame moment is probably extreme terror and extreme relief. I know from all the things that I've been PostShame about in this process and developing, and hearing people's stories. It is so terrifying and the relief is also so wonderful. So, you used to work at Gawker?

RJ: Yes.

AM: Who helped shape the internet? Talk about sharpening that one edge of that sword, you know, such a cervic wit and accelerated the birth of the internet blogging culture. And I know there are a lot of writers there that regret things that they wrote. I think you've described it as like an asylum, but also like a Funhouse, like the funnest place you've ever been all at the same time. How do you feel about having worked at a place that has had such a big impact? Because it was so amazing for free speech, but also kind of tore down a lot of figures at the same time.

RJ: I mean, you know, I think that, like the one thing that I really retained from Gawker is this utter lack of preciousness sort of shitting on people and also bringing will to power can sometimes become conflated. When you just feel like a cynical about everything, basically.

AM: Well it was the creative underclass, like finally speaking up, right?

RJ: Yes. There is so much work that I did for Gawker that I'm tremendously proud of, but there's also stuff that I wish I could take back. I think that, especially early on, before we were really playing by the journalism books and there were always people who were doing legit, real, journalism. But there were definitely times where I should have asked for a comment and I didn't. Because there was no real system in place to even like, say it was a lot of, kind of like bad faith takes like, let me take this thing and interpret it in this way. That is the worst faith possible. Not necessarily. So as to be salacious, but it ended up being as salacious as possible because of that bad faith in the time, since I understand the world is way more complicated than one person's take on something. And that this means that. Is rarely true. This means so many other things and it comes, there are so many forces at work. I mean, really, it's kind of like the idea of like a narrative is a fallacy in a way like a, a to B narrative, because there's just so many layers. I mean, we're just in the middle of infinity. Everything is simultaneous

AM: Let's, let's go on a YouTube deep dive of like the multiverse videos, you know, like there, there truly are so many versions of the truth. Do you think, Gawker, like version one. I know it's being relaunched, you know, later this year, do you think Gawker version one, if it was around at the same time as me launching PostShame, do you think PostShame could have survived Gawker?

RJ: Yeah. I mean, I think like, I think. I was thinking about this and I think like, if like,

AM: Cause, I just think, well, well, hold on. I think I developed it as a little bit of an antidote because I wanted people to have this way to tell their own story, to just say, hold on. I know that's how you might see my narrative, but I actually see it this way. And I need to get ahead of this story because. Yeah, we don't want someone else to write this story for me. Right. But sometimes when people are very cynical about post shame, they say, Adam, this is just a PR thing. You're just giving people new jargon to write their own press releases, like come on. And I think, well, some people you don't believe their apologies and other people you're like, oh, there's a lot there. I believe your apology.

RJ: But I also think like a post means that people are, there's something at stake. It's not a matter of like, just writing your own press release to pave over like you're coming forward with something that's potentially damaging. That's the difference to me. I think that the idea that everybody should tell their own story at all times doesn't make any sense when you. See the way that influencers and celebrities will just kind of like sweep things under the rug, or be incredibly combative with the press for asking questions. There are definitely people who have fashioned themselves into being some kind of advocates that don't really make any sense. When it comes down to it, because when they're pressed on their shit, they

AM: Andrew Cuomo comes to mind.

RJ: I was thinking Jameela Jamil.

AM: Oh, okay.

RJ: But in general, I think that there's like too much contempt for the idea that somebody else is capable of telling a nuanced narrative. Responsible journalism does exist. I think a great example is this Malcolm X biography that came out last year, the dead are arising, which tells insane stories, including one in which Malcolm, and some other NOI people met with the KU Klux Klan in Atlanta.

AM: Oh, what year, what year was this?

RJ: This was during civil rights. But, you know, NOI nation of Islam was, uh, they, they believed in separatism. So that was the Venn diagram. It was KU Klux, Klan, and NOI. They were allied as a result of this belief that everybody should be separate. So NOI was more likely to work with the KU Klux Klan than it was a civil rights movement. And Malcolm X in his wonderful autobiography with Alex Haley, doesn't mention this. And so it's a really good example. I think of how letting people tell their own story means you're going to get a very biased view. Sometimes.

AM: Yes, PostShame is biased for personal feelings.

RJ: But like I said, there is something at stake and that to me is the difference. So I can tell. I, you know, I take issue with somebody telling me all the time, how great they are, then I'm like, I don't believe that you're that great.

AM: That's not PostShame, that's just being impervious to disgrace.

RJ: But if you're going to tell me I'm not great, vis-a-vis like, what society says is great. I did something that people aren't going to like, or that people will have issues with, or that, you know, it seems in some circles is not socially acceptable. Then I'm pulling up a chair and listening. And I think that's, I think it's a huge problem today. I think it's a huge problem with social media. I think I've read so many memoirs from non celebrities. I mean, I read a lot of celebrity memoirs, but people just being the unabashed hero of their story. Is patently untrue to me. And to me it's crazy too, because like so much of this like confessional impulse, I think can be traced back to like Joni Mitchell.

AM: Ooh that far, I thought you were going to say like Paris Hilton and I'm like.

RJ: No Paris Hilton. I don't, I don't believe her tale of herself at all, because she's never, she has never come clean for her racism. She said, there's so many documented examples of her saying the N word on tape that you can watch on the internet right now. Never has there been a reckoning with that? She's never apologized for it. And now she's like in the news all the time.

AM: She needs to PostShame.

RJ: I mean, she needs to address that for sure. But like Joni. It is full of admitted flaws. So somehow we lost the thread where like everybody just needs to be squeaky clean and perfect. And so that's the contrast with PostShame to me.

AM: That's so interesting. I'm thinking about how, like, people say that Nan Golden invented the selfie and she was like, I do not want this nomination. I wonder how Joni Mitchell would feel about being like, I think you invented confessional culture.

RJ: I think she would be agassed. I think that, I mean, Joanie hates everybody, you know, there's literally a story where like Judy Collins who sang one of Joanie's first hits both sides.

AM: Can we just conjure these beautiful women right now.

RJ: I know, she ran into Joanie or something And Joanie blew her off very soon after that song was a hit. And I think she said to David Crosby or Graham Nash, one of Joanie's men, like God Joanie hates me. And he was like, Joanie hates everybody. I mean, she's a Scorpio. I, so my, I relate to Joanie on a lot of levels, her whole like, I'm so persecuted thing, meanwhile, you're an American icon, you know, Blue's 50th anniversary just happened and she like released a statement. Oh, all of the love, people are finally getting blue and it's like, Joni people have got people, people have gotten, come on. I mean, maybe it didn't go to number one, but like pretty immediately people loved it. And it's only grown since, and you could go back 30 years and you would like, I mean, like Tori Amos, you could say she was in, I mean, she covered a case of you, you know, so whatever for Joanie, but it's true that she isn't as appreciated as she should be. I mean, she should be like a patron Saint anyway.

AM: Oh, well, let's have a moment for these patron saints, these, these gorgeous, beautiful women and we'll come back right after a break. And we're back, Rich, in the break, we were talking a little bit about the origins of PostShame and Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Lawrence are these women that are kind of stuck in my head as women who've had their bodies gawked at publicly. And I realized when I had my nudes scrubbed from the internet, that I was so lucky that I was like this person who, who wasn't yet famous and could like get these photos taken down. And I said, oh, but I feel really bad when people like Anne Hathaway have up-skirt photos on the internet. And she can't really have those taken down and it kind of influenced the thinking of post shame is like, I wonder how she could reclaim her body, but you actually have a story about Anne Hathaway.

RJ: Yeah. I mean, I have a story about contributing to this, which is, you know, when I was shocked, when this movie came out called Colossal that she did, or she plays an internet writer on it and it seemed to be very harmonious with her profile. There was so much ink spilled about everybody hates Anne Hathaway back in the day.

AM: Hatha-haters was such, I mean, this is all pre me too. And like people were like, oh, it's a fun sport to hate women. And you're like, no, this is really bad. And now in retrospect, it's like really, really bad the way that she was dragged.

RJ: It was. And I, I definitely contributed to that at Gawker but at the same time during that time, I think I had at least had the perspective to say, I mean, you know, everybody hates Anne Hathaway in quotes. But the right people don't hate Anne Hathaway. She's fine.

AM: She's about to win an Oscar.

RJ: She's about to win an Oscar. She has fans. She obviously has people in Hollywood who want to work with her. So people were certainly unfair, me being one of them. But at the same time, there was some perspective to be had. I think like, you know, when you hear people say, oh, Kim Kardashian, she's just like shit on all the time. Yes, but she also occupies an intense mantle of privilege in our culture. And so many people don't hate her and care about her every move. So there, there can be more than one thing that's true at a time. Right. So, Hathaway does this movie and for some reason, she agrees to let me interview her for Jezebel. And we, I met her and I talked and it was short. It wasn't a particularly long interview. It wasn't like a profile or anything. It was a junket sort of thing. And she had issues specifically with Jezebel actually that she talked about. She said, you know, I used to look at the site and now I can't, because I feel like it's been so mean. And, I actually hadn't. Yeah, that wasn't,

AM: That's actually it's so rare that we hear celebrities admit that they're like, oh yeah, the internet, a very scary place for me. They're always saying don't read the comment section, but she's fully like, no, there's an internet properties I choose not to visit. Cause y'all are mean to me.

RJ: Right. but I'll still talk to you, you know?

AM: Actually, I mean, cheers to Anne for that.

RJ: I was very impressed. I mean, regardless of her motivation or like what was actually going on inside of her head, she was a total class act the entire time. It was great. And so, you know, I do this thing, I get back to my desk and I was like, wait a minute. And I remembered my early time at Gawker rather famously, there was like an upskirt shot of Anne Hathaway. Now I should give myself a little bit of rope here to say, in the two thousands up skirt shots of celebrities were like wallpaper. It was like, it was, it was everywhere. And there were certainly people, a lot of feminists who said, Hey, this is fucked up. And there were a lot more people that said, yeah, whatever. And I think a lot of the treatment of celebrities in two thousands has fomented the contempt that they have today for the press that goes, you know, like we were talking about before that I think goes above and beyond what it should be, but I understand it. I had posted those pictures of Anne Hathaway with a sentence or two and promptly forgotten them until my memories jogged. Okay. What am I going to do about it? I feel like a hypocrite. And I also feel like, you know, it's going to be easy enough. Maybe somebody remembers, or it's gonna be easy enough to Google my name and hers and be like, what did you, how are you, how are you interviewing this person without acknowledging this after like what you did? So I ended up writing about that. I wasn't sure how to approach it. You know, I had.

AM: When did you go to, for advice on how to, on how to write it or who, you know, who did you edit with?

RJ: I had edited with Emma Carmichael. She was my editor at the time. And I talked to Katy Weaver, who was at GQ at the time, but I'd worked with her at Gawker and she was, and I was like, I don't know what to do about this. Like, I feel like, you know, I somehow have to acknowledge this whatever, and she's like, I know you'll do the right thing. And so I ended up just coming totally clean. So it was kind of like a reverse PostShame. But I mean, cause this was my shame. I was so ashamed that I had done this to this actor.

AM: This is vivid, being PostShame and making a meaningful apology all at the same time.

RJ: This was before me too as well, but like a, like my consciousness had changed enough in the time since that like doing that then is unthinkable to me now, like everything I believe about consent and people's bodies and, you know, I just, it was just like totally cynical of me to, to do that. So I ended up bringing that piece. I thought maybe I should tell Anne Hathaway and get her on the phone. That seems like an ambush type of thing. Like what, like what would that, how would that conversation even have gone? And then I'm expecting a response from her to craft it perfectly.

AM: Anyone who's ever interacted with like 12 step programs that like that whole ‘making amends’ thing, it's like, you only have to do it. If it doesn't injure the person. Like, I think it's great that you went through that process and thought, what am I going to do? Try to get a quote from her when I'm telling her about this. Cause I'm writing the piece. Like, I think that's doing additional harm and I don't have to bother her with that.

RJ: I just sent the publicist a note and I said, you know, I realized that I did this. I'm really, really sorry about it. Anne doesn't need to respond to it, nothing like that. But if she wants to, she certainly can, I'm willing to talk to her about it. She didn't want to, but I just want everybody to know. I ended up writing it into the piece, which also sort of reckoned with the everyone hates Anne Hathaway thing. And you know, at that point, cause I think this was like 2016. We had already gone past that. It had already been over that people were hating on her so much. So now she's just an actor, you know.

AM: She took time off. I mean she said “the Internet's clearly sick of me”. So I guess I'm going to take some time off. I don't know if she's ever fully she'll write a memoir one day and we'll hear about what it was like to, be an early, internet fatigued figure.

RJ: Yes. And I bet it'll be great. I think she is a wonderful actor. I found her to be incredibly bright. Like I said, a class act and felt really bad about it, but I felt like the only way that I could really reckon with that was to put it up front and be like, you know, here's what happened.

AM: Well, I want to acknowledge you for continuing to do it instead of just giving the interview to someone else, once you realized it or just canceling the whole thing, because I think our culture needs more examples of people walking through the process of recognizing that they did something wrong. Like you're comfortable with. We know that that was wrong. And now you are

RJ: Wrong is putting it nicely.

AM: And now with different evolved views on consent, even like something as basic as now in 2021, we have a very vivid conversation about consent in this country, and we need to use Anne Hathaway as the example of she did not consent to having those photos taken.

RJ: She didn't.

AM: And she became part of the, like you said, wallpaper, wallpaper of upskirt, photos of women. And there are no wallpaper of nude photos of men because men and women are shamed differently on the internet.

RJ: Orlando bloom, Justin Bieber, we had the.

AM: But it doesn't stick. When I wrote a version of a PostShame essay talking about Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence, and someone goes, you know, Kanye too. And I'm like, I didn't even know there are Kanye nudes and I'm like…

RJ: Well his face wasn't in them. So is that Kanye you know. I remember that, but

AM: In comparison to his then wife Kardashian, you're like, how is that not written about people who are so unkind about Kim Kardashian and saying, oh, she's the highest paid porn star in the world. And I'm like, wait, can we. Are we not going to spend any eyre on Kanye, who I don't think is a very stand-up guy?

RJ: No. Well, and also, I mean, what was really fascinating, I also went back and I researched about Kim Kardashians sex tape, which by the way, the origin of which remains unknown, basically, there is no.

AM: Really?

RJ: Yeah, there is no,

AM: And the fact checking Pantheon, there is no way to know how that got leaked.

RJ: I mean, it seems really suspicious. I have my suspicions, but the Pamela Tommy tape, we had a handyman at our house. He stole the tape. He gave an interview. There's like, there's a narrative. The Kim Kardashians thing is like, um, storage unit or something, and all of a sudden it ended up in the wrong hands. Cause she wrote this account for it. I think for Vogue, for somebody she wrote like a narrative the, the year that that happened, that the tape came out, she wrote this thing. The reality shows out by the end of the year, I think that was 2007. So it's a little bit dicey when we talk about like the Kim Kardashian sex tape in the realm of like revenge porn, was it? I don't know. I mean, I feel like somebody inside did it. People have been very adamant that it was not RayJay. RayJay was never part of the discussions for settling with vivid. It's very, very suspicious. The entire thing I'll send it. I like, went through everything. And I typed out the narrative to make sense of this thing. That doesn't make sense that said Kanye has profited off of it. RayJay has profited off of it. She never mentions it basically. I mean, if this was calculated on her end, it was merely a launch and she said, That's it, it's a lunch she's like revisited a few times, whereas RayJay has like every year for a few years talking about it, celebrity big brother in songs, just constantly talking about it so.

AM: Well, and she's a PostShame warrior by writing her own narrative and telling people I don't have to talk about that, you know, and I'm leaving that behind in my past. And, uh, Hey, I, I think it's fine that she can decide that and that it shouldn't be her only narrative.

RJ: Also, you can look at her narrative really optimistically in that the sex tape didn't destroy her. Like I said, doing research, this is the kind of thing in the late eighties and early nineties that people just felt like now my life is over. Then in 2007, we get someone who's basically introduced to the world during sex and becomes an icon up there with Marilyn Monroe. That's something that Kanye is right about. So it is really fascinating. I don't think we necessarily have only fans without Kim Kardashians. To what extent she had consent or didn't. Still, her profile normalized this and made it so like, oh, so you can like be a sexual person in public, have a career that has only, you know, is sexual sort of, or sexy. Let's say back in the day it was like you were banished to porn. If you did. And, that's no longer the case.

AM: Yeah. Cause it turns out as human beings, we're all naked under these clothes and a lot of us have sex.

RJ: Exactly.

AM: Did you know?

RJ: Yes, I did.

AM: I want, I want to mine your brain for all the cultural big bangs. Yeah. Now we get to go all the way back to Joni Mitchell, but like, you know, I have this theory that like Paris is burning, you know, creates a total cultural, big bang. Kim Kardashian for better or worse has completely changed our world. And now onlyfans is a part of it.

RJ: Blair Witch projects,

AM: Okay. See, I want to dive into your brain and I want a visual representation of these cultural big bangs . So Twitter, you mentioned earlier, kind of flattens certain stories. I get certain criticism from people that creating another hashtag is like, so lame that they're like Adam watch out post shame is going to get stolen. By other people, it's just going to be, people posting hole pics and being like, you know, forget it PostShame. And I'm like, no, that's not how it works. It's this really meaningful mechanism meant to help people share their stories, you know, on their own terms. But yeah, it would probably be hijacked by, by hole pics at some point. What do you think of Twitter as? Do you just see it as a big double-edged sword as well that, you know, it can share stories. It can also tear people down where you are at in your own Twitter journey.

RJ: Well, I mean, in my own Twitter journey, I barely use it, I think. Oh yeah. I mean, I barely, you know, I check it from time to time, but if I find myself spending like more than five minutes on it, I'm like okay. Too much.

AM: Okay. I thought as a journalist, you'd be like, my guilty pleasure is deep diving on Twitter.

RJ: Yeah, no, I mean, a lot of people do, uh.

AM: It sounds like it's bad. It's bad for people like.

RJ: It seems bad for people. I mean like, like just personally speaking, I'd never go looking for anything about myself at this point. Especially if you don't @ me, I just will not see it unless somebody brings it to my attention, which I think does more harm than good. Actually. I think it's, I think it's very like a real Housewives thing. I say that without being a real Housewives watcher, but it isn't, it's like a very kind of like reality TV thing to be like, Someone said something about you, and I'm only telling you because we're such good friends. It's like, what do I do with that info? You know, I think it's a form of aggression. A lot of the time.

AM: A certain piece of preventing these gaffes and these uncomfortable moments is. Yeah. You kind of do want some people in your life who will give you the heads up. Yeah. I dunno, screen grabbing with no context and just being like, Hey, you having a bad day on the internet. And it's like, whoa, I didn't even know this was happening. That's bad.

RJ: If it's something like, if it's something major, if it's something like, you know, private information of yours has leaked. Yeah, of course you want a heads up. If it's something like, oh, my friend on a group text said that he wishes you were dead. I can like exist without that information and I'm actually better off not having that information. So I think there's a difference. And a lot of the chatter that I receive isn't my nudes are leaked. It's like that kind of shit, you know? So I prefer not to hear it.

AM: Okay, that makes sense. And when you see Alexi McCammond, she was short-lived, editor in chief of teen Vogue and had that job taken away because they weren't willing to kind of stand up for her. She had old tweets that were racist to Asian people, and people came for her and said she can't have this job. And I was like, I think she wrote these tweets when she was still a teenager. And do you deep scroll your own Twitter to look for things? Or do you have just a really high bar for what you ever tweet? Cause some people are like, oh, there's some tweets back there and I'm not really eager to scroll back and like, look at that.

RJ: So I didn't even want to engage with that. So like a few years ago I deleted basically everything. And then like starting from that point on only tweeted things that I could live with, you know? I used to like to go back and forth with people on Twitter. It's such a bad look to bicker with people. There are so many better ways to handle that sort of thing, but you know, my own personal. Shame, which is rooted in my childhood, is such that, like, if I feel like you're making a fool out of me, I'm just going to give it back. Or at least, you know, that's how that was my attitude. You know, people say things like, oh, ignore whatever. And it's like, well, if I have like, I always have 10 seconds to tell you why you're wrong, you know what I mean? But then

AM: You can always find that time.

RJ: I mean, come on

AM: You're a well-researched writer. You're like I have facts.

RJ: As somebody who's done bad faith interpretations. I've seen a lot of bad faith interpretations of myself, which pissed me off. And it's like, you're supposing that. And you have no idea what you're talking about. If I wanted to do something like a PR thing and get people on my side that I've somehow turned off along the way, it would require going to every single one of them and putting myself in front of them. And I don't have time for that. So whatever, think whatever you want. I'm happy to be working and I'm glad I made you care about something, you know, but there was, I can tell you about one conflict that I, I wish I had done like a PostShame kind of thing. I, if I had just told the truth, that would have been such a mic drop and it would be like shut up. There was somebody who was very aggressive with me on Twitter who previously had no idea. That's another thing that happens sometimes. I don't know if you're aware of this. People will put themselves in front of you and you're like, I didn't even need to know about you. You know what I mean? Like there's, there's literally no reason for us to interact. You have contempt for me. I don't know who you are. I don't need to, what's going to come of this.

AM: But that's what the internet provides, is that sensation of access and closeness, and why we had a carnival Barker reality show, host precedent, the encounter per sample felt access and closeness and understood.

RJ: Exactly. So, but that said. When he came at me, told me that I was overly general based on a piece that was nothing but examples. It was like, you're not even like, if anything, I can't see the forest for the trees. Like you're not even hating me. Right. Whatever.

AM: But now I know the way to like, get your goat as to like, come at you with being like, like writing criticism as though we're like, in grad school and we're doing like a crit.

RJ: I mean, but that's like, so as a writer, that's so much of what you hear, but that said, I needed to embrace the fact that when you put stuff out there, you're not going to be for everybody. It's just not, and I cannot fault anybody for not liking the actual pros. As somebody who likes and dislikes things very intensely, nothing but respect for your personal tastes. I just don't want to hear about it for a lot of time, you know, it's not like this is like a workshop, so it's going to help me. It's just going to make me feel bad and think about it years later, you know? Better. If I avoid it, he had, he had come from me before over nonsense. I was like, you live in New York. Why don't you next time you see me talk to my face about this. Next time he saw me. He did not talk about me to my face

AM: human in-person interaction. It turns out, is hard. We often cultivate more compassion when we're in person together.

RJ: But I knew who this person was. He had very distinctive eyebrows. I was able to pick them out of a crowd, but that day I was like, you know what? I'm not going to be confrontational. Sometimes I've in the past, I've marched up to people, myself, and I've been like, here's what I really try to totally collapse the divide between my online existence and my actual personality.

AM: That's very PostShame to recognize that our online lives and our in-person lives are now for better or worse inextricably linked. And, you don't have to experience the online life, but you do have to recognize that it exists. So yeah, your Twitter life and your Twitter conversations are going to manifest in real life.

RJ: And that kind of authenticity is really important to me. Like I have nothing, but my integrity basically, you know, at this point, so I see him, don't say anything. This was a very, very hot pride day. A few years ago, it was a pool party. I had taken an edible.

AM: Okay. Set the stage

RJ: I was, I was dried out and I had, well, so, so then I get home, whatever, and I see this person tweets about me, that he saw me at this pool party. And I had cocaine all over my face. Yeah. Which isn't like, literally not how cocaine works.

AM: You're like no it's pot brownie. And it was on my fingers.

RJ: What it was, was popper burn. And I should have just replied to him. It's popper burn you fool. But I didn't. Instead I made it like a thing. I was like, this is how gay men talk to each other. And I retweeted into my feed and did just like the absolute worst. Like it should have just been a thing where I replied to him. Mike drop that's that? And the truth would have actually really, really suited me instead. I did this whole thing, blah, blah, blah. I felt like kind of like Carl Hart before I had even read Carl Hart, which is like, it's fucked up that you would actually stigmatize somebody for doing cocaine anyway. So I'm going to take that stance and be like, fuck, I hadn't done cocaine. I could have gone to the drug store, bought it, bought a test and sued him for libel. But I, I mean, I should have threatened that I would have made him delete the tweet. I had not done cocaine in a very long time at that point. But, you know, instead I acted kind of pissy about it.

AM: I have to say the poppers burn, tweet response. I would've printed that out. That would be framed in my house. So being like, look at how bad-ass, this is seriously. So the lesson there, what do we think the lesson is there, this, this will not be a podcast where I'm like, so these are the lessons.

RJ: I mean, I think like number one lesson is like, avoid your mentions. But number two, lesson is. Don't make a drama. If you don't want drama and just let the truth be your mic drop that's. That's what I would say. I learned from that.

AM: Well, that's good. That's good. And if one of the taglines of PostShame is making space for conversations about coping with the internet. Yeah. I actually do find this story very helpful. Yeah, because. Everyone has one of these stories. Everyone is either in this story or adjacent to it or cares about someone who's, who's dealing with that. Right? The internet makes a lot of people a little more famous, but people are interacting with what it feels like to be public people. And it is uncomfortable and it is totally reasonable that someone talk smack about you and you respond in a way that you're in your words, you know, you're like not proud of, right?

RJ: No, totally, totally.

AM: We need more stories of people saying, yeah. So I learned something from this and like, this is how to do it. We have to tell 14 year olds those stories. We have to tell kids, starting college, those stories, we have to tell people entering the workforce, those stories, everyone's kind of figuring out how to deal with this really loud, intense device. So, it may feel tired to you or like, oh God, I can relate. I'm talking about Twitter and this stupid poppers burn again or something. But I think it's actually really helpful because so many people are like, oh, I've been there.

RJ: I also think it's a really good look to just look like you don't care. Even if you do care a little bit just to play it cool.

AM: As an extroverted extrovert, no one thinks I've ever not cared about anything.

RJ: I know, I know I'm intense to myself, you know, I generally care no matter what, but like there, I think there is great power in not projecting your offense.

AM: Now let's just drag everyone to therapy. Let's drag all of the internet users into therapy and be like, and also by the way, don't project don't project, Twitter should have like a projection warning. Yeah. It should have been like, you know how during the election, like garbage election results, where would it be? Like exclamation point. This is not true.

RJ: Yes.

AM: There should be some kind of sentiment reader on Twitter. That's like, so you may be projecting because the words you're using are saying...

RJ: I'll just give it time.

AM: Awesome. So advice for Jack Dorsey and Twitter projection warnings. We will be right back after another quick break.
Y'all wow. I mean, listening back to that, how bad-ass is Rich?
I really want to take time to acknowledge him just one more time for being so honest and sharing so much of his journey with us. I'm really glad we're giving this a standalone episode, come back next week, where we have Act 2 of the conversation and we reexamine Anthony Weiner's Twitter scandal. Although he admits he's not on there that often, if you're a Twitter person head on over and follow him at @richjuz
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I'm your host, Adam McLean. If you have feedback or guest ideas for me, send me an email. I'm adam@postshame.org
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We'll see you next week for part two of the conversation with Rich Juzwiak
All right. Byeeeee.