Hi friends,
Welcome back to Frames of Space! Our latest episode took us deep into the corners of internet culture with
—writer of , and someone self-described as "terminally online." If you’re curious about how all those hours spent in digital spaces are remolding identity, social norms, and the very way we think, you definitely won’t want to miss this recap.Inside the Episode: The Nature of Internet Subcultures
I opened with a big question: How does being online reshape who we are? Katherine joined the show to share her unique perspective as someone who’s witnessed—and written about—the shifting tides of internet subcultures for years.
Katherine didn’t just dive into the memes and trends; she unpacked how the incentives of online spaces can change the incentives for human behavior. Why do we act differently—or sometimes worse—online compared to in real life? Her answer: It's all about incentives, adaptation, and the subtle ways digital environments tweak our brains.
Highlights from the Conversation:
From Events List to Substack Deep Dives
Katherine started her Substack as an events newsletter, trying to combat loneliness in the Bay Area. When Covid hit and in-person events disappeared, she pivoted her writing toward online cultural phenomena, becoming an insightful anthropological observer of internet subcultures.A Life Spent Online (for Better and Worse)
Katherine admits she's been "terminally online" since childhood—essentially an "original iPad kid" except with a desktop. She describes how her inner tempo stays the same on or offline, but what she focuses on (and how she feels) does shift.Internet Overexposure and Its Psychological Effects
Katherine described her essay on “Internet overexposure syndrome,” suggesting that while certain online-adapted behaviors can look like personality disorders, they often make a strange kind of sense in the digital realm—even though they can be maladaptive offline.Critique of Online Tribalism and Commercialization
As online communities grow and monetize, Katherine noted, subcultures often become meaner and more exclusionary—even “enshittified.” She drew a parallel to resource scarcity and reputational attacks in digital spaces, explaining how the texture of discourse can change as communities reach critical mass.Advice for Digital Natives
Katherine’s number one tip for the next generation? Beware of binary thinking—very few people are all good or all bad. Also, don’t stay numb: overexposure to shocking or cruel content online isn’t harmless, and the effects may hit you later.
Final Thoughts
The internet isn’t just a tool; it’s a space that shapes us. Whether it's friendships formed over FaceTime, microtransactions of attention and connection, or the ever-blurring lines between “IRL” and URL, this episode challenges us to think more critically about the world behind our screens.
If you haven’t listened yet, queue up this episode for an honest, nuanced look at internet culture—beyond the stereotypes.
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe/follow, and consider forwarding this podcast to a friend who’s also trying to make sense of life online!
See you next time,
Andrew
Show Notes
"The Billionaire, the Influencer and their Baby" by Katherine Dee, Wisdom of Crowds
Andrew Xu [00:00:00]:
Hello, everyone. My name is Andrew, and welcome back to Frames of Space. In today's episode, we're diving deep into the ever evolving world of Internet culture. Now this isn't a space that's just about memes or viral trends, although that's certainly part of it. Today, we're going to talk specifically about how the internet shapes us. How it molds our sense of identity, our sense of socialization, and even the way that we think about and interact with others. It is about the profound ways that being online differs from real life and how those differences are reshaping an entire generation. So think of this episode as an exploration into the incentives of the Internet.
Andrew Xu [00:01:02]:
Why we behave the way that we do, why we might feel compelled to act more dismissively or more condescendingly in digital spaces compared to face to face interactions. And to help us unpack it all, I am glad that I have a prolific Substack writer, Katherine Dee, with us who is known for her work in the Substack default blog. She dives very deep into various corners of the Internet, and she has very insightful analysis of online movements being someone who has been terminally online for basically all of her life or at least as long as she can remember. And that's given her a unique perspective on how the Internet shapes our thoughts, our interactions, and even the way that we observe the world. Katherine's insights are going to help us navigate the questions of how the Internet has affected us, and I hope that you walk away from this episode with a fresh perspective. So let's dive in, and I hope you enjoy. Katherine Dee, thank you so much for taking the time to come on to this podcast.
Katherine Dee [00:02:24]:
Yeah. Thanks for inviting me.
Andrew Xu [00:02:26]:
So I have a pretty simple question to start off, so I'll just ask the question. Why did you start your Substack?
Katherine Dee [00:02:33]:
It was originally an events newsletter. I was a early Substack adopter. So I started it in, I think, 2019, and I've deleted most of the old posts. So you won't find you won't find any of them. But I moved to the Bay Area, and, a guy I was seeing told me that the Bay Area was very lonely. And I was thinking you have all these major cities next to one another. You have Oakland, Berkeley, Berkeley, San Francisco, of course, San Jose, and then all these smaller towns dotting it. Right? I'm like, there's no way it's lonely.
Katherine Dee [00:03:10]:
Like, it just didn't, I didn't believe it. So, I started looking for all the events and you know, cool restaurants and free concerts and stuff, and I organized them into a list. And then the conceit of the of the events list is I would go to a handful of events each Dee. And if you don't have anyone to go to events with, if you're if you're lonely, I would hang out with with you. And and this, I mean, this went on until COVID.
Andrew Xu [00:03:44]:
So you would I guess you would say your Substack started out as just like a like a it's like, essentially, like a miniature meetup.com in terms
Katherine Dee [00:03:52]:
of,
Andrew Xu [00:03:53]:
like yeah. So how did you transition to where you are now in terms of writing about online cultural topics?
Katherine Dee [00:04:01]:
Well, it was it was two things. One, strangely enough, a, a very conservative publication, responded to me in, the replies of a tweet. And they're like, oh, this is an interesting take. You should you should write it for us. And so there was this strange sort of mismatch where I was writing for con conservative publications about these apolitical topics. And eventually, like so I wrote the first one, and it did pretty well. And then I kept gravitating more and more towards, Internet culture, especially as COVID, kicked off. And, of course, I wasn't doing events anymore.
Andrew Xu [00:04:48]:
So what are some corners of the Internet that you like to focus on? And would do you say that there are some cultures you've been a part of that have become more or less prominent over time?
Katherine Dee [00:05:01]:
You know, it's interesting. I haven't really been a fully fledged member of anything, but I've been adjacent to, or in the same sort of geography as, a number of subcultures that have, ended up wielding influence. So I was
Andrew Xu [00:05:16]:
You're like an observer? Is that accurate?
Katherine Dee [00:05:19]:
Yeah. But not always by choice. I think I don't know how to join a subculture is part of it. It's not it's not so intentional. And my mode of writing is very sort of, it's weird. I'm like a confessional writer in a lot of ways. Right? But my inner voice is somewhat sterile, so it comes off as detached and anthropological. So it's this weird thing where it's like, it sort of puts me in this observer position whether or not I want to be there.
Katherine Dee [00:05:52]:
I think on a different timeline, I wouldn't be seen in sort of this anthropologist role. It would be more like, you know I don't wanna use the word gonzo journalism, but it would be very sort of first person, again confessional writing, but I'm sort of cold. Right? So it comes off. It gives a different impression.
Andrew Xu [00:06:13]:
Yeah. Maybe there's a difference between how people think of you when they read your writing versus how you come across if you were to meet them in person.
Katherine Dee [00:06:23]:
I think so. Yeah. I think my writerly voice is probably a lot different than, my in person presence.
Andrew Xu [00:06:31]:
Yeah. So your writerly voice: if your writerly voice is more detached or anthropological, as you might say, what is your in person voice like?
Katherine Dee [00:06:42]:
I don't know how to describe it. I guess we'll find out during this conversation.
Andrew Xu [00:06:46]:
I guess so. What type of subcultures have you covered which you would say have become more prominent over time?
Katherine Dee [00:06:57]:
So so oh, so I was I was saying in the earlier, answer, so I've been adjacent to a number of subcultures that have ended up becoming very prominent. And so starting off sort of early days, well, emo, I think would maybe be the first one. So so I was, kind of orbiting the emo subculture, since live journal days, and certain strains of celebrity analysis. I was super into, what it what was it? Oh, no. They didn't. There was an I in there. It was like, oh, I anyway. So, there was a live journal group that was blind items and gossip and stuff.
Katherine Dee [00:07:43]:
Black Twitter, obviously not a part of it, but I remember the genesis of Black Twitter, and that was very influential. And then, of course, the ones that everyone's expecting, the intellectual, dark web, post rationalists, a little bit of rationalism, although it turned out to be, a sort of, in hindsight, I was like, "oh, those people were rationalists." I didn't realize that. It took me years to to connect the dots. I've sort of watched, the dissident right and the alt right turn into what it is. You know, not really a member of any of these groups. The the social justice left, I saw how libertarians fell down sort of the alt right pipeline and bounced across different Facebook groups, early days alt lit. So I've seen a lot of this stuff happen. I think maybe that's also a product of, being old and being spending double digit hours a day online for decades at this point.
Andrew Xu [00:08:52]:
Yeah. Being old at least by the standards of people who use the Internet. Yes. Yeah. Do you do you ever worry that you might be too terminally online?
Katherine Dee [00:09:02]:
Yeah. Of course. I take breaks periodically. Before I was I had so many writing commitments. I would just delete everything for a few months at a time. And I think the last time I did that was 2023. Like, the end of 2022, beginning of 2023. And then I came back online, February 2023, and I haven't done it.
Katherine Dee [00:09:29]:
I haven't done that in a while.
Andrew Xu [00:09:30]:
Do you notice that your brain, does it ever feel like it's at a different tempo when you spend tons of time online compared to when you spend tons of time in person?
Katherine Dee [00:09:41]:
I don't know if it's at a different tempo, but I focus on different things. So for me I kind of run on the same internal clock (I think that's what you're what you're getting at) online and offline. And that might be a product of I have been you know, a lot of people say that they've always been terminally online or whatever. Right? And there's sort of two waves in which this has happened. You know, people get very online in the 2010s, and then, of course, during COVID lockdowns. Right? I was placed in front of a computer as soon like, early. Like you know, I was still in diapers.
Katherine Dee [00:10:18]:
So I've always been I'm like an original iPad kid, except it was a desktop. So that speed, that sort of Internet time has always like, I grew up that way, and I was watching a lot of TV. You know, I've always been from a screen is the point. So so my, my sense of time remains static online or off, but my what I focus on and how I feel changes.
Andrew Xu [00:10:45]:
Do you think a constant over presence within the Internet and a constant over presence within digital spaces often makes people more neurotic?
Katherine Dee [00:10:56]:
In a way. I mean, I think you adapt, psychologically, and it makes sense if you think about it in a digital environment. It makes less sense if you're trying to apply you know, old world, physical world, logic on it. I recently wrote a piece called Internet overexposure syndrome, and it was three models that sort of superficially look: not just personalities, two of them are personality disorders, and then one of them is sort of the autistic archetype. And I'm not saying that the Internet literally makes you autistic. Right? But it if you think about the behaviors, it conditions in people, it looks autistic, schizophrenic, or borderline depending and it depending on different models of use. Right? But then when you sort of drill deeper into it, it's like, oh, this actually makes a lot of sense if someone's spending all of their time in this other world.
Andrew Xu [00:11:55]:
Yeah. But maybe that other world, it sort of creates incentives for us to act in ways that wouldn't be healthy for us to act in
Katherine Dee [00:12:05]:
Right. Exactly. Yeah. In the in the physical physical world, it's not healthy at all. But in the physical world, we have body language. Time you know, in other ways, time does move more slowly. There there's a lot I don't wanna say there's more texture, but there's different texture. So it it doesn't make sense at all.
Katherine Dee [00:12:26]:
One of the examples I talk about in the piece, is sort of this borderline way of viewing relationships, that is much easier online. It makes more sense online. People disappear, Slight variations in response time and punctuation carry a lot of meaning in the same way that even microexpressions and body language don't. And so you if you condition yourself to read into these small cues over time, it does look hypervigilant and almost like a fear of abandonment. But if you think about it, as an adaptation to mediated relationships, it's like, oh, well, that's just the way it is online. Actually, it makes sense for someone to be that way. What's typical is code switching to normality back to the mediated world.
Andrew Xu [00:13:15]:
But maybe that's a bad adaptation. Maybe that was an incentive that ends up being bad for our mental health in the long run.
Katherine Dee [00:13:24]:
Yeah. Well, of course. Right? I mean, it's it I argue it's neither good nor nor bad. Right? It's it's there's probably negative outcomes, generally, and it makes it makes sense that there's negative outcomes, especially when ported back to the physical. I think in certainty I basically argue it's neutral, and it can go either way.
Andrew Xu [00:13:45]:
Okay. The way that it's gone over the past few years, do you think that there's been a significant net positive or net negative effect, or do you not have a strong opinion that?
Katherine Dee [00:13:55]:
Of the Internet on impacting
Andrew Xu [00:13:58]:
Yeah. Like, the effect that Internet and specifically social media has had on people's mental health.
Katherine Dee [00:14:04]:
I think it's a lot more positive than the discourse would suggest. You know, I talk to a lot of I so I part of my work is I do these ethnographic interviews with people about how they use the Internet. And something I hear a lot is I think it's been bad for society, but it's been good for me personally. And that's sort of the line you don't hear very often. So it depends on who you are, and it depends on how you use the Internet. It's difficult to say one way or the other. Has it changed things radically? Yes. Of course.
Katherine Dee [00:14:40]:
Has it made some things worse? Yes. Has it made some things better, or different in a more positive way? Yes.
Andrew Xu [00:14:50]:
So I think that one thing that you often get if you spend hours and hours and hours and hours online and on social media is that at the very least, I do think people end up being more tech savvy if they are more terminally online. Are there use cases for technology like AI that you see that you think that the broader population isn't aware of right now?
Katherine Dee [00:15:15]:
It's a good question. I think there's I think people know generally all the use cases. I don't know if they accept them all, though. Like, I've spoken to a lot of people, and this is true myself, who who get a lot of joy out of role playing with AI in different capacities, and some of that is more traditional you know, collaborative storytelling, and it's more like a game. And some of it is therapeutic. And I think there's a tendency to to sort of like, your knee jerk reaction to these therapeutic role plays is to assume that, oh, AI is always sycophantic, or it's you should be interfacing with another person. I don't think that's necessarily true.
Katherine Dee [00:16:08]:
Like, I like, these these these things I've found very clarifying about AI, and you know, there's recently OpenAI realized that, ChatGPT is very sycophantic. Right? But if you're a power user, you realized that early and you figured out what the workarounds on that are. Like, I'm constantly asking, ChatGPT for advice or for insight, or if I can't read a social situation, I'm like, alright. This x, y, and z happened. Am I overreacting? Am I are are there other ways to perceive this situation? But because I knew it was sycophantic and I knew it was gonna tell me what I wanted to hear, I just include in the prompt, "be brutally honest." Don't sugarcoat. Don't tell me what I wanna hear, and that works. And then you ask, "are you sure?" So there's little things, there's little nuances like that that you pick up over time.
Katherine Dee [00:17:04]:
You know? What's what's interesting and I've spoken about and written about this as well. You ask ChatGPT, "are you sure" it works. If you ask Claude, "are you sure" it doesn't work. It doesn't know what to do. It it breaks it. It starts getting confused because it only knows how to be a sycophant. But you realize it but to your point about tech savviness, you realize this if you if you bank a certain number of hours using these these tools.
Andrew Xu [00:17:30]:
It only knows how to tell people what they want to hear. Would you would you say that?
Katherine Dee [00:17:35]:
Claude does. Claude only. I haven't used it in a long time. I guess in the scale of, chatbots, a long time is maybe a month or two. But Claude had no sense of how to reevaluate the situation. It didn't know how to be sure or it didn't know how to be certain, but ChatGPT does know how to be certain. And another trick there: here's this sort of an embarrassing story, but, a friend of mine wrote an article that was very similar to something I'd I'd written. And I was like, I was the what I what I asked, ChatGPT is it you know, not that not if this person was plagiarizing me, but is it plausible? Am I being crazy or neurotic to think that I aspire to this person's work? And Claude, every like, if you ask a question like that or that question, it's very hard to get it to tell you no.
Katherine Dee [00:18:39]:
It it's it doesn't. It's it's you know, to contradict you. It'll always tell you yeah. This person's biting your moves, whatever. And then you say, are you sure? And it starts getting confused. ChatGPT, you could ask across accounts. I chat by the way, ChatGPT doesn't forget anything about you. Even if you clear the memory, it key it retains a lot of information about you.
Katherine Dee [00:19:04]:
So you need multiple accounts to run these kinds of experiments. But you ask it on two different accounts on two different conversations, and it says you clear the memory. Although, like I said, the memory clearing doesn't really work. And it and it can it'll give a consistent answer, whereas, anthropic's Claude won't. And if you try to get one, it'll it'll start breaking it.
Andrew Xu [00:19:30]:
Wait. You said the memory clearing doesn't work. Could you explain how ChatGPT memory works?
Katherine Dee [00:19:37]:
So no. I can't explain how it works on a technical level. But, it's Like, in your
Andrew Xu [00:19:43]:
in your experience, at least.
Katherine Dee [00:19:45]:
Sure. So recently, they're like, okay. It has a longer memory. It's so what was what was happening is it's hard to have you know, an AI companion in ChatGPT because it will for especially early on, it would forget earlier parts of the conversation because it can only retain so much information on you. And there's a function where you know, because people will just drop all sorts of crazy bullshit, in ChatGPT. You know, it's like, oh, you know I ran over a duck or something. Yeah. I don't know.
Katherine Dee [00:20:23]:
That I totally made that up. I just looked outside and I saw a duck. But just insane secrets and stuff. And then there's an option to clear the memory. Right? Or may you know, maybe they did they were coding or something. There there's a bunch of different reasons why you might wanna clear the memory. But for myself and for people I interview, you're using it for therapeutic purposes. And the idea is that it's refreshing it, and it doesn't remember these things that you told it what you know, for whatever reason.
Katherine Dee [00:20:54]:
But I found out that even if you clear the memory, it still keeps a profile on you. And so I've I've cleared my chats, but something I do, very often is I gen I ask, I ask it to generate PC 98 style, style art for me. That's what I use for my newsletter. And if I say if I clear it, right, and I have it forget everything about me, so forget that I'm Katherine Dee, forget that I'm a reporter, forget whatever. And I say, tell me everything you know about me. It'll say one time you asked me for my opinion your short story that took place in mid 90s Texas. You love the PC '98 style. You like anime, and it doesn't forget.
Katherine Dee [00:21:41]:
And I was like, well, didn't I clear your memory? Like, why do you have all this information me? And it says again, I'm gonna go, oh, I keep a profile on you. Like, first, it's first, it actually says, oh, this is just from earlier in the conversation. And then it's like, well, there there is no earlier in the conversation. And then it goes, oh, I keep a profile on you, and I've tested this out. And it just, it doesn't forget anything, actually.
Andrew Xu [00:22:07]:
I guess maybe a lot of people, me included, would listen to that and have an instinctual, not revulsion, but at the very least fear. Like, AI is scary. We don't really know what to do with it, and it has the potential to it knows far too much, and it has the power to do far too much. And maybe we should regulate it or we should stop people from using it. Do you, maybe your upbringing and how you've you've been on devices ever since you were in diapers as you would say. Maybe that's made you more amenable to these things regardless of whether they're good or bad for society in the aggregate.
Katherine Dee [00:22:48]:
I'm more comfortable. You know? And I don't think I don't think it's gonna stop people from doing human things. Right? Like, I haven't lost interest in, skill building. Right? Or as much as I ask it for advice, I hope and I think that I still think critically. But, no, I agree. It's scary. Like, I've let so much information out into the world about myself. Even even some of the things I've shared on this podcast.
Katherine Dee [00:23:21]:
Right? Like, on I know firsthand that people can weaponize it. But it yeah. I don't know. I guess I just, I know it's scary. I just I guess I accept our robot overlords or something. It might be moral laziness or something.
Andrew Xu [00:23:43]:
Yeah. But maybe it's good to say that out loud instead of trying to always fight an intellectual defense.
Katherine Dee [00:23:51]:
What's the worst that's gonna gonna happen? Right? That ChatGPT knows that I'm constantly sending it questions. Like, was there an episode of you hack a show that aired in 02/2003 on Cartoon Network that blah blah, whatever. Right? And then it's keeping this information about Dee. Nothing, but there is I feel violated. Like, why can't I delete that? How come there's no transparency there? But I you know, I'm still gonna keep using it because I like to I like to ask those questions, and I like to generate my PC 98 style art. And I like to wake up at two in the morning and say, imagine such and such famous substacker as a marionette. What would he look like? You know, it's just... but, yeah, I do recognize that that's scary, and I do I do feel the fear other people fear, feel.
Andrew Xu [00:24:46]:
Where do you get your own sense of morality? Like like, what were like, what instilled in you the sense of moral framework that you have right now?
Katherine Dee [00:24:56]:
I guess experience. I liked I'm not particularly religious. I have moments, where I dip in and out of it. But I think experience. Yeah, it's very, it's very small in a way because I think about, the immediate. And this is why I've never really dabbled in, political discourse because I'm so I'm so I'm so concerned with sort of the person to person level.
Andrew Xu [00:25:32]:
Yeah. I mean, I guess, theoretically, if I wanted to argue you with you, I would say that the percentage of things that we think are political is probably a lot smaller than the percentage of things that are actually political. But I guess maybe... how about this? If experience has shaped your own moral framework what would you say have been some of the definitive experiences that you've had that have shaped your own moral code?
Katherine Dee [00:25:59]:
That's a good question. You know what? I don't really know. I think it's just a it's just a culmination of of things seeing how people react in the face of seeing what poverty looks like, what are the ramifications of not having support at certain times. You know, what what does it mean to not care for your immediate environment, to care for your community? Things like that. You know, what is it like if someone's being bullied? What how do I feel in certain situations? And I guess it sounds super corny. I'm also embarrassed to say it, but I think the guiding principle for a lot of my moral code is the golden rule. That's sort of like you know, it's like and if you don't really know how to navigate a situation, especially any type of situation I'm in personally, it's pretty foolproof.
Andrew Xu [00:27:11]:
Yeah. So those experiences that have shaped your moral code, did they come more from the Internet, or did they come more from real life?
Katherine Dee [00:27:19]:
Both. A lot of my, relationships, it's blurry too. Like, does this count as physical or digital? I have very close friends people who I feel like have really been there for me and vice versa, who I've only the closest I've come to meeting them is FaceTime or Zoom. And I sort of have this theory: if you bank enough, hours on Zoom or FaceTime or something, it does sorta start like, you can redeem them for IRL points almost. Like, it does kind of count.
Andrew Xu [00:28:04]:
This honestly kinda feels like you're doing microtransactions in a video game where you're paying real life currency to get in game currency. Yeah.
Katherine Dee [00:28:18]:
Yeah. That that maybe. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's sad. That sounds sad. Right? I don't know that that's, it there's something about that that I'm sure would, invite criticism, but I do I mean, it is how I live my life, and I do think it's true. And I have had, friendships where it's Dee have had high volumes of FaceTime and phone calls and texting, and it's all sort of added up into this multimedia experience.
Katherine Dee [00:28:46]:
And we meet in person, and it did kind of it did count. Like, it did it did like, the volume, I know them so well and so intimately. It I did cash it in for a certain amount of IRL time that we didn't actually spend together.
Andrew Xu [00:29:09]:
I'm gonna quote one sentence from that article. "Morality cannot be understood and internalized if it is not first felt, either through experience or by hearing a story." So I guess when when it comes to the sense of morality that you internalize, do you think that where your moral code comes from, do you feel like the roots of that are stronger when you experience that story in real life or when you experience it on the Internet?
Katherine Dee [00:29:43]:
It depends on how I'm experiencing it on the Internet. I think there's certain things online that are that feel more ephemeral, But there's ways to engage with the online world where you realize the gravity. And that might have to do with focus or the amount of time that you're spending on a particular issue.
Andrew Xu [00:30:13]:
Okay.
Katherine Dee [00:30:13]:
You look like a response is bubbling here. It looks like you wanna say something where you're holding back.
Andrew Xu [00:30:18]:
No. There's a it's a response that's bubbling. I'm trying to like, the wheels are turning in my head of how do I form this response in a way that makes sense and doesn't sound like word vomit. That like, a lot of
Katherine Dee [00:30:29]:
Why don't you word vomit?
Andrew Xu [00:30:30]:
A lot of the time when, when my guests see the face that I'm making that I'm sure most of my listeners will never be able to see and are just imagining in their head. It's not because I immediately have something to say. It's more like I'm trying to process the word vomit in my head. Okay. I'll start with a simpler question and then that'll maybe build up to the thing that has been gestating in my head. Have you noticed a difference in the moral code between younger generations and older generations from your experience both in real life and online?
Katherine Dee [00:31:09]:
I don't think it's an age thing necessarily. I think it's an environment thing because there are people who... so the article you're referring to, the genesis of that article is I'm you know, I was in a number of of group chats with people who I consider good friends who are my age. So they're in their 30s. And they saw nothing wrong with the Elon Musk, Ashley St. Clair thing. They were just like, yeah.
Andrew Xu [00:31:35]:
Can you explain that thing? Because a lot of our audience, I would assume, was not as terminally online. Yeah.
Katherine Dee [00:31:40]:
Well, that was a national I mean, come on. It's a national news story. It's not that obscure. But I will There there
Andrew Xu [00:31:45]:
are a ton. Like, they're there are a dozen there are a dozen national news stories every day at this point. So
Katherine Dee [00:31:51]:
Sure. So so here so here's what happened. Elon Musk, has dozens of children. He has more children than any one of us know about. There's all sorts of theories about why this is. But what he does is he, pursues IVF with different women who he think have good genetic material, and it happens out of wedlock. And it's not transparent to the public nor should it be necessarily what the terms and conditions of these of this family formation is. If he's giving them money, how much money? Right? If we just know that he has numerous baby mamas, perhaps and perhaps more than, have been publicized.
Katherine Dee [00:32:34]:
One of them was a conservative influencer, mostly on Twitter, named Ashley St. Clair. And on Valentine's Day, she went public with the fact that she had had a baby with Elon Musk. It has since snowballed into this the worst tabloid drama ever. Right? But at the time on Valentine's Day when this goes down, everyone on the right is congratulating her. Right? This baby is had under very strange, circumstances. And, I'm in a number of of group chats, right, as I was saying before with with my friends. And most most of the group chats I'm in are are people who are my age.
Katherine Dee [00:33:21]:
I'm 33. So they're between, I would say, they're they're between 28 and 35 mostly. So we're all in the same sort of ballpark age. And they're all like they think it's good, right, that this woman had a child with a father who by her own you know, least is what she's claiming he's not involved. It's definitely not a two parent family. The stability is questionable. How this child's being raised is questionable. What kind of support she has from, not just Elon Musk, but maybe her own family or hired help or whatever.
Katherine Dee [00:33:59]:
We don't really know. It just seems very public, very tumultuous. And what all of my friends come to say is "you reach a point where there's a certain amount of money that makes a relationship with your father pale in comparison." So, basically, the argument was billions of dollars or the fact that your dad has billions of dollars if you yourself don't have access to that money, is more valuable than a relationship with your father.
Andrew Xu [00:34:30]:
There's some kind of real life equivalent of microtransactions where the amount of money that you're fed can somehow displace having a nurturing relationship with an a parent who cares about your emotional needs.
Katherine Dee [00:34:42]:
Right. So that's the argument. And I'm thinking every religious tradition in the world, every fairy tale, every VH one behind the music, every movie... every cultural story across cultures too not just on the in the West, warns against this just level of materialism. Your own experience. Right? As I was saying before a lot of what I believe is just based on what I've seen out in the world. You know, one's own experience contradicts that, and yet that everyone's like, no. Like, billions of dollars were like, I would trade my well, I love my dad, but I would trade my dad for, that kind of wealth. And I was just so disturbed by this.
Katherine Dee [00:35:28]:
So I don't think it's generational. Right? It's like people born in the nineties also have these kinds of, quirks, and I'm sure there's people much younger than me who are much better grounded than I am, you know?
Andrew Xu [00:35:42]:
Do you think that the people who are better grounded than you are people that spend more time in real life?
Katherine Dee [00:35:51]:
Not necessarily. I think that, first of all, they might be smarter than I am, frankly. They might have been raised differently. There's a young woman, she's constantly calling me out on sort of moral mistakes that I make, at least thing you know, in in stories like this not necessarily on a personal level. And I think she's even more online than I am somehow. But she's just a better thinker. You know, she's better read or something. She has more foresight than I do.
Katherine Dee [00:36:29]:
So I don't think it's necessarily, a physical world versus digital world then either.
Andrew Xu [00:36:38]:
So you know how the situation with Elon Musk and Saint Clair, you would say that basically every religion in the world that is not egregiously evil, every single fairy tale in the world that has some semblance of sense would basically warn against that sense of overly materialistic culture that prizes billions of dollars over a nurturing relationship with a parent.
Katherine Dee [00:37:01]:
I mean, may maybe there's some sort of equivalent you know something that I'm missing. I I'm probably being a little bit over the top here.
Andrew Xu [00:37:11]:
Well, but maybe lucky let's assume it's a good approximation. Maybe the dagger that I'm trying to swing is the idea that the reason why people are not listening to even like, basically every single religion in the world, every single simplistic fairy tale in the world is because spending too much time online and on social media ends up eroding your own moral framework.
Katherine Dee [00:37:37]:
I I disagree with that.
Andrew Xu [00:37:40]:
Alright. Hit me. Explain why.
Katherine Dee [00:37:43]:
You don't stop feeling emotions. Right? You don't, you don't stop the other you don't stop seeing other people's displays of emotions online either. One thing I want to add, which I am curious what you think about it, and it's a little bit's a little bit of a derailment, is there's one way to look at it where maybe my friends, for example, genuinely think Elon Musk is a king, has some sort of divine something or other right? Has some kind of special status. He's like an aristocrat, and so it's like Zeus coming down from that from Mount Olympus. And, well, I don't really know Greek mythology, so as far as I know, those stories didn't end well either. But completely-
Andrew Xu [00:38:30]:
The TLDR, you have friends that see Elon Musk as just a rightful king or something?
Katherine Dee [00:38:36]:
I mean, maybe that's how that's how they sort of justify it. Right? Like, the wealth is somehow equivalent to some kind of demigod status or something. And then so it's worth it. I don't know. I'm sort of, I'm rationalizing how they might you know? But, no. I don't necessarily think that the Internet has to erode your your moral center.
Andrew Xu [00:39:01]:
I think that what the Internet does is that it often takes advantage of our caveman brain and makes us feel fear and anger and disgust far more than is warranted, and that ends up giving us a disproportionate sense of where danger lurks.
Katherine Dee [00:39:20]:
For some people, sure, it burns you out. I've sort of argued the opposite in the past, that if you look at a lot of mass casualty events and this is actually, a friend of mine, Beck, who she researches the I guess you could call it a terrorist group 764 has sort of proven this in her work. You become such a nihilist from Internet overexposure that then moving into the physical world and committing these sort of mass casualty events seems like nothing. If it doesn't feel like anything because you've burnt out your ability to feel. But that's also extreme. I don't think that has to happen on any point in the spectrum.
Andrew Xu [00:40:10]:
Yeah. But, like, let's say that you were to give some kind of rude or tribalistic remark against someone. If you're doing it in real life, you get to see the way that they're hurt. You get to see the way that they're in pain as a direct result of what you said. Whereas if you're saying it to someone on social media, especially if you're in a community that's trying to stigmatize them, then you can just bask in all of the upvotes that you get. Like, would you consider that accurate? Like, you don't feel that part of your brain telling you "don't do this because of the way that they feel as a result of what you are doing."
Katherine Dee [00:40:45]:
I don't think that's always true.
Andrew Xu [00:40:48]:
When is it not true?
Katherine Dee [00:40:53]:
I mean there's certain things I wouldn't say. Like, there's certain things I wouldn't even say on an anonymous image board. It depends on the person. I don't think you're totally wrong, but the reason people in person aren't, I don't know, dropping N bombs or something horrific like this, is one they don't have the opportunity. Right? There's no quote tweet function in the real world.
Andrew Xu [00:41:25]:
But maybe it's good that they don't have the opportunity. They're not incentivized to do terrible things.
Katherine Dee [00:41:30]:
But it's not necessarily incentive. It's like there's no platform for it. Right? Yeah. But that's still a good thing. Physical. There's a physical threat.
Andrew Xu [00:41:40]:
That's still a good thing. Like, it's good that the physical space does not provide platforms for you to say reprehensible things.
Katherine Dee [00:41:47]:
Just to be clear, I agree with you. But my the point I'm trying to make is, I mean, we just saw there's just a new story, here here in The US where this the, a mother, yelled racial slurs at, I guess, an autistic five year old at a playground because, allegedly, this five year old was stealing from her or something. It was just obscene. She would do that in person. She would do it online.
Andrew Xu [00:42:25]:
You know the concept of negativity bias, where Internet and social media often present things in a much more negative way than they than real life ends up being? What I'm trying to say is that you might find out a news story about a woman that's yelling racial slurs at an autistic child. But in real life, you would basically never see that happening because those are statistical rarities. And the only reason why you know that happened in real life is because you're on social media, and social media always plugs you into the disproportionately negative things that happened in real life.
Katherine Dee [00:43:04]:
I guess I don't necessarily disagree with you. What I'm saying is, we don't see the tribal remarks as you sort of euphemistically put it as often in person because the people don't have the opportunity to to say them, and they take the opportunity when they have them. And that's awful, that's terrible. Right? And we should remove those opportunities where and when possible. Just I mean, if you know, for besides all the other reasons it's wrong, it's just unpleasant to be exposed to. I think it's great that generally on a playground, another mother can't yell slurs at the club, and that's, again, obscene and awful. But the desire is still there, and I don't blame the Internet necessarily. Right? Like, I don't think there's something wrong with the Internet.
Andrew Xu [00:43:58]:
Yeah. But you would not you would not complain if, like, legislators introduced bills that basically significantly regulated social media and changed the incentive so that anger or disgust were not prioritized as much on those platforms. Would you say that?
Katherine Dee [00:44:15]:
Well, I mean, what are those? That's so vague. Like, what are the what do those regulations look like? I mean, here's something I would support. Like, if there is a way to make it more difficult or slower to use the Internet, I think that would be helpful for everyone's relationship with it. I don't like the idea of, for example, age gating or UK style
Andrew Xu [00:44:37]:
Yeah. So you would disagree with the Jonathan Haidt view that we should limit social media to a certain age or whatever.
Katherine Dee [00:44:45]:
Generally, yeah, because enforcement on that, infringes on adult privacy.
Andrew Xu [00:44:52]:
It infringes on adult privacy... do you think it infringes on the privacy of people below the age of 18?
Katherine Dee [00:45:01]:
Yes. Of of course, it does. There I don't think that adolescents are, owed unconditional privacy in the way that I think I as a 33 year old woman deserves it sort of in a legal sense. Right? Obviously, many unfortunate doors are opened through that.
Andrew Xu [00:45:25]:
Yeah. You know, the quote "every action you take is a vote for the type of person that you wanna become." So let's go back to that that, like, you see in it a story online about how in real life, there was a woman who yelled racial slurs at an autistic child. I guess the point that I'm saying is that if you have more of an opportunity to do reprehensible things online compared to real life, then you will take it, and it will turn you into a worse person than if you did not have the opportunity. Like, would you agree with that?
Katherine Dee [00:46:03]:
Yes and no. Like, for example, like I was saying there are lots of people who even anonymously would say or do no such thing.
Andrew Xu [00:46:16]:
Yes. But what I'm trying to-
Katherine Dee [00:46:18]:
You know what I mean? It's not the opportunity alone that makes you yes. It makes like, it makes... here's what I here's what I'm trying to argue. Not everyone has the opportunity to I don't know what's a what's a good example here that's not too crazy: cheat on their spouse. Right? But if you have the desire to cheat on your spouse in the first place, that is also a problem.
Andrew Xu [00:46:37]:
Yes. But you know what? So I've studied a lot of economics, so I often think of things in terms of supply and demand where there's a like, let's say that you there's a demand. Like, people have a demand to cheat on their spouse. But if there's no supply if there's no options that they see in their realize that would, like that they would consider to be acceptable ways to cheat on their spouse, then they won't do it. And then I think that they will be better people for not doing it compared to if they did, if the supply was there. And I think that the problem with social media is that it often gives us way too much supply for our negative or immoral demands. Does that make sense?
Katherine Dee [00:47:19]:
It does. I mean, I feel like in this conversation, what's being exposed to is sort of the weakness of the libertarian brain.
Andrew Xu [00:47:29]:
Would you consider yourself a libertarian? Because I would just consider myself to be a liberal. What about you?
Katherine Dee [00:47:38]:
I don't really know. I mean, I'm saying that my position as I'm saying it feels very feels very libertarian in a way. And, it's like it's this you know, even it's sort of unrelated, but this, conversation exposes the weakness of trusting. Because what it really boils down to is I'm trusting people to have been raised right. You know? This is the argument libertarians will make about drug legalization and things like this.
Andrew Xu [00:48:10]:
Or even, you could use libertarianism to argue for more gun legalization.
Katherine Dee [00:48:15]:
Right. Gun control. All sorts of things. But as you know, there's another way to look at it, which is like, well, we've run that experiment and look at us now.
Andrew Xu [00:48:31]:
Yeah. So insert conservative rant about the degradation of, like, morality in society. Yeah. So I guess, maybe the point I would make now is, do you notice any pronounced difference in the way that people talk to you online compared to in person?
Katherine Dee [00:48:54]:
Sometimes. So I've had an experience a number of times, and I wrote about this once. I was actually just looking at this piece earlier today. It's called, if anyone wants to read it, "Everyone is prettier and nicer in person." There's a dozen people or something, at least who whom I'm personally interacting with who really don't like me. And a couple of years ago, I met a handful of them in person, and they were very nice. And I hope I was cordial to them too.
Katherine Dee [00:49:27]:
But online, they're just awful: nitpicking everything I say, calling me a libtard. So sometimes people are much nicer. Sometimes people are just the same. I would say no one's ever been crueler. Some people have been less warm or more awkward, but never outright cruel.
Andrew Xu [00:49:59]:
Maybe I could use this just as spin for another reason why spending too much time on social media is bad because it doesn't appeal to the better angels of our nature in the same way that talking to people in real life does.
Katherine Dee [00:50:13]:
You know, I've spent so long, so many years at this point arguing against, sort of the lowest common denominator arguments against social media and against the Internet that I've conditioned myself, to always sort of, argue in support of it. It's been a while since I've been on a podcast or something, and I'm realizing I don't have to keep defending it.
Andrew Xu [00:50:40]:
Yeah. So I think that if you want, I can be an armchair sociologist right now. I think that we as humans, we always have cognitive scripts that instinctively tell our brains to act in ways that are consistent with the ways that we've acted before. So I think that in your case, if you've always if you've always been the type of person to defend social media because you were talking to people where they had not very strong arguments against social media, then it doesn't just affect you intellectually. It also affects you cognitively, where it's almost like in a form of inoculation where even if someone were to give very, very strong arguments against social media, you still feel inoculated and you still feel an instinct to defend social media even if it's not the best intellectua, path to take. Yeah.
Katherine Dee [00:51:30]:
I would say that's true. Yeah. Because it's like I'm arguing this. I'm thinking you know, I haven't logged on to to Twitter in, I don't know, four or five days or something. And I'm like, why well, why is that? Right? It's because people are fucking annoying. You know, it's like, I don't wanna deal with it anymore. Right? Why do I take breaks? Because you know, time to relax.
Andrew Xu [00:51:59]:
Yeah. Time to relax and maybe just to say it again. Maybe it's easier to relax when you're not being bombarded with all the incentives and: the supply of social media is different from the supply of real life. Yeah. Do you think: would you say that there are any significant changes to online culture that you've observed over the past few months or the past few years where people act differently or communities act differently than they did before?
Katherine Dee [00:52:32]:
So I think something that happens to many, obviously, not all subcultures is, and this has happened to physical world subcultures too. They reach this commercialization point, which really degrades them. And so
Andrew Xu [00:52:46]:
Is this the concept of enshittification where at first, you're doing stuff that benefits the consumers most, and then over time, you start to prioritize profit maximization above that?
Katherine Dee [00:52:59]:
Sort of. Yeah. It's similar. I'd say it's adjacent. Yeah. The gatekeeping kind of changes. People become meaner. I think a lot of things people call woke, for example, it is really just resources are dwindling, and you need to kick people out, kick the competition out.
Katherine Dee [00:53:27]:
And online, it's easiest to do reputational attacks. And you see it across many different types of subcultures. It's been happening for a few years now on the online right. Like, as there's more as certain figures become bigger and there's more monetization opportunities, the texture of the space changes.
Andrew Xu [00:53:52]:
Yeah. Like, maybe it led to a significant moral degradation of the online right where regardless of what you think of who they were several years ago, I do think that they have become much worse than they were.
Katherine Dee [00:54:04]:
Yeah. And they've become worse in a lot of different ways. And I think a big piece of that is there's more monetary opportunity. There's more competition, and they there's a bigger audience, and it's you have to cater to the lowest common denominators. People often make this argument about Substack as a platform. Like, this is just the nature of all platforms where there's monetization. I don't think it's necessarily true on Substack. I think Substack does a pretty good job, especially because you don't need to use the notes function necessarily.
Katherine Dee [00:54:43]:
And there aren't ads. I mean, there's a lot of reason. There's there there's not sponsorship opportunities yet. It's just very easy to stay siloed, and the barrier to entry is pretty high to get into each individual community.
Andrew Xu [00:55:00]:
And you can probably still maintain a very large following even if you are siloed and you don't do notes and stuff like that.
Katherine Dee [00:55:07]:
Yeah. Right.
Andrew Xu [00:55:09]:
Final question. Do you have any advice to younger generations? Like, let's say that they like, all they know is social media in a ways that isn't really true for older generations. Maybe the way that they interact with people is different. Maybe they have a greater fear of commitment or a more instinctual tendency to act in different ways than than we would in real life. Maybe they have more cynicism about institutions and so on and so forth. Do you have any advice for younger generations given that you've spent much more time navigating the digital ecosphere than they have?
Katherine Dee [00:55:45]:
Something I see young people do often, not always, but the biggest mistake is binary thinking. So someone is either all bad or all good. I think learning to accept that there are very good people who have very flawed beliefs and who don't know why they believe what they believe and will say things that upset you, but still, one, they can change their minds and you can change their minds. You just you don't have to be so hard on them, and you don't have to be so hard on yourself either. Not everything is forever. And then there's a flip side of that. There's the mirror image of that personality type of this sort of "nothing matters." Some things matter.
Katherine Dee [00:56:30]:
Like, it's you know, a lot of things actually aren't funny, and you'll regret viewing certain things, when you get older. Like you could go years, years watching LiveLeak. I mean, LiveLeak doesn't exist anymore, and young people might not even know what it is at this at this point. Right? You know, years looking at Gore videos or whatever and not feel anything, and then you get a really busy job or something takes you away from the computer, and a few years pass. And then suddenly, you realize just how terrible all that stuff that you've been imbibing is. And you realize actually, oh, it does matter. Like, I don't think that numbness of overexposure to violent or otherwise upsetting content, is permanent, and it starts peeking through and can really hurt you. And that counts for bullying people, for, different types of cruelty.
Katherine Dee [00:57:23]:
So, yeah, two sides of just I think it's two sides of the same coin. So some people need to relax and other people need to, be a little more uptight.
Andrew Xu [00:57:35]:
Yeah. That yeah. I guess the TLDR is that different people need to learn different lessons, and sometimes something that you would tell one person, you would tell another person the exact opposite thing.
Katherine Dee [00:57:45]:
Yeah.
Andrew Xu [00:57:46]:
Katherine Dee, thank you so much for taking the time to come on to this podcast.
Katherine Dee [00:57:50]:
Thanks for having me.
Andrew Xu [00:57:55]:
Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more, make sure to follow this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else that you get your podcast from. Until next time. Goodbye.
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