Rerelease: Monica Lewinsky

26:47because, like, I'm a brunette and my boobs are real. So it's like, it's just sort of, yeah. There was an aesthetic that was prized in this school. Oh, sure. And I, yeah, let's not forget I was chubby. So like I always struggled with my weight. And so particularly, you know, it's so interesting. I had thought for a really long time that I had gained all this weight. So I struggled with my weight when I was in grade school. But then I sort of got a handle on it. And my freshman year when my parents separated, I put on 50 pounds. And I'd always for years thought it was connected to my parents getting divorced.

27:18But one of the things that I sort of came to understand in the last several years, we didn't have language for it, but I had actually had an unwanted sexual experience when I was 14. So which was right this summer, right before my parents had separated. And were you taking the approach? I've heard this where people who have been sexually assaulted want to never be sexually assaulted again. So they try to make themselves invisible to men who would want to do that. Could you even be conscious of that? I think the psyche is so complex and so fucking clever. It is so clever. So I think that there is this element that may have been possible, but on some very deep level.

27:58but I was still interested in boys. Right. It could be true. You can have goals, you can have wants, and you can be taking actions that are in complete opposition to that. And there's no logic. There are moments in the day you feel strong and there are moments in the day you feel weak and you're making different plans in those different times. And it can all add up to making zero sense, but all be happening at once. And I think it was hard to unpack too, because it was the person stopped when I said stop. And, you know, it was just like, the consent wasn't a thing then. And I had liked this person, But there were all sorts of things that were inappropriate about it, including like a really big age difference.

28:32And and so for for many years, I sort of I was like, well, I was 19 when I lost my virginity and to do to bit it. But technically, I wasn't. And so I had always chalked up my, you know, a lot of the struggles I had in high school to my parents divorce being contentious. But I think it probably had a lot more to do with this incident that happened that I didn't even know how to classify it. And I think I made it all OK because that was the easiest thing to do. And again, there's there's really no benefit to even isolating it. So one thing could have caused it to reach critical mass. Either situation could have caused critical mass.

29:10Right. And I had and I had struggled with my weight before. Can I ask you this? Because as a parent of two daughters, I question this a lot because parents in L.A. are hyper aware of not triggering eating disorders. Right now. Now. Today. Now. So, yeah. And I do ask myself, it's very well-intentioned, and I think they're in general doing the right thing. But at the same time, I'm wondering how much of that was self-imposed by what you were seeing around you in your social circle, in your peer group, and in school? And how much of it do you believe was maybe imprinted on you from mom and dad? I think it was 50-50.

29:4550-50. Yeah. Okay. There were a number of different factors. So one was I developed early. So I don't know why we don't have tests now for young girls and boys to sort of know chemically when they're going into puberty. Why we wait? Because it's like it starts before, but we sort of don't consider it until their physical. You can totally fact check this because I have no idea what I'm saying is right or I'm talking out of my ass. This is my own theory, like that the chemical, you know, the chemical change must start earlier than necessarily the physical change. But we don't deem it puberty until we see the physical change.

30:17I had whatever the predisposition for my weight issues, you know, genetically. But then there was also I hit puberty earlier. So I was constantly comparing my body to other girls' bodies who had this incredible metabolism or who didn't have boobs yet or whatever that was. And so I think there were kind of those issues. But I also I read, you know, Teen 17 magazine. You know, I was always reading. Exactly. Always, you know, reading. I think I went on my first diet at maybe 11 or 12. Yeah, this is so brutal. Yeah, it's so hard. It's heartbreaking. It is. It's heartbreaking because it's like, why can't we just have that message of we're okay?

30:59We're okay however we are. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

31:16I don't know if you guys saw, Anderson Cooper did this documentary a few years ago called Being 13. And he had access to all these 13-year-olds' phones or social behavior. And the one thing that stuck with me was that kids were taking on average 150 pictures for one that they would post. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. And that just broke my fucking heart in terms of like, what's the negative self-talk in the 149 that they didn't choose? You know, and that's like, you know, so, I mean, I think we see this kind of, it's a strange thing now where we've got parents who are so much more aware, right? Aware of kind of not body shaming their kids, aware of trying to teach them nutrition in ways that are healthier.

32:02And at the same time, we have all sorts of other social aspects which are creating those problems that are making them even worse. It's multifaceted at the very least. Now, you and I share something that's very rare. I don't know that I've interviewed anyone. We both have associate degrees from Santa Monica College. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So, but you ended up transferring or after you graduated, you went to Lewis and Clark in Portland. What I loved about Portland was I think that was where I feel like I found myself. as a person. So I don't know if it was a combination of kind of now I'm, you know, not living at home.

32:38I'm in another city slash state and it's a very different environment there. I got a lot from nature in Portland. People are real. There were sort of galleries being open late. So I felt like I found a lot more of myself there. Yeah. And you majored in psychology. Correct. And can I give you my anecdotal stereotype and you can correct me if I'm wrong. I found most of the folks in psychology were people who just desperately needed some therapy. They were like really needed to figure out what was going on in their mind. I just observed that it seemed like many people that were drawn to that major were like, you know, probably needed to say it in a non-pejorative way.

33:19Exactly. Just very interested in their internal life. I don't want to speak for all my friends, you know. Actually, it was probably more in graduate school. So my graduate degree was in social psych. And I think I saw maybe because I was older and now had had all these crazy life experiences. But I saw more experiences in graduate school where I was both learning and self-analyzing, you know, of just understanding. It's like, oh, a threatened identity. Oh, OK. I experienced that. Or, you know, power differentials and, you know, so many different kinds of biases and understanding things. I'm sure there was some part of me that was interested in psychology because I was fucked up.

34:00You needed some healing and hopefully you would figure out some method. It sounds interestingly to me, just from what you've told me about your childhood and whatnot, that you are both confident and insecure. Is that? A thousand percent. Right. I was always lucky. I mean, I think I went through some periods when I was much younger that I didn't have friends or I was bullied a little bit. But by and large, I've always been good at friendship. Right. I've had friends, but I think particularly where men were concerned, I was very insecure. Yeah. Was there a mental trick you did where it was like you were insecure, yet you were somehow outgoing towards men?

34:35Or were you afraid to even approach men? I think it was probably a strange combination of moments where I would feel old, but then my insecurities would regulate how I responded to reactions or to things that happened. Uh-huh. Did you, you had boyfriends in college, I assume. Yeah, but yes, but. You can also just go, I don't understand why you want to know about my boyfriends. No, no, no, it's just complicated. I think part of me, the self-conscious part of me is like, wow, I kind of sound like a big loser in this podcast. No, my God, no. Not at all. Dating's already hard, but. Well, I can just say personally, I had this body dysmorphic view of my whole being.

35:18and yet I was so outwardly confident and I would talk to any girl and I would get them laughing. You know, I did all these things that are really counterintuitive to how I felt. Right. But then my trick was like, oh no, you're not going to ever get anyone with this. So you got to lead with this personality. Like you're going to snag somebody. You got to get out there. You got to have a bullhorn of charisma or you're not. Now, mind you, I wasn't accurate on either assessment of my personal, how attractive my personality was or how unattractive my physical was. But it was a weird paradox of feelings versus my behavior.

35:53Yes. You know, that was how I was and kind of goes back to that, you know, don't stand out, be special. So I think there was that was kind of always the dichotomy of exactly kind of always impacting my behavior that way. But I had experiences where the popular boy would like me in high school. But then I also had experiences where somebody basically worse than standing me up kind of left me standing outside a theater because he saw his friend and walked away with his friend and didn't come back. And I was in a heavier phase and his mom had later said, oh, well, he was embarrassed to be seen with you, which is just like this.

36:33And really just laid it out there. Yeah, I'm like, I'm a teenager. So, I mean, it just, so that's, you know, but that's kind of that fertile ground for when several years later, I think when I was in DC and getting this kind of attention from somebody who I'm not that girl, I'm not the homecoming queen. I'm not the girl that the guy likes. I'm the friend of the girl that the guy likes. Like that's me. Yeah. Yeah. He's the ultimate prom king. Right. Of the world. And so I think it was, there were a lot of reactions and behaviors I engaged in because there was a part of me that was like, oh, this is what that girl is supposed to do.

37:07Because a lot of times when you're not that person, especially when you're younger and your brain's not fully developed and haven't had life experiences, you want to be that person. Sure, sure. Well, again, you have like, you have a broader romantic narrative you're spinning. And then for that narrative to work, the characters within the narrative have to act a certain way to hold up the story. If you do have self-esteem issues, it's not like people walk around with self-esteem issues and think, oh, I'm so happy I have these deficiencies. Right. Like you basically on some level, you're kind of always looking for something to plug that feeling to assuage it.

37:48So when you got this internship, did you have any interest in politics or were you like, oh, this is just an amazing adventure. Who wouldn't go take this? Well, I was a psychology major and it was a combination of a number of things that I ended up in the internship. One was we had a family friend whose grandson had done it the year before. I'd never even heard about it. Right. So he said, oh, I'll be happy to give you a recommendation. I worked a whole bunch when I was in high school and college. And one of the jobs I had was selling men's neckties. And I had a customer who had worked on the Clinton campaign who then was now hired.

38:23And so he also was somebody who recommended me. And then I wrote an essay about how as a psychology major, you study the mind of the individual and the White House is the mind of the country. And so I think that that also had an element. So I really wasn't interested in politics aside from the kind of cursory level, like an election is happening. But there's a monkey thing that happens, right? Like a primate thing, which is that we are aware of status at all times. And that is the pinnacle of status. Like that building is the most status laden piece of real estate in America. It is. I'm very affected by the aesthetics of my environment.

39:03And so one of the things that I didn't expect to happen was to fall in love with the environment there. It's beautiful. There's just this it's like smells of eucalyptus. Oh, really? And there's just a, I'm very woo-woo and spiritual. And there's, I didn't know how to identify it at the time, but there's a very special energy there. I mean, it makes sense. Sure. Some of the finest people to ever live have passed through there. Right. And decisions have been made that have affected, you know, millions and millions of people over hundreds of years. Yeah. But I'm always looking at it from the outside.

39:38Here's what I, the cynical side of my brain is always like this. I all growing up I looked at Playboy I love my grandpa's Playboys I hid them in my luggage my mom would find them she never shamed me thank god Playboy Mansion was it that's Shangri-La and I desperately wanted to be there I got invited at some point and as I was pulling up I'm like wow look at this place it's amazing the yard's incredible and then I was walking up and I was like I don't think that that doorknob seems to be broken and then I went inside I was like oh these phones are from 79 and they don't work and no one's washed them and oh half the switches don't work you know right it was this big like shattering of my illusion like the place was just in general disrepair and it was kind of grody in there and i was like oh damn it and so i the cynical part of my brain is like if i get in the white house i'm gonna start noticing like oh and they're not really but i'm relieved to hear that no it is a bit of an eden right yes yeah i mean even the fact that it smells like eucalyptus i can promise you that the mansion did not smell like eucalyptus I'm not going to ask, but it's not like that.

40:37Yeah. No, it's not like just despair if I give a emotional smell. I mean, I think there were, you know, there were a lot of dynamics that were going on there that surprised me. It was very interesting for me once I then shipped off to the Pentagon. And one of the things I came to realize was how the commodity of information was so different between these two parts of the government. And at the White House, it was if I knew something and you didn't, that was that was sort of made me more powerful. Exactly. But at the Pentagon, if I know something and you don't, our boss might be up Schitt's Creek.

41:12Oh, so it's a completely different culture. Yeah. Very, very different culture and information was valued in different ways. Was it hard to register that you were there at the White House? I mean, you basically like teleported into someone else's life in a weird way. It was, I mean, and really it was supposed to be a pit stop on the way to graduate school. So I wanted to get a PhD in forensic psychology and work for the FBI. Sure. But I have to imagine there had to be a period that was totally Alice in Wonderland or something. I think what was interesting for me too is that my first trip to DC had been with my aunt.

41:47And I remember we had passed by the old executive office building. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, it's so beautiful. fall. Can you imagine going to work every day there? Right. And then Shazam. Oh, that's a great logistical question. So I imagine it's a pain in the ass to get in and out of the White House. Is it cumbersome to go to work there? Do you have to like allot an extra 45 minutes to get in? So as an intern, it's a pain because you have a temporary pass. So every time you come in and out, like you have to show your ID and you get the temporary pink eye intern pass. Once I became an employee and I had, I had a permanent pass.

42:23So I had a blue pass, which was that's like exactly that's the sort of all access backstage pass so i think that's kind of the um that talk about status that's the ultimate yeah symbol in dc and if you have that then you just literally you park somewhere on the grounds of the white house and then oh i didn't have a parking spot now you either either my mom dropped me off i looked at home um so your mom relocated to dc because you were going there no so my mom's side of the family my grandma was the matriarch and we sort of everybody has to live in the same place. That's just sort of how it is.

42:57And so my aunt and her family moved to the East coast. So then my mom and my brother moved. And of course then my grandma moved and then we all had, my grandma lived in the Watergate. My mom lived in the Watergate. My aunt was living in the country, but she had a pied-a-terre there. So it was sort of, which is, and then that's happened in New York. It just happens everywhere. Oh, wow. That's how we are. Okay. So you were with mom. Yeah. Okay. I guess that's a layer I had not comprehended to any of this. Yeah. So I read A Vast Conspiracy. Okay. That was called. Was that Jeffrey Toobin's book? Yes.

43:30It was a book all about the scandal. Right. Prior to that, I think I just had a very cursory understanding of what all happened, other than having been alive and lived it real time. I'm a big lefty Democrat. I loved Clinton. I was one of those people going like, this is insane. You can impeach someone over sexual stuff like what? So I was so entrenched in that camp. I think that's probably where my thinking stopped on all of it. I also very much real time thought that what was happening to you was horrendous. Thank you. Yes. And so, you know, I was I was probably predisposed because I was a liberal Democrat to be on the side of you guys.

44:10Right. Yet I am. I like to think objective enough. If I put myself in the mindset of being on the right and already hating this guy and think he's done all this other shady shit. So I can recognize why people were mad about it. I can recognize why they feel betrayed by that and that a leader shouldn't do that and all those things. I can totally recognize that. But I guess what I was unaware of and what at least this book suggests is there was a conspiracy. There was a conspiracy to get him guilty of perjury. You have this woman, Linda Tripp. It's almost crazy to me that you actually know her and that all really happened to you.

44:46Like I have heard those tapes, but sitting here with you as a human being, I, it's hard for me to even comprehend that. I mean, talk about sort of like being exposed to your home truths. Have your phone calls recorded without your permission. It's just like, oh no, I couldn't have said that. See a transcript. It's like, then you hear yourself. Wow. I fucking said that about somebody I would get in front of a bus for. And I'm a catty bitch. And it just, it is seriously, I mean. Yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I, at that time, even at, I don't know, how old were you at the time? So I was 22 when the relationship started and 24 when the investigation started.

45:26Who among us can't identify with having a friend that you confide in? Right. Everyone needs that. It is essential for our well-being. You have your public life and what we'll talk about in this podcast. And then you have your very personal stuff where you need to air out all the embarrassing stuff, the shameful stuff. Front stage, backstage. Yes. So we all have had best friends. And anyone can imagine that our best friend, in fact, wasn't a best friend. And that our best friend was intending to write a book about us. And that our best friend was recording us and leading us and by all definitions entrapping us.

46:01I like to think everyone could identify that as just a really horrendous act from one person that, again, I bet if I was benevolent enough, I bet she has her own host of things she's overcoming. I mean, it's interesting that in these investigations, you will basically it's cool to commit a crime in order to expose another crime. And in fact, there's no crime really with what you guys did. But if we can get you to lie about it, now we have an actual crime. So you're taking one thing that starts as not illegal having an affair. Sure, shameful. All those things are true. Maybe there's moral imperatives, but legally not an issue.

46:34No one's going to jail for an affair, extramarital affair. Now, recording someone in Maryland without their permission is a crime. Entrapment is a crime. There are all these crimes that basically got committed, and I still don't understand legally why she could commit a crime. And then the Justice Department goes to her and says, well, we're not going to prosecute you for doing this illegal thing as long as we can now get all those transcripts. And now we can use those transcripts to. But that's a whole justice system in general. I mean, there's I think that's that's a real issue. I have the hypocrisy of the system.

47:06So I mean, stepping outside of whatever happened to me. Yes. It's just how can we say this behavior is wrong and should be punished. But that same behavior should not be punished if you're going to help us get someone else. Yeah. The fact that the interrogator is allowed to blatantly lie. I just talked to your friend, Mike. He said you stabbed her. Right. How the fuck is that legal? Exactly. Or plea bargains. I mean, it's just a whole. Yes. Now you're like, OK, well, this person saying I committed the murder. So now I have to do something to get out of this. I've been I've now got to choose a bad option to get out of this.

47:37So, right. Yeah. It's crazy to me that things can work that way. I participated in this docuseries that came out last year. Yeah. Yeah. I watched an episode of it today and it was really, really good. Thanks. It was really hard to do. So I can imagine. I'm just kind of referencing that because they think that there was a very broad scope of people from that timeframe who were interviewed. And the goal of the series was to really map out all of these different perspectives and narratives that were unfolding real time for us there that we didn't have the perspective to see back, to see kind of all the places where stories were, people's narratives were being braided together that we didn't realize or, you know, those things.

48:16But I don't know that everyone is aware of the fact, contextually, that there was a Paula Jones case going. Right, right. Starts with a sexual harassment case. Paula Jones against Bill Clinton. Right. And the goal was to subpoena people to get them in there so that they could then ask questions that would potentially put him in a position to lie about other stuff. I believe so. And I think that there were a number of different motives that were going on for various people, I think, who were operating on that side. Some exactly as you just said, some who were kind of looking at a bigger picture of how do we basically set a perjury trap?

48:53And for almost everybody, I mean, many of us think I would never lie under oath, but we also live in this country where we have these puritanical views about sex and almost, you know, asking someone about their sex life under oath is almost always a perjury trap. You know, it's like Jerry Seinfeld made this great joke about during that time where he said, you know, everybody lies about sex. If people didn't lie about sex, no one would have sex. 100%. I think sometimes people don't remember. I didn't choose to step forward to talk about this. So I, in fact, got into trouble because I signed a false affidavit.

49:30So trying to deny that. There was a layer where people didn't understand the level of detail that came out. That was also not my choice to share that. I had to share that legally. I was legally asked and, in fact, had to give even more detail because of certain ways that other people chose to testify. Because everyone's trying to nail down what sexual relations means. So they then feel justified in hearing every single detail of every single thing that ever happened. Is that my understanding right? The reality is, is that there was not truth told no matter what the definition of sexual relations was.

50:10Right. So that whole thing of like, does this count as a, you know, does it or doesn't it? It doesn't matter given everything else that happened. Yes. I've said before, I never understood why or how this became about oral sex because that wasn't just what happened. I don't want to get into a lot of the details. I think that was a big part of shame that I ended up having to carry for a long time as a young woman being labeled as somebody who was engaged in this servicing relationship. Right. It wasn't mutual. There's so many things happening to you at once. One of them is like the legal issues.

50:44One of them is an impeachment trial. And then one of them, I would imagine on an emotional level is you, to your point, you didn't meet someone in an alley, hook up and bail. You were in a emotional relationship with someone for a while that is now being reduced to this. Right, is now being examined through a lens that nobody, I mean, like, you know, maybe when you're first start dating someone, you're like, oh, we've done it this many times. Or, you know, it's such a strange way to not only as oneself to try to analyze something or unpack it, but even more bizarre to have other people talking about something which is normally so private.

51:20Oh, my God. I just can't. Yeah. Even as someone who is very vocally out loud about my sexuality and stuff, and I would say kind of hypersexual, I still don't want someone to account for everything, every move I made. Or to take it from you. That's your agency. Yeah. You know, I mean, and that's part of consent in a very different way is sort of, you know, what we choose to share about ourselves and what we choose to keep private and with whom we share those aspects of ourselves. Now, the one thing that I'm deeply interested in about the ride you were on, I just can't imagine the highs and lows just hourly and daily and the stress on your body and the cortisol and the adrenaline and all those things.

52:02as much as like you were trying to prevent the worst thing from happening, was there any relief in it finally just being like, fuck it, great, it's all over. I'm the devil. It's over. I don't have to. Like when you have a secret and you're trying to keep a secret. Yeah. It's very stressful. No, this was not a secret that I ever, you know, yes, I may have confided in some of my friends, but this was not something I ever would have talked about publicly. Of course not. I don't think anyone in the world thinks the many accusations that have been leveled at you. I don't think I've ever at least heard someone suggest that you were trying to become famous or get attention.

52:46Oh, they have. Oh, yeah. Oh, really? Trying to get attention, want to make money. I think what's interesting is I think that entire situation triggered something that no one's really going to talk about, which is, you know, I don't know what the data was that year, but let's say it was probably 50 % of all people in marriages are being cheated on one way or another. So you become the face for anyone who has had a spouse stray and you now become an embodiment of that hurt and pain and betrayal and all that stuff. Yeah. I mean, I call myself a social canvas. I think the thing is, is that this story triggered so many archetypes for us.

53:26I think it was not just one narrative. I think there were a lot. So there was privileged upbringing, my weight. I was, you know, torn apart from my looks. So, I mean, the slut shaming. So whether it, you know, the affair, the fallen woman. So, I mean, they're just, we were kind of living in times, I think, where objectivity was just not really present. I mean, just, I think along the lines, It's interesting to me, people will point out to me now, well, how could people have thought you were dumb? You had an internship in the White House. Right, right. Well, they did. I was called a stupid bimbo.

53:58I mean, I have like serious trauma from when I was in grad school, I couldn't get up and present in front of a class. You know, you were asking me initially about how I judge people when people ask me a question. When I was in grad school, I was so, I had such imposter syndrome that anytime somebody asked me a question, I thought that they were actually trying to trick me or to see, did I know the answer? You know, I was afraid to get help writing an essay because I thought it would expose me that I should have known something. Yes. You know, so, you know, this was also, it was a really challenging situation, which I don't think we'd even be able to have nowadays.

54:33First of all, the cycle is so much shorter, right? So this idea of, of there kind of being a year long story, but also because of legal reasons, I couldn't speak publicly. So I was very one dimensional for people. I was so young. There was nothing else to hang an identity for me on. What had I been before I worked in the White House? A student, a college student. You know what I mean? Again, not to excuse my poor choices, but there were also a lot of people who were invested in making sure that the president didn't lose his job. And that meant that there were narratives that had to be spun. You know, that there were stories and a lot of those people didn't know me.

55:13And then there were a lot of people who knew me well, who had no problem engaging in that kind of behavior. So you lived the Scarlet Letter, you know, a prophetical book about how we need to deal with issues of judgment and shaming and all that stuff. And it was a heightened book to make a point. And then what your real life experience was way beyond what that book did. So overnight, obviously you're on TV all the time. You're, as I've heard you say before, maybe on John Oliver, even if you want to escape and watch a tonight show, you're going to then see jokes about yourself endlessly. There was really no escape at all from that.

55:55I wonder during that period, is your family, the core, the only place you can go and feel remotely like yourself? Yeah. I mean, my family was all I had. So I couldn't talk to most of my friends until after they had testified. So, I mean, I don't think I would have survived without my family, although we weren't, I wasn't allowed to talk to my brother. You weren't? No, for a long time. So. What was the reasoning behind that? To protect him legally. Okay. So that he wouldn't be called in. Yeah. Yeah. And he was a sophomore in college. He was. Yeah. Yeah. And that was rough for him, I assume. Yeah.

56:34Yeah. Yeah. Well, we talked earlier when you just got in here, it was like, there's your own guilt. And then there's the guilt of having affected the other people in your life who you love so much and kind of gotten them sucked into the whole thing. Right. I mean, it's one of the reasons I'm so unbelievably grateful for all the changes that have happened the last few years is that it's people stop my doctor, stop my dad in the hall and say something positive. Or someone will have said something positive to Mike at work. and, you know, that alongside kind of whatever history might be told in a class, teachers show my TED talk.

57:11So, I mean, it's pretty, you know, it's just unbelievably meaningful for me. A hundred percent. And, you know, and I've got a niece and nephew whom I adore, and they also have my last name. Right. One of the most profound things I heard you say was, I think it was on John Oliver. He said, you know, at any point, did you decide to change your name? and your response was, did Bill Clinton have to change his name? That, because when he asked that question, I was like, yeah, go by whatever fucking Schlongschlanger. Yeah, that's exactly the name I would have chosen. Monica Schlongschlanger? Monica Schlongschlanger, yeah.

57:48But I was on that train of thought. Right. Your answer exposed to me how my first line of thinking will be one that was pretty much raised in a patriarchy. that that's what I, I don't even consider that. Like, of course, Bill Clinton didn't have to change his name. But also too, I think there's, you know, there were other layers of it, like more logistical complications, like particularly at the time, if I had gone to the courthouse and tried to sign legal papers, changing my name, that would have ended up in the press. So then it would have been like Prince, you know, you know, Sally Smith formerly known as Monica Lewinsky, you know, or so then what, Where would I go?

58:28And and people would I didn't even understand how that works. So so I run into somebody I went to grade school with and I say, well, I don't go by that name anymore. But it shows a ton of resolve. I really think the easier way out would have been to attempt that. Yeah. And I think I the story was so big and it was such a huge change of my life. And my new normal was there. There was such a massive chasm between what my old normal and my new normal were. that I think that there just wasn't room for that. I just had to kind of keep trying to move forward and keep trying to get back onto a developmental path that my therapist at the time, that was always her goal was sort of, how do we get you back on a developmental path of a 25 year old?

59:13Right. You know, so what does that look like? And, you know, how am I going to support myself and, you know, and find purpose and meaning in the world and try to find a relationship, which I think was, you know, also something that I tried at the time. And I now look back on that period. I'm like, of course I couldn't have been in a serious relationship. Like I dated people, I was involved, I fell in love. I cared about people, but, and I, and I actually think it was hard for some people who got to know me and cared about me to sort of reconcile the person they got to know with how the rest of the world saw me, you know?

59:47So that was also hard and at younger ages and maybe careers not fully developed to step into all that. It's just, yeah, I, I wouldn't have. Stay tuned for more armchair expert. If you dare.

1:00:09It's not as if what you were being shamed for in public was having had an extramarital affair. you were being called a slut yeah which you were not no well sometimes but yeah and by the way what is a slut so yeah yeah right i mean totally agree it's fine to have tons of sex with people no one should be called a slut correct but you were being called a slut which no one should be called well because i mean it was pejorative so so whatever you know slut and tart and bimbo and and stupid you're being called stupid yep and you're being body shamed yep they deployed all of the weaponry that is against women.

1:00:45It's really just horrendously massaging. Dehumanized. Yes. No one is talking about a man's weight. In general, they're not doing that. They're not calling men sluts. You know, I think, correct. All of the women in the story experience that in different ways. I think that we, as a society, we look at women in the public eye in a very different way than we do men. Yes. Now, when you go through all of that, I think the odds of you coming through on the other sides and being someone who could be in an interview or someone that has continued to be pursue business, get a graduate, almost impossible to really imagine.

1:01:23I can't imagine like the fact that you have survived all this is just incredibly admirable. I think it's so rare. I doubt many of us have the strength to go through what you did. I know it sounds kind of cliched, but I really do think none of us knows how strong we are until we're tested. I do think that I mean, I'm grateful. I've been able to survive. There have been many, many moments where I didn't think I could make it through. Yeah. And it could be the strangest, you know, I think of it is that it's a small moment of grace that, you know, makes you go right instead of left. The phone rings somebody who doesn't even know you're in pain and you don't not even wouldn't even necessarily say, but that connection.

1:02:02Yes. What were you doing at that time to comfort yourself? Oh, during the investigation, eating for sure. And then all the press that followed, because it didn't go away in two seconds either. No. Right. It stayed for years, right? It was years of jokes. Well, I think that, you know, it wasn't officially over. So it started January of 98. It wasn't kind of quote unquote officially over until he was acquitted. He was impeached by the House, but then acquitted by the Senate. And that was, I think, February of 1999. So it was a little over a year there, but was something that stayed in kind of part of the, would you say political zeitgeist?

1:02:46Well, kind of the zeitgeist in general. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, and then when I went to graduate school, I had really mistakenly and naively thought, oh, I'm going to move to England and I'm going to LSE and I'm now going to be a graduate student and I'm leaving, you know, political Monica Lewinsky back in the States. And I actually was having to take on another identity. I wasn't getting rid of an identity. And ultimately, I think for me, you know, it was like I came out of graduate school and then and then was actually almost the darkest period, even darker. There was an adrenaline that coursed through the entire year of 98.

1:03:22But it was when I came out of graduate school and I couldn't get a job and I couldn't purpose and support myself. That's really when it was a darker time for me. Right. Like you're going to have no future. Right. And that was and I can't that was when I came into my anger. But at the same time, you know, I see now I'm not sure I would choose it again, but I see now what that period did benefit me was I ended up having the time to do the deep self-healing, you know, the kind of involution. Right. And, you know, there was a lot of spiritual work. You could have maybe just kept on running if it had found employment immediately.

1:04:01Right. I think ultimately, you know, the really big lesson for me, many lessons, but one of them was around, you know, not running away from my past, that it was about integrating my past. Like I'm very fond of saying, I don't believe in sort of moving on. I believe in moving forward. And that there, to me, there's a real distinction between those two, that there's like an element of moving on feels like, oh, you're supposed to, you know, put whatever happened to you in the past and, and almost with a layer of shame cut off kind of from whatever that behavior was, you know, and it's one of the things I really admire about you and how you've talked about your life experiences, Dax, is like, is that you, you are so comfortable or seemingly so comfortable with all of the decisions you made based on the pain you were in and your ability to transcend that shame, I think has helped a lot of people.

1:04:52Well, thank you so much. And I only got that from the 12-step program I work. Without that, I don't know what I would do because, yeah, it's living with shame. And this is ultimately what I want to talk to you about. This is what I want to finish with. You've worked a bunch with cyberbullying. There couldn't be someone who I don't know how you quantify it, but if you're not at number one, you're tied for number one for the biggest public shaming of all time. I mean, it's really I think on the Internet, too, like in the nascent days of the Internet, just that experience of a lot of people have experienced that now.

1:05:24I think there's you know, the statistics are like one in 10 or something. I think as a culture, a society, a country, we've got to evolve past the way we voraciously devour other people, that we get so much pleasure out of exposing people's, quote, unacceptable behavior. Of course, by their own definition of what's acceptable and not acceptable. But this feeding frenzy that we all enjoy, the pretending as if, I mean, I suppose there's some, and you have a master's in psychology, maybe you could help me. I assume there's some kind of catharsis in watching someone else go up in flames for something that you, you know, you yourself have done.

1:06:04I think, you know, there's so many different things that are at play in our online world. You know, there's the online disinhibition effect. So where people, because they're hiding behind a screen or behind anonymity, find it easier to take on different personas. We saw that the beginning of that was remember Second Life, you know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, so, I mean, that was really, that was kind of the beginning, I think, of this idea of, you know, an avatars of sort of, okay, let me both be this person, but also be someone else, be some different curated version of who I want to be. For sure.

1:06:40Right. Some projected versions. The advertisement for me. Right. Exactly. And which in and of itself has a layer of shame connected to it. Right. Because there's that idea of whoever I am, really am, is not good enough. For sure. Yeah. So I think, you know, that's at play. I think we have people constantly, I mean, just the chasm between our real lives and curated selves online is very challenging. And I think that's where there's so much mental health issues coming in. And I had this young boy say to me last week, which was he'd written in an essay, and I've just been turning it over in my mind ever since I read it, where he was talking about actually with physical violence that when you don't have an adult to say to you, everything's going to be okay, you're alone in your pain and your experience.

1:07:28And you may lash out at someone else doing the exact same thing for the very reason so that you're not alone. Oh, sure, sure. Which was amazing to me. Like I had never really thought about it from that way. I mean, I believe, okay, hurt people, hurt people, you know, all those things. And misery loves company. It truly does. I certainly don't want to excuse any kind of online harassment or bullying behavior, but that in some ways it's a coping mechanism for some people, you know, and that's where we kind of have to step back. There is no three prong easy solution. This is like the human condition.

1:07:59But what has really happened in your, in my lifetime is that what happened to you, there were only four news outlets that people watched. There was X amount of newspapers in the country. So you took up so much space that the person who made a weird comment on their trip to Africa, they would have never been put in the paper to get shamed. So for a long period, most people weren't getting the kind of firsthand public shaming, right? There wasn't really an outlet for it. Correct. But now there is an outlet for almost anyone to get publicly shamed because there's infinite number of web addresses basically, and there's social media and there's a trillion news networks.

1:08:41So now many, many people can be publicly shamed. And I think the business model is different. With so many more outlets, there are more people in this industry who are looking to make an income. Sure, sure, sure. You know, make money. They can't ignore data, right? So, I mean, that's the whole thing is, you know, is around the idea of the model of money that gets made from these things and that shame and public humiliation are these currencies in our society. Yes, they're very tasty for people. Yeah, yeah. And I do think there's, I have a friend who has this really interesting theory around because we now don't stay in the same village, you know, from where we were born and know the same people for our entire lives, that well-known people have kind of become the local, that was sort of the local gossip that we would.

1:09:27So these are the familiar people that we now, instead of staying in our village, We take them with us wherever we go. Yes. The purpose gossip provided was when we lived in 100 member groups, they were very egalitarian because one man getting power, if he started abusing that power as the chief, three other men could overthrow him at any time. In our early days, that chief didn't have a police force. It didn't have a military. Right. So at all times, that person could be overthrown pretty easily. And the mechanism by which everyone would evaluate whether that person should be overthrown was gossip.

1:10:06That's exactly how you build an alliance to make sure someone's not being tyrannical. But then you get apparatuses like military, state police. And now we're not going to just gossip our way into a new president. It doesn't really work that way anymore. But it is hardwired into us. No one should feel guilty that they enjoy gossip. We are designed to gossip so we can regulate these little groups. I think it's helpful to first recognize like, oh, yeah, I'm inclined to gossip the same way I'm inclined to eat 44 Snickers bars. I'm hardwired to load up on sugar when that fruit's in season. And I just have to know that about my body so that I can take some some actions.

1:10:44I think I understand what you're saying. I just I do think that we can evolve away from gossip. Oh, me too. I think the goal should be 100 percent. Yeah. To evolve away from it. Because I think we can see in many, many ways that it's ultimately destructive and it's no longer servicing the purpose that it was. And if you if you step back and you like take a completely different view and think about it energetically, it's like words have a consequence. You know, they have a consequence whether you are hearing them or not. That sense of I mean, we have energy fields where we're affected by what people think about us, what they say about us.

1:11:20I mean, that for me, I think a big part of my healing was I spent many years having to heal my field, you know, so to sort of having gone overnight from being known by a very small group of people relative to the rest of the world. And then all of a sudden have all this negative intention and energy coming at me. You know, that that's an effect. But yes, someone who has a deep desire to eat cake should not feel like a failure and shame themselves. They were designed to eat cake. Right. Right. That's the point I'm making. I'm not even judgmental of someone, the desire to gossip. I think it's ingrained in us.

1:11:56But I think we should have as an objective and a goal to transcend that. There's probably a technical term for this, which I can't remember, don't know. But I think that what probably one of the most important ways forward is around trying to rather than trying to penalize a lot of the negative behavior, which I think can be helpful, is also at the same time trying to bring in more of the positive. Right. So trying to drown that out in some ways. So educating people on how to be an upstander online, like how important that is. So talk about upstanders because they do this at my daughter's school.

1:12:29And I think it's the coolest. Oh, yeah. No, it's amazing to be an upstander means to sort of intervene in a situation. And you can intervene while you're seeing something like while you're seeing a bullying situation unfold or an online harassment unfurl. You can intervene that way, but you can also intervene after the fact too. That's a really important part of being an upstander, which is just recognizing, reaching out to the person who's been the target of that behavior. Basically allowing somebody to know that someone witnessed what happened. Yes. To whether that is a supportive emoji or it's saying to someone, I saw what happened or saying, do you want to come sit with me or want to go to the movies?

1:13:09some way of if it's somebody, you know, if it's a stranger, just a positive comment, you know, that there are all these ways that we can actually interrupt the cycles that are happening in the bullying cycle that are important for people to remember. Also reporting, so with online situations, reporting any bullying or online harassment that you see is also, these are all ways of kind of being a good digital citizen. And they have a huge impact, particularly, I think, you know, from the work that I do, the worst kinds of things that happen are when people are suffering in silence alone. And the faster somebody knows that they're not invisible, right?

1:13:48There's this irony of this kind of behavior that you are a target of something, and yet you actually feel really invisible. So the more I think that you can encourage people to sort of step up and engage in these sorts of behaviors, we're starting to shift the balance of the other kind of behavior that's happening, which we should address in how we're dealing with these issues too. Yeah. I also wish like when I was younger, it had been explained to me that the power of this group is much, much greater than the power of the bully. Because when I was a kid, now mind you, I have been a bully. I would never have thought that about myself.

1:14:21But as I've gotten older and I play back the frequency with which I was in fights and stuff, there has to be several kids that think I'm a bully. And I'm very regretful of that and sorry for that. Also recognized I was in a household where someone was kicking my mom's ass and my brother was five years older than me and he was kicking my ass. And then I went to this playground where I could have power and I enjoyed that. Right. I liked that. And there are some who talk about people who engage, especially younger people who engage in bullying behavior. Some people look at models that are saying it actually is their kids trying different power structures on.

1:14:58Yes. There's so many different things. I think one of the things that we have trouble with around this topic is that, like usual, we're always trying to simplify things. Yes, yes. Good and evil. Right, exactly. And people engage in bullying behavior for myriad reasons. And people become targets for myriad reasons. And there are myriad ways to handle different situations. There's no one correct way for every single person who's either a bully or a target. I have witnessed and I have experienced the enormous shifts that can happen when people step into compassion. Yes. And it's most hard when it's with someone whose behavior you just personally hate to begin with.

1:15:38But when I was a kid and there were certainly many times I was bullied and more than that, I observed lots of bullying. And for us in the herd watching it, it was like if I said something, I'd be the next target of that bully. I'm assuming I feel alone in the fact that I don't like what's happening to this kid. I'm assuming the rest of the people in this crowd are enjoying this and they like this. So if I stand up, I'm now going to be the victim of the bully. I'll be the next victim. If I feel like if I had been educated that, no, no, 99 % of you don't want this. You don't want a tyrannical leader on the playground.

1:16:09And collectively, the power of a group is so powerful to all of us humans. If we get excluded from our group, we change our behavior in general, I think. I agree. I think it's really important to point out that intervening directly is not always right for every person in every situation, just like it's not always right, maybe right in some circumstances, but to say to somebody, you have to stand up to a bully. Like it's just, again, it's sort of that nuanced scenario. Yes. Because there are people who are equipped to do that socially and emotionally, and there are people who aren't. And some people can be endangered by doing those sorts of things, which is why I think with upstanding behavior, it's really important for people to recognize you don't have to be the person who stands up to the bully.

1:16:55You can still be effective. I mean, that's for me. For me, my focus is the target's experience. You know, how do we get that person from feeling shame and alone and sadness to feeling more okay fastest? Yeah. And that doesn't matter if you're by 15, 50, you know, social media is it's, I mean, it's really come to kind of map our underlying cultural beliefs. Yeah. You know, so, I mean, it's a lot of people, I think there was like this thing I read recently, 60 or 70 % of people think the internet is, and online harassment is kind of responsible for this corrosion of civility. It's hard because the truth is we have to look at ourselves.

1:17:36I mean, I look at social media a lot and a lot of behavior just kind of like road rage, which I have. So, I mean, it's just sort of that I behave in the car in ways that I would not behave outside the car. Right, totally. But I think that that happens online. We see that sort of not regulated behavior, you know, and so much of it is because we have lost sight of the fact we don't have those. You know, I'm sitting in a room with both of you. I can read your facial expressions. I can feel your emotions, you know, and there there are always I believe there are always so many different languages going on, many of which we don't even know we're using and communicating ways that we're communicating.

1:18:16And so when it's online, you don't have those same cues. Right, right. You can't see the hurt that you've just caused. And so people tend to devolve into the worst versions of themselves. But there are ways to not do that. You know, I'm always most interested in tackling problems where the river starts, not as it feeds into the ocean. So, you know, I think there is a much bigger global question is, why are there so many people sitting in their rooms on a computer that have no control in their life and feel like they need to overpower someone else to get a sense of control? Like, you know, what is the societal bigger problem that we're not addressing in children that they would even, you know, land them there?

1:19:00Right. And that's a pretty hard one to tackle. Yeah. I mean, I think I think a big threat of that is connection. there's kind of this vicious cycle that's happened with online behavior around you know we sort of do that thing of we compare our insides to other people's outsides i'm on instagram privately twitter publicly and constantly constantly feeling like everyone else is happier thinner wealthier more in love all of those things eating better meals right exactly doing better instagram let's not forget that right like you know the meta we also find connection there young people i think it's over 40 % find connection, more connection from social media, but then they also feel disconnected in ways.

1:19:44Yeah. Lonelier than ever. Right. I think what happens is it's kind of this, it's this weird thing where at the same time that we're thirsty for more connection, the ways we're finding connection are also trying to tell us that we're less than. So it becomes, it's a very complicated back and forth struggle. Well, and we've had experts on here that have explained that oxytocin is not released unless you're looking at the person's face. Like all these chemical things that are associated with connection actually can't exist in a virtual connection. They're just, they're not happening. And so they're ultimately feeling lonely, even though they're distracted enough to not feel lonely.

1:20:20But they're also getting dopamine hits when the like texts come in and things, likes come in and stuff. So it is a weird balance of. Yeah. I mean, I think it's great that we're seeing some of the social media companies start, finally start to address some of these issues, I have a big fear that social media is going to end up like the cable networks, that if we don't find a way to actually coexist in these social spaces with, you know, very different polarized viewpoints, we will splinter off and then we'll end up siloed in the same way of Fox News and all the other stations. And so, you know, I think we're being given an opportunity.

1:20:57I'm not saying it is great. And I know how challenging it is for people who are targets of these things, but we are being given an opportunity online to try to find ways to bridge the divide of perspective. Yeah. The thing I most admire about you and I'm so impressed by is that you have taken one of, again, the most horrific scarlet letterings of all time. and I have to imagine part of you has felt very fearful of ever even talking about it in fear of breathing oxygen into something that you just want to be over with in your life but I think your willingness to do it in your bravery isn't for me and it's not for any of those people that was arguing but it's for all these people who have gone through this and are seeing that it didn't break somebody.

1:21:48I can't imagine a stronger example of someone persevering than you. It's it's incredible the fact that you still pursued your education and that you started a business and that you started a philanthropic endeavor. I mean, all these things, it's rare to see someone not be broken by that. And I think it's just. Oh, I'm broken. Oh, OK. Let's be really clear. I'm still very broken. OK, well, functionally broken. Exactly. Yeah. Not shattered to pieces. Not share the pieces. And I just think the power of you being honest about your story is so valuable. I hope you can take on some of the credit you deserve.

1:22:27I hope I hope you're proud of yourself. I think I feel gratitude more than pride. Maybe maybe that's down the road. But I was talking to my mom this morning just about I think every once in a while, I kind of shocked into remembering what my life was like before things started to change a few years ago. and I never could have imagined giving a purpose to my past in the way that I have or using that pain in service of hoping that other people feel less alone. Yes. You know, I think that's really what it's about. You probably know this. It's a privilege. It's a privilege to have a life where you're able to help other people feel less alone because of the experiences you're sharing.

1:23:08Yeah. Yeah. You must have people reach out to you all the time and share with you how you've helped them. I hope. I mean, that's that's kind of, you know, that's look, we'd like to shit all over social media. But that's also kind of one of the beauties of social media, too, is that we do get to hear from people. We do get to connect in ways that we wouldn't otherwise. You can find your tribe in a way you can. Absolutely. Sure. I mean, there's so I mean, and think about there are a lot of political movements. The Women's March wouldn't have been able to happen that fast. You know, hashtag me 2.0.

1:23:42You know, I mean, Tarana Burke started it 10 years ago, but it, you know, social media changed that into something different. It became something, became a louder voice and coalesced faster because of it. So. Well, like all things, it's not binary. It's not good or bad. It's like everything. Right. But of course, that's the world we live in. Yes. and lacks nuance and context. And the inclination is to like, get rid of something or embrace it and shut the fuck up about it. But really, no, there's like a whole process where we can refine things. And I also think that there are, you know, hopefully the platforms will come to places where they'll be instituting mechanisms to help sort of alleviate those kinds of scenarios too.

1:24:26Yeah, it's really hard to imagine, but all of this, as you pointed out earlier, is driven by economic models. So everyone feels insignificant. We live in a country of 300 million people. You feel like you're insignificant, but if you click on the shitty article and if you watch the video - We control the algorithm. We do. We're in charge of that algorithm. It's hard to imagine, but we will steer the ship. Yeah. Did you see Jaron, I always get his last name wrong, Jaron Lanier, Lanier? Lanier. He gave a really interesting TED Talk last year and he's been involved in the internet and he he made this argument we sort of went right when we should have gone left at the point of should the internet have been subscription-based or ad-based and so you know i mean i you can also see that there of course then there the financial hierarchy issues if it were to have been subscription-based but i think that you know a lot of where we are is because we have, without realizing it, made these agreements of our clicking, our data, that these are the new commodities.

1:25:33He argues that it's not too late to turn back. And I think we should really be looking and exercising all options. Yeah, there's a lot of different people right now in the different political races that are suggesting or pointing out that, no, no, this is kind of a public utility and we probably should be treating it as such. It should be available to everyone. It should be democratized. And we shouldn't rely on Nabisco to bring it to us. We should just pony up as a society probably and have the version we want. Right. I kind of see the validity of that argument. So what's next for you? So it's October is Bullying Prevention Month.

1:26:09So every year for the last two years, and we will be doing this year, BBDO New York and I have done a campaign for Bullying Prevention Month, which we launch usually in the first few days of October. Okay. Well, I'm really delighted that we became Twitter friends, I think, is for how it started. And again, I've been a longtime admirer of you and happy to see you still thriving in the way you are. And it's incredibly impressive. And I'm in awe of it. So I'm glad I got to talk to you. Yeah. All right. Cool. And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate, Monica Padman.

1:26:48Monica, Monica, I think I want your number. Monica, la la da dee do da da. Monica. Oh my God. You had a lot of energy for that one. I exploded because we're coming hot off of a taco order. You know what I'm realizing? What? That song was not about me, was it? No, it was about you guys. Yeah. Because this is the Monica's episode. Yeah, it is. This was a great episode. You loved it? Yeah. Me too. I feel very grateful that she trusted us to share her story. Me too. Me too. I've always, always liked her. Yeah. And we've gotten to know her. Yes. We've gotten to know her through this process and she's so lovely.

1:27:32She really is a sweet, sweet human being. Yeah. Yeah. I like her a lot. Me too. Me too. And strong. Yeah. Yeah. Fucking resilient. Never in my wildest dreams as a child watching that whole thing unfold did I think, oh, maybe one day she'll sit on a couch across from me and we can really connect about this. Talk about it. I know. Yeah. I know. It's a wild, wild world. I wonder what the percentage is of people who then felt a lot of judgment if they still do. Yeah. So much has changed since then. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think so much of the reaction was embroiled in whatever people's fears are. Of course.

1:28:17So like if you were a partner and you had a big fear that your husband would run around on you. Yeah. It's so interesting, too, about cheating, right? People always get mad at the other person. I mean, they probably get mad at both people. Yeah. But it's interesting. Like, I've never understood getting, you know, well, no, I do understand. In high school, my girlfriend cheated on me and I went to the guy's house and tried to fight him. You did. Yeah. And I lost my vision as I was trying to punch him through the car window and I missed completely. And his dad intervened. It was a whole circus. Wow.

1:28:48Anywho, I do. I do remember blaming the person, but it is ironic because, you know, you're not in a relationship with the other person. I know it's so complicated. But anyways, I do think that she may have for some percentage of the population represented their biggest fear. that some young attractive woman would lead their husband astray. It is true. It's often, not always, of course, but it's often the man who cheats on his wife. And yeah, the woman who had an affair with him is the one that generally gets the blame. The other woman. The other woman. I try not to say that because it's so cliche.

1:29:29But even that has connotations, right? And like that person gets ostracized than that person. And often the husband and wife end up reconciling. So the husband ends up really not feeling the weight of anything. And that other person ends up feeling everything. And that to me is extremely unfair. Well, yeah, the husband or the wife in whatever case. Everyone cheats. Well, that's true. I think it's pretty. I think the numbers are even. You think? Esther Perel suggests that yes. That they're even? Yeah, because who are they fucking? Single people. Well, no, you've got a stagnant population. The same percentage of women are married as men because they're marrying each other.

1:30:14The statistics are the same. Well, no, men are cheating more than women, I would say. Probably. I don't think so. Really? No, I think just as many married women are having affairs as married men. Rob, add it to the list. Add it to the list. I think that's true. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare.

1:30:45You know, Astor says it's something that's been universally reviled and universally practiced. Totally. Yeah, I think, I don't think it's a male-female thing. I think historically there's men were in the vast majority of positions of power were men. So you're aware of all of the men's famous indiscretions. but maybe if the there were way more famous powerful women you'd be aware of those indiscretions maybe i i maybe you're right though because there are i'm sure there are like what is cheating so sure i bet men are going to massage parlors a lot more than women to get relieved i don't think women maybe are shopping for orgasms as readily as married men yeah i mean i i mean i'm just look at stereotypical married couples, I would say stereotypically, don't get mad at me, everyone.

1:31:39The man wants more sex than the woman often, not always. But I think. But often. Well, here's what I think it is. I think both people. Well, I think the woman wants the same amount of sex, but with a different person. We all want novelty. That's what it is. Everyone's desiring novelty. And I don't think it's male or female. Like we want novelty. Now, are men acting on it more conventionally, traditionally? Were they out in the world where they could they had unobserved time that they could probably cheat? Like this was the system. Did it cater more to that? Probably. If you're a woman at home raising kids.

1:32:16Of course. Yes. I don't know who you're meeting, but but I do think I just think I think people have affairs. Yeah, they do. I think men and women both have affairs. Yeah, they do. But anyway, you're right. Right. The whoever cheated can be forgiven and reincorporated in their life. And the other person, the other woman, the other man is always occupies that. There's no redemption for that. I know. Doesn't feel equal. It doesn't feel fair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was it was it was enormously unfair. That's obvious. Like he was, you know, kept his job, kept his position in the world. But by the way, I want to be clear.

1:32:55I don't think that he should have. Now, he's done he's alleged to have done other things that I have no defense of. But let's just say this was an extramarital affair. I don't think the solution would be he should have been shamed the way she was. No, I think I don't. I think she should have gotten the treatment heated. I don't think either party needs to be sent to Siberia. I agree. And, but what I think the part of this conversation that doesn't get talked about very much, which she touched on a little bit, which is, you know, she was like, part of what was so awful is this public presentation that it was a servicing relationship.

1:33:36And she was like, it was a mutual relationship. And I don't think that part gets talked about where it's like, she's in a relationship with the person. She, on top of this public thing, there's, I'm sure a private heartbreak. Of course. Yeah. She's not allowed to feel. Right. And that is not fair. Right. Yeah. I agree. Anyway. Whole thing is a bummer. Yeah, it is. And a lot of people go like, oh, you guys feel so bad for two people who cheated. I know. But I do. I do. I feel bad when people make mistakes. I know. And I've made a ton of mistakes. I continue to make mistakes. I'll make more. Yeah.

1:34:15And I don't think I'm met anyone that's not making mistakes. I've just met people who are better at hiding their mistakes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So she was trying to find the verbiage for this quote. She said the tallest poppy gets cut off first, but it's called tall poppy syndrome. Oh, tall poppy syndrome. Yes. I'm a tall poppy. You are a tall poppy. It describes aspects of a culture where people of high status are resented, attacked, cut down, strung up or criticized because they've been classified as superior to their peers. Yeah. We have the weirdest. I think about it all the time. You know, I saw someone's Twitter handle was like abolish billionaires or something.

1:34:59And I was like, it is the weirdest thing that we all want this thing we want in this country. We want to become wealthy and successful. And yet we and I did resent people who have done that. and for many justified reasons and many unjustified reasons it's just this very weird thing it's like we defend the system so you know passionately and yet we're resentful of the people that have done that it's all complicated yes i think we love i mean a lot of people have said this but like yeah we'd love to see people rising we like the rise fall too yeah i think because again like Like you just said, everyone makes mistakes.

1:35:44And so it feels relatable. But also I think if you're not at that level, you feel like, oh, it's actually not that good up there. Like there's something about it that feels comforting to you that you're not there. Because maybe when you get to that level, it's like all shady and bad. Requires some kind of amoralness. Yeah. I think it's more, why is that person there and not me? I deserve that. They don't. So when they are found guilty of some indiscretion, it confirms that they didn't deserve it. I know. I think that's a negative outlook on it, which it could very well be true. But I think it's a deeper psychological thing happening.

1:36:27Which is very interesting. We have an entire system and then no one really likes the outcome of the system. Yeah. But I went down, of course, because now I'm on the other side of it. And I got really defensive when I saw this person. I'm not a billionaire. on Twitter attacking that. Here I'm someone who has given millions of dollars to the government, millions of dollars to education, to all these services, to building bridges. So my contribution to the whole system that we're fighting for, be it Medicare or any other thing, requires people to generate a bunch of money so that they can give a bunch of it to the government.

1:37:01So it's a weird proposition to be resentful at the people who are giving a tremendous amount of money into this system that you want to see more services of. So when I see like abolish billionaires, it's like, well, how about abolish some things you don't like about billionaires? But if someone is some human being figures out how to make a mousetrap, Apple, and it generates a trillion dollars and half of that goes to this system, why is that antithetical to what you want? Currently, our system, some of the richest people pay no taxes. Well, that's a big issue. Right. So that's what they're saying.

1:37:34I'm just saying, let's be specific about it. But I'm saying when someone creates the iPhone and it sells several hundred million and then that puts a half trillion dollars into the fund that builds roads and educates kids, you know, be careful that that's what you want to get rid of is some source of profound wealth that does get redistributed. Now, you could say, I want to see the distribution of billionaires be at 70 percent. That's fine. Yeah. But just the very notion of abolish billionaires is just a little weird when what we need is money for all these services. Right. But I wonder if this is like, is this like lunch four times a week with your boss?

1:38:15Like, have you seen just abolish billionaires, period, and then nothing more? This is one woman who was mad at me that I said, preach to Ellen for saying, be kind to everyone. okay right again so one person is saying that oh i'm only talking to that person but i think there's a good amount of people i mean the the argument side of the argument i have heard has not been abolish billionaires it's been they need to pay for they need to pay a high percentage yeah because they don't need that much money yeah um okay well you said you don't know what the number is but probably 50 percent of people were getting cheated on that year that year being 1998, but there's no stat for that.

1:38:55There's not. No. I mean, there can't be. It's a wild guess. Exactly. There just can't be. There can't be. No. Cyberbullying, she said 1 in 10. According to cyberbullying statistics from the iSafe Foundation, over half of adolescents and teens have been bullied online and about the same number have engaged in cyberbullying. More than 1 in 3 young people have experienced cyber threats online. Over 25 % of adolescents and teens have been bullied repeatedly through cell phones or the internet well over half of young people do not tell their parents when cyber bullying occurs well i had a weird feeling watching joker i really want you to watch it so we can really unpack it yeah but one weird i always have these weird thoughts that are like super contrary to what i traditionally think uh-huh and one of them was so this is set in the 70s in New York.

1:39:46And he is, you know, he's like any one of these shooters or any number of people we now know we have a ton of in this society. And I was looking at life in the seventies on that bus, you know, he's riding a bus around and stuff and he's just, there's nothing to distract him from his kind of mania. And I was thinking like conventionally, I think I hate video games. What a waste of time. Yeah, let's just get rid of video games. Right. But I was like, oh, there are a bunch of people who are angst ridden about this system that excludes them. And I was like, are these things maybe make our world safer?

1:40:25Like if you can give some angst ridden somebody a joystick and they blow people away for four hours on a video game, does that keep them from acting or does that satiate or is that an outlet for their frustration? is this device that constantly keeps you engaged, which I think of as negative sometimes, is this positive? Do most terrible things stem from boredom? Is maybe - No. No? I totally don't think so. Okay. Well, one, because there's been only a rise in these types of behaviors and especially these mass shootings and stuff since - Well, definitely mass shootings. Yeah. But the murder rate is precipitously down.

1:41:05It's been falling since the 70s. Yeah, but I'm not talking like gang related. That's what that stuff is. And it's a guy finds out his girlfriend fucked another dude and he drives over and shoots him and her. I mean, just murder overall is down. Yeah. All these types of unconventional shootings and depression rates are up. I mean, all these things are everything's gotten worse since the invention of the phones and video games and all of those things. So, no, I don't think it's an outlet for people because there was a very conventional argument against pornography that it would lead to more rape and stuff.

1:41:45And then there were many people who had studies that said, no, porn is an outlet. And they actually will jerk off watching the porn. And then it kind of their likelihood of going out and being a predator goes down because they have an outlet for it. So I'm not planning to flag in either side of that debate. But I guess what occurred to me is you could make an argument that this stuff satiates people's angst. But I don't think you can make the argument. Oh, you can't? Because all this stuff has gotten worse. Angst-wise, if you're talking about people who feel entitled and act out because of it, all that stuff's gotten way worse.

1:42:21Yeah. Yeah. And depression just has gotten way worse. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And... Isolation. Yeah. So, okay. So we talked about gossip a little bit. There's an interesting NPR article about gossip. So gossip can help solidify personal relationships and encourage cooperation. Children engage in this form of gossip by age five. one provocative view comes from anthropologist Robin Dunbar who argues that gossip is the human analog of social grooming which is widely practiced by our primate cousins. Through gossip we can create and maintain social bonds more efficiently allowing us to form groups of larger sizes.

1:43:05These suggestions about the benefits of gossip for cooperation correspond to a special subset of gossip what's recently been called pro-social gossip. Pro-social gossip involves sharing negative judgments about a third party, but where the shared information could protect the recipient from antisocial behavior or exploitation. Thus, gossiping about who cheats at cards or who's likely to shirk at a responsibility would qualify as pro-social gossip. Researchers Jan Engelman, Esther Herman, and Michael Tomasello of the Max Plank, Plank? The Max. The word requires a different voice. Plank. Plank. I can't.

1:43:47Is it plank? It wouldn't be plank. P-L-A-N-C-K. Plank. Plank. Plank. Plank. I don't know. That's the wrong guy. But yeah, that's institute. Plank. Plank. Plank. For evolutionary anthropology, studied pro-social gossip in both three and five year olds. To create an opportunity for such gossip, they had the children play a game. Children who participated in the study first played with two puppets, one of which was more generous than the other. A second child then came in to play the game with just one of the two puppets, and the researchers observed whether the first child gossiped about the puppets, offering a social evaluation that could help the second child decide which puppet to choose.

1:44:28For example, if a child said you should play with the green puppet because the yellow puppet is stingy and doesn't share enough tokens, that would be classified as pro-social gossip. The researchers found that most children in both age groups offered some sort of guidance about which puppet to choose. But the three-year-olds very rarely offered an evaluation to go along with it. For instance, they might recommend one puppet over the other, but they wouldn't go on to explain that it was because that puppet was generous or because the other puppet cheated. The five-year-olds, by contrast, offered such evaluations about half the time.

1:45:00They went beyond a mere recommendation to a social judgment to the kind of claim that might make or break an individual's reputation. so that's why they got the three to five number yeah yeah and the one i think i brought up right was the explanation i heard was like keep it a meritocracy yes yeah it seems beneficial too yeah there's some positives look i think for me it's very easy to answer there's some gossip i feel hung over from and there's some i don't yeah exactly it's really that like yeah if i'm warning somebody like don't tell so-and-so a secret they're not good at keeping secrets i feel totally fine about that i'm saying something negative about the person but whatever but if i'm just like pointing out someone's shirt was stupid yeah i feel shitty why yeah yeah i think for me it's about purpose like what is the purpose of talking about this is the purpose of talking about it to dissect it to understand more to well it is to connect a lot too right because if you and i meet a whatever some stranger and we're interacting and then afterwards i go did you realize that guy said herpes a lot.

1:46:05And you go, yes, I noticed that there's like some bonding between us that we both observe this thing or we're not crazy in our thoughts or isolated in our thoughts. We're like confirmed that we're on the right path. I think that's what a lot of gossip is. But generally that kind of gossip is the kind I don't love. I mean, that example is so benign, but like the shirt is bad. Is that? Yes. It's the same. Totally to make someone lower. It is, or it's the connection thing. Like, did you notice like his shirt was all wrinkled up? Like, why is his shirt so wrinkly? Is he not on an iron? God, do you think he doesn't have any money?

1:46:43Because he doesn't. I even iron his club. He's a dirt bag. He smells bad too. They are seeking connection, but I - Don't want to connect on that level. But by the way, a lot of times when people initiate some gossip with me about one of those things, I think for the most part, I generally don't think about those things. I don't care about those things. So when they try to connect with me, they don't get a connection out of it. I agree with that now in my adult life. But I think I probably spent many, many, many conversations just pretending like I noticed that so I could feel inside. Right. Yeah.

1:47:21Well, I do it to you all the time. No, you don't. Yeah, we're watching TV and I'm like, God, have you noticed how big this guy's tongue is? I know, but I don't think you do that. I mean, you do do that about tongues. I don't think you talk poorly about people for like no reason. For sport. Yeah. For entertainment. No. No. Well, I love you. That's all. I love you. That's all. I'll gossip with you about things that could save you. Okay. Okay. And if we notice someone says herpes indiscriminately. We can talk about it. Yes. You know so many times he said herpes? But then we'd be like, sure, he said herpes a lot.

1:47:57And then there's - Should we offer him a screening? follow-up conversation of like, oh my God, he's so confident to be doing that. And why is he so like, wondering why is that to me is fine. That's just exploring. But like just being like, ew. He had flakes in his eyebrows. Yeah, ew. That's what people say love me sometimes. No one says that. No one says that. All right. I love you. And I loved Monica Lewinsky. Me too. I don't know that I've met a Monica and I didn't like a lot. Oh my God. Yeah. Even though we found out you hate this, but the name, the name means alone and also advice giver, which both of those things I think apply to myself.

1:48:38You disagree. I disagree. We'll talk about it on the next fact. Okay. Love you.