What is Social Media For?

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Donald Trump’s Legal Woes

  • What is Social Media For?

  • Outside of Politics: Summer Lifesavers

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EPISODE RESOURCES

DONALD TRUMP’S LEGAL WOES

SOCIAL MEDIA

SUMMER LIFESAVERS

TRANSCRIPT

Beth [00:00:00] The amount of time they're having to spend using somebody else's audio and somebody else's little dance or routine to try to say, "Here's what I have to make," that is a tragedy. Like, what could be created in that time that is right for them and personal to them and aligned with their soul has to go into this that they would even say it themselves. "I don't enjoy watching other people's stuff like this." Nobody enjoys it. 

Sarah [00:00:25]  This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:35] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:36] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics. Welcome to Pantsuit Politics, where we take a different approach to the news, one that prioritizes curiosity and sometimes requires us to take a step back and look at things with a wider lens. And that's what we're going to do today. If you are on social media-- which you're probably on social media-- statistically, especially Instagram there's been some changes to the algorithm and Instagram is not the only social media platform shifting away from the social aspect of social media. So today we're asking what is social media for anyway? Before we tackle that, we're going to address the FBI search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence, which was just one of the major developments when it comes to the former president's legal woes this week. And then outside politics, we're going to share our summer lifesavers.  

Beth [00:01:36] Before we get into the myriad ways social media is changing, if you follow us and feel like those changes mean we've been showing up in your feed less and less, may we offer you a suggestion? On Instagram, if you go to our profile and click the dropdown menu under 'Following', you will see 'Add to Favorites' as an option. We would just love to be in your favorites list because that means that we'll get to be in your feed no matter what the ever changing whims of the algorithm saying.  

Sarah [00:02:15] Beth, I don't know if you heard this, but the FBI went to Mar-a-Lago, paid a little visit.  

Beth [00:02:23] I think I've seen that here and there.  

Sarah [00:02:25] Mm-hmm. Now, donald Trump was not there because he was in New York City preparing for a deposition in another legal matter where he took the Fifth Amendment, which is his constitutional right, despite maybe what he has said about the Fifth Amendment in the past and despite the fact--   

Beth [00:02:47] That this is a civil proceeding, not a criminal one. But it's fine.  

Sarah [00:02:50]  Mm-hmm. This was for a deposition for the New York state attorney general, Letitia James. Put a pin in that because we're not going to get to that. But we want to start with the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago. The Republican Party has had some reactions. Do we want to start with the reality of the search or the political spin of the search?  

Beth [00:03:14] I typically prefer to begin in reality.  

Sarah [00:03:16] Oh, well, that's a good approach. That's a good approach. Okay. The reality is we don't know a whole lot. Now, Donald Trump does. He has the search warrant. He has the list of things they took. He's had lots to say, but not lots to share about the reality of the search. The DOJ and the FBI, not surprisingly, has very little to say. We know from some sources in major media outlets that this was in regards to the mishandling or perhaps continued storage of classified documents. We know that the FBI had paid a previous visit in the spring and taken back some documents after the National Archives had been in an ongoing what I'm going to describe as a battle with Trump to return documents. For most of 2021, I guess that did not lead to a conclusion everyone was happy with. So then the FBI paid a visit, they took some boxes. Again, we can only assume that was also not good enough. They paid a visit under a search warrant this time.  

Beth [00:04:18] I think that is the key piece of information for all of us to know that there was a search warrant. There were lawyers involved. A judge, a magistrate signed off on this. Trump's lawyer was there and has communicated with the media. I just really do not want to go down the road of the drama that he himself has used in describing these events. This is fairly routine. Everybody keeps using the word historic, which I guess is true in that he was the president and now this is happening. But it is not historic in terms of the type of warrant that would have been prepared here and the execution of that warrant. I'm really struggling, Sarah, with how we seem to continue to raise the bar for what law enforcement and congressional investigations need to be and do in order to impose any kind of accountability and oversight on Donald Trump, while simultaneously lowering the bar on our expectations of his conduct.  

Sarah [00:05:24] Right. I would use a different analogy. I would not say they're raising the bar. I would say they're moving the goalposts. There is no direct vertical words over there. No wait, it's over here. No wait, it's over there. I mean, it's his FBI director. He appointed him. So this idea that-- and of course, now we're moving into the political spin that this is-- I would love to sort of walk you through logically the political spin. But it's really a throw it at the wall see what sticks situation, seems to be no rhyme or reason. It's the FBI. It's the Biden administration. It's the politicalization of the Justice Department. Oh, by the way, they maybe planted evidence.  I mean, it is whatever ,I guess, occurs to someone while they're in the middle of a Fox News interview. There is no rhyme or reason to the narrative, I don't even think narrative is a fair description of what is happening in the GOP as a result of this search. And, look, I don't have any problem describing this as a dramatic escalation. I wanted a dramatic escalation. His behavior and choices are deserving of a dramatic escalation. So I'm not kind of downplaying this. It is a big deal. But it's not a big deal because it's baseless and a witch hunt. Like, again, how often do we let him trot this out before we demand some sort of prove. I guess the answer is who's the 'we' we're talking about is, the 'we' your average citizen? Is the 'we' Jim Jordan because I mean the Danes are going to be different.  

Beth [00:07:14] In a sense, they're just is no good way to handle this because there are no good politics around Donald Trump. And there's no good law enforcement around somebody who's high profile. I cannot believe that I'm going to bring up James Comey and Hillary Clinton here, but everyone else is so I guess I will to. So if the FBI or the Justice Department in general were doing now what Republicans are complaining that they aren't doing, coming forward and explaining themselves to the American people, then we would be right back into the James Comey situation where you have somebody deviating from normal protocol because this person is of great public interest. And we just had years of recriminations about how that was the wrong thing to do. And so whatever the approach had been, if it had been to hold a news conference, if it had been to share the warrant, whatever they did would have been wrong to the people who just don't want Donald Trump to go through anything negative. And I got to be honest, I don't even think that's the right framing. I think they love that he's going through this because it's something to talk about and hate Democrats over. And that's all it is.  

Sarah [00:08:25] Yeah. That's the thing. Because there are positive politics when it comes to him. It's not all bad politics. That's why they're stuck in this sort of fever dream illness. I think Liz Cheney is right. I think flowing through a cycle of GOP primaries where his candidates didn't win, not all of them, but some of them, is certainly not going to help. We'll see what happens when some of these candidates, specifically the Senate ones, because I don't think the Senate is in lock any longer, which it probably should have been for the GOP. We'll see what happens. I mean, I think she's right. I mean, I think, will this ever increasing list of legal problems for Donald Trump-- and what I truly believe in my heart will end up being legal consequences for Donald Trump continue to break the spell he had on some Republicans, some independents, some moderates. Yes. Do I think it will take several cycles of loss like Liz Cheney describes to break that hold on the Jim Jordan's, of the Republican Party, the Lindsey Graham's? Oh, yeah. I think it's going to take a lot more. I mean, as long as he plays, as long as painting him as that simultaneous victim and hero plays for their base, then it's going to continue to supply energy to that wing of the Republican Party.  

Beth [00:10:00] And it's extremely dangerous playing with that. As we know, we've lived the consequences of it. To see Republicans so quickly fall back into this, you can't trust the government, the FBI is to be feared, the FBI probably planted the evidence. To fall back into that so quickly.  

Sarah [00:10:20] Even the Larry Hogan's of the world.  

Beth [00:10:22] Yes. I think it is so incredibly irresponsible. Now, look, as a citizen, it is important to me that this was done correctly. I hope this was the most unimpeachable warrant. But then I say that and I also think isn't the measure of our society that the warrant served for materials at Donald Trump's basement is done with the same level of meticulousness and discipline that the warrant to search Breonna Taylor's apartment. Isn't the measure of our society that we consider her apartment as sacrosanct as Mar-a-Lago? Yes, it is. And so I want all law enforcement to be done scrupulously and with oversight and accountability. I don't want Donald Trump to be hunted. That is not what's in my heart. What is in my heart is for the law to be followed and for it to be followed no matter who is the person who's done crime. And I do feel like I have been watching him do crime for a number of years now. And so it is unsurprising to me that evidence of him having done crime is coming together and taking a shape that is going to involve law enforcement action.  

Sarah [00:11:43] Well, there's a lot of reporting right now on the shifting politics of the Democratic coalition. Lots of reporting, particularly on Latino voters, lots of polling. But I think just as big of a story is the Republican Party, the party of law and order shifting dramatically away, not just from that policy, but from the actual law enforcement officers. I'd like to see some polling on that because that is a dramatic change. And I don't know how they have managed to maintain seemingly the perception that they're the ones to go to if you want a tough on crime mentality, while also just chipping away and chipping away and chipping away at the rule of law and the idea that law and order is still a thing. I don't know. It's a magic act and I'm impressed by it. Surely,  those chickens are going to come home to roost eventually when everything out of your party's mouth when it comes to Donald Trump, anyway, is forget the police, forget law enforcement. That's not who we are anymore.  

Beth [00:13:05] Well, at least it's not as to him. They have coronated him. He is the king. He should have stayed in office no matter what the votes were he should not be indicted, no matter what the conduct has been nothing applies. And it's so frustrating. And I'll tell you the other thing I'm so frustrated with, that I feel like being very direct about and conversations with folks in my life about this. The idea that the FBI can only do one thing at a time is bananas.  

Sarah [00:13:36] Yeah. It's really big you guys. There are so many FBI officers.  

Beth [00:13:41] There are so many people. The budget is enormous they are on top of thousands of things at once. Like, there was no decision. We're going to prioritize Donald Trump and we're going to stop investigating everything else that has ever mattered. That's just you have decided to put your reason on the shelf if that's where your brain and your discussions go when this news breaks.  

Sarah [00:14:05] Yeah. Well, this was not the only story around Donald Trump and his legal woes. We also had a three judge panel on the D.C. Circuit rule that the House Ways and Means Committee can have access to his tax records. They've been trying to get them since 2019, I believe, maybe even before that. I thought this was good. So in that decision, they said, again back to this narrative, it's a political witch hunt. Everything is politics. The decision said the committee has identified a legitimate legislative purpose that it requires information to accomplish. The mere fact that individual members of Congress may have political motivations as well as legislative ones is of no moment. Indeed, it is rare that an individual member of Congress would work for legislative purposes without considering the political implications. That was really good. Also, I don't want to use the phrase more of no moment.  

Beth [00:14:57] I like of no moment too. This is a very succinct affirmation of a district court decision explaining that Congress gets to do oversight. I don't know what else to tell you. Congress has a lot of power to make laws about a lot of things, and they can go get so much information in the exercise of those duties.  

Sarah [00:15:16] It's  Article One for a reason, friends. And then we also had Donald Trump appearing in a deposition before New York State Attorney General, Letitia James, and invoking the Fifth Amendment over 400 times. I think that he has criticized other people. But again, there need not be any internal logic when it comes to Donald Trump. So the fact that he used to copy people who invoke the Fifth Amendment criminals, he's like, well, I get it now. Okay. Well, I'm so glad you've integrated and had a change of thought. A change of heart.  

Beth [00:15:47] Really is so striking to me that no one ever says he would never. No way he did that. Oh, he did not. He took the Fifth Amendment 400 times? Surely not our Donald. Like, no one ever tries to say that he couldn't possibly be responsible for whatever's being reported.  

Sarah [00:16:07] No, it's just that he did it and we don't care. He did it. He must have had a reason.  

Beth [00:16:12] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:16:13] It's the coronation.  

Beth [00:16:15] It's the coronation.  

Sarah [00:16:16] Which is it's running headlong into our legal system.  This is what this week has been. It's a clash of that political coronation and the fact that our laws still exist.  

Beth [00:16:30] And that's what makes it so important. It feels dramatic to say our democracy is on the line, the future of the country is at stake. But the coronation is the thing. Does the law apply to everybody or not? Do people become the president or is the presidency something separate? Like, these are the fundamental questions for what we are as a country. That's why I always say the January six hearings are about being not doing. This is what are we going to be here? And so I know the memes and stuff are fun. And then there are people who are just outraged and you want to bang your head against the wall listening to their outrage. We cannot afford with this stuff to fall into the old traps, though, because it is so enormously consequential.  

Sarah [00:17:22] Yeah, we can't do what we did when these narratives predominated a campaign which is just tune it out because it's a campaign and it's a media story. This is so much more. And I think that's just going to become more and more apparent as the weeks go on. All right. Next up, we're going to talk about social media. Beth, I hope you're not offended when I say we are old.  

Beth [00:18:02] No, we're old. A hundred percent.  

Sarah [00:18:03] Okay. We are 41. We just barely missed Facebook when it was just for college students. That's how old we are. But with this this whole social media situation has been around for much of our adult lives. And for most of that time, the emphasis on social media was on the social part. Like, it was about your friends. It was about your connections. It was about how many friends you could have on Facebook. It was your following. It was your influence within that community. And what you saw in whatever social media platform you are partaking, particularly Instagram and Facebook, was what your friends and that that social circle was engaging with or recommending to you. Well, now that wasn't 100% true. Obviously, twitter is different. Obviously, YouTube is different. But it seems to me that the tipping point came with the meteoric rise of TickTock which does not run on a social recommendation structure. It runs on an algorithm recommending content to you. Part of the reason TikTok became so popular is that the recommendation algorithm is very good. Now, what's that based on? We don't know. It's all proprietary. But everybody set up and paid attention. And so you have Instagram, in a very unpopular move, moving to this more recommendation based algorithm, which seems to shift the emphasis from the social part of social media to the media part of social media. I definitely feel when I'm on TikTok that I am engaging in media. I am not being social. I am engaging in media. Different kind of media, but media. We've both read a bunch of think pieces Cal Newport wrote in The New Yorker. He's calling it The Fall of the Social Media Giants. We both talked a lot about a piece by Michael Mignano, the founder of Anchor, called The End of Social Media and the Rise of Recommendation Media. So we're all here. We're all here thinking deep thoughts about what this means. Are we really entering a new age of social media or I guess just being online because, again, is social media even the right word any more?  

Beth [00:20:35] Well, everything is relative, right? So when we say we're old, another way to catch that is that we are subjects of this grand experiment that has been run over the past 20 years in a particular demographic. What does it look like for emerging adults to connect with each other online and document our lives for the benefit of people we went to high school with, as well as advertisers, and I don't know how to thread all of those pieces together. The recommendation media to me traces back to YouTube first and then TickTock. I'm glad you said you feel like you're engaging with media when you're on TikTok because I never know what I'm engaging with on TikTok. I feel like I have stepped off the edge of the earth into some weird planetary structure. I feel so strange on TikTok. And I think that's why some of the Instagram changes have bothered me so much because this short form video world where clearly so many of us are not good at making the things and don't really want to consume the things unless they're being made by people who are really good at it. I do just sense now that this whole experiment is entering a new phase where we've surrendered all of our agency. You know, I watched a video posted on Twitter from Instagram's CEO about the algorithm changes in late July. And he's sitting just direct a camera and it is one of the most condescending things I've ever watched in my life, because he's saying to everybody, "We hear you, but the world is changing and Instagram has to change with it." And I thought, friend, for you to talk about this like Instagram has no capacity to shape how the world changes and just has to follow along with everybody else. That's bananas and it's rude and it's just greedy. The only thing that I can say nicely about where Instagram has been headed lately is that I do feel our goals are aligned. I'd like to spend less time on the app and it seems to want me to spend less time.  

Sarah [00:23:00] Well, before we started this podcast, I did social media consulting, just spent a lot of time thinking about social media over the course of the past 15 years. And in all these long reads and these thinkings about shifting to an algorithmic recommendation, recommendation media is what the Michael Magnanon calls it. There's this sense of like well, goodie gumdrops that means the social media giants won't be in charge anymore. And all the problems that we've had with Facebook groups and the rise of extremists using Facebook as a tool, that will be over. And I'm like, how? First of all, a company that we clearly put too much trust in violated that trust. And now you're saying they're going to be both hands on the wheel, like, they're going to be fully in charge of the recommendations coming before us. In some ways, I appreciate the transparency. Like, we're not here to connect the world. We're here to serve you our content. We want you to stay with our content the longest. So at least there is an honesty to TickTock. TickTock is not saying I'm trying to make you better. Tick tock is trying to say I'm going to serve you as much short form video as you can possibly consume in the most addictive way possible. I appreciate you being transparent with me TickTock. That's not to say that content can't help or change things, but it also has the same problems that Facebook had, which is elevating content that is damaging. For example, the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial. We're not solving anything. We're getting a little more honest about what we're on there to do, which, again, I guess I appreciate. But to me, this idea that this will be better, this will be-- I mean, and [inaudible] says, well, this will be better for the consumers. And I'm like, based on what? Like, the problems that we learned, to me, it's like it's not what social media is for. What have we learned so far? Are we applying literally any of those lessons? And to me, the answer seems no. Because we learned it's too addictive. We're not doing anything about that. We're just trying to make it more addictive. That there is not enough filtration to dangerous content. Doesn't seem to be any application of that. To me, it's like, well, we're not really addressing any of the things that we know to be an issue with social media. We're just trying to make it better at what it's doing that harms us. I hate to be that negative, but does seem like sort of what's shaking out here.  

Beth [00:25:27] Well, it's pretty insidious when we're having a conversation and thinking of TikTok as the most transparent because TickTock and transparency do not belong in the same sentence. I get completely what you're saying, but there is a whole backend of that that we never engage with and that we are learning all the time is so bad for us as a society, as a country.  

Sarah [00:25:50] And that never comes up in these long reads. We're like talking about social media, we're talking about the rise of TickTock nobody goes, "Hey, did you know that there's national security implications for this" Should we talk about that? Nobody even imagines it.  

Beth [00:26:01] I think the key word that keeps coming up in these think pieces is consumer. Because the reason I believe just based on-- again, my experience as a subject in this experiment so I cannot see it all clearly. I believe the reason that I gravitated to these platforms and a lot of other people my age gravitated to these platforms is because I want to be more than a consumer in the world. I want to be a creator in the world. I want to write lovingly about this photograph of my child. I want to show you the craft that I made today. I think we got on these platforms because they seemed like an opportunity to tell the stories of our lives and hope that the telling made it matter more. And instead, in a period that feels relatively short in the timeline of the universe, we are just consumers here now and we are just being fed content, which is a word that just makes me nauseous any more. And I see that as a content creator I can't walk away from any of it. But it feels like it's just content for the sake of content to keep my eyeballs on this so that the metrics show me some ads along the way and or to give me recommendations of things that I would really be delighted to buy. And I think the reason we were here in the first place was to step out of the space in which I'm always a consumer and I'm always selling and buying and into a more creative space.  

Sarah [00:27:41] I think what's so hard about that, and again, I spent a lot of time thinking about this, is there is an inevitable part of consumption in that creative act you are creating. We wanted to be creators. Creators create things for consumption, right? Unless you wanted to diary in your own private bedroom.  Like, you could create things for your own personal consumption. Of course you can. Creators do that all the time. But there is, I think, a very human undercurrent where the act of creation is so life giving, but there is an inherent piece of that that is the consumption. And social media fed both of those needs in us simultaneously. That makes me think, too, of this piece that Katherine Joseph Morton wrote for the Cut in New York magazine called Sleepover Kids Are About Making Content Not Playing Pretend that hit really close to home. And I think about how social media has played on me and how it has impacted so many parts of my life. You know, she has this line where she says, "expertize in creating an attractive scene and posting about it gives moms a certain kind of social power. And moms naturally wish to pass this power on to their kids. Enter the tools of pedagogy disguised as special experiences for the kids."  

Beth [00:29:08] Ouch. 

Sarah [00:29:12] I was thinking about like my birthday parties when my kids were little and all the stuff I did, who was I doing it for? Who were the posts for? When I say I'm creating on social media, for whom? Like in the act of creating itself before I even post on social media, who is that for? And I think that we're not asking those questions. I mean, some people are obviously this pieces. But I think when we move straight to a TickTock model-- and, listen, I love TickTock. I have talked about TickTock, but I have not put TickTock back on my phone since I took it off for Lent earlier this year because I don't mind being a consumer. It is not a binary choice. But that's not the kind of consumer I want to be. And to me, if we move and transition, maybe not mindlessly, but passively into this other form, this recommendation based media. Instead of some really positive trends and consumption about sustainability and consciousness, I just feel like that's the opposite direction. And because it's not a physical product, it's easy to sort of passively go along with it and I don't want to do that.  

Beth [00:30:35] If I think through why am I using social media right now, there are a ton of different answers. When I think about what I'm using social media for right now, there are a number of reasons, and some of them are very consumer esque, and that's fine. I also don't mind being a consumer. There is a woman I follow because she tells me what clothes to buy and I just do. I blindly buy the clothes that she tells me to buy and it has served me very well and I appreciate it. And it fills a need in my life and I'm happy for that need to be met. And I do think that influencer culture has something helpful around it because probably another person could make the same recommendations to me and I wouldn't want them. There's something about her that I like. Her physical form is somewhat similar to mine. Her coloring is similar to mine.  I just know if it looks good on her, it's probably going to look pretty good on me. And so this works. And there's a personality component. She seems nice, she seems lovely. She looks like a person who has fun trips and throws good parties. So I don't even mind this influencer culture being a part of the deal. I don't know the difference. And I'm really curious what your thoughts are about this. I don't know how to parcel out consumption from connection. I hope that what we do here-- and I believe this and we check ourselves on it a lot. I hope what we do here is create for connection. There is, of course, a consumption piece. There has to be a buy and sell piece or it can't last. But I hope we create for connection and I believe a lot of influencers create for connection. Hey, I'm not telling you something you can't find anywhere else, but I'm telling it in my way and I hope something about my way connects with you and you feed some things back to me and there's this beautiful relationship. It just feels like this sense-- and we all say it, this feed the algorithm sense gets in and disrupts that and steers it away from whatever delicate balance might exist between those things all the way into consumption. And if I'm just getting recommendations based on what I enjoy, I'm taking out that component of, well, I enjoy it in part because I just like the person who made it and I'm interested in where they are.  

Sarah [00:33:01] When you were talking about the ways you use it for consumption, I thought, well, that's it. It is part of the appeal. We talk about social media all the time as if it's just a bombardment of information, and that is most certainly a component of it. It's certainly a component of TickTock, but it also helps us filter the bombardment of information, those recommendations, those influencers that we trust. We are literally and ironically going to move into the next segment of the show where we are going to recommend things to you. That is helpful when someone says, I looked through all the couches, this is the one I think you should buy. I go, okay, thank you very much. I'm not mad at that.  

Beth [00:33:47] I'm grateful for it. I have a real sense of gratitude about it.  

Sarah [00:33:49] I'm even grateful for it. But that's not the only thing happening on social media. It's not the only thing that's going to be happening in recommendation media. And it feels like the recommendation algorithm is not rewarding content that creates connection because who cares? It's not based on those communities recommendations anyway. It's not based on anything social. It's only based on what you're addicted to, right? Like, what you engage the most with. But what if it's right wing ideologues? I mean, we've learned that lesson with YouTube. Like, if the algorithm is just feeding you more, well, what you're being fed is bad for you. What if it's not helping you reduce some anxiety around a pretty low stakes purchase like a blouse, and instead is feeding a deep sense of loneliness you have by filling you up with conspiracy theories. Okay, well, then the recommendation algorithm and treating it just like a consumption model is even more dangerous than the social media model. And I just feel like it's sad. It's sad. It's sad that social media in many ways didn't do what we wanted it to do. It's sad that so many of the big platforms are now acknowledging that and just being like, well, we're not even going to try anymore. I don't think that's necessarily true. Even with Facebook. I know Facebook is not and probably will continue to fall from its status as the behemoth. But still Facebook groups-- although a Facebook group around QAnon is very dangerous. The Facebook group around my diabetes community has saved lives. It's just hard. It's really hard.  

Beth [00:35:28] And I'll tell you, I think as I have tried to interrogate my own social media behavior this week in preparation for this episode, I've realized that my time is most spent with Facebook groups where there's this context and we're there for a reason. And it's people that I would not interact with otherwise. We are connected only through the context of why we're there. So it's that. And then it is kind of the influencers who I feel make my life better through their recommendations and their tips. My parenting coach, Mary Van Geffen, is on Instagram all the time and I find what she makes there pretty helpful to me. I especially love it when she uses stories to, like, foster conversation around something interesting. But, again, it's always people that I wouldn't otherwise not have relationship with. I do think that the phase of the experiment this thing is working on me in which these tools were about my friend's stuff is pretty much over. I don't find myself spending time with my actual friends stuff. My actual friends I want to text and Marco Polo and mostly just be in real life with. 

Sarah [00:36:52] Now, I think that's right. And I think there are accounts that I'm like looking for because I think their content is valuable to me, not because I'm consuming it to numb out, but because I find it valuable for any number of reasons. And what's so weird is like, right, the recommendation algorithm should pick up on that and it's not. The TickTock went to a certain extent, but it still feels like such a blunt instrument for what it's supposed to be doing. It still feels like it is sending me the most engaging, not the most connecting. And that's just not the same thing often. Sometimes when you're really good at it and there are people who are really good at it. But the reason I think it's hard to find those people to stay those people is because it's hard. It is a hard, hard hustle. And it's going to get harder under this new structure.  

Beth [00:37:52] And I think this is the why it matters of it all, because in some ways you could just say it's a free app. It changed. I don't like it. It doesn't owe me anything. I'm just going to close it and be done and move on with my life.  

Sarah [00:38:07] Yeah, if it was 2014. 

Beth [00:38:09] Right. That's the thing. It's so ingrained and there is a sense of opportunity being yanked away from people right now.  

Sarah [00:38:18] Yeah.  

Beth [00:38:19] So you and I, by the pure grace of timing, have a way to connect with people independent of these platforms. We've worked really hard at that over a number of years, but we have that way. Who are the people out there who are creating something that would foster beautiful connection or a real service or real value in people's lives and they can't get found because of the way these tools are changing? I don't know how to make sense of what's fair in this landscape or in this experiment, because I think that's who gets hurt the most by these changes. The folks who need this instrument to say, "Here's what I'm creating. Here's what I have to offer," and just kind of can't break through all of the noise and it's literal noise now. It's noisy. I hate opening these apps and having them blare at me. It's like sensory overload, the movement, the graphics, the sound. And I don't know what the answer is. I just feel bad about that.  

Sarah [00:39:25] Yeah. No, I think that's right. And I think like, look, we spent a lot of time talking about consumers of social media, but the creators of social media. This is going to change everything. There's a reason that the Kardashians we're not thrilled with this Instagram update and made their concerns known.  

Beth [00:39:40] It wasn't altruism.  

Sarah [00:39:41] No. It's built on their power and influence is built on that certain type of recommendation. And if the recommendation is not based on the size of your following, but the quality-- I'm using the word quality very loosely here-- content then that's just a different ballgame. And the other thing that brought that home for me on that front is there's a really popular TickTocker who we read a big article about who's like trying to move into podcasting. And I was like, well, that's hilarious because we often get advised to make more engaging TickTocks but here-- But again, forever and always social recommendation when you're creating content and it primarily lives on someone else's platform, that's a tough gig.  

Beth [00:40:25] And this is the Internet's great failure, that we have all this capacity to do the most creative things we've ever done. And what we keep doing is like narrowing and narrowing and narrowing the format that has to take in order for anyone to see it. I just think that's such a loss. I think it's such a loss the amount of time that people, especially women, especially mothers who are trying to build something in their lives that works with being a mother of young children, the amount of time they're having to spend using somebody else's audio and somebody else's little dance or routine to try to say, here's what I have to make. That is a tragedy. Like what could be created in that time that is right for them and personal for them and aligned with their sole has to go into this that they would even say it themselves, "I don't enjoy watching other people's stuff like this." Nobody enjoys it.  

Sarah [00:41:23] Because they're not discovering what works for them. They're chasing what works for Instagram.  

Beth [00:41:28] And they have to. I know that they don't feel like they have any options. So I'm not mad at anybody about it. I'm just sad. That's sad.  

Sarah [00:41:35] I've been there. I'm empathetic. I've been there. I'm sure I'll be there again. It's like...  

Beth [00:41:38] Well, we do it sometimes. We wrestle in meetings constantly with like, how much of this game do we want to try to play? I don't know.  

Sarah [00:41:46] Yeah, it's really, really, really hard. On that note, should we move into our next segment and recommend things?  

Beth [00:41:53] Yeah, I feel really really good about this.  

Sarah [00:41:56] We didn't think through this planning very well.  

Beth [00:41:58] We didn't. That is evidence of the kind of week that it's been honestly.  

Sarah [00:42:02] Word. Well, join us up next for what saved our lives over the summer. Beth, what saved your life this summer?  

Beth [00:42:18] I mean, that's dramatic, right? But there were some things I really enjoyed, especially after the week that we've both had. I feel a little calibrated about my enthusiasm. But there are a few things that I really liked. Let me just start with the pants for summer.  

Sarah [00:42:32] For summer? That's a bold choice.  

Beth [00:42:34] I know. I don't really like shorts. And my summer days are just weird. They're unpredictable. There's a lot of lifeguarding neighborhood kids in the pool and then running somebody to violin and then maybe running to Target to grab a thing. So these pants, that we'll just link here, they are yoga pants. But they're flowy and they're light and they are the softest pants ever. And they have pockets and they are inexpensive. I have worn them to church and by the pool over my swimsuit all day and violin lessons. Just all the places. And they are the ultimate in pants, is what I'm telling you.  

Sarah [00:43:19] I'm going to start off with a more traditional summer product, which is sunglasses. I am now fully committed to good old sunglasses and I feel really good about that, no pun intended, because I discovered them because they hosted a book club of our first book a million years ago. And somebody at the company, which I'd never heard of, reached out. They sent us both a bunch of sunglasses. If you've not worn glitter sunglasses, they are affordable. They are about $35 and they are light. They're very cute. They're kind of a Ray-Ban style. They have other styles, but like their traditional ones are like Ray-Ban. They do fun colors. I'm particular to the tortoiseshell, like a very classic style and they're just light. Once you wear these sunglasses for a long time and then you put a regular pair of sunglasses on your face, you feel like you've a semi-truck resting on your nose. Like, they're just the fit and the light. I think they were supposed to be running sunglasses. But I'm fully converted. I bought a pair for every car, and then I lost one. Guess what I did? I bought some more because that's all I'm wearing. That's it. I'm done. These are my sunglasses now.  

Beth [00:44:18] I like that. I also cosign this recommendation because they don't move.  

Sarah [00:44:25] But not in an uncomfortable way. I don't know how they do it. I don't need to know.  

Beth [00:44:30] They just cozy up and nestle in and stay there. It's nice.  

Sarah [00:44:32]  And it sucks if I lose one, $30 is not nothing. But it's not like if you lose a pair of designer sunglasses where you kind of want to cry and sad. So you're not like full of anxiety, you can have multiple pairs. I'm just telling you. I mean, that's it. I'm done. These are my sunglasses.  

Beth [00:44:48] Okay. I have discovered a facial spray that I would like to talk about for a second. We didn't coordinate this. It wasn't planned. So I have not full fledged rosacea, but my cheeks get very pink and kind of inflamed. This is not the end of the world. There are bigger problems to solve. I would like to hold this back. And I was reading a newsletter I can't even remember, but this was linked. I ordered it. It's like magic. I don't understand why it works, but I spray it on any time. If my cheeks are starting to reden enough, I spray this. It's gone. It just calms everything down.   

Sarah [00:45:28] It's called Tower 28 S.O.S. Daily Rescue Facial Spray. That's the name.  

Beth [00:45:29] It's a very long name, and that's unfortunate, but I will ink it for you as well. Tower 28, S.O.S. Daily Rescue Facial Spray. And it is a daily rescue. You just spray it on and whatever is irritated comes right down.  

Sarah [00:45:44] Okay. Mine is also a facial. It's a mist. I don't know if you've ever gotten bottles of these. They are often like an attached Frisbee, but it's another popular summer product. It's called Water. Have you ever seen these? It's literally just spray water.  

Beth [00:45:59] Yeah, it is just cooling. 

Sarah [00:46:01] Yeah, they're fancy. They're always usually a French brand. And I kind of always rolled my eyes on them. And I would, like, put them in my bag for [Inaudible]  I was like, you should do it. The plane is drying for your skin. And sometimes I remember. But being in France and watching how the French use it, I'm now converted. Okay, so I don't know if they spray when they get to fly. Maybe they do, I forgot. But they carry big bottles around and when it is hot, it's like their misters. It's like having your own personal mister. You just spray it on your face and then you're less hot. I don't know why. This is some basic physics of that. I think I understand, but it just took me a while. But like watching them carry around the big bottles and they just like little spray, and you're like, that helped. It's hot out here, that help things. I'm convinced. I'm converted. The French have convinced me. So now I carry around the little-- it's just spray water, but a very high quality mist.  

Beth [00:46:54] Does it have a scent?  

Sarah [00:46:56] No. It's just water, literally. There's nothing to it. It's mist water in a fancy French bottle. But I'm telling you, ]we were on a boat ride and this kid had-- because they sell big ones-- he had the big one. He was just spraying it directly into his mouth. I was like whatever works, friend.  

Beth [00:47:13] Okay. Why don't you tell me your next one? Because I sort of cheated on the last one and have like a transitional item to recommend.  

Sarah [00:47:21] Well, I picked Grady's Cold Brew. Okay. So I learned about this product from Ann Bogle a million years ago. So it's this bag. It kind of looks like a pitcher, but it's not. It's like a plastic bag stand up, but you reuse it. It does have a spout on it. And you put your cold brew like the little bags of coffee they send you and you put it in there and you fill it up with water. The next morning you take the bags out and then you just have this like little pitcher of cold brew in your fridge and it's really good. I like coffee and sometimes I will drink hot coffee even in the summer. But I don't really know why because cold is better when it's 100 degrees outside by 9:00 in the morning. And so I just love it. I only drink a cup a morning. So it takes me about through the week perfectly. I'm not brewing coffee. I'm not doing all that mess in the morning, especially in the summer when I don't have time and don't want to. My friend found this macadamia nut cinnamon milk creamer stuff that's really up in my game with this iced coffee. But I'm like, this is it. This is what I need. I really don't want to brew or drink hot coffee in the heat of summer, but I still want coffee. I don't enjoy any prepackaged cold brews because they almost always have some sort of sugar in them. But Grady's Cold Brew, love it.  

Beth [00:48:40] I remember you brought this to my house.  

Sarah [00:48:41] Right.  

Beth [00:48:42] Which is nice because I'm not a coffee drinker, so it was really easy and convenient for you to have your coffee.  

Sarah [00:48:47] Worked out perfectly.  

Beth [00:48:48] Okay, well, here is how I cheated. I bought a new planner. I buy my planners on the school year calendar.  And I really like this one. It's Rifle.  

Sarah [00:48:57] Oh, I love Rifle.  

Beth [00:48:58] Delightful flowery kind of situation.  

Sarah [00:49:00] I have a Rifle wallpaper in my half bath.  

Beth [00:49:02] It's the right size. I like the way the pages feel. I like that it's not too much. I feel like a lot of planners have tried to become too much. And this is like here I am, I am a planner. Okay, I'm going to help you with your calendar. I'm not going to try to be your life coach, and I appreciate it. And it's beautiful. It is the kind of planner that you want to spend time with. That's what I really need from the planner. I need it to call out to me and say, no, it is worth you sitting down and planning next week right now I like it. And it's a really lovely one. It's made well, I think it's going to hold up really nicely. It's the 18 months that I'm looking for, so I will link it also in case anyone needs a planner.  

Sarah [00:49:48] I love it.  

Beth [00:49:49] Just a planner.  

Sarah [00:49:50] Just a planner. I feel good about our recommendations even after our social media conversation.  

Beth [00:49:55] I'm glad that you do. I think I do too.  

Sarah [00:49:57] Okay. We'll see. We'll see what y'all think. We want to hear your summer lifesavers for sure. We'll put a post up on Instagram. Of course, why wouldn't we? And we hope that everybody has the best weekend available to you, and we will see you back here on Tuesday.  

Beth [00:50:19] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:50:24] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:50:30] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:50:34] Martha Bronitsky. Linda Daniel. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holiday. Katie Johnson. Katina Zugenalis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs.  

[00:50:53] The Kriebs. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tawni Peterson. Tracy Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Katherine Vollmer. Amy Whited.  

Beth [00:51:10] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Ashley Thompson. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen Morgan McHugh. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.  

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