We're Already Living in the Metaverse with Megan Garber

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Memphis Police Killing of Tyre Nichols

  • “We’re Already Living in the Metaverse” with Megan Garber

  • Outside of Politics: Sarah goes to a Robert Burns Dinner

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EPISODE RESOURCES

UPCOMING EVENTS:

CONTENT RESOURCES:

MEMPHIS POLICE KILLING OF TYRE NICHOLS

WE’RE ALREADY IN THE METAVERSE WITH MEGAN GARBER

ROBERT BURNS SUPPER

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

Beth [00:00:25] Thank you for joining us for a new episode of Pantsuit Politics. Today, we're going to be talking about how technology is changing our lives and politics. We are joined for a delightful and wide ranging conversation with Megan Garber, a writer for The Atlantic. Before we do, we are going to sit with the horror of Tyre Nichols murder in Memphis, Tennessee. We will end the show by discussing what's on our minds Outside of Politics, which today is Sarah's attendance at a Robert Burns dinner this weekend.  

Sarah [00:00:54] But before we get into all that (and that is a lot to get into), we wanted to announce our first live show of 2023. We are going to be live in Orlando, Florida, on Wednesday, April 5th. It is going to be a very fun show. Our families will be there. Peggy and Alise will be there. We think Dante, the composer of our theme music, is going to come. We're going to be doing a lot of fun things and talking about the politics of the happiest place on earth. And it's going to be a real Pantsuit Politics party and we are so excited. Tickets are now available for purchase and you can do that through the link in our show notes.  

Beth [00:01:26] Next up, we'll talk about what we know and don't know about the loss of Tyre Nichols. Sarah, this morning, Ellen, my seven-year-old, asked me about Tyre Nichols because she had seen a headline about him on our Amazon Echo, and I thought it might be helpful to just talk through here what I talked through with her. And that is kind of what we know and what we don't know. We know that on January 7th, Tyre Nichols was pulled over by police for allegedly reckless driving. Tyre Nichols was a 29-year-old man, a father, a son, a photographer, someone who loved skateboarding, someone who had Crohn's disease-- really difficult intestinal issue-- was pulled over by police for alleged reckless driving. He was on his way home from his job at FedEx and was about 2 minutes from his home when he was pulled over. And we don't know why, but police officers approached him really aggressively from the beginning and they sprayed him with pepper spray and he ran, and the police officers went after him and got custody of him and they beat him terribly. And then they waited around for a while and somebody smoked a cigaret and they chatted with each other about why they did it. And his body sat on the ground next to a car and finally an ambulance came. And that's what we know today. And we have some other details about how his family found out. We know that officers went to their home between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m., told his mother he'd been arrested for a DUI and that he was being taken to the hospital because he had been pepper sprayed and tased and that he'd later be booked at the police station.  

[00:03:09] And they told her she could not go to the hospital, and not until 4 a.m. did she hear from a doctor who summoned her to the hospital. And then she learned that her son was in cardiac arrest and his kidneys were failing. She said that doesn't sound like something that would happen because of pepper spray and a taser. And she said as soon as she saw him, she knew he was gone. He died three days later. Federal investigations were opened into his death on January 18th. State investigations were already underway. Two days later, on January 20th, five police officers were fired for violating department policies, including excessive use of force, duty to intervene and duty to render aid. On January 23rd, Tyre's family saw body camera footage and described it as heinous and violent and troublesome on every level. They say the police kicked him and pepper sprayed him and used a stun gun, while Tyre repeatedly asked, "What did I do?" And then on January 26th, the five officers most directly involved were charged with second degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnaping, official misconduct through failure to act and official oppression. An autopsy confirmed that Tyre died from extensive bleeding caused by severe beating. And Memphis's chief of police, C.J. Davis, said that the officer's actions were heinous, reckless, and inhumane. And then Memphis officials released 67 minutes of footage from body cameras and a pool camera. And that's what I told Ellen, that we don't know why this happened. We don't know why it took so long for anyone to help this man. We don't know why the police were interested in this man to begin with. And we have to sit here now and know that our government has betrayed one of its citizens and his family and all of us in the process. And it's really hard.  

Sarah [00:04:53] I first saw coverage of Tyre Nichols and his death and the demands of his family probably a week and a half ago. I even had a friend from Memphis reach out and said, "Are you following this? Are you watching this?" And I said yes. But it was not until they released the footage on Friday that there was much anticipation for, there was much preparation for-- preparing the public-- that I realized that all five officers involved were black. And I just had this intake of breath and I thought, "What is this going to mean? And how is the discussion and the public discourse around this event going to move forward?" And I have to say that, overall, I found the discourse if not encouraging at least not harmful. The only part of the coverage that really bothered me that felt racist was how much emphasis there was on cities are preparing for violence. So everybody's preparing for violence. And then it was like, oh, well, there was nonviolent protest. That part bugged me. I did not like all that assumption that people would react to this video violently. But besides that, I thought the discourse around the video itself, as citizens, what is our obligation to watch or not to watch? I thought the discourse around policing and the race of the officers was constructive. Perry Bacon Jr., who we've had on this podcast before and who we both have enormous respect for, wrote in the Washington Post, "The five officers were all black, as was Nichols, as is Memphis's police chief. That doesn't make the situation less bad or unrelated to racism. The problem, as Black Lives Matter activists have been saying for a decade, isn't that individual officers hate black people or other minorities. It's that America's police departments deploy and train their officers to view everyday citizens as either threats to the officer's safety or disruptions to an orderly society, resulting in altercations escalating needlessly into killings."  

[00:07:01] The The New York Times had done a comprehensive report about traffic stops and how people get killed in traffic stops because they just escalate. Again, I thought the coverage of the 71 commands in 13 minutes and how conflicting they were and how confusing that must feel and how it happens that you have officers shouting conflicting demands at you was really, really good. And there is going to be, I'm sure, continued coverage of this particular unit, the Scorpion unit, which was supposed to be responsible for tackling rising crime in Memphis but has been disbanded. It was really important and constructive. And also none of that lessens the heartbreak of thinking about this human being calling for his mother who lived hundreds of yards away. You don't have to watch the video to be heartbroken. Heartbroken. And I thought the video was so violent and it was matched by this outpouring of really just devotion to focusing on this man's humanity in a way that was just as heartbreaking as if you watched all 60 minutes of that footage. More so, to see him and to see what he loved and what he cared about and engaging in creative arts and having a tattoo of his mother on his body, it was all impossibly hard, but I felt like there was movement in that hardness. It felt like the hardness was taking us in a direction that is important.  

Beth [00:08:41] I did not watch the video. I heard a lot of audio from it and I read a lot about it, but I did not watch the video. I just felt so conflicted about it. And I did appreciate some of the writing, especially the piece in The New York Times that said there are reasons to witness it and there are reasons to think that witnessing it is harmful. And that's where I landed. And so I tried to spend my viewing time with his family and with Memphis officials. I was really struck by a CNN interview with a Memphis City Councilman who just broke down. There were minutes where he just couldn't speak. And Don Lemon just allowed him to be, which I thought was really important and different. There was a moment when Don Lemon asked him, "Do you want me to leave you or do you want me to stay with you?" And they stayed. There was a moment when Don Lemon said to his producers, "Please don't cut from this. This is important." And I do think that people covering this story have worked hard to let it sink in, that this is real and to not let the reality of it be lost. In terms of what happens next, I'm really struck by the immediate disbanding of this unit. We have a lot of conversations about how quickly they moved to first fire and then charge these officers. What would have happened if the officers had been white? I think all of that analysis is important, and I don't think I can add anything meaningful to it.  

[00:10:15] I think the fact they disbanded this unit so quickly is really significant. I've been considering the whole Defund the Police Movement and idea and how that phrase has been interpreted politically and how it's become toxic politically and people have really run away from it, and I think that what is in my heart about police officers right now is not defunding, but demilitarizing. When you hear something like the Scorpion Unit in Memphis, Tennessee, that just lets you know that there is a training and an ethos that says you're in a war zone and you're going to operate like military members would operate in a war zone. And I am sure that because of my life experiences, I cannot imagine what these officers contend with often in the legitimate pursuit of safety for the citizens of Memphis. At the same time, I know it's different than what military members contend with, and I know that the tools that they need and the training that they need and the approach that they take has to be different. And so I am most encouraged that immediately they said, yes, we are going to shut that down and we are going to rethink this. And I think that's part of why the protests have been peaceful because this can't be made right, but the government is acting. And often the protests have been ignited by inaction. And at least here there is communication and there is action.  

Sarah [00:11:46] I think your point about demilitarization is so good. And also I think that's what Black Lives Matter is trying to get at. You know what's expensive? Militarizing the police force. So if you cut off the funding, that changes things. And I just think about how much Memphis is being asked to hold; a city I dearly love. I love every time I've ever been to Memphis. And it's like, well, when was the last time Memphis was in the news? With the death of Eliza Fletcher. This stereotypical out of a nightmare violent crime where you get snatched off the streets. And what was Memphis being asked to do? Get the crime under control. That was the drumbeat all of the midterm. Violent crime, violent crime, violent crime. And then you form this unit to address this concern, which is at the fundamental center of government. Keep your citizens safe. And what do we have here? We have a unit of this police force that by all accounts was functioning as almost like a gang. My husband and I were talking about this morning, and he's like, how many years ago did Training Day came out? We had a piece of art that said this is what happens when you empower people to go after a subset of the population that you've created this characterization of that doesn't have any advocacy because they're criminals. So whatever it takes to do become go after the criminals, which then leads to criminal behavior. And I thought I don't know what the answer is. Is there any form of policing in the prevention of crime that doesn't take us down this road? I think that is the very difficult question that the Black Lives Matter movement has been asking us from the beginning, which is what does this do to people that allows them to leave someone on the ground in medical distress for almost an hour? It is so, so corrosive to our human instincts. And we see evidence of that over and over and over again. And if you care, and if you work, or you love someone who works in these units, then you should care about that as much as anybody else.  

Beth [00:14:00] Yeah, because these folks have to live with this, all of them. There's so many people here. That's why you know that it's corrosive to the human spirit on a big picture level, because so many people allowed this to unfold. There's no good way to leave a conversation like this. I feel like everything I might say is hollow and inadequate. So we wanted to share a statement from Tyre Nichols family attorney, Ben Crump, where he calls for another step that needs to be taken here, the passage of Tyre's law. And it would require officers to intervene when they see a crime in progress like this.  

Ben Crump [00:14:39] The appropriate legacy that we give Terry Nichols if we really say we want justice for justice is not just justice for one family, it's justice for all of us. That's what Roven is praying for. She wants reform. We want this duty to intervene to become Tyre's Law, just like they have Cariol Horne Law in the state of New York. And for those of you who don't know that, just ask me an attorney [Inaudible] talk this morning. Cariol Horne was a black police officer. She witnessed one of her fellow officers brutalizing a black citizen and she intervened and got assaulted herself when she tried to stop them. But because she intervened, she was retaliated against and she was terminated and had to fight almost a decade long battle to get justice because they had no duty to intervene for police officers before her courageous act. And the issue is we have to make it official. We have to make it documented. We got to put it on the books. We have to have notice that police officers you have a duty to intervene when you see a crime being committed. You expect the people to say something? Well, why don't y'all show us how to do it. You all go first when you see a crime being committed. And then people in our community will feel a lot more safe when they go and say we saw a crime. When you want us to tell what we saw, well you tell what you saw too. Amen? And so this is where Ms RowVaughn and Rodney and Jamal and Kitwana and Michael, his siblings, that's what they want. They want reform with these charges.  

Beth [00:17:12] We have been planning to talk about artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, and then we read Megan Garber's new cover story for The Atlantic called We're Already in the Metaverse. As we read it, we knew we needed to talk with Megan for this conversation. She is an award winning staff writer at The Atlantic, where she writes about the intersection of politics and culture. And we are thrilled to have her join us today. How did this piece start? What was your inspiration?  

Megan Garber [00:17:35] Really my inspiration was spending a lot of time on social media. That was pretty much it, just sort of noticing the way that people very much, myself included, tend to relate to each other on social media not quite as we would in person, but as kind of characters in a show a little bit and this sort of distance and almost like dehumanization that I kept noticing in interactions. And I noticed myself doing it too. I'd think of people as kind of characters and became very troubled by noticing that I was doing this too. And that really was sort of the animating idea behind the piece. And then I just thought more and more what accounts for this? What are these new platforms that are in some ways so amazing and so just literally revolutionary and allow for such great things? But what are the downsides of them? How are they encouraging us to interact and treat each other? And so that was really the genesis.  

Sarah [00:18:34] Well, and you start the article with TikTok dances, and I think TikTok has been the accelerant here because it detached us from that social network, right? No longer are we on Facebook with friends and family or even people we've chosen to follow on Instagram, we are being served content from perfect strangers that the Tik Tok algorithm-- or sometimes as we have recently learned Tik Tok employees themselves-- have put in front of us. And so then I feel like that last little thread that was holding some sort of humanity or just some sort of, like I said, social connection together was detached. And TikTok is huge, so even if it was a minor social platform-- and see, again, I don't even know if social platform is the right word for TikTok because there's no social element, at least in your real life social network. Whatever that tiny thread was, the way it accelerated into predominance, I feel like detached that last remaining thread.  

Megan Garber [00:19:29] It's such a good point completely. And it's so much about performance, right? It's not really about interaction. It's about this kind of one way broadcast of a talent, of a clip of a show or something like that. And in some ways that can be wonderful. I really love TikTok for that purpose, and I'm blown away every time I go on that app with just human ingenuity and weirdness and intelligence. And there are so many good things on display there. But just like you said, I think the point is it is on display. It is meant to be performed. It is the one way. It is really not a social interaction. And you're right, that's key. And I think that TikTok feels to me like the future, the Facebook with its conversations and even Twitter with its conversations for all the limitations they had, the conversation does not seem to me to be where we're going but the performance very much does.  

Beth [00:20:27] I think that performance element is why I have started to really resent the word content. And I know that that's like a terrible thing because I am a content creator. There is no denying it. And even as we have like content calendar meetings, I'm upset by it.  I'm just generally upset by the state of things and by feeling like I am participating in a system that turns everyone into a performer and a product. And at the same time, I am very committed to doing the thing that your article is about, which I think is like using relatively entertaining things to help us make meaning of what's going on and then losing our grasp on meaning in the process.  

Megan Garber [00:21:12] Oh, that's such a great way to put it. I think what I would say is, I wrestled a lot in writing this because I, like you, have a lot of different dogs in the fight basically here. I'm a TV critic too. I write about television and movies and books and that is entertainment. So I really did wrestle with what are the nuances here. But what I've sort of settled on is entertainment and even content, I would say-- I agree, I do not love the term, but I will use it in lieu of a better one. But those things are wonderful in a lot of ways. They are how we find joy and connection. And all the things that people say about art, I think you can generally say for entertainment as well. And a lot of beauty can come from that and connection and empathy and all of these things that are goods in our culture. I think though where things go awry in my mind is when entertainement becomes not one thing, not one option for society and for culture, but the only thing that we have and the only thing that we recognize. So what I'm trying to think about in this article is just what happens when politics also has a mandate to be entertaining, when culture itself has the mandate to be entertaining, when even wisdom and just these very sort of old notions of things, what happens then when all of those are filtered through the demands of entertainment? And I think nothing good, really. I think when entertainment is one facet of life that is great, but when it becomes everything, that is where the problems start.  

Sarah [00:22:55] Anyone who's been in the evangelical community or even adjacent will understand there's have been this drive in churches to make them entertaining. They are performances. The music is a performance. There's a coffee shop in the lobby. There's all this desire to appeal and to market and to draw people in, and I think it's really complicated. When I was reading your piece, especially the part about doing this around history, doing this around news and politics, but recent historical events, I thought about (follow me here) pharmaceutical advertising. It was such a big deal when they would say talk to your doctor, in both good ways and bad, because it did for the first time put in people's brain, I can advocate for myself. I can't talk to my doctor about this instead of just taking direction. So it was a mixed bag. And that but it was also this like we were marketing something that if you really think about it, should it be marketable? It should be something you need and your diagnosed with. But also, again, this positive that there was advocacy in a role that people had not realized they could advocate for themselves. And I think with this history, look, the upside of this technology is for I think, one of the first time in human history, this type of historical analysis and this type of thinking. Even this week I'm thinking this systemic issue with policing, like this is a hard thing. You go back in history, you're not going to see a majority of the human populace struggling with systemic injustice, right? I mean, obviously, you have slavery and you had people using that, using entertainment like Uncle Tom's Cabin, to get that into the populace mindset and probably people criticizing that. I was thinking-- I didn't do this, but I'm sure you could find historians with like the first Ken Burns documentary being, like, "How dare you transform this history in our entertainment?" But it's like we're putting it out there and it's this like self-perpetuating cycle where we're foisting this stuff on humanity in a way they haven't had to think about it. And then they're stressed from the anxiety of just dealing with all this. And so they lean back into entertainment and then they're pushed further with this cultural and political analysis through the lens of entertainment and it's just like this modern, vicious cycle.  

Megan Garber [00:25:19] Definitely. And I think one element of that too, is it is so common now for a big news story to break, and often a tragic news story. And for a week later, two weeks later, to hear the announcement that the tragedy is being turned into sometimes a documentary much more often a podcast series or a semi fictionalized series on HBO Plus or HBO Max or Apple TV Plus or one of those. And it is so common now, and I worry a little bit that the tendency will become-- and I've actually seen many people say this on social media, I'll just wait to pay attention until the mini series comes out. I'll wait to care essentially until this becomes metabolized as entertainment. And that, I think, is very problematic. And one of the things that I worry about with this idea of how extensive just the logic of entertainment has become is that I think it encourages a certain level of passivity. I think that republics require publics, they require active citizens working together to create the future they want. And when you only have an audience, that I think encourages people simply to sit there and you can either applaud, you can boo, your options are very limited when you are an audience. And I think that so much in our culture right now conditions us to be audiences and simply watch the world as it happens rather than taking charge of the world and making it better.  

Beth [00:26:53] I love that distinction. It makes me think about something that I just can't quite get over. I'm just mad about Ted Cruz having a podcast. Apparently it sticks in my mind all the time. 

Sarah [00:27:02] A daily podcast, not like a seasonal every once in a while. Every day the senator is making a podcast.  

Beth [00:27:08] And it just really upsets me, one, because I know making a podcast is a lot of work. But more than that, I believe that being a senator is more work. And I don't understand how these two things are happening. I don't understand why people aren't madder about it. But I think that because we are in that audience space we almost tell ourselves, "This is great, this is transparency and access to my senator that I wouldn't have otherwise." And it really gives me that feeling that we are, as you say in your piece, in the Metaverse already because we can't even see this for what it is.  

Megan Garber [00:27:38] Exactly. And I think we see that too with other representatives, senators, and politicians in general where they really are judged based not on the policy they vote for on the change they implement for real people in real people's lives, but whether they can have a good burn on Twitter or whether they can have a have a good meme, that kind of thing. Marjorie Taylor Greene is someone who gets outsized attention because she is so good at making scenes and making people mad. And Lauren Boebert is the same way. And again and again these politicians who I think in the past would have been considered fairly fringe, they get outsized attention because they understand so intuitively, I think, how the media environment of this moment works. And like you said, they kind of live in the metaverse. And that's really skews our politics because you have these people that don't necessarily represent any kind of majority opinion, but here they are every day on the news. And that gives the impression that their views are more widely shared.  

Sarah [00:28:44] Well, I think the more corrosive part of this is not that we are purely audiences-- because we're not. Because of the technology you're talking about, it's just a little bit more. It can give you that feeling of doing something, that sort of commodified activism and that influence. I thought Tish Harrison Warren's piece about the corrosiveness of being a personal brand in The New York Times this weekend was so good because we're a little bit more than an audience, and that tricks us into thinking we're doing something besides just engaging in entertainment. And in some ways we are. My political moment that I couldn't get over is Madison Cawthorn saying, well, you guys should have more communication staff or get the legislative staff. As a former legislative staffer, that made me want to burn it all down. But, look, he's not in Congress anymore. He lost. He burned out and he flamed out. And I just have to remind myself that it can feel like we're stuck in this blur and we're stuck in this place, but there are consequences and even consequences too that influence. I do think things happen on social media, politically, even that matter, that have impact. That blurry line that social media provides us has impact, but it's negative as well where it becomes it's not politically or culturally or societally impactful unless it has that wash of entertainment.  

Megan Garber [00:30:15] No, I think that's exactly right. Yeah, everything here is held in tension because social media has given voice to people who would not have had a voice before in the same way. And that is huge. And I think we're just beginning to understand and then reckon with what that will mean. But I think it largely has meant very good things for American politics. But then the other side of that is I think when we are taught to not take each other's voices seriously, to dismiss each other, just even the term crisis actor is so often invoked as just a reason to ignore someone. And so many examples like that where we just kind of find reasons to discount each other as people and really to dehumanize each other. I think actually one of the upshot of this article, at any rate, and this idea of sort of what it means to live in the metaverse is that propaganda is not just about information. I think propaganda is also about how we see other people. That's fundamentally what it does. And I worry that the more time we spend in these digital environments, the more we are encouraged to not see each other as full people, full humans who are just as worthy as we are, but as something less than us as somehow fictional. And that very quickly obviously becomes a big problem for all of us.  

Beth [00:31:42] Given where we already are, I wonder where you think we're going especially as you take in the ChatGPT conversation. Do you think AI drives us deeper into the metaverse or maybe starts to take us out of it in some way?  

Megan Garber [00:31:55] That's so interesting. My first reaction is probably drives us deeper in for the moment, just in the sense of if part of the metaverse is this idea of sort of physical reality and digital reality colliding in ways that are very hard to sort of disentangle, then I think these algorithms, these chat bots, etc., this artificial intelligence, they are going to blur those lines even more. But I would also say I'm not necessarily a pessimist about ChatGPT and other systems because I think we've had so many examples like that in history, both recent and ancient handwriting. And writing in general was once very controversial because people worried that it would obliterate our memories. And in a certain sense, that was right. But we found other ways to be wise. And all of these things sort of have their analogs in history. And my feeling is-- and I'm not just trying to please any future robot overlords in saying this, but I do think that, yes, this will be a revolutionary technology either right now or very quickly down the road, but I don't think it will necessarily destroy anything. I think it will function as kind of an adjunct to what we already have. And humans will have to sort of rethink what does it mean to be wise, what does it mean to be creative, what does it mean even to be human? And those are questions that we'll have to negotiate. But we've been in this position before and we've always come out with answers.  

Sarah [00:33:36] Well, and it's so funny to me in your piece-- I mean, listen, you take some really high end dystopic writing and talk about it, but the whole time all I was thinking about is Wall-E. That's the piece of dystopia. But [Inaudible] because that's a piece of mass entertainment, right? But those floating around on their little things, like, that's the one. I'm always, like, we're going to end up like Wall-E.  

Megan Garber [00:33:56] Yes.  

Sarah [00:33:58] It's so bad. But I also think that, again, that form of mass entertainment can put ideas in people's heads that I think are beneficial, that help, that push the conversation a little bit further. And also just have to remind myself that not all of humanity is meant or wants or is capable of struggling with this stuff. Like some people I think are just that entertainment is the entertainment. And then that's why you have other people who want to engage in that bigger, wiser question. And I have to remind myself we all don't have to agree on this for the conversation to be important. We all don't even have to agree that it is important for the conversation to be important and have impact. But that's hard when everything is entertainment.  

Megan Garber [00:34:45] Yeah. No, exactly that. That is one of the up charts I think of this is just the story. It's just, yeah, when everything is entertainment, everything else becomes harder to sort of understand like where does the politics end and the entertainment begin? And you could ask the same thing about so many dimensions of life. One thing I would say is that in American history, I mean, Americans take our entertainment very seriously. I think it's actually kind of definitionally how we think of ourselves in some ways. I think compared to a lot of other cultures, we really don't like to be bored. We really expect for life to be kind of fun and amusing. I think that's actually an important part of sort of the American character. You look back to something like Thomas Paine's Common Sense, for example, one of the tracks that led directly to the American Revolution. And I think what people sometimes forget about that book was that not only was it a passionate argument for revolution, it was also just really funny. It was really kind of darkly funny, entertaining. People would read it aloud together in groups. And that is, I think, a metaphor for a lot of the most influential political tracts and discourses that have changed American history that they have been in some way, if not entertaining, they've had that dimension of performance and theatricality. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that on its own. I think the problem just becomes when we sort of lose sight of the seriousness at the other end of things and where just everything becomes kind of a performance and a joke. You could look at George Santos, for example, who made up his entire career essentially, and seems to be facing at this moment extremely few consequences. A lot of people just don't seem to care that he just lied and seemed to be sort of making light of those lies. And I think that to me is an inflection point. That to me is a worrying indication of where we're going, where even just complete lies are going to face-- again for the moment, maybe things will change, but for the moment, very little accountability.  

Sarah [00:37:00] Well, and I also just think, though, it's not just that the political and those moments of political and cultural breakthrough entertaining. It's also that our entertainment has gotten more political and cultural. They're working on each other, they've gotten better, it's gotten smarter. Go back and read some popular novels. Some of them are bad from even the seventies. Now, I read The Thorn Birds. It's not a great book, but it was huge at the time. It's like we're getting smarter in our entertainment as well. It's getting more politically complicated. It's getting more culturally diverse. It's working on people in better and different and more diverse ways. And I think that's what's hard. But when it's all tied up together, the overall impact is so hard to piece apart because everything is working on everything all the time.  

Beth [00:37:45] The George Santos piece is so striking in that difference between being a citizen and being an audience member too. Is it that people don't care or is it they feel that they don't have a role to play here? He's been elected. They don't have another job until two years later. And for now it's entertaining. It it keeps us occupied. What is there for us to do?  

Megan Garber [00:38:07] Right. No, exactly. And people said similar things, actually, about Donald Trump before he was elected.  

Sarah [00:38:14] Oh, we remember.  

Megan Garber [00:38:14] I know, right? Exactly. One voter-- this has stuck in my head since 2016-- he said, "Things are a mess. I don't really see things changing. At least Donald Trump is fun." And just that idea, I think that that really does speak to a real kind of cynicism among the public. And much of it earned. Much of it very fair and I feel it too. But, yeah, exactly. It forces us to be audiences versus taking more charge of our own shared future. And I think too if entertainment when that becomes the standard, can just lead us to sort of permanent distraction where we have so many problems that are begging for our attention, that are existential, that are so important, and that really are kind of putting us at a precipice in so many different ways. And if we can't look at those and see them for what they are, we're all going to be in a world of trouble. And I think that when things become simply entertaining, when that is the main question that gets asked, we do live in this state of permanent distraction and [Inaudible] and we're looking at the wrong thing as the important things are happening without our input. So to me, that's a really big upside of this. It's just looking away from what we should be seeing.  

Sarah [00:39:37] Not for nothing. If I'm excavating the source of American cynicism and detachment from political realities, it's not in the development and rise of social media. It's in reality television. That's where I think you really see the-- because it's one thing if it's entertainment, but it's fictional. At the end of the day, it's fictional. But when you talk about reality television and just that corrosive, weird, arguably meta mix of reality and fictional, it's like that's where people started thinking, well, what is true? What is real? And could not get out of it. I always think about that Maggie Haberman quote where somebody told her, well, I watched him run his business on TV. What? No you didn't, friend.  

Beth [00:40:26] When am I here to make friends? When is there a situation where I'm actually here to connect with other people?  

Megan Garber [00:40:31] What are the right reasons? Who is here for the right reasons? Yes.  

Sarah [00:40:35] Reality TV, man. Oof!  

Megan Garber [00:40:38] Yeah. And speaking of that, completely, the producers of The Apprentice have gone on the record talking about how they really had to work to make Donald Trump seem very capable. They edited him into that role. [Crosedstalk]. 

Sarah [00:40:58] Even like to fire people. He doesn't like to do it. He better do it on Twitter, he doesn't like to do it in person.  

Megan Garber [00:41:01] Exactly. And now too I think what we have is this new kind of subgenre of reality TV where it's not quite reality in The Apprentice, Bachelor, Bachelorette kind of way of things, but it's a semi fictionalized take on real people. So you have something like The Crown, for example. 

Sarah [00:41:21] I felt very convicted during this part of your article. I definitely watched The Crown like it's true. I'm not going to lie.  

Megan Garber [00:41:25] And of course you would, because you don't want to be on Wikipedia the whole time kind of cross-referencing, which I have done before. But that's not a good viewing experience, so you do sort of have to give yourself over to the idea that it's fiction. But then, of course, it's not fiction. And then the question becomes is the Queen Elizabeth that I'm seeing on the screen, is this a person or is this a character? And if it's a person, she is owed something as a person, she's owed a certain level of dignity, care, all these things. As a fictional character, she's owed absolutely nothing. And I think the fact that this new subgenre is really blurring those lines I think in a very subconscious [Inaudible].  

Sarah [00:42:11] And really ethically problematic. I do feel like like the moment that genre jumped the shark really was when they were writing this piece about Pamela and Tommy and how Pamela got exploited. And the whole time she was, like, don't do this. I'm alive, and I don't want you to make this. So you're making a piece about her being exploited while ignoring her desire not to be a part of this piece. That's gross.  

Megan Garber [00:42:32] Yeah. Shut up. We're going to save you. Don't worry about it.  

Sarah [00:42:36] Yes. Yes. And especially all these victims of true crime pieces who are, like, I didn't ask for this. I don't want this. 

Megan Garber [00:42:42] Right. The family of Jeffrey Dahmer's victims coming forward and saying, "I don't want this to exist." And they don't get to say. Yeah. Exactly. 

Beth [00:42:54] I want to go back to your point about distraction for just a second because I had a full fall apart after I read your piece on Friday. Because before I read your piece I had spent most of the day, for reasons I will not get into you here, caring for a six-month-old child who's a stranger to me. I don't know the child's parents. I've never met the child before. And my only job was to just take care of this child for the day. Hold this child, feed it, help it sleep. And I did not look at my phone much at all and didn't talk to anybody else. I didn't watch TV. I didn't listen to a podcast. It was just me and this baby for hours. And I noticed how my body changed. It was like suddenly I had superpowers because I could sense what was going on with this baby. And I knew what to do to help. This baby had been crying and crying and crying, and I knew how to help. And then I read your piece when I got home from that, and I was so sad because I thought about how just an enormous percentage of my parenting time has been distracted. I love my life in the metaverse. I love making my Internet show and conversing with people who I'll never meet. And I do find value in that. And I think it creates real meaning outside of the metaverse in some ways. But then when I have such an intense offline experience that has nothing to do with anything other than just these two bodies here, I wonder how are we to balance all of this? And does entertainment have a role in helping us answer that question? And what is that role if it does? Should The Crown come with book club discussion questions at the end to think about? Does it matter how much we fictionalized this? I don't know.  

Megan Garber [00:44:39] I think it's fairly clear I am a giant nerd, so I love that idea. But,yes, I think that that really is the question because entertainment is not going anywhere nor should it. Entertainment brings joy and so many good things. Roger Ebert called movies engines of empathy. And I think that you can apply that to so many other dimensions of entertainment. And really, at its best, that's what it does. It connects us even over distances. It creates community. It creates understanding and introduces us to people we would never meet, whether they're fiction or nonfiction. It does so many good things. So definitely the point is not to sort of excise entertainment, but it is exactly like you said, to sort of figure out how it should fit into our lives. And I think the main question for me is are we in control of our own entertainment or is it somehow in control of us? And I think now we've reached over to the point where in many ways it is in control of us. And when I say it, that often means the companies that kind of oversee our entertainment landscape and that includes social media companies, it includes movie studios and TV studios and so many other things. But that to me is the question. And right now I do not myself feel in control of the way that I take in entertainment. And that to me is part of the problem.  

Sarah [00:46:08] Well, and it's just the difference between entertainment and art. And we all know it. We try to name it. We call it mindless entertainment or we call it guilty pleasures, or we try to put words around the fact that we know what we're consuming doesn't do anything for us. It's not asking us any hard questions. And you're right that it can be enormously powerful. One of the most impactful moments that I still think about all the time is I heard Tracy Clayton stand up and say white people can take in Black Entertainment. We've been taking in stuff made for you guys our whole lives, you can take in stuff made for us. And when I look back on that engine of empathy where I really took steps forward and had my experience expanded, it was from watching shows like Insecure and Atlanta, shows that are hard to watch sometimes that are asking-- especially Atlant-- difficult questions, but also-- even Insecure-- in a joyful way. That stuff is important and it matters. And nobody would describe either of those shows as mindless entertainment or guilty pleasures. And so I just think we know it. We know the difference when we are just consuming, consuming, consuming versus where we're interacting even just as an audience member with art that is challenging us, that is asking us interesting questions. You're a TV critic, you know the difference when you're seeing something like that versus this 25th season of The Real Housewives.  

Megan Garber [00:47:26] No, exactly. And those shows, yes, are definitely art. No question. But I would also say too even on the shows that aren't as challenging on their face, a show like, for example, the Masked Singer. Do you know this show? So I'm obsessed with this show. I find it so fascinating.  

Beth [00:47:45] My kids love the show. 

Megan Garber [00:47:48] It's so good. And it's not art in any real definition, and yet it says so many interesting things about our culture. And I think it has lessons, you know, for better or for worse. It's the show that really, I think, explores cynicism and fakery and what it means to wear a mask and what it means to take the mask off. And there are lots of things that you can get out of watching that show, even though it probably does fit in with Real Housewives. And I think you could actually say a similar thing about Real Housewives. So I think for all of these shows it really does come down to sort of the relationship between the show itself and the viewer and what the viewer cares about, what they respond to. And to me that's the power of these works, that even the ones that don't seem like art can actually do the work of art in a lot of different ways.  

Sarah [00:48:43] Listen, that is the internal struggle of reality television because when you do it well, when you take command of that incredibly powerful medium and try to do something, man, is it impactful? It is incredibly impactful. But when you don't, it's a mess.  

Megan Garber [00:49:03] Yep.  

Beth [00:49:04] Before we let you go, I just want to ask you, what are you still thinking about after you've written this piece? What did you not answer in the process of writing it that is still on your mind?  

Megan Garber [00:49:12] Oh, that's a great question. Actually, related to the ChatGPT idea, I think one of the things that my editors and I did not focus on as much is just this idea of sort of reality and, well, different types of reality, I guess, sort of the digital world and the physical world just kind of collapsing into each other. So you have things like holograms, for example, being an ever more common part of the entertainment landscape or immersive experiences where you don't just see a Van Gogh painting, for example, at the museum, but you live within it and you take pictures of yourself within it. And all these very self-conscious attempts to sort of collapse the digital and the physical. And I think there's so much interesting stuff there that we just simply didn't have room for in this essay. But those are things that I definitely want to keep thinking about because I think they have so much to tell us about where we're all going together into the future and have a lot of similar questions to this question about entertainment.  

Beth [00:50:14] Well, we look forward to reading and thank you for this piece, it's great.  

Megan Garber [00:50:18] Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.  

Beth [00:50:28] We always end with what's on our mind Outside of Politics. And, Sarah, I want to hear about your Robert Burns dinner this weekend. I want to know what you wore. I want to know what you did. I want to know what you ate-- all the things.  

Sarah [00:50:38] Well, listen, I'd never been to one before. I didn't know Robert Burns wrote Auld Lang Syne. Can you imagine creating a piece of art that billions of people sing every New Year's Eve across the globe for hundreds of years after your death?  

Beth [00:50:52] That is unfathomable to me. And if I could fathom it, I think it would make me crawl in a hole. I don't know if I ever would have written it. It's a lot of pressure that Robert Burns withstood.  

Sarah [00:51:01] It's so true. [Inaudible] I learned a lot about Robert Burns. That's the first part of the Robert Burns supper. I wore a tartan dress. Listen, I got a lucky break is the long and short of it because J.Crew carries my Stewart Tartan. That's just lucky, right? I bought a lot of stuff. I have options for several suppers into the future. And we had a delicious meal and we had so much fun. And my husband and I were tasked with the toast to the lasses and toast to the lads. And so I wrote Nicholas's toast to the lasses. He made a joke about how I wrote it during the writing. And then for my toast, I said, well, I was tired. So I thought, "Why don't I ask ChatGPT to help me?" And I had a ChatGPT write a version of Salt N Pepa ,Whatta Man, in the style of Robert Burns for my toast to the lads. It was a big hit. I had to edit it a lot. It wasn't great at first. I had to work on a few pieces of it, but it was interesting to finally get in there and use ChatGPT and to do it in this really like crazy moment where we're honoring this artist who created works that have lived on. I love a current events moment where I can tie up a bunch of things at once and that was it.  

Beth [00:52:13] Can you give us a little sample of the Whatta Man in the style of Robert Burns?  

Sarah [00:52:17] Yes. Hold on just a second.  

Beth [00:52:18] No one is going to stand for hearing about that and not hearing the toast.  

Sarah [00:52:23] Now, this is one of the beginning versions. I didn't use this final version. But it's  "What a lad my lass what a mighty fine lad. He's got strength and he's got pride. In his eyes, there's a fierce fire. And when he takes me in his arms I feel safe and I feel higher. What a lad, my lass. What a mighty fine lad. I also did all the single ladies, which was hilarious. "All the single lasses, raise your hand for a night of fun and a celtic band." It was pretty funny.  

Beth [00:52:52] I love it. What did you eat? I want to know what you ate at the Robert Burns dinner.  

Sarah [00:52:55] I did not sample the haggis. They had some. I'm going to Scotland and Ireland this summer. So I thought Imma save it. Imma save it till I'm in the mother country. But we had just roast chicken and potatoes and the carrot soup and pear compote. It was delicious. And we did like little Scotch tastings that I barely sampled because I think Scotch tastes licking an ashtray. There, I said.  

Beth [00:53:16]  If you have spent any time with my husband, you know that Scotland is where his people are from. And he felt very at home and happy while we were there visiting. And since we came back from Scotland, he periodically orders haggis to have here in our home. And I have never tried it. Again, I have mentioned I'm very responsive to smells and the smell of haggis just doesn't really sit well with me. So I was especially curious to see if you tried it.  

Sarah [00:53:42] I didn't. I'm going to wait till the summer, but it was really fun. It was really fun. We just had a delightful time. Just a delightful time.  

Beth [00:53:50] So you would recommend attending a Robert Burns dinner if you have the opportunity?  

Sarah [00:53:54] Yes. I mean, it's a very white event. I'm not going to lie to you. But, first of all, I like any event that involves a costume or a style of clothes or a particular focus on the dress. You know what I'm saying? I love that. I like a guided experience. We read Robert Burns poetry. We had bagpiping. I just want an immersive guided experience, that is my total and complete jam. So I had such a good time.  

Beth [00:54:27] I'm so glad and I love seeing your pictures. Thank you all for joining us. Don't forget that you can join us for an immersive, fun, guided experience in Orlando on April 5th. It's going to be such a fun night. The link to buy tickets is in our show notes. We'll be back in your ears on Friday. Until then, have the best week available to you.  

[00:55:04] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:55:09] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:55:15] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers [00:55:19] Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. Tawni Peterson. Tracy Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olsen. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh.  

Beth [00:55:58] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller. 

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