Why Katie Notopoulos still loves the internet
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From the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is Channels with Peter Kafka. That is me. I'm the Chief Correspondent at Business Insider. Welcome to 2025. It's going to be a year. And I wanted to start it off on a bright note, so I had a conversation with someone I like a lot but rarely actually talk to. My coworker, Katie Notopoulos, who writes about the internet and social media and lots of other stuff at Business Insider. One small kink in my plan, Katie and I chatted on Monday, January 6th,

And on Tuesday, January 7th, Mark Zuckerberg announced that he's fundamentally reshaping the way his companies work, specifically to accommodate Donald Trump. So if you're wondering why Katie and I never say a word about this, and why it sounds like I'm taping this introduction in a Holiday Inn Express in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, that's the reason. But you're going to like this conversation regardless, because Katie is awesome. Oh, and I made a content moderation decision of my own.

We spend a bunch of time talking about poop on this episode. That's literal poop. So if for some reason you listen to this podcast with your kids or while you're eating and you're sensitive about that kind of thing, there's your content warning. And now here's me and Katie. Hey there, Ryan Reynolds here. It's a new year and you know what that means. No, not the diet. Resolutions.

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I'm here with Katie DeTopolis, who's my coworker for the last almost year. I've spent so much time slacking with you, almost no time talking with you, and I figured the only way to do it was to have you on the podcast. Welcome, Katie. Thank you so much for having me, Peter. It is strange and unusual talking to you with voices instead of slack. Yeah, it's very weird. We have very different slacking styles. I do long, ponderous paragraphs, and you type out a misspelled word at a time. Yeah.

So this is a whole new way for us to converse. It's good. It is. I had this really embarrassing thing happen at the end of the year. So my slacking style is I like to break things up into as many lines as possible, which-

I guess it's just like, it's a sort of like a... It's another way of dominating the conversation. I guess it is. And I realized that like, it does take off, you know, take up geographically a lot of space in a Slack room. But I sort of, you know, I think of it as sort of like running like off the top of my head and sort of conversationally. So at the end of the year, someone on the analytics team at Business Insider said,

did a sort of like year-end wrap-up and was a little bit like funny and stuff. And one of the statistics they could find was who posted the most Slack logs. And I was number two in the whole company. Holy shit. And I was like, this is so embarrassing. What does that mean? Are they counting characters or like the number of times you pressed return? So each time you type a word and then hit return and then type another word that counts as a difference? I think it was lines.

So because I tend to type with a lot of line breaks, I think that counted against me. I think that should go at the top of your list. Well, listen, we've bored people enough with our Slack talk. Let's get to the real news. You recently drove into Manhattan on congestion pricing day. Tell us what that was like.

For people who are not New York-centric, it now costs $9 to drive into Manhattan. And Katie did it yesterday after trolling people about it. Well, full disclosure here, I thought in my mind, I did it on a Sunday on January 5th. We're recording it today on a Monday. I thought the congestion pricing went into effect on Monday. So I was like, oh, this is my last day to drive into the city for free. Might as well do it. I

And then as I was driving in, I saw the signs on the way that were like, congestion pricing in effect today, $9. And I was like, oh, no.

Were the streets empty? Did people just say, I refuse to pay $9, I'm never going to Manhattan again? You know, it's hard to tell because I don't drive in lower Manhattan that often because it's a nightmare to drive there. Why would you do it? And it was a Sunday and it was a really cold day. So I feel like there's a lot of weird, you know, a lot of factors going on as opposed to like...

It was still hard to park. There's still a lot of people. There's still a lot of cars. I don't know. It's like there's 8 million people who live in the city. It's going to be difficult to drive. It seemed pretty crowded still. Okay. Well, that is the kind of up-to-the-minute...

updates on congestion pricing you expect and and I will continue to deliver at this podcast so you're welcome listeners yeah Peter have you considered maybe adding you know weather and traffic on the tens for your podcast yes I think that's the kind of service your listeners this is what the weather was like a week ago when I recorded this it's the best kind of weather there is did you know that Google does not monetize weather searches when you ask Google for the weather it does not monetize those with ads

How noble of them. I just discovered that today because a Google PR person told me that. How generous. That's great. Okay, now we've done two preambles. Katie Antopoulos, what's your job at Business Insider? I'm senior correspondent here at Business Insider and I write about tech and internet culture, business culture. I think of you as internet culture person. Yeah. So you and I have the same job. We're both internally, we're called anchors and I think

That's supposed to reference like a TV anchor. Do you think that's the reference? To be perfectly honest, I don't think I've ever quite understood. It's better not to ask. Well, you know, it is also I don't think it makes you know, it's one of those job titles that's like completely internal facing. It doesn't make any sense. The premise is you and I are supposed to talk to readers either about the news of the day and or something interesting. And you do a good mix of both.

Yeah. And your sweet spot seems to be, look at this weird shit people are doing on the internet. Is that a good way of summing it up? I think so. I think so. That sounds about right. And that's been your beat kind of forever, right? Because prior to this, you were at BuzzFeed for a very long stretch, and that seemed to be your focus as well. Yeah. Yeah. These days, I've been doing less of the like, look at this.

look at this shit on the internet stuff is that by choice or or do you think that's because i mean do you think our our bosses want you i think your bosses want you to write about anything frankly but yeah i think so they're they're they're they're perfectly happy when i write about look at this weird shit on the i don't know i mean i think that like a lot of the look at this weird shit on the internet stuff does sort of trickle down from like

What are these tech platforms doing that is leading to us looking at this weird shit? And, you know, eventually you start looking a little bit more at the root causes of that. And I end up writing a lot about some of the tech companies behind it. I don't know. I mean, sometimes it's all a mix. I feel like it's all interconnected, right? Yeah. I mean, that idea of look at this weird shit and then the next story is, oh, here's why you're seeing this. That I think is your sweet spot.

Yeah. How did you get there? Why did you decide you wanted to write about this stuff? I don't think I ever decided. I mean, I think it's what interests me, right? I'm very interested in what happens online and looking at weird shit on the internet. And I'm interested in trying to make sense of it and trying to explain it to other people and trying to know more about it. And I'm interested in many things, but that seems to be like...

I'm just always interested in that. I'm wondering, I don't want to dox you, but I think of you as an elder millennial. Is that fair? I'm the eldest millennial. Eldest millennial. And I think like, so I'm older than that. So to me, like,

Like a lot of the internet culture stuff, I was almost sort of too old to partake in because it was sort of aimed at people younger than me or a lot of the discussion was having people younger than me. But it seems like you're sort of in that perfect sweet spot where this stuff's new, new to the world, new to you, but you're also sort of in it. And then also, like, I think the people who are coming to the internet now, like, just accept it as a reality and maybe are sort of less curious about it.

Does that make sense? Maybe. You know, I mean, I am old enough that, you know, I think of myself as a little older than people who are really in the sort of like prime internet culture age, like that prime millennial, like people who had MySpace when they were like in middle school or high school, right? Like I had MySpace when I was like 24, right? Like I was not really that into the internet as a teenager or even a college student. I only sort of really got into it

When I was like, like an adult. Like I graduated high school in 99. So like, I don't know, I didn't really use...

I don't have fond memories of my AIM away message. Yeah, that seems to be the major distinction between internet natives or people who remember hanging out on AIM and spending a lot of time there. Yeah. And I wasn't really doing that. My friends weren't really doing that. When I was in college, I just wasn't really... I don't know. My friends were kind of... I mean, I guess I used the internet as a tool. Right. And social media didn't really exist. Friendster took off...

the summer right after I graduated college. So like, I was like an adult out in the world, sort of engaging with this stuff. And for me, I think a lot of when I sort of got into like, internet culture was even a little bit later, like it was probably I had, I had like a roommate at the time was like a Craigslist roommate, who like, was really nice, was sweet, but like,

She was kind of annoying. I was going to my job, coming home at the end of the day, and she was always on the couch watching some TV show I didn't want to be watching. So I ended up spending a lot of time, instead of watching TV, I spent a lot of time in my bedroom on the computer. Watching your own shows, man. Right. And that's sort of when I discovered 4chan. I was an adult with a job at this point. Right.

Right. Like I was not like a teenager. So I was sort of coming at this like observing it a little bit as an outsider and fascinated by it. And fascinated by one of the things that I enjoy about your writing is you're fascinated by it. You are old enough and wise enough to see all the things that are bad about it. But you're not jaded.

Does that sound right to you? Like you genuinely seem to get a thrill out of being online, doing Internet stuff. You wrote this MIT's story for MIT Technology Review. Yeah. A year plus ago. And your argument was like, yeah, this is all broken. The Internet's a hellscape. I have some ideas about how could you be better. But crucially, you said, I also think this stuff is great.

I don't want I'm not one of people says, oh, we should just get off of TikTok or Twitter or whatever thing we think is bad that day. You think it's all good or all of all potentially interesting and useful.

Yeah, I mean, I think that that's always how I felt about like, when people sort of would call Twitter, I mean, pre-Elon called Twitter like the hell site. I'd be like, what are you talking about? This is literally the funnest thing on earth. Like, every day you can just log on and see all these jokes and weird stuff and like links and it's fantastic. And like, so what if it like...

I don't know. You see some annoying stuff. You know, I think the people who really hated it also maybe felt like a little bit more like trapped by the I don't know. There's emotional needs to it. Right.

uh i i don't i don't necessarily i just i purely enjoy it like i look at my phone first thing in the morning and i'm like hello old friend and it's the last thing i look at before i say good night to it i love it like it delights me it gives me nothing but joy if i had one regret i would spend more time looking at my phone that's what i'll say on my deathbed

Yeah. No, I'm trying to figure out if that means if it's a cry for help or a proud like, yeah, this is. And also you're owning it. Right. I think a lot of people. Well, I think a lot of people do exactly what you're talking about. I'm sure I do, too. I think in our circles, you're supposed to profess ambivalence about it or regret or look what all this has wrought. And I'm sure you have some of those thoughts, but you don't. It doesn't seem to sort of come through your debt. Yeah.

I do think that that's maybe part of, like we were saying, like I came to this a little bit older and like, so it doesn't, I don't feel like, I don't feel addicted to it in a bad way, even though clearly like I use it a lot. I can stop anytime I want, man. Right. But I'm not like, ooh, I took a walk outside without my phone and I felt rejuvenated. I'm like, wow, I can't wait to see what was going on on threads. Yeah.

I don't know. I mean, like, I like it. And I think that, like, what I like about the work I do is, you know, it's ultimately a lot about sort of observing social patterns and the way people are interacting with stuff. And I think, like...

I think I'm naturally good at observing social patterns. I think that's like a, that's like a skill I have. And that's that, that makes me good at doing this. And I enjoy it. Like I love lurking. Like it, it's so fun. It's so interesting to me to see what people are up to. And like, I love Facebook. I love it because I like, I love, I'm in a million Facebook groups and they're for all sorts of people. I don't know. And they would not be like my friends in real life. And like,

I love seeing what they're up to and what they're talking about. And it like it brings me so much joy. Like it is fascinating to me. Like I love that about it. Not to beat this into the ground. We're recording this on January 6th, which is an anniversary of some note. And, you know, after January 6th, there was a lot of oh, there was a lot of blaming it on Facebook, which sort of often like to blame things in our society on Facebook. Mm hmm.

That one I think there's... Some reason, but YouTube or Twitter or whatever. That one felt kind of fair, right? Yeah. So I guess, I mean, and you can pick any worst case scenario, any terrible thing that the internet has wrought or that we blame the internet for. Does that stuff ever mount up with you and you're like, I know that I love Facebook and I'm an adult and I know what I'm doing, but generally I think this stuff is, there's less redeeming here than I'd like and maybe I should rethink how I spend my time.

Or society ought to spend less time on this stuff. Yeah, I mean, I think that, yeah, there's definitely things where I'm like, oh boy, like this is not good. I mean, especially when thinking about like young people and like teenagers. And I mean, and then you think about stuff like

Horrible things going on in like, you know, other countries where there's where things like Facebook and WhatsApp are used just very differently and moderated less because they're sort of less local resources and there's really terrible things that are sort of, you know, getting fueled by this over there. That's like, oh boy, that does not. We got some problems, folks.

I mean, yeah, I do worry about like young people, I guess. You have kids. They're young. Well, one of them is pre-internet. Well, you talk about it a lot internally. So you're at the age where you're watching at least one of your kids start to like interact with the internet. Yeah.

You write about that sometimes. Has watching your kids sort of come to terms with it and thinking about how you are or aren't going to restrict their access, has that changed your thinking about what you write about, how you cover it?

I mean, definitely. You know, having like babies and little kids, I feel like didn't really affect what I was writing about so much. It's not that they're less interesting, but it has been really interesting. My older kid is elementary school age. And so like he's just like aware, like he is aware of like Mr. Beast and stuff. And like, and so is every kid. And like, I do think that one thing that's,

been sort of helpful about that is that it's easy to get uh to sort of fall into the thinking that like internet culture is what's happening between adults on twitter you know like uh media literate people say you know the sort of tiktok girl dinner stuff that's like adult conversations that are from people like me when reality is that's like half of what is going on the internet is like

children and teenagers right like so that's my thing about youtube why youtube is tremendously undercover like youtube is yeah just the dominant force for a kid basically it's it's their everything and it gets almost no coverage from people like us yeah because adults don't want to actually sit there and watch six hours of youtube streamers or like that kind of stuff and like i think to an adult you watch mr beast and you're like i don't get it like what it

Or I get it, but why would I want to watch more than five minutes of it? Right. And like seeing how absolutely fascinating this is to a small kid is illuminating and seeing the ways that like, I don't know, like it's a good reminder that like a lot of what you see online is just nine-year-olds. Yeah. Like you wrote this quick piece the other day after Mr. Beast finally had his show on Amazon. And I watched it. You said you watched it with your kid and your takeaway was –

It's just weird that the whole show is about trying to get money. Yeah. Which is, of course, what lots of game shows are about and lots of competitions are about. But sort of like watching a kid process that for the first time is different. Yeah. And that's honestly sort of been my biggest complaint with Mr. Beast and my kid, at least, is that he's at the age where he's not he's old enough to understand. You know, there's nothing like bad in a Mr. Beast video. There's no sex or violence or whatever. Right.

But the way they talk about money, like he doesn't really understand money in a broader, sophisticated context. Like he's just too young. And the way they sort of toss around these absurd amounts of money and money is like a dare. Money is...

You know, it's a would you and he's always Mr. Reese is always like doing this to his friends like, Oh, would you do this for $10,000? You know, like, it feels yucky. And I think it's weird. It's to an adult. That's not that weird at all. Because that's also kind of how life is. We kind of get it to a kid. It's just weird.

That sort of seemed really clear watching his Amazon show where in the first episode, at least, I think it changes a little bit as it goes on. It's a little bit more like skill-based competition. But a lot of the challenges to win money were just sort of like versions of the prisoner's dilemma. Like, would you rather... And there's no like challenge other than, you know, hey, would you be willing to screw over your teammates for money? And that feels really weird for a kid...

to understand the ethical comp, you know, what's going on there. There's an ongoing discussion about whether kids' access to internet should be limited, and if so, who's going to limit it? Is that a state thing? Is it a federal thing? Is it the responsibility of the apps like Facebook? Should it be Apple's responsibility and Google's responsibility?

Do you have strong feelings about limiting internet access to either your kids or kids in general? Yeah, I limit internet access to my own kids, but I think in like a reasonable way. But also, I thank me.

I think maybe, I think because I understand a lot of what's going online, maybe more than, I allow more access than maybe some other parents, I think. Like, I have sort of determined that certain things I'm okay with. Like YouTube Kids, for example, which is a sort of a different app. But I like, I go in, I block things.

tons of stuff on there. But I mean, I like I think the thing is that it requires like hyper vigilance and a ton of awareness and education on the parents point, you know, which I have because I spend all day looking at an interview, you know, but that's not fair to expect of any other parent. And I think that that's, I think a lot of the the conversations are about,

you know, oh, like, let the parents choose what their kids can or can't do. And, like, I think that kind of stinks. I think that, like, when the burden is put back on the parents to do the moderation, it's going to fail. And it's not really set up like...

you know, your parents turning your TV off at 10 o'clock or whatever, and it's sort of binary. And the idea of like, and it's not just websites, right? It's texting and messaging. And also there's the fact that, you know, whatever laws you have in your house or in your car won't apply when your kid goes to visit a friend or goes to school. And it just sort of is all out there. Right. Which is why I'm a little, I have been conflicted about it over the years myself. Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm sure you have kids that are a little bit older that, you know, you're setting parents up for constant battles and constant struggles. And the idea that like, oh, well, just tell them these are the rules and then it's not going to be a problem. It's like, I don't know, man, that's not how teenagers work. Have you met a kid? Like, I don't know. So I am sort of sympathetic to this idea that...

That is what Meta at least is pushing, which is that Apple and Google should be responsible at the, you know, system level of like, you cannot download these apps. Like, and then, hey, you know what? There's just not a fight about it. But it's, you know, I don't know what it's like to have a teenager. I fear that incredibly much.

I can imagine the struggles and battles about this. Honestly, I gave up several years ago. And my thought is they're literally going to get to whatever they want to get to. My son doesn't listen, so he won't be embarrassed by this. But at one point, and I've never gone through their phones, except once I went through my older son's phone. I'm like, just check out the search history. I'm just curious. Mm-hmm.

And it was immaculate. Not a single boob or sex. And I'm like, wait, what? That doesn't make... And I realized a couple of days later, one of them mentioned safe mode or privacy mode. And I was like, oh, he's already like...

He's well past that. There's just no way. So my thought is like, I just will try to listen to my kids and hear what they're talking about and try to intercede. And when my older kid during the pandemic started talking about SJWs, social justice warriors, and I said, where'd you learn that term? And he said, Reddit. And we had to have an explanation of what that meant and didn't mean. And again, like I'm kind of attuned to it. I have the time for it. I don't think most people are. And I don't know that there's a good answer for it. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's hard. I think that like, I don't know. I don't I mean, I think it's a fascinating topic because I think every parent is like thinking hard about this. Like, and I feel like it feels like it's a constantly losing battle for a lot of parents. It also feels like it's definitely something where...

People who have the capacity and time to deal with like it's a it's very much a sort of class based thing I in my mind that it's the people with the most time and the most resources to deal with this are the ones dealing with it everyone else just sort of goes about their day and or has no idea.

Which is why you'd always hear these anecdotes about like the Silicon Valley's elite aren't letting their kids onto screens. And it's because they know the most was the premise where they know how bad these apps are, which has some truth. But I also feel like they have a raise of nannies and people who can manage their kids for them. Yeah. I mean, I feel like the answer isn't the answer to my kid wants to be on the device isn't like.

the device, it's paying for childcare, right? Like that, then that's, that's the, which is something else you write about a lot. Um,

I think it's one of your biggest hits, right? Writing about the joy of no longer having to pay for child care because your kid's in public school. What was the acronym? Oh, I got it. DIPS. DIPS. Double income public school? Yeah, exactly. The idea of like when your kids finally transition out of daycare or a nanny into the free public school and then all of a sudden it feels like you just...

Yeah, you're rich. You have thousands extra each month. How do you think about stories? Are you iterating them as we're slacking at each other? Are you reading stuff? Are you talking to people? You can write about literally anything you want, as far as I can tell. So how do you decide what you want to write about? What piques your interest on any given day? I have a little bit of all three. I read a lot of other news online and

think about what interests me. I talk to people IRL. I talk to people

You know, I might remember a conversation I had over the weekend with a friend about a thing. And I'm like, oh, hang on, that actually is kind of interesting when I think about it this way. You know, a lot of the stuff that we talk about in Slack, too, I think is helpful. I don't know. I mean, I feel like I sort of look for stories everywhere. I mean, I do think that one of the one of the weird things about sort of an Internet culture beat is that like, unlike some other straightforward beats, like I don't necessarily have like

sources or like I mean like I sort of do but like very often every story is you're going to a completely new random person right it's not like covering a single company where you can like

Right.

What are the pluses and minuses of talking to people who aren't sort of traditionally talking to the press or don't usually get calls from Business Insider? I try as much to be like very careful about like having those people make sure they understand. Like you're talking to a reporter like is it okay if I use your name like this? Like

Want to make like I don't want to get an angry message or call from someone being like you screwed me. And I would sleep much better if that's like someone who's like an executive at a big company. Right. Like they should know better. But if it's like, I don't know, like a random 19 year old who like doesn't normally interact with the media like they there's no problem.

I don't know. They're not supposed to know that stuff. So I try to be... I mean, the other thing is, like, it can be a little bit... You never know what you're going to get, right? Like, sometimes people are hostile to that. Sometimes...

They're really excited. They're excited that someone wants to know what they think. Yeah. They want to have their name in an article and that's exciting. You never know what you're going to get. I find that's one of the things that really distinguishes a lot of your work is there's a lot of people, like sometimes you'll say, hey, look at this weird shit on the internet, which a lot of other people are saying about the same thing, except you'll go try to track, like there was a great story earlier this year. I'm sorry, it was last year.

There was a video of what appeared to be Sam Altman driving around in some super exotic sports car that no one could even identify. And then you found the guy who made the video. And it was much more interesting than look at this. Look at Sam Altman. It was why does a guy like that even make videos? And it turns out he's got a whole backstory. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny. I feel like I have to thank our editor, Brad, for that because he was really adamant. He's like,

I was like, yeah, I talked to this like guy. It was like a, you know, so like a random guy on TikTok. And he was like, you got to find out if this is like a real person. And I was like, uh, what do you mean? And he was like, you got to get like a real name. You know, he's like, he doesn't want to use his name. And it's like, that's fine. I'm okay with not using a random person, you know, to their privacy, but like,

I had to keep going and going and going with this guy until it sort of became clear that, like, he was just, like, a teenager. Like, he was, like, 16 or something, which is why he didn't want to give out all this information. But it actually made it a lot more interesting once you knew that he was, like, a child. Which it is. I mean, that is one of the weird things. Like, sometimes I will message somebody who has this sort of anonymous account. It turns out to be, you know, a teenager or someone who's under 18. And then you've got to really sort of be careful with...

how you're communicating with them. We'll be right back with Katie DeTopolis, but first a word from a sponsor. Then we're back. I want to tie all the threads of this together. In preparation, I did some preparation for this. I called a couple, texted a couple of your former colleagues at BuzzFeed and said, what is the apex Katie DeTopolis story? And they all gave me the same answer.

What do you think it was? I would guess Blippi. Correct. Correct. Please, please describe the Blippi story to our readers. You guys should all Google it after this conversation. But Katie is now going to describe it. This is not safe for work or if you haven't eaten or if you were going to get into it. Go for it.

I honestly, like, I am so proud that this story has continued to have a life that has existed long after it was published. I think it was published in, like, 2019 or 20-something like that. But it has continued to get sort of passed around and resurfaced because there's constantly...

Well, so the story is... February 14th, 2019. There you go. Kids YouTube star Blippi, quote, regrets the viral video in which he poops all over his friend. So that's kind of right there, but there's more to it. So you tell us. So Blippi...

At the time was sort of just getting started is currently still a very popular you mainly he's on YouTube, but now he's kind of everywhere. I think he has a Amazon private Netflix show. He's got merchandise like he's into everything. Um,

He's sort of like, it's live action. He's like a guy. He dresses in like a colorful outfit and he does like, hey, like this is a fire truck. It's red. It's meant for three-year-olds. Yeah, it's like meant for like toddlers. It's for like two to four-year-olds basically. And he's incredibly popular. He's just all over kids YouTube, which is now essentially sort of replaced children's

children's television basically like there's no more cartoon network anymore really um you know things that you might have he's the new barney yeah he's the new barney but he's just like a guy on youtube um and i had been fascinated and partly because this sort of coincided when my kid was pretty young and he had come across flippy and i was like oh like whatever this is like something doesn't i don't it does not appeal to me it seems like it's just kind of like i'd

crummy YouTuber. I think now he's like fine. But I remember something about it just like my son, I was like, ugh, like no Blippi. And he was like, and it would be like, I could use it as sort of like a bribe, like the only way I could get him to like, you know,

get a haircut or do things he didn't want to do. It was like, you can watch Flippy. So I was aware of him, my editor, Vanessa Wong, who's now at MarketWatch and is a really brilliant business writer. She also has a son about the same age. And so she knew him too.

And we got an anonymous tip that said, hey, that guy Blippi, he used to do this like gross out comedy video stuff. And there was this video where he's doing the Harlem Shake, which was this meme in 2013, where it was like to this techno song. And all of a sudden- It seems to have come back for some reason. Has it? In the last-

I've been seeing people referencing it in the last few weeks. Yeah, where it's usually like someone's dancing like by themselves kind of quietly and then, you know, the beat drops and then it's like, wow, everyone's dancing all crazy. And in his version of it, he's sort of he and his friend are dancing in the bathroom quietly and then all of a sudden the beat drops and he takes an explosive shit on his friend.

It's not a metaphor. It's not a metaphor. It is real. He's like perched up on the toilet and just lets it fly. And his friend is nude and it's gross. It's also like, I mean, personally, it's incredibly funny. Like I have watched this so many times and it still cracks me up every time. And like it's really, really funny.

And you can find it online. It has been largely, he has attempted to scrub it from the internet, but the Wayback Machine still has it. You also, another nice feature of the story is that you have illustrated it with a line drawing of your own. Great. Yeah. So this was a case where our lawyers were like, so we reached out to Blippi and we're like, Blippi, we have this video of you.

um, care to comment. And his lawyer responded, you know, you may not, you know, cease and desist. You cannot use this video. He gave us some statement that, you know, he, he regrets it. Um, which to be fair, like, yes, it happened a couple, you know, before he was young, but he literally started the Blippi character six months after the poop video. Like there's not a lot of daylight in between poop and Blippi.

It's not like, oh, so long ago. I did that in my 20s. I'm kidding. Yeah.

I used to poop on my friends on video, but that was a long time ago. Yeah. So he said, you cannot use the video. We sat with our lawyers. I remember being in this meeting with like Vanessa and our lawyer and our art person. And they were like, I was like, can we use a still from the video? And they're like, no. And I was like, it's just, it doesn't work if you can't see the video. Like, and they're like, there's no way we can embed it. We shouldn't even link to it. Like, because they were sort of being pretty serious with these legal threats.

And, you know, our lawyer was like, look, we don't have the copyright. Like, they will win a copyright claim if we, you know, do this. Like, you can't use the video. And so I sort of was like, I went back to my desk. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Like, I need like people need to see this. And I was like, I'm going to draw it. I'm going to just draw it. So I hand drew. I like had it up on my screen on my computer. And I, you know, I drew by my own hand.

the image of the moment where Blippi evacuates his bowels. And I think the moral of it is that it sort of... What interested me so much is that, like... Because it's not just a look at this crazy shit story. It is literally a look at this crazy shit story. But...

But this guy is making millions and millions of dollars on YouTube. And he's doing it in this way that the fact that he used to be like trying to go viral. And he was like promoting this on like the videos. He would promote it on podcasts. Like he was very like excited about this gross out comedy. And like he was doing anything he could to get clicks. Right. And that's.

So this is sort of still the same person, but now they're applying that to children's entertainment. And I think that some parents might raise an eyebrow at the idea that someone is sort of using these all-do-anything-for-clicks tactics on their kids. Yeah.

I thought about it slightly differently. It's great. You should all read it. And partly because my kids were past blippy age when this would have been a thing. But I was like, oh, the line between beloved kids or at least very popular kids entertainer and guy who's literally shitting on his friend for clicks.

is like you said, it's six months. It's the same person. And it makes me think about lots of people who have different amounts of fame and the internet really enables this where you can shape shift from one thing to another and

And the main currency is that you are trying, you're actively trying to find fame and whatever, fame and money and whatever, whatever character and mode and SEO or whatever it is that allows you to do that is what you'll do. And that, you know, whatever ideology or morals you might have are sort of secondary. And I think about that a lot, sort of just, we can all just look around the internet and

and look at different people who had different, who were saying different things a year. You can look at the White House and look at people who are sort of shifting. And the internet, I think, enables that in a way we didn't. You've always had people who were like, I used to be a conservative, but now I'm liberal. I used to be a liberal, and now I'm a conservative. And you had some of that, but it seems like this is the logical sort of extension of that. Yeah. I think that's kind of true. I also think that like,

I mean, to a broader degree, just sort of about what we're thinking about about children's entertainment, like children's entertainment has completely shifted to YouTube. You know, things like it used to be that kids would watch like Nickelodeon or whatever. And it's just...

I think that adults and also adults who are thinking about internet culture are maybe forgetting just how popular thing, you know, we all know Cocomelon's popular. But like if you ever look at the top YouTube channels, like the top 10 YouTube channels, like four of them are all kids stuff. And it's like Cocomelon and then like there's these three sets of channels that are always that are just like insanely popular. And they're real kids. And it's like...

They're all it's very weird. They're all Ukrainian or Russians. It's like like Diana, little Nastia and Vlad and Nikki. And they're these kids. It's all like, you know, the kids like are playing with toys or whatever, like that kind of video. And.

If you watch them as an adult, like your brain will melt. Like whenever I've shown an adult these videos, they're like, what the fuck? And it's like, this is like the number two channel on YouTube, like or like number three. Like it is like this is what kids are watching. And it's so mindless that it's not the kind of stuff parents also watch. Like this is what kids watch when they have a tablet by themselves, right?

Yeah, you watch this by yourself. I'm going to go do something else. I was thinking, Ryan, wasn't Ryan a big one of these? Now they've moved beyond America. Now it's people outside the country. Yeah, I was just reading, he lives somewhere weird. I'm trying to remember. But he's also like kind of older now. He's like 12, 13. Yeah, age out of this. Yeah, I don't know. Minuto.

I think there's something that's a little bit unsettling about the idea that the most popular kids entertainment, no adults are actually watching. Like it used to be that like if you had Barney on or Sesame Street or like whatever cartoons, like parents would kind of overhear it and be aware of it. Like parents kind of know what Paw Patrol is, you know? Yeah. But now it's like...

Do they really know what's going on with Vlad and Vicky? Right, or even if you weren't watching it, you sort of assumed it's on television. Several adults had to be involved in making this and packaging it and distributing it. Several eyes had to be on this. It goes through some standards, right? Like the FCC controls it to a degree, right? And that's absolutely not true with the stuff that's on YouTube. And it's... That's, I think...

Now we sound very old. Kids these days. Speaking of childish behavior and shit, you are the queen of shit posting, at least on threads. I love it. You'd stopped and you restarted it and you can just look up Katie on threads to get the best idea, but you were just doing it this week and-

In short, basically, you write preposterous things on threads and lots of people think they're real and lots of people get angry at you about it. And then you do more of it. Is it literally just that it just brings you great joy? It just brings me great joy. So there's no performance art? You're not trying to prove a point about Internet literacy? I sort of was. I mean...

Initially, I was. I wrote about this about and this was a couple of months ago that that I noticed that threads seem to really be leaning into a lot of the posts that I would see in my for you feed would be like engaged, like they would have tons of comments and they would often be someone saying something like that was so wrong. You just wanted to respond like you idiot to or something like that.

And so I tried doing some of those and they really caught on. And I realized that part of it was like the algorithm there was fueled by responses. Right. The more people who are commenting, the more popular the post is. And the easiest way to get a ton of people to respond is to say something like really annoying that's like,

70% annoying and then maybe kicks it off like ends with a question so that like it really prompts people you know this tell me how dumb I am yeah um and I I had I I did like a bunch of those and I tried to do some of them I made up were like based on sort of hot topic things that I'd already seen go viral like whether or not you should buy your kids school supplies um things like that um

And then I wrote about it, and I think threads actually changed their algorithm somewhat. I mean, I don't think it was purely because of me, although I would love to claim this, but I think that probably enough people noticed that engagement bait was all over the place, that they tweaked something. They've said that. It still seems the predominant way of interacting.

And again, sometimes you literally, like I've gone, a lot of times, like a lot of ones I see are, I'm visiting New York, where is safe to be? Yeah. Some version of that. And oftentimes I'll go and look at the person and I think that's an earnest thing. Like it kind of fits in with, they're not trying to be a Cadenatopoulos shit poster. No. I mean, I think what I love about Threads is that it is,

It is really serving you up like normal people a lot of the time. And for some reason, people are very, I mean, partly because like threads have said, like, we're not a place for news and politics or whatever. So people just post about like their lives. And you get people posting like really overly personal stuff. And you're like, who, like, who are you? I think that a lot of people don't realize that

And.

and so then it like catches on yeah um i see a lot of i'm this many months sober i've seen a bunch of those yeah i feel like i see a lot of those an interesting thing i've seen weirdly a lot is like i'm 40 years old never been kissed given up on trying and i'm like what and then the response are like don't give up man um but it's like do you know other people can see this um i get a lot of like

parenting questions, you know. Do you think, and I'm dying to ask people at Instagram and Meta about this, hopefully sooner than later, but do you think, they built this thing a couple years ago. Well, you know, we've been seeing years and years and years of social media and pros and cons and how people behave given different incentives.

And they put this thing out there and it either through. Do you think they intentionally wanted to create a thing where people saying I'm giving up on life or I'm this many years or any of this stuff was was the predominant way people would interact? Do you think they thought, we'll just see what happens and go from there? Because they clearly had ideas about it not being newsy.

Yeah. Like, do you think this is what Adam Mosseri wanted? I truly don't know. And I would love it if you or someone could get some answers. Because I think that a lot of people say, oh, just Meta had no idea what they're doing. And this is all like, and that's why it stinks. Like, they didn't know how to make it exactly like old Twitter. And like...

I think that's very wrong because the truth is they wanted it not to be like Twitter at all. And that the people who are like mad that it's not like Twitter are like have the wrong expectation. Like it was never supposed to be exactly like Twitter. And I think that like right now, one of the weird things about it that people seem to be complaining about a lot is that like

it's people are like their follower count never grows or they, or they're even losing followers. Uh, and it's because it is so designed not to be about following. It's supposed to be more like Tik TOK where it's like you, it's an algorithm that feeds you stuff. Here's the thing people are talking about. Yeah. And like, um,

But people are not used to that and they don't like it. And they're mad because they want followers because the last 15 years of life has told them that, like, follower count is important. I mean, it's really hard to know exactly what they want this to be. And I think that my guess is that they probably want it to be a little bit more like Reddit in terms of, like, a place for, like, interesting conversations to be happening as opposed to something like...

Twitter, which was like quick Twitch, you know, jokes and news. The thing that gave me real pause was when they launched it, they clearly were just saying, these are people who were popular on Instagram. Yeah. Paying or encouraging them to start posting on threads. And you saw right away there were a whole bunch of people who were popular on a visual medium who didn't know or have interest in

in typing things. Yeah. And so this is a different beast for sure than what they're used to. Yeah. And, and I don't, I just, I don't know what they're, I think a lot of it probably is like they're observing and like, huh, that's interesting. People like talking about this other kind of stuff or whatever. Um,

I mean, I think that they're so attuned to what people like to do on Instagram that it made sense that they would think that that. I mean, that was getting all their celebrities to post on day one was a great growth hack. You know, obviously, I think everyone knew the celebrities weren't going to stay around. Like celebrities don't want to type stuff. Yeah.

Or even, but they also just had no, like, you know, I don't know if it was Charlie D'Amelio, but a lot of people were asking, what's your favorite ice cream? Like, clearly, like, it was a prompt that Meta had suggested they use, and it just didn't make sense for anyone. Yeah. Katie Notopoulos is awesome, and like me, you can find everything she writes on Business Insider. Thanks, Katie. Thank you, Peter. Thanks again to Katie Notopoulos. She is the best. Other people who aren't great slash the best.

Jelani Carter, who produces and edits this show. My advertisers who bring the show to you for free, still free content in 2025. And of course, thanks to all of you. I am looking forward to making a lot of great episodes for you this year. See you soon.