Wndri Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcast, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcast. Maybe you should do hello, hello, hello.

Hi, everyone.

Hello.

I'm here. This is Monica, Monica Padman, and I'm here with Dax Sheppard and Wabi Wab Hollis. I had to say our last names because it's about to get quite confusing. Yeah. We're doing- It wasn't confusing enough this year, so we thought, let's at the very end get even.

Let's get really confusing. Let's add another layer of confusion.

Yes. We wanted to do a little of our favorites this week. You just heard a couple of days ago, you heard Laurel Bo. Mom. Triple L, Dax's Mom, that episode. And my pick for the week is Monica Lewinsky. That's why that's confusing.

Okay. Because of Monica and Monica? Yeah.

Oh, okay. That's why I had to say last names.

Okay. That makes sense. And why did you pick Monica?

Well, I was looking through all our old episodes. I forgot. We've done a few. 850. Yeah, we've done a few. And most of them I was looking, I was like, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah. And when I saw Monica Lewinsky's name come up, I thought, oh, my gosh, I totally forgot thought we got to do that. How amazing of an opportunity. And then she was just so special and so sweet and so strong and wonderful. And the way she looks back on everything, I think is really profound and probably applicable to the way a lot of people are moving through the world right now. And she's just really the best.

Did you have any anxiety? So my anxiety was because this just happened. So we had a guest on and I went and listened to their first episode and they were... He was on right out of the gates.

Yeah.

And so I was like, I wanted to listen to it so I didn't repeat all the same questions. Sure. And I was like, oh, boy, I was much worse at this.

Yeah, I did think, oh, that was really early. I don't know how it's going to hold up. But I just think she's worth a listen if you haven't heard it or relisten if you have. Yeah. But these have- Go easy on us if it's bad.

These have become a little bit like past movies I've been in where it's just like, I'm terrified to listen. I'm not sure if I suck. And it brings all that up.

I get it. Okay. But she's a special lady. But she's a star. So please enjoy Monica Winsky. Welcome, welcome, welcome, Monica.

Don't be threatened. We have another Monica today. Two Monies. It's going to get really complicated. This is now the Well, second Monica guest, but third Monica in the AE. I don't even know her call letters. Sphere? Sphere, yes. Yes. Monica Lewinsky is an American activist. She's a television personality, and she is also an anti-bullying ambassador to the IANA Award Anti-Bullying Program, and on the Advisory Board of Project Rocket. Of course, she is here specifically because October is National Bullying Prevention Month. She is making the rounds to spread the word on that, which is a wonderful thing to bring attention to. This is just an incredibly wonderful interview with tons of honesty and vulnerability.

Yeah, emotional openness. I admire her a ton.

Me, too.

For sharing her experience and her story in hopes that other people can feel good.

It's incredibly brave. It is. But this is just really one of the more beautiful conversations we've had, and we thank her a ton for coming And so please enjoy Monica Lewinsky. When you're just asked benign questions, I feel like I would at this point, if I were you, would be just always looking for the little bit of leadingness of it. Do you feel generally? Do you have your guard up on some level when you're just conversing? Like someone's probably going to try to lead you somewhere?

I think it totally depends. So if I feel comfortable in a situation, like right now, I feel comfortable. I came in, I felt comfortable with Monica. By the way, am I the first Monica Monica? Yeah. We have Monica Potter.

We've had Monica Potter.

I was thinking I was.

Not in the attic, though. We did a live show with her. So in the attic, first Monica. Okay.

I've become good at reading people, which I think most people who end up, as public people, end up having to be. Yes.

I also add trauma survivors get good spiny senses so that they're not wounded again.

Although this is I'm not a non-sequitur, but someone said to me, I saw this shaman in New York who was amazing a few weeks ago, and she said something to me about how people who have survived trauma, they can't be okay unless everyone else is okay in the room. Oh, okay. And feel safe. Like That's how they feel safe is that everyone else feels okay. I was like, Oh, that's 100% me.

Meaning if they're uncomfortable with your trauma, you feel the need to put them at ease about it before you can be at ease at it?

No, I think it's just a layer. It's just a layer of how people operate in the world. So not even necessarily people being comfortable with my trauma, but I don't feel safe unless everyone else feels comfortable. I got you. Right? Some people might come into a situation and think, Okay, how do I need to feel safe in this? Here's what I need. For me, it would be, I need everyone else to feel okay in order for me to feel safe in a situation.

Because for you, is fear really contagious? Let's say there's four of us right now. We're talking and you notice Rob is over there and he's shaking and he's like, he's got me in the sweat. Are you going to take that on? Or are you going to go, oh, just he's going through something, God knows what?

No, I totally take it on. I went on a job interview once where the person who was interviewing me was more nervous than I was. So all their nervous tic started coming out. Initially, I was reading it as this person kept scaling and I was like, oh, fuck, I'm saying the wrong thing. I'm never going to get this job. Then eventually, I realized, Oh, these nervous ticks. So I thought, Okay, so now I've got to make this person feel comfortable. Yes.

Which is exhausting now.

Trauma in general is exhausting. Yeah.

I keep rediscovering all the time. I'm never assuming that the person's thing is their issue, right? It's got to be all about me because the whole world is about me, and I'm at the center of the universe. Yes.

You're in the solipsistic club? Yeah. Got a jacket.

So 90 plus % of us walking around are solely thinking of ourselves, and we're responding to our own thoughts and fears. And the other person isn't really even in the equation, other than that they've set off this dominoes of fears in that person. It takes a very healthy, confident person to feel that way. I just aspire to have that feeling all the time.

We can just take people's behavior for what it is, their behavior. But I think we... I don't know if this will make sense, but... I had to do a lot of work over the years around my relationship to material things, like hoarding. I'm not real hoarder, capital H, but I like to joke, I had clutter from my decluttering books I mean, it was just, and I worked over the years with somebody who has actually has a background in psychology, and it's been an amazing process to see, as things have changed for me, things I'm ready to let go of. But I had this one experience where I was helping friends of mine move because they were remodeling. It was like, why do you have this case of unopened ball jars for jam that you're going to pay more money storing than you could just buy it again? But I was like, no, no, no, no, we have to keep those and broken things and all those things. I had this experience where I was able to... I could see because I had no attachment, I had no energy towards these things, how easy it was for me to think about letting go of them or categorizing them.

Yeah, for the lack of a better word, be objective about the whole thing.

Right. And so, and I think as opposed to my own shit, which I had a story about everything and had to tell that story. I think that reflects in a way what you're saying about just those two very different positions. Yes. Yes.

Your material stuff, both Monica's could maybe bond on this. Monica has shared with me that when life is feeling particularly chaotic or out of her control, a very simple act she can take control of is finding something she likes, paying for it, taking it home. Am I explaining it correctly?

Yeah, I can in that moment have the thing I want when there are other things in the world that I want that I can't have. Sure. It's just a quick way to get something control. It lasts for like an hour and then it goes away. But, you know.

Then you get the... Do you do the return thing? Because then you get a whole different set of chemicals of the return of like, oh, it's like losing weight. It's like 5 pounds. Exactly.

I actually don't do that because I'm too lazy to go back to the store.

I'll return them for you.

Okay, great. This is a good solution.

You have to wonder if some brilliant economists could actually put a number on what part of the economy is just servicing this cycle for people. I'm buying and returning and all that.

Yeah. An example would be, I had every single article that I read for my master's thesis. I kept everything. Even if I didn't cite it in my paper, I still had it. That was really connected to all the anxiety I had around people thinking I was stupid. It was the safety or all these books that I bought when I was in graduate school that I never fucking read. It was uncreased on the thing, but look, look, I'm smart. I'm smart. I'm not a dumb bimbo. Eventually, in the last few years, eventually, I was in a place where I was like, Oh, I actually don't really we need these anymore, which is fascinating. I think I had read in one of those decluttering books about that we keep things because we're afraid we're not going to be provided for in the future. That was really interesting to me, too. Very interesting. But I agree that the shopping high or the-The control aspect of it. Yeah. I don't think I've thought of it that way, but that would 100% be me.

I feel like a twin to you after telling that part of your story, because I have somewhere in our garage huge milk crates of every single story I wrote in college, like every essay I wrote, and all the research and everything. Similarly, because I have a big hang up about I'm not dumb, and everyone thinks I'm dumb.

Okay, you're not dumb.

I'm just going to tell you. The other day, though, I said, It's not rational. So Einstein could come out of the ground. He could ascend and tap me on the shoulder and go, You're the only person that's ever been as smart as me on planet Earth. I still need everyone's approval. You can't bring logic to bear on a fear of being dumb or any of fears, really. I mean, I guess there is some cognitive behavioral therapy steps you could take, but just in general, your fears aren't rational to begin with.

I think there's an element of healing and shifting that happens, and then maybe you're ready to have somebody help you try to alleviate that fear. Right. I agree that I don't think just because you have a fear and somebody sits down and says to you, Oh, you really shouldn't have that fear anymore, that that's going to now be that debate. But I also think, too, that there are a lot of fears that come from how I describe it. I don't know that my trauma psychiatrist would agree, but I think with trauma, it's like we each create our own file folders. We make our decision on how we store traumas. You and I could have the same traumatic experiences, but we might file them in different folders in different ways. Sure.

You see this with siblings a ton.

Yeah, exactly. I think sometimes what happens, too, is that we'll see that top fear. We may not even recognize in ourselves that actually it's connected to all these other fears that have happened. It may seem illogical to someone else, but it's really not to us because it's based on these other experiences we've had, too.

But it's like geology. It's just another layer on top of another layer on top. Before you get down to the foul ingredient. There's so many other things in between there. You grew up here, roughly, right? Brentwood-ish?

I was born in San Francisco, and then I was raised here in, actually Beverly Hills. Then my parents divorced, and my dad moved to Brentwood.

Okay. What age were you when they divorced?

I was 14.

I don't know that there's an ideal time. I would say, though, that I am grateful to have gone through it at three because I didn't long for my dad or pying for him. I was like, I don't know, he wasn't here, still not here. It didn't really bother me. But I would imagine at 14, when your life is the most turbulent, you have new hormones, people are dating, people are getting attention attention for things, maybe not an ideal time for disruption?

It was more painful in some ways for me because I think I lived with an illusion of how I wanted my family to be. I mean, by all markers, I had a great upbringing and wonderful parents, and I have an amazing younger brother, and never worried about a roof over my head or food on the table. So very privileged that way. But I also think that my parents were two wonderful people who were not a great match. Right. And that was pretty- Pretty evident. Pretty hard to be around, but I think also pretty self-evident. Even now when people meet them, they're like, How are your parents married? But they both bring great things.

Your mother was an author or is an author, and your father was or is an oncologist.

Yeah. Actually, she was an urban planner before she had kids, and then she became lead parent. My dad is still a practicing radiation oncologist.

In his story, there's a lot talk lately about inheriting trauma, which is starting to get more and more compelling. The first time I was here, I was like, What are you talking about? It's getting more compelling, but I don't think it's irrelevant that your father is first generation of a family that fled Nazi Germany as Jews, and then went to El Salvador, somewhere in South America. Exactly. Well done. Okay. And then came here.

So he came here at 14. Right.

So he had to have inherited from his parents a very realistic fear, to your point, of not not having enough in the future, that you might not have enough in the future. Even worse, you might be having to escape someplace in the future. Once that's a part of your worldview, I don't know how you shake that. I think, too, probably the way it also really shaped me was the Germanic background.

I think the German Jew identity, it's like you're German before you're Jewish. Right. Where other cultures, your Jewish identity, you may lead with that. There's this, I'm probably going to botch it up, which you can fact check. I will.

You're allowed to make mistakes here. Just to let you know. Okay. I'll do them.

I was really authoritatively saying something. You'd be like, She's wrong. Mistakes are encouraged. It's a saying of the tallest poppy gets cut off first, some version of that. I was raised with one parent who that was their, don't make waves. Mm-hmm. Sort of blend in high, don't try to be special. Then I had another parent who came from Russian background, but my grandmother was Russian, but raised in China. Then my mom was actually raised in Tokyo, and my aunt was born there. I have this very eclectic family background. I think from my mom's side, it was very much about trying to find your specialness.

Adventure and discovery.

Yes. She lost her dad at a very early age, so she was 15. Both my parents had these big life changes at 14 and 15. My dad moving from his home country of El Salvador, where he was born to German parents. My my mom losing her dad when they were living in Tokyo. It was always these conflicting messages, which really played into my self-worth and self-esteem. It was low.

Have you, from a young age, been what we would just label generically as a romantic? Are you good at whipping up fantasies and living in a fantasy? Yes.

In the last few years, it's just started to become really clear to me around a lot more brokenness that I had from much younger years, which makes as to why I already liked a boy in kindergarten.

Right. Yes. That's something I feel like we have in common is that I was very early on, very active in my pretend, my imagination, the roles I was playing and obviously to escape things that I was not enjoying and prematurely very interested in girls. Lost my virginity at 12 in seventh grade. Always very sexual, always into falling in love. For a seventh I was listening to Psychedelic Furs over and over again and all the new wave music, and I just wanted to be run over by a steamroller with love.

No, I think very much for me, it's been, especially the last few years, has felt a bit like memento where I just gone, Well, Why would I have made those choices at that point? That makes no sense for a 14-year-old to do that. There must have been something before that. Then it's like, okay, but I was also doing that at this age and this age and this age. Why when I was 13, did I have boyfriend that I broke up with because I thought it wasn't real because we didn't fight. You know what I mean? But it's also, I think, I don't know if this is your experience at all, and I don't know if you have trauma in your background, Monica. No.

We have some schedule.

Okay, Yeah. We'll lend you some of ours.

Monica has trauma. Monica was someone trying to hide her identity desperately in a mostly white community of Duluth, Georgia.

Yeah. I mean, there was hard stuff. I don't... I guess I I don't know. I've never thought of it in the terms of trauma before, but there's always hard stuff. Everyone has hard stuff. I think.

It's planet Earth, third dimension.

But I think having to actively try to downplay who you are from the get-go is very stressful and traumatic. I do, personally, but I'll let you decide.

I'll get back to you.

This notion like, Oh, this isn't real. We're not even fighting. Is that either modeled on your parents' relationship, which you are observing, or are watching movies by which that's the high watermark of being in love? Where does the notion even come from?

Good question. Probably both. I think both. There are a lot of behaviors that I engage in which drive me crazy. Even when I think they like, Oh, I've therapyized this out. I'm not going to do this again. I'm more mature. And then you catch yourself and you're like, Wow, here we are again. I'm doing this thing that I thought I would never fucking do, and I'm doing it. Yay me. But I think the other part of it that comes with that, which is interesting, and I don't know if you've experienced this, which is there's that side of you which stays with it or is tenacious or doesn't give up, which can drive you crazy in certain situations. It's also the thing that saves you. It's also the thing that's part of your resilience. Oh, yeah, yeah. And so that you keep showing up, you get out of bed, all of those things. I think that's where... It's one of the things in this last stint with the therapist I've been with for the last five years that she's really gotten me to of trying to recognize all these things that I would beat myself up with, that there can be this side which has helped me survive.

And so I need to hold both of them. As much as I may disdain some aspect of one thing, I have to respect the other, too.

I totally agree. I think all your character, D. V. X, are the opposite side of a coin of some virtue you have. And I'm just always trying to minimize the downside of these attributes and bolster the good sides of it. Fantasizing and creating fantasies, I think for me, it's a way to regulate your emotions because you're not comfortable in whatever emotion you're having currently. When you engage that gear to go into Peter Pan land, it's a way to correct your own biochemistry in your brain. It's a very useful survivally thing to do, I think.

I think underneath everything with some fantasy is actually hope. There's this strange alchemic combination of emotions one has when you have to survive something painful, whether that's just a breakup or world public humiliation, which is you need a little bit of denial, you've got to have a little bit of resilience, but then there's also the pain that you're feeling. I do think that sometimes what can happen is that it is a self-preservation mode, that some part of you recognizes, I actually can't contain this much pain in this moment. I have to chop it up into little pieces.

Or associate or do something. Yeah, exactly. I want to make one statement because often I'll say this way too late. So generally, this would have been a great preamble, which is you and I will talk about things today, and we will talk about our shortcomings and our failures, and we will attempt to explain how they came about, which is in no way to excuse anything that you and I have done that's regrettable. So I just want to be very clear to anyone that's listening that we're on a path of this is how we got from A at sea, this is in my no means saying we have no culpability in arriving at sea.

Absolutely. But I just wanted to say that. No, I'm glad you did. I think that's really important. I think what becomes challenging for us in public conversations is that you'll have people using the same language for two different reasons. A hundred %, yeah. I think you could have somebody who might come out and say whatever they're admitting to, and they're really trying to help people understand, and it's a part of a process of owning their culpability. But you can also have other people. Bullshit excuse. Exactly. A hundred %. Like PR people. I think we're living in times where, whether they realize it or not, people feel that. They sense that. They don't quite know how to identify it, but I do think we see that a lot.

Yeah. In fact, did you happen to catch this episode of this American Life entitled Spine?

I have the name of it right here.

I know the show, but I haven't heard this.

Okay, so the creator of-It's called Get a Spine.

Get a Spine. I thought you said Spy. I love a good spy book.

We thoroughly recommend everyone listen to it. It's called Get a Spine, and the show creator and runner of community- Dan Harmon. Dan Harmon, who was later fired from his position, not for these allegations, but he was fired. He gives an apology to a woman he sexually harassed for three years. On his podcast, it's nine It's seven minutes long, and it's- Seven. It's seven minutes long. It's incredible in a myriad of ways. It is one to be distinguished as the right way to own your stuff. Anyways, When we think about times where it seems like bullshit and sometimes where it's like a true amends and a true inventory of your behavior, I think we can tell. I like to think we can tell.

I think so, too. I've had this interesting journey, and I think No shit, right? But I think also, too, as a woman, it's been very interesting to observe. I think that there have been times where I felt, gosh, I still feel regret, right? I mean, I will feel regret every day for the rest of my life. I engage in behavior which hurt a lot of people. So not only my family, other people's families, chaos for the country. So there's so much there. Then there's also, there are times where I've also felt, do I have to keep saying I'm sorry because I'm a woman? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. That it's that men are left to... They say sorry once. They're like, Oh, no, I said sorry. I'm done. I don't need to process that. I don't need to think about that more.

I have made many apologies in my day. And by the way, I'm making those amends because you're saying you still feel regret. The aim for me has been to not walk around with regret. When I'm giving you my amends, I want to offer you an opportunity to tell me what I can do to make it better. If I can, I will do that, and if I I can't. I just couldn't do it. Which is not to say that I'll not continue for the rest of my life to acknowledge that that was bad, but I am putting regret and shame away from my life because I can't live with it. It's too cancerous in me to walk around always feeling shame and regret. So I think we need a path towards absorption or whatever you actually get in church when they meet. Not just, I admitted it, and you're absorbed. It's over now. So part of me thinks you should not be walking around feeling shame and regret over something that you've apologized for, processed, and did all this stuff 20 odd years ago, or almost 30 years ago.

No, no, 20. It was 20 last year.

Okay, 20 last year. I get real confused because I always think that the '80s were 20 years ago, and then they were That's true. No, they were 40 years ago. Oh, jeez. Wow. But I do want... You know what I think is helpful is I think people came to know you at a certain age in a certain situation, and I would imagine people never stopped to I wonder who the person was before that. I do want to quickly just say who the person you were before that. You grew up in Beverly Hills, and dad did relocate to Brentwood, and you went to a couple of overnight schools. You went to a couple of overnight schools?

You went to a prep school? Yeah. I bounced around a lot. I went to a rodeo for kindergarten. Then I went to John Thomas Die in Bel Air for a few years, then to Hawthorn, then to Beverly, then to Bel Air Prep, which I always laugh as quintessential LA because it was in West Hollywood. Only in LA, Bellaer Prep, fancy, pinky up. Then it became some other name, and now it's closed.

I have to admit, when I read Bel Air Prep, I thought you were up in Bel Air, next to the hotel, getting your 12th grade education.

Exactly. That's the whole point. It's like, Oh, look, I went to Bellaer Prep. Take me fancy college.

But you also went to Beverly Hills High, right? Exactly. For how many years? For how many years?

Three years?

Three years, yeah. Okay. This is basically at the time of Beverly Hills 90210.

Exactly. I mean, it was a very… I always joke that I never I fit in in LA because I'm a brunette and my boobs are real. It's like, I just… There was an esthetic that was prized in this school? Sure. Yeah, let's not forget I was chubby. I always struggled with my weight. Particularly, it's so interesting. I had thought for a really long time that I had gained all this weight. I struggled with my weight when I was in grade school, but then I got a handle on it. My freshman year, when my parents separated, I put on 50 pounds. I'd always, for I first thought it was connected to my parents getting divorced. But one of the things that I came to understand in the last several years, we didn't have language for it, but I had actually had an unwanted sexual experience when I was 14, which was the summer right before my parents had separated.

Were you taking the approach? I've heard this where people who have been sexually assaulted want to never be sexually assaulted again, so they try to make themselves invisible to men who would want to do that. Could Are you going to be conscious of that?

I think the psyche is so complex and so fucking clever. It is so clever. I think that there's this element that may have been possible, but on some very deep level, but I was still interested in boys. It could be true.

You can have goals, you can have wants, and you can be taking actions that are in complete opposition to that. And there's no logic. There are moments in the day you feel strong, and there are moments in the day you feel weak, and you're making different plans in those different times. And it can all add up to making zero sense, but all be happening at once.

I think it was hard to unpack, too, because it was the person stopped when I said stop. It was just like the consent wasn't a thing then. I had this person, but there were all sorts of things that were inappropriate about it, including a really big age difference. For many years, I was like, I was 19 when I lost my virginity, but technically, I wasn't. I had always chalked up a lot of the struggles I had in high school to my parents' divorce being contentious. But I think it probably had a lot more to do with this incident that happened that I didn't even know how to classify it. I think I made it all okay because that was the easiest thing to do.

Again, there's really no benefit to even isolating it. So one thing could have caused it to reach critical mass. Either situation could have caused critical mass.

I had struggled with my weight before.

Can I ask you this? Because as a parent of two daughters, I I question this a lot because parents in LA are hyper aware of not triggering eating disorders, right? Now. Now. Today.

Now.

Yeah. I do ask myself, it's very well intentioned, and I think they're in general doing the right thing. But at the same time, I'm wondering how much of that was self-imposed by what you were seeing around you in your social circle, in your peer group, and in school, and how much of it do you believe was maybe imprinted on you from mom and dad?

I think it was 50/50.50? Yeah. There were a number of different factors. One was I developed early. I don't know why we don't have tests now for young girls and boys to know chemically when they're going into puberty. Why we wait? Because it's like it starts before. But we don't consider it until they're physical. You can totally fact check this because I have no idea what I'm saying is right or I'm talking out of my ass. This is my own theory. The chemical change must start earlier than necessarily the physical change, but we don't deem it puberty until we see the physical change. I had whatever the predisposition for my weight issues, genetically. But then there was also a hit puberty earlier. I was constantly comparing my body to other girls' bodies who had this incredible metabolism or who didn't have not the tubes yet, or whatever that was. I think there were those issues. But I also, I read 17 magazine. Sure, sure, sure. I was always reading. Why I am. Exactly. Always reading. I think I went on my first diet at maybe 11 or 12.

Yeah, this is so brutal.

Yeah, it's so hard. It's heartbreaking though. It is. It's heartbreaking because it's like, why can't we just have that message of we're okay? We're okay however we Great.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare.

I don't know if you guys saw, Anderson Cooper did this documentary a few years ago called Being Thirteen, and he had access to all these 13-year-olds phones or social behavior. The one thing that stuck with me was that kids were taking on average 150 pictures for one that they would post. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. That just broke my fucking heart in terms of what's the negative self-taught in the 149 that they didn't choose? Yes. And that's like... So I mean, I think we see this... It's a strange thing now where we've got parents who are so much more aware, right? Aware of not body-shaming their kids, aware of trying to teach them nutrition in ways that are healthier. And at the same time, we have all sorts of other social aspects which are creating those problems that are making them even worse.

It's multifaceted, at the very least. Now, you and I share something that's very rare. I don't know that I've interviewed Anyone that we both have associate degrees from Santa Monica College. Aha.

Okay. But you ended up transferring or after you graduated, you went to Lewis & Clarke in Portland. What I loved about Portland was I think that was where I feel like I found myself as a person. I don't know if it was a combination of now I'm not living at home. I'm in another city/state, and it's a very different environment there. I got a lot from nature in Portland. People are real. There was galleries being open late. . So I felt like I found a lot more of myself there.

Yeah, and you majored in psychology. Correct. Can I give you my anecdotal stereotype, and you can correct me if I'm wrong? Okay. I found most of the folks in psychology where people who just desperately needed some therapy. Therapy. Some therapy. They were really needed to figure out what was going on in their mind. Yeah. I just observed that it seemed like many people that were drawn to that major were probably need it. Fucked up. Yeah, I can say in a non-pejorative way. Exactly. Just very interested in their internal life.

I don't want to speak for all my friends. Actually, it was probably more in graduate school. My graduate degree was in social psych, and I think I saw, maybe because I was older and now had all these crazy life experiences, but I saw more experiences in graduate school where I was both learning and self-analyzing of just understanding. It's like, Oh, a threat threatened identity. Oh, okay. I experienced that, or power differentials and so many different kinds of biases and understanding things. I'm sure there was some part of me that was interested in psychology because I was fucked up.

You needed some healing, and hopefully, you would figure out some method. It sounds interestingly to me, just from what you've told me about your childhood and whatnot, that you are both confident and insecure.

Is that- A thousand %. Right. I was always lucky. I think I went through some periods when I was much younger that I didn't have friends or I was bullied a little bit. But by and large, I've always been good at friendship. I've had friends, but I think particularly where men were concerned, I was very insecure.

Was there a mental trick you did where it was like you were insecure, yet you were somehow outgoing towards men, or were you afraid to even approach men?

I think it was probably a strange combination of moments where I would feel old, but then my insecurities would regulate how I responded to reactions or to things that happened.

You had boyfriends in college, I assume?

Yeah. Up in Oregon? Yeah, but-yes, but- You can also just go, I don't understand why you want to know about my boyfriend. No, no. No, it's just complicated. I think part of me, the self-conscious part of me is like, wow, I sound like a big loser in this podcast.

No, my God, no.

Not at all. Dating is already hard.

Well, I can just say personally, I have this body dysmorphic view of my whole being, and yet I was so outwardly confident, and I would talk to any girl, and I would get them laughing. I did all these things that are really counterintuitive to how I felt. But then my trick was like, Oh, no, you're not going to ever get anyone with this. So you got to lead with this personality. If you're going to snag somebody, you got to get out there. You got to have a bullhorn of charisma or you're not... Now, mind you, I wasn't accurate on either assessment of how attracted my personality was or how unattractive my physical was, but it was a weird paradox of feelings versus my behavior. Yes.

That was how I was and goes back to that, don't stand out, be special. So I think that was always the dichotomy of your parents.

Exactly.

Always impacting my behavior that way. But I had experiences where the popular boy would like me in high school. But then I also had experiences where somebody, basically, worse than standing me up, left me standing outside a theater because he saw his friend and walked away with his friend and didn't come back. I was in a heavier phase, and his mom had later said, Oh, well, he was embarrassed to be seen with you, which is just like this.

She was like, Oh. She just laid it out there.

Yeah, I'm like, I'm a teenager. But that's that fertile ground for when several years later, I think when I was in DC and getting this attention from somebody who... I'm not that girl. I'm not the homecoming queen. I'm not the girl that the guy likes. I'm the friend of the girl that the guy likes. That's me.

Yeah, he's the ultimate prom king of the world.

I think there were a lot of reactions, behaviors I engaged in because there was a part of me that was like, Oh, this is what that girl is supposed to do. Because a lot of times when you're not that person, especially when you're younger and your brain's not fully developed and you haven't had life experiences, you want to be that person. Sure.

Well, again, you have a broader romantic narrative you're spinning. Then for that narrative to work, the characters within the narrative have to act a certain way to hold up the story. Right.

If you do have self-esteem issues, it's not like people walk around with self-esteem issues and think, Oh, I'm so happy I have these deficiencies, right? Basically, on some level, you're always looking for something to plug that willing to assuage it.

When you got this internship, did you have any interest in politics, or were you like, Oh, this is just an amazing adventure. Who wouldn't go take this?

I was a psychology major, and it was a combination of a number of things that I ended up in the internship. One was we had family friend whose grandson had done it the year before. I'd never even heard about it. He said, Oh, I'll be happy to give you a recommendation. I worked a whole bunch when I was in high school and college, and one of the jobs I had was selling men's neckties. I had a customer who had worked on the Clinton campaign who then was now hired. He also was somebody who recommended me. Then I wrote an essay about how as a psychology major, you study the mind of the individual, and the White House is the mind of the country. I think that that also had an element. I really wasn't interested in politics, aside from the cursory level, like an election is happening.

But there's a monkey thing happens, right? Like a primate thing, which is that we are aware of status at all times, and that is the pinnacle of status. That building is the most status-laden piece of real estate in America.

It is. I'm very affected by the esthetics of my environment. One of the things that I didn't expect to happen was to fall in love with the environment there. It's beautiful. It's like smells of eucalyptus. Oh, really? I'm very woo- woo and spiritual, and I didn't know how to identify it at the time, but there's a very special energy there. I mean, it makes sense.

Sure. Some of the finest people to ever live have passed through there.

Right. And decisions have been made that have effects millions and millions of people over hundreds of years. Yeah. But I'm always looking at it from the outside.

Here's what I... The cynical side of my brain is always like this. I, all growing up, I looked at Playboy. I love my grandpa's Playboys. I hid them in my luggage. My mom would find them. She never ashamed me, thank God. Playboy mansion was it. That's Shangri-La. And I desperately wanted to be there. I got invited at some point. And as I was pulling up, I'm like, Wow, look at this place. It's amazing. The yard's incredible. And then I was walking up and I was like, I don't think That door knob seems to be broken. And then I went inside and I was like, Oh, these phones are from '79, and they don't work, and no one's washed them. And oh, half the switches don't work. It was this big shattering of my illusion. The place was in general disrepair, and it was in there, and I was like, Oh, damn it. And so the cynical part of my brain is like, if I get in the White House, I'm going to start noticing like, Oh, they're not really... But I'm relieved to hear that no, it is a bit of an eating. Right. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, even the fact that it smells like eucalyptus, I can promise you that the mansion did not smell like eucalyptus.

Not going to, but it smelled like that. No, it smelt like just despair, if I can give a emotional-I mean, I think there were a lot of dynamics that were going on there that surprised me. It was very interesting for me once I then chipped off to the Pentagon. One of the things I came to realize was how the commodity of information was so different between these two parts of the government. And at the White House, it was If I knew something and you didn't, that was made me more- Powerful. Exactly. But at the Pentagon, if I know something and you don't, our boss might be up Shitz Creek.

Oh, so it's a completely different culture.

It was a really different- It was a really different- Yeah, very, very different culture, and information was valued in different ways.

Was it hard to register that you were there at the White House? I mean, you basically teleported into someone else's life in a weird way.

It was, I mean, and really, it was supposed to be a pit stop on the way to graduate school. So I wanted to get a PhD in forensic psychology and work for the FBI. Sure.

But I have to imagine there had to be a period that was totally Alice in Wonderland or something.

I think what was interesting for me, too, is that my first trip to DC had been with my aunt. I remember we had passed by the old executive office building, and I remember thinking, Oh, my gosh, it's so beautiful. Can you imagine going to work every day there? Right. And then Shazam.

That's a great logistical question. I imagine it's a pain in the ass to get in and out of the White House. Is it cumbersome to go to work there? Do you have a lot of an extra 45 minutes to get in?

No. As an intern, it's a pain because you have a temporary pass. Every time you come in and out, you have to show your ID, and you get the temporary pink eye intern pass. Once I became an employee, and I had a permanent pass, so I had a blue pass, which was-Covidacy. Exactly. That's the all-access backstage pass. I think that's the When we talk about status, that's the ultimate status symbol in DC.

If you have that, then you just literally, you park somewhere on the grounds of the White House, and then you walk.

Oh, I didn't have a parking spot. Now, either my mom dropped me off. Okay, that's so cute.

I lived at home. So your Are you relocated to DC because you were going there?

No. My mom's side of the family, my grandma was a matriarch, and we everybody has to live in the same place. Okay, right. That's just how it is. My aunt and her family moved to the East Coast Then my mom and my brother moved, and of course, then my grandma moved. Then we all had... My grandma lived in the Watergate, my mom lived in the Watergate, and my aunt was living in the country, but she had a there. It was just... That's happened in New York. It just happens everywhere. Oh, wow.

That's how we are. Okay, so you were with mom?

Yeah. Okay.

I guess that's a layer I had not comprehended to any of this. Yeah. So I read A Vast Conspiracy.

Is that what it's called? Was that Jeffrey Tubin's book?

Yes. It was a book all about the scandal. Right. Prior to that, I think I just had a very cursory understanding of what all happened, other than having been alive and lived it real-time. I'm a big lefty Democrat. I loved Clinton. I was one of those people going I'm like, This is insane. You can impeach someone over sexual stuff. I was so entrenched in that camp. I think that's probably where my thinking stopped on all of it. I also very much real-time thought that what was happening to you was horrendous. Thank you. Yes. I was probably predisposed because I was a liberal Democrat to be on the side of you guys, right? Yet I like to think objective enough. If I put myself in the mindset of being on the right and already dating this guy and think he's done all this other shady shit. So I can recognize why people were mad about it. I can recognize why they feel betrayed by that and that a leader shouldn't do that and all those things. I can totally recognize that. But I guess what I was unaware of, and what at least this book suggests is there was a conspiracy.

There was a conspiracy to get him guilty of perjury. You have this woman, Linda Tripp. It's almost crazy to me that you actually know her, and that all really happened to you. I have heard those tapes, but sitting here with you as a human being, it's hard for me to even comprehend that.

I mean, talk about being exposed to your home tours. Have your phone calls recorded without your permission. It's just like, No, no, I couldn't have said that. See a transcript. It's like, then you hear yourself, Wow, I fucking said that about somebody I would get in front of a bus for, and I'm a catty bitch. It is seriously, I mean... Yes. Oh, yeah.

I, at that time, even... I don't know, how old were you at the time?

So I was 22 when the relationship started and 24 when the investigation started.

Who among us can identify with having a friend that you confide in?

Right.

Anyone needs that. It is essential for our well-being. You have your public life and what we'll talk about on this podcast, and then you have your very personal stuff where you need to air out all the embarrassing stuff, the shameful stuff. Front stage, backstage. Yes. So we all have had best friends, and anyone can imagine that our best friend, in fact, wasn't a best friend, and that our best friend was intending to write a book about us, and that our best friend was recording us and leading us, and by all definitions, entrapping us. I like to think everyone could identify that as just a really horrendous act from one person. That, again, I bet if I was benevolent enough, I bet she has her own host of things she's overcoming. It's interesting that in these investigations, you will basically it's cool to commit a crime in order to expose another crime. In fact, there's no crime really with what you guys did. But if we can get you to lie about it, now we have an actual crime. You're taking one thing that starts as not illegal, having an affair. Sure, shameful, all those things are true.

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

I think that's a real issue I have, the hypocrisy of the system. So stepping outside of whatever happened to me. It's just how can we say this behavior is wrong and should be punished, but that same behavior should not be punished if you're going to help just get someone else? Yeah.

The fact that the interrogator is allowed to blatantly lie. I just talked to your friend Mike. He said you stabbed her. How the fuck is that legal?

Exactly. Or play targets. I mean, it's just a whole-Yes.

Now you're like, okay, well, this person is saying, I committed the murder, so now I have to do something to get out of this. I've now got to choose a bad option to get out of this. It's crazy to me that things can work that way.

I participated in this docuseries that came out last year.

Yeah, I watched an episode of it today, and it was really, really good.

Thanks. It was really hard to do.

I can imagine.

I'm just referencing that because they think that there was a very broad scope of people from that time frame who were interviewed, and that the goal of the series was to really map out all of these different perspectives and narratives that were unfolding real time for us there, that we didn't have the perspective to see back, to see all the places where stories were people's narratives were being braided together that we didn't realize or those things.

But I don't know that everyone is aware of the fact, contextually, that there was a Paula Jones case going.

Right. Starts with a sexual harassment case.

Paula Jones against Bill Clinton. Right. And the goal was to get to subpoena people to get them in there so that they could then ask questions that would potentially put him in a position to lie about other stuff.

I believe so. I think that there were a number of different motives that were going on for various people, I think, who were operating on that aside, some exactly as you just said, some who were looking at a bigger picture of how do we basically set a perjury trap. For almost everybody, many of us think, I would never lie under oath. But we also live in this country where we have these puritanical views about sex. Almost asking someone about their sex life under oath is almost always a perjury trap. It's like Jerry Seinfeld made this great joke about during that time where he said, Everybody lies about sex. If people didn't lie about sex, no would have sex. Totally. Yeah. A hundred %. I think sometimes people don't remember. I didn't choose to step forward to talk about this. I, in fact, got in too trouble because I signed a false affidavit. Right. So, trying to deny that. There was a layer where people didn't understand the level of detail that came out. That was also not my choice to share that. I had to share that legally. I was legally asked and in fact had to give even more detail because of certain ways that other people chose to testify.

Because everyone's trying to nail down what sexual relations means. So they then feel justified in hearing every single detail of every single thing that ever happened. Is Am I understanding you right?

Well, the reality is that there was not truth told no matter what the definition of sexual relations was. Right. So that whole thing of like, does this count as a... Yes. You know, does it or doesn't it? It doesn't matter, given everything else that happened? Yes. I've said before, I never understood why or how this became about oral sex because that wasn't just what happened. I don't want to get into a lot of the details. I think that was a big part of shame that I ended up having to carry for a long time as a young woman being labeled as somebody who was engaged in this servicing relationship. It wasn't mutual.

There's so many things happening to you at once. One of them is the legal issues. One of them is an impeachment trial. Val. And then one of them, I would imagine on an emotional level is you, to your point, you didn't meet someone in an alley, hook up and bail. You were in a emotional relationship with someone for a while that is now being reduced to this.

Right. It's now being examined through a lens it. Nobody. I mean, maybe when you first start dating someone, you're like, Oh, we've done it this many times. It's such a strange way to not only as oneself to try to analyze something or unpack it, but even more bizarre to I have other people talking about something which is normally so private.

Oh, my God. I just can't. No. Even as someone who is very vocally out loud about my sexuality and stuff, and I would say hypersexual, I still don't want someone to account for every move I made. No.

Or to take it from you. That's your agency. That's part of consent in a very different way as what we choose to share about ourselves and what we choose to keep private and with whom we share those aspects of ourselves.

Now, the one thing that I'm deeply interested in about the ride you were on, I just can't imagine the highs and lows just hourly and daily and the stress on your body and the cortisol and the adrenaline and all those things, as much as you were trying to prevent the worst thing from happening, was there any relief in it finally just being like, fuck it, great. It's all over. I'm the devil. It's over. I don't have to... When you have a secret and you're trying to keep a secret, it's very stressful.

No. This was not a secret that I ever... Yes, I may have confided in some of my friends, but this was not something I ever would have talked about publicly.

Of course not. I don't think anyone in the world thinks... The many accusations that have been leveled at you, I don't think I've ever at least heard someone suggest that you were trying to become famous or get attention. Oh, they have? Oh, yeah.

Oh, really? Trying to get attention, want to make money.

I think what's interesting is I think that entire situation triggered something that no one's really going to talk about, which is, I don't know what the data was that year, but let's say it was probably 50% of all people in marriages are being cheated on one way or another. So you become the face for anyone who has had a spouse stray. And you now become an embodiment of that hurt and pain and betrayal and all that Yeah.

I mean, I call myself a social canvas. I think the thing is that this story triggered so many archetypes for us. I think it was not just one narrative. I think there were a lot. So there was privileged upbringing, my weight, I was torn apart from my looks. I mean, the slut-shaming, so whether the affair, the fallen woman. I mean, they're just... We were living in times, I think, where objectivity was just not really I mean, just I think along the lines, it's interesting to me. People will point out to me now, well, how could people have thought you were dumb? You had an internship in the White House.

Right, right.

Well, they did. I was called a stupid bimbo. I mean, I have serious trauma from When I was in grad school, I couldn't get up and present in front of a class. You were asking me initially about how I judge people when people ask me a question. When I was in grad school, I had such imposter syndrome that any time somebody asked me a question, I thought that they were actually trying to trick me or to see, did I know the answer? . I was afraid to get help writing an essay because I thought it would expose me that I should have known something. Yes. You know.

Oh, 100 %.

You know, this was also... It was a really challenging situation, which I don't think we'd even be able to have nowadays, first of all, the cycle is so much shorter. This idea of there being a year long story, but also because of legal reasons, I couldn't speak publicly. . So I was very one dimensional for people. There I was so young. There was nothing else to hang an identity for me on. What had I been before I worked in the White House? A student, a college student. You know what I mean? Again, not to excuse my poor choices, but there were also a lot of people who were invested in making sure that the President didn't lose his job. That meant that there were narratives that had to be spun. That there were stories. A lot of those people didn't know me. Then there were a lot of people who knew me well, who had no problem engaging in that behavior.

So you lived the Scarlet Letter, a prophetic book about how we need to deal with issues of judgment and shaming and all that stuff. It was a heightened book to make a point. And then what your real-life experience was way beyond what that book did. So overnight, obviously, you're on TV all the time. You're, as I've heard you say before, maybe on John Oliver, even if you want to escape and watch a Tonight show, you're going to then see jokes about yourself endlessly. There was really no escape at all from that. I wonder, during that period, is your family, the core, the only place you can go and feel remotely like yourself?

Yeah. I mean, my family was all I had, so I couldn't talk to most of my friends until after they had testified. I mean, I don't think I would have survived without my family Although I wasn't allowed to talk to my brother. You weren't? No, for a long time.

What was the reasoning behind that?

To protect him legally.

Okay, so that he wouldn't be called in to... Yeah. Yeah.

And he was a sophomore in college. He was. Yeah.

Yeah. That was rough for him, I assume? Yeah. Yeah. When we talked earlier, when you just got in here, it was like, there's your own guilt, and then there's the guilt of having-Oh, God.affected the other people in your life who you love so much and gotten them sucked into the the whole thing. Right.

I mean, it's one of the reasons I'm so unbelievably grateful for all the changes that have happened the last few years is that it's people stop my doctor, stop my dad in the hall and say something positive, or someone will have said something positive to Mike at work, and that alongside whatever history might be told in a class, teachers show my TED Talk. I mean, it's just unbelievably meaningful for me. A hundred %. I've got a niece and nephew who I adore, and they also have my last name.

Right. One of the most profound things I heard you say was, I think it was on John Oliver. He said, at any point did you decide to change your name. And your response was, did Bill Clinton have to change his name? Because when he asked that question, I was like, Yeah, go by whatever fucking Schlong Schlonger.

Yeah, that's exactly the name I would have chosen. Monica Schlong Schlonger? Monica Schlong Yeah, exactly.

But I was on that train of thought. Right. Your answer exposed to me how my first line of thinking will be one that was pretty much raised in a patriarchy, that that's what I don't even consider that. Like, of course, Bill Clinton didn't have to change his name.

But also, too, I think there's, there were other layers of it, like more logistical complications, like particularly at the time, if I had gone to the courthouse and tried to sign legal papers changing my name, that would have ended up in the press. Then I would have been like, Prince, Sally Smith, formerly known as Monica Lewinsky. Then what? Where would I go? I didn't even understand how would that work. I run into somebody I went to grade school with, and I say, Well, I don't go by that name anymore. But it shows a ton of resolve.

I really think the easier way out would have been to attempt that. Yeah.

I think the story was so big, and it was such a huge change in my life. My new normal was... There was such a massive chasm between what my old normal and my new normal were, that I think that there just wasn't room for that. I just had to keep trying to move forward and keep trying to get back onto a developmental path that my therapist at the time, that was always her goal, was, How do we get you back on a developmental path of a 25-year-old? What does that look like? How am I going to support myself and find purpose and meaning in the world? Try to find a relationship, which I think was also something that I tried at the time, and I now look back on that period, I'm like, Of course, I couldn't have been in a serious relationship. I dated people. I was involved. I fell in love. I cared about people. I actually think it was hard for some people who got to know me and cared about me to reconcile the person they got to know with how the rest of the world saw me. That was also hard.

And at younger ages, and maybe careers not fully developed, to step into all that. It's just... I wouldn't have.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. It's not as if what you were being shamed for in public was having had an extramarital affair. You were being called a slut, which you were not.

No. Well, sometimes.

Yeah. And by the way, what is a slut?

Totally agree.

It's fine to have tons of sex with people. No one should be called a slut. Correct. But you were being called a slut, which no one should be called.

Well, because it was pejorative. So whenever, slut and tard and bimbo and horror- Yes, and stupid, you're being called stupid, and you're being body shamed, they deployed all of the weaponry that is against women.

It's really just horrendously massaged and- Deconstructed, dehumanized.

Yes.

No one is talking about a man's weight. In general, they're not doing that. They're not calling men sluts.

I think, correct, all of the women in the story experience that in different ways. I think that as a society, we look at women in the public eye in a very different way than we do men. Yes.

Now, when you go through all of that, I think the odds of you coming through on the other sides and being someone who be in an interview or someone that has continued to pursue business, get a graduate degree, almost impossible to really imagine. I can't imagine. The fact that you have survived all this is just incredibly admirable. I think it's so rare. I doubt many of us have the strength to go through what you did.

I know it sounds cliché, but I really do think none of us knows how strong we are until we're tested. I do think that. I'm grateful I've been able to survive. There have been many, many moments where I didn't think I could make to get through. It could be the strangest. I think of it as that it's a small moment of grace that makes you go right instead of left. The phone rings, somebody who doesn't even know you're in pain, and you wouldn't even necessarily say, at that connection.

Yes. What were you doing at that time to comfort yourself?

During the investigation, eating, for sure.

Then all the press that followed because it didn't in two seconds either. No. Right. It stayed for years, right? It was years of jobs.

I think it wasn't officially over. It started January of '98. It wasn't officially over until he was acquitted. He was impeached by the House, but then acquitted by the Senate. That was, I think, February of 1999. It was a little over a year there, but was something that stayed in part of the, I don't know, would you say political zeitgeist?

Well, the zeitgeist in general. The cultural zeitgeist.

Yeah. Then when I went to graduate school, I had really mistakenly and naively thought, Oh, I'm going to move to England, and I'm going to LSE, and I'm now going to be a graduate student, and I'm leaving political Monica Lewinsky back in the States. I actually was having to take on another identity. I wasn't getting rid of an identity. Ultimately, I think for me, it was like I came out of graduate school and then was actually almost the darkest period, even darker. There was an adrenaline that coursed through the entire year of '98. But it was when I came out of graduate school and I couldn't get a job and I couldn't purpose and support myself, that's really when it was a darker time for me.

Right. Like, you're going to have no future.

Right. That was when I came into my anger. But at the same time, I see now, I'm not sure I would choose it again, but I see now what that period did benefit me was I ended up having the time to do the deep selfhealing, the involution. There was a lot of spiritual work.

You could have maybe just kept on running. If you had you found employment immediately, Right.

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

Well, thank you so much. I only got that from the 12-Step program I work. Without that, I don't know what I would do because, yeah, it's living with shame, and this is ultimately what I want to talk to you about. This is what I want to finish with. You've worked a bunch with cyberbullying. There couldn't be someone who, I don't know how you quantify it, but if you're not at number one, you're tied for number one for the biggest public shaming of all time.

I mean, it's Well, they think on the internet, too, in the nascent days of the internet, just that experience of a lot of people have experienced that now. I think the statistics are like one in 10 or something.

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

I think there's so many different things that are at play in our online world. There's the online disinhibition effect, so where people, because they're hiding behind a screen or behind anonymity, find it easier to take on different personas. We saw that the beginning of that with, remember, Second Life? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was really... That was the beginning, I think, of this idea of avatars of of, Okay, let me both be this person, but also be someone else, be some different curated version of who I want to be. For sure. Some, right? Some projected- The advertisement for me. Right, exactly. Which in and itself has a layer of shame connected to it, right? Because there's that idea of whoever I am, really am, is not good enough. For sure. Yeah. I think that's at play. I think we have people constantly, I mean, just the chasm between our real lives and curated selves online is very challenging. I think that's where there's so much mental health issues coming in. I had this young boy say to me last week, which was he had written in an essay, and I've just been turning it over in my mind ever since I read it, where he was talking about actually with physical violence, that when you don't have an adult to say to you, everything's going to be okay, you're alone in your pain and your experience, and you may lash out at someone else doing the exact same thing for the very reason so that you're not alone.

Sure. Which was amazing to me. I had never really thought about it from that way. I mean, I believe, okay, hurt people, hurt people, all those things.

Misery loves company. It truly does.

I certainly don't want to excuse any online harassment or bullying behavior, but that in some ways it's a coping mechanism for some people. Yes. That's where we have to step back. There is no three-prong easy solution. This is like the human condition.

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

I think the business model is different. With so many more outlets, there are more people in this industry who are looking to make an income. Sure. To make money.

They can't ignore data.

That's clickbait, right? That's the whole thing is around the idea of the model of money that gets made from these things, and that shame and public humiliation are these currencies in our society.

Yes, they're very tasty for people.

I have a friend who has this really interesting theory around because we now don't stay in the village from where we were born and know the same people for our entire lives, that well-known people have become the local... That was the local gossip that we would... So these are the familiar people that we now, instead of staying in our village, we take them with us wherever we go.

Yes. The purpose gossip provided was when we lived in 100 member groups, they were very egalitarian because one man getting power, if he started abusing that power as the chief, three other men could overthrow him at any time. In our early days, that chief didn't have a police force. It didn't have a military. So at all times, that person could be overthrown pretty easily. And the mechanism by which everyone would evaluate whether that person should be overthrown was gossip. That's exactly how you build an alliance to make sure someone's not being tyrannical. But then you get apparatuses like military, state police. And now we're not going to just gossip our way into a new president. It doesn't really work that way anymore. But it is hardwired into us. No one should feel guilty that they enjoy gossip. We are designed to gossip so we can regulate these little groups. I think it's helpful to first recognize like, oh, yeah, I'm inclined to gossip the same way I'm inclined to eat 44 Snickers bars. I'm hardwired to load up on sugar when that fruit is in season. And I just have to know that about my body so that I can take some actions.

I understand what you're saying I just do think that we can evolve away from gossip. Oh, me too.

I think the goal should be 100% to evolve away from it. Because I think we can see in many, many ways that it's ultimately destructive, and it's no longer servicing the purpose that it was- Sure.

If you step back and you take a completely different view and think about it energetically, it's like words have a consequence. They have a consequence, whether you are hearing them or not. That sense of... I mean, we have energy fields where we're affected by what people think about us, what they say about us. I mean, that for me, I think a big part of my healing was I spent many years having to heal my field. To having gone overnight from being known by a very small group of people relative to the rest of the world, and then all of a sudden have all this negative intention and energy coming at me. That's an effect. Yes.

Someone who has a deep desire to eat cake should not feel like a failure and shame themselves. They were designed to eat cake. That's the point I'm making. I'm not even judgmental of someone, the desire to gossip. I think it's ingrained in us. But I think we should have as an objective and a goal to transcend that.

There's probably I don't know the technical term for this, which I can't remember or don't know. But I think probably one of the most important ways forward is around trying to, rather than trying to penalize a lot of the negative behavior, which I think can be helpful, is also at the same time trying to bring in more of the positive, right? So trying to drown that out in some ways. So educating people on how to be an upstander online, like how important that is.

Yeah. So talk about upstanders because they do this at my daughter's school, and I think it's the coolest thing.

Oh, yeah. No, it's amazing. To be an upstander means to intervene in a situation, and you can intervene while you're seeing something, like while you're seeing a bullying situation unfold or an online harassment unfurl. You can intervene that way. But you can also intervene after the fact, too. That's a really important part of being an upstander, which is just recognizing, reaching out to the person who's been the target of that behavior, basically allowing somebody to know that someone witnessed what happened. Yes. To Whether that is a supportive emoji or it's saying to someone, I saw what happened, or saying, Do you want to come sit with me, or want to go to the movies? Some way of, if it's somebody you know, if it's a stranger, just a positive comment, that they're All these ways that we can actually interrupt the cycles that are happening in the bullying cycle that are important for people to remember. Also, with online situations, reporting any bullying or online harassment that you see is also These are all ways of being a good digital citizen, and they have a huge impact, particularly, I think, from the work that I do, the worst kinds of things that happen are when people are suffering in silence alone.

The faster somebody knows that they're not invisible. There's this irony of this behavior that you are a target of something, and yet you actually feel really invisible. The more I think that you can encourage people to step up and engage in these sorts of behaviors or starting to shift the balance of the other behavior that's happening, which we should address in how we're dealing with these issues, too. Yeah.

I also wish when I was younger, it had been explained to me that the power of this group is much, much greater than the power of the bully. Because when When I was a kid, now, mind you, I have been a bully. I would never have thought that about myself. But as I've gotten older and I play back the frequency with which I was in fights and stuff, there has to be several kids that think I'm a bully, and I'm very regretful of that, and sorry for that. Also recognize I was in a household where someone was kicking my mom's ass, and my brother was five years older than me, and he was kicking my ass. Then I went to this playground where I could have power, and I enjoyed that. I I like that.

There are some who talk about people who engage, especially younger people who engage in bullying behavior. Some people look at models that are saying it actually is their kids trying different power structures on, basically. There's so many different things. I think one of the things that we have trouble with around this topic is that, like usual, we're always trying to simplify things. Yes, good and evil. Exactly. People engage in bullying behavior for myriad reasons, and people become targets for myriad reasons. They're varied ways to handle different situations. There's no one correct way for every single person who's either a bully or a target. I have witnessed and I have experienced the enormous shifts that can happen when people step into compassion.

Yes. It's most hard when it's with someone whose behavior you just personally hate to begin with. But when I was a kid, and there were certainly many times I was bullied, and more than that, I observed lots of bullying. For us in the heard watching it, it was like, if I said something, I'd be the next target of that bully. I'm assuming I feel alone in the fact that I don't like what's happening to this kid. I'm assuming the rest of the people in this crowd are enjoying this, and they like this. So if I stand up, I'm now going to be the victim of the bully. I'll be the next victim. If I feel like if I had been educated that... No, 99% of you don't want this. You don't want a tyrannical leader on the playground. Collectively, the power of a group is so powerful to all of us humans. If we get excluded from our group, we change our behavior in general, I think.

I agree. I think it's really important to point out that intervening directly is not always right for every person in every situation, just like it's not always right, maybe right in some circumstances, but to say to somebody, you have to stand up to a bully. It's just, again, it's that nuanced scenario. Yes. Because there are people who are equipped to do that socially and emotionally, and there are people who aren't. Some people can be endangered by by doing those sorts of things, which is why I think with upstanding behavior, it's really important for people to recognize you don't have to be the person who stands up to the bully. You can still be effective. I mean, that's for me. For me, my focus is the target's experience. How do we get that person from feeling shame and alone and sadness to feeling more okay fastest? That doesn't matter if you're by 15, 50. Social media, it's I mean, it's really come to map our underlying cultural beliefs. I mean, it's a lot of people... I think there was this thing I read recently. It was 60 or 70% of people think the internet is an online harassment is responsible for this corrosion of civility.

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

Right. You can't see the hurt that you've just caused.

And so people tend to devolve into the worst versions of themselves, but there are ways to not do that.

I'm always most interested in tackling problems where the river starts, not as it feeds into the ocean. So I think there is a much bigger global question, which why are there so many people sitting in their rooms on a computer a computer that have no control in their life and feel like they need to overpower someone else to get a sense of control? What is the societal bigger problem that we're not addressing in children that they would even land them there? That's a pretty hard one to tackle.

I think a big threat of that is connection. There's this vicious cycle that's happened with online behavior around we do that thing of we compare our insides to other people's sides. I'm on Instagram, privately, Twitter, publicly, and constantly, constantly feeling like everyone else is happier, thinner, wealthier, more in love, all of those things.

Eating better meals.

Right, exactly. Doing better Instagram. Let's not forget the meta. We also find connection there. Young people, I think it's over 40% find more connection from social media, but then they also feel disconnected in ways. Yeah, lonelier than ever. Right. I think what happens is it's It's this weird thing where at the same time that we're thirsty for more connection, the ways we're finding connection are also trying to tell us that we're less than. It's a very complicated back and forth struggle.

Well, and we've had experts on here that have explained that oxytocin is not released unless you're looking at the person's face. All these chemical things that are associated with connection actually can't exist in a virtual connection. They're not happening. And so ultimately feeling lonely, even though they're distracted enough to not feel lonely.

But they're also getting dopamine hits when the like, things come in and likes come in and stuff. So it is a weird balance of- Yeah.

I mean, I think it's great that we're seeing some of the social media companies finally start to address some of these issues. I have a big fear that social media is going to end up like the cable networks, that if we don't find a way to actually coexist in these social spaces with very different, polarized viewpoints, we will splinter off, and then we'll end up siloed in the same way as Fox News and all the other stations. I think we're being given an opportunity. I'm not saying it is great, and I know how challenging it is for people who are targets of these things, but we are being given an opportunity online to try to find ways to bridge the divide of perspective. Yeah.

The thing I most admire about you, and I'm so impressed by, is that you have taken one of, again, the most horrific scarlet letterings of all time. I have to imagine part of you has felt very fearful of ever even talking about it in fear of breathing oxygen into something that you just want to be over with in your life. But I think your willingness to do it in your bravery isn't for me, and it's not for any of those people that was arguing, but it's for all these people who have gone through this and are seeing that it didn't break somebody. I can't imagine a stronger example of someone persevering than you. It's incredible the fact that you still pursued your education and that you started a business and that you started a philanthropic endeavor. I mean, all these things, it's rare to see someone not be broken by that. And I think it's just-Oh, I'm broken. Okay.

Let's be really clear. I'm still very broken. Okay.

Well, functionally broken.

Exactly. Yeah. Not shattered Not share the pieces.

Not shattered to pieces. I just think the power of you being honest about your story is so valuable. I hope you can take on some of the credit you deserve. I hope you're proud of yourself.

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

You must have people reach out to you all the time and share with you how you've helped them.

I hope. I mean, that's... Look, we'd like to shit all over social media, but that's also one of the beauties of social media, too, is that we do get to hear from people. We do get to connect in ways that we wouldn't otherwise.

You can find your tribe in a way you can ever could.

Absolutely. Sure. I mean, there's so... I mean, and think about there are a lot of political movements. The Women's March wouldn't have been able to happen that fast. Yeah. You know, #Me22.0. I mean, Tarana Burke started it 10 years ago, but social media and changed that into something different. It became a louder voice and coalesced faster because of it.

Well, like all things, it's not binary. It's not good or bad.

It's everything, right? But of course, that's the world we live in.

Yes.

Lacks nuance and context.

The inclination is to get rid of something or embrace it and shut the fuck up about it. But really, no, there's a whole process where we can refine things.

I also think that there are, hopefully, the platforms will come to places where they'll be instituting mechanisms to help alleviate those kinds of scenarios, too. Yeah.

It's really hard to imagine, but all of this, as you pointed out earlier, is driven by economic models. So everyone feels insignificant. We live in a country of 300 million people. You feel like you're insignificant, but if you click on the shitty article and if you watch the video-We control the algorithm.

We do. We are in charge of that algorithm.

It's hard to imagine, but we will steer the ship.

Yeah. Did you see Jaron? I always get his last name wrong. Jaron Lanier? Lanier? No. Lanier. He gave a really interesting TED Talk last year, and he's been involved in the the Internet, and he made this argument, we went right when we should have gone left at the point of, should the Internet have been subscription-based or ad-based? You can also see that there are, of course, then there are the financial hierarchy issues if it were to have been subscription-based. But I think that a lot of where we are is because we have, without realizing it, made these agreements of our clicking, our data, that these are the new commodities. He argues that it's not too late to turn back, and I think we should really be looking and exercising all options.

Yeah. There's a lot of different people right now in the different political races that are suggesting or pointing out that, No, this is a public utility, and we probably should be treating it as such, and it should be available to everyone. It should be democratized, and we shouldn't rely on Nabisco to bring it to us. We should just pony up as a society, probably, and have the version we want. I see the validity of that argument. What's next for you?

It's October is Bullying Prevention Month. Every year for the last two years, and we will be doing this year, BBDO, New York, and I have done a campaign for Bullying Prevention Month, which we launch usually in the first few days of October.

Okay. Well, I'm really delighted that we became Twitter friends, I think, is for how it started. Yeah. Again, I've been a long time admirer of you and happy to see you still thriving in the way you are. It's incredibly impressive, and I'm in awe of it. And I'm glad I got to talk to you. Yeah. All right. Cool. Now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate, Monica Padman. Monica. Monica. I think I want your number. Monica. La, la, da, da, da. Monica.

Oh, my God. You had a lot of energy for that one.

I exploded because we're coming hot off of a taco order.

You know what I'm realizing? What? That song was not about me, was it?

No, it was about you guys. Yeah. Because this is the Monica's episode.

Yeah, it is. This was a great episode.

You loved it?

Yeah. Me too. Me too. I feel very grateful that she trusted us to share her story.

Me too. Me, too. I've always, always liked her.

Yeah. And we've gotten to know her. Even in the height of everything.

Yes.

We've gotten to know her through this process, and she's so lovely.

She really is a sweet, sweet human being.

Yeah.

Yeah. I like her a lot. Me too.

Me too. And strong.

Yeah. Yeah. Fucking resilient. Never in my wildest dreams as a child watching that whole thing unfold did I think, oh, maybe one day she'll sit on a couch across from me and we can really connect about this.

I talk about it. I know. Yeah.

I know. It's a wild, wild world.

I wonder what the percentage is of people who then felt a lot of judgment if they still do. Yeah. So much has changed since then.

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

Wow.

Anywho, I do remember blaming the person, but it is ironic because you're not in a relationship with the other person.

I know. It's so complicated.

But anyways, I do think that she may have, for some percentage of the population, represented their biggest fear. Definitely. That some young, attractive woman would lead their husband astray.

It is true. It's often, not always, of course, but it's often the man who cheats on his wife. And yeah, the woman who had an affair with him is the one that generally gets the blame. The other woman. The other woman. I try not to say that because it's so cliché.

But even that has connotations, right?

Exactly. And that person gets ostracized, and that person... And often, the husband and wife end up reconciling. So the husband ends up really not feeling the weight of anything, and that other person ends up feeling everything. That, to me, is extremely unfair.

Well, yeah, the husband or the wife, in whatever case, everyone cheats. I think it's pretty-Exactly.

Well, that's true.

I think it's pretty... The even. I think the numbers are even. You think? Esther Porel suggests that, yes. That they're even? Yeah, because who are they fucking? Single people. Well, no, you've got a stagnant... The same percentage of women are married as men because they're marrying each other. The statistics are the Well, no.

That men are cheating more than women, I would say, probably.

I don't think so. Really? No, I think just as many married women are having affairs as married men.

Rob, add it to the list.

Add it to the list. I think that's true. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare. Esther says something that's been universally reviled and universally practiced. Totally. Yeah. I don't think it's a male/female thing. I think, historically, there's men were in the vast majority of positions of power were men. So you're aware of all of the men's famous indiscretions, but maybe if there were way more famous, powerful women, you'd be aware of those indiscretions.

Maybe. I...

Maybe you're right, though, because I'm sure there are, what it's cheating. So sure, I bet men are going to massage parlors a lot more than women to get relieved. I don't think women maybe are shopping for orgasms as readily as married men. Yeah.

I mean, I'm just... Look at stereotypical married couples. I would say, stereotypically, don't get mad at me, everyone. The man wants more sex than the woman. Often.

Not always.

But I think-but often.

Well, here's what I think it is. I think both people... Well, I think the woman wants the same amount of sex, but with a different person. We all want novelty. That's what it is. Sure. Everyone's desiring novelty. And I don't think it's male or female. We want novelty. Now, are men acting on it more? Conventionally, traditionally, were they out in the world where they had unobserved time that they could probably cheat? Was the system, did it cater more to that? Probably. If you're a woman at home raising kids, Yes. I don't know who you're meeting, but I do think... I just think people have affairs. Yeah, they do. I think men and women both have affairs. Yeah, they do. But anyway, you're right. Whoever cheated can be forgiven and reincorporated in your life, and the other person, the other woman, the other man, occupies that. There's no redemption for them. I know. It doesn't feel equal.

It doesn't feel fair, no. Yeah.

It was enormously unfair. Yeah, that's obvious. He kept his job, kept his position in the world. But by the way, I want to be clear. I don't think that he should have... No, he's alleged to have done other things that I have no defense of. But let's just say this was an extramarital affair. I don't think the solution would be he should have been shamed the way she was. No, I don't either. No. I think she should have gotten the treatment he did. I agree. I don't think either party needs to be sent to Siberia.

I agree. But I think the part of this conversation that doesn't get talked about very much, which she touched on a little bit, which is she was like, part of what was so awful is this public presentation that it was a servicing relationship. And she was like, it was a mutual relationship. And I don't think that part gets talked about where it's like she's in a relationship with the person. She on top of this public thing, there's, I'm sure, a private heartbreak.

Yeah. Of course. Yeah.

She's not allowed to feel. Right. And that is not fair.

Right. Yeah.

I agree. Anyway.

The whole thing is a bummer.

Yeah, it I know.

And a lot of people go like, Oh, you guys feel so bad for two people who cheated. But I do. I do. I feel bad when people make mistakes. I know. I've made a ton of mistakes. I continue to make mistakes. I'll make more. Yeah. And I don't think I met anyone that's not making mistakes. I've just met people who are better at hiding their mistakes.

Yeah.

Okay, yes. She was trying to find the verbiage for this quote. She said, The tallest poppy gets cut off first. Hearst, but it's called Tall Popy Syndrome.

Oh, Tall Popy Syndrome. Yes. I'm a tall poppy.

You are a tall poppy. It describes aspects of a culture where people of high status are resented, attacked, cut down, strung up, or criticized because they've been classified as superior to their peers.

Yeah. We have the weirdest... I think about it all the time. I saw someone's Twitter handle was like, Abolish billionaires or something. And I was like, it is the weirdest thing that we all want this thing. In this country, we want to become wealthy and successful. And yet we, and I did, resent people who have done that.

And for many justified reasons and many unjustified reasons.

It's just this very weird thing. It's like we defend this system so passionately, and yet we're resentful of the people that have done that. It's all complicated.

Yes. I think we love... I mean, a lot of people have said this, but we love to see people rising.

We love to see them fall, too.

Because, again, like you just said, everyone makes mistakes, and so it feels related But also, I think if you're not at that level, you feel like, oh, it's actually not that good up there. There's something about it that feels comforting to you that you're not there because maybe when you get to that level, it's all shady and bad.

Requires some amoralness. Yeah. I think it's more, why is that person there and not me? I deserve that. They don't. So when they are found guilty of some indiscretion, it confirms that they didn't deserve it.

I know. I think that's a negative outlook on it, which it could very well be true. But I think it's a deeper psychological thing happening.

Which is very interesting. We have an entire system, and then no one really likes the outcome of the system. Yeah. Then I went down, of course, because now I'm on the other side of it, and I got really defensive when I saw this person, I'm not a billionaire, on Twitter, attacking that. Here I'm someone who has given millions of dollars to the government, millions of dollars to education, to all these services, to building bridges. So my contribution to the whole system that we're fighting for, be it Medicare or any other thing, requires people to generate a bunch of money so that they can give a bunch of it to the government. So it's a weird proposition to be resentful at the people who are giving a tremendous amount of money to this system that you want to see more services of. So when I see abolished billionaires, it's like, well, how about abolish some things you don't like about billionaires? But if someone is And some human being figures out how to make a mousetrap, Apple, and it generates a trillion dollars, and half of that goes to this system. Why is that antithetical to what you want?

Currently, our system, some of the richest people pay no taxes.

Well, that's a big issue. Right. I'm just saying, let's be specific about it. But I'm saying when someone creates the iPhone and it sells several hundred million, and then that puts a half trillion dollars into fund that builds roads and educates kids, be careful that that's what you want to get rid of. It's some source of profound wealth that does get redistributed. Now, you could say, I want to see the distribution of billionaires be at 70 %. That's fine. But just the very notion of abolish billionaires is just a little weird when what we need is money for all these services.

Right. But I wonder if this is like, is this like lunch four times a week with your boss? Have you seen just a Abolish billionaires, period, and then nothing more?

This is one woman who was mad at me that I said, Preach to Ellen for saying be kind to everyone.

Okay. Right. Again, so one person is saying that.

I'm only talking to that person, but I think there's a good amount of people.

I mean, the side of the argument I have heard has not been abolish billionaires. It's been they need to pay for...

They need to pay a high percentage because they don't need that much money.

Yeah. Okay, well, you said you don't know what the number is, but probably 50% of people were getting cheated on that year, that year being 1998, but there's no staff for that.

There's not. No.

I mean, they're campy. It's a wild guess. Exactly. They're just campy. They're not be. No. Cyberbullying, she said one in 10. According to cyberbullying statistics from the I+Safe Foundation, over half of adolescents and teens have been bullied online, and about the same number have engaged in cyberbullying. More than one in three young people have experienced cyber threats online. Over 25% of adolescents and teens have been bullied repeatedly through cell phones or the Internet. Well, over half of young people do not tell their parents when cyberbullying occurs.

I had a weird feeling watching Joker. I really want you to watch it.

So we can really unpack it.

But I always have these weird thoughts that are super contrary to what I traditionally think. And one of them was... So it's set in the '70s in New York. And he's like any one of these shooters or any number of people we now know we have a ton of in this society. And I was looking at life in the '70s on that bus. He's riding a bus around and stuff, and there's nothing to distract him from his mania. And I was thinking, like, conventionally, I think, I hate video games. What a waste of time. Yeah. Well, let's just get rid of video games, right? But I was like, oh, there are a bunch of people who are angst-ridden about this system that exclud them. And I was like, are these things maybe make our world safer? If you can give some angst-ridden somebody a joystick and they can blow people away for four hours on a video game does that keep them from acting, or does that satiate, or is that an outlet for their frustration? Is this device that constantly keeps you engaged, which I think of as negative sometimes? Is this positive? Do most terrible things things stem from boredom?

Is maybe- No.

No? I totally don't think so. Okay. Well, one, because there's been only a rise in these types of behaviors, especially these mass shootings and stuff, since Well, definitely mass shootings.

Yeah. But the murder rate is precipitously down. It's been falling since the '70s.

Yeah, but I'm not talking like gang-related. That's what that stuff is.

And it's a guy finds out his girlfriend fucked another dude, and he drives over and shoots him and her. I mean, just murder overall is down.

Yeah. All these types of unconventional shootings and depression rates are up. I mean, all these things are... Everything's on worse since the invention of phones and video games and all those things. So no, I don't think it-You don't think it's an outlet for people?

Because there was a very conventional argument against pornography, that it would lead to more rape and stuff. And then there were many people who who had studies that said, no, porn is an outlet, and they actually will jerk off watching the porn, and then their likelihood of going out and being a predator goes down because they have an outlet for it. So I'm not planting a flag in either side of that debate. But I guess what occurred to me is you could make an argument that this stuff satiates people's angst.

But I don't think you can make the argument. Oh, you can. Because all this stuff has gotten worse. Angst-wise, if you're talking about people who feel entitled and act out because of it. All that stuff has gotten way worse. Yeah. And depression just has gotten way worse.

And isolation. Yeah. Isolation.

Yeah. So Okay, so we talk about gossip a little bit. There's an interesting NPR article about gossip. Gossip can help solidify personal relationships and encourage cooperation. Children engage in this form of gossip by age five. One provocative view comes from anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who argues that gossip is the human analog of social grooming, which is widely practiced by our primate cousins. Through gossip, we can create and maintain social bonds more efficiently, allowing us to form groups of larger sizes. These suggestions about the benefits of gossip for cooperation correspond to a special subset of gossip, what's recently been called prosocial gossip. Pro-social gossip involves sharing negative judgments about a third party, but where the shared information could protect the recipient from antisocial behavior or exploitation. Thus, gossiping about who cheats at cards or who's likely to shirk at a responsibility would qualify as pro-social gossip. Researchers Jan Ingelman, Esther Herman, and Michael Tomasello of the Max Planck-Planck? The Max-The word requires a different voice. Planck? Of the Max Planck Plank. I can't... Is it Plank? It wouldn't be Plank. P-l-a-n-c-k.

Plank.

Plank. Plank. Plank.

I don't know. That's the wrong guy, but yeah, that sounds- Institute.

Plank.

Plank.

For evolutionary Anthropology, studied prosocial gossip in both three and five-year-olds. To create an opportunity for such gossip, they had the children play a game. Children who participated in the study first played with two puppets, one of which was more generous than the other. A second child then came in to play the game with just one of the two puppets, and the researchers observed whether the first child gossiped about the puppet, offering a social evaluation that could help the second child decide which puppet to choose. For example, if a child said, You should play with the green puppet because the yellow puppet is stingy and doesn't share enough tokens. That would be classified as prosocial gossip. The researchers found that most children in both age groups offered some guidance about which puppet to choose, but the three-year-olds very rarely offered evaluation to go along with it. For instance, they might recommend one puppet over the other, but they wouldn't go on to explain that it was because that puppet was generous or because the other puppet cheated. The five-year-olds, by contrast, offered such evaluations about half the time. They went beyond a mere recommendation to a social judgment to the claim that might make or break an individual's reputation.

So that's why they got the three to five number. Yeah. Yeah.

And the one I think I brought up, right, was the explanation I heard was like, to keep it a democracy. Yes. Yeah. It seems beneficial, too.

Yeah. There's some positives.

Look, I think for me, it's very easy to answer. There's some gossip I feel hung over from, and there's some I don't. Yeah, exactly. It's really that. If I'm warning somebody, don't tell so and so a secret. They're not good at keeping secrets. I feel totally fine about that. I'm saying something negative about the person, but whatever. But if I'm just pointing out someone's shirt was stupid, I feel shitty.

I know why. Yeah. I think for me, it's about purpose. What is the purpose of talking about this? Is the purpose of talking about it to dissect it, to understand more, to- Well, it is to connect a lot, too, right?

Because if you and I meet, whatever, some stranger and we're interacting, and then afterwards I go, did you realize that guy said herpes a lot? And you go, yes. I noticed that there's some bonding between us that we both observe this thing. We're not crazy in our thoughts or isolated in our thoughts. We're confirmed that on the right path.

I think that's what a lot of gossip is, but generally, that gossip is the kind I don't love. I mean, that example is so benign, but the shirt is bad. Is that?

Yes. It's the same Is it really to make someone lower?

It is, or it's the connection thing. Did you notice his shirt was all wrinkled up? Why is his shirt so wrinkly?

Is he not on an iron?

Oh my God. Do you think he doesn't have any money? Because he doesn't. I even iron his I love.

He's a dart bag.

He smells bad, too. They are seeking connection, but I- Don't want to connect on that level.

But by the way, a lot of times when people initiate some gossip with me about one of those things, I think for the most part, I generally don't think about those things. I don't care about those things. Right. So when they try to connect with me, they don't get a connection out of it.

I agree with that now in my adult life, but I think I probably spent many, many, many conversations just Just pretending like I noticed that so I could feel inside. Right. Yeah.

And so- Well, I do it to you all the time. No, you don't. Yeah. We're watching TV, and I'm like, God, have you noticed how big this guy's tongue is?

I know, but I don't think you do that. I mean, you do do that about tongues. I don't think you talk poorly about people for no reason.

For a sport? Yeah. For entertainment? No. No.

Well, I love you.

That's all I love you. That's all. I'll gossip with you about things that could save you, okay? Okay. And if we notice someone says herpes indiscriminately- We can talk about it. Yes. You know how many times he said herpes?

But then we'd be like, Sure. He said herpes a lot.

And then there's- Should we offer him a screening?

A follow-off conversation of like, oh my God, he's so confident to be doing that. And why is he so... Wondering why. That to me is fine. That's just exploring. But just being like, eeu.

He had flakes in his eyebrows.

Yeah. Eew. That's what people say about me sometimes. That's what you're worried about. No one says that. No one says that.

All right. I love you. And I loved Monica Lewinsky. Me too. I don't know that I met Monica. I didn't like a lot.

Oh my God. Yeah. Even though we found out you hate this, but the name means- I do. The name means alone and also advice giver, which both of those things I think apply to myself. You disagree. I disagree. We'll talk about it on the next back. Okay.

Love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the WNDYRI app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wundri. Com/s/survey.