Episode 296: Loving Pound Cake

Summary

Blocked and Reported - Episode 296: Loving Pound Cake

Release Date: February 23, 2026
Hosts: Katie Herzog & Jesse Singal

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Katie and Jesse dive into a bizarre and poignant internet saga about a supposedly obese, hairless Sphynx cat named Pound Cake and the AI-fueled drama that played out across Reddit. They use this story as a lens to reflect on how generative AI is disrupting online reality, personal interactions, journalism, and internet scams, and they grapple with what’s lost when no one can tell what's real anymore.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Opening Banter & Personal Updates (00:10–05:27)

• Katie gives an update on her ant infestation and jokes about sleeping in her van during the extermination.
• Jesse reminisces about Twitter personas like Arthur Chu and Ian Miles Chong, highlighting how online notoriety can be fleeting and divisive.
• Shout-out to Jana for her appearance on a previous episode, with Katie joking about recruiting her as a cohost.
• Jesse talks about prepping to drive into snowy Tahoe; Katie gives (questionable) advice about snow chains.

“I think the Deep State will keep funding BlueSky just as like sort of a containment mechanism.”
— Jesse, 02:37

2. Rolling Into the Main Story: AI’s Growing Influence (05:28–08:36)

• The main story is introduced: AI’s ability to distort perceptions and emotions online.
• Jesse observes that AI discourse floods his social feeds and reflects on the “rapidest like change” technology-wise in his lifetime.
• Katie reports her interactions with ChatGPT, noting how much it has improved in handling editing tasks over the past year.
• Brief tangent about a viral story of a Cleveland newspaper editor who asked reporters to submit notes while AI writes the article drafts, triggering existential anxieties for writers.

“For me, like, I got into journalism because I want to be a writer. Yeah, that's it. Like…the writing, it’s really less about the reporting. For me, it’s about the writing. And that seems just awful.”
— Katie, 10:29

3. Reddit: Structure, Culture, and Context (10:59–18:47)

• Jesse reflects on his nearly two-decade Reddit history, noting how Reddit has evolved from a niche nerd forum to a massive cultural force with over a billion users.
• Katie reads her own eclectic list of subscribed subreddits and Jesse talks about Reddit’s unique anti-social, topic-centric design.
• The content-over-identity approach to Reddit is highlighted, along with the consequences for connection and civility.
• Brief discussion of moderation, politics, and rumors about infamous figures (e.g., Ghislaine Maxwell) being Reddit “power mods.”

“Reddit is deliberately topic centric rather than person centric…The content matters more than who posted, which reduces clout chasing and influencer dynamics.”
— Katie (reading from Claude’s summary), 16:08

4. Introducing Pound Cake: The Saga of the Fat Sphynx Cat (18:47–26:33)

• The main story unfolds: On the R/Sphynx subreddit, a new user (“practical intern 735”) begins posting about her recently rescued, morbidly obese Sphynx cat named Pound Cake.
• Katie and Jesse joke about Sphynx cats’ unsettling appearance (“they look like wrinkly ball sacks”) and share a voice note from friends Mike & Michelle Pesca about the joys and oddities of owning Sphynx cats.
• The show discusses the cat’s health woes (osteoporosis, ligament rupture, limited mobility) and how “practical intern 735” turned to Reddit for advice and support.

“Sphynx cats are hairless cats. And there's no nice way to put this—they look like wrinkly ball socks.”
— Katie, 21:08

5. The Internet Rallies: Emotional Investment & Escalation (26:33–35:56)

• Practical intern 735’s frequent photo/video updates turn Pound Cake into a minor celebrity. The wider Sphynx and cat Reddit communities express enormous empathy (and some skepticism).
• The saga gains traction: Pound Cake is depicted as suffering mightily—partially blind, unable to walk, and likely facing euthanasia.
• Redditors offer advice and sometimes fierce criticism, as threads about Pound Cake spill over into r/cats and meta discussions about how real or healthy this animal might be.
• The outpouring peaks with a tearful, emotional announcement of Pound Cake’s death.

“Rest in Peace Pound Cake. You were so weird the whole time. I'll miss your freak ass forever.”
— PracticalIntern735, 36:32

6. The Twist: AI Fakery, Betrayal, and Confession (40:40–47:49)

• The next day, a Redditor posts that Pound Cake is a hoax: all photos and videos had been lifted from viral, AI-generated TikTok content or stock images of fat Sphynx cats.
• Widespread disbelief is followed by anger and grief among fans who cried or otherwise emotionally invested in Pound Cake’s story.
• A bizarre postscript: speculation arises that the person who exposed the hoax is the same person who ran the hoax—a performance art-style self-exposure.
• The user (practical intern 735 / automatic ship 7835) deletes their accounts, but not before taunting their victims:

  "You're literally the exact type of person I made up Pound Cakes to torture... Not to be the pot calling the kettle black, but get a life. Or at least I know I have one. I only got Reddit to do this."
  — AutomaticShip7835, 47:24

7. What Does It All Mean: AI, Emotion, and the Future of Online Reality (47:49–54:32)

• Katie and Jesse reflect on why someone would run such a hoax (not for money, just karma and attention).
• Increasing difficulty in distinguishing real from fake becomes a recurring theme, with the hosts discussing generative AI’s infiltration into social platforms, fake accounts, and storytelling.
• They cite a Wired report estimating half the content on Reddit may now be AI-generated or tweaked.
• Katie expresses concern about the “hollowing out” of the internet, and how the proliferation of fakes will particularly harm vulnerable, lonely individuals—and the ease with which scams and deceptions can now operate.
• AI-driven OnlyFans, scams, “looksmaxxing,” and digital alienation form a kind of bleak punchline for the future.

“...pretty soon we're not going to know if anything is real...about half the content on Reddit is already either generated by AI or tweaked about it.”
— Jesse, 48:56

“A year from now, the Internet could mostly be just AI agents talking to each other.”
— Katie, 50:07

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You're just mercurial. You need time alone. You like to groom yourself rather than—”
  “I lick myself clean.”
  — Jesse & Katie, on Katie's cat-like nature (20:20)
• “I cried yesterday over Pound Cake, so now Pound Cake never really existed? What the fuck?”
  — Redditor, 41:13
• “You're literally the exact type of person I made up Pound Cakes to torture... since you choose to do this with your time, you get tormented.”
  — The hoaxer’s confession, 47:24
• The show ends with warnings about AI “in the woods” and a joke:
  “If we ever start pronouncing names correctly, then, you know, we've been taken over.”
  — Katie, 56:39

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 05:28 — Main theme introduction: AI’s impact on reality and emotion
• 10:59 — Reddit’s unique culture & mechanics
• 18:47 — Beginning of the Pound Cake story
• 26:33 — Pound Cake saga heats up, medical drama, viral sympathy
• 35:56 — Pound Cake’s “death” and Reddit’s collective mourning
• 40:40 — The hoax revealed: AI-generated origin and possible self-exposure
• 47:49 — Broader reflections on AI fakery, scams, and reality erosion

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Episode Tone & Style

• Language/Tone: Sardonic, irreverent, self-deprecating, emotionally honest, marked by meta-internet and pop culture references.
• Approach: The hosts blend internet anthropological curiosity with gallows humor, using a ridiculous online tale to highlight much broader anxieties about authenticity and connection in the AI era.

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Final Takeaway

The tale of Pound Cake—a possibly AI-generated, definitely not-real, viral fat cat—is emblematic of how fast generative AI is eroding shared notions of truth, reality, and trust on the internet. In a future where everything (even our emotional attachments) can be faked or monetized, Jesse and Katie end this episode both amused and grimly aware of what might be lost: the ability to know, or even care, what’s real online.

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Links, show notes, and further discussion at:
www.blockedandreported.org

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

I gotta have it.

[A]

What do you gotta have?

[B]

Ants. Update. Tell me where the ants are. Are you currently tapped? If. If the ants have crawled inside your mouth and you can no longer form words, just pound on your mic.

[A]

I am not covered in ants. The ants seem to be. The genocide seems to be working. The ant. I think I can move back into my house now. I have not slept in my house in like week.

[B]

You've slept in one of your 12 other outbuildings.

[A]

Yeah, I slept in the. I slept in the van. Yeah. So I think we can move back into the. I can move back into the. Into the house, which is great news because it's getting cold. But after I made my aunt's confession, a couple of the commenters pointed out that it. How odd it was that you didn't bring up, you know, the two most famous men who were constantly covered in ants, Em All Strong and Arthur Chew. And I had also forgotten about their existence while I was telling you about my aunt problems. And I remembered it afterwards and I came extremely close to cutting that entire thing from the episode because I didn't want people to compare me to those two. But I'm. I'm brave. What can I say? I am brave.

[B]

You're. You're very similar to Arthur Chu. That. That was a name I hadn't thought of in a while.

[A]

I thought you were going to say someone like Amelia Earhart or Helen Keller or some like some other brave woman, but you said Arthur Chu.

[B]

You. I. That was a name I really hadn't thought of in a while. So I pulled up his long defunct Twitter page. Because he fled to Blue Sky, I assume, of course, it's real blast from the past. One of his most recent retweets from December 24, 2022. This is from America Reframed, a documentary channel in case you missed it. After an iconic game of Jeopardy launches him into stardom, Arthur chu puts his 15 minutes of fame to use to confront racism and sexism in the gaming community.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

In the Arthur Chu film now streaming.

[A]

We need to watch.

[B]

And on the PBS app. It was on pbs.

[A]

Wow. I wonder people like that who fled. I'm sure I have not looked into this, but I am willing to bet a thousand ants lies on it that he fled Twitter X because of Elon Musk, racism, et cetera. When Blue sky dies, which it will, do you think those people, all the people who are like, fuck Elon Musk, I'm out of here. Do you think they'll come calling back?

[B]

Well, I mean, Some of them have started to come back. I, I, I think in all likelihood, you know, I'm a big Deep State guy. I think the Deep State controls everything. I think the Deep State will keep funding Blue sky just as like sort of a containment mechanism.

[A]

Is it, is this a Soros project?

[B]

It's a Soros project. I'm, I'm curious. Do you think Arthur Chu and Ian Miles Chong at one point were like, well, you know, we're both Asian guys, we're both very online. I think one of us should be staunchly racist and one should be staunchly anti racist, and they just flip the coin and it could have gone down totally differently. Either way, one of us should be covered. Actually, both of us should be covered today. That's all the time.

[A]

Yeah, I guess. I mean, that must be how it happened. I can't imagine there any other explanation for it.

[B]

That must be it. Well, I'm sorry. Okay, wait, so you're winning the ant battle?

[A]

I'm winning the ant battle. I, I don't know about the war, but I'm winning the battle.

[B]

Can I say something earnest to you?

[A]

I guess, if you must.

[B]

Actually, to Jana. Will you pass this on to Jana?

[A]

I will, yeah. She's sitting right here. She, she always listens to the podcast while we're recording.

[B]

Hey, Jana, can you hear me?

[A]

She's talk. You can't hear her because, because headphones.

[B]

Oh, cuz you've got headphones on. No. Jada did an incredible job on, on the personals episode, and I meant to text the two, then I was like, that would be too nice. Yeah. You know, I don't want to, like, express actual emotions, but she's a natural at the podcasting thing.

[A]

She is totally a natural. And more than one person was like, her voice is so much better than Jesse and Katie's voices. I can't argue against that. It was true. I'm thinking of trying to recruit her onto the show. Like maybe sometime when you're gone, I'll do her as my guest, but I'll just tell her some online story and we'll just talk about it slowly. She'll just like, fall asleep as I'm telling her about it. It'll just be the sounds of her snores.

[B]

Thank you again to Jana. That was great.

[A]

Yeah, she was great.

[B]

Before we get into the meat, I, I do, I could just use your advice because I, as listeners know, I'm in California for a few months. One of the reasons I came out here is there's amazing skiing and they are about to be getting 6 to 8ft of snow in the part of Tahoe I'm going to. So I'm going to be trying to punch through this like one part of the drive where you gain 4,000ft or whatever. Wednesday morning you are. Well, I guess you don't drive. Why am I asking you about this? I should be asking Jan about this. I was gonna ask you how to survive this drive.

[A]

We should also note that we're. We're also recording this quite early. And every time we do this, there's some major world event happens, so Jesse has to ski. Sorry, it just had to be done early.

[B]

Yeah, well, also, because I. But also I might. I might, you know, die. And I want you to get the money from this last episode if I die.

[A]

Thank you. Do you have snow tires? That would be my advice for you.

[B]

Well, I don't have a car, but the car rented on Turo has snow tires and I have chains en route from Amazon.

[A]

Do you know how to put chains on? That would be my advice. Practice like, or at least read the directions first.

[B]

You know, in case I cause a crash. I don't want to say one way or another for liability purposes. Whether I've ever put chains on. I will say that I will enter the situation being prepared by that. Is it, is it something like a Katie Herzog type could figure out how to do?

[A]

Do you think I've ever put chains on no tires?

[B]

As Jana?

[A]

I'm sure she has.

[B]

Oh, God. All right, well, everyone wish me luck.

[A]

What are we talking about today?

[B]

Well, Katie, today's main story is about AI It's a tale of the way in which the specter of AI is messing with people's senses of reality and often as a result, their emotions. Now, I've been trying to figure out what to do about this because in the long run, I want to have more conversations on this show about AI because it's just everywhere. I mean, is your feed like mine where, like, it's just absolutely impossible to ignore these, like, very high stakes, overwrought conversations about AI whenever you log on

[A]

to anything, my feed is 100% Jeffrey Epstein. Okay, that's it. All Epstein.

[B]

Well, that's AI. AI wants you to think that.

[A]

Is this going to be a completely Epstein free episode?

[B]

Well, it was going to be until 10 seconds ago. Genuinely. It was for the first time. Should we talk more about the difference between hepophilia and pedophilia?

[A]

You know what? Let's. Let's save that for a Primo.

[B]

I'll include a link to the thread I put on the Primo substack. I basically ask people what aspect of this do you find interesting for bar pot? Because I struggle with it. Because like it's the. I think the most rapid like change in my lifetime, technology wise. In your lifetime. It's just hard to like know exactly how to approach it from a sufficiently bar potty angle. I don't know if this is too in the weeds, but it seems really important. But I don't really know what to think about it.

[A]

Right. I think a lot of people feel that way and this was one of, I think the. One of the things I really liked about Andy Mill's AI series.

[B]

The last. The last invention by Longview.

[A]

The last invention. He really lays out not just the stakes and how we got got here, but the sort of warring factions about what happens next.

[B]

Yeah but I'm. I'm honestly just talking more about how I feel like the way I use it in my day to day life is already very different from two months ago. I mean you use it. You're. You're in constant contact with Chad, right?

[A]

Constant, constant contact.

[B]

What do you talk to him about today?

[A]

I've been talking to him about head injuries, ants, always. But just as an example about how much better Chad is right now than last year. So I compile. We just got did our personals episode and last year when I compiled the, the responses I took them all from a, from a Google form. It gets dropped into a spreadsheet and then I take that and like the first year I edited it by like formatted and edited by hand. It was a huge PA in the ass. Last year I dump it into chat GPT and I asked it to format everything for me and it, what it spit out was half hallucinations and the hallucinations themselves were actually pretty hilarious. Like half of them were jokes about like non binary polycules in Portland. It had all these made up email addresses. When I did it this year it was perfect. There was no hallucination. I mean there was still. I had to like do some manual formatting and stuff like that. But it's very. It's much better at the copy paste function than it used to be, if nothing else.

[B]

Yeah, I mean I just. There's so many daily use cases where it strikes me as really helpful. I mean oftentimes replace it frankly replacing human labor, which is one of the things people are worried about.

[A]

Before we get into it. Did you see this? This was floating around Twitter this, this article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer about an editor there.

[B]

No. What do you do or she do?

[A]

Okay, okay. So the tweet that I saw reads, imagine being a bright eyed J school grad eagle eager to launch your reporting career. And the editor of Cleveland's Metro Daily puts you on blast for wanting to be a journalist instead of an AI content farmer. And this guy, the guy who posted that, his name's Sam Allard. And he, he posted a link to a cleveland.com article including a couple of excerpts, screenshots from it. And this editor at the paper says, let me just read you a bit because we want reporters gathering information. These jobs are 100% reporting. We have an AI rewrite specialist who turns their material into drafts. We fact check everything. Editors review it. Reporters get the final say. Humans, not AI, control every step. But then he. So they're taking the, the writing off of the reporters. So if you're at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, presumably you go and you basically dump your notes in your interviews and transcripts or whatever into a, into an LLM and, and it generates an article for you. And you know, on the one hand I can see some, you know, for efficiency sake that would let. Because writing is so much of, so such a, basically a time suck when it comes to producing actual, like the writing is a time suck. You could spend a lot more time investigating and doing.

[B]

So a lot of, a lot of like old school journalists are really bad writers too. This has always been a thing that's totally true.

[A]

So on the one hand, I can see from an editor's perspective why this would be, be a game changer in a good way. But for me, like, I got into journalism because I want to be a writer. Yeah, that's, that's it. Like the writing, it's, it's really less about the reporting. For me, it's about the writing. And that seems just awful.

[B]

Awful. It's weird that they're saying it out loud. Also of all the things that like

[A]

take up, I think it's good they're saying out loud.

[B]

It's. Well, yeah, but also of all the things that take a lot of time, like in the process of doing journalism, I just don't put writing, especially newspaper writing, is not that time consuming. It's, this is, I mean, it's interesting. It's weird. I see why people are freaking out about it because it's like, oh, the machine's writing it now, huh? Yeah. I don't know what to think about that.

[A]

Yeah. All right. What did you what were we talking about? What did you want to say?

[B]

We're talking about a story. We're talking about a story today, Katie. It comes from Reddit. I want to talk a little bit about Reddit first. This is terrifying to admit, but, Katie, guess how many years I've had a Reddit account for?

[A]

30.

[B]

That's offensive. No, I've had one for, for 19 years. So, like, since. Right.

[A]

I was not that far off.

[B]

Yeah, actually not. I don't think it's been around for 30 years or. When was it launched? Whatever. When I was first using it, it was really this niche nerdy thing, and it's become sort of a cultural juggernaut in a way that I feel like a lot of people don't realize because, like, it's easy to overlook it in part because it's like, very esthetically. What's the word? Ugly, bland. Like, it's just wall after wall of tech. I mean, are you ever. Are you on there much?

[A]

Yeah, I have a feed. I, I. Let's see. You want to see my, Want to see who I follow on Reddit?

[B]

Can you follow people? You mean which?

[A]

Well, not people, but yeah. Okay. My subreddits are aging parents, real estate. God, I feel old. Lesbian Red scare pod. Oh, pairs. I don't know how I got into au pairs. Like for moose hygiene, ass docs, Asheville.

[B]

Sorry, what's poverty, finance?

[A]

Ask doctors. It's just for proctologies. Yeah, yeah. Trusted house sitters, renters, Hawaiian Mormon snark. Am I the breaking mom? Jewish executive assistant subreddit drama, New York Times games. That's pretty much it. And some AI. AI. You know, boyfriend, girlfriend ones.

[B]

I. My I. The one I talked about mentioned just now that I've had 19 years is not under my name. The one I have under J. Single. I don't, I mean, I don't remember subscribing to it, but it did get subscribed to, like, the XX women's one. I don't remember.

[A]

You don't remember doing that?

[B]

I don't. I don't remember.

[A]

You were hacked. Being honest, I was probably the same person who hacked Joy Reid.

[B]

The weird thing is one out. And I think someone on one of the feminist subreddits pointed this out recently, but, like, on XX chromosomes. A creepy.

[A]

I thought you meant like xxx.

[B]

Oh, no, not xxx. Xx chromosomes. Like 2x. Sorry. 2x chromosomes is the name of the women's subreddit.

[A]

But, like, yeah, you got it.

[B]

So there's like, all sorts of Stuff that like, whatever. But then like it seems like one out of four posts are just like. I don't know how to say this, but outside of gross. But it's like, do any other of the women on here notice that during sex your just gets way too wet all the time and you just love getting. And it's just so obviously dudes and the percentage of them on the women's subreddit makes me feel bad. I'm just trying to say I'm a feminist is what I'm getting at with this.

[A]

You might not want to say that because as soon as you declare yourself a feminist or a male ally, that's when you know you're about to get

[B]

me to just a cavalcade of victims of something I did. Yeah, I don't know why these show up on my front page. I did not sign up. Anyway, Reddit, it like sort of runs the Internet a little bit. People who use Google to answer their questions will often get Reddit posts as their top search results. If you use ChatGPT.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, and that's a, that's a, like if you were searching for, if I'm searching for reviews of a product, I always look at Reddit because until recently it was harder for brands to like you, to like what's, what would be the word Advertiser? No, not, not advertise, but like fake reviews.

[B]

Oh yeah, I know what you mean. Like, yeah, it's like you look at

[A]

Amazon and there's a million fake reviews and you check the same product on Reddit and presumably you would get genuine reviews. But now you can use AI to generate shit on Reddit too.

[B]

Well, and speaking of AI, like, one of the reasons Reddit is sort of unavoidable is it has produced a huge amount of text that the LLMs train on. So if you use ChatGPT, the response you're getting is probably like often regurgitated Reddit for better or worse. And yeah, Reddit does not come up as much like in our discourse about social media, but by one estimate it has over a billion monthly active users, which is quite large. So part of the reason it's weird Reddit has gotten so successful is just like it's this sort of anti social form of social media when you post something. I think a lot of our listeners have used it, maybe some haven't. When, when you, if you post something, it gets downvoted, it sort of makes the thread invisible and then comments threads often spiral off in this really hard to follow ways. It's just like not intuitive. And unlike old school forums, Reddit just makes it almost like by design it's harder to build connections with other individual posters. Many if you sign up, Reddit will actually suggest a username with this weird adjective, noun, number format. And a lot of Reddit users will just take the sort of generic name that's suggested for them. So they don't have the cat sketchiness of sciencing by or J single 69 so there'll be conversations between like gentle ramen 983 and eloquent stiletto 72 and I was running some of this episode by Claude just to like check a few things and it said something interesting. Katie, please read this because I think it sums up Reddit nicely.

[A]

Reddit is deliberately topic centric rather than person centric. You follow subreddits, not people. That does make it harder to build personal connections, but it's also arguably what makes it work so well. The content matters more than who posted, which reduces clout chasing and influencer dynamics. Whether that's a bug or a feature depends on what you think social media is for.

[B]

Huh.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, do you see I'm trying to think. I don't know that I've ever heard of like a Reddit pile on. I'm sure it happens within subreddits, but this thing that sort of like leaves containment and like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And someone's actual life, it's. It's also just a lot more anonymous than something like Twitter or Facebook or Instagram.

[B]

Yeah. I think usually when some, when like a story from Reddit breaks out, it has more to do with just like what's being discussed than who's discussing it.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

I mean there's exceptions to this. Like we read it does tend to lean left. That hasn't always been the case. Like way back in 2020, I think we talked about 2000 subreddits were banned for basically having questionable politics, including the Donald, which definitely helped turn Trump into a sort of modern meme. Also, a large number of gender critical subs were banned. We've. There is this also thing where like Reddit super moderators, the people who run individual subreddit can really sort of take over and ruin a given subreddit from the inside.

[A]

Are we going to talk about Ghislaine? No, we got. That's not. Let's not talk about it.

[B]

Ghislaine Maxwell.

[A]

Maxwell.

[B]

What'd she do?

[A]

She was a Reddit power mod.

[B]

I'm. I actually miss this. She is on which mods Okay, I

[A]

don't think any of this is confirmed, but okay, she.

[B]

So this is all confirmed, but.

[A]

So she. The rumor is that she was a power mod on world news.

[B]

Well, she was a power model on world news in a sense.

[A]

Technology, politics, science, Europe, uplifting news, celebrities, and more. Okay, again, this, again, this is. I think, I think these subreddits have variously denied them, but there is an account that people have tied to her, and it hasn't posted, like, basically since she's been in prison.

[B]

Can I, Can I do a brief defense of Julian Maxwell, please? Please. In one narrow sense. It's just so awesome that she gets moved to this lower security prison and just treated with kid gloves. She gets all these special benefits and then she's called to testify and she just takes a fifth on everything. It doesn't cooperate at all. I mean, you got to give her some credit for, like, the extent to which she can manipulate the MAGA people. It's just, it's insane.

[A]

Feminist icon.

[B]

Anyway.

[A]

All that in a mentor.

[B]

I find Reddit really interesting. That's why I gave that background information. But today's Reddit story is very specific to one community. It's the tale of a cat with a weight problem.

[A]

So, okay, a fat cat.

[B]

I was gonna say, what is your stance on fat cats? Or as I call them, the fat cats in Washington?

[A]

All cats should be fat. I. If I see a cat, I want it to be a fat cat.

[B]

Do you? But you're a dog girl and a horse girl. You don't like cats?

[A]

Not, no. You're a horse girl.

[B]

I'm a horse guy.

[A]

I am not. I am not a. A cat girl.

[B]

Yeah, why not?

[A]

Never been. Why? I don't have much experience with them. One lived with me briefly for a little while. I named it Kitty Pursog. I renamed it Kitty Person.

[B]

Wait, that's your email address, too?

[A]

That's not my email address. It's my Twitter name.

[B]

How did this cat come to live with. How did, how did it come to live with you?

[A]

I had a. I was the. The, like, duplex that I was living in. I had a mouse. And so I had a friend who had a. Had a cat who was like a. A famously good mouser. So I moved the cat in for a few weeks. Never saw the mouse again. And then the person who took over my lease had a mouse problem. So I think, I think, like, my theory has always been that the cat is just like cat pee. So if you have a mouse problem, if you're. If you're listening to this and you're like, say allergic. Just go get some mouse pee and just, like, dribble it around your house.

[B]

Just extract pee from the nearest cat.

[A]

You can go milk a cat.

[B]

What's interesting about you favoring dogs and about moose in particular. You are so. And take this right way, please. But you are so much more cat than dog. Like, it's not even close. You're all the way far on the cat end of the spectrum. And moose is the doggiest dog I've ever met.

[A]

I hate that about myself, but it's undeniable.

[B]

But it's true. You're more. You're mercurial. You need time alone. You like to groom yourself rather than.

[A]

I lick myself clean.

[B]

It's true. You lick yourself clean, which I asked you not to do on stage, and you kept doing it.

[A]

I pee in a box.

[B]

I mean, yeah, you're a cat. Everyone's a cat or a dog. And you're definitely a cat. I'm sorry.

[A]

Fuck.

[B]

Yeah. I think I'm actually more.

[A]

I think your fucking dog.

[B]

I'm bi. I'm bi. But I can definitely fake being, like, a. I'm good at faking, like, just a dog's eagerness to be out of the world, even though if on the inside, I just want to lick myself. The subreddit we're talking about today is R. Sphinx. 46,000 weekly visitors. It's dedicated to the Sphinx cat. Katie, describe this image. I included was the first Google image result for Sphynx cat.

[A]

Okay, so Sphynx cats are hairless cats. And there's no nice way to put this. They look like wrinkly ball socks. And look, I know that Mike Pesca and possibly his wife Michelle are listening to this right now, and they have two very lovely hairless cats, but I'm. I just can't lie. They look like genitals. Hairless genitals.

[B]

It's funny you said that, because I. I swear this is true. I reached out to them to record something about living with two Sphynx cats. Let's play that here.

[C]

Hi. This is Mike. This is Michelle, and we are here to speak on behalf of Oliver, Layla, our beloved Sphynx cats who are no longer with us. But Noki and Mata are beloved Sphinx cats who are. Laila stood or sat on my chest and licked my beard and was just very into me. A very loving cat. Tell us about how Oliver would require transportation around the house.

[D]

Well, since he was a kitten, he needed to be sort of held at all times. So when I got him, I would have to kind of do everything around the house one handed. But ultimately I ended up getting a baby sling for him so that he could stay in the sling while I would have the use of both hands so I could actually live my life and do work. And one might argue that's not really living my life. But I also enjoyed it.

[C]

It's the life you chose. And is this characteristic of the Sphynx cat or just the neuroticism of Oliver?

[D]

No, it is. I mean, they're very, very affectionate. They love being around their people.

[C]

And part of that is they have no hair. So they need warmth.

[D]

I think so, maybe, or I don't know if it's just they're a particularly affectionate breed.

[C]

They are an affectionate breed. And I know the Dutch are trying to ban them. You know how the Dutch pursue these Dutch protocols sometimes. But yeah, it's. I. You know, a lot of people in the Sphynx cat chat groups are saying it's just an aesthetic objection. Sphynx cats do get skin infections. They are sensitive, very sensitive to sunlight and sunburn, and they don't have long lifespans. But, you know, cats maybe shouldn't be outside killing birds. Right?

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. Okay, so it's a save the bird. If you have a Sphynx cat, keep him inside, keep him in a sling. Save the birds. Any last words, Michelle?

[B]

Nope.

[D]

Sorry.

[A]

I love you.

[C]

Say something about the cats.

[D]

I love Jesse and Katie.

[C]

Stop it.

[D]

Blocked and reported Foever.

[C]

You're the worst.

[B]

So that from the horse's mouth, as it were. That's the lived experience of living with a Sphynx cat. Yeah. I'm gonna be brutally honest too, though, because they are friends, Mike and Michelle, they're great. I enjoy the presence of their two sphinx cats whenever I'm there. They actually host poker a fair amount back in Brooklyn. But I think I prefer my cats just with hair. I just can't get over how they look.

[A]

You said they look like Jesse likes a hairy pussy.

[B]

They look. Let's just move past it.

[A]

You're just here.

[B]

It's not that they look like penises, it's. They look like aliens. If they look like penises, that would be funny. Also, they would have more hair.

[A]

That'd be fine.

[B]

Adult people. Penises at least.

[A]

Yeah, it's more like. It's more like the ball sack than the penis, I guess. I don't. The thing I like, the reason that I have been able to fall as romantically in love with my Dog Moose as I have is because he doesn't shed. Like, I hate having animal fur on me in any sense. And so if I were gonna have a cat, I would want it to be one of these naked cats, but they are undeniably freaky.

[B]

Well, and also you wouldn't be off the hook because, look, Spin scouts don't have it easy. They. There's people like us, there's the bigots who recoil in horror whenever Sphinx cats manifest themselves. They also suffer from a variety of skin problems because they don't have fur.

[A]

And they get cold.

[B]

They get cold. They're susceptible to infections and disease. They also. I did not know this. I. I don't want to thank Jessica the 80s baby for finding this, but I guess thank you. They leave patches of brown grease wherever they go.

[A]

No, I don't believe I want to now.

[B]

I want to ask Mike and Michelle about that.

[A]

Yeah, we need to fact check that. Actually, let's not. Let's just spread the rumor that that.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I also leave patches of brown grease wherever it goes is pizza. But yeah, these cats do have sort of a cult following. And 46,000 of them gather on Reddit, mostly to share pictures of them. So our story begins in September. A new Sphinx owner starts posting about their then recently acquired pet. The name is Pound Ca. Pound Cake is a very good name for a cat. The owner goes by practical intern 7:35. That appears to be one of those randomly generated Reddit names. She shared her story as follows. 20 year old college student. She had kindly taken Pound Cake in after this poor naked grease ball spent his life being held captive by immoral backyard breeders. So practical intern 7:35 and her ex, presumably named whimsical employee 69420, they rescued £k together. The ex ended up giving him to her, and it was at this point that she turned to R. Sphinx for guidance, as one does.

[A]

Okay, so when they say they rescued it from a backyard breeder, was this like a kidnapping situation? How did they get it? Did they jump over the fence?

[B]

Yeah, I actually don't know. I assume it was sort of like a Delta Ops type thing where they went in with armed men slash said, can we have one of your cats?

[A]

I don't know, probably women.

[B]

Pound Cake, in addition to the regular Sphinx problems of not having hair and being bizarre looking and leaving grease splotches everywhere, was seriously obese. So in one of the first posts, Practical Intern 735 said he was very cuddly and sweet. But Katie read on from there where

[A]

he walks to his food. Literally the only time he gets up, his legs just like me and he doesn't put any weight on his back leg so he stumbles around. I would record it, but he doesn't walk unless I have food for him and shake it and for like 20 minutes, I'm worried for him. I have an appointment the day after tomorrow, but I don't know what else to do.

[B]

Can I just say that so far I identify with Pound Cake?

[A]

Yeah, for sure.

[B]

I do not like to get up unless there's food and people have to me to get me to do anything. This was accompanied by a photo Katie, please describe as non sexually as possible.

[A]

This is a weird picture. It's so Pound Cake is laying on a bed and the bed has naturally cats cat sheets. And Pound Cake is very Caucasian flesh toned. Like if there. I doubt this is. I doubt there are any white people listening to this right now, but if there are any white people, people of like, maybe Irish descent, like if you look at the inside of your arm where it doesn't get any color, or your belly or your butt, that's the color of Pound cake. Very fat. But the one thing that I find odd about this is pound cake doesn't seem to have any wrinkles. Like these cats have a lot of wrinkles. And, and pound cake is like smooth fat.

[B]

It.

[A]

It actually looks sort of like a human fat body.

[B]

The. The strange, the strange body hand reaching on. Well, first of all, the cat is positioned in a way where it's like, no cameras, no cameras. It looks like it's hungover. And this person just went and started like grabbing its belly and jiggling it.

[A]

Yeah, there's a hand on top of the belly. A jiggle hand.

[B]

I forgot. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, the hand. And the hand looks like it's literally gripping the fat and like calling the cat a fat piece of shit.

[A]

There's something odd about this photo though.

[B]

Well, it's the sheets in any case, from the start. Despite Pound Cake just being obviously, undeniably a weird creature, Pound Cake charmed these sphinx lovers of Reddit. Practical intern 735 began posting regular updates on Pound Cake's life, often with videos. With her first video, she outlined a serious tale of woe. Katie, please to read.

[A]

The bad news is he has severe osteoarthritis and that's why he's not walking. He plays laying down, but will walk. Will walks a few steps for his

[B]

food before giving up again, just like me.

[A]

Frowny face emoticon. His muscles are incredibly underdeveloped as well as well.

[B]

Awesome.

[A]

The vet prescribed Solsnia or and something similar to gabapentin. I forgot his name. It's long. Unfortunately, he has a cranial cruciate ligament rupture, which the vet explained is like a cat equivalent of an ACL tear. And he needs surgery to fix it. The vet believes this has been bugging cat pound for months, if not longer.

[B]

Pound Cat.

[A]

Sorry. Pound cat for months, if not longer. Frowny face emoticon. Since he's too overweight to put under safely, he are having to consider putting him down. Oh, no. Broken heart emoji. His QOL quality of life is so poor. He only plays laying down for seconds at a time before giving up entirely. He can't understand he's not being free feed. And the poor guy cries when I. When I leave him. Frowny face. He got groomed too. And the poor guy. How do you groom a hairless cat?

[B]

Just keep reading, Katie. Come on.

[A]

And the poor guy got all up in his ass. He's just so sad all the time.

[B]

So Practical Intern says she's giving it about a week at this point. Weak on this medication to see if he's in less pain. But the possibility of killing Pound Cat, of setting him to that big swing scat farm in the sky is very much.

[A]

Last name was Pound Cake.

[B]

Pound Cake. What did I say? Pound Cat. Pound Cake. Yeah, it's definitely Pound Cake. Some users immediately responded with skepticism that this cat actually existed and at least reported the original poster for posting AI generated content. The Sphinx mods did not agree. One of them said, reported as AI Media. Really? And then Practical Intern said, he's real. I'm happy to DM you and confirm and describe this photo.

[A]

There's a photo of Pound Cat.

[B]

It's really grotesque.

[A]

Like sexual. Sexually leering at the camera, but also lounging this guy on his back.

[B]

You don't often see cats just on their back, but Pound Cake. Yeah, Pound Cake's got a bit of a come hither look in this photo.

[A]

Yeah, it's hot. I can't deny it. But also Pound Cake's face sort of looks like a. A face with hair, a penis. And a penis. Okay.

[B]

Yeah. So, yeah, there's.

[A]

The skin is like really taut on this belly.

[B]

Yeah. So generally speaking, at this point, the sentiment on the Sphinx subreddit is this is not AI and anger at the people who would even suggest it's AI. Yeah, the comments are overwhelmingly supportive. Poor Pound Cake. Has been through so much in his life and now, first of all, people are pretending he doesn't even exist. They're literally trying to erase him. But thankfully, this community now has an entire subreddit praying for a miracle because Pound Cake has become a bit of a celebrity on the Sphinx subreddit.

[A]

Well, did Pound Cake recover?

[B]

Well, so the next update was a bit more hopeful. The original post was deleted, but it got preserved. We'll link to it. It's very long. But to summarize it, Pound Cake has improved with the help of his meds. Was playing a bit, but he was still unhealthy. Quote, he still cannot walk without help. Help. He's also never been bathed. That smell must be really bad. I've been putting the beauty filter on him, but he's very pimply and has rashes and bits and folds. Putting the beauty filter on Pound Cake.

[A]

Also like you, just like me.

[B]

A cat rescue nearby had apparently visited and reported that, quote, Pound Cake was one of the neediest cats they've ever seen.

[A]

Okay, just put the cat down. The cat honestly sounds annoying at this point.

[B]

Let me fit it well. Let me describe the rest of the situation. There were ongoing severe problems with his legs. He couldn't walk. So yeah, euthanasia was still a possibility. But quote, right now he's chilling in his heated binky off a cbd. Gummy. Can you give a cat a cbd? Gummy?

[A]

I guess. I don't know. What are cats? What are cats not allowed to eat anything. What about chocolate?

[B]

No, it's like with dogs and chocolate confusing babies. Human babies is honey, right? It like destroys their brain.

[A]

I think they can eat honey. I think if they don't eat honey, they end up being allergic to bees.

[B]

Babies cannot eat Kitty can RFK junior over here. They cannot. It's totally toxic to them.

[A]

Well, look, here's what I'm saying. Okay? So big no.

[B]

Well, first give people the accurate health information.

[A]

Allergy wants you to think that the bacterial colostrum botulinum can germinate in a baby's immature digestive system, causing botulism. That's what Big Allergy wants you to think. I think that if you micro dose babies on a small amount of honey, then what? Probably you'd be fine.

[B]

This is not what we do. Occasionally get comments that we're ignorant on X or Y due to not having children. This is not gonna help on that front.

[A]

Not this one.

[B]

So, Pound Cakes, cheerleaders. And at this point, there are many cheerleaders for pound Cakes. They're happy to see any sign of progress. Over the next weeks, Practical Intern 735 continues to share updates, always with photos and videos. Pound Cake had actually been taken in by a rescue. And while she was doing well, wasn't doing well enough. Pound Cake was partially blind. Pound Cake might have liver damage. So this cat is still.

[A]

Wait, take an invite.

[B]

Like a rescue shelter. Yeah, Presumably a fat camp for cats.

[A]

Wait, so, so intern 357 gave pound

[B]

gate to a rescue, but apparently is in still contact with it and sharing photos of it. That's the story.

[A]

Why did she give the rescue? Why did she give the cat?

[B]

Well, it was a lot for pet in practical intern 735 and her busy life. She's a 20 year old college student. She can't just nurse. She's got, she's got stuff to do. She's not like you.

[A]

He had all up in his butt.

[B]

She got every post about Pound Cake on Sphinx. Got thousands of upvotes, sometimes 7,000 or more in like not a very big community. And his fame began to spread to other parts of Reddit. So people started following his story on the sub. The subreddit D. Chonkers. Do you know about D Chonkers?

[A]

Is that like, like people who put their cats on a zeppet?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

D Chonkers is a subreddit dedicated to fat pets losing weight. Very controversial. But then Pound Cake also found his way onto cats, which is the main cat subreddit. This, this is the big time. People there are very critical though of practical intern 735. They start telling practical intern 735 you have to have this cat killed because Pound Cake's quality of life is so miserable. Morbidly obese, unable to walk, partially blind, very fat negative with liver damage. Yeah. So the main cat subreddit is calling for the killing of this cat.

[A]

Is this subreddit, is it a Canadian subreddit? Sounds Canadian.

[B]

They're all, they're all like, Pound Cake seems like he sometimes gets sad. You should kill him. So yeah, Pound Cake's migration to the main cat Reddit also expose certain riffs within cat Reddit or the cat Reddits. There's just, there's this infighting. So one person proof mongoose 4350 or I'm sorry, 4530. I'm really sorry. Says yeah, people on our cats can be nasty. I tried to ask for advice on an issue with my cat once and wound up basically being told I should be in jail. For animal abuse.

[A]

Abuse sounds like Twitter.

[B]

So this stuff. This stuff gets really intense. It does sound like Twitter. One other person just says, I come here every day hoping for a Pound Cake update. Go Pound Cake. You got this. Pound Cake is becoming something of a mascot, if not a hero at this point. Unfortunately, things took a sad but not unexpected turn in October, several weeks after adopting pound cake, Practical Intern735 posted. Rest in Peace, Sweet Pound Cake. I want you to read this. Katie, I'm also worried you're going to

[A]

start crying over a cat.

[B]

Yeah, maybe not.

[A]

You don't know me.

[B]

Well, go for it.

[A]

I know this isn't the outcome he did deserve, but his quality of life improved immensely from when he was given to me. He came to me screaming and pacing in pain and with love he became able to play and snuggle and he finally got the right medical care, even if for only a short time. I'm glad he knew peace and he knew love from the rescue. And most of all y', all, I'm so happy he was on pain meds. I'm so sorry to have to share this news. I know it's upsetting, but if he would have passed. Anyway, I'm so glad he passed after knowing at least a little bit of comfort, a whole lot of love. Do cats?

[D]

No, that.

[A]

Did he know he was a Reddit celebrity?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Rest in Peace Pound Cake. You were so weird the whole time. I'll miss your freak ass forever. He had a little photo shoot at the rescue the day before everything went down. Hell, I think he looks cunty as hell. This got Sashay shay.

[B]

This got 10,000 upvotes. It it became the 10th most upvoted post in the long storied history of R. Sphinx. And there's another post where Practical Intern 735 produced this really detailed information about Pound Cake's heart attack. I don't want to read the whole thing, but just to show you the level of detail she went into. He fought so hard for those two days, even through some pretty unbearable pain. I got a FaceTime and my I guess a FaceTime from the rescue shelter and my poor dude was wheezing and blew in the face while being completely restrained in his sling. Thank God he was sedated after Pound Cakes fans were devastated by the news. Katie Read this from other cantaloupe4765 6:00am

[A]

not even out of bed yet and I'm crying over a cat I only knew from Reddit. For some reason, I'm relieved I guess that he died naturally instead of having to be euthanized and that he wasn't in any pain. It hurts me to think of how awful most his life was confined to a room. I'm glad he could leave this world having experienced love and care. I just wish he could have experienced more of it. I don't know why I'm so emotional over this, but it hurts my heart. My own cat is confused about why I'm crying already at this time of morning. Haha. Thanks for taking care of him, even if for only a short time.

[B]

Your cat's not confused. It's just like, why have you not fed me yet? My cat's so worried about me.

[A]

I mean, I. I do think that dogs, or some dogs at least, are very empathetic.

[B]

And I think cats are sometimes too.

[A]

Okay. They like, they see you crying and they're like, have I. I should have

[B]

disclosed this because it's a big conflict of. Interesting, but we had a fair number of cats over the years growing up. Cats can be very affectionate. Like they have their moments.

[A]

Did you ever have dogs?

[B]

Yeah, we had one dog that got hit by a car.

[A]

Oh, that's right, you fed. You fed it American cheese.

[B]

Fed American cheese. I also one time it got into a bar of chocolate, so I had to give it hydrogen peroxide and then it puked everywhere. And I was so relieved that it puked everywhere. Yeah, that was a cool story. So, yeah, people are devastated at the passing. Oh wait, another one. Oh no. RIP Pound Cake Meat slab. Run free over the rainbow bridge. You were loved more than you know. Op. Thank you for getting him out of a bad situation. Thank you for loving him, taking care of him, getting him help he needed, and sharing him with all of us. You mattered, Pound Cake. So at this point, Pound Cake has been elevated to the status of a feline saint. There is talk of making Pound Cake the official mascot of the Sphynx cat subreddit. Changing the subheader photo to a picture of pound cat. All that the devastation was real. And. And Katie tried to. To put yourself imagine Pound Cake was a fat, slovenly, ugly dog instead of a fat, slovenly, ugly cat. I have trouble.

[A]

I only like cute dogs.

[B]

Okay, imagine it was a physically a sexually attractive dog. Can you try to explain the level of emotional connection these random people on the Internet have to an. I understand liking animals. I have a lot of trouble with like feeling an emotional connection to an animal I haven't met that I only know through photos. But. But I take it. You can relate to this a little bit?

[A]

Not really. Not really. I'm not like a. Look, I think people, because I have such a perverse love for my own dog, people think that I'm like a crazy dog lover. I'm not. I just like my dog. I do like other dogs as well, just not that much. I don't get it.

[B]

It's like the difference between a pedophile and someone who offends with children opportunistically. You opportunistically love others, but that doesn't mean you like dog. You don't love dogs. Dogs in general.

[A]

I'm a child molester, not a pedophile. Yes, according to your metaphor.

[B]

According to my excellent metaphor. Okay. So as always, unfortunately things are not as simple as they seem. This outpouring of grief over Pound Cake doesn't last long. The very next day after Pound Cake's. I was going to say untimely demise, but it sounds like it was timely. A new user automatic ship 785 pops up on Sphinx and posted to post this. Katie, please read.

[A]

Did some digging because the video of Pound Cake and his siblings, that's in quotes that was posted here today is an AI generated video that went viral on Tick Tock. And yep, every photo of Pound Cake is on Tick Tock. He was never real op just stole the images of random fat Sphinx.

[B]

Anyway, that's what the person says anyway. So this was not even a high effort con job, but literally just taking stuff from one.

[A]

Wait, it's AI generated.

[B]

AI generated video. Yeah. Wow. And I should say some of the sleuths said that some of the videos looked a little AI ish. But then most of the Sphinx community.

[A]

I said it should have had wrinkles. I said those bitch tits weren't wrinkly enough. You heard me right?

[B]

I did. You said those bitch tits weren't wrinkly enough. That's. Yeah, I think that was a direct quote. So one of the people respond some of some of the responses to this accusation. Wait, I cried yesterday over Pound Cake. So now Pound Cake never really existed. What the fuck? How many user there? 8. Crag emoji. Crag emoji. Says this is why you should create your own names on Reddit. Pronko says legit cried at the gym locker room when I saw it. That's so fucked. Can you imagine? I assume this is a woman crying. Well, I can't imagine crying in the

[A]

gym listening to Taylor Swift looking at pictures of Pound Cake crying.

[B]

Can you imagine another woman coming up and Be like, are you okay? What's going on? And then Proko has to.

[A]

You think that was a woman?

[B]

Yeah. Yes. Someone crying in a gym over a dead cat is a. I'm sorry, not to be sex reductionist. That's a woman.

[A]

Weird. When I read that, I just pictured clavicular.

[B]

Clavicular? Crying, yeah. Other cantaloupe 4765 responds, so did I. I cried over this. Unbelievable. Un. Fucking believable. And I know what you're thinking, and yes, there's a period before each part of that another person has a different take. I got about 50 negative hits on my comments suggesting this was a bot or AI. All I can say to that is, told you. And they got 800 upvotes for that.

[A]

So wait, what did Practical Intern 7735 do?

[B]

Deleted her account. Oh, just gone like that. Except the next day another user, this one, a long established Redditor, posts a mind blowing theory. Katie, please read it.

[A]

I think the account who invented pound cake and the account who exposed it all are the same person.

[D]

What?

[A]

Similar accounts, both deleted after posting their drama. Same typing style, language, et cetera. I called it a couple hours, so.

[D]

Wow.

[B]

I don't think there's anyone know for sure if that theory was.

[A]

You think this person just like wanted to. Was like, I can't do this anymore. I'm gonna blow up my life. Like when you cheat on your spouse with your sister. Her sister.

[B]

I think if the. I think if this sphinxception theory is true, it would be more calculated than that. It would be someone who all along planned to take pound cake, turn pound cake into a celebrity, have pound cake die, and then expose himself some real sick, convoluted.

[A]

Yeah, but you know, on it. So Reddit is, Is not a forum that you can monetize. You can monetize Facebook, you can monetize YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter.

[B]

You can very, you can now very slightly monetize it. I've made 15 cents. And that has to do with, I think, people giving. I don't. I don't know, I haven't even looked into it. But you can, because this was exactly what people are asking. Why, why? Why did practical intern 735 dedicate hours of her life over several weeks to finding photos and videos and posting these updates?

[A]

Weird hobby.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Now, I mean, one obvious answer would be karma farming, because, you know, you could gain a lot of karma. Although this doesn't really make sense.

[A]

Explain what karma is for people.

[B]

Yeah, karma is if your comments get Upvoted on Reddit, you get karma. And if you get downvoted, you lose it.

[A]

What do you. What is karma get you?

[B]

Well, karma. I mean, it's like proof that you have a long standing account in good standing and you, you make good comments at the extreme edges. If you have a high karma Reddit account, you can sell it. But Jessica the 80s baby said you're talking about like $120 in crypto if you have a long time Reddit account with a really high karma score. So that's like. If practical intern 735 was trying to do that sub minimum wage work, do

[A]

you think that Practical Intern 7:35 might also have been AI generated?

[B]

Well, that's the thing saying. Right. I. I don't. But I think a year from now, when you tell a version of the story, it could just be everyone involved was an AI.

[A]

Everyone commenting. The cat, the poster.

[B]

The cat.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

No. No humans involved in this entire affair, including the two podcasters telling the story. It's just. It's just agents all the way down.

[A]

You said agents, not Asians. Right?

[B]

Asians. No, I meant Asians.

[D]

A.

[B]

It's just Asians all the way down.

[A]

Arthur Chu and Ian Miles Chong.

[B]

Miles Chong with all their different sock

[A]

puppet accounts, typing back and forth, forth, covered in ants to each other forever.

[B]

The. The most common reason someone does something like this is just to try to get money out of it. But it doesn't look like there was ever an attempt to raise.

[A]

Oh, right. Like a GoFundMe. That would have killed a GoFundMe.

[B]

A pound cake. Go find me.

[A]

Is it too late?

[B]

Yeah. They could have raised so much money.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Should we do a pound cake gofundme

[A]

to bring pound cake back to life?

[B]

I think the most likely explanation, and like a pretty credible one, is just attention. Like the whole saga.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Was about that feeling of like, if you log onto the Internet and your. Your account tab is lit up and there' red thing with 20 comments. Like people really get something out of that, especially if they don't have, like us don't have anything else going on in their life.

[A]

You know, since I have been off of Twitter for like over a year now, like, it's not a struggle not to post. I think a year of sobriety or near sobriety for me, when it comes to. To posting has made me. It's like, it's like, like an alcoholic who has a year of sobriety. I just feel incredibly judgmental of people who post nonstop.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I don't Yeah, I don't really miss it.

[B]

There's a final twist here, which is the. And I'm trying to keep these different handles straight. And this is all this. Everyone's been deleted. So it's like old screenshots and stuff. Automatic ship 7835, the user who had said I did some digging and Pound Cake does not exist. And who is suspected of also being practical intern. So automatic shift ship suspected being practical intern. You're with me so far.

[A]

Yes. So this is the person who outed Pound Cake's owner as fake or out of Pound Cake is fake, but who is also. Some people think is also might be.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Pound Cakes. Yeah.

[B]

Someone else posts this screenshot. Katie, will you read the whole thing?

[A]

Okay. The screenshot says Pound Cake's owner replied to me. Turns out they're even more of an than we thought. And then this is automatic ship 77835. So this is the. The outer and also possibly Pound Cakes person.

[B]

The inner.

[A]

You're literally the exact type of person I made up Pound cakes to torture. If you went outside and had a life, you'd be unaffected. But since you choose to do this with your time, you get tormented. Not to be the pot calling the kettle black, but get a life. Or at least, at least I know I have one. I only got Reddit to do this. So this person is it, like, is saying that they did this long con to. For. To like make people fall in love with this cat just to. With them.

[B]

And they're saying they spent hundreds of hours on this and then they're saying at least I know I have a life.

[A]

I have a life.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yes, the main reason Pound Cake story was so compelling was like the photos and videos. Some, not all, some of them were AI generated. This person also just took real photos of swings cats. And I think it does just highlight the extent to which. Which, I mean, we're joking about it, but pretty soon we're not going to know if anything is real. And there was actually a recent Wired story about how all this stuff is affecting Reddit and in it, the moderator of I Am I the Asshole, one of the most popular subreddits of all, estimates about half the content on Reddit is already either generated by AI or tweaked about it. There are some accounts on Reddit and again, and the reason I find this surprising is AI accounts on like TikTok or Twitter that produce these dumb videos that boomers circulate. Like, I can understand why they go so viral. But it's surprising to me this is even now extending to tech. So Jessica the 80s baby found a Reddit account will link to that is just AI fictional storytelling. So this is an account which claims to live in California. In the last month it bought a Mercedes, decided to move to Spain, decided to build their own house, found a great bookstore in London, worked as a day trader, suffered a near death experience and planned a trip to Thailand with their kids. The account is also both struggling to find his own personal style by looking for advice on men's fashion subreddits and wondering how she should deal with bloating during pms.

[A]

We're sure this isn't one person with multiples? Are we sure this is.

[B]

This could just be a normal Reddit, like a normal zoomer Reddit user. So all these posts are a AI generated. Many of them appear to be advertisements for a wide range of different products and services. And, and yeah, Jessica just said she's seen more and more obvious AI posts on other text only forums. She reads like mumsnet that aren't like natural places for monetizing things or clout chasing just places where you would most expect to just find regular people. So it's just going to be weird watching a larger and larger proportion of the Internet getting eaten up by all this stuff.

[A]

Yeah, I mean and besides the fact that AI is eating the Internet and you know, a year from now the Internet could mostly be just AI agents talking to each other the other, the other issue with this is that when things that are real, this is obvious but when things, when you see things that are real, like I find myself questioning videos now. Is this real?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

As an example, there's a video that was is circulating on Facebook and probably on Twitter, probably everywhere. But I saw it on Facebook a couple weeks ago and did you see this one? It looked like a video of Trump his pants.

[B]

No, I missed that somehow. So this one's real?

[A]

It actually is real. But I, I don't know if he actually himself I just looked this up. So Snopes fact check this but they couldn't conclude whether or not they his pants. It was from late January, a press conference. There's a bunch of executives in the Oval Office with him and then there's what sounds like a fart and then people are making faces like someone's like what the. And then they rush everybody out of the room. And of course this went viral on Facebook because people love the idea of Trump himself. Did he himself? I don't know. But When I first saw that, saw this video, I'm like, this could be completely real. This could also be completely fake. And I don't have any fucking idea at this point.

[B]

I hope when Democrats take Bauer power back they do like a 911 Commission style investigation of that incident.

[A]

Yeah, with like red light cameras or black light cameras.

[B]

Just drag everyone who was in the room before, make them testify before Congress.

[A]

I'll post a link to the Snopes page in the show notes.

[B]

Definitely post a link. I think a huge amount of the negative consequences of AI, particularly generative AI, they're just going to like roll downhill and hit sort of the loneliest, least connected people. I think that's going to be the really sad part of this.

[A]

Well, I mean the scams are. This is, this is one thing I really worry about, about more even than Jobs is just it's going to be so easy to scam people.

[B]

Both, I mean both traditional, like get someone's credit card number scams, but also right the agent stuff that's right on the horizon. Like it's eventually going to get to the point where you click a link and then there is like basically a thing living inside your computer that has a fair amount of control over your files and what you post and your email. I mean just worse than like sort of the same simple bots of the past. It's, it's gonna get really bad.

[A]

Well and I mean the other thing is like this is gonna put scammers out of business. Like the human scammers who have, who have.

[B]

Are doing simple hardworking Nigerians doing the work. Getting replaced by AI.

[A]

Exactly. Yes. I think, I think one thing that if this hasn't already happened, will happen soon is AI taking over only fans. Like, like you and I could be onlyfans models if we ran bots. You know, you, you construct some like really hot woman and then, and then have an AI engage with lonely men 24 7. I bet people are doing that well because think of the, think of the only fans girls.

[B]

There's been a spate of coverage of like clavicular and looks maxing stuff lately. Joe, Joe Bernstein had a good times piece. PJ Vote had a good search engine episode. And that trajectory of just, just altering your appearance either physically or through filtering till you look less and less human and more and more like this.

[A]

Like, like a sphinx cat.

[B]

Like a swing. Like a hairless. As hairless as a sphinx cat but

[A]

with jaw, the jawline.

[B]

Well, especially with like porny stuff which is probably. I don't Know what percentage of the Internet is porn? Not small. It's all just going to be really realistic looking video of people who don't exist. And it's gonna kids up especially. I don't know, I just already feel like the teenagers in the 20. Well, yes, but not as much as

[A]

like, well, I mean about Grant, like old people. Like if you're, if you grow up with this stuff, if you're a native user to it, you might learn to be more skeptical of the technology. It's the elders I'm worried about.

[B]

Well, I'm worried about. I'm worried about everyone. But in terms of like having really fucked up views about how actual humans look, I think if you were not raised with this stuff, you're just like, yeah, not everyone looks like a perfect creepy alien God. But if like at the most formative adolescent years of your life, you were glued to your phone, looking at highly filtered shit and now increasingly AI shit, like, that's gonna screw you up in like a different way.

[A]

Janet and I were like a month ago, Janet and I were just like watching TV one night and I had eaten an edible for the first time in like many months. And she said out of nowhere, she said, let's get into looks maxing. And I died laughing. Like it was like tears coming out. Like could not, could not stop laughing. And I wasn't sure. In retrospect, I'm not sure if it was just very funny because she said it or it was the edible. But anyway, I'm mewing right now. We're doing it.

[B]

Clavicular is interesting because there is so little there there in terms of any soul or personality or charisma.

[A]

He's a vessel.

[B]

Just that's like where the trajectory of everything has been headed toward the hollowing out of any sort of actual like definable humanity. So he's, he's sort of. He's going to be president one day. That's inevitably where this is headed.

[A]

Hey, he mogs.

[B]

He does. He mogs and he slay. He. Do you know what slaymaxing is?

[A]

I learned that from the Joe B. From Joe's piece. He, He, He. He freaks, if you know what I'm saying.

[B]

I bet. Well, I don't think he's probably incapable of sex because of all the. I think they alluded to this.

[A]

But like, he's, I think he takes. He takes Viagra.

[B]

Anything else, Katie, on our.

[A]

Wait, I'm curious, I'm curious. What the. So you, you asked on our chat what people are? What was it what they're worried about with AI. What they're.

[B]

Well, just like what they wanted us to talk about.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I think we're gonna have, like. Yeah, there was. I want to, like, actually get a little.

[A]

Was Pound cake on the list?

[B]

Pound cake was not on the list. I think this was an excellent. One of the many reasons we're happy to have Jessica. She finds incredible stuff. She found the story of pound Cake. There's a lot more.

[A]

We forgot to do housekeeping.

[B]

We forgot to do housekeeping. So blocked or imported PodcastMail.com is the best way to suggest, like, the threads you want us to tug on when it comes to AI stuff. We're obviously not going to. To, like, have the podcast be dominated by this, but there's a lot going on. You can also rate and review us on Apple podcasts.

[A]

What else, Katie, join us.

[B]

You mean become a premium subscriber? Yeah, become a subscriber. Yeah. Or we'll be replaced by AI. And it's true, that would be better. The AI would know how. It would be better at pronouncing stuff than we are. And that would be the dead giveaway for sure.

[A]

Yes. If we ever start pronouncing names correctly, then, you know, we've been taking over.

[B]

Yeah. Anything else, Katie?

[A]

No. Thanks, Jesse.

[B]

Thank you. This has been blocked and reported. As always, we are produced with help from Jessica the 80s baby. Thank you for listening and stay vigilant. There's AI in the woods.

[A]

Bye.

[B]

Bye.