Premium: Patagonia v. Pattie Gonia

Summary

Blocked and Reported – Premium: Patagonia v. Pattie Gonia (Preview)

Date: June 11, 2026
Hosts: Katie Herzog & Jesse Singal

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Episode Overview

In this Pride Month premium preview, hosts Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal explore a spectrum of current internet controversies and queer cultural debates. The episode covers reactions to provocative Pride marketing campaigns, the enduring schism between corporate pandering and queer radicalism, commentary on lesbian versus gay bar culture, and closes with a budding legal drama between Patagonia and Pattie Gonia. With their signature sardonic wit and sometimes irreverent asides, Katie and Jesse dissect online outrage from both the left and right, and probe questions about authenticity, social media dynamics, and the enduring weirdness of American culture wars.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Pride, Music, and AI Theme Songs (00:00–03:47)

• The episode opens in lighthearted, bantering style with the hosts playing a listener-submitted, 80s-style synth cover of their theme song, celebrating Pride with extra flamboyance.
  • Notable Quote (01:54, Katie): "Wait, did that just turn me gay? That was gay."
  • Notable Quote (02:03, Jesse): "What are they called?" (On subtypes of poorly dressed gay men)
  • They joke about “podcasters” as a category and debate whether they should share the full theme song with listeners, citing issues of copyright and community approval.
• Transition: Their playful poking at theme music pivots into more substantive Pride-season content.

Pride Month Clash: Soccer, Kinksters, and Middle East Teams (03:47–07:16)

• Seattle's "Pride Match" soccer game features Egypt and Iran, two countries with regressive anti-LGBT laws.
  • Both teams protested the assignment.
  • Katie: “The only way to prevent complete disaster here is to try to blend traditions.” (05:04)
  • Jesse jokes: “Do the official pride match, but as a compromise do an execution at halftime…” (05:04)
• The hosts riff on the tone-deafness and irony:
  • Jesse shares a conversation with a “media gay” (06:38) lamenting post-gay-marriage priorities: “There’s a lot of places where it’s still very illegal and dangerous to be gay and where you could do a lot of good with the proper sort of advocacy… Instead, they’ve seemed to spend a lot of time and energy...attacking liberal journalists, for example.”
  • The segment lampoons both the earnestness and performative disconnect of American Pride celebrations when detached from global realities.

Lesbian Bars vs. Gay Bars: Community, Monogamy, and Market Forces (07:16–10:44)

• Why do lesbian bars keep closing?
  • Katie cites Dan Savage: “It’s not drama that kills lesbian bars, it’s monogamy… Gay bars thrive because men are socialized to make the first move… Lesbians, not so much.” (08:00–08:18)
  • Jesse adds: "The market for just casual sex among men is so much higher." (08:18)
  • Discussion turns to socialization, testosterone, and the difference between female and male queer spaces.
  • Comparison between Seattle’s Pony (gay bar with paper mache dicks and porn on TVs) and Wild Rose (lesbian bar, more sedate): “Very hard to imagine the Rose putting vag up on the TVs...They put women’s sports up on the TVs.” (11:08)
  • Notable Quote (09:44, Jesse): "Even if a lesbian bar works by finding you a long term partner, then you're less likely to go out to bars."
• The hosts poke fun at gender essentialism and decry the “humorless and scoldy” side of queer culture.

Corporate Pride Campaigns & Online Outrage (11:39–22:44)

HelloFresh “Prepping” Ad:

• HelloFresh posts a cheeky, sexually suggestive Pride ad referencing “prepping” for anal sex with high-fiber recipes.
  • Jesse explains: “‘Prepping’ is, first of all, there’s a play on word because prep is also the HIV prevention drug... but here it’s about, you know, cleaning out before butt stuff.” (13:57)
  • Instagram response: Overwhelmingly positive, full of rainbow-flag enthusiasm and in-jokes. (15:07)
  • X/Twitter/Facebook response: Furious backlash, conservative outrage, boycotts threatened.
    • Robbie Starbuck tweet: "Ready for one of the most disturbing marketing campaigns you’ve ever seen... wants you to know they have food for you to prepare your colon for receiving anal sex during Pride Month..." (16:28)
    • Numerous replies announcing (possibly faux) subscription cancellations.
  • Host analysis: Classic “context collapse” (18:08)—what flies on Instagram backfires on Twitter: “The message landed well in the intended venue, but it caused the shit fit when it jumped platforms.” (17:56)
    • Jesse and Katie debate the definition of “context collapse,” reference danah boyd and lowercase academic names. (18:23)

Is It Inappropriate or Just Online Marketing?

• Katie finds the backlash "snowflakey" and ironic in its outrage: "I'm so sick of conservatives replicating the same outrage behavior that they have whined about for years when it came from the woke left. It's so fragile. They're so offended. So. Sorry, butthurt by this silly post." (19:31)
• Emailed Brad Polumbo (conservative writer) for perspective:
  • “Two things are true at once: The right wing backlash to the ad is overblown. But secondly, the ad itself is inappropriate… The self-hypersexualization of gay people is a net negative for gay acceptance, I suspect…” (20:41)
  • Katie and Jesse debate if the joke is genuinely harmful or just corporate opportunism.
  • Jesse: “Every time this, I just get tired, y’all… it’s a clever ad. You’re not like a kid. Someone [of young] age isn’t going to get the ad.” (21:07)

Blue Apron Tries to One-Up HelloFresh (22:44–24:33)

• Blue Apron posts a rival lesbian innuendo ad referencing "diving headfirst into a satisfying box at home."
  • Jesse: “Box means vagina.” (23:48)
  • Comments split between appreciation, suspicion (“Did someone steal HelloFresh’s marketing idea?”), and boycott threats.
  • Katie and Jesse analyze the logic (or lack thereof) behind each campaign’s approach and its likely reception.

Cultural and Political Power of Outrage (24:33–25:44)

• Katie: Even absurd controversies can force corporate capitulation: “These outrage campaigns do have the power to change these companies’ direction... Bud Light did. Target did. These outrage campaigns do have the power to change these companies’ direction.”
• Question is left open: Will outrage “work” on HelloFresh or Blue Apron?

Pride Displays at Schools Controversy: The "Testosterone Vials" Panic (25:44–26:09)

• Katie introduces Seattle-area conservative Brandi Kruse’s viral post about a high school Pride display featuring vials of testosterone, setting up a new round of internet culture war melodrama.
  • Jesse’s reaction: “I find that weird. That’s it?” (26:09)
• [Preview ends; full discussion behind paywall]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• 01:54 (Katie, on theme music): “Wait, did that just turn me gay? That was gay.”
• 08:00 (Dan Savage, via Katie): “It’s not drama that kills lesbian bars, it’s monogamy.”
• 13:55 (Jesse): “Prepping is a play on word because prep is also the HIV prevention drug…here it’s about…cleaning out before butt stuff.”
• 15:07 (Instagram commenter): “This is what happens when a brand trusts its marketing team. Excellent work.”
• 16:28 (Robbie Starbuck/X): “@hellofresh wants you to know that they have food for you to prepare your colon for receiving anal sex during Pride Month.”
• 19:31 (Katie): “I’m so sick of conservatives replicating the same outrage behavior that they have whined about for years when it came from the woke left. It’s so fragile. They’re so offended. So. Sorry, but hurt by this silly post.”
• 20:41 (Brad Polumbo, via Katie): “The self-hypersexualization of gay people is a net negative for gay acceptance, I suspect. So I’m not a fan of the post and I agree with a lot of the criticisms. At the same time, it’s not the end of the world or worth a boycott over.”
• 21:07 (Jesse): “Every time this, I just get tired, y’all… it’s a clever ad… I also, I don’t know, as I get older and more cantankerous, I’m a little bit more sympathetic to slightly more conservative types or like I’m just use you for fudging meal delivery. I don’t need your thoughts on this.”
• 23:48 (Jesse, explaining Blue Apron’s innuendo ad): “Box means vagina.”
• 24:33 (Katie): “These outrage campaigns do have the power to change these companies direction… Bud Light did. Target did.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic/Quote | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–03:47 | Playful banter, AI vs. human theme song, listener feedback | | 03:47–07:16 | Pride Month soccer match irony (Egypt & Iran), queer advocacy priorities | | 07:16–10:44 | Lesbian bars vs. gay bars, Dan Savage’s analysis of monogamy/socializing | | 11:39–22:44 | The HelloFresh Pride “prepping” ad: reception, outrage, context collapse | | 22:44–24:33 | Blue Apron’s “box” ad response; social media reaction | | 24:33–25:44 | Do social media boycotts actually move companies? Retailer capitulations | | 25:44–26:09 | High school Pride display with testosterone vials (introducing next segment) |

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Tone & Style

Blocked and Reported’s hallmark is its blend of sarcastic wit, careful parsing of culture war nuances, inside jokes, and a willingness to call out hypocrisy on all sides. The tone remains irreverent but never fully dismissive, with the hosts actively engaging their audience’s questions as well as each other’s ideological foibles.

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For the Full Episode

This preview ends just as the discussion turns to the legal battle between Patagonia and Pattie Gonia and the “testosterone vials” school controversy. Premium subscribers can hear the complete conversation at blockedandreported.org.

Transcript

[A]

Hello, you're listening to a preview of a premium episode of Blocked and reported. This is a Pride munch.

[B]

Pride Munch.

[A]

Pride Munch. Well, actually, that ties into some of the stuff we discussed. We talk about offensive question mark ads, offensive question mark pride displays at schools, and this big legal brouhaha between Patagonia and Patty Space Gonia. So if you want to hear this in its entirety, go to Bloto Important and become a premium subscriber. I hope you enjoy the preview. In the meantime. Oh, wait, what is this? This is getting.

[B]

Do you feel like you're in space right now?

[A]

I feel like I'm headed to, like, a gang bang in space. Ooh, there comes a gang bang in space.

[B]

Like an 80s gang bang in space.

[A]

Just let the song play first.

[B]

It's your first gang bang, Kitty. You're wearing short shorts.

[A]

You destroy this experience for me, I'm gonna kill you.

[B]

Okay, all right, that's probably enough.

[A]

Blocked Reported. Oh, yeah. Are you fading it out?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What is. What did you just have me listen to? What is that?

[B]

Okay, so this is our new theme song. Yes. People love it when we change the song. No, it's not. But a couple weeks ago, you asked people to manufacture new theme songs for us using AI Demand it.

[A]

I, I, I didn't demand it, but I did something very stupid in retrospect, which is, Yeah, I was like, make a song for us on Suno, which is, like, very low effort.

[B]

You encourage people to contribute to the drought to the slop using 2 tablespoons of water to the slop drought. Yes. So this is a theme song cover by a listener named Jeff. He emailed us this morning and he said, in response to your AI theme song, I offer you a human created cover of the original theme. 100% done by me, not mixed properly, but directly from the bar pod diaspora. Hope you enjoy gay 80s synth sounds. I do.

[A]

Wait, did that just turn me gay? That was gay.

[B]

You're not fashionable enough to be gay.

[A]

Isn't there a subtype of gay who doesn't dress well?

[B]

Yes, there is.

[A]

What are they called?

[B]

Cargoes.

[A]

Podcast. Podcasters. I. You. You're gonna, you're gonna include a link to the whole thing in our show notes, right? Because I like the start of that.

[B]

There's no link.

[A]

What do you mean there's no link?

[B]

There's no link.

[A]

You're going to up. I'm saying you're going to provide people.

[B]

Where am I going to upload it to?

[A]

I don't Google Drive.

[B]

We don't have permission to that for that.

[A]

Well, shouldn't we ask him for it?

[B]

I mean, you can ask him, but before there's a riot, I have learned my lesson. We will not be replacing our theme song with this gay 80s synth sounds. Although this would be. It would be appropriate for Pride.

[A]

Sounds like an Italian beach song, sort of.

[B]

And Jesse, before we started recording this, I told you we were going to play this for our theme song today. Why don't you just tell the people what you told me?

[A]

I forgot that premium episodes have the theme music at the beginning because we.

[B]

You didn't forget. You said. You said. Said it's a primo episode. And I said, yeah. And you said they don't play the theme song, which I think used to be the case. It was the case for like a year or two, maybe three.

[A]

But we have way more than that.

[B]

We have been playing the theme song on the primo episodes since for like two years at least.

[A]

Two years, maybe. Fly by, don't they?

[B]

You have never listened to one of our primo episodes, have you?

[A]

I've never heard our. Our show.

[B]

I could be editing your voice out entirely. You could not even be in these episodes and you would have no idea.

[A]

You could just be, I mean, at this point, inserting stuff I never said with AI like 11 Labs. I'm going to say that could explain why so many people on Blue sky are mad at me and I never understand what they're mad about.

[B]

Right. It's not you. It's me in my dressy bot.

[A]

Thank you to listener Jeff.

[B]

He says it's human. What do you think? Do you believe him?

[A]

It is human.

[B]

It's hard to tell.

[A]

I. I do believe him. Hard to tell.

[B]

All right, Jesse. It is Pride month in the usa. And so to honor our gay and lesbian forefathers, our four sisters, our four skins, we've got today a few stories about, well, gay. We've got some butt stuff, some school pride. We've got some trademark law, which is obviously the most homosexual of all legal disciplines. But before we get to that, I have a bit of a follow up from some of our prior episodes. So first off, during our last free episode, I mentioned that a few of the teams playing in the World cup in Seattle the this month are Qatar. Cotter. Wait, what are we saying now?

[A]

Cotter.

[B]

I forgot again. Cotter are Cotter. Egypt and Iran. And during Pride Month. But what I didn't realize until Jessica the 80s baby mentioned it is that there is an official Pride match in Seattle. It's June 26th at Lumen Field. And the teams that were chosen at random to play the official pride march are Egypt and Iran.

[A]

That's great.

[B]

Is it great? It will not surprise you that neither Egypt nor Iran, both countries where homosexuality is extremely frowned upon and in fact in Iran is punishable by the death penalty. They are not happy about this. And both countries wrote letters to FIFA complaining about it. But Seattle ain't budging. And I think the only way to prevent complete disaster here is to try to blend traditions.

[A]

So you're saying, like, do the official pride match, but as compromised do an execution at halftime on the field?

[B]

Exactly, exactly. I was thinking you get a bunch of queer kinksters, like people who are really into bdsm. Them real plain play psychos before the match. They do a little rainbow parade in the stadium. They shake it, they flaunt it, they twerk it, they wave their flag around, they show whole if they must. And then at halftime, I was going to say they beat the shit out of each other. Public execution seems going a little far, but they use chains, they use whips, there's blood play. Totally consensual and culturally inclusive.

[A]

Just a thought I was with recently at a lovely little dinner party type thing with a Generation X. A media gay. Am I allowed to say that word? A media gay?

[B]

Yes, I believe so. I don't think that's a slur.

[A]

He's a media gay whose thoughts on these matters. And he has all the bona fides you'd expect of someone who grew up and got into media in times and places where it was hard to be openly gay. And he's sort of in the Andrew Sullivan tradition, roughly. And he was just sort of venting about. This goes back to stuff you've talked about, about what the American rights groups did after gay marriage was legalized and what they chose to focus on. And he was just like, you know, there's a lot of places where it's still very illegal and dangerous to be gay and where you could do a lot of good with the proper sort of advocacy. And I guess my. The way I would finish that thought is instead they've seemed to spend a lot of time and energy like attacking, you know, liberal journalists, for example, just to take an example at random. Not something I've come across.

[B]

So what I'm hearing you say is that this media gay, who will. Who will go unmentioned, that he thinks that we should colonize, say, Saudi Arabia.

[A]

Yes, that was. He was calling for an invasion of Saudi Arabia to change Their laws on homosexuality.

[B]

I mean, that is why we're in Iran right now.

[A]

I. Is it? I don't know. I. I keep losing track.

[B]

Anyway, that's why there's rainbow flags on the bomber planes.

[A]

I like. I like your. I don't think my public execution thing would go over, but some sort of, you know, if you're. If you're a member of the Egyptian or Iranian team, you might see something that looks like a bunch of guys getting hurt and not realizing they're into that. So that might satisfy them. Yeah.

[B]

All right, Jesse, next up, a few weeks back, we did an episode about two lesbian, sorry, sapphic establishments that were imploding marshes in Philadelphia and the Pearl in Denver. Very fun episode. Go back and listen to that one if you haven't. And during the show, I was talking about why lesbian bars fail so often compared to gay bars. The. There are reportedly under 40 lesbian bars in the entire country at this point. That's according to the Lesbian Bar Project, which tracks this. In comparison, there are over 700 gay bars. So massive difference. And after that episode aired, I got a text from professional homosexual Dan Savage, and he said it's not.

[A]

Also a media guy.

[B]

Yes. Not Gen X. He's actually a boomer.

[A]

Is he?

[B]

Yeah, he's like the youngest boomer.

[A]

I feel like I view him as sort of ageless and immortal, but that's just me.

[B]

Yeah, that's. Yeah, I can see that. Dan said it's not drama that kills lesbian bars, it's monogamy. Gay bars thrive because they work, because men are socialized to make the first move. So if you go to a gay bar, you're going to get hit on. If you go to a lesbian bar, you're going to get looked at nervously by a woman who is waiting for you to make the first move while you wait for her to make the first move.

[A]

I mean, also. Also, the market for just casual sex among men is so much higher. And a bar, well, that. Anyway, yeah, it's version of what he's saying.

[B]

Both things absolutely true. Or at least like, this used to be how it was when I went to dyke bars. It's like middle school. Everyone waiting for the local Shane to show up and make the first move.

[A]

What's a Shane?

[B]

Oh, a Shane is a character from the L Word. You should watch the L Word, not the. Not the remake. Watch the original.

[A]

Okay, I'm. I'm need to first finish up Killing Eve, which is starting to disappoint me. So I'll be ready to Move on.

[B]

Yeah. Killing Eve, sort of. By season four, it's like, will they or won't they?

[A]

I mean, by se, it's a whole season. Season three is where I'm at.

[B]

Have you been watching Hacks this season?

[A]

No. I need to go back and start from the beginning because people love that show. I watched a little bit. Is it good?

[B]

The writing is so good. It's so good. I mean, there's like, there are. The, like main character Hannah Einbiner is annoying and people continue to tell me that I look like her, which I find very insulting. I'm not a ginger. But yes, I absolutely adore the writing in this show. But back to Dan. So it's been a long time since I was in the bar scene and maybe some things have changed. So young dyke's right in to tell me if things are different. But I think Dan is on to something here. Although I would also guess it's not just socialization that makes gay men more likely than women to make the first move. It's testosterone. Dan continued, because going to gay bars actually works. It results in gay men having gay sex. Men keep going and our bars thrive. Because going to lesbian bars doesn't work. It doesn't result in lesbians having lesbian sex. Women stop going and your bars close.

[A]

Well, the. And the other part there is even if a lesbian bar works by finding you a long term partner, then you're less likely to go out to bars.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

It's sort of like with dating. Like if dating apps work too well, they'll constantly have a diminishing pool.

[B]

Yeah. And that was the tagline for one of the. Maybe bumble or Hinge or one of them.

[A]

Like, like it'll be your last date.

[B]

Yeah. Your last dating app. And yeah, I think as lesbians couple up in age, we tend to opt out of the bar scene altogether in a way that gay men just don't as often. Like, obviously plenty of gay men are home bodies, but when you go out to a gay bar, I think you're a lot more likely to see gay elders at the bars than lesbian elders. They're at home with their wives or socializing in different ways. You know, potlucks, game nights, book clubs, dog fighting, Daisy chains, Eiffel Towers. It's just a different scene.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it just comes back to the, you know, maybe this. I, I was going to say controversial. I think this idea is coming back that men and women are different.

[B]

Yeah. You think so?

[A]

Maybe it's on its way back. I think Trump Outlawed saying they're not different. So now we have to say they're different, but it happens to be true.

[B]

What I think the. The best illustration for the difference between gay bars and lesbian bars. So there's a gay bar named Pony in Seattle that I used to go to every once in a while. And until someone took a. Like, someone printed out like, my Twitter avatar and my name and put it in a urinal, I stopped going after that.

[A]

Jesus. Yeah, that's really creepy.

[B]

Yeah. And. But they had. They have paper mache dicks all over the. Like, the ceiling is decorated with paper mache dicks. They pay. They play little literal porn on the. On the TVs there. It's very hard to imagine. There's. So there's another. There's a lesbian bar in Seattle called the Wild Rose that's just a couple blocks away. Very hard to imagine the Rose putting vag up on the TVs. Like they would put women's sports up on the TVs. Yeah, but no, they're not gonna put. They're not putting porn on the TVs. Ain't happening.

[A]

It ain't moving on.

[B]

No. Pride Month would be complete without controversy. And I've got a few controversies for you today. The main event today is going to be about a lawsuit. Patagonia versus Patagonia. But before we get to that, as you know, there's been this move in recent years for brands to show their support for the queer community to get those gay dollars. So Pride in many cities is a sea of ads and corporate booths and some doughy bank employees marching in the parade. And this has long been a source of frustration for some of the more radical queers who like to complain that pride is too corporate. You know, they're pink washing. The first Pride was a riot. Not gays and happy queers. And you. That contingent likes to complain that come June, every other brand throws up a rainbow flag and panders for gay bucks. But with the vibe shift and the cultural turn rightward in the last couple of years, the. The backlash to corporate pandering has arrived in earnest. And it's not coming from radical queers. It's coming from conservatives. We saw that last year as brands like Target and Bud Light.

[A]

I. I don't think that's new. I think it's just now it feels like they have the backing from the federal government sort of yet.

[B]

And they have. They have a platform. Right? So they have X, Y. It's no longer Twitter. They have X. And they can start these boycotts and they're getting a lot of momentum. Like if they were doing their boycotts on Truth Social, it wouldn't matter. Like it's not, that's not an organized, that's not a real organizing platform. But when they have almost complete cultural dominance of this social network that still has a lot of cultural capital brands. Listen, yeah, and, and this is anecdotal, but I just see a lot fewer rainbow flags and logos at the moment. Brands seem nervous to be the next Bud Light. And so in light of this, it was a bit surprising to me that one brand in particular decided to go the opposite direction and, and really lean into Pride Month messaging ass first. So, Jesse, read this post by the meal delivery kit company, HelloFresh.

[A]

HelloFresh with their logo with the rainbow colors. Official, official statement. We know eating isn't always a top priority this month. We respect that. But for those of you who are dot, dot, dot, prepping, dot, dot, dot, we have an extensive lineup of high fiber recipes available. Happy Pride. Now, Katie, you're not really into gay culture, so I can explain this to

[B]

you if that would help explain it.

[A]

Prepping is first of all, there's like a plain word because prep is sort of the hiv. Not sort of. It's HIV prevention drug. Right. That gay men are more likely.

[B]

It is. I hadn't, it hadn't occurred to me that that was punny. But yeah, I guess that intentional partly

[A]

because I keep watching a very funny SNL sketch with Bowen Yang about what? Him being straight where there's a prep joke. So I think it was silly.

[B]

How does he. Does he play straight? Convincingly.

[A]

Oh my. You have not seen Bowen straight.

[B]

No, I have not seen. I have not seen Bowen straight.

[A]

It is legitimately, it is brilliant. And there's a sequel. Just watch them and we'll talk about. After you. But yeah, for those of you who are prepping prep joke. We have an extensive lineup of high fiber recipes available. High fiber. Okay, so this is a butt sex joke. It's saying you want to poop out all your poop before your anal sex.

[B]

Exactly. So they posted this on.

[A]

Right. Is that. Do I have the technical terms correct? Poop. Poop out all your poop before you get bummed.

[B]

I think before you get bummed.

[A]

Yeah. Like a British person would say bumming is more of a British is before you get arsed.

[B]

Okay. So they put so hellofresh, post this on Instagram. And there it went over well. So let's read the top comments.

[A]

This is what happens when a. Oh he's actually. This is what happens when a brand trusts its marketing team. Excellent work. 12,000 likes. Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Okay, so I think we have different. We have different top comments. So my first one is this is why we love partnering with HelloFresh. That's a queer couple. Queer Instagram couple. Another one obsessed. Clapping emoji. Happy pride. Next one. Immediately renew subscription. Rainbow flag emoji.

[A]

Wait, tell me if you get this one. That's one of my tops. What are we doing? What's going on?

[B]

I don't. I don't get it, but I like it.

[A]

Let's talk. It's supposed to be Tucker Carlson. Oh, what are we doing?

[B]

That is really good.

[A]

What's going on? That's really.

[B]

And then hello, Fresh. Respond to that. We're prepping.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

That's good. Someone asked for a discount. And hellofresh says use. Use code. Bottoms up for a Pride Month discount. Grinder's in there. Grindr says rights. So the. The response on. On Instagram is overwhelmingly positive.

[A]

But on X, this post has 109,000 likes.

[B]

Yes, on X and on Facebook.

[A]

I mean, I don't know what that

[B]

means anymore, but I think it's a lot. Yeah, all.

[A]

Everything. All of this is just fake and made up. But it appears to a very popular post.

[B]

Yes, but on X. Very different story. So this post went viral for all the wrong reasons. Just a few examples. Jesse, please read this tweet.

[A]

Ooh, Robbie Starbucks.

[B]

Starbucks. Don't pluralize him. He's not. He's not a we. He's not a they. He's. He's a man.

[A]

Robby Starbucks is actually a gay communist. Furry.

[B]

Ironically, that really sounds like it.

[A]

Ready for one of the most disturbing marketing campaigns you've ever seen @hellofresh wants you to know that they have food for you to prepare your colon for receiving. He makes this sound so much less fun describing it that clinically wants you to know that they have food for you to prepare your colon for receiving anal sex during Pride Month. Yes, this is real. No sane person should use this insane company.

[B]

Okay, so read some of the replies here.

[A]

I was a customer at HelloFresh, and I am no longer. Now, this is tricky because she does a screenshot of her canceling, but we. I bet after she took the screenshot. Mm. She didn't cancel.

[B]

Well, I don't know.

[A]

It's not a confirmation. It's not a confirmation anyway. Robbie Starbuck. Clap, clap, clap response to that.

[B]

My top one is Carrie Smith Deprogram the grossest thing are thousands of pos and excited comments on the filthy post, some even saying things like how much they love a company that supports. That's in scare quotes, everyone. Sam Dexter at HelloFresh as someone who has used your service for years and spent an untold amount of money with a stack of recipes to prove it, you'll never see another dime. Next one. We've been enjoying our four person weekly delivery for three years. They've been screwing up our orders lately and now this shit later. We live in a disgusting, perverse generation. There's a People are mad about this and they are canceling or threatening to cancel even though they might not actually be customers. People do not like this.

[A]

People on X don't like this. People on Instagram love it.

[B]

People on X, exactly. This is a classic example of context collapse. So the message landed well in the intended venue, but it caused the shit fit when it jumped platforms.

[A]

I don't think it's context. I don't think it's context collapse. It's just a message geared at one group of people in a different.

[B]

That's what context collapse.

[A]

Context collapse is when like you only get a crimped version of something said, you don't see like the full context from which it was extracted.

[B]

I'm gonna look this up. Ner Dana Boyd context collapse.

[A]

Wait, why Dana Boyd?

[B]

She came up with the. She coined the term.

[A]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[B]

Context collapse, a term coined by Internet researcher Dana Boyd, refers to the flattening of multiple distinct diverse audiences into a single combined audience and digital space. That doesn't really answer the question. Anyway, the point.

[A]

Well, or that. Or maybe. Maybe it doesn't really apply because we're talking about two different platforms also. Dana Boyd does that. Can I. This is going to be me.

[B]

The lowercase thing.

[A]

I'm so. I'm sorry. Like I. For all I know, Dana Boyd is a genius, but like, we get it. You're really intellectual and cool. That's so cool that you don't listen to society. I guess the most famous person to do that is bell hooks, but I just. I just find it annoying.

[B]

It's annoying. I agree. We can agree on that.

[A]

I capitalize. I capitalize all the letters in both.

[B]

You should do that for sure.

[A]

Dressing.

[B]

Anyway, whether or not it is context collapse, once it jumped platforms, the response was very different and I was really struck by the rank. Snowflakery in response to this on X, the post is funny, not hilarious funny. Not Bowen Yang playing straight funny, not hacks funny. It's cheeky.

[A]

Cheeky. No pun intended.

[B]

It actually was intended, but it because.

[A]

Because of butt cheeks.

[B]

It's not like they were advertising for colon cleanses on Peppa Pig. And you know, one of my central complaints about the contemporary queer culture is how humorless and scoldy it is. And here's something actually somewhat funny and irreverent. And I'm so sick of conservatives replicating the same outrage behavior that they have whined about for years when it came from the woke left. It's so fragile. They're so offended. So sorry, but hurt by this silly post. But I wanted to check my instincts on this. So I asked someone who's more conservative than I am but whose judgment I trust. That's Brad Palumbo. I emailed him and he said two things are true at once. The right wing backlash to the ad is overblown. But secondly, the ad itself is inappropriate. We would all find it strange if Factor Males posted a public social media Valentine's Day ad that referenced feeding your wife pineapple for oral sex. Sex.

[A]

Wait, what it Pineapple?

[B]

Have you never heard this?

[A]

This is. A gay guy is now teaching me things about straight sex. Well, pineapple's supposed to do what, like make it taste?

[B]

But it's supposed to improve the. The taste of ejaculate.

[A]

Then why would you feed your wife pineapple?

[B]

Yeah, I guess that wouldn't make any sense. It'd be feeding your husband pineapple.

[A]

Well, you're assuming the wife doesn't have a penis.

[B]

Brad obviously doesn't understand how it works.

[A]

Right, that one. I would have got that if a

[B]

wife was feeding her husband pineapple. Or maybe it's. Maybe.

[A]

But maybe it works both way. I don't know. It could work both ways.

[B]

Maybe I. Or maybe it doesn't work at all and it' completely an urban myth. Back to Brad. And I actually think that the gays are allies who run the marketing for HelloFresh are doing significantly more harm than good. The self hypersexualization of gay people is a net negative for gay acceptance, I suspect. So I'm not a fan of the post and I agree with a lot of the criticisms. At the same time, it's not the end of the world or worth a boycott over.

[A]

I disagree. I think it's the end of the world. I just get. I every time this, I just get tired, y', all. Because I think every, every element of this is like, okay, it's a. It's a clever ad. You're not like a kid Someone age isn't going to get the ad.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I also like, I don't know, as I get older and more cantankerous, I'm a little bit more sympathetic to slightly more conservative types or like I'm just use you for fudgeing meal delivery. I don't need your your thoughts on this. But from the company's point of view, if they're like marketing to a young urban money having audience, that's a pretty queer friendly audience.

[B]

Yeah. The ad is tasteless. I agree with that. But I'm fine with it being tasteless. I don't, I don't like, I'm not upset by this.

[A]

I just, I can't imagine getting.

[B]

You're not gonna cancel over this.

[A]

I honestly can't imagine either be like oh my God, that's so cool. This is a company that gets me like yes, they're trying to take. Take your money. They're trying to get your money or and I can't imagine being conservative and getting that mad about this.

[B]

Yeah. But I do think factor which by the way is owned by the same parent company, HelloFresh. They should do a sort of anti pride ad campaign for low fiber diets like the all cheese diet for men who want their as damned up as humanly possible. They could call it the Hoover.

[A]

I, I like that a lot. Now that made me curious who owns hello Fresh? Because all of these.

[B]

It's a German company that owns like a bunch of them.

[A]

Hitler Co.

[B]

I think it's called hello Fresh Co. But close.

[A]

It's all. That's what the HMB GmbH. It's all. This is all. None of this means anything. That's my view.

[B]

So one last thing on this. So this morning Jessica the 80s baby sent me this. Click that link.

[A]

Blue Apron had a chance to absorb the fallout from hello Fresh but they blew it. Oh my God. This is gonna be a blue apron. Try hard. Yeah. Oh no. Blue Apron.

[B]

So it's a screenshot of Blue Apron from Instagram.

[A]

Yeah. And then they have their own logo with the rate the. It's not a rainbow flag. It's. It's cooler because it's like the full spectrum of light. It's a cooler version of the flag in my view. Official statement Prism, we know that for some eating is a top priority this month. We respect that. And while eating out can be exciting, there's something to be said for diving head first into a satisfying box at home. Happy pride to everyone who appreciates a good box. Now I know what happened here. I Bet you anything. People on Instagram were like, this is dumb. You're trying to draft off the attention from the other posts. I think this is a slightly cleverer one because it's a little more. It's actually more subtle.

[B]

Let's check the comments.

[A]

And I think people probably got this, but eating out, diving headfirst, Satisfying bot.

[B]

I think people got it.

[A]

Well, no, our listeners mostly haven't had sex, so I'm trying to help them out. Box means vagina.

[B]

Comments first blue apron, Happy pride comment box and we'll DM you how you can eat yours some. First one. Did someone steal hello precious marketing idea. It's nice to see a company still celebrating pride. Then third one just canceled my subscription.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Oh yeah. Well, so this one not going over quite so well.

[A]

It's all very hard to say what it means for one of these ideas to succeed because you're. It's. Everyone is so desperate for attention or just to get 15 seconds worth of online discourse. Even if it's. It's a. It's a win for blue apron or for hellofresh. If a bunch of so perceived social conservatives are freaking out of them. I think, I don't know. Or maybe, maybe a big chunk of their market is actually just like normie conservatives.

[B]

I don't know. I mean it, I think it really, it really depends because like you remember the. We did the episode over Cracker Barrel when Robbie Starbuck, I can't even remember what he was mad about. They changed. They like took the slave off the logo. They did capitulate. Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel did capitulate in that, in that case, Bud Light did. Target did. These outrage campaigns do have the power to change these companies direction. I don't know if this one will work, but they do seemingly have some power. Okay, so that's an example of what seems to me like clearly misplaced outrage from the woke. Right. There's a more serious example I want to run by you. So there's a conservative commentator in the Seattle area named Brandy Cruz. She used to be on one of the local TV stations. She went independent a few years ago. Now she does like video podcast stuff and she's always leaned right. But she's gotten more and more overtly partisan in the last few years. So she's rallied against trans girls and girls sports. She's stumped for Trump, that kind of thing. It's sort of the Megyn Kelly arc. She is less scary than Megyn Kelly. She was actually denied a press pass at the state house this year. Subject for another day. But Brandy posted something the other day. I want your take on Jesse, so read this.

[A]

Oh, my Lord. We were just all caps. We were just sent images of the pride displays at Washington's Graham Capac pows in high school. It contains vials of testosterone injections.

[B]

Okay, so there's three photos here of what looks like a pride display. There's a rainbow, there's the trans flag, and then there's indeed a jar of what looks like testosterone.

[A]

So I find that weird. That's it? That's all you get? That is the whole preview. If you want to hear the rest, go to blockerimporter.org thank you and hope you enjoyed the preview.