Loading summary
Transcript177 lines
- [00:00]
Cam
What's up, liberals? This week we are going to do two segments separate for FYpod. Tonight, we are going to speak with Deja Fox, the founder of Gen Z Girl Gang and just yet another Gen Z guest of ours who has done so much more than I have. And then tomorrow, Tim and I are going to be talking about the little dweebs at the Doge. And maybe if I get lucky, I'll get to talk about the episode of the Alec Baldwin reality show that I sat through. Stay tuned.
- [00:50]
Tim
All right, y'all. We are back with Deja Fox. She's a organizer in Arizona, Internet friend of Cam. She runs the Gen Z Girl Gang. What's happening, Girl?
- [01:01]
Deja Fox
Internet friend of Cam is a new introduction for me, but I think I'm gonna work it into all of my bios from here on out.
- [01:08]
Cam
We've made it to the corporeal form. It was an accurate description for a while, but then we became four dimensional to one another.
- [01:16]
Deja Fox
Wow. Major Internet. And in real life, IRL friends even was I.
- [01:22]
Cam
Do you think I was taller or shorter than I appeared to be on social media?
- [01:26]
Deja Fox
I actually couldn't tell you how tall you are now, but I think that is because I'm short and it's a matter of relative perspective. So I don't ever know how tall anyone is.
- [01:35]
Cam
I think we'll just run with that narrative and hop right in.
- [01:38]
Tim
For the listeners who don't know you, can we just get a little Deja like life, like, give us a just description of your life, you know, just.
- [01:45]
Deja Fox
The rundown of my life story and we're locked in. Absolutely. So my name is Dasia Fox. I am a content creator, a digital strategist, the girls girl in chief at Gen Z Girl Gang, which is a digital collective that's committed to redefining the practice of sisterhood in digital spaces. I got my start organizing when I was 15 around better sex Ed in Arizona because I experienced something that 1 in 30 teens in the US go through, which is hidden homelessness. I didn't have a home of my own. I lived with my boyfriend and his family, and I learned the power of storytelling and organizing in that local context and then scaled up under the first Trump administration, fighting for birth control and abortion. And then I spent time at Columbia, where I studied media and I worked for Kamala Harris on her first presidential run as the influencer and surrogate strategist.
- [02:40]
Tim
Nice. So, I mean, everybody's kind of a content creator now. But I like that you lied with that. So the hidden homelessness is like you're just. You're crashing on couches, basically.
- [02:52]
Deja Fox
It can look like lots of different things, but in its essence, it means you don't have a home of your own.
- [02:56]
Tim
Got it. And so what, at 15, as somebody that was homeless or hidden homeless gave you, like, the gumption to be like, I'm gonna go be an activist now, rather than just, you know, to kind of survive?
- [03:13]
Deja Fox
Well, being an activist is about surviving, right? I knew I needed access to sex education and birth control to have control over my body and the living situation I was in. Right. And so for me, politics was never something I learned in a classroom or through the news. Right. Like, my politic was deeply personal. And so when I showed up to my senator's town hall when I was 16, which was my first viral video. So you're absolutely right. Everyone's a content creator.
- [03:42]
Tim
And what senator?
- [03:44]
Deja Fox
I'll tell you in just a sec. When I was 16, under the first Trump administration, my then senator, Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, had voted to defund Planned Parenthood, which essentially meant stripping Planned Parenthood centers of Title 10 funding. And Title 10 funding provided birth control at no cost to nearly 4 million, I think over 4 million folks, myself included, when I didn't have money or parents or insurance. And I walked into a Planned Parenthood and left with six months of birth control. And my senator had voted to strip that funding, strip me of my ability to access that care. And so when I went to his town hall, I asked him why, hey, he is an old white man, was making those decisions about me and my body. And he told me, he was like, I support policies that support the American dream. And I asked him why he would deny me the American dream if no copay. Birth control was helping me to be successful and reach for higher education, which, spoiler alert, I go on to be the first of my family to go to college. I got a full ride to Columbia. I graduated, but that is in large part because I had access to the reproductive care I needed when I needed it, and at no cost.
- [04:58]
Cam
Well, after I had a viral confrontation with my Republican senator, who probably voted to defund Planned Parenthood, I got into Columbia and they didn't give me shit. So you slayed with that.
- [05:13]
Deja Fox
Well, because I think you went GS, right? Yeah, general studies. So I had to, for my full ride situation, I could never switch into general studies, which gave me more flexibility. Instead, I was, like, forced to do full time classes and also full time work, which was its own absolute shit show. College was A toughie.
- [05:32]
Cam
For those of you who don't know, General studies is a program at Columbia that's flexible for people who are pursuing their professional careers. So you could take extended, extended periods of time off. You could have a flexible class schedule. And this isn't on the website or part of the admissions process, but they also fucking hate your guts. They won't give you shit. They treat you like the scum of Columbia. And it's really hard to make other 18 year old friends if you are the very rare 18 year old GS student. Most of the GS students were adults who are already well into their careers. Actors, veterans, people who already had something going on for them. Meanwhile, I was fucking waving through a window to try and meet anybody. But. And, and all this is to say, what a bird.
- [06:24]
Tim
And this is why you're a podcaster now.
- [06:26]
Cam
You know, this is why I'm a podcaster now. So I, I only went for a little bit, but you slayed. I wish I had tried to do what you did. If they would have even fucking given me one, by the way. And what did you study?
- [06:41]
Deja Fox
I was in the center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race and I made my own concentration in media, which meant that I got to think a lot about, in an academic sense, our media environment and specifically the role that teen girls play on social media.
- [06:57]
Tim
That is so lucky for you. They've had to shut down the center for Ethnicity and race during Trump 2.0, I think. So unfortunately, all of those DEI degrees are gone, right?
- [07:09]
Deja Fox
Yeah. I'm not sure that the center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race is gone.
- [07:13]
Tim
They're allowed to stay.
- [07:14]
Deja Fox
Crosshairs are still around.
- [07:15]
Tim
They're allowed to stay.
- [07:16]
Deja Fox
Yeah.
- [07:17]
Tim
Watch out, watch out. They're going to be in the crosshairs. So let us educate us about the Gen Z girl gang. I've got a couple questions I've been on your about page, but I want to hear, I want to hear what.
- [07:28]
Deja Fox
You think about it. So it started out of my college dorm because I was so used to in Arizona. Right. You can imagine what a tremendous shift it was to go from being working at a gas station, organizing in a grassroots way with people I'd known my whole life to a dorm room at Columbia, first in family to go to college, encountering a kind of wealth I didn't even know existed before I got there. And so it really redefined for me what community meant. Right. Community to me up until the point at which I started college was always the people who lived around you. It was your neighbors, it was your friends, it was your family, your classmates. And when I got to Columbia, I realized that I shared very little with the majority of my classmates. And so instead, I started to look, okay, then where are these moments of community building happening for me? Like, who is in my corner? And the answer was mostly other young women that I was meeting online, like on Instagram. Like, my Instagram besties were who were getting me through that very first, very hard year of transition at Columbia. And so Gen Z Girl Gang was born out of this idea that teen girls are building new ways of being in relationship to each other by the very nature of being the first generation to come of age online. And they're building these friendships that, you know, might seem kind of frivolous to the average onlooker, but to me are really revolutionary. Like, they are making distance disappear. I think if you told a boomer, like, hey, I've never met my best friend in real life, but these are the ways that she's impacted me, right? Like, she's put me onto this job opportunity and she supported me through a really hard breakup and helped me, like, through FaceTimes, get through my study sesh. Like, she's my friend, even though I've never met her. That would, like, blow a boomer's mind.
- [09:27]
Tim
I'm a boomer, I guess, because that's blowing my mind. That's your bestie? You have a bestie that you've never met?
- [09:32]
Deja Fox
My best friends were people that I've met online. And, you know, I have this really interesting story that I've been reflecting on lately, which was that especially as we see these social media sites go swing, right? But, you know, in 2021, so in the middle of the pandemic, you know, hard lockdown, I was cyber mobbed. So I had an instance where a girl took a screenshot of one of my TikToks, put it on Twitter with the caption, new enemy just dropped. And tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people were engaging with this. I was like, my personal information was shared, you know, what did you do.
- [10:14]
Tim
To become an enemy?
- [10:15]
Deja Fox
I don't know. I had my own political opinions, I suppose, but I share that. To say that the platforms really didn't have a solution for me to stop this, like, cross platform targeted attack at scale. And instead, what ended up happening was one of my friends, Maya, who I had only ever met online, who was a member of Gen Z Girl Gang, sent me a text and she asked if she could have my passwords. And she Logged in to my accounts and deleted things. Hateful comments DMs before I could even see them. And I share that story because she is to this day one of my best friends. We spend lots of time in real life together now, but because it highlights exactly how young women are creating these relationships that build resiliency for them to show up not just in their real lives, but also in the public discourse online. And that they really build, like professional and personal well being for each other in platforms that. And social media spaces that are not built for them. So, you know, so, yeah, some of my besties are my digital besties, hence the introduction. Cam's online friend, Tim.
- [11:29]
Cam
You know, our guest last week, Ellie Schnit, who is a wonderful person and a very insightful person. And if you haven't listened to last week's episode, you ought to because she says some stuff that is really interesting. We dated for eight months.
- [11:45]
Tim
Yeah, we talked about that.
- [11:47]
Cam
Yeah. And we met on Twitter, period.
- [11:50]
Tim
Just DM'd.
- [11:51]
Cam
That was how we met. It wasn't a speed dating event. It wasn't at the local. It wasn't at the local pub. It wasn't a mutual friend. We had mutual friends, but it wasn't through a mutual friend. We were just like.
- [12:03]
Tim
I think they call that a slide you just slid into our DMs.
- [12:06]
Cam
I don't want to put it like that, mostly because I don't like the implications of that. But hypothetically, if somebody else did exactly what I did, I would probably say that they slid into the DMs.
- [12:21]
Tim
It is not insane to me that somebody might meet on the Internet, but just the notion that you create an entire friend group based around like an online community of people you haven't met like that, like, that's another step from like, oh, I followed you on Twitter.
- [12:41]
Cam
I think also like people who struggle to socialize in person. They find community online with other people who like the same stuff as them. So, you know, you see fandoms, for example, and I'm not necessarily talking about the Swifties or the Beyhive necessarily, but I'm talking about, you know, the people who are playing online Dungeons and Dragons and the people on the same comic book forums that I'm on. I got a buddy who I hang out with in person all the time. I guess this isn't the best example because he's a pretty social guy, but we met because I was following his fan page for the Flash, a superhero who I don't even really give a shit about because his Power set is completely inconsistent, and it makes no sense. And you read the comic books and you're like, you know what? He's as powerful as the writer says he is. Whatever. Point is, people find community online often through shared interest, whether that's shared political values. I mean, I try to make as few friendships based on shared political values as possible, because most of the people who share my political values are fucking annoying. So normally, if I find somebody who agrees with me on most of my policy positions, I'm like, okay, great. This is a great person to, like, repost. I don't know if this is somebody I want to kick it with.
- [13:57]
Tim
Well, this is a good way to follow up, though. Is that is an issue. I guess Deja, like, you don't have control. Like, it's not. I guess maybe you do. Do you get to pick who gets to be in the girl gang? Like, what happens if you get, like, a bunch of girls who, like, share your political values but are also, like, super annoying? Like, what happened? What happens then? Is the girl gang fragile?
- [14:15]
Deja Fox
Is the girl gang fragile? No, the girl gang is not very fragile. It's actually very resilient. But, you know, there's tears to any sort of organization. So at our core, we have a leadership team that runs the account, right? Like, manages the everyday. And that group of people also, mostly folks that I had never met in real life, they came to us through the Internet. We built relationships, they got brought onto the team. But I think in terms of our general community, right, like, who's engaging with us? You can see what you see on Instagram is one level, but we also have been investing in getting off platforms like Instagram and moving away from any social media that's from the top down that values big followings over dense followings. And so we've been moving to places like Discord, where our community members can build relationships with one another, not just with us or with our values or with our content or our mission, right? Like, we want our community members to be engaging. And so to answer your question about, like, do we pick who's in there? No, but we have community guidelines, right? Like, we have a standard to which we hold our community. So that way we can keep the space fun and engaging and useful to our community members. And a really good example of that is how we. How we engage on Discord.
- [15:39]
Tim
So you're having, like, real world meetups. Are you doing activism based off of it? Like, what's happening off of. Off of the phone?
- [15:45]
Deja Fox
Well, I would argue that girls being friends and sharing opportunities is activism because I'm with you. We really need people to be in community with one another now like more than ever. Like gathering as a young person is hard. There's not a lot of third spaces, which is like already like a buzzword. But like young people are being priced out of their ability to like make friends and make community outside of their jobs. And so yes, we host in real life gatherings we would do for the past few years. We've done back to school survival summits, which is like we've done them virtually in real life. But it was really interesting, especially right after the pandemic. We hosted one and it was this moment where if you can imagine, 50%, if not more of students had never been on a college campus before, right? Upon return, the freshmens were new. The sophomores had only done it on Zoom. Many of the juniors even had been in and out of Zoom classes at some point. And so there was this moment of reset in youth in real life spaces even. Right. Not just on campuses, but even when we talk about how do you engage with people out at the bar. Young people are engaging differently in real life because of our experience with the pandemic and the years in which we had to socialize online. And so Gen Z Girl Gang is focused on building digital community spaces. But we also have these in real life pop ups. We just hosted a free meetup at the park where we did like a craft day and we got 100 and something RSVPs because girls are hungry to go hang out in real life at a low cost that, that they can afford and spend time together.
- [17:34]
Tim
All right, I'm sorry Kim, I'm over talking. You can take it from here. But I'm just, you know, she's saying interesting things and I keep having.
- [17:40]
Deja Fox
Kim just really wants an invite to the Gen Z Club.
- [17:41]
Tim
I do. Well, I want to hang out with.
- [17:43]
Deja Fox
The Gen Z Club event.
- [17:45]
Tim
I mean I'm not a crafter, but I do, I do kind of just want to vibe, but I think gay.
- [17:52]
Cam
Uncle is a perfect person to have at a Gen Z Girl Gang event. Everybody needs their Gunkle.
- [17:56]
Tim
Gunkle is a perfect person.
- [17:58]
Deja Fox
Yeah, Gen Z Gunkle Gang.
- [18:00]
Tim
I'm like just put me in the grave now. But my follow up up was we had. I forgot who we were talking to. But like there's a big article Derek, my friend Derek Thompson wrote, we were talking about this on another episode about how like a lot of boys were embittered. Like you say like 50% of people post pandemic hadn't been on campus. And, like, I'm actually, like, sympathetic to this. Like, they've. They lost years. They felt like maybe they didn't have to, you know, or they shouldn't have. You know, the shutdown shouldn't have been for as long as, like, young people weren't dying, really. And, like, they're pissed. And they went maga, right? Like, they're like, this is, you know, we're generalizing. Like, this is like a little bit of a trend. Like, why don't you think that, like, why do you think girls, women had a different experience, right? Because, like, many of the people in your group, like, they lost high school graduations or college graduations or college freshman year. And like, that sucks. Like, so why do you think they reacted differently?
- [18:57]
Deja Fox
That's such a good question. I don't often get asked questions I've never been asked before. But that's a different framing of the. This question. And I appreciate it because the question I often get is, what are you doing to get those boys on your side? And I'm like, that's not my job, but y'all go do that. But I too, am sympathetic to this, right? And I think some of what's so disappointing about it and to the question of why them and not us on this, like, far right radicalization has to do with algorithms and who's being tracked toward which content. And it is a fact that gender plays a role in how algorithms on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok decide what you should see, right? Like, when you make your profile, you give it very little information about yourself, maybe your age and your gender, and it starts from there. And so if you can imagine these, like, 12, 13 year old boys getting on YouTube and being tracked into content, that radicalizes them to the right. I know. I talk to so many of my friends who have little brothers that are like, I don't know what happened to him during the pandemic. Like, this is so weird. Like, me and my family are all good Dems, right? Like, we believe these things. We raised him differently. But we have to understand that young people, the way they're building their sense of self, their communities and their political opinions is more individualized than it ever has been. Like, in the course of history, it used to be that the number one determining factor of how you would vote was how your parents voted. And that's just not true anymore because we have these very isolated experiences of self and community and political opinion building right on our phones. And the. The truth is that these Boys are being tracked into algorithms by companies that profit off of them into far right beliefs. And so you didn't ask me for the solution. And to be honest, not completely my job because I'm for the girls, but I think we really need to be taking a hard look at the accountability of not just generalizing and saying it's an algorithms problem, but those algorithms are made by people and controlled by companies with whom we can and should have sway. So that's my long and short of it.
- [21:36]
Cam
And it happens to be that the people who run all of those companies were writing million plus dollar checks for Trump's inauguration and are playing buddy buddy with Trump now. And the whole myth of liberal big tech has fallen apart. I personally think most of the liberal big tech thing, I think that even when they were, you know, putting rainbows on their logos every now and again, they were still right wing. I think that a lot of that was just, and this might be, you know, reductive because they were in San Francisco, but they left San Francisco. They left San Francisco a fucking shell of a city. It's a disaster. And now they're doing right wing social media from right wing places like Texas. So it's really interesting. This is not nearly as insightful as what you said. This is actually almost anti insightful. So I feel like there's no.
- [22:29]
Deja Fox
Say the quiet part out loud though. That's what we need to do. Go.
- [22:31]
Cam
Okay. Unfortunately, this is just the medium volume part. But, you know, just for the sake of transparency and honesty, which is, you know, dare I say, the number one guiding principle of the FYpod, I get fed a lot of right wing content and that is my fault. And I take full accountability because I am a hate watcher. I watch shit because it pisses me off so much. And if I see the Charlie Kirk video on my for you page, which, you know, inspired a. For your podcast, I'll click on it just to be like this fucking prick. And here's what I would have said if I was debating you, Charlie. So my algorithm is mostly Legos and X Men, but then also right wing content because I, I hate watch it. And that, that really offers nothing to what you were just saying, which was so insightful. But what I will say is, yeah, a lot of the guys that I've seen turn to the right, you know, the people who I keep somewhat tangential or present in my life who have moved to the right, and I've sort of just made the compromise that I'm not going to cut them out of my life. Instead, I'm going to try to patiently push them in the directions that I think they need to be pushed in. Because, you know, when a so much of being on the right is isolation and feeling like there's no room for you elsewhere. So I play nice with a lot of people that I've known in my life who have turned to the right simply because the thing that I want them to have the most is somebody saying positive things in their ear and seeing what kind of difference that will make. But to what you were saying, a lot of the young men I've seen turn to the right have like lib parents and lib siblings. My brother is like, you know, owns the assault rifle that was used at my high school and is like a regular listener of the Ben Shapiro show and my whole family. My. I don't know if there's anything in the world that makes my father angrier than like Trump, even when he's like not even doing that much. Like even during the short period of time during the Biden administration where Trump was for Trump quiet. You know, not quiet but relative to Trump quiet. It was still the first thing that would come up at every dinner. And yet my brother is like, you know, he's not waving around, you know, American flags and wearing MAGA hats, but he has really responded to the right in a family where his younger brother is and I can scientifically prove this with data. The wokest white man in Gen Z maybe in America.
- [25:13]
Tim
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we love your dad. We love TDS parents. So I have not to be like the gender is immutable trait gives you immutable traits guy. But like there are some differences. I don't know, I just, I'm listening to you guys and I'm like there's something about boys that like make them want to be contrarian. It's just like you just kind of see it obviously like we're painting with a broad brush and like they're, they're, they're contrary examples to all these things. And like girls like are more like empathetic. I don't know, like my daughter's in all girls school and just like the way the seven year old girls treat each other is just different than the way seven year old boys treat each other like on average like not in every situation. And I guess I just think that maybe the COVID thing like maybe in boys like triggered this like fuck the man, fuck you feeling and in girls triggered like empathy. Oh my, I feel so bad for your family member that Got sick. Like maybe more of a community and agreeableness. I don't know, maybe this is. Maybe I'm being too like, men are for Mars, women are for Venus for you guys. But what do you make of that? Is there something there?
- [26:21]
Deja Fox
Well, I would add that boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider, but you know, that might be reductive.
- [26:29]
Tim
Yeah, no, I think there's something to that.
- [26:32]
Deja Fox
But okay, here's my thought on that too. And I think it's so interesting to bring up the playground example, right. Because these are kids pre iPad even, right?
- [26:40]
Tim
Right.
- [26:40]
Deja Fox
You see that when girls and boys play, they play differently and girls are very responsive to the needs of the other girls around them. Like they're more likely to bring each other in or you know, to notice when someone needs something or is being left out. And we even see that like on a flip side that like the kind of violence that's enacted in like a middle school amphitheater, like girls, it's like psychological, like they know how to exclude or include. And boys are like pushing each other around. I hear you a little bit on that. To say that I think during the pandemic girls had an experience where they turn to the Internet and spaces like Gen Z Girl Gang that were born pre pandemic saying that we were already building digital communities, already building need relationships out of need online. And that when we were looking at our survival strategies in digital spaces, it was about coming together, right. And like sticking together, standing up for each other. And I think in part of that, and that word contrarian is interesting to me because I hear that, that you know, these boys want to feel like they're sticking it to the man and they're like have this at odds opinion, but really they're doing the most sheeple thing possible just following an algorithm into the far right. Whereas girls, in my opinion teen girls are being subversive as shit by using these profit making platforms to turn them into community building platforms. Like that's actually subversive and contrari. And so I think maybe girls get their contrarian kicks by just being community builders and like existing on spaces that weren't meant for them.
- [28:22]
Cam
You know those cringe male feminists who think that being a nice guy and not like the other guys is the best way to market yourself in dating. So I'm going to do exactly that by quoting bell hooks.
- [28:38]
Deja Fox
Did you just google it though? Because I saw your screen light up.
- [28:41]
Cam
Did you google the quote? It's from All About Love. But in my defense, I knew what the quote I was gonna look for was. I wasn't just blindly bell hooks searching. I just don't want to misquote bell hooks. And in order out of respect for the integrity of bell hooks, I'm also going to remind everybody that every time I say it, it's in all lowercase because that is how bell hooks presents bell hooks. But to quote bell hooks, because I am, just to be clear, not like those other boys, I'm a nice boy. The wounded child inside many males is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by a paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings. The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings in order to attract and please others. Now, I think that we are seeing a lot of young women move towards claiming those feelings and move towards celebrating each other's acceptance of those feelings and growth of those feelings. But the reason that I bring that quote up, when it comes to young men being silenced by paternal sadism in.
- [29:54]
Tim
A patriarchal way, they're fucking Gen X dads.
- [29:57]
Cam
I don't know how much, I don't know, truly, I really don't know how much the male tendency towards violence and towards contrarianism and towards, you know, trying to be more aggressive. I don't know how much of that is chromosomal, and I don't know how much of that is because young men are taught by the society that we live in from a very young age that power is in the damage we can deal, not in the love we can spread. You know, one of the things that is one of the themes of the YA fantasy novel that I've tried to write for the past eight months and haven't gotten more than 10 pages into because I'm not very good at painting a scene, and it's turned out really bad every time. But one of the themes I'm trying to do in my YA fantasy novel is that power is not measured by what we can take from others. It is measured by what we can give. And I think that young men are taught by our society before they're even at the playground, you know, in the way that they watch their fathers behave, in the way that they watch. Well, I say they. The way that we watch men behave in movies and on tv, we are taught that to demonstrate a power, to demonstrate power and to be a man, is to use that power in order to diminish others and to rise up, you need to rise up by knocking other people down a peg, not by lifting other people up.
- [31:33]
Tim
I love Deep Cam. Deep Cam, not Sarcastic Cam, is out today. That's great.
- [31:40]
Cam
There is always emotional truth to Sarcastic Cam. There is never not emotional truths being.
- [31:45]
Tim
Held space for that is true. We do always hold space for your emotions. Okay, I have two more things for Deja before we get to the Boomer mailbag, which is becoming the highlight of the show. I want to pick on you first and then ask you an earnest question second. Okay, go for it. So I'm going to read something from the Gen Z Girl Gang.
- [32:04]
Deja Fox
Okay.
- [32:04]
Tim
This is how you describe yourself. Founding in 2019 in NYC, Gen Z Girl Gang centers Gen Z, Wimson and Femmes as leaders and content creators.
- [32:17]
Deja Fox
Okay.
- [32:17]
Tim
Are we still. Meg Kelly. Megyn Kelly is gonna come for you if you do not change your about page. Okay. What are whimson and femmes? What are femmes?
- [32:27]
Deja Fox
To be so clear, there was a time in which everyone was using that. Okay, okay. Including.
- [32:34]
Cam
Including you, Tim. You just forget including me.
- [32:37]
Tim
I never wrote. I never wrote Wimksen. And I still don't know what a femmes is. Is that okay?
- [32:42]
Deja Fox
Femmes is something we still say. We still say.
- [32:44]
Tim
What is that? What is it?
- [32:46]
Deja Fox
Google's free, Tim.
- [32:49]
Tim
That's why I'm having the podcast. You're so you people are supposed to tell me Google's free. Oh, like a lesbian? Like a femme. Les.
- [32:56]
Deja Fox
Well, no. Well, yes, you could use it in that way, but also it's to acknowledge that for Gen Z Girl Gang, and this was where we were using that. Like women with an X term, which I also, you know, we've scrubbed that because I think as a collective, we've decided that's not useful.
- [33:12]
Tim
Anything you can't pronounce.
- [33:13]
Deja Fox
Here's the difference, right? This is what we're trying to get across at Gen Z Girl Gang, okay, is that we are open not just to people who identify necessarily with the word girl, Right? That this is a space for people who are of all marginalized genders. Right? Like this is a safe space for people who are across the gender spectrum of a marginalized gender. So that could be, you know, non binary folks. Women, girls, Femmes. Femmes, exactly. And it's just about saying that, like, it's not a space that's not for men, but it is a space that is for everyone but men. Like. Like centering. Saying that this space is designed. There's enough spaces, believe you me, that are designed for Men, actually, the majority of our spaces are. And so this is something though, you're pointing out a really interesting rub that not just Gen Z, girl gang and digital spaces are trying to figure out, but even like campaigns, political parties, brands are trying to figure out, which is how do we talk about gender in a way that acknowledges that we've moved past that binary a little bit. Right. As a collective, we all have a better understanding of the multitude of the expressions of gender, but also be acknowledging that we're centering the experiences of non men. We're at the mind less of like we're gonna police who's in here and more of like a flies to honey thing. We are so firmly rooted in girl culture that if you're fucking with what we put out there, you're probably one of the girls gays. And they's right, like you're probably under our umbrella. And so I think, you know, that's sort of where we come at from it. But it's not perfect. And I think it is something. I said this earlier, but it's the sort of thing that parties, brands, organizations, nonprofits, like, are all sort of struggling to figure out. And it's going to get harder under an administration that's like telling us we can't do like these DEI exclusive groups that. That spaces like these that are specific to a group, that create like a sense of belonging for people that don't. For whom general spaces, normal spaces, are not built for that These, like subcultures and subspaces we're building are sort of in danger in this moment.
- [35:59]
Tim
You were in Arizona organizing. Do you have any, like, lessons from that? Like so much is going to be an important state. Just kind of give us your little, your little spiel on what you learned in Arizona.
- [36:11]
Deja Fox
Yeah, I'm born and raised in Arizona. I'm from Tucson and I recently moved back. About a year ago, I made the choice to leave New York, move back to a hometown, and right around when.
- [36:27]
Cam
We started hanging out, by the way. But I don't take it personally, it.
- [36:30]
Deja Fox
Actually was just to get away from Cam.
- [36:33]
Tim
I get it.
- [36:34]
Deja Fox
Singular motivation. So being back home during the election cycle was really important to me on a personal level for two reasons. The first being that I work in the digital space and the literal physical architecture of New York makes me feel claustrophobic. And when I walk out in Arizona, walk out of my front door, I see massive mountains and a gorgeous blue sky that reminds me that the world is bigger than fucking TikTok, full stop, period. And that was really good for avoiding menti bees during the election cycle. Second thing that was really important about the move for me back to Arizona on a personal and professional level was that the same organizers that brought me into this work at 15, that taught me about the reproductive justice framework, that held my voice, that taught me how to tell my story and power map and just like the fundamentals of what it meant to be an organizer are there, these are people I've been organizing with since before the first Trump administration. And it is a deep reminder to me when I go to their baby showers and baptisms of their kids and barbecues, where we sit and we just hang out and have birya or food or whatever that like when we invest in community that outlasts election cycles, right? Like, the relationships I have with these people are what got me through this election cycle and will get me through whatever happens next. And so being back in that community was incredibly important for me. And that, like, physical environment now, what did I learn that's transferable to you all? I think I hosted these youth listening sessions in Arizona where I would invite young people into my home, into my living room. And sometimes there would be journalists or movement leaders or funders that would come and sit with us and we would just talk about what they were thinking about before they went to bed, what were they worrying about, what was going on in their group chat, what was the highlight of the week, what was the conversation topic, what is the thing they want out of their lives, what do they expect from their politicians? And this learning might not be revolutionary, but I think if we practiced it, it would be for these young people. Their number one worry and their number one aspiration is to live a good life, right? Like it is cost of living that's fucking them up. They are so disappointed that they cannot move out of their parents home. They're worried about paying their car insurance bill this month. They're upset that they can't afford to go out and have drinks with their friends or even go see a movie, right? For them, their number one issue is cost of living. And we can and should frame issues like my core advocacy issue is reproductive rights. We can and should frame things like birth control access as a part of living that, like, American dream, good life, right? That when you have control over your body and you can make decisions about if and when to start a family, that you can have that kind of financial stability to enjoy the ease of opportunity and good financial stability. And so that was one of my biggest learnings and I think is a Real downfall when we talk about young people in a political space is we often decide that the issues they care about are this, this and that. And instead of integrating them into a framework that acknowledges what they're actually dealing with on a day to day, which is like putting gas in their car and like trying to save up enough to move out of their parents house, we fail to do that. And instead we give them experiences about abortion. Right. That are something that they might have experienced one time. But instead of connecting it to this larger framework of because you have access to reproductive care and can make decisions about your body, you're able to afford moving out of your parents house. Go try out that new city, try for that job that you really care about, that makes you feel excited and passionate. So that's one of my biggest learnings about young people in Arizona, is they really care about living a good life that feels safe and stable.
- [41:05]
Tim
Yeah, living life.
- [41:06]
Cam
So not to make this about me.
- [41:07]
Tim
Yeah.
- [41:08]
Deja Fox
But to make it about you. A person in New York, a young white man in New York.
- [41:12]
Cam
Yeah, this. Thank you for calling me young. 24 is really up there. I just wanted to say that that monologue especially just had me reflecting on the fact that with the guests we've had so far, and I'm so grateful to you for coming on, it's almost like the second half of our episodes are this sort of humiliation tour for me where these young people who do so much more than I do, care so much more than I do, and have so much more insights than I do, come on and just share these things that the audience really isn't getting from me and Tim. I didn't. I don't think this was our plan from the get go. But I think that especially knowing who we're going to have on in the coming weeks, I think that that's what this show has essentially been, is like, hey, remember the kid who started March for Our Lives and the media said that these kids were the future leaders? Here's how far back he has intellectually fallen.
- [42:12]
Tim
Well, good news, Cam. We're gonna bring on a magazoomer in the next couple weeks to make you feel good about yourself.
- [42:18]
Cam
Okay. Anyway. Boomer mailbag.
- [42:21]
Tim
Boomer mailbag. I'm so excited about this one. Last week we gave great advice to the boomer that wanted to throw ass at the Kendrick Lamar concert. The week before, we took the chastising from the boomer, the one to tell Cam he's stupid. This week we have a great question. It comes from Carrie. She's age 73. Her email signature was. Sometimes you're the cat and sometimes you're the ball of yarn. That's something to think about.
- [42:49]
Cam
Tea.
- [42:52]
Tim
And I should have said, if you're a boomer, you should email us@Bulwark podcasthebork.com alright, here we go. Boomer mailbag. The other day, a Gen Z guy parked close to me and I wasn't able to get in my car. He came out of the store and I asked if he was about to leave so that I could go get to my car. He said yes, but then he got in his car and sat there for three to five minutes looking at his phone. Well, I stood waiting in the rain. I know I can't generalize this behavior to all young adults, but I feel like the old person shaking my head saying, kids these days. Your thoughts?
- [43:27]
Cam
Yet another Boomer mailbag piece where I'm like, okay, they're doing this at all ages. Like assholes who will sit on their phone and let you stand in the rain. I don't assign an age group to that.
- [43:39]
Deja Fox
Like I assign a gender to that. That was a boy.
- [43:44]
Cam
Yeah, yeah, it was a boy.
- [43:46]
Tim
It was a he. Him pronoun.
- [43:47]
Cam
I can confirm Gen Z, like we, we're addicted to our phones. But I've said this before on fypod. I'll say it again. So are all you. So I. I don't. I rebuke that Gen Z ification of assholes sitting on their phones and not caring about people. Happens all the time. Next question.
- [44:10]
Tim
All right, Deja, did you have any guidance for Carrie? 73 year old, bemoaning the youth.
- [44:22]
Deja Fox
I'm sorry that happened to you, Carrie. I'm sorry you had to stand out in the rain. That's tragic. I hope that he found whatever he wanted to find in his Spotify. Liked daylight.
- [44:33]
Cam
No, no, no. It was an Andrew Tate video, I guarantee you.
- [44:38]
Deja Fox
You know, maybe he was trying to find this podcast to put it on, you know, I don't know. I can't, I can't speak.
- [44:45]
Cam
He was on Amazon buying books about radical feminist literature.
- [44:49]
Deja Fox
Leaving that old woman out in the rain. But also. Okay, Carrie, one second. Now this is like maybe gonna blow her mind. I can't get anywhere without plugging it into my Apple map. Like even back to my own home sometimes. So feel for us. I don't know how to use a map or read street signs. Maybe he just really needed to figure out where he was.
- [45:09]
Tim
It could be map illiteracy. It could be map illiteracy I like that you're always. This is what I'm saying. Always looking out for the better. Always empathy coming from the Gen Z girl gang. I like that.
- [45:18]
Deja Fox
Also, you know what, Carrie, like, knock on his window. Move her up.
- [45:24]
Tim
That's another great point.
- [45:26]
Cam
Knock on his window. If it's an open carry state, show some initiative. If it was an open carry state, I would not recommend that. If it was a state where you can open carry. But if it wasn't an open carry state, if it was a blue state, I would say, yeah, knock on that window.
- [45:42]
Tim
Yeah, Gen Z. This guy's not carrying around a gap. Okay, that's great. We go to our final segment, Gen Z News. Sebastian, this is you.
- [45:51]
D
A survey from Storage Cafe ranked the states according to the net migration of Gen Z into the state. So that migration being how many people are coming into the state versus leaving the state. So I wanted to see if you guys could guess the state that you think Gen Z is most moving to.
- [46:12]
Cam
Texas or Florida.
- [46:13]
D
I'll give you the top five after this.
- [46:16]
Tim
I'm going to say Georgia, Colorado, Texas, Florida and Arizona because Deja's bringing them there.
- [46:23]
Deja Fox
There. I'm bringing them there. I'm the number one Arizona influencer. I'm going to say New York. I think New York has forever youth appeal despite cost of living, being absolutely bananas. I want to say Texas and I hear that, but I did recently hear a stat literally yesterday about how Gen Z women over job opportunities are interested in moving to states that protect their reproductive rights because they're scared to have and start families in places where abortion is outlawed. Colorado, I'm going to say I'm going to stick with. I think it's Cali in New York still is bringing the young people. And then I'm going to reluctantly say Texas and then lovingly say Arizona.
- [47:07]
D
All right, so the top state is South Carolina.
- [47:10]
Deja Fox
So we all.
- [47:11]
D
So I don't think, I don't think anybody.
- [47:13]
Tim
I think the survey is bullshit. You got to find better surveys.
- [47:16]
D
Again, it's net.
- [47:19]
Deja Fox
It's the number of people leaving versus coming in.
- [47:22]
D
It's not like millions of people are moving to South Carolina. It's that less people are leaving compared to how many are coming into it.
- [47:29]
Deja Fox
With that being said, I'm going to paint the picture of why these states are probably there, which is that young people move there and they find jobs and it's great. And also South Carolina has like. Charleston is apparently very cool. Right?
- [47:42]
Tim
I've heard that Charleston School, Greenville's okay.
- [47:44]
Deja Fox
But I think what's keeping young people in states like South Carolina is that they can actually buy homes.
- [47:49]
Tim
Yeah, it's true.
- [47:49]
Deja Fox
Like, people will leave New York eventually because they cannot buy a home. People will leave Texas when they decide they want to have a kid because they can't get adequate care there. So I'm wondering if South Carolina has something like, what else?
- [48:01]
Tim
North Carolina.
- [48:02]
D
So it's South Carolina, then it's Arizona. Deja is number two.
- [48:06]
Deja Fox
I'm part of that net movement in.
- [48:09]
D
Then it's North Carolina, then it's D.C. and then it's Florida.
- [48:14]
Cam
Well, okay, so I got one.
- [48:15]
Deja Fox
When's that? Since when? Like, what was the. Was this. When was this done?
- [48:19]
D
This was 2023, I believe.
- [48:20]
Deja Fox
Okay. Because I feel like DC 2024.
- [48:24]
Tim
Moving out. We move out, we're getting away within.
- [48:28]
Cam
The next couple years. Florida is just going to completely change when nobody can get anything insured because the entire state is getting torn apart by hurricanes. And insurers are not getting behind that. So we'll see what happens.
- [48:39]
Tim
Our boy Jared Moskowitz is working on this. They need a fucking insurance plan asap.
- [48:45]
Cam
Yeah, yeah. Jared Moskowitz is a. Is a progressive hero, so I'm sure he'll get right on that.
- [48:50]
Tim
Hey, don't you speak ill of your, you know, most famous graduate, non school shooting victim category, dude, let me tell.
- [48:59]
Cam
You, Jared Moskowitz and I kind of had a mutual understanding that we weren't friends. I think. I don't know if I'm making that up. And we saw each other at the bagel place in Parkland that I go to. That's really fucking good. And Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School father, because Douglas parents always come up to me and think that I want to talk to them when I'm at restaurants in Parkland and I just try to be open and say, hello, nice to meet you. He was like, cameron, you know, Jared Moskowitz. And Moskowitz and I had sort of. I mean, Moskowitz wouldn't want to hear this word. But we had sort of had a ceasefire where we were, where we saw each other and we were like, okay, we're both gonna have breakfast and that's what we're gonna do. Because you are a person and I am a person, and we both have a constitutional right to have fucking breakfast. But this dad, this. This Parkland father who just had to fucking gab was like, you guys know each other? Cameron was the organizer of the March for Our Lives. Jared, you. And I was like, hey Jared, how's our mutual affection for the Miami Dolphins? I digress.
- [50:08]
Tim
That's how the magic happens on the FY pod. All right, Sebastian, we have time for one more question and then we're leaving.
- [50:15]
D
So Tim, you on the fly started Boomer Mailbag as a segment. This is. I'm on the fly doing Is this cringe? Okay. Based off of the DNC list that we showed from the 34 things 32. Thanks. So Democratic women of the House appear to have released a collaboration with TikTok influencer Jessica Wu. I don't know if any of you, you too Cam or Deja know who that is, but the right really started mocking it. And I think also some other like Jake Tapper started mocking it. But who knows if this is really appeals to Gen Z. So I'm going to play it and then you're going to tell me. Is this cringe?
- [50:56]
Tim
I'm excited for this.
- [50:57]
D
And for the people who are listening on the audio version, I should say that this is a bunch of female Democratic members of Congress who there's no dialogue to it, but people like aoc, Jasmine Crockett and others essentially donning fighting stances like a video king character selection screen. And there's a couple of bullet points describing like key things about them. Accomplishments. That's your descriptor.
- [51:39]
Tim
I love Lauren Underwood.
- [51:48]
Deja Fox
Okay. I feel the need to immediately confess that I was there also filming.
- [51:53]
Tim
No, you were filming said you do should confess that. And I was gonna let you guys go first, but I should just then get it out there. I thought that was great. That's fine for me. Do it great. Do more punch people. That's fine. What's wrong with that?
- [52:10]
Cam
I think it's cringe because the Democrats aren't fighting. So saying choose your fighter is really hot when their version of fighting is holding up little signs that say false. During Trump's inauguration, you know, there was one Democrat, one Democrat who was willing to kick ass up there and he slayed with that. But I mean, using the word fight when your party's version of fighting is politely asking Donald Trump to maybe relax is really fucking is really, really cute. So I meet that with of course doing a super Smash Bros thing and, and doing something camp and goofy as hell like that is hilarious. And I, Stan and I would always get behind it, but maybe actually fight. For fuck's sake.
- [52:52]
Deja Fox
I'm gonna just say I was so we were in that room, all of us. I shot interviews there too. I didn't do like trend style videos I do interviews, but.
- [53:02]
Tim
So you weren't the mastermind behind the.
- [53:05]
Deja Fox
Absolutely.
- [53:06]
Tim
You just happened to be there.
- [53:07]
Deja Fox
We all were in a cohort together, filming and shooting with these members.
- [53:11]
Cam
In many ways, content.
- [53:14]
Deja Fox
What do you say?
- [53:15]
Cam
Gang?
- [53:15]
Tim
A girl.
- [53:15]
Cam
In many ways, a gang. A multigenerational gang.
- [53:19]
Deja Fox
Yeah, yeah, in some ways. But what I was going to say is that my experience of being in that room was that, you know, listening to members talk, it. It's a lot as a content creator to sort through what's usable for the Internet. Right. Like, most of our electeds do not know how to talk. One, succinctly enough for the Internet, and two, in a way that resonates with young people and their frustrations and.
- [53:52]
Cam
Wait, but don't you really want to hear about egg prices?
- [53:56]
Deja Fox
So, anyway, I'm going to say a little positive shout out, though, which is that I heard a packed room of people trying to do interviews fall silent when Jasmine Crockett started talking, because she commands a room. She is a fighter. She stands up for herself, her constituents, and for girls everywhere who have absolutely experienced a pretty tough loss in the public eye as of late. And so I want to shout out some people that are doing it really well. I think, as you see interviews with Congresswoman Crockett rollout, there's some examples of who's doing it right. And it's not just the content creators that are, you know, having to decide what kind of formats they're doing. It is also about can the electeds meet them, where they're at. And I like to say that these people got goofy, you know, But I'm excited for and think we should keep an eye out for Jasmine Crockett.
- [54:49]
Tim
More is more social. You know, these content creators, the little girl gang in your room of content creators, they weren't given a lot to work with. All right. With some of these folks, I'm not going to name names, but some of them weren't built for the Internet. And I think that my main takeaway is that the Democrats would be wise right now, March of 2025, to start recruiting people like Deja, who can talk and who sound normal and who can be mad and authentically mad and who can fight and who aren't cringe just in their very essence, you know, like, some of these people are just cringe at their core. And so there's no amount of, like, great camera work or content creation that can do any. That can make them something that they're not. So we need new people to come in who can speak Internet and be normal. And that's my takeaway from that video. That was a great selection, Sebastian. Great job.
- [55:47]
Cam
And with that all I can say is Slayja Fox, thank you for joining us today.
- [55:52]
Deja Fox
I've done that for the last hour.
- [55:54]
Cam
And I just, no, I actually just thought of it. I'm so happy that I did because I always end these interviews and I'm like, man, I wish I had said this. And I got Slaysha Fox out of the way. Sorry if you've heard that one enough. But Slayja Fox, thank you so much for joining us this week. This has been amazing to the audience of the Bulwark who you know is a little, is a little divided on me at least in the comments. Thank you. And speak your truth. Tim tells me not to read the comments. I think they are so funny. And join us next week for whoever we end up booking.
- [56:42]
Tim
It.