Share & Tell & Caitlin Clark, with Mina Kimes and Domonique Foxworth

Summary

Podcast Summary: Pablo Torre Finds Out

Episode: "Share & Tell & Caitlin Clark"

Guests: Mina Kimes & Domonique Foxworth
Air Date: June 7, 2024

Overview

This episode delves deep into the ongoing controversy and culture war surrounding Caitlin Clark’s impact and reception in the WNBA. Host Pablo Torre, alongside Mina Kimes and Domonique Foxworth, unpacks issues of identity, race, gender, and media dynamics—all filtered through the lens of Clark’s stardom and the way social conversations both fuel and distort the meaning of sports moments. The trio also uses their "Share & Tell" format to discuss modern parenting challenges, masculinity, and the impact of technology on kids, showing how these broader cultural themes intersect with the Caitlin Clark debate.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Caitlin Clark and the Racial Dynamics of the WNBA

[02:10–17:20]

• Setting the Stage:
  Pablo sets context by comparing the racial dynamics of men's and women's basketball, pointing out that for many, Clark—a white, straight woman in a majority Black league—has become both a symbol and a flashpoint.

  "In American basketball… white people care about getting to feel like a minority. And it's a place where Goliath gets to feel like David. That's happening in women's basketball."
  — Pablo Torre [03:02]

• Everyone Feels Aggrieved:
  Mina highlights how all constituencies in the Clark discourse—fans, other players, the league, media—feel aggrieved or misunderstood, with people struggling to see beyond their own perspective.

  "Everybody involved in this story feels aggrieved...both of those debates, her treatment and what she's responsible for in terms of attention, have very intense racial overtones—not even undertones."
  — Mina Kimes [05:10]

• Unsolvable Arguments:
  The hosts agree the arguments are layered and probably insoluble, as Clark is both hero and villain, "overhyped and underrated," embodying multiple roles depending on the observer.

  "Caitlin Clark is always going to be both a hero and a villain, both a David and a Goliath, both overhyped and underrated..."
  — Pablo Torre [07:07]

• Intersection with Broader Society:
  Clark receives attention, in part, due to her skills, but also for her identity in broader society. Mina notes she’ll always get marketing, media, and social benefits from being a straight white woman, but, crucially, she’s also genuinely entertaining and talented.

• Clark as an Avatar in the Culture War:
  The conversation takes an empathetic turn, with Mina voicing personal understanding of how exhausting it must be for Clark to become a symbol for bigger social arguments, and how silence (or polite "head down" responses) invites further projection and critique.

  "It must be exhausting for her and for her teammates that they've become this stand-in for culture wars and things that have nothing to do with them."
  — Mina Kimes [10:58]

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2. Responsibility & Pressures of Being a Flashpoint Figure

[11:12–18:22]

• Should Clark Speak Out Against Toxic Fandoms?
  They discuss whether Clark has a responsibility to vocally disavow the more extreme or toxic elements of her fanbase. Both Mina and Domonique argue it’s an impossible ask and, uniquely in this situation, most of those talking aren’t rooted in the WNBA fan base, but in the surrounding "culture war" ecosystem.

• How Rivalries and Identity Get Entangled:
  The group compares this tension to how hostility in men’s basketball is read neutrally (“just rivalry”), but with Clark, every on-court slight becomes loaded due to the wider context—a double standard fueled by individual identity and group projection.

  "In sports...if Luka Doncic was fouled and Anthony Edwards celebrated, we'd love that. But here, it feels one-sided because she's not punching back, and maybe she can't."
  — Mina Kimes [13:15]

• Paige Bueckers as Contrast:
  Pablo raises the example of Paige Bueckers, who actively acknowledges her racial privilege and tries to uplift Black women, arguing there are ways to address the dynamic, but also acknowledging that Clark neither can nor should be forced to take on that responsibility.

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3. Media & Social Media’s Role in Exacerbating Conflict

[18:22–24:41]

• Rashomon Effect:
  Mina points out how social media causes every incident (e.g., Chennedy Carter’s foul on Clark) to be spun up, weaponized, and used to paint entire groups with a broad brush, with "reaction to the reaction" becoming the main event.

  "It's a good example of how, in this story, the problem is all of these actions by individual actors are being conflated with a broader group feeling."
  — Mina Kimes [18:22]

• Retelling History & Recasting Narratives:
  Domonique analogizes current WNBA conflicts to how, decades later, the Magic–Bird rivalry has been mythologized, and predicts this era will one day be recast as a triumphant foundational moment—glossing over a lot of the present ugliness:

  "We often retell the story of Bird and Magic. We didn't have social media back then. My guess is, the tweets we'd get in the 60s and 70s would have been rough."
  — Domonique Foxworth [21:11]

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4. Optimism (or Not) About the Future

[23:08–27:27]

• Basketball Court as Best Adjudication:
  Pablo and Mina hope—perhaps optimistically—that performance and time will eventually moderate the conversation, but note that debate over "greatness" (à la Jordan vs. LeBron) is never-ending and cultural tensions will persist.

  "I want to be optimistic about the basketball court being the place where this stuff is adjudicated finally...but I also know that, like, we've been arguing about Michael Jordan and LeBron forever."
  — Pablo Torre [26:45]

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5. Share & Tell: Parenting, Masculinity, and Tech

[27:52–48:07]

A. The “Boy Mom” Dilemma

[27:52–37:22]

• Article Discussed:
  Mina brings in Jessica Winter’s New Yorker piece about "boy moms" and the challenges of raising boys amid shifting norms about masculinity, identity, and societal expectations.

• The Shifting Terrain of Parenting Boys:
  Dominique notes that he’d always planned to counter-balance traditional masculinity for his son, but now finds society (schools, media) are already discussing privilege, toxic masculinity, and equity—leading to a new kind of parental uncertainty.

  "I've always thought, when my first child was a girl, I need to make sure she's assertive…for my son, I realize that's not going to be the problem. It's about your son feeling like he has to make room for everyone else to a degree it hurts them."
  — Domonique Foxworth [33:56]

• Parallel to Caitlin Clark:
  Mina draws an analogy: her concerns as a parent about overcorrecting with her son mirror how white people might feel about Clark—as society changes, there’s a fear of losing ground, but also a reality check that, for all the rhetoric, the underlying imbalances persist.

B. Kids and Technology: The Phone Debate

[38:37–48:07]

• Article Discussed:
  Domonique shares a feature on being “the last kid in ninth grade without an iPhone,” and they swap stories on screen time, social media, and the pressure for kids to be both connected and protected.

• Modern Parenting Conundrum:
  The trio admits to both the temptation and necessity of devices ("It all sounds good until you need to solve a problem, in which case you wish you had it." — Pablo), and the impossibility of enforcing hard lines in the face of peer pressure and modern logistics.

• Judgment and Parental Anxiety:
  Reading about “Luddite parenting” elicits defensiveness from both Mina and Domonique:

  "You think you're better than me, teen? You think, oh, I can entertain myself. Oh, I can be alone with my thoughts."
  — Mina Kimes [41:37]

• Gray Areas and Trade-offs:
  Domonique affirms every boundary (no Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, etc.) is a negotiation, and the “right way” remains fluid. Above all, the line between safety, inclusion, and moderation is blurry—and every parent feels judged.

  "Every step you take, there's another line you have to draw."
  — Domonique Foxworth [42:40]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Everyone Talking Past Each Other:

  "It feels like everybody’s kind of talking over each other to make their case, and all of these different cases have some legitimacy to them."
  — Mina Kimes [05:10]

• On Sports as a Unique Flashpoint:

  "The unusual thing about this particular situation is most of the people talking about it do not understand it or are not fans of it. We’re fooling ourselves if we imagine some way she can just ignore it."
  — Domonique Foxworth [11:28]

• On the Parallel between Parenting and Public Identity:

  "Is this how white people feel about Caitlin Clark?"
  — Mina Kimes [35:49]

• On Retelling History:

  "We have recast that whole [Magic vs. Bird] thing in a way that suits us. I just imagine 20 years from now, we're gonna recast this in a way…that buffs away all this foolishness and writes this as a triumphant story of these two women building up the league."
  — Domonique Foxworth [21:11]

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Important Timestamps

• [02:10] – Opening of Caitlin Clark/identity in the WNBA
• [07:06] – Is this argument resolvable?
• [10:58] – Mina on exhaustion of being a stand-in for culture war
• [13:10] – Clark’s handling of PR, contrast with Paige Bueckers
• [18:22] – Mina explains the Rashomon effect and conflation of individuals/groups
• [21:11] – Recasting Magic/Bird as analogy for current WNBA discourse
• [27:52] – "Share & Tell": Parenting boys in the “age of impossible masculinity”
• [38:37] – The last kid in ninth grade without an iPhone: tech and modern childhood
• [41:37] – Mina’s self-aware reaction to “Luddite” parenting
• [45:16] – Resignation: aspiration vs. reality of tech boundaries in parenting

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Conclusion & Reflections

• Sports as a Mirror:
  Pablo closes by tying together the episode’s throughlines: the way sports, and particularly athletes like Caitlin Clark, become avatars for contested cultural meaning—often without their choosing—and how, even as arguments spin out of control, the game itself remains the closest thing to neutral ground.

  "Everything is Caitlin Clark. Parenting is Caitlin Clark. Cell phones are Caitlin Clark. The concept of masculinity is Caitlin Clark…"
  — Pablo Torre [48:58]

• Long-Term View:
  While the online and media dynamics look unlikely to settle soon, the hosts hope that—both on the court and off—clarity, performance, and time can eventually reframe contentious moments as chapters of growth.

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For listeners and non-listeners alike, this episode is a candid, nuanced, and sometimes humorous look at how sports figures get drawn into the biggest debates of our era, and how those debates echo through daily life, parenting, and even which phone your kid takes to school.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[B]

Oh, you think you're better than me, teen? You think, oh, I can entertain myself.

[A]

Oh, I can be alone with my.

[B]

Thoughts.

[A]

Right after this ad.

[B]

You're listening to Giraffe Kings network.

[A]

Are you running code switching mesh? Is that what's happening? I don't know what mesh is. I've just heard you guys say it before. I'm like, is that one replace.

[C]

It's like a man beater crossing route sort of thing.

[B]

Yeah, Pablo, that's his second football reference. Is that you code switching so that you can hang out with me and Dominique?

[A]

If I prepared anything, it's a bunch of football terms going to roll out throughout this show today. Yeah.

[C]

I thought of you this morning on get up, they asked for a trivia question and it was, what number 32 has scored the most touchdowns in NFL history? And I was like, Pablo, even if he knew the answer to this, he would have no idea. By numbers. You just weird numbers.

[A]

Genuinely. Like, who's number 32?

[C]

Well, the answer was Marcus Allen.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

I have a. I have. I have a hard time with jersey numbers as well sometimes.

[A]

I really.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Let's workshop this, Lucas. No, I don't. Oh, wait.

[C]

Offensive lineman's number seven.

[A]

77.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know Caitlin Clark's number.

[C]

Oh, transition 22.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Should we begin with the topic that I wanted to talk about?

[C]

Caitlin Clark is a white heterosexual woman in a black lesbian league. There's one white bitch who talks about the. Let's go talk about the wnba who talks about women, who talk about women's sports. More. More than. More than. First take, Kennedy Carter. Now with 12 points off the bench.

[A]

Officials are going to take a look.

[C]

At what just transpired between Carter and Clark.

[B]

I wasn't expecting it, but I think it's just like. Just respond, come down, let your play do the talking. You know, it is what it is, I guess.

[A]

I don't know because I really want to talk about it, but I also don't expect people to want to hear about it, even though I think we can talk about it in a way that's better than what a host. I. I want to be transparent. I want to be transparent about Caitlin Clark. I want to. I want to.

[C]

I've been.

[A]

I've been texting about this story, and I've been. I've been. You know, I've been constipated with opinion, and now I'm about to Sort of get into why I wanted to talk about this because on some level, I want to set the stage here. And I think setting the stage is actually something that we probably don't do enough with this story, which is to say that I think we should start by talking about men's basketball. And I say that because it, first off, makes me a classic dude, the very person who is the villain in this story. But it's also fascinating because men's basketball is one of the few places in American life, of course, where white people care about getting to feel like a minority and being recognized for that. It's one of the few places in American life where white people get to feel like a minority. And it's a place where Goliath gets to feel like David. And that's why, of course, the problem is in American basketball right now, to lots of people who care about these issues, there's no white American NBA star, right? So you go to list, and it's like Chet Holmgren. It's like Austin Reeves, Tyler Hero. We did a whole episode about it. So that dynamic, which the majority gets to feel like the minority is happening in women's basketball. And except the sport of women's basketball also is not a sport with a history of feeling like they have been mainstreamed or heard. And basically, that means that the majority in women's basketball does not feel like they've gotten any of the rewards of being the majority. And the majority in women's basketball happens to be black women. 60% of WNBA players are black women. And so this story, to me, in a roundabout way, in is about a majority group feeling like they are the minority and the minority group not feeling like they've gotten the rewards of being the majority inside of the sport that everybody suddenly cares about. Does all of that track so far?

[C]

I mean, we talked about the wnba. Pablo leads off Mina. I'm clearing out because I feel like it's absurd that I am the next. But I guess he talked about race. So where do we go? If you talk about women and you talk about race, then where do we go? Is it, does black trump? Does black coming first? What is going on here?

[B]

You're joking, but I actually think you're hitting on something very important to this discussion. And really what Pablo was alluding to, which is everybody involved in this story feels aggrieved. And if you really parse it out, different parties all have cases to be made for. Not necessarily a sense of being aggrieved or whatnot, some illegitimate cases, but rather for their viewpoint and why it's, as Pablo said, being overlooked in some way. I mean, the way I've seen this is it appears to me to be that there's two debates going on at the same time. One is whether or not Caitlin Clark is being treated differently in the NBA from other rookies, from other stars, and the reasons for that. And then the other debate is, you know, who is responsible for the renewed attention on wnba. These things are obviously related, or some people believe they're more related than others. And both of those debates, her treatment and also what she's responsible for in terms of, like, the attention and who is talking about her and why we're talking about her, both of those things have very intense racial overtones, I would say not even undertones. And I think because of that, it's very, very hard for all the people arguing around each other to meet eye to eye because. Or I guess, to engage on this issue or to find middle ground because it feels like everybody's kind of talking over each other to make their case, and all of these different cases have some legitimacy to them.

[A]

I want to reset this, actually. Can I reset this with a question, With a basic question of, like, resignation. Are we resigned to the idea that this argument is unsolvable?

[B]

What's the argument, though? Let's.

[A]

Let's. The argument. And so. Exactly. So this is where I want to set the stage. Right. The argument is that Caitlin Clark is always going to be both a hero and a villain, both a David and a Goliath, both overhyped and underrated, both a heel and a face, to use wrestling terms, in a sport where she, as a white woman, is a minority group while also being a majority outside of it, while at the same time, the majority inside the same sport is only now feeling what it's like when people start to give a shit about what they do. Meaning that the appreciation they're even beginning to receive from the mainstream is being attributed to this person who is not them and, in fact, is defined in opposition to them in lots of demographic ways in actual broader society. That, to me, feels like a real problem when it comes to how this is going to evolve.

[B]

All right, I'm going to be your layman's translator here because you said a lot there. Basically, you're saying, is she overrated? Right. Kind of. Right. I mean, it's. What you're saying is obviously a lot more complex than that, because when we say overrated, we're talking about, you know, her treatment on the court, her marketing appeal, her responsibility for the league. All of these things are different debates, but they're kind of wrapped up into this broader, I guess, or this overarching umbrella. Is she getting too much credit, attention, treatment, all of it? Is it too much? Are we putting too much on her? And Pablo, I don't think it's going to be solved insofar as she is always going to be. Get the benefit of being a white woman, being a straight woman. The things that come with the benefits in this country that come with that in terms of marketing, dollars, promotion, et cetera, that is real. However, she also, I think people who, there's people who hear that and they say, but you're ignoring the fact that she also is getting those things. Mostly because she's really, really good in entertaining.

[C]

Yeah, I think in the long run, the things within the WNBA will resolve. Excuse me, within the community of the wnba. Will she cease to represent something to us who watch it? Never. Maybe it'll change for different people. But she just happened to be this person at this time with this game, in this country, in this sport that makes it so she. And this happens to a lot of athletes. You come to represent more than just, I mean, a lot of people. You come to represent more than what you intend to represent. And it's kind of one of the trade offs of being a superstar like that. Not to say that it's right or wrong, but it's something that you can't change.

[B]

That's the part of the story that's resonated with me the most, frankly, like when she trends. Okay, so again, this is, I'm really not trying to be solipsistic here or whatever, but this is, you know, everybody is bringing their own experience clearly to the story and it is why it's so emotional for so many people. For me personally, when I see her like trending and people arguing about her and I see people like Clay Travis coming to her defense, I'm thinking, God, that sucks. And I've had the experience where, you know, when I guess various people have criticized me or come at me for identity based reasons. I've had people leap to my defense on the Internet and while they're my friends and I love them, I appreciate them, there is always a part of me that's like, just, can we just not talk about it? I just want this to go away. I just want to do my job. Um, and I, and I, so I see that and I think, oh my God. I like another day, another snooze. Like she just, it Must be exhausting for her. And you know, my version is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of what she's dealing with. But it must suck for her and for her teammates that they've become this stand in for culture wars and things that have nothing to do with them.

[A]

I am surprised by the degree to which culture war is all over this. It's that silence is tacit approval of her fans who are people who are in this case not her friends, but people who are trying to use her to make that point.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so the question I guess I'm articulating here is what responsibility do you have as a public figure to disavow the people who are crusading on your behalf? Right. Because silence is different from explicitly saying that's impossible.

[C]

Because the tough thing about this situation is normally there is an entity or a sport or a movie or a celebrity that is already so big that most of the conversation is dominated by people who understand this entity. The unusual thing about this particular situation is most of the people talking about it do not understand it or not. Fans of it do not have the history in it. And you can't just pretend like because there's a chance that when there is something Kaepernick happens in football, there's a chance for a segment of the football public to go and talk about their only football talk only about football in their corner because it's so big, it's impossible. Like the amount of people who have interest in this story and want to engage in this story dwarfs the actual legitimate pre existing fan base. And so like, I think we're fooling ourselves if we are trying to imagine some way where she can possibly just ignore it or we could just go play basketball, we could just let it go. Like it just can't. She hasn't spoken on it, which is a whole nother lane to go down.

[B]

Well, I think it also, the dynamic is really, really tricky and I don't think she bears responsibility, Pablo, to speak out or whatnot. And I don't, like I said earlier, I don't envy the position she's in, but because of her approach, which is keep my head down, play basketball occasionally, just, you know, she, when she's asked about it, I think she gives the answers, you know, you would expect.

[A]

Oh, she's very complimentary, by the way, to Angel Reese, to all these players. She says the right things, ostensibly on.

[B]

That level, I think. And this is not her fault at all. It unfortunately feeds into the feeling of mistreatment because so look, when people Say the WNBA players hate her. That's clearly they are painting with a broad brush and it is ridiculous. However, you know, when you see angel re celebrating after the foul, obviously there's, you know, some bad blood or rivalry there. And frankly, that's when people say there's no, no one dislikes her. Then they feel gaslit when they see that because clearly there's something there. The problem is typically in sports, like if you took that a player celebrating, let's say to go back to your example, the wba, let's say we saw Anthony Edwards celebrating. If Luka Doncic was fouled, we'd be like, yeah, oh God. And because we know those guys are going to like, you know, they're going to be chippy and it's gonna be fun. It's trash talking. We love that in sports. But in this example, it feels one sided in that regard because she's not punching back and she can't. Maybe she can, I don't know. But it's very, very tricky. And I think it only feeds into this issue of like, this doesn't feel like it. We want it to feel like normal sports rivalry and chippiness and all the things we love in sports. But because of the unique dynamic of this and because of what it means to all these people, it can't feel that way. It's not. It doesn't feel that way right now.

[A]

Right. And look, I think even the language, Dominique, about like, you know, punching back and all of that, like she does, I mean, you can go and find now highlight reels of her doing her own hard fouls. Right? So, so I want to be clear about just the literalism versus what we're talking about here, which is how she is framing the story as a PR concern, which is when she's at a press conference, what she's saying and I think about someone like Paige Beckers, right? So like there are ways for a white player to endear themselves to a broader demographic. In this case the majority group, 60% of the WNBA is black women. Paige Beckers goes out of her way to say, I acknowledge all the privilege that I get. And this is a real, I think informed opinion that is based in truth for being a conventionally attractive white woman.

[B]

With the life that I have now as a white woman who leads a black led sport and celebrated here, I want to show, show a light on black women. They don't get the media coverage that they deserve.

[A]

And what Caitlin Clark is seemingly doing is more trying to say, can we just play basketball and she doesn't want to actually have to preemptively apologize. And I don't think she has a responsibility to do that. What I'm really trying to think about is if you were trying to make this story go away, if you were working with Caitlin Clark, like, what are the. What are the moves available at this point? Because all of it feels like it's rooted in also the Internet, by the way, in which case, good luck trying to isolate the variable that people are mad at.

[C]

You can't. Like, I can't even begin to tell you how to make this go away. Like, you can't. And I think also mixed into this. And as Mina said a couple of times, we bring all of our baggage to this, or not even baggage, our experiences and our understanding to this. And while this goes back to your original point, Pablo, where she is a minority in her sport, she is a very. Comes from a very privileged majority in this country. And the idea of a white woman falling down and calling for the authorities, it does not come off. Like, that's. There's a segment of society that's automatically going to be like, oh, here we go. Which is obviously is not something I'm saying is fair to her, but that's like, that's so deeply rooted and ingrained in the history of this country that is completely, like, absurd for us to think that there is something that Caitlin Clark can do or say that suddenly, could it be like, oh, okay, it's cool now let's just play basketball.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Mina. Mina, the other one more thought just to throw to you also is like, I find it incredibly frustrating and I guess unsurprising that, like, you also aren't really allowed to. I mean, even that phrasing is tricky, right? It feels like it is very easy now to confuse a criticism of an individual with you rooting against the group that they are representing as the avatar, right? And so when it's like, hey, Angel Reese, I find what you do on the court to be Draymond, like, and if I'm talking about Draymond Green, I'm talking about someone who can all say plainly is unlikable. But because this is an avatar for a group for whom that accusation is a larger problem for reasons that are obvious, when you go to the larger society that we inhabit, then it's like everybody is feeling, I think, like, they can't really say how they feel. And that's why everybody feels like they're gaslighting each other fundamentally online.

[B]

That's a. It's a Good example of how in this story, the problem is all of these actions by individual actors are being conflated with like a broader group feeling or sense. Right? Like we should be able to say, hey, like Angel Reese clearly doesn't like her without it being a statement about, you know, all black women or all WNBA players who are all whatnot. Which again, like I said to me on his face is absurd. But I think there are people who are watching, so. So everybody who. It's. It's like, what do they call that? The Rashomon, Right. When you see everyone sees something different. So that moment, which is really what sparked all of this, it was already sor. Certainly simmering. But that moment, the Carter foul, Reese reaction, the non common afterwards, both of them taking to social media, all of that, and then the reaction, and then people reacting to the reaction. That's the moment you can look at that and if somebody says. And you can hear people say, the WMA does not have a problem with her, but then you look at that and be like, wait, no, I just. I'm seeing this. This is happening. It's happening. Right? Okay, but then if somebody was to say, well, clearly, you know, this player does. People say, why are you saying the whole league does? I don't like, I feel like I'm not articulating myself. Well, but my point is everybody's looking at this like one incident and then like using it to paint a broad brush in whatever direction they want to go with. In the same way that, like, you know, when people say, oh, you know, she's. You say Caitlin Clark gets the benefit of her identity. From a marketing promotion standpoint, there are. People say you're discount. By leading with that, you're discounting her skills as a basketball player. Yes, but then if you don't acknowledge it, people correctly will say, well, you're ignoring something that is just fundamentally true. I guess my point is like, everybody is right and wrong. It's about this side, right? It seems perfectly calibrated to piss off everybody because there's so many things that are at once. If you're like me and you get that for you page, it's not even just like, here's the clip. I'm saying I'm being fed outrage on both sides. And whoever you are, if your consumption of that is not just the clip or whatever or the entire game rather, but rather a tweet saying, look at these thugs. Or conversely, a tweet saying, oh, everybody's going to protect this thing, white girl, whatever, of course you're gonna be inflamed. And I think that's the problem. I mean, that's one of the many problems with this story that's already, as we've been talking about, calibrated to anger a lot of people is their consumption of it is through the lens of these extreme reactions, which are only stoking like a lot of people are reacting to the reactions at this point and not the actual stuff that's happening.

[C]

Sometimes with this stuff, I think about it, like, imagine how we're going to look back on this and how what parts, what rough edges are we going to sand off? And 20 years from now, when the WNBA is handing out $100 million contracts, are we going to look back at this era and sand off some of the uglier points and say, like, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese won't let you forget that she was a part of the college stuff, too. Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese ushered in this tension that brought attention to the game. And then it made me think that, like, we often retell that story of bir and magic. We didn't have social media back then. I got a feeling that there was some racial undertones to why that became such a, like, exciting. Just their style of play there. I mean, yeah, overtones, definitely. We're. We're all in overtones today. So we didn't have social media back then. But my guess is the tweets that we would get from the 60s and 70s would have been rough. And the funny thing is I. A couple of years ago, I went back and watched their college game that everyone talks about, point to. People point to those days and say, back when these guys didn't like each other, they played hard. So I went back and watched that college game a couple of years ago. And in the first couple of plays, Bird helps Magic up. Magic, like, puts his arm around him. And it's just like we have recast that whole. Go back and watch it. You just got to watch the first quarter. And they're like, lovey dovey. And we have recast that whole thing in a way that suits us. And I just imagine 20 years from now, we're gonna recast this in a way, whatever the version of social media is, then we're gonna recast this in a way that, like, buffs away all this foolishness and writes this as a triumphant story of these two women building up the league.

[A]

That is the most optimistic outcome, I think, of what we are projecting ahead. I think that the fact that this sport is coming into mainstream prominence Simultaneous to this makes this a level beyond complicated when compared to Magic and Bird. I think that people are interweaving into this, the very legitimacy of the sport that they are representing on top of the very specific and yet wildly broad level of Angel Reese versus Caitlin Clark. I think the Internet here matters. To go back to Mina's point and, like, why the Internet matters as the form in which this is happening is because how we talk about it is actually very meaningful to the sport and the people who have been following it forever. I think it's. It's less like we're all talking about a thing that everybody knows as a matter of, oh, that's that place, that sport, that institution where this happens. I think the fact that it's happening on a platform that is designed to limit the amount of literal words you can use to talk about it, and it limits the vantage point you have on any given part of this argument, makes it a recipe that, honestly, like, Vladimir Putin could have only dreamed of. Like, the idea of, like, how do you break apart the American electorate? Have. Have anybody actually in America, not a bot. Just say the words, Caitlin Clark is overrated, and you'll get the argument that you want to tear apart America is how it feels to me right now.

[B]

But it'll be resolved when we actually have a better sense of who she is as a basketball player. In my opinion, not resolved insofar as, like, there will still be strong reactions and allegiances and frustrations and things representing things to different people. Yes. But part of the reason why this is so ripe for debate right now is because she's not dominant yet.

[A]

Yes. That's the big difference in her in college. It's that it's also plausible that she's not as good as you think.

[B]

I think sometime in the future, it. It'll be a lot more clear to what degree, you know, she is being mistreated or how she's responsible for success, whether she deserves it. All that stuff, it's going to play out on the core. I keep going back to that. Like, you know, this is so toxic right now for all the reasons we're discussing. But it's also because you can. You can look at. I talk about. You can look at like, that foul and you can come up with anything. You can look at our game right now and make a number of different statements and predictions that won't always be the case.

[C]

The other element of this that we haven't talked about, or at least segment of this is people trying to score points.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which Is like talking about players or sports media.

[C]

Definitely not the players.

[B]

People on the Internet.

[C]

Yeah, people on the Internet try to score points. Like, I find myself falling on, like, what I would consider the right side and like, the more, I don't know, compassionate side of this. And I don't say anything about this stuff in large part because I feel like I'm grandstanding and watching other people grandstand on either side just like, shut the up. What are you doing? This is stupid. You don't. You don't think this. You don't feel this way. You try to get some likes. It just annoys the hell out of me.

[A]

Everybody, plausibly, right now feels like they're being cyberbullied. And some people are using that advantage, are using that reality to. Yeah, to. To. Towards their own self interest. It's. It's a bummer. I mean, I don't want to end on that. I suppose that I want to be optimistic about the basketball court being the place where this stuff is adjudicated finally. But I also know that, like, I don't know, we've been arguing about Michael Jordan and LeBron for forever. Like, it's not like, I don't think greatness is. I don't think greatness is. What's the word Is gonna settle this argument.

[C]

We. We got. We got Jordan and LeBron, so you can argue all you want.

[A]

You talking about Jeremy L. Mina, what did you bring us today?

[B]

The story is called the Trials and Tribulations of the Boy mom in the New Yorker. It's by Jessica Winter. It's a book review, actually. Boy Mom Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity. But the story talks about. I think it was TikTok or some viral posts from women talking about how they just love Their sons and sort of this idea of the boy mom as a response to the girl dad. But the book review is something that I find very interesting because it talks about the challenges, I guess, of raising a son today for a litany of reasons I think that we can certainly get into. Obviously, this is something that's been on my mind a little bit. You know, in a world where I think boys are certainly more aware of toxic masculinity, for example, it's certainly not something that when we were growing up, boys were taught about. And then how you see on the Internet certain pockets of young men who are retaliating in response to that rise of things like incel backlash. We just saw that Chief's kicker refer to this of you know, encouraging men to embrace their masculinity and all of that. So it's. I guess I would summarize it as this conflict between, like, you know, being a mom who's like, I'm proud of having a son, and I love having a son, versus this tension with this idea of, like, oh, I'm worried about raising a son right now, because it seems like it's really tricky. It's a bit of a minefield, perhaps, in a way that maybe it's not for people who are fathers or mothers of daughters.

[C]

It's a. It's a book review. So it's hard when you read an article like this because it touches on so many different things. But the part of it that jumped out and grabbed me was about how you're raising your sons in this time, and you have to. The interesting thing is when I was growing up, I guess around, I don't know, late teens and, like, early 20s, when I first started thinking about myself as an adult and thinking about what type of parent I would be, you always think about how you would parent your child juxtaposed with how you were parented and in the world that you grew up in. And there's some things you want to take from your parents, some things you want to do differently. And there's some things that I've tried to carry on. But the interesting thing about this piece, to me was I'd always imagined that I would have to be considerably more, like, socially conscious for my kids and, like, a little softer and teach them for my sons a little softer and to teach them to be compassionate and. And to be aware of what privileges they have as a man and be aware of things. Like, before, toxic masculinity was like a phrase. Like, I recognize that I was being raised in a world that these things exist. So I always imagined that growing up, when I have sons, that's something I'm going to have to teach them. I'm going to have to compensate, because the world does not give that to them. It's interesting because that ain't the world that we live in. And so does that mean. And I think this is how guys like Jerry Seinfeld are. If I'm giving them the most generous read, this is the way that you could potentially articulate that, is that someone needs to show that counterbalance. But the problem with that is we aren't there yet. So we, like, aren't at some equilibrium that requires you to pull back. But for us who grew up in a different time, it's seems like. And it's like, kind of perfectly encapsulated by the last line of this piece where the author asks her son what he thinks about the term boy mom. And his response was a pause for a second and said, oh, it's a trans mom. And it's like, I remember thinking that I had to be conscious of teaching my sons that, like, different orientations and different identities are okay. I don't have to teach. Like, they talk about that in. Maybe it's different. Different places, but my kids are more. My son. I have one son and two daughters. My son is more progressive and more understanding of those things than I am. So, like, figuring out what's required of you as a girl. Excuse me, as a boy mom or even as a boy dad. What is required of you when you're raising these kids in this particular soup that we have now?

[B]

I think you kind of hit on the tension. Paula, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. Obviously, you don't have a son. Another way in which you don't fit into this club with me and Dominique.

[A]

But I am very toxically masculine.

[B]

You are toxically masculine. No, Dominique said something which I think is what's kind of at the root of this, which is the world is now and by the world. Schools, social systems, Internet, everything. You know, pop culture, celebrities, social media. They are teaching young men about this stuff that maybe Dominique thought he would have to do. Right. Which is to say about their own privilege, which on one hand is certainly better than what it was like when we were growing up and boys weren't taught any of those things. But the concern that she expresses or that certain. I think parents express is like, okay, but I don't want him to feel bad about himself. Is that. Does that strike you as a fake concern?

[C]

The actual sense that I have about my son, and I think this is the closest thing I can get to, like, you don't want your son to feel bad is. I want. I've always thought, like, all right, when my first child was a girl, I was so conscious of, like, I need to make sure she's assertive. And she's not afraid to, like, be. She's not passive, and she's not afraid to take what she wants to be competitive, to, like, have confidence in herself, to think that she can do the thing before she actually can do it. Like, they say about women generally have to be overqualified before they feel like they are qualified and men are the opposite. Like, that was my. My conscious thought for her and for my son, I'd already had a child and already been around other people's sons, and. And I realized that that was not going to be the problem. And I think that's what people fear. It's not about your kids, or that's the honest fear that you can have is it's not about your kid, like, feeling bad about themselves. It's about your son feeling like he has to make room for everyone else to a degree. To a degree that it hurts them. And that's the thing that I think is something that, if I'm being honest with you, it does pop up in my head, but I don't have to think about that because I got the opposite of a son. Like, that's not what he's not like. I am still in a situation where I'm like, you are all boy, stop it a little. Just turn it down a taste.

[B]

Well, I hear Dominique talk about sort of the cause. He's a lot further along in this than me. Your journey of raising a boy, coming into it, thinking I am going to have to temper him, teach him to not be dominant, teach him to make room for others. And then the world is doing that, right? To some degree. It is very funny. This is why I love doing the show with you, because I always. They appear not intentionally, these connections. Is this how white people feel about Caitlin Clark?

[C]

I was thinking this the whole time. I was thinking this the whole time.

[B]

And it is. But I think it's the reason why this is tricky is similarly to the first story, what we're describing, which is the world now is enforcing a lot of the things that we certainly didn't grow up. Enforcing is the wrong word, too. But the world is prioritizing things that were not prioritized when we were younger. Men, boys, rather, are learning about things, being exposed to things that they weren't at a young age. I think that the. If there's a tension here or a debate or a cause for concern, which is the subject of the book, it's. Has that gone too far or has it not gone far enough? Dominique saying he doesn't feel like it has because. Or, I mean, for your. For your type of your individual experience, you feel like, you know, you're. You don't look at your son and you're like, oh, man, he's being told he doesn't get chances and he shouldn't be, you know, assertive. And it seems. Yeah. And I am inclined to agree, at least based on just kind of what I've perceived in the world. As someone who is constantly told that she has her job because she's a woman, I don't feel like we're really getting a leg up on y' all these days in a way that would make me worried about my son.

[C]

This last half generation has not undone patriarchy. Simply put, it's not undone.

[A]

Growing up as a boy, I feel like my entire mission was to seem stronger than I presented because I'm like a little Filipino kid and I need to be like, assertive and all of that. So that part I'm like, I empathize with. I get that part. And if you are a boy and you are, you know, aggressive and that reads as too much, then I think that you should be aware of that. And I think that's something that we should warn our kids about. But I also think that, like, where I land is, this is not new to me. It's just not the idea of, like, I have to modulate my behavior because other people are judging me and thinking about, like, am I man enough or not man enough? Like, that's, that's been the case for at least some people. And I feel like I resemble that to a degree. That shaped how I feel about confidence as a concept. To be honest, I probably am still working at it, actually. Dominique, old buddy, what did you bring us today?

[C]

All right, I brought a piece from the cut by Liz Krieger. It's called the last kid in ninth grade without an iPhone. This spoke to me for obvious reasons. I have a daughter who is headed to the 8th grade and has had a phone since the 6th grade and like trying to. And I have an 11 year old son, 8 year old daughter who have iPads and want phones at some point. And this whole like, future of technology and our kids is concerning, obviously, but understanding the right time to do those things. So this piece talks about some parents who have decided not to give their kids cell phones. And there's the pros and cons of it where you are. They argue that they are better adapted and they can sit in silence and they can sit and be bored and they don't have to take their phones out right away. They aren't exposed to so many negative things that, that cause depression and body image issues, like all that stuff. They are above all of that. But you know what? Dang cool, you're not, you're not in a group chat. You don't know about the latest memes. And I know that sounds ridiculous, but maybe you guys, kids are too young for this to be Something that you also worry about. But I do worry about my kids having friends and feeling the confidence that comes with that. And then there's also the. The challenge of logistics with a cell phone and modern world, where there are lots of things that are going on that require you to be able to contact them and track them and all that other stuff.

[A]

My main thought reading this piece was, would I be comfortable with my kid being interviewed in a piece about how they're part of a trend? Because that's, like, what you're signing them up for is, like, do you want to be a part of this, like, sort of, like, revolutionary wave of, like, a Luddite resistance where they're gonna fight back and opt out, and they're ahead of the curve. Because the curve is obvious. Is as we all know. I can say that from my experience. Mina, I don't think you're here yet. Dominique, I presume you have been here for a while, because Violet is four. We were all about, like, we are not letting her have screen time. And then it was like, we need her to stop crying. We need her to babysit herself right now. And so we figured out a compromise solution in which we tell ourselves, like, okay, she can watch television. She can watch pbs. She can watch Sesame Street. We'll choose the nutritious stuff. But an iPad also. It's. I guess what I'm saying is I am not so bold as to deny why this thing. This screen is useful. And of course, the extreme of it, like, yep, not on that side, but, Mina, I'm like, yeah, it's all. It all sounds good until you need to, like, solve a problem, in which case you wish you had it.

[B]

I had a really messed up reaction to reading this, and I know it's wrong, and I know it's. It's. It's. It's not the right response. And I am very concerned about phone addiction and boredom and, you know, social media. I think those things affect kids in various serious ways. And there are things that I think about and read about and I am worried about, obviously, the further down the road. But while reading this piece, I was like, oh, you think you're better than me, teen? You think, oh, I can entertain myself. Oh, I can be alone with my thoughts. It's not. It's not right. And it's. I'm. I feel bad. And I. I know it's the wrong reaction, but it's the same reaction. I feel to kind of take this beyond the scope of the story. To anyone who tells me that they're not on their phone a lot or that they're sort of removed from technology in a way, which is defensiveness. Right. Because it is a reflection on my own addiction and I fully, I fully own that.

[C]

So the, the thing about this is this piece had a clear, it felt like to me agenda, which doesn't mean that it was wrong, but it felt. And maybe this was also again, just personal bias. Maybe I reread it. I don't see it as that way, but it felt like kind of saying that this was the right way to go about it and these other kids who have access to social media are doing it the wrong way. And again, since my daughter has access to a phone, she doesn't have access to all social media. Like we, there's no Instagram, it's just YouTube, there's no Instagram, there's no TikTok, there's no Snapchat and that sort of stuff. And a lot of her friends have access to all those things. Like we draw the line there and that's the thing where every step you take there's another line that you have to draw. Then obviously, maybe it's different now, but when I hear Snapchat, I'm like, oh nah, oh no, we ain't never gonna do that. Like you gonna have to be grown before you have access to Snapchat. Maybe the kids use it differently these days and they have like a Pinterest is also like a thing that the kids are really into right now, which is at least at her school. So all these things feel like while it makes it seem like it's one simple decision, it's not. There's like levels of decisions and I'm balancing the access that I want my daughter to have to the technology with also how much of the in crowd I want her to be in with the risk that it poses because I'm not at a point where I need to give her a phone to keep her busy. Like that's not the reason to give her a phone, it's give her a phone because that's what people have. And I felt like while you could argue that giving a kid, not argue, giving a 13 year old kid unfeathered access to a cell phone is irresponsible. You know what's also irresponsible? That was in this piece, letting a kid traverse the subway without a damn cell phone. The New York subway. In this piece they said that this girl, this girl was going places on the damn New York City subway without a cell phone.

[B]

Did you Feel defensive reading it, Dominique, did you feel like you were being judged as a parent? But this is. You guys are much further along on this journey than me. But I have found it's impossible to read anything about parenting without feeling either defensive, angry or affirmed. Like it's just. I don't know what it is about being a parent, but that.

[C]

So personal.

[B]

It's personal and everybody. It like democratizes judgment in a way. Right?

[A]

Yeah. So. Well, it's because it's someone telling you this is what you should do.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And it's like I know what's best for me and what I look for me. And by the way, I took the subway without a cell phone because I'm a, I'm a man. And for me I.

[C]

There were actual payphones around back then.

[A]

That's right for me. I can easily imagine me saying, you're not getting a phone until. What was the recommended cutoff age? It was like into high school. Right? Like that was the.

[C]

Is it 16? Well the thing that was based on the anxiety age, whatever the height book was said that 16. Which failed that one.

[A]

Well, I think for me, like it's going to be like, yeah, I aspire to abide by the science in which I protect my daughter's brain. And then she's going to bother me a lot and I'm going to give her a phone and I'm like, yeah, that's probably how it's going to go. And then I'm going to be on my phone all the time where I do 90% of my work and she's going to look at the again the pinky shelf that I have the bone on, my pinky that has been formed because I've been cradling my phone on it for years. And she's going to say, you're telling me that I can't do work on my phone and I'm going to give her another phone.

[B]

My, the one thing. So my obviously my 8 month old son does not have a phone, but if I put my phone somewhere in the room, he instinctively crawls towards it.

[A]

It's, it's, it's crazy how it works. He will, he will know how to open a tablet by the time he's like one and a half.

[B]

My feeling about this generally is, I think to continue a theme, this can get painted with too broad a brush in that phones are evil. We all. Obviously you can use your phone for a number of things, some of which will be pivotal towards being social, being safe, earning a living. But moderation would seem to be key. I actually think the bigger issue is just social media, honestly, more than the concept of a phone. I know those things are kind of interchangeable, though, especially when you talk about parenting.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is why Mina Kimes is not on Twitter anymore.

[B]

I hate it when people are like, whenever you make fun of Twitter and then there's people like, oh, you hate it so much, then leave to where? Reddit, YouTube comments, blue sky threads. I did like. That was the funniest part, by the way, of the whole angel Reese Carter thing was that she took the threads to talk. And I'm like, I wish this story wasn't so toxic because I have so many jokes about that. What is that like? Honestly, I was trying to think, like, what is it like when you. When you want to, like, talk, but you want to do it somewhere where other people might not hear it.

[C]

It's definitely when your parents piss you off and you. You talk back to them, but from your room, as if they could hear you.

[A]

What did we find out today, guys? What did we find out today on Pablo Torre finds Out a show about.

[C]

Finding stuff out that I don't really know Pablo Torre. That's what I found out today, is that I thought we were friends and I thought I knew you, but you have a series of filters between your brain and your mouth that I thought you didn't have because you also ask question.

[A]

Ask me a question, and I will answer bluntly.

[B]

Okay? Okay.

[A]

And immediately.

[C]

What did you learn today, Pablo?

[A]

What I learned today is that everything is Caitlin Clark. Parenting is Caitlin Clark. Cell phones are Caitlin Clark. The concept of masculinity is Caitlin Clark. Caitlin Clark may be the least Caitlin Clark of all the Caitlin Clarks we've discussed today. Everything is designed to get us mad. And sports seems to be the place where we're actually being the most honest version of ourselves and actually getting audibly angry.

[B]

But isn't it incredible that sports, the court is the only place where I think this might go okay for her in the. In the long run? Like, I think that part of this whole thing is going to be fine. It's everything else that's the problem.

[C]

What courts are we talking about?

[A]

But of course, a show like a good team is more than any one person. And Pablo Torre finds out is produced by Michael Antonucci, Ryan Cortez, Sam Dawig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Loman, Rachel Miller, Howard, Ethan Schreier, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tominiello and Juliet Warren. Our studio engineering by RG Systems. Our Post production by NGW Post our theme song by John Bravo. I will talk to you.

[C]

Sam.