I was honestly just confused for the entire "the slap" riff that came up repeatedly in this episode. I remember it happening, I just don't remember it as all that consequential. I don't remember people reacting all that strongly for or against Will Smith other than a moment of, "wow, did that just happen?" Were there people actively defending him, or defending Rock's joke in strident ways? It seemed to me to be a moment of poor judgment that resulted in official sanction by the awards show, and then I and everyone I knew moved on.
This makes me really aware of how each corner of the internet distorts different parts of life, and results in how different segments of society can be so mystified by one another. What seems earth shattering in one circle is unmemorable to another.
I am so late to the this party, but I think after 3.5 years, I’ve finally distilled my thoughts! I don’t condone violence and think it was wrong, and I also was so sick of talking about the slap when it happened and wanted to give Will Smith a chance to work on whatever he clearly needed to work out privately. I also don’t watch awards shows so I wasn’t super invested.
I do think there is a difference between physical violence and verbal/emotional violence, but I think it is much more nuanced than physical violence is worse than words. Physical violence impacts a more basic level of need based on Maslow’s hierarchy so I do think that the threat to safety is very impactful to the wellbeing of people. However, I don’t think that means it’s more impactful than emotional pain. I’m a therapist and have had far more clients contemplate suicide due to someone else’s words, non violent actions and neglect than due to physical violence. Just because we aren’t seeing a violent action doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a violent impact, and I think that that was something missed in 2022 and in the reflection. I think physical violence and verbal abuse are both bad, and we don’t need to rank them…we can just not condone either!
And now I’m going to speak out of the other side of my mouth about something that I kept thinking about during this that might be sort of tangentially related. I think most moms of little kids who talk to moms of big kids often hear something along the lines of “the physical exhaustion is nothing compared to the emotional exhaustion” or “little kids, little problems”, and to that I’d like to say bullshit! Physical exhaustion makes everything else harder, and again, I don’t know why there has to be a comparison. For some people, being physically tired is worse than being emotionally tired and vice versa. And again, they can both be bad, and we can do our best to mitigate both!
OMG when I had little kids and was functioning off of broken 3-4 hours of sleep and my coworkers would tell me "it doesn't get easier when they get older" I wanted to slap them (but didn't of course). I now have a 6 and 8 year old and have much more capacity for their emotional things because I am well rested (or more rested than I was). I have promised myself that I will never belittle a mother with young children and never say "it doesn't get any easier". The physical exhaustion was so raw and emotional for me I still get emotional thinking about it. Agree, no need to compare everyone is different and all kids are different let just be supportive :)
What I heard throughout this episode was the normative smashing into the descriptive. There's the way things should be and the way they are. The way people should behave, things people should care about, and how they actually behave, what they actually care about. There's what's right, and then there's what's effective.
In a sense, you are asking people to lie to themselves about what they know is right in service of being more effective. Honestly, I'm doing it too. I think we need a brand of politics that appeals to a kind of person that I can't stand, a kind of person that is not responsible enough for democracy, barely deserves right to vote, and only clears these things because they're fundamental. I'm going to hate this politics and it's going to be a huge struggle not to lash back out at it.
It's not easy to lie to yourself, or to come to terms with the fact that people are, on the whole, unbelievably disappointing and unserious, and adjust accordingly. A lot of times, our big mistake was expecting people to be better than they are. I don't plan to make this mistake any more, but it's going to be difficult and it comes with a cost.
“asking people to lie to themselves about what they know is right in service of being more effective” resonates with me. More challenging to accept in certain circumstances than others, but overall very hard to do. I fall often.
Also, sort of along the lines of not liking protest signs…I really, really detest seeing the ridiculous terms people come up with, which they think are hilarious, but just strike me as so incredibly not clever, and reveal people as being banal, vapid dolts. Things like “President Dump” or “California Governor Newscum.” 🙄It all kinda goes back to Beth’s, “grow up, America.”
In the first part of 2022, I was just finishing 5+ months of chemo that left me without hair. So, when that joke happened, I either was still bald, or barely had little wisps of hair just starting to grow back. If someone had made a “GI Jane” joke at me at that point, honestly, I would have found it funny and laughed. I made those types of jokes about myself. The idea that a joke like that came anywhere near warranting hitting someone, or that any part of that was even close to okay, just seemed so absurdly off the rails.
2022 was the year a lot of things and even people jumped the shark for me. I was participating and going with the flow of everything, but in my mind and heart I was feeling like things were really going off the rails on the other side of Trumpism.
Hollywood and the Oscars definitely was the first to jump the shark with me after the Big Slap. I could not believe we could not all agree the Big Slap was not good at all, regardless of what led to the slap. I realized a few days after that happened that Hollywood is in a bad spot these days and has not known what to do with itself since Weinstein went to jail.
Also, 2022 was the year I was waiting for Biden to announce he was not going to run again. 🙄
It was really hard for me to pick a side on the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial. I wasn't going to go that hole of the "believe all women" with Heard because there was a trial, Depp is the one that wanted the trial, and Depp deserved to tell his side of what was going on in the relationship. Also, I felt it should not have been televised or had so much access for the public to see it all. After that trial ended, I walked away from it feeling like both are crazy, it was toxic relationship with two people with huge egos and personalities that never should have gotten married.
The Big Slap and the public reaction reminds me of the murder of the United Healthcare CEO and the public being so blase and even supportive. No. Nope. No. I have blue whale sized feelings about the state of health insurance and how terrible it is. Working remotely for a 2 person organization has unexpectedly radicalized me towards Medicare for All. And still the murder of the CEO was a horrific tragedy.
I watched Johnny Depp going back in the 21 Jump Street Days.
Johnny Depp was one of those actors that got hot really fast, stayed hot, and no one told him no or gave him much guidance as he aged. Hollywood just fed his ego for years.
What gave me pause about the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial was Depp was the one that was defending himself and he's the one that wanted the trial. I have no doubt that Depp knew that Heard's lawyers were going to throw red meat about him, but he went through it anyway and took that risk. I don't know what really happened behind closed doors. I just know after paying attention to the trial and watching the documentaries about it, I felt both have serious issues to work out for themselves, and it is best they are apart.
Beth, I found your comment about protest signs very interesting. I've been to countless protests (literally no idea how many) and I've never once made a sign. Partly I'm lazy and partly I just don't see the need. Putting my body in the street is the action and most other people at protests don't have signs either--that's just the optics that get shown. Anyway, of the signs I have seen around me, some have been hilarious and some have made excellent points, but most are just dumb and run a real risk of alienating people that should also be protesting because they are just as affected by what's happening as anyone.
I've also seen, inside some communities, the policing of signs. As in "organizers should tell attendees not to put those words on signs." I'll spare you the details, but these suggestions are almost always aimed at white women. Even if I think signs are dumb or whatever, I don't believe in policing those things, not only because speech but because this is what leads to the fear and inability to speak up about ANYTHING.
I also have mixed feelings. I think signs like "No Kings" can turn independents/people on the fence off. On the other hand, signs about very specific things can raise awareness. As you know, I live in a state capital, so I see a lot of signs! I learn a lot from them, such as the fact that voting reforms were up for a vote (didn't pass), or that Downstate Medical Center is slated to lose a lot of money. and this gives me impetus to do something about the things that are named on the signs. Also, legislators can respond to things like "This year x number of library workers have been assaulted at work." better than they can to things like "Protect our democracy."
I never make signs either! This makes me feel so much better about my choice to be lazy. I can just never quite think of what to say. Regarding the yard signs, I both agree and disagree with Beth. I feel this way about bumper stickers. If I'm behind you in traffic, don't give me another excuse to hate you. ;-) OTOH, when I see the sign Beth describes, I honestly see it as a person trying to be welcoming. Even here in relatively-progressive-land, "safe" neighborhoods are racist AF. I've lived in a racially mixed area of town since the early 90s. When I moved into my current house I'd get all these emails from neighbors about "there's a brown man walking down the street!" And I was like "yeah? so? your point is...?" I mean, I never replied and never quite knew how to reply, but silently I was so disappointed. Seeing the signs is a welcome change.
The welcoming is what I think the signs are intended to convey. I moved last fall. After the election I sent a thank you to the neighbor with the 'I'm a single dog lady and I vote' signs. Her signs made me feel less alone in this very conservative area.
Yes. Ukraine is approximately the size of Texas, and most of the strikes are happening in the eastern and southern parts of the country. Traditionally, Ukraine has produced a lot of food, but the war has caused disruptions, so those parts of the country is also where food insecurity is the worst. My son was in Moldova, which borders western Ukraine last summer. Although he did not go into Ukraine, he said that lots of people go back and forth across the border regularly for work and so forth - like in the US and Canada. (Although an article in the paper said crossings of Canadians coming into the US are down 20% this year.)
I believe so. My mom has regular contact with someone from the church I grew up in who is over there with their family working at a Bible college or something.
I think that the slap was difficult for some (a lot?) of white progressives to parse because it was during a moment when it would have been fraught or inappropriate (or privileged) to criticize a Black man. See a Black man slap another Black man on behalf of a Black woman was just too much for people to process.
I know someone who classifies and declassifies information as part of her job. It's not a one and done the way many people think it is. (If you've ever worked in any kind of information security, you know what I'm talking about.) I actually wasn't surprised or particularly upset that former presidents (or other government officials) might be in possession of classified material; what enrages me is that in these examples 1) left the materials in random places and 2) didn't hurry to give them back when it was pointed out. The records of the president belong to all of us and should remain in possession of the government, full stop. And this is why!
As a person who watched all of the Watergate Hearings and the Jan. 6 hearings, my thoughts: For the first I was a newlywed; for the second a mom of three adults and a grandma. Here is the difference: in the 70s we had Republican senators with courage; in 2022 and on we have cowardly Republican senators. They are to blame. And sadly those cowards are the Republican senators of my generation. We know the KS senators and have met them often. They spout one set of values and do not seem to vote those values. We know the younger senators too and they are even worse. Thune is married to a woman who is from my church denomination who attended the denominational college where I teach. For years the Christian right taught against moral relativism and yet now nearly all make excuses for immorality.
Sarah and Beth, I really appreciate the courage it has taken to do this flashback series. I have not encountered many professionals who are willing - or able - to not only do this kind of review but to also share it publicly. You are to be commended.
Beth, I am grateful for the time you spent on the classified documents matters in 2022 and 2023. Just because it was not politically consequential in the way many of us hoped doesn't mean it was unworthy of attention. It mattered, it matters, and someday it may matter even more than it goes now.
So much of what is happening now is difficult for us to see clearly, because we are IN the storm! The puzzle pieces are swirling around us, being shot at us with force, or lying quietly unnoticed at our feet. Putting them together to see things that are hidden now is the work of future generations.
Even your explainers, should they be preserved, may one day be a valuable, contemporaneous source for those trying to understand what this time was like. Be generous with yourself. ❤️
I was honestly just confused for the entire "the slap" riff that came up repeatedly in this episode. I remember it happening, I just don't remember it as all that consequential. I don't remember people reacting all that strongly for or against Will Smith other than a moment of, "wow, did that just happen?" Were there people actively defending him, or defending Rock's joke in strident ways? It seemed to me to be a moment of poor judgment that resulted in official sanction by the awards show, and then I and everyone I knew moved on.
This makes me really aware of how each corner of the internet distorts different parts of life, and results in how different segments of society can be so mystified by one another. What seems earth shattering in one circle is unmemorable to another.
I am so late to the this party, but I think after 3.5 years, I’ve finally distilled my thoughts! I don’t condone violence and think it was wrong, and I also was so sick of talking about the slap when it happened and wanted to give Will Smith a chance to work on whatever he clearly needed to work out privately. I also don’t watch awards shows so I wasn’t super invested.
I do think there is a difference between physical violence and verbal/emotional violence, but I think it is much more nuanced than physical violence is worse than words. Physical violence impacts a more basic level of need based on Maslow’s hierarchy so I do think that the threat to safety is very impactful to the wellbeing of people. However, I don’t think that means it’s more impactful than emotional pain. I’m a therapist and have had far more clients contemplate suicide due to someone else’s words, non violent actions and neglect than due to physical violence. Just because we aren’t seeing a violent action doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a violent impact, and I think that that was something missed in 2022 and in the reflection. I think physical violence and verbal abuse are both bad, and we don’t need to rank them…we can just not condone either!
And now I’m going to speak out of the other side of my mouth about something that I kept thinking about during this that might be sort of tangentially related. I think most moms of little kids who talk to moms of big kids often hear something along the lines of “the physical exhaustion is nothing compared to the emotional exhaustion” or “little kids, little problems”, and to that I’d like to say bullshit! Physical exhaustion makes everything else harder, and again, I don’t know why there has to be a comparison. For some people, being physically tired is worse than being emotionally tired and vice versa. And again, they can both be bad, and we can do our best to mitigate both!
Katie I am late to the party too..lol.
OMG when I had little kids and was functioning off of broken 3-4 hours of sleep and my coworkers would tell me "it doesn't get easier when they get older" I wanted to slap them (but didn't of course). I now have a 6 and 8 year old and have much more capacity for their emotional things because I am well rested (or more rested than I was). I have promised myself that I will never belittle a mother with young children and never say "it doesn't get any easier". The physical exhaustion was so raw and emotional for me I still get emotional thinking about it. Agree, no need to compare everyone is different and all kids are different let just be supportive :)
What I heard throughout this episode was the normative smashing into the descriptive. There's the way things should be and the way they are. The way people should behave, things people should care about, and how they actually behave, what they actually care about. There's what's right, and then there's what's effective.
In a sense, you are asking people to lie to themselves about what they know is right in service of being more effective. Honestly, I'm doing it too. I think we need a brand of politics that appeals to a kind of person that I can't stand, a kind of person that is not responsible enough for democracy, barely deserves right to vote, and only clears these things because they're fundamental. I'm going to hate this politics and it's going to be a huge struggle not to lash back out at it.
It's not easy to lie to yourself, or to come to terms with the fact that people are, on the whole, unbelievably disappointing and unserious, and adjust accordingly. A lot of times, our big mistake was expecting people to be better than they are. I don't plan to make this mistake any more, but it's going to be difficult and it comes with a cost.
“asking people to lie to themselves about what they know is right in service of being more effective” resonates with me. More challenging to accept in certain circumstances than others, but overall very hard to do. I fall often.
Also, sort of along the lines of not liking protest signs…I really, really detest seeing the ridiculous terms people come up with, which they think are hilarious, but just strike me as so incredibly not clever, and reveal people as being banal, vapid dolts. Things like “President Dump” or “California Governor Newscum.” 🙄It all kinda goes back to Beth’s, “grow up, America.”
In the first part of 2022, I was just finishing 5+ months of chemo that left me without hair. So, when that joke happened, I either was still bald, or barely had little wisps of hair just starting to grow back. If someone had made a “GI Jane” joke at me at that point, honestly, I would have found it funny and laughed. I made those types of jokes about myself. The idea that a joke like that came anywhere near warranting hitting someone, or that any part of that was even close to okay, just seemed so absurdly off the rails.
2022 was the year a lot of things and even people jumped the shark for me. I was participating and going with the flow of everything, but in my mind and heart I was feeling like things were really going off the rails on the other side of Trumpism.
Hollywood and the Oscars definitely was the first to jump the shark with me after the Big Slap. I could not believe we could not all agree the Big Slap was not good at all, regardless of what led to the slap. I realized a few days after that happened that Hollywood is in a bad spot these days and has not known what to do with itself since Weinstein went to jail.
Also, 2022 was the year I was waiting for Biden to announce he was not going to run again. 🙄
It was really hard for me to pick a side on the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial. I wasn't going to go that hole of the "believe all women" with Heard because there was a trial, Depp is the one that wanted the trial, and Depp deserved to tell his side of what was going on in the relationship. Also, I felt it should not have been televised or had so much access for the public to see it all. After that trial ended, I walked away from it feeling like both are crazy, it was toxic relationship with two people with huge egos and personalities that never should have gotten married.
The Big Slap and the public reaction reminds me of the murder of the United Healthcare CEO and the public being so blase and even supportive. No. Nope. No. I have blue whale sized feelings about the state of health insurance and how terrible it is. Working remotely for a 2 person organization has unexpectedly radicalized me towards Medicare for All. And still the murder of the CEO was a horrific tragedy.
Johnny Depp was, is, and will remain gross.
I watched Johnny Depp going back in the 21 Jump Street Days.
Johnny Depp was one of those actors that got hot really fast, stayed hot, and no one told him no or gave him much guidance as he aged. Hollywood just fed his ego for years.
What gave me pause about the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial was Depp was the one that was defending himself and he's the one that wanted the trial. I have no doubt that Depp knew that Heard's lawyers were going to throw red meat about him, but he went through it anyway and took that risk. I don't know what really happened behind closed doors. I just know after paying attention to the trial and watching the documentaries about it, I felt both have serious issues to work out for themselves, and it is best they are apart.
Beth, I found your comment about protest signs very interesting. I've been to countless protests (literally no idea how many) and I've never once made a sign. Partly I'm lazy and partly I just don't see the need. Putting my body in the street is the action and most other people at protests don't have signs either--that's just the optics that get shown. Anyway, of the signs I have seen around me, some have been hilarious and some have made excellent points, but most are just dumb and run a real risk of alienating people that should also be protesting because they are just as affected by what's happening as anyone.
I've also seen, inside some communities, the policing of signs. As in "organizers should tell attendees not to put those words on signs." I'll spare you the details, but these suggestions are almost always aimed at white women. Even if I think signs are dumb or whatever, I don't believe in policing those things, not only because speech but because this is what leads to the fear and inability to speak up about ANYTHING.
I also have mixed feelings. I think signs like "No Kings" can turn independents/people on the fence off. On the other hand, signs about very specific things can raise awareness. As you know, I live in a state capital, so I see a lot of signs! I learn a lot from them, such as the fact that voting reforms were up for a vote (didn't pass), or that Downstate Medical Center is slated to lose a lot of money. and this gives me impetus to do something about the things that are named on the signs. Also, legislators can respond to things like "This year x number of library workers have been assaulted at work." better than they can to things like "Protect our democracy."
I never make signs either! This makes me feel so much better about my choice to be lazy. I can just never quite think of what to say. Regarding the yard signs, I both agree and disagree with Beth. I feel this way about bumper stickers. If I'm behind you in traffic, don't give me another excuse to hate you. ;-) OTOH, when I see the sign Beth describes, I honestly see it as a person trying to be welcoming. Even here in relatively-progressive-land, "safe" neighborhoods are racist AF. I've lived in a racially mixed area of town since the early 90s. When I moved into my current house I'd get all these emails from neighbors about "there's a brown man walking down the street!" And I was like "yeah? so? your point is...?" I mean, I never replied and never quite knew how to reply, but silently I was so disappointed. Seeing the signs is a welcome change.
The welcoming is what I think the signs are intended to convey. I moved last fall. After the election I sent a thank you to the neighbor with the 'I'm a single dog lady and I vote' signs. Her signs made me feel less alone in this very conservative area.
I would like to ask the world's dumbest question: in Ukraine, right now, are there people going about their business while the war is ongoing?
I have wondered this too.
Yes. Ukraine is approximately the size of Texas, and most of the strikes are happening in the eastern and southern parts of the country. Traditionally, Ukraine has produced a lot of food, but the war has caused disruptions, so those parts of the country is also where food insecurity is the worst. My son was in Moldova, which borders western Ukraine last summer. Although he did not go into Ukraine, he said that lots of people go back and forth across the border regularly for work and so forth - like in the US and Canada. (Although an article in the paper said crossings of Canadians coming into the US are down 20% this year.)
I believe so. My mom has regular contact with someone from the church I grew up in who is over there with their family working at a Bible college or something.
I think that the slap was difficult for some (a lot?) of white progressives to parse because it was during a moment when it would have been fraught or inappropriate (or privileged) to criticize a Black man. See a Black man slap another Black man on behalf of a Black woman was just too much for people to process.
I know someone who classifies and declassifies information as part of her job. It's not a one and done the way many people think it is. (If you've ever worked in any kind of information security, you know what I'm talking about.) I actually wasn't surprised or particularly upset that former presidents (or other government officials) might be in possession of classified material; what enrages me is that in these examples 1) left the materials in random places and 2) didn't hurry to give them back when it was pointed out. The records of the president belong to all of us and should remain in possession of the government, full stop. And this is why!
Great episode. I think 2022 was also pretty pivotal because chat GPT was released that year in November. Talk about an inflection point…
Now this is an excellent point
I have so enjoyed this series! I admire so much your willingness to reflect back on your work and learn from it.
As a person who watched all of the Watergate Hearings and the Jan. 6 hearings, my thoughts: For the first I was a newlywed; for the second a mom of three adults and a grandma. Here is the difference: in the 70s we had Republican senators with courage; in 2022 and on we have cowardly Republican senators. They are to blame. And sadly those cowards are the Republican senators of my generation. We know the KS senators and have met them often. They spout one set of values and do not seem to vote those values. We know the younger senators too and they are even worse. Thune is married to a woman who is from my church denomination who attended the denominational college where I teach. For years the Christian right taught against moral relativism and yet now nearly all make excuses for immorality.
Nailed it.
Sarah and Beth, I really appreciate the courage it has taken to do this flashback series. I have not encountered many professionals who are willing - or able - to not only do this kind of review but to also share it publicly. You are to be commended.
Beth, I am grateful for the time you spent on the classified documents matters in 2022 and 2023. Just because it was not politically consequential in the way many of us hoped doesn't mean it was unworthy of attention. It mattered, it matters, and someday it may matter even more than it goes now.
So much of what is happening now is difficult for us to see clearly, because we are IN the storm! The puzzle pieces are swirling around us, being shot at us with force, or lying quietly unnoticed at our feet. Putting them together to see things that are hidden now is the work of future generations.
Even your explainers, should they be preserved, may one day be a valuable, contemporaneous source for those trying to understand what this time was like. Be generous with yourself. ❤️