Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike
Rugnetta. This intro was written on Tuesday, 08/26/2025 at
08:57AM eastern, and we have a nonstop show for you this week.
First, I talked with David Huerta, senior digital security
trainer at Freedom of the Press Foundation about Blue Sky being
blocked in Mississippi and the usefulness of VPNs. Then hot on
the heels of our member drive stream week, an edit of our what
is going on here stream recorded live in front of a Twitch chat
audience and also the gang games.
But right now, we're gonna take a quick break. You're gonna
listen to some ads unless you're in the member feed. And when we
return, we'll talk about a few of the things that have happened
since the last time you heard from us. It's something
unpredictable, but in the end, that's four stories for you this
week. AOL is suspending dial up service, something you maybe
thought it did twenty years ago.
The ISP will cease the max 56 k b p s connection on September
30. In 2021, when AOL sold to private equity firm Apollo
Global Management, CNBC reported that quote, the number of dial
up users is now in the low thousands. Kickstarter United,
the union of Kickstarter workers organized under o p e I u local
one fifty three, is currently collecting signatures on a
petition asking management to include in their contract
guarantees to maintain their preexisting standard of a four
day work week. Since April 2022, the union writes, Kickstarter
employees have worked under a four day, thirty two hour work
week. It began as a commitment to building a healthier, more
sustainable workplace.
During this time, Kickstarter experienced the most successful
period in its sixteen year history, hosting some of the
biggest, most groundbreaking projects ever launched on the
platform, end quote. They later continue, as we entered contract
negotiations with management, we asked them to make the four day
thirty two hour work week permanent, not as a pilot or a
promise, but as policy. They have refused and are determined
to retain the ability to make us work 25% more hours for no
additional compensation. They're asking for support in the form
of petition signatures, so we've included a link to that in the
show notes if you'd like to sign. YouTube has been using AI
to upscale already uploaded videos without uploader
permission.
On August 14, music YouTuber, Rhett Schull, uploaded a video
titled YouTube is using AI to alter content and not telling
us. Made after his friend and colleague Rick Beeto, another
music YouTuber, noticed he looked sort of like an AI
deepfake of himself in certain YouTube shorts. The BBC reports
that complaints of AI upscaling by YouTube go back to June on
social media, quote, with users posting close ups of odd looking
body parts and questioning YouTube's intentions. Now, they
continue, after months of rumors in comment sections, the company
has finally confirmed it is altering a limited number of
videos on YouTube shorts, the app's short form video feature.
We're running an experiment on select YouTube shorts, a company
representative says, that uses traditional machine learning
technology to unblur, denoise, and improve clarity in videos
during processing, similar to what a modern smartphone does
when you record a video, end quote.
Improving clarity by making everyone look like cake. Yum.
It's your birthday. And finally, research out of MIT shows that
95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing. Fortune
reports that, quote, the vast majority stall delivering little
to no measurable impact on profits and losses, end quote.
Study authors tell Fortune that while executives may push for
more AI use and blame regulation or model performance for lack of
uptake, the problem actually lies in a misunderstanding of
what these tools are suited for. Extremely narrow, often rote,
data oriented tasks, what Fortune calls back office
automation. Companies also suffer when they attempt to
design and implement their own AI solutions with findings
showing that nearly 70% of internal tools fail to have any
business impact. In show news this week, folks, friends,
listeners, the member drive stream week is over, but it
lives on in our hearts, and the member drive itself continues.
More on that in a moment.
First, let's do some numbers. Over the last week, we streamed
thirty six hours and one minute. You all watched us for a
combined total of eighty eight thousand eight hundred and
twenty seven minutes. We had an average viewer count over those
thirty six hours of forty one with a max concurrent viewer
count of a 138. We reached 11,322 unique people and there
were 156 of you in the chat.
That all adds up to 16,294 live views and 17,006 v o d views.
And a bunch of those are still up if you wanna go watch.
They're gonna expire soon, I think. 65% of our audience was
in The US and 35% elsewhere. Switzerland, looking at you.
And we were rated once by the investigators pod while we were
all quietly watching Virtuosity. We now have 218 Twitch followers
and 31 subscribers, five of which were gifted. We have
reached affiliate status. I only kind of know what that means,
except that we'll probably keep streaming at least a little
every once in a while. So if you wanna catch us when we go live,
make sure to follow us at twitch.tv/theneverpost.
We also announced that the never post subreddit is the place to
hang out with other listeners as well as the staff of the show,
and we have got 62 new members over there, including at least
one that is site wide shadow band. That's me, Mike Rugnetta.
I will accept any tips on how to remedy that situation. Anyways,
r forward slash never post. Come hang out on Ramit.
But okay. The big number, the important one, how many new
members did we get? Our goal for August is to add 200 new members
and we got a 154. Holy cow. Can we close that gap of 46 in,
looks at calendar, five days?
That is up to you all listening. We did about that many in the
first two days of the member drive. Maybe we can do it again
to close it out. If you aren't already a member and have been
thinking about becoming one for $4 a month, there's no better
time than right now, I promise. Okay.
Two more things. Wow. Lots of show news this week. We've been
very busy. If you've always wanted to be a member but aren't
in a spot where you can part with $4 a month, we have a
limited number of gift memberships still available from
the stream week.
Your fellow listeners have donated a year of membership.
That is how much they like being members, and we're gonna give
them out first come, first served. So just email us at the
neverpost@Gmail.com with the subject gift membership in all
caps. If we still have some available, we'll reply with
details. And finally, if you've always wanted merch, now's the
time.
That's right. Never post has t shirts. You can head to
neverpost.bigcartel.com to take a look at the two designs
currently available. One by the incomparable casket map and the
other by the inimitable Spence Nelson. These are shirt
preorders.
Once preorders are closed on September 12, shirts will be
handprinted and then shipped by the Neverpost staff. We are not
printing them. We are hiring a professional who's very, good to
print them, but we will be packing and shipping them. See
the item page for more details about what preorder means and,
what you can expect as far as timing and shipping and all
that. Neverpost.bigcartel.com.
Okay. That is the news I have for you this week. First, blue
sky is blocked in Mississippi. Then, what is going on here? But
right now, at certain points throughout the stream week,
myself, Jason, and Georgia played video games.
Maybe you've heard them. In our interstitials this week, clips
from Never Post Plays.
Jason Oberholtzer: Alright. Well, well. Alright. Chat,
Georgia Hampton: you have decided this is the person that
I look like. I don't super remember what Bobby Pin looks
like.
Jason Oberholtzer: This is about to be great.
Georgia Hampton: So you're gonna find out. Well, don't look it up
because then you'll see what she looks like.
Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, let's find out together. Wow. Yep.
Okay. Like a family.
Georgia, I'm excited for you. Before you Oh. Feel an
overwhelming air of cool of
Georgia Hampton: An overwhelming air of cool?
Jason Oberholtzer: Leather and metal and the best hair and
eyebrows you've ever seen. Bow is impartially cool. Are
Georgia Hampton: you kidding me?
Jason Oberholtzer: Oh.
Mike Rugnetta: Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.
Georgia Hampton: This is the hugest compliment I've ever
gotten in my life. Well, they say that in a lot of queer
relationships, people look like twins. So let's go. Problem
punk? Oh my god.
Should we be sassy? Our three options are what?
Jason Oberholtzer: You would know. This is like you're
fighting the mirror right now. I'm fighting
Georgia Hampton: the mirror right now. Yeah. Yeah. I think
it's a. Okay.
She said, you got a problem, punk? No. But it sounds like you
do.
Jason Oberholtzer: What? Me? Nah.
Georgia Hampton: I'm just messing with you. Me coded also.
Mike Rugnetta: My name's Bobby.
Jason Oberholtzer: Bobby Pin.
Georgia Hampton: Oh my god. I love you. We are the same.
Mike Rugnetta: Mississippi house bill one one two six, known
otherwise as the Walker Montgomery protecting children
online act, was passed on 04/20/2024 and signed by
Mississippi governor Tate Reeves on April 30. The bill was
established quote to protect minors from harmful content. How
does it do this? Well, I'll let the bill speak for itself. It
reads, one, digital service provider may not enter into an
agreement with a person to create an account with a digital
service unless the person has registered the person's age with
the digital service provider.
And then later, a digital service provider shall not
permit an account holder who is a known minor to be an account
holder unless the known minor has expressed consent from a
parent or guardian. It then lists ways in which consent can
be given. A form which can be emailed or faxed, a toll free
phone line that can be called, a video chat, an ID scan which
then must be deleted it says, or any other quote commercially
reasonable method. Once consent is given, the DSP then needs to
make sure that it abides by further rules concerning what a
minor can and cannot be shown. The bill reads, one, in relation
to a known minor's use of a digital service, a digital
service provider shall make commercially reasonable efforts
to develop and implement a strategy to prevent or mitigate
the known minors exposure to harmful material and other
content that promotes or facilitates the following harms
to minors.
A, consistent with evidence informed medical information,
the following, self harm, eating disorders, substance use
disorders, and suicidal behaviors. B, patterns of use
that indicate or encourage substance abuse or use of
illegal drugs. C, stalking, physical violence, online
bullying, or harassment. D, grooming, trafficking, child
pornography, or other sexual exploitation or abuse. E,
incitement of violence or f, any other illegal activity.
Not only does this mean the DSP needs to keep track of who is
and who is not a minor, some of these guidelines are also very
broad. In today's political climate, labels like any other
illegal activity are definitely moving targets. Net Choice, a
trade association which represents tech clients like
Meta, Airbnb, Amazon, Reddit, Snap, and thirty some others
sued Mississippi over h b one one two six saying it likely
violates free speech guaranteed by the first amendment and equal
protection rights guaranteed by the fourteenth. Netchoice asked
for an injunction, a pause on enforcement of the law while a
court determines if those rights were being violated. The United
States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi
granted that injunction saying Netchoice was probably right and
that furthermore, they likely had standing to bring suit.
Mississippi's AG, Lynn Fitch, appealed saying that the
district court didn't provide analysis as required by legal
precedent. The United States Court of Appeals for the fifth
circuit agreed and vacated the injunction, which meant that h b
one one two six could go into effect over a year after it was
originally signed. This back and forth made it to the Supreme
Court who concurred with the Fifth Circuit. Earlier in
August, writing for the court with no dissents included,
justice Kavanaugh says, Netchoice has, in my view,
demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on the merits.
Namely, that enforcement of the Mississippi law would likely
violate its members first amendment rights under this
court's precedence.
However, he continued, because net choice has not sufficiently
demonstrated that the balance of harms and equities favors it at
this time, I concur in the court's denial of the
application for interim relief. Basically, while the law is
likely unconstitutional, net choice didn't convincingly show
that the courts need to step in as soon as possible. So h b one
one two six stands. The supreme court's decision made on August
14 further cemented the fact that perhaps eventually this law
could be overturned, but in the interim Mississippi could
continue to enforce it as written.
David Huerta: And many websites started creating these sort of
like, not exactly pay walls, but age walls for verification.
Mike Rugnetta: This is David Huerta.
David Huerta: I'm David Huerta. I'm one of the senior digital
security trainers over at Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Mike Rugnetta: The Freedom of the Press Foundation helps
journalists safely do their work online. This means, among other
things, knowing how to protect their identities in certain
scenarios, something that this ruling has now made more
complicated for many websites accessible within Mississippi.
David Huerta: This, of course, carries a certain amount of
security and privacy concerns. Of course, there's the fact that
you're trusting a third party website with something as
sensitive as your ID, for example. There is also the
concerns around, for example, securing that data once it
arrives, that image of your driver's license once it arrives
on their end, and how much trust do you have on these systems to
actually protect your data. I feel like we've all had GDPR
database notifications reach our inbox. These are not infrequent.
And sometimes the stakes are relatively low. It's like, oh, I
guess I gotta change my password. But if we're gonna
make the age verification the norm and we're gonna have our,
you know, our driver's licenses or passports all over the place,
it's a lot harder to change your driver's license number than it
is to change a password on the website.
Mike Rugnetta: I wanted to talk with David to better understand
how companies are responding to these risky new age wall
requirements and also to better understand some of the
technologies that people are suggesting for circumventing
them. I started by asking about a blog post from Friday, August
22 that was written by the Blue Sky team entitled our response
to Mississippi's age assurance law. It read, starting today, if
you access Blue Sky from a Mississippi IP address, you'll
see a message explaining why the app isn't available. This block
will remain in place while the courts decide whether the law
will stand. And this means that at the time of recording, while
we're recording this, Blue Sky is no longer reachable in the
state of Mississippi.
Yep. If I'm understanding correctly, it is not that
Mississippi has blocked Blue Sky. It is that Blue Sky has
made itself unavailable to people who are logging in or
trying to access the website from a Mississippi IP address.
David Huerta: That is correct. In this case, Blue Sky is
basically trying to figure out where exactly it fits into this
law, how exactly is its content being interpreted, and how much
does that actually affect them. So unfortunately, this creates a
sort of, like, chilling effect where they maybe don't wanna
take on that risk of getting sued or getting in trouble with
the law. So rather than dealing with that and the interpretation
of, like, where they fit into that law, they've decided, in
this case, it seems to pull out entirely until that's figured
out.
Mike Rugnetta: In their blog post, they write, we think this
law creates challenges that go beyond its child safety goals
and creates significant barriers that limit free speech and
disproportionately harms smaller platforms and emerging
technologies. Do have a sense of what it is that they mean in
that case? Like, what is it about this that they feel is
disproportionately harming them as a small team or a new piece
of technology?
David Huerta: Yeah. I feel like there's, you know, a lot of
things that go into features being requested as part of this
law that other companies have either already implemented or
have the staffing, the resources, the money to
basically implement it and have a lot of experience with that,
including with things like content moderation as kind of an
an addenda in addition to that. When it comes to Blue Sky and
also other smaller platforms like Mastodon, which in in their
cases, for example, are, like, small mini Blue Skies almost
that may have, like, one or two people total running the show
for their for their particular communities. Having to spin up
all these new features and worry about the sort of, like, legal
repercussions of what happens if they make a mistake is something
that is much much more consequential to them than it
would be for, like, a vastly wealthy company like Meta, for
example.
Mike Rugnetta: Or, like, Facebook's got the
infrastructure maybe preexisting or is able to get it up quickly
to store and process scans of IDs, even if that is sort of, in
a larger sense, something we should all be suspicious of, it
is something that they can build quickly.
David Huerta: Yeah. They have the infrastructure. They have
the security engineers. They have the lawyers. They have the
resources, basically, to help them navigate that a lot more
smoothly than, you know, a team that is made up of, like, you
know, a dozen or or maybe in some types of less people when
it comes to things like Mastodon.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Yeah. Your point about Mastodon is
interesting. I hadn't considered that. Are you seeing a similar
thing happening in Mastodon instances?
Are are Mastodon instances also blocking access from
Mississippi?
David Huerta: I have not seen that yet. I can't tell whether
Blue Sky is sort of the exception to the rule or whether
they are the canary in the coal mine, and this is just the
beginning of what has to come for many other social media
platforms, including a lot of platforms where a lot of
journalistic work is being done, where a lot of you know, if if
people remember, there was a lot of news that broke on Twitter.
There was a lot of news that broke on social media. These
platforms are basically a source of journalistic work and news
for many people, and having them suddenly not be accessible is is
an issue because now people don't have the same access or at
least the same variety of places to get their news from.
Mike Rugnetta: One thing I've seen online in response to all
of this is time to get a VPN. Yeah. Could you describe, just
in broad terms, what a VPN is?
David Huerta: Sure. So VPN, in this case, is a virtual private
network, a way for you to use someone else's Internet
connection to connect to the website that you actually wanna
access. And it is one of those things where, largely speaking,
VPNs are still relatively effective at getting around a
lot of blockage that exists, especially simple sort of like
IP based blocks like this where if, you know, there's a sort of
IP address that is associated with a specific jurisdiction
like Mississippi, you can basically simply appear from an
IP address that is not one of those.
Mike Rugnetta: IP address kinda acting like almost like an area
code on your phone. Right? You can sort of tell roughly where
someone is from based upon this marker and how they're
communicating with you. And so that's how Blue Sky is able to
say, no. Thank you to folks who try to sign on from Mississippi
and how a VPN can say, like, oh, no.
No. Like, actually, I'm from New York or I'm from Vermont. And
so, you know, sort of like changing your area code or
something.
David Huerta: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You could appear to the
websites you're visiting as if you're in another place, like
another state.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Yeah. Do you think VPN saturation is
about to just, like, skyrocket, or or do you think this is a
sort of limited trend?
David Huerta: I feel like I don't know what the outcome of
this of this blue sky block is going to be. So it's interesting
to see, like, whether the courts will interpret things in a way
that makes it less of a necessity. Yeah. But if we do
kinda start setting this precedence of just like, well,
we have these kind of, like, broadly defined laws that make
it incredibly difficult for a smaller website to operate, The
only way to really access this is through a VPN. Then we may,
in fact, reach this point where that does become sort of a
normal thing people have.
Mike Rugnetta: Can you just tell us a little bit about the other
states around the world where VPN use is really common?
David Huerta: Yeah. There is a lot of VPN usage in places like
China where there is sort of, like, government facilitated
infrastructure that blocks many foreign websites. There's sort
of, like, mix of how it's used. In many cases, it's, you know,
sometimes something that is deeply frowned upon. In other
cases, it's sort of, like, allowing it just enough because
it's sort of the cost of doing business with the outside world.
In other places like Russia, for example, there is some blockage
of some VPNs, but it's not always easy for a government
system to sort of, like, keep track of all that, and it
varies. Sometimes governments will have, like, a very
centralized way to control, like, access to the Internet.
Other times, they'll have a mix of, like, well, we have this
government censorship firewall for your home ISP and your
office ISP, but the mobile providers are not haven't built
it for them yet. So a VPN is kind of a workaround that can
exist for any combination of these situations where if you're
seeing blockage, you can use a VPN to use this. And maybe in
places where a VPN is blocked, there may be other ways to
connect and then use a VPN to access things.
It's kind of all over the place, honestly. But in regimes where
there is a lot of, like, very sort of, like, explicit
government blockage of online content, VPNs are pretty common.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. There's I I have seen some chatter recently
too about The UK becoming maybe the next place where VPNs get
heavily restricted or blocked because use of them skyrocketed
after the implementation of the Online Safety Act.
David Huerta: Yeah. I could definitely see that being the
sort of, like, the new norm for The UK, unfortunately. And I do
think that that's probably going to follow suit in many US states
as well if similar laws to these get passed and if the courts
basically interpret sort of basic social networks and other
kind of platforms as falling within this category.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I'm curious if you can talk a little bit
about any of the technical details of how a country or a
state enforces a VPN ban.
David Huerta: Yeah. It's very much a cat and mouse game, and
unfortunately, the VPNs are the mice.
Mike Rugnetta: So Of course.
David Huerta: Sometimes the mice are still clever. Like, you
know, New York City is full of rats, and we humans, apex
predators that have the technology of the of gods,
basically, compared to rats still have not gotten rid of
them. So it is sort of a, like, I guess, weirdly optimistic way
to say that there are ways that censorship regimes will try to
block VPNs, either through blocking the IP addresses
associated with those VPN connections or by trying to look
at sort of like Internet traffic, like your Internet
connection to a VPN and seeing like, that looks like a VPN
connection, and then blocking those types of connections,
which is significantly more sophisticated. And some of the
more sophisticated regimes out there do have that kind of
blockage. It's a little bit, unfortunately, a little bit
smarter.
That being said, though, there are ways that Tor, that VPN
companies have both sort of found to mask that web traffic
to make it look like just very normal web traffic and not like
VPN or Tor traffic, for example.
Mike Rugnetta: In your estimation, aren't VPN companies
ever targeted by the states who are trying to circumvent their
technology?
David Huerta: Sometimes. Yeah. There are some countries which
have laws specifically regarding VPNs and their usage. And in
some places, it may be, like, completely illegal. In other
countries, there's also a registration process.
Pakistan, for example, technically kind of can allow
you to use a VPN, but you have to tell them exactly what that
connection is
Mike Rugnetta: Uh-huh.
David Huerta: Which is, of course, a little bit invasive.
Yeah. Let's just be real. So it's it's not an ideal
situation, but you do see sort of the sort of targeting of VPN
access and the sort of, you know, the understanding that,
like, this is the way people are working around it, and this is
what we're trying to do, either block it or regulate it or, you
know, ban it.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. As a consumer, how do you go about
choosing a VPN?
David Huerta: Yeah. So I get this question a lot. We have a
guide at freedom.press that kinda goes through all the
things that we like to talk about when shopping for a VPN,
considerations around making sure that it's actually a paid
VPN, because many times, free VPNs are fake. They're actually
just, like, logging that information, selling it to third
parties, and making their money that way. It's also important to
look at things like modern security protocols.
Behind the scenes, kinda underneath the hood of, what
runs a VPN, there's things like a WireGuard, pretty good
protocol to use for many situations that you may need a
VPN for. There's also a need for transparency with these tools
just because you are entrusting them with your web traffic. So
things like security audit reports, for example, detailed
technical documentation of what exactly they're doing behind the
scenes to guarantee your security. Because anybody can
say, like, use our VPN. It's secure.
Here's a little sticker. Here's a little graphic says secure.
Here's a little seal.
Mike Rugnetta: I've seen that circle with the check mark
inside of it. Yeah.
David Huerta: Yeah. Yeah. The check mark means nothing. In
this case, having a third party audit, like, security firm audit
a VPN's infrastructure to make sure that it's actually doing
what it's supposed to be doing and doing so in a way that's
secure is a massive sort of, like, green flag when it comes
to transparency when choosing a VPN.
Mike Rugnetta: What would make you feel good to, you know, be
able to give the thumbs up to ID scanning age verification
online?
David Huerta: There's a lot that would have to be done there,
starting with a national privacy law that I feel like lawmakers
could maybe spend time on working on so that we can have
some, like, legal guardrails to ensure that our data is
protected when we upload an ID someplace and making sure that
the right incentives are in place to help make that happen.
The other thing too is, like, honestly, VPN companies offer a
little blueprint of what that could look like in terms of
things like having Yeah. Audits of what their infrastructure
looks like. Are they just putting your ID photos on, like,
an unprotected AWS s three bucket someplace? Because I have
seen that hacked so many times.
It's it's been ten years since I first saw that. Like, the same
mistakes keep getting repeated over and over again and it's
it's very Wild West. But I would want to see sort of, like, more
transparency from these companies, more legal
protections, more guarantees, and at the national level, a
privacy law that would sort of create that blood brain barrier
between, like, access to that data and other parts of the
state. For example, DHS and ICE, perhaps.
Mike Rugnetta: Which gets back to what you talked about earlier
of, like, it's not it's not necessarily that this is always
a no go. It's that it's a lot of infrastructure to build. That,
like, if you're gonna do it, it has to be done it has to be done
right, and that can be hard for especially smaller websites to
deal with.
David Huerta: Yeah. Exactly.
Mike Rugnetta: David, thank you so much, for joining us to chat
with us about Blue Sky and Mississippi and VPNs. We really
appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule.
David Huerta: No problem. Thanks for having me.
Mike Rugnetta: If people wanna see your work online, where
should they go?
David Huerta: Freedom.press. You can search for VPNs and see all
kinds of stuff that we've written about that as well as
other sort of online safety and security topics.
Georgia Hampton: This is just dessert Tetris in a way.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. It's just dessert Tetris, but with
luchadors.
Georgia Hampton: With the Oh, interesting.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. So we're at an impasse here.
Jason Oberholtzer: Okay.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. You are. We could we could give the porquito
to the dog and then the porquito porquito is gone.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. I don't like
Mike Rugnetta: We could. So if you don't fulfill an order
within a certain number of turns, the order changes.
Jason Oberholtzer: Okay.
Mike Rugnetta: So we could do that but we are close to the top
of the bag.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. This is a pivotal moment. I give the dog
the treat.
Georgia Hampton: I don't know what this game is.
Jason Oberholtzer: Good. This this puppy baro. Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: Herriot has posted is very convincing.
Georgia Hampton: This is such a cute little game.
Jason Oberholtzer: I think doggies do deserve treats.
Mike Rugnetta: But that's
Georgia Hampton: You already have a little what I'm assuming
is what you're talking about, the Porkito.
Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, he did it. Oh, and it didn't He's gone.
It didn't collapse.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. That's a whoops.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. I think you gotta nudge that. Oh, boy.
Shit. He did not solve our problem.
Oh, no. Oh, no. This is gonna this is gonna be okay. We're
gonna get there. Yep.
Oh. Uh-huh. What? Poor boy. We won't.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, baby. That was so satisfying. Wow.
Georgia Hampton: It's wildly Probably problem game.
Mike Rugnetta: It's a new dawn. Friends, hello and welcome to
what is going on here? A segment wherein members of the Never
Post staff bring posts to the group about which they would
like to know what is going on here. Could they have done some
googling? Could they have gone further down thread?
Could they have cracked a book or gone to YouTube? Probably.
But where is the fun in that? In the following segment, we share
things that we found online that made us want to know more and
about which we thought the process of finding out more
would be more fun to do together. Joining us for this
round of what is going on here in order of how well I assume
they can whistle Oh.
Ascending Oh. Are
Georgia Hampton: You're wrong.
Mike Rugnetta: Never post to producer Hans Buto?
Hans Buetow: I'm quite good at whistling.
Georgia Hampton: I believe best.
Mike Rugnetta: We're gonna have to have a whistle off, aren't
we? Yeah. Never post executive producer Jason Oberholzer.
Jason Oberholtzer: So I can do two different kinds of regular
whistling. Wow. I can do the through the lips and the tongue
to the roof of the mouth. Woah. Okay.
Georgia Hampton: I take it all back. You were right, Mike.
Hans Buetow: You did it. You Mike nailed it. Mike nailed it.
Jason Oberholtzer: The bar is pretty high to have reached the
top of the mountain here.
Hans Buetow: Wow.
Georgia Hampton: I didn't even know that with what do you
what's happening in there?
Mike Rugnetta: That's is that out of the side of the mouth?
Because I got I have a gap in my front teeth, so I can do the
Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, wow. Yeah. No. It's Bitch. Just the
tongue compressing against the roof of the mouth.
Mike Rugnetta: Oh, no. I can't do that. Yeah.
Georgia Hampton: What interesting audio this is going
to be. Just
Mike Rugnetta: just all
Jason Oberholtzer: the while you guys tuned in.
Georgia Hampton: Right? I
Mike Rugnetta: think of myself as a pretty good whistler.
Whistler. I
Hans Buetow: think was gonna say, where are you?
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Where are you in this?
Hans Buetow: Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: I can whistle. I can do a little
Georgia Hampton: bit of Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: I can't do any of the
Georgia Hampton: The big scary whistle.
Hans Buetow: No. Mike, how would you rate our audience?
Mike Rugnetta: Audience, you tag yourself. Where are you in the
whistle world? Okay. We got we got some we got some whistlers
in the chat. Chat whistles.
So for the folks listening at home, this segment, this WIGO
segment, is being recorded live on Twitch as part of the never
post member drive stream week. Not quite a ham horn, but good
but nice, but good. Should we find out what's going on here?
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Let's do it.
Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Let's find out what's going on here.
Jason Oberholtzer: Welcome to today's game.
Mike Rugnetta: Hans, who should go first?
Hans Buetow: An audience submission that I'm quite
excited about. I have not looked I'm not excited because I've
looked. I'm just excited because audience heck yeah. Thank you
for being here. This one is by someone named Toby.
Never heard of him. Don't even know. Who who could that be?
This is taking a moment because I have to log in to Tumblr.
Georgia Hampton: Oh, yes, Toby.
Hans Buetow: Yes. Here we are.
Mike Rugnetta: Kurt Cobain will have his revenge on the
straights.
Hans Buetow: Yes. Yes.
Mike Rugnetta: Had a video call with my brother Chuck the other
day. Things got heavy. Okay. I'm gonna be Kate. Georgia, you be
Chuck.
Georgia Hampton: Okay.
Mike Rugnetta: Jason, you be Kurt Cobain. Okay. Was Kurt
Cobain a trans woman? What? Kurt Cobain, rock musician.
He was in a band called Nirvana.
Georgia Hampton: I'm familiar with him.
Mike Rugnetta: Yes. Was he a trans woman? No. Okay. Why not?
Georgia Hampton: I mean, he wasn't. It's like asking why he
wasn't an astronaut.
Mike Rugnetta: He wasn't an astronaut because he never went
to space. Why wasn't he a trans woman?
Georgia Hampton: Because he didn't transition. I mean, he
didn't ever say he was a woman, didn't ever say he was trans. So
no. Kurt Cobain wasn't a trans woman.
Mike Rugnetta: So someone is trans if they say they're trans.
Self determination.
Georgia Hampton: That's what you've told me. Is that wrong?
Mike Rugnetta: No. That's right. We know ourselves better than
anybody else can know us. If we say we're trans, nobody can say
we aren't.
Georgia Hampton: And Kurt Cobain never said he was trans.
Mike Rugnetta: So was I trans in 1994?
Georgia Hampton: I don't know. Were you?
Mike Rugnetta: Yes. But if you'd asked me in 1994, I would have
told you no.
Georgia Hampton: So if I tell you I'm trans, I'm trans. Right.
But if I tell you I'm cis, I might still be trans?
Mike Rugnetta: If you tell me you're cis, I believe you.
Georgia Hampton: That's not the same thing as I'm cis.
Mike Rugnetta: That's a really good point. This is sort of what
some queer people are getting at when they say gender is a
construct.
Georgia Hampton: Come again?
Mike Rugnetta: Well, you're cisgender. Right?
Georgia Hampton: As far as I know, yes. You
Mike Rugnetta: hedged. As far as I know, isn't the same thing as
yes. As far as I know, opens up the possibility that you could
be trans and not know it.
Georgia Hampton: It doesn't seem terribly likely.
Mike Rugnetta: That's an interesting statement. I feel
like this is a little bit of like Phoenix. Right? This
Jason Oberholtzer: is wow.
Mike Rugnetta: Early on in transition, one of the biggest
problems I had was dealing with the sheer unlikelihood of my
being trans. I mean, I knew trans people existed. I knew
somebody had to be trans. I just couldn't wrap my head around the
idea that it would be me.
Georgia Hampton: Do you think this is why you're on this whole
Kurt Cobain was a trans woman kick?
Mike Rugnetta: Hey, now. I'm just asking questions.
You know?
You know? Like JK Rowling is just asking questions. Oh my.
Georgia Hampton: Kate, you are literally wearing a T shirt that
says Kurt Cobain was a trans woman on it right now.
Mike Rugnetta: Am I? Oh, shit. I thought I was wearing my skip
school take hormones kill god T shirt. To your question though,
yeah, I do think that's part of it. Honestly, the hardest thing
about growing up trans was believing that nobody in the
world had ever experienced what I was experiencing.
I didn't have any role models. I didn't wonder if I was the only
one. I was convinced of it.
Georgia Hampton: So being able to say that this incredibly
gifted songwriter, the voice of a generation was a trans woman
like you.
Mike Rugnetta: I need someone like that. I need to not be the
first of my kind.
Georgia Hampton: Of course, you're not the first trans
woman.
Mike Rugnetta: No. But before a couple of years ago, almost
every trans woman would tell you that they always knew
unquestionably and innately that they were women.
Georgia Hampton: So it's not just about him being trans, but
specifically his being a trans woman who didn't know he was a
trans woman.
Mike Rugnetta: An egg. Right.
Georgia Hampton: Why Kurt Cobain anyway? What's so special about
him that you're trying to induct him into the egg hall of fame?
Mike Rugnetta: He knew things. Things cis guys don't know.
Things I didn't know until after I started transition. He
understood women, what we're like, what we experience.
Penroyalty, rape me, I just have a hard time thinking of a cis
man who could write songs like that.
Georgia Hampton: It wouldn't be the only way in which he was
exceptional.
Mike Rugnetta: True. I don't know. I mean, I know. I can give
you all the reasons, but there's something in his eyes.
Georgia Hampton: Something in his eyes.
Mike Rugnetta: All the pictures of him. No matter what he's
doing, if he's grinning or sad, whatever he's doing, you can see
something trapped in there. Trapped and in pain, wanting to
get out, but not quite knowing how.
Georgia Hampton: You know that what you're doing is pretty much
the textbook definition of projection. Right? Maybe.
Mike Rugnetta: Chuck, do you think I'm happier?
Georgia Hampton: Since you transitioned? Yeah. Of course.
Absolutely. Night and day.
Mike Rugnetta: Everyone says that. And honestly, I see it.
Even in pictures. You know? I see it.
You've seen some of my transition timelines. Right?
Georgia Hampton: You do look really different.
Mike Rugnetta: It's not just me. Hans, how much longer is this?
Hans Buetow: Oh, this is we're theoretically quarter the way
through.
Georgia Hampton: No way. Okay. We can.
Hans Buetow: Okay. So let's let's let's pause it. You look
different and scroll. Oh my god. Okay.
Georgia Hampton: Me.
Mike Rugnetta: Yep. What is going on here?
Hans Buetow: Let's read the last Are you okay? Yeah. Let's read
from there. Let's let's having a great time.
Jason Oberholtzer: I think that we should finish this after
Wiggo and release this as a member clip of the whole script.
Hans Buetow: I love this so much.
Georgia Hampton: I can score it in everything.
Hans Buetow: We gotta know. We gotta know.
Georgia Hampton: Yeah.
Hans Buetow: So let's let's jump to you jump to the end here just
so Kate, are
Georgia Hampton: you okay? Kate, are you okay?
Mike Rugnetta: I'm fine.
Georgia Hampton: Do you wanna hug?
Mike Rugnetta: Fuck you, Chuck.
Georgia Hampton: Okay. Well, I'm gonna go to the other room. You
should drink some water. Stay hydrated. Love you, Kate.
Mike Rugnetta: Love you too, Chuck. Sorry.
Georgia Hampton: It's okay, Kate. It's okay.
Hans Buetow: Just dying my work, everybody.
Jason Oberholtzer: Wow. Wow.
Hans Buetow: I that's unbelievable. Way to
Georgia Hampton: go. Oh my god.
Jason Oberholtzer: Way to go, actors. Way to go I was
immersed.
Mike Rugnetta: Writer. Wait. Okay. What is this? This is like
Georgia Hampton: it's like a philosophical, like, thought
experiment, I feel.
Mike Rugnetta: Hans, can you scroll all the way back up to
the beginning again? Was Kurt Trans is the account
Hans Buetow: Is the account. Okay. So let's take a look at
comments because that's often pretty inspiring.
Mike Rugnetta: Gonna say, yeah. What is in the comments?
Hans Buetow: So we're at 11,233 replies, which
Georgia Hampton: is Sure. Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. So I'm guessing that we just started to
scratch the surface of what this is actually feel like we
Hans Buetow: need to dig all the way through.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Wait, Hans. Go more slowly through some of
these. I just wanna
Jason Oberholtzer: read Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: I mean, I guess not not being privy to maybe the
types of conversations that this conversation is meant to like, I
guess that's a question. Like, is this a parody? Is this like
some Poe's Law kind of thing? Is it ironic? Is it making extreme
a more innocuous type of conversation that happens in
order to point out, like, the edges of it and what's weird
about it?
I mean, yeah.
Jason Oberholtzer: I read pretty earnest. I think this is an
honest Socratic dialogue somebody is having who really
believes this point, perhaps. I don't know.
Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Alright.
Jason Oberholtzer: I I think it's less about the point and
more about the kind of dialogue, which is
Georgia Hampton: Mhmm.
Jason Oberholtzer: Being mirrored here.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Lisby one one two one says, I was gonna
say this is pretty standard Tumblr discourse, but actually,
this is long even for a long form Tumblr. Oh, was Kirk O'Bain
Gin Fizzes says, was Kirk O'Bain trans is like a big debate. He
wore dresses and makeup and was supportive of LGBTQ stuff. Had
no I had no clue.
Hans Buetow: This is fantastic. Can you just scroll, like, to
the middle? Like, the middle of the section that we didn't read
just to I would just love to get a sense of like We're
Georgia Hampton: getting paragraphs.
Mike Rugnetta: We are, like, where does
Hans Buetow: this Let's do this one.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Azerad spent weeks talking to Cobain.
He was Cobain's biographer, but also his friend, and he had his
own interpretation of the lyrics. For instance, Azerad
talks about all the lyrics about guns. And to me, now, I look at
that, and I think of how he died.
But Azerad, when Kurt was alive, he looked at it another way. He
thought it was about dicks. To paraphrase doctor Freud, he
says, sometimes a gun is just a gun, but not this time. He talks
about come as you are, where Kurt keeps singing, I swear I
don't have a gun. That's not my interpretation.
That's never been my interpretation. That's what this
cis man says. More than one cis man. Kurt says, Dave Grohl's
dad, he said the same thing. Yeah.
There are all kinds of ways to interpret lyrics. Okay. Alright.
So this is like doing queer exegesis on both Nirvana and the
text of Kurt Cobain's life Yeah. Together at the same time.
Hans Buetow: And then we're going into, like, Ed Wood, Pete
Burns, Prince Nelson, Richard Wright, Dave Carter, Quentin
Crisp, like like, talking through the the re parsing the
real details of of identity.
Mike Rugnetta: Daniel Jenna Grauss has something really
interesting to say. Adds a great bit of insight to this. It comes
down to discussing whether we get to claim those who came
before us, but didn't have access to the same theoretical
framework and social support, the trans siblings who fell
through the pavement because they didn't have the opportunity
to find themselves in a world in which we were less visible and
constrained to being more one dimensional in everyone's
imagination. I mean, I wanna read the whole thing.
Georgia Hampton: Absolutely.
Mike Rugnetta: Right? Yeah. I wanna read the whole thing. Then
and then I wanna have an informed reaction to this. But
woah.
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. This is wild. Yeah. Thank you, Toby.
Mike Rugnetta: Toby says, oh, yes. Kurt trans woman lore.
Yeah.
Georgia Hampton: Yes.
Mike Rugnetta: Turns out that's what's going on here. Just those
four words.
Georgia Hampton: Yep. Yep. Case closed.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Toby, thank you for sending this in.
Hans Buetow: Alright. So the next one that we have is from
May. This is a submission from May, one of our audience
members. Thank you, May. And I'm so sorry to do this, but May is
saying it's May's fault.
May is sending us to Twitter. Well, I hope you all enjoyed
having fun.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I'm gonna turn on both of my
Georgia Hampton: VPNs I'll take it from here.
Hans Buetow: Oh, let's do it. Jarta. Alright.
Georgia Hampton: We got a couple of bathing suited gentlemen What
Mike Rugnetta: am I
Georgia Hampton: sharing a delicate kiss in the ocean.
Mike Rugnetta: What am I looking at here?
Georgia Hampton: And it said the tweet says, Sabrina Carpenter's
twink and Olivia Rodrigo's twink dating each other is low key the
most iconic thing in pop culture with two sobbing faces.
Jason Oberholtzer: You know what I've always wanted to really
ask? Chad, is this real?
Georgia Hampton: This is real?
Mike Rugnetta: Chad, is this real?
Hans Buetow: So it's got 17,800,000 views for whatever
that means on Twitter. Robots robots have
Mike Rugnetta: viewed this.
Jason Oberholtzer: Robots can't.
Mike Rugnetta: Georgia. Google. Yes. Does this mean anything to
you?
Georgia Hampton: No. It does not. I was gonna Google Sabrina
Carpenter twink.
Mike Rugnetta: Everyone's Make sure you have a safe search on.
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Let me turn on
Mike Rugnetta: Just gonna lay on the
Georgia Hampton: ground first. An incognito window real quick.
Hold on, everybody. Oh, Conan Gray. One of these people is
Conan Gray.
Hans Buetow: Say more.
Jason Oberholtzer: I don't know what that is.
Georgia Hampton: I don't know this person, but they look sort
of familiar. They're 26 years old.
Jason Oberholtzer: Sort of familiar. I'll give them that.
Hans Buetow: Jin physicist May in saying I'm pretty online and
reasonably plugged into pop music, and I have no idea what
this post is about.
Mike Rugnetta: That is the spirit of the Wiggo. God, you
nailed it. You nailed it.
Georgia Hampton: I have another AA overview. I'm so sorry.
Hans Buetow: Do it. Do it.
Mike Rugnetta: Do it.
Georgia Hampton: Did Olivia Rodrigo date Conan Gray? No.
They are close friends who met through their shared producer,
Dan I don't know. Their shared producer and bonded over their
love for Taylor Swift. Their friendship has been documented
through various social media posts, award show appearances,
and shared experiences.
I'm googling Conan Gray kissing. More kisses? There's more
kisses. Just taken up pictures of people kissing. People
kissing.
No. We've been over this before, Jason. I will never keep stop.
Jason Oberholtzer: It's my news.
Georgia Hampton: I need to see it. I need to know that it's
happening.
Mike Rugnetta: Okay. So that is Corey Foglemanis.
Georgia Hampton: Excuse me?
Mike Rugnetta: I don't know. I'm just so who's the guy grabbing
Conan? Is one of the replies. Oh. And then the response is
Corey Foglemanis, which I'm sure I'm saying wrong.
Georgia Hampton: Confer, I'm looking at more kissing photos.
Jason Oberholtzer: Boy. It's kinda
Mike Rugnetta: true. Okay.
Hans Buetow: Do it. Do it. Do it. Yeah.
Georgia Hampton: Are those Corey Fogelmanis and Conan Gray. I
Google image searched them, like, those two names. Lots of
kissing photos.
Jason Oberholtzer: More important, are those bathing
jorts?
Georgia Hampton: Also, this the waves look beautiful.
Hans Buetow: They look I was just thinking, Georgia. They
look beautiful.
Mike Rugnetta: This has to be fake.
Georgia Hampton: Right? I no. That's what I mean is, like, the
water looks so, like, airbrushed sort of.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: One of the replies way down thread is there
are sentences being created that have never been created before.
Georgia Hampton: Think that's so kissing photos.
Mike Rugnetta: George George, we're at work.
Georgia Hampton: They're they're kissing all over the place.
Mike Rugnetta: There is as as it will surprise nobody, there is
no information to be gleaned from the reply thread on x.com,
the everything website. Yeah. This has this I'm I'm gonna say
my best guess is that this is AI. This is it possible? Hold
on.
I I might I might have an answer.
Jason Oberholtzer: There's probably
Mike Rugnetta: some guess that this is a frame from a music
video. Really?
Georgia Hampton: Or a show. I think they're on a show
together.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Here. I'm not I haven't watched it yet,
but I'm gonna drop it in the chat. Uh-oh.
Jason Oberholtzer: Always good. Oh, no. They're I see. He's in
jorts.
Georgia Hampton: Baca Cranberry.
Jason Oberholtzer: Woah. Desire is kissing pants.
Georgia Hampton: This is the song. I have heard of this song.
Mike Rugnetta: So here is the link that I found it through.
Pinknews.com. Fans left quote devastated after Conan Gray
drops part two of his queer music video romance.
Jason Oberholtzer: Devastating. Come on.
Mike Rugnetta: Has two videos where he kisses a boy in the
water.
Georgia Hampton: Good. There should be
Jason Oberholtzer: more of them. Stay, dude.
Georgia Hampton: I need at least a dozen. Oh.
Jason Oberholtzer: That's what's going on here.
Mike Rugnetta: Woah. That's what's going on here. Wow. Okay.
So
Georgia Hampton: Gonna close
Mike Rugnetta: a bunch of because I still do not know who
these people are.
Jason Oberholtzer: And you don't get to.
Mike Rugnetta: Which one of them so what I am to understand is
that one of them did they date these other pop stars? One of
them dated Sabrina Carpenter, and one of them dated Olivia
Rodrigo.
Georgia Hampton: And They might no. I think they're both friends
with those respected pop divas.
Hans Buetow: Pop series. Look like them?
Mike Rugnetta: No. Or that they're pals and they're gay?
Georgia Hampton: They're just they're friends and they're gay
and they're twinks and they're in love.
Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Okay.
Georgia Hampton: Tale as old as time.
Mike Rugnetta: Tale as old as time.
Hans Buetow: Well, mate, I we hope that's satisfying because
that's what we know.
Mike Rugnetta: And if if you would like hours of tape of
Georgia making typing sounds and saying, I'm finding more
kissing,
Hans Buetow: do you need ring tones
Mike Rugnetta: because maybe we got them?
Georgia Hampton: Listen. I will risk it all for journalism
always. I will get to the bottom of it Yeah. One way or another.
I will
Mike Rugnetta: get in for of the kissing on the end
Georgia Hampton: of kissing.
Mike Rugnetta: Georgia will reach the end of it.
Georgia Hampton: I will I will shut it down.
Mike Rugnetta: Wow. I feel like I know what's going on here.
Hey, friends. It's Mike here on my way to the studio letting you
know that if you wanna hear the rest of this WIGO, we are gonna
be putting it up for members at neverpoe.st. A bunch of us on
the staff also had WIGOs to share.
They're very funny, very strange. One picture that just
looks disconcertingly like a thumb. So if you wanna see that,
just head on over to neverpo.st. Become a member, and it will be
waiting for you in the member feed soon.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yes. Yes. This is what I wanted. Yes. This
is everything that I wanted.
Yes. Yes. Never stop. Yes. Yes.
Yes.
Mike Rugnetta: Why did we stop doing this? I know you're
supposed to think this about things that were good when you
were a kid, but like This slaps. Yeah. This is so This
objectively slaps. Right?
That is the show we have for you this week. We're gonna be back
here in the main feed on Wednesday, September 10. For $4
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Neverpoast's producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton,
and the mysterious doctor first name, last name. Our senior
producer is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is Jason
Oberholzer, and the show's host, that's me, is Mike Rugnetta.
Reader unmoved and reader unshaken, reader unseduced and
unterrified, through the long, loud, and sweet still, I creep
toward you. Towards you, I thistle and I climb.
I crawl, reader, servile and servine through this blank
season counting. I sleep and I sleep. I sleep reader toward you
loud as a cloud and deaf reader deaf as a leaf. Excerpt of sweet
reader flanneled and told by Olena Kalitiak Davis. Never Post
is a production of Charts and Leisure and is distributed by
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