Hey what's up hello! Today we're talking about the pop culture phenomenon that is speculating about celebrity's sexualities, demanding that celebrities come out, and accusing celebrities of queer baiting. Yikes!
Episode Transcript: www.soundsfakepod.com/transcripts/celebrity-sexuality-speculation
Our friend's article about BTS and queerness: https://www.them.us/story/park-jimin-bts-padya-paramita-personal-essay
Video essay about homophobia in K-pop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGW-Snfu-30&t=1353s&ab_channel=KaterinaRose
Donate: patreon.com/soundsfakepod
Follow: @soundsfakepod
Join: https://discord.gg/W7VBHMt
Buy our book: www.soundsfakepod.com/book
Hey what's up hello! Today we're talking about the pop culture phenomenon that is speculating about celebrity's sexualities, demanding that celebrities come out, and accusing celebrities of queer baiting. Yikes!
Episode Transcript: www.soundsfakepod.com/transcripts/celebrity-sexuality-speculation
Our friend's article about BTS and queerness: https://www.them.us/story/park-jimin-bts-padya-paramita-personal-essay
Video essay about homophobia in K-pop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGW-Snfu-30&t=1353s&ab_channel=KaterinaRose
Donate: patreon.com/soundsfakepod
Follow: @soundsfakepod
Join: https://discord.gg/W7VBHMt
Buy our book: www.soundsfakepod.com/book
[00:00:00]
SARAH: Hey, what's up, hello! Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aro-ace girl I'm Sarah, that's me.
KAYLA: And a bi-demisexual girl, that's me, Kayla.
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don't understand.
KAYLA: On today's episode, speculating about celebrity sexualities.
BOTH: Sounds Fake But Okay.
[Intro Music]
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod!
KAYLA: Sarah is not drinking Cherry Coke during this recording.
SARAH: Because I'm so hungry.
KAYLA: She's so hungry.
SARAH: That I am afraid of what it will do to me.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: It's like if you drink alcohol on an empty…
KAYLA: Why are you so hungry? Why didn't you eat a good dinner last night?
SARAH: I was at like a watch party for the TV show I worked on and the night before I was at a premiere murder mystery party at the Houdini estate.
KAYLA: I saw on the Wildcards Instagram they posted a video of like the crew posing for a picture and I saw you in it.
SARAH: I didn't even see that.
KAYLA: I saw you in your little trench coat.
SARAH: I was there to solve a crime. I don't know what you…
KAYLA: Did you do it?
SARAH: No. I did eat some prosciutto though. It was good.
KAYLA: Oh my god.
SARAH: But yeah, I'm very hungry so I can't have that much sugar at this junction.
KAYLA: That's so fair.
SARAH: So, this is what I do for y'all on this pod. I continue to starve.
KAYLA: Wow.
SARAH: If this pod sounds better, it doesn't. But if it were to, it's because I'm on a new computer and wow.
KAYLA: Yay
SARAH: How exciting.
KAYLA: I'm so excited.
SARAH: Tentatively, the name that this new computer goes by is Harley. They use she/they pronouns and their BTS bias is Hobi.
KAYLA: Right, of course.
SARAH: So. The theme for Harley, green.
KAYLA: Thank you.
SARAH: That's all. You're welcome. Should we do a pod?
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: Okay. Anyway, if you haven't watched the pilot episode of Wildcards on the CW in the US or the CBC in Canada, in Canada you can watch the first two episodes.
KAYLA: Oh shit.
SARAH: They get all this shit. There's a cat. His name is Marc with a C.
KAYLA: He's so silly looking.
SARAH: And I contributed greatly to casting him. I was talking to my boss about it yesterday. He was like, you really did change my mind about that cat casting. And I was like, I'm so good.
KAYLA: You really are. I made all of my roommates and our neighbors watch it. We had like seven people in our house for the premiere and we… it ended and we were like, “okay, same time next week.” And it was great because I got to text Sarah all of our thoughts and receive behind the scenes info. So, I had a great time.
SARAH: I love that for you.
KAYLA: Very entertaining.
SARAH: My mom also watched it and then Miranda watched it today. Horrible news. The captions on Miranda's spelled Marc with a K. No, it's Marc with a C.
KAYLA: No
SARAH: It's Marc with a C.
KAYLA: I hate that. I hate that.
SARAH: I don't know what to tell you. Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week, we are talking about the cultural phenomenon. Not that it's new, I suppose, but I feel like it's… there has been a recent…
SARAH: Fresh.
KAYLA: Upsurge of the discussion of speculating on the sexualities of celebrities. Now this morning, when I texted Sarah and I said, what about we talk about speculating on celebrities' sexualities for a topic? How do you feel about that? And she said no. And I was like, that's a little rude. Usually, she doesn't shoot down my ideas like that. So, I was like, do you not like the idea or the concept of speculating on them? And then she was like, sorry, I thought you had…
SARAH: No, I said…
KAYLA: Weesh.
SARAH: No, no, no, I said neither. And then I took a step back. I had just woken up. I would like to preface it with it. I interpreted that as Kayla saying, let's do a podcast where we speculate about famous people's sexualities.
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: And I was like, no, why would we do that?
KAYLA: No. So we won't be doing that if that's what you came here thinking. Instead, we'll be talking about how it's stupid…
SARAH: About why you shouldn't…
KAYLA: That other people do that. This recently came to my mind because there was an opinion article published in the New York Times by this woman, this random woman about how Taylor Swift is gay.
SARAH: The Gaylors.
KAYLA: The Gaylors, which there are a lot of fan theories about Taylor Swift's sexuality, whatever. So, this opinion piece was basically just like all a bunch of fan theories just like put together in an article. It was like kind of bizarre and inappropriate. And then I looked up the woman and she had also done one the exact same way about Harry Styles like a couple of months ago. And then everyone got mad at her, obviously, because that's wild. And I figured Sarah would have thoughts vis-a-vis BTS. So here we are.
SARAH: I do. I actually wrote some thoughts down.
KAYLA: Oh my god.
SARAH: You wouldn't believe it. Where do we want to start with this? I would actually like to start with I think Grimace is queer.
KAYLA: See and here's my thing is that Grimace isn't real. And… I’m so sorry.
SARAH: That's my celebrity speculation.
KAYLA: Right. But here's the thing because we do a lot of speculating on this show about like characters.
SARAH: Yes
KAYLA: And them being queer.
SARAH: Yes
KAYLA: And that's one thing, right? These are not real people. These are fictional characters. And so that allows us greater access to reflect things onto them, to read into their characters, into the things that they do and say and whatever. That's fine. But then when you take a real actual life person, then it just gets very bizarre. For a lot of reasons.
SARAH: I also wrote that down that I think it's important to differentiate between... Because like, okay, for example, whenever I run across a post about BTS being gay, and by that I mean doing things that can be read as gay, as queer, as, you know...
KAYLA: Limp wrist.
SARAH: Yeah, I just did that.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I send it to my friend and I'm like, oh, it's the BTS gay update. But I think it's important to differentiate between queer people having discourse and in-jokes and shooting the shit and being like, oh, that's a gay thing that they've done.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And then there's a difference between that and then actually projecting onto people how you think they should identify.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: And those are two very different things. And sometimes they get conflated a little bit. And so, I think you have to be careful about how you talk about it so as to not just like attack queer people who are having little jokes or maybe doing queer readings of media that they like.
KAYLA: Right. Because I think there's also like, it gets really hard because with someone like a Harry Styles or a Taylor Swift, right? Like they make songs, they write songs. They make music videos. So, it's hard. And I think BTS is the same way. You could do a queer reading on the lyrics of a song or the way a music video is made, which, you know, those are also people that write a lot of songs based on their personal life. So, then the lines start to get really blurred. So, yeah, I think it's complicated. Yeah.
SARAH: I think it's also just on that topic of like writing about what you know. Jungkook's album that recently came out, like there were songs that were like explicit and like talking about sex actually. And people were like, oh, my God, like, what's he doing? Like, it turns out he does have bitches. I strongly believe he doesn't have bitches.
KAYLA: Of course
SARAH: But he actually said on multiple occasions, like to not read too much into these songs, because he didn't actually write any of the songs. And he's very open about that. Most BTS songs, 99.9% of BTS songs have been written by the members. But he… the way that he decided he wanted to work for his debut album was to have people bring songs to him, and then he could focus on the performance and the whatever.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And so, he specifically said, he was like, these songs don't necessarily represent my personal experience.
KAYLA: Right
SARAH: Stop reading into everything so much.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And the fact that he did that for songs that were just sexual in nature, I think there's a big parallel there between people doing the same thing with queerness and enforcing queerness onto people because they think that that's what they should be.
[10:00:00]
KAYLA: Right. I think it gets particularly unsavory too when people start demanding that these people “come out” of the closet, that they demand must be queer. I know it's happened with…
SARAH: Kit Connor from Heartstopper.
KAYLA: Right. That's what I was just thinking. So, Kit Connor played Charlie?
SARAH: Nick.
KAYLA: Charlie.
SARAH: Nick.
KAYLA: Charlie.
SARAH: The bi one.
KAYLA: The bi one.
SARAH: The bi one.
KAYLA: In a Heartstopper, the Alice Oseman masterpiece that we clearly are really up to date on. But the character is bi and Kit Connor was like 17, 18 when he started the role and was not out as anything in any way. And so then like Twitter discourse started and Tumblr I'm sure about…
SARAH: He got basically just like harassed by fans.
KAYLA: Right. Because people were saying like a straight person shouldn't play this role. Like it should be queer actors playing queer characters. Like this is fucked up, blah, blah, blah. They were harassing him. Which also like, I don't… it's not like he chose to cast himself.
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: Is that really the person we should have been going after? Anyway.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: But then he basically came off a Twitter hiatus and was like, okay, yeah, I'm bi. Thanks for making an 18-year-old out, like forced to come out.
SARAH: Yeah. What he said was he said “back for a minute” because he had been on a self-imposed break from Twitter due to previous harassment.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: So, he said “back for a minute. I'm bi. Congrats for forcing an 18-year-old to out himself. I think some of you missed the point of the show. Bye.”
KAYLA: Yeah. Which like, it's so disappointing because I understand people really want their queer representation and everything and it would be great if like everyone felt comfortable being out and everything. But that's just like not how it is and also isn't your business. Like that is a person.
SARAH: It's also especially tough with situations like that where they're young.
KAYLA: Right. Yea
SARAH: Because like I'm also thinking about like the Love, Simon kids. They caught some flack because the main actor who played Simon identifies as straight. And also, the love interest, Blue from Love, Simon played by Keiynan Lonsdale. So, Keiynan Lonsdale is queer and he knew at the time he was queer. He was out to his co-stars on The Flash. He was dating a man at the time. But he still felt uncomfortable being open about his sexuality on the set of Love, Simon. Even though it was a very queer set, a very queer friendly set, the director is queer. It had all of the right ingredients but he still, there was just so much pressure from all sides that he just still felt really nervous about coming out. And so, he didn't actually come out to the people around him on Love, Simon. Did I say Dear Simon at some point?
KAYLA: I think you said Love, Simon.
SARAH: He didn't come out to them until the very end of production. Because he just… it was just a weird... Because he was also in part because he was so young. And so especially when you have these kids who are being cast, sure there are 14, 15-year-olds out there who know exactly how they identify and they feel strongly that that is the correct thing for them. But there are also so many kids who don't know yet. And so, to say that you can't cast this person or you can't do this role because I've decided you're not queer because you haven't publicly come out. What is that?
KAYLA: I know. It's like, and I don't think people understand. I think people think like, oh, they're a celebrity. They have all this money, which first of all, like most actors, even if they're a celebrity, don't have a lot of money. There's this idea of like, well, they're not going to lose their fan base. They're not going to lose anything by coming out. Why won't they just come out when it's not about that?
SARAH: It's not always about that.
KAYLA: Like it could still be really hard. Billie Eilish recently made, in an interview, it was like an offhand comment about liking both boys and girls. That was basically her very nonchalantly like, “coming out.” And people had been speculating for a long time that she was queer. They were trying to cancel her for queerbaiting because she hadn't come out, but she was like, in some music videos, it was like a little bit like sapphic vibes. People were getting really upset, which is a whole other weird thing we can get into. So, then she kind of like pseudo came out and then she was walking a red carpet like the next week. And that's all people are asking her about. It's like, oh my God, you came out as bi, like you're bi, you're bi. And she literally told the interviewer, she was like, shut the fuck up. I don't want to talk about this. I'm nominated for an award for this huge song for this huge movie. Shut up. Which I totally get. You get people like that, especially that are young, that are publicly dating, that there's already so much speculation about their love lives, there's so much paparazzi and so many people following them around that, of course, it makes complete sense that you wouldn't want to be open about your sexuality. You would want to keep one thing to yourself, God forbid.
SARAH: And this shit she has dealt with too, the fact that a lot of the reasons she wore really baggy clothes when she was young was because she did not want to be sexualized and she knew that she would be. And also liking both guys and girls does not automatically mean that bi is identifier that you want to use.
KAYLA: True, yeah, absolutely.
SARAH: Like I was skimming a Keiynan Lonsdale interview where the person was like, oh, you came out as bi and he was like, well, I actually just call myself queer. And the person was like, oh, I'm sorry, I was misinformed. But he was like, I prefer to just use the term queer. And it's like, use the terms that they use if they're going to speak about it.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And I do get wanting, especially just in the context of acting and media and having queer characters on shows and in movies, I totally understand wanting to have queer actors play queer characters. And I think it's important that they do. But from experience, actual real-life experience, there is a way to do that in casting in a way that sets you up to have people auditioning who are queer. So legally, you cannot say no straight people like you cannot. That's not legal.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But what you can do is include the character's identity in the character breakdown that you send out to casting people. And then when you describe the character, what happens is you have the name, and then you have the age range, and then you have any race or ethnicity guidelines, whether that is like, this character is black, or any ethnicity is fine, whatever that is. And then after that, and this is a direct quote of what we said for my show, strongly encouraging the submission of actors who self-identify with the 2SLGBTQ plus community. It's 2S because it's Canadian. So that's the preferred terminology because they talk about like two spirit blah blah blah.
KAYLA: Oh, sick.
SARAH: Yeah. But that's their preferred Canadian terminology.
KAYLA: Sure.
SARAH: And so that's what we did. And we got a bunch of…
KAYLA: For the butler?
SARAH: Among other characters.
KAYLA: It’s the only gay character I've met so far. I don't know.
SARAH: Um, but like that was how we did it. And then yes, you are still going to get some applicants who are not queer, but the ones who are will usually specifically identify themselves as such. And so, then you have that information to use when you're casting. And like if you're between two people and you're like, okay, well, one of them identifies as queer. All right. Like, that's the direction we're going to go.
KAYLA: I really don't like people putting it on the actors themselves either though.
SARAH: It's not their fault that they were cast.
KAYLA: It's not their fault. Like there was recently a whole thing about like the…
SARAH: They're just trying to work, dude. They're trying to make money.
KAYLA: No. Like… so there was a thing about the touring cast of Funny Girl, the musical, and they cast this, um, I forget what her ethnicity is, but she's like not white, I think, and she's not Jewish. And so, people were really fucking pissed about it and it turned into a whole thing. And they were like, she shouldn't have taken this role. Like, she should have known not to whatever, whatever. And I was like, this woman probably really needs a job. Like, we all really need a job. Like, it's the same thing as like someone working for a not-so-great company. Like, do most of us work for companies that are like doing the right thing always? No, but like, a girls got to eat
SARAH: My cousin works for Starbucks.
KAYLA: Yeah, my mom worked for like a pharmaceutical company, you know? But girl needed to eat and feed her children. Like, what are we going to do?
SARAH: Like, there are certain moral stances that you can take, but there are also at times there can be a certain privilege that comes along with being able to take a moral stance unequivocally.
KAYLA: One hundred percent
SARAH: And as I think a lot of people became more aware of during SAG strike, most working actors are like living job to job. They're not making a ton of money, they're not living in mansions, they need jobs.
[00:20:00]
KAYLA: Right, they're not the type of people that can just like decide on their own roles and like not audition anymore because they just get to like, you know, they're not…
SARAH: Exactly. Like, these are the people who are like doing self-tapes all day, every day.
KAYLA: Right. Like the woman who just won a bunch of awards for The Bear in one of her like…
SARAH: Ayo Edebiri?
KAYLA: Yeah, in one of her post-award show interviews, she was like, I still rent, so yeah, what do you want from me?
SARAH: She also thanked her representative's assistance in her Critics' Choice Award speech and I was like, slay.
KAYLA: We love. Did you hear a scream across Hollywood of all the assistants going yay?
SARAH: Truly, truly. Also, she's famously Irish.
KAYLA: I've seen that.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Is that the way Obama is Irish?
SARAH: She's Irish. She's just Irish. And Ireland has in fact claimed her.
KAYLA: Ireland seems to claim a lot of black Americans, which I love.
SARAH: Yeah. And also, I saw an interview from the Emmys where she was talking to Matthew Macfadyen from Succession, who also famously plays Mr. Darcy in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice.
KAYLA: Oh yes, I saw this.
SARAH: And she was like, when I was young, I got grounded because I had Mr. Darcy as my computer background.
KAYLA: Oh, that's so good, that's so good.
SARAH: Anyway.
KAYLA: Anyway
SARAH: Anyway, anyway, anyway, what? What?
KAYLA: Here's another thing. Going back to...
SARAH: Oh, I… I don’t know how far off you were going to go but I was just going to say casting actors, especially with young people, it's a real balance of finding people who have the talent and the skill and also meet certain requirements.
KAYLA: They're literally children. We all are
SARAH: Yeah. As someone who has watched the tapes of minors who are reading for a role, some of them are amazing and some of them are minors.
KAYLA: Are children
SARAH: And so, it's like you have to make the right choice for what you're making. And in the cases where there are queer people who are directors, who are showrunners, who are casting directors, who are the people making these decisions, which for stories that are very queer-centric, I really think there should be those people making those decisions. They're going to make the best decision for the show. And it's like with Love, Simon, it's like, okay, maybe they choose to cast a straight kid or a kid who you don't know his sexuality, but he's giving a little bit straight. But that was the right casting choice for them, and the movie did really well. So…
KAYLA: Yeah, well, and it's also like, I think if anyone… if people are going to be mad about the cast and crew of a queer story, like you should be getting like the thing you should focus on is the crew, right? Like you should be asking for queer directors, a queer writing room, a queer casting director, like that is the representation you actually need because then those people are going to make the correct decisions. Like you have to start asking the right questions at the beginning, not waiting until the end and getting mad at the people that were hired.
SARAH: And that's the representation that Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general is worse at achieving because it's not visual.
KAYLA: Absolutely. Yes.
SARAH: If you put a show on TV with only white people, people are going to be like, dude, what the fuck? If you put a show on TV with only white people in the writers’ room with only white producers, no one is going to know.
KAYLA: No one... Yeah. No one's going to read through the credits that roll through and look everyone up and be like, oh, old white guy, old white guy, old white guy. Like.
SARAH: And that was, you know, also just for us we… hi, Bogie. For our show with a black woman who is the main character, a black actress, it was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. There are not a lot of black crew folks who live in Vancouver.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so that was also something we struggled with of like… because also this, it was a 10 out of 10 Canadian production, which means everyone who worked on it was Canadian. And just like demographically, the…
KAYLA: Difficult.
SARAH: Yeah. And so like, you know, you do your best, but sometimes you're in a situation where it's like you don't have good options.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: It's like, do you make a good show? Or like, I don't know.
KAYLA: Or are we making a quota? No, it makes… it’s like there's practicalities that people are not thinking about.
SARAH: And it's really difficult because I understand that I'm coming at this as a white person who is not a producer, but I am an assistant to the producers on this show.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And I find that I'm often very frustrated with the things that are said. But… and so like if there are people listening who are frustrated with the things I'm saying, and not to be like, “the things that they're saying are so much worse,” but like, it's about, and that's why it's so important to like help put people of color and people of underrepresented identities in the pipeline and like let them like build up their skills. Because it's also bad if you have a queer person, a black person, a disabled person, literally any minority, and you just like stick them in a position they're not ready for and they do a bad job.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: That's going to set their entire group of people back because people will be like, oh, well, this person did a bad job. So, it's like, you don't want to put them in that position either. Anyway, this took a turn. We were talking about...
KAYLA: We were talking about celebrities, but no, I think this is all relevant. And like, for people that maybe have these frustrations, I think it's interesting to hear the inside perspective especially an inside perspective of someone like you, who's both on the inside and on the outside, maybe having similar frustrations and wanting that representation. We all want representation. We all want things to move quicker. And you just, I think, sometimes have to take a step back and realize that things sometimes take a long time in industries like these.
SARAH: And Hollywood also sometimes really likes to do this thing where they try and be so woke that they actually loop around and become problematic again.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: I've experienced that firsthand. And it's like, y'all, come on. I get that we're trying, but it's a process. It takes time and it sucks. It does. Anyway, speculating about celebrity sexuality.
KAYLA: Anyway, back to the celebrity sexualities. I'm going to take a take a U-turn back to where we were. Something that also frustrates me about like reading into… specifically like not even necessarily like song lyrics or music or things like that. Where am I going with this? I think that it frustrates me that queer people are putting things in such black and white when we as a community should know things are a spectrum. Like…
SARAH: We're supposed to be the ones who are like gesturing towards the joy of the spectrum and saying everyone.
KAYLA: Right. Right. Like you… so you have like someone like Harry Styles. He does his photo shoot in his little ballerina outfit. He wears his little sequin jumpsuits and so everyone's like, gay. Or I don't know, Billie Eilish says she likes women and so we immediately jump to bi. And so, it's just really frustrating to me that we as a community who's supposed to like understand spectrums, understand the fluidity of labels, understand that. And I mean I think aspecs maybe are better in this than others, but understanding that actions don't equal like a label or what is it? What is that I like to say? Actions are different than…
SARAH: Than attraction?
KAYLA: Attraction, yes. Actions and attractions are different, right? And so, it's really frustrating to me that people are so hungry for this representation that they're willing to just jump to conclusions and like forget the humanity. Which I get like parasocial relationships, it's hard to remember the humanity of these like global superstars, but it's also like what are we doing?
SARAH: I think Harry Styles is also a prime example of like everything is so black and white and it's like well either he's gay or if you're going to be a little bit less black and white, he's queer or he's straight and queerbaiting. Those are the only… like those are the two extremes and it's like we've talked about this before like I don't really think that a single person can queerbait about their own identity.
KAYLA: Right, yeah.
[00:30:00]
SARAH: And even if… the closest you might be able to get to that is if someone is genuinely intentionally making people think that they might be queer just for attention or whatever, but even if that's the case, even if you're truly doing that in a nefarious way and it's like mustache twirly like evil.
KAYLA: Sure.
SARAH: Sexuality is fluid.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: And there's no way that we could know for sure that this person will never identify with a queer identity. And so, it's like, why are we even bothering with any of this?
KAYLA: I also, is it queerbaiting for a man to dress femininely? Like…
SARAH: No
KAYLA: I think there's a huge difference between queerbaiting, appropriating a culture and just like breaking some norms. Like, do I think Ariana Grande, like voguing in a lot of her videos as someone who like… it's hard again, because right, Ariana Grande could be queer and we don't know. Like, but to me, there's a difference between taking things that are like historically part of a queer history and part of like queer culture and not at least like giving credit to that.
SARAH: I think Beyonce is good at that, where she is good at giving credit. Like she has in the past given explicit credit to queer communities, especially queer black communities, queer black trans communities which is like the basis of like the entire queer culture. And as a result, our entire culture. I think she has done a good thing in the past like explicitly calling those people out and being like, this is theirs, thank you. This isn't my thing. I'm adopting it and sharing it with you, but don't attribute it to me.
KAYLA: Yeah. To me, there's a different... Taking something like that and not giving credit to me would be a more accurate use of the word queerbaiting than just breaking gender norms. Because at that point, if we're going to say a Harry Styles is... we're going to point fingers and say he's gay because he wears nail polish and breaks gender norms around clothing, well then now you're going to move people backwards and men aren't going to feel as comfortable dressing how they want because then people are going to be speculating about their sexuality. It's just not something we should be doing.
SARAH: A man who identifies as straight may want to wear some nail polish, but if he's like, oh, well that means I'm gay, then maybe he won't do it. And it's like that's not the point. We're putting people into more boxes and the whole point is we're supposed to be smashing the boxes with a sledgehammer.
KAYLA: Exactly. Staying on singers, but maybe now slightly a more aspec twist on this conversation. So, with the whole Gaylor thing, Taylor Swift being gay, a lot of the speculation comes because she has these very public, very close female friendships. She has said in past interviews that when she was young, there was so much speculation about her dating life with all these men she was being seen with, paparazzi, just very invasive stuff, that she was like, I started hanging out with women on purpose because I thought I would be safe from that and I would just like have friends and people would leave me…
SARAH: Like she just wanted to…
KAYLA: The fuck alone.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: And then she was like, I'm really disappointed to see this because I just wanted to have friends and for people to leave me alone and stop speculating about my romantic relationships. And then people just started doing it again with her female friends, which is so frustrating to me that we can't just let people have friends. I understand we want the queer representation. Would it be cool if Taylor Swift was bi? Sure. I… yeah, I guess. But like, why do we have to immediately jump to every close relationship we see that maybe had like this big falling out? Like, why couldn't that be a very close friendship and a friendship breakup?
SARAH: Yeah. Why does it have to be sexual? Why does it have to be romantic? Like, why can't we just appreciate platonic relationships for what they are, which is fucking great.
KAYLA: Right. So, like, it's just like, I, like, I feel, I feel bad for her or anyone else in that situation of like, you literally just can't do anything. Right. Because no matter what you do, society is going to take it and make it this like big sexual romantic thing. And speculate into your sexuality and all of your relationships like that just sucks.
SARAH: I think that brings us to the most important part of this conversation
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: BTS, gay
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: A lot of people come for armies for like describing the shit that BTS does as gay. As I kind of alluded to before. And first of all, calling an action gay is not equivalent to calling a person gay.
KAYLA: True.
SARAH: Okay? I dress gay. Does that make me a homosexual?
KAYLA: Sarah has always dressed gay. Let me tell you a thing.
SARAH: Does that make me a homosexual?
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: Okay, a person could like do or say something that we could decide like, hmm, yeah, that's a little gay, and they could still be straight.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: And like, what “gay” means in this context is so subjective. And like, it's not real. And it's just jokes and silly times. And so, then a lot of people will be like, oh, like you said this thing is gay, like you think he's gay. And it's like, I never said that. I did say, I believe he could be queer. I did say that. And then so then like a lot of homophobic armies then will come after queer armies for making jokes. Lesbian armies are constantly attacked for calling Jungkook baby girl. I think I've talked about this on the pod before.
KAYLA: Yes
SARAH: Unhinged. But like, you know, you see these queer armies who are like making jokes or saying that they see their queerness represented in something a member did or wore or said or put out into the world as an art form, or like people doing like a queer reading of a BTS song or like literally anything. We have a friend who partially came to non-binaryness because of a Jimin performance.
KAYLA: I love that. I don't think I knew that.
SARAH: They wrote a whole article about it.
KAYLA: Oh, you're right. I did know that. I did know that. I'm so sorry. I did know that.
SARAH: Perhaps we'll link the article.
KAYLA: Teehee. I forgot about the article! Sorry.
SARAH: But it was because of this song and this performance that really like pushed them over the edge. And they were like, no, actually I am non-binary because they saw themselves in that. And I think also just because expectations of masculinity are different in Korean culture than they are in Western culture, like male K-pop idols can get away with being more “feminine.” But also, queerness is less accepted in Korean culture. So, like it's this really weird like dichotomy. I watched a really good video one time about queerbaiting in K-pop. It was 45 minutes long and it was great.
KAYLA: Wow
SARAH: I recommended it to one of my interns last summer because he was just saying, I would just give him BTS updates sometimes. And he was just saying that he likes watching video essays, like even if he doesn't know what they're about. And I was like, I have one for you.
KAYLA: I have one for you
SARAH: And he thought it was really interesting. So maybe we'll link that too. Anyway…
KAYLA: Who’s to say?
SARAH: But then all of these homophobic armies are assuming that you saying that seeing your queerness in them is you saying that they're gay. They're like, no, they're straight. But actually, we don't know that either.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: Like they have never said how they identify. And so, so much of it is based in the idea that straight is the default. But if they have not, and this is not just like BTS but like any, anybody if they have not told us anything about their identity, any assumptions are speculatory, including assumptions that they are straight. So, like, stop. Just… have you considered stopping?
KAYLA: Have you considered stopping? No, I think you're totally right. Like there is… there's such a difference between reading into art and using it to like identify things with. It even reminds me of just like seeing a meme and being oh my god, that's so me. Right? It doesn't mean that meme is literally you.
SARAH: Yeah. I feel that. And then also you can say with these people, like celebrities, like, oh, well, they've been in like X number of hetero relationships. Like they've been in this relationship and that like, they people will like try to counter prove like against the Gaylor's they'll be like, but she dated Harry Styles and also Tom Hiddleston and then also just like lists everyone she has dated. And it's like, okay, but there are plenty of queer people in hetero presenting relationships. Kayla? And plenty of people who ultimately decide that they are straight up gay, homosexual, homoromantic, who have been in hetero relationships in the past.
KAYLA: Right.
[00:40:00]
SARAH: And so, to say that, oh, well, she has dated a man, therefore she can't be queer. Fuck off. No. And in the context of BTS and K-pop, like an already established K-pop idol coming out, saying in no uncertain terms, here is how I identify, is completely 100% unprecedented. There is one sort of well-known K-pop idol who is gay, who is out, but he had to… I've mentioned this on the pod before, he had to debut independently because the company he was at was like, no, you can't, we won't debut you if you want to be out.
KAYLA: Yeah. It's just like not so far-fetched to think that that would happen in America. Like, I feel like there's probably a lot of queer people who their management is telling them like, let's keep that to ourselves.
SARAH: Especially if they're like a country singer.
KAYLA: Yeah. Absolutely.
SARAH: If their audience is a little bit more “conservative.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And there are other… some other like K-pop groups that are like queer members, which is like super cool, but they also aren't like big. They're not like, they haven't like made it. And so, like in the early 2000s, there was an actor in Korea who came out as gay and he didn't work for three years.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And like, yes, that was the early 2000s, but like, it's like, and so like… because no one has ever done this before, it's unprecedented. You have all of these like Western fans thinking that their idol owes them a coming out, that they owe them, like they owe it to their fans to tell them that they're queer. And like, first of all, they don't owe you shit. Regardless, it doesn't matter.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Nobody owes you shit. They don't even owe you music. The only thing they owe you is if you paid for a good, they have to exchange it for a service or a… or like if you give them money, they have to exchange it for a good or service. And if they don't, they have to return the money. That is the only thing they're on the hook for. They don't owe you shit. And so, and then on top of that, no one has ever done it. So, no one knows. Like it could be fucking career suicide or they could have a ton of support. Nobody knows. And so, to be like, oh, this person owes me as a fan.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: To come… like, even if they do identify that way. No, they fucking don't.
KAYLA: I also… you know what I hate is when fans are like, they owe everything to their fans. They would be nothing without us. Wrong.
SARAH: Fuck you.
KAYLA: Like it's their work that you became a fan of. They worked to make you a fan. You didn't give them anything. Shut the fuck up.
SARAH: I think that's one thing that…
KAYLA: What does that mean?
SARAH: Certain sects of army are very good at understanding and others are not. Which is that like BTS is very, very, very genuinely grateful to army for the things that they have achieved and they are constantly repaying us for shit. They are all in the military right now. We are still getting content released. They prepared things in advance for us so that we would have something to do. And so like I truly genuinely believe them when they're like, “oh my God, I love our fans” but also as a fan I recognize that they do not owe me anything. And like there are these entitled like Sasaeng stalker fans who are like, no, you owe us whatever information.
KAYLA: We made you.
SARAH: Yeah, we made you. You should be going live however many times a month. And it's like, no, fuck you. Like that's just not the case.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And to bring it back to BTS, as I always do, re: their identities. I have thoughts. I do. I have thoughts. And they're not just based on wild speculation or my own personal hopes and dreams, but in several cases, based on things that they themselves have said. But if I am talking about those things, I am sharing them quietly in circles that I trust. I'm not coming out here and announcing to the world and saying, I think X person is X sexuality. And here's my evidence. I want attention. Please read this. Like that's fucking harmful.
KAYLA: There's a huge difference between… yeah, talking about it amongst friends, maybe even like an internet theory or two. There's a huge difference between that and a New York Times published article.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Like that is just so inappropriate. So inappropriate. Like there is a huge difference there.
SARAH: And the difference in that case feels very huge. But I think sometimes the line can feel very blurry. Like there is a very fine line between well-meaning conversation, harmless gossip, that sort of thing, versus openly speculating or worse like assigning an identity to someone.
KAYLA: Yes
SARAH: And there is a lot going into what the difference between those two things are. The number one being intent. But then again, even if you didn't mean to do a thing, sometimes you still do the thing and you have to pay the price. But like another thing to consider is the relationship or lack thereof between these people. The scale at which it is being done, whether or not it is intended for the person in question to see. If I'm talking quietly amongst my friends about someone and how we think they might be queer, not that we ever have robust conversations about this, it's usually just like, ha ha, BTS is gay. But in no scenario would I ever want the person I'm talking about to see that conversation. And like even if it's happening in a public place, I would never intentionally do it in a place where I expect said person to be. And I would never actively bring it to their attention. It's kind of like RPF, real people fanfiction, where it's like, look, if you seek out fanfiction about yourself, that's on you. You did that. But anyone who is creating that or consuming that in good faith is not doing it for the person it's about. It's fiction. And in most cases, they would probably be mortified if the person it's about actually saw it.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And so, these accounts who are like, I write whatever fan fiction, but all official accounts related to this person or people, I have them blocked because I don't want them to see it. And so, if they have like a private account that they're snooping around on, that's their problem. Like they did that. But and so like these discussions about like, you know, having a creative outlet and doing queer readings of things and that sort of thing. And, you know, using this person's work and the things they've said to understand yourself better and about like creating community for yourself and feeling seen, like that's what it's about, not about bringing it to the person questions attention. And there I think is a very, very clear line there. And it can get a little bit out of hand, like if you're having a little conversation and then like suddenly it goes viral and you're like, I did not mean for this to happen. But like intent does matter to a certain extent.
KAYLA: Yes. No, I think, yeah, there's a huge difference between reading into something to, yes, have a creative outlet to find yourself, to see yourself in something else rather than like, but if you're like posting, like having like a whole TikTok or whatever dedicated to your theories about this person, like that's clearly for views. Like you're not doing that for yourself anymore.
SARAH: No, exactly.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And like, you know, because those conversations with me, again, I haven't really had these conversations in any robust way, but if I were to, it would end in, well, we don't know and it doesn't fucking matter. Like they're under no obligation to tell us anything ever. And if you are having these conversations about someone because you do think it somehow matters to the general public, because you're trying to impose something on them, that is absolutely crossing the line. Harmless speculation is, again, it's about curiosity. It's about like seeing yourself reflected in someone or their work, maybe even a nice little academic interpretation, but dangerous speculation is about attention and imposition. And that's where it gets spicy. I also… another thing too, is that I get especially wary when the speculation and the discussions are coming from people who themselves identify as straight.
KAYLA: That is always bizarre.
SARAH: Because in that case, it feels even more like they're assigning this identity to this person. Like they're othering them from their high and mighty straight throne.
KAYLA: Because it's also usually based in stereotypes. Because at least if you're a queer person, you can be like, oh, I've had this happen to me before. Or like them saying this reminds me of a time I said this or whatever. But if you're a straight person, you're just like, oh, Rainbow Sequin, gay. Harry Styles, nail polish, gay. And it's like, what are you?
[00:50:00]
SARAH: And there's a weird power imbalance there.
KAYLA: Yes, yeah
SARAH: Because it's like, yes, they're famous, but you're the one who's trying to impose this minority identity upon them. You as a majority identity are trying to do that. And it's like, what is this? And they so often lack nuance. And they're very much, as we talked about earlier, on the gay straight binary. And I'm like, oh my god, grow up, get over yourself, stop living in a two-dimensional world. It's embarrassing.
KAYLA: Mm hmm.
SARAH: That's kind of the gist of everything I wanted to say.
KAYLA: I love that.
SARAH: In conclusion
KAYLA: Stop it.
SARAH: Harmless little conversations, little jokes. They're okay. Fucking writing in New York Times op ed?
KAYLA: Not. Good.
SARAH: Don't do that.
KAYLA: Don't do that. Don't make a whole social media account dedicated to your fan theories.
SARAH: Don't bring it to the attention of the person. Don't be like, hey, are you gay? No.
KAYLA: Don't send them things. Don't tag them in things. Don't.
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Celebrity is complicated and humans are complicated, but oh my god.
KAYLA: It's just like… yeah, I get people are celebrities. I get that like when you become a celebrity, there's a necessity to lose some of your humanity. But like, brother, let's have some parasocial awareness. We can be a little bit smarter than this.
SARAH: Well, and you've always got people that are like, oh, well, they wanted to be famous. They asked for this. And it's like…
KAYLA: We don't know that.
SARAH: Even if they did want to be famous, I don't think anyone wanted to be Taylor Swift, BTS famous. BTS in Korea famous. BTS are very famous in the US, but they're not guaranteed to get recognized. But in Korea, they absolutely are.
KAYLA: Yeah. There's also like, you can want to be famous and not want the bad things that come along with it.
SARAH: Exactly
KAYLA: Yeah, eventually you're going to resign to yourself to the fact that if you want this, you're going to have to deal with that. But it's not like people wanted to get stalked.
SARAH: Exactly
KAYLA: It's not like, ooh, goody, I'm becoming famous. I can't wait to get stalked and for my sexuality to be speculated.
SARAH: These people wanted to share their art with the world.
KAYLA: And this is the necessary evil that comes along with it. I guess
SARAH: Exactly.
KAYLA: It doesn't have to be necessary. People are just being stupid
SARAH: I don't usually get into arguments on Twitter, but it wasn't really an argument. I was just like, I want to say some things in response to this person. I don't remember the exact context, but the person was basically saying like… I think it was about streaming and meeting certain goals, like numerical goals.
KAYLA: I hate that.
SARAH: And so much of army is so focused on that. And people are saying, the mindset is like, we owe it to them because they gave us this amazing thing and we owe them something back. And it's like, I understand that feeling. I do. But they have also explicitly said that… like Namjoon has said that if he wanted to make a purely pop album that was with the intent of getting as broad an audience as possible, he would. And he can. But that's not the choice he made because he wants to make art. Hey, this is Sarah from the future. I want to be clear that I don't think pop music is not art. What I just meant to say is that he wants to make the art that he wants to make. And that is not necessarily what is most appealing to a broad general public. Okay, thanks. Bye. And like they've… they've talked about how they want, like, once they peak, they want to like coast down. They want to land the plane safely. And to do that, they have to have a strong base of supporters. That doesn't mean that you have to exponentially increase their fame. I remember… I remember now what it was, the person was saying that like, the way to, like you need more, we need to get more fame to get more fans, like to get more numbers. And like, you have to get these things so that they can have more fame. And I was like, they never asked for fame.
KAYLA: They never said they wanted that. I also like, I find it so stupid that people would be, you know, like playing whatever song on loop, playing it throughout the night to make a song chart or to get certain numbers on Spotify or whatever.
SARAH: Well, you can’t loop…
KAYLA: You know what I mean though, like doing things to get numbers to whatever, like wouldn't you want your favorite artist to be able to look at the numbers and know which songs were flops? Like if you keep doing that, if you keep artificially charting songs, then you're not like, people need that feedback. Like artists need the general feedback of like, aw man, flopped it, no one's streaming my songs, this one didn't chart, album sucks, got to change it up. Like why would you want to do that? I don't get that mentality. Like it's a feedback loop, that's just how it works.
SARAH: Yeah. As an artist, I would want someone to, in the case of music, I would want them to listen to my music when they wanted to because they wanted to. Not because they felt like they had to or because they felt like they owed me something, or like I wouldn't want to have that kind of relationship with the people who listen to my music.
KAYLA: That's weird, yeah.
SARAH: And so it's like…
KAYLA: That's not going to make me feel good.
SARAH: No. And so it's like…
KAYLA: Like it's not going to make them feel good that you're doing that, it’s weird
SARAH: I have a lot to say about stream shamers, I… you know this. Anyway, are we done?
KAYLA: Tea. Ah, yes.
SARAH: What's our poll for this week?
KAYLA: Oh man. Which celebrities do you think are gay? No, just kidding.
SARAH: Grimace?
KAYLA: That'd be crazy. Grimace? Is Grimace gay?
SARAH: Why do you hate Perez Hilton?
KAYLA: Oh, that's out of left field.
SARAH: When I was like looking up stuff, Perez Hilton in particular, the year 2006 was a big one for Perez Hilton outing people.
KAYLA: Oh, that's not… yeah, that sounds about right.
SARAH: So, um, you know.
KAYLA: Maybe just the thoughts on celebrity sexuality speculation.
SARAH: Slayful. Um, Kayla Marie?
KAYLA: Yes?
SARAH: What's your beef and your juice this week?
KAYLA: That's such a good question. Um... Where's my beef?
SARAH: I have a poll.
KAYLA: Okay
SARAH: I got a computer screen protector with my case. Should I put it on?
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: I didn't on my last computer.
KAYLA: I don't like screen protectors.
SARAH: Anyway, beef, juice?
KAYLA: My beef is... oh man, everything coming to mind I won't be sharing here. Um...
SARAH: Do you want me to go first? I wrote some down.
KAYLA: Yeah, yeah you go. Let me think.
SARAH: Okay, my beef is, guess what part of the country the Adderall shortage recently struck again.
KAYLA: SoCal
SARAH: You guessed it, SoCal. And guess who's out of Adderall? Me. Me. I am. And I did discover, I did some research, I can pretty much only get my prescriptions at CVS. There are some other places I can, it actually turns out, but a lot of read aids are closing. Fun fact.
KAYLA: Good, I love that.
SARAH: Um, and like some… there are like some like independent, like pharmacies that I found that my insurance works at. Last week I called 25 pharmacies.
KAYLA: Yay!
SARAH: 25. You know how many of them had Adderall?
KAYLA: Zero?
SARAH: The Adderall that I needed?
KAYLA: Zero.
SARAH: One.
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: And here's the thing about that one. They won't take insurance for Adderall.
KAYLA: Oh, that's weird.
SARAH: So, I called today and I had them send it and hopefully I will get it tomorrow. Their hours that they're open are all completely during my work day. And this pharmacy is by my house, not my work.
KAYLA: Was it a billion dollars?
SARAH: Less than it could have been. I am paying 140 dollars for one month's worth, which is four dollars and 67 cents per pill.
KAYLA: Yikes.
SARAH: Could have been worse though because I've had issues getting my Adderall the last couple of months too. Not even for shortage reasons, just because of dumb shit. And when I got some in Michigan, there was a weird insurance thing that happened. So initially it gave me the no insurance cost and it was like 225 dollars.
KAYLA: Oh good.
SARAH: So at least 140 is less than that.
KAYLA: Fun!
SARAH: I hope I won't have to do this for too long.
KAYLA: Yeah. Yucky
SARAH: My juice is contacting your reps.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Which is a little bit of a beef because there are so many things to contact them about. But I think my juice is doing that. Have you thought of something?
KAYLA: I guess. My beef is the human brain. I think most of the things that I would think about to say that I'm not going to share on the podcast with strangers I think really could be boiled down to the human brain.
[01:00:00]
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: My juice is Saltburn, the film. I watched it. It was a really, it was a wild weekend. One night we watched Cats, the 2019 musical, and then the night after we watched Saltburn. Anyway.
SARAH: You know, my friend, our friend Erin said that we should do a podcast episode about just our reactions to Saltburn.
KAYLA: Here's the thing, I don't think you should watch it.
SARAH: Yeah, I don't really want to.
KAYLA: Like I… it was an incredible movie. Like it's a really well made, in all areas, just an incredibly well-made movie. Like writing great, acting great, cinematography, costumes, set, like just literally everything. Just like a great movie. If you are in any way put off by sex, you should not watch it. Like, and it wasn't even, because I saw a lot of people being like, I didn't think the sexual parts were that bad. Like you guys are just vanilla. And I watched it with, first of all, people who are not very vanilla and they were still shocked. But it's like, it wasn't the sexual acts that were so like shocking and like kind of horrifying. It was like the intent behind them and like what it did to the plot and like why the characters were doing them. Like if the exact same things have been done in different contexts, like it would have been a completely different situation.
SARAH: I don't even really know that I've managed to avoid the details.
KAYLA: So, I went in knowing, like having already seen clips of the most like shocking stuff. So, I was like prepared for most of it, but I also didn't know anything about the plot. The only thing I knew about the movie was like the shocking sexual scenes. But I would… if you're sexual sexually, what's it called? Not disgusted
SARAH: Sex averse?
KAYLA: If you're sex repulsed
SARAH: Sex repulsed
KAYLA: I would say definitely don't watch it. If you're sex averse, I would
SARAH: Exercise caution.
KAYLA: Exercise caution. But it's a really, it's a really good movie. I liked it a lot. But proceed with caution, I suppose.
SARAH: Proceed with caution
KAYLA: I suppose because of the sexual acts.
SARAH: Amazing.
KAYLA: Yeah, it's tough because like as a movie, I'd be like, oh, Sarah should see this. Like, it's just a really good movie. But like, you will be greatly disturbed. Like you as a person, especially. You will be greatly disturbed.
SARAH: Great. I might just like read the Wikipedia summary and see what's up.
KAYLA: I would recommend, yeah. Look at some pictures. The coloring is great. Good colors. Lots of red.
SARAH: Wonderful. Okay. You can tell us about your beef, your juice, your thoughts on Saltburn on our social media @soundsfakepod
KAYLA: I would love to hear the aspec thoughts on Saltburn, actually.
SARAH: We also have a Patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod. You know, the patrons, they will have already gotten at this point.
KAYLA: Oh, are we doing this?
SARAH: Did you see the two new ones I sent you during this podcast?
KAYLA: I did. I did
SARAH: We have… guys, remember how in, it was probably 2016 before this podcast, I acquired a cactus and then…
KAYLA: I was there for that.
SARAH: And then it looked, after a while it looked phallic. And I… it fell over and it got dusty. It literally wouldn't die. It’s name is Todd?
KAYLA: We left it on the floor for months.
SARAH: And it…
KAYLA: We were just waiting, hoping it would die, really.
SARAH: It wouldn't have died if we'd tried. And when I moved out of Ann Arbor, I left Todd with one of our friends who was taking over my room. And he just randomly texted me today and sent update photos of Todd, which we haven't… which we haven't gotten in like at least a year or two.
KAYLA: Years. We did… I remember when we first moved out… because we talked about Todd a lot on the podcast because we podcasted next to Todd's carcass.
SARAH: We could see Todd
KAYLA: And so, I remember we did a few updates like right when we handed Todd over, but this, yeah, it's been a long time. Like if you haven't been listening for a while or didn't listen from the beginning, like you will not know Todd. It's been a long time.
SARAH: But those of you who see these images of Todd, whether or not you knew Todd in his youth…
KAYLA: It’s shocking
SARAH: Or whether this is the first time, you will be shocked and confused. I got him at Home Depot. I got him at Home Depot. The reason he looked phallic was because they had hot glued a flower on top of him.
KAYLA: It stunted his growth
SARAH: And it impacted his growth.
KAYLA: But like… and even when he was, when we last saw him when he was dying, like relatively tall cactus, like very tall, skinny, just like one little, like imagine a cactus, but it doesn't have the arms. Just one tube kind of fucked up looking.
SARAH: And it doesn't really stand up very well.
KAYLA: No, it fell on the floor clearly. But you're going to see this picture. I wonder if we could find an old picture of Todd to do like.
SARAH: Just to compare.
KAYLA: Do you think you have one? I mean, we took many pictures of Todd on the floor.
SARAH: Somewhere.
KAYLA: I think we should find that so we can, anyway.
SARAH: Now that we've hyped this up…
KAYLA: All this to say…
SARAH: Now that we've hyped this up maybe we should make it… we'll put it on our Patreon, but we will make it visible to all people.
KAYLA: Yes, you don't have to pay for it. You do have to go to our Patreon to see Todd.
SARAH: To see it.
KAYLA: We should really try to find an old picture.
SARAH: Oh, man. Todd, when this photo was sent to me, I said, he is an abomination.
KAYLA: I literally… you sent it to me hours ago. I told my entire household I haven't stopped thinking about it. I've never been so shocked about a plant in my life. It's shocking to see.
SARAH: It's shocking and confusing.
KAYLA: It's shocking.
SARAH: Now that we've hyped up the growth of our cactus, that was… it's not ours anymore. It's no longer belong to us.
KAYLA: It’s on to greater things
SARAH: And you know what? Todd is doing great in his home in Wisconsin.
KAYLA: I love that. Not me scrolling through old pictures, trying to find a picture of Todd, and just finding pictures of my exes.
SARAH: Oh, no. Anyway, patreon.com/soundsfakepod, our $5 patrons who we are promoting this week are Cinnamon Toast Punch, Claire Olsen, Colleen Walsh, Doug Rice, and Edward Hayes Holgate. Our $10 patrons who are promoting something this week are… last week I said Selena Dobson.
KAYLA: Wait, okay, I just found a picture, I found an old picture of you from when we were podcasting in your office. And if you zoom into the background, you can see Todd out of his pot lying on the ground.
SARAH: Please send that text to me.
KAYLA: I’ll text you it’s so fucking funny.
SARAH: I think I didn't mark it properly last week.
KAYLA: Oh, good
SARAH: So, I'm sorry if I skipped. Anyone, but I believe the people who are promoting something this week are Kayla's dad, who would like to promote jandicreations.com. Maff who would like to promote the Don't Should sweatshirt. Martin Giselle who would like to promote…
KAYLA: I'm wearing it.
SARAH: Yeah, that's true. You're not actually.
KAYLA: I am.
SARAH: That's not the Don't Should sweatshirt.
KAYLA: Oh, sorry. I misheard. Carry on.
SARAH: Me and Kayla are both wearing merch right now.
KAYLA: It's embarrassing.
SARAH: Parker who would like to promote being a silly little guy and Purple Haze who would like to promote their friend's podcast, The Host Club. Our other $10 patrons are Barefoot Backpacker, Song of Storm, Val, Alison, Ani, Arcness, Benjamin Ybarra, Lawson Smith, Selina Dobson, David Harris, Derek and Karissa Albeder, and my Aunt Jeannie. Our $15 patrons are Ace who would like to promote the writer, Crystal Scherer, Andrew Hillum who would like to promote the invisible spectrum podcast, Dia Chapelle who would like to promote Twitch.tv/melodydia, Hector Mario who would like to promote friends that are supportive, constructive and help you grow as a better person, and Nathaniel White who would like to promote nathanieljwhitedesigns.com, Kayla’s Aunt Nina who would like to promote KateMaggerArt.com. And our $20 patron is Dragonfly who would like to promote my mouth stopping working. It does not work anymore. Thanks for listening. Tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: And until then, take good care of your Todds.
SARAH: So true.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I didn't.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And yet still he thrives.
KAYLA: And yet he persists. Nevertheless.
SARAH: Nevertheless.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]