Read more! Click the link to sign up for Blinkist and get 20% off today http://www.blinkist.com/timpoolMy Second Channel - https://www.youtube.com/timcastnewsFirst let me say Simone Giertz is great and her videos are awesome but she is just another person leading a campaign against a company based on her personal feelings and this is the highlight of the video, the power of outrage mobs.I wish no ill will towards either of these people and respect their work but am critical of their tactics.This video talks about David Hogg and others who used their followings to force changes to suit their personal politics or feelings. As this tactic becomes more prevalent we risk losing diversity of opinion and culture. NOTE: Hogg and Giertz are high profile public figures and I am criticizing their very public actionsMake sure to subscribe for more travel, news, opinion, and documentary with Tim Pool everyday.Amazon Prime 30 day free trial - http://amzn.to/2sgiDqRMY GEARGoPro Karma - http://amzn.to/2qw10m4GoPro 6 - http://amzn.to/2CEK0z1DJI Mavic Drone - http://amzn.to/2lX9qgTZagg 12 AMP portable battery - http://amzn.to/2lXB6SxTASCAM Lavalier mic - http://amzn.to/2AwoIhI Canon HD XF 105 Camera - http://amzn.to/2m6v1o3Canon 5D MK III Camera - http://amzn.to/2CvFnnm360 Camera (VR) - http://amzn.to/2AxKu4RFOLLOW MEInstagram - http://instagram.com/TimcastTwitter - http://twitter.com/TimcastMinds - http://Minds.com/TimcastFacebook - http://facebook.com/TimcastnewsBitcoin Wallet: 13ha54MW2hYUS3q1jJhFyWdpNfdfMWtmhZSEND STUFF HERETim Pool330 Washington Street - PMB 517Hoboken, NJ 07030Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We're currently in the midst of a controversy surrounding Laura Ingraham and David Hogg.
I made a video about this yesterday, but if you haven't been following the news, basically, Ingraham tweeted that David Hogg was rejected from some colleges and that he was whining about it.
In response to the insult, David Hogg organized his nearly 700,000 Twitter followers to target her advertisers to get them to boycott her show.
And it would seem his campaign has been pretty successful, with many of her advertisers pulling out.
Now, the latest update.
Laura Ingraham is announcing a vacation amid this controversy.
And there are a few updates to go over here, but this video isn't just about Ingraham and Hogg.
This video is about how individuals with a lot of followers or with a lot of weight have used that weight to push on companies to make changes that fit their personal worldviews.
We are slowly entering a world where high profile or influential individuals are going to start
punishing companies who don't do what they want.
So there's a few different stories here.
We're going to talk about the Grid Girls, Formula One Grid Girls who lost their jobs over cries of sexism.
Simone Gertz of Shitty Robots recently led a campaign to get the Makita Power Tools models removed, that it was sexist.
And again, the Laura Ingraham story.
But before I get into all of that, let me give a quick shout out to today's sponsor.
The Blinkist app transforms the key insights of 2,000 best-selling nonfiction books into powerful packs you can read or listen to in just 15 minutes.
Over 5 million people are using Blinkist every day to glean the insights they need to become their best selves.
Right now, Blinkist has a special offer just for you guys.
You'll get 20% off by visiting the link in the description below.
That's Blinkist.com forward slash Tim Poole.
So for those that are interested, I've included the link below.
Blinkist.com forward slash Timpool.
Check it out and sign up today.
The first story, Laura Ingraham announces vacation after feud with David Hogg escalates.
Quote, I would love to see her go.
End quote.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham will be taking a vacation next week amid an ongoing feud with David Hogg, a high school senior who survived the Parkland shooting last month.
Ingraham announced she was taking a pre-planned break with her children for Easter after Hogg successfully rallied his social media following and pressured companies to pull their advertising dollars from the Ingraham angle.
I hope she uses this time to reflect not only on how she treated me, but so many others like the students at Dartmouth or even people like LeBron James, Hogg told the Daily News in response to Ingraham's announcement.
Hours after Ingram's initial tweet, Hogg published a list of her biggest advertisers and asked his social media followers to spring to action.
Since then, a dozen companies, including Office Depot, Hulu, TripAdvisor, Expedia, Johnson & Johnson, have pulled their ads from the show.
While Ingram issued an apology in the spirit of Holy Week on Thursday, the controversy has yet to die down.
The teen said he will not accept the conservative pundit's half-hearted Twitter apology until she admits that she has slandered him and his classmates.
Hogg also said he's furious that Ingraham included a clip of her interview with him at the end of her mea culpa tweets Thursday.
That's what she does when she tries to apologize to me.
She promotes her own show.
Really?
Hogg told the news.
Laura Ingraham apologized to David Hogg shortly after he announced the boycott, but David Hogg has doubled down and said he will not accept her apology unless she again apologizes and denounces the treatment of his fellow students from the network.
This is part of a bigger issue that's starting to emerge In our culture, when individuals take personal offense to some practice and then demand a change.
These companies that have pulled out of Laura Ingraham's show, I assure you, probably have no real clue what's going on with the politics, but just don't want to be involved.
So, in my opinion, they made a big mistake.
By pulling out, they're just going to get boycotts from the other side.
And that's actually what we're seeing on Twitter after they announced this.
Many people tweeting, I'm going to boycott you because you have decided to pull off Ingraham's show.
These companies have stuck their neck out and placed themselves in between a personal fight between Ingraham and Hogg.
Make no mistake, this is not about the treatment of David Hogg's classmates.
It's not about the gun debate.
This is an issue where Ingraham said that David Hogg was whining.
And David Hogg took issue with that insult and then directed his fans at her show.
This is a personal beef between two high-profile public figures.
These companies decided to get involved and it's probably not going to be... well, it's not going to work out for them.
But let's look at something else that just happened recently in the news that falls into a similar category.
Simone Gertz is really well known for producing what people refer to as shitty robots.
She is a YouTuber and personality, and she makes these really funny videos where the robots kind of fail to do their job.
It's actually a lot of fun.
But she recently tweeted, I rarely feel excluded from making building as a woman.
But this video from Makita Tools really did it.
unidentified
Hey guys, welcome to the Miss Makita and Senorita Makita 2018 photoshoot.
Bye.
What it means to me to be Señorita Makeda, it is that I get to travel a lot, represent the brand as a good brand ambassador, and it will be so much fun.
And unsurprisingly, in response to this campaign, Makita Tools actually took their videos about the Miss Makita campaign down.
Simone tweeted yesterday, Thanks everybody who tweeted, emailed, and called their
customer service, and thanks Makita Tools for listening.
And she posted this photo where you can see Makita, Miss Makita, and Senorita Makita.
The videos have all been made private.
But it's not just that.
The Instagram accounts have also been made private.
And sure enough, when you click the YouTube link, you just kind of see this.
I don't know what this is.
It doesn't really load beyond this exclamation point and a blank box.
I think Simone's pretty cool.
I like her channel.
Shitty Robots is a whole lot of fun.
You'll see her on Reddit all the time.
But I don't think the people who engage in these campaigns realize how destructive it can be.
It is not productive.
I understand that people feel like these ad campaigns where you have attractive women, you know, maybe showing off a car or showing off a power tool set or something, is sexist.
But these are people who actually enjoy doing what they do.
There are a lot of people who are setting up these productions, making these videos, who also enjoy doing what they do.
Now, the Instagram account and YouTube videos have been made private, but I don't know if that means they're actually ending the program.
If they did end Miss Makita USA and Senorita Makita, that means a lot of people are out of work, and the models who were traveling around as brand ambassadors for the company may also be out of work.
I don't know if they are.
I'm not saying that they are, but I think it's important to take into consideration that there are people who enjoy doing this work, who enjoy being models, and who enjoy traveling around representing a brand.
There are real people who are involved in these...
Campaigns.
This is Melissa Palacio.
Here's her Instagram account.
And when I looked up her account, I noticed she had a GoFundMe.
It says Electra Surgery Cirugia.
Forgive me, I'm not- I don't speak Spanish very well.
But we can see that she has set up a GoFundMe seeking $4,199 because her little dog got surgery and she needs help paying the bills.
I don't know if this woman is wealthy or not, I don't know if she lost her job and is broke, but I think it's important to consider when you pressure a company to pull out of a campaign or to end a campaign that you're going to negatively impact a lot of people who enjoy doing what they do.
And there is a possibility that this woman was getting a paid job that she probably needed I think it's fair to say that there is a likelihood she can't afford to pay this medical bill for her dog.
In which case, when you look into the actual people, when you have some empathy, you might say, I understand that maybe we want to change some of these things in society, but you are going to impact people who might really need that job, might really enjoy it, and might be at big risk if they don't have that income.
Just about a month or two ago, we heard about the Grid Girls program being ended.
This was young models who would appear on the Formula One racetrack.
And this was ended after a campaign by feminists.
In this article from USA Today, Grid Girls respond to F1 eliminating their roles.
Quote, PC gone mad.
Formula One announced Wednesday that its Grid Girls, models at the races promoting the sport and the brands associated with it, will no longer be part of the sport starting in the 2018 season.
Despite their roles being a long-time tradition in Formula One, Managing Director of Commercial Operations Sean Bratches said in a statement, We feel this custom does not resonate with our brand values and clearly is at odds with modern-day societal norms.
However, some of the Grid Girls don't feel the same way and took to social media to express their outrage and reaction to losing their jobs.
Among them was Rebecca Cooper, who said she was a Grid Girl for five years.
Rebecca tweeted, So the inevitable has happened.
F1 Grid Girls have been banned.
Ridiculous that women who say they are fighting for women's rights are saying what others should and shouldn't do.
Stopping us from doing a job we love and are proud to do.
PC gone mad.
Hashtag Grid Girls.
She went on to say, Scantily clad furniture.
Sexualizing women provocative.
I'd never let my daughter wear a grid girl outfit.
Just some of today's comments, yet people clearly haven't done their research,
as these are my outfits from my five years in F1.
And you can see Rebecca Cooper is wearing, in many instances,
just a dress or some normal looking clothing.
In a statement to the BBC, Charlotte Gash, accountant and part-time Grid Girl said,
I'm rather disgusted that F1 have given in to the minority to be politically correct.
It's fun for me. I thoroughly enjoy it.
And in the instance of David Hogg, he actually posted the emails and names
of Arby's executives in order to further his goal.
Shannon Coulter said, Cut and pasteable version of the Arby's PR emails,
David Hogg posted all publicly available.
Now David Hogg actually deleted these emails from his Twitter account, presumably because posting someone's email and telling your followers to send them emails is brigading.
It could be considered as targeted harassment.
David Hogg, who was personally insulted, decided to use his massive following to get people to send emails to people from Arby's who have literally nothing to do with the gun debate or his current controversy.
We need to recognize that a lot of people who have big followings are going to abuse their power.
That their followers trust them and like them and are going to say, okay, I'll play along.
I responded to Simone by asking, so did the women lose their contract slash job?
And someone said, my only concern too, the poor models.
One way to recover from this fiasco might be with a new campaign where those women, dressed in appropriate work safety attire and addressed by their own names, are tutored through some cool projects by experienced builders makers, including women.
Simone responded, I'd be so down if any of the Makita models wanted to come and build with me.
I'm pretty sure they are both a lot more competent and capable than those videos let on.
This kind of behavior actually scares me.
David Hogg with his massive following, targeting companies who had nothing to do with this dispute.
Posting the emails of individuals who had nothing to do with this dispute.
Simone saying that these women should come and build with her, should do what she thinks they should be doing.
Another follower saying that these women should be wearing what she thinks they should be wearing.
It scares me that individuals with a lot of power are going to push a campaign and use their following to make changes that negatively impact others.
There are ways to bring about change in a positive fashion.
And I will say, to Simone's credit, she did not call for any of these people to lose their jobs and actually suggested retiring the program for 2019, a full year from now.
So I do want to clarify, I think in terms of what we've seen with David Hogg, the Grid Girls, and Simone Gertz, Simone Gertz is certainly not the worst of the three.
In fact, I think it's actually fair what she stated.
But I want to stress how important it is to realize that when you have this following, your followers, when directed, might take actions that are a bit extreme.
And sure enough, any reasonable person would be scared if someone with 240,000 followers tweeted to the people who follow them to take action.
Because you can't control what these people will do.
Milo Yiannopoulos was banned from Twitter and he didn't even direct people to target Leslie Jones.
This is a while ago.
Milo was tweeting at Leslie Jones and it was argued that because he was tweeting at her, his followers saw this and then began to tweet at her as well.
Without even telling his followers what to do, he was banned.
Twitter needs to be very careful when people use brigading to force companies to do certain things, because there are people who are being negatively impacted.
So I don't know if Miss Makita USA and Senorita Makita have actually lost their jobs, or if this is just a temporary silencing so that they can kind of get past the PR.
The videos are private, the Instagram's private.
Maybe this is the end, but I'm not entirely sure.
The point of this video is just to show you a few examples of when people with large followings, for personal reasons, take action against companies to make them change the way they want them to change.
And that is particularly scary to me.
Some of these women like modeling.
They want to be grid girls.
They want to be on the Formula One track, representing brands, wearing beautiful outfits and holding signs for the drivers.
and being involved in the program.
It shouldn't be the choice of an outrage mob whether or not these people can continue to work.
It shouldn't be the choice of a single individual with hundreds of thousands of followers
whether or not a company can sponsor someone or not or whether or not a company can hire models.
We need to be careful about this because we're going to end up with power-hungry individuals
who gain massive followings and then essentially force people through peer pressure
and the court of public opinion into doing what they want them to do.
Some people are insulated.
Many of these influencers don't have sponsors and don't worry about the same kind of attack targeting them.
But if you have a show, if you have sponsors, this can be devastating and it could shut someone's job down who really enjoys doing what they do.
Look, If someone's doing something wrong and you want to be an activist and say, hey, this should change, by all means.
But if you take personal beef with a company doing something and you negatively impact third parties who had nothing to do with this, you need to reconsider your actions.
Otherwise, we'll all just end up at each other's throats.
But let me know what you think in the comments below and we'll keep the conversation going.
How do you feel about this?
Some people have said it's simply free speech, that David Hogg has the right to tell his followers what to do, and if they want to do it, then by all means they should.
Some people said these campaigns, like Simone Girtz pointed out, are sexist and should be retired.
But what do you think?
Comment below, and again, we'll keep the conversation going.
