How Much of a Threat Is TikTok, Really?

Michael Calore: “You Are Not Expected to Understand This”?

Lily Hay Newman: Yes.

Michael Calore: That’s what it’s called?

Lily Hay Newman: Yeah.

Michael Calore: I wonder if there’s an essay in there about the first banner ad.

Lauren Goode: Wasn’t that on WIRED?

Michael Calore: It was. It was on WIRED.com.

Lauren Goode: Read it on WIRED. Now you’re creating conflicting interests for me. Read it on WIRED.com first. We also came up with, was it crowdfunding or crowdsourcing?

Michael Calore: Crowdsource.

Lauren Goode: Crowdsource, yeah.

Michael Calore: Crowdsourcing.

Lauren Goode: Mark Robinson.

Lily Hay Newman: Yeah, yeah. To be clear, WIRED is great.

Michael Calore: WIRED is great, but also this book is great.

Lauren Goode: And congrats on being a part of it.

Lily Hay Newman: Thanks.

Lauren Goode: That’s really cool.

Lily Hay Newman: Yeah, it was very, very fun and just a really great group of authors, and I think Tori did an amazing job editing it, so.

Michael Calore: Lauren, what is your recommendation?

Lauren Goode: My recommendation is a book of a very different nature. It is called, brace yourself for the title, I’m Glad My Mom Died. It is a memoir by the child actress Jeanette McCurdy. I just finished it this week, and it’s as great as everyone’s been saying it is. Jeanette was on iCarly on Nickelodeon for I think about a decade. She played Sam, the character Sam on that show. But the book is really about how she was coerced into being a child actress. It wasn’t something that she particularly liked to do. She had a really domineering stage mom who also encouraged her to have an eating disorder. It was a really complicated and abusive relationship. And Jeanette is now, she’s well past her iCarly years. She’s a writer; she’s a podcaster. She’s decided to put aside acting because it isn’t really where her heart is. And she decided to write this memoir about her experience as a child actor in Hollywood and about her mom. And it’s really good. It’s brutally honest. It’s uncomfortable at times. Some people described it as funny. There are moments of humor, but I didn’t find it actually funny. It’s pretty dark at times, but it’s a really worthwhile read, so I recommend that.

Michael Calore: Nice.

Lauren Goode: I’m Glad My Mom Died.

Michael Calore: Nice.

Lauren Goode: Mom, if you’re listening, this book is not about you, nor is my recommendation. My mom does listen to this podcast, so the other week she was like, “You mentioned my stove,” so I know that she listens.

Michael Calore: Nice.

Lauren Goode: Mike, what’s your recommendation?

Michael Calore: I’m going to recommend classic Doctor Who.

Lily Hay Newman: Nice.

Michael Calore: Doctor Who is celebrating its 60th birthday this year. It started in November of 1963; the day after the JFK assassination was the very first Doctor Who broadcast in the UK. I love old Doctor Who because I grew up on it. It was on, I think on Sunday afternoons on my local PBS channel the whole time that I was in grade school and junior high school. And my Doctor Who fandom has perpetuated well into middle age. So I think it is a really fun science fiction show because a lot of the themes that we see in modern science fiction originated in this sort of soup of radio dramas and television shows and novels that were not taken seriously in the middle of the century. Doctor Who was one of the first series that was taken seriously by adults; it was still seen as a kids’ show well into its run, but obviously also very popular with the kids’ parents because everybody would watch it together. So as a child, I loved Doctor Who, and as I’ve grown older, its themes have only become richer. So for a very long time, you couldn’t watch all of the episodes unless you bought all the DVDs, right? We’re talking thousands of dollars to buy all of the DVDs or the Blu-rays of all the old episodes. Now you can watch almost every single episode of the show’s original run, which was from 1963 to 1987 on the internet on BritBox.

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