0:04

This is Under Understood. Hello.

0:08

Hey, Adrienne.

0:08

How's everybody feeling? So,

0:11

it's warm. I'm warm. Oh,

0:13

yeah. That sounds unpleasant. Yeah.

0:19

Okay. Don't worry. That's

0:21

a lot of time. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going

0:23

to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm

0:25

not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going

0:27

to lie. I'm not going to lie. That's for the

0:29

best. I'm going to pass out. Make

0:31

sure you're getting enough airflow. Yeah. Yeah.

0:35

Well, I've gathered you all here today because I have

0:37

a new segment.

0:38

Yes. I've got to go. Yes.

0:41

The family expands. I love it. What

0:43

is it? This segment, I feel

0:45

like this is an idea that I've talked about with you

0:47

before and possibly on this podcast,

0:50

but it's an idea about

0:52

the internet from a blog post by Michael

0:54

Sippy, who is like a

0:57

product person in Silicon Valley who has a blog.

1:00

And I would like to name

1:02

the segment after this idea.

1:05

Okay. The name is,

1:09

Even if it's fake, it's real.

1:11

Is this ringing bells for anyone? That's

1:14

like a thinker. It's not ringing any bells. Even

1:16

if it's fake, it's real. This

1:18

is like the opposite of if a tree falls

1:20

in the woods and no one's around to hear it.

1:23

Kind of. If you

1:25

imagine a tree falling in the woods, that's enough.

1:28

So, this blog post is from 2013.

1:31

No, it's from 2010. Oh,

1:33

my gosh. Time is fake. But

1:36

even if it's fake, it's

1:38

real. Yeah. Yeah. So,

1:42

anyway, so this blog post is from November 24th, 2010. Even

1:44

if it's fake, it's real.

1:46

And

1:48

it is a photo of

1:51

what looks like Google Street View. And

1:55

it is what appears to

1:57

be a woman on

1:58

the sidewalk. laying back,

2:01

legs open, and then another person

2:04

holding a baby, as if

2:07

the baby had just come out of this other

2:09

person. Oh man. And

2:11

then some bystanders looking,

2:14

actually one bystander just ignoring the whole

2:16

scene, then another person like maybe

2:18

calling for help or something. Oh, and there's a smart

2:20

car that looks like it's just like veered off

2:22

onto the sidewalk and suddenly opened the

2:25

door.

2:25

So you're implying

2:28

that there is a debate about

2:32

whether this is a real incident

2:34

or not, whether it was staged or

2:36

the Google Street View cameras,

2:39

or whether it's authentic.

2:41

Well, okay, so that's part of the question. So

2:44

just imagine you're in 2010 and

2:46

this image pops up on

2:47

Reddit. Somebody's like,

2:49

oh my God, I can't believe the Google Street View

2:52

car caught this moment.

2:56

So that's the starting

2:58

point for this blog post. So basically

3:01

he says there's four quadrants

3:04

on the real fake axis.

3:08

Oh, I love this. This is great. The

3:10

first option is a real woman

3:13

was in real labor in her real car and pulled

3:15

over in front of this real house,

3:17

gave birth to a real baby, which is held up just as the

3:19

real Google Street View car came by and snapped

3:21

this photo. Mm-hmm. And

3:24

then the next option is

3:26

real people knew the Street View cameras were making

3:28

their way through this real neighborhood, staged this

3:30

event, raised up a real doll from the real

3:33

sidewalk just as Google Street View came

3:35

by and snapped the photo. Third

3:37

scenario, real woman, real labor,

3:39

real car, pulled over, real house, gave

3:42

birth to a real baby. Then someone used

3:44

a real copy of Photoshop to add

3:46

details that simulate the effect of the photo being snapped

3:49

by Google. Okay,

3:50

well, that would be easy to disprove. And

3:52

that one else feels like the least interesting. Because like

3:55

Google Street View has all the historical, like

3:57

you can go back and see old captures.

4:00

but you'd have to find it. There's a map in the corner.

4:02

It doesn't have the coordinates. Yeah,

4:04

I feel like debunking was less sophisticated back then,

4:07

but yes, that's a good point. Okay,

4:09

so then the last scenario is real people staged the

4:11

birth and someone used Photoshop

4:13

to add details. So it's like real

4:15

Google, real baby, real

4:18

Google fake baby,

4:20

fake Google fake baby, fake Google

4:23

real baby. I think I said that right. Anyway,

4:27

and then he kind of makes the point that like

4:29

all of these scenarios are kind of interesting.

4:32

So even if it turns out that the whole thing was

4:34

staged and it's

4:37

a

4:38

fake scene,

4:39

actors, fake baby, fake Google

4:41

street view, all of that, that's still like a

4:44

story and kind

4:46

of impressive

4:47

that somebody went to all this effort to fake

4:49

this hoax.

4:51

So anyway, do you wanna

4:54

guess which quadrant

4:56

this was in? This was in? I

4:59

think fake baby,

5:01

real Google. I was gonna say the same. Nice

5:03

stunt. That's what

5:05

I think. Fake baby, real Google, nice

5:07

stunt. That's

5:10

my summary. That would be, okay, that

5:12

would be my instinct. That's real

5:14

Google fake

5:16

scene. But you just wanna play devil's advocate

5:18

real quick? F you

5:20

Regina. I just

5:22

wanna be myself. Is that such

5:24

a crime?

5:26

No, that would be my instinct

5:28

as well. However, if

5:31

I look closely at the image,

5:34

there are parts of the image that

5:37

have the Google watermark,

5:40

but the parts where the scene is

5:42

do not have any watermarks

5:44

as far as I can see. And

5:46

my understanding is

5:48

like there are watermarks all over

5:51

Google street view images. So. So

5:54

fake Google, what else

5:56

is fake? Also, I think I described

5:58

this photo. slightly

6:00

and accurately. It's two people helping

6:03

the person giving birth. When

6:05

receiving the baby, another person kind of holding

6:08

their head. Well, this changes everything back to real baby,

6:10

real Google. Okay, here's the other thing though.

6:13

We're talking 2010 here. Seeing

6:17

a Google Street View car in 2010 was still kind

6:19

of novel. And I know there's

6:21

a birth going on, but

6:24

nobody's looking over at the Google

6:26

car. You think at least one person would be glancing

6:29

over like, hey, what's that thing?

6:30

Wait, I'm sorry. You think if there was

6:32

a live birth happening on the sidewalk.

6:35

And two cars parked halfway on the, yeah. Listen,

6:38

well, whatever my boy in

6:40

the like sport coat and sneakers

6:43

isn't looking at anything. So it's

6:46

not like the birth is monopolizing

6:49

people's attention in the scene. Some

6:51

people that just don't seem to care. Adrian,

6:53

this blog post doesn't have the answer in it.

6:56

Mm-hmm. Is

6:58

there an answer? Yes. Wait,

7:01

but explain the philosophy of this post

7:03

to me. There's part of it that's

7:05

real. I think the philosophy

7:07

is that more and more elaborate

7:10

hoaxes are starting to pop up. And the

7:12

blogger is expressing some admiration

7:15

for

7:16

the variations on hoaxes

7:18

and saying that even

7:21

if the scenario

7:24

is presented one way and it turns out

7:26

it was staged or that the scenario

7:29

is slightly different, the backstory is still

7:31

real. Like it's still a

7:33

commentable, remarkable event.

7:36

So

7:38

by real, they just mean like there's interesting

7:41

novelty to it regardless.

7:43

Right.

7:45

Words have meaning and that's not

7:47

what the word real means. I'm

7:50

sorry. You

7:52

could, I understand the argument. It's

7:54

still interesting and novel regardless,

7:57

but it's not real.

7:59

Okay. So the story-

8:01

Wait, but is it real? The

8:03

answer is fake baby,

8:06

fake Google. Yes.

8:09

Wow. Yes. Still

8:11

real. Still real. No,

8:14

it's not. It's kind of

8:16

the most boring version

8:19

of the answer because it turned out to

8:21

be an advertising agency that

8:24

was experimenting with- Oh no, I hate

8:26

that. Making things go viral. Then it's not

8:28

real. Yes, that's the fakest shit of all.

8:31

I feel like I'm not saying every

8:34

scenario is

8:37

equally interesting, but I do think

8:40

that there is a thing where

8:42

the story behind the hoax

8:45

is also interesting and in some cases more interesting

8:48

than the hoax as it's presented on

8:51

Reddit or Facebook or TikTok or wherever

8:53

it first appears with whatever oversimplified

8:56

caption is describing the photo or video.

8:59

So that's the concept for this segment, which

9:02

I'm calling,

9:04

even if it's fake, it's real.

9:06

And the first installment is

9:09

a segment that we recorded

9:11

a while ago that's

9:13

on Patreon. It's actually from

9:16

January, 2021. And

9:18

it's about a viral TikTok.

9:20

I spent the holiday with this song

9:23

stuck in my head. I'm

9:25

pretty sure everyone except maybe John

9:27

has heard this, but it goes like this.

9:30

Oh

9:33

yeah. Goodbye.

9:38

Get your brain out of your thin mouth.

9:41

Oh, I have seen this. You've

9:43

seen this? I've seen this? I've seen this. I've

9:46

seen this. I've seen this. I've seen this. You've

9:49

seen this? Yeah. But you recognize

9:52

the mustache. Yeah. Yeah.

9:55

Okay. I'm just going to play the whole thing through because

9:57

now I need to hear it.

10:01

Oh, keep on the email of yours

10:04

and mine What did Caroline

10:07

do, honey? She stole my

10:09

broccoli Got

10:11

several recipe Eight

10:13

years ago And

10:15

claimed it was hers She claimed it was hers

10:18

No, you're not talking about

10:21

it My boyfriend Caroline

10:24

No, she a crazy

10:27

lady She's

10:30

a rat Recipe

10:32

stealing, bitch Doris

10:40

Careful who your friends are This

10:43

must take a lot of work Yeah,

10:46

I mean Yeah, so this

10:49

song has been stuck in my head I think we can

10:51

all agree it is a jam It's

10:54

a jam Totally, a thousand percent I

10:56

mean, though it is weird, it's a

10:59

weird candidate for like an earworm because

11:01

it's not, you

11:04

know, there's not really like a chorus But

11:06

I think it leaves the chorus to the imagination

11:09

Like it has a very like, it

11:11

has like a build where like you get

11:13

to decide what happens next I see

11:16

You know?

11:16

Wait, sorry, should we back up? Should

11:18

we explain what's going on here? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah What's actually

11:21

going on here? I mean, I have to imagine a lot

11:23

of people listening to this already know this meme

11:25

But the characters are Helen

11:29

Highwater has posted the

11:31

initial Facebook post So this, the

11:33

song was written to accompany

11:37

the lyrics written

11:39

by these people talking on Facebook This is

11:41

sort of an old people Facebook

11:44

meme

11:45

kind of vibe It is a

11:48

conversation on Facebook and the

11:50

artist Lublin has

11:53

set their words to music and

11:55

then acted them out in a TikTok

11:58

video

11:59

The conversation starts with Helen

12:02

who posts, Caroline,

12:07

keep my name out of your thin

12:09

mouth. Such a

12:11

good answer. Her status,

12:14

which is a great opener, great

12:16

opening, could be the opening of a novel. And

12:19

then the responses to that

12:21

are from other people. Someone

12:23

else, Alicia Lower, is the

12:26

next person who says, what did

12:28

Caroline do, Helen? And then

12:31

Helen says, she stole my broccoli

12:33

casserole recipe eight years ago and

12:35

claimed it was hers. And

12:37

then a new

12:39

challenger appears, Doris,

12:42

who says, you're not talking about

12:44

my B friend, best friend, Carolyn.

12:47

She's a Christian lady. And

12:49

then Helen says, no, she's

12:51

a rotten recipe stealing bitch, Doris.

12:55

Careful who your friends are. That's

12:58

the exchange. It's really good without the music.

13:00

It's really great without the music. Sorry,

13:03

so she stole

13:05

the recipe eight years

13:07

ago and claimed

13:09

it was hers. Yes. She

13:12

stole the recipe eight years ago.

13:14

Did she claim it was hers eight years ago?

13:17

Or did she- Unclear. And this person

13:19

has been sitting with this beef for eight years, or

13:22

did she steal it eight years

13:25

ago and then eight years later, suddenly-

13:28

Here's the deal. I think she- And that's why it's an issue now.

13:31

No, no, no, Caroline stole it

13:33

eight years ago and has been making

13:35

it for eight years, but it just got

13:37

back to this person. Or

13:40

who knows how long she's been making it, but it just got

13:42

back to this person that she stole

13:44

it. And so this person has traced

13:47

it back to the exact exchange where

13:49

she got the recipe and she knows

13:51

it was eight years ago.

13:53

But I don't understand this. Is there like

13:55

a county fair broccoli

13:58

casserole recipe competition?

13:59

or something, like why is it such a big deal? No, I actually

14:02

think recipes are notoriously hard to

14:04

track in this way. Like you

14:06

can't really copyright a recipe. Well, I'm

14:08

just saying, why is it such a big deal that she stole

14:10

it? Why does the theft matter

14:13

unless? Well, the theft matters because

14:15

like, you know, like if I make a New York Times

14:17

recipe and someone is like, oh my God, this is

14:19

amazing.

14:21

And I say, oh, I got it from New York Times cooking

14:23

versus if I say I made it up.

14:26

One is more impressive than the other. Right,

14:28

also it may be that Caroline

14:30

said something about Helen and

14:32

then Helen said, don't talk about me. I'll

14:35

dredge up this eight year old crime

14:38

you did against me. Anyway,

14:40

all that is to say, I thought it would

14:42

be funny if we got the recipe and made it and

14:44

that that could be like an episode, right? Like that's a

14:46

concept. So I went to go find

14:49

her and I immediately found out

14:52

that it was fake. Wait,

14:54

what? Oh, was it the guy? Wait,

14:57

what's his name? The guy

14:59

who does all these like fake exchanges on TikTok?

15:03

Or is this like, is this like one of those,

15:05

like you hear about like Gen

15:09

Z'ers making like fake Facebook

15:12

groups where they pretend to all work in some boring

15:14

office job and they're like sending

15:17

like fake

15:18

messages to each other in

15:21

really corny way. Is it like that? Interesting.

15:24

Well, I found out it was fake because of Buzzfeed.

15:28

I will go ahead and read to you the

15:30

bit of this Buzzfeed article. So Buzzfeed wrote

15:32

about the song

15:33

because it was

15:35

going so viral. And then this

15:37

is just a little aside in the middle of the story.

15:40

As for the woman angry

15:42

over the broccoli casserole recipe, it doesn't

15:44

appear she is actually a real person. A 37

15:47

year old elementary school teacher in Texas

15:49

who asked not to be named to protect

15:52

her privacy told Buzzfeed news

15:54

she was role playing as Helen Highwater

15:56

back in March, 2020, when she posted

15:58

the broccoli status.

16:01

and began interacting with Doris, who

16:03

she said was another role player.

16:05

Oh man, this is so enlightened

16:08

actually. This is the only

16:10

proper way to use the internet, I think. I

16:12

mean, you would have eloquent things to say about this.

16:14

Do you guys follow that guy? His name's

16:17

Ben Palmer.

16:19

And he basically does this, like

16:23

he does these trolls on Facebook.

16:25

So like, let me find

16:27

a good one to show you guys. Helen

16:30

is just role playing in a group

16:32

that is presumably made up of other people who are

16:34

role playing. It's like just for fun. It's like

16:36

improv basically, and

16:39

they take on these characters.

16:41

Oh, I see. Yes,

16:43

this guy's a troll. Someone in the Blue

16:45

Springs, Missouri neighborhood group commented

16:47

and said that they're having squirrel problems and

16:50

they need to get rid of them. Their yard looks like a squirrel

16:52

refuge. And then my friend Evelyn responded

16:55

and said that she's a professional animal control

16:57

expert that's been laid off. But is more than happy

16:59

to provide professional advice free of

17:01

charge. Then somebody else responded and

17:04

said that they had the same problem too with the squirrels.

17:06

And Evelyn said, sorry to hear about that.

17:08

I do have a controversial method known

17:11

as the fat squirrel method. What you

17:13

do is drop off a couple of fat squirrels

17:15

and it generally scares off the weaker squirrels.

17:17

And she responded and said, that's intimidating

17:20

to me. Please don't be intimidated. It's

17:22

my job. I have a couple I can drop off at your

17:24

place. Just let me know when and where and

17:26

the fat squirrels will be there. She's like, Ben,

17:28

do you pick up the fat squirrel later? I'm

17:30

sorry, but once the fat squirrel gets there, it never

17:33

leaves.

17:34

So he just does

17:36

a lot of stuff like that where

17:38

he pretends to be boomers, I think

17:40

often on Facebook groups

17:43

and has these exchanges or he'll pretend

17:45

to be like Applebee's and comment on like

17:47

a margaritas discount or whatever.

17:50

Okay. That's pranking though. It's

17:53

like a boomer trap, yeah. Pranking's

17:56

basic, role-playing as deep

17:58

like.

19:56

about

20:00

the TikTok is that he like

20:03

structures, I mean, the way he structures like

20:06

broccoli, casserole recipe, and

20:08

turns that into

20:11

just pure oral

20:13

choreography, it's beautiful.

20:16

She stole my broccoli, casserole

20:19

recipe, eight years ago. She

20:25

claimed it was hers. So if he had come up

20:27

with the words, it would be a little more disappointing.

20:30

But I actually think it's more impressive

20:34

that it's fake in general,

20:37

that

20:37

the origins of it are fake because some

20:40

of the lines I feel like are

20:43

much more a work of brilliance if

20:45

they're just from somebody

20:48

creating something out of thin air versus

20:50

someone who is saying something in a heated

20:53

exchange, right?

20:54

I think you mean out of their thin mouth. Right.

20:58

Right, to create out of

21:00

your thin mouth, out of thin air is pure

21:02

poetry.

21:05

It is. Versus, yeah, if

21:07

someone who is actually trying to insult

21:10

someone with a thin mouth, then it's just like, oh,

21:12

they just got angry at the thin mouth lady. You

21:15

know what I'm saying? Yeah. I'm

21:17

kind of impressed.

21:19

She's a rotten recipe

21:21

stealing, bitch. Doris.

21:28

Oh. Careful who

21:30

your friends are.

21:32

All right, so at this point,

21:34

I'm like, okay, so Helen, this thing was

21:36

fake, Helen and Doris are fake.

21:39

To me, I was a little disappointed.

21:42

I thought it was a little bit more beautiful when it was all organic,

21:44

but anyway, I tried to figure

21:46

out the

21:47

origin of the exchange.

21:52

This is like a familiar task. I think we

21:54

do a lot to be like, where was the

21:56

first time this thing appeared? And

21:59

in the course.

21:59

of doing that, I came across more

22:02

of Helen's work. So here's another example

22:04

of Helen in the wild. Helen

22:07

in the wild. Does someone want

22:09

to describe this

22:11

tweet? Okay, sure. Helen

22:15

says, single

22:18

men, there's two spaces between single

22:20

and men, single men in Ohio,

22:23

Ohio in all caps, send me

22:26

two spaces between me and a private

22:28

message space comma, comma space.

22:31

And looking for love all

22:33

caps followed by two spaces and

22:37

companion ship, C-O-M-P-A-N-O-I-N

22:44

SHIP. Sorry,

22:47

that was really tedious. It says single men in Ohio,

22:49

send me a private message and looking for love

22:51

and companionship.

22:53

And then? Should I play Patricia?

22:56

Okay, so Patricia Hannon responds.

23:00

Helen Highwater, space space.

23:03

I think you commented on the wrong info.

23:05

We are praying for a beautiful 21 year

23:08

old girl in ICU

23:10

fighting for her

23:11

life. And

23:15

then Helen says, she, which

23:17

I believe is followed by three spaces, she

23:21

would want me to be happy.

23:25

I mean, who knows, she might. This

23:29

one seems like trolling. Yeah.

23:32

So I did find the full original

23:34

exchange and the song

23:36

has edited it together

23:38

a little bit. There were more responses in

23:40

between the responses that

23:42

the artists chose to put to

23:45

song and that were in that screenshot.

23:47

But just for fun, here's

23:49

the full exchange.

23:52

See, I think if I saw this, I would think

23:54

it was fake. Yeah, so this is

23:56

just a super long exchange.

23:59

There's 20. It just goes on for so long and

24:01

really turns it to 11

24:08

on the rhetoric. Yeah, this

24:11

is just like, this is a little like

24:13

Tiger King-esque to me. So we're

24:15

looking at a series of screenshots, the

24:17

rest of this conversation between Helen, Caroline,

24:21

Caroline is now weighed in, Doris

24:24

and all of these other people. And

24:26

they're saying,

24:28

they're just saying

24:32

the most over the top. I

24:34

mean, the only thing I've ever stolen is the heart of

24:36

our Lord. Go

24:39

cry about that man, don't want you some

24:41

more. You don't even know my husband,

24:44

blah, blah, blah, blah, it gets really, it's just

24:48

like a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, okay.

24:50

So that's the whole exchange.

24:53

And then the next link that I put in

24:55

Slack is just where I found someone

24:58

from when this apparently went viral the first time,

25:00

April 1, 2020, this is just a random,

25:02

it

25:05

looks like it went viral on Facebook. And

25:08

this is just a random one of the posts

25:10

about it. And it has the little link to the original.

25:13

And if you click on the original, it says this

25:15

content isn't available right now. So the

25:17

Buzzfeed article says that Helen

25:20

and Doris were suspended because Facebook

25:22

found out that they were not real people. And

25:26

so I'm guessing that it was taken down

25:28

because of that.

25:29

So anyway, when I first

25:31

saw the original song,

25:34

the Lublin song, it did not

25:36

occur to me that this could be people role playing on Facebook.

25:39

And so

25:41

as I started to try to figure out

25:43

the origin of that exchange,

25:46

I just kept running across more of

25:48

these exchanges with Helen

25:50

and

25:51

there is another short

25:53

exchange that

25:58

I'll just put into Slack. And

26:00

then I'll tell you the part, the stuff that's

26:02

new. So this

26:04

is an exchange between Frank

26:07

Riley and Helen Highwater

26:10

on Facebook. Frank says, wow,

26:12

wow, wow, very sexy, very

26:14

spelled V-A-R-Y, all caps. Helen

26:17

responds, Frank Riley, thank you, Frank. You

26:20

could learn a thing or two. Frank

26:22

responds, I am learned from

26:24

my grandson how to be sexy

26:26

these days. Exclamation point.

26:30

So this seems again

26:32

to be not a

26:34

genuine exchange. So

26:38

at this point I was just like, okay,

26:40

so there's like role playing, but like why

26:43

are they role playing? Was the original

26:45

thing inside of a Facebook group for

26:47

role playing and then it escaped somehow?

26:50

So I got in touch with Helen.

26:53

Oh wow. No, in character? She

26:56

stepped out of character for me. Okay.

26:59

So I just wanted

27:02

to just like understand

27:04

a little bit more about this thing about role playing. Like

27:06

I roughly understand that people are role playing on the internet,

27:09

but I just didn't really understand

27:11

if this was a troll or if anyway.

27:14

So I messaged Helen and

27:17

we'll

27:18

just call her she responded

27:20

and said, so originally she

27:24

had posted Caroline,

27:26

keep your name out of your, keep my name out of your

27:29

thin mouth as a Facebook status.

27:32

And she said, quote,

27:33

I thought I only had it where

27:35

friends could see it, but I accidentally had

27:37

my statuses left open for the public. So

27:41

that's how another reason how people got

27:43

the screenshot and all that.

27:45

And I said, whoa, okay. So some of the people responding

27:47

were real. And she said, more like

27:50

a lot of the people were real. The only ones

27:52

who were role playing were Caroline and Doris.

27:55

I

28:00

said, okay, you're making me paranoid that every

28:02

boomer on Facebook is role playing now. Were

28:04

you in a group for role playing? And she said, no,

28:06

she said, LOL, I

28:09

will tell you there's a 50, 50% chance of

28:12

a boomer being fake or real. So

28:14

she said, no, they were not in a group, or

28:17

rather Caroline and Doris were in a group together,

28:19

but Helen wasn't part of it. It all

28:21

just started with Helen posting the status and

28:24

then people started commenting, Doris talked about Caroline,

28:26

and

28:27

that's how it took off. Wait,

28:29

so Helen really is the one who wrote,

28:32

my biracial grand babies are beautiful

28:34

and a lot better than the meth addicted, fake

28:37

Christian bitches you call children. Jesus.

28:41

So Helen, they're

28:43

all role players. Helen is a role player,

28:45

Caroline is a role player, Doris is a role player. All

28:48

of the other people responding are not. I

28:50

mean, maybe some of them are, but- God, okay, sorry,

28:52

I missed Helen being a role player. Yes, Helen

28:54

is a role player and Helen's who I'm talking to.

28:57

And so apparently Doris

29:00

and Caroline were in a boomers

29:03

Facebook group for role players, but

29:05

Helen was not. She

29:08

said, I

29:10

really have no idea why people role

29:12

play boomers. I just role played an older lady

29:14

because I've never done it before. I actually have

29:17

been a role player since 2006. Don't

29:19

think that us pretending to be boomers or people who

29:21

role play in general are weird. We aren't weird, we're just

29:23

people that need to unwind from the real world.

29:26

Yeah.

29:27

And I was, I sent her the Frank Riley thing

29:30

and I was like, is Frank

29:32

a role player? And she said, oh yeah, Frank is fake,

29:34

LOL. Yeah, he's a role player. I

29:36

said, do you know him? And she said, no, I just

29:39

know his character. Not sure if he's still around.

29:42

I do know the person that plays Doris. I

29:44

know they're a real out of character person. And

29:47

then I said, was this originally

29:49

trolling? Like, is it a prank? And

29:52

she said, no, not at all. I'm a private person. I

29:54

just did Helen for a way to release some stress and

29:57

just be funny.

29:58

That's what I try to do. Just say crazy stuff.

29:59

to brighten people's day because life isn't all

30:02

that great right now due to COVID. So it really makes

30:04

me happy when fans message me telling me that

30:06

I made their day and I made them laugh.

30:09

This is great. Yeah,

30:10

that's very sweet. Wow. I mean,

30:12

I do stand by what I said. I really do

30:15

think this is one of the most enlightened ways

30:17

to use

30:18

the internet in 2021. I just,

30:21

every time I get, every time I start

30:23

to become naive enough to believe that something on

30:26

the internet is real, I'm reminded that

30:28

you really have, the default should be that it's

30:30

not real.

30:30

That should be your default assumption. Sure,

30:33

but the artist,

30:35

the artist still art, like

30:38

they didn't realize it.

30:40

The artist still art, it's still great. I think

30:42

for me, it's a little bit less

30:44

funny. Huh. Yeah.

30:46

Just my sense of humor personally. It's one

30:49

too many times. I just think, I

30:52

thought it, I just liked it better when I thought it wasn't

30:54

real. Right. But

30:56

if you saw the, if you saw the actual

30:58

exchange, like once you saw that full exchange,

31:01

weren't you a little bit relieved that it wasn't real?

31:03

Yeah, definitely. But I hadn't,

31:05

by the time I saw the full exchange, I knew it was fake.

31:08

Right.

31:09

The moral

31:11

of the story is, don't believe

31:14

what you read on the internet. You

31:16

can only trust podcasts. Unless,

31:20

unless you read them on the internet. These are all characters

31:22

we're playing. This is actually all

31:24

one person on this podcast, believe

31:27

it or not. I would be such a lame character.

31:31

Yeah. As someone who would come up with the four of us, is

31:33

that four characters? Either.

31:37

They're either brilliant

31:38

or there's a real lack of imagination. Yeah. They really need to go back

31:40

to the drawing board.

31:50

Thanks for listening. Under Understood is John

31:52

Lago-Marcino, Billy Disney, Adrian

31:55

Jeffries, and me, Regina Delay. Our

31:57

editor is Ryan Manning. Thank you so

31:59

much.

31:59

to our Patreon supporters. This

32:02

story originally aired as a piece

32:05

of an episode there. There's still lots

32:08

of stuff on Patreon, and we're doing a monthly

32:10

live show that is only

32:13

accessible there. And Discord,

32:15

only accessible if you are on Patreon.

32:17

And you know what? When you support

32:20

us on Patreon, don't pay us with real money. Just pay

32:22

us with fake money, because, you know, even

32:24

if it's fake, it's real. I

32:27

think I'm seeing your point.

32:29

I disagree. Thanks

32:31

for listening. See you next week.