Coachella, GRWM fakers, and Justin Bieber is chronically online
Top Comment
BBC
2.8 • 947 Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2026
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ahead of Coachella's second weekend, Matt and Marianna are discussing how the festival often referred to as the 'Influencer Olympics' has become a microcosm of creator culture. They chat about people posting from their hotels without ever entering the event, the TikTokers mourning collapsed brand deals which may never have existed, and the AI influencers sharing their generated experiences in the desert.
Also this week, social media outrage appears to be fuelling protests over Surrey Police's response to the rape of a young woman by a group of men in Epsom. As online speculation grows about the racial identity of the suspects, how does this situation compare to more extreme examples of violence such as the Southport Riots?
Plus, as Johnny Somali is jailed in South Korea and Clavicular is hospitalised after an apparent overdose, we explain why streamers feel increasingly incentivised to take risks for their content.
Top Comment is hosted by Marianna Spring and Matt Shea. The series producer is Laurie Kalus. The social producer is Sophie Millward. The technical producer was Philip Bull. The editor is Justine Lang. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
If you want to get in touch about something that's popped up on your feed, our email address is topcomment@bbc.co.uk or you can send us a WhatsApp on +44 330 123 9480.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | In 2001, a brutal crime shattered the close-knit Welsh community. |
| 0:11.9 | It was extremely sadistic. |
| 0:14.4 | Fear spreads through the village. |
| 0:16.3 | Neighbours look at one another differently. |
| 0:18.5 | It felt like a monster that was looming over the community. |
| 0:22.7 | This is a story about a community trying to make sense of the unthinkable. |
| 0:27.5 | The shock at finding out who the offender was. |
| 0:29.9 | How could we've got it so wrong? |
| 0:31.8 | The Anglesey vampire killer. |
| 0:33.5 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.2 | Last week we interviewed the team behind the viral AI Lego propaganda videos. |
| 0:41.4 | And since then, top comment has been flooded with pro-Iran people on social media, |
| 0:49.8 | hundreds of comments saying that the BBC is propaganda and that there's a conspiracy theory |
| 0:55.7 | that we put the interview out to kind of get them banned from YouTube? |
| 1:01.0 | Yeah, obviously that's not the case. |
| 1:03.7 | But it's interesting because it actually touches on what we were discussing last week, |
| 1:07.8 | which is the way that pro-Iranian accounts are particularly good at distorting |
| 1:13.3 | or manipulating the social media conversation. I went and had to look at some of the accounts |
| 1:18.0 | that had been resharing the article, the podcast episode, and loads of them have the kind of |
| 1:23.2 | hallmarks of what we'd call bot accounts. Like they seem to only push out a particular message. |
| 1:28.0 | They don't have any identifying details. Obviously, they could be part of something more |
... |
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