Encore: The internet's fight over dinosaur emoji

Endless Thread

WBUR

Reddit, Technology

4.2 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A few years ago, we brought you the story of how dinosaur emoji had entered the debate about trans rights.

We were reminded of this episode recently when a White House memorandum lambasted NPR for spreading "radical, woke propaganda" and linked to our story as an example. After the memo, President Trump signed an executive order to stop federal funding to NPR and PBS.

We stand by our reporting. And so we decided to bring you the episode again.

*****

We love making Endless Thread, and we want to be able to keep making it far into the future. If you want that too, we would deeply appreciate your contribution to our work in any amount. Click here for the donation page. Thank you!

*****

This episode was written and produced by Dean Russell. Mix and sound design by Matt Reed. The co-hosts are Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson. Special thanks for Dane Grey for the artwork.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from B.U's Mayrotra Institute
0:06.2	that explores questions like, why are executives paid so much? Do they deserve it? Listen wherever
0:12.8	you get your podcasts. Hey, endless friends. Do you like dinosaurs? Do you like Jurassic Park, the movie? A few years ago, we made
0:24.2	an episode about how dinosaur emoji had entered the debate about trans rights in ways you'll
0:29.9	hear about in a moment. And we were reminded of this episode recently when a congressional hearing
0:35.3	about funding for public media mentioned public radio's quote,
0:40.2	woke agenda. We were again reminded when recently the White House put out a press release linking to our
0:47.5	episode. And again, when the other day, President Trump signed an executive order to remove
0:54.0	corporation for public broadcasting
0:56.0	funding from NPR and PBS.
0:59.1	You probably won't be shocked to learn that endless thread stands by our reporting about
1:03.8	dinosaurs and queer communities that love them.
1:07.5	You may also know that the vast majority of funding for public media organizations like WBUR
1:12.3	doesn't come from the government. It comes from listeners who support what we do. So we're going to
1:19.4	play you our episode about Dinos again. And if you want to support the work we do, reminder that you
1:25.0	should direct your little T-R arms to type on your computer, WBUR.org
1:30.8	slash donate.
1:32.8	All right.
1:33.8	Here's the show.
1:35.5	Roar. WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
1:51.4	All right, so, Amory, can you read this, an incredible piece of literature?
1:55.5	We've got a telephone.
	...

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