Hello, Slate Plus listeners. It is Lizzie O'Leary. You probably know that if you're listening to this. Welcome to The Discourse from What Next TBD. Every episode, I sit down with smart, extremely online people to talk about one big thing in the online conversation from the week. This is available exclusively to Slate Plus members. So to those in our

very special club, we say thank you and welcome. This week, I am joined by Slate staff writer

Natish Pawwa. Also, extremely online, Slate staff writer Natish Pawwa. Welcome.

Thanks, Lizzie. Happy to be here.

Is it a source of pride or shame to be extremely online?

At this point, I think I just accept it.

Like, it just is.

Like, I grew up in this space.

I still remember going on the dial-up, so I just, I don't know. I'm sort of like

the James Woods and Videodrome. You know, I'm merging with the TV or with the computer, as it were.

All right. So the big thing that we're going to talk about from this week was the inauguration.

But for our purposes, it's more about who got to sit

front and center and bring their spouses. So, okay, we had Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, TikTok CEO, Shuzhi, all featured really close to the new president.

We got to start with the right hand, right arm guy,

Elon Musk. Okay. So he had this moment at the inauguration where he did, what are we going to call it?

Nazi salute, Roman salute? Enormous troll.

That is a great question. I mean, I think it's worth just calling it like we saw it and not just how we saw it, but how the intended audiences saw it.

Ding, ding, ding. You saw a lot of people of a more far-right or a white supremacist-leaning

nature, the guy who runs the social network gab, for one, celebrating the gesture.

A lot of people saying, you know, I don't care if it was a mistake.

I'm just so happy.

We're so back.

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