Hey, I'm Kate Lindsay, and you're listening to I-C-Y-M-I, or in case you missed it, Slate's

podcast about internet culture. And today on the show, we are

welcoming back Josh Laura. Josh is a content creator and writer who breaks down pop culture

through a sociological lens. Josh, welcome back. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be

here. We are here today to talk about Chapel Rhone and specifically why it feels like the internet

is always trying to cancel her.

But first, Josh, you and I are new members of a group that I am calling Lindy West Discourse Anonymous.

Oh my God.

I actually just published a substack today and half of it was just bullets where it was like everyone else's like thoughts and all all the discourse. But I'm happy to be back.

No, I wanted to talk about it because I would say like you and I both kind of found ourselves as maybe not primary sources, but like part of it, part of the discourse.

Because you, I would say, and to your credit, you like hopped on this discourse before it actually, I think even had the book come out yet. Yeah. So the day that the modern love interview came out, I said, and what's this? I had obviously been following the case, and I was... The case is so funny. Well, I was very topped into when they did the Thruple announcement and I said, oh, what's this now?

So I listened to the interview, the day it dropped and I made my video the day it dropped and it went viral.

And as I said, in everywhere else, the sort of Jezebel era commenters were very mad at me.

The like Lindy West Hive, like Gen X versus everyone else.

So I found myself sort of watching this. It wasn't even a generational war. It was like Jezebel era commenters versus the polyamory community who were standing up for themselves. And they were like, this isn't Polly. She doesn't represent us. Yeah. because i sort of framed my investigation as i don't think that you are qualified to speak as a

leader of the poly community when we know the represent us. Yeah. Because I sort of framed my investigation as I don't think that you are

qualified to speak as a leader of the poly community when we know the circumstances of your

journey into polyamory. And everyone agreed with me. And then, of course, the Jezebel Aera commenters

were like, how dare you? Yeah. I know. We've had weirdly, I say weirdly because you don't,

you're not used to this on the internet. Like I was similarly gearing up because I had, I know. We've had weirdly, I say weirdly because you don't, you're not used to this on the internet.

Like, I was similarly gearing up because I had, you know, seen your video and then obviously the sort of that dynamic you just described.

And then I was waiting to get the same type of divided feedback.

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