The “Am I the A**Hole” Economy Is Thriving
S1: Am I the also for getting upset with my husband after he told me nothing will change while I’m pregnant.
S2: Hi, I’m Madison Malone Karcher.
S3: And I’m Rachel Hampton. And you’re listening to ISSUE. I’m-I’m.
S2: In case you missed it.
S3: Please podcast about Internet culture.
S2: It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day. It’s new week. Rachel, we’re back.
S3: It’s a new life. And I’m feeling good.
S2: Thank you for picking that up so seamlessly.
S3: Of course. I mean, Nina Simone, an icon. Is that a cover of a song? I don’t know. And I don’t care.
S2: If it is. I don’t care to know because it didn’t exist before, Nina. Today, however, we’re here to talk about something that existed after Nina, which is tick tock.
S3: I was going to say there’s a lot of things that existed after Nina Simone did, but Tick Tock is definitely one of them. But what’s going on over on the clock app?
S2: So over on Tick Tock over the weekend, earlier this week, I started seeing tweets from various people who were pretty angry and were claiming that Tick Tock had removed the repost button. And what was interesting to me was not that people were mad at a tech platform for removing a feature. What was interesting to me was I had never heard of this feature.
S3: I am too in the dark about this one. I do think that’s probably a function of how we both use tick tock, which is that I have not, nor will I ever post on Tick Tock, because that is not my lane. And so I understand. Why should the repost feature exist? Tick tock would not have given it to me.
S2: That’s fair. Yes, I consider tick tock to be a television channel and nothing more. But for many people who, you know, use tick tock to the fullest extent of its tackiness, there was a repost button. And in January of this year, TechCrunch reported that Tick Tock was testing out this new repost feature, which would allow users to repost videos they liked by sending it to their friends for you pages. So it was a share option when you click the share button and if you have it, it looks like a little yellow circle with the standard repost icon. You know, two arrows in a square pointing clockwise.
S3: I’m kind of surprised by this because the only thing about Tick Tock really is the algorithm. And this in a lot of ways is giving people power over other people’s algorithm, which kind of seems antithetical to tick tock.
S2: Yeah. But on the other hand, and that is a clock pun, the repost button itself is actually another useful piece of data for the algorithm to, you know, generate content based on because it then learns what you liked enough to say. Hey, I want to make sure that everyone who follows me sees this. I think they’ll like it.
S3: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. It feels like it would probably influence in the same way that whenever I share tick tock specifically to somebody over SMS, the clock app is like, Hello? Yes, I will be giving you more Twilight content.
S2: In my Twitter inspired research, I did learn that the repost button is not to just flood your followers feeds with tiktoks that you like, but rather it’s only if we’re mutual. So if you follow me and I follow you and I repost a tick tock, right? It almost removes the need for me to text you the tick tock about the Sound of Music x twilight at all.
S3: This kind of feels like close friends. Tick tock.
S2: Yeah. And I could see why people might be bummed. I don’t know that the the outsized reaction I witnessed on Twitter this weekend was quite called for. But, you know, it seemed like a good feature.
S3: So the repost button, it existed and now it doesn’t.
S2: It was never a publicly released feature, so not everyone was able to access it, or even like you and I knew that it existed. But from the the looks of Twitter or the cursory looks I gave it after I started seeing the phrase Tick tock, repost button, there were some people who were mad. And by mad I mean in, in the sort of stan language of the Internet that people get mad in, which is to say, you know, I’m going to die without the tick tock repost button, I will simply perish. Life is not worth, not worth living, that sort of thing.
S3: So a lot of people were mad. The repost button was taken away and is it forever gone? Like, what exactly is the next step here?
S2: The next step is we reached out to tick tock and we will let you know what they say. I don’t have it. You don’t have it. Our producer, Daniel, does have it. So, you know, he could he could repost tic talks with abandon if he’d like to right now. I’m sorry if this makes you feel like life is not worth living, but I will simply continue watching. Tick tock like it is. Bravo.
S3: Speaking of Bravo, we have some Real Housewives level drama on the show. That’s right. We are talking about the subreddit. Am I the asshole? Which, to be quite honest, Bravo should 100% adapt into a reality television show. I don’t know how it would work, but I think that it would.
S2: I have to say that I know what today’s episode is about, and as you begin to see that we have drama on the show today, my heart just stopped and I was like, Are we feuding?
S3: Mm hmm. Am I the asshole? We’ll find.
S2: Out. Yeah. Let’s go with that. After a quick break, we’ll return to tell you which host is the asshole. Not really, but we will talk about what the am I the asshole subreddit is how it’s grown out of its Reddit roots and why we the internet denizens cannot get enough of it. After that, we’ll be talking to a Tik Tok who has become the voice of so many of these posts. She needs no introduction. You will know her when you hear her.
S3: And we’re back on Reddit.
S2: Rachael, before we begin, I have maybe a stupid question. When you write out, am I the asshole shorthand? Is it Aita or Aita?
S3: Okay, I see it in my head.
S2: Okay, I’ll go with that. I’ve been saying Aita in my head like the opera, but that I always knew was wrong. So Aita, it is all right.
S3: Either is one of the most popular subreddits on the site. It’s ah, am I the asshole? And it’s a place where people basically ask the question, Am I the asshole? They post a story about some personal interaction they’re having in life so that other people can read it, determine whether or not the Post was an asshole, and in the process, just judge them as a good or bad person.
S2: I know it was created in 2013 by a man named Mark who wanted to find out if he was wrong about an argument he was having in his office with his female co-workers about a classic The Temperature. I don’t even need to read it to know that Mark was wrong, and from that point on, history had been made. So almost ten years since the founding of IRA, the original subreddit has currently just under 4 million members and we will once again make the disclaimer we always do when we talk about Reddit sub numbers. Rachel and I spent a lot of time on Reddit. We do not subscribe. So just, you know, notch that number up in your head. There are spin offs of the subreddit like the idea filtered, which is basically like a best of or most controversial. There’s a am I the butt face? The list goes on. But what we’re saying this is a thing capital a capital T tiny trademark sign.
S3: Emoji asshole describes itself as.
S2: Do it in British. Oh.
S3: All right. A catharsis for the frustrated more philosopher in all of us. And a place to finally find out if you’re wrong in an argument that’s been bothering you. Tell us about any nonviolent conflict you’ve experienced. Give us both sides of the story and find out if you’re right or if you’re the asshole.
S2: That was delightful. Thank you. The stories, however, do not sound as quaint as that description. They are wild. Like often, I find myself reading these stories and thinking that if they were presented to me in a book or television show or movie, you wouldn’t believe them. The dramatic tension, it’s just too high.
S3: It’s incredible. And it’s gotten to the point that there has been some conspiracy mongering that I’ve seen that honestly, I would believe that a non insubstantial amount of posts in this Reddit are basically just creative writing projects. To which I say thank you for the entertainment. That’s why we need writers. That’s why we need artists.
S2: But that’s the other thing that makes me want to keep reading these is people are freaking weird, people are whining. And so sure do I believe some of these maybe a good chunk of them are fake? Absolutely. But that leaves another chunk and those will sustain me.
S3: Speaking of chunks, we have some. Here’s a chunk of the front page of the IRA subreddit on the day they were recording. Am I the asshole for not attending my mom’s wedding? Because on the day my dad died.
S2: Am I the asshole for not taking the blame for my cousin that got her arrested?
S3: I’m on the asshole for being a nerd of my wife for not telling you she was going for the same promotion as me.
S2: Am I the asshole for not giving my sister breastmilk for her unborn baby? Am I the asshole for telling a girl to stop pretending to be a mermaid?
S3: As with most online communities, the IRA subreddit have developed their own shorthand lingo. Readers commenters weigh in on the actual status of the OP or original poster, and they say, either, Whitey, you’re the asshole in here, not the asshole. S.H.. Everyone sucks here in age. No assholes here. Or info which I feel self-explanatory but is usually a request for more information.
S2: It’s never just those letters. There’s always a reason for the determination because that is almost all of the fun of reading. These is getting to be like judge, jury and therapist.
S3: I love how much just theorizing goes on in the comments of a particular member of the asshole post. They also have a tendency to change over the course of their life because the user, the original poster will sometimes share updates or edits. Adding more context or explaining what’s transpired since posting and usually is when the person is not the asshole and they’re like, I cut this person off and I’m like, You go.
S2: The one that immediately springs to mind, which we covered on this show in a high speed download, is, of course, the classic. Am I the. Asshole for, quote, perpetuating ethnic stereotypes about jorts.
S3: Oh, perfect post. Please explain it to the listeners who did not listen to our high speed download.
S2: I simply cannot. But basically you need to know that this office had cats and one of them was orange and not very bright. And a colleague of this poster was trying to like defend the cat’s honor, but also trying to teach it to fend for itself by like trapping it in closets and covering a cat in butter. It was very dramatic in the end. George Scott You know, corporate protection from being covered in butter.
S3: If you’re being covered in butter in your workplace, please call your local union.
S2: You may be entitled to financial compensation.
S3: As you can tell, by how much fun Myanmars are having with this. And many asshole posts are incredibly fun because even if and by if, I mean when. Because I literally never post my opinion about these online, I always just have one in my head because these posts are basically advice columns, dear prudence if you will, except crowdsourced. We’re all advice columnist in the Idol world. And at its best I feel like I’m going to get a little a little bit a little a little sappy and it’s best to kind of answers like pretty human questions of what do we know each other? And it’s worse. It’s just incredibly petty.
S2: The other thing that’s really interesting about Ira is that it’s a huge community on Reddit and a thriving one, but it doesn’t only live on Reddit, much to the chagrin consternation of some of the like OG the asshole posters. Because one of the more interesting nuances between the original subreddit and the expansion of the Am I the asshole extended universe across the internet is that there is an implicit assumption that the original post or OP is reading the responses on the subreddit because why else would they post versus when an IDA post gets screencap and shared to Twitter with a way wider audience and the possibility that OP will never see it?
S3: I will say that Reddit as a website community forum honestly offers some pretty helpful advice sometimes. So the original subreddit well, there are a lot of people just ripping people to absolute shreds. There is often really helpful advice, but when these posts make their way onto Twitter or any other place on the Internet or Tumblr or whatever, the posts give diverse metaphysical contexts. So the comments and their PIs and the quote tweets on Twitter transform into a performance for other Twitter users rather than anything useful for OP. And while that dynamic is present on Reddit Twitter just turbocharge.
S2: Is it honestly not a bad growth hack?
S3: This growth hack isn’t exclusive to Twitter, though. There are many different places on the internet where you can find maybe asshole posts that are not Reddit like Tok. Obviously no one is going to be reading a giant block of text on Tik Tok, but you will find audio of people reading those posts all over the app. They’re kind of the perfect background for any activity. I’m going to be honest. You could be chopping wood, you could be doing makeup, you could be cooking, and people will just have playing in the background. Someone reading an Am I the asshole post and it works.
S2: It really does work. I do not have a vested interest in cake, frosting or resin art pouring, but I have watched so many of those videos because they were underscored by these fascinating am I the asshole stories which are so incredibly compelling? And the thing is, if you watch enough of them, you realize this is the same person reading over and over and over again. So naturally we decided to talk to this infamous voice. Her name is Mallola Khalidi or at Love Underscore Lola on tick tock. Love is spelled with two owls. She’s a tech talker who has blown up thanks to Ida posts, posting almost exclusively videos of herself reading AI to stories directly to camera.
S3: We’ll be back Mallola after a short break.
S2: If you love our podcast, then consider subscribing to Slate. Plus, it means you’ll get no ads on our show or on any Slate podcast. It also would mean you’re supporting economy. What we do every week would not be possible without support. Slate Plus really helps us keep the show going. You’ll get bonus segments or extra episodes of shows like Slow Burn, Amazon’s Hit Parade, Hang Up and listen. The list goes on and on and it’s all good stuff. You’ll also get a limited reading on the Slate website, which means access to every article and every advice column on Slate without ever hitting a paywall. Just visit Slate.com Slash. I see. Why am I plus two? Sign up. That’s Slate.com Slash. I see. Why am I. Plus. All right. We are back with Mallola, who you might know by her TikTok handle love, Lola. And frankly, if you don’t know her handle, you probably will recognize her voice. Welcome to the show.
S1: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
S3: We are so excited to have you with us. For our audience members who may not have come across a video of yours on their FIP. Could you describe a typical video of yours?
S1: You know, I love to see the first sentence. It might jog people’s memories. So majority of my videos start off as am I wrong for walking out on my sister’s birthday party after she announced she was pregnant? Am I the asshole for kicking my sister out after she threw away most of my single use baby products and even formula? Am I wrong for asking my boyfriend to charge his family member for fraud? I tell a lot of awesome stories that I find on Reddit where people send me about situations that are going on in their life and they’re asking for help or opinions on how they should proceed with it.
S3: How did you get started doing this? How did this become your specific kind of shtick?
S1: You know, funny enough, I actually my first TikTok was about makeup. You know, I enjoyed makeup. But then I realized it’s a lot of work and I’m like, this isn’t something I can be doing every single day. You know, props to the people who do it. It’s a lot of work. And then my first video that actually blew up was a story. Oh, I remember I was Googling how to go viral on TikTok, and I remember seeing Zoom. Hijazi talks about do it like a story come up, something that’s really interesting that like unique to you that people won’t just, like, give that shock factor. And I was okay. I remember I used to work at the bank and someone tried to drag me and I didn’t understand. I was getting raw. So that was my first one. So this customer came to my window and I asked him to slide his debit card and he’s like, Oh, I don’t have a debit card. And I was like, okay, just give me your ID or your social and I can pull up your account. And then he proceeds to hand me this like a paper and it says, Give me $6,000 or I’ll go end up on your ass. So I’m like, What does NWA mean? Because I don’t know what the hell I don’t know. So then he looks and he’s like, You’re really? And from then on, it just rolled into, Oh, big thing where I’m getting flooded with emails, messages, DMS every day about people situations because they love the anonymity of it. So then that’s where I am today.
S2: Something I find interesting about your posts is that you read the story but you don’t provide any commentary, even though that’s sort of the whole premise of Am I the asshole post, right? Is to get feedback. What made you decide not to ever share your own opinions about these stories you’re reading?
S1: I at one point I did, but my videos kept get taken down for bullying and harassment. And it’s funny because I will quote myself and I’ll naturally give off a reaction when I’m recording, but I have to cut that all out. I never consider it bullying. I don’t even know who they are for, you know.
S2: Or frankly, if they’re real. I feel like that’s the other big question is so many of these just seem impossible to believe.
S1: Oh, oh, my God. Funny if you say that. I just saved one. So I found one. And the husband finds out that his wife has been pooping in the shower. Yeah. And he’s like, I don’t know how to proceed with this. She calls it a waffle waffle stop where she stomps it down the drain. And so, you know, stuff like that, I’m like, this can’t be real. This cannot be real, you know? And he’s like, I’ve been thinking about this all day because I truly I don’t know what to do. And she’s been doing this for years.
S3: I’m sorry. I’m ever going to get the phrase waffle.
S1: Stop. Yeah.
S3: Out of my head that.
S1: I took.
S2: Such a foul term.
S1: I know a lot of people at one point are still to this day think these are all my stories of my life. I’ll get like these crazy DMS I won’t put. My sister was getting crazy DMS because like, I would do like crazy sister stories, like trying to see my venue or like my baby and they’re like, you be how could you take your sister stuff? My sister’s like, What are you talking about? Like, I’m like, We’re fine. And I always sauce it out, you know? I’m like, I don’t know what else do. It just makes me laugh at this point.
S2: I Something I find so fascinating about am I the asshole is it’s a thing that started on Reddit. You often see them floating around on Twitter. Now Tumblr also. Now, this is a thing that you have along with others brought over to Tik Tok. What do you think it is about? Am I the asshole that people just can’t get enough of?
S1: I think it’s two things. I think it’s one, people relate to the situation because they’ve been in something similar and they’re like, Oh, like this is what I did or this is what I would do, you know, when it comes to in-laws or family or, you know, things like that, a lot of a lot of people are are, you know, in the same boat. And then the second thing is just it’s so jaw dropping that someone’s in this situation that they’re even asking the question. And it’s like, where are you? Are you serious? Like, do you think you did something wrong in there? Like Nolan and these people are truly gaslit the thing that they did something in their environment, it’s so toxic. They’re like, Wait a minute, did I really do something wrong? And everyone gives that reinforcement. Like, No way. Like you’re finally get out of that situation. And so it’s nice, I think, for people to hear that reinforcement from an outside unbiased source.
S3: What proportion of them do you think are actually real? Because I know I’ve read some of the asshole posts where I’m like, This is a creative writing prompt and I, I’m impressed, but that can’t be real.
S1: You know, I try to be picky enough, right? So to, to make them as, like, crazy as they can, but to be real. And I look through the spelling, right? If they’re like writing posts and I’m like, Oh no, this is not. But they’re writing like, you know, there’s spelling mistakes or, you know, some of the sentences don’t make sense and I’ll do reread it. I’m okay. This has to be, you know, but there are always some where people are like, no way does this has to be fake. Like the shallow one right now that I told you, I don’t think that’s real. But why would someone post that? Well, I would some of both.
S2: Fortunately, I do believe that’s real. I, I firmly believe that somewhere in this world there is at least one, probably many women who are pooping in their garden.
S3: Stop! No. Have you gotten any of the, like, original posters responding to your videos before? Like people being like, Oh, my God, I posted this. Thank you so much. You’re like, the advice was helpful, you know?
S1: So I make sure when I go through them, it’s really hard to reach out to people. In the beginning, people are really mad at me for even like taking read stories, you know? And, and a lot of people were defending me and saying, listen, these people put their stories out on the Internet in a public platform like it’s on YouTube, it’s everywhere else. Like, there’s nothing wrong with that. You know, it’s anonymous. I had one person and I always read it to make sure that some people will say in their drafts that they don’t want this to be posted on other platforms. And I always respected that. I remember I posted one a long time ago and she read This is back when that I could I could actually read the memes. They weren’t flooding. And she’s like, you post like she was up kind of upset because someone sent it back to her saying, Oh, this is you like her family founder. Oh. And I was like, I’m so sorry. Like, I’ll take it down. But then she was like, No, like I think she liked that she was getting the, you know, the feedback. You know, she’s like, you know, she was just first shocked. I was like, you know, like it was I didn’t see any disclaimer on your your post that you didn’t want to post it. But if you want, I’ll take it down. No problem. And she did, I think. And they went pretty viral. Amazing. I had a few million views, so she was like, No, it’s okay. Like I’m okay. But I’ve never yeah, I’ll have people said me like a lot of the vile stories, but it’s just so hard at this point because I have to go through them myself. And I do have a younger audience who will try to send me their stuff, but it’s like I’m 14 years old and my boyfriend didn’t help hold my hand at lunch. Am I wrong if I want to break up with him? Like maybe 75% of my inbox is flooded with stuff like that and it’s so cute, but I’m like, I can’t make a big thing out of this. You know.
S2: This is how the, my, the asshole economy just keeps going for the next generation is already hooked.
S1: Yeah, honestly, that’s it’s such a platform where it’s, I’m always going to have content.
S2: Your audios often get a second life as sort of the voice behind creative so people frosting cakes or doing makeup or things involving hot glue guns. What is it like to see your work take on a second life like that?
S1: Funny enough, I have never gotten one of those videos on my For You page. I’ve never heard my audio, I swear. I’ve never heard my voice coming back for you. Page Like I don’t realize how much people hear my voice because I’ve never, not once have gone on my 40 page. I’m like, Oh, this person’s using my audio. I’m on a completely different side of Tik-Tok I want like the anime side, the beauty side, like, you know, I want a completely K-Pop side. I’m on it completely. Yeah, people don’t believe me, but I’ve never gotten one of my audios or my prepaid.
S2: I can’t tell if that means the algorithm is working correctly or it’s really broken. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us today. This was really a fascinating conversation.
S1: Of course. Thank you so much for having me.
S3: That was Mallola Khalidi or love. Lolo you can find her on tiktok in the background of every single craft video you’ve ever seen.
S2: Or if you don’t find her, she will find you.
S3: But all right. That is the show. We’ll be back in your feed on Saturday, so please subscribe. It is the best way to never miss an episode. Please leave a five star reading interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really does help us grow our show and I’m sure you want more people to hear all the asshole puns we can possibly make in under 30 minutes. You can follow us on Twitter. I see why my underscore pod, which is also reconfigured with questions like, am I the asshole? And you can also always drop us a note. I see why my in slate.com.
S2: I see where my eye is produced by Daniel Schrader, Rachel Hampton and me. Madison Malone Kircher Alisha Montgomery is executive producer of Slate Podcasts. See you online.
S3: Or at the Coliseum.
