The Girl Gang Talks Social Media | #61

Click here to access a written transcript of this episode.

The Girl Gang returns to talk about the magical internet phenomenon we love to hate and hate to love: social media. From Neopets to AIM and Facebook to TikTok, we delve into years of social media past and present. Prepare yourself for the good, bad, and ugly of documenting your life on the web.

We discussed:

• How we're continuing to hold up in the pandemic as it drags on.
• Our early ventures into social media growing up.
• Shohreh's first run-in with catfishing in middle school.
• Our feelings about different kinds of social media, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
• The professionalism of butt pics on the internet.
• The importance of remembering that social media is a tool.
• Authenticity on social media and considering who you're posting for.
• The expectations we place on influencers and people on social media who we don't really know.
• The difficulty of online business and knowing that at any point a social media platform may become unpopular.
• Boundaries we've had to set around social media to deal with the negative parts.
• The positive parts of social media that keep us coming back.

Mentioned in This Episode

• GeoCities
• Dial-up internet
• The sound of dial-up internet
• ICQ
• AIM
• Clamp manga
• Neopets
• LiveJournal
• Xanga
• Myspace
• FiOS internet
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• The Tumblr porn purge
• When Facebook dropped the “is” from status updates
• Instagram
• Parasocial relationships
• Jenna Marbles
• Noelle Stevenson
• TikTok
• Here and Queer with the 2020 Pride Panel | #52
• Watermelon Sugar/Hi TikTok mash-up sound
• Guest Host Sarah Gray Interviews Shohreh for the Podcast's First Anniversary | #57
• Vine

Featured in This Episode

The Girl Gang is made up of Shohreh Davoodi, host of the Conjuring Up Courage podcast, as well as two of her closest friends, Tiffany Cunningham and Ally Ridnour.

Shohreh (she/her) was the host of the Conjuring Up Courage podcast during the show's three-year run. Currently, Shohreh is focusing her attention on being a writer and creator. You can keep up with Shohreh by subscribing to her newsletter, The Queer Agenda, and following her on Instagram and TikTok.

Tiffany (she/they) is a graphic designer, aerial enthusiast, fanfic author, cat mom, gay fairy gothmother, and bisexual human disaster. An actual Austin, Texas native, she’s been keeping her hometown weird long before it was cool. She is proud to be friends with Shohreh, and their friendship has grown through their shared passions for aerials and pop punk, mental health struggles, and experiences as queer women thumbing their noses at the patriarchy. You can find Tiffany on Instagram.

Ally (she/her) is an aerialist, a horror movie enthusiast, and a proud member of the Girl Gang. She has been described as “actually a trench coat filled with snakes and chaos” as well as “literally a demon,” and she feels those are pretty accurate descriptions. When she’s not busy filling every space she encounters with chaotic energy, she can probably be found laughing about farts or giving long-winded speeches about her weird taste in music to unappreciative audiences. She has a lot of opinions. You can find Ally on Instagram.