INFLUENCE

r/SantasLittleHelpers is the subreddit that fulfills the holiday wishes of kids in need. Alli and Lindsey talk with BackpackWayne, the creator/moderator of Santa's Little Helpers, which has been connecting generous redditors with families that have fallen on hard times for the last 10 years. Wayne recounts heartwarming stories of the kindness of Internet strangers, and shares how the charitable initiative — inspired by his mother — has turned into a yearly juggernaut of generosity.Here's a sampling of the joy from last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFcpAHxDt8MSupport 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Internet is a place for everyone to have a voice, but we often take the tools and apps we use to access it for granted. Software engineer Ather Sharif became acutely aware of this about 8 years ago when a car accident left him with a spinal cord injury. Even basic things like typing on a keyboard are now an enormous challenge for him and thousands of others with various disabilities.Lindsey and Alli talk with Ather about how this changed the trajectory of his career. He is now an advocate for accessible and inclusive technologies and a PhD student at the University of Washington where he studies what we can all do to ensure the Internet is for everyone.View the transcript for this episode: https://bit.ly/3HfhP7tSupport 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The only thing bigger than "Bachelor Nation" is "Bachelor Instagram." That's usually where the contestants, stars, villains, and conversations around the Bachelor and Bachelorette franchises go during each season. But educator Suzana Somers had a fresh idea. When she had to start learning Excel for her job, she got bored crunching pivot tables, so she inserted data from The Bachelor instead: How much screen time did each contestant get? Age ranges? Race and ethnic backgrounds? Roses awarded? Instagram followers? The results, which she visualized on Instagram, have been intriguing thousands of fans ever since. @BachelorData has become a big voice in the reality show conversation, and Suzana has turned it into an educational resource for those who want to improve their spreadsheets skills in a non-boring way.Alli and Lindsey chat with Suzana about the origin of the account, the online Bachelor community, and the fascinating conclusions she's drawn from analyzing the franchise over many seasons.Follow the account here: https://www.instagram.com/bachelordata/Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We hope you're having a fantastic Thanksgiving! We are thankful for YOU, our listeners. Lots of great interviews to come, but for now, please enjoy this hilarious conversation with the genius creator of We Rate Dogs, from June 2020.-Original Show Notes-With more than 14 million followers across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, WeRateDogs is on a mission that everyone on planet Earth can get behind: Rating cute doggos from the internet on a (dubious!) 10-point scale.This blend of adorable dog pics, comedic captions, and obsessive fan-submitted content has catapulted the novelty account (and its creator, Matt Nelson) into a massive online brand, which uses its influence to entertain millions, sell merch, and help dogs in need.Alli and Jen talk with Nelson about the inspiration for the account, how its explosive popularity changed his life, the serious inflation problem in the Dog Rating Economy, that time J.K. Rowling and Lin-Manuel Miranda followed him, why everything's political on Twitter, and his perfect response when Arnold Schwarzenegger asked him to rate his donkeys.Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

National Novel Writing Month has been operating online since 1999! Alli and Lindsey talk with program director Tim Kim about NaNoWriMo's non-profit mission to help writers collaborate and overcome the enormous challenge of getting 50,000 words on the page in a single month. Goal setting and online social accountability are a huge part of it, and the community flourishes across Twitter, Reddit, and Twitch.Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community:http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we learned that Lindsey went to summer camp with Lando Calrissian. Also, Alli went to Panama to take anal photos and swim in trash water. How are you?Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The finance world can seem buttoned-up, even intimidating. But journalist Omar Gallaga found an unlikely (but entirely logical) place for armchair stock market tycoons to share tips and make big plays: Discord.But this community dispenses with the "finance bro" trappings of other day trading services. Xtrades is about learning, teaching, and dare we say it: having fun with the stock market. In the wake of Gamestop, crypto crashes, and the NFT boom, Xtrades is a chill place for legit financial exploration.Omar wrote a compelling piece about his journey to becoming a compensated moderator of this paywalled community, and explains to Alli and Lindsey that while the learning curve is steep, it's entirely worth it.How I Got Sucked Into a Discord Stock-Trading Group and Made Thousands: https://marker.medium.com/how-i-got-sucked-into-a-discord-stock-trading-group-and-made-thousands-59dcb3df6ef6Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You'd think a social network only for professional doctors would be a bastion of reason and scientific discussion. Unfortunately as Dr. Paul Malarik points out, doctors are human, too: Full of bias, assumptions, and sometimes bad intent.Dr. Malarik is a semi-retired psychiatrist who spends part of his time helping people get vaccinated against COVID-19, and the other part debunking vaccine misinformation on Doximity, a "LinkedIn" or "Facebook" only for doctors.Alli and Lindsey speak with Dr. Malarik about why this professional community can't escape the social media creep of mis- and disinformation.Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Which witch should you follow on WitchTok?Georgina Rose is a prolific creator of occult and witchcraft content, deeply informed by historical research. Despite how witches are depicted in popular culture, wicca (and other spiritual schools) are deeply naturalistic and tend to fill spiritual gaps where "traditional" religions fall short. Through her YouTube channel, Instagram, and podcast, Georgina explains the tenets of occult spirituality, while also drawing firm lines between science and spirituality: "Crystals won't cure cancer!" As with all online subcultures, thinking critically about where you get your information is key.Alli and Lindsey have a fun and informative chat about the online world of the occult.Follow and subscribe to Georgina (@daatdarling) on all the things: https://linktr.ee/daatdarlingSupport 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We've got the week off, but wanted to re-share one of our favorite episodes from back in the day. Enjoy, and we'll see you next week!-Original Show Notes from August 12, 2019-There's plenty of sexy fan art for any movie, show, or game imaginable, thanks to Rule 34. But there's something about Sonic the Hedgehog that lends the character to very specific and often extreme fetish art, in limitless quantities. Why Sonic? Writer and weird Internet excavator  K. Thor Jensen walks Alli and Jen through the invention of the Internet's favorite blue speed demon, and the unique way he was positioned by his creators that set him up as a conduit for porn of all stripes.Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin the 2G1P Discord community: http://discord.gg/2g1pJoin the 2G1P Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2girls1podcast/Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices