INFLUENCE

Since 2013, The Doge meme has made us laugh, cry, and stare longingly into the beautiful eyes of a Shiba Inu. Like most memes, it’s an image put into new contexts again and again.And in late 2013, it was turned into a cryptocurrency. Dogecoin began as a joke — a way to poke fun at the rise of blockchain and crypto trends. But today, it's incredibly popular as a commodity and digital currency, with an estimated market cap of $5 billion (as of this writing).Gary Lachance, an open source and decentralization advocate, has embraced The Way of the Doge. He explains that if a philosophy of fun and openness underpinned our monetary system, perhaps the world would be a better place. And Lachance feels we're at the start of a global transformation, if we use the internet right.This week, Alli and Jen speak with Lachance about his creation of Decentralized Dance Parties which unify thousands across the internet through music. Lachance also takes us into the Dogecoin community, and illustrates how the internet can be used as a weapon of peace, rather than control.Find Gary: http://garylachance.com/The Decentralized Dance Party: http://www.theddp.com/Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin us on Discord: discord.gg/2g1pEmail us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comTalk to Alli and Jen:https://twitter.com/alligoldhttps://twitter.com/joonbuggerCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The cult steampunk adventure book series "Ships of the Northern Fleet" has inspired a TV show, graphic novels, and even a breakfast cereal. But the influential show has fallen off the pop culture radar in recent years. That is until a TikToker named Mister Nickel brought a flood of nostalgia back to the Internet to reunite the rabid fan community.Alli and Jen talk with Mister Nickel and the one and only Catie Osborn, the actor best known for playing Annie on "Ships" for multiple seasons (before the character's controversial death!). Nickel and Osborn share why "Ships" fandom is so special, and everything that's gone down since its viral resurgence on TikTok.Follow Mister Nickel: https://www.tiktok.com/@misternickelFollow Catie Osborn: https://www.tiktok.com/@catieosaurusSupport 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin us on Discord: discord.gg/2g1pEmail us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comTalk to Alli and Jen:https://twitter.com/alligoldhttps://twitter.com/joonbuggerCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bored during the pandemic? Maybe you should try betting fake money on a league of simulated baseball teams where imaginary players like Jessica Telephone and Jaylen Hotdogfingers are regularly incinerated, undergo life-altering surgeries, and become ... encased in giant peanut shells?Welcome to "Blaseball," the absurdist browser-based game that has captured thousands of imaginations and spawned an obsessive fandom that creates art, backstories, podcasts, multi-verse wikis, and even music about the events that transpire on the simulated field — which is then incorporated into the game itself.Alli and Jen talk with Felix Kramer, a member of the "Blaseball" development team, as well as Elliot Trinidad and Bria Davis, two volunteer "groundskeepers" who manage the game's rocketing community. They discuss what makes "Blaseball" so special, why the fandom is radically different than those around scripted entertainment, and their plans for the new season in 2021.Additional music in this episode courtesy of The Garages: "mike townsend (is a disappointment):" https://thegarages.bandcamp.com/album/the-garages-101Follow Felix: https://twitter.com/legobuttsFollow Elliot: https://twitter.com/nameoftheyearFollow Bria: https://twitter.com/thevoidencoreSupport 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin us on Discord: discord.gg/2g1pEmail us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comTalk to Alli and Jen:https://twitter.com/alligoldhttps://twitter.com/joonbuggerCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When people talk about Bitcoin and blockchain tech, the conversation typically moves to the price of commodities and the hype around trading them. But the actual blockchain movement is about so much more.Alli and Jen talk with Adam B. Levine, the podcast editor at CoinDesk, who breaks down how our trust in banks, governments, and monetary policy has failed us in the 20th century, and why cryptocurrencies re-assign that trust to math and a "consensus-based reality" — that is, a majority of people agreeing what is true, and making better policy decisions based on accountability. Levine also discusses why some cryptocurrencies are poised to radically change the world, while others are just about the memes...until they're not.Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin us on Discord: discord.gg/2g1pEmail us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comTalk to Alli and Jen:https://twitter.com/alligoldhttps://twitter.com/joonbuggerCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While we love Internet communities, it's clear that some can seed and spread weaponized information at breakneck speeds. Platforms facilitate this, but social dynamics are also at work here. And if there's any hope of squashing disinformation, it's time to take a hard look at the communities that are incentivized to manufacture it.Alli and Jen talk with Bridget Todd, an activist and host of the podcast "There Are No Girls on the Internet," whose recent series "Disinformed" is about making sense of how dangerous online information culminated in an insurrection at the Capitol. Bridget explains why social media algorithms are biased toward disinformation, what you can do to stop the spread (even if you're not an "influencer"), why "Pinterest Moms" aren't helping, and why you don't need to have a take on EVERYTHING that happens in the news.Follow Bridget: https://twitter.com/BridgetMarieThere Are No Girls on the Internet: https://www.tangoti.com/Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin us on Discord: discord.gg/2g1pEmail us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comTalk to Alli and Jen:https://twitter.com/alligoldhttps://twitter.com/joonbuggerCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here on 2 GIRLS 1 PODCAST, we typically cover online communities that make a positive impact on the internet through their creativity or inclusivity. But not all digital watercoolers are a force for good.The_Donald is a now-banned subreddit that was home to some of the former president's most passionate supporters. That, in itself, is barely interesting.What boggles the mind is how this community rocketed disinformation into mainstream discourse, helped organize the January 6 insurrection, and tore gaping vulnerabilities into the U.S. administration.This week, Alli and Jen talk with Alex Thomas, a journalist who has studied The_Donald for years (in its various incarnations) and written extensively about the unprecedented ways the president's own staff leveraged this fringe group to legitimize propaganda and sow the seeds of insurrection — moves which inadvertently left the administration vulnerable to Russian and Iranian trolls.Read Thomas's outstanding reporting as part of The Daily Dot's Trump Disinformation Project: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/dan-scavino-reddit-donald-trump-disinformation/Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin us on Discord: discord.gg/2g1pEmail us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comTalk to Alli and Jen:https://twitter.com/alligoldhttps://twitter.com/joonbuggerCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We've got some great new episodes in the pipeline for you, but while we wait, here's an encore of one of our favorites, originally published on December 8, 2019.-Original Notes-The Instagram account turned multi-million dollar media company @FuckJerry is notorious for stealing funny tweets, memes, and other content from creators, and posting them — without credit or compensation — to their own social accounts. Fuck Jerry's following has exploded in recent years (14.5 million Instagram followers at the time of publication), but so has the backlash. The #FuckFuckJerry movement became an anti-piracy rallying cry across the Internet. Two comedians (Davram Stiefler and Jason Selvig) known as The Good Liars, have taken the movement a step further by creating @MugJerry, an Instagram account that steals back the stolen content from Fuck Jerry, then contacts the original creators to pay them for their tweet, joke, or photo.Alli and Jen chat with The Good Liars about their mission of social media justice, the time they walked into Fuck Jerry's NYC offices and stole an actual mug, and the other ways they've created social commentary through comedy.Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin us on Discord: discord.gg/2g1pEmail us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comTalk to Alli and Jen:https://twitter.com/alligoldhttps://twitter.com/joonbuggerCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since 1999, the website Something Awful has been an Internet culture tastemaker, and this closed community is still going strong two decades later — a rarity for online platforms. Many modern memes and web culture references have their roots on Something Awful's humor forums.For a one time fee of $10, you get full access to the site's vibrant discussion and community. That nominal barrier-to-entry is the secret to keeping the discourse quality high and shitpost ratios low, according to the site's current owner, who goes by the pseudonym Jeffrey of Yospos.Paying for high-quality content and meaningful online community has recently come back into fashion amid the chaos of free platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, which make money at incredible scale by selling user data to advertisers. It begs the question: Did we build the Internet wrong?Alli and Jen talk with Jeffrey about the early days of Something Awful, a place where you're "free to be an Internet weirdo." We also learn the origins of "Let's Play" video game culture, and ways the SA community fought hate speech long before most platforms took it seriously.Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin us on Discord: discord.gg/2g1pEmail us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comTalk to Alli and Jen:https://twitter.com/alligoldhttps://twitter.com/joonbuggerCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to save money, help your neighbors, and create less waste all at the same time? The Internet can help. Specifically, the "Buy Nothing" communities that have sprouted up in thousands of cities and towns around the world. Usually, they operate within Facebook groups, where people post things they want to get rid of, and neighbors can claim them.Alli and Jen speak with Marina Milosevic, the admin of the Santa Monica, CA Buy Nothing group, about the origins of the movement, managing a community that occasionally gets too large, the weirdest stuff people give away, and why it's easier than you think to stop buying things from Amazon.Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin us on Discord: discord.gg/2g1pEmail us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comTalk to Alli and Jen:https://twitter.com/alligoldhttps://twitter.com/joonbuggerCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're concerned that LOLspeak and text messages are ruining language, fear not, grammar nerds! This week, Alli and Jen speak with linguist, author, and fellow podcaster Gretchen McCulloch, who says we are living in a special time for informal written language.McCulloch explains why the Internet is changing language and culture in unprecedented ways, how regular people solved the 500-year-long quest for written sarcasm, and why post cards from George Harrison look like your dad's text messages.Follow Gretchen: https://twitter.com/GretchenAMcCRead her book, "Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language" https://www.amazon.com/Because-Internet-Understanding-Rules-Language-ebook/dp/B076GNS3J4Listen to the Lingthusiasm podcast: https://lingthusiasm.com/Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin us on Discord: discord.gg/2g1pEmail us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.comTalk to Alli and Jen:https://twitter.com/alligoldhttps://twitter.com/joonbuggerCall the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices