INFLUENCE

When TV and radio brought the voices and images of public figures into our very homes, we began to feel kinship with people we've never actually met. But these one-sided "parasocial" relationships have kicked into overdrive with the advent of social media. Now we subscribe to the daily minutia of YouTubers and Instagram influencers under the guise that this format is more honest — more "real" — than the scripted world of mass media. The bonds we feel across the Internet can be powerful and life-changing, but occasionally, unhealthy. Alli and Jen talk with Dr. Leslie Rasmussen, a professor of communications at Xavier University, who studies the intense psyschological phenomenon of parasocial relationships at a time where we are more connected and disconnected than ever.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

As we become ever more physically entwined with our technology, and medicine extends our lives beyond anything our ancestors could imagine, we may not be too far away from implanting or genetically manipulating superhuman powers, or even escaping death entirely. If that sounds pretty cool and pretty terrifying at the same time, you're not alone. Alli and Jen talk transhumanist future shock with Dr. Natasha Vita-More, the executive director of Humanity+, an organization devoted to enhancing the quality of human life through technology.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

Some people are great at taking flattering selfies and writing witty Tinder taglines. Others, not so much. That's where Meredith Golden comes in. For a fee, she'll take over your profile, learn your voice, and optimize your flirting so you don't screw it up. Then she'll hand the reigns back to you for the IRL date. The system works, and Golden has the record to prove it. But what are the ethics of outsourcing your love life to a consultant? Jen and Alli go deep with Golden and get the skinny on the foolish ways people shoot themselves in the foot on dating apps (headless selfies, anyone?).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

In 2005, Bobby Henderson wrote a letter to the Kansas board of education suggesting that if Christian creationism is taught in schools, so should his theistic view: that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. And so, Pastafarianism was born. The Internet-based social movement spread rapidly as a critique of anti-science fundamentalism, but in some corners of the world like New Zealand, Pastafarianism became recognized by the government as a religious order, with all the rights and privileges afforded. Alli and Jen talk with Prime Minesteroni Karen Martyn, an ordained minister of the Church, who has officiated numerous pasta-themed weddings within the legal borders of New Zealand.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 data-driven matchmaking platforms like Tinder have you down, consider an "old school" online dating method where your friends auction you off in a Facebook group with 300,000 singles who are ready to meme...I mean, mingle. That's how it goes down in "Subtle Asian Dating," a thriving Facebook community where Asian Americans can comfortably dish about their cultural identity and perhaps even meet "the one" with enough likes and comments. It grew out of a predecessor Facebook group called "Subtle Asian Traits," where members of the Asian American community would not so subtly thrust their friends onto the dating meat market in a defiantly anti-Tinder way. Alli and Jen talk with Hella Chen who created this romance ecosystem. Chen shares the meme-worthy stories that have sprung from it.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

Before Tinder, Grindr, J-Date and Christian Mingle, most of us just had a MySpace page and the dream of finding true love in a sea of extremely emo profile pics. Megan (from the U.S.) and Whitney (from the UK) started a long-distance relationship there, which blossomed against all odds into a international marriage, a TV appearance on Say Yes to the Dress, and a media empire focused on empowering LGBT couples. Their story is a beacon of hope that yes, long distance relationships can have a happy ending, thanks to the power of the Internet. Alli and Jen chat with Megan and Whitney (collectively known as "WEGAN") about their journey, their vision for the future of Internet-first love, and their disgustingly cute plans for Valentine's Day.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

Most of the tales that come out of Facebook these days are about the attention sucking qualities that make it terrible for mental health and democracy. But there are shining beacons of hope where the platform has empowered communities that could not exist IRL or elsewhere on the Internet. Ashley Eakin is a filmmaker with an extremely rare bone disease that caused her great insecurity when posting online. That all changed when a powerful video about her story went viral across Facebook. The Facebook groups that since formed around coping with these "physical differences" have profoundly changed her life, and the lives of others in this new online community. Alli and Jen talk with Eakin about her inspiring story of personal struggle and empowerment.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 do enough math, you can generate every combination of letters and numbers possible. Most of the results will be gibberish, but they will also contain Shakespeare, Harry Potter, the unpublished final Game of Thrones book, your 6th grade diary, the actual cure for cancer, and every email and text message anyone has ever sent — or will ever send — ever. Even the words I'm typing right now already exist somewhere in the Library of Babel, an algorithm conceived by evil genius/literature student Jonathan Basile. This is the digital equivalent of "infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters" eventually writing Hamlet. But when you see it in action, live on the Internet, you will question your own free will and doubt the very concept of original thought. Alli and Jen speak to Basile about the inspiration for this terrifying project and the deep existential panic it causes.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

Apps like Tinder know a lot about you, but why should they horde all your dating data? In order to settle an argument, one man conducted an exhaustive experiment on the platform to determine if he was more attractive with a beard or without. He shared the results on the subreddit r/dataisbeautiful. He woke up the next morning to thousands of comments about this methodology, graphs, and why his chin was ugly. The discussion about attractiveness, cultural biases, data, and controlling variables in an online dating environment went viral. But did he actually get a date?Alli and Jen speak to "The Scientist" about his process, expectations, and why beards are so polarizing.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 History of the Web is a weekly newsletter that began as a place for coders to reminisce about CSS and Bulletin Board software.  But it quickly evolved into a definitive timeline of our shared online history. The story of the Web (the public-facing network of pages that everyone has access to) is arguably the most important sociological endeavor of our time. Alli and Jen chat with Jay Hoffmann, author of The History of the Web, about the proto-communities that formed online in the '90s around weblogs, browser wars, grief, and virtual pets.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