INFLUENCE Matt Silverman

When we report a spammer, a scammer, or online harassment, where does it go? Who decides what gets removed or banned? Bots can do some of the work, but when it comes to messy online emotions, we need human expertise for context and judgement.

So who are these heroes? What do they see all day? And how does content moderation work on a global scale, where the ethics, laws, and cultures of different platforms are so subjective?

This week on INFLUENCE, Alice Hunsberger breaks down this complicated world. She's the VP of Trust & Safety and Content Moderation at PartnerHero, a company that staffs some of our favorite social media apps with specialized teams that weed out bad actors to ensure everyone has a safe experience online.

Alice explains why this crucial work is often unnoticed or deeply misunderstood by the public, why viewing humanity's worst behavior for a job is so punishing, the impossible tasks for regulators, and why she remains optimistic about the Internet despite the constant flow of harmful content.

For more on the Trust & Safety industry, subscribe to Alice's newsletter and podcast: https://alicelinks.com/

This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod

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When Catie Osborn ( @Catieosaurus ) had a medical emergency, she thought she was losing her mind — perhaps experiencing early onset dementia. But after further evaluation, she got a much different diagnosis: ADHD.

Suddenly, her entire life snapped into focus: Intense fixation and extreme boredom, difficulty maintaining friendships, the crushing burden of everyday tasks, and in her own words: "I didn't know how to People."

She deeply educated herself about the spectrums of ADHD, autism, and their corollaries like anxiety and depression. Then, when she lost her job as a Renaissance fair director during COVID, she began educating the Internet about the struggles and triumphs of the neurodivergent. Her deeply personal videos on TikTok and Instagram caught fire. 3 million followers later, she now works full time as a speaker, author, podcaster, and social media advocate for neurodivergence and mental health.

Specifically, she observed a unique connection between ADHD and intimacy. And when no one was talking about neurodivergent sex online, she became a unique advocate for that as well.

This week, Catie and Matt talk about the rapid rise in ADHD awareness, its ongoing stigma and misrepresentation, the empowering (and sometimes life-saving) impact her content has on her audience, how to make a living as a science communicator, her unique brand of adult "spicy" content, table-top RPGs, answers to your questions and voicemails, and why getting doxed by online trolls brought her closer with her mom.

Follow Catie and learn more about her work:
https://catieosaurus.com/
https://www.tiktok.com/@catieosaurus
https://www.instagram.com/catieosaurus

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This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod

Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts:
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At the age of 7, Jacob Simon set out to become a world-class figure skater. He competed around the world and was training for the Olympics when a dislocated shoulder derailed his career. Devastated but not defeated, he made a conscious choice to focus on the positive.
His other skills as a writer and artist came in handy when he started sharing short, personal videos on Instagram and TikTok about the climate crisis. But these were not about rising temps or dire warnings.
All of Jacob's stories feature GOOD news about climate progress and hope for the future: animals bouncing back from extinction, governments passing green laws, renewable energy breakthroughs, and regular people making a huge impact on their communities.
Turns out, the Internet was also exhausted from two decades of doom scrolling. Jacob's daily stories of progress have garnered him millions of views and hundreds of thousands of followers, who rely on him to cut through the darkness of our media diet.
This week on INFLUENCE, Jacob and Matt discuss his new life as a science communicator, why social media (and news media) bias toward "bad" news, the rigorous research he puts into every video, the stories that most-inspire his audience, the ingenious way he makes a living, and what we all can do to help the climate, even when it seems futile.
This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod
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I'm on vacation this week, but very happy to share this interview we did on another show, with Norman Caruso (The Gaming Historian) back in 2021.
If you enjoy games as much as we do, check out "Colette & Matt Have Entered the Chat," wherever you get podcasts: https://haveenteredthechat.com/
-- Original Show Notes from May 28, 2021 --
Norman Caruso, aka The Gaming Historian, has been meticulously documenting the history of video games (and their weird peripherals!) on YouTube since 2008. It took him 7 years before this passion project became a full-time job. More than 90 million views later, his channel is among the most rigorous and well-respected in the world of games journalism. Norman has covered topics as ubiquitous a Tetris and Super Mario Bros. 3, all the way down to failed tech like the Sega Mega Modem and an IRL fishing module for the Game Boy.
We chat with Norman about how he got his start, why primary-source historical research takes so long, how he chooses topics, why it's OK to be wrong sometimes, and why you may never see a Pokémon video on his channel.
Subscribe to The Gaming Historian on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnbvPS_rXp4PC21PG2k1UVg
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When Mark Malkoff was in 8th grade, he wrote a letter to Phil Hartman, one of his comedy heroes on "Saturday Night Live." He assumed Hartman was too famous and busy to look at fan mail. Except, Hartman *did* respond with a heartfelt note.
For Mark, this (and many other encounters) cemented a life-long obsession with comedy and late night TV — so much so that he moved to New York City and became an audience coordinator at "The Colbert Report" and "Late Night with David Letterman." He was touching the TV biz, but he wasn't writing or performing, and the grueling hours were catching up. That's when he turned to the Internet.
Mark is known for his creative and wacky challenge videos (like living in IKEA for a week, or drinking something at every Starbucks in NYC). But his encyclopedic knowledge of late night TV began to shine when he started "The Carson Podcast," a 400 episode love letter to "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson," in which he interviewed many people involved in its production - from the guy who held the curtain for 20 years, to legends like Carol Burnett, Jimmy Buffett, Brooke Shields, Mel Brooks, and Michael J. Fox.
Recently, Mark launched a new podcast called "Inside Late Night," which covers the generation of comedy that came after Carson — "Saturday Night Live," David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, "The Daily Show," and more. His candid and meticulous conversations with the writers and performers who've made us laugh for decades often unearth showbiz stories that have never been told before.
Mark joins Matt to discuss why viral videos don't pay the bills, getting deep and personal with podcasts, the savvy way he gets into celebrity inboxes, being mistaken for Stephen Colbert, getting Lorne Michaels' autograph, and that time Adam Sandler gave him his phone number.
Subscribe to "Inside Late Night with Mark Malkoff" wherever you get podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-late-night-with-mark-malkoff/id1745253634
This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod
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Mike Johnston was living the dream. His band was signed to a major label. He was touring the world, playing for thousands of adoring fans, and making good money. But something was missing.
He didn't know what, until a friend told him how happy he looked when he was teaching drums, rather than performing. That's when he figured out he has an "educator's soul." So he stepped back from the band and taught drums full time. It was exhausting, and this income potential was capped by the hours in the week. To make up for a lesson, he recorded a session and dumped it onto a fledgling website called "YouTube." That's where everything changed.
Today, Mike's drum instruction videos reach millions of curious enthusiasts and dedicated musicians. He uses YouTube and his website to teach exponentially more people than he could possibly address with in-person lessons alone. Back in 2006/2007, he risked his entire career to build drum education the way *he* wished he could learn. The big unknown was whether others wanted it, too. (Narrator: They did.)
This week, Matt sits down with Mike to discuss the fascinating evolution of online music lessons, where he gets his inspiration for new lessons, why he never watches other drum lesson videos, and why he's not afraid of AI taking his job.
Check out Mike's Lessons to learn more: https://www.mikeslessons.com/
This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod
Join our Discord community! https://discord.gg/influencepod
Call the show and leave a message: (347)-871-6548
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