Woof of the Week #1
When the Woof hits your eye like a big pizza pie it's a Woof!
Welcome to Woof of the Week!
Kick off your shoes, make yourselves at home! Don’t touch the walls, we just painted them. I know, I like the orange accent wall too, and yes, it was my idea.
Welcome to Woof of the Week where I break down some of the things that made me say “Woof” the longest each week. Whether it’s international news, or just something that happened to a friend of friend - we’ll be talking about it here.
Without further ado, the VERY FIRST Woof of the Week:
“Crime Tok”
This podcast interview (starting at about 20:58) on Slate’s ICYMI podcast with Haley Toumaian, a True Crime Podcaster/TikToker made me feel sick after listening.
As someone who does not have an active Twitter or TikTok account, there are huge internet trends that I miss. (Something that will 100% be a detriment to this newsletter). However, even I did not miss the internet fervor surrounding Gabby Petito’s disappearance and homicide. I won’t go into detail of the case because there are plenty of people who could do it better (or worse) than me.
This week’s episode of the podcast (hosted by Madison Malone Kircher and Rachelle Hampton) is focused on the internet & TikTok’s influence on the Gabby Petito investigation for better or for worse (mostly worse). The hosts discuss many things, including the dubious verification of information, conspiracy theories created by people on the internet, and the prioritization of “whiteness” in case coverage.
This all culminates in the interview with Hayley (@robandhaley) and her “coverage” of the Gabby Petito disappearance. Her videos surrounding Gabby’s case have a minimum of 300k views, many of them reaching at least 2 million views. Many of her video thumbnails have big white text highlighted in red, with variations on “Gabby Petito Update”, “Police Report” etc.. Each video features Haley talking to camera with video or photo evidence as a backdrop in relation to the video’s topic. Some videos feature Haley out and about as she delivers “breaking news” about the case for her 650k followers.
In the interview, the hosts pose questions related to the first half of the podcast to Haley. She answers these questions in incredibly roundabout ways - the type of ways I imagine engage her information craving audience on Crime Tok. When pressed about spreading misinformation - Haley says that as soon as she found out one of her videos was false she posted an update video and did “everything I could to make it clear that that first video was not true”. See the following exchange1 below –
MADISON: But, but but Hayley, that’s not true. Everything you could do would have been taking down the first video with misinformation and stopping the spread of it. Once you knew it was misinformation.
HALEY: Yeah, no, that is true. Honestly, the by the time I was able to go back and check it, the second video had more views in the first one. And so that made me feel a little bit better, and I honestly didn’t ever think about taking the first video down because I’ve just been trying to keep up. And like I said, I’m not trying to be an investigator in this at all. I’m just trying to be a source of information for people because there’s so much out there and it’s really hard to keep track of it.
In one of the final moments of the interview, Haley broaches the subject of financial gain from the true crime landscape –
HALEY: I think anybody that’s on social media or doing a podcast or making a YouTube video, it is a little bit selfish. Unfortunately, you know, I’m not doing this, I’m not going to like, get somebody to pay me. I’ve had a couple of people reach out saying, We want to sponsor your videos. No, I don’t need you to to sponsor my video. I don’t need to hold a water bottle in my video while I’m recording it. And you pay me to post that video. And even if it doesn’t affect my actual video, that’s unethical to me. And, you know, if I want to make this my full time job, eventually I do need to make money from this type of thing
The interview is incredibly frustrating to listen to as Haley wavers between saying “the right thing” and then contradicts that thought mere seconds later. To the credit of the podcast hosts they handle the conversation very well and by the end of it co-host Rachelle even says “It felt almost like we were watching her develop a conscience in real time about the consequences of her actions over the past week.”
I have a less sympathetic view (sorry!) What makes this a Woof of the Week for me is Haley’s inability to actually acknowledge the attention and potential financial gain she is gaining. Scrolling through Haley’s social pages - it’s very clear that she is a bit of a newcomer to this “area”. A feed full of videos of going to Disney and seeing the Jonas brothers’ concert is now filled with speculation and information about the disappearance of a woman she does not know, nor, to my knowledge, has any professional qualifications for discerning and distributing such information.
Even if you take on face value that she is genuinely interested in helping people and “getting clarity for what happened to Gabby, which is the morally right thing in relation to this, it’s hard for me to get behind this method of contributing. When you play armchair internet detective, it usually hurts the case way more often than it helps.
I don’t fully blame Haley herself - she’s just the latest iteration of our current media landscape. One where trudging up the grisly details of an old murder, and then filming a recreation of it is considered night time entertainment.
When we take traumatic events and place them in the same space that we get to watch funny animal videos or the latest HBO comedy - our brain begins to blend their significance. Our moral compass gets demagnetized and we spin and spin trying to justify that what we’re watching and engaging in may help us receive the desired narrative closure, much like we invest in characters in fantasy worlds achieving the goal they’ve long desired. I will admit - I’ve had jobs2 in the True Crime space transcribing interviews, cutting down footage… and watching folks relive some of the most horrific instances of their lives for what’s undoubtedly at least the third time they’ve had to do so… it’s a bit dystopian to say the least.
I’ll end this section with a quote from ICYMI’s co-host Rachelle as she closes out the interview -
RACHELLE What could have been a learning moment seems to have largely convinced a large section of crime TikTok that they are in fact doing the right thing, or that there is a way to do this correctly, when perhaps the question should be whether to do this at all.
Honorable Mentions
Too many things happen in a week to just talk about one Woof! Here are some of the other things that made me say Woof this week:
Being Too Sad about a Burger Stand
2020 was a terrible year. One of the many contributing factors was the inability of small businesses to survive - unable to navigate the ever changing rules of an unstable world. This forced many places to close their doors with no hope of reopening. One such place was Bill’s Burgers - a burger stand in Van Nuys, California which is just a hop and a skip from LA.
Ran by World War 2 veteran Bill Ewell, it’s a “no-frills” burger stand with no substitutions. They don’t even make fries! But for $7 - a double cheese burger, a bag of chips, and a can of Coke - it can’t be beat.
When I saw the announcement that Bill’s was closing, in between Google Meets meetings on a weekday in late July, I was sad - I thought it’d signal the incoming wave of closing businesses. After all, if a 90 year old World War 2 veteran decided to hang up his hat, what was to stop other folks from doing the same?
So I did what any out of touch millennial would do - I made a semi-sappy Facebook post about it:
And let’s be clear - I’ve only been there twice. I’ve never talked to Bill. I’ve only waited a little too long for a burger and sat at the counter twice - once with my friend Greg and once just by myself in between gear pickups for work. But 2020 was an emotional year. And I did indeed get emotional about a burger stand.
Flash forward to earlier this week - when I amended my post from last year with a new comment and a picture:
Turns out Bill places a “For Sale” sign on his stand pretty often, pandemic or otherwise. I made my way to his place earlier this week after seeing it was “open” on Google and got myself a burger.
And while you can I suggest you do the same if you’re in LA. You won’t be able to sit at the counter and watch the master at work but it’ll still be worth it. Don’t forget to bring cash! (and don’t be picky!)
A self inflicted Woof but well worth it.
The Big Sleep (at a Movie Theater)
I love going to see movies in theaters. Unfortunately I am guilty of falling asleep in movies, quite often. I will clarify, it’s not because I’m not interested in the movie - it’s just that I get sooo sleepy!
My friend invited me to see the original “Ghost in the Shell” at the AMC in IMAX! And it was even included in AMC’s A-list program which I am a member of!
The catch: it started at 10PM on a weeknight.
“That’s ok” I thought “'I’ll rally”. I showed up, very excited to see this movie I’ve heard so much about on, quite arguably, one of the biggest screens.
And yeah I fell tf asleep for a third of the movie. By the time I was awake there were machine guts and gore and several naked anime bodies. On the screen, not around me.
Ghost in the Shell, one day we’ll meet again. And this time I’ll have a double espresso beforehand.
Quote of the Week
Every week I’ll dive back into my Apple Notes documents that contain quotes I’ve heard from people in real life, unless otherwise noted.
This week’s quote is from 2018:
“You never feel less scary than when your job is scaring people.”
A quote to kick off the spooky season! I’ve had a handful of friends work as scare actors and as someone who’s ALWAYS been afraid of haunted houses and IRL scare events, I’ve always admired their commitment to the work. However it’s clear in this moment that this person was kicking themselves a bit for not being scarier to which I have to say: It’s probably better to not be a person that other people are scared of!
Take solace in the fact that you might be the most approachable scare actor when someone approaches you saying that their friend ran into a wall and their head is bleeding. Instead of scaring people you can help people and that, is, cool!
That’s all folks!
Thanks for reading this week’s edition of Woof of the Week! Leave a comment because I’d love to hear your thoughts! Some questions I have for you -
How do you feel about the True Crime entertainment industry?
Are you as cynical as I am when it comes to ICYMI’s interview with Haley?
Will you be getting a burger from Bill’s burgers (LA local only)
See you on the next one!
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All interview quotes have been taken from Slate’s Transcript of the podcast which you can find here. Speaker names added for clarity.
All jobs that were given to me while freelancing as opposed to ones I’ve sought out.