Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
media, the creator economy and the digital space every Monday
through Thursday. I'm your host, Lauren Meisner,
the founder of the youth digital media brand Centennial World.
Welcome back to Mini Scroll, everyone.
OK, so today was a bit of a light Newsday because obviously
the TikTok ban, Trump's inauguration, like those two
things are just absolutely consuming the news right now.
So I thought I would give a bit of a content recap.
I haven't done this. I don't even know if I did it at
all last year, but Jordy and I used to do a content recap
sometimes every single week of like the things we were watching
and loving. And I am so in the weeds of good
content right now. So I wanted to talk about two
things that I watched over the weekend.
I do have two other stories at the end.
So if you guys don't care about what I'm watching in my opinions
on it, then that's fine. Skip ahead.
There are always time stamps in the description.
But yes, so Severance is the first thing I want to talk about
and Molly May's documentary as well.
This is your disclaimer. Spoilers ahead for Severance
episode one season 2. This is literally my favorite
show of all time. I have been waiting for it to
come back. This and Yellow Jackets waiting
for these shows to come back. Episode 1 of season 2.
Severance did not disappoint. So I wanted to share some of my
theories. OK right.
So the episode stars Mark basically comes to after
swapping places with his Audi. He was screaming she's alive,
referring to Gemma who's his wife in the outside world.
Slash like Miss Casey, he is told that it's been 5 months
since the innies basically got out and like infiltrated the
Audi world. And he also was told that the
innies are now heroes. So I don't think either of these
things are true. I think it's very obvious that
the innies are probably not heroes on the outside world
because the photo that Mark is shown as evidence of that is so
clearly Photoshopped. And it also seems to be
photoshopped from like an iconic photo.
Like the the photo itself looks photoshopped, first of all, but
then it's photoshopped onto what seems to be this iconic photo of
U.S. President Eisenhower in Brazil
from 1960. So I'm going to say that that
photo in general that like, newspaper is completely fake.
I also don't think it's five months after because first of
all, Miss Wong, who I'm going to talk about in a minute, says
it's her first day on the job. And Milchuk has so clearly just
taken over from Miss Kobell. There's kind of evidence all
over the office office that she is not fully like gone yet and
he has not fully had the like changing of the guards.
The biggest one being that he looks at his computer and it
just says Miss Kobell on it. Still, I did see some people
think that they possibly were transferred to Lumen somewhere
else, like the innies were taken to a different Lumen in like a
different country or something to kind of punish them for what
they did. By now.
I, I would love to hear what you guys think Lumen is doing.
So I think it's very clear that they are doing something related
to water. The theme of water is all over
the show and Lumens like logo or whatever is basically a big
water drop. I'm going to say water is
involved and it seems like consciousness is probably
involved. I'm assuming this all has
something to do with bringing Kier Egan back or like doing
something so that the Egan's can basically like live forever.
I know one of the main theories is that MDR could be
categorizing, like the work that they do at MDR is like
categorizing information from consciousness into the four
tempers that Kyra Egan discovered, which is whoa,
frolic, dread, and malice. And if you look at the buckets
that MDR filters, its data, like you know the numbers and they
dance and they're like, you just have to look at the scary ones.
When you see the scary ones, you filter them into a bucket.
So those buckets have letters on them and they align with Whoa,
frolic, dread, and malice. So it's almost like being
severed is maybe the only way that someone can identify the
correct information because when you're severed, you're
essentially a blank slate, right?
It's maybe that having too much consciousness impacts your
ability to filter out the data that like, quote, UN quote, like
looks scary. And I know there's lots of
theories about like cloning and stuff.
I actually don't think cloning is involved.
Maybe it's involved in the greater picture, but I don't
think that they are like solely trying to clone people.
OK, so back to this episode, the other points.
I definitely think that Dylan is being manipulated by Melchek.
I think either they're not actually building this family
and friends room and he's being told they are for obviously
manipulation tactics, or they actually are and they will bring
in his quote UN quote wife and it, you know, will not actually
be his wife. I think Miss Huang is maybe the
same vibe as Miss Casey, which is like both of them are
possibly deceased in the Audi world, but Lumen has created
them on the inside. I again, I don't think that this
necessarily has to do with cloning, but maybe it, I don't
know. I mean, it's also possible that
Miss Casey's body and Miss Huang's body are actually their
body. It's like Gemma's body, but Miss
Casey is not Gemma because it's not her consciousness.
I saw people say that Miss Huang is a clone of Gemma's young self
or that she is an older person that has been uploaded into a
younger body. OK.
And of course, the final one is that Heli is actually Helena.
Helena. Is it Helena in the.
I don't know. I can't remember how they say
her name. Helena.
No, it's Helena. Helena Egan.
Yeah, I know this theory has been around since the trailer,
but I actually did not know that theory.
And my brother and I were watching it.
He didn't know it either. And we both were like, I don't
think that's Heli. And then we were looking it up
and everyone's like, yeah, we've been thinking this sense of
trailer. And I was like, Oh my God.
OK, so I think that they I don't think they made it like super
obvious, but I think there are some indicators.
Obviously she lied about her outside experience.
And I just think like, Heli wouldn't lie about that.
I think she would just be so honest, regardless of the fact
finding out she's an Egan, you know, like she would be like,
holy shit, this is crazy. This is what I found out.
And like, how can we use this now?
She notes seeing a gardener at night, which Irving clocks, is
weird. First of all, a gardener that
gives rich vibes, you know, that gives somebody who thinks that
there is just gardeners around all the time at night is even
weirder. So, yeah, Irving's like, that's
weird. She seems to fish for
information from her colleagues a lot and there are several
moments where it seems like she just like, isn't quite herself.
I know the one that people are saying is the most telling is
when she has to like look for the computer switch.
It's like all the Indies do is sit at their computers all day.
They don't even leave that room. That's literally their whole
existence. They are on that computer all
day. They turn that computer on every
single day. It is literally all they do is
sit in that room on that computer.
So like, yeah, you would know where that button was to turn on
your computer. I also just think, like Helena,
like, why would she ever let Helly go back inside after what
she did? She would never trust her again.
And then I saw this on a thread online and I didn't
independently verify this, but apparently in season 1 episode
9, Cobell told Heli at the gala when she finds out what's
happening that if she went through with the plan to expose
Lumen on stage, she'd be long gone but her friends would
suffer. And so people are like, that was
foreshadowing. Heli is long gone and Helena is
there to make the friends suffer.
Oh also I wanted to read this comment on YouTube that I saw
somebody was trying to explain like what MDR is doing so they
said they're actually sorting fragments of consciousness.
The emotional trauma makes them better at recognizing slash
sorting pieces of consciousness from people they deeply loved
and lost. This explains why they need
humans to do this seemingly arbitrary task.
Machines can't replicate the emotional recognition.
OK, and for Molly May's documentary, I also watched the
first 3 episodes. It's not done yet.
There's only three episodes out, but I really enjoyed it.
I don't know, I really like Molly May.
Everybody likes Molly May. I was going to say, I know
that's not unique. That's why she is like so
beloved. Like she is like Britain's
sweetheart, it seems. I don't know what it is about
her, but I do just really like her.
I like that they're addressing things really quickly.
Like I think next episode they address the fact that there was
rumors that she and Tommy kissed on New Year's Eve and New Year's
Eve was like 3 weeks ago. So I think like truly in the
scheme of like reality TV, how instant this is, is really
awesome. And I think it's really unique.
I think in general, it's funny whenever we see these
documentaries about famous people because I find they're
all kind of the same. Like whether it's a a mainstream
celebrity and influencer, like whatever it is, the documentary,
like the through line or like the theme is always the same.
Like be careful what you wish for Being famous is not all that
it's chalked up to be. It really is the same story over
and over again. It's like all of these famous
people in these, like, ginormous houses or like are surrounded by
teams of people and the famous person, the talent, the
influencer has anxiety, depression, social phobia.
They hate being famous. And I think it's like twofold.
I think partly we see that because that is probably what
being massively famous actually turns you into.
Like I imagine the emotional and mental health toll of being
famous would be almost unbearable sometimes.
So I think it's partly the product of that.
And then I also think that it is partly kind of the style of
documentary where it's like the purpose of these documentaries
is to humanize them and to make us empathize with them and to
like, hear their quote UN quote side of the story.
OK, let's get into the stories for today.
I mean, those were kind of stories, but, you know, there
were slim pickings for like news.
So the first story that I have for you guys is that Kendrick
Lamar has saved TikTok. This is like a new kind of like
low key trend online. My brother actually came to me
last night and he was asking why everyone online, like on his
side of the Internet, on Reddit, whatever he frequents, was
saying that Kendrick Lamar saved TikTok.
He was like, what did he do? Why is everyone saying that?
And I was like, what? So anyways, obviously I looked
into it. It is a joke, of course.
And as many trends that we see online, it is kind of hard to
trace like where this started or where it came from.
But essentially after TikTok was reinstated in the US, user
started thanking Kendrick Lamar for saving the app.
There's a bunch of posts replacing Donald Trump's name
with Kendrick Lamar on Reddit. People are like, we can't let
Trump get credit for this. Obviously it's kind of like an
in joke online, but I think the way that users are responding to
this is even funnier. So someone will post like, oh,
thank you, Kendrick, you saved TikTok, whatever.
They're like how? Because he saved it, it's so
good. It's so funny.
That's one of my favorite things about TikTok is it takes these
chronically online in jokes that previously were just kind of
like secluded to smaller communities or like closed
communities, like niches, You know, whether it be like Stan
Twitter or like a discord channel or a Youtubers, I don't
know, fanbase, whatever it is. And it kind of brings it more to
the mainstream and it allows more people to participate in
something like this. And yeah, it's just like, funny.
Like, this is literally like one of the best parts about the
Internet. So if you see people thinking
Kendrick Lamar, at least today, that's why, because he saved
TikTok. OK, The last story that I wanted
to talk about again, like I said, I'm sorry, it was Slim
Pickens. I forgot to talk about how David
David Dobrik returned back to YouTube after a three-year
hiatus following his cancellation and Jeff Wittex
accident. So this happened over the break
while I was off, but David returned with a video
documenting his physical transformation from what he says
is his body after he like quote, UN quote, let himself go to
being now really fit. The video also features him
taking a trip around the world with friends, a cameo for Mr.
Beast and David's surprising his employees at Dobrik's Pizza with
new Teslas, a very David Dobrik vlog.
The video was really well received.
This is like why I wanted to talk about it.
Like he came back, which I think was kind of surprising to
people. He's obviously not been offline,
right? We've talked about how he has
primarily been posting on Snapchat.
He did his podcast and then he kind of stopped that and then
Snapchat was like his main platform.
But what's interesting is he returned and he returned at a
time when like there was just chaos, chaos, culturally chaos
in the US. So much stuff going on online
that him returning almost got like swept under the rug.
I don't need to go into like why David was run off YouTube.
You know, I've talked about this a million times and I'm sure all
of you guys listening know the whole story, but I would say
that this was a pretty strong return, all things considered.
So Tricia Paytas and Tana Mojo discussed his return on a new
episode of their podcast, Not Loveline, and they called him
out for gallivanting across the world and releasing his vlog
before paying Jeff back for his surgeries and obviously all the
damage that was caused in the excavator accident.
But yeah, like I would say the most kind of negative quote UN
quote feedback that I have seen overwhelmingly was just people
joking that like he doesn't have the face that matches a body
that hot basically. And that's like a nice
compliment. And Tana said in this clip too
on Loveline, but she was like, this just proves that like no
one is truly canceled. I mean, rich for Tana to say, I
think David is incredibly nostalgic for so many people.
And I also think his cancellation, there was so much
that happened around it and like we were reporting on it when it
happened. And even for me, like there were
so many, I mean, and this just happens with online
cancellations, but like there's one big allegation that kind of
opens a can of worms, right? And that can of worms, so many
worms pop out and it's like overwhelming that you almost
like forget what happened and like why?
Because there are so many allegations swirling around.
And so the two main things obviously are the insider
article and then Jeff's excavator accident.
And so I think because David faced backlash for so long,
because it started with the article and then obviously
Jeff's excavator accident. And now there's been so much
around that accident, so many allegations that Jeff has made,
There's this lawsuit, like all these things, it's almost too
much that it feels overwhelming for people to like pinpoint like
why he was quote UN quote cancelled.
And therefore, I feel like sometimes that's what makes it
easier for people to just, like, for these creators or
celebrities or whatever to come out unscathed.
I'm sure there's a psychological term for this.
I'm sure that this is like a real thing in psychology.
But like, yeah, when there's too much information, it becomes
overwhelming. There's too much information,
and it like, drowns itself out almost.
So anyways, I guess Dave is back to vlogging.
So it kind of feels like we've been transported back in time.
Anyways, guys, that's it for me to scroll today.
I'm sorry that today was kind of random.
Please rate, review and subscribe if you like this
episode. If you like this podcast, please
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ratings on Spotify. I love you guys and I will talk
to you on Thursday. OK, bye.