Pearl - April 15, 2026Laura Southern Is Just Another Feminist Now
Episode Stats
Words per minute
186.80713
Harmful content
Misogyny
34
sentences flagged
Toxicity
20
sentences flagged
Hate speech
15
sentences flagged
Summary
Lauren Southern is a writer, activist and YouTuber who rose to fame as a voice for the alt-right in the early days of the internet. Then, in 2017, she made the unthinkable: she signed off the internet and disappeared from the public eye.
Transcript
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then just eat the L. Do you know what I mean? Just eat it. Oh my God. Now file, file charges
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are shut up. So we're going to, we're going to react to her article. Yeah. You see, there's
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men in the chat saying they'll fix you. Okay. I helped to look at, this is her now. This was
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her then. Still would for most of you, I'm sure. I helped build the manosphere. Then it destroyed
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me. The influencer and activist Lauren Southern on abandoning the alt-right, her claims about
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her encounter with Tate and thriving in the offline world. You are not all, you cannot
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be doing articles for the times and say you're in the offline world lauren southern released a
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highly anticipated memoir then did the unthinkable she signed off the internet bruh hold on hold on
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okay you signed off the internet for a few months women are incredible okay okay i signed off the
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internet but i'm still doing articles i mean this is just getting sad while most authors with
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millions of followers are expected to drum up publicity on social media last july southern
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mutant all notifications on her phone and retreated to the anonymity of her life in
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remote Western Canada. Her decision is not so surprising when you consider the decade-long
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journey she went on to write the book, from an alt-right provocateur to a mother warning
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that online communities are warping young minds, the internet said. She loved the idea
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of this blonde Nazi chick, she told the Times in her first mainstream interview. Since the
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release of her book, This Is Not Real Life, I was basically the hardest drug you could
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get at the time, but it wasn't real. Yeah, the internet isn't real. Southern was 19 in 2015 when
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she rose to notoriety as a telegenic YouTuber promoting hateful opinions on immigration,
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feminism, and the Islamification of the West. At the time, Trump was entering the political scene,
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and these ideas were beginning to gain traction. Look at it. She got to meet some of the highest
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status people. She befriended the far-right extremist Tommy Robinson known for stirring
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anti-Muslim feeling and became the female face for the Manosphere, producing the viral hit video
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Why I Am Not a Feminist. In early 2018, Southern distributed flyers in Robinson's hometown of Luton
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calling Allah gay as parts of what she said was a social experiment. This earned her a ban from the
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UK on the grounds of her presence in the country was not conducive to the public good. Southern
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continued to fall in a dark online world, exploiting it before it eventually began exploiting her.
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She wrote in her book last summer, expressing regret for the role she had played, but only now
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feels ready to talk about it. I had no understanding of the world or how it worked, Southern said in
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Zoom from her living room, still sporting the trademark red lipstick and dark mascara,
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which she built her brand. There was no notion that I would ever become famous or even travel
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or anything like that. Do you understand how dumb you sound, Lauren? You had no notion that you would
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become famous while chasing fame. I mean, this is just, she grew up middle-class, evangelical
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Protestant family in Surrey, British Columbia, a multicultural city not far from the border of
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Washington state. She was raised, she said, on a steady diet of conservative American television,
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shock jock radio, and the Bible. She ran an unsuccessful campaign to win as a libertarian
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party candidate. Oh my God. She ran for office. Oh my God. This delusion was taken too far.
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in Canada's 2015 federal election. At the time, she was also studying political science at the
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University of Fraser Valley, where she was one of the few right-wing voices on campus.
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She admits she enjoyed being a contrarian, once interrupting an anti-rape march with a sign,
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there is no rape culture in the West. Do you see this? She went from there is no rape culture to
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accusing everyone of rape. Midway through her degree, Southern dropped out when she was offered
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a chance to be the face of rebel news. Canada's answer to Breitbart. Soon after, she released her
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why I'm not a feminist video in which she claims that feminists unintentionally created a reverse
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world of sexism which garnered more than 30 million. Jesus Christ that has so many views
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on one video. I don't think I've ever gotten that many views on a video. Reflecting on the time
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Southern now 30 says the healthy community bubble she grew up in distorted her understanding of the
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dangers men could pose. I think I projected the men in my life onto every other man in the world
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she said i assumed other women were just making it up when they talked about all these toxic men
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because i had never encountered them bruh you had never encountered a toxic man translation i said
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what i needed to to get famous like do you not think lauren do you not think people see through
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this you gotta stop you gotta and i say this with love you have to stop after her first viral video
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she started making longer form documentaries including one produced in south africa that
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focused on the alleged persecution of white farmers then at the height of the migrant crisis
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she joined the organization Defend Europe as it tried to block the non-governmental organization's
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votes rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean. She connected with Robinson, the former leader of the
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English Defense League, as he was fermenting Islamophobia in the wake of Britain's grooming
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gang scandal. They shared the belief that there is a generational crusade to save the West.
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All the while, Southern said her persona was being created online and she revealed it.
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a lot of those very far right communities are creating a lure around the southern side it was
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like okay you want me to be that fine I'll play your villain I'll have fun with it I'll trigger
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you and wear the it's okay to be white shirt so again no accountability for the choices she made
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this is why we it's kind of the men's fault to a degree because they keep giving women these things
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like they keep giving women positions over nothing so it's like what do you the algorithm
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rhythmic nature of the internet meant she was rewarded for her most shocking and comments
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and moments. Every time someone would partake in a new kind of low behavior, whether it be making
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up a story or creating a clickbait headline that was dishonest, everyone would look and say, well,
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the only way I can survive in this environment is if I acquies, she said. In 2016, Trump was elected
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president and he reposted some of Southern's content, helping boost her profile. Each video
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attracted more and more attention than the last. The media dubbed her the original MAGA dream girl,
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the alt-right's most famous woman, and the first soldier in the online culture war. The same year,
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Southern self-published her first book, Barbarians, how the baby boomers, immigration, and Islam
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screwed my generation, and which she argued that Western civilization was in decline due to the
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spread of left-wing ideologies. The last time she spoke to the Times in 2019, she was denied being a
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racist to the far right. She finished the interview by predicting a race war and quoting Enoch Powell.
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i know i said the name wrong you know how i am guys i bad with names can't help it uh the woman
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flying the flag for the generation okay now with the now she's changed her mind shocking
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so what i mean all the women that are supposed to you know prove the red pill wrong are just
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becoming examples of it now with the benefit of distance southern said she has been a young and
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angry engagement addict who is looking to the internet for approval it was all about keeping
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the excitement and the chaos, but I had a short lifespan because there's no depth to it. It was
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an ideological lap dance, she said. People aren't really looking for politics. They're not looking
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for a worldview. They just want someone that's pretty and hot to affirm what they already feel
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and think and believe. Translation, I got my job because I was hot. It was easy money. I said what
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I had to say. The week I talked to Southern, the online account of a blonde all-American army girl
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called Jessica Foster was in the news. One photo showed Foster sporting a short-skimmed army uniform
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and giving a speech with President Trump in attendance.
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Another showed her smiling and posing proudly alongside Trump and President Putin of Russia.
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Foster hit 1 million followers on Instagram before the mainstream media exposed her as an AI-generated scam.
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While the MAGA movement once harassed the appeal of pretty young women like Southern to amplify their views,
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now anyone can generate a political avatar with an AI code.
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late last year elon musk's ex introduced a location feature that revealed many maga and
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right-wing influencers who present themselves as patriotic americans were actually operating
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outside the u.s including russia nigeria and india in the early days when i was getting started
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everything was real southern said everything was curated by real people everything getting posted
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was real now it's just bots and algorithms she warned was a sinister development now you don't
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know who's running it. If it's from a foreign government, someone with a bunch of bots or
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paid to have their video boosted, it's a real concern. Southern said it was in early 2018 that
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Robinson, whose real name is Steven, I'm not saying that, mentioned it to her that he had been
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in contact with some wealthy crypto investors in Europe who might be interested in sponsoring a
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large media project if they could all build it together. The investors turned out to be Andrew
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Tate and his brother Tristan who are beginning an establishment just beginning to establish a
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more online presence that would later form the foundations the Manosphere now again the Manosphere
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is not Tate it's not me um it's really more like Rolo Tomasi Royce um these people I guess maybe
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say we're a part of it but it's not the original Manosphere was in forums Donovan okay the Tates
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booked southern on a flight to okay so she got flewed out by by tate okay to do business in her
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memoir published last july she details her vision of that night andrew she wrote revealed he was a
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fan of her work and alleged allegedly asked southern if she was interested in starting a
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family it's how we rebuild western civilization he told her she had one or two drinks drinks in
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the club and felt surprisingly intoxicated okay i got drunk i wanted to bang him because he was
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rich hot and famous just say that just say that lauren she went home with with tate who invited
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her into bed i kissed him briefly and then told him i wanted to sleep i said no many times and
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tried to pull his hand off of me she alleged in the memoir he put his arm around my neck and began
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strangling me unconscious i tried to fight back he repeatedly strangled me every time i regained
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some enough consciousness to pull out his arms i prefer not to share the rest it's pretty obvious
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southern did not go public with her allegations until the eve of the book this is not real life
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when she posted two chapters from the book on substack tate responded on x that she made claims
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to get attention so she could sell her memoirs of promiscuity coincidence i'm sure tate's lawyer
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said in a statement in july that southern was lying through her teeth accusing her of textbook
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extortion it's like lauren if you're not going to press charges just eat the l like seriously
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shut up eat the out thank you for those super chats uh oh my god you're making me pronounce
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this this why are you doing this to me acquiesce acquiesce i can't read thanks for your videos
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oh my god okay um no such okay okay okay he said she was weaponizing her previous consensual
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encounters for financial gain uh mcbride said his client would sue southern for defamation
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Andrew's going to lean into this for the truth.
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Why didn't she come back with her allegations in 2018?
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Southern State Center Memora wouldn't be helpful to the cause or my career for me to become
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then just eat the L. Do you know what I mean? Just eat it. Oh my God. Now file, file charges are
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shut up. It's just incredible. These women, her private pain, which she tried to ease with drugs
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and alcohol, let it turn to unplugging from the internet in 2019. Probably cause she caught herpes
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if we're going to be for real. I mean, cause that's the rumor with him. Uh, the train I was
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on was going faster and faster, but by the time I realized it was going at speeds that might kill
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me the idea of jumping off seemed impossible. She posted a new chapter on our website about
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her decision to take some time off and focus on her soul. She has fallen in love. She had
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fallen in love and married an Australian man who coincidentally was also an abuser. It's
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like her hiatus didn't last long. She had a son. Okay. She had a son in 2020, married
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a guy in Australia, a guy that can't talk a guy in Australia. The same year her son
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was born she reinvented herself as a trad wife which she suspects played into a christian need
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for redemption she posted photos of a curated life that showed her exercising and baking in
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the couple's home in australia i figured if i followed the manual of look pretty quit my job
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have babies serve my husband that i should have a happy life that i crave but southern claimed her
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husband became controlling and whenever she tried to assert any amount of independence
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she alleges he would lock her out of the house calling her a worthless dead weight well were
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you worthless deadweight? Were you a worthless deadweight? Really? You were just perfect. In
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all these situations, you were just perfect and tricked. Look, this is how I would have did it,
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Lauren. I would have came out and I would have said, look, guys, whoring was more fun than I
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thought. Being married, not that fun. Sorry about all the stuff I said. I'm going to stay on the
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internet because I'd rather do that than watch my kids. Let's move on. See that? You could always
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just say, I did it. I knew it was wrong. Let's move on. Sorry to the people I hurt. Southern
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said her husband left her and their son and she went against his wishes by visiting her family
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in Canada. She filed a protective order and the couple would end up officially separating.
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A cardinal sin in the traditionalist movement, the backlash was swift. Commentators called her
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a whore and wished her damnation. Her estranged husband was unreachable for comment. Southern
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has been the darling of the online right until she failed to meet oh my god the online rights
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impossible expectations lauren i'm i'm sorry the expect the expectations were not impossible
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women get married young and have kids all the time it's just you didn't want to do it eat that
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oh eat it you got to eat it all right you know it's not like we said be a billionaire they just
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said, you know, marry young, have kids, get off the internet. It's like, bruh. Okay. It's a
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systemic, um, it's a system in which you're guaranteed to fail as a woman because you cannot
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survive, survive its contact with reality. She said, these men want to have sex with women.
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They also want them to stay virgins. There was this app that came out called Digin if AI that
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allowed men to clothe OnlyFans girls so they were more modest. Those same men were undressing the
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women. Southern now finds herself in the uncomfortable intersection of victim and
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beneficiary of the manosphere, which has worked to dehumanize women and normalize violence against
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them. My life is a punchline to go to a girl that's holding up a sign about rape culture,
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to help and create the manosphere, to having Tate assault me. Look, Lauren, you've got to just eat
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this L this is sad this is so sad this is pathetic say hey I thought I wasn't a whore turns out I was
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I can't read the oh my god okay I guess there's a little bit left I'll read I briefly wonder
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whether Southern's apparent contrition is part of her decade-long grift for attention
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but unlike her pivot in 2020 this seems less performative as a mother she clearly feels a
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heavy responsibility to create a healthier online environment. So basically women's burden
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of performance is in our 20s. Occasionally a woman wins in her 30s. And the burden of performance is
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to get a hot guy to commit. And the women that don't win, that are losers, they are trying to
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rationalize their loser-ness as not being a defect of their personality or choices. So they are just
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going to blame it on the abuse of men as usual. Okay. Um, I can't read the rest of this. I can't,
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I'm sorry. I don't care. I don't, I, there's only two paragraphs left and I just, I don't care.
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You're a loser. Okay. So my question, and we're going to have a call in is could a woman like
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that be redeemed? And, um, what would she have to do to be redeemed? Now, when I say redeemed,
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i don't mean that she's gonna have the high status she had when she was young i'm not even
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saying um that she necessarily like is revered in any way but like the way she is now i put her in
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the way back of the church um and she's just an absolute loser now if christians would just hand
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her a microphone and say get on stage convert tomorrow but it's not me so anyways um i think
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you know, whores do have a path to redemption. And here will be my game plan to her. Return your
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kid to the dad. You have a son. Sons need their father. Call the father. Apologize. Give him
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custody. Number two, drop the conservative act. You have not lived the life of a conservative
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woman. You shot for the moon and you missed. You shot for the stars, you missed. Eat the L.
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And instead of fighting people, instead of fighting people about the fact that like trying to gaslight us into the fact you were not a whore, just eat it.
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Be prepared to pay for yourself for a lifetime.
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And come in with some humility if a man is, if you are so lucky to have a man take care of you.
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bring humility to your next relationship men do forgive a lot for some humility
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stop talking forever and you know what if you want to stay on the internet because this is
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your job to some degree I will actually give you a compromise you can do the job but then
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never talk about yourself again and stop talking about your personal life