Episode 38 Call It Like It Isn’t

Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play. This episode: guitars and Grindr!

Some of the plays in this episode may contain sensitive topics. For more specific content warnings, check out the timecodes below.

If you like what you hear and want to support the New York Neo-Futurists, subscribe to the show, consider making a donation at nynf.org, and join our Patreon. Patreon membership gives you access to bonus content like video plays! We’d really appreciate any support in these difficult times. Contributing to our Patreon helps us continue to pay our artists. 

Take care of yourself, livestream yourself cleaning out your fridge, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

1:26 - That Girl by Michaela Farrell (Here's the link to Michaela on The Today Show!)

3:35 [CW: explicit language around sex and fetishization] - Banned from Grindr by Anooj Bhandari featuring Clare Palmer, Jessie Alsop, Tonya Narvaez

Our logo was designed by Shelton Lindsay

Our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean

Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean, Julia Melfi, and Léah Miller

See you in the Park!

Transcript 

Episode 38 Call It Like It Isn’t

Show Intro

Bouncy electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Julia: 38. Call It Like It Isn't. Hi I’m Julia—a New York Neo-Futurist. While our on-going, ever-changing, late-night show, The Infinite Wrench, is on hold for the foreseeable future, we wanted a place to keep making art for you. And so we made this podcast!  

If you’re already a fan of The New York Neo-Futurists, or any of our sibling companies, hello! We can’t wait to watch a movie with you, unmasked, and preferably in your air-conditioned home. If this is totally new to you—welcome to it!

We play by four rules: We are who we are, we’re doing what we’re doing, we are where we are, and the time is now. Simply put: we tell stories, and those stories are our own. So if we tell you we're about to crack open a brand new book, we’re really about to crack open a brand new book. Sound of book opening and pages flipping. Oh! That sound! 

Some of the plays in this episode may contain sensitive topics. For more specific content warnings, check the timecodes in the show notes.

Julia: And now, Michaela will Run the Numbers!

Michaela: Hey, I’m Michaela, a New York Neo-Futurist. 

In this episode we’re bringing you 2 plays and a little something extra. The first is by me, Michaela Farrell. And the second is by Anooj Bhandari featuring Clare Palmer, Jessie Alsop, Tonya Narvaez

That brings us up to 148 audio experiments on Hit Play. Enjoy!

Music winds down.

Play 1: That Girl (1:26)

Michaela: That Girl. GO!

Guitar playing. This is a song! 

Michaela: About a week ago i was on the Today Show

No big deal I zoomed with Jenna Bush Hager though

But this isn’t a story about being famous

NO it’s more about how 

Guitar stops

HODA KOTB FUCKED WITH ME

Guitar again

I don’t want to get in to all the details

You can find the link to the video in the show notes

Basically what happens is Hoda calls back to me

She didn’t refer to me by name, she calls me THAT GIRL

Basically infantalizing me on national television and therefore forever burned in to the internet - so

Hoda Kotb what the hell

I’m not a girl

I’m 24

I am a fucking woman

Hoda Kotb what the hell

You know if I were normal it wouldn’t be a big deal

But I feel pretty scorned because I do look really young

And people always mention my youthful face and childlike energy

and Hoda Kotb has 

Guitar stops

RESURFACED ALL MY DEMONS

Music starts again

I also was totally OK with Hoda before this

She’s a great journalist and has wonderful presence.–

But the fucking NY Post even got this one right

Hoda I still like you and respect you but I’m just

wondering why you referred to me like this i went on 36 goddamn dates that’s some woman shit right there-

-so

Hoda Kotb what the hell

I’m not a girl

I’m 24

I am a fucking woman

And all this being said

If i were with you now

Hoda Kotb

This is what I’d say

Hoda 

Kotb I forgive you.

BECAUSE I'M AN ADULT

Play 2: Banned from Grindr (3:35)

Anooj: Banned from Grindr. GO!

Notification sound

Neo 1: “I want ur exotic spicy cum.” 

Notification sound

Neo 2: “Show me ur freaky chocolate.” 

Notification sound

Neo 1: “Brown people smell.”  

Notification sound

Neo 2: “Hinduism has it right.” 

Notification sound

Neo 1: “Are you Aziz Ansari?” 

Anooj: ...are just some of the direct quotes I can pull from years of screenshots navigating sexual racism on grindr. Now I can objectively say a couple things about this, the first being that it doesn’t piss me off… anymore. I hope if you’re white and hearing this, that your blood is boiling a little having to hear these things because, well, y’all got some work to be doing. We all do. But after receiving messages like this over and over and over again, it begins to beg the question of how many times can I get mad at something that I already know exists? Grindr being racist as fuck is old news… I mean, there has been a recent emergence of using BWC as a response to calling out the fetishization in BBC… white gays were literally like, “Oh, BBC is racist? I’ll just call my own dick big, that’ll fix it!,” so it makes me think, how many different ways can I say the words “white supremacy” and “toxic masculinity” before I let them eat me alive and can’t recognize myself from them? 

The second thing is that yes, I know, I actively choose to log onto this app. Or I guess, chose, but there’s something deeply psychological about feeling the hope of validation both at your fingertips and x feet away that feels a bit sexy after years of having a hard time imagining a future for one’s self. I’ve become decent at responding… sometimes with silence when I know the message was flagrant enough to have been made for the sake of wanting a response, and sometimes with a bit more thoughtfulness, giving the benefit of the doubt to somebody else’s learning.  

Notification sound

Neo 3: Hey beautiful. 

Notification sound

Anooj: Hey, how are you? 

Notification sound

Neo 3: Good. I just love Indians.  

Notification sound

Anooj: Cool. Do you have any people close to you in your life who are Indian? 

Notification sound

Neo 3: I work with a ton. IT, haha. But don’t really know any of them too well. Why? 

Notification sound

Anooj: The phrase, “I just love Indians,” comes off as kind of fetishizing. I think that if you’re going to say you love Indians you should probably be actively making space for us in your life, but also… human connections with us will probably reduce the need to fetishize in the first place. 

Notification sound

Neo 3: Wow, I’ve never been asked to think of it that way before. I’m really sorry, and also thanks a lot for that. 

Anooj: Okay, so that’s a particularly positive example, but you get the point. And I don’t engage in these conversations for any kind of singular Desi-Justice but rather to say that if you’re going to sexually long after a people, you better be making space, making space for black life, making space for trans life, making space for femme life, and you better leave your body open to the beauty and grace of that space to change your fuckin’ life; to suck the fetishization out of you. 

But anyways… long story short, last week I edited my grindr profile asking if anybody had a van that I could use to move a bed across the city, and said quote, “I will compensate you for your time and be extremely grateful,” end quote, and within ten minutes I received a notification that I had a permanent ban on my device for soliciting services. So now my ass is banned on an app that’s asked me to do years of anti-racist work, because I just needed somebody to help me move a mattress and didn’t want them to go uncompensated for their labor. And its equal parts frustrating, poetic, and lovely. 

And when I lay down to go to bed tonight, I’m real excited to start a new ritual of not convincing myself it’s a great idea to click the yellow mask… a ritual of going to bed knowing that validation and intimacy are still around me, however many feet away, and that the only way to figure out how to find them is to leave this body open to possibility of what happens when I stop repeating variations of just the words I know. 

Show Outro

Bouncy electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Julia: Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play. 

Static! 

Play 3: Neo-Futurists do Shakespeare in the Park! (7:51)

Distorted music underscore. Voice is distorted.

Michaela: Hello Hit Play listener. Go to Fort Green Park on Monday August 10th at 7pm. The New York Neo-Futurists are doing Shakespeare in the Park. Ta-ta!

Static fades back to bouncy electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Show Outro (continued)

Julia: If you liked what you heard, subscribe to the show and tell a friend! If you want to support the New York Neo-Futurists in other ways, consider making a donation at nynf.org, or joining our Patreon–Patreon.com/NYNF. Patreon membership gives you access to bonus content like video plays and livestreams. And if this episode gets over 1,000 downloads, we'll order one of our Patreon supporters a pizza on us. That could be you! If you join our Patreon. We’d really appreciate any support in these difficult times. Contributing to our Patreon helps us continue to pay our artists. 

Take care of yourself, livestream yourself cleaning out your fridge, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

This episode featured work by: Michaela Farrell and Anooj Bhandari.

Our logo was designed by Shelton Lindsay. And our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean. Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean, Léah Miller, and me, Julia Melfi. 

We'll see you in the park! Take Care!

Music plays out!