Behind the Curtain of Smear Campaigns

The episode explores the complexities of modern smear campaigns, using the alleged feud between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni as a central case study. We discuss how these campaigns have evolved, their historical significance, and the ethical dilemmas they present in the digital age.

• The concept and purpose of smear campaigns 
• Historical context with examples like Marie Antoinette 
• Analysis of the Lively and Baldoni feud 
• The impact of social media on rumor spread 
• The role of PR firms in managing reputations 
• Ethical considerations of truth and perception in celebrity culture

Chapters

• 0:00 Celebrity Smear Campaigns
• 5:15 Anatomy of Smear Campaigns
• 12:26 Celebrity Smear Campaign Tactics in Hollywood
• 24:19 The Influence of Smear Campaigns

Transcript

Rob: 0:00

All right you guys ready. So you probably heard about the rumored feud between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.

Chris: 0:07

Hey Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl here.

Rob: 0:10

Tabloid drama, cryptic Instagram posts and whispers of tension on set. It's the stuff of Hollywood legend, right?

Victor: 0:16

I heard more about the drama than the movie itself. Yeah, that's kind of how it goes. I think the drama would have made a better movie.

Rob: 0:24

Is it really a feud or something more going on? It's not just celebrities. Smear campaigns have been around forever, from political takedowns to royal scandals, but in today's digital age, they've evolved into something more powerful and maybe more sinister. Today, we're digging into Blake and Justin's saga and using it to explore how smear campaigns have shifted over time. Are they tools of destruction or have they become a sneaky way to generate buzz? You might rethink the next celebrity scandal you scroll on Instagram.

Cesar: 0:54

Welcome to the I'm Not Dumb but Podcast, where we won't claim to have the answers to life's deepest questions but we'll give you an exciting journey into the realms of knowledge you never knew you'd either. Might be mainstream, but not common knowledge. From artificial intelligence to conspiracy theories, no topic is too taboo for us to explore. Let's get curious together.

Rob: 1:14

I'm Rob, your host for today, joined by the man who's still convinced he can bulk and cut at the same time Cesar Yup and I can do it. Our boy, whose New Year's resolution is to color coordinate his dating apps, victor.

Victor: 1:28

How y'all doing. Gotta, keep it organized.

Rob: 1:30

And a true success story from the INDB intern turned head of marketing, Chris.

Chris: 1:36

What's up? Wait, I got promoted to a marketer.

Victor: 1:39

That's why no one knows anything about this podcast.

Cesar: 1:44

Chris, we got Instagram.

Victor: 1:48

I knows anything about this podcast, chris, we got instagram. I don't know what do we do. All right, so what is this smear campaign? Let me just take a shot in the dark in this. A smear campaign is a maneuver you do at a after you go to the bathroom. You take and you smear it all over the bathroom as revenge is.

Cesar: 2:03

That is that is that before or after? You put the poop inside the bag, you light it up and then you knock on the door.

Victor: 2:10

That's a different one. That's a different one. That's called door dash.

Rob: 2:16

I think my uncle does that he's an idiot. So, according to the Oxford Dictionary, a smear campaign is a plan to discredit a public figure by making false or dubious accusations. It's a calculated effort to ruin someone's reputation, often with harmful and misleading information. The ultimate goal of the smear campaign is basically you want to isolate the person you're targeting. This is a way of stripping away their support. So, whether it's financial, social or emotional, when you take away someone's resources, they're left vulnerable.

Victor: 2:48

It sounds kind of cruel.

Rob: 2:50

It's not nice, it's not nice. It's politics, baby it is politics and it is used in politics.

Victor: 2:56

Yeah, so when do they get into each other's bathroom? That's after. That's after. There's a video on it, disgusting, so that's after.

Rob: 3:01

Okay, that's after there's a video on it if you Disgusting? So let's break it down. How does a smear campaign usually start? So the person launching the smear campaign is often felt wronged or mistreated by the target. So they'll position themselves as a victim, which is key to starting the attack. So once they feel they're being treated unfairly, they might resort to a smear campaign in a way to punish or get revenge on another person.

Victor: 3:24

So Caesar's trying to start a smear campaign on me?

Rob: 3:29

Yeah, he felt wronged by you some way, and now he wants to get revenge.

Victor: 3:36

He wants to get revenge, so he's going to start by going hey, listen, I have been attacked by this guy viciously for the past three months.

Rob: 3:43

But one of the most important things to understand about smear campaigns is they thrive on speed, so the goal is to get ahead of the story. So the first person who spreads the rumors or the accusations usually is the person who gets the upper hand. So if Caesar wants to go ahead and start one, he's got to get ahead of you as soon as he feels wrong.

Chris: 4:00

But when you start the campaign it's not always true, right?

Rob: 4:05

Well, so the whole point of a smear campaigns is to accuse a person about like facts that could be true, because you don't want to outright lie.

Cesar: 4:13

That would be defamation you're kind of embellishing the truth, right, oh? Okay kind of stretching it to its. You know technically, uh, not a lie so the first thing is speed.

Victor: 4:23

So speed as in, like you, so you want to be the first in the room, so like if you let one rip in a crowd full of people, you want to be the first guy to go. What's that smell?

Rob: 4:33

right, right, do you have a dog? Yeah, yeah do you?

Chris: 4:38

smell. Yeah, what is that?

Victor: 4:41

yeah, you gotta pretend that that it wasn't you. Is there a gas leak? Oh my God, what is that Exactly? He smelt it, dealt it.

Rob: 4:50

So what you want to target? The first thing you want to target smear campaigns are often they target people who are easier to persuade, so they're called soft targets. So the smear will first go after their own base, people who already support them or share their worldwide view. This creates a community of the followers who can now amplify the story and they can start to slowly pull people away from the TARC, because the whole idea is to isolate that person. Now here's where Chris was saying make outright lies. The whole idea is plausible accusations. These are not necessarily outrageous, but they could highlight the target's weaknesses, so something that makes the accusation sound believable to outsiders. So if you say something, you're like oh yeah, jim was kind of acting weird. That's the whole idea. You want to just kind of take the confidence away from this person.

Victor: 5:37

Could that just be something as simple as insults or like? Would it be full on like sexual harassment? This guy was saying very inappropriate things. To me, as long as it's believable.

Rob: 5:48

So it's about sharing bits of truths, but you're taking them out of context, so distorting what was said or done to make it seem much worse than it already is. So this idea of what they call poisoning the well man, that just sounds horrible. I think Chris thinks he's taking a master class in smear yeah, I think he's like he's like fucking marketing, marketing. All right, I'll show these assholes we'll see what you say in the next intro, rob I hate cursive and I hate all of you and then this would get amplified through gossip.

Rob: 6:23

so you're telling your soft targets, so you tell a story to different people, always adding new details and painting the target in a bad light. This creates a ripple effect, with people whispering rumors in different circles and having their own spin on it. So one of the big things with smear campaigns, though, is you really can't have a paper trail because you need it to be hearsay. You need it to be hearsay because, if you start writing things down now.

Rob: 6:49

You can get in trouble for that. So a big part of smear campaigns is that is not usually in writing.

Victor: 6:53

Yeah, but how do you set that up with, like your PR team? If you're a politician and you have a campaign like, how do you just go? I need, like my team, to come up with a smear campaign. You guys can't write it down.

Rob: 7:05

Create rumors, create rumors, create threads, create ideas, put it out there.

Cesar: 7:10

You could probably go into one of these Reddits or any of these chats and use a burner account and just start saying random stuff.

Victor: 7:17

Hey, I heard this guy really fucking sucks.

Cesar: 7:20

I work at so-and-so's office and I heard this that, that, that that you have all the information and you're like yo, this guy's.

Rob: 7:26

Yeah, and then usually, since things are not written down, if someone is confronted, they can just avoid the situation or gaslight, you right, they can deny involvement.

Rob: 7:36

They can act like the person was hey, you're overreacting. I never said that, like I never told that to anybody. Who did you hear this from? Oh, told that to anybody. Who would you hear this from? Oh, so-and-so Well, it wasn't me. You know what I mean.

Rob: 7:47

And the smear campaign won't be direct. So instead they'll use subtle tactics like passive-aggressive posts or comments, and once they have a base of supporters, then they can start escalating, because now the narrative has changed about this one person. Put it out there, people start to believe it and then now, if you were to up the ante, more people are going to start to believe You're going to be like oh yeah, I heard that from all these other people saying the same thing. The ultimate goal here for a smear campaign now that we're talking about the anatomy of a smear campaign you want to destabilize the other person, so you start to make others question about their character, their motives and maybe even their sanity. So let's look at some examples. We'll take a story of one of the historical story of smear campaigns. One was Marie Antoinette Bitch Okay, the queen of France in the late 1700s.

Victor: 8:38

That bitch, let them eat cake. How dare you. How dare you?

Rob: 8:44

So she became a target of one of the most infamous smear campaigns in history. At a time when the monarchy was already facing massive financial struggles, marie was painted as the epitome of excess and irresponsibility, so especially with the infamous phrase let them eat cake, which she supposedly said in response to the poor starving due to her bread shortage. The problem she never actually said it. What? Yeah, it was a piece of propaganda to show how out of touch she was with reality over the people she ruled. She never actually said it.

Victor: 9:15

Let's go live now to the press conference. I may have said something earlier in this podcast about Marie Antoinette. I just want to apologize to her family.

Rob: 9:29

I was going off of false information.

Victor: 9:31

I was lied to. I was lied to.

Rob: 9:33

Hundreds of years later.

Chris: 9:34

you were lied to Hundreds of years later.

Victor: 9:36

I am sorry.

Chris: 9:37

Such nonsense, I would never say that.

Rob: 9:39

Her every move was scrutinized and twisted. She was blamed for France's financial crisis and accused of being promiscuous and even to have led relationships with high-profile men. All of this was used to frame her as a symbol of everything that is wrong with the monarchy. Well, by the time the French Revolution kicked into full gear, marie Antoinette's reputation had been so thoroughly tarnished by this smear campaign that it played part in her downfall and public opinion had turned against her. The smear campaign didn't just harm her, because eventually she was executed, but it helped fuel the entire French Revolution Night jumps queen.

Rob: 10:18

They actually have a lot of written evidence that she was really worried about the poor and was actually trying to find ways to help the situation, and then they just wrote her up as saying let them eat cake. So here's another example One of the most infamous presidential races in US history in 1828, the US presidential election between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams. I remember that yeah, it wasn't too long ago.

Cesar: 10:46

Yeah.

Rob: 10:46

So the race between Andrew Jackson and the incumbent, john Quincy Adams, was one of the dirtiest in American history. Jackson, a war hero, was painted as violent and uneducated brute. His opponents spread rumors that his wife, rachel, was a bigamist because her divorce from her first husband wasn't fully finalized before marrying Jackson. The scandal deeply affected Rachel, who was publicly humiliated and reportedly devastated by the attacks. Jackson's supporters didn't hold back either. They accused Adams of being a corrupt elitist and even claimed he procured a young woman for a Russian czar while serving as a US ambassador. Well, how did this end? Despite the vicious campaign, jackson won the presidency. However, just weeks after his victory, rachel Jackson's wife passed away, which Jackson blamed on stress and emotional toll of the smear campaign.

Victor: 11:40

Wow, damn.

Rob: 11:41

Yeah, pretty bad.

Victor: 11:43

You don't go after a man's wife. No, unless you're Ted Cruz, then his wife is fair game.

Chris: 11:49

You can just say the worst shit. He just rolled over and died on that one Just rolled over Oof, oof.

Rob: 11:54

Everybody's always blaming me for everything, so let's fast forward to today. The rumored feud between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni on the set of it Ends With Us. You guys see it.

Chris: 12:06

I heard the movie sucked what.

Rob: 12:11

What do you mean? It's all over the internet.

Cesar: 12:14

I've seen screenshots with captions like oh, someone's getting sued, but I don't know anything of it.

Victor: 12:21

It Ends With Us has a 55% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's not bad. I remember when it was coming out she had to enlist the help of Ryan Reynolds to start promoting it for her. Really, they were doing it around the same time as Deadpool and Wolverine and then all of a sudden he's popping up on her press junkets pushing their movie.

Cesar: 12:44

He's a marketing genius, yeah he really is. Chris, can you get him on the phone?

Rob: 12:49

He sold me mint mobile, the biggest sack of shit wireless he sold me mint mobile kids 15 dollars a month me to the moon and back.

Rob: 13:02

That's a great deal so much like marie antwren at smear campaign. What we're seeing today could be a mix of exaggerations, distortions and and media manipulation. But the real question is could this entire scandal be strategically planted smear campaign? So let's dig into the details. Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni co-starred in the film. It Ends With Us, a movie based on a romance novel dealing with some heavy topics like emotional and physical abuse in relationships.

Cesar: 13:34

Yeah, that movie was going to bomb.

Rob: 13:35

Actually, my wife read the book and she loved the book. She saw the movie and was like this is horrible and horrible adaptation.

Victor: 13:42

So she's the one.

Rob: 13:44

Yeah, but here's where it gets even more interesting. During filming, she claimed that Justin Baldoni, who was also the director, and Jamie Heath, the lead producer, repeatedly violated her physical boundaries and made sexually inappropriate comments toward her at times improvised unwanted kissing, and openly discussed his sex life, including moments where he mentioned not receiving consent in past encounters. As for Jamie Heath, he showed her a video of his wife naked and then watched her undress in the trailer when she was breastfeeding, despite her asking to look away. So some pretty serious allegations from Blake Listen listen, okay, away.

Cesar: 14:30

So some pretty serious allegations from uh blake. Listen, listen, okay. Ryan reynolds is a big enough star that if any of this actually happened, I think there would have been hell in that set to be honest, but would do you want to be that woman that runs to her husband every time?

Chris: 14:47

yes, her there's an issue.

Victor: 14:50

She's an actress.

Cesar: 14:51

She was an actress before him, he's, and he's almost a billionaire.

Chris: 14:55

So yeah, she's a pretty big deal herself, though.

Cesar: 14:58

At least get taylor swift involved. She could write a song.

Rob: 15:02

It's funny what you're saying so now. As you can imagine, the studio didn't take this lightly. Wayfarer studios uh. The production company agreed to bring in an intimacy coordinator.

Victor: 15:14

What is that?

Chris: 15:15

I still don't know what that is. What is an intimacy coordinator?

Cesar: 15:20

Don't they choreograph like sex scenes and love scenes?

Victor: 15:23

That's a job Like hey, you want to give him more tongue?

Rob: 15:27

So an intimacy coordinator is a professional in the film and television industries who ensures the safety and well-being of actors during intimate scenes.

Victor: 15:35

Oh, so they just go. I feel like they're just there to convince you to do whatever dirty shit that the director has said.

Rob: 15:42

Based off her allegations, he came up with unwanted kissing.

Cesar: 15:46

So what's this movie about again?

Rob: 15:53

Domestic abuse. Yeah, domestic abuse.

Cesar: 15:55

Yeah, so the movie's about domestic abuse and this guy's doing unwanted sexual.

Rob: 16:01

Allegedly, allegedly Okay.

Cesar: 16:04

I think it's par for the course he doesn't drop character.

Rob: 16:08

He doesn't drop character, right, he's a method, method man I don't drop character till I've done a dvd commentary justin baldoni fired back, claiming that blake used her position to take control of the film's creative process.

Rob: 16:24

specifically, he alleged that she insisted on joining him in the editing bay during the 10-week protected period, which is typically a private period where the director would work on the cut of the film without interference. So he even said Blake, a seasoned pro in the industry, knew the implications of her request. She asked for more time in the editing bay and, according to Baldoni, the initial two-day request stretched to 10 days. And, according to Baldoni, the initial two-day request stretched to 10 days. Worse, she allegedly took over the editing process, firing the film's original editor and bringing in her own team, including an editor who works for her husband, ryan Reynolds. She even added extra music, and some of them were Taylor Swift songs, because I guess they're friends.

Victor: 17:07

She basically tries to take complete control over the movie and this is according to him.

Rob: 17:12

Now, this is according to him, it's mine now the tension didn't stop there. Baldoni claims this caused a rift between the film's crew, ultimate leading to his removal from the project altogether. Baldoni is quoted, uh, where he says she's finishing it all. I can't be involved music, sound, vf, vfx, everything I'll make it through somehow. I just need to feel it all. So she pretty much took over the entire movie after making some allegations.

Victor: 17:38

It seems like. Is there any proof on either one of these sides that something weird was going on, or is it just?

Rob: 17:44

he says, she said when she sued him for a smear campaign, there was a new york times article which he sued after the article came out where they subpoenaed baldoni's uh text messages with him and and his pr team and everything, yeah, and a lot of this. They've come out to light and now all the text messages are out. So if you read the new york times article, it's very blake, lively side, pro, yeah, okay, he didn't like that. So now he sued the new york times for basically taking. If you read the New York Times article, it's very Blake, lively-sided yeah, okay, he didn't like that. So now he sued the New York Times for basically taking everything out of context, which when you read it, it does not sound good for him.

Rob: 18:19

But it does leave out all of the other things that she did, allegedly in response to the accusations of Blake Lively made against Justin Baldoni. Both Baldoni and Heath, who positioned themselves as strong advocates for the Me Too movement, feared Blake's story would be a serious blow to their reputations. So, instead of addressing the accusations head on, baldoni, heath and their studio, wayfair, which is backed by billionaire mogul Steve Sorowitz, decided to hire a PR firm to run a smear campaign against Blake, but not just any PR firm. They hired Melissa Nathan Holy shit. Founder of the Agency Group or TAG PR. Nathan is known for handling crisis management for some of Hollywood's biggest names, like Johnny Depp, drake and the Chainsmokers.

Victor: 19:06

So you can hire a PR team to fire back at another celebrity. Yeah, I need some fucking money. You need money, bro. You need money.

Rob: 19:17

This is like what they work on. They call it crisis management.

Victor: 19:21

Hi Melissa, I'm going to give you a name. I want that person gone. Listen to this. I was at a district meeting.

Cesar: 19:28

They were building a building right. The owners of the building hired a PR firm to talk to the tenants and to talk to the neighboring residents, because the building had asbestos, had everything wrong that you could think of. So instead of going in and telling the people what's wrong, they hired a PR firm to do all their bidding and say, nope, everything is good, everything was good, everything comes to code. So if a building can do it, all these celebrities can do it too Well.

Victor: 19:56

the people who own the building did it Well. The building itself did not make any.

Cesar: 20:00

You never know, bro. You never know these days. I can identify as a building.

Rob: 20:05

That was a great area in the story and I'm glad you clicked that up.

Cesar: 20:08

I can identify as a building.

Rob: 20:12

And her firm. They specialize in creating reputation-shifting strategies, especially for clients looking to control the narrative, and that New York Times article, one of the text messages that were out of context, she is quoted to saying you know, we can bury anyone.

Victor: 20:29

Oh my.

Rob: 20:29

God.

Victor: 20:30

That's the kind of that's who you want on your team.

Rob: 20:32

That's really yeah, that's the professionalism I want. And these campaigns, they're not cheap. It's reported that Wayfarer's merit campaign against Blake Lively was well-funded, allegedly with $100 million of Sorowitz money behind it, and the Baldoni camp pitched a $175,000 four-month battle plan to start threads and theories on platforms like Reddit and TikToks to steer the narrative in their favor.

Victor: 21:01

Dude, that's crazy. I feel like I could do that right. How hard is that? Just tell people hey, put a bunch of Reddit threads, call this person a son of a bitch, go on Twitter, start tweeting how racist they are.

Rob: 21:12

That's pretty much what they were doing. So these tactics, which are straight out of the modern day, played book for digital smear campaigns, involving creating fake social media threads, manipulating fan engagement and fueling negativity around the target, in this case, blake Lively. His PR firm hires this guy called Jed Wallace and he's a PR crisis manager and is described as a Ray Donovan type fixer.

Victor: 21:38

Oh, so someone's getting beaten up, and this is Blake's team.

Rob: 21:42

No, no, no Baldoni's team. So Melissa Nathan hired, subcontracted out this guy to basically go in there and do a lot of stuff.

Cesar: 21:51

When I was reading.

Rob: 21:52

There was another article and they were saying that this guy, jed Wallace, is like if you need a helicopter in, like the sub-Sahara, this is the guy who knows how to find it. Oh my God.

Chris: 22:02

I wish I had one of those guys.

Victor: 22:04

Wow, I need one of those guys.

Rob: 22:06

No, social media online. If you look them up, it's like even Melissa Nathan. If you try to find what she looks like, it's hard to find anything about her.

Victor: 22:18

I mean, if she's in crisis management, she can hide herself. Yeah, it's like to hire her. They're like go to this bar at six o'clock, sit at this chair, someone will approach you.

Chris: 22:26

Order the wontons are you waiting for someone?

Rob: 22:32

so he's known for handling delicate situations for powerful people. His firm, uh street relations, allegedly led the charge in creating viral social media threads to shift the narrative away from Baldoni's alleged misdeeds and toward a more negative portrayal of Blake.

Rob: 22:48

How old is this beef? Oh, this is in August. All this stuff happened. You know how all this came out TikTokers online when they were, um, like doing their press junkets and everything. They were never together. And then someone went on their social media and saw that halfway through the movie or after the movie had, uh, wrapped up and they were editing. Ryan reynolds unfriended justin baldoni and then so did she. They unfollowed them. I'm not your friend so they were like wait a minute they not together and all of a sudden they're unfriended.

Rob: 23:21

And then this got picked up by major news outlets and then blew up. And then that's how all this stuff started coming out. Oh, it was like crazy. So now, with all this talk of strategy, money and PR pr manipulation, it raises an interesting question could this entire feud and smear campaign be a carefully orchestrated marketing move?

Chris: 23:43

if so, it did a terrible job, because this movie still sucks yeah, I could say that, but I feel like they could spend the money on something else, like better marketing than trying to destroy each other. But the movie's up movies suck.

Cesar: 23:57

Yeah, I think there's more clever ways to do it, but you got people talking.

Rob: 24:00

Right.

Cesar: 24:00

Not me because I don't know anything of it, but the people are talking.

Rob: 24:03

Yeah, I was trying to understand how big these marketing budgets were. For major box office like Robert Downey Jr and Iron man type stuff, it's $100 to $200 million in marketing. So that's what it takes to make some of those movies, right, right and hollywood. The line between real life conflict and promotional tactics it gets blurred. Think about it smear campaigns in some cases can be a way to generate buzz for a film. This isn't the first time we've seen anything like this either. In the early days of celebrity tabloids, stories about rivalry, rivalries or on-set tension were often used to promote movies and TV shows.

Chris: 24:39

I read somewhere about the movie the Wicked, the. What I wonder? The Wicked the Weekend? The Wicked?

Victor: 24:45

Wicked, wicked, it's not.

Rob: 24:48

The.

Victor: 24:48

Wicked, I think it's just Wicked. It's just Wicked With Ariana Grande.

Rob: 24:52

Yeah, pre-blackcent or post-Blackcent, why don't you mind your?

Cesar: 24:56

own business, you old fuck.

Chris: 24:58

During their promoting the movie where she got paid like 10 times more than any other co-stars, and then that kind of generated a little buzz about like yeah, like they're saying like she got paid, like, say-.

Victor: 25:10

She's Ariana Grande and who's the other woman? So I think Ariana.

Rob: 25:13

Grande, she was getting paid more, but she worked with the other actress to, I think, erin agrande.

Chris: 25:15

She was getting paid more but she worked with the other actress to make sure that they got paid the same amount I think they took that out of context and they said that she got this much and everyone's got that much, and it generated like a whole buzz about like how is that fair? How is that that?

Rob: 25:31

and then they I think they got it fixed for her, which was pretty nice for ariana to do's actually pretty nice. And let's just look at some carefully crafted PR stunts that were used to generate sales. So you guys remember the 50 Cent versus Kanye West? No Me either.

Chris: 25:48

Me either when?

Rob: 25:51

I was going through these lists of like. I've never even heard of these feuds, but apparently these were feuds to generate sales. In the end, they were just. I've never even heard of these feuds, but apparently these were feuds to generate sales. In the end, they were just. I don't even know if they're real. So 50 Cent and Kanye West's quote unquote feud was nothing more than a publicity stunt and, according to Nicki Swift, these rappers released albums Yeezy's Graduation and 50 Curtis on the same day in 2007.

Cesar: 26:17

I do remember, I do remember?

Victor: 26:18

I do remember, yeah, but was that his big one?

Chris: 26:21

No, that was Get.

Victor: 26:21

Richard.

Rob: 26:22

I Try Him. That's the only one I know of him.

Victor: 26:24

In that case, yeah, because Graduation clearly a better fucking album than Curtis.

Rob: 26:30

Yeah, but 50 taught me, go ahead and switch your style up, because if they hate, then let them hate and watch your money pile up. I mean, that's all I really know. Your style up, because if they hate, then let them hate and get your watch your money pile up.

Cesar: 26:40

I mean, that's all I really know. Preach it ain't no joke. I remember that feud actually now and what happened?

Rob: 26:45

was it like a big thing?

Cesar: 26:47

nothing kanye. His sales were even like triple 50s yeah, it didn't work for 50.

Rob: 26:52

And another one taylor swift and kat Katy Perry, their supposed feud. These pop stars began over backup dancers and spiraled into public shade, throwing with hits like Bad Blood and Swish Swish, fueling the narrative. Years later they reconciled, but many fans suspected that the drama was completely for album sales and media attention.

Victor: 27:15

Well, to be fair, so she does the pop version of diss tracks.

Cesar: 27:21

Who has she dissed? All her ex-boyfriends.

Victor: 27:23

The entire ex-boyfriends.

Rob: 27:28

But that's just. I think that's just her venting the entire offensive line. Well, some of them like to write really long emails, oh, really. So smear campaigns have evolved significantly with the rise of the digital age, but why do they work so well today? So when we talked about the anatomy of a smear campaign, speed. Speed is a big factor, but in today's digital age, speed is so much easier. So in Marie Antoinette's stage and history and politics, a lot of these things had to come out with pamphlets and hearsay and inner circles, and that would take months to spread rumors, right. But now a post, a tweet, it can go viral in minutes before the truth even has a chance to come out. So on the flip side, there have been attempts to discredit movements, itself proving how easy it is to actually weaponize social media for personal gain. Now we have cancel culture and all these things that people are scared about, because anything can happen and the speed of it.

Cesar: 28:21

You just won't be able to catch up I can't wait for uh people to cancel us, because that would be we got big enough for people to care I'm kind of a big deal so what do you call it?

Chris: 28:33

this opposite of samira campaign, when you're trying to hype something up? Is there a word for that?

Cesar: 28:38

yeah, you're a hype man supreme promotion. You're just promoting, promoting to try to fight back smear campaigns. Would you want to lean into the smear?

Rob: 28:48

no, so I was reading about how to. I would you want to get ahead of it and you want to tell your truths. But some people who ignore it are seen as like uh, deflecting, and sometimes it looks bad. But then some people who come out immediately about it, it also looks bad, so it's like what do you do in these situations?

Cesar: 29:10

you, hire your fixer.

Rob: 29:12

Yeah, you hire your own pr team to fight it jay-z right with the whole Diddy thing.

Cesar: 29:17

The lawsuit came out the next day. He came out with his own statement saying that this is completely false.

Chris: 29:23

This is this, this and this?

Cesar: 29:25

People could say, oh yeah, you see, these allegations are false. But on the other side, people can also say, yeah, it was too quick and I believe everything. The other person is saying Because you're a guilty by association.

Victor: 29:36

Bro people specifically to this. Beyonce did a halftime show or something.

Cesar: 29:42

Yeah, it was a good one. I saw it.

Victor: 29:44

And she looked beautiful and her daughter danced with her.

Chris: 29:47

Yeah.

Victor: 29:48

And everyone on the comments were shitting on her and her daughter about Jay-Z.

Cesar: 29:54

You can't win these days. You can't win, you can't win, so I would lean into it. Look at these people.

Victor: 29:59

How dare they show their faces with being friends with diddy, all this other shit? I'm like, I'm like, can't you just be happy?

Cesar: 30:05

the same people who've been buying albums for years for the jay-z stuff.

Chris: 30:09

It sounds like you kind of died off or just people the news moves so fast, bro, that like he's got a lot of money to stifle. I think the key is the money.

Rob: 30:18

No money, no problems yeah, so if you, you know, it really depends on who's richer. So what are your final thoughts about all this stuff now, chris?

Chris: 30:26

honestly, I don't know. I think it's still I'm in the middle. I think it could be real, but also could be the uh publicity stunt. First of all, I didn't know smear campaign was a thing, I thought it was. I didn't know there was a name for it. So, um, that was interesting. But with that concept, I feel like nowadays, like you said, we can use that for anything to hype it up, something right, or give false information to um, to gain, like you said, to gain on like some stocks or coins, is all part of that tactic, right technically, in just in different ways. But, um, that said, I don't know what to. I don't even know what to believe. It's this. I'll definitely follow up these are what your thoughts smear campaigns happen all the time about.

Cesar: 31:10

It's a tool to they use to actually get votes. In terms of this particular situation between blake lively and this guy, I think things were said and things were done that it leads me to believe that it's more than just get votes. In terms of this particular situation between blake lively and this guy, I think things were said and things were done that it leads me to believe that it's more than just for the movie. But if it was, if it turns out to be true, well then, good for them. Kudos to them because it made a lot of money. Um, and in terms of like, uh, social media now being used as a tool for like, there's bad actors and this is another tool that they use to weaponize things. So, to be honest, things are going to get worse, I think. I think, because we're so inundated with a whole bunch of things, that the only way to get people's attention is to go extreme.

Victor: 31:48

Victor it's hard to like stop your initial reaction to just react instantly to what you see because, like you're on the internet for so long, you start reading oh, this guy was being an asshole, this woman was being a bitch. Like the algorithms just compound that. When I was seeing all this negative stuff come out, like lively, it was just like oh, even her co-stars at gossip girl think she's a bitch. Like just like random shit from like. Oh, 30 years ago, this person thought she was a terrible person and doesn't talk to her anymore. So then you just start believing it. That being said, if you go to Blake Lively's Instagram page, her title has her name.

Victor: 32:26

Founder of Blake Brown Beauty and Betty Buzz and Betty Booze and if you go to Justin Baldoni's Instagram page is a link. If you're experiencing domestic violence, click on this link. So I mean, who's being more heartfelt here? Yeah, what's Betty Boo's? What's?

Cesar: 32:45

that it's like mixers, then I definitely believe. Blake Lively and the other guy sells domestic violence things.

Rob: 32:53

He sells it. Yeah, he sells it.

Cesar: 33:02

He's like hey, you ever experienced domestic?

Rob: 33:03

violence. Do you want to do? You want to do, you want to make a?

Rob: 33:05

movie as we've seen whether in politics, hollywood or social media smear campaigns have a lasting impact. So next time you hear a shocking story or rumor, take a moment to question Where's it coming from? Is it true? Is it part of a larger narrative? It's up to us not just to be consumers of information, but to critically think. We want to thank you for listening, but we need your help. If you enjoyed this episode, I want you to find that share button and send this podcast to a friend, a loved one or maybe just someone you want to break the ice with. And while you're by that share button, hit follow to stay updated on new episodes. Until next time, stay curious, peace.

Cesar: 33:51

And if you hear anything about us, it's all true and it's all false.

Chris: 33:56

XOXO Gossip Girl.