Ugh, As If! - contemporary art and culture podcast · Lisa Fevral

Firing people you don't like online - 3x19(Vooglam)

·33 min·2 clips

The host says a Canadian journalist lost a CBC/CTV fact-checking job after backlash from right-wing critics.

1. Ugh, As If! - contemporary art and culture podcast focuses this episode on Severance, online firing campaigns, and a VUGLAM glasses sponsorship. 2. The host is Lisa, who narrates the episode alone and frames the topics through her own reactions and examples. 3. The episode asks what happens when a show like Severance tries to scale up after season one and when people online try to punish others through their workplaces. 4. Lisa says she has "a bit of a controversial opinion on season two" of Severance and warns that she will not spoil anything. 5. She argues that writers of shows like Severance have to "follow through on the entirety of the story" after a big season-one spike in attention. 6. She says season two feels like the writers are "starting to write themselves into a corner." 7. Lisa says the show’s premise raises questions about identity, nurture versus nature, and "how brains even work." 8. She singles out the Irving-centered episode as "episode four" and calls it "quite well done." 9. She says the show’s design details are strong, including the old-school computers and the prop that functions like a moving ball inside the keyboard. 10. She credits a prop designer for making that strange computer interface work in practice. 11. Lisa says the show is trying to comment on capitalism, but she thinks it struggles to condemn it clearly. 12. She says Lumen becomes hard to ground because of its "religious" and theatrical company lore. 13. She uses the image of "frogs" being boiled as a way to describe the show’s lack of realism in how it builds pressure. 14. She then shifts to a broader critique of "constant police policing" online and the flattening of reality in digital life. 15. She gives a TikTok example involving two girls behind another girl filming at a game, which led to public backlash and reported job losses. 16. She also describes a Canadian journalist who was hired by a news outlet for fact checking and then lost the opportunity after backlash from right-wing critics. 17. The tone is conversational, highly opinionated, and built around long monologue stretches rather than guest back-and-forth. 18. The format moves from product talk to television criticism, then into a long personal essay about jobs, online mobs, and culture. 19. Listeners who follow culture criticism and online discourse would likely enjoy it. 20. Listeners wanting a tight entertainment review with minimal digression may skip it.

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