I’m just under 20 minutes in and had to pause because this is just making me think about the brainwashing episode in Avatar: The Last Airbender: https://youtu.be/O8pNjlIyrUk?feature=shared
Like I really thought Ari had escaped this BS but it turns out her family sent her to Gender Lake Laogai Reeducation Camp to make sure she not only stayed in line but now she’s expected to make up for her previous absence by pulling out all the stops and writing a song about mermaids and singing with her younger castrated brother at some kind of staged open mic event? While also apparently inviting some predatory AGP to access her exploited younger brother? It’s been said of Catholicism that the pedophilia is a feature, not a bug. There’s no stamping it out. It seems that’s true of all fundamentalist religions but perhaps none more blatantly or centrally than gender ideology.
It also reminds me of how in the same show (ATLA) Azula convinced her brother Zuko to return home by promising him that their narcissist father was proud of him and wanted him back.
Ari appeared to have been the black sheep of the family who distanced herself from the show and was reportedly studying psychology. I think there was reason to hope that with time and distance away from her manipulative mother, Ari might have seen the light and could even be waiting for an opportunity to help Jazz escape.
To me, this episode reads like the producers at TLC and the “Jennings” family all sensed that Ari posed a legitimate threat and they must have put a ton of pressure on her to come back into the fold—or else. Maybe they threatened to withdraw all financial support and leave her with a mountain of student loan debt. Maybe they said she was either with the family and would agree to participate in the show and earn her place or that they would shun her, even demonize her publicly and make it known to their religious community that she is a dangerous heretic who should be punished. This cult has a lot of violent, unhinged members and there are multi-billion dollar corporate interests at stake. I think it’s feasible that Ari would fear for her life if she went rogue.
The whole opening setup just reeks of insincerity and coercion, to me. I also bet the parents are aware of your videos, Ex, and they may be genuinely concerned every time they hear you say that they deserve to be in prison. Because they, and the producers at TLC, likely see that the tide of public opinion is beginning to turn, Jazz is aging out of their ability to necessarily control and profit off him indefinitely, and so they’re doubling down.
Recently I read/listened to former child actor Jennette McCurdy’s book, “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” and it is chilling to hear what it’s like from the perspective of the abused child who grows up trying to please and placate the emotions of a highly controlling narcissist mother. JM says she doubts she’d ever have escaped her mom’s orbit if her mother hadn’t died when JM was about the age Jazz is now. Even so, it took JM over a decade and lots of therapy (and setbacks) to come to terms with the realization that her mother was highly abusive and not the “perfect,” loving best friend she thought she was. The book is enormously popular and well reviewed. I still think Ari or maybe even Jazz could someday write such a book themselves and make more money than “I Am Jazz” ever paid out (while nearly single handedly destroying the gender industry in the US in the process), but it seems that won’t happen anytime soon.
Pedophilia is not "a feature" of Catholics. I left that organization but i never met anyone who condoned or sympathized with pedos or even used the "we're all sinners" excuse.
Interesting thoughts. I'm glad to see a recommendation for a book by someone who lived with a mother like this. My story is too long and involved to get into here, but my life was blighted by my mother. It wasn't until she died, four years ago, that I allowed myself to understand how successful her campaign to thwart everything I did actually was.
I really wrestle with the fact that I'm not sorry she's dead and I did struggle to get as far away as I possibly could without severing the bond, to the point where I have to dispute hr will because my sister (another toxic narcissist, in the tradition of the family) is claiming I was "estranged." And I am effectively gagged about the whole experience until that court case is resolved. Four years and counting.
Anyway, it will be good to read a book by someone who experienced the fate I am slowly realizing would have been the best of all possible worlds for me, and probably for my sister too, although she'll never know it. I live with the wounds but my sister's whole life is stunted, like a bonsai, only not pretty.
Women like Ari's mother poison every child, not just the favorite. They're working out their anger at the world for their medium-intensity, fair-to-middling life path and they see their children as vehicles for that and as enemies, competitors, or something to be tortured to serve as a steam valve if the child won't comply. Things. Not people. Characters, not souls. We're cartoons to them.
I love that you mention Jennette McCurdy's book- it is so excellent and descriptive/vivid. The amount of damage a twisted mother does to a child, and the power they wield, is heartbreaking.
FYI: this episode is from the second season of the show, long before Ex started commenting on it, so whatever the family does here has nothing to do with anything Ex has said.
Jaron seems anxious a lot of the time, pushed constantly by the family from hell. I'm so sad for him, and ari should not have said that on stage, it was nasty. Ari should have just let it go and continued singing the correct words, Jaron would have caught on quickly enough and nit been humiliated. I sorry but i think the dad was a setup and kinda creepy
Jazz asked her, what shall I do if I forget the words & Ari said firmly 'just carry on', & then when it happens & Jazz gamely tries to cover it up & carry on she points it out & laughs at him?? Wtf
absolutely 0 or -1000 safeguarding...no one cares that some middle aged man is that keen to meet him? was angry when he couldn't be him? (yikes red flag)
Hi Ex, enjoyed your reaction videos as always. I was wondering if you would react to other shows such as The Good Doctor, because there are several episodes there talking about kids transitioning - of course, it's regarded as life-saving and positive, although in some cases there are consequences to puberty blockers such as testicular cancer. Anyway, it's interesting how they promote children decining what's best for them in the episodes that glorify transition and children not being mature to decide for themselves when it involves other issues.
What in the heck is wrong with Jazz making those weird af comments? His parents are on his case about everything else but weird, sexually inappropriate comments are totally cool. No wonder he's all messed up
It is really uncomfortable to watch this child be forced to listen to the problems of a grown man and do the requisite emotional labor that men expect from women. IDK, feels groomy, man.
That is the main, immediate reaction I had. The adult man is really, really inappropriate. And Jazz has to stand there and pay attention to the ego issues of someone twice his age, as if the whole thing were group therapy.
Oh, Ex, a much-beloved and highly-rated podcast about diet and fitness- Maintenance Phase just released an episode attempting to debunk Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. The whole thing feels hand-waving and sloppy and completely out of their wheelhouse. Wondering if you would cover it. The full transcript of the show is available.
helped research ROGD, or helped research diet/fitness? Julia clearly is straight with extra steps, is in a relationship with a woman who identifies as autistic and calls herself a lesbian. but Julia is very big on mansplaining. which is indicative of---being a man.
No, she's moved to Arkansas now and has hardly appeared on the show at all the past few seasons, she's distanced herself quite clearly. This episode is from the second season, in 2016 or thereabouts.
Nine years of employment as a grown-ass man who is old enough to have an 18 year old kid is a red flag. He lost a job after 9 years of employment. So what was he doing for the 11 years before that?
Also, Piaget, who wrote the textbook on child development, teaches that gender is fluid until the social cues of school aged children kick in. Usually, that's around age 5 or 6 but it can be later if the child is isolated from a peer group, like, if they're home schooled. This man has decided his failures as an adult spring from the fact that he's really a "girl." He's not even claiming womanhood, like so many of them he calls himself a "girl."
For the thousandth time: FAILED MEN ARE NOT WOMEN.
I didn't know Piaget ever talked about "gender." Many of us do not recognize the phenomenon of gender as a thing. So what is it Piaget is talking about here?
Identifying as a "girl" for most of these men means they are 1/ immature people and 2/AGP around children. Being a woman is not a turn-on for them. Being a female child is.
My understanding is that Kohlberg is the one who applied Piaget's theory to the concept of gender identity which in those days referred pretty specifically to sexual identity, even as it was being applied to the "genetic" males with 46XY CAIS who typically (BUT not always) identify as girls and women.
I looked at the abstract. But does the study indeed rest on interviewing college students about their recollections of "gender" identity at various earlier stages of their lives? I don't think this is a good design, as recollection is well known to be near-fictional.
OMG. Really? Not only do I have to do your google searching for you, you expect me to read and vet the results? Is the rest of your serving staff getting overtime?
The prevailing research supports what I said, in a conversational tone, as a comment, on the internet. I do truly wish there was a way to sever connections on substack, something like the block function on facebook, if anyone knows of one, please let me know.
Triple cringe!!! This episode seems much more obviously scripted for the "reality" TV show than usual. I had to forward through it, too painful to watch it unfold. The cross-dresser at the end...oh dear. His poor son, having to appear cheerful at seeing his dad turn into a really low-quality drag queen. Ugh!!
You can see the tenseness in Ari and Jazz' shoulders when that ginormous hulking AGP wanders in to tell him how hard life is for him. And he tried to use his daughter as a validation prop after she found the makeup to. Her feelings don't matter. Neither does his son. I resent these men so much.
I’m just under 20 minutes in and had to pause because this is just making me think about the brainwashing episode in Avatar: The Last Airbender: https://youtu.be/O8pNjlIyrUk?feature=shared
Like I really thought Ari had escaped this BS but it turns out her family sent her to Gender Lake Laogai Reeducation Camp to make sure she not only stayed in line but now she’s expected to make up for her previous absence by pulling out all the stops and writing a song about mermaids and singing with her younger castrated brother at some kind of staged open mic event? While also apparently inviting some predatory AGP to access her exploited younger brother? It’s been said of Catholicism that the pedophilia is a feature, not a bug. There’s no stamping it out. It seems that’s true of all fundamentalist religions but perhaps none more blatantly or centrally than gender ideology.
It also reminds me of how in the same show (ATLA) Azula convinced her brother Zuko to return home by promising him that their narcissist father was proud of him and wanted him back.
Ari appeared to have been the black sheep of the family who distanced herself from the show and was reportedly studying psychology. I think there was reason to hope that with time and distance away from her manipulative mother, Ari might have seen the light and could even be waiting for an opportunity to help Jazz escape.
To me, this episode reads like the producers at TLC and the “Jennings” family all sensed that Ari posed a legitimate threat and they must have put a ton of pressure on her to come back into the fold—or else. Maybe they threatened to withdraw all financial support and leave her with a mountain of student loan debt. Maybe they said she was either with the family and would agree to participate in the show and earn her place or that they would shun her, even demonize her publicly and make it known to their religious community that she is a dangerous heretic who should be punished. This cult has a lot of violent, unhinged members and there are multi-billion dollar corporate interests at stake. I think it’s feasible that Ari would fear for her life if she went rogue.
The whole opening setup just reeks of insincerity and coercion, to me. I also bet the parents are aware of your videos, Ex, and they may be genuinely concerned every time they hear you say that they deserve to be in prison. Because they, and the producers at TLC, likely see that the tide of public opinion is beginning to turn, Jazz is aging out of their ability to necessarily control and profit off him indefinitely, and so they’re doubling down.
Recently I read/listened to former child actor Jennette McCurdy’s book, “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” and it is chilling to hear what it’s like from the perspective of the abused child who grows up trying to please and placate the emotions of a highly controlling narcissist mother. JM says she doubts she’d ever have escaped her mom’s orbit if her mother hadn’t died when JM was about the age Jazz is now. Even so, it took JM over a decade and lots of therapy (and setbacks) to come to terms with the realization that her mother was highly abusive and not the “perfect,” loving best friend she thought she was. The book is enormously popular and well reviewed. I still think Ari or maybe even Jazz could someday write such a book themselves and make more money than “I Am Jazz” ever paid out (while nearly single handedly destroying the gender industry in the US in the process), but it seems that won’t happen anytime soon.
Pedophilia is not "a feature" of Catholics. I left that organization but i never met anyone who condoned or sympathized with pedos or even used the "we're all sinners" excuse.
Interesting thoughts. I'm glad to see a recommendation for a book by someone who lived with a mother like this. My story is too long and involved to get into here, but my life was blighted by my mother. It wasn't until she died, four years ago, that I allowed myself to understand how successful her campaign to thwart everything I did actually was.
I really wrestle with the fact that I'm not sorry she's dead and I did struggle to get as far away as I possibly could without severing the bond, to the point where I have to dispute hr will because my sister (another toxic narcissist, in the tradition of the family) is claiming I was "estranged." And I am effectively gagged about the whole experience until that court case is resolved. Four years and counting.
Anyway, it will be good to read a book by someone who experienced the fate I am slowly realizing would have been the best of all possible worlds for me, and probably for my sister too, although she'll never know it. I live with the wounds but my sister's whole life is stunted, like a bonsai, only not pretty.
Women like Ari's mother poison every child, not just the favorite. They're working out their anger at the world for their medium-intensity, fair-to-middling life path and they see their children as vehicles for that and as enemies, competitors, or something to be tortured to serve as a steam valve if the child won't comply. Things. Not people. Characters, not souls. We're cartoons to them.
I love that you mention Jennette McCurdy's book- it is so excellent and descriptive/vivid. The amount of damage a twisted mother does to a child, and the power they wield, is heartbreaking.
FYI: this episode is from the second season of the show, long before Ex started commenting on it, so whatever the family does here has nothing to do with anything Ex has said.
Shout out to the Jennings clan for making the Fire Nation’s royal family look reasonably well-adjusted. ⚡️
Jaron seems anxious a lot of the time, pushed constantly by the family from hell. I'm so sad for him, and ari should not have said that on stage, it was nasty. Ari should have just let it go and continued singing the correct words, Jaron would have caught on quickly enough and nit been humiliated. I sorry but i think the dad was a setup and kinda creepy
Exactly.
When you miss a beat in a performance, you just move on as it nothing happened.
Jazz asked her, what shall I do if I forget the words & Ari said firmly 'just carry on', & then when it happens & Jazz gamely tries to cover it up & carry on she points it out & laughs at him?? Wtf
The adults who approach Jazz as their idol and savior make me feel so angry and sad. This poor kid has been doomed since the beginning.
absolutely 0 or -1000 safeguarding...no one cares that some middle aged man is that keen to meet him? was angry when he couldn't be him? (yikes red flag)
Hi Ex, enjoyed your reaction videos as always. I was wondering if you would react to other shows such as The Good Doctor, because there are several episodes there talking about kids transitioning - of course, it's regarded as life-saving and positive, although in some cases there are consequences to puberty blockers such as testicular cancer. Anyway, it's interesting how they promote children decining what's best for them in the episodes that glorify transition and children not being mature to decide for themselves when it involves other issues.
Thank you very much, Exulansic
What in the heck is wrong with Jazz making those weird af comments? His parents are on his case about everything else but weird, sexually inappropriate comments are totally cool. No wonder he's all messed up
They are grooming him
I wonder how long after the suicide talk they started talking about Ari being Jazz’s surrogate. What an incredible burden to bear.
And for no reason except he’s castrated. This makes me sad and angry. The worst exploitation of a child, ever.
Imagine being told your brother will kill himself if you are mean to him. How can she ever treat him normally after that
It is really uncomfortable to watch this child be forced to listen to the problems of a grown man and do the requisite emotional labor that men expect from women. IDK, feels groomy, man.
That is the main, immediate reaction I had. The adult man is really, really inappropriate. And Jazz has to stand there and pay attention to the ego issues of someone twice his age, as if the whole thing were group therapy.
Oh, Ex, a much-beloved and highly-rated podcast about diet and fitness- Maintenance Phase just released an episode attempting to debunk Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. The whole thing feels hand-waving and sloppy and completely out of their wheelhouse. Wondering if you would cover it. The full transcript of the show is available.
LOL Julia Serano (who once told me he wanted to subscribe to my newsletter in 2011 at the infamous cake party) helped "research" this.
helped research ROGD, or helped research diet/fitness? Julia clearly is straight with extra steps, is in a relationship with a woman who identifies as autistic and calls herself a lesbian. but Julia is very big on mansplaining. which is indicative of---being a man.
The way you spliced in the songs that were the same as what ari and jazz sang in stage was brilliant.
And hearing the beautiful voices, especially of Otis Redding and the juxtaposition with Ari and Jazz. Chef's kiss!
"Is this the creative process?" This is so-called reality television, trust NOTHING.
Ari seems to really resent that she is not the only girl child anymore, she has no problem bullying him
Their song is terrible. After hearing the others, I'd be embarrassed to be them.
Also, I'm rooting for Ari to get away from this toxic mess.
she won't. she's learned to bend & compromise for cash. like all tv, media children.
No, she's moved to Arkansas now and has hardly appeared on the show at all the past few seasons, she's distanced herself quite clearly. This episode is from the second season, in 2016 or thereabouts.
Nine years of employment as a grown-ass man who is old enough to have an 18 year old kid is a red flag. He lost a job after 9 years of employment. So what was he doing for the 11 years before that?
Also, Piaget, who wrote the textbook on child development, teaches that gender is fluid until the social cues of school aged children kick in. Usually, that's around age 5 or 6 but it can be later if the child is isolated from a peer group, like, if they're home schooled. This man has decided his failures as an adult spring from the fact that he's really a "girl." He's not even claiming womanhood, like so many of them he calls himself a "girl."
For the thousandth time: FAILED MEN ARE NOT WOMEN.
I didn't know Piaget ever talked about "gender." Many of us do not recognize the phenomenon of gender as a thing. So what is it Piaget is talking about here?
Identifying as a "girl" for most of these men means they are 1/ immature people and 2/AGP around children. Being a woman is not a turn-on for them. Being a female child is.
My understanding is that Kohlberg is the one who applied Piaget's theory to the concept of gender identity which in those days referred pretty specifically to sexual identity, even as it was being applied to the "genetic" males with 46XY CAIS who typically (BUT not always) identify as girls and women.
interesting. do you remember much about Kohlberg's findings?
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1994-12924-001
I studied child development. More to the point, for this interaction, I have a computer.
I looked at the abstract. But does the study indeed rest on interviewing college students about their recollections of "gender" identity at various earlier stages of their lives? I don't think this is a good design, as recollection is well known to be near-fictional.
OMG. Really? Not only do I have to do your google searching for you, you expect me to read and vet the results? Is the rest of your serving staff getting overtime?
PLEASE go away.
https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/devpre2ad/chapter/11-4-gender-identity-development/
The prevailing research supports what I said, in a conversational tone, as a comment, on the internet. I do truly wish there was a way to sever connections on substack, something like the block function on facebook, if anyone knows of one, please let me know.
Triple cringe!!! This episode seems much more obviously scripted for the "reality" TV show than usual. I had to forward through it, too painful to watch it unfold. The cross-dresser at the end...oh dear. His poor son, having to appear cheerful at seeing his dad turn into a really low-quality drag queen. Ugh!!
Except, his son does not really "have" to do any of this. He could refuse. We have to ask why he doesn't.
You can see the tenseness in Ari and Jazz' shoulders when that ginormous hulking AGP wanders in to tell him how hard life is for him. And he tried to use his daughter as a validation prop after she found the makeup to. Her feelings don't matter. Neither does his son. I resent these men so much.