The fully conscious baby & Roblox
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Hello and welcome back to this week's episode of Pretty Lonesome. Today I'm yet again joined by Bugs. So the main issue that I have for us to discuss today that has been I could barely sleep last night with the anticipation and excitement of bringing this issue to you today. Okay, and that is as follows. We need to talk about

about the FCB. What does that stand for? The Fully Conscious Baby, okay? By now, I think we've all seen the video of this massive, okay, enormous baby with the dad is holding it and the baby is in a diaper. It's a little baby gut is hanging out.

and the mum goes "who wants to go to the Four Seasons Orlando Hotel?" and this fucking baby puts its finger up like this, its pointer finger and says "me" now the first time i saw this video, i'm not even gonna lie, it didn't even strike me as fucking weird and i will tell you why it didn't strike me as weird okay? i am a 23 year old girl who hasn't seen a baby in i don't know 10 years okay? i have literally

not laid eyes on a fucking baby in 10 years. I can't tell, and it's luxurious. I love that I can say this because I know one day I'm going to be like, damn, I wish I could still say that. I have no contact with children. My friends don't have kids. I don't have any baby cousins.

I don't have any nieces or nephews. Like, I don't know kids, okay? Now, I used to know kids because my cousins used to be babies. So that's why I say, like, 10 years. Like, my oldest cousin is 17. My youngest cousin is 10. So I guess he's a kid, but he's not, like, a baby. You know what I mean? He's, like, normal-sized. I don't know. Like, he just looks like a person now. So he was a baby, what, 10 years ago, okay? So, yeah, I haven't seen a baby in 10 fucking years because he's the youngest one. And...

And I don't know, I feel like he stopped being a toddler pretty early. Like, it's just like, maybe I just didn't see him a lot when he was a toddler. But the point is, oh, guys, I always get this spot in this one location and it turns into like seven spots in one. And I've only just noticed, but like that's, it's coming back. Oh, Lord. Oh, no. Because it starts and then it's unstoppable. Well, stay tuned for the progression of that pimple in my next 10 podcast episodes. But anyway, yeah, I don't know babies. Like, I really, I have no idea.

I never interact with kids. They're not in my sphere right now. Thank fucking god. None of my friends have had fucking pregnancies. I love it. I love our freedom. I love our lives. I wouldn't mind like a nephew or a niece. Like if my sister wanted to go down that route. She's 25. I feel like she could swing it. Oh she's not 25. How old is my- I don't know how old my sister is. Okay I'll fucking say it. There we go. I'll say it. I think she's 25. What month are we in? May. She's 25.

I don't know. I'll be so honest with you. I have no idea. But like, but point is, I don't know kids. Okay. So when I looked at this baby, it was conflicting a little bit because I was like, it's in a diaper, but it's fucking enormous. Like it's half the size of the dad. Like it's fully the same size as the dad's torso and head combined. So,

So I was a bit like, ooh, but I don't know any better. So I just thought, okay, well, I guess the babies have got bigger lately. I don't know. It didn't strike me as weird because I don't know what a one-year-old looks like as opposed to a three-year-old, right? Like, I do not know. And then it's a little sibling in the corner. Like, I don't know if that's a five-year-old. I don't know if that's a three-year-old. God forbid, a two-year-old. I don't know. Like, I don't know the age of these kids. So I don't know if it's weird that he can point his finger and say me. Like, I don't know. So...

So I just kind of scrolled, but I did remember the video because it was a little bit weird because like I could recognize it visually as a baby. Like it's in a diaper. It's otherwise naked other than the diaper, has no fucking hair. And it's just said a sentient sentence and pointed its little finger up, which everyone knows babies can't fucking do this. Me!

And it was just such a quick response. Like, you never see babies interact. You know what I mean? Like, they might, like, giggle or laugh, but you don't hold a conversation with a fucking baby and get a response. You don't say something to the baby and get an immediate, like, consensual... That's not the one I'm looking for. You don't say something to a baby and get an immediate understanding response. You don't say, do you want dinner? And the baby goes, yes. Like, it goes...

Like, maybe. Sorry. Is that offensive to the babies? I don't know. So it did... It made me a bit uncomfortable. It skewed my nervous system a little bit. But I was like, ah. So I was made a little bit uncomfortable by this video. Didn't think anything of it. Really and truly didn't care. Then I'm seeing everyone talk about it on my For You page. The fully conscious baby, they've dubbed it. Or the FCB, which I find personally very, very funny. But anyways...

I'm seeing all this stuff about how did it gain sentience? Is that the word? Sentient-cy? Primaturely, like why does it understand what you're saying to it? Also, the big question I think on everybody's tongue is why the fuck does it know what the Four Seasons Orlando is?

Because, bitch, I don't even know what the Four Seasons Orlando is. I am 23 years old, and I learned what the Four Seasons hotel chain was at 22 years old, okay? And granted, I didn't grow up with the kind of money where we were going to Four Seasons, hence why I don't know what the fucking Four Seasons was. But it's just like, how do you have that kind of... How often is this newborn going to the fucking Four Seasons Orlando to be that enthusiastic about going? You know what I mean? ♪

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I could have revisited the same place every day. Let's say my preschool and my mom could have looked me dead in the fucking face at seven years old and be like, you want to go to preschool again today, baby? The same place I'd been every day for the previous seven years and I'd go, where's that? You know what I mean? Like I wasn't fucking thinking. I wasn't looking. I didn't know where I was.

I hadn't fully come down to the physical realm yet as a kid, okay? I, my soul got stuck somewhere in the skies. I was so not sentient in my childhood that it's just, I would have been freaked the fuck out if I had me as a baby, okay? I...

distinctly remember one day getting out of her, I was, I, whoa, getting up out of bed, okay, I walked down the stairs to my mother and I said, good morning, mother, I need to practice the piano because I played piano as a kid. And my mom said, babe, it's time for bed.

it's the end of the day what the fuck are you talking about i said bitch i just woke up i had just started i had just rolled out of bed for the first time that day no i hadn't i'd been at school i've been in preschool wherever the fuck i've been when i tell you as a child i was so deeply out of touch like i didn't know where i was what time of day it was who i was who my mother was who my father was i was just rolling around in this physical body i

half the time and the other half of the time to this day no one knows where i was because i definitely was not like grounded on the earth with everybody else i did my mom used to call me a star child and she'd tell me that at night i went up and i saw the moon and i spoke to him because he was my friend or i used to go up and visit the stars because they were my friends and i wasn't fully parted from them yet or something like that and she would call me a star child and that my soul would be up with the stars at night time because i was so like airy fairy as a kid i'm

I'm also pretty sure I fucking hallucinated half of my childhood because I remember things being so real. And it wasn't just like a vivid imagination. It was like childhood schizophrenia. Like, I'm so sure. Because I remember I used to have nightmares and I'd come downstairs and be like, Mommy, I had a nightmare. And she'd be like, okay, darling. And she would always tell me, let's catch the fairies. And I'd sit on one of the steps, like on our stairs, and she'd tell me, catch the fairies. And I remember we would go like this and like, catch them. Bitch, I was catching fairies for...

Like, I remember grabbing them so vividly, like real fucking fairies. And I used to go to the bottom of the garden and we had this big tree and it had like a rotted hole in it. And I used to put shit in there and be like, it's a fairy house. And I remember I would see the fairies go in and they would enjoy it.

Now, that's terrifying to me as an adult who know that the fae are actually like evil child spirit stealers. So maybe that's where I was going all those times that I was just clearly not fucking lucid. Maybe the fairies had taken my entire spirit, okay? I don't know where I spent my childhood, but it was not on this realm, okay? I promise you that. Well, what was my point there? Oh, the baby is sentient, okay?

shouldn't be now i don't know what age kids are meant to gain like consciousness because i remember that was that tiktok trend like i don't know a couple years ago basically just people lying about remembering the first time they became a conscious human being bitch no you fucking don't that's just your first memory that's just your first memory anyways

Comment down below your first memory, because I'm always fucking intrigued by those. You don't want to know what mine is. My first memory is when my sister taught me how to sit cross-legged, because I was going to join school, which would have meant... So I'm a summer baby, so I would have been three years old, I'm pretty sure, when I first went to school. That can't be humane. Why are we sending three-year-olds to school? I was this fucking large. I'm pretty sure I would have been three, and my sister would have been teaching...

Maybe I was four. No, because I'm a summer baby. Like I'm born in July and the year cuts off in August. So when the babies in the UK are small, like three year olds. So like the ones that are born earlier in the year, like September babies, they start school, I guess in September. And then the July babies, because we're so much younger and like developmentally behind.

We start school in the summer. So they actually go first. I'm pretty sure, or at least that's the way it used to be. I'm like 99% sure that I'm not lying right now. Because it basically gives you time to catch up age-wise so that you start in the same year group, but you both start at the same age. Because you can't have a three-year-old and a nearly four-year-old and say they're the same because they're not. So that's how that worked. What am I talking about and why? Okay, so we don't know how old the fucking FCB is. We don't know.

But I believe that from my comment section on TikTok, we can establish that FCB is potentially not a baby, which gives me the chills. So basically, someone noticed that this creepy little child, I love him. By the way, apparently it's a girl. I love this baby. I'm not hating on this baby. I'm just questioning it, okay?

I'm just treating it with an appropriate amount of skepticism. Apparently FCB may not be a FCB, it may be an FCT, okay? A fully conscious toddler. Yep. So someone noticed that this kid has fucking teeth, like legit teeth, like a full bottom row and at least a good few on the top.

And they were like, I think this is just a toddler in a diaper. So we've all thought it's a baby. And it just hasn't got its wig yet. Like it just doesn't have fucking hair, which is unusual. Okay, I will say I rarely see a bald toddler. You know what I mean? Now, I was trying to put myself, I really spent some time on this video last night. I said, if I saw this same child in a dress with some shoes on, stood upright,

Would I still think it's a baby? And I thought well, it's hard to tell because first of all as we've already established I don't know what baby looks like versus a toddler versus a child. Okay? I don't know how you tell I don't know what the cutoff is, but it was huge and it does have teeth So maybe we just all said baby because of the diaper and I think is the gut hanging out But then what shook me to my core is that the older sister pictured in the video who also says me

to me, that is a three-year-old. At most, that other kid in the video is three. Now, as a linguist degree holder, what? You would genuinely never know, would you? As a holder of a linguistics degree, I would like to say, and I said this in a TikTok video, that it is very unusual for a child to master the words I and me before the age of two, okay? I and me are not

words that are typically used in baby speak, okay? They are not common words to use when you speak to a baby and they are also very confusing and grammatically complex words to use. And typically when you speak to a baby, you say, let's say the baby's name is Madeline, okay? You say, does Madeline want chocolate? Does Madeline want their mummy? Or if you're speaking about yourself to a baby, typically you'll go, mummy's gonna go shower now, okay? And

Mummy is gonna go get you some water. You don't really say I, and contextually the word me does not come up when you speak to a fucking baby, okay? So they're not only used much less frequently to babies...

when you speak to babies, but they're also grammatically kind of confusing, okay? Especially when they're not used a lot, which is why I brought my... This is my makeshift laptop because my fucking laptop decided to break. So now I have an iPad with a keyboard. So I just got this to facilitate me more when it comes to playing Roblox, but just bear with because I am going to do some on-the-spot research, okay? Okay.

Hold on. Uh, Quora Digest, my favorite website on the entire internet. Let's have a look. Alright, why do some children say "me" instead of "I"? For example, "me hungry" or "me love you"? Well, I also wonder this. Let's just find out, okay?

Generally, you will find that it is very young children who will do this. Two to three-year-old children are talking but don't yet have fully developed sense of left-brained eye. Okay, I want to reach out my nose and gouge out my brain, okay? Because that is... Oh, shut the fuck up. When people get things boldly wrong, I just... I mean, look, they might be right-left brain and right brain, but it just...

That argument makes me so mad. Let's go on. Okay, you know what? We're going to go on mum's net. And it's going to say, alright, when should a toddler start saying I? Dee Dee just turned two. What the fuck is Dee Dee? Because I know people on forums use a lot of abbreviations for family members. Genuinely,

DD could mean dear darling. Like, people on forums... Now, I spent many of my formative years on forums. Okay, this is why I know this. Okay? I spent so many of my teen years just...

so violently invested in forums. And I'm not going to tell you forums of which nature, but just know I spent, I'm not even kidding, I'm going to say eight hours a day every day for three years straight on a fucking forum. And I was a notorious number, but I deleted my account and that's all in the past now. But my picture was, my profile picture was a... So I just want everyone to know that there is at least a couple people out there, like stupid older people, who think that...

was responsible for some of my pubescent forum posts. At least I hope that's the case. This episode is brought to you by Mejuri. You know, I had a thought the other day. Since Rwanda jewelry becomes something we only bought on special occasions...

Mejuri approaches fine jewelry a little bit differently. Each one of their pieces is handcrafted by jewelers committed to quality craftsmanship as well as ethical and sustainable jewelry production. Created by women for women, Mejuri is breaking down barriers in what has long been an exclusive and occasional category of men buying for women.

In 2020, the brand launched the Mejuri Empowerment Fund in support of higher education for underrepresented women and non-binary individuals. Because fine jewelry doesn't have to cost the world, feel good about your jewelry in more ways than one. Start stacking your favorites, shop online, or visit the website to find a store near you.

Okay, so Dee Dee just turned two is pretty articulate as far as I can tell, e.g. she can usually make all her wishes known abundantly clearly. Daddy, come downstairs right now. The only thing, whoa, the only thing is that when she talks about herself, she still refers to herself in the third person.

Okay, interesting.

Let's see the responses. This one kind of makes sense, okay?

That makes... Yeah, okay. That's kind of what I was trying to surmise, but I didn't know how to put that one into words. It's like, it can refer to anything, which is really confusing. Because there's not really another word like that in...

English language. Like there's indefinite articles or definite articles, I suppose could apply as well. But it's like those come with something else that makes a lot more sense. And no one really, like no one knows those are confusing until you start thinking about it. Like they kind of just make sense. Like you kind of just learn those habitually. But I and me, I see why those make no sense. I might start forgetting how to use these words after this YouTube video. Okay, here we go. Pronoun

acquisition therapy works okay children learn pronouns as part of their overall speech and language development pronouns such as i you he she it we and they are used to refer to people but duh pronouns typically develop in a predictable order see the pronoun ages of acquisition before for the age range in which children typically develop pronouns 12 to 26 months i and

it. 27 to 30 months. Me, my, mine, you. Ladies and gentlemen, that is all the evidence I needed to conclude my argument that this baby is a cyborg because there is no way it is 27 months. Minimum. Maximum. Minimum. That's

That's the minimum age that they would normally be to acquire that pronoun. Now, I saw an argument. How fucking old is 27 months? Two and a half years old. That would make that child. No. Let me Google. Okay. Okay, this is how we're going to crack the case. So this website says that the typical minimum age for acquiring the pronoun me is 27 months. I'm now going to Google 27 month old teeth typical to see how many teeth...

a typical two-year-old should have and if it links up to FCB's teeth.

Alright, what teeth come in at 27 months? Let's see. Children have their full set of 20 primary teeth by two and a half. Now, will you please humor me whilst I revisit a picture of FCB baby? Now, I don't know if Google's going to have caught up. I can't just type in FCB baby. Baby. It's hard typing with one hand. Baby TikTok.

Four seasons. Here we go. Now just bear with me while I zoom in on this child's mouth. Is this horrible? I'm making a whole podcast episode about a child that I don't know. I hope everyone knows this is with love.

Okay. Oh shit. It does have lots of teeth. All right. Well, now that I'm taking a closer look at FCB's mouth, I think I do see a full row of the bottom teeth. I don't know about the top though. I just would be surprised if a two-year-old had that little hair. Like there's no hair on this baby's head. Like you can see where it's growing in, but it's the hair you would see on a six-month-old. Needless

needless to say my research comes with no conclusion as per usual and I am deeply unsettled by this lovely child. I think we can conclude that FCB is FCT and may be at least two and a half years old. Now I

am confused because the other sibling looks three to me. But again, like I said, I have no idea how to tell a baby's age. And I'm saying three years old based off the fact that it gives me a three-year-old vibe as opposed to a four-year-old where my biased perception of four-year-olds is

is probably something I've seen on Grey's Anatomy. And it was probably played by like a small six-year-old. So that is my credentials for knowing a baby's age. So I don't think anyone should really be listening to me here. Oh, do you guys ever just sometimes...

God, that nearly made me throw up. I don't know what happened. Do you guys ever just smell your lip gloss accidentally too much? Like, and it kind of smells like fucking shit. Like, this is just a lip gloss that I keep in my car, and it's my Too Faced Lip Injection one. And I use it, like, all the time, but, like, not frequently enough that it's going down super fast. So it kind of rots, you know? I often think about how unhygienic things like this are, and then I just don't care enough. Anyways, let me talk to you about something else.

that is just as important, if not slightly more. I have recently, and I can't believe I'm really saying this, but I've recently discovered Roblox. Now, I thought I had never played Roblox in my life. I genuinely believed that I had never played this game. And then my friend comes over like two days ago and she was like, hey babe, like let's play Roblox. And I was like, why would I play Roblox? It's no fun.

She was like, just hear me out. Play Dress to Impress with me. I was like, okay. So I get my iPad. I'm playing Dress to Impress. It's now been, I would say, two days of me doing nothing but Dressing to Impress. I got upset yesterday because no one was voting for me in Dress to Impress and I kept losing even though my outfits were objectively good. So I was like, what the frick? So I posted on my Instagram story and I summoned you guys. I said, come play with me on Roblox.

because I want to win and no one's voting for me. So then I added... My Roblox crashed like three times because I was getting so many friend requests that I couldn't keep up. I added as many people as I could and by that I mean I got impatient really quickly so I added maybe... I really only added like 50 people and I don't know how many requests there were. I wouldn't know, it just kept refreshing. So I will put some time aside today and go and accept everybody's friend requests because...

How rude of me to not. And then we can all play together. The issue is, I don't know if there's a limit to how many people can be in one server at a time. Like, with, like, Dress to Impress. If I have 700 friends and everyone tries to join my game, like, will everyone be allowed to enter Dress to Impress or will the server be full? Because...

I am getting a little bit concerned because everyone was in this game and we were all playing and it was so much fun. We're like talking in the chat. But then when it came to doing the fashion show, I'm not kidding you. It took about half an hour to have everyone walk out. And I was like, guys, this is just not practical. You know what I mean? Like we're never going to make it to the big, big games. We're never going to make it, you know, pro if it takes us half an hour just to get all the outfits out. You know what I mean? We need something. We need a better system. So I don't know what that system is going to be yet.

I would love to play Dress to Impress in real life. How about this? I get my team to arrange a meet and greet, but I'm actually lying to them. And actually, I get there three hours early and I actually just set up a runway and I replicate all the clothes they have in Roblox Dress to Impress and we all just get to play. But the only people that get invited are people that send me frame requests on Roblox because I actually don't care about anybody else.

given that you guys didn't want to help a girl out, okay? I was in my hour of need. And then everyone came and they were all voting me in Dresden Press. And then I just kept winning every round and I just felt bad. I was like, shit, there's probably like at least a couple kids in this game that have no idea what's going on. And they just don't stand a fucking chance because there's only one bitch on the podium and it's me. So I felt bad and I was like, you know what? Tell me if I'm wrong, but it just feels rigged.

Tell you something about this, I just feel like this is not a genuine voting system. So I might have to create a Roblox burner account just to keep myself humble, because now I'm, like, assured to win every fucking Dress to Impress game. But...

I do think it's so fun. Like this is like must be like a childhood dream of mine to have people that are always willing to vote for me in minigames. Hello. Anyways, like I said, I thought I'd never played Roblox before. But then I was like scrolling through the minigames and I realized when I was like 14 and homeschooled, I was homeschooled online. So I did this thing called

into high basically zoom before zoom was cool okay it was a zoom in 2014 and but they had like digital classrooms that were properly set up like it wasn't it wasn't zoom it was way better it wasn't like a video call it was like a teacher's whiteboard and then a big chat for all the students on the side and you'd hear the teacher's voice and she could choose who she muted and unmuted and it was interactive and stuff and it was actually a really good setup and it was for

A lot of the kids that went to that school had mental health issues. Me, that was me. That was why I was there. And then there were other kids whose like parents were like army people. So they were moving around all the time and they didn't like the schools that were offered to them, blah, blah, blah. Or there were just a lot of like super young entrepreneurs. And by that, I mean one, but I've just never forgotten him. And he was like in Dubai, like by himself. And he was like 13 years old.

It was insane. He was like, yeah, I have to go to this school because I'm fucking busy working. I was like, what the fuck? He was cool. He was a huge Taylor Swift fan as far as I remember. Anyway, but that was like kind of before Taylor was like even cool. Like she was still kind of cringe. I mean, yeah. Sometimes my ears hurt from how loud I talk. Do you guys think I should like... I wish that my voice was just a little bit sexy. Like literally.

Lower but louder. Because I feel like I'm screaming in this car. And it's the point where every time I speak, my ears go like... You know? Anyway. Oh, so I went to Interhigh. And I made this friend on Interhigh. And because all of these relationships were online, but it was like safe online. Like, mind you, I was not...

I was not safe on the internet as a child. I had kick. Okay, I was in chat rooms. I was in forums. I used to YouNow livestream. I used to Omegle. YouNow was big for me, actually. I used to just sit there and get complimented by men. I was like 13. They were like, you look like an angel. Yes, thank you. Yes, thank you. And then I was running cults on Twitter at 14. Like, I'm not fucking kidding you. I see comments sometimes saying, I remember this girl from...

No, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't. That wasn't me. I have an evil twin. Her name is Adeline. Look it up, bitch. It wasn't fucking me. Okay? I don't know who you saw or what you heard, but it wasn't me.

I was running cults, like genuinely. Like I had such a solid friend group within the fandom world. Okay, a couple different fandoms, but we were such a solid friend group. But there were two fandoms which we kind of, you know, everyone feared us. We ran it. It was ours, okay? There was the person that everybody admired in the fandom. There was the celebrity. And then I like to think that there was us, okay? And we owned everybody within the fandom to the point that we made a logo for our friendship group. All of us are 13.

Every single person. And then we made it in Twitter banner form. And we got multiple people that we admired, like the celebrities of the fandoms we were in, to make it their Twitter background. Like we...

actually just ran circles around everyone in this fandom. And our friend group was so exclusive and so admired, I like to think. Again, I may be patting ourselves on the back a little bit. No, it's not possible. We were admired, okay? We were worshipped, okay? To the point that everybody wanted so badly to be a part of our friendship group that they would audition. We would hold auditions in Instagram DMs. And we took this shit...

So fucking serious. Because this was back in the day. You could only have like 12 people. Sorry. You could only have like 12 people in an Instagram DM chat. Yes? So... I think it was 12. Could have been a bit more. So...

We could only have, you understand, 12 people in our friendship groups. We were very selected. And the way that it started was very genuine, very real. We were all added to a million separate group chats in this fandom, as you do, as it happens, okay? By this one common denominator girl. And we all just kind of start talking. And then there are names that are coming up more often than others. And...

And we all start to kind of dwindle down the group chats and condense the people that are most active, that are getting along the best, okay, until we settle on this one group of us that is talking, I'm not kidding you guys, day and night. And I was homeschooled, remember, and I was on online school. And so I did not have a bedtime. And I was not monitored. My internet usage, not monitored. So I was up every night because everyone else in this group chat was American except me.

My one best friend. Who do you think it is? She's going to kill me for telling you this is how we met. Millie. Millie.

she's gonna fucking kill me she's gonna be so angry that i just said that online i might have to run this episode past like she's gonna get embarrassed but oh my god so that's how we met right and and i told you already i already said it but i just need you to hear me again we were ring leaders we were cult we were cult leaders okay and so when someone tells me oh yeah i recognize you from this fandom that wasn't me it was a version of

For sure. But not me. It was Adeline. She's so scary. It's just like Adeline, just like, I love her. I do. Like, I do love her. Like, she's my twin, obviously. Like, we have so much in common. We share the womb. Like, I would never turn on her or say anything bad about her publicly. But it's just like, sometimes that bitch takes it way too far.

You know what I mean? And sometimes it's just like, sometimes it's just like, don't be a fucking cult leader. Like, don't be a ringleader. Don't be so intense. Like, why have you been on this online forum all day? You're only 12. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, there's just sometimes there's those people in your life where you just want them to like, take a day off.

You know, pick a struggle, take a day off. And that's how I feel about her. Certainly back in 2014, Gurley needed a massage or something, I think. A massage and an exorcism. Or one or the other, I don't know. My point was when I was on this online school, I made a couple online friends, duh, who went to the school and we would play Roblox and I forgot everything.

and we used to play natural what's it called natural disaster survival day in and day out and then we graduated and we started playing gary's mod and we started playing that murder game on gary's mod gary's mod was so lit back in the day what the fuck i need to like re-download it but i don't even

I was a big steam girl, big steam girl. But then I remember we had this like group chat, right? Like me and my friends from online school and they were very good kids. They were kind of innocent kids. Whereas like the people that I was like talking to like on fucking Twitter and kicking shit, like those were questionable ones. Although I did meet this one girl who was like so unhinged.

And we would kick, we would kick message each other. And she lived all the way in America, right? Again, my internet access is unmonitored. And she was just like so scary for a child. She was scary. And like, I had never been exposed to that before. I had never been exposed to like,

real different experiences than mine, right? Like when you're 10 or 12, you grow up and you kind of only are exposed to people in your bubble, right? Before the internet, like you're exposed to what is around you. And so she was my first real close interaction with someone that grew up in a very different situation than I did in a very different culture, in a very different everything. And she was, for lack of better word,

So fucking scary. And I...

was so in love with her enamored and i would speak to her every day until we had a big falling out and i never got over that falling out i used to every friendship i had since i i would just compare it to this girl on kick i would think everyone is just like not her like i just miss her so much we rekindled things in our teen years like years down the line and i can't remember why but we did and she found me on some kind of platform and she was like hey do you remember me and i was like oh shit

Guys, we stayed friends for so many years after that, that in my adulthood... So bear in mind, we met when I was, what, 13? Like, on Kick? Or on... She was part of the fandom too, and then we moved it over to Kick.

But, like, she could well have been a fully grown man. Like, I did not do any background research on this girl. Her profile picture blatantly was just Rowan Blanchard. And I was like, cool, perfect. We never FaceTimed. We never spoke on the phone. And we were just friends for so many years. And then we FaceTimed probably once we were, like, 15 or 16. And I just thought she was so cool. And then I ended up getting a job in America when I was, like, 19. And I went out and I...

stayed with her for like a couple of weeks and it was one of the best times of my life best friendships I've ever made best decisions I've ever made I love that girl so much and

and so many of my important friendships actually come from the internet and i you know what i find sad is i feel like actually that part of my life is closed off to me now which is really sad okay because i've relied on the internet for friendship making for years since i was 13 that's how i met my best friend it's how i got through the hardest point in my life like just entertaining myself with my online friends and fucking playing roblox and gary's mod and then i made all these friends through this fandom that i was part of that we don't talk about that wasn't me it was adeline okay

And, like, it's just been such a huge part of my existence. And then I started doing social media. And I always giggle about this because I'm, like... I feel like every interview I do, they're like...

You just, you blew up overnight. Like, what is it like? Like, did you ever expect this? I'm like, bitch, you don't even know. I've been working this job since I was 13 years old. Okay, I was primed for this. You think I just started TikTok two years ago? You're wrong. Okay, I have been on the internet working a nine to five since I was 13 years old. I saw a comment when I met her when I went to her show. They said something about, I hate that influencers just get all these opportunities handed to them.

I will beg your fucking pardon. That was not handed to me. Okay? I worked. I put in the hours. I put in the time. I put in the effort. Was it handed to me for those reasons? No. But that's not the fucking point. The way I was researching at 13 years old is absolutely insane. I know more about than that.

Most of my information is wrong. I still know more. Do you know what I mean? My head is a fact file. It's like when Sherlock Holmes is like, I need to go to my mind palace. And then he closes his eyes and you see him like walking through and he's like pulling boxes off the shelf and flicking through files like this. That is literally me when someone says something about ****. I say, hold on. And then I go back. I find the 2014 box, pull it out like this. It's just one fan fiction ****.

They're tapping me on the shoulder in real life. Hey, Madeline. Madeline, are you okay? Where have you gone?

So I feel like I can't make internet friends anymore because I'm like, now, like, I get so many DMs in a day and I would feel weird responding to them in a genuine way. Like, because if I would get a DM in the olden days, I'd be like, oh, perfect new friend. Like, talk to him as much as I want. Whereas now, like, I'm not trying to pull a Colleen Ballinger. I don't even know if that's how you say her name. Like, I'm not trying to, like, have some weird fucking power dynamic going on in my DMs where I'm talking to someone. You know what I mean? It's like...

This is not the vibe anymore. Because I don't like that there's like a power dynamic. You know? Like that feels weird to me. And also, just no. That chapter of my life is closed. But it's okay because I had a lot of fun. I made a lot of friends. And you know what the best part is? I'm still friends with all of them. So that group chat that we made, that friendship group that I said was like a ringleader of the fandom, all the girls in it, barring like two that kind of fell off. We are also friends. We also have a group chat. We actually met up.

four years ago and we or is it five years ago now? Ew. Oh my god, we all met up and it was because I was working a job in Pennsylvania and

And everyone lives in America and Canada. And then there's me and Millie and we live in the UK. So I had finally got a job in America and I'd gone out there and I had decided to kind of go and see everybody individually whilst I was out there because it was my first time in America. And I was so excited to be near these people. So I go to see one of my friends and she's like, hey, like, what if we took a road trip and met everybody up in New York and everyone comes down from Canada? They come from New York. They come from Florida and we all meet up.

in this one place in New York and I was like you fucking kidding like let's do it so we took a road trip and we went and

and we all spent a weekend in one of our friends' houses, just hanging out. We were missing two members, but for the most part, everybody was there, and it was the meetup we had dreamed of since we were little kids. And we're all still friends. We all still keep in touch. I love them so much. And all of my friends from my online school days, I kind of keep in touch with them as well. And then there's a couple of my online friends that I are still like some of my best friends in the entire world, and I speak to them all the time. And I just

they make me feel so safe just knowing that they're out there. Like they don't live anywhere near me, but just knowing that they're out there, I'm just like, oh. And it's just this little piece of my childhood heart that I'm like, you guys were there with me in my bedroom every night when I was 14 and 15 and 13. And we just had these such strong emotions together. And we were so confused and scared about the world together. It's so magical. Like it's so girlhood. And like, I remember, so we were all girls in this group chat.

And I was the last to get my period. But no one knew that because I didn't want to tell them that I hadn't got my period yet. So everyone talked about their periods and I'd be like, oh yeah, I totally got mine too. I got my period when I was nearly 15. I was about to turn 15 when I got my period. And I remember being so grateful that it finally come so that I could say that I got my period when I was 14 instead of 15. Because I thought this was something I was going to care about for the rest of my life. I was like, no, I don't want to have to say I got my period at 15 for the rest of my life.

as if 23 year old me would give a fuck. But it was my period when I was 14, but most of my friends got it so much younger than me. And I was the first one in our group chat to try a tampon because we were all really scared of them and we were scared that we were going to get toxic shock syndrome. And I have OCD, so I was particularly scared that I was going to get toxic shock. And I was extremely convinced that I was going to get toxic shock.

And I remember we were talking in the group chat, like full on. Like, I'm not saying like, oh, you send a message, you go away. No, you're on your phone. You're glued to your phone. Talking, talking, talking, full speed of light with 12 other girls for nine hours a day. Okay, we're at school. We're talking. It's bedtime. It's 3am. We're talking. Like it was crazy.

constant. It was best friendship, okay? We were obsessed with each other. My whole life revolved around this group chat for about a year, okay? We were... Everything I did was to do with them, okay? So I was going to put in a tampon for the first time and everyone was like, oh my god, are you scared? Like, we were all talking about it. And I was like, yeah. And I went to... I must have been 14. And I went to the bathroom, I put in the tampon, and I remember talking in the group chat saying like, guys, I think I feel faint. Like, I think I'm getting toxic shock. And...

Probably now looking back, I'm like, oh my God, everyone would have 100% been like, she's attention seeking. Like, obviously she doesn't feel faint. Like she's just put the tampon on. Or they were really in it with me. Like, oh my God, do you actually feel faint? Like we, none of us knew anything about tampons. I was like, no, I literally think I'm going to die. And so I remember I took it out after about five minutes and I was so scared and I

And because I genuinely felt faint because I was so anxious. Like, I didn't know that. But like, I now looking back, I'm like, yeah, well, if you believe you're going to get toxic shock syndrome that badly, I would feel faint too. That's just a funny memory. We just did so many little silly things together for the first time. All of our first crushes fully documented in these group chats. All of our first this, first that, first periods, first boyfriend, first kisses. The first time we all had sex. Like, we grew up together, guys. This was from...

some of the girls were 11 and 12 and I was 13 when we met and then 14, 15. Like we all ages and just like everything. Like we started out, like we couldn't even say the word period. And then we got comfortable with that. And then we would talk about our first kisses when they happened and like boys that we liked or girls that we liked. And like,

And then as we grew up, like we get to where our first time and it's just like these people literally were there for the most important parts of my life, the most important years of my life. And it was all through my phone because I was so anxious and like bed bound. And I always talk about that. I'm like, yeah, I couldn't leave my house for three straight years. I couldn't.

But I saw so much of the world, like, through these girls. Ah, my God, it's magical. But yeah, I feel like I've lost that part of my life now. Like, I wouldn't meet someone new online and consider it, like, an online friend anymore, you know what I mean? Because I'd feel wrong. Like, I'd just feel like some kind of creep. I don't know. But I still have all my online friends, so I'm good. But yeah, okay, you know what? I'm going to shut the fuck up.

Okay, thank you guys for listening to this week's episode of Pretty Lonesome. I had lots of fun recording it and I will see you next week. Same time, same place. Can't wait. Okay, love you, bye. Bye.