Chris: And I think it's not just me. Like, I think that probably explains some of the popularity, is that if you are watching these short videos, you know, it's not about, like, all right, you gotta start journaling, right? It's trace this number right now. Do it right now.
Kayla: Who the fuck has time to journal when you're either, like, working six jobs to make ends meet or you're like, a teenager right now trying to not die all of the time, right? I don't have the time or energy. I don't have the time or energy. But think about some numbers. Meditate on some numbers. Write some numbers in the air. Yeah, shortcuts, baby.
Chris: Yeah. Real shortcut. Yeah.
Kayla: Oh, I did not put in a cold open at all.
Chris: Well, no, because what we're going to do now, remember, is we're going to take a chunk from later in the episode, play it up front, do the music. So if this makes the cut, this will be after the cold open music.
Kayla: Okay?
Chris: And so by now, if, again, if this makes the cut, people will have already heard that little chunk. And we want to make sure that, like, what the actual thing is, you know, sort of front and center for people that, like, don't know the show or.
Kayla: Yeah, we don't get to what the thing is until, like, two thirds of the way through.
Chris: Oh, Jesus Christ. Seriously?
Kayla: Yeah, maybe.
Chris: Oh, I'm glad we're doing the preview this time then.
Kayla: You know me, I'm a context queen.
Chris: I know, but Jesus. Jesus. Two thirds, that's a record, I think.
Kayla: I don't think it is. So two episodes ago, we talked about a russian scientist who is making the world a better place. This episode is kind of a direct response to that episode.
Chris: Really?
Kayla: Today we will be talking about a russian scientist.
Chris: I saw your air quotes there. Yeah.
Kayla: Who is making the world a worse place.
Chris: Oh, okay. Well, you gotta balance it out.
Kayla: So today I want to talk about. Grab a voice codes.
Chris: Yeah. Okay. Yep. I know you've been working on this one. I am Chris. I am a data scientist and game designer.
Kayla: I'm Kayla. I'm a television writer and I host this podcast.
Chris: Oh, and I do, too.
Kayla: I know. Shocking.
Chris: Wow.
Kayla: Now, this topic was chosen by.
Chris: What is this podcast, though?
Kayla: This is cult or just weird?
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: The podcast that you are listening to, this topic was chosen by our listeners via poll on our Patreon.
Chris: Thank you for helping us with that, listeners.
Kayla: This topic I described as the teachings of a russian pseudoscientist that have gotten popular on TikTok during the pandemic, I.
Chris: Think that made me want to vote for it, because that's. I mean, that's a compelling little blurb.
Kayla: Sure.
Chris: I don't know. Sounds interesting to me.
Kayla: Topic crushed my heart. Just a little bit more.
Chris: Oh, sorry.
Kayla: Just a little bit more. But that's fine. Chris, as you know, I've been working on this topic for a while. I do know mostly figuring out how to tackle it. You know, I have talked a lot about it off podcasts, because I've had. I've had some internal conflict on how to best present this topic to. To our listeners, because it's. Well, it's complicated. It's very easy for this topic to get just the most. The most dark. One of the most dark we've ever covered.
Chris: Okay, so this is not like a measuring the coast, or is it a measuring the coastline? It's just like a really shitty coastline filled with, like, skulls and blood.
Kayla: Yes. Yes. So the way I ended up doing it is I've tried to minimize the. The shitty coastline.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: And just present. I tried to not delve too deeply into the garbage. We do get into the garbage, obviously, because that's what we do on the show, is we get our hands dirty. But I figured we're all living in 2021. We don't need to. We don't need to wallow in that mire too much.
Chris: Right?
Kayla: So we're gonna. We're gonna talk a lot about this topic. And yes, be warned, it does get bad. But I tried to do. I tried my best to not just wallow.
Chris: Yeah, yeah, I know. We've talked about this a few times this season where it's like, we don't wanna do QAnon stuff again. And we sort of just wrote that rule last episode, and now this episode sounds like it's kinda crummy, too. So I appreciate you structuring your episode such that we sort of minimize the amount of absolute shit that we dump on people.
Kayla: That's the goal. I mean, look, it's a fascinating topic. This was very interesting to learn about, and I hope it will be interesting for you to listen about.
Chris: I am very interested to hear about it, because as much as you've talked about working on it, I don't really know anything other than the blurb that it's just, like, some weirdo on TikTok.
Kayla: Let's get into it. Grab avoid codes and why they are popular on TikTok. So we will need to start with what I call a little content. Probably not a little. Let's get into the content context. Sorry.
Chris: Okay. I was like. I thought you were gonna show me.
Kayla: No, TikTok, not content context. First. What is TikTok? Well, me. I'm glad I asked. TikTok is an extremely popular social media app. And by popular, I mean the company claims to have 1 billion active monthly users.
Chris: Jesus.
Kayla: Which is an extremely high number.
Chris: No, that's, like, absurdly high.
Kayla: It has a very simple interface. You open the app, and you are presented with a for you page in which TikTok serves you one video at a time that it thinks you will like. If you like the video, you watch it. You can heart it or comment on it, and then you swipe past it.
Chris: So is this like, Facebook, where I'm scrolling and then I get videos, or is it just all videos? All.
Kayla: Only all videos all the time. There's not, like, you don't have a page. You don't have a, like, a web page. It's just, you open the app, and a video is served to you immediately.
Chris: Okay. And then you go from one to the next to the next.
Kayla: Swipe, swipe, swipe. Kind of like, almost like a tinder dating app, where you just swiping. You just swipe on through. So you watch. If you like a video, you watch it, and then you swipe. If you don't like a video, you swipe with, like, you know, one third of the way through.
Chris: And are these long videos or short videos? I think the longest we'll get to that.
Kayla: No, this is good context. I think the longest they are is, like, three minutes. But, yeah, they're. It's mostly short. Very short, little content. Kind of like how vine used to be. Yeah, if you remember vine.
Chris: That makes sense for swiping through. Like, I wouldn't want to, like, sit there for 20 minutes before swiping through.
Kayla: To the next one. It's not YouTube. It's. These are. These are short content. So, yeah, it's this completely infinite scroll, and with a billion people using it, many of them making videos to be served to you literally never run out of interesting content, which, if you're somebody like me, that can be very bad, because then you're just. There's no bottom. There's no bottom.
Chris: You're just scrolling through, and you're just.
Kayla: Sitting on TikTok for hours and hours and hours. It's not good.
Chris: Can confirm.
Kayla: Oh, man, I love TikTok. I love TikTok so much. There. What? I love it.
Chris: Okay, there.
Kayla: No, I love TikTok.
Chris: Do you know? A glass of water?
Kayla: And it's just, it's so much better than so many other social media sites because it's like, you get so much content served to you that's not your friends. And, like, I love my friends, but, like, I don't need to know my friends and family's every little, like, political thought. It's just content from people on the Internet. And it's so much more than just, like, commentary on, like, current affairs of the day.
Chris: Yeah. Like, Twitter is, like, you're motivated to have, like, some hot take. And the way to have a hot take is to, like, say something enraging. Like, that's how you're gonna get your likes.
Kayla: You don't gotta be enraging on TikTok. There's content for every interest on TikTok. Like, people make tiktoks that are funny little observations of their life. There are TikToks about life hacks, tips for living with neurodivergence, like ADHD, tutorials for various crafts, reviews of books, beauty, makeup, hair and nail trends, fashion, academia, history, cooking. Did I already say cooking? Literally anything you can possibly think of. It is notoriously popular amongst young people, specifically Gen Z or zoomers. And these are people who were born in or after the year 2000. But there are many people watching and making videos from every possible age group. Like, I follow people on TikTok that make content and are well into their seventies and eighties, and that's cool. Those are some of my favorite people that I follow.
Chris: Yeah, yeah, I love the people in their seventies or eighties and the eighties are using the, like, trendy technology.
Kayla: Yes. And some people are just, you know, older and making content about their life. Like, there's people who will do, like, mom content where it's like, hi, I'm Barb. I'll be your mom. Let me teach you how to do laundry.
Chris: Barb.
Kayla: Yes, she's great.
Chris: No, that's a good mom name. Oh, is that actually the name of somebody you follow?
Kayla: I'm pretty sure there's a lady following her. She's like, hi, it's either Barb or Pam, or, like, you know, mom name. And she, yeah, she's like, I'll be your mom. Or there's, like, the korean, hi, I'm your korean dad. And just like, people who are doing nice content. But then I also follow this lady who's in her seventies. Her name is Kiko, and she does these, like, incredible fashion videos where she showcases, like, the outfits that she wears on the day to day basis and, like, her glam. Like, her glam routine and, like, her workout routine, and it's just. Yeah, it's badass. Literally, anything you can want, TikTok has it. And while, yes, it definitely is more popular amongst young people, it's not exclusive to young people.
Kayla: So if, you know, if you're listening to this and going, oh, that's not for me, yeah, it is. It is. It's literally for everybody. And I also think it's a really great way for people of varying generations to kind of maintain contact or be in touch with what other generations are dealing with or thinking about or interested in ways that maybe are difficult to do now in Covid or in our more fractured society, where we have a lot of experiences of isolation and loneliness.
Chris: Is that where the videos of people dancing with their 60 year old person dancing with their 20 year old.
Kayla: Oh, yeah, you get that. I just mean, like, if I'm scrolling through TikTok, I can see what high schoolers are talking about. I can see what boomers are talking about. I can see.
Chris: And the white schoolers are talking about Olivia Rodrigo, mostly.
Kayla: Oh, honey, no.
Chris: Is that my already behind? I mean, God damn it. Whatever. Get out of here. I don't care.
Kayla: Olivia Rodrigo was fantastic. I'm not denying that.
Chris: I thought she was, like, the hotness right now. Is that not true?
Kayla: I mean.
Chris: Okay, forget it. Just do yourself.
Kayla: She's extremely cool. I don't think if you were, like, an 18 year old, it would be super cool to be listening to Olivia Rodrigo.
Chris: Okay, so if I went and, like, said, hey, fellow kids with a hat on backwards and said, have you heard the new Olivia Rodrigo? They'd be like, okay, get out of here, geriatric millennial.
Kayla: That's my understanding. And I love her. She makes fantastic music.
Chris: All right, all right.
Kayla: Another cool thing about TikTok is that it is incredibly good at serving you content. It knows you will, like, reply all. Did a deep dive into TikTok's recommendation engine. So this was episode 177 called Gleeks and Gurgles.
Chris: Sorry, what?
Kayla: It's a good title. Highly recommend checking that out for more info. The title refers to the producer, Anna Foley, who did the episode. She was talking about how she was getting served content very specific to her, and it was Glee centered content, and people who were fans of Glee were called Gleeks.
Chris: Okay, glee plus geek. Got it.
Kayla: And then Gurgles refers to. Actually, I don't want to spoil it. Go listen to the episode.
Chris: Listen to reply all.
Kayla: It was a very good episode.
Chris: So this sort of, is this. This is sort of answer to my earlier question about, like, how does it know what to show me? And what they're saying is that it's so specific that it'll be like, we will target you with stuff about your single show that you like.
Kayla: Yes. Yeah, I. And as far as I know and as far as what the episode was able to uncover, people don't really know how TikTok is so good at this. Like, they've clearly got some good tech and data on their side, but.
Chris: Well, as a data scientist, as I just stated, I can tell. I sort of know how these recommendation engines work. I mean, it's.
Kayla: But I think there's something on the scope here specific about TikTok that they have a. Yes. Their recommendation engine is different than, like, the other social media, correct?
Chris: Yeah. So obviously, whatever data science they are using, whatever models and algorithms they're using, really work for them.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: And. Yeah, and it's clearly different than other social media networks. I can only comment based on or even, like, recommendation.
Kayla: Like. Like, what Netflix recommends you or what YouTube recommends you. Yeah, those are not as good as this.
Chris: Right. I think the salient point I want to make is that, like, recommendation engines are like the bread. That's what. When we say algorithm, that's like, a big part of what we mean. And they're just a really big part of our world right now, of our technology, of our environment. Like you said, that's how Netflix decides what to show you. That's how Amazon decides what to surface up to you to advertise.
Kayla: This is why I don't. When Netflix is, like, rate this title. I don't. I don't ever do it. I never do it because I don't want them. I don't want them to tell me what I should watch.
Chris: You don't want the engine?
Kayla: No. This is my one little way of fighting back against the machine.
Chris: But. But, Kayla, you say that you like the fact that TikTok, like, knows you and shows you the exact stuff.
Kayla: And by the way, it feels more organic. I know that they're probably more embedded into my, like, my phone and what I'm looking at elsewhere.
Chris: That's probably part of why it feels more organic, is because it.
Kayla: Because it's probably less. I think they've implanted a chip in my brain. It's probably that. But I'm not gonna like things and rate them on Netflix.
Chris: Yeah, I mean, they're obviously using data from outside the platform, because we have seen them recommend stuff or put stuff in the for you page in your feed that is related to things that you've searched for outside the platform.
Kayla: Oh, yeah.
Chris: But I think there are things that.
Kayla: I've not even searched for on the Internet and just have inside of my head.
Chris: Well, so that's the part where they're probably using some combination of other factors of things that you've watched already on TikTok. I mean, you can use. It can be as subtle as, did you watch this whole video? Did you watch this video multiple times? Did you, did you watch for 2 seconds and then flip bot and, you know, and then swipe right?
Kayla: The recommendation engine will be built on if you watched a video to its entirety, not just if you liked it or interacted with it.
Chris: Yeah. So that was that something, you know, because I'm just speculating based on that.
Kayla: I think that's, like, the layperson's understanding of how TikTok gets to know you. If you watch the whole video, it's like, you like this video.
Chris: Yeah. And I think if I had to guess, they're probably using some learning algorithm, because everybody uses machine learning. That's the thing. And so what that means is, basically, they'll just dump a bunch of data into this, let's call it a program. And the program will say, like, okay, sort this data out. To say, like, all of the people that tend to watch only 2 seconds of makeup tutorial videos, for whatever reason, is highly correlated. All of those people also watch Jurassic Park, TikTok videos. So that's why it feels like they know you is because there's this, like, hidden sort of information, this correlation that they've been able to suss out from all of this data from all the other people that have done this.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: And then it's like, well, I don't know why people that watch, you know, makeup tutorials also watch Jurassic park, but they do. And then when that happens to you're like, how did you know I like Jurassic park?
Kayla: Feels like it's inside your head.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Thank you for the data. No, it's very useful here. Basically, if you go on TikTok and watch content, you'll be served stuff that you find interesting, cool, unique, and will probably connect with you on a deeply personal level. A good example of the stuff that's just inside my head is TikTok started serving me content for people who are insecure about their upper arms.
Chris: That is so specific.
Kayla: That is extremely specific, and I am very insecure about my upper arms. It is something that I deal with all day, every day.
Chris: It's not about your upper arms. It's about this insecurity that lives in your brain that's fucked up.
Kayla: Yes. That's why it's so weird. And honestly, it feels really good to be able to connect with other people who have that insecurity and are dealing with it. So to just be scrolling on TikTok and all of a sudden there's a TikTok about, do you feel bad about your upper arms? Here's why you shouldn't. It was just really nice to not have to seek out that content, but just to have that content present as, like, totally normalized.
Chris: Yeah. What do you think it was like? What do you think?
Kayla: I think ultimately what happened is I watch a lot of, like, fat activism and body neutrality videos on TikTok. Like, a lot of that gets served to me, and that's very easy to figure out why that would get served to me as somebody who is like, rah. Body neutrality, ra. Like fat activism, fat liberation elsewhere on the Internet. And if somebody is engaging with that kind of content, they've probably had many people who engage with that kind of content have had to deal with their own struggles of, like, figuring out how to exist in their body in this world that is very strict on what body should look like. And eventually you're gonna get served content about upper arms.
Chris: Yeah. And I think there's.
Kayla: I think a lot of people are dealing with that particular insecurity.
Chris: Yeah. I think there's probably also, like, a dash of confirmation bias, too, because when you get a video that is, like, hyper relevant to something really specific to you're probably more likely to watch it, right? So they're gonna serve you. They might serve you, like, five different things about body insecurity, right? Upper arms and your neck and your butt or whatever, right? And then, like, the ones you're not insecure about, you're just like, I don't care about this. And you scroll and you kind of forget about it, right? Because it doesn't. Because the algorithm knows that you swiped past it after, like, 1.5 seconds of watching. It's not going to serve you anymore. So you kind of forget about that.
Chris: Whereas when you get the arms one, you watch the whole thing, and then the algorithm's like, aha, I'm going to serve a bunch more arms things. And then you remember that because you're like, how did it know about the arms? When really it was like, testing a bunch of stuff related to the body.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
Kayla: There's absolutely a lot of confirmation bias. It's just the arms thing felt so specific. Cause it happened on a day where I was, like, the arms thing was particularly at top of mind for me.
Chris: Like, I had, like, outside of TikTok.
Kayla: You were all, yes. It was that. It was literally that day where I wore. I wore a, like, sleeveless shirt, remember? And I usually don't wear sleeveless shirts out because it's still.
Chris: You didn't know that you had a shirt.
Kayla: No, but I'm just saying it. I know.
Chris: I'm saying I'm weirded out by it.
Kayla: It was probably a coincidence, but the first time I got served upper arm TikTok was a day that I had, like, kind of gone, fuck it, I'm sick of dealing with this. I'm gonna wear a sleeveless shirt. It's hot. And so I was thinking a lot. I was thinking a lot about the arms thing.
Chris: That is wild.
Kayla: Served me a TikTok about it, and I was like, okay, so that's wild. It's wild. Go listen to the reply all episode about it. I think that just going back to the. It felt good to be able to connect with other people on this content. I think that TikTok can make almost anyone feel a little less alone in this world, because whatever you're into, whatever you're thinking about or interested in or scared by, there are tiktoks for you. There's not a TikTok for you. There are multiple TikTok videos for you created by users that are in the same emotional, psychological, mental place as you.
Chris: Right. Right.
Kayla: Now, why do people make TikTok videos, you might ask? You're like, I don't ask that.
Chris: All I do is consume the avalanche of content into my eyeballs. I don't ask where it comes from.
Kayla: Caleb agreed. But I figured it was important to ask this question.
Chris: No, it totally is. Yeah.
Kayla: I mean, yeah, ultimately, people are making TikTok videos for pretty much the same reasons anyone might make content for, like, YouTube or Twitter. There is the social aspect of it. You know, maybe you're an extrovert, or you just, like, connecting with. With people and sharing parts of your life. There's also, like, the skinner box aspect to it. You know, maybe you get something out of the little, like, dopamine or serotonin hit when some. When you see someone has interacted with your video.
Chris: Liked your video. Yeah. That little red number of likes I've ever got on Twitter is like seven or something, and every time it's like, ooh, I got someone liked it. Yeah, give me that serotonin.
Kayla: So that's. I mean, that's a reason people are probably making content. Maybe you're searching for community, or you want to share your unique hobby with a wider audience, or maybe you're hoping to land a comedy or writing job off of building up a TikTok following. Or maybe you're selling something, like you're a small business owner or a coach of some kind. And TikTok is a way for you to potentially cultivate clients. Like, you'll see that a lot with physical fitness coaches or, you know, people who share specific yoga or stretching or lifting tips. Like, I follow TikTokers who share yoga tips for people in fat bodies or mobility instructors that work with people with specific problem quote unquote areas. They can share videos about these things and then go, if you want to work with me, click the link in my bio or whatever.
Kayla: So maybe if you, as a viewer, like their content enough, you are converted then into a paying customer, right? The same thing will go for artists who share the cool things that they create on TikTok and then sell them in their etsy shops, or business coaches who share, you know, business tips. I don't know what those might be. Share the business and then offer their, like, you know, executive coaching services.
Chris: Culture just weird. Making tiktoks and saying, go listen to culture, just weird.
Kayla: Convert those customers, baby.
Chris: We don't actually have a TikTok yet. We've talked about it, but we have a TikTok account. We have an account.
Kayla: We just haven't made anything with it. So there are a lot of people making TikTok videos for different reasons. And building an audience that can be turned into money is a reason you see a lot.
Chris: So I have a question that's basically around that exact last thing you said.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: So, like, with YouTube, right? YouTube back in the day, back in 2006 or whatever, like, when it was just in little baby YouTube, it was mostly about user generated, like, home videos getting loaded up on, uploaded onto the Internet, and, oh, look at this person's cat. And then slowly it turned into more like, oh, I have a channel. I have a following. So I'm gonna start producing, like, specific content. And now all the way, fast forward to 2021. There's, like, YouTube has just become another platform for, I mean, there still is, like, random home videos and stuff other, but it's also become this platform for essentially just fully productionized content, right. Where it's like, there is a YouTube channel, and that is somebody or some team of somebody's primary source of income, or their whole business is based on making these videos for YouTube.
Chris: Right. So is that something that's, like, how productionized has TikTok become?
Kayla: I think it's. Yes. Following a similar trajectory as YouTube. I'm not qualified enough to be able to speculate on that too much. I can't speak for all of. All of 1 billion TikTok's users, but it does seem to be. To be going that way for some people. But, I mean, that said, I still get served things that are just like, here's a funny joke I just thought of, or here's my cat being cute, or that's why I asked, here's this cool rainbow I saw, and that can have thousands and thousands of views, and I'll get served a super high production. Like, here's my clothing haul, or here's a sketch I put together with my friends. That clearly took us weeks kind of thing.
Chris: Right. That's why I asked that, though, is because I feel like even in that case, I haven't seen anything where it's like. Like a Kurtz Gazette video, where it's, you know, we have, like, a team of 20 people that put together this. This instructional video that took us, like, three months to make.
Kayla: That doesn't seem to be. I haven't seen that, but I have certainly seen, like, I'm a business coach, and, like, here, you know, here's. There's an increase in quality of my videos over the last three years or however long TikTok has been around.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: I don't think you're getting that level of. Yeah, this clearly took a year and a half to make this TikTok again.
Chris: Maybe moving that direction.
Kayla: No, I think because this is such short content, you're not gonna be able to put a 20 minutes video on. And I think that TikTok is going to respond better than YouTube to something that still at least maintains a facade of authenticity and a facade of intimacy then, than what YouTube has maybe rewarded over the years.
Chris: Interesting. So they sort of, like, recognize that as, like, a core feature of TikTok and thus will protect it, maybe.
Kayla: We'll see. We shall see.
Chris: They will get to that.
Kayla: I mean, TikTok's already over. Like, sorry, it's not. It's already over.
Chris: Kayla.
Kayla: Please do, bro. Fucking Audubon society has it. I got served in Audubon society. TikTok the other day.
Chris: They're cool.
Kayla: Anthony Hopkins has a TikTok. Like, all the celebrities are getting TikToks. Jason Derulo has already been on there, and he's annoying as hell. I'm sorry. His TikToks are thirsty and annoying.
Chris: Look, the fact that our old asses are talking about TikTok means that it's over.
Kayla: It's over, it's over. It's over. But, okay, let's get back to the. Let's get back to my script. Let's get back to the topic at hand. Another thing that you're going to see a lot of on TikTok is woo. Woo of all ilk, of all color and creed.
Chris: Oh, Boyden.
Kayla: Biggest umbrella of woo that you can imagine. So, I mean, there's disinformation, conspiracy theories, alter holistic medicine, like herbalism, or neuro linguistic processing or programming, whatever NLP stands for. There's harmless pseudoscience and harmful pseudoscience. Witchcraft, magic, spellcasting, crystals, sound healing, whatever you can think of, there is a major TikTok following for it. And I'm not really sure why there's such a following for woo on TikTok. I mean, we're gonna do a lot of speculating in this episode as to why, but just upfront, I'm not sure why, but it is a breeding ground for it, for better or for worse. And during the pandemic, it's become a bit of a hotbed for disinformation. So there have been anti vaxx or Covid hoax conspiracy theories spreading on TikTok. I mean, I think we mentioned this in our QAnon episodes last year.
Kayla: QAnon style disinformation spread on TikTok, specifically in the form of the revival of the pizzagate conspiracy theory. And that made the rounds again. So people will spread debunked ideas about things like Atlantis and other known to be false theories. That's the bad of it.
Chris: The movie Atlantis?
Kayla: Yes, the Disney movie Atlantis. Was it even a Disney movie?
Chris: Yeah, I think so.
Kayla: It was animated. So it was Disney.
Chris: It was Disney. It was Disney.
Kayla: The good of it is. Well, some of this stuff can be fun, as we know, like when handled responsibly. I personally, I really enjoy watching people talk about witchcraft and magic that has brought meaning and purpose and ritual into their lives. I love watching those videos. I like learning about what various crystals mean to people. And I'm always down to try new meditation techniques that seem useful, even if maybe the science isn't there to back them up yet. Some degree of woo can bring meaning into your life in cool ways if handled responsibly. Again.
Chris: Yeah. Big, strong. If.
Kayla: If someone reads a tarot card for me and I, you know, I can glean some meaning from it, I can. I can figure out some way to make that fit into my life in a meaningful way or in a useful way, even if I don't believe.
Chris: Oh, I love tarot. Yeah.
Kayla: I don't believe the energy of the universe has a message for me, but I can derive value from it.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. It's like astrology, where it's you. It's more about your interaction with it than it is about. There's no, you know, energy or like, the actual, quote, unquote, science of astrology is obviously debunked. It's not real science. But my interaction with, oh, an Aries does this or whatever gives me maybe some insight about, like, human behavior and relationships.
Kayla: So there can be a value add for some of this. Woo. But again, if handled responsibly, you keep saying that, unfortunately, this doesn't always happen.
Chris: What, Kayla? I know. How do we have a show?
Kayla: I know we talked about the way TikTok works. You just swipe through and videos are served to you. And I've noticed that this allows for a few things to happen. First, a lot of content, many of us who are older and maybe already experienced on the Internet can re enter cultural relevancy through TikTok. So kind of like the similar, the way that Pizzagate was revised.
Chris: Oh, okay.
Kayla: Old memes or videos or songs or trends become new because.
Chris: Do you think we can make all your bass trend again?
Kayla: Probably. I've seen shit like that. That stuff comes back around because it seems new. Because the people who are interacting with it now, as young people, missed it when it first happened.
Chris: It's like when bell bottoms come back.
Kayla: Yeah. Oh, man, I love a good bell bottom. It can also, these things can also kind of give off that whiff of, like, secret knowledge when it's divorced from their origins and presented to users as something new. Like, again, what happened with Pizzagate? So videos for that videos popped up being like, did you know that there is a pizza place in Washington, DC that is rumored to have a child sex slave dungeon in the basement? Like, secret knowledge right there. Come on.
Chris: It's a really interesting way you put it. Like, when you divorce it from its origins, it feels extra secret knowledge, right? Because, like, when it's first happening, it's like, oh, let's investigate these John Podesta emails and blah, blah and whatever, and, like, still sucks. But it doesn't really have as much of that flavor of, like, secret knowledge as, like, did you know that this was a thing?
Kayla: Keep that in mind. That's basically what this entire episode is about.
Chris: Really?
Kayla: Yeah. Since so many users on TikTok are young, they probably didn't interact with these ideas when they first made the rounds on, you know, old places like YouTube and four chan. I was gonna say Netscape or Netscape and Usenet. So geocities feels new. It spreads totally divorced from its origins in this novel way. And that divorce allows bad shit to keep making the rounds again and again.
Chris: Interesting.
Kayla: A particularly shitty way I saw this play out recently was when a conspiracy theory made its way around TikTok that had nazi origins. But again, because it was divorced from its context in this, like, snack, like, bite sized way, it seemed totally innocuous, spread around the site and literal. I'm not exaggerating. Literal nazi propaganda was given new life without anyone's real consent. And the conspiracy theory I'm talking about was about the lost city of Atlantis.
Chris: Oh. So I didn't know that even. Well, I guess. Okay, I know some what we're gonna talk about. Yeah. Okay.
Kayla: So this particular, the one that was going around on TikTok was like, did you know that the lost city of Atlantis is actually, like, potentially hidden underneath the continent of Antarctica and was, like, this super advanced civilization? And then it fell, and then everybody spread out into the world and, like, gave. We'll get into it.
Chris: Classic. Classic. It's the out of Antarctica theory.
Kayla: Yeah. Any technology that ancient peoples had came from this superior race of people, from the lusts, from the technologically advanced city of Atlantis. Okay, we'll get into it. Devoid of any context. Sounds pretty cool. Oh, Atlantis is hidden under.
Chris: It's like a fun fantasy. Like J rr Tolkien.
Kayla: Yeah, you're scrolling along TikTok. You, like, there's some singing bowl crystals, some lip sync stuff. And suddenly you come across this video where some TikToker has a produced video on, like, the lost city of Atlantis, and they've got cool pictures to show maybe some Google Earth images. And you come away thinking, like, wow, this whole story about, like, the super advanced race of people in Atlantis. Cool. Except that idea, that theory literally came from the Nazis.
Chris: Oh.
Kayla: Like, not neo Nazis or, like, I'm not calling the alt right Nazis, like.
Chris: Like, the 19, the third right, 1940s Nazis.
Kayla: Heinrich Himmler believed that there was a master race, quote unquote, and white northern Europeans needed to prove their superiority to the world. This belief, in part, helped justify the Nazis fascism and genocide of jewish people and other minorities in the Holocaust. Himmler believed in the debunked myths of the lost city of Atlantis, the ruins of an advanced civilization that had once ruled most of the world. He believed if he could prove Aryans were descended from Atlanteans, the superiority of the master race could not be denied. He believed that when Atlantis fell due to natural disaster, probably an earthquake. Xeno, couldn't have been.
Chris: No.
Kayla: Couldn't have been their own fault. Couldn't have been somebody, couldn't have been the master race. Its white citizens were scattered across the world, bringing advanced technology with them. So remember how that TikTok video was.
Chris: Like, the Egyptians have built the pyramids.
Kayla: Exactly. Any cool technology that ancient peoples had came from this super advanced civilization in Atlantis. This was Himmler's idea. This allowed him to retcon any technology found in non white civilizations as, quote, unquote, gifts from the Atlanteans. So this is the Aztec. This is the ancient Egyptians, this is the ancient Chinese. None of them had built their walls or their pyramids themselves. Aryan Atlanteans had done it for them.
Chris: In 1931, when in reality, it was ancient aliens.
Kayla: He was an alien denier. In 1931, house Atlantis was built in Bremen, which is like, I think it's still there. It's this kind of museum being like, oh, yeah. Literally, the whole idea of Atlanteans were an advanced civilization of white people that the Germans are related to was an idea that popped up after world War one when everybody in Germany was like, we just got our asses handed to us. We want to feel good again.
Chris: Right?
Kayla: And that is what paved the way for the Nazis to take power.
Chris: Oh, that's not. Because that was not good.
Kayla: No, it was very.
Chris: That was bad.
Kayla: So, yeah, this house Atlantis was built, and Himmler, like, used it as headquarters for the Institute for the Study of Atlantis. Throughout the rise of the nazi party, World War two, and the Holocaust, Himmler spent a decent amount of time searching for proof of the aryan race's origins, and Atlantis remained at the center of it all.
Chris: It's really interesting that it was not just propaganda to him. Yeah, to him, he believed it. And to the point where he was off searching for proof. That is really interesting.
Kayla: The nazi party eventually lost World War two, and some of its leaders were brought to justice. And this new video on TikTok claiming that an advanced civilization's ruins had been found and that advanced civilization was responsible for spreading its technology throughout the ancient world. And those that advanced civilization probably ended up becoming Europeans was a direct offshoot.
Chris: Of these nazi beliefs and divorce from that origin and context. Yeah, it's, like, easier to swallow, because if you lead with Heinrich Himmler said.
Kayla: This, people aren't gonna. Yeah, but I also don't think that the people, you know, these ideas come from somewhere, but I think that because it's divorced from context. Yeah. People end up spreading these ideas that have basis in, like, antisemitism and racism without even realizing that they're doing it.
Chris: Right. Right, right.
Kayla: So, for the purpose of this episode, keep this anecdote in mind. Like, oftentimes, sketchy ideas get repurposed on TikTok and divorce from their origins, take off again with new life, unknowingly spreading fascism, antisemitism, racism, antifactuality, general ickiness. So, okay, do we feel. Do we feel like we have some context for TikTok 40 minutes into this episode?
Chris: Yeah, actually, at first, I was gonna be like, is this just an ad for TikTok? And then you got into the disinformation and extremism stuff, and then I was like, oh, no, never mind.
Kayla: I mean, I love TikTok.
Chris: Yeah, it's a. It's a mixed bag as much social media is.
Kayla: I know. I don't really have a good reason for why the woo has found a home on TikTok. I think it's partly because of a feedback loop. Like, some people started putting the content on there, because you put content on there, and then people flock to it, and so then more content was posted, and more people fly. Here we are.
Chris: Yeah, that does make sense. And besides, you already explained that, like, everything is on TikTok.
Kayla: Everything is on TikTok. I also don't think that feedback loop is the entire reason. I think another part of it is that TikTok. It's what you're saying, everything is on TikTok. And then, therefore, TikTok becomes a really useful interface for people who want to connect with others about very specific content. So if someone who believes in Pizzagate wants to find pizzagate content, it's super easy to seek it out and find it on TikTok. And then TikTok gets good at serving you content you quote, unquote, might like, based on those views, which will invariably be more woo content of other kinds, I think. And again, this is just a personal observation. I don't have any research to back this up, but I think there's also been a bit of an uptick in supernatural, occult, or mystical beliefs among younger people, specifically zoomers.
Kayla: Maybe that part of that has to do with the fact that a lot of us go through, like, a witchy phase when we're younger. I think a bigger part of it is that a rise in supernatural beliefs often coincides with increased uncertainty about the future, major social and economic upheaval, and widespread social despair. And, you know, zoomers are the generation looking at the most years spent in a world ruined by climate change. So I don't blame them.
Chris: Right? I'd be looking for magical solutions at this point if I were them to agree.
Kayla: And, I mean, we are like, I think there's been an uptick in these kinds of beliefs across generations. It feels like in the last few years. So, you know, we're all looking for the magic solution, but we actually have. I'm sure we have plenty of examples of this from history, but I have a specific example to give you. When the Soviet Union fell, there was an extreme uptick in supernatural beliefs in Russia. Under communism, Russia was an atheist, anti religion, materialist state. When that crumbled and. And shit looked super unstable, people turned to its opposite in order to find meaning, comfort, and structure. There is a popular debunker psychologist on TikTok. Her name is Ina Konevsky, and she's actually a jewish soviet refugee.
Kayla: And she was quoted in an insider article that I used for research on this topic as saying, quote, soviet medicine was falling apart at the time. Everything was falling apart. And these people were promising you something. These people, meaning peddlers of Wu.
Chris: We have same old story.
Kayla: We got more so in Russia in the late 1980s and lasting up to. Well, today, an obsession with the occult has exploded. I read a vocative article that said state television channels would broadcast healing sessions with state approved psychics. Yes.
Chris: Whoa.
Kayla: Ouija boards were used in town hall meetings. City what? City markets were selling like a plethora of magical charms. A 2013 estimate that this article cited claims that Russians spend this number seems really high to me, but the sentiment checks out. Russians spend $30 billion every year on clairvoyance, urban witches, and psychics.
Chris: Wow.
Kayla: These people were faced with a major upheaval of their society, economy, and government, and now looked at an unstable, unknown future. And woo helped fill in the cracks of those fears. So maybe we're seeing some of that same behavior in our society today.
Chris: I think that is a direct line. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Kayla: Okay, context done.
Chris: Oh, fine.
Kayla: Oh, wait, no, sorry.
Chris: Oh, God.
Kayla: One more thing. Sorry. We should note that another thing that happens on TikTok are trends. So, like, some sort of. Something will catch fire, and then there will be a million videos pertaining to that something. This can be like a new dance or a lip sync that people start.
Chris: Doing, or the music that's used.
Kayla: The music that's used. This can be. Yeah, like some sort of audio template in which a bunch of people then apply that sound to their. To their videos. This can be a popular topic that is hot to discuss on TikTok. So, like, when the met gala happened, there was, like, reaction videos to the clothing was a big trend on TikTok. So that's a thing that happens and a huge trend on TikTok, and it's been around for a while now, is manifesting. What is manifesting?
Chris: Yay, oprah.
Kayla: Correct. What's manifesting, you might ask? Actually, you're probably not asking that because.
Chris: Because you're listening to this show, it's.
Kayla: Impossible to get away from in american society and on the Internet. And it's been this way for a few years, like. Like a lot of years.
Chris: Don't be a stinker thinker.
Kayla: Don't be a stinker thinker. Manifestation. If somehow you haven't been exposed to this yet, it refers to a collection of pseudoscientific self help strategies based in the power of positive thinking or quantum flapdoodle or straight up magic. Like, basically, the idea is, if you have a goal, the way to achieve that goal is to focus your thoughts and energy upon the desired outcome. Manifesting is based on kind of internal work, such as, like, meditating on the thing you want, or like, making vision boards that include pictures of the thing you want or repeating affirmations about the thing that you want. And the idea is that if you picture yourself already having achieved said goal, the universe will align itself with your vision and bring you to that goal. So, generally, manifesting should be accompanied by external actions to bring you closer to said goal.
Kayla: Like, say you want a million dollar home. Yes. You should do your manifesting. You should say your affirmations, set up your vision board, send it out into the universe. But you also need to, like, check your real estate listings and, like, do the work to get the, you know, bump up your earnings in order to help buy such a house.
Chris: I can't meditate my way to a house.
Kayla: I mean, that's part of it. That's part of it.
Chris: Well, I think, you know, obviously, we've talked about this before, but it's. There's not. There's nothing behind there's. If you meditate on something and focus on something, it has an effect of making your, you know, of changing your behaviors that actually lead to that. So, like, I'm more likely to do more work around, you know, researching my real estate listings and, you know, doing all of those actual things that will get me the house.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: If I am focusing on it in these other ways, these more sort of like intuitive, spiritual ways.
Kayla: Right. We'll get into a little bit more of the research behind that in a second. The idea of manifestation appears in a variety of woo approaches. I think you mentioned Oprah already. Yes, Oprah has embraced manifestation, Deepak Chopra, Gwyneth Paltrow, many others. It was popularized globally by the 2000 book that you already mentioned, the Secret by Rhonda Byrne. And there was a companion film that same year. And it has its roots in the new thought idea of the law of attraction, which you talked about new thought way back when we first started doing MLM episodes, way back when you did Mary Kay. It's been around for a while. The new thought spirituality began in the US in the early 18 hundreds. So manifesting has been with us for quite some time.
Chris: Yeah. And then it sort of transmogrified into the, like, charismatic, married charismatic Christianity and returned into the, what is it called now? Prosperity gospel.
Kayla: Prosperity gospel. Yeah. Needless to say, like Chris mentioned, there is not really any scientific backing for some of these claims. But, yeah, it's like Kridy mentioned, there's not no benefit to law of attraction style thinking. Like some researchers and therapists give manifesting the benefit of the doubt by saying that essentially this kind of thinking could have a positive effect on your life in the ways that you were talking about. You focus on a goal and that might influence changes in your behavior that actually do get you closer to that goal. That's exactly what you were saying before. And essentially that's just kind of like a mild form of CBT, of cognitive behavioral therapy in a way.
Chris: Never thought about it that way. Yeah.
Kayla: So your thoughts don't change the universe on a quantum or spiritual level, but it might. Yeah. Give you the energy boost or the motivation to change your behaviors to get you to the thing that you want.
Chris: Right. And maybe even in subtle ways that.
Kayla: Are hard to notice, that feel spiritual or magic y, but are just slightly different, even if it's just like, it puts you in a better mood and so you have more energy to do a thing. Manifesting has become even more popular in online circles since the. It has become particularly popular on spiritual TikTok, especially during the pandemic. By July 2020, the hashtag manifestation became enough of a trend on TikTok for journalists to begin taking notice. So hundreds of voices under the tag became thousands and more. By June of this year, manifestation content on TikTok boasted 8.1 billion with a b views.
Chris: That's a lot of views.
Kayla: A lot of views. According to GQ, searches of manifesting on Google went up 400% compared to the year before. And many of the users making manifestation videos on TikTok are Gen Z teenagers. The GQ article that I mentioned was written by Stuart McGurk. Claims that Gen Z was decimated by the pandemic in a specific and unique way. And I have to agree. He said, while the rest of us baked bread to soothe our minds, a younger generation felt trapped and helpless, their dreams dashed. At a time when having positive thoughts was the most you could muster, why not get them to work for you, end quote.
Chris: Yeah. As shitty as it was for the rest of us, there are people missing their milestone years in high school and college.
Kayla: I think about the ways the pandemic altered life for everyone. And it's like, people our age and older saw futures put on pause. It was like promotions were going to happen after the pandemic was over. Birthday parties would be celebrated later. Retirements were delayed, travel plans were put off. We all had to face an uncertain future, and our lives became something we didn't picture. But, yeah, then the teenagers, they had things happen that they couldn't put off. You can't put off your senior year. You can't put off your senior prom. You can't put off those experiences of, like, being in high school and going to college for the first time. Like, they just did.
Chris: Not so bad.
Kayla: They just went right past these kids and. And they just. They don't get to sit there, like, I'll get to go to that prom in two years. It's just. No, it just. It's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen for your first year at college. It's not gonna happen. You're not gonna be in the dorms. You're not gonna do this. You're not gonna have those, like, hangs in the garage with your friends. You're not. Like, those things just did not happen for them. It sucks. It sucks.
Chris: It really sucks.
Kayla: Like, these kids were promised things that then did not happen and will never happen, as opposed to, oh, could maybe happen someday.
Chris: Can we just, like, can we have, like, a special prom? Like, just put on a prom for like 20 year old kids and. You know what I mean?
Kayla: And it's weird.
Chris: No, but like, for everyone that misses.
Kayla: I know it's nice. It's. But the thing is that it's still. It's not the thing, though.
Chris: I know it's not.
Kayla: It's another. Yes, sure, but it's just the reality that these things didn't happen. Yeah, I know they did not happen. These kids missed it. They missed it and they don't get to have it. And yes, they can have maybe like a replacement, but they didn't have the thing.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: And for a lot of these kids, for a lot of young people, maybe this is the first. Obviously this is not, you know, we're talking about right now. We're talking about specific, particularly privileged groups. But maybe this is the first time they've experienced something like that, something that was promised that didn't happen. And for everybody across demographics, this is a once in a lifetime pandemic. Like this is. No one knows what the fuck we're experiencing. And these are like teenagers, right? Their brains aren't fully formed. So now these gen zers are facing the realities of climate change, knowing they're going to become adults when half the planet is unlivable and the global food supply won't support the population. And then the economy is just.
Kayla: There's not going to be one like, it will be in the toilet and they didn't even get to go to their senior goddamn project. I feel bad for. I feel bad. So to me, yeah, it makes sense that there might be young people in particular turning to the power of positive thinking, the law of attraction, the idea that parallel realities and manifestation and general occultiness is reality.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: And obviously, right now we've been talking about a very specific experience at the pandemic. And I want to acknowledge that the pandemic affected a lot of different people in a lot of different ways. So, you know, outside of missing prom, outside of missing these experiences, outside of people having to put off their travel plans and getting together with their friends, many people lost their lives. Many people lost their jobs, their homes and more. And for a lot of teenagers, the worst of the pandemic wasn't missing their senior prom, but something much more dramatic. I think generally when we talk about people getting drawn to woo on TikTok, at least for the purposes of this episode, we are focusing on a somewhat narrow experience. I just want to acknowledge that this is just a slice of what went on.
Kayla: The pandemic has been traumatic in so many ways. And a lot of people do turn to spirituality to help deal with and process that trauma. Also from the GQ article, McGurk cites a 1994 study of 174 israeli citizens. The study was from Tel Aviv University. And this research found that participants who had experience with missile attacks during the Gulf War were more likely to believe in the supernatural than those that hadn't had those experiences.
Chris: Right. I think we've talked about this on the show before, like, when there are things that are outside of your control and dangerous.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: You're more likely to invoke magic. Like the study they did on those, like, fishermen. Like, the further they went out to fish and into the ocean, the more magical rituals they performed.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: And it goes back to what happened to Russians in the fall of the Soviet Union.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: So we've all faced a major unprocessed trauma. We're all probably a little bit more open to the supernatural than were before, and especially young people who were already embedded on TikTok. A lot of the manifestation content you see on TikTok speaks to the times that we're living in, specifically speaks to it. So there's a lot of manifestation videos about money, how to attract money, how to find unexpected money, how to make more money, money. So this is a time when people are laid off, unemployed, making starvation wages. Make sense for this kind of magical thinking to take hold. Love is also a big thing, especially for, like, teenagers trying to get their crushes to text them back, but also for adults looking for soul mates and companionship.
Kayla: I think the loneliness and the isolation of the pandemic speaks to maybe why that kind of content is popular.
Chris: It does. However, money and love also seem like sort of timeless things that people always want.
Kayla: Right. But I'm saying why these videos specifically are popular since March of 2020.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Why those like, yes. Money and love. Yes. But these videos were not, as. There were not as many videos like this before the pandemic.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: So why are people seeking these out so heavily now? I think it's. I think because of the pandemic. There's also one that makes me particularly sad, is there are manifestation videos aimed at helping people alter their appearances. So it's like you can become beautiful in the way that you want simply by manifesting it. And my theory is that this might have less to do with the pandemic, but more to do with TikTok itself. So TikTok is known for creating filters that users can apply to their videos and pictures. A lot of these filters are fun and funny. It may make you look like a dog or give you cartoon eyes or shows you breathing fire, but there are also a lot of filters that are aimed at making you look more quote unquote, beautiful, like makeup filters and beauty filters.
Kayla: And they generally alter faces to the degree that Photoshop might be applied to fashion photography. So noses are slimmed, skin is brightened and whitened, makeup and lashes are applied, lips are plumped. These filters generally apply eurocentric beauty standards and have been blamed for an uptick in body dysmorphia and body dissatisfaction among young people, especially among young women. And there are even claims that people that are seeking plastic surgery have begun bringing filtered images of themselves to doctors and asking for that look to become permanent. I don't have research to back that up like that. It could just be a rumor. But as somebody who has tried these filters, yeah, holy shit. If I were 16 again and playing with these filters, like, it would have been very bad for me.
Kayla: It's very bad for me now as a 33 year old, where I'm like, oh, like, I can't. It's not good. It's not good to constantly be looking at yourself as like, oh, but here's what it could look like, especially when the filters tend to have a very narrow. They tend to do a very narrow set of things to the face.
Chris: They're like, both narrow and extreme at the same time.
Kayla: Yeah, right. Like, they have extreme. They have extreme results, but it's always. Bye. Making your eyes look a certain way, making your nose look a certain way, and it's always the same kind of certain way. It's always a very eurocentric standard.
Chris: Right, right.
Kayla: Very like the Instagram face. So, yeah, it's not surprising to me to learn that manifesting beauty alterations is now a thing.
Chris: Okay, is that the end of the context?
Kayla: Finally.
Chris: So are you sure?
Kayla: Finally.
Chris: Okay. But I'll just say this, though. If we're talking about something, if part of theme of this episode is, oh, no, learning about things without context can be dangerous.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: Then, hey, we are the opposite of that.
Kayla: Maybe to an extreme degree.
Chris: Too much. We just put a dump truck of context on you.
Kayla: Here you go. So this finally brings us all to grabovoi codes, the topic of the podcast today, grab a boy codes is a TikTok trend. Well, it's more than that, but for right now, this is a TikTok trend rooted in manifestation ideology, exponentially made more popular by the pandemic's effect on social media and young people in particular.
Chris: I see why you did all that context now.
Kayla: And like other conspiracy theories and alt ideas on TikTok, gravity codes have some pretty sinister origins.
Chris: Oh, boy. So what are the gravy boy codes? So I'm gonna make fun of them in a whole bunch of different ways that can be lame because I'm gonna call them the gravy boy codes or the grabby boy.
Kayla: So, spoiler alert, grab a boy codes have russian origins. And I did watch some, like, YouTube videos in russian about grabovoi codes, and the translation kept calling them coffin or grave because I guess there was like, oh, grave. Like some sort of. I guess grabovoi means maybe means something else in Russian, or at least the closed captain was trying to make sense of it. So it's like you're not breaking new ground by making fun. Fun has already been poked. So first, what are grabovoid codes? Well, I don't know, you guys. The end.
Chris: Wow. So we only had context this time.
Kayla: Just context, no content. Well, okay, on TikTok and in articles about the phenomenon, they're often described as, quote unquote, cheat codes for the universe. Basically, the idea is that there are various strings of numbers that can hack the manifestation process and when utilized, can bring the user wealth, health, beauty, fame, happiness, love, anything else you can dream of.
Chris: So they are strings of numbers?
Kayla: They are strings of numbers.
Chris: Like a game genie.
Kayla: It's kind of like a manifestation affirmation translated into numbers.
Chris: Okay, so instead of sitting there meditating and saying like, I am wealthy and beautiful, you'll sit there and go, 5721-9938 we'll get.
Kayla: Into the ways to use them. But essentially, yes, okay, correct. There are hundreds of these codes, and the idea is based on the pseudoscientific idea of radionics, in which everything in the universe. Everything in the universe has a vibrational, electromagnetic frequency. These frequencies are encoded as numbers. The grabovoid numbers.
Chris: Okay, that almost sounds scientific.
Kayla: Gravoid codes obviously have their roots in some of the same ideas as manifestation, but kind of take the process one step further. So manifestation requires affirmations and working towards your goals. Grab a boy. Codes offer more of a shortcut to the endgame. Like, very similar to how cheat codes work in video games.
Chris: Yeah, game genie.
Kayla: Yeah, literally in many, for those who may not know, in many different video games, there are secret combinations of buttons or keys that can be entered into the game to bring the player infinite money or high level weapons or the ability to fly and more or enough.
Chris: Extra lives to even play the game at all. Like the contra.
Kayla: I think that's another reason why this particular trend maybe appeals to young people, like, you know, and by young people, that's a. That's a wide swath of people that's, you know, Gen X and younger people who grew up with video games. The idea of cheat codes is, like, already well established among these populations.
Chris: That's interesting.
Kayla: So it's like, it's easy to assimilate this digital idea into.
Chris: Yeah. You're tapping into that sort of concept that people have just from all the video games they've played over. It's fascinating.
Kayla: Grab avoid codes provide the same shortcut, but. But in real life, and it's less about focusing your mind and energy to attract a goal to you. It's more about using the numbers to hack the universe to make the goal happen. It's like cheat code.
Chris: So it's even less behavioral then from.
Kayla: Yeah, yeah.
Chris: Than like, the secret. Like, the secret at least acknowledges that you should probably go look at those real estate listings. But this is like, nah, just say the numbers.
Kayla: Just say the numbers. Grab a voice codes, when presented in TikTok videos are often accompanied by little to no context. Hey, some videos will simply show lists of numbers and what they can be used for. I read some analyses that said, presenting grab of way numbers in this way allow for there to be no wrong way to use them, which is like, here's grab of way numbers use them. And so then it's kind of like, up to the user to figure it out. And there's no, like, wrong way, which probably leads to more people using them.
Chris: Yeah, that widens the top of the funnel.
Kayla: Yeah. Makes it more attractive if the learning curve is basically zero. Find a number, do what you want. There you go. Some tiktoks provide more structure on how to use the numbers, with video makers showcasing how they use the numbers in their own lives. So this will often involve writing the number down several times, focusing on what you're trying to attract with the numbers. And a big part is tracing the numbers in the air so as to, like, put them out into the universe in a more direct format. Like, literally there are videos of people with their finger doing, like, 4579, tracing.
Chris: It in the air for our listeners. Kayla right now is doing that. Putting your finger in the air and going 4579.
Kayla: That's the thing, you know?
Chris: And it kind of looked like you were casting a spell. You know what I mean? Like, from like a. Like a.
Kayla: It looks magical.
Chris: Like a merlin. Yeah, sort of like, classical magic.
Kayla: Yeah, yeah, it's something. Sometimes there are more complicated methods, such as the three six nine method, in which you write out your manifestation three times in the morning, six times in the afternoon, and nine times at night for 33 days. I've seen that method also applied to regular affirmations, and I think. I have no idea. But I think the claim is that, like, Nikola Tesla came up with that method, and he might have. He was a weirdo. I don't know, but I don't know.
Chris: You gotta have him. I mean.
Kayla: Oh, Tesla comes up a lot. Other TikTokers suggest you write your chosen number somewhere on your body, generally on your wrist or your forearm, between your wrist and your elbow. I think there's been a little bit of an evolution on how grab a void numbers are suggested to be used on TikTok. Like, kind of started maybe with little to no instruction to the suggestions of tracing them in the air, to journaling, to writing them on your body. It kind of got more and more instruction. That's just my observation. Not sure if that's true, but rather than just tell you about them, let me show you some popular TikToks that showcase the grab of white codes themselves.
Chris: Oh, I get to see some of the TikToks. Yes, yes. What about our listeners?
Kayla: We'll put the audio right here. Oh my fucking God. Guys, so I saw this girl's video on my TikTok today. She was basically talking about how you can manifest money with a code. I heard of these grab a boy codes to manifest stuff a while ago, but I'm not gonna lie, I was very cynical. I was like, b, I don't think we on some sims shit. I don't think real life works that way. Until I decided to randomly test it out myself today. The coach, she said for months research and I found some specific numbers for you, so you're gonna want to save this video. So I'm gonna read these as fast as I can, but maybe we'll need a part two. Okay. Green crush to me is 8997-4476 bring.
Chris: My love back to me is 38567.
Kayla: So you're gonna get two codes. The first one is for a dream job. The code is 4791-5425 the second code is for a new car. The code is 66731. Potentially change your life.
Chris: These are unique, universal cheat codes that you can use to manifest money and.
Kayla: Even heal your body.
Chris: There are hundreds of Grabovay numbers for money. I started using the unexpected money grab a boy. Number last week, and I had at least six clients that have not purchased from me in six months reach out, wanting a custom order, probably $1,000 worth of orders, like, and follow for more. And I'm going to show you how.
Kayla: To properly use the numbers so that you can manifest. Okay, be nice.
Chris: No, I. I know. That's what. All right, so I have a bunch of thoughts. What?
Kayla: Tell them nor.
Chris: Yeah, I want to be nice. I don't want to, like, be a dickhead, but. But, bro, come on. This is these people saying, like, if you want money, say some number.
Kayla: I know.
Chris: Now, I will say this at the same time when I was watching it, and they're like, hey, here's your money.
Kayla: Oh, my God. Don't you want to do it?
Chris: I did it. Of course I did it. And this is what I was gonna say is that it takes zero effort. Like, that's the thing. I can watch this stupid TikTok and it's the dumbest thing ever. But, like, it takes no effort for me to trace a number in the air. And then on the .001% chance that it's real, you know? Cause in the multiverse, there's probably some.
Kayla: There's a grab avoid universe.
Chris: There's a grab of a universe where it's real. So in case it's this one, it takes me zero effort to trace out a number in the air. And then who knows? Maybe we'll make a shit ton of money tomorrow and you won't have to do this stupid podcast anymore.
Kayla: Yeah. And like, this is just. I showed you some videos. These are just a sampling.
Chris: I love this podcast.
Kayla: This is the greatest podcast ever. But there are thousands and thousands of videos like that. Maybe more. I don't know.
Chris: It's just the low effort thing. And I think it's not just me. Like, I think that probably explains some of the popularity, is that if you are watching these short videos, you know, it's not about, like, all right, you gotta start journaling, right? Trace this number right now. Do it right now.
Kayla: Who the fuck has time to journal when you're either, like, working six jobs to make ends meet or you're like a teenager right now trying to not die all of the time, right?
Chris: I. Right.
Kayla: I don't have the time or energy. I don't have the time or energy. Let's think about some numbers. Meditate on some numbers. Write some numbers in the air. Yeah, shortcuts, baby.
Chris: Yeah, real shortcut. Yeah.
Kayla: Most of the people that talk about grabbing numbers on TikTok it feels like that there's, like, they have, like, they're building a brand that's, like, already dedicated to manifestation. And, like, I see they already have videos talking about affirmations and other kinds of codes, like angel codes and more. We'll get to that. But the biggest thing that I noticed when watching a lot of these grab a white number videos is that there is not a lot of context provided. And I don't even mean, like, the lack of context on how to use them. I mean a lack of context about where the hell they come from.
Chris: Yeah, like, who. Like, who is researching the gravity? Yeah, who comes up?
Kayla: Where are they from? Like, the videos are just, hey, have you heard about this thing? Here's what they are. Have you heard about grab a numbers? But it's like, they don't say where they come from or how they found the numbers or, like, what book they're reading this in, where this website.
Chris: This is from the direct. Not necessarily their origin, but, like, where they heard them.
Kayla: Yeah. Yes. That's what I mean. Like, sometimes they'll. Okay, obviously they'll link to other TikTokers talking about it, but again, it's like, that's circular. There's not an origin.
Chris: And, like, did they not origin? Is this, like, the thing where, like, somebody goes back in time and gives Shakespeare the script for Romeo and Juliet, so there's no origin.
Kayla: Yeah, that's what happened, you guys. Time travel is real.
Chris: I want to do one more. I want to say one more thing. By the way, the first person that we just listened to, I love that she does the classic. Like, I was a skeptic at first, but it worked. But then I tried it, and it.
Kayla: Worked now by my herbalife. Okay, so, like, we talked about earlier with various conspiracy and spirituality stuff on TikTok, content promoting grab a void codes are completely divorced from any context about its origins. And I do wonder if part of this is because some of these TikTokers are trying to build their brands, and so that there's sometimes, like, a little bit of a dis incentivization. Is that a word? From citing context? Because their value add is bringing the information to their viewers. So, like, if they say, like, I got this in this book, you know, what's stopping me from going to the source instead of continuing to watch their video? Like we mentioned, TikToks, I've noticed TikTokers linking or referencing other TikToks, but you have to do your own digging off app to get context for these things.
Chris: Luckily, I have a kayla and you guys.
Kayla: So now you have context. With the vast majority of grab a voice codes, especially ones in English. They have positive connotations, but that is not always the case. It's not always.
Chris: These are all, like, money and love. Yeah.
Kayla: In general, in manifestation circles, a positive mindset and good intentions are necessary for the magic to work. This is a common trope in witchcraft and magic in general. Like, in some witchcraft circles, magic must be practiced for good in order for it to be effective. In other circles, magic better be practiced for good, or else any negative intentions will be reflected back on the user threefold, five fold, tenfold.
Chris: Oh.
Kayla: So for many using grab a void codes, this principle holds. Not in Russia. Oh, apparently in russian influencer circles, like, there are grab avoid codes that have been shared for negative uses, like giving someone a headache or poisoning or heart attack or illness, or just general bad luck and Jesus Christ. I mostly read about this. I didn't really see it, but, like, supposedly, there are russian influencers out there that have shared codes to hack for these things, so, you know, not good.
Chris: Is there a code for bringing back the woolly mammoth that we can talk to the z moffs about?
Kayla: Probably, sure. Just make one up.
Chris: Yeah. All right.
Kayla: Just say there is.
Chris: We'll put it on our TikTok.
Kayla: Yes. Like other manifestation techniques, these exploded during the pandemic. And I don't think it was just because the power of positive thinking was needed during times like these. It's also because grab a boy codes surfaced that supposedly helped protect against illness, specifically Covid. These spread in english speaking circles on TikTok, as well as russian circles, and also largely on chinese social media site Weibo. In February 2020, Hong Kong actor Julian Chung wrote a grab a boy code on his arm, called it a code for epidemic prevention. And fans began to imitate this action, spreading it via Weibo.
Chris: Wow. So this is, like, a global ass phenomenon.
Kayla: This is a thing. This is a thing.
Chris: Holy shit.
Kayla: Keep all of this in mind as we keep moving on. From my observation, this trend was at its peak earlier this year, around March 2021, and hash has generally been on a bit of a decline since then. So, like, other kinds of codes and manifestation techniques have risen and fallen and taken on the trend wave. Like, I've seen a lot of stuff about angel numbers. I mentioned this before. Angel numbers. This is a different kind of code, supposedly representing communication to and from angels using vibrational frequency.
Chris: Okay, so is it which one's the hydrox and which one's the Oreo here.
Kayla: I don't know. Who knows? Angel numbers are, like, when numbers repeat. So, like, wishing on 1111 or, like, seeing the number 777 repeating numbers, it's like, those are angel numbers.
Chris: So is 666 angel number?
Kayla: I don't know.
Chris: A fallen angel number?
Kayla: I mean, yeah, technically.
Chris: Hey, oh.
Kayla: Who knows what the next trend will be? I'm sure it's something, but in the meantime, grab a boy. Codes are still floating around TikTok and other social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest. Overall, seems pretty harmless, right? Like, it's just a manifestation of.
Chris: Are you asking me who knows all of, like, who. Who runs cultures weird and knows this shit isn't harmless? Or are you asking, like, at first blush.
Kayla: At first blush, like, it's just a manifestation technique? Power. Positive thinking. Like, yes, it can be a little goofy to hack your universe with cheese codes, just like grand theft auto, but, like, who is it really hurting?
Chris: Okay, let me get in character, then. Yeah, that seems harmless.
Kayla: Well, you're wrong, you dummy. You dumb idiot. Talking to me on my own podcast. You're wrong.
Chris: Yeah, I know.
Kayla: Let's get into it, shall we? Maybe. Maybe you're wondering where the name Grabovoi codes comes from.
Chris: Yeah, gravy boy.
Kayla: Well, here we go. Gregory Grabovoi is a Cossack pseudoscientist who fucking sucks. Sorry. I tried to put together a succinct description of this man's qualifications, and that's the best I could come up with. Gregory graboway fucking sucks. And I'm sorry. We're talking about him. I am angry. I am mad. I'm upset. And we could do an entire multi episode arc on the bullshit that this man has done, but frankly, I don't think he deserves that much airtime or discussion. So we're just gonna do our best to summarize and not dive too deep into the morass of his bullshit behavior.
Chris: Okay, that was a little bit of a rollercoaster, because I was like. At first you said a name, and I was like, oh, I'm making fun of somebody's name. Whoops. And then you said that he sucks real bad. And then now I don't feel bad.
Kayla: Don't feel bad. You don't need to feel bad.
Chris: All right, grabby boy, let's go.
Kayla: Okay. I hope I've gotten that out of my system. Probably not entirely. Clearly, I have some major biases here. I think they're entirely valid. Once we're done talking, I think you'll.
Chris: Agree we have an editorial point of view on the show.
Kayla: I have a very heavy editorial point of view on this episode, so let's get to it. Grigory Grabovoi was born in the village of Korovo, Kazakhstan on November 4, 1963. He claims he graduated from university in 1986 and majored in mechanics. He claims that afterwards he worked in the field of general engineering. In 1991, he began working in aviation, entering into contract after contract with the Uzbek national Airlines. At first, he provided services for, quote, developing methods for heuristic analysis, diagnosis and prediction of aviation failures. Then he worked on development of, quote, unconventional methods of technical analysis, diagnosis and prediction of aviation failures.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: And then he basically kept working with the airlines until 1996, utilizing his powers of ESP to predict and prevent airplane failures and crashes. This was a thing this man was paid to do by the Uzbek government, use psychic powers to evaluate the mechanics of aircraft to prevent accidents. Please kill me. I'm mad.
Chris: So this wasn't just like, hi, I'm a guy who can prevent airplanes from crashing with ESP. This was. He was being paid by someone else.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: By a government?
Kayla: Yes. It was a national airlines to prevent.
Chris: Airplane crashes using psychic powers.
Kayla: He claims his methods had a 100% reliability rate.
Chris: My God, that is not, that doesn't make me feel good. I don't think I'm gonna ride Uzbek air or anything.
Kayla: Well, I mean, this was back in the nineties. I remember fall of the USSR did a number on a lot of people.
Chris: Okay. All right.
Kayla: In 1994, Gregory Grabovoy was told by indian saint Sri Saant Baba Nagpalji that his psychic abilities would help people not just in Russia but around the world.
Chris: Oh, wow. This is a dead person that told him this.
Kayla: I believe they have passed since then. Yes.
Chris: Oh, since then?
Kayla: Yes. They were alive.
Chris: Okay. I was just wondering if you had to use the soul phone.
Kayla: No, no soul phone. This is alive people. Also, in 1994, famous clairvoyant Yuko and Labeau made the same prediction. And wouldn't you know it, in 1995, famous bulgarian mystic Baba Vanya predicted. This is a quote from Grabovois own website. Within 20 years, Grabovoi would achieve everything he had planned and would realize in practice his system of nuclear and environmental safety on the planet, human life extension, non dying. And expressed her belief that Gregory Grabovoi, with his phenomenal qualities, had to necessarily continue to expand the scope of his abilities in all area of life.
Chris: Wow, that's impressive.
Kayla: He is the chosen one.
Chris: Wow.
Kayla: He moved to Russia in 1995 and founded the non profit Grigory Grabovoi foundation implementation and dissemination of the teachings of Gregory Grabovoi on salvation and harmonious development.
Chris: That all sounds super legit.
Kayla: The nonprofit would eventually grow to have branches in more than 50 locations throughout Russia. He also claims that he worked on Russia's spaceflight program, helping to solve diagnostic issues for spacecraft. Wouldn't you know it?
Chris: Wait, is that true?
Kayla: I don't know. He has a lot of claims. He's got a lot of claims. You know, Gregory Grabovoi's website claims that Gregory Grabovoi created a new science.
Chris: Oh, he did?
Kayla: Cool, right, grats? The science of, quote, the science of Gregory Grabovoi is a fundamentally new area of knowledge.
Chris: Wait, that's what it's called?
Kayla: The science of Gregory Grabovoi? Yes.
Chris: He couldn't even give it a snappy name.
Kayla: Maybe it has a better name in like, this is all translated from Russian. Okay, so maybe it's bad translation, but the science of Grigory Grabovoi is a fundamentally new area of knowledge, affirming the way of development and continued compliance with the laws of creative development of the world.
Chris: Huh.
Kayla: He also claims he has like a shit ton of licenses, degrees, certifications, and awards from a variety of organizations. They don't really make sense or are just nonsense. Here are some examples from his site. On January 24, 1998, Gregory Grabovoi was awarded the title the best healer in bioenergetic informatics and forecasting. On June 10, 1998, Gregory Grabovoy was elected a full member of the International Informatization Academy. In August 1998, the New York Academy of Sciences elected Gregory Grabavoy a full member of the academy. On June 26, 1999, Gregory Grabovoi was awarded the Knightly Order of St. Stanislaus. On March 5, 2000, Gregory Grebevoit was admitted to the Club of Air travelers for substantial contribution in the development of super light aviation. On May 10, 2000. Great.
Chris: If you can keep planes in the air with your mind, then they can be really light.
Kayla: I read an article that, like, it might have been the. Might have been the uzbek president or the kazakh president, I don't remember. But like, or maybe it was a russian president, I'm not sure. Some article somewhere claimed that some president had, like, had him on retainer to like, yeah, keep the plane in the air with the powers of his mind.
Chris: Like whenever they were flying. Like whenever they were in the air.
Kayla: Gregory on May 10, 2000, Gregory Grabovoy registered the patent for invention blah number blah blah method for prevention of catastrophes and device for its realization. The description of the patent is available on the Internet, and this is just barely a quarter of the claims on his site.
Chris: Yeah. So this guy is just like a king grifter, then he is pulling out all the stops.
Kayla: Let me read you a quote from an insider article written about grab a boy by Mia Jankiewicz. Many of those were likely falsified.
Chris: Wow. Thank you. Thank you for that.
Kayla: The higher attestation commission, Russia's academic accreditation service, said Grabovoi was neither a doctor of science nor a professor. Grabovoi told Insider in an email that his qualifications were genuine. Did he other accomplishments appear inflated, such as the claim that he was, quote unquote, elected to the New York Academy of Sciences in 1998, an organization where anyone can become a member for dollar 135 in dues. A spokesperson for NyAs confirmed there is no election process for membership. So, yeah, the man's a fucking grifter.
Chris: So why don't we do that? Actually, $130. Nah, fuck it.
Kayla: Well, it doesn't get you anything. You can put it on your website. Oh, then somebody on Insider can go, this is stupid and wrong. And people on podcasts can go, this guy's a dummy.
Chris: Yeah, people already say that about me. They're probably saying it right now.
Kayla: I don't want them to say that. I don't want to be a grifter. But, like, he's also probably made a good deal of money from his grifter.
Chris: That's right.
Kayla: In addition to his work with governments and his foundation and his patents, he's got like 40 books for sale on Amazon.
Chris: He's done a good job manifesting his money. He must have said some money. Gravaboy codes.
Kayla: He said, the gravo boy codes. Some of his books are in English, some are in Spanish. One of the more well known books is his 1999 work restoring the human body by focusing on numbers. See, a lot of the teachings he came up with at his nonprofit and his books are the exact thing we've been talking about today. Grabovoid codes. He came up with the idea that there's a bunch of numbers you can use to make things happen for you. When it came to health, wouldn't you know it? Grab a boy himself could predict cancer, and his codes can treat, prevent, and cure cancer itself as well as AIDS.
Chris: Wow, that's crazy.
Kayla: Yeah, I know.
Chris: He's like that. Not just the president of medicine.
Kayla: He probably claims to be, actually, that's probably something on his website. We'll get back to his health claims in a minute. He's also made claims that he has the ability to teleport. Okay.
Chris: Yeah. Who can't teleport?
Kayla: In 2004, grab a boy held a press conference in which he claimed to be the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Chris: Yeah, I mean, eventually that happens.
Kayla: He would predict. He would also predict that he would later become the president of Russia by 2008.
Chris: I think he missed that window.
Kayla: And then something truly horrible happened. So content warning for gun violence, for mass shootings, for violence against children. On September 1, 2004, the deadliest school shooting in human history occurred in Beslan, Russia.
Chris: In human. Wait. Deadlier than all of the ones. Anything that's happened here, even.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Jesus.
Kayla: It's also a different kind of school shooting. In the Beslan school siege, a group of chechen terrorists stormed a russian school in Beslan as part of the chechen demands for independence from Russia, for Chechnya. The entire school was held hostage, 1100 people, including 775, 77 children. On September 3, russian forces stormed the building, and fighting erupted with tanks and heavy weapons on the side of the Russians and explosives and automatic rifles on the side of the Chechens. Around 334 people were killed in the attack. 186 of them were children. This event had a lasting emotional and political effect on Russia. Federal reforms consolidated more power for the president of Russia. In response to this, and to this day, citizens are still trying to make sense of the horrific violence. Many questions have gone unanswered. Criticisms of how the russian government handled the event abound.
Kayla: It seems kind of similar in some ways. Similar of an event to maybe like Waco here in terms of government handling. Yeah. It was a staggering act of violence, the result of deep social and political turmoil and complexity. And it's hard to make sense of something like this.
Chris: Yeah. That's substantial.
Kayla: Hard to make sense of.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Unless you're a motherfucking grifter.
Chris: Oh.
Kayla: His most unforgivable act. Gregory Grabovoi met with the mothers of Beslan committee, a group of mothers whose children were killed in the attack. He promised that his powers would allow him to bring their children back from the dead for a fee. Obviously, he was not. He was not able to do this. Yeah, he couldn't do that.
Chris: He couldn't bring people back from the dead.
Kayla: He could not resurrect.
Chris: But he said he would.
Kayla: Dead children coming of Jesus, though, he didn't do it. And he was eventually arrested and imprisoned on fraud charges from 2008 to 2010.
Chris: Good.
Kayla: Grigory and his followers, some of which still include mothers of Beslan, still follow him.
Chris: Well, they're still, like, hoping that's.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Oh, God.
Kayla: Some of his followers claim that he was the victim of smear campaign and that he was framed for fraud, that he never defrauded money from anyone, and that he was made a scapegoat for the russian government's failings of handling the crisis, and that journalists spread disinformation about him. And you know what? Some of those claims are entirely possible. Like Vladimir Putin. Not exactly a fan of people who challenge his presidential power. Right, and Grabovoi had announced he was seeking the president. The presidency. Disinformation has a history in Russia. Governments often do look for scapegoats when they fuck up.
Chris: Right?
Kayla: But you know what this man told mothers grieving their dead children who had died in one of the most traumatic ways I can imagine, that he could resurrect them. So whatever else may or may not be true, he did this. And to me, he, like that is truly an evil act that he committed. Yeah, he's a grifter with a series of increasingly serious grifts. Until he hit this point, and finally he faced some serious consequences.
Chris: Right, right. Wow, that's, That's a pretty bad grift. That's not good.
Kayla: Not good.
Chris: That's a.
Kayla: Not a good one.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: So what has he been doing since leaving prison in 2010? Has he cleaned up his act?
Chris: Is he on TikTok?
Kayla: Is that since 2010, he's patented a device that supposedly stops aging.
Chris: So now, okay, so he can't resurrect, but he can stop you from dying.
Kayla: Yeah. Now, you can pay this man to send you a mail machine that grants you immortality. It costs about $10,000.
Chris: That's worth it.
Kayla: Or I think you can also pay for, like, remote healing services. He sells webinars of his teaching on his website, and his followers can pay him for the privilege to host their own webinars. He has an education center where people can pay to learn his teachings, and it's got some, like, MLM vibes. So Gregory Grabovoi has been a lot quieter since his jail stint. He's not trying to gain political office or claim messiah status, but he's still out there grifting.
Chris: Yeah, well, grifter's gonna grab. I mean, what is he gonna do, Kayla, go legit? Come on.
Kayla: He could.
Chris: I doubt he has the skill set.
Kayla: Yeah, you're right, because he's basically responsible for reintroducing his universal cheat codes into mainstream society. You can directly trace the trend of grab a void numbers on TikTok back to this man himself.
Chris: Oh, really? Okay, so he is this.
Kayla: In January 2020, Grabavoy made a post on his Facebook claiming that two of his number sequences could combat the coronavirus tearing through China. And I literally have a picture of the post that I will post on our Instagram. It says, number series for coronavirus that is identified in China. And then there's two numbers. It wasn't long before people in China and East Asia began sharing these numbers with each other. And like we mentioned, even celebrities joined in. The numbers spread through. Weibo made the jump to TikTok, and here we are. I mentioned that the popularity of Grabovoid codes has declined since its peak earlier this year. Part of that is because as the idea gained clout, TikTok users began looking into the man, discovered his shady past, and commented on videos promoting the codes.
Kayla: In some circumstances, you can only divorce something from its context before long until it's dug up again.
Chris: That's good job, users who are doing that.
Kayla: Yeah, seriously. So there's all that gravity codes. I think their popularity on TikTok says a lot about how spirituality and conspiracy spreads on the app.
Chris: Conspirituality. This is definitely conspirituality right here.
Kayla: Absolutely. Conspirator. It's so easy to divorce content from its context that we might end up spreading some pretty bad shit around without intending to. It's not great that the teachings of an evil, grifting madman gain new popularity because of COVID and TikTok. So it is on us to look a little deeper into the things we share, especially when they seem too good to be true.
Chris: Yeah, I mean, and that's. That's. That's a powerful. Like, I I fall victim to that, too. Like, we need to be self reflective about that. You know, when we see something and we're just like, did, you know, blah, blah. And, like, we've. I mean, it's a different world now. Like, we have to look up the context of things that, you know, we can't. We can't just consume information anymore without, like, putting it to the test a little bit against our own trust networks and saying, where did this come from? Who said this? Like, what's their motivation? What's their agenda? You know, you have to kind of, like, trace that back and explore that network of that piece of information a little bit.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: And that's effortful, and we're getting tons of information all the time, and we don't have time to do that for every single piece we get, so. And it's really hard to not sit here and say, like, if you're at a party and say, you know what I read on the Internet earlier today. So it's just.
Kayla: But then you might say a thing that promotes the grab a boy coach might make somebody look into this man and go like, ooh, I'm gonna give him $10,000 for a thing. And then he gets more money, and then he gets to keep doing his grift. And none of us want that. Fuck that guy. Do your own research. Worst word in the world. Do your own research.
Chris: Well, yes and no. Right? I think that's a. That's its own topic. But. But, yes, in this. In this case, I think it's actually appropriate to do that, to say that. And I think where I, you know, where I need to be more careful is things that I already agree with. Right. Because if it's something that I am, like, disagree. Like, if I am not so sure about something somebody's saying, I'm more likely to go and do that checking process that I just said, right? Like, if somebody says something that's like, wait a minute, that's a. That sounds kind of racist. Or, you know, like, wait a minute. What's. Who's, like, when I first learned about who, like, who Andy Ngo was, and I was like, what. What's going on here? And then, oh, he wrote for Quillette. Okay, that makes sense, right?
Chris: But I'm less likely to do that if it's something like, oh, you know, the hospital in Oklahoma has to turn away shooting victims because of COVID or whatever, you know? And granted, that's its own complex thing. And there's a mixed truth and falsehoods there.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: But I'm definitely less likely for stories like that to really look into it, and that's not great.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: So I need. That's where I need to be more careful is when I have the motivated reasoning and noticing when that is, and not just sharing things that I think are true, because that's what the problem.
Kayla: Correct. Thank you. Oh, wait, we're forgetting something.
Chris: Wait, what are we forgetting? Is it a cult?
Kayla: Is it a cult? Or is it just weird?
Chris: It's. I don't know. I think we need some criteria for this.
Kayla: I wish we had some.
Chris: Oh, wait, we have the cult or just weird. TM, official branded cultur. Just weird criteria for whether things are cults or just weirds.
Kayla: Okay, let's go through them.
Chris: All right. That's better.
Kayla: There you go. Number one charismatic leader exists.
Chris: Oh. Oh, yeah. Definitely exists. For sure exists.
Kayla: Hi.
Chris: Is he charismatic, though?
Kayla: He's clearly charismatic enough that he has people following him that have followed him even after he did not deliver on extremely serious personal claims.
Chris: But is that his charisma, or is that the sunk cost of not being able to deal with the fact that you gave money to someone?
Kayla: There's a lot of different people you could follow. He's not the only guy out there who's claimed to be able to bring people back from the dead. I'm just saying.
Chris: Okay. Have you seen him talk or anything? Is there any.
Kayla: I have, but he. I've only. I think he only conducts his talks in Russian, so I don't speak Russians. It's kind of difficult.
Chris: But does he have a glow? Look, we've never. We've never heard Mary Kay talk, and we can look at a picture and say, I just came.
Kayla: I hate him, so you shouldn't ask me.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: I think that if we're gonna say that something like Teal Swan is a charismatic leader, then Grigory Grabovoi is a charismatic leader.
Chris: But Teal Swan has a presence, man.
Kayla: Gregory grabbably has a presence.
Chris: Does he? Well, that's what I'm asking.
Kayla: Sure.
Chris: All right, then. Yes.
Kayla: Okay. Hi.
Chris: Okay. Two, actually. We don't have them in order ever. Should we do them in order?
Kayla: Second one. What's the order?
Chris: Well, I mean, should we develop an order? So people are like, okay, anti factuality. Super high.
Kayla: Yes. Clearly.
Chris: Like, this is the putting numbers in the sky.
Kayla: Sorry. It's not gonna do anything.
Chris: Sorry. It's like, keep laughing, but it's not.
Kayla: It's not gonna move on. Not you. I mean, people doing grab so high.
Chris: Okay. Is it niche? I think this seems niche to me. Like, I had never heard of this before.
Kayla: You call it niche? Even though it's very widespread on TikTok, I think it's still into mainstream society. It's a very niche.
Chris: So the niche criteria is in case everything else scores high, this is a cult. If this scored low, it's a religion.
Kayla: Yes, sure.
Chris: It's kind of what we said before. It's what that criteria is for.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Right. Okay. Number four ish. Four esque. Whatever life consumed. I mean, are people's. It seems like with TikTok, I guess if the cult were TikTok, then. Hi. Because it consumes people's lives. Because you watch it for 7 hours. I don't know if grabovoi codes consumes people's lives in the same way.
Kayla: No, it seems like grabovoi codes can maybe not have a very low percentage of your life consumed. That's part of their nature. I think that being a follower of Gregory Grabovoi, that could consume. You could consume.
Chris: But if we're just saying the concept of the codes, then it seems like it's low percentage of life consumed.
Kayla: Right. I agree with you.
Chris: All right. Expected harm. I guess this depends on what you do with it. I mean, if you say a code to get you money that you need to pay rent, and then you don't do something else to get money to pay rent, that could cause you.
Kayla: I think that interacting with grabaway codes has a very low chance of harm. I think it's very low.
Chris: Yeah. But it's also. Maybe it's a gateway into this garbage, like, kind of what you're talking about with the Atlantis thing, and, like, suddenly you're, like, you know, two steps away from, you know, like, serious nazi shit.
Kayla: I think it's similar in the last criteria. It's low if you're just interacting with gravivoid codes, but high if you're interacting with Gravivoi.
Chris: What about, though? What about, like, the manifesting love thing? Like, that feels like that. That really dovetails to me with when were talking about twin flames last season in that if you. Because love and relationships are inherently a two person dynamic, not a one person dynamic. Like, money is, like, I get money. I get it. I get a big stash. With love, it's like there's another person to think about. That's what we said in that second episode about twin flames.
Kayla: Other people are. Other people make another person.
Chris: No, but I think it could lead you to that. Right? Like, it could.
Kayla: I don't think so.
Chris: If you are thinking about, like, manifesting love, then maybe you're. It's somebody that's, like, genuinely not interested in you, and that's gonna keep you attached to that person in an unhealthy way.
Kayla: No, I agree. Because with manifestation culture, this is something you probably aren't aware of. But with manifestation culture, if the thing does not come to you that you are asking for, then it is not meant for you. And that is different than twin flames culture, where it's like, oh, I need to be. There's a chaser and a retreater, and, like, that person's mind also, you're connected.
Chris: As twin flames in this, like, hyper reality that cannot be denied.
Kayla: Whereas with manifestation culture, it's very much like, if this doesn't work for you, try something else. If that doesn't come to you, it's not for you accept it like that.
Chris: But isn't there some room there for, like, people that are in some room?
Kayla: Sure, but I don't think that means that it's high. Then, like, you can move it. Maybe somebody might somewhere.
Chris: I'm supposed to drop it. I'm supposed to drop it when it doesn't come to me, but when it doesn't come to me is a goalpost that can be moved.
Kayla: I don't have any evidence of that, though. I don't think we talked about any of that with this episode. From my understanding of the way people interact with grabovoid codes on TikTok, I don't. I don't see a high potential for harm in that way.
Chris: I feel like, to me, it feels like medium. Based on what you've told me, if you add up everything in that particular way, it may be small and it may be small. A chance of funneling you into nazi shit. But, like, if you kind of mix that all together, I think it gets up to medium to me, rituals. Like, I literally was watching this TikTok and tracing out numbers in the air. If there's anything more ritualistic, it's all ritual, man. Okay, so dogmatic. So dogmatic. Is this framework of thinking correct at the expense of other frame? Like, you know, not necessarily is it right or wrong, but does it cast other ideas and other means of thought as evil and bad?
Kayla: And contra to the group, again, from my experience with the way these videos are handled on TikTok, it's very much like, take what works for you, leave behind what doesn't. It's very much like, if this works for you, great. If it doesn't apply, no harm, no foul, move on to something else. And that goes along with the fact that a lot of these people on TikTok are promoting different kinds of manifestations and whatnot. I think the deeper you get into following grab of way himself, specifically. Yes. It gets dogmatic, like any one of these other kind of high control, high charismatic leader groups do.
Chris: Right? Yeah, I was gonna say low for dogma, because it does seem like at least the, you know, from what you said and from the ones that I. The grabervoid code tiktoks that you had me watch. Yeah. It seems like it's more a part of, like, a conspiratorial milieu, right? Did I pronounce that right? Milieu?
Kayla: You have to say it with that.
Chris: Fake french accent milieu than it is like, you know, all about grab a voy. To the exclusion of everything else. Right. Like you said, these influencers have, like, a whole grab bag of tricks. Grab a boy is one of them. So that seems not dogmatic to me.
Kayla: Agreed.
Chris: And then, finally, is chain of victims. Is there a chain of victims here? And again, just reminding our listeners that means sort of, like, recruit y in the sense that it becomes hard to determine who's a victim and who is a perpetrator.
Kayla: I think it's high. I think it's high. I think it's high. Both grab a boy and both grab a boy codes. Because even just from seeing a. Yeah, in March 2021 of when it peaked and influencers being like, here's grab a void codes. And then a month later being like, I'm sorry that I talked about grab a void codes. And since when I'm watching these videos being like, yeah, gravity codes are great. I'm kind of going, fuck this influencer for, like, spreading this. And then when they're like, I'm sorry, I didn't know. I'm like, it sucks that they didn't know. And it's not really their fault that they didn't know. I mean, yes, they should have done their research, but these are also being presented divorced of context for a reason. And I think that the chain of influence.
Chris: It's incumbent on you to do that. What we do with the show. It's incumbent, if you have an audience to say, what is this thing I'm presenting to them? And if you don't do that, then I'm sorry, that's. I'm gonna hit your hands with a ruler.
Kayla: I think chain of victims is bad.
Chris: Influencer, bad.
Kayla: Get out of here.
Chris: I think you're right. I think it's based on the virality of TikTok and one influencer learning about grab a boycott codes from another and not doing their research. Yeah, it seems like chain of victims here is somewhat high, but with a little less sympathy than I normally have, because it doesn't seem like it would be that hard for you to read, to hear a TikTok about gravito do a quick check and then be like, oh, this is kind of shitty. I'm not gonna do this.
Kayla: And then for his followers, I feel like there's. Even though we didn't go too much into it, I feel like there's absolutely a chain of victims there where it's like, this Mandev spreading these ideas that people then spread to their friends and families. And then, like, you know, you have mothers of dead children being like, he's still good. You should be our fault league. You should be a part of this. Blah, blah. Like, I think that the chain of victims across the board is high and present.
Chris: All right, so what was our final tally?
Kayla: High charisma, high anti factuality, high niche, low percentage of life consumed. Medium. High ritual, low dogmatic. High chain of victims. It is a cult, my friend. Yeah, it's a cult, cult. Checks off all the boxes except for one or two of them. All right, so don't do gravelly coats.
Chris: Don't do it. I mean, I just did it, so. Whoops, I guess you're welcome to trace out numbers in the air, but it's not gonna do anything. And also, the guy's an asshole.
Kayla: The guy's an asshole. The guy that invented. Do you really wanna be using tool invented by a ding dong?
Chris: I feel like you should have told me all the ding dong stuff before I traced numbers in the air, because now I feel bad.
Kayla: I was trying to give you the experience of learning about this on TikTok.
Chris: Damn.
Kayla: I tell good. I try to structure my stories.
Chris: I didn't spread it to anyone aside from all of our listeners.
Kayla: Hopefully, people listened to the whole thing, didn't stop after. You can enter a cheat code into the universe and make a lot of money. Cool. Turn this off.
Chris: Why the fuck am I listening to these losers when I could be making money with numbers? Oh, boy. All right, thank you for that, Kayla.
Kayla: You're welcome.
Chris: I appreciate it. Everyone that's about to go get rich quick after tracing numbers in the air all appreciate it.
Kayla: Absolutely.
Chris: Be careful with your context, you guys. Don't. Just. Don't just swallow what you see online, especially if you are already feeling like you're motivated to believe it.
Kayla: You can't believe everything you've readdenne.
Chris: Yeah. And especially if you're gonna spread it, make sure that you do some minimal context checking, because that's just the world we live in now, unfortunately.
Kayla: I'm Kayla.
Chris: And I'm Chris.
Kayla: And this has been cult or just weird?