We're talking about Shy Girl, the horror novel cancelled over alleged AI use, the conclusion of a romantasy lawsuit, recent Meta rulings, and a bunch of other random stuff in the middle because come on, you know us, we love to gab.

Sources

Shy Girl timeline

Writers telling on themselves

Meta lawsuits

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Email: [email protected]

About Us 

Wow If True was created by Isabel J. Kim and Amanda Silberling. Our editors are Allison Mills and David Newtown. Wow If True is a member of Multitude, a podcast collective, production studio and ad sales provider.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We have found the literal worst song: "Take the Lead" by Tilly Norwood, who is an AI actor, and is singing about overcoming the oppression that AI actors face. Yes, this is real. Also: we talk about Isabel's wedding. Yay parasociality!

Sources

AI ‘actor’ Tilly Norwood put out the worst song I’ve ever heard

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Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wowiftrue.bsky.social

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Website: https://wowiftrue.com/

Email: [email protected]

About Us 

Wow If True was created by Isabel J. Kim and Amanda Silberling. Our editors are Allison Mills and David Newtown. Wow If True is a member of Multitude, a podcast collective, production studio and ad sales provider.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Iz and Amanda talk about Moltbook, a forum only for AI agents (and the humans pretending to be them), which caused a brief moment of panic that our AI overlords were going to rise up against us. Special guest star Iz's fiance weighs in on the eigenvector of evil and also, whether sommelier-ing is anything.

Sources

Amanda's Moltbook article: https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/16/after-all-the-hype-some-ai-experts-dont-think-openclaw-is-all-that-exciting/

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Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wowiftrue.bsky.social

Twitter: https://twitter.com/wowiftruepod

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wowiftrue

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wowiftrue

Website: https://wowiftrue.com/

Email: [email protected]

About Us 

Wow If True was created by Isabel J. Kim and Amanda Silberling. Our editors are Allison Mills and David Newtown. Wow If True is a member of Multitude, a podcast collective, production studio and ad sales provider.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We made a collabisode with Dr. Matthew Gabriele of American Medieval, a real life historian of medieval history! It turns out that there's actually a significant crossover between internet culture and the middle ages. We are as surprised as you are.

Links

American Medieval

Hyperallergic article about crusadercore

Find Us Online 

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wowiftrue.bsky.social

Twitter: https://twitter.com/wowiftruepod

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wowiftrue

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wowiftrue

Website: https://wowiftrue.com/

Email: [email protected]

About Us 

Wow If True was created by Isabel J. Kim and Amanda Silberling. Our editors are Allison Mills and David Newtown. Wow If True is a member of Multitude, a podcast collective, production studio and ad sales provider.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Will you come to our cottage... to talk about Heated Rivalry with us? The beloved Queer Hockey Show™ has taken over the internet, so who better to talk to us about it than very online Multitude CEO and Heated Rivalry/romance novel superfan Amanda McLoughlin!? (For some reason my audio is ass, but I am saying it is an homage to the amount of ass that appears in Heated Rivalry.)

Find Us Online 

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wowiftrue.bsky.social

Twitter: https://twitter.com/wowiftruepod

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wowiftrue

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wowiftrue

Website: https://wowiftrue.com/

Email: [email protected]

About Us 

Wow If True was created by Isabel J. Kim and Amanda Silberling. Our editors are Allison Mills and David Newtown. Wow If True is a member of Multitude, a podcast collective, production studio and ad sales provider.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We're back for the new year, joined by pop culture writer + narrative strategist Eteng Ettah to create a bingo card for the cursed events of 2026 that likely await us. We apologize in advance, both for mentioning possible horrors like "MrBeast IPO" and "Caroline Ellison book deal," but also, because Amanda was at her parents' house and recorded on AirPods.

Links

Bingo cards! Get your bingo cards!!: https://www.wowiftrue.com/2026-bingo/ (... we talk more about how we "made" this on the Patreon)

Eteng's newsletter: https://www.etengettah.com/

Eteng's podcast: https://www.instagram.com/considercomfortpod/

Find Us Online 

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wowiftrue.bsky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wowiftrue

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wowiftrue

Website: https://wowiftrue.com/

Email: [email protected]

About Us 

Wow If True was created by Isabel J. Kim and Amanda Silberling. Our editors are Allison Mills and David Newtown (but this episode was edited by Julia. Schifini!). Wow If True is a member of Multitude, a podcast collective, production studio and ad sales provider.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's holiday time! That means you get a stocking stuffer worth of an episode -- a handful of topics we wanna chitchat about but aren't big enough for their whole episode (Is this how stockings work? Amanda is writing this). So, tune in for: we didn't get 30 under 30 because we didn't do fraud; what do Elon Musk, Luigi Mangione, and Isabel J. Kim have in common; 'Extremely kidpilled' Sam Altman; random tangents about baseball?; and Amanda's embarrassing temptation to buy an AI wearable. Also Isabel is on a train at one point. But at no point do either of us do fraud.

If you're wondering, you can indeed hear the "secret sauce" on our Patreon.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We finally give Mr. Don't Die himself, Bryan Johnson, his own episode, on account of him doing some seminal college student activities. You know, like doing drugs while listening to a Grimes set.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

TW: we talk about suicide induced by ChatGPT and lawsuits related to these suicides in this episode!

We talk about the lawsuits that Social Media Victims Law Center brought against OpenAI and the ways in which ChatGPT and other AI products can super negatively impact mental health, to deeply worrying degrees. We also talk about the patterns in AI "chosen one" and "religion" narratives—have you heard the good word of Spiralism?

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We read a bunch of articles about the state of dating/dating apps and yes, THAT gooning article, and talked about them. It's like English class where you read a bunch of stuff and talk about it except you haven't done the reading!!! But you can do the reading. It's right here. This is the reading.

Reading

The Goon Squad (Harper's)

"But PornosexualGooner101 Died 35 Years Ago...This Very Night!" (The Chatner)

The Trouble With Wanting Men (NYT)

Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now? (Vogue)

Other Stuff

Follow-up interview w/ Goon Squad writer

Wait, people actually use Facebook Dating?

The best dating apps aren't even dating apps

Meet the goonettes

About Us 

Wow If True was created by Isabel J. Kim and Amanda Silberling. Our editors are Allison Mills and David Newtown. Wow If True is a member of Multitude, a podcast collective, production studio and ad sales provider.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.