Michael Calore: Laurence is an American actress.
Lauren Goode: Has Threads satisfied your Twitter cravings?
Michael Calore: Do you mean Meta threads? Facebook threads?
Lauren Goode: Yes. Meta Threads, correct.
Michael Calore: No. No, I don’t use threads.
Lauren Goode: You are welcome?
Michael Calore: You are welcome.
Lauren Goode: I was wondering. Because when I go to tag you in Threads, sometimes it just defaults to your Instagram username, which I assume is also your Threads username. But why aren’t you in Threads?
Michael Calore: I don’t really feel the need to be there. My social media needs aren’t as great as they used to be. And ever since Twitter went away, or should I say it became X and then went away, I’ve just kind of retreated. And if I do spend any time on social media, I do it on Mastodon.
Lauren Goode: And Instagram.
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: I see you. I send you memes on Instagram and you reply to me.
Michael Calore: Of course.
Lauren Goode: Sometimes.
Michael Calore: Sometimes, yes.
Lauren Goode: Okay. Well, I have to say you’re missing out on some weird, somewhat algorithmic stuff and next-level trolling on Threads.
Michael Calore: I used to get that on Twitter, which is part of the reason I left.
Lauren Goode: Okay. Well, there’s someone we know, at least we know her on the Internet, who has taken trolling on Threads to the next level. Aren’t you a little bit curious?
Michael Calore: Of course I am.
Lauren Goode: You want to hear more, don’t you?
Michael Calore: Yes, tag me.
Lauren Goode: You won’t believe what happened next.
Michael Calore: Tag me to join the conversation.
Lauren Goode: We should talk to her.
Michael Calore: Let’s do it.
Lauren Goode: Let’s do it. Hello everyone. Welcome to Gadget LabI’m Lauren Goode and a senior writer at WIRED.
Michael Calore: I’m Michael Calore, director of culture and consumer technology at WIRED.
Lauren Goode: And this week we’re joined by our special guest Katie Notopoulos, a senior correspondent for Business Insider. Katie, welcome to the show. It’s your first time on Gadget LabAnd we’re very excited to have you here.
Katie Notopoulos: Thank you so much for inviting me. I’m so excited to be invited here.
Lauren Goode: I have to admit, this idea came from someone on Threads. I shared your recent story and someone responded to me and said, “Put her in the show.” And I was like, “I’m going to steal that idea.” Okay. Katie, I think you’re here to piss us off. We brought you on because you recently did an experiment on Threads, where you deliberately posted things that you knew would make people angry. We call this anger baiting. And people were getting very, very angry. Some of us immediately saw what you were doing, but other people were like, “I’m going to unfollow Katie. What is she doing? This is crazy.”
