Episodes
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The Enhanced Games are Silicon Valley's version of the Olympics -- the athletes are invited to bulk up with performance enhancing drugs, then gather in Las Vegas for competition, and of course, it's funded by some notorious figures in venture capital. Amanda's colleague, Lucas Ropek, got to attend this carnival of debauchery and is here to tell us all about it. And yes, he saw Byran Johnson there.
If you missed our episodes on the Chinese Peptide craze (ep. 137) or the general antics of Byran Johnson (ep. 128), you may find those to be useful primers -- but also, you can just enjoy the absurdity of the Enhanced Games on its own.
Lucas's article: https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/31/i-went-to-the-so-called-steroid-olympics-to-understand-why-silicon-valley-is-obsessed-with-peptides/
Balaji's Greys: http://newrepublic.com/article/180487/balaji-srinivasan-network-state-plutocrat
Find Us Online
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wowiftrue.bsky.social
Twitter: https://twitter.com/wowiftruepod
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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.
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In which Amanda makes the worst PowerPoint ever (it's about rationalists and fan fiction, iykyk), Isabel goes on book tour, and we experiment with flip phones.
The PowerPoint in question: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ch0rBRdr8PGindVGa0cGQaKDiYR5rFmMiclL58CPci8/edit?slide=id.p#slide=id.p
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.
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In this collab-isode, we're joined by Dr. Adam Becker of Dreaming Against the Machine, a podcast about envisioning a realistic and hopeful future in the face of tech oligarchs... or, as we call them, Horrible Little Guys.
Sublimation is out now!!: https://bookshop.org/p/books/sublimation-isabel-j-kim/75bdbf4afed5475f?ean=9781250376794&next=t
Join our Patreon: https://patreon.com/wowiftrue
Listen to Dreaming Against the Machine: https://www.dreamingagainstthemachine.com/
Also, ISABEL IS ON TOUR ! Dates below, and more info + tickets at https://us.macmillan.com/tours/isabel-j-kim-sublimation/
VIRTUALLY:
June 2 — I’ll be on r/Fantasy doing an AMA more or less all day! Come ask me your burning questions, also, your unburning questions. You can just ask me whatever.
June 7 — I’m going to be at The Back Room for a virtual event (details to come at their website)!
PHYSICALLY:
May 30 — PGH Bookfest in Pittsburgh (with John Scalzi)
June 2 — Barnes and Noble, Clifton, NJ (with Neil Clarke)
June 3 — The Strand, NYC (with Jinwoo Chong)
June 4 — Harvard Books Store, Boston (with R.F. Kuang)
June 6 — RJ Julia, Madison CT (with @redreadsreviews)
June 10 — Center for Fiction, Brooklyn (on a panel with Joseph Eckert & Thomas Elrod, moderated by Yume Kitasei)
June 20 — Bronx Book Festival, the Bronx (on a panel with Nicole Glover, Andrea Hairston, and Vincent Tirado)
June 30 — Dungeon Books, Jersey City (with Yume Kitasei)
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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HAPPY SUBLIMATION PUBLICATION DAY! Or, Publimation Day! Isabel's long-awaited debut novel SUBLIMATION is out now. Everyone is very excited. We are proud of Isabel here at Wow if True HQ. Isabel did a billion other podcast interviews about the book, so we decided that on our podcast, we'll ask Isabel some questions that maybe people who are meeting her for the first time via podcast interview wouldn't ask. Also, for some reason Amanda goes on a tangent about cannibalism and Catholicism which is... kinda relevant? YAY SUBLIMATION!!
Here it is. The link. The link to buy Sublimation: https://bookshop.org/p/books/sublimation-isabel-j-kim/75bdbf4afed5475f?ean=9781250376794&next=t
Also, ISABEL IS ON TOUR ! Dates below, and more info + tickets at https://us.macmillan.com/tours/isabel-j-kim-sublimation/
VIRTUALLY:
June 2 — I’ll be on r/Fantasy doing an AMA more or less all day! Come ask me your burning questions, also, your unburning questions. You can just ask me whatever.
June 7 — I’m going to be at The Back Room for a virtual event (details to come at their website)!
PHYSICALLY:
May 30 — PGH Bookfest in Pittsburgh (with John Scalzi)
June 2 — Barnes and Noble, Clifton, NJ (with Neil Clarke)
June 3 — The Strand, NYC (with Jinwoo Chong)
June 4 — Harvard Books Store, Boston (with R.F. Kuang)
June 6 — RJ Julia, Madison CT (with @redreadsreviews)
June 10 — Center for Fiction, Brooklyn (on a panel with Joseph Eckert & Thomas Elrod, moderated by Yume Kitasei)
June 20 — Bronx Book Festival, the Bronx (on a panel with Nicole Glover, Andrea Hairston, and Vincent Tirado)
June 30 — Dungeon Books, Jersey City (with Yume Kitasei)
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Google is broken, and so is Amanda, apparently, because she is seeking validation from an AI chatbot. Also, video games. Sublimation is out on 6/2. This is what we have for you.
We'll be back next week for the "Sublimation is out!" spectacular, but you should pre-order it now: https://bookshop.org/p/books/sublimation-isabel-j-kim/75bdbf4afed5475f?ean=9781250376794&next=t
Also, ISABEL IS ON TOUR ! Dates below, and more info + tickets at https://us.macmillan.com/tours/isabel-j-kim-sublimation/
VIRTUALLY:
June 2 — I’ll be on r/Fantasy doing an AMA more or less all day! Come ask me your burning questions, also, your unburning questions. You can just ask me whatever.
June 7 — I’m going to be at The Back Room for a virtual event (details to come at their website)!
PHYSICALLY:
May 30 — PGH Bookfest in Pittsburgh (with John Scalzi)
June 2 — Barnes and Noble, Clifton, NJ (with Neil Clarke)
June 3 — The Strand, NYC (with Jinwoo Chong)
June 4 — Harvard Books Store, Boston (with R.F. Kuang)
June 6 — RJ Julia, Madison CT (with @redreadsreviews)
June 10 — Center for Fiction, Brooklyn (on a panel with Joseph Eckert & Thomas Elrod, moderated by Yume Kitasei)
June 20 — Bronx Book Festival, the Bronx (on a panel with Nicole Glover, Andrea Hairston, and Vincent Tirado)
June 30 — Dungeon Books, Jersey City (with Yume Kitasei)
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.
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Party drugs are out, and injecting grey market peptides with your LinkedIn connections at Silicon Valley house parties is in. Yes, the biohacker tech bros have peptide dealers in China who are sending them dubious chemicals to construct things like "the Wolverine stack," which are supposed to make them more alert and/or younger and/or tanner? This doesn't make any sense, which is why we brought in our friends and actual scientists from Tiny Matters -- Dr. Sam Jones and Dr. Deboki Chakravarti -- to explain to us the science (or lackthereof?) behind the peptide craze.
Links
Tiny Matters
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.
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Isabel and Amanda talk about raising $1,234,567 dollars for your startup, Giggles, that began as a meme, and also finding your cofounder in Minecraft, along with the latest analysis of which human person Satoshi might actually turn out to be, and also, turning down $175,000 dollars because you can't figure out the wifi, something that happened to a real human person last week. It's ok, though. Since recording, Helen Dewitt has found a new source of capital, and she doesn't even need to do any promo for it—not a bit, this is genuinely what happened.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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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
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. 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.
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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
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.
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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/
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Amanda went viral on Tiktok for having an AI pet. Really, this is the apex of our journey on this podcast. The Moflin is an AI-enabled pet that retails for $430 dollars, and Amanda has just spent a month living with it in her home. Also, we talk about Grimes' new music video. (Behind the scenes supplementary moflin content on Patreon!)
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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We're teaming up with Dr. Claire Aubin of our sibling show, This Guy Sucked, to talk about something that is not a guy, but does suck: the internet! It's easy to say that the internet sucks, but what makes it suck, how did it get this way, and how can we fix it? Using Cory Doctrow's new book "Enshittification" as a guide, we talk it out.
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.
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The news cycle of 2025 has somehow once again broken us so severely that we have simply just opted out and decided to talk about Silksong, a game that people waited so long for that they created a whole new genre of shitposting. Also, Undertale and Pokopia, the forthcoming game that makes us confront everything we've ever known about Ditto.
If you were hoping that we were going to talk about The News, check out the new episode of Close All Tabs! This is #notsponsored!
But we are #sponsored by Isabel's book which you can pre-order now.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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