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-Good to see you, Miss Vaughn.

2
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-Hello. (laughter)

3
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Nice to meet you, too.

4
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-All right,

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first off, for our viewers

6
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who have not seen
The Needling,

7
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it's an online
satirical website

8
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that makes fun of pretty
much everything.

9
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-Yes. The tagline is, we're
“Seattle's only real fake news.”

10
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But a lot of people kind of
refer to us as a local Onion,

11
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which.

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Yeah,

13
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I mean, a lot of our website
is basically in that style.

14
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But we have a variety
of kind of satirical articles,

15
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mostly rooted in local humor.

16
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But some of our contributors
and myself

17
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come up with great
national headlines

18
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that we have
to put in there, too. 

19
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-Oh absolutely, there's there's
so many great headlines.

20
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I want to mention

21
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a couple of great examples
right off the top here.

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“Fremont troll

23
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priced out of Fremont, moves
to Tukwila.”

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-Mmhmm.

25
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-That is so perfect.

26
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It hits the whole thing
about high rent,

27
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high priced houses
in a really funny way.

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-Yeah,

29
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but that is

30
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one of our

31
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sweetheart headlines that
really kicked off the website.

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You would be shocked
how many people believed it.

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Part of me goes, “Man,

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we need better media
literacy out there.”

35
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And part of me goes,
“I don't know,

36
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world’s been kind of crazy.”

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I can't blame people.

38
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-Another great one.

39
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“Shocking report finds Cle Elum

40
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actually nowhere
near Enumclaw.”

41
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Yeah. Love that. Loved that.

42
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-Who knew? Who knew?

43
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And, I mean,

44
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I love that
kind of headline, too,

45
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because it's one of those
everyday things.

46
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Honestly, you know, these

47
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probably people who read them
were like, 

48
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“Really? Oh, my gosh.”

49
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Yeah,
I do always make that mistake.

50
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-Yeah.

51
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It totally resonates.

52
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I know another one,
and I don't know

53
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if you can think of it
off the top of your head

54
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to remember the title,
but it's about the florist.

55
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Do you remember the one?

56
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-Yeah, “Local woman

57
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just thinks flaming forest
could find more peaceful way

58
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to protest climate change.”

59
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I came up with that one
in a really hard week.

60
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It was like one of those weeks

61
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where it didn't just feel like

62
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we were living
through a dumpster fire.

63
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It literally looked like

64
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we were living
in a dumpster fire.

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There was no escape
from the bad news.

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You couldn't
take a walk outside

67
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and not think about it
for 10 minutes.

68
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So that that one kind of,
like,

69
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got what everybody was feeling
that week.

70
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-You launched The
Needling in 2018.

71
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-Yeah. Yeah.

72
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-So where did you get the
idea that you could do this?

73
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You were able to do this.

74
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-Uhm, you know

75
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the funny thing about
my whole background is

76
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when I first joined,
like my high school newspaper,

77
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I didn't like a lot of the

78
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formulaic way
that news is delivered,

79
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and I wanted
to make fun of it,

80
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and I thought I was going
to sneak

81
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jokes into our high school
newspaper.

82
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But then I actually caught
the real journalism bug

83
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and ended up
becoming like a journalist,

84
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like a pretty well
accomplished journalist that

85
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I've been at The Seattle Times
and The L.A.

86
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Times. Yeah, I have 
had my reporting on NPR.

87
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So I really went all the way
with journalism.

88
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The real news.

89
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-You were part
of The Seattle Times team,

90
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the one little thing I like
to call a Pulitzer Prize

91
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for the mudslide

92
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series.

93
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So I just
want everyone to know

94
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that, yeah, not only are you
good, you're like a Pulitzer

95
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Prize winning good.

96
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So...

97
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-Yeah, I spent about two weeks
out there reporting on that.

98
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And honestly,
it's like part of why

99
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I'm also in the satire
right now is, is sometimes

100
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difficult news is, you know,
it's hard to process.

101
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You don't want to take
your eyes off

102
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the difficult tragedies

103
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that are going on
in our world.

104
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But how can you take a look
at that

105
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and keep your eye on it
without constantly

106
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being emotionally
drained by it...

107
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You know,

108
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constantly feeling like
you're getting this gut punch.

109
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And I think comedy can help
with that.

110
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-Definitely.

111
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What makes a good headline
and what makes a good story?

112
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Because it's
not just the headline.

113
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You also write the story.

114
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-Yeah, well, from the outset,
we're not making fun of people

115
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that are already experiencing
a hard time in life.

116
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You know,

117
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if we're going to be making
fun of people, it's

118
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going to be people in power,

119
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people who've got it coming
because of the way

120
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they've exploited people
or their power.

121
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So that's a major thing first.

122
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And then being concise is good...
that that's a challenge.

123
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You know,

124
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it's really like get the
attention of people online,

125
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It needs to be like that --

126
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Concise. Yeah.

127
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-”Quarantine haircut qualifies
as both self-care

128
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and self-harm.” 

129
00:05:03,569 --> 00:05:05,872
-Yes.  One of our main contributors
came up with that one.

130
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And just that same week
I had two friends

131
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that it had to happen.

132
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I'm like, We need this PSA
out there now.

133
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-Now there's one that is I love

134
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and it got a massive amount
of attention.

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“New study
confirms cats can't spread

136
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COVID-19,
but would if given option”

137
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Okay.

138
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Unbelievably funny.

139
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And it went viral.

140
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So tell me about how.

141
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-Yeah. Yeah,
that was like a big lesson.

142
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Like a before that moment,

143
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it’s like sometimes
when you have a story

144
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that gets shared,
like, 200 times on Facebook

145
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that you're like, well,
it kind of went viral.

146
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You're like,
Oh, that's a big deal.

147
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This one went like, real,

148
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like international, like,
and what sucked is like,

149
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somebody kind of
stole our content.

150
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They took like a screenshot
of our

151
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our image in our headline
and didn't give us credit.

152
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(hissing cat)
One cool thing that we got out of that,

153
00:06:04,964 --> 00:06:08,868
though, was Jerry Seinfeld's
wife shared it, without credit,

154
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and then we asked for credit
and then at least she was able

155
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to give us credit
to a bunch of really cool

156
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comedians who liked it,
like Ali Wong and Neil Brennan

157
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and and her husband,
Jerry Seinfeld.

158
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So that was like, “whoa.”

159
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And then for some reason,
like First Lady

160
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Laura Bush started
following us,

161
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And I saw her like like,
you know, posting

162
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like “this is crazy.” 
(giggling)

163
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-That is so great.

164
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That's why...

165
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Yeah, I just love it.

166
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Well, Lex, thanks so much for

167
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for talking with me
and more than anything.

168
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Thank you for upping the laugh
quotient in the world.

169
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Certainly in my household,
we enjoy The Needling so much.

170
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It's just great.

171
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Keep keep on going strong.

172
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-Thank you.

173
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It's such an honor
to speak with somebody else

174
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who was a big part of
the Seattle comedy scene. And

175
00:07:01,387 --> 00:07:02,054
another former

176
00:07:02,054 --> 00:07:06,058
satire, ‘Almost Live!”, it’s an honor 
to speak with you too.

177
00:07:06,325 --> 00:07:07,527
-Oh, great, great.

178
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It’s fun to talk comedy.

179
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I always like talking comedy.
All right girlie, take care.

180
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Yes. Lots of laughs await
you at theneedling.com.

181
00:07:16,202 --> 00:07:17,837
Also, The Needling Update,

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a brand new podcast is
scheduled to launch on Friday,

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February 5th.