The increasingly nasty tone of politics has made social media less fun for a lot of people. But if you think your Twitter feed is bad, try being late-night TV host Samantha Bee.
How Donald Trump broke Twitter for ‘Full Frontal’ host Samantha Bee
Starting on Nov. 8, 2016, Bee says, her Twitter mentions became an “unbelievable torrent of hatred.”
“On the night of the election, my social media feeds just took a horrible turn,” Bee said on the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka, recorded live this week in New York City. “He [Trump] completely broke it for me. And it broke me as a person.”
Bee was being interviewed onstage alongside TBS President Kevin Reilly, who asked her, “That was hard for you, wasn’t it? We never really talked about it.”
“Oh my God,” Bee replied. “An unbelievable torrent of hated came at me in one night, and I really felt like there was danger in the air that I hadn’t really experienced before. So, over time, I stopped checking it at all.”
You can listen to the new podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Bee said she was sad to give up checking her mentions because it was a fun way to track reactions to her show on TBS, “Full Frontal,” which launched last year. However, she does still lurk on Twitter, even if she’s not posting or interacting with fans.
“My Twitter feed is very useful,” she said. “I’m on Twitter a lot, just for my own personal information. I don’t personally tweet that much anymore because I just don’t have time, and everything I have in my brain, I like to put it into the show, as opposed to spreading it all out. And I never, of course, check my mentions, which is unfortunate.”
And what if Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey promised to fix Twitter’s abuse problem? Would that change her mind and get her to start using Twitter more actively again?
“I doubt it, I don’t know,” Bee said. “I don’t really think it helps all that much to know people hate the show or love the show.”
If you like this show, you should also sample our other podcasts:
- Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher, is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with the movers and shakers in tech and media every Monday. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.
- Too Embarrassed to Ask, hosted by Kara Swisher and The Verge’s Lauren Goode, answers all of the tech questions sent in by our readers and listeners. You can hear new episodes every Friday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcastor wherever you listen to podcasts.
- And finally, Recode Replay has all the audio from our live events, such as the Code Conference, Code Media and the Code Commerce Series. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.
If you like what we’re doing, please write a review on Apple Podcasts— and if you don’t, just tweet-strafe Peter. Tune in next Thursday for another episode of Recode Media!
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
