Everything and Anything…and a bit gay Podcast Zachary Randles-Friedman

About Lennon Torres Lennon Torres is a professional dancer, trans activist, and advocate for online safety and social media reform. She is a core voice at the Heat Initiative, an organization fighting to hold Big Tech companies accountable for harms to children and young people. She also writes the Diary of a Palatable Trans Woman on Substack — an honest look at what it's like to navigate spaces that don't fully welcome you while doing work that depends on being in the room.

Lennon appeared on Dance Moms beginning in Season 3 as a guest dancer. She has since been featured in documentaries about social media harm and works closely with families who have lost children to platform-facilitated tragedies.

Topics Covered

• Growing up on Dance Moms — the excitement, the exploitation, and the panic attacks on camera
• How social media shifted from connection to engagement-driven addiction — and when Lennon first felt it happen
• Why algorithms are engineered to show your content to people who will react most extremely — not your actual audience
• Meta's internal documents proving they knowingly connected predators to minors
• Influencers as an unpaid workforce performing for an algorithm, not their followers
• Sextortion: what it is, how it works, and the story of Jordan DeMay
• The documentary Can't Look Away (available at joltfilm.com) and the families behind it
• Mason Edens — a teenager whose TikTok feed shifted from positive affirmations to suicidal ideation in under two weeks
• Alexander, 14, who was poisoned by fentanyl purchased through a Snapchat-recommended contact
• Landmark legal victories: Meta and Google found guilty in LA addiction trials; New Mexico awarded $375 million
• Why queer kids are three times more likely to be harmed online — and why Big Tech lobbies against reform using LGBTQ+ community as cover
• Tim Cook, tech oligarchs, and what it means when powerful gay men align with power over people
• Lennon's personal healing journey — deleting social media, switching to a dumb phone, and reclaiming herself
• The false choice between safe social media and LGBTQ+ community online
• What Lennon would be doing if social media didn't exist (spoiler: a queer kids outdoor camp)

Resources & Links

• 🔥 Heat Initiative: heatinitiative.org
• ✍️ Lennon on Substack — Diary of a Palatable Trans Woman: https://substack.com/@lennontorres
• 🎬 Documentary: Can't Look Away —https://www.jolt.film/watch/cantlookaway

Podcast song by SIXFOOT 5: https://www.sixfoot5prod.com 

Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sixfoot-5/1551774977 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5rHMzoU0G0fLhaBsrQiOOY?si=laSZ5hiKTYubJJyhrzf2JQ

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kelly O'Hearn is back, and this one goes deep. One of Zach's all-time favorite guests — and it's easy to hear why. Their conversation flows like two old friends who can't stop finishing each other's thoughts, covering everything from quarters mysteriously appearing after a loved one's passing to the quantum physics of tarot to what it means when a baby's soul comes through during a reading and changes a woman's entire life.

In this episode:

• How Zach took a 6-week tarot class (with the incredible Amaris in Canada) after Kelly's first reading inspired him — and what he discovered
• Why tarot is a language, not a fortune-telling trick — and how intuition works like a muscle
• Quarters, flickering lights, and boxes falling over — signs from Zach's late mother-in-law and what Kelly thinks they mean
• The global spiritual shift happening right now, the rise of feminine energy, and why people are turning away from rigid religion toward personal faith
• Kelly's "dark night of the soul" — illness, divorce, and losing her father — and how it led her to tarot in 2014
• How she studied secretly for 3.5 years, told no one, and then finally told her very New York, very Wall Street mother — whose first words were "Are you monetizing it?"
• Past life regression, soul contracts, and why Earth is one of the most desired places to be as a soul (even though it's the hardest)
• Channeling: archangels, clairvoyance, clairaudience, and what it sounds like when a message isn't your own thought
• Daryl Anka / Bashar, Lee Harris, and the 2027 predictions that have Zach obsessed
• The most powerful reading Kelly has ever done — a story that will stop you cold
• Her Arcanum series: a four-book love story of souls traveling through lifetimes, trying to get it right. Book 3 — Arcanum: Secrets of the Madonna — is set in late 1400s Vatican and comes out June 9th

Pre-order Arcanum: Secrets of the Madonna: https://www.amazon.com/Arcanum-Secrets-Madonna-Kelly-OHearn-ebook/dp/B0GY9YRR24?ref_=saga_ast_ss_dsk_dp

 Books 1 & 2 on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Kelly-OHearn/author/B0D324YQG5?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1779053698&sr=8-1&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=2b73128c-1cbd-44c3-89f5-75a2571451b2 

Follow Kelly: https://www.instagram.com/kellyohearnauthor/

Everything & Anything… and a Bit Gay drops new episodes weekly. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us what you think about Kelly's books in the comments.

Podcast song by SIXFOOT 5: https://www.sixfoot5prod.com 

Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sixfoot-5/1551774977 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5rHMzoU0G0fLhaBsrQiOOY?si=laSZ5hiKTYubJJyhrzf2JQ

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode: 

• Isaac's debut novel Six and a Half Days in the City — what's real vs. fictional 

• Coming out as bisexual at 17: the notes app, Facebook post, and a very supportive mom 

• Growing up Native American and Mexican American with a bisexual mother 

• Why people still deny bisexuality exists — and why Isaac no longer cares 

• Hookup culture, Grindr, Hinge, and making real friends off dating apps 

• Being an EMT in pre-med and balancing school, work, and writing 

• Trauma showing up uninvited: a panic attack in Prospect Park 

• Isaac's next book: grief, brotherhood, and a bisexual oldest son 

• Where to find Isaac: @isaacgrijalvabooks on Instagram, TikTok: @isaactaylorsversion99

Buy Issac's Book: https://www.amazon.com/6-1-2-Days-City-ebook/dp/B0F89S9WSG

Podcast song by SIXFOOT 5: https://www.sixfoot5prod.com 

Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sixfoot-5/1551774977 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5rHMzoU0G0fLhaBsrQiOOY?si=laSZ5hiKTYubJJyhrzf2JQ

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Gay Bit — Cliques, Categories & The Truth About the LGBTQ+ Community

In this week's Gay Bit, Zach gets real about something we all see, experience, and — if we're honest — participate in: the silent rules about who belongs where inside the LGBTQ+ community.

From twinks and bears to Grindr exclusion lists to fem-on-fem policing to the obsession with masculinity, Zach holds the mirror up to the community he loves — himself very much included — and asks: are we building the inclusive community we say we want, or are we recreating the same hierarchies we're trying to escape?

Plus: the time Zach accidentally landed in Provincetown during Bear Week, his habit of borrowing friends' phones to "call his mom," and why the bears might just be the most welcoming group of all.

The Gay Bit drops every Friday on Everything & Anything… and a Bit Gay.

Podcast song by SIXFOOT 5: https://www.sixfoot5prod.com 

Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sixfoot-5/1551774977 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5rHMzoU0G0fLhaBsrQiOOY?si=laSZ5hiKTYubJJyhrzf2JQ

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Zach sits down with Margot Grant-Witz, third-generation CEO of Elizabeth Grant Skincare, a privately owned brand founded in 1948 by her grandmother — now 103 years young — who developed the world's first at-home serum after suffering bomb blast damage to her skin during WWII. They cover the real reason your neck is sagging (hint: it's your phone), why bar soap is destroying your face, the truth about the vampire facial, how men and gay culture are reshaping the skincare industry, and why 28 days is all it takes to transform your skin.

Elizabeth Grant Skincare: https://elizabethgrant.com

📩 DM Zach on Instagram with your results after trying the products!

🎧 Everything & Anything… and a Bit Gay drops new episodes weekly. Follow, subscribe, and leave a review — it helps more than you know.

Podcast song by SIXFOOT 5: https://www.sixfoot5prod.com 

Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sixfoot-5/1551774977 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5rHMzoU0G0fLhaBsrQiOOY?si=laSZ5hiKTYubJJyhrzf2JQ

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.