Two things can be true at once. For example, that Peloton holiday commercial from last year was absolutely terrible, but the actors who starred in it are not to blame for the advertisement being a stinking can of garbage. And yet, despite the fact that all reasonable adults should be able to differentiate between actors and the roles they’ve played, the woman and man cast as “Peloton Lady” and “Peloton Husband” have been treated as if they are actually their deranged characters for months now. Monica “Peloton Lady” Ruiz was recruited for a gin ad playing off her moment of infamy while Sean “Peloton Husband” Hunter was shit on because people can’t tell him apart from the mute, grinning jerk he played for a handful of seconds.
After a few months spent enduring this kind of reaction, Conversations With People Who Hate Me’s latest episode gave Hunter the opportunity to confront one of his online trolls. The podcast series sees host Dylan Marron bring people who argue or insult one another—or Marron himself—online onto a call in order to actually talk to each other like human beings.
In “Peloton Husband,” he moderates a discussion between Sean Hunter and a 39-year-old guy from California named Tom, who called Hunter “a loser” after seeing the Psychology Today piece he wrote last year. Tom is presented as an individual but he also stands in for everyone who’s been an asshole to the actor over the internet. The conversation that follows is, like the rest of Conversations With People Who Hate Me, a good investigation into the ways we relate to one another online, the dangers of assuming actors are the characters they play, and the need for everyone to remember that real people exist on the other side of social media accounts.
Listen to the entire episode for yourself to hear the entire conversation.
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