The Snark Site that Won't Die

Published Jan 28, 2025, 1:35 PM

Influencer snark site, Tattle Life shocked its users by announcing it was closing down due to ‘recent threats.’ However, within 24 hours it was back with its anonymous owners vowing to fight to keep the site live. 

And Tammy Hembrow and Matt Zukowski have reportedly had a very public spat whilst attending an influencer event at the Australian Open. 

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Hello and welcome to Outspoken. It's your dose of the hottest influencer and pop culture news twice a week. I'm Sophie Torver and coming up on today's show, Trouble is brewing for Tattle Life as the Snark site comes under threat. But first, Tammy Hembro and Matt Szakowski have reportedly had a very public spat whilst attending an influencer event at the Australian Open.

Yeah.

So, Tammy and Matt were gifted VIP tickets by Chemist's Warehouse and they saw alongside reality stars Callum Hole and Cahn Ong. So, according to a source, Tammy and Matt's argument was tense and apparently Tammy was overhear telling Matt to get his stuff out of her house. That's pretty next level. Something major must have gone down to say that in public. Maybe they felt comfortable because they were surrounded by other high profile people that they thought that the argument wouldn't get out there. Well it has got now, and it's gotten out to the Daily Mail of all places. And they went as far to quote a source within the VIP event who apparently said one thing is for sure. The Australian Open won't be having them back next year. Well, last week we were talking about how Tammy Henbury wasn't even interested in the tennis. She said that she didn't really want to watch it and it sounded like it was quite boring for it. So maybe she was just bored during the game and picked an argument. I mean, sometimes when I have to watch the football with my husband, I'm like, fuck, what can I do to get this off the screen or have an argument? Well, apparently this fight was so bad that Tammy ended up flying home to the Gold Coast without Matt and he extended his trip in Melbourne partying with friends. Well that makes sense because I was listening to his podcast the other day and he was talking about, Oh, I'm going to this Australian Open event and this one, and each time he was saying he was bringing his sisters. So maybe Tammy was meant to go. Those brands must have been so disappointed. Well, these were nine hundred dollars tickets from Chemists warehouse and all that they got from it was Tammy saying how she doesn't like tennis. And also this huge archer was Someone posted an interesting threat in our Facebook community about how they've ACKed she'd been put off by the brands that invited influencers who were rude and disrespectful to the Australian Open. And it's a really fair point because it doesn't look good on the brand if you are picking these influencers who aren't even interested in being there and act up. It sounds like this argument would have been very awkward for everyone involved. Because Tammy Hembro shared a photo of where she and Matt were sitting with Chemist Warehouse. They literally looked like they were sitting on the court. I wonder if things got so heated, maybe the tennis players were.

Like, shun the fuck up, they're trying to play.

There was glass between them and the tennis players.

Hopefully it was soundproof.

Well, I mean, since this report, we have seen Matt and Tammy posting on social media as normal, so it seems like it was just aspat.

I don't think this is marriage ending.

Do we think that the argument, I know there's a bit of a speculation here, but was centered around the fact that Matt probably wanted to go out and party and be seen at all of these different tennis events, and maybe Tammy just wanted to have a quiet.

Night with her husband.

I think it more comes down to the fact that the honeymoon period is over in this relationship. Well, have they ever had a honeymoon period? Because it's been so hot and cold, following each other, unfollowing each other. There's been so many rumors of arguments and spats. I kind of get the vibe they're the sort of couple that love having an argument because they just want to make up after it.

I think I reckon, Yeah, because it's exciting.

And with Matt, I mean, we've already heard him speak on his podcast about how his Christmas and New Years was a little bit I don't want to say mundane, but you know, just a lot of family time. Maybe these arguments injective bit of excitement into their relationship.

Sounds so toxic.

Well, he did speak in a recent podcast about some of his aims for twenty twenty five when one of those was getting into reading.

Let's have a listen to what Matt said.

I've actually taken up reading you. Yeah, So I don't know if I listened this on the Goals for twenty twenty five, but I want to read. So he went into a bookshop the other day. Yeah, the kids got some books, and then I was standing around like their section, looking at books with them, and I saw Goosebumps.

And I was like, old, classic, old fave.

Yeah, I used to read him when I was a kid, And I just picked one up and I looked at her and I was like, they'd already taken off. Actually I was still reading the blurb and looking at it, and they'd already paid and walked out, and I was like, oh fuck, I'll get this. So I ran up to the thing, got it. And then I caught up with them and they're like, oh what we where were you? And I was like, I've got a book I'm going to read. So I've been reading.

That, so it's a kid's book essentially.

I mean, yeah, sure.

I couldn't believe when he said Goosebumps.

And I don't mean to shame him, because it's great that he's getting back into reading. And he did make a comment about how Willie now as well pick up where he left off because that was the last time he read when he was a teenager. In his defense, I wonder if it is a way for him to connect with his steps on Wolf, because that's the sort of reading level that Goosebumps is at I mean in saying that I loved reading Goosebumps back in the day, that was some scary shit. All the best bit is his mum was so excited that he was getting back into reading that she went down to a thrift shop and bought him like eight Goosebump books.

Continued on page five.

I mean, I shall just rise above it that this thing affects me and.

Close.

Forty seven influencer snark site tatle Life shocked its users by announcing it was closing down due to recent threats. The anonymous gossip forum, which has been touted as the most toxic corner of the Internet, has become one of the most visited websites in Australia and the UK, averaging eighty four million visits a year. Its owner is set to be hit hard by the website's demise, losing an estimated one million dollars in annual ads revenue. Now, Sophie, this story has had a few twists and turns. How did things kick off last week? Well, last Wednesday, tato Life sentence uses into a spin when they realized they could no longer access the website. So the website was down for several hours and when it returned, it was operating under a new name. So the new name was eight Cafe, and many of Tattle's long standing members were panicking because they had been automatically logged out of their accounts and they were struggling to access the forum because they either couldn't remember their password or their email addresses that they signed up with. And this is because in the past, members were told not to link their personal email addresses with their Tattle accounts, and that is so that they could keep their identities concealed. And for four years, the website hasn't been accepting new members. The only way you can join is if some long standing member gives you a code. I often see a lot of people shopping around for the code because it's almost like you're joining this exclusive membership. And in my opinion, this process has been put in place to stop influencers from having any sort of rite or apply or ruining the forum's fun, and I think it's also made a lot of the long term Tattle members feel very powerful now. When it came to the rebrand, there wasn't much positive feedback, so the owner tried to spin it and said that they renamed it eight Cafe to be more of a generic name because they thought that Tattle was too synonymous with gossiping and it wasn't meant to be about gossiping. And the general consensus was that the new name actually sounds a lot like the Hate Cafe, which really contradicts the message that the owner was putting out in the first place. I don't think anyone has been buying this narrative that the owner has been putting out there. And when she was addressing the rebrand and the reason for registration remaining closed, she said, we didn't really have much choice, as we've never allowed any content that gets into the gray areas of harassment and abuse. She continued, where reorganizing things and will shortly be allowing new members to post on the non problematic threads. I'd like to know what threads they are. This is just textbook gas lighting. This website has earned itself the title of the most toxic corner of the Internet, and then to claim that Tattle doesn't allow users to go into the gray areas of harassment abuse, it's just laughable. Literally, nothing on this forum is off limits. I have never seen any moderators step in to address any of these posts that are crossing a line. Well, they also claim that you can report posts, and I have done that in the past. I've reported something, I've sent them an email, I've demanded people take something down.

Never a response.

Harassment is literally encouraged on this website. There's a lot of delight taken in scrutinizing women's appearances and their parenting and relationships and mental health. And what makes Taddle particularly dangerous is that its users are completely anonymous, well just like the owner, so she goes under the name Helen, it's clearly not her own name. And if you're so confident in what you're doing, why do you have to be anonymous? Shouldn't you be screaming from the rooftops that this is your website. It's pretty obvious why she's anonymous, because there would be so many influencers out there who would want to serve this woman with cease and assist or defamation legal letters, but they are unable to because of this anonymity of the website. It's quite clear that this rebrand didn't just come about because the name Tattle was no longer reflective of the content on the website. Like the owner claimed, this has come about due to legal threats. And interestingly, when Tattle returned under the new name, a disclaimer had been added on the bottom of each page and it read all posts are user's opinions and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of eight cafe. Now. This clearly was an attempt to avoid being sued for defamation, and it's very clear that more was happening behind the scenes because a day later a farewell message from the owner appeared. It read farewell. We believe it's important for the public to have an opinion on social media influences, as they occupy a unique and largely unregulated space between celebrities and everyday individuals wilding significant power. In January twenty twenty three, we closed registrations after too many users violated our rules and thought they could ignore them and create a new account. As we said back in twenty nineteen, our hope had always been that this site would become unnecessary as governments introduced proper regulations. Unfortunately, recent threats directed at members of one of our families have left us with no choice but to shut down the site. It is simply unfair for them to be impacted by something they have zero involvement in. It's quite ironic that the owner of this site, which literally encourages hate on a daily basis, is trying to take the moral high ground with this. Now they're outraged that they're receiving threats.

There have been influencers that have.

Been discussed on this forum that have received multiple threats and continual harassment. Yeah, and also to act like you're some sort of crusader who's merely been holding influences to account and fighting for better regulation is just laughable. It has always been an unregulated snark site and it has been designed to bully and harass people. I think originally it might have been set up with the best intention to actually hold people to account, but the lack of moderation has really injured the credibility of this website. Lack of moderation. There's zero moderation, and I mean, as I said, I have tried to get defamatory information taken off that site down before, and there is no one monitoring it. Well, I mean, I just don't understand how it has lasted for the last seven years. And I would love for Helen or whoever she is to be publicly named and changed. Well, reading between the lines, it sounds like a lawyer or some kind of representative of one of the influencers has tracked down Helen or Whoever's family members and they've made legal threats to these people. The timing is pretty interesting because only a few weeks ago we were talking about how Zoe Haig was crying on her YouTube video about the commentary that she gets on sites like Tattle, and she said that she would pay all the money she had for a lot of the people who write on Tattle to be unmasked.

Well, a lot of the.

Members in Tattle started freaking out because they thought that maybe the reason it was closing down was due to a data breach and that they're in maybe was going to be released to the media or just on a public speae I saw with Ashley Madison the Daily website. So it would actually be such a coup for the influences and people discussed on this from the unfortunate thing is there are a lot of people that do lurk on the site that aren't necessarily active on it. Well, this actually happened back in twenty twenty one, so there was an anonymous Instagram account called the Detectives, and they began revealing suspected Tattle users' identities. So it was this collection of volunteers who created the page, and they said it was the first time anyone had stood up to the Tattle trolls and people were able to submit details of suspected bullies for analysis. Wow. It was pretty crazy though, because Helen kept having to reassure Tattle Life that people on Instagram can't use an app to find your home addresses, and all of a sudden, the Detective's page just disappeared one day and Calen claimed it was down to her, so she wrote on tattle Life this morning we sent an email that was written under careful advice, and shortly after the aunt disappeared. So she does seem to wield a lot of power. I think a lot of people would be shocked if some of the members of Tattle were unveiled, because a lot of them would be nurses, teachers, doctors. Well that was a bit like that hate page Salty's Day. So probably back in twenty twenty there was a snark Instagram set up purely targeting Sarah's Day, and somehow the woman's identity got unveiled and she was a teacher and her boyfriend didn't even know about this account and found out, which shows you how much a lot of these people have to lose because these are professional people. But it's quite interesting because a lot of tattle users don't mind going after influencers, workplaces, or sponsorships, like that's something that they do. They take it to the next level and go outside of the forum and start attacking people's real lives.

Yeah.

Well, this announcement rocked many Tuttle Life users and they were told the site would remain open for users to say they're goodbyes, and this seemed really important for many of the Tattlers, who over the years have built very strong online friendships by bonding over their mutual hate for a lot of influencers. One long standing user vout to make a tattle Life two point zero and urged users to join them there. There was a very mixed response in our Facebook community. Majority of the people were like me, and they were overjoyed and very relieved that this site was finally going to be removed. One listener wrote, to be honest, I think this is for the best. There was little to no moderation on there, and some of it was truly unhinged. It wasn't uncommon for them to take aim at the appearance and behavior of influencers, children and families who weren't online, and basically docks influences by providing hints to real estate listings, whilst another listener said words hold so much power. People hiding behind user names writing hideous things about strangers is seriously unhinged. No one deserves to be bullied. Look at the rate of suicide and the impact of mental health and bullying. I'm stoked it's gone. It was really interesting for some influencers in our Facebook community to also weigh in, so Britney Saunders shared her reaction to the closure, saying this may be a completely unpopular opinion, but honestly, thank fuck. I've been publicly on social media for over ten years and it is astonishing the amount of anonymous bullying that I have witnessed and how widely accepted it is even in twenty twenty five. She continued, end anonymous bulling. If people want to talk shit about influencers creators, whoever, do it amongst your friends, or even better yet, post a video of you talking about it to your public social media accounts. Food influencer Leaestinis also shared her personal experience with Taddle, explaining she received her own thread just before she gave birth to her daughter. She wrote the vile commentary when I was having a hard time, literally gave me postnatal depression, and the words that those people wrote stuck with me for almost two years. It hurt so bad that it got to the point where I thought my child was better off without me because I couldn't keep her from vomiting on my clothes or I didn't look well kept The last I read on there was someone calling at the time my three month old not that cute. I felt sick to my stomach. It wasn't just hatred of me, it was talking about my daughter's appearance as a baby. It killed me inside and I have worked for over a year now in therapy because of it. I actually had she was going down my spine as you were reading that our amy. That was my rerection when I first read Lea's comment, because we actually spoke to Leah at the end of last year on our Christmas series and tatle life got brought up and at the time she spoke about it, she didn't sound ultra affected by it, because I think she's been doing a lot of work in therapy, But just hearing her go into what she went through, particularly when she only just had her baby, it makes me so sad, and I think it is a really good example of why that place needs to be shut down and why it is so dangerous.

The thing that.

Irritates me is so many members of TAT will say, oh, well, the influencers shouldn't read the pages about them, We're just holding them accountable. It's like, how is commenting on a baby's appearance keeping an influence about it?

Was disgusting. I'd also like.

To say to some of them, Okay, so if there was a whole four that was public, and as you mentioned, it gets millions of hits a year, would you not be tempted to go on there and see what people were saying about you?

And that's the thing.

In our Facebook community, we did have people on the other side of things who were quite upset that the forum was being taken down, and that was a reason that someone gave. They said, isn't it better the snark is on a different page, not in the influencers comments or dms, and they said the influencer doesn't have to go and look at what's being said about them, But I would challenge anyone to not go and look up what is being said about them on a massive forum. But also, just because you have a thread on title Life dedicated to you doesn't mean you don't get trolled in your dms and comments either. And I actually think it's worse to have a dedicated spot because, as we have touched on, when the Tatlers heard that the website was shutting down, they were fully grieving, like they are losing friendships they have bonded over their hate for influencers, and it gets to a point where they're egging each other on who can make a funnier joke and put someone down.

Yeah.

There was also a listener who said that she was disappointed that the site was going because she said, personally, I valued reading Tattle. It shed light on issues that might otherwives have gone unnoticed. For instance, they exposed the TikTok family poisoning their baby long before it was in the public arena. They also held certain influences accountable for repeated racist comments, and I do think that They've got a point in that it has shone a light on some important issues that may have gone unnoticed, But in saying that, the nasty, heinous, hideous comments outshadow.

All of that.

Yeah, and tattle Life isn't the only place where people comment on influencers. There are a lot of subreddit threads where people hold influences to account. I mean again, they also involve a lot of bullying, but I think they're much better regulated and moderated. Again, I'm not across every single Reddit sub thread, but I think that a lot of people are like, oh, I have to go on Reddit and they moderate everything now. Unfortunately, the farewell was short lived. Twenty four hours later, the owner of tattle Life changed her mind. She shared a post saying, after further discussions yet late into the night for some and all afternoon for others, we have decided to deal with the threats with legal action. As you will appreciate, we won't be discussing the situation as it concerns family members with no connection to tattle. All matters are with our legal team, it continued. Once again, we apologize for the stress of the last couple of days and hope to see you all back on your favorite threads. Please post on topic on the threads and ignore the whole situation while it's being dealt with as to not jeopardize it. The owner clearly didn't like that users were trying to start up their own forums, as she warned, promoting groups elsewhere will get a ban or posting to announce your leaving will as it also helps no one. If we ever do close the site for good, it will be left live to let.

People say their goodbyers.

It really rubbed me up the wrong way how she said we won't be discussing the situation as it concerns family members with no connection to tattle. Now, that has never stopped you from allowing hate towards family members of influencers or public figures who have nothing to do with being in the.

Public eye being discussed.

I just hate how she's on her high horse about it all, and I really don't understand how you can actually seek legal action when you're an anonymous owner and you don't want your identity exposed. Because the founder of taddle Life goes by the pseudonym Helen McDougall. Now, disturbingly, when you look into it, Helen McDougall is the name of a Scottish mistress from the eighteen hundreds whose partner was charged with grave Robbins and Helen also ended up being charged with the crimes. Now, over the years, there has been a lot of speculation around who Helen actually is, and one widely held belief that I have to say is unfounded is that Helen is the best friend of one of the most discussed influencers on the site. Some other top guesses as to who she is is that she either has her own beauty business, works for the Prime Minister, has friends in influential places, lives in France, has a toy boy husband or a tech with husble, or is just an absolute miserable individual that is living in the basement of a parent's ha been go. But I think that Helen's identity is not far away from being exposed. Clearly someone has got her in real name. Well. She has only ever given one interview during the forum's seven year reign, and that was to lime Goss, which is a gossip site affiliated with Tattle Life, and Helen described Tattle as a space for reasonable critique of public figures. She said it isn't trolling as it gives people some way to comment about people that choose to become a public figure and broadcast their private life to make money. She also explained that she launched Tattle because she said so many people were just brazenly breaking the guidelines for adverts. Now, the reason that Helen is not backing down and is choosing to fight against these threats is because she stands to lose a significant salary if Tattle is forced to shut up shops. So, this site has been running since twenty eight and in that time it has become one of the most visited sites in Australia and the UK, and starts show that they rack up forty two point three million visits in the space of just six months. And they use Google ad Sends to place ads on the site. Oh the ads are so bad as well, Like they're not small ads. They literally like if you're scrolling on the site, it takes up the whole window. That's why I don't understand how no one's been able to serve them with legal letters, because clearly their Google ad Sense account would have to be attached linked to someone. But it's probably just like, well, Google's not going to provide that information. I'm more thinking of the address they give to get the ad sense mail sent to you, because normally Google will send you an actual letter to say, oh, this is how much you made. Well, it'll shock you even more because in twenty twenty one it was estimated that those terrible ads actually generate Tattle more than half a million Australian dollars in ADS revenue over a six month period. So Helen is making approximately one million Australian dollars a year from the forum. Well, probably more because of three years ago, So surely it's only gone up. I love in the interview how she said it's a place to discuss people who have put themselves in the public eye to make money. It's like, well, you're making money off this website, so why can't we hold you accountable for the views that you have on your website that you make money off.

Well.

I also find it ironic that she supposedly set up this website to call out influencers who weren't disclosing their ads and the work that they do. Yet she is not transparent with the Tattlers about her finances. A she clearly has her own financial interest at stake here, and she is making a significant amount of money for dragging people's names through you that they don't have the money to pay proper moderators. Apparently, that's the thing that I find most shocking. If you're making over a million dollars a year off a website, do you not have the responsibility to hire staff to ensure that posts don't cross the line legally and ethically. I have never seen one post be moderated or shut down. The size of that audience also makes me feel very uncomfortable for Helen because if her identity is exposed and people are able to sue her for defamation, a lot of the time the figure that they come up for reputational damage is based on how many people viewed it. So if you're getting forty three million viewers to your website a year, that's a hell of a lot of a paper. It also makes sense as to why she's been able to shut down attempts because in twenty twenty one, an influencer called em Sheldon gave evidence before a parliamentary committee calling for the site to be taken down, and this seemed to ruffle feathers at tatle life in twenty twenty, there was also a petition to close Tuttle, which was signed by sixty three thousand people, and there have been a lot of questions over whether users' identities were safe as well. So she's had a few headaches, but she's always been able to use the money that she's made off the website to defend herself legally. Well, you can see that she's rattled because the quick name changed is something bizarre like eight CAAF. I mean that highlighted how panicked she actually was, the backflip and saying we're closing down now we're not. I think Tattle's days are numbered well in terms of this name change, do we think that she was trying to quickly delete the old website? In terms of she's been sued for defamation? Fuck, I better get rid of it all. Let me try and get everyone across to this new website while I delete all of the files from the old one. Potentially screenshots exist though well. In Australia, there are new rules that state that people who have forums or Facebook communities they are responsible for what people post on there. So if someone writes something defamatory, as the owner, you have the responsibility to either moderate the comment or you could get sued because you are responsible for that comment being up there. It's the same for this site. There is clearly a lot going on behind the scenes that we're not privy too. One thing that I really hope to see out of this is Tattle Life's owner's identity revealed, because I think that that will open up a whole new kettle of fish for her. Legally, I think if this ship is going down, a lot of people are going down with it, and there are going to be members who are exposed potentially via what could have been a data breach, and this is going to have huge ramifications. Well, that is all we've got time for today. Thank you for listening to another episode of Outspoken. If you do like this show, please leave us a review. This podcast was recorded on the traditional land of the Ghana people of the Adelaide Planes.

We pay respect to elders past and present.

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