Loading summary
Transcript608 lines
- [00:15]
A
Hello, and welcome to Mess World, a podcast dedicated to discussing the highs and lows of pop culture every month. I'm Jessica Defino and I write the newsletter Flesh World.
- [00:25]
B
And I'm Emily Kirkpatrick, and I write the newsletter I Heart Message.
- [00:28]
A
And it's our first episode of the new year.
- [00:31]
B
Hell yeah.
- [00:32]
A
2026, baby.
- [00:34]
B
And all of our predictions are already coming true.
- [00:37]
A
All of our predictions. We got actually a beautiful comment from a listener, I think, on Spotify, who was like, I can't believe it. I'm listening to your predictions post, and it's only two weeks into the year and they've all come true, which was very validating because we know it, but it's nice when other people know it.
- [00:53]
B
Of course. Always. I love external validation.
- [00:57]
A
It's so nice.
- [00:58]
B
Not just the two of us in this podcast yassing each other. Exactly, Exactly. We're that meme.
- [01:05]
A
Well, you've gotten some external validation.
- [01:08]
B
Oh, God, for sure. I can't even. I can't even speak about it. I already got yelled at up by the Internet. But, yeah, the New York Times just wrote a story that is everything I've ever written in my newsletter summarized. So that's flattering. Of course, flattering, as always. Would love the money that comes with writing such an article, but I'm sure.
- [01:31]
A
Honestly, not even that much. It can't be even that much.
- [01:34]
B
It's a dollar a word. But, yeah, I'm a thought leader. You know, I don't have to put pen to paper. I'm leading the intelligentsia.
- [01:44]
A
Well, it's so funny, because that wasn't even the example that I was thinking of. I was thinking of your, you know, prescient prediction. That crack is back.
- [01:54]
B
Oh, thanks.
- [01:55]
A
This has happened to you, like, multiple times in the. In the span of a week?
- [01:59]
B
Yes. Thank you so much for segueing right into my first topic, which is that crack is back. And if that sounds familiar to you, it's because I already said that it was back in 2024, long time ago.
- [02:11]
A
Which is coincidentally right when I was like, oh, there's going to be a butthole beauty category emerging immediately. And these trends just, you know, they. They came onto the scene in parallel.
- [02:24]
B
Look at us now in the midst of the heated rivalry discourse, where butts couldn't be hotter.
- [02:30]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [02:31]
B
Yeah, we couldn't be paying more attention to butts. So in. In that. In that light, crack is back, to be fair. I guess. But I don't know. So basically, at the very beginning of January, Vogue Wrote this article that was like, well, first of all, they hedged it really, really hard where they were like, crack could be back in 2026. And it's like, okay, well, is it or isn't it? Because first of all, it's already.
- [02:55]
A
Anything could be back.
- [02:56]
B
Yeah, anything could be back. I don't know. That's so vague and funny to me. But yeah, they said crack could be back. And I was like, okay, that this is a weird article since it's been back for two years now. And so I was like, looking into it and I was like, what are their. Like, what's their proof? You know, like what? You know, I'm. I'm open minded. I'm willing to accept it could return again. And all of their evidence is from 2024 and 2025.
- [03:21]
A
Yeah. So why, why the framing of, like, it's.
- [03:23]
B
I don't know. I genuinely don't know. Except that they're like looking at runways from. From 2025, where it's very present and they're. And they're using all these examples. I don't, I genuinely don't know what the argument is. But because they wrote this article, all the other fashion magazines started writing this article, like, crack, crack, crack. Because it's also very clickbait. Right. You talk about butt cracks, people. People be clicking, they pay attention. So I thought that was very odd. And yeah, like I said, I wrote the story for the Cut in April of 2024 after already seeing butt cracks on the red carpet the whole beginning of that year.
- [03:58]
A
Yeah.
- [03:58]
B
And. And I also, I don't know, as with the New York Times thing, it's like, I just kind of don't know what my recourse is anymore because it's like, I specifically wrote that for the Cut because I had been talking about it in the newsletter and I wanted, like a fashion paper of record to publish my theories as a form of legitimizing them to my peers. And like.
- [04:20]
A
Yeah, that.
- [04:21]
B
That didn't work so well, I think. Should I stop?
- [04:27]
A
Yeah, I think probably both of us need to let go of the stop. The need for legitimacy.
- [04:33]
B
Yes. Yeah, that's been My lesson.
- [04:35]
A
Is legitimate no matter where.
- [04:37]
B
Yes.
- [04:37]
A
Whether it's on the podcast, whether it's in the newsletter, whether it's just in our little brains. And I mean, I guess, like, this is the nature of trends. Like, of course, yeah, everyone's gonna write about them. They're actually happening.
- [04:49]
B
Totally. Yeah. They're in the zeitgeist. They just become more and more Apparent. And so of course other people pick up on it. But yeah, I think that's been my biggest lesson of January so far, is I need to stop looking for external validation from like legitimate fashion publications and just like accept that I am preaching the gospel and that people who know, know and like they'll tag me on Instagram. You know, like, I didn't even, I found out about this New York Times story because I'm being tagged in it.
- [05:16]
A
Really?
- [05:16]
B
I, yeah, I didn't see it. I, I don't, I honestly don't really care what they say or what they're getting up to over there because it doesn't really affect my work or, or what I do. But yeah, people kept tagging me at it and being like, these are your examples. And I was like, oh, okay, cool. So I just need to take, take the win for what it is. Anyway, my point, my real point about this butt crack, the, the butt crack cometh commentary is that I, I'm starting to think it's actually going to be the opposite this year. I, I don't think that the, I don't think that the butt crack could happen in 2026. I think what we're actually about to see is strategic crack concealment.
- [05:56]
A
Uh huh. Okay.
- [05:57]
B
Because what we're, what we're getting out there isn't actually a lot of butt crack. It is a lot of bare butt cheek with the crack covered in like, in complicated ways. So I first started thinking about this actually at the end of last year. Cardi B wore a Candace Cuoco dress and the entire back of the dress was just chains across her body within like a very hideous exposed zipper down, down the spine. I hate exposed zippers. They're my, my enemy. I think I've never seen one that looks good.
- [06:27]
A
No.
- [06:28]
B
I would love to be proven wrong. Show me. Tag me. Tag. You can't find one that isn't hideous. I promise you that.
- [06:34]
A
None are coming to mind.
- [06:36]
B
None will ever come to mind. I can't. That's the Emily guarantee. So zipper down the back, but chains across the body. And that's the whole back of the dress. And I was, and I wrote about in the news there because I'm like, there's something very interesting about it because like seeing you're seeing so much naked body, but because you don't see the crack, there's something about, it's like it makes it almost neutral again, like it renders it almost PG in this like weird way because it's like taking the butt out of Its context without the crack. And so it becomes almost like an oblique cutout or something. You know what I'm saying?
- [07:11]
A
Yes, I see.
- [07:14]
B
So I first started thinking. Thank you so much. So. Exactly, Exactly. So I first started thinking about there and then again at the Golden Globes. I'm getting all these people tagging me. I'm getting all these people telling me about Teyana Taylor's dress being a buck crack dress. And so I'm like, okay, well, this is exciting. And Vogue will be all over this. How exciting for them. And then I see it's a Schiaparelli dress, I believe customers. And I see it from the back. And again, where the crack should be. The crack is not the crack.
- [07:46]
A
The crack is.
- [07:48]
B
The crack is concealed. It's obfuscated by, like, a diamante bow.
- [07:52]
A
Yes.
- [07:53]
B
Which in where like, the G string should be, I guess, in place of the G string.
- [07:56]
A
Like a whale tail.
- [07:57]
B
Sort of a whale tail, but it's a bow that actually completely conceals the crack. So all you're getting is the top of the cheeks. Mm. And again, that is not crack.
- [08:08]
A
That is not crack.
- [08:09]
B
It's. It's concealment. And then the last example I will give to you from. And this is all January, mind you. We're just. We're revving up. We're just getting started. So my final example is Bella Hadid, you know, queen of mess trends. Just posted a bunch of photos of her on a yacht or something. I don't know what she's doing, but she's wearing a Jean Paul Gaultier Vintage 2001 black dress that has cutouts, again, over the butt cheeks, but a strip of fabric right down the crack. I rest, ladies and gentlemen. I rest my case.
- [08:40]
A
You know what? This framing the concealment of the crack as crack is back is reminding me a lot of pimple patches being framed as acne positivity. When it's like you are covering them with medication to get rid of them. This is not acne positive. This is the same thing. Cover and eliminate.
- [08:59]
B
Yes.
- [08:59]
A
But it looks enticing. And we're like, oh, we have to give this a new name.
- [09:03]
B
Right?
- [09:03]
A
No, it's the same thing.
- [09:05]
B
But it. But in both cases, it's like making you think of the thing that is absent.
- [09:09]
A
Yes, exactly.
- [09:10]
B
And in that way, like, that is almost the appeal and the enticement of it. And it feels like it's underscoring it. The imagine crack. The imagined pimple. Yeah. And I. And as always, I think the concept is much more powerful than the reality could ever be.
- [09:25]
A
Well, crack of the mind is so much more exciting than the crack of the body.
- [09:31]
B
Of course, the fantasy crack of the mind. Who could, who could compete?
- [09:35]
A
I love this trend.
- [09:36]
B
And on the topic of concealment. Yes.
- [09:38]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [09:39]
B
Just one more note about. Because, you know, we're talking trend predictions and one of the things I predicted for this year is of course, face concealment. And face concealment as like ultimate celebrity luxury in both in terms of, like, controlling their own image, but also like denying the viewer the, like, the pleasure of their appearance in a way. So we just got in a couple more funny examples. Again, Teyana Taylor attended the premiere of the rip. I forget the designer of her dress. Oh, I think it's custom Ashy Studio, actually, now that I think of it. And it had these big bulbous hips, a big rounded skirt, but it also had a turtleneck that came up over her nose.
- [10:27]
A
Yeah.
- [10:28]
B
And I just think that's very interesting. And, and like you noted in our doc as well, we, we also get the Maduro blindfold. Very Addison Ray coated influence.
- [10:37]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [10:38]
B
I do believe it.
- [10:39]
A
The White House paying attention.
- [10:42]
B
They are there. They've got their finger on the pulse of culture.
- [10:45]
A
And also on the Maduro blindfold note, the Nike sweatsuit that he was wearing while captured and blindfolded sold out like almost immediately.
- [10:55]
B
Which reminds me, because we just read cultish.
- [10:58]
A
Yes. Heaven's Gate. They, when they all did their, like, mass suicide, they were wearing the same pair of Nike sneakers which Nike discontinued at the time. And now you. No, they will never. We are in a different era. And they will only continue to pump out the Maduro sweatsuit.
- [11:18]
B
Because it didn't occur to me until you just said that it sold out. That I'm like, oh, my God, do they have to cancel the Maduro sweatsuit now? No. Going to profit off of it. If anything, they're going to create an advertising campaign around the sweatsuit.
- [11:29]
A
Bleak. Bleak stuff. But yeah, Addison Rae really, really called that.
- [11:35]
B
Yeah. And anyway, I was just thinking, I think that the face obscuring stuff has also just taken on a new resonance this year as we're watching Ice murder people in the streets. And such a core part of their uniform is intentionally obscuring their face, obviously because they're doing fascist murder business. Exactly. And they don't want to be publicly identified. But I, I just think there is. Yeah. I don't know. The whole thing speaks to this cultural move, I think as well, to not want to be publicly identified, surveyed like.
- [12:07]
A
A Reaction to surveillance culture, I would say.
- [12:11]
B
Right.
- [12:12]
A
And simultaneously an invitation of it. Because by blocking the face, you're calling attention to what you're doing. It's like, simultaneously, like, inviting and denying surveillance.
- [12:24]
B
Yes. And it's like, while it's being used by the Gestapo or whatever, it's also like, I can see culturally, like, you know, we're having this move, I think, this year, away from the Internet, away from technology, away from social media. And we also have, like, we have created a social media Panopticon. Right. So I can also see, like, obscuring your face being a response to, like, if I go out in public, I get filmed and like, and. And actively trying to, like, stop content being made out of you, like, living your life as a. As a civilian as well. I don't know. A lot of interesting ramifications, I think.
- [13:01]
A
Yeah. There's some really good commentary on the ice, like, obfuscation of their face and facial features. In the new episode of Diabolical Lies, they did an episode on ICE as, like, a public jobs program for failures, basically. I can't remember the exact way they put it, but there was some good commentary on surveillance and obscuring of the face. So I'd recommend a listen for anyone who cares.
- [13:30]
B
And of course, all of this also coming off the back of COVID where, you know, these same people refuse to wear a mask. Obviously, the irony is incredible and predictable.
- [13:42]
A
Completely predictable. Also predictable. Kendall Jenner insisting her nose is real. She is her family mother's daughter. Everyone in that family besides Chloe is obsessed real ass nose with insisting that they have a real nose, even when photographic evidence may suggest their nose has changed over time.
- [14:08]
B
Yeah. I found this revelation to be, again, particularly insulting to the public's, like, eyes and intelligence.
- [14:17]
A
Yeah. So basically, Kendall Jenner, you know, one of the younger daughters of. Of the Kardashian family, famous model. We know Kendall. She went on an episode of Owen Teal's podcast in your dreams and said, quote, I've never had any work done. She did then acknowledge that her nose has seemingly gotten smaller over time, but she credits that to just aging. She said, like, I've grown into my nose. I know my nose looked bigger when I was younger, but everything else on me grew except my nose.
- [14:51]
B
And then that's how that works.
- [14:53]
A
And then she said the other thing that has made her nose smaller over time was being on Accutane. So there is, like, some potential truth to this. So, like, Accutane or isotretinoin basically works by destroying your sebaceous glands. It shrinks the glands so that they don't produce as much oil and therefore don't contribute to as much acne. And the nose has a lot of sebaceous glands. Like, our noses are always, like, the first thing to get, like, pretty oily, like, nose and T zone. So if you take Accutane and it shrinks those sebaceous glands, you may get, like, a slight change in the appearance of your nose because your skin is tightening. Is that because the glands underneath the.
- [15:44]
B
Skin are not producing oil?
- [15:46]
A
Yeah, they're in here and they're not producing oil anymore. So they're not, like, as bulbous with oil, I guess.
- [15:54]
B
Okay.
- [15:55]
A
I guess.
- [15:56]
B
Okay.
- [15:57]
A
I mean, obviously, like, dermatologists and cosmetic surgeons have have re entered the chat ever since this podcast, and they're like, yeah, it can slightly change what your nose looks like, but it does not change the structure of your nose. It doesn't remove the cartilage of your nose. It won't give you, like, a thinner tip of the nose. It won't upturn it for you. Like, this is not, like, Kendall's nose is probably not an example of what Accutane can do. Um, and I guess the only reason I care is that, like, I really do think that this is going to encourage an uptick in Accutane usage. Like, people are already microdosing Accutane for clearer skin. And I think this is. As somebody who's on Accutane, I was on Accutane in my early 20s, and I'm still suffering the consequences. Like, my sebaceous function really never bounced back. Some people does. Mine didn't. I have, like, chronically dry skin, and it's caused so many more issues over time to not be able to, like, produce a normal amount of oil. Also did not change my nose at all. I've got.
- [17:04]
B
I was on Accutane as a teen, and my nose is exactly the same. I actually, I have a question. Is, is Kendall admitting that she took Accutane not in. Somehow in violation of some contract that she signed as a face of proactive?
- [17:23]
A
Right. No, I think.
- [17:24]
B
I think it was probably expired by.
- [17:26]
A
The knowledge that she had been on Accutane.
- [17:29]
B
Okay. I think she was a face proactive. And I always wonder if you're allowed to, like, admit things.
- [17:33]
A
Proactive came after.
- [17:35]
B
Okay.
- [17:36]
A
I can't be sure, but I remember when I was working on the Kardashian apps, we did some content with her dermatologist about her being on interesting Accutane. So it's always been part of the public image for sure. But, yeah, I just worry that people who don't, like, need Accutane for a medical issue are now going to be interested in this, like, pretty powerful drug because they think it's going to shrink their nose and it certainly won't.
- [18:05]
B
You don't know that. It could make it a millimeter smaller. It could change everything.
- [18:10]
A
Negligible. Um, also, speaking of skin issues and how we're framing them, I have a couple of Alex Earle things to bring up.
- [18:23]
B
Okay, fantastic.
- [18:24]
A
So, on my Instagram feed the other day, I saw a dermatologist stitching a reel from Alix Earle where she had, like, taken her makeup off and had some perioral dermatitis, like, under her nose and on the tip of your nose, and a dermatologist stitched it and. And described dermatitis. He's like, you might be wondering what this is. He, a medical professional, literally described it as if eczema, acne, and rosacea had this evil baby. Evil. Like, this is a very common condition. And our culture is already so messed up about how we interpret ethics through aesthetics. Like, we have the moral code of a Disney cartoon. As I love to say, anyone who's ugly is evil, and anyone who's beautiful is like.
- [19:17]
B
Yeah.
- [19:18]
A
And I just like for a medical professional to describe this condition as evil. I. I can't. I can't even. But there's another reason that Alix Earle is. Is relevant to the beauty discussion right now, and that is her new YouTube show called Get Real with Me Grwm. Like a play on Get Ready With Me. So basically, like, her and her guest do their skincare and makeup while just talking about other stuff in, like, a giant mirror. And it's all filmed. But yeah, I think it's. It's kind of an interesting way to. Interesting direction to take the format. I wrote about it a couple years ago. I called it ambient influencing. And so it's when beauty sort of moves to the background. Like you are performing your beauty routine, but what you're talking about is completely unrelated to the product that you're using.
- [20:13]
B
Which is like a very common TikTok formula.
- [20:16]
A
It's so common now. It's so common now. And it's actually like, by moving beauty to the background, by not talking about it, it's actually a more powerful driver of purchases because it associates beauty with whatever is being talked about. You know, like life, love, right. Exciting things, trauma, depending on. On what the topic of conversation is. And it just, like normalizes it. Like, it's just so normal to be doing this. It's not even worth discussing almost. But it's a huge product driver.
- [20:56]
B
That's very interesting.
- [20:57]
A
Yeah. So I'm like, yeah, what?
- [21:00]
B
I just think, like, adding to that. Well, first of all, I'm. I'm glad of this move that Alex Earl is making because it means that she stopped doing her podcast, which was called, like, Hot Mess or something, and it was infringing on my brand copyright. I felt, given that she's the more famous one, that's problematic for me. And so I'm glad that she's moved on to a new. A new show. But also, I. I haven't seen the show, but I saw someone talking about it on TikTok, and I think it's interesting in light of what you're talking about, because what they were struck by watching her first episode is they were like, where are the cameras? Like, she couldn't. She literally couldn't figure out how it was being filmed because it's a mirror and you, like, can't see the reflection of any crew or camera. So she was literally, like, technically, how are they doing that? And I think kind of, like obscuring that element of it as well. Like, adds to the quality that you're talking about with, like, the beauty being organically in the background. It's like the show itself is almost organically on in the background.
- [21:58]
A
Yes. They probably have to go through so much effort to make it seem like it's not being filmed. I had the same thought when I was, like, re. Watching parts of it this morning before we got on. I was like, wait, is this a mirror? Is it?
- [22:11]
B
Yeah.
- [22:12]
A
And so I scroll away. Oh, okay.
- [22:15]
B
They're filming through the mirror.
- [22:17]
A
Oh, okay. Well, that makes sense.
- [22:18]
B
And then they're filming from up above, so you're not getting it in the reflection. That's what I learned from TikTok.
- [22:23]
A
I don't actually know, but that's what people like. Speaking of surveillance culture, like, that is. That is the infusion of, like, the. Of the cop system, of the police system into our beauty content.
- [22:38]
B
That is wild influencer marketing. Yeah.
- [22:40]
A
Wow.
- [22:42]
B
Also, this just occurred to me about the Kendall thing as well. And this is a piece of knowledge I have from, like, childhood. So I don't even know if this is true or, like, childhood urban legend stuff, but isn't your nose and your ears the only thing that continue to grow over the course of.
- [22:57]
A
I have heard that too. I cannot confirm if it's true, but it's Definitely like some sort of common knowledge if like lore. Actual knowledge that like, yeah, your nose and your ears continue to grow.
- [23:09]
B
So I just think that that makes the idea of your nose shrinking over the course of your life like an even funnier idea. Like your nose is actually battling against that shrink. Even if it did shrink during Accutane. Yeah. Would it not grow?
- [23:20]
A
This is what Kim insists as well. Kim is like, no, in our family, our noses get smaller over time.
- [23:26]
B
That's just them, you know?
- [23:27]
A
You know, it's a very unique feature that they have.
- [23:31]
B
They're special and different. You wouldn't get it.
- [23:33]
A
The rest of us mere mortals are. Are doomed to have large noses.
- [23:37]
B
Doomed with our evil dermatitis.
- [23:40]
A
Evil dermatitis.
- [23:42]
B
Well, speaking of evil, let's talk about them. Dolce and Gabbana was canceled for the 10,000th time this month. And I, I mean, I understand why they were canceled. I just don't understand why we have to do this like every six months and then and forget all about everything bad that they've ever done and act like this is the first time that these bigots, right, have done something bigoted.
- [24:05]
A
It's wild that they just keep having more like the height to fall from. Like they still cancel in this context is so silly because it's just like, well, clearly they keep being canceled. Nothing happens.
- [24:22]
B
This is what I mean. When people talk about, like cancel culture for like rich and famous people too. I'm like, it doesn't really exist. Like, if any Dolce and Gabbana is proof that it doesn't really exist because there are a billion, probably multi billion dollar corporation who have done every evil thing, every shitty thing you can imagine and it doesn't touch them. And they get protested, they get boycott over and over and over again. Nothing happens. They come right back. And it's because no one in our industry holds them accountable for anything. No publication, no stylists, no famous people. They do not. They. It's easier for them to forget. It's easier for them to take a big check from Dolce and Gabbana and act like none of this ever happened. In this case, everyone is upset because they just did their menswear show. And it appears no one has confirmed this, but it appears that they cast entirely white models. Of course, appearance is not necessarily reality, but it certainly does look like everyone is white. This is especially upsetting to people because the show is titled the Portrait of Man.
- [25:24]
A
Okay.
- [25:25]
B
Suggesting that only white men are the.
- [25:29]
A
Correct portrait of the ideal men. Yeah.
- [25:32]
B
But also, yeah, they're racist. They've. They've shown us 10 million different ways just how racist they are. So, like them casting all white models is not surprising. Also, a fashion brand in Milan, Italy, casting all white models. They're not the first ones to do it.
- [25:48]
A
Yeah.
- [25:48]
B
They won't be the last ones to do it. Like, let's, let's yell at Prada. Let's yell at Versace. They've done the same things in recent years. This is a systemic problem. This is not just a Dolce and Gabbana problem.
- [26:01]
A
And I feel like we knew that this was going to get worse, specifically in high fashion spaces. The second the, like, CEO of LVMH was sitting behind Trump on inauguration day.
- [26:11]
B
Like, yes, this is the Arnos. The Arnos could not be deeper in bed with Trump. They could not be working more closely and more directly with his administration to do everything that they're doing. So the fact that they're backtracking on all of their body positivity, all of their racial equity, like, none of this should be surprising to anyone. This is all part of the plan. This is all part of the process. And Dolce, Gabon just happened to be the worst. I know.
- [26:35]
A
And these dress Melania. Right. Like, I feel like the first administration, there were a lot of designers that would not dress Melania Trump and Dolce and Gabbana always would.
- [26:46]
B
Proud she was there too.
- [26:47]
A
Yeah. So this is not shocking.
- [26:50]
B
Yes. This is one of the things that I brought up when I was talking about this is in 2016, truly, all of these big designers, all of these big fashion houses came out and actually made public statements to Women's Wear Daily saying that they were not going to be working with Melania Trump and they would not be dressing this first lady. And this was a really big deal because that historically has literally never happened. Brands have never. I mean, it's an honor. It's considered a great honor, a great prestige to dress the president or the first Lady. Right. And. And all these brands coming out, like, really made a powerful statement. And one of the only brands who was like, flippantly like, no, we're going to dress her. And immediately were. The only brand who dressed her was Dolce and Gabbana. And they were, I mean, very, like, antagonistic about it. Like, they were. That was also at the peak of Stefano Gabbana trolling. I mean, he. I think they've since taken his social media away from him. I don't think he's allowed to be on Instagram anymore because of the damage he was doing to the brand single handedly by the like unhinged comments he was leaving under every post he could find. But he was actively like fighting people and trolling people and like bragging about how, like how Dolce and Gabbana is clearly the best brand in the world because they were dressing the first lady and that's all that she would wear and they loved Melania and they made some like, freak.
- [28:06]
A
That's not because of your merit, that's because you're the only one.
- [28:11]
B
Well, they believe it was because of their merits. They also. I'm trying to see if I have it in my notes, but they. Oh yeah. So because they were the only brand daring to dress the flotus, of course they became kind of like once again a site of like the resistance, you know, so people are being like, don't buy them, don't dress people in them, don't wear them, blah, blah, blah. And so in June 2017, the brand debuted a $245 T shirt that said hashtag Boycott Dolce and Gabbana. Really?
- [28:49]
A
I don't remember this. That's wild.
- [28:52]
B
Yeah, they're bad, they're bad, they're bad. I don't know how many times I can say this. So I'm, in order to do this segment, I'm literally referencing my own article that I wrote in 2020. So it's even, it's out of date by six years where I wrote every bad thing Dolce and Kapana has done. Because for my own sanity, I started keeping track. I like had to put it all in one place because I like, I feel like I'm losing my mind because we're doing this over and over and over and over. And I was like, I just need to be able to reference it in one place for myself. And so I started listing all the bad things they have done. And that was one of them. Of course, at the time I was writing this because they were being canceled in 2020 because of perhaps you were called Dolce and Gabbana's the great show.
- [29:38]
A
I don't think I remember the details of this. No.
- [29:41]
B
So this comes out of 2020, obviously, and out of them dressing the Trumps, they're kind of, they're back to being like the, in their mind, I imagine, the reeves of the fashion industry and really like the provocateurs. And so they decide they're going to put on this big giant spectacle show in China.
- [30:01]
A
Oh yes.
- [30:04]
B
Unfortunately, they're incredibly racist against Asian people. So it didn't go well for them. And also they. I mean, it seems to me that they were also throwing that event in China, both because they could do it for cheap and because they want to court the Chinese luxury market. Right. And so then they are incredibly racist to the people whose money they were trying to take. So basically they made. Yeah, they made a commercial. I don't know what else to call it. Like a teaser for the show where a Chinese model attempts to eat various Italian foods with chopsticks while a Chinese voiceover narration makes sexual innuendos about the food being too big for her.
- [30:54]
A
Oh, my.
- [30:55]
B
Yeah, it was taken down less than 24 hours after commenters accused them of racism.
- [31:02]
A
Yeah, that's wild.
- [31:04]
B
And so then Diet Prada shared screenshots of their direct messages with Stefano Gabbana about the video because, of course, Stefano was hyper online at the time and he is a huge racist and a huge bigot. It's. The evidence is all there. Yeah. And in that the designer defended the video as a tribute branding the accusations of racism fake news. Classic in the. In the Trumpian model, remember? And then he called the people of China ignorant, dirty smelling mafia who eat dogs.
- [31:41]
A
Oh, my God.
- [31:43]
B
And that is why I'm saying, again, why are we even talking about so.
- [31:47]
A
Much worse than I remember? And I'm so glad you're giving us this refresher because I feel like it's kind of like the Caroline Calloway school of scandal where she's like, if you have one scandal, just keep having them because people will forget the details and it all sort of like, blend together. And I think that's probably what happened with Dolce and Gabbana. It was like so many horrific things one after the other, that it just becomes this, like, blob in your mind of like, oh, they're bad. But I don't remember exactly why.
- [32:19]
B
And it really should not become a blob in your mind because they really are abhorrent and they have been abhorrent for decades and decades. And people used to. I mean, this is 2018, probably. Yeah, this is November 2018. They posted that video. And I don't know, I remember people also arguing with me about the IVF comment. I mean, we can get into the IVF comments, but people being like, oh, that happened so long ago. They've apologized. That happened in 2015. That happened in 2015. That is not that long ago. And they apologized because it was hurting their bottom line. They didn't apologize because they don't think that.
- [32:51]
A
And it's One thing to apologize and, like, go on to, yes, internalize the lesson, be better. They've just like, consistently gotten more hateful over time and more braz with.
- [33:05]
B
Because they get away with. Yeah, absolutely. So after Diet Product published those messages from him, he then claimed that his account had been hacked and then he deleted his account altogether. That actually might have been the cause. That's maybe why we've been spared his, like, insane racism on social media, is because he had to delete his Instagram after this. But the brand's official account, second in Gabbana's story writing, our Instagram account has been hacked. So has the account of Stefano Gabbana. Our legal office is currently urgently investigating. We are very.
- [33:35]
A
I wonder whatever came of that. I wonder what? The investigation.
- [33:38]
B
Yeah. We have nothing but respect for China and the people of China. Sure didn't sound like it. And then the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Shanghai canceled the show.
- [33:48]
A
Wow.
- [33:49]
B
And many of the influencers and models. Oh, right. Because they cast this huge show. It was like hundreds of models were supposed to walk in this and they cast a bunch of influencers and stuff to like, make it, you know, interesting. And they all spoke out against them and were like, we're canceling Dolce, but just for a couple months. We'll be back.
- [34:06]
A
Yeah, not that long.
- [34:08]
B
Oh, yeah. And then people were also doing the classic boycott move of filming themselves burning and destroying their Dolce products on social media, which people have got to realize that isn't the prize. That's not a real boycott movement. Yeah, yeah, it got pretty far. And then also a lot of Chinese retailers and, like, shopping websites stopped carrying them. Yeah.
- [34:30]
A
I mean, that is useful, like, for retailers to, like, not stock this anymore.
- [34:35]
B
Yeah, well, it. And it is useful because eventually the two designers responded by sharing a formal apology on their YouTube channel. Once again, once the money.
- [34:44]
A
That's the bottom line.
- [34:45]
B
Yeah, yeah. So. And I'll just name, I guess, a few other horrible things they've done. The IVF comments, of course, I assume people are familiar exactly what they said.
- [34:57]
A
But I know there was some sort of.
- [34:58]
B
I can tell you, I have to quote. Great. So in the Italian magazine Panorama in March 2015, Domenico Dolce, who's usually not the one at the center, it's usually Stefano. So for the fact that Domenico is also hateful, I don't know, it's like, oh, okay, you're bad too.
- [35:14]
A
It is this. Yes.
- [35:16]
B
Yeah. He says, I am not convinced by those I call children of chemicals, synthetic children, rented uterus semen chosen from A catalog. The family is not a fad. In it, there is a supernatural sense of belonging. You are born to a mother and a father, or at least that's how it should be. These are two gay men, by the way. They're both gay.
- [35:36]
A
Right, Right. What?
- [35:40]
B
I just.
- [35:41]
A
It's like, why are you even talking about this? Why even open your mouth? Like, I am 100% sure this interviewer wasn't like, I need to know what Dolce and Gabbana themselves think of ivf.
- [35:52]
B
Yeah, I gotta know. It's really important to me.
- [35:54]
A
So weird.
- [35:55]
B
I. And I do wonder because. Because of this comment, Elton John called for a boycott. And I. I'm curious if maybe that was, like, what prompted the comments? Is Elton John and his husband having children? Because I do believe it was around their. That time they had their twins.
- [36:11]
A
Yeah.
- [36:12]
B
And so I'm curious if that was. But in either case, Elton John called for a boycott of them. I'm pretty sure Elton John's wearing Dolce and Gabbana today. So it didn't last long, but I guess he's a Gucci guy. He's more of a Gucci guy. Yeah. Wow. Um, and then in response, Gabbana accused the boycotters, the IVF boycotters, of being racist dictators who were attacking him because his opinion is quote, unquote, different. And he called Elton John a fascist and urged his followers to boycott the singer in turn.
- [36:41]
A
Oh, my God.
- [36:43]
B
Yeah. And then. And then he doubled down on it. The following week, Gabbana posted on Instagram, we firmly believe in democracy, and the fundamental principle of freedom of express upholds it. We talked about our way of seeing reality, but it was never our intention to judge other people's choices.
- [36:56]
A
It's like, well, you are literally judging their choices. And, like, freedom of expression means you are free to express your shitty opinions, and other people are free to express their distaste for your shitty opinions in a variety of ways. With words, with boycotts. With just, like, not buying your brand anymore. Like, yes.
- [37:14]
B
And then Dolce wrote his own statement and said, I'm Sicilian. Okay? I'm Sicilian. And I grew up in a traditional family made up of a mother, a father, and children. I am very well aware of the fact that there are other types of families and they're as legitimate as the one I've known. But in my personal experience, family has a different connotation configuration. Okay. And then in August of that year, they apologized to Vogue.
- [37:36]
A
Okay. Okay. And I mean, obviously it worked. Like, yeah, nobody. Oh, I won't say nobody, but a lot of people don't remember any of this.
- [37:46]
B
And then of course we have this.
- [37:48]
A
Current drama is like the first Dolce and Gabbana scandal they've heard of.
- [37:52]
B
I just think that's so. Why they just have such a long storied history of scandal. It's crazy to me that you can miss all this, but I guess if you're not paying attention, I guess it's all easy to survive. They have the tax evasion, of course. That's a. I can't even get into that. That is a whole insane thing of its own. They've always maintained their innocence. Whether that's true or not, unclear. They were root Selena Gomez. This is actually the one that got them in the most trouble, which I think is crazy considering what I just said about Chinese people and what I just said about ivf actually, low grade.
- [38:25]
A
Scandal insult our queen Selena Gomez.
- [38:28]
B
Selena is what almost got them canceled. For real. So in June 2018, Gabbana left again.
- [38:34]
A
I can't believe this is all so long ago too.
- [38:37]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [38:39]
A
Like, we're only in 2018. I know it's not that long ago, but.
- [38:43]
B
But, you know, I mean, like, this is. It's a lot for a short period of time to then still just keep on going. Because you're also talking about 2016 through 2018. Is the Melania Trump stuff. 2018. And then in the fall. So this is the summer of 2018 that he's doing this Selena Gomez stuff. It's the fall of 2018 that they did the China stuff.
- [39:04]
A
Oh, okay.
- [39:08]
B
Okay. Maybe I feel like I need to like, draw a timeline to like really.
- [39:12]
A
Like this alive matrix. A live document, like updated continually with. With new Dolce and Gabbana.
- [39:22]
B
So June 2018, Gabbana again, overusing his Instagram. He leaves a comment. This is the thing that he's obsessed with too, at this period of time is he's leaving these comments on these, like, weird fan accounts. Like, they're not the celebrity. They're not even like a major, like a Vogue post. They're always like weird ass, like fashion, street style. I can't. I don't even know how to explain it. So this one is literally the photo is a collage of every time Selena Gomez has worn the color red. So it's her in like five different red dresses. Okay. And Stefano leaves a comment. Yeah, it's posted by the account the Catwalk Italia. Okay. And he writes in Italian. He says properio bruta. So roughly translates to she's so ugly. Yeah, okay. Like, also, she looks. Not that it matters, but she looks fantastic in these photos. There's literally no reason. Of course. Like, I think it goes without saying.
- [40:26]
A
Wrap my mind around even if you believe that or something, what is the motivation to, like, say it publicly on social media?
- [40:39]
B
Being evil, Being hate, Having hate in your heart.
- [40:43]
A
I think everything about them is so.
- [40:46]
B
So because of these Selena. So because of the Selena Gomez comment, we get all these celebrities speaking out. In her defense, we get Tommy Dorfman comes out her CO star in 13 Reasons why at the time. And she writes, you're tired and over your homophobic, misogynistic body shaming existence will not thrive in 2018. It is no longer tolerable or chic. Please take many seats. Nothing happened. Miley Cyrus also commented on the photo. And Miley said, well, what that dickhead said, if it's true, I don't know why she said, if it's true, it's. I think you can still see the comment on the post. Yeah, I don't think he deleted it. But she said is fucking falls and total bullshit. She's fine as fuck. Like, okay, I think go harder.
- [41:29]
A
Like, even if he was calling a truly ugly person ugly, you know, according to today's beauty standards, like, hateful and unnecessary. Like, it's not like, oh, she's beautiful is not a good defense. Like, that's not what we're talking about.
- [41:45]
B
And in response, Gabbana wrote on his own Instagram account and said, my name is Selena in all caps with three exclamation points. Hashtag, say sorry to me. Then he wrote, omfg, hashtag, please say sorry to Selena. So he went on to use the hashtag say sorry to me thing a lot. I just remember this personally as someone who was like, tracking him at the time. He used that a lot. He was not.
- [42:09]
A
I don't even understand it.
- [42:12]
B
Like, he's basically making fun of like woke warriors, trying to. It's the same as the hashtag boycott Dolce and Gabbana T shirts. He's like, he's trolling. Like, what he sees is like woke culture run amongst. Like, he's not allowed to call women ugly anymore. And so he's like, say sorry to me. Say sorry to me.
- [42:30]
A
Oh, my God.
- [42:31]
B
Yeah, it's pretty nasty. And actually this Selena Gomez comment is what. I find this very interesting. It's what spurred on Carla Welch. If you know her, she's a very famous celebrity stylist. For those who don't, this is the reason that she started boycotting Dolce and Gabbana, which I find very interesting because she was one of the people at the forefront of the like, hashtag resistance, like pink pussy hat movement.
- [42:52]
A
Right.
- [42:53]
B
But like them dressing Melania isn't what them commenting. This is.
- [42:58]
A
What about our cultural priorities of just like, we'll let racism go, we'll let xenophobia go, but if you call my queen ugly, that's a bridge too far.
- [43:13]
B
And get this. So she calls for the boycott of Dolce and Gabbana in 2018. And she does this interview. I can't remember who it's with. Maybe Women's Wear Daily or Wall Street Journal or something. And she, she makes a point of being like, oh, like we had Dolce on the rack for this. And I said, send it back, send it back. I am not dressing my clients in Dolce. That's 2018, I believe by 2020 or 2021, Carla Welch dresses a client in full head to toe Dolce and Gabbana and turns off the comments on her Instagram post of it. What? Quite an about face. Quite an about face. And at a time when everyone started wearing Dolce and Gabon again is my rec. I was speculating that a lot of big checks seemed to be going out. A lot of attitudes seemed to be changing about Dolce and Gabbana around that time that I found very interesting. Who else do I feel? Oh yeah, Miley Cyrus also had her own. Her own situation with Dolce and Gabbana in 2017 where he was incredibly rude to her and he. And well, because her brother was like a model in their show or something. And I don't know, it triggered. Yeah, Trace was modeling and. Oh, right. So she shared a photo of her brother modeling and she said, dng, I strongly disagree with your politics because this wasn't long after IVF stuff said, but I do support your company's efforts to celebrate young artists and give them the platform to shine their light for all to see. So what she wrote isn't even like a condemnation of them in any capacity. And they're still using her brother's name to like leverage their own fame. So it's like all working out for them. And then Gabbana responded to her and said, we are Italian and we don't care about politics and mostly neither about the American one. We make dresses. And if you think about doing politics with a post, it's simply ignorant. We don't need your posts or comments. So next time, please ignore us. Hashtag boycott Dolce. Gabbana and then he also commented ignorant with three exclamation points.
- [45:13]
A
Oh, my God.
- [45:14]
B
For your stupid comment. Never more work with him. So also, her brother is getting punished. They were also rude to Chiara Ferragni on her wedding day.
- [45:22]
A
What did they say to her on her wedding day?
- [45:24]
B
On her wedding day, Harper's Bazaar UK published a photo of her and her custom Dior gown for the occasion. And Gabbana commented it on it and said, cheap.
- [45:38]
A
Okay.
- [45:38]
B
Which I don't know that Dolce and Gabbana gets to call literally anything cheap as the cheapest.
- [45:43]
A
That's like your whole aesthetic.
- [45:45]
B
Yeah, of course. My. One of my personal favorite ones is their insulting of the Kardashians. Just a couple of years before the Kardashians started working with them extremely heavily. And again, I believe money may have been exchanging hands. Allegedly. Theoretically, sure. But there was a. Again, some weird ass. I don't even know what Instagram account this is. Oh, it's. Maybe it's Kim's closet one. You know how they do the Stan account? I think it's the Kim closet one. She posted some picture of them and Gabbana commented on it. It's July 2018. Oh, it's the same. It's the summer of comments, apparently, on.
- [46:24]
A
Cheap and ugly celebrities with them that summer.
- [46:27]
B
I mean, I have a theory, but it's. I won't say it out loud. He commented. And he called them the most cheap people in the world.
- [46:38]
A
They probably love that.
- [46:40]
B
Well, I mean, like, two years later, we get them sponsoring Kourtney Kardashian's wedding. So they certainly didn't hate it. And then we get the Kim collaboration with them, of course. So they're the cheapest people in the world, but they sure are good to sell a product.
- [46:53]
A
You know, Victoria Beckham, Dolce and Gabbana's aesthetic is sort of like cheapy, tacky luxury, sometimes a thousand percent, right?
- [47:04]
B
Oh, exactly. That's exactly what.
- [47:05]
A
Like, that's such a funny insult from them.
- [47:08]
B
Yeah. They were rude to Victoria Beckham. They basically just called her, like, not a real fashion designer, which is funny because she's literally their friend. Their friends. They were friends. I doubt they're friends anymore, but they were literally friends. And they even start out that quote saying, she's a friend, she's a friend, but. But she's not really a fashion designer, is she? They're rude to Kate Moss.
- [47:32]
A
Kate Moss.
- [47:34]
B
Yeah. That one wasn't so bad. He just said no on a photo of her.
- [47:38]
A
Yeah, like, I. I don't mind the rudeness. Like, if you don't. If you want to say, Victoria Beckham's not a real fashion designer, whatever. If you want to say no on a picture of Kate Moss, whatever. Like. But the rest of it is pretty abhorrent.
- [47:55]
B
Yeah. I'll just wrap it up. They have the boycott Dolce and Gabbana T shirts. Of course. They have a pair of sneakers that say, I'm thin and gorgeous. They do a lot of stuff like that, to be quite honest with you. They do a lot of racist, fat, phobic ages fashion and then kind of write it off. It's just like. Well, it's just a product.
- [48:15]
A
Right?
- [48:16]
B
So it's like, yeah, they have these shoes that say, I'm thin and gorgeous. Like, why?
- [48:21]
A
Like, why is that on shoes?
- [48:23]
B
That's a great question. Well, because they're knocking off Golden Goose.
- [48:27]
A
Okay.
- [48:28]
B
So they were trying to make, like, distressed, expensive sneakers, and so they did that by riding on them, but they just wrote, like, stupid things on them. What else does this shoe say? It also says, so fab. So it says, love you more. It just is, like, a bunch of random shit. So I think. I'm sure they just thought, like, thin and gorgeous. Like, that's our brand. Gabbana, of course, eventually found out that people were mad about these sneakers. And then he went on Instagram and he wrote, when Idiocy Distorts Reality. Three exclamation points. Incredible. Four exclamation points. Next time we'll write Love to be fat and full of cholesterol. The most stupid post ever.
- [49:08]
A
Oh, my God.
- [49:11]
B
In 2016, they made Slave sandals. They're literally called slave sandals.
- [49:15]
A
I do remember this. Yep.
- [49:17]
B
In spring, summer 2012, they make blackamoor earrings, which I do remember when I posted this article where I was, like, rounding up stuff they did that was bad. People were trying to argue with me that the blackamoor earrings, like, they're actually fine because that's part of, like, Sicilian heritage and, like, culture. But I would argue that's like saying sambo is part of American culture, and therefore I get to make earrings that look like Sambo dolls.
- [49:45]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [49:46]
B
I don't think you do.
- [49:48]
A
Yeah, I don't. I don't know anything about them, but considering the track record of Dolce and Gabbana, probably not in good faith.
- [50:03]
B
Yes, they're. They're. Blackmore is a racist caricature. The Guardian wrote at the time and said, there's nothing cute about two white men selling minstrel earrings to a majority Non black audience. There wasn't a single black model indulging Gabbana show. And it's hard not to be appalled by the transparent exoticism in sending the only black faces down the Runway in the form of earrings. I thought that was really well put. That's.
- [50:25]
A
Yeah, yeah. Wow.
- [50:28]
B
And then just. They just ban press. That's like. I mean, I feel like that's the least of the bad things.
- [50:33]
A
Yeah.
- [50:34]
B
But they are famous for banning press at their shows, including Women's Wear Daily, W Magazine, Italian Vogue, and Vanity Fair in the New York Times has not been invited for over a decade.
- [50:44]
A
Interesting.
- [50:46]
B
Anyway, I hate them.
- [50:47]
A
Yeah.
- [50:51]
B
Yeah. I have a real bone to pick with them always. And so it's always crazy to me when we, like, renew this conversation over and over and over again.
- [50:57]
A
Still happening. I think you need to republish this article, update it a little bit, and just make it, like a live tracking document so that we can all keep track of all of the ways Dolce and Gabbana is definitely.
- [51:07]
B
I need to put it in order, too, because I think when you start realizing, like, the cluster of this activity and, like, the years in which it's. I don't know, it starts to really make a lot of sense and you start to see. See a bigger picture.
- [51:17]
A
I think I look forward to that. And I am going to continue this little educational moment that we're on to talk about the male gaze, because it seems that no one who's talking about the male gaze knows what it is, has ever read a book or an essay or even a simple Instagram caption that's actually explaining what this concept is.
- [51:43]
B
It's about vibes.
- [51:46]
A
The male gaze is when you like men and you want them to think you're sexy.
- [51:50]
B
Yep.
- [51:52]
A
So I don't think I even want to get into the specifics or call any one particular person or platform or whatever out, because it's just, like, all over the place. But on Instagram and on substack, lately, there's been a lot of posts about the male gaze. Specifically stuff like, I have a husband. My cosmetic choices are not about the male gaze. Or, like, I'm old and married. Like, I'm not getting a blepharoplasty for the male gaze. It's for myself. Or, like, I'm a lesbian. I don't care about the male gaze. And I just feel like I'm going crazy. I just feel like if you're going to be making these big statements about the male gaze, you should have, like, just some familiarity with what it is.
- [52:36]
B
Yeah, but I think it's the same problem as the way we talk about the, the female, the idea that the female gaze even. I feel like it's kind of both terms have been reduced to quite literally your gaze. Like men, literally men looking at you, women looking at something. And that's not what it means at all.
- [52:55]
A
No. So like a brief overview. The male gaze describes the psychological condition of navigating a male dominated world. So it's the internalization of the patriarchal ideals that you are subject to that shapes how you view yourself from the inside out. Knowing that this patriarchal order is going to be observing you as well. You don't have to be a woman to attract, trying to attract a man to be catering to the male gaze. You don't have to even be a woman at all. Like everyone is subject to the male gaze because this is the world that we live on. Yeah, I think patriarchy, I think patriarchal and I've written about this a little bit before, but I think if we just reframed it in our minds as the patriarchal gaze, it would be a lot more clear to people what we're actually talking about here. Like, it's not the preferences of any man in particular or even the preferences of any man for like sexual reasons. It's the preferences of a system that exalts certain men and oppresses everybody else and the internalization of that oppression and how it affects, like how you see yourself and the choices you make about how you present yourself to the world. And then, yeah, on your point about the female gaze, like, once we have this definition in mind, it becomes like very clear that there is no such thing as the female gaze because we have never lived in a world that is female dominated and that this domination shapes the world around us. Like, we literally do not know what a female gaze would even be.
- [54:33]
B
Right. Yeah.
- [54:35]
A
Because it doesn't exist and has never existed.
- [54:37]
B
But the way people use female gaze is like, well, this is my preference as a woman.
- [54:40]
A
It's what women like to look at.
- [54:42]
B
This is what women like to look at. This is what women like to do. It's like, but you can't even, you can't even know what women like to do because you are, that you're still affected by the patriarchal conditions of your womanhood. So that preference is still being filtered, altered through the real gaze. Even if you think that that is originating from you, they're like millennia of conditioning. Yeah, right, right. And it's not right. It's not the man in the house. That's like conditioning. You like, right? It is millennia of a society of, like, how we live. It's the systemic structure of our society. It's impossible to experience anything outside of that. Yes.
- [55:21]
A
Because that's. This is the. The soup you've been cooked in.
- [55:24]
B
Yes, you're in the soup.
- [55:26]
A
I thought we could introduce some. Some classic thinkers on this topic, just to give a little overview.
- [55:34]
B
Sure.
- [55:35]
A
First, our favorite John Berger. I love that John Berger wrote, how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated. So again, just looking at that, this is not just like sexual desire of heterosexual women and men. To acquire some control over this process, women must contain it and interiorize it. Women watch themselves being. Look, looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women, but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is the male, the surveyed female. Thus, she turns herself into an object, and most particularly an object of vision, a sight. And so this can. Like, obviously, I know I'm talking to you, but I'm. I'm. I'm talking to the people out there who just are using this concept in the wrong way. Like, this male gaze could even be talking about, like, interviewing for a job, you know, presenting yourself for, like, a job interview or whatever you have. Like, this is not about attracting a man. This is about how you internalize patriarchal conditions of your existence and then try to sort of navigate through that system.
- [56:50]
B
Yeah, And I love the way John Berger talks about it. I. I mean, I think I've said this quote on the podcast before, but my favorite quote of. Of his, I think it's in the book, but it's also how he starts, I think, the first episode of Ways of Seeing.
- [57:02]
A
Ways of Seeing. Yeah.
- [57:03]
B
Which I think. I don't know. I think really, to me, perfectly articulates what we're talking about here, where he says, men dream of women, women dream of being dreamt of. And that is like the alienation from your own experience. Like, that's what we're saying. When we're saying the female gaze can't exist. It's like you are already alienated from your own experience of being woman, because the experience of being woman is like being consumed by man, even.
- [57:26]
A
Just like the concept of there being an experience of being woman is patriarchal in nature because we have been delineated in this binary of man and woman.
- [57:37]
B
Right.
- [57:38]
A
And so, like, the assumption that is an objectively male experience, an objectively female experience or whatever is, like, part of this patriarchal order.
- [57:47]
B
Yes. And the implication that those two experiences are fundamentally different.
- [57:51]
A
Exactly.
- [57:51]
B
And they couldn't possibly be connected to one or be the same experience.
- [57:54]
A
And when they are, obviously when they are fundamentally different, it's not fundamental, it's like conditional. It is because of the structures around you. Also, Laura Mulvey, feminist film critic who really popularized this idea of the male gaze.
- [58:14]
B
Specifically coming shortly after mergers were.
- [58:16]
A
Yes. A year, maybe two years, very close to it. And she specifically is talking about the male gaze in cinema and through the camera. And so I think it's like super relevant for the social media era because again, when we're presenting ourselves through the screen and through the camera, this is the sort of a cinema. And I think it's. I think everybody should read her essay. Obviously, we'll link it in the show notes.
- [58:43]
B
Yeah, it's excellent.
- [58:44]
A
So some, some quotes from her going far beyond highlighting a woman's to be looked at ness. Cinema builds the way she is to be looked at into the spectacle itself, playing on the tension between film as controlling the dimension of time, editing a narrative and film as controlling the dimension of space. Changes in distance and editing cinematic codes create a gaze, a world and an object, thereby producing an illusion. Cut to the measure of desire. And I love this dimension of time, dimension of space thing because of course, women are not allowed to exist in either. Like you have to be eternally youthful, you have to be as small as possible, like take up the least amount of time and space as possible. But also just this idea of the gaze of the camera as the male gaze, I think is super relevant to today, especially in terms of the people who have been talking about the male gaze lately. Like, you are influencers, you are brand founders, you're on camera and you're making decisions about presenting yourself in images. And that is male gaze too. Like totally.
- [59:55]
B
And Laura Mulvey is also like speaking. She's part of this is because literally most directors at the time were male. So she is truly talking about like an artistic medium shaped by men, largely where women are excluded and women are the stars of it, and yet they aren't the ones making any of this.
- [60:13]
A
And that is social media. Like this is the architecture of men in tech. These like tech CEOs, the algorithms they're building, the content they're rewarding. Like you could be a woman directing your own videos or content for your social media, but you are keeping in mind the algorithms and the tools that have been built by this patriarchal system of male dominated tech fields.
- [60:45]
B
And according to their values and their interests. Right?
- [60:48]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [60:48]
B
And that's what we mean by the male gaze. Like, everything is structured around male interest, male benefit. Like.
- [60:55]
A
Yeah. So another quote from this Laura Mulvey piece is, as an advanced representation system, the cinema poses questions of ways the unconscious formed by the dominant order structures ways of seeing and pleasure in looking. And I just think that's. So what's happening here. Like, your social media is an advanced representation system of what you have subconsciously internalized because of the dominant order, because of the patriarchal order. And so as you're presenting yourself to camera unconsciously, this is part of the male gaze. I also think Julia Kristeva is another good thinker on this. I don't know that she uses the term the male gaze specifically, but she writes a lot about objection and objection. It's sort of like siphoning off these very human parts of ourselves in order to assimilate into what she calls the symbolic order or the patriarchal order, which is basically becoming an object rather than a subject, an object for the patriarchal order rather than a subject of your own human experience. And patriarchal order, the symbolic order is what makes abject the basic features of the subject. So aging wrinkles, double chins, neck fat, these are all like, abjected features. And you don't want to get rid of those things for no reason. You can't want to get rid of those things outside of the male gaze, outside of the patriarchal order, outside of the objection of the human subject. Yeah, so when you're saying, like, I get a nick lift for myself or I get a blepharoplasty for myself, like, there's just literally no way you can make those choices in modern society without it having been influenced by the male gaze.
- [62:48]
B
Yeah, totally. I was just thinking, I think that, like a good addendum to that trustee McMillan Cottam quote. Like, I like what I like as a capitalist lie. Like, I like what I like as a capitalist and patriarchal lie completely.
- [63:00]
A
And also on that note, I think a lot of people do have trouble with the term the male gaze today. Post, like, girl boss feminism, post choice feminism. And I also think maybe my concept of the sale gaze is relevant here. So I've been writing about this for years. But, you know, if the male gaze is the psychological condition of living under patriarchy, I refer to the sale gaze as the psychological condition of living under consumerism or capitalism. Susan Sontag has written a lot about this. She writes about, like, decades of unrealistic beauty ideals since the industrial revolution that exists to service a secular society that worships ever increasing industrial productivity. So it inspires this sort of self objectification that isn't concerned with appealing to men, but is concerned with deifying and even identifying with products. So it's this very capitalist gaze where it's like if you have any sort of issue or you perceive any sort of issue with your appearance, of course your first thing is like, oh, there's a product for that, or there was something I can buy for that when like that's not the only way. Or like why are you even trying to change that thing? It's because there's a product that exists that could change it.
- [64:25]
B
And the, the existence of the product, even like implies its need to be corrected.
- [64:30]
A
Exactly. It's, it's very baudrillard of like. The product contains a question and an answer.
- [64:36]
B
Right.
- [64:38]
A
So I think like this existence of the internalized sale gaze explains a lot about modern beauty culture. Like even like wearing logoed under eye patches, like that's proof of purchase, that's proof of brand loyalty. Like this conflation of self care and purchasable skin care products. Beauty standards, like bluffs like facelifts, these are marked by and impossible without significant and sustained funneling of money into one's face. Like these are wealth markers.
- [65:08]
B
Yeah.
- [65:09]
A
And this is all part of the sale gaze, which is of course related to the male gaze because. Yeah, patriarchy, whatever.
- [65:17]
B
But yeah, interesting.
- [65:19]
A
Yeah, I'm just, I'm so. I just feel like no one should be allowed to use the phrase if you haven't just like googled, just google a basic definition, give it a quick wiki, just, you know, ask. Yeah, I, I don't know. I don't know. It just like boggles the mind that people involved in the beauty industry have not taken the time to educate themselves on what they're talking about at all. I mean I was, this was me. This was me as well, many years ago. But there has to come a point where you're like, wait, do I know what I'm talking about?
- [65:56]
B
Totally. It just feels like it's become very pop psyche.
- [65:59]
A
Yeah.
- [66:00]
B
You know, kind of like lingo. And it's just unfortunate because it is such an important idea and it is one that like undergirds I think so much of society and like how it operates that it sucks to have it lost to.
- [66:13]
A
Yeah.
- [66:14]
B
Like this really cheap idea of and shallow idea of what the male gaze. Yes. Yeah, we need it, we need, we all need to know it.
- [66:23]
A
Speaking of the male gaze. Should we talk about the Murphy gays? The Ryan Murphy gays?
- [66:30]
B
Yeah, let's go. Let's talk Ryan Murphy gays, man. We watch the beauty.
- [66:34]
A
We watched the beauty. I'm sorry to say, we watched the new Ryan Murphy show, man.
- [66:39]
B
The beauty.
- [66:40]
A
It's so bad. It's like. It's crazy, bafflingly bad.
- [66:44]
B
Literally the first thing I wrote down in my notes is Ryan Murphy needs to be banned from making television. Like, it needs to be illegalized. We. He needs to be like banned from setting foot on a. On a set. He's not doing anything good. We don't need this in our lives.
- [66:58]
A
He had it. At one point he had it and I believe he lost it. I don't know. I'm currently starting to watch Nip Tuck, which is I think one of the original Ryan Murphy. Yes, it is shows to see. Did he have it at this point?
- [67:13]
B
He sort of did. But also, I mean, you're gonna see Nip Tuck jumps the shark so hard. It's crazy. It's bad. It is ultimately bad. But it was like, like, I think it was felt bad in a fun new way at the time. But we were like way more forgiving. And that's how I feel about American Horror Story. Like I. I was an og, American super fan.
- [67:34]
A
First three, the first couple.
- [67:35]
B
The first three, I would say up to freak show. I was like with him and then he lost me so hard. But it's like those aren't good either. No, you know, like, they're bad. They're like. They're more interesting ideas.
- [67:48]
A
Yeah, this. It's funny because you would think the concept of the beauty, which is basically there exists this injection slash communicable disease that makes you hot. It's very. The substance.
- [68:05]
B
And it's also. They say that it's a combination of HIV and rabies.
- [68:11]
A
Yes. Oh my God. How could I forget? This combination of HIV and rabies actually makes you super hot and really thirsty.
- [68:20]
B
Really?
- [68:21]
A
No, this is the thing, like, there's so many just on the nose metaphors. So the shot makes you hot. You get two years to be hot. And then you get physically hot, so hot temperature wise that you combust and you get like very thirsty before you die. And you're just like, I have to have all the water. And it's like, you've been made so hot that metaphorically and literally that you, that you die.
- [68:49]
B
And it's at one point, I guess a Spoilers abound. I guess if anyone cares, don't watch the show do not do it. But at one point. So they hire. There's these two counter terrorism agent agents, even though they explicitly say that they've decided this is not a terrorist act. So I'm like, so why are we talking to the counter terrorist agents that. What do they have to do with this anyway? They're like, oh, yeah. Like, they get really, really thirsty. And then they're like, they explode. And their innards stay like a million degrees for like hours and hours afterwards. And they're like, but why are they so thirsty? What? Why are. Why the water?
- [69:27]
A
Well, and you know, they do explain that in one of the episodes where I think that Evan Peters character says, everything we do is about our universal, unquenchable thirst to be considered attractive enough to get laid. And it's, wait, I wrote the metaphors.
- [69:47]
B
I need to find it. Because I wrote that line down specifically because I'm like, he's off his fucking rocker. Like, what the hell does this mean? Hold on, I'm going to find it.
- [69:56]
A
And it's just like it. An idea like this should feel relevant considering the state of beauty culture and the injectables of it all and the ozempic of it all. But it already just feels so dated and yes, overdone.
- [70:12]
B
Right. He said his theory is that everything we do is about sex. Everything we do is to just be hotter to other people.
- [70:20]
A
And it's.
- [70:20]
B
Shut up. Shut the up.
- [70:22]
A
It's also just, you know, it makes no sense when you look at actual, like, interesting critique that's been done about sex and beauty and yes, how beauty culture really has done this. This job of alienating us from the body and reducing the sex that most people are having and creating this sort of body anxiety that makes us more hesitant to get close to other people and has had this sort of, like, sad effect on our sex lives. And also when you just like, look at the basic reality of the fact that like, average and ugly people are having a lot of sex, more sex, sometimes better sex.
- [71:03]
B
Like, I would like to point out that even so, Evan Peters and I don't remember the other woman's name, but they're the two counter. They're the two counter terrorist agents. And he's telling this to her. They're both having a lot of sex.
- [71:15]
A
They're having so much sex with each.
- [71:17]
B
Other and other people and other people. And she has explicitly said that she's like, insecure about her body to the point that she got a boob job. Which, by the way, the most low profile boob job I've ever seen in my life. They couldn't give this woman a, like a push up bra. Yeah, like, what are we talking about? What are we talking about? She got a boob job. Like, from what?
- [71:35]
A
Well, okay, let's get into this because. Okay.
- [71:39]
B
But anyway, my point is that there she is also insecure about her body and yet is having so much sex.
- [71:45]
A
Yes, yes.
- [71:47]
B
And is clearly like considered very beautiful and hot by the people around her because they're all her. And also, this just brings me. I'm sorry, this show enrages me. I literally made a note in the first episode, 20 minutes in, where I was like, oh, I just realized I've been like, like furiously angry at this program the entire time I've been watching it, like on the edge of my seat with rage. But another point that I have that is like the fundamental flaw of the show. I mean, the whole show is a flaw. The whole plot is insane and doesn't make any sense. But like, the fundamental, to me crux problem of this show is that it, it relies upon you agreeing with the show about who is beautiful and who is ugly. And it also creates like an, an implied standard of beauty that's again, like impossible to live up to the concept. So like everyone is always going to like fall short, you know, Like I was thinking about just like Ashton Kutcher is supposedly the head of this beauty ring and I'm like, so you're relying on the assumption that everyone watching the show is going to think he's like the hottest man alive, which fundamentally. No.
- [72:48]
A
Right.
- [72:49]
B
But you've created up that. You've created that dynamic of judgment, you know what I mean?
- [72:52]
A
The flaws in this system are just immigrants immediately apparent. So for example, the first episode opens with Bella Hadid. And Bella is a model. She's on the Runway. She's like, not Bella, she's playing a different model. So she's on the Runway. The effects of this drug start kicking in. She's about to die. She's sweating, she's getting like super thirsty. She's like full of rage. Yeah, she's killing people. She's like assaulting people. The whole opening to me felt like a commercial for like Balenciaga and Voss water collaboration for a perfume that smells like dirt and sweat and gasoline or something like very perfume commercial vibe to me.
- [73:38]
B
Well, also my question about the opening is, is, does Balenciaga have to sign off on that? Like, is.
- [73:44]
A
They mentioned Balenciaga later. They mentioned Balenciaga specifically later too.
- [73:49]
B
Right.
- [73:50]
A
Like They've ripped off that Runway show.
- [73:52]
B
And yes, so the opening scene is a literal one for one copy of the Balenciaga Spring 2023 Runway show, but like a very bad, low budget version, in my opinion. Like, if you look at the original versus what they're doing, like, a very shitty facsimile. Also, I think it's funny that they chose the show that Kanye walked in of all the Balenciaga shows in the world, like, well, he is redeemed. Okay. Yeah. Why? Right. He apologized. So it's actually fine that they did that now. But I was just curious, like. Like, is that Balenciaga's ip? Like, and because they mentioned Balenciaga by name later and say that this was a Balenciaga show. Does Balenciaga have to sign up? Is that an advertisement?
- [74:27]
A
I have to assume the show is. I mean, I don't know this. I'm assuming the show is getting money from Balenciaga, from Voss Water, which is featured from Applebee's.
- [74:36]
B
Maybe even from Applebee's commercial.
- [74:39]
A
Oh, real Applebee's.
- [74:41]
B
Sponsored.
- [74:42]
A
Wait, my. My one point before I forget it is like, okay, so Bella Hadid in the opening is the hot model. She has been taking the shot. She's been transformed. This is the hot version of herself. She has no tits, like, very small chest. And then later in the show, other people who take the shot that makes you hot, it gives them these giant boobs and it's like, so who is deciding. How does the sickness decide what makes a person hot? Like, there is no continuity in hotness. It's just whatever you didn't have originally.
- [75:18]
B
This is a question I had too. Yes. Because this is again, the problem of their own beauty standards that they're creating is it's an impossible situation. Because I was thinking about this because later on in the neck in episode two and three, you're getting people who are getting infected with the beauty. I don't know, is that what we're calling it?
- [75:35]
A
I think so, yeah.
- [75:36]
B
In my notes, I kept calling, I kept saying, oh, no, they're beautified.
- [75:40]
A
I love that.
- [75:42]
B
But the problem is they keep. They're hot people. They're already very, very, very hot people who are getting infected with the beauty. So then I kept being like, well, what the hell are they gonna. Yeah, it's. They're turning into a comparably hot person.
- [75:56]
A
The hotness is on the same level post.
- [76:00]
B
It's the exact same level of hot. So I was like. So like. Because, for example, one of the people who Becomes beautified is the counter terrorist agent who's insecure about her boobs. So she's incredibly hot.
- [76:12]
A
Yeah, she's incredibly hot. She's over 35.
- [76:16]
B
Yes. And concerned about her quote unquote flat chest, which is not flat. She totally has boobs. They're just not giant boobs.
- [76:22]
A
Yeah.
- [76:22]
B
So then they turn her into just like another equally hot lady who seems to just be younger with big tits.
- [76:29]
A
Yes.
- [76:30]
B
But exactly the same. I. It's just like you've created a problem of your own invention. I don't.
- [76:35]
A
I'd be interested to see and, you know, if the show's thesis that people are becoming hot so they can have sex with hot people is indeed true. I'm interested to see how this plays out over the season where, you know, the beauty, besides being a shot you can take, is a. Is a sexually transmitted disease. So everyone that you have sex with gets the sickness, gets the beauty, and then morphs into a hotter version of themselves, you know, a couple hours after you copulate. And so if. If the shot makes you hot so you can have sex with other hot people, then it would almost be exclusively hot people who are getting the sexually transmitted version of this and then becoming hotter.
- [77:22]
B
Yes.
- [77:24]
A
So something monstrous must emerge. You know, like, there has to come.
- [77:30]
B
Beauty on beauty crime.
- [77:31]
A
Yes. There has to come a point in one's hotness where.
- [77:35]
B
How.
- [77:36]
A
How does the sickness make me more hot? Yes. Yes. I don't know.
- [77:40]
B
I actually think that's a better idea. They're not. I already can tell you they're not. And that's already a better, more interesting idea than anything we're seeing here. Yeah. I was also. I made a note at some point. Let me see if I can find it, where I was like, oh, this is actually the only good idea in this show and this is what it should actually be about. Oh, it's. When they're talking about. Yes. I wrote the business side of this virus when Anthony Ramos is talking at the end of episode three where he's like, so I'm hired by, like, the company who makes this, because if it's sexually transmitted and you could get it for free, it's devalued.
- [78:17]
A
Yeah.
- [78:18]
B
And basically we want to sell it as a product like Ozempic. And so, like, I have to eliminate all the people who have been, like, sexually transmitted, beautified. And I was like, that's. The corporate side of this is actually the story. Like, that's the interesting part of this. Not these people, like, being hotter. I don't know.
- [78:34]
A
The most interesting part to me is the idea of beauty as a communicable disease. I think that is like, like very relevant and interesting. It doesn't seem to be a theme of the show that they're going to explore in any meaningful way that could give us, like, meaningful or profound takeaways about the state of beauty culture and how beauty standards are essentially communicable. But no, I don't think it's going there.
- [79:01]
B
They're also just existing in a fictional realm of, of beauty and beauty standards because they're also like, simultaneously, like, first of all, they're flipping hot people into other hot people. Like, already, whatever. They're trying to tell me Ashton Kutcher is the best looking man alive. No, sorry, not.
- [79:15]
A
Also very interesting parallel choosing Ashton for this very substance esque TV show and his ex wife Demi Moore was like, transcendent in substance, which actually had a point of view and something to say about.
- [79:29]
B
That's another note that I wrote where it's like, this is a substance knockoff with like no point of view, like no grander message about what, like, it's. And also, like, can the substance writer sue for this? Because it literally is truly. He jacked everything from the substance, mixed it up with a little Death becomes her and like, called her day down to the Isabella Rossellini cameo, which I was like, that's kind of the only thing I respect about this show is including her as an homage back to Death becomes her and her being like an immortal completely. And she's the best looking person on the whole show. She looks fabulous. Fabulous.
- [80:00]
A
I know. Really undermining what the Beauty is trying to do.
- [80:03]
B
That's what I thought too. I was like, so you're just showing me an older woman who looks gorgeous and stunning and like fabulous. Like, right, you're, you're, you're screwing up your whole thesis here.
- [80:13]
A
Yeah, I feel like substance. I mean, I don't think that there's any sort of like, claim to be made of stealing ideas now because this is the state of the world. I think the substance was obviously in the works before Ozempic became super mainstream. But even in like episode three of the Beauty, which is the only episode, like the last episode that's out as of our recording, they mention Ozempic by.
- [80:38]
B
Name as like, comparable to what they're doing with the Beauty.
- [80:43]
A
Yeah, yeah. Like, this is the, this is like the face version of an Ozempic sort of thing, even though it addresses the full body. And the other thing I Thought was really dystopian but not surprising, is just like, all of the commercials I was getting while watching this were for weight loss drugs.
- [81:00]
B
Yes.
- [81:01]
A
And for Eli Lilly.
- [81:02]
B
Yes.
- [81:03]
A
And. Oh, man.
- [81:05]
B
Amazing. Oh, wait, I just remembered. Another complaint that I have about the beauty standards of the show is they're trying to convince me that Anthony Ramos is ugly because he has an eye patch. Get a fucking grip. Anthony Ramos is, like, the most stunningly gorgeous man. And also, he is dressed insanely well in the show. His little Chelsea boots are the most beautiful shoes I've ever seen in my life. He's dressed in all black, just like. Like stunning. Yeah. And then in one scene, he covers that eye patch. Yes.
- [81:33]
A
Oh, my God.
- [81:34]
B
One scene, he covers up his eye patch and the guy's like, oh, my God, you're gorgeous.
- [81:42]
A
Oh, my God, I forgot about that scene.
- [81:44]
B
I was like, are we not looking at the same jawline? Like, are you kidding me? Like, he thought.
- [81:50]
A
I was.
- [81:52]
B
Thinking again, like, I'm one of the OG people who took the beauty. It's like, yeah, I can see that. I don't need you to cover your eye patch.
- [82:00]
A
There's some, I mean, really weird stuff going on here with, like, trying to comment on beauty standards while also reinforcing them completely to the point that you can't make any useful commentary. Yeah, I'm thinking about the incel guy who goes to the plastic surgeon and then takes the beauty shot.
- [82:25]
B
Okay, can I also just say I have a big problem with the incel guy because you're telling me that this Gooner is sitting in his basement jacking off to girls on OnlyFans and webcams or whatever in chat rooms. In the type of chat room where he would get recommendation for a plastic surgeon to, like, fix himself, and then he would go to that plastic surgeon, and he both doesn't know the word incel and he doesn't know what a chad.
- [82:50]
A
Know what a chad is.
- [82:52]
B
What reality are we living in? And also, my other problem with the Gooner is what year is this supposed to be? Because the Gooner is on a computer from, like, 2002.
- [83:02]
A
Yeah.
- [83:03]
B
And he's talking in an AIM chat room. Again, 2002.
- [83:07]
A
Crazy.
- [83:08]
B
Yes. But they're trying to set. But they're trying to tell me in every other way that this is the future, that we're in the future. And I'm like, then why is he living 20 years in the past and doesn't know what an incident incel or a chat is, but he's in an INCEL chat room.
- [83:22]
A
I also think it's very problematic to make the INCEL in your show who is emblematic of the INCEL community, who says I'm ugly, I need to be fixed. This fat black man.
- [83:37]
B
Yep.
- [83:39]
A
Like that is just reinforcing the current beauty standard and also counter to reality of the kinds of people who generally populate these chat rooms and are looks maxing and going to like. It's so offensive to every cell in my body.
- [83:59]
B
Yep.
- [84:00]
A
But also after this guy gets his like initial plastic surgery and looks like a chad, doesn't he look like the Weeknd? Doesn't he look like the Weeknd's like performance art when he did this?
- [84:12]
B
Yes, he looks exactly like him. That's such a good point.
- [84:15]
A
Oh man.
- [84:17]
B
Good God. Oh, also I wrote during his section, Well, I have, I have a few notes. I said, you're telling me this guy doesn't know what an INCEL is? And then I said, copulate with females is an insane sentence. That's what the doctor says. He says, I assume you want to copulate with females. Don't say that. No one say that. And then I said, no joke. Stand up would probably fix this dude.
- [84:37]
A
I know. He's like, should I do stand up? And the doctor's like, no, you need to get hot.
- [84:43]
B
I heard that. And I was like, honestly and probably do remarkable stuff for your self comment and you'd probably get laid a lot. And that's like. So he does have a sparkling personality. He says in the show, he's like, I have a sparkling personality even though I'm ugly. And he low key does have a sparkling personality because he is not only funny. We then watch him do this dance with the girls in the bar. And I was like, I love this dude.
- [85:03]
A
I know, I know. He just needs like a supportive community to nurture these nice aspects of himself instead of the aspects that just like want to kill people. And he eventually becomes like a hired hand for this, this Anthony Ramos character.
- [85:18]
B
Oh right. He's murderous underneath all of it. We discover he loves just killing people and that's he's been waiting for this opportunity. That's what he really will build his self esteem is being hot and also then murdering other hot people.
- [85:31]
A
Yeah.
- [85:32]
B
Yep.
- [85:33]
A
You know what will build your self esteem? Just. Just killing people. Which is, you know, incidentally, I think what ICE recruiters are telling people, they're like recruiting lonely men who want to feel powerful. But anyway, I feel like there's a lot of other eugenicsy stuff in here, whether As a joke, but it doesn't really function as a joke because what's the joke?
- [85:58]
B
You're not saying there's no punch.
- [85:59]
A
The doctor is like, you're ugly. It's the fault of your mother and father's chromosomes.
- [86:05]
B
Yes.
- [86:06]
A
And he says, this is a direct quote.
- [86:08]
B
It's not your fault.
- [86:09]
A
It's your literal bones that make you unfuckable.
- [86:12]
B
I wrote. I wrote down exactly that.
- [86:15]
A
Oh, my God.
- [86:16]
B
I wrote down the. Hold on. I wrote down the whole thing. It's your literal bones that make you unfuckable and keep you from the happiness you're entitled to. I wrote that down because it was. It. It was so insane. You're entitled to.
- [86:31]
A
And I mean, like, I could see these lines being useful in a show that has something to say about the fact, totally, that this entitlement exists in the world and these kind of men exist in the world, whatever, but it just does not seem to be saying anything.
- [86:47]
B
No, the thing that they have to say is like, yeah, that's true.
- [86:50]
A
And you are entitled to this.
- [86:51]
B
You are entitled to that happiness, and you are a fuck. Because if you're literal bones, because of.
- [86:58]
A
Your chromosomes and your bones, you will never find happiness.
- [87:02]
B
I think it's so wild. It's amazing. 1.
- [87:06]
A
The other thing that I did find kind of interesting that I, like, would enjoy an exploration of, and I don't think we're gonna get, is that there is a constant repetition of the idea that beauty is pain. Like, literally, they say that line.
- [87:19]
B
They say it in the first episode.
- [87:20]
A
And then when this. This incel character is at the doctor who's going to, like, give him the shot or plastic surgery, he says, you will be free from your pain once you're beautiful. And I do think there's an interesting interplay there between types of pain and what kind of pain we're willing to endure. And, like, the physical pain of beauty as a mirror of the emotional or psychological pain we're in because of beauty culture. Like, that would be interesting to me, but they're not doing anything interesting with it. They're just, like, hitting you over the head with these, like, cliches.
- [87:56]
B
Yes. And also, Anthony Ramos gives the incel kid, like, a whole speech about, like, the pain of being ugly. And I'm just like, bitch. He knows. Like, why do you think he took this formula to begin? Like, you're preaching to the choir, buddy. Like, I don't get the point of that monologue. He's like, I know acutely, actually.
- [88:14]
A
Okay, you had some Very interesting points that I don't think we hit on yet about what these people are choosing to do with their hotness. Once they get the beauty, they're choosing.
- [88:25]
B
To work, which drives me out of my mind. The whole show. I was screaming at the television because they are choosing jobs, and you have two years. Did we say that? When you get that when you take the beauty or whatever by accident or by choice, either way, you have two years to live as.
- [88:41]
A
Like, you know they only have two years. Right. I don't think they know they have two years.
- [88:47]
B
Maybe not, but they're certainly starting to get the picture as each one of them explodes across the globe. Surely you're starting to think, first, they.
- [88:54]
A
Do not know they have two years, but they get into these hot bodies, and they're like, I know what I'm gonna use my hotness to do. I'm gonna work as an infant at the Vogue accessories closet.
- [89:04]
B
Okay, well, that. That was the next. They already lost me with their first two examples of people who are, like, doing this and then blowing up are Bella Hadid and then another influencer girl. But both of them are models. And I'm like, so you decided to become the other hottest person alive to model. You want to, like, one of the most ungrateful, grueling. Yeah. Unpleasant jobs where everyone's super hot. So I don't even see how you would be guaranteed to be, like, the best model. No.
- [89:29]
A
Like, you'd still have to have something interesting that says.
- [89:32]
B
And you're competing against other beautified people for it.
- [89:35]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [89:36]
B
The other models are also beautified, so.
- [89:38]
A
You don't even have that industry to enter.
- [89:42]
B
And. And to what end? To what end? I just don't understand. Like, you are hot. Just, like, get rich people to pay for your life and, like, flaunt, you know, jaunt around, be on a yacht. Like, be in a bikini somewhere. You don't need to be laboring as a model.
- [89:57]
A
It.
- [89:57]
B
And model isn't just a. Well, this is my own personal axe to grind. But being a model is not just about being hot. Modeling is a skill set.
- [90:04]
A
Yeah.
- [90:04]
B
It's a specific skill.
- [90:07]
A
Look at all those beautiful girls on America's Next Top Model who just could.
- [90:11]
B
Not take terrible photos. Yeah, but it's true. I mean, I've worked on sets with professional supermodels, and when you see a supermodel at work, it will really click in your brain, like, oh, right, she's doing something that most normal people don't have the gift to do. Yeah. I can't change my expression with every click of the camera and give you a different attitude and posture and fate. Like, I can't. No. And that's why they're the professionals. Beyond being insanely. Anyway, that's my own problem. I don't understand working as a hopper. I don't understand that being an aspiration. And then we meet Amelia Gray, who's doing a cameo in this, and she is not, get this, she is not even the accessories editor at Vogue. She's an aspiring accessories editor at Vogue, which makes me think she's the accessories intern. So she took the beauty two years ago.
- [90:59]
A
Two years ago.
- [91:01]
B
To be the hottest accessory intern at Vogue. You have labored in a closet at being very hot for two years to what? I don't get it.
- [91:10]
A
No, it doesn't make sense. It just. It simply doesn't make sense. Like, that's not even a prestigious job. No.
- [91:19]
B
You're telling me your beauty didn't even get you ahead? Like, isn't the point of being this so hot is that it just, like, gets you ahead without having to about worry, work so hard? Like, why weren't you promoted the second they saw how gorgeous you are? Like, put you in the front of house at Vogue or something, get you.
- [91:31]
A
On a set, becomes part of the show where it's like, see, even if you're hot, it's not that much of an advantage. But I don't think that's where we're going.
- [91:39]
B
I'm telling you, it's not coming. They're never going to get there. That is not the moral of the story. That is not where we're going.
- [91:44]
A
I do think I'll continue watching because I want to know what they're doing with it.
- [91:47]
B
Well, now I'm in so deep angry about it.
- [91:50]
A
Yeah, I'm gonna.
- [91:52]
B
Three. I'm in three episodes deep. I also made a note in episode two, which episode two is 24 minutes long. And I said, yeah, I said, you know that this show has absolutely no plot or purpose for existing because this episode is 24 minutes long and they are straight up languishing on these extra long fight scenes, action scenes.
- [92:12]
A
I was like, it's like a parody of something. Because they just kept going on for so.
- [92:16]
B
So no one speaking. You're not learning anything. The plot is not being advanced. Like, you don't need to see this scene and the sex scenes too, for as long as you are. And they're just, like, lingering on them. And I was like, right, because they're trying to spread out material. It's the least amount of plot spread out across the most amount of episodes I've ever seen in a TV show. It's crazy.
- [92:36]
A
I watched this morning, like, in the background while I was working on something else. And I remember looking up, like, 45 minutes later, and I was like, oh, all the episodes are done. Like, did my TV malfunction? I was like, no, they really are.
- [92:49]
B
The episodes are that short, and nothing's happening in any of them. I also wrote Free Evan Peters at one point. Like, I don't understand how he got trapped in this Ryan Murphy circle of hell. And to me, I always see Evan Peters. And maybe I just feel this way because I'm nostalgic about his performances in early seasons of American Horror Story. But to me, Evan Peters should have the career of Jesse Plemons. Like, he is that good of an actor and that type of actor. To me, that they should be on the same trajectory. And instead, he is just trapped in this nightmare programming. And also, they have got to let him stop speaking foreign languages on this show. I've never heard he's not good. I've never heard worse French spoken on a TV show. And then the Italian, just, like, a new level of bad. And I think I'm also being, like, extra ungracious to it because we just saw heated rivalry where that boy learned Russian in, like, two weeks. And he did it perfectly.
- [93:44]
A
I've seen clips. And then I saw an interview clip of him being like, yeah, I got the job. And I just learned in a week. And then.
- [93:49]
B
And he literally is doing perfect Russian, like, with a little American accent, but largely, incredibly good. And if he can do that, and there is no excuse for the French and Italian I'm hearing on this show. These people don't even need to be speaking French and Italian to begin with. All the people they're speaking to speak English, and they later. They go on in the show to later speak English to each other.
- [94:09]
A
I don't know why are we doing. Why is anything in the show happening the way it is?
- [94:14]
B
I don't know. What else do I have to say? Meghan Trainor is good at acting. That's what I have to say.
- [94:18]
A
Oh, yeah, there is a Meghan Trainor and Ben Platt. They both have cameos as. Yeah. As Vogue employees in the Conde Nast lunchroom. And she is. She is quite good.
- [94:32]
B
I think. She's a star, and I don't know why. She doesn't need to be a pop star. We don't need to hear her music anymore. But I do think we should cast her in. She was very funny to me. I thought she did a really good job. Yeah. In a show where no one's doing a good job, it really stands out.
- [94:47]
A
Yeah. Is that it? I think. I think that might.
- [94:51]
B
I think it's about. I think that's most of my. I think that's most of my points of contention. I'm just looking over quickly to see if there's anything. Oh, I did look up. I looked up the. The Egyptian hieroglyphics for beauty.
- [95:05]
A
Oh, yeah. Okay. Tell me. Tell me about that.
- [95:08]
B
So for those who haven't watched the show, one of the. One of the girls, she doesn't explode. She's, like, ritually sacrificed, which I assume is Anthony. We're supposed to guess as Anthony Ramos is doing, and he paints with her blood a symbol on the wall that they discover is the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic nefer, which they say means beauty. And, like, it sort of is kind of what Wikipedia taught me. It's like beauty is its secondary meaning. Its primary meaning is perfect, complete. Oh, and then the extended meaning of nefer is good, pleasant, well, and beautiful. And so you often. What I didn't put together, which I actually think is more interesting. And I wonder if the show. I mean, I'm sure they won't get into this, but it would be nice if they did. Nefer in ancient Egyptian was often used as a prefix on names. So that's where you get Nefertiti.
- [96:05]
A
Nefertiti. Yeah, yeah.
- [96:06]
B
And I was like, oh, that is actually very interesting. And it would be interesting if anyone said that on the TV show, and I don't think they ever will. But also what I thought was very interesting is the symbol itself. Like, Egyptologists have discovered that they believe that the symbol itself is meant to represent the heart and the trachea. Oh, in the body. Interesting, because it mimics. Yeah. I don't know. You have to look at it, I guess, for people to understand what the symbol looks like. But the. The triangle at the bottom is the heart. And then when you have the. The tube up being the trachea. And then in other versions of the symbol, there are lines to either side that are supposed to be. I forget what they said, like, the. The vocal cords or something. Anyway.
- [96:49]
A
Okay.
- [96:49]
B
I thought that was very interesting. And none of this has anything to do with the show. It's not.
- [96:53]
A
Well, I mean, I guess the. The perfection or ending. Completion.
- [96:56]
B
Completion, I thought was very interesting.
- [96:59]
A
And beauty are interesting in the fact that beauty is messaged as literal death.
- [97:04]
B
Yeah.
- [97:04]
A
This show again.
- [97:06]
B
Yeah.
- [97:06]
A
One of my big 2026 predictions. We're just totally death everywhere.
- [97:11]
B
Yeah, yeah. Completion in terms of like, yeah, your life completion as well. I think it's very interesting. Oh, and then I just had a note where I said, why? What is the obsession with, like, sexual acts taking place over the telephone? We have Ashton Kutcher getting a blowjob to completion. Like, even though he's the one who made the phone call.
- [97:30]
A
Yeah.
- [97:31]
B
Like, he calls Anthony Ramos at the beginning of the blowjob and then completes the blowjob on the phone call while he's, like, trying to tell him to go kill someone. So I don't know why that needed to happen. And then we call the incel guy while he's fucking that girl.
- [97:43]
A
Right.
- [97:43]
B
And he has the entire phone conversation while he's having sex to completion. I just thought that was a very weird thing to see twice. It is for no reason, for no reason at all.
- [97:54]
A
A hallmark of the beauty.
- [97:57]
B
And then maybe, I guess my last note, I just said, sorry, Ryan Murphy, but you are not for a second about to reclaim the song Teardrop by Massive Attack and pretend that it is not the opening theme song to House Maryland.
- [98:08]
A
Oh, my gosh. Yes.
- [98:10]
B
You're not. You're just not going to rebrand that. Sorry, that's the House MD Theme song. And having a cover of it isn't going to make me forget that. No, you don't get to use that in your show.
- [98:18]
A
Actually, that is for Dr. Gregory House and Dr. Gregory House only.
- [98:23]
B
That's what I said. That was my note.
- [98:25]
A
That is King Hugh Laurie and only him.
- [98:29]
B
Not on my watch. That's it. That's all I have to say.
- [98:34]
A
Okay, well.
- [98:35]
B
And if anyone can, Beauty, but don't watch the beauty. Oh, I did have one question. Are hot people getting free French fries at Applebee's? Is that the lesson I was supposed to take away from that? Because they do get free french fries. And I was like, like, excuse me. Beauty privilege? No, pretty privilege.
- [98:49]
A
I don't know. I mean, I've never experienced it, so I can't say.
- [98:54]
B
Well, we haven't been beautified, though, so we don't know. And also, if anyone can tell me where Anthony Ramos's boots are from, I would love to own them. They're so gorgeous. They're so gorgeous. They're the most gorgeous shoe I've seen in a thousand years.
- [99:09]
A
That's all you should look up. Who does the costuming and then DM them.
- [99:13]
B
That's a great point.
- [99:14]
A
Urine. They'll get back to you immediately. They're going to want the coverage. Mess of the month.
- [99:22]
B
Yes, Mess of the month. And I've, I've had a last minute change to my mess of the month and it's. Well, you know, it's Brian Johnson.
- [99:30]
A
Oh. Oh my gosh. Yes. The most beautiful mess we have.
- [99:35]
B
The most beautiful mess that we have. Our fave. Our personal fave of the podcast. Well, this started because I shared with Jess a screenshot of a long screed that he wrote on social media in tribute to his new love. He revealed in December that he's dating Kate Tolo, who is the co founder of his longevity startup Blueprint, and quite possibly the only woman in the world sympathetic to what he's getting up to and the, and the strict rules that control his life. And he also said that he's been waiting 25 years to have a girlfriend.
- [100:12]
A
So I mean, he was married, he has children. That's insane. This is a divorced man with like a 20 year old child.
- [100:24]
B
I forgot about that part of the story. Yeah, well, he's been waiting 25 years for real love, Jaz. Oh my God. And I'm just happy that all of them. His measuring of his erections is finally paying off and he's being put to good use.
- [100:37]
A
We know exactly what they're getting up to.
- [100:40]
B
Also, did you know that he recently said that he's going to achieve immortality by 2039? I didn't know that he had put a date on it and that. It's so close.
- [100:49]
A
After. After you share this story, I have some like, shameful blueprint sleuthing that I've done to share.
- [100:56]
B
Okay, fantastic. And so I originally I was going to read you guys the. The Instagram screen announcing the relationship and their reunion. And then while I was looking for it, I found out that he straight up wrote erotica about their. Their. His copulation with females, to put it in beauty terms. And so instead I'm going to do a reading of the erotica he wrote for his love. And I apologize in advance, but I had to read it and so now everyone has to hear it. And I think he deserves his own heated rivalry spin off since we've been talking heated rivalry like the Longevity.
- [101:35]
A
Yeah.
- [101:36]
B
And Endless Love. How about that?
- [101:40]
A
Perfect.
- [101:41]
B
Thank you so much. Okay. Are you ready?
- [101:45]
A
I'm so ready.
- [101:46]
B
As ready as you'll ever be.
- [101:47]
A
I'm so ready.
- [101:49]
B
He published this on social media. I just need everyone to know this is free for the public to read. My hand slides under her shirt, tracing the contours of her spine. The slow, deliberate movement ignites her mechanoreceptors, generating a current that speaks safety and pleasure. Microbursts lift the skin into goosebumps. Her hair stands perpendicular, increasing the drag of my fingertips. I'm really trying not to laugh. I'm so sorry. She asks for more. My left hand anchors the curve of her waist, pulling her close. My arms establish a perimeter of safety, holding back the world's chaos. The warmth soothes and excites. Her vagus nerve activates, pulling her breath down deep and slow. For days we've architected this moment in messages. Our imaginations have already lived this. The pent up energy radiates. My heart aches with affection for this woman. Her nervous system knows it is the architecture of her cognition that pulls me in. She is Van Gogh, painting the world with the turbulence of possibility. Light pours in her mind, refracts it into color, shattering the monochrome of the status quo. My lips brush her cheek. My hands hold the nape of her neck. The firm pressure asks her. The firm. I lost my spot. The firm pressure asks her prefrontal cortex to stand down. She surrenders. This sacred entrance is earned. Ew. A thousand acts of reliability and trust. Proceedings. I whisper that she's been missed, that I've longed. Deep within her cells, chromatin relaxes, inviting repair. Wholeness saturates us. My lips press against hers. Sensual want cascades through our nervous systems. My primitive brain tastes her chemistry, decoding the ancient immunological match. My hand glides over her abdomen. It's getting worse. My hand glides over her abdomen to caress her breasts. Her breath pulses, ragged and sharp, as her limbic system overrides the conscious mind. I circle the delicate skin of the areola. My fingertips graze the nipple. The tissue contracts and hardens. A current travels inward, awakening her. She's wet, though her body is not yet ready for entry. Nor am I finished tapping out the patterns of affection. We're not done.
- [104:36]
A
Literally tearing.
- [104:39]
B
I slowly we're going to completion, everyone, so bear with me. I slowly trace my hand down her body, mapping the terrain. I stop. It is calculated. Her hips rise, searching for the lost momentum. She makes a sound, half frustration, half plea. I'm in awe of the creation before me. I continue taking a new route, brushing close to tease. She wants more but must wait. The tension floods her brain with dopamine. Oxytocin must follow. She craves union. Increased blood Flow pulses serum through her. The vaginal walls lubricating. Her cervix begins to tent. Sexy. Lifting the uterus in preparation. Too soon and pain dominates. In concert with the symphony of her body, bliss awaits. Wait for it. Her vestibular bulbs engorge, forming a soft pressurized cuff. Her anatomy has remodeled itself for the dance. We merge our brain. Our brain signals collapse into synchrony. Phase locking. No longer are we distinct neural patterns, but one shared waveform. Rhythmic motion now resolves as music. Beads of sweat surface as we sway in concordance. Want washes over us, commanding all our ego's quiet as the frontal cortex dims. Future past and death evaporate. Now is all that exists. We are transported into the tesseract, floating in and out of each other. Grass.
- [106:21]
A
I can't believe this is still happening.
- [106:24]
B
It's still happening. We're reaching a crescendo. Can't you tell? Gravitational waves of motion collapse. A music of rapture. We climb toward the peak. Descend again. Please just get to the peak. Maintaining perfect tension. Her legs wrap around me, demanding more. Boundaries are erased. Full body release weights and suspended agony. Yet we stubbornly refuse to concede there is an end. We will grow young together. She ascends. The pelvic floor contracts rhythmically. A tidal wave of oxytocin lands ashore. Bonding. What logic cannot break. Hunger vanishes as prolactin signals all consuming satisfaction. The cervix dips. The uterus contracts, drawing in the possibility of new life. Sex. Nope. We lie together, interwoven. Her head rests on my chest as I trace the sheen on her back. Outside this room, entropy reigns. Inside this room, inside this room, our union commands repair. Decay retreats. Our deep companionship has been earned. We bathe in the quiet certainty that we are one. They fell from grace because they sought knowledge. We seek knowledge to claw our way back in. Oh my God.
- [107:49]
A
Oh, Brian Johnson. I really think he is doing some of the most exhilarating and strange body writing on the Internet today.
- [108:01]
B
I mean, clearly I agree.
- [108:03]
A
I am in awe of this man, truly. And I'm in awe of this woman. That she's liking this and she's allowing this. To let him publish these. These details to the world.
- [108:18]
B
So many details. So many details. So medical.
- [108:22]
A
It's just like. It's like kind of. It's. I'm like simultaneously like depressed and just like. I. I don't know, it kind of makes me feel like.
- [108:37]
B
Happy that you're speechless.
- [108:38]
A
I'm speechless because it's like I find it so beautiful and so depressing that he's been able to turn like falling in love into this like this medical benefit. Like he's so happy to have sex with her because it's so good for their bodies and their.
- [108:54]
B
Well, I. I mean I wrote this in my newsletter with the original announcement is. It's like it's very difficult to differentiate with him. Like, do you love this woman or do you love the health benefits that being in love imparts upon you?
- [109:07]
A
Yeah, it's hard to tell.
- [109:09]
B
There's a lot of benefits that come from being in love and being in sexual connection and relationship with someone else. And it seems like he loves the anti aging properties of that. I would say maybe more than he loves the real companionship of a. Of a human woman.
- [109:23]
A
Yeah.
- [109:25]
B
Which I just find fascinating. And also I find fascinating that like much like everything about the blueprint project, like the erotica, like he's imagined to. To take away everything that is like erotic or human about it.
- [109:41]
A
Messy. Yeah.
- [109:42]
B
Yeah. And like it's so interesting to me to want to live forever by eliminating all of the like fun human parts of living. And he's now done that with sex. It's just like an extension, I guess, of like the. The joylessness of living forever.
- [109:57]
A
Yes, completely.
- [109:59]
B
I love it. I think it's incredible. I think you should write a book. I think you should write erotic fiction.
- [110:03]
A
If he's listening. Brian Johnson, this is what you should be putting on your sub stack. He has you read it.
- [110:10]
B
Oh no.
- [110:12]
A
It's fascinating. But he is not putting his erotica on there.
- [110:16]
B
He should.
- [110:16]
A
And he absolutely should. Like this would go viral. What he's putting now is not necessarily doing numbers yet.
- [110:24]
B
And he's still like mixing in his weird little like longevity agenda in there. But I think there's a more palatable, insane way of doing it, which is this stuff. The stuff that he writes for his girlfriend is so wild. Everyone would read it.
- [110:37]
A
It's fresh, it's new, it's exciting. He's a new literary IT boy on the scene. If he starts publishing this on Substack, I believe.
- [110:44]
B
Totally.
- [110:45]
A
I was very intrigued by all of this and I went to the blueprint website and I did not know that he has his own skincare line. Yeah, I'm very intrigued to try. I'm like, should I do an experiment where I do like a month of Brian Johnson skin care and see what happens? They have a meal delivery service. I'm like, what if I eat like Brian Johnson for a week? I kind of Just want to try it all and write it off on my taxes.
- [111:13]
B
Please do.
- [111:14]
A
And do an experiment of living like Brian Johnson. But I have to say the funniest thing about his website. On all of the products they have like this chart where it's like the blueprint product versus other brands. And it's like clinical trials like blueprint check other brands. No safe ingredients. You know, Blueprint check other brands. No one of them is used by Brian Johnson. Blueprint check other brands.
- [111:43]
B
No.
- [111:43]
A
It's so funny. I'm.
- [111:47]
B
I love what they're doing by myself.
- [111:49]
A
Marketing wise and I think I am going to.
- [111:52]
B
I desperately need you to live like Brian Johnson for a month. But you have to do the full protocol. You have to do everything. And will John let you write about your sex life like this?
- [112:00]
A
Because, you know, I think John would. I think he would be supportive of me. I would just have to delete his parents from the mailing list.
- [112:11]
B
Right.
- [112:12]
A
Of the newsletter.
- [112:13]
B
But you also have to make it clear to them that this is for science.
- [112:17]
A
This is science.
- [112:17]
B
It's not for your relationship or for love or like for your longevity. This is for science.
- [112:23]
A
This is for science. I think they will not understand. But it's okay. I'll hide it from them. And John and I will be having a conversation this evening.
- [112:31]
B
Beautiful. I support you.
- [112:35]
A
Okay. On a little bit of a more distress sparing note, my mess of the month is the influencers, brand founders, general beauty people who are earnestly engaging in anti ICE posts on social media, posting about calling your representatives, how you can help people in Minnesota coming out against the horrific actions of ICE while wearing their own products or products you can buy through their affiliate links. In terms of under eye patches with the brand logo on them, pimple patches, etc. I see particularly distasteful when it's coming from like a person who owns that brand.
- [113:28]
B
Sure.
- [113:28]
A
Like it feels just so weird and disrespectful. Especially, especially in posts about like Renee Goode, Alex, these people who have died at the hands of ice and we're posting about it and we're also simultaneously turning it into an ad. And just something about seeing that makes me feel so gross. And I'm like, I, I'm at war with myself because it's like I don't want to promote infighting. Like these are clearly people on the side of.
- [114:04]
B
Right. Good. Right.
- [114:06]
A
The like ice. I agree ideologically, yeah. However you're getting the word out, however you're talking about it, however you're raising funds, however you're like getting people to talk to the representatives. Great. But I just, I don't know. Something about it is so gross to like have that type of content double as an undisclosed ad for your Absolutely brand.
- [114:32]
B
Absolutely. And yeah, it also feels like an extension of. I made this joke on Substack the other day, but it does feel like an extension of this, which is. I said it's the TikTok shopification of civil War. And it does feel like an extension because we are currently seeing people on TikTok like selling gas masks and pepper spray and. And what do they call those things you put on your knuckles? Why am I forgetting the word? You know what I'm talking about where you like brass knuckles? Brass knuckles. That's literally the word I couldn't think of. They're selling brass knuckles and stuff all under the guise of like, oh, like, you need to protect yourself. Yeah, we have to like, fight back against ice. And I'm like, you're saying the right stuff and you're doing it to like, do a QVC product promotion so you make money off of ice and fear.
- [115:23]
A
It really reminds me of how like, the pandemic was assimilated into content and consumerism so quickly. And it's exploiting these moments of chaos and selling control of the body at the same time as a coping mechanism and at the same time insulating your brand and the consumerism you're promoting from critique. Because it's like, I'm doing the right thing. I'm promoting a good cause and this.
- [115:49]
B
Is not making money off of it.
- [115:51]
A
Critiqueable. And it's like, I don't want to critique it. I don't want to, like. But I feel really weird about it. But it did remind me of, you know, simulacra and simulation where it's like all expression has been absorbed into the form of the ad that like, no matter what we choose to express and how we express it in this era, it does and inevitably will sort of function as an ad for something that.
- [116:23]
B
There is no anti capitalism because everything becomes capitalism in the end. Like, everything right is. Is worked back into the market.
- [116:30]
A
Even hashtag boycott, boycott. You know, turning that into the boycott into consumerism. It's just like inescapable. But anyway, yeah, I've just, I don't know, I've been feeling obviously just so horrified by what they. Going on in this country and in Minnesota specifically. And I just, I don't know. There's no reprieve even on the, even on the videos and the content that is like, supposedly encouraging moral action. It's like. But also there's a product you can buy and there's something you can do to your body to feel good about how out of control the world is.
- [117:11]
B
Yeah, well. And as we were talking in our. Our most recent book club, you know, the body is always a site of enacting control in the times when you feel most out of control.
- [117:22]
A
I think completely. I have. Did you read Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein? She wrote about it a bit in Doppelganger, about how, like, times of, like, political unrest become these, like, opportunities for, for capitalism and corporations to exploit your shock and your vulnerability. And I've. I think I'm gonna read it because I'm interested in, like, the, the beauty aspect of that specifically, especially as we look back at the effects of like, the pandemic or the murder of George Floyd and how all of that like, like really change the industry in. In some, some good ways. In some very concerning ways, I think. But yeah, that's what I've been thinking about lately.
- [118:17]
B
Cool.
- [118:17]
A
Yeah. Sorry to end on a. A real bummer note.
- [118:21]
B
It's okay. I already. I'm sure everyone already turned the podcast off after I got like three lines into the Brian Johnson erotica, so I'm sure no one even heard that part.
- [118:30]
A
It was so good and so long. So long.
- [118:34]
B
We need to.
- [118:35]
A
We need to work on some brevity. As do we. We're coming up on two hours, baby. So thank you to everyone who stuck around and listened to all of this. If you liked what you heard, you know, like the podcast, leave us a review on Apple podcasts or whatever. Comment on Spotify. I always love seeing or YouTube.
- [118:56]
B
We're on YouTube.
- [118:57]
A
Yeah, we're on YouTube now you can.
- [118:59]
B
Watch us talk about all this stuff and you can leave lovely little comments on there.
- [119:03]
A
I'm trying to get better about my on camera presence, but I just can't stop, like, sipping my coffee while we talk. So. Sorry if that's distracting. Whatever.
- [119:13]
B
I gotta live my life.
- [119:14]
A
Yeah. Gotta do it. Okay.
- [119:16]
B
Gotta have my java.
- [119:18]
A
All right, we will see you next month.
- [119:22]
B
Bye. Bye.