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- [00:16]
A
Hello, and welcome to the Review of Mess, a podcast dedicated to discussing the highs and lows of pop culture. Every month. I'm Jessica Defino, and I write the newsletter the Review of Beauty.
- [00:27]
B
And I'm like.
- [00:27]
A
Oh, I was going to say soon to be renamed. It might be renamed by the time this comes out.
- [00:32]
B
Oh, really? That's a scoop. That's an exclusive. Do you want to announce the name now? I'm stepping on your toes.
- [00:39]
A
No, I stepped on your toes. Introduce yourself. Please tell the people who you are.
- [00:43]
B
I'm Emily Kirkpatrick. I write a little newsletter called I Heart Mess, and my name is not changing. It'll be exactly that by the time you're listening to this.
- [00:51]
A
Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, I'll. I'll announce the new name. The new name is Flesh World, and it is the name that I wanted to rename my newsletter last year, over a year ago, and I didn't listen to my gut, and it was a bad choice, and I'm pivoting. I'm pivoting. It's fine.
- [01:09]
B
And you're always allowed to pivot.
- [01:11]
A
Yeah.
- [01:11]
B
And if anyone hates the name, that's my fault.
- [01:14]
A
Yeah. No, Emily really encouraged me.
- [01:16]
B
I will take all responsibility for it because I have been egging this on a thousand percent. I think Fletch World is so cool and funny and a perfect representation of what you do, I think.
- [01:26]
A
I do think it's the most accurate, tonally, of all of the many newsletter names I've had so far. I think this one feels the most aligned.
- [01:36]
B
Yeah. I think it's a little Cronenberg. I think it's a little bit substance. You know, it gets, I think, the scarier, grosser kind of goal that you have on beauty.
- [01:45]
A
Yeah. And also kind of, like a little, like, wittier. You know, I think for a while, I really wanted to be, like, intellectual and academic, and unfortunately, my writing just never matched up to the academic tone of my name.
- [02:03]
B
Oh, please. You're incredibly academic.
- [02:05]
A
Oh, thank you. But, yeah, both of us are pivoting together in a different way.
- [02:12]
B
Academia.
- [02:13]
A
To academia, Actually, Yes. Yes.
- [02:16]
B
This is how we announce that we're getting PhDs. Kidding. We're not getting PhDs. I would never spend my money on education in that way. Sorry, Dr. Mass. I do want to be called Dr. Mass. Now that you say that, though, maybe I should pivot to Ph.D. so just so I can make people call me Dr. Mass. People on Instagram have started referring. They don't know my name, I guess, so they've started referring to me as Mess. And it's very funny to me every time. I love that I see, like, secondhand conversations about, well, Mess doesn't really think that. You know, it's like, oh, okay. Oh, that's my name now.
- [02:45]
A
Chic.
- [02:46]
B
Yeah, that's my new name. Oh. But we are pivoting sort of to academia. We're launching a book club. Have we announced that on the podcast?
- [02:53]
A
We've talked about it, but it's getting closer, and we're contemplating names for the book club daily. So hopefully we'll have something for you.
- [03:05]
B
Many thoughts, and we're looking to hone in on one very shortly. If you have any suggestions, please let us know. We're very open to them. But we will be launching Name regardless in September. Yeah, and it's. Again, I don't remember if we talked about this or not, but. So it's going to. I'm just going to reiterate everything. It's going to be like a lot of art theory and literary theory and just kind of like critical analysis, and then either of fashion and beauty, or we're going to apply it to fashion and beauty, and we're going to have, like, a little monthly zoom, and we're going to talk with everyone about it, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I love reading this type of stuff, and I think, you know, Jess and I are already in a little mini book club reading Ways of Seeing. And the impact already that just. I mean, Ways of Seeing is incredible. That's what I learned every week.
- [03:51]
A
And I love all your writing on it.
- [03:52]
B
Thank you.
- [03:55]
A
It's prompted a big wave of new Emily content.
- [03:59]
B
Yeah. So the essay Industrial Complex is really churning out over on Mess. Mess is churning out some real academic thinking currently. But, yeah, just the impact it's had on my work has already been so profound. And just the way it has affected my thinking and the way that I. Literally, the way that I see, it's been. It's been really interesting and profound, and I. I forget how much I like academics. I think a lot of my life has been a backlash to my college experience, which was, like, so rigorously academic and critical and, like, serious thought. I don't know that I've. I've been avoiding it for a long time, but I love it. It's really helpful, and I think it'll be helpful to talk about with all of you.
- [04:39]
A
It's so funny because I think my career has been a backlash to my education as well, but I studied, like, songwriting and Piano playing.
- [04:50]
B
Yeah.
- [04:50]
A
And so I've. Mine comes from an inferiority complex of never having read anything, like, particularly rigorous in college. But, yeah, our little book club that we're doing now has been great because it's like, we obviously, both of us read these kinds of things on our own. Like, it shows up in our work all the time, but there is just something about discussing it with. With other people that just really adds to the experience.
- [05:14]
B
Yeah. And I'm. Yeah. And just hearing other people's thoughts and other people's perspectives or even honestly, like, what other people are confused about or, like, what their pain points are in the reading is, like, so helpful for just, like, widening your own purview on. Yeah. The work you do. I. I mean, I know this already. Just talking about pop culture is like, I am so lost in the sauce. Like, I am so hyper online and hyper informed that I genuinely forget that, like, people don't have the backlog of information that I do and that I need to be, like, laying things out more clearly. And so I think, again, yeah, with stuff like this, having those conversations, I'm like, oh, right, yeah, let's all get on the same page with that stuff so we can all have the same types of conversations. Because that's always the goal of my work, I think, is educating people so that we can have deep space, serious conversations with the. With the same knowledge and background.
- [06:02]
A
Yes, totally. I think it's gonna be good. I'm very excited.
- [06:05]
B
Yeah, I'm excited, too. So look out for that. Whatever it's going to be called. We'll post about it.
- [06:10]
A
We'll see. Maybe we should post a poll. Maybe we should put our top three options and post a poll on the newsletters or something.
- [06:17]
B
Yeah, that's fun. Yeah.
- [06:18]
A
We could ignore people's preferences, of course.
- [06:21]
B
As we always do.
- [06:26]
A
Oh, gosh. Should we get in? Should we get into our first topic of the day?
- [06:30]
B
Absolutely. This is a topic that I was really loathe to bring up in my newsletter, but it's such, like. It's one of those crossover moments where, like, fashion hits the mainstream in such a funny way, where suddenly everyone has, like, an expert opinion on it. And that is, of course, the first images we received of Ryan Murphy's American Love Story, showing us what his version of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and JFK Jr. Are going to look like. And people were not, not a fan, to put it lightly.
- [07:00]
A
Everyone's a Carolyn Bessette Kennedy expert. I found out.
- [07:03]
B
Yeah, they are. They know her wardrobe to a t. They know those references. They know those designers. Yeah, everybody's an expert. It reminds me of the Met gala every year where suddenly I'm only speaking to an Internet full of fashion experts and who have an opinion, an expert opinion on everything. And I'm always like, oh, okay. Where were y' all the rest of the year? Kind of been looking for ya. No worries. Glad you're touched on now. But. So, yeah, Ryan Murphy, he posted a couple of images of his two lead actors, who are Paul Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon. Pidgeon. I don't know. And people were upset, I think kind of rightfully so, given what those images contain. For those who haven't seen them, they're just. They are the Lifetime movie version of the Passette Kennedy.
- [07:51]
A
Yeah.
- [07:51]
B
It reminded me of. Do you remember when Lifetime made that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle movie?
- [07:57]
A
Yes.
- [07:58]
B
Remember those first. It feels very like that to me where, like, it's just a little uncanny about, like, nobody looks quite like the person they're supposed to look like. The outfits, for some reason, look like they were acquired in a mall in 2025 instead of in the 90s. I don't know. Everything's just, like, a little off, a little too shiny and glossy and weird.
- [08:18]
A
A little too blonde.
- [08:20]
B
A little too blonde, yes. As we found out, Vogue somehow wrangled Carolyn Bassett, Kennedy's old, who really dished about exactly how wrong that shade of blonde is for her former client, which I thought was a very funny piece of investigative journalism.
- [08:36]
A
Right. Well, it's also just very funny that this colorist is around. And were they not involved in American Love Story? Like, has Ryan Murphy not retained them?
- [08:47]
B
We'll dig into what Ryan is saying about all of this, but according to Ryan, he does have some sort of, like, consortium of experts weighing in on. He said he has about 10 people on a panel dissecting all of this and making sure it's accurate and doing justice to her legacy. But apparently this colorist didn't make the cut, and I feel like he might want to invite her in to do a little 101 on how we. How we get this blonde. Because I would agree that was my first takeaway. Like, fashion aside, I. First of all, as I wrote in my newsletter, why does anyone expect Ryan Murphy to do anything of, like, any caliber? Like, are we not watching the same productions?
- [09:25]
A
That's what was, like, the most funny to me. It's like, what are we expecting out of the American Horror Story?
- [09:31]
B
Exactly. Why is he suddenly being held to the highest possible Bar of realism. Like, that is not what I tune into a Ryan Murphy production for.
- [09:39]
A
And, like, as a Lifetime fan, I was, like, actually pretty charmed by the images. I was like, oh, this is fun.
- [09:46]
B
Yeah, it's like, it's gonna be bad. Exactly the way a Ryan Murphy production is always bad. Yes. And I say that, too. As a Lifetime fan of Ryan Murphy, I have consumed all of this man's, like, every genre of slop that he puts out. I consume it. So I know better than anybody, like, I don't have any expectation of him. It's going to be corny and it's going to be wrong and it's going to be bad, and it's somehow going to be insulting to everyone's legacy involved, because that's what he does. Did we not watch American Crime Stories together?
- [10:13]
A
Like, the genius thing about this is, like, that is what the people want for. For all the complaining that's happening. People want.
- [10:20]
B
We want slop. We want Emily in Paris slop. Like, feed us the chum bucket. Like, what are you guys talking about? You don't want, like, a beautiful, historically accurate, like, attribute to her legacy. Like, that would be boring. You wouldn't. Like, you wouldn't talk about it on the Internet also.
- [10:35]
A
Right.
- [10:35]
B
Which was a big. I saw you put this in the notes, but it was a big point of conversation about just how genuine Ryan was about sharing these photos. Like, I don't know, was this really a first look? Was this really just a camera test and, like, how much of it was for, like, PR rage bait? I honestly don't think he's that savvy. Yeah, I think he meant these quite genuinely. I would even say to the point that I think camera test might be a little bit of a stretch for what these images were. I'll take his word for it, though.
- [11:11]
A
I mean, a lot of them do seem to be, like, in situ scenes.
- [11:17]
B
And into my mind, maybe images that are, like. How do I explain this? Images that were pretend taken in the TV show. You know what I mean? For publication in a pretend publication in the TV show is how I interpret these. Like, these were stills taken to be used as stills within the television show is how I interpreted them. But sure. Camera test, Yeah. I think that's a little bit of backtracking. But I do think you're right. We have to accept that that is. I mean, that's Ryan's word. He's the expert. So I don't know. We also, I mean, after these came out, we also heard from Jack Schlossberg of course, I say I'm hyper online. Jack Schlossberg is more online than I'll ever be. Anyway, he's the nephew of JFK Jr. For those who don't know. And he posted, I think, an Instagram reel or something, saying that basically no one in his family has been consulted about this show. Which, like, isn't, of course. Yeah, that's not surprising to me. And, I mean, also, he's a public figure, so there's not much they could do. Do anyway to, like, stop this from happening or to have any impact on it. But he did urge Ryan Murphy to, like, donate some of the proceeds from the show to charities. Specifically, like, charities of things that JFK Jr. Cared about, which I think is a very good point. Like, if you're going to use this man's legacy to sell a show, you might as well do something philanthropic off the back of it, which was something that he very much cared about.
- [12:42]
A
Agreed.
- [12:43]
B
And, yeah, he just said that the show is profiteering off his uncle's legacy in a grotesque way, which I think is also perfect. That is. That's kind of Ryan Murphy's MO Is profiteering off legacies in grotesque ways, I would say.
- [12:56]
A
And there's always, like, a big uproar about it every time he does a new show, I feel. And nothing really changes because I think the shows are, like, very successful. Like, everyone's kind of up in arms about how grotesque they are. And everyone's, like, sat in front of the tv, of course.
- [13:12]
B
And I think that was the number one commentary I saw. This is people being like, this is so wrong and hideous and, like, rude to Carolyn, Bissette, Kenny. And they're like. And I will be watching myself. And Clinton doesn't come out. I will be watching. I am fascinated. I want to see how just how bad it is. I love camp. I watched all of Emily in Paris. I mean, hello.
- [13:29]
A
I've actually never seen any of the, like, American Crime Story or Love Story ones. I've only seen American Horror Story.
- [13:37]
B
Are there other American Love Story ones?
- [13:39]
A
Maybe not.
- [13:40]
B
I think that this is the first one. I could be wrong, too. He produces at a volume that, you know, is outrageous. So it's completely possible something has slipped through the cracks of my viewership. But I think this is our first American Love Story. There's been three, I want to say, American Crime Stories at this point. I watched the first two. I watched OJ And I watched Versace.
- [14:01]
A
Oh.
- [14:03]
B
And again, they were both. I enjoyed them. They were good. And they were. They were very obviously rude to the. I mean, they were very obviously disrespectful to some real people's legacies, but they were good. They were not bad. Okay. So anyway, so the Internet was so incensed and outrageous. And I mean, it wasn't just randoms commenting on this. It was like major celebrity stylists. It was like Carolyn Serpe, who's one of the biggest stylists of all time, being like, no, wrong. I was like, doing this in the 90s and you were incorrect.
- [14:34]
A
Can we get like a rundown of, like, what the. The major things that were upsetting people were?
- [14:40]
B
Oh, sure. The number one was the Birkin bag.
- [14:43]
A
Okay.
- [14:43]
B
The Birkin bag was the wrong size.
- [14:45]
A
Yes.
- [14:46]
B
Everyone knows she carried. I don't remember which. It is a 35. I think it was a 35 and she's carrying a 40 or something. It's one or the other. It's flip flopped one or the other.
- [14:54]
A
And in the pictures, it was clearly empty and deflated.
- [14:57]
B
Yes. And they're like, Carolyn would never do that. She always carried it open and full and the bottom was scratched. It's like, okay, I love that we're holding him accountable to the details of the Birkin. These details do matter to me, so I'm glad to see they matter to everyone else. That was a major point of contention. The other point of contention, obviously the color of blonde of her hair and then just kind of the quality of the clothes. Clothing overall, I think was kind of the other major point. It looks very fast fashion.
- [15:26]
A
It does.
- [15:26]
B
It looks very made today. It doesn't kind of look like especially. I mean, we're not just talking about a regular person in the 90s, like, already, I think we're a quality of a 90s product is already a different quality than what we're dealing with 30 years on.
- [15:41]
A
Right. Even if you're talking about like Gap or.
- [15:43]
B
Yes, absolutely. If you're talking about Gap, like, primarily, but then also we're talking about an incredibly rich person. So again, it's like an even another grade above that. So people were really clocking the synthetic fibers via Instagram, which is not what you want to hear, not what you want to see. So those were major points of contention. And honestly, the uproar got so loud on the Internet that it brought Ryan out of hiding, and he called up Variety and he called up Puck's Lauren Sherman and he really. He dished out a hard dose of reality to the haters online. Pretty amazing.
- [16:22]
A
What were his main points? Just that, like, he has. These are not the final looks.
- [16:28]
B
Well, yeah, so the. The first point is, like, well, you've been baited by camera tests, you fools. Like, you don't know anything.
- [16:35]
A
Idiots.
- [16:36]
B
Yeah. And then Lauren kind of pushed him on, like, okay, well, sure, those photos you released, but we do also have paparazzi images from set that people also are rightfully upset about. And he said, well, his explanation was like, yes, okay, those ones are from set. And he thinks that people are mostly upset about the fact that she's wearing Converse in them. And he's like, well, that's actually historically accurate because it was 1993 when we. In the scene of that film. And that was before she had met him and before she was famous. And that's really what she was wearing. And it's like, okay, I saw a.
- [17:11]
A
Lot of, like, sculptures. Pictures of a book on Carolyn Bissette Kennedy's style where there was a paragraph that talked about how she wore Converse Chuck Taylors in her youth.
- [17:24]
B
The Converse were not what was upsetting to me about those photos. What was upsetting to me about those photos is it's the exact same shitty quality of outfit that we're seeing in the camera test. It's very Aritzia down. The skirt looked. Not made of silk. Huh. Rough. That silk skirt looked quite rayon. Uh, and I, again, if I am telling that through, like, an image of an image. You know what I mean? Like, that's a. That's. That's a problem. It should be at least reading as silk. It doesn't have to be silk to read as silk.
- [17:54]
A
But I also wonder, like, how much camera quality is sort of compounding this issue. Like, there are clearly issues with the clothing, but you also have to consider, like, all the paparazzi images we have of her, even, like, the studio images we have of her from the 90s, like, it was a much different camera quality, and we're getting this, like, really, like, HD vivid, whatever that I think, like, does kind of make a lot of things look cheaper than they are.
- [18:24]
B
I agree. And that's something. Yeah, that's something. I wonder, too, about the paparazzi images from set is how much of it is that. Like, we're seeing all of this in way too much detail. Like, part of the beauty of those old paparazzi photos of Carolyn is the graininess. Like, the very. Like, for. Maybe people don't know this guy, but Ron Golella. Ron Golella, like, invented paparazzi photography, basically, and, like, his style, like, it's 60s seven. You know, it's very grainy. It's very like, people definitely didn't want him taking those photographs. So they're always kind of like half hidden or. Yeah. Running away from him. I don't know. He really invented the format of paparazzi photo. And I think that's what we usually think about when we think about Carolyn Bessette Kennedy is like, part of the glamour is the way that it was photographed. I mean, Rongalella used to photograph Jackie Kennedy all the time. And it very similar the way that we think about her, like, most iconic street style images. Those are Rongalella images. And I think. Yeah, yeah. That part of the nostalgia and the glamour is the like retro feel that you're never going to get from a paparazzi today. And that's no clothing can really look like that on a camera today.
- [19:24]
A
Yeah.
- [19:25]
B
I don't know. It's all very fraught and very interesting. Yeah. And Ryan Murphy did provide Lauren with like, literally just a laundry list of the exact archival fashions that they have sourced that Carolyn originally owned and wore in some of these most famous images. And I'm kind of like, okay, you don't need to tell me you have them. I need to see them.
- [19:46]
A
Where are they?
- [19:47]
B
Yes. Like, put them on for her then in the first images that you share of your character, who people are so obsessed with and needs to be so specific.
- [19:54]
A
I will be interested to see once those pieces are on Sarah Pigeon, will it solve any of these problems?
- [20:01]
B
Yes. I am also interested, you know, how.
- [20:04]
A
Much is just like vibe and aura and cameras and just, this isn't Carolyn Bissette Kennedy. This is an actress playing her who just is not going to have the same vibe.
- [20:17]
B
Yes. That is something I also have been thinking about a lot because he told Lauren, we're spending a tremendous amount of time and money and effort to get her closet correct. And I was just thinking it's like, great, that's kind of step one. But at the end of the day, it's like it kind of never really matters how correct the clothes are because it is still always going to be cosplay. And like, what we like about Carolyn in those outfits is it's like vibes, it's aura, you know, it's like energy. It really isn't the clothing. And to me, it's also like, what has the last couple of years of this stupid, quiet luxury trend proven? Except that, like, you can wear all the expensive, simple, unlogoed stuff you want. It still doesn't make it a Good outfit if you aren't inherently cool and bringing something cool.
- [21:07]
A
Yes.
- [21:07]
B
To the outfit. And I think that's what so much celebrity fashion. These. I mean, that's always a pain point for me. And something I bring up all the time is, like, it's not enough to just, like, technically wear the correct things. And it's often incredibly boring when you just technically wear the correct things. Because what we want is a sense of, like, personality. Yeah. I. I don't know. Cool fact. Like, you know, I could wear the exact same outfit Rihanna's wearing. That will not make me Rihanna. You know, like, Rihanna has swag.
- [21:34]
A
I think it's so funny that people are really mad about this because I'm like, this is kind of how I feel about, like, everyone's fashion. Like, I can look at anyone on the streets of New York and be like, I know what celebrity or influencer you're trying to reference. And it's not the same. Like, I think this is like a microcosm of the macrocosm of, like, this is kind of how most people are dressing. And this is the effect. Like, I can tell who you're trying to reference. And it's not working. I don't know.
- [22:05]
B
Yeah, it's not working. And it's also. I don't know. I mean, this is something that we both talked about before, too, with, like, all the pop stars doing, like, homages basically exclusively to Britney Spears, but, like, kind of weird retro homage in general. I'm like, all you're really doing with that. Well, one, it's safe, right? Because it's like, someone did it first and prove that people like it. But again, people like it because of who did it, not necessarily because of the outfit explicitly. And all you're doing is it inviting a comparison for how you're doing it. Worse is my feeling on it, like, because also because these girls are doing it one to one. They're not taking an old Britney Spears Dolce and Gabbana dress and, like, putting their own spin and flare on it. They're doing an exact replica copy. And then it's like, okay, so you want me to look at Britney Spears and see all the shortcomings of, like, how you are her? And it's like, right now we're getting this in a filmic realm where it's like, okay, now you're just inviting this poor actress, Sarah Pitchin, to be, like, who? Let's look at all the ways that she isn't Carolyn Bissette Kennedy completely. I don't know. It's very weird and funny. I don't know. I also. There's some good quotes from Ryan Murphy. I'll read one they gave to Variety where he just seems to. He simultaneously understands how important she is of a style figure and also underplays it at every turn. In this way where I'm like, what are we saying? Exactly. He said, carolyn Bessette is clearly a religious figure and it's a religion of her own. Okay. It's very interesting that people become so inflammatory. Well, you just said she's a religious figure. Like, what? Is that not the number one thing people become inflammatory over religion? He says, we're writing a story about a person, an unknown person, who falls in love with the most famous man in the world, and suddenly she can't leave her house. They're doing to our Carolyn what they did to the real life Carolyn. It's not fair. Which is just. That is ridiculous. That is absolutely fucking absurd. You're insane. That is not what's happening. That is not what's happening. Come on.
- [24:00]
A
Oh, no.
- [24:02]
B
He also said. But then he also says, I had no idea that people cared as much as they do. But I guess that's a good thing. What you said, she's a religious figure and it's a religion of her own. And then you said. Didn't realize people cared so much. That's so crazy. That's so wild. Yes. He's scrambling. And I just think it's funny. I love when the Internet kind of baits famous people into responding to them. I don't know. I think that feedback loop is always very funny and always kind of comes across very, like, frantic.
- [24:30]
A
Yes.
- [24:30]
B
Like, oh, I got shit. I got. Changed the narrative. Yeah. It's like. Well, you created the narrative, actually. You could have just, like, anticipated or just embrace the. Embrace the rage. Biddle. Release another bad photograph of her. You know what I mean? Like, lean in. Just get the free PR for it. Why not?
- [24:47]
A
Totally.
- [24:48]
B
Why do. Why are we doing this course correction? Like, if you're right, prove you're right with the show. Exactly. Don't tell me about the laundry list. Show me the laundry list. When I watch this program and people are going to watch it because they're mad.
- [24:58]
A
Yeah.
- [24:58]
B
Make them matter. Make them watch the show and then make them look like fools by proving them wrong with your clothing. I don't get it.
- [25:05]
A
I feel like every article that I read over the past week was about this or Materialist or Sabrina Carpenter's album cover. And I feel like. Yeah. That that cycle's gonna be obviously even bigger when the show comes out. Like, this is gonna be the only thing that people are talking about for a week or two.
- [25:28]
B
But also, like, I don't know, with that list of media you just gave, I'm like, are any of those things actually worth us talking about?
- [25:35]
A
No. No, they are not.
- [25:37]
B
We're getting so whipped up over stuff that I'm like, this is not like, we gotta let this one coast on by. Like.
- [25:44]
A
And look at us talking about all.
- [25:47]
B
Here we are throwing our hats in the ring. I don't know. It's just. I don't know.
- [25:52]
A
No, I know exactly what you mean. But yeah, it's just been outsized. An outsized reality.
- [25:57]
B
Outsized. Yeah. Just as they all intended, I presume. Yeah, well, especially. Yeah, Sabrina and the materialist for sure.
- [26:07]
A
Brian, I don't even think I can get into any of that right now.
- [26:10]
B
No, thank you. No, thank you.
- [26:13]
A
You know, my, my topic of, of things, I'm trying to think of a good segue here. Things not as they seem. Oh, I don't know. I don't know is I want to talk about the, the popularity of temporary tattoos and at the same time, the release of the skims nipple piercing bra.
- [26:37]
B
Yeah.
- [26:40]
A
So a couple weeks ago, business of fashion wrote this article about the temporary tattoo industry. Kind of booming. Fazeit, who makes those like glitter freckle tattoos I think is on track to make $40 million this year.
- [26:54]
B
That's wild.
- [26:56]
A
Wild. And there's another temporary tattoo brand that's been around for a while. I've been getting their press releases forever and always been like, who is covering this? I guess a lot of people inked by Dani Temporary tattoo company that just entered Walmart and Target, like, probably gonna be very huge.
- [27:13]
B
And is it like. I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with the temporary tattoo world.
- [27:18]
A
The phasing ones are more like beauty tattoos.
- [27:21]
B
Right. I saw those because of Taylor Swift.
- [27:23]
A
Yes, yes. I ranted about them for a while.
- [27:27]
B
But then this inked by Danny1, is that more kind of like what you would think of like getting out of a gumball machine or something? Or is it like realistic?
- [27:35]
A
They're pretty realistic, I think.
- [27:37]
B
Okay.
- [27:38]
A
They look like small cool girl tattoos. Like they look like an armful of Miley Cyrus tattoos. There's like little butterflies, there's like phrases, you know, be brave or whatever.
- [27:51]
B
Girl boss.
- [27:51]
A
So they're like pretty, you know, realistic looking tattoos. So yeah, those two brands are kind of like killing it right now at the same time. Last month, Skims, Kim Kardashian's shapewear brand, released a bra that had that. A faux nipple piercing. You know, last year they did the nipple bra so that it looks like your nips are showing. Even though it's fake nips, it's revolutionary. And now the fake nips on the bra have a fake nipple piercing so it looks like you have your nips pierced.
- [28:25]
B
Sure.
- [28:25]
A
And so I think those, these two things together are really fascinating to me because I'm just like. And I don't know, maybe you have some thoughts. These are just like, you know, bubbling around in my head. But the first thing that, like, I'm curious about why if, like, ephemeral versions of these particular, like, painful esthetic treatments are trending at the same time as more and more people are opting into other, other permanent and very painful aesthetic treatments, like facelifts and nose jobs and boob jobs and like, the, the pain and the permanence is trending elsewhere. And in these two cases of body piercings and tattoos, which are known for being painful and permanent. And that's kind of like the point. Yeah, it's like this very temporary, painless version that's trending and I'm like, trying to figure out why. And the, the thing that keeps coming to mind is like, I feel like piercings and tattoos, like, have political implications. Like, they're actually, like they're born out of, or like in modern iterations are born out of like, subcultures that actually had a real politics that they, like, lived and promoted. And these things were sort of aesthetic signals of their beliefs. Like, very punk or even like going back to the origins of tattoos and like ancient tribal communities. Like a tattoo or sailors. Yes, exactly.
- [29:59]
B
Or bikers. Right. Like, you're always kind of. It's a signal of being in an.
- [30:03]
A
In group, being in a group and like making something about yourself that, you know, knowable to other people. It's like identity building for sure. Like even, you know, in the earliest cases of just like, you would have a certain sort of tattoo to like, your family line or your family name or like your place in a certain tribe or community or whatever. So it was very like identity building, community driven, often super political. And it was a way of like, being knowable to others. Like, these were meant to be seen and to signal community to like minded people, I guess.
- [30:44]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [30:45]
A
And so I'm like, what does it mean that these like, actually like sort of radical, permanent aesthetic treatments are sort of being defanged in these temporary ways? While when we are opting for permanence and allowing ourselves to sort of, like, feel the pain, it's for treatments that we, like, don't want people to notice at all. It's like pretending that you haven't gotten a nose job or a facelift or. Or even if you're letting people know that you've gotten a facelift or Botox injections or whatever. The point is for it to look very natural.
- [31:20]
B
Right. The goal is to be very unclockable.
- [31:23]
A
So I don't know. I just. It's so, so curious to me, you know?
- [31:30]
B
It is curious. I don't know. My first instinct when you're kind of like, asking what's the difference between those things, is. I don't know. I was thinking about, like, tattooing and piercing as, like, physical ornamentation. Like, it's exactly accessorizing the body versus, like, these procedures are really, like, inherent to the body. Obviously you're getting surgery, but I don't know. And there, to me, that's maybe kind of the difference is, like, all of this stuff that's surface level is being treated as, like, yeah, accessory ornamentation, something that should be malleable and modifiable. And like, even to the point we're at with tattoos right now, it's like, right. You're watching, like, Pete Davidson slowly erase a full body tattoos off his body.
- [32:09]
A
Right.
- [32:10]
B
I don't know. There is kind of a relationship to tattooing now that it is impermanent. Even before, you know, inked by Dani or whatever, you had ephemeral tattoo, which was promising. I mean, it turns out it was promising something it couldn't deliver on, but it was promising that you could get. You could experience the pain of getting a real tattoo. You could have the appearance of a real tattoo for several months, and then it would disappear.
- [32:35]
A
Yeah.
- [32:35]
B
And I. I was baffled by that when that came out, you know, Like, I thought that was kind of wild and, like, why go through the kind of the ceremony of it to not have the finished product with you forever? And. I don't know. I mean, you have tattoos, I have tattoos. Like, all my friends have tattoos. And something that we talk about is, like, being embarrassed by your tattoo. I don't know, is kind of part of the experience. Like, it is still kind of like a humbling reminder that, like, yeah, I was that age and I did that thing and at this time in my life, and it meant this to me. And now I. I just grin and bear it, you know? I don't know.
- [33:09]
A
Yeah. And it's kind of like part of the evolution of identity. And I do think that a lot of this has to. It has to say something about identity in the modern era. And just like, how we're constantly constructing and reconstructing, like, who we are through what we buy and what we wear this season and what we get rid of from last season.
- [33:27]
B
And like, and just at the speed of that, even that we've like, like the, the relentless. Like every day is a new trend, is a new core. You have to have a new outfit you've never worn before. It feels like that. It's like, oh, then my body has to be as malleable as these trends. These fashion trends are. I have to be able to like, great, have a piercing one day and not have it the next. And a bra that makes that possible for me is like the ideal. I don't know.
- [33:52]
A
Yeah, I don't know either. It's like there's something just very, like, strange and almost a little eerie to me about the flip of where we are focusing, like the, the permanence of what we want to make permanent about ourselves and our identities. Like, it feels strange to me to like, take like these sort of, like creative, political, like.
- [34:14]
B
Yes. And flat.
- [34:15]
A
Clearly, like. Yeah. And flatten them at the same time.
- [34:18]
B
While taking these, like, commodity into a literal commodity.
- [34:21]
A
Yes, yes, exactly. Like purchasable again and again and again.
- [34:28]
B
Yeah. I don't know. It feels to me like it's almost. I don't know, I don't want to, like, overblow it, but it does feel kind of like the symptom of, like, where we are, our brains are at and like, where we are as consumers of culture in general. Like, you know, like, we don't want to sit down and read a 400 page book. Right. Like, we want the TikTok spark notes of it. We want, I don't know, this, like, fast access, this instantaneous gratification and totally. And you. And to be able to change and to reinvent yourself.
- [34:57]
A
Here's my question then. Why. How come that attitude is not extending to, like, facial features? Blepharoplasty, for sure. Rhinoplasty.
- [35:06]
B
That I never fucking know.
- [35:08]
A
That is super fascinating to me because on one hand, there is sort of this acknowledgment of, like, oh, my tastes change on a whim. I'm not going to get a permanent tattoo. I'm going to get a temporary one. And then, I don't know, maybe it's just the pressures of beauty culture feel so all consuming that. That idea that your tastes or preferences could change on him when the trend changes might affect the nose you choose to like permanently have installed on your face or something. I don't know.
- [35:36]
B
Absolutely. But it's just. It's even stranger to me that this is the case and this is true. When we are living in a time where we're actively watching these body. These body modification trends shift. And so it's not even like some imagined future. You have to be like, oh, no, like maybe a decade from now people won't like this certain look. It's like, no, you're. You literally just watched it. You lived through the rise and the fall of bbls. Yeah. Or even I remember when people first started doing the buccal fat removal.
- [36:05]
A
Yeah, that was quick.
- [36:07]
B
Yeah, it was very quick. And the first thing people started saying about is like, well, you're gonna need that face fat as you ate. Like, you're not gonna like the way that this, this goes down because you're kind of taking the thing that prevents the thing you don't want to happen away.
- [36:22]
A
Yeah.
- [36:22]
B
But even that people are just kind of like, no, like, that's. I want to be cheeky. I don't know.
- [36:27]
A
And. Well, and now it's like you could always transfer fat from your ass back into your fat.
- [36:31]
B
Right. I guess maybe that's part of it too, is that there's this idea that even kind of these surgeries that are so per. Aren't permanent because maybe that too, like we watch the Kardashians be curvy, ditch all the curve, you know, like. Like it. I don't know if.
- [36:45]
A
If I'm back with their butt at them.
- [36:47]
B
Back again. Yeah, exactly. It's like. So I don't know if they're kind of modeling for us that this is all kind of malleable and the body as trend is possible. Like, maybe people don't look at these surgeries as they're as impermanent as getting a temporary tattoo. I don't know. But that's crazy because also, like, you're talking about people who are billionaires. You aren't talking about regular people getting these surgeries. And there's how prohibitively expensive and dangerous and risk to your health, you know, like all of the above. Like, you were talking about people at the highest level of care, the most amount of money to throw at this stuff, who make their livelihoods off of shifting their bodies to make it impo. To invent new impossible beauty standards for you to go out. I Just. Yeah.
- [37:28]
A
Yeah. Well, I think this is a good transition to talk about Kylie and Chris.
- [37:33]
B
Kylie Jenner's radical feminist act on TikTok, you mean?
- [37:37]
A
Don't even get me started.
- [37:39]
B
I'm about to trigger Jess into the stratosphere with this story. Kylie Jenner, as we all know by now, is doing radical acts of plastic surgery, transparency on the Internet. And it is very feminist and very cool. And she's setting a great example for everyone. For those who missed it, someone on social media I'm not familiar with posted a TikTok about Kylie Jenner's boobs and how much she likes them, I guess, and wrote in the comments or wrote in the caption, help a girl out, tag Kylie Jenner. I just want to know how to get them to sit like that. Respectfully, Kylie responded to the video and she said 445cc, moderate profile, half under the muscle, with like seven exclamation points, silicone, three exclamation points. Garth Fisher, who's the doctor. Three exclamation points. Hope this helps. LOL.
- [38:29]
A
LOL.
- [38:30]
B
LOL. Just girly things. I. I think that I mentioned all the exclamation points because I do think the packaging of this information.
- [38:38]
A
Yeah.
- [38:39]
B
Is important and is kind of telling. Like the lightness with which she's delivering it. The friendly, girly energy. Yes. Just a girly. Sharing info with her fellow girlies about how to look good with your boobs that she has set herself. She regrets enormously, by the way.
- [38:56]
A
Yeah.
- [38:58]
B
So this information is, of course coming two years after she admitted to getting the procedure done. And this is a procedure she got done in 2016. So it's been quite a while. And of course, she admitted two years ago to getting this procedure done on the Kardashians.
- [39:16]
A
Right.
- [39:18]
B
So that is very intentional. That is very intentional PR for a show that not many people are watching quite like their last show, Keeping up with the Kardashians. Just saying. And we. This is not the first time we've also seen that family do weird. How do I put this Weird. Real life publicity stunts to promote the show. I'm specifically thinking about Chris Appleton getting married to Lucas Gage. That's his name.
- [39:45]
A
Who now has a memoir out. Right?
- [39:48]
B
Oh, I don't know. I wonder. I wonder how ironclad that NDA is, because I would love to hear more from Lucas about how that all that quickie wedding and divorce went down. That was all captured on the television show. That is tv.
- [40:04]
A
Okay, I have to interject and just say I looked it Up. It does have a memoir coming out in October of this year. It's called I Wrote this for Attention and wait, the first blurb is from Colleen Hoover and it says, raw, provocative, chaotic, and, dare I say, slutty.
- [40:25]
B
Incredible. Amazing. Why Colleen Hoover? What is his connection to Colleen Hoover? That's awesome. I don't know, but that title's everything to me.
- [40:36]
A
Love it.
- [40:37]
B
That's really phenomenal. I hope he really opens up the canon on that whole situation because it seemed dark.
- [40:45]
A
Yeah, no, I'm here for that kind of transparency more than Kylie's, but as am I.
- [40:50]
B
So, anyway, yes, so she revealed that she got this done two years ago. She actually got it done about 10 years ago. The. The surgery itself. 10 years ago was 2016. I was working at People magazine, and I remember this acutely because something that was really pissing me off in that era of Kardashian is that I have eyes and part of my job was looking at them every day, Right? And so they would make a pretty, in my opinion, quite drastic alterations to their appearance, and then they would basically tell the public and the press that we were not just wrong, but it was very couched in the feminist. Well, I don't even want to call it feminist because it's like co opting.
- [41:30]
A
No, I know what you mean.
- [41:31]
B
You know what I mean. The pink pussy hat of the. Of the 2016 feminist movement, if you will, where it was like, how dare you question my body? How dare you imply these things about me? Like, I am natural and this is outrageous.
- [41:46]
A
Right.
- [41:46]
B
And that was being leveraged a lot against the press at a time when the press was also, like, very much grappling with fake news.
- [41:53]
A
Right, right stuff.
- [41:55]
B
And so I was often very frustrated with them because it felt like they were undermining the credibility of the press and the credibility of my eyeballs every day at a time that could have been more dangerous for them to be doing stuff like that and I think also contributed to the general attitude towards the media at that time.
- [42:12]
A
Yeah, I agree.
- [42:14]
B
And, yeah, I also just don't like being lied to. I don't like being really flagrantly lied to and gaslit about, because, again, my job was to look at these women every single day. So when changes were made, I saw them, because I'm a person consuming their content, of course. And at the time Kylie got a boob job, immediately clocked it, obviously, it was quite dramatic. And she told the press same thing at the time, like, how dare you talk about my body? Like, I'm a 19 year old. Like, I'm basically a child. Like, how dare you look at me and talk about me? And she told everyone that it was because she was on her period.
- [42:51]
A
Oh, my God.
- [42:52]
B
And she then continued to be on her period for years and years and years, it turns out. And this was a running joke with, like, all the women that I worked with. It was like, oh, you know, that's just Kylie's period. Yeah, the dress doesn't fit because of Kylie's period.
- [43:05]
A
She's on her period.
- [43:06]
B
You know, just classic stuff.
- [43:08]
A
It's also so funny to. To use the excuse of like, how dare you talk about my. My body as a woman and then be like, my period has changed everything about me.
- [43:20]
B
Yeah, yeah, totally. The thing that makes me so womanly is also Dario. Yeah, that's a classic. That's a classic dynamic. And anyway, so Kylie's new transparency is obviously a PR tactic, and we're watching her family kind of deploy it with Kris Jenner as well. Kris Jenner has obviously always been much more forthcoming about the work that she has had done. And I've always chalked that up to the fact that she's the oldest. And it's like an expected beauty procedure. Like, the older you get, like, oh, completely. Of course you're getting faceless, of course you're getting augmented. You know, like, of course you're doing all this work. You're aging rapidly while your daughters are at the height of their fame, so you've got to keep up. And so I think it was very normalized in that way. And so they felt it was safe to disclose her work going. And now clearly they feel it's safe for Kylie to start rolling out her work because she's also built an empire off her lip kits, which was another thing that she denied for years and years and years until she was kind of forced out of the lip injection closet over it.
- [44:29]
A
Yeah, I think it's. I mean, it's safe for them to do this because that's the moment that we're in, like, cosmetic transparency and that's.
- [44:35]
B
What the public is demanding.
- [44:37]
A
You know, we've been talking about this for years and I think we've even talked about how the Kardashians have been, like, really slow to catch up to.
- [44:45]
B
This moment and it doesn't make any sense. I literally, since 2016, I have been on the Internet telling them that if you want to really be fucking radical, like, if you really want to be, like, soldier up a fan base for yourselves, start doing exactly what Kylie's doing now, like, listing the procedures with the exact increments, the exact data, and just be aggressively transparent in the work that you're having done. And I think if they had done that a decade ago, we'd be having a different conversation about the Kardashians today, honestly, probably especially as leaders in this field of, like, what people are asking for. I don't know. And also, like, y' all love to sell stuff. Like, why are you not kind of being the face of whatever these, these breast implants or being the face of lip injectables or being the face of Botox, like, you are already. So, like, why not make that medical grade money?
- [45:35]
A
I think that's a lot more like legally. What's the word I'm looking for?
- [45:41]
B
Dubious.
- [45:41]
A
Dubious. Or like, yeah, just like, not safe for them, branding wise. Because unfortunately there are, you know, limited but still existing cases of, like, these surgeries having bad outcomes or someone having a bad reaction to a lip injection.
- [45:59]
B
And like, you could say the same thing, though, of like, Lady Gaga doing, like a neurotech commercials. Like, I'm sure neurotech also has bad side effects, but, like, Lady Gaga's not gonna get touched by that stuff. I don't know. Like, why not? Remember when Joe Jonas did the weird. Not Botox, but, like, Botox adjacent. When. Yeah, that brand. Zeman. Yes. It's like, why is a Kardashian not the face of that? And why weren't they the face of that? Yeah, years and years and years ago. I don't know. For a group of individuals who loves money so much, I just genuinely don't understand. And they clearly have no problem selling weird crap. No, like, we're talking about people who sold fit tees and like, waist cinchers and like, any random piece of garbage you could find on Instagram, like, that's now in the TikTok shop.
- [46:40]
A
Like, that's true.
- [46:42]
B
Where are the. Why are these standards in place around medical interventions? I don't know.
- [46:47]
A
I don't know either. I don't know what they're. They're thinking, but I'm.
- [46:52]
B
But I think now they're clearly trying something out now I think they're interested in branching out to that field. And we're seeing it first with Kylie and Chris and now I. And then I think over time we'll slowly get rollouts from. Well, probably. I don't know that Courtney's. I don't care. But definitely a rollout from Kim. I think somewhere down the line is coming. I don't know how she's. I'm sure she's like, negotiating a Vogue cover for it.
- [47:15]
A
But I think Kim has been leading up to this for a while and I really do think it started with her, like, nobody wants to work anymore speech. Because once she started, like, getting into the messaging of, like, having to work harder, we suddenly saw like the launch of, like, skin Skin by Kim. All the messaging about that was like, looking this way is work. I put in the work.
- [47:40]
B
Yeah. Or even the way that she posted her gym routine and stuff and the way that it's like ramped up into this, like, it is a full time job to, like, craft this body in the gym.
- [47:49]
A
And that was her narrative around the Met Gala. Like Marilyn Monroe dress. She was like, no, I put in work. This is my job. Here's all the work I did. And she's very, like, open about. Yeah, diet fitness things like lasers and like red light things and massage. Like, she's been working up to this, this sort of, like, work ethic.
- [48:10]
B
And she certainly does post about, like, going to what's her Dr. Sev or whatever. She's always like, posting, being there and like walking in and out of it. She's getting paparazzi by her paparazzi. I don't know. Yes, I do think she's been leaning up to it. And again, I think we got a hint of that with the Kris Jenner facelift roll out. Because for those who don't know, I don't know how you don't know this, but Kris Jenner got quite an extreme. Well, we even, we don't even know it's a facelift. Honestly, we, we just know that tweaks, alterations were made to the Face by Dr. Steven Levine. She has confirmed that, but she hasn't said what it is. And it did happen right before Lauren Sanchez's bachelorette party because that's where she debuted her new face.
- [48:50]
A
Right.
- [48:51]
B
And then we have Chris Appleton, Kim's hair stylist, who I think is one of the worst hairstylists on planet Earth. It's unbelievable to me that he has a job. But she posted, Kim reposted a picture of Chris Appleton wearing this T shirt that says, I'll have what Kris Jenner is having, which I think is one of the funniest pieces of merch to ever be made, but especially about his family. And Kim reposted it and wrote over it. Me too, babe. And it's like, do y' all get what you're saying? You're saying, I too, will have A facelift? Yeah. You're not. You'll have what Chris Jenner is having, which is a facelift from Dr. Steven Levine. Like, it's very much. You can have it. It's right. It's not like some mystical, magical thing that you have to, like, embody and encapsulate. Right? Like, you got the money, you got the doctor. Like, you can make that facelift happen for yourself. Like, you can have it, babe. Like, no worries. And of course, after I wrote about this T shirt in the newsletter, I, of course, immediately found out it's merch. They're selling these T shirts. And the best part of it is, always, is that Chris is selling these T shirts through Arthur George, which I'm sure no one listening has any fucking idea what Arthur George is, which is Rob Kardashian's long suffering, long struggling sock emporium that Kris is literally the only person who is ever promoting.
- [50:04]
A
It's kind of sweet.
- [50:05]
B
She posts about his socks all the time on Instagram, all the time stories, obviously, because they have to disappear.
- [50:12]
A
She. She got the facelift to keep. Keep Arthur George alive, literally, so she.
- [50:17]
B
Could be the face of Arthur George and, like, keep this thing in business and sell T shirts on his behalf. Because Rob does not care about these socks and nobody is buying these socks except for Chris. I do think Chris purchases these socks, like, for every holiday, for her entire family.
- [50:30]
A
I kind of love that.
- [50:31]
B
I know, it's sweet. She's really dedicated to.
- [50:34]
A
I mean, I don't support the, like, Kardashian product industrial complex, but of course.
- [50:41]
B
But Arthur George has kind of been around since the dawn of all of them. I mean, he was. He was making this, you know, when Kylie's lip kits were just like a twinkle in her. In her eye, in her plastic surgeon's eye. You know, it's been. It's been around for quite a long time, inexplicably, and I think that all the other businesses are kind of funding this business and they, you know, Rob needs a project.
- [51:03]
A
Yeah.
- [51:03]
B
He needs to be. Needs to be in the mix, and Chris is going to make sure he's in the mix. And that's. That's nice.
- [51:07]
A
Yeah.
- [51:08]
B
But mostly I wanted to bring all this up because I was curious in. In your opinion? Mostly because I. Well, I read kind of the general sentiments on the Internet about Kylie's disclosure, which were like, feminist, like, icon, love her. This is why she's the most relatable Karjenner of all of them. But then also this quote from Julia Fox came. Came out that I just find fascinating because it's like, she's, like, almost there. Like, she. She almost gets it. And then she just, like, takes a hard left turn into, like, this is why. This is feminist and radical. It's like, I totally missed it. Anyway, Julia Fox, when asked about Kylie's disclosure, said, I love it. I think we should be honest. Like, isn't honest about the work you're getting done? Because those who aren't honest are, quote, setting an unrealistic bar. And then she says, that's really great for you, but what about all the girls that are so impressionable and feeling like, wait, why don't I look like that? And what's wrong with me? And I was like, okay, great. She's getting to it. Like, great question. That is the right question, Julia. And then she said, it's like, girl, none of us look like this. You know what I mean? Like, we all look really different without the surgery and without the fillers and without the makeup and all the things we do and the face tapes and the wigs and the tanning creams. The list goes on, on and on and on. It's like, huh? Yes. And then she thinks it's important to tell girls there's nothing wrong with you. Like, you're perfect the way you are. And this is all smoke and mirrors, sweetie. You know, it's such a beautiful message. And she's like. She keeps going. She's right there. And then she's like. And that's why we have to tell them exactly what surgeries we've gotten done with the exact details so they can get them, too. Because you need to know that no one was born like this and you can fix yourself to look like this. It's kind of what it seems like, right?
- [52:55]
A
Yeah. Oh, my God. I mean, I do feel like Julia Fox is, like, capturing the general sentiment in the world around this. Like, the general, like, beauty culture feedback loop is exactly this. And it's so kind of depressing to me that we're all so dumb. I'm including myself in this because I feel like my brain is melting even just thinking about it. It's also just really hot here. But I'm gonna say, okay, Julia. Okay. I think we should be honest. Sure. Agree. I think the fact that people are not open about plastic surgery is, like, obviously proof that there's, like, shame or a stigma around it. And I think that shame and stigma should be looked at more. Like how much is. Is cultural and how much is maybe you like, Kind of having a bad feeling about, you know, as Julie says, setting an unrealistic bar for other people, particularly if you're a celebrity. Like, I think transparency is like, should be a baseline, but also it kind of is. Like, as you say, we have eyes, we can tell totally. Like, none of these disclosures should be groundbreaking. You should be able to look at a celebrity and just know that they've probably just done everything. Like, I feel like it's obvious. Like, I feel like most cosmetic transparency I've seen like making headlines over the past two, three years has not been groundbreaking. It's never been like, oh my God, I would never have guessed this person had a nose job. Like, we can see, we know what you're doing.
- [54:34]
B
So it's like we like, beyond that, it's like we all live in a digital age where like we know that no image that we're seeing has, has not been retouched in some capacity, like, you know, heavily or lightly. Like we are not looking at an original raw file of someone, even, even a no makeup selfie or whatever. You know, I don't think anyone is like confused.
- [54:59]
A
No. And, and the idea that this transparency is helping people in any way, I think is really misguided to the point of like being literal misinformation or disinformation. Like we have studies that show that like knowing how somebody has artificially manipulated their face or body to meet an impossible physical ideal does not lessen the pressure people feel to adhere to that ideal.
- [55:29]
B
Sure. I would imagine it just feels more accessible.
- [55:32]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [55:33]
B
Like, oh, you just apply the tanning cream like that and you get 440 cc's of that. You know, it's like it's a recipe to be like, oh, well now this is how I fix myself is how I see it.
- [55:43]
A
Exactly. Like the celebrities get like social credit for being honest about like the ways that they're changing their bodies. The aesthetics industry gets a huge boost in revenue from like the destigmatization and actual people, young girls, women, gender, non conforming people in particular.
- [56:02]
B
Yeah.
- [56:03]
A
Suffer the consequences. Like, it's not actually helping anybody. It's for people who can't afford these or won't get these surgeries. Like, it increases the beauty ideal that they're judged against or judged themselves against. And for people who can afford it now, you're like offering yourself up to get like riskier and riskier procedures and more and more of them. It's so, it's like really the only people benefiting from this are the celebrities and doctors I actually got, I pulled up a press release. I got a couple maybe a year ago now when cosmetic transparency was, like, big. And the press release from some plastic surgeon said, like, patients are now 10 years younger coming in compared to, like, a decade ago. The shift is due to social media, reality TV culture, and the stigma around plastic surgery quickly evaporating. So younger and younger women are getting more extreme procedures, like, sooner and more often. And like, of course, those all have, like, downstream effects. I also just, like, hate the idea that any of this is feminist. Like, I like it, to me, I'm like, I don't think everything someone does in their lifetime must be. Must be a explicitly feminist action in order for them to, like, be a good person or whatever. But it's like, well, I think people.
- [57:31]
B
Also conflate, like, being able to make the choice for yourself versus, like, what the choice you've actually made is. You know what I mean? Like, of course you have the right to alter your body however you want to alter it. That doesn't make the alteration itself inherently feminist. And I'm also just kind of wondering, like, why? Where are the people? I don't know. Why is no one in this conversation just being like, right. The problem is that anyone, whether famous or not famous, feels that they need to alter themselves. You know, like, you know, doing it is kind of the. The problem that we're trying to.
- [58:05]
A
Yeah.
- [58:06]
B
Hone in on and talk about, like, why we feel anyone feels pressured to alter themselves in these ways.
- [58:11]
A
Right.
- [58:12]
B
Your transparency about it doesn't make it less of an issue that beauty standards are so intense.
- [58:17]
A
No. And it compounds the issue for most people when, like, pretty much every woman we see in popular media, it's altered. Like, that is altered in the same ways, which sends, you know, to. To speak to Julia Facka's point, which sends a very clear message to younger girls who don't look like that that way or don't have those features that there is something wrong with them, because people who did have those features are paying a lot of money to not have those features. And when it's something like getting a smaller nose or bigger lips, like, that's not. To me, that's just like, not. You can't claim, like, self expression or artistic expression. Like, this is a clearly narrowly defined ideal that you're trying to meet. And I. I don't know. I also just want to say on the feminist point, like, I think when you actually define feminism, which is like a political movement toward collective liberation, it's Just like, it's very clear that one person getting cosmetic surgery or helping other people get cosmetic surgery through their transparency is not feminist because it's not a political move that, like, collectively liberates. It's like individual power for the one person who can afford it. And that doesn't necessarily mean it's like, the worst thing you could do or you shouldn't do it. But I think it's important that we stop watering down the language of feminism. And instead of saying, like, I'm a feminist and I got plastic surgery, so therefore plastic surgery is feminist, you can say, I, I support the feminist movement. Not every action I take is explicitly for the good of the feminist movement or contributing to it in any way. And, like, that's okay. Like, I think we'd all be better off if we stopped, like, with the identification of, like, I am a feminist and, like, redefined our actions as, like, oh, I took a feminist action on behalf of the collective today to get some Botox. Yeah, right.
- [60:12]
B
No, I think that's a really good way of parsing that out because I think that's something that I hear a lot, and I always have difficulty kind of pinpointing what kind of the issue with that language is. But I think that's well said. And then also, I was just going to say that I think also part of this, I don't know, a very modern part of this that conflates or complicates all of this for me is also that we're talking about things that celebrities do. Right. But we are in a world where everyone kind of sees themselves as being a micro celebrity.
- [60:46]
A
Yeah.
- [60:47]
B
You know what I mean? Like, celebrity. We're all in the same online spaces, and celebrity isn't quite as rigorously defined as it once was. You know, you once had to, like, be a movie star or be a supermodel.
- [61:00]
A
No. You could go viral on TikTok one day.
- [61:03]
B
Right. And you could make enough money to live off of, you know, and be a kind of niche influencer celebrity in your own right. So I don't know when you're talking about, oh, these are just beauty standards for celebrities. It's like, well, I think we've long since conflated who is a celebrity and who's a regular person and what we have to do to. To be consumed online on the Internet for our fans, for our followers. You know, I think that complicates all this further.
- [61:26]
A
Yeah, no, I agree. I think the whole thing with cosmetic transparency is like, trying to co opt this, like, Moral framework of like, honesty for the benefit of an immoral cause, which is beauty culture.
- [61:40]
B
Yeah.
- [61:40]
A
And being like, see, it's good now. And it's just like, no, overall beauty culture is not good. Like, you wouldn't say, like diet culture is, is good.
- [61:50]
B
Right.
- [61:50]
A
And therefore telling people exactly how I'm starving myself, I'm doing a dis. I'm. I'm helping. Although I guess people, we are seeing a revival.
- [61:59]
B
What is that? Skinny Club or whatever on Instagram. It's certainly coming back into popularity along with many other troubling things. I guess since we're on the. On the subject of the hyperreal.
- [62:13]
A
Yeah.
- [62:14]
B
We should talk about just another brief little trendlet thing that I've noticed lately. I just wanted to mention it. I don't have like deep thoughts about it, but there's something happening in paparazzi images where they, it feels like the artifice is kind of taking over. I don't know, it feels like hyperreal paparazzi images is how I keep thinking of it. And it's almost like, you know, like the aesthetics of Instagram and how Instagram, like, especially with influencers, there's kind of this movement of like flat lays and stuff that were like, they seem casual and like offhand, but they were really like carefully orchestrated and manipulated to be just so and to appear effortless. There's something like that happening in tabloid imagery now. And I mean, of course, like I've talked about it before on the pod, but like, you know, Sponcon shots are obviously great examples of this because they are fully constructed, orchestrated, like the brand is weirdly facing towards the camera, you know, like it is, it is an ad and it's not doing much to pretend that it's not except putting itself in this weird framework of like, well, you're consuming this with all the other paparazzi photos on People magazine or whatever, or Page Six. And so in that way it's quote unquote, not an ad. But I don't know, I've just noticed there seems to be a dropping of the veneer of casualness altogether with these images. The ones that are most noticeable recently are Jojo Siwa and Chris Hughes. Their entire relationship rollout has been incredibly heavy handedly staged for our consumption in this way. That's so hilarious to me that I can't help but love these insane photographs that they've created. And like, that's not even to say that I don't believe in their relationship or their love or whatever. But like, I think they're both kind of just PR whores in the same exact way. And so, like, they're both perfectly comfortable with, like, exploiting their love for attention in this manner. But there's something. So for those who don't know jojo Siwa, I mean, you must know who jojo Si was the amount that I talk about her. But jojo and her bobo, just like iconic child's pop star, tried to transition with her song Karma, that was a huge flop and doing, like, kiss drag. Anyway, she went on this show. She went on Celebrity Big Brother uk, where she met Chris Hughes, who is also a famous person to me, specifically because I'm a Love Island Stan.
- [64:44]
A
Okay.
- [64:45]
B
Chris Hughes is from Love Island. He was one of the contestants on it. And they met doing Celebrity Big Brother and, like, fell in love, I guess. And that's how JoJo Siwa realized that she's not a lesbian. She's pansexual, actually. Which great for her. Happy for her.
- [64:59]
A
Yeah.
- [65:00]
B
And then they got back from the show and immediately started, like, rolling out their relationship to the press. I mean, first by landing at LAX and just having these photos where they're, like, canoodling and, like, holding each other and, like, embracing and, like, gently stroking each other's faces in the most corny, insane way. And I love it. So I highly. Maybe I'll link it in the show notes because everyone needs to see. Everyone needs to see their love and the way that they've invited the paparazzi into it fully. And then also, like, two days later, Chris Hughes posted this post. Coital selfie is the best way I can describe it. They are both very much topless, holding each other in bed. JoJo is supposedly sleeping in it, but that woman is wide awake. Her eyes are just shut, but she is wide awake and consenting to that photograph. And I don't know. I'm just fascinated by it. And I don't know. I wrote about it again this week in the newsletter because this is something I used to think about at the height of, like, post The Bear Season 3, Jeremy Ellen White Pandemonium, you know, when everyone was, like, thirsting after him and he was doing, like, Calvin Klein ads and whatever. He was in the midst of a divorce, and he had started dating Rosalia, or, you know, at least walking around smoking cigarettes with her. And they were getting photographed. He specifically was getting photographed. I swear to God, like, every couple of days at the Los Angeles Farmer's Market.
- [66:23]
A
Yeah.
- [66:24]
B
Picking up huge bouquets of flowers. He was, like, making these elaborate floral arrangements for his home. And at the time I remember thinking like, like, you know, creative, staged paparazzi moment. No one had done it before, you know, I thought, okay, fun novel. Show your soft side to the public, you know, while you're going through this divorce, like, you're with your girls, you know, he has two little daughters for people who don't know. So he was like, with his daughters, he's like getting flowers. I was like, okay, soft boy unlocked, you know. And then the past couple weeks, Jodie Turner Smith has turned up at that same market carrying these giant bouquets around. And she herself is in the midst of a contentious divorce with Joshua Jackson. And they are, the other story that's repeatedly in the press about her is they're having a contentious, like child custody dispute.
- [67:11]
A
Oh.
- [67:12]
B
And so an interesting piece of counter programming again to kind of see her out and about with her girls at the farmer's market getting these beautiful bouquets.
- [67:21]
A
Wow.
- [67:22]
B
And I don't know, they're just so, it's a PR that's so heavy handed to me.
- [67:27]
A
Yeah.
- [67:27]
B
I'm like, is it camp? Like, do people, I don't know, is this enjoyable? Or like, do, does no one involved in the system like, give a fuck anymore in like putting on the, the staging of it all? Like, does no one want to invest in the, the artificiality of the thing we're consuming? Or do they like, they're making the artificiality like the first layer of what we consume? Do people like that? I guess this may be my question, right? Like, there's no question about whether or not these are staged because at this point I think the public is pretty savvy to what a staged paparazzi image even looks like. And so they're like bringing that up even further into the foreground of like, this is very clearly a setup and there's no ifs and there's no question about what's going on here. Like, I don't know, I'm just curious, like, does that make people less interested in the image? Is it impactful? I don't know. I, I, it's just kind of an open ended question that I've been asking myself. Like, do people like this? The, I don't know, just being, it's transparency again, it's like a weird transparency.
- [68:28]
A
It's like arguably more authentic to lean into the fact that it's staged and artificial.
- [68:36]
B
Totally. But then to my mind is always goes to the next extreme where I'm like, go farther, go harder. Like if we're gonna set it up really set up something like crazy and interesting for me to look at. Like don't do something that's like so boring and regular and like I could get from a real paparazzi unstaged image. Like give me something insane.
- [68:55]
A
Yeah. I mean the point that you made about like, you know, these sort of being reminiscent of the spon con shots without like any particular sponcon. Yeah. I mean it's kind of, it's spawn con for the self, for themselves. Like an ad for the self. Which reminds me of your John Berger piece about publicity being the art of capitalism. Yeah, I think this is like a very extreme iteration of it.
- [69:23]
B
Yeah, it's like they've, they've stopped hiding the capitalism part maybe.
- [69:27]
A
Yeah.
- [69:28]
B
You know, there's stop the kind of the. I don't know.
- [69:31]
A
Or you know, what makes me think of. Have you seen Century of the Self? The documentary? I just watched the first episode. It's like old, but it's about the emergence of public relations. And it was so in. In America post World War I. Freud's nephew brought over the ideas of like psychoanalysis and worked in like the marketing industry with big corporations like figuring out how to tap into people's unconscious desires through ads. Well, literally exactly how they got.
- [70:07]
B
It's literally always hide a penis in it.
- [70:09]
A
One of the corporations they worked for was Big Tobacco. They women were not smoking and they were like, how do we get women to smoke? And so they went to an American psychoanalyst who was like, it represents the penis. So you have to like invoke that in your imagery somehow to make women feel like they have their own penis.
- [70:33]
B
Of course.
- [70:34]
A
And they came up with this whole like political campaign where like women staged models like lit up cigarettes in the middle of this women's protest. And they called them torches for freedom. And it worked and like women all over the place started smoking. But anyway, what I was going, yeah, no, it's all about the penis.
- [70:53]
B
It's always about the penis.
- [70:54]
A
In all of these ads it's about the penis. But what I was going to say is that this guy Bernays, he was the one who came up with the term public relations. It's the first time public relations or PR had been used. And he says in this documentary, like after the war we realize like how powerful propaganda was and so we need to come up with a new term for propaganda that wasn't propaganda. So he came up with public relations. So really this is all just like it's propaganda for these like divorce cases that like, oh, I'M a good parent. I take my kid to the farmer's market. I buy flowers. I don't know.
- [71:32]
B
But it's also interesting when you put it in the perspective of Berger, who is saying, like, publicity is manufacturing glamour. Right. And so it's like, well, what happens when you kind of make the fact that you are manufacturing this, when you lay that bare for the public? I think that they're seeing it as kind of like. Right. These radical acts of transparency. Like, we're not pandering them or. But it's like, also. I don't know if that is true. Aren't you kind of, like, cracking the mystique of celebrity in the process and, like, ultimately sabotaging kind of everything that that celebrity is built on?
- [72:09]
A
Yeah.
- [72:09]
B
That, like, makes it function. Like, when you take away the glamour and the aura from a celebrity and you realize they are just these people who are, like, calling paparazzi on themselves to create their own propaganda for you to consume, does that make you want to consume more of it? I don't know.
- [72:24]
A
I don't know. This is a good question.
- [72:26]
B
Yeah. I genuinely have no answers to it, and I guess we'll just see it play out in real time. But it's just something I've noticed and I've been thinking about a bunch.
- [72:33]
A
Yeah. I do think we're seeing a shift toward people really enjoying the exposure of artifice and the manufacturing of glamour being a glamorous thing in and of itself. I don't know.
- [72:47]
B
Yeah. But I guess to Berger's argument, it's like, you can't have the glamour if you expose its artifice.
- [72:54]
A
I know. Well, he did write this decades and decades ago.
- [72:59]
B
That's true. He never could have anticipated what we're doing 50 years later. And somehow he does. I don't know. It's both at the same time.
- [73:07]
A
I don't know. Yeah. Good question, though.
- [73:10]
B
Tbd.
- [73:12]
A
Also, speaking of manufacturing artifice, real quick, I wanted to talk about the shaving debate that sort of erupted.
- [73:19]
B
I don't know anything about this.
- [73:20]
A
Twitter X a couple weeks ago. Um, okay. Yeah. So people are, like, really getting fired up about whether women shave for themselves or because of a patriarchal beauty standard. And it's just, like, funny that this debate is still happening. But anyway, somebody posted something like the propaganda I'm not falling for a trend. It was like, one of the propaganda I'm not falling for is, like, women shave for sensory reasons. And people got, like, very upset. A lot of women were like, I shave because it feels good. Like, I like the way it feels, I like the way it looks. Like I shave. For me, it, like, branched off into a million different arguments from there with, like, half of the people being like, this is my personal choice. I don't shave for any other reason than I want to. And half of the people being like, Like, I thought the whole, like, women shave their bodies because of misogyny point was, like, basic feminism 101. Like, what is happening? How do people not know this? And yeah, I mean, obviously, like, the. The female. The hairless female body is, of course, a construct. Of course, it's one that we are conditioned to, like, continue to perpetuate through our own behaviors. And of course, it's like a preference that we are conditioned to have because we're rewarded when we comply to that and we're punished in. In certain ways when we're not.
- [74:43]
B
Yeah.
- [74:44]
A
Like, I don't think any of that is, like, particularly interesting, except for the fact that there were so many people who just really did not believe that any of this could have been about a cultural beauty standard rather than their own preference.
- [74:56]
B
But it's like, it can be both. You know what I mean? Like, you can make a choice for yourself that you prefer this and it makes you feel good. Whatever, you know, your personal reasons, it doesn't change the fact that it still feeds into a larger beauty standard that is patriarchal. Like, both can be true.
- [75:13]
A
Well, and then I always come Back to Tressie McMillan Cottam, my hero, who says, I like what I like is always a capitalist lie. Like, of course you like what you like, but there are reasons you like what you like. And I think it's important to, like, know those reasons. Like, hardly anything about you is, like, a purely authentic, 100% you choice that's arisen out of, like, the essence in the universe. Like, yeah, you're shaped by the things.
- [75:41]
B
That, yeah, you consume, the media you consume, the things that you read, of course. And what people tell you, the people around you, the choices they're making. Like, right. We're a part of a larger society that shapes everything that we think and feel. Of course.
- [75:55]
A
But what I thought was kind of interesting was just a couple of days after that big debate on X, the hair care body hair care company Fur, released the results of their annual body hair survey.
- [76:09]
B
Uh oh, stepping on your toes a little there.
- [76:11]
A
Very telling. No, it's. I mean, yeah, stepping on my toes quite a bit, but I think they. They have a bigger demo probably for sure. Anyway. So here's what I thought Was interesting. And, and this was like an all gender survey. It wasn't like broken down by men, women, whatever. But I did find a statistic online that said their customer base is 70% women. So I'm guessing the results skew that way. But. So 90% of respondents said they shaved their legs, 87% shave their underarms, 79% shaved their pubic hair. When they were asked, have grooming standards affected your self confidence or your body image? 76% said yes. But when asked what motivates your grooming choices, and this was a category where you could pick multiple, 90% said personal preference and only 14% said cultural norms. So there's just like a huge disconnect there. If 76% of people can say they've felt bad about themselves because of cultural grooming norms, that's not what the large majority of them are shaving. Yeah, only 14% of them are aware that like, that factors into their decision. And like the overwhelming majority of people are just saying personal preference when you could pick both, you know?
- [77:34]
B
Yeah. It's almost the flip of the feminist problem we were just talking about. It's like they aren't thinking about the collective in that sense. You know what I mean? Like, the choices they're making are actually part of the, this a larger collective thing. And whereas they're seeing their. Those micro choices is like, oh, that's feminist. It's like the collective thing is the feminist. I don't know. That's funny.
- [77:52]
A
I know. So anyway, I just wanted to, to point it out and just like, because sometimes I feel like the things I talk about are very like 101 level, like, of course beauty culture shapes what you think about your body, blah, blah, blah. And I guess I just like al, I found the survey, while depressing, a little heartening. And I'm like, I Write for the 86% of people who like, genuinely do not realize that cultural norms, of course, shape your mind and your body and your personal preferences. And yeah, there's still so much to be done in that area.
- [78:26]
B
I think we're slowly but surely connecting the dots. What's the line? The personal is political. I think we often need to be reminded that these choices don't exist in a vacuum.
- [78:38]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The choices don't exist in a vacuum. And your personal choices are probably doing just like very little to counter that vacuum.
- [78:47]
B
Yes, that too.
- [78:49]
A
There's a flip side.
- [78:50]
B
That too, for sure.
- [78:51]
A
But yeah. Should we get, should we get to our big, big topic of the day? Yeah, your Instagram virality.
- [78:58]
B
Yes. I wanted to talk to Jess about this because basically in the last, like, I don't know, two, three weeks, I have an Instagram account for my newsletter that's just called Mess Worldwide. And I've been posting little clips from my longer YouTube videos on there because I just figured, why not? Why not? I don't have anything else to post on there and I have all this content sitting around. Why not? And one of the videos went pretty viral and now all of a sudden I have like 30,000 followers on there, which is very wild and kind of of not scary, but it just feels a little extreme.
- [79:36]
A
Like work for years to get.
- [79:39]
B
Yeah. And it's just, I don't know, I have only ever had that many followers on Twitter, which is obviously a very different realm. And also, I don't know, obviously it was not a visual realm. It was very much based on my personality and my little jokes, and nobody really knew who I was or what I looked like. And on Instagram, you are inviting a lot of. Of commentary about your appearance. And this is kind of my first time. I've always been very against having my appearance out there just because I think it's weird and unnecessary as a. As a writer, as someone who, like, prioritizes my words. But yeah, I don't know, I started doing the videos because I realized people don't read and they want to just be. They just want to hear, you know, these little clips of me being snarky or whatever. And like, that's more interesting.
- [80:26]
A
It's an inspiration, honestly.
- [80:28]
B
It's a gateway drug into my writing. Hopefully that's what I tell myself anyway. Even if the. If I'm not particularly successful at funneling people to other platforms anyway, like, putting myself out there in this way has invited all of this commentary that's like, pretty unexpected to me about my appearance. Namely, it's. I get one type of comment that's like, the only negative comments I really get are people basically implying that, like, I'm not hot enough or I'm not beautiful enough to be critiquing rich and famous people and their appearance. And I wanted to bring it up with Jess and have this conversation here because I just think it's fascinating, this idea that, like, you have to be a certain. You have to meet a certain beauty standard in order for your opinions to be valuable or worth other people's time. Because obviously, you know, I was telling Jess, it's like, I don't take this personally. Like, it is so clearly not about me. Or my actual appearance. Like I am triggering something within the, these people that they're responding to because like, I promise you, I could look like a supermodel on there and they'd still find a way to insult my appearance as a way of like, I don't know, complimenting their fave in the process or like someone they stan, you know, in the process of being like, oh, well, you don't have to listen to her because she's ugly and you're beautiful. And I don't know, I'm obsessed with that idea that we're only, we're only worth as much as good that we look.
- [81:56]
A
Right. Right. I, I mean, I relate so much. And this is literally the reason why I named my Guardian column Ask Ugly is because when I would like critique anything in beauty culture, whether it's like a celebrity surgery or a new product line or whatever, like the number one negative piece of feedback I would get is like, you're too ugly to take seriously on the topic of beauty.
- [82:24]
B
Yes.
- [82:24]
A
And then the second piece of feedback I would get is if I was were to like critique the anti aging industry was you're too young and beautiful to know anything about what it's like to age and so I can't take you seriously. And it was just this, like, no matter what I said, I could say the same exact thing and like different types of people would perceive me differently and judge my like supposed expertise based on whether they thought I was beautiful or ugly. And they had no problem like telling that right to my face to be like, I don't actually trust you as a source because of what you look like. As if, if you are writing about beauty or fashion, like, you should know enough. You should know enough to be hotter.
- [83:13]
B
Yeah, you should be. Do so much better.
- [83:16]
A
Exactly.
- [83:17]
B
I would just like to add also another piece of feedback that I get a lot is comments about what I'm wearing in the video and what, what.
- [83:26]
A
Could they possibly say about what you're wearing?
- [83:28]
B
I, it's incredible. The, the commentary. And I'm telling you guys, I mean, these are headshots. So it's like truly from my bust upwards, you're seeing the top of my top. So even if I was wearing some like incredible outfits, like, you're not going to see very much of it. First of all, also, these are free videos. You know, I don't get paid for this. I mean, I mean, I get paid a couple pennies. I don't know, some nickels here and there for you watching my short, I guess. But it's like, I'm not getting paid for this. Like, I'm taking sweet time out of my day to just sit down in front of camera and like, read my writing aloud because y' all refuse to just read the words. So it's like, I. I don't know. And yeah, they're all like, they're a T shirt I'm wearing or like a button down top. And I don't know. And there's this implication that, yeah, I would be in something like, like fabulous, some fabulous black tie couture or something if I really knew what I was talking about in fashion. Like, Like, I haven't worked in this industry for a decade.
- [84:18]
A
Yeah.
- [84:19]
B
Like, I don't have real experience.
- [84:21]
A
As if most, like very serious, high level fashion people are like, they're wearing casual shit most of the time.
- [84:28]
B
Like, oh, my God, yes.
- [84:29]
A
Like, I don't know, take a look at any designer giving a bow at the end of their Runway show. Like, they don't dress like that.
- [84:36]
B
They don't dress like what they create. They're artists. You know what I mean? Or even I look at a lot of celebrity style. And what they would wear to set is not completely. You know, when I was a stylist assistant, a conversation we would have to have a lot with like, interns is they would show up for the first day in like 4 inch heels, and I would literally have to tell them, you have to go home and you have to go put a sneaker on. Like this. That's not the reality of this job. Like, what you imagine fashion is, is not the reality. It's a very brutal, difficult, especially at that level, physically demanding, Physically demanding job. And you need to dress in like, jeans and a T shirt and sneakers so that you can do it.
- [85:11]
A
Yeah.
- [85:12]
B
And I don't know. There's. I. Yeah, I don't know. It's so fascinating to me.
- [85:15]
A
Yeah, I think it's just like, you know, beauty culture frames, like, beauty as a precondition for women's, like, public existence.
- [85:26]
B
And how dare we both get on the Internet and, like, not live up to it? For sure.
- [85:30]
A
Right. Because, like, beauty acts as like a shorthand for your, like, you know, social, moral, political words. And so I think it's really easy to forget for people to forget or not like, even comprehend that a woman could possibly be like, ugly and Correct. Right. That's what I'm like say all the time is like, I'm ugly and I am correct, unfortunately.
- [85:52]
B
And you know what? I dress like and I'm Correct. Like, I'm gonna wear leggings and a T shirt every goddamn day of my life. And I. My opinions are still more valid than yours. Like, I know that's crazy to wrap your head around, but it's just the truth. Also, I'm not a rich person. It.
- [86:06]
A
Right.
- [86:06]
B
Is also how I feel talking to all these people. I'm like, yeah, you know what? These are the clothes that I can afford and that I feel comfortable in and that I like. So on a baseline, it doesn't matter, really. Well, like, thank you, but that's kind of beyond the point.
- [86:19]
A
But, like, just to put it out there for people who've not seen Emily in an outfit, like, she puts on.
- [86:24]
B
An outfit, like, and other days I don't put on an outfit and I don't give a. You know what I mean? Like, because again, I'm not. Not. I don't have a team of people curating my outfit. This is also what makes it all so insane to me is, like, my stance has always been very clear and very specific. I talk about celebrity fashion because it's pr. It's propaganda. Like, it is a. A product of a lot of machinery, like, coming together to create a product for you. Like, those are teams of stylists and designers and brands paying for those outfits, celebrities paying for those outfits. Like, you're looking at an ad. And so I'm. I talk about it because I'm consuming media and I'm trying to lay bare the media that I am consuming and how it's operating on me, on you, on all of us. And, like, so we don't fall for it anymore. We can have real conversation about. I literally don't talk about regular people. I don't care what regular people wear. It's none of my business. I think everyone is fabulous. Everyone should express themselves exactly how they want to. If I do talk about a regular, non famous person is literally only to compliment them.
- [87:26]
A
Yeah.
- [87:27]
B
Because they are not professionals at this. This is not part of their job. They are not products that need to be sold and branded to me. So my public. So this public consuming my media and talking about my clothing is proving my fucking point?
- [87:40]
A
Yeah, completely.
- [87:41]
B
I'm not the problem here. It doesn't matter what I wear. It doesn't matter what you wear. I'm not telling you to do anything. I'm telling rich and famous people who have the money and the power and the team and who give a shit about this stuff because they're marketing themselves what they should be doing to do it better? Yes, it's very silly. It's very funny. It's just. It's just the comments were so relentlessly similar. I don't know, I felt like I needed to bring it up with you because I've just never had that experience before. I've never been evaluated because I've never really put my. Yeah, I've never been public facing in that way. So I've never been evaluated on my thoughts and my writing or my opinions because of my appearance. And to get that over and over again, I'm like, how are people so thoroughly missing the point of my work here? Also, you know, like, that's very much at the core of what we're talking about.
- [88:29]
A
Well, I think it's just like people are very trained and like, not to put this on other people. Like, I do it too. We all do it. It's just like we're in like kind of a surface level era and it's like much easier to focus on the surface level of things rather than to like actually think about the work that you're doing and the words that you're saying and what you're putting out there.
- [88:52]
B
And to critically engage with these thoughts. And also because I know, I mean, part of it is also talking about celebrity people are so. Well, celebrity and fashion, I guess. But talking about celebrity people are instantly triggered because if you talk about someone they love. Right. How dare you.
- [89:07]
A
Right.
- [89:08]
B
Whereas the tone, I've just always think about this. The tone of the comments shifts drastically when I talk about a Kardashian, you know, rave reviews for how snarky I am. Rave reviews for my harsh opinions on them. But it's like if I was to say the same thing, I don't even know. I can't even think of an example. Sabrina Carpenter or something. Right, right. It would be full of hate comments because they don't want to critically think about her because they love her.
- [89:32]
A
Right.
- [89:32]
B
They want to critically think about the people they already hate.
- [89:35]
A
I feel like I get sort of a similar thing with beauty where. Or maybe it's not super similar now that I'm thinking about it, but like, I'll get commentary from people who are like, very invested in beauty. Like it's an identity point. It's like they're Stans of the beauty industry, similar to like a Sabrina Stan or something, and get so offended at any sort of critique I could possibly level at a brand. And then on the opposite side, there are people who think like, beauty is completely frivolous and stupid and like why are we even talking about this? Like, I'm like, just go to the next video. Watch. Click on the next post in your substack feed. You don't have to.
- [90:14]
B
You already know. I don't understand the psychology of anyone leaving a comment on anything that's beyond my, my comprehension. But yes, I was gonna say that. That was gonna be my second point. Like, beyond celebrity. The fact that I'm talking about fashion in a serious way is enormously triggering people.
- [90:29]
A
Silly fashion.
- [90:29]
B
Often, yes, Silly fashion too. How dare I? It's not that deep is what I'm told repeatedly. It's really not that serious. It's really not that deep. And yeah, I find that fascinating. It's like, okay, you know, I think I wrote a post about this. But like, and so what if it is deep? What happens then? Like, what if I have overthought this now? What? Yeah, does anything change? Like, does it really matter? Does it ruin your life? Does it ruin fashion and celebrity? I don't think so. Like, okay, so I'm, I'm using my big brain too bigly. I don't know. Like, what do you want me to do about it?
- [91:02]
A
Sue me.
- [91:03]
B
Yeah, I've applied it to a topic that doesn't deserve its application. All right, well, I'm still gonna do it, so.
- [91:08]
A
Yeah.
- [91:09]
B
Does it hurt? I don't, I don't think so. If anything, it makes somebody think something about this thing that they're consuming mindlessly every day. I think that's, that's valuable.
- [91:17]
A
It is valuable.
- [91:19]
B
It's. What is it? It's like a seven trillion dollar industry or something.
- [91:22]
A
What is fashion really? Seven trillion?
- [91:26]
B
Maybe I. Maybe I'm making up that number. Hold on.
- [91:29]
A
I mean, fashion industry. I can believe it.
- [91:32]
B
Yeah, 7 trillion. I nailed it.
- [91:34]
A
Oh my God.
- [91:35]
B
It's a 7 trillion dollar industry that means absolutely nothing. How dare you.
- [91:39]
A
And it's not even that deep, Emily.
- [91:42]
B
It's not deep at all.
- [91:42]
A
It's not that deep.
- [91:43]
B
They're just making 7 trillion.
- [91:45]
A
The industry just like siphoned $7 trillion out of citizens pockets per year. But it's not that deep.
- [91:53]
B
Literally one of the largest industries on the planet. No worries, no worries. Just light stuff. Just fun, fun times.
- [92:01]
A
Oh God.
- [92:02]
B
And I'm too ugly to talk about it anyway, so what do I know?
- [92:05]
A
Yeah, you and me both, girl.
- [92:08]
B
Join the club.
- [92:09]
A
Maybe our book club name has to be about how ugly we are.
- [92:14]
B
That's why I keep circling around something like hags.
- [92:17]
A
Yeah. No beauty, no brains.
- [92:20]
B
That's not bad.
- [92:21]
A
That's interesting take on brains and beauty.
- [92:24]
B
Just the empty head club, mindless reading.
- [92:31]
A
Well, I mean, I'm sorry you're dealing with this, but it is a sign that you've, you know, really arrived on Instagram. You're shaking things up over there.
- [92:39]
B
It really does not. There's no need to even apologize because it rolls off my back so easily. It really does not mean anything to me. And honestly, I was forged in the fires of Twitter. So, like, Instagram is a joke to me. The things they're telling me, like, Camila Cabello Stans were literally telling me to die and that, like, they hoped my whole family got Covid and died.
- [92:56]
A
Oh, my God.
- [92:57]
B
So, like, I'm good actually, like, saying that. Like, you don't like. Also, a popular comment, I have to say, is that people don't like my glasses. And honestly, do you tell me that you don't like my glasses? I like, tell me you have no taste. Like, all you've done is immediately communicate to me that I don't have to take your opinion seriously at all. Because you don't know anything about taste or, like, fashion.
- [93:17]
A
Yeah, no, this is not a person to take seriously.
- [93:19]
B
These are Celine, babe. They're good.
- [93:22]
A
It's a great way to filter who you pay attention to. That's actually how I've been using. I won't say what side I'm on, but that's how I've been using materialist discourse, because people either love it or hate it. And. And it's provided, like, a perfect framework for me to decide which writer's opinions to take seriously from now on.
- [93:39]
B
You know what? It's the same way I feel about when people start rolling out their Met gala commentary. I'm like, fantastic. I know exactly what kind of taste you have. I know exactly what you're into and whether or not I need to take it serious. And I usually don't. So, yeah, it's good. It's all around a good thing.
- [93:54]
A
I like to have a filter. But no, your glasses are incredible, and everyone's an idiot.
- [94:00]
B
I think they're unassailably good.
- [94:02]
A
Yeah, they really are.
- [94:04]
B
And so it's really just a tell. You're really just telling on yourself.
- [94:08]
A
Is it time for mess of the month?
- [94:10]
B
Absolutely. Let me talk about something that I won't stop talking about, which is my mess of the month is Tom Brady's no show socks.
- [94:16]
A
I saw you post this. I love it.
- [94:18]
B
I love them so much. They're so stupid. No show socks are just so funny and I say that as a millennial who's like, absolutely worn no show socks. They're just so funny. And in hindsight, they're only funnier because it's like, why were we all hiding our socks? Socks.
- [94:32]
A
It was.
- [94:33]
B
Why didn't we.
- [94:34]
A
Why didn't it so shameful for people to know you had socks on?
- [94:38]
B
Because I always had, like, ankle. Ankle length socks. I don't know if there's a word for that. Ankle length.
- [94:43]
A
Yeah.
- [94:43]
B
I always had ankle socks. And I remembered the feeling of being so embarrassed by them and, like, such a loser that people could see my socks. And it's like, why?
- [94:53]
A
I don't know. Was it like. Was it a foot sweat thing? Was it a smell thing? I don't think so. I think there was no reason. I think it was just someday someone decided, like, you don't have to see this.
- [95:05]
B
Yeah. And then we all thought like, yeah. My only. Like, I've been racking my brain trying to think was like, was there a moment or was there something? And I can't come up with it. The only thing I've come up with is like, ankles are sexy. Yeah. Yeah. And so we didn't want to hide our, like, our cute little ankles, which I think is. As someone who just got an anklet, I have to say it's the right.
- [95:25]
A
She's got an anklet.
- [95:26]
B
Oh, my God. Everyone's doing an anklet for the summer.
- [95:30]
A
Mine jingles like a hat collar, and I feel weird about it, but I do want to win.
- [95:35]
B
No, don't feel weird about that. What was I wearing? I was wearing something that was jingling as I was walking, and it didn't make me think that clothing should be louder. Yeah, I think I said that on. I think I put that in a substack note somewhere because it's like, that is kind of a one realm of fashion that we are not investigating enough is like, how loud can our clothes sound? Yeah. What sounds can our clothes make as we move? How loud can they beat you?
- [95:57]
A
Well, my mess of the month is sort of related to that, so I'm gonna put. I'm gonna put in that and come back. Are you sure? Are you done talking about the socks? Yeah, let's merge.
- [96:05]
B
I'm. I mean, I'm never done talking about the socks, but I'll circle back.
- [96:08]
A
Okay. Okay, we'll circle back. I'll insert mine here, please. I am. I am upset about the amount that perfume stores stink.
- [96:21]
B
Yeah.
- [96:21]
A
It's too much stinking up the city street. So I was like, so that's why I'm conflicted about the. I'm conflicted about how loud fashion can be because I'm like, is that rude though? Because I actually find the stinkiness of the. The perfume store to be extremely rude. I actually, I find the stinkiness of the average person who's like dousing themselves in perfume to be a little bit rude, to be honest.
- [96:44]
B
Also, can I say, my parents came to visit me a couple months ago and they stayed at the W Hotel and I would have to wait for them in the lobby until they came down. And that is one of the stinkiest environments I've ever been in. To the point that like my eyes were watering and I was like, what kind of scent?
- [96:58]
A
What kind of perfume?
- [96:59]
B
Just kind of like a. I don't know, like a rich person, heavy handed. I don't know, I'm not good with words and scents. I don't know the vocabularies for them. But it was very intense and very like old lady, rich old lady smell. And it really powerful. And honestly my sister and I were speculating, like, is it maybe a Covid thing? Like, can people smell worse now? Like, can they not smell as good as they once did? They don't know that fragrance have to be upped so that they can smell it. That was my only thought.
- [97:28]
A
It could be a combo of things. I think people like, the perfume industry is just like booming right now, so of course. But yeah, I was like, I went uptown the other day with a friend and I like step out of the subway station and it's like, like multiple city blocks of New York smell like this very intense perfume. And it didn't smell good. Like, it was like eerie. It was unsettling.
- [97:54]
B
It's very chemical.
- [97:55]
A
What is chemical? Very chemical. Like, and I'm like, what is that smell? What store is pumping out this much that it's covering blocks of the outdoor air? And then we pass on Madison Avenue, the Baccarat store, of course. So it was Baccarat Rouge 5, 4.
- [98:11]
B
But that's very funny because it's such an expensive high end. Like, I know it's a viral popular. Yes. And I know that all the girls love back, like that's the scent of the moment or whatever. But like, I don't. For the store itself to be pumping it out like that, it reminds me of Abercrombie.
- [98:27]
A
Yes, yes. It's very like Hollister.
- [98:29]
B
The way that they would like flood a mall was sent my friend, after we graduated from college, she worked at Abercrombie as a greeter. And she said that part of her. Because the green. I don't know if people remember the. This. I don't know if Abercrombie still has this, but they used to have, like, just hot people stand at the front of the store to, like, entice, which.
- [98:48]
A
Is why I never went in as a dude, because I was ugly. To go up to the hot breezer.
- [98:54]
B
They would put, like, hunks at the entrance. I'd be like, well, I'm not going to walk past the hunks.
- [98:58]
A
I'm not going to let this man see me.
- [99:00]
B
Exactly. See me buying a T shirt. Like, embarrassing.
- [99:04]
A
I'm clocking my existence right now.
- [99:06]
B
See my socks and know exactly how ugly I am. My friend used to. She was one of the hot people. She used to stand at the entrance and she said that the place that she had to stand was literally directly under the air conditioner. And they would pump the fragrance through the air conditioner. So she said all day the scent was just like, blowing down upon her. And so she would literally wear the same Abercrombie sweatshirt every single day to work. So it was only that garment that reeked like that. And she would leave work and lock the sweatshirt in the trunk of her car until she had to go back to work because it was so right.
- [99:38]
A
That's like a horror story.
- [99:40]
B
She couldn't. She said she couldn't even wash the scent out of it.
- [99:42]
A
That's. It's not right. And I just don't think we should be doing this.
- [99:46]
B
But, like, I think that's what people want now.
- [99:48]
A
Ah, but why? They're wrong. They want it. They're wrong. I'm so sorry.
- [99:53]
B
I agree. I think it's very overpowering. And people are very sensitive to scent, I would say, and kind of like.
- [99:58]
A
Yeah. I mean, it causes, like, migraines in like, like a good 15 to 20% of the population straight up.
- [100:04]
B
If you don't like the smell. Yeah. To be trapped in it like that is pretty serious.
- [100:08]
A
I think it's like the incongruity of, like, being out and about in New York City.
- [100:13]
B
Yeah.
- [100:14]
A
Outdoors. And it's smelling like the inside of like, a Macy's perfume floor or something. Like, it was very unsettling. I did not like it. I'd rather smell like hot city street garbage so that it's, like, appropriate to the time and place.
- [100:27]
B
Well, I wonder if too, if part of it is, like, the conspicuous consumption of it. Like, you can't see that they. They've applied expensive perfume, so you have to be able to like, smell this cloud of it to they used it. And especially when you think about, like, what TikTok has done to like, perfume consumption, where it's like hundreds of bottles that you put on display like you.
- [100:46]
A
Live in a store, it honestly is like a little bit sickening to me. I think. I think the perfume boom is. Is wrong. I think it's wrong. I think it's morally wrong.
- [100:58]
B
It's not very feminist of you to.
- [100:59]
A
Say, I know, I'm so sorry, I'm exaggerating, but only a little.
- [101:04]
B
I know. But I do think it is something like you have to communicate this invisible ephemeral thing that you spent your money on to the public. And the only way to do that is by like literally drowning yourself to douse yourself.
- [101:16]
A
Yeah, I think I have. I have less of a problem on an individual level and more of a problem with like the giant store in the middle of the city doing it. But yeah, no, didn't like it. And that is. That is my mess of the month.
- [101:30]
B
That's beautiful. And I would just like to circle quickly back around to Tom Brady and his. His lack of sock. It's so funny. I'm gonna link the picture in the caption because I need you all to see it. And I just love seeing his little tootsies peeking. So he was in Japan. It's a picture from his vacation to Japan with his kids. And he's like in a kimono, like looking at a samurai sword, like very seriously. And yeah, he just has his little no show sock tootsies peeping out from the bottom. And longtime readers know that I also don't don't like bare men's feet. It's kind of a joke and it's kind of not. But I do often call men slutty for showing their toes.
- [102:05]
A
It's a little slutty.
- [102:06]
B
And so I do appreciate that he covered up for the gram and didn't give away the toes for free. Because again, that's a huge money maker that you shouldn't as a famous person just be showing your toes willy nilly because that's always a solid.
- [102:16]
A
I feel like that's like an Emily rule.
- [102:18]
B
If all else fails in your life and career, you can always ways turn to the foot fetishist and they will support you. So don't be giving it up too easily. Don't be letting them be able to Google it too easily. Yes, that is my number one advice to famous people on their eyes. Tom Brady I think you're okay. I think your fortune is eternal. You don't need to worry about that. But I appreciate the COVID up and also I would just like to second Mess of the month is just Tom Brady's Instagram account at large. Follow it immediately. Really follow him immediately. The way he is using social media is so Boomer. And I am obsessed with it. Let me also clarify that I'm saying this as someone who grew up my entire life hating Tom Brady. Like, I am from New Hampshire and I'm from the part of New Hampshire that for some reason doesn't take kindly to like having to follow Boston as our sports for all of our sports teams, you know, like, that's the closest big city. So those are always like the default fandoms and for whatever. My corner of New Hampshire was staunchly against the Patriots and Tom Brady. And so I grew up my whole life hating him. And I am telling you, I love his Instagram account and I love, love how Boomer and Corny he is on there and the things that he is posting and to. So you know that it's not just my opinion. This is real. Madeline Hill, who is a real sports person. She writes the newsletter and personal foul and she has a big podcast and stuff. She second, she agrees with me on this that there's nothing like his Instagram on this planet. It's the best. It's absolutely the best. And my number one example of why this is so good, this was my immediate, like, I know I have to follow this man for the rest of time. Time is he has the most extreme divorcee energy on the platform. And when we found out that Gisele Bundchen was not only dating her jiu Jitsu instructor, but she was pregnant with her jiu jitsu instructor shot and that was her new boyfriend, I ran to Tom Brady's Instagram account and he had posted an Instagram story of a sunset and he had set the sunset to the soundtrack. Landslide. Not even in the Fleetwood Mac lands, but the Chicks cover of the Landslide. And he didn't end there. In the little corner of the photo. He wrote, can the child within my heart rise above with free red heart emojis? And I just think that is so sweet.
- [104:29]
A
The child within his heart.
- [104:31]
B
It's so sweet and embarrassing, but like, just genuine. Like, that is the definition of posting through it.
- [104:37]
A
Yeah.
- [104:38]
B
And I just fucking love that shit. It reminds me of the same. I don't know if people were monitoring Alex Rodriguez and maybe this is a sports guy thing. Maybe this is just like how they are in breakups on social media. And if that's true, I love that. But maybe people don't remember Alex Rodriguez when he broke up or when Jennifer Lopez broke up with him. He was going through it and he posted through it.
- [105:01]
A
Yeah.
- [105:01]
B
Good God. Did he post through it? Well, first of all, he had. He called the paparazzi on himself while he was eating at Bar Pitti, which only celebrities ate there. It's one of the classic. There's a lot of restaurants I've noticed in New York that are, like, bad, that celebrities love, and Bar Pity is one of them.
- [105:16]
A
Are they just not eating? They're just there for vibes.
- [105:19]
B
They just know it's a paparazzi spot because Bar Pity is the most mediocre Italian food I've ever had in my life. And yet a celebrity is never not eating there. Anyway, he got it. He got himself a table outside and he looks so depressed and sad eating his pasta. And that was the stage photo op. And he also posted this. Like, weird. I'm only vaguely remembering it now, but he was, like, panning around a room, like an office in his house or something, and he had all these framed photos, including frame photos of Jennifer Lopez and him. And it was really sad. Anyway, I love Tom Brady's Instagram account. Yeah. Get into it. So you never miss out on his no show socks again.
- [105:55]
A
I just followed. I can't wait.
- [105:57]
B
Yeah, please, please keep me updated on how you're. How you're liking it. And everyone out there, please keep me posted on if you're enjoying the Tom Brady content.
- [106:05]
A
Yeah. And if you're. If you're enjoying our content, and only if you're enjoying our content, please, you know, like, leave a review on Apple, itunes, whatever. And yeah, thanks for listening. We'll. We'll see you next month.
- [106:21]
B
Thank you for listening. I promise to never post a photo of my feet in no show socks. That's my guarantee.
- [106:27]
A
Yeah, I mean, me too, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Anyway, I'm never posting.
- [106:32]
B
Beautiful. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for listening. Bye.