Stop Trying To Make 'Moo Deng Skin' Happen

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Review of Mess – Episode: "Stop Trying To Make 'Mu Dang Skin' Happen"

Hosts and Introduction

In this episode of The Review of Mess, co-hosts Jessica DeFino and Emily Kirkpatrick delve deep into the latest trends, controversies, and cultural phenomena within the realms of fashion and beauty. Released on September 30, 2024, this episode tackles a diverse range of topics, from emerging beauty standards to the evolving empire of the Kardashians.

Upcoming Event: The Whole Debate with Substack

The episode begins with Jessica and Emily excitedly discussing their upcoming event, The Whole Debate with Substack. Scheduled at the iconic Duane Park in New York, the event focuses on dissecting beauty standards imposed by the industry, including topics like labiaplasty, butthole beauty, vaginal deodorants, and the Brazilian wax. Emily humorously refers to herself as the "foremost uneducated expert" on pubic hair fashion (00:40).

• Notable Quote:
  Emily: “Everyone knows that I am the expert on pubic hair. Foremost uneducated expert. Yeah.” [01:08]

Renaissance Faire Fall: A Medieval Revival in Fashion

Transitioning from discussions about body aesthetics, Emily introduces the concept of Renaissance Faire Fall, a trend she has been monitoring in her newsletter. This trend marks a resurgence of medieval and Renaissance-inspired fashion on red carpets, exemplified by celebrities like Omar Apollo and Emma Laird donning chainmail-like tunics at the Venice Film Festival (03:05).

• Notable Quote:
  Jessica: “I think the timing is also interesting because, you know, kind of a defining feature of the medieval era was the bubonic plague.” [08:28]

Capitalism and Craftsmanship in Modern Fashion

The hosts explore the dichotomy between fast fashion and the artisanal craftsmanship reminiscent of the medieval era. They discuss how couture houses preserve traditional skills that are rapidly disappearing in the industry, highlighting the slow fashion movement's appeal as a counter to capitalism's influence on mass-produced clothing (07:53).

Celebrity Influence and the Kardashians’ Decline

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to analyzing the crumbling empire of the Kardashians. Emily points out that the family's ventures, such as Kylie Swim and the folding of various brands into larger umbrellas like Kai, are signaling a downturn in their business resilience. They critique the shift in Kim Kardashian’s fashion influence post-divorce from Kanye, emphasizing her stagnation and lack of innovation compared to her earlier, trendsetting days (57:55).

• Notable Quote:
  Emily: “Chloe's been really able to successfully build something that's like almost independent of what the rest of her family's doing and maybe is also helped by the fact that her own name is not in the brand.” [78:50]

Mu Dang Skin: The Latest Beauty Fad

The centerpiece of the episode is the discussion on Mu Dang Skin, a beauty trend inspired by a baby hippo from a Thai zoo. Jessica criticizes the trend for its unrealistic standards and the disconnection it fosters between individuals and their natural selves.

• Notable Quotes:
  Jessica: “I hate that people are now going to the zoo and trying to provoke reactions from Mu Dang to make her scream and bite.” [38:10]
  Emily: “Mu Dang just has these adorable chin hairs. I think that that's mooding.” [43:40]

Jessica and Emily argue that attempting to emulate Mu Dang’s shiny, oily skin is detrimental, both cosmetically and psychologically. They highlight the uniqueness of hippos' "blood sweat," a substance that serves as a versatile moisturizer and sunscreen, contrasting it with human sebum.

• Notable Quote:
  Jessica: “We are supposed to secrete natural juices. But ours are very different from Hippo juices and are not supposed to look like that.” [41:08]

Regulatory and Ethical Concerns: Lemmy GLP1 Daily

The hosts transition to discussing the controversial supplement brand Lemmy GLP1 Daily by Kourtney Kardashian's venture. They critique the product for making unfounded health claims, such as enhancing GLP1 levels without containing the actual hormone. The discussion underscores the potential legal ramifications and the dubious nature of marketing unproven supplements.

• Notable Quote:
  Emily: “GLP1 levels, hunger reduction, weight management, clinical trials even. They all have asterisks.” [46:23]

Brand Mascots and Corporate Personification

In a lighter segment, Jessica and Emily lament the ineffectiveness of brand mascots like Chippy the Doritos chip, which failed to create the intended viral marketing impact. They explore the broader trend of brands developing sentient personalities and incorporating them into unexpected venues, such as red carpets and podcasts, often leading to awkward and unsuccessful encounters.

• Notable Quote:
  Emily: “Chippy really did not make the media impact that he was supposed to make... it just flopped so hard and even they like did MTV do an interview with Chippy and it's just like quite sad.” [91:52]

Controversial Launches and Market Strategies

The episode also touches on the trend of sync-marketing between films and products, such as Flamin Hot Cheetos and Pop-Tart movies, where brands seamlessly integrate their products into cinematic narratives. This trend blurs the lines between authentic content and overt advertising.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Wrapping up, Jessica and Emily recap their main points, reiterating their skepticism towards current beauty trends and celebrity-driven brands. They encourage listeners to critically evaluate the messages propagated by the beauty and fashion industries.

• Notable Quote:
  Emily: “It's like we’re cruising towards that [perfection for hands], there's just no way we aren't trying.” [33:22]

Final Remarks

The episode concludes with the hosts inviting listeners to engage with their content, emphasizing the importance of reviewing and subscribing to support their candid discussions on pop culture's most questionable trends.

Overall Insights

• Cultural Reflection:
  The podcast episode effectively mirrors societal obsessions with beauty standards and the commercialization of natural traits, critiquing how these trends can lead to unrealistic expectations and mental health issues.

• Celebrity Critique:
  The critical examination of the Kardashians highlights the vulnerability of even the most influential families when they fail to innovate and adapt, underscoring the transient nature of fame and business success.

• Industry Analysis:
  By dissecting beauty trends like Mu Dang Skin and corporate strategies involving brand mascots, the hosts provide a nuanced understanding of how the beauty and fashion industries manipulate cultural narratives for profit.

Key Takeaways

1. Emerging Trends: Renaissance-inspired fashion and unconventional beauty standards like Mu Dang Skin illustrate the ongoing experimentation within the beauty industry, often at the expense of authenticity and practicality.

2. Celebrity Influence: The decline of the Kardashians' business influence serves as a cautionary tale about the sustainability of celebrity-driven brands without continuous innovation.

3. Regulatory Oversight: The critique of Lemmy GLP1 Daily emphasizes the need for stricter regulations and ethical standards in supplement marketing to protect consumers from misleading claims.

4. Cultural Impact: The episode underscores the powerful role of beauty standards in shaping societal perceptions of morality, worth, and identity, urging listeners to adopt a more critical stance towards these influences.

By blending insightful analysis with engaging discussions, Jessica and Emily offer listeners a comprehensive critique of contemporary beauty and fashion trends, encouraging a more mindful approach to pop culture consumption.

Transcript

[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. I write the newsletter, the Review of Beauty.

[B]

And I'm Emily Kirkpatrick and I write the newsletter. I heart Mess. Thrilled to be here again.

[A]

Once again, we're going to be together so much this week.

[B]

We are going to be together a lot. Yeah. We're merging our lives into one, into one professional course.

[A]

I know. I think by the time the podcast airs, we'll still have a few days until our big event. I'm hosting something called the Whole Debate with Substack where we will debate the beauty standards that the industry has thrust upon our various holes. We're going to be talking about labiaplasty, about butthole beauty, about vaginal deodorants, most importantly, and the Brazilian wax and pubic hair which Emily will be speaking about.

[B]

Everyone knows that I am the expert on pubic hair. Foremost uneducated expert. Yeah. Most self taught expert on pubic hair fashions. And so we are going to be debating with Cindy Gallup. Uh, yeah, the, the nature of the Brazilian wax and what it's done to sex and all of that. And I'm excited to do it.

[A]

I'm so excited. Um, the event as of yesterday is sold out, but there is a wait list. So I think there's still time to get on the wait list. If any listeners are in New York and interested in hearing us talk even more than we already have about pubes.

[B]

If you need even more of our opinions on pubicare, uh, they are available to you. There's also gonna be like special performances and stuff, right?

[A]

Yeah, I'm, I'm excited. So the, the event' to be at Duane park, which is like a kind of iconic burlesque venue in New York. And so we're going to have an Ariel Burlesque show kind of at the intermission of the debate and there's going to be a comedy performance. I have made custom bumper stickers and pins for the event with various hole related sayings. Yeah, I can't wait.

[B]

I do also, I will say I saw Ariel burlesque for the first time for my friend's bachelorette party. And like the entire party I was with like Jaws Agape, like just could not believe the feats of strength we were witnessing. Transpiring. Oh my God, those women are just strong on a level like I will never ever understand. I can't even lift my body up in the air like that. And they're like twirling and spinning and. Yeah. Making it all look so effortless. And it's clearly like so effortful.

[A]

There's also going to be something we're calling private portraits.

[B]

Oh, so that's exciting.

[A]

The bravest amongst us can opt to have a portrait taken of whichever hole or hole adjacent body part they want anonymously to be displayed.

[B]

I love that the hole is up to the user.

[A]

There's so many to choose from.

[B]

Of course.

[A]

I was thinking of doing an up close portrait of my lips pursed and it's like, can you tell? Can you tell which hole this is?

[B]

That's a good one. I know you're trying to make it as buttholey as possible.

[A]

As buttholey as possible.

[B]

Beautiful. Don't forget to wear your lipstick that matches your nipple or your butthole or whatever.

[A]

Sexy red lipstick. What is it called? Booty hole Brown.

[B]

Booty hole. Your booty hole brown. Exactly. Don't forget it.

[A]

Booty hole brown lip gloss for the event. Okay, I think I gotta stop. I gotta stop talking about buttholes.

[B]

Okay, well, let's transition then into a little trend that I've been through thinking about endlessly for a while now. I've been talking about endlessly in my newsletter, which is Renaissance Faire Fall. It is my personal opinion that we are heading into kind of a medieval fashion place as we enter autumn. And yeah, I first noticed this at the Venice Film Festival. I honestly, I brought it up as all the trends that I bring up in my newsletter. I thought it was a joke at first. It's always a joke at first. And then suddenly it spirals out of control into like a very serious reality.

[A]

You have like a strange knack for.

[B]

I do, because I'm genuinely never trying to spot a real trend. I am never trying to tell people what's actually happening on red carpets. I am just, like, doing it for the little giggles and the laughs that it brings me. And then all of a sudden it's. It's everywhere I look and it's undeniable that it is really happening. So at first, at the Venice Film Festival, yeah, I saw a bunch of people in chainmail. I saw Omar Apollo, I believe he was wearing Loewe, and Emma Laird was wearing Louis Vuitton. And they both kind of like these chainmail, like, tunics. I would say Glenn Close as well was in a very ugly Oscar de la Renta. Like, gilded birdcage is kind of what I would call it.

[A]

Ooh, I need to.

[B]

Yeah. So not technically, you know, chainmail but still kind of like in this metal armor arena, I guess you would call it. And then all of a sudden, it's the VMAs. And at the VMAs, we have chapel Roan, of course, in, like, full ren faire garb.

[A]

She looked amazing.

[B]

She looked absolutely incredible.

[A]

Her look.

[B]

Yes. I also really, really loved her look. It felt very early Lady Gaga to me, just like, full performance art, full spectacle, and, like, also fully realized, which is something I struggle with a lot with celebrities, is kind of like, not seeing it all the way through. You know, like, they get these very interesting ideas, and then they kind of, like, leave them partially finished or don't extend it through, like, the entire performance.

[A]

They don't commit to bit.

[B]

They don't commit to the bit. Exactly. And Chapel very much commits to the bit. I mean, down to, like, rolling out this antique rug, renting this antique cloak, like, having the guard with her at all times, the very real sword with her on the red carpet.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then, of course, changing into this kind of Joan of Arc armor for her performance and then changing again into a Paco Rabanne dress that is very chainmail reminiscent. I mean, that's what Paco Rabanne does, is chainmail of that type. But, yeah, I thought that was very interesting. And again, even Meg Thee stallion hosting the VMAs at one point changes into. It's obviously like a Gladiator homage. But I don't know. I just.

[A]

Gladiator 2 coming out soon.

[B]

We have Gladiator 2 coming out soon. And I was looking at Deadline the other day, and we also have a Joan of Arc movie coming out soon from Baz Luhrmann, of all people.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

I assume it's a musical.

[A]

And I love Joan of Arc.

[B]

I do, too. And I'm just so scared of what he's gonna do with that ip, but also excited. But I was just thinking it's just. It's all kind of adding up for me as. Yeah. Some sort of, like, medieval Renaissance throwback. And, of course, like, my brain naturally wants to start drawing parallels, like, you know, making connections and being like, why? Like, why right now are we going into this Renaissance place? Like, how does that resonate with today? And I don't know. My first two connotations with it are not super positive. Well, I guess on a positive note, on the one hand, it does feel like kind of a response to fast fashion, almost, where it's like a return to the artisanal, like a return to craftsmanship, which is like increasingly being lost. I don't know. Something we talk about in fashion a lot is how like couture houses are one of the only places left where you kind of get these true artisans who have like, learned the craft and passed it down for generations. And it's, you know, like things. Skills that we're losing in the industry rapidly. And couture is kind of the one place that keeps those alive because it values the. Yeah. The craftsmanship, the nature of it. The slow.

[A]

I mean, what's popping into my head as you're saying this is like obviously medieval era is pre capitalism. And I think for a long time on the Internet it was very trendy. To be like a medieval peasant had more freedom than you do now. So there is this sort of pre capitalism romanticization of the period that comes up. And I think focusing on craftsmanship and artisanal and one of a kind pieces, like you said, is really a challenge to that like fast fashion is kind of the ultimate embodiment of. Of capitalism's effect on. On fashion.

[B]

Yeah, totally. That makes. That makes a lot of sense. And I'm also very interested now that you say that, to see the ways that capitalism will like reincorporate this into itself and absorb it and.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And I think the timing is also interesting because, you know, kind of a defining feature of the medieval era was the bubonic plague.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

The Black Death. So it's interesting to see this resurgence of it while we're still like in the midst of our own, you know, years long health pandemic. With COVID It really reminds me of how fragrance has had a really big boom right now.

[B]

Definitely. Yeah.

[A]

In the COVID era. And fragrance really emerged at this time too, after the Black Death, because it became this marker of health and it fed into our ideas of class and access and who gets to be healthy and who is therefore good and in good health and all of this. So it really does tie back to me.

[B]

That's very interesting. And also, especially when you think that this is a celebrity driven trend. Right. It's like, who gets access to health, who gets access to protection or isolation. And yeah, I think that's a big part of it too, is like armor as protection, armor as distance, you know, especially with Chapel. Especially with Chapel, which is what I thought was like a really powerful symbolism. With Chapel's thing is. Yeah. Her self protection, even the sword, the guard, you know, like holding these people at a distance. Her attitude obviously towards the photographers where she was telling them, like, not me, bitch, you Know, it is kind of all part of the package of like, she's gonna like, fiercely protect her right to be herself. And for this to be an artistic expression purely without kind of like all the traditional trappings of fame that come with it. Wow. Yeah. And then also, I don't know, for me, this trend also brings to mind some. Just some interesting kind of like negative connotations, but also interesting, I guess, from like a PR branding perspective. I mean, for one, I mean, kind of famously, the Nazis pulled from Norse mythology and like the symbolism of Vikings and as kind of like this obviously fictional, like, all white master phrase that is like army superheroes or something. Cause they wanted to be aligned with that. But you see that a lot of the ruins and the swastika itself and stuff is taken from that tradition. And I don't know, there always seems to be, to me, in times of big. I don't know if it's fascism necessarily, but kind of big government revolution or reform, we often see this hearkening back to medieval or folkloric or mythological times. And I think part of it is kind of like we can project a lot onto that. Those people aren't alive to contradict our interpretation of that time. And yeah, immediately, it also. Speaking of projecting onto a folkloric time, it immediately reminded me of Yulia Timoshenko, who is a political figure that is like far too present in my mind specifically. I don't think that most people think about her or know about her or care about her.

[A]

I don't really think or know about her, but I would love her.

[B]

Yeah. She is a former Ukrainian prime minister. It basically this whole. Started in college. I took a class about like post Soviet countries.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And so part of that was talking about Yulia and kind of Ukraine after the collapse of the ussr. And so Yulia. Maybe I should explain who she is a little bit. Yulia becomes known publicly in Ukraine as the Gas Princess, because she makes an incredible fortune off of natural gas business and natural gas business that seems to be doing maybe some questionable illegal activity. Because basically she's never. She's never prosecuted for the potential crimes that are involved in this. But she has a business colleague who is. And he was convicted in America for money laundering and other crimes. And she is named as part of the conspiracy in that conviction, but she was never charged with anything.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So she decides. So she makes all this money, she becomes very rich, and she decides that she wants to become a part of this new Ukrainian government. And she founds the Fatherland Party, which already A little scary.

[A]

Right, right, right.

[B]

A little, like, don't love the name. Don't love the name. But it's also like Ukraine kind of having to jump backwards over this period of, like, being a part of the USSR to, like, reestablish some identity as, like, its own sovereign nation. And so it has to go, like, way back into this kind of like, like shepherd and shepherdesses type of, like, you know, history of itself. And so basically, she wants to get away from this title of being the gas princess, obviously, because it's not really conducive, especially at the time where she's becoming a public figure, which is at the time of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which was just basically mass protests against contested election results and corrupt election results, essentially. And. And so she hires a public relations firm to completely remake her image and to specifically, this is a quote to remind Ukrainians of their beloved school marms, saints and fairy tale princesses. Oh, my gosh.

[A]

No longer a gas princess.

[B]

No longer a gas princess.

[A]

Fairy tale princess.

[B]

Exactly. What a beautiful transition. And so she starts wearing. She has long, like, perfectly blonde hair, and she starts wearing these milkmaid, like, braid circlets that they're called Gretchen Friseur. And you've definitely, like, if you've ever seen a picture of a milkmaid, you've absolutely seen this kind of like a ring of braids. And it works, essentially. Yeah. So she starts wearing her hair like that. She starts wearing, like, when she's not doing, like, official government, she starts wearing these kind of like, more milk matey folkloric dresses that, again, kind of harken back to, like, a traditional Ukrainian way of dressing.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And, yeah, she becomes the prime Minister for a short time. Yeah. And I don't know, I think about her often, and just the way that she was able to kind of like. Yeah. Leverage an aesthetic, leverage a beauty choice into. Yeah. Completely revamping her public image.

[A]

Well, it kind of reminds me of what's happening with, like, conservatism and the trad wife right now.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You know, a return to sort of like, prairie dresses and this, like, folkloric, you know, quote unquote, natural.

[B]

Absolutely. And yet it's all being documented on TikTok.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, aesthetics are really powerful for that. Like, aesthetic communication, I think, is like, the most powerful form of communication.

[B]

Totally. And what you're choosing to show and how you're choosing to show yourself. And it's interesting, too, because you think about, like, our two leading tradwives at this moment, and of course, it's like Ballerina Farms and Nara Smith and they're approaching that from very different angles, I would say, like Nara Smith is very much embracing kind of the absurdity of high fashion juxtaposed with like this trad wife stuff that she's doing. Whereas Ballerina Farms, on the other hand, is a billionaire, but is very much, as you said, like leaning into. Yeah. The countryside, the rural, the bucolic and kind of obscuring the wealth that underlies all of that and makes all of that possible. Fully. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, it's. It's very interesting to me. And then, yeah, it led into another kind of a VMAs PR move, I would say that was very prevalent that night, which is the proliferation of homages.

[A]

I. I really didn't love all the homage. It felt so boring to me as.

[B]

A non fashion person. Did you feel that they were like, obviously, like, I'm always curious, like how much people like pick, like regular people pick up on like what they're doing.

[A]

I mean, there were some obvious ones that immediately came to mind, like Sabrina Carpenter, you know, referencing Madonna.

[B]

You clocked that?

[A]

I clocked that.

[B]

Okay. That's interesting to me. Cause I wasn't sure how many people would even know that photo of Madonna.

[A]

Yeah, no, I feel like that's like one particular image of Madonna that's like burned in my brain. And then the. I think Tate McCray as Brittany.

[B]

Sure. Yeah. And of course Meg thee stallion as Brittany in the Slave Free Music was very obvious.

[A]

Yeah. That felt more like costumey version of homage, which I didn't mind as much. But I don't know the others on the red carpet, I was like, can we do something different? I don't know.

[B]

And that's a very interesting like, line that you draw there between like, it's okay when you do it as a costume, but when you try to inhabit it a little too realistically or really too fully, it becomes like more boring, honestly. Yeah. So for those who maybe don't know what transpired at the VMAs, there was a lot of young pop girls dressing as old pop girls. So yeah, we had Meg do. Yeah. A Britney Spears slave for you homage, but absolutely more as a costume. And literally for like under five seconds because she didn't like the snake. But then you have people like Halsey wore an old Elizabeth Hurley Versace gown that I'm sure most people don't know. It's not, I didn't pick up. It's like not the famous Elizabeth Hurley Versace safety pink gown. It's like another.

[A]

That one. I know.

[B]

Yeah, that one everyone knows. This was just, like, happens to be one that she owned and wore before. We have Tate McCrae, who's a new young pop girly doing a full Britney Spears reference to Britney Spears is Dolce and Gabbana lace mini dress, which I'm sure that just called the image for a lot of people's minds. It's very famous. She just was wearing black bra and underwear underneath it. And, yeah. Sabrina Carpenter wore an old Bob Mackie Madonna dress from, I believe, the 1991 Oscars. And, yeah, I found them to be pretty lacking. I mean, I think the main problem for me is, especially with a young pop girl doing this is like, I get what they're doing. Right. It's like, to me, it's very much part of the Kim K strategy of, like, aligning yourself with American iconography. Right. It's like, it's him in the Maryland dress. Right. It's like, yeah, now I'm in the same conversation with them. Now I'm in the same sense. Like, you have to consider me on the level of this thing. But, like, with a young pop girl, it's like, I need to know who you are for, like, it. It doesn't work for Kim, but it works better for Kim because Kim is herself.

[A]

She has, like, a vast, vast examples of her being iconic to the culture already.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And then when she adopts these, like, other iconic outfits or references, it's seeing, like, I did this too.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Kind of. Whereas if you don't have that history, if you're a relative newcomer, it doesn't have that impact.

[B]

I think you become absorbed by the history. I think that you aren't enough to overpower or even to put yourself on. On a plane with it. Right. Like, you're just. You're just doing a Madonna. Like, all we're thinking about is Madonna. Because I don't know Sabrina's red carpet style enough to. To know her in that way, to know her fashion. I can't even think of, like, a super iconic fashion look these girls have done, Especially as someone with Tate McCray, I think with Tate McCray, that was a big misstep because this was also her kind of. She's very much trying to come into the public eye right now, and she has a lot of hype around her, but I'm always a little.

[A]

A lot of, like, I think unsubstantiated or unsupported. Yeah.

[B]

I'm a little confused about where it comes from. And a lot of it does seem to come from her own team. I don't know. I think part of my disappointment with the VMAs look was I saw her stylist just hyping the hell out of this look on Instagram. Instagram before just being like, you're gonna be blown away. Like, you've never seen anything like that. So I'm like, okay, like, I'm ready, man. Like, show it to me. And then I got it. And I was like, actually, I've seen this before. Yeah, I actually am very much prepared for this outfit. It's a. It's actually a bad. It's a worse version of Britney's outfit, which, if anyone would have asked me, I could have helped them with that. It's a lace problem. If anyone's wondering. She chose the wrong lace.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, now that you say that, I can see. I can see where you're coming from for sure.

[B]

Yeah. And so, yeah, I think. I don't know, it seems like to me it's kind of this logical evolution out of celebrity fashion is always trying to, like, angle towards more exclusivity, more rare, more stunt. Right. Like doing things that regular people can't do. And so for a long time in celebrity history, that was literally just wearing high end designer clothes. And that was how they differentiate them. Like, my jeans cost $500, yours cost $20. You know, like that. That simple. And then you have the Kardashians burst onto the scene and they start upping that factor like a million fold. Right. Because they're trying to, again, even differentiate themselves among celebrities, almost as a way to prove why they are celebrities. So they are, like, held to this even higher standard of, like, wealth and exclusivity, which we will get into later, about how that is ultimately crippling them and making them poor. But so you see them start to not only wear high end designer stuff, not only wear custom designer stuff, but then start to venture into vintage and archival pieces, which is like the ultimate in exclusivity. You have to know people, you have to have relationships with brands. You have to have stylists who are able to pull things like that and source things like that. And now that's opened the floodgates of archival. And you're seeing every celebrity kind of go after that. And so again, you see the Kardashians pivot. Kim starts collecting Janet Jackson's old costumes, Marilyn Monroe's old. You know, you start to see her pull these, like, not only archival pieces, but Archival pieces from like all time A list icons.

[A]

Well, okay, this is making me think. I cannot remember what podcast I was listening to. If I remember, I'll put it in the show notes. But I was just listening to some podcast that was, I think, talking about Law Roach or maybe interviewing Law Roach because Law is known for pulling archival pieces. He kind of really kickstarted this recent trend of going to the archives for like a show stopping look. And I think they were saying, like that started out, I think, through an access issue. It was like that was what you could get ahold of, sort of. Okay, now. Now I'm like doubting myself because I'm like, does this make sense?

[B]

No, it does. It makes sense to a certain extent because there are. I know that Law has also spoken about certain brands not wanting to dress Zendaya because she was like a young black female star, you know, and they didn't want to take a. Whatever the fashion industry thinks, like, everyone is a risk. Like every, you know, they just like cannot dress people in a normal way. But so it does make sense to me to a certain extent, make maybe not some of their most iconic pieces, but that a brand would give access to him to archives instead of the new collection. Because they're trying to sell the new collection. Yeah. And so they want the new collection on the most famous people in the world. Right. Because that's who's going to sell the. The product.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But I could imagine, like, maybe not, you know, pieces from the 60s or whatever, but I could imagine get like pieces from the early aughts and. And then as he proves just what him and Zendaya are capable of, and him with everyone that he works with is capable of, I would imagine that that access would increase and.

[A]

Yeah, right. So it's interesting to me that something that kind of started out as like a workaround to not having access to the top of the line brand new thing is now become the new version of like, oh, this is actually the exclusive top of the line thing that someone wants to wear.

[B]

And now that you say that too, that was honestly the case with the Kardashians for a long time too, because these brands, before Kanye's like pretty serious intervention, like, they would not dress these girls. Like they had to buy it themselves if they wanted to wear it. And so I can also see for them like starting to dip into the archives or dip into vintage would also be a way to like wear Chanel when Chanel literally won't dress you.

[A]

Yes, yes. Maybe that's what I'M thinking of maybe it was like vintage. Pulling vintage from, like, a vintage store rather than the brand's archives.

[B]

Yeah. Because the brands can be very shut down about this type of stuff. And. But if you can source it from a vintage showroom or a vintage store or. Yeah, just an archive dealer, you know, suddenly you're wearing Valentino, and Valentino won't even return your emails. And actually through doing that, sometimes you can convince the brand to come on board. Like, once you show them what you can do with their product, even if it's, you know, vintage archival products, they suddenly start to be interested in you. It's really just like, can you generate press for them? And if you can prove that you can do that, then suddenly they're open to having a conversation.

[A]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[B]

Yeah, but. Oh, yeah. And then just a reader also brought something up I just thought was interesting where we were talking about these homages. And also, I don't know, I've had kind of some beef with the way that we're just rehashing the early aughts endlessly from every direction as a trend. And now we're moving into indie sleaze. And I'm like, yo, that happened.

[A]

I keep hearing about this indie sleaze revival and it's like, I know it's. Is it happening?

[B]

I don't know. It is percolating. I don't know. Taylor Swift did wear shoes, Vivienne Westwood shoes that looked exactly like those awful Jeffrey Campbell Lolitas the other day. And I was like, this is the most, like, confirmation I've had all year that this really is happening. But I don't know, it just seems like we're kind of stuck in this cycle of, like, aughts rehash because we can't think of, like, how to. Like, no one's trying to innovate. No one's trying to move forward. We aren't trying to look at the future and, like, what future dressing might look like. And anyway, a reader compared it to kind of like what Hollywood and, like, the movie industry is doing, which is like, franchises now and just like, endlessly doing, like, what works, you know?

[A]

Or, like, what's risk management?

[B]

Yes, it's totally. It's risk management.

[A]

It's like, okay, we know this franchise is popular and people will go see Spider Man 14 and it's okay. We know Britney in this lace dress, really on the red carpet, so naturally I will too.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I thought that was a very interesting point. Yeah.

[A]

Shout out to her yeah. Thanks, reader.

[B]

Thank you, unnamed reader.

[A]

Okay, so something that I keep thinking about this month is hands. I think hands are the hot new body part to hate. So I think what's happened in, you know, the past couple years especially is, like, beauty standards for the face and the shape of the body have reached such an extreme that the industry is, like, forced to find these more obscure body parts to infuse with insecurity.

[B]

So to naturally.

[A]

Yeah. To our earlier point about the whole debate, I think the beginning half of this year was really about the whole. And hating your hole and beautifying your various holes with vaginal deodorant. Deodorants and, you know, whole serum and.

[B]

All of this anal bleaching.

[A]

But I think we're about to transition into hating your hands.

[B]

Fantastic. I've been waiting.

[A]

So, like, this. Okay. I wouldn't say this is super new. I mean, for a while, there's been more talk about, like, how your hands age more quickly than your face. And brands have come out with hand retinol. And there's also been this, like, very crazed obsession with SPF for your hands. Like, I've seen so many, like, social media videos of, like, me too. How to drive with your hands flipped upside down, down at the bottom of the wheel. It's dangerous. Like, this is a health and safety risk. You drive with your hands at the bottom of the steering wheel, flip down so you don't get sun damage and you won't have wrinkled or sunspotted hands.

[B]

You're gonna have gorgeous hands when you crash your car for sure.

[A]

Gorgeous, gorgeous hands on the gurney. But, yeah, I think it's about to reach its peak. So my first point of evidence is I just saw the substance. Did you see it yet?

[B]

No, I haven't seen it yet. I want to see it so bad.

[A]

I loved it, and I don't want to spoil it for anybody, but one of the first inst. Instances of, like, body horror that we see in the movie involves Demi Moore developing this single old finger. It's like one witch finger. It's swollen, wrinkled, age spots. There's like a yellowed fingernail. And this is what really starts her, like, descent into madness. After seeing the movie, I remembered this Harper's Bazaar article that came out, like, a month ago. Harper's Bazaar published an article with the title, I Don't want my hands to look old. And the subhead was, forget my face. Crinkly hands frighten me beyond belief. Like, this is the subhead in real life. Like, nothing about this movie I think is exaggeration. Like that's for sure. And then I just saw an article about a new hand care brand that just came out called Habelo and I think it's brand new. I was reading an interview or a piece about the founder in the publication Beauty Independent and The founder is 48 and she was explaining like the inspiration for the brand.

[B]

Does she also fear her crinkly hands?

[A]

She does. Well, listen to this. This is her quote. She said, despite everyone's warnings to take care of your hands early because it's where age shows up first. My hands looked like they were 75 year old, 80 year old man hands, not me. And like that's her inspiration for starting the brand is this fear of having old hands. And again, like, I don't want to spoil the subst, but the insistence that an old looking you, that the older looking you is not in fact you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That is literally a huge part of the movie. Yeah.

[B]

That is truly what I was just thinking about. About how interesting it is that you can divorce yourself from your own body where you're like, this is my hand. Like I've absolutely lived my life in a way that led to my hands looking this way and being this way and they've always been with me and yet somehow they are not of me. Yes.

[A]

And that dissociation, the like splitting that takes place when you age and you cannot process it or accept it is, you know, is the horror of this movie that's just come out interesting. But yeah, I mean, personally I find this like publicized fear of aging making headlines in modern beauty media way more horrifying than anything else.

[B]

Yeah. It also reminds me of just like there's a similar conversation around, like when people talk about habit building or like doing things for your future self. Like I've read similar. We have a trouble imagining our future self as connected to us.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And I wonder if there's a similar thing with our aging where we like literally just can't imagine old us, so we can't do the things that we should be doing now. To like just smacked my mic. That's how adamantly I feel about this. That like we can't be doing the things we need to be now to be taking care of ourselves in the future because that is a stranger to us. Like we literally do not feel tethered in any way to that future version of us. And so.

[A]

Right. And then once we become that future version of us, at least we're horrified. And then in the beauty industry, all the language you Know, it's like weight loss to feel like you again, or retinol to feel like yourself. And like, we position the real self as the one in the past who was younger, the young self and different. There is this real dissociation, I think, that the beauty industry encourages in all aspects.

[B]

Yeah. It's just always crazy to me, the way that beauty seems to. The industry seems to be able to seize upon real psychological elements and then exploit them in such crazy ways. Yeah, it's always incredible to me.

[A]

I know. And I mean, it sounds so reductive and simplified to be like, the beauty industry exploits our fear of mortality. But, like, that is kind of just what it is. It's one of the most basic and most human and inescapable fears that we have. And so much of the industry just hinges on, you know, keeping us from, like, processing, accepting and moving through them and moving through that fear in a way that is just, like, healthy.

[B]

Yeah. And productive for anyone. Right. It also reminds me of. Do you remember the guy in Zoolander who would, like, keep his hands in those, like, hyperbaric chambers? It just feels like we're cruising towards that. Like, there's just no way we aren't trying. Trying to lock up our hands inside of, like, perfect elemental conditions.

[A]

Incredible reference. I think it was David Duchovny.

[B]

I think about him a lot. I think about him, him and the. The actual hand model lady. Do you. Did you ever see that clip? I believe I'm like, oh, my God.

[A]

I don't think so.

[B]

This is like one of the most formative, important clips to me that, like, just lives rent free in my brain at all times. I think it was like a CBS interview or something. And they're interviewing this woman who's a professional hand model. And yeah, she's probably in her 30s, but she just has these, like, immaculate, crazy, pristine white hands. But she. They basically are talking with her about, like, everything she has to do in order to maintain their perfection. And it's insane. You literally cannot live your life. She can't do anything, like, because any sort of, like, you know, hangnail, any sort of scar, any sort of, like, cut could literally destroy her entire career. So they just have all this footage of her, like, walking around with her hands up. You guys can't see what I'm doing, but I'm holding my hands next to my face so that nothing can happen to them. And she, like, can't push buttons in the elevator. Like, she can't wash dishes. She has on, like, Rubbermaid, like, Dishwashing gloves at all times to like retain the moisture in them or something. Or like, so sunlight can't touch them. It's so incredible. I recommend everyone go, I'm gonna look this up. I think if you just Google like hand crazy hand model lady, I think it will be the first thing that comes. It's a long time. Viral video.

[A]

Yeah. I'm gonna go look it up because I fear maybe this is the future for all of us. You know, social media has really democratized beauty standards that formerly celebrities were only held to and regular people didn't have to try that hard.

[B]

But yes, she is also kind of this like, I don't know, like, extreme end goal of like soft life kind of trend. You know what I mean? Like, she literally just can't do anything but like sit there and like, be beautiful and like celebrated for the of her hands. Yeah.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

But is actually like incapable of living any sort of life. Beautiful. What we all aspire to, right?

[A]

I can't wait. I can't wait.

[B]

She's rich, though. You must remember, she's incredibly rich. She is in literally every dawn commercial you've ever seen is this lady's hands.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. My cousin dated a hand model for a while and there are. Her behaviors were not as extreme, but there were some similarities of just like the fear you have to live with of damaging this precious part of your body.

[B]

Yeah. I interviewed a hand model once. She was very normal about it, honestly, because while she was coming from a. She was a model, so she's coming from a modeling background. And then they just happened to notice that she had beautiful, perfect hands for this type of work. And so she kind of pivoted into it. But I think for her, she's just kind of like. It's so like compared to regular modeling and I don't know, just the extreme pressure that's put upon your entire body versus, like having it put on your hands. I think she felt like it was kind of a relief.

[A]

A cushy job.

[B]

Yeah, a cushy job compared to what she was doing before that.

[A]

Well, I think the time has come to talk about maybe my biggest annoyance of the podcast of the month right now, even though it's not my official mess of the month. But mu dang skin.

[B]

Okay. Because at first I thought you were going to say mu dang and I was like, how dare you, my beautiful hippo baby.

[A]

I respect mu dang and I think mu dang skin, which is a trend that's happening now in the beauty space. Where people are trying to emulate the beautiful glow of Mu Dang. The baby hippo is an insult to Mu Dang, which I will explain.

[B]

Well, I've seen a couple of these videos, and my main complaint with them is there's not enough secretions. They're not slippery enough. They're not oily. Like, they're playing it so coy. I'll get into that with how juicy he is. Okay, please.

[A]

Is Mujang a boy or a girl?

[B]

I don't know, because I kept reading things when he. He. I kept reading he when I first, and now everybody is saying she. And so I'm confused if I'm misgendering Mu Dang or the world is.

[A]

I think I'm gonna. Okay, well, I have a quote from a Vogue article here. Well, okay, let me back up. For those who aren't aware. I don't know how you're not aware.

[B]

Yet, but for those who aren't aware, please log on.

[A]

Log on. Mu Dang is a beautiful baby hippo. This baby hippo was recently born in a zoo in Thailand and has sort of, like, taken over the Internet. She's, like, very cute and little and round and shiny. She also screams a lot and bites a lot. So she is mean.

[B]

I love it.

[A]

And people are obsessed. People are identifying with Mu Dang, and now people are trying. I do, too. I mean, I. I love her.

[B]

And she just, like, scrambles about in a way that I'm like, yeah, like, that feels right to me.

[A]

I love her screaming. I love her biting. I hate that people are now going to the zoo and trying to provoke reactions from Mu Dang to make her scream and bite.

[B]

Yes. We just, like, have to ruin everything as humanity. And I was thinking this too, even, like, watching the tiktoks of her. I guess we're gendering her her now. I don't know. Yeah, but reading the TikTok comments is such a microcosm of, like, everything that's wrong with the human brain. Because the comments are just like, why is she sleeping? It's like, she's a baby. It's like eating all the time. Always eating. It's like, yeah, again, baby animal. It's just all these, like, kind of, like, natural animal things. And we're always like, why? Like, something's wrong. Like, oh, she's sleeping. Is she sick? And it's like, no. Like, what is wrong? Like, why is the human brain, like, just design this way to, like, assume the worst or to, like, I don't know.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Oh, but Anyway, that's heartbreaking.

[A]

Leave Mudang alone. Leave muding along and okay, stop trying to emulate her skin. So obviously hippos. Hippos have very shiny skin. So this her like rise to fame really slots in nicely with the past couple of years of skin trends. It's been very moist. We have glass skin, we have dewy dumpling skin. We have glazed donut skin. We have dolphin skin.

[B]

Oh, I hadn't heard about dolphin.

[A]

Oh, dolphin was like somewhere in between like dumpling and glazed donut. It was like a couple years ago.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But yeah, because of this, because Mu Dang really does kind of take what's currently popular to the next level. There's been a lot of beauty coverage of like how to get the Mu Dang look. So Vogue has an article that called her a curvy, shiny, wet eyed glamour queen. Okay. So that's where I'm getting she from. I'm guessing Mu Dang is a she.

[B]

I accept. I don't know where I got he from, but I swear to God I was reading he everywhere.

[A]

I think Fritz was. He. Fritz was like another famous baby hippo a while ago. But yeah, also into the gloss shared a post that's like three hydrators for your Mu Dang era.

[B]

I love to be in my Mu Dang era.

[A]

I'm in my Mu Dang era. Ipsy posted like a Mudang skincare tutorial. Lots of influencers are doing Mudang makeup and skincare and I just like really hate it. As I said earlier, I think this is an insult to the spirit of Mu Daeng. I think people love Mu Dang because she is all id. It's instinctual, primal screaming, biting. We love the freedom embodied by Mu Daeng. And these skincare and makeup tutorials are like the opposite. They are all ego. They are all in service to like the lack of freedom of beauty standards. And I just don't think Mujang would ever tame her wild nature with beauty products.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And what I. I'm not gonna like get into it here. I've written about it like so many, so many times before. But with things like glass skin and slugging and Mu Dang skin, like it can be damaging to human skin because human skin is not supposed to be that wet and shiny and actually, oh.

[B]

We'Re not supposed to secrete natural juices.

[A]

We are supposed to supposed to secrete natural juices. But ours are very different from Hippo juices and are not supposed to look like that. So I actually looked into it. I was like I want to take mudang skin further than any beauty coverage so far and, like, look into what makes hippos so shiny.

[B]

Yeah, I'd love to know.

[A]

So incredible. So hippos, like, look like that because they secrete this, like, really thick, oily, oozing, like, reddish secretion that comes out of their pores. And this substance is called blood sweat.

[B]

Yes. That is so badass. That is so rock and roll. To have blood sweat.

[A]

To secrete blood sweat.

[B]

Wudang just, like, went into another level in my brain of, like, icon. That is insane.

[A]

It's so cool.

[B]

Give me that blood sweat.

[A]

I know. And so I like, looked it up on Scientific American. And so blood sweat functions as a moisturizer, a water repellent, an antibiotic. Hippos secrete it because they're like, at the same time as they're under really, like, harsh sunlight, they're also in water. So it keeps their bodies from getting waterlogged and also functions as a sunscreen. Blood sweat is completely unique to hippos.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

And its chemical composition quote remains something of a mystery to scientists. Like, nobody knows what's in blood sweat.

[B]

I love when something's a mystery to scientists. I love when they don't know. That is so cool. Food legend.

[A]

She's so beautiful in such a unique way that we can never even do.

[B]

It's not even replicable. Yeah, we don't know how to make it.

[A]

But like, at the same time, at the risk of sounding corny, we humans have their own version of blood sweat.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

So these qualities are very similar to human sebum, which is like the oily, waxy thing that comes out of our pores, which also protects us from being waterlogged and also has, like, some light sunscreen, like, qualities.

[B]

We need a better name for it though. Like, if we're competing against blood sweat, sebum is just not doing it for us.

[A]

Is not as cool as blood sweat, for sure. But anyway, my point is, I think if we want to be inspired by Mu Daeng and celebrate her, we should stop, like, animalizing our looks and start animalizing our behavior. So, like, stop washing your face. Let yourself get oily. Let your chin hair sprout. Like, Mu Dang has these adorable chin hairs. I think that that's. That's mooding.

[B]

And also full cheeks. I will say, in the. In the buccal fat removal era, she is like, very plump and full, you know, in a babyish way. That's quite beautiful.

[A]

Yes. Nobody should ever feed Mudang Lemmy's new Ozempic gummies.

[B]

Oh, I hope that no one is throwing Lemme bottles into the enclosure.

[A]

Attempt at a smooth transition.

[B]

No. Beautiful, well done.

[A]

Thank you, thank you. Yeah, no, I'm excited to talk about this one. So Lemme is Courtney Kardashian's vitamin brand. For those who don't know, it's a supplement brand and they just released a gummy vitamin called Lemme GLP1 daily. So that's an Ozempic dupe and they say that it's supposed to help with cravings and weight management.

[B]

Okay, this already seems like we're getting into risky claim territory to me.

[A]

As a, as a layman, you have no, no idea. So GLP1 is like the active ingredient in Ozempic and the body produces it like naturally, but it is not present in the supplement. So they're calling it a GLP1, but there's no GLP1 in the supplement. The ingredients in there are supposed to, like, enhance your natural production of it. And like, I think there is a way to increase your own production, but it's unclear if these ingredients are in the Lemi. Gummy are part of that. And like, even if they did, it just would not work on the level of Ozempic. Ozempic is like a potent medication. Like, you can't get that right.

[B]

You have to get a prescription for it. And it sounds to me like a lot of those, you know, when we went, maybe we're still in this craze, but I remember it taking off where everything like boosted your metabolism and everyone's like, oh, this boosts your metal. It seemed like that kind of like weird generic catch all to me.

[A]

And I, well, Lemmy has like a metabolism boost, Gummy already. That's called like, Lemme burn.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And I believe I have to check. I'll update in the show notes, but I believe they are the subject of a class action lawsuit because of that one already. So this is a real risky move.

[B]

Especially because if you're already dealing with legal issues over one with like, kind of lesser claims, I would say, like, you know, metabolism boosting is a way lesser claim than saying GLP1.

[A]

Right, right. Who can claim to know the inner workings of their up to. So the social media post about the new gummy and the landing page to buy the gummy. All of the claims about it are full of asterisks. There's a little star after every claim, which is fat reduction.

[B]

That's how you know it's good. That's how you know, it's good.

[A]

GLP1 levels, hunger reduction, weight management, clinical trials even. They all have an asterisk. I did control F on the product page to see how many asterisks there are. There are 40.

[B]

That's too many.

[A]

40. And they go nowhere. There is no key on the bottom of the page that tells you what the asterisk means.

[B]

Oh, so they've also hidden that real information that they legally need to be linking to.

[A]

Look, when you're like, what is the little caveat they're suggesting here? Nothing. So, I mean, I would say they probably have a lawsuit on their hands soon. Because none of these claims can be really proven, I'm guessing, right? I don't know. But I mean, if they stick with it, I could see Lemmy and Kourtney Kardashian launching more products in line with this because other brands are already launching what they're calling, like, replenishing vitamins for people on Ozempic. So I'm guessing Lemmy could transition into that. They could sell the GLP one daily, plus replenishment, plus, you know, skincare vitamins for Ozempic phase. Because when you're not eating as much, you're not getting the nutrients your skin needs to actually function.

[B]

New slew of problems.

[A]

And so these are, yeah, two new markets that have emerged that I'm guessing Lemmy is probably gonna jump on. Like, I definitely protect like a three product bundle here.

[B]

Definitely. It's just also very interesting to me. It's like, lemme, I don't know, it's like, it makes sense for Kourtney Kardashian to move into the supplement world. Cause that's already kind of like the goopy new agey thing that she's into. But I wonder, like, because of her high visibility and like, Lemmy definitely going to be facing legal complications because of all these claims and stuff. I just wonder if it'll come to bear on the rest of the supplement industry that's also very much making similar claims and doing similar type of like, marketing. She's just like kind of the high profile face of it.

[A]

Yeah, I. I mean, I don't know why they would do this because it does seem like the risk is so much higher than the potential reward. But yeah, this isn't anything new. Like, I' seen like different granola bars or protein bars marketed as a natural Ozempic. You know, people were really pushing Berberine, a supplement, and calling it nature's Ozempic when Ozempic first came out. So there's like, this is going on in a lot.

[B]

There was that guy on TikTok. Did you ever see those?

[A]

I don't think so.

[B]

Oh, there's this guy on TikTok who started this, like, natural Ozempic craze where I believe it's just, like, limes and water, and you, like, blend them up and you drink them first thing in the morning. I forget exactly what it is, but it is not much more than that. And he was claiming that he was, like, losing pounds a day by just drinking that, and then everybody started just drinking that.

[A]

Is he, like, also not eating? Like, what's.

[B]

Yeah, it's kind of. Not. To me, it's very much that cayenne lemonade cleanse craze. You remember that, where everyone's like, oh, this is how you, like, cleanse your body and you lose all this weight. It's like, right, well, you're not eating. You're just drinking lemonade. Spicy, spicy lemonade every day. It's like, yeah, you're definitely cleaning yourself out, for sure.

[A]

I have my. My dad does that. He eats regularly. He just also does the cayenne lemon and whatever balance he thinks. He's like, this will counteract the package Newports. I smoke every day. Right.

[B]

Yeah. I think we all have to tell ourselves our own little fairy tales about health and what's good and how we're balancing our lives to get by. So that makes sense to me.

[A]

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

[B]

Exactly. You get it Diddy encoded.

[A]

But I don't know. What's interesting to me about this move is I think introducing a GLP1 enhancing supplement really makes a strong argument against the idea that this family, the Kardashian generals, are just like beautiful women living their lives who happen to influence the culture, and therefore we can't blame them for the standards they set. Like, they are actively selling this standard of beauty and therefore are very worthy of critique. And, like, it reminds me, like, Kim has made this argument before. She's, like, compared her body modifications and her weight loss to Christian Bale.

[B]

That's a terrible comparison.

[A]

I know. She, like, she told the New York Times, here's the quote. Christian Bale can do it for a movie role, and that's acceptable. Even Renee Zellweger gained weight for a role. It's all the same to me. I wasn't saying, hey, everyone, why don't you go lose weight in this short period of time?

[B]

So she.

[A]

And I think. I mean, I don't want to put words in their Mouths. But I would assume, like all of the sisters sort of share this, this, this sort of delusion that, you know, actors and actresses do it for roles, so why can't we? And it's like, well, the difference is like, your product is not art. Your product is not a movie. Your product is literally unattainable beauty standards which you then sell to others through your lines. Like Skim sells shapewear. Shapewear and skincare. And they've done ads for like those diet lollipops and now they have an Ozempic dupe.

[B]

They used to do ads for those corsets.

[A]

Yes, yes. And I mean, I think Skim sells corsets now.

[B]

Oh, yeah, they do. You're right.

[A]

So it's like your job is not the job of an actor. Your job is literally convincing others to adopt your idea of what's beautiful. And that's just like, that's not comparable to Renee Zellweger or Christian Bale or Joaquin Phoenix. Like, right.

[B]

You're also, you're talking about something that's done for a very limited time also. That's like, clearly for like, it's weight loss to an end. Like, it's to film and then it's immediately back to normal. Like, and they aren't just like living their life at this new extreme. Underweight or overweight or.

[A]

And they aren't influencing other people to do that in these cases, at least in the cases that she has mentioned. Like, no one is getting life threatening surgeries to emulate Christian Bale and the machinist the way they are getting, you know, very high mortality rate bbls to emulate Kim. Like, it's just so different to me. And I just, I can't believe that like, one, Kim trots out this argument and two, like, the New York Times was actually like, she has a point.

[B]

Yeah, they didn't push back on that at all because I don't know, my readers know that. I don't even think it's okay for like, Christian Bale to do that.

[A]

I would say, like, there are definitely arguments to be made against all of that as well.

[B]

Right. I don't know. I ended up talking about this recently in the newsletter because of Joaquin Phoenix, but he is obsessed with talking about his weight and talking about how he lost weight in this incredibly unhealthy way for the Joker. And it did bring to mind Christian Bale to me, who also kind of, I don't know, it is a weird glamorization thing of they're like, oh, I only drink Black coffee. And I had one apple day and, like, 500 cigarettes, and I got down to, like, £100. Like, isn't that in a month? Isn't that incredible?

[A]

It's like, reminds me of those, like, you know, Pro Anna posts.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

On Tumblr.

[B]

Tumblr post.

[A]

It's like when you tell someone exactly what you've done, right. Giving them the formula, don't do this. It was horrible for me. I had five cigarettes a day and only black coffee. It's like, okay, you're giving someone a playbook. You have to think a little bit more deeply about how you're framing this.

[B]

Yes. And even Joaquin Phoenix, like, he kind of knows. He's not supposed. Because this round of press for the Joker, too. He's kind of like, I'm not going to talk about my weight. I did. I way overdid it last time. I was, like, totally obsessive and gave you, like, every detail of, like, how I did it and how did. But he's still talking about it. And he's also just being like. I don't know. He started off this whole interview being like, I was so impressed by Lady Gaga because, like, we met and then she went away for a month and she came back and she lost so much weight. She looks so different. And it was so impressive that she did that. Yeah. And it was just such an insight into, like, oh, like, you kind of. I don't. You have a very warped relationship with, like, health and body and what an actor has to, like, do to commit to the craft and, like, sacrifice for a role.

[A]

And also, just, like, even if you don't go into it feeling strongly about it, I think once you start engaging in these behaviors, it does do something to your brain. You become more and more obsessed. And I think it's like, a testament to how you actually can't, like, have a neutral mindset when you are, like, deliberately trying to starve your body.

[B]

Yes. And you can tell he is, like, fixated. Yes. He is obsessed with his own body. Other people's bodies, like, how they're making them look that way. His diet, like, the extremeness of the nature of the extreme. You know, I think there's also something about big male actors like that who are, like, very well regarded, like, highly received by the academy and stuff. You know, I think they have this idea about the craft and what you dedicate to the craft and what you sacrifice for the craft and what it demands of you. And so the physicality of it is just, like another layer. And so they view it as part of an extension of that instead of, like, what it is, which is like, giving yourself weird disordered eating, or at least the mentality of someone with extremely disordered eating, because you. You literally cannot stop thinking about it.

[A]

Right? Yeah. You can't, like, switch it off once the role is done. Like now your brain is sort of.

[B]

Wired up, altered by. Yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wow. It's very interesting to me. It's very interesting that that is just kind of like an accepted part of Hollywood as well.

[A]

Yeah, I agree. I agree. I mean, to bring it back to the lemme gummy, the question I have is just like, I know she obviously wants to capitalize on the popularity of Ozempic and sort of what's happening in the culture with bodies and the types of bodies that we like, value and celebrate. But the thing is, this is not gonna work. It's not gonna have the effect. So how is that good for your brand? Like, the most successful Kardashian brands are ones that actually work. I would argue skims.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Makes a really great product. Great in the way that it does what it says it does. And the Kylie Lip Kit did exactly what it promised to do. And those. Those, to me, are the two that stick out like this. I just don't think is going to be an overall good move for the brand. So. Yeah, I can't imagine why.

[B]

Yeah, I will say I think people are fond of their Good American jeans as well.

[A]

Oh, that's true. That's true. Good American.

[B]

I think the genius of Good American, to me, is the sizing and that it's the right price point for their audience, and I think they overlook that a lot.

[A]

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah.

[B]

Should we talk about the larger problem with the Kardashians?

[A]

Yeah, definitely. I think you have some really excellent points to make here.

[B]

Thank you so much. Well, I'll get into it. I've been thinking about. Well, I've been thinking about the Kardashians my whole life, I guess, but I've been specifically thinking about them in recent years because I think what we're witnessing is honestly the crumbling of their empire, and it's going to be very slow. So I think a lot of people are just kind of taking it piecemeal and not seeing the larger picture of what's happening with them. But I know even we've talked about it before on this podcast is the first problem that they have, which is they've very much backed themselves into this corner of a very expensive lifestyle that requires a Lot. A lot of money and a constant influx of that money in order to sustain.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And that is already you're putting yourself in kind of a no win situation. Just the amount of employees, the amount of businesses, the amount of private jets, the amount of mansions. I know the New York Post reported recently that Kylie cannot sell one of hers. She. She owns many, I think they said accumulatively, it's like $80 million worth of real estate, like in Calabasas. So apparently Kylie cannot sell this one mansion. She slashed the price on it. It's been on the market since 2022, which, especially with celebr, is a very long time. It usually moves pretty quickly. She first listed it for 21.9 million. It's now at 17.9 million, which is still about 4 million more than she and Travis Scott paid for it. But it doesn't seem to be making any sort of difference. But then beyond that, I don't know. I first started thinking about the Kardashians kind of collapse. I mean, over the last two years, I would say. I wrote a piece for the cut in April 2022, ahead of the premiere of their new Hulu show, where I just said, are we finally all caught up with the Kardashians? Just kind of speculating, like, is this.

[A]

I remember that piece.

[B]

Yeah. Is this something that is sustainable? Is this something that people even want? And my conclusion was like, no. Well, basically, at E, their ratings were very bad and getting increasingly bad season over season. And so it is kind of crazy that they're able to pivot to Hulu for so much money when they weren't really kind of proving a return on investment. But it turns out that the new Hulu show is actually maybe the most sustainable, lucrative thing they've got going on.

[A]

Is it really? I've never watched an episode.

[B]

I also have never watched an episode. And to me, it's like, culturally less relevant than ever. Like, I don't really hear people talking about it. I don't hear any news coming out of it. Like, it doesn't. The plotlines seem to not even be registered.

[A]

I mean, there was such hype around new Keeping up episodes because I remember when I first started working for the apps, we would craft the tweets for when they would live, tweet through the new episodes.

[B]

I remember that.

[A]

And that was a huge thing. People all watched the episode live and were on Twitter and talking to each other and to the sisters and. Yeah, I haven't seen anything like that.

[B]

Yeah, I don't see that same impact today. But according to Deadline, Season 5, which is their most recent season, debuted in May to 3.9 million viewers, making it the most watched unscripted series premiere this year on all Disney streaming platforms. I do think the. Yeah, I think all Disney streaming platforms is doing, like, some seriously heavy lifting there in terms of, like, how impressive that is. But again, I do still think that's maybe their most profitable, like, part of this extended empire for me. I don't know, beyond the TV aspect of it. I first started thinking about kind of all of this going downhill fast with just how Kim Kardashian's fashion has been since her divorce from Kanye, which for me is. It's been incredibly stagnant. And for me, Kim, it's been a.

[A]

Long time since we've had, like, an.

[B]

Oh, my God, a new look.

[A]

Believe what Kim Kardashian wore. Kind of like. Like, press cycle.

[B]

Absolutely. And I don't. I honestly don't think we're ever going to get one of those moments again unless she has some sort of, like, radical come to Jesus moment and, like, gets a whole new team. I just really don't see that happening for me. Kim's fame was always, like, really built on constant evolution and constant, like, provocation and, like, pushing the envelope and doing the newest thing and being a trendsetter. And obviously, Kanye was fueling a lot of that. But to my mind, it's like, she can do it without Kanye. She has the infrastructure now built around her. She has the right team, she has the right connections. She should be able to innovate off of the blueprint that he gave her of how you generate PR through fashion. I mean, we saw him do the same thing with Julia Fox. Right? Julia Fox. How she dresses is fully modeled off of how Kanye showed her how you get attention through dress, I think, which is often, like, a lot of nudity, a lot of extreme exposure, but also just kind of like some general craziness, you know, like some general, like, I don't know, like, a little more extreme dressing, a little more out of the box thinking. And Kim has proven time and time again to be seemingly incapable of that. I mean, even as the face of Balenciaga, you would think Balenciaga can certainly do some extreme things. Some, like, really wild looks. And she, time and time again chooses these, like, Jersey gowns or, like, you know, a panta shoe, like a cat suit. And so, to me, that's already a hallmark of trouble brewing when your fame, which is based on being on the cutting edge Being a trendsetter, like, leading the way in fashion is no longer true. Okay. You just, like, I. I don't know. I think Kim thinks she's reached an A list status where she doesn't have to do that anymore. But I disagree.

[A]

I'm thinking of, like, the beauty tie in here too, because I would say our, you know, not even arguably, like, for sure. The Kardashians were more beauty icons rather than fashion icons when they first came out. Like, we all knew they weren't dressing particularly well. It was like Herve Leger bandage dresses and, you know, leopard print skin tight capris or whatever it was. But the way that they did their. Their hair and their makeup. Their makeup, especially contour baking.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Was really culturally relevant. Like, it really changed the landscape. Even if people weren't inspired by their fashion, they were inspired by their beau.

[B]

Definitely.

[A]

And the way that they did, you know, the. The contouring, the big eye makeup, the nude glossy lip, the plastic surgery. Even the plastic surgery. Well, that's where I'm gonna go. Like, that really changed things a lot. But. And I think part of this, like, stagnation is like, Kim, her, like, priority right now in terms of beauty is anti aging. She puts. She's talked a lot about, like, how much work she puts into looking young.

[B]

She said that she would eat shit if it meant that she could be younger.

[A]

That was New York Times article that she talked about Christian Bale being an inspiration. She said, yeah, if. If eating poop every day made me look younger, I would do it. And she's talked at length about, like, the lasers, the tools, the skincare she uses. And she says this is work. But at the same time, she's had such an aversion to admitting any sort of surgery or getting, like, truly obvious work done.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That there's, like, a limit to how much she can influence that space now because she's kind of, like, reached the end of. Of how young she could possibly look for her age without going to extreme surgery as an option. And she does not seem to want to, like, admit to that or, you know, play in that. That pond, I guess. And, yeah, I mean, I just think, like, anti aging perma. Youth is sort of like the ultimate stagnation. Like, stagnation is the point.

[B]

Right, right. Totally.

[A]

Like, to stagnate exactly where you are. So that really makes sense too.

[B]

Totally. And it's always been so weird to me that the Kardashians don't embrace more transparency around whatever they're doing, whether it's lasers or Operations or injections or what, you know, like they admit to a little Botox here and there, but it's like you could be the face of the plastic surgery, you know what I mean? Like, you could be influencers in that space. You could get deals with those, like multi million dollar deals. I don't know, I just, I've always thought so strange, like for women who people so desperately want to look exactly like via surgical means, like, why not embrace what you have already done to yourself and just be transparent and honest about. Because I think, you know, as Kylie slowly rolled out the truth about her lips and her boob job and et cetera, et cetera, people, the reaction always to me is like, yeah, we know. Like we've just been waiting for you to say exactly.

[A]

Like, this isn't going to be a shock to anyone if they lean into that.

[B]

Right? Like I, I even remember working at People when Kylie got the boob job and I was like, yeah, I mean, like, I look at you every day. Like I, I can see the difference. And she was telling everyone that it was her period. Do you remember that?

[A]

No, I don't remember her saying it was her period. That's very funny.

[B]

Oh my God. It was a. It was a whole news cycle. Like, how dare you speak about my young body in this way. Like, I just had my period that day and so my boobs got bigger, bigger. And then the joke we would always say at people is like, wow, that period is really lost. And huh, like it doesn't seem to be subsiding anytime soon.

[A]

So.

[B]

Yeah, anyway, I've always thought that's weird. And so again, the dressing was my first tip off. And then, I don't know, I again, I made sort of a joke in the newsletter that I saw Chris and Chloe doing Mattress Spawn Con. And I was like, that seems bleak.

[A]

Like a low point.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, it just seemed like a low point. And obviously it was being filmed, it was for the new show, but it was very obviously Mattress Bon con. And they were both dressed particularly insanely, even for them. Like, it was clear they were trying to drum up something out of nothing. And I was like, okay, this seems like a bad. Again, just kind of a bad foreshadowing of things to come. And now we also have Kylie returning to her King Kylie era, which for those who don't know, is about 2015, 2016, kind of when she first launches the lip kits. And it like kind of to me, what is like the height of her fame really, like kind of a Tumblr.

[A]

And of her influence, like.

[B]

And of her influence. Absolutely. So for those who don't know, the hallmarks of the King Kylie era, it's literally like a teal wig that's kind of. I don't know. Yeah, it was teal wig. It was a time where she was, like, wearing a different colored wig every day. And every day I was having to write a new story about how she had dyed her hair a new color that was kind of the height of the King Kylie.

[A]

I think we talked about your beautiful carousel of wigs.

[B]

Yeah, it was a real bane of my existence, but so she's back to that. She's also brought Jordyn woods back into the friendship fold, which is also a hallmark. And the third member of this group is Stassi, who was recently photographed with Noah Centineo. Oh, young aspiring heartthrob, I guess, that everyone seems to have forgotten about pretty rapidly.

[A]

But he was everywhere for a second.

[B]

He was. And I think he has, like, a new movie coming out or something. So they're trying. Or a new TV show. And so. So they're trying to drum up interested in him again. So he went on a pretend date with Stassi. But yeah, so that group of girls is back together again, which is also, to me, a hallmark of the King Kylie era. And to me, it all just kind of reads like Kiley trying to leverage the nostalgia for her at that kind of peak of her career to see if she can kind of sell the nostalgia back almost a decade on.

[A]

I mean, it makes sense considering the Kylie cosmetics of it all in terms of influence and, you know, the King Kylie era, with the launch of the lip kit and her wigs and hair color being, you know, subject of the media every day, there's definitely been, like, a marked decline in the influence of. Of her beauty brand, for sure. Like, definitely.

[B]

And the coverage of it.

[A]

And the coverage. Yeah, it's just not really exciting. It's not resonating with customers that's not making a big splash when it has the opportunity to, like. So, for instance. Instance, I think the last two Kylie cosmetic launches, one was a perfume fragrance is having a huge moment. We're in the midst of a giant perfume boom, and still the perfume is kind of a flop and a blush stick. And blush is a huge market right now. And Kylie Cosmetics launched one at the right time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right when Hailey Bieber was launching her blush, her pocket blush. And right when, like, Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez. Their blush is, like, the number one blush at Sephora or something like that so, like, the timing is right for these products to be successful and yet when they're coming from Kylie Cosmetics, for some reason they're not right.

[B]

They're just not having the impact that other brands from like comparable celebrities, you know, like a Hailey Bieber or Selena Gomez, I would say is comparable to a Kylie Jenner. And yet she doesn't seem to be having the impact that her peers are having in that space. And I think that's definitely a big warning sign. Another big warning sign I think is when you start to have major publications even kind of picking up on it. In May, we got an article from Elle titled Are the Kardashians Losing Their Influence? And that to me seems like a real. When the people who are reliant on you to be their cover stars start speaking out against you. I think there's some real.

[A]

That's a good point.

[B]

A qualitative problem there. And then also I personally just like to keep a close eye on Kris Jenner's Instagram biology. I don't know if anybody else is with me, but it's a pretty informative, weird little place. She links to literally every brand that her daughters and I'm sorry, and her son, Happy Socks, often forgot about. George, Arthur, George, but Arthur, George, Arthur, George Socks. Yeah, they are. They're still out there, I believe. Anyway, she links to all the accounts for all the brands. And if you monitor what she's doing in that bio, you will not only see that I'm pretty sure she ranks them in terms of like, I don't know if it's just favorite or like most successful, it seems to me like most successful slash favorite. And then you'll also start to notice when certain brands go mysteriously missing from that list without any sort of public announcement that they've been shuttered.

[A]

What brands are there now?

[B]

Well, so the first time I really noticed this was Kylie Swim suddenly disappeared from the list.

[A]

Oh my gosh. It disappeared from my memory as well.

[B]

And nobody had said anything about Kylie Swim shuttering or anything. And so I saw it disappear from Kris Jenner's bio and I immediately hopped over to their Instagram account and saw that they hadn't posted for like a year, I think at the point when I checked it.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

Earlier this year. Yeah. And so I was like, oh, this is dead. Like, this is a flop. Nobody. Because I remember when it came out too, there were all those TikToks where of like real try ons and people were like, this is insane. Like it's seasoned through you know, or it's like shred. Like, it's just falling off my body as soon as I put it on. Like, there's just no way I can.

[A]

Do you think the same thing's gonna happen with Kai, the fashion line? I have not heard anything about Kai since.

[B]

Well, Kai is also interesting because she's folded Kiley Swim into Kai now, and so she's releasing swimwear collections under the umbrella of Kai. But to me, it's like, I'm wondering if that's just the leftovers, you know, or like some sort of, like, like, I don't know, dead stock fabric or something. I'm very curious. And, yeah, I'm also curious about what's going to become of Kai, because it doesn't seem to be having any sort of impact. Like, I really. I have not seen anyone wear Kai outside of her immediate family and friend group. Like, very obviously staged paparazzi images of, like, Kendall and Haley and her, like, going out to dinner all wearing Kai. It's like that is kind of the only time you're even seeing it have any sort of celebrity resonance.

[A]

Right?

[B]

And, yeah, again, a lot of Kai is also. We're learning with each new rollout, knockoffs or, you know, heavily. Heavily inspired by independent designers whose samples she may have called in to wear before manufacturing, which I don't know, which seems to be kind of a Kardashian, like, business mo, or at least, you know, when I was at People, I wrote a story about a lawsuit that was happening against Good American because of a De Blue dazzled Destiny Blue, who I love. She is a very, very famous bedazzler, I guess, to put it mildly. But she basically. Anytime you see a rhinestoned anything on a major pop star, I'm talking Beyonce, I'm talking Rihanna lady. Got like, the elite of the elite. She made it okay. She makes everything rhinestone that has ever touched Beyonce's body. And basically, Chloe and her stylist had called in a bunch of bodysuits and pieces from Destiny with the potential of wearing them. She didn't ever wear them, but she certainly made designs for Good American that looked almost identical to them. And Destiny, I mean, had all the receipts, Destiny had all the letters, like photographs, the lending, the email correspondence that very, very clearly made a timeline. And I do know that Chloe settled with her out of court. So I'm gonna say she was probably right about. About those problems.

[A]

I mean, I'm just thinking about this now. It's like, you know, you're one of the most Famous women in the world, you know that if you rip off an independent designer, they're gonna, like, capitalize on that moment. And I have to wonder, like, I mean, I don't even have to wonder, but, like, we have to just point out that the controversy might be the point for some of these things. I don't know. And I'm thinking again of the new Lemme GLP1 daily. Like, I wonder if the controversy that's inevitably going to come from that is the point. Is this, like, a publicity stunt for some of her other supplements? Like, will that be worth it for them? I don't. I don't know. It seems crazy, but, I mean.

[B]

No, but, I mean, Kardashians, I don't know about. I don't know about Lemmy because I don't know the ins and outs of that particular case, but I know that with the fashion, it definitely is part of the marketing to a certain extent, because these women are also counting on these independent designers not having the resources. Like, literally just not having the money to take them to court, not. Or like, to sustain a legal battle is incredibly expensive. Destiny happens to be in a place where she can do that, and she is successful enough to be able to do that and has also a proven track. She's copyrighted everything. She. She's. She's very litigious and she's very, like, on it. And so she happens to know the ins and outs of her rights and, like, what can be done. But a lot of young designers don't.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think a lot of them also see the opportunity to potentially work with a Kardashian, like, just lending them samples and they're like, of course. Like, that could be a business changer. Like, of course I want to. Right. And then this ends up happening to them. And for the Kardashians, yeah, I think it's like a little headache, you know, that can easily be solved with, like, a couple million, which is nothing to them. Them. And meanwhile, they get a bunch of free press, even if it's negative press, which they're no stranger to. You know, it all points back to the same place. Right. So it's very interesting. But, yeah, you're seeing them roll up a lot of their businesses. I mean, Kylie Baby has also been, like, kind of reabsorbed by.

[A]

I feel like you're making these up.

[B]

I know. Every time I remember literally anything about the Kardashians, I feel like you are the sole, like, insane person in this world who remembers any of this stuff. Like, Nobody else cares or is like tracking them like I am. But yeah, Kylie Baby was a very short lived thing. I mean it's still available for sale on Kylie Cosmetics, but it's certainly not advertised. It's certainly not promoted as like a real standalone business or, or even, I mean I, I can't remember the last time she plugged those products and. But you're also seeing Kim do it as well. She rolled up KKW Beauty, which she, I don't know, kind of implied she was doing because of like the west in the title of it all amid the divorce. But I don't really think that's the reason because like, if the brand was branding, you know, I don't think she cares. That's kkw, you know.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Anyway, so she rolled that up into Skin skkn, which I've always thought is a crazy.

[A]

That's a crazy name.

[B]

Crazy name. Yeah. But I don't know, I just think it's interesting that you're seeing kind of all of these like siloed businesses collapse into one big umbrella business. And also something I've always thought that's very strange about their business model is the way that they're cannibalizing each other's businesses and like fan base, like you're all working from the same fan base. Like you're all trying to sell the same people the same products. And that's just so weird to me. Which is why I think something like Good American does work is because it's angled slightly differently. You know, it is more of like a mid range, I don't know, Kmart brand. Where, I don't know. And they're, none of them really are trying to do just like jeans, T shirts, bodysuits. Yeah. Bad footwear, you know. And so in that way Chloe's been really able to successfully build something that's like almost independent of what the rest of her family's doing and maybe is also helped by the fact that her own name is not in the brand.

[A]

I also just think that like the brands that are most successful are so personal to them and what they're known for. Like Kylie was obviously known for her lips. That's why Kylie Lip Kit worked. Like Kim is known for her shape.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

That's why skims works. Chloe was always known as the sister who had like fluctuating body weight, was. Had a harder time getting dressed and like presenting herself to the public. And so I think the good American ethos of like these jeans will fit your curvy body really. Worked for her too. Like when they, when the products start to get like less personal and less tied to like their image in the public, I think people don't care as much.

[B]

Yeah, and that's a very good point. And I also think it's interesting because we're also kind of watching skims go through kind of a shift right now. And I've seen similar commentary from people online being like, what is the through line here? Like, what is. You know, because they're releasing all of these campaigns with various celebrities, you know, and people are like, of course, like it gets press in the moment. Like it's right on time. Like it's usually pegged into something pop culture related that is timely. It makes sense in that capacity. But it's like all the photo shoots are lens by completely different photographers with very different aesthetics. You know, every collection is so different. I think people are starting to wonder, kind of like, what is, what is skim?

[A]

What's the skim's point of view?

[B]

Yeah, what's the skim's point of view? Besides good marketing? Yeah, yeah. Which is very interesting. And then of course, more trouble ahead for the Kardashians, I think, personally, because of their connection to PDF Diddy. Yeah. Which I, you know, who knows what's going to come out about that as this continues to roll along. But they're definitely very. In the world of P. Diddy. They're definitely at all the white parties. I mean, already we've had a clip resurfaced from Keeping up with the Kardashians of Khloe around the time when she was dating French Montana, who's also a very good friend of Diddy and talking about going to parties at his house and everyone being butt naked and it being so crazy and kind of like shushing friends. And her friend was talking about it as well and she was like shushing her and being like, don't tell them. Like, I don't know, it's a little off.

[A]

Definitely, Definitely a little off.

[B]

And then of course you have the matriarch, the momager of it all, Kris Jenner dating Corey Gamble. And Corey Gamble is like deep, deep in the world of Diddy. He was very good friends with Kim Porter for a very, very long time who passed away in 2018 of they say like pneumonia related death. It's very, it's, it happened very suddenly, I guess. I'm unsure. But anyway, he was very good friends with her for a very long time. He worked with Justin Bieber also for a very long time. As some Sort of like security guard type figure.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All of the information around Cory is, like, kind of weird and nebulous. Kanye's always called him a CIA handler, which I think gives Corey way too much credit. I think he's just, like, a very good social climber who always seems to conveniently find himself in the mix of rich and famous people who can kind of fund and support his life. Obviously leading to Kris Jenner as, like, the ultimate. He can be the ultimate kept man with her, I guess, is how I would put it. But I just think his involvement is very strange and is inevitably going to reflect poorly on the family and maybe change public attitude about them in a very interesting way. I mean, even. I was just scrolling through his Instagram this morning, trying to, like, figure out what is up with him and what he's doing. I mean, he was at Kim Porter's house when the coroners arrived, for one, which is like, that's a level of intimacy that's interesting. And about five months ago, Go. He posted a birthday tribute to her with photos of them together in 2015. And he said, I will always continue to thank you for all you and Diddy did for my life. And it's okay.

[A]

That's a pretty strong association with.

[B]

That's a pretty strong association. And also, you have to remember, five months ago, we already knew a lot about Diddy at that point. Cassie first filed her lawsuit against him in November of 2023. And so this is a post in April of 2024. Yeah. And that whole November of last year, we were getting a lot of very bad information. And then even shortly after Corey posted this, we have the hotel assault video of him assaulting Cassie Lee.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah, I just think they're. Overall. Yeah, it's very sad. And this family is an increasingly pressed position.

[A]

Yeah. I wonder what's gonna happen. I mean, the fact that they are shuttering some of these brands or folding them into each other, they're sending out the signals themselves. So I wonder how many more will sort of collapse into each other and if we'll ever see a larger family umbrella.

[B]

Yeah. Or any. Or I just wonder if at any point we'll hear any sort of admission of, like, you know, oh, like, we're learning from the. We're overcoming the struggles of business or, I don't know, you know, they're going to couch it in some way of, like, a learning curve of becoming billionaire CEOs, and you just have to, like, cut away the dead weight or something. I don't know. I'M interested to see if they'll ever address it or, like, spin it in some way and just kind of going from the high highs of, like, being these Forbes billionaire covers to kind of having to admit that your business is collapsing, saying.

[A]

Right. And I wonder, like, whether that would be smart with considering. Kim's like, Sky Ventures. Is that what it's called her, like.

[B]

Investment or, like, Sky Partners or something? Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. When you're part of an. I don't know.

[B]

I also feel like a lot of people don't even know about Sky. Like, they haven't even clocked, like, this corporate venture capital fund that Kim is, like, low key, investing in everything via. I mean, you know, my pet conspiracy theory is that sky is an investor in Prenuvo and is responsible for all those weird, unmarked celebrity ads.

[A]

I could see it.

[B]

I don't know. There's something about the clandestine nature of those advertisement rollouts that was very Kardashian to me.

[A]

That's a good point. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. I would not be surprised.

[B]

It's like, very much the gray area that, like, Kardashian closet exists in where you're like, you're selling me worn samples that you got for free for full price. Like, and where does this money go? You say? Into Chris's church. Interesting.

[A]

I mean, they're geniuses. They've done it. Just who knows how much longer they can do it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Should we move into the mess of the month?

[B]

Yeah, let's get into some hot messes of the month.

[A]

Okay. Okay. My mouse of the month is this skincare brand called do skin spelled D I E U X like the French word for God, launched a new cleanser called Baptism. And, you know, I've just. I'm done. I just can't stand the religious overtones of this brand anymore. I'm ready to say it. It's not.

[B]

It's controversial.

[A]

Oh, it's like, not. It's the blandest, most like, foundational belief in the beauty industry. And. And I don't know, like, okay, so obviously this brand loves religious overtones. Like, it's right there in the name. Like, dewiness is next to godliness. Like, other products are called things like Instant Angel Deliverance Serum. Like, their emails have subject lines like, ready to be born again. Or like, deliver me from uneven skin tone. And it's like, I like that it's.

[B]

Almost a religious cult. Like, I like that they're walking that line.

[A]

I think it is like, okay. I think that they think they're doing something. Something here, like, pointing to the spiritual symbolism that's, like, threaded throughout beauty and making it obvious. But, like, I am of the firm belief that it is not doing anything. Like, I just don't think you can, like, play with or ironize, like, a belief that is currently actively ingrained in the culture unless you're, like, actively calling it out and subverting that message. And, like, this is not that. They're just real enforcing, like, a very deeply embedded belief about beauty and morality and ethical ideals and furthering that. Because, like, you know, I know I've talked about this before, but, like, beauty does function as an ethical ideal today. It is, you know, very close to organized religion in the way that it functions. It's like, there is a moral imperative in society to be beautiful. Like, I've brought up many times before the examples of, like, Anne Hathaway looking young. And people are like, this is how you age when you're a. Yeah.

[B]

When you're unproblematic queen.

[A]

Or like, when Amy Schumer, you know, defended Israel, people were like, well, obviously she's, you know, fat and ugly. She's.

[B]

Zionism ages you. Yeah.

[A]

So. And, like, there are lots of studies that show that people, like, we judge other people who get, like, obvious cosmetic work as being morally inferior. So there's a lot of association with, like, beauty and morals in. In the culture. Like, and the beauty industry really reinforces that. And I think sometimes not intentionally, like, products are messaged as these, like, portals to goodness, like, even through really obvious language, like good skin, miracle ingredients, Holy Grail products, like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[B]

I think it just becomes the language. Like, it's so embedded in how we speak about these things that we don't even see it for what it is anymore. Because I think that a lot of times, like, there are just words in fashion where. Where, like, everyone just uses them. Because it's like, that's how we've read fashion being written about always. So everything is chic, you know, and.

[A]

It would be one thing if, like, the language was there but the function was not. But, like, the function is also there. Like, the beauty industry borrows a lot from, like, organized religion or even cults in the way that it markets. Like, like, the core belief in the beauty industry is that. Or like, at least the skincare industry is that you are born and bad, and only through its power will you become good. So it paints, like, basic human traits that everyone has, like pores, wrinkles, oils, texture, body hair as, like, these sins of the flesh to overcome. And like when you do it right, you transcend into this superhuman state of beauty. I mean like it.

[B]

You just made me think about that like baby skincare line too where it's like even babies now are like not exempt from kind of like the impurity of being born. And like now it must be maintained or something.

[A]

Talk about about baptism. And it's like the industry like does position itself like very similar to a religion as a path to like self worth fulfillment, even like immortality, like anti aging. And the ideals that like are embedded in these products come from religious indoctrination and religious beliefs from like centuries ago. So like youthfulness. I mean obviously there's many standards that like inform our obsession with youth, but like one is innocence. And that was like prized in the church back in the day. Like pale skin and cleansing. These are associated with purity. They come from these very like deep religious beliefs that were like very strictly enforced by these institutions, like purity. Language is huge in the beauty industry. So I just like, I just don't think there's anything like fun, funny, ironic or interesting about making the subtext the, the main text.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like when you're selling products that do the same thing, like, I don't know.

[B]

No. Yeah. I also think what you said about like the lack of subversion is very interesting to me because I think that is kind of like a broader problem. I mean it's definitely a problem in fashion, it's a problem in marketing as I think that often brands think that just their participation in these types of tropes is like, is the subversion. It's like, no, you have to like take it the step beyond. Yeah. You have to actually undermine the thing. Like you can't just like participate in like the visual cues or the rhetoric or whatever and be like, isn't that crazy? Because like wink, wink. You guys know that like, like we're not really like that. It's like. No, but you are like that because you're, you're utilizing those tools.

[A]

That's literally the exact thing.

[B]

Right.

[A]

To do that exact thing.

[B]

Right. There is no counterbalance to it. I don't know. I think that's a, that's a huge problem I face in fashion a lot.

[A]

No, a hundred percent. Yeah. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. And I just think it's so obvious with this particular brand and mover it move it.

[B]

Well, something I'm not over is my hot mess of the month, which is chippy in a much lighter note, a much more foolish topic.

[A]

Tell me about Chippy topic.

[B]

Chippy really went overlooked. I gotta tell you, Chippy did not make the media impact that he was definitely supposed to make. Basically Doritos paid some man to like dress up like a big Doritos chip and like walk the VMAs red carpet. I'm pretty sure he was like the first person on the carpet. And it. I think they were angling for like some sort of viral marketing moment and it just flopped so hard and even they like did. MTV did an interview with Chippy and it's just like quite sad. Yeah, it's like not funny.

[A]

It's, it's funny because like the, the. Is it anthropomorphizing?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Whatever's happening with this Chip is working on me because I'm feeling like tender towards you.

[B]

Feel bad for the Chippy. Yeah. Ignored.

[A]

And I'm having to remind myself like, no, he's a, he's a stand in.

[B]

For a corporate Doritos got you with their sentient ip. They just manipulated you emotionally into loving Chippy and feeling so bad for this. Just this man dressed up in like a really cheap Halloween costume of a Chip. But I don't know, I'm just kind of obsessed with like, I don't know, Mascots have become like weird figures in recent years and brands keep kind of pushing them as though they're real celebrities. And I'm just kind of obsessed with, with the visuals that they're creating. I don't know. Chippy immediately reminded me of Bic pens. Did this a while ago where they had the Bic pen like mascot go on Ariana Maddox's podcast. And it was just so confusing because the Bic pen guy, I don't know if you guys know what he looks like, but it's not like a human. It's like a giant eyeball. It's like actually quite scary. And it's like very scary when you make it life size. Like, it's one thing to see it on the side of your pen. It's very different to see it like looming over Arianomatics on a podcast. Also like a, a mascot, right? That's not the venue for a mascot. They have. They can't speak. There's nothing to say. Like, what are they talking about? Anyway? This also happened recently with Paris Hilton. I liked this one though. Paris Hilton did like a little pap stroll with a Costco hot dog. Like a, like a life size. I'm sorry, a life size? Yes, a feminized life size. She was wearing heels. She's very girly pop. Yeah. And I just thought that was incredible.

[A]

And.

[B]

Yeah, I don't know, it's just something that I've been clocking lately is just kind of how I think we talked about this in a past episode about, like, brands developing personalities on social media and how much I hate that. And it's kind of the new extension of that is, like, where brands feel like they've no longer trapped you, I think, on social media into interacting with, like, the personality of their brand, which they shouldn't have, I. I think. But now they're kind of like, foisting it into new venues. Be it the red carpet, be it a podcast, be it a paparazzi, you know, photo op, and kind of making you confront their sentient brand identity in new contexts, which, I don't know, it's like, incredible to see the photographs of, but I don't think it's, like, effective in terms of, like, creating a brand identity or winning over your audience. And it's also something I've been thinking about lately because there's this new trend in media also where they're, like, making movies about shoppable products. I don't know if you've noticed this. Yes, it's crazy. It's incredible. So we had like, the Flamin Hot Cheetos movie, which was obviously paid for by Flamin Hot Cheetos. And they had like, even the red carpet for it had like a. I don't even know what you call that. Like an end of aisle, like, display unit full of chip bags. Yeah, like an end cap activation on the red car. It was so weird. And the. All the celebrities, like, posed with it. I was like, okay, like, kind of, kind of fab, kind of incredible. And then you have like, the pop Tart movie with, like, Jerry Seinfeld's pop tart movie was very strange. Or like Ben Affleck doing, like, Nike. A big, long Nike commercial in the form of a movie. And it's like, obviously the stuff has been around for a minute. Like, you know, we have the Lego movies. We have all sorts of, like, toy IP being like, translate. You have. Barbie obviously was like, a really, really successful version of this.

[A]

Well, now there's gonna be, like, a new movie about, like, Coke versus Pepsi.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[A]

So it's interesting, like, the toy. The toy thing is transitioning into the food thing.

[B]

Right. And I think it's, like, egged on by how crazy successful Barbie was. And that Barbie kind of was able to transcend being like a giant Mattel commercial to win awards for people to.

[A]

Like, really treat it. Not to the discerning eye.

[B]

Not to the discerning eye, for sure. But you know, people, it really was treated as this, like, great work of feminist art.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

As though at the end of the day, it isn't still just an big, long, fancy advertisement for dolls. Yeah, right, right, right. It's really fascinating to me. And now we're going to see Margot Robbie do it all over again with the Sims. Sims, which I'm excited about the Sims movie, to be honest, but it's the same thing.

[A]

I never did the Sims. I never was into the Sims. I have no idea.

[B]

I'm a casual Sims observer. I'm not a Sims player. But there is this drag queen, Juno Burch, who I'm obsessed with, who plays the Sims on YouTube, and she's just so funny. She's so good at it. I highly recommend everyone give that a Google. Maybe I'll link to it.

[A]

I will. Maybe.

[B]

Maybe I'll take it. I'll link to Chippy for sure. I'll link to that sad, sad Chippy interview so you can all see what that man's up to. Poor old Chippy.

[A]

All right, well, I guess that's it for today.

[B]

I think we've yapped long enough, exhausted.

[A]

Ourselves and hopefully not our listeners. But, you know, if you enjoyed this, and only if you enjoyed this, please review on Apple Podcasts. Like subscribe Review.

[B]

Nice comments. Nice comments with all your beautiful, wonderful thoughts. We appreciate them all so much. Much. We appreciate you for listening.

[A]

Thanks for listening. We will see you next time.

[B]

Bye.