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- [00:15]
A
Hello and welcome to Mess World, a podcast dedicated to discussing the highs and lows of pop culture every month. I'm Jessica Defino. I write the newsletter Flesh World.
- [00:24]
B
And I'm Emily Kirkpatrick and I write I heart message.
- [00:27]
A
And we're back. We're back for back March messiness quarter
- [00:32]
B
one, quarter one of 2026 mess world.
- [00:36]
A
So upsetting that time has moved quickly.
- [00:39]
B
I know it's scary. This just means we're old.
- [00:42]
A
Yeah, I guess.
- [00:43]
B
Get faster and faster. Yeah.
- [00:45]
A
I've always wondered, like the past five years, I wonder, is this just getting older where everything feels faster, or is this like a unique post Covid time warp?
- [00:55]
B
I think it's double whammy. Yeah, I think we're getting the best of both.
- [00:59]
A
Yeah, I think so. Well, you've had an exciting month.
- [01:02]
B
I've had an exciting month. I guess I'm going to make my official podcast announcement that by the time you're listening to this, I have accepted a job at Interview magazine.
- [01:13]
A
Oh my God.
- [01:15]
B
I'm going to be their digital editor. I'm going to run the website, which is kind of insane. I can't believe adults are letting me do that. I know that I'm an adult technically, but I feel like a child.
- [01:28]
A
Well, you're gonna bring like a childlike whimsy.
- [01:30]
B
That's right. A wonder, A childlike wonder to the
- [01:34]
A
magazine, to the pages of Interview.
- [01:36]
B
Yeah, I'm very excited about it. I just love, I mean, as I said in all of my many interviews that I did with Interview, I just feel like their aesthetic, their tone, like their provocation is like very me, very in line with each other. So it's like not that hard for me to like think up ideas for them because it's like, what would I enjoy? What do I like? Yeah, and yeah, and they're, they're very open minded and that like, literally no one. That's kind of the problem that I ran in into all my old jobs is like, people want websites to be the same types of blogs that they've always been and they're not being responsive to the present moment or like what the Internet is like or like how people consume media today and what they want to consume. And that was always very frustrating to me. And I worked at massive corporations where they're like, we literally don't care what you think. Please just keep blogging and shut up. So it's nice to feel like I'm going somewhere where they really do care and they're willing to be experimental and explore what a website looks like today. Plus I get to work with Mel Odenberg who literally cannot think of a better duo. One of my great fashion idols of my life. Very surreal. I had lunch with him and yeah, I'm still not wrapping my head around it or the fact that we're gonna literally have meetings together all the time. Yeah, it's very cool. I'm very excited. But yeah, but mess will continue. I should say mess world will continue uninterrupted. That's also why I took the job interview. Is completely understanding that I have my own like, side career on the Internet and they don't mind it. Which, like, what publication can you imagine would. Would feel that way about what I do on the Internet.
- [03:22]
A
But then to your point about like understanding what websites are and blogs are and how content is being consumed today, I feel like that's very like forward facing approach to hiring people.
- [03:33]
B
So I mean, absolutely. And I had a feeling that they would feel that way because they already have so many employees who like, are forward facing them and like our brands in their, like, I'm thinking of Dara specifically, like as a brand in her own right and like has a career at Interview and also outside of Interview and they seem to be accommodating of that because, you know, to my mind at the end, like it all points back to them. Like if I do well in my career, it looks good on them.
- [03:57]
A
Oh, of course.
- [03:58]
B
If I raise my notoriety, it raises their notoriety in my opinion. So yeah, not that they need their notoriety risen by me, but
- [04:09]
A
no, I think it's going to be very mutually beneficial. I can't wait to see what you do.
- [04:15]
B
Me too. I don't know what it is. I look forward to finding out. Also, I just wanted to begin today's podcast by making a movie recommendation.
- [04:23]
A
Very important. I need to hear this movie wreck
- [04:27]
B
because I don't know, I've been thinking about it for the last 24 hours and it's like a movie. Do you ever turn something on thinking you're going to casually watch it? And then I found myself in a weird position, like clutching my laptop for two hours straight, like, unable to look away. It's this Swedish movie. It's called I'm gonna butcher this. But it's called De Ofraviliga. It's involuntary in English. It's from 2008. It's not even a new movie.
- [04:55]
A
Okay.
- [04:57]
B
And I'm also not sure how I. How it got into my orbit. I think I read it, like mentioned in an article offhand Somewhere where someone called it, like Sweden's answer to Thirteen, the movie Thirteen. Have you seen that?
- [05:12]
A
Yes. Interesting.
- [05:13]
B
And so I love a movie about a troubled youth. I love a bad teen film. And so I was intrigued, but that is kind of just a small fraction of what this film is actually about. That's actually a bad representation of it. It does have that element, but I don't know, it's all these little vignettes about all these different people who are experiencing, I guess the theme, like involuntary situations and in many different capacities. But I don't know, I was just really. It's so interesting. It's shot so interestingly. Like the camera's in these weird kind of like far off positions where you feel like you're always eavesdropping on them or you're. Yeah, it feels very voyeur and I don't know. And I was just. So many of the themes of the film feel so relevant today. It's like. I don't know, like, it's. There's manosphere stuff. There's like kind of Internet pedophilia kind of stuff. There's like even this. There's this teacher who's kind of like, I don't know, exploring this concept of kind of like woke going too far almost. Which in 2008 seems like such a wild, I don't know, thing to witness in today's context. I think it's so good. It's so interesting.
- [06:37]
A
Okay, I'm gonna have to watch this.
- [06:39]
B
I recommend it. It's on YouTube. It's free.
- [06:43]
A
I'm on a bit of a Swedish media kick myself. I don't know if you saw, there's a new Swedish show on Netflix called Detective Hole. No, his name is Ole in the correct pronunciation. But I was just so intrigued by show called Detective Hole. Yeah, and his first name. Detective Hole's first name is Harry. Harry Hole. Perfect. I know it's.
- [07:11]
B
No, I haven't heard it at all.
- [07:13]
A
I've got to finish watching now. I'm sucked in.
- [07:15]
B
Amazing.
- [07:16]
A
It's like a Swedish cop show. Murder mystery, blah, blah, blah.
- [07:20]
B
Yeah, they've got that media. Wasn't the troll movie we're both obsessed with? Wasn't that also Swedish?
- [07:26]
A
I think so, yeah.
- [07:28]
B
Have we talked about. I did too, but have we talked about it on the pod?
- [07:32]
A
I don't know if we talked about that, but I love it. Maybe that was just our own Bizarre.
- [07:38]
B
Yeah, I don't remember the name of it either now, but there's a Swedish troll movie that won The Cannes Film Festival, like, years ago. I think it won something. There's a reason that all of my friends sat down to watch it. I don't remember what they're.
- [07:53]
A
I've gotten to Google.
- [07:55]
B
Anyway. It's about trolls.
- [07:57]
A
Border.
- [07:58]
B
Border. Yeah. Border.
- [08:00]
A
Highly recommend.
- [08:01]
B
It's really wild, y'. All.
- [08:03]
A
Yes. You're not ready. That's the thing. You're not ready for what?
- [08:06]
B
Border. I don't know that I. I don't know that I even recommend Border. Just that you'll never be able to stop thinking about it again. Like, it will infiltrate your life in a psychotic way that you'll never be free from. But, like, did I enjoy it? I don't know.
- [08:20]
A
Yeah, I think that's a great way of putting it. Like, I don't know if I was like, oh, I loved the experience of watching this, but I was enthralled, absolutely enthralled.
- [08:29]
B
And I. And now every time I touch water or a tree, I think of her. It's. It's crazy. It's a wild ride. Get into it, guys. This is a movie podcast now.
- [08:40]
A
Yeah, well, no, let's. Let's transition. Let's get into the meat of the episode. And I just want to start by saying I called the Listerine strip beauty.
- [08:51]
B
Boom. You so did.
- [08:52]
A
It's here. Yeah. So in our 2026 predictions podcast, I think, or at least in my 2026 predictions post in December, I said we would be seeing more Listerine strip type products, and the industry is delivering. So, like, I think last week or two weeks ago, Love Wellness, which is the. The wellness brand started by Lo Bosworth of Laguna beach fame. They just released a bunch of supplements in the form of quick melt strips. So you can take basically any supplement they offer. Like, in the form of a Listerine strip, they just, like, melt on your tongue. There's, like, bloat energy. There's one for cravings, which is a little bleak. Just like, take this tiny little wispy strip and let it melt on your tongue to not crave anything else anymore.
- [09:39]
B
That feels very. Did you ever see the clip of Yolanda Hadid telling Gigi Hadid to chew an almond?
- [09:46]
A
Yes. Yes. This is very almond Mom Maha Wellness culture. It feels. But there's so many other things that these Listerine strip type products are being used for. There's a K beauty brand called Briese that is selling mouth strips that tint your tongue red. You're supposed to take one, like, after you eat so that your tongue doesn't look like, whatever food or coffee you
- [10:10]
B
were drinking, just have a lollipop.
- [10:12]
A
I know. Well, that's what I said. I said, like, you can do this with a handful of Doritos. I know from experience, like, yeah, absolutely. Buying strips for this. There's also a new sleep supplement company called Sleep or Die that delivers their, like, sleep supplements in the form of a sleep strip that you put in the mouth.
- [10:31]
B
That's a really double whammy for you on the production front.
- [10:34]
A
I know. Exactly. It's death. Yep. And I'm seeing a lot of, like, actual Listerine strip promo or press because I think. I really thought they didn't make these anymore. And they do. They definitely do.
- [10:51]
B
They've definitely, like, fallen out of favor. I feel like in the mint category,
- [10:55]
A
perhaps they're coming back. So in February, I think Listerine strips sponsored a release event for the musician Somber, and there's all these press photos of him, like, posing next to a bowl of Listerine strips. And then so I went and I checked out the Listerine Instagram and their first post was a video of someone, like, holding the packet of Listerine strips between their fingers like a cigarette and, like, tapping it out the window. So they're making Listerine strips, like the new cigarette.
- [11:27]
B
Yeah. That's also kind of an old TikTok meme.
- [11:31]
A
Oh, is it?
- [11:32]
B
Yeah. Of people just holding whatever, literally any product at all and being, like, something to take the edge off.
- [11:38]
A
Yeah. Yes, yes. I think that's.
- [11:40]
B
They're holding it like a cigarette. Okay. Interesting. It's also an interesting. Somber. To me, this is maybe rude as a person who doesn't listen to his music, but he gives me, like, kind of MGK vibes just in terms of, like, industry plant. Like, he's just like, kind of everywhere, doing everything, promoting everything. And also to be the face of Listerine. Are you not kind of saying, like, I have bad breath?
- [12:05]
A
Right, Right.
- [12:06]
B
I mean, no shame. But interesting. Interesting that a celebrity would be like, yes, I know.
- [12:13]
A
Yeah. Well, I guess Hailey Bieber is all about those little, like, wisp, like, toothbrush things.
- [12:19]
B
And she's not getting paid for that.
- [12:20]
A
No, she just loves, in a way
- [12:22]
B
I don't understand, like, get a check. And also, what is it doing for.
- [12:26]
A
Here's my theory. I think she's going to release some sort of road product that's related to that. I mean, we might even see a road. Listerine strip type thing or a road,
- [12:36]
B
like, road by Crest is what she should be doing.
- [12:39]
A
Exactly. And I think that fits in with where I think this overall trend is going, which is turning these into accessories. Like, I think we're going to see blinged out cases, bedazzled Listerine strips or supplements. Like even like a sticky strip to stick the packet to the back of your phone or something. Like, I can see Rhode coming out with some sort of oral care thing that attaches to.
- [13:00]
B
Absolutely. Listerine Labubu. Yeah, that's. Yes. Wise as always. Correct as always.
- [13:08]
A
Listerine Labubu is so beautiful and haunting.
- [13:12]
B
Thank you. Also, I just wanted to say anecdotally that I saw someone who was definitely Gen Z on the subway the other day using oil blotting sheets.
- [13:19]
A
They are coming back, I'm telling you.
- [13:22]
B
Yeah. They're out and about. People are loving the strips. And again, we've said it before, but I really. There is something so satisfying about the oil blotting them turning transparent. Like they just really figured that one out.
- [13:35]
A
Yes, yes. It's like visual evidence that this did its job.
- [13:39]
B
Yes. And the pore strip, you know what I mean? It has a similar kind of like you're getting results. And I'm wondering if Listerine, if maybe that's kind of how they could get their edge back, is some kind of. Maybe it dyes your teeth green or a whitening.
- [13:55]
A
A whitening strip dissolves. So it's not.
- [13:58]
B
Or they should do something with this. They should do something with these breeze people, too. Like dying tongues red. That seems right up their alley.
- [14:06]
A
A collab for sure.
- [14:07]
B
A collab for the ages.
- [14:09]
A
Yeah. So that's what's happening in the mouth.
- [14:14]
B
Fantastic. Allow me to talk about some things that are happening on the red carpet, which. Namely, people are dressing like chickens and just kind of. And foul in general. Poultry.
- [14:26]
A
Yes.
- [14:27]
B
I first started thinking about this kind of at the beginning of the month, I guess. Rosalia attended the Brit Awards in Chanel, and it just had like a big. It almost looked like a feather boa, but it was like attached to the dress, kind of coming across her chest and around her shoulders and then dangling off the back. And at the same time, we had the SAG Awards and. Do you know snitchery?
- [14:49]
A
Mm mm.
- [14:50]
B
Are you familiar with snitchery?
- [14:51]
A
I don't even know if this is a brand, if this is a person. Is this a singer?
- [14:55]
B
It's a person. I wouldn't say I'm super familiar with with her, but as she just keeps popping up in my mess coverage in a way where I'm like, maybe I should get familiar with snitchery. I believe that she's big on YouTube. She's like a cosplayer.
- [15:08]
A
Oh, okay.
- [15:09]
B
She does cosplay. I first started talking about her at the Stranger Things premiere because she did, like, Demogorgon cosplay, but, like, black tie Demogorgon in a way that I really enjoyed. And, yeah, she again was at the SAG Awards. Full chicken. Full chicken, just minus the beak. The whole dress. I can't remember off the top of my head who the dress is by, but, yeah, just plumed from top to bottom. White. Yeah. Very silky. Chicken energy. And then at the. I just looked up a picture.
- [15:42]
A
It's even better than I was imagining.
- [15:44]
B
Yeah, People will put it in the video, obviously, but it is worth seeing. Definitely Google it if you're listening to the audio version, because I think it really explains this trend in a nutshell. Nicole Kidman, also in Chanel at the Oscars. White plumes M. Head to toe. We got Mia Goth at the Vanity Fair Oscars afterparty and custom Dior that had kind of a short bustle in the back that was, like, exposed white tulle. That gave me chicken butt energy. Once you see it, I think you start seeing it everywhere. Demi Moore and Schiaparelli at the SAG had kind of this big poof of kind of tulle and feathers and just coming out of her butt. In my newsletter, I just called it, like, a fart explosion of tool.
- [16:32]
A
I feel like we've been seeing that. There was, like, a picture of Amanda's read with, like, a fart explosion tool, I think, in who, what, Where a couple months ago, and I was like, what is this? And now I see it everywhere.
- [16:43]
B
Yeah, it's a little, like, gaseous plume coming off the back. We're seeing it quite a bit. Of course, no one is calling it a fart explosion but me, but you.
- [16:52]
A
And so that's why I interviewed after you.
- [16:56]
B
That's the genius. That's the mastery that I bring to my profession. And then. Oh, also then Demi Moore at the Oscars in Gucci peacock. But still plumes.
- [17:11]
A
Chicken adjacent.
- [17:11]
B
Yeah, chicken adjacent. So, yeah, I don't know. I just find it interesting. As always, I have no deep insight into why the birds are dressing like birds, but, yeah.
- [17:25]
A
Yeah, I'm gonna have to think about that more.
- [17:28]
B
It's still percolating for me. It's like a. It's a newish trend. And. Yeah. But the amount. The sheer volume of feathers being used on the red carpet I think is very interesting. And also something I don't Know, I've been curious if it's also about the texture itself and like that texture on camera reads more interesting. I don't know. I was thinking about this at the Oscars too, because nobody's been able to answer this question for me, but there's a shitload of bugle beads.
- [17:57]
A
I don't even know what a bugle bead is.
- [18:00]
B
It's like a cylindrical bead. It's used in embroidery a lot.
- [18:05]
A
Okay.
- [18:06]
B
And I'm sure that there must be some. This is my question for like real. I'm sure one of our listeners out there knows, but like, I'm sure there's a technical name for a fabric that is like a dress completely covered in this type of beading. And. And I have no idea what it is. So I've just been saying bugle beads. But I. But there's a ton of it. Like an insane amount of it at the Oscars. And it's very Bob Mackie to me. It always makes me think of him. Maybe just cause he was like so into like ornate embellishment like that and beading specifically. But I was like ruminating on why so much bugle bead at the Oscars especially. Cause it does feel kind of old. It feels a little Bob Mackley. It feels a little 80s to me.
- [18:46]
A
I wonder if there's something like supply chain adjacent about certain materials becoming more accessible. Like I don't know if any of these chicken pieces, these poultry pieces are using it, but I feel like I read about like an eco friendly feather material that's new. I feel like Stella Partney, maybe you read about fur.
- [19:05]
B
Yeah. And there's a new fur material. Yeah. But maybe there's feathers as well. Oh, you know what? There is a feather one because Cate Blanchett wore a dress that looked like ostrich plumes, but it was completely synthetic.
- [19:18]
A
Yeah. Do you remember that?
- [19:19]
B
Yes.
- [19:20]
A
Yes.
- [19:20]
B
It was very interesting. I'm also really curious about that. Yeah. I don't think any of these dress. I think all these dresses are using real feather. Well, not Mia Goths, because it's not feathers. But the rest, I believe are using real.
- [19:30]
A
But it sort of reminds me of like glitter. Like eco glitter was so big and it actually created the effect where because everyone was using it, it boosted sales of regular plastic glitter too.
- [19:42]
B
Yeah.
- [19:43]
A
Just because it was more like in the zeitgeist and the less friendly versions were more accessible to people. So. Yeah. I don't know, maybe materially there's something going on.
- [19:55]
B
Yeah, that's very Interesting. My thought on the bugle beads was that it legitimizes the idea of couture. You know what I mean? Cause it inherently you look and you're like, oh, that must have taken a really long time to make. And so thus the couture is worthy of being called couture and expensive and worn by a celebrity, even if that's like, not necessarily the case. And also, I know that one of celebrities favorite things to do on a red carpet like the Oscars, is to talk about how long it took their dress to be made. Yes.
- [20:27]
A
That is always a soundbite.
- [20:29]
B
And what takes longer than in fully bugle bead embroidered gown.
- [20:33]
A
And so they get 67 individual seamstresses. Like 17 days of 24 hour work.
- [20:40]
B
Right. It's like, okay, those numbers, you made those up, but that's okay. I'm sure it did take them a very long time regardless. But yeah, I don't know. I think there's something about ornateness that is related to texture and luxury that is related to textures. And especially with feathers too. Like an unusual texture that you don't. I mean, how many normal people have fully feathered garments? I would guess not many.
- [21:07]
A
Yeah, I have a lot of feather trim.
- [21:11]
B
Of course I have marabou.
- [21:14]
A
Yeah.
- [21:15]
B
Because that's the regular person's feather. The feather of the masses.
- [21:20]
A
Yeah. Okay, well, I have an innovative new material to talk about.
- [21:26]
B
I'm ready.
- [21:28]
A
Dead people. Dead people's fat.
- [21:32]
B
The most ancient and the most innovative dead people.
- [21:35]
A
Exactly. No. So I wrote an article for the Guardian last week about the rise of cadaver fat fillers. There are two that are pretty popular right now. One is called Renuva, and it's mostly used for like, small areas in the face. And then one is called aloe clay, and it's for like boob jobs, butt lifts, like liposuction. It's C, L, A, E is the name. So it's Alo Claya or aloe clay, I'm gonna say. So those are the two brands of cadaver fat fillers that are being used. And there was just like so much that I couldn't fit in the article that I found fascinating and wanted to talk about. But I guess I'll start with like a little. Little explainer. So basically, Renuva has been around for like over 10 years. Aloe Clay is a little over a year old. Basically both of them. They're like a little bit different structurally, but essentially they use fat that previously would have been discarded following skin donor tissue donations.
- [22:44]
B
Okay.
- [22:45]
A
And they basically, like, process it, purify it, strip of it, strip it of genetic material and turn it into something that you can use as a cosmetic filler. And the way that they work is that the body sort of recognizes the structural matrix of the adipose tissue or the fat, and then your cells take it. So it literally becomes you. Like death literally becomes you.
- [23:13]
B
Wow.
- [23:14]
A
Which is so wild to me.
- [23:16]
B
The body is crazy.
- [23:17]
A
I know. So something that, like, surprised me in researching this is like, why now? Why is this becoming so popular now? Why are we getting all these explainers on cadaver fat now when Renuva has been around for, like, over a decade? And the big thing is Ozempic and extreme diets. Like, every doctor, surgeon, expert that I talked to credited Ozempic and, like, the rise of diet culture for the popularity of these fillers. Because previously what people were doing was fat grafting, where they get a little liposuction from, like, their thigh or their arm or their stomach, and they inject it into their face or into their butt or into their boobs. And now the patients that want this don't have enough fat. They literally don't have enough fat to graft their own. And so where is someone to turn when they want to be really skinny but also want big boobs or a big butt and they've, like, depleted their own body of resources is like, they're turning to the dead as a resource, corpses naturally. It's so bizarre to me. And it feels like a very, like, dystopian sort of resource hoarding thing that's happening. Like this internalized dominance thing that, like, I don't know, just modifying the body at any cost to achieve, like, the dominant ideal body type.
- [24:43]
B
Absolutely. And also just like a perfect little microcosm of the beauty industry at large. You know, to be like, fat's disgusting. Get rid of all of it. And then, like, you need it to do these procedures that we're telling you you have to do. So, like, you have to go out and get it somewhere completely.
- [25:01]
A
And, like, the other thing that's appealing about fat in general, but cadaver fat for these people is that it has the. It's called the extracellular matrix, is part of adipose tissue. And that is where collagen and elastin are produced in the body. So when people are losing too much of their own fat, like, the reason we get, like, you know, ozempic face or that sort of gaunt looking face and body is because you need fat to produce collagen.
- [25:29]
B
Hmm.
- [25:30]
A
So part of like inject. Yep. So part of injecting other people's fat that later becomes your own fat is like now you have a renewable resource for your own collagen basically, and that
- [25:43]
B
you're just like you're using another person's body as kind of a farm for your own body that you like harvest.
- [25:49]
A
My editor cut that line out. I tried to put it back in twice and it just like wasn't happening. But I literally had the line farming the deceased for fat. Because I'm like, that is what this is.
- [25:59]
B
That's what you're doing.
- [26:00]
A
Yeah. And I wanted it to seem as like grotesque as it truly is, but it didn't make the cut very interesting. Yes, that's definitely what we're doing. And then something else that didn't quite make it into the article is how we are legally allowed to farm dead people for their fat. I found this really interesting article from the LA Times. They published in 2019 and they investigated the radio rewrite of the Uniform Anatomical Gift act, which is the law. There's a version of it in all 50 states that sort of makes the collection of organs and tissue legal and dictates like where it can go and who gets it and all of that. But the LA Times found that in 2006 lobbyists for the procurement industry, so like organ and tissue procurement industry, helped to rewrite this act to make it easier to harvest body parts quickly, even in cases in which coroners believe it interferes with their ability to determine the cause of death. So this act, we need that fat was rewritten so that getting these materials was top priority over like cause of death or investigations. And the Times found that dozens of death investigations across the country were complicated or upended when body parts were harvested before, before autopsy. So they're like theoretically getting a cadaver fat like butt lift, a DB BBL dead body, Brazilian butt lift could like, that fat could have come from someone whose autopsy was complicated and cause of death is unknown because this law was rewritten.
- [27:45]
B
Basically, I assume they're making a lot of money off this cadaver fat and so billions.
- [27:51]
A
It's like a multi billion dollar. And that's kind of like how these lobbyists kind of got away with it. So let me see, the other interesting part was that when. So when the lobbyists rewrote this law and presented it to legislators, they said it had been written after extensive discussions with the national association of Medical Examiners, and this wasn't true at all. The national association of Medical Examiners was like, really Upset about this, they called it really disturbing. They said it occurred without any consultation with the medical examiner. Community and lobbyists also said the point of changing the act was to get more organs. And that has like categorically been proven untrue. Like I think the number of organs increased per year is like one or two. But the number of tissue donations, so that's skin, fat, et cetera, which is largely going to biotech companies, is like exponential. It's like triple digits growth. So.
- [28:51]
B
So most people are just being harvested for their fat. You know, like, wouldn't that imply that there are organs or we can't use those organs? Maybe we. Well, like why would some of them.
- [29:02]
A
You can use the organ. I mean the complicated thing is that like no one just becomes like a cadaver fat boob job. If you are a donor, an organ and tissue donor, hopefully every usable part of you will be used. So you could go to like a heart transplant. You could be doing like skin grafts for burn victims. There one person from the tissue donation industry who said that like one person's tissue could be used across like a hundred people in different ways. So there are just like a lot more uses for tissue. And so that really is. Seems to be the goal of rewriting this, is to get more tissue. And most of that is going to biotech companies. And a portion of that is like cosmetics.
- [29:46]
B
Wow. Is there maybe you don't know this, but is there a way, like if you wanted to be an organ donor, could you be an organ donor minus my fat tissues?
- [29:57]
A
It's really difficult. Like it's so murky. This was one of the most fascinating things about researching this is because like there's not good tracking in the industry at all. And there are actually quite a few, like horror stories about organ donation and tissue donation and how bodies get treated and how wishes are not respected. But theoretically, yes, in many states, it's definitely state by state. There are ways that you can say, become an organ donor, but not a tissue donor. Or in some states, like in California, you can say that you only want your tissue to be used for life saving or reconstructive and not cosmetic use.
- [30:39]
B
I only want my fat tissue to be used for boob jobs and butt lifts.
- [30:43]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [30:44]
B
Exclusively.
- [30:45]
A
I'm sure there's some people who would be totally fine with that.
- [30:48]
B
Pretty funny.
- [30:49]
A
There's also a way that you can say you only want your tissues to go to nonprofit organizations. But the makers of Renuva MTF biologics are a nonprofit.
- [30:59]
B
Of course.
- [31:00]
A
It's like, it's very murky. It's very complicated.
- [31:05]
B
Has there been, like, backlash to this now that it's like, so, I mean, obviously the first one's been happening for a decade, but now that's become so mainstream. Are people like, ew, no. Or like, I don't want that.
- [31:19]
A
I think there's some, like, media backlash. Like, in all of these articles getting written about it. A lot of the discourse around them is like, how is this legal? How is this ethical? Which is the question I answered for the Guardian. But when I talked to plastic surgeons and someone from Renuva, basically the feedback was like, patients don't care. They're really excited about it. They like the science of it. This is a really convenient option for them. It's a lot quicker. There's no downtime the way there is with fat grafting and lipo. Um, so I think one doctor said, like, less people than you think even care. Like, they do not have any ethical qualms about this at all.
- [32:02]
B
That's super interesting.
- [32:04]
A
I know. But another interesting thing that came up in researching this article was, like, I surveyed a couple hundred people just about their thoughts, and quite a few said that they would take themselves off the donor registry if this was an option for how their body would be used. They, like, did not want to go to cosmetic use. And I also talked to a bioethicist who said, basically, there's no good ethical argument against using cadaver fat in cosmetics, except if it were to trigger a lot of people taking themselves off the donor registry.
- [32:40]
B
Right, right.
- [32:42]
A
So I don't know. I do wonder if that kind of backlash is coming, but I think, think probably not. I don't know.
- [32:49]
B
Probably not. Also, since this. Since they've been doing this for, like, a decade, are there any known side effects of this?
- [32:56]
A
Like, is it not just really? I mean, the same side effects that you would get from any sort of procedure? Like, I wouldn't say it's more risky than your own fat grafting. It's not more risky than getting filler. There are, of course, side effects and risks that come with any procedure like this, but not. Not significantly more than any other way of. Of plumping yourself up.
- [33:25]
B
Okay.
- [33:26]
A
Yeah. But the one thing I was thinking about that I didn't have time or I didn't have room to write is, like, I feel like this is the next level of the cosmetic cannibalism trend. Like, this is another way to just consume a human body.
- [33:41]
B
Totally. Soylent Green coming up.
- [33:45]
A
Yes, exactly. Like, I do feel like, we're inching closer and closer to actual cannibalism. Like, can you not see RFK Jr. In, like, two years being like, oh, no, it's actually really good for you to eat.
- [33:55]
B
It's good for you.
- [33:56]
A
Human meat.
- [33:57]
B
Yeah, totally. Absolutely.
- [33:59]
A
Human tallow is the next beef tallow, I'm sure.
- [34:02]
B
Absolutely. It's premium.
- [34:03]
A
Yeah.
- [34:04]
B
Also, I was just thinking, I wonder. I feel like with organ transplants, there's always been those, like, conspiracy theories or like, Twilight Zone type of things where it's like, oh, you put someone else's heart in your body and then it become. You become them or whatever.
- [34:22]
A
You, like, take on certain traits that they've had. Yeah, yeah.
- [34:25]
B
And I'm just curious if there's like, a similar, I don't know, kind of conspiracy brain thinking about this cadaver fad is like, do you. I don't know, do you become the person who's a new.
- [34:37]
A
A new substance type movie coming out, exploring this idea? You know?
- [34:41]
B
That's what I'm thinking. It's kind of a beautiful horror film idea, but also, like, I do know people genuinely think that about, like, organ transplant stuff. So it's like, how is this not transcending to cadaver fat?
- [34:53]
A
I don't know. I was also thinking of it in terms of just like, you know, how when someone gets a heart transplant, like, the. The loved ones will visit the person who got their heart and be like, I still have a relationship with, like, part of my dad. And I was just thinking of the scenari scenario of like, visiting someone who got a fat ass from. From your grandmother's fat donation or something.
- [35:15]
B
Visiting hours with the BBL from your grandma. Beautiful.
- [35:20]
A
Yeah, Bleak. Bleak stuff, but fun. Fun to investigate.
- [35:24]
B
Well, here's another fun thing for you. My. My disappearing clothing thing is kind of happening.
- [35:31]
A
Oh, yes.
- [35:33]
B
In many ways, in many facets. We're watching celebrity attire disintegrate before our very eyes. I first started talking about this this month. Well, I saw Maura Higgins. Are you familiar with Maura Higgins?
- [35:48]
A
Yes.
- [35:49]
B
For those who aren't she. Well, for me, she's an icon of Love Island.
- [35:54]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [35:55]
B
Because she was one of the best. One of the best characters on Love Island. I mean, I know they're not characters, it's a reality show, but one of the best personalities. She was definitely playing a game on that show, and she played it exceptionally well.
- [36:07]
A
I didn't see her season of Love Island.
- [36:10]
B
Ooh, so good. It's so good. She's just like, first of all, she's like a big personality. So she comes in hot to the villa, and then there's this one guy who basically kind of calls her a slut to the other boys in front of her face. She can absolutely hear him. And she calls him on Emmy, and she goes, what did you just say? What did you just say to them about me? And he foolishly repeats it to her, and then she's like, we're done. This is over. Like, dumbass. Like, what? And it was just awesome.
- [36:40]
A
Okay.
- [36:40]
B
And then she. She seduced this kind of nerdy doctor guy.
- [36:45]
A
Okay.
- [36:46]
B
Who's like, I hated him. I've always hated him. But he was a fan favorite. And so she was, like, wisely playing the game.
- [36:51]
A
Okay.
- [36:52]
B
To win the game.
- [36:53]
A
Nice.
- [36:55]
B
As she did with Traitors. Ultimately. Anyway, this is a very much a tangent. This is not why I brought up Maura Higgins. As she was wearing a shirt that had, like, a wide collar, like, off the shoulder neckline, but then illusion meshed to the neckline with a floating collar. A floating, like, shirt collar.
- [37:13]
A
Oh, yes.
- [37:15]
B
So just interesting. So I first started just thinking about, like, elements of blouses. Detached from the blouse but still, like, floating atop the body was kind of how I started thinking about it. And then I saw Alex Khonsani at the Caperni show. Alex Khunsani, supermodel, of course. And she was wearing this, like, again, an illusion mesh turtleneck, but it only had the turtleneck part and the boob pockets over the boobs.
- [37:43]
A
Oh, okay. I saw this.
- [37:45]
B
And the rest of the shirt is completely sheer. So you're just getting a floating chest pocket and a floating turtleneck neckline.
- [37:53]
A
Love it.
- [37:53]
B
And so I'm like, right. We're, like, deconstructing the top in, like, a new way. Like, elements are applied. They're disappearing. They're being taken apart. And so I was already interested in that idea. And then my trend prediction was really made manifest. There's this new designer, not new, I guess, new to me, named Simon Carl, and he's been making temporary tattoo tops, and celebrities have just started wearing them. And I'm absolutely. This is. This is what I've been asking for. These are the moments I've been praying for. We saw one at Paris Fashion Week. Tyla wore. It looks like a brown leather jacket, but it's just a tattoo top. And that one was exciting to me because you could start to see it was rubbing away where she bent her elbows and stuff.
- [38:40]
A
Oh, cool.
- [38:41]
B
And that's what I actually want to see. I do Think it's funny and interesting and cool to just wear a temporary tattoo as a top, but what I'm actually interested in is, like, the slow degradation of the top. Yeah. And seeing that. And I'm also wondering, like, when are we going to get our first time lapse of an outfit like this? You know, like, I want to see it change over time and how it evolves and, like, what's revealed and what remains concealed. And I think that tension is what's, like, interesting and modern about it. And so what I liked about Tyla's is. Yeah, you get to. You started to see kind of like where it was wearing away and how it was wearing away. And I would like to have seen more of that. Kim Petras, also I featured in the newsletter. She wore this, like, fake Dior logo Mania top that Simon Karl made for her to be gain. Is that how you say that? Oh, yeah, the nightclub in Berlin. And super cool. But that was all in Instagram photos. So you only saw it looking, like, perfect. Perfect on her body. You didn't see any sort of the destruction of it, which is. Which, of course, is what I'm interested in. And then just like, two more random examples. But are you familiar with the Nader sisters?
- [39:55]
A
Vaguely, yes.
- [39:58]
B
My friend Cass made me watch a couple episodes of their terrible reality show called Love Thy Nadir, and it's on E. And they're absolutely gunning to be the new Kardashians. They're somehow even more boring. They somehow have even less going on. But I gotta say, it hits those classic reality show notes where you're like, nothing's happened. And yet here I am.
- [40:20]
A
I'm enthralled.
- [40:21]
B
Yeah, I'm watching. Yeah, I'm enthralled. I'm watching. It's complicated. The Naders are complicated. Cause it's, like, complicates a generous word for them. But they, like, they have all the, like, right elements going, but none of them are willing to, like, put in kind of the shameless work of it. Like, except Brooks, the main sister. The main famous sister. Like, she is very clearly willing to, like, like, give the dish, like, put herself in situations. Like, really. But then she has, like, a sister who's, like, dating a royal or something, and she's like, he's really private and he just, like, doesn't want to be on camera. And I'm like, girl, we're trying to make a tv. Like, you force him on camera. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, so I'm a little obsessed with the Nader Sisters. They're very good at staging PR shots, and they staged one recently where they were all wearing outfits entirely composed of bubbles. Like, fake. Like Lady Gaga. Like the fake plastic bubbles.
- [41:14]
A
Okay. Yes.
- [41:15]
B
Yeah. To promote Jukebox deodorant. And it was staged, but the outfits were good. It's a good stage. Listen, Jukebox sent me a deodorant, and I'm regretful to say it's great.
- [41:27]
A
Okay.
- [41:28]
B
It's really good. I like it a lot. It's a natural deodorant and it really works. And I'm a deeply sweaty person. And I guess this is an ad. Not an ad. No. Spawn con. I just like their stupid deodorant.
- [41:41]
A
Genuine endorsement.
- [41:43]
B
Buy it or don't buy it. I don't give a shit. They're not paying me. But they were paying the Nader sisters, who were marching through the streets of Soho with a flank of paparazzi wearing bubbles from head to toe.
- [41:54]
A
Wow.
- [41:54]
B
And I do wish they were real bubbles, obviously, but an exciting step in the right direction.
- [42:01]
A
Yeah.
- [42:01]
B
We're getting there and then we're getting there. Slowly but surely, the idea, it's circulating in the zeitgeist. The people are getting excited. And then most recently, we had Maddie Ziegler, formerly of Dance Moms fame, and she. I don't know who makes this top, but she was wearing this top that truly looked like a cat scratching. Post fun. Like a cat that, you know, when catches, like, go to town on the arm of a couch or something and all the strings are pulled out and it's like. It looks like that and there are just strings like. Like, dangling behind her. It reminded me too, of. Yeah, it reminded me too of the Charli xcx. I can't remember who made the dress, but she wore that dress to one of the premieres of the moment. That looked like big clumps of hair, like, in the shower drain.
- [42:48]
A
Yes.
- [42:49]
B
It has the same. That same kind of vibe to me.
- [42:51]
A
Okay.
- [42:53]
B
Like, it's just been seeing a lot
- [42:54]
A
of, like, hair accessories lately. I feel like it was Schiaparelli Runway. There were, like, ties made out of braids. Yeah.
- [43:03]
B
Yeah, he's been doing that one for a while.
- [43:05]
A
Yeah.
- [43:05]
B
And we just saw Lisa Rinna at the Oscars after party wearing 11 pounds of ethically sourced human hair.
- [43:12]
A
Ethically sourced human hair. Yes. Yes.
- [43:14]
B
I am really obsessed with the phrase ethically sourced human hair. I'd love to know more about that. Nowhere can I find any further details on the ethical sourcing of those 11 pounds of identical human hair that's also their very long wefts.
- [43:28]
A
I know. This is an investigation for mess world media. We need to truly to be doing this.
- [43:35]
B
I need to get Christian Cohen on the line. Where the hell did you get that hair, brother? How did you ethically source that for Lisa Rinna anyway? Oh, and then Margot Robbie too. That was fake hair.
- [43:46]
A
That was fake hair.
- [43:48]
B
But she wore a Dilara Finicolo dress that had a bunch of like braided fake hair all around it. And she also wore. That was also something I had a question about because people kept. Well, people kept misleadingly reporting it as she was wearing. Which Bronte sister is it?
- [44:06]
A
Yes, the Anne or something. I don't know.
- [44:10]
B
Hold on one moment, please. Who wrote this book? Emily. I should have known. Great. Emily's through history. She was wearing a bracelet with Emily and Anne Bronte's hair in it. But she wasn't. She was wearing a reproduction.
- [44:26]
A
Yeah.
- [44:27]
B
So what hair was in that? Whose hair was in that?
- [44:31]
A
I think it was probably fake hair.
- [44:32]
B
I'm sure it's fake, but I like imagining more like I know whose hair they clip to put in that. Anyway, hair is definitely also happening on the red carpet.
- [44:43]
A
What's also happening is the Gen Z trial.
- [44:47]
B
Yeah, our transitions today are on point. No, listen, we're doing incredible work here.
- [44:54]
A
I'm trying, I'm trying. Everyone is writing about the Gen Z pout. In the past week we've had articles about it from the Washington Post, New York Times, like countless substack articles about it. The New York Times described the Gen Z pout as blank eyed and puffy lipped like a koi fish on Adivan. And I do. Yeah, I mean accurate. I know exactly what they're talking about. Lily Rose Depp is an example. Rachel Sennett is an example that's being used in all of these think pieces. But I do think it's strange that this is having such a moment right now because Rain Fisher Kwan wrote about this look in 2022, like four years ago, and she called it the dissociative pout, which I think is a much more accurate title than Gen Z Pout, because I do think this look sort of transcends generations. And I think her explanation was better than any of the new explainers. So she called the look a lobotomy chic stare. The goal, arguably is the performance of detachment to look as though you just happen to be photographed whilst contemplating your abject disaffection with the world around you. So I think that is what's going on. I think it's the same look that we're describing 20, 22 and today. But I do think something that's missing in all of the explainers, new and old, is that the dissociative pout or the Gen Z pout, whatever you want to call it, is literally just trying to mimic the effects of Botox and filler. If you don't have Botox and filler or exaggerate those effects. If you do have Botox and filler, like, the look is a full blanking of the face. The eyes are widened and blank. The muscles are kind of like lax so you don't see lines. Yes. Lips are like pushed and pouted out in such a way that, like, the lips look bigger and like, all the lines around them are sort of like smoothed out and softened. Like it softens. I can't, I can't do it.
- [46:53]
B
Just tried to do it, but it's
- [46:55]
A
like you sort of smooth and soften out all of that. Everything is sort of like flattened. So it's a facial expression that aims to create the affect, I think, of Botox and filler also.
- [47:10]
B
Well, I guess maybe Botox and filler are doing this as well. But also kind of the affect of a blow up doll.
- [47:15]
A
Yes, completely. It's very porny and in. In rain, Fisher Kwan's like, original explainer, Chloe Cherry was kind of like her visual representation, which I think makes a lot of sense. But I brought this up before the Gen Z pout explainer things were coming out. I brought this up on an episode of NPR's It's Been a Minute last week.
- [47:40]
B
Ooh la la. Yeah.
- [47:43]
A
But I related it to the dissociative pout, to the wider trend of like, you know, what I'm calling the morgue gaze. And all of these sort of like injections of death into aesthetic culture right now.
- [47:59]
B
Yeah.
- [48:00]
A
And we were kind of going back and forth and the host was like, wait, how this seems, like, very weird that an aesthetic of death is trending. And I was like, it's not weird at all. Like, this is literally what the beauty industry has been selling us for so long. Like this. The standard is very undead and inanimate. From, like glazed donut skin to porcelain doll skin, the Barbie craze to, like, cyborgs and AI. Like, all of these are aesthetics of lifelessness of. In animation.
- [48:29]
B
Yeah. I would also just argue that, like, the, the point of the whole beauty industry is also, like, to be 21 forever. So, like, is that not also a form of embalming completely.
- [48:41]
A
Completely. It's like zombification 100%. And then I think, think the focus of the Gen Z pout is obviously the lip, but it really is a full face aesthetic. And I think the mimicking of Botox is an important part of this, especially when we're calling it dissociative. Because we do have studies that show injectable neuromodulators lead to decreased activation of key brain emotional centers. They can alter the way the brain interprets and processes other people's emotions because they change your micro expressions. So that affects your ability to like make your own micro expression and read other people's and can, you know, quote, flatten your affect, disconnecting you from your own feelings. So yeah, I really do think this, like this mimicry of dissociation is about the mainstreaming of Botox.
- [49:40]
B
Yeah. And also you just made me realize like that is also desensitized like for a whole generation with parents who maybe have this, like they would also like have a difficult time like reading emotional cues or like, you know what I mean? Like it's desensitizing to another generation as well. Like reacting to their parents who are maybe getting this stuff.
- [50:00]
A
Totally. So it's like whether you have it or not, like mimicking micro expressions as part of like human feedback and communication. And so when people are not, not making micro expressions anymore, you even mimic that as a way of connection. That's just how our bodies work. So I think we're all just, we're micro mimicking this very disaffected, undead, inanimate aesthetic that's taken many shapes and forms over the past like two decades, but is largely due to injectable.
- [50:36]
B
Injectable neuromodulators. Yeah, is what you said it is.
- [50:41]
A
So neuromodulators is the name for Botox. Like Botox is a brand and it's become a catch all term for all types. So neuromodulators would be like Botox dysport xeomin.
- [50:54]
B
Really like that phrase. And I really think we might have a different relationship with Botox if we were calling it injectable neuromodulator.
- [51:00]
A
Right.
- [51:01]
B
We would think about it a lot differently I think because that's a very formidable, scary.
- [51:06]
A
Yeah, it's literally what it's doing. It's modeling.
- [51:09]
B
Right. But it's literally what it is. Yeah, it's very interesting. I also was just thinking that I, I think that the rise of this dissociative pout is, is not unrelated also to the renew. The increased visibility and popularity of beta blockers.
- [51:25]
A
Yeah, totally.
- [51:26]
B
Because Rachel Sennett just got me thinking. But, like, also just anecdotally, like, I feel like much, many more people I know are just, like, casually talking about beta blockers and casually taking beta blockers in a way that. That I literally had never thought of or heard about in my whole life until the last five years.
- [51:42]
A
Totally. It's part of, like, the larger sort of glamorization of, like, mental disorders or, you know, mental health issues.
- [51:53]
B
But also, I. I wonder if it's also kind of, like. I wonder if it's kind of related to the Internet. This sounds weird, but, like, there's an idea on the Internet of being, like, unresponsive or unreactive. You know what I mean? Like, you're not supposed to, like, you're crashing out if you're responding to someone or you're, like, going on a rant or whatever. And so there is, like, a coolness to being unaffected and not. And jaded and, like, you're above it and you're not, like, clapping back or whatever. And so there's something to me about that, too, of, like, it's cool to be disassociative. Like, it's cool not to feel emotion or to show your emotion.
- [52:32]
A
Yeah, it's ironic detachment as opposed to, like, millennial cringe or, like, earnestness.
- [52:38]
B
Yeah, earnestness. Totally.
- [52:40]
A
Completely. Yeah. That's what I've been thinking about. The. The Gen Z pout.
- [52:46]
B
Great. I would like to talk about, well, talking things to death.
- [52:54]
A
Yes.
- [52:55]
B
I'm just. This is something I'm. As I use the podcast to do. I'm just muddling through it. It's just something I've been musing about this month that I don't really have, like, definitive answers to. But I just think that we're currently in the process of discoursing celebrity to death. And I say that as someone who loves discoursing celebrity to death, but I don't know. I've always thought, since the start of Instagram, I've always kind of thought that celebrity wasn't built to survive social media. And in multiple ways. It's like. Like, largely just because I used to think about this at People magazine when I worked there in, like, 2015, but I was like, I don't think we were ever supposed to know this much about celebrities. It's kind of what I was thinking back then. Like, we weren't supposed to have, like, this access into every waking part of their life. And them being performing for us on demand all the time. And I don't know, like part of celebrity is like myth making and like kind of not being human. And so I could never quite wrap my head around how celebrities were gonna walk this tightrope of like being relatable and being human on social media, but also kind of being these larger than life like silver screen figures. And I feel like they increasingly aren't. Of course this is also we've talked about before on the podcast. We've talked about it in our book club for sure. But this is part of Walter Benjamin and John Berger's kind of argument about art in the age of mechanical reproduction, which is that the further you're reproduced kind of the it's the death of aura. Like aura can exist the more layers of reproduction you put between yourself and your audience. So for Benjamin, of course is talking about photography, which seems so like quaint at this point. Yeah, but he was talking about like, you know, when you go to the theater and you're watching a play and you're experiencing the actor's performance firsthand and he's like, you are feeling the actor's aura on a one to one level. And that's a far more impactful experience than well, in his example, like literally just watching a movie of that same performance like you're getting once removed. And we're talking about, you know, tiktoks of movies of celebrities. Yeah, I don't know. And there's all these layers between us that like how can aura survive through those layers? I guess, but, but I don't know. With the rise of even more social media, even more discourse, I'm starting to think that like modernity itself is kind of antagonistic to the existence of celebrities. And I'm not sure that it can continue to exist at least as it, as it has been existing as again like a way to sell Hollywood, a way to sell mythology and, and to reinforce these hierarchies because like I just
- [55:51]
A
feel like it like sort of makes with the level of like visibility and access we have to everyone's like lives and even inner lives via social media and the rants that they go on and what they post and stuff. It's like it's creating a situation in which there is no non problematic celebrity which is detrimental to like their brands and the continuation of their career. Like yeah, right.
- [56:18]
B
Like you can't just be a neutral figure or like a screen to be projected on because you have to put all of your stuff out there and you have to speak on every issue. And you have to make posts when people die. And you have to. I don't know. And your. And your just life is being constantly surveyed and monitored. I mean, I think about this with regular people. Like, we're all, we are the Panopticon. Like, we don't need the Panopticon. Like, we're quite literally, we've become it. We are what Foucault promised. You know, like, we are monitoring ourselves. We are policing ourselves aggressively, and we are policing each other. Like no one can live and exist or have private thoughts or private opinions really anymore. I don't know. And we expect our celebrities to be the. These perfect superhumans that mirror all of our beliefs and our identity back to us flawlessly. And that every single person on earth expects that perfect mirror to themselves. And it's like, literally, that is no person. Nobody can be that. And then we're, quote, unquote, canceling them over it, which of course I don't. Canceling a person who is rich and famous, I don't really believe exists. They find a way as they prove to us all the time. But I was thinking about this extra, I guess, this month just because of the Timothee Chalamet controversy, followed quickly by the Chapel Roan controversy, Both of which, if you look into them for like five seconds, are pretty non. Controversies. Quite benign, actually. I guess for those who don't know. I can just briefly summarize the. That Timothee Chalamet was doing an interview, I believe, with Matthew McConaughey, and he said, I don't want to be working in ballet or opera or things like that. Oh, things where it's like, hey, keep this thing alive. Even though no one cares about this anymore. All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there. And of course people. This became the major theme of the Oscars for some of the.
- [58:20]
A
There was a big backlash.
- [58:21]
B
Yeah, there was a big backlash. But I think anyone who reads that quote, well, first of all, the. There everyone who's quoting that is cutting out the part where he says, all respect to all the ballet and opera people out there at the end, he
- [58:32]
A
immediately recognized, like, oh, this is bad. I gotta backtrack a bit.
- [58:38]
B
This is a dude who is, like, highly PR trained. He definitely heard what he said in the moment. It was like, oopsie daisies. Like, let me correct that. And also, I will say the context as well. That Matthew McConaughey interview was, like, pretty freewheeling. You know what I mean? Like, they were really Spitting off the. I think if you got into a conversation with Matthew McConaughey, you kind of wind up. Up. Yeah. Freewheeling and spinning off the cuff. But I. I see how he got himself into the situation of saying that. But also, it's like anyone who reads that, you surely. Even if he didn't say that perfectly, you know what he means by that.
- [59:10]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [59:12]
B
And he's talking about that because, like, cinema is a dying art in a death spiral. Yeah, yeah, it is in a death spiral. And he's saying, like, I don't want to work in an industry that's in a death spiral. Like, how do we save, like, where
- [59:25]
A
I have to convince people to care, like, conv. People, that this is a valuable art
- [59:29]
B
form because all of these art forms are valuable and none of them should be in a death spiral, but they are all in a death spiral. And, like, how do we combat that as a person within the industry is very clearly what he's saying. And to argue that opera and ballet are not in a desk pile is to ignore the history of humanity and the position that those art forms once held within society. Like, you're just being obtuse intentionally. No one is saying they're bad art forms or that people don't enjoy them or appreciate them or go to see them. Obviously they don't do, but certainly not at. I mean, they're not thriving. Watch the Gilded Age. Do you watch the Gilded Age and tell me that. That. That opera and ballet hold the same position in society as they did then, as they did today? That's just a hundred years ago. Like, I don't. I don't know. It's not the drama people are making it out to be. And then, of course, also at the Chapel Roan, like, it turns out that her character is just kind of being maligned and nothing happens.
- [60:27]
A
I know.
- [60:27]
B
I mean, something happened, but she wasn't involved in it at all, it turns out, just as she said, she wasn't involved in it at all. But all people will ever remember. Same with the Timothy thing. It's like it doesn't matter ultimately, like, what he said or what the real quote is. People are going to remember this controversy and the version of them that came through this controversy. And I guess quickly, for the people who don't know about the Chapel, one Jude Law's daughter with one of his. His ex girlfriends, who's now married to a Brazilian soccer star. They were staying at a hotel during Lollapalooza in Brazil, and her daughter is a big Chapel fan thought that she saw her at the hotel, I guess walked by her table. And then according to her mother and father, Chapel's security guard came over and yelled at her, what we've. And then Chapel responded and said, like, oh, I didn't know about this at all. Like, that guy doesn't work for me. Like, I didn't even see this. This young girl. Like, I'm sorry if that happened, but I have no affiliation with him. And so then it. And then, so then we get it coming forward. Well, also, the mother made a video after that that was basically kind of like, well, if that's true, but, like, I don't believe her, basically. And then it comes out. We get a statement from the security guard himself, who had to be like, yeah, I don't work for her. I wasn't there for her. I work for another individual, which we now know. That individual is Sabrina Carpenter. He was there.
- [61:55]
A
This is new info to me.
- [61:57]
B
I know. I learned this recently and I haven't heard anyone report on it since we. That that's Sabrina Carpenter's security guard. And she was there. Like, he was working. I mean, he made it clear in his apology. I should add this. He made it very clear in his apology. He was not. He was not making the statement on Sabrina's behalf either, but he was absolutely there working security for Sabrina Carpenter. And I think it's very interesting and telling. I certainly haven't seen this pushback on Sabrina that we've seen on Chapel. And I think we all can intuit why that might be, but I just think that's very interesting that no one's talked about that Sabrina's a security guard who acted this way and that he said that he was doing it because there was heightened security risk stuff at the hotel and a conversation he'd had with the hotel the other day. I don't know. Can I just say one little conspiracy theory, I guess, but when you go back and you listen to the mother's explanation of the story, she even says in her own story that her daughter saw the pop star come in, I'll say the pop star, and wasn't sure if it was Chapel or not. And she said because Chapel looks very different without her makeup and the drag performance of it all. And I'm starting to think, think, was it Sabrina? What? Did she literally see Sabrina in the hotel dining room or whatever and think it was travel?
- [63:27]
A
Interesting.
- [63:28]
B
I don't know. That's just my little. My little side thing. Like, did 11 mix up two pop stars that she loves. I think it's very.
- [63:35]
A
Also about like a child, like. Yeah, exactly.
- [63:39]
B
I don't know. Anyway, that's my little side side note that I think is interesting. And now we're getting reports. I. I don't know how much water this reporting holds, to be quite honest with you, because it is coming from buzzfeed and a research company that seems to make headlines for doing exactly this type of reporting, which always makes me suspicious. But buzzfeed says that they spoke to Judea. I don't know how you say this. G U D E A.
- [64:05]
A
Okay.
- [64:05]
B
They're a research company that previously made headlines for its report that found that Taylor Swift was also subject to a coordinated online attack. They looked at 100,030 posts generated by 54,334 unique users across seven platforms between March 20 and March 22. They found that 4.2% of users contributing to the chapel conversation at this time were non typical. I. E. Were very likely to be bots as well as that being a high percentage of bots in and of itself. They accounted for over 23% of the posts. And I don't know about that. I get what they're saying, but, like, is that not all media?
- [64:43]
A
I would be, like, really curious to, like. Yeah. Test those statistics against any other.
- [64:50]
B
Any story.
- [64:51]
A
Story that's happening. Like, I feel like there's just like a high amount of bot activity everywhere. But I don't know, but it feels.
- [65:00]
B
I'm not either.
- [65:02]
A
It feels like I would. I would 100% buy that. 25 of every interaction and every story that buzzes online is like AI or bots.
- [65:13]
B
Yeah. I mean, just like anecdotally, as a person on the Internet, if you. That seems right. Those stats seem right to me for like all engagement, like all media coverage. But I don't know, I just thought that was another interesting note. And yeah, all of this, I feel like. It feels to me like a way for the public to feel like they have control when there's like, real evil in the world. You know what I mean? Like, there's actual evildoers who are actually living under fascism and like a pedophilic regime that's running the world and we're in, like, genocides and whatnot and wars we shouldn't be in. And I just feel like we need to exert control somehow and feel like we're making a difference and that we can change. And so we enacted on these celebrities who it's ultimately kind of meaningless if we cancel them or not. And their quote, unquote, like, bad behavior is also kind of like, stakeless. Like, it's frivolous, ultimately.
- [66:11]
A
Yeah. It's a sort of like, almost catharsis for what we can't control. Like, taking it out on it. Kind of reminds me of the Lindy west discourse. I don't know if you've been paying attention to any of that.
- [66:22]
B
I have. Yeah.
- [66:23]
A
I dipped in, and I feel like Lindy west just came out with a memoir called Adult Braces. In it, she sort of details how she ended up first in a marriage to this guy. Aham. And then in a polyamorous relationship with his once secret girlfriend. And now the three of them are like a throuple. But anyway, the discourse around it has been, like, loud and wild, unbelievably loud, for weeks now. And it does feel like a lot of it is using Lyndy and her book and this relationship as a target to work out our frustrations with, like, the attacks on feminism and women's rights and all of this and, you know, I guess the failure of millennial feminism to save us. And she is kind of like an avatar for that.
- [67:17]
B
I think that's exactly right. And I felt that way too. I mean, I don't know if you've read the Scotchy Cole profile.
- [67:24]
A
Yes.
- [67:24]
B
But she even says in it like, this is the woman who taught me feminism. And I think a lot of our generation feels that way about Lindy West. And so it feels like this betrayal of the woman who, like, taught us the foundations of Internet feminism and. Yeah. And that we need to punish her somehow, you know, for betraying what we felt were the values that she taught us.
- [67:48]
A
Oh, completely. I don't know where I stand in any of it. I don't think I care enough to have a big opinion. I could definitely see what people are saying about, like, oh, this seems kind of like an untrust. Healthy arrangement in the details. But also, there's really no need to litigate a millennial author's personal life to this amount. Maybe.
- [68:06]
B
I don't know. No. And also, if you do think she needs to be punished, isn't this polyamory punishment enough? Isn't the dynamic that she's telling us about that everyone disapproves of? Isn't that the punishment, if that's what you think? I don't know. But also, I don't know. Yeah, I don't really feel any which way about it. I think writers get to write about whatever they want, however they want, ultimately. Especially your personal Life, but I did. I don't know. I thought the profile of her. I was surprised. I guess I read the backlash to, like, her and her husband's backlash to it before I read the actual post. So I expected it to be much more brutal, and I found it to be remarkably fair.
- [68:51]
A
It was very fair. Yeah.
- [68:52]
B
Remarkably. Even keeled. And even the way she put herself in the story, being like, I, too, am guilty of this. Like, this is, like, the writer. Like, any writer who makes themselves, like, part of their narrative, like, this is the plight. Like, you think you have this, like, perfect lens on it, and then you don't realize until a decade has passed is like, oh, shit. Like, I was still in it, and I thought I could, like, make meaning out of it.
- [69:12]
A
Yeah.
- [69:13]
B
But I was still lost in the sauce. I thought, I think that's a classic writer experience. I don't know. I thought it was very fair. I was really surprised by his email response to it.
- [69:21]
A
I know. Oh, my gosh.
- [69:23]
B
Quite extreme.
- [69:24]
A
Very extreme. And I could definitely. Yeah.
- [69:29]
B
Adds fuel to the fire of what everyone's, like, saying about him. I don't know. It doesn't do yourself any favors.
- [69:34]
A
No, definitely not. Yeah. We'll link to some. Some explainers of this because I feel like the details are just so. There's so many. There's so much going to.
- [69:44]
B
They're important to understand, I think. Anyway, long story short, I just. As always, I think that we're kind of putting our punishment on the wrong people. We are. Like, we need to be. We're instilling fear in the wrong people. I don't. I remain. I wonder every day, where are the boos? Where are the bullying for the fascists, for the tech overlords? Like, how can. How can Jeff Bezos not leave his house without hearing just, like, resounding boos wing.
- [70:11]
A
Like, these people want our glimpse of, like, some sort of protests at the Met Gala this year. So hopefully Jeff Bezos will get the discourse he deserves.
- [70:22]
B
I just think, like, celebrities. Yeah. But, like, we can bully them a little bit, too. But, like, these people who are genuinely evil, genuinely, like, running the world, and all they want is our approval. They're so desperate for, like, fame and popularity, and we can really use that as a cudgel with them. And I. And I just don't understand why we don't do it more. It's so just such a simple lift for the rest of us.
- [70:48]
A
So easy. I feel like punishment is a good segue to our big topic.
- [70:52]
B
Absolutely. Okay. This is the first Good. The first good transition we've done today. Yeah. Let's talk about punishment.
- [70:59]
A
We are talking about butt blush.
- [71:02]
B
Yeah.
- [71:02]
A
It's blush that, you know, evokes the look of a fresh spanking.
- [71:08]
B
A fresh spanking? Yeah. It came on the diesel fall 2026 Runway. And it is literally just like cheeks out and reddened. Yeah. With literal blush.
- [71:21]
A
Yeah.
- [71:23]
B
And this is exciting. Red cheeks, red tongues. It's very. It's all important. Red mouths. We have to make ourselves rouged up. We've got a rouge up, I guess. And I guess this was initially exciting development for me just because, again, further proof that Vogue was wrong. 2026 is not the year of the crack. Well, I guess they left it wide open. They said, could. Could it be the year of the crack?
- [71:50]
A
Could be the year of the crack. It could not.
- [71:52]
B
And it's not. And I'm responding to them. And it's. And it's not. It's. Again, it's about the crack. Concealment. It's about emphasis on the cheek. We even saw this, just as a tangent, we saw this at Paris Fashion Week. Chapel Row wore a half and half Vivian Westwood dress. So it was like dress in the front and then full booty exposed in the back. And again, I think just a cheek emphasis. And of course, this being the real literal emphasis on the cheek. So that was exciting. And then also confirmation of one of my trend predictions of the year, which is the mainstreaming of kink in new ways. New and creative ways. And yeah, I think there's something also very interesting about the mainstreaming of kink through its absence.
- [72:41]
A
Right.
- [72:41]
B
What's most fascinating to me about this trend is that it's actually the lack of it that makes it.
- [72:50]
A
Yeah, it's very. It's Baudrillardian kink.
- [72:53]
B
It's simulacraman stimulation. Kink for short. But yeah, I don't know, I guess I wrote a little bit about it in my newsletter, but to me it reminds me of this. Vivienne Westwood. For those who don't know, I once interviewed Vivienne Westwood for some reason at the very beginning of my career. And we had like a two hour long phone call at like 6am that's incredible. It was insane. It's truly one of the highlights of my life. I can't believe it happened. It also. It just felt like I was dreaming. Like, it was so early in the morning and it's like her at lunchtime just like going off and she dropped like a million genuinely iconic gems that, like will live in my mind, for the rest of my life. And one of them was, she was talking about distressed denim and, like, the rise in popularity of distressed denim. And she said that that's for her, that's. She believes that's because rich people want to buy clothing that gives them the appearance of a life fully lived. They don't want to live that life. They want things that look like they have experienced life. And so she was also talking about kind of the way that fashion always kind of takes elements from lower class or from working class people and then raises it up on the. On this pedestal of luxury. And she said, again, because they want the experience of labor. They want this, like, you know, the patina.
- [74:17]
A
Yeah.
- [74:17]
B
The patina of life without actually having to labor or work or. Yeah. Do or even own a piece of clothing long enough for it to start to break down like that to your body or to tatter. Yeah. And I just found that to be so profound. And that, to me, feels like exactly. What's going on here with the spanked bottom is that you want. Crazy to say, but it's like you. You want the performance of this, like, sexually deviant lifestyle, and you want the performance of kink without the danger, without the actual sexiness, which I also speak. Think speaks to the modern moment. Like, we're having less sex than ever before, but sex couldn't be more mainstream. Like, Bianca Censori is fully nude at the Gramm, and yet none of us are seeing anyone nude in our bedrooms.
- [75:02]
A
Yeah.
- [75:02]
B
You know, like, oh, we want this performance of these activities. We don't want the reality of them even.
- [75:08]
A
Just like, the blush of it all is so appropriate for that. Because I feel blush is pretty much the number one beauty product that gets sold by evoking emotion. I wrote about this a couple of years ago. There were some new blushes that came out that were named after emotions. It was like the blush shade was nervous and shy. And there's boyfriend blush, where you look like you've just come in from playing a game of rugby. And there's like, old girl blush where it looks like you've been outside. Like, blush is this tool that we use to look as if we've felt certain emotions or lived a certain life that we actually haven't. And there have been big blush campaigns lately that really lean into this. I think Burberry put out a blush that's like the. The cold weather blush or something like that. And I. I believe the campaign was all around, like, what blush? Like, I blush from going out on A brisk walk in the. In the sun. And it's like, you're not buying that. You're buying a blush. And then I think there was also a new Prada blush that came out, and the campaign was about, like, I blush from writing a love letter or something along those lines. And it's just like, it's so obvious that we are evoking this aesthetic of life that we're not actually participating in through blush specifically. So I think blush on. On the bl bump is interesting in that capacity too.
- [76:37]
B
Yeah, I didn't even think about it like that, but that's so true. Even the foundations of kind of blush is like, health and youthfulness, I would say, are kind of like the core ideas. Right. I don't know. And then there's also something I feel like fashion always loves too. Like taking something that's supposed to be one thing and making it its opposite. You know what I mean? So I'm saying, like, health and innocence being blush and kind of of like, depravity or like, you know, sexuality, turning it into. That is very fashion thing.
- [77:07]
A
I was thinking it was like, the aesthetics of, like, youthful innocence, but also transgression. So it's like you've done something bad. It had to be punished. I think it's also an aesthetic of, like, submissiveness in a certain way.
- [77:23]
B
And we're living in. As we talked about last time, we are living in the era of submissive.
- [77:28]
A
Yeah, exactly. So it's like a submissive aesthetic that's still a little, like, dangerous. Wink, wink. Like, I'm living on the edge, but I am still in the submissive position a little bit.
- [77:39]
B
But you. It's like you are in the submissive position, but, like, through putting on your own butt blush, you are acting as though you are the dominant. Like you were. You know what I mean? Like, you're in control. You're actually making this choice, like, I don't know. There's something funny about that. That.
- [77:54]
A
Yes. Oh, that's interesting.
- [77:57]
B
This is kind of a tangent, but it did just get me thinking about. I think it's just because we talked about this in book club, but in our last book club, we read Angela Davis's Woman Race in class, and she has this section that this plush made me think about. Sounds a little silly, but she was talking about basically the invention of modern white womanhood and that this idea of. Of, like, trad wife basically comes around the turn of the century with, like, the rise of the Industrial Revolution. Because what the Industrial Revolution was doing was actually taking away the traditional role of women. Like she says in the book. She's like, women's role was in the home, but what they were doing in the home was like basically cottage industry. Like it was small business. Like they were making everything for their families and then they were making excess and selling off that excess to make a profit for their families. And so. And so the Industrial revolution takes all of that and puts it into a factory and takes it away from women, their traditional role and their traditional jobs. And then it creates this mythology of like, well, your job is just like rearing the white offspring, basically, like rearing the next white supremacist generation and like, and raising them up in that way. And she talks about how that is the very nature of capitalism. Is like taking something that's like kind of working just fine. Or is your traditional role taking it away from you while simultaneously like, like valorizing it and raising it up on this, on this pedestal as like the ultimate. And I don't know. I was just. I think. I don't know. I think there's something to that about like, capitalism taking away like these real lived experiences, like where a spanked bottom would come from, which is like. Sounds crazy, but. But it's like raising it up on a platform is like, this is a valuable, like a beauty aesthetic.
- [79:42]
A
Yeah.
- [79:42]
B
While also taking away the reality of like the connections we have with other people, like romantic life, friendship even. Right. And like. Or the shared space of an S and M club, perhaps.
- [79:52]
A
Yeah.
- [79:53]
B
And like taking it all away from you while selling it back to you as a product. I don't know. There's something.
- [79:57]
A
Yeah, yeah, there's something there.
- [80:00]
B
To me, I'm not saying. Well, I'm sure, but.
- [80:02]
A
No, I know exactly what you mean. And I think I was also sort of. This is a little bit Internet brained of me, but I was also trying to think of it in terms of like, like Epstein and what's going on and like the how sex is looming large in the culture right now. Not as like consensual or loving or community building of the S and M club, but as commodification of women. Like the literal selling and bartering of women in sexual favors and the abuse and punishment of women.
- [80:40]
B
Women, totally.
- [80:42]
A
So there. Yeah. I think there's like a lot of layers. Like a spanking can definitely be fun and playful, but it could also be abusive. I. Yeah, I don't know.
- [80:55]
B
Yeah, interesting. Also interesting. Yeah.
- [80:57]
A
To.
- [80:58]
B
To have a spanking portrayed in this way of like, it's Your choice to be spank. Like, it's fun and it's a playful aesthetic choice versus is like, kind of the reality we're living in at the moment.
- [81:10]
A
Yeah. I mean, there's an article. I forgot where it is, but it's like a list of all of the books that Epstein bought on Amazon because the receipts are in his Amazon account. And there are books on like. Like how to train a sex slave and like, chapters on spanking and stuff. So there's. There's that aspect of it too. I will say the Diesel image, for some reason, really reminded me, my first thought association, the Coppertone girl. Like the copper tone logo, you know, sort of a reverse of that, where, like, in copper tone image, it's obviously like a little girl and her butt is not burned. The rest of her is.
- [81:52]
B
Yeah.
- [81:53]
A
And so then I started thinking of this in terms of, like, the faux sunburn trend that's been happening, especially over last summer. We saw people were creating, like, fake sunburn tan lines on their shoulders and chest, like bikini lines with, like, blush and bronzer and making those lines look really white. So maybe this summer we'll get like, the faux sunburned butt cheek.
- [82:19]
B
Now that's exciting. Also your copper tone comparison. Another argument that crack is not back because the copper tone girl is crack. This is cheek. We're getting cheek. We're getting inverse copper tone girl.
- [82:30]
A
Yes. Oh, my God.
- [82:32]
B
Also, I was going to say the Diesel photo to me, this is so random, but the Diesel photo to me reminds me of Refinery 29 photography from, like, 2014.
- [82:40]
A
Oh, I can see that. I know.
- [82:43]
B
Color blocks. Speaking of people with Internet brain.
- [82:47]
A
Yeah.
- [82:49]
B
That was my reference.
- [82:51]
A
It's a perfect reference. I can visualize it.
- [82:53]
B
Thank you.
- [82:53]
A
Thank you immediately. Anything else about butt blush? Did we not. Is there anything we missed?
- [83:00]
B
I mean, I'm sure. But that's all my thoughts for the moment. It's still. This is an unfolding.
- [83:06]
A
Yeah. I'm curious to see if this will make the jump from, like, Runway to real people. I sort of doubt it, but it's. But you never know. I don't know.
- [83:15]
B
You genuinely never. I say that all the time in the newsletter about trends and I always live to eat my worms. People find a way to do it. Although I still haven't seen a skims merkin. I'm waiting.
- [83:26]
A
I. I know.
- [83:28]
B
Literally haven't seen a single one anywhere.
- [83:31]
A
Maybe we'll get, like, Skim's hosiery that has, like, blushed cheek placement, you know?
- [83:37]
B
Well, I once. Well, maybe this is Proof that Kim doesn't read my newsletter because I once suggested that we should have Skim's hosiery with leg hair.
- [83:46]
A
Oh, yes, yes. And I support that.
- [83:49]
B
Still haven't seen it.
- [83:51]
A
So it's kind of coming. It's coming next Halloween.
- [83:55]
B
That's so true. Oh, April Fools is right around the corner also.
- [83:57]
A
Oh, yeah. I wonder.
- [83:59]
B
Be a good, good time to launch a product such as that for her.
- [84:03]
A
Is it time for mess of the month?
- [84:05]
B
It's always time for mess of the month.
- [84:08]
A
Woo.
- [84:09]
B
My pick is Kevin O. Leary's necklace. I hate it. I hate it so much. It's so ugly. I can't, like, wrap my mind around any part of. Of it.
- [84:20]
A
No.
- [84:21]
B
Again, I guess visual this more for people who watch the video of this YouTube, I guess. But it's hideous. It's a hideous little diamond necklace. I'll explain it. But Kevin o', Leary, I mean, what is he best known as? A shark. Shark Tank guy.
- [84:36]
A
A Shark Tank guy who was in Marty Supreme. Like, he had an acting role in Marty Supreme. That's why he's been, like, all over.
- [84:46]
B
Thank you so much for explaining that. Because I literally couldn't figure. I'm like, why the hell is he at all these award shows? Like, get him out of here. You're so right. It's the Marty supreme of it all. So anyway, he went to the Sags and he went to the Oscars and he wore the same hideous necklace to both of them. I think it's not helping that he's wearing this hideous necklace with the ugliest blazers I've ever seen in my life. Just like sequined and embellished and nightmarish.
- [85:10]
A
Who is he working with? Who was dressing him? Is he doing this himself?
- [85:14]
B
I think feels authentically him. I think that this is coming. Sometimes I just get a sense when people are on the right car. I'm like, you did this. Like, this is coming straight from your mind. And in that way, I respect it. Like, you know, like, I'm glad that it's. It's all his doing. It does feel like they're all Dolce and Gabbana blazers. I can't explain why unless you see them, but basically. So I learned that. That he. He is one of three people, which is also something I don't understand. He is one of three people who purchased this ticket. It's a. It's an. It's an NBA ticket, I guess that Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant autographed, like some exhibition game that they were like, both Playing in.
- [86:00]
A
Okay.
- [86:02]
B
And so he, along with two other people, purchased this ticket for $12.9 million. And that was a couple months ago, I believe. And he claims that in that time, it's already appreciated in value, and it's now worth $19.2 million. And I'm like, according to who?
- [86:20]
A
First of all, just like, how do you know? How do you calculate that sort of thing? Like, isn't it only worth that if someone will pay that?
- [86:28]
B
Exactly. So that's already kind of my skepticism where I'm. I'm like. Like, it says who it's worth that much. And like, this is all just feels like fictional. Like rich men, like, betting on thing. You know what I mean? Like, they're pumping up the value internally in a way that I can't prove, but I know that they're doing it. And also, why do you want to own a ticket with two other people? I just don't understand it.
- [86:48]
A
It's weird.
- [86:49]
B
Like, I. I guess I kind of. I mean, I've been. I'm someone who's like, never understood the appeal of an autograph. I don't get why people want them or what they're doing with them, but that's just me. But, like, I understand you want to own memorabilia from people you like, but why do you want to own memorabilia?
- [87:05]
A
Unlike Kevin o', Leary, it's literally just about how valuable it is. Like, right. He doesn't care about it.
- [87:10]
B
But also, what's the timeshare situation? Right. I don't think he really cares about the autograph. I don't think this is, like, authentic. Like, he loves Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant so much he had to own this object personally. Maybe he does. I don't know. But also, what's the timeshare situation like with. What's custody like with. With this ticket? Like, how are you splitting it between the three of you? Like, does it rotate? Like, what's happening?
- [87:33]
A
Yeah.
- [87:34]
B
What. What does it mean to share this ticket with three people? And did they all have to approve you putting it in this hideous necklace? Like, I feel like that has to be a joint agreement. You can't. Or maybe you can pull it in and out. Anyway, the necklace. I guess I should explain it to people. It's like a diamond and ruby encrusted shadow box. That's the only way I can explain it to it. And it's on this nightmare chain. It just is like, the worst version of, like, a rapper's pendant. No rapper would make something like this. They would never. But it's like, that's the closest I can get to explaining it's comps. I just hate it so much. I think it's a nightmare. I think rich people don't know what to do with their money and they're just, they can't even spend it in fun, foolish ways, you know, or make something more beautiful or something that would like be in a museum one day. And honestly, this Kevin o' Leary's necklace, I guess it's really triggering me because it reminds me of one time I went to this. This is going to sound so weird. One time I went to this dinner for an awards ceremony just for real estate agents.
- [88:43]
A
Okay, I'm interested.
- [88:46]
B
Okay. It's the. It was like the highest end real estate agents in New York City. So these are literally the guys who represent like multi billion dollar buildings that they're selling and buying to people. And they own. The majority of the people in that room own probably all of Manhattan, if I had to guess. I did learn later that I was sitting next to a guy who's the number two real estate agent in all of New York City. I don't know what that means.
- [89:14]
A
Okay.
- [89:15]
B
His name's Tamir.
- [89:16]
A
I don't know.
- [89:17]
B
But so at this dinner we're like forced to make conversation and like no one cares about what I do or understands what I do. So we were just talking about like weird, real est stuff, but this guy across from me was like obsessed with showing me his NFT collection.
- [89:32]
A
Oh, no.
- [89:33]
B
And this is at like the height of NFTs. When is that even? I don't know, 2022, 2023, something like that. The height of NFTs. And he's showing me his NFT collection and I'm just making jokes like, so that's a jpeg. You own a jpeg? Like, so I can rip that off onto my computer and like I own it too now, like la de da. And I kept being like, suddenly, do you own a. Is there like a physical version of this that you. No, there's no physical version of this. And I just think about him regularly and the multiple millions of dollars that he lost on these stupid ass NFTs that he was buying. And I don't know, there's something about Kevin o' Leary's necklace that is very, very much that to me. And also, if you are spending $13 million on an autographed ticket, why do I need to see it?
- [90:17]
A
Right?
- [90:17]
B
Doesn't it feel like broke boy behavior to like make sure that everyone knows that you have it and like wear it on the red carpet and like flash it at everyone. Like put it in your house. Your whole. Put on your mantle.
- [90:30]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [90:31]
B
Like put it on your fireplace mantle. Like, why do I need to see it? I don't know. It feels like weird posturing that I to me, I'm like, are there financial problems at home, Mr. O'? Leary? Like, why, why are you trying to make people think that?
- [90:44]
A
Like, why do you need us to know so badly that.
- [90:46]
B
Yeah, it's suspicious to me.
- [90:48]
A
Yeah, it is.
- [90:50]
B
Anyway, that's my mess of the month. Somebody needs to steal the necklace.
- [90:56]
A
Yeah, we can get this thing off the red carpet. My mess of the month is I'm noticing a lot of tech adjacent language in new beauty and wellness products which has the effect of framing customers, mostly women, as cyborgs.
- [91:15]
B
Hell yeah.
- [91:16]
A
So yes, my examples this month are one, the Update Energy drink. Kim Kardashian joined this company Update, as a co founder. It's like a caffeine free energy drink and the name is Update, which I
- [91:31]
B
think she's been walking around aggressively holding the can in her hand. If anyone's looked at a recent paparazzi pic of her very. It's been an update in her hand.
- [91:40]
A
Very appropriate for her as like sort of the originator of Instagram face and the contemporary cyborgian aesthetic. Tushy, who makes bidets, released a fiber gummy vitamin called Reboot.
- [91:59]
B
Okay.
- [92:00]
A
Huh.
- [92:00]
B
And then Experiment Rebooty. Huh.
- [92:03]
A
I know, right? Missed opportunity too silly. Experiment Beauty has a smoothing lip treatment called Software. And this has been around for a while, but they just came out with two new shades called null and Void, which is, yeah, so appropriate for this moment. So yeah, I'm seeing this as like a continuation of Instagram face. Cyborg skin. Like woman and machine have been so successfully paired in the minds of the masses that these sort of, you know, tech names are resonating with people. Also makes me think of like the looksmaxing language for women, which is foids or female humanoids, which is, you know, like a realistic robot with no agency of its own designed to serve. So I think there's like a big connection there. And then it also makes me think of, did you see Melania Trump introducing
- [93:02]
B
that robot, bro, I just posted the photo of her on Substack because I. It's so funny to me, the one of her standing behind the. The robot, staring at it, smiling. So incredible meme potential there.
- [93:16]
A
So creepy, so funny, so dystopian. So just like very now, but yes, very now she even opened her International Women's Day speech at the White House with. It's wonderful to see the White House filled with so many effective women today. And I'm just like, I'm dying at the use of the word effective.
- [93:37]
B
Like effective.
- [93:38]
A
Yeah, yeah, just effectively.
- [93:40]
B
Because it also feels like effective machinery, but also like, effectively women. I don't know, it seems like, I guess because we've been reading Females by Andrea Long too, but it feels like it's gesturing out, like you're basically all ladies, effectively women. Yeah, you're effectively women out there. It's so nice to see you all today.
- [93:58]
A
Yeah. Grab some reboot vitamins and your update energy drink to be a more effective woman.
- [94:06]
B
A foid. A more. I didn't know the word foid. I'm kind of obsessed with that. Yeah, that's very like good sci fi language. I think it's like very interesting.
- [94:17]
A
When I looked it up. I mean, hopefully it's fine that we say foid. I don't know. Yeah, the definition was like extremely derogatory term for women, so.
- [94:27]
B
Sure.
- [94:28]
A
Yeah.
- [94:28]
B
Who knows where it's really came from. Came from. Also though, doesn't it kind of feel like all of this. Maybe this is my conspiracy brain, but doesn't it kind of feel like all of this language is like preparing us to upload our consciousness into the digital realm? Like if we already think that we are robots and computers, like if we already talk and think about ourselves that way, it's like, okay, it's the cadaver fat situation. I was like, well, I'm already here and I'm going to do it. So like, boot me up.
- [94:52]
A
Okay. Yes. And I just watched the Matrix last night and there's so many Matrix tie ins here.
- [94:58]
B
Amazing.
- [94:59]
A
In the Matrix they use Deadpool people as a juice and inject it into the living people to like keep them like alive as a battery to power this AI world. So yes, the cadaver fat fits in there too.
- [95:14]
B
Amazing.
- [95:15]
A
The cyborg update reboot stuff fits in there too. And also I had never seen the Matrix before, but that scene where Neo kind of pops out of his womb so goopy, so gooey. I was like, this, this is. This is glazed donut skin. This is Dewey Dumpling. This is like the wetness trend.
- [95:37]
B
The future is goop heavy. You know, Gwen, the Matrix really predicted it all. You know, it's funny though, you know, there are so many like Matrix references and stuff and all the cyborg stuff. It's weird to me that no one. It doesn't seem like there's ever any references to Metropolis, which to me that's kind of like OG Cyborg lady.
- [95:57]
A
I don't know Metropolis.
- [95:58]
B
Oh, really? Okay. It's Fritz Lang. I mean, let me look up the year. I feel like it was made in the 20s.
- [96:05]
A
Okay, I got it.
- [96:08]
B
I'm a Metropolis head, 1927. I'm a big time Metropolis head. I'm a longtime Fritz Lang fan. I think he's unbelievable. Metropolis to me is unbelievable. The fact that it's made in 1927 is insane. It is like an allegory about capitalism and. Yeah. About the creation of this cyborg woman.
- [96:32]
A
Okay.
- [96:33]
B
And it's really phenomenal. Anyway, I guess I was just thinking, I've been reading this book, the Director. That's very good if anyone's looking for a book, Greg. But it is about like a German director, G.W. pabst, who comes to America during the rise of the Nazis. Anyway, and he's talking and he's having like flashbacks of his experiences with Fritz Lang. And he talks about seeing Metropolis for the first time and just being like, oh, I've just witnessed a great masterpiece of cinema. Like, what the f. Like as a director, what do you do? How do you go on with your life and be like, okay, I guess I have to keep making movies too. I just saw the greatest work of art I'll probably ever see in my life.
- [97:16]
A
Okay, I've got to get on Metropolis. This is my plan for the week.
- [97:19]
B
It's incredible. I can't recommend Metropolis more highly. Also I went to see it. I think they probably still offer this, but in New York there was a screening with a live orchestra because it's a silent film, of course, 1927. But it's. Yeah, it's German expressionism also. So it's like very heightened.
- [97:37]
A
Yeah.
- [97:38]
B
Anyway, no one ever references it and I always think it's so weird because that is literally the proto of where we get the idea of like an Android, especially a female Android. And that's what all of our ideas about robots are like modeled off of. So it's strange to me that she never. I wanted. She have a name, let me say Metropolis robot name. She does, it seems. Maria.
- [97:59]
A
Oh, beautiful.
- [98:01]
B
Yeah, Maria. And then false Maria because there's a real woman that she's based off of. And then false Maria replaces her because they, they implant, I guess, spoilers for this 100 year old movie, but they implant False Maria. Maria, the real Maria is like a leader of the worker revolution because the workers are being exploited by this metropolis town that they live in and murdered by the machines that they. They operate. And so Maria is, like, trying to lead, like, a communist socialist uprising of workers. And so they make this false Maria Android, and they replace the real Maria with the false Maria to kind of, like, quash the rebel revolution.
- [98:40]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [98:42]
B
She is known as the machine and Mensch. Machine Human.
- [98:47]
A
Yeah.
- [98:50]
B
Pretty good.
- [98:50]
A
I love this. I'm gonna watch this immediately.
- [98:53]
B
I think it's gonna rock. Rock your world. It's right up your alley.
- [98:58]
A
Yeah, I can already tell I'm gonna love it. Thank you again.
- [99:01]
B
This is a movie podcast.
- [99:02]
A
I'm ending with two movie wrecks from Emily. I love, love it.
- [99:05]
B
Someone who never watches movies, like, Enjoy. Enjoy a 100-year-old movie and a movie from 2008 in Sweden. Enjoy that, guys.
- [99:14]
A
Can't wait. All right, well, if you got to the end like you did it, you know, rate us review only if it's good. Thank you for being here. And, yeah, we'll see you next month. Bye.
- [99:31]
B
Love you guys. Bye.
- [99:36]
A
Hot.