Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
Speaker 1: closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Speaker 1: Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come
Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
Speaker 1: And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join
Speaker 1: the conversation. It's time to question everything. Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but I have decided that my new
Speaker 1: year starts February first, because this month has been a blur.
Speaker 1: I just got back from Veil. I wanted to spend
Speaker 1: my birthday on a mountain skiing. And this is going
Speaker 1: to sound so la, but I'm gonna just say it.
Speaker 1: The amazing woman who I get spray tands with is
Speaker 1: also in a s astrologer, and she like read my
Speaker 1: chart for my birthday and she told me that one
Speaker 1: of my missions in life is to realize that joy
Speaker 1: and play are not earned. And I laughed so hard
Speaker 1: when she said that to me, because what do you
Speaker 1: mean They're not earned? Yes, they are, so I am
Speaker 1: trying to work on that and trying to play a
Speaker 1: little bit more. I don't know what that even means
Speaker 1: to me, because like, I'm a Capricorn and everything is serious.
Speaker 1: But I bring that all up to say I actually
Speaker 1: do feel that when I'm skiing, I feel so free.
Speaker 1: So I spent my birthday on a mountain. I'm back.
Speaker 1: I'm ready to get back to work properly. I'm ready
Speaker 1: to like get in. I think I needed to hibernate
Speaker 1: like a little bear for a little bit, and I've
Speaker 1: not been great on my visualization practices. I've been going
Speaker 1: in and out, and I'm ready to commit finally. So
Speaker 1: if you've been better than me, then I'm so proud
Speaker 1: of you. Congratulations. And if you are lagging a little
Speaker 1: bit like me, let's just jump in together. February first, Okay, anyways,
Speaker 1: I want to to today's episode because I had so
Speaker 1: much fun recording it. I learned so much, and it's
Speaker 1: going to be one of those few that I actually
Speaker 1: listened back to because I want to relearn and sort
Speaker 1: of rehear what our guest had to say. I know
Speaker 1: there's going to be stuff that I pick up this
Speaker 1: time around, so let's get into it. Do you ever
Speaker 1: feel like culture is glitching. It feels like it's been happening,
Speaker 1: both slowly and all at once. The rise of AI,
Speaker 1: a new era under President Trump, a total reordering of
Speaker 1: how we consume media and art, and the Hollywood business
Speaker 1: models are scrambling to keep up. Celebrity used to mean mystique,
Speaker 1: and now it means a ring light and a good angle.
Speaker 1: Something is changing, and it has been for a while,
Speaker 1: and I think it's hard to tell where it is
Speaker 1: actually all headed. That's a question that's been circling my mind.
Speaker 1: But I think when things feel uncertain, there's one place
Speaker 1: that always tells the truth. First, pop culture. Bear with me, okay.
Speaker 1: I think it shows us what we excuse, who we worship,
Speaker 1: and what we pretend not to see long before we
Speaker 1: admit it out loud. Pop Culture is a mirror. It
Speaker 1: shows us where we are and where we're going. And
Speaker 1: today's guest doesn't just watch culture, she reads it like
Speaker 1: a receipt. Christiana back Medina is the creator of pop Syllabus,
Speaker 1: which is my favorite substack and now the name of
Speaker 1: her new podcast as well. She's one of the sharpest
Speaker 1: cultural critics and quite honestly sharpest people in the zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: She has this very rare talent for seeing the pattern
Speaker 1: underneath the headline. For instance, she can take a ditty verdict,
Speaker 1: a tradwife TikTok, a celebrity headline, a met Gallas sponsorship,
Speaker 1: the death of a celebrity apology and somehow make it
Speaker 1: all point to the same big question what are we
Speaker 1: rewarding right now? And why who do we give power to?
Speaker 1: And what does it say about us? And you know
Speaker 1: I love to dissect culture too, so today Christiana and
Speaker 1: I get into it all from her views on what
Speaker 1: the ditty trial really mean.
Speaker 2: They broken and needs to be problematic men, and we
Speaker 2: absolved that even when we find out about any wrongdoing
Speaker 2: they've done to.
Speaker 1: The complete collapse of celebrity mystique.
Speaker 2: Quite ash really collapsed for celebrity. It's right because it's
Speaker 2: just like, sure, you may have this celebrity you as
Speaker 2: a publicist and a studio system and a stylist and
Speaker 2: the whole team around them, but they can't necessarily compared
Speaker 2: to with gal that can just do it.
Speaker 3: Get ready with me and get median youth.
Speaker 1: We get into why we are obsessed with wealth in
Speaker 1: our culture, but why we also sort of despise rich people,
Speaker 1: how celebrity got demystified, and what replaces that man. We
Speaker 1: talk about the tradway, fantasy and the fine print nobody posts,
Speaker 1: and then we get into her twenty twenty six predictions,
Speaker 1: including who's poised for a comeback, what aesthetic is taking over,
Speaker 1: and what we're underestimating about AI. So I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: We are circling a ton of questions today. But if
Speaker 1: I had to wrap it all into a tiny little
Speaker 1: bow and say we are circling one thing, I say
Speaker 1: that we are circling why do we keep giving power
Speaker 1: to the same kinds of people and what does that
Speaker 1: say about us? Okay, it's time to question everything with
Speaker 1: Christiana back Medina. Christiana, welcome to question everything.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be me.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited. I've been wanting to talk to you,
Speaker 1: I think for about a year. My friend Natalie shared
Speaker 1: your work with me and I've been a huge band
Speaker 1: ever since.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: You know he's gonna be so jealous. She's that here.
Speaker 1: But I think in a digital age, there are so
Speaker 1: many voices that it's hard to cut through the noise,
Speaker 1: and you somehow really have. What do you think it is?
Speaker 2: Some people call me a bit witchy. My mother pulls
Speaker 2: me anointed, as I like to say. But I think
Speaker 2: just because of my background, I occupied like a unique
Speaker 2: vantage point and I think it's my place in the
Speaker 2: world that makes me see things that others perhaps don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think like I'm uniquely brilliant. I just think
Speaker 2: my identity and my experiences I see things that other
Speaker 2: people maybe ignore, or I make connections other people don't,
Speaker 2: and I think because of that it resonates with people.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. Can you share more about your background?
Speaker 3: Yeah, grew up in London, in South London.
Speaker 2: Parents are Nigerian immigrants, where I spent my childhood, most
Speaker 2: of my early adulthood, and then I came out to
Speaker 2: the States when I was about twenty seven years old.
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm dating myself now and I've lived
Speaker 2: here for a decade.
Speaker 1: What made you come to America?
Speaker 3: That's a very lonely question, you know what it is.
Speaker 2: I knew there was like a bigger world out there,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to do something different that I knew
Speaker 2: England perhaps wouldn't allow me to do, especially on like
Speaker 2: the writing side of my work, and I was like,
Speaker 2: why not. You know, it was a bit insane in hindsight,
Speaker 2: like you have to be a bit delusional, and I
Speaker 2: was like, let me just try. And then I ended
Speaker 2: up being here for over a decade, getting married, having kids,
Speaker 2: have three anchor babies, so it's going to be very
Speaker 2: hard to get.
Speaker 3: Out of here.
Speaker 1: You have three babies, I have frekids. I do not
Speaker 1: know that he is a free kid girl. You have
Speaker 1: an American.
Speaker 2: Husband, Yes, I have an American husband who grew up
Speaker 2: in New York piece of Dominican descent.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of languages in my house.
Speaker 2: Like I go between English and if my husband speaks Spanish,
Speaker 2: so there's a lot happening.
Speaker 4: How do you think about instilling certain culture in your kids?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I just be myself. Like my parents
Speaker 2: always send these care packages, are a lot of very
Speaker 2: British snacks, so my kids are like pussy pigs are
Speaker 2: real McCoy's and penguins, so those are their snack references.
Speaker 2: I speak I both to my children and so they
Speaker 2: use words here and there. And my husband is taken
Speaker 2: care of his past. So we're just ourselves. We're very
Speaker 2: intentional about being ourselves and our kids are just like
Speaker 2: a wonderful blend like both of us.
Speaker 3: I like to think they're also like nuts.
Speaker 1: Do you consider yourself a writer first?
Speaker 2: I think that's the mode I'm most comfortable expressing my idea.
Speaker 2: I think you get to be a bit more reflective.
Speaker 2: And I kind a habit of like saying the wrong thing.
Speaker 2: That's like kind of my grand funny. Yeah, I just
Speaker 2: put my mind in a way that like people don't
Speaker 2: like women too, So like the thing about writing, I
Speaker 2: get to be a bit more measured. Even when I'm
Speaker 2: being inflammatory. I'm inflammatory and it's smart and measured. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm always getting kicked out of group chats. What I
Speaker 2: like about writing is that I can be myself, but
Speaker 2: it also forts to me to be more reflective or
Speaker 2: fall And once it exists in the world, you want
Speaker 2: people to receive it in the right spirit, you know.
Speaker 2: So let's say write first, and then think.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like when your friends say that and
Speaker 1: they take you places? Is it because they don't want
Speaker 1: to catch you debating and ruffling feathers?
Speaker 4: And what is it for you?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you.
Speaker 2: Like the back and floor I spoke about this recently
Speaker 2: on another podcast. I think it's my father, Like this
Speaker 2: whole thing was always he'd make the statement and he
Speaker 2: was curious about the posision I would take, and he
Speaker 2: would always take the opposite one.
Speaker 3: He's like my debatable sparring partner.
Speaker 2: So when you raise by a man like that, and
Speaker 2: then my mom's a big reader as well.
Speaker 3: When you have parents like my parents, you just always.
Speaker 2: Want to say something that's not a bit outrageous, but
Speaker 2: like you like to engage with ideas, and I think
Speaker 2: it comes from that. But then you go into the
Speaker 2: world and you're like, oh my god, everyone's polite and
Speaker 2: you're not supposed to give your opinion at the dinner table.
Speaker 2: You're supposed to do small. But I wasn't prepared for that.
Speaker 2: So my friends are like, hey, for meeting you. People
Speaker 2: don't let them know how crazy you are.
Speaker 1: When you were dating, was it important for you to
Speaker 1: meet a maan that was a thinker and like led
Speaker 1: with conversation.
Speaker 2: I don't like to speak to most men after five pm,
Speaker 2: let alone a stupid man.
Speaker 3: So I knew like whoever.
Speaker 2: I ended up with had to be like my intellectual people,
Speaker 2: if not like smart. I always say, my husband's smarter
Speaker 2: than means. That's what I needed. I needed somebody that
Speaker 2: I admired, the intellects and stuff like that. Yeah, out
Speaker 2: end dates, but you know you say the check please,
Speaker 2: like I'm out. Yeah, that was very important to me.
Speaker 1: So you sit at the intersection of politics, pop culture, rates,
Speaker 1: and the internet. Yeah, when you analyze culture, what questions
Speaker 1: are you asking yourself? What are you looking for?
Speaker 4: And I asked that because you have such a unique
Speaker 4: point of view.
Speaker 3: I'm asking why, like why now?
Speaker 2: In particular because I think Angler Metal, the formula transfer
Speaker 2: of Germany said something very interesting, You said, Paris raising.
Speaker 2: He said, history doesn't repeat itself, but there are patterns,
Speaker 2: and I think in pop culture and the kind of
Speaker 2: zone I'm in, there are always these patterns. And I
Speaker 2: think we can be lazy, but like, this has happened before,
Speaker 2: but if you look at the past, there were maybe
Speaker 2: signs that this would happen. And I'm curious about why
Speaker 2: is it happening now? Right, That's the thing I'm thinking about.
Speaker 2: Why is it happening now? How can I connect it
Speaker 2: to a past? And what does it say about the future?
Speaker 2: And that is like my bag in terms of pop
Speaker 2: culture and.
Speaker 1: Like my lens, and so are you always when you're
Speaker 1: researching a topic, are you going back to historical references?
Speaker 1: Or have you been a student of history? They just
Speaker 1: come to you.
Speaker 3: I think everyone's version of a historical reference is different.
Speaker 2: Right. I'm a pop culture girl that grew up in
Speaker 2: England and that is the big Breakference's SMTV Lives the UK.
Speaker 2: It's Top of the Pops, which shows that like your
Speaker 2: American isn't going.
Speaker 3: To be like what the hell is that? But people
Speaker 3: back home are like, yeah, those are our references.
Speaker 2: We remember when Robbie Williams or the Spice Scales were
Speaker 2: on these shows, right yeah, And it's Bliss magazine and
Speaker 2: so it's a whole different pop culture canon in a way.
Speaker 2: And then it's of course like my Nigerian British subculture
Speaker 2: and take garage and all of these things that really
Speaker 2: inform the lens at which I look at things happening
Speaker 2: in maybe India or like the US. So when I
Speaker 2: say history, some of it it's like my own personal nostalgia.
Speaker 2: But there are these very big, broader historical themes that
Speaker 2: I think we cannot ignore when look at culture. Whether
Speaker 2: it's like women getting the right to vote, whether it's
Speaker 2: like the Civil rights era, because especially in a US context,
Speaker 2: that shape so much of where we are today. So like,
Speaker 2: there are the big tip poles that I'm always looking
Speaker 2: at and I'm always thinking about. In a way, I
Speaker 2: think twenty twenty uprisings and COVID, like what did that
Speaker 2: do to pop culture? I feel like COVID created this
Speaker 2: kind of animal who doesn't go out much.
Speaker 3: I put myself in that.
Speaker 2: I used to go out a lot more before we
Speaker 2: shut down. And I think a lot of people are
Speaker 2: consuming pop culture at home and they want to return home.
Speaker 2: Whereas before, like maybe twenty nineteen, it was like, you
Speaker 2: know what, let's go and watch this movie together, but
Speaker 2: now it's like, you know what, I'm going to wait
Speaker 2: the night forty five days, which it is now, until
Speaker 2: it's on my streamer, and maybe I'm gonna watch work
Speaker 2: it at home, like I don't need to do this
Speaker 2: in the theater. And I think twenty twenty kind of
Speaker 2: change certain behaviors, you know, zoom parties or like just
Speaker 2: working from home. I think we become different animals because
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty, the racial uprisings and the event of COVID.
Speaker 2: So that's something I think about a lot, Like, how
Speaker 2: does the twenty twenty years of it all in this
Speaker 2: kind of mass traumatic event affects how people are creating
Speaker 2: pop culture and how.
Speaker 1: We're consuming it, consuming from home is really interesting to
Speaker 1: me besides the obvious, Yes, we're consuming at home. But
Speaker 1: I have a friend whose husband was a party promoter
Speaker 1: year ago, and he said people used to come to
Speaker 1: clubs to see what people were wearing. That was like
Speaker 1: a big drop. It was fashion, and then when the
Speaker 1: Internet and Instagram happened, you didn't really need the clubs.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of when clubs die.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't that's the club or anybody.
Speaker 3: I hate clubs me too.
Speaker 4: I want a book club. I don't want any of
Speaker 4: the club I don't want.
Speaker 2: It's noisy, like the bottles and the door and some
Speaker 2: man judging me when I'm willing to get it now
Speaker 2: I'm twelve fashion, But like, yeah, you can see the
Speaker 2: clubs from your phone. You can see Cachella from your phone,
Speaker 2: and the vipon section people are sharing.
Speaker 3: That, and then you can find fashion on your phone.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I remember the moment that I realized that pop culture
Speaker 1: was more than a tabloid magazine. I grew up in
Speaker 1: a family that was academic, and so they would kind
Speaker 1: of make fun of me.
Speaker 4: They were like, you're wasting your brain. What are you
Speaker 4: doing this garbage?
Speaker 1: And I moved to LA and started working at like
Speaker 1: E and Entertainment Tonight, and I realized that it is
Speaker 1: a mirror. It's like we are informing it, and it
Speaker 1: is informing us, and it's reflecting where we are as
Speaker 1: a society. Do you remember the moment you realize that
Speaker 1: it was a mirror, that it was bigger than just
Speaker 1: these tabolic magazines.
Speaker 2: I think I always knew that because my parents were
Speaker 2: very strict about not letting me consume pop culture, like
Speaker 2: it was always this thing I had to sneak in,
Speaker 2: Like they didn't like me watching television. My parents are
Speaker 2: deeply con togoss on. My father's like a pasta, So
Speaker 2: there was no second of music. This was a thing
Speaker 2: that don't touch It's the bidden it's of the world.
Speaker 2: But when I go to school, people were talking about
Speaker 2: what they watched, what they read, what they were listening to,
Speaker 2: and their parents are just like normal, like you can
Speaker 2: listen to the radio, right, So I was kind of
Speaker 2: consuming pop culture by like kind of osmosis a lot
Speaker 2: as a child. As a teenager, I had a lot
Speaker 2: more three dam So I always knew it was like
Speaker 2: really important and it was reflective of how people felt
Speaker 2: of the world, and it was performing how they felt
Speaker 2: about the world too. But I can't think of a
Speaker 2: specific moment where I'm like, it's pop culture. I think
Speaker 2: I always intuited this.
Speaker 4: That's really interesting. Yeah, when did you realize your voice?
Speaker 1: Most people it's a big question, But was there like
Speaker 1: a piece that you put out that you thought, oh,
Speaker 1: this movie The Needle.
Speaker 2: I think it was my early days on Twitter, which
Speaker 2: I'm not on anymore, but I would often go viral
Speaker 2: or it was like the fascist Healthscape. I would often
Speaker 2: go yeah, just a week clear, but I go viral
Speaker 2: for saying things that I would just say to my
Speaker 2: friends and in my life, and I just tweet what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, and I was like, Oh, I'm resonating with people.
Speaker 3: That's what I felt like.
Speaker 2: I felt like I say things that people can relate
Speaker 2: to and expressing ideas.
Speaker 1: You know, I must have felt so good. Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I've always kept.
Speaker 2: A distance from it because I had this inherent mistrusted
Speaker 2: of people. To go viral to be liked or people
Speaker 2: to respond to your voice doesn't necessarily mean that you're
Speaker 2: contributing anything good to the conversation. I think like typically
Speaker 2: actually means you're probably a bit of a maniac, right,
Speaker 2: Like the people we've platformed, especially in modern society, whether
Speaker 2: it's politically and culture and fashion, they tend to be
Speaker 2: the most like outrageous people. So about imperent skill or value,
Speaker 2: it's just that you've made somebody feel something. It doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that you've contributed something good to the world. So
Speaker 2: I've never seen that viral moment as being like, oh,
Speaker 2: this feels good. Sometimes I interrogate, like, why are they're responding?
Speaker 2: Is it because I feel like put something good at
Speaker 2: into the world? And that's like kind of the litmus
Speaker 2: test for me.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I think that's a really traditional journalistic lens to
Speaker 1: like remove yourself from the equation. I listened to a
Speaker 1: podcast about how back in the day, all the journalists
Speaker 1: were paid thirty forty thousand dollars and so they were
Speaker 1: making a living, but they were not of the upper class.
Speaker 1: And now a lot of journalists are mixing and mingling
Speaker 1: with the people they're writing about and changed the stratosphere.
Speaker 3: Yeah for sure, like they.
Speaker 1: Don't want to write about their friends.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: And it's just like that kind of access sometimes, I
Speaker 2: don't know the spoils of it can Sully your actual work.
Speaker 1: Is there a recent pop culture moment that made you
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, this says everything about the moment that
Speaker 1: we are in right now.
Speaker 2: I think that the DD verdict the sentence being a
Speaker 2: lot less than what people anticipating, and just the response
Speaker 2: to it and the spectacle of that trial.
Speaker 3: I think it's like the definitive story in the way
Speaker 3: i'd say more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think because there was the expectation that he
Speaker 2: would be found guilty on all accounts and he would
Speaker 2: never see the light of day again. I didn't think
Speaker 2: that speaking to me, but I was like, I topt
Speaker 2: him to get off on everything, but I think he
Speaker 2: went down on like the prostitution charges and we've got
Speaker 2: a fifty months sentence, which is very leniar and given
Speaker 2: everything happening. But I was like, we are in a
Speaker 2: world where like powerful and rich people can get away
Speaker 2: with things and the public is kind of on their side.
Speaker 2: Like people were shocked that you know, you saw the
Speaker 2: video of him and Cassion. You watched this trial, and
Speaker 2: now the documentary is coming out, You've seeing the feelings
Speaker 2: of jurors and the general public. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: people that are like, it's not illegal to be a
Speaker 2: free That's what they've taken from this trial. And I
Speaker 2: think it's so emblematic about these problematic men who verge
Speaker 2: on criminality.
Speaker 3: You sometimes are criminals who are still our.
Speaker 2: Kind of kings, are cultural kings, and we're willing to
Speaker 2: forgive them for anything. And I think that's the story
Speaker 2: of like maybe the last five to ten years of
Speaker 2: like we like our men broken, and we like them
Speaker 2: all our criminal and we.
Speaker 3: Allow them to haul us. And so I think the
Speaker 3: Diggy trial was that in a nutshell from a culture.
Speaker 4: Perspective, when you say five to ten years, what do
Speaker 4: you think fifted?
Speaker 1: It?
Speaker 3: Was?
Speaker 1: It part of e Weinstein.
Speaker 2: I think there's a Harvey element to it. There's I
Speaker 2: think the political scientists can do a better job of this.
Speaker 2: But there was a point in the Trump campaign versus
Speaker 2: Hillary when take came out, everyone was like, he's done.
Speaker 2: I didn't think he was done, but like didn't No,
Speaker 2: I didn't think he was done because I think that
Speaker 2: what a lot of people miss about Trump is that
Speaker 2: he represents an archetype that exists in a lot of families,
Speaker 2: which is like a problematic uncle who says the wrong
Speaker 2: thing that you find him finn so you overlook, oh
Speaker 2: you heard that person. It's not acceptable to me, right,
Speaker 2: it's not acceptable for people like us. But there's a
Speaker 2: lot of people that are like, Okay, so he said
Speaker 2: this thing, and he may have done this thing, but
Speaker 2: he's also and I think that's how a lot of
Speaker 2: people read him. But like that will not feel transgressive enough,
Speaker 2: and it kind of changed politics right in terms of
Speaker 2: like what you can get away with it, and so
Speaker 2: like maybe some people will do that tracing of like
Speaker 2: the trumpiness of it all.
Speaker 3: But I think sometimes we make it too much about Trump.
Speaker 2: I think that's so overdone that I think in a
Speaker 2: US context, you can be like, it's this, and then
Speaker 2: maybe in the UK are thinking more about like Brexit,
Speaker 2: because it was like Charlatan's the people that promoted Forrexit.
Speaker 2: You're like these men, you should not be listening to them,
Speaker 2: and yet it happened. And so I just think that
Speaker 2: we're just in this world where we like elevate broken,
Speaker 2: deeply problematic men and we absolve them even when we
Speaker 2: find out about any wrongdoing they've done.
Speaker 3: And so why would he didn't be any different?
Speaker 4: I'm so deep because it's deeply cultural. In our family system, it's.
Speaker 2: In our family systems, it's how we live, and sometimes
Speaker 2: it's in friendship systems. I speak to people and there's
Speaker 2: like a career friends and a man has done something
Speaker 2: horrific to a woman in that group. It's on that
Speaker 2: verge of like unske the full timely illegal. The woman
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily report it, but she tells her friends, and
Speaker 2: the friendship group doesn't ostracize this. Now he's still allowed around,
Speaker 2: so she ostracizes herself, you.
Speaker 3: Know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So this is something that we know, like something that happens,
Speaker 2: and I think we absolve ourselves as a society, who
Speaker 2: are like, did this unique evil?
Speaker 3: And it's so shocking.
Speaker 2: The jury let him off, and I'm like, okay, but
Speaker 2: think about in your family and in your friendship groups,
Speaker 2: who are the people around that are maybe predators that
Speaker 2: you just kind of like that or you've heard something,
Speaker 2: but you still maybe not associate with them, but you
Speaker 2: haven't had that person off, and I just think the
Speaker 2: trial is just an emblem of that thing that we do,
Speaker 2: especially when a person is rich, because we're just at
Speaker 2: a time where we are sex with rich people.
Speaker 1: That's actually the topic I want to speak to you
Speaker 1: most about today is wealth and institutions and celebrity. I
Speaker 1: think they're all intertwining. You wrote that people across the class, racial,
Speaker 1: and political spectrums appetite for celebrities flaunting their wealth and
Speaker 1: power is ween. I remember thinking that during COVID that celebrities,
Speaker 1: not all but some were looking tone deaf. But in reality,
Speaker 1: so many of us look to the lives of the
Speaker 1: ultra wealthy as aryeers. We're interested. What do you think
Speaker 1: the fixation on wealth reveals about our society?
Speaker 4: And is it the same in America as it is elsewhere?
Speaker 2: So I think that we're in a world generally where
Speaker 2: if you are poor and in povocy, it's seen as
Speaker 2: a moral faith right. If you can't afford something, you
Speaker 2: would finalize that like we will do it. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: I wish I could fel that bad. You know, I
Speaker 2: was just making more money. You internalize that like I've
Speaker 2: done something wrong. So when you kind of demonize quovty
Speaker 2: or not being able to afford something as like a
Speaker 2: personal faith that you have failed within the system. The
Speaker 2: people that do have money, it becomes like they're morally superior.
Speaker 2: We don't realize they are better than us. They are
Speaker 2: able to maneuver the world in a way that I can't,
Speaker 2: and so you admire them because of what they have, right,
Speaker 2: because we haven't disconnected wealth from like the way we
Speaker 2: feel about people's humanity and their value and their worthiness
Speaker 2: and that, and we haven't disconnected that from ourselves. Because
Speaker 2: I know so many people at the end of the
Speaker 2: year when they do their review, it's not about like
Speaker 2: what they've accomplished as people. They're like, my god, I
Speaker 2: just don't have as much money as I want. So
Speaker 2: the people that do have all this money, we just
Speaker 2: assume that.
Speaker 3: They're better than us.
Speaker 1: They figured something out.
Speaker 2: Or they come from better families. That's why we like
Speaker 2: venerate old money, or the entrepreneurial class or the tech
Speaker 2: maget class. We're like, these people are so much brilliant,
Speaker 2: they're so much better than us, and that's why we
Speaker 2: look to them and we watched them.
Speaker 1: Do you like capitalism? No, do you think there's a
Speaker 1: better alternative.
Speaker 2: Salism, But like, I think enterprise is important, right, But
Speaker 2: I don't think all enterprise is necessarily need to be
Speaker 2: profitable for you to live. Like struggle with the idea
Speaker 2: that if I'm not generating some sort of income for myself,
Speaker 2: I'm not worthy. We're all going to go through phases
Speaker 2: in life where we can't being a child you can't,
Speaker 2: and I'm being disabled being elderly. Right, So if my
Speaker 2: moral value is attached to what I attribute to the economy,
Speaker 2: are I less valuable in capitalism and the capitalist framework?
Speaker 2: That's the case, and capitalism is about like extracting surflace value.
Speaker 2: That's how the system makes money. It's not actually the
Speaker 2: inherent value because if it was like or how hard
Speaker 2: you're working, you're cleaner would be paid a lot more
Speaker 2: than they are. Like the people working the hardest are
Speaker 2: paid the least in this capitalist framework.
Speaker 3: And I deep sac that I.
Speaker 1: Agree, And similar to you, I love history and so
Speaker 1: I look back and I think, was there a system
Speaker 1: I'm doing it better? And what I struggle with is
Speaker 1: I haven't read about a system that did, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: can we make a new like is conscious capitalism even possible.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think, like the Scandinavian countries are onto something, but
Speaker 2: then there's also like the Gnaudic paradox, the fact that
Speaker 2: in that part of the world, even though they have
Speaker 2: a lot of like legal equality and like quality in
Speaker 2: terms of how people live, they have one of the
Speaker 2: highest rates of interpersonal violence.
Speaker 3: Right, So there's going to be no perfect system.
Speaker 2: I think this version of late state capitalism that we're
Speaker 2: in is not sustainable and it's not producing the outcomes
Speaker 2: that they want.
Speaker 3: But then there is no perfect system.
Speaker 2: Like I think they're the dichotomy of like capitalism versus socialism,
Speaker 2: but like I fear between being like a social I'm
Speaker 2: probably a social democrat when it comes down to it, right,
Speaker 2: But like everyone in for us, I'm not here to
Speaker 2: necessarily argue for a particular system. I just know that
Speaker 2: the system we're currently in is really not working, and
Speaker 2: even people making lots of money feel poor.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, what's that about. That's not sustainable to me?
Speaker 1: I think people have turned on celebrity. I'm thirty five
Speaker 1: years old. I share that to share the time I
Speaker 1: grew up and celebrity was venerated we were obsessed with celebrity.
Speaker 1: I remember being at the gym and every woman would
Speaker 1: have a tabloid magazine, regardless of class or anything. And
Speaker 1: when I moved to LA in twenty thirteen, the capital
Speaker 1: of celebrity, people were still upsets. And then something shifted.
Speaker 1: I can't point to necessarily the moment. Why do you
Speaker 1: think we no longer venerate celebrity.
Speaker 3: It's been demystified.
Speaker 2: Right, there was a time to see a person's baby,
Speaker 2: the rollout of a celebrity baby.
Speaker 3: It's a magazine exclusive and maybe a TV exclusive.
Speaker 2: You used to get me in a million dollars to yours,
Speaker 2: and you had to go down the road and buy
Speaker 2: a magazine to see that. Like, there are very limited
Speaker 2: ways of being able to access celebrity, so you could
Speaker 2: really create this theater of like Michael Jackson, right and
Speaker 2: like people collapsing it concerts tools. These people are so inaccessible.
Speaker 2: But in the age of like Instagram, celebrities have made
Speaker 2: themselves so accessible and like anybody can kind of mean it.
Speaker 2: We have influencer celebrity. There's streamers who are like huge
Speaker 2: that maybe we've never heard of, losing like the boundaries
Speaker 2: of like the old culture of celebrity.
Speaker 3: They've been demystified.
Speaker 2: Now there are still a few from ID say, like
Speaker 2: the old God like I say, a Tom Cruise beyond
Speaker 2: say our Superstars, but they came from a different era.
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift again came from a different era, and they
Speaker 2: are the last of that way. There is still some
Speaker 2: sort of mythos around them, and you're just like, how
Speaker 2: do I get into this person?
Speaker 1: I love that you said myth those because I was
Speaker 1: thinking about this so much. The American dream is a mythology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a story, and it's the reason that so many people,
Speaker 1: even people who live in countries like the Nordic countries
Speaker 1: that have decent state of living, if not great state
Speaker 1: of living, still want to come here. Is that idea
Speaker 1: and in reality, only eight percent of people have class
Speaker 1: mobility here. It is literally a mythology. It is so
Speaker 1: rare that it actually happens to people, and the story
Speaker 1: of celebrity has domined. I didn't think about that.
Speaker 2: And it's like, you know, everyone talks about that Andy
Speaker 2: Warhol about like there's a future where everyone's going to
Speaker 2: be famous for fifty minutes, fifteen minutes, which is remarkably
Speaker 2: like him being like this kind of futurist in that sense,
Speaker 2: but I think the influencer economy like being this incredible business.
Speaker 2: And then also I'd say, like the Kardashians really collapsed
Speaker 2: for celebrity. It's right because it's just like, sure, you
Speaker 2: may have this celebrity who as a publicist and the
Speaker 2: studio system and a stylist and the whole team around them,
Speaker 2: but they can't necessarily compare to a girl that can
Speaker 2: just do it get ready with me and get a
Speaker 2: million youths and like stopify or whatever it is. It's
Speaker 2: generating like one hundreds of thousand dollars a month. Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the direct to consumer girl of like an Alex Earl,
Speaker 2: who the whole appeal to her is is like, this
Speaker 2: is somebody I think I'd be in the sorty bit, right,
Speaker 2: This is somebody I know and admire, but she probably
Speaker 2: wouldn't be my friend because I'm not tall enough. But
Speaker 2: I can access her with my phone and that just
Speaker 2: gets eyed. And she's on the same platform as you're on. Garge,
Speaker 2: pristine celebrity, Like they're all occupying the safe space. They're
Speaker 2: all on laptop, they're all on Instagram and so what
Speaker 2: is the currency of celebrity if you are on the
Speaker 2: same platform as my favorite influencer who is just some
Speaker 2: stay at home mom with her two kids, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, like just the kind of mundanity of
Speaker 2: it that these are just regular people living in regular lives.
Speaker 2: We make lots of money and you're alongside a celebrity.
Speaker 2: The only thing that actually makes a celebrity stand out now,
Speaker 2: I will actually say is if you have obscene well
Speaker 2: like a lot of money, like the celebrities with money,
Speaker 2: then you're like, well, this is still a celebrity, even
Speaker 2: though there's pertny celebrities who don't have money as we don't.
Speaker 3: You're right.
Speaker 1: I was just going to ask you if there's any
Speaker 1: celebrity that you think is celebrity.
Speaker 3: In well, what would you say as well?
Speaker 4: Okay, tell me if you think I could add or
Speaker 4: subtract everything.
Speaker 1: But I think instinctually they are like in the majority
Speaker 1: sense or well regarded maybe it's a better word. Their
Speaker 1: work feels authentic to them. They're working consistently, and maybe
Speaker 1: the mythology aspect, they've created some sort of mythology.
Speaker 2: I don't know who does, because I think part of
Speaker 2: what doing it well is in this era is also
Speaker 2: managing to be somewhat neutral, you know, where everything is
Speaker 2: very politicized, right, not rocking the boat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have.
Speaker 2: Created this big tent where people have like different ideologies
Speaker 2: can feel like I can still be a fan of you.
Speaker 3: I think there are brands that do that. I think
Speaker 3: Housewives says that.
Speaker 2: Really well, like if the Real Housewives universe was a
Speaker 2: sinking a person, because they have a very diverse audience
Speaker 2: in terms of how they vote, how they live racially,
Speaker 2: like you see Bravo con It's all sorts of people
Speaker 2: like gender and sexuality. I think Doja cats and being
Speaker 2: an anti celebrity is very interesting.
Speaker 1: That's what we're right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because she's like she.
Speaker 2: Kind of doesn't like her fans, like I have that
Speaker 2: fans and I just have to exist. But my music,
Speaker 2: I think some of the you know, younger millennial, the
Speaker 2: gen Z girl that kind of figuring out something a
Speaker 2: bit different, like Olivia Rodrigo, I think is really good
Speaker 2: at that, you know, But in terms of like millennials,
Speaker 2: no one immediately comes to mind.
Speaker 1: I saw Jennifer Lopez a few years ago. She was
Speaker 1: like releasing her album and came online and said something
Speaker 1: about like if you vote or do X, Y and Z, like,
Speaker 1: I'll send you a poster. And I was like, is
Speaker 1: this ninety ninety like who is right? And I love Bela,
Speaker 1: but who is right?
Speaker 3: A poster?
Speaker 1: And I was like, there's this whole old school of
Speaker 1: like machine yeah, built around people like her that just
Speaker 1: does not work anymore. And I think that was part
Speaker 1: of the backlash against her that maybe wasn't warranted.
Speaker 2: But I think she's like a great in terms of
Speaker 2: a celebrity animal. I think her ability to just endure.
Speaker 2: I'm always impressed and taken by those type of celebrities
Speaker 2: who like can be distinct era and still feel really relevant,
Speaker 2: because not everyone can do that, and I think Jennifer
Speaker 2: Lopez does it really well. I think he also does
Speaker 2: that really well. I think Mariah Carey has done that
Speaker 2: really well. Like there's certain women really great at that,
Speaker 2: whereas other people like when the digital thing happened and yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously streaming destroyed fetch of your business of
Speaker 2: your musician, like yeah, you're no longer sending CDs and
Speaker 2: the ability to like pivot, I hate that word. There's
Speaker 2: some celebrities were.
Speaker 3: Better at doing that than others.
Speaker 1: I have a theory on that. Okay, the three people
Speaker 1: you named are pop stars. There's like a pop star
Speaker 1: element in each of them. And I think women and music,
Speaker 1: particularly pop stars their mindset from the beginning because of
Speaker 1: people like Diana Ross and Madonna are like, I have
Speaker 1: to reinvent every single album, so they're used to the
Speaker 1: reinvention and an actor wants to be themselves. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true, and I think it's hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Will Smith is somebody that did it well.
Speaker 2: He doesn't respect social media.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 2: Whatever he does his social media with him, and I
Speaker 2: think We'll Smith has always been someone that has been
Speaker 2: able to like, you know, from rappers, serious actor obviously, yeah,
Speaker 2: fresh princes and like he's very good at the Internet,
Speaker 2: and not all celebrities are.
Speaker 1: That's a really good point. You wrote that Lauren Sanchez
Speaker 1: might be one of the most important pop culture figures
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five. Yeah, so curious why. Well, I
Speaker 1: think it's.
Speaker 2: Because she kind of with this marriage right, lives at
Speaker 2: the intersection of pop culture, het and celebrity in a
Speaker 2: way that most people don't recognize because they look at
Speaker 2: her and it's like this trope of like they think
Speaker 2: she's a bimbo because perhaps she loves so she's got
Speaker 2: a classic surgery. It doesn't help. Like she's wearing lingerie
Speaker 2: at the inauguration and do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: But she's kind of become this big moments this year,
Speaker 2: that going to space turning like Gelking and eighth arianso astronauts.
Speaker 3: That was all her.
Speaker 2: She kind of breaks the internet with her wedding and
Speaker 2: then has this digital Vogue cover shortly afterwards, co chairing
Speaker 2: the met Bala, hosting Christiana's party, these events that like everyone.
Speaker 3: Watching even though they don't want to watch, and.
Speaker 2: She liked that enging behind it all because Jeff Bezos
Speaker 2: didn't have that image with his formal wife. And I
Speaker 2: think she was the one that's like, I understand how
Speaker 2: to get you into places that you maybe wouldn't otherwise be.
Speaker 2: I'm fraided with the poor people that you want to
Speaker 2: be around. But it's shifting pop culture, Like the met
Speaker 2: vala thing is major being announced as a sponsor and
Speaker 2: her name is on it. It's like Jeff Bezos and
Speaker 2: Laurence Sanchius Bezos. There's rumors like firing Berg or what's
Speaker 2: happening next. But I think just especially through her husband's
Speaker 2: influence of just owning the Washington Post boundary of Amazon,
Speaker 2: it's very rare that we see a woman being able
Speaker 2: to harness somebody else's power and make it about themselves.
Speaker 2: With also shift culture, and I think it does affect
Speaker 2: how people realize she's Latina in this moment of like
Speaker 2: a real aggressive I think anti Latino sentiment in this
Speaker 2: country because the powers associated with immigration. One of the
Speaker 2: most visible women and the most wealthiest women in this
Speaker 2: country by function of who she's married, is a Latin woman,
Speaker 2: and that that pot me something that I find is
Speaker 2: very interesting. And I'm not into like representation in politics.
Speaker 2: I think it's very pollwed. So I think those types
Speaker 2: of seeming contradictions, for instance, are interesting to me.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about marriage a few months ago and
Speaker 1: my therapy w I heard about it and she was like, well,
Speaker 1: there's still this element of because we live in a
Speaker 1: petherword patriarchy, eno like, we live in a patriarchal society,
Speaker 1: that heterosexual marriage still represents proximity to power, and so
Speaker 1: the excitement around engagement and marrying is like, oh, this
Speaker 1: person with power has chosen to be with me. Therefore
Speaker 1: I have more power, and I know marriage is about
Speaker 1: more than just that.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a good way to put it.
Speaker 1: I thought of it because you said she's one of
Speaker 1: the wealthiest and most powerful people by proximity of who
Speaker 1: she married. We're in this moment of I think, deciding
Speaker 1: what fourth wave feminism is, and she's an interesting character
Speaker 1: in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean she's married pretty independent of that, very
Speaker 2: like accomplished and interesting woman.
Speaker 1: Like she's a plot and she.
Speaker 3: Owns he's a news anchor, news anchor like, so she's
Speaker 3: on it. Like h's intelligent woman. He's an intelligent man.
Speaker 2: But I think as an operator, what she's been able
Speaker 2: to do and witnessing it is very interesting to me
Speaker 2: because they're all strategic moves that have had like pop
Speaker 2: cultural implications, and then you're looking at I think the
Speaker 2: Met Gala sponsorship was interesting to me because you know,
Speaker 2: Bezos is interested in culture with a small sea, whether
Speaker 2: it's like ad and the movies, the secotcetera, that it's
Speaker 2: very small sea culture. But with the Met Museum as
Speaker 2: culture of the big sea, that's a completely different profile
Speaker 2: of philanthropy and type of person and that overlapped me
Speaker 2: with the pop and with culture, you know, with a
Speaker 2: big scene. I'm like, this is a fascinating book.
Speaker 1: You talk a lot about soft power. It's actually a
Speaker 1: phrase that a bird, but I didn't know too well
Speaker 1: until I started reading your substack. What's the biggest misconception
Speaker 1: people have about soft power?
Speaker 3: So, like hard power is like international relations, it's like
Speaker 3: nuclear weapons, Like do I have bombs?
Speaker 2: Do I have nuclear weapons? Do I have like the
Speaker 2: economic means to enforce those things? Like people, We're going
Speaker 2: to go to wa tomorrow, and it's like who has
Speaker 2: the guns and the bombs?
Speaker 3: Who's winning this thing?
Speaker 2: Right? So it's hard towers like Russia, it's China, it
Speaker 2: is the US. Soft power is.
Speaker 3: A bit different, right, it's staying in a very lazy
Speaker 3: and crude way.
Speaker 2: It's like these intangible cultural cache that can spread influence, right,
Speaker 2: and a great arm of that is someone call it propaganda,
Speaker 2: But like it's the film, the music, the fashion, all
Speaker 2: of these things change how the world sees you. You
Speaker 2: don't have to use the group four to that, like
Speaker 2: I'm going to invade you and bomb you. You can
Speaker 2: actually like launch invasion through the art you Max.
Speaker 1: Maybe a good example, tell me how the Armory will
Speaker 1: sponsor movies like Top Gun and it increases people wanting
Speaker 1: to be in the.
Speaker 2: Arty or even like there's a real history in American
Speaker 2: television that's intensified after nine eleven of the way you.
Speaker 3: Depict your enemies.
Speaker 2: How do you make Muslim appear on screen? Or you know,
Speaker 2: like so you had the trope of the Brown Terroists,
Speaker 2: which is something that you see again in a game.
Speaker 2: In American television and film, that's also a way of
Speaker 2: deploying soft power. How you make through adversities, you look
Speaker 2: through entertainment. And so when I talk about soft how
Speaker 2: I talk about like us having an incredible amount of
Speaker 2: soft power, like Hollywood being this great machine and it's
Speaker 2: worked since I think post World War two have like
Speaker 2: oh my god, the Americans recre know what I mean?
Speaker 2: The Americans make great stuff, like you know, growing up
Speaker 2: like the boy band way all the boy band and
Speaker 2: the girl bands, it all came from me. And suff
Speaker 2: was great for America's international brand because it's something to
Speaker 2: be said where your most beloved artist is from America.
Speaker 2: I think that's slightly shifting now, but it's going to
Speaker 2: take a while, but America still has an incredible amount
Speaker 2: of stock power influenced in terms of just like a stalcual.
Speaker 1: Exports, who do you see making waves?
Speaker 3: I think Kim Kardashian and Mega Markel.
Speaker 1: You always say they're the same person.
Speaker 2: I don't want to get into that, then we get
Speaker 2: in trouble. I think they are speaking to each other
Speaker 2: in a way that I find interesting. Similar bit different,
Speaker 2: but I think that as an export, like the royal
Speaker 2: family wanted to launder her reputation for that too, But
Speaker 2: a biracial woman who's married into this institution that has
Speaker 2: a lot of problems, which is great for perhaps rehabilitating
Speaker 2: their image, didn't work out like that. But Mega markles
Speaker 2: beloved around the world, whether people like it or not,
Speaker 2: and part of that is because she appears to be ambiguous,
Speaker 2: so a lot of people can map themselves onto her
Speaker 2: in a similar way to Kim Kardashian, who can pass
Speaker 2: as many things and has kind of passed as many
Speaker 2: things in her career quite cynically. So my feeling is
Speaker 2: like these are very powerful soft power America has at
Speaker 2: his disposal, but that's kind of changing. They're coming from
Speaker 2: different parts of all while I think, do you think.
Speaker 1: There's a powerful cultural lie that women are being told
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 2: I think the trad wife stuff is I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just dumb, like, no man is going to take care
Speaker 2: of you for that long unless you's getting something out
Speaker 2: of it. Men only do things that it's good for themselves,
Speaker 2: because the things everyone should do things for their good
Speaker 2: for themselves.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But I think this idea that, in an attempt to
Speaker 2: kind of escape the horrors of capitalism, which are bad,
Speaker 2: women do not enjoy being in the work for I
Speaker 2: meet very few women who love their work, right, and
Speaker 2: often when you have children, that intensifies. You're like, I'm
Speaker 2: doing this shop, I'm stuck in the middle management, I've
Speaker 2: hit the glass ceiling.
Speaker 3: I don't want to be here. I want to be
Speaker 3: at home, right, And so I.
Speaker 2: Think what the tad wife movement is doing is kind
Speaker 2: of speaking to that overall burnout.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: And Helen Peterson, who's brilliant, she's on Patreon, she writes
Speaker 2: about that a lot in her work and culture study,
Speaker 2: and it's just this idea that women aren't burnt out,
Speaker 2: women hired and what the Tria life image does it
Speaker 2: sells this fantasy or is to retreat into your home,
Speaker 2: which I mean, I hate to cook. I'm never gonna cook,
Speaker 2: but I would love to be table scaping all day
Speaker 2: and like doing dinner parties.
Speaker 3: And there is something whim's support about that fantasy.
Speaker 2: But it is a fantasy, but it feels like a
Speaker 2: compelling fantasy when you're on your phone and you're like
Speaker 2: seeing Nara Smith even though she's performing as this thing,
Speaker 2: and you're like, maybe this is something I can have too.
Speaker 2: And I think that is the biggest like because you
Speaker 2: never see old tradwives, right because the man diforces to.
Speaker 1: You, finds a young train you, or he.
Speaker 2: Finds like the fun girl he always wants, like you know,
Speaker 2: the lie of like the Good Girls. Tadwife is just
Speaker 2: like women should just be themselves, like all of these
Speaker 2: tropes that they sell us just they don't ever serve us.
Speaker 3: Just to be yourself. But I think that's a.
Speaker 2: Big thing that a lot of women are buying into,
Speaker 2: especially gen Z women millennial women of my age are
Speaker 2: just like, Okay, maybe if I can just find a
Speaker 2: man to take care of me, or one woman.
Speaker 3: I notice said, why not does it have one boss
Speaker 3: instead of ten.
Speaker 2: I think is a lie, and I think long term
Speaker 2: a lot of people may regret the decision if they
Speaker 2: women who are choosing that, because very few men can
Speaker 2: be trusted.
Speaker 1: Also, and tell me what you think about this. Something
Speaker 1: I hear a lot is that, specifically gen Z women
Speaker 1: will say I am not a feminist and they don't
Speaker 1: want to be feminist because they say, like, I want
Speaker 1: a man to open the door for me, and I
Speaker 1: want a man who will pay for dinner or help
Speaker 1: make me a trad Wise, if I want to stay
Speaker 1: at home, they say, I want to be a Lululemon
Speaker 1: mom or a range Rover mom. And what I'm struggling
Speaker 1: with explaining maybe it's been part of that fantasy because
Speaker 1: when we got access to the workforce in a real way,
Speaker 1: we didn't diminish any of our tasks at home statistically,
Speaker 1: at least in America, And so women were doing all
Speaker 1: the domestic labor and working outside the home, and they
Speaker 1: were burnt out and are burnt out. And so I
Speaker 1: understand the want to have one boss instead of ten,
Speaker 1: but I don't know how to explain the other aspects
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: And I think when young women say that an abstraction
Speaker 2: to theory, and I think it actually really diminishes what
Speaker 2: stay at home mothers do. It's incredibly hard work, even
Speaker 2: if you have money at resources. It makes it maybe
Speaker 2: a bit easier if you have money and resources, but
Speaker 2: it's still really hard. It's twenty four seven. You don't
Speaker 2: get to retire if you assume that role of a homemaker.
Speaker 2: Your husband retires one day, you're still going to have
Speaker 2: to make the home right. So these women are giving
Speaker 2: up an incredible amount, and we glamorize it, and when
Speaker 2: we glamorize it, we diminish how difficult it is. And
Speaker 2: I think you're actually disrespecting the job because I'm like,
Speaker 2: if you really want to be a Lulu Lemon mom,
Speaker 2: trust me as somebody that has three kids. You're managing schedules,
Speaker 2: you'll go to titles, you're driving from one part of
Speaker 2: time to another. The kid is sick, you have to
Speaker 2: be home with it. Sure you're wearing lelu Lemon, but
Speaker 2: you're barely at the gym. If you're trying to be
Speaker 2: a good parent and a good homemaker, it's an incredible sacrifice.
Speaker 2: So I think it's kind of this fantasy that is
Speaker 2: just like I'm going to be there with my Stanley
Speaker 2: Cup and then my Lulu Langman and my Aloe Yonga
Speaker 2: and just I'm like, no, I go to bar with
Speaker 2: women who are stay at home mothers and it's like
Speaker 2: they're one treat in the depth. They're like that brief
Speaker 2: out and then they're dashing off and they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I can only do this now because my youngest is
Speaker 2: in the elementary school, because before that, I was completely
Speaker 2: devoted to the home. So I think it's a way
Speaker 2: of like undermining the work that women who are working
Speaker 2: within the home are doing in a way. I'm not
Speaker 2: a say of a mother, but I have friends who are,
Speaker 2: and they are incredible and it's really hard. So it's
Speaker 2: you're indulging in a fantasy. And secondly, you're not acknowledging
Speaker 2: the risks of that decision.
Speaker 3: It is for risks.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, if you are going to do it,
Speaker 2: make sure you have a husband that contributes to you.
Speaker 2: I'm an account has stuffing, writing, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: So should it go left, you're still taking care of
Speaker 2: because you are contributing to your household and you should
Speaker 2: have some sort of tangible benefits. It's like this world
Speaker 2: where you do everything for a man, including raising his children,
Speaker 2: and you're paying for it in some way, it just
Speaker 2: doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: What's interesting to me is I have a friend who's
Speaker 1: a woman who sort of had the opposite experience.
Speaker 4: Divorced her husband. She was working the whole time.
Speaker 1: They didn't have a prenup and she had to pay him,
Speaker 1: and she was like, I can't believe I have to
Speaker 1: pay this, like do nothing.
Speaker 3: I would to kill myself.
Speaker 1: I had to like think about my gender expectation.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's happening. I know women paying aliba, they'll
Speaker 3: be careful, I know, but.
Speaker 1: We think about it differently because women are contributing at home.
Speaker 1: The man usually the last.
Speaker 2: When is like, if you are a man under the patriarchy,
Speaker 2: you should be making more money than me.
Speaker 3: So what is wrong with you that I am paying you?
Speaker 3: You can fail? Like the system is? This is so funny.
Speaker 2: I'm not into you know, this lonely man epidemic like
Speaker 2: everyone's talking about like feels I'm like, the world is
Speaker 2: set up for you succeed a baby.
Speaker 3: You're not managing to do that? Really, what is wrong
Speaker 3: with you?
Speaker 1: But I feel bad for them?
Speaker 3: Why then don't feel bad for you.
Speaker 1: I know they don't feel bad for me at all.
Speaker 3: Why do you feel back for that?
Speaker 1: I think when there's such a large group of people
Speaker 1: that are struggling, like something is going wrong and I
Speaker 1: don't want to see them struggle.
Speaker 2: But the data is showing that the group struggling most
Speaker 2: in America right now, black women lost the most jobs.
Speaker 2: Like if you look at the statistics, like all the
Speaker 2: data indicates like this idea that there is like this
Speaker 2: lost boy, struggling man in a pandemic. But when you
Speaker 2: really dig into their data, who was pushed out of
Speaker 2: the workforce post COVID those mothers who became caretakers, right,
Speaker 2: and then a lot of those women never went back
Speaker 2: to the workplace, whereas men are in the workplace.
Speaker 3: So some of it is like this men.
Speaker 2: However, there are men among us who are struggling for
Speaker 2: different reasons. But you are struggling because of the patriarchy,
Speaker 2: So help us take it down, right? I think interesting
Speaker 2: feminism has an answer to that question because feminism has
Speaker 2: always been concerned about the liberation of all people, including men.
Speaker 2: Because they see the patriarchy damage is me, We're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the idea that you can't cry.
Speaker 3: And you have to hide your feelings. You're supposed to
Speaker 3: be like this.
Speaker 2: That's not good, that's not healthy. I'm a woman, so
Speaker 2: we have an answer to that question. We're trying to
Speaker 2: create a world and a future, but that doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: And it's like, I'm raising my son. I hope he
Speaker 2: are feminist when he grows up. I don't know if
Speaker 2: he will be. But like, also, my son's very creative.
Speaker 2: He likes pats, you know, he likes music. I'm allowing
Speaker 2: him face to do that. And I want a world
Speaker 2: where my son and my daughters can thrive. However, I
Speaker 2: know just by the nature and the mechanisms of this world, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's set up in a way that it's easier for
Speaker 2: my son to thrive. Or if my daughter makes different choices,
Speaker 2: she's couldn't be judged for them, Like if my daughters
Speaker 2: grow up and decide to be child three.
Speaker 3: I know women who feel that they're not trusted because
Speaker 3: they don't have kids.
Speaker 2: But then if you do have kids, you take a career,
Speaker 2: knot whereas when men's wives have children their salaries to
Speaker 2: go up.
Speaker 3: How can we feel sorry for these men? Dan?
Speaker 1: Now, I know I agree with you. I mean in
Speaker 1: the workplace one hundred percent. I guess it's less about
Speaker 1: men and it's more about the suffering of people. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, not a zero sum game. And I think
Speaker 1: for years you were right to your point, like feminists
Speaker 1: been saying we want a quality for all, and I
Speaker 1: see the human suffering. Maybe I got into the mythology
Speaker 1: of the Scott Galloway.
Speaker 2: Women are suffering way more. I would say, I don't
Speaker 2: like oppression Olympic stuff. I think suffering is valid. And
Speaker 2: even when we speak about men, we can't treat them
Speaker 2: as a monolith.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The experience of a young gay boy in certain parts
Speaker 2: of this country, like there's a cute suffering. If you're
Speaker 2: in the Bible Belt and you're gay, sure you're about
Speaker 2: to be a man.
Speaker 3: But if you have an intersectional lens, you know, like
Speaker 3: even what.
Speaker 1: Well, the closer you are the femininity, the more we
Speaker 1: hate you exactly.
Speaker 2: Well we know that like among black men and police brutality.
Speaker 2: So I'm being flippant, but it's just like even when
Speaker 2: we dig into men, say, wle, men have certain experiences,
Speaker 2: You're are divergent. Men have certain experiences, So there are
Speaker 2: men that are oppressed to So I'm like, you know,
Speaker 2: from a completely structural perspective, I acknowledge that, and I
Speaker 2: feel that we need to create a world, but it
Speaker 2: makes it easier for them. However, I don't necessarily like
Speaker 2: buy into this refrain that I think media and culture
Speaker 2: are selling us now, like we have to be so
Speaker 2: concerned with these lost boys and men, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: but what about the women who haven't even solved for
Speaker 2: that yet?
Speaker 3: And then we're worse off. That's kind of my art.
Speaker 1: So Dick Cheney was famously anti LGBTQ for years until
Speaker 1: his daughter came out as a lesbian and he switched
Speaker 1: his position. And I think about that all the time
Speaker 1: because oftentimes people who like don't want to deal with
Speaker 1: the words of patriarchy and oppression and all the buzzwords
Speaker 1: in our culture right now are people who haven't had
Speaker 1: to have the experience of being part of any of
Speaker 1: those groups. What do you say to the person listening
Speaker 1: who's like, I'm exhausted by the buzzwords.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am too expletely relatable, Like these words are
Speaker 2: accurate descriptions, but like, you know, I speak about it
Speaker 2: a lot of my work about how this has been
Speaker 2: kind of this trafficking of academic language. It's very rich
Speaker 2: and very important, and it's made its way until I've
Speaker 2: like general cultural lexicon in a way that like people
Speaker 2: of resisting right. And sometimes it's because maybe the way
Speaker 2: those ideas are expressed, no one likes to be spoken down.
Speaker 3: It's just not a nice experience.
Speaker 2: If you hear somebody using this new term and they're
Speaker 2: telling me you're a bad person and you don't even
Speaker 2: know the term. There's this reflexive like get that away
Speaker 2: from me, and I think we're living in the backlash
Speaker 2: to that. But words mean things, and it's always good
Speaker 2: to learn new words and we use them the right way.
Speaker 2: They can actually be like real tools of connection.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean. I don't use the word gentrification.
Speaker 3: I'll actually explain it it.
Speaker 2: I'll be like, yeah, rental rising because people with more
Speaker 2: money are moving into this neighborhood. Because once you say gentrification,
Speaker 2: people go, oh, I don't want to hear it. But
Speaker 2: if you say it like that, it's like very legible
Speaker 2: to people. So I'm sick of the over use of
Speaker 2: the words. But I also think the words are really important.
Speaker 2: It's just like, how do we use these terms and
Speaker 2: do we use them in a way that it feels
Speaker 2: accessible to people and people could understand and people are like, okay, now.
Speaker 3: I can use that word, right, So it's not other
Speaker 3: in some way, it's not other in someone.
Speaker 1: It's just like a definition.
Speaker 3: It's just a definition. That's what all are.
Speaker 2: Because what often happens is then you take the word
Speaker 2: and you start using it as a slurp, like di
Speaker 2: starting calling people deis, And it's just like it's been
Speaker 2: weaponized in a way that I find really sad, right,
Speaker 2: because if you look at like the intention behind it,
Speaker 2: it's like I was just like making a more inclusive
Speaker 2: well where more of us can work and be happy
Speaker 2: and our workplaces are more comfortable for everyone, but it
Speaker 2: went less.
Speaker 3: So I understand that.
Speaker 2: Fatigued with the words, I'm just like, okay, how can
Speaker 2: we find a way to add cultural thinkers or pseudo
Speaker 2: academics like myself being like less pretentious? Right, And then
Speaker 2: people like feel like, okay, I can get into this.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't necessarily use this word usually, but oh this
Speaker 2: is helpful. This is helping me understand the phenomenon that
Speaker 2: exists in everyday life.
Speaker 1: That's probably the best reply. I've broken that as well, said, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: do some twenty twenty six pop culture predictions for it years?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 1: Do you think we're heading into a more un hopeful
Speaker 1: year or a more chaotic culturally speaking?
Speaker 2: I think people's appetite that chaos is waiting, Like people
Speaker 2: are really fatigue. So I see people being drawn to
Speaker 2: things that are like more kind of hopeful, upworthy. Remember
Speaker 2: that website. I see people leaning more into that because
Speaker 2: it's just the algorithm's version of just like AOL sort of.
Speaker 3: I do think you've got to tie it so there'll
Speaker 3: be more.
Speaker 1: Is there a cultural conversation that we've been avoiding that
Speaker 1: you think will erupt this year?
Speaker 2: I don't know which one it will be, but I
Speaker 2: think humans were very weird, like we like to zoning
Speaker 2: on one thing. I think there's going to be a
Speaker 2: new frontier of whatever the cultural war is supposed to be.
Speaker 2: I don't know what it is going to be, but
Speaker 2: it feels like something's coming.
Speaker 1: What do you think we're underestimating about AI's effect on culture.
Speaker 3: I think that people don't realize that.
Speaker 2: Maybe its because I have a lot of mum friends
Speaker 2: I'm in a group with three of my closest friends
Speaker 2: in high school, and they can't stand because every time
Speaker 2: they use AI, I'm.
Speaker 3: Like judging them. I'm like, girls, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 3: Stop it?
Speaker 2: But I'm realizing as a tool, it's like something that
Speaker 2: people are really integrating into their everyday life. So even me,
Speaker 2: who's kind of like an AI skeptic, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is like a habit that's become embedded in a
Speaker 2: way that, like, you know, when Alexa first came into
Speaker 2: the homes, you were just like, oh, that's weird. You're
Speaker 2: not going to be like, Alexa, what's the time. But
Speaker 2: now you're like, wait, Coop, You're like, Alexa, what's the time?
Speaker 3: Alexa? Can you play this song for me?
Speaker 2: So I think we're underestimating how much it's already becoming
Speaker 2: part of people's daily routine. And it's beyond like cheating
Speaker 2: to write essays. But I think that's what everyone talks about.
Speaker 2: It's just like people are using it as like an
Speaker 2: adjunct tool to make their lives easier.
Speaker 3: I'm becoming increasingly dependent on How do.
Speaker 1: You think the political climate of twenty twenty six is
Speaker 1: going to shape pop culture?
Speaker 2: I think that for the last year there's been a
Speaker 2: real nervousness about making art that is hostile to this administration.
Speaker 2: The fear of life I have you show me and
Speaker 2: taking off air, losing track, like there's real fear. I
Speaker 2: think the death of Charlie Kirk was a really instructive
Speaker 2: moment about like what can people say it?
Speaker 3: Now? Do people say it?
Speaker 2: But I think in the coming year there's going to
Speaker 2: be a lot of irreverence because that's where the movie
Speaker 2: is going. Because even within the camp that's favorable to
Speaker 2: the current administration, there's a lot of fracturing, like they
Speaker 2: don't all feel the same. Like there's a lot of
Speaker 2: infighting now, and I think that infighting is going to
Speaker 2: create a space. But like people like oh, I could
Speaker 2: say what I want, I'm going to do what I
Speaker 2: want because the people that would police me and try
Speaker 2: and get me canceled, you know, like the reverse cancel
Speaker 2: culture whatever you would have caught it, they're fighting.
Speaker 1: I see that happening already.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think it's just more irreverence and it's just
Speaker 2: making art that is perhaps more I don't know, punk,
Speaker 2: And I think that's the influence of like AI because
Speaker 2: now it needs to feel human and tangible, and it
Speaker 2: needs to feel different, and so you're just going to
Speaker 2: make things that are like irreverent, provocative and just feel
Speaker 2: like real.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: A twenty four is like a well known production company
Speaker 1: and they make a lot of mainstream indie films for
Speaker 1: anyone listening who's not familiar, and they've been around for
Speaker 1: a while, but they're having such a moment and I
Speaker 1: think it's because of that feels human, right, feels real.
Speaker 1: It's gritty, Yeah, pretty Okay. You write that there's a
Speaker 1: popular theory among a certain type of critic that we're
Speaker 1: in a time of cultural stasis. Yes, what does that mean?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I'm going to cite W. David Mark.
Speaker 2: He's written a book called A Blank Space, which I'm
Speaker 2: reading right now, which is great.
Speaker 3: And you're just talking about like how we got to
Speaker 3: this point.
Speaker 2: Where all the stars, all the thing, like, nothing seemed
Speaker 2: to have changed for the last fifteen years. We went
Speaker 2: back fifteen years and were like, who are all the
Speaker 2: famous people? They are all the famous people today. There's
Speaker 2: this idea that culture, particularly culture is the evolving and
Speaker 2: growing and we're not seeing any new stars and new genres.
Speaker 2: It's everything so derivative. I do think that's happened, like
Speaker 2: I think it's changing. I think people want something new.
Speaker 2: And the way I don't see changing is like the
Speaker 2: influence of space. They all look the same. I'm to
Speaker 2: the point where I can't tell my influences apart. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you feel that way.
Speaker 1: All the ones I follow are wearing the same spec
Speaker 1: And I.
Speaker 2: Want to search somebody's handle because you know, sometimes you
Speaker 2: follow someone who you like to get their names.
Speaker 3: They want to get their name because.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you're like, oh, i'd like this person. TikTok isn't
Speaker 2: showing them to me anything. Yeah, I like to a
Speaker 2: dog or whatever it is. But you're like, what's their name?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And back in the day, I knew all the greatest things,
Speaker 2: like I knew their handles off here and I could
Speaker 2: type it onto YouTube.
Speaker 3: I knew where to fan.
Speaker 2: But now like maybe it's cause also TikTok is not
Speaker 2: a chronological experience. The flow isn't there. But it's just
Speaker 2: like I don't remember anyone's names. It's just like it's
Speaker 2: this kind of monoculture and the influencer. So I think
Speaker 2: in the influencial world. It'll stay like that, yeah, because
Speaker 2: the algorithm kind of needs that. But I think in
Speaker 2: music and in fashion, I see a bit, you know.
Speaker 3: More texture and change.
Speaker 1: Do you think celebrities will get more political or retreat
Speaker 1: from politics in twenty twenty six?
Speaker 2: You can be political without being ideological. For instance, homelessness,
Speaker 2: it feels like a political foruse. I just don't think there.
Speaker 3: Should be people on the street like we need better housing.
Speaker 2: It's a political cause, but it's not ideological, right, And
Speaker 2: so I think people align themselves more like political pauses
Speaker 2: like homelessness and feeding the needy and food back, you know,
Speaker 2: stuff that it is just like political causes, but can
Speaker 2: extensively to be seeing as ideological neutral. I think people
Speaker 2: are going to wear their ideology less and less because
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people don't know what to
Speaker 2: believe and they're afraid to be identified as either left
Speaker 2: or right, you know. But I think celebrities will continue
Speaker 2: to embrace pauses you can't get in trouble, for like
Speaker 2: cat fostering dogs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, dogs like oh, dop the dog, and if I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, I love that, everyone loves the dogs.
Speaker 2: Right, So I think there's going to be more of
Speaker 2: the cause stuff that feels vaguely political but it's not ideological.
Speaker 2: Are we going to be more into celebrity or less
Speaker 2: more into celebrity because I think people just have this
Speaker 2: yearning to worship something, and we know our civic institutions
Speaker 2: are going you know, people don't go.
Speaker 3: To like temple cynical churches anymore. Like you need that
Speaker 3: need to like venerate and gather still exists. I think
Speaker 3: they'll be like more club shallamaings, but.
Speaker 2: Making fan clubs, so that makes sense, Like the fang
Speaker 2: crub is going to come and to have the ban crub,
Speaker 2: you need the celebrity to be a fan, you know.
Speaker 3: What I mean.
Speaker 2: I know this contidence my argument about the downfall of celebrity,
Speaker 2: but I think that will return well.
Speaker 1: Because there's community in it. Yeah, which people are crazy.
Speaker 3: Or meet up around a person, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So great because I want to meet someone who has
Speaker 1: a similar interest.
Speaker 2: Interests, right, So I think that celebrities are like a
Speaker 2: great wonduit for that being like, oh, we're all into
Speaker 2: this celebrity or all into this band, and we're like
Speaker 2: the fan club of that in this town, and we're
Speaker 2: going to meet up at this coffee shop once a
Speaker 2: month because what we're a fan of this. I think
Speaker 2: people had that need for real work connection and celebrities
Speaker 2: are a great device to do that because I've made
Speaker 2: so many friends because of like, oh, we all have
Speaker 2: housewives or born into Beyonce.
Speaker 3: We're going to see that.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Beyonce, I know you're a fan.
Speaker 3: I'm a great, big fan.
Speaker 1: You've said that we might be seeing the beginning of
Speaker 1: Beyonce's farewell to her fans lay out the other Christian.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's just a function of she's
Speaker 2: getting older, right, And I don't know how your parents are,
Speaker 2: but I'm looking for my parents and aging and my
Speaker 2: dad retired this year, and you're just like, I'm getting older, right,
Speaker 2: And so the time you like tall Air sing, there's
Speaker 2: that element of it. I think that she's laying out
Speaker 2: these acts and action Free is coming, and that feels like,
Speaker 2: you know, she's very intentional. I think, so the three
Speaker 2: of those albums are supposed to be experienced together. And
Speaker 2: then I'm just like, it feels like a Vegas residency.
Speaker 2: It feels like a retirement tour, going to Cowboy Tater,
Speaker 2: going to that tour and like how much archival footage
Speaker 2: there was from her childhood. I was like it felt
Speaker 2: like the beginning of a third Well. I think she's
Speaker 2: always going to exist, kind of going to be like
Speaker 2: a Diana Ross. And the remarkable thing about Beyonce is
Speaker 2: that she's been you know, famous for decades that she's
Speaker 2: still not a legacy act. You're like a contemporary act
Speaker 2: that like changes culture. She's exiting state but doing it
Speaker 2: very gracefully on her terms.
Speaker 1: Reality TV is not dying, it's definitely mutating. What's it
Speaker 1: mutating into?
Speaker 2: The new frontier seems to be like the tip top blog,
Speaker 2: the YouTube blog, as almost people self producing their reality shirts. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, whether it's like a weight loss journey, whether
Speaker 2: it's a grief journey, whether it's like moving to another
Speaker 2: part of the world. It's kind of like self produced
Speaker 2: reality TV. That feels a bit different from a vlog
Speaker 2: because they're kind of borrowing like reality TV, they're not
Speaker 2: filming themselves. It's like they actually have like mini crews almost,
Speaker 2: like especially like the more professionalized family blogs that just
Speaker 2: feel like now I'm not watching a reality TV show.
Speaker 3: Immediately, I may be like.
Speaker 2: Let me go on TikTok and watch this series on
Speaker 2: like who the fuck did I marry? Or The Danish Deception,
Speaker 2: or like you know, when people tell their true life stories,
Speaker 2: it kind of feels like the reality TV vacation the
Speaker 2: New Frontier of it, and you're like, Okay, I'd rather
Speaker 2: watch that because it's so compelling rather than like another
Speaker 2: episode of reality TV where you just know someone's gonna
Speaker 2: throw a drink.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: The celebrity apology. What's the new PR playbook.
Speaker 2: It's doing an interview, We're going to reference an actress
Speaker 2: who won't mention Okay, well you kind of vaguely APOLOGI,
Speaker 2: but you were an outright apologize. I have a friend
Speaker 2: who's like very anti celebrity apologies. He's just like they're
Speaker 2: just the most stupid thing, because he's like, who are
Speaker 2: you apologizing to? Like, if you did something to a
Speaker 2: person personally, you should apologize to that person. She's like
Speaker 2: apologizing to the massive ever works because when she was mad.
Speaker 2: But I think celebrities are probably going to be more
Speaker 2: careful to avoid being the situation where you need to
Speaker 2: issue that kind of apology because they never really were.
Speaker 1: Trump changed it too, because he's anti apology. It's just
Speaker 1: like teft one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you keep going, there's something to it. And then
Speaker 3: people are like, you're breaking the social norm. Okay, what
Speaker 3: can we do? Nothing?
Speaker 1: Will we cancel The concept of cancel culture, you.
Speaker 3: Know, it was always kind of overstated.
Speaker 2: I think like the first or instance online was like
Speaker 2: the Justin Saccho, like the playing feet that went out
Speaker 2: and you know, she lost her job, but in the
Speaker 2: end she got her job again, which I think was
Speaker 2: like instructive of like what cancel culture is. Kevin Spacey
Speaker 2: recently spoke at the Oxford Union. Time has always shown
Speaker 2: that these people that were cancer figured it out eventually.
Speaker 4: Those curious to see if Dinny does that, oh I.
Speaker 3: Think he will.
Speaker 1: He will do Yeah, he's still got fanser society.
Speaker 3: Re enter society. I think.
Speaker 2: Have you watched the documentary, so you see those scenes
Speaker 2: where people know he's probably going to be arrested soon
Speaker 2: and they still want to take pictures with him. And
Speaker 2: they've seen the Cassie video. Remember all these people asking
Speaker 2: the pictures with they were all men.
Speaker 1: They were all men because women see that video. I
Speaker 1: almost didn't watch the doc because I was like, I
Speaker 1: can't see but.
Speaker 2: You talk to women offline and if you look in
Speaker 2: the comments, if you look in the comments at women
Speaker 2: that I like he was there, like you know that
Speaker 2: feeling that like, oh, there's a guy called Armon Wiggins
Speaker 2: is one of the bloggers. He followed the trial and
Speaker 2: he said something interesting was like people just see it
Speaker 2: as luxury abuse and kind of everyone gets abuse and
Speaker 2: you've got the luxury, you know, Like, I think there
Speaker 2: is an element of that, and then you obviously the settlement.
Speaker 2: I think that there is a world where did he
Speaker 2: rehabilitates himself and says he the family man does church
Speaker 2: and that's forgiveness and there is going to be a
Speaker 2: part of Hollywood in the mold of the world.
Speaker 3: You're just like, yeah, yeah, if you're back. I mean,
Speaker 3: Oja was able to come back.
Speaker 1: Right, there's a rapid fire. Okay, who's the most interesting
Speaker 1: person in culture right now?
Speaker 3: To you?
Speaker 1: Lauren Sanchez Fass a celebri public figure that people underestimate.
Speaker 1: Sidney Sweeney, a celebrit public figure people overestimate Sydney Sweeney.
Speaker 4: What's your most controversial pop culture opinion?
Speaker 2: Jennifer Lopez is probably one of the most masterfully delusional
Speaker 2: and wonderful entertainments we've ever seen.
Speaker 1: The smartest decision that you've ever made, marrying something that
Speaker 1: every woman should try once.
Speaker 3: I'm so boring. I haven't tried anything.
Speaker 1: You don't have to have tried it yourself.
Speaker 3: Oh, I have shrewths. Apparently they say I'm too scared
Speaker 3: to do it, but I've been told true.
Speaker 1: So many people have said drugs is the answer to
Speaker 1: that question. What's the most radical thing you've ever done
Speaker 1: for your own life that has nothing to do with work?
Speaker 3: Okay, choosing to have three kids that you.
Speaker 1: Were going to say moving to la I love your answer.
Speaker 1: Why is it radical?
Speaker 2: Because I knew what it would perhaps do to my life,
Speaker 2: like the kind of unsettling. But I did it anyway.
Speaker 2: I could see it wouldn't be easy. I did it anyway.
Speaker 2: And I think that's a radical thing because normally, yes,
Speaker 2: the conservative choice is like the path of least resistance
Speaker 2: versus the radical choice is like the thing it's hard
Speaker 2: in hindsight.
Speaker 1: What was your cost benefit analysis?
Speaker 3: I don't know. You have to turn out no, they're great.
Speaker 4: Well part of yourself? Did you have to unlearn to
Speaker 4: become the woman that you are sitting here?
Speaker 3: I had to like let go of needing people to
Speaker 3: agree with me.
Speaker 2: That's where I'm and to actually let go of I'm
Speaker 2: a very community person and I have very progressive politics,
Speaker 2: and for a long time it was like those bad
Speaker 2: people over there that have a different view of me.
Speaker 2: And now I realize, in order to be effective and
Speaker 2: maybe get people to see a different point of view,
Speaker 2: I need to be able to connect with people that
Speaker 2: are different from me and that they don't actually agree with.
Speaker 3: And that's very hard because that's not how I naturally operate.
Speaker 2: But once I was able to get into that mentality,
Speaker 2: it's just I think mainly a person that has worked
Speaker 2: that is actually able to bring lots of different people
Speaker 2: in a way that I think is made really important.
Speaker 1: It is, and it's rare. You have a very diverse
Speaker 1: fan base.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they would never get on.
Speaker 2: I have like trumpers, I have Mormon wives, I have
Speaker 2: like queer folks, I have like black radical femis. I
Speaker 2: think I have a very broad audience that in theory
Speaker 2: should not get on, but they come back to my
Speaker 2: work and I think we need more of that.
Speaker 3: I'm not even like going to com by.
Speaker 2: Our way that I think is unhealthy that kind of
Speaker 2: Obama perpetuated, but more in a way of just like,
Speaker 2: we need to figure this stuff out, right, So where
Speaker 2: are the places where there are big tenants and everyone
Speaker 2: can be under them and just work through the issues
Speaker 2: of our time?
Speaker 1: So well said, what's a book that you read that
Speaker 1: changed your life? Something you think everybody should?
Speaker 3: Really? I always recommend the warmth of other s. Why Isabella?
Speaker 1: She's one of my favorite writers, brilliant. She's British right, No,
Speaker 1: not no, she just lives in London.
Speaker 3: I don't know if she lives in London.
Speaker 1: I've tried to interview her so many times, and it
Speaker 1: seems on her website that she lives.
Speaker 3: That's funny.
Speaker 1: Okay, will you grab the question everything card game and
Speaker 1: pick whichever card.
Speaker 3: Comes to you. This is not Tara right. My mom
Speaker 3: wasn't like that.
Speaker 1: No, I'm prompt. It's just a random question.
Speaker 3: Okay, do you can't thrive? Will die in your die?
Speaker 1: The only thing I keep alive on my kids barely
Speaker 1: even succulents dye in my carriage. Yeah yeah, Christiana, I
Speaker 1: could talk to you for so long, and in the
Speaker 1: interest of your time, I'm going to end the interview.
Speaker 1: But thank you for this.
Speaker 3: This has been so fun.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good
Speaker 1: day to have a good day. I'll see you next
Speaker 1: week
Speaker 3: Shop sup.