Speaker 1: This isn't just about teenage girls like in stores being exploited.
Speaker 1: It's about exploitation on every level.
Speaker 2: There are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 3: As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget
Speaker 3: Todd and this is there are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 2: Have you ever shot at a Brandy Melvell? Okay?
Speaker 3: So, the Brandy Melvell look is just the right kind
Speaker 3: of fade on a vintage jacket or a T shirt
Speaker 3: that fits in just the right kind of way. She's
Speaker 3: California cool, effortless. She also happens to be thin, white,
Speaker 3: and conventionally attractive. So just who is Brandy Melvell. The
Speaker 3: shadowy fast fashion chain was founded and run by Italian
Speaker 3: CEO Stephan Marshawn, and under his direction, Brandy Melvell reached
Speaker 3: a kind of cult status with a certain subsection of
Speaker 3: teenage girls. Even if you've never shopped there yourself, if
Speaker 3: you have a young woman or girl in your life,
Speaker 3: she's probably at least heard of it. They once became
Speaker 3: known for their one size fits most sizing, and since
Speaker 3: HBO's new documentary Brandy mel Hell and the Cult of
Speaker 3: Fast Fashion, now more of the company's toxic practices are
Speaker 3: coming to light.
Speaker 1: I am Kate Taylor, and I'm a senior correspondent and
Speaker 1: Business Insider.
Speaker 3: Kate's reporting, which you can read in the show notes,
Speaker 3: became the basis for the HBO documentary. Her work uncovers
Speaker 3: the darker aspects of how businesses are run and who
Speaker 3: gets exploited to make others rich. I also happen to
Speaker 3: be kind of a super fan of Kate's writing. Kate,
Speaker 3: I am so excited to be talking to you today.
Speaker 3: I feel like anytime you drop a new piece, it
Speaker 3: goes straight in my group chat because I know it's
Speaker 3: going to be the kind of piece that we're talking about.
Speaker 3: I am awaiting the docu version of the piece like that.
Speaker 2: You are that kind of writer for me.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Amazing to hear. It's such a
Speaker 1: I have such a cool job at Business Insider, where
Speaker 1: it is a lot of like doing deep dives into
Speaker 1: whatever I'm super interested in, and like it's often like
Speaker 1: I end up writing articles where I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 1: wish I could read an article about this, and then
Speaker 1: my editor is like, well, sounds like you have to
Speaker 1: report it out.
Speaker 3: So a lot of your reporting is taking these like big,
Speaker 3: messy sometimes like business or corporate stories and then synthesizing
Speaker 3: them down so your average person can really see, like
Speaker 3: what's at stake or why they should even care even
Speaker 3: about these stories that they might not even necessarily think
Speaker 3: they care about or think impacts them in any capacity.
Speaker 3: How did you get into being that person who does
Speaker 3: that with these these complicated stories.
Speaker 1: My background is actually I was a business beat reporter
Speaker 1: on the retail in restaurants speed so practically that meant
Speaker 1: doing a ton of business reporting on fast food chains.
Speaker 1: So I followed Subway really closely. I followed Starbucks really closely.
Speaker 1: I followed McDonald's really closely, like listening in on earnings calls,
Speaker 1: talking to executives, and.
Speaker 4: For all of these things.
Speaker 1: I found it to be really fascinating how these kind
Speaker 1: of wonky business decisions impacted the thousands and thousands of
Speaker 1: people who ate at the chains, who worked at the chains.
Speaker 1: So that was kind of my introduction into journalism, and
Speaker 1: then going from there to being on our Features and
Speaker 1: Investigations team, it kind of continued to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how can we take these stories and make them important
Speaker 1: to someone who doesn't think of themselves as someone who
Speaker 1: wants to read a business publication or who wants to
Speaker 1: kind of read something that might be a little bit
Speaker 1: dry in how it's presented.
Speaker 3: Sometimes this is exactly what I love about Kate's work.
Speaker 3: She finds a story that is ostensibly a story about
Speaker 3: the way a business is being run and drills down
Speaker 3: into what it says about us as a culture and
Speaker 3: why it matters. Like back in twenty fifteen, when Starbucks
Speaker 3: announced that through their Race Together initiative, they'd be encouraging
Speaker 3: their baristas to spark tough conversations about race with customers
Speaker 3: just picking up their copies, and Kate was on it.
Speaker 3: I remember the first story I read by you with
Speaker 3: about I think it was when you were an entrepreneur
Speaker 3: about Starbucks they.
Speaker 2: Wanted to like have race conversations. Do you know what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Yes, that was one of like I was a couple
Speaker 1: of years into entrepreneur then, and like that was one
Speaker 1: of the first articles where I was like, Okay, like there's.
Speaker 4: More going on here, Like I want to kind of like.
Speaker 1: Write about this conversation about this news instead of just
Speaker 1: writing about the news, because like this is wild and
Speaker 1: it was something that like was such a move that
Speaker 1: you saw a lot like at that time, this was
Speaker 1: in maybe.
Speaker 4: Twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: I think that like from then to twenty twenty you
Speaker 1: saw this a lot where it was businesses making announcements
Speaker 1: that they thought that would be good pr that then
Speaker 1: like their in store employees were like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Like this is putting us in such a strange position,
Speaker 1: like we don't have training to deal with this.
Speaker 3: Because Kate covers business, a lot of her stories are
Speaker 3: unfortunately about wrongdoing, already marginalized people being treated badly, and
Speaker 3: because some of the workplaces that she covers cater to
Speaker 3: women or young people, companies like Brandy melvell or Nickelodeon.
Speaker 3: Kate's coverage became the docu series Quiet on the Set,
Speaker 3: uncovering workplace abuses at the Kids Entertainment Network. There's this
Speaker 3: idea that it doesn't really matter what these companies' business
Speaker 3: practices look like, because who cares. They're just some company
Speaker 3: for teen girls. It's an attitude that lets businesses and
Speaker 3: the people who run them get away with behaving badly
Speaker 3: in plain sight, but not on Kate's watch. Something I
Speaker 3: see in You're reporting these days, is that a lot
Speaker 3: of the focus is on these things that I think
Speaker 3: impact like women or young people, these these groups of
Speaker 3: people that I feel like are traditionally marginalized, both in
Speaker 3: society but also in sort of business coverage. Do you
Speaker 3: think that stories like the you know, Brandy Melville story
Speaker 3: that you reported, or the Nickelodeon story that you reported,
Speaker 3: do you think that these issues sometimes skirt scrutiny because
Speaker 3: people assume there's nothing serious going on there because it's
Speaker 3: about women or kids or young people their teens completely.
Speaker 1: And I think that especially the Brandy Melville story, that
Speaker 1: was something where these court cases had already been filed
Speaker 1: saying kind of these allegations that Brandy Melville was incredibly racist,
Speaker 1: and you wouldn't have that happen at a major chain
Speaker 1: that had, like I don't know, like a n Adida
Speaker 1: is a Nike, even like a chain that serves adult women,
Speaker 1: a J Crew. I think if those allegations had come
Speaker 1: out about a chain that didn't specifically cater to teenage girls,
Speaker 1: they would have already been front page news. And it
Speaker 1: felt to me like this was overlooked because it was
Speaker 1: a brand that was aimed at teenage girls, and it
Speaker 1: was a ton of teenage girls who worked there, So yeah,
Speaker 1: in that situation completely. I think that it's at some
Speaker 1: level there is a disconnect where people just aren't as
Speaker 1: aware of things, and like that talks to about who
Speaker 1: ends up in journalism, Like it is a lot of
Speaker 1: like older white men an older white woman who like
Speaker 1: just are not as plugged into things, and like that's
Speaker 1: how important stories don't get the investigations that are worthy.
Speaker 1: And then I think that there is a level of
Speaker 1: dismissal where it's like, oh, well, like does this matter?
Speaker 1: Like fast fashion is bad, we already know that, Like
Speaker 1: is it worth spending months looking into this specific chain?
Speaker 2: Who is John Golf?
Speaker 3: In the inn ran novel At Last Shrugged, who is
Speaker 3: John Galt is a question repeated over and over again,
Speaker 3: and the quest to discover his identity is.
Speaker 2: At the core of the book.
Speaker 3: Galt is revealed to be an inventor who believes people
Speaker 3: should be using their talents, minds, and gifts solely to
Speaker 3: benefit themselves and no one else. It's kind of easy
Speaker 3: to see why this book has become something of a
Speaker 3: foundational text for libertarians, and this reference is what sent
Speaker 3: Kate down the rabbit of investigating the retailer Brandy Melville.
Speaker 3: So walk me through how the Brandy Melvil piece came
Speaker 3: to be, and like, you're interested in your coverage in it.
Speaker 2: How did that start?
Speaker 1: It came about in kind of this very roundabout way,
Speaker 1: whereas talking to my friend who was my coworker at
Speaker 1: the time, about how Brandy Melville had this kind of
Speaker 1: sub brand, John Gould, and she was like, it's so
Speaker 1: weird that they like are kind of making this weird
Speaker 1: libertarian reference. And I was like, yeah, that is weird.
Speaker 1: Like I wonder who is running this, Like who's the CEO?
Speaker 1: Is this owned by a larger company? I started googling.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't find the CEO, and that as a
Speaker 1: retail reporter, I was like, this is a this is
Speaker 1: so rare, Like you can have one location and the
Speaker 1: CEO is giving as many.
Speaker 4: Interviews as he can get.
Speaker 1: It's it's very rare for any CEO to avoid press
Speaker 1: instead of go after press. But in this situation, you
Speaker 1: have this super popular brand with a big social media
Speaker 1: presence and the executive were really nowhere to be seen.
Speaker 1: So from there I kind of started looking up business
Speaker 1: filing started looking up court documents, and it was when
Speaker 1: I was looking up court documents to find the CEO's
Speaker 1: name that I came across these discrimination lawsuits where two
Speaker 1: former executives said we were pretty much forced out because
Speaker 1: we did not go along with the bias business practices,
Speaker 1: and like, as I was reading through those lawsuits, I
Speaker 1: really was struck by how over the top and bizarre.
Speaker 4: These instances of bias were.
Speaker 1: Where these were things whereas like, this is truly mind blowing,
Speaker 1: And I went to my editor, I was like, hey, like,
Speaker 1: these lawsuits are really really wild, Like I think that
Speaker 1: there's a bigger story here. I think that we should
Speaker 1: start talking to employees former employees and asking them about
Speaker 1: their experiences. And that was one where like almost every
Speaker 1: interview I had, it was just another level of disturbing material.
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break at her back.
Speaker 3: The allegations against Brandy melvell are a horrifying mix of
Speaker 3: surveillance and sexual control, and even more horrifying that they
Speaker 3: all involve very young girls teenagers. Teenagers were made to
Speaker 3: photograph themselves every day and send the photos to the
Speaker 3: store's owners. The owners also kept a button on the
Speaker 3: register alerting the staff when they should take a photo
Speaker 3: of a girl who was being wrung up. Sometimes girls
Speaker 3: shopping at the store would be offered a job on
Speaker 3: the spot if the owners liked the way they looked.
Speaker 3: Black employees or employees who did not fit a very
Speaker 3: specific Brandy Melvell look, which is basically just white then
Speaker 3: and conventionally attractive, were made to work in the back,
Speaker 3: even if they had more retail experience. Young staff were
Speaker 3: allowed to stay in company owned apartments in Manhattan, where
Speaker 3: men who had some association with the company would also
Speaker 3: be staying, unbel o to them.
Speaker 2: At least one young woman was sexually assaulted.
Speaker 3: The lawsuits and then the claims made in them are wild.
Speaker 3: You really demonstrate how wild some of these things that
Speaker 3: were happening at at these stores are. Like things like
Speaker 3: the teenage employees taking photos of their breasts and feet
Speaker 3: to give to the adult male owner, you know, having
Speaker 3: the button on the desk to be like, oh, get
Speaker 3: a photo of her. The thing that you reported about
Speaker 3: how if the teenage employees changed in front of the
Speaker 3: adult male owners, they knew that that meant they could
Speaker 3: get raises.
Speaker 2: And if they went to the bathroom to change in
Speaker 2: private that was a no no.
Speaker 3: Like all of these allegations are wild, but I feel
Speaker 3: like on its face, it's also just like a workplace
Speaker 3: discrimination and like workplace sexual misconduct story. So like when
Speaker 3: you were reporting this, like how did these issues play
Speaker 3: out for me?
Speaker 1: It kind of played out like where it goes from me,
Speaker 1: like Okay, we have these really wild stories, like what
Speaker 1: are the patterns you see here?
Speaker 4: What are the patterns that are actually illegal?
Speaker 1: So the patterns where it's like things almost fall into
Speaker 1: buckets where you have things that were normalized to the
Speaker 1: employees where they were like, okay, everyone got hired based
Speaker 1: on a photo in their Instagram and then kind of
Speaker 1: taking that and then being like who was getting hired?
Speaker 1: It was definitely we could see like yeah, the white,
Speaker 1: thin girls were getting hired and paid more while Latina
Speaker 1: woman black women were being put in the stock room
Speaker 1: and being paid less, and like going from that shocking
Speaker 1: to managers and then being like, yes, this was not
Speaker 1: something that was like an accident or something that was
Speaker 1: hidden at all, Like this was very explicit where they
Speaker 1: would see someone who fit the brandy look and they'd
Speaker 1: be like hire her, pay her this much, so that
Speaker 1: was kind of how we moved from that, and then
Speaker 1: like in each conversation, just kind of looking I have
Speaker 1: this massive spreadsheet that had all the interviews I I
Speaker 1: spoke with more than thirty current and former employees, and
Speaker 1: kind of like just put like the big summary, but
Speaker 1: then the checks like did this person experience or see
Speaker 1: racism happening at work? Did this person feel like they
Speaker 1: were sexually exploited? Like what were their other concerns about
Speaker 1: Brandy Melville? And kind of just like tallying up how
Speaker 1: many people said that they saw certain behaviors and certain practices.
Speaker 3: A lot of the people that you talked to for
Speaker 3: the piece were probably young women and girls, right like
Speaker 3: people who worked there.
Speaker 2: Do you see them as whistleblowers?
Speaker 1: I completely see them as whistleblowers. And it was not
Speaker 1: something that was easy for a lot of them to do.
Speaker 1: Most people want to remain anonymous. A lot of people
Speaker 1: are really worried about what their repercussions might be. And
Speaker 1: even like I had some of my sources email me
Speaker 1: after the documentary came out and they were like, hey,
Speaker 1: like I'm really like love.
Speaker 4: How the documentary came out.
Speaker 1: Like I was just too afraid to go on camera
Speaker 1: for this because I didn't want to risk my career.
Speaker 4: I didn't want.
Speaker 1: These executives to kind of come after me, and I
Speaker 1: think that for them there's still this fear that that
Speaker 1: could happen. The director told me she kind of was like,
Speaker 1: this was harder to get people to go on the
Speaker 1: record for than stories I've done about refugee camps or
Speaker 1: like war crimes. This is something that was just so
Speaker 1: so scary for people to talk about.
Speaker 3: And I think the fact that we're talking about young
Speaker 3: people it also I don't know, there's something to that
Speaker 3: that it probably is really scary to go up against
Speaker 3: this massive machine that has with intention, made it difficult
Speaker 3: to go after them. That also really becomes more powerful
Speaker 3: by being this big brand that every girl wants to
Speaker 3: be part of. Of course you want to work for
Speaker 3: Brandy Melvill, like it's the coolest job you could have.
Speaker 3: It really takes some guts to go up against that.
Speaker 1: Yes, And like for these girls now, young women, like
Speaker 1: it's not just your job, it's your entire identity. Like
Speaker 1: you've built this online identity doing this. All your friends
Speaker 1: work there. A lot of these girls got kind of
Speaker 1: a foot in the door in the fashion industry, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them are like doing really cool things
Speaker 1: in fashion now where they kind of like feel And
Speaker 1: I think that this is common for a lot of
Speaker 1: young people who experience workplace discrimination or sexual harassment in
Speaker 1: the workplace. Like you almost feel like you don't want
Speaker 1: to say something bad because you attribute all of your
Speaker 1: successes to the person who victimized you in some ways,
Speaker 1: so you feel like very torn and like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that that's something that's really really hard for a
Speaker 1: lot of these young women to kind of grapple with, like, oh,
Speaker 1: but like, is my success now tied to Brandy Mailville,
Speaker 1: Like do I owe them? Not Everyone feels that way obviously,
Speaker 1: but I think that when people are thinking about building
Speaker 1: their career, they don't want to kind of yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't want to piss off the extremely powerful, middle aged
Speaker 1: executive who gave you your first job at age fourteen.
Speaker 2: That's so sad.
Speaker 3: And I guess even for young people who didn't work
Speaker 3: for Brandy Melvel but bought the clothes follow the Instagram,
Speaker 3: maybe modeled the way that they present online because of
Speaker 3: the Instagram.
Speaker 2: I guess I see this in some ways.
Speaker 3: As a story about the power of stoking a particular
Speaker 3: kind of like anxiety or need in young people using
Speaker 3: social media and how that can make bad men very wealthy.
Speaker 3: Do you see this the Rise of Brandy Melvel as
Speaker 3: a story about the rise of like social media and
Speaker 3: its impact on youth.
Speaker 4: Oh, totally.
Speaker 1: I think that it is in some ways, like if
Speaker 1: this wasn't such a horrific place to work, Like it's
Speaker 1: a huge success story in using social media to create
Speaker 1: incredible buzz around a brand, and I think that part
Speaker 1: of the way that they did that was by giving
Speaker 1: a lot of the control over to teenagers themselves, where
Speaker 1: like people can look at these photos, especially the ones
Speaker 1: like in peek Tumbler era, like five ten years ago,
Speaker 1: where where it's like, okay, you can tell. I think
Speaker 1: that like teenage girls are the ones taking these photos
Speaker 1: and it feels like photos of their friends, where people
Speaker 1: who are potential customers see that and like it feels like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is an exclusive friend group that I want to
Speaker 1: get into that I want to follow along with, versus
Speaker 1: feeling like a commercial or like a model in a catalog,
Speaker 1: and it just completely transfers, like it translates so much
Speaker 1: better to social media than I think these more traditional
Speaker 1: kind of catalog style photo shoots do.
Speaker 3: Say what you will about Brandy Melvill, but their instagram
Speaker 3: is on point. The photos kind of feel like writing
Speaker 3: around in your friend's backseat, blasting music with the windows
Speaker 3: open during a warm summer night. They really capture something
Speaker 3: authentic about what it was like to be a team girl,
Speaker 3: and that's probably because the photos are taken by team girls.
Speaker 3: Brandy Melville used teen retail staff to fill roles typically
Speaker 3: filled by creative professionals social media, photography, styling, fashion and
Speaker 3: trend research. Sometimes the higher ups would literally take the
Speaker 3: shirt off of a staffer's back to sell a version
Speaker 3: of it in the store now on its space. The
Speaker 3: idea of teen girls being the creative force behind a
Speaker 3: brand that is marketed to other teen girls makes a
Speaker 3: lot of sense. The only problem is, despite doing the
Speaker 3: work of creative professionals, the staff doing this work or
Speaker 3: not being.
Speaker 2: Paid like creative professionals.
Speaker 3: In the documentary just feels like, in a kind of way,
Speaker 3: more exploitation, because these girls are like doing the work
Speaker 3: of a social media manager or a creative director and like.
Speaker 2: Not being paid for it. They're being paid.
Speaker 3: In like vibes and like, oh, you got to be
Speaker 3: featured on our Instagram.
Speaker 2: Don't you feel cool? It's like, well, that's actually a
Speaker 2: job that has compensated me in money.
Speaker 1: It's like, I mean, it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: it's like oh wow, like they're really like from what
Speaker 1: I've heard, like they were able to achieve a lot
Speaker 1: of financial success. And it's like, yeah, obviously it's going
Speaker 1: to cost less if you are getting a seventeen year
Speaker 1: old to kind of pick these designs and you're paying
Speaker 1: her under twenty dollars an hour or versus like paying
Speaker 1: someone a salary who has gone to actually gone to
Speaker 1: school for this, And yeah, it's something where like it's
Speaker 1: by believing in the kind of ability of these teenage
Speaker 1: girls to track trends, to like know what's cool, Like
Speaker 1: they were able to like both have their finger on
Speaker 1: the pulse, but also to like save a ton of
Speaker 1: money and really exploit these teenage employees because like, yes,
Speaker 1: like the photographers, the people who are kind of determining
Speaker 1: the fashion, the people who are modeling for this should
Speaker 1: have been paid much more than what they were paid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's easy to have record process when you're not
Speaker 3: paying people and you're just like exploiting them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really like and it's something that I do think,
Speaker 1: Like thinking about Brandy Melville versus like Rookie Magazine ten
Speaker 1: years ago, it's almost to me two sides of the
Speaker 1: same coin, where like Rookie was a place that was
Speaker 1: also very much run by teenage girls, like around what
Speaker 1: teenage girls understood was cool, but that was for teenage girls,
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't like there was some shady middle aged
Speaker 1: Italian man.
Speaker 4: Profiting off of that. And I think that Brandy.
Speaker 1: Melville, what makes it really disturbing to me is that
Speaker 1: this is kind of both you have this small group
Speaker 1: of male executives who are profiting off of these teenage girls.
Speaker 1: Kind of they're brilliance and like, but also like the
Speaker 1: grossest part of being a teenage girl, like to feel
Speaker 1: like there's only one way to be attractive, to feel
Speaker 1: like there's only a certain image of certain body size
Speaker 1: that is going to make you popular and make you cool.
Speaker 1: And I think that it's almost like these really toxic
Speaker 1: ideas about popularity in high school, like basically writ large
Speaker 1: and like is the brand DNA for this chain?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's like they say, like that's not you
Speaker 3: or eye gleaning that. That's like the owner explicitly saying
Speaker 3: we want thin, white, pretty girls wearing our garments, like
Speaker 3: like we want those are who we want shopping in
Speaker 3: the store, that's who we want working at the store.
Speaker 3: That's what we want On the Instagram, it's like explicit.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, Like I feel like now most fashion retailers,
Speaker 1: even if there is some subtext like that's what they want,
Speaker 1: Like no, we have executives at Brady Melville who told me, know,
Speaker 1: this was our.
Speaker 4: Explicit like word for word play.
Speaker 1: And like, we do not want people who do not
Speaker 1: fit this image shopping at or working at the stores.
Speaker 1: And if they do, like we want to very actively
Speaker 1: exclude them, and if you don't, your job is basically
Speaker 1: on the line.
Speaker 3: In the documentary, they show a scene where one of
Speaker 3: the stores even has like skinny doors where you have
Speaker 3: to sort of turn to physically enter the door, which
Speaker 3: I had never heard before. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: they're they're very serious about who they want in these stores.
Speaker 2: Like literally it's.
Speaker 1: Wild and like that it was like a meme online
Speaker 1: for a while, or it is like all these like
Speaker 1: tiny little spaces like must be this small to like
Speaker 1: fit into Brandy Mailville, like it's the one size thing
Speaker 1: is so kind of well known that it's become a
Speaker 1: meme in its own right. And like when I started
Speaker 1: looking into this even that I was shocked that this
Speaker 1: was how a Britain was functioning and that people were
Speaker 1: okay with it.
Speaker 3: So I haven't been a teenage girl for a very
Speaker 3: long time, but I remember my adolescence very well. So
Speaker 3: I think for a lot of us, like it's something
Speaker 3: that we carry around and in some ways, I still
Speaker 3: feel like I'm fifteen year old bridget.
Speaker 2: Even though I'm an adult.
Speaker 3: And so when I was growing up, I remember that
Speaker 3: what made you cool was to sort of stand out,
Speaker 3: to be different, Like that was like what was cool
Speaker 3: when I was growing up. And I wonder if social
Speaker 3: media has kind of led to the opposite, where what's
Speaker 3: cool it's to sort of like fit in and sort
Speaker 3: of all look the same, all have this like very
Speaker 3: sort of similar aesthetic. And I wonder if maybe Brandy
Speaker 3: melvell was just sort of like taking advantage of that
Speaker 3: that like right now it's cool to all have this
Speaker 3: like California girl look for teen girls, let's really sell
Speaker 3: that back to them in an aggressive way via social media.
Speaker 1: I think it's almost two competing urges where it's like,
Speaker 1: I wonder, because there's been so much movement with the
Speaker 1: next generation with Gen Z to kind of be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we want to have more diversity in fashion, we want
Speaker 1: to have more sized diversity, we want more racial diversity.
Speaker 1: But then also, like Brandy Melville is super popular, I
Speaker 1: think that Brandy was able to keep an eye on
Speaker 1: these trends while also making people kind of feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're fitting in. But it has these little flashes of
Speaker 1: being able to be like, Okay, this is this is
Speaker 1: special where like they along with the really California cool thing,
Speaker 1: they'll have times where they do a lot of vintage
Speaker 1: in inspired stuff, which I feel like vinjage is of
Speaker 1: the yeah for me in high school, Like if you're
Speaker 1: someone who has like cool vintage stuff, like, oh, you're putting.
Speaker 4: More time into this, like you know, you're cool.
Speaker 1: In a different way than like the people who are
Speaker 1: wearing Abercrombie or Hollister. And I think the Brandy kind
Speaker 1: of is trying to straddle both of those sides, where
Speaker 1: it's like you have the very preppy the California, those
Speaker 1: kinds of looks, and then on the other side you
Speaker 1: also have oh, like this is as if you went
Speaker 1: to a vintage store yourself, but no, it's actually just
Speaker 1: been screened by a seventeen year old living in Santa
Speaker 1: Monica who got the boss's credit card and got to
Speaker 1: like take a day going to thrift shops.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So for folks this is actually a great question for
Speaker 3: folks who don't know, how would you describe the Brandy
Speaker 3: Melville style the look.
Speaker 1: I think that the Brandy Melville look, it keeps evolving,
Speaker 1: and that's something that they have been able to continue doing.
Speaker 1: I think for a long time it was very California cool, casual,
Speaker 1: like lots of oversized, and then it's evolved to be
Speaker 1: a bit more vintage. It definitely was going through very
Speaker 1: much like a preppy phase for a while, but they
Speaker 1: have a lot of just like basics where like the
Speaker 1: little kind of white tank tops, the short shorts.
Speaker 4: Right now, how.
Speaker 1: I think of their stuff as like very like a
Speaker 1: little bit timeless, a little bit nineties, and it feels
Speaker 1: like it feels like it's something that you can look
Speaker 1: at and be like, oh, this is just these little
Speaker 1: touches that even me, thinking back to when I was
Speaker 1: in high school, I could imagine like a popular just
Speaker 1: like tiny, tiny cheerleader style girl like wearing and me
Speaker 1: being like, oh, I couldn't wear that, like I'm too big,
Speaker 1: like I'm too awkward, like I just I couldn't pull
Speaker 1: that off.
Speaker 2: I feel the exact same way.
Speaker 3: Isn't it funny how they're able to like me, I'm
Speaker 3: in adult woman, and they're still able to signal to me,
Speaker 3: somebody who has not been in high school for a
Speaker 3: very long time, exactly what you just said that, like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is what the pretty popular, blonde skinning girl wears.
Speaker 2: You're you would never be able to pull this off.
Speaker 2: She pulls it off like, and like they're they're able
Speaker 2: to evoke that so well.
Speaker 4: I know, like there weren't even cheerleaders in my high school.
Speaker 4: I don't know why I said that. That is the same.
Speaker 2: Like I went to an all girls Catholic school. We
Speaker 2: didn't have cheerleaders. We all were the same thing.
Speaker 3: And yet I know exactly what they are tapping into,
Speaker 3: like they are very good.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's this like very delicate kind of femininity that
Speaker 1: like feels I think to a lot of people like oh,
Speaker 1: like I can't, I can't do that, or like oh
Speaker 1: I want to achieve that, but like I'll never feel
Speaker 1: like right. It was I actually, while reporting this story,
Speaker 1: I went into a Brandy mailvill because we were with
Speaker 1: our photographer, and I was like, Okay, we have to
Speaker 1: like get photos for the article, like we don't want to,
Speaker 1: like we wanted to kind of go into the flagship
Speaker 1: and see if we could see some of the things
Speaker 1: the girls talked about to like corroborate certain things to
Speaker 1: be like okay, yes, like there's where they pushed the
Speaker 1: button when they see girls that they want to higher,
Speaker 1: and like I tried on the clothes and it was
Speaker 1: just like it was a very kind of out of
Speaker 1: body experience to be like, yeah, like I am kind
Speaker 1: of like I am a straight sized woman. I kind
Speaker 1: of like I fit into most clothes. I can find
Speaker 1: clothes that fit me in most stores. And I was like,
Speaker 1: there's no way that I could like go in public
Speaker 1: wearing this.
Speaker 3: No, it's that one size fits most is really yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's so wild, but you're right, it's almost
Speaker 3: like a meme at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's really really wild. It also just made
Speaker 1: me feel like I'm thirty two. I was like, I
Speaker 1: feel so old right now in this store.
Speaker 3: The only time I've ever got into a Brandy Melvella
Speaker 3: had the exact same experience.
Speaker 2: And I also was like.
Speaker 3: Watching the reading your Piece and watching the documentary, I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, I see what that was. Now I've
Speaker 3: only got into one and I was like, I feel
Speaker 3: like the people working here don't.
Speaker 2: Want to help me.
Speaker 3: And now I'm like, oh, they probably had zero retail experience,
Speaker 3: zero training because they were just hired from their instagram.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was like so many of the people who
Speaker 1: I talked with would be like it was so frustrating.
Speaker 1: We would like find someone who had retail experience and
Speaker 1: be like please, can we hire her, and they'd be
Speaker 1: like no, like she doesn't fit our image. Like I
Speaker 1: remember talking to one former employee and she's like, we
Speaker 1: would like we face tuned this girl in the photo
Speaker 1: we said, because we're like, she has experience, she's good
Speaker 1: with customers, and was like, we just want her, so
Speaker 1: we're going.
Speaker 4: To face tune her, like so hopefully she gets hired and.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, imagine being like please, just like let me
Speaker 1: hire some competent, and there's ones like eh, like I
Speaker 1: don't know, like she's a couple of pounds too heavy.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And I mean, something that the documentary really lays out
Speaker 3: in a fascinating way is that it's really the system
Speaker 3: where everybody is being exploited. The employees are being exploited,
Speaker 3: the girls buy the clothes are being exploited.
Speaker 2: The countries in the.
Speaker 3: Global South were like the clothing ends up, like they're
Speaker 3: pressured into taking these clothes once the West throws them
Speaker 3: out because they're fast fashioned, they fall apart, are being exploited.
Speaker 3: Do you see this as all sort of linked, like
Speaker 3: triggering the anxieties of these young girls and then making
Speaker 3: money on clothing sales, which in turn for there's the
Speaker 3: exploitation of these folks in the Global South. Like it
Speaker 3: just feels like one big system where we are all losing.
Speaker 4: Yes completely.
Speaker 1: And I think that that was something that in my
Speaker 1: original investigation I didn't get into as much. But Eva Warner,
Speaker 1: the director of the documentary, kind of I feel like
Speaker 1: she really made it her mission to kind of take
Speaker 1: it the next step to say like this isn't just
Speaker 1: about this one fashion line, like this is It's like
Speaker 1: one link in this wider system of destruction in how
Speaker 1: it impacts all these people. So I think that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I really like appreciated that Eva the director took it
Speaker 1: there and was willing to push things to the next step.
Speaker 1: This isn't just about teenage girls like in stores being exploited.
Speaker 4: It's about exploitation on every level.
Speaker 2: More.
Speaker 3: After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 3: If you were on the internet like I was in
Speaker 3: the odds, you probably remember what some people called hipster racism.
Speaker 3: I remember that time feeling like the peak of people
Speaker 3: masking racism or sexism, or fat phobia or other harmful
Speaker 3: attitudes with memes or off colored jokes about women, Jewish people,
Speaker 3: black people, and fat people. And that's really what I
Speaker 3: was reminded of when I saw some of the chatter
Speaker 3: happening between staffers and Brandy Melville higher ups in a
Speaker 3: company group chat. I know all too well how this
Speaker 3: kind of thing can be used to normalize toxic attitudes
Speaker 3: and ideologies under the guise of it's just a joke,
Speaker 3: don't be so sensitive something that you really flesh out with,
Speaker 3: like screenshots that are quite disturbing in the piece are
Speaker 3: this how these like senior staffers, like the highest level
Speaker 3: folks would be in these company group chats, spreading anti
Speaker 3: semitic and misogynistic and racist and fat phobic memes and
Speaker 3: language in these group texts and reading those. Something about
Speaker 3: this reminded me of being online in the twenty tens,
Speaker 3: when like quote, hipster racism was sort of in vogue,
Speaker 3: like like, oh, how kind of like wink wink, am
Speaker 3: I joking kind of racism? And I remember being online
Speaker 3: at that time and it was like if you were
Speaker 3: bothered by that, you were sensitive, you didn't get the
Speaker 3: joke whatever, When in reality, I think looking back, what
Speaker 3: was actually going on was that a generation of younger
Speaker 3: people was being introduced to these very dangerous ways of
Speaker 3: thinking while masking it in like jokes and softness. And
Speaker 3: I'm sort of reminded of like the John Galt iconography
Speaker 3: within Brandy Melville stores and things like that, like do
Speaker 3: you see this as kind of introducing young people to
Speaker 3: a very specific social or political ideology When they're just
Speaker 3: like shopping for genes or whatever, they might not realize
Speaker 3: like oh, like what am I?
Speaker 2: What am I actually being introduced here?
Speaker 4: I think yes to a degree.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's so interesting what you said
Speaker 1: about like growing up online with like the hipster racism,
Speaker 1: Like this to me feels so in line with that,
Speaker 1: like where all of these things were like, oh, it's jokes,
Speaker 1: but it was like I also very much crew up
Speaker 1: online in that era, and these were some of like
Speaker 1: the more horrific images and like memes that I had
Speaker 1: seen where it was just like another level of anti smotism,
Speaker 1: another level of racism, like I mean, just really graphic
Speaker 1: images of pornography, even where it's something you see, Oh,
Speaker 1: like what if we took four Chan and then that
Speaker 1: was like the company group chat with all these male executives,
Speaker 1: And I think that that kind of beyond being like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is obviously offensive, it is just shocking to see
Speaker 1: how that can be transferred over if that is normalized
Speaker 1: at an organization, and if this is something that is
Speaker 1: kind of being passed on to the customer, I think
Speaker 1: yes and no. I think honestly, the thing that feels
Speaker 1: more disturbing to me is that these were people who
Speaker 1: were marketing and making their money off of teenage girls,
Speaker 1: and these thoughts weren't like it's not like they were
Speaker 1: making a shirt that has like an anti Semitic joke
Speaker 1: on it or racist joke on it. But this is
Speaker 1: kind of how they are thinking of a lot of
Speaker 1: their customers behind their backs, where they're kind of like
Speaker 1: they're making jokes in these group chats about women that
Speaker 1: they work with. They're kind of joking about all these
Speaker 1: different things, and like that is it's a different kind
Speaker 1: of disturbing than to like passing to pass that idea
Speaker 1: through the company. It's like the subterfuge, the like too
Speaker 1: faced nature of it is gross in a different way totally.
Speaker 3: And given all of this, you know, the anti semitism,
Speaker 3: the racism, the taking pictures of young girl's feed and breast,
Speaker 3: the allegations of sexual assault, like really dark stuff. The
Speaker 3: thing that really I cannot even believe. When your piece
Speaker 3: is published, it's basically crickets. They don't put out a statement,
Speaker 3: they turn off their comments for a little while, and
Speaker 3: that's basically it. And I guess thinking about this in
Speaker 3: context like these days, I feel like particularly brands that
Speaker 3: their customer base as young people. I think a lot
Speaker 3: of young people really expect a level of social responsibility
Speaker 3: from their brands that they that they engage with.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that this was the reaction? The
Speaker 2: reaction was like nothing, crickets.
Speaker 1: I think that part of it is because people are like, well,
Speaker 1: Brady Melville, we know it's controversial because of the one
Speaker 1: size fits all thing.
Speaker 4: So I think that people are like, oh, there's more criticism,
Speaker 4: but it's.
Speaker 1: Almost they've already sorted into this bucket where they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, it's not perfect, but whatever versus. I
Speaker 1: think that if the same allegations came out about a
Speaker 1: company that was seen as really sustainable or socially good,
Speaker 1: it might have.
Speaker 4: A different reaction.
Speaker 1: I think that Brandy it doubles down both behind the
Speaker 1: scenes and publicly as kind of not caring about this,
Speaker 1: of being politically correct is like the worst thing you
Speaker 1: can do, like that you shouldn't care about these things.
Speaker 1: So I think that by doing that, it almost allowed
Speaker 1: them not to have as much of a reaction when
Speaker 1: this news came out. But I still like that is
Speaker 1: something I'm still grappling with. I've talked to kind of
Speaker 1: some teenagers since the documentary came out, and some of
Speaker 1: them have been like, oh, do you think that this
Speaker 1: is gonna hurt Brandy Melville, I'm like, I don't know, Like,
Speaker 1: what do you think? You probably have a better understanding
Speaker 1: of how the actual customer base is going to respond
Speaker 1: than I do.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: I wonder are there ways in which that like is
Speaker 3: a response to the current climate that we're in now,
Speaker 3: where we have all this like backlash to wokeism and
Speaker 3: all of that, where it's like, actually, what's in vogue
Speaker 3: right now is not caring about marginalized people and making
Speaker 3: horrible jokes about them behind their back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is, And I think that that is like
Speaker 1: kind of purposeful, Like it's something where it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: like if you don't try to support marginalized people, then
Speaker 1: you can be criticized for it, which to me is
Speaker 1: really like disturbing and wild and shouldn't be that way.
Speaker 1: But it's almost by not trying at all, and by
Speaker 1: making your identity not trying, you are able to already
Speaker 1: have your kind of base of customers be people who
Speaker 1: are not prioritizing this, and are not prioritizing about racism
Speaker 1: or thinking about antisemitism or thinking about, oh my money
Speaker 1: is funding something that maybe I don't personally agree with.
Speaker 3: And it's kind of scary to think about that being
Speaker 3: really popular, Like that sentiment being something that you can make,
Speaker 3: that you can vote for via your dollars, that you
Speaker 3: can identify with via what you wear.
Speaker 2: Like, that's just kind of disturbing to me.
Speaker 3: That the way that that kind of apathy can be
Speaker 3: packaged as really cool and popular.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that even the response to the documentary,
Speaker 1: I've seen tiktoks kind of people being like, oh, like
Speaker 1: I don't care, Like Brandy Melville is a great deal,
Speaker 1: so like I'm not going to be watching this, And
Speaker 1: I mean, in my experience, there's so many really lovely
Speaker 1: people who I spoke with who worked at Brandy Melville.
Speaker 1: This is not me trying to say like if you've
Speaker 1: ever shopped there, you're a bad person, or if you
Speaker 1: ever worked there, you're a bad person. There are so
Speaker 1: many people who I spoke with who were whistleblowers in this,
Speaker 1: who work there as teenagers, who I think care a
Speaker 1: lot about these issues and have continued to kind of
Speaker 1: rededicate themselves to these issues. So I don't want to
Speaker 1: be like I'm painting all of these people with the
Speaker 1: same brush. But yeah, the response of people being like
Speaker 1: I refuse to care about this, and you cannot make
Speaker 1: me care about this has been pretty disturbing to me,
Speaker 1: especially when these are allegations of I mean, screenshots of
Speaker 1: incredibly racist, anti Semitic things, allegations of sexual assault. This
Speaker 1: isn't something where it's one person said something that could
Speaker 1: be perceived as offensive.
Speaker 4: Not that that should be ignored when that happens, but
Speaker 4: this is.
Speaker 1: Like a investigation, Like, you don't have to trust me
Speaker 1: and my thoughts on this. All of this is recorded
Speaker 1: in court documents, in screen shots, in testimony from many people,
Speaker 1: Like I understand, people don't know me, they don't have
Speaker 1: to believe me, but this is a ton of evidence
Speaker 1: that people kind of it feels like they are willfully
Speaker 1: ignoring if they continue to shop there.
Speaker 2: What do you like if somebody listening is like who
Speaker 2: cares about this? Like, what would you say to them?
Speaker 1: I think that like, think about I would ask them
Speaker 1: to think about what matters to them in terms of
Speaker 1: their values, and to just think about, like does this square?
Speaker 4: Because I think that.
Speaker 1: Most people, even people who want to pretty publicly be like, oh,
Speaker 1: political correctness doesn't matter, have people in their life that
Speaker 1: they care about, whether that's young women, whether that's people
Speaker 1: who aren't white, like people who are Jewish, and if
Speaker 1: that is how you truly feel and if that are
Speaker 1: your values, then like I would look and see, like,
Speaker 1: do I want to spend my money on a place
Speaker 1: that really, very very explicitly does not want to reckon
Speaker 1: with how it has treated people who are not thin
Speaker 1: white women, And even in those situations like those are
Speaker 1: often the women who ended up being put in these
Speaker 1: really uncomfortab sexual situations and exploited in other ways.
Speaker 4: Watch the documentary.
Speaker 1: You can read my original reporting and Business Insider, And
Speaker 1: if anyone is listening to this who works for Brandy
Speaker 1: Mellville Now wants to talk with me, feel free to
Speaker 1: reach out. I am fascinated what the response has been
Speaker 1: like within the company. I haven't talked to any current
Speaker 1: employees since the documentary came out, so I'm curious to
Speaker 1: hear how people are responding.
Speaker 3: Now, got a story about an interesting thing in tech,
Speaker 3: or just want to say hi, you can reach us
Speaker 3: out Hello at tangody dot com. You can also find
Speaker 3: transcripts for today's episode at tengody dot com.
Speaker 2: There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by
Speaker 2: me Bridget tod.
Speaker 3: It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 3: as our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and
Speaker 3: sound engineer. Michael Almada is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
Speaker 3: Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
Speaker 3: and review.
Speaker 2: Us on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
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