Speaker 1: I also feel like Harry put his whole person, put
Speaker 1: his whole put Harry put his whole Harressy into it.
Speaker 1: Today we are doing essentially the podcast version of reblogging.
Speaker 1: We are going to be looking back at um Indeed
Speaker 1: Sleeve's archive, if you will. Yes, we are going back
Speaker 1: into our tumblers, which I mean no longer exists mine
Speaker 1: at least don't have been scrubbed from the Internet. And
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about what is Inde sleeves um,
Speaker 1: the aesthetics and media that exemplified it, how it, you know,
Speaker 1: was bread and spread on tumbler, and how it's returning
Speaker 1: today and maybe a slightly different form because this is
Speaker 1: like a virgin the show where we give yesterday's pop
Speaker 1: culture today's tapes, Timber's dam you and I'm Fran Toronto.
Speaker 1: So you know, brush off your Shin's record, put on
Speaker 1: put on your Santy gold T shirt. I loves. I
Speaker 1: forgot to talk about that. I loved well, I guess
Speaker 1: the Shins. Also, Shin's is like early because you know,
Speaker 1: the first time I heard the Shins was in Garden State. Obviously.
Speaker 1: Wait wait wait wait wait wait okay, okay, okay, wait,
Speaker 1: maybe we should we talk about the gardens. No, the
Speaker 1: Garden States, Like two thousand four, it was pre eminent, Yes,
Speaker 1: devastating news. Today, I believe I have seen my last
Speaker 1: movie as an AMC STUBBORNSTA. You are officially canceling your
Speaker 1: membership when you moved to New York. Is that what's happening?
Speaker 1: You're a band abandoning our principle. I'm in the wake.
Speaker 1: It's not like I can just drive over to the Grove,
Speaker 1: or drive over to AMC Sunset five, or drive over
Speaker 1: to Universal CityWalk slash Marguerita Villamporium and see a movie.
Speaker 1: But if there was a way to go, I'm glad
Speaker 1: it was seeing Ticket to Parents. Where are you glad? Though?
Speaker 1: How did you feel when we locked out of this
Speaker 1: movie together? Um? I did have a really good time,
Speaker 1: even though it's not a good movie. Okay, if you
Speaker 1: had a really good time, name one thing that happened
Speaker 1: in the movie that you enjoyed that you remember. Julia Roberts.
Speaker 1: No, no no, no, no, no, no, no no, no no no, no,
Speaker 1: specifically no, that is the specific thing I enjoyed. Julia
Speaker 1: Roberts because she is the last movie star and has
Speaker 1: endless charisma and every time she was on screen, I
Speaker 1: was having fun, even in a bad movie like like
Speaker 1: notting Hill, which I watched for the first time and
Speaker 1: since it first came out recently and it's not a
Speaker 1: good movie. But Julia Roberts well, I mean in that movie,
Speaker 1: she at least has Hugh Grant to work with um
Speaker 1: And in this movie, I think George Clooney was not
Speaker 1: the best scene partner for her. But Julie Roberts, anytime
Speaker 1: she was on screen, I was happy to be there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously their star power is like gonna get
Speaker 1: you know, butts into seats in that theater. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of like the appeal obviously is just like
Speaker 1: us waiting for Julia Roberts to like laugh like that
Speaker 1: honestly totally for me. Her huge amounts. And the thing
Speaker 1: is she her character is like a bitch in this
Speaker 1: which I love, Like I love Julia in an era
Speaker 1: where she gets to be a kind of like mean
Speaker 1: or uptight character, but she doesn't as a character laugh
Speaker 1: until like halfway through the movie, Like we're not really
Speaker 1: satiated until like far into the movie where she finally
Speaker 1: cracks and she has like a little bit of like
Speaker 1: joy in her character because they know the power of
Speaker 1: of her laugh and the power of the power of
Speaker 1: going to Bali And and discovering yourself. Honestly, like this
Speaker 1: wascovery because for anyone, for anyone who hasn't seen the trailer,
Speaker 1: in which basically the whole movie story of the film
Speaker 1: is given away. It's about Julia Roberts and George Clooney,
Speaker 1: who like fell in love very young, had a child,
Speaker 1: were married for five years, had an extremely bitter divorce,
Speaker 1: and then have to come back together when their daughter,
Speaker 1: after graduating from college, decides to get married and Bali
Speaker 1: and moved there Forever and their daughters played by Caitlin
Speaker 1: Deaver from Book Smart, and she was great in Book
Speaker 1: Smart and was really bad in this, mostly because I
Speaker 1: think she didn't have a character. Her only character trait
Speaker 1: was that she wore the same pair of thin gold
Speaker 1: hoops in every scene. They looked like they were from
Speaker 1: Forever twenty one, and it just was such a weird
Speaker 1: styling choice and was extremely distracting for me. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think the movie could have been much better if
Speaker 1: either um there were a lot more parallels between Julia
Speaker 1: and George's problems and the couple's problems so that you
Speaker 1: were more invested in them, and like it used the
Speaker 1: language of film to tell both stories simultaneously, or if
Speaker 1: they had just kind of cut the young people entirely
Speaker 1: and it was just Julia and George. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I just feel that there could have been more parallels
Speaker 1: between Julia Roberts character in this movie and Julia Roberts
Speaker 1: character in a Prey Love where she also goes to Molly. Um.
Speaker 1: Really this by herself though? Yeah, but the thing is
Speaker 1: maybe on a journey of self. This really could have
Speaker 1: been a sequel. This maybe this is a sequel. Maybe
Speaker 1: this is the end of Elizabeth Gilbert's life after e
Speaker 1: Pray Love has happened and she is descending on Bolly
Speaker 1: to what is it her her the girl's fiance as
Speaker 1: a seaweed farmer. What the fuck? He has a seweed
Speaker 1: farmer who has a who has recently inked to deal
Speaker 1: with Wait, that's actually real virgins, that's real. That is
Speaker 1: an actual line, That an actual point. He has also
Speaker 1: with whole foods. So his seaweed farm is and okay
Speaker 1: wait wait it's it's legitimized. And there's that when the
Speaker 1: when his home is introduced, this is a literal seaweed farmer.
Speaker 1: She wakes up and and she is in a resort.
Speaker 1: She is in a five star resort that is revealed
Speaker 1: to be the kind you see on TikTok where like
Speaker 1: you sit up in bed and the oceans oceans in
Speaker 1: front of you, like try our birds chirping, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm like what this is a seaweed farmer. And that's
Speaker 1: when he says, oh yeah, Jeff Bezos is lying in
Speaker 1: the coffers of like I'm just fill in cash like
Speaker 1: around like my map whatever. I'm just like So it
Speaker 1: was so funny. It was just a bizarre script. It
Speaker 1: was very bizarre. Also, Caitlin Diaver's bestie is played by
Speaker 1: Billy Lord of American Horror Story Fame, and there's this
Speaker 1: one scene where she she's like a crazy party girl,
Speaker 1: like none none of the jokes about her land, but
Speaker 1: the people in the theater were loving her. But there's
Speaker 1: a scene where she George Clooney is like at the
Speaker 1: bar at the hotel at night because he can't sleep
Speaker 1: and he's having a drink and Kaylin Deaver comes up
Speaker 1: to him. I'm like, Oh, great, they're gonna fuck. But
Speaker 1: then he starts telling this like sad story about how
Speaker 1: he and Julia Roberts broke up because their house burned down,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, did Julia Roberts Sadden on fire? Like
Speaker 1: I don't get where this is going? But then the
Speaker 1: scene ends without them fucking, and I'm just like, no,
Speaker 1: but like, in the in the world of who you're
Speaker 1: telling me these characters are, they would have and we
Speaker 1: never learned more about the fire. It's so disorienting and
Speaker 1: also just like but yeah, totally, it felt a lot
Speaker 1: like them fucking was in the original script and they
Speaker 1: cut it for like decent. No, it was never. It
Speaker 1: was never What is the point of that scene? Then
Speaker 1: they're like at a bar because because George has to
Speaker 1: expose himself emotionally and like it's literally just there so
Speaker 1: that he reveals that he actually loved him when she
Speaker 1: like she like slithers up to him like she is
Speaker 1: ready to fund Maybe it's just like the energy that
Speaker 1: maybe she kind of and it's projecting. It's us projecting,
Speaker 1: you would want totoing. I think that we were projected. Well,
Speaker 1: the vibe, the vibe was there, but that's not a
Speaker 1: movie in which that would ever happen. This is a
Speaker 1: very sort of classic roum comm in so many ways,
Speaker 1: and the Julia Robert's part of it, at least I
Speaker 1: was able to enjoy. Otherwise, it's not a great movie.
Speaker 1: Do not rush to see it in the theater. If
Speaker 1: you really want to watch it, watch it when it's
Speaker 1: eventually on streaming, and like a week and a half.
Speaker 1: It's a great movie to stream because you can look
Speaker 1: at your phone for half the time and still have
Speaker 1: the exact same experience of the movie. Yes, speaking of
Speaker 1: movies that are available to stream, Fran, you watched My Policeman,
Speaker 1: correct now that it's out on Amazon discussion Last week,
Speaker 1: I did. I did watch watch My Policeman. I thought
Speaker 1: it was perfectly fine, And I think the reason I
Speaker 1: enjoyed what I watched is in large part because unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I am among the warm brained people that thinks that
Speaker 1: Harry Styles is really gorgeous and cute and adorable, and
Speaker 1: like I will watch him do anything, um even when
Speaker 1: he is very attractive. He's very attractive. But for me,
Speaker 1: I also, as I said last week, I really liked
Speaker 1: the movie and I went into it expecting to hate
Speaker 1: it or at least just like be totally me about it. Um,
Speaker 1: But I really liked it. I think it's a very
Speaker 1: well made film first and foremost it was especially considering
Speaker 1: the sourceman too. I think it's a very good adaptation,
Speaker 1: even though you've never read the book. To me though,
Speaker 1: like Harry wasn't the thing about it that made it
Speaker 1: work for me, But I do think he was good
Speaker 1: in it. Wait, actually that's so okay. So here's what
Speaker 1: I'll clarify. That is actually so true, Like Harry doesn't
Speaker 1: make the movie. That actor could actually be anyone, and like, well,
Speaker 1: I think that's because the character almost doesn't exist. So
Speaker 1: this film is actually about a woman who falls in
Speaker 1: love with a policeman who is gay, is in a
Speaker 1: relationship with a man who you know, runs an art museum,
Speaker 1: and they have this like very intense affair. The woman
Speaker 1: finds out the gay guy, goes to jail, and then
Speaker 1: there's this framing device of years later, the lover has
Speaker 1: had a stroke. The woman brings him into the home
Speaker 1: because she feels guilty. The husband policeman wants nothing to
Speaker 1: do with him. Blah blah blah. But what I wanted
Speaker 1: to say is that I think that Harry's character is
Speaker 1: almost like a cipher in a way, in that I
Speaker 1: don't really understand why these two people love him so
Speaker 1: much that they're willing to go through all this pain
Speaker 1: for him, And I feel like that almost is the
Speaker 1: reason why he has to be played by someone like
Speaker 1: Harry Styles, because you you need that shortcut of like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is one of the most famous people in the world.
Speaker 1: Of course these people are like so madly in love
Speaker 1: with him, when in fact, like he's like a vessel
Speaker 1: for them both to pour their love into. Maryan because
Speaker 1: she like is a young woman who just wants to
Speaker 1: fall in love and here is a guy who like
Speaker 1: treats her very nicely and like is sensitive blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: And then for Patrick, it's like he is a gay
Speaker 1: man in the fifties and his like opportunities to find
Speaker 1: someone to like love in this like small town seemed
Speaker 1: to be like few and far between, and like you
Speaker 1: find out he has a lover who's died, and so
Speaker 1: like the first chance he has to like love someone,
Speaker 1: he takes it, and like it almost doesn't matter who
Speaker 1: that person is for either of them, and yet he
Speaker 1: wrecks both of their lives. Yeah, and they wreck each
Speaker 1: other's lives. Yeah. And actually, you you're kind of pointing
Speaker 1: out something that I kept thinking about that he really
Speaker 1: he's almost like an imaginary friend. Like he's almost like
Speaker 1: he's kind of like if the whole movie feels very epistolatory, right,
Speaker 1: she she's reading through the lover's diaries, and I think
Speaker 1: that's how the book is. Yeah, I could have guessed
Speaker 1: as much, you know, like Virgin's. Also, please note, this
Speaker 1: is not a really a romance. It's a drama, Okay.
Speaker 1: That is it is a sad gay period draw. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's honestly there are three protagonists. Okay. So in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, I really think this is Patrick's movie,
Speaker 1: and I think there's a couple of things that are
Speaker 1: like at war with that. Like I think in the
Speaker 1: way that this movie is being marketed it's Harry's movie.
Speaker 1: In the way that I, at least as um as
Speaker 1: a viewer, experienced it, it is Patrick's movie. And then
Speaker 1: I think the framing of it is Marian's movie, which
Speaker 1: I think is part of the problem because she does
Speaker 1: something truly horrible and gets away with it In a way,
Speaker 1: and we're sort of like asked by the film to
Speaker 1: forgive her and see the if she's lived as this
Speaker 1: man's beard as like a fair trade for the truly
Speaker 1: awful thing that she did, and I I just like
Speaker 1: don't accept that. Like she outd someone and had him
Speaker 1: sent to prison where he was brutalized, And this is
Speaker 1: kind of where we start talking about I think, like
Speaker 1: this whole genre of sad gay period films, Like what
Speaker 1: I didn't understand is what happened in the forty years
Speaker 1: between when Patrick was in prison and when he has
Speaker 1: the stroke and comes to live with them, Because like
Speaker 1: that's where I think the fatal flaw of this film,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure the book that it's based on really is,
Speaker 1: is that are we supposed to believe that he had
Speaker 1: no other opportunity in his life to find a fulfilling
Speaker 1: romantic relationship in those forty years he was just out
Speaker 1: there waiting to have a stroke and be sent back
Speaker 1: to his lover who abandoned him and the woman who
Speaker 1: sent him to prison. Like why does this queer character's
Speaker 1: whole life have to revolve around this extremely painful thing
Speaker 1: that happened to him? That is I think the failing
Speaker 1: of the story as it was written by Bethan Roberts
Speaker 1: in the novel, Like there's no imagination that this person
Speaker 1: could have gone off after this terrible experience and you know,
Speaker 1: lived any kind of fulfilling life. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree with everything you're saying to an extent, and
Speaker 1: like the kind of sad gay period drama has, like
Speaker 1: we've it's been explored, right, Like I don't want to
Speaker 1: be we need it anymore, Like I think we'll always
Speaker 1: need it, But like that that's why you I just
Speaker 1: think that the people who made this film should have
Speaker 1: been more selective about the source material they were adapting.
Speaker 1: Like I would never read this book and be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the gay story we gotta tell on screen.
Speaker 1: Like there are like so many different period dramas past
Speaker 1: and present to adapt from literary source material, hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of stories that you could pick from, and you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this one about the policeman. All I
Speaker 1: think I think it was a big publishing sensations. Of
Speaker 1: course that's a reason. And then if I if I'm
Speaker 1: being generous, I think probably the way that you could
Speaker 1: think about it is like, well, okay, we're graduating to
Speaker 1: at least a sad gay period drama that ends on
Speaker 1: a hopeful note because spoiler alert, it ends with Marian
Speaker 1: leaving and Tom and Patrick seemingly you know, like finding
Speaker 1: their way back to each other. Which no, but but
Speaker 1: but what I'm saying is that I think we understand
Speaker 1: that Hollywood is fucked up and that for a long time,
Speaker 1: the only way that queer stories have been allowed to
Speaker 1: exist in media is if queer people were punished at
Speaker 1: the end of them. That's you know, like the legacy
Speaker 1: of the Hayze Code. But what I'm saying is like,
Speaker 1: if I'm thinking with my like Hollywood hat on, it's like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to keep making sad gay period dramas, but
Speaker 1: will at least let them be like kind of happy
Speaker 1: at the end, you know. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a progression, but I do appreciate you giving credit
Speaker 1: to this story and like what it could what it
Speaker 1: could potentially offer the canon of like sad asked period dramas.
Speaker 1: But to me, your wife of however many years, saying hey,
Speaker 1: it was me who fucked up your life and fucked
Speaker 1: up the life of your lover um ages and ages ago.
Speaker 1: Oh by the way, by I'm abandoning you with your
Speaker 1: ex lover, fuck you, and your ex lover is also
Speaker 1: catatonic and can can't even speak anymore, and you have
Speaker 1: to take care of him. That's not really a happy
Speaker 1: ending to me. So it's not like or in any degree,
Speaker 1: like in any form of progress and so like, and
Speaker 1: so you know, I just like thought that the movie
Speaker 1: was like very indulgent in melodramatic sadness. And that's okay too,
Speaker 1: Like we it's okay to have sad movies. It's okay
Speaker 1: to have sad gay movies. But like, just as I
Speaker 1: said before, like it's not really adding anything to the cannon.
Speaker 1: And so like when we look at the broke back
Speaker 1: Mountains of the world, right, even something like Call Me
Speaker 1: by Your Name or Carol or other period dramas that
Speaker 1: are like in the same breath of like gay dramas
Speaker 1: that we see as oscar Bite, Like all of these
Speaker 1: movies are beholden to their period, and therefore they have
Speaker 1: to like reconcile their straight relationship in order to have
Speaker 1: their romance. And I would just love for queer romance
Speaker 1: on screen to be up against something instead of in
Speaker 1: spite of something, and like this true like wife archetype.
Speaker 1: We've seen this already. We've seen Michelle Williams do this,
Speaker 1: and and and Hathaway or whatever. We've seen like Alicia
Speaker 1: vik Candor do it. We've seen like so many different
Speaker 1: versions of this story where the queer person is some
Speaker 1: thing to deal with. Their queerness is something to deal with,
Speaker 1: something to circumnavigate. It is an obstruction of the plot,
Speaker 1: and we, as the avatar of of the film, as
Speaker 1: the audience of the film, are working around that, right,
Speaker 1: and like I'm just over it. I'm like I really am.
Speaker 1: I'm being like so like kind of spicy about it,
Speaker 1: like I'm actually not that passion. I think it's I
Speaker 1: think it's very fair to have that critique and and
Speaker 1: it has been great to see in recent years, especially
Speaker 1: period pieces that have queerness in them, that don't treat
Speaker 1: queerness as an obstacle. Like for some reason this had
Speaker 1: me thinking of our Flag means Death, which does this
Speaker 1: thing that a lot of contemporary period pieces are doing,
Speaker 1: which is that they include marginalized actors and characters and
Speaker 1: stories about them. But like there are some things that
Speaker 1: do it, like Britain, in which like they just create
Speaker 1: this sort of like race utopia, and then in things
Speaker 1: like Our Flag Means Death, like there still is the
Speaker 1: acknowledgement of the historical context, but the periodtypical homophobia isn't
Speaker 1: used as an obstacle. It's the plot that is the obstacle.
Speaker 1: And like I was just thinking about how at the
Speaker 1: end of the first season of Our Flag Means Death,
Speaker 1: there's an episode where the main character Steed goes back
Speaker 1: to his wife, and his wife is not an obstacle
Speaker 1: in him being in a relationship with the man he's
Speaker 1: in love with. It's his own doubt that is the obstacle.
Speaker 1: And in fact, his wife like wants him to be
Speaker 1: dead and like be out of her life and like
Speaker 1: essensibly like would love him to be off having gay
Speaker 1: pirate adventures. Yeah, it's kind of why I really liked
Speaker 1: a leak of their own right, Like obviously the period
Speaker 1: was an obstacle frequently in the show, but like ultimately
Speaker 1: they're up against like baseball. They're playing baseball games, like
Speaker 1: there's something that they can focus all their energies on
Speaker 1: that is like the primary thing to that for them
Speaker 1: to get around, and their romance is one of the
Speaker 1: many mechanisms that is kind of like moving this thing along,
Speaker 1: and like that's just like what I want to see
Speaker 1: in like a futurity of like queer romance. And I
Speaker 1: obviously I feel um particularly cynical about ones that come
Speaker 1: out in this year of Our Lord two that are
Speaker 1: just doing the same thing that we've been doing since
Speaker 1: Broke Back Mountain. Like Harry is just doing something that
Speaker 1: every cisht celebrity does when their celebrity peaks and they're like,
Speaker 1: what's like the what is the next level of sisman
Speaker 1: celebrity stardom? Oh, I'm gonna play gay to get an
Speaker 1: oscar like and I and I don't I really personally
Speaker 1: don't feel like Harry Styles is as sinister as like
Speaker 1: a lot of people make him out to be on
Speaker 1: like the queer bating like front or whatever. But like
Speaker 1: this movie is so obviously a pr move for awards
Speaker 1: attention that also allows Harry and his team to benefit
Speaker 1: from what will be the debilitating horny nous that his
Speaker 1: fans experience watching this movie. Like like teen so there
Speaker 1: was I saw this movie in theaters and there was
Speaker 1: a group of Harry Styles fans sitting sitting in my
Speaker 1: row and they were very excited about mean girls going
Speaker 1: to go watch like a gay erotic barely I mean
Speaker 1: it's not that erotic, but like a kind of gay
Speaker 1: erotic where like Harry Styles is like the centerpiece of
Speaker 1: like they are in a sedentary state of hormones. Like
Speaker 1: like that is all Harry Styles team is doing is
Speaker 1: like bombarding them, in undating fans with the horniest, most
Speaker 1: erotic possible Harry isms to make them into like just
Speaker 1: completely subjugated sedentary states. That so that like these fans
Speaker 1: can do whatever they want them to do. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, that to me is like a little sinister.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think. I think when it comes
Speaker 1: down to for me is that this is a very
Speaker 1: flawed trope. This is a very flawed thing that we
Speaker 1: see again and again being made the sad gay period
Speaker 1: drama But but the movie but but But at least
Speaker 1: I think this, if it has to exist, it was
Speaker 1: made very well. Like one of the most effective scenes
Speaker 1: for me was when the older Tom and Marion go
Speaker 1: to the grocery store and they see the caregiver there
Speaker 1: with his boyfriend and Tom goes into his car and
Speaker 1: breaks down because he sees, you know, the progress that's
Speaker 1: been made, the life he could have lived, and like, yes,
Speaker 1: it's like more trauma porn, but it was one of
Speaker 1: the most emotionally effective moments for me. I mean, in
Speaker 1: the words of Harry Steles, it was a movie that
Speaker 1: felt like a movie. It was a movie that felt
Speaker 1: like a movie. For sure. I have at many points
Speaker 1: in my life been involved in what I would say
Speaker 1: are sort of you know, like counter cultural movements. I
Speaker 1: have always been kind of like a punk girlly, you know.
Speaker 1: But I think it's interesting how at certain times in
Speaker 1: pop culture those subcultures have almost become the monoculture exactly.
Speaker 1: And I don't think there's any better example of that
Speaker 1: than Indi Sleas. Yes, the movement of what's the era,
Speaker 1: would you say, like twenty early Like I would say
Speaker 1: maybe two thousand nine to two is like peak Indie Sleeves.
Speaker 1: And I think a good way to start this is
Speaker 1: to define what Indie Sleeves is, which will be you know, Harry,
Speaker 1: but we're going to get into it together, you know. Yes,
Speaker 1: Indie Sleeves is in attic It's a vibe it's um
Speaker 1: it's a punch line. It's a punchline. So the things
Speaker 1: that sort of I would say typify it are um,
Speaker 1: you know, grunge, low fi counter culture. But it's this
Speaker 1: very specific counter culture that's through the lens of mass consumption.
Speaker 1: It's counterculture that you can buy at the mall, or
Speaker 1: at least that's what it evolved into. Right. You have
Speaker 1: people that are on the ground floor of like Indie
Speaker 1: Slee's movements that are you know, the real kind of
Speaker 1: punk folks or low five folks who are popularizing things
Speaker 1: like Indie Sleece music or any sleep aesthetic so that
Speaker 1: they can be sold at urban outfitters, are American apparel UM.
Speaker 1: And then as you say, that becomes mass culture, right,
Speaker 1: it's like it's d I Y that became um bu.
Speaker 1: Why it also, you know, Indie slee is because it
Speaker 1: started in two thousand nine. It's very specifically this post
Speaker 1: recession movement UM. And I believe the reason for that
Speaker 1: is because, as we said, like it started as this
Speaker 1: very d I Y aesthetics. So in the wake of
Speaker 1: the Great Recession, no one had any money, so it
Speaker 1: was this aesthetic that you could achieve with very little
Speaker 1: money because it was all about, you know, repurposing the
Speaker 1: aesthetics of older eras. There was a lot of thrifting culture,
Speaker 1: like digging out your parents old vinyl and their old clothes.
Speaker 1: Rich people dressing poor, rich people dressing for But also
Speaker 1: it was the recession, so it was a lot of
Speaker 1: rich people who were poor. For the first time. I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated by the correlation between Indias and the recession, one
Speaker 1: that I had never thought about until you brought it up.
Speaker 1: Like it's all about money, baby, Like that's how everything happens.
Speaker 1: In case the virgins at home are still kind of
Speaker 1: confused by what we're describing, maybe you and I could
Speaker 1: paint a picture of a quintessential Inde sleeves person, like
Speaker 1: what they're wearing, what they're listening to, where they go,
Speaker 1: like just a little baseline, like simple pictures. Yes, So
Speaker 1: I think to do that, we have to say a
Speaker 1: dirty word. Because hipster the two are so inextricably linked.
Speaker 1: So when I think Indias, forget the word hipster. When
Speaker 1: I think India sleeves, I think of someone in a
Speaker 1: flannel shirt, yes, with those like black frame glasses or
Speaker 1: the like, the like Jeffrey Dahmer glasses. Okay, I'm seeing
Speaker 1: I'm also seeing maybe an American apparel circle scarf and
Speaker 1: an American apparel v neck. Yes, that purple that was
Speaker 1: only sold an American apparel A deep V, deep V
Speaker 1: almost down to your belly. But okay, maybe they even
Speaker 1: have an American apparel pleated skirt that they've distressed themselves.
Speaker 1: And you know they had to buy two sizes up
Speaker 1: because American apparel is fatphobic. Yes, and they're obviously wearing
Speaker 1: Um Chuck tail con is Chuck Taylor. They're holding Um
Speaker 1: Doc Martin's, but like Chuck Taylor's, they're holding a coffee
Speaker 1: table book of Terry Richardson's photography and the specifically the
Speaker 1: Lady Gaga. Oh my god, I forgot about there. I know.
Speaker 1: I discovered recently that my brother still owns it, and
Speaker 1: I didn't say anything to him. And Jeffrey, if you're
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast, Terry Richardson is canceled. Look, we
Speaker 1: all know that Terry Richardson's canceled. But one thing we have, like,
Speaker 1: let me tell you the aesthetic that Terry created, um
Speaker 1: like with his photography, we just you know, plagiarize over
Speaker 1: and over again and erase, erase his work in Life Forever,
Speaker 1: which is lovely. Like, I'm glad that we have just
Speaker 1: kind of taken his aesthetic and made it into like nothing.
Speaker 1: And that is, you know, more than I think almost
Speaker 1: anything what has survived from Indy Sleeves. And later in
Speaker 1: an episode we'll talk about the Indy Sleeves revival that's
Speaker 1: currently happening. But I think more than anything, um, Indy
Speaker 1: Sleeves is remembered as an aesthetic. Um. It's also I
Speaker 1: mean that we talked about the Terry richardson so it's
Speaker 1: like the flash photography party photos with water marks on them.
Speaker 1: People in the I mean Kanye West derogatory glasses with
Speaker 1: the slats. Oh my god, the slat glasses. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I saw someone wearing those like a few months ago,
Speaker 1: and I was like, it's it's anything you could have
Speaker 1: bought on the street on St. Mark's place. I have
Speaker 1: a question. Are skinny jeans coming back? Yes? Wait, that's disgusting.
Speaker 1: They are. That's bad. They are coming down St. Mark's.
Speaker 1: I got a tattoo on St. Mark's. And who hasn't
Speaker 1: gotten a tattoo on St. Mark's. I've gotten piercings on St.
Speaker 1: Mark's don't I've gotten I've gotten things sucked and fucked
Speaker 1: on St Mark's. It is probably my least favorite tattoo
Speaker 1: as well. But I did, I did. I mean, I
Speaker 1: fooled myself, Like I went into like a random shop
Speaker 1: and I showed them an image that I found on Tumblr.
Speaker 1: Oh no, but I did ask the artist permission. Thank
Speaker 1: you for bringing up Tumbler, because we can't talk about
Speaker 1: Indy Sleeves without talking about Tumbler, which is truly where
Speaker 1: this movement, this aesthetic, this vibe um originated, festered, festered,
Speaker 1: and festered and grew, and I think really exemplifies the
Speaker 1: duality of Indie Sleeves, which was a movement that was
Speaker 1: about aesthetics and also about media consumption. And there was
Speaker 1: nowhere where that was more present than on Tumbler. Because
Speaker 1: you were defined by your taste level, You were defined
Speaker 1: by the things that you liked and the things that
Speaker 1: you repurposed and reblogged. It's almost as not to jump
Speaker 1: the gun on the thesis, but it's almost as if
Speaker 1: it was the pre eminent fan culture that exists today,
Speaker 1: speed fan culture totally, because there were these two factions
Speaker 1: on early Tumbler, which was the este side of Tumbler,
Speaker 1: which was like soft grunge blogs, remember those where it's
Speaker 1: like literally like an economy that was built off of
Speaker 1: gifts from the Virgin Suicide. Oh my god, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I definitely I'm pretty sure I got my Virgin Suicides
Speaker 1: soundtrack off of a live journal that I used exclusively
Speaker 1: to steal music. And yeah, So there was that holiesthetic
Speaker 1: side of Tumbler, which was you know, like those um
Speaker 1: like mood board esque type posts where it was like
Speaker 1: all different photos of things and quotes on things. That
Speaker 1: that was one side of Tumbler. And then there was
Speaker 1: the fandom side of Tumbler, which was like the fuck
Speaker 1: yeah blogs and the like early Marvel culture. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I I hate, truly hate to bring this up. It
Speaker 1: feels apocalyptic super Hulack. I mean, this was the era
Speaker 1: of of super Hulack, of like the combination of all
Speaker 1: these nerdy interests and people finding a place where there
Speaker 1: were so many other people who were interested in those
Speaker 1: things and they combined and turned into this sort of
Speaker 1: like Hydra esque monster. And so you have these two
Speaker 1: sides of the site battling you know the sides who
Speaker 1: like the like e d Um Tumbler, who wanted to
Speaker 1: like and like the pro Anna accounts, who wanted to
Speaker 1: just like reblog skinny girls in like various outfits. And
Speaker 1: then you have the ones who wanted to like write
Speaker 1: John Lock fan fiction. UM, and those two didn't always
Speaker 1: interact super well, do you know what super hu Luck is? No?
Speaker 1: I actually don't, Okay, I was trying to get gathered
Speaker 1: from context clues and I actually still have no idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this was a time. So who super hu Luck
Speaker 1: is the amalgamation of these three fandoms for Supernatural, the
Speaker 1: c W show Doctor Who, which which was kind of
Speaker 1: at its revival peak with David Tennant with David Tennant
Speaker 1: and Matt Smith of the Dragon Family, and Sherlock, the
Speaker 1: BBC series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, which had
Speaker 1: combined to become this one sort of mega fandom. UM
Speaker 1: paying Tumbler's light bill of course, literally, I mean literally actually,
Speaker 1: like it's funny to think that the Internet was so
Speaker 1: young then, but it really was, like it really was.
Speaker 1: It was. I I don't know that. I guess it
Speaker 1: was Tumbler and like, um, the era of indy sleeves
Speaker 1: almost feels like when the Internet went to college. Oh
Speaker 1: I was in college. That's like crazy, that's actually a
Speaker 1: perfect way of um. Okay, wait, I never watched Sherlock,
Speaker 1: Doctor Who or Supernatural? Did you watch any of those?
Speaker 1: I watched Sherlock, and I was a little I did
Speaker 1: did my toes, and by by my toes, I mean
Speaker 1: most of my legs maybe up to my waist. Um
Speaker 1: into into the fandom I have read, I have read
Speaker 1: some John Luck fan fiction. Sherlock was good in the beginning.
Speaker 1: It's homo social, right, It's like it's not homorotic, it's
Speaker 1: like very it's it's it's a little bit of both.
Speaker 1: They they're so obviously into each other, and everyone on
Speaker 1: the show is constantly asking if there are a couple.
Speaker 1: It's like very explicit in the text. But there's so
Speaker 1: many no homo moments, and there was such a fervor
Speaker 1: for that, and like obviously this was like the beginning
Speaker 1: of Benedict cumber Batch Mania. But if this show happened today,
Speaker 1: like they would have just been a couple. But you know,
Speaker 1: this was still mid adds, so they had to be
Speaker 1: not gay. And like Sherlock was maybe a sexual. Um god,
Speaker 1: the fan fiction for Sherlock must would like, you know,
Speaker 1: kill someone in hospice. Like. But the reason that they're
Speaker 1: what that the fervor was so huge was because this
Speaker 1: was a BBC show, so each series was only two
Speaker 1: or three episodes, and then there would be literal years
Speaker 1: between the series, so there was all this time for
Speaker 1: fans too spiral and write fan fiction and like create
Speaker 1: fan works. It's actually very similar to there's this thing
Speaker 1: in Harry Potter fandom called the three year Summer, which
Speaker 1: is the time between the release of Goblet of Fire
Speaker 1: and Order of the Phoenix because we had to wait
Speaker 1: longer for this book, so it ended up creating more
Speaker 1: fan content. I've never heard that before. Wow, that really
Speaker 1: was a long wait. Did you stay between which books?
Speaker 1: Between Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix? Oh
Speaker 1: my od wait that's also I I can't believe I've
Speaker 1: never thought about this before, but Goblet of Fire is
Speaker 1: the hardest tonal pivot in J. K. Rolling's work. And
Speaker 1: then she's like, you have to wait three years? The
Speaker 1: three year summer is what they call it. It's giving
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones. Um, But so with Sherlock, um that
Speaker 1: kept happening. There would be these long stretches between the seasons.
Speaker 1: Then the final season happened, and there are all of
Speaker 1: these John Locke which is John Watson and Sherlock shippers
Speaker 1: who are convinced that in the final series they're finally
Speaker 1: gonna become Cannon, They're finally going to be together. The
Speaker 1: final episodes happen, they are absolute ass. They suck. The
Speaker 1: show ends, but the shippers won't won't take it as
Speaker 1: fact because they believe that there's gonna be a secret
Speaker 1: final episode that's going to air the week after the
Speaker 1: series finale. This girl should link up with the Galors
Speaker 1: because they are the Glors. It's like, it's just that's
Speaker 1: just what they've evolved into. Um that doesn't happen, And honestly,
Speaker 1: to this day, there are still people who think that
Speaker 1: there's a new Sherlock series is going to come out
Speaker 1: and fix all these problems. I would definitely suggest if
Speaker 1: you're interested in hearing more about this, to go watch
Speaker 1: um Sarah's D's YouTube video on the John Lock conspiracy.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting. We have a lot of versions that
Speaker 1: that watch Sherlock or asked us to do Sherlock. I
Speaker 1: think we've gotten that suggestion more than once. But I
Speaker 1: would I would not. I would maybe watch the first
Speaker 1: season and that's it, like don't don't hurt yourself. It
Speaker 1: really the quality gets real bad um towards the later seasons.
Speaker 1: But as I was saying, you know that Doctor Who
Speaker 1: Supernatural and also this was the very early years of
Speaker 1: the Marvel fandom, and all of those things came together
Speaker 1: in this perfect storm of fandom um as I said,
Speaker 1: festering specific specifically, and then that faction was kind of
Speaker 1: at war with the aesthetic side of Tumbler, which was
Speaker 1: much more I won't say shallow, but it was a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was how a lot of people like
Speaker 1: came to understand their style or steal their style, like
Speaker 1: rip it off from other people. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: Tumbler is all about repurposing someone else's ideas aesthetics, you know,
Speaker 1: and claiming them for your own. And not just that,
Speaker 1: but like it's it's ownership and also like it really
Speaker 1: it's like real real ownership. Like even like the way
Speaker 1: it's kind of like reminds me of the way a
Speaker 1: lot of people think about memes now, where they think
Speaker 1: that like because they like made a meme. It's like
Speaker 1: I have ownership over this image. It's like, actually, we're
Speaker 1: all just like really like I mean, that's just n
Speaker 1: f T culture. Yes, exactly exactly, But like people would
Speaker 1: be like I remember on Tumbler, like people getting into
Speaker 1: fights over like I made this gift and you like
Speaker 1: didn't credit me or whatever, and I'm like, oh my god, babe,
Speaker 1: you put it on the internet. Yeah. And also just
Speaker 1: like you don't own the rights to fucking I don't know,
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings or whatever you like gift. Um, God,
Speaker 1: thank god we're out of the gift woods. You know,
Speaker 1: like I do not want to look at a gift ever.
Speaker 1: I know who posted gifts. Let me tell you old millennials. Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you ran multiple tumblers. I think you've discussed on
Speaker 1: the show before I did so. I had my main tumbler,
Speaker 1: which was just me, are all these these none of
Speaker 1: these are public anymore? No? They all they don't exist anymore.
Speaker 1: I did so. When this is funny because we recently
Speaker 1: talked about true Blood. Um, when True Blood started, I
Speaker 1: was really into it and I I never used it,
Speaker 1: but I got the handle fuck yeah, Anna Paquin because
Speaker 1: you know, fuck yeah blogs were a huge Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone wanted the fun yeah blank you got the first
Speaker 1: the hours that I spent on fuck yeah Lady Gaga
Speaker 1: because you know, like two thousand nine, tumbler Gaga had
Speaker 1: just become a thing. And I would say, like, especially
Speaker 1: after Um the fame monster that was. I mean, I
Speaker 1: spent all my time on Tumbler looking at images of
Speaker 1: Lady Gaga. Um. And I think she, more than any
Speaker 1: other pop star in her field for a very long time,
Speaker 1: was so aesthetics driven, like she was a creative director.
Speaker 1: You knew her as a creative director first beyond being
Speaker 1: an amazing mutic artist, and that obviously translated to tumbler
Speaker 1: culture exquisitely because when she does the paparazzi you know,
Speaker 1: um performance at the MTV Music Awards, or when she
Speaker 1: does the Batterman's music video whatever, those things are like
Speaker 1: crystalline Lee perfect for tumbler culture and obsession over Yeah.
Speaker 1: And she was oooky, spooky, which tumbler loves. And she
Speaker 1: also she was alten. Also, there was this feeling, especially
Speaker 1: in the early years of her career, that it was
Speaker 1: very d I y you know, there was the House
Speaker 1: of Gaga. She was making all of this herself. She
Speaker 1: was like creating things like the flying dress and like
Speaker 1: that kind of ship, so that all of all of
Speaker 1: those things came together, I think, to make her a
Speaker 1: perfect artist for Tumbler. But those fun yeah blogs existed
Speaker 1: for literally everything, Yeah, I didn't have when I said
Speaker 1: before that I had a Beyonce and Salange Tumbler called
Speaker 1: Keeping Up with the Noses. But like I mostly just
Speaker 1: like went to Tumbler too, just to talk from a
Speaker 1: personal perspect if I really um, I found Tumbler at
Speaker 1: a time where I was in a kind of like
Speaker 1: emotionally abusive relationship. Sorry, I didn't mean to actually go
Speaker 1: that deep so quickly, but like I felt so low,
Speaker 1: Like I had a very low opinion of myself. I
Speaker 1: had this boyfriend who was basically like bullying me within
Speaker 1: our relationship every single day. I felt like I and
Speaker 1: I also had just come out like just a year before, essentially,
Speaker 1: and I felt like I didn't even know how to
Speaker 1: be gay quote unquote you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 1: I because I grew up in the Midwest, I and
Speaker 1: because I grew up in this cultural vacuum I left
Speaker 1: to college feeling like I was like starting from square one,
Speaker 1: like as an eighteen year old and getting I got
Speaker 1: a when I got a Tumbler, I didn't tell my boyfriend,
Speaker 1: like I created this whole world and of myself that
Speaker 1: I concealed from you know, this person in my life,
Speaker 1: and it actually set so much of myself free and
Speaker 1: help me find so many of the things that I
Speaker 1: was interested in in tune to um Well, that was
Speaker 1: one of the great things about Tumbler was the anonymity
Speaker 1: of it. Oh my god, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think that like, because you didn't have to put
Speaker 1: your name and face on all this, I could do
Speaker 1: whatever the funk I wanted and it didn't matter. Not
Speaker 1: that I was doing anything crazy on Tumbler, but like
Speaker 1: I mean, you're just like what jerking off? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: But like I think another facet of this is like
Speaker 1: my boyfriend at the time was trying to control my
Speaker 1: aesthetics and the things that I liked and would like
Speaker 1: make me feel bad about music that I listened to
Speaker 1: because he recommended it or would like tell me that
Speaker 1: I couldn't wear certain things or at certain ways. And
Speaker 1: it's like was this your silver hair era? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: oh my god, but that would be perfect for tumbler culture.
Speaker 1: Very sadly an embarrassing an area, very embarrassingly my silver
Speaker 1: hair era was post in thesely um But all that
Speaker 1: is to say is Tumbler creates this really beautiful kind
Speaker 1: of like uh, I guess vacuum, yeah, to kind of
Speaker 1: project and imbue and foster, slash, fester all of your
Speaker 1: kind of cultural desires. And I just feel like tumbler
Speaker 1: culture and a lot of things like it allow users
Speaker 1: to hyper fixate on things to make their whole personality,
Speaker 1: so that the hyer fixation is such a huge part
Speaker 1: of it. And that hyperfixation and the obsession that we
Speaker 1: accrue on something like Doctor Who or Twilight or whatever
Speaker 1: makes you think that because you're an expert on those things,
Speaker 1: you don't actually have to learn basic life skills like
Speaker 1: how to make friends or like how to have a conversation.
Speaker 1: But also a lot of people made friends through tumbling,
Speaker 1: and you know, even though Tumbler was a play where
Speaker 1: you could be anonymous, it was also a place where
Speaker 1: you interacted with people who loved obsessively the things that
Speaker 1: you loved. Obsessively and if you could cross that like
Speaker 1: anonymous internet divide, you could find someone who you might
Speaker 1: be friends with for life. I didn't really make a
Speaker 1: lot of Internet friends because what at the time that
Speaker 1: I was on Tumbler, I was also part of what
Speaker 1: I guess is the I r L counterpart of the
Speaker 1: indie sleeves movement, which was party culture and like the
Speaker 1: aesthetic the like real world aesthetics of indie sleeves. So
Speaker 1: like I had a thriving social life. I was going
Speaker 1: to underground shows, I was going to see you know,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah yeahs, and like I was out in the
Speaker 1: world doing all the things that people were only doing online.
Speaker 1: So I didn't feel like I needed to make friends
Speaker 1: that way. So my first Internet friend was made on Tumbler.
Speaker 1: His name was Ian, and we you know, like became friends.
Speaker 1: And when I moved to New York years later after college,
Speaker 1: Ian was the person that I stayed, that I crashed
Speaker 1: with over the weekend before I moved into my apartment,
Speaker 1: Like I slept on his couch because of Tumbler, which
Speaker 1: is so beautiful and crazy. Um but I to the
Speaker 1: like music component of all of it all. You mentioned
Speaker 1: the yeah yeah yeahs. This was kind of peak Pitchfork
Speaker 1: question Mark or like came at the end of as
Speaker 1: was more Spin Magazine and Ben Nylon Nil is very indy,
Speaker 1: sleep my God. Okay. If there's one thing that I
Speaker 1: jerked it too, it was Jason Schwartzman on the cover
Speaker 1: of Nylon Magazine. Jason Schwartzman. Well, Jason Schwartzman was a
Speaker 1: crush of mine. But more than that was his brother,
Speaker 1: who was the lead singer of Rooney. Do you remember
Speaker 1: the band Rooney? No, I do remember Jason Schwartzman Coconut Records.
Speaker 1: I loved Coconut Records, but Rooney. Rooney is a little
Speaker 1: pre Indi Sleeves. Rooney is like very like California. Um.
Speaker 1: Robert Schwartzman, who's the lead singer songwriter, was Anne Hathaway's
Speaker 1: love interest in The Princess Diaries. Oh, I don't remember
Speaker 1: that guy. Do they both have that? Like? They kind
Speaker 1: of they look very similar, do they both have? Robert's
Speaker 1: a little cuter, he's a little more like traditionally hot,
Speaker 1: but the very similar vibes. And I had such a
Speaker 1: huge crush on him and I once saw Rooney open
Speaker 1: for Fergy in concert. Yeah, it was a weird pairing. Okay,
Speaker 1: not not necessarily a one to one, But since we're
Speaker 1: talking about indie sleeve is I remember driving four hours
Speaker 1: from Indiana to Chicago to watch Janelle Monet open for
Speaker 1: of Montreal, not of Montreal, not crazy, you're sick. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine a world where Janelle Money opens of Montreal?
Speaker 1: I mean, their their collaboration like that, their love for
Speaker 1: each other actually was so beautiful because at least from
Speaker 1: my eyes and where when I was consuming their music
Speaker 1: at the same time, I didn't think they really sounded
Speaker 1: anything alike and that they didn't have anything to do
Speaker 1: with each other. So the fact that they found a
Speaker 1: kind of artistic camaraderie and like work together to build
Speaker 1: each other's careers up, especially at a moment where of
Speaker 1: Montreal is one of the most you know, beloved bands
Speaker 1: in the indiess era. I don't know, there's something about
Speaker 1: that that like crystallizes so much about it's actually really
Speaker 1: wonderful and good. But that was another big part of
Speaker 1: indie sleeves was finding music through other bands, through me,
Speaker 1: through you know, Blango Tech, through Um like Um Brooklyn Vegan,
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Vegan, I think this was a time in my
Speaker 1: life's specifically where I was constantly looking for new music.
Speaker 1: This was like pre Shazam and so I would you know,
Speaker 1: this was the time of like going into an urban outfitters,
Speaker 1: sorry to speaking into existence and like discovering discovering. This
Speaker 1: was a time of discovery. This was a time of
Speaker 1: being like a sponge soaking up new culture. Or you know,
Speaker 1: you walked into Starbucks, you get your your grande a
Speaker 1: blonde roast, and you see the sink the free single
Speaker 1: of the week that you get on your little card
Speaker 1: and you downloaded on it tunes. Do you remember that.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I found I mean, this is you know,
Speaker 1: tweet a different conversation, but I remember discovering probably Ingrid
Speaker 1: Michaelson through Starbucks's or no, I think I discovered Ingrid
Speaker 1: Michaelson through an Apple commercial. There's so many artists like
Speaker 1: that where it's like you kind of discover them on accident.
Speaker 1: Like I know, Pitchfork was kind of at the end
Speaker 1: of any slee but like i UM, I worked at
Speaker 1: this literary and on profit um during these like years
Speaker 1: that I UM was like working in Chicago, and I
Speaker 1: did go to Pitchfork every single year for free because
Speaker 1: I would volunteer for this nonprofit so I could like
Speaker 1: table for them. And I saw so many of these,
Speaker 1: like Quintessential Indi Slee's bands and I I mean, but
Speaker 1: like a lot of them. It's like I wasn't even
Speaker 1: seeing on purpose. Like I think I've seen Beach House
Speaker 1: on accident four times. Beach House Live is so good.
Speaker 1: So I saw them at Coachella and it was one
Speaker 1: of the best shows I saw. It was the only
Speaker 1: time I've gone to Coachella. Um, it was twenty twelve
Speaker 1: and it was that year I saw Beach House. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Grimes and this was like early Grimes. Actually I was
Speaker 1: I saw um Dive Do you remember Dive? Actually? Um,
Speaker 1: I was at a Dive show and it was when
Speaker 1: Sky Feraro dating the lead singer, and she and I
Speaker 1: like danced together because I was okay wait, speaking of Grimes,
Speaker 1: I remember going to Pitchfork to go see Grimes perform
Speaker 1: and sitting in the press or not the press are
Speaker 1: is sitting on the wings of the stage and like
Speaker 1: the VIP area was Lady Gaga sitting there like and
Speaker 1: this is and this is when she is the most famous,
Speaker 1: and I remember gagging. I remember being like Lady Gaga's
Speaker 1: at this Grimes concert. It was like so surreal. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we can't you know, indian, like we can't
Speaker 1: talk about indie sleeves music without like really doubling down
Speaker 1: on the indie part of it. This was this was
Speaker 1: the time in music culture when indie music peaked. And
Speaker 1: I think like the real peak of it was when
Speaker 1: jay Z was spotted at a Grizzly Bear show. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of when when everyone realized that indie music
Speaker 1: had sort of become mainstream. And I think that is
Speaker 1: what like ruined, not ruined, but kind of signaled the
Speaker 1: end of this era of indie music as we know it,
Speaker 1: like has indie acts and bands became actually the biggest
Speaker 1: acts that existed, Like whether it's like Grizzly Bear or
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of like Vampire Weekend. Those shows where huge,
Speaker 1: The shows where huge. Did you see the video of
Speaker 1: Taylor coming out to perform with Boni Ver It just
Speaker 1: happened this week. Oh my god, came out and they
Speaker 1: sang exile, Oh, oh my god, wait I'm in for that.
Speaker 1: Bony Ver decually didn't sound great. Oh that sucks well,
Speaker 1: does she ever? Phone? Um? I Boni Vere was definitely
Speaker 1: the soundtrack to like my college era of depression and
Speaker 1: a very wintry Indiana University, and that those albums are
Speaker 1: more period. I was more of a Fleet Foxes girl,
Speaker 1: if we're talking about sort of the male indie acts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I haven't listened to a man sing music
Speaker 1: and years. Fleet Foxes was definitely my ship. Like I
Speaker 1: love White Winter Hymnoal. I mean the Helplessness Blues is
Speaker 1: an amazing album. Um, I love that album. I can like, honestly,
Speaker 1: we should just like rattle off some more, just like
Speaker 1: so that the virgins at home can like scream to
Speaker 1: remember MGM mgmt um m g m T owned my
Speaker 1: whole The Strokes. I was very much the Strokes pilled.
Speaker 1: I used to go to that. One of the members
Speaker 1: of the Strokes um owned a like secret bar in
Speaker 1: the East Village called Cabin, and my friends and I
Speaker 1: used to go there and it was like they like
Speaker 1: we were like, oh my god, fucking cool. Um do
Speaker 1: you okay? Arcade Fire Where the wild soundtrack? I love
Speaker 1: Arcade Fire? Can I tell you where the Wild Things are?
Speaker 1: The movie The Spike. Well, they didn't do the soundtrack.
Speaker 1: Kareno did the soundtrack to the Where the Wild Things Are.
Speaker 1: All right, Sorry, I'm thinking about the song, the Arcade
Speaker 1: Fire song that was the trailer that, like you know,
Speaker 1: it was like so beautiful and like also catapulted it
Speaker 1: into like even more popularity. But um, yeah, Kareno is
Speaker 1: also in easily very Innasily's era. Obviously, Um, when I
Speaker 1: was working at this literary nonprofit in Chicago, Spike Jones,
Speaker 1: Where the Wild Things Are to me was the pinnacle
Speaker 1: of culture. I had never anticipated anything more in eons
Speaker 1: because I was so obsessed with like obviously Mary Sandek,
Speaker 1: obviously with like the yeah yahs, already obviously with Dave Eggers,
Speaker 1: because Dave Eggers. If we're going to talk about literary
Speaker 1: Indiesle's era is also that kind of like to reign
Speaker 1: of like culture. Um, did you listen to Bride Eyes? No?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, bright Eyes so sad? Were you a
Speaker 1: Belle and Sebastian girly? I? Um, okay, I didn't ledge
Speaker 1: onto Belle and Sebastian as much because I think that
Speaker 1: like the indie acoustic section of indie sleeves for me,
Speaker 1: was all occupied by like Sufian stephens Um and the
Speaker 1: immense discography that he just had already. I feel like
Speaker 1: he came on the scene with seventeen albums, like he
Speaker 1: already had so much work that we had to, like,
Speaker 1: you know, shuffle through. I was never I was never
Speaker 1: a Sufian girl. Um, were you into Damien Rice? Not Damien?
Speaker 1: I wasn't, but some of my best friends were. I
Speaker 1: had suffered through a lot of it, I mean, and
Speaker 1: then then we kind of spin out to the more
Speaker 1: sort of like bluesy parts of it, like Grace Potter
Speaker 1: and the Nocturnals. Remember Potter, Oh bluesy? Okay? Bluesy to
Speaker 1: me is like Tuniards? Did you did you listen to Juniards?
Speaker 1: I think? Honestly, something that's really interesting about what we're
Speaker 1: talking about in the music portion of this convo is
Speaker 1: that indi sleeves is not defined by any specific sound.
Speaker 1: I could argue, right like we have when we have
Speaker 1: genres like pop or country or whatever, Like indie sleeves
Speaker 1: does not faction into a specific sonic thing that you
Speaker 1: can differentiate from other genres because there's overlap. Does that
Speaker 1: make sense? Yeah, Well, because it's all based on being independent,
Speaker 1: being underground, and being in this time period. And also
Speaker 1: a hallmark of Indie sleeves is mash up culture. So
Speaker 1: it's all about these different styles of music taking from
Speaker 1: each other, sampling each other. So like you know, the
Speaker 1: girl Talk a vacation, I was say, did you ever
Speaker 1: see girl Talk? I did see girl Talk. I never
Speaker 1: saw them. I did see sligh bells. You you and
Speaker 1: I have had We've talked about slay bells. I loved
Speaker 1: slay Bells. Perhaps actually no, not, perhaps, without a doubt,
Speaker 1: one of the best live performances I've ever seen. It
Speaker 1: was so so and I not here. It went very hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do think we should talk about the fashion of
Speaker 1: India slaves because that, more than anything, you know, once
Speaker 1: we once we started talking about the India Saves revival,
Speaker 1: I think that more than anything is where we're seeing
Speaker 1: that revival is the aesthetics of this time period. So
Speaker 1: you know, we already referenced it, but American apparel, there's
Speaker 1: nothing more Indi sleeves and also American spirits. It was
Speaker 1: it was part of the I hate American spirit. I
Speaker 1: also think that I was a smoker. I was not
Speaker 1: an American Spirit smoker, and if I asked someone for
Speaker 1: a cigarette and all they had were American spirits, I
Speaker 1: would simply go without you be like, no, thank you,
Speaker 1: I was good, I'm good. I don't want to have
Speaker 1: to fucking roll a cigarette to break it up and
Speaker 1: then choke through smoking it for twenty minutes. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: stage one or whatever. Um, yeah, that that was my
Speaker 1: cigarette choice. I also, honestly, I do think it was
Speaker 1: part of the uniform, you know, because in these college years,
Speaker 1: I was a closet it's like smoker for like almost
Speaker 1: two years. Did you know this? A lot of people
Speaker 1: didn't know that I smoked multiple cigarettes a day. I
Speaker 1: know that you smoke cigarette every time we go on
Speaker 1: vacation and we're buying groceries. But one of us was like,
Speaker 1: should we buy a cigarettes. We're like, we're on vacation,
Speaker 1: and I usually hate it because listen, I quit smoking
Speaker 1: in two thousand seventeen. I like went fully cold turkey.
Speaker 1: It was very easy for me to quit, but I
Speaker 1: had been I had been a social smoker for ten years,
Speaker 1: and now I like to smoke a cigarette like once
Speaker 1: a year to remind myself that I hate them. But
Speaker 1: also and also went. But when I'm on vacation, it's
Speaker 1: a different story. Like when we were on Fire Island
Speaker 1: this summer and bought a pack of camel crushes, I
Speaker 1: was although camel crushes were not my cigarettes of choice
Speaker 1: when I was an active smoker, I was a camel
Speaker 1: filters girl. That's rough, that's kind of gross. And they're
Speaker 1: they're a little hardcore. They're like a little heavier than
Speaker 1: camel lights. Um, okay, But back to the American apparel
Speaker 1: of this, So we're talking skinny jeans, skinny more than
Speaker 1: I think anything. Skinny jeans are what skinny jeans and
Speaker 1: flannel are what this era of fashion was all about.
Speaker 1: But also thinness was what this era of fashion was
Speaker 1: all about actually, and that like as like someone who
Speaker 1: was fat, you know, I mean who is fat and
Speaker 1: was fat during this period in fashion, Like all of
Speaker 1: these places were places that like it was very hard
Speaker 1: if you did not have like a very thin body
Speaker 1: to shop at, but like you know, you found ways
Speaker 1: around it, you found ways to participate. But this was
Speaker 1: a time in culture where thinness was the aesthetic. Like
Speaker 1: I mean we talked about like earlier, you know, e
Speaker 1: edy and like pro Ana tumblers, and like this was
Speaker 1: a time when like we were still using words like
Speaker 1: heroin chic, which is like a very nineties thing, but
Speaker 1: like your sticking out definitely maintained until this period of time.
Speaker 1: And like just like so like I know that, like
Speaker 1: I mean obviously, like eating disorders were totally like permanent
Speaker 1: in the culture, but like brands like American Apparel, I
Speaker 1: feel like Hollister and Abercrombie are also in this category.
Speaker 1: Insidious Lee made things multiple sizes too small, like it
Speaker 1: was actually so I told this story already on our
Speaker 1: last holiday episode with Iron Madison. But I did used
Speaker 1: to work at an American Apparel of course, because I
Speaker 1: feel like it's something of a Brooklyn rite of passage. Um.
Speaker 1: For I feel like a lot of my friends like
Speaker 1: that I know now like have like since come out
Speaker 1: of the closet as people that like work the back
Speaker 1: room at like American Apparel. I worked front obviously of
Speaker 1: course I'm a sales girl. Um. But that because there
Speaker 1: was always that one gay. It was all these like
Speaker 1: thirteen year old girls and one like college gay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one college gay. That's like managing all of them. For actually, no,
Speaker 1: the one college gay. That's reporting to a thirteen year
Speaker 1: old girl who like, you know, really will know maybe
Speaker 1: a sixteen year old Yes, yeah, we probably shouldn't talk
Speaker 1: about thirteen year old girls in the context of American
Speaker 1: over because it all, um, god disgusting, that whole institution
Speaker 1: so gross. And then they like made their company and
Speaker 1: they like bankrupt to their own company and then made
Speaker 1: a new fake shell company called Los Angeles Yes, which
Speaker 1: there and evaded all of their like debt and controversy. Yes,
Speaker 1: the the Starbucks drive through that I go to in
Speaker 1: l A. When you pull through to get your coffee,
Speaker 1: you're sitting your car is parked right in front of
Speaker 1: a billboard for Los Angeles apparel, And it's just the
Speaker 1: same aesthetic, like a skinny white girl with long, dark
Speaker 1: hair and huge eyes in a pair of tube socks.
Speaker 1: Actually is it? Is it? Actually? Um? Is it part
Speaker 1: of the drive through window? Did they hand you your
Speaker 1: grande latte? And also like a pair of high high
Speaker 1: a knee lengthy leggings or whatever. But I had several
Speaker 1: pairs of knee high tubox from American Apparel. I had
Speaker 1: lots of deep v nex, I had lots of circle scars,
Speaker 1: I had three different pairs of these high waisted like
Speaker 1: wrider pants. And the thing about American apparel, I swear
Speaker 1: to God like we were told when if people asked
Speaker 1: about like for care instructions or whatever, like at the register,
Speaker 1: you would tell customers, don't ever wash these clothes. Because
Speaker 1: I'm not joking because literally, the first time you wash
Speaker 1: anything from American apparel, the color immediately bleeds out of it.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's why I had so many pairs
Speaker 1: of these high waisted black jeans, because I had to
Speaker 1: wear things you have to be in head to toe
Speaker 1: American apparel in order to like work there, and those
Speaker 1: are my favorite jeans, and they would after one wash
Speaker 1: would look gray. I will say, I do love an
Speaker 1: American Apparel hoodie. They were so comfy, very comfy, and
Speaker 1: the underwear, the briefs were really good. They were all
Speaker 1: I wore. I'm trying to think if there's any the
Speaker 1: only thing that has like to me still quintessential American
Speaker 1: apparel is the pleated tennis skirt. Because most pleated tennis
Speaker 1: skirts I feel out now are like skirts or they're
Speaker 1: not the right you know, height, or they're like mew mew,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like I don't know, I that's
Speaker 1: the one thing that can't be replaced. But like, but
Speaker 1: like people just need to make more like circle tennis skirts.
Speaker 1: It's like a really simple product, Like why don't why
Speaker 1: does it anybody make more pleaded tennis skirts. So then
Speaker 1: the I would say, the sister of American Apparel when
Speaker 1: we're talking about fashion is Urban Outfitters, And they weren't
Speaker 1: in that conglomerate of things on my Urban Outfitters, right,
Speaker 1: it was anthropology. I think it was just anthropology and
Speaker 1: Urban Outfitters. Okay, okay, Urban Outfitters was Mecca. It was
Speaker 1: my favorite store, Urban out I mean Ryan my you know,
Speaker 1: you know Ryan Um, my friend Ryan and I used
Speaker 1: to call the Urban Outfitters at fourteenth and six Mecca,
Speaker 1: and that was that wasn't an open late Urban Outfitters
Speaker 1: wasn't um. They were open until maybe ten Have you
Speaker 1: ever been? It has since closed, which was honestly devastating
Speaker 1: because I spent so much time, specifically in the sales
Speaker 1: section of that Urban Outfitters. I bought all my gifts
Speaker 1: at Urban, my book collection, Urban, I probably guards yes,
Speaker 1: records of course, record Player, those suitcase record players. I
Speaker 1: got my Hipster Handbook at Urban Outfitters. That was like
Speaker 1: a thing. My mother found my copy of the Hipster
Speaker 1: Handbook when I was in high school. And the handbook,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously it's like very crass and I think
Speaker 1: there's nudity in it, and my mom found it and
Speaker 1: freaked out and threw it in the garbage. Urban Outfitters
Speaker 1: was probably one of the first places where I like
Speaker 1: bought specifically um women's clothing before I transitioned, you know,
Speaker 1: or it was either that or like some thrift store.
Speaker 1: American Apparel was my gateway for that. Similarly, and you know,
Speaker 1: Urban Outfitters like it was a one stop shop for
Speaker 1: hipster culture and apparel because you could buy your skinny jeans,
Speaker 1: your band T shirt, your flannel shirt, a record, a book,
Speaker 1: and then like some fucking stupid poster or like art
Speaker 1: to put on your wall, and a beanie. Although although
Speaker 1: I will say I do think American Apparel had superior beanies.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely. Is there anything that you bought at Urban
Speaker 1: Outfitters that was just like prized to you, whether it
Speaker 1: was a clothing item or something from their gift store,
Speaker 1: I don't even know my answer yeah, I had. I
Speaker 1: had a pair of B D G geans that were
Speaker 1: you know, like I wore them probably every day for
Speaker 1: a year. Oh yeah, when you find a good pair
Speaker 1: of jeans, I used to wear those. And then I
Speaker 1: had a pair of yellow high top converse and this
Speaker 1: like blue and purple flannel button down and that was
Speaker 1: my uniform buttondown for for like the entire year of
Speaker 1: twenty ten. Buttondowns slash cardigans very this era, like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I had so many cardigans. I will never
Speaker 1: I would never in a million years be caught dead
Speaker 1: in a cardigan. Sorry, oh I love a cardigan. I
Speaker 1: do not like cardigan. I have a have a J
Speaker 1: Crue Cashmere Lend cardigan. That is one of my favorite
Speaker 1: articles of cloth. That's a that's a that's a great
Speaker 1: adam of point half. I can't remember the last time
Speaker 1: I was in an urban outfitters. Maybe with the indie
Speaker 1: sleeves revival, um, there will be an urban outfitters revival,
Speaker 1: which I think is you know, like I think now
Speaker 1: we can talk about the resurgence of indie sleeves so um.
Speaker 1: As much as I am not like a huge fan
Speaker 1: of trend forecasting, there are some people specifically on TikTok
Speaker 1: who do it really well. And there's this creator that
Speaker 1: I follow, Old Loser in Brooklyn Um. She makes a
Speaker 1: lot of tik talks about fashion and she is a
Speaker 1: trend forecaster. And this time last year she predicted the
Speaker 1: return of indie sleeves and she really was the first
Speaker 1: person who said this, and in the years since, we
Speaker 1: really have seen it come back. I think, both aesthetically
Speaker 1: and in our media. Um So, I would say that
Speaker 1: the things we're seeing, you know, most of all, are
Speaker 1: like the return of like outdated technology. You know, the
Speaker 1: original in the sleeves it was like record players and
Speaker 1: like polaroid cameras, and um now it's like the girlies
Speaker 1: who are wearing you know, wired iPhone headphones. Wired. Oh yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: The return of ballet flats, which are I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: what I wore my my silver ballet flats are way
Speaker 1: too nice to be called ballet flats. Well, they but
Speaker 1: I mean they are literally ballet. It just feels it
Speaker 1: feels derogatory. But they're also like another thing. They're like
Speaker 1: they're silver and silver and chrome are a big thing
Speaker 1: that's coming back from leaving gold behind. Well, gold is
Speaker 1: like very this thing that's been happening in the past,
Speaker 1: like a couple of years, this whole clean girl aesthetic,
Speaker 1: the Hailey Bieber thing, the like slicked back hair, gold jewelry,
Speaker 1: and now we're going more towards like messy, glittery, dark
Speaker 1: makeup chrome like Effie Stone skins, Vibe skins if we're
Speaker 1: talking about indie sleeves. Skins was the moment. Yeah, And obviously,
Speaker 1: like and mentioned, this is also the resurgence of like
Speaker 1: early ots culture, which is maybe slightly different or has
Speaker 1: like overlap with like indie sleeves because you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm always I've seen I now see so
Speaker 1: many girls out there with haircuts look like they're directly
Speaker 1: from two thousand seven. Well that was so I mean
Speaker 1: looking back at like that's when we saw the revival
Speaker 1: of Y two K. So we have now like this
Speaker 1: everything is cyclical, Everything happens in cycles, and like specifically
Speaker 1: these like twenty year cycles. So we had the resurgence
Speaker 1: of Y two K Mick Blane um, and now we're
Speaker 1: moving into indie sleas it's like this very natural progression um.
Speaker 1: And also you know the indy sleeves movement was, as
Speaker 1: we said the opening of the episode, a direct reaction
Speaker 1: to the Great Recession and what's happening right now. We're
Speaker 1: entering another recession, so of course we're looking to an
Speaker 1: aesthetic that can be achieved with less capital. You can
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram at Like a Virgin, slide into
Speaker 1: our d m s. Tell us what your favorite UM
Speaker 1: indie band is. Tell us what fan tumbler you ran, Um,
Speaker 1: what are you excited about coming back in this INDI
Speaker 1: sleeve as a revival and what do you want to
Speaker 1: stay in the past. How many physical copies of a
Speaker 1: Sufian Stephen's album do you have? Zero? Zero? For me? Um?
Speaker 1: Please leave us a review on Apple podcast It helps
Speaker 1: us out so much. I'm your co host Rose Damn You.
Speaker 1: You can find me anywhere online at Rose Damn You
Speaker 1: and I'm Fran. You can find me at friends, squish co,
Speaker 1: anywhere you like, subscribe to Like a Virgin anywhere you
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Speaker 1: little sassy or salty, it really helps us out. Like
Speaker 1: a Virgin is an I Heeart Radio production our producers
Speaker 1: Phoebe Unter, with support from Lindsay Hoffman, Julian Weller, Jess Crane,
Speaker 1: Chitch and Nikki Eatur Until next week, See you later, Virgins,
Speaker 1: my