Speaker 1: Uh, clothes well designed pieces of material and functional do
Speaker 1: hickies made to protect our fragile parts in safeguard our
Speaker 1: moral decency? Were clothes shield your body from the many
Speaker 1: threats of our environment and the judgmental eyes of fellow humans?
Speaker 1: Pretty simple concept, right, Yeah? No? The history of clothing
Speaker 1: and fashion is fraught with ideas about gender, status and appropriateness.
Speaker 1: Different cultures around the world have different styles of dress
Speaker 1: and different rules around the way they dress. That's always
Speaker 1: been the case, based on geography, access to resources, and tradition,
Speaker 1: among other factors. What someone wears and what someone thinks
Speaker 1: about what someone wears can have layers of meaning. I'm
Speaker 1: Eaves Jeff Coote and This is Unpopular, a podcast about
Speaker 1: the people in history who did not let the threat
Speaker 1: of persecution keep them from speaking truth to power. Quite frankly,
Speaker 1: I've become sick of American conversations around what's right and
Speaker 1: what's wrong when it comes to clothing. Not because I
Speaker 1: think we shouldn't be having these conversations. They often question
Speaker 1: our ideas about sexuality, patriarchy, gender identity, body types, cultural appropriation, sexism,
Speaker 1: able is um, so on, and so forth. I'm just
Speaker 1: tired of seeing how, after all these years of back
Speaker 1: and forth over clothing, we still have our painties in
Speaker 1: a bunch and are persecuting and detigrating people over something
Speaker 1: as harmless as fabric. Bickering over clothing choices just seems
Speaker 1: like such a waste of our precious energy. Idealistic me
Speaker 1: whish is clothing weren't so politicized so that we didn't
Speaker 1: have to worry about it affecting our ability to be accepted,
Speaker 1: to avoid attack, or even to live. It would seem
Speaker 1: that one's right to bodily autonomy and safe self expression
Speaker 1: would be something we'd have settled on by now. Alas,
Speaker 1: clothing choices and trends can still be the focus of
Speaker 1: controversial discussions, ones around what people should and shouldn't wear,
Speaker 1: based on how flattering it is, whether a woman's clothes
Speaker 1: make her more susceptible to sexual assault, how school dress
Speaker 1: codes are sexist and body shaming. It is at the
Speaker 1: center of a controversy. A straight a high school student
Speaker 1: says this outfit got her suspended for two weeks and
Speaker 1: now she won't be able to graduate despite having multiple
Speaker 1: scholarship offers. Which clothes men shouldn't wear in my world.
Speaker 1: Of course, it don't matter enough. He could be against
Speaker 1: could dress are you could be against the with bag
Speaker 1: of pants they don't. I feel like there's no such
Speaker 1: things where their leggings should be worn as pants. We
Speaker 1: have brought in an esteemed pandal of father's right here
Speaker 1: to see if they would allow their orders to wear
Speaker 1: leggings to school. We basically have a rule in the
Speaker 1: Idola household. If it's not worn in the monastery, it's
Speaker 1: not Who can and can't be braw less in public
Speaker 1: should have broad be mandatory for young women in schools.
Speaker 1: That's an issue that's exploding at this all girl private
Speaker 1: school in Montreal after one of them was told to
Speaker 1: cover up when she wasn't wearing a bra. One study
Speaker 1: even suggested that nonconformity and clothing can signal a person's
Speaker 1: high status, a phenomenon to study author is called the
Speaker 1: red Sneakers effect. It's disheartening to see how self limiting
Speaker 1: we can be with something that can be so much
Speaker 1: fun because of arbitrary standards. How have we not loosened
Speaker 1: our collective collars on this issue yet? Of course, part
Speaker 1: of the reason I feel this way is because I,
Speaker 1: like many others, have had my personal battles with clothes
Speaker 1: and culture. I regret to remember the times I was
Speaker 1: worse to wear pantyhose or panty loafers to my Black
Speaker 1: Southern Baptist church. We're being the weird dressing kid just
Speaker 1: wasn't going to work. I get that there are accepted
Speaker 1: conventions of dress we are expected to adhere to when
Speaker 1: we're in certain spaces. Those are deep rooted and there's
Speaker 1: no way we're ripping those out of the ground anytime soon.
Speaker 1: And there are plenty of other people who face clothing
Speaker 1: related challenges that are specific to their cultural group or practice.
Speaker 1: Clothing serves a lot of purposes, not limited to just
Speaker 1: function and adornment. So it really doesn't matter that I'm
Speaker 1: jaded when it comes to cultural conversations about clothing. As
Speaker 1: long as clothing reflects larger societal norms, expectations, and evolution,
Speaker 1: then we have no choice but to recognize the issues
Speaker 1: that clothing illustrates so tangibly. So we're going to go
Speaker 1: back in American history when stuffy and cumbersome were appropriate
Speaker 1: descriptors for the clothing of middle and upper class white people.
Speaker 1: Women's clothing was highly impractical and in the case of
Speaker 1: course sets, even dangerous to one's health, so some women
Speaker 1: decided they would advocate for more rational dress. Two of
Speaker 1: those women who worked for dress reform were Elizabeth Smith
Speaker 1: Miller and A Million Bloomer. Now let me pause here
Speaker 1: to emphasize the fact that dress reform mainly affected people
Speaker 1: who had class and monetary privilege. This was the mid
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, when slavery and its effects were still part
Speaker 1: of American life, so when looking at the issue of
Speaker 1: dress reform, we have to put it into perspective. There
Speaker 1: were absolutely bigger fish to fry than high class women's
Speaker 1: corsets being too tight in skirts being too wide. That
Speaker 1: isn't up for debate and fact. Many of the women
Speaker 1: involved in dress reform were also first wave feminists, and
Speaker 1: they realized that even within their social groups, there were
Speaker 1: other issues they found more pressing that they would rather
Speaker 1: focus on and wearing comfortable clothing rather than ostentatious, uncomfortable
Speaker 1: yet fashionable clothing. What's definitely not a fight working class folks,
Speaker 1: impoverished people, and slaves were worried about. For many people,
Speaker 1: worries about clothes until having clothes to wear at all,
Speaker 1: and all of that's not to mention the long history
Speaker 1: of people bucking dress norms on a singular skill to
Speaker 1: do things like escape slavery and get jobs or better wages.
Speaker 1: If we're being straight up, dress reform was not the
Speaker 1: most pressing issue of the day, and it was not
Speaker 1: the most noble movement out of all of them. On
Speaker 1: top of that, progress in dress reform could belie other
Speaker 1: societal problems around gender, and the body that said that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it wasn't important. It is totally possible for
Speaker 1: more than one issue to be addressed at a time
Speaker 1: in a country, and those issues may have varying degrees
Speaker 1: of gravity and urgency. Dress reform was intertwined with the
Speaker 1: movement for women's rights, and as a matter of gender iniquity,
Speaker 1: it managed to raise awareness about the relevance of women's
Speaker 1: clothing that was more practical and less restrictive socially and physically.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Smith Miller and Amelia Bloomer were both activists outside
Speaker 1: of dress reform, but their willingness to adopt unaccepted clothing
Speaker 1: at the risk of being rejected, and the hopes of
Speaker 1: introducing more sensible dress was admirable. If a problem exists,
Speaker 1: no matter how small, there's potential that it can be solved.
Speaker 1: Amelia and Elizabeth chose to work on the issue of
Speaker 1: dress reform for several years of their lives, and they
Speaker 1: were often ridiculed for it. Though dress reform didn't fully
Speaker 1: take off due to their efforts and fashion didn't meaningfully
Speaker 1: changed until decade later, they recognized the need for progress
Speaker 1: and we're kind of ahead of their time. After this break,
Speaker 1: we'll dig into exactly what Elizabeth and Amelia were up against.
Speaker 1: Reserved with something many upper and middle class women in
Speaker 1: mid nineteenth century America were not when it came to clothing.
Speaker 1: Contemporary custom called for dramatic floor length dresses. Women sauntered
Speaker 1: around and literally breathtaking corsettes and heavy skirts filled out
Speaker 1: with several petticoats so their top half looked like a
Speaker 1: coke bottle and their bottom half looked like a lampshade.
Speaker 1: The stiff petticoats could weigh up to fifteen pounds. As
Speaker 1: someone who couldn't step foot in a stiletto and generally
Speaker 1: finds tight clothing a hassle, if not insufferable, I couldn't
Speaker 1: imagine being so burdened by such excess, but they ord
Speaker 1: for the sake of modesty, decorum, and keeping up with
Speaker 1: the sensibilities of the time. And when I say endured,
Speaker 1: I'm not just talking about the discomfort these women experienced.
Speaker 1: These dresses affected the way they interacted with their environments
Speaker 1: and caused actual health complications. Women overheated had trouble breathing,
Speaker 1: tripped over stairs, had their organs crushed, swept up the
Speaker 1: garbage on city streets with their skirts, and got caught
Speaker 1: in carriage wheels and factory machines, and even caught fire
Speaker 1: due to their huge Crinolines. Krinolines were stiff skirts or
Speaker 1: under skirts, also known as hoop skirts. It would be
Speaker 1: slapstick comedy if it weren't actually hurting real women, but
Speaker 1: a lot of people, including people who didn't wear the
Speaker 1: unweldy outfits, realized just how absurd dealing with all of
Speaker 1: this was. Cartoons, often made by men, mind You, poked
Speaker 1: fun at the size of women's skirts and a double
Speaker 1: hit to the anti garretting phenomenon and the krinoline praise.
Speaker 1: One illustration from an eighteen fifty six issue of Punch,
Speaker 1: for instance, shows a seedy looking guy narrowly missing his
Speaker 1: opportunity to strangle a guy in the top at The
Speaker 1: caption reads Mr Trumbull borrows a hint from his wife's
Speaker 1: krenoline and invince what he calls his patent anti Garrett overcoat,
Speaker 1: which places him completely out of harm with reach and
Speaker 1: his walk phone from the city. In this way, the
Speaker 1: constraints these outfits set on women's movement and the detriment
Speaker 1: they had on women's health were symbolic of women's confinement
Speaker 1: to ideals of vanity and domesticity. Not all women had
Speaker 1: it out for corsets and ever growing petticoats. Some upheld
Speaker 1: the exaggerated shapes as models of femininity and sophistication and
Speaker 1: crucial parts of their beauty and health regimen. Regardless, a
Speaker 1: vocal group of women involved in the temperance, suffrage, health reform,
Speaker 1: and women's rights movements took up the cause of transforming
Speaker 1: women's clothing that involved less calculated risk and more comfort.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Smith Miller was the daughter of abolitionists and Carol
Speaker 1: Fitzhugh and Garrett Smith. They were a wealthy family, and
Speaker 1: Elizabeth spent a lot of time in huge houses and
Speaker 1: engaged in what she called rousing arguments at Peterborough that
Speaker 1: made social life seemed tame and profitless elsewhere. The Smith's
Speaker 1: home in Peterborough, New York was a station on the
Speaker 1: underground railroad, so Elizabeth sometimes conversed with people who were
Speaker 1: attempting to escape slavery. Being in this environment influence Elizabeth's
Speaker 1: perspective and in part inspired her social advocacy, and she
Speaker 1: donated time and money to the movements for suffrage in
Speaker 1: women's rights. At the same time, Amelia Bloomer was taking
Speaker 1: on social issues important to her. She wrote articles about temperance,
Speaker 1: or abstaining and drinking alcohol, and joined temperance organizations. She
Speaker 1: went to the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty eight, though she was still pretty conservative
Speaker 1: at the time and her views didn't completely align with
Speaker 1: the sentiments of the meeting, and in eighteen forty nine
Speaker 1: she started the newspaper The Lily. When the newspaper started out,
Speaker 1: it was focused on temperance and created for distribution among
Speaker 1: women in the Seneca Falls Ladies Temperance Society. Amelia thought
Speaker 1: that writing was more appropriate for women to voice their
Speaker 1: ideas as opposed to speeches she said about women in
Speaker 1: temperance in the first issue. Surely she may, without throwing
Speaker 1: aside the modest refinements which so much become her sex,
Speaker 1: use her influence to lead her fellow immortals from the
Speaker 1: destroyer's path. But soon the newspaper began including articles on
Speaker 1: other subjects. Elizabeth Katie Stanton, a suffragist and activists who
Speaker 1: was also Elizabeth Smith Miller's cousin, began writing pieces for
Speaker 1: the paper on childbearing, education, and later women's rights. Stanton's
Speaker 1: calls for changes to the way women were treated helped
Speaker 1: motivate Amelia to become involved in the movement. Amelia advocated
Speaker 1: for women in other ways, but she's best known for
Speaker 1: her role in dress reform. After going back and forth
Speaker 1: with the Seneca County Courier editor, who had proposed that
Speaker 1: women wear pants because their dresses were a nuisance and
Speaker 1: harmful to their health, she grew partial to the idea
Speaker 1: of donning a new suit. Amelia began to support wearing
Speaker 1: more functional attire, which consisted of a dress that came
Speaker 1: just below the knee, a loose bodice or none at all,
Speaker 1: and a pair of trousers that gathered at the ankle.
Speaker 1: In an article in the Chicago Tribune, she recounted her
Speaker 1: journey to adopting the costume. She said, about this time,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Smith Miller, daughter of Congressman Garrett Smith, appeared on
Speaker 1: the streets of our village dressed in short skirts and
Speaker 1: full Turkish chowders. She came on a visit to her cousin,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Katie Stanton, who was then a resident of Seneca Falls.
Speaker 1: Mrs Miller had been wearing the costumes some two or
Speaker 1: three months at home and abroad. Just how she came
Speaker 1: to adopt it, I have forgotten if I ever knew.
Speaker 1: Amelia saw Elizabeth Katie Stanton wearing the short skirt and
Speaker 1: satin chouders get up too, and Amelia figured she would
Speaker 1: walk the walk and not just talk to talk. So
Speaker 1: she started wearing the Bloomer suit, as it would become known,
Speaker 1: and announced the switch to readers of The Lily. She
Speaker 1: wasn't the first person in the world or even the US,
Speaker 1: to wear that style of clothing. People in water cure santatoriums,
Speaker 1: and in religious and utopian groups in the early nineteenth
Speaker 1: century dressed similarly and up to the European and American
Speaker 1: women were similar panto letts since the seventeen hundreds. Miller's
Speaker 1: chouders resembled those that women war in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: Central Asia, and the Oneida tribe. It's not clear exactly
Speaker 1: how Miller came up with her design, but there's a
Speaker 1: good chance she pulled from examples in utopian communities or sanatoriums.
Speaker 1: But this time, unlike many other instances, women's dinning of
Speaker 1: the Bloomer suit was not innocuous. It was a direct
Speaker 1: challenge to contemporary social conventions, which dictated that wearing trousers
Speaker 1: in public was for the eyes only. Amelia argued that
Speaker 1: women's over the top dresses limited their access to physical
Speaker 1: activities and ensure that women remained subordinate to men. The
Speaker 1: outfit caught on, and Amelia was amazed at the fear
Speaker 1: she had caused. As she put it, Bloomer expounded on
Speaker 1: the benefits of the costume and subsequent issues of the Lily,
Speaker 1: and women's rights advocates began to believe that removing those
Speaker 1: layers of oppressive clothes was an important part of their
Speaker 1: effort to reject the confines of a male dominated society.
Speaker 1: Women began sending letter as to Amelia asking her for
Speaker 1: patterns to make the outfit. The Lily circulation went from
Speaker 1: five hundred a month to four thousand. There were Bloomer
Speaker 1: balls and Bloomer festivals, and Amelia began wearing the outfit everywhere,
Speaker 1: at lectures, at parties, at church, and in the office.
Speaker 1: Amelia said in The Lily, those who think we look
Speaker 1: queer would do well to look back a few years
Speaker 1: at the time they wore ten or fifteen pounds of
Speaker 1: petticoat and bustle around the body and balloons on their arms.
Speaker 1: Then imagine which cut the queerest figure they or we.
Speaker 1: Amelia Bloomer got a lot of the credit for wearing
Speaker 1: the dress and trousers outfit, hence it being named after her,
Speaker 1: but Amelia has acknowledged Elizabeth Smith Miller as the originator
Speaker 1: of the style when it came to dress reform in
Speaker 1: America in England, and she said that if it weren't
Speaker 1: for Miller, neither she nor Stanton would be trapesing around
Speaker 1: in the controversial garb anyway. So it wasn't because of
Speaker 1: a milius lack of humility that people rallied around the
Speaker 1: name Bloomers for the new costume. Anyway, her last name
Speaker 1: is pretty fitting for those billowy pantaloons. So Bloomers were
Speaker 1: hot stuff for many people, but not most people. The
Speaker 1: women who dared to wear pants in public in lieu
Speaker 1: of dresses that sacrificed health for social decency weren't going
Speaker 1: to get away with their rebellion that easily. Many women
Speaker 1: chose not to wear or support the outfit because they
Speaker 1: found it ridiculous or undignified, because they weren't interested in
Speaker 1: just reform, because their families begged them not to, or
Speaker 1: any other reason. But women who did wear it were
Speaker 1: subjected to lots of ridicule and criticism. Some people said
Speaker 1: that bloomer wearers were only homely women trying to get
Speaker 1: men's attention. Some critics said the bloomer suits erased any
Speaker 1: trace of appeal or mystery in the women who wore them,
Speaker 1: which could be destructive to the prospering of American families.
Speaker 1: Bloomer wearers were accused of trying to become men, inspiring
Speaker 1: fear in the hearts of people who couldn't stand the
Speaker 1: thought of any disruption to gender roles. Women were harassed
Speaker 1: and embarrassed in the streets, often afraid to go out
Speaker 1: in bloomers due to fear of being scorned or even
Speaker 1: mobbed for being so bold. An article in the October
Speaker 1: sixty one issue of the newly founded New York Times
Speaker 1: described the quote dubious reception to the new style in
Speaker 1: London and may clear the fear of a slippery slope,
Speaker 1: leading to an uprising of liberated women. For if the
Speaker 1: fair sex emancipate themselves from the tyranny of custom and costume,
Speaker 1: what may they not do next? One journal hits very
Speaker 1: ill naturely that the new dress is best adapted for
Speaker 1: a particular class of ladies, who, poor things have a
Speaker 1: deal of street walking, would find the bloomer costume quite
Speaker 1: a blessing, since its adaptation to outdoor exercise is insisted
Speaker 1: on as one of its chief recommendations. If it be
Speaker 1: once patronized by the class in question, I need not
Speaker 1: say it will have no chance with any other. One might,
Speaker 1: in fact, sooner abridge our liberties than curtail the female petticoats,
Speaker 1: and alter the constitution more easily than affect a radical
Speaker 1: change in feminine costume. So yeah, I need not go
Speaker 1: through any more insulting comments filled with archaic thought. For
Speaker 1: you to get the picture, women plus Bloomers equals bad, terrifying,
Speaker 1: and somehow worse than stripping our freedoms. After the break,
Speaker 1: we'll get into the downfall of the Bloomer costume. We
Speaker 1: all felt that the dress was drawing attention from what
Speaker 1: we thought of far greater importance, the question of woman's
Speaker 1: right to better education, to a wider field of employment,
Speaker 1: to better remuneration for her labor, and to the ballot
Speaker 1: for the protection of her rights. In the minds of
Speaker 1: some people, the short dress and woman's rights were inseparably
Speaker 1: connected with us. The dress was but an incident, and
Speaker 1: we were not willing to sacrifice greater questions to it.
Speaker 1: Amelia wrote that in the Chicago Tribune article I mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: By eighteen fifty nine she had ditched the costume, and
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Katie Stanton only wore the Bloomer suit for about
Speaker 1: two or three years after her father and friends convinced
Speaker 1: her to retire the ensemble. The trend didn't last for
Speaker 1: even a decade. Bloomer's unpopularity in the derision that brought
Speaker 1: on the women who wore them discouraged women from wearing
Speaker 1: the outfit and ultimately led to its faith into relative obscurity,
Speaker 1: though advocates of health reform did continue to embrace similar
Speaker 1: costume throughout the eighteen fifties and sixties. So Bloomers had
Speaker 1: fallen by the wayside, but cage cunolines were growing in popularity.
Speaker 1: Those were lighter and more flexible, and gave women a
Speaker 1: better range of mobility as compared to the hot and
Speaker 1: unhygienic layered petticoats of previous years. According to the Ladies
Speaker 1: newspaper of eighteen sixty three, so perfect are the wave
Speaker 1: like fans that a lady may ascend a steep stare,
Speaker 1: lean against the table, throw herself into an armchair passed
Speaker 1: to her stall at the opera, and occupy a further
Speaker 1: feet in the carriage, without inconveniencing herself or others, and
Speaker 1: provoking the rude remarks of observers, thus modifying in an
Speaker 1: important degree all those peculiarities tending to destroy the modesty
Speaker 1: of English women. And lastly, it allows the US to
Speaker 1: fall in graceful fold. Many women, including Bloomer herself, were
Speaker 1: content with wearing these and cage crinolines were inexpensive, worn
Speaker 1: by working class and black women. That meant that they
Speaker 1: also came to signify women's shifting position in society, and
Speaker 1: they challenged racial and class hierarchies. A Bloomer light costume
Speaker 1: did come back decades later as athletic wear. Dress reform
Speaker 1: continued after the Civil War and fashion standards eased up
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen hundreds. Miller and Bloomer continued to
Speaker 1: be active in social movements, but the fervor for Bloomers
Speaker 1: have been relatively short lived. Clearly, Bloomerism and dress reform
Speaker 1: really scared some people who saw it as a gateway
Speaker 1: drug to more rights for women. Someone and at the
Speaker 1: time did view dress reform as inextricably linked with the
Speaker 1: women's rights movement. To them, choosing new dress that anticipated
Speaker 1: a shift in women's roles, rights, and power was a
Speaker 1: significant action. But others just saw Bloomerism as a byproduct
Speaker 1: of the real work that needed to be done for women.
Speaker 1: So dress reform took a back seat, and that's valid.
Speaker 1: While fashion can be a great visual signifier of social progress,
Speaker 1: cultural autonomy, and identity, that symbolism can't belie real gender
Speaker 1: class and race issues still at play based on who
Speaker 1: gets to wear the fashion, how and where they wear it,
Speaker 1: and how they're treated when they do wear it. Even
Speaker 1: Bloomer was conservative, as she didn't take to the liberal,
Speaker 1: religious and abolitionist views many of her peers did. Let
Speaker 1: me remind you again that this period of dress reform
Speaker 1: and women's rights activism took place while women who were
Speaker 1: still enslaved were not concerned about having the freedom to
Speaker 1: ditch corsets and wear pantaloons in public, and that Native
Speaker 1: Americans were often being forced to give up their traditional
Speaker 1: dress in favor of European clothes. To this day, conversations
Speaker 1: around what people wear and what it signifies about their background, ideas,
Speaker 1: and identity are often contentious, and they can devolve into
Speaker 1: cultural shaming and public mockery. And he said, why are
Speaker 1: you wearing that? You know, really my favor? Why are
Speaker 1: you wearing that? Take it off? And then the next
Speaker 1: thing I realized is we're both of my scuff from hand.
Speaker 1: Just try to remove it. There have been strides in
Speaker 1: American fashion, like clothes created with religious practices in mind,
Speaker 1: gender neutral clothing, clothes that cater to people with disabilities,
Speaker 1: and clothes created for a wider range of body sizes
Speaker 1: and tights. But clothing choices still invite stigma and judgment,
Speaker 1: and people are still confined by social norms and strea.
Speaker 1: Some people are ridiculed for what they wear when they're
Speaker 1: not even trying to be subversive. So yes, Bloomerism did
Speaker 1: not have an immediate impact in terms of it meaningfully
Speaker 1: changing women's lives, and it operated and privileged spaces. But
Speaker 1: a million Bloomer and Elizabeth Smith Miller both used clothing
Speaker 1: as a vehicle to defy the constraints that were part
Speaker 1: of their lived experiences, and they stepped out on the
Speaker 1: limb and endured backlash in service of a goal that
Speaker 1: was bigger than just them. In the end, they showed
Speaker 1: how a few people's personal descent can galvanize many, and
Speaker 1: that has the potential to change minds and societies around
Speaker 1: the world. Andrew Howard is our producer. Holly Fry and
Speaker 1: Christopher hasiotis our our executive producers. If you're not already subscribed,
Speaker 1: you can make sure you never miss an episode by
Speaker 1: subscribing to the show on Apple Podcasts, to I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app or wherever you get your Podcasts. We'll be
Speaker 1: back next week with another episode of Unpopular m