Red Team/Blue Team
Podcast announcement, politics, and book club dates
Note: I’m doing a special eight week long podcast series! I wanted to try “diversifying” in case TikTok goes down again. The first episode analyzed Love is Blind and The White Lotus, but episode two focused on The Politics of Ugliness, and episode three focused on American Cheating, Gossip and the alt-right—clearly a hot topic, as I’ve seen a few others cover it as well. Follow on YouTube, Spotify or Apple!
“Are we really going to talk about Trump tonight?” — Mike White is a genius for packing so much into nine words.
On March 2nd, The White Lotus aired the third episode of season three, “The Meaning of Dreams”. The season has been more of a slow burn than the first two, but I’m absolutely locked in (so locked in I’m talking about it every week).
Season three introduces us to three childhood friends: actress Jaclyn Lemon (a sly, slinking Michelle Monaghan), frazzled New York attorney Laurie (the brilliant Carrie Coon), and Austin society wife Kate Bohr (a transcendent Leslie Bibb, criminally underrated). To everyone with eyes, it’s clear the women have little to nothing in common aside from the weight of their shared history1. Someone on TikTok has taken to calling them the three gossiping divas, as every time one of them leaves the room, the other two savage her. Jaclyn was crucified for her vanity, Laurie for her failures as a wife (she’s divorced and paying her ex-husband alimony) and mother (her daughter is a biter). We know Kate’s time is coming: what will her sin be?
“The Meaning of Dreams” shows us a conversation about feminism and religion that quickly goes awry. In a subtle dig at “coastal elites”, Laurie and Jaclyn discuss their issues with organized religion, declaring it regressive. Kate jumps in to say she’s been attending church every Sunday alongside “nice people. Really good families.” Laurie and Jaclyn exchange a glance before asking about Kate being surrounded by Trumpies, where it’s revealed that Kate likely voted for Trump.
The conversation capped off a week where conversations about politics were inescapable. As trans people suffer under draconian executive orders and federal funding was slashed for thousands of federal employees (releasing them into the worst job market since the Great Recession) a subreddit devoted to a hit podcast found itself undergoing its own political crisis.
r/Gigglysquadpodcast is “a Subreddit to discuss weekly Giggly Squad podcast episodes & related topics”. Giggly Squad began in 2020, helmed by comedian Hannah Berner and “fashion” influencer (note: look up her outfits and you’ll understand the quotes) Paige DeSorbo. Paige and Hannah starred on Summer House together (I did a comprehensive deep dive of the show here), with the name of the podcast having been lobbed at them as an insult by the odious Kyle Cooke during an argument.
Something must have been in the air on March 2nd. A few hours before The White Lotus aired, a user took to Reddit to beg the Gigglers (the name given to fans of the podcast) to stop discussing politics. It takes an exceptional level of privilege to say that any and all discussions of everything going on should occur outside of your earshot: I’ve written about how algorithmic social media has made it so people are unable to differentiate between content that is for them and content that shouldn’t exist. I want to repeat: this woman’s solution to seeing people discuss politics wasn’t to scroll away or hide political content or ignore it altogether. Her solution was to tell everyone to stop talking about politics, full stop. She didn’t want to see it, therefore everyone else should shut their mouths. The gall! The comments quickly turned on her (thank god), proving that not everyone on the sub was operating under the same apolitical delusion.
It’s fascinating to see who believes they’re unaffected by politics and who has their finger on the pulse. When Paige went through a breakup a few weeks ago, she made it a point to say that starting over in your thirties is a political act, and society shouldn’t force women into marriage and motherhood simply because they’re women. Is this not a political statement? Paige has made her brand Buzzfeed feminism (boys are bad! Girls rule! She loves sleeping and snacks!) which, in a way, could be seen as a very rudimentary political stance. Her new positioning as modern girlboss clearly resonates with fans—it’s interesting to see what passes muster as “political”.
I would be remiss not to mention the other scandal the Gigglers went through this week. Paige and Hannah were chosen to host the Vanity Fair Oscars Livestream, an incredible honor. In an interview with Meg Thee Stallion, Hannah took it upon herself to do an accent and say Meg’s music makes her want to fight. This interaction was quickly interpreted as a microaggression, and BlackTok dragged Hannah through the mud. Meg (famously) has said she is too pretty to fight—her music is for feeling yourself, feeling your oats, feeling sexy, and feeling confident. Hannah didn’t apologize for three days, and then released an Instagram Story apology that she also read on the podcast, but the damage was done— her gaffe was picked up by national outlets.
On the subreddit, things went from bad to worse. Dozens of threads popped up defending Hannah, saying that it was an innocent mistake and people are too quick to make things racial. From the outside, it’s unsurprising: to many white Americans, the accusation of racism is more potent and terrifying than actual racism. Any microaggression or mistake is brushed under the rug to protect the reputation of the well meaning white person. Conversations about cancel culture are interesting because people impacted by microaggressions are often inundated with hundreds of people rushing to explain how we’re misunderstanding, how they didn’t mean it, how we’re far too quick to cancel someone, etc. The subreddit descended into chaos with people taking sides: should Hannah apologize? Were her comments racially insensitive? Why are we trying to ruin her life over a simple mistake?
People with marginalized identities are familiar with the song and dance, but analyzing the subreddit is fascinating to me. It’s validating on a sociological level to see macro level conversations playing out in real time: the rush to protect the feelings of the person being offensive, the protection offered by stans due to celebrity culture, the infighting among people who all consider themselves well meaning. Two things can be true at once: someone can make a racially insensitive mistake without donning a white hood. (The apology was a 5/10 on the scale: clearly workshopped, but ultimately acceptable. Taking the loss is always easiest in these situations.)
This season of Love is Blind is bad on every level, but the theme of the season emerged during the last few episodes. The Minneapolis edition of the show featured deeply bland people being puppeteered by overbearing parents and siblings, a couple who bonded over loving Taco Bell and Christmas, and multiple conservative men lying about their political affiliations in order to secure partners.
This trend is shown out in the data: men have grown increasingly conservative while women have grown increasingly liberal. TikTok and Reddit are full of dating horror stories about men worming their way into women’s lives and lying about their voting patterns. Two separate posts on the Love is Blind subreddit illustrate this point perfectly: when a woman chose to break up with her partner due to his belonging to an anti-LGBTQ+ church (her sister is queer), people said she wouldn’t give him a chance due to liberal moralizing and “virtue signaling”. She didn’t try to change his mind or make him experience other worldviews: she walked away, yet somehow this is the greater sin. If conservative men are so convinced of their moral righteousness, why do they hide their political beliefs when dating? Why not date people who agree with them? It’s hard to understand the virulent, passionate disdain conservatives claim to have for liberals when they seem keen on invading every facet of public life.
When I discussed The White Lotus, I talked about norm breakers: people who break or bend the rules and want to be celebrated, rather than chastised for it. Modern conservatives will say liberals are intolerant of their beliefs when liberals say they don’t want to associate with people who are racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, etc. They want to openly vote for and champion people with beliefs and voting patterns that directly impact people’s identities and say that it’s not a big deal—it’s only politics. It feels increasingly glib to say the personal is political, but women, queer people, immigrants, and other marginalized folks are forced to both prove their humanity, explain their hurt feelings, and be tolerant of people trying to take their rights.
In The Year Losers Won, I wrote about how modern discourse is becoming increasingly fraught due to the rigid polarization we’re all experiencing on television, on the internet, and in our daily lives. Many liberals believe they’ve found the correct solution by removing themselves from the equation, leaving conservatives free to hoot and holler to their heart's content. Every space has become infiltrated by people who ostensibly have everything: culture is more conservative than ever, with fashion and social norms following the slow creep of traditionalism in the last decade (especially the last five years) but winning isn’t enough. It feels like conservative capture: they want to dominate culture and politics while being told how smart and brave they are every thirty seconds.
Polarization will continue as this administration continues tearing down governmental apparatuses that help the country run. Conservatives will often say liberals are being dramatic and hysterical when they accurately predict the intentions of this administration, and then turn around and call them whiny babies when they’re proven correct. I’ll end with this: online, I only see one party begging for people to take them seriously and throwing tantrums when they’re met with derision. The next time I see a conversation get heated, I’ll be sure to step in and tell them to chill: it’s not a big deal. It’s only politics, right?
Morality Slogans
TTB Book Club: I’m so sorry I’ve dropped the ball this badly! Q4 was hard, Q1 was harder. I’m going to continue doing monthly meetings online, but IRL will happen every other month (maybe monthly during the summer since we can meet outside). I didn’t love Euphoria, but let’s get it out of the way: the next online meeting will be 3/23 at 11 AM, and IRL will be 3/26 at 6:30 PM. Location will be in your inboxes Thursday!
Gavin Newsom publicly breaking with the Democrats on trans people in sports is worrying but unsurprising. The data shows that people are becoming more conservative when it comes to this as time goes on, not less: the vast majority of this country simply does not agree with the overall party line. I think leaders should lead on social issues, not simply follow the court of public opinion, but clearly I’m in the minority.
Is Gen Z Bad at Going to Bars? (Yes.) I think it’s becoming exceedingly clear that an entire generation’s social capabilities were crippled by the pandemic, and spending time in public will prove this to you very quickly. I was in DC last weekend and the way the Gen Z kids acted around the drag queen… terrifying. The data is showing that the kids are bad at dating, making friends, existing at work, going to concerts, and being chill.
I feel like I make and consume so much content that it’s hard to round it up in an effective way, but I’ll start rounding up any video content that’s interesting here.
My video on My Friends Abandoned Me When They Had Kids (The Cut) got one million views and effectively just became another space on the internet for mothers and child-free people to do battle. The point I made in the video is that often, couples will drop people way before they have kids and then act shocked when they don’t have a “village” to help with their newborns. Spend time with any friend group in their thirties and you’ll see I’m right: the issue isn’t mothers or newborns, it’s the culture of isolation due to reverence of the nuclear family I talked about in The Sociology of Begging Someone to Marry You and the American obsession with romantic partnership. If you drop all your friends the second you get a partner, why are you shocked you… don’t have friends now that you have kids? Coupled people need to do inventory of the way they effectively cease communicating with people who aren’t in the exact same life stage they are. That being said, there’s a lot of anger on both sides and the conversation is never productive due to American social norms around friendship and the hierarchy a lot of people buy into (friends dead last, then your partner, then your kids at the top of the pyramid).
I talked about Mikey Madison and Demi Moore and basically said the same thing this week on the pod. I wanted a Demi win, sue me! Vulture talked about it as well.
Thank you, Bodies Bodies Bodies.