A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - Chappell Roan’s War on Fame (with Eliza McLamb)

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

H-O-T-T-O-G-O, Chappell Roan is someone we do not actually know. But what do we do with the (very real) feelings and relationships we form with the people on our screens? Today, Eliza of Binchtopia and I discuss fame — global fame and niche micro “fame” — to understand where we parasocially flew off the rails, and what the future of celebrity might look like with boundaries in place. Support me + listen to bonus episodes on Patreon! Listen to Eliza's music. Huge thanks to the show's sponsors: Stay connected to the Internet wherever you're going (at a discount!) with Saily. To uncover and cancel the unwanted expenses you’ve forgotten about, try Rockey Money. Me on Instagram. A Bit Fruity on Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe we all just need to be a little bit more like Charlie X-EX and like spar with our twinks on Twitter. Hello, hello. And welcome back to A BitFruity. I'm Matt Bernstein. And I'm so happy that you're here. I'm so happy that you're here. I'm so grateful for everyone who listens to this podcast. I am so grateful I would cut off a limb for each and every one of you if you wanted to.

And if I didn't, you could write an article about how you met me. And I was a terrible mean person. A few days ago, Chapel Rhone. No, period. Yeah. You said it. A few days ago, Chapel Rhone canceled two shows that she had planned as part of her tour in Paris and Amsterdam due to what she wrote was scheduling conflicts. She wrote on Twitter, due to scheduling conflicts, I have to make the extremely hard decision to cancel my Paris and Amsterdam shows.

I'm so sorry and very disappointed. promise I'll be back. I'm heartbroken. Thank you for understanding. People quickly realized that the scheduling conflicts in question were her VMA rehearsals because she is now slated to perform at the upcoming VMAs. Some of the responses to this announcement, respectfully, Chapel, if you hate fame so much, maybe you shouldn't be playing shows like Lollapalooza and the VMAs. If you just want to make music and have people resonate with it, stick to the shows you booked for true fans who got tickets before you became famous. 6,000 likes.

Choosing the VMAs over your fans, 9,000 likes. Be respectful to your fans challenge 3.5,000 likes. Today, we need to have a little huddle up, you guys, and we need to talk about fame. Big time fame and niche fame, fame that sells out stadiums, and fame that gets you recognized here or there in certain parts of certain cities. We're going to talk about what I think people misunderstand fundamentally about fame, the psychology of it, whether or not you should ask for a photo when you see your favorite famous lesbian on the street,

and yes, we will be queening out about Chapel Rowne. To help us along this fascinating, joyful, frustrating conversation is Eliza McLean, who is a musician, a writer, and the co-host famously of the Binchotopia podcast. Eliza, welcome to A BitFoodie. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. Are you grateful?

I'm so grateful. It actually, this whole, your intro reminded me of, I don't know if you're familiar with Tim Hideker, but he's a comedian. And one time he just did this front-facing video that I think about all the time where he goes, hey, everybody, I just wanted to hop on here and say just about how ungrateful I am

and how disappointed I am with all of you and how everything's been going. And it just cracked me up. But today, of all days, of course, I'm feeling so grateful. You amidst this ongoing Chapel Rhone is ungrateful for her fame discourse, wrote a fantastic essay called The Eariness of Fame, which is about Chapel Rhone and pariscial relationships and how even niche Brooklyn fame can be a total mind fuck to navigate. I'm so happy that you're here, and we're going to attempt to navigate this together.

Before we continue with today's show, as always, if you'd like more of the show and or to support the show, you can do that over on Patreon. The link will be in the description. Today, the day that I'm recording this, part three of the ongoing bi-sister excavation about James Charles, Tati Westbrook, Jeffery Star, and Shane Dawson is being posted. and part three alone, all edited and cleaned up was an hour and 48 minutes long. If there was one thing that I could talk about for the rest of my life, it would be my sister. And so I do just that. Now, let's talk about fame. Chapel Rhone.

Eliza, I know you know who Chapel Rone is. Yeah, Chapel Rone's my sister. We went to TikTok together. So that's how I found for music. That's what I say about people that I know primarily through TikTok. I don't actually personally know her. I've never spoken to her, but I remember when she was on TikTok with me

and a bunch of other musicians at the time and we were all trying to get our start. And I was feeling very disillusioned about TikTok and the music space in general and about the incentives that it pushes artists towards. And I feel like a lot of people make shittier music because they're on TikTok. And Chappell was always one of those people

that I was like, okay, but she's got it. Like I think there's something, like in 2020, before Pink Pony Club, which now I feel like I have like a coin. or something, like, chapel stand before Pink Pony Club. But I was sending her music to people being like, I really think she could break through. It says the challenge of the TikTok artist is it's really tough to break through into the mainstream. And I was like, I really think she could do it.

And then I was shocked when she got dropped. But all that is to say that is that I've been around and invested in like the Chapel Roan story for a while. Well, you had better foresight into Chapel Roan's career than Atlantic Records did. But let me not get ahead of myself. So we know who Chapel Roan is. You, the listener, probably do too. But no matter what I talk about on this podcast, I could be talking about Barack Obama. And I would still provide a little bit of background context because there's one person at least who really doesn't know what's going on.

And I know I have some, like, you know, older gay men who taught me who, like, Donna Summer was. And so in return, I am going to teach you who Chapel Road is. It's a cross-generational discourse we're having. That's mutual aid. Exactly, exactly. Thank you, Eliza. Chapel Rhone, first of all, is her stage name. She does not use her birth name in public life, and so neither will I. She was born in Missouri in 1998, six months before me.

By the way, I don't know why I wrote that down. Just noted. She is the oldest of four children. She was raised in a trailer park. She grew up going to church multiple times a week and Bible camp during the summers, which I guess just makes the artist that she is now. all the more powerful. I mean, it's very like Madonna-esque. Mm-hmm. Totally.

She began uploading singing videos to YouTube when she was 14 years old, and at 17 years old, she was signed to Atlantic Records. It was around this time that she adopted Chapel as a stage name, and she released music here and there. But to your point, Eliza, before Pink Pony Club, there really wasn't a ton of breakthrough. She did tour briefly with Vance, Joy. Do you remember Van's Joy? Like the Riptide guy? Oh, yeah. He's the ukulele industrial complex. Yeah. Exactly. That's a good way to put it. I loved Riptide. No one can ever take that away for me.

No, and I would never try. I think that's an incredible time capsule of a very specific point in the culture. She was touring with him, but even still, she was living with her parents in Missouri during that time. In 2018, though, she moves to Los Angeles famously and begins living openly as, as a queer woman. This was kind of a formative experience. In fact, the specific formative experience that laid the groundwork for Pink Pony Club, which would be the 2020 song that would help her rise to prominence, was her going to the Abbey, which is a gay club in West Hollywood.

That is so funny to me because I have been to the Abbey twice. And one time I got roofied there and many people I know, it's like a spot where people get roofied. No, you should look this up because there's a whole phone stealing ring at the Abbey. her saying that though is very real it's very like Midwest girl comes to LA for the first time and it's like oh my god there's gay people here I love it and it's like girl that's where people get their phones stolen and get shit put in their drinks totally totally I mean like it is it is a very charming and like sweet detail because once you've been out and like living in one of these cities for a number of years you know there are certain gay spots that are kind of like cliched and corny if not downright dangerous which is news to me but like have you ever been to flame Sattles in New York. No. Okay, so Flaming Saddles is a gay bar in Hell's Kitchen, which is a very gay neighborhood in New

York City. And it's Western themed. And so, like, every hour on the hour, you have all of the, like, gay bartenders in shirts that are actually, like, the one that I'm wearing right now. They get up on the bar and they tap dance in, like, cowboy boots. And it's wild. And it's also, like, entirely for straight women who are having bachelorette parties. For sure.

But that was one of the first gay bars that I had ever seen when I was visiting New York as a child. And I was like, oh my God, that's what it means to be gay. You're going to gay bars as a child? I'm sorry, I walked past it. I was walking down 9th Avenue with my family and I walked past it. And I remember seeing these gay guys, like, standing outside of it in like cowboy boots. And I was like, I think my wicked dreams are calling from Tennessee. Yes, a place for boys and girls to all be queens every single day.

Exactly. Exactly. So maybe, I mean, Pink Pony Club is probably the best thing to ever come out of the Abbey. Yeah, to be sure. You really should look up the article because it's like they have a ring, a phone stealing ring where you go in and then your phone gets passed around within seconds and like wrapped in tinfoil so you can't track it. It's actually quite sophisticated. And I think they took be gay due crimes to like an unprecedented level. They didn't steal a chapel's phone. So that's good. I'm thrilled you had a great experience. Like maybe I'm in the minority. So 2020, Pink Pony Club comes out. I'm going to keep on dancing. It was produced by, thank you, thank you.

It was produced by Dan Nygro, who was about to explode in popularity in his own right for his work the following year on Olivia Rodriguez's driver's license and just like her entire smash it first album, Sauer. I think Dan Nigro ended up seeing something in like the longevity of talents like Olivia Rodriguez. like Chapel Roan, which other people might write off, is like, oh, that's a Disney star, like, that's an internet person. And he's able to kind of see, oh, there's like a thread here that I can follow. Well, so speaking of people sort of discounting her, right after she releases Pink Pony Club, evidently before it becomes a hit, which it is now, she gets dropped by Atlantic Records. Chaplain gets dropped for underperforming, which, like, is kind of the biggest bag fumble of all time.

Yeah, somebody got fired for that. But that's also like it's part of this whole movement that happened like this almost like pump and dump of majors signing TikTok stars and then either shelving them or like in the case of Chapel Roan just dropping them immediately. But I've heard of so many people who signed a six figure deal like in advance that they'll never out earn probably in part because the label doesn't care to grow them and doesn't care to do anything other than capitalize off of their TikTok hit. So it's really good to see this Chapel Rune story because I think so many times when internet artist signed to a major, it just doesn't go that way. You made a passing mention at the beginning of the episode that

you think TikTok and like the business churn of the music industry that TikTok has become inextricably linked to has made music worse. Can you just like, because I totally agree, but I think you have the language to describe that phenomenon better than I do. So could we just do a quick interlude about why TikTok made music worse? Yeah. I mean, okay, brevity is not my strength. So I'll try. I will try to get it. I will say I have written multiple like long form essays about this. If you're like interested in more of the universe around it, I think that TikTok is a very different atmosphere now than it used to be. I got on TikTok like early 2020 and started posting songs on there when not very many people were using it for music promotion. And neither were the people

who were originally on it. We were just like singing our songs and like not even thinking like a lot of us didn't even have Spotify profiles or anything. It was just like, here's the place where I'm going to post my music. And then, of course, it kind of got cannibalized by not only bigger industry titans, but by labels. And there were other incentives where labels were paying to push their songs, were paying to create a dance trend. We're paying for other creators to use that audio, whatever.

The incentive of TikTok is very baby-brained, you know? It's like you have to put something in the first five seconds that makes someone horny or angry or confused, you know? Ideally all three. Ideally all three, like that's the perfect boom. Like that's like teen girls dancing, horny, angry, confused. It gets people really riled up that way. That incentive, I think, comes back to you as an artist if that's the platform that you

are using and relying on. So I would, the reason I got off TikTok and I got off it over two years ago was because I was noticing I was writing fucking shit songs because I would try to, like the most important thing to me was putting that hook in the very beginning. And then I would have hundreds of songs that were just a verse and a chorus and that were just like overly clever, kind of kitchy that had some sort of gimmick to it. And so I think people try to shoehorn their art so that it is algorithm friendly. And I think that's sad to me and often bad. Not always bad.

Not always. But I think you can kind of tell when someone is writing a song to appeal to the TikTok algorithm versus like, oh, I wrote this song a while ago. like let me just post a clip of it totally and i not to go too far off a tangent but i do make jokes on his podcast that like any leftist podcast is just like 45 minutes of like getting to the point you know yeah but the point is all around us the point is the friends we made along the way i think that the epitome of what you're describing was like the abccd e f you song no like a literal nursery rhyme like a literal nursery rhyme and i would like actually in the spirit of of this episode and giving grace to famous women.

You guys know the song, A, B, C, B, E, F you, right? I feel like I just escaped it actually. Sorry, sorry, sorry. But like, I think the criticism of that as criticism tends to on the internet, it went too far. And like, hating Gail who is like, I think she's a teenager, the person who made that song, hating Gail became the thing that they would do instead of criticizing exactly what you're criticizing, which is the fact that artists have to make me.

music to fit into this algorithm. Yeah, of course. Instead of talking about that, they'd just be like, fuck, Gail. She's so untalented. She's so this and so that. And I'm like, guys, just like, I think she had a hit that got a little too big. And it kind of wasn't good, but like, that's also why it got too big. I mean, part of the reason people write to appease the algorithm is because, like, yeah,

it feels good to get, like, likes and comments and you want people to know who you are. Also, there's literally no other infrastructure out there to do it anymore. Like, people don't buy the records. People, you know, are coming to less and less concerts. It's harder to convert online fans to real fans. Like, labels are getting increasingly predatory with their contracts. There's a great quote from this book called The Death of the Artist that I read, where he says, like, about art in the digital age where he's saying,

like, the good news is you can do it all yourself, the bad news is you have to. In a lot of ways, people can't escape that algorithmic system. So, like, I will never shit on anybody for writing songs to appease the algorithm, we're just writing songs and putting them on there. It's not really about that. It's about the fact that we now have to compete like piranhas in this, in this ecosystem when like people are now like very unaccustomed to actually like compensating artists as workers.

Well, needless to say, Chapel was on the precipice of beating the algorithm and Atlantic Records fumbled the bag. In late 2020, after she'd been dropped, she was still independently working on music. Oh, wait. I want to say that this is when I learned about, sorry, that's actually not a good point. You were going to get your coin, your chapel room first fan coin. You know what? No, I am going to get my chapel run first.

Yeah, and you should. Well, yes. Well, yes. I was actually, I remember the first time I heard Chapel Roan was in 2020. It was that Pink Pony Club was served into my, like, radio algorithm on Spotify. And I just remember being like, oh, my God, like, this is so quaint. It gave me that feeling of like when I passed. flaming saddles. And I was like, oh my, there's a whole world out there. You know what I mean?

And so I got hooked and I continued to be hooked over the next couple years. She would independently release a number of singles. One was naked in Manhattan. My kink is karma, a feminine nominon. And it's funny because all of these are now both hits and memes. But they were out for a long time and nobody except Eliza and I were listening to them. But while she's releasing these songs, which again, now everyone's listening to, she could not support herself fully just on music at this point. She was still working as a cashier in a donut shop through 2020. She was a production assistant, but she continued to release these songs with Dan Nigero

and ultimately inked a deal with Sony, which culminated in the September 2023 release of her critically acclaimed album, the rise and fall of a Midwest princess. It's such a joke because she did have a meteoric rise to fame, which starts now, but there is a narrative that surrounds her about overnight fame, which is just laughable. I mean, there's a great quote that says,

it takes 10 years to become an overnight success, which is really true because she has been worked. I think there's a clip that has circulated around Twitter of her in 2021, playing with like an electric keyboard, like standing up in a park, singing Pink Pony Club to like 50 people or something. I understand why people who were not as woke to the chapel of Roan train as early as we were. Not in the woke mob. Not in the woke mob. I have a whole other tangent about industry plants and how mostly it's not real.

But people, I think, throw that accusation at her because they just, they weren't with it and they didn't understand. But it's cool to see, like there's documented evidence of her actually working. towards this career for a really long time and now it's finally paying off for her. Yeah, someone's not an industry plant just because you heard of her yesterday. Yeah, that's a you problem. Get more tapped into the culture and come back to me. I would like to say I saw Chapel Ronen concert in 2022 at the Bowery Ballroom. Tickets were $30 and I met my friend there in line and I bought my ticket on like ticket

master or whichever website while I was standing in line for $30. And I wish I knew then and perhaps I did that I was, I was about to witness history. But something that is so that stood out to me then was she had a tiny, tiny fan base. I remember at the time she had 400,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, which now she has 44 million. One thing Chapel Roan does is she loves to, like, host costume themes at all of her shows. And that night, it was, I believe the theme was, my kink is karma. And so everyone's in their red, everyone's in their sequins. Everyone was gay.

And a lot of people were like visibly southern. Mm-hmm. I don't know how I feel about those words leaving my mouth, visibly Southern. Well, I think you can't really tell now because Visibly Southern is now like an aesthetic preference used by people who like grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut or something. Well, I mean, I'm kind of guilty right now because he grew up in New Jersey and I'm wearing this cut off flannel. As in North Carolina and I excuse you. Thank you so much. Do I get the pass? Yes.

Flannel pass. I travel a good amount for my job. And, you know, occasionally not for my job. Like a few months ago when I went to Mexico City. You guys have great pyramids. Not enough people are talking about them. But I got there and only once I got hit with the roaming charges did I realize that I had not set up my international phone plan before leaving for the vacation.

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And even though it's now tens of millions of people, it still feels that way, which is going to soon factor into how people treat her as fans. I want to send you a chart. Oh, I'm familiar with the chart. Do you want to describe this chart? Because the only thing I'll say about this chart is that it continues to go viral because it's a crazy thing to look at. And every week it gets updated and every week it gets more ridiculous. So please explain the chart.

So the chart is a chart of travel run, Spotify monthly listeners from September 2023 to August 24. So not even a full year. And it's like a slow trickle upwards. And then basically right after Good Life. luck babe in Coachella, she goes from what looks like to be around 5 million listeners to in just a matter of months up to 40 million. And you just look at this and think about how fucking quick that is and how huge she's got, you know, I think we even, we even think of like

Titans of indie music now, like Phoebe Bridger. Like Phoebe Bridgers, I think only has like 10 million listeners right now. It's just, it's an astronomical rise in such a short amount. of time. I need like a Xanax to look at this chart. I know. I know this. I mean, seeing this chart is like partially what inspired me to write the essay that I ended up writing about her because I was just like, I cannot fathom. Like, and I don't think any human brain like chemically can fathom what that kind of growth and fame would just do to you. There are a couple things that like catapult her into mainstream fame. And one of them is opening for Olivier Rodrigo on her tour. And then she releases is good luck bib, which now everybody's heard.

And then she performs at Coachella and she has a tiny desk thing. And like one thing after the next goes viral and then all of a sudden, you've heard of her. The only thing I also, sorry, I was like before we move on from the industry plant thing, it's like if you're listening to this podcast, you've probably heard about Chapel Rhone for the first time in the last six months. Like statistically that is just like the whole industry plant, famous overnight thing. She was opening for Vance Joy on tour seven years ago.

The girl's been working. The thing is, her main thing that she had to overcome coming from TikTok artists, like the brand of TikTok artist to real artist is getting that kind of press recognition. And NPR, especially the tiny desk, like huge industry titan. Like that's a signifier that. And most of the signifiers, to be honest, that elevate someone to being a serious musician, simply take them from being something just teenage girls like. Gen X, like, my dad listens to NPR and, like, watches the tiny desks. that's how specifically women artists are like taken more seriously. But I also think like, you know, Olivia Rodrigo, artists that famously teenage girls love and like

teenage girls pay for. And I think that was an excellent decision too. That felt really, you know, Chapel Room opening for Vance Joy definitely puts her in the more like serious musician category, but does not put her in front of people who would be interested in her music. I do love the idea of a stadium full of people who bought tickets to see Vance Joy. And I'm not even quite sure what demographic that is. Doing the hot to go dance.

Exactly. Like she comes out and she's like, knee deep in the passenger seat and you're eating me out. And all these like. And like Mark Marin in the background like waiting. Exactly. Exactly. So she becomes extraordinarily famous extraordinarily quickly.

I'm really interested at this point in talking about who exactly Chapel Roans fans are. I would say first of all, it's a very queer fan base. And I think as a queer artist, she's someone who, and I think this happens with people who become successful from any number of marginalized groups, but like there's this feeling of like ownership and like, we made you. Yeah. I mean, I think that's like kind of some of the tricky spots with representation in the arts. Like, I mean, the fact that good luck, babe, became as big as it did. Like, that is a song about compulsory heterosexuality sung by a lesbian. That's crazy, you know, and for many people, specifically queer people in the South who, like, you know, did not get the chance to express that, you know,

early on or even, even later, like have their own blocks with it to see, like, the number one song in the world be the song about that. It's like, oh, my God. And it's only the one song. You know what I mean? Like, that's it. Like, that's all we got right now in terms of, like, this huge, like, superstar success that we see. And that's so much pressure, you know, like, It's like in the way that when Ellen was on TV, like she was the gay person of America, you know, which obviously Ellen is complicated as a figure. Also like a thing that I feel about, about TikTok and about the devaluation of art in general is that fans, especially with indie artists or artists that came up from, you know, humble means often like almost feel like investors who've bought stock in the artist versus fans who are like patronizing this patronizing in like the, I give you coin for your art, patronizing this artist who is like providing them with something that they admire. And so I think people become really attached to the artist and to the decisions

that she makes and feels, yeah, like I made you. I invested early. And I'm waiting on my return. And sometimes I'm frustrated that you are not returning to me what it is I wanted out of you. Which is kind of like the joke that you were making at the beginning about how we have our early Chapel Rhone fan coin. Yeah, of course. But it's like, the joke is that we don't really have that. It's just cool to have been there, but we're not actually entitled to anything as a result of it. Yeah, and for me, I feel like the small gratitude I get out of feeling like I was ahead of the curve was being like, oh, this person is really special and clearly talented. And like, that's going to remain true no matter what she does with her career. Like, we know she's special

and talented. And I don't feel attached to specific decision she's going to make. I was just excited that she was like going to get to have more resources to do more cool stuff. Fame does what fame does. And people just get weird about Chapel Rhone. They, in a way that they get weird about, you know, famous people in general. But Chapel Rhone ultimately releases two TikTok videos where she explains that she basically just wants people to leave her the fuck alone. Do you need me to play these or you know the videos? I'm familiar.

Okay. Oh, I know the texts. You're familiar with the sacred text. I am. Well, okay, I'm going to put them in here. I need you to answer questions. If you saw a random woman on the street, would you yell at her from the car window? Would you harass her in public?

Would you go up to a random lady and say, can I get a photo with you? And she's like, no? What the fuck? And then you get mad at this random lady? Would you be offended if she, says no to your time because she has her own time? Would you stalk her family? Would you follow her around? Would you try to dissect her life and bully her online? This is a lady you don't know and she doesn't know you at all. Would you assume that she's a good person, assume she's a bad

person? Would you assume everything you read about her online is true? I'm a random bitch. You're a random bitch. Just think about that for a second. Okay? I don't care that. abuse and harassment, stalking, whatever, is a normal thing to do to people who are famous or a little famous whatever. I don't care that it's normal. I don't care that this crazy type of behavior comes along with the job, the career field I've chosen. That does not make it okay. That doesn't make it normal. I don't, it doesn't mean I want it. Doesn't mean that I like it. I don't want whatever the fuck you think you're supposed to be entitled to whenever you see a celebrity. I'll go fuck if you think it's selfish for me to say no for a

photo or for your time or to for a hug. That's not normal. That's weird. It's weird how people think that you know a person just because you see them online or you listen to the art they make. That's fucking weird. I'm allowed to say no to creepy behavior. These videos spark a currently never-ending controversy of what are fans entitled to, what is chapel roan entitled to, is Is Chapel Rhone grateful or not? Like, is she a random woman? Does a, like, what is a celebrity entitled to as far as personal space? There is a shocking amount of backlash to this.

There are memes like, okay, I'm looking at this one that I put in my outline. This is a tweet with 60,000 likes where someone took a selfie with Chapel Rone's record in a record store and tweeted, I took a picture with you. Ah, you mad at Chapel Rhone. You know, there was, I remember there was a viral tweet that was like about how Lana had like gone to visit a fan in the hospital or something and someone was like Chapel Rowan would have pulled the cord. Yeah, would have like unplug the respirator.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what do you make of this? I mean, tweets like that are honestly not even the top offenders. Like, I will admit I giggled. Like I think it's a little funny. When it's clever, it's clever. When it's clever, it's clever. However, there's like another section of tweet that I feel was more interesting to me.

What I notice is that the video comes out, there's a first wave of people being like, oh my God, like everybody's being so mean to her. Like, you guys are freaks, like, leave her alone. Then there's a huge backlash to that, as there is with anything that gets that big on the internet. And people are saying, she's ungrateful. She's not cut out for fame. Like, I don't know what she expected.

Like, what the fuck? Very you signed up for this. Yeah. And then there was a more interesting, like, the most interesting for me was that, like, third wave, which is, like, that's kind of how I think about anything that gets really big on the internet is like initial reaction back. last third, secret third thing. And like the secret third thing for the chapel room situation was people being like, wait,

like I obviously wouldn't like docs or harass her, but like, is it bad for me to ask for a picture? Like, is that not, you know, and that was the interesting thing. That seems the most human reaction, you know, of like, okay, I feel like I can understand how she's uncomfortable. And yet, like, I'm a little confused. Like, what, what's the negotiation here? And that I was like, okay, this is where we're in this conversation about fame and celebrity

and boundaries and like what's appropriate and like who is a famous person to me. And what do you make of that? Like I mean, should people ask for pictures? I mean, I think it's a bigger question. I think I recognize very much her kind of franticness in those videos of collapsing all these different things of like, it's not okay to docks me, it's not okay to stalk me, it's not okay to harass me. We all go, of course, that's horrible.

Then she goes, it's not okay to ask me for a picture that's weird. And people are like, that seems maybe not the same. but it totally can feel the same when people are encroaching, you know, it's one of the things I said in the essay is like obviously if you were like being devoured by lions, you'd like scream out and be like, in 70 come fucking tame this lion, like take care of this. It wouldn't matter what the specifics of it were. It kind of all feels the same. But it's this question of entitlement. It's, does she owe fans a picture? Does she owe fans a hello on the street? Does she owe whatever? And that's kind of this idea of fans feeling as though they've purchased the stock of the celebrity or that they've actually kind of own a bit of them as a person. One tricky thing about this is that I think we often don't think of artists as workers, not only because we have like a lot of romantic notions about like, art just like comes from the heart. And like, it's so separate from that idea of like work or anything like that. But it's what she's saying in the video is like, if I'm not on the stage, I'm not at work right now. Like I'm not Chapel Rhone right now. I'm my other, my other person.

And in terms of actual entitlement and what things are actually owed to people, I mean, the way I've always thought about it is like, okay, if you buy a ticket, to my concert, you should expect me to show up and sing the songs and have a full set list. And that's it. And that's a transaction. That's when you bring art into the realm of transaction is you buy a ticket and I promise you this thing. That happens all the time with like when you buy art or when you buy whatever.

But it's very different from there's no transaction when you're just with somebody else. Like that ownership and that entitlement to me doesn't really apply in that direction. And of course, people can feel that you really should greet every fan and shake their hand and sincerely thank them because without them they'd be nothing. But to me, it's a question of, like, encroaching almost on somebody else's personhood. And what you do with a famous person when you ask them for a picture, you ask them to say, hello to you is you're kind of asking them to bridge your discomfort with like, I think you

are a person in my head and now I'm seeing you in real life and I want to collapse that. And for a lot of people, the idea that those two worlds could be collapsed is really scary. Like even for someone at like my level of almost no fame at all, you know, the idea that people want to get even closer and want to close that gap even more, like can feel scary and can feel in many ways like indistinguishable from like, I want to come to your house and like see your family. And I think, I mean, especially with just looking at her rise, I remember seeing a tweet that was like if I became as famous as Chapel Rowan that quickly, I would become the fucking Joker. Like, that's, you know, how I feel about her.

I think it's a question of audience entitlement. And that has definitely been encouraged by the internet and by increasing, like, parisocial connection for sure. As this controversy is a brewing, she follows it up with a long text post that I'll read a small portion of. She writes, for the past 10 years, I've been going nonstop to build my project. It's important. She refers to Chapel Rowan as her project.

And it's come to the point that I need to draw lines and set boundaries. I want to be an artist for a very, very long time. I've been in too many non-consensual physical and social interactions, and I just need to lay it out and remind you, women don't know you shit. I chose this career path because I love music and art and honoring my inner child. I do not accept harassment of any kind because I chose this path, nor do I deserve it. When I'm on stage, when I'm performing, when I'm in drag, when I'm at a work event, when I'm doing press, I'm at work. Any other circumstance, I am not in work mode.

I'm clocked out. I don't agree with the notion that I owe a mutual exchange of energy, time, or attention to people I do not know, do not trust, or who creep me out just because they're expressing admiration. And once again, there's a whole range of replies to this very poignant statement of hers. Someone wrote, Chapel sounds so fucking stupid. You can't play for 100,000 screaming fans at Lollapalooza and then expect to run to Trader Joe's in peace. on Wednesday.

And I would like to argue that you absolutely can expect to do that. You're working at Lala Paloosa. To your point, I like, you're not working at Trader Joe's. You're picking up fucking discount blueberries. I definitely think that should be a reality. I think people should understand that artists are working when they're working and when they're not working their own people, having their own personal experience.

And also, I do feel like asking that of people at this point is like trying to hold back the ocean or something. Like it's going to require a much bigger conversation about work, about art, about entitlement, about parasyciality. But the way that we get to that reality is with people like Chapel Roan saying, I don't want you to approach me if I'm not at work, because when I'm not at work, I'm being my own person. And when I'm being my own person, I'm not being your friend because I'm not your friend. I think she is going to be in the wave of, you know, people who make controversial decisions where the first reaction is obviously like, that's never going to fucking happen. And like, you asked for this deal with it. And then slowly she like

paves the path for other people to, you know, draw similar boundaries. And like people are interpreting this as like a scold, you know, is her being like, like telling people off, stop doing this. Slap on the wrist. Yeah, but a boundary is something that you do. You enforce the boundary. And what she is saying is I am not going to give my time or attention to people who I do not know when I am not on working hours. That's all she said, you know. I understand how people can feel personally attacked by it. And I think it's just a really interesting moment because I really don't think we've seen this kind of middle ground of like, hey, I want to keep doing my job, but I'm going to need things to change. Like usually we wait till a Brittany level breakdown. Or like, Franco, you know,

you just like pull your persona immediately and just like stop interacting with the public eye. I don't think it's interesting to see what happens when someone is like, actually, I do want to continue doing this, but I want to make some changes. You beat me to the Britney Spears mention. Did I? In life in general, it's like, who is going to talk about Britney Spears before me? Congratulations. You did it. But I was, I mean, I was about to bring her up because I think the role of social media and this is really interesting. If you think about like pre-social media stars, I'm thinking about like the 90s and the 2000s and like kind of the heyday of paparazzi, which I know.

We were babies for. It felt like the attitude towards celebrity then was fundamentally different in the sense that like, you know, if you were a huge fan of like Britney Spears or the backstreet boys or like, you know, whoever was famous in the 2000s, like, sorry, that sounds really nice. Whatever you people were doing back then. But, you know, you caught glimpses of them in magazine photos or on MTV. You had posters of them in your room, right? And you were always finding ways to like approximate your idol.

It feels like idolatry still totally exists, but in a different way where because social media has given the illusion of a collapsed barrier between you and your favorite musician or celebrity, that you work backwards from the conclusion that like they are your friend. It's a foregone conclusion because they're not. These people are just as materially removed from you as Britney Spears was from her fans in the 2000s. But like social media has allowed you to feel like Chapel Rhone is actually like your girl. Yeah, it is social media. It is increasing isolation among young people. And it is a genuine, effective marketing tactic. You know, like creating that persociality.

Like Chapel Rhone doing her themed nights. It's like, hey, it's like we're all going to the same sleepover and we're all going to dress up as the same thing. and like, I'm going to make a front-facing video and, like, make a joke to you on the app that we both use. You know, it's something that does go both ways. And that's not, of course, to blame Chapal Roan for, like, the shit that she's having to go through right now. But it's something that is actively encouraged. And celebrities used to be the people that you, like you were saying, like you saw on your television or you, like, heard their CD. And now they're the people that use the same apps as you do.

And, like, Chapel Roan making her statement as a TikTok video, I think was so interesting. Like she's making a front-facing TikTok video with like her makeup all fucked up like sitting what on what appears to be like the floor of a bathroom. Like that's all of us, you know? Just the medium itself is communicating a different kind of celebrity. It's communicating what she's trying to effectively, I think, which is like I'm just a person also just like you. There's just so much incentive to create that closeness to create that parasyciality. And I think it really, it can be a trap for sure. This brings us up to her canceling her 1,500 person capacity show in Paris so that she could play the VMAs.

How dare she? And it's like, it's so crazy because she canceled this VMA's performance. And on Twitter, she announces that she's canceling this performance. And there are 10,000 quote tweets. Yeah. The capacity at the Paris venue was 1,500 people. There are more people angry about this than that could have fit in that fucking room. Yeah.

So there's like a performative anger here for sure, which kind of brings me to another point that I wanted to discuss, which is, you know, this idea of being womaned. Are you familiar with the womaning? Oh, yeah, RFQ is like one of my besties. Being womaned, this is something that was coined by RFQ, Rainfisher Kwan, who we love, I've mentioned her a number of times on this podcast. One day she'll be here. She wrote an essay basically talking about the shelf life.

what she calls of a female star. And I'm just going to read a little bit of an excerpt from that, because we have witnessed it once again with Chapel Rome. Like wild animals and recycled plastic, women in the public eye have a life cycle that most of us know by heart. It starts with adoration. She lands starring roles. She writes hit songs.

She goes viral. She's new and young and profitable. Then the idolatry begins. Maybe magazines start selling copies by calling her the voice of a generation, or the next Marilyn or Eartha, even though she's barely college age. Maybe they'll label her a feminist icon because she went to the women's march. Maybe she gets too many fans too fast. Either way, she's well on her way to overexposure.

The jokes that people found charming six months ago are starting to get old, and you're being force-fed her face through every algorithmic channel your phone can handle. And wasn't she always kind of annoying anyway? It's a system that builds women up into untouchable fantasies just so we can watch in glee, as the facade inevitably crumbles. It's a perpetual cycle of ritualistic idolization, degradation, and redemption that serves only to entertain the masses and generate profit for the powerful. I just wanted to include that because it's like, Chapel Rhone's not even the first woman

to go through that like this summer. Yeah, totally. And I think especially in like the rise of online fame, like I think without the internet, Chapel Rhone wouldn't have been able to ascend as quickly. Like normally, before the advent of the internet, the way that that would happen to like a female star would be like one project was released like one Brittany album or like one Angelina Jolie movie. And then you would see the uptick. And with Chapel, it's just been like a series of like cacophonous events that just have like stacked on top and shot her to this crazy trajectory that we all watched every single step of. And like that's a much more intimate involvement than we had with like, oh, all of a sudden Angelina Jolie is a famous person that I know the name of.

Mm-hmm. Totally. Totally. I mean, I just remember, like, with Chapel having one viral moment after the next, like, this past spring, I was like, the tide's going to turn. The tide is going to turn. I know. You watch something like that. That's why the graph is so scary to me because I was like, whew. Because it's literally when do people start hating her? It's going to topple. Of course. You know, in the 2000s, it was like Britney, Amy Winehouse. And then in the 2010s, we did it with Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Lawrence. And like, just over the last couple of years, it's like Rachel Zegler. Rachel Zegler, who was in Westside Story and The Hunger Games and is now going to be in Snow White. And what's interesting about her a sentence to fame, which, you know, she's a Hollywood starlet and everyone loves her. And then all of a sudden she's like, there's a particular, like, racial component to the hate directed towards Rachel Zegler because she's playing Snow White. And people are like, how can you be Snow White and not white? But it's interesting because it's not just like Nazis going after her for like not being white.

It's like also trying to justify their hatred. like, oh, it's actually she just like gives me the ick. And you're like, is that it or are you kind of racist? People love to moralize like why they don't like a woman. And it's, there's never a moral cause. Well, I mean, I have like written about this in terms of like the like the Reddit threads I got really into of like influencer snark. And I called it like the socially conscious mean girl, which is I thought about it particularly. I literally in my last episode was talking about how I spent time on beauty guru chatter.

Of course. No, no, no. I mean, I have also, that's why I wrote about it because I was so fascinated by it because I would get sucked into it and be like, wait, like, why does it feel good to like have this space to kind of whatever, you know? And I think like the Redditors really view it as like, this is my righteous cause. Like this is the rich and the powerful and like I'm speaking truth to this and like I'm exposing her lies and I'm liberating women everywhere. And, you know, and that's not really what is happening. I don't think. I think it's perfectly normal and natural to shit talk people, and you should. And like, there are things that are enraging about, like, thin white women getting

famous over and over and over again. And also, there is a component to it where I think it's a very modern thing where people feel that they can't just be haters anymore. It can't just be like, oh, my God, the outfit looks like shit. Because then you're not a girl's girl. You're not, so then you have the thought. You have the thought, oh, my God, her outfit looks like fucking shit. And then instead of just saying, honestly, I think,

healthier expression is typing her outfit looks like shit send they'll be like um did anybody notice like the way she was like body checking in this like i loki think that like she's encouraging like a generation of women like haven't wait did we hang on can we compare this photoshopped picture to this picture of her where she's not photoshopped so that i can reveal the lies and liberate women everywhere where it's like just say she looks clapped like honestly just say she looks clapped because the rest of it is like it you don't have to say she looks clapped you can probably just you can't keep it But if you have to say something, yes. Be honest about what you're...

Yeah. Be honest about what it is that's actually bothering you. Right. And I think, too, like another thing I was going to say about the way that chapel's approaching this is I think when we see like the woman dark, usually with female celebrities either, they will just kind of like demurely step away from the lay and hope that everything dies down and they can like put out another project at some point that people will not care about as much.

Or it goes Brittany, you know? And she's like, fuck you. Like I can't. This is insane. And you people are fucking killing me. And Chapel is doing a really interesting thing where she's actually trying to have a dialogue with people about it. She's trying to strike a middle ground. And I think that actually is the most respectful thing that you can do.

Like I remember at some point on the podcast, I said something like, oh yeah, sometimes I embellished stories on the podcast because it's like, this is entertainment. I think it's funnier. And also I think I don't want to, I don't want you as the listener to be under any pretense that like we are personal. friends and everything that I say to you is the truth. And people got really upset about that. And I was like, I actually think it's way more respectful to you to let you know that I'm not being 100% honest with you. And by the way, nobody is. Like nobody who is like a professional commentator who whatever. There's always things that people omit. There's always things that people change the narrative about. And I think it is actually more respectful to you to say that you don't

know me. And for chapel to say, I love playing music for you and I don't love talking to you. and that is honest. That's being honest with somebody. In relation to what you just said about people moralizing their otherwise very shallow judgments of people, I think about that a lot in relation to there are so many Instagram pages that are just like exposing celebrity plastic surgery. And they always end up on my explorer page. And yes, I know that is in response to my user habits on Instagram. Don't comment it.

I'm aware. But I'm always seeing those. And I think stuff like that started as like, we must topple the unrealistic beauty standard that celebrities set for us and acknowledge that they're having this done. And like, okay, sure. But that turns so quickly into just like, let's zoom in on Kendall Jenner's pores and like, for a righteous cause or something.

And it's like, I don't really think we're dismantling beauty standards by like finding the most unflattering photo of a celebrity on a red carpet, turning the contrast up to 100 so that every. peach fuzz is visible. Like, come on, guys, we're just talking shit. We got the point in 2010 when Doves started putting, like, women who are a size 14 in their ads for the first time. You know what I mean?

Like, I feel like we had, like, a big renaissance of that kind of stuff. And then where genuinely people were like, oh, I didn't know they photoshopped those photos that much. Oh, I genuinely didn't know all these actresses were getting plastic surgery. And then I don't really think we need to string up every single woman who appears to have gotten visible work done after that. I don't think it is productive. No, and side note, sorry.

I was like, just on my YouTube recommendations too all the time. It's always like ex-celebrity, plastic surgery analysis. Shut the fuck up. Just like, shut the fuck up. Oh my God. It's so annoying. Sorry. Am I like too harsh on that?

No, I don't think so. I mean, I think that there's a real. Like, I've totally watched those plastic surgery analysis videos because I'm like, wait, like, I didn't know she had plastic surgery. Am I one non-surgical nose job away from being Kaya Gerber? I think part of it is like the fascination of like, neat. Well, fair enough. I'm on beauty guru chatter. So we're all doing a little bit of repentance today.

No, no, no. But I mean, I have had to dig around on like the snark forums enough to see some like truly despicable stuff. Like they're like one of the things I wrote about was like this woman who was like famous online. And like the profile for the snark page is a photo of her crying. And I was trying to figure out where that crying photo came from. And it's from a video.

where she talks about her abusive marriage. Jesus. And all these snarkers are snarking on her for, like, for feminist reasons, you know, of like, oh, like, I think perhaps she's neglecting her child. Like, I think this was like a racist tweet from five years ago. And it's like, look at the fucking profile photo of your snark page. Like, what are you doing? Yeah, I think it's an issue when the social justice causes intersect with what I think

are truly normal, natural, healthy, petty grievances. It is totally fucking fine to see a rich celebrity and be like, wow, like that bitch got her face pumped up of plastic, whatever. Text that to your best friend. You know what I mean? Like, that's fine. Everybody has ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly impulses and thoughts and feelings. And like you should have a trusted friend where you just like shit talk and then it stays in your little container. It does not have to be a grand theory about the universe and it hardly ever is.

Ate that up. That was a really good rant. Thank you. That was a really good rant. I feel like I've been ranting so much. You give me a microphone and I just go off. You're a good ranter. What can I say?

Thank you. I would like to take a quick, quick break from the show to give a shout out to the sponsor of today's episode, Rocket Money. Something that I spend a lot of time thinking and getting frustrated about lately is how with the amount of streaming services we now have to pay for for TV shows every month, we've basically just looped back around to paying for cable packages. Why are we doing that? What's going on? That is a problem that is much bigger than me, but a consequence of that problem is that all of us are paying for a lot more in subscription

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when they use all of the apps features. Stop spending money on things you don't use and get your finances correct with Rocket Money. If you'd like to try it out, feel free to go to RocketMoney.com slash Fruit that's rocketmoney.com slash fruity. Now let's get back to the show. Something I think about a lot with Britney Spears, I think about a lot of things a lot with Britney Spears. Britney Spears famously,

she was in this conservatorship for 13 years and when it was highlighted in a 2021 documentary, which was done by the New York Times and distributed by Hulu called Framing Britney Spears, which you very well may have seen. Did you see it? I did see it. This led to, you know, waves of both,

support for Britney Spears to get out of her conservatorship, but also a sort of societal re-evaluation of how we treated Britney Spears in the early 2000s. And that was a correct thing to reevaluate. And also, like, nobody has applied what they learned from that situation to any celebrity since then. And this idea of, like, how did we let that happen? Like, you see these old clips of, like, how they used to talk about, like, her body and her children. And one thing that is always brought up in these documentaries about Britney Spears, which there are many at this point, because like there is a Britney Spears Apology Industrial Complex now. It's like we continue to mind this woman's pain and suffering even in the form of apologies, which is just like another tangent.

But they always bring up like the outrage over when Britney Spears was photographed by a paparazzi driving with her like then baby in her lap. Do you remember this? Yeah. And I just think that like If that happened today, that would be on Pop Crave. Yeah. And it would have like 30,000 quote tweets of everyone saying the exact things that like, I don't know. What's his name? David Leto.

John. Jared Letto? Not Jared Letto. Oh. Her husband? No. No, no. Sorry.

Okay. And the. No, you got it. We're back. We're so back. Hi. it's been a few days. The name that I was thinking of was Jay Leno.

Saying the exact same things that all of the late night hosts were saying in the early 2000s about her. Like this would be a hit tweet on Pop Crave and everyone would be calling her a terrible mother and everyone would be saying. And it's just like... And you know what though? I do think if it was a Pop Crave situation, there would be two sides. There would be one side that's like she's a fucking horrific mother like stone her to death. And then there would be a side that's like, you know, have empathy. for her situation. Like, I think we have evolved a little bit, but it's still like this kind of

dehumanization of turning this one woman into a culture war bidding item. Even the lens through which people are able to be more empathetic now to female celebrities is because they feel closer to them. It's because they feel that kind of parisocial attachment, that kind of parissocial ownership, which can flip on a dime. It's not the true loyalty. I think, I mean, I do think in a lot of ways the culture has evolved. And hopefully, like, we are less at risk for the kind of like, significant abuse by like late night hosts and like mass media that Brittany experienced. And I think to a degree we may have learned from that. But also the kind of defense you get from fans as a celebrity and especially as a woman's

celebrity, it never comes for free. And it always is like is something that could turn and is not like a true loyalty, but a sort of attachment to the character that people have of you in your minds. And if you stop behaving like that character, then those people, potentially turn on you as well. Is what we need from Chapel Rhone, like an absolute meltdown, like an absolute crumbling for us to then be like, wow, maybe we should have been this, that, and the other thing, and then to like create a documentary and distribute it and like, you know what I mean?

And like continue to find new ways to profit off of what we've done. I want to reference something from the essay that you wrote, which was the infamous for me, sending you an Instagram DM to do this today. In your essay, you included a screenshot of a message that you received from a fan who went to a show of yours in Chicago. And they wrote to you after the show, you were so rude to me outside your Chicago show Tonight, Girl. I cannot. Remember who's paying your bills, LMAO. Can you contextualize that message and perhaps guide us into a conversation of our, what I would call small fame?

So the Chicago show that I played that night was amazing. It was sold out. It was such fun energy, like super great crowd. I get off stage and exit outside. The stage door goes directly outside the venue. And so I thought I was going to be able to walk around and get let back in to the green room. And then when I got to the green room door, it was locked and nobody was there. And simultaneously, the whole sold-out crowd that had just seen me get off stage follows me.

me outside and start surrounding me, which is not an experience I get very often because, once again, I am not famous. And it's like maybe 50 people outside. And then there's, I turn to look inside. There's people inside, like, pressing their cameras up against the glass. I just came off stage. So I have my ear plugs in. I can't really hear anything but like screaming. I'm like turning and I'm waving and I'm trying to say hello and thank you and whatever. And then finally somebody lets me in. And I was like, and I kind of like breathe a high of relief. Then I get that message. And like it kind of, it shook me. I was like, whoa, because for a second I was like, wait, what could she possibly be talking about? Like, because there was afterwards, like, people who had like stuck around and I was like smoking a

cigarette outside and people like came by and were like, oh, I love the show. And it's like, oh, thanks so much. Like, thank you so much for coming. And I like signed a few CDs or something. And I was like, God, like, did I say something? Whatever. She was talking about, I think being a part of that massive people that came out that were like, you know, it felt very disingenuous to me. Because I was like, you know that you didn't come onto the street to say hello to me. and then I said, pah, like, you're a pathetic piece of shit. You know what I mean? I didn't ignore you.

Like, you were there. Like, you know it was a situation where, like, it was impossible for me to interact with anybody. And then it was like, it was a threat, right? It was like, remember who's paying your bills, which is the sort of, I made you, I can take it away from you, which not only is that not totally true that one person could do that to me. But it's also, it's like, it's a threat of, that wants you to submit in this way. wants you and feels betrayed. And like that was like the thing too is like I obviously like I don't want to come off

as like a rude or entitled person. Like that hurts me to think that that could be the case. But it's it's not the way you would talk to somebody in a relationship. You know what I mean? Even if that was the case, it is a one star Amazon review. You know, it's not a conversation with somebody. It's crazy because I write so much of my music about not wanting to be an object, not wanting to be commodified. And then, oh, no, have I created this group of people who think it's

okay to commodify and objectify me and treat me well when I adhere to their standards of behavior or performance and to fucking shit on me and want me to lose all my money and income and safety if I don't, you know? And that was just a situation where I was like, wow, I wonder what promises am I explicitly or implicitly making to people who are a part of my audience and like, what does that mean for me? You described yourself in the essay as Cross the Street Famous. And I feel that way also about myself. Could you describe what Cross the Street Famous means?

Yes. So I just was thinking of this anecdote of when I came out of a show in Williamsburg. And there was like a bunch of people outside. And I said hello to a lot of them. And we was still trying to pack up the van and was feeling a little overwhelmed. And then, you know, I kind of see. more from down the street that maybe some other people are coming up and I like turned to my manager. I'm like, oh, God, like, I don't know what to do. Like, I'm so wiped out and like I can't meet another

hundred people. And he puts his arm around me and says, let's go across the street where you're not famous anymore. It was so true. And so real. And to me that means like, I think it's something that a lot of like internet creators in particular fall under who have like a very niche audience. Yeah. Where it's like, yeah, if I'm doing a show and there's 500 people at the show, like I could get mobbed like a pop star. But if I'm just out and about, like, nobody knows who I am. Like, I almost feel like embarrassed for people who recognize me in public, not because they're being embarrassing, but because the other people around us will be like, who the fuck is that?

Totally. Like, why are you freaking out? Like, who is that? Totally. Totally. Totally, totally, totally. I feel the exact same way about myself. I'm like, someone like might come up to me in a coffee shop and be like, do you

write those things on Instagram? Yeah. And then I'm like embarrassed because the people around me. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not, I promise I'm not really anyone significant. Yeah. I have a, I have a modestly listened to podcast on some episodes. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I remember one time Kim Petrus wrote something like, it's so humbling to walk into a straight club because I will go into a gay club and everyone's like, yes, queening me.

And like, I'm like a list in a specific type of gay club. But I leave the gay club and nobody knows who I am. But what's interesting about that is that, like, I don't know. you and I have both had experiences even with that tiny fame, right? Like, I don't know. You could be famous in like your book club, like this kind of experiences that come along with even the most niche types of fame. Like change you, I think, psychologically.

And they change the way that you engage with your surroundings. Like I've had a number of experiences like that. I noted some of them down here because I've been wanting to get this off my chest for you. Speak your truth. I mean, first of all, sexual harassment in gay clubs is one. Like, I don't know. Again, it's, I don't, people don't really know who I am, but sometimes in gay clubs, people do just because I have a gayer audience calling some of you out right now on the gay part,

not the sexual harassment part, hopefully. You know, just people feeling entitled to your body. But I had like, more specifically, I had one years ago when I was kind of just starting. So it was kind of a shock that this even happened at the time. I had such a small audience. but I had a grinder hookup come over and we're in bed like rolling around making out and he pulls away and he looks at me and he's like my friends aren't going to believe this. Whoa. And it's like it was so stupid.

We didn't even end up like having sex honestly, but it was like so I never forgot. That was like four years ago. I would not fuck somebody after that. I'd be like, get out of my house. Yeah. No, exactly. But like, I never approached any like, you know, theoretically like anonymous, like dating or hookup situation the same after that because it's like, oh, oh. And I don't look like I don't, I'm again, I'm very aware of like my specific kind of like tiny niche internet podcasting theme. But it's such like I can't. I can't. I guess why I'm saying any of this is that like I can't imagine these experiences which have fundamentally changed like, for example, dating for me. Yeah. On the level of like tens of millions of people.

And I would go so far as to assert, and you can give me your thoughts on this. But like, I think there's very few people for whom being famous is fun. I think it's a blessing to be able to do what you love for a job and to be able to pay your bills making whatever it is that you make, whether it's art or music or movies. But I don't know. Sands, like, there's probably a few people. Like, I think Charlie X, CX probably likes being famous. My friend Kat Tenbarge, who sometimes does this podcast with me, she tweeted something that I thought was really poignant, which was fame makes people miserable, especially women.

And I think a lot of people think that they want to be famous, but would actually dislike the reality of being famous. Women in particular are supposed to be grateful to be objectified and expected to be perfect all the time. First of all, like the experiences you shared are very particular to the kind of niche micro fame that we have. And I think in a way, like Chapel Roan is like a cat. capital C celebrity. Like it's universally recognized. And like I think almost with like the kind of podcaster or like digital like internet presence fame, people actually feel that they know you even more than they would feel

that way about a celebrity. And that's really interesting. I think like the experience that you are describing with like your dating situations is like the one of like feeling dehumanized, you know, like you're in this very intimate moment with somebody and they pull away and they're like, oh my God, I can't wait to like use you but as a piece of like window dressing in the story, I'm going to tell my friends. That is totally like takes you out of your body.

But back to the concept of fame, I think it really depends on how famous you are, when you got famous, and who your audience is. Because I think Charlie X, X, X probably does enjoy being famous. And that's because she's like, has this kind of adversarial relationship almost with her fans where they're like naughty boys.

You know what I mean? And she can, you know, she's not trying to be your best friend. And she like makes that very very. clear and I think the people who do make that clear immediately have a much easier time. Like Chapel Roan being the person who said like I was a gay kid in the Midwest and like I want to help everyone like express themselves and like I want everyone to be queens and I want ever like I want my shows to be a safe space. I want that's how people fucking hate fame because you you can't

be everybody's best friend. You really just can't. And like I was thinking about that too. And we were even talking about it offline before we started recording like being a kid like a closet queer kid in North Carolina being not well liked in high school, like running the feminist club and nobody, everybody hate to see me coming. And then you get to a point where I have, you know, I started this podcast, you have this audience and I'm like, oh my God, like people like me. Like people want to be my friend. Like, of course.

Of course I'm your best friend. Like, yes, of course. And then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And then it's impossible for you to make a decision that places everyone. You cannot keep that promise. And I think that is when fame gets tough for people, is when they promise something in particular to their audience. Men probably have an easier time, you know, in general. And also people who got famous, like, 20 to 30 years ago, I think have an easier time.

Like, there's a lot of, like, classic male indie rock star. Like, I'm thinking, like, Jeff Tweedy from Wilco. Like, I don't know how often he gets, like, mobbed. Maybe he does. But I feel what's more likely is that he gets to be a rock star when he steps on the stage. which is like what he wanted. And then probably like a dad every so often, like, sees him in a coffee shop and is like, oh my God, and he's incredibly famous.

But has this sort of relationship that is different from like the kind of stuff we're talking about. Maybe we all just need to be a little bit more like Charlie XX and like spar with our twinks on Twitter. One of the people I think of all the time is my friend CJ who's CJ the X on YouTube. And like their thing from the beginning was like, hey, by the way, like you don't know me. don't know you. I don't care about you because I've never met you. And I think that has kept them sane in a way that like I've been massively jealous of. But I also think like so many people start like making a platform from themselves when they're like 18 or 19. And then it like spirals out of control and like you've no idea like what you've done. And when you're 18, you don't want to

be like, give me my boundaries. You know, I'm just like, please desperately everyone love me and tell me that. you know and it's a two-sided coin because you get way more love and way more attachment and the people like I get scared when someone comes up to me and is like I love you so much like your work is everything to me because I look at them and I'm like I'm going to disappoint you so horrifically one day like one day oh my god totally and like even in the DM history like my like most virulent haters I scroll up used to be the biggest fans and I'm like it's not safe yes oh my god I've had that I've had Add that where like where sometimes people, I mean, people tend to follow me mostly because they agree or at least find like my political choices interesting. But the people who really kind of like avidly follow my work online, when they leave, they tend not to be like, oh, I'm not interested anymore.

It's like oftentimes to your point, they become like the biggest adversaries where they're like, I fucking hate him. It's a breakup. Like that's what I think you have to understand too is it's like there's always like a phase in like a real breakup when you like know a person in our in. an actual relationship with them where you're like, oh, like, sex isn't going where I thought it was going. You're like, this person actually isn't the person that I thought they were. And it's like such a big, like loss and a grief. And people are going through that in like a one-sided way. And I also, I don't want to like, like, everybody has parosocial attachments. Like I've parosocial attachments with people, even though I've met really famous people and been like, oh, wait, like they're just people, you know. It's a natural thing and especially like unavoidable in in the context that we are in

right now. And the emotions are real. Like that's why I don't, like a lot of the narrative I see around this chapel room stuff is just like oh my god like stupid fan girls are out of control like can you believe the and it's just like no i actually think what's more interesting is investigating these real valid emotions that people are having which is like wait why doesn't chapel rhone want to be my best friend like that can be painful for people to experience like genuinely and i want to acknowledge that and then interrogate what about it is painful and why so i try to have empathy even for and i to any like micro famous person this is a really interesting exercise your most virulent hate message. Imagine it was sent from like an X and it reads just like that. It was like,

we used to have so much fun together. Like I used to love listening to you like in this and this and this and then you started doing this and everything changed. I just, I can't find myself being able to listen anyone. You know, it just, it reads just like that. And it's really interesting to be able to to see people like having that experience with you, a person that they've never actually directly interacted with. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. One of the last points that I wanted to bring up, Just about like fame and and people's misunderstanding of it is, you know, you said Chapel Road is a capital C celebrity. And I think at this point that's true. Six months ago, she was more of a niche celebrity, but even still like her celebrity is very different than Beyonce's celebrity is very different than like yours and my.

I'm not even going to use the word celebrity. Let's be fucking real. But like something that is interesting is that to someone who might be a fan, of you, Eliza, and Chaparone and Beyonce, when you're a fan of someone, like, celebrity is celebrity. And something that's so interesting to me is, like, the lack of understanding that people have that, like, just because someone is famous to them does not mean that they have, like, the material resources, you know, PR resources or anything to handle celebrity.

It was something that I mentioned when I did my Iman Khalif episode with ContraPoints, where it's like people were talking about Amon Khalif and the Olympics controversy, as if she was a celebrity, which at that point she was because she became one during the Olympics. But until the Olympics, she was kind of just a random female boxer. And most people don't know that much about any female boxers. And so it wasn't like she had a PR team and it wasn't like she had all this money. And another thing that I think plays into people's entitlement of like, I can say whatever I want about Chapel Rhone and I can.

feel however I want and express that as violently as I want to is because she's a celebrity and she's rich and she's famous. It's one of these things where it's like, first of all, Chapel Rhone is not yet rich. I say that confidently. It costs a lot of, you would know this. It costs a lot of money to be a touring musician. And it takes a while to like make a return on that investment. And I mean, she's also so young. Like there are most people who get that much money that early, like buy a fucking Mercedes-Benz and then it's gone the next year. But I think also, regardless, like, we don't fully know her financial situation. And regardless of that, like, she's not a politician.

You know, there's a very real difference between the kind of power that celebrity gives you and the kind of, like, material power you actually have to, like, genuinely change the world. And, like, Chapel Roan has a lot more influence in power than most of us. But still, like, I think in this world where everything is increasingly celebrified and, like, Like, you know, every person is encouraged to be their own celebrity. Like there's millions of microfamous people making blogs about their daily life. Yes. Making stupid little gay podcasts.

Making stupid little gay podcasts. You know, like I feel like everybody has like a girl from their high school that just like got really big on Instagram Reels and like does influencer reviews and stuff. If you look at polling of young children and like what they want to be when they grow up, I think like something like 80% of them want to be an influencer. So it's like we're being trained already. Like everyone is supposed to be like kind of their own influencer. And like obviously not to be too like capital L liberal with it. But like we did have a reality show president in our office. You can live out.

Okay, I'm living out. Like we fully elected a reality show celebrity to be our president. Like the walls are collapsing between like celebrity and politics, which is why we fucking have Kamala Harris Brat summer. or whatever is happening over there. Yeah. And I think people confuse that too. And people are like, she's rich and powerful and therefore, like, I can kind of do whatever I want to her.

And that's part of because, you know, part of the reason is because we just have like no political literacy in this country. And people like on a fundamental level don't understand how things work most of the time. But I just went off on my tangent about how Chapel Roan is not the government. But I really think people, some people think she's the government. But maybe she should be. And that's a problem. People think Chapel Roan should be the government when I'm like, no,

Chapel Roan should be a pop star and we should like go watch her sing and then not, you know, not be aware of her other than that because that's clearly also what she wants. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Chapel Roan is not, I mean, I had more notes, but that might be a good place to end it. Just Chapel Roan is not the government. If there is one thing you take away from this is that Chapel Roan is not yet running for office. We can pray. We can pray.

But honestly, I hope she never does because if she... I know. runs for office, then I'm probably not going to like her anymore. I know. She shouldn't be the government. That's the point. Yeah. Chapel Roan isn't and shouldn't be the government.

I love podcasting. Look, the leftist podcast finally got to the point at the end. Eliza, the last question that I have for you is what now? Like, where do you think we're going from here? And do you think we're on the brink of positive change when it comes to this like self-evaluation of our parasycial relationships and especially how they mostly doom women artists? Or do you think, and this is the more cynical view, that we've kind of just with social media only begun to see how bad this can get?

Yeah. I am an optimist, and so I would like to believe that this is kind of like a cultural turning point. I mean, I think we're going to see what happens with the Chapel Roan situation and see how people respond to that. It might just be an example of like, I think Chapel Roan may just kind of step out of the spotlight for a little bit and be like, you know what? Like, maybe this is what fame requires right now. And for that reason, like, I need to step away a little bit. I don't think this kind of parasyality serves the fans either.

I think when there's not honesty about the relationship between the fans and the music, it makes everybody feel bad. Like from all the breakup messages essentially that like even I've seen on my end from people feeling really disillusioned with like who they thought I was as a person. and I just look at them and I go, oh my God, I wish you never thought you knew who I was as a person. I wish you just like engage with the art or engage with like the ideas. And I think like from the times that I felt that way about people about artists or, you know, musicians or thinkers or whatever, like, I don't know. It's difficult because I don't, again, when I like tried that response because it is fundamentally human. But I hope it doesn't end in a situation where Chapel Rhone like burns out in this way that's ultimately not going to be good. for her. But I do think at the very least she has created a pathway for other people to say,

hey, this is also not okay with me because the only way we change anything is by one, I sound like a fucking kindergarten poster. But it's like, you know, one person makes the step and then other people are like, wait, that's possible. Like I too could go down that path and other people can use her as a reference now. Now the next person will not be the first person to ever say something like that in like the mainstream. And so I am happy for her and I'm hoping that she's just like doing some normal ass shit. Like I hope she's like going to the creek with like her friend and like drinking a beer or something. You know what I mean? Like I hope she's able to just kind of step out of being a symbol. What do you think? I think that we've been approaching celebrity wrong for a really,

really long time. And I think that a lot of people and a lot of women in particular have been driven to the brink by it. Mm-hmm. And I just don't think that it has to be this way. And I think that to your point, like, I think it, I think chapel is kind of like patient zero of like, what if we were forced to not think about it this way? To your point, like, what if chapel removed herself? I mean, she's said that like, if people don't chill the fuck out, especially about like

her family, chapel has said that people were like going to her like normal, non-famous sister's work. My God. She said that if people don't cut that out, that she will stop. And it's like, okay, what if that's what it takes? And I hope that's not what it takes. But what if that's what it takes for us to like fundamentally rethink what we're entitled to as fans.

I mean, that's the ultimate, like, you don't own me. Like, ultimately, I'm going to stop whenever I want to stop. And I'm going to behave the way that I want to behave. I literally think when you have a fandom at that level, when it's just so huge, you have to be mommy. You know what I mean? You have to be like, I'm going to tell you what to do. Because the thing is, fans shouldn't be telling the artist what to do.

That's not how it works. Like, if that was the case, like, there's a reason artists are artists because they're, they're visionaries in a way. I don't know. I think about, like, Caroline Polichick. She has these crazy, she uses her voice as a fucking guitar in place of a guitar solo. That's crazy. Like, a mass of fans would not be like, and on your next album, I think you should, like, do,

you know, you should do this crazy thing with your voice. They would never say that. I, like, thought about this a lot with, like, the big thief debacle when people didn't like how they re-recorded that one song, Vampire Empire and, like, got really upset about it. It's like actually as an artist, like, it is your job to create authentically and push the culture in a certain way. Like, you know, this like drag queen pop star persona is something that really broke the mold. And to some people, it's like, that's weird. Like, why is she doing that? And that's because she was doing something genuinely different. Like, the artist is not just

the manifestation of like the conglomerate of what all these fans think of them, you know? And I think fans should in the most healthiest ideal world engage with the art. And and with the thoughts and with the ideas versus mistakenly thinking that they are engaging with the person and that can leave you in a very amazing place where you can have a favorite artist and you have a favorite album of theirs and there's one album that they put out

and you're like, mm, it doesn't really hit for me. You know what that means? I'm not going to listen to it. And maybe I'll try to, you know what I mean? Just a more healthier relationship with that. It all comes back to Britney Spears for me, as most things do. But like when she shaved her head, she said that the reason that she did that

is she did not want people to touch her anymore. Yeah. And in many ways, like, Chapel Roan's TikTok videos are in the tradition of Britney shaving her head, which, of course, nobody ever talks about why she did it. They just talked about the spectacle of it. But that's what it was about. So there's a real history of this. And maybe one small step for chapel, one giant leap for drag queen pop star kind.

Yes, perfect. You really landed the plane there. Eliza, where can people find more of you? I thank you so much for being here today. Of course. People can find me. First of all, you can find my music under just Eliza McLam

on every streaming service. I'm going on tour this fall if you want to come to see me on tour. I'm at Eliza McClam on every social media, including Substack, which is words from Eliza. And I am the co-host of a podcast called Vinchopia. And her music is so good.

I was up late last night outlining for this and editing stuff for Patreon and listening to it. And it's so good. So not that I have all that much pull, but let's go make Eliza more famous. Thank you. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for you. We're all grateful. I'm grateful.

I promise I'm fucking grateful. I'm so fucking grateful. I'm so grateful. Thank you all so much for. joining us today. I hope you enjoyed. Maybe you challenged yourself. Honestly, as a fan, you know, to Eliza's point on the human emotions involved in all of this, like, I've been a stand of many people. And this situation has challenged me to interrogate that within myself. So if this did something for you, then maybe consider sharing it with the friend who's like a

little bit too tapped into stand Twitter or something. Oh God, they're going to come cut my head off. You know what? Knowing me and my audience, we're probably all the friends. friend that is a little too on stand Twitter. So maybe that's definitely me and my circle. So I get it. I love you so much. And until next time, stay fruity.