Chapo Trap House - 726 - Cruising feat. Lauren Oyler (4/24/23)

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

We’re joined by author Lauren Oyler to discuss her new Harper’s article about her experience going on a cruise centered around Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP brand. We discuss performative crying, serial killer branded work-outs, vagina-themed everything, and selling self-actualization. Then, we catch up on an eventful few days in the media, with Musk’s Twitter checkpocalypse, and Tucker & Don Lemon getting the axe at Fox & CNN respectively.

Hello, everybody. It's Monday, August 24th, and we got some shopbo coming at you. So folks, we've talked a lot about Goop on this show, but only in the context of the slime produced by Alien symbiote Venom in the film Venom, starring Tom Hardy. But today we're diving back into the Goop and all the Goop-related vibes of Gwyneth Paltrow and her wellness brand with author Lauren Euler, who recently got Gooped up on the Goop cruise. Lauren, welcome to the show, a good Goop day to you. Thanks for having me. You guys know I love hanging out with small groups of men, so just write it home. This is one of the smallest groups of men you can find. Lauren, so you have a piece in Harper's that like you really, as

you describe it, you hit the jackpot of magazine writing, which is getting paid to go on a fun celebrity cruise. And you join the ranks of such a ship and cruise-based magazine writers like David Foster Wallace and Herman Melville. Was the Goop cruise everything you dreamed of? I guess yes and no. It was sort of like a blank slate of a cruise article. It was just, I don't know, the pressure of the David Foster Wallace thing was like a double-edged sword. And once like I actually got on the boat, there was not a lot of Goop content to be found, right? Like I was there with a bunch of other journalists. And we were all sort of bewildered by the fact that the Goop brand, which is so strong, was sort of

carrying the whole like experience. And it was basically just a regular cruise. It was not so different from what David Foster Wallace describes in his Harper's piece from 1996, which I mentioned at length. Because there's just not like, there's not like a lot of Goop stuff going on, which you can talk about. It's sort of interesting as a kind of media story or whatever. But so was it everything I hoped it would be? It's a difficult question because I didn't, I had bad expectations going into it. You show up for the Goop cruise expecting Goop. And then you're like, you had the experience of being like Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, where you're like, Gwyneth, there will be

some Goop on the Goop tour eventually. Yeah, well, it's supposed to be fancy, right? Like, a big question that I had going into the cruise was who is going to be honest and like, what is the class makeup of the of the sort of passengers going to be? Because a sort of a regular cruise and just to be clear, the Goop cruise is not a dedicated boat only for Gwyneth Paltrow fans and like Goop California people. It's just a regular luxury cruise. This one was to the Mediterranean. And then there's a little subset of Goop people. There's also like a religious convention on this cruise. So you can take a you can take a small group on a celebrity or Royal Caribbean cruise if

anybody needs like a retreat option. So before the before the cruise started, I was looking up like like articles to read about it or like, you know, sort of like advertising materials marketing materials. And they're just like wasn't very much stuff. And I say this in the piece, which is true, I was really worried I was going to get there. It was just going to be a regular cruise. And then I was going to have to like truly just do a David Foster Wallace like rewrite with no Goop whatsoever. Because nobody was particularly concerned about the Goop cruise. Yeah, it sounded like it sounded like there was a lot of the regular depressing stuff that happens during any normal cruise. But the Goop patina over your portion

of the cruise wasn't even that thick. No, and it was kind of depressing. Like it was like even more depressing because I talked about how all of these women were crying all the time. Right. Like they wanted to have this kind of wellness experience where they're like go go on the Goop cruise and change, but it's just not that different from a normal cruise. And a lot of them, I think most of the people who are on it were sort of regular cruisers in general, like it was not anyone's first time at the celebrity cruise line, shall we say. And so yeah, it was kind of this depressing cruise thing. But it was also just confusing to me because the not confusing, I mean, it's sort of interesting, but also sort of

not interesting that they haven't changed that much since DFW wrote that. So you can really like read that and kind of get a sense for what a 2023 cruise ship is like reading something that was written in 1996. What was interesting is that I had like David Foster Wallace's Cabin in 1996 was on a celebrity cruise in the Caribbean, which was seven nights and it cost almost exactly the same like numeric value as my cabin. So they've gotten much cheaper in terms of inflation. And it seems to be like the same kind of class makeup. Like it's it's real middle, it's like middle class upper middle class from the Midwest retirees living in Florida, living in the Hamptons living in the Midwest. And some British

people, I love British people, very fascinating vision couldn't delve too much into the to the British contingent there because they were mostly just on the boat. Yeah, the people who go on cruises, it's socio economic sector that I mean, really, they're just dying, you know, people people who have a unstratified taste but can spend $4,000 on a vacation at a moment's notice. Yeah. And also, it's like, it's not a good it's not it's a lot of money, but it's also not like a wise way to spend your money. If you can go, I mean, it is basically cruises serve their purpose because people who don't who don't have very much mobility, right, like

to go on them and they have everything taken care of and you don't have to sort of like travel around and if you want to go to France, Italy, Spain, and you don't have that much time or space to do it, it's a fine way to do it, I suppose. But it's not like a good value, right? Like I think there's a there. I'm a huge snob. I learned to be a snob. Very proud of that. And like the food is not good, right? And you're like, I can get this food like much better food than this cheaper in my major, my coastal elite city, right? Or but also anywhere, I mean, any, you know, any mid sized city in America is going to have kind of like vaguely nice restaurants with like millennial waiters with tattoos

and people are going to be able to talk to you about wine in a way that is just like this is really the cruise. The experience on the cruise is like really retro. And I sort of make fun of myself and the other journalists for having these dark elitist thoughts, but it's just the way of like the world that these things are not nice anymore. And they haven't really adapted to like make the cruise feel nice. Lauren. So Goop is this like, you know, Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness brand. She founded it. I think it's, you said it's currently worth $390 million. But I guess just overall, how would you describe the Goop slash Gwyneth ethos? What is Goop selling?

They're selling, I think. Oh, I mean, it's a lifestyle brand, right? I think that's the most accurate way to say it. So it's about the whole the mind body spirit, right? So they're selling all any product or any idea that is going to sort of nurture your mind body spirit. So the thing that they get sort of most of their press for are is a sort of like quack medical advice, the vagina eggs, which relates to the quack medical advice. And there's sort of like woo woo spiritual like vibes, basically. I mean, they are selling vibes. I'm actually wearing those sandals right now. Goop vibe sandals.

I used them to go on the balcony and smoke cigarettes. Yeah, they say Goop vibes on them. But it's sort of like the brand, it just is so much bigger than what it is that they sell, right? Like they make their own skincare. The skincare kind of nice, I mean, whatever skincare is kind of fake. But if you're going to buy skincare, it's nice enough. They also they have like a clothing line. Gwyneth was wearing a lot of the clothes, I believe during this key trial. And they're pretty nice. The thing is that I think they probably struggle with now is that they were so hurring in the media for the last five, six years, they were just so she was just relentlessly made fun of that she's never going to be sort of like

no sort of like truly wealthy, refined, sophisticated person is going to be like buying G label with this is what the brand is called G label clothes or whatever. No, it's not going to it's not going to ever get the respect, right? And so my idea was that they're sort of moving in the opposite direction in terms of like expanding the brand by trying to sort of get the cruiser income, right? Which is like retirees, they got some disposable income, they like to experiment with skincare, they don't really have the kind of pseudoscientific knowledge of skincare that I have or someone someone like a young person in New York might have. But they they sort of like to buy things and try things in a kind of like QVC shopper way.

So I don't know if that answers your question. But like it's there in an interest I think the brain is in an interesting place right now because they're sort of totally integrated where we have goop around forever, they're going to have to go into a bunch of different they're going to have to like expand somehow. But it's like unclear what is the smart direction to go in and Dwayne Patrick herself has famously declared declared herself responsible for a lot of wellness trends like she said she started yoga, she says that she started spirulina, she says that she started like a lot of people say and some of the journalists on this cruise also said that she is responsible for bringing sex positivity for women into the mainstream,

which is just ridiculous as like a veteran of like horrible internet feminist media. I'm like mad for my comrades at Jezebel who suffered, you know, one of those girls had a tampon stuck in her vagina for fucking days and days and days. And she's just like, Gwyneth is just erasing that experience. But but I think something that she reminds us all of is that you can just say stuff and like probably 75% of people who hear you say it will believe that it's true. So she give me like, Oh yeah, I made yoga happen and like people like she kind of did make yoga happen even though she just didn't right. So I don't know what she's going to do next. But it's not cruises. Yeah, I certainly yeah, I agree with you that I

don't think she necessarily like made yoga popular or sex positivity for that matter. But Goop and like Gwyneth Paltrow just generally if she was definitely like an early adopter of a lot of this shit, she was not the first to it. But I would say the first in bringing it outside of like, you know, like crystal New Age people. I don't know. So I would say about yoga, right? Like you can read novel. No, you read like you read like popular novels. I mean, this is where my historical my my 20th century historical knowledge comes primarily from reading novels. And like you read novels from the 80s and people are making jokes about yoga pants. Yeah, it's fully it's fully like, I think, I don't know, does she have a good

does everybody have a goldfish memory? I don't know. No, yeah, yoga, like, I remember like my mom and sister talking about doing yoga, you know, when she was strictly an actress, you know, like she has no claim on that. But some of this stuff like pseudo scientific skincare, general wellness, mindfulness, some of that, the more ephemeral things. I mean, she doesn't have a claim on inventing them or popularizing them necessarily, but making them more accessible, I guess. But it's, I don't know, the early adopters of this stuff or early adopters of reselling it, they never they never become like the preeminent market force. You know, like Atari isn't the biggest video game company. It,

people always become victims of their own success. And it seems like you kind of talk about this in the article, but the it's surpassed her in a way, like the only the only people under 60 that would go on this cruise or maybe and represent new group customers outside of the cruise are like people who got hit by a mail truck and have disposable income now. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, exactly. It's not like, and I was like, what would they have to do to get me to like independently want to purchase this? And they would have to just make it like so sick and it would have to be grotesquely like wellness like millennia, like I should be embarrassed to enjoy it, right? And the issue is not that

like, oh, I'm embarrassed by all of this. And like, this is lame. You can get all of this, like you can get better versions of all of this stuff, like in like any, any city in America. And like, I want a fancy salad with weird ingredients that I don't even know what they are, if I'm going to be on the Goop cruise and there were no fancy salad with weird ingredients at all, there were these smoothies, which again, you can get anywhere. So I think like, it was just that shit, they were just half assing it. And they wouldn't tell me they would never tell me like why they were half assing it, like what was the purpose of this venture. And so we just have to sort of live with like the speculation,

which I guess is part of the point of having a brand like this is to create speculation about what what her motives are. If I could read your stuff code from your piece real quick at the beginning, you write memories of a time when gut health wasn't something you discussed at parties are distant. Moms are micro dosing, vulnerability reigns, the countervailing spirit of resistance to quackery and fake news that characterized the Trump era is over, and eggs made of Jade that you're supposed to put in your vagina are still for sale. Everybody knows about the vagina eggs. Lauren, ever since I read that paragraph, I can't stop thinking about Leonard Cohen

singing, everybody knows the vagina eggs. But it seems like much of the Goop cruise and the Goop brand and in general is vagina related. Like there was the famous candle that smells like your vagina. There are the Jade Yoni eggs. And you know, there's a lot of like vagina positivity on on this cruise like indeeding. I enjoyed the one woman who is like, I don't know, the psychological tarot reader or the woman who interviewed Gwyneth at the end of the cruise that described, described masturbation as self pressure practice. And I just love everything as like a practice now. Yeah. And it's like, it's, it, it sort of speaks to how stressful these people and me to like how stressful people find like living life

and how basically everything becomes a responsibility, including masturbating. What you're talking about Gwyneth was interviewed by this psychiatrist. She's a holistic psychiatrist as her title. And someone during the Q&A asked, how do we feel about masturbation? And this psychiatrist, yeah, but she doesn't say thumbs up, like there's no joke, right? Like she's just like, you know, I encourage all my patients to develop a self pleasure practice. And it also helps you form a connection to the divine. And it's just, I think the way that she's speaking there is it's simultaneously like so depressing. And like not, not even clinical, just sort of like bureaucratic, right? I encourage all my patients to develop a self pleasure practice.

So it's acknowledging the fact that everyone's like, I must have sexual health. I must have a job. I must have lots of money. I must eat healthy. I must have like a, well, lively social life, but not too lively because caffeine is also a drug. And so, so there's this whole like life management aspect that is very compelling to people. But of course, if you, if you literally say I'm, I'm managing my life, I have a regimented schedule, or I wake up and I do my self pleasure practice. And then I make my smoothie with my B pollen and my spirulina and like 18 other ingredients that I don't even know what they're called. And then I go on a run and then I come back and I like do my emails, you know, that's very unsexy. And I think there's been enough

critique of that kind of attitude, even within the sort of like tech business sphere, right? Like the work life balance is very important. So you can't say you can't get to like, excel spreadsheet about it. So you also have to have this like oppositional, like spiritual bullshit. So astrology was just the beginning. And now it's like, you know, your everything is the divine. All these people kept talking about the divine. And I asked them what they meant by it. And they were like, well, it's not literally God, but it could be God, if you feel like it's God, but it's really just about realizing that you're not the only person in the world and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's

just about like, just selling really kind of basic stuff to people. And the sex, I think the original question was about vaginas for some, I think so we got to hear from vaginas. And, you know, I think telling a certain sort of kind of customer, right, this like, maybe older woman who was not part of the feminist blog wars of the 20, 2000s and the 2010s, who doesn't necessarily like, it doesn't find sex toys to be cliche, which you know what I mean, I'm like, I cannot like, they were sending us so many sex toys at the feminist website that we made like a wall out of them, right? But not everybody is living that experience. So Gwyneth Patrick can sell sort of like upmarket sex toys. And the like, kitschy vagina candle,

which didn't actually smell like a vagina. And the big, the kicker is the vagina eggs, which were supposed to help your pelvic floor and also like give you better orgasms and give you like more libido. And I think that that is speaking a lot of it, a lot of it as many sort of wellness scams do is like appealing to real problems, which is that, you know, women like are not encouraged to think about their sexuality or whatever, but they're doing it in this absolutely deceitful way that that makes it seem like more stressful than it has to be, I guess. But I didn't I do feel like I there was a there was a moment at the beginning of writing this piece, when I thought for sure, I was going to put a egg

in my vagina. I thought David Foster Wallace would not put up with this shit. And so I didn't I didn't go down that route. But maybe he could still be with us. Goop should. I mean, I know, I know it's a woman related brand. But you know, hey, women have been through this. And so one of these one of these Jade eggs or the flared base that you can put in your asshole. Mm hmm. I mean, they're so feminine. It's so feminist to that's what's sort of weird about it is like for women and it is supposed to be about feminism. So I don't actually know how they would feel about that. And and there was like one man, there was one independent

man on the cruise, I believe. And he was a gay guy who was a he was some kind of practitioner. And he I think he's a therapist and he wanted to sort of scope out what what the Goop the Goop practitioners were doing and sort of see if they he could get a collab going. What is what the scope the Goop? Yeah, a lot of people who were there were entrepreneurs and wanted to sort of network, which also maybe speaks to like the the income, the tax bracket that we're working with. Well, I'm probably my favorite quote from your article comes courtesy of Ellen Nevora. Like you said, the holistic psychologist who interviews Gwyneth at the end of your piece.

And she describes how in college, like her wellness was a mess. And she said she couldn't poop and was getting gaslit by tons of gynecologists. But then she says here, this is my favorite quote, she says, we are due for a cultural rebrand around crying, which is free therapy. I love that Gwyneth replied deeply. And it's like crying now, could we can we add crying to our sort of wellness practice regimen, put that on the Excel sheet? Yes, our lacrimose or our lacrimose practice or like, I don't know. It's just it's just like the crying thing is so strange to me. I don't even know where to start. So I watched all the Goop Netflix shows. There's two, there's two. There's one that's about this one is

called Sex, Love and Goop. And the other one is called the Goop Lab. And they're both the Sex, Love and Goop one takes after this sort of it's vaguely sort of in the vein of therapy TV shows, which are popular now, there's lots of therapy content. And they have like real couples doing sex therapy with different different sex therapists. And then the Goop Lab is Goop employees doing sort of weird wellness practices. So one of the things they do, they do ayahuasca, they all cry, obviously, what's funny, you know, like vomiting, it's free therapy, like nobody's trying to sell that. It's like so cathartic to vomit, you know what I mean, it's free health care. Nobody's really saying that I wonder why. So they

do ayahuasca, they like do the Bimhoff thing, they do a bunch of other kind of like, like spiritual stuff. And they're always crying, everyone on the show is always crying, there's one crying in every episode, all they do pass like like, is it past life is not past life regression therapy, some other kind of like contacting your channeling your loss relatives thing. Everyone's always crying. And it's just like a shorthand for making, making everything seem meaningful, right? So it feels like it's working if you're, if something makes you cry, then that means like it's had an effect on you. And I guess if you're thinking masturbation is your self pleasure practice, it's difficult for you to like enjoy simple things about

life. So crying is like the real sort of barrier breaker there. And also I think like maybe it's, it's like vaguely feminist to cry, because women cry all the time, as you guys surely know, you surely made some girls cry in your day, every day, we just love crying. And we're, we're shamed for it by the patriarchy. So we have just now finally, there's been a watershed moment work with that allows us to cry in public. And I think it's also like a thing where it's seen as as real because it's kind of embarrassing, right? So it's like a shortcut to authenticity and sort of, yeah, meaning. But when everybody's crying all the time, I probably probably saw five women cry on this on this boat. And there's

only like I said, there's only about 40. It's a pretty significant number. And I think this sort of the sympathetic political, like the sympathetic left political way to frame that is to say, you know, life in America is very hard. It's so difficult, you know, everything is so difficult. And there's no mental health care. And people are struggling. But these people aren't struggling, right? These people talk a lot about all the therapy that they're in. They have lots of money to spend on therapists, which they discuss in it on the cruise. So it's not really it's not really that it's something completely different and sort of much more depressing to me because there's not a sort of easy, like righteous

explanation for it. Like, as you say, I mean, the cultural rebrand on crying already happened and it happened like 12 years ago. Yeah. I remember in like 2013, just like looking at Twitter exasperated at just how many like it's this type of guy that doesn't exist so much anymore. Now, 10 years later, but it was like, you know, a guy who would talk about how much he loves eating pussy and how he's really good at it. And actually, it's made he'll do that instead of sex. He loves it. And it just became a big thing to talk about like, Oh, I'm a guy, but I cried hearing a fucking Fiona Apple song. And everyone was everyone in a certain

space was talking about it all the time. And what I thought had happened was that people thought they could get validation for crying. Like, Oh, that's really interesting that you're a man who talks about crying so regularly. And I think now it just it's spread to everyone where it's just like, you know, it is a real behavior or real outcome. But I think it's probably a mix of both like it's validation. And yeah, it's unambiguous. Like supposedly you can't fake crying. I think you can't fake it, but you got to get into the act. You got to be like an actress about it. Like, yeah, you got to channel GP. I think to what was I going to say? Yeah,

there was also a trend like I am a book, I have a literary critic. So I was reading a lot of book reviews. And there was a trend in like cultural criticism for a while where the shortcut to like being like this book was really good would have be some kind of physical reaction, which would be like crying, screaming, throwing up basic. I mean, it's true. It's truly not that far from like the meme. I'm crying and screaming and throwing up. It's the educated version of people who comment on like Led Zeppelin YouTube videos and are like, Oh, I got goosebumps listening to this. I remember what I was going to say, which is that you can't it's also like really it's

a real good like offensive. It's a it's a good offense to have because no one can say anything to you if you're crying, right? Like, you just have to sort of be like discursively petted and be told it's okay or whatever. And of course, like on the goop cruise, if you're on a stupid vacation, like you should cry if you want to. It's your party. But you know, none of these people were saying anything offensive, anything offensive or like anything like that I need to criticize. But like it is this kind of weird protective maneuver because it's seen as like universally embarrassing or we need a cultural rebrand about it, even though actually there's no sort of social repercussions for crying in

public within this class. Obviously, the things are very different depending on the context, but we're talking about this bizarre customer base, which is made up primarily of the upper classes. You know, crying is free therapy. And you know, to our listeners out there, if anyone's interested in a free method of cleansing your body of toxins, I highly recommend pissing and shitting. They're great vomiting. No. Yeah. You have to get back on the new frontier. I gotta say, I'm not a big fan of vomiting. Be like, I guess like, this is all under the rubric of, you know, in the piece, you mentioned how like advertising has sort of mutated into

just it's called branding now. Everything is like ads or just brands. But like, similar to that, it's just like wellness and mindfulness as things that people buy. Like when do you think that that shift happened? And like, what are these, what do these brands mean when they're like, when they're selling you mindfulness or wellness? Okay, so I actually think I can link this to a point that I wanted to make about vomiting before we move on. So the point that I would like to make about vomiting before we move on and shitting and pissing is that so a lot of the sort of wellness, the sort of more nutritional like medispa kind of wellness procedures are actually about getting you

to shit and piss or to release toxin as it were. So there's this episode in the piece where I'm talking to the holistic psychiatrist who makes a real blunder, which she knows that she's done and starts advising this couple that asked her question if they're asking about their child who's having like mental health issues. And she says, did he get the vaccine? And they're like, yeah, he really didn't want it. We thought as much. And she starts she recommends that they go to this quack Instagram doctor, they she recommends that they look up on Instagram, this quack doctor, Dr. Jess MD, who's like a hardcore she's she's not you know, they're always they're always like, I'm not an anti-vaxxer, like

I just like, I'm just asking some questions. So this woman has this sort of like detox protocol called kill bind sweat. And part of it sweat. Yeah, she's like she's she's sort of borrowing from the BTK killer for her wellness detox program. Yes. And it's not just good branding. It's good branding. But but this is also related to crying thing, right? So she's like, when you do the protocol, you have to order some, some to eat something. And then like, you just it's a very she's like, the one of the steps, the killer, the bind is very unpleasant. Because it can be very unpleasant. So you're like, shitting, I'm assuming shitting, pissing, sweating, like releasing all of your toxins. And because it's so difficult, it like feels

like you've done something right. So it's similar to crying, like, oh, crying sucks. Therefore, something good must have happened. And what they're all sort of like lying about, they're just trying all of this branding, like the wellness branding, like the toxin stuff. It's about like sort of like alighting, like true difficulty, true discomfort. And it's like you can manage all of the like deeply uncomfortable things. But if you just think of it as like a practice, then you can sort of tell yourself that you are like managing it well, I don't know. So in terms of like branding, I mean, the thing that's so insidious about Goop is like, it's kind of difficult to say what it is without like acquiescing

to contemporary slang like vibes, because it's selling its ability to advertise something to you, right? So it's not just advertising, it's not just, oh, I'm advertising a product. It's like, I'm developing a name that signals a bunch of different things to the consumer. Or whatever I want to sell to them, they will buy. So it's kind of like, I mean, it's like, I mean, next level, I don't know. But it's, it's empowering, like literally like making Gwyneth Pouchville powerful by allowing her to sort of like move in a bunch of different directions. And also just, it's just a massing like influence, right? And that is what branding is. Individuals, I mean, we used to talk about like the personal brand all the time, no one

really talks about that anymore. But the idea was for like individuals to amass influence so that they could do something with it in the future. And it's kind of like a vision of like some kind of foundation like security, right? For individuals, Gwyneth Pouchville has no need of security. She has more than enough. But, you know, like it is, it's a good business model in that way. Going, going back a little bit on the kill bind, sweat, the, the red dragon, red. Branding is terrible as well. We are really bad branding. It's amazing that she's got so many Instagram followers.

Your toxins leaving your body. Do you see? It's, it did make me think of one thing that sort of connects with Goop. And I guess everything sort of body and wellness related now, this ethos that like, if something is difficult, that's sort of the proof that it works. Like it's a very, very similar to how CrossFit propagates itself. Like this, this workout is so intense that people get kidney diseases because their body can't handle all of the muscle and tissue it's breaking down. So it has to be the best workout because you feel the worst after it. This has to be the most, the most effective self-examination is you cry the most. If something's, if something's, I mean, it, yeah, it's political now. If you're

having an uncomfortable conversation, that means it's the most worthwhile. Have the most uncomfortable conversation. Yeah, but it's also like, this is so American, right? Like it's so Protestant, like it's like self punishing. In other words, you're not going to like, in order to, you know, in order to succeed, it must be difficult. Like it's, you've just got, you've just got to like suffer in some way. Otherwise, like you haven't earned it. And it just makes, I mean, it just makes sense. It just makes a lot of sense that this would become completely internal. Like what reason, why do you need to like be the healthiest you can possibly,

so healthy that you like develop kidney disease and like die early, right? Like what is the purpose? It's like so self obsessed. And like, there are all sorts of reasons for that. But like, it's just, everyone's like lost the plot. Someone was making jokes on Twitter today about how everyone on Tik Tok is, Tik Tok is obsessed with protein and like different protein sources and like will like niche, niche protein sources that you can find and you can like, ways you can like scoot a little extra protein into like every single meal you have. And like America is the answer to that question. Americans are always like already are Americans

are already eating twice as much protein than they need on average. It's, it's just like, it's like all these, I wanted to say it's like, all these like diet fads on steroids. But maybe it's not, it could have been a joke on steroids could have been a joke, but not it's not quite there. Anyway, I think there's like, I don't know, maybe just generally, there's a gamification of just arbitrary difficultness or discomfort when like the rest of your life, there's no like a to b pattern of difficultness or discomfort to result in the rest of your life. You like maybe you want this sort of like video gamey outcome or process with everything else when

you're very comfortable. Yeah. And I think it's just about, I mean, this is my like my neurosis or deep psychological problem, which is that it's just that it's just like people are like need some way to fill their time. And yeah, they need some kind of sense of progression that's not like every single day I do something like, you know, it's about training your body. But I think it becomes depressing is like, if your goal is general wellness and your goal is like being healthy, right? Like what, how can that possibly be satisfying? I'm an exercise girl. I get down with some programs, but like, it loses its, it loses its luster. I think

it's much more about like maintaining and being like, if I don't do this, I'm going to become severely depressed. And so it's about like, making sure you don't like, it's not about seeking anything positive, right? It's not about being like, I'm like, oh, I'm healthy. It's like, if I don't do this, then I will become unhealthy, which is itself, I guess, unhealthy or whatever. I don't know. It doesn't really matter. It also just doesn't matter, right? Like it doesn't matter what you're eating. It doesn't really matter to any anyone else. Like what you're eating, if you exercise, like if you put an egg in your vagina, like no one cares if you get a horrible yeast infection, really. So there

is a part of it that's like, Oh, if you want to waste your money on this stupid shit, like fine, you don't have anything else to do. And it's not because it's, you know, it's not because you have, you like, you have a boring life kind of by choice that these people. And is that like an interesting problem to me? Not really. Lauren, the last question I want to ask you about like Gwyneth and Goop before we get on to some of the other hot topics of the week is, Lauren, did you follow the Gwyneth the ski trial? You mentioned it earlier, but like, did you follow her victory in the civil suit? Yeah, of course. I didn't watch, I watched

a couple of bits of it, but I didn't watch the whole thing is many, many hours of trial. But I just wish. So I think this piece went to print like the week before it started. But my favorite thing that she said, I love her, I have a little bit in the piece about her voice. I love her little voice. So weird. And she's doing this a bit with the guy who's suing her, his lawyer and the lawyers saying, you know, what happened? And in case your listeners don't know what happened was a dispute, there was a collision on the ski slope and this guy sued Gwyneth Paltrow saying that she ran into him and she's like, Oh no, actually you ran into me. So the dispute was about who was coming downhill. And basically the

guy was clearly lying about being coming down. Gwyneth Paltrow was in this case in the right. But she's performing her like innocence really well. And she is describing what happened. And she's describing this guy's skis coming in between her skis. And she's like, I feel this body. It's just like, I feel his body pressed up against me. And I thought, is this a practical joke? Is someone doing something perverted? And it's just like the it's just really good. It's really smart of her to someone doing something perverted. Like so innocent, but also just such a weird word to use. So that was my favorite part. I didn't care as much for I wish you well. I'm like, yeah, those are bitchy things to say.

I thought the guy that sued her was like, just as fascinating as Gwyneth Paltrow is like sort of an avatar of contemporary America. There's something about like doctors and specifically specialty like kind of not real doctors like optometrists. It's just the insane absurd overconfidence that they're like one specialized skill grants them. Is there something about that that's so fascinating to me? Because like this guy, this guy fell down on his p-slope and decided to sue Gwyneth Paltrow for it. And then it was obviously lying about it and was exposed. And it's now like deeply in debt from you come with the queen, you come to Queen of the Goop Queen, you better not miss. That's all I got myself.

It's also just like humiliate. I watched a bit of her lawyer questioning him and he was just he was his head was like sinking lower and lower on to his body. Like he didn't get like permanent like spinal like whatever like wounds from the ski incident. He got them from his like deep bodily shame that he experienced in this trial. Like his her lawyer was just listing Facebook photos for like 30 minutes. He just listed Facebook photos of trips that this fucking optometrist went on in the like two years after the incident allegedly occurred. And he was just so humiliated. He was like, did you go to the Netherlands three times in the winter of 2016? And the guy was like, I don't remember. And he was like, are you

denying that he went to the Netherlands threes? And they're just like, it's just so the specificity of it is so funny. And just like these pathetic like, I mean, you know, pathetic Facebook pictures of like retirees, like hiking or whatever. And he's like, Oh, you had broken ribs. It's just hilarious. I don't know. So yeah, I guess I did watch it. Her outfits were great. Another prod. She's wearing lots of Prada, I believe. And I think word on the internet was that she was wearing G label, which fine, fine, boring clothes, but fine. What's your wellness routine look like now? I eat dinner early in the evening. I do a nice intermittent fast. I usually eat something about 12. And in the morning, I'll have some

things that won't spike my blood sugar, right? So I have coffee, but I really like soup for lunch. I have bone broth for lunch a lot of the days, try to do one hour of movement. So I'll either take a walk or I'll do Pilates or I'll do my Tracy Anderson. And then again in the sauna, I dry brush and I get in the sauna. So I do my infrared sauna for 30 minutes. And then for dinner, I try to eat, you know, according to paleo. So lots of vegetables. It's really important for me to support my detox. Well, Lauren, if you know my moving on from, from Goop for a minute, there's a few stories in the news this week that I want to get to, including like the one, the one that's burning

up everyone's fees today. It is the news that Tucker Carlson was fired by Fox News this morning. He was dumped rather unceremoniously. And to that, my question is simply, what's going on here? Who asked for this? Who's firing? Who's hiring me? Where's my next paycheck coming from? I don't know. Do you? What do you think is going on here with this? I don't know. Do you, but is there a theory? Isn't, wasn't, isn't, didn't you? Well, the Washington Post is reporting that like this all relates to the text messages that were made public during the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News, where he was basically just shitting on Fox News management and his audience. And then apparently this comes from

Rupert himself firing him. But I don't know. I mean, like to me, that's like, they know about this stuff for months. Like, why now? Yeah. And is it sort of like a, it's, it's always like some kind of optics thing, right? Like they're not, the CNN thing is like much messier. It seems to me right now, unless something has happened since we've been on this call. Oh my God. Oh my God. They're going nuts. He was going to try and sue them. I mean, that woman was fired basically for saying that Nikki Haley is washed. She's hit the wall, folks.

I know. He's got like hot guy privilege. He's 57. Come on. Yeah, he looks great. But you know, the, and then, but then did you read this variety thing about all the other horrible things that he's alleged to have done at CNN for the last like 20 years? At the beginning of it, there's an allegation that basically one of his coworkers was selected to go to Iraq and report in Iraq and he really wanted to go. She got these anonymous text messages from some random number and they said like one night while dining with members of the news team, she received the first of two threatening text messages from an unknown number on her flip phone that warned now you've crossed the line and you're going to pay for

it. And so then she works at CNN, obviously. So she, she's like, Hey, can we figure out who sent me these scary text messages? I'm in Iraq. Don't like it. And they source them to fucking dumb women. And this is like, this is like 15 years. Like, I don't know what it was. It doesn't say it doesn't say when it was. Oh, it was in 2008. When this happened. Oh, that's it. Oh, the war, the war was like over then. I know. It was fine. Everything was fine. So you're a coworker, threatening messages because you're jealous. He just seems like

he's real jealous of, he's just like really like, really jealous. And he doesn't like to see a girl boss winning. Is that what your, your friends are doing a little bit about? They hate to see a girl boss winning. So, and then there's a bunch of other people saying that he was offensive to them. He called a producer fat to her face, like insulted people on the air besides Nikki Haley. Like, I don't know. He's a messy bitch. That's the thing about him. He had a, there was God, I remember he was interviewing someone who like, she was like one of the only like victims of like a serial killer who had gotten away. And he was like,

he said something, one of the most insane things I've ever heard an interviewer ask on like normal television. And he said, why didn't you bite his penis? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Why didn't you bite his penis? This is in this article. It was, no, even worse, Felix. It is not a serial killer. It is in this article. He became increasingly polarizing, particularly when it came to discussing women, which sometimes came off as toned up. In 2014, he drew widespread condemnation when he told a Bill Cosby rape accuser that she could have stopped an attack by biting the comedian's penis. Like, what? Are you kidding me?

Oh, wow. She bit my penis. You said he would, he made you perform oral sex. Right. You, you know, there are ways not to perform oral sex if you don't want to do it. I was kind of stoned at the time. And quite honestly, that didn't even enter my mind. Now I wish it would have. Right.

Meaning the using of the teeth. Right. Yes, that's what I'm thinking here. Yeah, I didn't even think of it. Biting. So. Ouch. Yes. I had to ask. Yes, no, I didn't, it didn't cross my mind.

That is like, that's like a going back in time and killing Hitler thing. If only he had been able to go back and bite Bill Cosby's penis. Jesus Christ. I have, I have heard, I have heard, um, yeah, Don Lemon rumors over the years. Like, yeah, he like screams at producers and stuff like that. And, you know, he's awful that it's, I mean, seeing an engine, it seems like they're remaking themselves in some way. Like, I've seen a lot of like, you know, Twitter, uh, liberals, like complain that it's more right leaning now since, uh, brand, Brandon got inaugurated. The Tucker thing is a little

more interesting to me because there were like, today there are ads for upcoming Tucker programs on Fox. So I mean, either this was like a very sudden thing or like, yeah, from Rupert himself and he managed not to tell anyone or prevented from leaking until now. I, it's like, I can't imagine it was due to any personal con, conduct, unless he was like, yeah, I don't buy that in the office. Like, I, I don't know. I'm interested to see where this goes. Well, I guess my question is, does he run for president now? Because like, it seems like the lane is open now that, uh, now that a meatball run has been conclusively outed

as a tune. Yeah. It's a toon town baby. For people who didn't see Ron visited Japan, which was already a big error. And, uh, Pickhamore. Yeah. He, he, he, he revealed himself as a toon from Roger Rabbit, when someone asked him how he felt about slipping in the polls, his eyes bugged out and it's not even, I don't even think you could call it a soy face.

No, it was a toon face. It was something even weirder and less human. Governor, I'll show you falling behind a, a Trump and you pass on that. I'm not, I'm not a candidate. So we'll see if, uh, if, and when that changes. His eyes went everywhere. It was horrifying. I don't want to be like, yeah. Well, it's also what, it's April, 2023. Shouldn't they be like, if Tupper Carlson is going to run, he's got to like get on the, get on the horse. You know what I mean? Like the clock's ticking. They don't have that much time, right?

Like, The same thing in the, in the Ron Japan clip is when they asked him about like going behind in the polls, he goes, I'm not even a candidate. We'll see if that changes. Just pack it in. It's like, what are you doing, man? Why are you in, you're the governor of Florida. Why the fuck are you in Japan if you're not running for president? It's hanging out. It's cool. They got that raw fish. It's kind of interesting. It's kind of weird.

He was going to lay a wreath on the, uh, the memorial for all their a one war criminals. Uh, I don't know about Tucker Carlson. I haven't followed, I haven't followed his career in recent months. So I can't really speculate about it, but something's afoot, surely. But is he going to like cause drama? And the interesting question is going to be like, everyone's going to be like, does, is he doing this on purpose? Is it all, is it all a ploy? Right? Like he's one of these people that for the rest of his career, whatever he does, it's always like the question is always like, is he serious, but is he serious? Um, and going as far as I was actually similar, like everyone's like, is she serious, but

she's operating on a lower stakes sort of platform, right? Like it doesn't really matter if you're serious or not. If you're selling vagina eggs, but like, if you're like, is he seriously running for president, we've already been there. But I mean, like, Tucker kind of sells the male equivalent of vagina eggs, like his, you know, like promoting all the, the, the raw eggs and the, you know, the ball tanning stuff like that. Does he do that? Does he do that? Yeah, he does endorse the ball tanning. Yeah. No, he loves the ball tanning. Uh, what if

you could get a asshole egg that would like internally warm your taint? Just like, I mean, that was my I mean, inside it, but do you have one of Peltrow asked at the vagina eggs and you just turn them into taint warming rectal eggs. What do you need that for your ski trips? Perhaps. Otherwise, I'm struggling to like men's asses are famously like not cold.

I need an ass cooling egg. Yeah. That's lower. You're taking it out of the gas. A man with a cold ass is like a dog with a dry nose. That's not the problem in and of itself, but it's an indicator of other problems. Yes, absolutely. Um, so I don't know, but you guys could maybe now is the time to get in on Tucker Carlson, whatever he's doing. Um, you can sway him to, to the men's, um,

not gay. It's not, it's not gay Tucker. It's just men's asshole products, right? Like you just feel like it's not gay. I swear. It's just stuff for your ass that's not gay. Yeah. Asshole mindfulness and wellness is so important. So, so, so little talked about. I mean, men need it much more than women. We've had it for like, for fucking so long. Like men could just get a little, a few asshole products to balance it out. And while we're like, we're like taking over the world, we're like, yeah, you guys need to put some stuff in your ass. Just go over there. Go put some stuff in your ass for a little while. Um,

Tommy's busy. Tommy's busy destroying the United States. And I guess like the, the, the other big, the other big thing I wanted to bring up is like speaking for myself personally, uh, say what you will about Elon Musk, but Elon with his blue check purge made Twitter so fun this weekend. And like, you know, I'm personally, I like, I like Twitter when it's at its absolute worst. And we saw some like, S tier level posting over the weekend. I don't know, like, uh, gang, what were some of your favorite highlights from like, uh, the blue check massacre? I mean, where do you want to begin? There's, uh, people threatening Elmo. There's people on social security benefits claiming that

they are happy to pay $8 a month to promote free speech. I guess like this whole thing reminds me of like, it's like the, the based meme version of the diversity, equity, inclusion uh, regimen that they all hate so much when it involves like business and academia, but like, they really are, uh, building their own diversity, equity and inclusion program for like the worst posters on the planet. Yeah, that's true. It's affirmative action for terrible posters. I, I am, you know, there's some good news. Anthony Bourdain is back and he's subscribed to Twitter blue. All you people who've spent the last two years saying Anthony Bourdain changed your life. Well, good news. He's alive again. And he, he's experiencing

half the ads and he can upload longer videos. Uh, you mentioned that it's like, also the, the, the spate of, uh, how should I put this, the spate of a check raping of celebrities is like, that's, that's, that's epic. But that's an epic troll because he's like, he's like, Hey, I'm, uh, haha, going to own. I'm trolling. Um, these celebrities, haha, owning them by, uh, associating them with the product I'm selling. Haha. It's amazing. It's like if a kid was running around in the recess with a booger at the end of his finger, threatening to put it in the hair of the popular girls while also trying to sell the booger to everyone else in the class.

It's like, ah, you'd be gross if I put this in your hair. But also, uh, if anyone wants this, it's $8 a month for subscription to the boogers. Anyone is interested in getting the boogers for themselves. Maybe you could put it in the hair of a popular girl that you like. And also like just this idea, like I saw, I saw this sentiment over and over again this weekend of people that, people that think that like celebrities who had the blue check mark were celebrities because they had the blue check mark. And now that they, the North, like the regular people, the hard work in American folks are able to have the blue check mark that they now have the same celebrity as like LeBron James or Stephen

King. It's only a matter of time. Medieval peasants. That's what we live. We live surrounded by techno peasantry. Yeah. The times. The thing that, I mean, so like David, that guy, David Sacks, who's like on the verge of a family annihilation because of interest rates rising, like interest rates climbing even.

Does he have a bullflex in his gym? Interest rates rising ruined his fucking life. It just, everything turned out to be a lie. It's, you know, it's like his pants fall down in front of everyone at the free throw line. He's doing the sales pitch where he's like, Oh, well, you know, people, people spend $30 a month on Brita, but not verification, which is like a funny when you remember they're trying to affirmatively sell a product. Like that's not how anyone else sells any product. Like, Oh, well, you pay for this thing. Why not this thing that you were not paying for before that doesn't do anything?

I wasn't paying for Twitter ever and still aren't still, you know, and then like the people kept bringing up like a Starbucks, like that guy was like, well, you pay $8 to have your name written on your coffee cup and you won't pay for it. No. And it's like, it could only be like, if I went into Starbucks every day and got my coffee for free, and then like you go into Starbucks, you're like, Oh, hey, some of my friends are here. And oh, look, look, there's a celebrity and here's my free coffee. And then they're like, Oh, like, well now, why don't you pay the $8 that you weren't paying

before. But now when you go into Starbucks, instead of your friends being there, it's like anime pedophiles, Nazis, crypto shitheads. And like, yeah, the worst posters in human history. But at least in that scenario, you get coffee. Yeah, what do you get from Twitter? Nothing. Like you get like other people's jokes and then they're mad at you for some reason. But I love all the people also who are like making statements. Like I love the genre of like, I'm a random person, but I have 1200 followers. So I'm going to make it up. I'm going to make a public statement about something. And the, the, when there was a period right before

the Czech, Czech, Czech, Czech, Czech apocalypse, there was like a period where they were saying that they were going to get rid of the checks and then they didn't. And then everybody kept having the checks. And so all these like random people kept being like, dear populace, just so we're clear, I would never pay $8 a month to Elon Musk for this reprehensible service that I never even liked in the first place. And like, I just want to make it clear to my, my, my fellow citizens and my public that I'm not paying for it. And the people having to constantly say like they didn't pay for it. And then all the celebrities that he's like doing the book or like putting the book or on or whatever. And they're like, how,

how has this happened to me? Right? I still have the blue check mark. And it's like, I think desperately trying to make it like still matter somehow. And it's like, nobody cares about Twitter. Everyone's still there. Like it's still, we're still talking about it. But like, does it, no one, you don't need to make a statement about it, about the, about the check mark, but I love them. It's great. So it seems like he like his, the new policy is like, if you have over a million followers, you're just automatically given a check mark. My favorite account of all time, Phil werel, the classic, the Will Ferrell meme aggregator that put that post like a screenshot from

a spongebob. And it's like, would you have homework that you didn't do that's been around for like 12 years now? Yeah. Those accounts have check marks now because they have like a million followers that all died in 2015, just because it's over a million. Fair is fair. Fair is fair. This is the new democratic. This is free speech, which is like the most, if you're really popular, then you're real. Fine. How many followers does Don Lemon have? This is a good question. He wrote that purple statement. Also, I don't understand Elon Musk. There's like a big thing where he was going to ruin Berlin. I live in Berlin with the Tesla, the Tesla factory. So we hate him. But if you ruin Twitter, that

would be great. I'm against it. Don Lemon has 1.4 million followers and is indeed verified. So I don't know if he bought it or what, but Don Lemon is in the club. He's in the cool kids club. We're democratizing coolness. That's a thing you can do is democratize coolness. It's amazing. They all fetishize markets and freedom and they hate socialism and social control and they want a legal order that makes people think they're cool. That's what Tim Sweeney. Tim Sweeney is one of the founders of Epic Games who are responsible

for the worst game launcher ever in human history, the Epic Games Launcher, just the worst piece of shit ever, the version of steam you have to use if you go to hell. He made this thread where he was like, he equated the old check mark system to the bullies he experienced in Junior High, which is, keep in mind, this is a 61-year-old man with like $5 billion. People were like, why are you talking about this? He said, Junior High is a very formative time for a lot of people. It's when we learn about phonies. Yeah. I mean, fuck, that's so depressing. It really just goes to show that you can

have a billion dollars. You can do anything. You can be anyone. Nobody gets past who they were in Junior High School. You're always going to be that person. It doesn't matter what you do in your adult life. You're never getting past High School in Junior High. The thing that used to stop that from happening is you'd go fight a war for a little bit. Get that out of your system. Now, nope. You just get to stay that way forever. Who was that engineer? I'm fine, but I did have a blue check mark already. That was my war, right? I sort of clenched in my Junior High self because I beat the popular girls by having my blue check mark being one of the elite. I've had multiple boyfriends during

fights accuse me of being a blue check elite. So I'm happy. All I'm asking is, could you please do the dishes every once in a while? You would say that checky. That's honestly not that far off. It's like this thing where it's like, oh, you have material wealth because you have a blue check mark, which not even cultural capital. It would be better to be like, well, you have cultural capital, but no, it's like you got a blue check would say that. You don't have perspective. I got this blue check mark because I'm a journalist

because I was calling gynecologists in 2016 asking them if it was dangerous to put a fucking jade egg in your vagina because some celebrity was spreading lies on the internet and you're telling me that my contributions to the public as a journalist don't even matter to you. You know, I gotta say, personally, Catherine used to have a blue check mark. Now she doesn't. So I can't use that line on her anymore. I know I love to know. I love to be back. I love to be back among the people. I'm taking all of our state seekers with me, but, you know, it was great. My family cut me out of the inheritance because I was going to marry a loby.

They took your check, too, Felix, your check. Yeah, they did. They did. And I'm underneath the threshold where I automatically get it back. All those dead people like Bourdain, like they... Hugo Chavez. All the people in Norm Hugo Chavez who posthumously got Twitter blue assigned to them. It was because they had a check and were over the a million threshold. I am not. So I can marry a low-born now. You know, mixed-cloud marriages are very front.

Yeah. I just want to bring one thing up on the way out that somebody just pointed out in my mentions. My congratulations to Chapeau Trap House the show for having fully lapped the entire run of Tucker Carlson tonight, which started after Chapeau Trap House premiered and is now off the air before we are. So... Oh, yeah. Outrunning Tucker Carlson. That's great, you guys.

We'll all end up on Onan together. You know, I've been... I've listened to you guys since the very beginning. Very proud of you. You beat Tucker with his little haircut. How sweet. There you go. You know, slow and steady wins the race. All right. Thanks again to Lauren Euler for joining us today and thank you for, you know, getting gooped up for all of us, for irradiating your body with goop vibes and returning to tell the tale. Thank you. My pleasure. All right, gang. Until next time, bye-bye.

Bye. Everybody knows that the naked man and woman are just a shining artifact of the past. Everybody knows the scene is dead, but there's gonna be a meter on your bed that will disclose what everybody knows.