Everything Is Content - Boyfriends Are Embarrassing, Selling Sunset & Emma Stone's New Face

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

TGIF! This week on Everything Is Content... a viral article, chaotic reality TV and rumours of yet another celebrity face lift.First up, if you've not read Chanté Joseph's mega viral Vogue article titled Is Having A Boyfriend Embarrassing Now? then you've definitely seen the discourse. Julia Fox has weighed in (she says it is) and now it's our turn. We ask: what did we make of the piece, do we think this is an IRL phenomenon or strictly an online shift, and what do we think is behind it?Secondly we're back in LA LA land for a brand new series of Selling Sunset. Ruchira finished it in 3 days, Beth in 2 and we're all obsessed. We discuss the inherent toxicity of reality TV, this series' houses and whether we like seeing behind the curtain on these kind of shows.And last but not least, rumours of cosmetic surgery have been swirling around Emma Stone for the last few months and people are feeling a type of way about it. But is that fair? Can we reasonably feel disappointed when our fav female stars decide to opt out of growing older naturally or is it simply none of our business?Thank you SO much for listening this week and every week. Pleeease could you gift us a review on your podcast player app so other people can find us? We adore everyone who has already. Love O, R, B xoxoxIn partnership with Cue Podcasts.------This week Beth was not really loving Think Again by Jacqueline Wilson (though she remains a lifelong devotee and fan), Oenone was loving Zadie Smith's appearance on Adam Buxton's podcast and Ruchira was loving Rosalía's interview on Popcast and season 2 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.The New York Times - Shibboleth Vogue - Is Having A Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?Substack - is having a boyfriend embarrassing now? yes and that's why we're hiding them Spotify - Call Her Daddy x Spencer Pratt Substack - I Feel Sad About Emma Stone's New Face Timestamps: 13:10: Is Having A Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?37:07: Selling Sunset53:05: Emma Stone's face Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth. I'm Richira. And I'm Anoni. And this is Everything is Content, the podcast that looks at the biggest stories from your news feeds. Whether it's TikTok dramas, film reviews, celebrity breakups, tech analysis, book recommendations, we're all over it. We're the tiny pampered dog of content peeking out of the Irma's bag of pop culture. This week on the podcast, we're diving into a viral article that asks, is having a boy? boyfriend embarrassing, a new and insane series of selling sunset and Emma Stone's new look.

Follow us on Instagram at Everything's Content Pod and make sure you hit follow on your podcast player app so you never miss an episode. So, Beth, what have you been loving this week? So mine is to kick us off on a negative note. It's actually what I've not been loving because I started reading this book, fully expecting that I would bring it to the podcast, loving it, but alas. And that book is Think Again by Jacqueline Wilson, which is the adult audience follow-up to the girl's series that she wrote, Girls on the Pressure, Girls Outlay, Girls in Love, that I loved. I'm sure you both must have read and loved them as well. I grew up loving the Jacqueline Wilson books, but I have to say I actively decided not to read this book. I think something's the best left in nostalgia land and not revisited. I kind of had a hunch. Why is it so bad if it is so bad? So if anyone who doesn't know, this is about Ellie Allard, who was a protagonist of the girl's books I just mentioned, she has just turned 40. She's got a daughter in university. She's doing some art, but it's not going great. She's a teacher. Life's just not quite where she wants it to be. And so she turns 40 and plot of the book is she's trying to boost her life a bit. She's trying to have sex. She's trying to get tattoos. She's trying to have an interesting time. That sounds a lot more exciting than actually what the book is. Thematically, we're enough the teen series is more adult because it's quite it's actually pretty adult the eating

disorder the creepy older men that was quite exciting to read i think it still would be this is it just feels really tame it meanders a bit from plot point to plot point you don't see a lot of the original cast nadeen and magda just sort of there it's just not super nostalgic which would and could have saved this you do learn a lot about african elephants though i will say but not much else i just I so wanted to read and love this. It was marketed as the book that every millennial woman will love and need to read. I just don't think Jacqueline Wilson, for all of her enormous talents, and I think she's fantastic and I'm so grateful to have grown up reading her, writes adult women anywhere near as well as she writes adolescent women. I will finish this.

I haven't even finished it. I will finish this. I just don't think it could be a love for me today, unfortunately. That is sad, but also I feel like it's such a talent to be able to capture teenage girls that ultimately is still a win for Jacqueline Wilson, and it's so fair if that doesn't translate into adult fiction. So I'm taking it still as a win somehow for Jacqueline. Yeah. She did write a follow-up to Illustrated Mum, which I think came out this year, which follows Dolphin. And Illustrated Mum was one of my favourites. Actually, one of the darker ones, I was thinking about this the other day, Jacqueline Wilson's books, maybe dark's the wrong word, But because she was writing about what children do go through, which is like abandonment, grief, parental mental illness. And she just went there eating disorders. And she did just write about it. But I don't think my mum knew what I was reading or if she did. Because I sort of be reading this really colourfully decorated book with my chicken dippers. And actually what was inside was just like a teacher praying on his underage students. God, I love Jacqueline.

I know. I, in a way, I'd actually rather go back and just read all of those old books. So I think Lola Rose. That was my favorite. One, and did the mum have like, she either had like a pink, or she was desperate to have this pink leather jacket or something. And there was something to do with like a white leather armour. I can't remember, but the imagery like stuck with me and informed so much for me when I was younger. But yeah, they were always really good topics tackling, whether it was like addiction or single motherhood. And I'm actually interested to go back and see how she frames because I don't think she ever like villainises. It's often like the mothers are going through difficult things or the mothers have actually like abandoned their child or whatever it might be. be. From recollection, it's done in a way that's really cleverly conscious of how both

sensitive. Yeah, sensitive of like how the mother and the child would interact. I mean, I think, yeah, they're amazing stories. They weren't dark necessarily, but they were edgier than you'd expect for like a young teen novel. What I'm hearing is Jacqueline Wilson Book Club on the podcast, listeners say nothing if you want us to do this. Oh my God. They want us to do this. Did I tell you, did I say on the podcast that I met Danny Harmon, the actress who plays Tracy Beaker when I went to the Real Housewives of London premiere? Did I tell you this on the... You definitely, you told us, but I don't know if you told the podcast. So, Ritra and Beth both couldn't make the Real Housewives of London premiere.

So I turned up by myself and was feeling quite embarrassed because I was wearing like a ball gown. It's just a bit of a weird thing to be by yourself. So I kind of looked around for a friend to make and I just saw Danny Harmon behind me and I just went, hi, can I stand with you? Anyways, I was hanging out with her for ages and then eventually I obviously everyone was coming up to her and I had to be like, I obviously love you. Then I felt awkward because you don't want people to think that you're with them because they're famous. She just was actually being really friendly. And out of everyone there, there was lots of influence and people that were maybe being a bit more standoff. She was so open and like chatty. So I sat with her with the whole thing. Anyway, she was amazing. That makes me so happy.

Did you go for afters at the dumping ground? No, she then actually had to leave early because she doesn't live in London. So she had to catch some train somewhere. And she didn't follow me back on Instagram, but it's okay. And only what have you been loving this week? So what I loved was an episode of Adam Buxton's podcast, which came out last weekend, with Zadie Smith. And it was funny because I put it on my story. I was really excited to listen to it because in the introduction, he says he speaks to Zadie Smith about her take on Ezra Klein's piece on Charlie Kirk, which we discussed on this podcast about how Azra Klein said that Charlie Kurt was kind of performing politics the right way or something like that.

And then Tarnah Heisi Coates responded to it. Anyway, we discussed that. Zadie was going to reflect on that. I was really interested in what she was going to say because recently in recent years, she's kind of said things that I have landed in a way that I don't agree with. So I put up a little story being like really interested to listen because of these reasons. At the same time, like Adam Buxton could be a bit like both sidesy and I think he's a bit devil's avocado and Zadie Smith has said this. And hilariously, the whole episode was them talking about everything that I'd kind of said was my reticence towards them both in quite an interesting way. So Zadie was explaining why she'd felt the need to write.

about Israel-Palestine conflict in the way that she had, why she felt that it's human to feel more than one event can take up like emotional space in your brain. Adam was talking about kind of the problem with people feeling like people of both sides. It was quite interesting because I think in this current climate, which we've talked about so much, where everything is so polarised, you have to pick a team. You have to have a side. It was quite an interesting meander through people, especially Zadie, who does kind of talk in a way that we maybe aren't used to around certain issues because it feels like that's the wrong way to approach them. So I just think it was like a good meandering chat.

I love listening to Zadie Smith. I think she's so clever. I just love her voice. I said that I feel challenged sometimes by people that Adam Buxton has on the podcast. I feel like he platforms people that I don't know if it's useful or good. Someone messaged me going, hey, I love everything as content. You guys are so clever. Like what do you think is wrong with the podcast?

Platforming people that you don't agree with. And I was like, I don't think it's always bad if they're correctly challenged. But I think sometimes Adam Buxton might have someone on there who said, like, extremely transphobic things and won't bring that up in a way that's conducive to actually kind of airing out why some of their beliefs might be problematic. And then so I just think that further emboldens transphobic beliefs. If you're having someone on your podcast that has that. But then at the same time, I do think it's good to be challenged. It's good for someone to kind of try and challenge the way that you think about certain things. So I really enjoyed that episode.

And I do enjoy listening to Adam Buxton, even though I. don't think he's always the best person to host some of the conversations or some of the people that he has on his podcast because he does love to sit on the fence. Did Sadie Smith say anything regarding her stance previously on Gaza and student protests against the genocide in Gaza? Because I feel like that was the big contention. Did she land on anything or kind of address that specifically? Or was it more just talking around the subject? She talks about talking about it. So she talks about why she felt like she had the right to be like, I feel empathy for these people. She thinks that people like have the right to

protest because I also then forgot what she'd said. So I went back because I think it was in that piece, was it Shibboleth where she was saying certain words mean different things from what we say that they mean and stuff. So she does talk around it and she explains it. But the way she explains it, you can kind of get half perspective, but it does feel maybe like she shifted slightly because I need to go back and read the piece because what she said in that Adam Buxton episode, I was packing on us listening. So I'm worried now I haven't like picked up on something. It made more sense to me than when I read that original piece, but maybe I need to go back and read it. And we'll put that in the show notes. What have you been loving this week, Ruchera? So I feel like I rarely get this, but I

listened to a podcast and it felt like a transformative experience. I listened to Rosalia on podcast last week. And my God, I am convinced that there are artists in dominant mainstream pop culture again after listening to her on that podcast. It was insane. It was amazing. I am so excited for her new album Lux. She was essentially talking about putting herself in exile to write this album, which she sings in 13 different languages, is operatic. And just this idea of really wanting to challenge her audience with not just spoon feeding them what they want and trying to give them what they need. And we've spoken about to death at this point, what AI is doing to culture and just the fear of if we always get what we want, are we ever going to get art that is subversive, that is

interesting that breaks the mould. And to hear her directly say that and to say that she really wants to create things that maybe her audience might have a problem with, but she needs to do it for herself. This was like something she had to birth for the sake of herself and progressing and just pushing herself further and further. It was so inspiring and it was so exciting. So I really do recommend listening to that. And then on the complete opposite side of the intellectual spectrum. I would say I've just gotten into the secret lives of Mormon wives. And my God, I am obsessed. I am so obsessed with mom talk. I need to know what's going to happen to fucking mom talk. Is this first series or second series? Second series. I've done it all. Okay, great. I was like, surely you have pop culture

scholar Routher. I've not watched second series, but I am actually, is there, do they still talk about swinging in the second one? Or is that like old hat? Oh no. It actually gets more interesting because one of the people who was actually involved in the swinging scandal gets brought in so you get a bit more detail you get a bit more of unraveling narrative around that situation so it is satisfying it is a bit more satisfying because that was my beef with series one I just kept thinking are all of these women lying that they weren't involved or what's going on because they keep talking about this but not talking about anything to do with it really I love how messy they are real lives of Mormon wives is not my bag but Rosalia's new album is something which I simply cannot wait for and it is going to be out when you guys are listening to this episode. We haven't heard it yet but I have been playing the Bergheim song that is out like on repeat and then I got really obsessed with her because I didn't realize that she went to Catalonia College of Music in Barcelona and apparently it's like one of the most competitive music universities get into like you have to be so academic I mean it makes sense like

the fact that she's singing like you said in so many different languages it feels like a religious experience I sing to that song I just cannot wait to see what the rest of the album is like I'm getting so excited about music this year, from Lily Allen to Rosalia. I've started listening to Geese. I don't know if either of you listened to them, I put this on my story as well, but my podcast husbands, John Robbins and Ellis James, mentioned them so then I started listening to them. I'm just, I'm in my music era. I feel the same. I also have been listening to Geese. I think this year has been such a good year for music. It's really nice to feel in touch with a different facet of pop culture because I don't know if I've ever felt so into music as I do this

year I feel like it's always been TV and film. So I'm really there with you. I'm really there with you. I, so weird for me to know anything about music or like to understand what you're talking about. Also been listening to Geese. Also be listening to Cameron Winters who I believe is the lead singer of Geese doing some solo stuff. Really great. Just so weird, which is so up my street. I did see a headline or I think it was a meme of a headline where Killian Murphy's son was talking about loving geese and someone had cropped it and be like, I just thought he was talking about the animal. He just thought Killian Murphy's son was like, yeah, I've been listening to Geese lately. I've been listening to Bird Call.

but this is a geese-friendly podcast. I'm really excited to finally on the forefront of music has taken me 32 years. And I'm immediately going to slip back again. Next month it won't be geese. It'll be ravens or something. But how exciting. I'm cool.

So if you've not read the piece at the centre of our first topic, then you've probably still seen a lot about it. In a now globally viral piece for UK Vogue, writer and podcaster Shantay Joseph asked, is having a boyfriend embarrassing now? And she opens the piece with the following, quote. If someone so much has says, my boyce, on social media, they're muted. There's nothing I hate more than following someone for fun, only for their content to become, my boyfriend defied suddenly.

This is probably because, for so long, it felt like we were living in what one of my favorite substackers called Boyfriendland, a world where women's online identities centered around the lives at their partners. a situation rarely seen reversed. Women were rewarded for their ability to find and keep a man with elevated social status and praise. However, more recently, there's been a pronounced shift in the way people showcase their relationships online.

Far from fully hard-launching romantic partners, straight women are opting for subtler signs, a hand on a steering wheel, clinking glasses at dinner, or the back of someone's head. On the more confusing end, you have faces blurred out of wedding pictures or entire professionally edited videos were the fiancée conveniently cropped out for all shots.

Women are obscuring their partner's face when they post, as if they want to erase the fact they exist without actually not posting them. And in the piece, she talks multiple people, so content creators who had lost followers for posting their new male partner, writers who are told, please don't get a boyfriend, women who refrain from posting because they were worried that others would wish ill on them out of jealousy, and women who don't want to be embarrassed in case the men they post

end up cheating on them or hurting them. It's a really fascinating look at something that seems to have been happening steadily across at least the digital culture for a while, women decentering men and romance with traditional heterosexual partnering counting for less and less in terms of social currency and power. The way many of us posts our relationships is different and the way we respond to others posting theirs has definitely changed. With the success and variety of the piece, however, came inevitable backlash in the form of think pieces, comments and response videos from men and women who wanted to defend their own partnerships and men in general.

As Shantae has said, her own DMs are full of women doing this. Despite the fact that her piece is not anti-love or romance and it's not an attack on individual good guys and good partners. It's a commentary on something bigger that's happening. I'm really excited to get into this with you both. But maybe the top line is, do we agree with this? Do we think the tide has turned, is it embarrassing to have a boyfriend now? I have been thinking about this since I saw the piece and I definitely think there's something in it.

And after like really long reflection, I was like what has happened? I think it's like a convergence of different things. I don't want to sit this all at Dolly Alderton's doorstep, but I do think that everything I know about love could have been like a turning point in women's attitude towards singleness and towards boyfriends. I really think that that put singleness on the map as something aspirational, something cool and something which didn't have to be a burden, but could actually be a freedom from. And I think that freedom from relationships is kind of a lot of where we're coming at it from now. But my other perspective on it is if we were genuinely seeing people decentering men in our lives, in the world, in general, then I would be like, yes, having a boyfriend is embarrassing.

But as a substack that essentially both pointed out, I think it's more that it's embarrassing to post your boyfriend rather than to have a boyfriend. And as someone who's a content creator who went from posting my five-year relationship every single day to then struggling with people online, taking much too much interest in my relationship, in my breakup, wanting more of my relationship than I was willing to give, I then decided actually I'm going to stop posting my partner. And influencers do influence people and they influence culture and they influence beyond what you're buying. I actually think they influence how you live your life. And I'm not saying this is me, but I think a lot of influences actually also went through a similar thing where when the internet felt a bit more safe when it was smaller, when there was less people using Instagram and less content creators, a lot of people really were posting their boyfriends. And I think similar people went through a similar thing to me where they were like, actually, this isn't good for me. I'm going to make my private life private and my public life public. and so I'm not going to share my boyfriend.

And then I think that might have trickled down into how people post on Instagram that aren't content creators. And in that piece I shared with you because this kind of hits the nail on the head what I think as well is in a subset called personal scriptures titled Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?

Yes, that's why we're hiding them. They're not a secret. They're a lairability. It reads, You post him once and suddenly everyone's a market analyst for your romantic stock. One bad outfit, one questionable like and you're publicly re-evaluating your judgment.

The internet has made the girlfriend experience feel like a brand alignment and some of us aren't sure our partners are PR safe. It's not shame, it's survival. The soft launch isn't mystery, it's insurance. That's deeply cynical, I think, and I don't think that anyone is consciously thinking that much. But I think in a culture where we post kind of so much online, if you are going through boyfriends, if you're going through a breakup, if you're then getting another boyfriend, it can then be exhausting to think, actually, am I going to start posting this man? Because in three as we might not be together. And I do think that that has reshaped our thinking. But day to day, I think women are still seeking love, still looking for boyfriends, still hoping for partnership.

And I don't think that is directly reflected on what's happening online. So I think it's embarrassing to have a boyfriend online, but not necessarily in reality. What do you think, Marjora? I think you mentioning Dolly Alderton's everything I know about love is such a smart reference point because when I was reading this piece, I kept thinking, and same as you said, Beth. I feel like this has definitely been culturally happening for a while. And it feels like shanty's right to point it out now because it feels like the apex of it. But I feel like I felt like this for a while where it almost feels like this sense of, yeah, definitely the soft posting. Melissa's wardrobe announcing she was engaged very cheekly just with a man's hand and then her

engaged finger was this like huge feeling in me that I thought, this is really interesting. That compared to the big lavish posts of, I said yes, or he popped the question. and then just like, you know, a carousel of pictures of the two of you. It feels like men are digitally getting decented from these big moments from people that we follow. On a personal level, I feel like I've always found public displays of affection online, really mortifying and humiliating. I've never posted my partners. I've always, for all intents and purposes, just posted myself and my friends. And I don't know why.

I think I just inherently find boyfriend material on the internet for me. Not for anyone else. I don't judge anyone else, but I find it really embarrassing. I don't define myself by my relationship, if anything. I find it the least interesting part about me. So I think I just, I cringe a bit when I put it out there. And I think there is this sense of what we spoke about with AI slop, are we the slop a few weeks ago, the sense of putting it out there for it to be consumed as well. And I think that is definitely a part of it. And I think what you said and only about influencers do really shape the internet space and the kind of trends we see with posting. I think that is really, really correct. So I think boyfriend material,

you know, like the Molly May house of posting, where it is just very much family style posting, we obviously see that with tradwife content. And I think this feeling of singledom against tradwife content is becoming more apparent, this black and white style of are you traditional posting or are you doing the cool posting of doing solo traveling? I think that's only going to become stronger and stronger and stronger as it feels more politicised of what kind of person you are. I do think that's a very good point. And it speaks to how more and more, we've talked about this a lot, we are trying to, or we are forced to brand ourselves and put ourselves in these boxes. I have always posted a little bit like, I say this with love, a little bit like a local

on Instagram. I'm not particularly, quote unquote, good at it. I will just remember I've got Instagram and post a picture of a burglary meeting. And so bits of my life do crop up in that and I've been posting my boyfriend here and there. My content was never, well, I'm a single woman, and I just was a single woman. And so it would orbit around that. I think if I had to make calculations around how to post, my head would fall clean off. But what I do find interesting, especially from the trad wife angle, is we have seen this almost propaganda effort from the right to say, no, no, no, your partner, your fertility, your youth, your lack of a career as a modern woman and lack of kind of traditional aspects in your

life, that's something to be ashamed of. Instead, do post him, do post how godly you are, do post this. It almost feels like this is the reverse of that. And it does feel like a commentary or at least a rebuttal to that. And I think we're all battling with where love and romance should sit in our lives. And I think a big part of growing up, for women, I think it's releasing that disney-fied view of what a male partner should be, e-g-perfect all the time, e-g, the center of your universe. For men, I think it's releasing the idea that they will have a wife who is like perfect whore and housewife. I do think this speaks to this current friction of what is modern romance going to look like. So many people do want us to go back to traditional marriage.

So many of us are really frustrated with the state of things at the moment. I think it's very clear we can't go backwards. We can't really stay as is because the truth is we are idolizing and romanticising relationships from days go by grandparents, great-grandparents, even parents in some cases that actually we would find hellish to experience. This is a time in the world and in history where women are able to some degree in the West and in a lot of countries able to make totally informed and totally free decisions on who to love and how to live. And that's a scary choice. I think this is a long-winded way of saying, we're looking for progress in romantic relationships.

We have realised centering everything around a man isn't going to work. We are reckoning with how much weight we place on having a male partner. I think we should listen to this as at least like a canary in the coal mine of what people are feeling, which is unease, needing a new way of being, rather than men are out, men are embarrassing. There's something wrong with men. There's just been something wrong with how we're attaching to each other. I found it really, even if it just is located online for the moment, I think it does speak to something a little bit bigger.

If you ignore the headline of is having a boyfriend embarrassing now and actually think about like the materialness of that, where is that coming from? I think partly where it's coming from is we were sold a dream and a lie that to find a man is to find love, comfort, home, support. Then we all got really disillusioned by all the things you said, recognizing that actually the reason marriages were longer years ago. ago was because women were contractually obliged to stay in marriages, that marriage or rape was legal, that women were unpaid labourers in their home. And what we thought was romance was actually

deep-rooted misogyny and patriarchal control. But then it took a long time for the shine to wear off because we watched Disney films and romantic comedies and it still felt like getting a boyfriend was a prize. And then I think came the advent of those personal essays and confessional essays and things which we maybe see as a bit trite now. We sometimes feel like they're overdone. done, but actually what that allowed to happen was women to come forward and explain the ways in which more often than not, women in heterosexual relationships end up feeling like they are doing unpaid labor for a man who is not emotionally evolved because of the way that society or his mother or just people in his life have coddled him. And then it became

this thing of, okay, fine. So not every time a woman gets a boyfriend, is she getting a prize? Sometimes she's getting a punishment. And then I think it went so far that it became the thing of like, she's in a relationship that is just automatically going to be awful. Statistics I've quoted loads of times that say, you know, single women are on average happier than married women. Married men on average are happier than married women. But obviously there are good relationships out there. There are lovely men and there are men and women enjoying beautiful, romantic, partisan

relationships. But the deeper thing of it is we faced an ugly truth that the way that men have been socialized and raised, the way that romantic relationships and marriage are, constructed within this society often mean that you know women are disadvantaged through that partnership or advantage in the tradwife tradition which feels like you're being looked after but actually you're kind of not so i think that's where it's it's coming from like on a deeper more serious level it's perhaps not that having a boyfriend is embarrassing now it's that having a boyfriend is not what we thought it was it's not the dream that we were hoping it was going to be but and i also think

it has given women this, you know, single women are posting about it in a really funny way and they're like, you know, well, I've been single for years. Finally, it's my time to shine. And I do think, I think there's something in this piece which is really funny, but also really poignant because of everything that I just said and serious and important. But like you said, Beth, about, you know, the way that women and men interact, Jordan Stevens, I think, actually posted something that was like, women and men do need each other. And I do think this piece is really funny. I think it's pointing. I think it lands in something. And there's a reason why so many people are reacting and responding. And I think it is a good actually starting place for us to have these

conversations. But I do think that we've got to, myself included, stop being like men, this, women that, because I think that's kind of how we got her in the first place. It just reminds me of as well. You know, Rachel said it. She got a question last week, I think, from a male follower on Instagram. And they were like, been dating this girl for a while. Should I hard launch her on Instagram and she replied something this is not verbatim something like men should post their girlfriends all the time your feed should be dedicated to her she should soft launch you or maybe just post you on a birthday truly agree I said tongue shi truly I truly agree oh my god I'm so sorry guys you just reminded me this is what I want to say and I'm about to disagree because when a man

posts a woman it's really amazing and cool and you're so lucky to have your boyfriend that's posting about you because more often than not boyfriends don't post they won't even have pictures of you on the camera unless you'd like force them to take a picture. I think Beth, you definitely will have experiences. I feel like you've gone out with like photographing men, but none of my boyfriends take pictures of anything apart from like receipts. But anyway, it's, this is another thing where I think it's actually somewhere, it's a bit of misogyny because it's kind of like, you shouldn't post your man, but your man should be like adoringly posted about you because that's proving that he really loves you. But if you post a man, it's cringe. It's like, are we also

not losing still women? It's like we're not allowed to kind of post about love because it's embarrassing on us. Is it embarrassing to have a boyfriend now, or is it embarrassing to be a woman showing that you're in love? That is kind of the other side of it. Because if you're a guy posting about your girlfriend, you can frame it like, men are so lucky to have girlfriends, of course they should post about them. Like, they're the ones that are winning. But it also, there is a little bit of like, don't be cringe and let down the sisterhood by posting your man. Also, the other thing, sorry, of so many things said, just coming back to me now, yes, people don't post about their boyfriends, but my God, are they posting about their husbands?

weddings, you cannot move for a wedding, for a pregnancy announcement, for engagement announcement. So I think it's like maybe we're all just in our 30s now and everyone's married. So that's why I don't have a boyfriend, so they're all just posting the husbands. There is not a lack of people online sharing their relationships. There are some people choosing not to, but it's certainly not happening. Yeah, I think the thing that's crucial in the distinction for me is it's cooler not to post your boyfriend. It's not that it's not happening. I think it just feels cooler to not be the person posting it

and I think it feels chic and I think it is just truly subversive to dissenter men and anything that is subversive is just cooler so on the hierarchy being the person who posts every day and being the person who's like coupled up and that's your identity unfortunately it's not as chic as just like

never posting the person you're with for like 10 years and never like being a follower who has no idea who that person is that is really chic in my opinion I think the dream is actually a secret third thing where your partner has Instagram, watches all your stories, likes everything, comments and everything, but has posted nothing since like 2011. That's actually the secret. I guess this is the locus of the discussion online at the moment,

at least in the well-meaning side, because obviously the right-wing response to this has been so predictable. It's women sort of reckoning with the idea like, oh, am I embarrassing then? Is this, am I being policed? Am I doing this? And it's not that. It's not a shaming of women who love posting their partners. It's not that they are being called cringe. I mean, to one, even if they are, it simply doesn't matter, and it can't matter to you as an adult on the internet if someone thinks you're cringe. Because the minute you log on, someone thinks you're cringe, like everything I do online to someone is embarrassing and skin crawling will message me, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose, to say, oh, God, that's embarrassing.

It's a part of life. And it, you know, it doesn't affect you unless you let it, I think, brunch is cringe or post it, boomerangs are cringe, I love them, post my man, I will do it. But I think this part is we have to hold tight to the understanding that women who feel wary of the back of other women posting, especially from the angle that I think Chanty's writing, are not thinking from the place of a hater, but from a place of like a sister in arms. And actually we re-released an episode earlier this week where we talked about age gap relationships and it's from a year ago or so. And we make the point in that that having concern about age gap relationships is so often from women to other women, it is so often not from a place

of being a hater, it's from a place of concern. And in this case, I think if I see a woman that I think is really fantastic, makes interesting content, and then it is Boyfriend City. I just think I don't want your whole personality to be that because I know there's a lot more interesting things about you. The word embarrassment is where people are getting stuck. I think it's more tragic than embarrassing. I mean, it is embarrassing, but it's embarrassing in a very societal way. Nobody's like, I hate Gavin. You should both fuck off. It's a lot deeper than that, I think. Something you said just triggered a memory.

There was that famous Italian influencer who got married and very lavish wedding looked beautiful. They couple posted. They were the couple posting goal for, you know, any normie like myself. And then it turned out their marriage was absolutely awful and he was cheating on her the entire time and it all fell apart. And I think there is just this sense of just because you're posting gorgeous pictures doesn't mean I buy the story anymore and we're all just a bit jaded from.

from what we see online and what we actually believe is happening because of the amount of stories that have unraveled from Instagram perfection to actual reality. So I think there is a sense of that as well. As Shanty points out in her piece, from the influencer point of view, just, yeah, you know, we've been through the rigmarole of having posted a great relationship and then you break up and having to deal with a fallout of, and now I've got to, you know, release a public statement on this fucking breakup that I'm going through because I've allowed everyone to come in. I think everyone feels that a little bit. It just feels like relationships are really hard. People increasingly are finding it hard to date. Committing online feels like almost more sacred than

committing to fucking marriage at this point because, you know, it's set in stone publicly. People take screenshots. It's a commitment in a different way. Totally agree with that. And I am becoming enlightened to the fact that I am of both sides there after accusing Adam Bucksman of that. because as much as I've said that you know that you could you can read this in so many different ways but I think that's also hit the nail on the head like that substack that will link in the show notes said it's kind of like an insurance policy against the fact that your boyfriend might embarrass you the boyfriend is embarrassing because ultimately they could fuck it up and then you're left to pick up the pieces of your Instagram history which include

declarations of love to a man who it turns out was teaching on you liking only fans pictures doing whatever I think it's also that public trail I do think that social media has changed relationships. I think it's easier to be embarrassed. When that sidebar of shame thing exists on Instagram, we could see who people had liked. I remember years ago in the early stages of a relationship, a guy liking a picture. And my friend's sending screenshots of it because you're like, oh my God, like that was awful. I think that really was a bad time to be alive. There is that element to it. But it is also ultimately the fact that more often than not, the stories we hear, and yes, women do do wrongs, women cheat, women do whatever. But overwhelmingly,

it's men that are cheating. It's men that are sliding into people. people's DMs. It's men that are humiliating these women who have done these declarations of love. I actually agree with you, Richard, in a funny way, honestly, like posting a boyfriend Instagram feels more serious than getting engaged, because it is opening yourself up. It's like opening a can of worms. It's other people's judgment. It's finding out that 60 other people have gone on hinged dates with them, especially if you're a public figure. I think it just invites so much information that either you don't want to know or didn't need to know. I really do think the framing of it through social media is really crucial because, like I said,

People aren't, well, people maybe are getting into relationships less, or maybe relationships aren't lasting as long. But to go back to what I said in the beginning, that's for a good reason, like divorce on the rise because women can leave. People aren't saying relationships because women can leave. Like, that's all a great, great thing. But with that comes a resistance towards posting this man because it might be a different man. And there is one girl I follow that I absolutely love for this. She has a new boyfriend every few months. She posts them every time with the exact same amount of fare that there's a real, he's the one, there's a thing, then there's a bit.

She starts going out a lot. there's a new boyfriend. She has formed for it and she doesn't give a shit. And it's actually amazing, like, how much she does. Like, I really, really enjoy it. And it's so fun as a viewer. It could never be me. Like, I think now I will be one of those people that one day I might, you know, I'm pregnant, nine months. You didn't know I had a man. That is kind of where I've got to because I just cannot be asked to go through the announcement, which I did with that long-time relationship where I had to do a bloody Instagram story being like, we've broken up. Like, I don't want to do that again, okay? I'm tired. One thing I have found,

really interesting about this is the men of it all and the men responding to this. It's those Chanté has like entered these men's homes in the dead of night, kicked open their bedroom door and it's hovering over the bed being like, you are embarrassing, you are, like, people are take it really personally rather than, as you say, online is a very digital public space. It's where we all spend a lot of our time. It's quite natural that we are reckoning with. Okay, how am I using this space? How does it reflect on me? How is sexism involved? And to see the different readings of it. It is as though people have been personally victimized by Shantae Joseph in vogue. And I think it's exposing a lot, ironically, a lot of what she's talking about, which is

men being unable or unwilling to engage with the gender divide in a way that serves society or serves their female partners. Like, they're not able to pause and step back and be like, this actually isn't about me and realize that things have not been equal for so long. This is just maybe a little bit of redressing of the balance. And I think in refusing to do that, so many men have proved Chanty's point that men will embarrass you. And many women don't have an equal partner in a really true sense and only love them under the conditions that the women fit into this old world model. We know that partnership with women is, as we've said, fantastic for men. It's life extending for men. And the reverse is so often not true. I think with that in mind, with that heavy

weight of factual statistical data, it does make sense that we are reckoning again with like, we post and it's just not as fun anymore. It's not, we know too much, we've seen too much. I think the, I think D-Day has arrived. Netflix's Real Estate Reality series Selling Sunset has returned for its ninth series last week. It follows the Oppenheim Group, a luxury brokerage selling multi-million dollar houses and the model-looking women who sell them. I personally finished the most recent series in three days, which I don't really recommend, but I need to know, have you girls seen it? And what is your review so far? Do you think it's lived up to the drama we expect?

Three days is actually really shocking, Ruchero, and I'm disappointed in you because it only took me to. Again, would not recommend. I feel like I'm going to have vocal fry in an LA accent. Flew thrower, I always watch this show. I almost hope they stopped making it because it is eating into my life. I have said this before, but I think my appetite for rich people TV is waning. can definitely still enjoy it, but it just takes a great effort to switch off the part of my brain that just exceeds an unequal world, not to be a friend that's too woke. Because it can be escapist TV, but I just keep thinking, like, they're having conversations about 30K hedges out the front, which they then take down 10 million pound houses, 10 million dollar houses, rather. Like,

that's kind of a low, nothingy amount. I just think it is madness, but obviously that concern did not last long because I binged it. I really, I don't know if this series was any good. I just know that I enjoyed it. I put it on last night when I was working. What do you mean the series was not any good? I could not look away. Also, the thing that I never normally enjoy is the houses and I was thinking that for the first like few episodes. I cannot bear those staircases. They all have these like white, gapy staircases. I just imagine myself, my woolly socks, slipping down the stairs, crack up my head open. It's all I can think about when I watch those shows. Everything is black and Mike, but then they did have a couple of houses on this series, which I loved, which I love

because I love property porn. So that was really enjoyable for me. But it's the fallout of everything. I just couldn't quite get my head around. What I wanted to ask you both was about the edit. There's like a couple of instances in this series where I feel like they've chopped a huge bit. The first bit being when they're all at Ammanza's lunch thing and suddenly Chrisel starts going off, but like seemingly for absolutely no reason, there's that girl that's clearly been put in the mix, whose name I'm not sure about, who says I feel like there's a tension here. And then something happens. It's about Emma and what's the woman that they all hate that leaves eventually? Nicole. And Nicole. And Cichelle is like going for Nicole. Something,

some context was missed there. And then there was something else that happened slightly later down the line. I actually feel quite sorry for these women. I feel like that all burnt out. there's a bit later on when Mary kind of gets really angry at Chelsea and that felt very like outsized and projecting about something else and I didn't agree with it at all and they all say it's on the show there's a lot of breaking the fourth wall there's a lot of them saying they're kind of exhausted with the way that the office operates right now clearly because they started filming it and I thought it was quite an interesting insight into you know how reality TV does shape and change people's realities to the point where it seems like they kind of all actually want out. but then they're trapped. Like we can see they clearly got much more money since the series has gone on. It's evident in, you know, the work they're having done, the clothes that they're wearing, the things that they're buying. I did feel a bit sick, the amount that they spoke about money, you know, the bags they were

going to buy, the jewelry they were going to buy. I found that actually quite hard to stomach after a while because I was like, wow, I don't feel like those women were quite so detached when they started. And I know a lot of them, especially like Mary, have worked on the ground up, but they didn't necessarily come from money. And then there's the LA wildfires of it all. I actually thought it was an incredible season. I know what you mean on the cuts.

The scene that I definitely noticed it was the one you mentioned between the new girl. I can't remember what her name is, but she's basically Sophia Vergara's sister and Crishel in the house. You could see visibly a cut between them starting this discussion where she asks Crishel, is there some tension between us? You know, I'm really feeling like there's some issue here. And then they have a kind of fraught discussion. and then it skips forward and it goes from the other, the new girl, I'm really sorry, I can't

remember her name, looking quite, you know, normal, maybe slightly tense to then just looking like as if she's cried and it's, it just is very visually confusing. I remember Spencer Pratt going and call her daddy and talking about Adam DeVillo, the guy who basically crafted the hills is the one behind Selling Sunset, you know, huge producer of some of the biggest reality TV shows of our time. He called him Adam Devil O, FYI. He just basically had the worst impression of him and said that he will go to any means possible. He will say, you can't leave until we get this line from you. You need to say this line. And would leverage people's hours, their time onset, their ability to leave when they were very emotionally fraught until they would just

do what he needed them to do. And I mean, these are all super serious allegations. But I just, I feel like the way the show is edited, it does make me feel aware of the fact it's so highly produced. All of these women seem super stressed out. It really reminds me of Salt Lake City in the sense that they're constantly talking about how they're feeling because of the show and because of social media and the tensions of this orchestrated scenario where they're in this office with these people, with this new girl who's come in for very much the TV premise rather than being a good real estate broker because she's new to the game and just getting annoyed. And they really remind me of the women from Salt Lake City because they're clearly super traumatized. They just

seem in fight or flight constantly in every scenario and it's very heightened emotions. It's very angry. It's very sad. It's very tear the world apart vibes at any given moment. And it really feels like, I don't know, caged animals put into a scenario just to hash it out. And remember in Cushel joining the show is this sweet girl to what she's doing now, which is very aggressive fighting on this show and appearing to be very defensive about accepting new people to work within this office. It makes me feel like, wow, how much these women must have changed because of the scenario they're in. Like you said, Anoni, how much on a personal level they feel they've gone through through simply doing this job of being reality stars? It feels very much a deal with

the devil at any point if you are on reality TV, especially a show that gets as popular and iconic and successful as this one. And I think the key is to get in and get in and get out, a la Christine Quinn, who I think it's just the smartest move to show up, really get to the end of your tether and then leave. This does feel like a bit of Stockholm syndrome, a bit of, I don't know, the outside world, I guess I'll stay in this crazy Oppenheim group. There are so many moments when you're like, what disgusting thing to say, what disgusting outcome, how shocking. And then these women will do interviews. So I'm thinking of what Nicole said to Crischel, which was such nasty work. I mean, for anyone who's not yet to watch, this isn't really a spoiler,

skip 15 seconds ahead when they are at a manse's dinner party and she, you know, the accusations of her, I think she was called a crackhead in last series or two series ago, just verbatim crackhead. When her own drug use comes up, she says to Crochelle about Chrisel's two deceased parents who died of lung cancer, I think you're confusing me with your parents. And everyone was shocked. These women say so many things to each other that are like, whoa, I've never said or even thought anything that nasty and then they just kind of carry on eating their tacos. Everyone was shocked. Everyone was like, get the fuck out. It seemed very much, not to excuse it, but everyone at the table pushed to a brink. And if you as an adult woman are capable of saying those things, and it is unscripted, which we don't know necessarily that it was. And it is from deep inside you, I think I'd have to join a nunnery or something. Like, it's genuinely shocking some of this season. And I was almost relieved to see Little Brett and Jason appear on screen because it was a break finally from the scathing insanity of some of these women. It was like, okay, great. They're just going to have a little argument. about trousers. They're going to give us a bit of light relief before we're thrust back into

truly the heart of darkness. Reality TV scholar and brilliant author, Bolly Bablola, was tweeting about this saying it almost feels real housewives level of maybe drama just kind of, but it is overproduced. Something feels distinctly different. I think it's because on real housewaves that arguments are allowed to play out. We see the ins and the outs, even to sometimes a dull degree. This one, it's like, we're at dinner. The scene's four minutes long and we've gone from everyone arriving in their little BBC gowns to some of the worst things you've ever heard. It just feels like an assault on the senses, frankly, this show. There was a couple of moments, though, where it's certainly overproduced, but then they

made some really interesting editorial decisions. There's a bit where Amanza talks to camera, because she's so fed up with Nicole. And she's like, she's done blow. I've done it with her. I can't tell you much about it because I was really high at the time. And then later on, there's a bit where Chelsea turns around to Brett and Jason and says, don't tell them to stop filming. You were filming when we were all, like, humiliating ourselves.

don't you then decide when the cameras go on and off? And I was like, that is really fascinating to see. In a way, it's kind of not empowering, but the women were trying to control the edit in a way that I guess you don't see. You're not control the edit, but they weren't happy to be framed in a certain way. And more and more, I mean, one of the through lines of this storyline is when Mary is sent flowers by Chelsea. And Mary says, oh my God, she's done it at a time when she knows I'm going to be filming. That is something that was never spoken about, like early maiden Chelsea, early Towie.

We weren't really let into this idea. We were made to believe that the camera's just turned up and they were at lunch. As time has gone on, there has been references throughout all these different reality TV shows that you get your timing slot when you're going to be filming. You don't get told who you're filming with necessarily, but it's orchestrated to some point.

And more and more, they love talking about this on these shows. And it does ruin it a bit. There was a reference from Cichelle saying that Brees different on camera from how she is off camera. We then get these like interviews in between seasons where characters or people on these shows will say, I actually don't speak to her when the cameras aren't on or I haven't spoken to for the last three seasons outside of filming.

I think that there is a definite shift. I don't know how the show can sort of like carry on after where it's come from because it does seem like they're all exhausted by it. It felt more like real reality TV only because they were actually acknowledging how much of it is a TV show, which is like a weird departure from what real reality TV

and its inception, aka Big Brother, where the whole concept was everyone in that house ultimately forgets they're being filmed and that's how you see their realness. It seems like these women have been pushed the edge so much that they're actually bringing us into the reality which is that when you're watching that lunch there's a camera crew of 50 people standing around them

they're maybe being said to say another line. They're being lit from every area. You know, it is constructed reality. They've actively tried to deconstruct that in our eyes. Have you also seen that Emma and Chrisel are no longer friends post the show This is another element of reality TV that is so challenging because they live their lives obviously once the cameras shut off. There's just like all of this narrative that spins out

because they're obviously recording the show months in advance, sometimes even a year in advance. So so much has changed. They're living their lives. Everything is out of date by the time we watch it. And they'll take to TikTok. They'll post reels. They'll post Instagram stories. They'll post iPhone note updates about what they actually were going through or their take on a scene. It's also that feeling you used to get watching the Kardashians right at the beginning that you were living life with them in present day. We haven't had that for years. But essentially, the T is Emma is back with the boyfriend that she had on the show, Blake,

and Croshell has accused Blake of posting homophobic posts on his Instagram and also just kind of mocking the use of pronouns. And there is lots of evidence online. People have taken screenshots. There's lots of things to, you know, rummage through if you're interested. But yeah, I guess that storyline of them having a fracture in their relationship really has translated and become a lot worse, allegedly in person. You then do want to watch the next series almost.

One, I do feel that's exhausting, but it does kind of peak your interest mid, like in between the series break or while it's airing. I hadn't seen that. I've seen it kind of hinted out in the reunion. I did see Chrisel. I mean, for all of Chrisel's flaws, she kind of. kind of does like stand on business. I saw her posting, directing a lot of posts towards Mary as in regards to Mary's treatment of Chelsea. And just pointing out the fact that a white

woman's tears can and are weaponised in so many different ways when Mary does something like cry at the thought that Chelsea might be present or misconstrue these flowers or misrepresenting these flowers as something, oh my God, really sinister. And, you know, it plays into this idea of black women is as dangerous and black women being just not a protected group of people in society. Cichelle was pointing this out. I think you can kind of rely on Cichelle to just say it quite plainly. I think she's kind of done with the bullshit. I didn't see about Emma. And again, it's like they will occasionally get quote unquote political on the show. But if it's not interesting drama for the showrunners, they will cut it. So I do quite like, which we didn't really have in

the early seasons of reality TV, which is there's no separation. You can immediately go to that person's public Instagram and hear straight from the horse's mouth. Yeah, I thought the storyline with Blake was really interesting. And I find Cichelle is such a fascinating character because she is very astute and I think she's very smart. And as you said, I think she's learned to give no shits. I'm so happy for her relationship with G Flip. They just seem so happy together. But it was so interesting when she does her kind of like direct to camera piece where she's talking about Emma's relationship with Blake and she's listing all the reasons why he is a walking red flag. And all of them, I thought, made total sense to me. At the same time, as a friend, I was quite shocked that she

would kind of, Emma's relationship in that way. It felt quite hurtful. I actually felt like it was a bit mean when they were sort of laughing her and Chelsea about Emma's relationship, that Emma look really hurt. And I understand it comes from a point of protection. But again, it seems very strange what they perceive to be private and what they perceive to be public. And sometimes it feels like it's a bit upside down in their own eyes. But they show, basically, Beth, it's in when they do the trailer for the reunion. They show you that Emma and Krishal have like fallen out because they were that like tripod, Chelsea, Krishal and Emma.

Chelsea and Emma are clearly still best friends. I don't know if you've gone on their Instagram recently, but they're all over each other's Instagram. So those two, their friendship is obviously very strong. I did want to talk about Sandra Vergara though, because she has come in there. I don't know if she'd been told to do this, but my God, was she driving me up the wall because she was so actively stirring the pot and like asking all of these ridiculous questions. At first I felt bad for her because I was like some producer has told her to go in.

Then I was like maybe it's because she has a history as a journalist. She's kind of forgotten who she is and what she's doing, that she's sort of trying to get these really intrusive questions. But it's going to come back to bite her on the bum like Bree says, like fuck around and find out. She is going to sit down at every single table with all of these different women, telling them verbatim information that she's kind of forced them to give her about each other. she is one messy messy woman and I don't think I'm enjoying it in the way that sometimes I do enjoy messy women

and I really want to know what Sophia Vergara makes of it because it is just quite funny it's funny how much we haven't there is actually so much the season how much celebrities are willing to be associated to the show like Jojo Cee was selling her house through Couchelles Delta Goodrum Tenache like it's funny it's not it's not cringe clearly in the eyes of celebrities some some reality TV shows, I think no one would touch with like a 10 foot barge pole, but they seem quite happy, like NBA players, they're all quite happy to be affiliated with it. I would love to know what Sophia Vergara makes, and I do want to know if Sandra Keats on his car.

So if you haven't caught up already, congratulations on having a life. But please do and let us know what you think. So when I sent this into the group chat, I prefaced it with, we do do a lot about new faces, though, almost like a disclaimer. like, are we covering old ground? But maybe that is the point. Maybe that reinforces how absurd this is. So Caitlin Beatty for her sub-sac, the BTB, wrote a piece titled, I feel sad about Emma Stone's new face. Stone doesn't owe me anything related to her face, of course, she writes. But early this year in September, Emma Stone stepped out at Parrish Fashion Week, and all anyone

could talk about was her new inverted commas face, tabloids, magazines, internet slews, plastic surgeons, and even me to our group chat, shared photos of the actor who looked both like herself and uncannily not. And it does feel like 2025 has been the year of facial reconstruction, specifically facelifts with Lindsay Lohan and Chris Jenner being the face, pardon the pun, of a rumoured new surgeon who is slicing up Hollywood. And Caitlin writes, as major facial surgery becomes more open, it reinforces that it's totally normal and desirable thing for non-celebrities to do too. And I have to say, Emma Stone's face, whatever she's done, did feel different.

And I don't know if it's because we associate Emma Stone as an actor who has incredible range. She's continually evolving and honing her craft. I assume, which is my own silliness, because obviously assume they can house out of you and me, that she was someone that wasn't as concerned or pressured by Hollywood beauty standards as someone like the Kardashians who not only bend to beauty ideals, but also shape them. And underneath the article, a commentator named Ray Brooke wrote, The idea that Emma Stone owes us nothing from her face comes from an individualistic capitalist framework that erases the collective struggle of women. No woman's beauty choices exist in a vacuum. When one woman buys into patriarchal beauty ideals, it strengthens the system that keeps us all bound

to them. It's not about blaming her, but about seeing how powerfully patriarchy disguises coercion as choice. Now that is so true and almost obvious and it was a statement that we were kind of bandying around. I can't even think when, but at some point in a previous iteration of feminism. But then it kind of came back around and it felt like it was too hard to blame the women of Hollywood for succumbing to a pressure that they likely feel most acutely as being at the top of the rung of that ladder of who we're looking at. But it's just bleeding out into everyone else. So we've seen like already the slippery slope of choice feminism have people re-narrotify as objectively un-feminist actions as empowering just through the prism of choice.

Like, well, it's feminist because she wants to do it. But I don't know why because I think the piece is maybe a bit much of a statement. I almost feel like you can't really say that. You can't feel, be like I feel sad about Emma Stone's face. But I'm going to say it because I actually do as well. It did feel different. And I wondered if either of you felt the same way, if an actress like Emma Stone doing something like this does feel different than a Kardashian and why and if it is a sign of things to come. It definitely does make me feel quite dystopian, not her specifically, but just, I guess, the soldiers falling to the online police of work getting done and the like faces changing and the evolving. And it's quite disorientating, generally speaking, because I think we're

so used to now the red carpet pictures and then almost the analytical eye of, you know, going through what looks different. What could it be? Could it be this? Could it be that? Is it a blef surgery? Is it this? Is it filler? Is it blah, blah. Generally speaking, I don't think it's normal for faces to change so much and for us to be able to identify what's changed. So I feel quite unsettled by how easy it is to kind of slip into that and how that's happened in the space for a few years. It is disorientating just seeing how many A-listers are changing how they look and like structurally changing it. And I don't think we've ever been in a time where it's happening so ubiquitously.

And it is difficult to know how to talk about it because I do agree that I don't want to bring up names. I don't want to point fingers specifically. But at the same time, you can't argue with the cultural trend of the fact that it's become so commonplace for people to de-age by 20 to 25 years, for faces to look younger than mine, or for just like an entire face to look different

in the space of what feels like two weeks. It's so strange and uncanny. I get why it feels like people might see one particular face, and it affects them more seeing that they have also just kind of, you know, adhered to this cultural trend because I think it is just almost like a, it's like a trickle effect where it feels like we're all seeing the same thing, we're all feeling the same feeling, and it just feels like when is it going to stop? Maybe it's not about Emma Stone specifically, maybe it is,

maybe it just feels like this is just one too many at this point. I think I get that feeling and I don't know what I think in terms of how we talk about this, what the right line is but I think that's my feeling on it and it would be good to figure out how we can talk about it if there is a way to because it definitely doesn't feel good to speculate it doesn't feel I don't feel like he he gleeful gossipy but it also feels that we have to live in reality and we know that people's skin does not refill with fat or collagen or move upwards on a person's skull so the conclusion is okay we know that all of this is going on and then we're almost expected to just not notice. And I both judge people who do this and then I judge myself for judging

them. I think what it is, I just hate living in a world where it's at all a complicated or nuanced issue for women, be cutting open her skin and having her skin and facial muscles rearranged to make her look, not her age. I hate that we're so obsessed with youth and beauty that this is seemingly understandable, reasonable, more and more common. Almost as I'm saying, I'm like, oh, God, this I just feel like a mag. I feel really bitchy. I don't feel kind saying this. But I think there is a trickle-down effect from celebrity women to civilian women. And it would feel worse not to say anything or to be like, well, that's her own business. And I think that's where I fall on the, well, it's nobody's business, what she does with her face. And on that spectrum, I feel actually

it is like we've arranged society around rich and visible people. And there are so many rewards for that. That has a ripple. And I know that women like Emma Stone, are also caught in that ripple. But unfortunately, if you're occupying a space of visibility, social commentary will follow and almost has to follow, I think, or we're doomed. If we take this as like, well, it's a march towards an end point, what can we do? Nothing will change. We won't have these conversations. And we will sit here thinking, okay, I'm 32-ish, we'll get my first face left by this age or, okay, visible lines, I should call myself. It all does matter as much they wish. It doesn't matter. It's so much money. It's risky surgeries.

even as they probably do get safer for certain women, it's risky surgeries and it is women and young girls in the wider world that do bear the brunt. And I think, yeah, as bad as it feels to speak, it feels worse, not too. I agree. And I think we grew up in an age and it's black with vengeance now, but about where your body was something that you had to change and you could change. You could make your body thinner. You could make it look slightly different by growing muscles. But your face was always like, well, I'll never be able to afford a blow drop. I've never never be able to afford a nose job. I'll never be able to afford a blow job.

I'll never be able to afford a no job. I won't. So it just became, it was just like a non-issue. Your face was just your face. Like, there wasn't really anything you could do about it. And now there really is. There's so many things you can do. And I'll probably never will be able to afford a facelift. Or maybe that will change.

But I could get Botox and filler and do these things. And I'm actually at a point in my life where I'm trying to uncouple from certain crutches, such as fake tanning, drying my hair. I'm just trying to get a bit of my time back and accept what I look like. And I'm doing it at the worst time because I'm doing it at the worst time because I have never felt more conscious of my face. I've never found more issues with my face, whether it's my nose, the shape of my jaw, my neck, my eyebrows,

like everything at the minute, people's faces are changing. And actually, selling sunset is a really great example of. I was looking up articles about the cast when we were talking about it. And one of the things that comes up time and time again is, you know, what the cast looked like before and after the show. And some of them look extremely different to the faces that they were born with. and it's something we've got so used to seeing now. But it is really uncanny.

And another through line, which I always think about and try and keep this as a grounding point for me. And I think we've probably spoken about this before. But it is the research to say that like babies, if their mothers have lots of facial filler and Botox, can't actually read their mothers like facial expressions. Also then when those children grow up, they potentially might have those features that their mother has changed,

such as their nose or their eyes or whatever it might be. And not to say that, you know, shaming women for getting anything done because again it's like that's the tricky line I think what also and again I feel bitchy I feel I felt very complicated about the article even though I seek it's the kind of thing that I wouldn't say out loud but I think there's something about the way that Emma was a really beautiful woman who had quite an unusually striking face for her to fall then you're like oh no like we kind of need those bastions of hope and as she says in that substack like you have a few people who are going grey and a few people are saying I'm going to get wrinkles but it's just not enough against the tide and the onslaught of, as you say, return fallen soldiers. The Overton window has shifted. Apparently it's fine to have very obvious work done. There used to be a time when it was subtle done every long period of time. You wouldn't really know. Now it's one week. You've got one face. The next week you have another. And we're all just supposed to accept that. And again, I don't want any individual woman to feel blame. I understand the pressure. I constantly am thinking

because of this pressure. If I have money, would I get my tits done? Would I get my nose done? Would I go and get Botox? Which I've not had for like over a year, but keep. thinking actually I do want it again because it just makes me feel better. It's so complicated because I feel those pressures as well and if I had the access to those surgeons and I wasn't probably in the proletariat chat with all the other civilians, was surrounded by people getting it done. Maybe I would do it too, but I don't think that's a good enough reason. Do you know that tweet by the basketball player Kevin Durant from about 10 years ago? They always trot it out where he learned about a procedure where women have ribs removed to have a skinnier waist and he was like,

I'm going to go outside and light myself on fire. What are we doing to our beautiful queens? That is how I feel when I see things like this. Like, Chris Jenna is currently younger than Courtney. She is her own daughter. Northwest, your grammar is your cousin now. It's so weird. I just, as funny as it can be and as weird and like, what world are we living in? It also feels like that Fiona Apple headline where she was on a break from a photo shoot after they told her to smile her and she was walking around set reportedly saying, there's no hope for women. There's no hope for women. There's no hope for women. It feels insane. It just feels an insane time to live in where potentially cutting your head open in your 30s or 40s or 50s or ever is like, well, maybe I'll have to. I don't think you do. Or I really, I just don't want to live in that world where anyone is, is considering that or might feel pressured to do that. listening then please do leave us a review and a rating on your podcast player app five stars it helps others to find the podcast and helps us to keep making it please also give us a follow on

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