Everything Is Content - Charli XCX, Queenie and Parental Nudity

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

We’re everywhere, we’re so Julia! This week on Everything Is Content - we’re discussing what some critics are calling the pop album of the year - Brat. Charli XCX has given the 30-something girlies the green light to go out partying… will we take her up on the offer? Then we’re going to discuss the Channel 4 adaptation of Candice Carty-Williams’ mega bestseller Queenie - does it meet up to our expectations? And lastly - we’ve taken the bait and we’re going to talk about the big argument on X this week - is it okay to be naked in front of your children? Get involved in the convo on Instagram @everythingiscontentpod! And remember, hot people remember to register to vote before 18th June! —TEEN VOGUE: Why Sabrina Carpenter & Chappell Roan’s Pop Stardom Feels So SatisfyingAMAZON PRIME: Mad Men THE OBSERVER: ‘I felt entirely alone’: comedian Grace Campbell on the aftermath of her abortionBBC IPLAYER: SuitsTIME: Drop Everything and Watch HBO’s Wild Subcultural Succession Doc Ren FairePITCHFORK: Charli XCX - Brat Album ReviewRAYE: Genesis in Selhulst​SABRINA CARPENTER: Please, Please, Please CHANNEL 4: QueenieCANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS: QueenieTHE GUARDIAN: Queenie Review NEW YORK TIMES: Queenie Review REFINERY29: Why Black Women Are Leaving Journalism —Follow us on Instagram:@everythingiscontentpod @beth_mccoll @ruchira_sharma@oenone ---Everything Is Content is produced by Faye Lawrence for We Are GrapeExec Producer: James Norman-FyfeMusic: James RichardsonPhotography: Rebecca Need-Meenar Artwork: Joe Gardner  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I had a fully formed sore and it's literally just literally just gone um oh my god I hate that feeling maybe if I start talking it might just come out I'm Beth I'm Richera I'm Anoni you are listening to everything is content our pop culture podcast every week we get together to take a look at the biggest pop culture stories of the week and then get down and dirty in the discourse we're the croutons in your content soup we release episodes every friday so make sure you subscribe so you never miss one and follow us on instagram and tiktok at everything is content pod we also really want to remind our uk listeners to register to vote before the deadline on the 18th

of June ahead of the Jenny Leck on the 4th of July that's general election for those of you not in the know let's start as always with what we have been loving this week Richira what have you been loving I've been loving Chapel Rowan I have got obsessed with her have either of you listened to her yet do you know who she is yes that's how you see that how you say it. I have got obsessed with her. Have either of you listened to her yet? Do you know who she is? Yes, that's how you say it because I have been nervous to say it out loud. Me too. I've been saying it like that, but I realized that I've actually not heard many people say it out loud. So maybe I've just humiliated myself, but I think it's Chapel Rowan, I think. Let's record all the different ways it could be said we'll just insert that one. Chappelle Rohan. Chappelle Rohan.

But yeah no I've been listening to her recently and I've been obsessed with her most recent album which is from last year which is called The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess and yeah I feel like the past year has been her year. Her and Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish you know now you know the person we'll talk about later in the episode charlie xex i feel like it's pop girl summer and i'm obsessed it's so good some people have been tweeting that oh my god seeing chapel run now must have been what it was like for people when they first saw lady gaga and then people getting outraged and then people being like this is exactly like when people said seeing lady gaga for the first time must be like

what it was to see Madonna for the first time. And that ended up being true. So that is what I'm hearing is she's basically like Lady Gaga level on the rise. I saw her, what was it, Governors? I mean, I didn't see her at Governors Ball, but I saw the crowd for Governors Ball in America. And it was, yeah, it was just stretching to the horizon.

So I loved her songs. I didn't even realise they were songs for however many months they've been bopping around on the radio is that her real name no it's a persona and i think she said it's a drag persona so she like always dresses up like in all these crazy things at the governor's ball she was dressed like lady liberty so she was all green and like looked insane she's now memed herself as like kermit the frog that's her new tiktok picture she's just like really funny really witty please get into her noni please okay what have you been

loving um okay i have one misogynistic recommendation so i'm going to follow it up with a really feminist one i've gotten really into madman like i'm obsessed and it is so misogynistic it's so sexist and i i'm like deep within my bones Like I'm obsessed and it is so misogynistic. It's so sexist. And I'm like deep within my bones. I'm like, God, the world is so wrong. And you can still see sort of like the hangover from such a sexist generation, but I'm also laughing at the sexism, which isn't good.

But it's great. You should watch Mad Men. There's so many series to catch up on. I'm really enjoying it. And then my really feminist recommendation to counteract that really misogynist recommendation is friend of the podcast, Grace Grace Campbell did an incredible piece in the Observer over the weekend last weekend about her abortion and her experience with abortion and I

think loads of people would benefit from reading from it especially if you had an abortion I think it would be a very comforting read it's such deft brilliant writing um and it is so difficult to write something which has like genuinely like quippy brilliant bits in it which is also just so moving um and yes I'm fully seconding people to go and read this because I think it's a very unique take on something which is universal but not it could be universal you know it kind of um it's not talked about enough still there's such power and just like finding humor in life and also life that's really difficult as well I think that is like a really special gift to be able to do that I haven't read her piece yet but I'm definitely going to read it after this on mad men I've not watched it for

years but I yeah I remember thinking that it was like kind of insane that like so many men were just chatting to each other and there's only two female characters in it and then it's like a complete failure of like is it the betch doll test is that what it's called like so brazenly but what's so mad is it's not even like hype is it hyperbole or hyperbole it depends who you're talking to hyperbole hyperbole but in america don't they go hyperbole oh they say niche i was about to say niche and they're not right niche niche sounds like itch you've got niches there's a name as well that absolutely kills me it's not sean is it craig craig sorry to be so anti-american early on in the podcast but it's obviously like what you can just believe that this is absolutely what was going on and as

much as i think most men have improved, this socialization is definitely still. Sorry, producer Faye has just also inserted Graham as Graham. Graham. Graham. Graham. Yeah, because they say Graham crackers. Graham crackers. So it feels like we've got so far to go and the world is so unjust.

But like actually the 1960s weren't that long ago. So it really like we've got so far to go and the world is so unjust, but like actually the 1960s weren't that long ago. So it really isn't, I mean, it's not great, but it's not a surprise that like the air conditioning is too high in a building for women. One thing I always think about with Mad Men and also Peaky Blinders is I think these shows are sort of like present quite flawed men. And like, instead of, I think women will watch it and go, and like instead of i think women will watch and

go god what flawed men men will watch and be like that's gonna be my whole personality i think they miss the point of setting these uh these shows in quite like misogynistic eras or like problematic eras and they just go that's who i'm gonna be now i think they miss it completely yes tony soprano as well tony soprano is like the key one that men would probably die to be but it's so true because the Tommy Shelby and Don Draper thing is actually really annoying because they do so many wrong things they treat so many people badly but like when it like Don Draper's having multiple affairs on his wife all the time but because he's slightly flawed and he's kind of like a victim and every now and then he does the right thing somehow he's still presented as this

like really worthy lovely person and Tommy Shelby's the right thing. Somehow he's still presented as this like really worthy, lovely person. And Tommy Shelby's the same. He's literally killing people left, right and center, but you're watching it and you're like, oh, well, I do love him. They're like real anti-heroes of TV, aren't they? Where like, it's just like these awful men,

but because it's from, everything's from their point of view, you're like pushed to relate to them, even though they're so unbelievably unrelatable. And the most unrelatable thing i have to say though is what betty draper wears to bed she'll be in bed in like a chiffon layered baby blue little tooled like the most gorgeous little dress you've ever seen and she's lying there with like her face and her hair done like how did they sleep oh my god that's how i sleep every night okay perfect bath i know i mean you actually can't see me on the camera I'm wearing like full sweats

yeah I mean it's unrealistic I want to start watching Mad Men but I just fear that if I tell people I have seen it I'll end up having

a lot more annoying conversations with men which I would love to avoid I also have to say we have to remember it's fiction

the man that I live with otherwise known as my boyfriend does tell me to stop getting so cross because it is just a TV program because I'm like

and he's like it's fiction and i'm like but i'm cross beth what have you been loving this week i actually started watching something again another misogyny show just kidding with the intention of using it because i was like oh i'll start the show that everyone loves and i'll be able to say that well it's so boring and by it i mean the show suits oh yes so boring it's so boring and by it I mean the show Suits oh yes so boring it's so boring I used to love it I was addicted to it

it's just men in suits walking around doing like stuff I don't understand what they're talking about so anyway I don't love it that Harvey

is it Harvey Spector Harvey Spector Harvey Spector exactly Harvey Spector Tommy Shelby and Don Draper

are all the same person problematic triad so that's out if you watch if you love this show please like someone come into my dms and convince me to finish it because I am about six episodes in watch on the plane because I'm in Mykonos at the moment I'm not I'm not doing it it's so boring oh my god there's like the dilemma of it there's not that much you can really do with it but they try and stretch it for like so many seasons and ultimately you're kind of

rooting against the main guy who's you know hoodwinked his way into this law firm without a law degree you're just kind of like i want you to get found out now i'm bored i'm bored i see i watched it quite far in but i also was just obsessed with what the women wore especially megan markle's character and the the secretary i can't remember their names now but i used to watch it at uni and it did used to give me delusions of grandeur that i'd have a job where i'd be wearing that kind of thing I'm currently sat in a tracksuit we're all suited and voted in a different kind of way can I do a serious recommendation that I would actually recommend to our lovely listeners which is a HBO documentary called Ren Faire and

I got a screener of this it's not out yet in the UK but I'm hoping it will be soon about a renaissance fair in America it follows the succession journey from the current owner and founder of this fair. His name is George. He is such a character. And he's like 86 years old, has basically planned his death. He wants to die in nine years. And he's like, well, I need to find a successor. And it's kind of a succession battle between these two guys who are quite high up in the festival.

And it sounds properly dull, but it's incredible. It is like, it's like succession. It's shot beautifully. This guy spends all of his day like tottering around his eerie, enormous Texan mansion, like going on sugar baby sites and talking about death. It is amazing oh and I would anyway I just highly recommend this because it's a documentary on something I would never have watched but everyone's like no no this will surprise you and three parts this idea that last week charlie xex released her sixth studio album brat i feel like this has been the moment for you know every single day since she dropped it everyone's talking about it the internet can't

get enough so obviously we have to discuss it the album features the singles von dutch and 360 pitchfork described the album as imperious and cool, nuanced and vulnerable and one of the best pop albums of the year. What did we make of it? Did we listen to it? What do we think? I think it's really big for us.

Like my X feed is having like a Barbie moment like everyone keeps listening to anything that's green and being like, oh my God, the brat promo is going crazy. But I don't know how widespread that is or if it's just like for our specific internet rock girlies it's sort of breaking my brain in the way that every time i see something green now i'm like like i'm in mykonos now i saw like a beautiful green plant i was like brat so brat coded um i just assume everyone is thinking the exact same as me which is it's so fun i've been waiting for like it's

been nice that all the other pop girlies have been having their sort of um introspective soul searching moment but I did just want to dance and I feel like now we can dance yes she's green lighted us quite literally so the album cover just for anyone who hasn't seen it or isn't in the know it's you know like a neon green kind of square and then brat in this like really old kind of like 2000s cursive that looks very like my space and the marketing of this whole album has been insanely good I feel like she knew by doing that it was like meme fodder everyone's just essentially like ripping the green color like finding green stuff in the world around them and just basically as you said just memeing it now and like kind of making it

a funner experience as well. I think she's a great lyricist because it's like her lyrics are so online and so British and are not normally a patriot. But I have to say, I do love like the Britishness, the kind of like grotty British summer vibes that she brings to the table. Yeah, like she was like drinking wine at the

at the gig and she's like you sing this next one guys i'm just gonna drink my wine like that is nana a barbecue a little bit also another thing people are saying about this is is a she's perfected her you know her eras this is her like final era where she's kind of referencing back all the different albums that she's had and this is just like her at her best because she's kind of referencing back all the different albums that she's had and this is just like her at her best because she's also being super vulnerable and also kind of harking back to the nostalgia of like 2000s music like that myspace kind of indie sleaze vibe and she's like i'm gonna do the best version of this that you'll ever see in your fucking life and she's done it because she is 31 or 32 so she actually yeah she the, she's like tethered to that.

She remembers that. Yeah, actually like these younger poppy girls could not do that. They don't remember. One of, I guess, our criticisms, or actually I don't want to lump you guys in, but I'm sure we all said this, of Taylor Swift was that she is actually like in her 30s,

but her lyrics feel quite juvenile. There's something like opposite happening with Charli's album where people in their 20s are tweeting like, if you're 32, you're not having a brat girl summer go get a stretching routine and it's like charlie's in her 30s she's advocating for us to be doing this like doing what she's doing the whole vibe of the album is basically like do i want to have a baby i think about it a lot you know i miss sophie the artist who tragically died I got compared to her and that makes me sad but then also like loads of partying and just loads of like self-referential comments about like it girls of

the moment like Julia Fox, Gabrielle all of these kind of insta baddies it's kind of like everything that is of the moment right now with her like personal flavor thrown in so I get why like young people would be like this is our culture but like I honestly think this is just like for the super online aka anyone who listens to the podcast and us this feels so personal to me because I've got a couple of friends who've like either just had a baby or trying to get pregnant and then I've got another group of friends who are all still resolutely single and going out and partying and then there's like 10 of us in the middle who are like oh maybe we should have a baby and then the next day we're out till 5am and there's literally

like no middle ground and I feel like this is what life is like now to be a woman in your 30s especially in a city like London where everything is kind of getting pushed back a bit later like we're not most people aren't getting married and having kids in their 20s and we are still being quite reckless so I just feel like personally she's written this for me and I love that she is doing all of these like I guess like album launch parties which look huge I saw Lily Allen was one she misspelt Charlie XCX's name on one of her posts I was like oh that's humiliating oh the disrespect oh god oh just gave me the shivers imagine if you did that um and i'm enjoying that because i like to see people going out i don't want to be in my grand phase i mean i don't want to go out but i like to see my peers going out if that makes sense no no you have to go out you have to go out for

this album now um did you also see uh i think it was last week there was a rumor that she was going to turn up at a pub in limehouse that was like essentially a night celebrating the album and she just rocked up she literally rocked up and there's a video online of like people shoving poppers in her face which feels very on brand i saw that video and someone just retweeted that she's so likable and i was like it is exactly that she is like she's like within reach she's so gorgeous and glamorous and she's like within reach. She's so gorgeous and glamorous and she's like friends with like mega stars, but she doesn't feel shrouded in sort of like mystery and she hasn't gone.

It's like, she still feels like she's very much on a level with her fans and still in the real world, which I think is a really hard thing to straddle. I wonder how long she'll actually be able to keep it up because I do think this album is gonna, is gonna like throw her into the next stratosphere.'s a good it's a good point but I think people have been intense with her for a lot of her like her fan base is locked in ride or die like do you remember there was the meme of her with massive tits I think I feel like she either reposted it or said as a profile picture

she was always posing like poppers um and douches like I think she has seen where a fan base can go and I think she's she's up for it she's not like a Taylor Swift or like you know like being really respectful of her fans she kind of gives it to them like I remember seeing this video where um some fan on the street is like singing her lyrics she like literally once over the guy and then literally just was like I don't know I think she was like don't do that again or something it was like so sassy and rude but I was so here for it I was about to say her fans are the kind of fans that like their kink is literally being humiliated yes yeah it's like they would be like on the floor yeah looking her feet yeah I'm so glad that pop stars are doing stunts they're doing something because for so many years now we've just had

they deleted all their pictures on instagram what is like go girl give us nothing this she's doing stuff you know and i know that's normally just like usher in a new era but like she is out there she's in a green tesla she is painting the town green i will say before this album i was kind of just a bit i was feeling a bit meh about charlie xcX but I feel like on second listen of this album and then third and fourth and whatever I've just been so obsessed that I feel like I get it now I really get it this release has changed the game a bit for me with her I even think the impact and the hilarity and the sort of community that's come off the back of this like just the brat cover that green even that in of itself is like part of the fun do you know what I mean

she's just reignited this sense of fun and camaraderie one thing I wanted to talk about is so we're talking about how successful and how interesting the marketing around this album has been as you know it's been kind of a moment like a giant moment I was wondering what you think about you know Ray turning up at a train station in selhurst with a band and you know performing in what seemed to be like an off-the-cuff kind of marketing thing for her new release and then thinking about you know sabrina carpenter as well with the video that she did last week for please please please which featured alleged boyfriend barry keown oh it's not alleged anymore it's confirmed isn't it

yeah they'd be snogging they'd be snogging and they'd be snogging in the video do you think that there is this trend of um stunts i guess stunts is the right word to kind of promote an album or do you think it's just people being creative and like it happens to be that everyone's trying to like outdo the next person i hope so like i said like i said earlier like i i am ready for the tide to change i'm ready for them to give us a bit theater with it like if your boyfriend's a famous actor who's like i don't know maybe he's just not got a job at the moment it's just smart to put him in your music video she called him jobless she called him jobless also if he is an actor like and he's your boyfriend he

should be doing that for free so So you're saving on costs. I wonder if there is a mates rate. No. Do you think our boyfriends would do... I mean, no, we actually called them rats last week. Zay, do you think that they would do any pro bono promotional work for us? Guys, I tried. I tried. Like, years ago, I did an article for Vice

where I pretended to be Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker. You know, when they were, like, getting with each other in Instagram pictures in Instagram pictures I was like I'm gonna try and do this for a week with my boyfriend he was so not he was not happy he was not happy about it he was just like I don't want my face in this like why have you agreed for this commission without my prior consent we did it and then the end we had to pretend to be engaged and like it was so stressful can you see that you have to send these pics to the group chat with haste? I would not. I'd get sent like a cease and desist.

Did you think it was ick or slick that Sabrina had Barry on? Because I, it personally made me fancy him. Yes. Spoke to a friend the other day and they were like, oh my God, thought it was the most revolting thing I've ever seen. hard disagree so i was ready to be icked out by it because it's so a thing that immediately would turn me off because i do think it is a marketing

ploy i think it's a clever one but they styled him amazingly he looked amazing the character they gave him they've just made him look really hot and by virtue of that they both look hot together and now i'm obsessed with them both i also think it's hot because she is humiliatingly at him she's like don't embarrass me yeah my mom or my friends and then he is just staring at her adoringly and that to me is hot when a man is being degraded also i feel like i genuinely was convinced this was a showmance just before i saw this video and like god forgive me the marketing boys worked i'm like i'm rooting i'm rooting for this random couple this couple with an age gap i don't care i'm rooting for them do you know what i think is so smart about what ray and charlie xx have done i think in this climate

of tickets becoming like exorbitantly expensive and really difficult to get live tickets and most people probably feeling priced out of having any possibility to go to live concerts there's something really exciting about the chance that you could literally just be getting on at selhurst park to go and watch crystal palace play a fact that i only know because of that that i know and um you could just see ray at the station i think it's like bringing something back again it's pulling that curtain down it's like they're not hopping on private jets they are standing at the train station they are in the local pub I think it's that level of sort of like intimacy and reality that makes makes them so much more likable it's not planned it's like you might just happen across them and that to me would get me out the house

yeah I think that is really nice and I think it is there is something special about that and I agree with you Beth where I feel like we've been so deprived of like really good pop music but also just like artists who are like really exciting and like creative and just like I don't know they don't feel like they're on like a pedestal and they're like so out of touch they're just turning up to pubs they give a shit about fans they're like like exciting us and they're also like inviting us into the whole thing like it feels like we're part of the brat universe now we're not just on the outskirts like looking in that's so true it's so and it's like bringing it from the digital into the real world like i think we are all kind of pooped out on the internet we spend so much time that's so nice when a release or when something

is tangible when someone's like hey i'm gonna be here or like someone does like a treasure hunt or whatever it is i think i'm hoping that that kind of returned because i feel like people used to do this right years ago like people used to like think of something fun to do and it was like word of mouth um and you just don't see it anymore let us know what you think about brat we want to hear all of your opinions did you love it hate it it, DM us on Instagram. Earlier this month, Channel 4 released their TV adaptation of Candice Carty-Williams novel, Queenie. The show follows Queenie, a 25-year-old Jamaican-British woman who straddles two cultures but doesn't fit neatly into either. It stars Dionne Brown as Queenie.

There have been mixed opinions about the show online. The New York Times called it smart, poppy and fun and praised its use of rom-com traditions. But Leila Latif in the guardian gave queenie two stars so i'll do the usual who's seen it who's read it and what are our thoughts so i've just seen the first episode i didn't i haven't read queenie yet mostly because when you know it went insanely stratospheric i just wasn't reading at that point I've spoken about it before I had a bit of a break back on reading now but it's definitely

on my list just because I want to understand its popularity because it really seemed to have like turned into this giant moment and it seems like it was so popular yeah it came out 2019 which I think was it was a great year for books I did I bought it and I took it on holiday didn't come home with me on holiday so I have watched most of it have not read it either so I read it when it came out and I was actually looking earlier because I I actually can't remember that the story that well because also during that period we obviously then went into the lockdown I literally was reading a book a week so as much as I was taking stuff in it was going like in and then just straight out for the next book but on Goodreads the book has 144,000 ratings and that is quite wild because obviously not everyone that reads will rate it anyway it was a really

impactful book I remember really enjoying it I remember feeling it was really gritty I remember finding it um interesting and and new in terms of the perspectives that we don't tend to read in especially in like sort of like female fiction and I and it had loads of themes that I thought were handled really well and what I mean by gritty is dealing with subjects which are maybe often not spoken about that much so she has a missed miscarriage which happens kind of like right at the beginning it's talking about sort of issues to do with class and race and money and relationships. And it's not all sort of sickly sweet and saccharine and sort of rom-commy. There is a real like wealth of true humanity in the story. I've watched like a few episodes of the

series. The story it follows is the same, but it felt quite watered down which I thought was a little bit of a shame I also just got the sense that not enough time money or care and attention was poured into the adaptation because I really felt like the book even though I can't remember that well I remember how it made me feel and this show did not make me feel to the extent that the book did I feel like it's honestly had years in the making, this adaptation. It's, you know, been a rumour for like at least three years as far as I know. So yeah, that's really interesting about your point about time and cost. Yeah, I wonder.

I'm watching it and I am really enjoying it. And before I started watching, I did see The Guardian piece and I did see a few tweets that said, oh, I'm and they were all from people obviously you'd read the book and had that frame of reference I'm really enjoying it as a quarter life and all the promotional material that's like this is about a quarter life crisis and even though I am just beyond my own like quarter life I find it so relatable and so I just love media that is about that like 25 year old itch when you enter that period so I do wonder when I will definitely go in and read the book now it's interesting to do it this way around whether I'll think oh okay this is this has you know a whole new depth the

book um versus going from the book to something that maybe is a little bit more for entertainment rather than to kind of keep people thinking about i don't know the culture outside of that i also agree beth you're right it's the themes are good i probably would have enjoyed it more if it wasn't so hyped i think queenie not only had like a big impact on reading it i think also so many people whether or not you've read the book or not know of the book so i went into it with like such big expectations and I thought that acting was impeccable and I think we're watching a new cast of young actors coming up who we're now seeing repeatedly in kind of a lot of British TV shows which is really fun

to see and makes me wonder like where they'll be in years to come most notably John Pointing who has actually been in too much stuff now, I think. He's always the kind of like, yeah, he plays her boyfriend in this. He was in Smothered, which we recommended in an earlier episode of the show. And Big Boys. And Big Boys, yeah.

And I'm sure something else. No, I love him. That does happen with British TV though. Like you notice it a lot. There'll be a generation of actors and they are just everyone in everything. So I love the book. I love the storyline. I think the cast is amazing and the acting's great I have a really

big bugbear and maybe there isn't a way around this but every show that kind of comes out at the minute has some form of like texting whatsapping and every single time I see it done it's like and then a little thing pops on the screen and then they're texting. And I thought this was really innovative when I watched LOL, that Miley Cyrus film that came out maybe in like 2010. But in 2024, when I'm already texting all the time and I'm stressed about it, I actually find it really tiresome to have these sort of like what feels very BBC Three's Stacey Dooley documentary on teenagers being obsessed with their phones vibe. Yeah. Does that arc you guys or like am i just a boomer yeah but i wonder what the way around having because in stories of young people now

so much of it is online how do you do that in a way that isn't exhausting to watch as a viewer who does spend all the time getting the ping ping i don't i'm sure there is a way but it will take some artful storytelling to either not rely on it or to yeah to kind of do it in a way that isn't like oh fucking hell this again I definitely get that with dating apps you know when characters are on dating apps and that it's like a fake version of like hinge or bumble or something a lot of the times I feel like it makes me cringe and it just yeah I don't feel like it often feels authentic or good it just feels quite cringe if they're like filming someone texting I actually don't mind like it often feels authentic or good. It just feels quite cringe. If they're like filming someone texting,

I actually don't mind that. It's more this sort of like neon pink bubble with the writing. It just is something about it feels really young and juvenile to me. In Baby Reindeer, did they just write the text on the screen? Was there bubbles?

It was just, I can't remember. That's because I don't remember that annoying me actually. And I know there's loads of, there's communication on that a lot. There was no, there can't remember that. Because I don't remember that annoying me actually. And I know there's loads of, there's communication on that a lot. There was no, there was no neon bubbles. I feel like it was him reading it through his narration of when he got something. And then also at the beginning of the thing,

you know, the like typing on the screen, it was never like, you know, like neon green, like iMessage bubbles or anything like that. I think it is a good point. And it can be, I'm not saying that's what happens here. Cause I haven't actually like, I'm about halfway through and there is a lot happening with the old dating app at the moment but I think it can be in other shows quite lazy it's lazy storytelling it's it's

used to just tone down the exposition because you go we'll just read on the screen there are clever ways to do that also I have to say I also find that really frustrating in books as well where they defer to just like going straight to emails or texts and it's like the conversation between the two people I immediately I'm just like look I'm not going to read that I'm just going to skip I hate it do you know what is that because Sally Rooney does that quite a lot actually yeah she does these like very long laborious emails but I have this thing where sometimes if it's like texts and stuff it could be crucial to the dialogue maybe that's because in real life that's how we kind of read those online communications it's like not as weighty and I do kind of like skim even in a book I'm kind of like oh do I have to yeah read all of that

or when they do a song in a book I can't like that I don't read that I know when I read Lord of the Rings takes about 15 minutes because I skip all of the songs it's a novella for you pamphlet. Did you see, well, you mentioned the piece, sorry, in the New York Times. I read that piece. The concept with that was basically that, and I think it's how I felt.

It's like there's been a lot of levity and youthfulness added to a text, which I think actually was much more gritty and much more adult. And so it falls very well as sort of like a Channel 4 drama. Maybe I would have found it more enticing and more interesting and entertaining in my early 20s but if you contrast this with something like Girls um in terms of the level of sort of like truth telling for want of a better word I feel like if it's not the same and I almost wish that it was given that level of gravitas but maybe

that's just not the intention yeah I think it's hard because um one thing that was really big about Queenie is Candice sold it as like the black Bridget Jones and that was like I remember I've read so many interviews of her saying this but that was like in hindsight her being so smart to do that selling it in like this really like you know tight compact way where publishers and marketers immediately were like yeah I get what that is and then marketed you know the book as it should have been and it had an audience who are ready for that exact thing and I kind of guess I'm saying this with the knowledge that I haven't seen the entire series so I really can't you know speak too much on it but I think that from the first episode it feels like it was giving more Bridget Jones than it was kind of you know HBO gritty

girls so I wonder if it's a thing of like she was giving it the impression that she thought people wanted but maybe things have changed and people potentially want something a bit grittier they don't want the Bridget Jones they want the like here's what life's like in London in South London with like rent going out of control breakups do you know what I mean it is very issues based I think like each episode feels very self-contained it's kind of like it takes a quarter life issue whether that is breakup you know first big breakup um housing crisis microaggressions at work she's a black woman and she's a journalist so she's in a space which is increasingly very middle-class and white and always has been.

I did read a piece on Refinery29 by Habiba Kacha called, and I think this came out earlier this week, called Black Women Are Leaving Journalism and It's a Huge Loss, which I think is really prescient. I don't know how much, you know, is she the same role in the book? I don't know, but she's a journalist who is kind of butting up against a really well-meaning white editor and boss and kind of, you know, isn't being kind of nurtured in the workplace. So I thought in terms of issues, like it does feel very, very, I can see why it's more kind of set now rather than pre-covid so i think what we're all saying is watch the show take what you take

and definitely tell us what you thought all episodes are out now on channel four and you can let us know your thoughts on instagram at everything is content pod so i would like to discuss terrible internet takes last week it was people being cross a man who found a goldfish in his garden and didn't immediately have the perfect fish tank with all of the accessories and this week i saw a post on x that sparked so much discourse. It was from a user called Justineo and they posted told my friend to stop bathing in front of her five-year-old son and I don't think she took it well. Could it be that she thinks I can't have an opinion on that because I don't have a child or did I cross a line maybe? And at the time of the recording this post has 2.4 million views and people have been going wild in the comments and so we asked you on instagram

what you made of this take and you guys were equally impassioned reese said she overstepped it's her body and her child i had a naked and better call miss mom growing up she changed in front of me if i was there still would now and i don't think it's weird at all it's just a body nakedness doesn't mean sexual and imogen said I feel like they're exposing themselves as weirdos by thinking it's an issue over to you Beth and Ruchira what's your immediate response oh my god I yeah I saw this taken I was like are you actually are you actually having a laugh like this is not an issue and also yeah you overstepped like if somebody said that to me and I had a child I would be like mind your goddamn business like please

it's always the people who don't have children that have the most to say and like I don't have children and the best part about not having children is I don't need to worry about how to parent children yeah people are like using free and gorgeous seconds of their lives to go on the internet and try and parent you know and this is the people in the comments the person that said this to their friend i think what like that is someone if i was a parent i think i would phase out of my life how infuriating would that be about like it's just it's just pure shame it's just shaming someone this is the problem this is one of many problems that we have in society like bodies are not sexual they don't need to be sexual they have a place in being sexual at certain times and you know in the right

in the right situations but sexualizing your mother's body like i'm sorry that's messed up like children should be able to be with their parents that's like that's not a thing that's weird for you to think that's a thing the responses and i'll have to say lots of these are from men so some retweets one reads what's crazy is that this is quite common ladies in brackets mothers and other female relatives being so liberal with their bodies in front of toddlers and infants another one replied saying i heard boys start processing things already at 18 months she is disgusting sick face so sorry processing yes like thoughts yes an 18 month old like 18 month old an 18 month old

is processing not not sexual things I mean my mum was naked in front of me my whole life and still would like if I went into her bathroom she would just stand there and talk to me and my sisters are very naked and like all of our pictures of children is just like me in the bath with my cousins up until we're like seven I just found it so normal that it actually kind of it makes me suddenly go wait is something wrong that I've seen that and I'm like no no these men are so porn brained I swear it just impacts their ability to like properly contextualize and understand things like that's dinner to an 18 month old baby they don't see tits they see oh my god that's squashy that's fun they don't see what an adult man who has watched too much x videos is seeing

and i think it is just they tell on themselves when they say things like this a lot of the people that replied to our instagram story about this were mothers mothers can see very clearly like what is appropriate and what is not here. And then child free men are being very loudly wrong about it. I think it was really beneficial to me that my mum, as much as there was so much kind of diet culture in my household when I was growing up

and it was so much in and of the world, but my mum was never embarrassed of her body in front of me. She would never kind of like quickly whip a towel on. And that I actually found really useful and comforting because it did mean that my body especially in this in the comfort of my own home was just not an interesting thing I might have had issues with my body image from other places but like my sisters and I would change in front of each other my mum would like snap like be doing whatever in her bathroom and I would see her without clothes on and it was just so not a thing that that actually was like helpful.

Whereas I think if you start in front of your two-year-old being like, I've got to cover up, it's gonna create some sort of like weird relationship with the human body. And especially with your mother's body, which as Beth has said, is dinner. And like children want to touch their mums. Like I've got four nieces

and children do just wanna like grab their mum's boobs, even at a point when they're not like, they think their body, your body is their body. Like when you're their mom, they're like, excuse me, I don't know why you're trying to walk off with that. That's mine. It's just so wild that these men don't know that. And it reminds me of as well, when you hear women talking about how they've just had a baby and they're breastfeeding and then their husband's like, I don't know, trying to get

them back in the sack like immediately. And then I'm so sorry, but I'm actually doing a different job with my body right now this isn't for you and I wonder if there's some kind of perversion where it's like men are jealous of children taking away that the utility of the woman's body as they see it in their eyes and they're like no that's my thing and it's like actually no I think it is a bit of that because I was about to say the same thing I feel like there's this what's kind of behind many of the takes online is this like ownership of women's bodies equating to their sexual pleasure rather than it having use beyond that and also dare I say belong to the woman and what she wants to do with it there is this kind of like weird ownership vibe I'm getting from these

takes and so many of them are about children as well i don't i think that is i'm sure it's misogyny as well the fact that so many of these hashtag discourse wars begin with how a woman is kind of parenting or presenting or what she's choosing to do like it's about breastfeeding in public it's about like women trying to take their kids out it's about women leaving their children god forbid when they're still very young it's all it begins and ends with like women and their children and also a lot of this has been around women and their their sons if you have a young child a young boy who is around a mother that's i'm not saying you have to be naked all the time but who like is comfortable within her body who talks about like the importance of respect and different things and it's like there's open communication and dialogue and sort of like comfortability that might even benefit

that young boy it's just this idea that they're saying like this completely innocent perfect little child is gonna have some like seedy rancid thoughts oh it's just so it's so backward god that's so true isn't it we're obviously getting baited into the fury of this take we've we've spoken about it before with like you know certain videos on tiktok which are designed to just like be read to all of us bulls online do you think this is the same thing or do you think this is like a genuine somebody just posted something and then people having genuine opinions about it i think it's real i think it is real i think having seen or having overheard real conversations with people and this was about the beckhams kissing i think it was their young children so i think it was harper

beckham um kissing her parents on the lips i mean she's like a young teenager she's like 12 years old now so this is a few years ago when she was a little girl and a weird part of the internet I will say I think they're very weird thought it was inappropriate for a father to kiss his daughter on the lips and that really turned my stomach and so I think this is an offshoot of that that mentality kissing is a different cultural thing like in different cultures you kiss and it doesn't have to mean this sort of like I don't know really insidiously awful thing this obviously won't be the last time that we see these enraging tweets on the internet but I do wonder if as we've all said it highlights some issues within society and I wonder if there's fertile ground for us to actually use these tweets as a means for like learning it's kind of like getting into conversations that you would maybe never bump across,

bump up against in real life. And maybe there's a positive way to engage with it in terms of actually having more conversations about it in real life, rather than just getting pissed off about it on a podcast. But also please do tell us what you think in our DMs on at everything is content pod. And as always, thank you so much for listening. Tell your friends about us if you love the podcast

it really helps us out if you spread the word please and if you haven't heard it yet you can go back now and listen to anoni's excellent interview with danai guerrera one of the stars of the walking dead go now run give it a listen and we'll see you next week bye everything is content is a great original podcast and we are part of the acast creator network this podcast was created devised and presented by us beth mccall richira shama and anoni the producer is faye lawrence and the executive producer is james norman fife