Everything Is Content - Everything in Conversation: Lola Young And The Hunt For Nepo Babies

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Happy hump day EIC heads! As a reward for making it halfway to the weekend here’s a brand spanking episode of Everything In Conversation for you- and it’s a doozy. This week we’re discussing a new branch of the nepo baby discourse that sprouted after 24-year-old singer and Messy internet sensation Lola Young was “outed” as being the niece of mega-successful children’s author Julia Donaldson (e.g. the creator of The Gruffalo). This revelation sparked conversations online about whether this connection was enough to open doors, if we even should be labelling Young a nepo baby, and what having a rich or high profile relative can mean when navigating a career in the arts. Armed with a pile of brilliant listener messages we try to find some answers, as well as getting stuck into the complications of the UK class system, code-switching, the sexism inherent in the term nepo baby and what we think we should all actually be talking about instead. Thanks so much for listening and/or taking part in this In Conversation episode. If you want to be a part of next week’s discussion just follow us on IG @everythingiscontentpod. We’d also love if you could leave us a rating or a review or even share us on socials- it means the world and helps us grow!O, R, B xPrince Charles Cinema - Sign the petitionVulture : How a Nepo Baby Is BornThe i Paper : Here’s why you shouldn’t call me a nepo baby Square Mile : Eve Austin  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth, I'm Richera, and I'm Anoni, and this is Everything in Conversation, our midweek bumper up for that little content booster. As always, we'll begin by updating you on the biggest pop culture stories from the week before diving into a topic of your choice featuring your hot takes. Remember, if you want to take part in the conversation, you just need to follow us on Instagram at everythingiscontentpod. This week we're asking, has nepo baby discourse gone way too far? But first, here are the headlines from the EIC newsroom. Jeremy Allen White is set to star in and executive produce a bisexual romance

series, Enigma Variations, for Netflix, based on the novel by Call Me By Your Name author Andre Asselman. Three quarters of women are labelled emotional in performance reviews, a study by Textio finds. In comparison, only 11% of men have been labelled the same. After Alexander failed to win the Traders Cash Prize, fans have donated the same amount he would have won, 30k, to the charity he set out to support Mencap. Brian Johnson aka the tech millionaire who is terrified of aging has announced he's no longer injecting his son's blood. Wow amazing. You may think but he goes on to say I've upgraded to something else total plasma exchange. The steps are one take out all the blood from body, two separate plasma from blood. Three, replace the plasma with 5% albium and IVIG.

And he attached a photo of himself holding a bag of yellow pus, I think, which was his plasma. Happy for him, I guess? Donald Trump is aggressively pushing forward with plans to shrink the US government by offering eight months pay to federal employees who quit their jobs. A union representing federal employees described the plan as a purge, targeting workers not considered loyal to the new administration. Love Island winner Jack Fincham has been jailed for six weeks after his cane corso dog attacked a man while he was running. 60s icon Marianne Faithfull has died at the age of 78. The singer and actress, a former girlfriend of Rolling Stone's frontman Mick Jagger, passed away peacefully in London

in the company of her loving family, a statement said. She will be dearly missed. Natalie Cassidy has quit EastEnders after nearly 32 years playing Sonia Fowler. She said, and I quote, after another 11 solid years back on the square, I've decided it's time to move on to passes new.

EastEnders is in my bones, so I will never forget where I started my career and I will continue to love the show. Sad. In a recent appearance on Graham Norton, Reese Witherspoon said people thought she was a real lawyer while serving jury duty after Legally Blonde. I was like, y'all, this is really upsetting. I definitely did not go to law school. I didn't finish college, she said. The sex trafficking indictment of Sean Combs lists two more victims. Federal prosecutors filed an amended list of charges against the music mogul on Thursday and said he had coerced two additional women into sex acts. The beloved and iconic Prince Charles Cinema in London is under threat of closure after its property developer

landlord Zedwell, who are owned by Criterion Capital, demanded a break clause in the building's lease which would give the cinema just six months if Zedwell decided to sell. A petition launched last week has already gotten huge attention, tens and tens of thousands of signatures and has been shared by the likes of Joe Arwen, Edgar Wright, Dolly Alderton, Paul Maskell and now us on the podcast. If you do want to sign and show your support we will link the petition in the show notes. The BBC has apologised to staff who felt they could not speak up with concerns about Russell Brand's behaviour because he was seen as too influential and they felt he would always get his way. Brand has been interviewed three times by police since September 2023 and in November 2024 the Metropolitan Police sent the Crown Prosecution

Service a file of evidence but prosecutors have not yet decided whether to bring charges. And that's everything from the headlines this week. This week the internet made a discovery about Lola Young whose song Messy you are undoubtedly singing absentmindedly constantly and if you're not you cannot escape it on social media. Anyway the internet discovered that her aunt wrote The Gruffalo, undeniably a banger of a children's book, loved and praised globally. But was this the key to Lola's stardom? Some ex-users seem to think so. At Cricket Gym One wrote, feel like this woman appeared out of nowhere in the past few months so

I had a google, her auntie wrote The Gruffalo and she went to the Brit school lol same as it ever was at yummy tummy ache said I also discovered the same this week I could hear wealth in her accent then I googled the Gruffalo author and my eyes watered and then someone called Simon whose username I really can't be bothered to attempt to read said the usual origin story then surprise she's not from Camden and then he's put from Camden in inverted commas. So just to recap Camden is a real place and the Brit School is a performance and creative art school in Croydon which is completely free to attend although it's very selective in its intake and students from outside the catchment area only get a place if they show outstanding talent and unusual merit and it has birthed some of the greatest talents from Amy Winehouse to Adele to Tom Holland and

FKA Twigs. And while it might be a privilege to attend in some ways, you have to be really talented to get in. And it's not like a private school or something that grants you access because you are privileged. In response to the discourse, At Dowd and Lordy wrote on X, Imagine you studied your craft at a performing arts school, have been grinding for years as a singer. You finally get your recognition and people are calling you a nepo monster because your aunt wrote, who is this creature with terrible claws and terrible teeth and his terrible jaws? Someone else at Cult Healing said, if my auntie wrote The Gruffalo, I would live my quiet life in contemplation at a humble estate in the British countryside.

In October last year, Billie Eilish's mum hit back at Nepo Baby claims against her children. She said that her and her husband are working class actors who eked out a meagre living and it afforded us a lot of time with our kids, which was awesome. But she went on to say that people in the industry are primarily like them, people who don't necessarily make it, that they had never seen the success that her children had seen. And lastly, recently, resident iPaper columnist Gizzy Arskeen also refuted the label in a police titled, I was born with a title, but here's why you shouldn't call me a nepo baby. She says her full name is the Honourable Griselda Maxwell Arskeen of Rerwick and says it makes people assume that she's rich that she's been to private school and that she's been supported by her parents her whole life have a trust fund and a country pile when in fact she

says I've worked since I was 15 where I saw programs at Arsenal Football Club and worked in the local leisure centre after school at the same age. So what's the deal? Is any famous relative, linkster-landed gentry or creative roots enough to get you on the nepo baby list? Or are we being too liberal with the term? And how do we define a nepo baby? Beth and Ruchira, I turn to you. Initially, when I saw this debate like rumbling on, I was like, oh, not another one. Not like fatigue from last time. But then I thought, actually, it probably is important that we try and define this, that we try and like hash it out sensibly, not just us, the culture in general. Because I think we have to probably be able to define nepo baby to use it, you know, to do something useful with the term. And I think it matters to draw the lines and say,

this is not a nepo baby. And this is maybe it's not always as cut and dry. But I think a lot of the time it is, especially because it's not like an accusation that needs to ruin someone. It's just an acknowledgement of privilege. I think in this case, it is a reach and a stretch. I don't think it's helpful to call anyone with family, distant or otherwise, who have had success in adjacent but not directly the same industries. I think that's murky and I don't think it's helpful. I think that just makes kind of arbitrary villains out of anybody who might have a tenuous connection while failing to do any real good for working class acts which is that not the whole point of the nepo baby discourse to democratize the industries and to shine a light on like proper injustices I'm just not sure an injustice

has happened anywhere in this situation I agree for. For this episode, I reread the iconic New York Magazine piece on Nepo babies, specifically Vulture's installment, which is how a Nepo baby is born. And in that piece, they have a really good definition. They say, better to imagine Nepo babies on a spectrum. At the top are the classic Nepo babies, inheritors of famous names and famous features, i.e. Dakota Johnson, Maya Hawke, Jack Quaid. The next tier down are people who got a leg up from family connections even if they were not famous per se. These include figures like Lena Dunham whose artist parents supplied her the necessary cultural capital as well as industry babies like Billie Eilish, daughter of a voice actress and Kristen

Stewart whose mother was a script supervisor on the Flintstones in Viva Rock, Vegas. I think the bottom ones, as we said, so somebody like Kristen Stewart and Billie Eilish are really at the bottom of the pile in terms of they're obviously not having doors opened in the same way as being a Barrymore, for example, but they are somewhere on the spectrum. But I agree with you, I don't think it's particularly helpful to band them in with somebody like Dakota Johnson who has tears and tears of history and legacy and Hollywood richness behind her name and truly is just like part of a dynasty I think we're really flattening of nepo babies and grouping them all together and I don't think it is helpful and I think it is quite I don't know

it's just wrong as well because I think there is a legitimate argument to say much like, you know, if you're born into a wealthy family, there are certain legs up that are given to you, even if your parents don't do the same creativity endeavors that you do, versus being part of a middle class family, say your parents are authors, they haven't made a really successful career, but there's a cultural richness, they're inviting into your life, which makes it easier for you to step out into that career in terms of the references that you're brought up with. But that's not the same as being Dakota Johnson. It's just not. It's a level of privilege. It's a level of cultural privilege. It's just not the same. It's just not. And I think we have to have a 360 conversation around it and stop kind of using

Nepo Baby in this really blunt way. Totally agree. We had so many messages on this topic. And related to what you just said, Ritu, we had a great one from Anna, which read, I think nepo baby discourse is overblown in general. It makes sense that if your parents or family are successful at a certain craft and you grew up around it, you might also be naturally gifted. However, when it's clear that the main reason they have opportunities is because of those connections and not talent, I think it's fair to call it out and discuss. It also matters whether the parents are pressuring their child to pursue that career. Maybe the Nepo babies feel they have responsibility to follow in their parents' footsteps. At the end of the day, a lot of us use our connections to

further our careers. I guess the Nepo babies just get lucky with the connections they have at their disposal. If we were Nepo babies, would we not do the same? And Sophie also said, talent breeds talent, which I also think is another interesting part of this that sometimes we don't talk about is lots of times in families, if your family are all doctors, the children then might become doctors or if they're lawyers. It's quite normal within a family for people to follow in the footsteps of their parents and follow in their careers. And whether that's genetically coded in the way that your brain works and your DNA, that you are passed on a gift or a talent, that is another angle of it, which is like people are,

oh my God, of course our parents do X, Y xyz in relation to whichever nepo baby but maybe it is as simple as the fact that if your parents are good at something you're more likely to get at something and that is also something that needs to be spoken about it does feel like every few months we get back into this discourse and we sort of need to like tap the sign and it's a sign that says nepotism is bad because it places meritless people in merited positions it's brooklyn beckham with the photography book it isn't when a song is really popular and then the singer of that song is invited on to sing it on television and hits the top of the charts especially when that singer as i found out researching this and from the people at home has been plugging away at this has been working years and years has been very

underground has not had overnight success just is not the same thing it's not she's not chat hangs it's a very very different kettle of fish I totally agree around the Brooklyn Beckham point I think that there is a feeling of and we had quite a few messages about this just especially people in creative industries just feeling resentment towards anyone that does become successful and there's always this idea of overnight success 10 years in the making when someone blows up people love to throw accusations of industry plant they just popped up out of nowhere but it's not that it's just you've just become aware of them and we did have a message from phoebe who is also an artist who wrote in saying of lowly young she's absolutely not an epitaphism baby she's been grafting for years

got dropped from a major record deal pretty sure she almost quit at one stage. She's a star and deserves it all. Did you guys see that Mel B's daughter, Phoenix Brown, had a documentary with Channel 4 on nepotism and people have really praised her for having a really good response to it, where she says that there's definitely a harsh stigma against being accused of being a nepo baby. and there's a really almost like instant backlash to the people accused of that but she also said that nepo babies must admit we get opportunities faster than others I think the reason why people can accept her labeling the harsh treatment of nepo babies is because she's not discounting that she is one and it quite obviously opens some doors and I think that's probably a big part of why people get so angry and so irritated

because so many people are really defensive of it like I remember Dakota Johnson was really dismissive when somebody asked her what she thought of the nepo baby discourse and basically said that it was like pretty stupid and on the reverse so Alison Williams who plays Marnie on Girls both of her parents are very famous journalists not the same industry as being an actress but she has been also really commended for just saying that well obviously that's helped me I'm not going to pretend that it hasn't otherwise it definitely made things easier than the average person sort of on that note I was also trying to think of nepo babies who had reacted what I would say badly because

there's such an easy script if you are an epi baby you acknowledge it you move on people coming out and kind of having a little tantrum i just think surely like you can pay for better pr than that better advice that really confused me and scorsese's daughter another one who handled it really well maybe because she's of the internet generation she was like i'm just trying to be the best nepo baby i can be and because she's then putting out really good stuff and really entertaining content and she's relatable you escape almost from the worst of the scrutiny even though you are probably higher up in the Nepo Baby tier than a lot of people that are getting heat. What I would say is I think Nepo Babies, a lot of Nepo Babies and a lot of people who are privileged in the arts do the same thing. And it's privately educated people

a lot of the time. They try and convince you out of their privilege with as many factors, as many clauses, all kinds of like, okay, I've got these extenuating circumstances, like I went to one of the cheapest schools, or, you know, I was the poorest one there and things like that. And at a certain point, I think it doesn't matter how you got there, you know, you were still there, you were still within that six, 7% group that went to a private school versus the rest who didn't, got the education, you were in rooms that were filled with people who had, who go on statistically to wield the most social power, I think to argue that you are an outlier because of X, Y, Z is unconvincing. And that's what sours the debate about nepo babies, because you think you had all of this privilege and you won't

even acknowledge it. You won't even say, nobody is asking you to sacrifice yourself to give it all away. But just to say, yeah, I work in an unequal industry. I've done quite well. I acknowledge it. Let's do something about it. I think that is what people are frustrated about just like the bare face cheek of people acting as though self-made means the same thing for everyone so we had a message which corresponds to this from Rochelle which said whilst I disagree with the idea that lowly young is a nepo baby I think it just shows how frustrated those who don't come from well connected families have any contacts in the creative industry feel. I can empathize that whenever people see anyone who even has a slight in they feel angry and frustrated. In saying that I do think calling anyone who has a slight

connection to the industry a nepotism waters down the true issue of nepotism in the industry. On a practical level that starts with an end-to-end unpaid and unadvertised internships and putting the onus on creative companies to pay their staff properly and create more opportunities for working class talent so they have both the chance to enter and stay in the industry and I think Rochelle and what you just said Beth really hits the nail on the head I think people want to point and make accusations of Nepo Baby because there is so much secrecy and deception from some people in certain industries and how they got there and the help that they had that it's created such a big level of distrust that everyone feels more comfortable now being like okay I'm going to backtrack and try and work out why this person's successful I want to

retrospectively figure this out in order to understand why I also can't get there but I wanted to ask you because we haven't actually specifically answered this question I just realized do you think that Lola Young's auntie having written The Gruffalo helped her in her career? There was a really great piece in Vice which I went looking for but obviously it was on Vice and now it's lost to the annals of history on the internet and it was about UK nepo babies and I promise this sort of links into what you're asking it was a great piece about UK nepo babies and how that functions differently it's a different beast than it is in America because it's so interwoven with our class system, which is obviously confusing and multi-tiered and intentionally quite cloudy. And there's a slipperiness to it and an undefinability that

allows inequality to thrive. And in the piece, she talked about how there are these creative dynasties in the UK that they go generations back. There's so many ties between each of these family down and down and down until the present day. It paints this picture of this closed loop system where people only need to have more children and more nephews and nieces to join the fold almost because they meet each other at weddings, at parties. It's like an ongoing networking event that working class people are just kept out of. lack of funding forget about inability to take an internship things like that you simply just haven't met and will not meet a lot of the people that it is necessary to meet great piece sad i couldn't find it but i think in terms of lola young there

is a natural not distrust but there's a natural wariness when somebody has a connection like that when somebody perhaps speaks a certain way because you think are you in the system or are you out in this case i can't imagine beyond it being quite a cool thing and everything you said richira it being a massive leg up or she wouldn't have had to to work as hard obviously she had that the cushion of privilege which i've certainly had which is just a safety net knowing you could pursue your dreams a little bit longer because you know people who've done it because if worse comes to worse you can borrow money whatever it is all of that that, yes, but not a nepo connection that really would have helped her go to number one like this.

The other thing that I find quite wild about this whole thing, and one of the tweets I read at the top where they were like, if my auntie had written this bestseller book, I'd just go and live in a manor. If your auntie is wealthy, why does that mean that you have any connection to that? For all we know, she doesn't speak to her aunt. How do you know that? I don't know if it's her mum's sister or her dad's sister, but it not it's not your parent it's not someone so connected to you that you're automatically getting that wealth like it's so it's such a reach to assume that because someone's auntie is really successful that then is gonna somehow relate to your own life do you know what I mean so I don't think it is an example of nepo babyism

at all I feel like there's this assumption that she's born into a comfortable lifestyle, that she's had all of these contacts brought to her by her aunt. And number one, really obviously, it's her aunt. Number two, they're just completely different industries. And number three, it really does kind of make the assumption that it's a revolving door between writing a children's book and having a musical career and the contacts are limitless when you've gone in one direction and I just don't think that's the case. The thing that you can say is her aunt volume-wise surpassed JK Rowling according to the bookseller from this year so her aunt's probably fucking wealthy but does that translate into nepo-babyism for a niece?

I don't think so. We got a really good message from Aditi who said, are more privileged. It's much harder to create art if you don't come from wealth. It's so much easier to make people feel temporarily angry at Nepo babies than rather think about the structural issues in the media and arts. Social media could equalize the playing field a bit more but it ends up being about how much the music industry can manipulate and exploit virality. And I think that's really true. I think the reason why we've grouped in so many people who possibly have wealthy backgrounds into the Nepa baby discourse, I'm not talking about Lola Young here, I'm talking about somebody like Adjua Lipa, for example, is because it almost feels like they still have a big leg up that we can witness and see because of the fact that it is much harder for working class people to access

the arts. So while I get the instinct to group everyone together I do think they're different issues and I think Aditi is so spot on in saying that this is a huge issue across the board across the creative industries that aren't getting funded by the government as we've said so yeah that resentment towards nepo babies and people who have a leg up I really get that. We also had a message from Hannah saying I think I might be biased as a working class actor writer who doesn't have any family in creative industries it's taken me a year to build contacts and I'm nowhere near where I'd like to be now I do think it's connections game more than anything I just wish there was an eagerness to find new talent that comes from a variety of backgrounds which made me think of the

way that Skins was cast I don't know if you remember also I don't know if I've ever said this on the podcast but my I grew up near Bristol and I went to like two skins auditions because basically they would literally they would just put a call out people would queue down the streets and you would just turn up obviously I was way too posh anyway so they had a posh girl in there from the private school actually so that is so true it could have been me so but it was amazing because they genuinely just got local people in Bristol or in the area you just queue up for hours I stood in the rain mum, the things I used to make my mum drop for you too. I cannot even tell you. I was auditioning for everything.

I went, I auditioned for the X Factor. Did I ever tell you that? Lol. I got through like two rounds. I honestly, I was making my mum every, I was desperate. I really wanted to be a little actress and a singer. Anyway. I'm a star.

I'm a star. So, so that was amazing. And all of the people that came from that are such amazing talent. And that was such a cool thing because I think also what interesting is before we had this term nepo baby people were questioning it but the truth is it within the arts historically it always has been those most privileged because the more time and money you have the more time you have to be creative and there's always these things that say like whenever someone has a windfall or is able to take a bit more free time they end up turning towards creative endeavors because it is what people naturally want to do

with their time, but it has become a luxury more and more as our time and money gets more and more squeezed. So it's obviously at this moment in time where we're living through like a dire economic crisis, that's becoming even more rife. And so I agree with Hannah's message. It'd be really cool to see more open casting ways

for people to become actors and get into these industries that also aren't like kind of game shows like the ex-fact and britain's got talent which actually kind of preyed on vulnerable people as well to exploit them for their kind of lack of talent perhaps i completely agree with you and hannah and even from the writing process i remember there were so many initiatives to get young people under 18s to help write skins so across the board it was like such a unique thing you just don't get shit like that anymore like if you think of our most recent kind of gen z reflection of what a generation is up to euphoria created by sam levinson you know iconic

famous nepo baby i don't know we don't have that same access to people living experiencing going through those issues, being able to write in the same way something like Skins offered them to do. It was amazing. And we still talk about that show now because it's so core and pillar in TV history. Season one of Skins, generation one of Skins have done amazingly. And I think it just points out how broken the industry is. And the point isn't to ban the children or the distant relatives of famous people from entering creative industries. The point is to to ban the children or the distant relatives of famous people from entering creative industries the point is to kind of radically democratize the system bottom to top

so that people who get a chance in the industry are not just nipple babies not just rich people not just their kids and that looks like funding it looks like early intervention it looks like resources it looks like maybe doing a bit of mentoring if you are a rich person you know putting the money where their mouth is it looks like a spotlight and work and talent that is coming out of communities that otherwise are not getting good PR it doesn't look like going endlessly back and forth trawling through family trees to figure it out last year I interviewed a young actress called Eve Austin who is from the Midlands and she was talking about how she went to a workshop in the north it was called the television workshop. Basically, it was free to go to. It was great for people whose parents

couldn't afford to send them to clubs. And out of this television workshop, which now I think is it's fee paying, which is such a shame. Like Vicky McClure came out of there. Her mom was a hairdresser. Her dad was a joiner. Jack O'Connell, who's a working class actor against skins. Samantha Morton, who spent 10 years in foster care after both her parents were found unable to care for her when she was young she went to the workshop and then got these acting jobs and then is one of the greatest actresses i think of her generation to come out of this country nominated for all of these awards the horrible thought is always like one what if that club and that program had not existed at that time and then the second horrible thought is and what has

what talent has been missed by the fact that there aren't more programs more and isn't more funding this one got cancelled this one suddenly became fee paying and it's a horrible reality and I think seeing people criticize the brit school was quite frustrating because again it's not I'm not saying it's complete democracy but it is it nurtures young talent it's free to go to even if it also nurtures some middle-class pricks if it is putting you know good people out into the world and it has then I think that was quite a low blow. The Brit school as well really does champion working class local people from the area and also I don't think anyone bad really has come out of the Brit school that's the whole point you have to be so talented you have to be a triple threat you have to be able to sing dance act write like I know some people who went to Brit school and they are some of the most talented in every single discipline everyone

seems to think oh my god it's like all of these people that got really famous went to the Brit school it's not a coincidence they became really famous because they were so talented and then the brit school was able to because it has government funding and sponsorship able to harness those talents and produce and get the best from these incredibly talented people and it's a massive shame that more institutions like the brit school don't exist that we don't have more state-funded education systems across all disciplines not just the creative, but all state-funded schooling should be able to produce such incredible talent and harness, you know, whatever a young person's desires and interests are. I think there is, I understand where it comes from. There's just so much disdain and people are tired. It's like

the kind of the episode we spoke about with James Watt. We do live in a disturbingly disillusioned society where people don't, can't harness their full potential, can't achieve their dreams. and so it does make sense that we're finger pointing but I think as we've seen the finger pointing doesn't necessarily go anywhere it's not always actually that useful I think even on a personal level to try and figure out why someone's got to where they are I think sometimes a good thing to do is just think well if they're really talented and they're amazing and you kind of have to make peace because you can you can kind of spoil yourself in negativity if you get too bogged down and looking at everyone's family tree although it can be quite fun no i i completely agree i was gonna say a similar thing as well i feel like commentary has become such a core part of the internet and it's almost seen as a kind of

activism or you know self-regulating we're keeping on check of how the world is going but really it is also becoming just like such an energy suck all of these kind of rabbit holes all of these kind of pulling at threads of where does somebody come from what is their story into how they are the person they are now it's just very expensive energy use and I'm not saying it's a fair world it's a completely unfair world I'm not saying if you pivoted that energy into doing audition tapes, sending your CV out there, it's going to equate to the results you want. But I also think spending so much time on the former essentially ensures that the latter is even less likely to happen. And it's just sad

that it feels like we're getting control of the situation by engaging in nepo baby discourse in such a heavy way, when really it's detracting us even further from the very few opportunities there are for normal people to get into those industries and the discourse as well inevitably becomes like really sexist and really flawed and exposes its own kind of discriminations almost immediately like some there are some children of famous people that people will bring up but it's really kind of jokey we're like well we forgive you and then i've seen like blake lively this month obviously she's public enemy number one and she's getting called an epic baby because her dad was an actor and her mom was a talent scout i don't think any of us would recognize either of those people i think maybe

if you're watching movies in the 80s you might go i think i know that guy but apart from that not at all whereas more well-liked actors like jack quaid who you mentioned earlier ruchira anyway he was also on that vulture cover top top Nepo baby. Dad's Jack Quaid. His mom is literally Meg Ryan. He's like a proper Nepo baby. He catches such limited heat because I think he's unproblematic. I think he's also very talented, but crucially, he's a man.

We did get a DM from someone who was talking about how it is women that get this. It is very sexist. It's a term that we have weaponized against the quarrels. And that's very very telling and Vivian said seems to be much more heavily focused on female stars the same thing happened to the

last dinner party when they had any success people just accused them of being nepo babies and I think that's it it is we don't reach for it the same when it's a man with connections we do and we do it quite gleefully when it's a woman and it becomes like a stick to beat her with rather than the jumping off point for interesting discourse and we also heard from lara who said very often it's not the people with the highest amount of privilege who get the hate aka cis white men but people who face other structural discrimination women trans genuinely queer and psc folks this is not helping to change the system long term it reinforces existing power dynamics which is excellently put excellent point tilly wrote should someone be demonized because

of a famous relative it may offer more opportunities but she went to the brit school had a john lewis ad and won numerous competitions off her own back i couldn't even tell you the name of my aunt lol thank you tilly that is really funny paris said i don't like how lola young kind of portrays herself as working class and in vertical is messy because her messy is not the same as the messy experience by someone below the poverty line wanted to get your thoughts on that I think it's I don't know I would have to think about this one because what does that there might be like a whole topic in that but I mean if she means kind of the working class cosplay I think that is definitely its own topic and I think that is that is something I do side eye and a lot of middle class artists do that in terms of their dressing their set

dressing their code switching but I don't know actually I've not really thought about like the etymology and the class implications of Mercy. I don't know enough about her to know if she does cosplay working class but that is a massive thing in the arts and I was just thinking it just made me think of Lily Allen actually even the way that she's an interesting one because I think even her voice has changed when you listen to her kind of talking now compared to how she's talked when she first rose to fame it sounds quite different no that's a really interesting topic and it might even be a whole extra episode in and of itself because I think there is so much in that I think so because you're like go on someone's wikipedia and then they've got all like a granddad's got a bloody blue link and he's landed

gentry and you're like you're you said you're from ends anyway I digress well link the Gizzi asking piece in in the show notes too but I I actually did want to get your guys opinions on that but maybe we've run out of time did you read it I did read it and and some of it I was like oh almost there some of it I thought that is really interesting a really interesting perspective but some of it I was like oh you just don't quite get it I imagine I think what's so confusing about all of this and I was even thinking with the way that nepo baby has kind of just been a catch-all for any kind of privilege we're now using it just as sometimes it's just what you're saying is and someone said this is just they're white and they're rich that doesn't necessarily mean that they're it's nepotism and with the Gaziarski thing it is

true that some people who are landed gentry are actually like really poor monetary wise have no money so my class in the uk is one of the most like complicated thorny things to talk about because you could have someone that has all these signifiers of being working class and is like a multi-millionaire and lives a very comfortable life and someone who comes across as very posh has a very posh name and actually is living below the poverty line. So those things can get a bit messy and confusing. And I think in the arts, they can either be amped up or played down to whichever is going to work to your advantage. It is a really fascinating topic, maybe its own.

So it's been a very rich conversation. So I need to finish it off with something even deeper. If we had babies, do you think that they would be podcast nepo babies? I hope we become so successful that they are absolutely getting stick online for being our children. Oh, God. Hopefully we're still fertile by the time we get successful. It's been 84 years thank you so much for listening this week and for all of

your amazing opinions and takes on this topic we adore being in conversation with you all remember to follow us on instagram and tiktok at everything is content pod and also hit follow on your podcast player so you always know when we've dropped a new episode. We'll see you on Friday. Bye. Bye. Bye.