Everything Is Content - Far-right riots, Dallas cheerleaders and the return of smut

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

This week on Everything Is Content, we thought it was about time to discuss the Netflix docu-series that everyone has been raving about for the last few weeks - America’s Sweethearts. Does the life of a cheerleader appeal to us - and does the documentary have a dark side? We also take a look at the return of smutty literature - why do we sometimes look down on the genre, and is it about time we read some? We also check in about how we’re feeling following the week of unrest in the UK. What role has social media played - and how can we look forward to positive solutions? If you want to chat about anything we’ve covered in today’s episode - give us a message on Instagram @everythingiscontentpod! —PITCHFORK: Blackout https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/britney-spears-blackout/SUBSTACK: Meaghan Garveyhttps://scarycoolsadgoodbye.substack.com/ BBC IPLAYER: Eastenders https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b006m86d/eastendersNETFLIX: America’s Sweetheartshttps://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81685878 TORTOISE MEDIA: Stoking hate: Elon Musk and Tommy Robinsonhttps://www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/08/06/stoking-hate-elon-musk-and-tommy-robinson/ HUCK: We protected our community from a far right mob, here's what happenedhttps://www.huckmag.com/article/we-protected-an-asylum-seeker-hotel-from-the-far-right-heres-what-happened-bristol THE GUARDIAN: My weeks of reading hornily https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/aug/06/my-weeks-of-reading-hornily-steamy-book-sales-have-doubled-and-i-soon-found-out-why ALEXIS B OSBORN: Heat Clinichttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Heat-Clinic-Heatverse-Alexis-Osborne-ebook/dp/B0BX4ZT3PB —Follow us on Instagram:@everythingiscontentpod @beth_mccoll @ruchira_sharma@oenone  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

oh my god did you guys see that tweet i shared today it was like a few years ago i had a brat summer and i'm still recovering from the impact of those behaviors no because financially i actually am still recovering from my 2022 brat year that i had i'm beth i'm richara and i'm anoni this is everything is content every week on the podcast we go rummaging around in the world of entertainment literature and the internet to find you delicious slices of content for us to all discuss together. We're the gold medal at the end of your content marathon. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at everythingiscontentpod. And if you love the podcast, tell a friend.

It really, really helps us out. Today on the podcast, we're going to discussing the far-right riots we've seen across the UK in the last couple of weeks and the role that social media has played. We'll also be talking about the Netflix documentary that everyone has been watching, America's Sweethearts, plus we'll be delving into the world of smutty literature. What have you guys been loving this week? Okay, so I read a piece in Pitchfork by Megan Garvey, who I've just come to as a writer really recently, which is definitely a shame on my name, not a shame on her name.

And she wrote a piece about Britney Spears' Blackout. It was like a retrospective, just looking back at the influence of that album. And that's the one that has Peace of Me, which best song, such a good song. She goes into how that album set a sound that we're now hearing in Charli XCX's Brat and how influential that sound was. And how at the time people were like, what the fuck is this sound and didn't really understand it. But we're still seeing the templates today. And it was that impactful. It's such a good a good piece okay i definitely want to read that i don't read a lot

of uh like music journalism i think i sort of think i don't know anything about that i'm not going to enjoy it whenever i've read anything i have enjoyed it but i just think yeah i don't know i i feel like a little bit of like a small fish in a big pond when i do i get that i get that the references are insane when you read music writing. And with this writer specifically and this piece, I came away from it and I was like, how does she know everything in the world? How does she know every book,

every like piece of music, every like producer of music? So yeah, I totally get that. I feel like so intimidated reading music journalism. She is amazing. She was one of my first this was back in like twitter's heyday i remember i only knew her as like someone who did really fun and cool tweets she was one of my first mutuals where i was like oh my god i can't believe this person

follows me this was twitter's golden era and i just went to check and she does still follow me so oh my god cool so what were you so does she what else does she write about was it just music i think like culture i think she's like a culture writer oh she's got sub stack as well that's what I've been okay that's what I've been reading okay well let's sign up to the sub stack I bet it's going to be amazing um what have you been loving Anoni I have been loving hamster teeth well so I've always lived south and I've now moved north and I was thinking about this the other day I grew up in the Lake District and in Somerset in very rural areas and I very much see myself as a city dweller I find the countryside very isolating but the undulating hills of Hampstead

Heath is actually really similar to like the Mendips where I grew up and you don't I initially when I first moved here because I was walking my little dog Astrid would walk around like the perimeter and I'm getting pretty brave I'm going through these little paths in the heath and it's kind of like wood London it's making me think of when I used to believe in fairies when I was little and just making me really happy can I just say hearing people talk about London and the magic of London now I have moved out of London albeit hopefully temporarily it is honestly making me so heart sick I can't believe every day of the eight years I lived in London I didn't like stroll through like Primrose Hill and do all of these things I was just I didn't know how good I had it well you can come and stay with me and we can stroll through Primrose Hill then we'd have a reason to go because I feel like all I'm doing

is just looking at my phone I'm not doing that either yeah let's do it let's do a team trip Beth tell us about the beauty of Wales I mean it is beautiful I think I have been in a city a little bit too long when I look out the window and I see like like you say undulating hills when Nick that and like cows and I can see the sky the sky is not polluted there are amazing birds flying around Wales is absolutely stunning it is like pure god's country but my brain is like, okay, and? It's sort of like a screensaver almost. I look out the window and go, I'm still there.

Not a screensaver. I can't believe you said that. It's giving Microsoft a screensaver. You know the one. So I think I need a little bit more time in the Welsh countryside to like fully, I need to go on some, what are they called? Rambles. Ramble around the countrysides.

Like proper get stuck in. I have been regressing. The thing I've been loving this week is actually EastEnders because my mum still watches it and so it's always like it's on in the house and so I've just been like earwigging pretending I'm not watching doing that classic dad thing of like oh what's all this and then I'm absolutely hurt so I've started watching EastEnders again but I kind of want to go back and watch everything I've missed in the last 14 years but I think that might be too many I was about to ask that because I my eldest used to watch EastEnders nice to watch it with her but it's probably a bit too young and then my granny watched EastEnders and Coronation Street or was it Emmerdale one of them she hated I can't remember which one

and I sometimes think I wish I'd kept watching it because what an amazing lifelong tv show to have because it's just always on but if I tried to watch it now like do you have any idea what's going on what's like love island it's quite it's quite a lot of work to like keep up with it it's love island every day of your life exactly like love island yeah it is actually i don't know what day this is on but it is multiple times a week uh i don't know well phil mitchell's still there you've got some faces but like i'm i do that awful thing where i'm like sorry who's he and how does he my mom's like you can't ask me these questions um so I'm not really I haven't really got a clue but someone mentioned OnlyFans on it the other day I thought that was hilarious like it's very it's very current so I

have a feeling I might just go back to maybe 2021 and watch like 600 episodes and then I'm back in. So I've been lurking our Instagram DMs and some of our lovely listeners, including Beat, Grace and Rosie, have been begging us to chat about the Netflix docuseries, America's Sweethearts. It was released on UK Netflix a few weeks ago so I think it's about time we dived into it. It's been a while, let's go. The docuseries follows the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders throughout their season. We see the selection process for one of

the coveted 36 spots on the squad and we follow them throughout their intense, and I say intense with like a capital I-N tense, cheering season, with most girls also working full time whilst training and performing in the team. Have you girls seen it? And what did you think of the series? I'm dying to talk about it. I'm also dying to, but I haven't finished it yet.

But you just say what you need to. Oh no, I haven't finished it. I'm only four episodes in. It's not, sorry sorry am i meant to watch the whole thing no no no i just assumed by the enthusiasm you had no i'm loving no i'm loving it i'm actually because i'm not that good at watching tv and like watching shows especially not like this kind of thing on my own and i wasn't i was a bit dubious if i was going to enjoy it god uh they had me hook landon sinker i'm probably about as far into it as you. Richa have you finished it?

No no no so I'm literally at the end of episode two but I also feel ravenous but I've also done a lot of reading around it now so I think I know potentially some of the big things kind of topic wise that will come up. Did either of you watch there was another I think it was 2020 I watched this because one of the big things I watched in the pandemic called cheer and that was my which was quite different it was about I guess like um competitions where it's very dangerous it's really athletic um and that was my first introduction I never knew a thing about cheerleading before so I was like I loved that and I sort of knew I would love this but I love this in a totally different way because it's more I don't know I feel like I'm getting closer to these to these gals so this is different but interestingly it was directed by the same person Greg Whiteley that is really interesting because I don't know what you both think about it but I

feel like I watched I watched those two episodes and I it felt like such a dark program to me like it felt like watching a Netflix docuseries about one of those cults that gets unearthed or like, I don't know, like a sorority of girls that turns out to be like, they were getting everyone involved to punish themselves secretly on the sidelines. It all just felt like, I don't know,

it felt like it wasn't just about cheerleading. There was like so much more going on here, like tyranny, eating disorders like manipulation perfectionism all of this stuff wrapped into it it's yeah it's really wild like the judging i don't know if you look at this far because i know this is like episode three or four and they're sort of like they're trying on their outfits which they get have you seen do you see that episode where they got like personally made to their body yeah and they'll be like her belly button's like a bit too high up away from like the waistline of the short like so the the stuff around bodies was quite like heinous I

thought um and I found that quite interesting to watch but one thing I was going to say is it really showed my internalized misogyny because when they stand up to say all of their jobs I was like oh I had this real sort of like miscongeniality war perception that all of these young women for some reason because they were very beautiful and very aesthetically pleasing weren't going to be really smart and literally all of them had like incredible careers like really professional women and I felt embarrassed that I was judging them on their beauty in a way. I had a similar reaction but for a different reason. When they said their jobs my main my main kind of like gut gut feeling was like well why are you doing this then like you're so

you're so successful in your life already. There were vets, there were orthodontists, there were nurses, there were all sorts of you know very established very successful very coveted careers also very intellectual careers and they're putting themselves through this rigorous process where they're paid fuck all and people are demeaning them on their looks and all sorts of horrible things it just that's the thing I couldn't get my head around where it was like what you you have already proven you you offer so much to the world and to yourself why would you want to put yourself through this horrendous rigorous process because it's not for the money at all is it because as they get into the first episode

they're all really wildly underpaid so i was like waiting for someone to be like but you get a million dollars per game and they're like we are paid probably as much as like a part-time teacher or like less or a chick-fil-a worker like a fast food worker is what one person said it's like full-time if you include all the stuff they have to do it's like an extra full-time job and they aren't even getting paid so I was waiting for someone to to explain to me and I still don't feel like I have that I see I had the opposite thing because you know when they did that dance they were like this is probably the most iconic dance I do it was called like it was at the thunderclap or something and then I and the power of these women when they do that and it's for the game even starts I could

imagine being one of those dancers doing that and the feeling I can't even imagine the amount of adrenaline and power and they're like maybe it's because I'm someone that loves performing and loves being on stage I could actually see the thrill and the joy. I mean, obviously the point to get there must be really harrowing. But to perform to that many people and to be that iconic and to be that revered. And I also would quite like to be that hot. But also just to do the dance in front of that many people. I think it, I don't know, does nothing about it appeal to you?

No. Oh, I want to be oh I want to be I want to be them and I want to have I just suppose I couldn't quite understand why you would but as you're talking and as also I'm thinking like I'm watching them as though they were like supermodels they're all quite kind of Christian quite a few of them were like Christian women they were talking about like how it's not just position it's also like calling and whatever and like I guess the job of a cheerleader is contained like within its name like they go out there they set everyone up like literally making sure everyone has a good time and like whether it's

you're a stand-up comedian or a dancer or whatever I guess if you get to do that it is bigger than yourself so I am I do get it but I was I just can't believe they're not paid more I just can't believe that they aren't all unionizing. I think the level of excellence to which they're expected to perform and exist in the world and that like thin margin of perfectionism that if they fail, they are thrown out of the squad

and all their dreams and ambitions are squashed in a second. I just, something about that is like my worst nightmare wrapped up in a little bow with like false eyelashes on it. It's like so horrifying to me. I think as somebody who's already so hard on themselves and like, I can never do a good enough job to myself, watching them like perform that back to me, I was like, something like was deeply triggered inside me where I like saw, saw that.

And I was like, oh my God, god like that's that's no way to fucking live your life I think what's interesting is they are athletes like that's why I found it so astounding is like these women are so intelligent but they're also like they love when they do the auditions and you watch them dancing some of them I was blown away I actually had like goosebumps and then I also was imagining how I would just panic if you put me in that situation because I hate choreographed dancing I can't do it it's like the idea of auditioning for that is terrifying so I have all these conflicting feelings there's so many layers like the level of sort of religious undertones on its life are

very interesting in contrast with the hyper sexualized outfits that they wear and sort of like the very extremely sexual dancers that they do like contrasted with the fact that like one of them's engaged and she's never had another boyfriend and the very obvious messaging there is like I've never slept with anyone else I feel like that's kind of what she's very stringently trying to say um I found all of that quite interesting but I do find you find those kind of dichotomies wrapped up quite a lot in American TV shows especially about sort of like dance and things there's this like dark feminine edge to it where it's not just that they're athletes and they they're some of the best dancers in you know the us it's like the people in charge

of this process are reducing them to not looking pretty enough that their hair's a bit flat that their belly button is two and a half inches above their fucking crotch rather than two inches and it's that level of like aesthetic reduction on top of the actual athletic perfection that I think is that's not normal I don't think I think that's probably normal in ballet and other kinds of dance but I don't think that's normal in swimming perhaps or other kinds of sports I don't think they're looking at your hair or your face and saying you need to do X, Y, Z. That's my, I think that was what stayed with me, was you can't get away.

That not only do you have to be able to, you know, you have to be very, very fit. You have to be, your stamina has to be insane. You have to have the time to do this. You also have to be both thin and beautiful in a way that it's not physically necessary. Like a bigger bigger more muscular less beautiful woman could do everything she could smile big she could keep up with the dances do it

better than all of them she could really fully kind of embrace the ethos of cheerleading which is as important to them I believe and the tradition but she wouldn't get the job because you have to be really conventionally small and beautiful. So I think that it's really hard to get away from that because I think I live in a world or like, you know, I tailored my world to be as progressive as possible. In so many spaces, we're opening up to the idea that, you know, beauty is larger. And yes, that makes it more complicated.

But like, this is so straightforward. You have to look like a supermodel to even get in the door you can't even be the best you have to just look gorgeous I just it is jarring I think it is that like dark side of beauty which we could talk to you and have talked about forever can we also bring up the like really casual racism that was just like present I've only seen two episodes but one bit there was a South Asian dancer and one of the like the the women judging it she's like a white woman like an older white woman and she was just like what what is and then somebody answers and they were like she's Indian and it was just like I don't know it was just so weird and took me back

to like a world where people didn't know what race was and the fact that you can't just ask what is, what is she? And then also looking at the squad, it was like all kind of like orange bodies and then maybe like two or three people of colour. Like it was so white. Why don't we have, can I ask, why don't we have, why aren't cheerleaders a big part of us? Like, what is it about just being British that we just can't have is it we don't have pep we don't know like that kind of we don't have actually that's a good point we're fucking cheerless yeah we did have cheerleading at my uni though did you guys have that I don't think so no they just didn't invite me to try out oh maybe not me too

it just feels like a very inherently American thing. And I think if a British person acted to you with that much glee and earnestness, you would ask for a bit of what they were having. By which I mean, you would say, you must have had a strong espresso this morning. You would be like, you would back away from them. You would not get on the same bus as them. Do you know what I mean?

That kind of energy would be frightening. whereas just the average American is like that it's bullied out of you it's bullied out of you in the UK like genuinely I put my hand up in class once during an English lesson and I made sure never to do that again oh my god well what I don't understand is they we all have the same 24 hours in a day a la Molly May's proclamation but I don't think I'd have time to be an orthodontist and a cheerleader to that level. Like I barely have time to go to the gym and walk my dog and do my job.

And to look as beautiful as they do as well, because that is obviously natural beauty, but it's also a lot of upkeep. It's hair appointments, it's makeup. It is obviously exercising, it's waxing. It's looking as smooth and beautiful. I actually was trying to work out exactly how they fitted in this really does remind me of ballerina farm because it's a similar thing of like you know on paper these women are living lives which are so stressful so chaotic so difficult but the veneer is so shiny and pretty

and like they look perfect. Their makeup is perfection. There's not a spot on their face. Like everything's perfect. Hair perfect. Body perfect. It's like it's so disorientating and it feels like you're watching it and you're just like, well, they're just perfect. They're just perfect. So we're all definitely loving it.

And tell us what you think. We'd love to hear from you. So as I'm sure all of our listeners will know, over the last week there have been a number of violent riots in the uk which began the night after a stabbing attack in southport in which three little girls attending a dance class were killed by a man a false rumor that the suspect was a muslim asylum seeker spread very quickly online and sparked violence across multiple cities in the uk for context we're recording this podcast on wednesday afternoon we're hoping that more of these displays haven't happened, but sadly, many, many areas up and down the UK have been preparing for them. And there's a lot of fear, I think it's safe to say. Over the past week, though, we have seen disorder almost nightly with these self-described protests turning violent and descending into riots and looting. There's so much to discuss here. It's a huge story. It feels like the culmination of so many things. I personally have seen quite a lot of really good coverage

over at Novara Media, and I think between the three of us, we can point you in the direction of great reporting on it. But here on the podcast, since we talk a lot about social media and media representation of big stories and how that can impact the way since we talk a lot about social media and media representation of big stories and how that can impact the way that we look at social issues like this I think we're best positioned to talk about the way that this is unfolding on social media and in the media and how that is kind of traveling to us as social media users I hope that sounds okay to everyone listening. And as always, any take you have, any thoughts,

any opinion, question or correction, please do message us on Instagram at everythingiscontentpod. So Ruchira and Noni, first, I guess, how are you feeling? How has this week been? And what are your kind of first thoughts about how this has all seemed to play out on social media as an outlet honestly I was kind of dreading this segment but I also was like

looking forward to this segment because I'm really glad that we have this space to talk about it but I also don't really know how I feel about a lot of it because it's just like I kind of feel like a storm internally where I oscillate between feeling extremely numb and just like nothing matters and just quite like disaffected by everything and then especially today Wednesday with all the reporting that we're seeing um around potential demonstrations just feeling like quite a lot of fear and this sense of like lack of safety and just yeah just quite intense fear to be honest so it's it's yeah it's quite difficult to process well thanks for talking about it with us which are obviously you're directly impacted in a way that Beth and I won't feel as white women in the same way.

But it is, I definitely feel like it's a really scary time. It just feels like we've gone back in time for all the wants and progress that we feel like we've made or that as a generation or as like pockets of people in society where on the one hand it felt like we were really pushing forwards. It now just feels like where are we and I think that the way that's that Twitter which we talk about a lot which used to be a platform which I absolutely loved and which I like most of us kind of came up on and like became aware of each other on these platforms to now see it kind of descend into a cesspit of misinformation and quite extremist views

and often unchecked tweets and stuff is really sad it's not just x or twitter it's also telegram facebook kind of every social media website is being infiltrated i think that for all of our love and enjoyment out of social media platforms and this podcast being built around talking about how everything is content we're now seeing the dark and the flip side of that which is that actually these platforms can really be harnessed for a lot of bad as much as they can good and I think that it's just important that we look at that side of things as it is to look at all the fun and joyous and silly parts of it it's a great it's a great point and it is a tool and I wonder I think often people talk about people taking time off social media for their mental health and obviously when you're seeing

on social media stuff that would be triggering um if you're a non-white person if you are a migrant if you live in these communities but it's also at the moment i think it's quite difficult because people are sharing one information that might be of use and of safety in terms of listen i've heard this we don't it's unsubstantiated but please for your safety perhaps avoid this area people are sharing messages of support and so i wonder um whether that is in any way outshining or outdoing the noise of essentially the racist mob on the internet like if it is at all then how do we better use it um to be uplifting and also to be useful i've been so out of the loop with um industrial action or action on the ground unless it's a protest that is via instagram and then i'll just go down if

it's appropriate and i want to i'm just being really vague here but um what i'm trying to say is a friend sent me a whatsapp group for a lot lot of anti-fascist protests and things like that. So if you did want to spend time away from social media, but were feeling OK to, you know, get updates via WhatsApp and things like that, there are channels to plug into and there are ways to feel solidarity whilst also being able to take time away from certain platforms that can feel quite triggering um and if that was helpful i would be happy to share what i know about that to people um i don't know a lot but there are resources online and there are things there are places we can go essentially i think that's super helpful i think what you said and only about what twitter used to be like versus what it is this I always call Twitter, Twitter, but this is when it really does feel like X. And

I think Elon Musk, so in the last couple of days, it's been reported, Elon Musk has been engaging with UK politics. He's been, I think, replying to Keir Starmer's tweets. He's been replying to UK news sources to talk about what's going on in a way that i personally find revolting and agitating i think it is so out of pocket and it's the first time despite everything that i thought i i don't know if i can continue to use this feels like x i don't know i'm so torn on whether to continue to use this platform because of directly because of what he's saying about the the riots um i read a really good piece by tortoise um and it was called stoking hay elon musk and tommy robinson and they essentially broke down all the real life real impacts from um elon musk and his behavior on twitter slash x and also um the fact that he has brought tommy robinson back onto the platform

and i've got some stats here he analytics published by robinson last week showed that his post had been viewed 1.2 billion times in the three months to august with 4.5 million people visiting his profile every data point indicates robinson's platform on x has grown massively over the past six months and yeah it is just a terrifying sight seeing all of the disinformation seeing how elon musk is you know wading into all of this having his commentary and his beliefs kind of inserted into British politics I think it's so dangerous and I think it is an overstep in a way that we haven't seen before I think Facebook and you know the way it was utilized by Cambridge Analytica was one thing that was really fucking terrifying for you know our state of democracy what we're seeing now

is big tech actively involving itself commenting agitating ongoing situations that are very very scary i agree and to be more broad so not necessarily talking about what's happening right now but just the general rise of sort of like far-right views i was like hosting on my instagram i do a let's talk about and I had some people messaging saying family members like their father or their uncle or whatever had started to espouse far-right views and in every instance it was either they had some sort of like conservative leaning views in the past and then over time through social media through channels like YouTube Twitter and accounts likeate, they had slowly become radicalized and were now holding these views.

And the fact that every single one of those people that messaged me that I then asked all said the same thing does just show that there has to be some sort of safeguarding or some sort of means and legislation to stop certain things being allowed to be put on these platforms. And obviously with people like Elon Musk reinstating people like Tommy Robinson I hope that instead of this being the beginning of like a landslide of happenings this just shows us that we cannot have these sort of like billionaires in charge of things that then can impact politics instead it makes us realize that actually we can't just be selling things off for profit like willy-nilly there really has to be some thought going into the power of tech and the power of misinformation and misinformation

and how quickly that can spread it has to it has to alarm us i think into action and and with this with something like this i think instead of asking i mean we have to ask what we can do but we have to also hold have standards and have kind of demands of tech leaders and these sites that's beyond them kind of going, oh, it's free speech. You know, you can use this how we want. They also do control to some extent how we use this, how these can be wielded. And there is so much they can do as much as, yeah, this could be a watershed moment. It will also require them to be on board with someone like elon musk who has talked about like things being woke and things being he wants to do things a different way an unprecedented way it really makes me it

just yeah puts the fear of god into me to be honest i completely agree with you both in terms of regulating big tech and just the fears of um what elon musk has done to x and you know the future of that but it's also just like these things keep happening and these protests keep happening. We saw it with, you know, the anti lockdown marches. We saw it with anti-vax marches. We saw it with all kinds of things. I'm not, I'm not grouping all of these things together, but there is a level of disinformation that, you know, is a thread between these various communities and actions. But there is a level of discontent that is so so intense and so full of hatred in this country that even if you solved the online aspect of it that is not going away it just keeps

bubbling up and bubbling up and you know we can talk about how politicians have in my opinion failed to curb that and in many ways have, you know, encouraged it in various ways. But that's still bubbling around. It's been around for years. Like, you know, there are various movements like, from five years ago, six years ago, that were racist in nature. I don't think this is new. I don't think either of you think it's new. It's just like, the online sphere has changed, but this hatred is still there. And I think that root of it needs to be sorted out. I wanted to quickly say as well about

the coming away from social media now, but onto actual media and the way that things get reported, even on sort of those poor three little girls that were murdered and subsequently now has I guess was the starting point of this rise in violence but the way that we need to use language properly whether it's talking about femicide or violence against women or the specifics of the racism the islamophobia that

we're experiencing and even the way that these are called like pro-english marches or what was the language used and it just feels very much like it was pro-english yeah and then also anti anti-immigration marches as well so suella braverman famously called the pro-Palestinian anti-genocide marches, she called them hate marches, which from what we know to be true was untrue. And that was like kind of then reported and went on in the media. And it's just interesting how certain language can be used about certain things. And yet when we see things very plainly in front of our faces, it can feel quite disquieting to watch something know something to be true and

then read a headline about it but we've seen this for years especially when it comes to issues pertaining to race and pertaining to misogyny and sexism it is important it's integral i think it's necessary and vital to call this islamophobic it's not racist it you know the impacts of it are racist black people are being affected by it too. But the rhetoric is just Islamophobic. That is exactly what it is. And it is important to get that, that label because there is a specific impact on Muslim communities. And it's really important that we appreciate that. And we understand that. And yeah, I mean, I'm sure I know you two have seen the interview with Zahra Sultana, Labour MP for Coventry South. It was Zahra Sultana, Ed Balls and Kate Garraway on Good Morning Britain. Him and Kate Garraway are asking her why do we have to call these marches Islamophobic? And before she has a chance to answer, Ed Balls just keeps interrupting her and almost like treating her as if she has to defend herself. And she doesn't have a chance to talk about it,

even though it is her community that is being victimized right here. I thought it was so appalling. The fact there are so many examples of this, and the last one I'll bring up was on Sky News when Robert Jenrick, who's a conservative politician, said unchallenged that he thought it was quite wrong that anyone could shout Allahu Akbar on the streets without being immediately arrested.

An Arabic phrase often used by Muslim people, worshipfully, and wasn't challenged. It's not only that people are platformed, they can say what I believe to be heinous things and also just incredibly ignorant things. And for it to just sit, if journalists abdicate their their responsibility and what i think is you know a really high calling you just leave the space wide open

for people like social media pundits to fill that space with essentially whatever an unregulated retelling of events and a rise in misinformation so i do do think it's very, I think it really matters that the language is being used incorrectly. I think it is, it's the kind of warning bell for what can only get worse if unchecked social media and unregulated space to be where people get their news.

And I think that is what we've seen and it is really, really worrying. I mean, I guess maybe the point is, it's all well and good. You know i i think i've just about grasped like you know have enough media literacy to know what to look for and know what to not look for but most people do put their trust have been asked to put their trust in big media organizations to report things both fairly unbiasedly to like fully fully report something and where I personally feel that that's not happening is where I feel like the most danger lies because media literacy as I've said I think

we've all said several times does feel like it's an all-time low so we're all kind of out in the weeds I've seen good reporting on Navarra as I said before channel four I mean there are good reporters everywhere I think there are but there is also a lot of what feels like creeping under reporting I saw Huck did a really good piece as well on the ground from um one of the demonstrations and how the community there pushed back and managed to successfully fight the fascists so yeah I think smaller organizations are doing a really fucking good job too I think you just have to be really careful like that statement of that call to Allah being something people couldn't say in the streets is just so dehumanizing basically to conflate

anything to do with Islam or the Muslim religion as something that is other or something that is dangerous I think that's where it's getting really worrying and scary it just feels like complete dehumanization and I can't believe that that was something that was allowed to be said because the levels of ignorance and that are so astounding but like you said Beth if that's people's only exposure to these stories and especially if you're not living in a city that's multicultural or diverse and you aren't necessarily like aware of certain things that's where I get scared um but apart from like attending counter protests and obviously looking out for any friends and people in your community who are going to be impacted what other things can we be doing in order to try and like quell this rise of a misinformation and be far-right extremism I feel like um some things i saw online today

were quite helpful in terms of resources they were saying turning up to protests definitely i mean calling out any kind of islamophobia that you see or any kind of racism and just being very vocal about that i think just platforming good information as well, just trying to get that out there rather than allowing the algorithms to push all of the kind of extremist stuff that we're seeing. Because you kind of are working against a tide, like it has been shown that a lot of the information that gets, you know, pushed by algorithms is divisive, is meant to drive emotion so i think if you can actively try and work against that that that is actually quite helpful that's such

a good point about the algorithm and that's where i think it it does become tough because not that long actually probably quite long ago because it's now 2024 on twitter the timeline used to work reverse chronologically so you could literally just refresh your timeline and you would get up to date um opinions facts whatever it was now it's a algorithm that uses deeper learning so everything that we do online who we interact with what's already popular what's happening in your area that is what is pushed to you so it's understanding those things and also yeah putting proper blame on the websites that use these um kind of deep deeper learning algorithms websites who then don't because there's so much that they could do and i don't know whether people who use these sites need to put a little bit of

pressure on and say we won't use your site if you don't like abdicate from this if you don't what else could they do if you don't um de-platform if you don't add proper content labels if you don't like abdicate from this if you don't what else could they do if you don't um de-platform if you don't add proper content labels if you don't like act quickly to add kind of this is misinformation things because at a certain point it is you know what can we say this is lies you need the you need the organizers of the website to take measures otherwise it just feels like you're shouting into the void i think it is worth sharing stuff on social media if you are on social media i've i've gone back and forth with this where you don't have to perform your politics online i don't think anyone needs to do that but one thing

i will say is it's quite isolating seeing all of the reporting and you know me being at work just being on my laptop and just feeling like quite alone in that moment and I think if it's not somebody just like messaging me or like talking about it if I'm going on Instagram stories and I see that there's like people actively engaging in this it makes me feel like people are thinking about it too and I'm not I'm not just like ruminating in my head and feeling like no one gives a shit we've got to remember that sometimes it feels obvious or especially if you to remember that sometimes it feels obvious or especially if you are progressive,

maybe it feels like people are going to know where you stand. But like you said, Ruchira, sometimes just making sure you're sending messages, making sure that we're loud and that we're advocating publicly and making, yeah. I don't know. It's really sad and I hate thinking that you said that. It's sad as well.

That makes me really sad. So we're all sending love to anyone who is affected and feeling unsafe. Please do keep safe. Please do look after yourselves and each other. If you do have any reporting that you think is great, any resources, any advice, please do send that into us at EverythingIsContentPod and we'll share it as and when we get it okay so to completely change the vibe and bring it down down down and dirty I wanted to tell you guys about this piece that I read in the Guardian by Zoe Williams called My Weeks of Reading Hornily where she explores the huge world of smutty literature I actually really want to recommend this piece because it was so fascinating I kind of knew that there was an increase in smut erotica romanticy whatever you want to call it but I wasn't quite aware of just how vast this new universe of

literature is or was and I wanted to pull a quote which actually really made me laugh towards the end of the piece where she was talking about how our well actually I wanted to ask you about it but I'm going to read it so she says the democratization of the academe yes I mean TikTok scorched all of that aka talking about whether a book was kind of worthy or not. She said, finding authors such as Madeline Miller, who wrote Circe and Song of Achilles, and hashtagging them as hashtag romance books or hashtag spicy book talk,

and then destroying previously accepted distinctions between trash and treasure. So she was saying how like, despite there being these incredible literary books that people lord, obviously lots of them do have like loads of sexy sex scenes in them and then people on tiktok would read them completely kind of miss out the fact that there's a book that was like very highly valued as a retelling of a greek mythological tale and just be like this was really sexy and i thought that was quite funny concept that books are being democratized but do

you think that's true because I still think there's a lot of snobbery maybe it's just the world that I inhabit around reading a good inverted commas book by someone literary versus reading sort of like chick lit which is I know a word that we've kind of reclaimed or smut maybe I have just killed the snob in my own head because as a English literature graduate, as, you know, like a real bookworm, I definitely carried that for the first bit of my 20s. I was probably a bit of a snob and I denied myself the pleasures of fun, entertaining books for that reason. I did the same with film.

I was like, oh no, but I really like these good films. So I can't possibly watch, you know, Fast and Furious, things like that. And I think I just had to kill the snob in my own mind and now I just don't care I will read anything I will read it openly I will read like there's no book bar like actually like offensive books that I would not read on the on the train I would read one with any cover you know like people go oh that one's got like a hunk and a damsel on it that one's got that one's bright pink there's nothing that I feel and it's liberating that's so nice I I don't know if I not me that's so nice for you no um like a loser no I I think I'm more aligned with Anoni where I feel like BookTok has democratized books,

but I am A, not part of BookTok and B, I still feel like, I feel like that's still quite, it feels quite specific to me, to people who are part of BookTok and everyone else or the world I inhabit is still really snobby about books, including myself. I put my hands up to that. I feel like I do have some pretty like annoying post-english grad opinions about like what makes a good book and what makes a bad book and like I would definitely read smut but I do think I would probably not read it on the tube and probably like feel a bit squirmish about it um yeah but I did want to say i spoke to my friend who is obsessed with this like fairy

smut series called the changeling series and i was like what do you what do you love about this and she sent me a three minute voice note and she said one of them was the fact that a lot of these books um the main characters are marginalized people so they'll be like women of color or like men of color or like you know they'll include disabled characters and things like that so she loves it for the representation which i mean that sounds fucking great and then the second thing was the male character if it is a straight horny piece of smut is like the perfect guy and there's a fantasy element of like he's not wanting to bang you he's wanting to like care for you and he like what he knows how to like look after you and I read online that like

it's quite famous that in these books that like men readily and happily go down on the female characters so it's all quite like wow that's like the perfect story right but this is what was so interesting about the piece by Zoe Williams she was saying that she was like what these um books often do is often they do have an element of fantasy or otherworldliness where they actually emancipate the reader from living under capitalist patriarchal systems that we find oppressive. And maybe that is the sexiest thing of all, really. Ultimate escapism to get eaten out in the utopia of the future. Also talking about reading Dirty on a plane i when i was 18 i was going to ecuador on the plane by myself bought 50 shades of gray at the airport it just come out and i was reading on the plane and the air hostess was american she came out she was

like oh my god are you enjoying the book i didn't know what it was about it literally just come out oh come on you must have no i swear to god i swear to god it's about paint samples i was 18 i had no idea i had no clue i don't think the internet was like that in like we were on the internet that much at 18 i don't know didn't know any sort of reading it obviously starts being like ruder and ruder and there was a man sat next to me and it was just like i'd never read anything like this in my life i was quite like a i don't know i don't think i've ever even seen porn at this point so i was like oh baby and like couldn't couldn't stop reading it but was very aware that

the man on the plane next to me was also like reading it over my shoulder but then i kind of couldn't stop were you not getting turned on on this plane like geez have you read 50 shades rude at 18 i was pretty much always turned on like my hormones were just i wish it was hornier i knew i think i was 18 i put on my kindle and i was reading on holiday with i think my boyfriend at the time my family and like anyone came here i was like nothing i'm not looking anything i'm not looking anything stop it um and i just wished it was hornier can i make a confession though yeah go on because i read this piece today on the train um from wales to london where i am at the moment and she's the author of this piece says, one of the books she reads for the piece

is the most pornographic thing I've ever read. Name. And I went and I bought the book. Name, what's the name? Maybe within three seconds. It is called, The Omegaverse one. The Heat Clinic.

Yeah, the Omegaverse one. And I can confirm, it's filthy. Is it? Have you started reading it? Yeah, and I read it on the train. I was really warning no no no only about five chapters i read so much i have i was so confused can you give it

it is confusing so the listeners so the omega verse i've learned the introduction by the way is really dirty the omega verse is essentially it's a human realm i thought it was fairies at first no it's human beings in a universe where there are kind of it's a sexual hierarchy of alphas, omegas alphas, betas, omegas the omegas get very horny every month

everyone gets very horny every month and they need to be like shagged and the protagonist is an omega so she goes to a clinic called the heat clinic

where she while she's like on heat just to get shagged and she's like I mean this is filthy she's like in stirrups she has like a minder with her and all of these alphas are coming in to the room it's all consensual it's all very progressive yes and they take turns and it's and it has like fantasy elements in the like something it's called like a knotting so they knot together in their crotches oh it's all and it is really filthy i was sitting

on the train sweating i kind of want to read it for research have you read any research research for the for the podcast i love i also do a bit of research at night maybe i'll read that should we do a smart book club like literally let's be fair on smart let's give it a go and let's all read this book together i'm so down um quickly though have you read any smart oh yeah 100 i i read the whole 50 shades today not much yeah yeah not not today but like yeah 100 um but i used to i think when i was like 15 or 16 or something literally on my ipad i would download all the like free like smut books just because i

was like i'm obviously not having any kind of like male attention at the moment what would it be like if i was and then like would read through it and would like learn quite a lot of stuff that way because you can't watch porn in public and nor should you be able to but i also think one it's very ethical to do this no one gets hurt in the making of you know erotica unless you get a paper cut it's ethical it encourages reading which is very good for your brain i'm actually really coming around to smut as like a public good so i listened to an episode of culture study by anne helen peterson um and in it she had a romance slash potential smut author just to talk about it and I guess unsurprisingly there she was quite defensive about like likening romance or like smut to porn um and I kind of do feel like I get where she's coming from I just don't think porn is the same as this because I think I don't

know am I mad would I don't think people read smut and then would go off to a bathroom to do God knows what with like themselves. But I think obviously with porn, there's like one direction that you're going through. And obviously there's all the like structures that are like misogynistic, problematic to women, exploitive, blah, blah, blah. I think with this, there's a reason why you could just read it on a train. You would get a bit tense and horny, but like you're not needing to do anything with it right there's another i think i agree i think there's another element this it could be you could certainly use this for a little nighttime jostle but you can also you get allegedly research at night you could also get that it's two-dimensional and it has it has literary merit and it also has you know

a bit of uh spiciness about it and i also want to say for the record i am not anti-porn i'm fascinated by the porn industry um i still am hoping that we will do one or several deep dives on porn so i think it's a fascinating topic um so many interesting people we've talked to but i agree exactly with what you said rutera that perhaps it is not it doesn't feel accurate actually to say i was reading porn on the train it is it's enough to just like it's its own thing it's like it's an art form in my mind if you want to read the book that i have been gushing about I actually did just mean to say gushing about uh it's Heat Clinic by Alexis B Osborne which is a heat verse novel so hopefully that means there's more of them so well I hope that you guys are reading some smart please do let us know and while we're on the subject of books it has been a while since we had a good book discussion maybe we should bring back book club maybe we should be talking about Beth's secret private favorite book um let us know

what you're reading let us know if you're reading any smut and give us recommendations and we will check them out we love you all for listening thank you so much as always for spending this time with us if you love the podcast which i feel like you definitely did this time didn't you yeah you did please tell a friend and leave us a rating wherever you get your podcasts and if you haven't yet do follow us on instagram and tiktok at everything is content pod and let us know what you think about everything we have discussed today please please please do leave us a five-star review please see you next week