Everything Is Content - Fashion Awards, PHD Gate and Julia Fox's Guide to Being a Freak

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Happy birthday to us! EIC is officially a year old! Join Beth, Ruchira and Oenone as they briefly become Miranda Priestly for the week, delivering the highs and lows of the celeb-filled Fashion Awards. Did you see that Rita Ora wore custom Primark on the red carpet...? We've got lots to talk about there.Also this week, a woman proudly shared the news she had passed her PHD viva. Time to celebrate right? Wrong – a swarm of incel/loser men descended on her online like flies on a [redacted]. Let us tell you what exactly went down, and what we can learn from the truly unhinged altercation. And finally le freak, c'est chic! At least, according to our beloved Julia Fox. This week our fave diva shared her tips for embracing being an outsider, and learning to lean into the freak. (Julia if you see this come on the pod!)We've said it before and we'll say it until our last breath – thank you so much for listening to us. Could you share us with a friend as a birthday gift? Word of mouth helps us grow and in turn keep the podcast going. Remember to follow us on Instagram and TikTok @everythingiscontentpod. See you over there! x---------IMDB - Magnolia Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda NETFLIX - The DiplomatPRIME - My Old AssGQ - A London Fashion Scene Temperature Check GRAZIA - Rita Ora in Custom PrimarkMANCHESTER EVENING NEWS - Rita Ora's Primark line a 'flop'INDEPENDENT - Liam Gallagher thought A$AP Rocky was called Whatsapp Ricky X - Dr Ally Louks BBC SOUNDS - Dr Ally Louks NYTIMES - Julia Fox's Guide to Being a Freak WATERSTONES - Down The Drain Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth. I'm Richera. And I'm Anoni. And this is Everything Is Content, your one-stop shop for the most jarring, juicy, and downright jaw-dropping stories from the week. From internet discourse to celebrity gossip and shocking headlines to the best of TV, film, and books,

we've got you covered. With a shiny red sole on your stiletto heels walking you down the best of TV, film and books. We've got you covered. With a shiny red soul on your stiletto heels walking you down the carpet of content. This week on the podcast we're talking about the British Fashion Awards, PhDgate and Julia Fox's guide to being a freak. Follow us on Instagram at everythingiscontentpod and make sure you also hit follow on your podcast player so you never miss an episode. And if you haven't already please make sure you listen to our everything in conversation episode that dropped on Wednesday first of all and this is even before I ask you both what you've been loving this week I have to ask this week we got our Spotify wrapped which is one of my favorite

things that I look at on my phone every single year and I would love to ask have you both been listening to certified bops bangers or is anything you're embarrassed about I need the stats I'm actually mortified about my most listened to song do you want to know what it is reveal it obviously dying oh my god so earlier Grace my housemate this song came on and she walked in and I was like oh my god that was my most listened to song she was like you joking I've never heard this song before. Also, it's so tragic. Oh. What is it? Okay, what is it?

It's Stick Season by Noah Kahan. And it's like, as you promised me that I was more than all the mouths combined, you must have had yourself a change of heart. Anyway, it came on one day on radio for me when I was in a bit of a, like, a that's me depresso mood and then I couldn't stop listening to it and then it became quite uplifting and then I've just been listening to it but I think it is quite a weird like I'd never listened to this artist before I thought I knew it and then you sang it and it's gorgeous I potentially sung it really

badly wait I really want you to know it um and uh love for a mom but it's the season of the sticks and i this one yes i know anyways but i had to pretend to grace that i also thought it was tragic because she was like what the fuck richard what is yours have you got i imagine you've got really cool ones maybe i'm a bit of a freak but i don't want to ever look at my Spotify wrapped. I don't want to be confronted with that data. So I just never look. I don't want to know what I listened to in the past year. That's so avoidant.

I can't believe this. I'm chronically avoidant. I don't want to know things. Why do we need to know everything? I have to say mine, I listen unselfconsciously to music. I listen to what I like. It's normally really cringe. This is the first year I haven't had Jack Johnson

and Corinne Bailey Ray. I'm not going to at anyone, but some people posting their Spotify raps on their stories I'm like you have been listening all year with the intention of posting this on your stories because that is what your top five songs are so cool and you're listening to or everything is like really different I know there's no like genre going on it's like all really edgy and cool and I just don't believe in those people what what was your Spotify rap Beth then go on share so mine was all pop girlies pretty much basically I know what I listen to all year long but every single time I'm surprised that it's not like cooler music like cool indie bands my top song was please please please by Sabrina Carpenter who Ruchira earlier you said that she's reported to have gone through a breakup Miss Sabrina Carpenter me too so I feel

really aligned with her. In my top five, I had Taylor Swift at number, I think, three, which if people have listened to earlier episodes, I didn't slag her off, but I was a bit like, I don't really get it. Apparently I do get it and I love it. Where's that come from? Yeah, I was really shocked by that.

Yeah, I feel judged, but also I guess I was listening. Maybe ironically, maybe performatively, I don't know. Sabrina Carpenter was really hype for me. I, not to brag, but was in the top 2% of CharlieXCX listeners. Okay. Let's get back on track actually, because I'm aware that we've got lots to talk about in this episode. And we have to start with what have you both actually been loving this week? I'm really sorry to have done a Beth, meaning I want to recommend something that Beth recommended on the podcast. So what I've been loving it's Olive Kitteridge we're eventually

going to come in such a full loop where we're all just consuming what someone else has been consuming so I started reading Olive Kitteridge which Beth recommended a few weeks ago but again as she said when I recommended Breeders she watched that you guys get the gist I'm not going to recommend that because that's already been done so what I have been loving is I don't think I've said this before but season two of The Diplomat which is on Netflix have I told you guys about this yet you haven't is that the one with Kate Winslet no Kerry Russell Rufus Sewell it's an American TV series it's set in the UK and the American diplomat for the UK it's about her coming over and potentially getting promoted to be vice president it's kind of a random thing for me to watch, actually.

But I really enjoy it. And season two of that dropped maybe like last month. It's kind of a bit of fun. It's a bit cheesy, but it's a bit political. It's an easy one to binge. So I've been enjoying that. What have you been loving this week, Rachel? So I watched a film over the weekend.

I feel like all I ever recommend is films. But I do also have a book for you. But the film was Magnolia, which is a film by Paul Thomas Anderson and has Julianne Moore, Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, yes exactly so many good people that have just eluded my brain right now but have either of you heard of it slash seen this before? This is one of my favourite films ever I'm so pleased that you mentioned this. I feel it's quite a divisive film because it's so long it's like a patchwork of narratives it's very strange it's beautiful I go and see it I maybe like when I lived in London once every year they always play it at the Prince Charles which is my favorite cinema and I go and watch

it there so oh twins okay well FOMO because I've actually I know it I've heard of it I've never watched it oh it's so good yes it is three hours long so it's really long I actually watched it in two halves which wasn't intentional it was just that it just got really late and I just thought I'd just save the second half for the next day but Tom Cruise is absolutely insane in this role I think it's the best thing I've ever seen him in he plays this pickup cult leader, even before they were a thing in society. So it was really kind of preempting the rise of like the manosphere influencer. He's so disgusting and chilling. You watch him and your body is just like, oh, but it's so believable. And then Julianne Moore has the most iconic breakdown of all time where she's just

screaming in a pharmacist talking about how many cocks she sucked because she cheated on her husband horrifically it's all just so melodramatic so incredible but the main thing I think is a lot of it centers around kids and their parents and the trauma of having parental figures who let you down and the reverberations of that and then can you ever forgive and forget can you move on that theme alone is like it's just so triggering to watch but so breathtaking you've got to watch it i know that's your homework okay three hours off you know you know that i'm in bed by nine it is one of those films that like i knew i needed to watch it maybe because it would we have been too young when it first came out to have watched it I think it's 1995 so yeah 100% so I think it's one of those things where I almost watched it and then I didn't and then it's almost like those books you know you're

meant to read and films you know you're meant to watch but you just never get around to it but I will add it to my list and I'll come back and recommend it to everyone in a five-week time okay copycat do you can we have your book as well yes so uncharacteristically I read a book actually that's a lie I'm actually halfway through but it's Jawbone by Monica Ajeda it really reminds me of when we were looking at Penance by Eliza Clark we did book club on that by the way so go listen if you haven't the themes of teen girls running amok and like bullying each other and the kind of sinister dark horrible edge that girls at that age can have and the kind of horrible power plays this is a book that focuses solely on that and it

just kind of allows the darkness to engulf the chapters and just keep going I think I'm realizing one of the genres of culture that I like is teen girls going off the rails it's not very festive is it sounds terrifying but maybe there's something in you know why we like women love true crime is because we live in a constant state of fear so there's something about listening to it and immersing yourself in that world that makes you feel weirdly safer because it's not happening to you but also kind of helps you because you feel like in some way you're garnering knowledge because I remember us all being quite traumatized by penance I wonder if because you find that teenage girl dumb thing quite traumatizing and triggering it's

weirdly quite nice to be in that world but not be in it in reality being so far removed from it as an adult and being able to read it now I'm sure is a completely different experience than reading it whilst you were at school being confronted with all of these kind of social dynamics 100% also can I just shout out my friend gave it to me as a secret Santa present and it was on her bookshelf so we had like a five pound limit and she gave me that and something else so yeah really nice idea if you want to share some books you think a friend will love a little re-gifting yeah I was gonna say do you think we should have been reading these books when we were teenagers though I suppose like Jacqueline Wilson had that in it but would it been were the books we're reading as teenagers about teenagers getting into fights I don't know

if they were well Jacqueline Wilson was teachers having sex with well not quite but teachers in relationships with students eating disorders I mean she was gritty our Jackie do you know what I was saying as well to Grace isn't it interesting how we would read Good Night Mr. Tom and Anne Frank and like all of these really dark. There was the other book called like A Child Called It and stuff. And we would be reading these as children. It's quite weird, isn't it, when you think about it? Yeah, it's trauma porn. I feel like that was such a big thing when we were growing up where it was like the most traumatic book is what I was consuming when I was like 13.

I'd go into the library into like the young adult section and just choose the most gritty, just I shouldn't be reading that and then go home and have nightmares. It's fun. And I'm normal. Okay, show off. What have you been loving this week, Beth? Mine is a slight departure from that.

And I've chosen a film. I feel like I've put the Ruchira on. It's all very strange. We're all sort of swapping identities today. Mine is a film called My Old Ass have we talked about this no I saw that last week have you seen it Nanny no no I saw it on the streamer that is on can't remember which one and I've heard so many people talking about it it's in the culture tell me about it it is a coming of age young adult film the premise of which is an 18 year old girl living in toronto it's her last

summer there before she goes away she goes to the woods takes shrooms with her pals and while they're off having nice trips in trees she has a trip where her 39 year old self comes back in time and talks to her and they spend the night just chatting and her future self gives her these tips for how to navigate this summer how to live her older self played by Aubrey Plaza is coming from like not dystopian future but they're talking about fish or something and the older self is like oh I remember when there was still salmon so it's like a little bit too real at times but it's really sweet they spend that night she gets advice one of the bits of advice avoid a boy called Chad and she at the beginning of the film is she's a queer character who identifies as a lesbian so she's like cool easy and then she meets chad and obviously romance and shoes or does it it's very

sweet aubrey plaza and her younger self look nothing alike that turns out doesn't actually matter you believe it anyway because they're both so good and so sweet i think the actress her name's maisie maisie stella is incredible it's so. I welled up as well. Maybe you would cry and I don't really know. Did you cry, Bruchera? I didn't cry, but I loved it so much. I love how it flips the genre of those creaky Friday. I don't even know what you'd call it. Just like hijinks where people swap places or they meet their future selves. I'm not going to say what happens, but I think it follows in the trope of those type of films, but it really kind of messes with the genre

and does something quite interesting with it. Do you know what's so funny? I've just remembered the reason I didn't watch it is because I then looked it up and it annoyed me how much Aubrey Plaza didn't look like Maisie when I looked it up and I was like, I can't actually be bothered to watch that. That really pissed me off.

Everyone was saying it was so good. I was hearing about it on podcasts, in articles podcast in articles and I was like, bad casting. Yeah. But give it a go. Look past that. And the guy who plays Chad, actually, if I was 10 years younger, he's like this kind of lanky, long haired, tall, weird looking guy. Not weird looking. I'd say that as a compliment. If I was 10 years younger, he would have been bang on my list of normal crushes. But I will just say respectfully, a wooga as a cougar oh my god on Monday fashion's darlings flopped to the Royal Albert Hall for the British Fashion Awards

it was presented by Maya Jama and the guests included Halle Bailey, Ellie Goulding, Venus Williams, Nicola McCoughlin, Anna Wintour and ASAP Rocky just to name a few and everyone had their glad rags on and all of the rags were publishing their worst dress lists which I really actually think shouldn't be a thing in 2024. The headlines for the event were that Alex Consanzi was awarded model of the year making her the first trans model to win the title but what is the British Fashion Awards? So there was a really interesting piece in GQ actually titled, A London Fashion Scene Temperature Check, where Samuel Hine, who's from American GQ, interviewed British GQ senior style editor Murray Clark, who called the

event, a weird cross between the fashion Oscars and the fashion VMAs. The general vibe was messy in a good way. Rihanna is at one table and somebody from Love Island season three is at the next but he then also went to go on to speak about the impact of Brexit and austerity on the fashion scene he said the fashion awards exist because they want to elevate people especially given how tough it is in London wage stagnation is a real problem in this country rents are out of control it might sound a little bit like cheese on toast but I think when times are tough that's when people get more creative that's when the designers figure out how to be resourceful and he went on to speak about how difficult it is now for designers to produce good quality clothing because of Brexit and that that falls onto the consumer which is like the same case in every industry what's

interesting though on the flip side of this because that's all about like young creative fashion designers and obviously it's normally about like high fashion and couture but one of the most noted attendees was Rita Ora and literally every single tabloid and publication was being like Rita Ora looks unrecognizable with her blonde mullet but actually not that many people if any criticized her for the fact that her custom fast fashion fit was from Primark and the Primark suit that she wore is actually going to be available in stores next year as like part of her ongoing collaboration with the retail giant. One of the only people who did point it out was Arjababa on Blue Sky. She's a writer and sustainability activist and she wrote, Rita Ora wore custom Primark to the BFC awards last night. Primark is one of the biggest polluters

in Ghana that isn't open about the volume of clothing they produce. And then she posted alongside an edited image of Rita where she had her stood in front piles of discarded clothes. And she wrote, I made a realistic backdrop instead of a red carpet because Rita Ora has a Primark line which makes her part of the problem. So with the cost of living crisis,

are we going to be seeing more fast fashion at these glitzy events? It was only last year that Naomi Campbell had a collection of Pretty Little Thing and recently model and writer Kamish Arari brought out her own line with Naked Fashion. High fashion houses aren't necessarily like the most ethical or sustainable but do you guys think that celebrities endorsing fast fashion will not only encourage like fast fashion consumption but also harm the new designers

coming through? Do you think we're losing a reverence for art? My initial feeling is that nobody's going to look at Rita Ora's outfit and think that Primark is a high fashion. So I don't think it's going to erase designers and the kind of importance we put on designers because objectively speaking, I thought the outfit was pretty shit and I didn't think it usurped Vivienne Westwood, a couture piece, anything of that kind of caliber. But I will say I hate the kind of marketing spin of getting somebody like Rita Ora to do couture Primark I think it's really shitty and I think it does help in the normalization of fast fashion and the positive branding of Primark

we should be moving against that we should actively be having celebrities I don't know help usher in a new wave of ethical, sustainable fashion. We can make individual choices, but we need to have a culture shift in acknowledging the damages of fast fashion, especially in these glitzy circles and not helping it rub shoulders with designers. She's had this collaboration out for a while. It got so much bad press. Maybe it was just on social media, but Rita Ora and her Primark collaboration, I saw so many funny videos from people going in and being like discounted again discounted again these are the ugliest effing things I've ever seen so I sort of with my tin hat on was like she's worn one of Primark collaboration that makes sense but she's worn such a dramatic look I mean if you've managed

to avoid it go and look it out someone said she looks like the wife of a Russian billionaire it's really quite stark. My tin hat conspiracy theory brain was like, I bet she's done that just to sink the results of, if you search Rita Ora Primark, for months and months, it's been like, this is a flop, all the ugly things. Now if you search it, it's her looking like an alien. Obviously that's probably not true, but I had fun coming up with that theory.

Do you know who she looks like? You know in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, written by she who must not be named grindelwald that's what her styling looked like oh my god yes i wonder if she did such like avant-garde styling to detract from the suit because the hair the jewelry i actually when i first saw her i thought god she actually looks really cool like i actually thought it was such a fashion statement then when i saw the suit was from primark i think wearing a primark suit to the British Fashion Awards is like the equivalent of an author getting chat GBT to write their book there's so many young new interesting grassroots designers coming up this is what we're seeing this is what I hate about what's happening it's such a bottleneck for people to get through now in any creative industry and it's like funneling through Rita

Ora's wearing Primark probably getting paid millions of pounds what she could have done has spotlighted a young British designer worn them that's where I find the frustration because as much as fashion can be seen as this fluffy stupid thing and high fashion is inaccessible to most people it is a form of art it's one of the creative arts that we have in the I just think this infiltration of fast fashion I just think it's a slippery slope into commercialism. And obviously fashion is problematic in so many different ways. But when you think about how Murray Clark described it, that's such divergence of what that event was supposed to be. I just found it quite rude, actually. Because one part of the interview is he talks about how in fashion now, people don't really see it as a safe lifelong job. It's a

lot more ephemeral. You sort of have to strike while the iron's hot. It's really, really difficult for young designers to break through all of that and then to turn up wearing Primark. And I think it's a great message that you don't need high fashion money, luxury money to look good, dress well, to enjoy fashion. But you also don't need fast fashion. You need an eye for secondhand. You need to tailor to get things tailored. You need to rent things, things like that. I just think messaging, so almost right, but just fell on the side of disgusting.

Can I also say, did you see Jedward's tweet about her? No, what did they say? It was actually really funny. They said, Jedward aura, thank you for serving Junt with a picture of her with her Jedward quiff which just gorgeous guys I'm sick imagine if Jedward claimed you I'm actually sick so funny I know we're going to be talking about a piece on Julia Fox later but in that piece she talks about how she on purpose goes and finds young designers with like a thousand

followers and sends them to her stylist and it's like that's what people should be doing it's giving a little bit lily allen selling feet pics on only fans it's giving recession yeah it's giving recession people need money and they're doing anything for it quickly before we move on who did you have a favorite look of the night i have a few so i really liked caroline polacek i thought she looked so fucking good in this like lace kind of long gown that like dipped to below her crotch for want of a better word and then goes into like an opaque lace. Delicious. Marissa Abella I thought looked amazing and then I'm not familiar with this designer which is egg of my face because now I'm absolutely obsessed but Tolu Koka. She wore her own brand which is the biggest slave all time and she was wearing this pistachio trench leather coat pistachio

double co-ord with like a mini skirt and a top and then knee-high boots in the all the exact same color and material it looked fucking insane absolutely delicious and then my final one was Anita Chipper who heads up diet paratha and she wore a latex sari which oh fucking insane oh my god love i was scrolling through the pictures of the event and obviously i don't mean the fashion circles i dress like a big toddler i was like who's this person who's this person i love their outfit who's this person i really liked rihanna and whatsapp ricky e.g asap rocky i thought they looked so fun fantastic what's that did you remember

that new story I think Liam Gallagher called him what's that Ricky and he didn't like it I loved Simone Ashley I thought her little bangs I know it's about the fashion but she had these little bangs with this like long at the back short the front dress I don't know any of the words really liked um my jam was hosting a part of it and she wore on stage this kind of like skater dress which looked like it'd been painted looked really solid I thought that was fun I thought everyone looked really fun I didn't understand what was happening but everyone looked fun I absolutely loved Rihanna's because Rihanna's hat was from Christine Lacroix fall 2002 couture and Christine Lacroix is who in Ab Fab Idina Monsoon always wears and like loves. And so I love, because I

don't think Christine Lacroix really exists anymore. So I just love any reference to that. And I love anything vintage. And I think she looked really fun. I actually love Nicola Coughlin's outfit. The worst dress and the best dress list. I think they're really ridiculous, but also so funny because one outlet will have like the worst dress and it'll be a list of like 10 people and someone else's like best dressed dressed it'll be the exact same 10 people but you know me I'm just like a Met Gala and Oscars anything with dresses I sit there salivating it's one of my favorite pastimes beautiful gowns beautiful gowns when I look at fashion events I don't feel any amount of FOMO whereas if I look at other events maybe like

publishing events or media events because I have nothing to do with fashion I can watch this with just pure childish enjoyment do you feel either of you like oh I really want to go to the British Fashion Awards I don't but I think also that comes from a place of I went to GQ's Man of the Year once and it was really fun but it made me feel like the most I've ever felt like a normie in my entire life and there was this like almost feeling as if all the celebs were mingling like Louis Theroux was chatting to Andrew Garfield or whatever. And I was on the outside looking in almost like I'm at the zoo. So I think because I've been through that experience once, I just know it would be exact same. I'm having a panic attack in the corner or in the bathroom and then I go home

early. So that's my vibe. I wouldn't want to go now. But one of my delusions of grandeur is that I will eventually be on a red carpet but like be at the level where people aren't because I agree I've also gone to way smaller like way less consequential events where I'm just such a small fish in a big pond and no one gives a shit who I am and it's so embarrassing you just want the ground to swallow up like you're sat at the table no one knows your name it's horrifying but when I'm obviously super famous I would like to go because I have a dream do you remember that dress Rihanna wore? I can't remember what event it was, but it was like everything was like Swarovski crystals.

She had like the scarf over her head, the long gloves and it was completely see-through. I want to be oiled up, mudang levels, looking like unbelievable. Slipping around. I want to be wearing that outfit. Or what Hunter Schafer wore to the, was it the Vanity Fair Art Party? No, she just had like a feather across her boobs. Oh, I love that. So yes, I do get FOMO, but it's mostly I just want to stun in new photos.

That's what I want to happen. And only stuns in brand new photos. Yeah, that's what I want. Oh, one day. Some Twitter news now, and i apologize in advance the worst people on elon musk godforsaken app have chosen their latest victim a cambridge-based teacher and recent cambridge phd grad dr ali luke has gone viral after posting a photo to celebrate passing her phd viva which is an oral exam in front of a panel of academic experts she She posted a photo of herself last

weekend holding her bound thesis with the caption, thrilled to say I passed my Viva with no corrections and am officially PhDone. In the photo you can see the gold embossed title of her thesis, which is what has drawn so much attention, controversy and hatred from, and I'm going to be polite here, fucking losers on the internet the title of the thesis is olfactory ethics the politics of smell in modern and contemporary prose and this genuinely just this photo and caption title of the thesis has set off a chain of outraged replies which have resulted in her tweet being seen over 100 million times it has around 20 000 retweets at the time of recording 224 000 likes and the replies are a blend of angry incels and people angry at the angry incels but

what are they angry about a lot of them seem to think it's woke they're exploring the role of smells in literature and the intersection between smell and class, race, gender and other power structures is liberal bullshit. Some critics outraged that a woman would be getting advanced degrees instead of having children and serving a husband. Some people think it just sounds silly and more people mistakenly believe that their American tax dollars have somehow been spent on a woman getting her degree in England it's been a shit show it's been so weird so exhausting so twitter.com so I have to ask you both I'm confused are you two confused or can one of you both of you explain to me what's happened here and why these men so angry can I just say something quickly Astrid never farts and as you were talking about smells she has done the smelliest part.

This little girl, she's actually an activist. She knew. Well, it's solidarity, isn't it? She did an olfactory ethics. I can smell it through the screen, honestly. Yuck. Astrid. I don't know why this specifically has pissed off the worst people online.

It is absolutely bizarre. I kind of understand why it's catnip to them. It's just obviously a woman in academia, a woman not doing a viva on something related to STEM, I guess, has pissed them off. She's talking about class and race, another thing to piss them off. It's all just so stupid. And I feel like all the men that are getting angry about it are really telling on themselves because even when we've broken it down, what she's writing about, that's such a real and legitimate thing. We mentioned this, I think maybe last week or the week before, that time when Dax Shepard spoke about not really showering his kids.

There was like a massive furore on both sides of people saying, no, I don't give my kids showers every week and then the other side and a lot of people of color talking about how there is such a racial dynamic to perceptions of cleanliness i basically wrote a piece for galdem around the time of this whole like twitter beef a few years ago with dac shepherd about how a lot of people of color really feel the need to kind of wear the fact that we're clean like right at the front because there are all of these horrendous racial stereotypes about people of color smelling badly it's almost ridiculous that these men are laughing at her for looking into it because it's

such a huge thing to study that we see constantly cropping up in society they're just telling on themselves for being idiots it's also so interesting I genuinely want to read her PhD now like loads of people are saying the funniest thing about this is she's going to have the most ever read PhD abstract in the history of the world because it's had like millions of views I think what's interesting is it was getting to lots of people who didn't really understand that PhDs are super niche this isn't actually that niche as a PhD thesis sometimes they're way more specific than this there's also people quote tweeting it being like oh my god how clever can she be she's used synonyms in this talking about like modern and contemporary not understanding that those words in the world of literature have very specific and very different meanings I think it is about she's a young

attractive woman being proud of her work and somehow if things get caught up in the right way I don't think it would have offended people. But if it just catches onto a wave, and enough people catch it, and enough people are accusing it of wokeness, you do just become like the bastion of wokeness for these people that want to lambast you basically. But I was seeing so many other really interesting tweets as well about how anti intellectualism and fascism go hand in hand because the easiest way to propagandize people is if they aren't educated and aren't consuming literature and educating themselves in a way that means they're good at understanding when they're sort of being

manipulated or lied to and so I think this was just at this current moment in time it was such an interesting thing to see because years ago we would have been at a point when it would have been absolutely incredible and I've remembered in celebrating this young woman talking about her PhD to be living in a time where people are genuinely saying this is so embarrassing sending her like death threats awful emails humiliating her trying to bring her down it's just what world are we living in it's very very frightening even though I feel like it is Twitter being Twitter this just felt felt way nastier, way less provoked. It was literally a selfie of a woman on a very proud day. My great point on the anti-intellectual, I think it's very anti-intellectual. I think it's very anti-curiosity. I think it is people telling on themselves that they don't understand this niche academic writing. They don't know what that is. They probably do feel inferior in some way way they feel like you're doing something that i can't do i've gone around the houses trying to figure out exactly what about this is and i think it's just very simple i think it is men angry that they can't access something

men angry that a woman is proud of herself men angry that she might dare to feel a moment of happiness about an achievement which she you know she's obviously thrilled about she didn't expect that many people to see it she just felt good she posted they post vitriol they don't attach their face she could have invented a product she could have made herself a delicious sandwich if she goes online and is pleased with herself it taps into the same part of them that goes we've got to shut this down she can't feel good what an insane pile on as well like when i was going through the comments i noticed that she was replying to quite a lot of people in like a really nice happy way and just like really engaging with people with curiosity, which says it all. Some were asking her stupid questions.

Other people were making jokes about smell and all that kind of stuff. And she was just really good vibes, just like engaging with them, making jokes back, sending smiley faces, not with the incels. I think with the people who are medium to positive kind of hateful levels it seems like it couldn't have happened to a nicer person so I feel really bad for her. I think it also even weirdly ties into that first subject about kind of like the death of the arts or the death of honoring the importance of arts and culture within society because one of the arguments was people being like I hate that people that get PhDs can call themselves doctors they should just let that be down to like medical doctors and this whole argument ensued about how

doctors actually medical doctors were used to be called physicians the original doctors were always doctorates of arts or literature because those people that had studied so much and it was actually medical doctors that then asked to have this title and it was this whole thing in order to be more respected so medical doctors decided they used to be called physicians if you're a surgeon you're called a mister or a missus you're not doctor because that is reserved for people that have done certain types of study what's so interesting is this idea that anything to do with the humanities or the arts is superfluous to society it's not important women are useful for sex baby making housekeeping men

are useful for making money driving cars blah blah just this really redundant gender binary and also just really sad view of what makes up a world and what's important in the world and we're seeing that across the board every single time we've done a podcast there's always an element of talking about the lack of funding in creative arts, the lack of belief in what that can do for society. And I think this is just another component of that. And it's really scary. And again, that does go hand in hand with rising views towards far right ideology. While this was going viral, another tweet was also going viral where two women are dancing. I think it's in the club. I don't really go to the club. So this could have been a restaurant. I don know and they're looking gorgeous they're dancing on what looks like a

barrier the bottoms are going up and down they look fantastic and the caption of this tweet was imagine if there was a video of your mother behaving like this absolute suicide fuel for the next generation and people were contrasting the two i mean i would love to see my mom just shake an ass having a great time but anyway i, I'll save that for therapy. This was everywhere. So many impressions. People were furious. People were also contrasting it with Dr. Ali Luke's tweet and being like, women actually can't do anything right. We go to the club and we look gorgeous. We're sluts who deserve to die. We stay home and study. We're sluts who deserve to die. What men have decided for us is the safe zone is stay home, provide for a man and raise children, which we know as women that's not

safe either so essentially there's nothing we can do on this earth that won't incur hateful misogynistic violent rhetoric it's kind of just like well fuck this then i will do exactly as i please and you will die alone my favorite reaction to that tweet says yeah as you say these gorgeous women with the most incredible figures you've ever seen doing the most amazing bum wiggling which i'd love to be taught to do and all the fact that this guy was like imagine this is your mom and everyone was like why when you see two really sexy gorgeous liberated women is your first thought to think about your mom like what in the Freudian hell is that like why it's so funny like you said Richard that everyone's just telling on themselves like you're all

absolute weirdos we need to start doing pylons onto the incels being like you're just telling on yourselves freudian freaks should we start this week we should but did you see the tweet i think i sent it to the group because it really made me laugh and it was like if this smell phd woman plays her cars right we can have the hock tour of the left yes oh my god because you know how hock tour girl has gone on to have like the most successful podcast she's like collabing left right and center imagine if she is our hot tour and phd girl becomes like our spokesperson that'd be amazing oh my god smells like a good idea guys she was on bbc radio cambridge earlier and i tuned in to listen because i was just so fascinated to

hear this woman's take she's sitting there on Twitter she's replying very graciously the only thing that she has really put her foot down and said this is unacceptable is rape and death threats which she has been receiving which underlines again how insane this all is and she says she really is unfazed she is an introvert who just is quite bookish this is not her normal thing so obviously it's been a weird week she stands by her PhD she has not heard a single legitimate criticism. It sounds like she's doing really well. Now, as pointed out, the internet makes it possible to have these like completely out there alien responses to things. If you said to anyone, a stranger, family member, hey, I finished my PhD and they said, I think you should die. I'm going to kill you. You'd be like,

what is going on? Whereas on the internet, it's almost expected. Like it is another planet and it is increasingly just hell. X slash Twitter. And we said it before, but it feels in real time to be getting to be just full of incels and like horrible, horrible people to the point that, I don't know, something like this can happen her getting what was it 100 million impressions in a week from this one tweet madness absolute madness the level to which this hatred can accumulate on a very nice woman having just shared her PhD I think is really telling of what is happening to the platform I agree and also we spoke about this ages of episodes ago that wasn't a very good sentence but we'll go with it about tattle and about how certain platforms if something gets rewarded that's what people do and so what's happening to x right now is hateful misogynistic violent very shocking language and

takedowns give you virality so they're not saying they're good people but i wouldn't be surprised if people that in their normal lives are quite normal, are saying quite outrageous, outlandish, provocative stuff, purely for clout. They're not even thinking about her. There's so much psychology to say that when you see someone on a screen, it's really hard to actually process them as a human being, which is why like trolling and cruelness happens because we don't actually think that a real person is receiving that messaging. And this is kind of what happens on websites like Tattl, because bad behavior, negative comments get rewarded. And if you try and go against the grain and say, actually, I quite like this person, you then become the enemy. And I think that's what's happening to X. This is what's becoming rewarded. And so it just sets off this wildfire chain reaction. Again, obviously there is that level of anonymity, but sometimes you see these comments and you're like, your profile picture is your daughter, who's these comments and you're like your profile picture is your daughter who's five and you've got your full government name as your name where is the fear and why is it not happening but I think that's maybe why even though I said in the x everything is conversation episode that I was going to stay on it actually more and more I don't know if there

is going to be a place for me because it's just there is no conversation to be had anymore and blue sky actually is picking up I've done two blue skies know how in pubs, I don't know if this is apocryphal or if it's true, you know, there's often a mirror behind the bar and people say it's so that punters see themselves and don't get aggressive. I think all modern phones should just randomly flick up with the front camera on so you can see yourself, just see your full self and be like is this something that I will do as a real person just when you're on twitter threatening to kill a normal nice woman you might see yourself and go I'm just Jeff my wife's downstairs making dinner maybe I've just had a bad day maybe I need to go to therapy and not do this I think that would be a great future

or I've just come up with another idea what What if I set up a charity where I, with the people who are sending death threats, tell their workplace? Yes. Would I get funding for that? That is something that people do. They will go and find these people and they will report them to their work. Loads of women do it.

If they get unsolicited pictures from men, they will go and find their mom on Instagram and send it to them. This is reminding me of the conversation we had about social media being banned in Australia, which actually the bill was passed. They are banning it for teenagers and for children. But one of our converse opinions against that was like, if one of the ways they policed it was through giving identification in order to be on these platforms, it might endanger some people. But in cases like

this, this is where I'm like, oh, it would be good if the platforms knew who was saying this. I mean, not that Elon Musk would care, but I just think at some point down the line, these things will come back to bite people and they just don't realize your digital footprint is really not that difficult to find so I just hope they get their comeuppance because they're all idiots and she's got a PhD so so I read a piece in the last few days that I brought to both of your attention and now I'm bringing it to our listeners attention. It was a New York Times piece written by Juan A. Ramirez titled Julia Fox's Guide to Being a Freak. In it our absolute fave Julia Fox briefly went through

her relationship to freakishness and self-defining as a freak brackets compliment for anyone who doesn't know her just bear with me guys there might be somebody who doesn't know her Julia Fox is an artist actor and it girl she entered the zeitgeist dating Ye aka Kanye West but has since become a billion times more culturally relevant through her best-selling memoir Down the Drain and has kind of become this much-loved chaotic figure in the zeitgeist. Two bits from the piece that I loved was her saying that the kinds of stories that she gravitates towards, quote, are written from the point of view of an outsider, someone who's struggling. I bought a lot of memoirs before releasing my own, quote, Down the Drain 2023,

thinking they'd be guides, but when it came down to write, I was so past my deadline, I just had to do it. The other quote that I love from her is it's not easy to try and be normal eventually freaks are like I'm gonna be myself and live my truth because I can't pretend anymore. Pretending is draining, it's exhausting, it's depression. Being a freak is not an easy thing but it can be a very beautiful thing. That's why I don't get salty when people take inspiration from me. I want to guide more women, more queer people, to feel like, well, if she can do it, I can do it too. I want to know, did you guys read it? And what are your thoughts about Julia Fox in general? I think she is just a genius. I think she is like the it woman that

maybe we don't deserve, but I'm very glad that we've got her. I think there were just so many bangers in this piece. I was like laughing out loud, highlighting bits. I think she's so frank, which is what made her memoir actually. I can't remember if we talked about it on the podcast. I think we should cover this in a book club episode. I think it's a great memoir. Got some mixed reviews, but she's so candid. She has lived a very interesting life and she's willing to tell the stories about it. I think she's excellent. And I was actually quite obsessed with this. I think what's so great about her is it's not contrived. You can tell she genuinely is a little bit freaky.

She's a little bit fruity and she's all a lot fun. And when she does her crazy outfits and she really does champion designers, as we said earlier. And also, I don't know if you'd watch her like chaotic apartment tour, but she lives in quite a, it's not at all a very chic New York gorgeous apartment. It's very down to earth. She's lived there for ages. She's got this gorgeous setup for her child.

She has lived such a colorful life. She's really done like rags to riches, but also kind of loves her rag history and stays in touch with that. So I think what's really refreshing about her is she is really messy. She is chaotic. She flies her freak flag, but it's not image contortionortion it's not Katy Perry trying to be Charlie XCX this is very much who she is and that's what makes her someone that's really hard to dislike because there was that whole uncut gems thing what was it uncut what did she say uncut gems I'm just shafty smells at that point I maybe wasn't that well acquainted with her.

It was like around the time she was just coming out of that relationship with Kanye. I was a bit iffy. Then when I got to know her more, when you hear her speaking, hear her side of the story and understand her more, she's just intoxicating. It was around that time, I think, when she was doing her Call Her Daddy interview, where she says the film that she appeared in, Uncut Charms, and she kept talking about it in this like insane way I just thought oh feels like somebody is trying to like force her down my throat and I'm not feeling it but she's impossible not to love she's so scrappy

I feel like she fought for the media attention that she gets and she was relentless but as it was happening she just highlighted how uncontrolled uncontrived she is and I think that's what made us fall in love with her similar to Molly Mae with the vlogs that blew up a few years ago from her just getting everything wrong and not being this polished pristine figure I think you can't help but love somebody who really will show you warts and all and also owns it and I think her more so than Molly Mae she really will show you everything tell you everything and it's so refreshing in this like PR manicured world to have somebody just kind of own their shit and also like not really feel ashamed for it that must be the first maybe last time that Molly Mae and Julia Fox were mentioned

in the same sentence would love to see them in the same room. But I think you're right. It's someone who, I think she's lived an interesting life and basically by living her life and going, well, this is interesting. I will be a star. All the ingredients were there. And if you read her book, which I read over the summer, Down the Drain, she worked in a dominatrix dungeon and she talks completely candidly about the things that she did there like she pissed in a man's face she smoked cigarettes down a tube into a man's mouth she was in a fight with one of her fellow dominatrixes and so she pooed in a bag and you're reading this and going well yes and you're kind of in support of her and when someone is that candid when someone is like this is my life i've lived i really embody the things that i'm talking about and the way that

i'm dressing it sort of feels like an outward manifestation. I love that she's in her man repeller era almost. She is, I mean, not almost, she has said, I dress to put men off. And when she maybe came on the scene, men were like, oh yum, better me. She was beautiful in a way that men really enjoy. And then she pivoted from that. She grew up, she grew into her fashion and now she is flying that freak flag bleaching her eyebrows wearing these things that I think delight women confuse and upset men and it's so difficult for me not to respect that I think her ethos as well is just really fully formed actually she's like why would I waste my time on a man the patriarchy exists women don't get their flowers I'm gonna actually live this way not just

say it I am obsessed actually what do you guys think of the label freak because obviously freak feels like a negative word but when she says it I get that it's like oh yeah I'm a bit of freak actually maybe I am too it's interesting because I once used freak for I just said it in something and I actually got a dm from someone saying I find that word so offensive because I'm someone with a disability and it's often something that is leveled at people who in some reason don't fit into like societal norms. But I do think that it is a nice thing to reclaim because I can imagine it's something that she gets thrown at her. And I think the parallels that she makes between people perhaps who are genderqueer or genderfluid and transitioning. I do kind of like that idea of thinking about transitioning kind of out of the parameters of

normalcy. I think she can claim it. I think that's why it works. You really believe her. She is that person. I think if Addison Rae, who I actually really like, but she's been trying to be a bit quirky at the minute, I can imagine her maybe trying to say something like this in an interview and I'd be like, I don't necessarily think that you can claim that. I definitely don't think I can claim that I'm a freak. Maybe I'm a kook, a bit kooky. Yes, I can see kook. You could reclaim kook. In bed by nine though, I just don't know if that's freak. My mum's favourite word is quirky. She's quirky. She's quirky. Does she mean it as an insult? No, no, no. Quirky. She loves, my mum loves favorite word is quirky she's quirky she's does she mean as an insult no no

quirky she loves my mum loves a quirky shoe a quirky like quirky to my mum is like a highest compliment it's not like regina from mean girls when she's like oh my god is that vintage your mum's actually an angel no no it's like oh that's so quirky i think it's really interesting actually that you said you got that dm because i think freak actually yeah it is you think of like the history of the freak show when bullies use the word i think it is used a lot as well about people who are neurodiverse people who are on the spectrum people who have mental illness so i think there's a quite broad swathe of people who have been made to feel freakish and strange by society and i think probably more power to them to reclaim that

happy to be corrected i think also in terms of like how she looks how she expresses what's obviously inside with her fashion I think it's really quite exciting actually to have like a freakish thread of personal style I don't know why I'm talking about fashion so much who am I in an era where like personal style does seem to be very flattened and very raw trend-led it's it's really refreshing actually to see someone who you know whose heart is obviously in it to dress a bit weirdly to push the boundaries to kind of turn up in these very unusual garms I think yeah I think freakishness is a necessary force in all aspects okay that was so insightful okay vote correspondent yeah I'm sweating all time yeah do you know I wonder if freak is the new eccentric I can't

remember if I said this here before but eccentricity is dying in such a big way do you know what I mean yeah you just don't have those because exactly what you said Beth like people dress all the same so I wonder if freak is just 2024's eccentric I think you're onto something there because eccentricity was something that people used to do for the love of the game because we weren't all performing our quirks on the internet people would genuinely like collect things just because they loved them not to go viral people would have these interesting hobbies these interesting way of living that you'd never find out about until you went to visit someone's house and we're like what's in the corner so I think maybe freakishness is yeah the kind of nouveau eccentric this could be a thesis I love

that and I feel like it ties right back to our first topic not to put everything under a little bow but designers young designers artistic people have always kind of been a bit freakish you watch a documentary like the one on Alexander McQueen and you realize these people were kind of oddballs in their groups, in their lives, because they're so creative and so abnormally talented. You know, Amy Winehouse, any artist, Hollywood actor, whoever who's like among the greats, they weren't normal people. Obviously, they weren't normal people. It is abnormal to be that horrendously talented. Yeah, I kind of love somebody owning it it I love the idea that we can reclaim that word I totally get that the history behind it is very checkered and people will feel differently

but I think yeah all the best people are a little bit freakish aren't they totally I mean like think of Vivienne Westwood you couldn't get a better example of someone who really broke the mold who wasn't afraid to speak out who created these clothes that were so outlandish and yeah there's that other documentary Vogue in the 90s and they talk about punk. And I have such nostalgia for an era that I didn't live through, which is that era when you had all of these different collectives coming together, like Lee McQueen, Vivienne Westwood. If we're talking sort of like old school, high school movie, you have all the cleats and you'll literally have like the freaks table. They're always quite punk. They're always wearing kilts with like their hair stuck up.

And they're often the people that get bullied and picked on in school. But as you say, often go on to be our biggest, best and brightest minds. But they can only really do that once they get through that. I guess it's also that age old argument as well that trauma creates art, which is, I hate that it's true because you shouldn't have to be traumatized

to create things. But Tracey Emin is another good example. I think it's something we're losing. And it's, I think it's great that she's flying that freak flag and bringing it back. Thank you so much for listening this week. And thank you to everyone who listened to our newest episode of Everything in Conversation, which came out on Wednesday. It is one of our favourites. I know we say this every week, but it's one of my absolute faves that we've done so far. This is all happening on Instagram, by the way,

at everythingiscontentpod. So if you want to be involved, go and follow us over there immediately. And also on TikTok at the same name, at everythingiscontentpod. And if you've been loving the podcast, please do rate us on your podcast app, leave us a little review,

but also share us to your Instagram stories. Tell your mum your mom your dad the person you're having an affair with word of mouth is great for us thanks and also it is our birthday this week it's our fucking birthday we're one years old so please give us a follow on instagram at everything is content pod and send us a nice message we have put this together as a labor of love and we love chatting to you it means everything to us I've got a tear in my eye see you next week bye