Everything Is Content - Loud Luxury, Crying On The Internet & Spying On Each Other

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

TGIF and TGIEICD (thank god it's Everything Is Content Day... is this gonna catch on?)This week, Beth, Ruchira and Oenone dip their toe in the fashion discourse, if 2025 Haute Couture is anything to go by, then quiet luxury and stealth wealth might be being booted out for loud luxury, extravagance and labels, sorry Sofia Richie Grainge! Next up, Selena Gomez posted a tearful video on Instagram Stories on Monday, before quickly deleting the post. In the video, she responded to the US' nationwide immigration raids over the weekend, which saw the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest 956 people on Sunday — the largest number of arrests on a single day under Trump. He announced several extreme executive orders on immigration from his first day. US Senate candidate Sam Parker called to 'deport Selena Gomez' on X, while the left basically called her self-involved. They ask, why do you think we’re so cynical of emotional outbursts online?And last but by no means least, is society shifting now towards intentional and consensual round the clock tracking? Beth found a fascinating piece called “We are all Big Brother now: The largest system of surveillance isn’t run by the government or corporations. It’s the grass-roots panopticon we’re using to judge one another.” It was written by Alan Levinovitz, and published in the Boston Globe last June. At EIC headquarters the girls are quite worried!https://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/events/schiaparelli-and-dior-couture-review/https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/selena-gomez-crying-immigration-trump-b2687656.htmlhttps://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/06/20/opinion/nextdoor-ring-nest-grassroots-surveillance/https://fortune.com/2023/09/12/gen-z-find-my-friends-life360-location-tracking-privacy-safety/ 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, the podcast that explores the biggest and juiciest pop culture stories of the week. From books to films to TikTok trends, we're consuming it all to give you the tea. With a glacier cherry atop your content cake. This week on the podcast, we're talking about stealth wealth addressing, crying on the internet and the grassroots panopticon that we all uphold. Follow us on Instagram at everythingiscontentpod and make sure you also follow on your podcast player so you never miss an episode. But before we get into today's episode what have you both been loving this week?

So I posted about something on Instagram but I absolutelyored, and I know both of you too if you haven't read it yet, Any Human Heart by William Boyd, which is about a fictitious man called Logan Mountstuart who's born in 1906 and dies in 1991, I think. And he has the most colourful, crazy life. It's beautiful. He lives through the war. He makes friends with every famous poet, writer, spy. It's just incredible. It's one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I wrote a better synopsis of it on my Instagram if you want to check it out there. But then because I couldn't get enough, you know, and you're like, I cannot leave this universe and you spend so much time with this character. I found out there was a BBC series. So I immediately was like, okay,

I'm going to watch that. The cast in the BBC series is Matthew McFadden obviously we love him from Succession Jim Broadbent Sam Coughlin Gillian Anderson Tom Hollander I don't know how I've never watched this before Emerald Fennell Ed Stoppard Hayley Atwell Kim Cattrall Kim Cattrall the casting is amazing so good that being said so the show is really good if you haven't read the book the day before I was getting so cross there's like the timeline slightly skewed for some reason one of the characters who's called Stella they've called her Freya and it was making me absolutely infuriated so I can tell the show is really good because the cast is amazing and it looks like it's great but I started watching it and then I was like I actually need to give it like a month I watched like a couple of episodes

and was because I was expecting certain beats and then they would do it like in a different order. So I'm going to recommend it to you, but I'm going to recommend you to read the book first, wait a few months and then watch the show because I do think the book needs to come first because the book was one of the best things I've ever read. Have either of you read it? I've not read it. That's such huge praise. I have to go read it ASAP. I feel like I can't think of any example of when a TV show is much better than a book. It often just about does it justice if that's like a good adaptation, but it's never better. I feel like never. I think Daisy Jones and the Six might have been like the closest to something being

as good as the book, I think. I don't know if I've seen this. I remember having the book and it just came with me everywhere. I think I was probably about 15 or like 16 I was really like kind of a pretentious teenager and carried it everywhere and don't think I even opened it side note Sam Claflin he and I had like the same tattoo artist for a while and I was just obsessed with the idea that we were going to run into each other and we never did and now I always see his TikToks kind of going to parks where I used to go to and I was like what could have been I could have been a stepmother to your children but anyway I love that you've

done quite a big throwback to your show and book because mine this week is a bit of a throwback as well which is really refreshing like a lot of the best stuff is back in the archives of history so I'm a fan. Go on then tell us what yours is. Go on tell us then. What tell us then just drop that in there so mine is is a film called blood simple which is a 1984 i think it's a neo-noir crime film and i had to google this because i'd what i watched it and i was like i don't know what just happened to me but it was excellent what is the genre of this i think it's the first ever Coen Brothers feature length film. And despite being a big Coen Brothers fan, I've never watched it. It is about a bar owner in Texas, I believe, who thinks that his young wife is cheating on him. And so he hires a private detective to follow them and confirm this.

The guy comes back and is like, yes, they are banging. Here's the proof. And the bar owner is like, OK, I want you to kill them both. And the guy's like, sure, for the right price, I will. But then what he does is this elaborate double cross, which I won't spoil. But in doing that, he basically dooms a lot of characters to this terrible fate. He entangles the young wife, the bar owner,

and the other man into this web of like deceit and lies and miscommunication and confusion which is just classic cohen it's like blueprint cohen literally it's their first feature film and it also stars francis mcdormand who obviously pops up a lot in cohen brothers films later she's married to one of the Coens. She stars in this. I think it's her first big role, I want to say. And she looks the most beautiful, not to be vain and shallow, but she looks the most beautiful that I think anyone on screen has ever looked.

I was watching this film, just captivated. Anyone listening, and you both, Google the trailer for this. Google Frances McDormand, Blood Simple. She's just unbelievable and it's so nice to see kind of Hollywood starlet an actress in lead role have her own kind of individual face but anyway such a good film performance is amazing it's just full of substance it's really gritty it's really entertaining it's just like a very very good film and it's broken me out of the curse of being like films 2024 on google or just like just watching stuff that's just come

out so I can put the zeitgeist fuck that I went back in time spiel ended love the spiel I also had a similar thing with Hayley Atwell in this show do you know who that actor is I'm sure you'll both know who she is yeah love her but I had the same thing with her face i was just really looking at her face and i was like oh your face is so interesting to look at and she had lovely fine lines and her lips are amazing there's all these like bits where they go really close in on her face i had the same experience where i was like god it is interesting to see a face that looks different and that feels quite stark compared to some of the faces we're presented with now. Totally. I feel like I don't like the Coen brothers.

Talk to me. I've watched a few of their films and I don't know why. I think the two that I watched was so different. One of them was Burn After Reading and then the other one was Inside Llewyn Davis, which has Oscar Isaac basically playing a really shit folk singer in the time of Bob Dylan. I watched this like a week before watching the film I said last week, which is the Bob Dylan biopic. And it was just so strange and depressing, this film. He's just like a not very good singer, kind of realising that he's not very good, but hoping that he is good. It is a bit of a dud. Yeah, it was just kind of a bit of a dud film. Like, Oscar Isaacac was so captivating for part of it and then it just was

like why am i watching this nothing is really happening he just walks about doesn't he if i remember correctly he just wanders around yeah right at the end you just get this snippet of seeing what you realize is bob dylan playing in a gig and i guess the point is just realizing that not everyone can be special and i don't know i don't want to watch a film like that it could have been an email okay can i say though okay have you watched Big Lebowski no but that's their most famous one add to the list I think watch Raising Arizona or Blood Simple or No Country for Old Men I do think they've done so much there are some duds and I would say also I watched Inside Llewelyn Davis and honestly it was like an it was a film that could have been email I think you've been unlucky but please give them a shot okay and Fargo of course okay three strikes in the route Fargo is

meant to be amazing so I will I will give them a chance one of my favorite films ever what have you been loving with Chera so the thing I've been loving this week is Last Cultureistas the pop culture podcast with Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers have either of you listened to this I haven't listened I have seen clips online and I have made a mental note to listen because I think I've also been recommended it on Instagram. Can you give me a debrief? Because I don't actually, all I know is it's Bowen Yang and I've seen bits and bobs. Yeah. So essentially they're besties from college. Their chemistry with each other is just insane. You can tell that they really love each other. They're so supportive. They have this insane ability to riff off each other they're so supportive they have this insane

ability to riff off each other so the humor you know 10 out of 10 sometimes they have guests sometimes they are for example beloved for this podcast Harper Steele and Will Ferrell because the podcast is created by Will Ferrell's production company fun fact so they interviewed the pair before their film the one that we've reviewed previously which is Will and Harper and they also had Charlie XCX their Dua Lipa but sometimes it's just them two talking about watching The Substance just honestly making me laugh so much it's one of those podcasts where if you're listening to it on a train or a bus it is very likely that you will just start cackling at various points because it goes off the rails but also at the same time their insight into pop culture is really astute and really good i did listen to one where

they interviewed cola scholar who is just like a performer actor that i just love and apart from that i have only listened to the one where they review the ariana grande album and i think i mentioned it on this podcast actually maybe in the bonus they kind of hint at the rumors of her affair etc etc so I kind of like they go quite close to the flame about their celebrity friendships but also I wanted more but also I think I might listen to this because I did ask on Twitter this week I need more podcasts because I just listened to this one and off menu and my therapist goes to me and the receipts and like I feel like I just need a broader I need to go to the states so thank you also if you do want podcast recommendations I did actually a whole post the other day of more educational ones on insta this is educational this is actually really

educational but I already recommend this twice a week so it was some other ones guys put this on in the schools put put us on in the schools. Put us on in the schools. So Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week started with Daniel Roseberry for Schiaparelli to much applause. And he wrote in his show notes, I realized what I wanted to do, create something that feels new because it's old. I'm so tired of everyone constantly equating modernity with simplicity. Can't the new also be worked, be Baroque, be extravagant? Has our fixation on what looks or feels modern become a limitation? Has it cost us our imagination?

You might remember that Quiet Luxury and Stealth Wealth were all the rage with Sophia Richie Grange being held as the queen of the sartorial style and influencing countless women to stock up on lots of Zara basics. But the haute couture houses are bringing back drama and extravagance. And in a piece for The Telegraph, Lisa Armstrong wrote, move over stealth wealth, ultra rich dressing is back. Let's be clear, haute couture has always been for the ultra wealthy, but with the leader of the planet's richest, most powerful tech companies doggedly sticking to a wardrobe that looks more like Aldi than Armani Privé. Meanwhile, ready to wear labels such as the row make us a sublimely luxurious loosely cut clothes that to the untrained eye

might look quite like nice blankets have cleaned up. So it's been hard to see couture's purpose of late. And she goes on to discuss the Republican trad style of the dressing and the inauguration fashion, which spurred many a headline, as well as Ivanka's copy of a 1954 Hubert de Givenchy dress, which was originally designed for Audrey Hepburn in the film Sabrina. I just thought it was interesting because we've seen a lot of beige, a lot of stealth, wealth, quiet, luxury. And I'm interested to know whether Lisa Armstrong's right, whether this kind of loud statement, exclusive dressing is going to come back. What does that potentially say about where we are with

society? And I want to know, what do you guys think? Do you think that this is a hint towards what we're going to expect? Do you think that fashion's going to become more inaccessible? Or do you think that quite luxury Molly Mae soft girl has got staying power yet? I think it makes sense that we'll swing back into a more extravagant style. Style tends to oscillate between various movements. And, you know, I feel like we've been hearing that indie sleaze is coming back, indie sle is coming back and you can kind of see it in drips and drabs but a huge part of indie sleaze was those giant fur coats they're like really ostentatious sunglasses ripped fishnets high heels almost like falling out of clubs and giant sunglasses and I feel like even though there was an element of like trashiness to it there was also this like huge extravagance to it too and that happened around 2008 slash the

wall street crash and i feel like as the economy is going to the pits it probably does make sense that there's like a slight rebellious fashion interpretation of fuck it let's just spend all the money on our clothes bye when you were talking and only i i've never heard so many words and phrases that i just did not understand in fashion I felt like a dog that had come to life like no a dog that had gained human sentience and was like asked to do its taxes or something I was like chaparelli I knew because you both have taught me that one but it was just so many words anyway on a more serious note to answer your question I've always felt stealth wealth it's lying in plain sight it's boring if we have ultra rich people which I don't think we should

have but since we do have them I would like a bit of theatre I would like them to dress up I would like them to give me something to look at and enjoy in that kind of you know brief window of being the ultra rich give me something to play with I was kind of done with the beiges the creams like the sort of neutral colours the draping i quite want rich textures i want pearls dripping off stuff i want a kind of display and i'm hoping that that is what we're going to get from this next cycle now people realize in the kind of upper echelons they don't maybe need to pander so much because like they are rich they're protected they're like fuck you maybe give us a bit of theater before i know the revolution comes that's my take on it as a non-fashionista

what you were saying also about you just had bath about dripping pearls but Richera you just evoked strong memories of I loved that era I loved the long strings of pearls the ripped fishnets and the big coats I kind of I do want that back But that does remind me that we did do that Mob Wife era episode, which was like, was that about a year ago? So it does come back around. I feel like I know both of your answers, but by nature, are you quiet luxury or are you loud and proud? Loud and proud, baby. Loud and proud. I feel like I probably have maybe two black items in my wardrobe, zero beige. So so there we go I'm a secret third option where I just dress like something between Homer Simpson and an adult toddler I don't think there's luxury involved in what I do but I also don't think it is it's not loud and proud

it's loud maybe by accident it's sort of a car accident what about you and any tell us about your fashion well I'm actually also a bit loud by accident because I don't buy fast fashion it's actually really hard to dress quietly when you're buying like second hand because it's actually really hard to get like a white t-shirt although I'm actually wearing a black top so it's quite unusual for me I know this isn't a fashion podcast this will be my last fashion question because I feel like I'm really pushing the needle on how far we can go with this do you have a current favorite fashion icon? Is there anyone out there that you think is just really doing it for you? I genuinely thought you'd both frozen then. Just thinking.

Not a word. Not a word. Okay, I'll tell you mine for an inspiration. Yes, please. Daisy Edgar Jones at the minute is being styled impeccably. She looks incredible. She's wearing a lot of Chloe chiffon kind of floaty. Have you seen her? Yeah, she looks like the perfect bohemian Chloe girl. Yeah. The two that come to mind for me are Ayoade Biri. I feel like she always looks amazing. She's getting

dressed by the best people. I think she wears quite a lot of Bottega and Loewe. And this week, she was in the row. Yes, I saw this. Yes, moss green, almost like in wrapped wrapped blanket somebody said she looked like that rich auntie who barely says a word to you but gets you the best gifts every year and yes love that for her and then my second person she is eternally a style icon for me Hayley Bieber yeah but I think she's quite she's quite simple to me not simple simple, I don't mean simple. I mean classic. Yeah, with her, because I naturally tend to go for bright colors, ostentatious stuff, I like looking at her

because it makes me kind of pare something down just like a tiny bit and just like opt for something a bit different. She's like the yin to my yang, I guess. I get that. I do see, I do love how she dresses. I find that harder to emulate than like I don't even know who dresses really nuts but I find that so much easier with my wardrobe than looking neat

I find that quite difficult have you found anyone in your mind Beth I agree with both of those though whichever I think when you asked the question initially I was thinking like who is my style inspiration and it was it's genuinely no one live or like it's just no one in this realm of fashion I go to a deep place with myself and I find a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt so then I heard Richie's answer and I got I really like every red carpet I always look out for Jeremy Strong I always look out for what that sad-faced gorgeous man is wearing I think he is someone that I am always excited to see what he wears I feel similarly about Timmy Chimmy and I feel every single time about Zendaya because whether or not it's something that I would wear whether or not I understand it she's always a pleasure to see dressed and I think

takes enough risks that it's very entertaining for certainly me someone that's not like I know who dressed her I know the inspirations I'm just like clapping my hands together like a toddler like oh colorful shiny etc so I think those but Jeremy Strong definitely top of the pack he just he stands out on a red carpet and I don't know if it's his face I don't know if it's his expression whatever he wore recently he was wearing a sort of bucket hat it was maybe fluffy I can't remember or woolen and it just green no way yes yeah it was it was like a kind of mint off minty yeah sea foam and it was I don't know what the event was but it was so memorable it like lives in my brain so I think he is actually underrated icon of my life I love those Selena Gomez came into hot water this week after she posted a tearful video on Instagram stories on Monday and she quickly deleted it in the video she responded to the US's nationwide immigration

raids which happened over the weekend and saw, which is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arrest 956 people on Sunday alone, which is the largest number of arrests on a single day under Trump. He announced several extreme executive orders on immigration from his very first day in office. In her video, Selena said, quote, I just want to say i'm so sorry all my people are getting attacked the children i don't understand i'm so sorry i wish i could do something but i can't i don't know what to do i'll try everything i promise this isn't the first time that she's spoken out on immigration and back in 2019 she produced a netflix documentary living undocumented and wrote an essay for Time magazine

sharing her own family's experience of crossing the border from Mexico into the US illegally. In it she shares that thanks to her grandparents' bravery in risking their lives to emigrate she's now a US citizen. I think it's fair to say that she copped it from every single angle for this video. The US Senate candidate Sam Parker called to deport Selena Gomez on X and the left basically across the board just called her really self involved for this video. Some of the criticism she's received focuses on how she's making herself the story. Some have pointed out that she never spoke out on Gaza. So I guess they're drawing comparisons between why she's speaking out on this but not speaking out on Gaza. So I guess they're drawing comparisons between why she's speaking

out on this, but not speaking out on other injustices. And lots of people have pointed out that her fiance, Benny Blanco, said that he was praying for Israel during the genocide. Another user pointed out that she has the potential to help greatly. So why is she saying that she wishes she could help? I think the story is super fascinating to me because it really reveals how cynical we are to celebrities and I think influencers as well honestly sharing emotion online especially when they're crying I think it was like an immediate backlash to her being disingenuine in some regards and I also think there's a need for people to feel like celebrities are being consistent across the board with their politics.

I would love to know what you both thought of the video and of the backlash that she got. It's interesting because I have generally got a rule where I do think crying online is really weird. And I think I even wrote about this in Bad Influence where I was like, the minute you kind of set your camera up and start crying, you're not crying, it's a performance. But when I saw the video of Selena Gomez, you can so tell that she's genuinely crying. It's so raw. It's so emotional for her. I didn't feel any sort of resentment towards it. And maybe resentment's the wrong word, but sometimes people film themselves kind of start crying and I feel a weird feeling of like disingenuity or something. And so I was really shocked because I just thought, well, it's a heart-wrenching situation. We're living through a terrifying moment of American politics. It's something she's experienced and it felt very

fair and truthful. And I actually watched it and just, it made me feel really emotional. So while I normally come from the other side, I was actually quite surprised how much backlash she got. And it's difficult because I do understand, and we've spoken about it before with certain celebrities not speaking out on certain things. But I do think that there is also as much as it'd be great if she had spoken up about Gaza, I don't think anyone should necessarily always be held accountable for people like their partners or their family, what they're saying about a certain situation. And also it is just human nature that you're going to be more invested in things which directly impact you. So I don't know. I felt maybe it's an age thing, but I didn't feel at all angry at her. And I was quite shocked

at the level of vitriol that she received. What about you, Bea? I saw the worst of the worst vitriol from Republicans. So I just saw the, I guess, the really intolerant stuff. I didn't see stuff from maybe people that I would otherwise be aligned with. I think it just passed me by. Whatever you think of the tears online, I think the reaction from that level, the Republicans, like I forget his name, but that fucking failed Republican Senator who really, really came for her, who called for her deportation, despite the fact she's obviously an american citizen and he said like you've picked the illegals over the american you should be deported like such extreme logic you know crying about this expressing the most basic human response

which is this has made me so sad that i am crying just you know over fellow human being suffering unlocked a level of vitriol and anger in certain republicans and politicians they're no longer even saying like the quiet thing quietly she just said i want to help i can't believe this is happening my people she was looking at suffering she was reacting and they were like what a piece of shit and i think it is really scary that's on the one hand on the other hand crying on the internet is something which i think unlocks so much discourse i I really don't know where I sit with it. I think there's one kind of crying, which is crying while you're telling a story and talking rather. Crying, reacting, crying, telling a story, crying, having experience, which is what she was doing. And then there's the crying

where you must set the camera up, hit record and then sit somewhere away from the camera, continue crying for a set amount of time and then stop and stop the video and edit it into a video. That I find it very difficult to watch. No real judgment, but I can't watch that. Whereas when people are just crying while they're expressing something, I think that's quite normal. Like, I'm not bothered about that. Like, sometimes it just do be like that. You are crying and you want to express something that's very normal. And I think we see each other in so many states of like undress intoxication you know highs and lows on the internet what's a bit crying between friends like if we are going to use social media to share our lives why not a few tears I do like it makes

me feel uncomfortable to do it if anything I think you know commend her for doing it in a vulnerable state it shows that it is no joke to her this has hit her severely where it hurts in this age of like numbness and apathy maybe we do need to see some more emotions that is my that was my initial take on seeing I wasn't skeptical at all I completely agree with you both I was surprised by the response because I previously, and I think for the most part, react in a really cynical way, literally like you both said, but this didn't really strike me as a cynical position. And also reading up on her and realizing that she literally has family ties to what is going down. If somebody related to that, if somebody not related to that watches what's happening in their country and sees some of the most appalling acts being enacted on vulnerable people, and you don't feel close to tears, I would be more worried.

The cynicism is understandable because I think we've had years of celebrities posting tears when they're caught in a scandal. And I feel like it's kind of wiped away the assumption of authenticity surrounding having a breakdown and sharing it to the masses we are so skeptical and so cynical of famous people telling us that they're upset about something I feel like our immediate response is what do they have to gain about this why do they want me to feel bad for them what do they want from me and I just think she was just devastated and she possibly just put out a bit of messaging because she felt compelled to and also maybe out of control the thing I noticed in the comments which is a fair point as people were arguing well why don't you do something and I do think is this naive of me she wasn't saying that

she wasn't going to do something she shared that in that moment she felt out of control and helpless but she committed to saying I will do everything I can to help so I would hope that behind the scenes she is literally speaking to campaigners activists funding money where she can and also she's you know know, published a documentary, published an essay about her own experience with this. She is communicating on the issue and she has engaged in activism of a kind previously. And I would say even just, I know it's not a big thing, but the impact of those kind of videos and the way that they spread like wildfire, and we've seen it so many times. I know it's not real

activism, but even just talking about these issues on such a large platform and actually it garnering so much attention because she did get so emotional, will do so much in terms of just raising awareness, perhaps swaying some people. The only problem I guess is we have this thing now where the more convincing someone is,

the more it seems to push the people on the other side further away. So it's really tricky now to work out how to get people to change their minds on certain issues it's so difficult because it's like you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't and I think that Lily Allen's spoken out about this before and I don't think it's necessarily a great position to have but she was like I used to speak so much about politics I got really involved I got trolled so much so now I just don't say anything and I I don't know if that stamping your foot and kind of stonewalling is as a privileged person, the position that you should take. But I do think that people of influence sometimes are in a tricky spot where

it's like, you're just going to have to accept that whichever way you go about it, whether you do talk, you don't talk, people are going to be reacting, responding to that. And you maybe just have to accept that even if it feels completely cruel we don't seem to have a normal way of reacting to things anymore online the thing that struck me and we've spoken about this before it feels like there's so much infighting where unless you have a consistent record and timeline and receipts of you having spoken out consistently somebody could turn around and most likely will turn around and say well why didn't you speak out about this thing why are you speaking now and I don't think it's particularly helpful while I think it's completely understandable and

it's frustrating literally like you said Anoni that she's speaking on an issue that is related to her and people tend to speak out on issues that are closer to them rather than somebody down the road who's impacted by a different kind of legislation or protest that's happening. That's really frustrating. But also infighting is not going to encourage her to speak out on Gaza. Accusing her of being biased against Palestinians is not going to encourage her to speak out further on it. I feel like we need to remember that welcoming people into the fold, through every which inn they come in, is the way to go about activism and community and making sure that people do speak out consistently.

I think that is such a good point about welcoming people through the fold. I think crying is a great thing to signal just what it feels like to her to experience this. It tells me a lot that I could never know as a white British person my citizenship has never been in question my family's has never been in question I live in the UK so that I think is very helpful one it's tricky because the whole liberal tears has been a meme for the right as long as I can remember being online it's absolutely damned if you do, damned if you don't. You might as well cry and bear witness to people and kind of be in solidarity. And in terms of like giving someone a roadmap,

I think she's actually, it seems like she was sort of asking for that because when she was crying, she goes through these stages of grief almost and of kind of like reckoning with it. She's like, you know, I don't understand it. I'm so sorry. I wish I could do something.

You know, I don't know what to do. And then she ends on, ends on which is what you said like i'm going to do everything i can do and i think that train of thought is familiar to everybody who comes into politics who comes into like um the woke agenda comes into like an awareness of social justice you go through those stages you go through i can't believe this is happening this level of injustice then you go to but i'm just one person there's nothing i I can do that helped business. But then hopefully you do end on, but you know what, I'm going to throw everything at it. And she's kind of asking for a roadmap there of, you know, what can I do? And I think there is a lot that she can do. And it is use your voice, but also walk yourself to the bank and spend some money on it. And it's obviously

she's got the money. She's like a very big figure in business and commerce. She's been very famous and successful a long time. So if the left can harness that and just say, and now we need your money in these areas, we have to communicate with our allies. We have to communicate where the money is because you know that's all the right has been doing for the last like four years, the eight years the last 16 years like just I beg let's not do discourse about this let's funnel some cash in the right direction maybe that's so true do you know what else I was just thinking as well I think that public fatigue with celebrity emotional output really hit its apex moment when the celebrities sang Imagine during COVID. Because I think prior to that, had we had a video of Selena Gomez crying about deportation, I think people would have been like, wow, this is incredible. Like we've

got celebrities genuinely, like we're seeing first of all, into a really emotional state. It's really vulnerable, blah, blah, blah blah that video did more damage to goodwill for celebrities than anything else because they as well they were all it was everyone like also finding their houses on google maps and being like look they've tried to sit in the most drab part of the house but if you zoom out they're actually in like a 20 million pound villa so i think i really think that's where we everyone just kind of but that's again another problem we're so flattening we either go one way where we put labels on everyone everything's intersectional everyone is a litany of categories that they fit into or they're just celebrity and

it's like at some points listen to someone as a person like you both said you know she has family this deeply impacts her like and at the same time she's a famous person i think sometimes we lose track of when it's useful to categorize and when it's useful to blanket flatten. And all of that's just become smushed up even into a sentence which I can't form. That point you raised about the pandemic and that video is so true. It does really feel like after that, a mass disintegration with any goodwill any trust any kind of oh but they mean well assumption about any celebrity ever since then yeah it is just like the worst case scenario we assume about everyone and in a way I think that's good in some regards

because we're a lot more clued on when we're being sold to our power our mass power we spoke about how lots of people were unfollowing celebrities like kim kardashian over gaza because they hadn't spoken out but yeah it is really interesting that it's lasted so long i i think you're right it's like this like noxious cloud that has remained since then and it hasn't gone away and she does need to open her purse i think that is i have such scorn for celebrities that can only be alleviated by big chunky donations in the right places like I never forget I'm not able to forget if ever I feel a bit kind of sympathetic to one of those celebrities that did that video I do just think of them imagine there's no heaven from a palatial garden and then I think Beth wobble your head they need

to separate themselves from their money because we're in a real shit situation and she has done a great thing in just saying this is devastating genuinely you should all be in tears about this the world is going to rot and ruin and then we're all going and next and it's kind of like and then we should fix it fire our amassing huge wealth and distributing it so I just kind of like I'm not angry but I am waiting for part two of this video where she says I've donated a billion pounds this is making me think of a topic which we were considering doing for a bonus we still might talk about it and it was basically about celebrities doing crowdfunders or getting their fans or audiences to help them raise large amounts of money for

whatever it might be. And it kind of is making me think a bit about that of when celebrities with great wealth don't donate, but then encourage their legions of fans to donate money, which more than likely they don't have, whether it's like $10, $50. And I'm sure maybe we still might come onto that as a subject, but I do find that really uncomfortable because there is a sense of peer pressure when it's like a famous person being like, you should be donating. Like I used to find it so hard to skip past somebody's like, go fund me for a race. And I would be like constantly. And I was like, do you know, I actually can't afford to do this anymore. Like you're all doing the marathon. I cannot donate. I haven't seen you for 15 years.

And I just was like, I can't do this anymore. And I think people feel that with celebrities and that is a bit sickening because I think they should just donate. Say I've given a million pounds. You guys give a pound if you want, but don't worry, I've covered you. So I think we're all kind of in agreement around Salida's tears,

but I want to ask you listener, to cry or not to cry online that is the question so this week I read a piece called we are all big brother now the largest system of surveillance isn't run by the government or corporations it's the grassroots panopticon we're using to judge one another and this piece was written by alan levinovitz and published in the boston globe last june it explores this idea that as tech advances into every area of modern life so we have smartphones we have cctv everywhere we have video doorbells and in-home camera systems we have drones etc etc our behavior

reflects that and we start to kind of distrustfully observe one another around the clock basically it concludes that we don't even need authoritarian governments to be keeping tabs on us we are already doing it to ourselves and each other we areilling, judging and keeping a beady eye on one another all the time. And he calls this the grassroots panopticon, which is a reference to a conceit by 18th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who realised that all inmates in a circular prison could be monitored by just one guard in a central tower. Since you could be observed at any moment, you would always have to assume that you were being observed and you would behave accordingly. So the piece looks at internet

vigilantes, cancel culture, and it asks the question, why are we all surveilling one another? And are we really so willing to give up on our privacy? It also asks if there's another side to this, if this civilian surveillance allows us to actually carry out something called suvalence, which is a reverse surveillance, where instead of us being watched from on high, we're the ones watching from below, observing our leaders and oftentimes our oppressors and holding them to account if they do wrong. So maybe it isn't as straightforward as it seems. And all of this got me thinking about the ways that we willingly share private information with one another. The huge fate of millennials, maybe us in this very

conversation, who share our locations and opt into these surveillance apps without seeming to think that we're doing much to invade our own privacy and kind of encroach on our right to do as we please without someone somewhere watching. It's a lot to get into but I want to ask you both firstly, reading this piece, were there any parts of it that you strongly agreed with, disagreed with, found shocking slash interesting slash terrifying? I really love this piece. I feel like it brought so many different layers to this subject and I found so many bits of it compelling. So there was one bit that reminded me of a film that I watched last week. The film was like kind of meh-meh, but it was a 2018 film called Under the Silver Lake and stars Andrew Garfield. And there

was a quote in it, and it goes, that's the modern persecution complex. Who needs witches and werewolves anymore, right? Now we have computers. I swear to God, at the very least, the entire population is suffering from mild paranoia. And that's exactly how I felt reading this piece. I feel like that kind of mild paranoia is what everyone feels because of the multiple ways we're being observed we're surveilling each other it's this general sense of never really being free to act as you want and this just general unease this kind of something's not quite right and I completely localize it to this like mass surveillance culture that we have. This is weirdly something that preoccupies me all the time. And it's, it was

kind of one of the seedlings, something I'm working on at the minute is this idea that I'm sure I said this to you guys before, but I got really fixated on the fact that I couldn't really disappear. It's quite hard to disappear if I wanted to, like, even if I shaved my head, got loads of cash out of a bank, got on a train, someone would see me. I'd be in the background of someone's picture. I'd get caught on CCTV. And I started to get really suffocated by this feeling that actually you are always being watched everywhere. And I thought it was interesting, the idea that there was, is there a positive to that in terms of like, we're all kind of, as you said, looking up, but maybe also looking out for each other. But it's one of the things that really freaks me out whenever I listen to parenting podcasts, as I want to do as an unmarried

childless woman pretty much every day. And they're always talking about how, you know, you should be able to track your children doing this and doing that because it's not safe. And people will be like, but years ago you could go out and do stuff. Basically, I think there's that yin and yang thing of where we feel, I think it's like a false sense of economy where we feel like we're safer because we have more ability to have tabs on each other. But then that works in the other way in that there's more ways for other people to find us as well or to search for things. So I think I am weirdly quite technophobic. And as someone whose job is extremely online and where I've shared so much about my life and myself, maybe that's heightened my distrust and dislike of this level of surveillance. But

it's something that I think is making us lose a sacred part of what it is to be alive, which is to be a flaneur, to explore, to enjoy. I think it ties into what we spoke about with recommendations culture. We're always tapping in, whether it's our location, our ideas, where we're going to go for dinner. I don't know. There's something about about it which I think must switch off a part of our brain that we will no longer have access to so I thought the piece was so so interesting and quite haunting it worries me again as all of these digital things do as we're seeing with AI how native they become how normalized it becomes to be able to track people to be able to be aware of everyone is at any given point in time again i'm just interested to see what will happen in 50

years time how that changes the nature of society and certain things which maybe feel nefarious or wrong which i don't think they are get lost and i think that will absolutely kind of maneuver the way in which we move around each other i think a lot of the marketing for surveillance apps for tracking apps for like camera services rests on the idea that there is something benevolent in it it relies on us thinking okay but this could be used for good this could be used to make us safe and reading this piece for the first time i'd come across the term surveillance so sue each of the opposite to sir in the French language, below, sir, above. Sue being like us as the masses being able to surveil and use that surveillance of

how we are being looked after or not looked after to hold oppressors and the state to rights. The example that he uses in the piece is the murder of george floyd in 2020 and he was killed by a white police officer and the footage of the murder which was taken by a teenage civilian and bystander to this spread like wildfire on social media it was huge mobilizer it catalyzed this movement and the righteous objections to what was systemic racism that ended in yet another murder of a black civilian by sort of a white militarized police officer and it was key piece of evidence also in the trial and getting the point of justice that is so often not given and there are these examples where this surveillance has done

and it's not good but you know it's kind of a rectifying of a severe and terrible wrong but for the most part it's used in other ways and it's used in other kind of racial aspects you think of something like next door which i don't know if either of you used when you know living in london living wherever but i was signed on to next door which is a kind of neighborhood forum and i got into so many rows on that because it would be people just being blatantly racist and conspiracy minded and kind of true crime brained and being like i've seen this man on my 16 home cameras and he's been lo brained and being like, I've seen this man on my 16 home cameras and he's been loitering. And it's just a black civilian walking along

the pavement and someone who has convinced themselves that they're in danger. So it's every single coin, there are two sides to it. Every single bit of useful tech is being used for good and also being used to penalise and criminalise someone going to the shops, I think it has genuinely introduced a level of delusion and paranoia that it feels like the water is drugged. It's so bad. And people have these cameras and I think it makes their brains not work anymore. And I do think if your elderly family member wants one of these, I think you have to seriously question them. Do you think you're in danger? Why do you want one of these? Are you just going to get addicted I didn't actually see anything too awful on there I just got so addicted I couldn't believe the levels of delusion but one that went really viral on Facebook and I

don't know why I said Facebook must have been Twitter but I'm sure you guys saw it was this man or woman they were like every single day this car drives down my road at 7am and then it drives again at 5pm every single day same number plate and then for months this has been happening and everyone's like they're going to work and then they're coming home it's employment and they like reported that number plate and stuff so again yeah it's a level of delusion that is is quite something to behold there was such a good quote in this piece talking about this very thing and i noted it down because it was just literally the nail on the head. It was quote, the harms of being surveilled may be obvious, but surveillance also degrades the people who engage in it. Our vision of humanity becomes distorted, ugly, fearful, judgmental.

And I completely, I completely agree with you both. I actually had a story that I remembered where a few years ago, I was going on holiday with a group of people. I knew them kind of well. They were more like friends of my boyfriend's. And one of the guys in this group is an Asian guy. He turned up to our mutual friend's house. We were all going to share a taxi together. The friend whose home it was where we were getting the taxi from got a WhatsApp from somebody in their building saying that a shady guy was loiter were getting the taxi from got a whatsapp from somebody in their building saying that a shady guy was loitering around the area and had anyone seen anything it was literally our friend and from that moment I thought this this is fucked this is so fucked no evidence people

will just panic but it not only panic it also gives people a real sense of power this is remind me of like gossip websites where people will report influences to social services because they've seen a clip of someone with the baby in the car without the seatbelt on the car was parked they don't know that it gives people this idea that they are god that they are actually the police and so as much as I have a lot of distrust in a lot of our systems I also would rather that they worked and functioned properly so that I didn't have to, than try and become an amateur sleuth, a vigilante. I think these two things do happen in tandem. I think there is a disillusionment from government bodies and from our social services because they aren't doing enough work. But then that has caused an

increase in people trying to go out and investigate murders, which is also tied into the true crime. It's all such a melting pot mix of things. And what really needs to happen instead of all of this kind of decentralized power being put out into the masses by giving us all the ability to become spies and agents and detectives, it would be so much better if there could be more money and funding being put into better use of police forces and better training on diversity inclusion, all of that kind of thing. I think that it gives, again, that false sense of security that actually we're making ourselves safer. I don't think it necessarily does. I think it gives the wrong people a false sense of power. And again, because all of this does cost money as well, it's also going to

mean that certain groups will be less advantageous in terms of even accessing some of these things that other people are, you know, camera'd up to the nines. And also one last thing, it is so weird how much we hate people ringing our doorbells. And we have come so far away from community and neighborliness that people will sit on their houses and watch the little video and be like, when I answer this person, no, it's not only surveillance, it's kind of like self-protection from interaction, even if it's with people that you know. There's so many elements to this. I just think they're all fascinating, but for the most part, I hate it. I have so many things to say. The one thing that I remembered as we were all talking about this, our surveillance culture can also be weaponized by institutions. And that's what

we saw during COVID when we were all kind of ratting each other out on social media for people breaking the one walk a day rule, for people we saw doing XYZ, going on holiday, being in groups of seven rather than six. We saw the government actively encourage us to do that by saying, would you like if somebody's nanny died because of you, that kind of rhetoric. And it really played on this feeling like you can't trust your neighbor. If your neighbor's acting out, they could kill your grandparents, your parents, your children. And also that was at the expense of many members of Downing Street being involved in Partygate, breaking rules on their own turf, and it coming out years later. So I think what I want to say is, we might think that it's truly democratic,

but really, it has the power to be weaponized against us. And we're just being used as pawns by government institutions, rather than them enforcing policies that would actively benefit us, like you said, Anoni, or investing in the NHS so that we have a working effectively working especially working during a pandemic system that would protect us and we don't have to dog each other in and feel like we have control over a situation we have no control in so there's that the second thing I was going to say is ring doorbells are fucking terrifying I had to write a piece about them and do do you know that they can video for up to two meters away from them and they can record audio from like a few meters away. So you could be literally having a conversation a few doors down and it could pick that up. And there have been multiple

instances of where people have been recorded and they're not even at the door that the ring doorbell was being used at and they've been recorded against their wishes and yeah there's no GDPR rules being enforced around that. Oh crim. When my sister's husband's dad got a ring doorbell like when they really first got invented Emily would always be like shh don't talk you can hear you when we got to the door she was so worried that I'd say something rude or something it would be like playing into the house because we didn't really know how it worked so she'd like in the car she'd stop the car and she'd be like right shh because he's got a ring doorbell and we just weren't allowed to say anything until

we got to the door which is funny but it also just fills me with like a real sadness that just we'd spent so many years just being able to have free conversations and not having to worry about these things and it alters our behavior Like we act different when somebody is watching versus when somebody is not. And we've just invited this at great cost, like great monetary costs and great costs to like ourselves and our souls into our lives wholesale. Everyone adopts it. We think that we're doing the right thing. It's like people buying guns. You go, if everyone's got one, I'm going to be safer. It just feels like mass adoption without too much thought. Like you don need one but you have one and the implications for everyone around you like even if it is just that people censor themselves or they walk up to your house that's

weird and it's bad and i don't want to be longing for a past era that didn't exist i don't want to be like needlessly precious about things like talking shit outside someone's house but god there must be some kind of sanctity to it and i think we perhaps don't think too much about our privacy in an age where we do give it away ham over fish we just we tick the box because it's so difficult to you know read someone's privacy policies data is so valuable and there's just been an erosion over i can't even call it the last two decades at least of like forgetting it is in our own interest to preserve as much of our privacy as possible you know it matters to control our private lives it matters that it is private when we want it to be

data can be used to discriminate control ruin reputations lead society down a path that we don't want it to do like real harm we all read george orwell's 1984 it we didn't do that as a laugh like it was a warning and i think we should take it as such and we should take it very seriously because every other day they're not just data breached like my contact lens company had data breached the other day i'm like is there no end to this like it feels like everything's everyone's business all of the time. But in some regards, I think we just have to hold on to what actually does belong to us and not give it away in exchange for a discount on a ring doorbell. Thank you so much for listening this week.

Make sure to listen to Wednesday's episode, which I got to enjoy as a fan as I was unwell for the record, where the girls discuss the TikTok fan. You can find us on Instagram and TikTok at everythingiscontentpod and follow us so that you can join in on the Everything in Conversation episodes and get the latest from us.

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