Everything Is Content - Match Of The Slay - a deep dive into Challengers

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

Game, set, match (is that what they say in tennis?!) This week on Everything Is Content join Beth, Ruchira and Oenone as we discuss what may well be the film of the year so far - Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers. We also dive into a debate that has fired up the running community and we discuss Chloe Burrows' new Channel 4 documentary - The Truth About Reality Love. We loved chatting with you guys in the DMs about Taylor Swift last week - if you have anything to say to us get in touch @everythingiscontentpod!—And if you’re looking for a way to brighten up your life on a budget, Beth’s book Romanticise Your Life is only 99p on Kindle for the rest of May. Through anecdotes, inspiring tips and journal prompts, Romanticise Your Life is a non-fiction guide to doing more of what you love, feeling like the main character & seeking the joy that’s already all around.—AUDIBLE: Green Wing ResuscitatedCHANNEL 4: Green Wing TATLER: Every photograph from Lady Lola Bute’s spectacularly indulgent 25th birthday partyROLLING STONE: Kendrick Did Everything He Needed to on ‘Euphoria’THE GUARDIAN: Challengers review – Zendaya holds court in absurdly sexy three-way tennis romanceGQ: How gay is challengers, really? LA TIMES: Law Roach breaks down Zendaya’s tennis-inspired ‘Challengers’ looks and ‘method dressing’YOUTUBE: Zendaya training for ChallengersRUNNER’S WORLD: When You Bandit a Race, You Ruin It For EveryoneCHANNEL 4: The Truth About Reality Love MEG GOLDBERGER: How much money I made from my breakup seriesOENONE FORBAT: Bad Influence—Follow us on Instagram:@everythingiscontentpod @beth_mccoll @ruchira_sharma@oenone ---Everything Is Content is produced by Faye Lawrence for We Are GrapeExec Producer: James Norman-FyfeMusic: James RichardsonPhotography: Rebecca Need-Meenar Artwork: Joe Gardner  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

okay let's go i'm actually buzzing about this week i want to talk about all of these things yeah sexual tension tennis and and tension and josh o'connor's thighs i'm beth i'm richara and i'm anoni this is everything is content your fave weekly pop culture podcast every week the three of us get together to give you our pop culture discourse debrief. We're all extremely online and we have a lot of thoughts to share with you about everything that the content universe has bestowed upon us this week. We are the lighthouse that will guide your content ship safely to shore. Today on the podcast, we are going to be talking sexual tension, tennis balls and a racy rule breaker. Have you subscribed yet you cheeky monkey? Make sure you... Who's the cheeky monkey? Make sure you do so you don't miss an episode.

Okay so what have we been loving this week girls? So I have been loving a return of Green Wing which I don't know if you guys watched it. It was just the most amazing channel for, I guess, sitcom. It's about 20 years old and had two seasons, classic UK TV being like super, super stingy. And it's back on Audible with like a brand new audio series with the whole original cast. And I am very excited to listen because i had amazing people in it like tamson greg olivia coleman um stephen mangan who i once saw buying like some pita breads in big sainsbury's in camden and i was like oh my god i wanted to approach him

i really love him um who else is that mark heap from fried night, the kind of interesting neighbour, like properly amazing British cast. And yeah, I'm just quite excited to listen to a series. It feels quite old school. Like I'm huddling around the wireless. I don't know anything about this. Can you treat me like I'm an alien and just honestly like over-explain everything to do with this? So it's set in a fictional UK hospital

with all the characters playing like various either medical or like registry. What's the word? No, like the office workers in hospital. I don't know what that's called. And it's so bizarre. It's bizarre in a similar way that Black Books was bizarre, like really surreal. You kind of think, OK, this is the real world and then there's like a someone's having sex in a wardrobe or like one of the doctors is sucking off someone's toes and it's just really strange it's got so much heart in it and it's like really emotional I think Tamsin Greig is one of my favorite actresses but it is properly weird I'm just laughing at you being like there's a doctor

sucking someone's toes there's so much heart in it. Yeah, the punctuation on that was not clear. Is it freaky? Like, I can't work out what you mean. It's freaky in that, like, it twists the, like, rules of reality. Okay. It's freaky also. It's quite sexy and smutty, but in a really odd kind of cringe way.

It's such a great, I think British people don't do much good sometimes but we are quite good at these weird sitcoms oh I'm gonna watch I would recommend you should do I'm gonna listen to the show and I will report back for anyone probably about nine people listening or not I'm talking about I think it was quite niche but I will report back what have you been loving Anoni? I have been loving looking at pictures of Lady Lola Butte's 25th birthday on Instagram I didn't know who she was either because we're both making faces at me but basically do you know Annie Dobble who does Annie's Ibiza the clothing yeah absolutely oh yeah she put a picture up on Instagram and she'd obviously dressed like Sienna Miller and Camille Sherry.

It was this like some young heiress's birthday and everyone at the party looked insane and Sienna Miller looked incredible. And it looked like that party in Saltburn. Everyone just looked so rich and so beautiful. Oh my God. And I've just really been looking at pictures of that. What's the handle so I can look at this in the bath later? So the actual girl, I think her Instagram's private, but if you go on Annie's Ibiza... No, go on Annie Doblae.

Annie A-N-N-I-E-D-O-B-L-E. Then go along to her third picture. And then win the gold dress and then swipe. Oh my God, yeah. And then if you swipe along, you'll see the lady whose birthday is who has got what looks like a fantastic pair of fake boobs and the shortest dress i've ever seen and it's completely backless i was gonna say that dress is like oh amazing that dress slash top obsessed a wuga

wuga i know that all all of that outfits are amazing so then i what i've done is i've got clicked on everyone clicked on everyone's tagged pictures people don't have parties like this anymore it's kind of like we were so excited about Victoria Beckham's lavish party people are not partying no but this honestly is like oh my god can you imagine it just looks so cool yeah it's like a manor or something right or like a country estate it's crazy and they've got those big like bedwin tents it literally is salt burn yeah so that's what I've been doing sorry it's not very highbrow i think it was mine i've just been stalking people on the internet i shouldn't use that lightly should i i was gonna say does somebody want to ask me sorry no we'll just say silence what have you been loving um thank you, Anoni, for asking.

So I have an update slash recommendation that I wanted to talk about. Kendrick Lamar has returned his diss track to Drake and it's called Euphoria. And it's so funny. In it, he basically just like says that he admits that he's just a massive hater of Drake. And he was like, I hate the way you talk. I hate the way you walk.

I hate the way you dress. He said, I hate the way you talk. I hate the way you walk. I hate the way you dress. He said, I hate the way you use the N word in songs. It's not deep. I just find it deeply cringe. We're now cooking with gas in this rap kind of battle between the two. And now I'm interested. That sounds like what she says

in the 10 things I hate about you film. That is what I was about to say. And the thing I hate the most. You'll never guess what. So Champagne Pappy literally replied with that gif of her saying that to the thing yeah oh my god oh i quite like this it's getting a bit like this is up my straws and now i can get more itchy yeah yeah they've they've added all of us pop culture is now in the mix is you know it includes us he's so catty isn't he drake he is a bitch and i kind of mean that in quite a complimentary way like he's such

a cow you guys are gonna die in the in the thing he also alludes to drake getting plastic surgery to get his abs oh no not an abdectomy i know is it like a boot what do they do there they're putting like silicone slabs in like boom jobs maybe because i know you can get ab etching yeah oh can't you just contour maybe that's what the girlies do can you sue for defamation from a rap battle like could they or not if it's in a song yeah i don't see why not it's anything like tweets literally i was talking on this podcast you could literally sue for anything for defamation if it takes your character down right oh wild i know that i don't know if america's are as like litigious about that kind of stuff as we are like obviously the british press or the british um press always getting sued because we have such strict defamation laws maybe that's why

we don't have the kind of fun rap beefs but in the u.s don't they just love suing people like i swear they're just suing everyone left right and center i remember being in miami and like all the billboards were like for lawyers and i was like that's so weird yeah that's so true they love having lawyers that a cool soul maybe we should have a lawyer this week saw the release of Challengers the film that everyone and their dog and their grandma and everyone with a pulse has been talking about online it's from our fave cult director luca

guadagnino i hope i said that right um the director of call me by your name challenges is i would say a sexy thriller sports drama starring zendaya as Tashi a former tennis prodigy turned coach who is coaching her husband Art played by Mike Feist. Art ends up going up against Patrick played by Josh O'Connor who aka I think just comes off as a complete heartthrob fuckboy and is he's so sexy um who is art's best friend and tashi's ex-boyfriend so what did we make of the film oh i i loved it i went to see it like a 3 p.m screening and there were like nine people in there and it was like a really good energy like it was a really reactive crowd for a film that i think was just excellent unlike anything i've ever seen and no you've not

seen have you no i'm so devastated I'm like desperate to see and everyone I've spoken to has just said it's like the best film they've ever seen and it's so horny so horny so I have a I have a kind of like half and half take on this where it's like I think it was a three out of five film for me but on the vibe scale it was like 10 out of five it was just like off the charts and I feel like I loved the experience of it it was kind of just like as soon as I got out I was like okay I don't think I love this as a film but I think I was obsessed with it and I can't stop thinking about it since but I think bits of the narrative are a bit like melodramatic and like there's one bit

where the camera scenes just go out of control you'll be so excited to watch this but at one point you're pov the ball just going back and forth on the tennis court and I was like dying like guys do we need this so what three out of five that's interesting in what sense in the what is that scale is that like quality of film or script writing or like what do you know what I mean for me the thing that like took me out of it was and this is this is just something that can't be helped Zendaya looks quite young to me she reads quite young so when they age her up and she's playing the like present day scenes I just kept being like but that's just Zendaya in a bob that's just just chic Zendaya as a 20-year-old. I don't believe that she's 30 or 40. And then also, she was amazing in it,

but there was a few scenes when she's playing her sassy, take-no-shits-she-o vibe, that it slipped into slight melodrama for me. And I was like, she was walking and strutting off, and at one point, she just looked like her shoulders were swinging back and forth. It just felt like I had to laugh at those bits but i don't think you were meant to what is it it's very bob centric it is as she gets older she just loses not loses hair but like inches from her hair i think whereas the lads in it they i think they did a really good job

of making them look like kind of grisly or like a lot older one of them you know they both have different fortunes basically and they arrive at this point in their 30s and you see them you know one's a bit more kind of wizened than the other but they look older whereas she they just maybe it's just impossible because she's ageless and timeless and gorgeous to do that yeah didn't have the budget i also wonder if with men they like it's easier to make them look younger in that they can kind of like smooth them out a bit and then they just show their wrinkles whereas zendaya what is there to smooth which is why I'm surprised they didn't like CGI a bit of aging onto her face yeah just a touch just a tad it's mostly like the fact that she's decked out in Chanel and then just the bob that's like oh this is you know this 10 20 years apart

that's that's kind of the vibe I think bodily though she's very good at she transforms throughout the film from she's so youthful and so free in that and she's very good at she transforms throughout the film from she's so youthful and so free in that and she's like 18 when we first meet her and then she's I think 31 and I think she kind of becomes she's very good at holding herself as the different ages I thought which you know that that was I think as powerful for me I would have loved just one wrinkle but do you think this is like the movie of the year yeah I think so powerful for me. I would have loved just one wrinkle, but. Do you think this is like the movie of the year? Yeah. I think so far, yeah.

Just like the frenzy is caused. And like, I think in the same way that Barbie felt like the whole world was experiencing it in this like monolithic way and just getting so frenzied by it. I think this is doing the exact same thing. I was going to say on Barbie, because I haven't seen the film,

but I've been obsessed with the press tour and with Law Roach's outfits that he's been pulling from the archives. And like there was one dress that she wore, this beautiful like green chiffon. It was like stunning. And someone was like, oh, Law literally found it from, it was in a trunk with loads of other like 1930s dresses and they got it dyed exactly to match like the color of a tennis ball.

And it's like perfectly preserved silk. It's like so gorgeous. And then she had like the shoes with the big like the tennis balls on the shoes and I oh the dresses with the tennis I just thought the outfits for me it's been amazing that being said I was like are we gonna get really tired because this feels like after Barbie that was such a big thing she had like so many Barbie outfits and then Zendaya's done it for this film and I was like oh my god I love it but is everyone going to do that now for every film are they going to dress like because I think it's quite quickly might get a bit boring I think lots of films will try and replicate it but I think it takes a lot of talent to create frenzy like that

and I think Law Roach is like the best in the game in fashion styling he just is like unmatched unreal I don't know he obviously only styles a select few of the like top echelons so I don't think anyone else can just easily do that and I think with the Barbie thing it was such an untapped resource all the kind of Barbie looks that no one had gone there I struggled to think if anyone can just you know do that so easily yeah and it was less like the way law did it it's so clever because some of it was quite on the nose like she had a dress with literally like a picture of the movie beaded or like tennis rackets and stuff and it just looks so good also complete side note but I become obsessed with the fact that Zendaya is obsessed

with wearing white Louboutin pointy heels as like once you look it up she wears them all the time she must have like 50 pairs and I think they're first of all the ugliest shoe I think a white shoe is such a weird shoe

but she always and I'm obsessed like Google pictures she's always got them on it was also in the film she's like at 18 she's wearing this kind of like

dorky dress when she's an adult she's really you know wearing like designer clothes but she's wearing this like dorky dress and then these

gym shorts in that incredible scene which is hinted at in the trailer when they're like you know wearing like designer clothes but she's wearing this like dorky dress and then these gym shorts in that incredible scene which is hinted at in the trailer when they're like in the hotel room and they're both kissing her neck and she's got this like oh that's I think the styling of this was so fun um she was so believable in that like she's got these little dinky little shorts on and it's so like youthful and fun and she's like yeah i've got these my little white boys kissing my neck that i loved they said one thing in an interview which is tennis is sex and sex is tennis and i can't stop thinking about that after because it's so true where it's like the court is where they're like love and the passion for each other comes out but like in the bedroom is where the like power play between like control comes out so like that symbiotic relationship

between the two things is like so so fun to watch i didn't anticipate that that the metaphor would be so complete with like tennis has these many many meanings and like it had to be tennis it couldn't be like any other sport it's never that like one-on-one that intent that like lustful how sexy is it how much sex in terms of like actual sex it probably hasn't got the most sex scenes but in terms of sexiness which is a different thing i would say it's a it's a nine if not ten out of ten i'm trying to think it always seems to be building up or just happened or talking about it or like doing all of those other things unless i went to the loo at that bit and they were all getting it on the other thing i was going to say that i think is making this film great is

again watching the press like zendaya seems to get on with the two guys so well in real life the fact that they all seem to get on so well i'm not surprised that if the steaminess is sort of like off the richter scale there's amazing chemistry like so so good I just miss that I miss that they're flirting things in films and like properly people should get horny and they do get horny in this film yeah it made me think that I really love sexual thrillers like the idea that you know the stakes aren't murder or violence it's just like the power between people who like really fancy the shit out of each other and i feel like salt burn did that in bits but then just like obviously narratively just like went off the rails and like went full-on crazy but like those those elements i find so

interesting to watch one thing i noticed was i feel like this was not done for the straight men i feel like it was done for the girls and the gay men because there's just so many scenes of like the two men just like on the court like shirtless and like sweat dripping off them but when you look at Zendaya all I thought was just like she seems so powerful on the court and you see her like leg muscles and you see her backhand but with them it's just like their literal bodies the sweat is unbelievable like the feel it's just like their literal bodies. The sweat is unbelievable. Like the feel is so like celebratory of bodies and like the wet stuff that comes off them. It's like, I've never,

I really want to know how they wet these men. Like, is it water? It looks thicker than water. Is it a blend? I want to know what's going on because they are dripping. I think it's actual sweat because I've seen videos of them training.

Oh my God, it's amazing. There's a seen videos of them training oh my god it's amazing there's a video of Zendaya and she's like they have a stunt I don't know if it's stunt double because it's tennis but they have someone else like doing it and they learn to mirror their exact moves like they spend ages training it's amazing to watch they spend hours and hours like learning how to genuinely be like incredible in the tennis court and you watch them like their feet move at the exact same person at like time as their stunt person so it's almost like watching a shadow and I was like wow how amazing to be coached for a film like that's just fun anyway I would still be shit you could train me in tennis for like eight years and I wouldn't be able to do it but I think they might actually

be really sweating do you think that you would take up tennis in light of this film because I feel like there's a bit of me that's like maybe I should be a tennis player well I actually did try to take up tennis a few years ago because I decided to buy a tennis outfit and then was like well where can I wear this tennis court I got full Nike court outfit that I didn't realize was like really proper professional so then I like went to go and play I bought the trainers and everything I had socks socks, like literally a skirt, a top, a cap, a jumper, socks and trainers. And then I went to play with my ex in the park and everyone was like kind of stopping

because I was so dressed up. I think they thought, oh my God, she's going to be like a professional. And then I couldn't help at all. Oh my God, they were trying to work out who you were. They were like kind of slowing down because I had a full outfit on, cap, socks, everything. So yeah, but I do want to play

because I think it's such a cool thing to be able to do agreed the grunting is amazing i think you do have to have a signature grunt and like the grunting this film you know of course there's a lot of it and you're it's quite um laden with innuendo but you've got to have one you've got to be so free that you can just like grunt what would your grunt be i'd be very self- I think. I think I would kind of like hide behind my hand. Imagine if it came out like really high pitched and you were like every time. So Challengers is now out in cinemas.

Please go watch it. We absolutely adored it. And let us know what you think for sure. Tell us on Instagram. so at the weekend an ex-user who actually i'm going to let remain unnamed ran the brooklyn half marathon um she did okay she had a good She didn't stop. She was very happy with herself. Plot twist. She never actually properly formally entered the race. What?

And she did it with no training. She said she was up till 10pm the night before and day of, saw it was happening, thought, I'm going to get involved. And posted about it afterwards to her Instagram followers. She wrote, when people ask me what being fearless is, it's like asking security where the race starts and where it ends.

You never have it all figured out, but you rely on yourself because that's all you have in life, you. And this inspirational, this faux inspirational quote was met with a tiny bit of support and mostly overwhelming criticism she has been labeled a marathon bandit which is a term i have just now learned but it is very widely used apparently for stealing the marathon for having no business being there and competing in it apparently it's a serious enough problem that they've had a term for it can i just say that x is absolutely cursed and elon musk is so dumb because she's deleted that tweet and it just comes up and then at the bottom just says this post has been deleted so it's like the whole thing is still there but it says it's been deleted oh i see what you mean

what the hell i see what you mean it's it's glitching out the caption that she wrote i mean it's so long and so self-congratulatory I just was like of course you snuck into the marathon yeah she's like an entrepreneur I think is it ironic is she doing it to take the piss because I read it as her being ironic and I just have only realized now that might not be the case it's earnest completely earnest I think that's her she's an entrepreneur who does like kind of fearlessness training or something so she was being like very much like here's a lesson you can glean from me it was quite linkedin-esque i think i'm so surprised because somebody wrote in the comments they were like do better and then she

replied with a smiley face like doing my best or like i don't know just like replying like that so i i honestly assumed it was a massive prank guys have you seen she's done an apology i did see the apology i think it's quite um it's done an apology I did see the apology I think it's quite um it's not people aren't happy with the apology is what I'll say I made a terrible mistake I thought that I was engaging in something uplifting that would inspire others to do the same I mean I just think the whole thing is so funny I do think that it's so unfair to people that have like paid to compete and also it's a charitable thing isn't it but i think what's so funny about it is it would be just as inspiring or perhaps more interesting if you just ran a marathon like

go out the house and just run you don't need to like do the race but people on the internet would not be able to find a way to be cross about that and i do agree with you completely i think it's very bad form um and she kind of pleads ignorant she kind of goes look i'll do better i won't do this again which really should be the end of it um but I was like what truly what's wrong with this and then I had to do my reading and it is because people pay that there's a limited amount of resources they kind of within their entry fee they get like water and um like gummies I guess that help you run faster I don't really know um toilets because obviously running fast and far you get your bowels don't like that as you know who can forget uh was it paula radford i was gonna

say do they give you lose because i thought that's why everyone was like doing poos i think there's poor to lose which are rented and the more people obviously are on the space queuing for those lose you would be very cross so i get it that this is a thing that goes on it's quite annoying but anyone outside the marathon community should not care about this I don't think I think the problem is because it's like there's only a finite number of spaces and some people it's like their lifelong dream or lots of people do run marathons in order to like raise money for charities really close to their hearts so I think it's really silly but I also empathize with the people that feel jilted by it I think also because her post was just i read it as so smug that's what was quite

insulting i think also do you think there's something in the fact that she was like opening like i drank loads of wine the night before and i feel like people can be quite puritanical over being like i trained for like six months i didn't touch alcohol makes me think marathons aren't that hard i know it's hard to say and only i mean i can't run 5k so I will say that so I'm coming back from Paris to London on the 19th of May to do the Hackney half and all my friends because I haven't seen them are like oh well let's do something and I'm like won't let anyone see me because I'm too scared that we'll like end up going to the pub and I'll accidentally end up staying out till like four in the morning or something and then just be bombing around and it it'd be so embarrassing. Oh my God. Have you registered for this race, Anonia?

Are you? Yeah, I'm on it. Yeah, I promise. You're not going to print out someone else's bib. I know I seem like I'm a fun time gal, but I'm actually such a goody two-shoes and like quite scared about like breaking rules and stuff. And I get so worried about that.

I could never do that. Ruchira could, I sense. No. I think Ruchira could do this. No way. No way. That's why it's thrilling watching people like Anna Delvey do their business. You know the scammer who like scammed

the whole of New York because I'm just like in my mind I'm like oh imagine like if I lied to one person I would like immediately tell them that I'd like lied. Yeah I do love shamelessness like that. I think if people do it and they're like look I couldn't get a space but I really want to do it and like I'll just sneak in and don't tell anyone. I'm like that's quite nice. I think if people do it and they're like look I couldn't get a space but I really want to do it and like I'll just sneak in and don't tell anyone I'm like that's quite nice I think it was the sort of like look how clever I am and it's like you just like handed yourself in yeah because she wanted to inspire people she had completely kind of great motivations even if she was trying to promote her own business she had really wholesome motivation to do this and everyone was like electric chair like properly furious is it a huge issue i'd love

to talk to a marathon organizer who could say listen this actually is a scourge on our community that you know ruins these events or is it just like a little fringe issue that can't be encouraged and it's it's these things getting out of their original communities like in the marathon community they've probably been talking about this for years quite happily now it's loose and they've got they've got me talking about it like that's when you know you've lost the plot it the kind of the horses jump the stable or something but i have to say running is so in i don't know what's happened but everyone is running these days it's like you cannot move like four minutes or an inch but before you come across someone wearing one of those little vests yeah i really like i love running and i'm really pro i'm pro people being bad at running and like not caring about it

it's quite nice it's like everyone signed up to the marathon and i've got loads of friends that like i really hope i'd have to do this marathon now i was inspired for 45 minutes and now i don't want to do it so i was in london with the when the london marathon was happening and i like saw a bit of it when did everyone get to do this like superhuman feat like in my mind doing a marathon from when I was younger was like that is a giant deal you were trained for like a year of your life only like a select few of us could ever be able to do something that much but there was like thousands of people I saw lined up and like I don't understand I completely agree with her I thought the same thing and I thought it was for only really sporty people but I think what is actually amazing about the marathon is

there are people that walk the whole way around or like go really slowly in costume but they do it and they do it and when they do it they are doing it everywhere they are flying around the world bloody run around oh my god bloody ultra marathons as well like that's that's the next one i do feel like i don't know if um sounds like a cult have done an episode on this but there definitely needs to be something on the cult of marathons because i feel like it's a gateway into ultra marathons and like it does sound like people get quite addicted in quite positive way for their life but like it does sound quite like addictive i went out with like a serious runner and he just didn't seem to enjoy it because he

was so focused on that like i've got to get sub two hours or whatever would come out of it really miserable whereas some people who do it in like eight hours for you know a friend or whatever and in a turkey suit have the best time and they're like buzzing so i do think you can get too into and this is probably true of anything you get too into it yeah take it too seriously honestly on instagram all these people now have gotten to running and done a marathon there's a girl i follow she literally just got 26 miles tattooed and she's suddenly like her whole life is now about marathon running and i agree about what you said richard about ultras like people start and then they keep going have you seen that spencer matthew's doing 30 marathons in 30 consecutive

days and they all have to be on sand what because he's trying to break a guinness record if that was my husband i'm like why do you want to be at the house so much what is going on here that's what vogue williams said she's like you've got two like three young kids oh my god if you are a marathon runner if you've accidentally signed up to the marathon if you have any strong opinions on this or no more than we do which probably wouldn't be hard um do let us know at everything is content pod on instagram so we've all watched the new chloe burrows documentary called the truth about reality love which was on channel four but you can watch it on YouTube. And I didn't know what to expect.

I'm always a little bit dubious about documentaries that are being fronted by kind of ex-contestants. But actually, I thought she did quite well. And I really enjoyed seeing some of the like older Love Island contestants. The show is basically about her investigating sort of like real and fake relationships

and how famous couples use their relationship as a means to earn more money or to get more credibility or fame or whatever it might be and so in the documentary she kind of gets a paparazzi to follow around with this other guy that was on too hot to handle and she gets stories in the press about her going on dates and shows how easy it is it's a fun watch it's kind of interesting some of it did feel ever so slightly like facetious to me because there's some bits where she's acting really shocked or like they're talking about figures and numbers and they're like that's amazing and I felt a little bit like

I feel like you're deceiving us here because I feel like you would know this what did you guys make of it I did enjoy it yeah i thought she i thought she was well placed to front it because it made sense of her doing the prank of like getting you know a showmance in the papers and like i think some of it was like a bit obvious to things we know but it helped to have that kind of proven and like the stats to back it up or like celebrity pr people confirming what we've always kind of suspected about you know showmances and stuff like that yeah because they had who's that guy Dave Reed who was an agent I think for like Joey Essex like big name and he was just talking

she interviews him in the most plain speak about how this stuff happens I was like oh wow that's quite a move he was like yep happens make loads of money they do this this this and of course he doesn't name names but it feels a little bit affronting I was like oh he's just he's just saying it that I found quite interesting even though I knew it to be true I think yeah the paparazzi stuff was what was so interesting to me because funny enough I there's a new hot couple that are out and about and I don't want to spread rumors but I was talking to a friend last night and they were saying how like isn't it interesting how that person wasn't really ever really packed with their ex.

And now they have this new partner that's only being photographed all the time. I really think that they're calling the pups on them. And then you watch this show and then you think about it. And actually real old fashioned paparazzi, like the kind of Diana through the bushes, long lens photography. It's never that like it's very infrequently.

Is it someone on a beach from ages away? They're so clear. I basically think every single picture in the Daily Mail is phoned in. Especially for these like respectfully like C to Z list celebrities. Disrespectfully. Yeah, sorry.

Disrespectfully, amendum. It's just so obvious that they call the paparazzi on themselves. Now having watched this documentary and getting the confirmation that loads of people do that because paparazzi are not like monitoring, I don know like geordie shaw celebs instagrams or like monitoring those kind of celebrities they're going to go for like the a-listers so if you are getting

on like the sidebar of shame i'm so so so confident if it's not an event you've just called them yourself it's really i mean it's not dark but it's really exhausting to think about like the machinations of trying to remain famous when you are in that precarious position of like okay I'm famous because of reality tv show my fame relies on these people it's like a weird value exchange with someone who in other contexts would be happy to like ruin your life with pictures it just seems like dancing with the devil a bit as interesting as I found it I just thought do you know what fame is not for me it's not a natural state I think for found it I just thought do you know what fame is not for me it's not a natural state I think for a person to remain in so you know they are doing all that work

it was seeing how the sausage was being made to the to the point where I'm like this is old we're all just doing a little play and we're pretending we don't know what's happening it's like exactly the same bath it's like they call this paparazzi who takes pictures of them, who then emails it to like a newspaper. And then they like take a cut of the money. And then the newspaper prints it. And it's just like this big like circle, cycle. And we're all just like letting this happen. And none of it is real.

And it's like the pictures aren't from that day. The stories aren't even true. Like everything is fiction and fantasy. Everything is content. Everything is content. It almost feels like believing in santa a little bit too long to be an adult who thinks that anything really a celebrity is telling us is true and is transparent it feels i understand why you'd want to maintain the fantasy because we all have these parasocial relationships that do uh kind of serve us in some way but

you kind of just have to to wake up to it a bit and this felt like that and hopefully with the reach it will get because chloe burrows is a really personable um presenter and it's what is it a channel four untold series which i think does get a good viewership i hope it will be a little wake-up call to people that don't quite know or haven't cared to know the other thing that i keep i keep coming back to this because it i just find it so funny it's like the concept of a paparazzi photo the whole concept behind it is like it's a candid out in the wild and that's been completely that isn't what that is anymore do you know what i mean yeah so there was a 2000s where it was

candid to with the view to humiliating yeah the person god look how big she is god look here she's got you know she looks awful and now we've come back around it's all full face glam or if they're not looking good it's by their own like they want to be looking a little bit disheveled because it sells a story before during that time there wasn't this like massive gulf of like middling famous people who want to be more famous and push themselves up into the a-list bracket before it was like Perez Hilton you know like humiliating as you said Paris Hilton Lindsay Lohan you know like all of these like young women now the people who are their age now have probably

just come out of Love Island and need to leverage more money so they're like begging to be papped and they're like begging to be I don't know surveilled in the way that those people were like hating it and you're right they did use it was always like pictures of women on the beach and they'd be like say like and comparing all the bodies that was that was awful but the daily mail does this new thing now where they will maybe have pictures of someone they don't like on the beach and then they'll just put a really obnoxious headline like so and so stuns when it's like quite obvious that they think this pitch is like unflattering because they're trying not to get told off for being like body shaming when they are body shaming anymore it's so cloak and dagger

what i couldn't believe the when they were some of the cops were talking about how they get paps to take pictures of them pretending to have an argument i was like i couldn't debase myself that much because like first of all it's embarrassing to have an argument in public but then to pretend to have an argument in public to get a photograph to put in the papers i just couldn't i just couldn't do that for a bit of cash yeah what was that it was cara who i love i really like them actually she looked beautiful yeah i love them as a couple i also think it's i don't know there's something that like makes me feel like really sad about it because you're selling cracks in your relationship and like

promoting all of these like issues and tensions in your relationship that aren't real for the sake of money and you're like spinning all of these like narratives about something that for many people is like a massive part of their life they're like soulmate or their partner or something it just feels like the most personal intimate thing suddenly becomes like so like I agree I don't even know what I'm trying to say it's not sacred anymore nothing is sacred I thought I wouldn't care about this but watching it I was like do you know what there's so little sanctity in this world we're in a really a strange place I think love and like the relationships we have and the importance of those it's one area that I think we can all agree like when everything else falls away that is what matters and so to kind of play around with that for a paycheck

I think it violates something and what maybe that is just me being quite holier than thou I don't know but I really was quite revolted I also because I wrote about this in bad influence because I had one relationship that I was very public about and then now my relationship I don't really share because of some of the things they talked about in the show which is where like people got way too invested you feel like you're being monitored I also felt like the quality of my relationship was actually really tainted by the amount that I shared it and that like it was like social media was like there was three of us in the marriage and one of them was Instagram um and I also think like sometimes if you're taking pictures with a view to like show your audience that you're together like you might end up like having an argument because you can't get the right picture.

And it's like that shouldn't be something that you're factoring in. I thought that they really were trying to shoehorn too much this idea of like if we get a couple because I don't think that's actually what happens. Like obviously you could like get new followers and we do see it sometimes where like famously Amelia de Moldenberg did that fake relationship with age but everyone got really cross about that PR relationship to like kind of you know leverage each other's followers and people have shared managements whatever I think the bigger issue is more like when a couple's been together for a really long time and they've built their business off like being a couple like Emma Louise Connolly and Proud Dot come to mind as like someone that like they're a really united front and I always worry like if something was to happen with a really big couple would you have to sit down and be like we can't break up because our business and like our brand is us as a couple and like there's been

whispers and rumors about like the beckons for years that it's all like kind of a facade although they seem very loved up lately I think they're really loved up too but yeah definitely there is an element there is where it's like if you give the public that much access you also then realize that you've lost the ability to have like the same freedom you would to whether it's like break up or move on or like make some big change it's like I learned that I've got to put those boundaries up and women often do fall foul in this in any breakup even if they both come out with exactly same statements even if it's like no one did anything wrong oddly it's always the woman i remember who was that that kind of youtubey couple jim and tanya oh yes i mean i don't know what

happened but that was a really public kind of uncoupling of two people that had grown up gotten married in the kind of youtube heyday and that is forever you know it'll always follow both of them around even now i like i think i did the last periodic check-in on of them on their socials a few months ago yes i'm a freak don't worry about it um and they they will still get comments on pictures you know talking about them and it's just like it's been it's been years since they've been together they've got different partners or they did the last time I checked so it's bizarre I still get DM sometimes people being like wait are you still with so-and-so and it's like no we broke up like three years ago but a whole new boyfriend babe but it's like they suddenly are just like wait where is that guy and I'm like no babe no

everyone's a character everyone's like a side character in like these normal people's lives um and that's really strange and like it's invited a lot of the time because they go this is great people get really invested that equals money that equals continued fame but then when it turns on you and like a character is not recurring must be so painful it's just it's reminding me I literally last week got a message being like um did you ever do a youtube video or like a blog or somewhere I can read about why you and your ex broke up I obviously didn't reply I was like no I haven't done a youtube explain because people are just like oh I want to know like the ins and outs I was like no the entitlement but also no it was literally so blunt as well I was like what a weird message to send someone also just so funny that like it's just so nosy and I know that like that's part of like being

online but like you can't just be like can you actually just tell me your private information because I follow you on Instagram oh my god anonilaw.com although I did actually write about it in my book to be fair they could just read that buy anoni's book now yeah buy the book you should have sent a link to the amazon I didn't even think about that I was like no I don't have a youtube my truth is that like I privately would be asking the same question that girl asked you but I would never message somebody about it but I would want the tell-all I'm not gonna lie yeah I mean I love don't get me wrong I absolutely love to gossip I think it's just so funny because it's actually taught me not to be as nosy because sometimes I catch myself saying something or thinking something. And then I remember like that I am on the receiving end of something sometimes.

And it does make you slightly more conscious of the way that you consume stuff about people and also how much you kind of. Because God, it's so easy just to make stuff up about someone in your head and just decide it's true. Do you know what I mean? There was a TikToker and I'd never heard of this person before. They've got about 200,000 followers. So like a proper, you know, that's their, they're a jobbing creator. And they did a series about their recent breakup. And they stayed, the last video I saw of them was talking about how much it made them in

like the creator fund on TikTok. And it was, I quite liked that. And I liked in the Clary Burrows documentary about like the few bits where it's about like pay transparency and the actual money to be made I think this girl made just under a grand

from a series of videos talking about her most recent breakup like as it was happening and she was like yeah listen I made this money and I don't regret it

Do you know what else is so interesting like thinking about reality TV but like Made in Chelsea after the first season basically the way you got on was by dating a cast member or like they would ask people to go on but you had to be single so loads of people go on that show

have a girlfriend be made to be like the love interest of tiffany watson or whatever that show is actually so funny when you boil it down because it is just a dating show they just basically cast people out to try and find if you look back at the history of who i mean all of them have dated each other i love those early seasons yeah the rotations they've run out so they've had to just like recast the entire show i am watching it now by the way oh my god no i actually want to go back in because i haven't watched for years but i saw weirdly a clip i don't know what i was watching maybe we got an ad or something and it looks so juicy and i was like oh shit maybe i want to watch that's how they get you they they know what they're doing they just like dangle the carrot of like next time and then i just have to keep watching so

many people from my school have been on that show and only what yeah oh can you name drop melissa tatum digby actually millie mcintosh um what oh my god hugo millie i love them those two by the way that's probably that's like a reality tv couple that i love can you believe that she married professor green in the middle of all that? I know. I really forget this bit of history for them both. But I loved that old series. The funniest thing is, I can't remember if she said it on a podcast or it was like a chit chat podcast. But basically, in the first episode, Millie's going out on a date.

And guess where she's going on the date? It's Cafe Concerto. Oh, really? Yeah, which is like the trashiest place ever. It's like tourist trap central. To be fair though when i didn't live in london i used to think kathy concerto was so cool it looks cool but it's a tourist trap m&m world with binky so if you guys want to watch the documentary it is on youtube

or channel 4 and yeah it's a nice easy watch and some of your old faves might be on there. We had some really brilliant and some quite spicy DMs after our discussion about Taylor Swift in last week's episode. There was one from Bandy who said, completely disagree with you on Taylor Swift discourse. Your conversation with being fatigued by Taylor Swift is, I think, centered around sexism. Have we ever had conversation around being fatigued by a man? Men who dominated pop culture once,

Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, Drake, David Beckham, the list goes on. Men are allowed to be in these spaces and we always celebrate their success. I think they still get scrutinized, but not as much as women. So that was a meaty one and one I sort of had to think about quite a bit because when it is conversations that say, well, this is around sexism, just because we're three women, we can participate in sexism. We can see things through a lens of, you know, a prism of misogyny. But having thought about it, I thought maybe it wasn't fully true about how men can't sort of feel oversaturated and don't get that

same critique. And I said in response that, you know, Kanye West, there was a point where you could not move for coverage of Kanye West do you think that's fair what do you think yeah I also think what's difficult is of course there will be sexism because that is the world we live in like the women are always criticized more to the point that I almost think it's like unremarkable to comment on it because women ask you to nice more for everything just blanket that's not to do with taylor swift that is just the way the world works and women are always you know it's always worse when a woman does it so like forget about the sexism angle for a minute and just i think that's it's a point but i don't think it's i don't think it's like it's not because she's a woman it's specifically what

she's doing i think that was but i'm worried again because actually some of you are really upset with me not liking taylor and i do i do not not I do not I respect the hustle and I like some of the tunes um I can see the point and I can understand it and I think it is really valid in terms of women are scrutinized in a way that men are just not but I have to say um when I was raising the point of overexposure, that wasn't coming from a perspective of Taylor's the only other person I felt that about. Yeah, I completely agree. Yay.

Got it bad from me like a year or so ago. I was just sick of hearing about him. And also even Drake with this rap battle, when he was just going back and forth with these songs, I was like, it's just, it's just annoying. You're, you're being annoying. I can't speak for everyone else calling Taylor oversaturated, but I can speak to my own internalised misogyny and say, I'm not perfect, but I don't think it was coming out here.

And not to compare Taylor Swift to Piers Morgan, but there was a time as well when you couldn't get away from Piers Morgan and that really pissed me off. Yeah, it's that. There's definitely been men that I felt have been like just get off my screen it's interesting I mean we did get some flack for not having listened to the album I think we just got too excited to talk about the album and fair enough we didn't we hadn't all finished it and we were talking about it we hadn't that in that episode listened to it in full at that point of recording and so that is I guess a fair critique but um we were more talking

about generally even if you hadn't listened to any of the music even if you're like my mum I'm sure my mum could tell you so many things about Taylor Swift and she doesn't even know who she is yeah I will say it was very nice to kind of come off the episode and I always learn from you guys every single week and then to go into the DMs and to continue the conversation I actually found that really interesting you know it was maybe a bit confronting at first I was like oh my god we've got something wrong how could this be and then having read it was all you know very considered and I thought okay actually this is just another perspective Beth you don't need to burst into tears we had one Swifty who messaged us as well which I thought was really interesting she said that she was a massive Swifty but she really felt

as if she related to the point of overexposure and just was talking about her experience of like being able to see both sides so i don't i think it's interesting also to get i guess the nuance in that of like having somebody who is a massive fan of her who agrees with us having fans who don't agree with us having people who don't listen to taylor and disagree with us yeah it was just interesting it also just it just shows how much people obviously are really messed up because some of the messages are quite like emotionally charged so people clearly do genuinely really care for and maybe that's like it means that we are looking at it

from a different lens because we don't have that emotional connection to her so we're kind of zoomed out like i was very defensive of adele so maybe I would be DMing an anti-Adele podcast. Just to make clear, we're not an anti-Taylor podcast. Sorry. And then he's leaving yet again. And then he stopped cancelling us. So whether you agree with us or not, we'd just love to kind of continue these conversations

over on our Instagram in the comments or in the DMs. We are at everythingiscontentpod. So get your butts over there. That's all from us this week. Go back and check out our interview episode with Eliza Clark if you haven't already. And then let us know if there's anyone else you'd love to hear us chat to.

We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. Bye. Everything is Content is a great original podcast and we're part of the acast creator network this podcast was created devised and presented by us beth mccall ritura shama and anoni the producer is faye lawrence and the executive producer is james norman fife