Everything Is Content - Overconsumption, Paul Mescal’s Runs and The Stanley Cup

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

Hello 2024! In our first episode of the year we discuss: INS AND OUTSThe Ins and Outs list meme is well and truly IN. Why has this trend won us over so much this New Year?THE STANLEY CUPWe take a long sip from the water bottle of the moment...2024 READING GOALS A new year means it’s time to discuss our reading goals for 2024. —BBC: The Traitorshttps://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0db9b2t/the-traitors?seriesId=m001ttsm VULTURE: ‘Real Housewives of Salt Lake City recap: Reality Reckoning’ https://www.vulture.com/article/real-housewives-of-salt-lake-city-recap-season-4-episode-16.html MAIL ONLINE: Paul Mescal at the centre of urban myth which claims he 'picks up women in bars and sprints away from them while on a walk the next morning'https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12920273/paul-mescal-women-bars-run-away-walks-morning.html LOVE OF HUNS: Ins and Outshttps://www.instagram.com/p/C1bwElHoWth/?igsh=N2ViNmM2MDRjNw== GREEN MATTERS: The Stanley Cup Craze Has Gotten Out of Hand — What It Says About Waste, Consumption, and Statushttps://www.greenmatters.com/news/stanley-cup-craze INDY100: What is the big deal with Stanley Cups ?https://www.indy100.com/viral/why-stanley-cups-so-popularTWITTER: Stanley Cup stampede in Target https://twitter.com/acechhh/status/1741857419053940743?s=46DELISH: What is WaterTok and why is it causing controversy? https://www.delish.com/uk/food-news/a43641097/water-tok/ TWITTER: Brandy Jensenhttps://twitter.com/BrandyLJensen/status/1740855356228567259 GEORGE ORWELL: Down and Out In Paris and London https://www.waterstones.com/book/down-and-out-in-paris-and-london/george-orwell/9780141184388 YOMI ADEGOKE : The List https://harpercollins.co.uk/pages/the-list-yomi-adegoke ---Follow us on Instagram:@everythingiscontentpod @beth_mccoll @ruchira_sharma@oenone ---Everything Is Content is produced by Faye Lawrence for We Are GrapeMusic: James RichardsonPhotography: Rebecca Need-Meenar Artwork: Joe Gardner  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

i'm gonna just figure out as we go along wait what are you figuring out just what we're talking about happy new year and welcome back to everything is content we're back i'm beth i'm richira and i'm and if you're new here this is your favorite weekly pop culture podcast. The internet is a jumble sale and we're the friends who are going to help you dive into the bottom of the pile and find that piece you never knew you needed. On the podcast today we'll discuss internet lists, a viral cup and our reading goals for 2024. And remember if there's anything you want us to discuss,

you can follow us on Instagram at everythingiscontentpod. So girlies, tell me, what have you been loving this week? The first week of Jan, what has tickled you? So I have been loving the return of my favourite show of 2022 slash early 2023, which was The Traitors on BBC. The UK version, because there's been spin-offs it was amazing and i have full hopes it's going to be absolutely amazing this series so i've never watched it i remember everyone going crazy about it i remember seeing the tweets and it would be

like a black broom looking at her head you know it'd be something about claudia winkelman does that make sense to you i haven't i haven't i haven't seen i haven't seen it she hosts it yeah so gorgeous claudia winkelman love her forever she hosts it uh 22 contestants go to a remote scottish highland castle it's really intense of the 22 they choose at the beginning maybe two maybe three traitors the rest are faithfuls the traitors know who each other are eventually everyone else is in the dark the purpose of the show is the traitors need to survive to the end the faithfuls need to figure out who the traitors are and win the prize money so it's basically two teams against each other only the only the traitors know who they are and traitors know who they are and only they know who their enemies are what do they do in the show they event basically they

plant seeds to suggest that other people he said that i thought you and they literally it's a herbology show if you're a tracer you need to make everyone else so suspicious of innocent people okay every night someone gets murdered in their sleep so they get a note delivered that says the traitors want you gone you're too dangerous every also every evening there's a round table so when they think someone's figuring them out the traitors precisely eliminate or they do it tactically where they go those two faithfuls are kind of not getting on with each other if we vote one of them out people are going to expect the other one and then next week they'll get rid of them because they also get rid of people

around a round table where it's a vote. So it's like a game of trust and basically turning trust against people. So it gets really psychological. I actually played this with some friends last year. And by the end, I honestly was about to sob because I was faithful and the person who was unfaithful,

we were the final two, turned everyone against me. Can you imagine that psychological warfare with your best friends i don't i can't believe you did that and how what were you doing were you together when you were doing it yeah we were on holiday yeah we're on a cottage weekend so risky and watching it you sort of forget you're like why are they so stressed of course they're strangers to each other and they have to treat everyone like liars they're all lying to each other traitors can turn on each other.

They can like plant... Oh, it's so good. Do you think it's your best being a traitor then? Like, is that the best position to be in? It's the hardest. I think guaranteed the hardest because you do have to lie to people that become your friends.

You have to think really strategically. I need to watch it because it makes sense as a concept. I just can't imagine how this is a show. So I know that it's like a... You've got to watch it and it will immediately hook you. Claudia Winkleman,

she gets you in her little clutches okay so you can watch it on BBC iPlayer or you can watch it on BBC which is released every nine

it's 9pm Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays oh wow so three episodes within three days I mean that's no one's going out

for the foreseeable future I'm not going out anyway to be fair so you should watch this yes I will which show have you been enjoying? oh thank you for asking so I've been watching No one's going out for the foreseeable future. I'm not going out anyway, to be fair. So you should watch this. Yes, I will. Which show have you been enjoying? Oh, thank you for asking.

So I've been watching The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Does anyone else watch that? No. Okay, well, I'll just take over then. Because an episode dropped that was the finale of the series. And oh my God, it was like Gossip Girl. It was like Wagatha Christie. It was like the biggest true crime saga in one episode of 60 minutes it was insane i mean i saw some like keywords and they were like fake account yes

birthday dinner dita no what is it reality von teese reality reality von teese and everyone was like trying to find out the identity and it was one of the women yes i haven't watched it but maybe i should yes you have to watch it. So Salt Lake City has a reputation for being one of the wilder franchises of the Real Housewives. It is mental. Every single episode is a catfight, unlike any other catfight you've seen on TV.

It's insane. This final episode had nothing really building to it other than just a massive reveal. And the Bravo execs, thes the producers whoever have created cinematic fucking art in this episode the beginning starts with like dropping some info something is going down there's a scene with one of the people on a beach and she's like i can't believe i found out this information and then it reverts back and goes and then you're just like what is gonna happen what is gonna happen they have all of these drip feeds of what's gonna happen and basically one of the friends the new friends

they've made on this series has been part of a secret group that has been basically documenting and sharing information about all of their lives on social media like selling like kind of selling stories but to social media account no so it's kind of like she basically was part of a network like a gossip girl network about all of them so juicy and it's revealed in this final episode and they have a dinner party and they basically confront her was she a plant then by the series or she she was no one else knew no i don't think producers knew because they were kind of scrambling and you could see almost like they broke the fourth wall of producers like running into the room trying to film one of the people finding out in real time and then it's all just i don't know all of it just

comes out in a way that i don't know if they could have known that okay i'm really because this one's in full series as well so i do think this is and they're so glamorous they're like glamorous 45 year old women in salt lake city it's an interesting area where is salt lake city utah right and it's got a very big Mormon community. Yeah, that is interesting. The Utah Mormons are very powerful. Great. The Utah Lady Mormons. Yeah, because I loved Royal Housewives of Beverly Hills,

but I'm now, I kind of stopped watching it and I try and dip in and out, but it's been too long and they keep changing all the characters and I think I'm just going to quit at season 11 or whatever I'm on. Say farewell.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's time to leave. Try something new. Try something new. Okay, thank you. I'm excited. What about you, Anoni? What have you been up to? Well, I think it's time to leave. Try something new. Try something new. Okay, thank you. I'm excited. What about you, Anoni? What have you been up to?

Well, I've been kind of, I'm really obsessed with the stories I keep seeing on X about Paul Maskell having one night stands with a woman, taking a walk in the park and then just running away. Sprinting away.

It's just hilarious imagining him in his tiny little GAA shorts sprinting. Where did this come from and what is he doing? So basically, I don't know where it started, but I've had it all over my timeline. I think one girl said, I went on a date with Paul Mascal. I woke up in the morning, he said, do you want to go for a walk?

Took her on a walk like through Hyde Park, said it was really nice to meet you and then just sprinted away. And then those people started quote tweeting like, oh my God, he did the exact same thing to me. So he obviously does this thing where he'll like in the morning, wake up and be like, do you want to go get a coffee coffee do you want to go for a walk to get them out the house and then when he's walked them like far enough away he runs scoundrel and apparently and so people then keep posting stuff like a bit of raya the dating app wherever meets him

and strava and being like paul muskull i'm coming for you so over the last few weeks i've been seeing a trend that's gone kind of insane on social media is the ins and outs lists um people have been sharing what they perceive will be in and what will be out for the next year some of them have been you know satire of trends and they've been really funny and other ones have been more serious i love some of these in and out lists and I love it when they are just so deranged and random and just like the funny I find them really funny but then you read something that's really sincere and you're like oh you haven't understood this it's become a meme yeah it's got into sort of like wellness and like how like really sincere I'm really sincere as a person but this is very much to me like a twitter

listing thing where you see these really sort of like sarcastic sardonic ridiculous takes and silliness and then you find it like pops up on some like positive affirmation quotes and it's like in being kind to yourself every day and those that's like take the fun away because the in and out list is just good old-fashioned dumb fun i want some silly on there i want some like real like random stuff on it because that is what's going to happen we're not going to just get like in positive you know out like it's a just a real come on good life what's going to be in is and i said this last year rat tails we're getting them back no i see it i do you feel and i'm like because mullets we need another

hair trend bowl haircut why can't that be in bowl okay great we've got our first one in bowl okay what's your in what's your out

go in hair trends or in I think in we're gonna have hearty German food and I wrote this down and I realized I wrote it down as a joke

and I went that's in that's in we're gonna not get away with like European small plates we're gonna have get away with like european small plates we're gonna have european big plates just like big sausages yeah it's gonna be sausages inside of sausages inside of a big cabbage it's gonna be really it's gonna be gravy based it's

gonna be really it's gonna be cabbage based it's gonna be schnitzels i really i just see it small plates have been in for probably too long in terms of like how trends things work also in this year i've heard is being in your 30s it's very in this year because who will be in their 30s this coming year i will remain you will be i will be oh sorry you're in you're coming in you're 29 sorry that's not it do you know what i'm a bit worried about is that like the interior styles that i've like just caught up with i feel like someone's gonna have a complete change that's ridiculous anything that has a huge cost like overheads it's very silly i want something that is like very doable anyone can do it yeah i don't want something that's just like no it's

you know renaissance paintings and like thick shag carpets i can't do that a wren do you know what else is really in and i haven't gone to maybe i've missed the windows red tights i really want to get some yeah same but can we wear them in chand we missed the window was it a christmas i mean it's the micro trends really ruin the in and out because everything that i say is going to be in might be in for 45 minutes so i guess this is a problem with them because it's like we don't want to promote super fast trends and micro trends but this can be used to promote micro trends yeah and is by like well that's the thing i think we have to say things like over consumption

out yes yeah in i think it's gonna be in is like visibly worn items like whether it's a accessory a jacket something that has obviously been used heavily i think people are going god that pens chew to a crisp like That water bottle's absolutely like I love that I think that would be in when someone goes God you've really used that pair of boots Holy trainers in Yes, yeah wearing things to the bitter end

I think is in Old pants in I did wear a pair of pants today because they were like 90% whole No you should bring them back in Crotchless As a perfect example of like the ins and outs i want to see the page love of fans which i'm obsessed with by the way and also once tried to get them to come on my podcast adulting to interview them and we had this

whole dm exchange and they're like no because you can't find out who i am yeah oh were they like who are you are they a true hun though i've got to know what do you mean well love of funds i hope it's run by a hun but it could be run by a normie that would sing the whole thing I'm gonna read you some of the love of huns 24 ins and outs kiss

ins pints of wine eastenders girls allowed aldi candles spf live laugh loving beans on toast

not answering an unknown number and googling it immediately leopard print I do all of those almost all of these 20 24 outs

restaurants charging 35 pounds for a bottle of eight pound Prosecco going to work kiss aggressively grave allure living rooms couldn't agree more

vapes also agree quit vaping thanks everyone mixing red and white together to make rosé menti bees

spending more than five pounds on a nice coffee daylight robbery leaving the house with 24 battery houston station the guy you met in ibiza who hasn't replied to your messages since june that to me is perfect no no she's safe she's so wise or they i don't know yeah we don't know

who the love of fun the love of fun the love of huns okay so when does a meme die i'm gonna put forward the argument it's when the Labour Party and the Conservative Party use that meme, which they have done within an outlist. What do you think? Oh, they've ruined it yet again. It's like when a brand kind of gets involved with something, you just go, can I lie? We're doing this.

We the people are having a good time with something. We're sharing our ideas. I don't need to hear from those ghouls. But I don't know why they think it's going to like enamour voters. It's like we want to see you being politicians doing your jobs like actually making change the world not doing these stupid lists that we have to do to survive living in this shit yeah we need to have a bit of joy you should be probably doing your job now you've made 90 grand a year to do probably do it so on the labour party one they're like um out tory sleaze oh grow up and it's just

like oh i mean stuff like that you kind of just go don't just don't bother but also like giving million pound contracts to your friends it's like we know that that's something to do but also this is so childish you know what it is do a proper smear campaign you know what it is it's reducing really serious things into this like mean format and it's just i don't know it's not funny it's not serious it's so un-fucking serious that's so true that's that it's almost like offensive we make jokes and they're like haha and we're like no no this is actually your problem we're allowed to joke about it but you can't yeah we're out here suffering please don't don't use them it's very pandering you don't need to mean to us you can just have proper policies i prefer that yeah me too it's dead then it's out

it's out in an atlas r.i.p so the internet tells me i need a water bottle i need a water cup sorry and i need about a thousand of them okay the stanley cup do you guys know what i mean by that yeah i do so quite confusing the stanley cup is apparently like some kind of american sport cup not what i'm talking about it is a very durable reusable water bottle made by a really old american outdoor camping accessory company and it has taken off it has like got the girls absolutely rabid it's a 40 ounce and i don't i can't find what that is in like normal people like sorry normal people English not too alienate our American listeners English people how many pints is that how many pints of wine can I think in my 40 ounce so it's a 40 ounce several pint thing it's sold it's

marketed as like a really durable reusable cup you buy one you're done but it's basically i'm sorry to shit on sally isn't it just a flask with a straw on it like people are like it can keep things hot or it's a thermos and i'm like we have had these in the past why why is everyone talking about it like it's a new thing it what's new about it is one everyone has one so everyone wants one they've done a redesign but this company's like 113 years old they've been making these cups for years in 2020 2021 like sales of them started to rise because of a group of american influencers who marketed them as like a really really good reusable cup and it has just gone absolutely stratospheric because i've seen where i saw them

initially was when i got really obsessed with the people that can't drink water so they put all these like flavored syrups in their water that was a weird time and that was weird and that i like got obsessed with it and they the stanley cups in when i was watching that was just an accessory i wasn't really focusing on the cup i was more focusing on the fact that they're putting like jelly bean flavor liquid into water which i thought was repulsive but this some of those people would have like 50 of these they do but to me that's quite a weird corner of the internet no no no lo and behold last month perhaps emma louise connelly proud

lots wife's owner who i follow avidly on instagram and see it's quite a very trendy woman was advertising a stanley cup and i was like this is permeated into all it is was it a sponsored ad or was it her it was a sponsored ad yeah oh interesting so maybe maybe a lot of this is them doing a really good marketing campaign with the internet i think it is i think they they really like clombed on to this initial surge in popularity like these women who were like moms in utah we talked with the utah moms said look this is the cup to have their sales i mean i've got their sales written down it was they were doubling their their revenue every year year on year on year from like 73 million to i think the last one 2022 or 2023 was like 400 million in

revenue so what drew me to this was one video like stanley cups have been really popular for a long time yeah really trendy one video of a target in america a little gift a little table full of these red and pink cups it's their valentine's launch a little sign that said two items per customer and a swarm of women like descend on this table and they just like eat it bare like kind of like ravage yes like fish on a whale carcass there i think four minutes they sold out so i was like oh this isn't like the must-have accessory it is a trend piece where people are buying two three some people do have collections they've been having for years and years they have dozens and dozens and i was because of course that's the first place i go some women have whole rooms full of them their

packaging still on so these cups sell for like 40 50 dollars going for a thousand dollars on resale what so valentine's day ones if it's a limited release there could be like a resale thing but these people are just holding on to them that's fascinating and it's not even like a fun item it's not a toy you play with it's not like the latest gadget it holds water it keeps it cool hot that is like that's why i can't wrap my head around and children as well children and teenagers want them i get teenage i could this is the thing it's to me it's a really teenage thing i can imagine being at school everyone has tiny called me like mom i really want a sunny cup because do you not remember like the paper chase pencil cases this

is the kind of vibe i'm getting from it did you ever go to paper chase i wanted like every time they brought out a new pattern or whatever okay like i want that pants case someone else got a new one my mom like you just got one and then i'd like spill ink on my one i've been like oh no look i have to get a new one but it is that in this case yeah it's the adult women that's why it's funny because i'm like obsessed with these videos but it's the women that do the water thing and they open that cupboard and it's like 60 different standing cups they're like which one i'm going to use today and i I'm like, I don't know. Which one?

And then like the towel goes on and you're like, okay. And then they like do the water thing and you think, God, it does look like a fun way to live. That seems like a fun thing to have. It's very regimented. They have a little fun drinks. Yeah. And it's always organized really nicely. But it's just so different from the life that I lead. It is.

And it's the overconsumption. I don't know about you guys at how you shop, but I get really uncomfortable if I find myself like having too many objects. I was a bit of a hoarder in my like previous life and now I'm really, I take age. I'm kind of a male consumer in the way that I read so many reviews.

I put like, I really researched my purchase. Intentional. And I have one of the thing and I use it until it does not work or until I leave it on the bus. But that's why it's so funny with this Stanley cup because it's like the whole point of that surely is the reusable nature of it.

It's like you don't, because I feel awful when I caught short at a train station. I have no water and I buy like a bottle of Evian or something. Even though I think some of the bottles are recycled. I do, I get like, oh my God, I'm going to use this bottle until it's leaking estrogen at me or whatever plastic does when it breaks down. I will reuse that 20 times. So like the idea of having a Stanley cup or something that is designed to be reusable and then having like 50 of them a bunch of them and then a lot of them are like filling them up with bottled water throwing the water away they have no intent there's no oh you're kidding and

like i read an article on green matters um by bianca piazza who was kind of explaining why obviously this is terrible for the environment because it's reused reusable materials into reusable or recyclable cup but if you buy a hundred of them you're defeating the point and she was kind of explaining our human urge to collect things it's really normal we've always done this and that's really understandable but the way that we're consuming now is out of control it's not just like collecting things that bring us you know like rocks like stickers or something stickers exactly and you never stick them you just keep them and there's something very satisfying about

that yeah this is just like out of control i feel like there's a few things going on because i did see that video of the the women descending on the target and i feel like there was quite a few takes on it and mostly men were basically just kind of deriding the women saying it was really pathetic really embarrassing the way the women were like flooding this target I think the overconsumption thing is completely right and it's really true but I also think there is sexism going on with what women obsess and fan over and I think both of those things can be true it's not that this is you know entirely pure but also the fact that women do obsess about an object i think opens that up to people just

harassing the shit out of them we don't get the same and i think richard you said this to us in the group chat like no one says this when it is men queuing for a sneaker drop no we give a lot greater weight and i i tried to research like men and women consumer habits but like i couldn't find anything later than 2021 but they're not all that different like i in my head maybe it's like internalized misogyny but i was like women be shopping whereas actually we we don't we consume at a similar level we consume in slightly different ways and we do do different things and for a lot of women buying this

they're maybe thinking oh you know I like that looks good and I want a practical item and whatever maybe not all of them are buying just to buy

what's that drink I don't know if this is more of a kids thing but it's definitely boys is it prime or something oh prime you can buy it from

corner shops and it costs like £15 is it for a bottle of this stuff and they like collect all the flavours I don't know if they drink I don't know how it is but i was listening to all these spouts being like i have such embarrassed shame when you have to admit that you've like bought your kid this time because they're like all want it it's like that's i guess a similar

that's a manufactured like i don't really know what that is and a manufactured like it's from ksi isn't it it's his drink but isn't it just like they want to collect the flavors i'm like are they drinking it like what's going on i think this is an interesting thing the stanley cup thing because it is so like at least with trainers like something like that there is use utility in having variety of different types of shoes like the stanley cup thing i think why it's odd is like maybe having a backup one because i in my head my fear of it is i guess it's only water going there but you know like a protein shaker that's kind of what it makes me think of that smell when it's not been washed funky oh yeah

so i can imagine having like a backup one because you're using one one day but it's yeah the collection maybe it's just the colors it is and everyone wants to collect them more so i think the company which have gone from like a reusable cup manufacturer which is like you know kind of eco-conscious we use recycled whatever it is to being like we are we are creating demand by constantly coming out with new drops new flip new colors that look you know they're all pastel colors that limited edition they know what they're doing and they are for their own immense profit kind of being incredibly wasteful and i'm trying to work out where the greenwashing is is it them as consumers are we pretending that we're more eco by buying is anyone buying it saying it's eco i did see a woman be someone was like it's so sad that you

can see this is on tiktok and she had hundreds of them and someone was like it's really sad you consume like this she was like i'm killing the planet with my recycled cups i don't think so they're all recycled and people are like you're not getting it I mean something has really been missed here in the education of like sustainability and that is sure we all have to like that's not by accident that is on purpose by big companies they say that they're green we go brilliant I can have as many as they want that's a gap in education but still I would like wanted to knock my head into the wall do you guys get this watching that kind of tiktok scene I'm thinking of you know women who have like dividers in their fridge there's like all of this kind of over consumption when it comes to living your life which is also synonymous online with kind of being healthy productive being a better human it's almost like

moralized to have you know all of these things and like be as organized and productive and separate your life like that have multiple cups because you're on top of life that you could use for different drinks and i feel like there is a draw to it i kind of find it really compelling if i'm being honest it's my one of my favorite tiktok track i love i literally love watching women organize snacks yeah pour things from one plastic container into another plastic container but i think i love it because i'm so Celtic and I'm like yes that I don't organize my life in that way I nothing has a place it's my fridge is just shoved in you're not alone I don't so like watching I find really fun and like fascinating but I think it's because it's just something

really therapeutic soothing and they don't live like that I don't think I think it's like the polar opposite to you know those tiktok videos of people rolling bottles down the stairs and they smash and breaking things there's that and then there's people making you know artisanal ices yes and everything in and it's fair and they've all got gorgeous nails it's very asmr so i think neither of those things is how people live but they've realized that there are there's a lot of views to be made so they do that and then they probably go back to living just like us see i actually think the people that do the organizing of the draw think do live like that do you think i think so because it's often like mums like buying their weekly shop and i find it fascinating because it's in the u.s and it's foods that we couldn't really buy like

snacks i've never heard of but i love my favorite is just when they take honestly out like one plastic container that's come in put it in another it's like my favorite thing and then they just like line it up i'm obsessed it makes me feel in control i think that's precisely that's a human life lived i'm it's the control thing and like life is chaotic and painful but if only i could have all my everything organized all my ice in one day that's my dream is to have like all my herbs in like nice pots yeah but for now it's just not something no no crave order maybe that is the Stanley Cup thing we're watching it going god that woman's got a cup for every occasion I think what the fuck am I doing with my life I think that's what is what it is but I also feel like with the order stuff and with the Stanley Cup thing there's I think there's kind of a dangerous

thing with control and having all of these things under control and having multiple things that you don't need i think it is this kind of toxic mindset that if you go too deep into can just be like i have everything under order i have my life under order and i think once you start slipping into that mindset it can seep into some dangerous ways speaking of somebody with former eating disorder stuff that slipped into this stuff yeah yeah and i don't want to judge too harshly women who possibly are just have this one outlet and it's cups they're cut brained and that's fine cut pilled cut pilled sorry yeah cut pilled so it's new year and obviously happy new year everyone and one of my goals is to try and read i set myself this challenge the first time i think it was in 2020 and i did it to read 52 books this year which is obviously a book a week which i know sounds like a lot but if you do it well

i'm going to explain a minute it can change your life so when you read for example i think people think like oh my god you're going to be racing through books but what i found is that a you don't realize how much time you actually spend scrolling or just wasting time so if you read before bed 10 to 20 minutes every night every time you got on public transport every time you're like making a cup of tea or like you basically fill the gaps of time when you don't realize that you're going to have an absolute time sink just going on a phone and it's actually not hard to read a book in a week when you're doing that like as in it's not even like you're slogging to get through it it's just it adds up so quickly over

the week it basically just means that you're wasting less time than if you scroll yeah i mean yeah yeah i find that really interesting I read 11 books last year which definitely pales in comparison to 52 and I was really proud of that because I really have found it hard to pick up reading again after doing English Lit at uni so 11 for me was a massive deal so 52 just sounds crazy to me like it sounds like so many books I finally I had the exact same thing where I hated reading after going to uni because they make you read sounds like so many books I finally I had the exact same thing where I hated reading after going to uni because they make you read so much so many books yeah then I got into it and then I did that reading challenge and then I felt bad actually every year since because I

haven't I didn't read that many last year I can't remember how many I read it's stupid I think it's arbitrary I think it's it's actually dumb to aim like I shouldn't be doing this but it makes me do it helps me get in a routine yeah means I get into bed earlier so it is about the reading but it's also about if i have that goal it kind of helps me to be in bed by nine with a book and a cup of chamomile tea do you know what i mean otherwise it just gives me some sense of and it doesn't matter if i only read like 20 it's still i'm not that fussed about if i make a goal but i like as if i achieve it but i like setting aiming high no I completely agree and I do think do the behaviors that are attached to them so like this year I'm going to read more in bed or this year I'm going to read on public transport instead of being on my phone then that adds up to

to the numbers you the numbers will take care of themselves if you do that um and then it's a good reason to do it I think if you're doing competitive reading like I want to read more than everyone else you do like one you're maybe just not going to enjoy them maybe you're just gonna I don't know like try and fly through them instead of like making reading a healthy habit and enjoying the actual text as well because I feel like I always wonder with people who have these mad numbers I always wonder are you sinking into the book because for me my favorite thing is like really like luxuriating in a book that I'm obsessed with obviously if you really love it it's really easy to rip through it but I don't know like some of the books that I read in the last year are some of the best books I've ever read and I just wonder like if you get to the like I don't know 200s and 300s are you really sinking into them but also I

think some of those people are not pre-gender essentialists but a lot of them are men and they are reading um those kind of like atomic habits you type business see yeah how to make friends and how to not fuck people off and whatever and if you've ever read one of those books they're really quick to read okay and they're like not hot and so i think a lot of the people you know you see these guys online that are like I make six figures a year and that's because I read three books a day that's because all the books are basically the same book like I think that part of the I actually think most men are part of the problem but I agree the competitive reading and even me setting that goal I do think there is this idea of like performative reading yeah for sure I agree I think as long as you're reading fun and enjoying reading and not judging the books that you're reading or want to

read or other people are reading yeah so I saw a really funny tweet from um brandy jensen at brandy l jensen on x that said read a little over 100 books this year that sounds so impressive until you learn the titles of like 80 of those books which i think is like that's absolutely fine to read books that are kind of a bit fluffy or like i don't want to say mindless but like the ones you can kind of sink into they're not hard literature they're not war and punishment crime and peace I think if you let yourself read those books did I get that right isn't it war and peace crime and punishment crime and peace she said war and punishment crime and peace and I was like what but you said it back to front and I looked both of you and you all just smiled at me and I was like wait am I going insane I did spinoisms. And I looked both of you and you all just smiled at me. And I was like, wait, am I going insane?

I did Spoonerisms. But also, I actually do this year want to try and read. So like, I've never read Lolita. Never read Anna Karenina. No, I haven't either. I've never read any Sylvia Plath, which I feel like. So you want to read some real classics. So I actually do want to go back and read some classics.

And that will, that is another thing that like will take time. I think if you're reading books like lots of ones we've spoken about like really good actually or good material or those books like they are easy to read i think like something that's not in your usual style yeah a little bit of a like a period i think that's really good and it'll introduce you to things that you either had a preconception about i remember reading pride and prejudice like so late even though i was obsessed with the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film reading it being like oh I loved this I loved Pride and Prejudice I went through a really big Jane Austen phase in like sit form with my best friend and we were like oh my god we just love Jane Austen we used to go let's go on a promenade

we just like walk around a field oh la la like got really into like but it was that was also a posturing thing even then we were being different we were like I'm reading like the Bonte sisters and Jane Austen and like do you know what I mean it's nice I think a lot of the books that written now are like written for this time they're quite trendy in the way they're like I'll read a book from three years ago and it's talking a lot about like Instagram and like Instagram's old features and I'm like they don't exist anymore yeah books don't have the timelessness so I kind of do want to read a book that is dated but isn't dated in the same way that has like regained some of its like universality yeah so maybe i want to go a bit back in time i read some george orwell

last year and loved it yeah i was like god writing like so have you read down and out in paris and london yes yes and it's like people don't do that he literally went and like basically became like homeless in in paris and london to write this story about like what these cities like it's like it doesn't exist anymore no it was gonzo journalism it was the beginning of like inserting yourself into a scene which kind of spurred you know like the vice style of journalism i took acid at yeah crufts and here's what happens i saw a tweet that made me think about this in a really interesting way book talk is obviously really massive but the app of tiktok has for in many ways reduced our attention span yeah there is a big trend of these you know influencers promoting reading so many books and having that kind of attention span on an app where you know everything is five seconds and is reducing our attention span

it's kind of a weird juxtaposition yeah I know what you mean I do like that they're encouraging people to read um there's a lot of like looking down on tiktok and booktok and whatever but they're encouraging each other to read that it's like an online book club they are exactly and they're kind of encouraging people to revisit the classics which is what we were talking about we want to do that this year one thing that actually got me really back into reading last year and I would definitely recommend this is I set up a book club well it wasn't me personally but I attended a book club that a friend set up and that was the thing that launched me back in because talking about books is the best bit about reading I think I agree I love it do you know what I'd love to do I'd love to read a book all together not just us three but like the pod the listeners um so maybe if you've

got a book that's either coming out this year or you would like to read or have started reading send it in i'll do a question box or just dm us on um at everything is content pod on instagram um and then we can pick some do you guys feel like that's gonna do yeah i'm so i would love i just want it to be more communal reading yeah everyone's responses to the question box that we put up about what everyone's been reading everyone's goals and things should we should we read some of them yeah let's let's let's we had numerical goals we had people saying like i want to do 45 50 100 a lot of people just had like habits they wanted to do which i thought was quite nice yeah and i think also people were saying interestingly because i know beth you'd read 100 books and i kept going on about that to

you and then i saw a tweet which was like i read a hundred books had a really hard year yeah I basically just insomnia anxiety so I'm hoping never again but then and someone else said something as well they said last year I read 71 because my heart was broken and I had a breakdown so this year I just want to enjoy reading which I love the books are because I think that's a good way of looking at it as well it's like sometimes people excel in certain areas like reading because things aren't going right not because you know they're like really on top of everything that's such a good point and it's important to point out like my job is very flexible I can do reading as part of my job if you're like a surgeon yeah some people read like four books this year because they weren't having sex with the soulmate or like

have a family or like we're thriving not having any sex that's how i've had that must have been my problem or just during yeah friend of the podcast sarah manavis also suggested a good one she put mostly reading older books and not the this is verbatim by the way total dog shit publishing keeps publishing our way heart um yeah what do you think of that yeah i think that's what we're saying we kind of want to go back in time agreed to when books were good the only book the only good books coming out this year is my book yeah yeah can't wait to read yes one a week baby is what um Sarah Espina says which I think one a week is actually quite that's my that's my one a week yeah and also because then if you don't like if you're on holiday you can maybe do like three a week and take a week off also I haven't

actually last year I didn't read that much my I think because i'd written my own book i wasn't like i couldn't read really and i think the reader in me is back i'm now in this place where i can get let myself fully get into a book and i it's almost like watching a show do you know what i mean which i haven't had for ages yeah yes bernard says stop reading with my phone next to me quick good read challenge reread more so i think that's a really good first point just get that phone away because it's so tempting throw it away sink in whatever you're reading watching listening to this year let us know keep us in the know about it and we can talk about it as always we'll put links to everything we reference in the description of the podcast thank you for

listening if you enjoyed this make sure you're subscribed and leave us a rating you can also follow us on instagram at everything is content pod if you want to have a natter with us go on see you next week girlies goodbye bye