Everything Is Content - Parasocial relationships, Emily in Paris and moving in with mum and dad

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

What are THOSE!? Oenone shares some troubling news about the return of heeled trainers... Once we spiritually recovered, we dived into Chappell Roan's frustration at "creepy" fans, to investigate what exactly do celebs owe us. Should we feel offended, or commend her for setting a boundary? We also speak about our favourite 30-something marketing hot-mess, Emily, who is still in Paris. Why do people hate her? And finally Beth wrote an opinion piece about moving out of London and in with her parents, and it pushed A LOT of people's buttons online. We debrief on why the conversation around living in London and renting is so charged.Head over to our Instagram and TikTok pages @everythingiscontentpod for memes, discussions and chats - we’d love to know what you think! Have you subscribed? We would love it if you did!—COLIN WALSH: KalaKASUO ISHIGURO: The Remains of the Day  VOGUE: Spanx founder Sarah Blakely wants you to run in (sneaker) heelsINTERVIEW MAGAZINE: Charli XCX Tells Us What’s Really Going On Down ThereCHAPPELL ROANTHE GUARDIAN: Emily in Paris: this whirlwind of nonsense is basically a story told with dolls by a childINEWS: At 31, I’m moving in with my parents – I feel a failure but it’s the right choiceHOLLYWOOD REPORTER: Sydney Sweeney on Fame, Hollywood Fakery and the Pressure of Paying the Billshttps://www.arts-emergency.org/—Follow us on Instagram:@everythingiscontentpod @beth_mccoll @ruchira_sharma@oenone Photography: Rebecca Need-Meenar Artwork: Joe Gardner  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth, I'm Richera and I'm Anoni and this is Everything is Content. We're the podcast that takes a highlighter pen to the week's biggest stories on TV, film and pop culture and uncovers why we're talking about them. We're like the deliciously moist face mask you put on after a long day out in the world. This week we're discussing if celebs owe their fans anything. Is Emily in Paris rage bait TV and why the internet lost it over Beth's words? But first we have a tiny weenie minuscule request please if you don't go follow us on instagram and tiktok at everything is content pod and if you love the podcast please share it with a friend

and give us a five-star review if you wouldn't mind i just saw i put share it to a find a fiend and a friend so what have you both been loving this week um okay i've got two if that's if i may be so bold permission you may thank you so much okay so my first one was the charlie xx charlie xx interview with w mag did you guys see this no i haven't seen it oh my god it's so funny so it's basically just this interview but she's just given one word answers to all of the questions so one of the questions was like do you talk in bed when you have sex or something and she goes there are words thank you is she meant to be giving these answers or is she being is she being um i don't well this

is what i was kind of interested about as well because it's like did she tell them before i'm always fascinated by these things like literally all of them i've stupidly i did save it somewhere but then i've actually like for some reason not got it up um oh yeah so they said what's happened she said hi they said where are you and she went warsaw poland anyway it goes on for ages and then they said um what do you think about when you're alone and she just says i'm never alone these days. What are you invested in? She says, the moment. What do you think about dying?

It's bound to happen. She doesn't mince her words, does she now? What else? Do you save money? Yes. Unless it's meant, is it meant to be like this? I don't know. She's like a sort of like cunty magic eight ball.

Yeah, this is it. Do you talk during sex? And she says, there are words, yes. Which really made me laugh. So anyway, I really enjoyed that. And my second thing,

which is like what I've been loving but also hating but also loving and excited to see where it goes is the founder of Spanx, Sarah Blakely,

has come out with these trainer heels called Sneaks. Oh, not trainer heels. No. Because you know she's like revolutionary. She basically reinvented shapewear. She's like a really rich, really successful entrepreneur, I guess. She's unveiled a new line of stiletto trainers.

And I'm going to have to show you the picture because for some reason you guys haven't seen it. But it is like they are hideous. One let me see if you're gonna be able to see oh they are disgusting bowling shoes with the with apparently it's like because so that women can like run to work like that not run literally but like they're really comfy to wear but it's like if it's that ugly just don't wear a heel what this was not a problem that anyone had I know what what no but something's happened no I know you like them I've looked at them so much I'm like are they actually quite cool if you had like a white sock on oh my god am I going mad they're hideous they're absolutely

hideous they're quite like Sarahah jessica park you know how she always wears like rolled up trainers with rolled up trousers little shoes in a way i'm like i bet the fashion guardians i can kind of see it with the sock oh i could be seeing a few of them stepping around i i'm also fascinated like how comfy can they be anywhere they're rank but i like no that's what what have you guys been loving I'm actually not over the shoes give us a minute to like sit with that did anyone wear those um like the original the kind of um stacked the trainer wedges I lived in those university in I guess 2012 to 2013 oh my god the high tops yeah sorry yeah yeah sorry I was gonna say I always wanted them I

always envied them but in hindsight I just I can't a heel in a trainer I just can't no no but you don't understand that high top era was the best I remember my inspo I think was Rosie Hunter and Whiteley wearing like burgundy red wine colored pleather leggings with a pair of these like high top trainers and that was what I wore every night out in freshers I had so many pairs I used to get them in sale from like Zara and Topshop or whatever and also they're sick they're actually so flattering on the leg because they're quite chunky around the foot and then they've got a little heel I kind of I actually was thinking about this the other day I kind of kind of miss it you think flattering on the left flattering

on the leg was just giving me such like gok one late someone who has been gok one by anoni at my book launch party like i can see it she was like but she just dressed me up and she was like hoik this tuck this you're amazing titties out titties came out um that's amazing oh my god i'm gonna have to buy some. No, no guys. No, please. Sorry. Why did it go so awkward? Okay. Right. What have you guys, what have you guys been loving? Ruchira, any standouts this week?

Yes. So I finished a book and I loved it. It was by Kazuo Ishiguro and it was The Remains of the Day. And it's the first book of his that I've read. And it was, oh, it was so, so good. And I've not heard as many people talking about that book compared to, you know, Clara and the Sun or Never Let Me Go. But yeah, it's beautiful. It's about a butler kind of weathering England throughout the different periods around the Second World War and post-war and what that kind of impact is on class through the sidelines and what he observes through this one property that he works at for most of his life. And it's just such an amazing exploration of all of those kind

of politics, but also from such an unreliable narrator who, you know, has a love for the person that he serves. But ultimately, I don't know, it's just, it's so revealing, I guess, about servitude and ideas of class and also what it means to kind of put your own life on hold for somebody else and realize that when it's far too late yeah just was really moving I've I need to be that I read never let me go and it's honestly one of the most depressing sad books ever invented no I do need to read more oh it's too have you do you know what happens have you watched the film yeah i've watched the film so i do know where it's going but i'm in the like i'm in the like really happy bits of the book the beginning just close it now

yeah i didn't know what it was about when i started reading it and then like you're like enjoying it and then you find out and just slowly but surely your whole sense of the world just completely erodes and it's just the most depressing thing ever I did love that I read Clara and the Sun as the first book I read not yeah last year 2023 and I really was in the very small minority of people that didn't enjoy it at all really loved loved Never Let Me Go have not read Remains of the Day but very excited to and for some reason just didn't get along with it and i posted about it thinking it'd be fine i was like it was a book that could have been an email and oh people were really cross people loved it i just wasn't moved by it and

whereas never let me go still to this day i think like a pang like rings on inside me for my first read of that but didn't connect yeah never let me go is haunting what is car and the sun about robot have you read it richa no i've heard what it's about but you'll know better oh you think so it's about a sort of um human adjacent robot built to like a company and kind of like grow with a child that sort of thing which right up my street kind of like ai futuristic love that sort of uh carry on and it's just a lot of this robot living in a shop and waiting to go home and then she goes home with a child and you're a bit like i was waiting for perhaps a big twist or perhaps like something gut-wrenching and maybe it's a slower burn and maybe it's just like about kind of human loneliness and I missed that looking for the big um reveal which never came but I just

didn't I didn't love it sometimes it just happens right but I think that's yeah it's an interesting point about just like somebody will love a book and it just won't resonate with you but I'm gonna read remains of the day now I think it depends on your time in life because you have you ever watched a film that just didn't move you whatsoever and then you watch it again like three years later and suddenly it clicks I do sometimes think sometimes you've got a book's got to meet you where you are or vice versa that's something something sometimes something will take you and sometimes it won't and also we have to what I don't like is when people this is only because I just read a bad review of my book on waterstones it's like one five star review I've never really looked at waterstones and just one review that just says nope not for me and I'm not I don't think that's I don't mind it when

people leave a review and they're like I thought this I thought this and it's like obviously critical and it's just like it didn't work I was just just being honest. It wasn't for me. No, no, but it literally just said, no, not for me. And I'm like, that's not useful though. But I think if you'd like to talk about the book, I'm sure you would have like explained what it was about. I think that it's fine to not,

everything art is subjective as like we encourage people to see with people like Taylor Swift, you know, not everyone's going to like her. Well, not this podcast though. That's not subjective. It's five stars. No, that is only five stars. off you go completely what have you been loving this week Beth I've got two I've got one book and I'm thinking now my last few reviews um what I've been loving have been books god I'm so intelligent

I've been escaping from my life of books this This week, so last week I finished two books. This week, I'm probably only going to finish one. It's Carla by Colin Walsh, which is a bestseller. If you've not read it, either of you, you will have seen it like bobbing around on the tube or on social media. It is a sort of thrillery, spooky, it's actually not a spooky book.

I think that's a mis-selling of it, about a reunion of sorts between a splintered teenage friend group when they're all grown up. It's set on the west coast of Ireland in a town whose name I can't remember at the moment. And what's haunting this reunion is the missing Carla, who's the name of one of the friend group who went missing when they were all teenagers it's this like split narrative um sort of quite eerie you go quite deep into these characters like most flawed parts um one of them's a famous musician one of them is a freelance writer and one of them never left um the small town and it explores her disappearance and like small town crime and like teenage love and violence and it's really good

and even though it's not explicitly like a horror book I cannot read it at night some bits in it are so just completely unnerving without being like quite cheap thrills it really has like put the fear of god into me i cannot recommend it i mean okay i'm only about three quarters way through so it's got time to disappoint me but i cannot recommend it enough really good so good that i haven't i haven't seen that around i don't think i don't know why i'm also just so jealous i've been so bad at reading my recommendation was An Ugly Shoe. And then Lucia read Us to filth. Everything is content.

But also, I think this is genuinely the first book that I've recommended in like months. I'm going to start reading loads now. I think you should read this. And this one, actually, I have to say thank you to one of our listeners. Because do you remember, and this probably was at the very beginning of this podcast we asked people for recommendations for the book club and this was one of them and this is where I got it from so whoever you are I hope that you're still listening to this um thank you because it's it's I've been

so many train journeys in the last week or so and I probably would have gone mad with boredom without this book so good did did we post all of those recommendations on our insta I want to go look back at them yeah yeah they're still there they should be I think it's like a look for a yellow background deep in the archives I should know well if you want to learn to read and any it's it's right there for you I'd love to can I have one more can I have one more fun one of course it really cheered me up it's quite short it is the text between myself and this lovely older woman I met when I was working in Mykonos I was writing a hotel review and I met this lovely older woman and we've been texting I don't know how I end up in these situations but I

always end up exchanging numbers with um a retire. You're so whimsical, Beth. Genuinely, every story you have is so whimsical, I swear to God. She's so funny. So she messaged me, hi, Bea, are you still in Grek? I'm back home, still getting strat, weather hot here. Helps with endless washing. We'll be back at hotel name incept please call tech this number when in london and she just messages me and like some sometimes it's caps sometimes it's not it's just really fantastic she's like this is my old not smart english phone we met at hotel in mykonos in june and she just she's like please mac contact and then I'll ring her or text her back and it's just really lovely it's so like I don't really make that many friends as an adult but even more rarely do I make friends who are like 80 years old and it's really sweet but also does she does she shorten London to Lond yes I love that I've never heard that before I want to start texting like and be like hi girls

when are we recording the pod in London but also reminding of my haiku era when I couldn't text my nails yes this is what when you've got those really really big acrylics but also my dad I actually just put this on my close friends but he comments stuff on my post and I'm like what does this mean did you see the one that you put today no what do you say it just never makes any sense and he like it always seems really sweet but I'm like what does this mean so I've done that post about like being being 30 and he commented and to you you are 30 twice and more and then a balloon dad oh I don't know what it means but that's it I don't know what it means it has so sweet I know it's nice it has so many typos but also whenever I put up a picture of me and Grace

aka Grace Campbell it doesn't matter what the picture is he just reacts with a laughing face oh even if we're not doing anything funny it's like I think he's just like must be funny if she's there because she's a comedian oh my god we could do a whole episode on dad content

and like dads on the internet and just their like affinity for the thumbs up the crying laughing face it's always that I've got to stop using the crying laughing face because I've heard this only for old people I've accidentally started using it too I've always been using it well I feel like I started doing it because I thought I was being ironic but actually I've just used it yeah this is where our age gap really shows the whole year between us we are a year between us really because we're I didn't realize I'm actually like a cusp are you a cusp Beth no I'm a millennial because I found this out the other day apparently 94 is

like on the cusp I've seen it disputed I think everyone I speak to who is actually gen z is like you are you are firmly in millennial and it's like 1991 or 1992 apparently is the new cusp but I don't know let's test it let's all make a heart with our hands and see what we do what does that if you make it like you put the sort of um you make the big bulky heart with like all four fingers you're a millennial if you make it like you put the sort of um you make the big bulky heart with like all four fingers you're a millennial if you do this weird little like oh yeah what do they do upside down well we can't even do it sorry i don't even know what that is okay case closed wow but also the fact that you've because i remember do you remember before there were that many emojis one of the main emojis was the laughing crying like it was the icon i can't believe what do

you mean you've just started using it like that is the original of the new versions of it no you're right you're right that there is a culture gap between us because that's not my experience okay well just say you're young and get out of here I'm just beautiful and young don't hate me so my absolute fave chapel rowan has been getting some heat this week after she explicitly called out her fans for quote-unquote creepy behavior on monday the 26 year old singer posted two tiktoks where she'd said that her family have been stalked and harassed in person and both online as well she also made a point about coming for the kind of parasocial relationship that her fans have built up as she's been getting more famous um she said

quote i don't give a fuck if you think it's selfish of me to say no for a photo or for your time or a hug that's not normal that's weird it's weird how people think you know a person just because you see them online and you listen to the art they make. I don't want whatever the fuck you think you're supposed to be entitled to wherever you see a celebrity. I think one important bit of context with Chappell is that this year she has just kind of skyrocketed in fame. So despite the fact that she's been in the business, you know, recording and performing for a decade, this year, her fame has just, you know, shot up in the most mental, fast, instant way. So at the moment, her album has reached number one in the US music charts. That was before

Taylor Swift released another variant of the Tortured Poets department. But we're not going to go into that. That's just, I guess, an insight into how she's, you know, rival another variant of the tortured poets department but we're not going to go into that that's just I guess an insight into how she's you know rivaling one of the biggest pop stars of our time at present I really want to ask you guys what do you think the celebrities owe their fans and what was your initial response to seeing her come out with that take so I think my initial response was seeing the video on and I saw on TikTok and I saw the comments were off and I saw her sort of look like she just take her makeup off or just didn't look in a state of put togetherness and my heart sunk I thought oh my god she's gonna happen she's gonna say something quite um I don't know upsetting or it just looked like one of those like really

vulnerable moments and it really my heart sank as she started talking because I think that's been coming for a while I think she's been hinting at finding fame quite overwhelming um mental illness before and just watching that I I felt immediately before I've seen any takes I just felt immediately quite sad for her it was like a plea for something which I don't think is going to be honored it's so interesting how I think the way that content is presented to us informs our opinions on it because this I saw on Twitter and I saw it in response like someone's retweet from at medium-sized medium-sized reach who is a uh quite prolific tweeter who often does have quite salty takes and he had retweeted the

video saying the thing about chapel rowan that bugs me is that she pretends like nothing is supposed to change when her level of fame changes yes people encroach upon your space and that's bad but people have been speculating about celebs for over a century exclamation mark so i read that then watched the video which really informed i was like yeah like how can you be surprised like the people are kind of approached and then I thought about it and I was like that's so funny because I wonder if I would have had way more empathy if I'd just seen her video as she presented it rather than reading a reaction to it I think I still sit in the middle a bit where I completely agree I think it's so unfair that celebrities have to

face this level of hounding I hate paparazzi I think that it's such a toxic gilded cage to become so famous it's like the thing that you want you can only get it by existing in this world at the same time maybe this is old-fashioned but I do think that like sometimes tone and the way that you speak to fans it can be a bit like I don't know um again I feel like I'm policing her so I shouldn't say this I don't know I think there has to be a level of sort of like I know this is going to happen definitely people shouldn't be going out the way but it does make me feel sad to think that people might feel hurt by her but then she has every right to say that so it sounds like you're saying that the sentiment is very real and what she's like getting across makes sense but it's just

perhaps it's quite direct and it's quite blunt in saying that basically don't fucking expect anything from me is that what you're saying yeah and I think like I completely I just I'm just surprised it I think that she's entitled to feel that way and she should but I think again I feel a bit like of course that's going to happen it's going to be really annoying and you can be like would you mind if you don't I might not be in the right space I just find it quite maybe it's refreshing I don't know I found it quite shocking to be like don't come out to me don't expect anything because I do think there is a level of sort of like not that people should to pander to their fans but it's it's quite hard it would be an amazing

world if celebrities were able to create their art and people only engaged with their art and then left them to live their own lives but because that isn't what existed what exists and what we know to exist I find it quite I find it quite surprising to have such harsh boundaries around it but maybe I need to reframe how I'm looking at it. Yeah, I think it definitely, it definitely goes against the grain, doesn't it? I mean, our model for celebrity is that they actively foster a parasocial relationship with their fans and they capitalize the hell out of it. So it is really unusual to see an artist actively say, that is not what I want. That's not what I here for do not do that I'm not I'm not you know encouraging it I'm not enabling it I'm telling you stop right now um I think I had a

similar response to you Beth and I think it also comes from the fact that I I really love her so I I already have a bias that I I like it doesn doesn't bother me too much. I don't have like a particular relationship to her or her music where, you know, I'm obsessed with feeling like I need to have a proximity to her or feel like she's close to me. She actually feels quite far and she just feels like this fun person that I listen to. It's not like, I don't know, I guess it's not like previous people where I've been obsessed with them. Like I wrote a piece ages ago about having like a bit of a parasocial relationship to Lady Gaga because I was feeling really sad at the time and listening to her music made me feel like she was gifting me something that made me feel joy during that occasion. But with this, yeah, it doesn't

really bother me that much. I just feel like I don't understand the anger online for her asserting this boundary because she's not saying never take a photo with me she's not saying I will never have time for you she is just saying when I say no please don't get angry when I say I don't have time it is absurd to to be angry at that because we're both just you know bitches have got to be places um that's not a direct quote but I think that's what she's saying and I think what has confused people is or complicated the reporting on it is that she lists alongside having photos taken and um saying hello and things like that which are kind of part and parcel with being a famous person it is there's no way around it that is a sort of part of the duty i mean they literally sell meet and greets for

that reason she lists that alongside things like stalking harassing shouting out in public so i think a lot of people have read it as like wow she she didn't want anything to do with us whereas she is talking about truly anti-social behavior um when she is in that video uh she said in um an interview a couple of interviews actually which we can get on to like her family have been stalked and her kind of privacy has been invaded so i think she's coming from a place of fear some quite scary things have happened and she's trying to maybe shut it down on all fronts so that stops but probably you know if she's in the mood for it she would be happy to you know but I just think it's so the reporting of it has just been about like the photos and the fan interactions versus

like so I think someone leaked her like either her mum's place of work or something to do with her immediate family which um would put the fear of god into any of us I think and if you thought okay if I can stop this I'm just going to shut it all I'm going to shut this thing down does that I'm not going to say does that make sense I don't know I don't know um I I was thinking about it because I wonder if I've only seen a shortened clip then because the video that I saw that was in the retweet starts off with her being like if you saw a random person in the street would you go up to them and hug them would you go and do this and I just thought that conflation felt like well no because you're you're not a random person in the street would you go up to them and hug them would you go and do this and I just thought that conflation felt like well no because you're not a random person in the eyes of your fans I'm also now questioning how much I want or how much I am socialized to want women

to be palatable and kind because I was trying to think of who my probably the famous pop star that I have the biggest parasocial relationship with is Adele, probably. And I can't imagine her saying that, but then also if she did, I'd love it because she'd just be like, fuck off. I don't know what that accent was. So I wonder if I've seen an abridged version and coming to me in that context. I don't know, I still have this, which is about me, not her, my reading of it. She's so well within her rights. I think that maybe what's shocking about it

is I have this feeling like, but we've all agreed that that's what comes with fame. And actually, maybe she's really wise. Maybe there should be the turning point where we say that actually, celebrities shouldn't have to bend around to accept that if they can't go to the supermarket, because that is wild if you think about it,

if you get too famous that you can't actually just go to the shop. Maybe she's right. Maybe what needs to change is that if we see, and I do, I am actually really respectful. If I'm ever in a space where I see a famous person, I try not to look. I actually try not to like make them feel, because you can tell when a famous person has noticed that you've seen them

and then they're suddenly like, oh, I'm going to have to be be really conscious so I actively try and like in a way probably that is also me partly trying to make them like me by like actively planning that I can't see them we were sat next to Graham Norton in this pub in Edinburgh like a couple of years ago at the fringe and I literally just would not even look like I just was like as if I just couldn't even see him and I remember in my drunk stupor I'd had a so many wrong reasons I look like I just was like as if I just couldn't even see him and I remember my drunk stupor and I had to say to Mark Reeds I was like I bet he'll think I'm so nice I'm going on a show he definitely went home and thought about you what a lovely woman

I think I think with stuff like this I'm seeing a bit of a I'm for the most part when I looked up Chapel Rowan on X and like went through the search bar the top tweets were like massively in support of her and what she's doing but on my actual timeline I noticed there was like a lot of saltiness to her videos which is weird that I was getting directed to that because my algorithm knows I'm a fan so that's weird but there was a lot of stuff like you know if she's being ungrateful let's support ex-female star or now's the time for ex-female star to come in and replace our chapel rowan fandom or something it was it was quite salty fucking hell I think a lot of the comments are well you know she's not cut out for fame or whatever I think if I met someone who

could go from she's not going from zero to 100 but she is go it's like if you were comfortable in your job you kind of knew all your co-workers you were rising very steadily and then you woke up as like CEO or something like would it not be quite normal to have a bit of a period where you genuinely weren't adjusted to it and you needed a bit of time and you probably acted out and you probably weren't very good at all yeah like I just thinking of it it's not a normal job but if you think about it in the context of the kind of parameter of her work has exploded where is the training for this if I met someone and they were immediately good at having like intrusive interactions I would be terrified of that person i would think that person could kill yeah i also i was i was seeing comparisons like a video came up in my timeline being like

this is what she should be like and i think it was madison beer like interacting with fans but then i go the other way when they're like so sycophantic i maybe it's just like americanness but i am a bit like come on you don't like your fans that much much. I don't know. I don't know if it's like a... I don't know. I really reacted to the video. I don't know if it was almost like I... Because I wonder if there's a level that I did where you can't bite the hand that feeds you. You have to be grateful to the people that are supporting your career.

But you're right. That isn't what she was saying. It's such an interesting thing. There shouldn't be so much backlash. I do think it is getting worse as well. I think that people just generally, and this could probably be a topic in its own but kind of people's manners or people's conduct in in social settings or in public really seems to diminished in terms of like what people think is socially acceptable I was in a really nice

restaurant the other day and a girl took her shoe off and put her foot up on the bench next to me and my friends hadn't arrived yet and I actually took a picture of her shoe off and put her foot up on the bench next to me and my friends hadn't arrived yet and I actually took a picture of her foot because I was like I can't believe her bare foot is mere inches away from my bum like this is so inappropriate it's a really nice restaurant and then you see all these tweets about people like people just play music out loud at 7am on the train people are playing games they're watching I do think that we've lost a level of sort of politeness and I do think there is a way to approach a celebrity I have approached like celebrities in the past if it felt like the context was right

and then in other situations I'm like I'm not going to interrupt you hanging out with your friends maybe we're just missing a bit of decorum I remember there was that story of Jacob Elordi having an interaction with um I believe it was a radio producer going up to him and, you know, making various comments about bathwater scene in Saltburn and being just like really what I felt was like super inappropriate and like quite harassy, like quite sexually harassy, to be honest. And I agree with you. I think there is just like a level of behavior that people feel entitled to because they see you on screen, they feel like they know you. It's just, it comes down to the parasocial relationship element. And also just like dehumanizing of these people. Like obviously

celebrities are not like us. I'm not pretending they are, but the level to which you dehumanize them is also quite mental. I don't really understand how a lot of these behaviors people think are okay. It's so interesting because it is very true. The lives they live are completely alien to us. The kind of the dailiness, the money involved, the protection involved, all of it is just, it is as even the ones that are quote unquote relatable promise you what's going on behind the scenes is completely unfathomable. But then when she says, Chapel Rowan says, you know, I'm just some bitch and you're some bitch. She is a human. You can't kind of train yourself. No amount of fame can like train you out of having normal human reactions and it's really interesting trying to find that line one thing I will say also is

stan culture and the way we feel about celebrities I would be so interested to to look at how we talk about celebrities and to celebrities versus even like a decade and a half ago because I think we've never been as obsessed with celebrities and I think we've also never hated them more I think our disdain for them is at an all-time high but our hunger for more information and more access and those two maybe it makes sense they go hand in hand you know because obsession and love and hate they're also like closely bound but I think we have never been at it maybe it's that we're more class conscious we are more aware of when a cost of living crisis we're more aware of

wealth disparities so we're obsessed with these like beautiful creatures we want to know more but we also despise them and that comes out in our fandom I mean this is a very like uncooked pie of a thought but I think there's something to that completely completely agree with you I feel like we treat celebrities like politicians in the sense that we feel like they work for us we have a say in what they do I'm thinking of Taylor Swift dating Mattie Healy and her fans you know telling her that if she wants to honor her fans she has to break up with this guy it is a level of you know we support you and in return you have to do us proud you have to represent us in the way

that we want you to and if you don't we will weaponize our fandom against you and tell you so I think we might be talking about this in a later segment but I just as you're talking about and and you were chair I was thinking about sort of like rock stars of the past and how they would be kind of the minute that they got famous, they would be treated like royalty. They had so much money. They had so much access. They didn't, people, those interviews they would do with magazines were like gold dust. They would do these like one-off interviews. They'd have these like amazing op-eds, sorry, like what are they called? Profiles. Profiles. But they wouldn't really necessarily have to sell their secrets in order to garner fame because there

was like fewer celebrities. But now we have all these different tiers of celebrities, not just A-list and Z-list. We have sort of artists on the way up, people that are coming through social media. The fight is so much more. There's so many more people vying for a piece of the pie. There's so much less money that in order to get a level of fame where you actually have the security to be famous, you kind of do have to forge parasocial relationships with your audience, give them insight into your life, sell your soul in order to make it to the top. Whereas I think before, probably also because there wasn't social media, people didn't have phones. The only way you knew what celebrities are up to is if they happen to get a paparazzi shot but it'd probably be quite easy to hide from that so there's something there's like a convergence of things where

we have more access anyway because of social media and phones and surveillance but also celebrities have to give more in order to get higher and that's made some sort of like it's very mishmash it's deal with the devil type territory and I it's really interesting you say that and and I wonder if either of you and actually I'm convinced both of you will not I'm talking about I've had people have parasocial relationships with me and I as a civilian who just happens to be a gobshite on the internet have found that one of the more unnerving and disturbing experiences of my life, when people foster a kind of intimacy with me that is so one way and is so, to me, it feels obsessive.

It's, you know, it was never in, call the police territory or kind of worry for my safety territory, really. But it was really, really strange. And I think what Chapel Rona is trying to do here is stop that tide against her and I think sadly it it's long since happened I think people have already formed those relationships they have decided who she is to them and she already matters too much to them and I it's really interesting that this is often women doing this. We did our many segments on baby reindeer and female stalking. And I think this is not, I'm not calling it stalking,

but it does feel in the same family as that sort of obsession, that sort of, and it's really interesting that stands are women when what we know about stalking, and Richard, you've covered this in your own podcast series, you'll know more than I do. Stalking is typically male territory. Most victims of traditional stalking are women, if I've got that correct. Whereas with this kind of obsession with celebrity, it's typically women, which is maybe why I find it so interesting.

It's so unusual to me. Yeah. which is maybe why I find it so interesting it's so like unusual to me yeah it just really reminds me I'm like I'm taking a left here but just I think female stalking comes out in all the kind of like dark female spaces of the internet so you know your tattle life your very gossip blogs and things like that so it exists in a very different capacity but it is a big part of the internet for sure it's so funny because until you said that richard i was thinking i've never had anyone have a bad parasocial relationship with me because normally what happens is i'll be out in a club and someone will come up to me and be like i love you and then i'm like i love you because i am small enough of a figure online that it doesn't happen all the time. But when it does, if anything, it makes me feel like,

oh, actually what I'm doing is useful and important. And this is really cool that I've met someone that follows me because I'm not, I don't have a fangirls. And it's, we're more like, it's just a woman on the internet saying things. I am to them that they agree with. And so it's like, oh my God, hi. But then I remembered about gossip websites. And yes, people have said

some very strange things that's an obsession as well that is however they justify it to themselves these websites exist because of an unhealthy degree of obsession with a stranger because of projection because of this I mean it's always in the same family of of fandom which is why you know i think she's right chaperone is right to feel unnerved by this because you know obsession is not a healthy thing to feel entitled to someone's body whether or not you think it's worshipful is really scary and it can so easily tip from and only i imagine all of the women that and i probably as women who talk unkindly about you either follow you still followed you at one point and were really were fans and i think that is i think that's why

people are right to be worried because it can slip from one to the other so quickly it's so funny you say about deception so it's touch wood i actually haven't had anything said about me for ages probably we'll listen to this they will now but when you go on any gossip website the people whoever's thread it is the people writing on there who ostensibly are saying nasty hateful things are so up to date on that person's life they will post and within seconds so it's like how can you say you're anything other than a fan like you're more aware of this person's movements actions relationships haircuts than anyone else who follows along their content silently enjoys it, likes it. The people that I find it so, so interesting, the psychology behind it, it's almost like

they are so obsessed with someone, they don't know where to put it because maybe that parasocial relationship, it's almost that unrequited love. And when you can't get a reaction to it or have a fulfillment from the person on the other side, it starts to turn sour and that turns into some kind of bitterness or hate or spitefulness i don't know what it is but for sure i mean after molly may and tommy fury i did just do some um journalistic investigations on some of the threads and my god it was like every second though it's so yes it's definitely true that fandoms and we've seen it before. We've seen like huge people with massive stands

completely turn on them and ruin them. Hopefully that's what's going to happen to Andrew Tay. I actually thought that was happening the other day. I was really excited, but not yet. We can hope. We can hope. One thing I wanted to ask you both as well. I saw a tweet from, this was one of the like bigger tweets that was in support of

Chapel from at Molly Taft one thing about her that might be clearer to those of us who lived through the early Gaga is that the character Chapel Rowan is very obviously an onstage persona and she got famous so quickly that that nuance maybe hasn't gotten through to a lot of younger fans I thought that was a really I thought that was a really smart take to be honest because you can see even in you know the fact the fact that she's a drag drag queen and she has all of this like character building that she does through her performance maybe that's like a key element to why it's so it's so unacceptable to her to see this reaction because she is like you don't know me even the persona on stage is so different to who I am that that's why it's so unacceptable and so difficult to you know accept

that you have a parasocial relationship to me because you're even more removed to the person that I am I think that's really really smart and really true it's funny because it's making me think of an interview with Blake Lively who is as we spoke about in last week's episode the current villain the flavor of the month and there's an interview where she says when and i actually spoke about this when the interview is asking about her talking about her film and she kind of makes jokes about people approaching her and then in another i don't know if it's in that interview or in another interview where she says i wish we didn't have to have people like trying to talk to us just interact with my art My art is the thing that I'm putting out into the world.

And I'm not like, that's not me. And especially as an actor. And like you say with Chapel, because it is a character, maybe that is the difference. It's like, I'm not giving you bits of me to dissect.

I'm actually giving you a performance in a show. It's interesting. I wonder if these two things will get tied together because Blake Lively is just fundamental. Everyone now, everything that comes out, people are just being nasty. Maybe it is misogyny. I just wonder if we haven't really seen this. I'm trying to think of a male pop star or anyone who's come forward and been like, can you leave me alone or don't harass me? Or if they say it, maybe they just get fully respected. So it just kind of, no one really takes any store. So I can't remember the response to this but when I was researching for this segment

I saw that Justin Bieber had put up an Instagram post um I want to say maybe two years ago saying that he was done taking pictures with fans and maybe that's even a sign of he can do something like that and to me it doesn't even enter my periphery in the same way that this has maybe it's because I'm more of a fan of Chapel but I don't think I don't think that that blew up particularly did it I don't think so I mean I do wonder if people respected it that would be the second um question there whether I mean I guess he doesn't have to go out in public he can sort of he can say that and people can't get angry but they might not necessarily still listen to him if that makes sense they could kind of not turn on him but then also go i'm gonna ask

do you know what i think i'm a villain because i think my initial reaction to her thing was first of all i do think i saw an abridged version i saw meech's comment which made me think but i think also a bit of me was like babe you're just getting started don't like don't tell the fans off now and that's a really wrong thing to think for a bit of me was like, babe, you're just getting started. Don't tell the fans off now. And that's a really wrong thing to think for a young woman asserting her boundaries. That's actually so internalized, misogyny, bitter old woman of me.

Let the young woman speak and say, don't come near me. That's so valid. I don't know why I had any sort of reticence about what she said. It makes no sense. So I need to do some introspection. I think she's protecting herself for the future I think longevity requires that she not burn out she's only about 25 26 years old she obviously has got this long

career behind her and you know life does not begin when you get really famous but I think if we want to see this artistry unfold which would be would be wonderful, which would be far better than having, you know, a lot of fan pictures, she's got to now protect her piece. She's got to set whether it'll work or don't know, but she has to at least try to keep herself not completely insane. I agree.

And if you're a fan who had a, you know, particular response to this, please let us know what you think. Do you disagree with us? Do you agree let us know what you think do you disagree with us do you agree with us are you do you feel angry that she said this we would love to know so i'm very excited to announce that emily in paris is back for its fourth season, or as The Guardian put it, this televisual black hole is devoid of plot, charisma, and intrigue. Absolutely nothing happens bar the odd dead-eyed conversation

about the price of face cream. Have you guys been watching season four? Do you have any initial thoughts? Yes, yes, yes, yes. I've been watching I much like opening like a box of like gillions or like I don't know like celebrations whatever I feel like I'm trying to like work through it slowly so I have it to savor and like not just binge it all so I'm only on episode two but like oh I I'm really enjoying it shoot me I'm enjoying it

shoot me with the same water pistol because I'm also enjoying it shoot me i'm enjoying it shoot me with the same water pistol because i'm also enjoying it although i think my method of um consumption is slightly different in the ice like stick it on when i'm doing my makeup and i sort of i i realized i find it so enjoyable to re-watch emily in paris because i've never fully concentrated on a single episode i've re-watched it maybe three times for pure comfort and it's always something new that i obviously didn't realize because i'd stuck it on while i was watching but it whacked in my bikini line or something um but still it boils down to the same thing i love the show i am a fan i completely agree and i wanted to read some tweets um which i think really sum up how i feel about it so So, oh, I can't actually see their username,

whatever, I'll just say it. So, beyond excited, my girl Emily in Paris is back. I've watched every episode and have not a single memory of last season, the names or any of the characters or anything else, aside from the fact that she has a job in Paris. It's perfect TV. May it run for a thousand seasons.

Did I tweet that? Another one from at ultra gloss red. I love Emily in Paris because it's so comforting to know there's a third child woman out there making worse decisions than i do every single day of her life that's so real that's so real and the last one from sir diesel i love that we as a society have accepted that emily in paris for what it is and have no expectations whatsoever plot wise and i couldn't I just couldn't agree more there's something so nice about I think we've lost this a bit like plotless kind of sitcoms where it's obviously mind-numbingly bad but that's what's so good but it's shiny and colorful

yeah it's like asmr like how it is, all of her clothes are nuts. She looks ridiculous. But like, it's like, you know, there's dancing fruits for like babies. It's like that for my brain. I love it so much. It's coconut for millennials. Yeah, it's like sensory videos. It's so funny because this, we've spoken about this before, but one of the writers on the show Darren Star is also the writer of Sex and the City and then Patricia Field

who works who was also the costume designer or the stylist on Sex and the City worked on the first two seasons and it's so funny that those two people have come from a show like Sex and the City and have tried to make this new and initially I think it was designed to try and be this like new young fun sex and city but they just there's something about this specific time in the world where shows can't work like that and i think it's opposed me to post kind of woke world where you almost you just cannot create the same kind of sitcom drama and put in i know this isn't well how would you describe it it's not really a sitcom drama i don't even know what it is it's like so perjacent it feels like it's sort of like melodrama but also on a very tiny nothing is that dramatic i would say it's a sitcom was that fair

i don't know i don't know she's situated in yeah paris she's she's laughed a bit well maybe it's like a sit rom i don't know but they they try every now and then to drop in serious topics so this time they've tried to drop in this sort of like me too storyline but it just feels so hack and it was really making me think like and just like that yeah and i don't know again it's something about this current climate i haven't really seen a sort of funny light-hearted show post 2016 maybe that has been able to weave in maybe big boys actually but that's british kind of different and i guess it's in it's so personal like the serious stuff is is is everything yeah you're right though i think that's a good i think that is a good point i think that show it is adjacent i think

they are doing they're totally really different i think that is the big difference between them that is like comedy uh tragedy drama as well but like with this i think in trying to like shoehorn it in just a sitcom fashion it is just like it's not hitting but the current like so there's a bit where so she's kind of in a love triangle then she's like in a love quadruple but the thing with her and alfie and her and oh my god what's his name gabrielle gabrielle i don't know their names it's just so unrealistic and so unbelievable it's so chaotic i absolutely love it it feels like the kind of fever dream that you'd have when you're at school about like oh no accidentally these like two really fit men fancy me and now i'm a masquerade ball and i've got to pick which one i'm gonna get

with do you know what i mean that's what i love about it guys if you love that kind of like ridiculous melodrama with the main character just like it's nonsensical how much everyone around her is like building her ego you need to watch the summer i turned pretty do you know it i i've watched a bit of it and i i've um got a copy of the book by i think jenny hann and i i don't understand why people are so i've not watched enough of it to know why people are so obsessed with it. It's just like two hot brothers. She's in a love triangle with two hot brothers and it's the summer she turns apparently super hot,

but I think she was also always beautiful. But anyway, it's just like, it's like some weird fantasy I didn't realise I had where it's like, I want to compete. I want to make two brothers compete for me challenge is cool yeah the forbidden fruit when is the summer she turned pretty when when will mine happen what is it like a kind of teen am I right in thinking she's like a 60 oh my god don't I think I'll get too nostalgic it's a teen drama yep see that is what I love about this, actually. It's unashamed lust and romance

and in a world that actually feels very unromantic, I think I love watching people be like, I'm going to give it all up for you or kissing on a street corner in Paris. I think that is what... I kind of don't give a shit about the Michelin star storyline. I don't really give a shit about anything else. I want to watch love longing and a bit of shagging it's also so funny because it can be filmed anywhere there's nothing really

that shows this in paris it's just like the fact that what there was one episode of the eiffel tower emily in coven three i tried to when i was watching i was making notes and i thought i had a really profound thing that as i'm talking i'm like if I say this I'm a liar because we don't concentrate tell us like okay so I was like isn't it interesting that it has subtitles and how few people are open to watching subtitled films it's only the last five years I've got into it and I was like maybe Emily in Paris is sort of like broadening people's horizons in terms of like watching films like the worst person in the world which i absolutely love love love love parasite and i'm trying to think of what other films have subtitles and then i was like maybe this is the antidote to double screening but i

realized that actually i do just double screen i just miss half the show yeah i'm on vintage i'm invented the whole time it's so bad like i'm literally like adding to basket but like never purchasing throughout the whole thing it is bad there was an episode of a show um only murders in the building is that right and I was watching the show quite happily with my phone and then there was a whole episode where it was all subtitles and I've not watched an episode since that's when I realized I've got a problem with my phone um but you're right actually it doesn't pander to American and kind of British English speaking audiences by having all the French people speak English to each other. Well, yeah, because now they really talk about they're saying on Netflix, is it called double screening?

No, it's second screening where they're like, they are now making shows designed to have second screen. And I was just thinking it's so interesting that literally probably one of the trashiest things to come out of like Netflix and all this time actually is slightly educational like you could learn french if you properly watch it which no one does i have no if i would love to know if somebody's learned french from emily in paris that would be like the most amazing opinion piece we need to hear if that's happened they'd be insufferable it would be insufferable because i think all the french people in that are real assseholes so if if if a non-french speaking person learned french from that they would be they'd be like sylvie they'd be a complete cunt and i say that with love but so did you guys watch called my agent which is on the best shows ever in the world and it's all in french and actually

the actress who plays sylvie is in it and the woman that plays her mom is in it and it's basically about this french talent agency that looks after loads of actors and actresses it's so good they made an english version that was called oh it was called 10 i think that one but call my agent you guys have to watch it and i watched the whole thing maybe starting like in lockdown and i was watching it so seriously and i was like this is going to teach me french and all I learned from it was which means shut the door that's important that's important you know um I watched two episodes of it I absolutely loved it and I reckon something you know like a new series of something that I loved had dropped at the same time so I gave it up so this is a good reminder thank you oh it's I actually kind of want to

re-watch it it's so goddamn good and it's just so chic and it's so french set in paris as well set in paris and it has all of these cameos from really famous prison acts and actors who come in and out of the agency so they're paying themselves and all these agents like trying to get them jobs and there's like there's loads there's loads of plot in it and it's actually really well written i read joel golby's review of the series um for the garden if you've both read it i'm taking richard's because of the gospel oh you haven't oh you've got it is so so funny because he is writing from the perspective of someone who really isn't a fan but is in his words trying to drop his beef and there are so many because it's kind

of celebratory and nails what we love about it. But also it's so scathing. I'm going to read at least one quote. Oh, I'm so excited for this. Oh, it's so good. He says, the point of Emily in Paris is that it isn't for me. It's not even particularly for people who are sitting upright. And once you see through all that, you can, well, enjoy is not the right word exactly, but you can at least appreciate Emilyily and paris what it is which is an unashamedly silly soapy technicolor whirlwind of nonsense

which is probably the nicest thing he says in the entire thing it is really it's amazing writing i think he's just one of the best best writers but it just made me die laughing but also made me really excited to watch the series because i think he got a little um sneak peek of it so please do go and read that it will make you howl can we can we please get another sassy line i want to i want to get the like nastiest line in the piece merci beaucoup so this is the introduction to the piece he says i've decided to drop my beef with emily in paris which i'd always assumed was originally made a soft edge recuperative videos to help brain injury survivors relearn how to watch tv again is that not just the most like it really like i sort of lost my breath i was like and that's the

first line in the whole goddamn piece so um i mean like gird yourself if you are going to listen to this but it was like it's so funny but it's if you worked on the show or if you are emily in paris carefully well i should say the pete the bit that i read out from that guardian also one star was leila latif's piece which also we will link and that is also really funny and also just so scathing so this week i caused i'm going to diagnose it as a minister on the timeline i think that's fair to say um with an article that i wrote for i news about my very recent move out of london and back in with my parents at age 31 um my parents now live in wales which is a place i think it's important to say i don't i've never lived until now i don't have any um friends or well besides my parents they're my

best friends um and really haven't spent any time so i grew up southeast lived in london for eight years and now i've moved all the way to gorgeous uh wales and I think I've mentioned a bit of this on the pod, but I've not outlined it clearly. In this article, I spelled it out. And I wanted my focus to be on the shame that I was feeling and the sense that I had failed in some way, having left London after really wanting to live here for a very long time. It's where all my friendships are, it's where I moved to try and be a writer and I've been confronting all of that while in gorgeous tropical Wales and the piece went live last week got some really nice responses a lot of them in solidarity it turns out so so many other people in their 20s 30s 40s are doing something similar moving back in with their parents or have

lived with their parents for years as a kind of stop gap for various reasons involving the economy and some such depressing stuff like that um but also a lot of people were expressing less favorable opinions um some saying that they don't feel sorry for me that someone who isn't from london shouldn't really take up space feeling sad about being priced out um that complaining about it as a middle-class person especially someone who works in creative industries like i do as a writer author and podcaster um doesn't really yeah doesn't really have the right to uh take up space to complain about that um it kind of sparked splinter conversations about uh gentrification in London um mass displacement

um and that perhaps on the back of that there isn't a lot of sympathy for someone in my situation, which I have to agree with and do agree with. There was also quite a lot of people calling me some not so nice names, which I am used to on the internet. But in the context of this, I think I was quite taken aback that an article I'd written that I believed was about moving home with my parents age 31 in you know terrible economic time was actually about something different or people took it to be about something different the responses have been interesting I'm reading them all and processing them we've talked about them um me and Richard and nanoni separately and i want to enter it at the point of the article and i just want to talk about all of it i want to talk about why it's got this reaction i want to ask you

both as creatives living in london um who are not from here how it feels to live here if we think kind of can we call london home is the tide changing on kind of working in the arts, living in London, making a living? You know, to live here and have a job in a community, is it harder than it was when you arrived? I don't know precisely where to start, but I do just want to say, talk to me. I was surprised about the reaction because I think that you did a really generous thing in talking about the fact that you've, you know, you tried to get to this place with the work and economically it stopped being viable

and you've had to move back in with your parents. I think no matter where you come from or what work you're in, I think all of us carry a lot of expectations on ourselves about what certain ages mean we should have achieved and I really think it's really generous to say look actually I hold my hands up I couldn't afford to live for anyone I've had to move back in with my parents I know that personally for you it was such a big undertaking and you felt all these senses of shame much in the same way that I experienced it a bit when I broke up my ex and

suddenly found myself not knowing where I was going to go and I've done this kind of sideways thing of moving out of a home that felt like it could have been a grown-up inverted commas relationship home to moving into my friend's spare room and suddenly feeling a bit like oh okay I guess I'm not on that trajectory anymore so I think that's the really human experience side of it and actually I think loads of people would have found it really helpful and useful as more and more people are experiencing this. And this is significant to our generations and the generations that border us because our parents' generation and those older than that were able to buy homes and start families and join the property ladder much younger than 30. So I think it is a really significant thing to write about from that personal point of view. And I think that it's unfair for people to kind of diminish that and kind of pretend that that isn't important because I don't think it really matters who you are or whatever that still is going to impact you and how you feel about yourself and your success, even though it shouldn't

because it's outside of your control. And the second response that I had, I guess, I think is that we've got to be really careful to not just start infighting with each other because realistically the issue here is not that creatives or people that have moved to London for work are taking up space. People in their thirties who just want to be able to afford to rent a flat are really not causing the housing crisis in London it's definitely oligarchs and billionaires and serial landlords who are taking up properties and buying over huge swathes of properties renting out from exorbitant prices or not even renting them out or people that are using them for like money laundering and the government and the fact that there is like a housing crisis all of those things are not being caused by young prosperous people moving to the most buzzy city in the country in order to hopefully chase their dreams that would be my reaction I think to both sides

yes absolute retweet everything you said is how I feel um I yeah I found the responses really interesting but also like very I don't know it was just so intense and it obviously just like pressed a nerve on so many people I saw one of the vibes I'm not going to read anything verbatim because it's not about you know calling people out or you know yeah atting people here we're just having a conversation about this but one of the sentiments was that um in so many young people coming to London it has essentially displaced a lot of people from London and um I just found that quite I found that quite a surprising response because a capital city is

always just going to be a place where people flock to because it has the most opportunities and to blame individuals on doing that is completely removing the onus of a government that is not you know endorsing encouraging business creative industries to flourish across the country it's not creatives flocking here it's the jobs that we're chasing it's the opportunities that we're chasing so I don't know I found that difficult that argument just like, I don't know, it's very blamey and criticizing of the wrong people and not kind of pointing the finger in the right direction. I saw somebody post online that that was the equivalent of essentially saying foreigners are taking our homes. And I agree, I completely agree. Why are we pointing the finger at individuals and blaming

people for being a symptom of the problem? I saw a friend of the podcast, Yora Shadjanova, who I love. I think, yeah, I really support her work and I love a lot of her writing and a lot of her takes as well. She said, I wish that instead of doing a race to the bottom discourse about housing in London, we just accept that the housing crisis is a spectrum and not everyone will be on the sharp end of it. And that's exactly how I feel. I feel like people are acting online as if they have empathy fatigue. And I don't understand why. Empathy fatigue is reserved for junior doctors working insane shifts and being forced to deal with lots of shit.

Listening to other people's opinions does not warrant this kind of response where you just feel like, well, I only have enough empathy for people at the worst. We can extend our kindness and our empathy and our sympathy for people and understand that there is a spectrum of issues going on here. That's the only way we will deal with it and you know critique and criticize a government that is having so many far-ranging impacts I think that that was my reaction it's always difficult when it is about a piece you've written because my what I loved about Twitter all those many many years ago was that it was an exchange of ideas and I could go there and I could learn something and so I was seeing um people talk about this and I was picking up things that I hadn't thought about. And even though I think I really wasn't writing about

London and the sort of renting crisis here, I've lived in London for eight years and I've always struggled to pay rent. I've always been a renter with no assets. Even though I'm certain I wasn't writing about this, you know, I was learning things and I found that a kind of really valuable thing. But I did feel a sense of defensiveness about sort of being called a gentrifier, called, you know, this is your problem and now you're on the receiving end of the kind of consequences of that.

Because I really disagreed with that. And it just so neatly, as you've both said leaves those you know developers and and um kind of government policies so cleanly out of the the blame of it and we are all just like renters sniping each other um i just found it very a quite cruel and circular discussion, which I think we always find ourselves in. And, you know, my point always was, okay, I can't afford to live in London. It's a very expensive place to live, but I also can't afford to go. And so I grew up in the Southeast. I also can't afford to go back to my, the commuter town where I grew up. I can't afford to go anywhere, any other city. I can't afford, and no one, you know, it's an awful thing that a lot of us have to start again in our thirties and forties because of the economic situation. But one you know it's an awful thing that a lot of us have to start again in our 30s and 40s because of the economic situation but you know I was I'm well prepared

to do that emotionally but financially I couldn't do it my only option um was to move to and I say this with love the arse end of nowhere to live with my my parents who were probably um really welcoming but also probably like oh my goodness I thought i'd gotten rid of you um and it wasn't me saying well me me me this is woe is me if this is happening to me it's happening really to all of us that it's a scary thing that people can't afford not only to live in you know the kind of metropolitan hub but people really can't afford to live anywhere they can't afford to start again that easily like i i what savings i had were wiped out by being like really ill last year and as someone who's self-employed like i you know there was really nothing else to do and i think all the messages i've got have been people saying i am terrified i whether they're from

the midlands whether they're from Scotland but wherever they are they don't have in their bank account enough money to start again but could easily be forced to um very privileged that I could go home but that really like without that I would have been um fucked so I think it is you know i wanted to speak to that fear that that so many people have it's not london specific i wanted to read actually another set of tweets which came up before this is just kind of in the i think maybe the reason it hit another is because it is in the cosmos right now and so someone at girl ziploc tweeted the high cost of rent isn't just bad for renters young people are forced to narrow their lives to fit whatever careers earn enough to pay off the landlords generations are cut off at the knees

terrifying and then friend of the podcast jason okandai retweeted it and said i always wonder about the incredible creative talents we're missing out on who are stuck in corporate jobs they don't enjoy because they feel they have no choice financially i never shy away from saying that being a freelance writer has been a huge financial sacrifice compared to what I could have done with my career, but it's only been viable because I can live at home in London. I think the privilege conversation is so tired. And I think in 2024 to be going, I'm a white, posh, cis, het woman, whatever feels very trite, but those are all the labels that I have. And I know that there are ideas around I

think sometimes there can be this concept that if you aren't from London it means that you this idea of like the home counties you live in this like sprawling mansion somewhere in the Cotswolds and when you go back there's like this whole world available to you and it's kind of it's the reverse of this idea of the metropolitan elite that maybe people outside of London have sometimes there can be this view within London that metropolitan elite that maybe people outside of London have. Sometimes there can be this view within London that if you have a place outside of London, then you go back to some sort of like, yeah, sprawling manner. And for most people that just isn't, that isn't the truth or reality. Most people are this, this is just, you know, where you grow up and where you grew up and you probably don't have a pot of money from your parents

waiting for you. I wish all of us did because maybe then we would have a deposit for a house but that's why we're still renting or struggling or moving in with friends or you know making changes to our arrangements and I think what Jason said about the creative people suffering the most I have noticed it all of my friends who've been working their way up slowly through corporate ladders whether it's in finance whether it's in law or whatever it might be um are slowly but surely accruing money which they can use towards something and I've gone through like pits peaks and troughs of my career when I've had good years and bad years but I've never had the stability of earning gradually more sometimes I'll get a really good opportunity and I'm not ready to give up the good fight now but like one day

maybe I will have to think about moving into an industry which isn't creative. But I think even those friends that are earning money that are really high up working at somewhere like one of those big four finance companies, they couldn't afford to rent a flat on their own at 30. And I think fundamentally, society is flawed if adults, really grown adults, like 30 is at an age where I think you should be able to afford your own space. if you're in careers which are earning kind of like the top whatever percentage it is that's devastating i think people should be able to afford to have their space rent their own space at a minimum but so when you then bring that back down to like creatives which are criminally underfunded and are always kind of the first

things to get cut i think the argument that was coming back at Best Peace was just so lacking in nuance in terms of when we talk about privilege, there's all of those obvious things. But there is also the sad thing that people that live in places that are slightly far flung from London who may love to stay there, have loads of community there, will not get a job there. There is nothing to do. We can't control that. So there is also a privilege to living in London there is also I would never want anyone living in London to be priced out it's a really emotional conversation because I think all of us feel the same way where we just want all of our age mates and everyone around us to be able to afford to live and right now no one can I think that was really well put okay yeah um yeah I I just completely agree with you both and I think also there's a side conversation of what kind of what kind of value are we putting on

creative industries and you know I mean this isn't a particularly like surprising point like we've said it before but it's just feeling like it's getting worse in terms of what kind of people are going to be able to stay and are going to be able to create art if people are getting priced out people having to move out people having to change careers start again leave industries that they had their heart set on maybe not even enter industries I'm you know I'm curious about students leaving uni and what that must feel like right now that must be that must be a hot fucking mess like coming out into this shit show and you know finding a career and building life for yourself that is that is dire right now it's

interesting actually because I think a lot of people will say we'll get like get a real job and I've always had uh what they believe to be a real job. But when I moved to London, I moved to London not for a job, but because I knew I had to be in London for meetings with editors. That's where they all were. Luckily, my boyfriend lived here at the time, so I moved in with him. But for the first few years of living in London, I looked after children.

I cleaned houses for a living. And I was able at that point on that salary and with whatever money came in from, you know, the old freelance job that I would get at writing, I was able to live in Camden. And that is so, so I consider myself absolutely blessed and privileged to have arrived in London at that point when it was it was pretty tricky but I could do it I don't know anyone who could do that now like I have to leave now even you know with the employment that I've got I feel absolutely heartbroken for anyone who has not gotten their foot in the door and you know London is no longer the place for it even though that is where you have to be it's such a bind to be in um and so I did I have wanted to get into kind of real scraps with people about this to say you know I do have this

level of privilege but I had to come here and I had to work um you know multiple jobs to make this happen but it could happen I can't like people ask me how to get into writing now um and I don't have an answer for them that isn't really depressing. And so I mostly just feel really sad to say that, you know, London is the place to be, but unfortunately, who can be here but people who are already here, or people who are, yeah, willing to work a lot longer and a lot harder. So I think I agree with Beth, the same kind of thing happened to me, I moved here on a whim. You can read it all in my book, It's called Bad Influence, where I decided I was going to be an influencer. I was making minimal money from that. So I qualified as PT at uni and I was personal training to prop up

my creative career in order to earn money. So I was doing that basically as a full-time PT and then created an Instagram and was literally just making rent every month. I mean, like to the pound I was paying my rent and then just food and bills was sort of just like a hope, a wish and a dream. And hopefully something will come in to pay for them. But there was a point at some point when if you were creative and you were good enough and you got in front of enough people, your art would pay you and something's really changing now. And this was a really throwaway comment on a podcast I listened to called Richard Herring's Lester Square podcast. Richard Herring is a comedian in his fifties. He's been going for years and years. And he was podcasting before it was even podcasting and he did TV years ago and like he's been around forever. And he was really firm about

never doing ads on his podcast. And then in an episode I was listening to earlier today, he's talking to a young comedian about doing the fringe, Dan Tianan. And he was saying how I've just had to accept that actually the only way to be paid for creative work right now is to actually have some form of sponsorship embedded within your work and we see this across the board whether it's comedians whether it's sort of people that we deem to be famous in other creative areas suddenly starting podcasts to get adverts or doing instagram ads because of the like homogenization of the way that things work like streaming platforms and just the modernization of the way that we consume art and content and writing whatever you cannot be paid directly for your art and so you have to have

another means of earning money and the really real only places that have these big monies are like big corporations which is kind of really diluting and making it really sad for creatives because you don't it's kind of even what happened to us a little bit with our production company as we felt like in order to have some it's just it gets complicated basically it gets very political and it means that art and conversation is diluted by parameters around industries that aren't creative in the arts. This conversation really reminds me of when there was discussion around the differences between the two actresses, Sydney Sweeney, known for Euphoria and Anyone But You, and Dakota Johnson of Madame Web fame, which we have spoken about you should definitely listen to that episode um and essentially how Sydney Sweeney came from um you know a much more humble beginning

to Dakota Johnson famously a nepo baby and if you took a quick look at their Instagram um you could see that Sydney Sweeney's Instagram was you know back-to-back b2b sponsored content whereas Dakota Johnson's wasn't and this was you know predating uh Sydney Sweeney doing the film Anyone But You which I think hopefully would have shot her into a more commercial fame and a bigger paycheck but it was just talking about the kind of differences between creatives and the need and the expectation to survive financially unless you come from a wealthy fucking background adverts brand deals all of that kind of shit is just your bread and butter and I think it was a Hollywood reporter where she had a big profile and she spoke about how financially despite doing shows like you know

euphoria and the white lotus some of the biggest fucking shows of our time like the amount of popularity and critical acclaim of them she still financially was not rolling in it in the way that we would assume i think it's really good i think i think that this is the thing that we have to remember i think there's something so glossy about anyone in creative industries. And I think we've lost a real sense of realizing how important the creativity and the arts are for society, for culture, for patriotism. They really are the lifeblood. And I always talk about this, but if we didn't have the arts, we would lose so much. And to think that anyone working in those jobs, it's not a real job is kind of undermining just how much any writer

that you, any, any journalist whose work you read, any creative whose art or whatever they put out, you consume, will be working around the clock. They're not doing frontline jobs. They're not nurses and they're not doctors but it is one of the most demanding jobs in order to even just make ends meet and yes when you make it if you end up being like dolly alderton or if you saw to success with a novel and you do a sally rooney you can make so much money but there are so many creatives who are just chipping away every single day really trying their best it really is their love and their passion and they could go on to create whether it's fleabag or i may destroy or whatever you've seen recently that really changed every single day, really trying their best. It really is their love and their passion. And they could go on to create,

whether it's Fleabag or I May Destroy or whatever you've seen recently that really changed and revolutionized your life, whatever book it might be, whatever film. It's not an easy job, even though it looks, I think there's so much glamour around it that people just expect people are sitting around going to lunches, having glasses of wine. It's really not like that and so i think

that we need to recognize the power in the arts how important it is how much it needs funding and not devalue it and not call it not a proper job um obviously we're passionate about it because we have a whole podcast but i think there's something in that as well about the way that society has sort of devalued the arts to the point where we've lost things like the ballet and the opera and theater and these things are really important and culturally so significant and they don't not only can we not afford to go that the the companies down they can't afford to run anymore well i what i and i agree with that completely what i think is so egregious as well is if you ask anyone in power at any point what makes this country great, it is always

the arts, it is this great painter, this kind of succession of fantastic writers, it's all of this, we recognise this is what, you know, we are a pillar of culture, and yet when you talk to the average person on the street or in politics for the last 14 years of tory rule they're so dismissive of it you know they really don't give a shit about any artists on the rise any person in the creative industry that isn't in that moment um you know making their hedge fund money it's i think it's just the most egregious display of like what the worst part of british society is we're so cruel about the arts until they're, you know, the artist is long dead and have made us a bunch of money. I just think it's absolutely foul and

it's really indicative of the direction we're heading in, how we talk about art. One thing I do want to recommend is Arts Emergency, which is a mentoring charity, a network that connects volunteers within creative and cultural sectors with people who might not otherwise get a chance to enter them and kind of get more young people into this industry so that's arts emergency and whether you're in a position to volunteer or not you can also donate I think they're a really really worthy cause that do great work in the UK. If you've enjoyed the podcast,

please share us with a friend or foe and review us. Five stars. And please do follow us on Instagram and TikTok at everythingwithcontentpod. See you next week. Bye. Bye. Sorry week bye again without the hit bye