Everything Is Content - The 9 Month Cruise, Cop Slide and Smothered

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

We wrapped the studio in tinsel to record our last episode of 2023. Today Beth, Ruchira and Oenone share their pop-culture highlights of 2023 as well of some of our favourite things from this week. We have a new obsession with Cruise Tok, a 13-year-old's Christmas list has gone viral, and we are loving Monica Heisey's Smothered. —AYO EDEBIRI https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebiriYOUTUBE: Police Officer Tumbles Down Giant Playground Slidehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t3eKgW-siM HUFFINGTON POST: Why The Boston Cop Went Down The Slide So Fast, According To A Physicisthttps://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/why-boston-cop-went-down-slide-fast_n_64cbdd75e4b099151f36cd5c TIME: Why Vanderpump Rules Is Suddenly Everywherehttps://time.com/6260504/vanderpump-rules-drama-explained/ METRO: A first-look inside the 9-month-long cruise that’s blowing up on TikTokhttps://metro.co.uk/2023/12/17/tiktoker-shares-life-like-a-9-month-cruise-a-peek-inside-19985182/ TIKTOK: Meet ‘The Cast’ of the Ultimate World Cruisehttps://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeNbxHcK/ LADBIBLE: People left 'speechless' by 13-year-old girl's Christmas list this yearhttps://www.ladbible.com/community/teen-christmas-list-nike-apple-twitter-781985-20231218 THE CUT: TikTok Is Taking Over My Teen’s Multistep Skin-Care Routinehttps://www.thecut.com/article/tiktok-is-taking-over-my-teens-multi-step-skincare-routine.htmlMONICA HEISEY: Really Good, Actually https://www.waterstones.com/book/really-good-actually/monica-heisey/9780008511760GUARDIAN: Smothered review – this fresh twist on a romcom is utterly lovelyhttps://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/dec/07/smothered-review-this-fresh-twist-on-a-romcom-is-utterly-lovely JAY RAYNER: With yourself doesn’t count does it. https://twitter.com/jayrayner1/status/1622143353713315840 ---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.

would anyone like a potty in this? yeah I think we deserved it even like little puppies I'm Beth I'm Richera and I'm Anoni and you are listening to Everything Is Content the pop culture podcast where we bring you a big stocking full of stories and discourse every week.

This week, we'll be talking about Smothered, Cruise Talk and our best bits of 2023. You can follow us on Instagram at everythingiscontentpod. Send us a message, get involved, tell us you love our memes. I honestly wish someone would though. Guys, it's been a very long year it's been so long everything's happened I am kind of losing the plot at this point but what I want to do is look back before we like hurtle into 2024 yes and just like do a little recap of the things that we loved and laughed at and enjoyed this live laugh loved at live laugh loved at exactly thank you Richera

that's okay um one thing I really want to talk about is i've got a person of the year and it's going to be ayo adabiri um truly truly right i think this was her year i want to talk about bottoms have you guys seen bottoms not yet i haven't seen bottoms oh you have to go watch it it's so funny it's a teen film with her and rachel sennett they play uh two lesbian high schoolers who much like super bad they get on a quest to get laid basically by the end of the year and have sex with two cheerleaders and it's the most ridiculous premise it's like a satire of all the kind of teen films that have come before it but it's also innovative enough that it just had me honestly creased up laughing

it's so good i've seen like a trailer for it and i thought it was like a fight club film is that an element of it yep yep like a lesbian fight club women being the shit out of each other that's exactly what it is where can i see it though because i wanted to go and see it and i remember it being on cinema i was gonna see it and then i missed i missed the wave yeah it had a limited run in the uk apparently they really struggled to get um the film made because the fact that it was about two lesbian girls made it apparently less less appealing to certain networks so i actually saw it at the ritzy but it's not actually available anywhere for now but you should see it come up on amazon very soon hopefully that's such a moment that's literally

i want to watch it i know okay no no but the hype will be good we can make a fight club us three yes okay be in it let's do that what are you up to later be the show beauty okay gorgeous that was your person of the year that is your for the whole of the year have you got anything else that you want to talk about so i just want to sneak in io edabiri in the bear and then use that as a way to talk about the bear if that's okay definitely please do okay great um ah i'm just obsessed with this new season i didn't think it would be possible to improve something already amazing but this second series i think honestly beats the first have you i'm not doing an agreement i've watched both of them i i didn't watch them back to back like i watched the first one and

then had to wait which is such a disgusting way to watch telly loved this series the guest stars that they had yeah divine yeah Olivia Colman loved the first series same as you had to wait for the second series went to watch it

and just wasn't in the right frame of mind you know how it was so stressful it's very serious my brain just went you don't want to watch The Bear anymore did you not finish it

I literally didn't finish that first episode of the second series and I need to watch it funny enough I've had some friends who've been like the second series

exactly like you were they're like it blows the first out of the water it's amazing other people have been like don't even bother with the second series really i need to watch it funny enough i've had some friends who've been like the second series exactly like you were chair they're like it blows the fast out the water it's amazing other people have been like don't bother with really because they balance it a lot better there's not so many it's not doesn't feel as relentlessly in the kitchen like there's one episode which is actually really the whole start to finish is peaceful are you thinking of the one i'm thinking of i'm thinking of when yes and it's actually really lovely i was about to cry by the end of it it is so good so kind of like they did with Skins,

where they focus on one character and give that character an episode to grow. I feel like they did that a lot more with this one. And there's also an episode with the pastry chef where he gets to really, you know, like explore his love of pastry and he goes to a different country. And it's just, it's really lovingly told

by each character, each episode. And that's the win of this second series it's so beautiful okay you can handle it you can definitely handle it it was like your favorite show of the year would you say that in succession yes okay okay guys please talk about something i've just woven in three things i mean mine's not about telling mine's a meme 2024 is cop slide which and i i read so many top 2023 moments and there was so much like there was those big red boots there was everyone getting divorced there was so much happening there was that awful thing with the submarine i went i just need a break that was not this year that was this year you're kidding every this year like i said this year's been long Oh my god I'm bleeding Right if anyone doesn't know

What I'm talking about I don't think I know The cop slide meme Was August of this year In Boston Massachusetts America An American police officer Enters a slide

As a normal man And he is filmed Coming out of that slide He is shot out of that slide With fours And only he's looking at me As though I am talking in tongues I'm crying

you're doing a cop slide what are you guys talking about it's actually huge I'm either really online or like I've just disappeared off the face you might have been

on a holiday or I could have been in my painting phase when I'm painting I'm not doing anything okay I'm gonna show you so this is an adult cop who goes in the

but this is a children's supposed to be a child cop a child police officer this is a child slide adult cop and this is what happened so he's being filmed and they think

obviously he's going to come out wow he is upside down he is spinning out of that thing is that in England? no it's in Boston that man looks like an English copper

I think they're allowed I think they just and only you're not focusing on the slide yes he's been shot out of that who cares where he's from why was he going down in the first place i think he was just having a break look at that he comes down fully face down ass up that's the way he likes to slide

he people superimposed it onto loads of different scenarios so he was like shooting through space it was so funny he was and they did like the i can hear it because he like makes that noise he's rocketing out it united the internet at a time where we really needed that like people were they sent scientists like the huff post and people sent scientists to work out why did this is a slide for children how did an adult man enter the slide on his little body and come out as though he'd been greased like he there's no physics could not understand it they went at the velocity of which he went through the slide it was so funny he comes out of the thing with such bim and such force it was honestly and it was such

a fun meme people there was at one point a 45 minute queue to use this slide in boston because people adults wanted to go and use it obviously the kids were like excuse me that's my slide um he's not it was amazing like he's not the first person that has been injured on that slide adults can't use it he won't be the last adults shouldn't use it because so i read it's not like the slide has a sort of like malevolent magic that goes in it goes you shouldn't use this it was because we're bigger we get we gather more speed right shoot out of this metal tunnel but i for a while i was like it's haunted thank you for sharing yeah so that was my joyful thing i mean it doesn't have the kind of like cultural weight i think that the bear did but for that week in august it was it brought us together so that's mine i love that i've got a

couple of things because one of them i feel like it doesn't need much discussion but it's an album okay what miley cyrus oh i was gonna say the barbie album no i can buy myself flowers that was huge and everyone was reading into that song particularly yeah the gold outfit oh my god so that was that that album just because i loved it and i feel like i just love miley cyrus and that whole album to me i adored it does feel like that was six years ago but my main thing of 2023 has to be what is it what is it? What is it? Scandival. Oh, yes. Van Pant Rules.

I got back into it at the beginning of the year. I actually caught up on like two seasons in a very short amount of time because I'd heard about this scandal that happened with Tom Sandoval and another cast member who shall not be named. Raquel slash Rachel Levis. Levis and his ex-girlfriend Ariana. If you guys haven't watched Van and Pump Rules

I have never but it's genuinely life-changing like I've never been so addicted they released the trailer for the next series like the other day I watched it eight times I was like breathless I did watch the show from the beginning it's a spin-off from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills it's Lisa Van and Pump's she owns like restaurants and it's the staff that work in the restaurant so as much as it is reality tv and some of it is like this is so ridiculous they genuinely have been in the show for so long these relationships are so real that it was like the cast were also reacting because it was all kind of kept a secret this affair from the rest of the cast you're watching the cast kind of react to it in real time so it's probably the least scripted scripted reality ever because it's

like even the crew don't know what's happening yeah it's all which here you watched as well so you know what i'm talking about yes so i heard and saw a scandal i had no idea what the show was and then came to it really late in the summer i binged 10 slash 11 series in two months and only can confirm i lost my mind i was messaging on the group chat we have just being like oh I can't believe this happened this happened it's all happened I'm there I'm there it's scandalous um yeah it's completely insane and as she was saying everything happened off screen so then they had to rush to capture it on screen so it was this weird kind of narrative unfolding in real time that the cameras were rushing to capture so it really felt like it really felt like reality tv slash real life slash

we were in it we were involved it was all this kind of mixing of boundaries that was kind of insane to be a part of do you know what's weird because if it was a drama and you knew that like the hook or the thing was someone's having an affair that would kind of ruin it whereas with this what happened was they filmed a series that hadn't been released and then we find out this affair had happened yes that series comes out and then you're watching this series with the knowledge that these two

have had an affair and there are just all of these clues and things that if you didn't know they had an affair you'd be like that's a bit weird

but it is like sickening torch as in like once you know and you're watching it with that knowledge you're like I cannot believe

there's bits where like the guy that he's like cheating with he's like touching her says certain things and you're just watching it oh my god that's genius I mean just such lucky timing I imagine the producer somewhere is like rubbing their hands like the guy that he's like cheating with, he's like touching her, he says certain things and you're just watching it. Oh my God. It was,

that's genius. I mean, just such lucky timing. I imagine the producer somewhere is like rubbing their hands in glee. It blew up in a way that was like beyond just a fandom. It was like,

it was in the newspapers over there. The New York Times reported it. Am I going to have to watch this over Christmas? I'm not going to talk to my family. I'm going to watch this. You must. Where can I, I mean,

off the top of my head, if you know, where can I watch this? Hey, oh great, I can subscribe to that. Yeah, on Prime. I'm going to watch this hey oh great I can subscribe to that yeah on Prime I'm gonna watch this

it's what a small 10 series oh I'm really excited it's so good oh what a year also Angela Bassett

did a thing she started the year doing the thing and now we're doing our thing full circle okay i've found something which i think is going to be a very very long road for us all that we're going to stay on to the bitter end oh no and it is hashtag world cruise talk and no one has inhaled ruchira has rolled her eyes in a way that suggests

she knows what i'm talking about i lightly know what it is but i have a feeling that you know way more than i do i've made sure of her it is is world cruise talk is the coverage of a nine-month royal caribbean cruise that is has begun i think about a week and a half ago so we're a week and a half into 270 ish days of a world cruise on a royal caribbean ship oh my and we have characters we have relationships we have we've got players and we've i'm like invested in it now i've got so much to pick before you even get to the point of them like creating content about it. A cruise in of itself I find quite stressful the idea of. Yes. Nine months.

Nine months. On a cruise. On the one ship in your quarters stopping off at I think it's 65-ish countries. But then they also said the 11 wonders of the world. I thought there was only seven wonders of the world. They've added some I imagine. They've just updated it. It is.

The world is very wondrous and only. It's insane where they go and what they do and how long they are on a cruise ship. It sounds so mean. My main gripe is it just looks like the inside of a casino. There's nothing about it that I could bear to be in. That's interesting. Do you know what I mean?

Like sometimes you see a beautiful yacht and you think, gosh, what a lovely place to stay. But could you do that for nine months again? I think it's anywhere I don't think I could stay for nine months. No, I can't. I can't even stay in my own that for nine months again i think it's anywhere i don't think i can no i can't i want to stay in my own house for nine months no so this is it so one they're in very cramped quarters it's it's not the biggest cruise ship it's large but it's not like one of these like mega ones because it has to go such a long way and there are restrictions on where like a huge cruise ship can go okay so it's it's quite a small vessel I think it's got like an occupancy of like

1200 or 2000 something like that 700 of those people will be there the whole time other people will be swapping in now but it's not massive is what I will say and all the rooms are like quite cramped even if you've got unless you are like the CEO you're in like a very small stage state room it's giving triangle of sadness I'm so freaked out oh so true I'm so freaked out but also Beth you tell you've been on a cruise haven't you I have so I went so I'd like to know about I went on a Royal Caribbean cruise that's the same company I went in the capacity I have to say in the capacity of like press a journalist I'm not obligated to say anything nice about them but I was on Wonder of the Seas their newest ship in 2022 which

was like the biggest one they'd ever made it was 50 times bigger than the Titanic um and with like probably a lot more water slides um it was huge it was enormous um so I was on their like brand new one and it was incredible did you love it did you enjoy the experience oh my god I had the best time it was seven days from Miami around the Caribbean and back oh that does sound amazing seven days at the end of seven days

I went I could maybe do two more days and then I'd have to sack this in it was too much it was so overwhelming there was so much to do

the whole thing for me is organised fun to like the nth degree I'm exhausted watching it don't get me wrong I've been watching it and I've been watching it all day long

I will watch it until the end. I do think that's the point. They've just started. They're all in great spirits. They're on this thing for another nine months. So everything that they're enjoying right now,

it could break down. It's the honeymoon. Psychologically, I think they are going to struggle a lot. I was on there for seven days. By the end of it, I thought I really, I want to go home.

The same way you do if you're on holiday, even if you're traveling. I think when you're traveling, you get benefit of diff properly different accommodation different experiences this is 200 almost 300 days of the same food the same exactly the same surroundings that ship is going to be so familiar to them that they I was very much like this is getting a bit dull now so obviously though everyone that has gone on this is signed up more than willingly they've paid a huge amount of money to do this they want to be there and from their social media they're having the best time they're really excited so i've been watching them on tiktok and i've got a few that i've watched there's loads of them but i've got

maybe two so i don't know and only who have you been watching i've seen a lot of bridget's ones then there's annalise there was another lady who i can't remember i can't remember her tiktok now but i'm fairly certain that she was doing it because she found out that she was like had cancer and she'd like inherited a lot of money because it's like 60 grand isn't it per person we're getting yeah the the cost of i think is because it's not public so people are quite shady but i think it is about 60 000 pounds per person it depends on the rooms and the package. But it's about £60,000 per person for nine months.

Is the food included in that? All the food is. Some restaurants you have to pay out of pocket. And then there's alcohol packages as well. £60,000 is a house deposit. Isn't it? With the characters on TikTok, what has been going down already in week one? Only good things so far.

So they've all met each other, which is a nice thing. So all of these creators have obviously been heavily followed. they've been seeing like the buzz they've been getting so they've gotten together and done like a game show which obviously they're all friends now that will not last no they're gonna fall out this is so weird it literally feels like big brother the way you're talking about it except we're getting it from tiktok it's like a reality tv via tiktok exactly that's exactly like it's a dystopian book like wait or like sorry when tam that's like they walk on the ship they're all like yay it's like squidstopian book, like, or like, sorry, when Tam, it's like, they walk on the ship, they're all like, yay, it's like Squid Games. Then you suddenly find out that,

like, you've all got to, like, kill each other. But the other thing is, some of the girls, they'll be like, so,

they were like, this morning, we had, like, a town hall meeting on the boat. And then we went to the city, and you're like, excuse me,

you live, is this like a world? Like, why are you having a town hall meeting? And they also go to all of these things that I would, like, never go to.

So they were like, we had this sort of, like, communion thing, we all went and sat, and we spoke about, like like what we want to achieve and i was like that is like stuff i try to actually get out of in life and then like opting into all of these sort of it feels like they've had this society on there and that will only grow deeper obviously with the people that are staying on their full term but like you can't just leave behind all of the like problems of real life and all of like the

inbuilt prejudices that people have and like the problems people will start getting very irate people will i think really struggle with lord of the flies it will i think there will be some real like chafing up against different people that are on there for nine months it will be a power struggle because i think it kind of seems like it's already become a little village and with that there are going to be as you say characters that come to the fore to try and control and lead and politicize it and it just feels like within those nine months I wonder if we'll see like a little microcosm of like a country and what happens I think so I'm excited to like in that kind of evil part of my brain I'm like what will happen because some people have like bingo cards predictions and

it's like the nice stuff like or like not the nice stuff but the easygoing stuff like little squabbles or like you know a small std outbreak stuff like that and other people like serial killer and you're like probably not but maybe I mean there's one the only part of me that's like it could be nice is this idea of like switching off so the fact that all the food's there and you could but my if I'm just gonna go on a cruise for nine months the idea of succumbing that much it would mean that i basically would want to go and eat three meals a day and then just sleep in my room for like nine months that i would find fun it's the inbuilt like the idea of sort of like having to do all these activities isn't it it's sort of like you eat at these times you can't leave

unless we tell you you have like yard break when you go onto these islands and places but otherwise you're here don't try and like it's quite crap i think it's very i i couldn't bear it and i do think there's some snobbishness in the way we talk about it yeah not us necessarily because we're perfect but some people are talking about like oh well they're you know they're seeing the world but in the wrong way fucking hell like it's really impossible for most people to see the world unless they're like able-bodied whether they've got like independent funds whether they can you know feel safe in all these places so it's a kind of it's a one way to do that and it's not a way that i would like to do it but it is what they're gonna see antarctica like that's insane for a cruise to go there like

as one stop that's like cruises to antarctica cost like 20 grand on their own 10 to 20 grand like they they have a stop there like that is pretty impressive so i've no i agree with you and i remember seeing the thing where someone's like imagine getting to see that much of the world i think that's amazing but the cruise aspect of it for me i just couldn't do agree that being said when my uncle wasn't well he used to go on cruises with my auntie and they couldn't go so my mom and dad like took that spot and my mom to this day talks about it she was like it was the best time of my life she's a cruiser she was like she's a cruise she's like you got to get dressed up in the evening everyone's really dressed up and then your food's just cooked but i think for her it's because she's

been like a really hard working like housewife and mother and like constantly doing stuff for the people she it was like heaven relinquish control she was like you literally the food is just there and it's delicious and it's non-stop like you can get it whenever and it is good i mean i do think over the course of nine months you get sick of it but it's not terrible food it's non-stop like you can get it whenever and it is good i mean i do think over the course of nine months you get sick of it but it's not terrible food it's good and there's enough different stuff for the first few weeks i think it's amazing i think what's so weird about this one is i think we accept people maybe in their the winters of their life or not even that old may december of their lives like going going on a cruise i think what's really captured us with this world cruise thing at the minute is

like some of the women on the other girls they're like they're sisters and one of them's like finishing her degree on the on the boat and there's like loads of quite young people it's not the demographic you imagine which is sort of these cruisers that have you know those like nannies and women that have those like matching two pieces and they wear a different one every night and they're like sparkly and they're in retirement because they've got the time off and every year they like get their cruise outfits and they go on their cruise and that's the thing i think there's something different about this where it's kind of like merging two what it's like trying to make cruising cool is that like the room because we're

in the remote work here and a lot of people are still working on board so young people can if they're they've got to be independently wealthy but they don't have to be retired they don't have to have nine months off working they can still do that at the same time and also if i guess if you didn't own a property you weren't renting paying mortgage and then i mean again sixty thousand dollars is loads but like if you don't have to pay for food or bills or anything and they thought that's business class tickets there and back yeah miami so like maybe if you take off all of your costs maybe in the end it ends up being like 30 grand 20 grand which is still and then you never know it's still a load but like you're not actually you don't have any outgoings maybe for some people that's like a great like yeah and maybe you could save over

the course of a few years 20 grand i don't know yeah i do think i think it's doable for a lot of people and i do think it's for some people it makes total sense to do this other people are like never in my life i just do think it's funny that i think it's a huge thing to sign up for not no you can't predict how you're going to be nine months in one place like people go traveling and they have full control of a lot of things and then they lose their minds this is so regimented people get pregnant on board and this is another thing that will definitely happen well they have a health center they're not allowed to be on there after is it 24 i think it's yes what's that like six six months yeah so they they can have an enjoy a little bit but like

people swing on cruises that they will yeah they'll be fucking but i'm worried to go home for christmas for like one day and there's people with a whole family on a cruise for nine months like that is surely gonna be like there will be bus stops and like that's a lot because you can't just like you have to be in this tiny room oh there's gonna be brawls and we're gonna see it all and i can't wait so if you want to watch more then i mean search tiktok or anywhere for nine month cruise or world cruise talk or just like big ship and the algorithm will continue to deliver we've got nine months of this strapping because i think we're gonna probably talk about this quite a lot yeah so i want to talk about a tweet that went viral this week this tweet has been deleted but it was by uh twitter formerly no ex-former twitter user called amber and she basically tweeted her 13 year old niece's Christmas list

and the tweet got up to over 11 million views and there was lots of reasons for this first of all the list is so long I don't know how many individual items are on there but it well she's done it really annoyingly where she's done loads of bullet points next to each other just do it in a chronological list even she's obviously lost track when she's done that because she's put a couple of things twice so she's put money twice she just wants to make sure i get my money yeah but so the reason we were kicking off like some of the stuff on here i think is is like fair enough like converse or cute candles but then she's also included stuff like silk pillowcase which i also would love but i'm not i'm not spending 45 pounds on a pillowcase so and i'm almost 30 um

drunk elephant bronzing drops I don't even know what that is incredibly expensive I know I see it in um space and k when I pop in there but I didn't I wouldn't be aware those drops went viral on tiktok okay okay so it's self-tan like if I went in space and k obviously they wouldn't get them out for me they go these are out of your but people are just acrylic nails real ones again i think that's quite cute to want that um dior lip oil gucci perfume there's kind of a lot of designers dior concealer there's a lot of designer stuff and people are kicking off because they're like what does a 13 year old what business does a 13 year old have with asking for a this much stuff and this caliber of stuff

what do you guys think what were you asking for when you were 13 it was definitely age inappropriate stuff for me yeah the thing is i didn't know any of these brands i was like deep in the argos catalog so my access was through that so i was probably asking for like jewelry or like clothes that weren't appropriate but i wasn't i didn't know the brands i didn't know i was not asking for anything designer because one i don't think designer place like dior didn't really make little buyable stuff no it was bags and things so had they made lip oils and lip glosses and my friends had them I would have absolutely asked but they just didn't they didn't have that market range at that point Dior lipstick to me when I was

13 is like uh old lady lipstick I wanted juicy tubes were they called juice tubes from the lip gloss that like tasted of sugar like a lip smacker yeah but juicy tubes as well I don't know if they were Lancome they're based like little clear tubes and they had colored lip glosses in and they tasted yummy so you'd be like putting on your lips but also eating at the same time it was definitely for kids like that was a kind of viral thing of its time but it was designed to be marketed towards didn't cost young people i've obviously never bought your concealer but there i assume they're quite a lot of money. Yeah, I feel like with this,

I feel like I'm sitting on the fence with it. I feel like with teen girls, there's always a moral panic about anything they get up to. And it's like, why are adults commenting on teen girls' businesses anyway? I feel like they're always worried about them obsessing about One Direction and what it says about the state of teen girlhood and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But I think you can also take a look at it and be like, the internet is obviously contributing to young girls accessing all of this information about materialistic things. And that is a new thing. And that is something to think about. But at the same time, when I was younger, I was putting press on nails when I was 13. I was like sticking false eyelashes on my eyebrows. I was doing all of this crap just to a very shit degree yeah so it is it's about the effectiveness of it and it's the impulses have always been the same all of us here sat there at 13 and we wanted to play it being old I think that's a really healthy thing and the psychological psychological development of young people is playing at adulthood and that's what a 13 year old's doing here is saying these are

adult items I want them it's more what does this say about the state of the media and things that they have access to these brand names i've also just remembered i think i got my first laptop when i was 14 because that was around the time just when i got a laptop and actually i think when you're an adult and you say the word 13 14 you think god that's so young when you're 14 in your mind you feel older than i do now do you know i mean no i agree i'm fully good'm fully not a child in the way that you've yeah you've been a child your whole life suddenly you're not a child yeah I've been an adult for ages now I've paid tax how many times that's dull when I was 13 is the first time I've never been a child so of course you want to do these things that represent they signify adulthood and I do

I think it makes total everything on here makes sense it's just if you look behind where these things came from it's different than when we were children one thing i think is really interesting about this is i think somebody pointed this out online so something that's really pronounced this year is how all of us are looking to girlhood we're trying to infantilize ourselves we're getting into barbie we're wearing bows we're dressing in pink and then the younger girls are looking to be our age i mean this isn't anything new obviously 13 going on 30 existed years ago but I think the fact that girlhood has become so trendy makes that binary even more extreme does that make sense yeah it does I definitely see that I think

there's one space now and it's the internet it's there's no longer like kids space it's not like they're on club penguin everyone's on tiktok now we have one shared space and i think the boundaries are so much more blurred between like what is a girl what's a woman who has this who is this for what was i made for a la billy eilish i think that's where my only concern comes in with it is i agree when i was 13 i wanted to be an adult i was desperate for my mum to get me a padded bar from La Senza, sadly gone. La Senza! And I will not forget on like blue eyeshadow and stuff. And me and my friends would play adulthood and we have thousands of photo albums that were on Bieber.

I should probably don't exist anymore to prove it. But it was still really adolescent. Our makeup was done terribly. We weren't wearing concealer or foundation. We were just doing like really thick eyeliner and then like a lipstick and an eyeshadow. It wasn't actually concealing we weren't doing maybe we're using like simple face wipes to remove like the fifth layer of eyeshadow that we were trying on but i think what's worrying here is that young girls are

genuinely getting bought into this beauty industrial complex from 13 when your skin is absolutely perfect and obviously you can have like spots and other issues you get as a a teen. But as a general rule, you do not have a pore. You're not worrying about fine lines, which is what these products are for. So stuff like Retinol, I have seen this on. And I think that they were probably like 15 to 18 children and young adults of that age worrying about the fine lines and aging. And I didn't stop worrying about aging probably until last year. Yeah. And I'm 30 now because I was just not, it caught up with us us super late and it just wasn't as pronounced as you can do this at home

you need a retinol you need this serum have you read the cut article by Daisy Schofield where she interviews loads of teenagers about the 10 steps skincare routine they have and she talks about exactly what you're both saying which is there's this very real trend of teen girls getting into quote-unquote baby botox and retinol and hyaluronic acid and all of these jargony long-term names that we know because we're older but they're 13. I haven't I really want to read that piece I did see a really interesting thing and I don't know if that came from an article or not so this is annoying to say but someone was saying how years ago beauty brands like you kind of said Beth earlier were targeting women and adults and so they didn't really have these lower end niche products but now that there's

fewer and fewer women with the disposable income to buy lots of expensive products they're now creating these ranges of like much lower end was this on x twitter yeah in case I might have read exactly the same thing and we can find it but that's so true because they they've realized there's that gap in the market of young women yeah and they can sell these like marked up products god isn't that sneaky well the tweet has been deleted but let's hope that the the list made it safely to santa and that that 13 year old your lip balm oil he'll be delivering that on his sleigh so we gave you some homework last week don't worry if you haven't caught up bad bad on you but we're not going to do any spoilers for this but let's talk about Smothered okay okay so it's a new rom-com sitcom currently showing on sky

comedy slash now tv so it follows sammy and tom played by daniel vitalis and john pointing they meet on a night out at karaoke and start a no strings attached affair on the condition they'll never speak again after three weeks delightful obviously it all goes wrong of course um it's written by monica heisey former shits creek writer and she also wrote really good actually have you read that yeah one of my best books of this year i think it was the maybe the first book that i sat down in like one day and just read the whole thing oh it's yeah it's good i loved it and any of you read it yeah you read it i loved it there's a scene where she's like having a she's imagining that she's just like perfect

woman she's having this like vision in her head of like the perfect scenario to bump into your ex-boyfriend she's like I've just come out of the gym my hair's wet but it's just drying naturally and it's like a gorgeous warm day and I've just got the perfect outfit on and I'm walking along and then I think Harry Styles just like appears and then her boyfriend tries to talk to him and Harry's like sorry and it's so funny because it's so deranged and I've had I've had in the shower like stayed in the shower like an extra five minutes to finish like this daydream where everything just goes right and obviously it's like I'm oh doesn't he say something like the last line is I've been all morning fingering your girlfriend to the ex-boyfriend which is like that's how all my fantasies I just feel like it was it was yeah it was a great read and it was

really comforting and it was very lost oh it was a huge read and it was really comforting and it was very lolz. Oh, it's such a good book. It was a huge hit as well. Yeah. Which is why I feel like if you haven't seen Smothered, you absolutely have to because it's still got that real comedy edge to it. But also she's just so clearly

a fan of rom-coms because all of it is both an homage to, you know, Richard Curtis films, all the big rom-coms that we grew up on. But she subverts them enough that it feels modern, authentic, contemporary, exciting. I know this is a really basic comment, but it's also British.

I love more than a truly British London show. Do you know what I mean? They go places. You go, I've had a shit date there. It really does the London dating scene in London. It feels loving, but also in that way that you can be like these parts of us so shit and so isolating this is what like people in london like this is what dating in london is like which was really really fun i thought like and also quite christmasy yeah sure yeah i don't know if you guys have seen all

the way to the end but it's around christmas time which made me feel very festive yeah um but yeah it was a really as someone who spent the majority of my 20s having shit dates in London I was like oh my god I feel like Monica Heisey has read all my text messages all of my messages and just like scoured them for details it's so on the nose oh one thing I want to ask is I feel like I fell in love with Tom and I think one thing I've realized is women who write male heartthrobs, they just hit different. Thinking about Phoebe Waller-Bridge, The Hot Priest. Yes. I'm thinking about knowing Centineo in To All The Boys I've Loved Before.

I just think when women write male heartthrobs, they just hit different. And it's not at all how men imagine like how an incel would portray like the woman's ideal man. Like Tom is not this kind of like no he's kind of a really hunky go-getting like he's just gorgeous he's cute he's having a hard time but he's doing his best he's sweet and kind of reliable but also like trying to let loose like you're completely right men don't understand when i try and explain like the female gaze and i say to like my male friends i'm like imagine like Adam Buxton oh I am in love with him

yes he has feelings he talks about them he's obsessed with his wife yes but he's quite honest and self he always is really self-aware and he always kind of says oh I'm like this and so is Tom in this he is very in touch with that side of himself and he's kind of um the character of Sammy is making these decisions and he's sort of like oh but couldn't we talk about our feelings a bit more and she's like no we've got this agreement and it's very interesting to see that reverse I think that is a really interesting dynamic and I love her because she's she's kind of like horny self-protective flawed character and she's allowed to be like she does some things in this that you go oh my god like she throws a party in his house and like I won't

spoil the details but you go you probably shouldn't have not really bad. Like she throws a party in his house and like, I won't spoil the details, but you go, you probably shouldn't have done that. Things like that, that she's allowed to be those things and she's still so charming and so lovable. And also she's not manic pixie dream girl. No. Obviously, because the thing is she is like, she's fizzy. She has so much energy.

She's amazing. She's so exciting to watch. I think she kind of leads the whole show. She carries the show. Exactly, yeah. Oh, she's a star, yeah. It's in a way that's like, exciting to watch I think she I think she kind of leads the whole show she carries the show exactly yeah oh she's a star yeah it's in a way that's like that's a girl I want to be friends with it's not like a caricature it's not like a garden state you know Natalie Portman who's just like kind of unhinged and insane and unbelievable yeah she's real and I want to be best friends

yes exactly I love to and like she begins it someone who like it's kind of lonely but like it's like look I've got a very full life but like god I want to meet someone and ends it someone with a very full life like it doesn't it's not like anyone comes in to save her and she ends it saved or not saved she just grows as a person oh it's so charming and it is kind of horny there's a bit in it where she cups testicles through she cups cock and balls through pants which not to give too much away about me but i like to do that i find it so comforting i'd love to cut a soft penis but when i was younger no don't follow that with what i said please but when i like when i first started dating why am i talking about this i would just sit on the sofa and just kind of

cup it i love to because it love to cup I love to do it I think it's so nice it's so reassuring it's true intimacy this isn't sexual at all it's just warm men don't get it they're okay with it but I'm like no no this is coming to me and I love that closeness and this is what the show I think does very well it does like genuine

it's not like they're all at each other's throats all the time it's like actually when you really love someone and like someone you want to cup their balls through their pants and just go mine so we asked you on instagram what you thought of smothered and we had a lovely message from valentine she made some really amazing points that i want to share she wrote as a black woman i appreciated that they didn't make the fact it was an interracial relationship the focal point like none of the conflicts were about race or cultural differences which was really refreshing and still she got to the point of being authentically herself like having a plethora of hairstyles and no one takes a dig at her or when she wore her

bonnet to bed or even that scene where tom was applying hair oil serum to her cornrows that was really really tender actually oh that bit where he's hair oiling is just so sweet i remember watching it. Firstly, I thought he was so hot for doing that. It was so tender. And it just felt like it wasn't made a big deal out of, but it was like such a gorgeous display of care. It's something which would happen

in when you're so comfortable with each other in a relationship. It's that kind of like loving grooming, but you don't see it because people are not written to have like the really realistic parts, it because people are not written to have like the really realistic parts especially black women are not written to have these really realistic relationships these really like deep and when it's not like a political or like a point being

made I thought it was very sweet yeah I don't think we see like black women being taken care of so the other thing that I'm loving and it is giving like really quintessentially British is just the cast and there's so many people that are like names and it is giving like really quintessentially British is just the cast and there's so many people that are like names and faces in certain circles but aren't necessarily like big acts so like you have Sorrel who's Coco Sorrel from TikTok does a lot presenting so you have Self Esteem who's also Rebecca Lucy Taylor then you have friend of the podcast Grace Campbell um Aisling B who's obviously a comedian turned actor but it's still i love seeing her in roles aloni as well sex education writer if you're online and there's who is the guy from tiktok who does the harry to baldwin yeah love him oh so if you're online yeah you know who else is in it

who jay reina jimmy beth oh jay you have a story can that name ring a bell please beth i mean look this sounds a lot juicer than it is. It's juicy. This is my one interaction with Jay Rayner. And it, of course, happened on X for me and then it was Twitter. I wrote a tweet. I mean, I would say like a year ago. I'm going to pull this up now.

Okay, so earlier this year, actually. Oh my God, was that this year? It was. So much has happened this year. Can we do a little callback? So much has happened this year. And Nelly's door just dropped to the floor. Okay, so I wrote a tweet so much has happened this year and no need to just drop to the floor okay so i wrote a tweet at the beginning of this year i didn't god knows what i was doing in

february to write this tweet so i said i've decided that i no longer believe that anyone has ever had sex in the bathroom on a normal plane not once has it gone on and please don't reply to this tweet telling a lie about how you did it because no one of course no you didn't it has simply never happened one i stand by this too it went like baby viral so 7 000 people like this about a million people saw this and one of the people that saw this was jay rayner who is in this show does he follow you no how did he see this i'm gonna figure out he didn't because i didn't see that he had replied to this because he didn't follow me. So someone sent this to me and was like, is this a bit weird?

So he replied saying. What did he say? With yourself doesn't count, does it? Full stop, not a question mark. So suggesting masturbation on an airplane. So obviously just like having a joke, but to who? But also in the public eye. People are going to see that.

I think it's because he's maybe like a little bit older and like kind of consider it's like a it's a real dad joke it's very unprofessional of him it's quite strange i just went surely not dj reina did you like it uh no i've not it's got 44 lights one quote one bookmark and i've not done any of that so fans of love romance and jay reina watch this show um it is out on now tv sky comedy um like i say it's got a little christmasy element so like sit down and watch it all it's feel good it's fantastic thank us later yeah thank you monica as well oh god i love her thank you monica it's really good actually as always we will put the links to everything we've referenced in the description of the podcast we're taking a week off to eat chocolate and watch telly so no different from a normal week then but follow us on instagram at everything is content pod in case there is any breaking pop culture news that we need

to discuss and if you've forgotten to buy your bestie a christmas present why not give them a recommendation to this podcast and if you want to get us a little present we would love it if you would subscribe and leave a rating if you're enjoying the podcast so far only if it's five stars though yeah we don't want anything else i didn't ask santa for that thank you for listening and see you in 2024