If I Speak - 85: Has pop culture turned to slop? w/ Kemi Alemoru

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

*Display your Special One status with our only piece of merch so far – a bag! Available from shop.novaramedia.com* Moya and Ash are joined by Kemi Alemoru, editorial director of Glamour UK, to analyse the current state of pop culture, from Taylor Swift to A24. Has pop turned to slop? Or is it on us […]

You know what they say, well-behaved women don't make history. Oh, shut the fuck up. Start the show. Right. Hello. Welcome to If I speak. I'm Moyle MacLean. Joining me is Ash Sarker, as usual.

And we also have a special guest today. She's a culture... It's HMRC. They're not coming knocking, thank God. She's a culture journalist, editor, presenter, and also happens to have recently been appointed one of the youngest and busiest editors of a Condé NASP title.

She's the new editorial director of Glamour UK and also the funniest person. I know. Kemi Alamori, welcome to If I Speak. What a gorgeous introduction. Thank you, thank you. Hello. What are you doing today?

Yeah, I'm good. It's a day where I get to go into the office a little bit later because I've got this, so that's a plus. I would have done my face, though, if I knew that this was going to be, you know, recorded, but you'll just have to deal with my bare face and I'll just pamela Anderson it. You have an amazing bare face. I also think that every... I was going to say your skin looks phenomenal.

Yeah. Oh my God. One lovely thing to say. The listeners can't see this, but Kemi's skin is phenomenal. No, they can't see this. They can't see this like back slapping that we're doing. I'm also, also not wearing any makeup today, but unlike Kemi, I'm experiencing a real sense of hormonally induced crisis at the moment.

You look like you're glowing. You've got a sort of mortisha-s light on the face. So that's either like your own inner glow or you've got fantastic lighting. Yeah, I think it's the lighting. It's definitely not my inner glow. I feel so devoid of inner glow. I was thinking your skin, it's amazing, Ash. Oh, girl, where did your inner glow go?

Let's unpack that. It's a purely hormonal situation because my coil is like running lower on the hormone that it releases. So month to month at the moment, I'm finding that, you know, my emotions are a little less regulated for a certain week. And I was saying this to Chal before we went live is that yesterday, I had that mounting sense of everything's going wrong. And even though I knew this is just, this is literally just because of the hormones in my body, I couldn't control it.

So I left a completely nuts voice note to my line manager, which I'm now going to be like, Oh, no. Don't listen to it. It's fine. That's very funny. Okay. Hormones aside, although hormones inflect everything we do.

I first wanted to start off before we get into the meat of the matter. We've got some questions for you, but I did have an initial question just a bit about glamour because there's a lot of noise that the age of magazines, particularly thinking magazines for women with our silly little brains, is over. And Glamour UK historically, I'll be like so honest, is not something I've associated with being made to think. It's now also a digital only publication. But you are one of the like smartest and sharpest people I've ever met and you've got

huge ambition. So I wanted to just ask before we. get into the rest of it. Why did you want to take on glamour? What is the vision? First of all, every single time we speak, I want you to pepper it with that many compliments before I'm allowed to respond, because this is great and very unlike our regular dynamic. Secondly, I took this job on because, yeah, like women obviously deserve magazines that challenge them that are places of discovery and also places of community. And we work together at Galdem, a little bit of context, which was a magazine run by women and a binary people of

colour. So creating a thinking magazine for that demographic is just in my blood and there's just like part and parcel of what I will always be striving to do. I think that glamour as a magazine historically has sort of thrown its weight behind like abortion rights in the US. There was a trans man who was pregnant on the cover in the UK. And I do think that like it has moments where it has a lot of purpose behind it and a lot of thought. But it has to keep moving and keep shifting and keep developing like with the modern British woman. Like it went from being a print magazine to a digital only as you just said. Before that it was a handbag magazine so it could be an and meet women wherever they are.

And I think that in like 20, 25, where women are is like kind of in hell. Where we're trying to like figure out like how to navigate this landscape. Sometimes you do want to have like a celebrity moment and you want to like post that in your group chat and just sort of like smooth brain and talk about Beyonce. Maybe you might want to know who's making Beyonce's wigs. But then other times you might be really angry looking for the words to like vocalize. your experiences in society and I think that trying to strike that balance at a women's publication is yeah just part and parcel of like what I do as a journalist. So it just felt like a rich opportunity to sort of give glamour a shot in the arm of chem and just see where I can take it

and bring smart women like yourself on the journey with me. Well hopefully idiots are welcome to because I'm here. Idiots are welcome too. This is the thing, like, they're valid and, you know, they need as much entertainment as possible. And also, you can make them smarter. Like, you just don't have this, like, po-face, like, I'm better than you tone of voice and you can, like, inform people with humour and grace. Humor and grace.

You turned Ash's self-deprecating comment into, like, an actual life lesson. Don't worry, there's more self-deprecation to come. Yeah, I listen to this podcast a lot, Ash, and like, what's that about? Let's get into, let's get into this. Why are you so self-deprecating? Because my dad left me, Chemie. Next question. Oh, no.

It's always the dads. It's always the dad. And then when it's not the dads, it is the moms. When it's not the dads, it's the moms, you know. I think of my mom as a Soviet gymnastics coach. who trained me to leap ever higher by whipping the legs of my self-esteem. Yeah, I think my mum was very like Jackson Five vibes.

I need a documentary on your childhood. No, I actually can't really complain that much about my dad. He's a brilliant father. I don't know whether he's a great husband, but that's kind of none of my business. He was a really good father, and I really get on with him. And he really wants to come to the Women of the Year Awards. And I said, sorry, we're like prioritising celebrity guests.

And he was like, oh, so you've gone for a lower calibre of guests. I wouldn't want to make them feel self-conscious. So I'll let you get on with it. And it's just like, this man. That's fucking hilarious. Right. I'm going to ask you three very quick icebreaker questions. So I think we've really gotten the deep end about, you know,

can a good parent be a bad partner? I mean, well, like, that is a big one. in honour of the fact that we are in the spookiest month of October. First question, do you believe in ghosts? I'm actually very spiritual, as Moyer will probably attest to. I think it takes people a while to realise, but like I was raised by like Pentecostal Christians who speak in tongues. So like the spiritual realm is not, that's not beyond me.

And also things like premonitions, I've seen them happen. I can't explain them. And I don't think a ghost is like a man who's like gray walking around your living room at night. But I think there is another realm. I think there's another realm for sure. I don't think it's just us here. And also, there was a girl who was at a wedding I was just at. And when she came to my house once, I was.

like kind of let's say drunk let's say drunk and just like lying back in the sofa and she entered the room and I was like there's a witch a witch has entered my house and like everyone else would have just been like you're being paranoid that's a really weird thing to say but then I brought up with her later and she was like oh I do practice brew her every fiber in my being knew that she was a witch so happy Halloween guys I can sense the spiritual realm And I believe in it. There we go. Well, that totally nixes my next question, which was what's the spookiest thing about you? But you volunteered it anyway.

Yeah, you have actually, wait, was she a good witch or bad witch? I think she's a good witch. I don't sense that I'm in danger with her, but what I would say is just I wouldn't piss a witch off. Like once I know that they're practicing any form of witchcraft. It's like the Etsy witches recently, they're getting a lot of play. and I think people are really playing around with it. There's been Etsy witches for weddings, and we did do one for the wedding that we were just at.

We cast a spell for weather, and the weather did change. I didn't cast a spell, because, like I just said, I'm Christian. But then, like, I let the other people who are going to hell do it. And then obviously there was that Jezebel Charlie Cook hexing that happened two days before he was. he was shot like I think people need to be very careful with Etsy which is wedding yes hexing of others tread carefully I think I agree with you because even if I didn't directly believe I think the energy that you put out into the world will rebound on you eventually and

if like it has to go somewhere it's like when you get Botox to stop sweating that sweats going somewhere. Where is it going? Yeah, I feel like if I, because I've toyed with the idea of having Botox in my armpits, because I'm a really sweaty person. But just like the idea of just having like a really sweaty badge or something thereafter is just like, there's only so much you can Botox before like what, you're just going to be full of sweat. Like I'm just going to have to put like sanitary pads and the lining of my dresses. Yeah. But it's that, it's that. I think if you block one place or give some energy out,

eventually it does rebound back to you. You cannot escape that. And I think with hexing, it's like resentment. Anyway, sorry, Ashley, I have a question. I mean, I actually think there's something here about the combination and the alliance between the primordial and the pre-modern and the new. So the Etsy witch plus a sniper is like, yeah, too powerful. Like everyone's trying to like meme witchcraft and like also monitor.

witchcraft. Witching should just be done for witching's sake, you know? So true. Decommodify the occult. All right, final question. That's why they're an Etsy. Sorry, go on, final question. Final question.

What's your favorite thing? That's orange. Oranges. I will eat an entire bag of oranges. Like, I don't care. I will buy it and I peel them in spirals, specifically in spirals because it was not peeled in a spiral, I don't, it feels off to me. So you have to be able to basically like put it back together as if it was back to its full

form, the way that it's been peeled. And I'll just get through like as many of them as possible. I peel oranges into a cock and balls. So you do the first long peel and then the two sort of globes at the side. And then I'm like, look, it's a cock and balls. what the Freud would have a field day with you

there's what's happening there incurable baby why are you turning fruit time into cock time like what's going on there fruit is so separate to that is nothing sacred no but the thing is that

I feel I'm being misinterpreted here because it's not a like oh ho ho the sort of suggestiveness of a cigar It's in the spirit of a big graffitied, you know, cock and balls. It's boredy. I mean, there is something just, like, quite entertaining about just, like,

drawing a cock and balls on someone's, like, notepad or something, particularly if it's, like, a page that they hadn't got to yet. So then they're, like, flicking through in a meeting, they get to the page. And, like, you've just left, like, a big, vainy cock and balls there. Like, that shit is funny. so maybe like you're doing it in just like another like mixed media way you're just in mixed media I am I'm doing it in mixed media not I way way over here doing fucking cock and pox yeah

out of that super peel but thing is now I've told you this moya now I've told you this you are now going to do it I just do a cog I just do it not you not you being possessed by the cock witch. The cock witch came into my body. Happy Halloween. Look, we could all do of being possessed by the cock witch. It's also cuffing season.

Yeah. Well, yeah, maybe a little spell. A little cock a cocker. A little cock witch stuff. You should Etsy witch for a good day for sure. Actually, actually I carry around in my bag as well as my tools, which is the comb, the condoms, the lip balm, all of that. I carry around a tiny cock, which is...

Oh, is it that wooden cup key ring? No, it's not a key ring. It fell off the key ring, so it's just a cock. It's just a cock that lives in my bag that my sister got me from, I want to say barley. And she brought it back as a key ring, but it fell off the key ring. And now it's just a faded, orangey cock that lives in my bag. And I carry around.

Is that your favourite orange thing? It probably is, to be honest. It probably is my favourite orange thing. and I say I used to keep it as a talisman for good dates, but I think actually it might be... I think that could be a bad look charm. I think it's actually a warding charm. I think it could be.

It's what a fuck? If I remove it, let's see what happens? Because I think what if it's jealous, you know? Like, what if it's jealous of like the other fallacies? Yeah, what if it wants to be your only car? And who could blame it, frankly? Who could blame it? Right.

let's move on let's move on to shall we say the meat and the veg of yes the show yeah from cox to culture right so i'm calling this an intrusive question i want that to be the title of my memoirs from cox to culture culture the kelly amory story right intrusive question is pop culture actually getting sloppier and i will explain but i wanted to talk about this because we get a lot of requests from the pub to talk about pop culture. Obviously, Ash and I are deeply immersed in pop culture. But, Kemi, you are probably the foremost pop culture scholar in my vicinity. Your reference points are crazy amazing.

You did it for so many years. So now that you're on, I want to discuss with you because I know you'll have interesting things to say that are beyond my surface level points. But this is my question. So hear me out, right? A lot has been said about the end-sloppification of pop culture, especially as AI has entered the chat. But I actually don't agree that narrative.

I have reason to hope. I think in several arenas of mainstream pop culture, we are seeing things get a little bit interesting again. I think the pop girls have range, the current dominant pop girls, the chapels, the Charlie's, even like the Tate McCraise. She's like pure pop, but she's still doing something a bit fun. And we've got a bit about them.

There's some smarts there. Marvel is losing its cultural dominance. The ear of the Kardashians is over. I know that you've loads say that Kardashians. But I sense this hunger for like actual brain food. And this isn't always reflected in the maths. And here I will use a recent example, Taylor Swift's latest album. It is going to be the biggest selling ever, right?

It's going to be Adele's as the biggest sales in the first week. But the cultural reaction does not match those sales. It's been absolutely panned by huge swathes of her fans, including moi, who reject it for being like Slop, just sounds like AI generated Slop. Everything about the campaign in this album is Slop. The lyrics are Slop. The production is just generic stuff. It doesn't sound like the things that she promised. And she's using AI in the video rollouts for it, which people have been like, oh, God, what's going on here?

It's just Slop. Meanwhile, AI itself, definitely Slop Central. I think that's going to make it, at least from the predictions we're seeing in the industry, that only magazines and publications with like engaged, dedicated audiences will survive because of what AI does to search engines and what it also can do to like content over interesting reporting, which I think will mean a focus on quality because we've seen already how like pivots to channelism, sever's audience relationships, you can get churnism or get clicks, but it doesn't build a proper audience. And it's why so many magazines papers have shut down after focusing on SEO, which means search engine optimization, aka getting a really clicky title, whereas something like New York Magazine's going strong because they do real journalism, they have subscriptions.

People are willing to pay for quality, despite everything trend forecasters want to tell you. And so I wanted to get your thoughts on this. Am I being overly optimistic? Do I just live in a bubble? And I'm projecting. Is pop culture mainstream pop culture? is it getting noticeably worse or have we hit a slop peak

and our little zombie brains are saying no more, no more, I want food give me some real fucking food. So that is my overall question. I guess I want to start by saying like is there anything recently that has given you particular hope when it comes to culture becoming interesting again?

I'm trying to hold all of those ideas in my head at once because there was a lot going on there. There's always not. I'm going to try to break it down bit by bit. so like you mentioned taylor swish because i know she's your home girl she's not my home girl i'm a swift to crass you're a you're a you're a swiftie and i think everybody should know that everyone should know that moya is a swiftie i'm a critical swifty that i just don't i just don't

get about you um but i think if you're like judging culture from the top i i eat a billionaire family who have run out of drama because they're actually mega comfortable a billionaire so-called English teacher who has run out of drama because she's so comfortable

and to go to the shop she takes a private jet and Marvel which is like again it doesn't have to really try to get attention at this point because it's so culturally pervasive

people will go and see it anyway take their kids blah blah, then like you're marking culture on like the wrong things. Like these things have instant recognizability, but they're not necessarily like the pinnacle of culture. And as you said, like there's a point at which it does reach an oversaturation point and people, you know, they're sort of like consuming it, but they don't really feel like it's feeding them anything, sort of like and just like that as well.

Like you're just doing it because it's familiar, but like you don't actually like it. in terms of like actually like having taste and looking and appearing like someone who has taste I think you have to lift the lid on culture a little bit more than that and I think that's sort of like the reason why you got like a Charlie X, the ex-Brat explosion because people really like showing like oh I was there all along when you didn't care about her I was in the trenches with her when she was doing crash or whatever and I think you actually might have also been one of those people as well So inside you there are two walls. No, I never lauded it over other people

that I was in the trenches while she was doing crash. I came on board with Charlie in the pandemic. I knew about it before, but I was really, I became like an angel. I don't remember what album that was because I really came on board with her with Brett. I'm going to be so honest. But her appeal is that I think the new mainstream

is kind of niche. All of these like moments where people are sort of being siphoned off into different like corners of the internet, you can be rabid for a person and really have like this growing community that somebody over on the other side doesn't really know about.

And then it just takes one big break for them to basically, you know, get maybe like a number one single. And then it's like, okay, I was cool because I was there all along. I do think that like, you know, that sort of like breakout moment is happening. But it just takes you sort of like,

building a community bit by bit, niche by niche, and then, you know, being able to storm the castle like Brat did. Also, if people don't like these things, they don't have to interact with them. If you don't like Slap, then please stop interacting with Slap. You wrote about the industrial rage complex because you were always faster than me at writing about your ideas. but it was so true because like people love to like hate posts but it's like you do realize that's engagement you're going to it's like plucking a grey hair like three more are going to come to the funeral of this like thing that you're saying you don't like because you've given the metrics and so you've given the sort of like go ahead for editors to just keep commissioning

or like you know people in TV or people in music to just like keep making the same project over and over again because you keep reacting. So if you don't like it, like, please switch off. Like, feel free to switch off. And then the other thing was you were saying was about whether, like, having a platform right now is more about having like an engaged audience and like basically giving like serving them things that maybe they just like don't really expect. And like, yeah, I mean, what is the point? and being a journalist, if not to serve people, like, good stories. Because, like, otherwise, like, we could just have been bankers, like, really and truly.

If we wanted to just do something that was very formulaic, like, we could just have gone for, like, a formulaic job. But, like, if we're going to be in media or in storytelling or in culture and entertainment, like, we should be trying to give people things that, like, they don't really expect or they don't really know that they will like, but, like, you're putting them onto something. So, like, I always really love, like, cultural prescription. Like, if you liked and just like that, here's some shows about, like, female friendships that you might really enjoy. Or, like, you know, if you enjoy Moonlight, like, here's 10 films by, like, black filmmakers to watch.

Like, I do think that you can use those, like, big blockbuster moments to, like, show people what's going on elsewhere or to peep behind the curtain a bit, like, who's, doing chapel rhone's makeup and clothing or whatever and just like kind of try and use those moments to like expand people's palates a little bit um yeah i do think that like if you're going only by SEO you're always going to be behind because people are already searching for that thing but like it takes real hutsper to actually like cover something without that being that with that just on your own taste and like I guess that is something that I really want to bring to my role because like I will often force culture down people's throats and memes down people's throats I mean you're my close friend stories it's more or less more or less constant

of me just like pulling clips from like old films weird memes reality shows from like 2008 that are like morally dubious and just like there's just like a patchwork of like references that I just think like you know there's ways of you doing that in a women's mag and in culture mags it's really fun and really informative and not like divisive I oh there's so much in this all right first I'm going to start with where I disagree with you a little bit chemi which is like if you don't like slop disengage from it and the reason why I sort of I disagree a little bit is because I think that it doesn't take into account all the ways in which we are sort of made vulnerable to slop. Our consumption of slop isn't happening in a vacuum. It's happening in the

context of the degradation of our cultural life in real life. You know, the fact that it's really, really difficult, like, to access affordable theatre, particularly if you don't live in the capital city of London or in whatever the cultural capital of the country where you live is the way in which our attention span has been sort of systematically preyed on and broken down and made more fragile. I mean, the point of social media is that it's designed by psychopaths in Silicon Valley to bypass user awareness of it. So it's really hard to sort of get a grip on yourself. I mean, I find it all the time. I find it all the time, which is like, I know all this stuff. Like, you know, I have an understanding of how these things are designed. And yet myself

control is minimal, like so, so minimal. And so I think that the in sloppification of culture, it's not just here as an offering amongst other offerings. It's also happening, I think, when there is an overall assault on our criticality. So like our critical intellectual functions as human beings, I think has been like deliberately targeted and broken down and made worse. And And I think we see that play out in all sorts of ways. All right. More things, more things, because I was like taking notes as both of you were talking because it was super interesting.

I think one of the things that I feel like I've noticed is that the branding component of music has always been there, but it's now become like just gargantuan. So it's not enough to be like, here's an album. of songs that like I put my all into like lyrically in terms of production in terms of music I put my all into it there has to be an aesthetic there has to be a halo of things that you can buy to sort of live in the album it's selling you not just um you know a sort of window onto someone's soul it's selling you a lifestyle as well and I think that you you see that with bratt I mean bratt's obviously rescued by the fact that I think charlie x

X-X is interested in the music that she's making. But I think part of its success is that it was selling a kind of lifestyle. You see that with the Beyonce albums from kind of, you know, Renaissance and Cowboy Carter is that it's not just here's the music and here's a sort of world I'm constructing through the music, which isn't anything new. It's also there is an aesthetic that everyone buys into. So it changes how people dress when they go to the Beyonce concert. And I see, like with some of the other pop girlies, most notably Sabrina Carpenter, is that the thing which, you know, sent her into the stratosphere was I have an aesthetic which is purchasable for my fans now. So like the way I do my blusher, the way I do my hair, the perfume that I've released. Like the branding element is absolutely massive. And I think that's one of the things which has turned me off of Beyonce kind of since lemonade. and I've never loved anything the way in which I love lemonade. And I think it's because the branding bit got too big.

And I think that's also the thing which I find, you know, like I can see that Charlie X, EX is interesting, but there's nothing, it doesn't appeal to me because I see, you know, the teams and teams of like, you know, invisible, like, marketing labour that's gone into it. And I just kind of go, like, I'm not, I'm just not so into this anymore. more um how can you sort of like bring back a more um like literate or like interrogative or like critical culture um i think timing is absolutely everything and i obviously i'm talking about

something different i'm talking about political culture but it's something which i thought about um my own book which is i was so benefited by the time of publication. So I had this set of ideas and I certainly wasn't alone in thinking that. Like, you know, also any idea is a product of conversations you're having with other people.

So inherently it's a sort of collective thing and you're generating it through other people. But there were books that came before, you know, there was elite capture. You know, before that you had kind of much more agi books, but for Phoenicia audiences like kill all normies. And for me, the timing of, I guess,

like, you know, the Trump presidency sort of meant that everyone was having this conversation some way. And then like along comes a book, which has been developed separately from this moment, but it's able to sort of like meet people where they are. So I think that part of like how do you engage criticality, you can't force people to eat their vegetables as much as I would like to. Like I would love to be like, you should all be thinking in this way. You can't do it. You have to be just a couple of millimeters ahead of where people are. for it to be that intervention that makes people go like, oh shit, yeah

and something kind of more collective can come of it because I think when you're too ahead of where people are like it's automatically a niche thing and I suppose this is the thing about not just the kind of politics that I'm interested in but also something which I've always found interesting about pop culture is you know, mass politics, mass pop culture

and how these things shift and how they move. Like I think I think the average Bontgard is really important and it plays an important function but I can't sit here and pretend that I'm the person who goes to the BFI to like, you know, watch this like super duper experimental film. I've never been that person. I would love to be that person but I'm not. I'm interested in kind of what the median consumer is engaging with and what are all the things that have gone into that. Okay, you guys love to throw loads of things at me and really press my the whole time you're speaking I'm just like where is my notebook okay so the first thing you said

was that they're destroying our attention spans and this was a real test for that very thing um I agree that they're obviously attacking our attention spans um and you are basically saying what do we do um like maybe maybe we shouldn't blame people for like just consuming slot because it's being pushed at us. Well, first of all, you can build your algorithm brick by brick. So I will like engage with and bookmark the things I want to keep coming back to me. And you can also tell it to stop serving you slop. So there's a point at which I was getting like dancing sexy abamas and like, just like really weird AI slap. And like the first time you laugh at it, you might like like it or share it. And

to someone. And then I just kept getting like weird, sexy dancing, like Bill Clinton. And I was like, I just, I just, I don't want this. So like, you just have to tell it to stop and you can tell it to stop because it has those little three buttons at the side and you can be like, I'm not interested in this. Also, try to get me into like pimple popping. Not over here. No, no, no. Not in this neighborhood. That's disgusting. And I won't stand for it. So you can build your algorithm brick by brick as you should in order to like create at least the sort of like enclosed circus that you think you can deal with when you do look at your phone um and in terms of like you know consuming like low quality like low as hanging fruit like stuff like obviously

that stuff just like rot away at you sort of like sugar and you can be kind of addicted to it but like it actually isn't hard to like pull yourself back off it like I was one of the biggest Twitter addicts that you've probably ever met in your life every thought that I'd had since 2011 was on that platform and I just had to delete it I just had to like for like it was a slow wean for like two years and then I deleted it mostly because I got a job where I was like you know what I'm too employed to be on a platform where I have the knack to just tweet and without thinking into a space that has absolutely no nuance whatsoever. But also because I was like, everyone here is a Nazi

and it's just like making me really angry. And so I just like, you can, we have control over these things. And also, as people who produce culture, like think about the fact that like all of the richest men in the world are basically buying up platforms. They see the value in what they put out into people's attention spans. And they also talk really openly and nakedly about how they control their own attention spans on the platforms that they

themselves own and create, like, I'm going to take that lead and just basically try to, like, yeah, unplug where I need to unplug, reprogram where I need to reprogram. And also, they have the text really big on their phones. This is a random one, but if they've got really big text on their phones, I'm taking that as it's bad for your eyesight to have it at normal font size. so I've put the text up on my phone. Everyone thinks it's very granny of me, but if that's what... I'm not just because it's billionaires like 48 to 50.

Look, I don't know, but I just want to be safe. If they know something that I don't know, I'm going to get that. Actually, they're 60s. They're all pensioners. Yeah, but they've probably taken the eyes of like something that they grew in a lab as well. Like I think they're probably on their like third pair of eyes. Like that Picking thing. We haven't fact-checked this listeners. We haven't fact-checked that.

But was it not that, like, Putin audio where he was like, yeah, like, we could just live forever. And it's like, how long have they been doing this? Anyway, I digress. The next thing that you threw at me, Ash, kindly, was about there being eras and a lifestyle to buy into in culture. but my immediate thoughts go to Michael Jackson as they do often and I was one of the biggest Michael Jackson fans like of all time same I was obsessed as a kid loved that man you know what I just felt like he was misunderstood I mean, when you're a kid, you're like, this lovely kind man, he's just misunderstood.

But then, you know, obviously with a new pair of eyes in adulthood, I see there's a lot going on. Oh, you got a new pair of eyes too. It wasn't just Putin. No, I've gone to, I told you, I was taking all of my leads from them. So I also went to the new pair of eyes lab. And I saw that Michael Jackson was a troubled, troubled man. do you want to know something like kind of fucked up it's like when I when I was a kid is that I was obsessed with Michael Jackson and I think there's something about like those melodies which kind of go like straight to the center of a child's brain you're like oh my god this is amazing and I was really jealous of the fact that like all these kids with like leukemia or whatever got to go to Neverland Ranch so I asked my mom if she would if she would shave my head Ash, please, what you're saying is...

Ash, please. We could pretend. And she was like, because obviously she had an understanding of what was going on, but she didn't want to ruin her child's enjoyment of the thing. And she was like, it's the one time where she, like, I could see the nostrils flaring. She didn't just say no, that's stupid. She was just like, my God, like my idiot daughter. She was like, no, this is immoral. Yeah, she wants to go prancing into the sort of,

arms of a paedophile. I mean, yeah, my mom was really annoyed at me. At Neverland Ranch. At Neverland Ranch. With a shaved head as well. There's so much going on there that, quite frankly, I don't know if I even want to touch. But what I will say is that eras per album and lifestyles per album, he changed completely every project.

There was a new race. there was afro michael jackson there was jerry curl michael jackson there was like he got the first nose job then he was like a light skin man then he was like a white woman like he gave us more eras than you will ever get from anybody else in terms of repackaging per project like there is no project that's coming anywhere close to that because nobody has that level of commitment quite frankly Ariane Grande has done pretty, she's done huge things for the ethnicity. Also, Gwen Stefani, because there was her Chicana time, and then there was her. I remember she was Japanese for a bit.

Yeah, but she really stuck with Japan for a really long time. And now she's MAGA, so, you know, she's still taking us through eras. I do think that, like, yes, something like brat, you can look at that and be like, that's a big marketing tool, blah, blah, blah. but like you look at Madonna and the way that she changed every era. You look at her clothing. She sold her a sex book. The sex book, the lifestyle that you could buy into.

Also, you know, like women sort of having that like proximity to like queer culture, like her and Janet really like going hell for leather on that. Like I do think that that has been evident in pop culture. Maybe what happened is that people actually just stopped trying to give us an era and stop trying to give us packaging for like the mid-naughties or like, the teens, those barren years and the teams where we just didn't really like get that level of commitment. But maybe we're just seeing people try and do that. Maybe it's hand-fisted, but at least they're trying to do something, you know, that's kind of interesting and gives people.

Sometimes it's interesting. Bratt's interesting, but then you have Taylor Swift's eras, which more, the more, they started as an organic thing, right? They started as more, well, more organic, as in something that she was really feeling and something she was leaning into. And now the era that she creates is totally divorced from the actual music, whereas when Madonna was doing... The visuals for showgirl, they bear no resemblance to the music that has been created. They've got nothing to do with it, the themes are nothing. Her other albums have more like showgirl. Yeah, her other albums have more showgirl themes about the separation between the public

and the private than this one does. I think you're right that there is a sort of like, there's the total divorce of like the aesthetics from the like music and like the lyrical content is just bad. But I think that this is the sort of interesting thing about Taylor Swift, which is that like her sort of style and packaging like really changes and, you know, she moves from era to era. But something has always stayed the same. And I think that this is why the quality of the writing hasn't been able to match up

to like sort of, you know, the changed circumstances of her personal happiness, which is this essential story of like, oh, I'm just this sort of like nerdy theater girl who isn't cool and I'm being picked on by like all the others. Like this sort of self-pitying, like, victim narrative, which, you know, is such like... Which doesn't work when you're so successful. It doesn't work when you're a billionaire, but also this kind of comes back to sort of, you know, I think one of the prime movers of slop is this, like, generalised, like, infantilisation of adults. You know, I can't, I find it really annoying of, like, having stuff marketed to me as a woman in my 30s,

encouraging me to think of myself as like a girl and like there are boys and I'm like oh fuck's sake like I'm 33 like like I've earned the right to be a woman and an adult now and fucking lub boo-boos like I'm uh laboos flavored vapes all of these things which are like wait wait wait wait wait not too much on flavored vapes not too much on flavored vapes okay the funny thing is you don't smoke but I've seen you puff go on a flavor of like no one's business they are they're dangerous things yeah that's what's so pathetic about me is that I wasn't a smoker but a flavored vape it's just like that hit of sugar and also the fact that you can match it with your outfit but this what I mean it is it is that is what ash is saying

and that's what I think I'm trying to reference when I'm talking about why I have a bit of hope about the reverse of the insolpification because I think maybe I'm wrong and maybe it's just because I've hit 30 what I'm seeing a little bit is people starting to push back and be like actually maybe I don't want to be babies and sold all this infantilizing shit for the rest of my life and just go and watch Goo Goo Goo Gaga. Maybe I want my mind challenged and to behave a bit like an adult and I want to think a little bit. Well then, quite frankly, to these people, act like an adult then. Go and seek out the culture that you like. But that's what I think they're doing. There is like independent cinema, independent media, independent, you know, theatre that probably

tickles your pickle. Like if those things grow, then it has a knock on effect to the rest of the ecosystem. Also, you keep saying unsloppification. Is that the same as enshittification? No, that's me. And shittification is when products are specifically, like tech products are specifically degraded to make them worse over time. I've just adapted in sloppification to mean the encroaching sloppification of products to make them shitter. Yeah, because I was, because I was like, are we also talking about the like fact that at the end of the day, something that you enjoy will end. up becoming a sort of shell of itself because eventually it just exists to be sold back at you at scale. And so it just gets shitter and shitter and shitter in order to

like meet its profit margins. Well, that's like, yeah, like Marvel, like the Kardashian. But this what you're saying about the people seeking out, that's what I think I'm trying to gesture at. I'm saying, I think I'm hoping that we've reached such a slot peak. I kind of see people be like, no, I'm going to go and seek out culture that feeds me. And that's the question I'm asking, am I being optimistic there? Or is that actually happening? I would like to remain optimistic because what is the other option? I mean, if we're not optimistic, then like, where do we go from here? We're heading into deep dark winter. You've got to, you've got to be optimistic about

something. Otherwise, it's really hard to put one foot in front of the other. I think if we're, you know, if we're being real with ourselves, it is. our job specifically you, I, Ash, to remain optimistic, because otherwise we capitulate to the forces that be, you know? Comrade Kemi, this is where, like, I'm sorry, I live by the words of Antonio Gramsci. I'm a pessimist because of intellect. I'm an optimist because of will. And I think that this is sort of where I'm out with this like in sloppification and

shittification conversation, which is part of the reason why, you know, you can feel this like degradation of culture is that also because this stage of capitalism isn't really defined by competition, right? It's defined by muscling other people out of the market. And so that you've got this, you know, monopolizing bear moth, which is just like rotting and getting worse, but is also stopping other things from being able to enter the market and provide something new. I think that that's something that we see in the economy

and also think that there are some cultural components to that as well, like big time. And to bring it back to Taylor Swift, her sharp elbows, right? She's getting a lot of airtime. Oh, like, you know, it's fine. I think people have heard of her before I spoke about her, so I don't feel like I've given her a platform, you know?

But like, you know, her approach to like other female artists and being like, strangle you at birth so you can you can never grow to compete with me um to sort of ensure that she she maintains this sort of cultural centrality but like it is this sort of you know degraded decline in quality like i think that this is where um it's so interesting to think of like taylor swift and pop stars as like amazon beefing with like eBay or something because like that does happen once they get to the top like Like, can I just say, what the hell has happened to Nikki Minaj?

Like, why couldn't you just sit there and just, like, bask in your brilliance? Like, why do you have to, like, tear everyone down around you? Like, maybe thinking about these pop stars in terms of, like, behemoth companies, it's, like, actually the safest way through because something does happen to them and they get to a certain point. Like, even, like, Beyonce begging for the album of the year award at the Grammys, just was so unbecoming, like, and I really love Beyonce, but it's just like, why is your husband in his basquette wig up on the stage, shout at the room? Like, you didn't give this

young lady who was 40, an album of the year for her album, like, whoa, this is like the opposite of grace. Like, just show up, take the award that you're given and just seem like it doesn't really matter because you have this inner knowledge of you being good. And then she also put it in the lyrics of Cowboy Carter, like AOTY, I didn't win. And when I heard that, I was just like, oh my God, like, please. And then they gave her the album of the year for that award for that album. And I just like, I did, I just didn't, I didn't think it deserved it. She got it through clearing and also through like just begging for it publicly. And she's beyond that. You are beyond that same but same was true of that last taylor swift album again she didn't even need to beg

it publicly but it was just they were like oh right i'm gonna there's gonna be like a swear jar for taylor swift at this point like if so if somebody mentions taylor swift again in this podcast like you have to do a shot but move yeah moving on from taylor swift because we've got to do a dilemma scene but i just want to say even outside the realm of music you've got like i saw the new paul thomas anderson the other day and it actually made me think and it was like that's a huge mainstream blocksbuster with like one of the last big movie stars of the United DiCaprio and it was a film that actually makes you think a little bit more and I was just like oh these are still happening and the rise of A24 they're putting out all these you know

that was in well they're because it's like independent weather but now it's like a huge B-Moth and particularly around Oscar season they put out the smartest stuff they put out the stuff that's like films about making films which always end up being awarded and then also put out like the artsy like we're so good at making films type stuff so like if you're a person like me who doesn't like football or any sort of sport because don't get it um that can be your kind of like sports era where you just go to the cinema a lot get to peck and plex five pound a ticket watch these films and then just come back with a take for you know your long-suffering friends who don't actually care about hearing a cultural analysis and then

see who picks up an award and that that's my sports but you know what like this is the thing about 824 is that like it is the new middle brow and like I don't mean that disparagingly like I think it's I think it's a better middle brow than like you know things that came before but um I really loved one battle after another and I loved it for many reasons one is anything with Benicio del Toro in it I'm like stamp of approval. It's so good. I'd watch that man open an envelope. Like, I just love Benissio del Toro.

But two, like, there were these moments where, like, you know, the use of steely Dan's dirty work and also the bit where Leonardo DiCaprio was just like completely fried and is watching Battle of Alge's. I was just like, oh, these are things I like. And then I sort of like wondered about like, you know, the little threads which sort of connect something which I think is really idiosyncratic about me is like, oh, well, I really love the song Dirty Work. and also really love Battle of Algiers.

I'm like, oh, no, maybe that was also algorithmically determined, and it's the same algorithm that Paul Thomas Sanderson is on. I do think that there is an element of that with A24. Like, there's definitely like a fantasy casting element for like a lot of their films these days. And then also they are sort of churning them out a lot more than they were when they first started. Like the A.O. Adebiri, A24, Sean, that came out this year, like, wasn't very highly, like, reviewed.

So, like, it could happen to A24, but just, like, it's a different set of, like, things that... It's a different algorithm, as you said, it's a different set of, like, it's a different alchemy, like, than Marvel. But it is still basically, like, our timeline. It's, like, internet boyfriends, I.O. Adabiri, plus... maybe she's on like a road trip with a stripper and it's just like, yeah, we'll go crazy for it. But I would still prefer that to Marvel because Marvel sucks. Because of the child element, it's the infantilization element. That's why. Yeah. Yeah, give me adult slot. Adult slot. But that's the thing is that I think when I hear my favorite songs in The Bear and I thought that, oh, maybe this was something of like a deep cut or something.

I'm like, no, I'm just a type of person. Do you ever get that? that. Do you ever get that? We go like, oh, I'm just like, yeah, we're just like, we're just different archetypes. I was like the show that got me the most was insecure. That understood me on a spiritual level and like all the music, everyone involved in it, everything that Easter Ray did with that show. It was like, this feels like it was made in a lab for me. Do you know what I mean? Do you know what my one is? My lab show. It's industry. What's your lab show? Oh, I love. industry as well. I love industry. I love those girls. I love them so much. I love the sexy sad banker show. And also, anything with HBO involved, like, they're just going to

chuck a penis in it. And I quite frankly love this era of television where you'll just be watching and there's just like a penis. And there's also a guy who makes prosthetic penises and he's actually putting personalities on them. So if there's a character that's like supposed to be a bit of a loser, he gives them a small penis, this could change. We're going to offend so many listeners. You don't, you're not losing if you have a small penis guys just so. But this is what I'm saying.

I think there needs to be some cultural analysis of what this guy is doing to people who have cocks by making these cocks have personalities. Do you know what I mean? Like he's a prosthetic maker, but he's making the prosthetic. in the image of unlikable characters or likable characters. What's this going to do to people who have Cox? I just want to say to our small penis friends is that the Greeks considered a large penis

to be uncouth, uncouth. Yeah, they thought it was very vulgar. And vulgar. They did. We talked about that before on here. Bless them. Anyway, we're back to Cox. Nice way to round it off.

Yeah, I thought that was quite nice. Did you see what I did there? I did. I know storytelling. You know what I mean. Um, okay, thank, cock. I don't know, what's another for cox? Oh, moya.

Cocks is a nice word. Willys. Yeah, these are nice, these are nice audio words. The human saloomis. I think cock is a nice word to say. Yeah, yeah. Salumi. Anyway, that's the cock of it all.

Let's get on to our segment about problems. How do you, um, how do you submit a problem? You send it to, too, with a picture. No, don't sit in my picture. Send it to if I speak at Navaramedia.com and we will endeavor to do our very best to answer it. And even if we don't answer it, I'll read it on my way home. So someone's always reading.

Oh, do you, actually, I was like, do you want to read out? Oh, I'll read it. Okay. Hit him. Hello, guys. Love this podcast, a serious amount. Perfect, perfect listening. Here is my dilemma.

I like this, straight to the point. I'm in my late 20s and a year ago ended my first ever by a long shot serious relationship, moved cities and started a new life. The relationship was sweet and tender, but I'm sorry to say, deeply unfulfilling, attraction waned and I wanted much more from life than I would have had I stayed. Beforehand, my romantic life was a series of unrequited love affairs on my end. Men who were avoidant or straight up didn't like me, juries still. out on this. I finally decided to pursue men who liked me back and wanted to be in a relationship

and I had one. Now I am back to my usual single self and I love it, back in a big city, new job, more exciting life. I don't want a relationship, but the urge of being intimate with someone has unsurprisingly stayed. My new job is very impressive on paper, but it's a sort of window dressing, not truly meaningful and I feel creatively stifled. I have recently become very preoccupied with a man at work, very handsome, clearly kind, hardworking and talented. His job is also clearly meaningful. He's just ended an eight-year relationship and I've become increasingly obsessed since. The problem, he barely acknowledges me, clearly not looking for anything, perhaps doesn't respect my job, perhaps doesn't find me

attractive, who knows it doesn't matter. Like many people in my generation, I understand the whole spiel of anxious attachment, falling for people who are uninterested because you yourself are afraid of commitment, etc. But still, my brain makes me check his social media every day and fantasise about touching him. How can I stop this? I know why, but I don't know how. That was in all caps, so I read it like that. I know this is such a classic one, but would love to hear thoughts on being a self-aware yet self-destructive person. What does it matter knowing your issues if you don't have the discipline slash wisdom to change huge love special one all right kemmy take it away god there's so much going on there um i don't know how to advise this person in a way that doesn't sound like just a very matter

of fact but like i don't like to chase people who aren't obsessed with me just based on my own feelings about what I think works in relationships, particularly like heterosexual relationships. Like I just like if if you don't think he's interested in you or if you're like going for the same man who just like doesn't really express interest in you, like why are you doing that? Like interest in me is like the thing that we both have to share as a common denominator in a relationship. So like maybe she should just try for a little bit. it to like see where people are like actually trying with her see where people are actually like stating their intentions to actually be with her even if it's not her like typical type and just

see how that goes and how that actually feels as a as a chaser to the sort of relationships that she's been sort of programming herself to like accept thus far like I know that sounds like kind of reductive to be like just go to the people who are obsessed with you well she said she said she did that and that's what that was the last relationship she had so she said I finally decided to pursue men who light me back and wanted to be in relationship and I had one yeah but it's like you had one it sounds like you have very many examples of men who haven't been showing that and haven't been as like connected to you in that way but like giving only one person a shot like that's not going to be the thing that's like going to break

that you don't break the pattern once and then go back to your other pattern you have to keep pursuing that and like see how that sort of lifestyle pans out for you give it at least three chances before you give up on men who are obsessed with you or who clearly state intentions not even obsession just like clearly state their intentions of like actually wanting to see you wanting to make a relationship work blah blah blah sometimes i find with this like personality type like they think that there's something wrong with men when they do that or they find a lot wrong with men when they do that. I wonder whether that is what happens in this case if she did it once.

And then she was like, oh, not doing that again. Moia, what do you think? Okay, well, I think it's very obvious. The person who's writing this knows what's going on, which is they've gone back to a position of where they feel safe, which is being obsessed with someone that they don't know, who doesn't want them back. Like, the fact this man is so removed and doesn't give fuck about whether you live or die,

that's the safety. you've deliberately developed this crash, you're aware of that. The question you're asking is how, you know, how to hear thoughts on when you're a self-destructive person, what does it matter, knowing your issues if you don't have the discipline, wisdom to change? Well, this is the crux of the matter. What does it matter?

And why don't you want to have the discipline, wisdom to change? Here's your tough love, right? Ask yourself why feeling uncertain and unwanted is safer to you than feeling wanted, than feeling like you're in a mutual relationship. The person that you're with before, the partner you're with before, you said you felt totally satisfied, the attraction wasn't there. That's because you'd gone for someone who just wanted you.

So you'd switch from one to the other. It's like either you date, either you go after people who don't really want you and won't commit, or you're going after somebody who wants you, but you're not really sure. You're just like, I need to try out what this feels like. I'm sure there are elements of that that's really satisfied you, but the key ones didn't. Fine.

Take the elements that you wanted and move it on. I think the main thing here is you have to find the discipline or you don't and your life will continue like this do you want to live like this forever? That's really what I ask people when they say well I can't change I don't have the discipline to change

discipline isn't something that you're just born with it's something that you create like something you literally hone practice discipline comes through the practice and consistency it's like building a habit for 90 days if you do it for 90 days you get that habit if you for 90 days keep asking yourself why does being obsessed with a stranger at distance feel safe to me?

Why does this feel like all I'm worth? Why does this feel like something I deserve rather than maybe mutual reciprocity? Maybe reciprocity. Why do you not want reciprocity in your life? If it's just like, well, I'm too scared, then you're too scared. Do you want to be scared for your whole life? If you don't, then change it. If you do, fine, stick with it.

That's the only thing. I can't do this for you. I can't do this for you. I'm going to do this for you. because because I think we've focused slightly on the wrong thing. We've focused on the lack of reciprocity and the unrequited bit, whereas actually the answer for like, why is it you're going for people who just aren't interested in you at all?

It's because they're a fantasy. It's because they're a fantasy. And a fantasy is not a real person. Like you've said, oh, he's so talented. Oh, he's so kind. He's so this, he's so that. You don't know this guy from Adam. If he doesn't acknowledge you,

if you haven't had a real interaction, if you're not really a part of his life, you don't know him. You know, when you're like, oh, clearly kind, no, clearly polite. He could be a complete psycho at home. You don't know, you don't know this man. You've got the little things that you know, and then you've filled it with a fantasy of who he is. And I think that you are someone who has a very rich inner life, like a really rich and romantic inner life. connecting to the reality of a man is the bit that you find really difficult.

Because, like, his thing about fantasies is that they are inherently, as detailed as you can make them, right? And I've got super detailed fantasies. I sort of flick through them and I go, aha, I'm going to tap into this one today. Right. As detailed as they are, they can only really be two-dimensional, right? They can't have the realness of a person of, you know, disappointing and surprising and annoying and, you know, exhilarating to be around. They can't have all these shades because they're

not real. So I think that this is about growing up a bit. And I don't mean this in a disparaging way. I mean this in like, there's actually so much potential here and so much for you to be excited about. Because when you can move from being in love with a fantasy to being in love with a real man, it's incredible. Like it feels so, so good. And I was thinking about this the other day. I was literally thinking about how, like, and I'm not saying this to be smug. I'm sort of saying this to be like, oh, like, I'm an adult. This feels really good to be an adult. Is that, like, actually, my husband is the kind of guy who I would have fantasized about

when I was like 15, right? Like, he looks like the kind of person I would have fantasized about and he understands me in a way that I would have fantasized about. But I don't relate to him as a fantasy. I relate to him as someone who can really piss me off, can be really annoying. Like, you know, and also at the same time capable of, like, surprising me, capable of like meeting needs in a way that I didn't think that anyone could and both of those things, the fact that he can be really fucking annoying and the fact that he is the greatest source of joy

in my life, it's down to him being a real person and not a fantasy. Like, you know, that fantasy... What does it feel like to be what of God's chosen ones? You're so happy in your relationship. It is the pits outside on the streets. I say all of this thinking, I'm speaking, I'm speaking for now and hopefully in 10 years time I'm going to be saying the same thing. I don't know that. I really hope it will be that way. But like, you know, I can only say this for now. And I'm not saying this to be about him. I'm saying this to be about me, right? Like, I'm not a 15 year old fantasizing about things I'll never have anymore. And part of the, part of the story when I was 15 wasn't just constructing a fantasy of like the kind of man that I wish I could be with. It was also a

fucking knife in my belly because the other part of it was feeling like I'm never going to be lovable or desirable enough to attract that kind of man. Like this is the thing about a fantasy is that their inherent like, you know, that distance from you, the fact that you can never grasp them, you then turn that into a weapon against yourself. So that's what my advice to you, a special one, is understand that what you're in love with is fantasy and that I think that there is like a bit of maturing to do to be able to fall in love with and be loved by real people. I agree. Aligned. Retweet. All right. Kemmy, thank you so much for coming on if I speak. Thanks for having me, babe. You've got a big event coming up, have you not? I have. So this

comes out on the 21st, doesn't it? It's totally live. It's live. It's live from the Yeah, so I will have already said that the Women of the Year awards will be happening on the 30th of October. So keep your eyes peeled because from tomorrow, i.e. the 22nd, there'll be some things dropping that you, you're going to like. You're going to want to like, retweet, share. And even if you don't want to do that, you should just to rewire your algorithm. to what I want it to be which goes about to something that I said earlier is that I should have control of the algorithm

not Bezos I think I'd be more nourished but I still think it would be if you were in control of the algorithm I do think I'd be sent even more things somehow on my feed than I already get but it would feed you more it would be a clip a minute

but it'd be good stuff anyway thank you very much for joining us it's been a huge pleasure I've loved a lot ash i've been improved by this experience oh wow i would say what a lovely thing to say that's an incredible we need to do this again sometime no microphones just five yeah let's let's just just hang out okay right you've been listening if i speak uh thank you special ones you're very dear to us goodbye bye bye Thank you.