Miss Me? - Manisfear

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Miquita Oliver and Jordan Stephens discuss Louis Theroux’s manosphere doc and the power of Tracey Emin’s artThis episode contains very strong language, discussion of suicide, sexual assault and adult themes. Credits: Producer: Natalie Jamieson Technical Producer: Oliver Geraghty Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid Production Coordinator: Rose Wilcox Executive Producer: Dino Sofos Commissioning Producer for BBC: Jake Williams Commissioners: Dylan Haskins & Lorraine Okuefuna Miss Me? is a Persephonica production for BBC Sounds

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hi, I'm Alex Goldman. You may know me as the host of Reply All, but I'm done with that. I'm doing something else now. I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed. On every episode of Hyperfixed, listeners write in with their problems, and I try to solve them. Some massive and life-altering, and some so minuscule it'll boggle your mind. No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you.

That's Hyperfixed, the new podcast from Radio, Thisiotopia. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at hyperfixedpod.com. This episode of Miss Me contains very strong language, adult themes and discussions around suicide and sexual assault. Hello everybody. Welcome to This Week of Miss Me. Is that to you present a review? I don't know. I still haven't really gaged how much you can take. Do you know what I've realized in the last week? I don't have the energy to fight anymore. Anything. That's a nice place to be. If you want to sound like a dicker presenter, I'm a person. I'm not. I'm just like, I have to keep fighting, then maybe I'm wrong.

What's going on is on Mittwick? You're listening to Miss Me. It's your boy Jay Steasy and Keats parakeets. I would say I did listen back to idioms because so many people loved idioms. And I should really listen back. Yes. And you did this and I did hate it. So let's not do it again.

If that's okay. No, but it was, I did it as a, okay, fine. Anyway, look, it's Miss Me. It's just me and you. It's like, you know, usually we talk quite early in the day, not to like kill any dreams here. you know, there isn't a lotted time that we talk every week. And today's a bit later, because Jordan was doing something.

And so for me, it's really nice. It's kind of a bit dusky. So I feel a little less like morningy than I usually am. I'm kind of a bit more laid back, dude. And you've done something that I was worried about doing, which is rehashing an outfit. I have worn this or miss me before. Why are you kind of call me out?

Because I want one time, Brian, that the hell? Yeah, and I've worn this one time. But it's okay. We're like Cape Middleton. Kate Middleton does this as well. She rewheres things. Are you joking? Sorry, sorry.

Let me just get this damage. Let me just deep this. You're telling me in 200, by the way, this is a 200 episode. Oh, this is 199, babe. So in 199 episodes of Miss Me, you're telling me you've never worn the same outfit twice? Uh, no. I don't think so. No, I don't think so.

I would like to say, for the sake of it, I'm very into wearing the same outfit twice. Like, we really need to be okay with that. Like, if anything, I'm trying to. shrink my wardrobe bro like what's the point i mean i know i'm saying this way you're sat amidst hundreds of items of clothing charity shop that's what the thing is sure i like everything i own is a fiver not everything but 70% secondhand stuff that's the that's the way forward but yeah i like dressing up for miss me yeah no but you can dress up with the same thing twice that doesn't give you the same joy well guys listening i'll definitely be rehashing outfits i've already have to be honest

you probably just haven't noticed you've had a busy week uh tell me about all the things that you've done in the world you went to exhibitions you went to talks yeah sure sure you've been to be Sure. I did. I did. I had, what should I have I done this week? Well, this morning I've just come from a meeting. I was one of a small section of men at our Women of the World Conference. Oh. Because I'm friends with many of the women who do incredible things and pull their power and those couple guys there. Important. Last week I went to Tracy Amin exhibition and yesterday I went to a screening of the Louis Through documentary which would have come out last night. and I promise you people are going to be talking about.

Yeah, I like this. I like this balance because I was like, are we really fucking going on about the Manosphere again? But we were very lucky to get preview. Yeah, a screener. A screener. Exactly. Yeah.

Do you want to start with that? Do you want to start with powerful women in art? But I'm happy we're talking about both is what I'm saying. Just be honest, it's quite an incredible, for me, there's a really powerful parallel, actually, between Louis through going into the Manosphere and Tracy Eminem, because on one hand, you have Louis basically going to the world of three or four main characters, maybe five main characters within the manosphere that, you know, if you've never seen them before,

it's going to be quite shocking and baffling. But people like me who have kind of kept an eye on it out of pure morbid intrigue will be familiar with these people. Right. Nothing is really that surprising to me of what he reveals. But, you know, you put Louis through in a situation and at times he's able to excavate in a way that perhaps other people didn't or wouldn't have have or slowly let people show their hands. But what you do feel overwhelmingly throughout a documentary, of course, is the idea that there were men trapped in a sense of performance.

Very much so. And are attempting to barricade themselves from the pressures of, in avert commas, the system or society or the matrix is actually what they use to describe whatever. The world that we live in today. And then ultimately they scam boys. in order to sustain themselves. I don't think it's as simple as they scam boys. My definition of scamming isn't specifically like

if I pay for a membership to this thing, will this advice make me money? No, that's not my only definition of scamming. When I say a scam, I mean, the men in this space are connected by a joint desire to sell dreams to people who are unable or invulnerable situations and do not deliver on the dreams that they sell them on the majority of the occasions.

That's my idea of a scam. I felt a lot of fear and a lot of pain in this documentary. And I think it's important to talk about why Louis Theroux is so good. Because you're right, there is so much pretense and there's so much hiding behind these cameras, hiding behind these screens, that just the normal interaction of them being on a camera with Louis talking to them, that first guy...

Like just tiki-toki. He immediately sees a camera and starts. talking down the barrel and going straight into this persona. And Louis goes, who are you talking to? And he's like, oh, right, yeah. He sees a camera. He talks to it. That's his friend.

That's his validation. That's where he is told he's, you know, all of these things that he is living as. But the minute he turns away and is being spoken to by a wise elder man, he just seemed like a scared child. For me, as someone who's aware of it, it was quite weird watching a documentary that was filmed four years ago, three years. ago because I was like, wow. No, was it that long ago that he would have filmed it, do you think?

Some of it, yeah, of course. Because I know the people he's talking to, and I've seen what they've said recently. Or they'll be even responding to the trailer. Right. So the conversation moves so rapidly. Like, for example, when we are following the guy, Myron Gaines, and he has that horrendous moment where his girlfriend walks in, gives him the dog totally kind of like breaks his idea of what's considered to be powerful, so he makes her clean his room or whatever,

which was horrendous. Yep. I know that she already cheated on him. Okay, sorry, apparently it was 2025 it was made. Okay, a year ago. It might have sourced footage from before that year as well. Yeah, for sure. But even in that year, there's so much two years, last two years.

But this Myron Gaines guy, if there was any of them that I found to have a slightly more sinister energy, I thought it was going to be him. But again, in his content that you are shown throughout the documentary, yes, he's saying shocking, galling things about the oppression of women and what women should take from men. And the fact that their bodies are, I mean, there's a lot of sexual violent energy, if I'm honest. But the minute that Myron Gaines, again, was not in his safe space. He seemed terrified. So it does feel that there is a lot of these guys talking themselves into something that they don't even live by all of the day. Of course.

So how sturdy can this be? Can what be? This idea of, I believe this, I live like this. I don't think that there was that much truth to the lives that these men were living. It felt like it was something that they turned on for a few hours a day for a camera. and then they go back. Like, do you remember when the first boy was talking about how if his son was gay, he'd disown him. Yeah.

And if his daughter... He was the only fan. He'd disown her. He said his mom hates homophobia, hates racism and hates misogyny. And he looked like he'd been brought up in that way and he did feel like he was betraying himself. So, interestingly, in the Q&A afterwards, I don't know whether it was the director who was seriously switched on or Louis, he made the comment. But when you zoom out from all of the interviews and the people they feel, follow. The reason they chose, they said they chose Harrison to be the beginning in the end, the kind

of through line, through the story, is because actually they're all scamming young men and boys. Like that is the premise. But like, H.S. Tiki Tokey is not even attempting to apply a sense of morality to it. He is like saying that he doesn't care, like he's a hypocrite. He doesn't care that he's benefiting off a society that he doesn't agree with in principle. It's just full on 100% unadulterated idiocy, which is oddly, in some ways, like, more authentic than somebody selling an idea of what a man is. Yeah. But he's horrendous.

He's horrendous, but he's a child, right? And then they also show his backstory. And like two of the other men that followed. Is it all of them? Yeah. Raised by single moms who lack of male role model, a lack of male love. And also, you know, I'm from a single boy. parent, how so are you, particularly a single mom? And if the circumstances are that your mother

has to work in an extreme sense, like, she's also not there to provide for you in the way that you believe that she should. So there is anger there. I just feel like everyone's trying to save their single mom or something. Yeah. I mean, fatherlessness or like, the thing is you could even have a dad there and the dad still be absent. Like that's the thing is we're coming off the back of zero introversion, zero attempt for men to excavate their interior lives. Like, you know, this is the kind of literature and work we're trying to do in the modern age. And I see it shifting. I'm actually hopeful about it.

But yeah, of course, you know, they made the point at some point in a documentary that these guys are, of course, the whole limitations of what masculinity is, the man box, the manosphere are all restrictive, constrictive ideologies because it's easier than confronting the system itself and the trauma. me you might have one person might have experienced when they were younger accepting you know people think that like being a victim as a weakness when identifying yourself as a victim is one of the first most important stages towards not only having compassion for other people but being able to take action within yourself to grow as a person you know if you're unwilling to even accept that you've been hurt yes if you're unwilling to even accept that you've been hurt this is what fucking happens if you don't heal it you reveal it yeah but this is why I mean I mean, I don't feel like, I couldn't believe how obvious it was to all these men were in lots of pain.

Yeah. I thought maybe hiding it better. Why? The whole thing's a performance. Yeah, but I didn't know that because I'm not as in this world as you or I'm not as literate with it. And I try and stay fucking away from it, to be honest, to delve into it in this way, I was just like, oh God, it's just everyone play acting. It's just everyone feeling very far from themselves and just pretending to be all these things that they don't even believe. And actually, do you know what it is?

It's this desperate need for unity and community and connection. It's like negative attention. It doesn't matter if it's negative. I feel part of something. Yeah, the community aspect. I think that's what a lot of people need. Regardless of man, woman, anything, people need to feel connected to something and part of something.

And sometimes it doesn't even matter what it is. Do you know what was sad, actually? Yeah. The two young Hispanic boys that Louis was talking to. And this guy had been through hell. This one boy, his brother had killed himself. Yeah. Heartbreaking.

He was living in poverty. And this movement, this world, this community has made him feel empowered and like he can change his life. So there is this kind of double-edged sort of what they're promoting is not bad. What this world is saying of you can do things with your life. You can be self-made. And maybe you have to leave that idea of the nine to five and the office work. That is empowering. I get that.

I don't think so. But this obsession with money, obsession with it. and not really caring about how you make the money or what you have to do to get there, I think that's where it starts to get really fucked up. So, yeah, listen, like a lot of these guys have started out with really basic shit, like, you know, if you feel sad, go to the gym.

And then people are like, oh, yeah, that makes me feel a bit better about myself or, you know, work for yourself and not for someone else or this kind of stuff. Yeah. But, like, I have to be clear, like, it is incredibly damaging. Like, and these guys, they literally don't have the skills, or are even qualified enough to be able to help young people, young boys through suffering and

difficult times in their life. Like it is not the antidote to pain and difficulty isn't to try and project or try and find control in a place to overcompensate for the powerlessness you feel in society. None of these men, and this is one, I guess, upside, which I've seen, that they are unraveling anyway. Even since the documentary has come out, they have begun to unravel. And boys are seeing this and going like,

I'm being sold a lie. I thought I believed in this, yeah. Like the irony of the whole manisphere, for example, is that they're basing their idea of like social ascension on then being able to leverage that to get women, but they're doing it by encouraging guys to hate women. And then guys are growing up being like, wait, hating women is a really bad way of getting women, obviously.

So they're now isolated and radicalized. Isolated and radicalized? Great place to be. Yeah, but bear in mind, right? I mean about exploitative, right? And this isn't just exclusive to boys, but the point is that boy was vulnerable, right? So he's lost his brother to suicide and he doesn't want that to happen to him. Also, he feels like he has to find a way of making his brother's life meaningful and he has decided that that way is through earning money, right? Yeah. That state of vulnerability where you're

going through grief and fear, that is when people are most malleable. That is literally how you radicalize people, often you can get people into cults or into like, you know, spaces of echo chambers or conversation when they are experiencing immense amount of pain and trauma. That is ultimately where you can like hire, but we're not higher. That's where you can round people up. And so it is, that's what I mean, it's exploitative. But you know what? These things are incremental because, yes, it's ridiculous, but so is racism. These things start ridiculous and incrementally become fundamental ways that people start to believe the world is and who should be punished and who shouldn't and what you should get and what you should do to get there. And that's when like morals and the

way we look after each other just starts to go out the window. This is also extremely self-serving. Like the only conversation is about how you serve yourself, which is literally against how you're meant to live. You're literally meant to be in service to others and the world around you. In those moments of pure, like I can't imagine what it would be like, say like your partner fucked you over. Let's say a worst case scenario, your girlfriend's cheated on you, whatever. Space you need to be in where your ego is flaring, like flaring. All it needs is some dickhead to be on a thing going, yeah, these people are evil and you can just get lead, bang, bang, like in that moment, that's the, but the hardest thing to do, which is a more spiritual approach, something

that obviously I advocate for, is to sit in that moment and go, my singular experience is not reflective, one of a group and two is ultimately nothing to do with the person who's harmed me. That's real shit. That's real strength. And so... That is real strength. That is real strength. Can we talk about Louis, though?

How was he at the talk? I love him. I think, you know, he's really good at what he does. A lot of his documentary work obviously focuses around the edges and edginess. And he goes into dangerous scenarios, meets dangerous people, and kind of reveals some part of their character.

And that's cool. I think, I can't figure out whether or not I'm comfortable with there's a subtle lightness to the whole thing including the Q&A which has confused me a little bit

Right You know there were moments where it was really funny Because it's Louis Theroux Talking to boys who It couldn't be further In I guess Experience and life choice You know he did hold mental account

A couple of times And that's really cool But then What you worry that he doesn't care About them No no no he does care But I'll worry if it's easier for him to look at it in a like this is almost because some of it was

funny it was almost like it was scripted so what these guys were saying was almost like it was scripted it's because they speak in sound bites but then it's like you know it's that whole thing of yeah okay we mentioned why there might be at the core and da da da da da da but it's very difficult because you have to have people consenting to be more open and this is like probably the most close-off people i also think that he has this because i was talking to someone about it and they were like he sort of has this great way of asking questions until someone undoes themselves. Fine. Maybe that's his intent.

But the point is, the questions are so simple and full of clarity. And I think that there is so much, as I said, the boys on this show, they all talk in soundbites and they all talk in isms. And they're sort of protected by them. I think Louis asked something very simple, very clear, what do you want to do with your life or something like that? And he's like, yeah, I just want to have like, you know, like a billion dollar value. He couldn't even say valuated company thing. And it's like, do you even know what you're fucking talking about? It's like just this thing he's heard that's a goal to get to.

Louis, as a documentarian, it's, you know, it's not a question about what his ability to be able to get certain pieces of information out of people. Oh, yeah. I feel like it's just quite an intense place to go into being aware of the ramifications of the messages. some of these guys are putting out. And I guess their argument was that there's another way you can go with documentary, which makes it all seem too serious. It's almost an impossible place to be in, but I would love to them to have spoken to more boys who had been exploited

as a result of the monosphere. That would have been good, actually. That would have been bloody brilliant. Can I do a parallel now to Trace Yemen? Can I just talk about Louis for one second? Oh, sorry, sorry. Because he did this interview series with cultural figures. Yeah.

That's when I studied Louis Theroux. I was like, fuck, I hadn't started missing me yet. And I was like, fuck, I miss interviewing people. Fuck, like, he makes me want to be better. And it was this lovely moment with Stormsy that Nat very sweetly has found for me. Can we play where he gets Stormsies really open up? It is a new thing.

Like, I didn't date before I met my ex. I didn't date before. I wasn't out here dating. Right. But you would have been 20 then. So what about 17, 18, 19? 17, 18, 19. I was just a boy.

And dating weren't even a thing that was. Wasn't that a thing? Nah, like, man weren't taken, oh, girl, no, fucking... Really? What was man doing? It weren't like, hey, baby, let's go to the fucking... Movies? Nah, we weren't, no.

Cinema, maybe. Cinema, maybe. I was a boy. I was a boy. I'm just not well-versed in the realms of love, relationships and dating. All right, how's your energy? I know we've taken a lot of time. Is it good?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got a couple more questions. Are we all right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I don't always get to that talk about... Talk in detail. And that's the moment. moment you realize that Louis Thruh's done something that no one ever does. And I wonder if it's because Stormsy is so often approached as a young black man who's a rapper, which I imagine for a lot of

people would make them interview him in a certain way and ask him certain questions. Louis Theroux talks to him like an intelligent young man who probably hasn't got a space to talk about his love life that often, that honestly. And you can feel Stormsy at the end going, yeah, actually, please don't go. Can we have some more time? I'm really enjoying opening up like this. And I remember watching it thinking, fuck he's good. Yeah, I think it's definitely a gift to allow somebody to sit in silence, allow somebody to open up, like, yeah, I think it's cool. I remember watching that.

Stormsey obviously then went on to make an entire album, laying his heart bare on the whole record. So I don't think he was closed off much after that. No, no, no, no, no, no. On record is one thing, but actually asking the right questions to get a big pop star to talk about how they feel about love is another. Yeah.

I mean, more men should be asked about love anyway. Yeah, I feel like I ask you about love all the bloody time. Yeah, but I mean, apart from me, I write fucking books about it. That's true. Let's have a little break and then we can do your parallel between Louis Theroux entering the Manosphere and the brand new retrospective of Tracy Eman's life's work. Yes? Yes.

Yes. Hi, I'm Alex Goldman. You may know me as the host of Reply All, but I'm done with you. that. I'm doing something else now. I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed. On every episode of Hyperfixed, listeners write in with their problems, and I try to solve them. Some massive and life-altering, and some so minuscule it'll boggle your mind. No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you. That's Hyperfixed, the new podcast from Radiotopia. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at Hyperfixedpod.com. Welcome back to Miss me. I am in the middle of a,

I just need to quickly say this. I'm in the middle of a gym contract. I cannot get out of. What? Like, no love, no money will get me out of this contract. And I'm paying quite a big amount for the next nine months. And they will not let me leave. And I can't, the classes I want aren't part of the package I bought.

Is it a spiny one? Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay, yeah. That's how they do it. Same with me. I consider canceling it every day. I can go to any gym in the world, obviously. that thing.

Wow. I just want to go to my one, but they literally won't let me buy that. Can I ask you what your gym, because I know we've talked about you having a bit more of an addictive relationship with working out. How often are you going to the gym at the moment?

Twice a week, three times a week. Oh, that's healthy. I mean, I'm not really taking it that seriously. No, I just like going and lifting things to make me feel less anxious and then the spa's amazing, mainly in the sauna. Oh, God, I wish my gym had a spot. Anyway.

But look, I want to talk to you about Tracy M in. So I went to see Tracy M's new exhibition at the Tate. called a second life, a retrospective. Yes, you went to see it. Did you go to the private view? No. Oh, okay.

I just went with my friend Lisa. We just went, remember I told you? You said you're going to come. Oh, yeah, that day. Where did I go? You know, it was so weird as well is I walked through the doors of the Tate and I was DM'd at that moment by the Tate asking me to go to another show. And they've never messaged me before in my life.

Do you know what? I know, because they messaged me as well about the same show. and they said you and Jordan, I think would love it because of the things you talk about and miss me. And I was like, that is so sweet. Oh, dope. No, I really wanted to see the Tracy exhibition. I was going to go and then I couldn't.

But then I knew you'd seen it. So I thought, fine, we can still talk about it. Yeah. I love Tracy a minute. And I've always been very interested in her story. I've watched that brilliant documentary on Sky Arts called Mad Tracy from Margate. I know you know a lot about her work now. I've met her a couple times, yeah.

Did she build a school? Yeah. She built a studio and she's been. and like basically developing, I think, five or six artists at a time. Fucking amazing. Fuck, yes. She's, you know, had some health issues recently and like literal death scares. And I think it's pushed her into a slightly different space.

She had bladder cancer. They had to remove her bladder and lots of her other pelvic organs. So she has been fucking through it. And, you know, her art has always represented her life experiences. You know, her early work was very much based around conceptual installation, but I know she's doing a lot more painting now, and I love her paintings. So what was it like?

I actually saw Tracy a couple of years ago, maybe, three years ago, do a Q&A in Margate, tiny room. I feel quite lucky now in hindsight, and she was talking a lot about reconnecting with Margate, reconnecting with a place that ultimately traumatized her. Also, the fact that she, you know, was criticised a lot, especially in her early years for, like, simplistic approaches or contemporary art in spite of the fact that she is an incredibly gifted artist.

It's much in a way of like, you know, Picasso or something like that, you know, where like these guys are able if they want to paint fucking hyper real landscapes, but they're actively choosing to engage art in a different way, which I find quite powerful. I think what I find interesting about going to Tracy Amin exhibition and then watching this documentary about a manosphere within the same week is that I'm confronted with men who are like trapped in. inside a box, limiting their ability, in my opinion, to self-reflect, self-excavate,

and in doing so, connect to themselves and the world around them. And then you go to a Tracy Eamon experience. It's like, I don't think a single human could excavate more than Tracy Eman. Right. My biggest takeaway, other than being at one point almost like choked up a little bit from one of the paintings because it's fucking deep. I was thinking, what is the equivalent of that from a male experience? Like what is the fucking, like she has bled.

She's a complex character, but fuck me. You cannot say this woman has not bared her fucking soul. Absolutely. I think what summed out for me the most in the retrospective was there's this one walkway where she's been taking selfies with her stoma. Yeah. What she's been left with as a result of the surgery she went through having had bladder cancer. And she's taken selfies the entire way, like literally naked selfies, like close-ups of, like, close-ups of, like,

like the hole in her, like, I guess in her side. And then she's paralleled it with selfie she took as a young woman in lingerie. And it's like that for me is like she's literally turning around to the world to all of the ideas around sexuality, sensuality, womanhood, motherhood, like all of it. And she's just like fuck any person trying to tell me how I decide, how I find myself. And ultimately she is in conversation with death constantly. And it's like really fucking confronting. And, you know, it was fucking powerful.

You know, this woman, that's torture she's gone through. And she's able to, she says it herself in one of the films, actually. She says she's able to articulate it. In fact, in fact, we have a clip. Ah, do we? So if you ask me to describe my pain that I'm in right now, I will tell you in the lower part of my spine, it feels like someone's got a biro.

And they're sticking it. between the cartilages and they're just moving it up and down slightly. That sounds painful and it is painful. And again and again, any pain that I have, I can describe it really visually, really easy for you to see. And I think that's also got something to do with being an artist. Because an artist, you conjure, you pull these things out of you, especially with painting that never existed there before.

That was Tracy talking on Ready to Talk with Emma Barnett. And it's important. And so I was there thinking, you know, it's funny. I've been in conversations about, like, my next book. And in my first book, it's like, you know, some of the comments have been, being quite brutally honest was like a phrase that's used a lot.

But then I kind of thinking to myself, like, I went to Stacey exhibition and came out like, yo, I feel like I've hit, like, level one of brutal honesty. Like, like, what the fuck? Like, I know, true say, I'm all like, I spill all my guts on Missing Me every week. It's like, no, you haven't said shit. Here's Tracy.

actually showing her inside out. Literally. That's a great directive for you. If you're ever concerned about over exposure, go to the Tracy Ammonet exposure. Can I say another thing she did as well, which is fucking sick. In the first room,

there's basically the actual retrospective of her early work are these tiny photographs in frames because at some point... She destroyed it, didn't she? Yeah, in the mid-90s. She just burnt everything she'd ever done. Fucking...

That is insane. But also, I really love that she... You know what? She's strong. And what you're saying to me is I feel like she's actually showing. Yes, she's showing pain, but she's showing us her strength. Fuck. And I don't mean resilience.

I mean strength. I was about to say, yeah. If the strength is as a result of being like there is nothing she won't show or expose or feel or bleed on to, then yes, 100%. In the Q&A that I saw her speaking and she does mention this kind of in some of the interviews, you know, her career comes at an immense amount of sacrifice that does have a spiritual cost. Like a lot of her work is about the fact that she's chosen not to have children, for example, and what that means, how important that is to her and how that plays into societal expectations and it's really powerful, you know, it's fucking hardcore. She's

to have to bear that. I feel like she has the strength to show us the ugly of so much shit. And you know what? A lot of people a few years ago would have said it is an ugly thing to look at a woman in her 60s saying, I didn't want to have kids. I've chosen to not. not have kids. People would have been like, ew, what do you mean? In order to be a great artist, which is something that ironically, a lot of men would just be like, yeah. I think also the strength to show the ugliness of pain. And like, you know, she was raped when she was young. Her early work alluded, not even alluded, was talking about that.

That's the piece that fucked me up, by the way. It's literally just called rape. It's really hard to look at. And it's just a painting. Oh, okay. So rape is something I think she's done later. But I'm talking about like bed. Just the ugliness.

This is what I mean. Things aren't ugly, but they are seen as ugly. The ugliness of a woman saying, here's a tent with all the names of the men I've slept with. That was ugly for a woman to say that. Yeah, she was doing some gang to shit back in the fucking 90s. In my opinion, I think it goes beyond, like, Tracy Eminen as a person, who is she what she stands for.

Like, I don't know. All I know is she is a complex character, bummed into her a couple times of Margate. My mom has two. And my mom's opinion of first changed a bit. Something shifted. And she is actively trained. trying to lift Margate.

She's actively trying to do that. That is, I think, commendable. Yeah, man. And I love that she's helping to nurture and develop young artists. Fucking hard being an artist in this country. Yeah, she's trying to keep that art alive. Yeah. I mean, it's a good exhibition.

I'd recommend it. I'm going to make sure I go. I'd also really just quickly like to say that I think we should be really proud of the YBA movement in this country. It's such an extraordinary moment to sort of remove art from the world of elitism. and aristocracy and just plain old money. And just to use, you know, it's just a bunch of Goldsmith students deciding to turn away from this traditional gallerist idea

and go to this place called, oh my God, East London than no one had been to in the early 90s and just take over a warehouse and put their own show on. And like, Charles Sarchie just happened to come and buy all these works. Like, this is how the modern art world in this country was born. Listen, I'm not a huge Charles Sarci fan, but his work, to take that work and then to put it in his London gallery. Like, this changed things and this made careers for people like Damien Huston, Matt Colleshaw and Sarah Lucas and Tracy. And that moment of like rebellion and freedom of expression being celebrated, not only celebrated, but then turning into what the commercial art world was.

Like, fuck I miss the 90s. Sorry, I'm being a bit like YBAs. I'm talking about the young British artist movement of the early 90s, which was, uh, The birth of the artists that we were talking about earlier, Damien Hurs, Sarah Lucas, Matt Collasure, all of them. I just want to go back. I think there's some good art knocking about now. Yeah, no, the art world now is amazing.

And this is how it was born. What we have today is because of those rebellious little upstarts. And we say thank you to the YBAs. I do agree. Yeah, yeah, sure. I don't know enough about it. But like, they're cool. Yeah, yeah, they're cool.

Sounds about right. Jordan, I'll see you for Listen, bitch. We're going to be discussing frenemies, and you are not a frenemy. You are the opposite of that. Great. An annafram... I think it's called a friend. I think it's called a friend.

Oh yeah. Annamend. An inanemend. Bye! Bye. Thanks for listening to Miss Me. This is a Percephonica production for BBC Sounds. If you've been affected by anything raised in this episode, go to BBC.com.com.

OK. OK. OK. forward slash action line. Hello, I'm Jack. And I'm Rosie. And we are two of the hosts of Lunchbox NV, a food podcast from the makers of QI and no such thing as a fish.

Each week we dive into a different dish or ingredient and uncover tons of fabulous foodie facts about the history, science and culture behind food and drink. For example, did you know that the Aztecs enjoyed a dollop of peanut butter on their roasted grasshoppers? Or that it was a 12-year-old boy who figured out how to grow vanilla on fire. So if you want to find out how avocado trees are bisexual or what the first ever meal eaten on the moon was, then lunchbox envy is the podcast for you.

Listen now on BBC Sounds. Hi, I'm Alex Goldman. You may know me as the host of Reply All, but I'm done with that. I'm doing something else now. I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed. On every episode of Hyperfixed, listeners write in with their problems and I try to solve them, some massive and life-altering and some so-minist. you a little boggle your mind. No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you. That's Hyperfixed, the new podcast from Radiotopia. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at

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