There Are No Girls on the Internet - Brandy Mellville exploited girls. Does anyone care?

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Kate Taylor’s reporting led to HBO’s new documentary Brandy Hellville and the Cult of Fast Fashion. She joins Bridget to discuss what Brandy Mellville’s rise says about social media, girlhood, and exploitation, and what it means for the rest of us.   Read Kate’s piece (all of her pieces are dope) https://www.businessinsider.com/brandy-melville-teen-fast-fashion-racism-exploitation-hitler-marsan-2021-9 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This isn't just about teenage girls, like in-stores being exploited. It's about exploitation on every level. There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Have you ever shopped at a Brandy Melville? Okay, so the Brandy Melville look is just the right kind of fade on a vintage jacket, or a t-shirt that fits in just the right kind of way. She's California cool, effortless.

She also happens to be thin, white, and conventionally attractive. So just who is Brandy Melville? The shadowy fast fashion chain was founded and run by Italian CEO, Stefan Marchand. And under his direction, Brandy Melville reached a kind of cult status with a certain subsection of teenage girls. Even if you've never shopped there yourself, if you have a young woman or girl in your life, she's probably at least heard of it. They once became known for their one-size-fits-most sizing.

And since HBO's new documentary, Brandy Mel Hell, and the cult of fast fashion, now more of the company's toxic practices are coming to light. I am Kate Taylor and I'm a senior correspondent at Business Insider. Kate's reporting, which you can read in the show notes, became the basis for the HBO documentary. Her work uncovers the darker aspects of how businesses are run and who gets exploited to make others rich. I also happen to be kind of a super fan of Kate's writing.

Kate, I am so excited to be talking to you today. I feel like anytime you drop a new piece, it goes straight in my group chat because I know it's going to be the kind of piece that we're talking about. I'm like, I like, I'm awaiting the docu version of the piece. Like that, you are that kind of writer for me. Thank you so much. It's like amazing to hear. It's such a, I have such a cool job at Business Insider where it is a lot of like doing deep dives into whatever I'm super interested in.

And like, it's often like I end up writing articles where I'm like, oh, I wish I could read an article about this. And then my editor is like, well, sounds like you have to report it out. So a lot of your reporting is taking these like big, messy, sometimes like business or corporate stories and then synthesizing them down so your average person can really see like what's at stake or why they should even care, even about these stories that they might not even necessarily think they care about or think impacts them in any capacity. How did you get into being that person who does that with these complicated stories? My background is actually I was a business beat report.

order on the retail and restaurant speed. So practically that meant doing a ton of business reporting on fast food chain. So I followed Subway really closely. I followed Starbucks really closely. I followed McDonald's really closely, like listening in on earnings calls, talking to executives. And for all of these things, I found it to be really fascinating how these kind of wonky business decisions impacted the thousands of thousands of people who ate at the chains, who worked at the chains. So that was kind of my introduction into journalism. And then going from there to being on our features and investigations team, it kind of continued to be like, okay, how can we take these stories and make them important to someone who doesn't think of themselves as someone

who wants to read a business publication or who wants to kind of read something that might be a little bit dry in how it's presented sometimes. This is exactly what I love about Kate's work. She finds a story that is a story that is a ostensibly a story about the way a business is being run and drills down into what it says about us as a culture and why it matters. Like back in 2015, when Starbucks announced that through their Race Together initiative, they'd be encouraging their baristas to spark tough conversations about race with customers just picking up their coffees. And Kate was on it. I remember the first story I read by you was about, I think it was when you were at entrepreneur, about Starbucks.

They wanted to, like, have race conversations. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes, that was one of, like, I was a couple years into entrepreneur then. And, like, that was one of the first articles where I was kind of like, okay, like, there's more going on here. And, like, I want to kind of, like, write about this conversation about this news instead of just writing about the news because, like, this is wild. And it was something that, like, was such a move that you saw a lot. Like, at that time, this was in maybe 2014, 2015. I think that like from then to 2020, you saw this a lot where it was businesses making announcements

that they thought that would be good PR, that then, like, their in-store employees were like, what are you doing? Like, this is putting us in such a strange position. Like, we don't have training to deal with this. Because Kate covers business, a lot of her stories are unfortunately about wrongdoing, already marginalized people being treated badly. And because some of the workplaces that she covers catered to women or young people, people. Companies like Brandy Melville or Nickelodeon, Kate's coverage became the docu-series

quiet on the set, uncovering workplace abuses at the Kids Entertainment Network. There's this idea that it doesn't really matter what these companies' business practices look like, because who cares of just some company for teen girls? It's an attitude that lets businesses and the people who run them get away with behaving badly in plain sight, but not on Kate's watch. Something I see in your reporting these days is that a lot of the focus is on these things that I think impact like women or young people, these groups of people that I feel like are traditionally marginalized both in society, but also in sort of business coverage. Do you think that stories like the, you know, Brandy Melville story that you reported or the Nickelodeon story that you reported,

do you think that these issues sometimes skirt scrutiny because people assume there's nothing serious going on there because it's about women or kids or young people, they're teens? Completely. And I think that especially the Brandy Malveau. story, that was something where these court cases had already been filed saying kind of these allegations that Brandy Melville was incredibly racist. And you wouldn't have that happen at a major chain that had like, I don't know, like an Adidas, a Nike, even like a chain that serves adult woman, a J-Crew. I think if those allegations had come out about a chain that didn't specifically cater to teenage girls, they would have already been front page news. And it felt to me like

this was overlooked because it was a brand that was aimed at teenage girls. And it was a ton of teenage girls who worked there. So yeah, in that situation completely, I think that it's at some level there is a disconnect where people just aren't as aware of things. And like that talks to about who ends up in journalism. Like it is a lot of like older white men and older. And older white women who like just are not as plugged into things. And like, that's how important stories don't get the investigations that are worthy. And then I think that there is a level of dismissal where it's like, oh, well, like, does this matter? Like, fast fashion is bad? We already know that. Like, is it worth spending months looking into this specific chain?

Who is John Galt? In the Ayn Rand novel, Atlas Shrugged, Who is John Galt is a question repeated over and over again, and the quest to discover his identity is at the core of the book. Galt is revealed to be an inventor who believes people should be using their talents, minds, and gifts solely to benefit themselves and no one else. It's kind of easy to see why this book has become something of a foundational text for libertarians. And this reference is what sent Kate down the rabbit hole of investigating the retailer Brandy Melville. So walk me through how the Brandy Melville piece came to be and like you're interested in and your coverage in it.

How did that start? it came about in kind of this very roundabout way where I was talking to my friend, who was my co-worker at the time, about how Randy Melville had this kind of sub-brand John Gould. And she was like, it's so weird that they like are kind of making this weird libertarian reference. Like I was like, yeah, that is weird. Like, I wonder who is running this? Like, who's the CEO? Is this owned by a larger company?

I started Googling. I just couldn't find the CEO. And that, as a retail reporter, I was like, this is, this is so rare. Like, you can have one location and the CEO is giving as many interviews as he can get. It's very rare for any CEO to avoid press instead of go after press. But in this situation, you have this super popular brand with a big social media presence, and the executives were really nowhere to be seen. So from there, I kind of started looking up business filing,

started looking up court documents, and it was when I was looking at court documents, find the CEO's name that I came across these discrimination lawsuits where two former executives said we were pretty much forced out because we did not go along with the bias business practices. And like as I was reading through those lawsuits, I really was struck by how over the top and bizarre these instances of bias were where these were things where I was like, this is truly mind-blowing. And I went to my editor as like, hey, like, these lawsuits are really, really wild. Like, I think that there's a bigger story here. I think that we should start talking to employees, former employees, and asking them about their experiences.

And that was one where, like, almost every interview I had, it was just another level of disturbing material. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygle and friends, me and hilarious guests. from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel,

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them. Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. And we're back. The allegations against Brandy Melville are a horrifying mix of surveillance and sexual control. And even more horrifying that they all involve very young girls, teenagers. Teenagers were made to photograph themselves every day and send the photos to the store's owners. The owners also kept a button on the register, alerting the staff when they should take a photo of a girl who was being rung up. Sometimes girls shopping at the store would be offered a job on the spot if the owners liked the way they looked. Black employees or

employees who did not fit a very specific Brandy Melville look, which is basically just white, thin, and conventionally attractive, were made to work in the back, even if they had more retail experience. Young staff were allowed to stay in company-owned apartments in Manhattan, were men who had some association with the company would also be staying unbeknownst to them. At least one young woman was sexually assaulted. The lawsuits and the claims made in them are wild. You really demonstrate how wild some of these things

that were happening at these stores are, things like the teenage employees taking photos of their breasts and feet to give to the adult male owner, having the button on the desk to be like, oh, get a photo of her. the thing that you reported about how if the teenage employees changed in front of the adult male owners, they knew that that meant they could get raises.

And if they went to the bathroom to change in private, that was a no-no. Like all of these allegations are wild. But I feel like on its face, it's also just like a workplace discrimination and like workplace sexual misconduct story. So like when you were reporting this, like how did these issues play out? for me it kind of played out like where it goes from me like okay we have these really wild stories like what are the patterns you see here and like what are the patterns that are actually illegal um so the patterns where it's like things almost fall into buckets where you have things that were normalized to the employees where they're like okay everyone got hired based on a photo and their

Instagram um and then kind of taking that and then being like who was getting hired it was definitely we could see like yeah the white thin girls were getting hired and paid more while um latino woman black women were being put in the stock room and being paid less and like going from that to talking to managers and then being like yes this was not something that was like an accident or something that was hidden at all like this was very explicit where they would see someone who fit the brandy look and they'd be like hire her pay her this much um So that was kind of how we moved from that. And then like in each conversation, just kind of looking, I have this massive spreadsheet that like had all the interviews I did. I spoke with more than 30 current and former employees and kind of like just put like the big summary, but then the checks like did this person experience or see racism happening at work? Did this person feel like they were sexually exploited? Like what were there other concerns about Brandy Melville and kind of just like tallying up how many people said,

they saw certain behaviors and certain practices. A lot of the people that you talked to for the piece were probably young women and girls, right? Like people who worked there, do you see them as whistleblowers? I completely see them as whistleblowers. And it was not something that was easy for a lot of them to do. Most of who wanted to remain anonymous. A lot of people are really worried about what the repercussions might be.

And even, like, I had some of my sources email me after the documentary came out. And they were like, hey, like, I'm really like, love how the documentary came out. Like, I was just too afraid to go on camera for this because I didn't want to risk my career. I didn't want these executives to kind of come after me. And I think that for them, there's still this fear that that could happen. The director told me she kind of was like, this was harder to get people to go on the record for than stories I've done about refugee camps or like war crimes. This is something that was just so, so scary for people to talk. about. And I think the fact that we're talking about young people, it also, I don't know,

there's something to that that it probably is really scary to go up against this massive machine that has, with intention, made it difficult to go after them. That also really becomes more powerful by being this big brand that every girl wants to be part of. Of course you want to work for Brandy Melville. Like, it's the coolest job you could have. It really takes some guts to go up against that. Yes. And like for these girls, now young women, like, it's not just your job. It's your entire identity. Like, you've built this online identity and this. All of your friends work there. A lot of these girls got kind of a foot in the door in the fashion industry. And a lot of them

are like doing really cool things in fashion now where they kind of like feel. And I think that this is common for a lot of young people who experience workplace discrimination or sexual harassment in the workplace. Like, you almost feel like you don't want to say something bad because you attribute all of your successes to the person who victimized you in some ways. So you feel like very torn. And like, yeah, I think that that's something that's really, really hard for a lot of these young women to kind of grapple with like, oh, but like is my success now tied to Brandy Melville? Like, do I owe them? Not everyone feels that way, obviously. But I think that when people are thinking about building their career. They don't want to kind of, yeah, you don't want to piss off the extremely powerful

middle-aged executive who gave you your first job at age 14. That's so sad. And I guess even for young people who didn't work for Brandy Melville, but bought the clothes, followed the Instagram, maybe modeled the way that they present online because of the Instagram, I guess I see this in some ways as a story about the power of stoking a particular kind of like anxiety or need in young people using social media and how that can make bad men very wealthy. Do you see this, the rise of Brandy Melville as a story about the rise of like social media and its impact on youth? Oh, totally. I think that it is, in some ways, like if this wasn't such a horrific place to work, like it's a huge success story

in using social media to create incredible buzz around a brand. And I, think that part of the way that they did that was by giving a lot of the control over to teenagers themselves where like people can look at these photos, especially the ones like in peak Tumblr era like five, 10 years ago where it's like, okay, you can tell I think that like teenage girls are the ones taking these photos. And it feels like photos of their friends where people who are potential customers see that. And like it feels like, oh, this is an exclusive friend group that I want to get into that I want to follow along with versus feeling like. a commercial or like a model in a catalog.

And it just completely transfers. Like it translates so much better to social media than I think these more traditional kind of catalog style photoshoes do. Say what you will about Brandy Melville, but their Instagram is on point. The photos kind of feel like writing around in your friend's backseat, blasting music with the windows open during a warm summer night. They really capture something authentic about what it was like to be a teen girl.

and that's probably because the photos are taken by teen girls. Brandy Melville used teen retail staff to fill roles typically filled by creative professionals, social media, photography, styling, fashion, and trend research. Sometimes the higher-ups would literally take the shirt off of a staffer's back to sell a version of it in the store. Now, on its face, the idea of teen girls being the creative force behind a brand that is marketed to other teen girls makes a lot of sense. The only problem is, despite doing the work of creative professionals,

the staff doing this work were not being paid like creative professionals. In the documentary, it just feels like in a kind of way more exploitation because these girls are like doing the work of a social media manager or a creative director and like not being paid for it. They're being paid in like vibes and like, oh, you got to be featured on our Instagram. Don't you feel cool? It's like, well, that's actually a job that is compensated via money. It's like, I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, oh, wow, like they're

really, like, from what I've heard, like they were able to achieve a lot of financial success. And it's like, yeah, obviously it's going to cost less if you are getting a 17-year-old to kind of pick these designs and you're paying her under $20 an hour versus like paying someone a salary who has gone to actually gone to school for this. And yeah, it's something where like it's by believing in the kind of ability of these teenage girls to, track trends to like know what's cool. Like they were able to like both have their finger on the pulse, but also to like save a ton of money and really exploit these teenage employees because like, yes, like the photographers, the people who are kind of determining the fashion, the people who are

modeling for this should have been paid much more than what they were paid. Yeah, it's easy to have record profits when you're not paying people and you're just like exploiting them. Yes. It's really like, and it's something that I do think, like, thinking about Brandy Melville versus like Rookie Magazine 10 years ago, it's almost to me two sides of the same point where like Rookie was a place that was also very much run by teenage girls like around what teenage girls understood was cool. But that was for teenage girls. Like it wasn't like there was some shady middle-aged Italian man profiting off of that. And I think that Brandy Melville, what makes it really. disturbing to me is that this is kind of both you have this small group of male executives who are profiting off of these teenage girls kind of they're brilliance and like but also like the grossest part of being a teenage girl like to feel like there's only one way to be attractive to feel like there's only a certain image a certain body size that is going to um make you popular and make you cool um and i think that it's almost like these

really toxic ideas about popularity in high school, like, basically writ large and, like, is the brand DNA for this chain. Yeah. And it's like they say, like, that's not you or I gleaning that. That's like the owner explicitly saying we want thin, white, pretty girls wearing our garments. Like, like, those are who we want shopping in the store. That's who we want working at the store. That's who we want on the Instagram. It's, like, explicit. Yes, yeah. Like I feel like now most fashion retailers, even if there is some subtext, like that's what they want. Like, no, we have executives at Brady Melville who told me, no, this was our explicit, like, word for word plan. Like, we do not want people who do not fit this image shopping at or working at the stores.

And if they do, like, we want to very actively exclude them. And if you don't, your job is basically on the line. In the documentary, they show a scene where one of the stores even has, like, skinny doors where you have to sort of turn to physically enter the door, which I had never heard before. I was like, oh, my God, they're very serious about who they want in these stores, like, literally. It's wild. And, like, that, it was, like, a meme online for a while. Or it was, like, all these, like, tiny little spaces, like, must be this small to, like, fit into Brandy Melville.

Like, it's the one size thing. is so kind of well known that it's become a meme in its own right. And like, when I started looking into this, even that, I was shocked that this was how a brain was functioning and that people were okay with it. So I haven't been a teenage girl for a very long time, but I remember my adolescence very well. So I think for a lot of us, like it's something that we carry around. In some ways, I still feel like I'm 15-year-old Bridget, even though I'm an adult. And so when I was growing up, I remember that what made you cool was to sort of stand out to be different. Like that was like what was cool when I was growing up.

And I wonder if social media has kind of led to the opposite where what's cool is to sort of like fit in and sort of all look the same, all have this like very sort of similar aesthetic. And I wonder if maybe Brandy Melville was just sort of like taking advantage of that, that like right now, it's cool to all have this like California girl look for teen girls. Let's really sell that back to them in an aggressive way via social media. I think it's almost two competing urges where it's like, I wonder, because there has been so much movement with the next generation with Gen Z to kind of be like, okay, we want to have more diversity in fashion. We want to have more size diversity. We want more racial diversity, but then also like Brady Melville is super popular. I think that Brandy was able to keep an eye on these trends while also making people kind of feel like, okay, you're fitting in,

but it has these little flashes of being able to be like, okay, this is, this is special. Where like they, along with a really California cool thing, they'll have times where they do a lot of vintage inspired stuff, which I feel like vintage is kind of the, yeah, for me in high school, like if you're someone who has like cool vintage stuff, like, oh, you're putting more time into this. Like, you know, you're cool in a different way than like the people who are wearing Ava Cromney or Hollister. And I think that Brandy kind of is trying to straddle both of those sides where it's like you have the very preppy, the California, those kinds of looks. And then on the other side, you also have, oh, like, this is as if you went to a vintage store yourself. But no,

It's actually just been screened by a 17-year-old living in Santa Monica who got the boss's credit card and got to take a day going to thrift shops. Wow. So for folks who, this is actually a great question. For folks who don't know, how would you describe the Brandy Melville style, the look? I think that the Brandy Melville look, it keeps evolving. And that's something that they have been able to continue doing. I think for a long time it was very California cool. casual, like lots of oversized. And then it's evolved to be a bit more vintage. It definitely was going through very much like a preppy phase for a while, but they have a lot of just like basics where like the little kind of white tank tops, the short shorts. Right now, how I think of their stuff is like very like a little bit timeless, a little bit 90s. And it feels like, it feels like, It feels like it's something that you can look at and be like, oh, this is just these little touches that even me thinking back to when I was in high school, I could imagine like a popular, just like tiny, tiny cheerleader style girl like wearing and me being like, oh, I couldn't wear that.

Like I'm too big. Like I'm too awkward. Like I just, I couldn't hold that off. I feel the exact same way. Isn't it funny how they're able to like me, I'm an adult woman and they're still able to. signal to me somebody who has not been in high school for a very long time, exactly what you just said that like, oh, this is what the pretty popular blonde skinny girl wears. You would never be able to pull this off. She pulls it off. Like, and like they're able to like evoke that so well.

I know. Like, there weren't even cheerleaders in my high school. I don't know why I said this. That is the type of people in body. Like I went to an all-girls Catholic school. We didn't have cheerleaders. We all were the same thing. And yet I know exactly what they are tapping into you. Like they are very good. Yes. It's this like very delicate kind of femininity that like feels I think to a lot of people like oh like I can't I can't do that or like oh I want to achieve that but like I'll never feel quite right. It was I actually while reporting the story I went into a Brady Belville because we were with our photographer and I was like okay we have to like get photos for the article like we don't want to like we wanted to kind of go into

the flagship and see if we could see some of the things the girls talked about to like corroborate certain things to be like, okay, yes, like there's where they push the button when they see girls that they want to hire. And like I tried on the clothes. And it was just like it was a very kind of out of body experience to be like, yeah, like I am kind of like I am a straight size woman. I kind of like I fit into most clothes. I can find clothes that fit me in most stores. And I was like, there's no way that I could like go in public wearing this. No, it's that one size fits most is really, yeah, it's so wild, but you're right, it's almost like a meme at this point. Yeah, yeah, it's really, really wild. It also just made me feel like I'm 32. I was like, I feel so old right now in this store.

The only time I've ever gone into a Brandia Melville had the exact same experience. And I also was like, watching the, reading your piece and watching the documentary, I was like, oh, I see what that was now. I've only gone into one. and I was like, I feel like the people working here don't want to help me. And now I'm like, oh, they probably had zero retail experience, zero training because they were just hired from their Instagram. Yeah. Yeah, it was like, so many other people who I talked with would be like, it was so frustrating. We would like find someone who had a retail experience and be like, please can we hire her? And they'd be like, no, like she doesn't fit our image.

Like I remember talking to one former employee and she's like, we would like, we face tuned this girl in the photo we said because we're like, Like, she has experience. She's good with customer service. Like, we just want her. So we're going to face tune her. Like, so hopefully she gets hired. And like, yeah, imagine being like, please just like let me hire someone competent. And the response is like, eh, like, I don't know.

Like she's a couple of pounds too happy. Wow. And I mean, something that the documentary really lays out in a fascinating way is that it's really this system where everybody is being exploited. The employees are being exploited. The girls who buy the clothes are being exploited. The countries in the global south were like the clothing ends up, like they're pressured into taking these clothes once the West throws them out because they're fast fashion, they fall apart, are being exploited. Do you see this as all sort of linked?

Like triggering the anxieties of these young girls and then making money on clothing sales, which in turn furthers the exploitation of these folks in the global south. Like it just feels like one big system where we are all losing. Yes, completely. And I think that that was something that in my original investigation, I didn't get into it. as much. But Eva Orner, the director of the documentary, kind of, I feel like she really made her mission to kind of take it the next step to say, like, this isn't just about this one fashion line. Like, this is, it's like one link in this wider system of destruction and how it impacts all these people. So I think that, yeah, I really like appreciated that Eva, the director,

took it there and was willing to push things to the next step. be like this isn't just about teenage girls, like in stores being exploited. It's about exploitation on every level. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter. The worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation.

The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged. One erection.

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This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines.

We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them.

Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo SlicLife 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Let's get right back into it. If you were on the internet like I was in the odds, you probably remember what some people called hipster racism. I remember that time feeling like the peak of people masking racism or sexism or fatphobia or other harmful attitudes with memes or off-color jokes

about women, Jewish people, black people, and fat people. And that's really what I was reminded of when I saw some of the chatter happening between staffers and Brandy Melville higher-ups in a company group chat. I know all too well how this kind of thing can be used to normalize toxic attitudes and ideologies under the guise of it's just a joke. Don't be so sensitive. Something that you really flesh out with like screenshots that are quite disturbing and the piece are this how these like senior staffers like the highest level folks would be in these company group chats spreading anti-Semitic and misogynistic and ratisist and thatphobic memes and language in these group texts.

And reading those, something about this reminded me of being online in the 2010s when, like, quote, hipster racism was sort of in vogue. Like, oh, how kind of like wink, wink, am I joking kind of racism? And I remember being online at that time. And it was like, if you were bothered by that, you were sensitive, you didn't get the joke, whatever. When in reality, I think looking back, what was actually going on was that a generation of younger people was being introduced to these very dangerous ways of, of thinking while masking it in like jokes and softness. And I'm sort of reminded of like the John Gaught iconography within Brandy Melville stores and things like that. Like do you see this as kind of introducing young people to a very specific social or political ideology when they're just like

shopping for jeans or whatever? They might not realize like, oh, like what am I actually being introduced here? I think yes to a degree. I mean, I think it's so interesting. what you said about like growing up online with like the hipster racism. Like this to me feels so in line with that. Like we're all these things were like, oh, it's jokes. But it was like I also very much grew up online in that era. And these were some of like the more horrific images and like memes that I had seen where it was just like another level of anti-semitism, another level of racism. Like, I mean, just really graphic images of pornography even where it's something you see, oh, like, what if we took 4chan? And then that was like the company group chat with all these

male executives. And I think that that kind of beyond being like, oh, this is obviously offensive, it's just shocking to see like how that can be transferred over if that is normalized at an organization. And if this is something that is kind of being passed onto the customer, I think yes and no. I think honestly the thing that feels more disturbing to me is that these were people who were marketing and making their money off of teenage girls. And these thoughts weren't, like it's not like they were making a shirt that has like an anti-Semitic joke on it or a racist joke on it. But this is kind of how they are thinking of a lot of their customers. behind their backs, where they're kind of like they're making jokes in these group chats about

women that they work with. They're kind of joking about all these different things. And like, that is, it's a different kind of disturbing than to like pass and to pass that idea through the company. It's like the subterfuge. The like two-faced nature of it is gross in a different way. Totally. And given all of this, you know, the anti-Semitism, the racism, the racism, the racism, the taking pictures of young girls' feet and breast, the allegations of sexual assault, like really dark stuff. The thing that really, I cannot even believe,

when your piece is published, it's basically crickets. They don't put out a statement. They turn off their comments for a little while, and that's basically it. And I guess thinking about this in context, like these days, I feel like particularly brands that their customer base as young people,

I think a lot of young people really expect a level of social responsibility from their brands that they engage with. Why do you think that this was the reaction? The reaction was like nothing, crickets. I think that part of it is because people are like, well, Brandy Melville, we know it's controversial because of the one size fits all thing. So I think that people are like, oh, there's more criticism, but it's almost they've already sorted it into this bucket where they're like, oh, it's like, yeah, it's not perfect, but whatever. versus I think that if the same allegations came out about a company that was seen as really sustainable or socially good, it might have a different reaction. I think that Brandy, it doubles down both behind the scenes and publicly as kind of not caring about this, of being politically

politically correct is like the worst thing you can do, like that you shouldn't care about these things. So I think that by doing that, it almost allowed them not to have to have. have as much of a reaction when this news came out. But I still, like, that is something I'm still grappling with. I've talked to kind of some teenagers since the documentary came out and some of them have been like, oh, do you think that this is going to hurt Randy Melvo? I'm like, I don't know. Like, what do you think? Like, you probably have a better understanding of how the actual customer base is going to respond than I do. Huh. Do you, I wonder, are there ways in which that is a response to our, the current climate that we're in now where we have all this like

backlash to wokeism and all of that where it's like actually what's in vogue right now is not caring about marginalized people and making horrible jokes about them behind their back. Yeah, it is. And I think that that is like kind of purposeful. Like it's something where it's like, oh, well, like if you don't try to support marginalized people, then you can be criticized for it, which to me is really like disturbing and wild and shouldn't be that way. But it's almost by not trying at all. And by making your identity not trying, you are able to already have your kind of base of customers be people who are not prioritizing

this and are not prioritizing thinking about racism or thinking about anti-Semitism or thinking about, oh, my money is funding something that maybe I don't personally agree with. And it's kind of scary to think about that being really popular, like that sentiment being something that you can make, that you can vote for via your dollars, that you can identify with via what you wear. Like, that's just kind of disturbing to me, the way that that that kind of apathy can be packaged as really cool and popular. Yeah. And I think that even the response to the documentary. I've seen TikTok's kind of people being like, oh, like, I don't care. Like Brandy Melville, it's a great deal. So like, I'm not going to be watching this. And I mean,

in my experience, there are so many really lovely people who I spoke with who worked at Brandy Melville. This is not me trying to say, like, if you've ever shop there, you're a bad person. Or if you ever worked there, you're a bad person. There are so many people who I spoke with who were whistleblowers in this, who worked there as teenagers who I think care a lot about these issues and have continued to kind of rededicate themselves to these issues. So I don't want to be like, I'm painting all of these people with the same brush. But yeah, the response of people being like, I refuse to care about this and you cannot make me care about this has been pretty disturbing to me, especially when these are allegations of, I mean, screenshots of incredibly racist, anti-Semitic

things, allegations of sexual assault. This isn't something where it's one, person said something that could be perceived as offensive. Not that that should be ignored when that happens. But this is, this is like a investigation. Like, you don't have to trust me and my thoughts on this. All of this is reported in court documents, in screenshots, in testimony from many people. Like, I understand people don't know me. They don't have to believe me. But this is a ton of evidence that people kind of, it feels like they are willfully ignoring if they continue to shop there. What do you, like, if somebody listening is like, who cares about this? Like, what would you say to them? I think that, like, think about, I would ask them to think about what matters to them in terms of their values and to just think about, like, does this square?

Because I think that most people, even people who want to pretty publicly be like, oh, political correctness doesn't matter. How people in their life that they care about, whether that's young woman, whether that's people who aren't. white, like people who are Jewish. And if that is how you truly feel, and if that are your values, then, like, I would look and see, like, do I want to spend my money on a place that really very, very explicitly does not want to reckon with how it has treated people who are not thin white women. And even in those situations, like, those are often the women who ended up being put in these really uncomfortable sexual situations and exploited in other ways. Watch the documentary.

You can read my original reporting and Business Insider. And if anyone is listening to this who works for Brandy Melville now, like, wants to talk with me. Feel free to reach out. I am fascinated what the response has been like within the company. I haven't talked to any current employees since the documentary came out. So I'm curious to hear how people are responding now. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoody.com.

You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoody.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

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Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline.

And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Slice on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.