A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - Chappell Roan’s War on Fame (with Eliza McLamb)

00:00:00.000 maybe we all just need to be a little bit more like charlie xcx and like

00:00:02.880 spar with our twinks on twitter

00:00:05.160 hello hello and welcome back to a bit fruity i'm matt bernstein and i'm so happy that you're here

00:00:17.080 i'm so happy that you're here i'm so grateful for everyone who listens to this podcast i am so

00:00:22.520 grateful i would cut off a limb for each and every one of you if you wanted to and if i didn't

00:00:28.460 you could write an article about how you met me and i was a terrible mean person a few days ago 0.95

00:00:34.800 chapel roan

00:00:35.960 no period yeah

00:00:42.800 you said it a few days ago chapel roan canceled two shows that she had planned as part of her tour

00:00:54.560 in Paris and Amsterdam due to what she wrote was scheduling conflicts. She wrote on Twitter,

00:01:01.160 due to scheduling conflicts, I have to make the extremely hard decision to cancel my Paris and

00:01:05.360 Amsterdam shows. I'm so sorry and very disappointed. I promise I'll be back. I'm heartbroken. Thank you

00:01:10.340 for understanding. People quickly realized that the scheduling conflicts in question were her VMA

00:01:17.400 rehearsals because she is now slated to perform at the upcoming VMAs. Some of the responses to

00:01:24.580 this announcement. Respectfully, Chapel, if you hate fame so much, maybe you shouldn't be playing

00:01:29.800 shows like Lollapalooza and the VMAs. If you just want to make music and have people resonate with

00:01:34.640 it, stick to the shows you booked for true fans who got tickets before you became famous. 6,000

00:01:40.840 likes. Choosing the VMAs over your fans, 9,000 likes. Be respectful to your fans challenge,

00:01:49.120 3,500 likes. Today, we need to have a little huddle up, you guys, and we need to talk about

00:01:59.340 fame. Big time fame and niche fame. Fame that sells out stadiums and fame that gets you recognized

00:02:06.740 here or there in certain parts of certain cities. We're going to talk about what I think people

00:02:12.160 misunderstand fundamentally about fame, the psychology of it, whether or not you should

00:02:17.480 ask for a photo when you see your favorite famous lesbian on the street, and yes, we will be

00:02:22.600 queening out about Chapel Rome. To help us along this fascinating, joyful, frustrating conversation 0.81

00:02:30.960 is Eliza McLam, who is a musician, a writer, and the co-host, famously, of the Benchtopia

00:02:40.360 podcast. Eliza, welcome to A Bit Fruity.

00:02:44.420 Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

00:02:46.480 Are you grateful?

00:02:47.820 I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful. It actually, this whole, your intro reminded me of, I don't

00:02:54.240 know if you're familiar with Tim Heidecker, but he's a comedian. And one time he just

00:02:58.300 did this front facing video that I think about all the time where he goes hey everybody I just

00:03:02.080 wanted to hop on here and say just about how ungrateful I am and how disappointed I am with

00:03:08.020 all of you and how everything's been going and it just cracked me up but today of all days of

00:03:15.260 course I'm feeling so grateful. You amidst this ongoing Chapel Roan is ungrateful for her fame

00:03:22.700 Discourse, wrote a fantastic essay called The Eariness of Fame, which is about Chapel

00:03:27.920 Roan and parasocial relationships and how even niche Brooklyn fame can be a total mind 0.94

00:03:34.920 fuck to navigate. 0.55

00:03:36.520 I'm so happy that you're here and we're going to attempt to navigate this together. 0.98

00:03:40.220 Before we continue with today's show, as always, if you'd like more of the show and or to support

00:03:46.200 the show, you can do that over on Patreon.

00:03:49.140 The link will be in the description.

00:03:50.260 today the day that i'm recording this part three of the ongoing by sister excavation

00:03:58.200 about james charles tati westbrook jeffree star and shane dawson is being posted and the part

00:04:04.860 three alone all edited and cleaned up was an hour and 48 minutes long if there was one thing that i

00:04:11.040 could talk about for the rest of my life it would be by sister and so i do just that now let's talk

00:04:16.460 about fame. Chapel Rhone. Eliza, I know you know who Chapel Rhone is. 0.98

00:04:21.620 Yeah, Chapel Rhone's my sister. We went to TikTok together, so that's how I found her music.

00:04:28.420 That's what I say about people that I know primarily through TikTok. I don't actually

00:04:33.080 personally know her. I've never spoken to her, but I remember when she was on TikTok with me

00:04:38.160 and a bunch of other musicians at the time, and we were all trying to get our start, and I was

00:04:42.720 feeling very disillusioned about tiktok and the music space in general and about the incentives

00:04:47.120 that it pushes artists towards and i feel like a lot of people make shittier music because they're

00:04:52.040 on tiktok and chapel was always one of those people that i was like okay but she's got it

00:04:55.940 like i think there's something like in 2020 before pink pony club which now i feel like i have like

00:05:02.100 a coin or something you know being like chapel stand before pink pony club but i was sending

00:05:06.580 her music to people being like i really think she could break through this is the challenge of the

00:05:11.420 TikTok artists is it's really tough to break through into the mainstream and I was like I

00:05:15.000 really think she could do it and then I was shocked when she got dropped but all that is to say that

00:05:19.080 is that I've been around and invested in like the Chapel Roan story for a while well you had better

00:05:24.720 foresight into Chapel Roan's career than Atlantic Records did but let me not get ahead of myself

00:05:29.120 so we know who Chapel Roan is and you the listener probably do too but no matter what I talk about

00:05:37.080 on this podcast i could be talking about barack obama and i would still provide a little bit of

00:05:41.880 background context because there's one person at least who really doesn't know what's going on and

00:05:47.300 i know i have some like you know older gay men who taught me who like donna summer was and so in

00:05:55.400 return i am going to teach you who chapel road is it's the cross-generational discourse we're having

00:06:00.920 that's mutual aid exactly exactly thank you eliza chapel roan first of all is her stage name

00:06:08.700 she does not use her birth name in public life and so neither will i she was born in missouri in

00:06:15.320 1998 six months before me by the way i don't know why i wrote that down just noted she is the oldest

00:06:22.420 of four children she was raised in a trailer park she grew up going to church multiple times a week

00:06:27.340 and Bible camp during the summers, which I guess just makes the artist that she is now

00:06:32.220 all the more powerful. I mean, it's very like Madonna-esque.

00:06:36.740 Totally.

00:06:37.840 She began uploading singing videos to YouTube when she was 14 years old. And at 17 years old,

00:06:44.840 she was signed to Atlantic Records. It was around this time that she adopted Chapel as a stage name

00:06:51.100 and she released music here and there but to your point eliza before pink pony club there really

00:06:58.160 wasn't a ton of breakthrough she did tour briefly with vance joy do you remember vance joy like

00:07:04.240 the riptide oh yeah he's the ukulele industrial complex yeah yeah exactly that's a good way to

00:07:11.160 put it i loved riptide no one can ever take that away of course no i and i would never try i think

00:07:16.800 that's an incredible time capsule of a very specific point in the culture and she was touring

00:07:21.980 with him but even still she was living with her parents in missouri during that time in 2018 though

00:07:27.480 she moves to los angeles famously and begins living openly as a queer woman this was kind of

00:07:34.920 a formative experience in fact the specific formative experience that laid the groundwork

00:07:39.180 for pink pony club which would be the 2020 song that would help her rise to prominence

00:07:43.400 was her going to the abbey which is a gay club in west hollywood that is so funny to me because i

00:07:50.520 have been to the abbey twice and one time i got roofied there and many people oh my god it's like

00:07:56.480 a spot where people get roofied no you should look this up because there's a whole phone stealing

00:07:59.900 ring at the abbey her saying that though is very real it's very like midwest girl comes to la

00:08:04.880 for the first time and it's like oh my god there's gay people here i love it and it's like girl 0.99

00:08:08.520 that's where people get their phones stolen and get shit put in their drinks totally totally i 0.98

00:08:13.720 mean like it is it is a very charming and like sweet detail because once you've been out and 0.98

00:08:19.120 like living in one of these cities for a number of years you know there are certain gay spots that 1.00

00:08:23.940 are kind of like cliched and corny if not downright dangerous which is news to me but like 0.99

00:08:29.660 have you ever been to flaming saddles in new york no okay so flaming saddles is a gay bar 0.93

00:08:34.460 in hell's kitchen which is a very gay neighborhood in new york city and it's western themed and so 0.70

00:08:40.720 like every hour on the hour you have all of the like gay bartenders in shirts that are actually 0.94

00:08:46.400 like the one that i'm wearing right now they get up on the bar and they tap dance in like cowboy 0.89

00:08:52.440 boots and it's wild and it's also like entirely for straight women who are having bachelorette

00:08:58.060 parties for sure but that was one of the first gay bars that i had ever seen when i was visiting

00:09:04.240 new york as a child and i was like oh my god that's what it means to be gay you're going to

00:09:09.120 gay bars as a child i'm sorry i walked past it i like i was walking down ninth avenue with my

00:09:14.080 family and i walked past it and i remember seeing these gay guys like standing outside of it in like 0.79

00:09:17.840 cowboy boots and i was like oh i was like i think my wicked dreams are calling from tennessee yes 0.90

00:09:24.520 a place for boys and girls to all be queens every single day exactly exactly so maybe i mean pink

00:09:30.320 The Pony Club is probably the best thing to ever come out of the Abbey.

00:09:32.780 Yeah, to be sure.

00:09:34.420 You really should look up the article because it's like they have a ring, a phone stealing ring where you go in and then your phone gets passed around within seconds and like wrapped in tinfoil so you can't track it.

00:09:43.560 It's actually quite sophisticated. 1.00

00:09:45.200 And I think they took the gay do crimes to like an unprecedented level. 1.00

00:09:50.120 They didn't steal Chappell's phone. 1.00

00:09:51.620 So that's good.

00:09:52.540 I'm thrilled you had a great experience.

00:09:54.260 Like maybe I'm in the minority.

00:09:55.680 So 2020 Pink Pony Club comes out. 0.55

00:09:58.620 i'm gonna keep on dancing it was produced by thank you thank you it was produced by dan nigro

00:10:06.240 who was about to explode in popularity in his own right for his work the following year on

00:10:12.520 olivia rodrigo's driver's license and just like her entire smash it first album sour i think dan

00:10:18.700 nigro ended up seeing something in like the longevity of talents like olivia rodrigo like

00:10:25.460 Chapel Rhone which other people might write off as like oh that's a Disney star like that's an

00:10:29.180 internet person and he's able to kind of see oh there's like a thread here that I can follow well

00:10:34.940 so speaking of people sort of discounting her right after she releases Pink Pony Club evidently

00:10:41.180 before it becomes a hit which it is now she gets dropped by Atlantic Records Chapel Rhone gets

00:10:46.140 dropped for underperforming which like is kind of the biggest bag fumble of all time yeah somebody

00:10:52.860 got fired for that but that's also like a it's part of this whole movement that happened like

00:10:58.560 this almost like pump and dump of majors signing tiktok stars and then either shelving them or

00:11:04.580 like in the case of chapel rhone just dropping them immediately but i've heard of so many people

00:11:09.100 who signed a six-figure deal like an advance that they'll never out earn probably in part because

00:11:14.720 the label doesn't care to grow them and doesn't care to do anything other than capitalize off of

00:11:19.280 their TikTok hit. So it's really good to see this Chapel Rune story because I think so many times

00:11:24.640 when internet artists signed to a major, it just doesn't go that way.

00:11:28.860 You made a passing mention at the beginning of the episode that you think TikTok and like the

00:11:33.800 business churn of the music industry that TikTok has become inextricably linked to has made music

00:11:39.000 worse. Can you just like, because I totally agree, but I think you have the language to describe

00:11:43.900 that phenomenon better than I do. So could we just do a quick interlude about why TikTok made

00:11:47.820 music worse yeah I mean okay brevity is not my strength um so I'll try I will try to get I will

00:11:54.640 say I have written multiple like long-form essays about this if you're like interested in more of

00:11:59.840 the universe around it I think that TikTok is a very different atmosphere now than it used to be

00:12:04.840 I got on TikTok like early 2020 and started posting songs on there when not very many people

00:12:10.560 were using it for music promotion and neither were the people who were originally on it we were just

00:12:15.280 like singing our songs and like not even thinking like a lot of us didn't even have Spotify profiles

00:12:20.040 or anything it was just like here's the place where I'm going to post my music and then of

00:12:23.300 course it kind of got cannibalized by not only bigger industry titans but by labels and there

00:12:29.360 were other incentives where labels were paying to push their songs were paying to create a dance

00:12:34.140 trend were paying for other creators to use that audio whatever the incentive of TikTok is very

00:12:39.060 baby-brained you know it's like you have to put something in the first five seconds that makes

00:12:43.560 someone horny or angry or confused you know ideally all three ideally all three like that's 0.52

00:12:52.040 the perfect boom like that's like teen girls dancing horny angry confused it gets people

00:12:56.380 really riled up that way that incentive i think comes back to you as an artist if that's the

00:13:01.660 platform that you are using and relying on so i would the reason i got off tiktok and i got off 0.99

00:13:06.880 it over two years ago was because i was noticing i was writing fucking shit songs because i would 0.87

00:13:12.400 try to like the most important thing to me was putting that hook in the very beginning and then 0.98

00:13:18.100 I would have hundreds of songs that were just a verse and a chorus and that were just like overly

00:13:23.960 clever kind of kitschy that had some sort of gimmick to it and so I think people try to shoehorn

00:13:30.500 their art so that it is algorithm friendly and I think that's sad to me and often bad not always

00:13:37.420 bad not always but i think you can kind of tell when someone is writing a song to appeal to the

00:13:44.220 tiktok algorithm versus like yeah oh i wrote this song a while ago like let me just post a clip of

00:13:48.620 it totally and i not to go too far off a tangent but i do make jokes on this podcast that like i

00:13:54.040 don't know any leftist podcast is just like 45 minutes of like getting to the point you know

00:13:58.000 but the point is all around us the point is the friends we made along the way i think that the

00:14:06.180 epitome of what you're describing was like the a b c d e f u song no like a literal nursery rhyme

00:14:12.920 yeah like a literal nursery rhyme and i would like actually in the spirit of this episode and

00:14:18.540 giving grace to famous women you guys know the song a b c d e f u right i feel like i just escaped

00:14:26.120 it actually sorry sorry sorry but like i think the criticism of that as criticism tends to on

00:14:33.400 the internet it went too far and like yeah hating gail who was like i think she's a teenager this

00:14:39.340 the person who made that song hating gail became the thing that they would do instead of criticizing

00:14:44.240 exactly what you're criticizing which is the fact that artists have to make music to fit into this 0.99

00:14:48.360 algorithm yeah of course instead of talking about that they'd just be like fuck gail she's so

00:14:53.100 untalented she's so this and so that and i'm like guys just like i think she had a hit that got a 0.87

00:14:58.200 little too big and it kind of wasn't good but like that's also why it got too big i mean part of the

00:15:03.380 reason people write to appease the algorithm is because like yeah it feels good to get like likes

00:15:08.360 and comments and you want people to know who you are also there's literally no other infrastructure

00:15:12.940 out there to do it anymore like people don't buy the records people you know are coming to less

00:15:19.380 and less concerts it's harder to convert online fans to real fans like labels are getting

00:15:24.800 increasingly predatory with their contracts there's a great quote from this book called

00:15:28.900 the death of the artist that i read where he says like about art in the digital age where he's saying

00:15:33.280 like the good news is you can do it all yourself the bad news is you have to

00:15:36.760 in a lot of ways people can't escape that algorithmic system so like i i i will never

00:15:44.140 shit on anybody for writing songs to appease the algorithm or just writing songs and putting them

00:15:48.780 on there it's not really about that it's about the fact that we now have to like compete like 0.96

00:15:53.580 piranhas in this in this ecosystem when like people are now like very unaccustomed to actually

00:15:59.760 like compensating artists as workers well needless to say chapel was on the precipice of beating the

00:16:06.360 algorithm and atlantic records fumbled the bag in late 2020 after she'd been dropped she was still

00:16:13.760 independently working on music oh wait i want to say that this is when i learned about sorry that's

00:16:20.220 actually not a good point you were gonna get your coin your chapel run first fan coin you know what

00:16:27.860 No, I am going to get my Chapel Rhone first.

00:16:29.600 Yeah, and you should.

00:16:30.560 Well, yes.

00:16:31.340 Well, yes.

00:16:32.900 I was actually, I remember the first time I heard Chapel Rhone was in 2020.

00:16:36.600 It was that Pink Pony Club was served into my like radio algorithm on Spotify.

00:16:42.300 And I just remember being like, oh my God, like this is so quaint.

00:16:44.860 It gave me that feeling of like when I passed Flaming Saddles and I was like, oh my, there's

00:16:50.240 a whole world out there.

00:16:51.900 You know what I mean?

00:16:52.620 And so I got hooked and I continued to be hooked over the next couple years. She would independently release a number of singles. One was Naked in Manhattan, My Kink is Karma, Feminine Nomenon. And it's funny because all of these are now both hits and memes, but they were out for a long time and nobody except Eliza and I were listening to them.

00:17:16.880 but while she's releasing these songs which again now everyone's listening to

00:17:21.640 she could not support herself fully just on music at this point she was still working as

00:17:26.860 a cashier in a donut shop through 2020 she was a production assistant but she continued to release

00:17:32.420 these songs with dan nigro and ultimately inked a deal with sony which culminated in the september

00:17:39.860 2023 release of her critically acclaimed album the rise and fall of a midwest princess it's such a

00:17:46.560 joke because she did have a meteoric rise to fame which starts now but there is a a narrative that

00:17:54.520 surrounds her about overnight fame which is just laughable i mean there's a great quote that says

00:17:59.900 it takes 10 years to become an overnight success um which is really true because she has been

00:18:04.880 work like i think there's like a there's a clip that has circulated around twitter of her in 2021

00:18:09.280 playing with like an electric keyboard like standing up in a park singing pink pony club 0.69

00:18:14.620 to like 50 people or something. I understand why people who were not as woke to the Chapel

00:18:20.900 Roan train as early as we were. Not in the woke mob. Not in the woke mob. I have a whole other

00:18:27.320 tangent about industry plants and how mostly it's not real. But people, I think, throw that accusation

00:18:31.740 at her because they just they weren't with it and they didn't understand. But it's cool to see like

00:18:37.120 there's documented evidence of her actually working towards this career for a really long

00:18:41.040 time and now it's finally paying off for her yeah someone's not an industry plant just because you

00:18:44.880 heard of her yesterday yeah that's a you problem get more tapped into the culture and come back to

00:18:49.640 me i would like to say i saw a chapel ronin concert in 2022 at the bowery ballroom tickets

00:18:54.540 were $30 and i met my friend there in line and i bought my ticket on like ticket master or

00:19:00.120 whichever website while i was standing in line for $30 and i wish i knew then and perhaps i did

00:19:07.440 that I was I was about to witness history but something that is so that stood out to me then

00:19:12.400 was she had a tiny tiny fan base I remember at the time she had 400,000 monthly listeners on

00:19:18.580 Spotify which now she has 44 million one thing Chapel Roan does is she loves to like host costume

00:19:23.880 themes at all of her shows and that night it was I believe the theme was my kink is karma and so

00:19:30.440 everyone's in their red everyone's in their sequins everyone was gay and a lot of people

00:19:35.140 were like visibly southern I don't know how I feel about those words leaving my mouth

00:19:41.780 visibly southern well I think you can't really tell now because visibly southern is now like

00:19:47.000 an aesthetic preference used by people who like grew up in Greenwich Connecticut or something

00:19:51.400 well I mean I I'm kind of guilty right now because he grew up in New Jersey and I'm wearing

00:19:58.340 this cut off flannel as a North Carolinian I excuse you thank you so much do I get the

00:20:04.740 pass. Yeah, flannel pass. I travel a good amount for my job. And, you know, occasionally not for

00:20:14.200 my job. Like a few months ago when I went to Mexico City. You guys have great pyramids. Not

00:20:19.200 enough people are talking about them. But I got there and only once I got hit with the roaming

00:20:24.100 charges did I realize that I had not set up my international phone plan before leaving for the

00:20:29.000 vacation. And so, you know, watching a YouTube video on my phone in the car on the way back from

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00:21:26.540 sponsoring this episode and now let's get back to talking about fame i'm gonna live forever

00:21:34.840 all right no we have to turn it off so it was clear to me then that she had this like very

00:21:48.760 tight-knit fan base and even though it's now tens of millions of people it still feels that way which

00:21:54.360 is going to soon factor into how people treat her as fans i want to send you a chart oh i'm familiar

00:22:01.780 with the chart do you want to describe this chart because what i will the only thing i'll say about

00:22:06.420 this chart is that it continues to go viral because it's a crazy thing to look at and every

00:22:12.700 week it gets updated and every week it gets more ridiculous so please explain the chart so the chart

00:22:18.640 is a chart of travel run Spotify monthly listeners from September 2023 to August 2024. So not even a

00:22:26.120 full year. And it's like a slow trickle upwards. And then basically right after Good Luck Babe in

00:22:33.040 Coachella, she goes from what looks like to be around 5 million listeners to in just a matter

00:22:39.040 of months up to 40 million. And you just look at this and think about how fucking quick that is 0.92

00:22:47.520 and how huge she's got you know i think we even we even think of like titans of indie music now 0.88

00:22:53.820 like phoebe bridger like phoebe bridgers i think only has like 10 million 10 million right now

00:22:57.920 it's just it's an astronomical rise in such a short amount of time i need like a xanax to look

00:23:04.600 at this chart i know i know this i mean seeing this chart is like partially what inspired me to

00:23:09.500 write the essay that i ended up writing about her because i was just like i cannot fathom like and

00:23:14.340 i don't i don't think any human brain like chemically can fathom what that kind of growth

00:23:19.880 and fame would just do to you there are a couple things that like catapult her into mainstream fame

00:23:25.640 and one of them is opening for olivia rodrigo on her tour and then she releases good luck babe

00:23:31.500 which now everybody's heard and then she performs at coachella and she has a tiny desk thing and like

00:23:36.540 one thing after the next goes viral and then all of a sudden she's you've heard of her the only

00:23:41.360 thing I also that sorry I was like before we move on from the industry plant thing it's like

00:23:45.160 if you're listening to this podcast you've probably heard about Chapel Rhone for the first time

00:23:49.060 in the last six months like statistically that is right just like the whole industry plant famous 0.74

00:23:54.520 overnight thing she was opening for Vance Joy on tour seven years ago the girl's been working

00:24:00.400 the thing is her main thing that she had to overcome coming from TikTok artists like the

00:24:05.980 brand of tiktok artist to real artist is getting that kind of press recognition and npr especially

00:24:12.940 the tiny desk like huge industry titan like that's a signifier that and most of the signifiers to be

00:24:19.320 honest that elevate someone to being a serious musician simply take them from being something

00:24:24.660 just teenage girls like gen x like my dad listens to npr and like watches the tiny desks that's how

00:24:30.760 specifically women artists are like taken more seriously but i also think like you know olivia 0.57

00:24:36.420 rodrigo artists that famously teenage girls love and like teenage girls pay for and i think that

00:24:41.980 was an excellent decision too that felt really right you know chapel room opening for vance joy

00:24:46.380 definitely puts her in the more like serious musician category but does not put her in front

00:24:50.800 of people who would be interested in her music i do love the idea of a stadium full of people who 0.99

00:24:55.860 bought tickets to see vance joy and i'm not even quite sure what demographic that is doing the hot 0.99

00:25:01.080 to go dance exactly like she comes out and she's like knee deep in the passenger seat and you're

00:25:11.700 eating me out and all these like and like mark maron in the background like exactly exactly so

00:25:19.760 she becomes extraordinarily famous extraordinarily quickly i'm really interested at this point in

00:25:25.260 talking about who exactly chapel roan's fans are i would say first of all it's a it's a very queer

00:25:31.040 fan base and i think as a queer artist she's someone who and i think this happens with people

00:25:36.600 who become sex successful from any number of marginalized groups but like there's this feeling

00:25:41.580 of like ownership and like we made you yeah i mean i think that's like kind of some of the the

00:25:47.200 tricky spots with representation in the arts like i mean the fact that good luck babe became as big

00:25:54.460 it did. That is a song about compulsory heterosexuality sung by a lesbian. That's 1.00

00:25:58.880 crazy. And for many people, specifically queer people in the South who did not get the chance

00:26:04.960 to express that early on or even later, have their own blocks with it, to see the number one song in

00:26:12.420 the world be this song about that. It's like, oh my God. And it's only the one song. You know

00:26:17.240 what I mean? That's it. That's all we got right now in terms of this huge superstar success that

00:26:22.720 we see. And that's so much pressure, you know, like it's like in the way that when Ellen was

00:26:27.620 on TV, like she was the gay person of America, you know, which obviously Ellen is complicated

00:26:32.780 as a figure. Also, like a thing that I feel about about TikTok and about the devaluation

00:26:38.420 of art in general is that fans, especially with indie artists or artists that came up

00:26:43.300 from, you know, humble means often like almost feel like investors who've bought stock in

00:26:49.420 the artist versus fans who are like patronizing this patronizing in like the I give you coin for

00:26:56.160 your art patronizing this artist who is like providing them with something that they admire

00:27:01.520 and so I think people become really attached to the artist and to the decisions that she makes

00:27:07.720 and feels yeah like I made you I invested early and I'm waiting on my return and sometimes I'm

00:27:14.320 frustrated that you are not returning to me what it is I wanted out of you which is kind of like

00:27:19.920 the joke that you were making at the beginning about how we have our early chapel rhone fan coin

00:27:24.100 yeah of course but it's like the joke is that we don't really have that it's just cool to have

00:27:30.960 been there but we're not actually entitled to anything as a result of it yeah and for me I feel

00:27:36.060 like the small gratitude I get out of feeling like I was ahead of the curve was being like oh this

00:27:41.760 person is really special and clearly talented and like that's going to remain true no matter

00:27:45.540 what she does with her career like we know she's special and talented and I don't feel attached to

00:27:51.140 specific decisions she's gonna make I was just excited that she was like gonna get to have more

00:27:56.820 resources to do more cool stuff fame does what fame does and people just get weird about Chapel 0.90

00:28:03.980 Rhone they in a way that they get weird about you know famous people in general but Chapel Rhone

00:28:09.560 ultimately releases two tiktok videos where she explains that she basically just wants people to

00:28:15.340 leave her the fuck alone do you need me to play these or you know the videos i'm familiar

00:28:18.880 okay well oh i know the texts you're familiar with the sacred texts 0.99

00:28:25.500 well okay i'm gonna put them in here i need you to answer questions if you saw a random woman on

00:28:34.920 street would you yell at her from the car window would you harass her in public would you go up to 0.68

00:28:40.880 a random lady and say can i get a photo with you and she's like no what the fuck and then you get 0.99

00:28:46.780 mad at this random lady would you be offended if she says no to your time because she has her own 1.00

00:28:56.120 time would you stalk her family would you follow her around would you try to dissect her life 1.00

00:29:03.440 and bully her online this is a lady you don't know and she doesn't know you at all would you 1.00

00:29:09.080 assume that she's a good person assume she's a bad person would you assume everything you read 1.00

00:29:13.440 about her online is true i'm a random bitch you're a random bitch just think about that for a second 0.99

00:29:20.740 okay i don't care that abuse and harassment stalking whatever is a normal thing to do to 0.99

00:29:29.320 people who are famous or a little famous whatever i don't care that it's normal i don't care that

00:29:35.820 this crazy type of behavior comes along with the job the career field i've chosen that does not

00:29:43.280 make it okay that doesn't make it normal i don't it doesn't mean i want it doesn't mean that i like 0.98

00:29:48.000 it i don't want whatever the fuck you think you're supposed to be entitled to whenever you see a 0.98

00:29:53.980 celebrity i'll give a fuck if you think it's selfish of me to say no for a photo or for your 0.99

00:29:59.360 time or to for a hug that's not normal that's weird it's weird how people think that you know 0.99

00:30:07.100 a person just because you see them online or you listen to the art they make that's fucking weird

00:30:11.280 i'm allowed to say no to creepy behavior these videos spark a currently never-ending controversy 0.87

00:30:17.260 of what are fans entitled to what is chapel rone entitled to is chapel rone grateful or not like

00:30:24.380 is she a random woman does a select like what is a celebrity entitled to as far as personal space

00:30:29.700 there's a shocking amount of backlash to this there are memes like okay i'm looking at this

00:30:35.300 one that i put in my outline this is a tweet with 60 000 likes where someone took a selfie

00:30:41.080 with chapel rone's record in a record store and tweeted i took a picture with you uh you mad at

00:30:48.180 chapel rone you know there was i remember there was a viral tweet that was like about how lana

00:30:52.640 had like gone to visit a fan in the hospital or something and someone was like chapel rone would

00:30:56.620 have pulled the cord it would have like unplugged the respirator yeah yeah yeah yeah so what what do

00:31:02.600 you make of this i mean tweets like that are honestly not even the top offenders like i will

00:31:07.620 admit I giggled like I think it's a little funny when it's clever it's clever when it's clever it's

00:31:12.040 clever however there's like another section of tweet that I feel was more interesting to me

00:31:20.360 what I noticed is that the video comes out there there's a first wave of people being like oh my

00:31:25.220 god like everybody's being so mean to her like you guys are freaks like leave her alone then there's

00:31:29.240 a huge backlash to that as there is with anything that gets that big on the internet and people are

00:31:33.540 saying she's ungrateful she's not cut out for fame like i don't know what she expected like what the

00:31:37.840 fuck very you signed up for this yeah and then there was a more interesting like the most interesting 0.95

00:31:43.040 for me was that like third wave which is kind of like that's kind of how i think about anything 0.98

00:31:47.400 that gets really big on the internet is like initial reaction backlash third secret third

00:31:52.500 thing and like the secret third thing for the chapel room situation was people being like wait

00:31:56.080 like i obviously wouldn't like dox or harass her but like is it bad for me to ask for a picture

00:31:59.840 like is that not you know and that was the interesting thing that seems the most human

00:32:05.000 reaction you know of like okay I feel like I can understand how she's uncomfortable and yet like I'm

00:32:10.600 I'm a little confused like what what's the negotiation here and that I was like okay this

00:32:15.520 is where we're in this conversation about fame and celebrity and boundaries and like what's

00:32:21.120 appropriate and like who is a famous person to me and what do you make of of that like I mean

00:32:26.760 should people ask for pictures I mean I think it's a bigger question I think I recognized very

00:32:33.560 much her kind of franticness in those videos of collapsing all these different things of like

00:32:37.800 it's not okay to dox me it's not okay to stalk me it's not okay to harass me we all go

00:32:41.320 of course that's horrible then she goes it's not okay to ask me for a picture that's weird

00:32:45.040 and people are like that seems maybe not the same but it totally can feel the same when people are

00:32:52.160 encroaching you know it's one of the things i said in the essay is like obviously if you were 0.79

00:32:56.440 like being devoured by lions you'd like scream out and be like can somebody come fucking tame 0.88

00:33:00.720 this lion like take care of this it wouldn't matter what the specifics of it were it kind 0.86

00:33:04.160 of all feels the same but it's this question of entitlement it's are is does she owe fans a

00:33:09.060 picture does she owe fans a hello on the street does she owe whatever and that's kind of this idea

00:33:13.360 of fans feeling as though they've purchased this stock of the celebrity or that they actually kind

00:33:19.040 of own a bit of them as a person one tricky thing about this is that I think we often don't think of

00:33:23.340 artists as workers not only because we have like a lot of romantic notions about like art just like

00:33:27.800 comes from the heart and like it's so separate from that idea of like work or anything like that

00:33:32.240 but it's what she's saying in the video is like if I'm not on the stage I'm not at work right now

00:33:36.080 like I'm not Chapel Rhone right now I'm my other my other person and in terms of actual entitlement

00:33:42.820 and what things are actually owed to people I mean the way I've always thought about it is like okay

00:33:47.620 if you buy a ticket to my concert, you should expect me to show up and sing the songs and have

00:33:53.020 a full set list. And that's it. And that's a transaction. That's when you bring art into

00:33:59.020 the realm of transaction is you buy a ticket and I promise you this thing. That happens all the

00:34:03.600 time with when you buy art or when you buy whatever. But it's very different from there's

00:34:08.460 no transaction when you're just with somebody else. That ownership and that entitlement to me

00:34:14.540 doesn't really apply in that direction of course people can feel that it's that you really should

00:34:19.180 greet every fan and shake their hand and sincerely thank them because without them they'd be nothing

00:34:22.980 but to me it's a it's a question of like encroaching almost on somebody else's personhood

00:34:29.500 and what you do with a famous person when you ask them for a picture you ask them to say

00:34:33.820 hello to you is you're kind of asking them to bridge your discomfort with like I think you

00:34:40.160 are a person in my head and now I'm seeing you in real life and I want to collapse that. And for a

00:34:44.960 lot of people, the idea that those two worlds could be collapsed is really scary. Like even

00:34:50.640 for someone at like my level of almost no fame at all, you know, the idea that people want to get

00:34:56.800 even closer and want to close that gap even more, like can feel scary and can feel in many ways,

00:35:03.900 like indistinguishable from like, I want to come to your house and like see your family.

00:35:08.020 and I think I mean especially with just looking at her rise I remember seeing a tweet that was 0.96

00:35:12.820 like if I became as famous as Chapel Road that quickly I would become the fucking Joker like 0.61

00:35:17.080 that's you know how I feel about her I think it's a question of audience entitlement and that has 0.94

00:35:22.820 definitely been encouraged by the internet and by increasing like parasocial connection for sure

00:35:28.380 as this controversy is a brewing she follows it up with a long text post that I'll read a small

00:35:35.400 portion of. She writes, for the past 10 years, I've been going nonstop to build my project.

00:35:41.320 It's important. She refers to Chapel Rowan as her project. And it's come to the point that I need to

00:35:45.660 draw lines and set boundaries. I want to be an artist for a very, very long time. I've been in

00:35:50.240 too many non-consensual physical and social interactions, and I just need to lay it out 1.00

00:35:54.480 and remind you women don't owe you shit. I chose this career path because I love music and art and 0.98

00:36:00.020 honoring my inner child. I do not accept harassment of any kind because I chose this path, nor do I

00:36:05.000 deserve it. When I'm on stage, when I'm performing, when I'm in drag, when I'm at a work event, when

00:36:10.600 I'm doing press, I'm at work. Any other circumstance, I am not in work mode. I'm

00:36:15.660 clocked out. I don't agree with the notion that I owe a mutual exchange of energy, time, or

00:36:20.100 attention to people I do not know, do not trust, or who creep me out just because they're expressing

00:36:24.780 admiration. And once again, there's a whole range of replies to this very poignant statement of

00:36:33.260 hers. Someone wrote, Chapel sounds so fucking stupid. You can't play for 100,000 screaming 1.00

00:36:38.880 fans at Lollapalooza and then expect to run to Trader Joe's in peace on Wednesday. And I would

00:36:44.200 like to argue that you absolutely can expect to do that. You're working at Lollapalooza,

00:36:50.200 to your point, Eliza. You're not working at Trader Joe's. You're picking up fucking

00:36:53.040 discount blueberries. I definitely think that should be a reality. I think people should 1.00

00:36:58.680 understand that artists are working when they're working and when they're not working,

00:37:02.200 their their own people having their own personal experience and also I do feel like asking that of

00:37:09.160 people at this point is like trying to hold back the ocean or something like it it's gonna require

00:37:14.620 a much bigger conversation about work about art about entitlement about parasociality but the

00:37:21.400 but the way that we get to that reality is with people like Chapel Rhone saying I don't want you

00:37:26.660 to approach me if I'm not at work because when I'm not at work I'm being my own person and when

00:37:31.620 i'm being my own person i'm not being your friend because i'm not your friend i think she is going

00:37:37.380 to be in the wave of you know people who make controversial decisions where the first reaction 0.80

00:37:43.060 is obviously like that's never going to fucking happen and like you asked for this deal with it 0.51

00:37:48.120 and then slowly she like paves the path for other people to you know draw similar boundaries and 0.95

00:37:54.220 like people are interpreting this as like a scold you know as her being like stop like telling people

00:37:58.960 laugh stop doing this slap on the wrist yeah but a boundary is something that you do you enforce

00:38:03.840 the boundary and what she is saying is i am not going to give my time or attention to people who

00:38:09.900 i do not know when i am not on working hours that's all she said you know i understand how

00:38:14.880 people can feel personally attacked by it and i think it's just a really interesting moment because

00:38:18.160 i really don't think we've seen this kind of middle ground of like hey i want to keep doing

00:38:22.800 my job but i'm going to need things to change like usually we wait till a britney level breakdown

00:38:28.280 yeah or like franco you know you just like pull pull your persona immediately and just like stop

00:38:33.920 interacting with the public eye i think it's interesting to see what happens when someone

00:38:37.460 is like actually i do want to continue doing this but i i want to make some changes you beat

00:38:42.760 me to the britney spears mention did i in life in general it's like who is going to talk about

00:38:48.220 britney spears before me congratulations you did it but i was i mean i was about to bring her up

00:38:54.860 because I think the role of social media, and this is really interesting, if you think about

00:38:58.740 like pre-social media stars, I'm thinking about like the 90s and the 2000s and like kind of the

00:39:03.340 heyday of paparazzi, which I know we were babies for. It felt like the attitude towards celebrity

00:39:09.360 then was fundamentally different in the sense that like, you know, if you were a huge fan of

00:39:13.540 like Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys or like, you know, whoever was famous in the 2000s,

00:39:18.020 like sorry that sounds really nice whatever you people were doing back then but you know you

00:39:25.900 caught glimpses of them in magazine photos or on mtv you had posters of them in your room right and

00:39:32.620 you were always finding ways to like approximate your idol it feels like idolatry still totally

00:39:39.120 exists but in a different way where because social media has given the illusion of a collapsed

00:39:46.700 barrier between you and your favorite musician or celebrity that you work backwards from the

00:39:53.860 conclusion that like they are your friend it's a foregone conclusion because they're not these

00:39:59.700 people are just as materially removed from you as britney spears was from her fans in the 2000s

00:40:05.940 but like social media has allowed you to feel like chapel rhone is actually like your girl

00:40:11.200 Yeah, it is social media. It is increasing isolation among young people. And it is a genuine, effective marketing tactic, you know, like creating that parasociality, like Chapel Roan doing her themed nights. It's like, hey, we're it's like we're all going to the same sleepover and we're all going to dress up as the same thing. And like, I'm going to make a front facing video and like make a joke to you on the app that we both use. You know, it's it's something that does go both ways.

00:40:36.220 And that's not, of course, to blame Chapel Rhone for, like, the shit that she's having to go through right now. 0.94

00:40:40.840 But it's something that is actively encouraged. 0.96

00:40:43.840 And celebrities used to be the people that you, like you were saying, like you saw on your television or you, like, heard their CD.

00:40:49.320 And now they're the people that use the same apps as you do.

00:40:52.200 And, like, Chapel Rhone making her statement as a TikTok video I think was so interesting.

00:40:56.840 Like, she's making a front-facing TikTok video, like, with, like, her makeup all fucked up, like, sitting on what appears to be, like, the floor of a bathroom.

00:41:04.320 Like, that's all of us, you know? 0.55

00:41:05.620 just the the medium itself is communicating a different kind of celebrity it's communicating

00:41:12.320 what she's trying to effectively i think which is like i'm just a person also just like you

00:41:16.440 there's just so much incentive to create that closeness to create that parasociality

00:41:21.900 and i think it really it can be a trap for sure this brings us up to her canceling 0.99

00:41:27.880 her 1500 person capacity show in paris so that she could play the vmas how dare she

00:41:34.620 and it's like it's so crazy because she canceled this vma's performance and on twitter she announces

00:41:42.340 that she's canceling this performance and there are 10 000 quote tweets yeah the capacity at the

00:41:47.760 paris venue was 1500 people there are more people angry about this than that could have fit in that 0.89

00:41:53.460 fucking room yeah so there there's like a performative anger here for sure which kind of 0.95

00:41:59.380 brings me to another point that i wanted to discuss which is uh you know this idea of being 0.99

00:42:03.740 womaned are you familiar with the womaning oh yeah rfq is like one of my besties being womaned

00:42:11.020 this is something that was coined by rfq rainfisher kwan who we love i've mentioned her a number of

00:42:17.320 times on this podcast one day she'll be here she wrote an essay basically talking about the shelf

00:42:23.660 life which she calls of a female star and i'm just going to read a little bit of an excerpt

00:42:28.680 from that because we have witnessed it once again with chapel rome like wild animals and recycled 1.00

00:42:35.660 plastic women in the public eye have a life cycle that most of us know by heart it starts with

00:42:40.680 adoration she lands starring roles she writes hit songs she goes viral she's new and young and 1.00

00:42:46.520 profitable then the idolatry begins maybe magazines start selling copies by calling her the voice of

00:42:52.480 generation or the next marilyn or ertha even though she's barely college age maybe they'll

00:42:57.500 label her a feminist icon because she went to the women's march maybe she gets too many fans too 1.00

00:43:02.320 fast either way she's well on her way to overexposure the jokes that people found charming 0.99

00:43:07.420 six months ago are starting to get old and you're being force-fed her face through every algorithmic

00:43:12.420 channel your phone can handle and wasn't she always kind of annoying anyway it's a system 1.00

00:43:17.040 that builds women up into untouchable fantasies just so we can watch in glee as the facade 1.00

00:43:21.840 inevitably crumbles it's a perpetual cycle of ritualistic idolization degradation and redemption 1.00

00:43:28.100 that serves only to entertain the masses and generate profit for the powerful i just wanted

00:43:33.060 to include that because it's like chapel run is not even the first woman to go through that like

00:43:36.960 this summer yeah totally and i think especially in like the rise of online fame like i think 0.99

00:43:45.140 without the internet chapel run wouldn't have been able to ascend as quickly like normally 1.00

00:43:49.660 before the advent of the internet the way that that would happen to like a female star would be 1.00

00:43:54.420 like one project was released like one britney album or like one angelina jolie movie and then

00:44:00.320 you would see the uptick and with chapel it's just been like a series of like cacophonous events that

00:44:05.580 just have like stacked on top and shot her to this crazy trajectory that we all watched every single

00:44:11.020 step of and like that's a much more intimate involvement than we had with like oh all of a

00:44:15.220 sudden angelina jolie is a famous person that i know the name of totally totally i mean i just

00:44:20.220 remember like with chapel having one viral moment after the next like this past spring i was like

00:44:25.380 the tide's gonna turn the tide is going to turn i know you watch something like that that's why

00:44:29.380 the graph is so scary to me because i was like because it's literally when do people start

00:44:33.640 hating her it's gonna topple of course you know in the 2000s it was like britney amy winehouse

00:44:40.400 and then in the 2010s we did with Anne Hathaway Jennifer Lawrence and like just over the last

00:44:45.020 couple years it's like Rachel Zegler Rachel Zegler who's was in West Side Story and The

00:44:51.560 Hunger Games and is now going to be in Snow White and what's interesting about like her ascendance

00:44:55.740 to fame which you know she's a Hollywood starlet and everyone loves her and then all of a sudden

00:44:59.580 she's like there's a particular like racial component to the hate directed towards Rachel

00:45:04.580 Zegler because she's playing Snow White and people are like how can you be Snow White and not white

00:45:09.120 but it's interesting because it's not just like nazis going after her for like not being white

00:45:13.600 it's like people trying to justify their hatred like oh it's actually she just like gives me the

00:45:17.760 ick and you're like is that it or are you kind of racist people love to moralize like why they

00:45:23.680 don't like a woman and it's there's never a moral cause well i mean i have like written about this

00:45:29.260 in terms of like the like the reddit threads i got really into of like influencer snark and i

00:45:35.140 called it like the socially conscious mean girl which is i thought about it particularly i literally

00:45:41.840 in my last episode was talking about how i spent time on beauty guru chatter of course no no no i

00:45:48.860 mean i have also that's why i wrote about it because i was so fascinated by it because i would

00:45:53.080 get sucked into it and be like wait like why does it feel good to like have this space to kind of

00:45:58.040 whatever you know and i think like the redditors really view it as like this is my righteous cause

00:46:03.880 like this is the rich and the powerful and like I'm speaking truth to this and like I'm exposing

00:46:08.320 her lies and I'm liberating women everywhere and you know and that's not really what is happening 0.96

00:46:12.880 I don't think I think it's perfectly normal and natural to shit talk people and you should and 0.99

00:46:17.900 like there are things that are enraging about like thin white women getting famous over and over and 0.97

00:46:23.520 over again and also there is a component to it where I think it's a very modern thing where

00:46:31.320 people feel that they can't just be haters anymore it can't just be like oh my god the outfit looks 0.97

00:46:35.640 like shit because then you're not a girl's girl you're not what so then you have the thought you 1.00

00:46:39.980 have the thought oh my god her outfit looks like fucking shit and then instead of just saying 1.00

00:46:44.760 honestly i think a healthier expression is typing her outfit looks like shit send they'll be like 1.00

00:46:50.140 um did anybody notice like the way she was like body checking in this like i low-key think that 1.00

00:46:54.900 like she's encouraging like a generation of women's like haven't wait did we hang on can we compare 1.00

00:46:59.580 this photoshopped picture to this picture of her where she's not photoshopped so that i can reveal

00:47:03.940 the lies and liberate women everywhere where it's like just say she looks clapped like honestly just

00:47:08.260 say she looks clapped because the rest of it and honestly you don't have to say she looks clapped

00:47:13.320 you could probably just you can you don't keep it to yourself but if you have to say something yes

00:47:16.820 be honest about what you're yeah be honest about what it is that's actually bothering you right

00:47:21.800 and i think too like another thing i was gonna say about the way that chapel's approaching this

00:47:26.400 is I think when we see like the woman dark,

00:47:28.960 usually with female celebrities, 1.00

00:47:30.780 either they will just kind of like demurely step away 1.00

00:47:34.100 from the lay and hope that everything dies down

00:47:36.940 and they can like put out another project at some point

00:47:38.760 that people will not care about as much.

00:47:41.080 Or it goes Britney, you know, 1.00

00:47:42.780 and she's like, fuck you. 1.00

00:47:44.220 Like I, this is insane. 1.00

00:47:46.080 And you people are fucking killing me. 0.99

00:47:48.120 And Chapel is doing a really interesting thing 1.00

00:47:50.480 where she's actually trying to have a dialogue

00:47:52.280 with people about it. 0.97

00:47:53.380 She's trying to strike a middle ground.

00:47:55.300 and I think that actually is the most respectful thing that you can do like I remember at some

00:48:02.880 point on the podcast I said something like oh yeah sometimes I embellish stories on the podcast

00:48:07.320 because it's like this is entertainment I think it's funnier and also I think I don't want to I

00:48:11.920 don't want you as the listener to be under any pretense that like we are personal friends and

00:48:15.560 everything that I say to you is the truth and people got really upset about that and I was like

00:48:20.580 I actually think it's way more respectful to you to let you know that I'm not being 100% honest

00:48:26.820 with you. And by the way, nobody is. Nobody who is a professional commentator. There's always

00:48:32.360 things that people omit. There's always things that people change the narrative about. And I

00:48:36.840 think it is actually more respectful to you to say that you don't know me. And for Trapple to say,

00:48:42.620 I love playing music for you and I don't love talking to you. And that is honest. That's being

00:48:47.120 honest with somebody in relation to what you just said about like people moralizing their

00:48:51.900 otherwise very shallow judgments of people I think about that a lot in relation to there are so many

00:48:58.300 Instagram pages that are just like exposing celebrity plastic surgery and they always end

00:49:05.200 up on my explore page and yes I know that is in response to my user habits on Instagram don't

00:49:09.900 comment it I'm aware but I'm always seeing those and I think stuff like that started as like we

00:49:16.320 must topple the unrealistic beauty standard that celebrities set for us and acknowledge that

00:49:21.720 they're having this done and like okay sure but that turns so quickly into just like let's zoom 0.98

00:49:28.040 in on Kendall Jenner's pores and like for a righteous cause or something and it's like I 0.99

00:49:33.560 don't really think we're dismantling beauty standards by like finding the most unflattering

00:49:38.440 photo of a celebrity on a red carpet turning the contrast up to 100 so that every peach fuzz is 0.95

00:49:44.820 visible like come on guys we're just talking shit we got the point in 2010 when doves started putting 0.97

00:49:50.560 like women who are a size 14 in their ads for the first time you know what i mean like i feel like 0.96

00:49:55.200 we had like a big renaissance of that kind of stuff and then where genuinely people were like

00:49:59.880 oh i didn't know they photoshopped those photos that much oh i genuinely didn't know all these

00:50:04.200 actresses were getting plastic surgery and then i don't really think we need to string up every

00:50:08.840 single woman who appears to have gotten visible work done after that i don't think it is productive

00:50:12.920 no and side note sorry i was like just on my youtube recommendations too all the time it's 0.99

00:50:19.420 always like ex-celebrity plastic surgery analysis shut the fuck up just like shut the fuck up oh my 0.82

00:50:26.620 god it's so annoying it's so sorry am i like too harsh on that no i don't think so i mean i think 0.99

00:50:31.540 that there's a like i've totally watched those plastic surgery analysis videos because i'm like

00:50:35.560 wait like i didn't know she had plastic surgery am i one non-surgical nose job away from being

00:50:41.620 kaya gerber um like i think part of it is like the fascination of like wait well fair enough i'm on

00:50:47.120 i'm on beauty guru chatter so we're all doing a little bit of repentance today no no no but i mean

00:50:52.100 i i have had to dig around on like the snark forums enough to see some like truly despicable 0.99

00:50:58.160 stuff like they're like one of the things i wrote about was like this woman who was like famous

00:51:03.800 online and like the their the profile for the snark page is a photo of her crying and i was

00:51:09.160 trying to figure out where that crying photo came from and it's from a video where she talks about 0.93

00:51:12.860 her abusive marriage jesus and all these snarkers are snarking on her for like for feminist reasons 1.00

00:51:19.880 you know of like oh like i think perhaps she's neglecting her child like i think this was like 1.00

00:51:23.880 a racist tweet from five years ago and it's like look at the fucking profile photo of your snark 0.95

00:51:28.920 page like what are you doing yeah i think it's an issue when the social justice causes intersect 0.99

00:51:36.000 with what I think are truly normal, natural, healthy, petty grievances. Like it is totally

00:51:42.900 fucking fine to see a rich celebrity and be like, wow, like that bitch got her face pumped up of 1.00

00:51:48.580 plastic, whatever. Text that to your best friend. You know what I mean? Like that's fine. Everybody 1.00

00:51:52.960 has ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly impulses and thoughts and feelings. And like you should have a trusted 0.66

00:51:58.500 friend where you just like shit talk and then it stays in your little container. It does not have 0.99

00:52:02.460 to be a grand theory about the universe and it hardly ever is ate that up that was a really good

00:52:09.500 rant that was a really good rant I feel like I've been ranting so much you you give me a microphone

00:52:14.140 and I just go off you're a good ranter what can I say thank you I would like to take a quick quick

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00:53:39.000 slash fruity that's rocketmoney.com slash fruity now let's get back to the show

00:53:45.480 something i think about a lot with britney spears i think about a lot of things a lot

00:53:52.080 with britney spears britney spears famously she was in this conservatorship for 13 years

00:53:56.800 and when it was highlighted in a 2021 documentary which was done by the new york times and

00:54:03.460 distributed by hulu called framing britney spears which you very well may have seen

00:54:07.380 did you see it i did see it this led to you know waves of both support for britney spears to get

00:54:13.820 out of her conservatorship but also a sort of societal re-evaluation of how we treated Britney

00:54:19.600 Spears in the early 2000s and that was a correct thing to re-evaluate and also like nobody has

00:54:27.220 applied what they learned from that situation to any celebrity since then and this idea of like

00:54:32.980 how did we let that happen like you see these old clips of like how they used to talk about like her

00:54:37.880 body and her children and one thing that is always brought up in these documentaries about

00:54:43.660 britney spears which there are many at this point because like there is a britney spears apologia

00:54:48.120 industrial complex now it's like we continue to mine this woman's pain and suffering even in the

00:54:53.580 form of apologies which is just like another tangent but they always bring up like the outrage

00:54:58.960 over when britney spears was photographed by a paparazzi driving with her like zen baby in her

00:55:04.980 lap you remember this yeah and i just think that like if that happened today that would be on pop

00:55:12.360 crave yeah and it would have like 30 000 quote tweets of everyone saying the exact things that

00:55:18.580 like i don't know what's his name david leto john jared leto not jared leto oh her husband

00:55:27.760 no no no sorry okay and

00:55:31.440 no you got it you got it we're back we're so back hi it's been a few days the name that i

00:55:41.860 was thinking of was jay leno saying the exact same things that all of the late night hosts were

00:55:48.620 saying in the early 2000s about her like this would be a hit tweet on pop crave and everyone

00:55:54.140 would be calling her a terrible mother and everyone would be and it's just like and you

00:55:57.740 know what though i do think if it was a pop crave situation there would be two sides there would be 1.00

00:56:02.360 one side that's like she's a fucking horrific mother like stone her to death and then there 0.96

00:56:07.080 would be a side that's like you know have empathy for her situation like i think we have evolved a 1.00

00:56:11.100 little bit but it's still like this kind of dehumanization of turning this one woman into

00:56:16.140 a culture war bidding item even the lens through which people are able to be more empathetic now

00:56:20.860 to female celebrities is because they feel closer to them it's because they feel that kind of

00:56:25.040 parasocial attachment that kind of parasocial ownership which can flip on a dime it's not the

00:56:31.200 true loyalty i think i mean i do think in a lot of ways the culture has evolved and hopefully like

00:56:37.240 we are less at risk for the kind of like significant abuse by like late night hosts

00:56:42.540 and like mass media that Britney experienced. And I think to a degree, we may have learned from that.

00:56:47.820 But also the kind of defense you get from fans as a celebrity and especially as a woman celebrity,

00:56:53.780 it never comes for free. And it always is like is something that could turn and is not like a true

00:57:00.240 loyalty, but a sort of attachment to the character that people have of you in your minds. And if you

00:57:05.340 stop behaving like that character then those people potentially turn on you as well is what 0.84

00:57:11.380 we need from chapel rhone like an absolute meltdown like an absolute crumbling for us to

00:57:16.380 then be like wow maybe we should have been this that and the other thing and then to like create

00:57:21.800 a documentary and distribute it and like you know what i mean and like continue to find new ways to

00:57:26.480 profit off of what we've done i i want to reference something from the essay that you wrote which was

00:57:32.960 the impetus for me sending you an instagram dm to do this today in your essay you included a

00:57:39.420 screenshot of a message that you received from a fan who went to a show of yours in chicago and

00:57:45.060 they wrote to you after the show you were so rude to me outside your chicago show tonight girl i

00:57:50.460 cannot remember who's paying your bills lmao can you contextualize that message and perhaps guide

00:57:58.200 us into a conversation of our what I would call small fame. So the Chicago show that I played

00:58:04.600 that night was amazing. It was sold out. It was such fun energy, like super great crowd. I get

00:58:13.260 off stage and exit like outside the stage door goes directly outside the venue. And so I thought

00:58:19.260 I was going to be able to walk around and get let back in to the green room. And then when I got to

00:58:23.480 the green room door it was locked and nobody was there and simultaneously the whole sold out crowd

00:58:29.160 that had just seen me get off stage follows me outside and starts surrounding me which is not

00:58:34.120 an experience I get very often because once again I am not famous and it's like maybe 50 people

00:58:39.060 outside and then there's I turn to look inside there's people inside like pressing their cameras

00:58:43.240 up against the glass I just came off stage so I have my earplugs in I can't really hear anything

00:58:47.820 but like screaming I'm like turning and I'm waving and I'm trying to say hello and thank you

00:58:52.280 and whatever and then finally somebody lets me in I was like and I kind of like breathe a sigh of

00:58:56.740 relief then I get that message and like it kind of it shook me you know I was like yeah whoa because

00:59:04.060 for a second I was like wait what what could she possibly be talking about like because there was

00:59:08.020 afterwards like people who had like stuck around and I was like smoking a cigarette outside and

00:59:11.660 people like came by and were like oh I love the show and I was like oh thanks so much like thank

00:59:14.660 you so much for coming and I like signed a few cds or something and I was like god like did I say

00:59:18.320 something that whatever she was talking about I think being a part of that massive people that

00:59:22.500 came out that were like you know it felt very disingenuous to me because I was like you know 0.99

00:59:26.360 that you didn't come onto the street to say hello to me and then I said like you're a pathetic piece 1.00

00:59:32.440 of shit you know what I mean I didn't ignore you like like you were there like you know it was a 1.00

00:59:37.020 situation where like it was impossible for me to interact with anybody and then it was like it was 0.99

00:59:43.400 a threat right it was like remember who's paying your bills which is the sort of I made you I can

00:59:49.080 take it away from you which not only is that not totally true that one person could do that to me

00:59:54.380 but it's also it's like it's a threat of of that wants you to submit in this way and wants you and

01:00:00.700 and feels betrayed and like that was like the thing too is like I obviously like I don't want

01:00:04.660 to come off as like a rude or entitled person like that hurts me to think that that could be

01:00:08.340 the case but it's it's not the way you would talk to somebody in a relationship you know what i mean

01:00:13.640 even if that was the case it is a one-star amazon review you know it's not a conversation with

01:00:21.080 somebody that's crazy because i write so much of my music about not wanting to be an object not

01:00:27.720 wanting to be commodified and then oh no have i created this group of people who think it's okay

01:00:34.740 to commodify and objectify me and treat me well when I adhere to their standards of behavior 0.99

01:00:42.100 or performance and to fucking shit on me and want me to lose all my money and income and safety if 0.99

01:00:48.620 I don't, you know? And that was just a situation where I was like, wow, I wonder what promises am 0.98

01:00:53.960 I explicitly or implicitly making to people who are a part of my audience? And like, what does

01:00:58.140 that mean for me you described yourself in the essay as cross the street famous and I feel that

01:01:06.460 way also about myself could you describe what cross the street famous means yes so I just was

01:01:13.340 thinking of this anecdote when I came out of a show in Williamsburg and there was like a bunch

01:01:19.820 of people outside and I said hello to a lot of them and we was still trying to pack up the van

01:01:24.380 I was feeling a little overwhelmed and then you know I kind of see more from down the street that

01:01:28.960 maybe some other people are coming up and I like turn to my manager I'm like oh god like I don't

01:01:32.580 know what to do like I'm so wiped out and like I can't meet another hundred people and he puts his

01:01:36.920 arm around me and says let's go across the street where you're not famous anymore it was so true and

01:01:42.440 so real and to me that means like I think it's something that a lot of like internet creators

01:01:46.480 in particular fall under who have like a very niche audience yeah where it's like yeah if I'm

01:01:51.440 doing a show and there's 500 people at the show like I could get mobbed like a pop star but if

01:01:57.340 I'm just out and about like nobody knows who I am like I almost feel like embarrassed for people

01:02:01.380 who recognize me in public not because they're being embarrassing but because the other people 0.91

01:02:05.360 around us will be like who the fuck is that like totally why are you freaking out like who is that 0.51

01:02:10.700 totally totally totally totally I feel the exact same way about myself I'm like someone like might 0.98

01:02:18.140 come up to me in a coffee shop and be like do you write those things on Instagram yeah and then I'm

01:02:23.120 like embarrassed because the people around me I'm like no no no no no I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm

01:02:28.140 I promise I'm not really anyone significant yeah I have a I have a modestly listened to podcast

01:02:33.480 on some episodes yeah yeah I mean I remember one time Kim Petras wrote something like it's so 0.63

01:02:41.040 humbling to walk into a straight club because I will go into a gay club and everyone's like yes

01:02:46.260 queening me and like I'm like a list in a specific type of gay club but I leave the gay club and

01:02:51.320 nobody knows who I am but what's interesting about that is that like I don't know you and I have both

01:02:56.440 had experiences even with that tiny fame right like I don't know you could be famous in like

01:03:01.640 your book club like this kind of experiences that come along with even the most niche types of fame

01:03:08.160 like change you I think psychologically and they change the way that you engage with your

01:03:14.120 surroundings like I've had a number of experiences like that I noted some of them down here because

01:03:21.220 I've been wanting to get this off my chest for years speak your truth I mean first of all

01:03:28.180 sexual harassment in gay clubs is one but like I don't know I again it's I don't people don't

01:03:35.020 really know who I am but sometimes in gay clubs people do just because I have a gayer audience

01:03:38.500 calling some of you out right now on the gay part not the sexual harassment part hopefully

01:03:42.280 you know just people feeling entitled to your body but I had like more specifically I had one

01:03:47.960 years ago when I was kind of just starting so it was kind of a shock that this even happened at the 0.99

01:03:51.980 time I had such a small audience but I had a grinder hookup come over and we're in bed like 1.00

01:04:01.180 rolling around making out and he pulls away and he looks at me and he's like my friends aren't 0.99

01:04:07.240 gonna believe this oh whoa and it's like it was so we didn't even end up like having sex honestly 0.97

01:04:14.420 but it was like so i never forgot that was like four years ago five years ago i would not fuck 0.58

01:04:19.520 somebody after that i'd be like get out of my house yeah no exactly but like i never approached

01:04:26.180 any like you know theoretically like anonymous like dating or hookup situation the same after

01:04:31.080 that because it's like oh oh and I don't look like I don't I'm again I'm very aware of like

01:04:37.700 my specific kind of like tiny niche internet podcasting theme but it's such like I can't I

01:04:44.420 guess why I'm saying any of this is that like I can't imagine these experiences which have

01:04:48.920 fundamentally changed like for example dating for me yeah on the level of like tens of millions of

01:04:54.740 people and i would go so far as to assert and you can give me your thoughts on this but like i think

01:05:01.760 there's very few people for whom being famous is fun i think it's a blessing to be able to do what

01:05:08.360 you love for a job and to be able to pay your bills making whatever it is that you make whether

01:05:13.960 it's art or music or movies but i don't know sans like there's probably a few people like i think

01:05:18.820 charlie xcx probably likes being famous my friend kat tenbarge who sometimes does this podcast with

01:05:23.540 me, she tweeted something that I thought was really poignant, which was fame makes people

01:05:27.320 miserable, especially women. And I think a lot of people think that they want to be famous,

01:05:31.460 but would actually dislike the reality of being famous. Women in particular are supposed to be

01:05:36.000 grateful to be objectified and expected to be perfect all the time. First of all, like the 1.00

01:05:41.260 experiences you shared are very particular to the kind of niche micro fame that we have. And I think

01:05:47.460 in a way like Chapel Rhone is like a capital C celebrity like ever it's universally recognized

01:05:54.120 and like I think almost with like the kind of podcaster or like digital like internet presence

01:05:59.960 fame people actually feel that they know you even more than they would feel that way about a

01:06:04.960 celebrity and that's really interesting I think like the experience that you are describing with

01:06:10.180 like your dating situations is like the one of like feeling dehumanized you know like you're in

01:06:15.000 this very intimate moment with somebody and then they pull away and they're like oh my god i can't

01:06:19.180 wait to like use you at like as a piece of like window dressing in the story i'm gonna tell my

01:06:24.200 friends that is totally like takes you out of your body but back to the to the concept of fame i think

01:06:30.920 it really depends on how famous you are when you got famous and who your audience is because i think

01:06:36.280 charlie xx probably does enjoy being famous and that's because she's like has this kind of

01:06:41.040 adversarial relationship almost with her fans where they're like naughty boys you know what

01:06:45.440 I mean and she can you know she's not trying to be your best friend and she like makes that very

01:06:50.660 clear and I think the people who do make that clear immediately have a much easier time like

01:06:55.240 Chapel Roan being the person who said like I was a gay kid in the midwest and like I want to help

01:07:00.940 everyone like express themselves and like I want everyone to be queens and I want ever like I want 0.96

01:07:05.520 my shows to be a safe space I want that's how people fucking hate fame because you you can't

01:07:10.620 be everybody's best friend you really just can't and like I was thinking about that too and we were 0.99

01:07:15.200 even talking about it offline before we started recording like being a kid like a closeted queer 0.90

01:07:19.540 kid in North Carolina being not well liked in high school like running the feminist club and

01:07:26.180 nobody everybody hated to see me coming and then you get to a point where I have you know I started

01:07:33.780 this podcast I have this audience and I'm like oh my god like people like me like people want to be

01:07:37.840 my friend like of course of course I'm your best friend like yes of course and then it gets bigger

01:07:42.260 and bigger and bigger and then it's impossible for you to make a decision that places everyone

01:07:45.260 you cannot keep that promise and I think that is when fame gets tough for people is when they

01:07:52.700 promise something in particular to their audience men probably have an easier time you know in

01:07:58.080 general and also people who got famous like 20 to 30 years ago I think have an easier time like

01:08:03.260 there's a lot of like classic male indie rock star like I'm thinking like Jeff Tweedy from

01:08:07.900 Wilco like I don't know how often he gets like mobbed maybe he does but I feel what's more

01:08:13.180 likely is that he gets to be a rock star when he steps on the stage which is like what he wanted

01:08:18.000 and then probably like a dad every so often like sees him in a coffee shop and is like oh my god

01:08:22.820 you're like and he's incredibly famous but has this sort of relationship that is different from

01:08:28.500 like the kind of stuff we're talking about maybe we all just need to be a little bit more like

01:08:31.740 charlie xcx and like spar with our twinks on twitter one of the people i think of all the

01:08:38.300 time is my friend cj who's cj the x on youtube and like their thing from the beginning was like

01:08:43.640 hey by the way like you don't know me i don't know you i don't care about you because i've never met

01:08:48.920 you and i think that has kept them sane in a way that like i've been massively jealous of but i

01:08:55.660 also think like so many people start make like making a platform for themselves when they're

01:09:00.200 like 18 or 19 and then it like spirals out of control and like you've no idea like what you've

01:09:05.080 done you know like and when you're 18 you don't want to be like uh like give me my boundaries

01:09:09.880 you know I'm just like please desperately everyone love me and tell me that you know

01:09:13.560 and it's a two-sided coin because you get way more love and way more attachment and

01:09:18.700 the people like I get scared when someone comes up to me and it's like I love you so much like

01:09:24.880 your work is everything to me because I look at them and I'm like I'm gonna disappoint you so

01:09:29.040 horrifically one day like one day oh my god totally and like even in the dm history like my

01:09:34.160 like most virulent haters i scroll up used to be the biggest fans and i'm like it's not safe yes

01:09:40.740 oh my god i've had that i've had that we're like where sometimes people i mean people tend to

01:09:47.280 follow me mostly because they agree or at least find like my political choices interesting but

01:09:51.960 the people who really kind of like avidly follow my work online when they leave they tend not to

01:09:58.480 be like oh I'm not interested anymore it's like oftentimes to your point they become like the 0.62

01:10:02.520 biggest adversaries where they're like I fucking hate him it's a breakup like that's what I think

01:10:06.640 you have to understand too is it's like there's always like a phase in like a real breakup when 0.93

01:10:11.460 you like know a person and are in an actual relationship with them where you're like oh

01:10:14.680 like sex isn't going where I thought it was going or like this person actually isn't the person that

01:10:19.080 I thought they were and it's like such a big like loss and a grief and people are going through that

01:10:23.220 in like a one-sided way and I also I don't want to like like everybody has parasocial attachments

01:10:27.380 I have parasocial attachments with people, even though I've met really famous people and been like,

01:10:31.660 oh, wait, they're just people. It's a natural thing and especially unavoidable in the context

01:10:37.580 that we are in right now. And the emotions are real. That's why I don't... A lot of the narrative

01:10:42.760 I see around this Chapel Rhone stuff is just like, oh my God, stupid fangirls are out of control. 0.99

01:10:46.760 Can you believe the... And it's just like, no, I actually think what's more interesting is 0.99

01:10:50.880 investigating these real valid emotions that people are having. It's just like, wait,

01:10:54.800 why doesn't Chapel Rowan want to be my best friend like that can be painful for people to

01:10:58.540 experience like genuinely and I want to acknowledge that and then interrogate what about it is painful

01:11:04.020 and why so I try to have empathy even for and I to any like micro famous person this is a really

01:11:10.080 interesting exercise your most virulent hate message imagine it was sent from like an ex

01:11:14.280 and it reads just like that it was like we used to have so much fun together like I used to love

01:11:19.240 listening to you like and this and this and this and then you started doing this and it everything

01:11:23.060 changed i just i can't find myself being able to listen anymore you know it just it reads just like

01:11:28.380 that and it's really interesting to be able to to see people like having that experience with you

01:11:32.980 a person that they've never actually directly interacted with yeah wow yeah one of the last

01:11:39.760 points that i wanted to bring up just about like fame and and people's misunderstanding of it is

01:11:45.560 you know you said chapel road is a capital c celebrity and i think at this point that's true

01:11:50.980 six months ago she was more of a niche celebrity but even still like her celebrity is very different

01:11:56.980 than Beyonce's celebrity is very different than like yours and my I'm not even gonna use the

01:12:02.000 word celebrity let's be fucking real but like but like something that is interesting is that

01:12:08.940 to someone who might be a fan of you Eliza and Chapel Rhone and Beyonce when you're a fan of 0.90

01:12:17.160 someone like celebrity is celebrity. And something that's so interesting to me is like the lack of

01:12:24.400 understanding that people have that like just because someone is famous to them does not mean

01:12:28.740 that they have like the material resources, you know, PR resources or anything to handle

01:12:35.660 celebrity. It was something that I mentioned when I did my Iman Khalif episode with ContraPoints

01:12:41.460 where it's like people were talking about Iman Khalif and the Olympics controversy as if she

01:12:45.820 was a celebrity which at that point she was because she became one during the olympics but

01:12:51.240 until the olympics she was kind of just a random female boxer and most people don't know that much 0.96

01:12:58.160 about any female boxers and so it wasn't like she had a pr team and it wasn't like she had all this

01:13:03.820 money and another thing that i think plays into people's entitlement of like i can say whatever i

01:13:09.840 want about chapel roan and i can feel however i want and express that as violently as i want to 1.00

01:13:14.540 is because she's a celebrity and she's rich 0.98

01:13:16.580 and she's famous. It's one of these things 0.81

01:13:18.660 where it's like, first of all,

01:13:20.800 Chapel Rhone is not yet rich.

01:13:22.880 I say that confidently.

01:13:24.500 It costs a lot of, you would know this,

01:13:26.860 it costs a lot of money to be

01:13:28.600 a touring musician. And it takes a while

01:13:30.620 to make a return on that investment.

01:13:32.760 And I mean, she's also so

01:13:34.520 young. Most people

01:13:36.180 who get that much money 1.00

01:13:38.620 that early buy a fucking Mercedes 1.00

01:13:40.520 Benz and then it's gone the next year. 1.00

01:13:42.580 But I think also, regardless,

01:13:44.080 like we don't fully know her financial situation and regardless of that like she's not a politician

01:13:50.060 you know there's a very real difference between the kind of power that celebrity gives you and

01:13:55.720 the kind of like material power you actually have to like genuinely change the world and like

01:14:00.800 Chapel Rhone has a lot more influence and power than most of us but still like I think in this

01:14:04.880 world where everything is increasingly celebrified and like you know every person is encouraged to

01:14:10.940 be their own celebrity like there's millions of micro famous people making vlogs about their daily 1.00

01:14:16.240 life yes stupid little gay podcasts making stupid little gay podcasts make it you know like i feel 1.00

01:14:22.980 like everybody has like a girl from their high school that just like got really big on instagram 1.00

01:14:25.880 reels and like does influencer reviews and stuff if you look at polling of young children and like

01:14:32.600 what they want to be when they grow up i think like something like 80 of them want to be an

01:14:36.820 influencer so it's like we're being trained already like everyone is supposed to be like

01:14:40.720 kind of their own influencer and like obviously not to be too like capital l liberal with it but

01:14:46.780 like we did have a reality show president in our office like you can live out okay i'm living out

01:14:53.600 like we fully elected a reality show celebrity to be our president like the walls are collapsing 0.99

01:15:00.980 between like celebrity and politics um which is why we fucking have kamala harris brat summer or 0.82

01:15:07.620 what whatever is happening over there yeah and i think people confuse that too and people are like 0.99

01:15:13.340 she's rich and powerful and therefore like i can kind of do whatever i want to her and that's part

01:15:18.420 of because you know part of the reason is because we just have like no political literacy in this

01:15:22.080 country and people like on a fundamental level don't understand how things work most of the time

01:15:26.020 but i just went off on it on my tangent about how chapel room is not the government but i really

01:15:30.660 think some people think she's the government but maybe she should be and that's a problem people

01:15:37.380 think chapel roan should be the government when i'm like no chapel roan should be a pop star and

01:15:40.700 we should like go watch her sing and then not you know not be aware of her other than that because

01:15:44.540 that's clearly also what she wants yeah yeah wow chapel road is not i mean i had more notes but

01:15:51.280 that might be a good place to end it just chapel roan's not the government if there is one thing

01:15:55.120 you take away from this is that chapel roan is not yet running for office we can pray we can pray

01:16:04.300 but honestly i hope she never does because if she i know runs for office then i'm probably not gonna

01:16:08.720 like her anymore i know she shouldn't be the government that's the point yeah chapel chapel

01:16:13.240 roan isn't and shouldn't be the government i love podcasting look the leftist podcast finally got to

01:16:21.220 the point at the end eliza the last question that i have for you is what now like where do you think

01:16:30.860 we're going from here and do you think we're on the brink of positive change when it comes to this

01:16:36.300 like self-evaluation of our parasocial relationships and especially how they mostly doom women artists

01:16:43.220 or do you think and this is the more cynical view that we've kind of just with social media only

01:16:49.240 begun to see how bad this can get yeah i i am an optimist and so i would like to believe that this

01:16:57.460 is kind of like a cultural turning point i mean i think we're gonna see what happens with the

01:17:03.140 chapel rhone situation and see how people respond to that it might just be an example of like i

01:17:08.520 think chapel rhone may just kind of step out of the spotlight for a little bit and be like you

01:17:11.820 know what like maybe this is what fame requires right now and for that reason like i need to step

01:17:16.560 away a little bit I don't think this kind of parasociality serves the fans either I think

01:17:22.400 when there's not honesty about the relationship between the fans and the music it makes everybody

01:17:27.340 feel bad like from all the breakup messages essentially that like even I've seen on my end

01:17:32.420 from people feeling really disillusioned with like who they thought I was as a person I just

01:17:36.240 look at them and I go oh my god I wish you never thought you knew who I was as a person I wish you

01:17:41.060 just like engage with the art or engage with like the ideas and I think like from the times that I

01:17:46.900 felt that way about people about artists or you know musicians or thinkers or whatever like I

01:17:52.740 don't know it's difficult because I don't again want to like chide that response because it is

01:17:56.460 fundamentally human but I hope it doesn't end in a situation where Chapel Rhone like burns out in

01:18:03.200 this way that's ultimately not going to be good for her but I do think at the very least she has

01:18:09.180 created a pathway for other people to say hey this is also not okay with me because the only 0.91

01:18:15.460 way we change anything is by one I sound like a fucking kindergarten poster but it's like you know 0.86

01:18:21.560 one person makes the step and then other people are like wait that's possible like I too could go 0.87

01:18:27.520 down that path and other people can use her as a reference now now the next person will not be the

01:18:32.760 first person to ever say something like that in like the mainstream and so I am happy for her 0.99

01:18:38.100 and i'm hoping that she's just like doing some normal ass shit like i hope she's like going to 0.98

01:18:43.100 the creek with like her friend and like drinking a beer or something you know what i mean like i 0.98

01:18:46.760 hope she's able to just kind of step out of being a symbol what do you think i think that we've been

01:18:53.580 approaching celebrity wrong for a really really long time and i think that a lot of people and a

01:19:00.080 lot of women in particular have been driven to the brink by it and i just don't think that it has to

01:19:06.640 be this way and i think that to your point like i think i think chapel is kind of like patient zero

01:19:11.540 of like what if we were forced to not think about it this way to your point like what if chapel

01:19:15.940 removed herself i mean she's said that like if people don't chill the fuck out especially about

01:19:20.640 like her family chapel has said that people were like going to her like normal non-famous sister's

01:19:26.620 work my god she said that if people don't cut that out that she will stop and it's like okay

01:19:33.360 what if that's what it takes and I hope that's not what it takes but what if that's what it takes

01:19:37.600 for us to like fundamentally rethink what we're entitled to as fans I mean that's the ultimate

01:19:42.720 like you don't own me like ultimately I'm going to stop whenever I want to stop and I'm gonna

01:19:47.500 behave the way that I want to behave I literally think when you have a fandom at that level when

01:19:52.600 it's just so huge you have to be mommy you know what I mean you have to be like I'm gonna tell

01:19:58.140 you what to do because the thing is fans shouldn't be telling the artist what to do that's not how

01:20:02.400 it works like if that was the case like there's a reason artists are are artists because they're

01:20:08.020 they're visionaries in a way i don't know i think about like caroline polichek she has these crazy 1.00

01:20:12.460 she uses her voice as a fucking guitar in place of a guitar solo that's crazy like a mass of fans 0.71

01:20:17.900 would not be like and on your next album i think you should like do it you know you should do this 0.99

01:20:22.080 crazy thing with your voice they would never say that i like thought about this a lot with like

01:20:25.120 the big thief debacle when people didn't like how they re-recorded that one song vampire empire and

01:20:30.960 got really upset about it. It's like, actually, as an artist, it is your job to create authentically

01:20:37.520 and push the culture in a certain way. This drag queen pop star persona is something that really

01:20:44.540 broke the mold. And to some people, it's like, that's weird. Why is she doing that? And that's

01:20:48.560 because she was doing something genuinely different. The artist is not just the manifestation

01:20:53.140 of the conglomerate of what all these fans think of them. And I think fans should, in the most

01:20:58.560 healthiest ideal world engage with the art and with the thoughts and with the ideas versus

01:21:04.380 mistakenly thinking that they are engaging with the person and that can leave you in a very

01:21:09.140 amazing place where you can have a favorite artist and you have a favorite album of theirs

01:21:13.980 and there's one album that they put out and you're like doesn't really hit for me you know

01:21:16.800 what that means I'm not gonna listen to it and maybe I'll try to you know what I mean just a more

01:21:21.560 healthier relationship with that it all comes back to Britney Spears for me as most things do but

01:21:26.360 Like when she shaved her head, she said that the reason that she did that is she did not 0.99

01:21:31.500 want people to touch her anymore.

01:21:33.380 Yeah. 0.96

01:21:34.040 And in many ways, like Chapel Rowan's TikTok videos are in the tradition of Britney shaving

01:21:40.100 her head, which, of course, nobody ever talks about why she did it.

01:21:42.700 They just talked about the spectacle of it.

01:21:44.720 But that's what it was about.

01:21:46.340 So there's a real history of this.

01:21:48.040 and maybe one small step for chapel one giant leap for drag queen pop star kind yes perfect

01:21:57.700 you really landed the plane there

01:21:59.360 eliza where can people find more of you i thank you so much for being here today

01:22:09.340 this is of course um people can find me first of all you can find my music under just eliza

01:22:14.640 mclam on every streaming service i'm going on tour this fall if you want to come see me on tour i'm

01:22:20.640 at eliza mclam on every social media including substack which is words from eliza and i am the

01:22:26.980 co-host of a podcast called bingetopia and her music is so good i was up late last night outlining

01:22:32.500 for this and editing stuff for patreon and listening to it and it's so good so not that i

01:22:38.880 have all that much pull, but let's go make Eliza more famous. Thank you. I'm so grateful. I'm so

01:22:49.520 grateful for you. We're all grateful. I'm grateful. I promise I'm fucking grateful. I'm so fucking

01:22:54.240 grateful. I'm so grateful. Thank you all so much for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed. Maybe 0.98

01:23:04.000 you challenge yourself honestly as a fan you know to eliza's point on the human emotions involved in

01:23:09.680 all of this like i've i've been a stan of many people and this situation has challenged me to

01:23:15.840 interrogate that within myself so if this did something for you then maybe consider sharing it

01:23:21.420 with the friend who's like a little bit too tapped into stan twitter or something oh god they're

01:23:26.300 gonna come cut my head off you know what knowing me and my audience we're probably all the friend

01:23:31.900 that is a little too on stan twitter so maybe that's definitely me in my circle so i love you

01:23:39.020 so much and until next time stay fruity

A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - September 12, 2024

Chappell Roan’s War on Fame (with Eliza McLamb)

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