A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - How Conservatism Infiltrated Pop Culture

00:00:00.000 Everyone wanted to look like Kylie, Kylie wanted to look like a black woman, and now Kylie doesn't even want to look like Kylie. 0.99

00:00:11.180 I feel like I look like a fraternity brother on his way to the fraternity brunch, but everyone's closeted and they're all having sex behind the scenes. 0.98

00:00:24.240 They're all cheating on their girlfriends with each other, with a little sweater wrapped around my neck.

00:00:28.100 An image of a MAGA youth has emerged in the months leading up to and following the 2024 election.

00:00:34.680 And it isn't young dorks wearing sweat and grease-stained polos looking like they just

00:00:40.800 left their mom's basement for the first time in three weeks to pick up some tiki torches from 0.98

00:00:45.580 Party City and chant, Jews will not replace us. No, they look like a cheap copy of Reagan-era 1.00

00:00:52.640 80s Republicans. Instead of polo, they're wearing Sheehan. They're frat bros pairing suits with

00:00:58.960 MAGA hats. They're clean girls with little black dresses and good blowouts and long skincare

00:01:05.220 routines. They're old money with a vape. It's a drastic change from what felt cool 10 years ago. 1.00

00:01:13.240 This aesthetic phenomenon came to a head last week when New York Magazine released its new issue

00:01:18.400 with a photo on the cover from a pre-inauguration party for influencers who helped Donald Trump get

00:01:24.220 elected. The photo features many men and a few women, all white, looking straight out of an

00:01:30.460 80s country club until you squint and notice the high noons and the TikTok napkins. In today's 0.63

00:01:37.240 episode, I want to explore this theatrical shift in conservative aesthetics. What feels new and

00:01:43.840 what feels to me a little bit Hitler youth adjacent with a specific focus on what's drawing

00:01:49.420 young women into what they'd call not republicanism, but the MAGA movement. And today to do that are

00:01:55.860 two of my best friends. If you listen to this podcast, you are very familiar with them. And I

00:02:00.760 am so happy we could all be in the same Zoom at the same time. Taylor Lorenz and Kat Tenbarge.

00:02:08.520 Welcome to both of you. Thanks for having us. Yeah, I'm so excited to be here.

00:02:13.840 The group chat has made it onto the pod.

00:02:17.280 I have announced in previous podcasts that Taylor, who used to work at the New York Times

00:02:21.500 and the Washington Post and a number of traditional publications, is now on her own as a freelance

00:02:26.920 journalist.

00:02:27.620 And Kat, who was previously at NBC News, is also finally on her own.

00:02:32.940 Congratulations.

00:02:34.660 Oh my gosh.

00:02:35.440 Thank you so much.

00:02:36.560 It has been a crazy day, but what better way to top it off than with this podcast?

00:02:41.700 We can say whatever we want now.

00:02:43.840 both cats and taylor's newsletters will be linked in the description of this episode

00:02:52.600 they are both doing some of the best reporting on and about the internet so please go subscribe

00:02:58.420 and if you would like to support this show we are over on patreon where cat and i recently finished

00:03:05.440 a four part six hour long exploration excavation investigation of by sister the homophobic

00:03:14.400 vitamin gummy debacle that transformed youtube and social media as we know it that's on patreon

00:03:20.920 that will also be in the description we could have gone for six more hours and in the future

00:03:26.020 we might so that's true as is tradition on this podcast i usually start any episode with a really

00:03:34.800 specific event, thing that happens online, thing that happens in person. And then we kind of

00:03:40.320 extract from that broader conclusions about shifts that are happening in the world. And

00:03:45.620 where I want to start today is this New York Magazine cover, which really made waves on the

00:03:52.180 internet. New York Mag is really good at like a very powerful striking graphic because they also

00:03:57.500 had like the famous Nepo Babies cover. So I'm like, they're really good at creating like a

00:04:03.680 little zeitgeisty magazine cover the cruel kids table i was so over oh it's it's just crazy how

00:04:12.840 splashy this was i was uh i was at sundance film festival in utah this past weekend and at one

00:04:19.440 point like my friends and i were sitting around a hot tub being like so did you see the cruel kids

00:04:23.400 table it's like nobody in the year 2025 talks about magazine covers this way and it was such

00:04:30.660 a big deal do one of you want to visually just describe this cover for people who are only

00:04:35.600 listening to the audio version of this well the first thing I have to say about this cover like

00:04:40.120 there's always a point on a picture where your eye is like drawn to this part of the image like

00:04:44.060 that's good photography is like having a part of the image that you are immediately drawn toward

00:04:48.520 and for me it's the woman in the bottom left who is wearing this very like no offense if it's not

00:04:55.400 sheen but like I looked at this and I was like I think that dress is from like sheen or a different

00:05:01.100 retailer like it or it's like inspired by those trends and you know she's very beautiful the fact

00:05:08.780 that it's this really elaborate extravagant party and the clothes are so inspired by like

00:05:15.320 sheen trends just really stood out to me immediately yeah I mean the picture itself

00:05:21.680 is like it's it's taken from above because this was a two-story party that was a downstairs and

00:05:26.480 then this balcony so it looks like the picture was taken from above it's this aerial shot almost

00:05:31.540 of this like super crowded party uh where you just see a bunch of white faces kind of crowded

00:05:38.380 together there were black people there they were not in this picture um and like kat said you sort

00:05:44.400 of your eye gravitates towards this group of five young people in the corner kind of all looking

00:05:49.860 together. All the people in the photo are looking together off screen at something probably on the

00:05:55.040 big projector screen that they had up there. And so you have a couple of guys, one in a tuxedo,

00:06:00.560 one in a suit, one in this really corny American flag hat. And then two girls crowded behind the 0.93

00:06:07.600 main girl, the star of the show, this 21-year-old SMU sorority president who, like Kat mentioned, 1.00

00:06:15.100 is is like first of all super some sort of spray tan or something going on and and uh yeah some

00:06:20.900 kind of like polyester dress that's the thing that jumped out to me too it's like the the kind

00:06:27.040 of sheen off of the polyester is so distinctly inexpensive and i don't say that as a dig i'm

00:06:33.160 wearing like a four dollar tank top right now that came in a pack of three but it is funny considering

00:06:38.540 the context of i think what all of these people are trying to achieve aesthetically i mean look

00:06:42.960 I wore so many hideous Forever 21 dresses in college. So this is definitely not shaming some

00:06:49.140 college girl for wearing fast fashion. But I think what is sort of interesting about it is you have

00:06:55.040 all of these young people sort of cosplaying wealth and cosplaying a specific sort of wealth,

00:07:01.120 especially just the venue that they chose. It was this old school downtown DC venue with two stories,

00:07:08.840 beautiful giant crystal chandeliers, red velvet walls, like dark leather booths. Like it was

00:07:15.200 meant to look like something from another era. But then you have this like garish kind of fashion

00:07:21.860 on top of it where it's like, it's the Shein dress, but it's also like the, the kind of the

00:07:27.280 rental suit with the MAGA hat. And like, it's just, it looks so there's something uncanny about it.

00:07:35.620 I feel like it's very difficult to separate from influencer fashion culture.

00:07:41.160 Like, it's such a mirror image of what has become popular online.

00:07:46.100 It's just like the fact that it is within this setting of like, we love Donald Trump.

00:07:52.480 Like, we love authoritarianism and traditionalism specifically.

00:07:56.100 Like, we love traditional American values.

00:07:59.420 But so much of the aesthetic is inspired by just what's simply like trendy online.

00:08:04.580 Which is really the opposite of sort of traditional, quote unquote, conservative fashion. I mean, especially in the 80s, which these people love to sort of mimic the aesthetics of 80s Republicans. But that is a time when the preppy handbook was trending, right? And it was everyone's Bible. And it was this book that they all read, which quite literally describes like how to dress, what to wear.

00:08:28.080 And it was very much about like conservatism and modesty and, you know, wearing your mother's hand-me-down Brooks Brothers gown and shopping at Ralph Lauren and things like that.

00:08:39.940 It was not about fashion.

00:08:41.520 It was actually anti-trend.

00:08:43.740 And that is not what we're seeing from this new generation of MAGA.

00:08:49.060 As part of the story for New York Magazine, there was a photo shoot that went along with it.

00:08:53.140 The outline, which I have shared with Taylor and Kat, includes some of these photos.

00:08:58.080 Actually, do one of you want to describe the photos?

00:08:59.640 Yeah, the one with like the girl with the cigarette in her hand and stuff.

00:09:02.440 It's a vape.

00:09:03.200 Oh, it's a vape.

00:09:03.800 Oh, my God.

00:09:04.500 Even better.

00:09:06.760 Well, I will say there wasn't a photo shoot.

00:09:08.740 The photographer was kind of roaming around the party, kind of like in the moment party

00:09:13.740 photos.

00:09:14.160 You can tell how sloppy drunk all of these 20-year-olds are. 1.00

00:09:17.540 This poor girl, like she's got a baseball hat on. 1.00

00:09:20.940 She's got her phone up. 1.00

00:09:21.840 She's got her tongue out. 1.00

00:09:23.220 She's holding a giant glass of white wine while her dress is slipping down. 0.97

00:09:26.360 it also looks like some sort of Shein situation. And she's holding a vape. And then another one,

00:09:31.940 you've got this blonde girl with her hair in a ponytail kind of leaning over this table where 1.00

00:09:38.120 clearly they were selling bottle service tables and stuff. You see this sloppy drunk guy with a 0.51

00:09:43.900 soaking wet button down. And this girl's leaning over and she's got this lace bustier, however you 0.95

00:09:50.020 say it and like it's puckering and about to snap like it just looks so poorly made but all of the

00:09:56.620 photos are like very very high contrast there's a kind of like mocking nature to it what was so

00:10:03.720 interesting to me was the range of very varied reactions that people had to these photos and

00:10:10.820 this cover where a lot of online conservatives were like we're you know basically celebrated

00:10:16.740 these photos and the whole story and they were like we're the cool kids like look how much fun

00:10:21.880 these rich young beautiful people are having they saw it as sort of a moment of celebration

00:10:29.020 whereas a lot of other people including myself saw especially the style of photography which is so

00:10:34.740 high contrast and clearly the photos that they selected especially including like up looking at

00:10:39.020 this this guy with like vodka dripping down his shirt like it looks like so silly I think this

00:10:45.680 was well encapsulated in this tweet that went pretty viral where one person wrote the roaring

00:10:50.400 20s are back in all caps which like I think we're just confusing eras here because I didn't get 20s

00:10:58.300 from any of this but Taylor you were there yes which by the way I was like watching your Instagram

00:11:06.100 story that night and without any explanation you just started posting photos of like Bryce Hall

00:11:11.920 against like a Donald Trump backdrop.

00:11:14.520 And I was like, Taylor, what are you doing? 1.00

00:11:15.800 Like, you're always doing shit. 1.00

00:11:16.860 I was with Riley Gaines, I know. 1.00

00:11:19.360 I guess what I want to ask you is,

00:11:20.960 are the Roaring Twenties back?

00:11:23.840 I love someone quote tweeted that and was like,

00:11:26.220 do you guys know what happened

00:11:27.240 at the end of the Roaring Twenties?

00:11:28.660 Does anyone remember that?

00:11:30.360 It's like how they like,

00:11:31.600 I feel like didn't finish The Great Gatsby.

00:11:33.840 Like, I think a lot of these people,

00:11:35.700 they are like taking the wrong lessons away.

00:11:38.480 Yeah, it was a bizarre scene.

00:11:40.420 I mean, I was there to write this feature for Rolling Stone, which I wrote about. And obviously,

00:11:45.640 because I cover these people, I mean, many of these people are people that I've covered for

00:11:49.380 years. Bryce actually came up to me and we were talking about the Sway House because he was also

00:11:54.300 with Mark Moran, I don't know how you say his name, from FBoy Island. If you guys know that

00:11:59.780 guy, he's like a finance influencer. But there was just so many people at this party that I was like,

00:12:04.060 oh yeah, I haven't seen you in a minute. I didn't realize you're fascist now. I covered

00:12:09.840 your content house in 2018 or something and here you are but it was again these like young people

00:12:15.780 trying to sort of cosplay a different era and everyone was so drunk another piece of content

00:12:22.180 that went really viral from this party was a picture that was tweeted by one of the other

00:12:27.700 girls on the cover not the 21 year old girl from smu even though she is in this photo but it's

00:12:33.540 another one of these girls, blonde, white, young, beautiful. It's her and three other girls over

00:12:39.820 there. It's four girls standing in this photo. And she writes, this is the new right. And I just 0.90

00:12:46.920 saw this and I was like, these are four young white women. They are thin. And I tweeted this 0.98

00:12:53.980 and people got really mad at me. I was like, I'm looking at like a Hitler youth camp photo. And

00:12:59.040 it's kind of the essence of what I want to talk about in this episode. So much of the aesthetic

00:13:03.260 around what is cool in like the MAGA youth movement now and what's not only is it cosplay

00:13:09.620 as like old money that a lot of these people don't come from but it's also like this emphasis

00:13:15.040 on yes on Eurocentric beauty standards but like on sameness when I saw this photo where she was

00:13:21.420 like this is the new right I literally I thought I was going crazy I started looking at these photos

00:13:27.020 from uh Hitler youth camps which I put in the outline they would have these like ones where

00:13:31.060 they like taught all the girls gymnastics so they could perform routines for the Nazis. 0.55

00:13:34.860 And it's just like thin white woman after thin white woman after thin white woman, 0.75

00:13:39.340 like dancing in their little ballet slippers.

00:13:41.540 Ballet, which is like ballet core is also a thing that's now in.

00:13:44.680 Yeah, I tweeted, fascism is fascism.

00:13:46.660 The new right simply wears Fashion Nova.

00:13:48.840 People were not happy with me for that.

00:13:50.200 But I think it's a valid take. 0.99

00:13:51.820 I thought that was a good take and correct.

00:13:53.380 Looking at these young women, it really transports me to my college experience where I

00:14:00.260 worked in a like student newsroom where we covered politics in Ohio and I had a fellow student who I

00:14:09.140 worked with who was beautiful uh white blonde woman and this woman who I'm thinking of after 0.79

00:14:17.160 she graduated school she went on to work for like Ron DeSantis and like in big Republican offices 0.95

00:14:23.500 I think she also interned at the Heritage Foundation and she like in college she just

00:14:29.720 integrated so seamlessly into our very diverse social circle that was like very leftist very

00:14:35.020 liberal lots of like people who did not later become conservative or were not conservative

00:14:39.360 and I feel like she was the minority but when I look at pictures like this I'm like ah this group

00:14:45.180 of people has desired and has now become sort of like the majority thing driving the culture

00:14:51.820 Because in college, when you would go to big parties, there was like a liberal culture at the time. And what I feel like MAGA youth have been trying to do and are arguably doing is they've taken that majority culture and they've now associated it with their political ideology much more overtly, obviously, than I think a lot of like liberal college students even eight years ago did.

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00:16:55.320 Now, let's get back to the episode.

00:16:57.860 so we've started at this event that was then the subject of this new york magazine cover

00:17:04.940 and i want to broaden a little bit and we've been kind of doing this anyway but into the fetishization

00:17:11.100 of trad culture and we've all talked about trad wives right we all know nara smith and we all know

00:17:17.820 like you know this this sort of uh facade of traditional living that involves like first of

00:17:23.420 making like six to seven figures on your popular TikTok account while like baking bread for seven

00:17:28.940 hours a day, even though you have an assistant. Tradwives, I feel like have become sort of like 0.94

00:17:32.760 a cultural punchline, but on a less absurd level than spending seven hours a day to like make

00:17:38.340 homemade chewing gum for your children. It feels like on some level, like this whole youth movement

00:17:44.680 is like a similar performance to what tradwives have been. Well, I feel like this performance 0.98

00:17:50.900 of conservatism is sort of it's a lot of people that that just sort of want to hop on the bandwagon

00:17:56.400 i guess like i mean especially with these influencers like they're just they're not like

00:18:01.820 you said they're not old money people like they're not and we can get into like that aesthetic and

00:18:06.100 stuff conservatism is conservatism it always has the sort of the same aesthetic because it is a

00:18:11.360 eurocentric white thin you kind of know what these people look like there's republican hair republican

00:18:17.360 and makeup. You know what I'm talking about when I say that. Everyone at Fox has it. So I think

00:18:22.160 these young people are sort of trying to cosplay into that. But I think it's also just in the

00:18:28.080 culture. We're moving towards a more conservative culture right now. And so you're seeing that play

00:18:32.460 out aesthetically in the rise of a lot of these fashion trends. I wrote about quiet luxury and

00:18:38.680 the clean girl aesthetic or just some of these other trends that are sort of associated with

00:18:45.020 the whiteness of so many of these micro trends. Well, this kind of comes to a head at another 0.70

00:18:51.720 tweet that I saw on my timeline. My entire thought process is guided by viral tweets that make me

00:18:56.120 upset. But a tweet came across my timeline that just made me roll my eyes so hard, but I didn't

00:19:05.620 really think twice about it. Someone by the name of Miss White tweeted, casual parties at Lake

00:19:11.920 Como with a video of what looks like a ballroom and a bunch of young people in their 20s you know

00:19:19.880 the men are wearing tuxedos with black bow ties there are some women in like silky dresses who

00:19:25.980 are like dancing it's like there's like piano music in the background and I was like okay

00:19:30.540 whatever like I'm looking at a video of a country club or something and then I learned that that

00:19:34.960 was not the case take it away taylor it's not the case i wrote an article about this but the people

00:19:42.520 in this video pay 6 000 euros a year which is almost ten thousand dollars i think to be part

00:19:48.120 of an instagram old money club where they all dress up together and they rent out these sort

00:19:54.020 of different locations to cosplay as old money and shoot old money content nice and i thought it

00:20:02.560 was hilarious like if there weren't fascist undertones to this like i could appreciate

00:20:09.820 the bit like i love someone who hustles i love like if you're not hurting anybody i love like

00:20:16.600 an extreme facade like paying six thousand dollars it's it's amazing it's also just so

00:20:22.980 funny because it doesn't need to cost that much like everyone is like you know you can just like

00:20:26.540 dress up like this and like hire a photographer for like way cheaper they're totally being scammed

00:20:32.060 they're being scanned but and also just the website is hilarious like it is it is this like

00:20:37.780 gen z e-commerce and entrepreneur and an old money content creator and you know so i wrote

00:20:44.400 this feature actually for town and country um almost two years ago when the old money trend

00:20:48.740 started to kick off and almost no one who participates in this trend is old none of them

00:20:54.420 actually are old quote-unquote old money anyone that's actually quote-unquote old money does not

00:20:58.260 have an Instagram, like they are not posting on Instagram at all. Like they're not on the internet,

00:21:03.020 let's be real. So it was just so funny because these are all like hustle bro type people. And

00:21:08.320 when you look at the website, it's riddled with spelling errors, but it's selling this like

00:21:12.440 aesthetic and this dream. And I thought it was interesting too, that all the members highlighted

00:21:15.940 on the website are men, but they have women in their pictures. I'm like, are these women like

00:21:20.020 paying members or what? But, um, well, wait, but you haven't even said what the name of the club 1.00

00:21:24.220 is oh yeah the club which again by the way does has no physical location they just like rent out

00:21:29.800 ballrooms to shoot instagram content and it's called the tuxedo society which is also the most

00:21:36.180 corny name ever it's like well also people don't call it a tuxedo they call it a whatever they call 0.94

00:21:43.240 it what do rich people call it they call it a fucking um i don't know a dinner jacket right 0.84

00:21:47.520 what um hold on they call it i just want to confirm it oh like a oh no i'm thinking of 0.97

00:21:53.340 smoking shoes or do they call it a smoking jacket or is that not a thing no no no a dinner jacket

00:21:58.340 a dinner jacket no they call it a dinner jacket it's just the name tuxedo society tickled me so

00:22:05.940 much and like the front banner on the website which by the way since you reported on this

00:22:10.220 they've made the website private which i thought was funny

00:22:12.460 my impact journalism i'm shutting i'm shutting the membership down of the tuxedo society guys

00:22:20.720 it's over but thankfully we have screenshots and the banner says over like a stock photo of like

00:22:30.040 some guys outside of some country club the most exclusive club dedicated to the finest experiences

00:22:36.460 in the most iconic places of all time apply for membership like what does that even mean

00:22:43.000 it really it really tickled me it's such gobbledygook there's also so many grammatical

00:22:50.080 errors i'm like this reminds me of like a mashup of two things one that fake airplane where you

00:22:58.640 can the fake private jet set where you can go if you're like an influencer or you're an aspiring

00:23:02.920 influencer you can like go and take pictures and like the model of a fake private jet and like

00:23:07.380 people on instagram you can come to recognize the jet and like see it on influencers posts

00:23:11.760 it's like that concept mixed with andrew tate and like the cobra tate academy whole shtick

00:23:19.060 it's like making money off of this desire to project wealth which is what so much of influencer

00:23:25.360 culture has always been and there was a post i saw in blue sky recently that was like the desire

00:23:32.140 to hoard wealth and like hoarding wealth is inherently like conservative it's inherently

00:23:37.540 like going to take you down a path of fascism and i was like oh well this all it all makes so much

00:23:43.720 sense like that influencer culture has reached this very overtly conservative point it's like

00:23:49.600 of course even though influencers for a long time uh projected liberal politics to be popular and

00:23:56.060 relevant down like below that they were always operating out of conservative influence like

00:24:00.920 impulses fundamentally influencers quote-unquote content creators they're small business owners

00:24:06.060 right and small business owners in america have always leaned and voted conservative because you

00:24:12.240 do end up becoming quite conservative when you are a small business owner, you want your taxes

00:24:16.500 to be like, usually a lot of times you end up voting for these sorts of policies. And I think

00:24:21.200 like you said, also just the aspirational nature of it. I think it's funny too, that like as new

00:24:27.820 money wealth became so much more common on the internet, especially throughout the 2010s with

00:24:33.300 these people like these dropshipping entrepreneurs and whatever, now we have people chasing this

00:24:37.600 other sort of type of wealth that is inherently more exclusive. Anybody can get the private jet

00:24:44.320 photo. Now we want the Lake Como elite. It's sort of this next level of wealth, which they

00:24:53.020 actually will never be able to access because it is completely shut off from social media.

00:24:58.380 The people in that world are inherently anti-social media. I mean, it's like why the

00:25:03.240 richest people don't want themselves out there. It's like, you know, they don't want the public

00:25:08.180 scrutiny. Yeah, that's right. I mean, you know, just like in my life, I've met like some people

00:25:14.440 who are extraordinarily wealthy. And the thing about them is like, they all have private Instagrams

00:25:19.760 with 200 followers. They aren't posting every little thing. And ContraPoints made a video

00:25:25.860 that talked about this really succinctly, which is basically just that people who grow up with

00:25:31.040 immense amounts of wealth, like people who are taking private jets everywhere, people who are 0.89

00:25:35.020 living the lives that these like TikTokers are pretending to live because it's on trend right 0.92

00:25:39.460 now. They know not to advertise it because it'll make people jealous and you don't want to have 1.00

00:25:44.280 jealousy towards you. It's the whole thing with the evil eye. They know that like posting photos

00:25:48.740 of their home puts them at a safety risk. It's also about exclusivity and privacy. And it's very

00:25:55.740 much about tightly controlling your group. I mean, these are people that also do not want

00:26:01.320 random interlopers knowing who they are and trying to grift off them. That's why all those

00:26:08.020 nice clubs in New York City that are actually like old money, like doubles and stuff, right?

00:26:11.840 They don't allow photography. They want to remain anonymous. They want to kind of fly below the

00:26:17.500 radar because it's about exclusivity. And the internet is inherently not about exclusivity.

00:26:22.280 it's about like constructing an image for consumption. So it's sort of at odds. Also,

00:26:28.680 if you're raised in that sort of like waspy, like true quote unquote old money culture or like old 0.86

00:26:34.340 sort of European culture, it's also like there's this idea of like modesty and not putting yourself 0.74

00:26:40.180 out there and attracting any attention. This is why this was so sort of against influencer culture

00:26:44.840 to begin with, because it's about like being private and not centering yourself publicly

00:26:51.580 for consumption the other example i put of this kind of like performative old money thing which

00:26:57.400 just it really just tickles me was this like kind of low level right wing trying to be influencer 0.94

00:27:04.920 person on twitter her name is mad her name is madame tamu she tweeted two photos with the 0.97

00:27:12.100 caption degens with an air of aristocracy and the first one is like a mirror selfie where she's in

00:27:19.440 an elevator again looking with like a fashion nova type black dress and like a faux fur shawl

00:27:26.040 and then the second one is at like a house party it's like it looks like one of these like new

00:27:31.020 build apartments or it's like they make everything look really modern but it's also very clearly like

00:27:36.160 cheaply made and like like the ikea table but like they're all wearing like ball gowns and

00:27:41.940 like tuxedos and there's my favorite detail here is there's an air fryer in the back

00:27:47.120 somebody called out what did the whiteboard say yes there's a whiteboard in the back

00:27:53.820 which in like you know messy handwriting says goals slash to do and the first one

00:28:01.000 the first thing on that list is secure the bag right imagine right nothing says old money

00:28:07.660 nothing says old money like a whiteboard in your kitchen that says secure the bag

00:28:13.660 this literally is very reminiscent of my own actual apartment that i live in

00:28:19.600 totally first of all this is like a this kitchen is nicer than mine like i'm not hating on it it's

00:28:24.460 just so i have a galley kitchen like no it's so like it's so like newly gentrified like part of

00:28:31.860 town where it's like we just did a slapdash dot and everything is plastic vinyl like not real

00:28:36.840 there's not an ounce of real wood in that entire place a hundred percent i one time a picture of

00:28:42.660 my dishwasher went viral on reddit in the apartment i currently live in i know ridiculous but

00:28:47.900 one time a picture of my dishwasher went viral on reddit

00:28:51.860 people were dragging the build of my apartment like and it was really i'm glad that i know all

00:28:59.920 this information but they were like you cannot open your dishwasher right after the dish cycle

00:29:04.680 is done because your cabinets are not made of wood they're made of like cheap wood scrap and

00:29:10.560 they were like, if steam gets on them too often, they will crumble. And I was like, oh, I live in

00:29:15.880 a house of cards. Okay, good to know. At least you had a dishwasher in New York City. I feel

00:29:20.720 like that's luxury. No, it's true. I should be in this photo. I'm like, do these people know

00:29:27.640 what the word aristocracy means? Like, could they describe it? I don't think they could.

00:29:32.840 No, but it's also like, I think it's so telling that this is what they aspire to, which is this 0.99

00:29:37.100 repressive horrible white supremacist fucked up culture right like it's like that the things that 0.98

00:29:44.340 they're aspiring to is this highly regressive class system yeah and and I feel like that's 0.99

00:29:50.600 kind of like the getting into the bigger picture of what we're talking about which is like if you

00:29:55.280 want to like put on like a nice dress or like a cheap version of something that looks like a nice

00:30:01.540 dress like do it like I don't care if you want to wear like a faux fur shawl do it I don't care

00:30:05.240 The point of this is not to be like, like, honestly, like pay some somewhere to give you a nice Instagram photo backdrop.

00:30:12.600 I don't I don't care. I wouldn't care if the undertone of all of this.

00:30:19.420 Right. The cool kids table, the tuxedos with vodka spilled on them, the Sheehan dresses that are supposed to look like 80s Republican dresses, kind of.

00:30:27.020 it's like the backdrop of all of this is everyone like faking the aesthetic of of like white

00:30:33.700 supremacy and fascism which is what they want that's the only reason i'm making an episode

00:30:37.440 if people if people are dressing in a way that i found off-putting like that's that's that's a

00:30:41.720 tweet for the group chat yeah it's not about what they wear and also by the way anybody can wear

00:30:46.200 anyone can dress like that not all people that dress like super like preppy 80s style right are

00:30:52.600 like fascist or conservatives. I think it's just interesting to look at the resurgence of this

00:30:58.800 specific sort of 80s style Republican aesthetic alongside the rise of all of these other aesthetics

00:31:05.160 that really center whiteness coupled with the rise of conservative ideologies. And also, by the way,

00:31:11.400 the people that are dressing in these ways and pushing these aesthetics are also espousing

00:31:18.120 right-wing politics. So I just feel like it's important to like talk about like all of it

00:31:23.880 together. You know what I mean? Because individually it's fine. And also, I mean,

00:31:27.700 I wrote about this in my piece too, Matt, I don't know if you saw it, but like there was this

00:31:31.540 fashion expert, I think they spoke to the Guardian talking about just like in certain economic times

00:31:36.040 and under certain economic conditions or when we're seeing certain political movements, like

00:31:40.120 we do see aesthetic trends rise around those political movements. And so much of fashion is

00:31:47.560 tied with politics and the political sort of ideology of the moment. And so I think it's just

00:31:52.480 interesting to unpack. Something that I keep coming back to when I look at like these young

00:31:57.080 conservatives now that like we're in Trump's second term and they have this air of like,

00:32:02.280 we won, like we got what we wanted. It's like when you look at what a lot of them seem to have

00:32:08.560 clearly wanted, it's that they wanted to have the direction and flow of popular culture, like

00:32:17.560 reinforce a system of power that was beneficial to them. So like, with these influencer types,

00:32:25.420 if you go back 10 years ago, they were engaging with popular culture and succeeding at it.

00:32:30.760 But popular culture at the time valued more diversity, it valued more liberal politics,

00:32:36.580 It valued inclusivity and social justice and things that like didn't truly benefit the members of this group that we're seeing now.

00:32:45.740 And so their aim and their goal was to dominate popular culture and then turn it conservative so that it would benefit them at the expense of all of those other people who previously had this hold on the culture.

00:33:00.120 And so I think it's also disturbing that so many people who are just kind of like blindly consuming like this conservative content sphere are not like thinking it through that direction because it leaves people more vulnerable to falling into the same thought patterns.

00:33:16.360 like people who just consume a lot of popular culture uncritically now are getting way way way

00:33:23.140 more conservative messaging than before and it's like soft power in terms of how shaping how america

00:33:29.540 thinks and how america ultimately like votes and chooses to enforce power and also like you said

00:33:34.980 it is all of these sort of coded messages and i think we're seeing it also come out with beauty

00:33:38.940 standards that have regressed back it's like thin is in again like you know it is this very like

00:33:45.320 Eurocentric beauty, white. I mean, Raquel DeBono, who co-hosted the influencer party,

00:33:52.140 she leads this whole movement called Make America Hot Again, which is just about really just pushing 0.89

00:33:56.860 Eurocentric beauty standards and eliminating quote unquote fatties and people like that. 0.78

00:34:03.040 They also just all want to say slurs. They really just want to say slurs. I can't explain how many 0.96

00:34:08.380 slurs I heard at that party. They just want to say it. Like you said, Kat, they've wanted to

00:34:12.680 feel centered in culture. And they're too young to remember when they were centered in culture.

00:34:17.580 They didn't live through the 80s or the 90s when they were centered in culture. And so they feel

00:34:22.360 like they haven't had their moment and they want to regress the culture back to focus around them.

00:34:28.740 And that's why they feel like they want to go back. And you see this, I think, resurgence even

00:34:32.280 of the early aughts culture in terms of that male, that sort of chauvinistic male culture,

00:34:37.800 where it's like, let's call women slurs, let's, you know, bring back the R word, all these things

00:34:42.760 were normalized in 2005. Like you said, it's soft power. And it's kind of this messaging that then

00:34:48.340 it's very easy to sort of amass an audience around. I think that's like a theme with all

00:34:53.980 of this kind of romanticizing the past is that the people who are doing the romanticizing, right,

00:34:59.140 the women in these photos, the women who were at that party, and then on the New York magazine

00:35:04.320 cover they didn't live through the time that they are romanticizing it's like the whole make america

00:35:10.320 great again thing it's like we don't want to go back to the 1950s most of the people voting by

00:35:15.340 the way were not adults in the 1950s they were not women in the 1950s all these trad wife influencers

00:35:20.140 they were never around when women didn't have another option right absolutely and that's i mean

00:35:25.140 that's the trad wives and it's also just like these college students who are like i want to be

00:35:30.020 had an elegant party in lake como effortless in my dress and we're wearing i don't know brooks

00:35:37.240 brothers i don't even know what these people are trying to wear but but it's like you're you're

00:35:42.840 romanticizing a time from when like you couldn't own a credit card another thing that bothers me

00:35:47.020 so much about this is it's like it's reactionary toward a status quo that never truly existed

00:35:53.440 because it's like when you look at white eurocentric beauty ideals and standards those have always

00:35:59.480 always been what is the dominant force in culture there has never been a true time when like these

00:36:06.700 people did not have the power that they crave their biggest issue is that like marginalized

00:36:12.300 people started to make very small inroads toward progress and so they felt the need to like crush

00:36:18.960 it and be 10 times harder um because it's like this whole idea that like thin people were

00:36:24.040 discriminated against like everyone it's ridiculous it's like actually like fat people

00:36:30.100 have never been treated with dignity and respect in the past like many decades of america um in 0.92

00:36:37.180 american culture like we've never had a time where obesity was truly glorified um it's like

00:36:43.880 it's a lie to like create this like reactionary fervor yeah it's the whole thing of like there

00:36:49.980 was a brief moment like six months ago where conservative men figured out who sydney sweeney

00:36:55.760 was yeah and then they were and then they were like wokeness has died under the heel of sydney

00:37:00.620 sweeney's beauty and it was like it was like okay you could just think she's hot like you don't have

00:37:06.060 to be insane about it i i also think and like they do this repeatedly when there is a white woman

00:37:13.700 who is really dominant in the culture taylor swift being the perfect example conservatives

00:37:19.280 try to claim that woman, whether she wants them to or not. And like, because Taylor Swift, for 0.94

00:37:24.780 example, has publicly been like, I'm a Democrat, I vote for Democrats, I endorse them. Conservatives

00:37:30.700 then make like deep fakes of her supporting Trump. Because when when a white woman is culturally 1.00

00:37:36.180 powerful, conservatives want to take her power and rebrand it as like conservatism's power. 1.00

00:37:43.060 You mentioned the clean girl aesthetic. And I know, especially for young women listening to this podcast, just the term clean girl aesthetic probably like raises the hairs on your neck. 0.99

00:37:54.260 The clean girl aesthetic is a sort of fashion trend that really came to dominate TikTok over

00:38:00.360 the last couple of years. Its hallmarks are, you know, like beige suits, thin white women

00:38:08.600 wearing gold jewelry, big sunglasses, minimal makeup, just like a little like cream blush and 0.67

00:38:14.780 like laminated eyebrows. It's very effortless. It's very white. And a couple of years ago,

00:38:20.840 and Kat, you sent me this essay. So thank you. Steffi Sow wrote for her substack an essay titled

00:38:28.120 White Women Want Their Power Back. And it basically talked about how when she was coming 1.00

00:38:34.100 of age in the mid 2010s, it was cool. And every white woman was basically trying to look black 0.99

00:38:41.200 with cornrows, with BBLs, with lip filler, with spray tans that just like bordered on the edge

00:38:47.840 of blackface and since then she writes many of the remnants of this era have fallen out of vogue

00:38:54.340 super out of vogue everywhere you look there's a new aesthetic to aspire to clean girl coastal

00:39:00.780 grandmother old money beige mom vanilla girl frazzled frazzled 2000s english woman

00:39:09.480 hard-boiled egg girls i'm not on tiktok i don't know what

00:39:13.960 that all fixate on one thing whiteness it's such a good piece I think about this essay

00:39:22.600 Stephanie for listening to this I love you um it's so good I think about it all the time it's

00:39:27.320 one of my primary bookmarks because I always want to come back to it it was so prescient

00:39:31.240 because she picked up on this thing which is that white women are like becoming more conservative

00:39:36.080 um and the culture at large is becoming more conservative and I feel like Kim Kardashian

00:39:41.860 and this has been much discussed but like she really exemplifies this um and the Kardashians 0.70

00:39:48.320 in general the way that they created an artificial body type that was reminiscent of black women's

00:39:54.900 features and then artificially undid that body type so that they could conform to like a stick 0.99

00:40:01.160 thin like glorifying white women whole shtick and that extends into so many facets of like their 1.00

00:40:07.280 personal lives in their public brand but kim kardashian in her era where she was more overtly 1.00

00:40:13.100 appropriating black women she was like i support hillary clinton and then now that she's in her

00:40:19.080 like thin marilyn monroe era she's like melania on my instagram story right love the fashion 1.00

00:40:25.040 a lot of these women who do these conservative heel turns are like it's about the fashion like 1.00

00:40:31.500 jessica reed krauss is like i love the drama and the palish intrigue of the white house and i love 1.00

00:40:36.920 the fashion. And also I support Trump. And if you don't like unfollow me now, I mean, I think this

00:40:42.660 just goes back to what we were saying earlier, which is that there has been an evolution. And

00:40:46.600 when we had a more liberal culture, we did have a more sort of slightly more diverse beauty

00:40:52.200 standard. It was always very Eurocentric and white and cat said like thin has never been out. Let's

00:40:58.460 be real. Like models have all generally looked the same, but it was just like, Hey, maybe if

00:41:03.920 slightly diverse, you might appear as like the diversity hire in an ad campaign or something

00:41:09.580 for Dove. But now we're seeing the complete backlash to that. And it's interesting. I was

00:41:15.420 talking to a conservative influencer recently who was telling me that a bunch of brands are now

00:41:21.000 trying to do these conservative influencer outreach campaigns. And now brands have realized that

00:41:25.820 this is what's in. They have the culture. One brand, one women's beauty brand hosted a big

00:41:32.040 roundtable event for all of these super, super right-wing women influencers. 0.71

00:41:37.800 Wait, which brand?

00:41:38.980 I might write. I'm trying to write about it.

00:41:41.040 All right. All right. All right.

00:41:42.360 Subscribe to userbag.co because I am going to write about some of this. But let me tell you

00:41:46.540 something. They're not the only one. All of these brands are on board with it. All of these brands,

00:41:51.980 their goal is to sell things. And they're thrilled that these unattainable beauty standards are back,

00:41:57.840 by the way like this is like a lucrative aesthetic for them it's a very unattainable aesthetic and i

00:42:03.440 think a lot of companies are eager to work with this new generation of influencers that is

00:42:09.420 inherently very right way you know what else would be profitable for the beauty companies 0.88

00:42:13.840 if we reverted back to 2016 eyebrows when everyone looked like a drag queen that's what i want to go 1.00

00:42:19.220 back to like what happened to wearing six pounds of makeup and like baking powder into every pore 1.00

00:42:24.880 like i miss it baking okay but like the clean girl aesthetic does require a lot of like i mean

00:42:29.940 that's the irony it's like i feel like you have to buy more crap today than even in 2016 because

00:42:34.160 now you have to do this whole skincare routine which i feel like we didn't used to do no that's

00:42:40.640 so true in 2020 this is so good for the makeup industry in particular because in 2020 makeup

00:42:46.700 industry sales plummeted because people were like i'm not going out for this brief period of time

00:42:51.380 I'm not going to buy as much makeup.

00:42:52.940 So then it became skincare.

00:42:54.920 It became like, you don't wear makeup anymore?

00:42:57.020 We'll sell you $700 of skincare.

00:42:58.860 We can make it even more expensive because it's medically good for you.

00:43:01.880 And now they're bringing back the makeup again.

00:43:05.020 So now it's like 2016, you need to bake.

00:43:08.780 But also you need to have this $700 skincare routine.

00:43:11.520 And also you need filler. 0.98

00:43:13.380 And it's like conservatism is so good for the women's beauty industry.

00:43:18.220 It is like so great for them that this has happened.

00:43:21.380 i would like to take a quick break from the show to shout out factor for making this episode

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00:44:57.560 Thank you so much to Factor Meals for making my dinner last night and for sponsoring this episode.

00:45:03.880 Now, let's get back to the show. 0.77

00:45:07.160 I was looking at old photos of Kylie Jenner.

00:45:10.580 you know old like whatever eight-year-old photos of kylie jenner and then recent photos of kylie

00:45:15.620 jenner i know you mentioned the kardashians it's really quite jarring it's crazy that these are i

00:45:22.500 didn't even recognize her in some of these photos matt but i also remember exactly when these were

00:45:27.180 posted and i remember for a lot of young white girls that this was like the pinnacle of cool

00:45:33.140 oh absolutely everyone wanted to look like kylie kylie wanted to look like a black woman and now

00:45:38.920 kylie doesn't even want to look like kylie was also like it's also so funny like the men that

00:45:42.860 they date and surround themselves with because they dated a lot of black men early on in their

00:45:48.140 careers who is kylie jenner with now timothy chalamet like the one of the whitest white guys 0.67

00:45:54.760 ever they did like the scrawny white man is in for like all of us the way that they cohesively

00:46:01.300 move their lives as a group is terrifying i used to think the kardashians were so cool when i was 0.90

00:46:07.100 like a teenager now I think the Kardashians are some of the most terrifying people on the planet

00:46:11.460 like not only do they all dress the same not only do they all do plastic surgery the same

00:46:16.240 but they also date men the same way it's so weird like the fact that so many of them had

00:46:23.980 children with black men and now a lot of them are dating like the alt rock style guy like with

00:46:31.540 uh courtney and travis barker and then with kylie and timothy it's just so weird to me and so like

00:46:38.440 hyper surreal that that you would be able to like change your whole reality around what is trendy

00:46:44.920 people are probably gonna yell at me and they're gonna be like really like we did not sign up for

00:46:48.860 this podcast for you to talk about the kardashians like every other podcast and like i feel you but

00:46:55.420 in putting together some resources for this episode i did i was just looking at these you

00:47:01.000 know old photos of Kylie Jenner and new photos of Kylie Jenner where she dresses kind of she's

00:47:05.600 dressing like like an old money Lake Como princess now it is pretty disturbing to think about both

00:47:12.080 the fashion choices and you could see I don't know I think it is kind of fair to look at their

00:47:16.960 dating patterns and the men that they accumulate like handbags as signs of of their political

00:47:22.680 leanings well I think that Kardashians are such good sort of like chameleons in terms of culture

00:47:28.980 that looking at them is a good way to sort of get a pulse on like what is sort of mainstream

00:47:35.960 trending culture what is it trending towards just because they are so they will exploit any sort of

00:47:41.200 cultural trend to death they will ride that trend they will feed into that they're they're so in

00:47:47.060 line with whatever is working now currently on the internet and so i think they're just a useful

00:47:53.180 case study when you're looking at these broader aesthetic trends political trends and again it's

00:47:58.300 not surprising that a bunch of girls that grew up in calabasas would become republicans or

00:48:03.460 mean conservative like again like it's it's just that that now they can be sort of who they were

00:48:10.960 right like which is a bunch of rich kids i feel like the kardashians kind of like they exemplify

00:48:17.400 so much of this because i also feel like they were cosplaying old money before it was like cool to

00:48:23.260 cosplay old money because going back to the beginning of the kardashians they obviously

00:48:27.660 lived very different lifestyles and like looking at the family history of the Kardashians it's like

00:48:33.260 yeah now they're some of the wealthiest women on the planet but even that is not really true

00:48:40.040 because like we know like Kylie pretends to be a billionaire like she may be a billionaire now but 0.99

00:48:44.240 when she did the Forbes billionaire cover it was like actually not true she was not a billionaire

00:48:48.840 so it's like they're the original I have more money than I really have I'm projecting the

00:48:54.920 standard of what is cool. I also think it's interesting how the MAGA movement has adopted

00:49:00.540 a different aesthetic. Like, I mean, the MAGA movement from back, I was looking before this

00:49:05.440 episode of my photo roll back from 2016, when I was on the campaign trail with Trump and those

00:49:11.500 rallies. And it was a lot of poor people basically wearing like really wild outfits and like super

00:49:19.580 like glitzy. Everyone had like blinged out like MAGA sort of things. It just looked very, very

00:49:25.280 tacky. And Trump himself has this like sort of gold, like, you know, corny, like Vegas style

00:49:33.720 kind of aesthetic to himself that then his supporters mimic. And they were making a lot

00:49:38.580 out of the MAGA American flags. I know you posted about that crazy woman that shows up to the 1.00

00:49:43.020 Grammys, but like, uh, joy Villa, joy Villa, but that aesthetic of like using the MAGA flag itself, 1.00

00:49:49.800 this like cheap polyester flag to like make your shirts and things. And just the, you know, like

00:49:54.860 they were so tacky back then. And, and I don't think that the MAGA aesthetic had sort of like,

00:50:00.900 you know, it was seen as outside of the traditional Republican aesthetic, uh, you know,

00:50:05.740 that somebody like Mitt Romney or George Bush, you know, embodied, which is that old school

00:50:10.100 conservative Reagan sort of style aesthetic. But now, as I feel like the MAGA movement has become

00:50:16.520 more mainstream Republican, and as they've become more kind of like, they just took over the party,

00:50:23.380 basically, they have adopted the aesthetics, the traditional aesthetics of the traditional

00:50:29.180 Republican Party, where now you have people in their cashmere cable nets, and they're nice

00:50:34.360 blazers. And they're like, there's just a lot of them that are starting to dress like everyone at

00:50:38.840 this cruel kids party right like they are dressing they're dressing like traditional republicans

00:50:44.020 they look like traditional republicans we've touched on a lot of things but i do want to 0.97

00:50:48.400 mention before we move on from like the kardashian of it all is that while looking black as a white

00:50:56.520 person was cool like they did it and then they moved on and like i think it's important that

00:51:01.380 like to note that the people who benefited the most from that kind of brief shift in in beauty 0.94

00:51:07.560 standards to like the big butt and the big lips like black people did not ultimately benefit from 0.94

00:51:12.160 that you know i think like a lot of black people in black culture were exploited by that for people 0.98

00:51:17.200 like the kardashians to get rich of rich off of the argument at the time because obviously as this

00:51:23.860 era was ongoing people especially black people were calling it out for what it was which was

00:51:29.060 appropriation and at the time the refrain was always like it's not appropriation it's cultural

00:51:34.340 appreciation actually and now we know definitively that that was not true because we now have this

00:51:40.540 like current political moment that is and the people who who did this some of them who are now

00:51:45.460 openly more overtly conservative it's like of course you didn't appreciate black culture you

00:51:49.960 now are like i hate dei i hate critical race theory like clearly that was never the case 0.97

00:51:57.320 and throughout history white people have exploited um black people and black culture for their own 0.63

00:52:04.000 financial gain only in like an abusive dynamic so i feel like at this point now that we're in like

00:52:10.540 the conservative influencer era it's like so now fully all of that was a lie like all of your

00:52:16.700 defense is about i am progressive yeah because like they got their bbls removed they've deflated

00:52:22.500 their lips like they're done with that whole look and they can easily move on because again it was

00:52:28.920 only ever an aesthetic for them. So, you know, the Kardashians obviously can afford to buy into

00:52:36.220 whatever's trendy. They can get surgeries. They can deflate the surgeries. They can buy the nicest

00:52:40.560 version of whatever clothing is in at the time. They can afford to cosplay as black. They can 1.00

00:52:45.580 afford to revert back to old whiteness. But the average person cannot. And the young conservatives 0.97

00:52:51.920 who are, like we said, you know, cosplaying as these like old money children can't. And neither 0.93

00:52:58.200 can like normal people. Taylor, in your piece that you wrote about the, uh, what was it? The

00:53:04.620 tuxedo? Tuxedo society. The tuxedo society, which I'm going to link in the episode description,

00:53:11.220 but you wrote at a time when economic mobility is increasingly out of reach for young people,

00:53:17.280 cosplaying wealth has become more and more popular. Yeah. I feel like just that's what

00:53:21.840 so much of these aesthetics and this whole, I mean, the whole make America great again,

00:53:26.080 movement is about. It's like sort of yearning for this lifestyle that doesn't exist anymore.

00:53:31.100 Like this old money world, it doesn't really exist in America anymore. Like, yeah, you have

00:53:37.580 some like a sort of ever decreasing amount of like rich waspy families, but most people have 0.78

00:53:42.740 to hustle. There is no stability in the world. And so much of like, like it just doesn't exist. 0.90

00:53:48.900 Like old money doesn't exist. Like those people, by the way, are increasingly bankrupt. Like they

00:53:52.600 are. Old money lost a lot of their money in 2008, especially, if not sooner. Most of those people,

00:53:58.460 their third grandson lost all the wealth already on his weird e-commerce brand. Everyone else has

00:54:05.020 to have four different jobs. It is just increasingly hard. And same thing with the

00:54:11.840 trad wife stuff. All of these aesthetics, what they're selling is this time that is linked in

00:54:18.280 people's minds to stability or to a lifestyle of leisure and stability. It's like dress like a

00:54:23.080 housewife, right? Let's go back to the 50s. Women didn't have to work. You had a man to work for 0.75

00:54:29.220 you. It's like, okay, so then you're dependent on his job. You're still dependent on someone's

00:54:32.080 labor. You just don't have direct control of it. But it's like yearning and sort of trying to

00:54:36.520 aesthetically adopt and embody these leisure lives and these lives that just doesn't exist

00:54:44.740 in our economy because we live in a late capitalist hellscape. Everyone has to grind.

00:54:48.240 Everyone has to work. Everyone has to hustle. And I feel like people, they yearn for a time

00:54:52.880 when that didn't exist. And the reality is, is that time is gone. We have been robbed by

00:54:57.340 billionaires. Wealth disparity is at record high. That world is not coming back anytime soon and

00:55:02.900 certainly not by moving further to the right. So I just think it's interesting at this time

00:55:09.340 of such economic precarity when these people will never have. They can rent out a villa in Lake Como

00:55:15.780 and dress up in their Timu dresses, but they're never going to have that stability that they

00:55:22.520 crave. They're never going to ultimately be able to live the old money lifestyle because it just

00:55:27.460 doesn't exist. I think that's so central to this whole phenomenon, Taylor. And I feel like

00:55:34.460 what we were initially talking about with the clothes that the women were wearing in the New

00:55:38.920 york mag cover and how it looks like it's shein of course it might not be but like it is the

00:55:44.980 aesthetic of fast fashion because fast fashion is what most people choose to wear and it like

00:55:51.320 strikes me that you know a lot of the choices that these young conservatives are making are

00:55:57.060 very relatable even to people who are not conservative whatsoever i personally have

00:56:01.740 bought and wear fast fashion i don't think it's good i just know that like if i want to dress up

00:56:07.600 nice I can't actually afford a twelve hundred dollar dress I have to find some sort of dupe

00:56:13.260 of like nice clothing because I personally can't afford it so it's like I see why these people

00:56:20.000 these young people are choosing to basically like fantasize about a life that they will never lead

00:56:26.900 um because the resources just aren't there but it's harmful not only to themselves the fact that

00:56:33.360 they're choosing to live in this like fantasy world where being conservative will make them

00:56:37.040 rich it won't but they're also living this fantasy very obviously and blatantly at the

00:56:43.120 expense of other people so it's like while a lot of us are gonna have to make choices

00:56:48.240 based on a lack of the ability to accumulate wealth it's like these people are choosing to

00:56:54.000 be like I just want it better than you like I just want more power than the person next to me

00:56:59.520 so it's all very transparent and it's like I I like I do not feel bad for them maybe there's

00:57:05.740 like a tiny bit of pity because i'm like you're never actually going to live the life you project

00:57:10.780 i feel like our whole culture is like like this whole culture is just like a dupe of old school

00:57:16.760 conservatism it's just like a cheap trump made china made dupe of original conservatives which 0.85

00:57:22.920 was so problematic and honestly not worth duping to begin with but now we're living in like the 0.95

00:57:27.780 cheap knockoff copy that's somehow even worse because it's just so silly it's just it's just 0.88

00:57:33.440 so silly and cat like you said that you don't feel badly for them and like i'm with you because 0.89

00:57:37.320 a lot of these people just like voted against all of our rights but i think it's important to note 0.97

00:57:42.320 that like i'm gonna bring back this new york magazine cover and this beautiful 21 year old

00:57:48.260 girl in her polyester dress all of these people in this new york magazine cover have more in common

00:57:55.160 with me and with the both of you than they do with these people that they're trying to emulate

00:58:01.240 and like the overlords that they're voting for.

00:58:03.580 I always find a way in every episode of this podcast

00:58:06.420 to blame billionaires for everything.

00:58:08.020 And I'm going to do it again.

00:58:09.340 It's true.

00:58:10.620 These people, through fashion, through their voting,

00:58:15.100 they over-identify with people, you know,

00:58:18.060 like Elon Musk, like Donald Trump,

00:58:20.100 people who have wealth that they will never see

00:58:22.180 nor touch in their entire lives.

00:58:24.380 These people have to work just like the rest of us.

00:58:27.640 They're just dressing and dreaming about a world

00:58:30.540 in which they don't but like you said taylor that world is gone you know i'm a i'm a fan of

00:58:35.380 the statement that every single person you know like us like the people in this cover has more in

00:58:40.040 common with every person living on the streets than they do with any billionaire and that will

00:58:45.000 more than likely be the case for the rest of all of our lives and it's like they're just faking it

00:58:51.240 and in the process of faking it yes they're like supporting billionaires by like buying fast fashion

00:58:55.880 and whatever but they're also politically aligning themselves with a movement that

00:59:00.260 like you said taylor will hurt them too like i you know i know so many people see me on the internet

00:59:06.960 and they're just like oh like the gay guy with the nails which i actually don't have right now

00:59:10.320 because like my nails are my real nails are suffering underneath the fake ones i had to 0.92

00:59:13.900 take a break but they like they think that i'm yelling at them for like dressing up like

00:59:18.940 heteronormatively or whatever and it's like that's not what i'm doing i'm just i'm trying to convey

00:59:24.820 I guess regardless of how you choose to accessorize yourself which we all do we all just have more in

00:59:30.880 common with each other than than we do with billionaires and uh and and putting on like your

00:59:37.240 men's warehouse rental tuxedo isn't going to change that but it is sad how popular those

00:59:42.900 have gotten and I know because I wore one to my brother's wedding I think I have like trauma

00:59:53.140 up because it reminds me so much of Connecticut and I, and my like childhood and growing up around

00:59:58.780 people, you know, I thought that like we had moved past that era and it's, it's scary to see some of

01:00:05.140 this stuff come back. I think like Kat was saying so much of that culture of the early 2010s, that

01:00:10.660 like liberal culture, it was like actually such a brief glimmer of like a potential more inclusive

01:00:17.540 world and now we've snapped right back. And I think you can see that visually in the rise of

01:00:23.260 all of these aesthetics. I think part of the issue is that influencers live by definition

01:00:29.460 unstable lives where it's like, how am I going to keep profiting? I'm not actually building

01:00:34.740 like generational opportunities for myself. I'm just like cashing in on whatever the moment is.

01:00:40.580 But with all these people, I'm like, you thought you picked the path that would give you what you

01:00:46.080 really wanted but you got tricked like you think you won you guys are celebrating now you're saying

01:00:51.740 all the slurs you ever wanted to but in the end like you were the one who fell for like a billionaire

01:00:56.980 claiming that this is going to be good for you it's not going to be good for you and so yeah

01:01:03.620 this part of influencer culture isn't fun anymore because now it's just like a fake veneer on an

01:01:14.140 enormous amount of human suffering that is a direct result of their actions i kind of want

01:01:19.140 to join the uh the tuxedo society the tuxedo society just so i can infiltrate it that could

01:01:26.220 be a bonus episode for the patreon please go undercover please i don't have my nails right

01:01:31.560 now i could i attended a tuxedo society event so you don't have to i think the jig's gonna be up

01:01:38.340 at some point you think so back to 2016 painted on eyebrows god willing we need uh we need 0.98

01:01:45.120 generation beta or whatever to come of age and then think that all this conservative shit's lame 0.98

01:01:49.880 and go back to you know be like mega woke or something god willing the pendulum will swing 0.95

01:01:54.920 and like colorful eyeshadow will be back or something and until then i'll be wearing it

01:01:58.740 anyway so it's actually resistance to dress like james charles in 2016 it's actually good praxis

01:02:07.100 uh taylor and kat where can people find you now that we're all freelancers and don't have

01:02:16.920 health insurance subscribe to my youtube channel and subscribe to usermag.co not.com.co that's

01:02:24.420 usermag.co well as of today um i'm at spitfirenews.com that's like my first time promoting

01:02:32.460 it out loud and you can also follow me on blue sky on instagram on tiktok while it's still around

01:02:39.980 but please subscribe to my newsletter it is free and i'm very excited to write about all

01:02:45.680 of these topics and more it's actually 6 000 euros a month

01:02:50.040 my newsletter is actually just redirects to the tuxedo club homepage that's the elite tier that's

01:02:58.840 where you get invited to the parties where we all dress up in our you know zara that's the fashion

01:03:07.280 nova party thank you so much for being here what a silly funny time we're all living in

01:03:15.580 but at least we can be honest about it unlike the people at the tuxedo society

01:03:19.280 i love you all i hope that you are all doing whatever you need to do to keep your head

01:03:25.000 screwed on straight because we all need to stick around for each other to see the other side of

01:03:31.180 this and we will i love you and until next time stay

A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - February 07, 2025

How Conservatism Infiltrated Pop Culture

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