Culture Club - Celebrity Flops, Finstas & Breaking Out Of The Khia Asylum

00:00:00.000 Ashley Tisdale's Toxic Mum TV show, Zoella's Surprising Life Update and Lizzo Speaks Out

00:00:11.580 about the Keir Asylum. I'm Maggie Zhao and I'm Jasmine Wallace and you're listening to Culture

00:00:16.440 Club where two writers and editors analyse pop culture, the arts and the internet. Today we

00:00:21.840 are on the land of the Wurundjeri Woiwurrung people of the Kulin Nations. We would like to

00:00:26.420 Pay our respects to elders past and present and extend that to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait

00:00:31.060 Islander listeners today. We had one of the funnest weeks in Culture Club history, dare I say.

00:00:40.300 Yes, we were in Sydney this week. We had a little Culture Club excursion where we got to host and

00:00:46.480 interview Wajah Project. Wajah Project is like one of my fave indie pop bands. We will be releasing

00:00:53.020 our interview up with them in a couple weeks time if you're not familiar with them it's like

00:00:58.120 that intimately uh they have that song you're so pretty that a lot of people know from tiktok

00:01:03.300 and also it's a sibling duo made up of olivia heidi and her brother william gow and he is

00:01:09.580 f actor that's in heart stopper he plays tal so like i think a lot of people know him from that

00:01:14.380 i asked my 14 year old cousin because i was like do you know heart stopper what did he say he's

00:01:18.460 like i know the show but he doesn't watch it he's too young maybe he's yeah just missed the boat

00:01:22.220 yeah but we got to host the Q&A listening party which was really fun we've never even been to a

00:01:27.960 listening party before and then we're on stage so it was interesting like hearing a few of the songs

00:01:32.940 with the band like live in front of some of their biggest fans in Sydney yeah so that's when we

00:01:37.680 played like the unreleased tracks and it was cool because I'm such a fangirl at heart so being in a

00:01:42.360 room full of like fangirls it was so nice it was like very sweet anyway I had the best time

00:01:49.040 journaled about it the next day I'm like this is a memory I want to keep oh that's so sweet

00:01:53.800 can I tell you something else about this week Loki Tom and I are famous now actually so bow down

00:02:00.400 we're actually famous actually we posted a video on TikTok and it got a quarter of a million views

00:02:06.240 and guys that's no that's not small peanuts for me and what was the video about it was about me

00:02:11.940 updating him on the YouTuber Zoella and her partner Alfie Days okay because guys if you

00:02:19.520 didn't know this about me they are my favorite like parasocial family for sure. I feel like I

00:02:27.260 picked that up this week when we were talking about them and I was like I think it's so rude

00:02:31.480 that they haven't updated their fans because they've gone missing for so long and you were

00:02:34.480 so defensive you're like nope that's what they do they do it all the time like you knew and I was

00:02:39.180 like, oh, I actually don't really watch them that much. I just know like they've been famous for

00:02:42.700 13 years or something and then they just disappear for six months. Okay. Let me give you the

00:02:47.400 background. Okay. If you aren't that familiar, Zoella is a British YouTuber. She came and rose

00:02:54.560 up in the 2010s, really known for her like beauty tutorials and like Primark hauls and that sort of 1.00

00:03:01.040 content, right? She, in the last few years, has really been known for her vlogging and she does

00:03:06.820 vlogmas which is her december vlogs i won't get too much into it i see chas's eyes glazing over

00:03:13.980 yeah anyway so she's known for doing just a little bit of vlogging each year so to be honest her

00:03:18.900 disappearance quote-unquote from the internet this year wasn't a massive cause for alarm to me

00:03:24.820 and alfie had posted a little bit on instagram alfie is her husband alfie's her husband not

00:03:28.800 husband they're engaged their fiance anyway um and people had been speculating why they hadn't

00:03:35.440 been online and like this past week we got an answer and that was what the video was about i

00:03:39.620 was telling tom about it okay this is the most crazy um i think answer they are opening a donkey

00:03:46.020 sanctuary who would have thought no seriously they have applied to create not just a donkey sanctuary

00:03:52.100 but stables three shepherd huts parking for tractors and a pond and that is on a five acre

00:03:58.380 field they recently bought near hassocks hassocks uh near like in west sussex the reason that it's

00:04:04.620 kind of made news though obviously they are super famous but there's an interesting historical

00:04:09.000 fact behind it as well according to a report by the mid-Sussex district council their land that

00:04:16.480 they bought could actually contain roman or anglo-saxon prehistoric artifacts so they literally

00:04:22.700 have to wait for paleontologists to go in check the ground and this is so funny because i've read

00:04:27.760 about this on the BBC. And I was just like, okay, what universe is this? What parallel universe are

00:04:34.960 we in? The report said that the site needs to be further understood before they can bring their

00:04:40.980 donkeys in and then make their family vlogs. And then I was like, wait a second, that just

00:04:47.740 reminds me of Euphoria season three, a plot line from there with Nate. I was like, this is too

00:04:52.360 similar going back to your tiktok video though someone left the sweetest comment i literally

00:04:58.020 was like crying over this like the comment said tom looks at you like you put all the stars in

00:05:02.520 the sky isn't that just the cutest comment and it got like a thousand lines yeah that was so sweet

00:05:08.480 because um that is his true form like he's like yeah was it did he agree he's like yeah of course

00:05:14.140 has Ariana Grande gotten back with her ex Ricky Alvarez it looks like it so I was like who is

00:05:32.240 this ex number one because I followed her exes um I would say most recently but this is one

00:05:39.240 two three four five her fifth most recent ex I don't even know how you could count thank you

00:05:45.280 not slut shaming at all but there's just been a lot oh yeah of course but let's just give the

00:05:49.820 audience a recap so he is actually a dancer and they met actually back in 2015 when he joined as

00:05:56.920 a backup dancer for her honeymoon tour and then they reportedly dated for around a year from 2015

00:06:03.460 to 2016 so like kind of short in the scheme of things you know of course ariana was most recently

00:06:09.100 dating her wicked co-star ethan slater and it's reported that their relationship amicably ended

00:06:14.740 after their split earlier this year so she's single again they were together for three years

00:06:20.140 i read a comment that said they were together longer than they wanted to be because of all

00:06:24.180 the drama of ethan leaving his wife and like newborn baby essentially for ariana yeah and

00:06:29.280 So they're kind of like proving a point.

00:06:30.980 But that's obviously all speculation and rumours.

00:06:34.180 We don't know these people's relationship.

00:06:36.400 They both reportedly left their respective spouses at the same time

00:06:39.940 because remember Ariana was engaged to that real estate guy?

00:06:43.280 He was married to him.

00:06:43.940 Married to him.

00:06:44.500 Yeah, she got married, yeah, to Dalton Gomez.

00:06:47.520 Yeah.

00:06:48.100 So it stirred so much controversy.

00:06:51.380 I think a lot of people are like, oh, now that Wicked's finished,

00:06:53.820 you guys are finishing up your relationship.

00:06:56.020 Like that was a lot of the talk there.

00:06:58.660 Most people probably know Ricky though through her reference to him in her song Thank You Next

00:07:03.580 where she writes, wrote some songs about Ricky, now I listen and laugh. It has been replaced

00:07:08.680 while she's on tour. She's on her Eternal Sunshine tour. The lyrics have been replaced.

00:07:13.060 Yeah, a few times. She's done it like a couple of times and she's changed it up each time.

00:07:17.460 So recently she said, wrote some songs about Ricky and they still really slap.

00:07:22.440 Another one was, wrote some songs about Ricky. I know he's still got my back.

00:07:26.180 cute he was also spotted in the vip section during her birthday show apparently smiled as

00:07:32.520 the lyrics were playing so that was further creating some speculation around this pairing

00:07:37.540 i think she's probably just like having fun seeing it dating an old friend yeah because they also were

00:07:43.580 spotted having lunch together also in austin where like she did one of the lyric changes

00:07:48.500 apparently like since their breakup they have remained friends throughout this time so who

00:07:52.380 knows i think it's more than friends though like if you're bringing him to like the vip area you're

00:07:57.440 changing like the songs like the lyrics about him she's rekindled something do you think that's like

00:08:02.460 the new because i feel like back in the day it wasn't like oh stevie nicks from fleetwood mac

00:08:07.180 brought her new boyfriend to her show i do think that's like a quite a modern thing of like remember

00:08:12.980 when taylor swift brought maddie healy to the concerts on travis kelsey and like there's been

00:08:16.980 other times like phoebe bridges bringing paul mescal like that's very i don't know if it's um

00:08:21.860 because there's so many photos taken of people with iPhones nowadays but do you think that's

00:08:25.320 like the modern I don't know we're dating yeah because how recent is this new introduction of

00:08:31.320 having VIP areas usually wouldn't like you have your special guest backstage yeah why is it like

00:08:36.680 in the middle of the concert now yeah now it's quite on show so I think it's very purposeful

00:08:41.820 talk about turning lemons into lemonade ashley tisdale is reportedly making a dark comedy netflix

00:08:57.700 show called toxic moms in case you missed it back in january ashley published a personal essay in

00:09:03.800 the cut which we spoke about at the time and it was all about breaking up with a toxic quote-unquote

00:09:09.020 mom group and the reason that it went so crazy viral is that a few of the mums in the group

00:09:15.420 are also famous so it includes Hilary Duff, Mandy Moore and Meghan Trainor as well so

00:09:21.240 that was like a big celebrity gossipy story of early 26. It was so catty like so many people

00:09:30.120 got involved as well as Hilary Duff's husband who did like a parody post about it it got icky

00:09:35.900 like I don't even want to go into it too much it was icky but now Ashley is reportedly turning this

00:09:40.720 into TV show which is like great for her what do they say everything is copy yeah use everything

00:09:47.020 you have apparently the writer on the show is Sabrina Jails who did Search Party and Benefits

00:09:53.380 with Friends and stand-up comedian star Ali Wong is also executive producing so some big names on

00:10:00.520 this. Yeah it's definitely as well based on Ashley Tisdale's own experience. Deadline like reported

00:10:07.300 on this first stating that it was quote based on an original idea and informed by Tisdale's

00:10:13.260 experience as a mum of two young children. But also according to Deadline we don't know if this

00:10:18.240 was written before the big January blow up or if it was inspired by the blow up. I think six months

00:10:25.560 from being like having the blow up kind of recovering from that writing a show getting it

00:10:29.880 greenlit getting executive producers on maybe it's different when you're famous like Ashley

00:10:34.200 and like how you have the name already but that feels quite quick so I wonder if she was already

00:10:37.840 kind of like thinking about this before the big public breakup I personally think that essay went

00:10:43.560 viral she was approached to make this and now they're in the stages of creating it I don't

00:10:47.560 think it's like done yeah but like funny that it's announced already yeah because I need to jump on

00:10:52.340 the hype of it so quickly same thing with that Bell Burden book that went super viral called

00:10:58.080 Strangers and then that was really quickly announced as a screen adaptation. I think people

00:11:02.520 as in like the execs in the room think that our attention span is so short that we're like oh

00:11:08.040 quickly we had this viral moment now let's reviral it with something else. Not a word but you know

00:11:13.540 what I mean. Speaking of jumping on a viral moment this week a couple were taken into police custody

00:11:20.720 in New York after they scaled the Empire State Building. People thought this was going to be

00:11:25.760 some sort of protest or political stunt turned out to be a pro-peace stunt the couple scaled to

00:11:32.460 the very top of the empire state building dropped a banner that read when the power of love beats

00:11:37.300 the love of power the world knows peace then they stage a dramatic marriage proposal

00:11:42.840 watching the live footage of this where like what are they called like the news anchors yeah

00:11:49.560 on like what they're seeing as it happened because again no one knew that it would turn

00:11:54.140 into a proposal. It was pretty, it was pretty funny. I kind of like that it was low stakes.

00:11:59.180 So a funny tweet that said, love this adaptation of Sleepless in Seattle. You know, they go to the

00:12:02.960 top of the Empire State. The couple were revealed to be two Russian rooftoppers or extreme artists

00:12:09.380 who actually had their own Netflix documentary back in 2024 called Skywalker's A Love Story.

00:12:15.840 Yeah, I think it surprises no one that we were not familiar with them. This is a different side

00:12:20.160 the internet. Their names are Angela Nicolaou and Ivan Bierkus and they have a combined 1.5

00:12:26.480 million followers on Instagram. We saw this take over our social media feeds. Like you said,

00:12:31.820 a lot of memes come out of it. But what we found interesting was almost instantly there were like

00:12:38.160 marketing campaigns that jumped off the back of this. Jumped off. I know, sorry, you said that

00:12:43.940 too and I was like hee hee hee. So this news broke in Australia first thing in the morning and I

00:12:48.740 reckon by like mid-morning 11 a.m i'd seen about three different brands all different types of

00:12:55.140 brands and also influencers like who's selling products or courses or whatever jumping on this

00:13:00.940 and posting their messaging or their mission statement over the top of this banner kind of

00:13:06.400 making a joke of it at first like it's kind of like the surveillance thing we're talking about

00:13:10.220 at first glance i was like oh yeah okay jumping on this viral moment it felt like a really dated

00:13:16.420 marketing technique and I wondered if it was such a thing in the early 2020s and now it seems because

00:13:22.300 like we're further into late stage capitalism it feels very on the nose yeah and the examples I

00:13:28.620 saw were like using AI to like really quickly change this picture and it feels like there's

00:13:34.880 no originality behind it and there's no creativity behind it it feels like a lazy technique and I

00:13:40.480 think you're right because the original instance like the OP here was posting like a very nice

00:13:48.300 sentiment about you know peace and then it turned into a proposal again like a very nice thing

00:13:54.620 obviously I'm not being naive this was a marketing technique for their own couple and like their own

00:13:59.500 following but to turn that into quickly like buy a new dress from our new collection it's just like

00:14:05.380 wait what yeah I think that's that's it it's just a bit of confusion I think it shows the state that

00:14:12.760 everyone is in at the moment of just like trying to sell sell sell like what's the algorithm doing

00:14:16.700 like okay this happened this viral thing in New York maybe I can get like followers from that and

00:14:22.440 it just feels like this little this bit of like almost a bit of desperation yeah and I'm wondering

00:14:27.400 if it's like recession core too that kind of like we need to jump on this moment now to like make

00:14:31.720 sales, even though it's like, can't we just have this like random stunt moment without it needing

00:14:38.740 to sell things? On last week's episode, we had a big topic about rebranding tech surveillance on

00:14:55.280 social media. We posted about this on social media and that conversation went off and we want

00:15:01.100 to kind of extend that discussion here and talk about some of the points I think that we might

00:15:06.200 not have talked about last week. To give a quick recap, Meta has released a range of AI glasses

00:15:11.900 with Kylie Jenner as the face of them. The main gripe that people are having is the inbuilt

00:15:18.280 hands-free camera and how that is impacting the surveillance state. Completely. And I feel like

00:15:24.760 the two points we didn't explicitly say, but I think we were definitely alluding to last week,

00:15:28.960 is that the marketing campaign of this is focused on women and that's very intentional because of

00:15:36.120 course metaglasses will disproportionately affect women's safety right I love this comment from

00:15:41.580 Teachers Consent which is an Australian startup that focuses on sexual consent they commented

00:15:47.340 repackaging surveillance tech as a fashion accessory 100% normalizes it and attempting

00:15:53.480 to feminize it builds trust with women who are ironically being sold a tool that will further 0.88

00:15:58.920 oppress them and open up new avenues for stalking, harassment and surveillance and other forms of 0.80

00:16:04.780 abuse. We've already read countless reports of women who have been subjected to covert image-based

00:16:10.260 sexual abuse and the resale market for glasses that have been tampered with to remove the

00:16:15.120 recording light is booming. The threats are so real. Blue-eyed Kayla Jade, who is an Australian

00:16:20.640 content creator and sex worker, also chimed in on this conversation over on TikTok. We'll play the

00:16:26.260 clip now but all the press about these glasses are how they're used by creepy men to record people

00:16:30.740 so it doesn't seem like a coincidence that all of a sudden they have a new influencer campaign

00:16:34.340 targeted at women i don't think this campaign is about getting women to buy meta glasses i think

00:16:38.540 it's about making everyone else feel comfortable around the men already wearing them like they're

00:16:42.900 trying to normalize them and make them more socially acceptable i really don't think they're

00:16:47.160 expecting women to start buying them i literally feel like they're just trying to make society not

00:16:51.620 associate them with creepy men given the reach that this culture club post had i think that it

00:16:56.740 shows that is a real appetite for these conversations we had a few messages from

00:17:00.480 people being like thank you for talking about this no one's talking about it and i think people are

00:17:05.200 really worried about this some people in the comments were like it's not that deep as well

00:17:09.640 like we always get those but like some people were like oh there's so many other things like

00:17:14.420 why are you talking about like what meta's done for the last 20 years which we kind of do anyway

00:17:18.280 but I think people are concerned about this and I think Meta is doing a good job of marketing

00:17:25.840 with Kylie because people are starting to get defensive of it. On a similar note we want to

00:17:31.260 talk about the rise of the celebrity Finster account which I think definitely does have

00:17:37.180 parallels to this conversation. There was an article called The Finster Renaissance Is Here

00:17:42.500 written by sam tracy for nylon and here they talk about like the origins of the finster account so

00:17:48.780 people aren't aware it's a portmanteau of fake insta account right did you ever have a finster

00:17:55.860 account jazz i didn't have a finster i did that whole thing of like this is my film photography

00:18:01.520 instagram account when i was like 20 i saw the funniest tiktok about that and it was like

00:18:07.880 like all like what girl photography side accounts are called and it's like hannah.jpg yeah uh lens

00:18:15.820 by lucy yeah all that and i'm like oh my god so real that was me you know you gotta have a creative

00:18:21.860 outlet what was that username i feel like it was jazz sky film or something yeah i used to love

00:18:29.660 film photography anyway now it's really expensive yeah so i can't do it anymore um but going back

00:18:35.840 no I never had a finster but sometimes I consider it I think I really use my close friend's story a

00:18:41.660 lot to like supplement this but sometimes I'm like I just want to post like random photos that

00:18:46.560 don't have any me which I guess I could like no one's stopping me but I think when you have like

00:18:51.940 more of a public profile it's like everything is kind of like you are talking to so many different

00:18:56.540 types of people did you ever have one because you've been on the internet since you were like

00:18:59.740 13 yeah with you know the same account the same profile no i never had one but i think you were

00:19:05.900 bang on when you said it was like you treat your close friends like a finster account sam in the

00:19:11.080 article said that like you know the finster was like what close friends is now before we had that

00:19:17.080 right so it was a place to you know be gossipy post like party pics like post whatever but now

00:19:24.240 so many celebrities are jumping on this. Rachel Sennett, Audrey Hobart, Addison Rae, Zara Larson.

00:19:32.360 There's so many and it's becoming so common now. In the article, Sam says that even brands are now

00:19:38.660 buying into this. Balenciaga creative director Pierre Paolo Picchioli revealed at Keep Proling,

00:19:45.500 which has some exclusive Sarah Pidgeon selfies as well as behind the scene dispatches. I think

00:19:51.880 between this finster thing and the rise of substack and also the freaking text things on

00:19:58.080 instagram at the moment where if i post just a photo dump flop city if you post it with some

00:20:03.260 text over the top or you're like here's what i learned about blah blah it goes off and i think

00:20:09.220 that at the end of the day everyone craves blogs we started with blogs we left blogs we went to

00:20:16.300 reels and now we're going back to freaking blogs. Everyone just wants to read. Wait, that is so good.

00:20:22.360 That is such a great hypothesis and I have to agree. Another example of like the widespread

00:20:28.460 Finstar celeb account is the fact that Instagram itself has its own Finstar account. Did you know

00:20:35.500 about this? I didn't. Yeah, it only started in October last year and the handle is not fit for

00:20:42.040 main so they're really kind of like being self-aware about how people use instagram right

00:20:47.880 doing people like oh like that's just for stories or like that's a grid post right it's not fit for

00:20:51.900 main and this account is regularly taken over by celebrities it is pretty incognito it's got 63

00:20:58.940 000 followers now um but meta have um like in interviews like owned up and said yeah this is

00:21:04.720 us so it's being confirmed so sam says that calling these accounts finsters isn't entirely

00:21:09.320 accurate. They write, traditional finsters were private by design, built for a carefully vetted

00:21:14.560 audience of friends rather than hundreds of thousands of followers. Nobody was building a

00:21:19.500 brand on their finster. The entire appeal was that it existed outside the performance.

00:21:24.800 What these creatives are cultivating instead is something closer to a faux finster,

00:21:29.820 a public facing account that mimics the aesthetics of intimacy without actually limiting access.

00:21:36.340 The audience may be massive, but the goal is to make it feel small, but crucially not too small.

00:21:42.160 Sam continues, these accounts don't actually want to stay hidden.

00:21:46.000 They want to be found, though not too easily or by everyone at once.

00:21:50.140 There's a new kind of social signaling at play here.

00:21:53.620 The desire to appear like a private in the no space while still letting the algorithm do what it does best, which is surface it to the right people.

00:22:02.300 if you get it you get it and the platform will know where to find you i really agree with that

00:22:07.460 first paragraph that i read out because i recently found rachel senate's finster and i was like oh

00:22:14.120 we're friends like this real parasocial energy of feeling like you stumble upon a secret like

00:22:20.580 celebrity account and they're posting just like behind the scenes of them like in a script writing

00:22:25.780 workshop or she was in sydney for some reason and posted from ap bakery and like where we go when

00:22:30.640 we're in Sydney, we're like, oh, like she's one of us. I think it's, I don't think it's a marketing

00:22:34.980 thing, especially from actors like Rachel Sennett, but I think it is a really interesting way to

00:22:41.320 interact with the internet. Lizzo is back in the headlines this week after her latest album,

00:22:57.320 Bitch failed to chart after dropping on June 5th. I laugh because you were like, Bitch. Sorry. 0.99

00:23:04.280 So aggressive. The album sold 2,649 copies and brought in just under 2.7 million streams in

00:23:11.800 its first week. In its second, those sales dropped to 650 units and streams dipped to just under

00:23:18.460 900,000. It's hard reading that and hearing that, right? Because I have like, I don't want to call

00:23:24.320 second-hand embarrassment because you should not be embarrassed about that like excuse me 2.7

00:23:28.760 million streams is nothing to sniff at but I think knowing that you know sales of the record in the

00:23:35.640 second week dropped to 650 like items it doesn't sound great does it? No and during an interview

00:23:42.140 with the Swiftologist last week Lizzo actually reflected on those poor sales and said that the

00:23:49.440 records reception is falling short of expectations so she said it dropped and I was like oh okay

00:23:56.580 this isn't what I thought it would be I didn't think it would be crazy but I also didn't think

00:24:01.100 it would be this there was like 24 hours of my life where I based my success and my worth on a

00:24:07.100 number and I think that was soul crushing very like relatable you know what I mean very earnest

00:24:13.760 we don't often see celebrities who are like quote unquote flopping owning their flop yeah I think

00:24:21.260 even with the Meghan Trainor thing like she's had to cancel her tour she's citing like family reasons

00:24:26.100 just like having a newborn in the family but people are saying like oh no it's because there's

00:24:30.400 no sales or there's no sales of tickets and her album's not doing that well but she's cancelled

00:24:35.200 the tour citing the family reasons she's not kind of going on these this press tour because I also

00:24:40.360 read an article in Rolling Stone as well that Lizzo did where she's kind of like talking about

00:24:45.660 it and owning it. So I think that's super interesting. You're right. I feel like this

00:24:49.360 is very uncommon. I think even removing the celebrity element on it as creatives and as

00:24:55.020 artists, putting something that's so personal into the world and then being like, oh, I guess

00:24:59.900 like it didn't receive the reception I wanted. And then talking about that, that's so tough.

00:25:05.200 I think us as writers and working in the space, that is like kind of brutal.

00:25:10.740 It's hard to do.

00:25:11.940 Bitch is also Lizzo's first album since she faced the workplace misconduct 0.56

00:25:16.520 allegations from her former dancers in 2023.

00:25:19.900 Yeah, that accused her of assault, false imprisonment and sexual harassment.

00:25:25.160 She has actively and continuously denied those allegations and the civil case is still going on.

00:25:32.060 Lizzo has also spoken about that lawsuit potentially being a reason why her album and

00:25:37.720 her music isn't as popular but also she's saying that streaming has replaced radio and she was

00:25:43.940 quote a radio darling she said that on x herself when that comment came out that also caught my

00:25:49.320 attention because I wouldn't be like 2019 was like the radio era like I still feel like 2019

00:25:54.600 was like definitely streaming era still yeah but I do agree that I personally think that lawsuit

00:26:02.000 and the other allegations against her have like a hundred percent damaged her reputation and I 0.74

00:26:09.140 think a lot of people have kind of just steered clear from her there's also of course the fall

00:26:14.840 of the body positivity movement where again when we were talking about her radio darling era I think

00:26:20.480 a lot of people were on that body acceptance train and like actively speaking out against

00:26:25.600 anti-fatness and anti-blackness as a black woman. So I feel like she's entered her new music era in

00:26:34.000 such a terrible time politically. The Guardian US did reference that, the cultural shift and how

00:26:39.740 that's impacting Lizzo. They gave Bitch two and a half stars and wrote, what's definitely lacking 0.91

00:26:44.880 from the album is an unequivocal pop smash, the kind of thing that Lizzo once seemed to be able

00:26:50.420 to write to order. Perhaps that's inevitable. One of the reasons Lizzo hit so big in the first

00:26:55.180 place was that she made pop music that perfectly captured a zeitgeist and that zeitgeist has moved

00:27:00.700 on. The era of body positivity has been displaced by the era of Ozempic and Manjaro. The kind of

00:27:06.640 post-pandemic, post-Trump optimism embodied on 2022's About Damn Time now sounds like a

00:27:12.420 transmission from a distant lost age. We're living in a different world now and Bitch suggests Lizzo 0.97

00:27:17.920 has yet to work out how to respond to it. I'm doing my best, she sings on a toast, which feels 0.82

00:27:23.720 like the most telling lyric of all. Perfectly put. One of the most fascinating conversations

00:27:29.260 as part of the Swiftologist interview was talking about the Kia Asylum. And guys, we're going to

00:27:35.860 talk you through this because I didn't know, and this is so embarrassing as a pop culture

00:27:40.520 podcast, I had not heard of the Kia Asylum until like a week or two ago. So what is the Kia Asylum?

00:27:47.120 It's said to have emerged on fan Twitter over the years, and it's actually a metaphorical space

00:27:52.020 where people who have lost their so-called public relevance are put into the Kia Asylum. It's

00:27:58.460 almost like a trial by fans, right? Where an artist puts out a song or an album and then it's

00:28:05.200 like, oh, you're in or you're out. It feels very almost like America's Next Top Model or Drag Race

00:28:10.540 or something like that, where it's like almost a competition. Yeah, it's almost because like the

00:28:14.980 name Asylum, you know, it's kind of like a jail of sorts. And with a jail, people can be long-term

00:28:21.040 residents. They can have a little breakout from this asylum as well. It's not like a lifelong

00:28:27.080 sentence, but celebrities go in and out. The name though, it actually comes from an American

00:28:34.680 one-hit wonder. A lot of one-hit wonders apparently are in this asylum. Her name is Kaya. So weirdly,

00:28:42.220 it should be known as a Kaya asylum, but all of the members of this place have decided to say

00:28:49.540 Kia which I think is like almost like an example of like how some of these members aren't respected

00:28:54.860 right it's like oh that's your name but we're not going to call it that. Kaya is known for a 2002

00:29:00.160 track which most of you will probably know called My Neck My Back Lick It. I knew of the Kia asylum 0.97

00:29:06.540 but I didn't know where the name came from so there you go. Stars who have broken out of this

00:29:12.120 fan Twitter asylum include Tate McRae, Sabrina Carpenter once she released Espresso. Most

00:29:19.320 famously, though, I think are Zara Larson and Charlie XCX. So Zara was in there for a long time

00:29:25.360 before her Midnight Sun rebrand. And that's the thing, right? Like, again,

00:29:30.220 celebrities come in and out of this all the time. A lot of people have pointed, I guess,

00:29:36.900 to the criticisms of this asylum that it is very female-centric. In that Swiftologist interview,

00:29:43.060 they even talk about it with Lizzo, saying that there actually are a lot of men in this asylum,

00:29:47.920 but they don't get as much airtime as the women who are quote-unquote flopping. 0.98

00:29:51.860 I don't know if I could name a single man in the Kia Asylum. Like, it's always female pop stars. 1.00

00:29:56.080 There was an article in The Conversation about this. It was called,

00:29:59.600 Sending Women to the Kia Asylum is Music's Latest Cruel Trend,

00:30:03.280 but it reflects an old historical bias, and that was written by James Hall.

00:30:07.940 James writes,

00:30:09.060 On one hand, the Kia Asylum falls into the category of postmodern digital playfulness.

00:30:14.380 Its associated content is highly ironic, cynical, and at times brain-wrot adjacent. 0.53

00:30:19.440 On the other hand, it's a gendered pejorative that mirrors the historical pathologizing of women

00:30:24.420 who, in one way or another, don't meet society's impossible expectations of them.

00:30:29.640 While male artists enjoy more freedom to fail or spend time away from the limelight, their female counterparts are dubbed flops for doing the same.

00:30:38.040 Once someone has entered the asylum, escape is usually only possible through significant commercial success or a dazzling rebrand.

00:30:46.600 Yeah, this is so fascinating to me.

00:30:48.540 And I actually learned about the Kia Asylum because I was speaking to a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne.

00:30:55.660 Their name is Sasha Sumlal, and she is literally focusing her research on fandoms and shame. 0.94

00:31:01.920 So she is literally the perfect person to speak about this. And we actually got her to send

00:31:06.540 through a voice note about this. So let's listen to it together. So there's actually two ways that

00:31:11.620 the term is used. First, it's used to actually celebrate niche knowledge, and it's actually used

00:31:17.360 to critique the exact same things that Lizzo talks about in her interview with the Swiftologist.

00:31:22.920 A lot of these fans who engage in this way are actually really fervent pop fans and they buy physical media, they buy merch, they buy vinyl, all things to counteract this sort of monolith of the media industry that has meant that smaller artists like Bebe Rexall or Ava Max suffer from.

00:31:43.980 So what Lizzo is actually critiquing in her interview with the Swiftologist, these fans are directly talking about in their engagement with the Kair Asylum.

00:31:53.160 The second thing, which maybe Lizzo falls more into this category, is that it's actually used as a way to punish pop stars for moral or political transgressions.

00:32:02.040 So often this means they'll use sentences as a way to determine the severity of someone's crime.

00:32:09.300 So, for example, these fans often talk about Nicki Minaj as being in the Kaira Asylum, but they'll say that she's serving a lifelong sentence because she has grifted to the right. 0.71

00:32:21.160 She has become MAGA and that has betrayed all of her queer fans. 0.50

00:32:25.880 So I would say that Lizzo probably falls more into that category as opposed to being someone that doesn't have cultural or commercial success because she has been widely successful.

00:32:36.220 and I just wanted to point out that maybe that this is actually a more transgressive way that

00:32:41.440 fans engage in fandom and I wouldn't on the surface say that it's misogynistic. I think

00:32:48.880 that's a bad faith reading of this fan behaviour. Thanks for having me. So smart. I love having an

00:32:55.600 intellectual academic reading on this very niche social media pop culture moment. It's interesting

00:33:02.780 that Sasha said that it's not really misogynistic. In the Swiftologist interview, Lizzo says that

00:33:08.180 it's backhanded in itself to name the Kia Asylum after an incredibly talented woman from the black

00:33:14.860 community and that the weapon targets only women and a lot of black women as well. But she also 0.77

00:33:21.300 does say that it's like a funny meme. And I think there can be layers, right? For sure. I really

00:33:27.500 think the more I learn about the Kia Asylum, the more I realize it's not what it maybe just looks

00:33:32.940 like on the surface where it's like bullying of celebrities, which is what Lizzo says. I think

00:33:38.460 there are many contributing factors. I don't disagree that, you know, it's named after a

00:33:42.940 black woman that's been shunned. And I think we should definitely consider that in our critiques

00:33:47.660 of the Kia Asylum. But I definitely now, especially talking to Sasha, don't think it's all bad.

00:33:57.500 now it's time for bookmark where we share a recommendation from the week

00:34:06.620 jazz what are you sharing with us i have a really fun history podcast recommendation

00:34:12.220 it's brand new from the abc only came out this week and it's called the dead can't sue

00:34:17.260 it asks some questions like was ben along an unlikely sartorialist did matthew flinders have

00:34:23.460 a more than friendly relationship with the Navy surgeon George Bass? And why are we as an

00:34:28.920 Australian nation so obsessed with criminals like Tilly Devine? These are all historical

00:34:35.020 Australian figures like explorers. Tilly Devine was like a crime woman, a crime boss in the 1920s 0.66

00:34:43.460 in Sydney. If you love history and a little bit of gossip as well, because the first episode talks 0.83

00:34:48.280 about Matthew Flinders, aka who Flinders Station is named after. These two academics, Alicia

00:34:53.300 Simmons and Lee Boucher talk about his like erotic love letters with another man so some queer

00:34:59.460 history Australian history and it's hosted by PhD academics so if you are a history nerd like I am

00:35:08.520 I highly recommend it's only got two episodes out at the moment but it's a weekly podcast so

00:35:13.700 it's really easy to listen to as well so good and such a good podcast name and Mags what are

00:35:19.320 you recommending for us this week? I have got a movie recommendation. It's actually a movie I

00:35:24.360 mentioned on our newly launched substack. I did not include it in our recommendations there because

00:35:29.880 if you didn't know, we actually give an extra bookmarked recommendation on our substack. But I

00:35:34.380 talked about this in regards to what I did over the weekend. The movie is called Dear You and it

00:35:40.380 was just released this year and it's a Chinese family drama film. This was so special to me and

00:35:46.540 the reason why I watched it is that it's actually in the dialect that my family speaks. It's called

00:35:51.800 It's a dialect from the Chaoshan region in Guangdong, again, where my family's from.

00:35:57.120 And it actually follows like our diaspora. This is set like decades past. And of course,

00:36:03.800 the parallels aren't very similar in my family. For instance, it follows like a young man who has

00:36:09.120 to escape to Thailand to escape being conscripted into the army. And it's about like the diaspora

00:36:17.100 in Thailand. But anyway, I think that this story was so beautiful. I don't even need to

00:36:23.000 get into the plot much. It's just like a sprawling family drama. And it kind of centers on this type

00:36:30.020 of letter. It's called Chiao Pi, which are these letters that were used back in when this was set

00:36:36.580 for communication between families that were kind of separated by borders and stuff. And

00:36:40.780 this is all true. And a lot of this movie was based on found objects and like historical

00:36:46.400 artifacts. This was just so special to watch. It was very moving, also quite funny at times.

00:36:53.080 And of course there were subtitles because I can't understand much of it. And I feel really

00:36:58.700 like touched that it's being played in like Hoyts and like a lot of mainstream theatres here.

00:37:03.920 it is like it's been a sleeper hit globally and like it's really been an unexpected hit and yeah

00:37:11.500 I cried so many tears so many tears the cinema was sniffling um so yeah that's my recommendation

00:37:17.980 oh I'm so excited to watch that yeah I definitely will add to my list yeah I think me and some of my

00:37:23.940 other Chinese friends are going to watch it together as well I think it was funny looking

00:37:27.640 around like how many white people are here not many we had our white partners there but

00:37:31.620 I genuinely think like it the story and the themes are so transferable across different cultures and

00:37:38.440 different countries so yeah I think you'll love it that's all we have time for on this episode

00:37:42.580 of Culture Club we really hope you enjoyed the episode if you did maybe give us a little rate

00:37:47.680 and review on Apple and Spotify because it really helps us out and we will also link our brand new

00:37:51.720 sub stack in the show notes below we'll see you next time bye bye

00:38:01.620 Thank you.

Culture Club - July 06, 2026

Celebrity Flops, Finstas & Breaking Out Of The Khia Asylum

Episode Stats

Transcript