Culture Study Podcast - The Wild and Banal Future of Celebrity Gossip

00:00:00.000 Hey, everyone. Once a month or so, we pick an episode to be free for everyone so that if you're

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00:00:10.820 A major part of that life is getting to hear the Ask Anne Anything segment. Today's is really juicy.

00:00:17.340 It's a practical guide to spotting the difference between a PR move and something genuine when it

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00:00:45.660 So we've been running Go Fug Yourself since 2004. So that predates Twitter, it predates Instagram,

00:00:51.740 it definitely predates tiktok it predates youtube so i would say when we started covering the site

00:00:57.720 celebrities are basically models actors musicians that's basically it and then like you know you'd

00:01:06.280 have sort of like what heather and i would call like new york famous which would be like tinsley

00:01:10.760 mortimer like some socialite stuff like that people that right you know like maybe don't

00:01:14.460 really break through to like the masses for lack of a better word yeah who weren't necessarily in

00:01:18.780 people but they might have been in like the new york post yeah like you go to fashion week and

00:01:22.420 they're in the front row and everyone's making a big deal and you're like they're just a dj i've

00:01:26.140 never heard of them but everyone's going nuts um and now i think with the advent of youtube and

00:01:32.720 like tiktok and instagram social media in general i do think we have like a whole other section of

00:01:39.040 celebrities we had to draw a line because i'm 49 my brain cannot hold everything i need to keep

00:01:46.760 gossip from the 80s in here and i can't pick up tiktok stars i just can't but there are whole

00:01:53.040 groups of other people who like the tiktok stars are their celebrities and they're like i don't i

00:01:57.400 mean like i don't know who that person is and i'll be like how do you not know who kathy bates is or

00:02:02.180 whatever um right so i think it's become really like fragmented in a way that is kind of hard to

00:02:09.560 like i'm sure it's harder for someone like people magazine like who are they supposed to cover who

00:02:15.380 cares about who. This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson. I'm Heather

00:02:26.060 Cox. And I'm Jessica Morgan. We are the FUD girls. This is a dream come true for me. I am

00:02:31.840 so excited that you were a chapter in my dissertation, which I finished in 2011, but you

00:02:37.400 are foundational to I think so much of contemporary gossip the way that it has been formed the way

00:02:45.780 that it operates today like this is like there's no one else that I would rather have this

00:02:49.980 conversation with so we jokingly call ourselves the grandmothers of I know the internet we used

00:02:57.000 to we used to joke that we were gonna have to like transition into being the thug hags instead

00:03:02.640 i think that time is now like i'm gonna be 50 next year i don't know if i'm a girl anymore

00:03:10.160 thug woman sounds kind of like yeah uptight yeah like do you know the magazine closer

00:03:17.840 yeah yeah so closer has morphed into a magazine a gossip magazine that is very interested in

00:03:24.500 the lives of um women of a certain age who are still part of like the larger celebrity

00:03:30.480 world. And when I see closer in the grocery store, I'm like, yeah, there's always going to be

00:03:36.580 like, you know, an appetite for gossip about the stars that I have always found interesting.

00:03:42.660 This reminds me, I think I saw this in the market the other day. And it was like,

00:03:47.040 this might be wrong, because I can't remember if the person I'm about to name is alive.

00:03:50.320 But I think it was something like Lonnie Anderson secrets. And I was like, Oh,

00:03:54.580 like people still care about Lonnie Anderson. I was just about to say that like closer is to us

00:03:59.500 as when I would go through the grocery line

00:04:01.440 in like the 90s,

00:04:02.220 it was the Burt and Lonnie gossip.

00:04:03.900 And I was like, who's the market for this?

00:04:05.560 I am now the market for that.

00:04:07.240 I know, right?

00:04:08.040 Except for, and this is,

00:04:09.440 and I think a lot of listeners can relate to this.

00:04:12.100 When everything happened with Jennifer Lopez

00:04:14.200 and Ben Affleck,

00:04:15.760 a younger generation,

00:04:16.880 like they were like,

00:04:17.660 what are you guys getting so worked up about?

00:04:19.620 You guys, this is foundational.

00:04:22.140 This is foundational.

00:04:23.220 Learn your gossip history.

00:04:24.420 Come on, it's not even that far back.

00:04:26.580 and I will say that there's so much joy to be found in rediscovering gossip history so like

00:04:32.360 my work and a lot of like my previous work especially was thinking about like oh my gosh

00:04:38.280 can you imagine what it was like when this happened with Elizabeth Taylor or when this

00:04:42.820 happened with Ingrid Bergman right like that sort of thing during COVID at one point we put up a

00:04:46.760 piece and I cannot remember what the impetus was I think it was that we were looking for archival

00:04:50.960 pictures of outfits and i found one of julia roberts with keifer oh and we did a piece about

00:04:57.300 their whole situation and um i found an old people magazine article about like the wedding and the

00:05:04.020 lead up to the wedding and it was fascinating because it was full of all these weird juicy

00:05:08.120 details that i feel like you would never get now because it was so i don't want to say impartial

00:05:13.240 because it's not the people but like it just felt like someone actually reported it out

00:05:17.100 people used to be a lot bitchier yeah like a lot bitchier yeah a lot bitchier also there just

00:05:23.880 wasn't the same sort of control and julia roberts like played that whole situation like she wasn't

00:05:29.080 a star but she played it like she was just like her character in runaway bride you know which was

00:05:34.220 always details about weird like keifer's request for the wedding cake was really weird like there

00:05:38.720 were all these really great little nuggets in there and i was like boy they don't make them

00:05:42.100 like they used to like that was a really good moment of of yeah that this is why we bought

00:05:46.900 people in the grocery store because we wanted to know what key for sutherland wanted the wedding

00:05:50.700 cake to be if i'm remembering correctly the entire wedding was also like the theme was

00:05:56.660 like kind of steel magnolias like it was a southern theme in some capacity i might be

00:06:02.860 no you're right i reread this kind of fact check me yes it was sort of like i think they were doing

00:06:08.560 it on the lot like on the movie lot yes on a movie lot yes it was like i remember when this

00:06:15.240 happened i was in high school and it was one of those things that broke through where you would

00:06:19.700 like go to school and people be like oh my god did you hear what happened because like this is

00:06:24.520 before the internet so we weren't like on twitter being like or whatever x instagram i don't know

00:06:28.880 like gossiping about it you had to wait till you got to school and be like oh my god i heard the

00:06:33.500 craziest thing on entertainment tonight this weekend and like the youngs all missed out on

00:06:38.580 Bennifer 1.0 like it was a big deal when they called their wedding off like on the doorstep of

00:06:43.900 the event and it was and just with the jenny from the block video and the movies and the lead-up to

00:06:49.960 all of that and then it just coming crashing down was a and i remember like paparazzi shots from

00:06:55.640 above helicopters and all that and you were like this was a huge deal at the time like massive

00:07:01.480 deal like as it would be now imagine if someone i don't know who's getting married right now i

00:07:06.560 apologize but if someone were i would imagine if they called it off two days before their wedding

00:07:11.060 it would be a big stonking deal who is getting married right now i mean the only person i can

00:07:15.820 think of is already married and it wouldn't be someone anyone would care about who's getting

00:07:19.520 married i was gonna say saoirse ronan i was like she's married and also like she's no that might

00:07:24.500 not be that maybe wouldn't feed the gossip beast in quite the same way this is a good tee up for

00:07:30.360 Taylor and Travis, if they got married and they called it off two days beforehand,

00:07:34.580 Oh my God.

00:07:35.360 Earth would fall out of orbit.

00:07:37.460 And that's kind of like what this was, I think.

00:07:40.100 Yes.

00:07:40.540 So children, learn.

00:07:41.180 And no one is as interested in Julia Roberts today as I think we should be as interested.

00:07:45.660 Like the way, the power of her star.

00:07:49.120 Oh my God.

00:07:49.780 Is so incredible.

00:07:51.360 And if you don't have that memory of early 90s Julia Roberts,

00:07:56.480 it's really difficult to attribute that to her.

00:07:59.500 Do you know what I mean?

00:08:00.080 Yeah.

00:08:00.360 Like, you just don't have that balance.

00:08:01.600 And just, like, the mess, the openness of the mess.

00:08:04.760 Yes.

00:08:06.080 The other thing that I would add that you were gesturing towards is reality stars.

00:08:11.200 And I think, like, there were the version of reality stars historically, and some of

00:08:17.600 them were just, you know, real-life people who became celebritized for various reasons.

00:08:21.840 But what we see now with the many, many seasons of reality television and then the spinoffs

00:08:27.880 is that they become their own like narrative universe.

00:08:31.280 Oh, totally.

00:08:31.860 And so if someone becomes invested in them,

00:08:35.320 there's like a whole gossip arc

00:08:36.880 that you can follow on them.

00:08:38.040 And I see this in People Magazine,

00:08:39.800 like a lot of gossip about like

00:08:42.000 what's happening in sister wives, right?

00:08:44.780 The housewives, the whole ecosystem.

00:08:47.240 Yeah, and then if you're invested in that ecosystem,

00:08:50.880 the same way that someone would be invested in,

00:08:53.840 I don't know, classic Hollywood stars,

00:08:55.260 like it seems just as interesting and salacious even more so because the big stars are so top

00:09:00.540 down yes and i do think the reality tv of it all kind of it gave you that illusion of a window into

00:09:06.620 who somebody really was thinking back to prehistory when you know jessica simpson was just a singer

00:09:13.000 nobody really cared that much about her apologies jessica but um when she got her reality show with

00:09:19.560 and it was newlyweds and it was the chicken of the sea stuff and everything like suddenly she was

00:09:24.240 because suddenly she was going to be in movies and suddenly she was mega famous or even the

00:09:28.000 Osbournes. Yeah. You know, other than a nostalgia way where people were like Ozzy Osbourne and rock

00:09:33.460 music, like nobody cared about Kelly and Jack and Sharon. And now Sharon's like a talk show host

00:09:37.460 and Kelly, I don't even know what she's doing anymore, but she was on Eve for a long time.

00:09:40.360 Like, I think it's, I don't know if it's that you have to like double barrel it where you're like,

00:09:44.640 we did this one thing, but then now I'm a hyphenate. And so that ups, that puts me up the

00:09:48.460 ladder. But yeah, the reality of it all, I think, yeah, made you feel like you were getting to know

00:09:53.540 that person and i think that's just sort of sprayed outward and now you have literally the

00:09:58.920 bravo cinematic universe where there's 45 different iterations of clicks that are all interwoven and

00:10:06.640 famous and like and now you have traders where you get like people from other reality shows coming

00:10:11.380 together on that show and but just like the number of celebrities feels like it's multiplied because

00:10:16.440 tv has multiplied and i think tv being that like i think tv's done a lot of it i do as much because

00:10:22.560 movies still feel like they have that slight exclusivity to them totally tv has just proliferated

00:10:27.940 in a way that it's impossible to keep track of and that's worked for documentary and reality as well

00:10:32.480 so the entire idea for this episode i mean i could have done this episode i could do

00:10:37.820 every week i could do this episode but it came out of the comment section for a ben affleck episode

00:10:43.920 a couple months ago and a listener named karen wrote that in the 2024 world devoid of live tv

00:10:50.460 in gossip magazines. How do you keep up with A, who is a celebrity, and B, all the tea about them?

00:10:57.420 So that's going to be kind of the guiding question is like, where does this information come from?

00:11:03.240 How has that changed? All that sort of thing. But I do think that first, I think I would love

00:11:08.360 to revisit, and I know our listeners would love to visit, how you got started. So how did GoFog

00:11:14.060 Yourself get started? I'm sure we got started gossiping just like anybody else. I'm pretty

00:11:19.100 shirt, which is a lovely, um, you know, Jessica and I had been friends for a while. We'd both

00:11:23.760 been, um, we'd met because we were both recapping for the OG recapping site, television without

00:11:29.800 pity, um, which was called mighty big TV back in those days. Um, and then, so we, and then I moved

00:11:36.060 to Los Angeles and didn't know anybody, but I knew she had lived there and we interacted on the

00:11:39.980 forums. So like any responsible 20 early 20 something, I decided to meet the person I knew

00:11:46.520 only from the internet but I was like you know what I've read her writing I feel like I know

00:11:51.340 her we've talked to each other on the message boards like I trust this this is gonna be fine

00:11:55.820 I was right yeah um so we became friends it did work out we're still friends um but we um she

00:12:01.960 did not kill me she wore a really cute coat not yet um it's a long time Heather that's right

00:12:07.480 really long um so we became friends we we our friendship groups became friends like it just

00:12:16.480 we all sort of we've a lifelong love affair was born but so i remember there was one day we were

00:12:21.240 walking around the mall and um you remember malls first of all like that's how you know those old

00:12:26.800 how old we are was it an indoor mall or an outdoor it was the beverly center yes we were we were like

00:12:32.460 half shopping half window shopping 100 drinking ice blendets from the coffee bean and just all

00:12:38.920 the posters that were around us advertising any project anywhere were all hideous and like the

00:12:44.960 styling was terrible that someone's eye was this way and one was the other like they were cross

00:12:49.600 eyed it was or cockeyed or whatever it was very and we were like what is this for like like who

00:12:55.740 is looking at this and being like yes i need to engage with this movie um and we sort of laughed

00:13:01.840 it off and then sort of that discussion turned into you know you look through us weekly and

00:13:06.560 you're like what the hell what is this what is this outfit what is and and and suddenly we felt

00:13:11.960 like well maybe this is something that we can just like laugh it off on the internet because

00:13:15.100 at the time everybody was making blogs for stuff you know it was yeah you know for a while it was

00:13:20.540 angelina jolie's leg comes out it has its own twitter account um yeah before that people wanted

00:13:26.380 to do something funny on the internet they'd make a comedy blog and people were bored at work needed

00:13:30.940 to blow off steam there was no social media like no there was no social media you just reloaded

00:13:37.220 the blog reloaded the blog and so that's we were like let's blow off some steam on the internet

00:13:41.840 making fun of like all these hideous choices people are making and trying to understand like

00:13:47.420 what are you thinking and like wouldn't you if it were me wouldn't I not have worn whatever you

00:13:53.700 have done here that is made out of like strings and taking that sort of every person attitude

00:14:00.500 like the discussions you have with your friends when you're watching the Oscars but like putting

00:14:04.140 it on the internet and so that was how we got started. Okay we have so much to get to so let's

00:14:09.380 hear our first question, which comes from Sarah. Thug Girls Reader since 2005. Do people younger

00:14:15.260 than millennials even care about celebrity gossip and fashion the way those of us raised on the

00:14:20.260 Joan Rivers red carpet and award show life do? How is celebrity fashion changing with social

00:14:25.940 media platforms versus award shows and premieres as the main way to be a public figure? I mean,

00:14:32.180 I think the reach of social media, I think, has affected everything. It's impossible not to

00:14:37.640 use that as a touchstone. But I also think that some of social media and the rise of styling has

00:14:44.780 kind of come hand in hand. I think with now that you're everywhere and you can be in so many

00:14:49.300 different places at once and you get so much different levels of exposure and, you know,

00:14:53.340 the algorithm can show you to people and all of that, that I think people are styling themselves

00:14:59.400 more consciously or rigorously, perhaps, whether it's to go viral or not. But I think I think

00:15:08.620 there's that level in there that like I think that's changed the way that people present

00:15:12.580 themselves, sometimes for better or for worse. Whereas before, you know, if you wanted to see

00:15:18.340 what Lara Flynn Boyle was wearing, you had to watch the Golden Globes or whatever it was that

00:15:23.280 she wore the ballerina dress to. I can't remember which one it was. You had to turn on those red

00:15:27.620 carpets and you don't really have to do that anymore. So I don't know if, I don't know that

00:15:31.920 I think the younger readers really do care so much about award shows or about watching E! Like I'm

00:15:36.620 very curious as to what the demographics look like of who, who actually tunes in for live on the red

00:15:42.060 carpet. Um, and if it's like our website demographic, which I think is probably never

00:15:45.940 going to get any younger. Like, I think it's just like you were with us when we started and we're

00:15:50.380 moving together. Um, I, I just don't know that they, cause they can get it everywhere else and

00:15:55.180 you can get it you know if you want it uncritically you can get it here if you want it critically you

00:15:59.760 can get it here but like you don't need to turn on the tv and like be like who are they wearing

00:16:03.840 you know yeah jessica do you have any thoughts about that i feel like the beginning of the

00:16:08.860 question was asking where people who are younger than millennials are getting their celebrities is

00:16:14.180 that correct did i get that well do they even are they even interested in celebrity gossip and

00:16:20.100 fashion and i think they are i think so i mean i don't know if they're interested in getting it

00:16:24.500 from gofugyourself.com, as Heather pointed out, but I definitely think they're interested in

00:16:29.040 seeing it on TikTok. There's a ton of TikToks of like, I don't, I decided against TikTok for

00:16:35.380 myself, so I don't have TikTok. As the joke goes, I see TikToks when they make their way to Instagram,

00:16:40.840 like every 40 year old person. Anyway, but you know, there's a ton of TikToks of like,

00:16:48.400 celebrity outfits in the background and like a little talking head being like,

00:16:51.320 look at this dumb outfit and i'm like oh that's like what we used to do it's just on a different

00:16:54.880 yes um medium so i definitely i definitely think that younger people are i think people of all

00:17:01.100 ages will always be interested in what other people are wearing you know people cared in the

00:17:05.380 1800s like what mary todd lincoln was wearing i'm making this up but i'm sure that's true

00:17:10.260 um yes and like if you learn anything from watching the gilded age people cared what

00:17:14.960 so society quote unquote society people who were celebrities at the time were wearing to the opera

00:17:20.820 or what have you. So like people have cared throughout known history about what famous

00:17:25.840 people are wearing and will forever is my opinion. Yeah. And I think it's sort of just like the

00:17:30.640 influx of blogs writ even larger, where instead of waiting to see what a certain person thinks

00:17:35.240 about what people are wearing, you're just saying it yourself on your TikTok. So it's like you care

00:17:39.840 just as much, but you're not, you're, you're doing the, you're actively doing the caring and

00:17:44.300 not just being like, Ooh, I want to go to, what does Joan Rivers say? Or, you know, what does

00:17:48.160 Mr. Blackwell think and you know to go real deep into the archives yeah no that's really interesting

00:17:53.740 I do think that it encourages viewers to develop more of their own take right like I remember I

00:18:00.160 never would like make an opinion about Oscars dresses until I had like seen what different

00:18:06.480 people had said right yeah yeah and I think some of it one thing I noticed was like when we started

00:18:11.120 doing the website and like my mom's friends to be supportive would start reading the website and

00:18:16.680 would kind of get sucked into it. And then sometimes I'd get an email from one or two of

00:18:19.600 them that was like something semi not entirely positive about what somebody had worn. And you

00:18:24.880 could sort of see that there was a little bit of glee there being like, oh, I'm engaging in this

00:18:29.040 like almost illicit feeling gossipy activity of being like, she looked crazy. And I think,

00:18:36.140 but I think now that person would just, well, maybe not that person, but most people would,

00:18:39.740 yeah, they go on TikTok and they flip the camera around and they're just, they've got a picture

00:18:42.720 behind them and they're like, what the hell? And, and you just sort of, you can vent it however

00:18:46.560 you want you don't have to like you don't have to passively engage you just say it yeah yeah yeah

00:18:51.560 which is i think why we became popular in the first place is because we we were actively saying

00:18:56.400 it and at that time i think other people who were like they were like oh finally a place to say it

00:19:00.800 because there weren't all these other places to say it yet yeah and also you were quote unquote

00:19:05.160 normal people yes yeah i think there's an element of like yes we're not coming out here being like

00:19:11.600 well if you if you understood the references to the 1993 Alexander McQueen runway show you would

00:19:18.240 know that this is a deeply cerebral approach to fashion like no it's their pants made of duct

00:19:25.260 tape or whatever like it's like let's not try to overthink this and I think that cutting through

00:19:30.020 the bs was a big part of it our next question is from Jamie and it's about the landscape of

00:19:35.260 celebrity gossip this is like perfect question celebrity gossip has changed drastically from

00:19:40.120 its 1990s slash 2000s heyday. How do we critically assess gossip news sources in the age of Dumois

00:19:46.380 and Reddit? When does chatter have meat? How can we suss out the publicist type quote unquote

00:19:51.480 sources from the real deals? I was just going to say that I think all of your listener questions

00:19:57.760 are like extremely good and thought provoking. I was going to compliment everybody.

00:20:04.080 I was getting here I am. I'm like, actually, the 1950s were a much more interesting gossip.

00:20:10.120 I think that's true.

00:20:11.640 I think gossip has been interesting for all time.

00:20:14.780 But I agree with you.

00:20:15.420 I mean, like, never forget when Inger Bergman got called.

00:20:20.060 No, it wasn't Inger Bergman.

00:20:21.400 It was Elizabeth Taylor.

00:20:21.860 Instrument of Evil.

00:20:22.700 Instrument of Evil.

00:20:23.360 And Elizabeth Taylor was chastised for erotic vagrancy.

00:20:27.520 Like, that's crazy.

00:20:29.340 Okay.

00:20:29.720 I have thoughts about Dumois.

00:20:32.340 I have stated them many times.

00:20:34.320 First of all, I obviously follow Dumois and am very interested in what happens on Dumois.

00:20:40.120 simultaneously I don't think you can believe anything that you read on Dumois and I also

00:20:46.420 think Dumois is going to get sued eventually you heard it here I know she has a disclaimer that she

00:20:52.720 just publishes anything but eventually I do think that's going to bite her in the ass I just I'm

00:20:57.780 putting that out there um I find Dumois to be have such like an interesting duality no pun intended

00:21:04.780 it, wherein I read it. I'm really interested in it. I read the Reddit, the subreddit devoted to it

00:21:12.220 religiously. But I think you have to take stuff on there with like such a grain of salt. For me,

00:21:20.000 I think it has meat when, I mean, as in all journalism, you have multiple sources. Like

00:21:26.660 you can't just believe Dumois being like, I saw Kaya Gerber like slap Austin Butler at wherever

00:21:32.800 the kids are going now catch or whatever like if it's in Dumois and it's in page six and then if it

00:21:39.000 like trickles into people then like shit's real but you can't take one source ever for this stuff

00:21:45.400 what are both of your relationships to blinds because I think a lot of how you think about

00:21:49.640 gossip has to do with what do you like are blinds interesting yeah I should they're interesting yes

00:21:55.960 they're fun to discuss they're great mysteries I think for me like the trick with figuring out

00:22:00.660 whether there's meat to any gossip is that ultimately you are never going to

00:22:03.440 know you just aren't it's got unless it comes true unless they're like Ben and

00:22:07.860 Jen are getting divorced and then they get divorced but like at the time you

00:22:11.340 really just have to run everything through your own bullshit radar and your

00:22:14.260 bullshit radar is going to be influenced a little bit based on whatever you kind

00:22:18.080 of want to be true yeah yeah and we say all the time where we're like you know

00:22:21.120 I hope like I hope Ben and Jen are getting back together because like that

00:22:24.480 would be a great story like or whatever you like you so you might find you might

00:22:27.800 seek sources whether you know you're doing it or not same as you would with the news you're going

00:22:32.360 to look for something that confirms your bias you know yes and you're going to be more likely to

00:22:36.460 believe that and and the magazines where you have like people someone anytime a celebrity breaks up

00:22:40.980 you find that like one of them gets people and one of them gets us weekly and you just have to decide

00:22:45.260 you just have to know that and you have to know that those publications are often being used

00:22:49.600 in opposition to one another and that that's that those now unfortunately are the pr mouthpieces

00:22:54.640 doesn't mean that what they're saying isn't true but those stories aren't there by accident at

00:23:00.000 least for sure in my opinion and people magazine for sure i think that's yeah that's one that people

00:23:04.160 use very strategically if there's an exclusive story on people about taylor swift's dad

00:23:09.300 really liking maddie healy i feel like that's been placed there by somebody for a reason because

00:23:16.160 people think of people as the authority but um honestly like yeah i think you have to you have

00:23:22.420 just kind of can I be totally honest and then I think half the time the most accurate gossip

00:23:28.620 speculation is on reddit and I know that's insane no that's true it's because all of those people

00:23:34.400 like I remember watching the bachelorette this summer and I was in the bachelorette reddit

00:23:38.900 before while the season was still airing before anything happened all of those people had noticed

00:23:44.860 the ultimate winners weird social media likes they had noticed his changes in his social media

00:23:51.060 behavior. And they were on top of all of it and had pretty much cracked the case. And that's where

00:23:56.160 I'm like, internet detectives are ruthless. And regardless of whether I think that's a healthy

00:24:01.260 use of your time, sometimes I will be like, wow, those people are noticing people's, like, what

00:24:08.080 they think are their hidden behaviors. And so I often take that into account a little bit.

00:24:12.180 But at the end of the day, like, you're going to choose what you believe based on kind of what you

00:24:15.780 want to be true. And as long as you are acknowledging that to yourself, I think that's

00:24:20.060 the key as being like well you know i secretly i'm rooting for j-lo and so i want to believe that

00:24:26.380 you know ben affleck is a massive pain in the ass but i'm admitting that that's where i'm coming

00:24:30.980 from you know what i mean he's a massive pain in the ass let's be right i just i keep thinking of

00:24:37.740 that photo of matt damon and jennifer lopez talking and like just like exactly what they

00:24:42.580 were talking about i i think and i've talked about this on the podcast before like you have to figure

00:24:47.860 out where is your pleasure center when it comes to gossip right do you like puzzles is that give

00:24:54.740 you pleasure to like try to figure things out and can you try to figure things out with the

00:24:59.900 understanding that there's no truth there's no ultimate truth you're never good like you don't

00:25:04.940 know these people you're going to find something that you feel is going to be truth and maybe

00:25:10.360 that's like the part of consuming gossip that's really interesting to you yeah is the rabbit hole

00:25:14.860 And I think, I think sometimes the blind items feel as though they are written already aware

00:25:20.100 of what people do or don't want to be true.

00:25:22.080 And so that's when you start to think, well, you're just writing this because like, that's

00:25:24.680 what half of Reddit is already talking about.

00:25:26.400 And like, you're trying to be an authority and like, and I think plenty of other gossip

00:25:32.720 websites that run, specialize in blind items do that, where it just feels like I'm reading

00:25:36.880 something that like you are just making up because it sounds plausible.

00:25:40.400 um but it's funny because i remember i used to be you know back in 1999 or 2000 or whatever when

00:25:47.400 ted casablanca was writing the awful truth and he had a blind item section every couple pages

00:25:52.060 it that that was the stuff i looked forward to the most because it was i'm not saying he invented

00:25:57.160 the blind item but because the internet was just becoming widespread at that time he was one of

00:26:02.980 the first i think to make them widely accessible and because he was backed by a publication

00:26:08.360 you sort of thought well he's got legs to stand on like he's he's a real journalist and like well

00:26:14.060 and apologies maybe he is but like it never really at that time in my young life it probably

00:26:19.520 wouldn't have occurred to me to be like is he just like sitting at home making up stories about

00:26:23.160 toothy tile or is that like a real situation and what are what is jake gyllenhaal doing

00:26:29.160 right somewhere in jake gyllenhaal's house he has a holiday ornament that says

00:26:37.620 merry christmas toothy tile somebody has clearly bought him some merch but but i think that sort

00:26:45.700 of spoiled us a little and it made the blind item in put it in the lexicon and then after that i

00:26:50.580 think people just sort of thought well every they're all they all must have some grounding

00:26:53.720 and where there's smoke there's fire and i'm like with a blind item i tend to think

00:26:56.940 especially the ones that aren't really blind yes where they're like snake snively

00:27:02.940 is making a movie and her husband brian shennels is a jerk or like you're like okay that's someone

00:27:10.820 just wrote that on their microsoft word and emailed it like well and so much like the the

00:27:16.320 if you go back and look at old school blind items like in the 1950s and that sort of thing like so

00:27:22.320 much of it was about behavior that was actually incredibly socially illicit so whether that was

00:27:28.640 dating someone of another race or being gay like they're just like they had to have there there

00:27:34.380 was a language that you were speaking to other people who knew yeah and now it's more like

00:27:39.680 what do people want to believe well I feel like also now half of the ones on Dumois I'm like a

00:27:45.940 publicist sent this in like totally PR lady who wrote this god bless your heart you need to learn

00:27:52.880 to write like a random who just spotted these two people and not like a PR person who's writing

00:27:58.640 a press release because some of them will be like spotted canoodling like this hot person and this

00:28:04.880 hot person at this hot restaurant of like okay like or like which B-list actress who you love

00:28:13.540 just landed the role of her career on the hottest new show yes she beat out everyone you could

00:28:19.540 possibly imagine and you're like okay well thanks hbo pr like so funny yeah okay okay our next

00:28:27.660 question is about which stories gain traction this comes from amanda and melody is going to read it

00:28:33.220 what causes some high profile celebrity gossip to break into the mainstream consciousness

00:28:38.760 j-lo and ben's divorce maybe while other stories seem to stay among those who are quote extremely

00:28:44.780 online and never hit the mainstream for example brad pitt is still beloved by many even though

00:28:50.400 the plane incident where he allegedly abused his ex-wife and at least one child is well documented

00:28:56.040 but never hit the mainstream all right so is the answer brad pitt's publicist yes or is there

00:29:02.420 something more complex we talked about this on go fuck yourself last week yeah someone was like why

00:29:06.600 hasn't brad pitt been canceled and my answer was multifold and it was like a hardly anybody gets

00:29:13.000 canceled like harvey weinstein not real other than that mel gibson isn't even canceled yeah

00:29:18.300 he's barely even canceled he's like working somewhere now like yes no one needs canceled

00:29:22.780 guys calm down ellen degeneres has a new netflix special about how sad she is she was canceled

00:29:28.400 like i'm like you're on netflix you're not that canceled regardless but the thing about brad i

00:29:32.820 think is a he is a handsome white man with a ton of money who can pay for the best pr team in town

00:29:40.540 he's one of the only real movie stars left yeah so people are attached to him

00:29:48.120 and i also think so many people are just not paying that much attention like they're just

00:29:54.200 not like i think you would be people who are listening to this are paying attention but i

00:29:59.520 think you would be surprised by how many people like just don't pay that much attention to stuff

00:30:04.180 like i remember having a conversation with someone a while ago and they didn't know about the rumors

00:30:10.040 that john travolta was gay and i was like everybody knows that they're like really um

00:30:15.320 no i this happens in my life all the time too of course and in a sense i'm like that's good like

00:30:21.700 people should not be this tuned into maybe what celebrities are doing in their personal life

00:30:26.300 i honestly think with brad is money people magazine is not gonna go against brad pitt

00:30:32.260 or george clooning and brad has powerful friends that i think angelina doesn't really have

00:30:36.680 and so yeah you get brad pitt and george clooney in a movie together and it's like look the bros

00:30:42.660 are back together right isn't this great and it's such an easy pr sell i do think the worm is turning

00:30:48.860 a little bit on brad i don't think it's going to turn entirely and some of it i think is because

00:30:53.480 he's getting like all of us older and he's wearing like a lot of bucket hats he's dating

00:31:00.040 a much younger woman and i think that stuff sort of activates people's spidey sense a little bit

00:31:07.460 about a person it's the bucket hats you guys it's the bucket hats on a 60 year old man there's like

00:31:13.600 something going on here it's a clue yes i agree with you that he's having a bit of a midlife

00:31:18.060 crisis or whatever i do think people maybe are getting weird vibes off brad pitt but i don't

00:31:23.660 know that they've absorbed the actual bad vibes from Brad Pitt right I mean I think there's an

00:31:29.760 element of like if they don't and also like you can read like yes you can read the report about

00:31:35.940 everything that happened from the investigation but I think there's still people who will be like

00:31:39.620 but we didn't it happened on the plane we didn't see it you don't know well people don't believe a

00:31:43.660 woman just well and that was my next point I think it's misogynistic a little bit because when you

00:31:48.660 looked at JLo and Ben's divorce this has been my high horse that I've been on lately but like you

00:31:52.980 look at their divorce and immediately when that's all the rush of press when that split up was

00:31:57.500 people being like we knew it she's deranged she's obsessed with marriage she can't keep a man

00:32:04.120 she's annoying she's too freaky about wanting publicity and it's like really like we're really

00:32:09.480 and I think because that story confirmed what I think a lot of people who secretly or unsecretly

00:32:14.820 hate JLo wanted to to believe they were like oh yeah yeah I think that worm has slightly

00:32:19.280 started turning and lo and behold as soon as people started leaking stories that like maybe

00:32:24.740 ben is sort of a dark and twisty moody pain in the ass and also by the way he was not opposed

00:32:32.080 to using the paparazzi to promote his relationship with anna d'armas during covid so like why would

00:32:36.640 he suddenly hate it with j-lo like he knew what he was getting into he's not a poor impressionable

00:32:41.060 little lamb from the sticks like yeah it's been cricket athletic you guys he's not like a sad

00:32:46.560 orphan child she picked up on the side of the road right and as soon as people started saying

00:32:50.440 a little bit more of that suddenly we've got these stories that are like well they're canoodling at

00:32:54.160 the polo bar with their kids and it's like oh okay so now you're making her and then people

00:32:59.640 are flinging back to like she just needs to go away for a while she doesn't know what she's doing

00:33:03.300 so i really think unfortunately the idea that the desire to like it's all like this is the

00:33:10.420 woman humble enough this is this idea of tearing down the woman i think is much more appealing to

00:33:15.720 people still and also i think discounts just how complicated angelina jolie's images and like her

00:33:23.980 resonance and most people's minds like even though she very successfully renovated her image she still

00:33:29.960 is like the black widow she kissed her brother and she wore blood yeah like yeah like she still

00:33:35.840 has this like she's a chameleon and like oh they broke up and like maybe she's in a relationship

00:33:41.180 with a woman and like oh all the kids are on her side and i think you have a lot of like

00:33:46.580 divorce dad energy that's like well she's just like all the kids want to be you know hanging

00:33:52.960 out with her like something's going on and so i think it's like she has also used her very

00:33:59.420 subtle pr strategy in a way that maybe hasn't worked no in her favor you know what i mean

00:34:05.720 well the other thing is that like i do think there's still a hangover from the whole

00:34:09.580 brad jennifer angelina love triangle of our lifetime where people you still see it online

00:34:17.880 sometimes where people are like still mad at angelina jolie for quote unquote stealing ben

00:34:22.540 from jennifer aniston you guys it was 20 years ago but that's never gonna go away that is always

00:34:28.460 going to be part of the way that she signifies the same way that it was always part of who

00:34:34.240 elizabeth taylor was is that she you know stole bobby fisher from poor debbie reynolds yeah um

00:34:41.100 okay next question this comes this is something i think about all the time and it's about how

00:34:46.280 so much of what we know is now coming from the celebrities themselves this comes from lexi

00:34:51.600 what's the deal with celebrity interviews these days seems like it involves chicken like hot ones

00:34:58.200 or chicken shop date or like showing their house in a very staged manner a la Open Door AD. These

00:35:04.140 feel very staged and PR-y but I do love them a lot. Is this a result of the journalism industry

00:35:09.840 declining? Celebrities deciding how they want to be in the world or just YouTube making things fun

00:35:15.300 and interesting rather than relying on legacy media? I think it's a cocktail of a lot of those

00:35:20.280 things because I think look I think there's this desire to be viral and if you're going to become

00:35:25.400 a meme you want it to be for something fun or funny or yeah you want to be like every here's

00:35:30.780 every reaction of jennifer lawrence eating hot wings and you want it to be increasingly hilarious

00:35:35.500 you know and like i think i think celebrities see that as an opportunity to be to get let you feel

00:35:42.720 like you're getting a piece of them even if maybe you're not um right you know when you look at

00:35:46.520 legacy media and this is something that we would run into and the occasions that we would freelance

00:35:50.120 it's there was a resistance to saying anything about a particular about some celebrities if they

00:35:56.600 were like well they were just on our cover or like well her people are gonna be really mad if

00:36:00.740 you put that or whatever and you're and you think well but you hired us to be opinion writers a so

00:36:05.820 like we really you don't want to we don't want to like lie about our opinion on something just

00:36:10.580 because you are afraid of how like Lindsay Lohan is going to react like I don't want to say that

00:36:15.600 I like her dress just because you want her on the cover in two months um so there was a bit of that

00:36:19.800 where these legacy publications that are sort of struggling need to preserve access. And I think

00:36:26.320 that's why you get a lot of really fawning celebrity profiles that aren't that. Yeah,

00:36:31.760 you read it and you're like, I'm not going to read anything in here that they're not going to

00:36:34.540 challenge them on anything. Occasionally they do when you get a celebrity who I think understands

00:36:38.640 that what they need to be challenged on is something they need to address. But for the most

00:36:41.960 part, they're not. And I think you can get away with that if you're Taffy Ackner and you're writing

00:36:46.480 for the New York times and you are a genius at what you do and you have that platform but

00:36:52.380 otherwise it's you're not going to see a lot of that so when you then when you get like the hot

00:36:55.920 ones it feels like it's something different and more honest and in the end it is because you know

00:37:02.200 with hot wings chicken shop date I don't really get I feel like it's weird vibes and really I've

00:37:07.820 never seen a clip from that that wasn't sort of short and brusque and unfulfilling like I just I

00:37:13.480 don't get it so that one i have to leave aside because i don't think it's as useful to celebrities

00:37:18.420 as maybe people think it is but hot ones that guy asks really good questions and even if the

00:37:25.160 celebrities are given the questions in advance and given all the time in the world to prepare

00:37:28.120 the one thing they cannot control is how they're going to react to the hot wing and so that gives

00:37:33.120 you the sort of illusion of spontaneity and it can kind of throw a curveball and i think that's

00:37:38.340 what makes that such a a pleasure to watch um and makes it feel like a more useful PR thing

00:37:45.520 because you're like oh I'm experiencing this moment with Hugh Jackman right now he is I can

00:37:52.140 see steam coming out of his collar like I'm we're we're having this thing together and it's no one's

00:37:57.260 controlling it he absolutely has no control over what his body's doing right now and it feels more

00:38:00.940 honest than what you're seeing anywhere else it's also just sort of like hot ones is so

00:38:07.020 such a silly idea and i think it's just kind of like so simple we're gonna make a celebrity eat

00:38:15.280 a hot wing it's just sort of fun like i get i think a celebrity is going on that because i

00:38:19.620 think it's going to be fun and i do think when they are like you know i think if you're in a

00:38:24.280 you're doing like a press junket or whatever it's like you're seeing 400 different journalists and

00:38:29.840 they're all like what was it like to work with Chris Evans or whatever the same question is and

00:38:34.040 like that is not a shade to a journalist I have been that person a fashion week asking the same

00:38:38.820 question that the person has heard a hundred times it is a hard job we all have to ask the

00:38:42.680 same questions but I think going on I'm sure that gets kind of like monotonous so to go on hot ones

00:38:49.600 is not monotonous and I think it is fun and so I think that's one of the reasons we're getting that

00:38:54.520 I think they just flat out want to do it that's true and some of the other ones is the illusion

00:38:58.480 of access i haven't seen open door ad but i would imagine it's kind of like i would describe it as

00:39:04.380 that's not where i was gonna go i wish i was hoping i was hoping i was gonna say it's like

00:39:11.360 vogue 76 questions but better yes okay it's less cheesy than 76 questions which i feel like feels

00:39:17.500 really need someone to go in there and kind of like shake it up a little bit because it's so

00:39:21.520 like controlled and scripted feeling um ad open door is a lot better if you're especially if you're

00:39:26.860 nosy about people's houses which i am which i think it's great like these are how they really

00:39:30.900 live is the kind of stuff that i think really appeals to people and not so much like she showed

00:39:35.080 up to the cafe in simple black leggings and a gray sweatshirt not a speck of makeup on her face

00:39:40.480 she ate she ate a salad and you're like well that's i mean or you know she ate her whole grilled

00:39:45.100 cheese sandwich i like i don't care about that stuff and i think that that's where the legacy

00:39:49.120 media profiles do start to feel a little less fresh and you're sort of like or i could watch

00:39:54.760 melissa mccarthy spray milk into her mouth after she's eaten a wing of death or the really good

00:39:58.980 one was where they had aubrey plaza ask patty lapone either apologize so good apologize to

00:40:04.240 madonna or eat a wing of death and she just like shoveled the wings of death in her mouth and i was

00:40:07.980 like that is that was worth its weight and whatever discomfort she had later yeah and i think it

00:40:14.300 functions in some ways the way that instagram and twitter worked really early on right yeah or even

00:40:21.800 like that you're like oh my gosh Ashton Kutcher took a picture of Demi Moore's butt right like

00:40:27.840 that was one of the famous first like uses of a twit pic was what it was called um and and you're

00:40:36.460 like oh and he even said like Ashton Kutcher said like we're taking the paparazzi back into our own

00:40:42.380 hands and what he meant by that is essentially like oh you're hungry for authenticity and you

00:40:47.600 feel like you want to have something authentic like here I'll give it to you but I'm going to

00:40:51.460 in control of it i feel like the other side of that is my true belief that most celebrities

00:40:55.800 should not be in charge of their social media at all like totally you should not be but yeah there

00:41:00.720 was a real um wild wild west happening there with twitter for a while and now there's this

00:41:05.180 interesting i think disconnect where they say like we are the author of our own like our own

00:41:11.060 instagram like i don't know daisy edgar jones like oh she posted her own instagram but i think

00:41:16.780 she has a team that also is like okay let's pick this photo this photo and this photo

00:41:20.600 Daisy Edgar Jones, no offense to Daisy Edgar Jones

00:41:23.260 as an actress I like her

00:41:25.220 as a celebrity she's very boring

00:41:26.780 the only thing interesting

00:41:28.820 is that she hangs out with Paul Mescal

00:41:30.940 sometimes, that's the only

00:41:32.460 reason I follow her

00:41:33.940 and I think it's good for her as a human

00:41:37.220 person but she's not going to be posting

00:41:39.220 anything totally out of pocket

00:41:41.060 on her Instagram, do you know what I mean?

00:41:42.640 and it's interesting because

00:41:45.200 even now that stuff is becoming more

00:41:47.160 curated, remember

00:41:48.040 I remember when everyone first started following Busy Phillips really earnestly, it was because

00:41:52.200 she would hang out with Michelle Williams on Instagram. And it was like a totally different

00:41:56.000 side of Michelle Williams that you would occasionally get to see. And then her Instagram

00:42:00.640 following kind of blew up. And I feel like that doesn't happen anymore. Like Michelle Williams is

00:42:04.760 not on there anymore. And it's very different. So it's almost like it's becoming as carefully

00:42:11.500 managed in some ways as anything else. It's this illusion of getting the straight scoop.

00:42:18.040 the only other thing I'd say before we do our last question is that I think younger audiences

00:42:22.660 in particular and I'm not trying to be like derogatory but like they just don't read as much

00:42:26.740 so they're not going to read a celebrity profile they might read parts of it aggregated and then

00:42:31.580 but they will watch YouTubes in a way that is very difficult for me like I'm actually criticizing

00:42:36.960 myself that like I it is hard for me to sit down and watch a four-minute YouTube video

00:42:41.040 I don't want to do that and I don't want to ask anyone to do that no one wants to watch me on a

00:42:46.040 four minute YouTube video. Like my God, no, I, yeah, it's, it's,

00:42:50.480 we resist video on the blog all the time. And I, I'm sure that's outmoded,

00:42:54.920 but I'm like, we run a website. People read on the sly at work. Like,

00:42:58.560 you don't want to do video. Like, I'm sorry.

00:43:02.480 We do not want your boss to walk in your office and hear my voice being like,

00:43:05.680 this woman looks like an idiot. Like it's not professional.

00:43:10.280 Like what's up with the drawstring pants, Brad? Like that's, yeah.

00:43:16.040 For our last question, we're going to actually do this as an ask-in-anything, but keep it on theme.

00:43:21.120 This is about how to spot a PR move and how to avoid falling into a conspiracy theory rabbit hole.

00:43:27.260 This question comes from Johanna.

00:43:29.380 With social media and accounts analyzing PR moves, have we as consumers of celebrity gossip also become more critical of celebrities' motives and better at spotting PR strategies?

00:43:39.760 Or are we just more likely to buy into conspiracy theories?

00:43:42.700 why do we think everything is PR rather than a genuine fuck up or relationship oh that's a great

00:43:49.400 question it's a great question I know I sometimes think a pendulum swings in either extreme like

00:43:55.600 either there are people who will believe everything they read like we would get emails from people or

00:43:59.260 not emails but just back in the day we'd get a comment on a post that was like but I thought

00:44:03.080 Kate Middleton was pregnant with twins and it was someone who like meant it because they'd seen it

00:44:06.980 on closer magazine at the supermarket and they just like but it says it on the magazine and

00:44:12.540 then you get the people who are like everything's a lie and there's not as much middle ground as

00:44:17.240 there should be or maybe that's just because the loudest factions are always the ones that are

00:44:20.560 making them you know they're the loudest um i don't know what to say to that one i think i think

00:44:25.100 some of it is like i used to talk about this with reality tv where like because we both used to work

00:44:28.920 in reality tv and sometimes you would get the after like a season or two or three of a show

00:44:33.860 you get people who were cast on the show and they would come on because they wanted to be there but

00:44:37.700 they also kind of wanted to beat the show at what they perceived as its own game yes so they'd be

00:44:41.740 I'm not going to give them anything. I'm not going to tell them what I think about anything in a real

00:44:45.780 way. I'm just going to be here to learn how to model and I'm not giving them anything. And those

00:44:50.480 people would never be on the show because they were really boring. So it's like, in fact, you

00:44:54.320 didn't beat the show at its own game. You just, you bought into the wrong thing. Like you didn't,

00:44:59.020 you've, you've not presented yourself at all in attempting to present yourself in a way that you

00:45:04.020 imagine is better. And so I guess what I'm, what I mean by that is like, we all think maybe, I think

00:45:09.820 we went through a phase where we thought we were smarter than the PR game where we were like

00:45:12.920 realizing that these machines existed and we were like everything I see I'm smarter than you now I

00:45:17.740 know I know I see the wheels turning and really I think the truth has got to be somewhere in the

00:45:22.140 middle well and like to kind of piggyback off that we used to get on basically any competition

00:45:28.280 reality show you would work on or really almost any reality show you would get people who would

00:45:33.900 be like the producers have fixed this and like they're manipulating this and I would be like

00:45:39.140 I wish I had time to manipulate anything. I do not. We are on a tight schedule. We are we have

00:45:46.360 no time for anything. Like, I haven't seen the daylight in like six weeks. I don't have time

00:45:51.540 to manipulate anything. And I do think some of that is also the case in like, the celebrity PR

00:45:58.200 world. Like, of course, yeah, people who are very rich and powerful and have a big team are capable

00:46:04.240 of like rolling stuff out like taylor swift yeah is obviously the the queen of this of having

00:46:10.760 everything like planned out to to the to the very dotting her eyes crossing her t's everything

00:46:15.860 but i think a lot of people they are just kind of like reacting in the moment because they have a

00:46:21.460 hundred other things to do and i'm just making pulling this person out thin air like madeline

00:46:26.360 client is not their only client um so as heather said the truth is in the middle sometimes people

00:46:32.020 just fuck up. Not everything is a conspiracy. And I also think that something we've all learned in

00:46:37.460 the last 20 years is that American, I don't want to speak for the rest of the world, American media

00:46:44.480 literacy is kind of crummy. And, you know, we would see that with like the example Heather

00:46:50.140 brought up where I would be like, Closer Magazine is never going to break news about Kate Middleton's

00:46:56.240 health ever if you have good scoop you're gonna sell it to someone who can pay you for it you're

00:47:02.260 gonna go to the daily mail you're gonna go to people occasionally a small magazine like in

00:47:07.760 touch will break the like the dugger case because they are on the reality show beat that is their

00:47:13.880 yes their bread and butter they're sourced up yes in the reality show yes yes um they're not

00:47:19.920 sourced up in the british royal family give me a break and so i do think that like people do need

00:47:25.860 to like read stuff and think about where am I getting this from what is my source here and I

00:47:33.280 think half of the world is getting worse at that and half of the world is getting better at it so

00:47:37.560 I think we're all meeting kind of in the middle you know yeah well it's it's hard because I do

00:47:41.560 think that there is a generation and it's really our generation I like I think it's millennials

00:47:46.240 and gen x who grew up during the gossip blog era and were exposed to people like you like Lainey

00:47:53.140 who were writing about here is how you understand how publicity works in the celebrity world right

00:47:58.900 now right like okay if it says a friend or close associate like that's probably their publicist

00:48:06.480 right or like just kind of gave you these keywords and this means to understand and what i see now

00:48:12.780 is a lot of like there's a reason there was so much overlap between q anon and crazy days and

00:48:17.780 nights which was gossip site like and i think this was aided of course by everything that happened

00:48:22.640 with Jeffrey Epstein, that you're like, oh, there is this nefarious underworld that lends credence

00:48:31.380 to everything else that I want to believe about QAnon and a conspiracy going on in the United

00:48:37.160 States writ large, not just in the world of celebrity. And so I think there's media literacy,

00:48:42.440 I think there's a lack of trust. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And just this idea of like, I don't want

00:48:49.280 to be hoodwinked and you become so cynical that you think everything is a ploy and that's the

00:48:54.000 pendulum swinging too far in the other direction yeah like I think yeah also and I say this all

00:48:58.020 the time about like government conspiracies and stuff like I'm sorry our government can barely

00:49:01.480 agree on whether to pay itself they are not pulling off massive global conspiracies on the

00:49:07.980 level that the whack jobs think they are and I think I find it to be sort of similar with

00:49:12.980 celebrities like I appreciate Sidney Sweeney and Glenn Powell being like yeah you know what we

00:49:17.520 were pretending to cozy up in pictures to promote our movie yes yes but like that to me is so much

00:49:23.520 more realistic like they went to some premieres maybe they had like cozied up on instagram in a

00:49:29.580 couple posts but like over like a short span of time and then it was over and then they copped to

00:49:34.900 it later and they were like yeah of course that was a marketing strategy but like the ones where

00:49:38.600 it's like you know priyanka topra and nick jonas are bearding each other and i'm like at this point

00:49:44.660 like do we really think they've been bearding each other for years like you may not think that

00:49:48.700 makes sense but like and maybe who knows what's really going on there but like i find that it's

00:49:54.300 hard to imagine that anything that's that much of a that would be that much of a pr machine

00:49:58.780 situation for that long wouldn't have already had cracks in the you know like stuff would be

00:50:04.880 leaking about like it's i just think it's really hard to pull off anything like that harder than

00:50:08.340 anyone thinks i also think that like especially now it's just yeah you guys sometimes it's just

00:50:13.840 two hot people want to have sex that's normal like not everything is a conspiracy sometimes

00:50:18.800 people just want to get it on maybe they're co-stars it's not gonna last forever like

00:50:24.260 not everything is made up for press you have to kind of use your own um like does it pass the

00:50:32.480 personal sniff test and i do think people are kind of getting better at that like for sure you'll see

00:50:37.800 stuff again to bring up Dumois where you'll see people on the subreddit devoted to Dumois

00:50:43.520 um FOMO be like nice try this is clearly a PR and I was like you're right that was a PR plant

00:50:51.660 like I so I think people who consume it a lot can maybe teach themselves to be appropriately

00:50:58.520 critical consumers of gossip yeah I think people who get it I mean I don't know there's all like

00:51:06.040 yeah i feel like i didn't really have a point there because there are then people who get

00:51:09.200 sucked into like a full conspiracy theory and spent all their time like making a murder board

00:51:13.660 about it when like yeah there's no murder board at the end of the day you will read the stuff

00:51:18.380 you can know anything you want to like you're gonna have to decide for yourself if you think

00:51:22.400 people magazine is full of shit you're gonna have to decide for yourself if you think there's a ring

00:51:25.820 of truth to the do more post to the reddit theories to the whatever but always you have

00:51:31.020 to bring that level of self-awareness into it to be like i am sort of making the choice because

00:51:35.320 this is what i want like i enjoy this and i enjoy i enjoy this idea well i also do think so every

00:51:41.860 now and then you will come across a post on like reddit or a blog or twitter whatever where it's

00:51:46.860 like what is the conspiracy theory you believe and those reading those is always delightful

00:51:52.560 always great it's always so fun yes you'll be like oh wait the thing that i was just gonna say

00:51:57.440 like in reading that i can't think of one off the top of my head but i always had the experience of

00:52:03.280 green and then be like oh yeah i believe that one too like so i think everybody does have a

00:52:07.620 conspiracy theory i can't think of mine off the top of my head but for sure i know mine what's

00:52:11.980 yours mine is that somebody said that jessica chastain is like the illegitimate daughter of

00:52:18.280 ron howard and that explains her and bryce dallas howard looking so similar but not quite

00:52:22.640 and i was like with apologies to all of their families i choose to believe that's true

00:52:28.200 oh i think ronan farrow is definitely frank sinatra here's my thought he looks so much like

00:52:34.820 mia i think mia and frank look like each other so god throws it off there yeah as long as your

00:52:43.180 conspiracy theories don't manifest in the real world in ways that are that harm people i think

00:52:47.920 that um that's the difference keep it to your group that's where that's where gossip really

00:52:53.420 sort of starts to get into something insidious and like don't ruin our sport you guys don't

00:52:57.620 Yes.

00:52:58.400 Don't take this joy from us.

00:52:59.700 Be cool.

00:53:00.100 You guys, just be cool.

00:53:01.260 Please be cool.

00:53:02.440 This is a great place for us to end.

00:53:04.160 Thank you so much for coming on the pod.

00:53:06.780 Where can people find more of you on the internet if they want more of your work?

00:53:10.700 Not TikTok.

00:53:11.320 There's multiple spots now, which I think is fantastic.

00:53:15.420 We have many places.

00:53:16.760 You can find us at our old school web blog talking about celebrity fashion at GoFug,

00:53:23.800 F-U-G with a G, FugYourself.com.

00:53:27.620 we now also have a sub stack which is a hoot in my personal opinion where we talk about gossip

00:53:33.380 celebrity news we do a lot of recaps old school tv recap it's that's still your jam it's called

00:53:39.760 drinks with broads it is that sub stack um those are the main areas great great comment section

00:53:46.560 yes great we have delightful i think well i've seen the stats so you and drinks with broads we

00:53:53.640 have a big Ben diagram overlap in our readership so I think we can both speak from a place of

00:53:59.480 certainty that the comment sections are excellent because I think we have a lot of overlap in our

00:54:03.660 commenters and otherwise we're really um we're really weak on social media you guys we're

00:54:09.200 like everyone else Twitter's kind of Instagram we never really figured out yeah you can find

00:54:15.680 us there but you're more likely to catch us in writing and not have to like look at our faces

00:54:20.520 or usually listen to our voices.

00:54:23.340 I love it.

00:54:24.460 I love it.

00:54:25.000 Thank you again.

00:54:28.060 Thanks for listening to the Culture Study Podcast.

00:54:30.340 Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

00:54:32.500 because we have so many great episodes in the works

00:54:34.980 and I promise that you do not want to miss any of them.

00:54:38.300 One of the episodes in the pipeline

00:54:39.740 is about famous celebrity feuds, past and present.

00:54:44.200 Get your questions in ASAP

00:54:46.200 because this one's going to be great.

00:54:47.800 and it's with Joel Anderson from the Slow Burn Podcast and a lot of other places. He is amazing.

00:54:54.040 I cannot wait for this episode. If you want to suggest a topic, ask a question about the culture

00:54:58.620 that surrounds you or submit a question for our subscriber only advice time segment, go to our

00:55:04.200 Google form at tinyurl.com slash culture study pod, or check the show notes for a link. Today's

00:55:11.040 episode is free for everyone. So if you like what you hear, and if you want to support the show,

00:55:15.620 head to culturestudypod.substack.com. It's five bucks a month or $50 a year and you'll get ad-free

00:55:21.980 episodes, the Ask Ann Anything segment, weekly discussion threads for each episode, and a link

00:55:27.840 to a special Google form so that your questions go to the front of the line. And if you're a paid

00:55:32.480 subscriber, head over to the discussion thread and keep the discussion going. For today's discussion,

00:55:38.600 what are your feelings about celebrity gossip today? Where are your trusted sources? And what

00:55:44.700 do you think we have and haven't learned from the pinnacle of 2000s gossip, which is at the center

00:55:50.740 of our discussion here? The Culture Study Podcast is produced by me, Anne Helen Peterson, and Melody

00:55:55.940 Rowell. Our music is by Poddington Bear. You can find me on Instagram at Anne Helen Peterson,

00:56:01.060 Melody at Melodious47, and the show at Culture Study Pod.

Culture Study Podcast - January 15, 2025

The Wild and Banal Future of Celebrity Gossip

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