00:02:42.040I also happen to be kind of a super fan of Kate's writing.
00:02:45.640Kate, I am so excited to be talking to you today.
00:02:48.540I feel like anytime you drop a new piece, it goes straight in my group chat because I know it's going to be the kind of piece that we're talking about.
00:02:56.860I'm like, I like I'm awaiting the docu version of the piece like that.
00:03:05.660It's such a I have such a cool job at Business Insider where it is a lot of like doing deep dives into whatever I'm super interested in.
00:03:15.020And like it's often like I end up writing articles where I'm like, oh, I wish I could read an article about this.
00:03:20.840And my editor is like, well, sounds like you have to report it out.
00:03:23.680So a lot of your reporting is taking these like big, messy, sometimes like business or corporate stories and then synthesizing them down so your average person can really see like what's at stake or why they should even care, even about these stories that they might not even necessarily think they care about or think impacts them in any capacity.
00:03:43.420How did you get into being that person who does that with these complicated stories?
00:03:47.260My background is actually I was a business beat reporter on the retail and restaurant speed. So practically that meant doing a ton of business reporting on fast food chain. So I followed Subway really closely. I followed Starbucks really closely. I followed McDonald's really closely, like listening in on earnings calls, talking to executives.
00:04:06.960And for all of these things, I found it to be really fascinating how these kind of wonky business decisions impacted the thousands and thousands of people who ate at the chains, who worked at the chains.
00:04:20.880So that was kind of my introduction into journalism. And then going from there to being on our features and investigations team, it kind of continued to be like, OK, how can we take these stories and like make them important to someone who doesn't think of themselves as someone who like wants to read a business publication or who wants to kind of read something that might be a little bit dry in how it's presented sometimes.
00:04:44.580This is exactly what I love about Kate's work.
00:04:49.100She finds a story that is ostensibly a story about the way a business is being run
00:04:53.240and drills down into what it says about us as a culture and why it matters.
00:04:57.640Like back in 2015, when Starbucks announced that through their Race Together initiative,
00:05:02.520they'd be encouraging their baristas to spark tough conversations about race
00:05:06.320with customers just picking up their coffees.
00:05:10.280i remember the first story i read by you was about it i think it was when you were at entrepreneur
00:05:16.500about starbucks they wanted to like have race conversations do you know what i'm talking about
00:05:22.360yes that was one of like i was a couple years into entrepreneur then and like that was one of
00:05:27.760the first articles where i was kind of like okay like there's more going on here like i want to
00:05:33.160kind of like write about this conversation about this news instead of just writing about the news
00:05:37.620because like this is wild and it was something that like was such a move that you saw a lot like
00:05:44.720at that time this was in maybe 2014 2015 um I think that like from then to 2020 you saw this
00:05:53.200a lot where it was businesses making announcements that they thought that would be good PR that then
00:05:58.740like their in-store employees were like what are you doing like this is putting us in such
00:06:03.300a strange position. Like, we don't have training to deal with this. Because Kate covers business,
00:06:09.800a lot of her stories are unfortunately about wrongdoing, already marginalized people being
00:06:14.520treated badly. And because some of the workplaces that she covers cater to women or young people,
00:06:19.980companies like Brandy Melville or Nickelodeon, Kate's coverage became the docuseries Quiet on
00:06:24.960the Set, uncovering workplace abuses at the Kids Entertainment Network. There's this idea that it
00:06:29.880doesn't really matter what these companies' business practices look like because who cares?
00:06:34.580They're just some company for teen girls. It's an attitude that lets businesses and the people0.96
00:06:38.720who run them get away with behaving badly in plain sight, but not on Kate's watch.
00:06:44.100Something I see in your reporting these days is that a lot of the focus is on these things that
00:06:48.820I think impact women or young people, these groups of people that I feel like are traditionally
00:06:55.920marginalized both in society, but also in sort of business coverage. Do you think that stories like
00:07:01.560the, you know, Brandy Melville story that you reported or the Nickelodeon story that you
00:07:05.940reported, do you think that these issues sometimes skirt scrutiny because people assume there's
00:07:11.700nothing serious going on there because it's about women or kids or young people, they're teens?
00:07:16.600Completely. And I think that especially the Brandy Melville story, that was something where
00:07:21.300these court cases had already been filed saying kind of these allegations that Brandy Melville
00:07:27.780was incredibly racist. And you wouldn't have that happen at a major chain that had like,0.80
00:07:36.340I don't know, like an Adidas, a Nike, even like a chain that serves adult women, a J.Crew.
00:07:44.540I think if those allegations had come out about a chain that didn't specifically cater to teenage
00:07:50.420girls, they would have already been front page news. And it felt to me like this was overlooked
00:07:55.460because it was a brand that was aimed at teenage girls and it was a ton of teenage girls who worked
00:08:01.200there. So yeah, in that situation completely, I think that it's at some level, there is a
00:08:08.940disconnect where people just aren't as aware of things. And like that talks to about who ends up
00:08:14.720in journalism. Like, it is a lot of, like, older white men and older white women who, like, just
00:08:20.460are not as plugged into things. And, like, that's how important stories don't get the investigations
00:08:26.120that are worthy. And then I think that there is a level of dismissal where it's like, oh, well,
00:08:30.440like, does this matter? Like, fast fashion is bad. We already know that. Like, is it worth
00:08:34.660spending months looking into this specific chain? Who is John Galt? In the Ayn Rand novel Atlas
00:08:42.580shrugged. Who is John Galt is a question repeated over and over again, and the quest to discover his
00:08:48.160identity is at the core of the book. Galt is revealed to be an inventor who believes people
00:08:53.040should be using their talents, minds, and gifts solely to benefit themselves and no one else.
00:08:57.920It's kind of easy to see why this book has become something of a foundational text for libertarians,
00:09:02.500and this reference is what sent Kate down the rabbit hole of investigating the retailer Brandy
00:09:07.460Melville. So walk me through how the Brandy Melville piece came to be and like your interest
00:09:12.480it in and your coverage in it. How did that start? It came about in kind of this very roundabout way
00:09:18.560where I was talking to my friend who was my coworker at the time about how Randy Melville
00:09:24.540had this kind of sub brand John Galt. And she was like, it's so weird that they like are kind of
00:09:32.200making this weird libertarian reference. Like, I was like, yeah, that is weird. Like, I wonder who
00:09:37.740is running this? Who is the CEO? Is this owned by a larger company? I started Googling. I just
00:09:42.740couldn't find the CEO. And that, as a retail reporter, I was like, this is so rare. You can
00:09:49.280have one location and the CEO is giving as many interviews as he can get. It's very rare for any
00:09:56.680CEO to avoid press instead of go after press. But in this situation, you have this super popular
00:10:01.940brand with a big social media presence and the executives were really nowhere to be seen.
00:10:07.120So from there, I kind of started looking up business filing, started looking up court documents.
00:10:11.780And it was when I was looking up court documents to find the CEO's name that I came across these discrimination lawsuits where two former executives said we were pretty much forced out because we did not go along with the biased business practices.
00:10:27.700And like, as I was reading through those lawsuits, I really was struck by how over the top and bizarre these instances of bias were, where these were things where I was like, this is truly mind blowing.
00:10:42.580And I went to my editor, I was like, hey, like, these lawsuits are really, really wild.
00:10:48.360Like, I think that there's a bigger story here.
00:10:50.200I think that we should start talking to employees, former employees and asking them about their experiences.
00:10:55.800And that was one where, like, almost every interview I had, it was just another level of disturbing material.
00:13:14.680Teenagers were made to photograph themselves every day and send the photos to the store's owners.
00:13:20.440The owners also kept a button on the register, alerting the staff when they should take a photo of a girl who was being rung up.0.70
00:13:26.500Sometimes girls shopping at the store would be offered a job on the spot if the owners liked the way they looked.
00:13:31.580Black employees or employees who did not fit a very specific Brandy Melville look,
00:13:36.160which is basically just white, thin, and conventionally attractive, were made to work in the back,
00:13:40.540even if they had more retail experience.
00:13:42.960Young staff were allowed to stay in company-owned apartments in Manhattan,
00:13:46.360where men who had some association with the company would also be staying unbeknownst to them.
00:13:51.600At least one young woman was sexually assaulted.
00:13:54.260The lawsuits and then the claims made in them are wild.
00:13:58.720You really demonstrate how wild some of these things that were happening at these stores are.
00:14:03.160Things like the teenage employees taking photos of their breasts and feet to give to the adult male owner.
00:14:10.880You know, having the button on the desk to be like, oh, get a photo of her.
00:14:15.320The thing that you reported about how if the teenage employees changed in front of the adult male owners, they knew that that meant they could get raises.
00:14:25.260And if they went to the bathroom to change in private, that was a no-no.
00:14:27.820Like, all of these allegations are wild.
00:14:30.820But I feel like on its face, it's also just like a workplace discrimination and like workplace sexual misconduct story.
00:14:38.240So like when you were reporting this, like how did these issues play out?
00:14:42.480For me, it kind of played out like where it goes for me like, OK, we have these really wild stories.
00:14:48.200Like what are the patterns you see here and like what are the patterns that are actually illegal?
00:14:53.380So the patterns where it's like things almost fall into buckets where you have things that were normalized to the employees where they're like, OK, everyone got hired based on a photo and their Instagram.
00:15:04.620And then kind of taking that and then being like, who was getting hired? It was definitely we could see like, yeah, the white thin girls were getting hired and paid more while Latina woman, black woman were being put in the stock room and being paid less.
00:15:22.960And like going from that to talking to managers and them being like, yes, this was not something that was like an accident or something that was hidden at all.
00:15:31.820Like this was very explicit where they would see someone who fit the brandy look and they'd be like, hire her, pay her this much.
00:15:40.060So that was kind of how I moved from that.
00:15:43.980And then like in each conversation, just kind of looking, I have this massive spreadsheet that like had all the interviews I did.
00:15:50.600I spoke with more than 30 current and former employees and kind of like just put like the
00:15:56.220big summary, but then the checks like, did this person experience or see racism happening at
00:16:01.260work? Did this person feel like they were sexually exploited? Like, what were their other concerns
00:16:06.160about Brandy Melville? And kind of just like tallying up how many people said they saw
00:16:10.720certain behaviors and certain practices. A lot of the people that you talked to for the piece
00:16:16.020were probably young women and girls, right?
00:20:55.360Now, on its face, the idea of teen girls being the creative force behind a brand that is marketed to other teen girls makes a lot of sense.
00:21:02.220The only problem is, despite doing the work of creative professionals, the staff doing this work were not being paid like creative professionals.
00:21:09.960In the documentary, it just feels like, in a kind of way, more exploitation because these girls are, like, doing the work of a social media manager or a creative director and, like, not being paid for it.
00:21:20.780they're being paid in like vibes and like, oh, you got to be featured on our Instagram. Don't
00:21:25.660you feel cool? It's like, well, that's actually a job that is compensated via money. It's like,
00:21:32.540I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, oh, wow, like they're really like, from what I've
00:21:37.600heard, like they were able to achieve a lot of financial success. And it's like, yeah, obviously
00:21:41.720it's going to cost less if you are getting a 17 year old to kind of pick these designs and you're
00:21:48.660paying her under $20 an hour versus like paying someone a salary who has gone to actually gone
00:21:56.540to school for this. And yeah, it's something where like it's by believing in the kind of
00:22:02.760ability of these teenage girls to track trends, to like know what's cool. Like they were able to
00:22:09.760like both have their finger on the pulse, but also to like save a ton of money and really exploit
00:22:14.560these teenage employees because like, yes, like the photographers, the people who are kind of
00:22:20.760determining the fashion, the people who are modeling for this should have been paid much
00:22:25.620more than what they were paid. Yeah. It's easy to have record profits when you're not paying people
00:22:32.220and you're just like exploiting them. Yes. It's really like, and it's something that I do think
00:22:39.200Like thinking about Brandy Melville versus like Rookie magazine 10 years ago, it's almost to me two sides of the same coin where like Rookie was a place that was also very much run by teenage girls, like around what teenage girls understood was cool.
00:22:53.820But that was for teenage girls. Like it wasn't like there was some shady middle aged Italian man profiting off of that.
00:23:01.240And I think that Brandy Melville, what makes it really disturbing to me is that this is kind of both you have this small group of male executives who are profiting off of these teenage girls, kind of their brilliance.
00:23:16.520And like, but also like the grossest part of being a teenage girl, like to feel like there's only one way to be attractive, to feel like there's only a certain image, a certain body size that is going to make you popular and make you cool.
00:23:31.820And I think that it's almost like these really toxic ideas about popularity in high school, like basically writ large and like is the brand DNA for this chain.
00:23:42.920Yeah. And it's like they say that's not you or I gleaning that. That's like the owner explicitly saying we want thin, white, pretty girls wearing our garments. Like like we want those are who we want shopping in the store. That's who we want working at the store. That's who we want on the Instagram. It's like explicit.
00:24:03.160Yes. Yeah. Like I feel like now most fashion retailers, even if there is some subtext,
00:24:09.080like that's what they want. Like, no, we have executives at Brady Melville who told me,
00:24:13.360no, this was our explicit like word for word plan. Like we do not want people who do not fit
00:24:19.200this image shopping at or working at the stores. And if they do, like we want to very actively
00:24:25.220exclude them. And if you don't, your job is basically on the line.
00:24:29.460in the documentary they show a scene where one of the stores even has like skinny doors where you
00:24:36.380have to sort of turn to physically enter the door which i had never heard before i was like oh my
00:24:42.180god they're they're very serious about who they want in these stores like literally it's wild and
00:24:49.300like that it was like a meme online for a while where it was like all these like tiny little
00:24:53.680space. And it's like, must be this small to like fit into Brandy Melville. Like it's the one size
00:24:59.200thing is so kind of well known that it's become a meme in its own right. And like, when I started
00:25:05.140looking into this, even that I was shocked that this was how her brain was functioning and that
00:25:11.000people were okay with it. So I haven't been a teenage girl for a very long time, but I remember
00:25:15.480my adolescence very well. It's still, I think for a lot of us, like it's something that we carry
00:25:20.020around. In some ways, I still feel like I'm 15-year-old Bridget, even though I'm an adult.
00:25:25.720And so when I was growing up, I remember that what made you cool was to sort of stand out,
00:25:31.720to be different. That was what was cool when I was growing up. And I wonder if social media
00:25:38.020has kind of led to the opposite, where what's cool is to sort of fit in and sort of all look
00:25:44.720the same all have this like very sort of similar aesthetic and i wonder if maybe brandy melville
00:25:51.440was just sort of like taking advantage of that that like right now it's cool to all have this0.52
00:25:57.200like california girl look for teen girls let's really sell that back to them in an aggressive
00:26:03.280way via social media i think it's almost two competing urges where it's like i i wonder because
00:26:11.020there has been so much movement with the next generation with Gen Z to kind of be like, okay,
00:26:17.380we want to have more diversity in fashion. We want to have more size diversity. We want more
00:26:23.160racial diversity, but then also like Brady Melville is super popular. I think that Brandy
00:26:29.260was able to keep an eye on these trends while also making people kind of feel like, okay,
00:26:35.780you're fitting in but it has these little flashes of being able to be like okay this is this is
00:26:41.740special where like they along with the really California cool thing they'll have times where
00:26:45.600they do a lot of vintage inspired stuff which I feel like vintage is kind of the um yeah for me
00:26:52.900in high school like if you're someone who has like cool vintage stuff like oh you're putting more
00:26:56.960time into this like you know you're cool in a different way than like the people who are
00:27:01.260wearing Abercrombie or Hollister. And I think that brandy kind of is trying to straddle both
00:27:08.000of those sides where it's like, you have the very preppy, the California, those kinds of looks. And
00:27:14.480then on the other side, you also have, oh, like this is as if you went to a vintage store yourself,
00:27:20.260but no, it's actually just been screened by a 17 year old living in Santa Monica who
00:27:26.040got the boss's credit card and got to like take a day going to thrift shops.
00:27:32.100Wow. So for folks who, this is actually a great question. For folks who don't know,
00:27:35.560how would you describe the Brandy Melville style, the look?
00:27:39.600I think that the Brandy Melville look, it keeps evolving. And that's something that
00:27:43.960they have been able to continue doing. I think for a long time, it was very California, cool,
00:27:51.240casual, like lots of oversized. And then it's evolved to be a bit more vintage. It definitely
00:27:58.780was going through very much like a preppy phase for a while but they have a lot of just like
00:28:03.320basics where like the little um kind of white tank tops um the short shorts right now how I
00:28:12.080think of their stuff is like very like a little bit timeless a little bit 90s um and it it feels
00:28:20.780like it feels like it's something that you can look at and be like oh this is just these little
00:28:27.020touches that even me thinking back to when I was in high school I could imagine like a popular just
00:28:34.320like tiny tiny cheerleader style girl like wearing and me being like oh I couldn't wear that like I'm
00:28:41.160too big like I'm too awkward like I just I couldn't pull that off I feel I feel the exact same way
00:28:47.660isn't it funny how they're able to like me I'm an adult woman and they're still able to signal to me
00:28:53.640somebody who has not been in high school for a very long time exactly what you just said that0.98
00:28:57.760like oh this is what the pretty popular blonde skinny girl wears you're you would never be able0.85
00:29:02.380to pull this off she pulls it off like and like they're able to like evoke that so well1.00
00:29:07.560i know like there weren't even cheerleaders in my high school i don't know why i said that
00:29:11.900like i went to an all girls catholic school we didn't have cheerleaders we all were the same
00:29:20.140thing and yet i know exactly what they are tapping into like they are very good yes it's this like
00:29:26.780very delicate kind of femininity that like feels i think to a lot of people like oh like i i can't
00:29:34.180i can't do that or like oh i want to achieve that but like i'll never feel quite right um it was i
00:29:39.740actually while reporting this story i went into a brady bellville because we were with our
00:29:43.560photographer um and i was like okay we have to like get photos for the article like we don't
00:29:49.220want to like we wanted to kind of go into the flagship and see if we could see some of the
00:29:52.740things the girls talked about to like corroborate certain things to be like okay yes like there's0.69
00:29:57.940where they push the button um when they see girls that they want to hire and like I tried on the
00:30:03.540clothes and it was just like it was a very kind of out-of-body experience to be like yeah like I am
00:30:10.220kind of like I am a straight-sized woman I kind of like I fit into most clothes I can find clothes
00:30:15.980that fit me in most stores and I was like there's no way that I could like go in public wearing this
00:30:20.760no it's that one size fits most is really yeah it's oh it's so wild but you're right it's almost
00:30:29.060like a meme at this point yeah yeah it's really really wild it also just made me feel like I'm
00:30:34.68032 I was like I feel so old right now in this store the only time I've ever gone into a Brandy
00:30:41.460had the exact same experience and I also was like watching reading your piece and watching
00:30:47.780the documentary I was like oh I see what that was now I've only gone into one and I was like I feel
00:30:52.340like the people working here don't want to help me and now I'm like oh they probably had zero
00:30:57.560retail experience zero training because they were just hired from their Instagram yeah yeah it was
00:31:03.420like so many other people who I talked with would be like it was so frustrating we would like find
00:31:07.900someone who had retail experience and be like please can we hire her and they'd be like no
00:31:13.100like she doesn't fit our image like I remember talking to one former employee and she's like we
00:31:17.560would like we facetune this girl in the photo we sent because we're like she has experience she's
00:31:22.800good with customer service like we just want her so we're gonna facetune her like so hopefully she
00:31:27.500gets hired and like yeah imagine being like please just like let me hire someone competent0.94
00:31:32.560and the response is like, eh, like, I don't know, like, she's a couple pounds too happy.
00:31:38.360Wow. And I mean, something that the documentary really lays out in a fascinating way is that
00:31:44.060it's really this system where everybody is being exploited. The employees are being exploited. The
00:31:48.940girls who buy the clothes are being exploited. The countries in the global South where, like,1.00
00:31:52.780the clothing ends up, like, they're pressured into taking these clothes once the West throws
00:31:56.660them out because they're fast fashion, they fall apart, are being exploited. Do you see this as
00:32:00.840all sort of linked like triggering the anxieties of these young girls uh and then making money on
00:32:06.720clothing sales which in turn furthers the exploitation of these folks in the global south
00:32:10.100like it just feels like one big system where we are all losing yes completely and i think that
00:32:17.540that was something that in my original investigation i didn't get into as much but
00:32:21.100eva horner the director of the documentary kind of i feel like she really made it her mission to
00:32:26.620kind of take it the next step to say like this isn't just about this one fashion line like this
00:32:33.220is it's like one link in this wider system of destruction and how it impacts all these people
00:32:40.100um so I think that yeah I I really like appreciated that uh Eva the director took it there and was
00:32:47.500willing to push things to the next step to be like this isn't just about teenage girls like
00:32:53.460in-stores being exploited. It's about exploitation on every level.
00:33:06.660Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed
00:33:12.280for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details
00:33:17.320and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything.
00:33:20.360run a business and not thinking about podcasting think again more americans listen to podcasts
00:33:26.400than ad-supported streaming music from spotify and pandora and as the number one podcaster
00:33:31.000iheart's twice as large as the next two combined so whatever your customers listen to they'll hear
00:33:35.720your message plus only iheart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio
00:33:40.580think podcasting can help your business think iheart streaming radio and podcasting call 844
00:33:46.700844-844-IHEART to get started. That's 844-844-IHEART. If your bookshelf and your for you page are
00:33:53.680equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast
00:34:00.720that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives,
00:34:05.040and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:34:09.940I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books,
00:34:13.240the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:34:17.060I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed, so obsessed.
00:34:20.640From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments,
00:34:25.500nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling
00:34:31.620characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives,
00:34:36.620smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much,
00:34:41.660you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app,
00:34:46.620Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages.
00:34:57.140Let's get right back into it. If you were on the internet like I was in the aughts,
00:35:01.980you probably remember what some people called hipster racism. I remember that time feeling
00:35:06.580like the peak of people masking racism or sexism or fatphobia or other harmful attitudes
00:35:11.640with memes or off-color jokes about women, Jewish people, Black people, and Thad people.
00:35:17.840And that's really what I was reminded of when I saw some of the chatter happening between
00:35:22.080staffers and Brandy Melville higher-ups in a company group chat. I know all too well how
00:35:28.140this kind of thing can be used to normalize toxic attitudes and ideologies under the guise of,
00:35:33.060it's just a joke, don't be so sensitive. Something that you really flesh out with
00:35:38.220like screenshots that are quite disturbing in the piece are this how these like senior staffers like
00:35:43.740the highest level folks would be in these company group chats spreading anti-semitic and misogynistic
00:35:49.820and racist and that phobic memes and language in these group texts and reading those something
00:35:55.760about this reminded me of being online in the 2010s when like quote hipster racism was sort of
00:36:03.280in vogue, like, oh, kind of like wink, wink, am I joking kind of racism? And I remember being
00:36:09.020online at that time. And it was like, if you were bothered by that, you were sensitive,
00:36:12.900you didn't get the joke, whatever. When in reality, I think looking back, what was actually
00:36:17.780going on was that a generation of younger people was being introduced to these very dangerous ways
00:36:23.440of thinking while masking it in like jokes and softness. And I'm sort of reminded of like the
00:36:29.540John Galt iconography within Brandy Melville stores and things like that. Like, do you see this as kind
00:36:35.580of introducing young people to a very specific social or political ideology when they're just
00:36:43.220like shopping for jeans or whatever? They might not realize like, oh, like, what am I, what am I
00:36:47.300actually being introduced here? I think yes, to a degree. I mean, I think it's so interesting what
00:36:53.980you said about like growing up online with like the hipster racism like this to me feels so in
00:37:01.120line with that like where all these things were like oh it's jokes but it was like I also very
00:37:07.280much grew up online in that era and these were some of like the more horrific images and like
00:37:14.020memes that I had seen where it was just like another level of anti-sevitism another level
00:37:19.600of racism. Like, I mean, just really graphic images of pornography, even where it's something
00:37:28.360you see, oh, like, what if we took 4chan? And then that was like the company group chat with
00:37:34.700all these male executives. And I think that that kind of beyond being like, oh, this is obviously
00:37:41.580offensive. It's just shocking to see like how that can be transferred over if that is normalized at
00:37:49.340an organization. And if this is something that is kind of being passed on to the customer, I think
00:37:55.160yes and no. I think honestly, the thing that feels more disturbing to me is that these were people
00:38:02.180who were marketing and making their money off of teenage girls. And these thoughts weren't like,
00:38:07.220it's not like they were making a shirt that has like an anti-Semitic joke on it or a racist joke
00:38:13.780on it but this is kind of how they are thinking of a lot of their customers behind their backs
00:38:20.360um where they're kind of like they're making jokes in these group chats about women that they
00:38:24.740work with they're um kind of joking about all these different things and like that is it's a
00:38:31.300different kind of disturbing than to like passing to pass that idea through the company it's like
00:38:38.180the subterfuge, the like two-faced nature of it is gross in a different way.
00:38:45.260Totally. And given all of this, you know, the anti-Semitism, the racism, the taking pictures
00:38:51.220of young girls' feet and breasts, the allegations of sexual assault, like really dark stuff. The
00:38:56.540thing that really I cannot even believe, when your piece is published, it's basically crickets.
00:39:02.160They don't put out a statement. They turn off their comments for a little while. And that's basically it. And I guess thinking about this in context, like these days, I feel like particularly brands that that their customer base is young people.
00:39:19.000I think a lot of young people really expect a level of social responsibility from their brands that they that they engage with. Why do you think that this was the reaction? The reaction was like nothing. Crickets.
00:39:29.940I think that part of it is because people are like, well, Brady Melville, we know it's controversial because of the one size fits all thing.
00:39:38.480So I think that people are like, oh, there's more criticism, but it's almost they've already sorted it into this bucket where they're like, oh, it's like, yeah, it's not perfect, but whatever.
00:39:50.100Versus I think that if the same allegations came out about a company that was seen as really sustainable or socially good, it might have a different reaction.
00:39:59.940I think that Brandy, it doubles down both behind the scenes and publicly as kind of not caring about this, of being politically correct is like the worst thing you can do, like that you shouldn't care about these things.
00:40:14.760So I think that by doing that, it almost allowed them not to have as much of a reaction when this news came out.
00:40:22.440But I still like that is something I'm still grappling with.
00:46:00.780I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
00:46:04.380Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:46:11.900These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:46:15.740Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:46:23.380If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:46:29.080Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:46:37.740Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.