Timestamps of specific mic-drops and important points

00:00 — What Happened to TikTok?
Beatrice on TikTok’s changing algorithm, paid promotion, and why the platform feels different from its early years.

03:33 — Dating Coaches and Online Authority
The rise of relationship-advice creators, credentials, vulnerable audiences, and the difference between popularity and expertise.

04:58 — Do Credentials Guarantee Good Advice?
Why some therapists give poor advice, some non-clinicians have genuine wisdom, and how audiences can tell the difference.

06:09 — Gaslighting, Family Estrangement, and Therapy Language
How psychological terminology gets diluted online, and what genuine emotional invalidation can look like.

07:24 — When You’re Desperate for Psychological Answers
Beatrice describes falling into the online mental-health rabbit hole while trying to understand difficult family relationships.

08:40 — Why Real Trauma Therapy Isn’t a Quick Fix
Jeremy discusses EMDR, painful emotional work, preparation, and approaching traumatic memories without becoming overwhelmed.

11:45 — How Culture Quota Started
Beatrice tells the origin story of Culture Quota and how an art-history project eventually became a broader cultural platform.

15:11 — The Reality of Becoming a Content Creator
Niching down, expanding your identity online, ignoring vanity metrics, and the ten years of work behind apparent overnight success.

19:24 — Substack, “Temu Academia,” and False Authority
How polished presentation can make opinion look like scholarship, and why alternative media creates both opportunity and epistemic risk.

22:43 — Algorithms and Echo Chambers Online
Beatrice discusses her dissertation research, ideological silos, cross-platform content, and the mainstreaming of extremist rhetoric.

28:49 — Information Overload and Conspiracy Thinking
Information saturation, online fear, conspiracy logic, and why conspiratorial systems can become resistant to disconfirmation.

31:42 — Why Media Literacy Matters More Than Bans
The limits of simply restricting social media, the need for visual and media literacy, and how personalized feeds intensify polarization.

35:25 — Closing and What Comes Next
A preview of a future conversation about Beatrice’s dissertation research and digital culture.

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Timestamps of specific mic-drops and important points

Chapters

00:00 — Opening and Technical Check-In

Beatrice and Jeremy reconnect, discuss livestreaming, Substack, and the origins of the conversation.

01:09 — Do Strong Boundaries Become “Trigger-Happy”?

Beatrice reflects on going no contact with family and questions whether stronger boundaries can become overly rigid.

04:10 — When a Long Friendship Quietly Deteriorates

A close friendship becomes increasingly one-sided before erupting into resentment and confrontation.

07:04 — Feeling an Emotion vs. Actually Processing It

Jeremy distinguishes catharsis, emotional release, and trauma that continues to feel present.

09:53 — Betrayal Trauma and the Search for a Pattern

Why repeated injuries from close relationships can produce obsessive questions about responsibility, safety, and prevention.

12:40 — Family Estrangement, Parentification, and Scapegoating

The conversation turns to family roles, emotional caretaking, golden-child dynamics, and why estrangement often takes years.

17:18 — Why Setting Boundaries Can Make Things Worse

Emotionally immature relatives may respond to reasonable limits with punishment, guilt, or exaggerated interpretations.

20:14 — Are Therapists Really Telling People to Go No Contact?

Beatrice and Jeremy discuss media narratives about family estrangement and the ethical limits of directive therapy.

24:48 — When Calm Communication Escalates the Conflict

Why refusing to argue, disengaging from circular fights, or saying “agree to disagree” can intensify dysfunctional dynamics.

27:28 — Avoidant Attachment and the Disposable Relationship

Beatrice recounts being abruptly blindsided by a live-in partner and explores avoidance, addiction, secrecy, and accountability.

32:36 — Enmeshment, Rigid Boundaries, and Family Secrecy

Jeremy explains how family systems transmit different assumptions about intimacy, independence, addiction, and emotional disclosure.

36:26 — Therapy, Denial, and Emotional Authenticity

Why people who avoid self-examination may appear more stable while judging those who openly struggle, feel, and seek help.

39:35 — Charli XCX, Brat, and Containing Multitudes

Charli’s music becomes a lens for insecurity, bravado, generational trauma, internal parts, and emotional complexity.

45:34 — Music as Therapy and Generational Change

Art, concerts, community, and creative expression as spaces for introspection, symbolic repair, and emotional integration.

50:15 — Brat Boundaries and “Girl, So Confusing”

Processing rivalry without public attack, communicating vulnerability, and transforming interpersonal conflict into art.

53:41 — Grief Requires More Than Shallow Support

The dangers of digitally fragmented relationships and the necessity of being able to sit with another person’s pain.

55:25 — “Tear Soup” and the Individual Shape of Mourning

A children’s book provides a metaphor for grief as a slow, personal process that others may or may not be able to share.

58:05 — Trauma, Grief, and the Limits of Avoidance

Jeremy distinguishes ordinary grief, traumatic grief, and the human need to move through loss rather than block it.

59:24 — Ritual, Religion, and Giving Grief a Container

Jewish mourning practices, religious ritual, and symbolic acts as ways of containing affect and making loss more bearable.

1:02:15 — The Courage to Feel Something

Beatrice argues that friendship sometimes requires tolerating discomfort rather than retreating from another person’s emotions.

1:03:30 — How Therapists Carry Other People’s Pain

The episode closes with a discussion of clinical compartmentalization, emotional limits, and surrendering what cannot be controlled.

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Back in 2019…

I was just an auction house front desk girl, underpaid and overworked, when a co-worker and friend, Adrian Bates-Smith, pulled up the work of artist Telvin Wallace on a computer in the Hindman Auctions warehouse. It was one of those moments when you realize that sometimes the people around you are actually listening as you go on and on about this or that, and you feel so seen that you’re both embarrassed yet pleasantly surprised. Wallace was using the art historical canon, particularly the visual language of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque, to synthesize his experience as a young Black man in America. It embodied Culture Quota’s unwavering obsession with the intersection of “high” and “low” culture, where the past, more often than not, meets the present to make sense of our human experience. I was hooked. When The Auction Collective reached out to me in 2024 to write about my favorite emerging artists, there was no question I would include Wallace.

So you can only imagine my excitement and nervousness when the Telvin Wallace reached out to me this year and asked if we could schedule a meeting. I wanted to not come off like the total ADHD type-B mess that I am and asked if I needed to prepare anything. Telvin responded no, and in fact, he actually had questions for me — color me shocked and totally humbled; this artist wanted to pick my Diet Coke-soaked brain! Here is our conversation:

About Writing & Perspective

What kinds of artists or exhibitions are you most drawn to writing about lately?

Now (and almost always) I’m drawn to exhibitions that play on the intersection of “high” and “low” culture. Particularly if there’s a fresh perspective that connects canonical work to pop culture in some way, and not as an afterthought, but as foundational to the exhibition’s point of view. You can see an example of an exhibition that dismisses this connection as an afterthought here.

So who is getting it right? I just visited The Met’s Costume Art exhibition, and it felt like a CQ dream come to life. A Fortuny dress paired with a Greek black vase? That’s the sweet spot. And in a dream world, I would be able to visit the upcoming exhibition celebrating one of my favorite movies, Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette,” at Versailles in the fall.

What makes you decide a body of work is worth spending time with critically?

It’s not really a conscious decision that I am aware of! If it interests me, obviously, but it really has to have a connection between the past and the present moment. That seems to be a repeating theme on CQ. Using the work people have produced over the past millennium on repeating themes of the shared human experience to comment on our lives today.

Do you see yourself more as a critic, essayist, cultural writer, or curator?

Definitely not a critic! Cultural writer feels more correct since my work covers art, music, fashion, film, reality television, politics, religion, feminism, the contemporary female experience, and even war sometimes. Culture is a broad term that covers my inability to niche down nicely.

What conversations in contemporary art do you feel are underserved right now?

We’re still unwilling to write about or discuss young artists who are up-and-coming outside traditional “art world” paths. I was on a podcast recently and asked about my favorite current Jewish artists. I think they were expecting me to name Jewish artists you can find in major museums, but I could only name prolific artists I’ve come across on Instagram, literally! We need to accept aritsts as legitimate who do not necessarily have that institutional stamp of approval, and not be so dismissive of those using social media effectively.

Strategic Questions

In your experience, what makes critical writing actually move the needle for an artist?

I would normally say publication through a legacy media organization, or traditional media, but with the advent of Substack and social media, I think that’s changing. After all, while The Auction Collective article I wrote was for a traditional company and through a traditional medium, most people actually accessed it through the CQ Instagram.

Do you think institutional writing, magazine criticism, or independent essays have the most longevity right now?

I think they will always be around and always carry a sense of validation or legitimacy. However, I don’t think they are the only vehicles for artists or writers to gain validation or be taken seriously anymore.

Are there editors, journals, or platforms that you think are genuinely shaping discourse at the moment?

Honestly, Substack as a platform has really surprised me over the past two years. Established authors, journalists, and content creators all use it as their primary platform for their written work, and the veracity of that work seems unquestioned by the public (though this is problematic, it is proof of the public’s distrust of traditional media and willingness to see alternative platforms as legitimate).

How do you think younger artists should approach building critical dialogue around their work?

By doing exactly what you did, reach out to writers and media creators you like! We’re always looking for interesting new subjects to immerse ourselves in and write about! What’s the worst that could happen? And maybe, just maybe, it might actually work out.

Explore Telvin Wallace’s work on his website and Instagram.

Follow Culture Quota on Instagram for more content like this. You can contact CQ at culturequotabusiness@gmail.com

When Girls debuted on HBO, I was 18 years old, about to graduate from high school, and clinically obsessed with Hannah Horvath and co. Slightly overweight, a writer, and insufferably bubbly, I was the perfect target for the show and a willing disciple. It was refreshing to see had no reservations about presenting her audience with an unflinching depiction of girlhood…the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. Yet everyone around me, fellow girls included, loathed the show, bemoaning that Dunham’s four female lead characters were “unlikable” and “annoying.” When I would quip back, “Is any person ever really likable?” I was met with blank stares or a complete pivot in the conversation. As the years went on, hating on Lena Dunham practically became sport for people of all ages. As a sophomore in college, I watched in horror as a male friend berated Dunham nonstop, hardly taking a breath. She was a vehicle that people could unload their misogyny (or internalized misogyny) on without any consequences.

With the release of her second book, Famesick, society at large is reassessing the role it played in the unchecked hate campaign that defined the early years of Dunham’s career. Dunham had very few well-intentioned and valid critics engaged with her work (though they did exist, Roxane Gay comes to mind), but rather a mob of people seething with totally over-the-top rage. There was no in between. And years later, now 32, not fat but not skinny, and still writing, I find my experience of girlhood unflinchingly reflected back at me once again through Dunham’s latest creative work.

“You’ve been annoying people your whole life!”

In an interview with the New York Times, Lena recounts how a friend helped her understand why she seemed to call in a hateful mob by simply existing, by reminding her, “but you’ve annoyed everyone since pre-school.”

While I was not the disruptive, try-hard kid Lena describes herself as, I was met throughout my life, even as early as childhood, with an unfounded, seething rage, akin to the kind Lena experienced, from adults, decades my senior, for simply existing. The first being my mother, with my sister diligently following suit.

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Their relentless and extreme mean-girl behavior in reaction to me just being a kid confused me even then. I remember as young as seven years old complaining, “I don’t have these issues with anyone else!” to which they always insisted I was completely different around other people. Perhaps it was this glaring disconnect that allowed me to never fully internalize their cruel quips that I did my make-up like a “pornstar” desperate to look like Kim Kardashian, was “financially f*cking r*tarded,” and simply “a c*nt.” As a result, when I was met with unfounded hatred from other adults later in life, I was already able to navigate the experiences with a self-assuredness and boundaries that only worsened their ire.

Love me or hate me, it’s still an obsession.

By junior year of high school, I found myself in the sights of two more adults who seemed enraged by the mere act of me breathing. The first was a retired Naval judge, now a high school teacher, who resented me for dropping his AP U.S. History class after the first day because he spent a good chunk of class time cruelly mocking my sister (whom he had taught and tutored). As I waited in line to walk across the stage a year later at graduation, this was man stood in the wings timing the student entrances. When I got to the edge of the stage for my turn, he leaned down and whispered in my ear, “You’re a coward.”

The other was an AP English teacher known for picking a few female victims each year while adoringly doting on her male students (literally, it still confuses me how no one looked into this absolute creep!). Of course, in my junior year, she immediately found me like a moth to a flame. Her bullying was so incessant that I opted not to take her AP Literature class my senior year. When my best friend, one of the teenage boys she worshiped, mentioned he was hanging out with me, she quipped, “You can do better than that.”

During my time as a student worker in college and later, and in my first professional job after graduation, I encountered two senior employees for whom my mere presence drove them mad. Despite the fact that I was neither of their direct employees nor senior enough for them to pay any mind, the first went on a tirade after I quit my student job, bellowing to the office that I was a fake who lived above her means. The other, a senior Vice President of an auction house, would sneer at me in the office kitchen, asking what it was like to be “the most popular girl in school.” When I was promoted, he forced my new supervisor to sit me down and, directly from the VP, communicate that I should refrain from essentially being myself in this new position and that the VP would be keeping an eye on me. And longtime readers know what happened with my grad school advisor and professor I worked under as a TA, so I won’t regale you with those sagas again.

What confused me most about these experiences was the strength of my relationships with everyone else around these figures. I had wonderful relationships with literally every other teacher, boss, and professor, etc., in these environments. Moreover, the sheer ferocity of their hatred never seemed to be founded or justified in any concrete behavior of mine. I can’t help but think my age, gender, and even my petite child-sized stature made me especially vulnerable to their anger; it’s much easier to bully a physically small, unintimidating subordinate after all. I can’t imagine experiencing this on the massive scale Lena had to navigate. But it is both heartbreaking and comforting to know we’re not alone in this experience. I hope she’s able to eventually realize that, too.

Last month, Bernini and I rang in the new year peacefully at home with Andy and Anderson for company while I devoured Sophie Gilbert’s 2025 masterpiece Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves in one sitting. I know it might look like I’m a little late to the game here. Full disclosure: I bought my copy this summer while navigating what I can only describe as the Chornobyl of breakups (you can catch up on that here), so sitting down with it was on the back burner for several months. As a pop culture connoisseur who quite literally spent her senior year of college writing a two-hundred-page art history thesis on the visual culture of twenty-first-century pop, hip-hop, and K-pop (the assigned page count was 35), I am naturally a longtime fan of Gilbert’s unapologetically reverent pop culture critical analysis for The Atlantic. And as a fellow millennial (1993!), I couldn’t wait to read her critique of the pop culture we both clearly loved and recognized as a profound influence on everyone (whether or not they took it seriously), worthy of academic-level study. Unsurprisingly, I loved every second spent with Gilbert, revisiting and reframing 90s and 00s pop culture and parsing its longstanding consequences for women today.

To put it simply, Gilbert’s overall thesis aruges pop culture of the late 1990s and 2000s, heavily influenced by the rise of internet pornography and the media-driven concept of "postfeminism," created a toxic environment that systematically objectified women and turned them against themselves and each other. Despite prodding from publishers, Gilbert was steadfast in her decision to exclude her personal “limited and limiting” experiences in Girl on Girl (220). She found that inserting herself into the analysis inhibited her ability to “expand the ways in which I understand and think about this era” (220). However, I’ve found that reflecting on my girlhood during this era and examining the enduring consequences of 00s pop culture ultimately help me broaden my understanding of my experience of millennial womanhood today.

Woman, Interrupted: Girlhood During a Feminist Regression

Busting onto the scene fairly late for a millennial in 1993 (the last year 96!) did not save my girlhood from acutely feeling the pain of 00 feminist regression that Gilbert illustrates.

“Porn does not inform, or debate, or persuade. Porn trains.” - Ami Srinivasan

As all women cursed with heterosexuality, I could fill a veritable tome with endless stories of degradation, dehumanization, and cruelty at the hands of millennial male partners. At 32, I have yet to experience a relationship where I am respected, my humanity not only acknowledged but non-negotiable in its existence and importance. With a knowing wink, Gilbert wonders if it’s any wonder a generation raised on free, violent, dehumanizing porn has difficulty seeing women as human and forming meaningful relationships with them (260).

“…one’s physical self, in this era, was widely understood to be not just a representation of one’s inner character, but also the predominant source of a woman’s social and economic value.” - Sophie Gilbert

At age 12, I had the GREAT misfortune of becoming an “early bloomer,” a child who now had the body of a fully adult woman who had birthed and breastfed several children (I see this now as a win, as I am not 32 striving for a perfect teenage body I will never achieve because I never had one!). My breasts from ages 12-16 became the fascination of every man, woman, and child I encountered for years, and they weren’t afraid to let me know. Feminist writer Melissa Febos perfectly captures the trauma and pain of said experience in this beautiful essay. Where Febos was reduced to a slut by her female peers and a sex object by men of all ages, I was gawked at openly like a sideshow freak. People would ask to see me and remark that they just wanted to see if my boobs could possibly have gotten bigger. When I underwent a breast reduction at 16, those same ADULTS would audibly “tsk,” how could I get rid of such a blessing everyone wants? When opening up in my early 20s about how liberating and life-changing that procedure was, a trusted female mentor rolled her eyes, whining, “You’re making yourself sound like Jesus nailed to the cross!” My 20s were a marathon of never-ending weight loss journeys. After a 50 lbs weight loss between freshman and sophomore year of college, the men who openly said to my face they wouldn’t touch me with a 10 ft pole now saw me as worthy of their attention, but as we know, not of respect and humanization, of course.

“As the 1990s went on, culture gradually redefined feminism from a collective struggle to an individual one…the ‘I’m not here to make friends’ ruthlessness of reality TV.” - Sophie Gilbert

Gilbert admits the title Girl on Girl jokingly references how women have turned against themselves…and each other (xvii). She isn’t arguing that women are to blame for this, of course. That belongs squarely to the patriarchy, duh.

But as I ruminated on this point back and forth over and over again, I realized this particular element of Gilbert’s argument, so integral that it informs her title, manifested not in my relationships with fellow female millennials, but overwhelmingly in those with boomer women. Possibly even exclusively with boomer women. Especially in the workplace.

Over the past decade, it became clear that this exact kind of boomer woman existed in every workplace, her open bullying of younger female colleagues always ignored by leadership. But when I began grad school at 30 as a master’s student and teaching assistant, I was faced with a two-headed mythical version of her. I’ve already written about my time as a teaching assistant (punching bag) for tenured professor Miranda Davidson. Highlights include: calling an hour-long meeting to yell at me for a laundry list of offenses, including accusing me of “faking” my Shabbat practice to get out of work, the fact that I wasn’t crying right there as she yelled at me, and weaponizing the phrase “I’m Jewish too” as a means to justify any and all abuse around my religious observances. The other head belonged to my advisor, Elena Katz, who, you guessed it, was another Jewish tenured professor. Elena spent advising meetings complaining that I always looked rushed, took “too many notes,” and fired off feedback so inappropriate that she would respond to my silent neutral expression with “I’m not trying to make you cry or hurt your feelings.” It would be clear to anyone with functioning ears that, actually, yes, she was.

No, it’s just not jealousy or competition: it is a hatred for young women

It’s well established that female workplace bullies almost exclusively bully other women (making up 67% of their victims, to be exact). And female bullies in academia are absolved of any accountability due to the long-held belief that they are the product of a competitive, patriarchal environment, forever carrying an old-school “there’s room for only one female tenure-track professor” excuse used to justify their behavior. This is odd to me, considering that tenured advisors are not in competition with their graduate students for tenure-track positions; they already have it, and, at least in my situation, my department was four women and one man. I’m not denying the significance of academia’s severely patriarchal organizational structure, but the story doesn’t stop there.

A 2020 study revealed that advanced female academics are prejudiced against early-career female academics more so than advanced male academics. Unsurprisingly, advanced female academics also viewed early-career male academics with much greater regard than their female counterparts did. Their critiques of early-career female academics sound right out of Gilbert’s research.

“I have the impression that my female doctoral students are spoiled. They are not available to work on evenings and the weekend. They are busy with their boyfriend. For my male doctoral students, the career is everything. — anonymous female professor”

Considering the quote above, it makes sense that research has found “female faculty members were more likely than their male colleagues to underestimate the career ambitions of junior female academics…while in actuality male and female PhD candidates reported similar career ambitions.” The study confirms that it is more than academias patriarchal organizatoinal structure, but “the exposure to gender‐stereotypical expectations” that is equally as important in creating and maintaining female bullies in academia.

Reading Gilbert’s Girl on Girl made it clear that the denigration of women in the 90s and 00s had an even broader influence among women, far beyond millennials, insidiously burrowing into the minds of women several generations older than us. Millennial women may have been fed a culture that once had them turn on one another, but as a millennial herself, Gilbert’s reexamination of this era reads as a gift, helping to heal her fellow millennial sisters, who have received it with joy. It is long overdue for boomer women to finally grow up and do the same.

This past week, I sat down with my Dad to watch 2022’s All Quiet on the Western Front, titled in German with significantly more chutzpah as Im Westen nichts Neues (Nothing New in the West). A former Marine, Army officer, combat veteran since his late teens (yes, really), Dad was not exactly running to start yet another war film that would no doubt lead to boredom and disappointment. Literally, I had to beat him onto the couch, and he ended up missing the entire baby fox opening scene. But after being accosted by Volker Bertelmann’s score once, he was hooked. An hour in, he announced he might have to go to sleep and finish the next day, making literally zero moves to do so, eyes glued to the screen. He jumped, he screamed, he shouted out to the characters, he processed what he was watching out loud to me, all behavior I was witnessing for the first time in 32 years of knowing my Dad, years filled with watching thousands of movies together across the decades. And most unexpected? It was a war film that drew this out of him, the genre least likely to engage my Dad, understandably.

Like any diligent ADHDer, I spent my 10th or so viewing alongside my Dad on the couch, Googling the film’s reviews and accolades. Partially out of curiosity, partially to answer my Dad’s frantic inquiry that erupted every few minutes or so, “This won every fucking award, right? Please, tell me this won everything.” As I remembered from the film’s initial release, it did in fact win many awards, much to my Dad’s relief. What I didn’t remember, or maybe never engaged with in 2022, was the plethora of negative reviews from American, British, and German journalists alike. So you know, I stayed up all night reading every single one, and naturally, I have some thoughts.

The analysis of war in film: a fun thought practice for those who’ve never been!

Because the film had award-season success in the U.S. and the U.K., the criticism of All Quiet is often erroneously summarized as something along the lines of “The Americans and Brits loved it, the Germans hated it because, duh, their relationship to war is so much more complicated.” There’s definitely some classic picking and choosing here, as the film won eight of its twelve nominations at the German Film Awards. Moreover, the reviews I read from both American and British critics were all just as negative as any German review, to the point where I have yet to find a good one in either language, period!

As a sidenote, I do think the German reaction to this film is uniquely worthy of scholarly interrogation and analysis, as this is the first German-language film version of All Quiet, a novel most Germans are required to read in high school, in addition to their past as the aggressors and losers of both world wars. Yikes!

However, while the German response is significant, the complaints from reviewers across all three countries remained somewhat the same:

• It’s literally nothing like the book!! What even is the point???

• So much spectacle and combat!!! It makes combat INTO a spectacle!

• The changes and additions COMPLETELY miss the point of the novel!!

• They also revive Nazi conspiracies about the war!!!

• It’s not Saving Private Ryan!!! No character building or development here!!

• And my personal fave…Oscar-geilheit!!! (Horny for Oscars!!!)

As someone who personally has had a vendetta against Saving Private Ryan since I was traumatized by the opening scene as a middle schooler, I was appalled by many of these takes. I think they stem from two main issues:

1. No actual combat experience/no experience as a low-ranking soldier in modern warfare.

2. A fear of seeing German soldiers as human and not always at fault…possibly even let down repeatedly by their leadership.

The excessive, graphic, “spectacle” Berger allegedly made of combat is no different than the kind that quite literally OPENS SAVING PRIVATE RYAN WITH NO WARNING. Yet, this is justified for Ryan several times over as “memorable” and forcing one to “confront the devastation of war.” Here, it doesn’t work, allegedly, because Paul and his friends aren't “developed” as characters; thus, their deaths fall flat or seem to mean less to us as viewers. Weirdly, I don’t need to know entire backstories of all the German soldiers through and through to feel pain, horror, and despair still as they are lit on fire, run over by tanks, and committing suicide via stabbing a fork in their neck…but what do I know? As beaten over our heads in All Quiet, like the French soldiers, the Germans are humans too, both senselessly killing each other, all for the political aims of others who will never see a trench. This story, like the source material, is anti-war, not “anti-war except for the losers, they do in fact deserve all suffering and pain they experienced and are culpable 100% in every instance at every level.”

Then there’s the overwhelming fear of acknowledging that, yes, while Paul and his friends zealously volunteer for the War (on the receiving end of some criminally deceptive propaganda), they are repeatedly grossly misled by their country, both its political and military leadership. This can be said quite literally of almost any group of soldiers, during nearly any modern war, especially American soldiers of the past 25 years. How this reality of modern war directly equates to a revival post war Nazi backed conspiracy theories for an audience who, at least outside of Germany, has little to no knowledge of WWI, most likely, let alone Germany’s interwar stab-in-the-back conspiracy, beats me.

Somehow, this same audience was supposed to be reminded of and buy into this conspiracy after witnessing Paul’s death, being stabbed from behind by a French soldier. Be so fucking for real, the stab-in-the-back lie blames those who “betrayed” the German troops on the home front, specifically, not opposing troops. So even if the majority of All Quiet’s audience became WWI and WWII experts overnight, who supposedly learned nothing thus falling hook, line, and sinker for Berger’s conspiracy realism, they would surely then recognize this major discrepancy. But most likely, they know nothing of this conspiracy in the first place, and thus could not make the connection a scholar or German audience member might.

But don’t worry, Paul and his fellow child-soldiers are picked apart further by critics, citing German military historians who somehow find the idea that leadership would “sacrifice poor soldiers as cannon fodder” as literally “nonsense.” Despite their fellow historians and colleagues pointing out, specifically for German soldiers in WWI, it is in fact not non-sense. And the film’s very brief, blink and you’ll miss it, reference to execution for desertion is further dismissed by the same German scholar who argues “only 48 soldiers were executed” for this during WWI. So it did happen and was a real threat, but, like, you know, 48 is basically zero, right? West Point professors likewise criticize the film for “neglecting questions of guilt or responsibility” while reviving post-war “German victimhood” attitudes. Yet another refusal to embrace the film and novel’s antiwar ethos, looking back on the combat experience of these low-ranking soldiers with humanity, nuance, and historical perspective. Because in reality, the film clearly tackles guilt and responsibility to the point of discomfort for its critics.

Not all audiences are created equal

One of the critics’ repeated gripes was the film’s omission of Paul returning home on leave, consumed by alienation from his family and community, irrevocably changed. This scene reveals that the meaning of All Quiet “is not just about the soldier’s experience but also about the perils of nationalism, the vast gulf between propaganda and reality, and the pointlessness of wartime sacrifice.” Frankly, Berger’s adaptation communicates this more than effectively, over and over and over again, even without returning to the home front. For some reason, the inclusion of a scene at the home front and display of the soldier’s suffering continuing off the battlefield is almost always considered some sophisticated commentary on the far-reaching consequences of war. Even Homer’s Iliad received the same excessive praise for its inclusion of Hector’s brief visit home during wartime.

To be frank, I think that as civilians, we value these scenes and put them on a pedestal because it is our way of saying, “See! We see your pain, we acknowledge that you are forever changed.” It is a way to comfort ourselves, to feel like we are doing our “bit” in validating the veteran’s post-war suffering, which we cannot possibly even begin to imagine, let alone know what to do actually to help them. From what I can tell, these scenes do absolutely nothing for combat veterans. I’ve sat with my dad through dozens of war movies over several decades, and I’ve sat in theater after theater with combat veterans as an intern for the GI Film Festival, watching them view films that covered the consequences of war, any manifestation of post-combat trauma you can imagine, the homefront after war, all to no reaction.

What I saw finally make a combat veteran feel seen was the unflinching depiction of the horrors of combat fought on both sides by men. Not winners, not losers, not good guys or bad guys, just men whose lives are all being played like pawns to achieve the goals of their leaders, who forever remain far from the frontlines, yet always demanding. In fact, I found almost no negative response to the film from combat veterans, including a former Navy SEAL whose review stressed, “This movie reminded me of how important it is for us veterans to tell these stories because war is not glamorous at all. War is burning shit pits in Afghanistan, it’s watching your friend bleed out and turn grey, and the haunting visions don’t go away…war should always be a last resort.” For all the kvetching and bitching of critics, scholars, and journalists alike, it seems like 2022’s All Quiet on the Western Front is actually pretty straightforward if you’ve lived it. Maybe it’s time to start prioritizing their perspective for once.

Let me set some expectations from the jump, I am in no way promising to completely understand and present to you THE EXPLANATION for wtf is going on in this music video. If I had to guess, I would say an all-consuming heartbreak torments the protagonist (la Rosalía!), and the only way through to the other side is divine transcendence? Maybe? All that we need to remember is:

1. Her heart is broken beyond repair. Our girl is down bad. She is literally consumed by it entirely, but wants to be free of it (sometimes girls’ night out just doesn’t work, ok?).

2. Divine intervention is the “only way I will be saved” according to Björk’s brief vocal cameo. So it’s safe to assume that if it looks like religious imagery and symbolism, it probably is!

Lady with an Ermine, Leonard da Vinci, 1489–1491

As Rosalía sings “Sé que me funde el calor/I know that the heat melts me” totally engulfed by this lovesickness, we see a jeweler attempt to fix her broken heart in the form of a banged-up heart-shaped locket. He works away under the gaze of Cecilia Gallerani, better known as Leonardo’s Lady with an Ermine, ultimately unsuccessfully.

Besides the fact that Cecilia was a talented musician and poet, not unlike our Rosalía, she is painted here in a popular Spanish style dress and hairstyle in yet another nod to our Spanish diva. Her monstrous-looking ermine is a reference to her lover, Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and his family’s ermine-filled family crest. While the ermine typically represents chastity, purity, etc., it is clear in this context that it is a direct symbol of her lover, an image of fidelity and loyalty to him.

Saintly gestures of surrender to god’s (annoying and painful!) will

In another attempt to cure her heart, we see Rosalía at a doctor’s appointment (smart thinking, tbh) holding herself up in a rather dramatic pose. This gesture appears throughout Christian art, but is most often seen in renderings of female saints, such as Mary Magdalene or the grand dame herself, the Virgin Mary.

L: The Repentant Magdalen, Philippe de Champaigne, 1648 R: The Virgin Annunciate, Ghent Altarpiece, Jan and Hubert van Eyck, 1432.m

The gesture communicates humility and acceptance of God’s divine plan for one’s life, such as carrying the Messiah against one's will. Rosalía’s pose alludes to her acceptance and surrender to heartbreak, but let’s remind ourselves she is actively trying to cure it at the same time. I get it, we can’t all be god’s strongest soldiers even when he insists on it!

Sacred heart: It’s not just a badass tattoo

R: The Adoration of the Sacred Heart with Saints Ignatius Loyola and Louis Gonzaga, José de Páez, 1770.

Throughout the music video, we are repeatedly shown a small painting of the scarred heart, a symbol of “God’s boundless and passionate love for mankind “ and “the long-suffering love and compassion of the heart of Christ towards humanity.” One can only assume it parallels the kind of love Rosalía is carrying for some straight-up loser who keeps leaving her on read. SMH.

Bonus round: No one can resist Hildegard von Bingen

Rosalía’s choice to sing her heart out in German was confusing to me (but respected) until she revealed on her Instagram story that the German lyrics were inspired by the Rhine’s very own 12th-century writer, composer, and mystic Hildegard von Bingen.

Rosalía’s lyrics auf Deutsch and English are as follows:

“Die Flamme dringt in mein Gehirn ein / Wie ein Blei-Teddybär / Ich bewahre viele Dinge in meinem Herzen auf / Deshalb ist mein Herz so schwer”

“The flame penetrates my brain / Like a lead teddy bear / I keep many things in my heart / That’s why my heart is so heavy”

Hilde famously had divine visions her whole life, which she described as feeling as if “Heaven was opened and a fiery light of exceeding brilliance came and permeated my whole brain and inflamed my whole heart and my whole breast.” Finally, after all these centuries, it’s wonderful to see Hilde finally go mainstream!

While the government is shut down, millions of federal employees are unable to afford groceries, and the rest of the public braces for losing access to federal food assistance in the coming days. But don’t worry, while navigating these all-consuming anxieties, the American public was simultaneously inundated with photos of bulldozers tearing down the White House’s East Wing and news that the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden was also no more. And for what? That’s right, a giant ballroom that will most likely be so tacky even Liberace would wince. Considering the public was so distressed over Melania Trump’s initial renovation of the White House’s rose garden during Canks’s first term that they later petitioned Jill Biden to undo these changes, and just this year responded with outrage to his final act of absolute Mar a Lago vandalism to the rose garden this past August, it’s no surprise that the loss of yet another gift to the people from beloved First Lady Jackie Kennedy was the last straw.

Of course, the widespread anger has been dubbed as solely coming from hysterical democrats by the right and justified by the flimsy argument that all presidents have made changes to the White House before. Jackie’s grandson and the internet’s boyfriend, John Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg (he has ALL the important names, just in case), validated the public’s pain in the most meaningful way possible in 2025 — with an Instagram post. He wrote, “My grandmother saw America in full color — Trump sees black and white. Where she planted flowers, he poured concrete. She brought life to the White House, because our landmarks should inspire and grow with our country.” And where did this rogue podcaster, van driver, and my future husband get such an eloquent and meaningful perspective on cultural heritage? From his badass grandma, duh!

Jackie cleaned up America’s “shabby house” for us

There are many things we, the people, adore about Jackie, most prominently her timeless style and ability to bag objectively the hottest president we’ve ever had (that’s my girl!). But let it be known here that we should love her most for being a lifelong art and design nerd and career photojournalist, who could carry a grudge against bad taste for decades, JUST LIKE US! Jackie never forgot the offensively underwhelming interior of the White House she first encountered at age 11, and she let it be known: “I remembered feeling strangely let down by the White House. It seemed rather bleak." I, too, am haunted by several encounters with terrible taste, so I get it, girl. Set on righting this wrong, she began planning the restoration of the White House before the inauguration and even leaked the news to the press (ok, marketing mastermind)!

Once she finally got in there, the situation was worse than anticipated, with Jackie saying the interior looked like a “Dentist office bomb shelter” (she would have slayed in a Drag Race reading challenge, let's be so for real). In her 1962 televised tour of the renovation process on CBS, Jackie recounted how the White House had a long history of being… well… terrible. With sheep grazing on the front lawn, a vegetable garden, and a resistance to decorating for fear of making the house fit for a king rather than the chief servant (miss those days), Jackie informs us that this ultimately led to the White House being dubbed “the public shabby house.” Damn, no slack! This total dismissal of cultural heritage’s importance by generations of classless simpletons before her meant that no effort had been made to preserve the house's history or that of its former residents. During her CBS tour, Jackie addressed the situation more politely than I just did: “It just seemed to me such a shame when we came to find hardly anything of the past in the house.”

Side note, if you have not watched this special before, I beg of you, PLEASE do. Jackie drops some scalding history tea, outing Thomas Jefferson as losing the architectural competition for the White House (and then he had to live in the winner’s design, embarrassing), and revealing First Lady Abigail Adams was a diva who complained the house was damp and cold! Also, the way she says “nineteen-two” for 1902 throughout is so chic and pleasing.

Within the first 10 minutes of the special, Jackie makes several statements that totally negate the Trump acolytes of today and their justification that “every president makes changes to the White House, this is the same thing!” She is not ignorant that past presidents have made changes, and future ones will continue to do so, stating, “…I think this house will always grow and should.” She reiterates that her own personal tastes and desires do not guide her project, doubling down on her expressed intentions from the year prior: “Everything in the White House must have a reason for being there. It would be sacrilege merely to redecorate it—a word I hate. It must be restored, and that has nothing to do with decoration. That is a question of scholarship.” Moreover, she formed the Fine Arts Committee, staffed by museum experts, government officials, and private citizens, to oversee and approve her plans. To ensure everyone’s hard work could not be undone by the next yahoo to occupy the White House, she put great effort into creating legislation (passed by Congress in 1961) that deemed any future alterations must be for preservation and interpretive purposes.

A felon sends our cultural heritage to hell in a gold lame handbasket

Let’s break this down for Canks’s cult members who still insist his current project is no different than what every other President has done before. Considering his absolutely offensive and classless revamp of the Oval Office, clearly done to his personal, childlike taste (gold lets them know I’m rich!), it is safe to assume his ballroom will follow suit as a testament to Trump's tackiness, with no regard for the preservation requirements of Jackie’s aforementioned safeguard, Public Law 87-286. Today, despite the National Historic Preservation Act exempting the White House from mandatory review of the potential effects a “federally-assisted project” could have on historic properties by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the National Capital Planning Commission does have “review authority over new construction on federal properties,” including the White House. Both the NCPC and the Commission of Fine Arts have to review and approve the final design.

What did Canks do about all these annoying cultural heritage protections? He did what criminals do best: he ignored the law! Trump went ahead and demolished the East Wing and the Jackie Kennedy Garden for his ballroom before submitting anything for review, arguing that the NCPC has no authority over demolition, only construction. Feels exactly like the kind of bullshit explanation my shitty ex-boyfriend would construct to avoid any accountability at all costs, tbh. Prior administrations voluntarily submitted their plans for changes to the White House to the NCPC before starting their projects, but not Trump’s confederacy of dunces. And just a few hours ago, he fired every member of the CFA, all Biden appointees, set to review and approve Canks’s ballroom plans. His administration made no secret that he plans to appoint devotees who “are more aligned with President Trump’s ‘America First’ policies.”

So, unless you never made it past a kindergarten reading comprehension level, it is clear that what happened this week is in no way, shape, or form just like every other president who has made changes to the White House before. Trump’s White House projects exclusively serve his personal desires and tastes, making the American cultural heritage that Jackie Kennedy worked so hard to gift the American people and legally protect inconvenient and disposable. After all, as a felon who is literally president, it's clear Trump knows there are no consequences for him when it comes to breaking the law or having criminally bad taste.

What would Jackie do?

Jackie made clear that her restoration efforts were driven by her conviction that the White House never “completely belongs to one person, it belongs to the people of America.” Reflecting on the legacy of her mother’s work, Caroline Kennedy foregrounds her mother’s determination to gift Americans access to their cultural heritage like never before in the 2022 reissue of Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration. According to Caroline, her mother “wanted the White House to reflect American history and art and to be a place where families could learn about our country and its leaders.” Jackie’s own passion for American art, culture, and history captured the public’s attention, allowing her to prove history was not “a dry academic affair, but a conversation with the most interesting people you could ever hope to meet.” She endured numerous political debates across several federal agencies, standing firm in her determination to make the country’s history as accessible as possible for its people, dismissing laughable concerns over her “commercialization” of the White House: “Absurd. How stupid. This is not a concession stand.” Caroline recounts this anecdote to remind us that anyone who came up against her mother didn’t stand a chance. It’s clear Jackie was successful in giving us the gift of a national cultural heritage and the ability to connect with the White House as our house from the public’s widespread anger over its ongoing degradation with each new Trump “renovation.” However, when reflecting on Caroline’s reminder of Jackie’s unwavering tenacity, it is clear she gave us another gift. Her passion, steadfast commitment, and tireless work ethic are a model for how we can navigate this national pain, never conceding to those who attempt to stop our efforts to call out blatant destruction of our cultural heritage with absurdities like “every president does this.” She fought for us; now it’s our turn to return the favor and fight to protect the gift she gave us.

At 32, I would agree with the statement that the older I get, the more I realize how little I actually know. I guess that comes with the cacophony of failures which riddle all of us throughout our 20s, and the comparison olympics that arrives right at the decade’s end, leading you to realize you actually have no idea how to be an adult, properly, a la your married, homeowning peers. However, regardless of whether you have a 401K, property, or god, maybe even an investment portfolio by 29 (bitcoin does not count, sorry), one thing we are all blessed with from 25 onward is a fully formed frontal lobe (at least the women, men in my experience tbd). From this point forward, as you wade your inexperienced way through work, friendships, and dating, you begin to view everything through a different lens. What you lack in experience, you can now make up for in a brain that can completely understand, interpret, and learn from your chaotic, ill-informed choices. And while you end up on the other side of 30 humbled beyond belief, stripped of your former hubris and ability to handle alcohol, you do come out the other side with a gem or two that informs the rest of your life for the better.

First things first: Remember, you’re an adult, god damn it!

Before we jump right into the main event, it’s essential to set the foundation you need to even begin utilizing my sage advice. You are an adult. I know, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to do that to you either. I mean, personally, I feel about 15, and with the pandemic years stolen from most of us, I know we all see ourselves anywhere from 1 to 3 years younger than we actually are. But regardless of the age we see ourselves as, it’s important to remember that at this point we are adults, and there’s power in that. It can feel near impossible to see ourselves this way, we don’t have the same economic, career, or financial opprotunities our parents did at our age. So while my parents at 32 had been married for years with two kids, my father well into his military career, I still sleep till 10 am, hate making phone calls, and have dessert for breakfast often. It’s natural to use our parents as a barometer, though ultimately unfair, and it can make us feel like an adult imposter. This is further exacerbated by our inability to progress in our careers, thanks to boomers who hold on to their positions with a death grip, all while condescending to you about your life, behavior, clothing choices, coffee order, and the list goes on and on. It’s like we have an eternal, emotionally immature parent or sadistic school teacher wreaking havoc, who makes us feel too little, too young, too powerless to stand up to them. Like you're still a child.

But that same agency you have when you choose to eat Tilamook Neopolitan ice cream for breakfast, wear the clothes that make you feel happy, and finally buy the [insert childhood desire here] you always dreamed of (for me, it was Bernini the pug), doesn’t leave you. You still have it even when you’re at that job you hate, in that friendship with that one kind of passive-aggressive/and or flaky friend, or going to class for a degree, certificate, etc., you have no interest in but your parents are insisting on. You know what you want to do, but you feel trapped, worried about judgment, scared to stand up for yourself and your desires, conditioned to still take on the role of a child with no say in the matter. But here’s the secret, in reality, you actually have the ONLY say in the matter - you’re an adult, god damn it!

Now let’s get to the advice you’ve been waiting for….

If Something Is No Longer For You, You Can Leave. Seriously, It’ll Be Ok!

Now, that seems relatively simple written down, so let me explain a little. For the many reasons listed above, when we are in a situation that no longer aligns with us, we tend to act like kids waiting for permission to quit, leave, throw in the towel. Never mind that change is scary, and sometimes it can take months, maybe even several months, of effort to prepare, plan, and navigate it safely. Say, for example, you’re in a job you hate, I’m not saying quit without the next job lined up. But for the love of god, you do NOT have to stay. I don’t care how much your parents like the job for you, how much you like the job title, or if it makes you feel like a badass among your peers. You won’t be a “quitter” or failure for moving on. And if people think that about your decision? As mother RuPaul once said, “Unless they’re paying your bills, pay them bitches no mind.” If it’s fear of change or the work of securing a new job that’s holding you back, envision yourself in the same situation in the same place 10 years down the road. Let the chill of that thought override your resume anxiety and LinkedIn avoidance.

At 25, I left a horrific work situation, despite it being a “dream job” in my field. The pay was abysmal, and the environment was shockingly toxic, even for the late 2010s. All the young people around me felt the same, and yet they continued to suffer and complain as if they were handcuffed to their desks. In 2020, when I began pursuing an aggressive job hunt during one of the worst economies of the century so far to get out, they told me I’d fail, to not even try. I had a new job within 8 weeks. Most of them are still there, still unhappy. Five years later, when I encountered a similar situation as a Teaching Assistant at the University of Kansas, I knew what to do. I began working my ass off to get the hell out. Of course, my supervisors didn’t expect this; they were used to the giant adult-kids who either cried in their offices for mercy or silently endured their unprofessional behavior, always choosing to stay. A month after I submitted my notice in writing, these boomers were so enraged and thrown off they began borderline stalking me, mailing me a letter with a response deadline scrawled in all-caps serial killer style handwriting on the outside of the envelope, despite me no longer being their employee or student. I threw the letter away, unopened, and later that year began a new program where I thrived. The sky didn’t fall down, my professional reputation was fine, and most importantly, I carried myself like an adult no matter how much I wasn’t treated like one. At the end of the day, they can’t take your agency from you; you always have the option to leave.

I’ve been single a lot. Like a fucking lot. Certainly, as an adult, I’ve been single seven times longer than not. To be precise, of the 14 years of my adulthood so far, I’ve been single for 12 in total. And there were times I didn’t mind living the classic “single girl” life, dating around, uncommitted, not really thinking about what I wanted, and definitely terrified of marriage. But by the time I hit my late 20s, I began a process of, well, growing the fuck up. And after years of therapy, podcasts, books, meditations, and, undoubtedly, a few relevant TikToks, I came to terms with the fact that what I truly wanted and was now ready for was a serious relationship, hopefully culminating in marriage. I resisted this idea for a long time due to immaturity, of course, but also the idea pushed on me by the young women around me that desiring to get married at any point before your 30s was profoundly anti-feminist and a sign of low self-esteem. These women would berate me for my stints of several dates a week, which never went beyond the first date, claiming it as evidence that I was a “serial relationship” girl desperate to get married. How they could get that from an obviously self-destructive slew of one-night stands with no follow-up ever is still a mystery to me. They were themselves virgins in their early 20s who eventually married before 30, so do with that what you will.

Like most people in their mid to late 20s, I was dealing with the unpleasant realities of adult friendship for the first time. I was a single girl, living in Chicago alone with family out of state, and no boyfriend on horizon. Yet somehow in this major city, I was surrounded by peers either locked down in a serious relationship, chained to their families in the neighboring suburbs, who always seemed to be inordinately busy. Once I asked a small group of friends to hang out during the weekend six weeks in a row and each and every person had plans with, you guessed it, family or their boyfriend every fucking time. And what could I say? Don’t hang out with your family? Don’t see your boyfriend? I wasn’t even third string for my friends, I straight up not on the team! When I went to two concerts alone that same winter I’d had enough. What’s the point of living in a major city full of things to do when you have to do them alone?

Now as the single out of state friend, it was expected of me to never question or challenge the behavior of those partnered or surrounded by family. I had to just deal, roll with the punches; accept it. And I did. But never once did those coupled and near the comforts of unconditional loving families think “Beatrice is single, living away from her family, and lives alone. Maybe we should ask if she wants to…?” Literally never. And If I brought that up? Again, the audacity when their plans are always with their mother/brother/boyfriend/aunt/niece/cousin/god mother, etc.???

The Audacity of Wanting The Same…And Trying To Get It

I realized your friends, no matter how much they insist, are not your family. In this dynamic I was not to be considered at all. And sure, it is unfair to expect your friends to be there for you in the same way family would, I just didn’t know adult friendship meant never being prioritized in any capacity other than mind numbing connivence. If hanging out required minor planning, travel to and from a destination, or simply any kind of event that wasn’t us being in the same place at the same time already (literally work) it wasn’t happening. I didn’t want to live like this anymore, I wanted to be somebody’s priority and I learned if I was not family or literally dating someone, I would never be a priority to them period. And as a sinlge person, my needs were not important, and I must without fail bend over backwards to accomodate those who are coupled always without question.

And right as I came to terms with this, ready to find this partner, this person to be my family, we entered multi-year global pandemic. So as I lived my end of my 20s in buffer mode, working, continuing to focus on myself, you bet your ASS people still had shit to say about me being single. In fact, I had been single for so long in my 20s a co-worker once asked “What’s going on? Has it just not happened for you yet?” As someone whose only long term relationship ended in their boyfriend cheating on them for six months, spent literal years oscillating between “having fun” with random guys, and getting absolutely emotionally brutalized by any man I went on an actual date with (all from the apps of course), who was finally ready for “it” to happen but was trapped in a never ending lockdown, I was eviscerated by their question.

As luck would have it, once the restrictions lifted and I was now a shiny, healed, assured woman who spent literal years alone doing all the “me” work everyone insists is the KEY to finally convincing a man to view you as a human, and I was met with two more hellish years of the same as before. Shitty, borderline abusive men on dating apps, alone for several days at a time, no one picking up their phones during any holiday for some reason (the days before or after too), weeks without even being hugged, doing every chore alone, paying every bill alone, and almost always chastised by my friends who lived with their long term partners or husbands that its not all its cracked up to be and I need to focus on myself more. I could feel their silent judging as I continually put myself out there for years despite it never working out trying desperately to simply have the my biological human need for connection and lets be real practical need for some fucking support on the day to day that they had themselves. It got to the point where now we were many many years deep into this dating with intention era that I became defiant because STATISTICALLY I had to be fucking close at this point JFC. BEING SINGLE IS EXHAUSTING, ISOLATING, AND EXPENSIVE.

But then, it happened.

I was right. Statistically, it had to happen and it did. And what a surprise, I found with my basic human needs for connection and touch met, a partner to share the practical tasks of life with, a person to be with on holidays, I fucking thrived. Something as simple as my partner making dinner while I was days deep in finals, taking out the dogs while I graded papers, reliably making plans, showing up, never flaking with some thinly veiled impossible lie, improved my quality of life and mood more than any pill or meditation ever had. I knew what it was like on the other side and I appreciated my partner more than I think anyone who hasn’t been chronically single could understand. And I told him, as much as I could. It was amazing how his presence in my life made my friends continued flaking sting less, their flimsy excuses were still hurtful but not painful, I was never alone on holidays while they went with their partners to the lake house, their respective family homes, etc. constantly. Their inability to pick up calls while with their families or during holidays was just annoying now. I breathed a well earned deep sigh of relief for months, as did my friends.

Just kidding! It’s already over.

No matter how many years you do what everyone tells you, focus on yourself, learn to love yourself, therapy, a career, putting yourself out there, knowing what you want, communicating clearly, become the person you would want to date, yada yada yada, the big secret is it doesn’t work. Your friends who have done none of this will be in thriving marriages. And you? Well, you’re not going to be, sorry. It is total chaos. All that work can still leave you right where you started just a short year later; living alone, single, and still a massive catch watching what is impossible for you come so easily to everyone around you.

You’re back at 0. And this time you’ve tried it all and you have no idea how to move forward next. You still want the same love and support your friends have, but now you’ve played every move you possibly can and are officially out of ideas. But here’s what I want to say to the dozens of girls I see over night on TikTok, single at 30, 32, 34 or married at 30, 32, 34 after similarly horrific experiences — it’s ok to not like this experience. It’s ok to desire having your basic human needs met, support, and even a marriage. Just because your married friends “never even wanted to get married,” “loved being single,” and somehow tripped and fell into at wedding with nicest guy either of you have ever met, doesn’t mean you’re wrong for knowing that you thrive in partnership, that you want partnership for many totally valid reasons, and it’s ok to not like these years alone in a situation where you objectively do not thrive.

And married people, coupled people, for the love of god. Can you please consider your single friends a tiny baby minuscule iota more. Pick up the phone. Call them back during the holidays. Don’t meet their very real and valid desire with tales of how your marriage is hard or fucked, the old “its not all it’s cracked up to be” con. Stop asking if we’re on the apps. Or what the apps are like because you “never had to be on them.” If we ask if you know anyone single, don’t knee jerk respond with “no,” at least pretend to think for a full second. Consider for a second the time, money, energy, love your single friend has poured into you and your relationship, your bachelorette party, your bridal shower, your wedding, maybe even baby shower, to receive what in return? Lectures about how they need to do a laundry list of self care practices and forcing themselves into even more alone time than they already experience to focus on themselves, all things you most likely didn’t have to do yourself in order to be a priority, supported, and not alone? Trust me, this single life would be a lot less difficult for many of us if we felt, even for one day every couple of weeks, like the friendship and love we’re offering is prioritized and received. That we are worth the effort, despite what our love life is telling us. Think about it, you might actually surprise yourself and…have fun…hanging out with your friend. Just a thought.

I don’t know whose idea it was that all fine art people HAVE to live among original oil paintings, first-edition prints, and sculptures fit for a museum lawn, because they clearly never took a look at the average arts worker’s salary. Those of us who don’t have a Getty-style collection in our apartments or homes (that are most certainly rentals) are skewered by those outside the art world for not participating in the very snobbery and intellectual elitism these same outsiders simultaneously kvetch about ad nauseam. And let’s be honest, art historians, museum workers, auction house and gallery slaves totally buy into it. We jokingly shudder at the thought that we once owned [insert basic bitch artwork here] or proudly brag we never owned it in the first place. For us millennial girlies, no piece encapsulates this dynamic more than the notorious Prada Marfa sign.

@kelseyreedleonardreally thought I did something there

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@museumtiktokI’m low key embarrassed for her 😩🎨 #severance #youroutie #outie #museumtiktok #interiordesigntok #pradamarfa #badinteriordesign

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IKEA Audrey 4ever

As someone who wore a burgundy lip and sock bun for half of the 2010’s I’m not here to begrudge anyone a little self depreciating humor or self awareness, clearly. Kelsey and Taylor’s TikToks are certainly made with earnest because let’s be real, the Prada Marfa sign is hilariously and iconically basic bitch as fuck. But I want to raise the point that sometimes these "pre-furnished apartment energy” works (as one of my followers brilliantly called them) can actually inspire the same kind of adoration and connection in us snobby art elite as any niche abstract composition can. Take for example IKEA’s iconic Audrey Hepburn Breakfast at Tiffany’s canvas.

As an American high school girl in Germany, I felt the stars align the first time I saw Holly Golightly/Audrey Hepburn staring back at me in the IKEA Walldorf basement. I was obsessed with Truman Capote (like all normal 15 year old girls, right?) and thus of course Breakfast at Tiffany’s in all its unapologetic girlish glamour. For context, we never got anything this cool or novel in Germany for such a steal. I couldn’t get her in my arms fast enough and she came with me to shitty college houses, my mother’s later stateside home, and every other place I resided from 15 to 30. It wasn’t until I was playfully roasted in the Culture Quota TikTok comments for owning it repeatedly “as an art historian” or my credibility as an actually art historian sometimes earnestly questions by some faceless nameless assholes (no doubt scholars of art history themselves, right?) did I realize this unspoken expectation of those of us in the arts by the rest of the world was so pervasive.

@culture_quota@david.vulin this audio was made for this moment. #arthistory

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When it came time to move in for the first time with a boyfriend in my early thirties (some of you might remember the infamous pathological liar Guy from previous essays) I decided to finally part ways with IKEA Audrey. I wanted to make an effort to merge homes and no matter how secure one is in his masculinity, I couldn’t imagine any man in love with the idea of a giant Audrey Hepburn canvas in their shared home. I put her out by the trash during the move thinking to myself I was going to make some sorority girl’s day with this decision, feeling very grown up. A year later I was back out on my ass, unceremoniously dumped, living alone again, and weirdly irate I threw IKEA Audrey out for literally no fucking reason now. I went to get another one and as fate would have it, she was no longer sold at IKEA. That didn’t stop me though. I was fueled by rage and self reclamation. I scoured the internet for her finding I wasn’t the only one who loved her; she was selling on the secondary market for $200 or much more. I cut a deal for a stained one with a seller and scrubbed her down with baking soda for hours, eventually hanging her in my bedroom swearing to NEVER get rid of her again, no matter what anyone fucking said and never again for a man that’s for sure.

Unironically owning a Prada Marfa sign at 32

I continued decorating my apartment without much thought or planning and certainly not with the intention to create a space so girly that it repels men. For once they were not prioritized. Instead it was more an unapologetic celebration of my taste, favorite divas, and hyper-fixations. Around this time I went back into my Tumblr archive all the way to the beginning in 2011 and I saw the exact same images I was now filing my space with looking back at me like Andy Warhol’s Jackie O., Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly of course, and Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. I have to say, 17 year old me had great taste and was so fucking cool, I’m glad she’s never fully left me. “All that is missing is a Prada Marfa sign,” I thought . I never owned one in college or my 20s, my spaces weren’t exactly well decorated, and with little finances I was cool with IKEA Audrey. I didn’t need to be in a sorority or a beautifully decorated Pinterest level post grad apartment with my best friends, and let’s be real, I simply couldn’t afford it either. But now was the time to let teenager Beatrice take the wheel for better or worse and I got the damn Gossip Girl wall art.

As I was hanging it up on my basic bitch millennial gallery wall in my living room I realized it’s actually very much art hoe coded in reality. I had long loved the Elmgreen & Dragset installation the sign references, having studied it in bona fide art history lectures (yes, really! take that TikTok!), and often researched over the years how to visit Marfa to see it in person among Marfa’s other art historical gems like Donald Judd’s studio. Its prominent place in Gossip Girl and eventual transformation into a basic bitch darling alongside the sign’s intersection with veritable art historical significance actually made it the epitome of Culture Quota and thus me. And for that, I celebrate it as I would any Artemisia Gentileschi painting hanging in my home (sorry museum goers, that hypothetical bad boy would be in my basic millennial interior forever, no chance of a museum loan, I never denied being an art world snob to be fair).

I’m not one for the whole “inner child” work craze, the idea of me existing at different ages as a separate entity just makes no sense to me. I can’t imagine a 15 year old Beatrice sitting across from me to hash out our trauma or promise to meet “her” needs because I am her just a little further along in life! I’m in the same body and chaotic-depressive brain now as I was then, we aren’t separated from each other. And I’m no mental health professional as my preferred diet of adderall and Diet Coke clearly proves. But I would argue the unironic Prada Marfa sign in my apartment at 32 proves it’s less about asking your 15 year old self what she wants, treating her as separate from you and foreign to your adult self. Rather its more so unapologetically accepting what you want and who you are right now as a living result of all your phases and eras no matter how “basic” or antithetical to your adult life as it stands currently. Because 15 year old Beatrice by herself would probably demand a Betsy Johnson interior designed apartment in New York City full of Jonas Brothers and RPatz posters with a stack of Teen Vogues to cut up into collages. But accepting and celebrating myself fully now meant the longest lasting obsessions and aesthetic dreams of teenage Beatrice that still hung on after all these years were unquestioningly included no matter how much they “clashed” with the expectations for the 30-something art historian I am today. And let’s be honest, any art hoe knows “real art'“ is in the eye of the beholder, not the canon, the gallery, or the misguided expectations of those too scared to even attempt to understand art (opting to vilify it and us instead) let alone themselves.

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Fourteen months into my relationship with…let’s call him Mr. “Good Guy,” or Guy for short, I was lying on my sofa, finally taking a breath after several all-nighters trying to finish my final papers, luxuriating in a well-earned veg out to Southern Charm, when Guy decided that was the moment to discard me. No warning. Totally unexpected. Life-shattering declarations with catastrophic consequences for me emotionally, logistically, and financially, all within a matter of seconds. I wouldn’t want anyone to experience this ever in their life, not even my mortal enemies, i.e., any and all cute, naturally slim blonde girls I went to middle and high school with. Still, specifically, I wouldn’t wish for anyone’s world to be ripped out from under them, their partner refusing to meaningfully discuss why they’re doing this to you and will not entertain any alternatives other than a complete and total abandonment of you, as Shep reads the world’s most nauseating text he sent to a woman almost 20 years younger than him aloud to Craig and Austen at full volume on the TV in the background.

@bravotvShep’s text to Sienna? Sentiment isn’t what he expected. #SouthernCharm #ShepRose #AustenKroll #CraigConover

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None of what Guy said made sense. His reasons were thin; his actions in the months, weeks, days, and hours leading up to this moment did not indicate that he was not only unhappy in our relationship, but he was so miserable in our committed partnership that a full-on break-up was the only solution. And that was final. This man, who had taken me to his family’s home for the holidays and a tiny, very private family wedding just weeks before, who invited me to move in with him, was now telling me it was over, that he hated being in a relationship, and that I had no say in the matter. Truly, none of it made sense, and I assume it must have been akin to what a terrible trip feels like, a la Midsommar. Oh, and the cherry on top of this betrayal trauma sundae? I had no financial means to leave his home, where we had joyfully moved in together just eight months before, and no family to run home to for refuge. And he knew that.

So in the days, weeks, and months I spent wide awake attempting to sleep on that same sofa in Guy’s living room, I did something I have never felt compelled to do in any relationship before. I read the man’s texts.

Now, before you get all up on your high horse, thank god I did, because what was happening in the seemingly innocuous iMessages of a very average midwestern 34-year-old man was so hurtful, malicious, and alarming that I would never have guessed. I knew before going in that I was about to “fuck around and find out,” as they say. I expected cheating? Gambling debt? God, even flirty texts with some dudes he might want to explore with. But what I found was three months’ worth of texts with grand attempts by Guy to frame himself as a martyr, stuck with this broke, familyless woman he wants out of his home, who he can’t see himself marrying (no acknowledgement that he told me the exact opposite, of course), and celebratory emojis excitedly announcing his singledom for a summer wedding (a whole month before actually discarding me, btw). Just a week after our anniversary, he was asking a man I’d never met for advice on how to break up with a “live-in” like me. It was disorienting to discover that not only was my entire relationship and life not real, but neither was the man I was in love with.

However, Guy’s texts were the only sense of sanity I had in the chaos he created eventually. I could see in real-time that he would tell me one thing, and then follow up with a complete lie to his friends and family within hours, or sometimes minutes. I could see his fake remorse and tears in front of me while simultaneously texting direct quotes of our private arguments to his best friend’s wife (wtf??), divulging that he was biting his tongue because he could say things that would really make me hate him.

I feel like now is the time to point out that Guy threw our relationship away because of something to do with him, not me (that’s the BEST I can articulate it even now, still don’t know what happened). Yet here he was turning my world upside down for no fault of my own. Even after months of prolific lying about me to a horde of men I’ve never met and thus would never question the false image he was constructing of me, allowing their opinions on our relationship to reign supreme, he doubled down, he STILL portrayed me as somehow the problem in this humiliation exercise he was running, well after he discarded me.

If I hadn’t been able to navigate his lying in real time, living with him in the five brutal months alongside master’s courses, innumerable failed job interviews, several moving delays, including a terminated lease before I even had a chance to move in, all while being periodically subjected to “I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE! YOU’RE NOT MY GIRLFRIEND” screamed in my face, would have actually been even worse if I was unaware of what he told me vs. how he actually felt about literally every single thing. Nothing was too small or too big to be lied about.

Days before I moved out, Guy’s mom made pleasant midwestern small talk with me during a brief visit, entirely ignoring the fact that she was speaking to a husk of my former self. She did, however, acknowledge the situation with a lighthearted, tone deaf proclamation, “There’s nothing to say!” Actually, ma’m, there was and still is a fuck ton to say. I knew it then, too, and when I finally left Mr. “Good Guy’s” home, I let it all out. And that brings us to the heart of this long and winding trauma dump (yes, I have a point to make!).

You’re allowed to talk about the people who intentionally hurt you. Loudly. Publicly. For as long as you need.

Now safe in my own apartment, no one who had betrayed me glaring in my direction as if they were the ones who had been slighted, or texting their friends that my mere presence put them in a bad mood, I was able to think again. And I became angry. Finally, no more sadness, anxiety, or confusion. I was ready to share what Mr. “Good Guy” had done to me with my 78K+ community on Culture Quota. I was returning to the chaotic good I had been before, never shy about calling anyone or any place that mistreated me or my peers out. At full volume.

But this time, I hesitated. Years before, I had posted on my private (now inactive) Instagram account a pretty killer Real Housewives meme (if I do say so myself) about a traumatic incident where a family member called me a c*nt non-stop, yelling, as I sat in their section of the restaurant where they were serving, all over something in-offensive a friend of mine had said to them. Their management watched and did nothing. This ended up being the second of three times they would berate me, screaming that I am c*nt in public places. One of this family member’s flying monkeys took a screenshot of the post and sent it to my mother (because that’s a normal thing to do). After texting me nonstop and eventually lying about an emergency to force me into excusing myself from dinner at my friend’s so she could call me back, my mother began to attempt to put me in my place over my Instagram story. I laughed hard. I was a thirty-year-old woman in control of my own social media, coping with a traumatic verbal assault through humor. Why was that the issue and not, oh, idk, the verbal abuse while on the clock at work, or the unfeeling, clearly ineffective management who watched and did nothing?

Then my mother began a well-worn attack on my mental health (my anxiety disorder and depression rendered me “crazy” and even sometimes “f*cking r*tetarded”to these two family members when convenient), and in a mocking, performative sympathetic voice with the tone of a schoolyard bully she asked, “What’s it going to take for you to get over this, Beatrice? Really. You are unable to move on. I want to help you.” And as I sat there, ready to reclaim my truth and tell my story, publicly stating for the world the despicable, shameful way Guy treated me, a woman who loved him unconditionally, I heard my mother’s bullying voice sneering in my head.

I posted anyway.

The weaponization of “When they go low, we go high” by bullies, abusers, and just generally bad guys

People who have been bullied, abused, or even casually mistreated are all told to “take the high road” with no afterthought. No matter the severity of the crime, those directly affected, oftentimes targeted by the actions of bad people with hurtful intentions, are told the “classy” thing to do is to never speak of it ever again, to anyone, especially not in public.

To put it as eloquently as possible, how the fuck does that make any sense? Especially when this declaration often comes from someone masquerading as a “supportive” presence, rather than from the perpetrator’s own mouth (initially). Oh, and god forbid you do say something, or unapologetically refuse to invalidate your own trauma, this conflation of silence with “the classy” reaction to bullying, abuse, etc., sets up the perpretrator to point their finger at you with moral authority and weaponize any acknowledgement of how their malicious actions hurt you as petty and the behavior of a sad person unable to move forward, in a 100% socially acceptable way. You’re supposed to hold your head up high, and persist, just like wise, elegant, and dare I say classy Michelle Obama told us all to do that one time!

The fact that Michelle Obama said this in the context of a political campaign where attacks are expected, but still clearly have their limits, is entirely ignored by the “good guys,” their enablers, and flying monkeys who weaponize it to protect the beloved bully and keep the peace. Because confronting the bully or acknowledging the truth would be uncomfortable, and we can’t have that!

So, what’s the lesson? You don’t have to be quiet about what happened to you, and you don’t have to avoid saying who did what and letting whoever you want know in whatever way you want, for as long as you need. Because if we don’t, bad guys are given the clear to betray your trust, uproot your entire life, and lie to you as well as about you, while screaming in your face, “I’m not a bad guy!” the entire time.

Oh! And as promised.

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This past June, the Culture Quota Instagram account hit 50,000 followers. It came with a whimper rather than the celebratory bang I had envisaged. Did I expect an instantaneous fanfare to erupt with confetti falling from the ceiling and my friends picking me up like when Elle Woods scored a 179 on her LSATS? Of course not. But I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that this number was a decade in the making. Allison and I created Culture Quota in 2015 while living in Rome together, and I made the CQ TikTok while locked inside my 400 sqft Chicago apartment in 2020. Across the two platforms and after 10 years of creating content, CQ now had an audience of 68K+ people. I hadn’t been celebrated by my irl friends when CQ hit previous milestones, so why did I expect one now? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that only a few of my very closest girlfriends engaged with CQ’s content consistently; everyone else, even my boyfriend at the time, didn’t seem interested in it at all. None of my boyfriends across the decade with CQ had, tbh. And I often heard this same group marvel at former high school classmates or college sorority sisters who ran their own micro IG accounts; “Wow, she’s really killing it, 10,000 followers! Good for her, that’s so cool! I’m going to follow and repost! Wow!” They hadn’t mentioned 50k on IG because they didn’t engage with CQ enough to notice, and they probably never had.

Was it really true what they (the wise 20-year-old sages preaching from their cars on TikTok) say? Your family and friends who don’t engage with your content are, in fact, your biggest haters?

@sabinagilman98It’s facts

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Of course, I felt like a fucking loser immediately for noticing this, and even worse, being kind of bothered by it. During those early years, you are well aware that those 2-3 shares on every one of your posts are most likely somebody you know firing your content off to somebody else you know for them to have what will be no doubt a nuanced intellectual discussion of how cringe you and your whole profile are. And the silence from your real-life people could be easily chalked up to the usual awkwardness that arises from seeing your friend “try to be an influencer” on social media. Surely by now, the cringe factor was well over. Why the silence? And why did I fucking care? I didn’t do this for external validation, and I never had. But it was still curious.

After this, I started noticing how my irl friends talked about social media and the creators they followed in passing. Influencer was a dirty word, social media was toxic, and they wasted so much time on it, or they resented the creators they followed for their content that unequivocally showed a fake life for attention, validation, and, of course, millions of dollars. Essentially, if you created content on social media, you were a sellout, going viral overnight, making millions of dollars in easy money, all for the adoration of strangers across the world. It all started to make sense. Why would they engage with my account if that’s how they saw what I do on CQ this way? After all, in the larger discourse surrounding social media, we creators were the ones filling the feeds of these platforms that wreaked havoc on their mental health, kept them scrolling at night, and participated in the capitalist evil of sponsored posts that put a magic spell on them and forced them to spend money. Not only was my work on CQ cringe-worthy and considered “easy money,” but it was also part of this dangerous 21st-century vice that left everyone feeling “burnt out” and wanting to disappear.

Let’s be real, I didn’t create CQ content for 10 years because I thought it would make me a millionaire or shower me in external validation. If that were the case, I would’ve stopped well before I started making measly $20-$50 IG bonus checks in 2024 (NEVER made a cent on TikTok, btw), and certainly would have succumbed already to the vile bullying that comes with the creator territory if attention were a driving factor. I did it because I loved it. It was fun, creative, and this past year, the only positive thing in my life.

2025 presented one of the most challenging experiences of my life so far, emotionally, financially, logistically — all of it. I had spent the year prior really buckling down on CQ’s IG, collaborating with other creators, pursuing brand deals, and making content for larger organizations. Was it enough money to live on? No, I never expected it to be at this point, but it was so much fun. And with the brief downfall of TikTok, the previous year showed me just how many close friendships I had formed with amazing women and mentors over the past 10 years. I met and learned from women and creators I never would have met in a world without social media, let alone developed lasting friendships with. When a 60-day job search and interviews in my field of choice for a job I DESPERATELY needed led me to a dead end, something, idk what, possessed me to look at social media jobs. I had no formal marketing experience or education; I just had CQ. And I guess I finally took my 10 years of work and creative output seriously, presenting it as such on my resume to several social media job listings, unquestioning in its validity as legitimate work. In less than 30 days, I secured two content creation jobs for three different Instagram accounts; a feat I couldn’t achieve in the arts industry, despite having graduate-level expertise.

When I was put in the most difficult bind of my adult life, my college education and my graduate research field didn’t come through for me; social media did. Those 10 years I spent scrolling for hours, consuming content, creating content, building community, collaborating, and learning from my little online family, working with brands and organizations on the side for fun, THAT is what ultimately saved my ass. The women I met along the way who, despite never seeing me in person before, spent hours and hours with me on the phone, FaceTime, iMessage, even IG DMs offering me love, support, encouragement, and even work opprotunities with no strings attached, just purely out of the goodness of their hearts. Imagine if I had never started CQ because I believed all content is just a cringe person pretending to be an influencer and social media to be inherently and unequivocally bad — a destructive habit I needed to kick. Imagine how many more people would find creative freedom and true friendship on social media if they didn’t buy into this rhetoric either.

A few days ago, a sweet older woman with the thickest Georgia accent came up on my FYP and sweetly proclaimed, “Hey ya’ll, it’s bedtime snacktime. If you’re new here, I’m a recent widow, and this time of the night has been one of the hardest times of the day for me because this was when my husband and I would share a snack and talk about our days. So now I do it with my friends on TikTok.” Miss Donna then, for 3 minutes, candidly talked to the camera about her Monday, the challenging moments, the surprises, and even the delightful saltiness of her snack. The 1,700+ comments on her video were full of sweet messages from passive scrollers to verified creators alike, with Miss Donna sweetly answering several, connecting with those who are also grieving. She continues to make a snacktime video every night, and I, along with hundreds of thousands of others, continue to watch. Our distance and intangibility do not affect the veracity of the support Miss Donna so clearly feels from such posts.

@donnac41A fun night celebrating my daughter in love! #bedtime #snacktime #letstalk @ALDI USA @Lipton Tea #widow #griefjourney #fyp #fypシ #lonelynights

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I’m not denying the very real concerns and issues social media raises, or the agency of an individual to not engage altogether with different platforms if they are experiencing the well-established adverse side effects on their mental health. These realities are well known, and one of the few conversations we have about social media over and over again. The other most prominent discussion is the ongoing mocking, judgment, and dismissal of creators or “influencers” across the board. I am simply wondering, as these perspectives are so well known, what good might happen if we begin to talk about creators as, well, creatives, rather than dismissing their work or applying a litany of stereotypes to their personhood, and if we share more stories of the genuine friendships and communities formed in these spaces. Why continue to focus on the negative and ignore the positives, especially when, let’s be honest, all of these platforms and their cringey creators like myself aren’t going anywhere?

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Once winter break began, I was relieved. Now, I could catch up on some sleep and learn how to cope with the escalating conflict in a manageable way without the chaos of academia, at least for the next four weeks. But then, one evening, an hour into Shabbat, my phone buzzed. I’m not a perfect Jew- who is? But I do try to cherish my time with family, friends, and at my temple during those twenty-four hours. And while my phone admittedly is never far out of reach, it certainly takes a back seat. But this notification struck an anxious chord in me, one that my nervous system demanded I had to pick up despite all the anti-anxiety medication it had pumping through my veins as a crutch.

The notification said, “Miranda Davison.” Miranda was the esteemed, highly lauded, and tenured professor I would assist during the spring semester. She had already texted me two weeks before, right as break began, to scold me for not responding to her email asking for my upcoming office hours in a timely manner. At the time, I apologized and explained that as it was academic recess, I would check my inbox less frequently, like my fellow faculty and staff. But here came another cold, curt, almost aggressive admonishment – I had missed another one of her self-imposed deadlines, and she needed an answer “ASAP.”

Of course, my overachieving, academic-validation-driven nervous system immediately went into fight-or-flight as I ran to my laptop. I answered whatever nonessential, and certainly not time-sensitive, request she made with the same neutral and professional tone as in all my prior emails. But this time, I knew a boundary had to be drawn. How could I communicate to this colleague, who clearly already labeled me in their mind as incompetent, “Sorry, I’m not available for twenty-four hours once a week, every week, to answer your non-business hour emails – Yes! Literally every single week!”? Yet, after years of working in toxic offices with boundaryless managers running amok, I knew where this was heading if I did not, politely and professionally, protect my right to religious observance. Certainly, as a human being, she would understand.

Wow, I could not have been more wrong. In my email, I advised Miranda that I was answering her email an hour into Shabbat, of my own choice; however, while I was happy to do so this once to de-escalate the situation and answer her as quickly as possible, I would not be able to do so just during these twenty hours moving forward. I offered to meet with her and the appropriate campus department should she need more information. Her response came roaring back like a Howler from Harry Potter. How dare I condescend to her about Shabbat — she knows all about it, she cried. And then she typed the words she would weaponize against me for the next five months: “I’m Jewish too!”

What followed were months of text messages, deadlines, and traps Miranda set for me to fall into, all clearly meant to confirm her already established opinion of me as a teaching assistant. Finally, Miranda set up a meeting with just us two alone in her office, where she screamed at me for fifty-seven minutes. I mean, full-on Tyra yelling at Tiffany season 4 episode 7 of America’s Next Top Model style. Miranda scolded me like a schoolgirl for taking my grandfather’s Yahrzeit off and for implying she had made me answer during Shabbat all those months ago. All while saying, “I mean, I get it; I’m Jewish too!” as if finishing every inappropriate accusation and complaint was absolved of its vile intent by this admission.

Then she practically giddily somersaulted onto the third rail and asked, “And if this Shabbat thing is so important to you, how did you work a job all last year at the museum every Saturday?” I was taken aback by the nature of the question and by the fact that I had never disclosed to her which specific shifts I worked at my previous job. Miranda clearly sought information about me and my past positions from others behind my back. I let the room fall quiet, wanting to give her a chance to apologize or even acknowledge the inappropriateness of what she had said. When that didn’t happen, I confirmed, as a convert, that my Beit Din and Mikvah ceremony had been completed two months after I left the position she was referring to. I’m sure you can guess her response by now. 

Unfortunately, many of us who work in academia are no strangers to bullying. In a 2019 survey of the international higher education community, 50–75% of academics reported they had some exposure to bullying in the prior 12 months.1 And things have become even more tense for Jewish academics as we are now navigating our lives amid a 140% increase in antisemitism.2

But as a young woman, academic, and openly Jewish student, I never once imagined the call would be coming from inside the house. Miranda and I were two of just three Jewish people in our entire department, and yet, not only did my existence as a practicing Jew seem to enrage her, but the more I met her with kindness and understanding, the more her ire was inflamed. Where a fulfilling mentorship could have bloomed, one female academic guiding another, she decided to bully instead.

What will it take to put an end to this culture of virulent bullying in academia? Do Millennial and Gen Z academics really have to wait decades for Miranda and her fellow boomer counterparts to retire or pass on to free the rest of us from their tantrums and insistence on perpetuating the hostile work environment of their youth? I wish I had the answer. However, these bully advisors, supervisors, and professors have succeeded in their commitment to teaching; they’ve taught us younger academics exactly how not to lead and mentor our future students.