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Movies

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☆ School of Rock

I rewatched this movie for this first time since I was a kid. A classic and one of my all time favorites. 5 stars.

☆ Mulholland Dr.

Definitely recommend, just drop all expectations and simply try to experience it for what it is. It’s David Lynch, so what more can you really say. 4.5 stars.

☆ Little Miss Sunshine

I had actually never seen this before, but it’s easy to tell why it’s so well-loved. Extremely heart-warming, a stacked cast. 4 stars.

Link to my Letterboxd

TV Shows

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☆ Twin Peaks

Continuing with the David Lynch theme… I haven’t watched Twin Peaks since 2017, and I didn’t finish it then, so I’m determined to make it all the way through this time. I absolutely adore the vibes and aesthetic of the show.

☆ Daria

This has been my go-to relaxation comfort show lately.

☆ The Shards

I’ve been watching as the episodes come out on Hulu, and I’m gripped! Plus, the music in the show is completely iconic and really sets the 80’s tone.

Books

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☆ Softcore by Brittany Newell

A young woman’s search for her missing boyfriend sends her further into the sexual underground. Set in San Francisco. Eloquently and sensually written. Unreliable narrator. What more could you ask for? I gave it 4.5 stars.

☆ The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

I listened to the audiobook version of this on a long drive, and wow. It might be one of the best memoirs I’ve read. Britney Spears the woman that you are. I gave it 5 stars, and I would recommend this to anyone!

☆ Perpetual Law by Mario Bellatin

Completely surreal. It’s pretty short and can easily be read in one sitting. If you are a fan of David Lynch, trust me, you will enjoy this.

Link to my Storygraph (it’s like goodreads)

Music

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☆ Lost Weekend by Phoebe Bridgers

Because, well, obviously. My favorite song as of now is Kill Me.

☆ Back to Black by Amy Winehouse

I’ve been on a real Amy Winehouse kick ever since watching her documentary. Her voice is so unique, and she was so talented.

☆ Rubber Soul by the Beatles

This album just feels like a lazy summer afternoon to me, it’s so fun and lighthearted.

Link to my Apple Music profile

Video Games

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☆ Doki Doki Literature Club!

I’m extremely late to the club, so I knew some of the spoilers going in, but wow this was still a wild ride. DDLC is more of a psychological horror visual novel than an actual video game, and I finished it all in one go on a Friday night. I’m tempted to do another play through to see what other variations there might be.

What I Wore

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☆ Dedcool fragrance

I ordered a sampler set off their site, and my favorite scent is Mochi Milk.

☆ Baggu Nylon Merengue in Sage Stripe

This has been my go to bag all summer, it has a suprisingly large capacity, plus I’ve gotten tons of compliments!

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Let me know some of your August favorites, and thanks for reading <3

I can remember being in fifth grade, sitting in my assigned seat in art class, which happened to be next to one of the popular girls. Pretty much anything I said or did caused her to blankly stare at me while declaring “you’re so weird”.

There was of course the time in middle school when I was sort of jokingly accepted into a friend group as the token “weirdo”, where I was pretty much constantly made fun of and nothing I said was ever taken seriously. It wasn’t until they literally shoved me into a locker that I realized they were not in fact actually my friends.

Any former weird child has memories like this that stick out to them.

An unfortunate constant I have noticed about myself has been a struggle to make friends. This struggle has taken different shapes over the course of my life, and has resulted in me often wondering what exactly is wrong with me.

As a kid, when I did make friends, it was often very intense. I would get extremely attached, demand too much, and get jealous of anyone else they wanted to spend time with. From their perspective, I’m sure they felt smothered.

This continued into my teen years, until my rejection eventually took the shape of an inevitable “I’m not like other girls” phase, and I focused on forming friendships with boys. There was so much less pressure.

I’ve always noticed that it’s easier to connect with men, and I don’t really mean that as a good thing. I’m sure part of the ‘ease’ is an expectation in their mind that I may end up sleeping with them. I genuinely have always wanted to connect more with women. Women are just more perceptive. They can easily tell that there is something wrong with me.

In fact, one of my current friends always tells me how “unique” I am, and how she has never encountered anyone like me. I know she means well, I’m just not exactly sure what that means, and I’ve always been a bit too afraid to ask.

In my adulthood, I considered the one close friend I made in college to be my best friend, until we had a series of miscommunications that led to a painful falling out. Later on I tried to apologize and take ownership for my part while expressing the ways in which I was hurt, but it ended with her not wanting to continue the friendship.

I’ve done endless amounts of reflecting on this friendship. I’ve talked with other friends, with partners, with a therapist. I’ve journaled and thought about the situation from different perspectives. I’ve come to think that I may have misinterpreted the importance of our friendship to her. She was my best friend, but I wasn’t hers. When I look back on our time together through this lens, it makes more sense. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Now, after that experience, I try extremely hard to never be too demanding of my friends, I try not to place anyone on a pedestal, and I try not to be “too much”. This has resulted in me being the peripheral friend. I can be friends with people without getting too close. I’m never quite in the real friend group, never anyone’s best friend, but someone they would still consider a friend.

I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve sat at home watching the instagram stories of my friends having a great time with the people who are actually in their friend group.

At this point in my life I am content to do most things alone, and I’ve accepted and grown into all that makes me “weird”. Don’t worry, there is a lot about my life that I feel grateful about.

Sometimes though, the loneliness creeps in. Especially when I consider the through line of this struggle that has seemingly plagued me. At this point it may be worth seeing if I have some form of neurodivergence or personality disorder, who knows.

Making and keeping friends as an adult is hard for everyone, and I know it won’t get any easier. I don’t necessarily have a solution, although I wish I did.

There is always my cat though.

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Some quick background on Cazzie David: Born in 1994, she is the oldest of 2 daughters to comedian/actor Larry David and activist/documentary producer Laurie David. She’s written two books, both personal essay collections. She also dated Pete Davidson back in the 2010s right before he went on to get engaged to Ariana Grande, which makes her sort of the first in line of his string of high profile relationships with different celebrity women.

She is a double nepo baby, and honestly I think my general disdain for nepo babies has clouded my overall attitude towards her. Hating on nepo babies is trite, I know, but sometimes the hate is deserved.

Her first book, No One Asked For This, published in 2020, uses a lot of self-deprecating humor to explore different millennial anxieties of the late 2010s on topics like social media, mental health, relationships, and family. Her latest book, Delusions, came out earlier this year and takes a similar tone. She chronicles the year between her 29th and 30th birthdays, exploring themes of youth and maturity through a personal lens.

I’d like to begin my review by saying there were definitely bits of her writing that are both funny and relatable. I was entertained. But I was also frustrated. I need this girl to stop whining, get a grip on reality, and maybe develop a personality outside of hating herself.

Because girl, we fucking get it. You hate yourself. You have anxiety. You’re insecure (yet somehow not insecure enough to publish two books of personal essays??). You can’t do anything without feeling embarrassed. Stop beating us over the head with it and maybe do something to fix it. You certainly have the resources. The bottom line is: hating yourself and making it your entire personality as an adult is Boring. If you are going to be that self-deprecating, why bother releasing a book if you hardly seem to think your reader should even listen to you.

It’s pretty clear from her essays that Cazzie struggles with some mental health issues, and I feel for her. But it becomes increasingly frustrating to hear about her struggles while she does nothing to really help herself or try to get better. She does finally state that she got on prozac in her 30s, at the very end of her second book, so maybe she’s doing better now, who knows.

The main appeal and strength of her essays is the relatability and honesty. She is open about her struggles with body dysmorphia, phone addiction, depression, and anxiety. As someone who just turned 30 a few weeks ago, I definitely could relate to her anxiety about aging and qualms with whether or not to have kids.

I think a lot it just falls flat for me, because the rest of us have all of these struggles, and on top of that we also have rent to pay, looming student loan debt, real jobs we have to go to, and sometimes struggle to afford healthcare or even groceries.

To put it bluntly, despite her constant whining, it seems she has never experienced any real problems. I know everyone has their issues, even the rich and famous. The class disparities just felt too glaring for me to genuinely feel bad for her. I think most people have a hard time sympathizing with someone who is super rich and has had a relatively easy life, yet all they seem to do is complain about it. It just feels tonedeaf.

Maybe she’s trying to be funny or something? It wasn’t quite working for me. If your schtick is complaining, well then you better have something to complain about, or at least actually be funny about it.

On top of that, she cited Google AI as a source, and also made a vaguely zionist joke about repopulating Jerusalem? I guess that just doesn’t sit well with me.

She does try to come across as being self-aware of her nepotism and privilege, but I think she lacks the perspective or experiences to really be able to reach a genuine level of self-awareness. Her privilege just about oozes off every page. She went to an expensive private college on the East Coast (Emerson College). She discusses being upset at her mom not buying her a house in Laurel Canyon. She gets annoyed at her dad for not giving her special treatment when she briefly worked on the set of his show. She un-ironically mentions shopping at Erewhon. She frequently embarks on long leisurely stays at her moms house in Martha’s Vineyard. In Delusions, she described going there for a summer and literally tells us “Yes, Martha’s Vineyard. Get over it.”

Meanwhile, what I really can’t get over, is how she got published or why exactly I should care about anything she says. Well, beyond the obvious fact that her parents are famous and have hundreds of millions of dollars. None of her observations seem particularly original. Her writing isn’t particularly good, and reads kind of like a spoiled 15 year old girls diary (apparently this is a common observation). The title of her first collection literally tells us “No One Asked For This”, and I’m still wondering why she published it anyway, as well as an additional book, because indeed, no one fucking asked. When she mentions in her second collection how much she admires and takes inspiration from Lena Dunham, it all clicked into place for me. I am kind of a Lena hater. You can read more about that here if you want:

Everything she says is thickly cloaked in irony, and while I love irony and humor, I also crave a level of earnestness from personal essays. After a while, it started to feel like eating too much frosting or something. A quote from one of my favorite artists, Ethel Cain, kept coming to mind as I made my way through these books: “I just feel as though there is a lack of sincerity in the world today.”

If I’m being brutally honest with myself, I think a part of the reason Cazzie David rubs me the wrong way might very well be jealousy. I mean she did get to be with Pete Davidson afterall. Jokes aside, she gets to unabashedly pursue her creative dreams without being held back by anything. She’s made shitty indie movies and dabbled in acting. As a kid she got to take whatever kind of hobby lessons her heart desired (yes, she discusses this). She can publish her essays and make a career out of being a writer, both due to wealth and of course the simple fact that people will always be interested because she’s Larry David’s kid. As someone who has always wanted to be a writer, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that sounds like a nice life.

To continue to beat the nepo baby horse to death, I truly do wish nepo babies would know when to leave us alone sometimes. Sure, there are talented nepo babies. But there are also some that … aren’t. Not all of them have interesting lives or good art to share with the world.

Btw, she is on substack and I actually think it might be a better medium for her than publishing books.

Anyways, let me know if you’ve read any of her work, and what your thoughts were!

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Thanks for reading <3 xx

When I watched The Substance in theaters, I was so disturbed that I felt actually sick and wanted to leave at several points. Yet it also remains one of my favorite movies ever. I was nervous about the body horror going in, but knew the messaging was likely going to be worth it. There were literally SO MANY layers to this movie, and it completely sent me into a spiral. My initial thoughts were that this movie didn’t NEED to be so grotesque and include so much gore, but upon further reflection, I think that it was the perfect medium, and being that viscerally uncomfortable was exactly the point. The beauty that is so sought after and admired in our society is inseparable from the ugly horrors of trying to reach it. Just as Sue and Elisabeth are one in the same, and failing to reconcile the different parts of herself turned her into a monster.

A quick plot summary of the movie is as follows: Elisabeth (Demi Moore) is an aging celebrity who just turned 50, and is reckoning with her age because she was just dismissed by her producer. She crashes her car and goes to the hospital. A nurse secretly tells her about a black market serum called “The Substance” which promises a younger and more beautiful version of yourself. She injects the serum and a younger woman, Sue (Margaret Qualley), emerges from her back. The two bodies must switch consciousness every week, with the inactive body fed by IV. Sue must use stabilizer fluid extracted from Elisabeth to prevent herself from deteriorating. Pretty quickly, Sue becomes a new celebrity and she lives a carefree and hedonistic life. On the other hand, Elisabeth becomes a self-hating recluse. Sue starts delaying the switches more and more, while extracting additional stabilizer fluid, which causes the rapid and extreme aging of Elisabeth. Elisabeth and Sue, while the same person, start to develop their own personalities and begin hating each other. This eventually results in a blowout where Sue beats Elisabeth to death. Sue no longer has additional serum or Elisabeth’s body to extract from, and her body begins to fall apart. She tries to use leftover serum despite the single-use warning, which then creates Monstro-ElisaSue. Her audience finds her abhorrent and ends up killing her in an absurdist and gory final scene.

This movie asserts that to exist as a woman, especially in the public eye, is a prison. Even when you are the most idealized version of a woman, it is a completely dehumanizing experience. The tools you are given to ‘empower’ yourself further objectify you, not to mention drain your wallet and take your focus away from things that truly matter in life. The metaphor of chasing after unattainable beauty standards in exchange for actively killing a part of yourself … chef’s kiss. Elisabeth/Sue only ever speaks to men and is only trying to please and perform for men. This is such a powerful message on how appealing to the male gaze is like hating yourself into a ‘better version’ of yourself; a gaze impossible to please and a task impossible to complete. The poison can come from a needle, but ultimately it comes from the voice within.

Seeing this in a full theater back in October 2024 really completed the experience, and it added a layer of Pain to hear the men in the audience laughing at parts where my stomach is churning, and I am tearing up. Specifically the ‘CON. TROL. YOUR. SELF!!!’ scene, the scene of Elisabeth having a meltdown before her date and eventually just deciding not to go, Sue being told to ‘smile’ at one of her lowest points, and especially the scenes of Monstro Elisasue trying to dress up and fix the hot mess she has become, and pleading to the audience that “it’s still me”. Girl, we’ve all been there. Also the scene where Elisabeth is cooking and watching Sue on the talk show, sooo mother/daughter coded. This movie does sort of add a layer of touching on mother/daughter dynamics in a weird sort of way; trying to live through a younger ‘version’ of yourself, the sacrifices made, the exchange of beauty(power), and resentment.

I also think it’s worth touching on how placing blame or moral failure on Elisabeth/Sue, is missing the point. You can try to accept aging and accept yourself the way that you are, but there is constant external messaging telling you otherwise being shoved down your throat. Women are conditioned from a young age into believing that the only way to be accepted and to be loved is to be beautiful. That being beautiful, something that will only ever be temporary, is where your inherent worth lies. Believing that you are unlovable because you don’t fit the ideal is not a personal failure, it is a systemic one. However, believing that being beautiful will solve all of your problems will drive you insane, and it’s still important to try to overcome the messaging that surrounds you.

This movie made me take a long hard personal inventory at how I have spent a lot of time and energy, and I realized how that money, time, and energy was ultimately wasted. You can’t get back the time that has been lost, and you can’t go back to before. It can be freeing to not let these larger forces dictate your life and to maybe just embrace being gross sometimes. The Substance absolutely BEATS you over the head with its messaging and if you didn’t get it, well you’re probably being willfully obtuse at that point.

In conclusion, and to completely undo everything I have said, where do I get the prosthetic boobs Margaret Qualley supposedly used to play Sue…?

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Spoilers ahead, as if anyone in their right mind would care.

The TLDR plot of the movie is that Mary Shelley has a story she wants to tell from the afterlife. To do this, she possesses a woman named Ida in 1930’s Chicago, who dies from falling down a flight of stairs. Frankenstein’s monster, “Frank” has been roaming the earth, still looking for someone to make him a companion. The scientist Dr. Cornelius fulfills his request, and reanimates Ida. Ida loses her memory, and Frank gives her the name Penelope. Penelope and Frank begin to get in trouble (murdering people, sort of accidentally, kind of on purpose?) that causes them to need to run away from the law. A detective and his lady assistant, Malloy, are investigating the murders, and chasing them down. Malloy basically does the detective’s job, but is constantly brushed off for being a woman, but eventually she gets promoted by the end of the movie. The crimes of Penelope and Frank become widely publicized and cause a movement of women who are inspired by Penelope (to do what exactly besides commit crimes, unclear). Ida / Penelope has been having somewhat of a crisis of identity this entire time, and eventually declares herself as just The Bride, trying to assert her own independence. Frank gets shot by Malloy as the chase culminates, and The Bride drags him back to Dr. Cornelius’ lab where he can be revived once more.

If you are a bit confused, trust me you are not alone. It was unprofessionally clunky, truly a hot mess, and I don’t recommend you waste your time watching this. This movie was bad, and not in a fun way, it was bad in a way that had me waiting for it to be over. Despite its many unfinished plot lines, at times I genuinely felt bored, which is one of the worst sins a movie can commit.

What really bothered me was the disjointed and incoherent messaging. The feminist themes come off extremely shallow, and kind of girlboss-y (another sin in my eyes). Like yes, women can be loud and brash, but women can also be cops that shoot people! Women can also commit murders and other various crimes! How empowering! Maggie Gyllenhaal really said “I support women’s rights AND wrongs.”

One of the only positives of this movie was the decision to cast Jessie Buckley as Mary Shelley / Ida / The Bride. I find her acting abilities to be truly remarkable, and she managed to bring some semblance of life to this horrifically lifeless film.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein claims that it’s kind of a bad idea to take hacked up bits and pieces, stitch them jaggedly together, and then expect them to form a reasonably cohesive whole. And yet The Bride! had the audacity to go right ahead and do just that. It positions itself as the true conduit of Mary Shelley’s vision, and the hubris there just might be the gravest sin of them all.

Admittedly, having 30 on the horizon has felt scary at times, but I’m starting to look at it more as a fresh start for the upcoming decade. I think about all my friends in their thirties and how much they are thriving, which makes me excited. I’ve decided to reject the cultural programming that wants women to believe they are washed up and past their prime once they’re in their thirties. I’ve made the choice to be grateful for all of the life I’ve lived so far, and to remain eager for what lies ahead.

As I close out my twenties, I feel a lot more secure in who I am and how to navigate life. I’ve learned so much in the last 10 years. One of the biggest lessons has been how important it is to get back in touch with the things that made me happy when I was a kid. The things that I naturally gravitated towards before I was influenced by outside expectations or ad-driven algorithms feel, in a sense, like my purest interests.

Of course on the eve of my 30th birthday, I rewatched the classic 2000’s romcom 13 Going on 30, which I had first watched when I was about 13. One of the prevailing themes I noticed is to embrace your authenticity. When Jenna wakes up in her 30 year old body with her 13 year old mind, she moves through the world with such sincerity that helps her connect with the people around her and overcome the barriers she was facing. It is a story about reconnecting with your girlhood as an adult.

Coincidentally, 3 of the hobbies I loved most when I was little have made big returns in my life in the past few months: ballet, writing, and Little House on the Prairie.

One of my favorite hobbies as a child was dancing, specifically ballet. I took lessons when I was 6 and 8, but my family moved a lot and couldn’t always afford consistent classes. As a substitute, I was constantly putting on CDs from my parents collection and dancing around the living room. About 4 months ago on a whim I signed up for an adult beginner ballet class, and it’s been the highlight of my week ever since! It’s challenging, it works both body and mind, and above all it’s been fun. A surprising, but much welcome, side effect is that it has also been phenomenal for my mental health. Turns out 8 year old me was really onto something.

My favorite book series when I was little was the autobiographical Little House on the Prairie series. I was really into how people lived their day to day lives throughout history, and the pioneer praire lifestyle in particular (I also loved Dear America, iykyk). One of my favorite childhood activities was donning a costume and cosplaying as Laura Ingalls Wilder (something I used to be deeply embarassed of that now I just find funny). A few weeks ago, Netflix released a TV show based on the books, and so naturally I've been eating it up. It’s been so relaxing and nostalgic to watch!

I’ve kept meticulous journals since I was 6 years old. I have always loved reading and writing, and one of the first things I wanted to be when I grew up was an author. Earlier this month I started this very substack publication and began to put my writing out into the world, even though it was (and still is) intimidating. When I push past the thoughts of embarassment, having a creative outlet and reconnecting to the practice of writing has been so fulfilling.

These three things coming full circle during my adulthood has helped me understand the value of connecting with your inner child. It has been nothing short of delightful to engage with the hobbies I loved 20 years ago, and to discover that the things I was once embarassed of now bring me great joy. It makes me feel more like myself. I may be 30 with a fully developed brain and a lot more life experience, yet in some ways at my core I am still the same little girl I was all those years ago. Maybe we should take a page out of Jenna’s book, and be a little bit more like we were when we were 13.

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If you are a decent and normal person who isn’t chronically online, perhaps you are wondering what the hell I’m even talking about. So let’s back up real quick.

Alt is a general umbrella term that loosely collapses different subcultures (i.e. goth, emo, punk, grunge, etc) into a more surface level aesthetic. These subcultures tend to be strict identity markers that mean something about the scenes you participate in, the way you view the world, the way you dress, what music you listen to, and even your politics.

Lately though, it seems that alt is more of a fashion genre than anything of substance regarding one’s identity. You can pretty much buy all the alt gear you want on Shein, a large fast fashion corporation which notoriously relies on unethical labor practices to keep their prices so low. The irony in this is that a lot of the alternative subcultures traditionally reject fast fashion, and rely on thrifting and DIY to obtain a specific look.

Dressing in the all black clothes you ordered from some fast fashion site, dying your hair blue, and putting up a Deftones poster in your room may look alt on the surface, but does it actually signal anything deeper? Does that make you a poser? Or is it all just a passing trend?

The rise of widespread and chronic internet usage, along with any and all kinds of information being available at our fingertips, has resulted in a lot of niche subcultural references becoming more mainstream. Of course you can argue that this is actually great! The internet makes information more accessible. Trying new looks and exploring different subcultures can be a fun part of the human experience and finding your place in the world. A lot of people, especially young people, want to feel “different” and want to have a distinct sense of identity. But if everyone is distinguishing themselves in the same way, then how unique is it really? And at that point, isn’t it just fitting in?

Another thing anyone who is chronically online has probably noticed is the fetishization of alt girls, and alt girl themed OF accounts. Every man these days seems to want a big tiddied goth e-girl girlfriend. I don’t think I’m qualified to go into too much depth on this topic, I just think it’s worth pointing out. Perhaps this could be related to alt becoming more basic, or perhaps correlation does not equal causation.

A couple months ago, there was a viral video on Youtube called ‘9 Bad Girls Blind Date 1 Nice Guy’, where the 9 girls in question dress up in a hypersexualized “goth” style, while objectifying themselves to promote their OnlyFans. This sparked a lot of outrage in the goth community, essentially accusing these women not only of being posers, but of contributing to the unwanted sexualization and harassment a lot of real goth girls receive. The women in the video spoke in high pitched anime voices, jumped up and down to bounce their tits, and called the nice guy “a good boy”. There was absolutely no question they were putting on a show. I’m not one to shame sex workers or women who want to cash in on their hotness to appeal to weird pervs online, and I didn’t watch the full video, but the clips I saw definitely made me cringe.

So what does any of this have to do with politics?

Really, everything. The main subcultures that “alt” borrows from are inherently political. Historically, being goth or punk meant you rejected societal norms and the systems that uphold them. It meant you were anti-establishment and anti-capitalism. Being emo or alt usually meant you embraced what made you different. People of marginalized identities usually find more acceptance and belonging in alternative communities. It meant you were against a system that punishes people for not conforming or not being rich, white, or straight. This typically means having a heavily left leaning ideology. To be an alt conservative should be an oxymoron. And yet for many, it isn’t.

Someone that I know recently got a job as a canvasser and petition circulator for a political nonprofit. One petition in particular is to get a ballot measure in place that would raise taxes on the rich, specifically those making over $500K. It’s a pretty basic left leaning policy: tax the rich. This person gets stationed in front of various stores, and for a day was stationed in front of Thriftcon, a second-hand convention held every year. As you may imagine, the alts were abundant at Thriftcon, yet the vast majority did NOT sign in favor of taxing the rich (because of this they jokingly dubbed it “Posercon”). In fact the most common demographic signing the peititon tends to be boring looking middle aged women, while the alts tend to be about as likely to sign as old white men.

Another peculiar event regarding the alts and politics is happening right in my home state of Colorado. Kelley Dennison just became the republican nominee for the 2nd congressional district, using the slogan, “America’s Goth Baddie”. A goth republican politician. At first, I thought it was satire, but nope, this woman is dead serious.

I’ve seen plenty of discourse online where people claim that being alt is actually not inherently political, and it doesn’t mean that you need to “conform to one particular political ideology”. That it’s mostly about the aesthetics and music. But that begs the question, are you even listening to the music?

One of the most iconic and popular alternative rock bands, Nirvana, fronted by the late Kurt Cobain, was openly anti-fascist. This should be apparent when listening to pretty much any of their albums. In the liner notes of Incesticide, Kurt said:

If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us—leave us the fuck alone! Don’t come to our shows and don’t buy our records.

There are plenty more examples of this in any alt-rock band if you simply have the ears to listen.

A quick personal note: I have never really labeled myself as being under the alt umbrella. Sure, I have a couple of tattoos and I’ve dyed my hair purple a handful of times. “Alternative” is my top genre every year (a pretty big umbrella though). I loved Hot Topic when I was 13 (mostly because of the Twilight stuff, which by the way was not cool at the time). Gothic film and literature tends to be my favorite when it comes to genre. I’ve been on the left since I could form a coherent political opinion. BUT, all that said, I do not subscribe to any specific subculture, and I have no desire to fit in with modern “alts”.

You might be wondering, who are you to declare any of this if you yourself are not alt? So in the interest of Journalism, I talked to someone who is. She identifies as Ya’llternative and Queer, and politically she aligns with anarchist, leftist, socialist, and libertarian ideals. She gave me this absolute banger quote:

Countercultures rise when injustice is ruling. The desire and natural occurrence to not be in a normative group is inherently antifascist and antiauthority.

I’ve been thinking about what all of this might mean on a more macro level about society. Here are some of the theories that I’ve come up with:

1. The internet and algorithms tend to flatten subcultures into a sort of monoculture. This makes things more accessible, but it can also take away real authentic uniqueness.

2. When trust in institutions is low and the cultural center feels unstable, marginal identities tend to surge. More people want to reject the status quo, even if they aren’t clear on what it is they are rejecting.

3. People are not calibrated to the historical and political contexts of the subcultures they’re borrowing from, they’re just copying what they thought looked cool online.

Let me know what you think, or if you have different theories!

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Overall, I think the alts need to get more educated! If you have the time and energy to put effort into having an alt style, maybe you also have the time and energy to be aware of the systems that are in power and what you can do to fight them.

I can remember so many iterations of being a Taylor Swift fan. Listening to Fearless on my iPod as I rode the bus to middle school. Getting the Speak Now CD for Christmas and decoding the lyric booklet with my friends at lunch. Listening to Red while laying on my bed as an angsty teenager, attributing different songs to various boys. Being an avid tumblr user in the 1989 era when Taylor Swift herself was also frequenting the site. I can remember when she deleted everything off of her instagram in preparation for Reputation. I was blasting Lover in the car on the way to my first big girl career job. I absolutely loved the Miss Americana documentary (and no I will not change my 5 star letterboxd review of it). She released folklore, one of my favorite albums of hers, on my birthday in 2020, and it felt like she had personally given me a gift. When she surprise released evermore later that year, me and my roommates at the time just about lost our minds.

The point is, it felt like there was a Taylor Swift album for nearly every major stage in my life, and it was safe to say I had an almost parasocial attachment to her and her music. I’ve collected her CDs for a while now (although, I have a huge collection of all kinds of CDs because I love music, and hunting for CDs in thrift stores is such a thrill). I’ve paid attention to the things she releases and have tried to pick up on all the easter eggs. I’ve been invested for over half my life at this point.

I think the nostalgia piece is a big part for many fans. The sheer depth of her work is another factor, there is likely a Taylor Swift song for just about any emotion or experience you might be having. Her fans, dubbed “Swifties”, are widely known to be an extremely intense, almost cult-like fan base. Given this knowledge and wanting to seperate myself from the stigma, I’ve actually never labeled myself a “Swiftie”, and always called myself more of a casual fan.

By the time 2023 rolls around, the eras tour was in full swing, and it seemed like the whole world was fan girling over this artist I loved. It was fun, I’ve lived through many periods where liking Taylor Swift was uncool, and it felt like she was finally getting her flowers. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a ticket, and in fact nearly got scammed in my efforts to obtain one. It was also at this time that I was deep into the ‘Gaylor’ conspiracy theories on TikTok (this is a topic for another day). I look back and cringe, but I think it was an effort to try to see myself in her as a bisexual woman.

Now, Taylor Swift has been the target of so much criticism and hate throughout her career, and for most of it, I would have staunchly defended her. I think there are situations in her early career where she was genuinely victimized by the music industry and misogyny.

But here’s the part where the facade starts to slip for me. In early 2024 she announced the release of her 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department. I was excited! However the album disappointed me, and it was the first time I didn’t deeply resonate with the music immediately (I was even going through a breakup at the time, so I was actually perfectly poised to be able to enjoy it).

At this point though, I also started to experience some pretty heavy cognitive dissonance around the fact that she became a billionaire, and as a leftist I am firmly against a system that allows billionaires to exist. I do think there is some nuance, and it is important to distinguish a billionaire such as Taylor Swift versus someone like Jeff Bezos, or now trillionaire Elon Musk. She pays her team well and has donated huge amounts of money to charity. Yet she continues to be a billionaire. I do have to wonder why other artists who become billionaires don’t garner nearly the same levels of hate and criticism that Taylor does (Rihanna, Kylie Jenner, Beyonce, etc.) Or why this level of scrutiny is pretty much never directed towards wealthy male artists.

By 2025, she released another album, The Life of a Showgirl, and at this point I was also starting to see more and more criticism of her circulating in the cultural discourse. I was feeling pretty disillusioned with Taylor Swift myself. But the criticism was still rubbing me the wrong way. I didn’t even like the album, yet there was something off about people tearing it apart online. The bad faith arguments trying to paint her as some racist proponent of MAGA were almost funny. This is a woman who has publicly voiced her dislike of Trump and supported Kamala. Her now husband Travis Kelce has knelt during the national anthem before games on multiple occasions. She is definitely liberal (and as a leftist I don’t necessarily mean this a compliment).

I know it’s nothing new that people love to hate Taylor Swift. It’s been happening for pretty much her entire career. I have absolutely zero problem with people who do not like Taylor Swift. What bothers me is people who don’t like her or don’t like her music, and then have a superiority complex around this. So let me be clear on my opinion: Hating Taylor Swift does not give you any moral highground. Nor does it make you cool. Maybe go actually do something useful like volunteer at your local foodbank if you want to feel morally superior. Maybe find something you do like if you want to actually be cool and have a personality. If you don’t like her or her music, why are you paying such close attention to everything she does? When I don’t like an artist, I simply stop paying attention to them and could not tell you what they are up to.

I have been pondering why things have started to feel so different for me the past few years though. Between all of the vinyl variants and seasonal merch drops, what I’ve noticed about Taylor Swift post eras tour is that she feels less like the relatable singer-songwriter that I was originally charmed by all those years ago, and more like a full blown corporation. There is a stronger perceived distance between her and her fans, and all of the chances to spend money on her brand have felt less and less authentic to me. Disclaimer: this is simply MY opinion and you are entitled to feel however you want btw!

So where do I stand currently? I like a lot of her songs and I like that she worked hard to own her music, which set an example for other artists to fight for their ownership rights. I like that she donates a lot to charity and pays her employees really well and gives them regular bonuses. I think the memes about her private jet can be funny. I don’t like that she continues to be a billionaire. I have absolutely no opinion on her wedding, and I think she is entititled to privacy in her personal life. I’ll probably still listen to anything she puts out. I just have no desire to make being a Taylor Swift fan a part of my life or personality anymore.

Now, I’ve recently finished listening to the audiobook of her memoir Famesick. After hearing many good things and seeing how highly it’s rated, I was curious, and figured I might discover what it is I’m missing when it comes to her or her show. However, after completing her memoir, I left the experience even more confused. To be honest, my truth is that I actually find her to be kind of insufferable. As a disclaimer, I will say that Lena Dunham has absolutely been the target of unfounded misogynistic hate (like c’mon guys there are plenty of actual reasons to dislike her other than the way she looks or how her voice sounds), and her struggles with debilitating chronic illness and navigating the healthcare system do sound like a genuine nightmare. Credit where credit is due.

That being said, I still find it very difficult to sympathize with this woman. Throughout the book, I found the way she treats and speaks about other women despite labeling herself a ‘feminist’ to be really strange. She consistently sleeps with men while knowing they have girlfriends, (eventually kind of cheats on her own partner, the lines were a bit blurred there) and somehow casts herself as the victim of these situations. She does not really address how at one point, someone she was dating (Jack Antonoff) was practically grooming a teenager (Lorde), and instead has a poor-me attitude about the whole thing. Especially heinous is her defense of a sexual abuser on her show staff. While she does address this, and gives context, it felt less like taking accountability for the harm caused by her actions, and more like making excuses and shifting the blame.

She maintains a frustrating lack of self awareness of her wealth, immense privilege, and power throughout the book. She seems unable to conceive that she may in fact be wrong, and generally seems to completely lack regard for other people. Her self-centeredness became too much for me, and the entire book reads like a whiny journal of someone whose entire self concept is rooted in perpetual victimhood. The way she infantilized herself up to her 30’s was almost impressive. Like what do you mean you’re referring to yourself as ‘just a kid’ when you were in your late 20’s?

Anyways, I’m almost shocked that I finished this, my eyes got tired from rolling them so much, and it became a bit of a hate-read. I will say, the one time she demonstrated an ounce of meaningful reflection was when she said that instead of campaigning for Hillary Clinton, she wished she had supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential election. So good for her on that count I guess? I’ve heard Lena Dunham referred to as ‘the voice of a generation’ (this comes from a line her character Hannah Horvath says in Girls) and if that’s true, well then it’s kind of no wonder so many people hate on millennials?

In conclusion, when it comes to Lena Dunham, I feel like I am on the outside of some secret club that I just cannot manage to get into, and no one will tell me the secret password. I know many women absolutely love her and her work, which is completely fine, I guess I personally just don’t get it. Please feel free to educate me if you do, and please do not skin me alive for not liking her!

Besides all of the obvious and egregious harm and objectification systematically done to women throughout history, popular culture has also trained women to self objectify and internalize the male gaze. This takes away their power, their focus, and their energy. Men have also been trained through media, and specifically porn, to have a sense of entitlement, to objectify and dominate as a way to assert power, and not just over women. An example used in the book was the sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, which I could not help but think of the parallels of the more recent abuses of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers. This cultural internalization of how dominance and power are achieved starts with how we view women.

By now, internet influencers are ubiquitous, and in a way, reality TV stars were the original influencers. Reality TV quickly turned into a way to sell women products and beauty standards, and kickstarted the attention economy. So many social media sites started out as sites to view and rate women, and in a sense that hasn’t changed much. There has also been a major uptick in cosmetic surgeries over the past 20 years, thanks in large part to this attention economy phenomenon played out on these sites. Cosmetic surgeries are seen as a way to transform your life, feel better about yourself, seen as a personal and empowering choice; and yet they are dangerous, expensive, and ultimately are just a means towards conforming to a specific societal beauty standard. This trend has now seeped beyond just women, and has started to affect more and more young men, especially now with the looksmaxxing trend (i.e. Clavicular). Capitalism and the patriarchy harm both men and women, and society as a whole.

I also appreciate the author specifically calling out girl boss feminism. The fake liberal Lean In pop feminism of the 2010s, which Gilbert aptly referred to as ‘trickle down feminism’ has done a lot of damage. It is capitalistic propaganda for women to just worry only about themselves, ascend a corporate ladder, work harder as individuals, and it can literally only ever benefit the professional managerial class. In order to ascend, it forces these women to have to rely on lower wage working class people (often other women, and often poc) to offload care and responsibilities. None of this even led to any meaningful workplace reforms that could have benefitted more women, such as parental leave or childcare. Don’t worry about systemic or structural change, just gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss!

Capitalism has then sold women back this watered down version of ‘feminism’, all while still facing the pressure to conform to societal beauty standards and gender roles. Women feel like they have more power or that something real has been accomplished, but the only real ‘girl power’ being more widely recognized is that of a profitable consumer. Meanwhile, rights are being stripped away (i.e. overturning Roe v Wade) and conservatism is gaining insane levels of traction in our culture (i.e. trad wives). Overall this book is a great dissection of feminism in media and culture over the last 40 or so years. In order to progress, and make any changes or improvements, we have to understand how we got here, and this book is a great tool to do just that.