07: Celebrity Fixation and the Ubiquity of Celebrity Content

Chip on My Shoulder

If you're in the US, you can donate to UNRWA here: https://www.unrwausa.org/donate

You might enjoy the occasional celebrity content but you've probably had your fill of the endless celebrity gossip, Reese Witherspoon x Snoop Dogg collabs (idk if that's a thing but probably at this point), and total celebrity oversaturation in every aspect of our lives (MrBeast peanut butter wafers?!), so as usual our hosts go off on some tangents while thinking about how celebrity plays a role in our lives and what we might do about that while remembering the one time they saw Suge Knight at the mall (pre-voluntary manslaughter conviction).

Show notes:

Parasocial relationships: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-parasocial-relationship-5210770

A great reddit thread on Taylor Swift and her intentional cultivation of the parasocial relationship: https://www.reddit.com/r/TaylorSwift/comments/13zlbi9/parasocial_relationships_and_taylors_role_in/

Athleisure, barre and kale: the tyranny of the ideal woman (the best article Jia Tolentino ever wrote): https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/aug/02/athleisure-barre-kale-tyranny-ideal-woman-labour

The Age of Instagram Face (another great Jia Tolentino article): https://www.newyorker.com/culture/decade-in-review/the-age-of-instagram-face

Stargirl podcast (highly recommend the Ballerina Farms and Kim Kardashian episodes!): https://open.spotify.com/show/6VFykudaxSh0XNLzcL2YmS

American Time Use Survey, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/tus/

Does the World Still Need Celebrities? https://www.theringer.com/pop-culture/2020/6/23/21300228/celebrity-criticism-covid-19-protests-imagine-video