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The Pop Culture Audit: Season 2.5, Episode 1 - "We Love the 00's"
62 Plays1 year ago
We're back from hiatus and fully immersed in a time machine of our own creation! Join the Audit Girlz as we deep dive the time capsule between the years 2000-2007 -- what made us laugh, cry, think, FEEL???!! (so many feelings)
join us down memory lane and be sure to join the conversation on social media!
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Transcript
Introduction to Pop Culture Audit
00:00:10
Speaker
Okay summer intro!
00:00:12
Speaker
Hi, y'all. Welcome to the Pop Culture Audit, where we review reality TV and talk about all things pop culture through a contemporary and critical lens. So what exactly is a pop culture audit? Easy. We take a deep dive of pop cultural source material, oh my gosh, and comb through it, highlighting some cringy and historic moments in pop culture discourse. If you're into that, you found the right place. I'm Keila.
00:00:43
Speaker
I'm Jasmine, everyone. We're doing such a good job so far. This is grand.
Early 2000s Culture Audit Plans
00:00:50
Speaker
Nobody let us take a few weeks off ever again. Look what retirement did.
00:00:55
Speaker
All right, it's a mess. Okay, everybody, welcome back. Today's show is going to be a little different. I know that we've gotten to the vibe of auditing shows, but today we are called the pop culture audit. So we're going to be auditing some pop culture today. And we'll probably make this kind of like a
00:01:17
Speaker
between the series, between the episodes of auditing other things, other shows, kind of series. So we're kicking things off with the early 2000s. We're going to talk about fashion, technology, social media, reality TV, etc. It'll be cool. We'll figure out where all of us were during this time today. And
00:01:42
Speaker
Let's see where this goes. This is kind of the first of its kind, so ride with us. It's Special Edition.
00:01:48
Speaker
It is. It's a special edition. We'll figure out what to call this. I feel like there's going to be a resounding theme that ends up being the title of this episode. And so looking forward to figuring that out as we go as well. I love that. I do love Jasmine that you declared it's going to be cool because I'm going to get my notes. It is not going to be cool. Speak it into existence. Listen. Speak it into existence. We are so cool. Here we go.
00:02:13
Speaker
So let's go. I think people will find, I would find this to be cool. I'm a fan. I think there's like a theme of me always getting excited about our content. So like, if no one else loves it, I'm walking the dog laughing, having a great time. So hopefully you're listening and you are too. I will say that we're readers. When we say early 2000s, we agreed that it's year 2000 all the way to year 2007.
00:02:42
Speaker
Right. So we've got a got a range. I'm so excited. I picked out three things that like remind me of early 2000 summer. But I can't wait to share and like hear what you have to say. You want me to go first? Yeah. So tell me what were you doing? How old were you? What was your deal and hop right on into? Well, can we wait before we do that? Can we explain why we chose the early 2000s?
00:03:08
Speaker
Yes. Take it away professor. So I will say that, um, for Y2K has there's been a huge resurgence. It's all over social media. People are have, there was like a whole Y2K party in downtown San Francisco recently. Where was it? There's another one. There's have been a whole bunch of them along with like emo night. It's becoming Y2K night, which I love it eats.
00:03:33
Speaker
Yes, the fashion is coming back. A lot of people are reminiscing. I feel like before it was like all about the 90s. And now we're just kind of slowly reminiscing our way into the 2000s, early 2000s. And so we thought this was pretty timely and pretty interesting. And also we kicked off with Keeping Up with the Kardashians season one, episode one, which kicked off in the early 2000s. So this is right on trend for us too. Yeah. All right, Keela, take it away, honey bun.
00:04:03
Speaker
Okay, so I was in middle school. I was young in 2000. So I didn't want to do that time. And I don't like middle school. That just feels like a traumatic time. So I focused on 07, which was the year that I went to high school. And I was incredibly shy in high school.
00:04:24
Speaker
I feel like people are going to laugh when they hear this. I didn't realize I was an introvert. It was just a weird time. I grew up in Missouri.
Music and Teenage Emotional Impact
00:04:31
Speaker
I do not like high school. I just feel like there are a lot of rules for no reason. And I was incredibly shy. But here are some things, three things that really sum up the feeling of being 15 in the summer. OK, the first is a flat iron.
00:04:49
Speaker
thin. I have had natural hair for over 10 years. I don't even own like a blow dryer or a flat angry. But when I tell you
00:05:02
Speaker
There is nothing you could do to get me away from a flat iron in 2007. I was relaxed. I was flat. It just every day, I'd wake up and touch up my hair with a flat iron and go. The summer was my enemy because what is a flat iron hairstyle's enemy? Water.
00:05:22
Speaker
So that comes to pool, sprinkler, misters. You're just sweating. You just can't. It's really hard for you. And I ran track and it was just so brutal to have to
00:05:37
Speaker
battle my roots because it was so hot from being hot and then hot from sweating. It was just a really hard time to have a hairstyle. This is also the beginning of the bob. I had a bob for years and I love a bob. I'm a bob warrior. If I could put on a wig, like if I could do a wig install, it would be a bob.
00:05:57
Speaker
She knows what it's like. Wow, really? Bryn, you know. That's a great wooden bob. Thank you. I love a bob. I love a bob. It says everything we need to know. So Flatiron is my historical archive number one. Okay. I have a clarifying question. Please, please.
Degrassi's Influence on Social Understanding
00:06:14
Speaker
Were you going for a look? Was there someone who was your hair? Who was your hair? Who are you trying to be with this Flatiron?
00:06:23
Speaker
Who were you inspired by? So I fell victim, as many young black women do, to having the James Brown hairstyle. My mom kept me to bump those dog on ends. She was like, bump the ends, bump the ends. And I was like, no, I want them straight. Or I wanted them flipped. Like one day I flipped them out and I was like, look, mom, like this is just so fun. So 2000, she's like, oh, I can't stand it. Like go back and fix it. So I wanted I wanted like a fun, flirty, like
00:06:50
Speaker
Neutrogena ad look, and I was giving James Brown. But after this, I may, I will be brave and try to find one, but I was going for Rihanna has a 17 cover around this time and I took the cover to a hairstylist and that's when I got bangs. The haircut did not look like Rihanna, y'all, but it did put me in the bang era. I liked it. I was happy then. I was happy then. It got me away from James Brown.
00:07:20
Speaker
Yes. Good for you. Good for you. Thank you. Can I give you my second one? Please go. Okay. The second thing that feels so summer to me is songs about going through it. And I have two examples.
00:07:37
Speaker
It was like, imagine it's hot. It's hot as hell. It's like 102 degrees and you're in your friend's car and your thighs are burning because it's so hot and you're on your way. We were never on our way to somewhere interesting. We're on our way to get snow cones and on the radio is either JoJo's Too Little Too Late, which is 2006, or my personal favorite, Paula De Ando Walk Away, also 2006.
00:08:01
Speaker
And this song, Walk Away, is about your man leaving you. He has a new girl, and you're asking him, can she braid your hair like I do? Does she stay up till six in the morning watching you play PS2 like I do? And these songs had me, and I had no experience with this, make me feel like I was going through it, like a man had really hurt me.
00:08:24
Speaker
And that was like such a summer feeling of like being with friends and singing these songs or like being alone on my way to work and having this come on and just feeling some type of way walking into work because the song of the summer was just all about going through it.
00:08:41
Speaker
This is so funny to me because I always think about how the music was so deep and intense when we were younger. So intense. So intense. It was not uncommon for a 10-year-old to be singing a Waiting Tixelles song from a song. Me. Absolutely me. Absolutely me. Jam it as if they have gone through a marriage with kids, they need a cocktail, and the songs are so
00:09:06
Speaker
different now. I remember explicitly being at a junior high school dance, so this was in the 90s, and the slow song that everyone was waiting for was I'll Make Love To You by Boysterman.
00:09:23
Speaker
We were 13 years old. And we were like, yes, to this jam. And I have to say, this is incredible. Yeah. Wow. It's a banger. It's a banger. An honorable mention song was Promise Ring by Tiffany Evans, which was the year 2007 because we had two speeds. It was either this man has wronged me. I'm going through it. I'm begging for him to come back or
00:09:53
Speaker
I'm a chaste woman, and I'm wearing a promise ring, and I have low-rise jeans. There were just two different speeds. Oh, I want to dive into that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Please dance. Please dance. I didn't get into the Lee and Womack of it all because she couldn't get away from her. We couldn't get away from her. There are so many songs, but I just remember a very unique suffering.
00:10:18
Speaker
at this time. Oh, what a delicious feeling to be 15 and overwhelmed, sobbing, just torn apart. I just love feeling like all the songs captures it perfectly. I don't even feel like songs captures my adult love the way that it did it back in the day with my first.
00:10:37
Speaker
I was 15 when Romeo and Juliet came out. So that destroyed me and my 15 year old self. I remember a journal entry that said, nobody understands me like this soundtrack does. I would never be the same if I was 15 and saw Romeo and Juliet. No, I watched it maybe 87 times. It's not inflating that number.
00:11:04
Speaker
every day I would get home from school. It's so good. Yeah. And it's like kind of a it's kind of a sleigh. Like I think teenagers love a really like fucked up romance. Like I loved Twilight. Every generation needs one. And they need.
00:11:19
Speaker
out incredibly distraught pop song to go along with it. Oh, the soundtrack is everything. It's so good. What they used to be Spiderman Barbie Barbie. Oh my gosh, I can't. It hasn't been a chokehold. I cannot stop listening to that bar. I don't know anything about it. Oh, it's fun to watch the movie first to get a full dazzling effect.
00:11:43
Speaker
I'm already excited to see into the music. The music is so good. It's so summer. I love Dua Lipa. She's all over it. It's perfect. It's all about gorgeous.
00:11:55
Speaker
Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. And I mean, gals is inclusive. Like everyone is gals. What is wait. OK, so that's your second thing is this yelling music. What is our last thing? The last thing when I got to I grew up very religious when I got to middle school, I got my ass kicked psychosocially. I did not realize that we were drinking. I did not realize we were wearing songs. I did not realize.
00:12:21
Speaker
We were like getting to third base. I did. I had hand jobs. Maybe it was the middle school I went to. Maybe it's the Midwest. Thank you, Brent, for co-signing this. Y'all, my shit got rocked. I was not. I don't remember. I mean, there was like the people that were on that stuff. It was just like, Ooh, they're bad.
00:12:43
Speaker
I love that for you. Everybody was talking about getting fingered in a movie theater. And I think it was maybe just the crowd that I was, and I'm saying immersed, like I was not with their friend, I was not cool or popular, but it was the dominant narrative on the bus. It was the dominant narrative in my classes. It was the dominant narrative, like I could not go anywhere. Yes.
00:13:06
Speaker
That being said, I was determined to go to high school and know things. I was not going to be caught off guard again. Good for you. In order to get there, I was watching Degrassi. Degrassi. I cannot tell y'all how much I loved this show and I loved in the summer if we had cable just being able to watch the end and just inhale Degrassi episodes. I didn't want to watch. I don't want to know what SpongeBob is doing. I want to know.
00:13:35
Speaker
who brought a gun to school. I want to know about domestic abuse. I want to know about cheating and lying and who's having sex. And do Grassi, while I was still really overwhelmed by men having beards in my classes and checkbooks, I was really weirded out by like, why do we have checkbooks?
00:13:54
Speaker
This show prepared me for high school. Like, I needed to know. I had a little primer. And I was just inhaling these episodes. Like, it just really, it really shaped. What a gift. Yeah. Wow. I've never seen not one episode. It's not to me either. Not to me. Are you grown at that point? That was too grown. And you can't. Oh my god. And I think this sets up for what I love about dramatic storytelling now.
00:14:21
Speaker
is Degrassi. That was my first foyer into dramaturgical work. And now I'm watching Greta Gerwig films. It's because of this cast. There's a whole, there's a whole
00:14:37
Speaker
tone of content that clearly grew up on Degrassi. It's all of y'all. I love it. I love it. And it's because we had this experience and I think not to get too serious in mind of it was just so different being at a place where like I'd come home from school and get on Myspace.
00:14:59
Speaker
Like, I think we were the first group to do that. And so there were all of these things that I felt like my parents could relate to. And then I get the show that talks about nudes or wanting to be skinny and wanting to be sexy. And it just it was so comforting to see the chaos of being a young person played out. Hmm.
00:15:23
Speaker
Interesting. I could see all of that. It is so, I mean, it is so telling too, cause we're talking about different, slightly different eras for all of this and it makes such a big difference because mine is.
00:15:37
Speaker
Oh yeah, let's segue. I'm not, this isn't even one of my points, but I'm in the nineties now at the same age and it's my so-called life, which gives me all of the feels, but is not accurate, right? Like it's not, it told us elder millennials that like high school was
00:15:57
Speaker
There were still sex and things, but it wasn't nearly like the tea that I feel like Degrassi was, because we still didn't talk about some of them. I don't know. It was just... Yeah, it was tea. It was such tea. It was so... Yeah, I needed it. I needed someone to be like, okay, so other people are seeing this too. It's not just me. But I feel like it's the self-fulfilling prophecy of each of our little micro generations is sort of defined by that teen content that we were consuming in very different ways.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yes. And it's not like us and Boomers, but in these five year chunks, there's these subtle differences between Jordan Catalano and whoever was in Degrassi. I don't even know. Was it person's name Degrassi? I don't even know. It's the high school. I feel that way about the romances.
00:16:45
Speaker
I did not put this on my list, but how you felt about Romeo and Juliet, I feel like I became a teenager in the age of like a rom-com era. And so the wedding planner, like what else? I hate Hudson era. And to not have a boyfriend, to not be dating, to be like not cool. If you were home on a Friday, Saturday night, at least I had a movie to cry to.
00:17:13
Speaker
of many. Anyway, I would pass it on. Who's next? I love little Keela and her bangs. Okay. I know her bump in. That was so me at 14. Um, criminal. Yeah.
Fashion Trends and Personal Expression
00:17:29
Speaker
I think let's ascend. Let's ascend up the age chart. Jasmine, you go next. I'm happy to. Okay. So I,
00:17:37
Speaker
didn't do a specific year. But when I'm looking at my list, this has hit me more like 2003, or 2002-2003, I was 17 around this time.
00:17:53
Speaker
So I was thinking about like, I was absolutely 100% in low-rise jeans in high school. You were a peak teen. Like you were the girl I wanted to be. Like the high schoolers I would see and I'd be like, oh my God, I want to be her. Low-rise jeans. I just got in my car. Yeah.
00:18:09
Speaker
I just got in my car, which I couldn't have been cooler. I did have my flat iron, and of course my hair was straight because that was still a thing. And I worked out a lot because I was a dancer in high school, so I had the body for these low-rise students. Wow, we don't know this. Senuit. I did not know you had a dance career. That explains a lot. Yeah, I've been dancing since I was like three years old. Capricorns are dancers.
00:18:34
Speaker
I could see that, I could see that. They have like the principled nature, which I feel- And the discipline it takes to be a dancer. Yeah, I feel like the type of ones would be very successful dancers. The routine, I'm sorry, continue. Yeah, all of that tracks, right? So I also, this was the era, let's start kicking off with fashion. So the Von Dutch hats,
00:18:56
Speaker
which I also had. I also had New York hats. I hadn't even been to New York yet. I'm the NY hat. But they're just so cute. And, and then also this was also like the juicy era. So everything's written on your butt, which is wild. And so I'm running around in shorts that say hottie on my ass. It's 17 years old. Also accurate, accurate. Yes.
00:19:23
Speaker
I guess you're right, you know, that was pretty accurate for like that age and what, yeah, you know what, that's also wild, but accurate. Yeah. Um, and so yeah, so that's, and then of course I had my blue or track suit that I wore. I was also very like business in high school. So I only worked in them on Fridays.
00:19:45
Speaker
Wait, Jasmine, please. My best friends were honest. They would be able, I can't wait to show y'all pictures. So what were you wearing? You have to tell us. What were you wearing in the week? And readers, has Jasmine shared with you her professional Maria Menouno's extra journey that was her in high school? Oh, yes. Give us the picture. Yes, please. OK, so I'm showing up to class.
00:20:11
Speaker
Let's just say it's a Monday. No, it's still Wednesday because things are starting to get fun because the week I was going by flat. Okay. Silver high-waisted. I had these silver high-waisted fitted pants.
00:20:27
Speaker
Oh my God, if I could just get a picture of those, I remember feeling... We need a photo. ... stunning, stunning in those pants. And you could only wear them on Wednesday because it was less business. I mean, Wednesday, things were starting to get more fun. I was very about my business in high school because I was like, I'm going to be like these other...
00:20:45
Speaker
kids. I have a future. Okay. Okay. On a podcast on TMZ. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I had on with those, I would wear like this black sequin top. Like it was all black and then just sequin in the front. And then I had all these like black platform shoes.
00:21:06
Speaker
hair straight, little bag, ready to go. Okay. Jasmine, it was 9am. Hey, school starts at like 7 45. Okay, thank you for saying that. So here's what I used to do. I would get to school like super early before I had my car like 16, right? Because we live so close to the school, I would walk Texas humidity is outrageous. So I would pack all of my like
00:21:32
Speaker
makeup and hair supplies in a bag, walk to school super early, get beat down, fresh hair, makeup, spray, all of that in the bathroom at school, pop it in my locker, move on with life. Like that was my whole routine before getting a car. Very serious about it, okay? Like I was committed to beauty. Still am, by the way.
00:21:59
Speaker
So anyways, so all this is going on and I was a broadcast journalism major in college that kicked off in high school. I had a television show called LC Closeup and I would go around and interview students.
00:22:15
Speaker
and basically get the tea and produce and edit these shows that was number one on our school network or at the time. Okay, wait, I have to ask a question. When you say get the tea, is it like tea isn't like who won the wrestling match or is it tea is like who are you asking to prom?
00:22:31
Speaker
all of the above. Stop it. Wow. Yes. Yes, all of the above. Stop it. I mean, when you saw me, I used to walk around with a microphone. I had an editor. Please. Shout out to April, was my editor. And we would literally, I'd go around. I had my camera person, DJ, who I need to send this episode to. And we would walk around and be like, oh, let's talk to this person. Let's talk to this. I would be in the editing room. So 10 PM at night, my parents are calling me. Where are you at? I'm working.
00:23:00
Speaker
Anyways. Working, unpaid. Sequin top, 8.15 a.m. Jasmine is running towards you asking about your prom date. I would cry. I would be sobbing if you came here. I would be so scared. That's when I discovered people love the camera. Like, people would be like, I want to be on. I'm like, no, you don't work for this segment, that enough. People would find me and try to be honest with people.
00:23:27
Speaker
The gatekeeping. She said, get out of my way. Exactly. So that's what was going on. That was my high school life in that era. But let's just talk about what was influencing me. What was I listening to? I was listening to Britney Spears because I was a dancer.
Influence of Pop Icons on Teens
00:23:42
Speaker
Wait, give us the album. Give us the album.
00:23:44
Speaker
I think in 2002 it was, she just came out, I think it was called Britney, and that was like, I'm a slave for you, and like, people, all of that was happening. Hits, hits. This is my favorite Britney era. I feel like they should really rename that song though. I do too, I feel really bad about it. I don't feel comfortable with slave for you. No, I feel like we should. Oh yeah, that is really good. I don't like saying slave, especially
00:24:13
Speaker
as a person with enslaved history. It just, yeah, it doesn't work. Okay, I'm sorry. There's too many hits of that time that you casually throw around the world safe. She could have said like, I'm a partner for you.
00:24:34
Speaker
It's also listening to Destiny's Child, which I also think that they were like, I mean, first album. Yeah, it was the first or second second album, which was the best the writings on the wall on the cover.
00:24:49
Speaker
Yes. Okay. That was a good one. My mom had that one. I feel like that was the best. Mariah Carey obsessed with her. I think that Rainbow was the album out at the time. I was a huge rap fan. I was obsessed with Jay-Z listening to the blueprint, which I still think is the best album he's ever created. So those are the things. That's the soundtrack of my life at the time. What was I watching? Strictly?
00:25:12
Speaker
If I wasn't watching reality TV, I was watching Sex in the City. And I remember my dad- Wait, time out. Your parents let 16-year-old Maria Menounos wanna be Jasmine in a sequent top at 8.15 in the morning with a microphone, cameraman, and editor watch Sex in the City. Not only did they let me watch it, but it was an event me and my mom watched together. She was like, it's coming on! Get the popcorn, and it's coming on! Meanwhile, my dad would walk in the room, look at the television, and be like,
00:25:42
Speaker
You you're watching whores on TV like he was just this is why you don't like groups. This is why you don't like. For friends, it's literally a group of oh my God, which, by the way, yeah, I was a group but famous for it was a group in high school that I was a part of. Oh, boy. Jasmine, April, Shanae and Tanisha.
00:26:06
Speaker
And we didn't give ourselves that name. I just want to go on the record by saying other people gave it to us because we were so popular. It was the fans. OK. But I was a part of the group. I was watching a group. It was all about the groups right in high school. And when I wasn't watching Sex in the City, completely inappropriate television, I would watch Laguna Beach. Oh, it's so good. I loved Laguna Beach. Amazing. It's so fun. I was watching Punk.
00:26:35
Speaker
Mm, I remember that. I remember that. Remember when shows were so funny? Jackass and punks. Yes, celebrity death match. Primes were so funny. This was an evil era. That was on Comedy Central too. I did not like this era. It was so mean. It was so mean. So to calm it down, and when it wasn't being mean with that, to calm it down, you could always flip the channel and watch newlyweds Nick and Jessica.
00:27:04
Speaker
Oh, my God. And he was awful to her. Absolutely awful. Been re-watching the show recently and with like little framework. And Jessica was putting the bill for her whole family. I recently listened to her book. The book is so good. Oh, my God. I've read it twice. It's amazing. You have to listen to this book. It's so good. It's so thoughtful.
00:27:32
Speaker
It's so good. You should listen to it, Brent, so we can audit here. That's how great it is. This is Jay Simpson's book. Yeah. Okay. I met Jessica Simpson, you guys. What? Okay. When I was a senior in high school, I went to see 98 Degrees. She was opening for them. She's opening for them. Yeah, from Ohio. They just had glow sticks. This was the smallest venue. We left early and she was sitting out in the lobby.
00:28:01
Speaker
trying to sign headshots because nobody knew who she was. So we stopped to talk to her and tell her she did such a good job. And she was so nervous. And like, it was so, she was so sweet. Nick and her, were her and Nick dating yet? They weren't openly dating at that time. They were totally together. Yeah. Did you know that? I didn't know. I mean, I assume as much. Stop it. I also just have to quickly point out, like, so Kila's going into high school trying to learn about like who accidentally has a gun in their backpack and like after school special.
00:28:32
Speaker
Jasmine's fully in high school learning about how people have anal sex. She's such a high school reference. Incredible. It is so good. Jasmine would be the girl that I'd want to be. I'm too shy. She was who was intimidating to you when you went into middle school and you were like, we're doing this? And she's like, absolutely. I don't know how to smell crack. Hold on a second, because I just want to say,
00:28:58
Speaker
I never had a drink until I was 21. I lost my virginity at 22. Girl, you don't have to say this on the record. It is not FBI. No, I do. Hold on, hold on. It is important. And I know Brandon wants to know. But I think it is important to the story because look at what I was consuming versus what I was actually up to. I consume all these wild things, and I'm in business casual on the first day. You know what I mean?
00:29:24
Speaker
I think my life is just a little bit even like that now, like you should hear the music I work out to. It's wild. And then I just turn it off and do, do, do, do. I guess I feel the same way. I guess I feel the same way. And I'm like, oh.
00:29:38
Speaker
OK, and then move on with my day. It's like media's not actually the behavior predictor that we, our parents thought it was of like, no. I think if I was like five years old, though, and watching Sex and the City, I think I would have a different. So I should not. I think that's how you watch Sex and the City. OK, coming up on this. OK, sorry, Jasmine, continue. And then just to round it all out, I would end my day with a great episode of my super sweet 16 and be curious that I was into having a Range Rover.
00:30:08
Speaker
uh, instead of the part that my parents got me. Um, and so those, that's what I was watching. That's what I was doing. That's what I was wearing. Um, I will say that I was late to the technology game. That was just never my thing. My sister, uh, Russia, she was like, I am in people and she was the first person to show me about my space and like all of these digital like things started kind of showing up.
00:30:35
Speaker
in music a little bit, but I was late to that party. I think I'm still late to the technology party today. But yeah, that's kind of what I was up to. Oh, and one last detail. Because reality TV show is so huge, I filmed, me and April, my partner in crime at the time, filmed our entire senior year in its entirety and followed our huge group of friends.
00:31:03
Speaker
from argument spikes to makeups, to breakups, to parties, to literally one full year of not, we wouldn't even put the camera down if we were in conflict. Like we filmed everything. Who was filming this?
00:31:18
Speaker
It was me, April, and then we had like people from like, that helped us with the show come in and like, Hey, we're gonna be at a party, you know, we don't know, like, who was holding the camera, like a fresh like another, like another student, like we'd like come close at this party, you're invited. Yeah. And so from top to bottom, like classroom arguments, anything that happened, we
00:31:44
Speaker
filmed everything in April. Where is this footage? Where is the footage? Your teachers will love this? Yeah. Oh, I got to leave class to go film whatever. April. April. I got to do whatever I wanted to do. And it's the footage. I was in English class once, and April would walk in and be like, shit's going down. Can I see Jasmine real quick? If they'd let me leave, we'd go film. We did whatever we wanted to do. Oh, my god. We went to a movie high school, where it's like, OK, never mind.
00:32:10
Speaker
Everything you saw in the movies, that was my real life. The students had better cars than the teachers. People came and went, did whatever they wanted to. It was very television like my high school experience. Absolutely. I went to country. No, this would never fly. We had hall monitors.
00:32:31
Speaker
in like people would like to get you in their mouth. They did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's my exact high school. Yeah. No, we were not, we were not doing this starter jacket. Yeah. Pop tarts. He like sure people doing that. That just wasn't like
00:32:48
Speaker
I feel like majority of the groups, and not just like in my year, like beyond, like everyone was like, it was very much like something I everything that I watched on the movies of what high school was exactly what my high school experience was like. Hmm, girl, good for you guys.
00:33:09
Speaker
I don't even know what to say. What is your high school experience like? What are you up to? Where are you in high school? Does this sound real? Where were you? No, I wasn't in high school. This is why we're going up. I graduated in 2000. I was just entering into high school. Wait, 2000? Because everyone thought that computers would crash. You guys. I'm in that micro generation of three years that they talk about where you didn't have any technology
00:33:38
Speaker
pretty much until we had a computer in our dorm room, but like pretty much nothing until we were done with college. Also I was a sophomore. We have talked about like 9 11. Oh my God. Yeah. So like that was a bizarre sort of experience. But so no, I was between 18 and 25 during these years. So all of the things you all are talking about high school. I'm like, yes. And I was like this. And my thing in high school was like,
00:34:03
Speaker
clueless, right? That had come up to be clueless. But then I went to college. So I went to school. Well, you all are doing this. I am at school in like the foothills of Appalachia in eastern Ohio, southeastern Ohio, next door to the poorest county in the country, in Meggs County at the time, at least Meggs County, Ohio. And like I was coming out of high school
00:34:29
Speaker
going into this, like the folks I found myself randomly assigned within the dorms, it was a very like punk rock hipster thrift store crowd. So I went pretty quickly to like, this punk, this punk era of myself. So that's awesome.
00:34:47
Speaker
Yeah. But it means that a lot of these trends, as I was looking this stuff up, I'm like, nope, nope. Because also in high school, you're in this fishbowl. And so everything is right there. You're living with your parents. You're consuming all this media. I was out on my own. And so there's a ton of these trends that I'm seeing when I'm researching this that I had no idea. I had no idea we were doing this because I was in a bubble in Appalachia.
00:35:12
Speaker
like trying to be cool and in like steel cars and stuff. Oh, I was such a bad kid. I was so bad. And I was broke, like broke, broke, right? Like not like broke. I live with my parents broke like I was fucking broke. And so I was like, when I like my idea of fashion in particular was like, I thought when I have money, like when I have a real job,
00:35:39
Speaker
I'm going to shop at Urban Outfitters. That is my goal to shop at Urban Outfitters. It was an era. I remember being in Columbus, Ohio, walking through an anthropology that we were going through as a joke because we couldn't believe people spent this kind of money on clothes.
00:35:59
Speaker
And I remember being like, these jeans are $100. Like, what are you talking about? Which makes me laugh only because it's a steal now. If you told me I could have paired jeans for just a hundred bucks and I liked them, let's go. And they were small. Absolutely. I had bought $300 jeans from anthropology since that time.
00:36:20
Speaker
As an adult, slay. If it feels good and it lasts a long time, go for it. I would have told you that there's, I mean, we thought it was the dumbest way you could spend money, first of all, but also like who would ever have that kind of money.
00:36:37
Speaker
It was my most culturally checked out time of my whole life. I was going to parties. I was seeing bands, like punk bands at dive bars. Like that's what I was doing with my time. That was also an era. Nothing to do. No. And it was because you're also like my dorm days where the hives were up, the strokes were, you know, it was like all of this. It was fun. Emo was a bit like dashboard confessional and modest mouse and like,
00:37:06
Speaker
Save Ferris and all of this. So it was just this, yeah, like this pop music in this little like punk emo. But Avril Lavigne was huge, like all of it. Blink-22. Uh-huh. Yeah. But we were trying to be cooler than that. We were going to the record store and trying to get the Japanese metal bands that no one had ever heard of. And I was listening to it over and over and over again.
00:37:32
Speaker
force myself to like it so that I would be cool you know like I was like this is great but like I don't understand a fucking thing they're saying it actually is the Michelle Gunn elephant is a great album I drank I drank so much so like I
00:37:50
Speaker
I could fit into these low rise jeans similarly. I wore them because I didn't know that they were... My waist is like... I think many women's waist are higher than we think they are, right? Because of this low rise era. But then I thought my waist was my hips and I don't have hips. My natural body is like a 12 year old boy, just straight down.
00:38:13
Speaker
straight. So I was giving no, but it was just like a low pain, like hip. Yeah, my hip bones just sort of poke out. And like that was what I was wearing. And I was breathing into like thrift. So I would wear my uniform for and I'll find these pictures I am wearing in any picture, double braids, like two braids.
00:38:30
Speaker
a bandana around my head, like just kind of like a headband, and a Boy Scout uniform. So I go to thrift stores and I find old Boy Scout shirts, like button up uniform, the navy blue ones, and I wore those everywhere. So you were a cool girl, because this is a very like, yeah, this is the other side of the cool girl.
00:38:52
Speaker
after we got out of hyper pop, super feminine, then it was like, were you grunge or rap? And then we got the next era, are you prep or punk? It was just so, yeah, I would have thought you were too cool. That's amazing. I was trying so hard. I had friends, and I have these friends now, my friends in college, they were always so,
00:39:17
Speaker
I'm never quite cool enough to make it into the actual group. I don't know if you guys know everything is terrible. Do you know the performance group? Everything is terrible. Those are my friends in college. They're literally my friends from college. These people were cool and they would do these crazy art shows.
00:39:40
Speaker
They were so cool. And I was just like, can I just tag along? So I was fighting for my life in that cool crowd and trying to hang on. I'm going to listen to Tenacious D. And I was trying to do all the things. Tenacious D. Tenacious D. Wonder Boy. Listen to it. Non fucking stop. Non fucking stop.
00:40:01
Speaker
This is so interesting because I just think that you're cool. Like, I think both of you are cool. So I can't imagine just fighting for my life. But like, yeah, I just cannot imagine that for you. I was trying so hard. I'm glad I had it because I mean, they really are genuinely like, there's some, Kela, you and I will have a whole offline about this in theater camp too, because I have the same experience of that that I want. So I wish so badly. I was like, Oh no. Oh no.
00:40:29
Speaker
Oh no. Oh, you're on. She's on mute. Oh, sorry. I'm back. Sorry. I think my boob hit the spacebar. Oh gosh. She has boobs now. Yeah. Now that I've, don't weigh 84 pounds.
00:40:48
Speaker
So my reality TV or my like TV intake was really low too because I remember being in my dorm room and watching Jon Stewart do bits about the 2000 election and like Al Gore and the hanging chads and all of that. But we didn't watch any like we were out we were outside doing things. We lived in a house together in like the early 2000s. I was super into
00:41:12
Speaker
I was really obsessed with, I think, the second season of American Idol, of the Ruben stuttered Clay Agan American. I was such a Ruben fan. Nobody else in my house would watch it, and I was obsessed with that season of American Idol. And I watched The Biggest Loser a lot. Yeah, a lot. So, when I was at home, please describe Biggest Loser, because believe it or not, there are people who do not understand this fever dream of a show.
Reality TV's Body Image Impact
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah, so Biggest Loser is probably the penultimate example of the kind of reality shows we entered into. So there were competition shows started at this time, Survivor, Amazing Race, like this all started in these early 2000s. Then we pivoted into what if these competition shows were really harmful to you and made you feel bad about yourself, which is where we got Project Runway and these other things too. Biggest Loser was the absolute tip top of all of that in which
00:42:11
Speaker
really large people, folks with high body weights would come onto the show was on NBC, I think. And they would go to basically a fat camp where they would be starved and in bully abused and bullies. Yeah, Jillian. Yeah. And Bob, I think Bob Mitchell was that is I don't remember his name. Jillian.
00:42:34
Speaker
Julian and Bob, we each get a team and they would make you eat only skinless, boneless chicken breasts, broccoli, they will share it with those seasonings. And then for 12 hours a day, they would work you until you barfed. And then like normal, I guess, laws of physics are if you're starving and burning calories, then you're going to become a smaller person.
00:42:57
Speaker
And all of America, 100% of us were watching this living for the reveal at the finale in the makeovers and the all of it. And we did not for one second think this is a problem, what we've done to these people. We thought it was healthy and inspiring and like People magazine, everyone's doing a half their size issue. Like we were obsessed.
00:43:28
Speaker
And then they also, biggest loser eliminated people each week, right? Because it was a percentage of weight loss and it was a weigh in. And like, if you, I mean the shame and blame on that program was so
00:43:45
Speaker
toxic. And I think I never went deep on the follow up aftermath. But I have this understanding that there was like, most people bounced back to their original way, like, could it maintain the lifestyle? No, no, no. Yeah. Because you're traumatized, traumatized in a losing way. And the way that Jillian and Bob would talk to these people, I remember particularly Jillian, which is she was the worst yelling in their face. So dehumanizing. It was just
00:44:15
Speaker
Whoo, it was a wild time. This is also the time when the cayenne pepper and the honey and the, oh yes. Remember the cayenne pepper diet? What was it called? It was cayenne pepper, lemon, honey, and water, and then allegedly Beyonce was doing this. Beyonce, yeah. She was doing this to lose weight. She's also, this was right around, Crazy in Love was released in 2003. Everybody was skinny.
00:44:43
Speaker
But Booty was making a debut. There were two booties who were allowed to exist. It was J.Lo Booty, Beyonce Booty. And there's a podcast about Selena that I love, but they also talk about how Selena was one of the allowed booties. But Booty was barely, barely making its touchpoint.
00:45:01
Speaker
at this point. But when it was allowed was quiet, not quietly, but it was being allowed over in the rap videos. Yes. As the video vixen era was like, like, lo sif. Yeah. In the early 2000s. And these women were and this is the perfect like transition because I was going to ask everybody about women in this era. But I don't want to step on you, Brent, I think you are still in your
00:45:27
Speaker
No, I have a couple more things, but I want to go there for a second because I recently was seeing a meme go around of Jessica Simpson bringing it back to her during this era.
00:45:42
Speaker
For folks who really want to understand this early 2000s era, just know that this was, we were told that this was the most disgusting a person could look ever. It was the high waist jeans. It was the high waist jeans. She's maybe like a buck 40 or something. She said she was 120 in that photo. There you go. And we were told this is a monster. Jumbo Jessica.
00:46:03
Speaker
Yes. Okay. Readers, Jessica Simpson was kind of in an offshoot. Her albums weren't selling very well. She wasn't really recording at the time. And she appeared after months of no public appearance. She was 125 pounds. And Jessica is like maybe five two, five four. She wears a tank top and high waisted jeans and people to the point in which I remember seeing this article and smattered all over
00:46:27
Speaker
And we didn't think anything. We were like, this is how normal articles work. This is normal. Yeah. Yeah. Jessica talks about it in her book because people be right at her. And we didn't really have memes back then, but we had viral photos and people tore her ass up and didn't have blogs. Yes. This felt like a canon event about fat phobia and the way it was going. It's just such a we'll have to post.
00:46:54
Speaker
Yeah, we have to post a picture. Well, we will think about it. It's a great picture. She looks fucking great. With the photo, maybe a bit. Yeah. Wait. Okay. Jasmine, start with the body. What were you going to say about body?
00:47:13
Speaker
I was just saying like, okay, so if you did have what was considered back then a big butt would be laughable today.
Media Influence on Body Image and Race
00:47:20
Speaker
But if you had a big butt, this is the era where it was like, all right, fine. You know, you don't have to look like Paris Hilton, you know, did, but you have to have the slimmest waist
00:47:34
Speaker
And if you did have boobs, they couldn't be over like a D because that's too much. The body that we see today was getting kicked off from women who had natural bodies that were naturally this way. And then somehow it inflated and became a weapon today. And so I think this was like the era of that.
00:48:01
Speaker
But when Jennifer Lopez came out, and it was like everything was about her but I remember in the black community it was like a lot of anger about people being like we had bodies like this forever, like,
00:48:14
Speaker
you know, why is a non-Black person coming in with this body and now it's like accepted and other Black artists and people were told to slim down. It was just like a whole thing. A lot of dissertations and things around it, but it was still her own versus now everyone's dying on tables to get an inflated body. But this is just, I remember distinctively like when the tide started changing and
00:48:42
Speaker
the body that everyone's obsessed with now was coming out then. I feel like this was the first time or around the time I got this awareness that there is a very different lived experience with pop culture as a black person. Like there's black pop culture and there's white pop culture and black people have to know white pop culture, but white folks don't have to know black pop culture.
00:49:07
Speaker
they'll start to pick up songs like Usher or Lil Jon or the Nying Nying twins. They'll pick that up and play that at dances, but they don't have to know. Black pop culture directly influences white pop culture. Directly. And at this time it felt weird because it was Paris Hilton Skinny. It was like the cocaine chic.
00:49:26
Speaker
like Kate Moss, like you had that option. Christina Aguilera. Christina Aguilera, you had this body or you had, my parents used to get Jet Magazine, which had beautiful beef. What I'm going to call lovingly thick body, itty bitty waist, thick thighs, natural, but the whole, the body is natural.
00:49:47
Speaker
thick thighs, shapely butt, itty bitty waist, and sizable titties. There were two options and you had to fit either one, but the thick body was so politicized. It was so specific down to measurements that if you were off in one element, you were ugly, and then thin, you could just never not be thin enough. And it felt
00:50:12
Speaker
like this pressure of I could just never be beautiful because I wasn't getting close enough to either. Right. Yeah. And it was it was hard because there was every body in between. Where do you go? Yeah. You're seeing if you're watching a rap music video, you're seeing this thick chick. Right. It's like a lot of abs, the flattest abs. Yeah. Stunning. And I don't have that. And then then you turn on like MTV and you're seeing like
00:50:40
Speaker
It was just, it was just, where do you go from there? You know, as a young girl in that era, watching all of that, or even as a woman, because I think that people don't really talk enough about like, not just, oh, the young girls are watching, like, we're all watching, we're all being influenced to some degree, even as a, you know, grown woman, you know, we may not want to admit it, but it's true.
00:51:02
Speaker
pop culture is influencing and moving all of us and shaping everything and I imagine especially if I was like in my 20s during that time I don't know I just think that would have been harder trying to date
00:51:19
Speaker
I think about it now too. As much as I want to push back and I don't want to put everything on social media, it's their own fault. But I think about aging and getting older. Are we actually going to see people get older naturally? And this is no shade, but if I don't opt to do a procedure or a touch up or get some filler or Botox,
00:51:42
Speaker
I don't know. Breeders, you didn't get this part, but we were talking about being girls, girls or a girl of the girls prior to starting recording. I love women and I love being in community with women. I feel like that's so much of my identity. I don't want to be left out. I also don't want to be one in a group, but how lonely it would feel if I'm
00:52:03
Speaker
The only person. Yeah, if I'm the only person eating. Oh my God, so sad. I'm spinning us out into a different place. Let's go back to year 2000. Well, and I do think too, what I'm chewing on when y'all are talking is that it is still, we act like there was this merge at some point where
00:52:22
Speaker
these aesthetic change, white women are still obsessed with being skinny. White women never stopped being obsessed with being skinny. They'll take the lip filler and they'll take the Botox, but they are not getting BBLs. I mean, I agree. One of the brilliant friends of mine, Sharonda, not Dawson said like,
00:52:44
Speaker
Skinny as to white women, what hair is to black women? It is on another plane to be skinny as a white woman. Weight is such an important thing. I don't think that changed. It's about who is in control of the mainstream narrative and aesthetic. So people are like, we're going back to heroin chic. I'm like, oh, these white ladies never left. They might have gotten booby, but they are about at, they are Gwyneth Paltrow.
00:53:11
Speaker
At the end of the day, they're the group. I also feel like there is a very complex history in blackness of being thin. I think there's a complex history of black women existing among white women and then policing the shape of our body. But I also think there's a way culturally that I have felt about blackness, encouraging thinness to an extent or old or encouraging being smaller in an extent. Yeah, I'm sure white women collectively and historically
00:53:40
Speaker
have not wanted to see black women skinny because it's a threat to us. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. A threat for our men and all those things, right? Like, so. This is reminding me of, I remember going to a, this is gonna sound so douchey, whatever. I went to a Dallas cowboy private party at one of the players' houses like years ago. And I remember- That didn't land as bad as you thought it was going to. That actually sounds interesting, sorry. Okay, all right, it was, oh my God, I'm gonna have to tell y'all that story later.
00:54:11
Speaker
But anyways, I remember I was working out a lot and I was me then, like for me, you know, everybody has their own particular body of like, you know, and I was there with a guy that I was dating and we were sitting there with a bunch of girls and they were all white. I was the only black girl that was sitting at this table. And one girl walks up and she says,
00:54:34
Speaker
Oh my gosh, because everyone was like real thin, like, real thin. And I was the one with the boobs and all that. And she walks up and she tells all of the girls like, oh, everyone's working out looking great. I see you at the gym and going on and on and on. And everyone's like, thank you. I've been doing this. And I didn't know them. So I'm literally eating.
00:54:54
Speaker
while they're having this conversation. That's the worst. That's the worst when the body's talk starts and you're like, I already have a plate of hors d'oeuvres. I can't get rid of it. I can't get rid of this. No, it's like, oh, whatever it's like, it's behind me. It's happening. But I felt so confident about the way I looked at them. I'm like, that's their conversation. But I remember there was this pause and the girl looks at me and she looks at me up and down and she goes, you look great too.
00:55:22
Speaker
Ooh, I hate when this happens. It's so bad. I remember thinking to myself, this is so embarrassing. This is so embarrassing. I feel so sorry for myself. I walked in this room with men physically pulling at me as I'm walking through the door. But because of where I'm sitting in proximity to thinness amongst these white women,
00:55:49
Speaker
I feel like this. I don't think so. I got a bed plate down when I got another plate and with my life, but for you, you know what I mean? If I was a different kind of woman that would have ruined my night, but it made me think about. Yeah, like there is a difference between my cultures and body types and what's the, you know what I mean? Like it's, it's an interesting thing. That's it. I mean, that's its own topic.
00:56:14
Speaker
It could be its own podcast. It is a difference. There is. There's just a way, I think, that whiteness has such a grip connected to thinness. I mean, they're connected. White supremacy and fat phobia are connected. And I think it's really interesting, this experience of white women can't even just leave it alone. Like, they have to bring it. You weren't even involved. You weren't even involved, but she felt so inclined to have to say, well, shut up.
00:56:41
Speaker
It's just fascinating. I feel like I have lived experiences so similar to this of like, girl. You could have said nothing. You could have said nothing. You just sat there and been quiet, but you chose violence. No, and she probably said, allyship. Like, I'm inclusive. Girl power. Girl power. No. No. She probably thought she was including me, and it was like, I didn't mean to be.
00:57:05
Speaker
Please explain that. Please explain. You didn't have to say that to me. Like, I'm good. Also, your man didn't say anything. So Lord, he was sitting right there next to me and it was more embarrassing to at the times. I'm like, I'm in front of this guy that I'm just starting to date. Like, why did you do that? You know, it was just embarrassing. I'm so many. I also uphold the worst premise of fat phobia and bodyguard and we'll be like, oh, you're so bad. It's bad or something inside.
00:57:36
Speaker
Speaking of men, like for the early 2000s, I will say like, because obviously I'm 38, but like in my lifetime as like a teenager coming to understand what was going on, there was two things that were happening that I remember seeing women desperately seeking the approval of men. And it was like on Front Street, like when I was watching those music videos, it just seemed like the women were just like,
00:58:05
Speaker
I remember seeing like behind the scenes on the rap videos and how these women were acting like all giggly and everything was funny and they're being slapped on the ass and that's so cute and like seeking this consistent approval and then it was like watching Sex in the City where they are like denouncing that shit like, no, no, no, actually I'm gonna have sex like a man and you know, leave them and you know, all it was just like watching those two different messages was
00:58:33
Speaker
kind of confusing for me if I really just think about it as a teenager in that time and the narrative of what to do, who's right and who's wrong as a woman coming up in that era.
Conflicting Messages on Women's Sexuality
00:58:48
Speaker
I can't wait for you to watch the Barbie movie. The parallels of Kate Hudson and How to Lose a Man in 10 Days or whatever. And then I'm thinking of Toni Braxton crying in the shower, literally.
00:59:00
Speaker
Yes. Oh my God. So in our lifetime, we live through that or even today we were talking about Beyonce of we got lemonade and Renaissance. Yeah. And I'm supposed to love her man again. Like it's just so complexities of the female experience are why you can't be too confident, but you also can't be too clingy. You can't express too much, but you still have to be coy.
00:59:27
Speaker
It was too hard to keep up with. It was too much. Which made me like, by the time I hit college, I was just anti. Like I was just like, I'm going to do whatever I want to do. Because also men, like we're all mostly heterosexual. Men in their teens and early twenties are fucking useless. It's also scary.
00:59:50
Speaker
Scary. Frightening. Absolutely. Scary. The scariest group. They don't even know how to get a haircut, right? They're not showering. No, they're not showering. They travel in packs. Some of them are rapey, and some of them aren't. And you can't tell. Dirty nails. No, they're gross. They're gross. They're giving by silence.
01:00:12
Speaker
They've been watching weird porn. They think you're going to swallow their cum. This is a different episode, but I'm with you. I'm scared. I'm with you, but it's true. It is. You think I'm going to touch you? You? You're nuts. You're nuts. Absolutely not.
01:00:33
Speaker
You don't even wear socks. You're not even wearing socks. Do you remember the conversation about anal? And I think this is different in the South. I don't remember any conversation about anal. Girls in the South would be like, oh, you can do anal in your silver version. But I just remember.
01:00:49
Speaker
No, this is real. This is real. It's like a turn. It's like a hard pivot. I'm absolutely thinking like anything is possible. Like this idea of like you agree to it. Like anything is possible. Because this also came up in the 2000s. Yes. It's accessible porn. Accessible porn came up in the 2000s. And it was weirdly horny. It was a weirdly. Internet porn. Remember American Pie? They thought it was all on the table. Yes. They thought they were going to fuck your mom. Yes.
01:01:17
Speaker
Stacey's mom was the horniest time. It was so strange, but in a scary, weird way. And we had to be the ones to tell them, no, no, no, no, no. That's just how that really works. Yeah, right. And you're scaring me, and I'm 15.
01:01:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. I was so accepted for them to be like freaks. I think more. Yeah. More in that time than even today. I think men get it. Like they, they not get it in the way. Let me finish my statement. I'm saying like in a way, when I say get it, I mean like, Oh, I know the leading goal now. I know whether I'm doing it or not.
01:01:58
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? Whether I'm from leaving that, they say, oh, that's how they say this. And when they say, yeah, but back then, that language wasn't really on Front Street in the way that women understand how to say, this isn't a safe space. All of the things we know how to speak up for ourselves, the Me Too movement hadn't launched yet.
01:02:17
Speaker
So, back then it was just like being… Lots of butts being slapped, lots of weird sex jokes. Yeah, it was a Neanderthal. It was crazy. It was everywhere. It was socially acceptable. It was okay to talk about women's bodies in ways that I would never… It was a crazy time. And maybe that's why I was extremely body conscious in that era of my life because it was getting commented on from
01:02:44
Speaker
everyone, like from women, from the men.
01:02:48
Speaker
adults. Yeah, family members everywhere. And I just like this pressure to be like this. But specifically when we speak about men just being able to say whatever they want and it being so accepted, which is why they're having such a hard time now, especially like in mainstream media, because it just was that way for so long. And in my lifetime, again, for people who are
01:03:16
Speaker
older and listening to this is like, oh, please, this is how it was in the 70s. In my lifetime, that to me was that height and that peak of being splattered everywhere.
Men's Behavior and Societal Norms
01:03:28
Speaker
I agree. I also think there's something to be said too of like, we were scared and it was weird and very loud, but how terrifying it must have been in like 1940. I think of like madmen of like the weird sexual stuff that happened in offices or just doctors anywhere. Like
01:03:45
Speaker
I'm not, I don't want to play a game of like oppression Olympics, but I think of just how each age, each destined generation of women is facing a very bizarre type of misogyny. And ours was just so loud. That was the difference. Like they understood it was just like a societal understanding that men got to operate in that way, but it wasn't on their television screens. It wasn't on their radios.
01:04:09
Speaker
It was everywhere. We could knock it away. The image that keeps coming to mind, and this is so graphic. It's a jackass. Well, basically, but like, you could reasonably expect to be kissing someone and then have them physically try to force your head to their crotch.
01:04:31
Speaker
Right? Yes. Yes. On the back of the head. And I'm like thinking here, my daughter will never like, she'll be like, what the fuck are you doing? Yes. Yes. The hand on the back of the head is one of the most demeaning and like socially acceptable. Yeah. And it was a joke. It was a joke. Yeah. All of this was in movies. It was like American. It was just scary. It was scary. Yeah. I will ask you guys to just kind of like
01:05:02
Speaker
land the plane, I guess. Why do you think that there is a romanticism slash
01:05:12
Speaker
resurgence of this particular era happening now. Wait, I have a historical perspective of this. Go.
Resurgence of Early 2000s Aesthetics
01:05:22
Speaker
Okay. So I've been really into trend cycles and like why things happen. And so part of the trend cycle is that every 20 years something starts over. So I think about it in the nineties, there was an obsession with the seventies and our grandparents and traveling back in
01:05:35
Speaker
And so we're coming up on 20 years since like year 2000. And so it's coming back. We have the 90s, like little grunge resurgence. Now we're doing baby teas. And so there's some data that supports like this is how it goes. We don't create something necessarily new. We get new things, but the trends will always fall on this 20 year pattern. And so we're just at 20 years. Yeah, completely agree.
01:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think now being on this side of it, I think there's a difference between trying to go back to a time and just being obsessed with the aesthetic of a time. Kind of because it seems so ridiculous. We just move so fast now. I think for hundreds and hundreds of years, the only trend that would change is maybe men got another button on their jackets or something.
01:06:28
Speaker
for a new style 401. And now it goes so fast and so much of it is driven by what's possible with technology and what is, I don't know, all of these taboo, non-taboo things, the narratives and all of that, but we're trying to pick the lava lamps from the 2000s and the 70s, but we don't actually want that era back. It's always derivative in some ways.
01:06:54
Speaker
It makes me interested because when you're living it, we're living right now. We're like, well, now is just now, right? But I thought that now is just now. So like in 20 years, what did we look back on this time and think that we're doing? I do have a list of just random things that I jotted down while I was doing my research.
01:07:21
Speaker
as we get out of this, that this was also the era of Harry Potter. Yes, oh my god, wow. Trans people are real and exist. Lord of the Rings wasn't into it at all. Oh my god. I never liked a pair of uggs. I wasn't into it either. Couldn't afford it, but love dugs. Now I do. Livestrong bracelets. Everybody has Livestrong bracelets. Yes! Oh my god, we have to do an episode on the fans. Oh my god, thank you for bringing this up. Thank you. You're welcome.
01:07:48
Speaker
Netflix, we were mailing DVDs back and forth. Oh my goodness. We had to go into the red box. We all knew how to do a mix CD because we could all burn CDs now. It was so fun. So good. And then like the way that we would express ourselves in these years was by having a really clever or dramatic quote as our AIM away message. We were not in our dorm well.
01:08:16
Speaker
And then my, like, and the cap, and again, this was something I wasn't too, like the films. It became this era of the films, of like, Dancer in the Dark, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Minds, Lost in Translation, and like Lionsgate was giving us films, and so it went, yeah, from rom-com to like, serious films, and we were just so into it. Yes, I was so into it. Oh my god, oh my god, we were so, it was so important.
01:08:43
Speaker
Yes. Thank you for all. Yeah. Those were just my favorite. Oh, and like those weird Bud Light commercials, like, what's up, commercials. Oh, my gosh. Let's meet up. We forgot those. Yeah. Yes. Haunts me. Haunts me. Please. I just want to say, also, we had the Blackberry, which was all the rage. My first phone. Oh, yes. My first phone. Your first phone was a Blackberry? A Blackberry, fully fictional. I'd be like, let me just email myself here. The two-way major. I didn't even know how to text.
01:09:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's such a slave. Two ways. I even had like the next hill what we call chart phones where you could my dad had this. Hey, what's up? So invasive. Yeah. I wanted a sidekick. Sidekick two ways. Yeah. Also the pink razor phones. I had one of those.
01:09:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's not really cool if you had that going on. Remember? So easily. Yeah. I went through like four of those razors. Oh my goodness. Do you remember me dazzling phones? I remember like gluing gems to my phone where people were like literally putting jewels on their vagina. Okay. I don't remember that, but I do remember that girl that must have been your high school, your film to your 10 things about you high school.
01:10:01
Speaker
No, it was like all the rage because it was on Oprah. Like, everybody was talking about it. Child, I missed that episode. I'm sending those photos to y'all. Again, we were spitting dip. We were not vajazzling. Yeah, that's right. We didn't even have like, we were having forced blow jobs to be throwing the dip in their mouth. So it was different. Please leave us alone. Please leave us alone. Your celebrity high school. Leave us alone. Get us out of here. Dear hunting season. Get us out of here. Oh yeah, someone lay on the plane.
01:10:30
Speaker
I'll bring us back into this era. Hopefully everyone enjoyed the ramble slash deep dive into the early 2000s. Hopefully there's something to think about now that it's resurging everywhere and the clothes, the fashion, what was actually happening in our lives. And I'm looking forward to like the next era we decide to cover. By the way, hit us up on like
01:10:59
Speaker
that you want us to talk about. I think that would be fun. And I would love to hear from people also on social media. What like now that we've gone this deep, I'm really feeling on my spirit that the next show we watch should be something from this era, like some sort of canon. We talked about all of these like
01:11:20
Speaker
toxic shows and these, I mean, Degrassi, all this stuff. So what would be good contenders from this era for us to audit? Let us know, readers. Yeah. Let us know. And then look out for our Y2K photos. I'm actually not posting some. I don't know.
01:11:38
Speaker
Come on Keelan be a sport get those bumped ends out those pictures and send it right on over. I'll do the same But anyways everybody. Thank you so much for listening. Follow us on Instagram at the pop culture audits and Just stay tuned for what will audit next? Bye