555. Fashion and the State of Blogging with The Fug Girls

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 555 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and today Jessica Morgan and Heather Cocks, better known as the Fug Girls, are my guests. They have been blogging since 2004, and like me they have seen a lot of changes in the world online, so we’re going to talk about how it seems like yet another media contraction is happening and how that affects us, and about their new Substack: Drinks with Broads. And of course we also talk about fashion, stylists, and current trends, so if you’re still looking at pictures from the Oscars like I am, this episode’ll be a real treat.

Hello and thank you to our Patreon community; you are all wonderful and fabulous. Thank you so much for your support. It keeps the show going, makes sure that every episode has a transcript – thank you, garlicknitter! [Always my pleasure! – gk] If you would like to support the show, please have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Patreon members get some pretty nifty benefits, including a wonderful Discord and bonus episodes! So if you’re interested, have a look: patreon.com/SmartBitches.

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All right, let’s do this interview: on with my conversation with the Fug Girls!

[music]

Heather Cocks: I am Heather Cocks, and I am one half of the blogging duo behind the website Go Fug Yourself? Fug, F-U-G; let’s hit that G nice and hard. We cover sort of the good, the bad, and the fugly of celebrity fashion on the red carpet, and I do it with my blogging partner Jessica!

Jessica Morgan: Hi! I’m Jessica Morgan. I’m the other one, and in addition to our work on Go Fug Yourself, Heather and I have also written four novels: two Young Adult novels and two adult novels, and when we say adult novels that maybe implies that these books are a bit spicier than they actually are?

Sarah: Bow-wow-wow-chicka-chicka-bow-wow-wow.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Chicka-chicka.

Jessica: They’re like a, they’re low, low spice. Adult contemporary women’s fiction. There’s so many words –

Sarah: Right.

Jessica: – that come when you’re trying to describe a book.

Sarah: Oh my gosh, and then, and then the words themselves are not entirely enough to describe the book?

Heather: And Sarah, there’s a place for all of it, but it’s very funny because when we did switch from Young Adult to not Young Adult, we would describe it as Young Adult and adult, and I would do that so casually, and then I’d look and people’s eyes would be wide, and I was like, I think you’re imagining Fifty Shades? And, like –

Sarah: No.

Heather: – if you’re looking for that, we’re not your girls. [Laughs]

Jessica: Yes.

Sarah: It’s true. Now, you have been blogging for a long, long time. We just, we just established, before I hit Record, that you started in 2004, and I started in 2005, so we are now permanent residents of Ye Olde Blogger Old Folks Home.

Heather: That’s right.

[Cross talk]

Sarah: With our little rocking chairs on the front porch, ‘cause we’ve seen the internet evolve. What are some of the aspects of running a blog that you still love? Because I, I say this all the time to people: it is such an antiquated technology?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Blogging is so old school, and yet it, for a lot of reasons, it feels like the, the sort of style and ethos of blogging as basically essays and commentary is coming back. But it’s still –

Heather: Gosh, I hope so!

Sarah: Right?

Jessica: …self. I mean, I, I do think that for us – or at least for me; I can’t speak for Heather – the part that I still enjoy primarily is, like, getting to talk to the people who read the site. I mean, I enjoy the writing part still, but after eighteen years of covering the red carpet there does come a point where you’re like, How many more things can I say about a sheer skirt? Let’s see. So, like that’s a good writing challenge that I enjoy, but, I mean, I think for me I really just kind of like the, the aspect of community around it still.

Heather: For sure. The community aspect is really outstanding, and we just, we value it a whole lot, and we try to nurture it as best we can. I like being able to provide procrastinatory material for people that is what I would want when I am procrastinating? I, we resisted sort of the pivot to video and all of that stuff because when I’m, when I was working in an office, I didn’t really want my computer to be loud.

Sarah: No. I don’t want anything to talk to me.

Heather and Jessica: No.

Heather: And it, and it wasn’t really an era where there were that many people working in headphones, I guess? ‘Cause it’s been an eternity since I was an office, but there’s also something that I would imagine that maybe you’re not always supposed to sit there and have your ears blocked. So I, I just, I just didn’t want to be listening to the news; I didn’t want someone to read me – and I, I still do it; I still – I mean, I work from home, and if I click on a news story on CNN and I find it’s video-only I’m like, gah, I just want to read this! So I like that we can still sort of offer – [laughs] – quiet, quiet procrastinatory time to people who need it. I know people have moved to YouTube channels and people have moved to TikTok and stuff like that, and that’s just, it’s not my thing, and I like that we still have a website where we don’t have to make our faces front and center, and it’s not because I’m afraid to show my face or it’s, I’m trying to be anonymous or anything. It’s just like, it becomes so much more about you when you’re sitting there yapping at people, and I feel like I’d rather just sort of let me and my personality and my writing come through in words sometimes? That’s just how I’m wired?

Sarah: Absolutely.

Heather: So I, I like the fact that it, it somehow feels more like, I know that we are sort of the two people who run this website and write it and all that stuff, but it feels more like a community to me than – with-, without our faces all over it all the time, if that makes sense.

Sarah: Oh, it absolutely makes sense! I get mad when I open Instagram and it starts making noise at me. I’m like, You are a picture! Act –

[Laughter]

Heather: Yeah! I know!

Sarah: You are for pictures! Shut! Up!

Heather: I did not give you permission for this! I have gone on many a rant about the fact that my iPhone silence button doesn’t silence the whole thing all the time. Like, if I turn off the ringer, I also want it to turn off volume. I don’t want Instagram to come up and be like, Hello! [Laughs]

Jessica: I will say, I think there are so many content creators who are great at camera?

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Heather: Sure!

Jessica: Like, really works for them, and I am very impressed by those people, and I enjoy a lot of folks who do a lot of two-camera stuff?

Heather: It’s a skill. It’s not my skill. But it’s other people’s skill, and that’s why they do it and we don’t. [Laughs]

Sarah: So, big question, big question, which, something that I think a lot about, ‘cause I, I always find the first quarter of every year, like, I do my taxes and I do my, my end-of-the-year stuff for Smart Bitches, and I sort of sit back and I go, Still here!

Jessica: Yeah.

Sarah: Still around! Fuck yeah! But so much has changed about blogging. It’s barely a word that people use anymore. Like, I have to explain – like, I’m speaking at Career Day for my high school students, my high school children’s Career Day on Friday, and I have to explain my job, and basically the slides are: I made up my job. I made it up. It, it’s, it –

[Laughter]

Sarah: – I’m a blogger; let me explain what that means. ‘Cause they’re not going to – blogging is not a, a native word anymore.

Heather or Jessica: Mm-mm.

Sarah: What are some of the things that you struggle with? Because I know, for me, I feel like we’re going through yet another contraction of media, and with it advertising revenue, and when I look at major media companies laying off large numbers of workers I go, Oh shit! That’s going to affect what comes towards me as a teeny-tiny media person. Then I know that means that contraction is coming again.

Heather: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Yeah, it’s very stressful right now. Heather and I have had a lot of conversations over the last six months about the fact that money is getting – on our end, traffic is basically the same, but –

Sarah: Yes!

Jessica: – the money coming in has fallen dramatically –

Heather: Yeah.

Jessica: – and it’s very much outside of our control, which is frustrating, because there’s only so much you can do, and I mean, for us, the site’s eighteen years old, and our ad broker will maybe be like, Well, maybe you should look at more traffic! And I’d be like, We’d love more traffic, but it’s kind of baked in at this point. Like, I – everyone wants more traffic; I, I get it; but that’s very difficult. I’m forty-seven. I worked at an internet company in the turn of the century that –

Sarah: My condolences.

Heather: [Laughs]

[Cross talk]

Jessica: It imploded dramatically the first time the internet kind of went through a huge bust, so I feel like I’ve been through a lot of this?

Sarah: Yep.

Jessica: And kind of looking at the writing on the wall, it doesn’t look good. My boyfriend works for a Gannett publication –

Sarah: Ahhh!

Jessica: – so we have a lot of – we’re like, This is interesting! This is, like, an interesting time to be alive for people who write professionally and are journalists or have blog, are bloggers or – anyone who depends, I think, on ad revenue right now is feeling a little, like, yikes-y about it.

Sarah: It’s very yikes-y, and it’s all out of our control, right?

Heather: Very. It feels like it doesn’t really matter anymore what you do or how much you do? It just sort of, it’s all out of your hands, and I think for us some of the, some of the issues come up because web hosting’s not getting any cheaper –

Sarah: Nope!

Heather: – and the image licenses don’t get any cheaper. And –

Sarah: No! You have the licensing for all of the images that you have to use. You have to pay a –

Heather: Right.

Sarah: – a licensing fee for all of those pictures.

Heather: Yep.

Sarah: You can’t just scoop them off of Google!

Heather: Right, and the way that we’ve sort of worked that out is that we pay everything once a year?

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Ouch.

Heather: So we pay for our hosting once a year, and we pay for our, all the, we sort of did some math to figure out roughly how many photos we would need, and for the most part we’ve been right, although last year – [laughs] – right before the Emmys, Jessica and I were like, We have thirty pictures left –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Heather: – a week before the Emmys…

Sarah: I need everyone in a group shot! Could all the celebrities please move into the camera?

Jessica: Definitely we’re like, Ooh, everyone from Abbott Elementary is in this picture together; we’re going to use that one. Sorry, you guys! [Laughs]

Heather: Yeah, it was a lot of that.

Sarah: It’ll be like a senior picture of the entire senior class in the auditorium, and every-, everyone’s head is this big. Yeah, that’s the one you want! [Laughs]

Heather: Yes, and her earrings were great; sorry you can’t see it. But yeah, so we, we, we have a spot in the year where we are renewing those deals annually, and, and on the one hand that’s stressful; on the other hand we always have that moment after we pay those bills of being like, Okay. Well, we have another year –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: – to figure this out and to see what happens. So there are some advantages to that, because it’s not like we’re constantly month-to-month-ing like, are we going to have enough money to pay for the hosting this month?

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: You know, we kind of know we have that squared away, but it, it, they aren’t getting any cheaper, and so we are having to fig-, so every year like sort of around the midpoint we’re kind of like, is there a better – like, do we need to be like, are we overpaying? Like, you have to figure out if you’re overpaying for hosting, which is something –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Heather: – that, I don’t know about you, but Jessica and I are not super qualified to figure out if that’s the case? I don’t know what that, I don’t know what that looks like.

Sarah: No.

Heather: So we’re, we are eighteen years in, having to have these conversations that are about areas of the internet that we still really don’t understand from a technical standpoint ‘cause we’ve never had to –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: – but now from a budgetary standpoint we’re like, Well, we probably need to find ways to skim and trim here and there, and that’s, maybe that will be one of them. Maybe we do fewer photos, but can you really have a comprehensive fashion website without as many photos? And, you know, posting less doesn’t seem to be the answer, because then that’s still fewer visitors. Like, it’s, it’s very easy to drop out of people’s rotations –

Sarah: Absolutely.

Heather: – and so, like, you’re posting less or you take a week off or whatever, like, people just aren’t going to come back! Like, there’s obviously plenty of other reasons that people might leave and not come back, but, like, if you’re giving, if you’re teaching them not to, ‘cause there’s not new con-, content, eventually they’re just going to forget, and that’s really the kiss of death. So we’re, that’s been the, the biggest challenge, I think, for us? Is just –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: – is really trying to figure out how to balance all of that and knowing that certain costs are always going to be there, and so, how do we make rent – [laughs] – if the ads aren’t –

Sarah: Yeah! And then there’s the question of, that I get regularly: Well, have you thought about going to be, going into a subscription model where people pay to access the content? And I’m like, I feel like that is the last resort and that is the death knell of what I’m doing, because what I’m doing is, is meant to be open. It’s meant to be discoverable. It’s meant to be –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – for my, for my particular corner of the industry, I’m googling this book: oh, here’s a review; here’s a whole discussion about it. Oh, they talked about the cover. And then all of a sudden my time on site is three, four, five minutes. Like, that’s what I want. I don’t want to make a, a, a barrier to that. I – and, and like you said, traffic has not gone down. Traffic, especially after the pandemic and people looking for books, has gone up. And I imagine your traffic is going up because I know, speaking solely for myself? I’m all about these –

[Laughter]

Sarah: Can you explain the Chanel plus Kristen Stewart sheer –

Heather or Jessica: Oh!

Sarah: – what – do, do they hate her?

Jessica: I just had, a huge rant I wrote about this just went up on Go Fug Yourself like an hour ago. I don’t know. I hear, I actually have a lot of thoughts about this, and it’s that I think Chanel really wants to, like, appeal to, like, cool, young, French, punk girls, and that is not their brand. Dance with the one that brought you is what I’m – I’m plagiarizing myself from today. But, like, women who are shelling out for Chanel do not want their butt hanging out of granny panties in a sheer dress, so you just don’t. And Kristen Stewart is very cool, but she –

Sarah: Very.

Jessica: – pulls stuff off that she shouldn’t be able to pull off, but, like, she should be able to, like, arrive at these events in, like, a cool Rick Owens outfit or, like, something that’s more in keeping with her actual personal style. And I think she made a lot of money from the Chanel deal, and good for her. I think that is why a lot of these women are doing this. I think that’s what happened with Jennifer Lawrence and her Dior deal, and I actually don’t think this is true for either one of them, but, you know, a lot of actresses have sort of a short shelf life in terms of acting gigs, and if you can get a ton of cash for wearing these outfits, Godspeed. I just think we have reached a point with Chanel and KStew where it just does not make sense anymore, like, for either one of them. And the, the, this crazy sheer outfit she wore to the end of the Berlin Film Festival a couple weeks ago, it was just like, she has great hair and makeup, so generally – although in this instance I thought she didn’t look very good – no offense, Kristen – I’m sure she’s devastated – but, like –

Sarah: I’m sure she’s listening right now like, No, you’re right. They hate me. I can’t even tell you how much they hate me. [Laughs]

Jessica: Oh my God. You’re right. So, like –

Sarah: Kristen, if you’re listening, we think you’re great!

Jessica: Yeah. Ninety-eight percent of the time you look at her and you think, Well, this outfit doesn’t really work, but oh my God, her head looks great! Like her hair and makeup is great, and that’s been carrying her, and I think her innate coolness really helps, but, like, at a certain point, haven’t we reach the end of the line with this? I think this is ridiculous! Like, let’s just all get a grip here! Kristen Stewart is not a Chanel person; that’s fine!

Sarah: No.

Heather: And they really are trying to reach out to the younger set, and it’s just not – I’m not really sure who I think is a Chanel person anymore, but it’s definitely not KStew.

Jessica: You know, Chanel’s most recent collection was very, like, little tweedy jackets, and that’s their milieu! Like, not everything needs to be cutting edge. Some stuff could just be classic! Like, I want a, a rugby shirt that’s high-end-ish but not crazy? I’m going to go to J. Crew. I want a, like, very expensive little tweedy jacket? I’m going to go to Chanel. Not everything needs to be, like, über cool, do you know what I mean?

Heather: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: Absolutely, and given that the trend right now is Old Money fashion, and what are the signals of Old Money? – which most of them are, are actually wrong – you’d think that Chanel would be like,  We, we, we, hold on right there; I know ex-; I’ve got, like, just give me five seconds; I know how to do Old Money; I’ll be right back; just don’t move!

[Laughter]

Jessica: Hold up! Just a second!

Sarah: Now, one thing I wanted to ask you about, if you are, if you, if you are comfortable talking about this, is that I know that you stopped covering the royals.

Jessica: Yeah!

Sarah: And I have watched this happen with other sites, that when they start to talk about the royal family – the British royal family – and other things, the royal content becomes the predominant content, because that’s the content that gets the traffic – [deep breath] – but that’s also the content that brings the racism, and it’s a bit of a problem.

Heather: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Like, I did one episode on, on Spare, and I was absolutely terrified what kind of response I was going to get.

Heather: Jessica dealt with the lion’s share of that because she was the royal reporter. It sort of started unofficially, but then that just sort of became her area of expertise.

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: You know, like, you cover one major royal tour and, like, I don’t, I don’t have a great memory for stuff anyway, but, like, she covered – like, I don’t know; just that knowledge that she had from covering all those tours, she sort of, all the outfits baked in, and she was able to contextualize stuff way better, and also she’s funny. She just was really good at it, and also she nailed all the voices and stuff.

I’ve never been happier since we stopped covering the royals, and I wasn’t the one writing about the royals that often, so that ought to tell you how Jessica’s feeling right now. [Laughs]

Jessica: I mean, basically the short version of it is the comments section became toxic, and there was no way for us to un-toxify it.

Sarah: Yep.

Jessica: Unfortunately, it became a net negative for our community. It made a lot of people who are regular Go Fug Yourself readers feel very unsafe, and we did not want that. And on a personal level, it was causing me tremendous amounts of anxiety trying to – [sighs] – like, wrangle the comments section, and I just realized eventually that this is not wrangle-able. There was a point towards the end there where I – you know, our big royals posts would go up on a Friday afternoon.

Sarah: Oh God. Well, there goes your weekend.

Heather: Exactly.

Jessica: Well, I literally had to close comments every night to go to sleep?

Sarah: Oh God.

Jessica: Because

trust that things wouldn’t go off the rails in the eight hours I was unconscious.

Heather: And it routinely did that, and then, and, and then it came off like we weren’t moderating the comments, and it’s like, but we just –

Sarah: No, we sleep! We’re human beings! We need our rest! [Laughs]

Heather: Like, it was really unpleasant, and it was difficult to moderate, and, and for me, I am not a great moderator? I just didn’t have the skill to moderate us out of that, and there was something about sort of admitting, like, I’m in over my head here because I don’t think I’m doing this well, and it’s hurting us. And particularly hurting Jessica, because she was dealing with more of it than I was.

Jessica: Well, it just got to the point where I was like, You know, no one’s enjoying this. It’s not good for anybody. This is actively hurting people in our community. That’s the last thing I want to do. Just choosing to walk away from that, I think, has probably not been a great, maybe, business decision for us? But emotionally, oh my God, I’ve never been happier; I cannot tell you. Back in the day, I really enjoyed writing that stuff; it was really fun.

Sarah: Yeah!

Jessica: As things really took a, a very nasty turn, unfortunately, when Meghan joined the family, which is incredibly disappointing and –

Heather: Not her fault. [Laughs]

Jessica: Well, it just became really, really, really toxic, and I think it was for the best for us, and I honestly – you know, some people were not happy with it, and that’s okay, but there’s a lot of places to talk about the royals on the internet if you want to.

Sarah: Oh, there are a few!

Heather: We had to, we had to draw a boundary.

Jessica: I do think, what I was going to say is, I think a lot of people were upset with it, but I think a larger portion, actually, of readers are like, Oh my God, thank God this is over. That was a nightmare. Like, it is better for us? I think a lot of our, most of our readers, I think, are super supportive of the decision, and are, are happier themselves coming to the website and knowing that they’re not going to read something that’s like a terrible microagression about Meghan that’s going to upset them or, like, any, any number of things that, like, could have gone wrong in those comments.

But being able to go to sleep without thinking, like, Oh my God, what am I going to wake up to tomorrow?

Sarah: Yeah.

Jessica: Honestly, it’s not about my quality of life entirely, but that has been a bonus for me!

Sarah: Yeah!

Jessica: Like, I just couldn’t do it anymore.

Sarah: And I completely understand, because if you value the community on your site, you want the people –

Jessica: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – who regularly hang out in the comments to feel safe and welcome.

Heather: Exactly! That’s a hundred percent it.

Sarah: Specifically with the royals and the British royal family, when individual human beings become emblems of massive, massive societal problems, there’s no rational way to talk about the narrative of what they’re wearing. Because it’s all going to get wrapped up in white supremacist language and racist language, and it’s like, I can’t deal with the litmus test of can we talk about this without it becoming really, really ugly and hurtful for other people? So I completely understand that decision.

Heather: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: A lot of our readers were like, This is, does not, I don’t feel safe here. And I –

Sarah: Yeah!

Jessica: – that’s –

Sarah: That’s not what you want. Got to go.

Heather: Mm-mm.

Sarah: So we were, we’ve been talking about your site and the changes that happen to the income and revenue potential of a site, and, and I don’t, one thing I, I don’t think a lot of people understand is that when you run a website like, like we do, the revenue comes from many different places? So there’s lots of different pieces. Like, there’s affiliates, and then there’s web ads, and then there’s direct sponsorship of posts or content, and all of these different pieces. So you now have a Substack! Tell me all about it. What led to starting your Substack, and how is it a complement to your existing properties, to speak in business jargon?

Jessica: [Laughs]

Heather: You know, it’s funny because – [laughs] – when you asked, when you talked about freelance writing and we were like, no we haven’t done it in a while, it’s a muscle that has gotten really flabby for me, and it was the thing I was a little bit nervous about starting the Substack, but also maybe the most excited about it? Because it is a good skill in a way that, like, yeah, there are days when I sit down to write a post on Go Fug Yourself, and the blank screen is taunting me. And it’s a –

Sarah: Oh yeah! Been there.

Heather: – it’s a space you have to fill and you’ve got to figure it out, but –

Sarah: Got to put some words there.

Heather: – we’ve got some content to fill it out. Like, it’s like, Okay, well at least I have this picture I can jump off of, and there’s something wider open about Substack that is intimidating, but also exciting, ‘cause it kind of feels like, Oh, I’m going back to those days where we would freelance, but there isn’t like, Jessica and I aren’t sitting there trying to come up with seven different pitches for an editor, and like, you’re not waiting – you can just kind of have fun with it. But I would be lying if I said some of the reason we did it wasn’t financial…

Sarah: Oh, absolutely it’s financial! No shame!

Heather: We’re having a ton of fun with it, and I think we would be doing it even if we had zero paid subscribers? We are thrilled that the free subscribers are there. We love them and we hope that they are feeling like they are getting something out of having us in their inbox. But the option to add a paid element felt like the best chance for us, because, as you said earlier, like, we didn’t really want to put a paywall on the website. I just feel like making the website harder for people to read every day, especially when you’re in someone’s diet. You’re glad you’re in their diet; you want to lose them. Like, just, we would love to keep that free and open.

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: And so we were like, Okay, well, this can be, this is a way that we can add a reader-supported element, because there might be people who would be willing to pay for reading GFY; I just don’t know how many there – you know what I mean? But, but so we were like, Well, this could be a way that we can kind of sub-, that we can use it to help subsidize GFY in a way that makes the prospect of staying in business there less frightening.

Sarah: Yep!

Heather: So that was definitely part of the decision. 

Jessica: Look, I want to be clear that we don’t have any plans to, like, shut down the site or anything right now.

Heather: Mm-mm.

Jessica: But in the future, like, who knows if we’re going to be able to afford to keep it going, just to be totally honest, and I think it is pragmatic of us to have another place where we already are?

Sarah: Yep.

Jessica: So we don’t…

Heather: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: …figure out where we’re going and, like, how are we going to direct our readers to, like, where we’re going next, blah-blah-blah, so I think that, like, God forbid something happens to the site, we do have the Substack where we can be like, Oh, well, here we are in the Substack! Like, read our newsletter! But you know, in addition to that, honestly, like, it’s really fun? I’m writing this long, kind of longish piece right now about – I don’t know if you know this, but Nicola Peltz and Brooklyn Beckham are in a giant legal fight with their wedding planner? Which is…

Sarah: Yes, and then the wedding planner sued them back, and it is absolutely bonkers!

Heather: It’s incredible! And wasn’t it like their sixth wedding planner at that point?

Jessica: Yes! And I’m writing this, like, long deep dive into it as GFY’s primary celebrity wedding correspondent, ‘cause I did a lot of, like, wedding coverage during the pandemic, and it, it is a mess! It is like petty rich-people shit, which I love.

Sarah: Other people’s petty drama is the best kind of petty drama. I love, like, when someone says to me, Do you want to hear some drama about people you don’t know?

Everyone: Yes!

Heather: I do!

Sarah: Yes, I do!

[Laughter]

Heather: I’m sorry to bore you with people you don’t know – no, you’re not! Keep going!

Jessica: Yeah!

Heather: I want more.

Jessica: And getting to, like – I don’t, I mean, I could have written it on the website, but I don’t know that I think it would really have fit in with, like, our editorial purview in a way that it does here, and I was working on it last night, and I was like, this is, like, so fun! This is, I’m, this is really fun. Like, and I got to write a, a review of Cocaine Bear, which I, by the way, I recommend. That was really fun if you don’t have a –

Heather: It’s just nice to be able to be random like that and not have to sit, and, and from a purely pragmatic standpoint, not have to turn around and be like, ugh, I need art for this piece. Like –

Jessica: Yeah.

Heather: – I need a photo to put this up on the website, and, like –

Sarah: This is not slide show-able.

Heather: – people would be like, why are you putting up a movie review? You’re not a movie review website, like, which I think people who read GFY honestly would give us the flexibility to do that, but admittedly, it’s hard not to be self-conscious sometimes and be like, people are going to think we’re really random – [laughs] – if we want to –

Sarah: Maybe?

Heather: – so…

Sarah: Maybe it’s Cocaine Bear that’s dressing Kristen Stewart.

Jessica: There you go! That explains a lot! Ta-da! Now let’s segue; there you go.

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Heather: Applause that she survived Cocaine Bear.

Jessica: It is so fun to get to sit down and write about random shit sometimes.

Sarah: Yes!

Jessica: Like, I completely forgot how fun it was to, like, be like, what do I want to talk about? I want to talk about this random shit, and, like, what a beautiful blurb for our Substack; please read our random shit!

Heather: Yeah.

Jessica: But it just feels, like, very freeing, and it’s really fun. I really do kind of think that Substacks might kind of be turning into the new blog? Do you know what I mean?

Sarah: They are kind of a blog. They’re –

Jessica: Yeah, they’re very blog-ish.

Sarah: They’re very –

Jessica: And I’m –

Sarah: They’re just the new iteration of blogging, I think.

Jessica: Yeah.

Heather: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: And our, from a technical standpoint, and, I mean, you know how much, like, yada-yada there is on the back end of running your own website – oh my God.

Sarah: Oh God! [Sighs] Yeah.

Jessica: And I don’t know about you, but our website is held together with like chewing gum and, and like twine right now, ‘cause it’s so old! Who even knows what’s going on back there? So we spend a lot of time, like, dealing with technical stuff that is not either one of our areas of expertise or really areas of interest, and Substack is great ‘cause it’s just like typety, typety, typety, and they figure out the rest of it.

Sarah: Yep!

Heather: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: So that’s my plug for Substack, but it is really fun.

Heather: I still find myself stressing out a little bit about, like, Oh, is this too dumb? Like, or God, are people going to be like, What are these dumb bitches talking about?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Heather: But I have to, you know, I’m, I might be a dumb bitch sometimes – [laughs] –

Sarah: Right, but these are people who, the, the people who sign up for a Substack are more than a –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – they’re more than a warm audience, to use industry terms.

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: Like, they know you? They’re like, no, I would very much like it if you showed up in my inbox. That would be super great. Let’s, let’s do this! Like, I have a sub, set of Substacks that are basically gossip and fashion oriented like yours, and they’re like my weekend reading. Like, I get them on Fridays and I’m like –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: Oh, fuck yeah! I’m going to read about people –

Heather: Fuck yeah!

Sarah: – I don’t even know who the hell these people are! Like, because I –

Heather: Yeah! I mean –

Sarah: – like, this is something that I think we all have common is I love the narrative that is public and the narrative that is not.

Jessica: Yes!

Heather: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And fashion is –

Heather: Yep.

Sarah: – absolutely a narrative, but then you have the narrative of the stylist, and then you have the narrative of Why are you wearing this?

Jessica: People are always trying to reinvent the wheel, you know what I mean? Like, there’s only so much you can do with an article of clothing and still have it be an article of clothing, but they keep trying.

I think what you said about the public narrative and the private narrative is kind of what Heather and I have been working on our whole career?

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely!

Jessica: I think that that’s what the website is about, and also I kind of think that’s what The Royal We is about?

Heather: Yeah, very much.

Sarah: Oh, absolutely The Royal We is about public and private narrative.

Jessica: So I think that that kind of, like, tension between the public and the private has been something that we have been interested in for like eighteen years now. You know, I think it is fascinating.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Jessica: I think we always want to know what’s happening behind closed doors.

Sarah: Like, I want to know what the conversations are like between Zendaya and Law Roach. Like, what kind of –

Heather: No, I know.

Sarah: – what kind of things do they talk about? ‘Cause then she shows up and she looks absolutely perfect in every possible way. Like, just even the way she holds her shoulders. And I –

Heather: I know.

Sarah: – and I look at that and I’m like, okay, so who taught you how to do this? Because there are a lot of celebrities that cannot pose their bodies in a way that is interesting. Like –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – Nicola Peltz cannot do it. She thinks she can.

Heather: Oh my God.

Sarah: Kardashians cannot do it.

Heather: I just –

Sarah: They think they can, but I’m like, no, this is a skill! And you, how do you learn it? What do you, what, what is the instruction? What is the Kajabi course about how to hold your body on a red – like, who has that? I don’t know who has that.

Heather: Maybe she’s, maybe she’s born with it?

Sarah: Maybe!

Heather: Maybe it’s Maybelline?

Sarah: Yeah!

Heather: I don’t know.

My favorite event – and I think a lot of people feel this way – is the Met Gala, and the reason I like the Met so much now is because the stylists, I find, are getting quicker – now that Instagram has entrenched, I think the stylists are getting quicker and quicker about putting stuff up on Instagram that explains the outfits?

Sarah: Yes!

Heather: So when you have like a costume ball and something doesn’t necessarily look overtly like it’s on theme, but then – especially with some of those themes are just like, you’re like, I don’t even know, man versus machine? What are you talking about? Or manos ex machine? I don’t even remember what that one was; it was, it was bizarre.

Sarah: ‘Kay, yeah!

Heather: But, but then you read the descriptions and it’ll be like, Well, this is how we developed this outfit, and some of this was printed, 3D-printed material, and some of this was hand-stitched, and we did this on, with sustainable XYZ, and you’re like, Oh my God! There’s like a, there is a narrative to so many of those outfits, and –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Heather: – we’re getting a piece of that private conversation the day of the event, and that’s the kind of stuff where, that’s why that’s my favorite event is you get a, you get a little bit of a peek behind the curtain.

But yeah, man, some of those stylists’ conversations I, I have often wanted to know, and people often ask, Can people say no? Like, who has the ultimate stroke here? It most recently came up because one of the stylists who styles all the men, Ilaria Urbinati? She’s, she’s real tight with D&G, Dolce & Gabbana, and I think sometimes we’re sort of like, Ah, wouldn’t it be nice if people wore them a little bit less, ‘cause they’re pretty unapologetically awful? And somebody asked in their comments, and they were like, Yeah, but can’t, if she’s still tight with them, can’t her clients still say no? And that is the question where you’re sort of like, how many times does the stylist say, Oh my God, like, I’m trying, you guys. I’m trying, but this person’s a loon. And how many times is the client being like, I’ll wear whatever you want! I don’t care. Like, I’m, that’s the stuff I really want to know about.

Sarah: Oh yeah. Have you noticed that style right now is at, like, post pandemic, and finally we have awards in person and there’s a lot of red carpets; have you noticed that style seems a bit more, like, outlandish? Like, let’s, let’s go, let’s go all out with some things. One thing I have appreciated is the number of actresses who are very gifted in the chest department –

Heather: [Laughs]

Sarah: – much like myself, and they all look great. They don’t look like they have been squished, and their boobs are under their chins, ‘cause there’s nowhere else to put them in the, in the gown. Like, everyone with a, with a, with a, a nice chestal endowment, they all look great! It’s like, oh! Wow, look at all these big boobs –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – on the red carpet! I’m so happy! But then I’m like, Oh, and there’s some pasties, and that’s a thong! And this is a shower curtain, and I feel like –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – Wow! This, people are just really going for it! in some departments, but this could also be my inexperience talking, ‘cause I didn’t really pay attention for, like, you know, two or three years I was busy, you know, pandemic-ing.

Jessica: Right.

Heather: Hmm.

Jessica: That’s a good question. I will, I do agree with you that I feel like bosoms have been well-wrangled this awards season.

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: Ah, so wonderful!

Jessica: – bosoms not being well-wrangled; I don’t know what happened, but God bless.

I don’t know if I think people are going more over-the-top than they did in the past, but I will say, I think there was a school of thought where some people thought that the pandemic was going to, like, doom everyone to wearing sweatpants all the time? And I remember reading that dur-, in like 2001 or something and thinking, I don’t think so. I think the celebs are going to come blowing it out when they can leave the house again.

Sarah: Oh yeah! No question.

Jessica: A hundred percent, and I think that’s come to pass.

Sarah: That is definitely true.

Heather: There was definitely a, a, a moment in time when people thought it’s going to be the death of the red carpet. We don’t need, it’s frivolous and we don’t need any of this, and we were always sort of banging the drum for, like, we kind of do need it? Like, I’m sorry but it, it falls in that same category of, How can you be talking about this when there’s starving children and a train wreck and people are dying and, like, yeah, these, there are horrible things happening in the world. Like, there’s plenty of reasons to wake up in the morning and think, Oh my God, what happened overnight that I missed? You know what I mean?

Sarah: Yeah!

Heather: But we need breaks from that, and that’s why, like, everybody needs to contain multitudes, and sometimes I need to read something about somebody’s, like, visible thong in their sheer dress?

Sarah: Yes.

Heather: And I think celebrities, who are also human, probably feel the same way, and so when, when the world sort of revved back up again I was not surprised to see people coming out and being like, No, we’re still doing this! Still doing the red carpet ‘cause, like, oh my God, we need this! We need happy stuff to talk about; we need crazy stuff to talk about. We need fugly stuff to talk about! We need stuff! That isn’t, that doesn’t mean everything! Like, it doesn’t – I don’t want to feel like Atlas all the time. Like, I don’t want to – you know, I need something, like, I, I would love to write a Substack about Brooklyn and Nicola and be like, Yeah, that’s great! That’s something that I can read because I don’t, I have read a lot about the other stuff –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: – and I need a brain wash! I need a brain break!

Jessica: People eat saffron sometimes, like, I mean, and also no one is like, How are you still watching baseball when there’s a war? Like, no one says that about sports. I love sports –

Heather: Right.

Jessica: – I’m thrilled that I can still watch baseball, but, like, people are going to wear cool outfits, it’s going to be fun, let’s all enjoy ourselves for forty-five minutes looking at these people’s ensembles –

Heather: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: – and I think the celebrities, honestly, they’re working people? They need the press! Like, these people are rich, but they still need to promote their shit!

Sarah: Yep!

Jessica: So –

Heather: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: – of course they’re going to put on a kooky outfit and – or not. They’re going to put on an outfit –

Heather and Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: – and they’re going to go out and promote their project! Like, this is legitimate!

Sarah: Also, one expression of being alive is decorating yourself.

Heather: Exactly.

Jessica: Even animals do it!

Sarah: Yeah! Your, your, your plumage is part of being alive. Like, even if no one sees me I’m like, I’m going to wear some earrings today, ‘cause I feel like it.

Heather: Right?

Sarah: It’s an expression of self! And being, being able to express yourself is an element of being not dead.

Heather: Right? I love watching people parade and promenade. Like, I think Sheryl Lee Ralph is a great example of that. Having just said, you know, that Kerry Condon sort of is on the scene for the first time and is keeping it simple, Sheryl Lee Ralph’s been acting forever and finally is getting the critical and – well, she probably always was a critical darling, but she getting awards love –

Sarah: Yes.

Heather: – much deserved, and I remember when she first sort of came up through Abbott and was nominated for the Emmy and stuff, we were like, I want her to get hooked up with a stylist who starts getting her some major outfits that are in the vein of the mega-star that she is? And she’s totally – I don’t know if she’s changed stylists, but, like, she is going for it in the best way, and, like, you sort of see that needle move, and she feels like someone who is like, I am in my, I’m a fantastic woman; look at my plumage. And it’s so wonderful to see.

Sarah: I read in the, in coverage of the SAGs – that was where she was wearing the beige outfit with the cool sleeves? Her daughter is her stylist.

Jessica: Oh!

Heather: Interesting! She, she wore a Ghanaian designer to the NAACP Image Awards, which is on the site, and it was this, it’s a wonderful outfit and so very different, one, one-eighty different from what she wore to the SAGs –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: – and she wore them both so well. I think the juxtaposition of those two outfits and which one she chose to wear to what is, is fascinating and storytelling in and of itself –

Sarah: Yes.

Heather: – and yeah, I bet, I, I just hope they’re having fun with it. It seems like they’re having fun with it?

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: And, you know, in the end, I think that’s all we want, even, and even with the sheers and the hideous stuff that we hate? Like, don’t listen; keep wearing that stuff, please; like, don’t listen to us. We desperately love to, like, pull our hair out about a hideous dress, so, like, keep doing that! It was –

Sarah: You need that element! It can’t just be, you know, black tux, black tux.

Heather: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: You need, like, ka-POW!

Jessica: We did not like what, as we discussed, Kristen Stewart recently wore, but I’m thrilled she wore something so insane, ‘cause we all wanted to talk about it! It’s fun!

Heather: Yeah, yeah.

Jessica: It’s fine! Like –

Heather: Yeah, yeah.

Jessica: – she doesn’t care, I don’t really think. 

Heather: She doesn’t care, and I think she totally has the attitude of, like, it’s a, it’s an outfit; I’ll wear something else tomorrow. She seems like somebody who has her head totally screwed on straight about all of that.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Heather: Which I think is what, why fashion’s fun in the first place! Like, we’re not trying to stamp out somebody’s self-expression! Like, we don’t think your outfit works; you know, okay, I hope you liked it, but if you didn’t, there’s tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and, like –

Sarah: Yep! You’re going to change your clothes!

Heather: – a hundred – you’re going to change your clothes.

Sarah: Faster than your hair grows in.

Heather: You’ll wear something else. Yeah, exactly! So, like, I think it’s, it’s, I just sort of think she feels like, Whatever. People hate it; who cares; I’m going to wear, I’m going to wear a leather jacket tomorrow and they’ll be like, Oh, that’s better!

Sarah: She’s still cooler than me.

Jessica: Oh! Than all of us, absolutely.

Sarah: She could wear a bath mat: still cooler than me, no question.

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: So we’ve mentioned Sheryl Ree, Sheryl Lee Ralph; we’ve mentioned Kristen Stewart. Are there any other celebrities or people in fashion that you are paying attention to this year? Because we’re in the middle of the start of awards season, and we’re, we’re ramping up, the ball gowns are getting bigger, and the coverage is getting larger.

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: Are there any people in fashion or celebrity that you’re really paying attention to this year?

Jessica: I think, for me, Cate Blanchett has been doing a lot of interesting, like, sustainable stuff. She’s rewearing a lot of stuff and, like, remaking stuff? I think that’s always really interesting, especially from, like, an A-lister. She’s –

Sarah: She’s so tall! She could wear anything!

Jessica: Yeah, and she’s got, like, quite a his-, a wardrobe to draw from. And there’s a lot of stuff she’s worn in the past that I would love to see her rewear. So I’m really interested to see what she’s going to rework or rewear for the Oscars, if she does?

I think Michelle Yeoh has fabulous taste and has had fabulous taste her whole life, so I’m very interested to see what she’s going to wear to the Oscars.

Sarah: Her jewelry alone is just incredible.

Heather: Oh! I mean, I just feel like it’s, it’s, we’re in an era right now, and, and maybe, maybe I’m not being fair to the prior eras, but it really feels like there’s a lot of older women who are chic as hell right now –

Sarah: Yes!

Heather: – and being celebrated for it in a way that it wasn’t always the case. Like, I’m trying to think if anyone really gave a shit what Meryl Streep wore to something in, like, the ‘90s, and probably nobody did, but, like, you know, and that’s maybe not the right age comparison, but there, for a while it really felt like it was youth, it was youth in fashion, and now it’s everything in fashion –

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: – and we are talking about Sheryl Lee Ralph, and we are talking about Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis, who keeps it generally very simple, but is excellent at understanding – she just sort of has an unerring eye for what works on her?

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: And for making something that – like, she wore two dresses this past weekend to the PGAs and to the SAGs that weren’t necessarily that wildly different, but they were different colors, and she styled them slightly differently, and she just sort of, they just both really worked on her, and you didn’t get sick of it.

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: Like, you were just like – and she just looked really, again, chic. Not –

Sarah: Yes.

Heather: – you know, and, and, and Michelle Yeoh is, have, reeking glamour out of her pores, and it’s, it’s so cool to be watching those women have their moment –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: – and be – and Angela Bassett, like –

Jessica: Oh yeah! Oh my God!

Heather: I’m always excited, like, and some of the stuff she wears I don’t like, and some of it is amazing, and I don’t, but it’s always fun.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Heather: It’s always fun to watch, and I’m always excited when I know she’s coming to something?

And Tracee Ellis Ross, that’s another one where you’re like, What – she and Karla Welch worked together, and they, they will go from the most outlandish pants to this really simple column dress that she just wore to the NAACPs –

Sarah: Yep!

Heather: – and both of them work.

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: So I’m, I’m, I think I’m just really enjoying that age bracket, are, like, have, are enjoying the spotlight.

Sarah: Did you see Grace Jones’s campaign for Wolford?

Jessica: No! Oh my God!

Sarah: Okay, I will send you guys a link.

[Cross talk]

Sarah: She, she did a campaign for Wolford. She is seventy-four years old, and you would not believe it for a second. She is just exquisite.

Heather: Oh my God.

Sarah: And she’s, and, and much like Jamie Lee Curtis and Viola Davis, she inhabits herself. Like, her clothes –

Heather: Wow.

Sarah: – she is wearing her clothes; her clothes are never wearing her.

Heather: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: It’s amazing.

Heather: She is amazing, and she, you said Grace Jones and it reminded me of Jodie Turner-Smith, who is the person I feel like needs to play Grace Jones in a biopic someday soon?

Sarah: They just have a buddy comedy, right?

Jessica: Oh my gosh!

Heather: Yes. Put ‘em in a car and let ‘em drive across whatever land mass you want –

Sarah: Right?

Heather: – and I would watch that show. But they – but, and, and Jodie is extremely funky and experimental with fashion, so anybody who is looking for a good time, look up pictures of her.

Sarah: I always ask this question: what books are you reading right now that you want to talk to people about, and if there isn’t a book that you’re reading – ‘cause it is fashion season – if there’s a piece of pop culture that you’re obsessed with, please bring that too!

Jessica: Okay, I have two items to discuss.

Sarah: Please!

Jessica: One is pop culture, and one is a book. First, you said earlier in the conversation that you love gossip about people you don’t know. Do you listen to the podcast Normal Gossip?

Sarah: I do! I do indeed!

Jessica: I mean, I just feel like if you like gossip about random people you don’t know doing dumb shit to each other, Normal Gossip is a delight.

Sarah: It is amazing.

Jessica: I have this in mind because it’s coming back pretty soon.

But for my book I’m going to recommend our friend Amy Spalding has her first women’s contemporary novel out now, called For Her Consideration. It is very award-season-appropriate. It is about a woman who falls in love with a, an actress, who I imagined the entire time I was reading the book as Kristen Stewart. So this is all very apt for our conversation. It is delightful queer romance set in LA. It has a lot of brunch scenes in it, so if you like brunch you’re going to like this.

Heather: Yeah. [Laughs]

Jessica: Little person dating famous person, you’re going to like it. It is just delightful, and I recommend it.

But it’s also, like, very entertainingly specific about a very unusual Hollywood job? The protagonist’s job is, she is like a, a, she works for, like, a PR person, and her job is to communicate via email as the celebrity. She, like, runs the celebrity’s email for them, so they don’t have to do their own email. And she, but she has to write as if she is them? And obviously then she, like, falls in love with one of those celebrities.

It’s very specific, which I think, you know, specificity is the mark of a good piece of fiction in my mind, and it is, so it’s like really fun behind the scenes stuff. It’s just delightful. It’s set in LA; like, it’s got a great friend group; there’s a sassy cat in it; so, like, it’s fun.

Heather: Also apt for our conversation, except for the murder part, is, so I’ve been, there are two series right now that I tend to snap up as soon as they come out. One of them is the Thursday Murder Club book series by Richard Osman, which is not a surprising recommendation, I’m sure, everyone, but it, if you haven’t heard of it, they are, it’s set at a, again, old folks community in England, and it’s this group of seventy- and eighty-year-old people who, their hobby was solving cold cases, but obviously then real murders find them, but, like, the backstory of the personalities of each of the characters are so beautifully done. Like, I read it, I read it with extreme envy every time –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Heather: – because I’m like, I wish I had thought of this, and yet I also know I wouldn’t have done as good a job of this. I’m glad you thought of it first, sir. The author, one of my favorite game shows in England is this game show called Pointless, and the author was on that and so was also, that was a fun discovery for me. But I thought of it – [laughs] – with us because we were talking about being in the blogger old folks home, and that’s kind of what I hope our blogger old folks home experience will be, which will, will be solving capers and being sassy, so I’m looking forward to that.

And then Jessica just told me today that, I think that Deanna Raybourn has another Veronica Speedwell –

Sarah: Yep!

Heather: – book coming out, and I forgot they usually come out in March.

Sarah: Yep!

Heather: And that’s another one that I, I get immediately, and those are, that’s a, you know, sassy Victorian lepidopterist, which I only know that word because of her, thank you!

Sarah: Yep!

Heather: And, like, sexually liberated in Victorian England solving murders most foul. They’re wonderful.

And apparently I’m really into murder right now, you guys, because the other thing that we’ve been watching is Poker Face on Peacock.

Sarah: Oh my God, it’s so good.

Heather: It’s so good! It’s the, it’s like the Columbo-style series from –

Sarah: Murder of the week. Yeah.

Heather: – from Rian Johnson, who did Glass Onion? It’s, it’s, it’s really good, and, like, I have learned about myself since Russian Doll that I find Natasha Lyonne incredibly compulsively watchable? Because she just has, she is so good at making all of that dialogue sound like stuff that’s just rolling out of her mouth.

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: She’s so natural, and the guest casting on Poker Face every week is always excellent.

Sarah: It’s like God-tier Hey, it’s that guy, right?

Heather: It’s excellent. They, I, we just watched the episode with Ellen Barkin, Tim Meadows, and Jameela Jamil –

Sarah: As you do.

Heather: – and it was, it was pretty sublime. But they’ve all been good. I think my favorite one might have been the barbecue pit one with Lil Rel, Lil Rel Howery? Anyway, I highly recommend that if you, if you – if you don’t like Natasha Lyonne, don’t watch it, ‘cause you’re not going to like it, but, like, I, I find her delivery so dry and funny and natural, and I cannot recommend it enough, so good for Peacock! I do not know how Netflix didn’t get this, because they have the Glass Onion Knives Out series. I don’t know what happened, but they have to be kicking themselves right now.

Sarah: I have a recommendation for you if you – and you can watch it with subtitles or you can watch it dubbed? Netflix has a Polish series called The Green Glove Gang? It is about a bunch of older women who are burglars, and they get found out, and so they hide out in an old folks home because they, they, no one will look for them there. And then it turns out things are strange and not good inside the old folks home, so they have to figure out what’s going on, and there’s a lot of hints to the fact that, you know, green gloves, Robin Hood, what are they doing with their burglary, you know –

Heather: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – ill-gotten gains? But it is – if you’ve read Deanna Raybourn’s Killers of a Certain Age –

Jessica: Yes!

Sarah: – it’s a very –

Jessica: I was just going to bring that up.

Sarah: It’s just, it’s a very similar vibe, and it’s so, so fun. I struggle sometimes with, with subtitles because I have to, like, read and then look and read and look, so I don’t ingest them –

Heather: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – like, I can’t, like, binge this, but it’s so good, and it holds up as you’re watching it. It’s so good.

Jessica: I was –

Heather: I would love to try that.

Jessica: Yeah.

Heather: Jessica and I always talk about TV in terms of shows that are like half an eye or one, we call them one-eye shows?

Sarah: Yes!

Heather: Which are the ones that you have on in the background and you’re working and you look up, like Days of Our Lives would be a great example. But, like, I watched, I got sucked into, during the pandemic, when I wanted TV comfort food, I got sucked into all the – well, not all of them – I got sucked into Chicago Fire and Chicago PD, and those are like my one-eye shows. I do not have to focus on these shows, and it’s a good thing. It’s like, I can work while at night, and I’m looking, and I’m like, Oh, that sucks! Oh, okay. Oh, that’s heartwarming. But I don’t have to give it my full attention.

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: But we’ve been talking a lot about work-life balance, and I think I need more two-eye shows for my work-life balance, because it actually encourages me to schedule myself better so that I can sit down and actually fully enjoy the thing that I want to watch? And that show sounds perfect.

Sarah: Yeah. It’s, it’s a show that you want to engage with with your whole brain.

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: You want to be present –

Heather: The Americans was another show, not a subtitled show, but that is fully a show where I was like, I need to – like, it took us forever to get through it ‘cause I was like, We both need to be one hundred percent –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: – staring at the TV at all times.

Sarah: that show freaked me out because it was based on a couple who lived about two blocks from me in Montclair, New Jersey, when I lived there.

Jessica: Oh, really?

Sarah: Yeah, the actual Russian spies who lived in a house and then got, like, just disappeared? That was about two blocks from my house where I lived in New Jersey, before I moved to Maryland –

Heather: Oh, that’s cool!

Sarah: – and I was like, holy crap, there’s a whole TV show about them? Oh my gosh!

Jessica: Fun fact!

Sarah: It was wild, so wild.

Please tell people –

Heather: Wow.

Sarah: – where they can find you; what’s your Substack; where, where, where should we find you on the internet? Not in person; that’s creepy.

Jessica: It is.

Heather: [Laughs]

Jessica: Um –

Heather: Okay, I’ll start, and Jessica can do the Substack. I’ll start with the website, which is gofugyourself.com. It’s a G; hit that G! F-U-G! And then you can find us on Instagram and, and still Twitter, but, like –

Jessica: Meh.

Heather: – what is Twitter anymore? And our handle on both is @fuggirls, so F-U-G-G-I-R-L-S. So we are in both of those places, but thrillingly, we are also somewhere else! Jess, where are we?

Jessica: Our Substack is called Drinks with Broads, B-R-O-A-D-S, ‘cause we’re all –

Sarah: Such a great name. Such a good name!

Jessica: One of the things that transitioned from being girls to being broads, and then later our joke is that we’re going to be hags or crones, who knows.

Heather: Right.

Jessica: Both.

Heather: Something.

Jessica: But yeah, so Drinks with Broads is our Substack; we would love to see you there. We have two issues a week. We talk about random shit, as we have said, but mostly, like, pop culture stuff. I don’t think either one of us is going to be writing like an impassioned treatise about Putin or something. I mean, who knows? But that seems unlikely. It’s mostly celebs, movies, TV, kooky stuff like that. And it’s really fun, so come on by!

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. I want to say a deep, deep thank-you to Jessica and Heather for hanging out with me and talking business and blogging and fashion and celebrity and trends and weirdness, and I also subscribe to their Substack, and it’s pretty fabulous. I love reading it.

I will have links to all of those things, plus the books we discussed in the episode at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

And I always end each episode with a terrible joke; this week is no different. This joke comes from Josephine in our Discord. Thank you, Josephine!

What do cows read in the morning?

Give up? What do cows read in the morning?

The mooooos-paper.

[Laughs] Ah, speaking of contracting media. The mooos-paper! Thank you, Josephine!

On behalf of everyone here, including Wilbur and Katie, who are right next to my microphone, and Katie is growling at him – he’s not even doing anything! Just chill out! – On behalf of all the mammals in my office, including myself, have a wonderful weekend. We hope you have a fantastic book to read, and we will see you back here next week!

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

Moooos-paper! [Laughs]

[end of music]