Helloooooo,
Another week, another opportunity for me to ask you to share my newsletter with people you like or do not like, respect or do not respect. It doesn’t matter to me!
🌝 SWEETIE RATES 🌝
Michael Imperioli X Architectural Digest
I know, I’m late, every millennial and their mother is already obsessed with this AD feature of Michael and Victoria Imperioli’s lavish New York home. But now it’s my turn, mmkay?
This place screams LUXURY. It screams DECADENCE. It screams ITALIAN. White and grey McMansions have been pronounced DEAD. Why in the video tour did Michael Imperioli say American Dad is his favourite TV SHOW?
This home is like a museum you wouldn’t feel weird living in. They lost me at the kitchen, but I adore everything else so much that I am willing to look past that black-and-white-forest-fever dream. I love it when people hold onto sentimental things. I love it when people’s homes have personalities. I love it when rich people are rich in an aesthetically HUGE way, instead of a tidy and bland way.
There are also so many fascinating tidbits that Michael throws out willy-nilly during the tour. He teaches weekly meditation classes, he loves to steal, and I cannot stress enough that he says that his favourite TV show is American Dad (???).
My sweet Lord, when is it my turn?
God Sent Me Here To Rock You by Naomi Elizabeth
I’m currently on a half-hearted journey to expand my taste in music. I used to love seeking out unfamiliar artists and genres but now I am old and need to listen to Lapdance by N.E.R.D every morning or I feel unbalanced.
I gave my Spotify Discover Weekly a rare whirl this week, and what do you know, they’ve actually bloody done it for once. They’ve served me a flawless listening experience on a silver platter. God Sent Me Here To Rock You by Naomi Elizabeth sounds like someone mixed Gary Wilson with Kim Petras and threw in a little Girl Talk for ambience. I may even go ahead and certify it as a ‘bop’.
It’s difficult to tell how seriously Naomi takes her music endeavours. Her social media presence falls under the If-You-Think-I’m-Being-Serious-I’m-Joking-If-You-Think-I’m-Joking-I’m-Being-Serious umbrella of post-ironic social media posting. In fact, to analyse the meaning behind her online presence would just lend itself to embarrassment. She is a funny enigma and she made a great song. It’s enough for me. I hope she makes more.
Wholesome Podcasts
I have been trying to fix my life. Not a big deal, easy to do, I think.
How to Build a Happy Life by The Atlantic is helping me get on track, and, on a pleasing note, it is surprisingly a lot less cringe than it sounds. In each episode, the hosts talk to experts who elucidate on different topics — whether it be through navigating difficult parental relationships, moving past regret or making new friends as an adult.
At the end of the episode, you’re left with actual, usable pieces of information to better inform your life experiences and how you process them. Sometimes the advice is obvious, sometimes a new suggestion will hit you like a freight train.
I don’t even have a sarcastic aside or pithy remark to make. It’s just a neat podcast. I am learning AND I am growing AND I am smarter.
Side note, does anyone else distinctly remember growing up and absorbing the cultural distaste for the concept of ‘self-help’? What the hell was that about? No wonder the boomer generation is littered with so many emotionally-inept meanies.
😧 SWEETIE HATES 😧
BeReal
I deleted the BeReal app from my phone this past week, and I do not miss it in the slightest. At no point did I even really think about it, or miss using it, or consider re-downloading it, or even wonder what kind of content my friends were posting in my absence.
That’s not a diss to my friends, who of course consistently make stunning and iconic BeReals, but it’s a diss to the app itself. What felt like a promising platform is just boring… BoRing… Bore-Real…? Give me a second. I’ll find the pun eventually.
Anyway, the premise of the app was solid! In case you’re unaware, everybody with BeReal gets a push notification at the same time. You then have two minutes (there’s a countdown timer in the app) to take a photo from your front and back camera. Once posted, it shows your posting location, and how many tries you took to get it right. It’s all about authenticity. As the BeReal site says, “A new and unique way to discover who your friends really are in their daily life.”
To me though, the great arbiter of everything, unless you and your friends are posting on time, it’s almost not worth keeping up at all. The magic is gone. Sure, you can post late, though it sends a push notification to your friends alerting them of your tardiness. But, like, you posted 13 hours late and you look gorgeous and you’re out with your friends having an incredible night on the town? Spare me. That is not being real. Save it for Instagram stories, or, if you’re 14, Snapchat.
It’s transparency without teeth. You cannot use technology to solve an inherently human problem — artifice and the necessity to perform your life online did not come merely from the existence of algorithms, it came from the people who use the apps, from the human desire to present your best face, no matter if it's authentic, and be rewarded for it.
As a social media platform, BeReal is a capitalist shoo-in, an easy step for many of us ardent social media users to effortlessly churn out more content — another post, another glimpse into our lives, another reaction, another way to be something that represents what our confirmation bias most hopes to be. I don’t know that it’s worth redownloading the app.
Eczema
I’m not above admitting I have eczema right now and I hate it and I hate my life because of it. Arrest me then, why don’t you!
I have done double-duty winters, southern and northern B2B, and my skin is FREAKING OUT. I think the worst thing about having sensitive skin is that there is no way of making it sexy. There is no body-positivity movement for lesions or rashes of any kind. Isn’t that sickening?
If Bella Hadid or Devon Lee Carson had eczema then the TikTok girlies would be using Dior Backstage Rosy Glow to smudge on splotches, but no, it appears their bodys’ capacity to handle irritation is higher than mine. I’ll never be an it-girl.
Whatever the hell this is
Imagine wanting the attention of a hugely famous celebrity so bad you use a national column to excuse their incredibly off-putting behaviour. In the most inelegant of ways, this… whatever this is, clearly falls under the category of “I hope she sees this, bro.”
Why is Stuart Heritage writing an analysis/defence of actress Eva Green’s WhatsApp messages in the first place? Great question. Eva Green is currently embroiled in a lawsuit. Here are the boring reasons why:
In 2019 Eva Green was signed onto A Patriot, a low-budget science fiction movie
The film was never made
Eva Green then sued the producers for her £830,000 fee
The producers countersued, alleging sabotage on Green’s behalf
She has denied this allegation
Her WhatsApp messages were then subpoenaed and read aloud in court
These messages have shown her calling various members of production “(a) devious sociopath”, “mad man”, a “f***ing moron”, “evil” and “arseholes.”
She called crew members “Shitty peasants”
I’d hazard a guess that most people who saw these WhatsApp messages thought, “Huh, what kind of unpleasant person calls the production staff, the people who work so incredibly hard, for longer hours and for fathoms less money, ‘shitty peasant crew members?’ That actually reflects very poorly on someone’s character.”
Not Stuart! Stuart waxed lyrical about this exchange thusly:
Seriously. It is 2023. When was the last time you heard anyone at all unironically refer to other people as “peasants”? It doesn’t happen. Even the people who might think of other people as peasants are wise enough not to actually say it out loud, because they know how colossally out of touch they’ll sound.
Not Eva Green, though. She’s haughty and imperious. She knows exactly where she stands in the world, and she would rather die than hang around with the likes of us. Her contempt is tangible and, really, isn’t that exactly what we want in a movie star? Don’t we all, deep down, aspire to be so insulated and untouchable that we can call people arseholes and morons and vomit in text messages? Don’t we want our children to be so well paid that they can toss around the word “peasant” with abandon, and somehow have it reinforce their personal brand?
Stuart. Buddy. Look me in the eyes right now. Seriously. It is 2023. When did this seem like the right period of time to defend a rich and famous person against calling the people who do quite literally all of the labour for them “shitty peasants?” It’s ok because she’s “haughty and imperious?” Those are some $5 words to describe someone sounding “vapid” and “delusional.”
Not for nothing, Stu Stu my love, but I’d rather eat glass than birth a little demon that hasn’t an ounce of class consciousness.
But she’s allowed to be rude! Why? Because she… doesn’t do press?
Green has preferred to let her work speak on behalf of her. She is an enigma, an image on a screen upon which we can project our own feelings.
And boy oh boy are some of us (one very specific person) projecting something onto her! And it’s making the rest of us feel weird! Buddy. Just DM her. This is the journalistic equivalent of posting a Facebook status saying “So lonely. Wish I had someone to love.” He’s about as subtle in his desires as Duckie Dale.
To be honest, I don’t care so much about Eva Green and her inane texts. But I am baffled as to what she has done to inspire this defensive call to arms, not only by our friend Stuart, but also via this tepid take published by British Vogue. The chokehold Eva Green has on British journalists will be studied.
Ciao for nowskies, stay cute, stay fun, stay fresh!