SPECIAL EP: Leftist Teen Drama In Conversation with Colette Shade

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey. I'm Maria. I work at a labor union by day and write and watch too much TV by night. I like to say I've been firmly in The CW's clutches since it was The WB. As the great Seth Cohen on The OC once said about the fictional teen drama, The Valley, TV teen dramas are mind numbing escapism.

(00:01):
They exist in a fantasy world where 20 something hot actors are usually cosplaying high schoolers in melodramatic depictions of adolescents. But that's honestly why I love teen dramas so much. I love the tropes and the ships and the not at all subtle product placement. I love the early offs theme songs and the cameo performances by pop punk bands. I love the newer generation of shows that are more diverse and representative of the vastness of teenage girldom.
And I especially love the moments when TV teen dramas get political. You guys, we can organize, stand together, speak with one voice. Karl Marx has come alive for me today. Now it just seems so obviously wrong that those who control capital should make their fortunes off the labor of the working class. Well, since you've fired us, you've given us plenty of time to pick in.
Workers of the world, you're not profiting. Long live the revolution. Welcome to another episode of Lustrous Teen Drama. This is actually gonna be our 2nd time doing a special episode where we talk with a writer of a body of work that is relevant to our podcast. We did this in 2023 for the first time with our now recurring guest, Kelly Diaz, and her dissertation that we were featured in about youth political activism on television, which is basically what our podcast is about.
Today, we're talking to Colette Schade. This is our last recording of 2024, but our first episode of 2025. By the time that this, you know, airs, Colette's book, Y2K, will have released. I just wanted to first of all congratulate you on the release of your book. Yeah.
Why don't you introduce yourself and how you came to find your way to love justine drama and, yeah, your book and such. Yeah. Hi, Maria. My name's Colette. I'm a writer of essays and cultural criticism.
And, yeah, I don't know. I I don't know how I found you online. I think I think my algorithm just knows that I like stuff that's related to y two k pop culture and then also stuff that's related to labor. And I was really excited because I was like, oh my gosh. You're interested in both, and you have a question about both.
I I have to come on. Absolutely. Is this your first book, I'm assuming? Or This is my first book. Yeah.
Awesome. And so prior to this, I'm assuming you've written in just various publications and such? Or Yeah. Various publications. Cool.
Cool. Let's, like first of all, what we usually do on this show, which I always still think is kind of fun to do on special episodes, is to talk about our relationships to teen dramas. Usually, we'll talk about our relationship to whatever show we're talking about that day. But in this case, since we're talking about just y2kholster in general, and we both grew up in the y2k era, obviously, art opinions of teen dramas are very much shaped by y2k teen dramas. I figured, yeah.
Like, what is your relationship to teen dramas? Did you grow up watching them? Were there any that were, like, your favorites? Yeah. All that good stuff.
Yeah. So I was more of a VH 1 kind of pseudo documentary. I love the eighties. I love the nineties. Yeah.
Person, the fabulous life. Basically, any cheaply made kind of reality pseudo documentary content, I loved it. I did watch Degrassi, so that is a teen drama. But then when I was an adult, meaning, like, just a few years ago, I got really for a while. I got really into y two k pop culture, which ultimately led me to write this book.
And I really like, for example, Dawson's Creek. I don't know. I love everything about it. I only made it through the first three seasons, so maybe I'm not, like, a hardcore fan. But I don't know.
I just I think the dialogue's really smart, and it's very postmodern in a sense that it's very aware of the tropes of teen dramas and horror and and teen movies. And, yeah, it's just it's just funny. It's self aware. The costumes and makeup are amazing. Yeah.
And it's just a nice escape. So yeah. Awesome. Yeah. We've covered Dawson's Creek on the pod.
I think that was something you would have gotten to because you've it was in the 3rd season, which I've said on this show many times that I think season 3 and, like, the slow burn, Pacey and Joey arc is probably one of the, like, best seasons of teen TV. And we talked about an episode where Joey leads a protest movement, yeah, which is you know, we often have our teen lead girl characters, like, finding themselves through activism, which is a really interesting thing to talk about in relation to, like, everything in your book and, like, what the politics of the y two k era were actually like, which is, like, very messy, I would say. Yeah. I mean, I think the other thing that I remember, and this is not teen drama or y two ks, this is this predates that. But there's, like, the classic Jessie Spano plot lines on Saved by the Bell where she was involved in various causes.
Yeah. Yeah. Saved by the Bell is actually a show we're hoping to tackle in 2025. That's a little bit pre y two ks, but that's okay. Still something that the nineties kids love.
Mhmm. Because it's interesting. I feel like it's, like, nineties kids became y two k, like, kids and teenagers. And then, like, also young millennials like myself are more like nineties babies, y2k kids. Yeah.
Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. But, yeah, teen dramas obviously are my love.
So for me, like, when it comes to y2k teen dramas, like, I absolutely grew up on, like, The OC and a little bit of One Tree Hill. Gilmore Girls was my, like, love of my life. My my sister and I used to watch it on Tuesday nights in the WB. My mom let us watch it if we went to CCD. It was the same thing.
What's CCD? What's CCD? What's that? It's like Catholic, after school, like, catechism class that we Got it. Okay.

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Okay. Fair. Yeah. Anyway, Dawson's Creek is obviously, like, just the perfect teen drama of the era that you talk about in the book. So Hi, Vinny.
Aw, kid friend. Yeah. So let's get into your book. How did you end up, like, writing the book? And, like, you just wanna give an overview of what it's about before we get into it more and I can get into my impressions too, and then we can get into individual essays.
Yeah. So around 2018 and a few a few years after and still really, but starting in 2018, I got really into y two k era nostalgia, whether that's watching Dawson's Creek, rewatching Sex and the City for the 3rd time or 4th time, watching You've Got Mail a bunch of times, listening only to songs that were hits during the years 1997 through 2003. I just sort of fell down this nostalgia rabbit hole, and I was spending so much time just consuming pop culture, scrolling through these Instagram accounts that showed, like, fashion magazine and teen magazine pages from the late nineties and the early 2000, which was when I was in so I was born 1988. And so this is, like, late elementary, like, 4th, 5th grade, then middle school, and, like, early high school. Yeah.
I don't know. I was just obsessed with this stuff, and I had an agent because I tried to write a couple other books and get deals for them and just neither of them ever worked out. And my agent was like, well, what do you like? And I was like, well, I spend all my time researching y two ks or nostalgia. Is there any way we can turn that into a book?
And he's like, yeah. They're actually his. So that's how that's where my book comes from. That's awesome. I felt very fancy having a galley of your book, by the way.
I'm glad I could provide that for you. Absolutely. So I was able to read it. You know, we're recording this before the book comes out, just a little shortly before it comes out. And I thought it was so, like, oh my god.
Like, somebody who, you know, as a kid in the y 2k era, did a very good job of, like, painting the picture where there was especially for someone who actually lived it, or it really felt like you were taking me back to, like, driving around suburban New Jersey in, like, 2,005 or whatever. You know? Like Yeah. Yeah. No.
Totally. Right. Like, I grew up in Northern Virginia, which, like, inner beltway, inner ring suburb Northern Virginia, which is very, very similar to Northern New Jersey. And then for 4 years for high school, Baltimore, but, like, suburban Baltimore. Right.
So yeah. Yeah. Sounds like we had very similar experiences. Exactly. Yeah.
Exactly. Like, we grew up yeah. I grew up in the suburbs of New York City, but in New Jersey. So, yeah, absolutely. Being in, like, the suburbs of an urban center, it's definitely a specific vibe.
And especially in that era, it was a specific vibe. Yeah. And I feel like I feel like there is a lot of targeting, which I do talk about in the book, and we can get into later. But I feel like there's a lot well, there's certainly a lot of targeting of teens that was unprecedented in terms of marketing. But I feel like there was specifically a lot of targeting of suburban teens.
But maybe I just think that because I was a suburban teen. Oh, totally. I felt that too. So it's possible we both felt we were the center of the universe because Oh, yeah. That's true.
It's also possible that, like, you know, that was kind of what the ideal center of the universe was to the culture at that time, you know? Yeah. I think that's true. Yeah. I think that's absolutely true.
But yeah. So it's a really cool book, y'all. My biggest recommendation is that you pause, read the book, and then come back and listen to us talk about it. But if that's not possible for you, you should buy it after you finish listening to this podcast episode. And there is there is a really good audio book with a really, really great narrator.
So you can also go on Audible and listen to that. That might even be better, especially if you're more of an audio book person than a than like a book book person. Totally. And no judgment. I mean, in any way that someone wants to read, you do that.
That's awesome. I do both. So I I do it depends on Sure. You know, what I'm doing at the time. That's yeah.
Totally makes sense. Yeah. I'm a big podcast listener. I haven't made the, like, leap to audiobooks, but I am trying to read more in the New Year, so I need to open my mind to the possibility. What I think is really cool also is that, like, you know, obviously, as you said, like, politics and, like, you know, teen culture are largely what your book is about.
So it's a perfect marriage of topics for our podcast. And so what I think is really cool is that, like, throughout the different topics you touch on throughout your essays, there are so many topics we've already talked about in this podcast that you touched on. So I'm excited to get into it a little more. So just to ground our conversation from the introduction, you did define what y two k means, which, honestly, y two k has come back so much that I think some people actually do need a reminder of what it actually means. They do.
Right. People are saying y two k. Oh, god. Actually, I have to tell you something that happened. I went to a yoga class at a chain studio that will not be named.
Okay. But you can probably guess what it is. It's it's, you know, one of the big ones. But, they they had a y two k hot yoga class that had songs from, like, 2010, 2011. Get out of here.
No. And they didn't have anything from, like, before 5. No. That's that's just wrong. That's just wrong.

(00:43):
Yeah. I'm trying to set the record straight here. Absolutely. And actually and actually so when I first got the idea for this book and I was hanging out on all of these social media spaces where people are talking about y two k nostalgia, that's where I got the title because that was the term people were using. And I found it really interesting because they were talking about y two k as, well, specifically, like, the y 2k futuristic aesthetic with silver frosty eye shadow and, like, sleek white clothing, like new millennium vibes.
They were blending together stuff from about 1997 to about 2,003, but then I would see it get stretched to, like, mid to late 2000. So for the book, what I ended up deciding to do was to, you know, sort of arbitrarily, but not without reason, set the dates 1997 through 2008. And there are a couple of specific reasons for that. Well okay. So let's go backwards.
So in 1991, the Internet first goes live. Crazy. Like, the yeah. The first website drops in August 1991. And then, you know, there are, you know, a few more websites each year.
Then by 95, August 95, you have the first Internet public offering for a company's stock and the first IPO for a company called Netscape. And it really made a lot of money, and this began what was called the dotcom bubble, which was a huge historic inflation of stock values and also a gold rush to the Internet as a place where you could just you could make a lot of money. And so people were rushing in to found startups or invest in startups or work for startups. And this lasted from 1995 through 2000. And, really, it was around 1997 where it was really inflating, not only numerically, but it was actually starting to influence the culture.
Like, one of the things that I posit in the book is that a lot of our trends are a reflection of our subconscious and of bigger things that are happening in politics or the economy or technology. And so around 1997, you start seeing this really futuristic aesthetic with silver and white everything, blobby electronics. In 98, you get the the Imac, the clear Imac by Jony Ive, which is iconic. Absolutely. Everyone every every y two k kid wanted one if they didn't have one.
You get this this futuristic optimistic vibe that I argue is related and comes from this dotcombubble. And then the dotcombubble starts to deflate in 2000 spring of 2000 March 2000, and then is kind of finishes by, like, 2002. Then you have 911, and I can get into that later. That, changes things significantly. Absolutely.
But then but then in 2008, you have the great recession. And what I wanted to do was talk about this era that it coincides with my youth, but I think it's like okay. You could say when I was a kid and a teenager, I didn't really know about politics or have an interest in politics. And then the great recession happened, and that's kind of what made me into a political subject and made me interested in in politics and specifically in, like, leftist politics. Sure.
But I think that that's not just my own story. I think that that really is a generational story. And so for that reason, I set the bounds of y two k between these two bubbles. Because between these two bubbles, you kind of had this this sense, with some exceptions, of course, which we can talk about, this sense that, like, basically, political subjectivity didn't exist, and we are at the end of history. Even after 911, it was like, well, we're still at the end of history.
It just seems like something really bad happened. And that and, yeah, there's just this sense that, like, the only thing to do was to kind of sit back, hang out, go shopping, consume pop culture versus see yourself as active in various political struggles and particularly in labor struggles. Yeah. I definitely heard the concept of, like, the end of history before. But, like, it was something that, obviously, I just kinda, like, lived through.
Because I was born in 94, so I feel like I just, like, was born into the world where that was kind of, like, the way things were. And, like, when I think about the way that we were, like, taught history in that era, it truly does feel that way. Like, we were just, like I don't know. We barely even learned about, like, post, like, World War 2 very often. Right.
It's like stuff doesn't happen anymore. Exactly. But you wouldn't even get there. And the way it was taught was like, wow. Those people back in the olden days were crazy.
They were, like, having civil wars and owning slaves. Like, what? We're so smart and good now. Right. And, like, totally not like, I I feel like also the part of why they didn't wanna teach us much beyond that is because then it's, like, we start being very obviously the bad guys all over the world.
Oh. And it's like, well, we're we we don't need to talk about that. Like Yeah. Yeah. Just forget about all of those dirty wars in Yeah.
South and Central America. Exactly. I love reading this, and I just, like I feel like we are finally in a time where people are finally we're far enough away that we can actually, like, reflect on this era. And so it's really cool to see people reflecting on it. But, like, this is who I want to see reflecting on it is, like, other millennials.
Like, I'd I'm not really interested in, like, the boomer takes on Oh, god. Yeah. No. I'm not. Because it's like, like, I don't think you have to have lived through a time to have written about it because otherwise, historians wouldn't exist.
Oh, yeah. But it's like but, yeah, I think that there's something about coming of age during time that gives you a unique perspective. Yes. Exactly. And I'm very interested in this idea of, like, cohort analysis.
And I also just wanna say really quickly that this is a book of personal essays. This is not like an academic historical. It's Yes. It tells the story of my own life and my own coming of age through these different pop culture touchstones. And then through those pop culture touchstones, goes further to talk about what were the economic, political, and technological conditions at the time, and what can they tell us about where we are today?
And also, how can I see my own life within the context of history? Because I think we're taught to see memoir as, like, it's the story of me. But, like, yeah, it is. But guess what? We all live within history.
And I'm interested in memoir when it situates the person telling it as a product of their place and time, identity, whatever. I love the blend because I think that it I mean, obviously, being with it, like, close enough in age to you that a lot of the, like, maybe we were slightly different age, but I experienced a lot of the same things, like, as a childhood thing. It definitely, like, did exactly what I would think it would do if I were to think back on this time in my own life where it's like, this is the thing that happened to me, and this is how I thought as a kid. But then, like, I later learned all this other shit was happening that actually, like, kinda made my experience happen, but I wasn't even aware Exactly. Of it.
Like, I think of, like, specifically, the thing in, like, that I think the was the most shielded from my life. I was in 2nd grade when 9:11 happened, and I feel like I it took I was, again, a full, like, adult, probably in college. So I learned about, like, the anti Muslim, anti like, Islam backlash. So I did not know how intense it was. I didn't really have like, I grew up in a community with a lot of, like, black folks and white folks, but not a lot of, like, brown or Muslim folks.
And so, like, like, the fact that whole things like that could have been happening and I didn't even know was it's crazy. And that was what being a white suburban kid Yeah. Could be, was just like this all these things are happening that completely would be, like, the way that those people think about that era that I didn't even know was existing. Right. Or like, I mean, the middle school that I went to actually had a lot of Muslim students, but like, I still didn't know.

(01:04):
Like, you know what I mean? Like, I was just kind of living my life and thinking about, you know, what am I gonna wear tomorrow and Right. You know, is my crush gonna be there? Absolutely. So let's get into some individual essays.
I pulled out some of the ones that I thought were the most relevant to this pod. So the first one that we're gonna talk about is Global Village Crying Eagle. One of my favorite parts of this essay is the fact that you talked about the founding of United Students Against Sweatshops, which is Yeah. The organization I was in at the beginning of my labor movement experience. That's awesome.
Yeah. 2014 to 2016, I was organized into a campaign of our USAS chapter, and we did, like, both international solidarity stuff and stuff with our campus workers. Like, the first campaign I really worked on was supporting our food service workers unionizing. And so, yeah, this was a really interesting essay about, you know, globalization. I mean, maybe you interesting essay about, you know, globalization.
I mean, maybe you can sum it up however however you would wanna sum up this essay or what you're trying to get across in this essay, and then we can get into more specifics. Yeah. So the essay starts off with my mom and I having an argument about shopping, and I love I still love to shop. I still love clothes, fashion, makeup, anything like that. But, you know, I'm, you know, talking about shopping and my mom's like, well, you know, I read in this kind of progressive magazine that we should stop buying clothes that are from sweatshops.
And and then I sort of launched from that anecdote into talking about this teen marketing that was happening that our cohort was dealing with. I mean and this was unprecedented. So, basically, I go into depth talking about how there were these people called cool hunters. And I think this is sort of obviated now because of social media, and you can just kind of, like, follow people on social media. So okay.
So let's say you're, like, a consultant or someone who works for a corporation who's trying to market to teens. What you do is you follow people on social media, TikTok, etcetera, to see what is cool, but that didn't exist yet. Social media didn't exist. But what did exist, and this was something that was invented in the nineties, basically, and got big in the nineties, was this thing called cool hunting where corporations would pay these adults to hang out with teens and do these focus groups with teens and basically get a direct line into their head to figure out how to market to them. They would also, like, go hang out at the mall and, like, it's kinda creepy, actually.
Like, like, as we're saying it, it's creepy. Right. Like, they would hang out. They would be adults who would hang out at the mall watching teens, you know, for the purpose of stopping them and and if they like their outfits or thought their outfits seem trendy or could be kind of cutting edge, they would stop them and interview them and photograph them. You know, they have good beaches, skate parks.
Kinda weird when you think of that. Yeah. Definitely weird, but it reflects in some of the very weird storylines that actually show up in teen dramas. So it's tracks. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This was a big thing. And, you know, Cool Hunters were, because they were new and and very weird.
They're also they are written about, like, in the New Yorker. The New Yorker covered them. Naomi Klein wrote about them in her 1999 book, No Logo. There's a really good 2,001 documentary by Douglas Rushkoff that talks about them. But yeah.
So I talk about this this teen marketing machine that I was smack in the middle of and how I I was constantly in conflict with my mom who's, like, not only more like counterculture, anticonsumerist, but she also grew up overseas. She grew up in Afghanistan, Pakistan. So these are countries where at the time, even in, like, the sixties, you just couldn't consume in the way that you could in America. So basically, her relationship to consumerism is very different from mine. And so I talk about that.
And then I talk about the anti sweatshop movement, which really came out of, like I don't wanna say it came out of this, but it was sort of a reaction to this to a certain extent and a reaction to these broader trends of what was called globalization, which is kind of a confusing term because it can mean a bunch of different things. But in the nineties, when people talked about globalization, which was, to be clear, this was a shift that was happening in the eighties and then really accelerated into the nineties, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, you had this trend where companies that were centered in developed countries would shift their manufacturing, especially their clothing manufacturing, to countries that were less developed that had, like, weaker labor laws, weaker environmental laws because it was cheaper. So, like, Indonesia or China or, you know, Cambodia, any any number of of countries that were less developed than, like, the US or Western Europe, Canada. Something like a period that we talk about a lot in the labor movement because the reason that they wanted to move everything was because it was a heavily unionized industry in the US at that point.
The garment unions had a lot of power. And it's like, okay, well then, we're not gonna deal with them anymore. Yeah. It's like, hey, let's just go to this place where they don't have unions or, you know, the unions aren't as strong. Right.
You know, the the enforcement, like, they may have laws, but the enforcement for the laws isn't as good. Exactly. It's interesting how it went from, like, you know, the people in the US being the ones being exploited to make our clothing. And then it's like, once they gained a foothold and not being exploited as intensely, it's okay. We're just gonna go exploit people in other countries for your Exactly.
Your clothing. Exactly. That was the backdrop of our lives, whether or not we knew it at the time when we, you know, like, went to, you know like, you say in the book when we went on a all over to the mall and shopped at Limited 2. And, you know, there was not a thought in our mind of who had made those clothes. But, this was the backdrop of our lives that we didn't even know about.
Yeah. And so you had these activists who were so this also comes back to the the dawn of the Internet too Yeah. Because you had this new technology called email and, like, listserv. So you could be on these lists that were about topics of whatever your interest were. And so you had the growth of activism around this issue, you know, because there were big exposes throughout the nineties about labor abuses in these overseas sweatshops, and people were upset.
Like, they didn't want their clothes to be made, you know, by people who are working, like, 20 hours a day or who are kids or whatever. And so they connected on the Internet, and, eventually, this group, United Students Against Sweatshops, emerged. And I think I know a couple of the people who were part of the founding of that. Because I remember I told one of my mentors that I was a USAA member, and they were like, oh, I was, like, there when we founded that. And I was like, oh, no big deal.
It's very cool. Obviously, that's something that has such a huge impact on me, has its roots in the nineties. It's really cool, and, like, it just feels like such a, like, quintessential millennial left, you know, organization that I'm proud to have been a part of. But, yeah, they're, like, we're over 2 I think you said in the book there are over 200 chapters. I'm not sure where they're at now.
I know it's probably fluctuated quite a bit here and there, but it's kinda cool how this organization has been through, like, you know, obviously, 98 and 2024, very different times and attitude toward unions, but it's been there the whole time, and that's really cool. I think that's cool too. And to be clear, like, I didn't really I was not involved in this group, and I wasn't even, like, really political until really college and after college. So yeah. So I was just it was sort of just this background thing because it would be on the news or, you know, my mom would read an article and be like, wow.
You know, really shouldn't support sweatshops. And I'd just be like, whatever. I don't I don't really care. Yep. No.
I think that if anything, in the era that we grew up in, being an activist was just, like, being annoying. Like, I that's truly what I felt. Like, I feel like characters who are activists were annoying, like Emma and Degrassi, for example. Exactly. Exactly.

(01:25):
It's about being shrill. It's about, like, being a wet blanket. It's about being, like, no. You actually, you know, this thing that you like that gives your life meaning and pleasure? Actually, you can't do that.
And you should, like, live an austere and boring life and be annoying and angry all the time. And it's like, well, one who wants that. Like, even now, I don't want that. But also, I don't think most people want that. But also, like, I think it was especially hard because the injustices that were happening were often not visible to people in a very direct way.
And I think that, like, what really got me political was the fact that I couldn't get a job after college. And I was like, what's happening? Like, this isn't fair. And, you know, I hate to say it. I it's not to say, you know, people are all selfish or self interested.
But I do think that when you have a personal stake in something, you're more likely to kind of change your mind, particularly in the late nineties at the height of the dotcom bubble and especially before 911, people were like, things are great. Like, let me enjoy my life. They didn't have a a thing that was causing them a a problem that would prompt them to become political. And so people who were politically engaged just felt like they're trying to reign on this beautiful picnic everyone is having. Exactly.
And it was just very interesting to grow up in that time when it was like, things are great and they keep getting better. And, like, the idea was like, they're just gonna keep getting better. Like, we had Yes. You know? And so that that's why baby boomers thought that we as millennials would also do better than them the way that they had.
I know. And of course, obviously no. Because all of us were sold that and Yeah. Are living in the dumpster fire that is now. And so Yep.
So, yeah. I think you just captured that whole that whole dynamic very well in the book. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.
Thank you. But, yeah. That that essay also talks about, like, the the kind of culmination in a sense of the sweatshop movement. Not directly, but they were kind of related and overlapping, was the 1999 Seattle protests Right. Which was a huge story at the time.
Because again, remember, everybody was like, everything's gonna get better and better. Everything's great. And then there's this meeting that most people outside of labor people and activists and and then, like, economics and business nerds hadn't heard of. And it's this big global conference in Seattle setting various trade rules globally. And then suddenly, tens of thousands of people show up, and there are, like, protest parades and Yeah.
And protest performances. And then also, you know, small number of people start flipping out and, like, smashing windows and setting fires. And then the police crack down with tear gas and mass arrests, and it just gets really chaotic for basically, the city's, like, burning and under a state of emergency in clouds of tear gas for 3 days. And this gets broadcast to a global audience who's like, what? What is going on?
And this was kind of this culmination. And at the time, I thought it was all very strange because, again, I didn't really understand what people were so upset about. But at least part of what they are upset about was the fact that they said, okay. Well, some of these rules facilitate sweatshops or facilitate, you know, things that we feel are not fair. Yeah.
And I think when I when I first learned about that protest, I was like, wow. I definitely had zero awareness of this until I was like an adult. Because you're obviously in, like, 9 what was that? 99, you said? 99.
It was November 99, like, right before the turn of the millennium. Yep. But yeah. It's definitely a period that, you know, obviously, like we said, your your book definitely, like if you were younger like me in that era, you are gonna maybe learn about a couple things that you happened peripherally. But I do, like, want to read more about the protest movements of, like, that era because I feel like it's all stuff that I kinda missed being the 94 movie.
What I would recommend what I would do is I did write I did write a piece for The Nation about the 25th anniversary of the protest and sort of what it may have meant, which is like I don't know. I'm not to get too sidetracked, but it's like, I'm I'm ambivalent, but like but but I, you know, I wrote this kind of long piece and I talked to some of the people who are involved in some of the nonviolent actions. And also, I recommend reading Naomi Klein's book, No Logo, because the whole book is about, like, the anti sweatshop movement and anti consumerist movement and, you know, parts of it. A book from 25 years ago is not gonna, you know, be perfectly relevant today, but there are but it's actually I read it to research this book, to research Totally. DK, and I was actually shocked by how much of it actually was still pretty relevant or prescient.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. So then, like, the other thing about this chapter that we talked about a little bit that I think is cool, like, some of the numbers are really interesting was, like, the fact that, millennials were the largest cohort of teenagers ever at the time. Is it still the case or have we I don't know.
It must be. Right? I I don't know because I mean, yeah. I I'm not really sure if that's still the case. And, also, again, this was, like, snapshot number at the time.
Totally. The source of the source of that was was a PBS documentary from 2,001. So that was probably just, like, the snap shot of the time. I mean, millennials today, obviously, like, not all the millennials today, unfortunately, who are alive then are alive today. Yeah.
I don't know. Sorry. It's kinda depressing. No. It's true.
It's very true. But anyway, the way that, like, we were being marketed to was as the largest cohort of teenagers. Exactly. Right. Like, basically because what happened was the baby boom was the largest cohort ever, and our parents, for the most part, were baby boomers.
And so we were called, like, the baby boom lit. And so it was like, woah, baby boomers are now having kids. Oh, my god. They're it's they're making even more kids than the baby boomers. We can really market to them.
Yes. You had a quote from a television marketing executive, which is obviously very relevant to our podcast that teens run today's economy. Yes. And you also see that in, like, the teen dramas of the time always had, like, insane product placement. Yeah.

(01:46):
Absolutely. And the movies yeah. Like, I mean okay. So to go back to Dawson's Creek Yeah. You know about the Dawson's Creek J Crew, the J Crew catalog where they did J Crew did all the costumes for Dawson's Creek for the season.
Yeah. I think it's it maybe was also for the second, but I think it was just the first. Okay. And then J. Crew did at least one catalog with the whole cast.
I could see that. Wow. I love that stuff. You know, I'm the kind of person who gets eBay alerts that, like, the teen 2003 magazine I was looking at for the OC cast has gone down in price. So Yeah.
Yeah. Right. From, like, 500 to 4 yeah. Yeah. I have a $150 wired magazine from 1997.
So Amazing. Something that's been talked about our whole lives that you've touched on in this essay is how many advertisements we, like, were exposed to at all times, which I think the quote here says over 3,000 discreet advertisements in a single day, and 10,000,000 by the time they're 18. And it's like, that's only gotten crazier with social media. Totally. Right.
You have to remember and I think it's so important to remind even people who like us who live through it, but especially people who are younger, that this is pre smartphones. Yep. And it's also this was from 2001. I mean, this was also pre wireless Internet for the most part. And so if you wanted to go on the Internet, you had to, like, dial up and it was like you had to just, like, sit there.
And it was this very kind of contained thing, not you couldn't just be, like, scrolling on the toilet, like, or while you're driving. So, basically, like, the way that you would get ads was from TV, movies, magazines, and then in a contained way, the Internet. So, yeah, it just felt less build I mean, you know, like, billboards, buses, signs. But it would yeah. It just it was less I think today with social media, it's just so much more intense.
Absolutely. It feels now like I don't know how to say this, but, like, it doesn't feel it feels like teenagers are being marketed to as, like, adults almost now. Like, I don't know what like, I don't know who else to say it, but, like, it just feels like teenagers are, like, trying to be adults now in a way. Because I feel like it's all one Internet. Like, I feel like there was more like kid Internet in y two ks.
I think I know what you mean. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, we Yeah. Like, I feel like you're just you're just getting an Instagram account.
It's like a middle schooler or whatever. But, like, you're comparing yourselves to all the adults on Instagram. You're not necessarily comparing yourselves only to other kids. Right? So we were mostly, like, in more insular world where we were really just comparing ourselves to, like, you know, the cool older sister of your friend or something.
Yeah. Not like, you know, Kim Kardashian or whatever. No. Exactly. But although I I will say, like, I mean, I would compare myself to I read a which I talk about in the book.
Oh, yeah. I read I read a lot of fashion magazines, and I would always compare myself to the models, or I would compare myself to certain actresses. So I was absolutely comparing I think that, you know, I and plenty of other people were comparing themselves to celebs. Yeah. I think it's just intensified because you can see their personal lives in a way.
That's so true. Yeah. I guess No. That is. Yeah.
No. It is. We laid the foundation to what is now, for sure. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. I think it is worse now Yes. In terms of the intensity. But, yeah.
I don't know. I just think that there's something about, like, even the way that we would what's the word? Like, share and, like, create memories, like, on a digital camera, like, versus, you know, an immediate Instagram story. I don't know. It's like it feels like a little different, but so I think things have gone around before where it's like millennials using, like, you know, what's it called, that thing that was within the Mac, the photo booth app or whatever, making some ridiculous, like, dorky dance versus, like, the TikTok dances of today, where the people are, like, very heavily made up and, like, look perfect from whatever makeup tutorials they know.
I guess it's, like, has very much been my experience where I feel like I I was, like, just being a dorky kid, and I wasn't really thinking about, like, being cool on the level that it feels like kids are now. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think it's also just, like, the immediacy of it. Like, I think kids now and adults now are all also are just they're aware that everything's online and social on social media, so they feel like they always have to look like an editorial magazine shoot.
Not that, you know, some of us didn't spend a lot of time doing our hair and makeup in the y two k era, but that there wasn't this expectation that if you went to the movies with your friends, that that was gonna be on the Internet. Right. Like, being camera ready at all moments. Camera ready. That's what you know what it is.
Yeah. That's what it was. It was now it's the constant camera readiness. Exactly. And I think you touched on that at one point in the book where you talk about how, like, we're all almost like our own celebrities now, where, like, we all, you know, kind of, like, creating our, like, identity in our social media profiles, like, almost in the same way that a celebrity would have, like, curated their identity always.
No. Exactly. No. Exactly. Right.
Because there was, like, this hard line in that era. There is a a hard line between celebrities and the rest of us. Right. Exactly. They're just like us, but, like, not really.

(02:07):
But Yeah. But now we have to all act like we're celebrities. We have to constantly be, you know, do you know, and it can be fun sometimes, but it's I feel like more often than not, I find it to just be exhausting. Like, I don't want to have to constantly curate my Instagram profile or worry about how my makeup looks. I just wanna enjoy my life.
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And the other thing I love about this essay was you kind of talk about 911 and how 911, like, really changed the capacity to, like, express yourself politically in, like, an anti capitalist, anti government way, which, you know, I definitely experienced the effects of that growing up, but didn't realize I was experiencing it. You know, I think it's really interesting you talking about how even, like, you know, just like the the new cultural norms post 911 and what you were and were not allowed to say and what was considered polite and not polite.
Well, yeah. I mean, I think that a really useful thing here is what's called the Clear Channel memorandum. And so, also, just sort of a context technological note, this was 2001. Radio was still the main way that and, like, MTV, VH 1 were the main way people got music. There was no Spotify.
There was no streaming. There was no even iTunes, like, download your own thing. It was buy a bunch of really expensive CDs, and if you wanna hear music that is not in your expensive CD collection, you have to either turn on the radio or watch MTV or whatever. And so this is a very different marketplace than now where if you don't like something somewhere, you can just pick something else. So there's this company called Clear Channel that I believe is now Iheartradio, and they were one of the biggest owners of top radio stations and popular radio stations in local markets across America.
And they put out this memo after 911 that basically said that it didn't say you couldn't play the songs, but it basically strongly suggested that you shouldn't. And obviously, if your boss is like, I strongly suggest you don't do this, you're probably not gonna do it. And so some of the songs were, like, anything by Rage Against the Machine who had been, like, a chart topping award winning band. Like, even though they sang about really radical politics, even for the time radical, not just for the time, but, like, even now, like, explicitly radical, they were out because you couldn't have anything that was, like, critiquing the US government. Clear Channel didn't want anything that mentioned the word Tuesday because 9:11 happened on a Tuesday.
So you couldn't play the song Ruby Tuesday. Oh my god. They they didn't want anything that mentioned airplanes, so learn to fly by the Foo Fighters. Yeah. No more.
No no leaving on a jet plane, Benny and the Jets. Oh, also, I think my favorite one is they didn't want anything mentioning Egypt or the Middle East. So this song Walk Like an Egyptian by the Bangles wasn't was recommended. Wow. Amazing.
Just because it might Right up. Because it might upset people and remind them of 9:11. It might remind them of Arab people existing. Arabic people. Right.
Like this. Yeah. Uh-oh. I'm scared. Yeah.
Wow. Yeah. That and that, like, just really shaped the culture in a way that, like, really could never be, you know, quantified, I'm sure. But it's so interesting. And, like, obviously, you touched a little bit on, like, you know, the chicks and them being canceled, which I think is probably one of the most infamous of that cohort of, like, people who are speaking out against, like, the war after 911.
Yeah. So so they were called the Dixie Chicks at the time Right. You know, before going by the chicks. They were a huge breakout group, like pop country group in the late nineties, early 2000. Huge.
I think they just won, like, a bunch of Grammys or UGAMMY. And they're, like, at the height of their career. And then it's 2003. It's the lead up to the Iraq war. And Natalie Maines, the lead singer, says at a concert, a pretty mild comment.
She says, like, I'm ashamed, you know, to be from Texas when president Bush is from Texas. And for that, they basically they got, like, death threats. Radio stopped playing their music. There were mass burnings of Dixie Chicks CDs. 1 guy in, I think, Louisiana made a giant pile of Dixie Chicks CDs and then ran over them with his tractor.
So performative. It's so funny. Oh my god. And, like, that thing is that that is the exact same energy I still see in, like, the, like, evangelical rite. You know?
Like, it's so it's yeah. Yeah. Right. Like, it's always been a part of this suspense. Yes.
Yeah. But it's terrifying. But I think, like, what was different is that I feel like there always was that. Like, throughout the nineties, there's a very strong evangelical right, but there was there was a kind of kind of, like, I don't know, sort of, like, secular. I don't wanna say progressive, but, like, a a kind of pop culture sensibility that didn't really like to deal with that or or let that stuff fly.
And so I feel like there was kind of a resistance to it in the nineties. But then after 911, you immediately there's this really creepy expectation that everyone had to fall in line, which meant, like, not just, like, oh, you should be mourning, which obviously everybody was. But, like, you need to literally do and agree with whatever George w Bush, the president, says. And then also, there's this interesting undercurrent that is reflected if you look at a lot of headlines from the time where you had people like liberals and kind of centrists who are saying stuff like, hey, 911 marks the end of this decadent age of the nineties. And, yeah, it was very conservative and creepy.
You said, now that patriotism amounted to consumerism, any critiques of the economic system amounted to treason? And, like, I thought that was very well said because, like, it really was true. Like, I remember being taught what the economic systems were in high school and, like, them very much being like, capitalism is the correct one. And I feel like that was absolutely the attitude. And I'm sure it was the attitude before y two k because, you know, the United States and, like, you know, at least since Reagan, that's been the vibes.
But, like, I just think that the the falling in line, like, you know, capitalism, American exceptionalism was so everywhere at that time. And, like, I grew up in a very liberal town and still everybody had the American flag at me. No. It was insane. Yeah.
Insane. It was so crazy. It was, like, literally overnight, American flags everywhere. And not just in houses, but on your car, on your shirt. Like, you had to always have American flags everywhere.
Exactly. Actually, there's there's a really funny David CrossFit where he makes fun of that. But yeah. Yeah. And I think something that goes around every once in a while that is very funny or and, like, scary at the same time is, like, the Disney Channel The Disney Channel thing.

(02:28):
I what was it was like little, like, almost like commercial things they would do, like, in between in between shows for sure, but not quite a commercial, where it was yeah. Like, the different stars of the Disney Channel shows, like, talking about their, like, reflections on 2011. Yeah. Shia Labeouf. Talk yeah.
Exactly. It wasn't just stuff like, it's so sad that, you know, people were killed and we should have peace or we should help each other. No. Also, if you were like, peace is good, you were treasonous. That was the other thing.
Like, if you were like, yeah, this really shows that war is bad and peace is good, that made you, like, bad. It was all about, like, supporting supporting the troops, supporting the country. And because the thing that people said was not peace, but, like, patriotism. You have to be patriotic. And, also, George w Bush literally said that, like, basically, the best thing we can do to be patriotic was go to Disney World, which is insane.
Leaving aside the question of whether or not patriotism itself is a good virtue, you're basically saying that if you're unwilling or unable to go to Disney World, you're not patriotic. Yeah. It's funny how, like, the the US has really been like this. You know, like, it's just yeah. I don't remember the I didn't remember it being that, like, quiet part out loud back then.
But seriously, like, patriotism equals consumerism. Like, it's Yeah. Time this day. Yeah. And then I think you noted very rightly that there wasn't really no mass movement focused on economic concerns again until Occupy Wall Street in 20 11.
So, you know, the the whole, like, marrying of if it wasn't already married before, being American and being capitalist definitely, like, you know, remained throughout the whole y two k era. So I guess we'll move on now to Larry Summers' Cause My Eating Disorder, which is probably one of the best named essays in the book. I love it. Thank you. It's very, very evocative and also just makes so much sense once you read the essay.
So just this season on the podcast, we actually covered Everything Now, which is a 2023 British teen drama that, like, is completely about the main characters, like, anorexia recovery as a teenager. That's, like, very much a, like, 2023 depiction of what it's like to recover from an eating disorder. But I think that, like, you know, the y two k experience of having an eating disorder is very specific, and, like, you capture it really beautifully here. So do you maybe wanna, like, summarize a little bit, like, what this essay kind of captures? So I start the essay talking about this editorial that I loved from Vogue.
I think it was it was December 2003 with Natalia Vadyanova, who is a Russian supermodel and very, very slim blonde pale supermodel. And she plays Alice in Wonderland, and it's like a beautiful editorial. You can look up pictures of it. It's on the Vogue archives. And there's also a Vogue podcast about it that I listened to to research this essay.
But then I use that as a jumping off point to talk about my eating disorder when I was in 10th grade. So I guess I should go backwards. So when I was a kid, I was like, you know, kind of below average weight always. And then when I was, like, in middle school, I like, 8th grade, 9th grade, I think because I started, like, being more athletic. I'm not really sure.
It's not important to go into. But, basically, I became an average weight. And then when I was in 10th grade and it's not like I thought about this consciously. And I was like, I'm gonna go down the slippery slope of disordered eating. But when I was in 10th grade, I got this idea where I was like, you know what?
I wanna go on a diet. It started out just a very kind of not dangerous diet, just, you know, kind of very minor calorie restriction. But then it very quickly became, like, clinically dangerous calorie restriction and constant over exercise. Yeah. And then it sort of turned into, like, binging and purging, which is actually a really common trajectory because when you starve yourself, your body needs to replenish itself.
But then when you have this thing in your head about how eating is bad and morally wrong, then you have to get rid of it. And so it's just this it's terrible. And and, you know, and this went on for a couple of years for basically the remainder of high school and then, like, I think leaving leaving high school and getting a combination of kind of mental health help as well as just I don't know. Like, I talk about it in the essay, but kind of soul searching, I guess, that that sort of helped me to recover. But what I talk about, this isn't just about eating disorders because there are a lot of eating disorder memoirs, eating disorder personal essays.
I don't think it's particularly interesting to talk about. I felt at the time that a lot of the narratives around eating disorders did not fully capture what I was experiencing. And I've only felt that more as I've gotten more distance from it in years and have learned more about kind of the political and economic conditions that I was enmeshed in. So what I basically argue is is it's twofold. Right?
So I argue that on a personal level, I didn't develop an eating disorder in a vacuum, and I didn't even develop an eating disorder because I was, like, not feminist enough. Right? Like because that's, I think, another thing that pisses me off that I see where it's like, well, if you only had feminism, you wouldn't have an eating disorder. Wrong. But, like, but, like, what I felt at the time and what I, I think, feel even more now is that this was a kind of rational response to the messages that I was told about what I now know to call human capital.
Right? And so at the time, I didn't have any of these terms. But I did overhear my parents always talking about, oh, you know, people who have debts, they're, you know, irresponsible and bad. You should always pay down your debts and always pay your bills on time and always save. And it was always about, like, numbers and profits and losses.
You know? At school, it was always about your grade point average and your SAT scores. Another thing I should add is is I have a learning disability. I have dyscalculia. And so I struggled in high school and especially, like, in math and science.
And I was so anxious about, like, college and my future, and everything fell out of control because, especially at that time, we were told, like, if you don't get into a good college and this is true. This is not just, like, fake narratives. This is, like, true narratives to a certain extent. If you don't get into a good college, you know, you won't be able to get a good job and and be safe because, you know, it's the neoliberal era, and we don't have any kind of even small social democracy anymore. And so we're all on our own.
What we have to do is manage our own human capital. And so for me, restricting food and over exercising became a kind of management of my own human capital. And I just think that that's something that doesn't get talked about a lot when it comes to to eating disorders. Like, there this is a rational thing. That doesn't mean it's a good thing or that, you know, people should go out and do these behaviors, but that this is coming from a really deep systemic problem.
It's an adaptation, essentially, to a really messed up economic system. And then I also talk about not just at, like, a personal level, but there's this whole infrastructure around, like, model scouting and getting fashion models, and that's always been the case. But something specific happened in the nineties. So after the Soviet Union fell in 1991, you had this group of economists and advisers called the Harvard Boys. It wasn't just Larry Summers, but he was part of the group that basically constantly consulted with the new Russian government, and they basically neoliberalized the government.
They cut public services severely. They, you know, raised interest rates. I saw a statistic, I think, from NPR that, like, in just a couple of years, inflation was 200%. Meaning that, like yeah. I mean, it's just crazy.
I mean, there's a major, major, major drop off in life expectancy, mostly from people who, like, basically drank themselves to death or committed suicide. It it was really, really bad. And so people were in these dire straits. And so you had this pool of women, white women, many of them, who were desperate. And they made really, really appealing workers for the modeling industry because they were desperate.

(02:49):
Because if you can't provide yourself and there's no social system to give you a cushion, you're gonna do whatever it takes. You're gonna exploit yourself in order to, you know, send money home to your family and try to get them out of this terrible poverty. And so you have this exploitation of them, and then you also have this system that tells people to to be disciplined and to manage their own human capital. And Larry Summers and not just him. I use his name as kind of a kind of, like, a metonym, like as a symbol because he was just a very powerful he was a powerful adviser and and proponent of neoliberal economic policies, both in the US, you know, he was a top adviser for Clinton, and then also abroad in in Russia.
And so, really, this essay situates my eating disorder within this global economic context of a particular moment in capitalism. Yeah. I think it's really smart. And yeah. And also just, like, so sad.
Like, the modeling industry at that time, I think, was just so sad. And, like, you just laid out exactly the conditions that led to them being able to exploit people, like, truly as much as they possibly could have. And there's there's this movie. There's it's a it's a documentary. It's a little after the y two k er.
I think it's in 2012, and it's called Girl Model. And it literally follows this American white American model scout, and she goes to Russia to, like, you know, a really small post industrial city to, like, scout out models. And there are, like, hundreds of these women in in this room and they're wearing, like, bikinis and they're just walking, and they're, like, 12, 13. They're young. Like, they're not, like, 18, 19.
I mean, some of them are, but, like, the one that gets followed is, like, I don't know. She's, like, 13, 14. Like, she's really young. And the modeling scout actually says in one of the interspersed interviews, she said, when they're young, you have more power to guide and direct. And I'm just like, ugh.
Yeah. Oh my god. And that's like kinda what, like, we've seen happen in the music industry too. It's like plenty of yeah. And child stars, like, it's just it's so oof.
It's it's dark. It's dark. Well, because when you're a kid also, you don't know you don't have the legal power or just the kind of social power to be like, no. I'm not gonna take you can get taken advantage of. You can you can be like, no.
This is not a fair contract or I would like more money or whatever. Exactly. Cool. So we're gonna move into they misunderestimated me, which was one of the most poignant ones for me. I think that you connected the liberal reaction to George w Bush and the liberal reaction to Donald Trump so well.
It made me, like, have, like, a, like, mind blown moment. Yeah. Again, like I said, I grew up in a very liberal town. So, like, hating George w Bush was, like, the the line. And my dad actually was a Republican until, like, he stopped being a Republican, like, when Trump kinda started being a Republican.
Mhmm. So, like, he's definitely just always been, like, a moderate. But, like, you know, that meant just being a Republican back then. And so Right. I was embarrassed that my dad was a Republican.
I'm like, we're trying to make sure that no one, like, knew. Like, I'll always remember this. There was, like, one of the houses really close to an elementary school, so I'd walk past it every day on my way to school. Like, every Halloween, they would do this huge spider on top of their roof, but they would, like, make it like George w Bush was the spider for, like, many of the years. Oh my god.
And then they so red coat it. Right? I could so see that happening in my neighborhood too. And then they had, like, a graveyard where they would do, like, different political, like, jokes. Oh my god.
Yeah. Hud. That was just like, this was just like it really summed it up, and it also sums up so much why why we are where we are where we're about to enter a second Trump presidency and why, like, liberals have seemingly learned nothing through all of this. I know. I'm worried.
I'm worried. I'm actually I don't know. I don't know if I'm more or less worried this time around. In a way, I'm more worried because I feel like Liberals are really petered out from the whole resistance thing, and I almost wanna be like, no. Go back.
I'm sorry for everything I said about the corny resistance stuff. I know. I'm like, at least give me at least bring the pussy hats back out, guys. I gotta do something. Yeah.
I think they're not ugly, but you know what? Yeah. You're not just gonna roll yeah. And you're not just gonna, like, roll over for everything Trump and Elon Musk have on offer. Right.
But I thought that one really interesting thing from this essay, which is largely about, like, what the reaction to George w Bush was in culture, was you call this concept the template. Can you kind of explain what that means? I mean, it's basically my kind of joke term for what people mean when they say the institutions or like Right. Trust the institutions. You know, I came from a very liberal family, particularly.
My mom is very liberal. And there was always this thing that I particularly hear from her or from other kind of boomer liberals. You know, you also hear it from Democratic politicians at the time, and then you would also hear it during Trump, which was like, well, the newspapers, the news media will save us. Right? Journalism.
Journalism will simply expose all of the horrible things that are happening under George w Bush. And by exposing, you know, I guess they're exposed, that will put a stop to things. And then, you know, that that was not true. You know? That really was not true.
I I mean, it really wasn't. Right? I mean, in in some cases, like, especially in the lead up to the Iraq war in 2003, journalism specifically collaborated, you know, whether or not that was intentional with the Bush administration to push this lie that there were these weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which is the basis of the justification for invading. So journalism not only didn't stop it, but probably helped it. But then also just it's this idea, like, with Abu Ghraib, which was, you know, the these horrible photos of torture.
I mean, not nothing came out of it exactly. Like, there were a couple of people who participated directly in it who did get, like, prison time. Sure. But, like, there's this idea that, okay. Well, we see the pictures.

(03:10):
That is just gonna somehow bring about justice, and that just wasn't true. And there was, like, much larger scale torture and mistreatment of prisoners that just went on and on for years. And, you know, in terms of people being kept at, like, Guantanamo, like, there are still people at Guantanamo. Mhmm. And so that didn't, you know, that didn't do what some people said it would do.
Then you had protests. You know, I would hear this from people my parents' age. Okay. During Vietnam, we just got out in the streets and we protested. But there were huge protests all over the world to protest going into Iraq in March of 2003, and that didn't stop things.
And then there's this idea, okay, well, the courts. This is the one that I think really grinds my gears, the courts and the constitution. So, like Yeah. This drives me up a wall. So if you study the history of the courts and specifically, you know, the history of the Supreme Court, you'll see that the decisions that it makes are determined by the people who are in it.
So there was this era called the Lochner era that was in the early 20th century that was very conservative and super hardcore pro business. And then you had this era in the you had the Burger era in the, you know, like, sixties, basically, 50, 60, seventies, and that was a much more progressive Supreme Court. And so I think what happened with a lot of boomers is that because their lifetimes lined up with the Burger era of the Supreme Court, they had this idea that, well, the Supreme Court is just inherently progressive. Right? They saw Roe v Wade.
They saw, you know, Brown v Board of Education. They saw all of these progressive court decisions that were made, but it wasn't because of anything special and magical about the court. It was because of the people who were in the court. And so it just like, it drives me up a wall when I hear especially these days, like, when there is a hardcore far right conservative majority on the supreme court. So I guess I don't know.
Maybe I don't hear this as much as I did, like, around 2016 before Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. But, like, yeah, there would just be this thing you would hear during both Bush and then during Trump. Oh, the courts the courts will save us. No. They I mean, there's nothing special about them that's gonna save us.
Or then there's, you know, a related thing as well, the constitution. Well Mhmm. Okay. There are actually a lot of legal scholars that say that the constitution sucks. Like, it's not that it's all bad, but that, essentially, we're the only country that still has a document that old versus a document that's more easily able to be adapted to changing times.
And, you know, the treating of the constitution like it's this sacred text that's literal and that can never be changed or, you know, should only be changed with great care, I think, is just so stupid. And I know, like, I know why conservatives do it because it helps support their system. But if you are a liberal and you are in support of that, like, I'm sorry, but you're, like, kind of an idiot. Yeah. No.
I mean, I think that it's it's wild because, like, everything that where liberals have been saying our whole lives, it's like, oh, but he lies, and he's an hypocrite. And he sounds stupid. It's like, okay. Well, none of that matters. We've seen time and time again that none of that matters, and they it still feels like they're just stuck.
They're being like like, I think there was a point where you said, like like, it feels like people being like mommy and daddy, he cheated, is what the the Yes. Rules are like. And that's literally what it feels like. It was like, okay. But it doesn't matter if he cheated if the end goal is, like, the bad like, it's just it's wild.
No. Right. Right. Exactly. It's not like there's no referee who's gonna come in and say, okay.
You know? You know, penalty Trump. Like, you know, there is no mommy and daddy. Exactly. There's no mommy and daddy who's gonna come and save you from Trump.
Exactly. Obviously, I think we're in agreement on this podcast that socialism beats fascism, not fucking liberalism. I could kind of, like, get into the weeds here and be like Yeah. Actually, there's, like yeah. I generally agree, but then I'm also like, well, I'm a, you know, socialist democratic socialist because I like liberalism so much versus I I don't actually see them.
It's interesting because, like, when I first started moving left and reading stuff, I was like, oh, liberalism is bad. But what I come to agree now and again, this is hotly debated. But what I basically believe is that at least, you know, certain forms of socialism, or I think the forms that both you and I are sympathetic to, actually do come out of liberalism. It's basically saying, you know, all of that good liberal stuff that we we like, let's do even more of it. Yeah.
Exactly. And that's why I think that, like, you know, despite the fact that, like, you know, I definitely make jokes about how Libs annoys living shit out of me as any good leftist does, I don't think they're unorganizable people. And I think that they're, you know, important members of our coalition we will need to actually, you know, do anything good for people. Right. And also, the other thing too is, like, I think there's another difference too between, like, enlightenment liberalism and then, like, specifically American like, it's confusing because, like, because we're Americans, it gets super confusing because the American Democratic Party and its milieu is a specific strain that, like, historically, I've heard argued, essentially goes back to, like, the Cold War.
And so it's a strain that's different from, like, when I'm talking about liberalism, I'm basically talking about, like, the enlightenment. Right. Right. Yeah. I think it's it's definitely interesting even hearing people talk from, like, other, you know, like, countries about how, like, our idea of what, like, liberal and conservative are is is so specific to our, like, Republican and Democratic parties and, like Our Everything's political system.
Right. And everything has really it feels, at least after this most recent election, like, shifted to the right in the public conversation. No. It's terrible. Things, which is terrible and not what any of us wanted.
But here we are. No. But here we are. But here we are. Oh, god.
Here we are. That was a fun one. Let's move into They're Just Like Us. This one, I felt felt really relevant because it's really about a lot of the stars that drove the teen dramas and teen movies that we talk about on the show. So Like Misha Barton.
Yes. Exactly. Misha Barton is one of the most yeah. I feel like wrongly maligned women of the early 2000. Yeah.
Yeah. They called her well, they meaning Perez Hilton. They called her mushy far tone. Oh my god. Yeah.

(03:31):
Perez Hilton. Like, every time that I would, like, get to, like, a new, like, niche thing from that era that you would, like, be like, Perez Hilton. I'd be like, oh my god. Yes. Like, you know, I, like, I forgot how much that was a part of my life.
Like, I wasn't even, like, the biggest celebrity gossip person that's ever existed, but I still would go on Perez Hilton on a semi regular basis. Yes. No. It was like everybody did, it felt like. It felt like, especially, like, if you were, like, a girl or a young woman.
Like, it was sort of like how, you know, for a lot of people, you just kind of casually follow whatever your local sports teams are even if you're not that invested. Exactly. There were also things that you talked about in this chapter, Exactly. There were also things that you talked about in this chapter that just, like, I had completely forgotten about, but really speaks to, like something that we talk about a lot in this show is that we, like, joke that, like, teen dramas are, like, you know, a bunch of hot twenty somethings pretending to be high schoolers. But, like Mhmm.
There are a lot of questions of, like, how much should one sexualize a teenage character on a teen show? How much shouldn't they? How much can be implied? You know, all of that. Like, the fact that there were lots of, like, student teacher relationships on these teen dramas that were not They were so common.
They were seen as student teacher relationships, not as a predator praying for teenager. Like, I think that that all comes back to the kind of attitudes you talk about here, where there was literally a countdown to the Olsen twins' 18th birthday. Yeah. I'm like, it was grown men, like, commenting on the fact that these women who we've all had watched grow up from, like, very young, like, full house. From baby.
From when they were little babies. Oh, now I can have sex with this baby. I'm sorry. That's very weird. Yeah.
It's very, very weird. You know, you said, as a teen girl myself, I felt weird about this to say belief. And it's like Yes. Yes. That's so weird.
What are you saying? What are you saying to the common teenage girl when you're doing that? Like Right. I mean, I think you're saying, like I mean, you're saying a bunch of things. Like, you're saying most of them not so great.
And, again, like, I feel like, again, like, I feel like the term that I like to use is, like, weird or creepy more than, like, explicitly, like, predatory. Right? Like but, like, yeah. It's so, basically, you're saying, okay. Teen girls, your value is in how much older men wanna have sex with you.
So if older men don't wanna have sex with you, you are of a lesser value. So that's cool. That's a good message to send people. And then it's also saying, like, the sexiest girls are teens. So if you're no longer a teen, you're an old hag and you're gross.
So that's a great message to be sending people. Yeah. It's just it's very, very weird. And And it's and it's sort of, I think, also was teaching teen girls to to sexualize themselves. Like, oh, you need to sexualize yourself.
Right? To to have value. Yeah. I mean, and then just, like, the idea that, like, people like Parev Hilton have the right to, once you're in the public eye, just be, like, completely, like, scrutinized. And, like, I think this has maybe gotten even worse as economic conditions have gotten even worse.
And you're talking about that a little bit here about how, like, once the, like, you know, housing bubble burst and people weren't doing so great anymore, the sheen of, like, oh, look at these insanely wealthy people, like, just, like, doing their lives didn't become quite so, like, fun anymore. Because it's like, well, we're all fucked, and I don't wanna see your excessive wealth. Right. No. Totally.
Now I was watching, like, a bootlegged YouTube of an episode of The Fabulous Life, which is literally a VH one show, where this British guy was like, look at all of this wealth that these stars spend every day. Lindsay Lohan had a $10,000 handbag made just for her, and she has, you know, 20 brand new cell phones, and the Olsen twins have their own matching private jets, and, like, just stuff like that. And this you know, those are regular series that I I watch. But, yeah, there's this comment that was, you know, just from a few years ago on this bootleg YouTube video that was like, yeah. I don't know what happened.
People just don't seem to like celebrities throwing their wealth in your face anymore. And I think that's true. Right? Because it was like when housing bubble's inflating, I think we could all kind of just, like, look at it, and it didn't, like, hurt. And I feel like now people are like and I think that this is a good thing that people are like, oh, I don't wanna see someone's private jet.
You know? Like, you have the people who, like, criticize Taylor Swift for her private jet or, you know, Elon Musk. Or, like, the discourse around Nepo babies, I think, is also really like, that's reflecting an understanding of, like, class structure and sort of class consciousness that wasn't there. Like, there just wasn't really a class consciousness then, and so it was just like, okay. Whatever.
Let's just, like, watch these rich people. Yes. I think that we grew up with that, like, you know, everybody's in a temporarily embarrassed millionaire, like, sort of American ideology, and it doesn't really fit anymore. Like, no Right. The mask is off, like, after 2008.
And I think it is a good thing that the mask is off because, like, if we can't be honest about how things actually are, how can we solve our problems? If we all believe that we're just all gonna be rich, how can we possibly create a better world? Exactly. Gives me hope that the conversation has shifted in a way that, like, does me I mean, the class consciousness has gotten to the point that, you know, a health care CEO was shot a couple weeks ago. So definitely in a new fucking era.
Right. And not just that it was that he was shot, but that people were like, hey. I don't condone murder, but I understand Yeah. The motivation for this. Right?
And and that was, like, the common I think by some polls, that was, like, the majority response. Right? And it's hard for me to imagine that in the y two k era because, again, it was like I think what I keep going back to in the y two k era is that our political subjectivity was so different. Because, like, yeah, we all thought of ourselves as like, yeah, we can just get rich on the stock market and then live, you know, super wealthy lifestyles and be on this VH one show. Exactly.
So we were talking next about this stupid ugly vehicle. That was very funny. And that's what your I I think that you said that title comes from what your mom or dad used to call SUVs? My dad. Yeah.

(03:52):
My dad. If we were on the road, he'd be like, oh, look. There's a stupid ugly vehicle. And I'd be like, okay. We've only heard that 20 times.
Such a I should have known. Dad joke. Yeah. Fucking dad joke. But I really liked this chapter, which was largely about climate change, which obviously is a defining issue of our generation and the generations that came after us, and should have been a defining feature of the ones that came before, but wasn't enough that we are where we are.
Yeah. A lot of what you say here. We've talked about climate anxiety and just, like, climate change a lot on the show. I don't know if you ever watched The OC with Summer Roberts has an entire environmentalist arc that we talked about. I did not I didn't watch The OC, so I did not know that.
And so we tied that with, like, a book about the Green New Deal, and that was a fun episode we did. That's great. Then we also did a whole now there are post apocalyptic teen dramas kinda showing up now that we're in, like, the Gen Z era of teen dramas. And so we did a whole episode about post apocalyptic teen dramas, The Wilds, Daybreak, and the Society. And so I was like, okay.
This is, like, so much of what we've talked about, you know. It's just interesting how it's like Summer Roberts was like, you know, this was toward the end of the run, so probably like 2,007 or so. Like Yeah. Going to college and, like, suddenly being like, oh my god, the environment. Like, we have to.
We need solar panels on our dorms, you know. Like, that was, like, the the big push. And then getting all the way to, you know, the Gen z era of teen dramas, where they're not even necessarily talking about what can be done. They've almost accepted societal collapse as, like, inevitable. Right.
And it's very interesting how those are, like, kind of the different attitudes based on generations. And I think that, like, we're kind of, like, plopped. I don't know. I mean, obviously, Summer Roberts would be a millennial. And Summer Roberts being, like, oh, there are things that can still be done if, like, she was ring written by not necessarily millennials.
But I guess what I'm trying to say is that I feel like millennials are plopped in the middle of, like I mean, maybe we are just also in with the Gen z of being like, this is inevitable, we're fucked. But I feel like we were raised with the idea that, like, maybe we could reverse it. No. We I think that's true. No.
I think that's absolutely true. But we are also raised with this narrative that was, like, it was more about, like, solar panels and light bulbs, and not that those aren't important. Like, I don't want to minimize that, but that it's not enough Yeah. To my understanding. Like, essentially, like, I was fairly persuaded by Naomi Klein's this changes everything, where she's like, look, the problem is the political economy, essentially.
And, you know, I and but I'm it's hard for me to now to say, oh, well, we're all fucked if, like, we don't change that because I think that, you know, there are things that can be done without that. But I think, ultimately, that's where the solution lies is is changing the political economy. Yeah. And that was the big difference. Like, there wasn't even a discussion of, like, what should the corp I feel, at least not to my knowledge, much of a discussion of what corporations do to change.
Absolutely. Can we report it to that? Your own it was all about light bulbs. It was all about your own carbon footprint, which, by the way, was something BP came up with in the y two k era as a, like, marketing scheme. And then I did not realize that.
Several years later had, you know, in 2,000, like, what, 9, 10, had, like, the biggest ever like, one of the biggest, like, oil spills for, like, a month or 2 in the Gulf of Mexico. Absolutely. And then, like, obviously guys. How's your carbon footprint? Exactly.
And you talked a lot about An Inconvenient Truth, which was such a game changer of a of a documentary at that time, I feel like. And I remember watching that in school, like, I think multiple times, if I'm remembering correctly. Because I remember I took environmental science my senior year, and I feel like we definitely watched it in that. But it was just such a different time when it comes to climate anxiety, and I just think that you really summed it up really well in this essay. Thank you.
I do think you know, should add that, like, one of the things I talk about in that essay is I was a very outdoorsy kid. And so I knew, like, every tree. I was very interested in, like, weather patterns and and stuff like that and sort of, like, environmental science, you know, in sort of a self taught way. So I experienced climate change in this very visceral way where Yeah. I knew I, like, knew specific trees over the years in my neighborhood and in, like, parks near me.
And so I actually saw them change from year to year because I was like, oh, this tree typically turns you know, starts to change in, you know, late September. That's the year. This year, it hasn't changed yet. You know? And so I think that for kids who had some kind of kind of deep connection with whatever their kind of outdoor environment was, I think it also may have been, like, you know, we kind of had, like, early ecological anxiety and depression.
Yeah. And then you just did a really good job of explaining, like, how the climate movement has really moved and, like, you know, the the Green New Deal framework now that, like, you know, kind of is a framework that I feel like a lot of people on the left are moving toward wanting to be the goal. Like you said, it actually, like, promises, like and this is what I really love about, like, the Green New Deal and the way it's, like, framed is, like, the the pleasure of leisure, of public amenities, of public engagement, and health care. This goes back by the way, this goes back to what we were talking about earlier about how, you know, when you're Emma, you're annoying. It's not about being annoying or, like, depriving yourself.
It's like, you know, what if we, you know, create this kind of social democracy state where we can have leisure and we can go out to the park and, you know, instead of having to, like, fly somewhere because we have 3 days off from work, we can, like, take a train and, you know, spend a couple weeks there. Yeah. It's just like a totally different framework that is just so much more appealing, because I think there's a real limit on the number of people. Even now, when things are so crisis ridden and chaotic, I still think that there's a limit of people who want to, like, deprive themselves. I mean, I know I don't.
No. Exactly. I remember my friend for Halloween, maybe, like, back in, like, 2017 or 2018, she was luxury communism for Halloween. I love it. I love it.
I'm like, I just think that, like, that is exactly the, like, the vibe that, like, we're all trying to where it's like, we have so much on this planet. We if we share it, we can all be happy. It's like, what a concept. And and the thing is, it's so crazy because it's like, Jeff Bezos, he's not even gonna miss it. Like, you know, he can still be pretty rich.
Yeah. Like, he can still be pretty rich if he just shared, like, a small amount that he's not even using. Like, he could help fund this stuff. Absolutely. And it really does show you how much is stuff about power.
I mean, working in the labor movement, I see that every day where there are times like, the workers that I work with that are on strike right now, this thing that they are asking for has not cost that much money. Yes. It's all about the power. Totally. So that actually transitions really well into the essay.

(04:13):
It's definitely about coffee, but it's about a lot more than coffee. I was so excited to see you talk about this. I think Starbucks is just such a perfect encapsulation of, like, y two k era versus today in, like, the way that it's seen, especially on the left, obviously. But the Starbucks frappuccino, like, you, like, specifically starting with the frappuccino was so perfect. Like, I remember, like, having, like, little, like, icons on the Internet of, like, frappuccinos and, like, just the aesthetic of the frappuccino being, like, his own thing.
Amazing. Right. Because it was, like, all, like, brown. And then you had the green straw, the clear, so you could see it. Like, it was beautifully designed.
Yeah. And I specifically used to get a mocha, so I was like, yep. That was me getting my tall mocha frappuccino. Yep. Mall.
I like caramel. Nice. But, anyway, you I managed to kind of go through the rise of Starbucks and how and, like, also, my so my dad was a huge Starbucks. Like, I think he still is. Very religious Starbucks drinker.
He used to always stop at the one of the 2 train stations you could, like, go to easily to get into the city. Him and the fair were considered the mayor of that Starbucks? Like, that's what all the baristas and the people who Oh, that's true. Everyday would say. Yeah.
Yeah. So he and he was very much like a Starbucks snob where he felt like it was the best coffee. And so, like, you, like, really outlining the rise of Starbucks and Howard Schultz creating that, like, you know, it's just like a coffee bar in Italy. It's a third space. Like, that whole vibe that my dad, like, ate the fuck up was so fun to read.
But then also to bring it all the way to today, where Starbucks, you know, is one of, like, one of the most inspiring, like, groups of workers that is currently fighting for, like, a union contract is Starbucks workers who actually just finished up a strike. We're we're recording this in late December. They went on escalating strikes leading up to Christmas. I think there were over 300 stores on strike on Christmas Eve 2024. So reading through where Starbucks started to getting to there is a very interesting narrative.
I forget how I got the idea for this originally, but I think it was because I knew I wanted to talk about, like, unions specifically, but I wasn't totally sure how. Yeah. I wanted to talk about unions then and now because one of the big changes that has happened is the way people talk about labor and about unions and also the way I think about it. Because in the y two k era, there's this sense that we don't need unions anymore. Unions are old and musty dusty, and they were for the old time factory and steam days.
And now that we're not working in steel mills or now that essentially, now that we have a a more service centered economy and service and also then, you know, smaller fraction of, like, white collar workers, well, we don't need unions. Well, actually, both of those sectors absolutely need unions, both of them, you know, especially the service workers. And, you know, there's this idea that, okay. Well, service work, it's not a real job, so you don't deserve a real wage, and you certainly don't deserve a union, you know, even though, of course, a union is the thing that will get you the better wages, better hours, etcetera. And it's just so striking how things have changed in terms of both actual polling data, but also just culturally anecdotally.
Like, in shows and movies now, service workers are treated with more respect. Like, I talk about You've Got Mail. There are 2 this isn't about unions specifically, but there are 2 there are 2 scenes in You've Got Mail where Tom Hanks yells at an immigrant service worker and we're supposed to laugh. Yeah. That would not hit today.
I mean It would not hit. It doesn't hit. It would not hit. Yeah. It would not hit.
Right. Whereas now, it's like, you know, I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but I know I've seen it where they're essentially like, oh, you know what a really good example is actually is Knives Out. Because who is the good character? The service worker, the nurse, You know? She's not like, you know, food service worker, but, yeah, she's a nurse.
She works for she works for this rich family who all suck. And so and so right? And and that sort of I think that reflects what people want to see now versus what they maybe wanted to see in the y two k era. Absolutely. And you also did a little more complicated history of Starbucks Burger Organizing, which I'm gonna go through really quickly and not give any opinions because, you know, there's a lot of union, you know, politics that most people wouldn't understand in which unions have done this over the years.
But the UFCW era, there was actually, as you went through, an era where there was unionized Starbucks workers. And Howard Schultz was at the helm at the time, and he took it extremely personally, which he did again when he returned to the helm of Starbucks. Does he take it so personally? I mean, I know why, I think. But it's very strange.
You know? He's like he basically acts like his, you know, employees being in a union is hurting his feelings. Yo. My super in my building acts the same way about my tenant of Earthvision. It's it's a real it's a real phenomenon for these middle manager types.
And then, obviously, for the actual CEOs too. So there was that, and then they eventually de asserted. And then the IWW, very long time union that often I think they have a little bit in the past few years actually, like, done a few, like, actual contracts, but, like, traditionally haven't necessarily filed for, like, NLRB elections, is my understanding. They attempted, but from what I understand in your book, largely failed to gain any foothold in Starbucks. This is, like, 2,004?
Yes. Yes. On the UFCW era, it was more like what? The one you're talking about was eighties. So, basically, the 8 the original Starbucks menu was in the mid eighties.
Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. So yeah.
So, basically, like, Starbucks was rising through the eighties, and then it was decertified in, I believe, the late eighties, I wanna say. That makes sense. Okay. And then and then it it becomes as, you know, big, huge, publicly traded corporation. It grows hugely throughout the nineties, so expanding.
Basically, it becomes the company we know and love today. It goes from, like, a small, like, smallish local coffee shop to, like, kind of a regional chain in the eighties. And then by the nineties, it's like this international chain that's super fast. It's like so much so that there are constant jokes in movies and on TV that are about how fast Starbucks is expanding, how it's everywhere overnight, etcetera. Yes.
And then eventually, once it was so mainstream that everyone had one in their town, like, devolved into the everyone's complicated Starbucks orders jokes, where which they talk about in the book. So it's just like yeah. It became such a, like, ubiquitous part of culture by the time that we were growing up and by the Y2K era. And then when you get to the present day, the first Starbucks store to unionize with Workers United, which is an affiliate of SEIU, was 2021 late 2021. And that was a super exciting day that I remember very well.

(04:34):
There's a really iconic video of the workers finding out that they won their union and that they're the 1st Starbucks workers unionized. Starbucks, I think you say you say, it can has come to stand for a young, diverse American labor movement, which really is so true. Because I think that they're part of this new era of service workers at, like, brand name companies Yes. Who are like, fuck you. We're gonna do this thing.
And a lot of them were actually really inspired by, like, the COVID era and, like, realizing how much, like, society doesn't give a shit about service workers. Totally. Right. And I feel like and I just feel like I had to to sort of capture this this change because that's such a stark change from when I was a kid where it was like, well, society didn't give a shit about service workers. Exactly.
And the idea that they should was, like, seen as laughable. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I we're we're recording this at a point where Starbucks workers are as close as any workers have ever been to having, like, you know, a strong union contract, and we're hoping that, you know, that they've really shown their strength through the strikes they they did the last couple weeks and that, hopefully, 2025 will bring a ratified contract. But as you said in the book, we can't tell you which side will win, but we shouldn't turn away, and as goes Starbucks, so goes the nation.
So you end the collection with a appropriately titled Closing Time FA, and you really end on, like, I think, like, the idea of, like, home ownership as, like, part of this American dream and part of what we've been talking about that we were sort of, as millennials, sold that we were gonna get to have that it clearly were not gonna get to have. Unless there's intergenerational wealth involved. Exactly. Exactly. Literally, like, people out here waiting for their fucking rich parents and grandparents to die to be reunited.
Be clear. That's a pretty tiny, tiny, tiny minority. That's not most millennials. It is truly not. And, like, the whole, like, my first home, like, first home.
Like, the idea that you would have multiple homes in your life. Like, like a starter home? Yeah. But one of the things that I really love from this essay was you talking about what the kitchen means in America. I don't know if you wanna talk at all about that excerpt, but I thought that was a really beautiful just talking about how, like, how much Americans are overworked and how much of our lives we work, and we retire later than, like, a lot of other, you know, developed countries.
And just, like, how what the home means to us, I thought, was was really beautifully said. Yeah. So this whole essay talks about a history of homeownership in America and the idea of it and what it means and homeownership and land ownership. And I really go back, like, before the revolutionary war at a certain point and situate the housing crisis in 2008 because this is really what the book is about. It's about you know, it's the end of the book.
It's about how the housing prices brought about the end of the y two k era, but it really equates this all within this broader, longer kind of what historians call a longue duree historical context. And so I opened by talking about how when I was in 4th, 5th grade, my parents redid their kitchen and how this was a very popular thing to do at the time. I mean, it's still a popular thing to do, but there was really, at that time, because of how well the the stock market and the market in general was doing, there's a lot more liquidity there. And so particularly, like, upper middle class people, but even, like, you know, middle class people were redoing their kitchens, redoing their houses, put whatever. And so what I talk about is that, I mean, American homes are huge compared to even other developed countries.
Like, I've lived in Japan, for example, and Japanese homes are really nice. Sometimes even nicer than American homes, but they're, in general, much smaller. And you have everything you need and, you know, amazing toilets that we don't have. Yes. But right.
Like, you don't have McMansions in Japan. Right? You don't have McMansions in France. You don't have McMansions, you know, in in a lot of other developed countries. Why is that?
What I see is basically it it has kind of a long explanation. But, basically, because in America, we don't really have good labor rights and social welfare compared to most really all of the developed world, the home comes to stand for this thing like, well, okay. It's like this consolation prize. Like, okay. You work really long hours.
You know, you're an Atwell employee. You don't have health care you can fall back on if you lose your job. There are all these crappy things about life in America. But, you know, maybe if you're lucky, you can get, like, a really big ass house and or just a house that you can, like, keep redoing. And I think that that's important.
And then what I kind of talk about is that I think that it's more important to understand why don't we have these things. Right? I sort of flip it in the essay. I'm like, well, okay. Well, why do these countries have these things and why don't we?
In terms of these things meaning, like, universal health care and better labor protections and more vacation time. Well, it's because of a specific history around the role of land in America that starts with, like, before the Revolutionary War, with the seeking of land by colonists west of the Allegheny Mountains, which the British pound was like, nope. You guys can't do that. And that was a major cause, according to a lot of historians, for the revolutionary war, which is not really something we're taught in school. Nope.
There is there is a Pulitzer Prize winning book called The End of the Myth by Greg Grandin that explains this, that I recommend, that informs my take here. And so what happens is we get Britain out of here, and then we're free to explore the rest of the country and to keep getting land. And the reason that land is so important is because throughout 19th century as we're expanding expanding first of the Louisiana Purchase and then, you know, with with other various things here and there. Basically, what it is is Europe at the same time, there's no more land. I mean, they are doing colonialism, so they are kind of doing it, but it's a little bit different.
And so there's this trope. And throughout 19th century, this is really true, where if you're living in an American city and you're, like, white and you don't wanna work at a factory, you wanna be free from having an exploitative job, well, guess what? You can just go west. Right? You can go west and have your little farm.
And what that does is that prevents labor parties from forming in a lot of cases because instead of, like, why form a labor party? I mean, I don't blame them. It's like, why form a labor party when you can just, like, go have your own little house? And labor parties formed in Europe because that wasn't an option for most people. You couldn't just say, okay, whatever, f you guys, I'm leaving.
Yeah. No. I thought that was, like, definitely something that we talk about, you know, the effect of now, but it was really cool to actually see, like, how we got there, for sure. Yeah. I think it's it's really important to understand, and it's something that I didn't understand until fairly recently.
And I think that it's important to kind of understand, like, that process. And, ultimately, you know, I talk about stuff in the 20th century as well about, like, the subsidizing of homeownership, particularly during the Cold War as a way to, like and and actually before the Cold War because the because, like, you know, there's radical left action during the first half of the twentyth century. Yeah. But, basically, like, government subsidized homeownership really came into being during the New Deal and then especially after World War 2. And it was seen as and especially after World War 2, it was seen as a way to basically inoculate people against becoming lefties.
And it, you know, worked because it's like, why would you want to become a lefty if you could just get a house? Like, that just sounds so much better, honestly. But then what happened ultimately was that with the, you know then you have the sort of, you know, the second half of 20th century, the last decades, the neoliberal era, then you have the housing bubble, and then it all falls apart. And after that, the sort of idea of homeownership as a kind of, like, American right is no longer there. And I believe that that's why you get all of this, yes, radical left stuff, but also Trump, also human on in crazy formal formations because, essentially, 2008 is this moment where the American deal that, you know, obviously, is not open to everyone.
There are many notable exceptions for whom it was never an option. Absolutely. But the deal that, like, basically bought off most people in into kind of accepting the situation in America but also kind of caused it, that no longer held. And so people started searching for kind of yeah. They it basically turned people political.

(04:55):
Yeah. Absolutely. And not not necessarily everyone in the direction we would have liked, but it definitely But in some direction. In some direction. Somewhere.
Absolutely. I completely agree. Very weird directions as well. Yeah. And so I think where you end, which is probably also a good place for us to end, is about the interesting, like, dichotomy we have between nostalgia and, like, politics.
And you said, nostalgia is, in many ways, the opposite of politics. Politics may look to the past for context, but it offers us a chance to shape the future. Nostalgia is a surrender to the world as it is. And then you say that you vacillate between both, and I was like, same. Like, I thought that was so Yeah.
Relatable. And how, like, when you're in a nostalgic mood, you, like, retreat to the y two k era. And I think that's been the case for, like, kind of our whole society. Yeah. No.
I mean, nostalgia. And I don't even think it's it's not just for us, it's the y two k era, but I think it's also, you know, for a lot of people, you know, it's just people saying, hey. It was so great in the eighties or, you know, you know, like a a family member was posting something the other day from some Slop account. Man, it was great in the 19 seventies. Remember when you used to drink out of the garden hose?
Which You can still do that. I mean, you're alone no matter. You're allowed. It didn't stop in the seventies. But whatever.
Right. I mean, I think that what nostalgia does and I think that what's sort of unique about millennials is that we grew up in this era where, like you said, like, yay. We would have things even better than our parents. Oh, actually, what? It's even worse, and we're in this, like, polycrisis?
That sucks. So I feel like there's this urge to, like, go back to the before times. But, really, with anyone. Right? Like, nostalgia offers a bomb.
It's a way to feel good. You know? And it doesn't require anything of you because it's just sort of like, hey. Remember when things were so great? You know?
And that that feels good, and it's fun. And we all do it to some extent. But I think, you know, when things feel really dire in the bigger world, there's more of a tendency toward that. But I think that, like, if that's all you do, then it's like, okay. Well, oh, things were so great back then.
Okay. So we're just gonna give up? Like, no. But then the other thing that I also think is important is that if you do want to kind of create a better world, it is really important to learn history, which is why I you know, some people have read this and they've been like, why are you talking about Thomas Jefferson in this in this y two k book? And it's like, well, I'm talking about these ideas and histories that created the world that we live in today, because I think that if you don't understand how we got here and various successes and missteps that were made along the way, it's going to be really hard to create a better world.
And so I do think that there's a difference between kind of a critical eye and kind of looking so that you can make the future versus looking to just be like, wasn't that great? And both are okay. Like, you shouldn't I'm not knocking nostalgia. But it's like, I do think that we should be wary of just saying, okay, well, everything's bad. I guess, let's just go live in the let's live in the past forever.
Well, absolutely. As much as I want to sometimes. Right. As much as, like, on this show, we always talk about how we miss, like, like, theme songs and 22 episode seasons. It was also really hard for some of the people who worked on 22 episode seasons to do that shit.
So it's like there's there's good and bad to the nostalgia, and we have to see what about the 22 episode seasons do we want and what do we not want anymore? You know, there's everything isn't, like, you know, the black and white, for sure. Right. And like I said, like, I don't miss the sexism and the, like, really nasty, you know, body anti like, body negative Right. Statements in pop culture.
I do not miss that. And I like that, you know, it seems it seems like we're we're sort of hitting an kind of another reactionary moment pop culturally, but I don't know. I like to think that we won't go back to things being that bad. I like to think that too. I like to have some hope.
Yeah. I guess, like, to round out our conversation, like, what are what are you hoping that people will, like, take out of this book? Or what do you hope it'll, like, leave people with, I guess? Well, I hope that if they live through it, that they can have kind of a better and more nuanced and broader understanding of it versus just, like, hey. Remember when?
Because, like, there's been a lot of, hey. Remember when? And Totally. And, you know, and I just want more. And then if, you know, if they didn't live you know, if they're younger and they're like, oh, y two ks aesthetic TikTok, and they're like 14, they can be like, oh, okay.
It wasn't all silver eyeshadow. It was also, like, a lot of really complicated and messed up stuff. And then also, I think just in a really broad sense, I want people to think of their own lives within history. Right? So within like I said at the beginning of the episode, I want people to think about, you know, events that shape their own lives as being not just something that happened to them, but something that happened within the context of where they grew up and who they are and when, especially, they grew up, and what else that's bigger than them that might have influenced those experiences.
Yeah. Again, as I said, if you didn't already read the book, I hope do you have anyone in particular that you, like, want people to buy the book from? Or Yeah. So bookshop. Because that book shop book shop goes directly through local bookstores and supports local bookstores.
So that's that's my top choice. But, you know, you can buy it wherever books are sold. Cool. I'm definitely gonna put the book shop link in the show notes so that y'all will be brought to the preferred source. But you could also go if you have a cool local bookstore, sometimes they'll, like, even if they don't have the book, they'll, like, get you the book.
If they don't Well, pre order. Yes. Yeah. That's so they can pre order it. Oh, and the other thing I wanted to say is ask for it from your local library because I love libraries, and they've also been very supportive of me with, like, promoting the book.

(05:16):
But, also, they buy in bulk. So you're probably not gonna buy 6 copies or 12 copies, but your local library will. Oh, yeah. Awesome. Yeah.
We we're a big fan of libraries over here. Awesome. Do you have any other things that you wanna plug? Thank you again so much for coming on. This is an amazing book, and I I really hope that a lot of the ideas we talked about today resonate with the listeners and that they pick up a copy of your book.
I know I'm definitely going to get a nice physical copy. Yeah. Yeah. And you can so you can follow me on social media at miss shade. That's just m s shade, s h a d e.
Oh, and and and I'm doing a bunch of events. The book drops January 7th, and then I'm doing a bunch of events in I'm doing events in Baltimore, New York, New Haven, Boston, LA, SF, and DC. And so if you're in any of those cities, you can check my website. It's colette shade dot com. It has the list of all the dates and locations and times for the tour.
So come and see me in person. Cool. I'll definitely have you send me all that info so we can put it in the show notes too. Okay. Great.
Well, thank you so much again. This was so fun. I think we're done. Thank you for having me, Maria. Yeah.
Really fun. Thanks for listening to leftist teen drama. Follow us on social media for updates. Links to our Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and TikTok are in the show notes along with links to suggested additional reading on the topics discussed. And don't forget to rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Solidarity forever, free Palestine, and abolish the PIC. Signing off, Maria.

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SPECIAL EP: Leftist Teen Drama In Conversation with Colette Shade

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