23 Comments
User's avatar
Sarah Brown's avatar

"Everyone’s on Ozempic, paid for by their parents, because it’s cheaper than the cost of food" is the most dystopian thing I've read... so far today, I guess

SilverLeaves's avatar

So much agree. There was a great piece in the UK Guardian by a senior public health doctor talking about how troubled she is that we've paid Big Food a fortune to make us unhealthily fat with ultraprocessed food, and now we're paying Big Pharma to make us thinner again and still unhealthy ..

Kelly Radinsky's avatar

I mean… the parents. It’s right up there with the sweet 16 gifts (in LA, back in the day) would give, of the nose job, and then boob-job at 18. There’s only this short amount of years to teach your kids how to resist/ question the status quo, and a grow a strong sense of self-worth. It takes a mountain of effort. And is so worth doing!

Liz's avatar

Dystopian yes . .. .but the worst is probably to come since no one really knows the long term side effects of using a drug like Ozempic when you don't need it.

MP's avatar

Yes! Maintenance Phase has a great episode about this and explains how there’s so much error in what we even think we know about it. “We” being the collective potential consumers.

Liz's avatar

Thanks for the rec!!!

Siri's avatar

"a shortcut to looking like you have a rich inner life" 🫠

MaiLee Hung 洪美麗's avatar

Thank you so much for this great roundup, as always!! I am VERY interested in how Emmeline Clein brings in disability studies to talk about "botched" plastic surgery patients/consumers. Tobin Siebers claims in his book "Disability Aesthetics" that disability is the foundational logic used to define and justify oppression (e.g. all other races are disabled compared to the white race, women are disabled compared to men, the weak are disabled compared to the strong, etc). I've always found some of the richest opportunities for collective liberation in disability politics. I hope to see more disability discourse make its way into popular culture as counteragent to the beauty industry.

Jessica DeFino's avatar

oooh i need to read this! thanks for the rec xx

Amelia Gray's avatar

LOVE Doechii's thoughts! What a great rec. And as always I have laugh in a dark way as each of your predictions is so quickly fulfilled.....the listerine-like strips ughhhhhh

warboyziri's avatar

doechii article so relevant but unfortunately formatted like one of those linkedin posts where a guy has an epiphany about project management while talking to the mcdonalds drive-thru worker

Emily's avatar

I needed more explanation; I'm dumb.

warboyziri's avatar

explanation about the showerhead issue?

Emily's avatar

Yeah! Like, this part: "The way the water splashes everywhere. The stone floor, not tile, where my shedded coils cling for dear life every wash. A floor designed for someone who shampoos daily. Someone blowout-agnostic. Someone melanin deficient"

warboyziri's avatar

she's saying its difficult to clean coily hair from those fancy textured stone tiles i guess because they get stuck to that texture. finer hair that dont clump wash right off and towards the drain by themselves

Emily's avatar

Thanks for the explanation! It makes sense and I wouldn’t have gotten there by myself!

Hilary's avatar

Also shoutout to the Mess World predictions pod, I swear almost every single callout from that episode was seen on the Golden Globes red carpet. You and Emily are on point!

Sarah Hatch's avatar

I just saw a post about the ELF/Liquid Death collaboration and then watched the video and... what is even happening? 😂 (It didn't help that I didn't know what Liquid Death was when I started). You must have to wade through so much of this nonsense every day to produce this newsletter!

Karen Flood's avatar

Wow on the Chloe Fineman video. Thanks for linking to the Dirt article, which is so, so good.

Nat Reading's avatar

All of the links 🔥🔥🔥 thank you Jess!

Betsy's avatar

The link for the zoom meeting is broken, please help!

Jessica DeFino's avatar

ahhh! whoops! you can sign up for the newsletter here: https://lowbrowbookclub.substack.com/subscribe

and the zoom link will go out to paid subscribers in a week or two :)