The Polyester Podcast

What if Carrie White was a victim? And what if Cathy Ames was a girlboss? Booktok and filmtok have united this month to rally against the proposed sanitisation of some of literature's most complicated female characters. This week, hosts Ione and Gina dissect the depictions of the East Of Eden and Carrie reboot leads, consider whether one note characterisations can benefit or hinder feminism an...

Trigger warning: sexual assault and misogyny The internet has been set ablaze by the proliferation of a college campus sexual assault at Cornell university in 2024. After a recent expose by the student newspaper against the fraternity members who were involved as well as the failings of the Cornell higher ups and the local police department to deliver justice, national and international news and s...

You must have heard about it by now and if you haven't? Lucky you. It's not often that a local news story breaks containment through traditional reporting and not a viral TikTok, but for Last Ditch - the Covid conscious lesbian bar in Greenfield, MA - a report from The Boston Globe broke open a case that would change the world. Or at least, our social media feeds. This week, hosts Ione and...

You know the best way to learn something? A 60 second video that you watch on two times speed referencing one case study found in another video of the same ilk. Duh! This week, hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with the newest kind of content creator - the Thinkfluencer. This short form video essayist condenses topics into bitesize chunks to give viewers insight on topics ranging on everything from...

It's not about Sydney Sweeney doing an easily misinterpreted advert again. It's not about her being completely naked in it either. Listen to me, it's just sports. Or at least, that's what gambling app Novig want you to think. This week, our hosts Ione and Gina dissect the discourse surrounding Sydney Sweeney's latest advertisement drama and get to grips with the more pressing problem that is arisi...

Alert! There has been a slop detected in the mother toilet - who refused to flush? We are talking about, of course, the lukewarm reception that's being directed towards the new Adela and Rebecca Black album releases. This week, hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with the newest term spawned out of Twitter and being dissected on Substack - C*ntslop. Are pop music visuals going too far? Or are they no...

Has the title influencer dropped from glamour to disregard because people hate women? Or is it possibly due to the growing resentment between the working class and the content creator economy? This week, hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with the discourse connecting the ire directed at influencers with misogyny. Is a Nantucket sign in a vintage shop outright sexism or a signal of a growing exhaust...

It's kinda chic to eat a sandwich. It's kinda chic to lean on a bollard. It's kinda chic to intellectualise an Instagram trend as a signifier of the end days. This week, hosts Ione and Gina talk about the growing need to be seen as cool across social media - spawning everything from tutorials on how to be cool to long read Substacks dissecting the tutorials. Has the the algorithm has fully drained...

The OOTD has taken on a new look: A still snapped from the video your Amazon owned Ring doorbell. Or, if you're Kylie Jenner, a selfie taken on your Meta glasses after bossing around your assistants for an #ad on Instagram. Nadia Lee Cohen and Alex Consani are amongst the swathes of fashion industry heavyweights embracing surveillance tech - but why are they allowing their images to be used for so...

It's a long, hot American Summerween and we're so excited for Jane Schoenbrun's third feature film to finally hit our screens. 'Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma' is Schoenbrun's third feature film and this time, they're taking on the slasher genre. This week, hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with the queer metaverse of Camp Miasma, the poignancy of casting Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson...

Pop's favourite provocateur Charli xcx is back - not that she ever went away - with a host of ‘anti-marketing marketing’ launch her seventh studio album 'Music, Fashion, Film'. From ‘in conversation with’ events and cover profiles to teasing lyrics via Substack posts and arthouse cinema screenings; the rollout for the project looks suspiciously like… the same old marketing tactics. But is the albu...

From Caroline Calloway penning viral essays to the constant discourse surrounding Ariana Grande - it’s no news to listeners of this podcast that thin is in. Yet on a weekly if not daily basis, a new Internet fixation surrounding weight loss rears its ugly head. The content is impossible to avoid, but in a culture that is normalising extreme thinness more and more, is it any wonder how we got to th...

As Gen Z have aged up, they have become known for a generational distaste (at best) and fear (at worst) of ageing. But how is this expressed and how does it manifest? And why has it developed at all? This week, hosts Ione and Gina are joined by Ellen Atlanta, author of Pixel Flesh, for an extra special live episode of the podcast at the Wellcome Collection. The three discuss sunscreens pros and co...

It's been three years, how are we still 'just girls'? Is it because of food trend focussing on nostalgia? A need to heal our inner child? Or a lack of definition of what adulthood without conservative family goals can be? This week, hosts Ione and Gina reckon with what some media outlets are calling 'toddlercore'. From eating tater tots and fro-yo to wearing baggy jeans, is arrested development a...

The UK - and a lot of other countries, actually - are rolling out social media bans for under sixteens as well as social media curfews for those under eighteen. The news has caused uproar with teens promising they'll find workarounds, parents stressing about the impact on their kids and everyone raising concerns about giving mega corporations access to our government ID info. This week, hosts Ione...

It appears tech bros are shaking in their boots because... they're being called cringe - even when they buy a Rimowa suitcase and a full wardrobe from The Row. In a now viral essay, writer Emily Segal assigns the term 'tasteslop' to the lack of taste signified by items that used to be upheld highly in the taste algorithm when enjoyed by those who don't get it - aka, AI bots and the AI company owne...

You're in bed on your own scrolling through your phone. On your screen, a woman your age is entering her new build apartment, making herself a bowl of pasta and a glass of Diet Coke on a lap tray, then sitting on a huge sofa to rewatch Friends with a candle burning. Her caption reads 'Life when you have no kids. No friends. No boyfriend.' and her comments are full of other women seeing her lonely...

It's no surprise to many that the third season of Sam Levinson's former hit TV show has had a less than best reaction from audiences. Aside from the show's actual plot and characterisations - don't worry, we'll get into those later - Levinson's real life reputation and his own world view has seeped into even the most die hard Euphoria stan's perception of the show. This week, hosts Ione and Gina d...

Olivia Rodrigo is the subject of the internet's ire for *checks notes* allegations of pedobaiting. The star's music video and stage outfits - consisting of babydoll dresses, bloomers and ruffles - are causing controversy as the 'drop dead' singer is accused of simultaneously sexualising and infantilising herself and indoctrinating her young audience into pandering to the male gaze. In this week's...

Celebs are no longer monoliths, Instagram is my diary and you no longer need to buy a memoir to know the intricate details of a public figure’s life. Across PR campaigns, podcast appearances and TikTok lives, influencers, musicians and actors alike push to seem authentic and relatable. With those in the public eye sharing more and more, why does the incredibly personal art still manage to shock us...

Why are manosphere influencers, Hinge bios and cast members of Love Is Blind requiring 'doing pilates' from their potential beaus? In this week's episode, hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with the pervasion of this particular exercise in pop culture, the potential abuse inherent in men's preferences towards women's exercise and whether or not we should consider the fascist implications of influenc...

While the biggest audience for true crime content is young women, it's not often that anyone considers the every growing cultural phenomenon through a feminist lens. What do podcasts, documentaries and tv shows get right about revealing the reality of crime against women? And do we benefit from being more about what violence can (and has) happened against women throughout history? This week, our h...

Did Girls shape a generation (or two) of women? Yes. Is Famesick a great memoir? Yes. Should we be more forgiving of the writer considering everything she has (and hasn't) been through? Maybe. This week, hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with one of the most controversial figures of our lifetime - the inimitable over-sharer Lena Dunham. It's undeniable that the multi hyphenate has had an indelible...

As we’re slowly learning more about drugs like Ozempic, we’re also finding out more about their side effects. Does botox reduce our ability to empathise? Are we all just numbing ourselves from the world in the pursuit of self optimisation? In this week’s episode, hosts Ione and Gina dig into how people are using tweakments not just for their advertised effects - but for the ways they change our em...

It's that time y'all! The Polyester Podcast is wading into the discourse deep end about another widely critiqued movie but this time, there's a twist: We're actually enjoyed the film! In this week's episode, hosts Ione and Gina dig into the subtext of Kristoffer Borgli's new dark comedy The Drama. Is the Zendaya and Robert Pattinson fronted flick a failure at analysing such a sensitive subject mat...