Rich Text

We’re back with more answers to more questions! Last week, we published a free episode with our responses to some of the wonderful questions you all sent us about work and work-adjacent topics. Today, in our usual subscribers-only episode, we’re answering some of the more personal and personal-adjacent questions. How do you make friends in your thirties? How do you stay friends when some of you ar...

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider  becoming a paid subscriber . Part 2 of this series will be released for paid subscribers on Monday. Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors! We asked you, our beloved audience, for questions a few days ago thinking...

Planning a family reunion can be stressful, because there are so many ways it can go wrong. Someone gets too drunk. Someone gossips loudly about something they shouldn’t. A few key family members simply opt out altogether which gives everyone even more to gossip about! You know the kind of family we’re talking about… the one where everyone dates everyone else, and then some of them get engaged sig...

As Netflix has turned its hand to mass-producing romantic comedies, there have been some truly delightful successes — movies that capture the sweetness, humor, brightness and sizzle of a ‘90s or ‘00s classic (“Always Be My Maybe,” “Set It Up,” and “Wedding Season” are among our favorites). But many of the platform’s romcoms are aiming more for the Hallmark Channel audience than the cinematic relea...

“Selling the O.C.” almost has it all. It has the Oppenheim twins. Brittany Snow’s hot husband. Double-digit listings with infinity pools. Acres of cleavage sheathed in bandage dresses. But it does lack a few key things — a protagonist, for example. Deliriously fun fashion. Any overt mention of the MAGA energy dripping from several of its main cast members. A clear and compelling narrative arc behi...

Nothing scratches that romcom itch for us better than a slightly absurd but well-executed comedy about two hotties who are just pretending to date… or are they? And while “Marry Me” fell completely flat, and “I Want You Back” was delightful but sizzle-free, Netflix has a new movie that truly delivers on the promise of a fake relationship romance: “Wedding Season.” The premise, in brief: microfinan...

True Jane-heads know that “Persuasion,” though not one of her flashiest, best-known works, is nevertheless among her finest. Like “Pride and Prejudice,” it takes as its subject the question of how minds and judgments are changed through new information or perspective. But where Lizzy Bennet is a young, bold, headstrong woman who has never made a mistake worth losing sleep over before, Anne Elliot...

Where all else falter, “FBoy Island” delivers. Season 2 started strong, with three impeccably cast leads — all of them charming, beautiful, and completely up to the task of handling male shenanigans — sorting through an outrageous cast of peacocking fboys and soft-spoken nice guys. The last two episodes, from the Mansplain to the final decision night, stuck the landing. They stuck the landing so w...

Ah, to be washed up once more on the shores of “FBoy Island”: what a perfect summer escape. The frothy tropical dating show, hosted by Nikki Glaser and dreamed up by former “Bachelor” producer Elan Gale, whisks us away to a mysterious, sun-drenched island populated by three women looking for love, 13 fuckboys in need of reform, and 13 nice guys (self-proclaimed). We recapped season 1 for Love to S...

Opinions vary, but personally, we believe there’s room for a lot more high-concept fantasy in reality dating. More eerie entrances, more mystical moments, more —let’s just go with it — smoke machines. Why can’t a reality series inject a bit more “Brigadoon” into our “Bachelor”? This is what we crave, and it’s what “The One That Got Away” delivers. Since leaving “The Bachelor,” producer Elan Gale h...

Quick reminder: We’re having a virtual live show with Moment House on Sunday, July 10! We’ll be recapping the premiere episode of Kaitlyn and Britt’s (briefly) two-Bachelorette season. Plus, there will be exclusive merch, and we’ll be using the tipping function on Moment House to raise money for The Brigid Alliance , a fantastic organization that provides people with the money and support they nee...

Content warning : In this podcast, we discuss some very difficult topics — notably, suicide/suicidal ideation, sexual assault and child sexual abuse. Please listen with care. On Friday, the Supreme Court released its opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In it, the court overturned Roe v. Wade, denying the existence of a constitutional right to an abortion. The majority opinion,...

This week we come to you with two summer romance offerings: a must-watch movie and a we-watched-it-so-you-don’t-have-to movie. Hulu’s “Fire Island,” written by and starring Joel Kim Booster, is a groundbreaking, thoughtful, funny, and tender modernization of “Pride and Prejudice” set in Fire Island Pines, a legendary gay resort town. Centering on the friendship between two gay Asian-American men,...

“Normal People” was the first Sally Rooney streaming series to enrapture the viewing public, with Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones bringing sensitive jock Connell and snooty social outcast Marianne to life onscreen. But “Conversations With Friends” is the original Rooney, the debut novel that launched the Irish writer to such massive fame and acclaim that her public persona now primarily revolves...

We’re in the midst of a streaming content bubble. Everything is being optioned; every week, three or four shows drop into the flooded TV landscape that boast giant budgets and star Matt Damon or Jessica Biel. Streaming series are being made out of books that haven’t even come out yet and TV shows that came out less than 20 years ago. Any news story that garnered a moderate amount of national atten...

Tan France. An indoor water feature. A sculptural swoop of scarlet sleeve. A fake montage of all the ladies arriving. Amanza undergoing 3 hours of glam squad work for a 90-second proof-of-life FaceTime appearance. Chrishell blushing joyfully over a special someone named G Flip. The Oppenheim twins weeping while continuing to hold their faces nearly immobile. The “Selling Sunset” season 5 reunion h...

After five too-brief seasons of “Selling Sunset,” it was finally time for us to tackle the realtor reality soap — and finally time for me (Claire) to take a crash course in learning to tell 5-7 almost identical long-legged blondes apart from each other. (It’s a steep learning curve, but I can now reliably tell the difference between Emma and Christine, based on minute differences in lip plumpness....

What if you really did have to work all the time ? What if there were no family, no friends, no evenings or vacations, not even eight (okay, six and a half) hours of restful slumber? Would a stack of colorful erasers and an occasional offering of melon or deviled eggs be enough to make this life worth living? What about collegial but superficial friendships with a handful of coworkers? A quarterly...

If you watch “The Bachelor,” in some small part, to soak in the befuddling spectacle of 24-year-old women weeping because they’re not engaged yet and will never be chosen … boy, has Netflix got a series tailor-made for you! “The Ultimatum” is the streaming platform’s latest romance reality show, and, more specifically, it’s part of the Lachey cinematic universe. Like “Love Is Blind,” the show is h...

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider  becoming a paid subscriber . Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors! Coming soon: A subscribers-only episode about Netflix’s batshit new reality dating show “The Ultimatum.” In the final episodes of the NBC sitcom...

When “Bridgerton” season 2 dropped a week and a half ago, we couldn’t wait a single day to share our first reaction to the season: where is all the sex? We’re too impatient for a 7 episodes of sexual build-up, and we’re too impatient for a week of reflection before demanding that the creators of this Netflix live-action romance novel give us more horny content. If you missed our quick chat about i...

It’s extremely fitting that, for his latest glistening but somewhat creaky period drama, Julian Fellowes (the creator of “Downton Abbey”) selected Gilded Age New York, the historical stomping ground of obscenely wealthy robber barons and their socially ambitious, upstart wives. Much like our own, it was an era of excess and extravagance made visible, of luxury goods flaunted in order to advertise...

It seems impossible that anyone could want to bring low-rise jeans back. Right? On that point, we thought we were safe. They require a bikini wax and low-coverage underwear; they feel like they’re perpetually on the brink of slipping off your butt. Sitting down in them, much like sitting down in a hoop skirt, requires a keen sense of spatial awareness and precise, practiced movements. They are des...

Spoiler alert: This episode contains plot descriptions for each movie discussed. Don’t listen if you don’t want to find out how these (hint) romantic comedies end! After bathing our brains in intense reality TV drama for the past few weeks — from devouring “Love Is Blind” to taping our eyelids open to make it through the four hours of “The Bachelor” this week (with four more to anticipate this com...

No sooner had the “Love Is Blind” season 2 reunion episode begun than Shake started trolling. “How are y’all feeling?” Nick Lachey asked the group. “I’M NERVOUS ABOUT HOW WE GET EDITED,” blared Shake, who desperately wants everyone to know that he only appeared to be making cruel comments about his fiancée Deepti behind her back because of editing . And also, as he suggests later in the episode, b...