The Polyester Podcast

The girlies are going feral across the internet - one one hand, Lorde is calling ovulation the best drug she’s ever taken. On the other, TikTok’s reveal during ovulation many of us get uncontrollably horny. But is it true? Do our hormones control our libidos and cognition or do we have more free will than that? TikTok wellness huns are using pseudoscience to back up their claims, while Twitter fem...

Black tights under denim shorts? Recession indicator. Good outfits at the Met Gala? Recession indicator. Crying because you can't afford to pay your one in three Klarna payment for a Domino's pizza last month? Recession indicator. This week, our hosts Ione and Gina are dissecting our latest impulse to jump at the chance to label every single behaviour a recession indicator. Is it an attempt to mak...

Who'd have thought at the announcement of this year's Celebrity Big Brother cast that the two people being chatted about the most are Jojo Siwa and ex-Love Islander Chris Hughes. If you didn't know - the pair's intimate friendship in the house caused chaos on social media as many accused Jojo of emotionally cheating on her partner, the Neighbours actor Kath Ebbs. In this week's episode, our hosts...

It's been a helluva week for the news cycle and our social feeds - Katy Perry's been on Amazon's first, girls only, space trip (for exactly 11 minutes), Aimee Lou Wood has taken to Instagram stories to call out an off colour joke about herself on Saturday Night Live and everyone has taken to ChatGPT to generate extremely specific and fairly ugly blister packed dolls of themselves. Stuck between wh...

"I'm too pretty to work." "This face wasn't meant to know excel." "Looking for a man who doesn't want me to work." On the surface these adages are silly throwaways in the face of a late capitalist work culture that has made trying to make a living a literal hellscape - or are they? In this week's episode, hosts Ione and Gina take apart the trend of dreaming for a rich husband and reckon with a not...

Just like clockwork, a gritty British Netflix drama about a taboo topic is doing the rounds - last year it was Baby Reindeer and this year it's Adolescence. The Stephen Graham produced and fronted programme takes a look at how the manosphere and incel culture are corrupting a whole generation of teenage boys - but does it manage the subject well? In this week's episode, hosts Ione and Gina discuss...

If there's one scapegoat the government loves to roll out when it's doing poorly, it's the benefits thief. This imaginary person uses loopholes and caveats to steal tax money to buy themselves tellies and holidays in Lanzarote. In the UK, the new-ish-ly elected Labour party has announced new budget reforms that plays into this trope with an especially sinister new edge - tightening the pursestring...

You must've seen some form of this morning routine on your feed in the last six months: A woman removing a chin strap, mouth tape, sheet mask, lip stain, silk bonnet, heatless curling rod and/or nose magnets with a caption explaining how 'the morning shed' saves them time, helps regulate breathing and, ‘most importantly’, aids the de-aging process. While we thought we were past the point of portra...

Pass me my moustache print mug and 3D glasses with the lenses popped out because millennial cringe is finally being lauded online. The latest meme du jour - 'I would be a great millennial. I was born to write Buzzfeed quizzes and listen to Ke$ha' - has been a beacon of light in a social media landscape previously used to bully milliennials at every chance. This week, hosts Ione and Gina look at th...

To celebrate the release of Gina's memoir Greedy Guts, this episode hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with the current state of fat liberation. Is body positivity too commodified to be salvageable? Are people scared of fatness due to lingering Covid scaremongering resentment? Will GLP-1 injections end fat existence entirely? Join Ione and Gina as they reckon with what it means to be fat in what is...

In a new interview, singer songwriter Sam Fender claimed he understood why young white men from Northern towns are being radicalised by misogynist social media influencers like Andrew Tate - it's because they're being accused of having privilege. In similarly convoluted language, Novara Media has rage baited the nation by releasing content claiming Woke Is Dead to promote Ash Sarkar's new book tha...

At the start of this month Bianca Censori and her husband Kanye West courted controversy at the 67th Grammy Awards with a stunt that they've become fairly renowned for - brazen female nudity. The act got them allegedly kicked out of the award show and made waves across social media as many rushed to put words into the notoriously mute Bianca's mouth. Across the board, people wonder publicly if Kan...

Each week we are greeted with new flash photos of Young Republicans celebrating, Trump government rulings, and regressive Conservatives embracing their right to say slurs as often as they can. But why are our left leaning peers, Oscar winning movies and Twitter pals using the R word so casually too? This week, hosts Ione and Gina dissect the politics of language, the pendulum swing to being anti-W...

In the midst of Trump causing high hell for everything he can regarding reproductive rights Stateside, one birth announcement caused massive controversy on the grid - a post by Lily Collins and Charlie McDowell welcoming their daughter to the world via a surrogate mother. Twitter users went wild on both sides of the coin; one half defending the couple's right to surrogacy, referencing queer famili...

There's been two OnlyFans stars absolutely dominating (not literally, actually) the UK tabloid headlines, Twitter trending topics bar and the girls' group chats in the past eight weeks, and their names are Bonnie Blue and Lily Phillips. The latter kicked off December's discourse by starring in a YouTube documentary about having sex with 100 men in a day while the former stole the show by live-blog...

In a stark contrast to Trump's first inauguration as president in 2016, this month's event became a showcase for fashion houses wanting to dress the Republican party's top ladies. Not only that, but the fashion press and style influencers took to Instagram stories and long read columns to praise the looks presented throughout the festivities. In this week's episode, Ione and Gina analyse how irony...

Is Count Orlok sexy? Or is Babygirl not sexy enough? With both films focus on female yearning - as well as the same US release date - Nosferatu and Babygirl have been paired together in the public consciousness. This week, hosts Ione and Gina dissect Barbenheimer part two; from sexy monsters and film discourse Twitter, to glugging milk and cringe worthy needle drops. Support our work and become a...

We've finally gone and done it, our official breakdown of our generation's Scrooge McDuck, Elon Musk. From saying he wants to destroy the ‘woke virus’ and spreading racist conspiracy theories on X, to pushing right-wing ideologies in the US, Germany and the UK - Elon’s moved from being a punch-line in a joke about Grimes to being a serious political actor.  In this week’s episode, hosts Ione...

Last summer, we covered the dramatic press tour for the on screen adaptation of Colleen Hoover's novel It Ends With Us, digging into the speculation surrounding a beef between co-leads Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. Over the Christmas break the story exploded, as Lively and Baldoni filed lawsuits detailing not just the drama but levying accusations of on set abuse, social media smear campaigns a...

Surprise!! As new year looms and as the internet declares in/out lists over, Ione and Gina share theirs for 2025. Will it be Lady Gaga's year? Is AI going rogue? Why are all the influencer girlies embracing having no taste? Should video content be longer or shorter? And are tabis finally over? Tune in to this extra special long episode to find out! Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast m...

Are you an Anik Anik girly or are you misappropriating cultural language as an excuse to buy more stuff? Whether you love or loathe blind boxes, this year we’ve all become obsessed with collecting bits and bobs - with the internet fiercely debating the ‘right’ type of knick knacks. In our final episode of the year, hosts Ione and Gina dig into the chaotic customisation trend and discuss why we’re...

As two members of the queer media, this week Ione and Gina are taking the lyrics of Defying Gravity, and taking a deep dive into the most mind boggling film rollout of 2024. From the holding of a singular acrylic nail that broke the internet, to Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s friendship, we’re left questioning what the hell Wicked is about to warrant all of this anyway. Support our work and bec...

The 4B movement is a South Korean fringe feminist movement operating on four principles - Bihon (no to heterosexual marriage), Bichulsan (no to childbirth), Biyeonae (no to dating), and Bisekseu (no to heterosexual sexual relationships) - the aim being to remove women from patriarchal lifestyles. After the announcement of Trump's win in the American election on the 5th November, women in the...

How many times a day do you - publicly or privately - berate someone online for being worse than you? From Halsey calling out critics to Pitchfork doing the aforementioned critiquing and Ethel Cain telling us to cut the irony - this week Ione and Gina are discussing how social media has made us all into holier than thou nightmares. Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3 Order...

Sabrina Carpenter's 'Short n' Sweet' tour is off to a (literal) bang as right wing parents and TikTok teens are up in arms over Carpenter wearing lingerie on stage, claiming her costume is too sexual for her underage audience. Simultaneously on SWERF twitter, a new term has reared its head: Pedobaiting. Is the internet combining the Madonna/Whore complex to produce a new kind of sexism? Is this al...