The Polyester Podcast

The TikTok girlies are creating makeup looks that make you look as though you're crying. Julia Fox is walking down the red carpet with grey hair, and declaring both ugly and ageing as 'in'. Trend forecasters are declaring that we're over the clean girl look, and that the next beauty trend is all about highlighting your 'imperfections' rather than concealing them. This week, Ione and Eden are discu...

Anti intellectualism is having a moment. Express an opinion online and they'll be at least five people in your mentions telling you that you're wrong. Maybe you spend your morning drinking coffee with your partner, causing uproar from those who have to be at work in the early hours. Perhaps you hate Marvel films, or dare to prefer one type of bread over another. But is our inability to contextuali...

All of a sudden, everybody is very skinny again. From Kim and Khloe Kardashian to the hundreds of models that just walked fashion week in each various city. Body positivity is no longer popular, Taylor Swift is calling herself fat in music videos, and it feels as though we're back in the same media hell scape that engulfed our pre-teen lives at the turn of y2k. This week, Ione and Eden are discuss...

Whether its the Try Guys cheating scandal, Jason Sudeikis and Olivia Wildes latest drama, John Mulaney's infidelity or any number of other male celebs who have been caught behaving badly; we're living through the fall of the wife guy. This week, Ione and Eden are discussing the rise and fall of the softest boys of them all. Once a beacon of non-toxic masculinity, with us all being backwardly charm...

Open TikTok and your for you page is likely filled with a slew of content capitalising on the lives of strangers without their consent. From random acts of kindness, to asking what someone walking past is listening to or simply starting to record when watching someone behave strangely in public; we're constantly seeking new spectacle to record on our phones in the hope of going viral. On this week...

From 'They Don't Build Statues of Critics' t-shirts that echo Britney's 'Dump Him' moment to Twilight baguette bags to controversial 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit' bikinis. We're obsessed with in-jokes, memes and internet nostalgia and their influence on fashion is more prevalent than ever. But why are we suckers for a reference? And why are fashion brands like Praying and Heaven by Marc Jacobs gra...

From TikTok stars being called out for complaining about their working hours, to those with millions of followers bragging about helping the homeless in the same breath in which they tell us they're spending $90 a day on coffee; are we living through the death of the influencer? As each online personality merges into a homogenous face of capitalism, we're sick of those with more power than us tell...

why are rich people so obsessed with using working class people as entertainment? How does social media fuel our voyeuristic gaze on those experiencing poverty? And why are the upper classes still fetishising the poor? From competition prizes that pay off your energy bills to influencers that build their entire brands on 'thrifty' tips to survive the cost of living crisis; we're living in a dystop...

Representation discourse is back baby! From Ariel and Lizzo's Emmy win, to the queen being a woman, and our third evil prime minister; we're all obsessed with diversity yet again! For a brief moment in time, it felt like we'd left representation politics in the past. They'd we'd all come to a consensus that diversity discourse was pointless, serving as a shiny veneer to allow un-inclusive institut...

If you're anything like us, the drama surrounding Don't Worry Darling has been consuming your every waking thought. Harry Styles spat on Chris Pine! Olivia Wilde lied! Florence Pugh turned up and drank aperol spritz defiantly! But with two weeks until any of us see the actual film, we're breaking down what the drama means for the larger cultural moment we're living in. From post me-too sentiment a...

Toxic masculinity is running rife on the internet, with both incels and alpha males dominating online culture. But how did we get here? Following on from part one, this week we're concluding our deep dive into masculinity. Interrogating how the internet birthed a new masculinity, one that breeds hatred and division, Ione and Eden are discussing how unregulated media platforms allowed toxic masculi...

Picture a bro in your head, what does he look like? This week, while Halima has two weeks off, Ione is Joined by Polyester social editor Eden Young to kick off our toxic masculinity deep dive. After watching Woodstock 99, we decided to put bro culture under a critical lens; from nu-metal bands to films like American pie and how bros changed the landscape of masculinity forever. Order Ione's book,...

It's time to BeReal! As the social media app grows bigger and bigger, Ione and Halima have downloaded BeReal to try it out for themselves. The platform promises us the opportunity to see our friends as they really are - but do we really want to? How many selfies of ourselves sitting on the sofa can we really take? As we all strive for a more authentic online experience, the pair are discussing if...

To celebrate our latest Dollhouse cover girl, Bodies Bodies Bodies star Rachel Sennott (read here!) , we're discussing gen z representation in film and tv. Many of this summer's big cinematic releases are geared towards gen z, from A24's aforementioned slasher to Hulu/Disney + Satire, Not Okay. With the Los Angeles times declaring these releases a 'major test' as to whether Hollywood can accuratel...

What do Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant have in common? They're all girlies! This week Ione and Halima are exploring gender in the world of technology and artificial intelligence. Is the fact all of our 'virtual assistants' women sexist? Does it reinforce backdated gender roles? Or are we other thinking it? Ione and Halima break it down, looking at the research and history of female voices in th...

Everyone, including The Kardashians , are very very upset with Instagram. After the head of the app was forced to make a statement following an onslaught of complaints by high profile users towards Instagram's insistence to become TikTok - we're once again taking a deep dive into all of the current social media drama. Why are people protesting outside Meta's HQ? Do celebrities have a right to comp...

This week, Ione and Halima are discussing the ick. Defined as; Something someone does that is an instant turn-off for you, making you instantly hate the idea of being with them romantically. We've all been there. But is the ick a natural response, and something we should talk about openly with each other. or does it signal a toxic strand of #DumpHim feminism that view...

Sugar, spice and everything nice; thats what coquette girls are made of. But is the trending aesthetic as innocent as it seems? While self proclaimed coquettes love frills, heart shapes, Lana del Rey, all things french AND all things Americana — and want everyone on TikTok to know their aesthetic is totally unique — the saccharine style reminds us of one thing, Lolitas.  But has this new wave...

The girlies on TikTok are using their vagina fluid as perfume, practising their 'O' faces under the assumption it helps attract a lover, and practising pseudo spirituality as a means of empowering their 'dark femme energy'. But are these practises feminist, or simply pick up artist techniques for the girls? And do these behaviours enable women to take a greater portion of control in relationships,...

Cultural critic Rayne Fisher-Quann tweeted "Ottessa Moshfegh is on the verge of getting woman’d I can feel it (woman’d is what I call it when everyone stops liking a woman at the same time" at the end of June and opened up the debate for whether female celebrities always deserve to be "cancelled". This week's episode debates whether it is always a case of misogynistic hatred, which women have suff...

All across our social feeds, girlies online are embracing religion and creating memes out of catholicism. Whether you've bought the Praying 'father, son, and Holy Spirit' bikini, or still can't stop thinking about Julia Fox praying in her cut editorial - christianity is back baby! But is this appropriation of religious iconography a harmless foray into aesthetics, a subversion of their power, or s...

Love Island is back! And as the reality series returns, so does the age old discourse; should reality tv be inclusive? Or is inclusivity on these shows a poisoned chalice that sets the 'diverse' contestants up for failure? This week Ione and Halima are discussing whether its best to let reality tv be trashy, guilty pleasures that do not reflect the wider world; or if there's a better way forward,...

In this live Sleepover Club special, Halima and contributing culture editor Misha MN sit down with director Ninja Thyberg to discuss her debut feature film, Pleasure . A raw and groundbreaking exploration of the adult film industry, we chat with Ninja about her decision to use actors from the adult industry, maintaining safety on set, challenging conceptions about porn, how she went from...

Musicians are being held captive! Forced to step onto the content treadmill and churn out TikTok's that they supposedly don't want to make, this week Halima and Ione are discussing whether the social media platform is helpful or harmful to those in the industry. We'll be dissecting the impact of those videos; the ones in which musicians lament the fact their labels are forcing them to partake in T...

DeuxMoi has been unmasked, with the famed gossip account being run by two socialite-adjacent white New York women. In honour of her no longer anonymity, we're discussing the legacy of modern gossip accounts. Do celebrities set themselves up for this type of attention, or do gossip accounts encourage a gross surveillance state? And once these accounts aren't anonymous anymore, can they ever retain...