Celebrating two decades of Lady Gaga’s outspoken allyship
Pride & Prejudice returns + Coach charms + judging books by their covers + what makes a podcast bro powerful
Kaley on Lady Gaga being the blueprint for queer allyship
Last Wednesday, I finished Laurie Frankel’s 2017 novel This Is How It Always Is, about a family navigating the non-normative gender identity of their youngest child. The same day, Lady Gaga appeared on one of my favorite pods, Las Culturistas. In their conversation, hosts Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers talked about how important Gaga has been to their queer experience and thanked her for her continued allyship to and advocacy for the queer community. Bowen shared how pivotal Gaga’s album Born This Way was to him coming out for the second time (after suffering through a stint in conversion therapy).
“You’re so important to a huge swath of people who only want the best things for you and for each other,” Yang gushed to Lady Gaga. “But also, those people need leadership and you’ve always been that leader culturally, artistically, in so many ways.”
Beyond the music, they pointed to her unwavering allyship to the LGBTQ community, most recently in her Grammy award acceptance speech (where she stated that “trans people deserve love”) and throughout her career, even when she was relatively powerless and had more to lose. They pointed to a 14-year-old interview where Anderson Cooper asked the young star on the rise about the rumor that she “had a male appendage” to which Gaga nonchalantly responded: “Maybe I do. Would it be so terrible?”
Over a decade later, we’ve come so far and yet still have so far to go in accepting non-normative gender expression and identity. And yet Gaga remains, steadfast and unflinching in her support of trans people and the queer community. She ended that segment of the podcast reaffirming her values, saying:
“I believe that we will continue to show people that are filled with hatred, and ignorance, that they should be looking up to the queer community. And following and learning about love, learning about grace, learning about kindness. I really believe that. And I’m not giving up.”
And neither am I. Here’s what I genuinely believe: rigid gender norms are a prison - and everyone, of every gender identity, benefits from seeing a wider array of non-normative gender expression. I beg you not to give in to misogynistic concerns about fairness in women’s sports. Don’t give in to paternalistic pearl clutching about *THE CHILDREN.* Just respect people’s right to express themselves freely and *taps the sign:*
This Week In Cool Shiny Culture:
👒: Megan’s Cool: Bookish girlies rise! Pride & Prejudice (2005) is headed back to theaters in celebration of its 20th anniversary. I don’t anticipate ever officially doing my letterboxd top 4 but if I did, this would be number one. So I will be there with bells on, ready to swoon.
🎸Kaley’s Cool: Sorry but she’s all I can think about!! Watch Gaga’s second performance on SNL last week, which immediately rocketed up to one of the most memorable performances on the show ever. I love when artists break the form of the small boxy stage of Studio 8H. Killah also happens to be my favorite song on Gaga’s new album. It’s very Prince meets St. Vincent meets Gaga. Made for me!
🐌 Megan’s Shiny: The “Jane Birkinification” of handbags is only gaining more traction and one of my favorite brands, Coach is meeting the moment with a collection of adorable (and on-trend) bag charms. I’ve already copped the snail for my personal collection but given that with this trend, more is more, I’ve also got my eyes on the mushroom, cherries, and rexy.
🦄 Kaley’s Shiny: I love beautiful book covers! I just finished the fantasy romance Bull Moon Rising which I fully admit I picked up because the colorful cover stopped me in my tracks. If you’re a heavy genre reader like me, you know what kind of book you’re gonna get by the look of the cover. Bodice rippers for historical, animated characters for upbeat contemporary romance, shattered still life for messy bitches that love drama, etc. So when a cover breaks the mold, it really catches my attention (the giant Minotaur helps too 😂). I would love to see Ruby Dixon’s cover art, designed by Kelly Wagner, set a new trend of brilliantly colorful maximalist covers!
Megan on Selena Gomez (& Benny Blanco’s) Really Rare Marketing
As the most followed woman on Instagram, Selena Gomez knows a thing or two about digital marketing. To promote their new album I Said I Love You First, fiances Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco have been doing the full court media press. From talking to outlets (see their Interview Magazine cover), to hitting the social media circuit (Hot Ones), these two may not be a “PR Relationship,” but they sure are doing a ton of PR promoting their relationship. This bare-it-all approach is fitting as the pair drew heavily on their own relationship in the making of this album.
The marketing is also drawing on their relationship for inspiration, with Selena doing a particularly innovative exclusive merch drop for her fans. To build anticipation ahead of the album's release, Selena is hosting a giveaway called “12 Days of Really Rare Stuff” featuring one-of-a-kind items highly personal to Selena and her lore. Day one was a “B” ring that Benny gave her, Day 4 she gave away the sunglasses she wore in a video shoot, and most recently (at time of writing) her wand from her Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place.
The memorabilia sweepstakes doubles as fan service and as a marketing funnel. In order to participate in the giveaway you must enter your information and you’re incentivized with extra entries by subscribing to Selena & Benny’s individual mailing lists. Nothing says power couple in the digital age like having a high audience overlap percentage.
Opposite of Cynical: Black Girl Magic in Medicine
This week, one of the happier days on the internet is taking place: Residency Match Day. All across the web videos capture the moment when graduating medical students find out whether or not they were accepted into one of their chosen residency programs. This happens every year, but feels especially poignant this year against the backdrop of an American medical landscape on fire. I’m finding so much joy watching people of color, especially Black women, land their dream of becoming a doctor.
Must see TT: Cowboy Kitty 🤠
What We’re Reading
What the Love Is Blind Season 8 Reunion Says About the Politics of Love in a Divided America – Judy Berman for TIME
“On one side we see two women who can’t abide stances they’re keenly aware would adversely affect people they cared about, from Sara’s sister to the Muslim relatives Virginia mentions. On the other are two men who refuse to see political views as anything more than abstract ideas that should be neither discussed in public nor considered based on how they impact real people—who refuse, in other words, to admit that politics matter at all.”
Trend Overload — Callie Holtermann for the New York Times
A quick hit critiquing the seemingly overwhelming trend cycle, that gets this close to a genuine critique of capitalism. For the piece they talk to teenagers who admit to being caught up in an unfulfilling consumption cycle:
“Many young people I spoke to said they felt stuck in a cycle of chasing, buying and discarding in order to keep up. Others, though, are trying to move beyond it. Some are swearing off fast fashion, or limiting their clothing to a similar uniform every day. A few have deleted social media.”
The Battle for the Bros — Andrew Marantz for The New Yorker
In this profile of Twitch Streamer Hasan Piker, Marantz showcases that the real power of “podcast bros” is in the parasocial relationships they build with their male audiences.
“The “Rogan of the left” formulation isn’t entirely vacuous, but it’s easy to misinterpret. Rogan-like figures can’t be engineered; they have to develop organically. Their value lies in their idiosyncrasies—their passionate insistence on talking about chimps and ancient pyramids, say, rather than the budget ceiling—and in their authenticity, which entails an aversion to memorizing talking points. Many Democrats assume that what they have is a messaging problem—that voters don’t have a clear enough sense of what the Democrats are really like. But it’s possible that the problem is the opposite: that many swing voters, including Joe Rogan, got a sense of what the Democrats were like, then ran in the opposite direction.”
Till next time,
Megan & Kaley
Go off Kaley!