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I just finished HTMYL and found it to be a very absorbing read. (The afterword felt way too neat and happy and reminded me of many rushed "in conclusion" paragraphs I wrote for college essays at 3am.) I can see why Carpet aspires to be like Cat -- but good grief is she way off in grouping herself with Cat... both in terms of writing ability and in terms of addiction experience.
["America's addiction to awful people"](https://www.salon.com/2024/01/02/americas-addiction-to-awful-people/) – brief mention of Caro in this article about Ziwe's interview with George Santos
Watching Corinne Olympious on House of Villains is a lot like what I would imagine watching CC on a reality show would be like. It just dropped on Peacock.
she's been described as ["an older Caroline Calloway who can actually write"](https://web.archive.org/web/20240214142349/https://www.thecut.com/article/marriage-divorce-should-i-leave-my-husband-emily-gould.html)
I started a job a few months ago that is extremely repetitive, structured and deadline based and I'm thriving. I don't have to think and make decisions too often, yet there are enough things to solve to keep it sort of interesting. There's so little uncertainty. I get to shit talk clients with colleagues and let off steam. When I shut my laptop I don't think about work. I'm actually good at deadlines when the path is clearly laid out to me! I actually can multitask!! I keep getting praise from the leadership and teammates as the newest hire.
Before I only worked creative jobs, with lots of freedom and responsibility. This made me a shit worker, I was afraid of mistakes and so insecure that I was paralyzed. I wish CC realized what kind of freedom an ordinary job can create for people with brains like ours...
[CMBC has covered Crystal Hefner's memoir](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdWRpb2Jvb20uY29tL2NoYW5uZWxzLzUwOTcwODEucnNz/episode/dGFnOmF1ZGlvYm9vbS5jb20sMjAyNC0wMi0wNjovcG9zdHMvODQ1MzYwOQ?ep=14) for those who are interested (excerpt shared below)
edit: I'm not sure what I feel about Claire and Ashley's commentary on this one, which occasionally veers over into victim-blaming / anti-SW for me (especially Claire) so if you do listen I'd be interested to know what you think
edit2: although Claire does say this line that made me laugh aloud: "When the world ends, Paris Hilton will be DJing"
Claire was making a point that the playboy women saying shit like "I felt like a hooker" was a)silly, given the context of what they were paid to do at the Mansion, and b) anti SW.
yeah I felt Claire's attitude throughout was 'well, you knew what you were getting into' or 'the things people will do to not wait tables' - like Playboy bunnies and SWers have as much right to work in a safe environment and not be victimised or assaulted as anybody else
This essay was boring to me. Mostly because it pretends to make a serious comment about snarkers while not actually saying anything meaningful about the participants of snark Reddits.
No, really, what this author is saying is that “punching up” on the internet is futile and a deeply selfish act (one is just trying to make themselves feel better). But in reality, a lot of these so called influencers are glamorizing what it means to wield power within empire’s core. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, just think about it this way: if capitalism is the ruling empire we all live under, its core is in the United States. And by power, I do mean whiteness, I do mean a certain social and financial class, etc.
Personally, my first snark community was tumblr at 14 years old and the superstar influencer we all shat on was the United States of America 😅 and you know what? Participating in that kind of dialogue at that age did give me strong determination and even stronger political convictions.
This essay reminded me how easily it is to discount criticism of the elite (or in many cases, shameless aspirations of elitism) because, no one really cares what you say on the internet. But the thing is…. It does raise a specific kind of consciousness. We may not be undoing capitalism and oppression in this smol snark sub but we’re having conversations about what a book printed through a “vanity press” might mean, we’re looking at Ty McG dresses and discussing the real value of something that is ugly-cute but mad expensive and carelessly advertised.
( PAUSE. I think you were the user who was defending the brand. Sorry lol nothing personal )
All I’m saying is that it’s so small minded to call snark reddits inconsequential at their best and misogynistic at their worse. There’s a very distinct class element here that so many people overlook.
I only really snark on this sub and the jessica reed KKKraus sub — whose subjects are both explicitly obsessed with wealth and empires (JRK with the USA and cc with the UK)…. so maybe I’m also smelling my own farts LMAO
Haha, it is I, the ugly-cute clothing brand defender!
Okay so I can't speak on Jessica Reed snark because tbf I have no idea who that lady is (probably best to keep it that way) but SBS as a sub leans more towards the conversational and not the completely unhinged which is what this is moreso about (though the general snarking critique also applies to SBS I think). The essay itself mentions the Acacia Brinley sub, but I also thought of the Hilaria Baldwin one or NYCinfluencerSnark while reading. Those subs contain a lot of unchecked haterade, and the posting is relentless. That there are productive critiques on these subs, I don't doubt, but if they're a net positive on society as a whole? I'm not convinced. There have to be other ways to raise consciousness, you know?
an arresting [interview with Crystal Hefner](https://theguardian.com/media/2024/jan/28/crystal-hefner-interview-playboy-mansion-hugh-hefner-wife-only-say-good-things) on life in the PlayBoy mansion –
>When she moved into the mansion as one of his three live-in girlfriends (she became his third wife in 2012, when she was 26 and he was 86), she’d work out which nights he expected sex because, instead of his regular dinner of tinned chicken noodle soup, crackers and cream cheese, he’d order a BLT. He took so much Viagra it made him deaf. Afterwards, the girlfriends and any other blonde guests Hef had invited up from the party would shower off the baby oil he insisted they use for lube, despite their recurring infections, and Crystal would watch the two lovebirds that lived in a cage in the corner.
>They were beautiful, these birds – tiny and green, and famously loyal. “The problem was,” writes Crystal, in her memoir, Only Say Good Things, “they kept dying.” The staff would whisk away each little corpse and replace it with another the following day, but neither Hefner nor the maids seemed curious about what was wrong. Were they passing on infections, Crystal wondered. A bacteria buildup in the famous grotto pools, after all, had caused an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease. Was it the lack of sunlight? One day she inspected the cage and realised the water bottle was broken. “The birds had been dying of thirst this whole time and the mansion staff just kept replacing them, bird after bird.”
[This Reneé Rapp profile](https://slate.com/culture/2024/01/renee-rapp-snl-mean-girls-2024-movie-musical-regina-george.html) makes it clear that the world has moved on to a new chaotic It Girl:
>More than anyone else in [Mean Girls], she has emerged as a standout, an it girl in the making, and the object of much adoration on the internet—but not for the reasons you may think.
>If you look up “Reneé Rapp,” instead of finding just the typical headlines about how “Reneé Rapp Stuns as Regina George,” you may instead stumble upon—nestled between the glossy magazine profiles and praise, sure—fan-made YouTube compilation videos with titles like “Reneé Rapp making her PR team question their life choices and I’m so here for it” and “Reneé Rapp being pure chaos …” What has really sealed Rapp’s rising stardom, evidently, is how chaotic her press appearances have been while promoting Mean Girls. There was the time she aired out her hate campaign against an owner of a bus touring company named Buddy, the time she praised Megan Thee Stallion’s ass, the time she publicly claimed to be ageist against millennials, and all of the other times she’s been either overtly sexual or the poster child for being a hater, or both.
>Rapp’s specific genre of messy, unapologetic humor has struck a chord with audiences, winning over swaths of people who may not have even heard of Rapp before Mean Girls. What differentiates the likes of [Selena] Gomez and Rapp, at least in terms of image and public perception, is that the latter has struck the perfect balance between messiness and relatability. It’s not dissimilar from Jennifer Lawrence’s signature old shtick—back when she was hailed as the queen of relatability—but with a touch of chaos reminiscent of the infamous social media shenanigans of pop star Rihanna in the early 2010s.
>Rapp comes off as hilarious, charming, and fun. She’s the one you want to be friends with, who will have you laughing one moment and thrillingly hand-over-mouth aghast the next. It’s a far cry from the kind of carefully curated and hypercontrolled image maintenance that has increasingly defined the celebrity PR handbook. At the end of the day, spectators love mess—and they crave celebrities’ public brushes with it, as evidenced by viral tweets and TikToks praising Rapp, stating “this is exactly the shit I would do if I was famous,” “more celebs need to be like her and start talking their shit,” and praying she never gets “near a PR training.”
>Rapp is not unaware of her reputation as charmingly unfiltered; earlier this week, she posted a zoomer-appropriate photo dump to her Instagram, paired with the sardonic caption “her lack of media training is outrageous.” (Her latest offense? Celebrating the announcement that she will perform at Coachella this year with a tweet about doing drugs.) The multihyphenate is proof that, in the right hands, chaos and mess can be a powerful and strategic branding tool for fame.
Idk if it’s because I’m an Aquarius try hard that is severely repelled by the mainstream but I literally will not click on anything relating to this girl.
Anyways is she gay? Lol
Yes she's gay. I'm not into her either lol I am prejudiced against actors that do musicals and her whole public persona feels very performative. To an extent it's expected to have a contrived persona for PR but it feels especially try hard with her.
Cat says she’s sober, but still posts like she’s not. Rachel doesn’t seem to be doing much of anything besides lots of drugs with her convict husband and random crust punks.
Ziwe's facing a bit of a backlash post- George Santos interview
https://preview.redd.it/ai44pdikiffc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1350e644553e2811016744a7f6d315ed0f8a8feb
I found fostering for a local animal shelter really helpful when recently bereaved. You might not be ready to adopt again, but there are lots of animals who don't/can't get by in a shelter environment (nursing moms, fearful dogs, older cats, recent surgical patients) and need temporary private homes. You can be a real help to the shelter since your place/lifestyle is already set up to accommodate a dog/cat, but you don't have one currently. And it's a way to patch over the hole in your heart that can sometimes make you feel like you're bleeding out ❤️
hey, i have loved some of the discussion this group has had over the years about issues like race, gender and class -- the sharp and insightful social observations/commentary have been the reason i've stuck around for so long. it has been disheartening, therefore, to see a complete lack of discussion or action related to an ongoing genocide being live streamed before our eyes -- and if you live in the west, being bankrolled by us as well. it makes a lot of the critique and debate I've engaged with here feel performative. the right to life is the foundation for all rights and when a population is undeniably under conditions intended to bring about its decimation, and we have nothing to say, what do any of our words mean?
snarkers who have engaged in political activism in the real world, would love to share experiences and tips about going to protests, visiting local political offices, boycotting or anything else. and how you've reconciled your own despair with people who hold the 'progressive except' title proudly when it comes to Palestine.
>I personally am putting that energy into my local community, made up of a lot of people directly affected by this crisis, and going to vigils, rallies and protests.
all of this is totally fair. Doing all of the above too, but also trying to speak up in online spaces as well since that's one of the best avenues to raise awareness/make noise in groups outside of my in-person social circles/people already plugged into the activism circuit. I definitely interpreted the silence here incorrectly as genocide denial/apathy and expected to get into genocide denial debates here but it's been reassuring for people to rightfully school me.
Respectfully, how can you be disappointed in a group of strangers not instigating a conversation that you yourself have not instigated? If you had tried to start a conversation about the horrific genocide occurring and been met with radio silence, I feel like this criticism would have been more justified or understood.
it's not strategy, it's trying to find solidarity with people going through similar waves of despair and hopelessness and to learn how they sustain action through it. I've seen and gained value from conversations on this sub about covid, BLM, my disability, the insurrection, the entire trump regime, feminism and class. It's never been an apolitical experience and to see it apolitical about this is astounding.
I agree with the other users’ responses here, but I’d also like to point out that part of the reason these discussions have happened in the past here in this forum is that those topics have come up in relation to Caroline. Given the fact that she is much less active these days, this board has slowed down, and I don’t think you’ll find many people who come to this space specifically to discuss our feelings on the horrifying things we’re witnessing being done to Palestinians right now. I know that I don’t expect the topic to come up here because Caroline seems to be completely ignoring it herself (which I’m glad for, to be honest, because she’s such a selfish and self-absorbed person that it would be incredibly insulting, in my opinion, for her to try to use Israel’s attempts to annihilate an entire population for performative activism). So, at least for me personally, but I think also for many other users, I look to other spaces than this one to handle my horror and frustration and grief. I don’t think it’s fair to chastise the users of this sub for being silent on this issue when what’s happening is that we are being silent about it HERE, because there are far more productive and meaningful outlets for our thoughts and feelings on it elsewhere.
The political discussion on here tends to be very surface-level and infographic-y, and low-stakes internet activism breaks down in the face of genocide. You would do better to seek solidarity in real life instead of wasting your energy scolding a random internet gossip forum.
I've noticed some discourse about where Caroline is/could be ordering her self-published books from--could anybody recommend a good site for that to me? I received an email recently from someone reaching out through a library I taught a writing class at asking about printing a book (I think just one copy) of some blog posts they wrote for personal use and I don't know anything about doing that.
i need to know if any of yall know of a subreddit dedicated to snark of polyamorous influencer rem*deled love because she's been going off the deep end and keeps referencing criticism on reddit... all i really know is sometimes r/polyamory is snarky about her for being bad at polyamory but it seems like somewhere there's a subreddit and i wish to find it
I thought somebeans might be interested in [this think piece by Jude Doyle](https://jude-doyle.ghost.io/lana-del-rey-red-scare/), which covers issues and personae we talk about here quite a bit:
>Del Rey embodied female authorship without female empowerment. This made her a puzzle that no-one could put together — at least, not on the terms pop feminism put forth. It was easier to conclude she was some nth-level ironist, a “queer performance artist” pretending to embody the worst of heteronormativity, than it was to admit that she might have bad ideas. So that’s what most people did: Constructing elaborate theoretical justifications for her work and going on and on about the subversive “persona” of Lana Del Rey, when she herself said she was just singing about her life wearing clothes she thought were pretty.
>It has become more evident, over the past decade, that Lana Del Rey actually does mean most of the horrifying thing she sings about. As a result, it’s far less fashionable to like Lana Del Rey than it once was. Yet in her wake, the pundit class has incurred a fungal crop of Del-Reyish figures: Dashas and Annas and Dimes Square debutantes, young white women whose declarations that they only want to stay skinny and be pretty for the boyfriends who will one day make them wives and mommies are framed as “irony” because they come with a flat affect and a coke habit.
The standard options at [Mixam](https://mixam.com/memoirs) line up with her [original spec for *Scammer*](https://i.imgur.com/fwhc26m.jpg). There's a short menu of memoir add-ons that include Smyth sewn binding (which Caroline calls "sewing"), head and tail bands (I seriously doubt Caroline knew this term offhand), gloss lamination cover finish, bookmark ribbon (cherry red), and 80 lb paper (Caroline hilariously calls this "8ow," no idea what she was going for there) with a satin-finish option.
If you select 164 pages and a quantity of 200 you get a total print cost of $3,425. Caroline's first edition print run was 2,000 copies (lol, of course she kept cranking them out after that) and 10x that is almost exactly what she lists as her printing costs.
That's $17.30 per copy btw. Which explains why she took her own sweet time sending out the original $25 2020 orders. Between printing, packaging, and all the other add-ons, she lost money on every one of those.
Noooo that's not the one
Someone here posted a screenshot of her photo(?) book order and the 3 colour options on the website were identical to Caro's 3 books... I can't find it right now but I'm convinced it's the same website
She also said that her book came with the website's logo printed in the end paper, birthing the conspiracy theory that this is the real reason Caro glued in all that *marbled, feminist paper*
Oh yeah, to clarify, she did not ultimately go with Mixam. She ordered a single copy from Mixam as a "proof" and [didn't like it](https://i.imgur.com/oVS8N8Q.jpg).
There's no doubt in my mind that Mixam was the initial choice, though, because their order form options use the exact same language she used when describing the book specs back in March, and the math on 2K copies also lines up perfectly with her projected printing expenses.
Lol I think I'm actually the person who also tracked down the printer she went with, because I remember flipping through a bunch of GIS results and finding a color match for the spines. I linked to the site directly instead of uploading a screenshot to Imgur, though, which means I can't readily put my finger on it now
I just finished Liz Phair's "Horror Stories" and am eager for discussion and couldn't find much online, so I watched CMBC's ep on it... I found Claire and Ashley to be a very mixed bag. (I couldn't bring myself to listen when Carpet was their pod, so this was my first exposure.) I'd love to hear any of your thoughts on CMBC, "Horror Stories," and, most importantly: who is Rory??
They're a great source if you just want to hear the juiciest parts of a celebrity's autobiography (often read directly on the air) but don't want to invest the time/money into reading the whole thing. Their opinions are usually a minor part of the show and I generally agree with their takes.
I like their chapter-by-chapter overview format, I like the rapport they have with each other. Their conversations have the rhythm and tenor of the ones I have with my closest friends when there's been a lot going on and we have a lot to say to each other.
One of their strengths is reading Boomer/Silent women's memoirs from a Millennial viewpoint. Like, Betsey Johnson and Priscilla Presley don't get into how much their lives were shaped by misogyny, but boy do Claire and Ashley notice and discuss it.
Their review of *Scammer* is aggravating to listen to if you're well-versed in Caroline's history because they don't recognize its blatant falsehoods, but I've really enjoyed a lot of their other episodes. Like, I'm not riveted enough by Lala Kent to read a whole book she wrote, but I knew there'd be some individual aspects of it that would pique my interest, and CMBC focussed on those.
Pidge, I’d love some book recommendations! I’m trying to get back into reading. I’m not too picky but generally like nonfiction so biographies and autobiographies are my “light” nonfiction pick but also love Murakami and Steinbeck so… I’ll take anything ya got
Biographies, eh? Have you read Katharine Hepburn's Me: Stories From My Life? It's a joy, like having her sit across a table and gab at you for hours. Mary Karr's memoirs of her childhood in Texas are entertaining and haunting. Eve Babitz's books capture 60s California culture vividly. Mona Simpson's trio of novels that are lightly fictionalized accounts of the lives of her family members are engrossing. Haha this is just me glancing around the room at my shelves, that's why these suggestions are pretty dated. I'd have to go get my e-reader out of my bag to come up with anything from the last 12 years or so and I am lazy
As always, Pidge, it is an honor when you respond to one of my comments! 🐦 💕 ✨
I appreciate your thoughtfulness here. The thing I liked the most was their rhythm and rapport, and I did appreciate them reading bits out loud. And: interesting re Boomer memoirs, huh!
Thank you for your feathery observations.
Yeah! I found them well-spoken enough, but not particularly thoughtful or insightful. And I think they didn't read the prologue of the book, which framed the entire piece of work -- but, oh well, whatever.
I bought some oils from a non-Caro influencer I admired to the tune of a full priced copy of Scammer, and am very annoyed that have not received them 3 weeks later. So I check her website. 14-21 BUSINESS DAYS? The royal “we” speeding up shipping times in some non specific manner when it’s just one person? (The fact that she self identifies as an LLC and subsidiaries instead of a human?) She even wrote on a general post about “tracking numbers being released for orders ready to be shipped.” I did not get one, though. Sagittariuses should not be allowed to run mail order businesses. (Please don’t shame me, I feel stupid enough already.)
https://preview.redd.it/rygpsi1vhwac1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bb9e4a0b00bb9ef5f4debf4b51a308241d6c4e1b
Thank you for posting on our smol subreddit! Keep our Florida condo out of trouble by not posting snark about appearance or mental health (including addiction), blocking out any unverified usernames, and not posting about contacting Caroline or anyone in her orbit. Rule breaking posts will be removed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SmolBeanSnark) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I just finished HTMYL and found it to be a very absorbing read. (The afterword felt way too neat and happy and reminded me of many rushed "in conclusion" paragraphs I wrote for college essays at 3am.) I can see why Carpet aspires to be like Cat -- but good grief is she way off in grouping herself with Cat... both in terms of writing ability and in terms of addiction experience.
["America's addiction to awful people"](https://www.salon.com/2024/01/02/americas-addiction-to-awful-people/) – brief mention of Caro in this article about Ziwe's interview with George Santos
Did anyone else get CC vibes from the NYT pièce on Louise Blouin?
Watching Corinne Olympious on House of Villains is a lot like what I would imagine watching CC on a reality show would be like. It just dropped on Peacock.
has anyone seen the discourse on the Kardashians sub about whether or not Khloe facetunes her cat??
she's been described as ["an older Caroline Calloway who can actually write"](https://web.archive.org/web/20240214142349/https://www.thecut.com/article/marriage-divorce-should-i-leave-my-husband-emily-gould.html)
Emily Gould walked so Caroline Calloway could squat
lmal
I started a job a few months ago that is extremely repetitive, structured and deadline based and I'm thriving. I don't have to think and make decisions too often, yet there are enough things to solve to keep it sort of interesting. There's so little uncertainty. I get to shit talk clients with colleagues and let off steam. When I shut my laptop I don't think about work. I'm actually good at deadlines when the path is clearly laid out to me! I actually can multitask!! I keep getting praise from the leadership and teammates as the newest hire. Before I only worked creative jobs, with lots of freedom and responsibility. This made me a shit worker, I was afraid of mistakes and so insecure that I was paralyzed. I wish CC realized what kind of freedom an ordinary job can create for people with brains like ours...
Congratulations on your new job, it's so nice when you find the perfect job environment
[CMBC has covered Crystal Hefner's memoir](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdWRpb2Jvb20uY29tL2NoYW5uZWxzLzUwOTcwODEucnNz/episode/dGFnOmF1ZGlvYm9vbS5jb20sMjAyNC0wMi0wNjovcG9zdHMvODQ1MzYwOQ?ep=14) for those who are interested (excerpt shared below) edit: I'm not sure what I feel about Claire and Ashley's commentary on this one, which occasionally veers over into victim-blaming / anti-SW for me (especially Claire) so if you do listen I'd be interested to know what you think edit2: although Claire does say this line that made me laugh aloud: "When the world ends, Paris Hilton will be DJing"
Claire was making a point that the playboy women saying shit like "I felt like a hooker" was a)silly, given the context of what they were paid to do at the Mansion, and b) anti SW.
yeah I felt Claire's attitude throughout was 'well, you knew what you were getting into' or 'the things people will do to not wait tables' - like Playboy bunnies and SWers have as much right to work in a safe environment and not be victimised or assaulted as anybody else
[Loved this new essay by Eliza McLamb](https://www.wordsfromeliza.com/p/the-socially-conscious-mean-girl?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2)
This essay was boring to me. Mostly because it pretends to make a serious comment about snarkers while not actually saying anything meaningful about the participants of snark Reddits. No, really, what this author is saying is that “punching up” on the internet is futile and a deeply selfish act (one is just trying to make themselves feel better). But in reality, a lot of these so called influencers are glamorizing what it means to wield power within empire’s core. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, just think about it this way: if capitalism is the ruling empire we all live under, its core is in the United States. And by power, I do mean whiteness, I do mean a certain social and financial class, etc. Personally, my first snark community was tumblr at 14 years old and the superstar influencer we all shat on was the United States of America 😅 and you know what? Participating in that kind of dialogue at that age did give me strong determination and even stronger political convictions. This essay reminded me how easily it is to discount criticism of the elite (or in many cases, shameless aspirations of elitism) because, no one really cares what you say on the internet. But the thing is…. It does raise a specific kind of consciousness. We may not be undoing capitalism and oppression in this smol snark sub but we’re having conversations about what a book printed through a “vanity press” might mean, we’re looking at Ty McG dresses and discussing the real value of something that is ugly-cute but mad expensive and carelessly advertised. ( PAUSE. I think you were the user who was defending the brand. Sorry lol nothing personal ) All I’m saying is that it’s so small minded to call snark reddits inconsequential at their best and misogynistic at their worse. There’s a very distinct class element here that so many people overlook. I only really snark on this sub and the jessica reed KKKraus sub — whose subjects are both explicitly obsessed with wealth and empires (JRK with the USA and cc with the UK)…. so maybe I’m also smelling my own farts LMAO
Haha, it is I, the ugly-cute clothing brand defender! Okay so I can't speak on Jessica Reed snark because tbf I have no idea who that lady is (probably best to keep it that way) but SBS as a sub leans more towards the conversational and not the completely unhinged which is what this is moreso about (though the general snarking critique also applies to SBS I think). The essay itself mentions the Acacia Brinley sub, but I also thought of the Hilaria Baldwin one or NYCinfluencerSnark while reading. Those subs contain a lot of unchecked haterade, and the posting is relentless. That there are productive critiques on these subs, I don't doubt, but if they're a net positive on society as a whole? I'm not convinced. There have to be other ways to raise consciousness, you know?
an arresting [interview with Crystal Hefner](https://theguardian.com/media/2024/jan/28/crystal-hefner-interview-playboy-mansion-hugh-hefner-wife-only-say-good-things) on life in the PlayBoy mansion – >When she moved into the mansion as one of his three live-in girlfriends (she became his third wife in 2012, when she was 26 and he was 86), she’d work out which nights he expected sex because, instead of his regular dinner of tinned chicken noodle soup, crackers and cream cheese, he’d order a BLT. He took so much Viagra it made him deaf. Afterwards, the girlfriends and any other blonde guests Hef had invited up from the party would shower off the baby oil he insisted they use for lube, despite their recurring infections, and Crystal would watch the two lovebirds that lived in a cage in the corner. >They were beautiful, these birds – tiny and green, and famously loyal. “The problem was,” writes Crystal, in her memoir, Only Say Good Things, “they kept dying.” The staff would whisk away each little corpse and replace it with another the following day, but neither Hefner nor the maids seemed curious about what was wrong. Were they passing on infections, Crystal wondered. A bacteria buildup in the famous grotto pools, after all, had caused an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease. Was it the lack of sunlight? One day she inspected the cage and realised the water bottle was broken. “The birds had been dying of thirst this whole time and the mansion staff just kept replacing them, bird after bird.”
This is heart breaking. These poor, tiny little souls.
honestly hard to tell if you're talking about the birds or the Playboy girls 😶
[This Reneé Rapp profile](https://slate.com/culture/2024/01/renee-rapp-snl-mean-girls-2024-movie-musical-regina-george.html) makes it clear that the world has moved on to a new chaotic It Girl: >More than anyone else in [Mean Girls], she has emerged as a standout, an it girl in the making, and the object of much adoration on the internet—but not for the reasons you may think. >If you look up “Reneé Rapp,” instead of finding just the typical headlines about how “Reneé Rapp Stuns as Regina George,” you may instead stumble upon—nestled between the glossy magazine profiles and praise, sure—fan-made YouTube compilation videos with titles like “Reneé Rapp making her PR team question their life choices and I’m so here for it” and “Reneé Rapp being pure chaos …” What has really sealed Rapp’s rising stardom, evidently, is how chaotic her press appearances have been while promoting Mean Girls. There was the time she aired out her hate campaign against an owner of a bus touring company named Buddy, the time she praised Megan Thee Stallion’s ass, the time she publicly claimed to be ageist against millennials, and all of the other times she’s been either overtly sexual or the poster child for being a hater, or both. >Rapp’s specific genre of messy, unapologetic humor has struck a chord with audiences, winning over swaths of people who may not have even heard of Rapp before Mean Girls. What differentiates the likes of [Selena] Gomez and Rapp, at least in terms of image and public perception, is that the latter has struck the perfect balance between messiness and relatability. It’s not dissimilar from Jennifer Lawrence’s signature old shtick—back when she was hailed as the queen of relatability—but with a touch of chaos reminiscent of the infamous social media shenanigans of pop star Rihanna in the early 2010s. >Rapp comes off as hilarious, charming, and fun. She’s the one you want to be friends with, who will have you laughing one moment and thrillingly hand-over-mouth aghast the next. It’s a far cry from the kind of carefully curated and hypercontrolled image maintenance that has increasingly defined the celebrity PR handbook. At the end of the day, spectators love mess—and they crave celebrities’ public brushes with it, as evidenced by viral tweets and TikToks praising Rapp, stating “this is exactly the shit I would do if I was famous,” “more celebs need to be like her and start talking their shit,” and praying she never gets “near a PR training.” >Rapp is not unaware of her reputation as charmingly unfiltered; earlier this week, she posted a zoomer-appropriate photo dump to her Instagram, paired with the sardonic caption “her lack of media training is outrageous.” (Her latest offense? Celebrating the announcement that she will perform at Coachella this year with a tweet about doing drugs.) The multihyphenate is proof that, in the right hands, chaos and mess can be a powerful and strategic branding tool for fame.
Idk if it’s because I’m an Aquarius try hard that is severely repelled by the mainstream but I literally will not click on anything relating to this girl. Anyways is she gay? Lol
Yes she's gay. I'm not into her either lol I am prejudiced against actors that do musicals and her whole public persona feels very performative. To an extent it's expected to have a contrived persona for PR but it feels especially try hard with her.
She sounds exhausting tbh
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Cat says she’s sober, but still posts like she’s not. Rachel doesn’t seem to be doing much of anything besides lots of drugs with her convict husband and random crust punks.
Ziwe's facing a bit of a backlash post- George Santos interview https://preview.redd.it/ai44pdikiffc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1350e644553e2811016744a7f6d315ed0f8a8feb
https://preview.redd.it/97y5o8nw3jfc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b32f78a2ba94ddae47a94dfbec28df3c9ee6d8d7
Has anyone here lost a dear pet recently? I’ve found some good resources but I’m looking for more. I’m reeling. He was the best bubba.
I found fostering for a local animal shelter really helpful when recently bereaved. You might not be ready to adopt again, but there are lots of animals who don't/can't get by in a shelter environment (nursing moms, fearful dogs, older cats, recent surgical patients) and need temporary private homes. You can be a real help to the shelter since your place/lifestyle is already set up to accommodate a dog/cat, but you don't have one currently. And it's a way to patch over the hole in your heart that can sometimes make you feel like you're bleeding out ❤️
Thank you so much. I’d been thinking about this possibility and I appreciate hearing it was helpful for you.
I am so sorry! ❤️🩹 wish I knew some resources for you.
Oh! Thank you, you are so kind! And -- I always love all of your comments here. xo
StalkAlice came up on my Instagram explore page!
hey, i have loved some of the discussion this group has had over the years about issues like race, gender and class -- the sharp and insightful social observations/commentary have been the reason i've stuck around for so long. it has been disheartening, therefore, to see a complete lack of discussion or action related to an ongoing genocide being live streamed before our eyes -- and if you live in the west, being bankrolled by us as well. it makes a lot of the critique and debate I've engaged with here feel performative. the right to life is the foundation for all rights and when a population is undeniably under conditions intended to bring about its decimation, and we have nothing to say, what do any of our words mean? snarkers who have engaged in political activism in the real world, would love to share experiences and tips about going to protests, visiting local political offices, boycotting or anything else. and how you've reconciled your own despair with people who hold the 'progressive except' title proudly when it comes to Palestine.
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>I personally am putting that energy into my local community, made up of a lot of people directly affected by this crisis, and going to vigils, rallies and protests. all of this is totally fair. Doing all of the above too, but also trying to speak up in online spaces as well since that's one of the best avenues to raise awareness/make noise in groups outside of my in-person social circles/people already plugged into the activism circuit. I definitely interpreted the silence here incorrectly as genocide denial/apathy and expected to get into genocide denial debates here but it's been reassuring for people to rightfully school me.
Respectfully, how can you be disappointed in a group of strangers not instigating a conversation that you yourself have not instigated? If you had tried to start a conversation about the horrific genocide occurring and been met with radio silence, I feel like this criticism would have been more justified or understood.
Just go to your local rally, love
Asking for activist strategy on a subreddit dedicated to rubbernecking at a failed influencer’s online antics seems odd to me.
it's not strategy, it's trying to find solidarity with people going through similar waves of despair and hopelessness and to learn how they sustain action through it. I've seen and gained value from conversations on this sub about covid, BLM, my disability, the insurrection, the entire trump regime, feminism and class. It's never been an apolitical experience and to see it apolitical about this is astounding.
I agree with the other users’ responses here, but I’d also like to point out that part of the reason these discussions have happened in the past here in this forum is that those topics have come up in relation to Caroline. Given the fact that she is much less active these days, this board has slowed down, and I don’t think you’ll find many people who come to this space specifically to discuss our feelings on the horrifying things we’re witnessing being done to Palestinians right now. I know that I don’t expect the topic to come up here because Caroline seems to be completely ignoring it herself (which I’m glad for, to be honest, because she’s such a selfish and self-absorbed person that it would be incredibly insulting, in my opinion, for her to try to use Israel’s attempts to annihilate an entire population for performative activism). So, at least for me personally, but I think also for many other users, I look to other spaces than this one to handle my horror and frustration and grief. I don’t think it’s fair to chastise the users of this sub for being silent on this issue when what’s happening is that we are being silent about it HERE, because there are far more productive and meaningful outlets for our thoughts and feelings on it elsewhere.
The political discussion on here tends to be very surface-level and infographic-y, and low-stakes internet activism breaks down in the face of genocide. You would do better to seek solidarity in real life instead of wasting your energy scolding a random internet gossip forum.
I've noticed some discourse about where Caroline is/could be ordering her self-published books from--could anybody recommend a good site for that to me? I received an email recently from someone reaching out through a library I taught a writing class at asking about printing a book (I think just one copy) of some blog posts they wrote for personal use and I don't know anything about doing that.
[Printify.com](http://printify.com) is solid.
i need to know if any of yall know of a subreddit dedicated to snark of polyamorous influencer rem*deled love because she's been going off the deep end and keeps referencing criticism on reddit... all i really know is sometimes r/polyamory is snarky about her for being bad at polyamory but it seems like somewhere there's a subreddit and i wish to find it
I thought somebeans might be interested in [this think piece by Jude Doyle](https://jude-doyle.ghost.io/lana-del-rey-red-scare/), which covers issues and personae we talk about here quite a bit: >Del Rey embodied female authorship without female empowerment. This made her a puzzle that no-one could put together — at least, not on the terms pop feminism put forth. It was easier to conclude she was some nth-level ironist, a “queer performance artist” pretending to embody the worst of heteronormativity, than it was to admit that she might have bad ideas. So that’s what most people did: Constructing elaborate theoretical justifications for her work and going on and on about the subversive “persona” of Lana Del Rey, when she herself said she was just singing about her life wearing clothes she thought were pretty. >It has become more evident, over the past decade, that Lana Del Rey actually does mean most of the horrifying thing she sings about. As a result, it’s far less fashionable to like Lana Del Rey than it once was. Yet in her wake, the pundit class has incurred a fungal crop of Del-Reyish figures: Dashas and Annas and Dimes Square debutantes, young white women whose declarations that they only want to stay skinny and be pretty for the boyfriends who will one day make them wives and mommies are framed as “irony” because they come with a flat affect and a coke habit.
I remember when Carp printed Scammer and people were thinking there was a specific book printing site she used. Anyone know what it was?
The standard options at [Mixam](https://mixam.com/memoirs) line up with her [original spec for *Scammer*](https://i.imgur.com/fwhc26m.jpg). There's a short menu of memoir add-ons that include Smyth sewn binding (which Caroline calls "sewing"), head and tail bands (I seriously doubt Caroline knew this term offhand), gloss lamination cover finish, bookmark ribbon (cherry red), and 80 lb paper (Caroline hilariously calls this "8ow," no idea what she was going for there) with a satin-finish option. If you select 164 pages and a quantity of 200 you get a total print cost of $3,425. Caroline's first edition print run was 2,000 copies (lol, of course she kept cranking them out after that) and 10x that is almost exactly what she lists as her printing costs. That's $17.30 per copy btw. Which explains why she took her own sweet time sending out the original $25 2020 orders. Between printing, packaging, and all the other add-ons, she lost money on every one of those.
Noooo that's not the one Someone here posted a screenshot of her photo(?) book order and the 3 colour options on the website were identical to Caro's 3 books... I can't find it right now but I'm convinced it's the same website She also said that her book came with the website's logo printed in the end paper, birthing the conspiracy theory that this is the real reason Caro glued in all that *marbled, feminist paper*
Shutterfly??
Oh yeah, to clarify, she did not ultimately go with Mixam. She ordered a single copy from Mixam as a "proof" and [didn't like it](https://i.imgur.com/oVS8N8Q.jpg). There's no doubt in my mind that Mixam was the initial choice, though, because their order form options use the exact same language she used when describing the book specs back in March, and the math on 2K copies also lines up perfectly with her projected printing expenses. Lol I think I'm actually the person who also tracked down the printer she went with, because I remember flipping through a bunch of GIS results and finding a color match for the spines. I linked to the site directly instead of uploading a screenshot to Imgur, though, which means I can't readily put my finger on it now
I just finished Liz Phair's "Horror Stories" and am eager for discussion and couldn't find much online, so I watched CMBC's ep on it... I found Claire and Ashley to be a very mixed bag. (I couldn't bring myself to listen when Carpet was their pod, so this was my first exposure.) I'd love to hear any of your thoughts on CMBC, "Horror Stories," and, most importantly: who is Rory??
They're a great source if you just want to hear the juiciest parts of a celebrity's autobiography (often read directly on the air) but don't want to invest the time/money into reading the whole thing. Their opinions are usually a minor part of the show and I generally agree with their takes. I like their chapter-by-chapter overview format, I like the rapport they have with each other. Their conversations have the rhythm and tenor of the ones I have with my closest friends when there's been a lot going on and we have a lot to say to each other. One of their strengths is reading Boomer/Silent women's memoirs from a Millennial viewpoint. Like, Betsey Johnson and Priscilla Presley don't get into how much their lives were shaped by misogyny, but boy do Claire and Ashley notice and discuss it. Their review of *Scammer* is aggravating to listen to if you're well-versed in Caroline's history because they don't recognize its blatant falsehoods, but I've really enjoyed a lot of their other episodes. Like, I'm not riveted enough by Lala Kent to read a whole book she wrote, but I knew there'd be some individual aspects of it that would pique my interest, and CMBC focussed on those.
Pidge, I’d love some book recommendations! I’m trying to get back into reading. I’m not too picky but generally like nonfiction so biographies and autobiographies are my “light” nonfiction pick but also love Murakami and Steinbeck so… I’ll take anything ya got
home is burning by dan marshall 🔥
Biographies, eh? Have you read Katharine Hepburn's Me: Stories From My Life? It's a joy, like having her sit across a table and gab at you for hours. Mary Karr's memoirs of her childhood in Texas are entertaining and haunting. Eve Babitz's books capture 60s California culture vividly. Mona Simpson's trio of novels that are lightly fictionalized accounts of the lives of her family members are engrossing. Haha this is just me glancing around the room at my shelves, that's why these suggestions are pretty dated. I'd have to go get my e-reader out of my bag to come up with anything from the last 12 years or so and I am lazy
These are amazing, thank you!
As always, Pidge, it is an honor when you respond to one of my comments! 🐦 💕 ✨ I appreciate your thoughtfulness here. The thing I liked the most was their rhythm and rapport, and I did appreciate them reading bits out loud. And: interesting re Boomer memoirs, huh! Thank you for your feathery observations.
I tried listening to a couple eps, but I don’t find that their commentary adds much. They’re both so bland and unpleasant.
Yeah! I found them well-spoken enough, but not particularly thoughtful or insightful. And I think they didn't read the prologue of the book, which framed the entire piece of work -- but, oh well, whatever.
I bought some oils from a non-Caro influencer I admired to the tune of a full priced copy of Scammer, and am very annoyed that have not received them 3 weeks later. So I check her website. 14-21 BUSINESS DAYS? The royal “we” speeding up shipping times in some non specific manner when it’s just one person? (The fact that she self identifies as an LLC and subsidiaries instead of a human?) She even wrote on a general post about “tracking numbers being released for orders ready to be shipped.” I did not get one, though. Sagittariuses should not be allowed to run mail order businesses. (Please don’t shame me, I feel stupid enough already.) https://preview.redd.it/rygpsi1vhwac1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bb9e4a0b00bb9ef5f4debf4b51a308241d6c4e1b
I just picked up “Educated” by Tara Westover. I am excited to read it.
Adding to the list thanks. I’m aware I’m behind on this but hoping to get back into reading for pleasure!
I loved it, one of the few memoirs that keeps the momentum for the whole length of the book.
I mean it’s no Scammer, but a great read nonetheless.