transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Hey, everyone. So Melody and I have an important favor to ask. Melody, what's going on?

Speaker 2:
[00:07] Okay. You know how on late night shows, the hosts will ask celebrities to read mean tweets about themselves? This is kind of like that. I was looking at our reviews on Apple Podcasts, and this one made me laugh but also kind of cringe, so I'm going to read it to you. The subject line is what? Question mark, question mark? It says, I just subscribed to this pod and was looking through the episodes and they sounded good, but a couple days later, the first episode of my feed from them is about queer romance. That's not what I subscribed for, and from what I can tell, it doesn't seem relative, I think they mean relevant, to the rest of the podcast? Question mark, question mark, question mark? It's just random, so I unsubscribed because that's not what I want to listen to. What in the world is this podcast even about? Question mark, question mark?

Speaker 1:
[00:56] This podcast is about many things, including queer romance. So we have a huge favor to ask of you as listeners. Whatever app you're listening in now, could you leave a nice review and maybe include what you like about the pod and what you think it's about? Or you can take it in any direction that you like.

Speaker 2:
[01:15] We always say that it helps people find the podcast, but I think in this instance, you can help people from unsubscribing because they don't get what they signed up for.

Speaker 1:
[01:25] Okay. This should only take two minutes. It's actually super easy on whatever platform you use, and it's an easy way to support the show without spending any money. Thank you. Enjoy today's show. This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Petersen.

Speaker 3:
[01:47] And I'm Xochitl Gonzalez, the author of Last Night in Brooklyn.

Speaker 1:
[01:51] All right, we're gonna start very basic. What was your life like in 2007?

Speaker 3:
[01:58] Oh my God, my life was the best. It was, it was the best. I had like alligator arms. I didn't pay for anything. I had all these guy friends, and they paid for everything. Like it was amazing. So all my money was able to go to grooming, and wardrobe and rent.

Speaker 1:
[02:15] And you lived in Brooklyn during this time.

Speaker 3:
[02:17] I lived right off of Fort Greene Park. I'm a native Brooklynite. So I'm originally from a much less chic part of Brooklyn. And then I went away to college. And then I literally, much as is written in my book, I was literally seduced by a shopping cart race and a night out in Fort Greene. And was like, you know what? This is double my rent. And I don't care. I'm moving here because this is the greatest thing. And it was just fantastic. And I had a job that just wouldn't even exist now because it was so like almost easy. And you could semi-phone it in, but it came with an expense account and the chance to travel. And everybody was really nice. And I kind of like, it was great.

Speaker 1:
[02:59] No, there used to be, we're going to talk about so much of this, but like there used to be so much more robust layering in corporations where there were just more jobs.

Speaker 3:
[03:10] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[03:11] Doing work, but not like robust work. And now like every single corporation has become so lean that five jobs are combined into one. And like to think though back to 2007 or to like, I don't know, 1987.

Speaker 3:
[03:29] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[03:30] How many people were doing this work for sustainable salaries? Like it was just a different reality.

Speaker 3:
[03:34] Just a different reality. I mean, we have like two secretaries at my like first kind of real job, you know, like and and then you left it mainly a normal time. Like, you know, unless you had something to do. Like it was just you really could have a life. And I think that that was the best part. And you know, it's one of these very weird times because then there was a before and an after.

Speaker 1:
[04:00] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[04:00] And it felt really seismic.

Speaker 1:
[04:02] So you say you call this book your new book, which we're going to I'm going to ask you to talk about it in a second. But you call the new book the third and you're kind of informal Brooklyn trilogy. Yes. And so can you tell us, first of all, what is the vague plot of this new book? Because to me, like there absolutely is a plot and there is a narrative. And I was telling you before we got on, started recording that like it is so propulsive. I read it. I'm reading so quickly. But it's also so vibey. So like, like the advertising you've done on Instagram is like, look at my photos from 2007.

Speaker 3:
[04:42] I mean, it's so funny because it is very ploddy. It's essentially, I went to see a gender swapped production of Company.

Speaker 1:
[04:49] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[04:49] And it was really bad. Like I love Company the Sondheim musical about like a bachelor having like, you know, his milestone birthday, but they didn't change anything. And I was like, actually that kind of hinged on that character being a man. Right? Like I hadn't thought of, I was like that, he needed to be a man for that to work or you need to change this. And I started thinking about other books that you don't think about the maleness of it, but like they do hinge on that. And I was thinking about The Great Gatsby and how Nick is so cagey, but he gets away with it because he just tells you a story like a man. Like it's like, there's a little errant detail that later you're like, wait a second, Nick, that doesn't add up. What were you doing with that man all night? And then Gatsby, just the very idea that you're going to be like, you know how I'm going to win that woman back? Is bragging about how successful I am. And I was like, a woman would never be able to do that. Like it doesn't matter how successful she was, that would do nothing. I sort of got really into this idea of what would that be like if those two, if you really rethought it based on their gender. And then I was like, what was the last time that the economy just felt so hopeful and the country felt so hopeful and everything felt abundant? And I landed on this time that also was kind of a vibe.

Speaker 1:
[06:12] Yeah, no, for sure. And especially for like, uh, let's say like the audience of people who are like the the most likely to be reading books right now, like literary fiction. It's like women our age who also experienced this time as like young 20-somethings, right?

Speaker 3:
[06:31] Yes. Yes. Like, oh my God. I just, it's so funny because I just was rereading, I was reading for the first time like Lena Dunham's memoir this morning.

Speaker 1:
[06:41] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[06:41] And she talks about that first couple of years out of school. And I was like, you know, it's probably a couple of years after this, but I was like, oh, it was a time. And you just had this sense of opportunity that's still hovered over things. And I think it makes me, I said to somebody, the weird part about this book is that the hovering villain was the present.

Speaker 1:
[07:04] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[07:05] Because the way in which people engage and are able to engage and like all of these things, you just, the civility of which people debate politics because there's like a looming election going on. Like, like the hovering villain that you didn't have to write a word about is the present. And I think that that's partly why we are all kind of feeling these feelings about this moment in time because we didn't know, A, we didn't know what we had and we didn't realize all that we were trading in when we were like, yay, Facebook.

Speaker 1:
[07:39] Oh my gosh, I can check my email from anywhere.

Speaker 3:
[07:43] From anywhere.

Speaker 4:
[07:44] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3:
[07:46] Oh my god, this is so cool. And then you're just like, two elections later, like a slave to your job, right?

Speaker 1:
[07:54] Like it's like. Right. Well, and we're going to talk about some of those larger macro shifts, but also there's this feeling in the book of like, when you know, you're like, oh, it's spring 2007. Like, the financial crisis is just about to fuck shit up and like, but it's not there yet. You can like feel the crescendo, right?

Speaker 3:
[08:19] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[08:21] So interesting. But then how like optimism even prevailed during that moment because of Obama, I would say.

Speaker 3:
[08:30] Oh my gosh, I just was thinking about this this morning and how, especially in that community, it was like a very kind of black and Latino community. I think that we've forgotten what a top-down role model, the presidency is in terms of, when you think about the Kennedys, we had a youth quake in this country because we had this handsome president and this elegant first lady, and they were into the arts, and suddenly young Americans, what was hotter in the world than being a young American? But everybody also wanted to be this great version. It's super subconscious because Obama basically walked into this giant financial crisis, couldn't really get it turned around as fast as anybody would want. Yet people still felt great, especially that first term, because there was something about like anything can happen. Like we went from a country that was founded on slavery to now electing a black president. And it really, I think, made us feel that we had cracked open possibility. And that is what I actually think we were riding off of, like less than even, you know, the money.

Speaker 1:
[09:46] Yeah. And I would say like we're talking specifically about, I think, like upwardly mobile, college-educated, totally younger people felt this way. Because I think if you had this conversation about 2007, 2008 with our parents, yeah, they would have been like, everything is fucked. Like my mortgage is underwater. What is the future? This is my inheritance. Also, like if we're looking too about like the tea party and like the beginning of Trumpism, like it's right there, right? It is all in that reaction to Obama.

Speaker 3:
[10:27] 10 million people lost their homes in that, in the Great Recession. And we kind of also never talk about it. You know, like, I mean, I think-

Speaker 1:
[10:37] It's buried.

Speaker 3:
[10:38] It's buried. And I, you know, whatever, I could rail about kind of class elitism in the media and how it's like kind of hilarious because, because I have a nonfiction book coming out next year, sort of about this and like-

Speaker 1:
[10:49] Really?

Speaker 3:
[10:50] Yeah. And one of the things that I was like obsessed with was I was like, wait, 10 million people were displaced because of this thing. What did you think was going to happen? Those people were going to be happy? Like suddenly you were on a downwardly mobile trajectory. You have this identity, which we lionized as American homeowner. And now suddenly you don't have that. And you thought that everybody was going to be happy. And then somehow the media seemed shocked when Occupy Wall Street came up three years later. And then they were like, what are these crazy kids doing? And then they were somehow then shocked again when all these people were either Bernie people or the people that lost their homes put on red hats. And it's like, where did this come from? And I'm like, 10 million people lost their houses.

Speaker 1:
[11:32] Right, absolutely. And I think about this part of the reason that we are able to look back at our age with nostalgia is we were not those homeowners.

Speaker 3:
[11:41] That's right. You're so right, though. No, you are so right. And honestly, and probably the generation, the millennials that were a little... I'm at the end of X, but the millennials that then had to start college or were in college and that was all happening, I think they then started to feel that sense of drowning in these deaths.

Speaker 1:
[12:01] Yes, or that they were still at home when their families were displaced. Yes, that's right. When I interviewed people for my book about millennial burnout and the reaction to precarity, so many of the younger millennials had really internalized this work ethic because they had seen their parents lose their homes.

Speaker 3:
[12:21] Yes. Oh my gosh. I don't know that I had connected the girl boss thing to the home boss.

Speaker 1:
[12:28] We have to wait.

Speaker 3:
[12:29] We'll get there. Sorry. No, but it all spawned things. It's so wild, but I always feel like I'm going to be 49 this year, and so I always feel like I was just ahead of an avalanche, is how my whole life has felt. I started a business in 2003 when you could literally get HTML for dummies and have $5,000 in a bank account and have a robust business four years later. Now, even to run the kind of service business I had, it's like, well, do you have $150,000 in a line of credit? The barriers to entry just kept getting harder and harder and harder for people. I am aware of the weird privilege of time that I have, but I think that sometimes I don't always think about how millennials of the age that they were, what developmental ages those are. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[13:24] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[13:24] Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:
[13:26] We'll talk about this later, but I am technically at the very, very beginning of the millennial generation in 1981, but I become solidly millennial because I was in graduate school, and it delayed my, like for seven years because I was getting my PhD, it delayed my maturity, right? It delayed my placement in the larger economic sphere. Okay, so we did have an episode that was about millennial nostalgia a few years ago, but this one we want to be much more specific. And like even before I saw your book, I, and I'm sure you've noticed this too, like so many reels and Instagrams that are like, oh my gosh, like look at what the high schoolers looked like in 2005. Just like a real nostalgia for this period in time. And we just want to work through it. So we got some great questions from our listeners. And we're going to start with this message from Sarah, which is really a classic, more of a comment than a question, but it captures a lot of these feelings.

Speaker 4:
[14:32] I graduated from college in 2008, worked on a US Senate campaign in New Mexico, and moved to Brooklyn in early 2009. So wow, all the feels. I also left New York City in 2016, but was back visiting an old roommate in Brooklyn this weekend, so very fresh in my mind. Thoughts I had. How do we used to be able to afford to live here on under 30K a year? How did we think that racism was over with a Black president? How are we so fucking optimistic? The feeling at the time was that we were going to take over the world. I don't even know what I mean by we? Other liberal arts college graduates? Sure, there was a recession and it took a few months to get a job, but that is not what I remember. Buying business casual dresses at H&M, which honestly held up for over a decade. Going out for drinks, what it felt like every day. Again, how did we afford that? Feeling cool and sophisticated even though I definitely wasn't. It felt like Brooklyn was the center of the universe.

Speaker 1:
[15:28] Okay, we'll get to the Brooklyn part in just a minute, but I want to start with the optimism. And we've talked about this a little bit already. But even, you know, this person is like, I graduated college in 2008, I moved to Brooklyn in 2009, so it's very much the wake of the recession. Where do you think that that feeling, like how did it stick around?

Speaker 3:
[15:50] I really feel it was that idea of possibility. And I think that youth thing is a big part of it, because we also kind of don't, we forget about that, which is like that, he had this youth-powered election. Everybody always talks about his ground game, and then what's kind of gotten lost, because all these people have aged now, right? So we forget how young like David Plouffe was, like all these people around him were really young. But then the people going door-to-door and canvassing were college students. So that idea that like we were going to change the world, I think that we felt like we could. We've just forget like he was just really cool. I was thinking this like about politicians just, they're so not cool. Now they're like literally whatever the opposite of cool is, they are. And he just had swag. It felt like there was something very, he was relatively young, but there was also something youthful about him because he just had this confidence that came, I think because he had earned a lot of it. He was so untypical of the kind of person that usually gets to this thing. And I think that also made people just feel like I could do anything and I made this happen. I helped make this happen. And I think it makes you feel like you could do anything.

Speaker 1:
[17:15] What a feeling to have in one of the first political elections that you participate in.

Speaker 3:
[17:19] Yes. Can I just say one thing also? God bless Michelle Obama for wearing J.Crew because it made me always feel a lot better about my H&M work dresses.

Speaker 1:
[17:28] Right.

Speaker 3:
[17:30] I was like, why would she's Justin J.Crew and she's the first lady? Yes.

Speaker 1:
[17:36] I love the moment, like this point about business casual dresses at H&M because I definitely did that. I was a grad student. I couldn't afford anything else, but I wanted to look cute when I was TAing or something like that. It gave me access to a performance.

Speaker 3:
[17:53] Oh, well, at that phase of my career, I was running a luxury wedding planning business. So I literally had to dress like a weather woman. I would just go to H&M and I would buy a monocolored sheath dress with the scoop neck. I mean, they still make it.

Speaker 2:
[18:10] It's so classy.

Speaker 3:
[18:14] It's so classy. You are ready for anything. You can go and do anything. Things just felt accessible, like the $30,000 a year and being able to go out for drinks every night. I think right now, the vibe that I always get when I'm watching young people on reels and stuff is they are operating in restriction. We were even on limited budgets living in abundance. I would leave the house with no wallet. I'll be like, I'll run into somebody. Because we weren't getting paid a lot, but my male friends were. We also had this very, it was funny because it was before we talked about feminism, the way that we then started talking about it into girl bossing, and Hillary, and all this other stuff. We had a very open acknowledgement, and I talk about this in the book a little bit, of you are making money that I'm not seeing. This feels completely equitable to me that you should pay for us to go out. There was an ownership and an acknowledgement that went both ways that didn't feel like, that I think sometimes can be perceived now as a sexist system, but that to us felt quite just.

Speaker 1:
[19:26] Right. Now we talk about like, oh, people who are making more money should fit more of the bill, and the gender disappears from it. It's just that back then, because of these enduring splits and it was almost entirely men that I knew, who were already making that money as well. Right. Whether it was as consultants or as investment bankers or whatever.

Speaker 3:
[19:50] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[19:51] Also in grad school, though, no one had that money, so we just like no one. It was always like house parties, which I was a different special.

Speaker 3:
[20:00] It's a different kind of fun. But that optimism, I really think, it is really interesting to see when you have participatory democracy. Not to be corny about it, like people felt like they were invested in our country because of how many people that volunteered for that campaign. And I think it cascaded.

Speaker 1:
[20:21] I was also going to say just that the rallies, which now a political rally feels like so cringe and corny in some ways, right? But then, you know, like George W. Bush and had rallies. Like he was like, there was not, you know, like I was in Austin at the time and I went to this enormous rally on the banks of the river. And it was like a profound political moment. And that had not occurred. Yeah, and like many, many years. Like even like people talk about Clinton on the stump, not Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton on the stump and like how charismatic he was. He wasn't having like rallies attracting tens of thousands of people.

Speaker 3:
[21:04] No, no, no, no. And the energy also, like it's interesting because Obama also served this like symbolic purpose that was like you felt that in publicly supporting him, you were like saying this is the America that I'm voting for, like that we truly see the arc of justice bending in a particular way. And so there was kind of a camaraderie of shared values that made people relax. Like, and I think that that also is what made those rallies have a different energy. You're like, oh, well, I'm here with you and we both chose to spend our time here. And like, right. And so like, like we clearly have this kind of shared vision for what America could be, which is bigger than tax policy. Like, right. Like, it's like, like, like it was, it was, but and that was through no fault or credit of his, it was just his existence, like great, like, and what that meant.

Speaker 1:
[22:05] And I'm describing this and I'm realizing what we're talking about was a religious revival. Yeah, not just the rallies themselves, but there was the energy of a religious revival that allowed the very stark precarity that was like in the background, like allowed us to be like, okay, yeah. But also, things are going to get better.

Speaker 3:
[22:27] Yes, yes, that's right. Oh, absolutely, the belief is that things are going to get better. Like 100% the belief is that things are going to get better and that it was temporary. Like, and I think that that is actually the heartbreak of the most.

Speaker 1:
[22:41] Exactly.

Speaker 3:
[22:43] You know what it's like? It's like in a family, you don't know when grandma gets sick at Christmas one year, that this is the end of the family structure, as you know it until like five years, ten years later and you're like, it kind of is never the same after grandma got sick that Christmas. Like we didn't know that it wasn't just a bump, it was like a new uncoupling version, right? And that is kind of a bummer.

Speaker 1:
[23:09] Well, and that's also the difficulty with looking at what happened during the Obama presidency is that like when grandma gets sick at Christmas, sometimes you have to be like, okay, what's the new family structure going to look like? Where are we going to have Christmas now? How are we going to stay together even though it's just like cousins kind of?

Speaker 3:
[23:26] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[23:27] And what we didn't do, and I actually, I don't blame Obama for this. I blame like the larger voting public, Congress, and also maybe some Obama. But like we didn't fundamentally reform our economic system. We didn't punish the banks. Like we didn't regulate the banks thoroughly.

Speaker 3:
[23:49] And we then kind of seeded everything over to big tech.

Speaker 1:
[23:53] Right.

Speaker 3:
[23:54] Like I think that, no, and I say that, but I say that because when I was working on this book, like it's funny because I would always, like if I, before I started it, I'd be like, oh, and all the optimism came from Obama. It came from, well, and that phase, because I think most of that book is in 07. So actually both he and Hillary were still in the race, like great. Like, and it was just the idea of like we could do this or that. And they're both insane and amazing. But like when I was done with the book, what I really realized was the special sauce. And actually this is kind of in the Leda Dutta memoir, is the power of being around people in a physical way, like on a continual basis, that tell you you're gonna finish this PhD and like you're gonna like, and it's gonna be amazing. And when you're on the other side of it, don't like, don't you even worry. And not, they're not just saying it because they're like, go girl. They're saying it because you're hanging out with them two or three times a week. And you're like, I feel like, what's the point? And they're like, no, don't forget that like, you have real relationships. And I think we don't realize how much I think that that's been the economy, yes, like capitalism, all these things. But I think that seeding over our fundamentals of friendship to digitized versions, I think has not helped us restore that at all.

Speaker 1:
[25:11] No, and this gets to the Brooklyn part of the question, right? And part of the reason there was this energy there, I mean, part of it is just like, okay, so Brooklyn was the place that was now affordable in and around New York City, right?

Speaker 3:
[25:22] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[25:24] But also proximity. You walk down the street and you're like, of course I'm going to run into someone.

Speaker 3:
[25:29] Yes. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[25:31] Yes. Like you can take the train and be somewhere very quickly without like worrying about, okay, where am I going to park? Like it is such a place that is conducive to friendship, but also, and you put this, this is so, it's all over the book, serendipity. Like running into people like ending up in like some weird party. I didn't live in New York, but my brother lived in New York during this time and I would come visit him. He was living with like three roommates on the first and on the edge of, really on the edge of Clinton Hill and like we would just walk around and he's like, oh, I know this guy, like we'll go over to his house and it was 4th of July and like someone like did an art project of unfurling a giant like flag the size of a building, right? Like, and I was like, oh, here we are just doing this. Like, and I took a couple of photos with a digital camera that I then later uploaded to Facebook, but for an album on Facebook. There was no like, I wasn't like, I need to document where I am. I need to see where everyone else is. I need to get my brother wasn't texting anyone to see where people were. It was just like, let's go.

Speaker 3:
[26:46] You were in the moment and you weren't thinking about being captured, like doing anything.

Speaker 1:
[26:54] Perceived.

Speaker 3:
[26:55] Yeah, you weren't being perceived. You were like, you got to live with abandon. But I also think because we weren't like this, staring down and involved in things happening in these other places. One of the things I had a lot of fun writing about was like, you noticed when people were noticing you and when those people were hot. So there was just a lot more actual manifestations of sex when you were just out and about in the world because you weren't distracted, and your energy wasn't going down to a device. It was kind of present. I think that we sort of engineered that out of our bodies. I think that actually we might be able to say that we were all just a little more embodied because we weren't getting so pulled. So when you went to places, it was not just that, it was that you were like, you're not down here, so you're like, I see that person making eyes at me by that bar. I might as well talk to them. Strangers didn't feel as strange because you were actually absorbing the energy in a very present way.

Speaker 1:
[28:06] I hope this comes off the right way. The book is very fleshy. I have a real sensation of people's bodies in the book.

Speaker 3:
[28:16] Oh, good.

Speaker 1:
[28:17] Oh, good. No, I'm glad. I think that's a sign that you were trying to communicate that feeling of people being in proximity to one another and noticing one another in a way that's super interesting.

Speaker 3:
[28:30] Oh, thank you. I just actually missed it. A lot of my readers are younger, and I was like, I promise if you go out, it'll be great. I want to seduce them into getting out and doing something at night with nobody and leaving their phone.

Speaker 1:
[28:47] Yeah, well, and that's the thing. As I will say, now when you go out, if you're out at the bar, everyone who's feeling kind of awkward, they just look at their phones.

Speaker 3:
[28:54] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[28:55] And before, when you felt awkward, you kind of looked around.

Speaker 5:
[28:58] You smoked.

Speaker 4:
[29:00] You smoked.

Speaker 6:
[29:02] You flirted. You flirted.

Speaker 1:
[29:05] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[29:06] You talked to the bartender so that that could give you an excuse to talk to the person next to you. You're like, I'll go in a three-way, in a triangle. If I can get the bartender and then I can get that person in.

Speaker 1:
[29:23] The Culture Study Podcast is sponsored by Aura Frames. The Aura Frame is the perfect Mother's Day gift for so many reasons. First of all, moms are rarely in the photo, but you can take all of the photos that the mom is in the photo and make sure that she is included in all of these memories that you have made together. Second of all, moms always want pictures that you end up like, I don't know, sending them over text or photos that you post on Instagram. They also find it annoying to have to text you and be like, oh, can you send me the JPEG of that photo or whatever. But you can so easily just text it to the Aura Frame. Seriously, it's so easy. You can either text it, you can do it through the app. It's very straightforward whenever you think about it. Then it will just show up in their Aura Frame and they don't have to do the additional labor of asking you for the photo. It's amazing. Everyone I know who's given someone in their life an Aura Frame has absolutely loved it. I've given it to my mom, she loves it, and I love going over to her house and seeing all the photos rotating through it. It's amazing. You get free unlimited storage, you can preload photos before it ships. Let's say you're not going to be there for Mother's Day. When it arrives and they unbox it and they set it up, it already has the photos there. It's a larger scale gift than just sending them a piece of technology. You can also personalize it and add a message before it arrives, and it comes in this very tasteful gift box. Make Mother's Day special with Aura Frames. They were named the number one digital frame by Wirecutter, and for a limited time, listeners can get $25 off their best-selling Carver Mat Frame with Code Culture. That's auraframes.com promo code culture. Support the show by mentioning it as a checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Today's episode is sponsored by Articul. So we have the second bedroom, and there is a whole saga involved that mostly involves the fact that because our house is from 1904 and was never meant to serve the purpose that it currently serves, the ceilings are so low that you feel like you're in a ship. And we have tried various queen bed configurations in there because it needs to be a queen. But the ceilings are so low that any traditional frame has just really made it feel claustrophobic. So yesterday, I pulled the trigger on the Bozzi queen bed frame and smoked oak. And so it's one of those that doesn't have a headboard. I know it's really nice. It's only $399 for a queen bed frame. It's amazing. And I know because I have so much furniture from Articol that it's going to look quality, not cheap. It's not going to come in like a billion different pieces. I shelled out $20 more so that they could come and put it together for me in the room instead of having it arrive in pieces. I ordered it yesterday, and it's supposed to come in the next two weeks. So none of that like, oh, order it now, and it might come in December. It's actually in stock, and it's going to arrive. Here at Culture Study, we love Articol because they make it effortless to create a stylish, long-lasting, non-clostrophobic guest room at an unbeatable price. And you can immediately tell the difference in quality when you receive an Articol piece. It's not made of particle board. It doesn't feel like it's going to fall apart as soon as you sit on this bed. Some of my Articol stuff I've had for six years, and it still looks like almost brand new. It's amazing. And with Articol's 30-day satisfaction guarantee, you can shop with confidence, knowing that if you're not completely in love with your new furniture, you can easily return it. This peace of mind ensures you can invest in your home without hesitation. So if you're in the market for a beautiful new sofa, dining table, or queen bed, head over to articol.com. Okay, so this next question is gonna give us a way to talk too about like inflation, affordability, all these sorts of things, and Brooklyn still. So this comes from Zoe.

Speaker 7:
[33:37] Why does it feel like Brooklyn in 2008 was the epicenter of everything? What year did hipsters go away? Do you remember the stories about kids out of college working at Bear Stearns or wherever and having nothing to do because everyone was getting fired so they had long lunches and slept in empty offices? 2008 to 2012, great years or the greatest years?

Speaker 1:
[34:05] When you hear this, because oh my gosh, the hipster discourse. I love that the book isn't set in Williamsburg because Williamsburg seemed to be the beginning of the commodification of this Brooklyn ethos. And Clinton Hill, Fort Greene was resisting that still. But also, there's the specter of Barclay Center that's coming to change everything. So I will just talk to you about what you think of it.

Speaker 3:
[34:35] My take on this, because I thought a lot about it because of this class book, I think that what happened was Williamsburg was in a developer's wet dream basically, right? And they built it and then they came. And so then they were like, oh, we're on to something here. And then you started getting Brooklyn the Brand. They're like, there's this vibe going on in Brooklyn, and now we're going to turn Brooklyn the Vibe into Brooklyn the Brand. And I think it actually started out innocuously enough, but for anyone that remembers the Brooklyn Flee, it kind of sparked because of the recession. And they were like, well, everybody needs to make extra money selling their garbage, and then people could spend a little bit of money buying other people's garbage. And so it was like, and some of it was kind of schlocky, and then it sort of led to what we'll now be called the Hudson Valley aesthetic. But it was like a real response to, and then as a friend of mine, she had the Brooklyn Bride blog, and then it was like, and then Brooklyn was a bowling alley, and then Brooklyn was like, and it became all of these things that I think were built off of a vibe, but then ultimately ruined the vibe.

Speaker 2:
[35:46] Yeah, totally.

Speaker 3:
[35:47] And I also feel like it started, I think it started with the developers of Williamsburg, and they were like, we could really make something out of this, and then it just kind of overdid itself, right? And then you had that whole subway tile and Edison bulb moment. It was really like a whole handlebar mustache. It was like a whole aesthetic.

Speaker 2:
[36:10] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[36:13] So I lived in Carroll Gardens, and that whole area used to be called South Brooklyn, which was always so interesting to me, right?

Speaker 3:
[36:20] That's where I'm originally from, is from South Brooklyn.

Speaker 1:
[36:23] And what I saw, because I'm a person who, when I moved to a place, I'm always like, what did that used to be, what did that used to be? Trying to figure out all of this history. And one of the things that is super interesting about the area of Carroll Gardens, where I would certainly not be able to afford to live now, is that like the, or at least like, I would never be able to own something. But the two streets that go down there, there's Smith and Court. And they're really like lovely walkable streets. Like you walk down it, like I would go from where my house to the Trader Joe's to get some groceries, was like a mile and a half walk. And you would see so many people. One time I saw Bjork in like a filthy fur coat, just walking down the street. You'd see people, but they're like, there's so many like shoppy shops, like there's old Italian social clubs. Shopey shops, yes, yes. It's like everything. There's kids, there's everything. And, but gradually, as it became more and more expensive, like the rents on those storefronts started to go up because they realized they could charge more. So when the leases expired, what happened is that like the rents went up so much that the only places that could afford to be there were chains, right? So banks, places that have like pretty high yields, like nail salons. This is what people always joke about is it's a bank or a nail salon or a drug store.

Speaker 3:
[37:50] Yeah, or a Starbucks or blank street coffee. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[37:55] Yeah. But also things like American apparel. Talk about like that era.

Speaker 3:
[38:01] Look at that era.

Speaker 1:
[38:02] Like no one wanted really to go to an American apparel. So then those places would leave and then the rents would still be at that price point and then you would just have these empty places. So it's like the neighborhood hollows itself out by becoming successful.

Speaker 3:
[38:19] Yeah. And the other thing that you started to see in Carroll Gardens certainly in Fort Greene was then as people were rezoning and they're like, oh, there's a market for luxury condos. This was just a walk-up building, but now we can make it a luxury condo and they tear it down. There's a valuation, like there's so many, I can't think of anything less sexy than thinking about taxes. And yet at the same time, taxation is the root of so many of our problems because they value a building based on the estimated commercial rent. And so then you don't want to undervalue the building by charging less than that. Yep. And so essentially they then will just let it stay empty because that's better for the tax abatement or whatever the thing is. And so you also just have this like ghost town of new developments with empty storefronts. And there's no, at some point, and I say this as somebody that owned a small business in this period, so we ended up splitting the business. And so I had a month of wedding planning business that came out of the recession because nobody could afford the big thing anymore. And I had 15 women that worked for us part time, and they all were teachers or executive assistants, and they did this on Saturdays. And I had such a point of pride. If somebody saved their extra money for the down payment on their condo, and they took a big vacation, whatever it was, and we were like, oh my gosh, our business let them do this. And what I think I get so upset about, that I do feel got scooped up in that post-recession era, was any notion of community or socially minded finance. And for all of the talk about social impact that then became so buzzy in the late 15, 16s, whatever, like you just don't see anybody that actually cares about the impact that something makes in a neighborhood. Or like in that same, it's like, well, whatever, we'll just let it stay. And like, and you're like, to that point, like they're hollowing out these awesome places and these places with third spaces. And third spaces are what really give people the place to have like friendships. Like, you know, like that is like what gives you the ability to have new friendships. Bars. Yes, bars, bars, bars. Like all, like all of it. Yes. Like, and it just kind of, I don't know how you get people to go back to caring about that. And some weird ways I'm feeling like maybe things are getting so crazy as I'm watching people fight against like data centers and like really caring. Like maybe it's getting taken so far that it's going to snap us into caring about it more.

Speaker 1:
[41:01] What percentage would you say of your take home pay were you paying on rent around this time?

Speaker 3:
[41:10] I'd say probably it's New York, probably like 30 or 35 percent. Like it was like, I'd say just to estimate that. Like, yeah, like I'd say that.

Speaker 1:
[41:20] But like I said, nothing compared to now. Like I know people who pay 40 to 50 percent of the time.

Speaker 3:
[41:26] Honestly, I don't know any young people that are in the city that aren't subsidized.

Speaker 1:
[41:32] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[41:32] Like I know one young woman at the Atlantic who has a second job. But other than that person, everybody else I know is pretty much subsidized. Like they are receiving financial help from parents. Like the average amount of help, like I think it used to be like, you'd be like, oh, somebody's on their parents, friends, and family plan. Like, oh great, you have a cell phone bill. But now I think the national average for parental output is almost $1,500 a month. Support, like, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[42:03] What I would have done with $1,500 a month.

Speaker 3:
[42:07] Like, and that's kind of just across the board. So like, you know, you see people, and it really has become a city of the very wealthy, but partly it's because to your point, like, the salaries actually haven't gotten that much better.

Speaker 1:
[42:23] No.

Speaker 3:
[42:23] Like for a lot of these jobs.

Speaker 1:
[42:25] Yeah. Like, so Melody did some inflation math, and like, 30,000, if you were earning 30,000 in March 2008, has the same buying power. Now that's 46,000. So the median annual income for workers in the US in 2008 was around 50,000, and now it's 62,000. So like, it's like, our, you know, we haven't kept pace. And also, housing prices, particularly in New York, have not kept pace. And the other thing that I would note here is because the young people now, like, we just, it's all over in the studies, like, they're just less comfortable with other people, with hanging out, with like, having friends. I see a real reticence to have roommates.

Speaker 3:
[43:15] So do I. Yes, yes.

Speaker 1:
[43:17] That was how we survived is we had roommates.

Speaker 3:
[43:20] Yes. And I think the other thing that ends up happening is also, because you have this idea, because then is attracting kind of a higher class, like a higher fiscal class, like family. Like there's also like, you would kind of go to New York and you're like, I don't know, I'm going to get whatever crap hole I can afford and like, and make it work. Like, is it clean or there are no bugs? Like, right. And now it's like you don't have a doorman. So then what do people build? They build more doorman apartments. Like if there's a market for it, then if you build it, then they will come when you build it. So I think that you're also seeing people building luxury and not building just like, you need a place to live? Great. And so I think that that is a big part of it. And I wish more people had roommates because I think it's such a forced way to have an intimate relationship in like a really good way. And it's like you can't just blow it up either because you've got to make it work.

Speaker 1:
[44:17] Yeah, you have to be, you have to communicate. You have to do these things that are hard. And the other thing I would say that I see is like this impulse towards like becoming an adult very young, which in some ways is very regressive, right? And that it used to be like you, if you're a woman and you graduated from college or even you didn't graduate from college, you went straight into like adulthood and motherhood and wife-dom, right?

Speaker 3:
[44:39] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[44:39] So in a different way. But now it's like, not only does your dorm room have to look like the condo of a 47-year-old, that like when you graduate, like your parents like put together your single room. And like I see parents bemoaning that like their kids have to have a roommate when they're in undergrad or like have to deal with ugly, quote unquote, ugly dorm rooms. They take the dorm furniture out and they put it in storage and they put the like fancy furniture in.

Speaker 3:
[45:10] Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:
[45:11] There's this real like push to consume in that capacity.

Speaker 3:
[45:16] But there's also a push to like, now that I have nice things. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I rewatched The Devil Wears Prada and I stopped because at one point she's putting on her underwear in the very beginning Anne Hathaway and I was like, I used to have that IKEA lingerie chest. I was like, I had that for like 15 years. It was like it was hidden in a closet at one point. Totally. Now, I'm like, I remember looking around my apartment, maybe a year or so ago and be like, there's not a single thing for my IKEA here. I felt like I had triumphed. But I was like, there is something weird that gets lost when you never know resistance. Talk about friction, defrictioning everything. I don't know. Live in a cinder block room for a few years. That's what being in college is. I guess, is it Gen X now? Who are the parents of this age? Is it older Gen X? I think it's because they're traumatized from us being latchkey kids. But I'm like, you don't have to do everything. I know we had to make our own breakfast. And I know that we came home and nobody was there. I know. It's so sad that we had to do that. But it doesn't mean that they're going to die if the dorm room doesn't look like Martha Stewart herself did it.

Speaker 1:
[46:36] The other thing that I think about when I think about 2007, 2008 is that the percentage of people with student loans was significantly lower. Yes. So a lot of us were taking out student loans. So at that time, I was taking out more loans. But the people who were like 26 in Brooklyn did not have that tremendous student loan debt on them yet. Because the tremendous cuts in statewide funding that would force people going to state schools to take on significant debt and then also the luxury lifestyle inflation of private schools that would cause the increase in tuition there. That was not an extra cost that people were dealing with as well.

Speaker 3:
[47:16] No, that's right. Also, I'd actually say that there's, unfortunately, particularly in cities like New York, and I'm certain this is true somewhat in San Francisco and a few other, there's also a certain elitism that's come up into hiring in the last 20 years, that you used to go to work, and I'd work with people that had gone to Hunter or went to SUNY Purchase, or in fact, there were industries where it's like, oh yeah, we mainly hire afforded, like there were fewer schools from local schools, like tier two to three schools, and now there is such a preference given to 40 schools in this country that are private elite institutions, and I went to one of them and I still get upset about it. And again, I go back to tax policy because it was like, what are we incentivizing these companies that live in these states, if not to hire state school graduates, like make these degrees more valuable? Because I think part of why people also had less debt is that they were able to go and get a great job and come out and go from a SUNY and get, oh, maybe not a white shoe finance firm, but someplace. And I think that you started to see the recruiting practices get more elitist over time. And I think that that has also made everything scale up.

Speaker 1:
[48:31] Yeah. And the idea, too, and this isn't entirely new, but the idea that in college, everyone at a state school, an elite school, whatever, everyone should look for national internships that they should start working at. And then when you start applying for jobs, it's not like in state, it's, I will move anywhere at any time at any pay. Right? This is the work that I will do.

Speaker 3:
[48:57] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[48:58] And then you have so many more job applicants for so many more jobs. And then you have things like AI sorting through the applications. And the way that they sort is by looking for things like, where did you get your degree?

Speaker 3:
[49:09] It's so true. It's so true. Oh my gosh. And then I think this is probably a topic for another day. But I'm like, and then after all these generations are being conditioned to go through this. And then to have somebody like the CEO of Palantir be like, unless you're neurodivergent, don't bother with school. Like, what is this due to? I feel like we're on the brink of 10 million people being unhoused again, but like it's like a different version of it. And I just don't know what we do with all those hopes and dreams and preparation that so many families have engaged in over this next generation. Like you get a whole country kind of at a precipice and then pull a rug out from under them. And I just don't know what that does to our psyche. And yeah, nothing good.

Speaker 1:
[49:58] Culture Study Podcast is sponsored by OLLI. Guess what yesterday was, Melody?

Speaker 2:
[50:04] 420? What?

Speaker 1:
[50:06] No, it was 420, and 420 is Steve's birthday. Steve the dog.

Speaker 2:
[50:11] Oh, happy birthday, Steve.

Speaker 1:
[50:14] I mean, it's a made-up birthday because when you adopt a dog, they're like, we don't really know when this litter happened. And so we knew that it was sometime around late April. So we thought, what's a day that we will always remember? Because sometimes it's hard to remember your dog's birthday because they're not like, it's my birthday, it's my birthday. So we picked 420 Blaze It just so we can remember it. But Steve is seven. And as I've talked about in other ads for Ollie, he is just a picky eater. He's got a sensitive stomach. But one thing that always absolutely peaks his hunger is when he hears a little plastic of the Ollie package opening up. He loves Ollie. And for his birthday, we were like, let's save Steve's favorite, which involves blueberries. It's the Ollie that has blueberries just for him. Ollie's fresh recipes are developed by real chefs and backed by vet nutritionists. They're obsessed with making the best meals with the highest quality ingredients. From the moment you start your subscription, everything is tailored to your pup. The meals are perfectly proportioned and you get this cute little pup tainer and scoop for easy storing and serving so you don't have to deal with gross tin cans in your refrigerator. And with Ollie, you don't just get food. Through their app, you can check in on your dog's health with real vets. You just upload a picture and their team can check in on your dog's weight, digestion, teeth and coat because Ollie is obsessed with making sure your pup is as healthy as can be. Get ready for both you and your dog, whether they're seven years old or wait, how old is Polly?

Speaker 2:
[51:54] No one really knows. She's mystery age.

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Speaker 6:
[52:39] What is the relationship between 2008 optimism and millennial hustle culture? In 2008, I had just finished my first year of law school, and it was my first summer living in DC. We received so many messages. Work hard, play hard. Get involved in politics. Network. Side note, is this why we all were wearing business casual to bars and clubs? The other message was, no way are we paying interns, and you must look and act professional at all times and be careful what you post on Facebook. It was a wild time. It all seems so quaint now.

Speaker 1:
[53:14] Uh, I've just, I've thought so much about this because I think the way that most millennials, and I think some young Gen X, and I would love to hear your perspective on this, is like, we reacted to the lack of jobs. Some people were like, this is fucked up. Let's do Occupy Wall Street. But then the vast majority, and I think this is in part because we were raised by boomers, said, oh, I'm just going to work harder for less money.

Speaker 3:
[53:42] A hundred percent, like a hundred percent. Like I literally had, one of my very good friends from high school was like in Occupy. She was like living down there and I remember meeting her for coffee. She left the thing and we met up for coffee and she was like, you of all people should really be down there with us. You have the small business and you were still looking. I was like, but then how will I make money if I'm sitting down in the park with you? That was a very direct example because if we weren't making the money, there was no money. But it was only when thinking back and doing the research for a non-fiction book that I was like, oh my God, this was really messed up. But I do think the problem is, and part of why this moment is so traumatizing for so many of us, is we fully believed, in fact, the poor Barack Obama meaning so many things to so many people, that he's just a man.

Speaker 1:
[54:42] Tell us about an overdetermined symbol.

Speaker 3:
[54:45] Yes, but in a lot of ways, he was the symbol that the system works. He wrote a book and this made them prosperous, and now they're winning at capitalism, they're winning at all these things, they're winning America, and we were like, the system works, and literally we've now then, we doubled down on that for another decade almost, like into COVID, and then the wheels have just fallen off the whole thing. So now we're like, what are you talking about? I think so many people have Ostrich syndrome and their head is like, how can this whole thing that I've wrapped everything up and not mean anything or function?

Speaker 1:
[55:31] I get it so hard to look at. And are confused because they're like, what do you mean I did all the things I was supposed to do to be a successful bourgeois person, and now AI is taking away the college-educated jobs?

Speaker 3:
[55:48] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[55:48] How dare it? And this is the thing about the recession, the 2008 recession, is that it was so many of the jobs that were lost were working class jobs.

Speaker 3:
[55:57] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[55:58] And now it's like, how dare they take away these jobs?

Speaker 3:
[56:01] Well, even honestly, I did a profile on Andrew Yang recently for The Atlantic, and part of why I wanted to talk to him is I was like, it's so weird that way back in 2019, he was like, AI is going to take all these car drivers jobs, these truck driving jobs, and what are we going to do in UBI? And I'm like, now nobody talks about UBI at all or anything. Nobody talks about any solutions. There is no discussion of solution.

Speaker 1:
[56:28] No, it's just like, who's right? Is it going to do it? Is it going to do it?

Speaker 3:
[56:32] No, we're all just like, you know what it feels like the scene in Austin Powers when the steamroller is coming at him and he's like, no. I get it's moving so slowly. It's like, no. I said to Andrew, I was like, well, even you didn't think it was going to come for the white collar jobs. Andrew is so charming, but he doesn't like to be wrong. So he's like, well, I mean, I just thought it was going to come for the blue collar jobs first. You were conditioned your whole life that if you do these things, the problems aren't going to come for you because now you've not just become an earner in society, but you did so in this respectable, highbrow way. Therefore, you were insulated from this, and I think that it is traumatizing to feel like, suddenly also be told that that whole thing is meaningless. I don't know what ends up happening with college. Does this just become a thing in the days of our founding fathers where it's just like a place for the very elite to go and ponder? Life of the mind.

Speaker 1:
[57:32] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[57:33] Life of the mind.

Speaker 1:
[57:34] Exactly. Some of the dots that I've been trying to connect in my head too are like, I wrote this piece a couple of weeks ago about all of these women who have been doing their husband's job searching for them, and why the men no longer have the robust social networks to reach out or professional networks. I'm thinking about how also the sort of work that we threw ourselves into was the all-consuming sort that I'm thinking of even investment bankers who didn't necessarily want to live in Murray Hill or down on Wall Street, and so they then became the people who could afford to live in Brooklyn, but they're working 18-hour days, they're never home, they don't have any social lives, they're not part of the community or invested it or even know who their neighbors are, but they're the ones who can pay that rent. Then now we wake up against this backdrop of upper middle class precarity, and are like, who am I? Who are my friends?

Speaker 3:
[58:37] That's the biggest part of it. The biggest challenge is the psychology of social class. I was raised very blue collar, right? I always joke, I'm like, wedding planner, author, I don't know. I'm like, dog groomer tomorrow. I don't know, a job's a job. I'm like, because we weren't conditioned to talk about work. Nobody cared. If you came back home for Christmas break, be like, I got this internship, is it paying? And they're like, well, then who cares? It was like, this was just not something that was valued in my family. But in an upper and middle and upper class context, you are trained to find your parachute and the color of it specifically, and sew it and design it and make sure that it's couture, and then this is your identity. And I think it's a break in the social contract that's going to feel very, very traumatizing. And I think it's because we have four generations now. And the worst part is that in doing that, weirdly then we've also managed to stigmatize blue collar work. So it's not like we're trying to, when somebody's like, Dina Powell was at the Axios Conference, and she's like, there's going to be great careers in welding. And I was like, Dina, are your kids going to weld? I'm like, your kids aren't going to go well. But unless you grew up in a large family with lots of people that did lots of things, most upper middle class people can't imagine their kid having a career in welding. And they don't know a welder. They can't even literally fathom that life.

Speaker 1:
[60:07] And that has to do with so many things too, right? We no longer have any sort of social organizations where we hang out with people of other classes.

Speaker 3:
[60:17] Of other classes, we've become so segregated. And we've also, in popular culture, you have no more working class people. I think one of the reasons why The Bear actually was so unusual was because it was the dignity of people that work really hard. And even then, and that's partly why everybody loved that episode with Liza Cole and Zayas because you actually saw her go home. People love it because you're actually seeing a breath of experience. And I think we've erased a whole swath of Americans. And that's also partly why they're pissed off and spending all their time on social media and not engaging with so much of this stuff. We're really in a moment. And I don't know, that hustle thing is so interesting because it's like you're watching the balloon deflate. Some of it I think is going to be really good, and some of it I'm like, oh no. What do people do?

Speaker 1:
[61:09] This is where I look at not just Gen Z, but now Gen Alpha, how they are reacting to this moment. And especially five years ago, I saw this reaction to millennials complaining about being burnt out. Some Gen Z were like, yeah, those fuckers, stop talking about your job. Get over yourself. Just don't work as much. So some of them were very much children of Gen X. Like, this is your problem. But then some of them were like, why do millennials complain all the time? Which was how I thought about Gen Xers being like, you know, anti-sellout, like all these things. I was like, they just don't understand how to play the game. Yeah, yeah. And so that idea that like, well, if millennials won't take that job or are going to complain about it, like, I'm just going to work harder. So essentially like not, another generation, like millennials, not learning the lessons and instead of like rebuilding in a way that just is like settling for less. That's what I'm scared of. And I don't know how to like protect against that without being patronizing.

Speaker 3:
[62:18] I think, and it's the hardest thing to do because people can't know what they don't know, except like until you tend to get burned by the stove. But I do feel like, I don't know, like it's like you get to a tip. I always say like by the time I got over the hill of the recession, and we finally like paid off that chase loan above it. I had such a divorce between worth and money and career title. Like it all kind of got divorced in a really healthy way. And I'm almost hoping that maybe this gives us a weird chance for a realignment. But I am worried about what people wake up and do every day because like you need to have something to wake up and want to do every day. Like that's like, I know.

Speaker 1:
[63:01] Like that is where like I look at the people with the best, like work-life balance, the best like social lives and community involvement. And it's people who do have like JOB jobs. Like, yeah, it's I'm not kidding. Like people are going to think this sounds weird, but like the exterminator who comes to my house and like sets the mousetraps is like one of the happiest people that I encounter on a bi-weekly basis and he is done at 5 p.m. But at the same time, like you have to want to do that work. And I think sometimes we're like, oh, well, everyone wants to be a welder. And you like the work still has to be dignified in whatever way.

Speaker 3:
[63:40] The work still has to feel dignified to you.

Speaker 2:
[63:43] But to you.

Speaker 3:
[63:44] To you. And I do think like there's been a massive investment across the country in trade educations. And I do think that what I am seeing in Gen Z's is it's not actually just a revolt against maybe this like hustle thing, as much as it's like a, maybe we shouldn't spend all of our time just sitting at a desk. Like, and like there is actually a desire to like, like that is what doesn't appeal to them. Like that feels like crazy and weird. And like, like I don't want to. And I do think that what we allowed corporate America to do to us is divorce our bodies from our hands and our minds. Like, and I think one of the reasons why people were kind of quasi happy in the beginning of COVID was so many people were like, I'm going to bake bread. I'm going to have a good time making a very elaborate meal. It was like a physical thing that then their brain also was engaged in. And we didn't realize how like, I don't know, like we'd let ourselves become like really good AIs in a really weird way. Like we're just kind of disembodied, right?

Speaker 1:
[64:49] Like, and like disembodied people just responding to emails till the end of time.

Speaker 3:
[64:53] Yes. Yes. And it's like, I think that what I find interesting are the young people that had already been on this thing like before this panic, but like where it's like, I don't want to be my parents taking out the laptop after dinner. And like, this doesn't appeal to me.

Speaker 1:
[65:08] Well, and this isn't this like such a great like return to like Lloyd Dobler's speech and Say Anything where he's like, I don't want to buy anything made or sold, process or made, sell anything. We'll have Melody do the actual clip.

Speaker 5:
[65:25] I don't want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed or buy anything sold or processed or process anything sold, bought or processed or repair anything sold, bought or processed. As a career, I don't want to do that.

Speaker 1:
[65:42] This is a great place for us to come full circle just in terms of, some of the hope is maybe there's a new way forward that isn't what our parents, what has made our parents miserable.

Speaker 3:
[65:51] That's right. I think that that's right. I am trying to think about this moment in time, less focusing on the end of something and more like, how do we learn the lessons of the past 15 to 20 years and build in a better, build back better. But make it interesting.

Speaker 1:
[66:16] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[66:17] I really feel like we have a moment of opportunity and I've never seen people in mass seem so cognitive about where we've gone wrong, which is very exciting actually. It's like a very exciting thing.

Speaker 1:
[66:32] So we have the small bonus segment. It's called the Ask Anne Anything. We have a question about lifestyle creep. I think because of the intersection of your current fiction book and your new non-fiction work, I think you're going to be the perfect person for this one. Can you stick around and answer?

Speaker 3:
[66:47] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[66:48] Listeners, if you're not a paid subscriber and you want to hear this, go to patreon.com/culturestudy to sign up. Xochitl, this has been such a delight. Everything I wanted or expected and more. Thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 3:
[67:02] This was so fun. I can't thank you enough.

Speaker 1:
[67:05] Where can people find you on the Internet if they want to hear more from you?

Speaker 3:
[67:08] I am mainly on Instagram and it is XochitltheG, X-O-C-H-I-T-L-the G. That's good. I am, according to Alison Stewart, opinionated.

Speaker 1:
[67:24] We love it. Thanks for listening to the Culture Study Podcast. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts because we have so many great episodes in the works and I promise you don't want to miss any of them. If you want to suggest a topic, ask a question about the culture that surrounds you or submit a question for our subscriber-only advice time segment, go to our Google forum at tinyurl.com/culturestudypod or check the show notes for a link. If you want to support the show and get bonus content, head to patreon.com/culturestudy. It's five bucks a month or $50 a year and you'll get ad-free episodes, an exclusive advice time segment, and weekly discussion threads for each episode. The Culture Study Podcast is produced by me, Anne Helen Petersen, and Melody Rowell. Our music is by Poddington Bear. You can find me on Instagram at Anne Helen Petersen, Melody at Melodious47, and the show at Culture Study Pod.