Marisa Peer may very well be the most delightful, soothing and radiant woman I have met in many years. In all of my interviews, I am often the one commanding the room with questions, while politely deferring to the experts in their various subjects of mastery. In this episode, the tables turn. Marisa seems to know, intuitively, exactly what I (what we all, really) need to hear this Christmas season: about holiday FOMO, New Year’s Eve traditions, the holiday “spirit,” (do we have to?!) and even that toxic “rise and grind” mentality with resolutions that inevitably come when the new year rolls around, setting expectations that will leave you feeling even more disheartened than before. In this special episode, RTT inventor Marisa leads us in one of her world-famous guided meditations and leaves us with an explanation as to why it is so important for us to forget what we’ve learned before about harnessing our power, and to simply begin “telling ourselves a better lie.” Enjoy!
There are few speakers today that have the wide experience and stellar reputation of Marisa Peer. Named ‘Britain’s Best Therapist’ by Men’s Health magazine, Marisa has spent over three decades treating a client list that includes international superstars, CEOs, Royalty, and Olympic athletes. Her engaging and amusing talks are peppered with anecdotes from an unparalleled career in which she has helped thousands of people to overcome profound personal issues. She has been voted best speaker twice at Awesomeness Fest and numerous conferences including The Mastermind Group London, the Women in Business Superconference, and the Royal Society of Medicine. It is easy to see how people leave Marisa’s live talks feeling completely and permanently transformed.
Marisa has been a regular contributor to publications including The Daily Mail, Red Magazine, Elle Magazine, Marie Claire Magazine, Closer, Men’s Fitness, Sunday People, The Best You, and numerous others. Marisa is listed in Tatler’s guide to ‘Britain’s 250 Best Doctors’ – this guide lists the experts and pioneers in their field. She has been described as a “great British pioneer” by Men’s Health magazine, and she is the only woman featured in an article on ‘The Best of British’.
In addition to being a national magazine columnist, she has appeared on major media outlets and television shows including NBC’s Today Show, GMTV, Lorraine Kelly, This Morning, Sky News, ITV News, BBC News, Channel 4 News, BBC Radio, Supersize vs. Superskinny, Celebrity Fit Club, Celebrity Big Brother, and I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! She has appeared on countless television programs and news channels across the globe. She has appeared on the Lewis Howes Show, Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory show, the Maria Shriver Show, and on Tony Gonzalez’ podcast.
Training early in her career as a child psychologist, Marisa later earned further qualifications from the Hypnosis Training Institute of Los Angeles and the Pritikin Longevity Centre. In 2015, Marisa Peer founded Rapid Transformational Therapy®, an exciting and award-winning training method that is solution-oriented, fast, and highly effective. Having spent over thirty years developing her technique, which is renowned as life-changing and dynamic and spoken of in superlatives, Marisa has trained over 10,000 RTT® therapists around the world. Within two years of its launch, Rapid Transformational Therapy® won eleven awards in just six months because of its effectiveness and its revolutionary transformational techniques. She trains RTT® therapists in London, Los Angeles, and Australia every year.
A best-selling author of five books, Marisa’s USP is that she teaches “simple steps that produce dramatic and life-changing results.” She seamlessly brings her one-of a-kind therapy room techniques to the podium, leaving her audiences both transfixed and transformed. Her acclaimed ‘Mastermind Your Life’ series focuses on the thought patterns and mental habits that can be detrimental or beneficial to our success, depending on how we use them. When she reveals her fundamental rule – that all our emotional and personal problems come from us believing that we’re not ‘enough’ – and explains how to overcome it, the results are tremendous and dramatic. Her latest best-selling and powerfully worded book, ‘I Am Enough’, enables the reader to achieve powerful and recognizable results rapidly and permanently.
Forget the birds and bees! Dr. Jill McDevitt is answering all the questions about sex you’ve been afraid to ask. As the only person in the world with three academic degrees in human sexuality, Dr. Jill has perfected the craft of helping people turn conversations about sex from awkward to easy! Listen in as this celebrated author and I have a candid conversation about masturbation, tips for great oral sex, sexual public perception in the US, properly educating your teens, keeping the spark alive with your partner, open marriages, how to ask for what you want, body count stigma, and 86ing a relationship due to sexual incompatibility.
Dr. Jill McDevitt is a sexologist, sexuality educator, trainer, author, sexual wellness coach, and feel-good activist on a mission to radically change and improve the way we think about and treat sexuality, ourselves, and each other. As the only person in the world with three academic degrees in human sexuality (BA, MEd, Phd), Dr. Jill has perfected the craft of helping people turn conversations about sex from “ARGH this is awkward!” into ‘”Ahh! That was easy!” She has presented over 3,100 sexuality workshops to date, and her advice has been quoted in Forbes, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and the New York Times.
I have always admired Kim Kardashian West – not because of how she looked or what she wore, but because she was always just unapologetically herself, despite some embarrassing setbacks. Enter: MJ Corey and her sister, Marie, of Kardashian Kolloquium. The unbiased analyses of the Kardashian-Jenner’s campaigns, relationships, ads, purposeful faux-pas, and branding sent me spiraling down into thought-provoking content – and it doesn’t stop there. Super Lestela Studios, Marie’s brainchild, has recently launched a web series-variety-talk show hybrid aptly named “Between Two Salads,” which will take us even further into understanding why we have this yearning volition to consume all things viral on the internet – Kardashian or otherwise. We discuss: Fendi x Skims, Khloe’s dad, Sex & The City, the “Kardashian Kurse,” Pete Davidson, Magic Mike, the recent Astroworld tragedy, and much more. Grab your teacup: we’re headed down the rabbit hole!
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The Kardashian-Jenner Era: Philosophies, Fallacies And The Sister Connection With MJ Corey And Marie of Kardashian Kolloquium
We’ve got Marie and MJ with us. Welcome, ladies. How are you?
Thank you. We’re doing good.
Thank you for having us. It’s so good to be here.
MJ, I found you on TikTok, as most people have because it’s such an easy platform to go viral and spread your message on, which is super cool. You found the formula to get that, for lack of a better word, clickbait thing going because everybody wants to hear about the Kardashians. You come online during Kim’s SNL performance. I see you on with this other beautiful woman who looks like you but not quite. I’m like, “Who’s that?” It was your beautiful sister, Marie. I discovered that you work together and came with this amazing project called Between Two Salads which was launched. Marie, you are the Founder of Super Lestela Studios. Can you tell me a little bit about how the inception of this little project got started. What inspired you?
Kardashian Kolloquium: These women have taken themselves and elevated themselves to a place where my mind can’t even wrap around sometimes.
I’m a video producer and I have always wanted to make my own production company. Michelle has been doing Kardashian Kolloquium and all that. We’ve always wanted to collaborate. In our brains, we always have been connected. We want to always collaborate in a real way. She was like, “I want to expand my account, move to YouTube and make a higher-level web series. Would you want to be a part of that with me?” I was like, “Of course.” That’s all it took. We went after that. There were no questions about it. It was like, “What are the next steps then?”
It was a great push for me to also get my company going because I was always waiting for that. I have a day job but I’ve always wanted this so I was like, “It’s time to do it, name it Super Lestela, get equipment and we’re going.” I got a bunch of equipment. We were able to use a photo studio that my boyfriend manages. We planned this ten-episode series. Depending on how Michelle reached out to some people who followed her and were down to be on the web series, we were like, “It’ll be a talk show.” We did it. There was no question about it. We went.
We didn’t even think, we just did. Our relationship is so much about thinking and analysis. The heart of my intellectual life, which is a mixed metaphor, the heart and brain is my sister. It’s a lot of thinking, processing and excitement about ideas. When this idea clicked of all the Kardashian Kolloquium substance into a bigger and better production, we did it.
Tell me about Super Lestela. How did you come up with that name?
Super Lestela, the name, means a lot and just came to me. When I was five, I had a lot of imaginary friends and among them was Super Lestela. I don’t know why she came about in my head but she was this superhero. She had this long flowing red hair, a leather catsuit on and fought crime in the forest with forest friends. I have this tableau in my head. I didn’t picture her doing anything else. I pictured her in the forest and I was like, “That’s the name, Super Lestela.” To me, it represents the beginnings of my creative imaginative mind bringing that to life.
You believe in the spiritual realm. I did a past life regression. In one of my past lives, I was an enchantress with long flowing red hair. I used to wear all leather and a medallion around my neck, an amulet or something of that nature. I was the Dexter of that time so I would punish the bad people and protect the good people. I believe that everything happens for a reason so that’s why I’m telling you.
That is great to know. It feels right to me to name the company that but I’ve had hesitations to where it’s like, “Super Lestela is too niche. It’s not a real name. Is that bad for SEO purposes, this and that?” To me, it’s a verification that I’m on the right track.
I had some ladies on the show and it was a spiritual-based show so I was talking about it with them so it’s timely. You’re on the right track, for sure.
It’s good to have those imaginative figures that are essences as touchstones. We don’t know Super Lestela. We don’t know that former self but we feel like we know her.
One of my primal wounds is injustice. Injustice loves revenge so it makes sense for my past life regression. I’ve got to figure that out in this lifetime, hopefully. Background wise, Marie, you have been in video production for quite some time.
Since I’ve been a part of the workforce, it’s been all creative video production. I work in my day job at BuzzFeed, which informs everything. They’re such a creative powerhouse. It’s funny because it makes me extra busy. I’m doing my full-time at BuzzFeed and I’m also doing this but it came at the perfect time because they are such a creative powerhouse. It helps you think through and systematizecreative ideas. I had that practice going into this, which I was grateful for.
MJ, you’re a psychotherapist. I’m impressed. A powerhouse of two sisters over here. You’re also a writer and I’ve read a lot of your work. It’s very engaging. On Medium it says, “This is a 13-minute or 10-minute read.” I’m like, “Yes. The more the better.” When it says, “Five-minute read,” I’m like, “Damn it.”
I love hearing that because I put cues out there to warn people. I love to think that there’s an excitement to immerse into it.
The people that love your content are the type of people that want more content because every time I look at a video of yours, they’re like, “There’s a three-minute feature.” I’m like, “I’m aware. Thank you so much.” There’s a tactic to my madness.
The algorithm likes quicker videos so I’ve been riding that. I have noticed that my audience likes to go deep. That’s one of those people that like to stick around.
Everyone knows what you’re doing with Kardashian Kolloquium. MJ has created this space to psychoanalyze the Kar-Jenners. It’s so much deeper than many people think. Many people look at these people and say, “They’re celebrities. They have money. They’re trash,” and call it a day. They’re smart. Everything they do has a purpose. Sometimes tragedies do happen but the faux pas that they do, little innuendos, little hints over here, Easter eggs over there ala Taylor Swift. I don’t pay attention to Taylor Swift but I hear that word easter egg a lot. Everything they do has a purpose.
When I found your page, I feel like I found a kindred spirit. My sister, Jacqueline, we sit there and we’re like, “This is so gold. We love and support them.” It’s not like we sit there and worship the ground they walk on but it’s more of a respect thing. These women have taken and elevated themselves to a place where my mind can’t even wrap around some times, culturally, with what they’ve done influentially.
It has to be my role to be a little bit more neutral and critical of them because of the approach that I have with them but that’s a perspective to have about them. It is something that they have achieved. If we were to look at them through a feminist lens, they have defined what it means to be an empowered woman. They might not enable the liberation of women. There’s something to be said about that. I respect your take. Also, there’s something about sister relationships and watching them in a certain identification or understanding. It’s cute to hear that you and your sister have a connection with the Kardashians. My sister and I analyze the Kardashians a lot and that’s what inspired the account.
Also, the way that you’re so direct about it. You respect my opinion but you pull yourself away from any fandom or support in the way that you’re going to drop. As soon as FEDNI X SKIMS drops, you have an alarm set. You don’t go that route with it but I like that you take that approach that’s coming from an outsider point of view. That’s very helpful to a lot of people.
We talk a lot about how there’s almost a responsibility to it. Whether you like them or not, it’s a fact that they are omnipresent. They have gotten themselves to a place where even if they retracted, their influence remains forever. They could come out of the spotlight but their legacy remains. When something is that powerful and omnipresent, it’s irresponsible to consume it passively. People give her a lot of shit for giving them a platform or something but the platforms are there. It’s more responsible to break it down than to let it wash over you.
I would rather hear it from your point of view than Just Jared or E! News who post the same news cycle multiple times over and over again with the clickbait and all that stuff. Yours at least gives me some substance. It’s almost like the publicist only allows this much but then you give us a little bit more. It’s like, “We grab on to it and understand it more.” You’re giving us more than we need to feel satisfied. You’re almost healing that abandonment wound that people have when people are like, “We need to know more. What’s happening with Kim and Pete Davidson? We have to know.” You’re like, “Hold on. Let’s psychoanalyze.”
That’s a helpful way of looking at it because that seems to explain what it’s doing for people. There are two ways that I like to engage with them. One is contextualizing them and breaking down what’s underpinning the things they do, what the manipulations are and what the planning is. Also, they are a useful tool or excuse to learn more stuff because they represent so much. You can use spirals inspired by them as the prompt.
People like to learn. They’re a good excuse to start learning things. I like to give takeaways. The post I did about where it’s a meme of Kravis’ relationship with the media. Let’s talk about Renaissance art and some of the weird postmodern things that were already being done in that era. I didn’t give much of a lesson there but it was a way to start the conversation. The comments are good.
Your followers are very smart. I read them and I’m like, “That’s on the nose.” In your Sex and the City ask me anything, I was like, “I can’t even think of one.” As soon as you started posting them, I was like, “That is on point with Miranda getting LASIK with Kylie and her bell.”
‘m glad we’re bringing this up because this is a little easter egg for the web series.
You may or may not be seeing the responses.
Between Two Salads is the name of the web series. It’s on YouTube.
Thank you for the plug.
We may or may not have a Sex and the City relevant episode in time for the debut of the new Sex and the City reboot and it’s going to be fun. I wanted to ask my following, “What are the connections we can draw?” I was curious and there were many surprises. I had so much fun. I was stoned on Nyquil connecting the images. It was way easier than I expected. There were many relevant images that connect.
Also, there are many that I didn’t even remember. I watched that series six times. I’m like, “I don’t remember when she did that or when Carrie was in bed with that guy. Who’s that guy?” It’s weird. I like that you got the images to correlate their answers. That was helpful.
When you open the floodgates of the comparisons between Sex and the City and the Kardashians, it’s endless. It does expand your way of thinking. If you engage with your content enough and absorb the concepts that she’s bringing enough, you start thinking that way. It does open your mind to how to think about things.
MJ, honestly, you’ve helped me with your work in the fact that I used to have these inner thoughts that I didn’t use to share. For example, I used to think to myself, “Khloé’sbrand is so cheap to me.” It sounds snobby to say, “I don’t like Good American. It’s not her at all. I feel like she pushes it. She doesn’t have too much of a hand in it. It’s not like Kylie Cosmetics or all of the KKW stuff.” You come in and validate that. You’re like, “That is Khloé’s brand where they put her because that is what sells for her.” I’m like, “I’m not the only one that feels this way. I don’t need to consume Khloé to love all of them but I can actively have an understanding of that.”
It feels good to have an understanding of how these systems work. I’m learning as I go too. I wouldn’t have thought of that until I learned more about Las Vegas, real theory and the study of Las Vegas. When I learned that there’s a whole system and economy to the way that casinos are made and marketed in Vegas, I was like, “The Kardashians operate with almost every individual sister as a different casino.” I’m doing the connections as I go and it feels good so I’m sharing that.
I went to college in Vegas at UNLV. I know Vegas very well. When you use that analogy, it’s so true because nobody wants to go to the Circus Circus. Everyone wants to go to the Wynn. At the time, Bellagio was the way to go. It’s nice but it’s not as nice. For me, if I went there, I only like the Wynn and Encore on the strip. To me, you can’t get any better but that’s only because I’ve consumed every other property on the strip and I know that I’m not going to go to the Luxor. That’s a thing of the past.
Marie gets the credit and clocked it. Marie was not into Vegas at first but she loved the Wynn. I love it all. Marie went right away. She was like, “The Wynn is it for me.”
I’m like, “When are we staying at the Wynn?”
Can we go together? I’m not even joking. Another connection is that one of my good friends, Rosie Abram, who was on the podcast is the Head of PR or PR Director for the Encore Boston Harbor. She used to work in PR for Food and Beverage at the Wynn in Vegas. If you ever do want to visit Boston and do a Boston trip to the Encore Boston Harbor there, I can invite you with me. She’s like, “I’ll give you a suite.” I’m like, “Yes. Let’s do it.”
We’ll make a project out of it. We’ll do some analysis with our brands. Let’s do it.
What’s interesting is apparently if you step into that property, it’s like you’re in Vegas. The layouts and everything are the same there. I’m like, “That will be trippy to go to Boston and be in Vegas.” That’d be something to psychoanalyze. Going back to Sex and the City, with Carrie, I remember actively watching it when I was younger and being like, “Why don’t I connect with Carrie and like her?” A lot of people said that about Miranda. She was such a “bitch.” At the time, nobody identified with the lesbian character. That was the thing back then. Everyone’s like, “That’s an odd concept.” Miranda was fine for me. Carrie was the one where I was like, “What is wrong with this woman? I can’t stand her.” Other creators too are like, “She’s a flawed character. She’s not meant for you to bond with and to like her.” I’m like, “I get it.”
A lot of people I know are not into Carrie. What are your thoughts on Carrie, Marie?
I was thinking about what I think about Carrie. She was always a little bit prudish to me and annoying. I didn’t hate her and there were parts of her that because she was the main character, I said, “I’ll make myself relate to her.” As I’m thinking of it, I feel like she’s the combination of all the rest of the three, plus her little flavor. She is supposed to be this flawed human character where all the rest of them are supposed to be archetypes of people.
They’re all flawed. I can appreciate Samantha’s flaw of wanting to be a boss woman, manipulate men using sex and go get her bag. I can appreciate Miranda’s stigma of how all men suck, “No matter what I’m doing, even if I tried this, that or whatever it is, it’s still not good enough. I went to Brooklyn and still got cheated.” I can empathize with that. That’s another one for Kim. It’s not the Kardashians yet but going to Brooklyn and how she goes to Staten Island for Pete. She went over that bridge and still got cheated on.
For Charlotte, she thought she was going along this perfect path, prim and proper. She found the right guy and he couldn’t get it up. It’s so relatable. Carrie is a writer, which at that time, I was writing too and making next to nothing like pennies. I’m like, “How is she affording Manolo Blahniks? If she’s putting it on a credit card, how is she not bankrupt?”
She lives in a rent-controlled apartment but still, she’s going out to lunch, dinner and drinks with the girls with her outfits. It didn’t jive with me. She was always smoking in a corner with the guys. I’m like, “How do you get guys when you look all pickled in the face and smoking a cigarette? I don’t get it. I’m not relating.” I never hated her. Marie, you were on the nose when you said, “She’s the main character so I have to like her and identify with her.”
You’re like, “If I’m going to watch a show, I’m going to accept this main character that they put on me.”
We can translate that and take it into the Kardashians when you talk about main character moments. We always say that Kim is the main character of the show. We see that from the beginning of Keeping Up with The Kardashians of their first theme song when she is in the front and was like, “What’s up, guys?” We have a different main character in Kourtney. That’s something that you’ve been talking about. Can you touch on that a little bit? For those who haven’t watched all of your work, can you touch on Kourtney’s main character moment?
Kardashian Kolloquium: The Kardashians incite uncanny valley with the way they play with technology and filters, which is futuristic.
Some commenters that I was posting those videos were like, “You got it all wrong. Kourtney’s always been the main character.” Kourtney carried the show in a lot of ways and she said it herself. There have been some sassy Kourtney clips where she’s made jokes about, “I brought the comedy and carry the show.” That’s true but she was never framed as the main character even though a lot of her drama with Scott was important to the narratives. The focus was on Kim. Kim was outside of the show, doing all the brand deals, getting that attention.
What’s interesting is with Travis. There was something that specifically inspired me to see it this way. It’s funny that it transcends the show. The show’s over. It’s coming back on Hulu but we’re in this space. Kourtney’s with Travis and we love it. Everyone’s eating it up. People are a little sick of it. They’re pushing and riding it for a while. I didn’t know that stuff about Shana, Halloween, the costume and romance. I was a little late.
That was weird and not great karma. People didn’t like that. That’s a little bit sour. At the peak of Kravis, it’s been the main character thing. People were more interested in what Kourtney was doing than anyone else. This is where the Kardashians are very smart. They understood that and they know when to phase back to allow that shining moment to trend. People would also say, “I bet Kim’s so jealous. Where’s Khloé?” They know their cues to let something trend and maximize.
This is a fun love story to watch unfold in tabloid media. There’s something about a love story specifically, the hormones that it induces and the Vegas video. David Phillips talks about hormones in science and storytelling. It’s inciting them. When we’re seeing a great love story, that engages people that deeper way. It’s a good story. She’s getting her main character moment. There’s a push.
We’ve been riding this nostalgia wave for quite some time, this whole bringing back the ‘90s stuff. It’s been a few years that we’ve been doing this, if not more. I can’t get enough of it. I love having that serotonin boost that brings me back to when I was in tenth grade. To me, that is wonderful. With her bringing Travis Barker into the collective picture, she’s also taking us back into that zone where Blink 182 was king. Like at Simon’s wedding where he wasn’t the main character of his wedding, they’re playing All the Small Things. Everyone’s singing it and around them. She’s bouncing on his lap and I’m like, “What is happening?”
It plays it out. All the Small Things will probably make anyone sing at a wedding. It all concentrates energetically on the moment. They’re reveling in it. That video is crazy.
Addison Rae, Corey, Kendall’s filming. I couldn’t tell. You said, “We have that third perspective of someone taking a photo of that entire moment. It was almost like the last supper. What is happening here?”
It’s all the dimensions where we’re active in that moment.
I love that so much and the picture that you posted truly looks like an oil painting.
How do they manage this one? They always do. There’s always something so aesthetic, ironic or something like a little artifact that captures it all.
They’re not jealous. The only time I believe that someone might be maybe envious or upset is maybe the fact that Khloé doesn’t get invited to the Met Gala. Secretly, she probably was like, “That hurts.” We talked about how her brand does not allow for that space.
I bet there’s a feeling there but there’s a lot of acceptance there. That’s where the mantra of a great businesswoman comes in. You have to separate emotion from the work at a certain point and they’ve learned how to do that. Those are the ways that they are talented and build skills. They know the grit that they need to get through. She’s like, “I made their way to the banks to show him my green stuff and whatever else.” That’s what her new thing is.
She’s doing fine despite her taste in men. I can’t talk. I’m single. Don’t get me wrong, Khloé. Do your thing but it’s all basketball players. It’s hard out here. I’m jealous of you. I prefer to be alone than with someone who cheats or doesn’t treat me correctly. Even if Tristan comes online with, “My beautiful baby. My beautiful Khloé,” sending flowers and doing all those things but then lowkey cheating. I would rather not have any. I’d rather be alone, personally. I do feel bad for her.
I did have to unfollow Khloé and I’ll tell you why. Knowing that they alter their bodies with surgery or whatever they do, I don’t know what it is. I want to know so I can do it myself. They do alter their bodies with surgery and that I can wrap my mind around. What I cannot handle and what triggers me is when they photoshopped the shit out of their pictures which Khloé still does. It triggers me badly because I used to do that to my photos all the time. I have posts up or reels where I legitimately had a picture with my sister when I graduated college. Her leg is gone because I photoshopped it out by accident.
We called her peg leg. She’s like, “My leg is behind my other one.” I’m like, “No. Your leg is all the way gone.” It was Photoshopped on the computer so it’s not your phone where you’re looking at it hard. Her leg was gone. I posted it and I’m like, “I call myself out.” I used to look at every picture and see fat. I’m like, “I’m fat. I can’t post this. People are going to think I’m fat.”
People used to comment on my pictures, “Fat, whale,” all the time. I filter the comments so they can’t even say those things which is sad that I have to do that but it’s to protect my peace of mind. I’m recovering. I would look at her picture and I’m like, “This is heavily photoshopped.” I can’t wrap my brain around it because it’s not surgery. It’s a manipulation of technology.
It has to be my role to be a little bit more neutral and critical of them because of the approach that I have with them but that’s a perspective to have about them. It is something that they have achieved. If we were to look at them through a feminist lens, they have defined what it means to be an empowered woman. They might not enable the liberation of women. There’s something to be said about that. I respect your take. Also, there’s something about sister relationships and watching them in a certain identification or understanding. It’s cute to hear that you and your sister have a connection with the Kardashians. My sister and I analyze the Kardashians a lot and that’s what inspired the account.
Also, the way that you’re so direct about it. You respect my opinion but you pull yourself away from any fandom or support in the way that you’re going to drop. As soon as FEDNI X SKIMS drops, you have an alarm set. You don’t go that route with it but I like that you take that approach that’s coming from an outsider point of view. That’s very helpful to a lot of people.
We talk a lot about how there’s almost a responsibility to it. Whether you like them or not, it’s a fact that they are omnipresent. They have gotten themselves to a place where even if they retracted, their influence remains forever. They could come out of the spotlight but their legacy remains. When something is that powerful and omnipresent, it’s irresponsible to consume it passively. People give her a lot of shit for giving them a platform or something but the platforms are there. It’s more responsible to break it down than to let it wash over you.
I would rather hear it from your point of view than Just Jared or E! News who post the same news cycle multiple times over and over again with the clickbait and all that stuff. Yours at least gives me some substance. It’s almost like the publicist only allows this much but then you give us a little bit more. It’s like, “We grab on to it and understand it more.” You’re giving us more than we need to feel satisfied. You’re almost healing that abandonment wound that people have when people are like, “We need to know more. What’s happening with Kim and Pete Davidson? We have to know.” You’re like, “Hold on. Let’s psychoanalyze.”
That’s a helpful way of looking at it because that seems to explain what it’s doing for people. There are two ways that I like to engage with them. One is contextualizing them and breaking down what’s underpinning the things they do, what the manipulations are and what the planning is. Also, they are a useful tool or excuse to learn more stuff because they represent so much. You can use spirals inspired by them as the prompt.
People like to learn. They’re a good excuse to start learning things. I like to give takeaways. The post I did about where it’s a meme of Kravis’ relationship with the media. Let’s talk about Renaissance art and some of the weird postmodern things that were already being done in that era. I didn’t give much of a lesson there but it was a way to start the conversation. The comments are good.
Your followers are very smart. I read them and I’m like, “That’s on the nose.” In your Sex and the City ask me anything, I was like, “I can’t even think of one.” As soon as you started posting them, I was like, “That is on point with Miranda getting LASIK with Kylie and her bell.”
‘m glad we’re bringing this up because this is a little easter egg for the web series.
You may or may not be seeing the responses.
Between Two Salads is the name of the web series. It’s on YouTube.
Thank you for the plug.
We may or may not have a Sex and the City relevant episode in time for the debut of the new Sex and the City reboot and it’s going to be fun. I wanted to ask my following, “What are the connections we can draw?” I was curious and there were many surprises. I had so much fun. I was stoned on Nyquil connecting the images. It was way easier than I expected. There were many relevant images that connect.
Also, there are many that I didn’t even remember. I watched that series six times. I’m like, “I don’t remember when she did that or when Carrie was in bed with that guy. Who’s that guy?” It’s weird. I like that you got the images to correlate their answers. That was helpful.
When you open the floodgates of the comparisons between Sex and the City and the Kardashians, it’s endless. It does expand your way of thinking. If you engage with your content enough and absorb the concepts that she’s bringing enough, you start thinking that way. It does open your mind to how to think about things.
MJ, honestly, you’ve helped me with your work in the fact that I used to have these inner thoughts that I didn’t use to share. For example, I used to think to myself, “Khloé’sbrand is so cheap to me.” It sounds snobby to say, “I don’t like Good American. It’s not her at all. I feel like she pushes it. She doesn’t have too much of a hand in it. It’s not like Kylie Cosmetics or all of the KKW stuff.” You come in and validate that. You’re like, “That is Khloé’s brand where they put her because that is what sells for her.” I’m like, “I’m not the only one that feels this way. I don’t need to consume Khloé to love all of them but I can actively have an understanding of that.”
It feels good to have an understanding of how these systems work. I’m learning as I go too. I wouldn’t have thought of that until I learned more about Las Vegas, real theory and the study of Las Vegas. When I learned that there’s a whole system and economy to the way that casinos are made and marketed in Vegas, I was like, “The Kardashians operate with almost every individual sister as a different casino.” I’m doing the connections as I go and it feels good so I’m sharing that.
I went to college in Vegas at UNLV. I know Vegas very well. When you use that analogy, it’s so true because nobody wants to go to the Circus Circus. Everyone wants to go to the Wynn. At the time, Bellagio was the way to go. It’s nice but it’s not as nice. For me, if I went there, I only like the Wynn and Encore on the strip. To me, you can’t get any better but that’s only because I’ve consumed every other property on the strip and I know that I’m not going to go to the Luxor. That’s a thing of the past.
Marie gets the credit and clocked it. Marie was not into Vegas at first but she loved the Wynn. I love it all. Marie went right away. She was like, “The Wynn is it for me.”
I’m like, “When are we staying at the Wynn?”
What’s interesting is apparently if you step into that property, it’s like you’re in Vegas. The layouts and everything are the same there. I’m like, “That will be trippy to go to Boston and be in Vegas.” That’d be something to psychoanalyze. Going back to Sex and the City, with Carrie, I remember actively watching it when I was younger and being like, “Why don’t I connect with Carrie and like her?” A lot of people said that about Miranda. She was such a “bitch.” At the time, nobody identified with the lesbian character. That was the thing back then. Everyone’s like, “That’s an odd concept.” Miranda was fine for me. Carrie was the one where I was like, “What is wrong with this woman? I can’t stand her.” Other creators too are like, “She’s a flawed character. She’s not meant for you to bond with and to like her.” I’m like, “I get it.”
A lot of people I know are not into Carrie. What are your thoughts on Carrie, Marie?
I was thinking about what I think about Carrie. She was always a little bit prudish to me and annoying. I didn’t hate her and there were parts of her that because she was the main character, I said, “I’ll make myself relate to her.” As I’m thinking of it, I feel like she’s the combination of all the rest of the three, plus her little flavor. She is supposed to be this flawed human character where all the rest of them are supposed to be archetypes of people.
They’re all flawed. I can appreciate Samantha’s flaw of wanting to be a boss woman, manipulate men using sex and go get her bag. I can appreciate Miranda’s stigma of how all men suck, “No matter what I’m doing, even if I tried this, that or whatever it is, it’s still not good enough. I went to Brooklyn and still got cheated.” I can empathize with that. That’s another one for Kim. It’s not the Kardashians yet but going to Brooklyn and how she goes to Staten Island for Pete. She went over that bridge and still got cheated on.
For Charlotte, she thought she was going along this perfect path, prim and proper. She found the right guy and he couldn’t get it up. It’s so relatable. Carrie is a writer, which at that time, I was writing too and making next to nothing like pennies. I’m like, “How is she affording Manolo Blahniks? If she’s putting it on a credit card, how is she not bankrupt?”
She lives in a rent-controlled apartment but still, she’s going out to lunch, dinner and drinks with the girls with her outfits. It didn’t jive with me. She was always smoking in a corner with the guys. I’m like, “How do you get guys when you look all pickled in the face and smoking a cigarette? I don’t get it. I’m not relating.” I never hated her. Marie, you were on the nose when you said, “She’s the main character so I have to like her and identify with her.”
You’re like, “If I’m going to watch a show, I’m going to accept this main character that they put on me.”
We can translate that and take it into the Kardashians when you talk about main character moments. We always say that Kim is the main character of the show. We see that from the beginning of Keeping Up with The Kardashians of their first theme song when she is in the front and was like, “What’s up, guys?” We have a different main character in Kourtney. That’s something that you’ve been talking about. Can you touch on that a little bit? For those who haven’t watched all of your work, can you touch on Kourtney’s main character moment?
Some commenters that I was posting those videos were like, “You got it all wrong. Kourtney’s always been the main character.” Kourtney carried the show in a lot of ways and she said it herself. There have been some sassy Kourtney clips where she’s made jokes about, “I brought the comedy and carry the show.” That’s true but she was never framed as the main character even though a lot of her drama with Scott was important to the narratives. The focus was on Kim. Kim was outside of the show, doing all the brand deals, getting that attention.
What’s interesting is with Travis. There was something that specifically inspired me to see it this way. It’s funny that it transcends the show. The show’s over. It’s coming back on Hulu but we’re in this space. Kourtney’s with Travis and we love it. Everyone’s eating it up. People are a little sick of it. They’re pushing and riding it for a while. I didn’t know that stuff about Shana, Halloween, the costume and romance. I was a little late.
That was weird and not great karma. People didn’t like that. That’s a little bit sour. At the peak of Kravis, it’s been the main character thing. People were more interested in what Kourtney was doing than anyone else. This is where the Kardashians are very smart. They understood that and they know when to phase back to allow that shining moment to trend. People would also say, “I bet Kim’s so jealous. Where’s Khloé?” They know their cues to let something trend and maximize.
This is a fun love story to watch unfold in tabloid media. There’s something about a love story specifically, the hormones that it induces and the Vegas video. David Phillips talks about hormones in science and storytelling. It’s inciting them. When we’re seeing a great love story, that engages people that deeper way. It’s a good story. She’s getting her main character moment. There’s a push.
We’ve been riding this nostalgia wave for quite some time, this whole bringing back the ‘90s stuff. It’s been a few years that we’ve been doing this, if not more. I can’t get enough of it. I love having that serotonin boost that brings me back to when I was in tenth grade. To me, that is wonderful. With her bringing Travis Barker into the collective picture, she’s also taking us back into that zone where Blink 182 was king. Like at Simon’s wedding where he wasn’t the main character of his wedding, they’re playing All the Small Things. Everyone’s singing it and around them. She’s bouncing on his lap and I’m like, “What is happening?”
It plays it out. All the Small Things will probably make anyone sing at a wedding. It all concentrates energetically on the moment. They’re reveling in it. That video is crazy.
Addison Rae, Corey, Kendall’s filming. I couldn’t tell. You said, “We have that third perspective of someone taking a photo of that entire moment. It was almost like the last supper. What is happening here?”
It’s all the dimensions where we’re active in that moment.
I love that so much and the picture that you posted truly looks like an oil painting.
How do they manage this one? They always do. There’s always something so aesthetic, ironic or something like a little artifact that captures it all.
They’re not jealous. The only time I believe that someone might be maybe envious or upset is maybe the fact that Khloé doesn’t get invited to the Met Gala. Secretly, she probably was like, “That hurts.” We talked about how her brand does not allow for that space.
I bet there’s a feeling there but there’s a lot of acceptance there. That’s where the mantra of a great businesswoman comes in. You have to separate emotion from the work at a certain point and they’ve learned how to do that. Those are the ways that they are talented and build skills. They know the grit that they need to get through. She’s like, “I made their way to the banks to show him my green stuff and whatever else.” That’s what her new thing is.
She’s doing fine despite her taste in men. I can’t talk. I’m single. Don’t get me wrong, Khloé. Do your thing but it’s all basketball players. It’s hard out here. I’m jealous of you. I prefer to be alone than with someone who cheats or doesn’t treat me correctly. Even if Tristan comes online with, “My beautiful baby. My beautiful Khloé,” sending flowers and doing all those things but then lowkey cheating. I would rather not have any. I’d rather be alone, personally. I do feel bad for her.
I did have to unfollow Khloé and I’ll tell you why. Knowing that they alter their bodies with surgery or whatever they do, I don’t know what it is. I want to know so I can do it myself. They do alter their bodies with surgery and that I can wrap my mind around. What I cannot handle and what triggers me is when they photoshopped the shit out of their pictures which Khloé still does. It triggers me badly because I used to do that to my photos all the time. I have posts up or reels where I legitimately had a picture with my sister when I graduated college. Her leg is gone because I photoshopped it out by accident.
We called her peg leg. She’s like, “My leg is behind my other one.” I’m like, “No. Your leg is all the way gone.” It was Photoshopped on the computer so it’s not your phone where you’re looking at it hard. Her leg was gone. I posted it and I’m like, “I call myself out.” I used to look at every picture and see fat. I’m like, “I’m fat. I can’t post this. People are going to think I’m fat.”
People used to comment on my pictures, “Fat, whale,” all the time. I filter the comments so they can’t even say those things which is sad that I have to do that but it’s to protect my peace of mind. I’m recovering. I would look at her picture and I’m like, “This is heavily photoshopped.” I can’t wrap my brain around it because it’s not surgery. It’s a manipulation of technology.
It has that effect. The way they use technology has an uncanny valley effect. The uncanny valley is a term that initially was meant to apply to AI technology and how weird it is when robots simulate humanity, humaneness and human features. The human eye knows if there’s something off. The Kardashians incite uncanny valley with the way they play with technology and filters which is futuristic. It’s interesting but it’s not helpful to our concepts of what it means to be a person.
I also noted social media and I’m sure you’ve noticed that Kourtney never speaks directly to her phone or the camera. Kylie, Kim and Khloé will talk to the camera directly. Typically, it’s for promotional purposes but I’ve never seen Kourtney and I don’t know if Kendall does it. The only time they talked directly is the cameras on the show. I don’t know what that’s about. It’s very controlled. You would think that with her boyfriend or fiance, it’s like, “Let’s do a little cute video together,” but it’s always someone else’s holding the phone and filming them.
I’ve never noticed that but that is true. Maybe that’s what freaks us out so much. When Kim did her, “Good luck, guys,” to the Olympians to win the Olympics, everyone had shit to say about that. It made me feel something uncanny and I posted it without much comment. The comments were like, “What was that? That wasn’t her. That was a robot that was simulated.” It’s because we’re not used to Kim doing a selfie.
That was for sure for SKIMS, regardless. That was for a purpose. My sister got her FENDI X SKIMS. My sister is tiny. She’s a couple of months postpartum but she’s tiny. She’s 5’1”, 110 pounds or something like that. She’s so small. She goes, “What size do I need to get?” I was like, “If I wear a tight shirt, I’m large so go up a size.” For example, this is a SKIMS shirt and it’s extra-large. I told her to go up a size so she got a medium. When we took it out of the box she was like, “This looks big.” She put it on and it was tight. I’m glad I told her to get a medium. She looks great.
The material is there. It would be as if you were going to Fendi and feeling the butteriness quality. She got three different bodysuits. She put them on and they look great on her. I don’t know how it’s going to hold up or anything like that. She said that she spent a little bit over $500 on the three bodysuits. For the price point, people weren’t expecting it but you have to think about it. It’s Fendi. At that point, it’s not SKIMS sold anymore. It’s elevated to Fendi prices. If you walked into Fendi to get a bodysuit, you’re not going to pay $75.
For my show, I had set my alarm, going to get up and be the first one on the website. I was like, “No. I don’t need this anymore. This does not define me. Why do I need to wear that for one Instagram picture? I’m fine.” It triggered my old habits. Kim’s team does such a great job. She was talking about all her teddy bear stuff or teddy bear slippers. There’s a knit cap socks and blanket. I want all of that stuff. She does such a good job.
Can you tell us about that experience and the effect it has? I’m outside of it and I haven’t felt it. I’ve been curious about the quality of SKIMS because I’ve been hearing about it so much. What’s it like to set the alarm and run it?
When she announced the day that it was coming out, I immediately texted my sister because she and I are the Kim Kardashian buddies. She’s like, “What size do you get? What day is it? Put it on your calendar.” She was texting me throughout the two weeks. She was like, “Do you have it on your calendar?” “It’s at this time but we have a time change.” We were very into it. Even my friends who know that I love Kim were texting me. They were like, “Are you going to get it? Are you going to get online?” I was like, “100%.”
For me, it was more about consuming Kim than the collab but it did put me back in this headspace of, “I have to get it because I have to appear a certain way and have a brand name or logo on me for me to be accepted.” That is what the show is all about for me. I moved away from that. I’m calling myself out on the fact that I used to dress head to toe Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Fendi or whatever it was. It’s because I thought that was what made me acceptable or palatable to others when it was myself, my personality and what I had to say. No one gave a shit. For two seconds of their day, they were like, “Cool Fendi shoes.” Did they give a shit? Did that leave a lasting impression? No.
That night I had my alarm set and ready to go. I had this a-ha moment of, “You don’t need FENDI X SKIMS. You can get regular SKIMS that are in your price point and that’s fine. There’s no branding anywhere. You don’t need that. No one knows that it SKIMS unless you tell them.” I love the quality. It’s super buttery and soft. I wear them all the time but I don’t need it to say Fendi. I don’t need to spend $500 on three bodysuits. I turned off the alarm and slept in. The alarm was set for 7:00 or something like that. I usually don’t get up until about 9:00 because I work super late all the time. I was like, “I’d rather sleep than spend my money.”
It sounds like you’re saying that there are at least two factors. There’s a two-second moment where it feels like someone recognizes the brand and it feels good. Also, there’s a pipeline of Instagram that was a factor as well.
Back in the day, I would go to Gucci and spend a stupid amount of $10,000. I could not afford it. I spent $10,000 on Gucci hoodies and Gucci boots. I don’t even wear boots. I wish I could but I have big calves and they don’t gel with the rest of my legs. I would buy everything for a special drop. Gucci and Balenciaga are doing a special merge together where there’s this silhouette of this amazing Balenciaga handbag in the Gucci print. Everyone’s trying to get their hands on that.
There’s also a Gucci necklace that says Balenciaga. It’s everywhere. I would have been all over that. I would be like, “How can I find and get it? I’ll pay any amount.” I appreciate looking at it. It’s like how you like looking at a Hermes Birkin bag. It’s cool to look at. Do I need a Hermes Birkin bag? I don’t. Sometimes, I don’t even carry a purse. I carry my keys that have my wallet attached to my phone and some chapstick.
Everyone’s like, “You don’t even have a bag.” I’m like, “I know. It’s weird.” I used to be like, “Here’s is my bag.” For those reading, when you had your fist up to your shoulder, you carry that purse in the crook of your arm like it’s on display like it’s a trophy. I feel like that was a Laguna Beach day. They used to wear the Balenciaga bags with the tassels, the motorcycle bags back then. Those were huge back then.
That’s the cycle that the Kardashians capitalized on and magnified even more in how they use media. It’s interesting to hear the impact that has. You’re questioning it so you’re using critical thought to slow it down and not let it burden you the same.
Before the Kardashians, for me, it was Paris and Nicky Hilton. I remember Nicky had a handbag line and Paris had these pretty costume jewelry crosses. Whenever I was in LA, living in Vegas, I was like, “I’ve got to go to Robertson and go to the store called Kitson. That’s where they sell all of their stuff.” As a college student, I’m like, “Here’s my parent’s debit card.” As a daughter of immigrants, I’m sure you understand that.
I’m buying these things that I don’t need but it was because Paris and Nicky said it was cool. I didn’t know what an influencer was at that time. That word didn’t even exist at that time. Whatever they were wearing or whatever Britney or Lindsay was wearing, I was so infatuated with it. I remember Paris wearing those big poofy headbands and a low ponytail. The next day, I went and bought a big puffy headband from Saks. It’s strong. That’s why people pay influencers and they don’t want to do ads anymore because it’s much easier.
It’s the direct pipeline. It’s how you do it.
That’s what I think of when I think of influencers. It’s funny because I was friends with Kim on MySpace in 2005. I had met this guy, Alex Quinn and he was on a reality show with Kourtney. It’s taking them out of being rich and putting them somewhere uncomfortable. That was the whole premise of it. Alex was the guy I met on MySpace. He’s Anthony Quinn’s son, Zorba the Greek. He and I met up in LA and we went out with Kourtney Kardashian, Kourtney Cemal. He’s a friend of theirs and one other girl.
We went to a nightclub. I remember that Kourtney was wearing these beautiful Giuseppe Zanotti sandals and I was like, “Are those Giuseppe?” She was impressed that I knew and I was like, “This is why I have to know these things.” It was silly. I still have the photos of us from back then. I look like a raccoon because I put on so much concealer. I’m like, “What am I doing?” I didn’t even know how to dress back then at all so they’re cringe-worthy photos but they’re there. I still have them.
With Kim, I was trying to get in with her. Mind you, she was not famous at the time. She didn’t even have the show, I’m pretty sure. It was entry-level stuff. I was like, “I want to buy something from DASH because they were opening DASH.” She’s like, “Let me hook you up with my sister. She’s going to send you pictures.” She gives me Khloé’s email. It was KhloMoney. I didn’t know about Khloé at all. Once I found Kim on MySpace, I latched on to her and I was like, “This girl is taking the bullet train. I want to be a part of this.” I wasn’t but at least I tried.
These are cool stories to have. I’m transfixed.
Especially that nostalgia piece that is so intriguing. Part of why we are nostalgic on social media is because it’s yearning for more. It feels like a simpler time in media where it was more earnest of, “I’ve got a MySpace friend. Maybe I can get to the party and see the person.” It’s not curated and epic the way it is. It was more organic. Do you think that there was a Middle Eastern connection to that? Maybe there were some of the intrigues with Kim as the cool girl on the scene who is also Brown.
Honestly, at the time, I didn’t appreciate my Middle Eastern roots like I do and bond with other women over them because I grew up in such a White neighborhood and school. I had other children of immigrants with me in my private school that I did go to but it was still Whitewashed. Even the girls’ parents straight up could barely speak English but they were in high ponytails with bows. I didn’t appreciate it until a little bit later. Probably seeing her as more ethnic like me, I probably related to her a little bit better.
I should reach out to her than Lindsay Lohan, Hillary Duff or something. Hilary Duff is from Houston, which is where I’m from. That might have been easier to do. It took Kim a couple of days for her to reply. Every single time I would ever write to her, she would be like, “I love that new pic that you posted.” She was always sweet.
A couple of years down the road, I was on Twitter. I tweeted something about her. I said, “Something I learned from her is that I should always be myself. The right people will love me for me.” She responded to that. She was like, “You’re right. The right people will love you for you. Don’t ever forget that.” I was like, “I like that girl.”
Sometimes I reach out to her and I’m like, “I would love to be friends.” I’ll DM her. She’s probably not going to see it but on the off chance that she ever does, she and I would be good friends. That’s part of her appeal. She makes you feel like you could be her friend. It’s like what you were talking about with the accessibility of celebrities that creates the illusion that you’re more connected to them than you are.
There’s a positivity to her image and it sounds like she’s been consistent for a long time with a sweet openness and this professionalism. I was interviewing with someone who was saying she knows people that work with them. Everyone walks away saying that Kim Kardashian is such a professional and sweet person. Whether it’s real or her, she’s been consistent and it’s effective for a long time.
I didn’t want to credit you though for Kim. What is the outline or the shadow?
The silhouette, which started with dead Hollywood. Dead Hollywood points my theory and I was like, “Kim’s going to have a silhouette one day.”
I feel she could have had a silhouette. Even before the Met Gala, I feel like she still could have maybe had one but that is solidified. It gives me chills in a way because she knew that she had to do that. Everyone hated it on her and was like, “What the hell is this bullshit?” I’m like, “This is genius.” She will never be forgotten.
That look whether you like it or not, it does evoke something.
Is it PTSD from Harry Potter? We don’t know.
The ponytail was the touch. That’s what’s going to make her the silicon icon.
It wouldn’t have been without the ponytail, for sure. Mario, her makeup artist, did a farce on that some sort of sketch. He’s like, “Imagine doing someone’s makeup and they cover it.” It’s funny. I forgot what it was but I thought that was hilarious. I’m like, “Of course she would get a full face of makeup and cover it.”
I wonder if she did have makeup under there.
She did. They did a full face.
She probably took it off in the actual place.
We’ll never know what goes on there. I feel like we could talk for hours but I’m going to try to go down a few things I have on my list here. Going back to Khloé and the identity of Khloé’s dad. Why do you think that people are so hung up on this? Is it because they think that Khloé is not telling the truth? I don’t know if Khloé knows the truth. Only Kris knows. What’s your take on that?
It’s similar to the point that I found myself thinking about with the joke we made about we don’t know what happens inside that party. They tell and give us so much that when there are no boundaries or limits to what we do know what is knowable then we yearn to know. There’s this tension build-up that they do create with all the unknowns. There are a few of them. Khloé’s dad is certainly one of the most iconic at this point. People ask me, “Are they going to drop it one day?” It’ll be huge if we ever find out. It’s the hairstylist, personally. I try not to speculate or gossip too much but it’s the hairstylist.
To me, Kim and Kourtney are very similar. There’s no way that that union could have created that third in a way. She doesn’t want to separate herself from her sisters in any way. I feel like she thinks that’s going to damage her brand and I completely respect that. I would never be one of those people who’s like, “I demand that you tell us.” I don’t care that much. If they did come out with it, it wouldn’t damage her that much at this point.
It would be interesting to people. It would also turn her into the patron saint of that experience too of feeling other than the family and having been a half-sister. The speculation, I’m sure that’s part of what attracts people to it, the mystery but also people of that experience. There’s an experience in that family that probably most people can relate to even in some small way. There are so many siblings with many of their brands, histories, personalities and needs.
Tell me if you think I’m wrong but I feel Khloé is more ostracized as the other sister than even Kendall and Kylie. Kendall and Kylie look more similar to Kourtney and Kim so they get grouped in altogether as a four and Khloé feels left outside.
She occupies a weird position in the family. Like all of their positioning, I feel like it’s been a series of choices that have been made. Maybe the paternity thing is a choice that was made and maybe it might be revealed later strategically or something. For whatever reason, she has been positioned in that way and it’s sad. We all know it’s sad too.
I feel like she tried to stay with Tristan because she was trying to do what Kourtney did and what Kylie is doing by selecting one person to be the father of their kids. That’s why Khloé ultimately tried to stay with Tristian. The timing and everything didn’t work out. She lowkey would have even had it where they weren’t even together maybe and still had the baby because she wants to keep that recipe of everybody having the same dad.
People will ask me that in my comments. Sometimes I talk about how they have a model where there can only be one baby daddy. I don’t know what else there is to say about that besides they have a model that there’s only allowed to be one baby daddy. They want to keep it cohesive like that but I didn’t think about that extra element that Kris didn’t do it that way. They probably were like, “Two is enough,” but there can’t be an extra aberrant baby daddy. For Khloé it has to be, “We’re not going to speak of it them. We can’t have a squeaky wheel.”
For branding purposes, truly. Even though the Jenners are different, there’s a grouping. There can’t be that extra. That’s too confusing for the brand image.
MJ, you were talking about how Kris likes to incorporate the baby daddies into the family. She posts them and there’s a collage. Imagine if Kylie had two baby daddies. Does she make two collages? It doesn’t fit. People were saying, “They’re going to throw Travis out?” They won’t because that’s going to look bad on them if they do that after everything that’s happened, which we’re about to get to.
People like to say that they dispose of the men in their lives and that’s not true. I don’t see it. It doesn’t happen.
What do you say to people who are like, “There’s a Kardashian curse?”
It’s a big world with a lot of mysteries. People were asking me about the satanic stuff too, which is rationally crazy. Anything’s possible. There’s misogyny in it. People are not able to perceive or understand that women are capable of such power at the moment and world that we live in. Women have come far but there’s still a long way to go. There’s almost something that feels supernatural about their presence and power. It’s the best application of, “They must be doing witchcraft.”
Witchcraft in the witch trials is rooted in misogyny so the historical context of that accusation is less. It is a compliment in a way so people want to dismiss them by saying, “It’s a curse. They’re witchy ladies.” You’re complimenting them because the most mythologized American families have been seen to have cursed. The Kennedys have a curse, allegedly. That adds to the power, intrigue and storytelling.
Marie, what do you think when one of them dated an athlete and went downhill or got injured or they dated a singer and stopped being famous? Do you think there’s anything to that? Do you think that they get eaten up by the fame machine?
Michelle and I talk about this a lot. I also agree that it’s probably misogyny. Everyone’s an adult and has control over their own lives. Rationally, you can’t do that. Think about it on a down-to-earth level. If you’re in a relationship, you can only help or hurt a person to an extent. At a certain point, they have autonomy over their own lives and choices. It’s mostly that because it’s toxic to say the other way.
People are in charge of their own emotions and lives. It’s certainly a pattern. All dynamics among people are patterns. People bring things to the table. It becomes a dynamic and pattern. People attract certain types of people. There are all sorts of stuff like that that contribute to the unfortunate fate of the people that they’re with. I shy away as well. I recognize that it’s a pattern but for the sake of not trying to blame women for shit and also giving everyone their independent autonomy, I tend to be like, “That’s a coincidence.”
As a sportsperson and a person who has been in a sports community here in Houston, there was a time where Khloé was seen to be dating James Harden who was at the time our superstar. They were like, “No. Don’t date her. She’s going to curse him. He’s going to be terrible.” I’m like, “You are worse. This has nothing to do with basketball people.”
It is insane. You think she has a magic pussy that’s going to curse him. At a certain point, it’s like, “You can calm down.”
There’s something about them that incites very magical thinking with Astroworld. There are certain things I don’t want to comment on with Astroworld until the investigations are complete but the satanic.
I have a funny story. My parents’ trainer comes to their house to train them. He’s very into satanic music and loves all that stuff. He was talking to my parents about what happened to Astroworld. He told them, “I was hearing all this stuff about satanic rituals and how it was a satanic music festival. If it was satanic, I would have been there.” That’s lowkey funny because to me someone who’s into that would know and would want to go.
I don’t know what the bands are. I don’t listen to the screamy type of music but he loves those metal screamy bands. He always goes full-face paint. He’s into Skeletor from He-Man. He’s such a little kid at heart. He’s my age but he still is super into that. He’s like, “I would have been there if it was satanic.” I don’t dial into that at all but it was a very big sadness here for us in Houston. It’s still an ongoing investigation. With regards to Travis himself, people are saying, “He should have stopped the concert, have done this or that.”
When you’re up on stage, you’re probably high, take a couple of pills or drink. I assume that to put on a concert like that, you got to be a little fucked up. You’re putting on this big concert. There’s so much stimulation, you can’t hear shit, maybe you see some commotion going on in the crowd out of the corner of your eye but you’ve got to be performing. How are you going to even see that there’s an ambulance? What makes you know that’s an ambulance? It could be a light going off from a Ferris wheel.
I’m not defending Travis. I’m saying you can’t only blame Travis Scott for this. There are so many people involved like the police, security, people who put on the concert, concert-goers themselves are pulled out of their minds. Rest in peace to those who pass but you have to also be mindful that it’s post-COVID where everyone’s going to go out, get bombed and lose control. It was a recipe for disaster, in general.
You could never be prepared for a tragedy but I can’t help but think that there should have been other measures in place that should have prevented this. The accounts that I read were like, “It was a sinkhole of people.” That was the word that was used constantly. For that to happen, it would have had to be so tight in there. There were no protocols in place.
For people to know, Astroworld was a theme park here in Houston back in the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s. It was super popular. All the kids used to go. We used to go there with our secret little boyfriends in high school. You’re like, “Mom, I’m going to Astroworld,” but you go with your little boyfriend and friends. You would get to make out. You couldn’t make out anywhere else. It was a secret in Astroworld. It held this cache for all of us. It was this nostalgia.
When Travis came out with Astroworld in 2018, everyone was nuts over it. I truly credit Kylie’s marketing team for whatever happened there because of the merch, how the festival was decorated with the big face and puffed-up face. Travis does have a creative mind but I don’t know if he would have necessarily been able to execute as a Kardashian-Jenner does. People say, “He was popular before. He was this before.” He was an artist in his own right before but was he global? Was he such an explosion before Kylie? I don’t think so.
Kardashian Kolloquium: People are not able to perceive or understand that women are capable of such power at the moment and in the world we live in.
. She doesn’t need to do this stuff so it’s great that she’s doing it. To some extent, at this stage of how high she scaled, she knows that she should. This is what will help her to become an icon. Look at Princess Diana, that humanitarian spirit is what will enable her to have posterity and a better legacy.
These are conversations that I want to go into the realm of critiquing still. Also, it’s too far. It’s all performativity and empty. It’s not useless. I can’t also cosign with that cynicism because it is bringing up these conversations among many people who are not having them. They don’t even know that these are forces at work or issues that need to be addressed. If it’s doing that, that is valuable. The fact that she’s sprinkling these things here and there, it’s still content but it still changed 12 or 15 people’s lives or whoever that was. It’s the same thing of them balancing two things at once. There is a performativity aspect but it’s still going to be doing good and even raising awareness.
At this stage of her career, I agree that she probably had to choose a thing but it didn’t have to be getting people out of the death penalty. It could have been something way less touchy. It’s an important one. She didn’t have to go that far with it. I do have to respect that.
A little trouble with it. I’ve seen her Twitter when she has been posting about people on death row and even addressing some of the crimes in question. Some people can only think about the crime or it brings out people’s biases or fears around what the death penalty and crime in America means. It’s like the questions of the Innocence Project and the importance of the work it’s doing. A lot of people are angry that she’s doing this. It’s making people uncomfortable. She’s doing something meaningful.
They’d be angry if she farted, honestly. I’m sorry to make that much of a difference but it’s true. I do agree that a lot of the stuff she has is performative, for sure. For example, what are the odds that the news breaks about her and Pete and it’s about this Afghan charter? I don’t know. Everyone’s eyes are on her. They have a source going to Page Six or whatever it is. I’m like, “There’s something to that.” Page six is a completely different publication than TMZ and they report on different things. There’s always a rhyme or reason behind what she’s doing. What do you think about Pete and Kim?
It’s having a similar effect on everyone and it’s working. Whatever the media manipulation of it is, it’s working on me.
It’s a positive public opinion. I don’t know that people like Pete so much.
Everyone’s like, “He has a big dick.” I’m like, “Does he have that good of a dick?” I can’t imagine that it’s better than a vibrator. I’m not sure. Maybe I’ve never had a dick that good.
For those ladies, I’ve always been like, “He attracts epic women. There must be something about his appeal.”
My sister texted me. She was like, “What is it about him?” I was like, “Women like to laugh.” I joked and I said, “He has a big dick.” Maybe he has some electric personality in person. When you meet him, you gravitate towards him. He poked Kate Beckinsale. That’s huge. She’s so beautiful.
I’ve always said that he probably is accidentally good at sex. I don’t think he tries to be. He might have a big dick. He might have some allure about him during sex. I don’t know.
My partner’s whispering and saying, “Mental illness.” Pete has a sad boy thing, for sure.
We love a sad boy, unfortunately. Kim loves a sad boy. Kanye is a sad boy. All I’ve seen so far is the whisperings of it and then all of a sudden it’s official. I haven’t read anything. How is it official? Who said it was? Did they say it?
They released the Daily Mail video and it’s a Loch Ness Monster moving picture almost. I want to make a post about the eeriness of the fifteen-second clip because it’s them getting out of a car, moving around the car, clasping hands and then hand-clapping and walking. It’s like, “Oh.”
It is capital K confirmed by the various outlets like Just Jared and E! News. Amanda Hirsch’s podcast, Not Skinny but Not Fat, I go to her for my celebrity confirmations. It is confirmed but I’m like, “Is it?” I see them in matching SKIMS PJs and I’m like, “Maybe this is all for SKIMS.” She doesn’t need help for SKIMS from Pete Davidson or Flavor Flav. You’re right with the collective group of people. It’s these iconic random groups of people and then you put up the photo of Elon Musk. I was like, “I forgot about that photo.”
Thanks for watching that. That one, I was hoping the algorithm would catch. I was into that. I believe that is what’s true and then the algorithm didn’t catch that one. I made a video about how they do this.
First of all, I love that you’d have to tell me that. As much as I love my sister and her content, I get that from talking to her. I don’t like TikTok either so shamefully I’m not engaging in her things. She’s like, “Marie, you didn’t know that I made this video.”
I did get it on Instagram and that’s why I had commented. I saw that you had posted something about you’re over the monster that is TikTok, how the algorithm works and you have to be the first person on it. You were in that headspace where you were a little over it. I wanted to check on you and make sure you were good.
That was very sweet. I’ve been bad with my DMs. You can always text me but I’m glad I saw your message. It was sweet. I’m burned out on TikTok but I’m going to keep at it. I was proud of this video. Periodically, the Kardashians will post an image that presents a random novel collection of people. There’s science behind this. They’re doing it because it’s fun and it pops.
This picture of Kim, Pete and Flavor Flavor. Kris is like, “What?” Everyone was making these takes. “What was Flavor Flav doing there? The simulation is collapsing. Who, what, where, when, why?” It’s all these takes but I was like, “Yeah.” It’s another little randomly generated collection of people to make us be like, “What?”
Years ago, they had one from a Christmas party where it was Kanye, Elon, Grimes, Quavo, Saweetie and Travis Scott. Everyone was like, “The simulation is collapsing.” With that one, no one knew that Kanye and Elon were becoming friends and Grimes and Elon were a thing. They do like to stump us and surprise us.
When something is novel, it makes us feel dopamine. There are two things. Novelty creates dopamine. Also, seemingly disparate or distant connections coming together create dopamine. We like it. It’s like a little high when we see pictures like that. They then drop the news about Kim and Pete. They got us all making memes of them and then Kim and Pete happened.
They dropped that weirdness and then they have you making the calculations and trying to figure out the connections and then the connections in the media will come out later as a trail.
That’s why people go to Kardashian Kolloquium to know what’s going on.
They like to parse it out.
They need the dopamine hit.
It adds more dopamine.
Like I was talking about with Travis Barker with nostalgia, they hit you with Flavor Flav who’s the ultimate early 2000s nostalgia right there.
They have people from the Travis Barker era engaging. They know they’ve tapped into a certain era of audience and that’s more back there. That’s more consistent with that era. Maybe it’s a different subgroup. Those people are going to look at that.
It’s a fun pop reality TV, Flavor Flav. This isn’t like Kanye and Elon, which is its randomness and fun. Flavor Flav is fun. It makes sense on theme with what they want this Pete relationship to be because he’s keeping her young and looking fun. He’s fun. Gen Zs are into Pete. I don’t know. Flavor Flav is more playfulness in the mix of this playful relationship.
Also, there’s a component of it. Pete and Machine Gun Kelly are best friends. Machine Gun Kelly and Travis Barker connect. Maybe that’s her way of also matching Kourtney’s me-character moment. I don’t think she was ever jealous but maybe she’s joining it.
I saw that Travis Barker posted MGK on his story and that he was outside in his studio. He saw this prop gargoyle that he has outside of his studio and he’s like, “Travis, this is stupid. You need to move this. It sucks. It’s dumb-looking.” In the next video, Travis had the gargoyle moved outside MGK’s house to screw with him and he’s like, “Fuck you.” They’re all getting in the machine. We’re scratching the surface. MJ and Marie, you are more than scratching but all the rest of us are clamoring to get in. You are knocking on the door and we’re like, “Help us. Get us inside.” It’s like the zombie apocalypse because you want to know more about what’s going on. It’s confusing.
I was watching a documentary on Hulu about Von Dutch. I don’t know if you know about the insane craziness behind Von Dutch but you need to watch it. It is mind-blowing what went on during that explosion of the Von Dutch trucker hats. It’s bizarre. There’s murder involved. Escobar is involved. You’re going to want to watch it. It’s insane.
I’m down.
Kardashian Kolloquium: Clichés are clichés for a reason because they are true, and you reach a place in your adult life where it washes over you in a real way.
Christian Audigier passed away. I did not know he was scandalous. Even Paris Hilton is in the documentary. She talks about it deeply and not just on the surface. She delves in. It’s pretty interesting.
Often, these cultural phenomena have wild stories of how they got to be this phenomenon that they are. I didn’t know this but my sister and I have a lot of interest in the male review in Vegas, Magic Mike. It’s fascinating.
Magic Mike is one of my favorite movies of all time.
It’s horrible but why do we love it? I’m like, “It’s good.”
It’s not horrible though.
The acting is horrible as a motion picture.
The storyline is truly a feminist story. It checks all of those boxes. It’s not pandering. It’s not like, “You crazy ladies will love this.” It’s tapping into something true about straight female sexuality.
As a lesbian, I love it. I love to see women safely engage in their sexuality and reciprocate a healthy objectification of men in a way that’s still so much more constructive and not lecherous than the way men are often with the male gaze on women. It is a utopic depiction of what it could be. It’s lovely. I love Magic Mike. The dancing was good. They’re talented. There’s such an emphasis on consent, body positivity and mutuality. I see why my sister loves it. We want to do a documentary about it. We mentioned this to our mom and she was like, “You got to watch the Chippendales documentary.” That made me think.
We’ll watch that soon.
My best friend used to date a Chippendale and there’s a lot of weird stuff, a Vegas Chippendale, an actual one that performed. It’s not like traveling or whatever but it’s the actual show. It’s a strange environment. I went to a show and she had him pull me up on stage. I thought he was going to give me a lap dance and I almost died. I was like, “I don’t want you to touch me at all. Please remove your perspiration.” They had someone else come on and give it to me. I was like, “Okay, fine.” I’m even turned red thinking about it. It’s not even about like, “He’s too hot for me. I would never be able to obtain this type of man in my life.” It was more the fact that I am on display and there’s a man that’s almost naked with a sock on that’s on my lap.
The Chippendales are racier than Magic Mike.
I don’t know if there’s anything feminist about it. They put it at The Rio, which is the worst. It’s very pretty but this sounds stupid. It’s the shit of the strip because they pushed it out to The Palms where casinos go to die sadly. Remember The Palms, it was an explosion, the Playboy Bunny era. Heff had a suite there. Everybody was going there. If you walk in there, it’s like a retirement home. It’s sad.
Those lifelines of the casinos are interesting.
They’re little character arcs.
What’s the environment like? What do you know about the life of the dancers? We’re very interested in that.
It’s not like these guys that are going in there are psychologically tested. They’re like, “You’re 6’2” You’re super hot and you have abs. You’re in.” There’s not much of a screening process there. There can’t be. That’s not for all of them. I can’t speak for all of them. My experience was not great with them. Besides my opinion of him, there were a lot of show politics that were not cool.
I understand you’re speaking for that experience and not for them. It’s what you observed of it. That is interesting. My partner is saying, “Leave it to Michelle to have a utopian view.” “We’re talking about Chippendales, not Magic Mike.”
I understand you’re speaking for that experience and not for them. It’s what you observed of it. That is interesting. My partner is saying, “Leave it to Michelle to have a utopian view.” “We’re talking about Chippendales, not Magic Mike.”
Magic Mike is fabulous. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trashy.
There’s a feeling that they’re doing something special.
That’s insight because if we ever did a documentary, we could show Magic Mike vis-à-vis Chippendales and show how it is an intentionally better show.
We talked to some other people after the show that ran the show and some of the people that were involved. It seemed great. Initial impressions, we’ll see. I assumed all of the men in these shows were gay. That’s my gay projection. My sister is always saying, “I don’t think so.”
Honestly, I feel like a lot of them at Chippendales were. The Thunder from Down Under ones, I heard they were not. I heard most of them were gay.
Most of them were gay at Thunder from Down Under. I was ready to be like, “I told you.”
There are 1 or 2 apparently that are not but the majority are. In Chippendales, I can’t even remember her telling me that there was one that was not straight. That’s interesting.
Marie, we got to do this.
You’re like, “There’s so much material here.” Plus, Channing Tatum is a dream boy. He’s super cute. I like him with Zoe Kravitz.
He’s random. I love it. That is extra validation that he’s genuinely cool because I don’t think Zoe Kravitz would date a not a cool person.
Who was she dating before? Do you remember?
She was married to this actor and then they got a quick divorce.
Channing was with Jenna Dewan but then he got with someone else and I forgot who it was. I don’t care. I’ll still look at him and be like, “You’re super cute.” I loved him since She’s the Man. It’s my favorite movie. It’s Amanda Bynes primetime and the tampon up the nose to stop the nosebleeds. When she gets hit in the crotch with the ball, all the guys are like, “Oh.” She’s like, “Oh. I can’t forget to grab my crotch because it hurts.”
She shines comedically in that movie from my memory. She has a whole sensibility comedically in that movie.
People have it unlocked in their memory somewhere. It is one of my favorite comedic movies of the 2000s. It’s very funny. She doesn’t even give a hit. She’s in a boy wig in a school uniform. She’s not a pretty girl in that movie for the majority of it. I love that juxtaposition of it. She held this line between the it-girl in Hollywood who’s beautiful, done up all the time and then she’s in a boy wig.
That’s the commitment to the joke. I have to rewatch it. From what I remember, there was a real empathy for what boys and girls of that age are going through. There’s a balance to both narratives in a well-done way if I remember right.
I haven’t been on TikTok much because I go down the rabbit hole and then I get lost for hours. Is it a trend where men are openly being vulnerable and they’re like, “What’s wrong with you?” “Nothing. I’m fine.” They’re then breaking down in their cars respectively. Have you seen this?
I have not seen them.
It’s like a chain. I saw a specific video that was like, “Are you okay?” You’re like, “I’m a man. I’m totally fine.” The audio is going and they’re all in their car and on their phones breaking down because they don’t have an outlet to be safe and vulnerable outside of their masculinity.
TikTok is making that space for that outlet because there is such a vulnerable space on TikTok. Men need feminism because it will create the space for them so they don’t have to posture in that way. They can nurture in that way too.
I like that space as well. I’m thinking about my ex. He’d rather die than do that trend. Some people will never tap into that, which is fine. I like that even if another man is not willing to admit it, they can see and they’re like, “That space does exist.” I want to talk about how you found the Kardashians. Was it on TV? Did you hear about it and then watch it? How did that come into your life? What made that the catalyst to open up this door?
There’s a story there. Michelle, it starts with you. You brought me into the fold.
In 2018, my roommate put it on and I sat down to watch with her to spend time with her. I’d never been interested before. I didn’t have a bias against it. It was more of a bias against reality TV if anything. There have been some shows that I’ve liked but I’ve never been attracted to it. The Bora Bora episode blew my mind. Kim and Rob’s fight felt raw and real. Kourtney and Scott, grappling with his sobriety and his alcoholism felt real.
It still was the structure of classic reality TV where it’s very staged. There were those moments too. I was affected by it. I would need to go back and watch that episode to remember what else felt like these opportunities for deep dives. In any event, I went to my sister right away and was like, “Keeping Up With The Kardashians is interesting.” I made her watch them with me.
Marie, what was your initial reaction when she said that to you?
I was down. I was like, “Weird.” I had the same thing about the Kardashians where it had never occurred to me to watch it. We connect deeply on movies and television. We’ll always honor a recommendation. I was like, “Let’s do it. I’m down.”
We never judge stuff and shoot it down. We’re never too cool for something. We’re always like, “Really?” We are guided by intellectual curiosity and humbleness.
I don’t remember what you put on first. You might have put on that episode that you watched that made you feel that way. From what I remember, it was one of the regular. They’re around the house, this or that. It still left an impression. Once we were sitting down watching it, I was like, “This is the zipper to the universe.” I was like, “If you unzip this show, the truth of everything will come out.”
That’s when we had the idea for the account. We were like, “We should do fake academic essay titles of the show, different concepts that come up in the show.” We started that. That’s how we started the account. I was not ready for that amount of commitment. We went our separate ways. She went forth with the account, which I’m glad she kept up and then that was that.
How long has it been?
Since the moment of its inception. She went off with it. We lived our lives creatively, did our jobs and came back together for this because it was the perfect time to. We were both ready and grown.
I was watching it mindlessly. There are a few episodes that come to mind. I don’t know if you’ve seen these but if you have not, you should watch them for comedic value. There is one where Khloé is into these campaigns. They were the milk ads. I don’t know if you remember this but it was that blueprint for PETA.
We were still working together at that point, Marie.
Khloé goes to Kim and was like, “I got a call from PETA.” She’s like, “Pita Kitchen?” That is one of my sisters and I’s eternal jokes. There’s another one where Khloé and Kim are in the car driving around and they’re asking for directions because we didn’t have GPS on our phones at the time. They happen to pull up to this person. I don’t know if the person was homeless or not but the person, whoever they were, was deaf. The person says, “I’m deaf.” Khloé goes to Kim and was like, “She’s deaf, you bitch.” It cannot be scripted. That is happenstance.
It’s sister stuff. That’s more sister comfort.
Besides Todd Kraines, which is the funniest joke in the world, Kris is like, “How did you get this number?”
The thing that’s funny about Todd Kraines is that it’s still family. It might not be sister stuff but it shows God’s integration in the family. He’s a brother and sibling to everybody. It’s fun to prank people you know that well.
Didn’t Khloé dress up as Kris and she put herself in a dumpster? There’s one episode where Kris got super fucked up and went out for Cinco de Mayo. There’s this footage of her sticking her head outside the car in a sombrero and screaming. They then go to TP Kim’s house.
I don’t remember the TP-ing or the stuff before that though.
Maybe it was where Khloé dressed up as Kris and put herself in a dumpster outside of a gas station and then had paparazzi photograph her. She was like, “Mom, you have a problem. You’re drinking too much.” Her mom’s like, “I don’t remember this.” I don’t know if it’s real or not but it was super funny. What do you think about the physical altercations and the fact that they highlight them and show them and that’s what they use for the commercials for the show?
It sounds like it’s going to get an engagement. It’s the same way sex and conflict sells. They know that. I can’t imagine what it would be like to cross the line into physically fighting each other as adults. That’s crazy.
We’ve never crossed that threshold for us. Even if we get into takedown or drag-out fights, we’ve never hit each other. It’s maybe the novelty piece where you don’t see this boundary being crossed in families and adults and with sisters. As kids, you physically fight, for sure.
Kourtney or Kim had scratch marks. It was an altercation. For me, I would be embarrassed. I’d be like, “People are going to call us trash.” Somehow they skated on by.
It was one of those moments that they capitalize on the central question of the Kardashians like is it real? Is that not? It’s outlandish that you want to believe it’s not real but then maybe it was and then that’s crazy to think about too. They were probably comfortable keeping that in because it held that line so well.
I agree with that completely because that’s my main experience. I haven’t watched that full episode. I’ve only watched the fight and then the CoCo De Ville recreation of the fight. He’s so funny and also talented. I mostly sit with, “Was that real or staged?” I lean towards staged. One other thing I want to add is physical fighting, table-flipping and that behavior is a reality TV convention. I’m like, “Let’s borrow from a convention. Let’s do a Real Housewives moment without being engulfed in the Real Housewives energy.”
My final question is if you’re walking the street and you saw your twenty-year-old self coming towards you, you could go up to her, give her a big hug and tell her one thing, what would that one thing be?
I would say, “You’re on the wrong medication but I promise you someday you will be. You’re going to figure it out and it’s going to be okay. I know you’re sad now but you’re going to be happier later.”
I would say, “You’re frantic. Calm down. If you chill, let things in more, aren’t urgent, desperate, insecure and going to have better connections, life will flow with you more.” At twenty, I was heartbroken. It felt alienated and desperate to live but didn’t know what that meant. I wanted to soak in New York City. There’s franticness to it. I would say, “Calm down but you’re sweet.”
The point of the question is that no one likes themselves at twenty.
I had the illusion that I liked myself but I hated myself.
I would assume that’s more or less universal. At least you know that you did not have anything figured out at twenty.
Retrospectively, I treated myself like shit.
Whatever our version of it is, we’re being rugged with ourselves.
I wasn’t even that overweight when I was twenty. I would make a fist and punch myself in the stomach. I was like, “You’re so fat.” I can laugh about it because I’m in a place where I can but that’s pretty sad in general.
Twenty is a rough age.
You found out a lesson. One cute thing is when I was that age, I was living right outside of New York City on my campus and would come into New York City for adventures. Most of the time, there wouldn’t be an adventure. If there was an adventure, it was usually Death Metal Rooster. Marie, will you explain what Death Metal Rooster is and the fact that was all of us at twenty.
Death Metal Rooster is a video that I discovered when I was fifteen. It was around when you were twenty that we started making it a descriptive term. It’s this rooster that’s cawing but it’s doing it for an extended time. It’s screaming for so long and then they put death metal music behind it.
You’ve got to google it, Death Metal Rooster. Marie was like, “You at twenty was Death Metal Rooster.” That was me in New York City. Death Metal Rooster was on the contract to everything I do.
The feeling it evokes is how you are when you’re twenty. You’ll start to realize what a truly descriptive term it is and you’re like, “That’s Death Metal Rooster.” All my friends are on it. They all know the term and use it all the time.
You have a montage of the choices you made at twenty with Death Metal Rooster playing.
I’m going to immediately google this and make it the soundtrack of my new life. Self-love is something that I’ve always struggled with. I’m getting to the point where I look at myself and I’m like, “This is who you are. You have to love yourself and it doesn’t matter who else loves you if you love you.” That sounds cliché. I wish someone would have told me that at twenty and me having the capacity to understand that. At twenty, if you would have told me that, I would have been like, “What are you talking about?” I wouldn’t have had the capacity to wrap my mind around it.
Clichés sound so cliché when you are in a headspace where you’re not deeply thinking about things. Clichés are clichés for a reason because they are true and you reach a place in your adult life where it washes over you in a real way where you’re like, “I understand why people say this.”
My real answer to your question is I would like to say to twenty-year-old me that it gets better but I feel like I can’t because I’m gay and that’s extra corny. I am not against the It Gets Better movement because it’s true. I don’t have a hot take on that. It’s cool to have a hot take on It Gets Better. That’s what I would say. A new answer.
A lot of people do say that because it’s their truth and that’s completely fine. You don’t have to have some cool answers to the question. There’s no right or wrong. It’s however you feel in the moment. Women must understand that although we are so different, we are all alike in many ways. We need to be supporting each other and not tearing each other down. It’s normally men that are tearing women down on the internet. My trolls are all men. I don’t think there’s a single woman troll, which is insane. We got to support and got to be there for each other. Speaking of, how can we support the two of you?
MJ is @Kardashian_Kolloquium on Instagram. I am @SuperLestela on Instagram. Also, Between Two Salads is the name of our web series on YouTube. We’re taking a break but after that, it’ll be twice a month.
I’m excited. Put me on the mailing list for that. You should do an email mailing list. That would be smart. I would want to be notified outside of social media that that’s happening.
That’s great to know. We’ll get on that, for sure. We’re trying to figure out our strategy as we go. Thank you. The best way to support is to engage, share and keep up.
Do the two of you have Twitter also or no?
I don’t.
I don’t have one for what I’m doing. I have a personal one.
I’m making sure I cover all my bases. Marie, you collaborate on Kolloquium on TikTok?
You’ll occasionally see contributions on Kardashian Kolloquium and Instagram mostly if I’m doing anything there. On my Instagram, I’ll post things about what Super Lestela Studios is doing.
Super Lestela, I love her. I’m glad I asked that question. I’ve been thinking about that a lot and it made me a little emotional, to be honest with you. I was like, “This girl named her company after her make-believe friend.” I was touched by that. That’s something I would do. That’s on-brand for me. I relate.
Thank you.
Congratulations to both of you. You’re doing such an amazing job, original idea and platform. You are making people think, which is hard to do in this day and age. In an age where you scroll mindlessly, you make a stop and ponder what you’re saying. Thank you for that.
Thank you so much. You’re making a cool space online too. This is a space of positivity, curiosity and self-love. It’s wonderful.
Thank you. I’m a little bit everywhere on my Insta. The show is geared towards getting people out of their shells and making them face the harsh realities perhaps but it’s going to help them learn. It’s going to make them uncomfortable because they want to learn. Thank you so much for your time. I’m excited about our group chat. I won’t put too much in there. Don’t worry, Michelle.
It’ll be nice to connect though. It’s more than me being sorry. I used to be way better about staying and in touch with people. Let’s do it.
This has truly been such a pleasure series. It’s been a blast.
Thank you. I feel like I can be your surrogate third sister.
We’re going back to Vegas. We’ll party there.
I don’t know post-pandemic but I do know a ton of people there. It will be super fun to go. I’ll take you on a tour of my old campus and old stomping grounds in the ghetto. Have a great time.
Marie is an NYC-based video producer and the founder of Super Lestela Studios (IG: @superlestela), creative development and production studio, which is currently in collaboration with MJ Corey of Kardashian_Kolloquium on a number of long-form video endeavors related to her social media presence exploring the new media landscape. You can see Marie’s video work across the platforms of brands like BuzzFeed, Nick Jr. and InStyle Magazine.
About MJ Corey
MJ Corey is a New York City-based psychotherapist and writer best known for her social media presence @Kardashian_Kolloquium, on which she – sometimes seriously, sometimes satirically – intellectualizes The Kardashian family. In collaboration with Super Lestela Studios, she recently released a video essay on YouTube called “Theory and Content-Creating in Las Vegas: Which Iconic City is the Kardashian Family?” A web series called “Between Two Salads” is now live on YouTube.
There are few speakers today that have the wide experience and stellar reputation of Marisa Peer. Named ‘Britain’s Best Therapist’ by Men’s Health magazine, Marisa has spent over three decades treating a client list that includes international superstars, CEOs, Royalty, and Olympic athletes. Her engaging and amusing talks are peppered with anecdotes from an unparalleled career in which she has helped thousands of people to overcome profound personal issues. She has been voted best speaker twice at Awesomeness Fest and numerous conferences including The Mastermind Group London, the Women in Business Superconference, and the Royal Society of Medicine. It is easy to see how people leave Marisa’s live talks feeling completely and permanently transformed.
Marie is an NYC-based video producer and the founder of Super Lestela Studios (IG: @superlestela), creative development and production studio, which is currently in collaboration with MJ Corey of Kardashian_Kolloquium on a number of long-form video endeavors related to her social media presence exploring the new media landscape. You can see Marie’s video work across the platforms of brands like BuzzFeed, Nick Jr. and InStyle Magazine.
MJ Corey is a New York City-based psychotherapist and writer best known for her social media presence @Kardashian_Kolloquium, on which she – sometimes seriously, sometimes satirically – intellectualizes The Kardashian family. In collaboration with Super Lestela Studios, she recently released a video essay on YouTube called “Theory and Content-Creating in Las Vegas: Which Iconic City is the Kardashian Family?” A web series called “Between Two Salads” is now live on YouTube.
