Rich Text

If you’re a Substack subscriber, go check your email for a gift link to access Rich Text! (If it's not there, it will be within an hour or so.) Everyone else, welcome! A little over five years ago, we started Rich Text on Substack because we needed a change. We had been at HuffPost for a decade, from the peak of its heyday to its somewhat ignominious acquisition by BuzzFeed. We had cycled through different positions as writers and editors, and we had survived round after round of layoffs. We had started Here to Make Friends, a feminist reality dating show podcast, and it had lasted despite occasional attempts by management to pivot it to video. We had been lucky enough to collaborate with brilliant editors, writers and producers, but we had also watched those colleagues leave. We were burnt out and rudderless. Our hope was that a little side project on Substack would give us a low-stakes, chill place to mess around, blog, try random stuff, and get back in touch with our voices. A creative refresh, if you will. Then, almost exactly five years ago, the layoff cycle finally came for us. We were called into our virtual HR meetings with a taped (but unedited) “Bachelor” recap still dangling. It was never published. But we weren’t ready to say goodbye to podcasting, and we were suddenly energized by the possibility of taking control of the show, of our writing, and of our creative futures. Substack became not just a space to experiment, but the home base of our entire body of work. And our wonderful subscribers allowed us to keep doing that work – while paying our bills, including Claire’s eye-popping daycare tuition.In so many ways, our time at Substack gave us all of the things we had ever hoped for. We were able to build, brick by brick, a tiny media company of two. We were able to pay for our health care (Emma) and child care (Claire). We found a vibrant community full of brilliant, challenging, funny people – all of whom wanted to analyze culture in the way that we did! After years of being limited to “Bachelor” recaps on our podcast, and following the whims of editorial leadership when it came to story selection, we were able to truly take the reins, writing and podcasting about all the reality shows, rom-coms, weird viral essays, prestige dramas, and sociopolitical trends our little hearts desired. And we got to do it all on our terms, for the best audience in the business. We have never taken these gifts for granted, not for one single day. We recognize how very lucky we are to be able to make a living doing something that we truly love, and we're incredibly, profoundly grateful to all of you for supporting our work.But as with any media ecosystem, even a relatively scrappy indie one, there came challenges. After years of natural growth and support from Substack staffers, both waned. The platform began to prioritize bringing over large, institutional publications and celebrity writers over mid-size publications like ours. Discoverability became more challenging, and Substack kept ending up in the news because of its tacit support for Nazis and transphobes. The latest big development is that Substack has partnered with… Polymarket. All of these things left us with the looming sense that we would have to make the leap to another platform at some point in time. But, of course, making a big change is really fucking scary. Especially when that change could upend your ability to pay your bills. So when Patreon reached out, it felt like a golden opportunity to make a leap with real support – and one we might never get again. Patreon is a platform built originally for podcasters, which is a big part of what we do on Rich Text. We loved the idea of being in a place where audio content is truly valued, and where we can be an active part of shaping what the newsletter product will be in the future. We loved that the financial investment that Patreon was willing to make into our scrappy little media project would allow us to rebuild without complete and total panic haunting us at every turn. Patreon, of course, isn’t perfect. No platform will be. But the hope is that we can write our next chapter sustainably. We want to set ourselves up so that Rich Text is something we can continue making for the next five years and then another five years after that. And we feel like some of the new features we’ll have access to on Patreon – organized collections! The ability to pay for one-off posts or series! More tier options! – will allow us to grow in a healthy way.Now that we’re here, in our unfamiliar new home, surrounded by moving boxes and art we don’t know where to hang yet, it feels a little scary and stressful. There’s a lot to do. But that also means a lot of possibility. All the same things you knew and (hopefully) loved back at Substack will be here: weekly recommendations and podcasts, occasional essays, subscriber chats. We’re also looking forward to experimenting with new features and bonus content – and implementing your feedback from our big reader survey last month! – as we figure out what will make Rich Text itself an even richer text in the coming years. There will be more conversations about the motherhood divide, our personal lives, reality television scandals, bizarre made-for-streaming holiday rom-coms about sexy snowmen and viral essays that set your group chats ablaze. There will be more writing about girl culture, the ways fatherhood is treated vs. motherhood, books we love, TV we love, and progressive politics. Trust us: We KNOW that asking you to change over your subscription to a whole different platform is super annoying. The whole point of a subscription is that it’s seamless! You should never have to think about it! We, too, hate dealing with the process of moving our information over to a new app, linking up custom podcast feeds again, etc. We did not make the choice to inflict this on you lightly. We really believe that Patreon will be a more sustainable and welcoming space for our work and for this community. And we are here – along with the REAL HUMANS of the Patreon team – to make this transition as easy as possible!⚠️ Important note for Substack subscribersIf you’re coming from Substack, we're gifting you access to our paid membership on Patreon. You should have received an email with your redemption link and details on how to claim it.Check your email for details on claiming your FREE access If you’re still running into issues → submit a support requestWhat’s included on Patreon?Free MembershipWeekly Recommendations: Get our weekly dispatch on what we’ve been reading, watching, listening to, buying, and making.Weekly Podcast Previews & Occasional Full Episodes: Listen to periodic full-length episodes of the Rich Text podcast.Essays: Read our occasional musings on topics cultural, political, and personal.💬 Frequent Texter ($6 per month) 💬Access to Rich Text Podcast Episodes: Access our weekly member-only podcast, and the full archive of episodes.Weekly Recommendations: Get our weekly dispatch on what we’ve been reading, watching, listening to, buying, and making.Essays: Read our occasional musings on topics cultural, political, and personal.Comment Access: Post comments on any post and join the community!Rich Text Chat: Connect with other members and discuss your favorite topics, from appointment TV to political news to random gossip, in private, subscriber-only spaces.Reminder: If you’re coming from Substack, your gifted access link is in your email. (If it's not there, it will be soon.) Make sure to redeem it so you’re all set.Thank you for being here! xo Claire & EmmaShare Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod • Subscribe • Request a free subscription

In 2009 on “Tell Me Lies,” Lucy’s life is crashing and burning right into the ground. In 2009 in the real world, Tyra Banks was teaching young women how to “smize” on the hit show “America’s Next Top Model.” This week, we dive into both versions of the late aughts — fictional and reality. After three dark, twisted, and completely fucked up seasons, “Tell Me Lies” came to an end on Tuesday. Showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer announced the news on Instagram on Monday night, writing that “this was always the ending my writing team and I had in mind, and we are insanely proud of it.” She added that the audience’s “incredible response to this season inspired us to explore whether there was another organic way to continue the story, but ultimately we felt it had reached its natural conclusion.” So in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, viewers were left to see if the team could stick the landing and wrap up all of the chaos that had been building in both the 2009 and 2015 timelines. The result was a mixed bag. Some major plot holes that left us yearning for a fourth season, but also some “imperfect justice.” The series’ ambiguous final moments leave some things up to viewer interpretation, and as two culture critics, we often find that that’s where the real fun begins. (Plus, that “Toxic” needle drop was simply perfection.)We also traveled back in time to the glory days of “ANTM,” via Netflix’s new documentary, “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.” The three part docu-series, which features interviews with Tyra Banks, Ken Mok, Jay Manuel, Nigel Barker and Miss J. Alexander, as well as prominent former contestants like Shandi Sullivan, Danielle Evans, Whitney Thompson, Keenyah Hill, attempts to grapple with the dark and complex legacy of the reality juggernaut. And boy is there a lot of darkness to sort through. “Reality Check” attempts to contextualize “ANTM” within the racist, homophobic, fatphobic time period it emerged during, and the even more racist, homophobic, fatphobic industry that it was attempting to broaden. But what becomes clear is that whatever lofty goals Banks had when she created “ANTM,” were overshadowed by the utter lack of protections in place for the cast members — who were predominantly vulnerable, very young women. Not only were the aspiring models cast subjected to microaggressions — Ebony Haith, a Black cast member from Cycle 1, has her hair texture mocked by white stylists during makeover day; Thompson, who won Cycle 10, shows up to castings where they’ve refused to pull clothes in her size — but also to physical dangers. (Sullivan’s story of being sexually assaulted on camera in Milan during Cycle 2, and then being framed as a cheating harlot on national television, is particularly harrowing.) And unfortunately, the decision makers interviewed still seem unwilling to take full accountability. In this episode of the Rich Text podcast, we get into it all, from our own experiences watching “ANTM” as teenagers, to the lingering questions “Tell Me Lies” left us with. We hope you enjoy! Timestamps for easy listening:0:00 — The “Tell Me Lies” series finale43:12 — The twisted legacy of “America’s Next Top Model”Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod • Subscribe • Request a free subscription

The central theme of this season of Netflix romance series “Bridgerton” comes into sharp focus at the end of the first episode. After charming rakish second son Benedict Bridgerton at his mother’s masquerade ball with her witty banter and sense of wonder, our masked heroine rushes home. We see her remove her formal glove, shoes and mask. Suddenly, she is staring into the humble mirror in her bedchamber, her full face in view for the first time. And instead of finery, she is dressed in a maid’s outfit. The major roadblock to a relationship between Sophie Baek and Benedict Bridgerton will not be a misunderstanding or a clash of personalities or a one-sided desire to end a bloodline. Instead, it will be something quite tangible, especially during the Regency era. It will be about class.It’s a fascinating moment for this season to hit our screens. On the one hand, as many viewers have noted, the uneven power dynamics of a Cinderella-inspired story — as this one definitively is — feel less fun to explore in fiction when we’re seeing the very real rollbacks of the rights of women in this country. (Part of why “Heated Rivalry” felt like such a salve to so many women viewers.) On the other hand, it’s clear that the writers injected some real class consciousness and modern labor politics into the text of the show. And that revamped text feels quite timely. (See: Mrs. Varley telling Lady Featherington off for using the language of “family” as a way to underpay her for two decades.) In this episode, we get into it all: the class dynamics, the power of AAPI representation, the ways in which the Cinderella tropes work and don’t, the many ancillary B-plots, and the pointed ways that the writers changed the plot of the show from its source material. Hope you enjoy! XoShare Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod • Subscribe • Request a free subscription

On this week’s episode of the Rich Text podcast, we’re tackling two totally disparate topics: the rage-fueled war on liberal white women and the end of “Love Is Blind Germany” season 2. Because, as we alway say… women contain multitudes.First, we dive into the right-wing ire being directed at white women who are choosing to mobilize against ICE. In the wake of Renee Good’s Jan. 7 killing in Minneapolis, right-wing media has found a new target for its hate-filled rhetoric: middle-class wine moms! Fox News commentator David Marcus warned that we are “seeing across the country as organized gangs of wine moms use Antifa tactics to harass and impede Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.” Some on the right are even deploying a fun new acronym: AWFULs (Affluent White Female Urban Liberals), a group which morning radio host Pierce Outlaw labeled “the scourge of polite society.”Much ink has been spilled over the years about the ways in which white women as a voting bloc often prioritize access to patriarchal and white supremacist power structures over gender solidarity. During the 2024 presidential election, exit polls showed that 53 percent of white women voted for Trump, and the majority of white women have broken for the right in nearly every presidential election since 1952. So what’s going on here?Turns out, it’s a few things. (1) As a bloc that the right has invested heavily in wooing — see: the MAHA movement, tradwife content, Erika Kirk — white women who become part of the resistance are the ultimate traitors. As Michelle Goldberg wrote in her NYTimes piece on this subject: “In the right-wing imagination, these women are acting like harpies — an epithet often seen online — when they’re supposed to be helpmeets.” (2) The right sees these increasingly politically mobilized women as a threat to their fascist project — in part because of their numbers and in part because of their privileged place in society. And (3) There is a need to cleave these women from their white privilege in the public sphere in order to neutralize their power as part of the resistance. Hence, wine moms and childless cat ladies become Antifa domestic terrorists.After this conversation, we do an abrupt tonal change and get into the final two episodes of “Love Is Blind Germany” season 2. We discuss which of our three final couples tied the knot, and whether any of them are still married a year later. Plus, one cast member makes an announcement during the reunion that’s a “Love Is Blind” historic first. Timestamps for easy listening:0:00 — Why the right is so furious at liberal white ladies44:20 — “Love Is Blind Germany” weddings episode and reunionReading materials referenced in the episode:“After Renee Good Killing, Derisive Term for White Women Spreads on the Far Right,” Clyde McGrady, NYTimes“The Right Is Furious With Liberal White Women,” Michelle Goldberg, NYTimes“Wine Moms Gone Wild,” Erin Gloria Ryan, Just Enjoy It While You Can“After Renee Good’s Murder, Wine-Mom Gangs Are Now the New Antifa,” Virginia Heffernan, The New Republic“white woman is the white woman of the world,” B.D. McClay, NotebookShare Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod • Subscribe • Request a free subscription

We have long been fans of the Emily Henry romance-novel universe. So when we heard that “People We Meet On Vacation” would be getting the movie treatment, we were unquestionably excited. “People We Meet On Vacation,” which was published in novel form in 2021 and dropped on Netflix in movie form on Jan. 9, follows polar opposite best friends Poppy (Emily Bader) and Alex (Tom Blyth), who after meeting in a gender-swapped “When Harry Met Sally” post-college road trip, decide to go on vacation together every summer… platonically, of course. Poppy is quirky and chaotic and wanderlust-y — a classic free-spirited gal. Alex, on the other hand, loves structure and steadiness and home. But when he goes on vacation with Poppy, his more adventurous side awakens. The book, which we unfortunately did not have time to re-read before recording this podcast, is a delight. The movie… is fine? Like most rom-coms that make it to Netflix or commensurate streaming platforms, “People We Meet On Vacation” is watchable and cute. But when it comes to the things that differentiate a rom-com you watch once and a rom-com that burrows into your soul — distinctive and dense dialogue, truly funny comedy, a story that makes you really feel something — the adaptation falters. It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what’s missing. Perhaps it’s the fact that the interiority of a character in a novel is simply tough to translate into movie form. Perhaps the story’s non-linear structure would have been better served with a mini-series. Perhaps it’s that Bader’s Poppy is a little too much of a caricature, and Blyth’s Alex is a little too flat. (These deficiencies are particularly notable when we meet Poppy’s parents, played by Alan Ruck and Molly Shannon, who pop more in their one scene than most of the other characters do in the entire film.) Perhaps the screenplay packs too much plot in without enough room to let us see why these two unlikely friends are so ultimately right for each other.Whatever it is, “People We Meet On Vacation” left us wanting more — even as we found a few moments of true enjoyment. This rom-com ultimately felt neither like a true escape from real life nor a reflection of it. Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod • Subscribe • Request a free subscription

2025 felt more like a lifetime than a year. Personally and globally, a lot happened in the last 12 months — much of it filled with darkness and despair, but also punctuated by bits of joy and light. To round out 2025 and welcome in 2026, we decided to sit down and tape a bit of a reflection. We discussed our highlights (Emma’s wedding! Claire’s home purchase!), the lowlights (everything that the current administration is doing to our nation and the world), and our hopes and dreams for the year to come. Thank you for being a part of this community of ours — one of the bits of light in the darkness. We are so grateful for you. Cheers to a 2026 we can all be proud of. Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod • Subscribe • Request a free subscription