The Polyester Podcast

What if Carrie White was a victim? And what if Cathy Ames was a girlboss? Booktok and filmtok have united this month to rally against the proposed sanitisation of some of literature's most complicated female characters.This week, hosts Ione and Gina dissect the depictions of the East Of Eden and Carrie reboot leads, consider whether one note characterisations can benefit or hinder feminism and why we all want evil women to root for on screen. Order The Polyester Book Of Bad Taste here!Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Watch the episode on YouTube! Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You must have heard about it by now and if you haven't? Lucky you. It's not often that a local news story breaks containment through traditional reporting and not a viral TikTok, but for Last Ditch - the Covid conscious lesbian bar in Greenfield, MA - a report from The Boston Globe broke open a case that would change the world. Or at least, our social media feeds.This week, hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with the ongoing backlash Last Ditch are experiencing from offering a mask optional night in their programming. Is the owner in the wrong for excluding patrons who can only attend fully masked events? Is their community acting too harshly in their response to her business decision? And should we question the ethics of laughing at situations that the right wing are capitalising on during the American mid terms?Order The Polyester Book Of Bad Taste here!Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's not about Sydney Sweeney doing an easily misinterpreted advert again. It's not about her being completely naked in it either. Listen to me, it's just sports. Or at least, that's what gambling app Novig want you to think.This week, our hosts Ione and Gina dissect the discourse surrounding Sydney Sweeney's latest advertisement drama and get to grips with the more pressing problem that is arising across the world of marketing: The ethics of promoting gambling and who benefits from the popularisation of bettings apps.Order The Polyester Book Of Bad Taste here!Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Has the title influencer dropped from glamour to disregard because people hate women? Or is it possibly due to the growing resentment between the working class and the content creator economy?This week, hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with the discourse connecting the ire directed at influencers with misogyny. Is a Nantucket sign in a vintage shop outright sexism or a signal of a growing exhaustion with social media's impact on society? Does every public figure need to be insightful as well as aesthetically enviable? And is anyone directing this kind of nihilism towards influencers towards male content creators?Order The Polyester Book Of Bad Taste here!Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The OOTD has taken on a new look: A still snapped from the video your Amazon owned Ring doorbell. Or, if you're Kylie Jenner, a selfie taken on your Meta glasses after bossing around your assistants for an #ad on Instagram. Nadia Lee Cohen and Alex Consani are amongst the swathes of fashion industry heavyweights embracing surveillance tech - but why are they allowing their images to be used for something so seemingly evil?This week, hosts Ione and Gina take on the girlification of the surveillance state, the actual terrors that lie in the tech companies controlling our cameras, and why we need to stand up against the normalisation of peer to peer data capture.Order The Polyester Book Of Bad Taste here!Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pop's favourite provocateur Charli xcx is back - not that she ever went away - with a host of ‘anti-marketing marketing’ launch her seventh studio album 'Music, Fashion, Film'. From ‘in conversation with’ events and cover profiles to teasing lyrics via Substack posts and arthouse cinema screenings; the rollout for the project looks suspiciously like… the same old marketing tactics. But is the album any good? This week, hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with Charli’s indie influenced new sound, the connotations of her cultural commentary and how the music tracks as a follow up to her beloved 'brat'.Order The Polyester Book Of Bad Taste here!Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As Gen Z have aged up, they have become known for a generational distaste (at best) and fear (at worst) of ageing. But how is this expressed and how does it manifest? And why has it developed at all? This week, hosts Ione and Gina are joined by Ellen Atlanta, author of Pixel Flesh, for an extra special live episode of the podcast at the Wellcome Collection. The three discuss sunscreens pros and cons, the fallacy of preventative tweakments and whether having a fear of ageing is an inherent part of human nature.This is a live episode recorded at Wellcome Collection Lates, a free after-hours event. Find out more wellcomecollection.org Order The Polyester Book Of Bad Taste here!Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The UK - and a lot of other countries, actually - are rolling out social media bans for under sixteens as well as social media curfews for those under eighteen. The news has caused uproar with teens promising they'll find workarounds, parents stressing about the impact on their kids and everyone raising concerns about giving mega corporations access to our government ID info.This week, hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with the cultural impacts of excluding future generations from the internet, the implications of big tech taking on this responsibility and, most excitingly, an insight on the Sheila Matrix.Order The Polyester Book Of Bad Taste here!Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're in bed on your own scrolling through your phone. On your screen, a woman your age is entering her new build apartment, making herself a bowl of pasta and a glass of Diet Coke on a lap tray, then sitting on a huge sofa to rewatch Friends with a candle burning. Her caption reads 'Life when you have no kids. No friends. No boyfriend.' and her comments are full of other women seeing her lonely lifestyle as aspirational.This week, hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with the new trend of lonely influencers: Female creators positing having no social circle as a net positive. Is it great to find joy in the growing isolation many of us are feeling? Or should we take a radical stance against introversion in order to stand up for the importance of community?Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order The Polyester Book Of Bad Taste here!Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Olivia Rodrigo is the subject of the internet's ire for *checks notes* allegations of pedobaiting. The star's music video and stage outfits - consisting of babydoll dresses, bloomers and ruffles - are causing controversy as the 'drop dead' singer is accused of simultaneously sexualising and infantilising herself and indoctrinating her young audience into pandering to the male gaze.In this week's episode, hosts Ione and Gina question if the outfits are problematic in and of themselves and ask what happens when women are blamed for society's sexism.Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order The Polyester Book Of Bad Taste here!Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why are manosphere influencers, Hinge bios and cast members of Love Is Blind requiring 'doing pilates' from their potential beaus? In this week's episode, hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with the pervasion of this particular exercise in pop culture, the potential abuse inherent in men's preferences towards women's exercise and whether or not we should consider the fascist implications of influencers selling fitness.Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order The Polyester Book Of Bad Taste here!Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did Girls shape a generation (or two) of women? Yes. Is Famesick a great memoir? Yes. Should we be more forgiving of the writer considering everything she has (and hasn't) been through? Maybe.This week, hosts Ione and Gina get to grips with one of the most controversial figures of our lifetime - the inimitable over-sharer Lena Dunham. It's undeniable that the multi hyphenate has had an indelible impact on culture and as the 2010s icon reflects on the highs and lows of a life shaped by a HBO deal at the age of 23, this episode charts the hits and misses of the much anticipated memoir.Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here!A statement by journalists: We condemn Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel's atrocities against Palestinians. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's that time y'all! The Polyester Podcast is wading into the discourse deep end about another widely critiqued movie but this time, there's a twist: We're actually enjoyed the film!In this week's episode, hosts Ione and Gina dig into the subtext of Kristoffer Borgli's new dark comedy The Drama. Is the Zendaya and Robert Pattinson fronted flick a failure at analysing such a sensitive subject matter? Does the film fail to take into consideration its casting? And will the culture ever move past needing movies to make their politics unequivocally clear?Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here!A statement by journalists: We condemn Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel's atrocities against Palestinians. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.