The Week In Recommendations 12.20.23

A creepy cult doc, "vibe popes," a Wharton-inspired TV drama, and a travel pillow for window seat flyers.

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Our latest podcast was about season 3 of “FBoy Island,” starring former Bachelorette Katie Thurston! Rich Text is a completely reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!

Claire has been reading… 📖

Isabel Cristo’s essay in The Cut about the year of the girl — hot girls, bow girls, Barbie girls, girl-dinner girls — and the troubling implications of our current obsession with girlhood. Cristo makes some solid, if unsurprising, points about the political valence of turning away from womanhood and embracing girlhood: it carries with it a rejection of hard choices and responsibilities, a celebration of “blissful, childlike ignorance,” and a willful infantilization of self. As I read this, I found myself deeply ambivalent about her argument. Admittedly, I love girlhood and many of the current popular trends that draw from it (frilly dresses and giant bows, Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo, girl math). For me, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, embracing girlhood is a way of finally embracing the overt, unapologetic femininity that felt simultaneously compulsory and contemptible in my youth. Free from the pressure to look like Britney, and equally free from the pressure to prove I’m a different, better kind of girl than Britney by disavowing lip gloss, my 30s have brought me the freedom to own my traditionally feminine interests without embarrassment. Nor does it prevent me from being an adult woman with a career, a voting history, and two children to take care of. But turning to girlcore still surely does satisfy a desire to escape, even in small ways, the existential despair of our times. It’s an alarming time to be a woman. Finding communion in the soft and pleasurable aspects of femininity can be an alluring balm. I think it’s okay for it to be a comfort. The important thing is making sure it’s not a distraction.

Emma has been reading… 📖

Adrienne Matai’s essay in The Atlantic about “vibe popes,” people who use their charisma to bring communities together, dispense joy, and facilitate communal social interactions around a shared event (like a holiday party). Matai argues that these people are essential to our post-Covid social fabric. “Vibe popes offer warmth, emotional intelligence, and social generosity at a time when going out and meeting people isn’t what it used to be,” she writes.

I recently hosted a holiday party with my friend Liv. Does that make us vibe popes?

Claire has been watching… 📺

“Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God” has been my elective viewing during my limited free time this week, as we careen through an obstacle course of school holiday concerts, doctor appointments, and pod tapings toward the end-of-year week break. We are both weak for cult docs, and I have to admit I’m finding this one particularly dark. It’s a recent cult, the kind that sprouted and grew online; there’s extensive footage from proselytizing YouTube videos and MLM-style livecasts that the founder, Amy Carlson, and her followers filmed. There’s a particularly dark twist, in that Carlson was found dead at the cult’s home base — in fact, she had been dead for weeks and was lovingly preserved in her bedroom by her followers. Many of the subjects interviewed are still devoted followers of her teaching, while disillusioned with Carlson’s partner Jason Castillo, known as Father God. It has the same components of true crime and cult studies as many cult documentaries, but the recipe is a bit different (I’ve never seen quite so many current believers in a cult interviewed in a documentary), and the slight twists on the formula somehow make it particularly unsettling.

Emma has been watching… 📺

I finally started “The Buccaneers,” Apple TV’s new period drama, (somewhat) based on Edith Wharton’s unfinished novel of the same name. The show follows a group of young American women from new money families who head off to merry England to find titled husbands. I wouldn’t call the show… “good,” but it is certainly a romp, full of gorgeous costumes, and sexy love triangles, and Christina Hendricks as the mother of two of the main characters. If you’re expecting any of the characters to hew closely to the true social and linguistic patterns of the Gilded Age, think again. “The Buccaneers” is one giant anachronism. But once you get past that, you can have quite a bit of fun. My one big hangup is that I find myself rooting for the suitor of our heroine Nan who is certainly being coded as the “safe choice” rather than the end-game true love. Theo is simply too compelling!!!

Claire has been listening to… 🎧

Some trusty faves are bridging the gap to 2024 — Camera Obscura’s “My Maudlin Career,” new episodes of “The Bachelor in Retrospect” (currently on Brad Womack’s second season, the first I ever watched!), “If Books Could Kill,” “Celebrity Memoir Book Club,” and “Five-Four.”

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

I’m now officially an Old, which means that I have to learn about things that blow up on TikTok from podcasts, Instagram posts and The Cut articles. Luckily, Jo Piazza and Doree Shafrir have me covered. I loved Too Much Money’s episode about previously unknown Texan socialite Madelaine Brockway’s (allegedly) 59 million-dollar wedding, and her new husband who, it turns out, may be facing life in prison for shooting at cops. (A wild tale!)

Claire has been buying… 🛍️

Footies in intriguing prints from Kate Quinn! A mom friend with excellent taste recently directed me to this brand, which is having big end-of-year sales right now. If you’re the kind of mom (or doting auntie) who wishes it were easier to dress a baby in something that resembles kooky vintage wallpaper, I recommend their footies and bodysuits, which are also very soft and comfy. As for me, I will be covering my baby in giraffes, raccoons, and cows this winter.

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

Travel supplies! I’m about to go on a 10-day trip to India, and I like to feel prepared I picked up a mini Youth to the People Superfood Cleanser for my skin, a mini Color Wow Dream Coat anti-frizz spray for my hair, a blackout eye mask for sleeping on the plane, and this J-shaped travel pillow, which is apparently a godsend for window seat devotees.

She looks so peaceful!

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