The Week In Recommendations 7.5.23

Debunking "The Rules," the wild chemistry of "The Bear," searching for a humidity-friendly matching set, and the quiet luxury of a Babyletto dresser.

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 how to decide whether you want to have a child — or not, and more questions about parenthood! Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!

We’ve been reading…

Amy Odell

’s incredible fashion recaps of “And Just Like That,” on her Substack,

Back Row

! Not only are they laugh out loud funny, but Amy provides sharp analysis about the place fashion held in the original series — how Carrie’s shoe collection was fun wish-fulfillment, but also “normalized women spending hard-earned disposable income on wearable status symbols instead of child-rearing and homes in the suburbs” — and the chaotic, almost useless role it plays in AJLT. We discussed the show’s identity crisis in our recaps, and Amy argues that the fashion tells the same story. -Emma

Two pieces about what’s going on with the gender crisis in America today, one very good and one criminally bad. First, this HuffPost profile of Renton Sinclair, the trans son of a far-right anti-trans influencer named Tania Joy Gibson. Written by our fantastic former colleague Chris Mathias, the profile traces the path Gibson traveled from Miss Illinois 1996 to her current role as a prominent anti-trans evangelist with her own show on Rumble — and, more centrally, it explores Sinclair’s repressed, miserable childhood and how he found his way to a happy, fulfilled adult life after escaping his mother’s repressive care as a teenager. I can’t add anything to Mathias’s profile, or to Sinclair’s own words, but I highly recommend it.

Second, this abysmally stupid and dangerous essay by William Deresiewicz in Tablet Magazine, entitled “Unfuckable Hate Nerds.” (The phrase is a reference to a Marc Maron quote, but the opinions are all his own.) The piece calls on all of us to feel sympathy for “hordes” of misogynistic, entitled young men he describes in this way: “They congregate on Twitter, in comment threads, on forums and platforms like Reddit, Discord, Kiwi Farms, and 8kun, the successor to 8chan. They trade in misogyny, racism, antisemitism, and assorted other hatreds.” We should feel sympathy for them, he argues, because their viciousness is the result of a lack of privilege; whereas “even moderately attractive young women” are showered with gifts, attention, praise, career boosts and love by older men, young men are left out in the cold. Plus, women can have sex whenever they want! And young men have to, like, convince women to have sex with them? Which is so hard and unfair! It’s classic incel shit, but it’s still demoralizing to see it being peddled by a nearly 60-year-old public intellectual and former Yale professor. Partly because this ideology relies on intellectual laziness: for example, Deresiewicz quite obviously slips into the assumption that “even moderately attractive young women” receive perks actually only directed toward very attractive young women, ignores all the dangers and pitfalls faced by those women while trying to profit from men with the actual power, and doesn’t even bother to grapple with all the women who don’t qualify as “even moderately attractive.” (Why are they not all turning into armies of unfuckable hate nerds?) He also ignores the fact that plenty of young men are having sex (maybe the even moderately attractive ones), and doesn’t seriously contend with how he’s somehow divided the entirety of young people into the two nonsensical pools of “beautiful women” and “ugly men,” as if no ugly women or hot young dudes exist. And then, at the end, he throws in this stunner: “We also know how young men are responding. Some are opting out of manhood by becoming trans or nonbinary.” What?? What the fuck is he talking about? It’s sad to see such uninformed, logically fallacious garbage — just sheer misogyny and anti-trans bigotry dressed up as cultural theory — being regurgitated by anyone with more authority than a Reddit shitposter. -Claire

We’ve been watching…

Like Claire, “The Bear” is a show I love AND my partner loves. (A real rarity, as I, a professional cultural critic focused on television, ended up with someone who is decidedly not a TV person.) We have been savoring the new season, watching no more than one episode a night. I adored season 1, with all of its frenetic, stressful energy, leaving viewers and characters alike cloistered in The Beef’s absolutely chaotic kitchen. Season 2 gives Carmy, Sydney, Marcus, Tina, Sugar and Richie some room to breathe; it takes them out of the kitchen and into the world. And the results are stunning. Instead of a sophomore slump season, “The Bear” has evolved into a true ensemble piece; a meditation on ambition and labor and collaboration. Also… my thirst for Jeremy Allen White (Carmy) is real. And his chemistry with Molly Gordon (Claire) is insane. (I see you, Carmy-Sydney shippers — and I have mixed feelings!) -Emma

Ahhh, “The Bear”! We finally finished this week… it’s getting a little overwrought in a soapy way, but I’m just happy to be along for the ride. The Carmy-Claire chemistry is insane, and I’m starting to think Carmy could have chemistry with a well-polished fork, but I maintain that Carmy-Sydney would also make a lot of sense and be very satisfying to me personally.

I’ve also been trying out an episode or two of some new shows — Peacock’s “Based on a True Story,” which Emma recently recommended, and Michelle Buteau’s upcoming Netflix comedy “Survival of the Thickest,” about a stylist who gives her life a makeover after a terrible breakup. Both shows are, for me, struggling to find their footing in the first episodes. “Based on a True Story” has some semi-sized plot holes just in the pilot, most important of which being that Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina do not have to tell their friend the serial killer that they’re onto him, therefore inviting their own violent murders, in order to make a wildly successful podcast about him and rake in the money. “Survival of the Thickest” is pretty standard, formulaic sitcom fare so far (and perhaps more gross-out humor than is to my personal taste). Both shows are anchored, however, by excellent performances: Cuoco, Messina, and Buteau are all actors I would watch a show for, and therefore I will continue to watch these shows for them. At least for a while! -Claire

We’ve been listening to…

After blazing through “Scamanda,” the Spotify algorithm suggested that I might enjoy “Nobody Should Believe Me,” a two-season podcast about Munchausen by proxy (also known as fictitious disorder imposed on another). The show is hosted by novelist Andrea Dunlop, who is on a quest to understand her own estranged sister, who was investigated for similar behavior. The show is fascinating and informative, and made me understand just how complex it is to identify this form of child abuse and treat the perpetrators effectively. (Also, I’d like to co-sign Claire’s enthusiastic recommendation of “The Rules” episode of “If Books Could Kill.” I listened to it while on a long drive, and it was just perfection.) -Emma

Aside from sampling Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt’s first episodes as the cohosts of the only official Bachelor Nation podcast, “Bachelor Happy Hour,” which does not count as a recommendation because I do not recommend it, I have been busy keeping up with my faves: “If Books Could Kill” on “The Rules,” a dating manual for women famously followed by Charlotte York; the two episodes “Know Your Enemy” recently did on how to talk about manhood and masculinity from a left perspective; and “Celebrity Book Club” on the memoir of Captain Sandy Yawn (an absolute romp despite the fact that I have never watched “Below Deck” and couldn’t pick said captain out of a lineup). -Claire

We’ve been buying…

In a desperate attempt to survive the absolute hell mugginess of this unstable New York summer, I bought this comfy, stylish, Free People set. The shorts feel like fancy boxers, and the top — which is unfortunately not for those with larger chests — is also cute with jeans or trousers. It’s on deep sale and a lot of sizes have sold out (I recommend sizing down), so here are a few other sets that have a similar vibe: I love this cute plaid number, and this romantic feminine (but not *too* little girly) set which comes in a bunch of colors. They’re all $50 or less. -Emma

We’re still stocking up on baby things! I’ve been trying to remember everything I wished I had after the last birth, so get ready for some TMI! I got some waterproof bed pads (for all the milk, sweat, and blood I vaguely remember from last time — an old towel was doable, but not exactly leakproof), the gel nipple covers I remember being far more soothing than any cream during my last nursing journey, and this sturdy Babyletto mini-dresser/changer for the baby.

We went with a cheap dresser for the toddler, which he still has. And look, no regrets! That was what our budget allowed for at the time. But I would like to know who exactly said it was okay to use, essentially, cardboard for dresser drawer bottoms? I’ve owned many dressers like this, mostly from Ikea, and I’m sure it does make a dresser cheaper to only provide cardboard for the surface on which all your clothes will be resting every day for years to come. It also makes the dresser guaranteed to fail, and soon. My son’s drawer bottoms have almost fully given way at this point, after 3.5 years of use; our dresser, which we’ve had for years longer, is just as functional as the day we bought it. BECAUSE THE DRAWERS AREN’T MADE OF CARDBOARD. The Babyletto’s drawers have solid wood bottoms, and that, to me, is quiet luxury worth splurging on. -Claire

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