Dirt: Bowling for microplastic
Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of our actions...
Dirt is a daily email about entertainment.
Eliza Levinson returns twice a week to tell us what is going on in streaming and the metaverse.
It’s been a bad week for famous men: Sean Penn bravely continues his one-man fight against Russia (which has included threatening to “smelt” his Oscars and wearing a comically oversize helmet), Will Smith can’t go to the Academy Awards for the next ten years i/r/t Slapgate, and Sam Elliott apologized for offending the LGBTQ community and director Jane Campion with comments about the film The Power of the Dog.
After the one-two-punch of getting the boot from Berghain and becoming Twitter’s biggest shareholder, the man Azealia Banks once described as having “froggy eyelids” (Elon Musk) will not get a seat on the social media site’s board.
Meanwhile, on the internet, we are absolutely grasping at straws for viral content: after a barrage of news content informing us that “we’re apparently eating a credit card’s worth of microplastics … every single week,” memes – that time-honored avoidance response to sadness – abound. Like them or not, they’re certainly better than this week’s other meme: the bowling GIF. Don’t know what I’m talking about? You’re lucky – basically, since November, animators have been pulling from the kitschy style of animations at bowling alleys. It started with a bro-y compilation of “slightly offensive bowling animations” (a bowling ball using intravenous drugs; two pins nail Jesus to the cross, etc.) and then ….. devolved. It speaks for itself that, following initial posts sharing the memes, bowling gif creator @wyerframeZ tweeted “Me watching everyone out there getting scarred from the bowling animations” with the Gigachad gif.
But that’s not my bag. I’m less a lascivious bowling ball animation than a Caroline Calloway guest starring on Julia Fox’s podcast girl, which I think is actually worse. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Here’s the TL;DR:
In late 2019, a writer named Natalie Beach penned a salty essay for The Cut about her disintegrating friendship with a flaky Instagram influencer (Caroline Calloway). Calloway earned her following through basic white girl photos: Oxford and the English countryside; Matisse paintings; white women with flowers in their hair. The real cachet came with Calloway’s captions: diaristic, earnest paragraphs about her gorgeous life, and her youthful aspirations for romance and grandeur.
But Caroline was a fraud. At least, according to Natalie. She had written those posts, not Caroline, who had a drug problem and gorgeous blonde hair and a boyfriend she picked up at Equinox. The essay coincided with the “year of the scammer” discourse, so Caroline – who, as ever, readily copped to her misbehavior – was listed along the ranks of Elizabeth Holmes, Anna Delvey, and the people at WeWork. But Caroline wasn’t much like Elizabeth Holmes, who played at being a Silicon Valley wünderkind capable of revolutionizing medical technology, or Anna Delvey, who swindled tens of thousands of dollars from credulous acquaintances before skipping town.
Unfortunately for Natalie, Caroline didn’t just have gorgeous blonde hair and a boyfriend she met at Equinox: she had (and has) an innate media savvy, and has continued to keep people online entertained by literally, at times actively, avoiding responsibility for the last three years. It doesn’t matter how many failed business ventures Caroline attempts, from skin care products (called “Snake Oil”) to numerous books (including one called SCAMMER) at this point, actually producing something would be disappointing.
It’s part of why she’s such a great foil for Julia Fox and Niki Takesh on their podcast, Forbidden Fruits. Self-effacing as ever, Calloway instantly owned up to a lawsuit recently filed against her by her New York landlord, who’s suing her for $40,000 in back rent and an additional $25,000 in damages. “There’s nothing to clear up,” she told the hosts. “I just didn’t pay my rent for a year.” “We’ve all done that,” Takesh and Fox comfort Calloway. “It’s okay.”
Fox and Takesh are, if nothing else, persistent: they probably asked the influencer a total of 3 questions during the interview (why are you off the internet, why are you getting sued, and when’s your book coming out), which they repeat in different iterations for an hour. One of the most revealing moments was when Calloway told the hosts that she had left New York so that she could finally work on her book, which she thought would take her about three to six years.
“The second I do have a book and release it, everyone will read it; everyone will write about it. Like, I don’t have a publicist, but it will, like, be news, and I think in order to keep that anticipation very taut and very heightened, part of the smartest thing I can do right now is to leave some questions unanswered.” And the thing is? I think she’s right.
On the subject of girl bosses, I was intrigued by a couple of articles out this week about women entering the crypto space, which “isn’t just for bros.” In an article for the Washington Post by Nitasha Tiku, the journalist describes a virtual panel hosted by female celebrities (Mila Kunis, Gwyneth Paltrow) intended to encourage women to get into investing in NFTs and cryptocurrencies. “We are so conditioned as women to be risk-averse,” Mila Kunis told some 5,000 participants. “I want to take risks and I want to see what happens.”
The conference was hosted by BFF, which self-describes as “a new decentralized organization with a mission to help women and non-binary people get educated, connected, and financially rewarded in crypto and web3.” Tiku’s take is less flattering. She likens #BFFMinted (the January virtual panel) to “a pandemic-era PowerPoint party, where friends share slide shows on random topics, and LuLaRoe, the multilevel-marketing company that convinced women to bulk-order brightly colored leggings by promising sisterhood and financial independence.”
~Catch up on Dirt~
— Nikhil Sethi peers over the shoulder of Twitch’s most ambient streamers
— OKPC, Heaven Computer and ix shells: ecodao and jokedao co-creator David Phelps answers our question, What’s In Your Wallet?
— last Thursday’s roundup (by yours truly) asks if kids can be twee and overshares about my TikTok algorithm
Streaming news
— more than a month and a half after WNBA star Brittney Griner was arrested in Russia, two of Griner’s teammates finally speak up, ending weeks of silence that analysts believe could be a strategy to avoid turning Griner into a political pawn between the US and Russia. Griner’s teammates argued that the WNBA underpays its players, which is why they are forced to play abroad in the first place. “The big thing is the fact that we have to go over there [to Russia] … WNBA players need to be valued in their country and they won’t have to play overseas,” Griner’s teammate, Breanna Stewart, told The Guardian — live streaming site Twitch is one of the last remaining vestiges of international social media that has not been locked out of Russia by President Vladimir Putin. As such, Ukrainian Twitch streamers with big Russian audiences are using their accounts to combat Putin’s propaganda — Vogue announced the Met Gala theme for 2022, and it’s at least more interesting than “American Independence”: “gilded glamour,” paying homage to “Gilded Age New York” — remember when Lady Gaga’s dog walker was shot in the chest and then two of her dogs were stolen? (OK if no.) One of the suspects was released from custody this week following “an administrative mistake” — this one’s bleak: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard continue to face off in an ugly domestic abuse case. After a UK court ruled in Heard’s favor in 2020, the case is being retried in the US. As “one of the most high profile examples of defamation cases that have arisen from the #MeToo era … lawyers around the country are following it closely” — it’s not all bad: Britney Spears is pregnant; Ben Affleck and JLo are engaged (again), David Crosby praises Seth Rogen’s joint-rolling skills and Kris Jenner changed her hairstyle
Dispatches from the Metaverse
— at VICE, Matthew Gault interviews two members of crypto’s growing “cottage industry of asset recovery specialists,” a father-son duo that helps people recover access to their crypto wallets — in response to a hike in transaction fees at Etsy, vendors on the DIY retail site are going on strike from April 11-18, with “thousands” planning to put their shops on “vacation mode,” and asking buyers to hold off on making purchases until the strike is over — NFTNow reports that, despite a dip in Q1 of 2022 in NFT sales, the market rebounded with $12 billion in non-fungible token trades for the second fiscal quarter. It’s not all rosy: the report also acknowledged “$1.19 billion in losses” incurred through hacks and cybercrime since January 1 — “crypto trading platform” eToro committed $20 million “to purchase NFTs and bolster creators”
Playlist
— at Rolling Stone, David Browne describes the growing economy of super expensive private concerts for the über-wealthy — “I’m the Sky” by Norma Tanega — this photoshoot with Alexa Demie during Paris Fashion Week — Was I In A Cult? podcast by Liz Iacuzzi and Tyler Measom — Real Housewives of New York season 8 — “Hold U” by Indigo De Souza — this TikTok keeps me humble and this TikTok keeps me young — @just.movies.frames on IG curates beautiful & ethereal stills from obscure films — in a bizarre (and probably legally inadvisable) twist, Silicon Valley scammer Elizabeth Holmes’ tweets from her days at Theranos are still online — “Come And Play In The Milky Night (Demo)” by Stereolab — by Eliza Levinson