Sentimental Garbage

Do influencers make fame feel less special? Influencers distort our ideas of where wealth and fame should come from, and often provoke our hate-follows in the process. We discuss the power of influence and its humble beginnings in the blogging world, the metamorphosis into big business and a curated lifestyle, the exhaustion of the influencer life, and why influencers are so often destroyed by the followers who created them. What happens to them when their influence dies down? Is it better to bow out early, or hang on until the bitter end? And most confusingly of all: are we influencers?

Louise O'Neill is the best-selling author of Idol, Asking for It and After the Silence.

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Journalist Grace Medford joins us to talk about the endlessly entertaining dress-up box that was the noughties Charlie's Angels reboot. We discuss the giddy fun of this movie, the power of the Diaz/Barrymore/Liu trio, why a "woke" version was never required and a surprise TED talk on the Pussycat Dolls.

Grace Medford is a journalist and the author of the substack oneofthosefaces.substack.com.

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Before Self Esteem was selling out venues as a solo artist, she was Rebecca Taylor of Slow Club, a band who helped bring British twee to its apex in the 2010s. We talk about glockenspiels made out of Shloer, making cakes for the audience, the backlash against twee, the obsession with babytalk and the way bad men could use tweeness to hide in plain sight.

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Usually on the podcast I speak to people about the culture they love that has been unfairly dismissed, but I’m also interested in talking to the artists who created that work. This week we're starting an "indie twee" investigation. This is the movement that brought us tote bags, and ukuleles, and arguably, adult colouring books; it brought us the Juno soundtrack, and Zooey Deschanel, and dressing like a 1950s secretary, but despite how massive indie twee was, there’s actually not that much about it from the people who were actually there.  

So for the next two episodes I’m going to be investigating tweeness in all its forms, talking to two creators: the first is Jof Owen, from The Boy Least Likely To, and the second is Rebecca Taylor aka Self Esteem. This episode with Jof is just as lovely as his three-legged Sindy horse

Playlist for this week's episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7IyixEh4KNRZgMm2ylfmWy?si=98553ba847b949b0

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We're joined by journalist and long-time Swiftie Marisa Bate to talk about why the most decorated artist of her generation is also one of the most polarising. We cover All Too Well, the Squad era, Taylor's obscene productivity, her endless fascination with love and her talent for imagery and storytelling that continue to captivate us.

Marisa's list of Taylor songs here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2gzz992oNTEMFxichq4Ktb?si=7a7c3bca60d14082

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Guardian host and producer Leah Green is in the garbage vault this week with 2000's dance classic Save the Last Dance, a movie that has since become famous for having... sort of shitty dances? We talk about music video culture, Step Up, and the ensemble cast of Save the Last Dance that made it a covertly revolutionary movie. We also discuss whether "problematic" discourse has finally run its course, Kerry Washington's magnetic performance and whether we actually want Twitter movies.

Leah Green produces and presents podcasts and videos for the Guardian. You can find her @leahsg88’

Caroline O'Donoghue is an author of several books, including Promising Young Women, Scenes of a Graphic Nature and All Our Hidden Gifts. Find her @czaronline

This podcast was produced and edited by Caroline O'Donoghue, with music and mix by Harry Harris

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We're limping towards the finish line of an uneven first season, talking about what we would have done differently, whether Carrie can even be called the main character of this show anymore, and pitch our new TV show, Steve & The City.

The three AJLT eps will be spread across April, and then the normal Sentimental Garbage season will resume in May. Like you, we’ve been so distressed and heartbroken to see what has been happening in Ukraine, and so we’ve have both decided to donate all the proceeds from April to British Ukrainian aid. If you would like to donate yourself, the link is: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/ukraine-aid-help-now

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It's part two of our And Just Like That recap, and we're talking about Charlotte's horrible dinner party, the terrible music choices, our blind adoration of Seema, That Jackie and the emotional burden of the mealy mouthed teacher.

The three AJLT eps will be spread across April, and then the normal Sentimental Garbage season will resume in May. Like you, we’ve been so distressed and heartbroken to see what has been happening in Ukraine, and so we’ve have both decided to donate all the proceeds from April to British Ukrainian aid. If you would like to donate yourself, the link is: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/ukraine-aid-help-now

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Dolly Alderton is back, and we're finally getting balls deep into And Just Like That. This is the first of THREE Sentimental in the City episodes covering the reboot, and while the show was famously uneven and a bit cringe in places, we still had a great time. In this episode we cover the first three episodes, discussing Big's death, Susan Sharon and Carrie's feud, the wasted potential of Gloria and Charlotte's inexplicable robot voice.

The three AJLT eps will be spread across April, and then the normal Sentimental Garbage season will resume in May. Like you, we’ve been so distressed and heartbroken to see what has been happening in Ukraine, and so we’ve have both decided to donate all the proceeds from April to British Ukrainian aid. If you would like to donate yourself, the link is: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/ukraine-aid-help-now

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.