STARGIRL

*Full episode on Patreon*

Occasioned by her recent return to Outdoor Voices, this week we go long on Ty Haney. We examine Ty’s original mission to separate exercise from performance (and how that was internalized as a “demand” to “play”), revisit the tired, left-of-basic criticism that fitness is classist, catch up on Ty’s various Futurist ventures in her time away from OV, and analyze OV’s attempt to stay relevant as sportswear fashion trends evolve. Plus, urgent conversations such as: Is Ty’s Web3 Cowgirl vibe landing? Does fangirling over Elon Musk in 2025 need to *mean anything*? Why is my cultural imagination surrounding Austin, TX circa 2016 so vivid?

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Mentioned:

• STARGIRL episode with Lauren Gerrie - a must-listen for the soul <3

• “Ty Haney is Back at Outdoor Voices” Brooke LaMantia, The Cut (2025)

• “Ty Haney Is Back at Outdoor Voices, this time with a new collection” Cara Salpini, Retail Dive (2025)

• Ty on Pia’s Pod podcast (2025)

• • “Outdoor Voices Blurs the Line Between Working Out and Everything Else” Jia Tolentino, New Yorker (2019)
  • “How Toned Arms Became a Status Symbol — And an Impossible Standard” Anne Marie Chaker, Time (2025)

• “Ourdoor Voices Founder Ty Haney Has Moved On. Mostly” Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz The Cut (2023)

• “My Week with Ty Haney’s CBD for Workouts” (review of Joggy) Dominique Pariso, The Strategist (2023)

• TYB on Instagram

• “Ty Haney is Elon Musk’s Reply Guy” @grandeillusion on Substack (2025)

• “Casting Resilience: Entrepreneur Ty Haney’s Advice for Leaders? Go Fishing” Jessica Militare, Forbes (2025)

• “The New Exercise Boom and the Woman Who Saw It Coming”, Suzy Weiss, The Free Press (2025)

• “What Should We Call Athleisure Now?” Vanessa Friedman, NYT (2025)

• 
  “You’re a Boomer if You Wear Leggings: The Rise of Big Workout Pants” Rory Satran, WSJ (2025)

• NikeSKIMS (and overview of criticism it’s received)

Welcome Lauren Gerrie, a true downtown icon and "The Body Series" embodied ;) Lauren is the co-founder of MOVES dance class, a culinary artist (and formerly Marc Jacobs’ personal chef), a figure model, and so much more. Today she shares her wisdom: how dance helps us to re-inhabit sensuality and freedom, why being in tune with your cravings > following “food rules” and trends, why expensive convenience is not your best life, and the importance of rituals that elate and unify. Above all, Lauren is a joy seeker: living proof of all things vital and wild. <3

Follow Lauren on Instagram and learn more about her work

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The scroll always stops for Miss Victoria Paris! In this Feel Good episode, we explore Victoria Paris’ explosion onto the cultural consciousness and how she became the playbook of how to blow up on TikTok. We reminisce about her early content (inventive workout GRWMs, death by Stairmaster, Suede Brooks, her obsession with her “low ass,” etc.), trace her style and lifestyle evolution, examine the backlash over her spending, weight loss, and 24/7 approach to streaming, and fawn over her cute ass girlfriend Nico <3 Plus: the expectations of NYC vs. LA influencers, why Sabrina Carpenter is not a Stargirl, and why I legitimately get depressed every time a creator I adore leaves New York… LOVE YOU VP thanks for always keeping the Glint alive <333

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• “Sabrina Carpenter Is Glad You Like Her Sexual Content” Mel Ottenberg in Interview

• Sydney Sweeney original STARGIRL episode

• “Victoria Paris Wants to Big Brother Her Life” Emily Sundberg (!!) in Interview (2021)

• “Chasing Boys with TikTok Princess Victoria Paris” Brock Colyar in The Cut (2021)

• Victoria on Avery Woods’ podcast (2025)

• TenFour jewelry 

• Victoria Paris “What I would wear to work if I was a flight attendant” (pause on facial expression when she wheels in the suitcase) 

• “It Must Be Nice to Be a West Village Girl” Brock Colyar in The Cut (2025)
  Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York (2021)

  
  

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*Full episode on Patreon*

Happy end of Summer! In this month’s letter, I offer my observations on the only cultural conversations that have captured my attention in 2025: 

1. New New Spirituality & Overall Metaphysical Vibes: Astrology’s mounting cultural importance, the craze around this year’s 8/8 portal, wavy ranch-y fashion, psychedelics, the non-toxic movement, push toward natural fibers, etc. 

2. The Politicization of Fitness: The growing interest in fitness is accompanied by a certain strain of panic about the “dark side” of a cultural value around health, fitness, and the body. Plus, the binary of Body as Machine vs. Body as Garden and how you can tune inward to sensation before exploding outward from neuroses…

3. The Mythos of the Modern Conservative Women: I’ve been fascinated by the media’s obsession with “defining” and “understanding” the modern conservative woman. What’s going on here?

Then, I give an update on my capital-h Healing Summer and invite you into a fall of spaciousness, routine, and uber clarity… 

Links:

• Gabi (sigh swoon) on 8/8 portal

• STARGIRL Ep. 39 where I predicted this metaphysical folkloric return

• “Pop’s Prosperity Gospel: How Addison Rae Ushered In a New Spiritual Style” Biz Sherbert in AnOther Mag

• “Zen and the Art of Being Jennifer Aniston” Julie Miller in Vanity Fair 

• “2024 was the year of the Chad” Angelica Frey interviewed me about physique posting for Fast Company 

• “Is Pilates Political?” Calum Marsh in the New York Times 

• “Getting Fit is Great — But It Could Turn You Into a RightWing Jerk” Zoe Williams in The Guardian

• “Can President Trump Run a Mile?” Zach Helfand on the return of the Presidential Fitness Test in the New Yorker

• “Demin, Dating, and Conservativism: Inside a ‘Make America Hot Again’ Party” Mandy Taheri in Newsweek

• Sydney Sweeney for Bai Coconut Water… why

  
  

  
  

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This week we’re joined by Kaila Yu, author of the new book Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty.

Kaila tells her story: from growing up in Southern California idolizing pinup models to working in the import car scene to appearing in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and touring internationally with the girl band Nylon Pink. 

We discuss the concept of the Asian fetish as it exists in pornified mass media vs. real-world relationships, its roots in American military occupation, and the genesis of the ABG trope, influence of Stargirl Sung Hi Lee, Sam Rockwell’s monologue from White Lotus, and more. Kaila also shares her ultimate dissatisfaction with performing an object of desire, how she got sober, and how she’s re-inhabited her body after decades of alienation from it. 
Big thank you to Kaila for all that you shared <3

Buy Fetishized at your local bookseller and follow Kaila on Instagram and TikTok!

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Welcome to the first installment of my newest episode type, Client Testimonials, where you hear directly from my incredible personal training clients about their experience working with me as a coach.

This week we hear from Miss Meghan, a true dream client based in Austin, TX. Meghan shares her full glow-up story: moving beyond her lifelong junk food habit, getting out of chronic pain, losing weight and lowering her blood glucose levels, building comfortability in the gym, feeling better naked and in her clothes, all while consistently building strength. 

We also discuss the perspective shifts inherent to a devotional gym routine: We debunk the idea of “fitness culture” as a bland normie influencer zone (it’s actually an earnest and sensual freakshow), explore how it feels to anchor yourself to a new definition of glamour more rooted in health, and discuss the agency and liberation that comes from calorie awareness (no, learning what you’re putting in your body doesn’t have to be a neurotic, restrictive, isolated hellscape). 

Thank you to Meghan for your time and all that you shared <3

***Announcement:***

Interested in personal training with me? I am currently running a Back-to-School promotion — my first ever — for early access on Fall 2025 spots. Here’s the 4-1-1:

• Receive 15% off any package when you sign by September 1st

• Limited spots available for a September or October 2025 start date

• This means you could save up to $300

  
  

  If you're interested, book a consult call with me — we’ll discuss your goals, exercise/injury history, and my current offerings, and see if it’s a fit to work with each other. Hope to see you in the gym soon!

  
  

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• This week we tackle ingénue Margaret Qualley with the help of my friend and the writer/trend forecaster Holly Friend. We analyze Margaret’s recent re-introduction as an explicit sex object (The Substance, her Bond Girl potential, etc.), and the many intertwined celebrity dramas that make up her myth. We explore her ugly duckling origin story, insistence on her own girlishness, luminous elven beauty, infamous lip bite, and career ambitions, and dive into the Dream/Threat latent in her marriage and creative partnership with Jack Antonoff. 

  
  Subscribe to Holly’s new Substack Recurring Character and follow her on IG!

  
  

  Discussed:

  • Margaret Qualley alter ego “Lace Manhattan” releases new music

• Lena Dunham on Girls Rewatch podcast

• Blonde Margaret hamming it up

• Margaret’s infamous Kenzo World campaign

• “Lights! Camera! Margaret!” profile in i-D (2025)

• “Margaret Qualley is a Maverick in the Making” AnOther Mag (2022)

• W Mag photoshoot with Margaret and Mikey Madison (2020)

• Margaret Qualley Once Upon a Time in Hollywood TikTok edits

• “Crush” Rachel Antonoff SS14 campaign

• “Tiny Moves” Bleachers music video (2024)

  
  

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*Full episode on Patreon! Join the STARGIRL Patreon for access to exclusive content <3 *

I often get asked how to "increase" or "find" your inner Stargirl. I don't think that's something you can engineer (we feel it when it's over-produced), but I do think there are concrete ways you can strengthen your sense of self by living more on-purpose.

In this month's letter, I reflect on the top 5 things I believe have improved my confidence and allowed me to live more freely: getting in shape, developing a conscious relationship to drugs & alcohol, taking pride in my most important relationships, tuning out the voices/discourse/hot-button issues that don't actually interest me, and finding my voice by using my voice.

As I always say, it's gonna get weirder before it gets less weird <3 Cheers to a lifetime of learning to trust yourself <3

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Happy Addison Week! In this special episode we return to the original Stargirl Miss Addison Rae to review her debut album Addison, out last week. We talk audiovisual worldbuilding, heavy-handed references, her first real live performances, plus the attendant media rollout, Internet hysteria, and collective impulse to claim that we saw her first. We also circle back to the Artist vs. Muse debate, and I argue that her uniquely uncomplicated portrayal of her own sexuality has the power to heal internalized misogyny in 2025. We end on the question, “How does watching Addison make you feel?” and hear some responses from listeners from “little girls playing mermaids” to “embodied sensual force.” Hell yes!

*Subscribe to the STARGIRL Patreon for access to exclusive episodes and more!*

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Discussed:

• STARGIRL episodes: Addison Rae Part I (May 2022), Addison Rae Part II (December 2024)

• Podcast interviews: Popcast, Zane Lowe

• Addison by Caroline Tomkins for the NYT

• Addison profile in ELLE

• Addison album reviews: Pitchfork, the New Yorker

  
  “Body Doubles and Aquadisease” Nymphet Alumni

Lauren Kanski is the founding coach on Ladder, a strength training app that offers progressive overload training in a variety of modalities. In the five years I’ve followed her on Instagram, Lauren has had a tremendous and direct influence on my life: from getting me curious about the kettlebell to connecting me with leading voices in the health and fitness industry to inspiring me to embark on a career in fitness myself. She is a real-life Stargirl and was born to lead. 

In this episode, we discuss Lauren’s unique path in the fitness industry (from pre-med to teaching yoga to grinding as an Equinox trainer to founding one of today’s leading fitness apps), her tough love attitude as a coach, why calorie awareness is vital to long-term weight management, and her journey with sobriety, her marriage, and her faith. Huge thank you to Lauren for this beautiful and heartfelt episode. <3 !

Follow Lauren on Instagram and join team Body and Bell on the Ladder app

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