Helloooo!!! Today we’re tackling the phenomenon of Paige Bueckers, college basketball star who has captured the nation’s attention with her skill, swag, and heart of gold. I talk about her TikTok explosion, the sexuality that’s projected onto her, and how her wholesome silly vibe makes me excited to be alive.

Then, we’ll hear from my little sister Nelly, a D1 runner who fills us in on all things NIL sponsorships, injury and recovery narratives, and the way Paige carries herself as a fun and faithful team leader. We also discuss the dynamic among the other top NCAA women's basketball players—Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, etc.—and Paige’s choice to not declare for the 2024 WNBA draft.

Follow Nell!

Discussed: 

Ann Manov eviscerates Lauren Oyler in Bookforum

Paige and Janae Sims at the WNBA draft

WNBA red carpet

Amazing Paige videos: here, here, here, here

Paige’s speech at the ESPY Awards 2021

*Subscribe to the STARGIRL Patreon!*

This May marks two years of STARGIRL! As a birthday gift from me to you, I’m unlocking the most recent episode of The Body Series, my conversation with Tao Lin. I decided it was so important that everyone needed to hear it! Subscribe to the whole series at Patreon.com/STARGIRLpod. 

Tao and I talk about how we live our lives—our exercise and caffeine routines, experiences with pharmaceutical vs. naturally-occurring drugs, seeking magic, conceptions of the afterlife, the healing powers of beef, and much more. We also chat about Tao’s next book, on the environmental factors causing autism, and why it’s scary to submit ideas to a public who’s ready to tear you down.

Follow Tao on Twitter!

This week we welcome my friend and writer/editor Alana Pockros to tackle the work and persona of Lauren Oyler. We discuss how Lauren seized authority as the millennial literary critic, how her abandonment of the “rules” makes her work difficult to engage with critically, her famous distaste for Vulnerability, the Berlin piece (...), and what it means to be both brave and mean.

Plus, in my quarterly pulse check on Culture, I declare a massive return to all things folklore: earthy spirituality, magic, psychedelics, freak folk, boho chic, metal music, and more. 

Follow Alana on Twitter! 

Discussed:

Evidence of the Folkloric Return:

Regarding Lauren Oyler:

*Full episode on Patreon*

This week, we welcome the writer Emmeline Clein to discuss her new book, Dead Weight, a history of eating disorders. She explains how the medical establishment created a diagnostic hierarchy that feeds into the latent competitiveness of the disease, how the impulse to ritualize your diet can both life-affirming and self-destructive, and how cultural characters like Karen Carpenter, Mischa Barton, and Simone Weil shaped her adolescent vision of the type of woman she should be. Thank you Emmeline!

Buy Dead Weight 

Emmeline’s website

Happy Spring! This week we explore the legacy of @treaclychild (RIP) in her ascent from Twitter darling to HBO executive producer (!!!). We explore why ironic self-debasement felt so electric in the late 2010s (and feels so boring now), the "Our Girl Made It" feeling, and what we lost as her persona drifted into caricature.

Mentioned:

Treadmill video

Shiva Baby poster

Weird moment after Balenciaga show?
Polyester Zine shoot (2022)

*Subscribe to the STARGIRL Patreon!*

Hello, earth angels! This week Callie and I delve into the sensual world of our favorite YouTuber, @yaknowme_hitomi. We discuss her spiritual evolution from depressed NYC thrifter to fully realized health goddess, explore the Dream/Threat of the ethereal travel vlogger, and relish in our shared nostalgia for West Coast wanderlust circa 2013. 

Mentioned:

Follow Hitomi on Youtube and Instagram

Hitomi’s life story video (2017)

Hitomi on Know Thyself podcast (2023)

Follow Callie on Twitter and subscribe to her podcast, Nonfiction with Callie Hitchcock!

*Full episode on Patreon*

STARGIRL 2.0 is here! Introducing: The Body Series.

Embodiment has always been a central theme of STARGIRL, and we tackle it head on in The Body Series, a Patreon exclusive. In this sequence of conversations, I chat with writers and artists, fitness professionals, athletes/dancers/yogis, etc. whose work centers on the body.

Our first guest is writer Jordan Castro—we discuss his recent Harper’s essay on weightlifting, how exercise changed our relationships to the world, why certain literary/culture scenes dismiss fitness as anti-intellectual, and why lifting need not be politicized.

Subscribe to the STARGIRL Patreon for access to the full episode, as well as monthly collections of other STARGIRL-y resources.

*Plus, sign up by March 1st to receive a free gift from Emma!*

Shiva Rea is credited as a key popularizer of modern yoga in the United States: She transformed the physical practice and in so doing, helped to define our mainstream conception of what yoga “is.”

In this episode, we discuss the roots of her Prana Vinyasa style, the aesthetic evolution of yoga chicks from the 1980s to now, yoga’s waning counter-cultural status, and why the knee-jerk response to accusations of cultural appropriation—to further divide the spiritual from the physical—does no one any good. 

Discussed:

“Planet Yoga,” Vanity Fair (2007)

“Yoga Without Love Beads” LA Times (1987)

“Tending the Sacred Fire” Shiva at Burning Man (2011)

“The power of embodying your energetic heart” Shiva’s TEDxMalibu talk (2014)

Shiva Rea Yoga | Earth Flow Practice

Shiva Rea Yoga | Dancing Warrior 
Special thanks to Michelle Chambers, (E-RYT 500, MPA, Pulse Yoga Collective), Kristen Lynch, and Becky Simon for all their help on this ep!

Today we're joined by Sam Cummins of Nymphet Alumni to discuss the timeless American novelist Willa Cather. We talk about the needless politicization of Cather, why Nature is the ultimate identity cleansing force, and how frontier literature has evolved today.

Discussed:

Cather novels:

Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism, Joan Acocella (2000)

The Kingdom of Art, early Cather essays collected by Bernice Slote (1966)

“Becoming Noncanonical: The Case Against Willa Cather,” Sharon O’Brien (1988)

(Homework!: “Getting the Pump,” Jordan Castro in Harper’s)

Follow Sam and subscribe to Nymphet Alumni!

Happy New Year! Today we take the opportunity to look back at how Gwyneth and Goop defined Wellness in the 2010s. I argue that while Goop lacked a soulful center, Gwyneth is working in the grand Esoteric tradition of seeking the sublime through one's relationship to the body. I look at the current aesthetic detritus of exercise culture, challenge the bad rap on “self-optimization,” and meet Gwyn in her New Age quest for Something Beyond.

Discussed:

“How Goop’s Haters Made Gwyneth Paltrow’s Company Worth $250 Million,” Taffy in NYT Magazine

Lauren Oyler on the Goop Cruise for Harper’s

“Gwyneth Paltrow Looks Back at 15 Years of Goop and More,” Marisa Meltzer in NYT

Outlive by Peter Attia

My fave episodes of the Goop podcast: