Unfunderwear

These are images from the Victoria's Secret 2017 fashion show in Shanghai. Every year they do this, and women even get excited about it. It's supposedly fun, and daring, and sexy! I just find the whole thing ridiculous. Like I get that those models are acting like they're having fun, but the whole thing is dumb. You can't even buy the things in stores that they show, so what's the real point? Because it isn't "fun."

I'm jaded though. For four excruciatingly long months when I was 20, I co-managed a Victoria's Secret store. It was 40+ hours of me hating life a week. By far, the worst job I have ever held... and as a teenager, I once did telemarketing for Kirby vacuum salesmen, for a cult like franchise outside of Phoenix. They made all of their employees sing songs, clap, and pay a quarter any time we said anything negative at all, including "it's cold in here." It was weird, but still better than working at Victoria's Secret.

First off, it was gross. People have no pride when it comes to their consumerism. The returns were the worst. There were men who returned used lingerie they'd bought as gifts, one in particular who did it consistently, and one woman who scarred me for life by returning a teddy with a big poop streak in it. In addition, couples who want to have sex in public places seem to think that Victoria's Secret is the place to be, which, as you can imagine, is awkward.

But more than gross, it was tedious, not fun work. So many panties. So much inventory. Loss prevention was a nightmare. And all the goddamn perfume and lotion. I'm still touchy about perfumes thanks to working there. If I get a whiff of VS's Love Spell, I nearly vomit. I hated everything about that job. I had taken it only because I was new to the area and really needed the income. I couldn't be picky, so I sucked it up and sorted and straightened a bazillion million trillion panties, until another store decided to open across the mall walkway from us and scouted me. I gladly put my two weeks in at Victoria's Secret about 20 seconds later.

It was just a sad place to work. Aside from the kinky couples, it seemed like no one enjoyed being there, customers and employees alike. I know that now in the new store designs, dressing room lighting comes out of the sides of full length mirrors, instead of overhead. This makes a huge favorable difference in how you appear. Any time light comes at you from the sides and not overhead, you're going to look much better, anyone is. But back when I worked there, 16 or so years ago, the lighting made you look dimpled and harsh, and the short mirrors made you look wider. It doesn't help that their products almost always run small. Picture a woman, feeling awkward at trying to find lingerie for her anniversary as it is, and she puts it on in a size too small in less than optimal conditions. She isn't having fun, or feeling sexy.

There was nothing fun or sexy about selling underwear, either. I was directed to instruct customers that by paying over twice as much as a "regular" store for their underwear, they were treating themselves, and they would feel so much better and stand so much taller because of it. In truth, the sizing ran ridiculously small and their cuts weren't considerate. But because they sold their brand as the key to sexy, it still sold, so they didn't care. Even with the 40% discount, I didn't buy my own underwear there. It's not like anyone ever even knew. I didn't mope around the store all day slouching because I bought my underwear at Kohl's. When I think about my experiences working there, vs. the shows and ads, it's just such a huge contrast. It was the least glamorous job of my entire life.

Recently, my husband told me that during a work trip to another country, he had gotten into a cab and was immediately handed a laminated menu of women in their fancy underwear with their faces blurred out. Their ages, heights, and weights were all listed to the side of them. The cabbie told him the women were looking for fun and asked him if he was too. I try not to be a jealous person, but like anytime prostitution is rampant in his trip destinations for work and he tells me about it, my initial gut reaction is to want to think badly of the women. That want to throw insults at them. Then I have to remind myself of the why and how's of how these women end up there, posing in their underwear, advertising themselves for consumption. You have to remember, they aren't having fun, either.

So yeah, in my opinion, women aren't really ever having oodles of fun thanks to fancy underwear. I think it's safe to say that Victoria's secret is that she's full of crap.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

This is probably my favorite show. The main character is Rebecca Bunch, who is likable but has some serious issues. The writing is very tongue in cheek, and it's a comedy first and foremost, so it has some obvious plot holes and such - but it is very endearing. Every season so far has surprised me with the writing. It is kind of genius because the show often aims to point out things that women should be talking about, but it does it in a self-deprecating way by using Rebecca, who again is a hot mess, so it doesn't seem so preachy. It also works in things that aren't usually discussed within entertainment regarding women, which I think is really fun. It's always surprising.

I think this all well exemplified in some of the songs they choreograph and sing on the show, so I'm going to embed a few to check out. I usually hate any kind of singing in my television viewing experiences, like hate it unless it's Disney hate it, but the songs on this show crack me up. They're a great example of the feel of the episodes.

"The Sexy Getting Ready Song" - a song about how unsexy getting ready is. I love the rapper's outrage.

"Research Me Obsessively" - A song about researching your ex's new love. When you think about it, although usually harmless, this is pretty unhealthy. It's all comparison and envy.

"Put Yourself First" - In this episode, Rebecca volunteered as a camp counselor, offering to teach underprivileged teenage girls about female empowerment. She's not exactly the best person to be teaching this, especially because she only volunteered because the guy she likes did. After a disastrous day trying to impress him, the girls of the camp give Rebecca a makeover, "for her."

"JAP Battle" - a rap battle with her life long frenemy. 

"I Give Good Parent" - About impressing a love interest's parents. Love hearing it from a female take for once!

"Heinous bitch" - a song about hating your mother. Good girls aren't supposed to hate their mothers, so I enjoyed this. Rebecca's mother is the worst.

And last, "Let's Generalize About Men."

At any rate, may be worth checking out! This season is really focusing on mental health. Last week, Rebecca tried to kill herself, so it's getting pretty heavy. It will be interesting to see how it plays out!

Eye lash out

I like to think that I am not as consumerist as I am. As our readings have pointed out, we use relative position monitoring to keep track of where we fall in things. I always think that compared to other people like me, I spend less on "stuff," in favor of doing other things with the money. But when I really make myself think about it, I can see that I'm really not much different. With me, you just to have to appeal to my lazy side. If you want me to buy your stuff, make me think you are going to save me time or effort.

A few weeks ago, I bought a pair of magnetic eyelashes from a Facebook ad. Yes, I paid $20 for magnetic eyelashes. I watched a little video about how easy and wonderful they were and bam, sold. I was excited, I'm not even going to try and lie. I thought these were going to be amazing, I would clip my little lashes on and never deal with mascara again.

What I got in the mail, again, for $20, were like really bad doll eyelashes. Ask me in class, I'll show you a picture. They were so long, I tried cutting them with scissors, but they were still really long after. Even when I could get the magnets to connect, the lashes didn't line up top and bottom right and I had these still way too long bad doll eyelashes on. So I posted photos of it for my friends, because it was hilarious, and then threw them away. 

This video breaks down the logistics of these stupid eyelashes. Please note: I think the ones in this video are much better than the ones I got in the mail.

Still, just a completely ridiculous purchase.

Another thing I have purchased in the name of convenience, that I also found just ridiculous, was Blue Apron. Incase you don't know, it's a service that sends you a box full of ingredients, on dry ice, along with very, very detailed and annoying instructions, so that you can make dinner. It's supposed to take the stress out of meal planning and inspire you to want to cook, or something. And maybe for some people it does! It did not me. After a friend "gifted me" a trial, I let them keep sending me boxes (I was paying for) a few times on their lowest plan. I cancelled it not long after, for a few reasons.

1. You had to prep every little thing and it STILL created massive waste. Like they would seriously just put pieces of produce, like say a potato, in a bag, and then put that into a box, and then put that in a bigger box full of tons of other small boxes and bags. Everything was packaged like three times over. I felt like I was unpacking food capsules sent from Earth, like Matt Damon in that Mars movie, and then having to chop, mince, or zest every thing in them.

The recipes were all way too involved for me. I hated it. But I kept forgetting to cancel my subscription before the cut off date for the next box, and wouldn't waste the food. After I finally did cancel, I swore that I would never zest anything else, ever again, for as long as I live. Who zests an orange for their dinner on a Wednesday night? Not me.

2. Everyone in my family hated it. I went into it thinking I would be treating them to fun new meals, since clearly I am no culinary enthusiast, but no. My husband called on his way home from work one day, hungry and sitting in traffic, and said, "please tell me we aren't having Blue Apron for dinner." We were, so that night, I made Jimmy John's instead. I remembered to cancel very soon after that.

Anyway my point is just that I am an American consumption junkie just like anyone else, I just prefer that my consumption be tied to making life easier for me to be lazy.

It's easy to not seem like a big deal, and say yeah it was dumb to pay $20 for magnetic doll eyelashes, haha, but oh well. But I am seeing that it's so American consumerist to think that way. For instance, I have a monthly reoccurring donation to Doctors Without Borders, for $25. Same price as my eyelashes, with shipping. That means those stupid eyelashes I threw away were in a price range between a month of clean drinking water for 40 people and a surgical kit for doctors in the field. When you look at it that way, it makes you feel pretty spoiled.

To close out, I think that women like me are more susceptible to these ads because, as the text has been explaining, the social norms are that we are supposed to be able to do it all - work hard, be pleasant, domestic, and still not eat carbs at dinner - and we are looking for shortcuts. It's just funny, I cannot ever imagine my husband ordering a magnetic face beard, let alone zest an orange, let alone feel bad enough about his appearance or care enough about meal preparation to even try. 

Guilty Fandom

So, I am a big Eminem fan. It can be embarrassing to admit. And the more aware I become of gender issues, the harder it gets to justify this liking of Eminem. Regardless, I know that I'm still going to listen to him, because it's just something that I probably won't give up.

It's embarrassing because he speaks/raps/acts so horribly about women. I kept thinking of him when we read the "Bitches and Hoes" section of our text, because he is no doubt a pusher of that narrative. In our text, it states that often rappers justify the "bitches and hoes" stuff by saying it isn't all females, just the bad ones, yet they don't talk about any other kind of females. With Eminem, I'm hard pressed to even think of a time when he has talked favorably about any female other than his daughter. And even though he's progressed some on his homophobia, he definitely hasn't been any model citizen for acceptance.  When I listen to those parts of his music, it does make me cringe, and there are certain songs I won't even listen to. It's in no way a romanticized fan thing. I realize that he has issues.

But at the same time, I have been listening to him for almost twenty years, since I was a teenager in southeast Michigan, where he is a huge deal. He is like embedded in me at this point. Also, I can relate to him, and in some ways that are awkward to bring up and hard to find other people to relate with. I think that because of that, I sometimes make excuses for or just cringe at his overtly sexist ridiculousness.

I think many people have celebrities they enjoy, or artists who speak to them, that they don't always agree with. For instance, not long ago, I read an Instagram post that stated John Lennon was a domestic abuser. Initially, I thought there was no way this could be true! So I googled around, and yup, it looks like it is. Which is just crazy to me! Like, this is the "Imagine" guy! No one ever talks about this side of him.

In a more recent example, I keep seeing ads for Daddy's Home 2. It stars Mel Gibson, who has been known to go on anti-Jewish rants. In addition, he is also known for being verbally abusive toward women.

Yet despite his severity, he's popular enough that he is now being accepted back in Hollywood, and in what is supposed to be a mainstream family Christmas movie.

If fans (such as myself) are unwilling to give up certain celebrities for social issues which we would usually support, are we hypocrites? I will admit that yeah, I think so. But at the same time, if I'm being honest, I'm probably still always going to listen to Eminem, or at least want to. It does make me wonder, is there anything else can we do to influence mass media and its stars other than boycott? And if not, should people like me get better about giving up our fandom for the sake of the message?