Episode 263: Information Overload with Kerry Howley
“There’s now a mystery in privacy. There’s something special about an encounter that doesn’t exist on the internet and that has to have an allure for them.”
- Kerry Howley
Kate checks an item off her todo list that’s been there for years and Doree has some restock prod recs. Then they’re joined by feature writer at New York magazine and the author of Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs Kerry Howley to chat about really seeing the things around you, how accumulation of information changes the way we think of our memories and our own narratives, and what privacy means in an age where there is so little.
Photo Credit: JJ Geiger
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Transcript
Kate: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I am Kate Spencer,
Doree: And I am Doree Shafrir.
Kate: And we are not experts.
Doree: We're not. We're two friends who like to talk a lot about serums
Kate: How doya do. Welcome to the pod, friendly reminder, You can visit our website Forever35podcast for links to everything we mentioned on the show. Our Instagram's @Forever35podcast. You can find us on Facebook in the Forever35 Facebook group. Where the password is serums. Our favorite products can be found at shopmy.us/Forever35. And we also send out a newsletter a couple times a month. You can find that and sign up for it at Forever35podcast.com/newsletter.
Doree: Kate, everything you just said is true.
Kate: Thank God. It'd be really weird if none of that was real.
Doree: That's true. But you can also call or text us at (781) 591-0390. You can email us at Forever35podcast@gmail.com. And I just want to remind everyone about two things. One about our merch. We have such cute merch and you can get that at balancebound.co/shop/Forever35 and our giving circle.
Kate: Yeah baby,
Doree: We're trying to hold off that super majority in Virginia, so tootaloot on over. Give what you can. It's really important. We so appreciate your support.
Kate: Yes, we do. I echo what Doree has said
Doree: And yeah, we're as of this recording, we are 46% of the way to our goal.
Kate: That is bonkers.
Doree: So that's exciting.
Kate: Goodness Gracious.
Doree: So the election's November 7th, so we have some time. It's only April, but we got to get moving.
Kate: Yeah, we got to get the show on the road here.
Doree: We got to get the show on the road.
Kate: Shit is real.
Doree: Yeah. Alright, Kate, I have some big news.
Kate: I love when you come to the table with a bucket of news.
Doree: My news is I am restocking some prods.
Kate: Okay. So this is always big because Doree is, as we've discussed previously, very loyal to her products. She uses them and then if she likes them, she brings them back. So I'm very curious here.
Doree: Well, I know, so it's a little confusing, I admit, because while I am loyal to my products, I'm also willing to try stuff that people send us.
Kate: Of course you are not close minded.
Doree: No, but if I'm going to try something, I do like to use it for a little while to really see how it works.
Kate: Great.
Doree: And this is a product that I was initially a little skeptical of because I didn't love, didn't initially love how it smelled.
Kate: Oh, I'm so curious as to what this is.
Doree: And it does have fragrance in it, which is not my fave, but
Kate: Okay.
Doree: It's not like, I don't know. It's not a deal breaker in this case.
Kate: Huh?
Doree: It is the Alchemy Chantic plus Nourishing Cream.
Kate: Ooh. This is a product I believe that this company sent to us.
Doree: This company sent it to us and they sent it to us because past guest Hitha Palipoo talked about how much she loves this line. And they were like, we heard Hitha talk about this on your show, you know, can try some prods. And I really like this moisturizer. I find it to be very, I find nourishing smoothing. I feel like it gives me a nice glow.
Kate: I haven't tried this,
Doree: So I'm a fan. It's a little pricey.
Kate: And you've already blasted through one and you're buying another.
Doree: I've blasted through one about to buy another can. It costs $81 for a jar. They also have a subscribe and save program where you can save 15% and then it's 68.
Kate: I appreciate that.
Doree: $68 a jar. It has SkinCeuticals vibes to me.
Kate: Just nourishing.
Doree: Yeah,
Kate: Moisturizing. You would say. It's good for, I don't want to say the word mature skin, but skin of a certain age.
Doree: Well on their website in their description says best for dry, dehydrated, menopausal skin.
Kate: Oh. Oh man. I for sure think I am in perimenopause, so, oh,
Doree: So maybe you want to try this.
Kate: Okay, I will. All right. Good. Endorsement, Doree. Oh, all right. What else are you restocking over there?
Doree: I'm also, I just did a big restock of the hero sunscreen, which I about, that's like the pod before I have previously restocked.
Kate: Wow.
Doree: And this is becoming a bit of a ride or die for me.
Kate: Yeah. I'm fascinated by this.
Doree: It is the super light sunscreen SPF 30. It is a mineral sunscreen that to me feels like a chemical just in terms of consistency and blendability so great. I really think it's,
Kate: And you can get it at Target.
Doree: And you can get it at Target. So one tube of this is $20, and they also have a subscribe and save program on their website, and you get 20% off. So if you do that, you get it for 1599.
Kate: That's a good price. Because actually, I was talking about sunscreens with my best friend the other day. She was looking for some recommendations and everything I found was like that I use unlike is a starting at $30, which seems really high.
Doree: Yeah, that is high. Yeah.
Kate: All right. Okay. All right. Anything else that you're packing up there?
Doree: That is all I want to talk about for now.
Kate: Can I throw a product into the mix?
Doree: Yes, please.
Kate: Its a sponsor product. It's from a sponsor. It's from Lather. And I have been using their mega moisture magnet, which is their hyaluronic acid serum. And it's great. Yeah. I use it before I moisturize and my skin just feels like extra. And I am another dehydrated skin person, and I am loving this stuff in terms of a hyaluronic acid serum. And I have been trying a different hyaluronic acid serum that I didn't feel like was doing anything. So fyi. And I believe we have a code with them because they're a sponsor. Oh yeah. Forever35, a checkout for 15% off.
Doree: Ooh Okay.
Kate: Doree, this is unrelated to prods, but I did just want to kind of share a triumph with you and with our listeners
Doree: Listening,
Kate: I did something that I've put off for about a year and a half, almost two years.
Doree: Whoa.
Kate: Not a big, it wasn't a super big thing. It involved driving somewhere and picking something up, and it took me two years to go pick this thing up. And I have put it off. I've done things, put it in my to-do list for months. I've tried to, I don't know, there were a lot of reasons. It was a hangup for me. I don't feel like really getting into them or what it was. It's not a big deal. It just some things I like to keep private about my life, but boy, I went and did. And when you don't do the thing and you don't do the thing and then it builds and builds and builds in your head.
Doree: Yeah.
Kate: And then the shame builds.
Doree: Oh yeah.
Kate: Beside it for not having done it. And it had become this thing and I finally just did it. And what really helped, actually, I had been telling some friends about it, and they were like, text us when you're done. It was loving accountability. I feel like it's kind of tied to my A D H D brain in some way, but I think every happens to everybody regardless of neurodivergency. And I thought that was really nice. And so I texted them, I was like, I did it. That felt really good. That was nice. That was, someone suggested that without me even having to be like, can I please text you when I do this? It felt good, but I did it. I'm very proud of myself that I did the thing.
Doree: I am proud of you for doing the thing.
Kate: Thank you.
Doree: Thats very cool.
Kate: Thank you very much. I need that.
Doree: Well, should we introduce our guest?
Kate: Oh my gosh, yeah. Doree, take it away. I'm going to let you be the bio babe.
Doree: Okay. So full disclosure, our guest is someone who, as I said to Kate, I have a bit of a writer crush on.
Kate: Yeah, you do.
Doree: I do. And I don't have writer crushes on that many people, let's be honest.
Kate: Wow. Okay. You got to earn that crush.
Doree: You got to earn that crush. But this is a writer who sometimes you have those writers who that everything they write is just going to be like a banger.
Kate: Yes.
Doree: This is one of those writers, she writes big feature stories and a few times a year, and it's like an event. When her stories come out,
Kate: You stop everything and you
Doree: Stop everything. You're like, okay, I'm buckling in. Her name is Kerry Howley. She is a feature writer at New York Magazine, and she's the author of a new book called Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs, which is all about surveillance and online privacy and reality winner, the NSA employee who sent classified documents to The Intercept. And yes, that's her real name. She's also the author of Throne, which was a New York Times editor's choice. She has been nominated from National Magazine Awards. She's just written some amazing pieces. She wrote a big piece for New York Magazine last fall about Jamie Spears and Britney Spears and the Conservatorship. And anyway, her new book is amazing. Very intense.
Kate: Very intense
Doree: And very intense. And yeah, we really enjoyed talking to her. So here is Kerry.
Kate: Kerry, hello. We are thrilled to have you on the pod. Welcome to Forever35.
Kerry: Thank you so much. I am so thrilled to be here.
Kate: Before we dig into our own personal privacy as well as just boy privacy on a macro level.
Kerry: Yeah.
Kate: Let's start off talking about self-care. We ask every guest who comes on about a self-care practice that they have in their own life. Could you share something that you do that you consider self care?
Kerry: Yes, this requires a bit of setup because otherwise it will sound unbearably twee and you will kick me off your podcast. But I'm someone who has had trouble privileging my own joy outside of work. Inside work, it's great. It's so playful. It's fun. I love my work, but outside of it, I always feel like I ought to be working on some task. And then I'm also someone who has a really hard time. I don't find it pleasurable to be still. So manicure is not it. Meditation is not it being at the beach. No. And so I'm kind of finding my way toward the practice that helps me to feel embodied and present. And something that's come up in my life recently is that I've been walking my daughter to her preschool in the mornings, and I'm also someone who is behind a screen a lot. And I worry about the diminishment of my senseen sensory experience. Right. I'm not smelling, I'm not discerning sounds and everything. Well, on this walk, one day my daughter was like, good morning leaf, good morning mountain, good morning space where the Santa Claus statue used to be, but it isn't anymore. And we just started going back and forth and were just, just noticing. And you doesn't have to be pretty, it could be good morning roadkill, you know, can greet anything. You're just noticing good morning car exhaust, you're noticing whatever is coming at you. And then I invited my son on this walk. He was home. We had to get her to school, and he was noticing totally different things. He was like, good morning, power cords, good morning, Tesla. Definitely things I hadn't noticed. He was expanding my visual field. So this walk in which I'm fully trying to engage my senses and being there every weekday morning has really been what's gotten me through this whole stressful process of publishing a book and waiting for reviews and et cetera, et cetera.
Doree: I love this so much, partly because I also have a child in preschool who I also walk to preschool and we all live in Los Angeles. Being able to walk our children to preschool is pretty unusual actually. Most people I know have to drive. And so I also, I've had a similar experience where my son will be like, hello Crow, or just, oh mama, look, the flowers on this tree are blooming. They weren't blooming yesterday. Or just these things that
Kerry: Yes, exactly
Doree: In my, I feel like half the time, if I'm by myself, I'm looking at my phone as I walk, which is so horrible. Or just rushing to get from one place to another. And so I really love what you're saying because I do feel like it is so amazing to slow down and also see these things through our children's eyes because they noticed things that we don't. And I love that your son was noticing other things.
Kerry: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in a way, I wonder if it is a Los Angeles thing, you really come to treasure your walk. You're like,
Doree: yeah, totally.
Kerry: This is a privilege that we're getting to walk 2 blocks.
Doree: Totally.
Kerry: So let's savor it. Let's notice those blooming ballot flowers.
Kate: There's also just something, I have two kids and mine are a bit older than yours, so our walks are less adorable and more dissecting Harry Styles songs. But there is just something really, when you are brought down to their level, and I mean that in a good way, you are reminded of so much. They see the worlds in through such different eyes.
Kerry: Yes.
Kate: So it's just really grounding in a really wonderful way. That doesn't sound twy at all, Kerry. I think that's absolutely delightful.
Kerry: I mean, I think absent the context, it would sound as if this is what I'm always like as a mother, and it's really just this 12 minutes.
Kate: Yeah. Yes.
Doree: Well, it reminds me, we recently had a guest, Cindy Spiegel on the podcast, and she just wrote a book called Micro Joys. And what she was saying about micro joys was really powerful to me. And a lot of it is about these moments that are seem small, but can actually be quite meaningful
Kate: And impact your feeling for the rest of your day.
Doree: Yes.
Kate: Impact your mood, your perspective, all of it.
Kerry: And I do think there is something, I mean, I hadn't thought about it this way until now, but in being, that's what self-care looks like for me. I'm not good at these other things that require me to sit for an hour. That's not how I can love myself. But I can notice the fact that there's this one ripped leaf that has been there for three days and is changing every day along the way of my morning.
Kate: Well, you also make a point that I really appreciate, which is, I mean, obviously I think we've done this podcast for five years, and very clearly we believe self-care is different for every individual, but I do think you really represent people. My husband who for him sitting still is he couldn't be at a resort at the beach for more than one day and sitting at the beach all day, or o otherwise he starts to crawl out of his skin. And I think it's very important to honor the fact that for some people, like movement and energy is what they need to restore themselves. Because oftentimes for me, it's definitely lying flat for extended periods of time. But that's not it for everybody.
Kerry: Yeah, no, there, there's a whole book to be written that's like self-care for people who hate relaxing.
Doree: But it's interesting to hear you talk about observing because so much of what you do as a writer is observing and drawing out those details from people and from the world. And so let's talk about your book.
Kate: Oh my gosh. Your book,
Doree: Which is called Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs and is essentially about privacy and surveillance and is really, I would call it a compelling and frightening read.
Kate: That's a good way of putting it
Doree: On a lot of levels. And one of the things that I wanted to talk about first is I think it's in your introduction when you write about all the photos, for example, that you have and just all the digital stuff that you've accumulated and that we've all accumulated over the years, and that this is also kind of the same approach that the US government has to had to the accumulation of information as you write in the early years of the 20th of 21st century, absorb everything, all of it at once, stash it somewhere, worry about it later. And I'm wondering what you think, what does this kind of do to us cognitively? How does this change the way that we think of our memories and our own narratives when we have this sort of accumulation of information?
Kerry: Well, thank you for that question. I mean, you've gone straight to the core of it, that this book really comes out of that anxiety and awareness that now there are receipts for everything that we're leaving traces of ourselves in email, over text, in the cloud, on Facebook Messenger, that so much is now data that can be reassembled by someone else to giving someone else agency over our own identities. And I feel that, especially people within our generation, it's like this just sort of emerged and it became our reality, but we never really grappled with it. We talk about it in these very specific ways. We'll talk about cancel culture, but of course that's a whole other, that's not really about what it just is to the moment before you send a text wonder, should I really be doing this? Should I really be recording this thought? And so that's really what the book is trying to express that anxiety.
Kate: How do you think that plays out on an individual level, not just with our own choices, but the ways in which we now have access to each other's information all day long? Doree and I joke about this, but we are an especially Doree, both very good. If someone's like, oh, blah, blah, blah. My ex-boyfriend Dave from Indiana, we're both very good at tracking down that person online. We are all kind of our own little surveillance operations at this point.
Kerry: Yeah, We are. And I think personally, on an individual level, it creates this mania of identity creation. And what I mean, that is all of a sudden, I remember all my students, I was a professor at the University of Iowa, and there were all, everything that they would talk about, they would say that they were obsessed with. They couldn't just be interested in something, anything had to be an obsession. It had to be all consuming. And they had to convince you of this. And I began to see it as a kind of anxiety. It's like I need to constantly make myself so that when people try to find me that I'm the person who has asserted who this person is. I have this carist that I'm comfortable with because we are constantly vulnerable to this reassembly by other people. And I think I can feel that too. It is a mundane way to say it is. We'll have to make a brand, otherwise somebody is else is going to brand me with all the random shit that I've placed on the internet. Right.
Kate: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and there's also the way in which the internet is forever. So things that we shared in 2010 that if we had made, had a conversation in 2010 that was not recorded, we wouldn't maybe be held to that conversation in the same way that we're held to shit. We shot off in a Facebook update without thinking. I mean, it's a strange way and a standard that we're h where we've somehow gotten stuck holding ourselves too.
Kerry: Yeah, it's bizarre. And there's a way that something that you watch on the internet always seems new. It always seems like it's in the now, so it doesn't have this accumulated dust, which makes you what might make you more forgiving or accepting. I do wonder if people who come after us whether this will just be the norm and they will learn to adapt to that, or they'll come to honor experiences that don't have receipts that aren't recorded, that aren't available in this way.
Kate: I mean, sorry, Doree, I have some, I'm like rambling. No, every question I have. But do you think that accounts for some of Gen Z and the Alpha Gen alpha's kind of obsession with disposable cameras or I was talking to a 25 year old and they were saying, yeah, everybody's using digital cameras again. I was like, oh, the immediacy is not as appealing to this young generation. That kind of thrill has worn off for them since it's all they've known on a much more kind of relaxed level. Do you think that's all connected?
Kerry: I do. I also think they're most, they're more likely to be using text programs that erase immediately after the conversation. I do think there has to be, even at an aesthetic level, an ethic of coolness is not going to be this, right. It's not going to be the forever tweet. It is going to be some kind of, there's now a mystery in privacy. There's something special about an encounter that doesn't exist on the internet. And I think that has to have an allure for them.
Doree: Yeah. I mean, I read a review of your book that kind of argued that you placed outsized significance on what it meant to be a teenager before smartphones and selfies and social media. And I was just like, no, this person, this person seems kind of clueless about what it is actually like to be a teenager today. If you just go on TikTok, if you go, it is a completely different experience that they are having with the creation of themselves and their own identity because of social media and because of smartphones and because of the internet that we just did not have. And sure there are some universals about being a teenager, but I just think it is totally different in my opinion. And I guess where I'm going with this is, you know, dedicated your book to Mothers of Reckless Children. And we're all, we're all parents in this conversation. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are on navigating the surveillance state as a mom and how you either plan on or already are guiding your kids or modeling for your kids. My son, I only have one kid and he's almost four. And so these are not things that I've confronted yet, but I'm definitely thinking about them.
Kerry: Yeah, I think it's really hard. I don't have a pat already answer, but I do want to teach my children to honor a kind of experience that is just for them. That there's something really extraordinary about just seeing someone in person and having a conversation that has no record anywhere, that will only survive in your own memory, that you have the power to forget that if you want. Hopefully that is something that only you own. And there's also something, it doesn't just have to be in person. There's also still something quite intimate and private about an actual phone call. Right. Unless you're in jail or you are actually being wire tapped, it's very unlikely that your actual phone call, the content of it is being recorded. Like, yes, there's a record that someone made a phone call from this place to this place at this time. But I know that if I have something deeply private that I would never, ever want public to share, I, I'm teaching myself, I would be dishonest if I were saying I always do this, but I'm teaching myself that those are for not for written conversation. And so just these little adjustments, my children are not going to live their lives off the grid. I know I get a lot of sustenance from group texts, I don't want them to go without, but maybe just distinguishing for them these experience, that experiences that involve the senses and involve privacy from something that does have the potential to be subpoenaed.
Doree: Yes. How do you think, oh, excuse me. No, I was just saying, I was going to say that I think as you were talking, I was thinking, for me personally, one of the things that I would like to try to model better is, and I don't put pictures of my son on the internet for, it's only a close friends kind of thing, but even so not putting everything on Instagram, you know what I mean? Not everything has to be on Instagram. Some pictures can just be for us. And that urge to display everything is maybe something that I need to dial back for his sake.
Kerry: Yeah, I'm really not sure about that. I do put pictures of my kids on Instagram. I think I want to distinguish for them though, there's a life online and there's a life offline. I, I recently heard of high school on a podcast talking about how she was living this life utterly on social media, and then she went to high school and she's like, oh, it's actually nothing like that. The social dynamics that are happening on Instagram are not replicated in real life. And I don't even know that one isn't real. And one is, it's just that they're separate worlds and there's something really disorienting about conflating them.
Doree: Right. Yeah. Kate, sorry, go.
Kate: No, this is bringing up a lot of questions for me of just how do we wrangle back our privacy? Is there a way to get a little bit of control over it? Because as you're talking, I'm thinking about this idea of the way we refer to Instagram and Facebook as platforms, as if they are passive destinations that we just put things on that aren't then utilized against us or for the companies to make money. I mean, we are really stuck in, and again, I'm making this about me as an individual. We haven't even gotten into the larger ways in which surveillance factors into society, but do you see ways of getting control back of our privacy or are we too far gone? Both on a micro and a macro level?
Kerry: I mean, thank you for pointing out that the platforms are not passive, that they're actively trying to addict us and pull our attention away from other aspects of our lives. I think it's really hard to predict what will happen. I mean, our children aren't going to be on Facebook. They're going to seek out completely other median. I don't know what that will look like. But for us, I mean, I do think that we're in a really tough place where our social lives are deeply entwined in these, trying to think of a polite way to say it. Messed up platforms and systems. And I almost want to go back to the beginning and talk about taking a walk. Yeah. It seems like the most radical thing you can do is just step away and not participate for a little bit each day in whatever capacity that is possible.
Kate: Yeah, that's a great point. Okay, well let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. Alright, we are back.
Doree: Can you talk for the benefit of our listeners who may not have read your book, could you talk a little bit about the book itself and how you became interested in these topics? I know that a large part of your book is about Reality Winner and had written a profile of her for New York Magazine. And I'd just love to hear your general interest in these topics and what the process of writing the book was.
Kerry: I do think that the impetus of writing is the personal we've been talking about. I mean, I jokingly refer to it as the anxiety of the subpoenaed group text, right? It's the bad art friend aspect of that. Any of us could be exposed at any time, right?
Doree: Yes.
Kerry: And when I looked for something to read about that it was like everything would veer into something else. It would veer into the technology of surveillance or vere into computer science or fourth Amendment. And I wasn't really seeing somebody tackling that experience. But the book really began when I was assigned a profile of Reality Winner by New York Magazine, and nobody had talked, there hadn't been any in-depth profiles of this woman named Reality winner because the analysis kind of stopped at her name. I mean, that is literally her name Reality Winner. And she had become a late night punchline in the era of Trump when everything seems surreal. But she was a real person. She was a 25 year old liberal leaning veteran CrossFit fanatic from Texas. And she worked at the NSA and something came across her at work, or she went searching for something that troubled her conscience. It was an indication that Russia had been attempting to interfere in the 2016 election. And so she's working at the NSA and she prints it out and she puts it, she folds it up, she puts it in her pantyhose, she walks out of the nsa, she sends it to a publication called The Intercept, which mishandled it, and she ends up in jail for five years. But what was really interesting to me about this story is that reality is just this messy, funny, super socially aware woman. I mean, she's constantly created conflict because she can't help but help, right? She's going to tell you that you really need to watch this documentary about SeaWorld and you need to be worrying about Syria. And she's super worried about the Dakota pipeline and also, you know, should probably be drinking less, right? This is all going to happen in one conversation with the best of intentions. And she's very funny and self-deprecating about this. But in the hands of prosecutors, all of the stuff that we've been talking about, all of the texts or private conversations with her were insanely reassembled to make her look like a terrorist. So the most clear example would be she was just chatting with her sister. I don't remember if it was text or Facebook message or whatever, and she was like, I only say I hate America three times a day. And we have these registers in our conversation. We might engage in millennial hyperbole. That's a register that's very familiar to us. But you take that and you get it put in the hands of a prosecutor in a Georgia courtroom, and they're like, oh, you say you hate America three times a day because you're a terrorist. And just this kind of ripping of things out of context conversations that in another time would've just disappeared into the ether that nobody would've ever heard or recounted.
Kate: Yeah. I mean, it gives me mean from that to, you mentioned bad art friend, it just sends me spinning a little bit and the way in which it changed the trajectory of her life and was used against her in a way that landed her in jail.
Kerry: Yes. And the implication is not that we are at risk of being accused of terrorism by the Department of Justice, but as you say that these things are not unrelated, that there is a measure of risk we're all taking when we put everything in a position where it can be taken out of context. And it's been interesting to think about how differently we speak to one another. The way reality talks to her sister is not how she would conduct herself in the courtroom. And the way I conduct myself on a group text is not how I conduct myself in the classroom. And those things don't translate easily, even across maybe generations or regions.
Kate: How does this impact the way that you, your day-to-day life learn, knowing all this information and carrying it with you? Has it changed how you not behave, but has it changed how you conduct yourself?
Kerry: I think that's a really good question. And to be honest, the answer is really not really. I mean, I wrote this book because in part, the amount of information we were all absorbing in like 2016, 2017 was overwhelming. There was just an overwhelming amount of news. And I knew that there are many connections to be had between say, QAN on and January 6th and Monster Energy drink. But I needed to process those in such a way that the Arrow made sense to me. And so I would say that this is an attempt to understand the strangeness of our world rather than just let it flow past us. But it's not really about solutions necessarily. I mean it, it's still really annoying to turn off the location data on my phone. It's still somebody who likes convenience like anyone else.
Kate: Yeah.
Doree: I also wanted to talk also about your work for New York Magazine. You've written some hugely influential stories, including last year's piece about Jamie Spears. And we touched on this a little bit in when you were just talking about reality winner and how you became interested in her, but just wondering to you what makes a great profile subject or a great story,
Kerry: Often it's like there's some really obvious question that isn't being answered in all of the available coverage. So I just didn't understand why Jamie Spears would effectively imprison his daughter for 13 years, and it was just kind of allied and everything else as if it was an unanswerable question, which of course, at some level it is. There are similar questions around Larry Nasser, who was the physician who abused so many gymnastics professionals way back when it was like you would read an article and be like this, what? This makes no sense. Basic emotional dynamics weren't being explained. So it's often, yeah, there's just some kind of unresolved aspect to maybe wall to wall coverage of something.
Doree: Who is someone that you haven't profiled who you want to profile or wish you had profiled?
Kerry: Oh, that's such a good question. I'm really interested in an influencer named Emma Chamberlain.
Kate: Oh. Of,
Kerry: have you ever heard of this?
Kate: Of course. And looked at her house and architect Will digest and, thought about her coffee.
Kerry: Yes, I've listened to many hours of her podcast, and I don't want this to sound all diminishing. I'm fascinated by it. I haven't learned a single new fact. And there's something really interesting about her ability to just make content and entertainment out of what is available without drawing and you know, would never know anything about the news. Trump has never come up and the kind of bubble she creates, and I don't say that in a diminishing way is really fascinating to me. It's very separate from my own world.
Kate: She's fascinating too, because I actually think, unlike other influencers, I don't know a ton of, she doesn't monetized herself in her life, but there is, she's managed to have some wall up a little bit. I don't know if you feel that also, but I know less about her than I feel like other influencers who are so forthcoming with every fact of their life that it almost feels overwhelming. She's an interesting content creator.
Kerry: She's very self aware, I think, and that self-awareness probably is related to the walls that you're talking about. And there's also this aspect as she was transitioning out of full-on YouTube fame to a kind of different stardom that she has now. There was this beautiful stoner quality to her where she would just be like, what is this? What is this where you're all just watching me constantly? This I didn't ask. I don't deserve this. I didn't ask for it. How did this happen to me? And now I'm only like, yeah, 20, right? I mean, this completely bizarre position. There's something really innocent. And so kind about her, I mean, that's another thing I should have said. And the hours of listening to, I've never heard her say a diminishing word about another person, which is hard to entertain people with just the mundane stuff of a life. But she does it beautifully.
Kate: Yeah. Now, I could talk about Emma Chamberlain for the rest of the day. Well, because there's so much that we've given or that influencers have given away, you have to sign away essentially a lot of who you are. And you're the same with reality tv. I'm just thinking of this current Vanderpump rules Scandoval situation. And there's so much that you have to give up in order to make the gains that come with whatever that kind of success is. So it's interesting to watch someone try to figure out how to navigate that and do it in good clothes. So maybe
Kerry: She has figured it out because maybe she's the answer, because I think we have a sense, we don't know what's going on in Emma Chamberlain's heart. She has exposed part of herself utterly to great success. But you can tell that there's so much of herself, her very core that's being kept private. So maybe she solved the puzzle.
Kate: Our hero, Emma Chamberlain.
Doree: Kerry, it, it's been such a delight to get to talk to you and to get to read your amazing book. Where can our listeners find you if they want to follow along with your work?
Kerry: I am a staff writer at New York Magazine, so you could subscribe to New York Magazine. You could check me out on Twitter or on Instagram or all these platforms that we've complaining about this entire time. And yeah, thank you so much for having me on. It's been a total honor.
Doree: Yeah, this was so great.
Kate: Well, I loved Kerry's book. I mean, it rocked me as I told you totally over text message. I was like,
Doree: Totally.
Kate: I'm having a full on.
Doree: Yeah.
Kate: But it was great. I, she's so insightful, and this is the kind of thing that I feel like surveillance and privacy sometimes feels so overwhelming. I just choose not to think about it, which maybe isn't the best thing.
Doree: Yeah.
Kate: Any hoots? That was great. Doree,
Doree: Kate,
Kate: Let's slide into these intentions.
Doree: Okay, let's do it. Last week you had a pretty ambitious intention, if I may.
Kate: Yeah. I was trying to manage my time and follow my schedule.
Doree: And how did that go?
Kate: Partially. Well,
Doree: Good.
Kate: I have tentatively think I found a system that is kind of working for me right now, which is using Todoist in conjunction with my Google Calendar. Google Calendar is really my life force, but I need someplace just to kind of note to-dos, which also works with my Google calendar, which Todoist does. So this has been working for me, and I've been trying to really kind of divvy up my time a little bit. And the to-do list is helping. So I don't want to ever say I figured it out, because knowing me, I'll change things tomorrow, but I'm feeling pretty good about this. That being said, my intention this week is very basic. So my family returned home from our trip. I think it's been two weeks now. Is that possible? My God. Does time fly or am I losing my mind?
Doree: No, I think it has been,
Kate: We returned home. Hold on. Okay. I returned. Oh boy. Yep. Okay. So we've been home for two weeks since our road trip, and we've not put our suitcases in our little attic crawlspace. So they're just sitting in my bedroom. And once in a while I'll say to Anthony, we really got to pull down that ladder and put the suitcases up there. And he's like, yep. And then we don't. And so I really need to put these suitcases away.
Doree: Okay.
Kate: This is a basic intention going to this, you know this experience.
Doree: Do you want to text me when you put away the suitcases?
Kate: Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes, I do.
Doree: Great.
Kate: Thank you.
Doree: Okay, fabulous.
Kate: How about you? How did it go last week? Just chilling on vacation?
Doree: Well, I mean, it wasn't really chilling, but as discussed, I had a great trip and it was really fun. It was a great family trip this week. And this is something that I haven't talked about really on the pod, but I joined a very low stakes tennis team, and I have my first match on Saturday.
Kate: Now, You're not playing doubles, you're playing singles.
Doree: I'm playing doubles.
Kate: Okay. Do you know who your partner is?
Doree: I know her name. I don't, we've had practices. I don't think I've played with her before. So that'll be interesting,
Kate: Exciting, exciting.
Doree: Yeah, I'm doing that. And it's funny because when I started playing tennis, I think, and same with piano, I was like, I'm just doing this for me. I'm not doing this to compete. But what I realized two years in is that I don't want to say there's no way to get better if you don't play actually against people, but you definitely hit a plateau. And I was finding that it was hard to play just casual games with people because I couldn't really serve. And it just, I don't know. I felt like I wanted to get to the next level of being able to just play. And I thought that joining a league would help me with that.
Kate: I'm proud of you because this is my biggest fear of going, rolling into the Pickle Open pickle ball sessions near me and putting my name on the board and playing. I'm terrified and I haven't done it. And my friends who I take my pickleball class are like, you got to do it. And I'm like, I'm too scared.
Doree: Oh, you got this.
Kate: I See you. I see you hardcore.
Doree: I mean, you kind of wrote about this in your newsletter.
Kate: Yeah. It's really hard for me because I'm such a people pleaser that my fear of making mistakes and yield rejection sensitivity, whoof really riles me up.
Doree: Yeah, I hear that.
Kate: Well, I can't wait to hear how you do. I'll probably text you tomorrow in just to see. Cause I'm curious. Tomorrow is the Saturday youre playing.
Doree: Please do. Please do. All right. Well, Forever35 is hosted and produced by me, Doree Shafrir and Kate Spencer, and produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager, our network partner is Acast. Talk to you all again soon. Bye.
Kate: Bye.