Taylor Lorenz
Appearances
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Or like once like Gen Z sort of started, like they kind of just they had their time in the sun.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
She's really been able to evolve out of it.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Well, because there wasn't much you could do with Tumblr fame aside from leverage it into some career. Like because you couldn't monetize yourself on the internet in the same way, Tumblr was this channel to music, right? Like you had people using that Tumblr clout to like
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
get their music out there and tumblr kind of like birthed so much of like millennial music culture or youtube like you blew up on tumblr jenna marbles was huge on tumblr tyler oakley was huge and then you would sort of like leverage it into youtube fame or what i did which is leverage it into a traditional media job the worst outcome. Probably the worst thing I could have done with that fame.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
But like, I feel like Tumblr was this like creative soup and it birthed so many creative people. And I feel like so much of Grimes culture is wrapped up in that like early 2010s.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
really the first half of the 2010s, there was almost no criticism of social media. This was like, social media is going to liberate the world. The internet's going to change everything. And there was just this rank tech optimism that I think a lot of creative people of that era, myself included, bought into or believed in.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
And Grimes was also intertwined with blogging culture because she was really made by music bloggers of the time. And Blogging was also seen as this amazing thing. There's this great book called Never Be Alone Again, and it's about the blog house era of the internet.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
It talks about this, of just how this view of technology as a positive, liberatory, amazing creative space that's going to bring amazing things to the world is so imbued in music culture of that time.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
and i think it's just interesting because when you hear her talk about her ideology i think she was one of the first people that i heard talking about like the singularity i had a blog about the singularity like a tumblr like a joke tumblr with my friend and i i feel like she made a comment about it that we like re-blogged or whatever but she would talk about the singularity singularity it was called like all the singular ladies or something wait what's but what's the singularity
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
The singularity. Wait, Kat, do you know what that is?
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Guys, it is the sort of hypothetical moment in the future when AI surpasses human intelligence. Oh, that is like when the new world order begins. And like, OK, when I had this blog in like 2014 that we were like, oh, that's going to be the greatest moment. That's going to be.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Yeah. I mean, by a lot of people. Again, like this just goes back to like pre 2015, like tech brain. You had like so much boosterism from the tech press because it was the tech press was dominated by gadget bloggers that were like inherently fan boys. You had so much amazing creativity.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
I mean, this is what I think Lena's book, Never Be Alone Again, gets into so much of like the blogging culture and like how that was affecting media and creativity. And so people were like, yes, yes. I can't wait for like AI and it's going to do all these amazing things. And like, we didn't have any concept of what that would be. Right.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
It was just like, there was just this like excitement about technology and excitement about the future. And Grimes was one of the first people that I remember, like a celebrity that I would be like, Oh, she's talking about that stuff.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
She thinks it'll bring communism. Didn't she think it would bring communism?
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Oh my God. What the boat looks like is insane.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
I just looked at the photo. Sorry. Yeah.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
This is the most like manic pixie dream shit I've ever heard.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
There's something about this that I appreciate in the sense that I'm like, okay. That's fine. This is a weird creative thing and you want to sail down the thing with chickens. That's fine. That's creative. We all do creative things to feed our souls.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
The problem is when you give someone this enormous amount of power and money and sort of start to take what they have to say as intellectually rigorous or something. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Also, so much of Tumblr was just pseudo-intellectual nonsense. My own blog probably included.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
First of all, I think people have a hard time if you've never been on it and probably didn't spend your formative years on it to remember that blogging and writing was the dominant form of expression on the internet at that time because you couldn't upload photos and So people were just writing and like, right. Like most people are not brilliant writers or thinkers. Right.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Like, and, and this was also the era of like, yeah, it was like pseudo intellectual of like, you know, it was very like book culture and like early kind of like Buzzfeed. Like I'm a reader, like fetishizing reading and being intellectual and like kind of being smart and, Because again, the best bloggers of that era, like the big time bloggers were smart, right?
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
You had to have something to say to succeed well. You had to be smart. You had to be interesting. You had to be intellectual. And so I just think like so much of Tumblr was that. And it was a lot of young people.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
No matter how brilliant you are at like 20, you're not going to have the most like fully formed opinions because your brain is not developed and because you have literally almost no life experience. And so when you give someone like that a platform, I mean, I don't know, I've deleted
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
most traces of what i've written from those eras but like it was just sort of like encouraged right to like pseudo intellectualize and like and overanalyze your life or culture or whatever and i feel like that probably fed right into someone like her where it's like that's she's clearly that type of person already i pulled a few tweets from like the last few weeks grimes on twitter it is so monumentally embarrassing that i am finally getting into christianity because it's the only way i can quit vaping
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
This is like, you know, that tweet that's like, this must hit so hard if you're dumb. Yeah.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
that's how i feel reading these i'm like what the hell sure what the hell sure i don't want to hate on her because i like these people like i maybe it's just i am predisposed to like i i think because like personally like and this is why i'm a journalist like i love like thinking of weird like alternatives or like i love listening to people like rant about their own weird theories about something like
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
if she was just doing this on Twitter and making her music, it would be totally fine. Like who cares? Twitter is for posting dumb stuff. Twitter is for venting your weird thoughts.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Like I think what we've seen and like why it's relevant is how this sort of like when she came into an enormous amount of money and power and influence and like suddenly like this person's sort of pseudo intellectual nonsense thoughts are now shaping potentially her
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
musk's policies or beliefs or whatever like she's given this this this political platform i just feel like i have to defend her because this is these are the kind of people i love being next to at parties yes girl like tell me your crazy theories i want to hear everything
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
The king of pseudo-intellectualism. He's like the final boss of pseudo-intellectualism.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
The fact that Elon Musk continues to meet all of his women on Twitter or they work for him. Dark.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
I don't think he can. I think that's why he has to slide into Twitter DMs because he cannot function IRL.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
I think she was probably enthralled with him because here's this, like you said, his reputation at that point was still very high. People thought of him as this Tony Stark type figure, this brilliant tech guy, right? He's this amazing person building the future. He was an environmentalist. People were selling that back then, right? This is somebody that values technology.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Somebody invested in this new creative future. And yeah, I'm sure she saw so much in him. And I think, like you said, I think he probably saw... A woman that's willing to flatter him and, you know, feed his pseudo intellectual BS and his ego and ultimately sought to control her, which is what he seems to want to do to every woman he interacts with.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
I don't think that even Elon realized how he would be radicalized at that point. And I, I, this is something that bothers me so much about Grimes discourse specifically on the internet is I just think that love is complicated and different people give each other different things. Because people will be like, well, how can you be in a relationship with somebody that you politically disagree with?
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Or how can you be in a relationship with somebody that's like a bigot? As you mentioned, Kat, a lot of times these people don't start as bigots. If you knew they were a bigot, you wouldn't have gotten in that relationship, presumably. But sometimes you are with somebody and then you realize their beliefs have evolved. Or there are even people that I...
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
care about deeply that were there for me during like really critical parts of my life that I will always like care about and value that ultimately I realized they have like crazy and terrible opinions on things. And I think if you have a kid with someone too, like the sentiments change and everything.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
And I mean, this is why, and I hate too that so many women, because so many women and more progressive women too are stuck with more bigoted men. Like I feel like we hear about that a lot, at least rather than the other way around. And the woman is chastised. And it's always like, how could you be with this monster? How could you do this?
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
And it's like, you don't know what they're getting from that relationship. You don't know. And yes, it would be great to have a moral high ground and all this stuff. But it's just like life is so much more complicated and messy than that. And human beings are more complicated. And even though you're right, he probably was never a leftist in any sense of the word. He's always been a union buster.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Billionaires are inherently, I would say, pretty evil. But I do think that he was a different person in 2018 than he is now.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Also, it's like if you're with somebody like that, who's like a narcissist or the love-loving stuff, you always want to get back to that point. You always believe, I think, that that is the person that they truly are. And this is just some aberrant behavior, but like, hey, just get back. Why can't this man return to the man that I knew? And as you said, it was always a mirage.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Or maybe she was overlooking a lot of things. People are like, well, how could she have more children? And it's like, again, maybe... He is love bombing him. You believe, you believe that that initial version of the person that you met is always going to be that person.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Yeah. And it just goes back to also, I just have to say again, too, what I said before, which is that you don't know what a relationship is like until you're in it. Women especially are taught to compartmentalize and to, as everything that Kat said earlier, it's like you're pressured, especially once you have a child, to be together and to fix it.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
And if that guy keeps giving you, which it sounds like he does, it's like he's such a manipulator. He's giving these women, especially Grimes, these tastes of him as they once knew him when they met.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
I think what we see is as Elon starts to get radicalized, you start to see Grimes' politics evolve as well. And you also see her start to talk quite negatively about the media and to fight with the media. In 2021, she does this photo shoot where she's kind of trying to troll the media, where she's dressed up in this like... Typical Grimes kind of crazy outfit.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
And then she's reading the Communist Manifesto. And this is when she was getting a lot of media criticism for being with Elon and enabling him because 2021 is when he really kicked off like the really awful transphobic stuff and just sort of started to make his more extreme beliefs more publicly known. And so you see her kind of feeding against that.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
People were like, Oh my God, like, is she sending a message or what is this? But I think I started to see signs of like resentment of the media and like resentment of her public image. And you see her also starting to fight more with people in the replies.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Like people will say something to her and she's like, well, that's not, you know, you don't understand what's going on or, you know, like she's clearly frustrated and, I've written so much about this and I've experienced it myself.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
When you see false information about yourself publicly or when you feel like part of your story is not being told or you're being chastised in the media, it is such a radicalizing force. I do think with her... she probably felt, I don't want to say persecuted, but I do think that she felt this resentment.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
And that resentment, if you start to go down that road, you are fed into the right wing pipeline. The right is so good at taking that resentment and being like, you're right. You're right. And by the way, the media is evil. And by the way, all these people canceling you are evil. See what I mean? Woke people will turn on you. And so you see her starting to affiliate with more of these like
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
counterculture. These right-wing extremists, that's what they are. I don't want to excuse it. It's bad. It's lazy. She shouldn't do this. You should recognize like, okay, these people are also grifting off me. They also will throw me under the bus the minute I'm not politically expedient. But when you're feeling lonely, which I imagine she was, you're feeling completely isolated.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
And then also endearing yourself to these far-right radicals also kind of endears herself to Elon, who's increasingly in those circles. I just see how that she started to go down that path.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
She also starts to like physically hang out with these people. Yeah.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Because following, I don't want to be the follow police. Because I really... You follow everyone. Drives me insane. Because I write about right-wing influencers. Of course, I follow them. I monitor everything they do. And every day, I have some new person in my DMs. Why do you follow this person? I'm like, well, I write about them.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
What's way more concerning to me, and I do think that you can deduce a certain amount of information about someone from the people that they follow because you can tell kind of their information diet, but she also starts to hang out with these people socially.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
This is insane. Well, Troye Sivan makes sense.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
We did study history. That's the problem.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
I wish that she would just admit it. I wish that she would just acknowledge it, but I think she's into denial. And I think she feels resentment because again, when you're in love with someone and you're in love with someone and you have kids with someone and then you see yourself being hated, like, I don't know, it's hard.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
We all want to defend ourselves online and we all think of ourselves as like, doing the right thing and the moral thing. And I just feel like she's gone down this path so far that it's, you know, a tweet is not going to get her out of it.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Also, I just want to say like the MAGA stuff, like especially the inauguration, I mean, I was at a lot of these inauguration events and stuff because I was writing about it. Again, their goal is to radicalize people and to bring people into a movement. And so you see this a lot where, you know,
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
somebody sort of starts to associate or they're in this vulnerable spot and you see the right, just like vultures, like seize on them again, because they're opportunists that don't actually give a shit, but this person is vulnerable. And then you see the anger, like the anger from the left, rightfully so. And that kind of pushes them.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
And that doesn't mean that it's the, I hate when people say, oh, well, that's left fault. Like, oh, you know, you should, that's why we should be nicer to people. No. Well, No, but I think we have to be realistic and recognize these conditions that people are radicalized under.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Who booked it? The guy who booked it. It's me. I just think that it's funny that there's nothing about the poster that's LGBTQ looking. Like it looks like a trashy rave poster.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
She ended up with egg on her face with this because then it came out that he did actually, I think, have someone playing for him or something. But I was like, did he make her tweet that? When I saw that, I thought it was so incredibly bizarre.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
And I don't know if it came from a place of either... I mean, all of the sort of hypotheticals are equally dark where it's like either she noticed that this is something that was really bothering him on the internet and she's trying to curry favor by...
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
espousing this ultimately like kind of false information about like how great he is or he asked her to back him up because at that point he had not come clean there was now ended up being irrefutable evidence that he cheated on the video game on the video game yeah
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
He had like had someone play for him or something because basically somebody that actually knows about video games did this like YouTube investigation and found out that like there was no way that he could have played those amount of hours at these times or whatever, whatever. And so then he kind of sort of admitted it and people were like, Grimes, you're such a liar.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
But it's just like, to me, when you see that stuff, it's so sad. There's an audience of one for that tweet, which is Elon. And it's again, her sort of lashing out what, you know, sort of like flailing in public and
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
trying to get him to respond to her respect her trying to get favor with him like I mean what he put her through financially emotionally and the way he takes I mean X is obviously his favorite child and he has latched on to X and brings X everywhere in the public eye which she obviously doesn't like and it's like it's this constant reminder of control and that's your child imagine having your child which you have to watch publicly be paraded around and
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
I have perfect speech. Is that all you have to contribute to that? Let me do the talking. No, I don't. I think that's misogynistic. I think the vocal fry, I get that too, but not as much.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
She's very of the times. She's sort of like a representation of so much I think that has gone wrong, unfortunately, in culture and just the manifestations of how the internet has warped people.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
And that's what we're doing today. But celebrities are these sort of like they're a way to talk about culture and they're sort of manifestations of culture. And especially in America, where celebrity is so intertwined with culture, like we have such a celebrity obsessed culture and the way we process culture so much through celebrities. I think it's important to talk about.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
Well, I was not gay on Tumblr. I would caveat what you just said, which is I think that that is very true for probably most people. I, like Grimes, was in, although I don't know if she was living in, but I was living in Williamsburg at that time in the early 2010s. I moved to Williamsburg in 2009, the year that I blew up on Tumblr myself.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
I don't know if people know my origin story, but I got popular on Tumblr.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
My millennial era. But living in Williamsburg in 2012, I have to say it was kind of like those TikToks where you see it romanticized, where it was like the hub of millennial culture and music culture and internet culture at that time too. Like the internet was so burgeoning and Tumblr, because this is pre- Instagram, you don't put your photos of yourself on Instagram yet. Twitter was ascendant.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
There was this energy to the internet that was so driven by Tumblr. And obviously, to all the LGBTQ kids in their bedrooms and creative people, I think, around the country or the world were following it. But I think Brooklyn was like this hub of it. And I think the first time I saw Grimes in person, I was, I go to these parties at this place called 285 Kent. I feel like an ancient person.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
God. It was this like music venue, whatever. And, you know, there was just a lot of like stuff happening. And I knew who Grimes was because she also was popular on Tumblr and was sort of in this music scene. And I had friends that worked in music in that era. And so that is, I just remember the first time I saw her was at some party at 285 Kent and everyone like, holy shit.
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein
The Complex Tragedy of Grimes
I think this must have been the year that Visions came out, like 2012 or 2013. Yeah. And just being like, wow, she's so, you know, she was like the queen of that like hipster scene, one of many queens. But like she was so emblematic of that era of millennial culture, which I think is interesting because like so many people affiliated with that culture kind of died with that culture almost.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Best of the Week: Trump vs. NBC, Insane CEO Assassination Reaction, Caitlin Clark Bends the Knee
I do believe in the sanctity of life. And I think that's why I felt, along with so many other Americans, joy, unfortunately, you know, because it feels like. Serious? I mean. Joy demands execution. Maybe not joy, but certainly not. No, certainly not empathy.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Best of the Week: Trump vs. NBC, Insane CEO Assassination Reaction, Caitlin Clark Bends the Knee
So are the tens of thousands of Americans that are being murdered. So are the tens of thousands of Americans, innocent Americans, who died because greedy health insurance executives like this one push policies of denying care to the most vulnerable people.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Best of the Week: Trump vs. NBC, Insane CEO Assassination Reaction, Caitlin Clark Bends the Knee
I am laughing at Tommy's insane mischaracterization of why people are angry.