Lauren and Chan are joined by Kate Kennedy from the Be There in Five podcast to chat about all the things living rent-free in their minds. They discuss Jenny Slate’s It Ends With Us HR complaint and why Justin Baldoni’s communication style may be the issue (2:32). They dive into Ballerina Farm and which publication Lauren thinks should be featuring Hannah (10:57). They take a moment on Nara Smith’s account and content strategy (13:40). They loop back around to Blake and Justin to discuss the recent Hollywood Reporter article and SNL appearance (19:15). They discuss their take on Blake and Taylor’s friendship in light of the lawsuits (33:33). They give their take on Meghan Markle’s upcoming ventures As Ever and With Love, Meghan (38:00). Finally, they give their complete thoughts on Pookie, and whether they buy what she and Jett are selling (52:44). Check out our amazing sponsors: Clean Simple Eats: Shop Clean Simple Eats protein powder and use code POPAPOLOGISTS for 10% off! Earlybird: Click here to try EarlyBird CBD/THC gummies and use code POP20 for 20% off. Progressive: Visit Progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance. To support the show, consider subscribing on Patreon or anywhere you listen to podcasts, where you can get a bonus episode of Pop Apologists every Friday! Please note this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What are the latest updates on Jenny Slate and Justin Baldoni?
You guys, this episode is so fun. We have the one and only Kate Kennedy from the Be There in 5 pod. And we just, we get into all of our favorite things, I would say. We get into all of our favorite things. We talk about the latest with Lake and Justin, of course, something, you know, Lauren and I have to get into. We also talk about Meghan Markle and As Ever. This is a quintessential podcast.
Pop Apologist podcast. We get into the Pookinator. We get into Ballerina Farm. We get into Nora Smith. Just so many of the women who live rent-free in our brains full time. So it's such a fun episode. And Kate just has so many interesting thoughts. I love listening to her talk because she's clearly, you know, she's working at a higher level sometimes. And she has a lot to teach me.
She unlocks some things about Pookie. So if you listen to the end, you're going to hear some unsettling things that maybe we need to all come to grips with. And with that, enjoy the episode, everyone. Well, well, well, I'm so excited because today we are joined by the host of the Be There in 5 podcast, Kate Kennedy.
Kate is the author of One in a Millennial on friendship, feeling, fangirls, and fitting in. I'm so excited to have you here, Kate, because I have to tell you, when we were first starting our podcast, I kind of knew we had a lot of overlap. And I was like, I would just love to do a swap at some point.
But to be honest, I was just like always too nervous to reach out because you were just like so successful. You're a big name to us. This is like so fun.
Well, likewise, you guys have blown up and I was shook when you reached out. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you. And I love what you're doing in this space. And I feel like we have what we have in common is extracting meaning from pop culture.
Yes, precisely. We're anthropologists. We really are. We are. We're scholars. We're historians. We're journalists. And today, we have subject matter to really dig into. So everyone knows we're doing—everyone on this planet knows that we are doing a series. Chandler's facial expression whenever she looks at me on the pod is always like, what's she going to say? Like, what's happening?
What's going to come out of your—what? Are you going to make a sentence? No, no, no. I'm ready. I'm soaking it up. This is you. That's your facial expression. You know what, honestly, and sometimes when you start talking, that is what I'm feeling inside.
And it's really fun to look at while I'm trying to get a sense of sound. I'm working on my, like, neutral camera face. I need to try it. Because if it's not the person talking, sometimes you don't think the camera's, like, on you.
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Chapter 2: What insights do we have on Ballerina Farm?
Right now we're at part seven. And we got in trouble. Someone says, I have unsubscribed as a subscriber. You have lost me because you did not address Jenny Slate with her complaint, her HR complaint. Yes. Didn't we, though? Well, we did. So we had to cut it from the episode because we didn't actually get to the heart of the issue. Well, that'll happen sometimes. We were on a time crunch.
So anyway, we're going to get to it now. So we're just going to tie up a few loose ends, discuss the Hollywood Reporter article. This is not going to be another Justin and Blake episode, but I feel like we just need to make sure we're current on this topic so we don't lose any more subscribers.
Jenny Slate filed an HR complaint and she said that she basically needed to move apartments and she didn't want to because she was going to lose the $15,000 security department deposit. And Jamie Heath wrote back and was like, don't worry, we'll take care of it. That's what we said on the pod. It was an apartment issue. We didn't get to.
Chapter 3: How does Nara Smith's content strategy stand out?
So what her complaint was is that because she's not complaining that they're going to give her more money. She complained because she said that the reason why is because Jamie Heath went into some long soliloquy about the sanctity of motherhood. And that is why Wayfarer would be happy to like make sure she was in a space that was like what she wanted.
And this to her felt very like creepy and invasive the way he talked about, quote, the sanctity of motherhood. That was what we were apparently. Hiding. That is what we did not fully cover. I thought it was going to be like the apartment was like too close to where Jamie Heath was staying and she felt creeped out by him. No, but I think. What do you make of this?
I think then we're going to get into it a little bit more. But I think that Justin and Jamie are clearly part of this Baha'i faith. Mm hmm. I think that they're a little bit high on their own supply, their own spiritual supply. They're very hippy dippy. And I think they speak in a language that other people find very off-putting and invasive.
And it's almost like they have been too embroiled in their own community to not realize, like, this is weird for other people.
you know? Yeah, I agree. I don't know how, you know, high control Baha'i is in terms of like taking over your vocabulary and kind of ways you interact with people. But I will say something that's common with religion, period, the end is kind of that benevolent sexism where you kind of will talk positively about women while subjugating them. So it's kind of,
Baha'i, for example, one of their big principles is gender equality, but their highest institutional governance is all men. Women can't be—and you guys are Mormon, right? Yes, yeah. So it's kind of similar in that it's like this benevolent effort to build women up, to talk about how women are like unique, and it sounds really good, but while also giving them no meaningful power.
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Chapter 4: What does the recent Hollywood Reporter article reveal about Blake and Justin?
Right, yeah.
So it's kind of a red flag for me.
Are you 100% sure on that? Only because— Yes. Let me. OK, you are because I read that they were about abolishing the priesthood and gender equality.
But maybe that's a new. So I read this morning and guys, I'm not an expert on Baha'i and I want the Baha'i. I don't want you to don't come for me. I think it's fair to look at religion for how it like influences people's behavior in a secular space.
Yeah.
Right. Yeah. And the universal house of justice is only men. And there's a lot of women in leadership positions, but that specifically is only men. But gender equality is a huge tenant of the faith.
So it's not to say that they're inherently discriminatory or sexist, but I can understand how as a person who used to be in an evangelical spaces, you can be spoken to as a woman in a way that feels belittling in the name of empowering you, but only for you in relation to somebody else, like being a mother, wife or daughter. How you're of service to other people. Yeah.
So Kate, how did you grow up? I'm from Virginia and I dabbled in like evangelical youth group vibes in high school. Okay. And so I have a lot of feelings about...
religion yeah what part of virginia outside of richmond okay we're from orange county california and i was listening to one of your podcast episodes yesterday and you were saying how you like would have loved to have been like a southern california kid yes like idolized it because you watched the oc and stuff like that well i became obsessed with virginia
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Chapter 5: How do Blake and Taylor's friendship and lawsuits intersect?
I think because I was raised in the OC with like a lot of like very image conscious women, I'd be held in this documentary, this very like intellectual, just kind of like salt of the earth, real woman of the land who like read literature and just was really smart and thought important thoughts. And I was like, that is what I want out of my life.
And I also just thought the landscape was so beautiful. And so I literally was so in love with it. I mean, I mean, yeah, I was going to say you're burying the lead. She like Lauren, like went there. Lauren was like we were in college. She was like, well, I'm going to be moving to Virginia at the end of this year.
Like after I graduate five years and she went and traveled there and you had like you did a weekend there. Yeah. And then I was just like, oh, there's just like no one I could date here. It was like barely anyone.
this town yeah and then i also found myself like at like right next to her farm and i'm like this is now fucking weird you found yourself aka you looked up the farm i found myself in a driveway and i was like get away from this like this is weird oh my gosh i can't believe i've told i've told the story again where we have now much more listeners i'm all for pop culture tourism listen i've been to forks washington like i get it
But it is funny for you to think Virginia women being like salt of the—I mean, I was down the street at college, like, wearing a Charlotte Roos top and singeing my hair with a straightener. Like, it's not really the collective vibe, but I love that for Sally.
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Chapter 6: What are Meghan Markle's upcoming projects?
Yeah, I was very naive and delusional about what I would find there. That's really sweet, though. To add a layer of context to our Orange County upbringing, we were like we were raised in like a beach town, but we were also like Mormon, heavily Mormon. So it wasn't like we were in like string bikinis, like feeling ourselves on surfboards.
It was like, well, first of all, neither of us are athletic at all. Also, Lauren didn't like the beach. We were not not we were only allowed to wear one pieces. We weren't living that Southern California life necessarily.
One pieces were like hot.
Yes. I remember getting a tankini and my mom being like, well, we'll sew it like a monokini. Yes. Yes. So anyway, it wasn't it wasn't exactly the OC dream. No, people see. No, we were not living that lifestyle. And I just want to make it very clear. I did not actually go on the farm. I was like, I did. Oh, my gosh. Nobody is worried about this. OK, I just want to make it clear.
I didn't fully stock. I came close. But anyway, Kate, no, so that's so interesting. But you have Utah ties, right?
Or do you have any Utah ties? No, I have been chronically online since AOL Instant Messenger. And I loved blogs back in the day. They were like my form of celebrity. And I just noticed throughout the 2010s that every single blogger I followed was Mormon. Mm-hmm.
And so by the time I started podcasting, it became kind of a big theme of my podcast because at the time there wasn't a lot of discourse about influencers as celebrities when I started seven years ago. So I've just done a lot of investigative work about the Mormon faith, but also in the context of growing up in an evangelical space.
And kind of there's a lot of parallels there that I've kind of had to undo with like purity culture and stuff as an adult. Yeah. So I don't I'm actually not an expert at all, just as I'm not an expert in the Baha'i faith. I should probably keep my mouth shut, but...
I think it's really interesting to talk about as women because religion is something that's so hard to criticize because it seems so positive on the surface. But you have to be mindful of how it can kind of subjugate women on the inside.
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Chapter 7: What are our thoughts on Pookie and Jett's narrative?
And then when you max those out, all you can do is like reboot civilization. So she kind of positioned trad wives is like, OK, I've done everything else. I have to stay within the confines of my home, though. So now let's just live off the land. And I thought that was kind of an interesting way to look at it. But I don't know. I think that she's become kind of a lightning rod. Yeah.
For a lot of issues. And yeah, well, I think you're entitled to believe what you want. I do hate when it overlaps with spaces that are politically charged like Evie. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me. But like I want her to live also.
Yeah, I feel like with the whole Evie thing, I was just disappointed she didn't hold out for Vogue. Like she's such a phenomenon at this point. She didn't need to go to this like startup right wing magazine. You know, I'm a friend to all people, all communities. So I don't use that term pejoratively.
But I just think that like it was upsetting to me that honestly, she just wasn't like in a higher brow publication. That's an interesting point. She probably is higher level now.
Completely.
Much higher level than Evie magazine. She I think she literally could have a spread of vote. Yeah. Before even before the like the British publication that, you know, even before that like viral moment of last year, she had seven million followers or something like she is huge. Yeah. And so she absolutely could have been on.
I mean, I didn't even know Evie magazine existed until we got the hot milk made cover. Yeah. Right. Of course. Because it's yeah. Anyway, well, we try to stay apolitical on this podcast. But OK, that's good to know. Yeah. Yeah. But I also like just to add to that, like I didn't even know that it was a politically charged magazine. I just never heard of it. I just didn't even know it existed.
So what do you think then of Nora Smith?
I mean, I kind of like to let people live. I don't know. I think that there's a baseline entertainment value in people that don't live anything like me. And I think you can see it as a problem. You can see it as aspirational or you can just take it for what it is, which is entertainment. Yeah. And obviously her lifestyle is not realistic for most people.
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