How 2000s Culture Messed Us Up

Culture Study Podcast

Arts, Society & Culture

4.5 • 789 Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is it weird that I really love talking about all the ways the formative culture of my teens screwed me up? Maybe it’s just cathartic — talking with someone else who’s spent time in the postfeminist ideological trenches, trying to unpack all of the contradictory messaging about who we should be and how we should act. Sophie Gilbert has been deep in that muck for years writing her new book, Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves, and is here to help answer your excellent questions on how all of this took root in the ‘90s, the slutty cool baby girl ideal, the weird dude raunch movies, why we don’t know how pants are supposed to fit, the abomination of Bride Wars, and much, much more. Listen and let’s navigate all this accumulated sludge together.Thanks to the sponsors of today’s episode!Get 40% off Beam’s Dream Powder at shopbeam.com/CULTURE and use code CULTURE at checkout.Go to zbiotics.com/CULTURESTUDY and use CULTURESTUDY at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics.Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to Zocdoc.com/CULTURE to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today.Show Notes:Buy Girl on Girl here!!!!You can read Sophie’s back catalog of writing at The Atlantic here — I really love this Madonna piece from 2023Follow Sophie on Instagram and BlueskyListen to the official playlist of Girl on Girl on Spotify!Read an excerpt from Girl on Girl hereThis is a POSTER you can BUY ewwwwwwwThe Gail Porter FHM cover that was projected on to parliamentAn interview with Porter about the moment and its aftermathThe Jenna Jameson interview in the Abercrombie & Fitch “Naughty or Nice” Christmas catalog:The Angela McRobbie work on postfeminism and “romantic individualism” I referenceThe trailer for the horrible movie Bride WarsThe surveilling eye at work in Jennifer Lopez’s “If You Had My Love”My piece on Jennifer Lawrence and The History of Cool Girls from 2014The Katherine Heigl Vanity Fair interview where she calls Knocked Up “a little sexist” (and it then ruins her career)We’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:Evangelical Summer Camp, past and presentThe intersection of technology and parenting (especially how mothers are surveilled)REGIONAL ACCENTS!!!! (We have a accent/dialect expert as co-host!)Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!As always, you can submit them (and ideas for future eps) hereFor this week’s discussion: What cultural sludge of the ‘90s and 2000s did this bring up for you?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Anne. Once a month, we pick an episode to make free for everyone. You'll get the whole
0:05.2	show, including the Ask and Anything segment, which is usually just for paid subscribers. It's a really
0:10.4	good one this week, so be excited. Other perks for paid subscribers include discussion threads
0:15.3	for each episode, which are really fun and sometimes kind of spicy, and an ad-free experience. So if you want to support the show
0:22.9	and always get the full episode, head to culturestudypod.substack.com and become a paid subscriber.
0:29.6	And if you're already a paid subscriber, you're going to see this episode twice in your feed.
0:33.9	This is just a weird thing that happens with the way that we do this on Substack. The ad-free version will be labeled, and it will come up first. So you will see it first in
0:42.2	your feed on your podcast player. Okay, thanks, everyone. Enjoy the show.
0:51.8	This is the Culture Study podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.
0:55.8	I'm Sophie Gilbert. I'm a staff writer at the Atlantic, and I'm the author of Girl on
0:59.7	Girl, how pop culture turned a generation of women against themselves. In the introduction to
1:04.7	Girl on Girl, you talk about three cultural events that happened in 1999. When you were 16 and I was I was I think 17 so right around the same time
1:14.0	that seemed to define what it meant to be a woman especially where we were growing up can you
1:20.1	talk about those events and what you remember from them yeah there's um the first one is obviously br obviously Britney Spears on the cover of Rolling Stone.
1:29.9	I think she was 17 at the time in a photo shot by David Lus Chappelle.
1:33.8	Everyone will know it when they see it, but it's the photo where she's in a pink and black
1:37.1	polka dot bra.
1:38.8	She, one hand, she's holding a phone.
1:40.4	She's talking the phone.
1:41.1	The other hand, she's clutching a tally tubby doll um just very rich rich image
1:46.3	in so many ways yeah um a lot of people have since told me that the moment baby one more time came
1:52.1	out was the moment they saw their childhood as ending so i've sort of come to see this this picture is
	...

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