Hello, hello, welcome to Highbrow. I'm your host, Mina Lay, and today's episode is an extended version of the video

that I just posted out on Monday on aesthetics.

But first, before we get started, I wanted to read an email that I received about last

week's episode.

So I think this is kind of fun when I post an episode and if people have a particular, you know,

if they have a particular opinion,

or they want to discuss and join the discourse to send me an email about it, and maybe I can share

it out with the rest of the audience to offer a different person's perspective. But Ruby, who is

19, wrote this in to me about baby girlification, which if you skipped last week's episode, shame on you.

But I just talked about the whole concept of like calling older men baby girls.

Usually like men who are like in their 40s, baby girls is kind of used as this

like adjective. In my opinion, it's not derogatory, but I'll read what Ruby has to say about it.

Dear Mina, I've been a fan of your YouTube content for years and have recently started listening

to Highbrow. Your discussion on Wednesday of the baby girlification of male celebrities

really intrigued me and I thought I tried to join the conversation. While I wish I could limit my feelings on the topic to the optimism of those who

see it as a step forward in gender inclusivity in popular language, I don't think I can totally agree.

I've been on fandom Tumblr pretty consistently for a while, and to me, calling a man,

baby girl fits into the same comedic niche as calling him your, quote,

poor little meow meow, or claiming that you could, quote, make him worse. They all carry a

level of condescension with a mocking tone and assumed power of the speaker expected with

the use of a word that has classically been used to refer to actual children. In the NBC article

that you link in the show notes,

...