We Bow Down to Rihanna and Venus

Cannonball with Wesley Morris

The New York Times

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Arts

4.8 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 September 2017

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last week, we witnessed two extraordinary events: Venus Williams playing some of the best tennis in the last decade of her career (she lost in the U.S. Open, but with grace and style), and the rollout of Rihanna's new cosmetics line, Fenty Beauty, which was splashier than the launch of the new iPhone X. We learned something unexpected from both. Venus showed us what it means to lose, and yet somehow remain undefeated, and the Rihanna event gave us insight into the economy of social media “influencers” who are radically changing—and possibly democratizing—the beauty and fashion industries.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Jenna Wortham.
0:01.4	I'm Wesley Morris.
0:02.7	We're two culture writers at the New York Times.
0:05.6	I'm mostly worried about how humans relate to technology.
0:08.5	And I'm mostly worried about how popular culture relates to humans.
0:11.6	This is still processing.
0:15.1	[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪
0:24.2	Welcome back to our show, our pop culture confession booth.
0:28.5	Hi.
0:29.2	So, Mr. Morris, what is on your mind this week?
0:34.2	Walter Becker died about two weeks ago.
0:37.4	He was half of Steely Dan, a group that I thought was two old black dudes.
0:43.6	My whole life, oh not my whole life.
0:45.6	Sorry, my entire adolescence.
0:47.4	My father had to have a very comical, but what for him was an annoyingly,
0:51.8	unnecessarily difficult conversation with me.
0:55.4	Because it was like pre-Google.
0:56.5	They weren't MTV.
0:58.6	They weren't an MTV act either.
1:00.0	But my dad had Steely Dan records.
1:02.0	So, I'm still listening to women and the albums they've made.
1:06.5	And so, I was sort of torn about whether it interrupt what I was pleasurably doing
	...

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