by Leigh Stein
Chloé gave Khadijah a look of significant excitement. EDM Sober House?! she mouthed. Khadijah held up a shush finger.
Clem was over six feet tall in flats and looked arresting in a crisp white tuxedo jacket with a black lapel and thick round eyeglass frames the color of ghee.
Chloé had unearthed an EDMSH-branded LED flower crown from her gift bag and put it on. Khadijah physically recoiled. It’s okay, I mouthed. I knew Doug loved seeing the impact their shows had on fans. The lights inside the fuchsia flowers blinked on off on off on off on off. Chloé glowed. I tried to remember why she was here. She was someone’s boyfriend’s cousin? Someone’s dad’s friend’s daughter? The little sister of someone I went to Barnard with?
Even with Khadijah’s help, it took Clem a few minutes to get the presentation on her tablet to sync with our projector. We saw the app she had open: The Mindful Fertility Transformation Project—Lesson 14: Using Self-Acupressure to Thicken Uterine Lining. Evan shielded his eyes with one hand, like she was showing us homemade porn or something. I swatted his leg under the table, and he retaliated by sticking a finger inside one of the tears in the thigh of my distressed jeans, pushing to see how far he could get.
“Sorry about that,” Clem said, clearly embarrassed. “This is a safe space, right?”
“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen,” I said, moving Evan’s hand back to his own lap. “Brené Brown said that.”
Clem had her slideshow up now. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“We’re drawn to drama,” she began. “When our ancestors sat around the fire and told stories of the hunt, that was . . . drama. When people stood outside in London to watch Punch and Judy shows, that, too, was drama.”
Just then, Khadijah’s phone went off. “Sorry, but it’s Maren,” she said.
“Let it go to voicemail,” I said. “We’re kinda in the middle of something?”
“She wants to FaceTime. Hello? Maren? We’re in that meeting with Dragg and Dropp.”
“I know! That’s why I called! I got the calendar alert.” I couldn’t see Maren’s face, but I could hear her heavy asthmatic breathing in the cold, as she rushed to catch up. “There’s no internet in the house, so I had to go outside to get a signal, but there was this bird—”
“Hi, Maren!” I yelled across the table, gesturing for Khadijah to turn the phone in my direction. “The meeting has already started, so I’m going to ask Khadijah to hold the phone up so you can see the presentation, okay?”
“Hi, everyone! Hey, Doug!” From the tiny screen she waved a mittened hand.
“We’re thrilled to be back at Richual,” Doug yelled.
“I’m so sorry, Clem,” I said. “The floor is all yours.”
“I’ll just start from the beginning, if that’s okay? We’re drawn to drama? When our ancestors sat around the fire? That was drama.” She looked to the ceiling like her lines were written there. “When people watched Punch and Judy in London, that was drama also. Imagine . . . being in the audience during the earliest days of cinema, when people thought an actual train was coming from the screen and they ran away in panic. Fast-forward to the early 1990s, when we thought it was revolutionary to put strangers in a house together and watch them fight and fall in love and fuck and freak out. I’m referring, of course, to The Real World.” Clem smiled at Chloé.
“Before I was born! But I’ve definitely heard of it.”
“I think The Real World is still on actually,” Maren said.
“Maybe you can mute yourself until Clementine is done talking,” I said. Evan squeezed my knee under the table. Was I wrong? Did she have to chime in on everything?
“Reality TV is a low-budget vehicle for delivering high dramatic content to a nationwide audience. And I don’t need to convince you of the popularity of streaming platforms. We all know friends who go straight from bingeing The Fall to The People v. O. J. Simpson. Our appetite for stories of victimized women is insatiable.” I noticed myself nodding along, like I knew the words to this song, too.
“Let me ask you this: What if there was synergy between the fear women feel walking home alone at night and the kind of content that provides a catharsis for that fear? What if there was a way we could all feel like victims . . . but only when we wanted to? What if I told you the next phase of activating the Richual audience is to hyperfocus both our content and delivery mechanism, to customize dramatic experiences for a niche audience of consumers who are in an intimate relationship with their palm-size screens?”
Okay, she was selling me. Even when I couldn’t follow what she was saying, I could follow what she was selling. Clem clicked a button on her presenter tool and the room went dark. All I could see were the pulsing lights on Chloé’s head and then, on screen, old black-and-white footage of a locomotive coming directly at us, blowing smoke.
Then a video appeared of a white woman holding a little pot of something and a makeup brush. There was no audio, but otherwise the production value was high and it looked like a festival makeup tutorial. She was drawing radiant white dots from her brows to her hairline, smearing bands of red paint under her eyes, and adhering little white sequins to the apples of her cheeks.
“The data that Maren shared with us showed that there were significant conflict clusters around issues of microaggressions, lack of trigger warnings, ableist language, misgendering community members, and cultural appropriation.”
“And fat shaming,” Maren said.
“But also diet shaming,” I said.
The woman onscreen was topping off her look with an enormous headpiece with a red crown and a spray of brown eagle feathers, turning her head from side to side to give the viewer the full effect. Chloé gave a little squeal and a tiny round of applause.
The tutorial video moved to the bottom corner of the screen and now we were watching a different user, another white woman (her name appeared in the lower third: “Caeli”), speaking. “Dear white ladies,” she said, looking straight into the camera. Her hair was streaked in a My Little Pony palette. “My dear, dear white ladies. Can we not? Can we stop appropriating Native culture in the name of looking ‘interesting’ at a shitty music festival?”
The screen split in two. Caeli was now in conversation with another woman (lower third: “Mia”), whose hair was long and shiny brown. “I know not everyone here identifies as a lady,” Mia said.
“True,” Caeli said. “That’s my bad.”
“But I do want to address the white folks who think that dressing up like Pocahontas is equivalent to wearing a Wonder Woman costume. First of all, you just put on a war bonnet, which is something worn by men in some tribes, by the tribal leaders. Second of all, indigenous people are still here. I’m not a character. And my friends and I aren’t dressing up like Jews in Auschwitz for any holidays. Like, who determines which genocides get featured at the Halloween costume emporium?”
Caeli nodded.
My phone buzzed with a text from Evan, Genocide: Who Wore It Better? I covered my mouth to keep from laughing. He was right: who would want to spend their time watching this stuff? I wasn’t sure how witnessing two women scold another woman for wearing a costume added value to our self-care community. It seemed like the problem we already had with our comments section, amplified to another level.
Clem paused the video and jumped back in, pitching directly to Evan now. “If you’ve been following the renaissance of Teen Vogue . . .”
“Read it religiously,” Evan joked.
“Then you know that cultural commentary is hugely popular among the woke Gen Z demo. Our research suggests that user engagement that once aggregated around FOMO and envy is now more dynamic in regards to controversy and outrage.”
“In other words,” Doug said, “your most engaged users connect with one another through a sense of tribalism. If I’m a woman, I’m more likely to connect
with you if you’ve gone through the same trauma as me. The positive thinking movements of the last century? Forget about it. Now we want to share our rage over a common enemy: the women who don’t ‘get it’ like we saw in the makeup video.”
“Wait,” I said, “I thought we wanted to help women feel better, right? Like, that’s our value prop. We empower women by helping them put themselves first.”
“Personally, I love it,” Evan said. “How do you see this fitting into our revenue stream?”
I turned to face him directly. I could feel my face getting hot and forced a deep inhalation through my nose. “You ‘love’ it?”
“Well, the beauty is that this will be Richual-exclusive premium content, requiring a paid membership for access,” Doug said. “We’ll be able to collect demo data on new subscribers drawn to our revolutionary programming, and we’ll be adding value for current subscribers. Maren had also shared with us that there has been some member attrition due to . . . women feeling like the platform is racist or ableist. By specifically courting some of those users and giving them a platform for video content, the way BuzzFeed or Facebook has done, you’ll grow your membership exponentially. Our projections indicate you could triple your new subscribers in the next six months.”
Evan sent me another text: $$$$$$$$$$.
Chloé raised her hand like this was a classroom. “I’m sorry, but . . . does the makeup girl . . . I mean, does the first girl you showed us, who was putting on makeup? Does she get to tell her side of the story?”
“What side would that be?” Khadijah said.
“I mean, like how she meant for it to not be disrespectful.”
Doug and Clem exchanged a look. I could read their minds: Chloé was the audience for this.
“Great feedback, Chloé,” Doug said, gesturing to his assistant to make a note. “We’ll definitely bring that back to the production team if Dear White Ladies goes to pilot. I think what we’re really talking about here is empathy.”
Chloé sat up straighter. “Because what if she just wanted to, like, share her artistry and showcase the beauty of Native culture? And how do we know she isn’t an Indian? Aren’t a lot of people part Cherokee, like Elizabeth Warren?”
“Interesting,” I said, careful not to overcommit. “Maren, what do you think about Native Americans?”
“I think you’re all missing the point,” she said. “The broader and more potentially problematic issue is that many of our users—” And then the screen went dark.
“Ah, the gifts of technology,” Doug said.
“Can I say something?” Khadijah asked.
“Please,” I said.
“There’s already a movie,” she said, “called Dear White People. It was a big deal at Sundance a few years ago. I’m not sure if this is trying to pay homage or . . .”
“We were not aware of that film,” Doug said, “but we will definitely watch it immediately. Is it streaming?”
“And I would want to ensure we’re financially compensating the on-camera users,” Khadijah added.
“Of course,” Doug said.
“We would cast six to eight users for the pilot,” Clem said, looking at me, “from diverse backgrounds.”
“Devin, we still haven’t heard what you think. You’re the boss.”
I’m the boss, I thought. I’m the boss. Doug and Clem thought this was a good idea, but that’s because it was their idea. Evan heard the words Teen Vogue and “exponentially” and was like, “Sold.” Chloé seemed on the fence, but she was twelve years old. What was Maren getting at with the broader and more potentially problematic issue? I was hoping Khadijah would tell me why this was a bad idea. I felt, inexplicably, like I was about to start crying. My calming essential oil rollerball was in my bag in my office and all I could do was keep breathing. Respond, I told myself. Don’t react. Don’t fuck up don’t fuck up don’t fuck up.
“I’m not against diversity,” I said. “But our users . . . they’re watching this because . . . ? Because they want to shame other women and make them feel bad? That seems to go against everything we stand for. I’m not sure I ‘get’ it.”
“This emotional reaction is precisely what we were going for,” Clem said, looking directly into my eyes, creepily unblinking behind her spectacles. “Have you ever seen that video on the internet of the dog who’s reunited with her owner and at first she doesn’t recognize him, but then she does and she starts licking his face?”
I nodded, mute.
“Sorry to interrupt, but are we comparing women to dogs in this scenario?” Khadijah asked.
“Of course not,” Clem said, smiling softly. “I’m just pointing to the efficacy of emotional video content. We all want to be loved, in the way that the dog loved her owner. And the opposite of love is hate. And the antidote to hate is education. So there’s a real opportunity here.”
“I’m on board with any anti-racist education initiative,” Khadijah said, checking the time on her phone.
What would Maren do? She would probably ask for more time to review their projections. She would say, I’m not sure this content fits into our eighteen-month strategy. She would want to play a role in the casting process, the editing process. She wouldn’t release any of it to our users until she had personally vetted each minute of footage herself. And that would waste so much time.
If I’d learned anything from Maren’s tweet, it was that the only thing women love more than being angry is being angry at those who are angry about the wrong things. And if there were a way to monetize that anger? Why shouldn’t Richual be the first to capitalize on that?
“Let’s do it,” I said. “Let’s make the pilot. Maybe we could call it something like Stay Woke, Y’all?”
“I love it,” Doug said, flashing me a big smile.
“Khadijah can start a focus group on Slack to find out which users are most angry about what,” I added. Delegate, delegate, delegate. Then I closed my eyes so I could disappear from the room for one brief moment and gulped down my entire tumbler of infused water. It tasted sour and medicinal, so bad you’re convinced it must be good for you.
Maren
I didn’t know where else to look for the key. I tried every one on the key ring Evan gave us. It wasn’t in the junk drawer in the kitchen, or in any of the little nooks in the secretary desk in the master bedroom. I even ran my hand along the cold dusty mantel, thinking maybe they kept the key near the little closet. Nothing.
My phone ran out of juice during the pitch just when I was about to tell them they were miscalculating the audience for their Richual reality TV show. No one was going to pay to watch women police each other for cultural appropriation or not sufficiently acknowledging their privilege or using an expression they didn’t realize was offensive to a marginalized community—not when there were so many places on the internet where you could see that shit for free.
Back inside, I put my ear to the door of the locked room and I could still hear something like rustling pages, palpable fear.
If there was a landline, I could call my mom, the only person whose phone number I had memorized, and she would tell me what to do. But I hadn’t talked to her in weeks. I didn’t even go home to Wisconsin for Christmas. I was the poster child for self-absorbed millennials, prioritizing lattes and avocado toast over saving up for important milestones like buying a house or having a baby or getting a plane ticket so I could sing the alto part to “O Come All Ye Faithful” at the midnight service beside the soprano of the woman who raised me solo.
As a teenager, I’d focused all my efforts on achieving the academic accomplishments that would catapult me out of the Midwest and into some larger world where I’d discover a career that paid enough for me to support us both. A nagging little voice told me that if I really tried, I could do that now. If I ate like she did (coffee for breakfast, dried beans in bulk, Crock-Pot), if I rotated a set
number of outfits (Marie Claire called this a “capsule wardrobe”), if I canceled all my subscriptions and stopped going out, I could send enough money home that she could cut back on her hours waiting tables, get new brake pads, stock the pantry. But it seemed like such a waste of New York, to not get to spend any money on myself in the city I worked so hard to survive.
What are you so tired from, looking at a computer all day? I read an article in the paper . . . have you heard of these standing-up desks? She was right; how could I feel so worn out from doing hardly anything?
The last time we spoke she’d called to thank me for the prepaid Visa card I sent and I had cried, without meaning to, about how difficult it was to scale Richual at a speed fast enough to justify our $5 million valuation and how sometimes I fantasized about saying, Fuck this and walking out, and she read me a passage from the Book of Job. I couldn’t leave Devin, she said. Poor Devin. The girl with no parents? The sound I could hear in the background was the squeaky straw in the plastic lid of her cup of Diet Dr Pepper. I realized she saw Devin, not me, as Job.
“Devin will be fine,” I snapped.
My resentment of Devin’s wealth (I’m comfortable, she liked to say) was magnified by my frustration that the majority of the labor she put into Richual was her own self-maintenance. She disciplined her body by working out seven days a week and ingesting various powders I didn’t know how to pronounce. Her work calendar had time blocked off for balayage and facials and gel manis that were so artful and time-intensive they belonged in the collection of the MoMA. She paid for monthly access to a meditation studio where she could go take deep breaths in a dark room.
Would I have traded places with Devin? Never. I also knew our duo didn’t work without her face and physique. That was the sick bind we were in. I may have resented that she’d made self-care her full-time job, but to our investors, Devin was living proof of product-market fit. She was the woman our users aspired to be.