This station has too many rats

Taylor Swift is dating a podcaster.

American Horror Story: SAG Strike

Bonjour, my Mess brethren!

Not to start off on a downer note, but I just wanted to say that while I may not discuss geopolitical conflicts in this newsletter (there are far better minds than mine doing an excellent job with that), I am very cognizant of what is going on and how devastating, traumatizing, and sad it all is. I hope that Mess offers you some respite from the horrors that are currently flooding all of our social media feeds, and please don’t forget that, while it might seem impossible or selfish, you are allowed to log off and take a breath. You are allowed to touch grass and ground yourself. Whatever you need to do to keep going, please just do it and take care of yourselves.

Now, on a much dumber note, I am slowly but surely recovering from the hangover to end all hangovers following what was easily the wedding of the year…..perhaps even the century?? I spent a good portion of the night explaining the genius of my best friend’s choice to wear a Di Petsa wet-look mini dress as her second outfit change to some elders who did NOT understand the hand-sewn couture greatness that was taking place before them. Honestly, outfit defender is a role I feel I was born to play. Please invite me to all of your functions to fight to the death for your sartorial choices and your right to wear them. I also gave a joint speech with my dearest pal Ferron that absolutely burned the house down, if I do say so myself. And I only almost burst into tears twice — a ginormous feat considering I was regaling my best gal of 22 years. As I already told Sloppy Seconds readers, there is nothing like the high of becoming an instant wedding celebrity thanks to an ability to simply read a pre-prepared speech aloud. I had a newlywed guest come up to me post oratory performance to let me know that she was going to give her own bridesmaids a stern talking to for not living up to this new standard of friendship that I had just set. I had republican alpha bro cousins dabbing me up all night! In other words, it was a rousing success, and you better believe the compliments were rolling in on that Fashion Nova as well.

On top of slowly exiting this severely dehydrated fugue state and battling a psychosomatic case of covid (I am testing negative, I am feeling negative, and yet every single person I interacted with at the wedding absolutely has it….), my first week of complete and utter unemployment has been…interesting (read: aimless)…and suspiciously restful. Thanks once again to all who signed up for a paid subscription following the announcement of my return to full-time freelancer last week. You are making me feel hopeful that this newsletter could potentially single-handedly support my obscenely overpriced New York lifestyle. And I promise I’ll stop saying this every single week, but regardless of whether or not that dream ever comes to fruition, I’m just incredibly thankful for all your verbal and financial support.

I’ve also been pouring some of my usual Twitter troll energy into posting on Substack’s Notes platform as I can no longer bear to log on to Elon’s hellscape only to be yelled at by a bunch of blue check freaks who wouldn’t know a good gown if it slapped them. So if you miss my usual pointless insights on ~X~, please check out the equally braindead things I’m saying over there. You all know how much I love spouting off into the digital ether. You can also easily share parts of this newsletter on Notes which seems to make a big difference in terms of subscribers to this foolish email, so thank you to all who have been spreading my maleficent message via that medium. And don’t forget, the Mess Discord is always ready and waiting for all of your gorgeous questions and musings.

Speaking of musings, for some reason this week’s content is heavily headline focused. I can’t explain it, that’s just what resonated most with me this time around. But hopefully I’ll have some more actual clothing to discuss with you next week.

Finally, by the time you are reading this we will probably be at 9,000 subscribers (!!!) and I would love to do something extra special for when we inevitably hit that fabled 10K. So if you have any thoughts on what that thing might be PLEASE lmk.

Ok, enough of the small talk. Let’s boogie.

If you don’t know what today’s title is in reference to, first of all, what a blessed life you must lead. And secondly, clearly, you do not live in the vermin-infested sinkhole we call New York City and thus have not been introduced to this brilliant new innovation from our MTA overlords. This week, we got a new feature on the Transit app that informs you of approximately how many rats are living and breeding in any given subway station. Will it prevent a rat from scurrying over your sandal-shod bare foot or from forcing you to witness the unbelievable horror that is a “rat king” irl (click at your own risk)? Absolutely not. But acknowledging their prolific existence is a good first step, I guess. Mostly my reaction to this image was to tuck it away in a folder on my desktop to deploy as a meme at the absolute perfect moment in the not so distant future. Someone is going to cross a picket line or start dating Matty Healy and I am going to STRIKE.

If there’s one question I’ve literally never asked myself it is what “left shark” is up to now, but I am thrilled that the fine folks over at People magazine are all over it on our behalf. And for those currently wondering, it has in fact been a full eight years since we last saw left shark and I don’t know if a single soul has asked about that man since. But the answer is he’s a hairstylist.

On the flip side, here’s something else I’ve absolutely never wondered about, but am delighted to be informed of. A perfect headline from start to finish. I don’t know what happened to this man on this show, but I do know that he 100% deserves to be weeping and shitting under duress.

As a chronic, analytical-to-a-fault overthinker, sometimes I read Millie Bobby Brown quotes and just think about how beautifully simple it must be to live inside that brain. How straightforward and clear everything must seem. And while yes, this is an incredibly odd way to discover a personal fact about one’s own ideology, as a fellow feminist, I say we gotta take ‘em however we can get ‘em. And if that means we have to deploy a psychic psyop to convert some comrades to our radical feminist agenda, so be it!!!

She’s doing it again! The fact that Gwyneth could just be rich and not address these topics aside, as I suspected when Hollywood first discovered how we’d started referring to their offspring, none of these people actually understand what the definition of “nepo baby” is. Clearly, they also categorically refuse to learn. This concept really should not be this hard to grok. Gwyneth seems to think that our light, impotent mockery of the nepos applies exclusively to famous children, claiming that, "Nobody rips on a kid who's like, 'I want to be a doctor like my dad and granddad.'“ Thus missing the entire point of this conversation and the core definition of the word “nepotism” itself. As I’m sure you all know, the point isn’t that these children should not pursue the same profession as their parents, just that they have a profound advantage in doing so, whether that profession be Hollywood starlet or surgeon. And it’s not just the advantages of having a parent with a household name already working in that chosen industry, but also the extreme wealth, privilege, and access that comes along with it. I don’t know how to break it down any more clearly or obviously for these people. But anyway, I hope this “ugly moniker,” as Gwyneth calls it, sticks around forever because I love the way all of us pointing out this simple fact of reality has so profoundly gotten under their skin. It reminds me a lot of celebrities’ response to the fictional concept of “cancel culture.” (Again, if you’re so “cancelled” why do I still have to hear you talk about it on your new Netflix special?) I say let them live in fear of the straw boogeymen they’ve created.

Now what did I tell you about the Kardashians’ fixation on America’s royal family! Back at the beginning of September when Kris and Kim cornered Meghan Markle’s mom and forced her into a charity photo opp, I warned you that they were laying the groundwork for a plot to ingratiate themselves into the Sussexes’s lives following their rejected Platinum Jubilee invitation, thus adding a real royal patina to their self-appointed American monarch status. They will not rest until they bring these two kicking and screaming “into the fold.” Also, much like the Tom Brady / Kim dating reports, this is once again very clearly the work of Kris attempting to manifest via the media, using the tabloids to The Secret her fan fiction into fact.

There’s also something so deeply satisfying to me about getting to witness Kim come face-to-face with the fact that she increasingly cannot control her children and use them to bolster her own fame in the way she imagined she would. Because no matter what cool, billionaire mom activities she is able to present them with, no matter how many private jets, shopping sprees, or meet-ups with their heroes, they are still going to tell her she’s lame and they’re having the worst day of their lives. Kind of a gorgeous poetic justice when you think about it. And given the glimpses of her children’s attitudes that we’ve gotten to witness thus far, it seems that things are not going to get any easier as they get older. Kim also said this week that North ignores her siblings completely. Like straight up pretends she is an only child and they do not exist………as I said, not boding well. I don’t want to say I called this entitlement issue Kim was fostering in her eldest when North was dragging those ten-foot long braids through the Japan airport forcing everyone to carefully tip-toe around her, but yeah. Just wait until these guys figured out how to circumnavigate those parental controls on their TikTok!!!

We’ve also previously discussed this whole family’s bizarre obsession with Aaliyah, specifically when North dressed up as her for Halloween last year echoing a previous Halloween costume Kim got a ton of backlash for both in 2017 and 2022. Now here again, Khloé is passing along their family’s odd insistence on the incorporation of Aaliyah’s image into their lives to True and Dream. My only thought on why the Kardashians might have latched on to this pop star specifically is their fascination with fame and achieving the most grotesque maximum quantity of it humanly possible. And who looms larger in our cultural imagination than those who have died tragically young, like an Aaliyah, Princess Diana, or Marilyn Monroe, all of whom’s iconography we’ve seen these sisters utilize in their own fashion and decor repeatedly. It’s not that these gals want to die young, but I think Kim specifically is very interested in the idea of how one attains that level of pop immortality and visually aligning herself with their ilk is step one.

And in completely unrelated news, Khloé’s glam camo makeup has elicited an outsized annoyed response within me. I have not been this irked by something so profoundly trivial in ages. I just feel like if she wants to participate in this children’s play time activity, she should have to get a full face of rainbow sparkle unicorn instead of trying to make face painting into something minimalist and sexy. Although to be fair, I will say Khloé still put in more effort here than Kim ever did when she was promoting her Skims camo collection.

Hailey Bieber has begun posting her various sexy Halloween costumes for the month which means that by law I am now required to provide you with your annual reminder that she once posted this incredible screed to her Instagram Stories about the duality of Christendom during this particularly pagan month that I would die to hear read aloud as an audition monologue. In fact, perhaps I’ll try delivering it myself for paid subscribers next week!

And while we’re on the topic of Mr and Mrs. Biebs, I have to say: I’m embarrassed for everyone involved in this. Justin Bieber commissioned two people who go by the name “Idiot Box” to turn his wife Hailey’s “I miss you” text into this speech bubble wall art for a reported $5 grand. I used to think that I had an extraordinarily broad opinion about what constitutes art, but is this art? Are we sure? I don’t know. But I do find it to be a fascinating insight into Justin’s decor sensibilities. I think in my line of work one of the hardest things for me to rationalize has always been that people can be this rich and exposed to this much good design and ideas from all over the world and still come away from it all with such remarkably bad taste in tact.

However, sometimes having bad taste can really serve you well, as evidenced by Ms. Fox’s entire career. In Sloppy Seconds this week, we discussed Julia’s many pot-stirring book tour ensembles at length and the rollout now continues across the pond. We got another labia-baring look on the cover of Rollacoaster, returning to her chastity belt roots in this chain mail thong. As I told paid subs, it also seems like a renn faire fashion movement might be brewing out there for fall, and I am more than ready for some ye olde harlot apparel. Julia also wore her dry cleaning as an outfit while out in London and while I love the concept, the execution leaves something to be desired. Instead of wearing this garment bag as a free-floating pendant necklace, I would’ve loved to see the plastic sheath donned as an actual top so that the oxford was just pressed against the front of her body and the back was left completely exposed instead of adding this unnecessary slip skirt to cover the rear.

Julia also took a break from baring her pubis, to beguile us with just a hint of heart-shaped butt cleavage. Longtime readers might recall that we’ve actually seen this particular pair of gluteal cleft-exposing leggings once before on Kourtney Kardashian, although she chose to keep her posterior cutout mostly obscured under a very large motocross jersey. But after a year of everybody engaging in full-frontal nudity and G-strings, I feel like we somehow still haven’t fully explored all the outrage possibilities inherent in some strategic backside reveals. We’ve seen a couple of stars dabble with a classic bumster silhouette this year, but I feel like It’s high time to plunge that waistline to all new depths.

And one more time for the folks in the back: MORE TINY DOGS IN BIRKINS PLEASE!!! It’s a classic for a reason. This is such a simple, easy example of what I always say about the appeal of the uber-wealthy flexing their riches in obscenely casual ways. While commissioning a $600,000 dollar diamond toe ring is certainly a fun and inventive way of .01% stunting, it really can be as straightforward as dumping your pocket-sized purebred dog into a $20,000 bag and calling it a day. A big thank you to Irina Shayk for reminding us all of that fact.

And is it just me, or has the aughts revival trend suddenly jumped from fashion inspired by that decade to actually mining the thrift store vaults for authentic pieces from that era? Because I’m seeing way too much apparel out there that seems far too familiar from my youth. Ice Spice’s SNL after party ensemble in particular is hitting a little too close to home. I absolutely knew girls in middle school who would have worn this entire look to a dance. While the studded embellishment is ringing some very specific Wet Seal bells in my brain, it’s that mud-soaked denim distressing that really sets me off. Faithful Messketeers might recall that Bella Hadid used to trigger me weekly with this particular type of dungaree garment. And while I don’t miss her Christian Girl Autumn maxi skirts, seeing this did make me seriously mourn the loss of OG Mess Muse Bella’s daily street style pap strolls. I have a feeling, however, that she’s going to come out the other side of this random cowboy makeout sesh all the stronger and more fashionably chaotic than ever.

Before I call it quits for today, it behooves me to mention that if you haven’t treated yourself to the exquisite, heartbreaking cry-fest that is watching Britney Spears’s “Everytime” music video following her recent abortion revelation, please do so immediately. I did not remember the premise of this video at all, but I am now utterly devastated by it and realize more than ever that we have never treasured this pop icon the way she deserves. Also, now I want to go watch Spring Breakers again. (Mess group watch party, anyone?)

And just when you think things can’t get any worse, JT reveals himself to be the ultimate acoustic guitar bro we all knew he secretly was. When do we get to be rid of this man. How many times must we be shown how much he sucks while contributing so little to the culture in return. Now that he has emotionally injured not one, but TWO of the greatest pop stars of all time (Janet and Britney), may we finally cast him asunder? I understand that “Cry Me a River” is going to be an “Ignition (Remix)” level loss for many out there, myself included, but I believe in us. Besides, anyone who is that good of friends with Jimmy Fallon is immediately sus, if you ask me….

Is it really Pinkydoll without a TikTok-generated cowboy hat and mustache?

Alas and alack. I’ve got some gas station parking lots to go vacuum.

Trisha Paytas and her husband in full Speidi cosplay.

So I’ll see ya back here next week, pumpkin heads!

Ok now get on out of here! Scram! Can’t you see we don’t want you anymore? Just kidding, I’m no Harry Henderson. But if you’ve found yourself lost in these dark and treacherous woods filled with fashion rejects, you’re clearly a courageous explorer with a bottomless appetite for horror. So since you’re one of the handful of brave souls capable of looking camp dead in the eye, why not sign up for a paid subscription and double your psychic burden. And if you have some equally clairvoyant friends going through a dark night of the soul, go on and sign them for a free subscription as well. Or, if that $5 price tag is not currently in your monthly budget, skip the financial hassle and join me and 660+ of your fellow Messketeers talking shit about fashion influencers in the ~MESS DISCORD~. And then go pick up some new MESS MERCH to brighten your spirits.

As always, if you can’t afford to pay for more, just ask me about getting a comped subscription. I promise, it’s no big deal. I do it all the time. And if you send over a screenshot of your donation to any abortion or bail fund, your next month of Mess is on me.

Bye-bye, dream makers, you heartbreakers!

Why do I feel like Martha subsists on caviar and caviar alone?