Phone-a-Friend: Jenna Wortham
2/12/16 - In this phone-a-friend edition, Amina calls up core bestie and bruja Jenna Wortham to discuss movies to cry to on airplanes, potions, and Sex and the City. Not to mention key mixtapes, whether JK Rowling is woke, and post-Presidency life for the Obamas. Plus, catfishing confessions.
Transcript below.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Spotify.
CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
LINKS
bloop is the black goop
Sleeping with Other People
Diary of a Teenage Girl
Black Futures: Jenna’s collaboration with Kimberly Drew aka @museummammy
Michelle: young Barack ‘was a bum’
Jenna’s shoutouts: shilajit resin, younger, kumquats, A$AP Ferg mixtape, dvsn, Jenkins and Jonez podcast, asos vs. prime, teen vogue
TRANSCRIPT: PHONE-A-FRIEND: JENNA WORTHAM
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman and every other week we bring you a special phone-a-friend episode between either Amina and me or one of our awesome pals.
Aminatou: Hey Ann!
Ann: Hey boo, hey. What's up?
Aminatou: Not much. Today I'm super excited to have you listen to this phone-a-friend that I did with core lady Jenna Wortham.
Ann: Ugh, Jenna. Just honestly woman about town. [Laughs]
Aminatou: A.K.A. Jenny Deluxe, A.K.A. Young Watermelon, A.K.A. just like the best. I love her so much.
Ann: A.K.A. bringing you all your tech and digital culture deep thoughts in the New York Times. Just the best.
Aminatou: I know. A.K.A. Woke Gwyneth Paltrow. Just so many things.
Ann: Also your collaborator in bloop.
Aminatou: Exactly. So Jenna and I talked about a lot of things, namely bloop, our amazing collaboration, the black Goop, and some other cool projects that she's working on like with this really rad lady Kimberly Drew who just runs the art world and is really cool. We talked about TV. Jenna loves Sex and the City and I hate-watched it because of her and it was amazing. Jenna's always the first person I text when I'm sick because she always has the solution to all of my problems.
Ann: Are they always herbal remedies? I feel like that's her vibe.
Aminatou: Oh, she's like 100% a witch. She's like "Put this crystal on your chest and drink this." And outside of the time I had bronchitis I will say her batting average is very high. [Laughs] But she also supports me when I have to go get an x-ray so it's like modern witch. I'm really into it.
Ann: Ugh, I think it's really important for the modern witch to support chest x-rays.
Aminatou: Yeah, Jenna's amazing. You're not going to regret listening to every second of this. She's the best.
[Theme Song]
[Interview Starts]
(2:20)
Aminatou: Hi Jenna! Thanks for joining us today.
Jenna: [Laughs] What up?
Aminatou: That was really cool.
Jenna: Thank you. That was not my LinkedIn voice. You used yours.
Aminatou: I do. What's going on today?
Jenna: Oh my gosh. Well today I'm sort of -- I'm kind of Googling around to figure out what my next potion will be. You and Shawnee called me a witch on . . . [Laughs] When Shawnee was on you guys talked about all my various herbal remedies.
Aminatou: You are a witch! I've been dying of this crazy cough and you're literally the only person I've been texting. It's like you and WebMD and I'm like I don't need the white man's medicine today so . . .
Jenna: Oh yeah, you don't. Just call me. I mean I take that as a compliment. I'm super . . . I really hate the doctor and I'm a busy lady. Every time I go in, I have an appointment at 2. 2:45. Like the only way I see someone is when I threaten to leave because I'm like I have a job and I have to go back. And they're like "Oh, someone can see you now." And it's someone else and I'm always so annoyed. So now I'm on this personal mission to never really have to go . . . I'm just trying to optimize my health so I don't have to go to the doctor.
Aminatou: That's awesome. Well I want to talk to you about a lot of things.
Jenna: Okay.
Aminatou: One is you and I have been working on this super-fun collaboration called bloop, the black Goop.
Jenna: Oh, it's so good.
Aminatou: You know it's funny. We basically did it over email and stuff but we've never really talked about it to each other.
Jenna: Well I mean it started in a really basic way which is just that you and me and some of our friends, Shawnee, Cory, Dayo, different people, we would just be texting with them and you and I always had good recommendations for luxury loungewear, various oceans, vacation spots. And it was just like yo, this is bloop. This is the black Goop. This is what it is. And that's basically all we needed to get on the path to basically becoming Young Oprah 1 and Young Oprah 2. This is where it starts.
(4:15)
Aminatou: Oh my god, it's true. You know this is like the beauty of things not being diverse and specific to how awesomely black we are is we can make anything. You know, now I'm just thinking how do we make the black Google? How do we make the black Facebook? All of these things.
Jenna: [Laughs]
Aminatou: Because I just like . . . I don't know, I like our young and black experience that we have online. It's very fun.
Jenna: Oh my god. Okay, so first of all we're going to start -- blaphabet, black alphabet, and that'll be the parent company for all these black-owned businesses.
Aminatou: For bloogle?
Jenna: Bloogle, blacebook. We're going to bring back Black Planet. It's just going to be lit.
Aminatou: Oh my god, I really miss Black Planet.
Jenna: It's still around. No one uses it.
Aminatou: I know, nobody uses it. I just miss the glory days of it.
Jenna: So fun. It was so much fun.
Aminatou: Now there's this other message board called Lipstick Alley that I think is the closest thing that replicates that and it's like where . . . it's just like basically any weirdly obscure black thing that you want to know like who is married to Ebro?
Jenna: Ooh, I love that.
Aminatou: And there is always somebody on Lipstick Alley who knows. It's crazy.
Jenna: I thought you were going to mention Soul Swipe. It just sounds better. [Laughs]
Aminatou: I don't want to acknowledge Soul Swipe. Are you on Soul Swipe?
Jenna: I am not on Soul Swipe or any dating apps.
Aminatou: Have you checked it out?
Jenna: I've checked them all out but I'm not on the market so I'm not on any dating apps. But I've looked at all of them. I really want to sign up for Raya because I'm just so curious about it so I might do that and just kind of check it out. But yeah, I'm not on the market so I'm not on these apps.
Aminatou: I meant as a tech reporter. It's funny, it's like . . .
(5:55)
Jenna: I've used everything.
Aminatou: I was on Tinder and I saw this guy who was definitely a VC on there who is also married. [Laughs] And I was like what are you doing on here and he's like research and I was like oh my god, this is the best excuse for anything.
Jenna: It's true, but that is true about Tinder though. It's funny. Tinder is just -- it's weird. It's the most . . . I feel it has such staying power because it's such a joke but it's also so incredibly useful. And so it's like you can't . . . it's just become a matter of habit to be on it or to know about it. Yeah, it's basically Google now. It's just part of the fabric.
Aminatou: Yeah, I went to a funny marketing presentation that they had and the woman who was talking, she was talking about it like they really save lives over there and it was like amazing.
Jenna: I think she's right though.
Aminatou: You think so? I mean they take themselves a little too seriously.
Jenna: That's for sure true. However there's this whole narrative that all technology's incredibly anti-social. It's making us devalue each other and blah, blah, blah. But it's like -- and to some degree okay, that might be true. But I also feel like I've had so many conversations about all the different types of nuances of relationships that can exist now because of Tinder or I'll be like oh, I saw you on Tinder. Did you meet anybody? It's just become . . .
Aminatou: Oh my god, Jenna with the nuance on Tinder. Stop it.
Jenna: Well it's just taken the shame out of online dating because it's such a joke.
Aminatou: This is true. I don't believe in having shame about online dating. I think it's helped expand the pool. I think if anything it's amplified the ways that for young people at least we were already connecting and so that's fine.
Jenna: For sure. And remember people would be like "Oh, we met on OK Cupid but we have to make up a story."
Aminatou: How many weddings like that have you been to when they're weaving this long tale of how they met and you're like hmm. You're like I remember this match.com pairing.
Jenna: Yeah, for sure.
Aminatou: It's crazy. But the thing about it that's crazy is, you know, it's no more crazy than, I don't know, back in the day saying "Oh, I met this person at the bar." These are the ways we meet people. It's fine.
(7:50)
Jenna: Oh yeah. It's probably better than a bar too because I just feel like I've never . . . like the types of filtering I would do in a bar I normally can't do because I'm drunk. Then on Tinder I'm like you look sketchy as shit and you don't know how to spell, although I can't spell so that's not really saying very much, but I feel like sober Tindering is definitely better than drunk barring. You know what I mean? It's definitely better matchmaking.
Aminatou: Yeah. Another thing I want to talk to you about is you are actually the person who inspired me to watch Sex and the City because I had actually never seen it.
Jenna: You're welcome.
Aminatou: It's like I was very aware of who all the characters were and the place in pop culture. I actually moved to America for college the season that it ended and it was like a really big bonding activity in my dorm -- I lived in an all-women's dorm -- and I just remember watching the second half of that last season and being so infuriated. Like what? Everybody, what's up with this Russian guy? Why is he so ugly? Who is Mr. Big? Why is he so ugly? What's going on? And just never really connecting with it. But then recently you encouraged me to re-watch it and it was just as infuriating as the first time but now I had more context for it.
Jenna: [Laughs] Well you're welcome. And let's also shout-out Amazon Prime for making it free. But Sex and the City just has this mystique for me because I couldn't -- yeah, the same thing, I remember watching it. I couldn't remember that much about it. I kind of felt like I just wanted to revisit it and also I love shows . . . you know, living in New York is hard and I love shows that kind of rekindle -- it's really weird to want to rekindle nostalgia for something you're living through currently but Sex and the City does that for me because it kind of invokes the utopian idea that I had for my life when I moved to New York. You know, it's . . .
Aminatou: That's so fascinating to me.
Jenna: But the show is still really messed up. The show's infuriating. Carrie's the biggest anti-hero. Like I can't believe we were supposed to want to be like her. The only truth and light on that show was Miranda who just constantly breaks it down and out. She's the GOAT of all time.
Aminatou: I know. Miranda's the only one I deeply identify -- it's like I actually don't . . . I don't think I like her character but there are some parts of her character that I deeply identified with in a way that was really crazy. The iconic like when she eats the cake out of the trash can, it's like who has not been here? Cast the first tone. But also the episode where her mom died and she tries on this bra and has a complete meltdown. And when that happened I had to stop and couldn't handle it because essentially the same thing had happened to me. And I was like man, this show, this is how they hook you. You're just like oh, I identify with this one moment from this one woman's wife and now we're like yoked together forever. [Laughter] But like I was telling you and Shawnee for me the character that was the most interesting throughout the series was Charlotte.
Jenna: Oh god. [Laughs]
(10:42)
Aminatou: Charlotte is who I was like you know, I have no love for you but I feel of all those four caricatures of women she is the one who in the end I was kind of rooting for because I was like oh, you're actually the one who goes through some sort of personal growth and you are open-minded and you are ridiculous. Shawnee's a total Charlotte, P.S.
Jenna: Shawnee's a Charlotte for sure. I don't know who I am. I mean Cory's Magda. I don't know who I am.
Aminatou: I mean I think that everybody should want to be Magda on that show.
Jenna: Oh my god. I know. I know.
Aminatou: Nobody wants to be Berger. Sorry.
Jenna: Berger is the devil. But I also love him though because he really is Carrie's equal in that they're both incredibly shallow and incredibly not realistic in ideas about relationships or how people are supposed to behave and she gets exactly what she deserves in him. It's the most satisfying arc because it's so game recognize game and it's so good. But I do feel like that show was all about these women who were trying to come to terms with what life was going to give them and some of them accepted it and some of them couldn't and Charlotte was the only one who changed these fairy tale dreams she had of the life she was going to live and she chose happiness.
Aminatou: Yeah.
(11:55)
Jenna: You know, and I feel like that's why her storyline is so satisfying.
Aminatou: Emily Nussbaum wrote this incredibly New Yorker piece about Carrie a long time ago so we should probably all re-read that together at some point.
Jenna: Ugh, put the link in the bio, whatever.
Aminatou: I'll put -- you know, link in the bio as the kids say. [Laughs]
Jenna: As the kids say.
Aminatou: Okay, what else are you watching TV-wise?
Jenna: Not TV but I've been flying everywhere like crazy. As you know I've clocked I don't even know how many thousands of miles.
Aminatou: Are you tracking all your miles? You know you should.
Jenna: I am. I am. They're in my travel newsletter which is still limited to . . .
Aminatou: Please tell the world what your travel newsletter is called.
Jenna: It's called Jenny Jetter because I love Lenny Letter.
Aminatou: Thank you.
Jenna: It's just a shout-out. But it's a private, small distribution like everything else in my life. Numero dos is coming soon. It's just like in the works. So I've been watching more movies because I'm always caught up on TV, behind on movies, so one had to slide so the other one can live. But here's something I noticed: movies in 2015 and 2016 -- I guess mostly 2015 and probably late 2014 -- have gotten so good at capturing very realistically what it's like to take large amounts of psychedelics.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Jenna: This is -- you didn't think I was going to go there.
Aminatou: That's not where I thought you were going to go at all. Please tell me more.
Jenna: I'll give you two examples. Okay, here's the first one. In this movie called Sleeping With Other People which is Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie, my dear friend Max Reid, we have totally opposite tastes in pop culture. He said it was terrible. I thought it was hilarious. It's about two sexaholics, it's so cliché, whatever, who like can't find love and are slowly falling in love with each other. The movie's a very good airplane film. I like to cry on planes. It's kind of beautiful and sappy in all the right ways. But there's a scene where Alison Brie's character takes a bunch of molly and goes to a kid's birthday party and the kids are acting insane and she's a teacher and she's like "Guys, let's have a dance-off." She runs out into the lawn and it goes in slow motion and she rips off her clothes and is wearing this bright red bikini and just starts having the most sensual dance party of one and she looks so happy. Then they zoom in to real-time and all the kids are just laughing at her like what are you doing?
(14:10)
And I thought they figured it out. Like someone on this casting crew has taken a shitload of molly before and knew how to write this scene. That is rare. Normally it's like people talk about oh, I think I'm a glass of orange juice or like I'm going to fly. And that's -- you know, that's not what it's about so I was very happy for that.
Similarly in Diary of a Teenage Girl the main character whose name I'm forgetting takes a bunch of acid and has this pretty incredible experience that's kind of hers and hers alone. Again I thought it was very authentic and not cheesy or cliched. And so shout-out to the directors and producers and screenwriters out here who have some drug experience and can kind of accurately show, you know, that some of these instances, there is some beauty in altered states. That's all I'm going to say.
Aminatou: Right? Diary of a Teenage Girl is a really intense movie man.
Jenna: I know. I thought it was . . .
Aminatou: I can't believe you'd watch it on a plane. That's like really intense.
Jenna: Yeah, I rented it then I watched it and I was really taken aback. But, okay, there was a really good review in the Times. Manohla Dargis said "Yes this movie's intense but there's so much agency in her desire and whether or not you think it's okay or creepy it's all these things but it's very much hers and they don't oversexualize it." And I don't know if I agree with all that but I thought it was a very interesting read.
Aminatou: Yeah. You know, honestly, I personally really enjoyed the movie. I thought it was a heavy watch and it was also just . . . I love how we're talking around it so we don't have to give too many spoilers because it's honestly spoilerific.
Jenna: I know. We're so good.
(15:42)
Aminatou: I thought it was really well-done, just the gaze of this teenage girl going through something really awful. But it's also so specific to like '70s San Francisco in a way that is just like fascinating to me.
Jenna: I know, but I think that there was a really interesting subtext to that that there was a lot of like opportunistic, really creepy dudes during that time that you can't really explain away by like "Oh, it was the '70s." Like it kind of felt like the late '70s. I don't think that's really the thing. It was just like here was someone taking advantage of a young person regardless of the time. Like I felt like she didn't try to really couch it in the '70s too much except that's when it took place.
Aminatou: Yeah. No, it's crazy. And it's also the thing too where, I don't know, I've been thinking a lot about this '70s creep situation a lot recently and it's so crazy to me that people just always say that. They're just like oh, it was a different time or everybody was like this in this time in history. I'm like I don't believe that.
Jenna: No.
Aminatou: People have been creepy and it was never okay. It wasn't okay in 1970. It wasn't okay in 1870. And they just always try to make you feel like you are the crazy one. It's the same stuff with like David Bowie and Jimmy Page and all of those guys. You can separate their art from who they are but it's okay to say they were like fucking creeps.
Jenna: Yeah, and they were. They totally were. So I don't know. I recommend both of those. They're interesting watches.
[Ads]
(20:31)
Aminatou: Oh, I was going to ask you about your Black Futures project. Like what's that and what's going on? It looks really cool online.
Jenna: Yes! Okay, we're really out here. So you and I have bloop which is just going to be lit. Stay tuned for season two. And then I'm working on this project called Black Futures with the homie Kim Drew who has a Twitter and Instagram handle that's @museummammy and she's been doing this online art documentation for a very long time.
Aminatou: Literally the most like -- she's the most . . . doing the Lord's work in the arts, like so cool.
Jenna: Oh yeah, she's my dream queen. She's my idol and she's the homie and this time last year basically I DMed her and was just like "I adore you and would love to collaborate on a project." And because she's fucking cool she wrote back and was like "Let's meet up and get a burger." And so we just started talking and it's really interesting because I come from this very scrappy DIY Internet let's like make a zine PDF and throw it up. Kim comes from this obviously very Internetty perspective but also very high-brow perspective. And so we're meeting at this really beautiful place in the middle where we're trying to do a project that encapsulates both of our interests where we're looking at this particular moment in time, like not even this year but this sort of feeling of like A) black creativity, black reactionary thought, black revolutionary thought, and just what is coming out of all these? There's a lot of kind of social protests, black intellectualism online, people just making things and distributing it, and also just a lot of really incredible pieces of art that are making statements both political, sometimes social, sometimes just around identity. Like we're just in the midst of rethinking what it means to be a black person at this moment in time and what that entails.
(22:10)
And so it's an ambitious project. We've sort of talked through it in lots of ways. We want to make a beautiful high-end book. We're talking to publishers right now. People are really interested in it and we both have full-time jobs so it's going slowly but the thing that's so encouraging is literally everyone we've talked to about it is so enthused. And we look at The Black Book which was like this yearbook of the '70s that Toni Morrison edited as kind of our guiding light throughout all this. But every time we talk we're both so excited and we were texting about it earlier today. So it's coming off. Like it's popping off. Trying to be like Obama and saying it wrong.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Jenna: But it's coming together beautifully and I'm so excited and yeah, you can tell from my voice I'm super into it.
Aminatou: Yeah. I don't know, as somebody who's your friend and also stalked Kim's presence online obsessively I'm really excited to see it come to life because, you know, I think it'll be really cool. You guys both have really distinct and interesting points-of-view so it's definitely going to be popping.
Jenna: I know.
Aminatou: I can't believe you shaded the way that Obama said that but like very necessary.
Jenna: You know what I mean. You know what I mean.
Aminatou: No, very necessary. Very necessary.
Jenna: I love Barry. He's my favorite dad. He's the best and only dad.
Aminatou: He's such a dad. That's the thing about Obama that's so funny to me, the global context of like oh my god, he's the black president, he's so cool. But to us black people we're like oh my god, he's so corny.
Jenna: Like I know him. I know his high-waisted pants. I know that fade.
Aminatou: You know those slides.
Jenna: [Laughs]
Aminatou: You know? Like he's just -- he's my everything. Today my favorite headline in the news today, it was amazing. It was like -- hold on. I don't even want to quote it wrong. "Michelle Obama dishes on her husband's high school years. He was a bum."
(24:00)
Jenna: [Laughs]
Aminatou: It was like the headline across everything and when I saw it today I just died and it was just like FLOTUS looking so hot and they have all these pictures of Obama. But she was talking about how in high school it took him a long time to just get his shit together and then he went to Occidental where he was basically smoking pot every day. And it wasn't until he went to Columbia and he was like oh, I want to be president of the United States that he got his life together. [Laughter] And I was like my man, you're so lucky you did all of this before Facebook. You would've definitely never been our president. [Laughter]
Jenna: Oh my god, what would Barry's Peach look like? What would his Peach feed look like?
Aminatou: His Peach would've been all marijuana leaves.
Jenna: Oh my god, just like . . .
Aminatou: And very cheesy Hawaiian things, you know what I mean? And quotes. And quotes.
Jenna: Ugh, and like disco vinyl, like cool vinyl. You know what I mean? Like obscure -- like early Stevie Wonder and Abba.
Aminatou: Yeah, no, totally. And also, you know, some very obscure African artists like for his dad.
Jenna: Yes! Yes.
Aminatou: He's just like keeping tabs. Or not even obscure, I take it back. Just Fela. He's like Fela's from Nigeria, my dad's Kenyan, but this will do. I take it back. That's exactly where it would be.
Jenna: Oh god.
Aminatou: Oh man, I can't even imagine when like . . . when he was working for Michelle he just looked at her and he was like "I think I can date this woman one day." And she was like "This guy's a bum." Like this is all she could think of. [Laughter]
Jenna: I mean you always say it so beautifully which is you buy low.
Aminatou: Buy low, sell high. Like that's what she did.
Jenna: Michelle knew. She saw potential. She was like listen. She rolled up her sleeves.
Aminatou: She went to business school. She's not a dummy. She knows. She saw the stock.
(25:48)
Jenna: She can appraise a property and see that it has market value. She knows.
Aminatou: Yeah, no. I can't wait until they're not . . . I'm sad he won't be -- we won't have a black president next year. That makes me really sad.
Jenna: I'm not ready.
Aminatou: But I'm so excited for just Michelle unchained.
Jenna: Ooh! Yo, she's going to be on Vine -- because Michelle is very good at social. She does Barry's social for him.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Jenna: Michelle's out here. Michelle's about to have a talk show. Oprah needs to give her a show of her own.
Aminatou: Yeah, no, Michelle's going to have a talk show. She's going to run every social network. She's going to shade every -- she's going to write an amazing book, you know, that will just be the best tell-all.
Jenna: Oh my god.
Aminatou: And one chapter will just be shade at all the journalists that talk shit about her. You can just tell it's coming.
Jenna: Yes. Then she's going to launch her own version of Maple or Blue Apron and everyone's going to get it. Like she's about to change lives.
Aminatou: She's so good. I will say her only misstep is how she's made school lunches unbearable for the kids because they have to eat healthy now. I love it when I see a teenager who's like "Thanks Michelle Obama" and it's like three carrot sticks for lunch today because Michelle Obama said y'all too fat. [Laughter]
Jenna: She did her best though. She -- history will remember her. History will remember her as the woman who tried to change America for the better and America just got fatter. This will be the turning point.
Aminatou: She is the best.
Jenna: One president's wife tried so . . .
Aminatou: She is the best. Also I love it when she wears sneakers, like she's been rocking these sneakers every once in a while and I'm like I see you FLOTUS. I see you. We're just never going to have a first lady this cool.
Jenna: No.
Aminatou: I think we'll probably have a president as cool as Obama because Obama being cool is literally -- it's oh, here is a fit man wearing a fitted suit. That's literally what the country's reacting to. They're just like "Oh, your clothes fit you." But Michelle Obama is like the real homie. She looks amazing all of the time.
Jenna: Mm-hmm.
Aminatou: So good. Okay, can't wait. Do you think that the girls are going to join social media?
(28:00)
Jenna: Immediately. Immediately. I mean there will definitely be a period of time where they won't be able to just because of security stuff I'm sure but yo, Sasha. Talk about Michelle unchained, I'm ready for Sasha to go off.
Aminatou: Oh my god.
Jenna: That girl, she's my fav. Like Malia will be president at 40 or whenever she's of age, I don't know. Sasha's about to like . . . Sasha's about to restart BET. Sasha's about to do something. I don't know what she's going to do.
Aminatou: I feel like she's already lurking. She's already lurking on all the social media.
Jenna: Yes.
Aminatou: Like she's just lurking. She's just going to be amazing.
Jenna: She's like the new Kanye, the new Hood By Air. She's going to be part of the ASAP mob.
Aminatou: Oh my god, the new Hood By Air. You're fired. [Laughs]
Jenna: She's going to be everything. I just feel like, yeah, I'm very excited for her.
Aminatou: This is going to be great. What else is going on with you Jenna?
Jenna: Okay, I want to give a couple thing shout-outs. I made a quick list of what I'm into.
Aminatou: Oh my god, you came so organized. I love it.
Jenna: I did. Well I was just like taking some notes. I really just looked at what I was looking at today.
Aminatou: It's almost like you're a professional reporter. [Laughter]
Jenna: Huh. Yeah, interesting. Let's see. Okay, I want to shout-out . . . okay, I've been experimenting with shilajit which is this primordial resin that everyone in California -- I'm surprised you don't know about it, you probably do.
Aminatou: I mean I do but I'm not messing with it. What?
Jenna: I'm experimenting with it in my potions. I'm really into shilajit right now. The other show I'm watching is Younger which we can talk about in a second.
Aminatou: Yes, okay, that's the next thing that we need to start doing voice memos for.
Jenna: Yeah.
Aminatou: For people who don't know Jenna really pioneered voice memos as communication form.
Jenna: Microcasts.
Aminatou: Where she'll just microcast her thoughts to you all day and it's the best.
Jenna: And no one opts in and you can't opt out because if you leave the group I'll just add you back.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Yeah, you need to start the Younger microcast.
(29:50)
Jenna: I'll start it now. I feel like -- well the Sex and the City ones were so enjoyable because most people, even if they hadn't watched it, they had a reference for it and there was so much outrage. I feel with Younger I'm just going to be constantly praising Debi Mazar who is just a gem.
Aminatou: Incredible.
Jenna: And so wonderful. And the show which sort of feels like it's going to be kind of mean but is just really earnest and kind of lovely and sweet. So I don't know if it's like the right exact material for these microcasts but I can do it. I can do it. So that's on my hotlist. Also kumquats which are a magic fruit, they're in season right now. They're so good for your skin.
Aminatou: Kumquats are the best.
Jenna: Yes, if you're at risk at all for being prediabetic they're really good for helping prevent that. This is something I learned.
Aminatou: Who are you, Michelle Obama?
Jenna: I'm just trying to be like Michelle. I'm trying to be like Mo. Oh, and then I want to shout out the new A$AP Ferg mix-tape which is kind of hot. And do you know about dvsn? You probably do because you're more ahead on music than I am.
Aminatou: I mean yes but like . . .
Jenna: dvsn.
Aminatou: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, go back to the A$AP Ferg mix-tape first of all.
Jenna: It was a recommendation from my friend Visra who I have this whole other WhatsApp group with all my college homies and they just turn me on to stuff. She was like put this on. I did. I was feeling away about the Future mix-tape which I wanted to listen to but then I feel . . . I feel such a way about how all Future fans have been going after Ciara.
Aminatou: Okay, you know I'm a Future fan so now you're just doing this to hurt my feelings. First of all I listened to the Future mix-tape the whole time in the desert when it came out and it was amazing. I listened to it with your colleague Jo Coscarelli and we sat in the parking lot of a mall waiting for our friends to finish shopping and it felt very high school and awesome, you know, in this way. But man, shout-out to Future. The man does amazing work. It's not his fault his fans and Ciara don't see eye-to-eye but you know how I feel about Ciara.
(31:48)
Jenna: I do. I mean okay, I'm going to listen to them both back-to-back. I'm just saying I'm feeling . . . I felt a way about it and so . . .
Aminatou: Give him a chance. Give him a chance. It's classic, Jenna. It's so good.
Jenna: Okay.
Aminatou: And there's so many DJ Esco tags. It's like DJ Esco, the coolest DJ in the world. And they always come at the best time and you just laugh so hard but it's classic Future. It's very good.
Jenna: All right, I'm going to check it out. I'm going to check it out. So those are the two things I'm listening to right now and I'm going to add Future back to the list. I will do it. I will do it. And then I also just want to shout-out the Jenkins and Jonez podcast. Are you on this?
Aminatou: No I'm not on this. What is the Jenkins and Jonez podcast?
Jenna: I think you'll really like it. So Jenkins and Jonez, again this is through my other WhatsApp group with all my college friends, it's just these two dudes, they live somewhere in the Midwest, and they just talk. It's kind of like The Read but they're just . . . it's not as, you know, I don't know, it's not as well-known or it's not as in the spotlight.
Aminatou: I think they live in Virginia which is where all the cool black people live.
Jenna: I'm from Virginia. It's possible we're related and I don't know. It's possible there's a connection which is why my friends keep . . .
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Jenna: So Jenkins it turns out did a 23andMe. We're related. He's my cousin. [Laughs] I don't know.
Aminatou: You're ridiculous.
Jenna: But it's just funny and I think what I really like in a podcast -- and that's why I've always liked these segments on Call Your Girlfriend too -- it's just people talking about whatever they're into and it's not necessarily the news. It's not necessarily about anything. They'll just go in on something about Tinder or some girl who's trying to curve them. It's just -- it's funny and it's real and it's not super misogynist. It's very . . . it's like This American Life. This Black American Life.
Aminatou: This Black American Life. Put that in an idea journal, another thing we're going to start soon. [Laughter]
Jenna: Under blalphabet, yeah.
Aminatou: Oh my god, I'm just like thank god for white people going first so we can just clone all the things. [Laughter] Oh my god this -- yeah. Why has nobody started This Black American Life? That's crazy.
Jenna: I mean the idea is yours. Take it and run with it.
(33:58)
Aminatou: We'll call our black homie at This American Life.
Jenna: Yes! We're coming for you Neil.
Aminatou: Shout-out Neil Drumming.
Jenna: This is my last thing. I know -- and I know that you know -- about that ASOS life.
Aminatou: Oh, so real.
Jenna: Free shipping, free returns. I mean they even have ASOS Prime, okay?
Aminatou: Oh yeah, no, I remember ASOS Prime because sometimes you order a dress and you need it in two days so you can floss in front of all your friends.
Jenna: [Laughs] That is my life every day so I need to sign up for this. It's 40 dollars a year right? It's not even . . .
Aminatou: Yeah, no, it's like you already shop so much on it honestly, drop in the bucket.
Jenna: Sold. I canceled Prime for this year anyway so this will be my real thing. I'll do ASOS Prime instead of Amazon Prime.
Aminatou: Listen, I canceled Prime too Jenna and I had to go back.
Jenna: This is what I think will happen with me too but I'm just going to try for a month because the dependency is so disturbingly real and they're so wasteful. The boxes are never -- they're always way too big and I just feel embarrassed about how many boxes I'm putting out to the recycling. So for like -- you know what I mean, like Dr. Bronner's. It's shit I can get on my own time.
Aminatou: Oh, I got to the point where I was ordering light bulbs on Amazon. [Laughs] It's literally like I could go to the store tomorrow or you know especially when you live in San Francisco a homie will drop that stuff at your house same-day. That's just how it works.
Jenna: Ugh.
Aminatou: It's like now . . . the other day I ordered books I think at like 1 a.m. or something. They were here like, no joke, 10 the next day. No joke.
Jenna: Oh my god.
Aminatou: And the guy was in an Amazon truck. Like it wasn't FedEx, it was an Amazon truck. And I was like this is going to be a problem. They also have lockers all around town.
Jenna: Yeah.
(35:45)
Aminatou: And yeah, it was the kind of thing where I already do Amazon pantry for all my dry goods and paper stuff. I love getting a year's worth of toilet paper all at once. But one time I got olive oil because I was like hmm, it's going to be here in like a day. Do I really need to go to the store?
Jenna: Yeah.
Aminatou: I was like no, this is bad. This is bad.
Jenna: My low point was I Primed dishwasher capsules and white Adidas low-cut socks.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Jenna: And I was like this has to stop.
Aminatou: So you canceled Prime. Sorry, go back.
Jenna: Okay, so ever since I've been doing ASOS I've been getting Teen Vogue in the mail for free. So this is like a weird cross-promotion that they do and at first I was really annoyed about it but let me tell you.
Aminatou: Wait, I don't understand. They're giving it to you for free?
Jenna: You don't get Teen Vogue?
Aminatou: No. You know it's my favorite magazine. And especially recently they have so many people of color, you know, both in the ads and in the editorial.
Jenna: This is my point. This is my point.
Aminatou: And I'm just like this is legit my favorite magazine. But I've been a Teen Vogue subscriber for like ten years. It's crazy.
Jenna: Well I get them and I look at them and one of my mentees works at Teen Vogue and I always want to support her. So she's out here, you know, doing the most. So the last one came and the cover was Amandla Stenberg and Solange in conversation. So many amazing things. A beautiful, huge section on makeup tips for dark skin that wasn't just like "Bright colors!" Like actually nuanced, so much stuff about natural hair. An essay or some sort of thing on Rowan Blanchard who's the 14-year-old who came out as queer on Twitter.
Aminatou: Who is so woke.
Jenna: So woke. Pop culture truther. She's out here just living her life. I was like actively and happily reading it, so that was one thing.
Aminatou: Well hold on, can I make you pause? Amandla kind of gave me and Ann a shout-out because she mentioned Shine Theory that we basically invented and coined.
Jenna: Ooh.
Aminatou: She was like "Yeah, one of my friends has this thing called Shine Theory." And I was like hello, that is us! Tell your friend call us.
(37:45)
Jenna: Call us girl. Tweet us.
Aminatou: It was awesome.
Jenna: How do you say her first name? I know I'm mispronouncing it.
Aminatou: Amandla, right?
Jenna: Amandla. Amandla, yeah. That's what I thought. Cool.
Aminatou: Or you can just call her Rue from District 3. [Laughs]
Jenna: Fingers to the sky, hands up. And how about JK Rowling being like "I never said she wasn't black" when people were like . . . [Laughs]
Aminatou: Yo. So listen, how do we feel about JK Rowling? Do you feel she's just riding the wave of inclusion and diversity and not getting caught or she actually planned for all that stuff? Somebody's like "This character's trans." And she's like "Yeah, yeah, sure." Like this character is black. "Sure." I'm just like hmm, like I'm skeptical about all these things.
Jenna: We can be skeptical but we can give -- we can mark the chalk on our side about that one because that matters. Like also Dumbledore was gay before anyone . . . you know what I mean? She was dropping hints before anyone gave a shit. You know what I mean? Like I feel like . . .
Aminatou: And she claps back at so many people on Twitter.
Jenna: Yeah.
Aminatou: You know what? I will give it to her. Shout-out JK Rowling.
Jenna: You know, we'll take it. [0:39:01], everybody else, y'all can keep them. We'll take JK.
Aminatou: Oh my god.
Jenna: Because at least she's trying to help the cause. I don't know about the rest of the white people who are out here not really helping the cause. She's trying.
Aminatou: That's true. Did I tell you my only New Year's resolution is to ask people at very inappropriate times "What are you doing for Black Lives Matter?"
Jenna: Yeah. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Any time anything happens. So it's like anybody who sees JK Rowling, you should ask her that. "What are you doing for Black Lives Matter?"
Jenna: Sorry, are you ever in Café Gratitude or Buy Right and someone hands you your scoop of perfectly-salted caramel ice cream and you're like "Thank you but . . ."
Aminatou: What are you doing for Black Lives Matter? [Laughs] It's the best because so far I've done it like twice and it's like -- it's still like month one and you just see the fear just wash over people's faces. [Laughs] And I'm like this is great.
(39:55)
Jenna: Fox Searchlight was like this is what we're doing. We're going to spend 18 million dollars on this . . .
Aminatou: I know. Somebody give me an MTV show. I want this to be my like Punk'd.
Jenna: I support this. Add it to the venture. Add it to the . . .
Aminatou: Put it in the dream journal.
Jenna: Yeah.
[Music]
Aminatou: God, Jenna, are you going to send me some potions for being sick?
Jenna: Yes, although my number one potion right now though, I'd say just eat a ton of garlic and then actually one thing amazing you can do is take an onion, throw it in a pot, put some like water or veggie stock or chicken broth, whatever you have over it, just so much garlic and a bunch of honey, and just make basically like a cough syrup and eat that.
Aminatou: I love how you're acting like I'm not already doing this because of you.
Jenna: It's true. But you know it's funny because I'm on this group thread as we all are with various family members and you're like "Who are these phone numbers?" And my mom's like "That's Little Bobby." And I'm like "I don't know who that is." [Laughter] Who any of these people are. But my mom has been really sick with something similar to what you had and I had been ignoring -- I immediately muted this group chat but one of my cousins was basically prescribing to my mom, she was like "I made this homemade oregano oil. I'm going to drive it to your house. Here's what you do." And I was like oh, this runs in the family.
Aminatou: This is so real.
Jenna: So I'm not the only brewha up in the Wortham household.
Aminatou: No you're not. Can I tell you I did a drive-by of your mom's Instagram the other day because she always leaves the best comments. What's up with her big watermelons? Does she grow them?
Jenna: She has a huge garden at her house.
Aminatou: Oh, the best. So she's like Oprah is what you're saying?
Jenna: She wants to be like Oprah without even knowing she wants to be like Oprah. She does pumpkin, squash, peppers.
Aminatou: Yeah, no, her vegetable/fruit game is so tight. I was like what is going on here? Is she growing all of this stuff?
Jenna: She really is. Oh she really is.
Aminatou: Your mom's like A++ social media mom. She gets it.
Jenna: I get it from my mama. It's like that's where it came from. She was on the Internet before I was. She's the one who got me on the Internet. My mom was like "Here's your AOL email, have fun." And then I was muffling the modem as we did back in the day so you wouldn't get caught cyber-sexting at night or whatever.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
(42:10)
Jenna: But straight like here's a computer, enjoy your life. Become an entrepreneur or whatever.
Aminatou: Oh man, that's so crazy. I love that you're cyber-sexting. It's true. It's like my cybersex life was way more interesting in the dialup days than it is now. [Laughter] Also still remember the first time somebody was like "Want to cyber?" And obviously I didn't know what that was so I just said yes and then things escalated very fast. And I realized that this has been a theme in my life. I'm just like you know, just say no when you don't know what the weird Internet thing somebody says is.
Jenna: But I welcome that frankly. I don't know. I'm like so accustomed to all that now. It's like yes, throw me in your Internet K-hole. I just want to see it all. It's fine.
Aminatou: I know, but now we're like women and we're so assured. In the name . . .
Jenna: Just terrifying, oh my god.
Aminatou: Back in the day I was just a little African girl trying to navigate the world wide web. It was crazy.
Jenna: And instead she got a crash course in reality.
Aminatou: It's true. You know, honestly I realize that one of my big obsessions with catfish phenomena online is . . .
Jenna: Oh yeah.
Aminatou: Is because -- oh my god, I can't believe I'm about to go on the record -- is I once catfished someone.
Jenna: Amina, you know I'm a catfisher. Like I'm a tried and true catfisher, like this is my joy. I'm the youngest of five girls. I would upload their pictures like "Dis me."
Aminatou: [Laughs] Jenna, you're such a bad person. I think I was like 14 maybe and I legit catfished this guy who was much older. You know, but also it's like Internet men. You can't talk to somebody twice in a chat room and you're like we're dating, but whatever. That's like beside the point. So it's like I'm in this weird Internet relationship with this guy who was much older than me, doesn't live in the same city as me. Like yeah, it's like I think he lived in like Canada or something or maybe in the States. I can't remember. Hmm, I had to have been 15 at least. And then it's like I got really uncomfortable in the relationship because there was nowhere to go. Like clearly he wanted to meet and I was like you can't meet me. That's crazy. And it made sense because we . . . it was like dialup so we couldn't have video chatting or anything like that. That was so far down the line on the Internet. But this is how I broke up with him online because I was so mature and awful. I told him I was going on a kayaking trip and then I just ghosted him. [Laughs] So obviously he thought that I had died.
(44:40)
Jenna: Yeah, he probably did. He thought you got shot or something.
Aminatou: No, exactly. He thought something bad happened to me. And somehow in our correspondence like a doofus I had given him my family phone number and we lived in Nigeria at the time, right? And it's like calling people cost 20 dollars an hour, like who calls people? This fool called my house during afternoon prayer. It was so real. And my dad is like -- is on the phone and he goes "Amina, why is there a grown man on the phone for you?" [Laughs] Honest to god Jenna I had completely blocked out that memory because it's one of the things I'm most ashamed of but I obsessively watched the TV show Catfish then last year put two and two together. I was like oh, I love the show because I used to be this person.
Jenna: It tugs down at all of our heart strings because in one way or another we've all done that. Whether you've Photoshopped your OK Cupid picture or lied about your height it's like we've all kind of been there.
Aminatou: I just can't believe people are still doing it. It's like back in the day I feel like -- not to excuse our behavior -- but I just feel like you could actually be a real catfish. But now it's like these kids who spend all the time on their phones are like "I don't know, my boyfriend says he doesn't have good reception." [Laughter] Like what? "The internet at his house doesn't work so we can't video." And I'm like what are you people even talking about? But you realize it's just that instinct of people want to be loved and they want to be interesting and some people just want to be lied to.
(46:10)
Jenna: I know. Well some people just can't accept the truth and they're so . . . I feel like that show is just really about the eternal search for connection. And, you know, when people feel like they've found it they're willing to clear out all other obstacles, look over everything else to have it. And it's really easy to have that connection through just like a digital medium because you're projecting what you want onto it. I don't know, I find that show to be really kind of beautiful.
Aminatou: Jenna thank you so much for coming on Call Your Girlfriend. You made my whole week.
Jenna: Oh my god, thank you for having me.
Aminatou: Always a delight.
[Interview Ends]
Ann: All right, you can find us many places on the Internet: on our website callyourgirlfriend.com, you can download our show on the Acast app, or on iTunes where it would be awesome if you left us a review. You can also tweet at us at @callyrgf or email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. And you can even leave us a short and sweet voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. This podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.
Aminatou: Gina!
Ann: Gina.
Aminatou: [Laughs]