Jack Harlow has infiltrated my algorithm

+ We’ve got to stop Met-ing like this

This week we’re giving the Met Gala a proper roasting. We will not be covering highlights because there weren’t any. Also, in the span of one week I’ve seen far too much Jack Harlow.

There is no Hulu in Europe.

I had a marvelous time. I spent an obscene amount of money and I will tell myself it’s “priceless” even though the price is every real.

My only edit is that I came home to a back log of episodes because Europe doesn’t have Hulu. Can you imagine?

I was three episodes behind on both The Kardashians and Summer House. This season of Summer House is Bravo at its best. Bravo is Bravoing! I cannot wait for the reunion because I need to know why Paige hates Lindsey!

The Kardashians is testing my patience. The lag time on this show is the same as Keeping up: long. Seeing Kim do SNL is fun and all, but knowing what we know has happened since… makes it hard to care. Like, the invention of Julia Fox has taken place since then. How am I supposed to sit through Kravis’s engagement?

Let me know if you’re watching + your thoughts @rodeobreak

Jack Harlow has infiltrated my algorithm 

Just because I know all of the words to Headlines because I rode in cars with boys between the years of 2011-2013, doesn’t mean I’m some kind of Drake truther. Just because In My Feelings was a huge part of my 2018 summer doesn’t mean the wool is over my eyes: Drake has become puffy. He’s trying to learn French from his toddler,  Rihanna will never take him back, and his last album was without hits. 

He’s in the ether but not the main character. He’s making things that aren’t as good as they used to be,  and he’s not as influential on the zeitgeist. In summation… Drake is in his DiCaprio years.  Which at their core are defined by puffiness. 

I see, rationally, that Jack Harlow is meant to fill this hole: a moody rapper who is actually a pop artist with large diamond studs.  

Jack Harlow is the guy who does the claps in that Lil Nas X song. He’s the one with the viral “we’re so close we’re like lesbians” sound on TikTok. And most importantly, Jack Harlow is the guy from this interview, which essentially made him who he is today. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: I can tell how long you’ve been on TikTok by whether or not you think Jack Harlow is attractive because you’ve either seen 200 clips from this interview, or you don't’ know who he is:

This interview did him a lot of favors! Largely because of this video, the youths now find him attractive. And he is far too aware of this. He arrived at the Met Gala wearing a (honestly fantastic) chocolate brown suit and stopped at the top of the steps to talk to Vogue correspondent, and Gen Z queen, Emma Chamberlain. 

She asks him what he’s wearing, because that’s her job, and instead of giving her any clear or normal answers, he instead does that annoying male thing where he stands over you and licks his lips. Honestly awful. She handles it well because she is a woman and this is not unique. It is the cringiest 45 seconds you’ll see all day. And to top it off, when walking away he goes “Bye, love you” which leads her to the above expression.

That’s Jack Harlow strike #1. 

Then, yesterday, I see this harrowing image:  

That is Jack Harlow (grown man) being carried by his security across the mud at the Kentucky Derby so that he doesn’t get his shoes dirty. If this isn’t the least attractive thing I have ever seen! 

Your fancy little shoes can’t do what they’re made for…. Touching the ground? 

To top it off he’s at the Derby with Drake, who thinks this series of pictures, taken by what I can only assume was a Nokia, was a “great content day.” Spoiler: it was not. 

Kanye and Julia Fox might like this, but we will not. 

I will pause on my roast of these mutual mediocres to begin my roast on the Met Gala. 

We’ve got to stop Met-ing like this 

A two-part rant 

This is my favorite Met theme ever. This is hands-down the most excited I’ve ever been for any theme. Gilded Age is fun. It’s dramatic, it’s Bridgerton, it’s that photo of Kirsten Dunst filming Marie Antoinette where she’s wearing the headphones in full costume, it’s campy Prince Charming references, it’s bustiers, and draping, and drama, it’s the fucking Princess Diaries for crying out loud. 

But every single person in the fashion industry simply said: no <3. No thanks <3. 

What’s that quote about making people care? Something about how you can’t?

If no one wants to care then I shan’t care either! If you want to wear your pepto-pink Valentino suit, your beaded blue Versace dress, your sheer black Coachella frock, and your dumb gold mermaid dress then fine. Fine! I will log off! I will not repost! 

I did not post a photo of Sydney Sweeney. That’s a fact. I couldn’t, morally, because I fear she is becoming something very, very dark. Doing brand deals with self tanner? Going to the Met with Tori Burch? It’s giving: Florida. It’s giving: “written by a man.” She wore a boring white dress and she wore it for the male gaze and the male gaze only. That hurts, okay? 

The Met is supposed to be elitist. Exclusive. Aspirational. I should be uncomfortable watching! I should be throwing my carrot sticks at my laptop out of rage that the 1% gets to parade around in costumes! Instead, I am insulted. I break into a cold sweet. I am overwhelmed by disappointment. 

Corsets are in right now. If I go out for a drink in the West Village every 20 year old girl whose daddy is paying her rent is wearing a corset. Sometimes it’s over a crisp white tee, sometimes it’s a bodysuit, and sometimes it’s just a corset with her high waisted Princess Polly jeans. The fact that this Met Gala directly connects with a current micro trend was too easy. 

Kim should have worn some kind of dramatic play on a corset. It’s the original shapewear for crying out loud. Like, the answer is right in front of you.  

There should have been deconstructed bustle skirts. There should have been coats with tails. There should have been more draping. More white. More literally anything. 

This theme was encouraging dress up, play, fantasy. I thought this was Anna’s way of throwing everyone a bone after last year's flop-theme of  “America”. I thought this was a strategic move to get people back on track; a soft-ball to remind guests ‘it’s not that hard’. And they still didn’t even give it a quick Google. 

When walking the carpet for her first Met, climbing the sacred steps where Blair and Serena once shared Greek yogurt, Kourtney Kardashian was asked about her look’s inspiration. “So Kourtney, when you heard that the theme was 'gilded glamour,' what did that mean to you?” Lala Anthony asks. Kourtney, without taking a single moment to consider literally anything, says, “I honestly didn’t really think about it.” She laughs and turns to Travis who looks like his soul just left his body. The disrespect! 

And with that, I simply must pass the baton. Picking up the rant from here is visual artist, professional anarchist, and authority to all things, Kelsa Kuchera. Kelsa shares with me in a feeling of deep hurt from the crimes against dressing that took place on those once-sacred Met steps. 

Heavenly Shoddy: A Brief History of the Met “Gala”

The Met Gala, arguably the most well-known night in fashion to everyone outside the fashion world, once stood for luxury. Excess. Exaggeration. Opulence in the face of a declining world economic and social order. A night of rah boom bah! Or so it did…

Recently, it appears the Met Gala is more of a Youtube meet-and-greet where working-class people can spend their hard-earned money so their children can take pictures with their favorite influencers. There is no adherence to theme, not even an attempt. Sebastian Stan in Barbie Pink, Camila Cabello in a bad Free People rip-off, the list goes on. In fact, Kylie Jenner defended her ramp-tramp, hype-beast, waiting-around-the-block-for-Supreme-Wifey look worn at this year’s “Gala” by saying that it was an “homage to [recently deceased] Virgil Abloh.” Maybe a better homage would have been to wear something more on theme? Or at the very least something less atrocious? But I digress.

…For what it’s worth, the theme was “Gilded Glamour.” The Gilded Age was the era of US history nestled between the end of the Civil War and the start of WWI, ranging from around the 1870s to the early 1900s. It was known as a time of great economic growth and prosperity in the United States (which is a fascinating theme because our current period of US history will, well, not be known as that). It felt like few attendees googled the Gilded Age, and fewer still executed their google searches adequately, with most on-theme “people” in attendance looking like vampire pirates or something of the like. 

I’d like to say that this year was a fluke. A flop. That the Met Gala can pick up and carry-on next year. But I fear the last few Met Galas have indicated we’ve entered a new age: The Un-Gilded Age. Last year’s theme, Met Gala 2021, was “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.” No one likes a party with too broad a theme. There’s nothing to go on, nothing to adhere to. And it showed. Kim Kardashian in a Sexy Dementor Halloween costume clearly ordered with expedited shipping from Legs Avenue. AOC in her “Tax the Rich” dress which needs not be described nor discussed further than that. 

The only thing unwaveringly American about last year’s event was that it was a complete and total clusterfuck. Should we delve back further than that? Who can even remember that long ago anymore? 2020 saw no Met Gala so you expect me to recall 2019??? Back when I was 16 years old driving my Dad’s BMW around the swamp in south Florida. Him calling my SONY cell phone. Me telling him I had no service. 2019 was a good year. Not great, but good. The theme was “Camp.” What the Met Gala was all about. Let sleeping dogs lie, I say! Let the Gala be what it is: a brief moment of pure insanity in our ever-devolving physical and spiritual world. Let freedom ring! Camp, pure and true. 

And that brings us to 2018. “Heavenly Bodies.” The last time in our nation’s history where all people rich and even more rich, came to the Met Gala as a unified front. They came correct. They came to kill. Perhaps it was divine intervention. Perhaps it was before the Kardashians sold all our souls in order to turn the public eye into the Eye of Sauron. A simpler time before covid made TikTok the ultimate celebrity decider. 

My sister went to the Met Gala several years in a row but the one I remember best was 2013. The theme was “Punk: Chaos to Couture.” She wore a dress from the Vogue closet, black lipstick, a black

manicure, and a HUGE gold YSL ring on her middle finger. She posted a picture of her flipping off the camera when Instagramers still used hashtags. Immediately after, she posted a picture of her under a 20-foot high chandelier. It was made of razorblades. 

To me, those are the moments that will always embody the Met Gala. Not Off-White baseball cap bridal veils; but razorblade chandeliers and Jesus Christ.

-Kelsa Kuchera 

With that,

I’m sorry for being so late with this issue, I was busy crying and giving all my dollars to this organization in Virginia, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Thanks for coming to the rodeo XOXO