Love Bites: The Girly-Pops’ Discourse

If you’ve managed to escape the scourge of being Terminally Online, you’re about to wonder what the hell I’m talking about. Skip this month's column: you don’t need to know and you’ll be happier for it. For the comrades – read on.

I love The Discourse. Particularly, niche celebrity gossip mined to an unrecognisable husk, a cud of cultural grass masticated and shit back out 10,000 times. Yes, I do want to hear Club Chalamet’s take on Balletgate! Tell me more about Gigi Hadid’s reaction to Zayn Malik saying he’s never been in love! And I’m here to argue that an investment in this girly-pops’ Discourse does a radical political feminist make. 

The likes of Tefi Talks, Ziwe and Polyester Zine are fundamental listening. Consuming podcasts and YouTube videos is a revolutionary routine I’ve recently implemented. Participating in active listening, via trusted sources aligned with my political propensities, helps me avoid the dangerous ennui of doomscrolling and toxic comment sections.

Let’s, for a moment, give The Discourse its scientific name – gossip. A quick google will show you a swathe of articles, backed up with peer-reviewed journals, arguing that gossip is good. It’s a tool used to keep other women safe, sharing stories about dangerous men or workplace inequalities. Can the male, pale and stale possibly recognise the danger of a healthy communication network amongst marginalised genders?

Through this rigorous training regime as a Discourse Legal Observer, I’ve honed my own skillset in analysis and debate. I am now armed with a cache of radical munitions, prepared for any in-person argument. Smile more? Please. I can hear my online sisters in arms rally behind me, as I rule that asking women to smile is a crime punishable by death by boredom, whilst I woman-splain to you the repercussions of the Aimee-Lou Wood teeth sketch on SNL. Or best of all, I can ignore, safe in the knowledge that I am a member of an elite team of warriors, refocusing my energy on DMing Gigi to tell her she didn’t deserve that.