The Polyester Podcast

Last week Kylie Jenner cemented her new identity as a ‘girl's girl’ revealing the specificities of her boob job while momager Kris chimed in with details of not just one face lift, but two of them. Are the KarJenners finally letting their guard down about how they crafted themselves in line with the modern beauty standards they've helped craft, or is it all a marketing ploy to win relatability brownie points for the family?In this episode of The Polyester Podcast, hosts Ione and Gina are ripping apart the rampant normalisation of plastic surgery on social media - considering the actual statistics surrounding cosmetic procedures as well as the status of people turning their treatments into consumable content. Is self improvement culture to blame for our warped understanding of bodily autonomy? Has choice feminism poisoned all of our brains? And will our collective self esteem ever recover from the impact of influencers?Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here!A statement by journalists: We condemn Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel's atrocities against Palestinians.Have an opinion and want to be featured on an upcoming episode? We want to leave from YOU! Leave a review, send us your thoughts on this episode to ione@polyesterzine, or drop us a DM on Instagram. 

The writing has been on the wall for a while - Thin is in, pop songs are referencing eating disorders and flexing our ribcages in selfies and fashion content is back full force. In this week's episode, hosts Ione and Gina get stuck into the spectre that has been haunting social media platforms for the past six months and more - the pervasive return of pro ana content, now newly dubbed #Skinnytok.From influencers like Liv Schmidt launching secret members clubs with tips on cutting calorie counts to crunchy teens falling hook, line and sinker for Robert F. Kennedy Jr's Make America Healthy Campaign to hyper focus on their food intake, the internet is riddled in body negative language that stands to harm us all. Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here!A statement by journalists: We condemn Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel's atrocities against Palestinians.Have an opinion and want to be featured on an upcoming episode? We want to leave from YOU! Leave a review, send us your thoughts on this episode to ione@polyesterzine, or drop us a DM on Instagram. 

Currently trending on TikTok, FKA Twigs is going viral for an interview in which she asks the host and the crowd - "Where are the thinkers?"While internet users raise eyebrows at her question, one that ignores the socioeconomic conditions that affect our ability to create, this week our hosts Ione and Gina use the soundbite to discuss the wider problem at hand - when did pop culture turn into such a flopfest? We deep dive into the continuing escalation of how we consume media - from smashing that 1.5x speed button to the sheer amount of content available - and what effect it has on the creation of meaningful culture. Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here!A statement by journalists: We condemn Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel's atrocities against Palestinians.Have an opinion and want to be featured on an upcoming episode? We want to leave from YOU! Leave a review, send us your thoughts on this episode to ione@polyesterzine, or drop us a DM on Instagram. 

The girlies are going feral across the internet - one one hand, Lorde is calling ovulation the best drug she’s ever taken. On the other, TikTok’s reveal during ovulation many of us get uncontrollably horny. But is it true? Do our hormones control our libidos and cognition or do we have more free will than that? TikTok wellness huns are using pseudoscience to back up their claims, while Twitter feminists take to their feeds to fight back against the dehumanising nature of having our personalities attributed to hormone cycles.In this week's episode, hosts Ione and Gina pick apart the inherent bio-essentialism of ovulation discourse, the alt right's push for focusing on fertility and how these conversations feel like a step back for women.Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here!A statement by journalists: We condemn Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel's atrocities against Palestinians.Have an opinion and want to be featured on an upcoming episode? We want to leave from YOU! Leave a review, send us your thoughts on this episode to ione@polyesterzine, or drop us a DM on Instagram. 

Black tights under denim shorts? Recession indicator. Good outfits at the Met Gala? Recession indicator. Crying because you can't afford to pay your one in three Klarna payment for a Domino's pizza last month? Recession indicator.This week, our hosts Ione and Gina are dissecting our latest impulse to jump at the chance to label every single behaviour a recession indicator. Is it an attempt to make a meaningful connection with others about struggling under benefit cuts and Trump's tariffs? Or an irony tinged dodge at having to accept how bad things are? Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here!A statement by journalists: We condemn Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel's atrocities against Palestinians.Have an opinion and want to be featured on an upcoming episode? We want to leave from YOU! Leave a review, send us your thoughts on this episode to ione@polyesterzine, or drop us a DM on Instagram. 

Who'd have thought at the announcement of this year's Celebrity Big Brother cast that the two people being chatted about the most are Jojo Siwa and ex-Love Islander Chris Hughes. If you didn't know - the pair's intimate friendship in the house caused chaos on social media as many accused Jojo of emotionally cheating on her partner, the Neighbours actor Kath Ebbs. In this week's episode, our hosts Ione and Gina break down Jojo's complicated time in the limelight from Dance Moms to coming out to now, what queer celebrities owe to the communities they represent and why we all keep taking reality telly at face value.Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here!A statement by journalists: We condemn Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel's atrocities against Palestinians.Have an opinion and want to be featured on an upcoming episode? We want to leave from YOU! Leave a review, send us your thoughts on this episode to ione@polyesterzine, or drop us a DM on Instagram. 

It's been a helluva week for the news cycle and our social feeds - Katy Perry's been on Amazon's first, girls only, space trip (for exactly 11 minutes), Aimee Lou Wood has taken to Instagram stories to call out an off colour joke about herself on Saturday Night Live and everyone has taken to ChatGPT to generate extremely specific and fairly ugly blister packed dolls of themselves. Stuck between which to cover, we decided to dig into it all.In this week's episode, hosts Ione and Gina take apart everything wrong with the Blue Origin rocket trip that took an all female crew into space on the 14th April including the environmental impact, classism implications and faux feminism the journey's being marketed as. After the break, the pair get into the cringe inducing AI created dolls so many of our peers are posting on the Insta as well as the disheartening SNL impersonation that's caused distress for The White Lotus actress Aimee Lou Wood.Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here!A statement by journalists: We condemn Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel's atrocities against Palestinians.Have an opinion and want to be featured on an upcoming episode? We want to leave from YOU! Leave a review, send us your thoughts on this episode to ione@polyesterzine, or drop us a DM on Instagram. 

"I'm too pretty to work." "This face wasn't meant to know excel." "Looking for a man who doesn't want me to work." On the surface these adages are silly throwaways in the face of a late capitalist work culture that has made trying to make a living a literal hellscape - or are they?In this week's episode, hosts Ione and Gina take apart the trend of dreaming for a rich husband and reckon with a not too distant past where women's liberation was inherently linked with being financially independent. Is it tradwife rhetoric that's making us romanticise reliance on a spouse? Can work ever be empowering? And what do we lose from seeing beauty as a requirement for a good life?Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here!A statement by journalists: We condemn Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel's atrocities against Palestinians.Have an opinion and want to be featured on an upcoming episode? We want to leave from YOU! Leave a review, send us your thoughts on this episode to ione@polyesterzine, or drop us a DM on Instagram. 

Just like clockwork, a gritty British Netflix drama about a taboo topic is doing the rounds - last year it was Baby Reindeer and this year it's Adolescence. The Stephen Graham produced and fronted programme takes a look at how the manosphere and incel culture are corrupting a whole generation of teenage boys - but does it manage the subject well? In this week's episode, hosts Ione and Gina discuss whether or not the TV show does a good job of exploring the radicalisation of young men, whether or not it should be shown as part of the curriculum and why we shouldn't totally dismiss telly that gets people talking about underrepresented issues.Support our work and become a Polyester Podcast member <3Order Ione's book, Poor Little Sick Girls, here!Order Gina's book, Greedy Guts, here!A statement by journalists: We condemn Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel's atrocities against Palestinians.Have an opinion and want to be featured on an upcoming episode? We want to leave from YOU! Leave a review, send us your thoughts on this episode to ione@polyesterzine, or drop us a DM on Instagram.