Between Two Salads

Just a little convo between Marie and mj about yesterday's episode!  We pretty much cover the gamut, from Kim's soft-drop of the Pete Davidson relationship to Kris and Khloe's Grey Gardens life.   Follow us: @kardashian_kolloquium @superlestela

Disclaimer: The Audio is not ideal in this interview! This is a self-funded, two-person project and unfortunately, we were not aware of the tech errors until post-production. Over the course of the past decade, social media has had an increasingly complicated influence on IRL interactions. For example: nightlife seems to be afflicted with a "trees falls in the forest" kind of dilemma. If you went to a party but did not post about it, did you really party? Then, when the 2020 pandemic lockdown happened, we all shifted solely onto the digital realm in order to socialize with one another. How might this collective experience impact nightlife culture long-term? We asked @KITTENS , a prolific LA-based DJ and producer known also for her love of cats, her Persian pride, and her LGBTQ advocacy. We also discussed social awkwardness, The Kardashians' Middle Eastern identities, and Kittens' podcast, She/Her/They. The Highlights: 2:25 Being an LA lesbian Instagram icon 3:13 Meeting Sarah Shahi 5:30 The space between who you “really” are and how you present yourself online 8:55 Cancel culture in the queer community 12:05 DJing as “real-life” Instagram 13:50 Energy exchange at parties vs. “likes” online 14:41 Mental health on TikTok specifically 15:30 Doing social media for fun vs. for the dopamine 16:00 SPECIAL SEGMENT! Talking to Angelenos about partying and the pandemic 23:25 The whitewashing of the Kardashians 29:10 Racism in the queer community 30:00 Lightning Round!!! Thank you Awe Inspired for the studio space! aweinspired.com, @aweinspired_ Follow us: @kardashian_kolloquium @superlestela @iamkittens

If you've spent much time on the pop culture side of TikTok, then you've seen Tefi (and probably enjoyed her pink-haired big sister energy). Much discourse exists about the contemporary social regard of celebrities as gods, and if there's any truth to that theory, then Tefi is a modern scribe, deciding which media stories to mythologize and pass on to newer generations. What I mean is: Tefi's TikTok follows an age-old tradition: oral storytelling. We explore what this means and more with one of social media's most charismatic (and curatorial) creators. Follow Us:   Follow: @hellotefi (TikTok, IG) Marie, @superlestela (IG) MJ, @Kardashian_Kolloquium, (TikTok, IG, YouTube) @soulfulthreads_ (IG) @soulfulthreads (depop) soulfulthreads.com

Welcome to another episode of Between Two Salads! You've seen Betches before. It's one of those mega-meme accounts that both amass and creates content you'll inevitably see in your DMs from a friend or on someone's story. If Marie and I have learned anything from doing Between Two Salads, it's that memes are their own economy, even if it still feels too early to figure out exactly how. If I've learned anything from running Kardashian Kolloquium, it's that growing a social presence is a long and very hard game. Yet Betches has somehow mastered the business of social media. What algorithmic code have they cracked in order to reach audiences so well? We sat down with Betches co-founder Samantha Sage to find out how she and her collaborators scaled Betches from online content into a full-blown, female-forward media company. Follow Us on IG: Betches Media: @betches Sami Sage: @sami MJ: @kardashian_kolloquium Marie: @superlestela

What you're about to witness is a group of people traveling through the online to IRL pipeline. It all began with a finsta. The same Atlanta-based friend who fatefully introduced me to Keeping Up with the Kardashians in 2018 had friends in common with local artist @Nimay Ndolo ; that old friend urged me to follow Nimay's finsta. "I know your sense of humor," my friend said, "and you'll find her hilarious and brilliant." This old friend was right. Nimay's digital space was a vibrant open diary. She wrote about her dating adventures and misadventures, her dreams of becoming a filmmaker, her beloved circle of eclectic and creative friends. Her life seemed filled with art and fun, and right away she felt like a new friend in my own life...even though I was really just reading her finsta and leaving comments on the posts. But comments turned to comment replies, which turned into DMs, and somehow, "gradually but suddenly," as some might say, Nimay and I were Internet friends. Years passed; through a screen, I watched Nimay fall in love, learn how to code, and establish her career in tech. She cheered me on as I fell in and out of love, made my own career milestones, and, finally, developed Between Two Salads with my sister, Marie. Finally, we're all meeting IRL. Were these first-date jitters? It was one thing to turn a parasocial relationship into a mutual one - online. It's another thing to try to transcend the safety afforded by screens and meet in "real life." Especially when the expressed goal is to get fucked up and talk about The Simulation. Keep watching to find out what happens:  Follow Nimay's TikTok: @nimay.ndolo and Instagram: @nimayndoleaux Keep up with Between Two Salads: @kardashian_kolloquium @superlestela

Welcome to another episode of Between Two Salads! Gabi Abrao, also known online as Sigh Swoon, is an LA-based spiritual theorist, poet, and content creator. I first found her through her How to Heal from a Breakup post and I was struck by how poetic and psychologically oriented her writing style was. This was clearly someone who had figured out how to use Instagram as a vehicle for already-developed personal sensibilities. Instead of fitting herself into the form, she made the form fit for her. I fell more in love with Gabi's work upon discovering her Digital Resting Place series. She'd created a virtual oasis amid the chaos of the feed. Gabi has a unique ability to pinpoint the struggles of life online and make artistic meaning of them. Imagine my delight when I realized we even had similar interests in The Kardashians, the simulation, and the algorithm of life itself. Gabi is a creator in the most dynamic sense of the word. She's currently co-hosting a podcast called Illusion Pod and is working on a book called Notes on Shapeshifting, which will be out in September from Not a Cult Media. To keep up with Between Two Salads, follow @kardashian_kolloquium on Instagram and TikTok and @superlestella on Instagram. 

Welcome to another episode of Between Two Salads! The 2020 pandemic lockdown seemed to intensify what was already a growing trend across the social media landscape: nostalgia for early-aughts pop culture and media. @Holly Madison is an icon of a golden era of reality TV due to her starring role on the E! reality series, Girls Next Door (which famously followed the goings-ons of The Playboy Mansion). Girls Next Door was a notable precursor to Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which is why it's no surprise that the Kardashian_kolloquium community has shown a special interest in Holly's influence on pop culture. From the start, Holly has been a self-styled starlet, and she isn't just a figure of some fabled past. She established a presence across multiple mediums over the course of her creative, enduring career - from stage, to books, to the creation of a beloved space on TikTok. We were so excited to sit down with a true self-made woman, whose firsthand experiences in the ever-evolving new media landscape has resulted in nothing less than true expertise. Filmed at: Awe Inspired Studios, Culver City, CA. Check out Awe Inspired Jewelry: https://aweinspired.com/ and IG: @aweinspired_ To keep up with Between Two Salads, follow @kardashian_kolloquium on ig and tiktok and @superlestela on ig

Welcome to another episode of Between Two Salads! Natalie Franklin is a California-based writer; specifically, she authors Nori's Black Book, which has been operating on Instagram since 2013 and may actually be one of the most iconic fan accounts ever made. The account's appeal is its voice-driven - sometimes speculative, sometimes satirical- rendering of the Kardashian world, as seen through the eyes of Kim and Kanye's firstborn, North West. Nori's Black Book was also famously anonymous through most of the years of its production, contributing an air of mystery to the content: WHO is behind this bold and hilarious account? The ‘KUWTK' Reveal of the Woman Behind the Words, aired on May 13, 2021, thrilling KUWTK fans and NBB fans alike, and collapsing countless paradigms that had once existed between The Television Show and Its Audience. In keeping with the plain-as-day postmodernity of Natalie's relationship with The Kardashians, Marie and I sought to play with perspective for this episode of Between Two Salads, too. For some of the episode, you'll see me and Natalie discussing all of the aforementioned themes, live, as the final speakers of Dr. Meredith Jones' Kimposium event (September 16, 2021). Then we continue the conversation, covering topics like cancel culture, philosophies of comedy, and Natalie's vast expertise of all things reality TV. Makeup: Jane de Vera Art: Pia Marchetti Filmed at: Awe Inspired Studios, Culver City, CA. Check out Awe Inspired Jewelry: https://aweinspired.com/ and IG: @aweinspired_ To keep up with Between Two Salads, follow @kardashian_kolloquium on ig and tiktok and @superlestela on ig

Welcome to Between Two Salads, a talk show about intellectualizing the Kardashians one episode at a time. Join MJ and Marie as they dive into conversation and deconstruct Khloe Kardashian's cosmetic reconstructions in the first episode of Between Two Salads! Watch this episode on YouTube  Follow Us on Instagram: Marie, @superlestela Kardashian Kolloquium, @kardashian_kolloquium

Welcome to another podcast episode of Between Two Salads!   It's hard to define what a meme even is. Quinta Brunson, icon of a Buzzfeed golden era of the early 2010s, has a theory. And Art Historian Ara Merjian has compared memes to "aesthetic - or anti-aesthetic strategies" of the German anti-fascist art movement. As Merjian says: "An aspect of the meme that is celebrated in progressive circles is its collective, almost authorless shareability. In that regard it's related to the utopian thinking of some members of the early twentieth- century avant-garde—that there would be a progressive death of the author, as the artist's hand and individual voice became less important... individual voices and different political subcultures can be subsumed into a kind of hegemonic culture.... Dislodgement and displacement are the very engines of meme-making. The form remains the same, while its framing is changed. That operation creates irony. That's how memes work. They're defined not just by their iterability, but also by irony. And that relates to what we could call an avant-garde genealogy of collage and the readymade, of objects and images that are dislodged from their original context and thereby ironized." The idea is that the way memes are made and then shared can be viewed as inherently creative and even radical. But the fact is, memes are among the top driving forces of communication and culture today, and we're all still kind of trying to understand the phenomenon. I don't think we'll entirely understand them until an unknown time in the future, when we're able to view them retroactively. Fortunately, until that day comes, I was able to speak with Bianca Perez, also known on Instagram as Yung Nihilist (@yung_nihilist). We talk "edgelords," Kanye West, and birth order. We also play the "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" video game. In addition to making memes, Perez is also a collector of online oddities and absurdities. We talk about her accumulated experiences and observations while creating one of the most unique spaces on social media. Watch this episode on YouTube Follow us on Instagram:  Yung_Nihilist Instagram  Marie Koury Instagram  Kardashian Kolloquium Instagram

Welcome to another podcast episode of Between Two Salads! Sex and the City was an earth-shaking show at the time of its debut in 1998. It celebrated New York City as a character, told women's stories in assertive ways, and put HBO the network on the map. We all know this now, because the series proved to be historic: Sex and the City was fun, feminist, and flawed.  And now, as we anticipate the arrival of its reboot, "And Just Like That," we might be curious to consider: how did Sex and the City set the cultural stage for The Kardashians?  Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, author of Sex and the City and Us, is a historian and writer for the "pop culture literate." A former reporter for Entertainment Weekly, she's authored several big-hit books about television. In Sex and the City and US, Armstrong's deep dive into the history of the show, her many interviews with its creators and stars, and her expert analysis of the show's impact all roll into an incredibly informative and incisive read. As it turns out, Kim K can be connected to the iconic Carrie character in more ways than you might even expect.  We also learn about the impact of changing technologies on diversity in TV,  the way that Sex and the City and The Sopranos were leveraged in comparison to one another, and the economy of fandom. We ALSO take the iconic Sex and the City tour in NYC. Watch this episode on YouTube Follow us on Instagram:  Jennifer Keishin Armstrong Instagram  Marie Koury Instagram  Kardashian Kolloquium Instagram