The Night Club - Is It a Good Idea?

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There are some people for whom this really ticks the box at this satisfies a need to be seen and to feel high status. I don't think that that's necessarily a stable attribute of that person over their life course. It might just fit the kind of banker culture that imersed in, you know, when they're thirty and working on wall street. And it feels good to be in these spases. It's really thrilling and exciting to be in them. So i elso did interviews with the people that are buying bottles, only twenty, and not a random sample,. Just to get a sense of how do people talk about and process and put into words what, you know, they...

Ashley Mears is a former fashion model turned academic sociologist, and her book Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit is one of Tyler’s favorites of the year. The book, the result of eighteen months of field research, describes how young women exchange “bodily capital” for free drinks and access to glamorous events, boosting the status of the big-spending men they accompany.

Ashley joined Tyler to discuss her book and experience as a model, including the economics of bottle service, which kinds of men seek the club experience (and which can’t get in), why Tyler is right to be suspicious of restaurants filled with beautiful women, why club music is so loud, the surprising reason party girls don’t want to be paid, what it’s like to be scouted, why fashion models don’t smile, the truths contained in Zoolander, how her own beauty and glamour have influenced her academic career, how Barbara Ehrenreich inspired her work, her unique tip for staying focused while writing, and more.

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Recorded May 8th, 2020 Other ways to connect

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