Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Barbie Dream Fyre Fest, Kris Jenner pfp mania + creator apology for misogynistic "progressive" take

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MINI SCROLL: Barbie Dream Fyre Fest, Kris Jenner pfp mania + creator apology for misogynistic "progressive" take · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
• 0:04
  culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
• 0:07
  media, the creator economy and the digital space.
• 0:10
  Every Monday through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
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  I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, the founder of the Australian
• 0:17
  youth digital media brand Centennial World.
• 0:20
  Welcome back to Mini Scroll, everyone.
• 0:22
  Happy Monday. OK, I know I have covered Chapel
• 0:26
  Rhone like 10 times in the past seven days and we also used her
• 0:31
  as an example in our deep dive yesterday that went live.
• 0:34
  So I'm not going to talk about the latest development in the
• 0:37
  Chapel security guard situation, which is that, you know, there
• 0:41
  was possibly a bot campaign that led to a lot of the coverage
• 0:45
  that was happening around this whole situation.
• 0:47
  Annabelle is going to cover that on Wednesday for mini tech and
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  she's going to look at it from a different perspective.
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  Then I would look at it here so that where you guys will get
• 0:54
  that story. I needed to give both myself and
• 0:57
  you guys a small break from it. All right, before I get into it,
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  Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
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  Please Spotify star rate US. Please sign up to our newsletter
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  and also our Patreon. If you want some more behind the
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  We do all of that on Patreon. OK, the first story that I have
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  for you guys today is, of course, I need to break down the
• 1:20
  Barbie Dreamfest that is going so viral.
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  So there is a new viral event that's taking over social media.
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  It's called Barbie Dreamfest, and it's being described as the
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  latest fire festival or at least another iteration of Willie's
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  chocolate experience in Glasgow. And I know we have these
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  stories, like, I swear there's like one once a year.
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  I swear there's like once a year, one of these like,
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  shitstorm events now. And I'm starting to wonder,
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  like, are they OK? Actually, let me just like, tell
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  you what happened and then I'll give you guys my conspiracy
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  theory. So Barbie Dreamfest was
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  described as a quote brand new new 3 day experience for Barbie
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  fans of all ages. According to the archived
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  version of the event's website from July 2025, the event was
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  organized by Mischief Management, a company that has
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  produced fandom, conventions and media events for years.
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  On the company's Instagram page, they link out to other
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  conventions like Broadway Con and Enchanticon.
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  So this event was set to be held between March 27th and March
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  29th in Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA.
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  The tickets ranged in price. So for a single day pass, it
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  cost cost $33 for a child and $72 for an adult.
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  A three day pass cost $78 for a child and 100 and 5250 for an
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  adult. And then there were also two
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  categories of premium passes which cost $252 and $452.50
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  each. I think even the single day pass
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  being $72 for an adult, like that's still not super cheap.
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  OK. So keep that in mind when we go
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  through this. From later versions of the
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  archived website Barbie Dreamfest promised a quote.
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  Extraordinary group of real life role models spanning sports,
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  science, activism, fashion and storytelling would be in
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  attendance. WNBA star Angel Reese was just
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  one example of someone who is set to appear on the mainstage.
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  Serena Williams was also set to be the keynote speaker.
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  And according to the schedule, there were also set to be
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  various film screenings, scheduled panels, meetups and
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  activations including a life-size Barbie Dream House set
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  up and an 80s disco roller rink. So this event sounds amazing,
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  like I absolutely want to go to that event, but it seems like
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  the convention over promised and under delivered, which is why
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  this is going so viral. Attendees took to social media
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  to quote UN quote complain about the event and it quickly went
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  viral. So for instance, one Reddit user
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  took to the platform describing the convention has Barbie
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  Nightmare Fest. They said they were disappointed
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  by the disorganization, the lack of signage and the limited
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  vendors. They seem to be a universal
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  experience. 1 user on X Rd. OK so the Barbie Dreamfest was
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  an actual chop. The best part of the event was
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  obviously the fans and designers.
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  At one point I was comforting mothers who bought 3 day passes
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  and flew from different states, booked hotels and rental cars.
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  This was nothing like in the advertisements. 1 attendee told
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  BuzzFeed that the swag bag included a single Barbie themed
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  hand sanitizer, which is currently available at the local
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  Dollar Tree. Many attendees seem to also be
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  especially disappointed by the marketplace.
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  So pictures have started floating around on social media
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  where it looks very empty. And interestingly, when I was
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  first looking into this, I thought, Oh my God, I cannot
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  believe that they said that all these celebrities were possibly
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  going to be speaking and stuff. But apparently they were there,
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  like Serena Williams appeared to be there, Angel Reese appeared
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  to be there. So as far as the response from
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  Mischief Management, there seems to be partial refunds for three
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  day pass holders coming. One Ready user post an alleged
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  e-mail which promised an automatic refund, though it
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  would only be 2/3 of the ticket cost.
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  Many ready users responded to the post saying that all
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  attendees should be refunded. Harvey Dreamfest.
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  More like a Barbie nightmare fast.
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  What is this? As your local Tumblr historian,
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  I fear I need to break this story to you that has been
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  blowing up on Twitter and Reddit this morning because as Reddit
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  user Hell Hotel Show has mentioned, they totally got
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  Dashcon. Barbie Dreamfest was advertised
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  as a first of its kind Barbie fan convention that was supposed
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  to feature celebrity guests, interactive exhibits and photo
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  OPS. And honestly, their website
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  looked very legit, and the celebrity guest lineup looked
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  promising, inspiring guests to talk to fans of Barbie.
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  That makes sense. Yeah.
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  Barbie Dream House photo OPS sounds fun.
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  Explore a larger than life version of Barbie's front yard.
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  I have not seen literally anybody post in front of
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  Barbie's dream house. Yeah, I just keep seeing what
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  looks like Barbie's picnic patch.
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  Maybe. Where's the dream house?
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  That's OK. Maybe they can have fun at the
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  80s disco roller rink. That's oh.
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  OK, OK, so why does this keep happening?
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  Like this was a flop it seems. However, it was nothing like the
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  Willy Wonka experience. And there was another one that I
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  recently covered. I don't know.
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  There was also a book one that I covered at one point.
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  I don't know how this keeps happening.
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  But anyways, there's been a few, right?
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  And that is partly why this has gone so viral.
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  Like obviously this was kind of a flop, but Oh no, what was it?
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  Oh my God. Oh, it was the K pop, the K pop
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  one where parents were like, this is not K pop demon hunters.
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  And they were like, that actually was on the parents.
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  OK, actually, never mind. I forgot that that that one was
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  not on the organizers. Part of me wonders if because
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  these events go so viral, people think it's so funny when this
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  footage goes viral. It's not that I think the event
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  planners are like trying to make their event go viral in a
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  negative way. I'm just wondering if like
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  attendees know that they'll get a lot of attention if they film
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  something like this and complain about it, whether they had like
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  an OK time or not. Even tumblers official X account
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  joined in on this. They quote tweeted a tweet about
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  this. They wrote Dash con doesn't die,
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  it just reinvents itself. So if you guys don't know Dash
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  con was Tumblr's disaster of a fan event that took place in
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  2014 and it became infamous for its poor organization, celebrity
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  guest dropouts and it's ball pit which became a symbol of how the
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  event flopped. I've also seen speculation that
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  part of the reason why this keeps happening is because now
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  with the rise of AIA, lot of these conventions use AI to
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  promote it right. So they use AI to create the
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  promotional materials and the drawings and things like that to
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  show what the event will look like.
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  And then of course, like it's so unrealistic.
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  It looks so larger than life and so amazing.
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  And there's no way to live up to that.
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  OK, the next story that I have for you guys today, this is
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  close to my heart. Everyone on TikTok is changing
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  their profile picture to Kris Jenner.
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  So I'm sure you guys have seen on TikTok so many people have
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  Kris Jenner as their icon, as their avatar.
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  And some of them are just like regular pictures of Kris Jenner.
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  And some of them, they're all the same picture.
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  And I'll get that, but either it's like the original photo of
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  Kris or they've like decked it out.
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  So for example, on my spam account, I have my picture as
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  Kris Jenner and she has money all around her, like the money
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  emoji all around her, 'cause I'm trying to manifest money.
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  But some other people have her dressed up as like, whatever
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  their job is or whatever they're like trying to manifest.
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  So this trend of changing your profile picture to Kris Jenner
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  originated in China. And it was a TikTok creator,
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  Marcella Wang, who explained it to the masses.
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  Four days ago, he posted a TikTok saying that many Gen.
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  Z users on Red Note are changing their profile picture to Kris
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  Jenner to manifest good luck, wealth and confidence.
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  There's this super random trend blowing up in China right now.
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  Everyone is using Kris Jenner as their profile picture.
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  Many Chinese Gen. Z on Red Note believe that using
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  Kris Jenner as their profile picture can bring good luck,
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  career success, wealth, and confidence all coming your way.
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  Because Kris Jenner is one of the hardest working
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  businesswoman in the US and Chinese people really respect
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  hard work. So cosplaying Chris Jenner is
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  like a Gen. Z funny way to manifest success.
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  People also customize their own Chris Jenner based on their
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  jobs. So we have lawyer Chris,
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  engineer Chris, doctor Chris, like teacher Chris, we have
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  everyone right here. Someone posted this.
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  I was literally about to have a mental breakdown last night.
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  Then I switched my profile picture to Chris Jenner and
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  suddenly I feel like I'm slaying.
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  My confidence is through the roof.
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  I feel like I can judge everyone right now.
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  Someone also said that you received two job offers after
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  using Chris Jenner as their profile picture.
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  Like I said, there's one photo that everyone's using.
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  It's Chris like slang really hard with a full beat glam in
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  like a robe, like a white robe. You guys would know the picture.
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  It's a very famous picture of Chris.
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  But for some reason when I was Googling it like I was trying to
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  find the original photo and I like could not find it for the
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  life of me. I don't know why.
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  Anyways, it's a very famous photo of her.
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  But yes, like I said, some people are using just that.
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  Some people are putting like their own emojis on it or
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  stylizing it, if you will, based on like what they want.
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  So Marcellus video quickly went viral.
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  At the time of recording, it's sitting at 1.8 million views
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  with almost 300,000 likes. And now social media users
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  outside of China, of course, have started jumping on this
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  trend. Oh, yeah.
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  Also, I did change Centennial's profile picture to that.
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  And I was a little bit scared because I'm like, we are
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  verified on TikTok. I really hope that this doesn't
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  like affect our verification or our account status.
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  But I have seen other verified accounts do it.
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  So I don't know. I think we're all in this
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  together right now. So obviously this is a very fun
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  trend, but it's also another example of the internet's
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  current obsession with China and Chinese habits.
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  And more broadly, this obsession, I suppose, has become
• 10:41
  known as quote UN quote, China maxing.
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  So we have seen creators and social media users lately lean
• 10:47
  into this to some degree by positioning China as
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  aspirational and also being Chinese as aspirational.
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  Often it feels more like frustration with the US with
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  China functioning as the quote UN quote opposite.
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  Within the discourse around China maxing, there does seem to
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  be various Chinese cultural and health slash Wellness practices
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  at play, not just like politics and ideology.
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  This really took off, as we know, at the end of 2025 when a
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  meme started circulating with the phrase you met me at a very
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  Chinese time in my life. But it later spread to TikTok,
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  where users captioned videos of themselves doing stereotypical
• 11:21
  quote UN quote Chinese things. From there, a number of offshoot
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  trends emerged. 1 popular TikTok trend showed users quote UN
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  quote counting how many days they had been Chinese after
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  following advice from a Chinese creator.
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  I also covered that on many and I think it's important to note
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  that these trends have understandably prompted push
• 11:40
  back from Chinese creators. Many have criticized this type
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  of content as fetishizing or undermining their culture.
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  OK. And the last way that I have for
• 11:49
  you guys today is a TikTok creator is going viral for some
• 11:53
  misogynistic commentary and it has prompted some interesting
• 11:57
  discourse. So Luke Bellenhausen, who is a
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  20 year old self-proclaimed leftist content creator, posted
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  a video earlier this month talking about how quote straight
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  women are underhated. He went on to talk about how
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  straight women who embrace heteronormative and patriarchal
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  expectations of manhood slash masculinity end up uplifting
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  their oppressor. This video did not go down well.
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  I think most people understood what he was attempting to say,
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  but of course, a lot of his perspective was rooted in
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  misogyny. And it also completely ignored
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  the fact that, you know, saying that straight women need to be
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  hated more. That's an incredibly harmful
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  statement to make. When men are killing their
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  partners, they're straight female partners all the time
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  around the world. So he has deleted this original
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  video. You can find clips of the
• 12:47
  original in stitches and things like that, but it's no longer
• 12:50
  available to watch in full. But I wanted to discuss the
• 12:53
  response and some of the commentary that has emerged from
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  this video because of the broader online context that
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  we're living in, and especially it's relevant now given the
• 13:02
  Manosphere documentary that just came out and how we're kind of
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  all talking about this niche. So part of the reason why Luke
• 13:08
  deleted this video, he said, is because of a video that Mayor
• 13:12
  Haley made. So she made a response stitching
• 13:15
  his original video. She spoke about how women are
• 13:17
  often sidelined in various political movements, even in
• 13:21
  movements where they are meant to be equal to men.
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  She says This is why intersectionality is so
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  important to consider. Straight women are.
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  Underhated. I think we can all be done
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  listening to left wing men who think that they can woke if I
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  their misogyny by saying straight or white before they
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  say something disgusting about women.
• 13:36
  Left wing men have the same capacity for misogyny that right
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  wing men do. It's a tough pill to swallow for
• 13:41
  women on the left like myself, but it's the truth.
• 13:43
  There's less of a concerted political effort to strip women
• 13:46
  of their rights on the left, but women have been historically
• 13:48
  treated like shit in leftist movements.
• 13:50
  Look no further than the Cesar Chavez story from last week.
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  A civil rights icon who was abusing and grooming and raping
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  girls and women for decades. And all of these victims, even
• 13:59
  as adults, felt like they needed to stay silent about what they
• 14:02
  went through for the sake of the movement.
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  And that is because women are not prioritized or protected in
• 14:07
  any political movement. There are calls on the right to
• 14:09
  repeal the 19th amendment to take away women's right to vote.
• 14:12
  There are women in red states who are being arrested for
• 14:14
  having miscarriages. There's a woman right now being
• 14:17
  charged with murder because she took an abortion pill.
• 14:19
  We just watched the manosphere documentary.
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  But your leftist take is that women should be hated more.
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  Being anti capitalist does not excuse you from your sexism.
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  And there is no way to hate women.
• 14:29
  Wokely Feminism needs to make a comeback as a strong political
• 14:32
  force because women deserve advocacy that doesn't come from
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  groups led by men who hate us. So he did make an initial
• 14:38
  response and then he deleted it and now he's uploaded another
• 14:42
  response. It's a 7 minute long video where
• 14:44
  he explained that he padded his quote UN quote apology and kind
• 14:48
  of tried to explain his intentions with the post but
• 14:52
  that wasn't appropriate. In his new video, he
• 14:54
  acknowledges that his original video was dangerous,
• 14:57
  inflammatory, and misogynistic. He references Haley's content in
• 15:01
  his apology and thanks her for making the video.
• 15:03
  I made a misogynistic and harmful video the other day that
• 15:06
  you may have seen. I want to fully address this.
• 15:08
  For starters, I wanted to mention quickly a lot of people
• 15:11
  have noticed that I've been like silent about this.
• 15:13
  It's been a couple days now. People are wondering like if I'm
• 15:16
  trying to ignore this, pretend it didn't happen.
• 15:18
  In all honesty, what this is is I've realized something in my
• 15:21
  personal life is that I am really bad at apologizing.
• 15:25
  I tend to when I believe that my intentions were good or
• 15:28
  altruistic, I tend to pad my apologies with a whole bunch of
• 15:32
  explanation. This is wrong.
• 15:34
  This is something I need to work on.
• 15:35
  That'll take time, but I wanted to take time to ensure that I
• 15:38
  don't do this at all in this video because my intention did
• 15:41
  not matter. It does not change anything.
• 15:43
  I was hateful, I was harmful, and I set a precedent that I
• 15:46
  don't want to ever set for myself or anybody.
• 15:49
  I am so, so sorry. I mean, I said straight women
• 15:52
  are underhated. This is misogynistic.
• 15:53
  This is a call for some kind of hatred or violence towards
• 15:57
  women. This is a terrible thing to say.
• 15:59
  I'm so sorry that I used my platform to say something so
• 16:02
  inflammatory and hurtful and dangerous, especially a platform
• 16:05
  that has 50% been given to me by women.
• 16:08
  People, I would say, have largely been accepting of his
• 16:11
  apology, saying that he comes across quite genuine.
• 16:13
  He obviously listened to a lot of the feedback.
• 16:16
  He took it on board and it's a good example of how if you are
• 16:19
  initially defensive and trying to over explain yourself, you
• 16:23
  know that doesn't need to be your entire response.
• 16:26
  You can always change your mind with more reflection, with more
• 16:29
  distance, more time. And that's basically what he
• 16:32
  did. So I thought that this was very
• 16:33
  good and very mature for someone who's 20 because I think that's
• 16:37
  a part of it too, right? Is I know, I feel like I'm kind
• 16:40
  of like an age apologist when it comes to when young people mess
• 16:44
  up on the Internet. 20 is really young.
• 16:46
  You're still learning, you're practicing like your opinions
• 16:49
  and your politics and you're still forming all of that and
• 16:51
  like who you are and what you believe in and having to share
• 16:54
  so much of that online, like so many young people going online
• 16:57
  now and sharing all of that. Like they're bound to make
• 16:59
  mistakes. We're we make mistakes like full
• 17:01
  blown adults with full blown, you know, frontal lobes that are
• 17:05
  developed. Like we're constantly making
• 17:06
  mistakes online. I think one of the main
• 17:08
  takeaways for me and that I think is important for me to
• 17:10
  share here, aside from obviously being very harmful, it shows us
• 17:13
  how misogyny online does not just exist in these extremist
• 17:17
  corners on the Internet. Sometimes when we think of the
• 17:20
  manosphere and misogynistic content and we think of, you
• 17:22
  know, like Andrew Tate, we think of the manosphere documentary,
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  we think of adolescents. Like there's all these kind of
• 17:28
  like extremist media personalities and pieces of
• 17:31
  content that we think about. And this is a really good
• 17:33
  example of how this mindset, this messaging can be reinforced
• 17:38
  in everyday interactions and commentary, even from people who
• 17:41
  are progressive and progressive communities who think they may
• 17:44
  be uplifting women. And this kind of internalized
• 17:47
  misogyny is a really powerful force online from both men.
• 17:51
  And anyways, guys, that's it for me to scroll today.
• 17:54
  Thank you so much for listening. I love you guys.
• 17:56
  Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
• 17:58
  Please Spotify star rate US and I will talk to you guys
• 18:01
  tomorrow. Bye.
• 18:03
  Centennial World podcast network operates on Gadigal land.
• 18:06
  We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the
• 18:09
  traditional custodians of this land, and pay our respects to
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  elders both past and present.