Real Housewives, Recession Core, & Fictional Character Deaths
things on my mind, crashing out over, etc etc
Hi, hello. You know I love a good diary style post, and that’s what this is. (Debby Ryan voice) Part rant, too, but we’ll get into it.
Also:
~ Bestie girl Larisa launched her newsletter! Subscribe for recreations of food in pop culture and essays that will make you ache with nostalgia. (get ready to have an American Girl Summer)
~ My mom is officially subscribed here and I’m kinda feeling like a kid on a field trip where their parent is chaperoning!! KIDDING. (love you mom) Everyone say hi, Tracie!!
It all starts, as so many things do, with a tiktok.
Bethenny & Ramona, in a pool, sobbing their way through a fight. (naked, might I add)
Womanhood, the caption on the video proclaims- which, okay!!
Then you’re watching Vicki Gunvalson yell “you’re supposed to be my friend, my soulmate, my sister!” to Tamra Judge and you have a visceral reaction because oh. That hit a little too hard for a Sunday night.
On the surface, Real Housewives might be a silly little show about rich women screaming at each other, but sometimes it’s not so silly- especially if you’ve been through friendship breakups. Mine isn’t recent by any means, but that’s the thing about any breakup- the wounds take their sweet time to heal. I think part of the human experience is becoming a mosaic of everyone (& everything)1 we ever love. So when someone leaves, where does the love go?
For me, at least, it seems to seep into everything, everywhere. How could it not? You have all these pieces of people that they’ve left behind- that haunt like a ghost at witching hour- and you’re supposed to just walk around carrying it all?
Seems unfair.
And then I wonder how many people have pieces of me I’ve left behind. Which pieces they are. My birthday, my favorite show, my laugh? What happens when we turn into the ghost we’re afraid of?
Down Like The Economy
Back to Vicki & Tamra, (whiplash, I know) the early seasons of Real Housewives of Orange County feel like a fever dream for a few reasons, (Slade Smiley is the gift that keeps on haunting)2 but one in particular glaringly stands out- watching the 2008 recession and its fallout. Sure, it’s through the lens of women living in the OC, so it’s not as if they were affected in the way most of us were. (or at least our parents)
But it’s still interesting to watch it be documented and a little eerie in a “oh, this is happening again” kind of way. And how are millennials (& gen z, hi my loves) coping with it, you ask?
Recession core.
Everything is a recession indicator right now, by the way. Kesha’s new song? Recession indicator. Forever 21 closing? For SURE recession indicator. Katy Perry in space? Yep, that too. You get it.
The recession core term was coined by someone on- you guessed it- TikTok3, referring to the Great Recession and was originally marked by muted, neutral tones and celebrities with bare necklines.
The term has kind of taken on a life of its own, however, and RHOC is the essence of it to me. The jewel-toned blouses, jeans & a ~going out~ top, a side pony. You could argue that these are just 2000s things, which- yes. But isn’t that the whole thing? For many of us, the 2000s & economic uncertainty are intertwined.
It’s not lost on me that we’re suddenly nostalgic4 for a time that was actually pretty bleak. How bad do things have to be for that to be a thing?
Actually, don’t answer that. Let’s just listen to recession pop songs.
What’s Your Emergency
*9-1-1 spoilers*
I’m not sure I’ve seen a fandom crash out this hard since Zayn left One Direction. (Where were you on March 25th, 2015)
But honestly? It’s valid.
We've suffered a loss.
A loss that is, in my opinion, completely unnecessary and the only way it would be good for the plot is if he ends up actually alive in the end.
I just think that sometimes, writers should not do things for “creative reasons.” Just let the plot plot without creating devastation for shock value. To me it’s, dare I say, lazy writing??
BUT WHAT DO I KNOW? I still stand by the opinion5 that they should’ve killed Alex Karev instead of making him leave his wife and friends and the entire life he’d made for himself, undoing seasons’ worth of character development. But, Grey’s is also a show in which characters dying is nothing new.
Main characters just don’t die on the silly little firefighter show. In fact, they survive rebars to the skull and slit throats, but now they wanna add ~realism~. OKAY!
Here’s to hoping for a fake-out.
stay hot & weird,
kaeleen <3
Will be writing more on this, don’t you worry
Like he was literally in my dream one time. Nightmare territory for suuuure.
I feel so strongly about this that I wrote about it when it happened. My digital footprint really goes crazy.
Hi, Tracie!
Thank you for the feature!! <3