Going to the gym is hard. It requires a lot of effort and your 45-minute workout is the caloric equivalent of two pints of beer. It’s just a shitty and exhausting way of losing weight, and that’s why some are turning to the “tongue mesh,” the newest quick fix in weight-loss alternatives. It’s mainly practiced in South America, where plastic surgeons will sew a piece of plastic mesh to patients’ tongues with six stitches. The patient keeps it in their mouth for a month. From day one, it becomes incredibly painful to eat any solid food, so they stick to a strict liquid diet. All they can drink is broth, smoothies, juice, and soup. It costs as low as $600 to get the mesh sewn and unsewn to your tongue for one month. The results? Shed 30 pounds in 30 days.

Dr. Raul Gongora is the inventor of the tongue mesh technique. The Tijuana-based doctor came up with the idea 16 years ago and has been practicing it on thousands of patients every year, he said, with no problems. His friend and colleague Dr. Leonel Gonzalez in Bogota also practices the tongue mesh, but only after testing it out himself—he told us that he lost 40 pounds as a result.  The technique is new to North America, and is hugely controversial. Some patients have been reported to have speech and sleep difficulty, while other doctors claim it is a massively unhealthy way to lose weight. We spoke with both doctors, the tongue mesh inventor Dr. Gongora and fellow colleague Dr. Gonzalez who defended the tongue-mesh surgery. 

VICE: How did this process begin?
Dr. Raul Gongora: Mexican cares more about the present. Obesity is a very serious problem, which is due to poor discipline. This method is considered a physical and psychological brake.

This recently reached North America—performed by Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Nikolas Churgay—but seems to have deeper roots in South America. 
Dr. Chugay is threatening the health of the American population, as my method hasn’t been approved by the FDA yet.

What are the demographics of your patients?
Our patients are 12 years to 80 years old, and 80 percent of them are women and 20 percent are men.

How much does the procedure cost?
The procedure is very cheap, $600 to $900, so it's accessible to all people. I do not know how doctors like Dr. Chugay profit from our invention by charging up to $3,000.

It is the controversial procedure? Are there long-term consequences or pain caused while eating?
No. To the contrary, the patient is detoxified and thus carries the diet we recommend. They do not develop malnutrition or have complications. 

How do you feel about discipline of exercise at the gym and going on a steady diet against this approach?
I think it's less effort to lose weight with methods like this. They help you to properly take the diet without cheating and being constant. 

Do you have something to say to people who think this is wrong?
If our method would not work or had no results, I would have abandoned it many years ago.

VICE: What is the mesh made of?
Dr. Leonel Gonzalez: The lingual mesh is made of a synthetic material that is hypoallergenic, bioinert. and bio-compatible with no reaction to anatomic structures

Are there side effects?
The side effects depend on three main reasons:

First: The physician must find out allergies and obstructive pathologies. Second: Fully explaining [to the patients] what the lingual mesh is what to do or not do, what the lingual mesh consists of, and what the results could be in every particular patient. Third: A strict weekly follow-up during the time the patient carries the device on and two additional months after procedure

The patient must eat at least five times a day, but some patients who are not hungry omit this rule and as a consequence in a few instances, a patient will show low blood sugar.

A liquid diet must be integrated with this procedure, to obtain the best possible benefits. Liquid diet is based in highly protein, vitamin C, and low-calorie, natural-mineral smoothies with a maximum of 1100 calories a day. Patients also receive natural supplements to regulate the metabolism in general.

It is the controversial procedure? Are there long-term consequences or pain caused while eating? 

Anything innovative is undoubtedly controversial, and more when it comes to health. If the mesh is not placed properly by a trained doctor, it can cause pain and even problems after removing the device, so it is essential that the patient selects a physician carefully. Do not forget that the tongue is one of the strongest muscles in our body, besides being the organ of taste and swallowing.

What happens when the patch is removed from the patient? Are there any additional procedures?

After four to six weeks—maximum—the mesh is removed and a nutritional monitoring starts for eight weeks where we slowly correct the patient eating habits. We must not forget that the patient needs motivation and interest, but also the doctor must track, that's fundamental.



Do you have something to say to people who think this is wrong?
I have much to say, because four years ago I lost 40 pounds with the lingual mesh. After losing those 40 pounds my health recovered and so did my self-esteem. It lasted four years. I am the strongest advocate of the procedure after the creator. No doubt that after over 1000 patients treated, it is the best method for healthy weight-loss without surgery.

@nadjasayej

Black Market glasses, vintage earrings, Northbound Leather shirt, American Apparel skirt

Photography: Norman Wong (Kathi Z Management)
Styling by Hazel Ong
Styling Assistant: Chris Barbarossa
Make Up & Hair by Mila Victoria (Plutino Group/Mac Cosmetics)
Make Up & Hair Assistant: Bianca Harris
Photography Assistant: Luis Mora
Production Assistant: Kathryn Dawson
Producer: Jessica Tjeng (Zinc Production)
Models: Dana, Dolph, and Dee

Vintage sunglasses, fur coat House of Vintage, Lacerda pants, Giuseppe Zanotti shoes

Ganni jacket, dress and underwear Music Legs, vintage earrings and necklace, Linda Farrow Luxe sunglasses

Butterfly Kensington necklace, vintage onesie, silk shirt and belt vintage at Public Butter, Topshop stockings, vintage boots

Northbound Leather bikini top, pants Fashionably Yours, necklace and earrings Public Butter, vintage sunglasses

Vintage jacket and belt at Public Butter, Bebe pants, Ridley Road Market earrings

Guess bikini top, Lacerda skirt, Ridley Road Market shoes, vintage Fendi bracelet at VSP, necklace Public Butter, vintage sunglasses

Linda Farrow Luxe sunglasses, fur stole Fashionably Yours, J Brand jeans, Kleen Air shoes, vintage Fendi bracelet at VSP, vintage earrings

Vintage Jean Paul Gaultier jacket, Northbound Leather harness and garter, American Apparel underwear, Leg Avenue stockings, Christian Louboutin shoes, vintage earrings, House of Holland by Linda Farrow sunglasses

Photos by Elizabeth Vasquez

Valentine's Day would be pitiful and meaningless if it weren't for various companies trying to subtly promote their brand through get-in-love-quick schemes. This year, the Los Angeles Metro decided to join in on the marketing fun by providing citizens of Los Angeles free speed dating on the subway. That's right, free speed dating on the City of Angels' finest public transportation service on Valentine's Day morning.

How did any of this seem like a good idea to anyone? More importantly, who the hell would actually do this? It's speed dating on public transportation in a city where around 0 percent of people drive, and on a Friday morning no less—a time when most people are probably working. Well, I don't have a car, and my job is to refresh Twitter every 20 minutes, so I guess I was the target audience. I went, half-expecting most of the eligible bachelors to be the homeless people who use our beautiful subway system as a place to urinate.

I arrived at the North Hollywood Metro station at around 11:15. A booth was set up where two Metro workers were sitting. They had us sign some paperwork. When I asked about what I was signing the female employee said, “Oh this is just so you know it's not our fault if you don't find love." Who did I have left to blame then? Just myself.

They then explained that every Red Line train going from North Hollywood to Union Station had one car designated for speed daters and speed daters only. I was given a pink wristband and a button with a pink heart on it to wear. I got on the car with my fellow lonely singles, and immediately got mingled on. These guys were not messin' around!

About seven of us were on the train, and two Metro employees timing us. They blew a whistle and I was approached by Carlos who instantly said, “I bet you like rock music." He then talked about being in nursing school, and forced me to take down his number. He saw my phone in my hand, and said he forgot his cell phone at home. So I got a number. A number I will never call. Everything was going as I expected.

At one stop, a news crew boarded the train, and I was on the verge of having a panic attack. Oh great, am I going to be on TV doing this shit? I started thinking about all the ex-boyfriends who would see some viral YouTube clip dubbed, “Look at This Sad Girl Trying to Date on a Goddamn Train." All of my ex-boyfriends, with their more attractive girlfriends, would laugh and say to their new loved ones, “I win." KABC-7 was going to destroy me.

However, I was soon at ease when I learned that the news crew who was down to chat with me was my dearly beloved Telemundo news crew, who previously interviewed me about the vending machine that pukes out burritos. I like this thing Telemundo and I have going where we cover the same exact stories and I am asked to say phrases in Spanish that I don't know. It's like we're distant relatives who only see each other when someone in the family dies.

I spoke to one more man on the train; the only one who I felt was somewhat attractive. His name was Michael, and he was extremely flirtatious. As soon as he spoke, I sensed that he was one of those guys who reads pick-up artist books, and mastered the art of "negging." He said something about my cell phone cover, and asked me the story behind it. I said that I bought it on sale for two dollars and he was like, “That's not a story! Girls are supposed to have stories behind the things they buy!” Which is probably the strangest stereotype I have ever heard about women. We spoke for maybe four minutes, and in that time the train got way more crowded (i.e. three more people boarded.)

Not only was this my first time speed dating, but this was my first time speed dating on a train, and definitely my last. I assume regular speed dating is a lot more organized. On this train however, people could sit by themselves and not talk to anyone. These were the people I was jealous of. Or, they could just stay sitting next to one person for as long as they like (even if the other person doesn't like it).

Two women near the front were sitting next to each other and giggling about how silly it all was. It reminded me a lot of a middle school dance, where girls wait for boys to come and talk to them and as they wait they giggle about stuff. Michael and I talked a little longer, and he told me he found out about this from Google searching “Anti-Valentine's Day” activities. This event was definitely Anti-Valentine's Day, but not intentionally. We ended our conversation when I asked him what kind of band he's in, and he literally said that he is in an acapella group with acoustic instruments. “We're like Fall Out Boy meets Glee”. LOL, bye Michael.

I decided that I should get off the train and see what another train was like. Preferably a train that would take me back home. I got off at MacArthur Park station and waited ten minutes. The next train that came was even more pathetic. There was only six of us, and no one else boarded throughout the whole ride back to North Hollywood. I spoke to a 19-year-old boy whose name I forgot, and after 30 seconds of me trying my best to force more horrible small talk, I just gave up and stayed silent.

When we got to North Hollywood, I immediately got off the train, bought myself a slice of pizza (as a means of apologizing to me for putting me through that), and am now making plans with friends to get drunk out of my mind tonight. Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  

@JustAboutGlad

Photo of Reinhardt College via

While watching Diane Sawyer with my parents on January 11, 2011, the mugshot of a maniacal, bald, psychotic-looking guy was plastered across the screen. He looked like a younger, balder Charles Manson—just another dead-eyed, disheveled psychopath. Diane did what she has always been good at—showing concern while managing to seem condescending—as news coverage unfolded. She explained that the maniac in the picture killed six people and wounded 13, including State Representative Gabby Giffords. His name was Jared Lee Loughner and he was one of the dozens of people to go down in grim, mass-shooting media infamy.

The next day, my mom asked me if I was okay. Of course I was. I didn't know anyone that was shot and I had never met Jared Loughner or anyone associated with him. She asked again, and finally I understood her concern. Jared Loughner and I had very similar back stories—the only difference was the fact that I was stopped.

It all started after I graduated from high school with intentions of never returning home. I grew up in Rome, Georgia, which is a quiet, quaint, picturesque town where everyone knows your name, loves football, and Jesus. It is like Mayberry on steroids. That said, it’s also one of the birthplaces of the ethnic cleansing and relocation of the Cherokee, which resulted in the deaths of 4,000—also known as the Trail of Tears.

With a history like that, it should come to no surprise that some people don’t fit in. I was one of them. I despised it there—it was a place I associated with being picked on in high school by a group of fratty, tyrannical jocks for no particular reason. I hated everyone there with a raging passion and I looked forward to getting away from them forever.

In the fall of 2004, I left to start school at the private Christian Reinhardt College, 45 minutes north of Rome in Waleska, Georgia. Before leaving, my parents gave me an entire speech about how I was growing up, how proud they were of me, and that I needed to continue to take my medication to treat my diagnosed Bipolar disorder. And to stay away from alcohol and drugs. Then I started college and the freedom sunk in.

My first week at Reinhardt, I completely stopped taking my medication because I thought I was normal again—I hated how my medication made me feel along the stigma associated with it (which is pretty common among those affected with Bipolar disorder), and my parents weren’t around to make me take it anymore.

I embarked upon a journey to drink as much as I could and track down a good weed dealer. Since Reinhardt is a dry campus, this usually happened in my dorm room with my British foreign exchange student roommate, Becky. We found a guy on the soccer team who sold weed, and we were set.

Becky was a great roommate, but she hated America and only lasted three weeks. She decided it was time for her to move back and be with her boyfriend. I was pretty torn up about her leaving, so I searched around for a new roommate that loved weed and alcohol as much as I did.

My search backfired when the room went to a straight-laced, Christian girl who instantaneously decided that she didn’t like me. She and the rest of my suitemates kicked me out of my own dorm because I partied too much. After I moved, I got a new roommate, named Sharee. She and I became really good friends.

After that first year of college ended, I stayed behind to take summer classes. That summer changed everything. My freshman year was a manic high, but my summer was an all-time, depressive low. Every friend I had made decided to transfer, but my parents wanted to me to go to summer school to make up some classes I had missed. After I moved into an apartment with some people I didn’t know, I started to withdraw more into myself and contemplate suicide.

A week into the first summer session, after researching painless ways to kill myself one night, I decided slicing my wrists with razor blades would be the least painful and most dramatic way to die. So I started the bath water.

While the water was running in the tub, I started wondering what would happen after the life left my body and got excited. Weezer’s “Only in Dreams” was playing on my stereo. It seemed like a fitting song. I grabbed for the razor to begin the process of taking out the blades, but it fell in the tub behind me.

Immediately, thoughts of what my parents would do when they found out I killed myself started flooding my mind. They were enough to stop. I got out of the tub, went to the corner of the bathroom next to my stereo, and cried hard while the three-minute guitar solo played on.

***

Not only was I suicidal, but I started to get very violent. I wanted to not only leave Reinhardt College, but to leave everything. My moods became more turbulent and volatile when I was alone. If I’d go out, I would drink until I blacked out. It became common for me to call my parents and scream at them about how much I wanted to leave, which would end with them telling me to stick it out. It got so frustrating that I started updating my Xanga blog quite frequently with violent, poisonous rants, which my followers who knew me personally thought were jokes.

I wrote about hating Reinhardt College and wanting to plant grenades around the school. One anonymous girl in my Astronomy class, who accused me of cheating turned me in to my professor, became the focus of my hatred. She was right, I did cheat, but since I didn’t know who she was, I started talking on my Xanga page about finding her and killing her. Unfortunately for me, she found my blog and got scared when she read Too bad Patti (one of my only friends at Reinhardt) is going to be here when I blow this place up. The girl turned me in to the campus police, who turned me over to the Cherokee County Police Department.

I found out I was being investigated while I was standing in line at Subway. My pocket vibrated, but I ignored it. It was Sharee, who stayed around for the summer. I really wanted a sandwich, but as soon as the person behind the counter said, “What can I get for you?” my phone buzzed again. This time, I answered.

“Seriously, Sharee,” I hissed. “What do you want?”

“A detective and a cop are at school, asking about you.”

I was so shocked I couldn't move. “Are you kidding me? Is this some kind of a joke?”

“No, they're serious. They tried to look around the apartment to find you.”

“I’m leaving. I’m getting the hell out of here,” I said.

“You seriously need to come back here and talk to these guys. I don’t think leaving would be such a good idea,” gasped Sharee, her tone short and panicky. I knew she had a valid point.

I went numb. I started thinking about driving off a cliff, but didn't know where to find one.

I got back to my apartment, sat down, and waited. After a few minutes, the doorbell rang. I got up to answer the door, because none of my roommates were there. I saw cops, but only noticed their guns and a plump woman with red hair in front of them, looking at me.

“Are you Mary Lynn?”

“Uhh. Yes ma'am. Can I help you?”

“We need you to come down to the station so we can ask you a few questions. You’ll need to follow us in your car but make arrangements to be gone awhile.”

“OK,” I replied, walking back to my room to get my keys. The red-headed woman and cops followed me.

“We have a warrant for your computer. We know you threatened to attack your college and, since Columbine, we take those threats from someone like you very seriously.” She flashed what looked like a legal document.

I watched two policemen take my computer apart and carry it out of my room. The woman waited on me to leave my room and I could feel her watching me as I walked through the apartment and out the front door. I put the key in the door of my apartment, turning the latch to dead bolt it, locking myself out of that freedom.

When my parents found out I was being investigated, they immediately hired a lawyer who specialized in violent crime. Months afterward, all I had to do was go to an arraignment. Since there weren’t many high profile attacks my incident could be compared to, I got off easy.

My lawyer made a deal with the city of Canton and Reinhardt College that I attend therapy and never set foot on that college campus again. I also had to attend psychological treatment. After that, the charges could be dropped completely from my record. It seemed easy enough, but I had to move back home. It hurt my ego so badly that I used Depakote tablets and Mandarin Absolut Vodka to try and take my life again.

I had never told anyone about my battle with suicide until I met my current therapist in 2008. The first time I met my therapist, I was ready to laugh off the entire experience. She was a licensed play therapist who worked at a place that used therapy dogs, which I thought was stupid. 

The first time I signed in, one of the dogs followed me around the office. He looked exactly like Lassie. I glared at him, hoping he’d go hide in a corner and leave me alone. When my therapist motioned for me to come in for my first session, the dog followed me into the room and jumped up on the couch next to me as I sat down. I told her that wasn’t necessary. She motioned for the dog to come sit next to her across the room.

“So why are you here?” she asked.

“Because I have to be,” I said. “And I’m not going to tell you anything until you tell me a little something about you.”

She told me that she was in the middle of a lawsuit with one of her former employees she trusted who had stolen money from her. She also told me that if I didn’t like her, I could find a new therapist. She had my respect almost immediately. I kept going back.

A couple of sessions in, she asked me about an incident I had with a student that ultimately motivated my parents to contact her.

“Well it’s obviously because I’m crazy right?” I asked, laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” she asked. “It’s not funny. I can see that you are a very sad person.”

Something as simple as that caused the floodgates to crash open. I was comfortable enough to cry in front of her. I told her about how I tried to kill myself once, and how I considered it before my arrest numerous times.

“Have you had suicidal thoughts within the last 24 hours?” she asked.

“No.”

“I need for you to be serious right now. Have you?”

“No,” I said, through tears. “I haven’t thought about it since before I moved here a couple of months ago.”

“I’m going to call your parents and tell them I need to see you twice a week for a little while. I know your insurance gives you limited sessions, but I’ll charge you the regular copay regardless. That is very serious.”

That breakthrough changed my life overnight, and I actually looked forward to going back.

Throughout that next year, I learned through therapy that I never took accountability or charge of my life because I never admitted the fact that I had Bipolar Disorder, even after I had been properly diagnosed in 1999. Admitting that would’ve been accepting that I wasn’t normal. Also, the bullying I experienced in high school until I graduated triggered a violent psychosis that caused me to lash out.

By the time I finished up my degree at Georgia Southern, I had made long-lasting friends, fell in love with a guy in one of my classes, and was pretty content with my life. Even though my relationship didn’t work out with the guy I fell in love with, my therapist said he was an integral part of my recovery because he was a gateway into caring about myself enough to open up and have healthy relationships.

I had to move back to Rome yet again to get job experience, since I had no connections anywhere else and had degrees in things like creative writing and English. When I moved back, I was initially afraid to socialize, because I didn’t think I’d be there long and I associated it with the bad experiences from my adolescence. After a year back home I got lonely, went out, and ran into a guy who picked on me in high school at the only popular bar in Rome. For some reason, I still had anxiety seeing him.

I tried to avoid him all together by not making eye contact and trying to hide behind my friend as he walked by. Instead of catching the hint, he stopped by my table and demanded a hug, which I obliged, awkwardly. Then he plopped down in the chair next to me and we started talking. He asked me how I was doing, where I have been, and all the small talk that people normally have. But unlike his teenage self, he actually seemed genuine. We talked for a while and it wasn’t terrible.

Although he didn’t mention anything about how horrible he was when we were 18, the conversation meant a lot. He made me realize that people can completely change and that Rome was never my problem. I was. It was always me.

Every time there is a high-profile mass shooting or suicide, I see right through the issue because I was, at one point in my life, in the same boat. I know this is an offensive statement to many who have lost children to suicide or have been victims of something as senseless as mass murder. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported suicide was the tenth leading cause of death nationally, it’s not as newsworthy as homicide. A murderous carnage in the process of committing suicide will certainly make the headlines.

Coming from someone who has been accused of being capable of committing a violent crime, there is no motive behind something as senseless as a mass shooting. It is just an excuse. You will never figure out why they did what they did. I’m not sure they even knew.

I know I had no clue what I was capable of—but now I realize I was a ticking time bomb. It had little to do with my parents, nothing to do with my music choices, and I didn’t even play video games. I also had a lot of friends, but I didn’t want to be honest with them or myself. My downfall had everything to do with my own lack of accountability and the fact that I didn’t want to admit to anyone that I needed help.

When I think about what went right with my life, it all came down to the fact that someone cared enough to turn me in. I can sit back and write this, thankful that none of my suicide attempts worked. I am a completely different person and suicide isn’t on my radar. I am happy, and take full accountability for myself by taking charge of my Bipolar disorder and not letting it completely control my life. But if it wasn’t for the arrest and the hard work I put in through therapy, I’m not sure I’d be alive today.

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States and it is the most preventable. For more information visit this site or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-Talk.

MaryLyne Manson-Gosling is a writer from Georgia and is working on her first book.

@MLR1985

It’s 7:20 PM on Tuesday night, and I’m wandering the after-hours Wall Street wasteland looking for the apartment of “Ali C.,” where I have an appointment to cuddle. Like a massage, it’s $60 for 45 minutes. Since November, clients have been paying to lie in bed with Ali (or rest their shoulder in the crook of her neck on the couch), who runs a one-woman “cuddle therapy” business, Cuddle U NYC, out of her studio apartment.

There’s no "happy ending" handjob at the end. This isn’t a Chinatown massage parlor in more ways than one—a required pre-cuddle phone conversation establishes with all clients that the experience will be physical and possibly emotional, but not sexual. In fact, to hear both client and proprietor tell it, cuddling with her can be a verbal affair.

I’m not the ideal cuddle client per se. For one, I’m so cheap that I’ll probably end up paralyzing my face using at-home acupuncture. I’m not a man and therefore not as likely to visit a cuddler. Ali cites this gender imbalance, as do most of the professional female cuddlers that have been profiled, including Portland-based Samantha Hess. I don’t have “Asperger’s,” nor am I “overweight,” as Ali describes male clients who might come to her because “they don’t attract people to them.” I’m not in need of “re-mothering,” which she says is the main concern of the few women who use her services. I don’t feel under-touched, nor am I recently divorced.

I decide to approach the session like a blowjob class, but for cuddling.

From private sessions offered by sole proprietors like Ali to “Cuddle Parties"—which to me seem a bit like inappropriate flash mobs—professional cuddling doesn’t qualify as a growth market per se. Yet the industry is having a moment in the Internet Age for think-piece reasons I really am not going to pretend to care about explaining (search “millennials"; that’s what Google is for).

The economy—and the fact that it’s nice to work sporadically from home in a job where technically the only perquisite is having two functioning arms (sorry, John McCain) and a bed with clean sheets—seems incentive enough for any unemployed person comfortable with touching but not sex work. Ali identifies as a writer (she mentions a novel) and is living off her savings from a previous career.

I enter Ali’s nondescript but not inexpensive condo building—is there any other kind in the financial district?—and her doorman checks my name. He does this with all 30 of her clients, who must provide their driver’s license upon arriving in her home so she can take a photo of it with her iPhone.

I read that she greets new visitors with a hug, and feeling like I should adhere to new-client protocol, I lean in for one when she opens the door. Ali is surprised, but adapts so quickly I don’t have a chance to feel like an idiot. It shouldn’t be worth noting she isn’t even a touch awkward or insecure, but I so rarely interact with people that aren’t, I find myself making a special mental note of it.

Ali looks like Vashti Bunyan in her forties, with well-groomed eyebrows and clear attention paid to split ends. Expert eyeshadow is noticeable behind square D&G frames, and we’re wearing similar outfits: dark blouses and grey-black skinny jeans with leather boots. She has an almost palpably maternal presence, with the warm attentiveness of the ideal kindergarten teacher. She nods and widens her eyes in agreement with almost everything I say. I feel liked almost immediately, I and have to make a conscious effort to sit up when I realize I’m relaxing and tucking my legs underneath me on the couch, as I do when petting a particularly receptive cat.

It was just last week that Ali, “New York City’s first professional cuddler,” got what all entrepreneurs need: press. She’s not happy with the original news story, she tells me right away, referring to the piece quite frequently during our interview. I hasten to point out that she’s not the first to be frustrated by a media coming-out party hosted by the New York Daily News. (Almost every every single professional cuddler currently getting press in the United States was at one time profiled by the Daily News, which, as far as I can tell, has had an editorial meeting and decided to run a cuddling vertical). She has ten new clients already.

Despite some unflattering photography angles, the Daily News piece isn’t bad exactly, or not for the reasons she thinks. But Ali says she “learned from the experience,” confidently directs our photographer not to take photos from certain angles, and changes into a “cuddle outfit” for our appointment more in line with the Lululemon brand of the hip-fit woman than the floral pajamas from her first photo shoot.

In the Daily News photo, the sturdy man cradling Ali, with his handlebar mustache and Adidas exercise pants, makes me squeamish, for no other reason than that the session looks so un-clinical. Which cuddling is, obviously. But Ali is confidently branding her company not as a cuddle service but as “cuddle therapy.” The fluffy phrase doesn’t detract from the simple logical jump that would render Ali a (cuddle) therapist.

While a large-scale business called the Snuggle House in Wisconsin was shut down after fears of prostitution, I can’t help letting the question of the sexual misconduct get eclipsed by another: How illegal is unlicensed therapy?

I ask Ali if she calls herself a therapist. “In a lot of ways I do.” And does she feel the weight of that responsibility? She pauses and then begins to speak a bit slower. “Um... yes. Well. Yes, I do. Yes. Since the article came out I’ve had... a couple of men, but mostly women, contacting me saying, ‘Are you hiring? How do I learn to be a cuddler?’” This makes her “nervous.”

Ali responds more enthusiastically when I ask if she feels like she’s healing people.  “Most people are coming to me because they’re hurting. It’s because they’re in pain.” It is her belief that no one comes “just to cuddle.” Men tell her about their childhoods and experiences with women.

When I talk to David Orr, an IT specialist based in New Jersey who was also interviewed for the Daily News piece, he supports her assessment that “it definitely is therapy.” Orr points out that some people might “just want to sleep” during their sessions, but that seems like “a waste of time.” He suffers from seasonal depression and scheduled a cuddling session as one strategy among many to combat it.

Ali's speech is peppered with new-agey healing terminology, words that I find generally self-explanatory as to their final goal but not the practice that might achieve it. After a few anecdotes about how she overcame her own “dysfunctional family life” with “inner bonding,” which she says is the source of both her life philosophy and snuggle therapy, I admit to being confused and ask if she can explain her source. The concept is drawn from a self-help book she read six years ago called Healing Your Aloneness: Finding Love and Wholeness Through Your Inner Child. She sought out the book because her mother never “related to her in a way that was loving.”

I ask what practicing inner bonding might look like.

“So, if you imagine yourself, little Kaitlin at six. If something bad happened to you at six. Feeling those feelings... Find out how your inner child is feeling and feel those feelings, and hold yourself.”

Except for the incident in which my sister cut a hole in a two-tone hat that took me six months to knit in third grade, I don’t have any notable childhood trauma.

We decide to try cuddling. I immediately become less comfortable. Ali asks if I want to reconstruct a touchy-feely moment I might have had with my mother. She mentions a female client who told her that "no one has ever brushed my hair." Ali spent the second session combing her hair on the couch. My mother is a really small, comforting person who often paint my nails while we watch TV. I rest my head on Ali’s shoulder, trying to pretend she’s my mom. Then I sit up.

“Ideally, you’re just sort of giving up control and being nurtured.”

I admit I don’t want to give up control, so we move to the bed where I might be less antsy.

She suggests I close my eyes and let “our heartbeats... synch up, and that will modulate [my] nervous system.” I close my eyes and try to relax as she spoons me. This lasts for about a minute. She points out that I may not be giving into the therapy. I concur.

She rubs my palm for a little while, which would work on a normal person, but I actually stop my manicurist from giving me hand massages because I don’t know what to look at while she's touching me.

I realize after five minutes of pretending to get cuddle therapy that I’ve grossly underestimated how frigid a person I am. But Ali is cheerful, suggesting that I don’t want her services because I don’t need her help emotionally. After a couple of anecdotes, we agree I had a very normal, supportive childhood and mother. She doesn’t ask about my father. 

For this week's Mahal, I headed down to the grand opening of the Lower East Side AMO Studios art space and NEWTHINGS fashion installation. To showcase the gear and new space, a giant cocoon drifted around the statuesque models in cool sandals. Amid the cans of beer and crowd of hip young artists. I caught up with the two people behind it, Ana Bezanilla and Edwin Bolta, to learn a little more.

VICE: What is the story behind AMO Studios?
Ana Bezanilla: AMO came to fruition when a couple of my friends and I decided to go in on a shared studio in 2011. Since then, we've hosted over 40 events at our first space on Waterbury and Meserole in Brooklyn, providing a platform for people to grow their own networks.

The amount of incredible passionate people we met at that spot was unbelievable. By opening the doors to collaboration, strong and sustainable connections were solidified. We took a break for a while and, after getting an incredible head start through our fundraising campaign, we're fully prepared to push the proposal-based concept to its maximum effect.

It is important to challenge how a space can serve many different communities of creatives. We have hosted publication launches, performances, parties, pop-up shops, screenings, lectures, and more in our previous storefront, and we plan on expanding even further. With this new installment, we've become a lot more organized and plan to have a quick, fast-paced turn around for projects to keep the energy flowing.  

What are some new things going on at NEWTHINGS?
Edwin Bolta: For this collection, I was inspired by the opera singer, Jeffrey Palmer. He performed in the last collection’s campaign. I loved the idea of an American opera singer—who studied music in Bath, London—singing an ancient Mandarin Chinese opera song in New York City. It made me think about how in the past, traveling was crucial to being exposed to other cultures and new ideas. Today, you can control and manipulate your level of exposure through technology, through the internet.

Inspired by this, we took cultural garb from three main regions—Central America, the Middle East, and Asia—and brought them together for our gender-neutral collection. I wanted the concept to come to fruition through the clothing, the sound, and the art juxtaposed with the space. I brought DJ and music producer, SLAVA, on board, too. His music creates a surreal vibe of a foreign place that you could never travel to.

I thought the clothing and sound would work well with THE COCOON PROJECT, which is an art performance collective that creates organic dwellings for the space.

How did you two connect and give birth to the recent pop-up? 
Ana: I met Edwin through two mutual friends around 2012. Since then, I have been really inspired by how prolific he is as an artist. We had been talking about doing something together since we had the old space.

Because AMO plans on opening a full-time shop for local artists with a focus on more pop-up concepts, we decided to use Fashion Week to launch his new line in our Lower East Side location, with a pop-up shop to follow in the later months.

We all need new things. Hopefully we can provide the city with a breath of fresh air.

As an artist, what are your thoughts on Fashion Week in general?
Fashion Week is just like any other industry week. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears go in and it turns out best parties of the year—yet it also reflects the worst evils of consumerist society. I really appreciate when designers take that leap and break the mold of the runway show, which has already been happening a lot. Fashion is perhaps the most pervasive form of cultural capital, so when it integrates broader themes, it speaks volumes to me.

What does Fashion Week mean to you as a brand?
Edwin: This is the first time we participated in Fashion Week. To me, Fashion Week is another outlet to showcase our work as a creative agency and as a brand. It also gives me the opportunity to showcase my vision of the world.

What are your thoughts on your latest endeavor being in the Lower East Side? 
Ana: Not being from New York, I think about my place in gentrification constantly. Essentially, if you're a transplant making some kind of wave, then you're raising someone's rent.

That being said, though I think there's a respectful path and a detrimental one. When we were in Brooklyn, we were much more isolated—yet the rapid development around us was much more obvious, and our reach a lot less. At this point, opening a space in Bushwick is counter-intuitive. It's gotten more expensive than Downtown!

Being in Manhattan forces you to think spatially much more—build equitable relationships with your neighbors, respect the history, and really work your square footage. Our space is small, but so are most people's living conditions. People are pissed about getting pushed out further and further, so lets find some options.

@RedAlurk

The Queen B via.

In 1966, John Lennon infamously remarked that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus,” resulting in death threats, protests, and public burnings of their records. But in 2014, it would be difficult to deny that Beyoncé is better known—and more commonly worshipped—than both the Messiah and the Beatles. In fact, it would be a fair bet that at least five percent of the American population believes that Jay-Z and Beyoncé are literally our monarchal rulers; after all, they kick it with Obama on the regular, get to go to Cuba just because they feel like it (what embargo?), and are the top-earning celebrity couple in an industry of grossly high-paid performers. So like many others, when I caught wind of Brooklyn eatery Brucie’s Beyoncé-themed Valentine’s Day menu, I was intrigued. A quaint, homey Italian restaurant in Carroll Gardens with a penchant for housemade pastas and meatballs, Brucie was confidently undertaking a task that seemed impossibly daunting on a holiday already weighted with stressful expectations of splendor. How could anyone successfully evoke the essence of this illustrious icon through food? There was only one way to find out.

Even for non-Beyoncélievers (does this word exist yet?), it’s hard to believe that it was 16 years ago that this still-teenage Child of Destiny entered our cultural vernacular with the tepid “No, No, No,” not knowing that a decade and a half later she’d be on a first-name basis with the entire Western world and have caviar-laced Italian dishes created in her image. A peek at the menu revealed a balanced and diverse examination of her career arc, from her earliest days (“Buga-Bouillabaisse”) to her most recent successes like “Drunk in Love.” Miraculously, my boo agreed to join me on this edible journey through Beyoncé’s rise to glory. Could this menu unlock the secrets of her psyche or her seemingly faultless marriage to Jay-Z? Be the next best thing to licking the sweat off her neck, or reveal her Illuminati conspiracy for world domination? In the days preceding this dinner, I began to think of it as an act of taking Holy Communion in the church of Jay-Z and Beyoncé. As wafer and wine transcendentally turn into Jesus’ literal body and blood, perhaps some gold-leafed pappardelle would become actual noodle-shaped shreds of Beyoncé's precious flesh and imbue her love with Jay-Z into our hearts and bodies. 

No amount of listening to “Single Ladies” could have been adequate preparation for the delightfully chaotic environment that was underway at Brucie when we arrived at 11:30 PM. If Brucie was the Church of Beyoncé, it was definitely a gospel church where all were welcome to belt and clap to the “hymnals” at full volume. Classics of Beyoncé and Jay-Z yore like “Lose My Breath,” “Check Up On It,” and “Big Pimpin” were sending people into aggressive gyrations of bliss around their dining tables. There was twerking, freaking, and everything in between, and it was evident that many diners were non-figuratively drunk in love. But this was all just an accessory to the food, which was nobly dedicated to our collective Messiah of pop. Between sips of a Tom Ford Collins (gin, rosemary, lemon, club soda) and later, an “H to the Fizzo” cocktail (Ramazzotti bitters, prosecco, and sugar), it was nearly impossible to choose what to eat, but here are some of the highlights that we experienced throughout the night of Bey.

PINK IS THE FLAVOR
So, how literally would each dish interpret the former Ms. Fierce? We wetted our palates with this cheeky appetizer, based on Beyoncé’s cunnilingually obsessed new track “Blow” (you can probably guess what pink is the flavor of). By assigning this name to a dish comprised of raw seafood (scallop, monkfish) and rosy produce (grapefruit, beet, and radish), we get the picture. It was sensual, salty, and definitely pink. 

DIVA IS A FEMALE VERSION OF A BRUSSTLA
The common Brussels sprout was elevated to diva-worthy heights through a flurry of chiffonaded mint leaves and a sneaky drizzle of honey—perhaps alluding to the “stick-up” refrained in the 2009 track that it derived its name from. Could the “mint” be a nod to the fan of Benjis that she flashes in the video? Clearly, no stone went unturned.

JAY-ZITI
It was time to get a taste of the Carter angle. Logically, this dish integrated a lot of cheddar, something that we all know that Jay possesses in unfathomable quantity. If the intent was to evoke a sense of richness, they succeeded in spades. Heaps of cheese, smoky bacon vinaigrette, and creamy sweet potato—and could the sage pistu be signifying his wisdom in the rap game? 

HALO
This dish was a slam dunk. It even looked like the “Halo” video with its pale, golden tones of angel hair pasta, crisp angel food cake crumbs (which thankfully weren’t sickeningly sugary), and a flutter of black truffle accents that visually mirrored her dancing around practicing ballet or whatever in that leotard-and-tights outfit. It was delicate, filling, addictive, slightly sweet… and more than a little bit cheesy. Spot-on. 

I AM PASTA FIERCE
Remember Sasha Fierce, B's alter ego that encompassed her "fun, more sensual, more aggressive, more outspoken and ... glamorous side"? Here comes I Am Pasta Fierce, the culinary embodiment. It was Sasha who gave us "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", so it seemed only fitting that this dish wore a splash of gold leaf. The jalapeño and puttanesca showed a side of B that was louder, spicier, and not afraid of being domineering.

DRUNK IN LOVE
It would have been wrong not to try a dish eponymous to her hugely popular single du jour, especially after watching her tantalizingly flay her inner thighs at the Grammys. (Also, I gravitate towards anything marinated in alcohol.) From the supple negroni-marinated beef short ribs, we conjured the boozy tenderness of her beach romp with Jay; from the accompanying beef heart salad, the beat of their love. 

Brucie Dessert menu

MAGNA CARDAMOM CAKE
Like Jay-Z’s bombastic, corporate-bloated album, the Magna Cardamom cake was very sizable in both dimension and flavor. Soaked in “hot butter Navy strength rum,” it was surprisingly pungent to the point where I felt like it was almost a cocktail in and of itself, but the coolness of a generous smear of black pepper mascarpone brought it back down to earth. Although it was aggressive, I was surprised to find that eating it made me forgive Jay for mining all of that customer data for his promotion of Magna Carta Holy Grail. 

TURN THAT CHERRY OUT
Although we were very tempted by the I Don’t Think You’re Ready for This Jelly Doughnut and the cleverly blood orange-laced Solange à Trois, something about the unbridled decadence of this dessert in particular called to us. As another nod to “Blow,” a cake of “turned-out” (wink, wink) Luxardo cherries rested on a smooth, luscious palette of chocolate panna cotta; espresso ganache injected it with a disciplined, frenetic energy. Beyoncé has implicated in interviews that she lost her virginity to Jay-Z; this synthesis of both innocent and dark sweets witnesses her transformation from a naîve Texan hopeful whose mother made all of her stage outfits into the full-grown sexual goddess that we recognize her as today.  

Was it romantic? Oddly, yes. Despite the hordes of drunken, presumably single ladies who were dancing on furniture and belting out “Survivor” to the maximum abilities of their lung capacities, there was something unified and passionate about the affair. Plus, as one of the umpteen tables still lingering well past 3 AM, we somehow found ourselves in possession of matching his-and-hers Beyoncé underwear. 

Brucie, you’ve made Beyoncélievers out of all of us. It was truly a feast fit for a king and queen B.

@jaggedlittlehil

On February 3, the governing body for soccer in Iran—Football Federation Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI)—declared that it would implement gender-verification procedures in the women’s league. To enforce compliance, the federation plans to send medical personnel to clubs at random.

Not long before FFIRI’s announcement, seven soccer players—four of them on the national team—had had their contracts terminated after it was revealed that they were either “men who had not completed sex change operations” or were individuals “suffering from sexual development disorders.” This phrasing comes from Robert Tait, who reported the story for the Telegraph four days later. Because words like sex change, gender tests, andIran are click-bait on their own (cough), it was only a matter of time before a story containing all three was picked up by international and American press. Even right-wing media reported on it (their coverage was as classy as expected).

Three years ago, supposedly after a goalie was accused of being a man, FFIRI specified that clubs had to verify the gender of female athletes when signing them. Yet enforcement of these rules seems to have been lax, and athletes who didn’t meet FFIRI’s standards were allowed to advance in the league. To say that it was simply because they were trans or intersex, as reports imply, misses what’s going on. It’s a bit more complicated.

Gender verification in women’s sports dates back to the 60s. Back then, athletes from the USSR were accused of being male agents sent to dominate the sport. To maintain the integrity of the game, soccer officials began implementing random gender tests to root out any impostors.

Yet there’s been no confirmed case of this happening. Ever. What investigators found instead of men masquerading as women was a host of athletes with various intersex conditions. Even one of the main accusers was herself discovered to be intersex.

Initially, these athletes were summarily disqualified. But the approach began to change as scientists realized that being intersex didn’t necessarily give someone an unfair advantage on the field.

This meant that the policy shifted from expelling athletes to treating what unfair advantages they had and letting them compete (Ahmed Hashemian, head of FFIRI’s medical committee, expressed his hope to have the athletes return after treatment).

FIFA, which the FFIRI falls under, adopted its own policy three years ago, amid, you guessed it, accusations that some of its football players were actually men. The organization convenes a panel consisting of an endocrinologist, a gynecologist, and a genetics expert who verify gender on a case-by-case basis. While FIFA is barred from administering random tests directly, it gives leeway to member organizations to verify players themselves. (FIFA was not involved in these recent tests.)

The number-one priority should be protecting the medical privacy of its athletes. Many intersex athletes don’t know about their condition, and finding out in such a public manner can be devastating.  Considering the way this story’s been covered, it’s a valid concern.

When it comes to treatment, the standard procedure is to reduce testosterone levels, in the long term, to female ranges. Scientifically, this is the determining factor between male and female performance. Think steroids. In practical terms, this means that intersex athletes are allowed to compete after having a gonadectomy and two subsequent years of hormone therapy. 

This applies to trans women as well. While Fallon Fox still riles up stateside debate, the international consensus has, by and large, been settled. The IOC adopted this standard in 2004, and other organizations, including FIFA, have followed suit. The difference is that, for trans women, the treatment is generally covered by chemical transition and sex-reassignment surgery.

Which brings us to Iran. Iran has allowed transition for more than 30 years now and has comparatively been an enthusiastic supporter of it, providing state funds for SRS and a change of documentation in conjunction with the surgery. The documentary Be Like Others, about the process, showed it wasn’t uncommon for women to get SRS—and the legal name change—before starting hormone therapy. This would leave a potential athlete under two sets of standards, the state’s and FFIRI’s.

If and when these soccer players return, they wouldn’t be the first out trans athletes to compete in FIFA. That honor goes to Jaiyah Saelua, who played for American Samoa in their upset against Brazil in December 2011.

Because she hadn’t undergone medical transition, she competed on the men’s squad.

Just before my senior year of college, it occurred to me that I might actually lose out pretty big in life if I didn’t graduate. I had spent much of the previous three years smoking blunts, taking hallucinogens, and wandering around Philadelphia with my homeboys, paying little attention to my declining grades. Arguably, I learned a lot more on those impromptu field trips than I did in my plug-and-play marketing curriculum, but no one was handing me college credits for self-discovery. I decided that I’d spend my last year trying my best, and it turned out that college work was a lot less difficult than I had imagined. Nevertheless, my three years of fuckery were not remedied by a single year of dedication, and I had to spend an extra semester finishing up. I saw it as an opportunity to dilute my bad grades with good ones just a little more. All I had to do was ace my capstone business course, which was mostly a matter of getting into the professor’s good graces.

Prof. Mole was a notoriously crotchety old man with a cruel sense of humor that he strongly preferred to anyone else’s. He knew that his course was the final obstacle between his students and the finish line, so the sadistic prick made it incredibly stressful. Knowing this, I walked into the first class session with my goof factor fully suppressed, and my game face on. But the moment Mole walked in and started writing on the board, an old custom shattered my discipline.

Speaking in whispers behind me, two students were discussing the syllabus. One asked the other, “We’re only tested once?” The other replied, “Twice.”

Now, long before this my friends and I had established a rule that, if you heard the words “once” and “twice” in succession, you had to sing, “Three times a ladayyy,” in reference to the classic Commodores song. In the present instance, I fully complied with the rule. Mole stopped writing and, turned around from the board. Along with everyone else in the class, he took a long hard look at me. I said nothing and put on the gravest expression I could muster, knowing that I was irrevocably on his shit list. On top of that, my classmates thought I was out of my mind. When he broke us up into groups for our senior project, the three kids he placed me with looked horrified. One of them said in a low voice, “Ugh, not that stoned kid.”

Their judgment turned out to be unwarranted, because these were three of the dumbest college students I had ever encountered. Despite their deceptively dorky appearances, they achieved no understanding of the subject matter and invoked Mole’s rage frequently. Whenever this occurred, I would slink away from the group just enough that it looked like I wasn’t with them. I’d just look at them sympathetically along with the other students. Before long, Mole forgot I was even in the group. At one point, I even raised my hand to correct them on a group assignment that I had worked on, earning a back pat from Mole. I was not proud of the betrayal, but it got me back on his good side. I coasted along in this guise until the end of the semester, when we had to present our final project as a group. When Mole realized that I was a member of this D-class outfit, he gave me a death stare and said nothing else. I sputtered out my portion of the presentation and got out of the line of fire, sure that I was now completely fucked. I was going to fail my capstone and spend another semester in college.

When our grades for the semester were posted, I was sure they would be bad news so I didn’t check them. Then I got an email telling me I needed to pick up my cap and gown for graduation. Considering this is how I found out that I had actually finished college, I probably didn’t deserve to graduate. But by some stroke of dumb luck, I had managed to pass Mole’s course, and was clear to exit my extended college career. I rejoiced by throwing out all my notes and going on a weed and booze bender of magnificent proportions. My homies, most of whom had graduated on time the previous year and were still unemployed, joined this debauchery enthusiastically. It extended all the way through Christmas, New Year’s, all of January, up to the night before my graduation ceremony.

Spring graduation that year happened to fall on Super Bowl Sunday, but my focus was neither on the game, nor on my completion of college. What dominated that weekend was a Philadelphia tradition that seems to get uglier and more enjoyable every year: the Wing Bowl.

An upcoming VICE doc will show you the inner workings of this gluttonous shitfest. (I can’t give you any details because I’ve never made it into the building.) As is the custom, we arrived the night before the competition to tailgate outside what was then known as the Wachovia Center in South Philly. I was dressed in my cap and gown over my beanie and bubble jacket. My good friend Marv (who has since calmed his lifestyle) popped the trunk of his car and pulled out my graduation present; a case of Victory Golden Monkey, a 10% ABV Belgian-style tripel. Surrounded by raging white sports fans and their dads, Marv, our friend Sambones, and I proceeded to smash beer after beer. All the while we smoked massive Ls while rolling more massive Ls. By this point in the month-long bender, this kind of consumption had become routine, and we administered it in a clockwork fashion.

I have no memory of the evening after the fourth Golden Monkey, but I distinctly remember waking up the next morning in Sambones’ living room. I could taste the residue of intensely rich beer in my throat and could feel my head pounding with its sugars. Standing up, I realized that I was still wearing my cap and gown over my bubble jacket and beanie. The black fabric of the gown was strewn with streaks of deep yellow, which turned out to be mustard. Evidently we had stopped at the Pretzel Factory at some point in the wee hours of the morning. It was now 9:30 AM and, oh shit, I had to go graduate from college. I stumbled over to a fetal-positioned Marv and tried to shove him into consciousness so he could drive me up to campus, where my mom and uncle were waiting to see me walk. Without opening his eyes, he reached into his pocket, fished out his car keys, and handed them to me.

I drove up to my graduation puffing a blunt roach in Marv’s Camry. (This was the same car in which we had been in a police chase a year or two earlier.) I burst through the front door of the Liacourous Center into a crowd of parents who were likely thanking whatever god they believe in that I wasn’t their kid. I was spotted by an organizer who hurried me down to the sub-room where all my classmates were seated in alphabetical order, ready to walk out and make their families proud.

The moment I stumbled in, the square part of my cap fell off. I plowed toward my seat, unsettling every graduate in my way, trying desperately to keep that cardboard square on top of my head. The girl seated next to me took pity on me. She found a giant safety pin in her handbag and helped me spear it through both the elastic and the square portion of my cap so the sharp end was sticking straight up out of the middle of it. Fitting it onto my head and slowly pulling my hands away, I asked her, “How do I look?” She said, “Like Kaiser Wilhelm,” and started giggling.

Her laugh was infectious, and I started giggling as well. At some point she stopped, but I just kept going. Walking out onto the parquet court, I scanned the audience for my mom and uncle. I stopped when I saw their two familiar, shocked faces. My mom’s dropped jaw began to curl into a laugh and she put her face in her hands. My uncle was laughing so hard he was bouncing up and down.

When my name was called, I proudly ascended onto the stage. All the high-ranking professors were there dressed like futuristic monks, with different colored stripes on their sagging sleeves. At the head of this group, standing next to a manservant with a pile of diplomas, was Prof. Mole. From ten paces away, he looked disgusted, but as I got closer his expression seemed to soften. He started to laugh. When I finally got to him, he handed me my diploma, and instead of saying “Congratulations” or “You’ve done very well” he asked, “Why are you so puffy?”

At first I was confused, but then realized what he meant. I replied, “Oh! Got a bubble jacket on.” I didn’t have time to explain the mustard or the pin sticking out of my head. He laughed and shook his head. As I stepped off the stage and walked past the audience, I could hear a murmur of laughter move with me like a wave. My mom and uncle met me by the exit, still laughing. “Congratulations!” my mom said. “I’m so glad we never, ever have to see any of these people again!” 

@imyourkid

We all live in echo-chambers of our own choosing, whether we're conservative, liberal, or anything in between. The news we get is the news we want, blowhard commentators and link curators delivering to each of us tuning-in/logging-on just the perfect slant we're looking for. If not, we’ll go somewhere else. So, if you're someone whose media intake consists of science-based facts and NPR, you tend to forget a good portion of the country is fucking nuts. For instance, if you would have told me last week that one in four Americans are unaware the Earth revolves around the Sun, and fewer than half believe in evolution, I would've called bullshit. I personally know absolutely zero people—save my nearly two-month-old nephew—who do not know these facts, so I'd find fault in the polling technique. But just last week, I found myself at dive bar in Bakersfield, CA, where I spent two Blue Moons trying to talk a middle-aged white dude out of believing that Obama's a Muslim. Which is to say: This poll checks out.

Remember that kid in grade school who kept to himself, who wasn't in the “cool” crowd and he wasn’t picked on? He was just kind of there? Seemed like a nice enough chap, but no one had an opinion really either way. Until that day he invited you to his house and showed off his various attempts at making bombs, the scat porn he stole from the video store, and his BB gun marksmanship on the neighborhood cat. And after that, you started to keep an extra eye on him? Well, that's kind of the metamorphosis that's taken place regarding Canada over the past five years. No one used to pay them much mind. They were just kind of there. But then they started rioting over Lord Stanley's Cup, and then the whole hilarious Rob Ford thing went/is still going down, and now it’s been revealed that they're dumping containers full of garbage on the Philippines. So, it’s time to think about them a little differently. Maybe Canadians aren't the laid back, beer-guzzling, chummy, folk we thought. Maybe, they’re really super-menacing, and have just been keeping that side away from the rest of us.

There's plenty of problems with the cult of youth that currently dominates every form of media, but the biggest one is simply the boredom that comes with it. Young people are boring. Hell, middle-aged people are too. The only really interesting people out there are the 80-plus-ers—the ones still coherent, at least—because they just don't give a shit. You know how after you put in your two weeks at a job and are just counting down the days left? That's them all the time. Take 82-year-old venture capitalist Tom Perkins. A few weeks ago, he said the American rich have it as bad as the Jews in Germany during WWII. (Now, that’s bold.) And this past week he's back at it, claiming that millionaires should get way more votes than the sullied non-millionaire masses. Dude is on a roll of hilarious cranky coot insanity, essentially becoming the Westboro Baptist Church of capitalism. Enjoy it while you can, folks. Simple math dictates this ride's coming to an end sooner than later.

Here's a worthwhile axiom to print out and stick in a bunch of fortune cookies or bumper stickers or something: One person's religion is not excuse enough to force someone else's action. Pretty basic stuff, seeing as everyone—even those who belong to the same religious tribe—has different belief systems. Governing by religious sensibilities makes about as much sense as writing laws dictated by a three-year-old. The publisher, however, doesn't agree. Last week, after getting a complaint from a fringe right-wing group that one of their publications (The Hindus, Wendy Doniger's alternative history of Hinduism) “hurt the religious feelings of millions of Hindus,” they thought it was right to consent to the wishes of madmen and remove the book from Indian shelves. This is not the correct response. Maybe they go and read something else instead?

Again and again in this space I've detailed a handful of reasons why, for the love of all that is holy, us humans should stay out of the goddamn oceans. Sometimes it’s because giant sharks live longer than previously thought, sometimes it’s because freakishly huge jellyfish are now all the rage in Tasmania, sometimes it’s because 43-foot-long squid are actual things that exist out there. This week, the reason to cancel that cruise is the fact that something called "rogue waves" exist. What's a rogue wave? Oh, just a massive wave that just fucking comes out of nowhere and wrecks havoc on everything in its wake. One of those ran into a British cruise ship last week, broke through a window, and ended up killing a guy. Once again: The ocean's not for us, people.

Illustration by Penelope Gazin

Girls and women (it feels so corny to consider girls and women as these separate classes of experience, right?) have, more so than guys and to our great benefit, style and shopping as a means of expression and self-realization. As problematic as it is to get super-excited about spending money toward, like, selfhood, it’s a socially and emotionally safe way to have some stripe of identity-adventure, to tell ourselves stories through our choices and things, and, more and more, to share those adventures and tell those same stories online. (This is why I don’t hate it when a tween buys a pee-quality body splash for $14 and posts about it; I know what she’s doing when she’s choosing, when she’s having, when she’s showing.)

The online show-off experience could have been about sex—some of it is, obvi—but girls tend to do the show-off parts of the internet the way they do clothes, which is mostly for themselves and for each other. This way of doing the internet, our way, converges as an inward “me gaze.” The aspects of performance and intimacy are all there, but are for us, and for an audience of us-es.

Street-style photographers still theoretically reward an individual’s own thing, as opposed to the approved seasonal version. Fashion editors still create the fantasies that girls play off of, and are essential liaisons between history, context, business, and buyer. Neither, however, is as powerful as girls and women are on their own, especially online.

Regular girls on the internet have become the kind of YouTube starlets who confuse nearly everyone, and they’re doing online what my kid best friends and I did for each other with our kid purchases in our bedrooms. Even when it was just two of us, the exposure of it was a little embarrassing. Today, it’s for millions of unseen proxies. Girls post their shopping bags and wish lists and tag #ootd on Tumblr and Instagram. There are “haul videos,” post-shop post-morts where new sweaters and on-sale boots are explained and caressed and wondered over in front of a MacBook camera.

Non-regular girls, like certain semi- and downtown-famous women, demonstrate their own style on sites run by women in the same social strata; their sites coolly maintain editorial authority and offer a different kind of lifestyle verisimilitude. The Coveteur shoots expensive stuff—clothes, shoes, bags, jewelry—around their subjects’ furniture, art, personal ephemera. To whatever degree their stuff is expected—the single pink Chanel jacket hung just so, the gold-shining spike bracelet wrapped around a cactus—there are also book collections and boyfriend baubles and limited kitchens and so much revealed about what these women wanted, what they’re trying, what they’re after, all of it nestled in a field of vulnerabilities.

The website Into the Gloss is my favorite. It documents the beauty and makeup routines of those same women, but often in such close detail that it feels like bathroom academics. Refinery29, Opening Ceremony’s site, posts “closet tours,” which are less self-consciously curatorial and more about the accumulation (both lit and fig) of influence, choice, and habit.

On Instagram, these same women post often and randomly, and the details (fixtures, flooring, furniture, books, lipsticks, shadowy background players, dogs) are often revealed by accident, in a way that’s perfectly unmediated. Insider access makes for voyeurism that’s more fun and positive than any other demonstration of who we are via our personal style, and a pile of shopping bags in a corner reveals more than the new shoes in the foreground every time.

Nothing is more wantable, for either subject or spectator, than an opportunity for some realness. Whether or not the demonstration of clothes and random other stuff is billboard-friendly mall-wear or the most exotic couture, the effect is the same: familiarity, and an ever-increasingly shared way of considering who we are, individually and together. The internet isn’t only about “Hi! I’m here!” With unlimited avenues of information, the very idea of personal style has become weightier. (Which isn’t to say there’s too much variance across its workings; the average style blogger is still in an easily traceable, collectively-agreed-upon rig.) When the emphasis is repositioned toward all of these tiny details and careful, me-gazing concerns, there’s less and less room or reason to minister to some other vision of what (and who) style, and self, are for.

More of Kate’s Li’l Thinks can be found at @KateCarraway.

Photo courtesy of Australian Indigenous Fashion Week

The Australian bush is vast, desolate, and pretty much entirely disconnected from the world of high fashion. But there are traditions of handcrafts and art amid all that emptiness, and where there’s art, there’s the possibility of turning that art into monetizable nuggets of fashion.

In April, the first-ever Australian Indigenous Fashion Week will be held in Sydney. It’s the brainchild of Krystal Perkins, a marketing executive who helped launch the country’s National Indigenous Television network. (She also happens to be the granddaughter of Charles Perkins, Australia's first indigenous university graduate and a prominent activist.)

The idea is to bring Aboriginal art to a wider audience and help young women who are tall and skinny and model-pretty but may live 20 hours from the nearest agency find work in the fashion industry and survive.

Krystal’s end goal is to get some Aboriginal faces into the lily-white world of high fashion. Other than Samantha Harris, a light-skinned Aboriginal model, there are basically no indigenous Australian beauty symbols. Of the 1,100 models signed to the country’s major agencies, only seven are Aboriginal, according to an article in CLEO, an Australian women’s magazine.

“I was struck by the lack of black faces in fashion, and wanted to try and balance things out a bit,” Krystal told me. She believes that by introducing greater diversity into the fashion world, indigenous girls and young women might be better able to see themselves as beautiful.

In advance of Indigenous Fashion Week, there will be a modeling competition for indigenous people of both sexes between 16 and 27. Of the hundred-plus entrants, 16 will be chosen to come to Sydney for training in business, deportment, and how to walk a catwalk.

Of course, modeling isn't a traditional pursuit for indigenous young people, and in many of the more conservative bush communities it's unheard of. Krystal told me that she wanted to be respectful of those attitudes.

“This has to be a decision for the entire community,” she said. “If a young girl wants to get into modeling, it's got to be OK with not just her parents, but the rest of her aunties and uncles in the community. You've got to be respectful.”

The fashion week will also include a design workshop for 16 indigenous female designers from across the country who will learn how to develop and commercialize their wares and have the opportunity to sell designs to labels. Krystal hopes some will follow in the footsteps of Jimmy Pike, an indigenous artist who started painting in prison and has gone on to create one-off pieces for Desert Designs and textiles licensed to Oroton and Sheridan. Both Zegna and Hermes have licensed designs by indigenous artists.

None of this is about helping indigenous people learn how to make art—they already know how to do that. It’s about helping them find a commercial audience for their work. While much of the focus of Aboriginal fine art is design and painting, there are other indigenous techniques that could easily find a home in the fashion industry. Artists from the Tiwi Islands in the Torres Strait have started incorporating the region’s weaving traditions into making bags and accessories; in southern Australia, the tradition of drying out the skins of kangaroos and possums to wear as coats, according to Krystal, could lead to a new fashion trend: There's already interest in possum fur coats in Europe and Asia. 

“The design initiative is about educating the industry on what's available, encouraging greater diversity, and setting up a better system of regulation to make sure designers get paid for their workm” Krystal said. “But mostly, it's about finding ways to translate art into fashion.” 

A panda in captivity engrossed in some panda porn.

In late 2012, a young panda named Tao Tao was released into China’s Liziping Nature Reserve. Born in captivity, Tao Tao is now being billed as the first successful reintroduction of a captive-born panda in history, mostly thanks to hot, steamy panda porn that teaches them the mechanics necessary to mate in the wild

Sixty-three hundred miles, 134 interview-planning emails, and a suitcase full of panda tracking equipment brought me to southwestern China, in the Sichuan province, to speak with Dr. Huang Yan, the lead researcher and director of the country’s newest giant panda reintroduction program, which aims to successfully place captive-born pandas back into the wild. The tracking electronics I was couriering would help me to secure an interview otherwise heavily censored by the country’s Department of Forestry. Made up of GPS units and radio collars, the equipment was provided by Suzanne Braden, director of Pandas International, a Colorado-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting giant panda conservation efforts across the globe.

The World Wildlife Federation estimates that there are approximately 1,600 giant pandas left in the wild. With practically no natural predators, the pandas can blame the expansion of human settlement as a big factor in their decline. But even more to blame could be the pandas themselves. When the new reintroduction process was introduced, the media quickly dubbed it "panda boot camp," as if the pandas were misbehaving teens on Dr. Phil, the difference being that pandas are ludicrously terrible at getting pregnant, while America's teens seem to be good at nothing else.

Reintroduction has been in the works for more than 30 years but has never succeeded. Three decades and eight pandas resulted in exactly zero success stories. Six had been pulled back out of the wild due to malnutrition worries, one went missing and is now assumed to be dead, and the last, Xiang Xiang, had perhaps the most tragic ending. In 2006, the five-year-old panda—whose name translates ironically to “Lucky”—was released into the wild. Less than a year later, he was dead. No one knows what his final moments were for sure, but theories suggest he was attacked by a competing male during the highly-tense mating season. The loss of Xiang Xiang inspired the new reintroduction program.

The most recent reintroduction graduate, Tao Tao, was released in October of 2012. The following May, Suzanne Braden confirmed he was still alive, meaning it was very possible that Dr. Huang’s team had become the first to ever successfully reintroduce a captive-born panda back into the wild.

When I met with Dr. Huang at the Bifengxia Panda Center in Ya’an City in the Sichuan province, he started by explaining the difficulties in getting pandas pregnant. “Female giant pandas go into heat only once a year, in the spring, and that period only lasts for about two or three weeks.” Within that period they are only fertile for about 24 hours. While almost every human man in the world might think this makes an ideal set-up, it’s seems like a cruel joke for the pandas that need to nail every opportunity at successful procreation possible. It’s no surprise then that our black-and-white friends need a little help sealing the deal, especially when pandas in captivity traditionally have a sex drive that’s even lower than their wild counterparts. So it was that the first step of a successful reintroduction program to get the pandas laid, with technology and mankind as the ultimate wingmen.

Careful observation and hormone tests would take care of knowing the when, but at some point, natural instincts would have to take over. In short, the pandas needed to not blow their once-a-year chance at copulating. To do this, researchers tried using unorthodox techniques, including physical training exercises to help strengthen the hind, thrusting muscles of male pandas, as well as panda pornography. They even experimented with offering the pandas Viagra, which met with little to no success. In a weird role reversal, it seemed as if scientists were simply using technology and medicine made for humans on pandas, making us the lab rats for a healthier, happier, more robust panda society.

When used, the pornography was not to help pandas get in the mood, but rather, as Braden explains, “to show them how to do it." The videos themselves contained basic footage of captive pandas mating. Experts say it’s the sound that the pandas might initially respond to, the sort of low repetitive grunt you would expect from a giant teddy bear getting laid. It’s probably also worth noting that, to the outside observer, all pandas look identical, which begs the question: How turned on would you be watching a video of you fucking yourself? To add to that that, the porn has very few angles and no HD, but is admittedly better than whatever the pandas could have come up with on their own.

When Dr. Huang and his team finally manage to get a panda pregnant, it’s a big deal. The mother is quickly sent from China’s Giant Panda base at Bifengxia to Wolong, the main base for the reintroduction program. However, pregnancy is not the only qualifier to enter the reintroduction program. Dr. Huang explained, “Mothers who have experience living in the wild and those who have a successful history of rearing the cubs are the best candidates for rearing a new wild cub. If they meet those criteria, the pregnant mothers are placed in a two and a half acre wild enclosure, protected from outside, competing male pandas and any other predators with fencing.” At the moment of birth, reintroduction begins.

Panda trainers in full panda costume hold Tao Tao

When Tao Tao was born, he was immediately living in a semi-wild environment. Dr. Huang told me, “Earlier introduction was one of the primary focuses of the new program.” Second on the agenda was human interaction, or lack thereof. It was severely limited, and when trainers were required they wore full panda costumes to maintain Tao Tao’s natural fear of non-panda creatures, human or otherwise. Survival skills like foraging for food were then taught principally by Tao Tao’s own mother, who had experience living in the wild. After six months, the enclosure was expanded to more than 24 acres. Radio collars like the ones I had couriered were used to keep tabs on Tao Tao as he explored his expanded territory. Constant monitoring was critical to make sure that Tao Tao wasn’t injured and regularly moving into new areas to forage for food, a sign he was doing well.

After two years of reintroduction training, Tao Tao was deemed ready to enter the wild. With a bit of hesitation, the young panda reluctantly left his cage and entered the wild of Liziping Nature Reserve on October 11, 2012. Now more than a year after his release, Tao Tao is still doing well. He’s passed through the dangerous mating season unharmed, though some researchers point out that he has not reached full maturity, which could mean he is not perceived as a substantial threat to competing males in the area. Regardless, Tao Tao is tentatively considered by many to be the first captive-born panda ever successfully reintroduced into the wild. When I spoke to him, Dr. Huang avoided making this claim as he explained that the country’s Department of Forestry would be the official entity to release that information. A few weeks later, they did.

A Chinese news site broke the report from the State Forestry Administration, which stated, “It is believed that after surviving a cold winter, Tao Tao experienced a reintroduction to other wild pandas during the spring. The group recommends continuation of individuals into the Liziping Nature Reserve.” And that’s exactly what they did. This time, a female named Zhang Xiang, released on November 6, 2013, into the same forest where Tao Tao was released. At press time, both are doing wonderfully. Perhaps they’ll meet someday, watch a little panda porn, eat some bamboo and help save their species, one ridiculously hard to make panda cub at a time.  

Bret Easton Ellis photographed at his home in LA by Jamie Lee Curtis Taete

Bret Easton Ellis has only got to open his mouth for the cry-babies of the world to crawl out and start berating him for being a morally depraved chancer. Back in the 80s and 90s, you could sympathise with people getting offended by his books if they hadn’t spent much time around hedge-fund managers or fashion world dickheads. If they had, they’d realize that American Psycho and Glamorama are in essence works of journalism – dressed up in Valentino and splattered with blood, yes, but documentaries of a certain moment in history all the same. “The six or seven books add up as a sort of autobiography," he says. "When I look at them I think, 'Oh, that’s where I was in ’91. That’s where I was in ’88. Okay, I got it.'”

Now he has moved into film, as well as writing screenplays for TV and delivering his own weekly podcast. Which, among other highlights, has featured Kanye West and Marilyn Manson. Yet still he has repeatedly faced accusations of "douchery" from bloggers and a general outcry every time he criticizes anything on Twitter.

When I called his house in LA last week, Bret talked passionately about his frustration with what he's dubbed "Generation Wuss" – you, me, everyone else who's young, hyper-sensitive and grown up with the internet, basically. Over the course of a few hours, I was genuinely impressed by the amount of interest he takes in the lives of people who've grown up reading his books, the technology they use and the way they consume culture. His annoyance seems to come from a place of concern rather than misanthropy. 

So, why all the pant-wetting?

VICE: Why have you termed me and my contemporaries "Generation Wuss"?
Bret Easton Ellis: You have to understand that I’m coming to these things as a member of the most pessimistic and ironic generation that has ever roamed the earth. When I hear millennials getting hurt by "cyber bullying", or it being a gateway to suicide, it’s difficult for me to process. A little less so for my boyfriend, who happens to be a millennial of that age, but even he somewhat agrees with the sensitivity of Generation Wuss. It’s very difficult for them to take criticism, and because of that a lot of the content produced is kind of shitty. And when someone is criticized for their content, they seem to collapse, or the person criticizing them is called a hater, a contrarian, a troll.

In a way it’s down to the generation that raised them, who cocooned them in praise – four stars for showing up, you know? But eventually everyone has to hit the dark side of life; someone doesn’t like you, someone doesn’t like your work, someone doesn’t love you back… people die. What we have is a generation who are super-confident and super-positive about things, but when the least bit of darkness enters their lives, they’re paralyzed.

I realized the other day that I’m around the same age as Patrick Bateman. His existence was fairly typical of a 27-year-old living in New York at the time you wrote American Psycho, but it couldn’t be further away from my reality.
Not to reference the 27-year-old [Bret's boyfriend] too often, but he would completely agree with you. American Psycho is about a world that is as alien to him as Saturn.

I think it was a world we were promised, though.
There was a certain point where we realized the promises were lies and that we were going to be economically adrift. It’s the fault of the baby boomer generation for raising their kids at the highest peak of the empire, in a complete fantasy world. My generation, Gen X, realized that, like most fantasies, it was somewhat dissatisfying, and we rebelled with irony, negativity and attitude because we had the luxury to do that. Our reality wasn’t an economic hardship.

Right – which is what The Wolf of Wall Street is all about. Is that why you like it so much?
I never like a movie because of its subject matter. I liked it because it wasn’t an op-ed piece and it wasn’t concerned with another thing that so many movies are concerned with today, which is decency: decent people under stress or hardship.

To me, it’s a classic young man story, like Barry Lyndon. Nine times out of ten they blow it, they fuck up, they spend all the money, they let their id run wild, don’t check themselves, don’t look towards the future and… it crashes. Also, I just thought it was hilarious, and Leonardo delivered a transfixing performance. And the fact that he’s not going to win an Academy Award this year is a real bummer.

Seeing him in that film, do you wish he'd played Patrick Bateman?
I was really not involved in the making of that movie. All I know was that it was an offer made to Leo after Christian Bale. It would have been the start of erasing something that was probably quite embarrassing for him, being known for the rest of his life as Jack from Titanic. I don’t know exactly what happened. I also didn’t know how far along Christian was in preparing American Psycho, so my endorsing Leo might have looked insensitive. But yes – in answer to your question, I would have liked to see him in the role. But it was probably a lot better at that time and less distracting to have a relatively unknown actor.

You said Terrence Malick was a big inspiration.
One of the key moments in my young movie-going life was watching Days of Heaven and realizing that film was an art form. I’d been leading up to that epiphany, growing up in LA and being very aware of the film industry. But in 1978, that’s when I got it. That’s why I have such a tie to that film and why I watch it every two years. It takes me back.

Is it a style you’d like to recreate in your own films?
I don’t know about that. Part of the problem I had with The Canyons was that I would have directed it faster. I don’t have the Asian mindset that Paul Schrader does, which is steeped in [Yasujiro] Ozu and the great Japanese directors from the 50s and 60s. That’s his way of pacing a movie.

That sounds like a pretty massive disparity in your vision for the film.
It seems more massive than it really was. The Canyons was guerrilla film making. We were going to make it for no money and put it on iTunes. We didn’t think it was going to turn into this notorious, cultural event in the US.

Surely you knew that casting Lindsay Lohan would have that kind of effect?
No, but it was a $150,000 movie. We were sitting in friends’ bedrooms; we weren’t trying to create The Godfather. I wrote the script – I think it was one of only two scripts in Schrader’s career that he didn’t touch, the other being a script written by Harold Pinter for a film called The Comfort of Strangers, which is a movie that influenced The Canyons – and Schrader wanted it shot the way he shoots. And I thought, 'You know, this will be faster after we’ve edited it.' And it did [get faster], to a degree.

Look, 20 percent of people I know like the movie; 80 percent don’t like the movie. But the sketchiness of it – the sleazy, cold aspect of it – what can I say? It speaks to me.

The sinister portrait of LA that you paint in Less Than Zero – with howling coyotes and dead bodies littering alleyways – is that a realistic depiction of the place? Or has your view of it changed as you’ve grown older?
I think it’s a bit of both. I do think my southern California childhood was very idyllic. Yes, there was a bad marriage going down in the house and I suffered from a little bit of depression, but there was the beach, there were the malls, a lot of my friends drove around in convertibles. I mean, how bad is it?

I wasn’t an unpopular kid. I had a lot of friends, I threw parties, I had a… girlfriend. But writing all the time alienated me from the crowd slightly, and because of that I did tend to look at the world with a more jaundiced eye.

Okay. Is it true that you’re writing a TV series about the Manson murders?
Yes, although I wouldn’t say it’s about the Manson murders. It’s about the two years surrounding the Manson murders in LA. The show starts about a year before the Manson murders. I’m just beginning to plan it. It’s in the beginning stages.

And are you writing a new book?
Yes, but I wish it wasn’t important to people that I am. I had a bit of a breakdown in January of 2013. I did more writing in 2012 than I’d ever done in my life – a series of movies, two of which got made, and countless television pilots. By January of 2013 I was exhausted. I found myself hungry to write prose, so I started working on this book. Every now and then it comes alive and I work on it until I get distracted by something else. It’s on my desk, along with a play that I’m writing.

What made you want to do the podcast?
I published a very long, 4,000 word piece for Out Magazine. It got a lot of attention here in the US, and reading articles written in response to it, I realized people had stopped reading halfway through.

That’s the internet.
Well, there’s a positive myth that the internet is great for writing long-form pieces and you can publish 11,000 words, but it doesn’t mean people will necessarily read the whole thing. So I thought, if I had a podcast, I could have my say over it. I wasn’t into the idea of a talk radio show at first, but it’s been really interesting. I don’t understand this idea of the novelist being locked in the top of a tower. I’ve seen people respond negatively to the fact I’m on Twitter and have opinions about pop culture. I like it. It fucks with people’s idea of what I’m really like.

Is this one of the problems you had with David Foster Wallace – that he played up to the almighty author thing?
I think David Foster Wallace is a complete fraud. I’m really shocked that people take him seriously. People say the same thing about me of course, and I’ve been criticized for saying these things about Wallace due to the very sentimental narrative attached to him since he killed himself.

But it all ties into Generation Wuss and its wussy influence on social media to a degree; if you have a snarky opinion about anything, you’re a douche. To me, that’s problematic. It limits discourse. If you just like everything, what are we going to talk about? How great everything is? How often I’ve pushed the Like button on my Facebook page?

Is it BuzzFeed who said they’re not going to run any negative reviews any more? Really, guys? What’s going to happen to culture then? What’s going to happen to conversation? It’s going to die.

Yeah. But I suppose now, in place of money, we have a currency of popularity, and the main pay-off is thousands of people liking your shit on Facebook. In that climate, how do you create vital work?
I agree with you, and it’s kind of touching to me that there isn’t an economic way of elevating yourself, and the only way to do that is through your brand, your profile and your social media presence. I think I might be too old to consciously use Instagram or Tumblr to my advantage. I don’t even use Twitter correctly. But living with someone who’s 27, I think the way you described it is perfectly accurate: online presence is the currency.

While my boyfriend and his friends can be really quite biting and mean at times, overall they really do want to put out a more gentle, amiable persona.

But I wouldn’t say your work in the 80s and 90s was particularly amoral. American Psycho did carry a kind of moral message. It might not have been stated explicitly, but it was there.
You need to feel that, though. I got shit for American Psycho, with people saying it was calculated to offend people. If that was true, I wouldn’t have spent three to four years on it, and I would have just filled every page with horrible descriptions. I was writing about my life. I was writing about being Patrick Bateman – a young man in New York during that era – and being lost in that yuppie culture, which is really just consumerist culture. Feeling that I had to have all of the things that a young man had at that time and hating myself for not having them and hating society and not wanting to grow up. That’s really what American Psycho was. It was a very personal novel.

Also, like a lot of men, I had a pretty tawdry fantasy world, and if any man really wants to admit that, they're going to be attacked for it.

When people accuse you of misogyny, I’m always like, 'Oh right, because the men come off so well in those books.'
Well, look. [Laughs] This is exactly the kind of thing a misogynist would say, but I’ve never felt like a misogynist. Yet, it has been interesting to look back at myself when I've been accused of that and to understand why someone would say it. For example, I don’t think American Psycho is a misogynist text at all; I think misogyny is part of the picture. But, like I said in the Wolf of Wall Street podcast, a depiction is not endorsement.

I was criticized for speaking about Kathryn Bigelow on Twitter [Ellis said that her being "a hot woman" had led to her being "overrated" as a director]. First of all, I thought that was an aesthetic thing and a comment about Hollywood and reverse sexism, but it came out in a way that annoyed people who are very sensitive about those things. I got it when I said Alice Munro was overrated, too, without people acknowledging that I’ve criticized a lot of male authors I don’t like, and I’ve celebrated a lot about female writers I love. My friend Donna Tartt, for instance – her new novel, The Goldfinch, is really good and I’m in awe of someone who can do that.

And you’ve made no secret of how much you love Joan Didion.
Well, every now and then someone comes along who changes your perception. Before Didion, it was Hemingway – that was when I was 12 or 13. Didion was later, in high school, and it was more personal because she was writing about southern California and referencing streets I had driven on. She was describing a sensibility about women that jibed with what I was noticing in my mum’s friends. I tried writing Less Than Zero maybe two times before what was ultimately published, and Joan Didion played a big part in shaping it.

Do you ever feel as though feminism is slipping into a blame culture?
Years ago, I found Jezebel.com very ominous and worrying. I mean, not that I care that much, but now it really has come full circle. I think the Lena Dunham bullying thing – and I don’t want to toe the party line and say, "Oh, it was so shitty of Jezebel to do that" – but it was indicative of where a kind of feminism is right now.

I keep thinking that feminism is getting to a place that’s cool, mostly because women that I know just want to be real and they want to be sexual and they want to be pretty. Meeting James Deen, being immersed in his world, meeting a lot of women who worked in porn and seeing how cool they were with it gave me a different view.

You don't think it's fucked them up?
No, they’re not fucked up by it. James Deen’s girlfriend [VICE columnist Stoya] is a huge performer and, like James, doesn’t look like a traditional porn star. She also has a blog where she writes about feminist porn and how she’s in control.

Can you tell me about the Kanye film collaboration?
You know what, I can’t. It’s in Kanye-land and that’s subject to a whole other timeframe. He came and asked me to write the film. I didn’t want to at first. Then I listened to Yeezus. It was early summer last year and I was driving in my car. He’d given me an advance copy and I thought, regardless of whether I’m right for this project, I want to work with whoever made this. So fuck it, I said yes. And that’s how it happened. That was seven or eight months ago. We’ll see what happens.

I really like him as a person. I know he comes off in this performance art way in the press, but if you’re just alone with him in a room talking for three hours, it’s kind of mind-blowing.

I think he just broke the golden rule of admitting to being a narcissist, and that’s what people can’t handle.
Why is that rule there, though?

Right, because if you’re working in the media or entertainment industry, chances are, you’re a narcissist.
Yeah, you’re right. We all are. We’re all here. And he’s one of the few people who will admit it, and I like him for that and I wish more people would follow suit. I think that’s what makes Jennifer Lawrence so appealing. She’s the future of Hollywood personas. I don’t know where the “old rules” of the empire – about showing your best self on the red carpet – gets anyone. It suggests an unfree society.

Can you explain this empire and post-empire distinction? Because you refer to it a lot.
Empire is the US from roughly WWII to a little after 9/11. It was at the height of its power, its prestige and its economic worth. Then it lost a lot of those things. In the face of technology and social media, the mask of pride has been slowly eradicated. That empirical attitude of believing you’re better than everyone – that you’re above everything – and trying to give the impression that you have no problems. Post-empire is just about being yourself. It’s showing the reality rather than obscuring things in reams and reams of meaning.

But can you ever present a "real" version of yourself online?
Well, turning yourself into an avatar, at least, is post-empire. That’s a new kind of mask. It’s more playful than hiding your feelings, presenting your best self and lying if you have to. Unless, of course, you argue that that’s just a whole new form of empire in itself.

Download the Bret Easton Ellis podcast featuring Marilyn Manson, Kanye West and Judd Apatow here.

Bret is launching his own YouTube channel in the coming months.

Follow Nathalie (@NROLAH) and Bret (@BretEastonEllis) on Twitter.

Fashion week is like a fierce comet covered in useless zippers and lapels that comes crashing down on New York City twice a year, bringing with it a horde of hungry models, irate designers, and obnoxious bloggers. This year, we sent Ohio-born photographer Conor Lamb to attend all of the shows and capture the good, the bad, and the weird looks of the runway. We published a lot of his photos with our show reviews. However, this selection of pics below says less about the clothes and more about the strange, beautiful, and grotesque spectacle that is fashion week. Enjoy!

Conor Lamb is a freelance photographer who hails from the Midwest. He's still exhausted from all the shitty parties he used to document when night-life photography was still a thing. He has a penchant for shooting hip-hop artists, and he's covered fashion stuff for us in the past. He has a Joy Division tattoo and, according to a very good source, he and his girlfriend like to dress up as juggalos. His work can be found here.