Back Row with Amy Odell

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Is everything on social media — even lifestyle content — just rage bait now? New York Magazine features writer Rebecca Jennings joins Amy to unpack her hit Vulture piece on the "influencer recession," when aspirational content no longer works and creators have to come up with "brand-safe rage bait." What does this mean both for the content landscape but also, for rage itself?

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction

02:00 What is the "influencer recession"?

02:45 The clipping economy & fake virality

05:15 Audrey Peters & the $25 DoorDash coffee

10:30 Why the Alo yacht flopped

14:35 Why Birkins are embarrassing now

19:30 The OpenAI influencer farm trip

24:00 Brands manufacturing their own rage bait

30:00 How Substack changed the game

34:30 Is rage bait losing its power?

Read Rebecca's story: The Influencer Recession — https://www.vulture.com/article/influencer-recession-audrey-peters-interview.html

Edited by Chrissi Harris.

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Is fashion in the throes of a total creative collapse? Critic Eugene Rabkin — founder of StyleZeitgeist and author of the new book Torn: Fashion and Postmodernism — joins Amy to make the case. He argues luxury has "devolved into a consumerist spectacle," its lack of ideas papered over by relentless marketing.

They get into the greedflation behind a $140,000 Dior dress, why "craftsmanship" is the industry's greatest con, the Italian sweatshop scandals that never seem to stick, how Bernard Arnault turned the fashion world into the fashion industry — and the death of criticism, and why nobody seems to care.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction

02:30 Fashion's creative collapse: the thesis

08:30 Greedflation & the $140,000 Dior dress

13:00 The craftsmanship con

15:00 Sweatshop scandals: Dior & Loro Piana's vicuña

23:30 The death of fashion criticism

32:00 Bernard Arnault & how he industrialized fashion

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Follow Eugene Rabkin
📷 Follow Eugene on Instagram: @eugenerabkin
📚 Buy the book: Torn: Fashion and Postmodernism

This episode was edited by Chrissi Harris.

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John Galliano is the subject of the Costume Institute's 2027 exhibition and will be celebrated with his very own Met Gala. Galliano's biographer Dana Thomas — author of Gods and Kings, a dual biography about Galliano and Alexander McQueen — joins the show to talk about what this means. Amy and Dana recap Galliano's fall from grace and image rehabilitation — thanks to Anna Wintour.

This is a free preview. Hear the full conversation — a detailed recap of the controversy, the apology Galliano never made, and Amy's take on whether the Met should honor him — in the full episode in Back Row Premium.

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"Parisian Heist" author Jo Piazza joins Amy to break down the October 2025 Louvre robbery — the suspects, the mysterious "sponsor," and why authorities aren't sure the suspects are telling the truth.

Plus: why museum security is so basic, how art gets used to launder money and fund violent crime, the billionaire families who quietly run the art market, and what a $181 million Jackson Pollock says about the state of art and wealth.

(00:00) Introduction
(02:30) Recap: the Louvre heist, October 19, 2025
(04:30) The Isabella Stewart Gardner heist: $500M, still unsolved
(07:30) The arrests and the mysterious "sponsor" named Joe
(08:30) How basic museum security really is
(13:00) What was stolen: the Napoleonic crown jewels
(16:30) The Wildensteins & how art launders money
(30:00) The $60 billion shadow art market
(31:00) Restoring Empress Eugénie's crown & the French jewelry houses
(38:30) The $181M Pollock & Jerry Saltz's takedown of the art market

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Buy The Parisian Heist: https://amzn.to/4yLV6ex

Follow Back Row: @backrow · Follow Amy: @instamyodell · Follow Jo: @jopiazzaauthor

Edited by Chrissi Harris.

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In this special episode in collaboration with the Power User podcast Amy Odell joins tech journalist Taylor Lorenz to trace the arc of wearable tech — from the abomination that was Google Glass to Snapchat's vending-machine Spectacles and the company's recent $2,000 flop. Also, why Meta's rollout of it's new $299 fashion-first AI glasses, odious as many find them, may end up being a smash hit.

Follow Taylor's show Power User on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube, and subscribe to her newsletter, UserMag.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro — why everyone's arguing about Meta's glasses

01:36 Turning a camera into a fashion accessory

01:55 Welcome + the "hot surveillance summer" question

02:45 Google Glass and the original abomination

04:16 Snapchat Spectacles, vending machines, and a $130 flop

06:48 GoPro and how sports normalized filming everything

08:55 Ray-Ban Stories (2021) and the "creep" problem

10:57 2025: Oakley Meta and the first AI glasses

11:55 2026: low-profile frames, rhinestones, and AI as the real sell

13:25 The influencer rollout and the decline of fashion media

18:39 Why Kylie Jenner

21:40 How phones already normalized recording everything

24:56 Fashion, plausible deniability, and getting women on board

26:20 Will they actually sell? Meta's copy machine

29:19 The anti-screen crowd may be Meta's best customer

32:14 Beyond glasses: pins, pendants, and camera AirPods

35:29 Who owns the data? Facial recognition and the scary part

37:11 Zuckerberg, Bezos, the Met Gala, and OpenAI's fashion play

39:59 Snap's $2,000 flop and why ugly tech dies

43:03 Wrap-up
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