They Told Me "Touch Grass Outside"
Fanfare, did algos ruin everything?, A&F bridal, do you know the "hott" ppl song? 🎺
Oops! It’s Friday, not Thursday. Thank you for your patience!!!!! Normally, I try to schedule this for B’Time (9:04am, seeing as B’Day, aka. Beyoncé’s birthday, is 09/04). Anyway, welcome new readers! We are ~very~ close to a new subscriber milestone, which is exciting! I love that this letter resonates with likeminded pop culture enthusiasts/esoteric cultural philosophers/rabbit hole deep divers, and I really appreciate you sharing it and Nicstalgia the show. As always, leave a comment below to share your thoughts on what resonates or send me an email with feedback on what you’d like to see more of.
Hope you had a great Pi Day. In 11th grade, my algebra teacher said we could get out of doing the homework if we memorized 100 decimal places of pi. In retrospect, I realize she may have just been trolling, but I accepted the challenge. Not having to do homework AND getting to stand in front of the class and have people clap for me???? More so than a student, I was first and foremost a dancer and a performer. I completed the task successfully and still remember 28 places of pi off the top of my head to this day. There has been absolutely no evident, practical application of this skill or any discernible way to monetize it, but I won’t give up.
In this issue:
🎭 My in-depth experience at Dorian Electra’s [future Tony Award-winning] Fanfare Tour
👛 What’s In My Bag as performance artistry rather than a YouTube convention
🌀 Did algorithms really ruin everything, or has everyone always been tasteless?
👰🏻♀️ Abercrombie’s bridal launch and reckoning my past work experience with their ability to evolve
💎 Agnes’s dual ‘Release Me’ music videos and cultural appreciation vs. appropriation
🏋🏻♀️ Richard Simmons’s social media strategy and unreleased club bangers
Support Nicstalgia with a paid subscription for less than a zebra print dELiA*s cardigan.
Huge thank you to Nicstalgia supporters who I will love forever: Janine, Marie, Liv, and Mitra!💐💐💐
🎭 Cut The Fanfare
Calling Dorian Electra’s Fanfare Tour a ‘show’ doesn’t do it justice. When they said there was gonna be fanfare, they weren’t kidding!!!! There were candelabras, trombones, masks, a piano, a sad clown, a severed head, briefcases, Irish step-dancing, a backdrop that looked like real grass from outside, and much more. It was like a dramatic night at the opera meets the Big Apple Circus meets Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty” music video and that Pepsi commercial with Beyoncé, Pink, Britney Spears, and Enrique Iglesias. I have never been to Medieval Times, however, I would petition that Fanfare should constantly play there in the background going forward. It was giving, in their words, “Pinocchi-HO” and “Ringling Bros for people whose Vin Diesel is Phoebe Bridgers”. How do you nominate someone for a Tony Award???? Because we have a winner.
Dorian told DIY Magazine that the Fanfare album is about “Fame, fandom, the Internet, the cult of celebrity, the industrial production of celebrity under capitalism and how fandom is the new religion.” These topics are all very up my alley and the subject of much of my thoughts and research. It’s been deeply interesting to explore the complex sociopolitical commentary in Dorian’s songs.
Timeline sidebar: I met Dorian in passing last summer at FWB FEST, and they complimented my shoes. I tried to be gracious and chill on the outside, but inside, I was calculating in my head how long a compliment from someone as iconique as Dorian would add to my life expectancy. (2 years, minimum.) Tbh I’d only heard one of their songs before because of Spotify’s insistence on labeling the hyperpop genre, but where I primarily recognized them from was PAPER Magazine’s Mona May Dresses Dorian Electra In Iconic Movie Costumes. Mona May is my favorite costume designer, and it was very cool seeing her looks from Clueless, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, and Never Been Kissed reimagined and inspired by Dorian’s gender fluidity. Then last fall, Dorian modeled speed walked for their life in the Avavav SS24 show – in a suit comprised entirely of Post-it® notes. I am convinced this was a callback to Mona May (because Romy & Michele invented Post-its) and no one can tell me otherwise. A couple weeks after that, Fanfare came out, and the rest is history.
Okay, back to the operatic spectacular. These are my many favorite parts of the show in chronological order, with context:
The Beyoncé fan was doing its part!!!!! It was an artistic, aesthetically perfect amount of wind that had dramatic flair without being overpowering.
The backup dancers were great!!! (Yes I DMd one of them to ask if they teach classes in NYC. They said not atm, but I’ll be patient because I’m trying to learn that choreo directly from the source. Always happy to hear when dancers are booked and busy!)
I love the dance move in “Idolize” that I personally believe to be a callback to the jumping move in the “Bye Bye Bye” music video. That’s where I draw the line though – I don’t think that NSFW puppeteer anthem “Puppet” directly correlates to the No Strings Attached marionettes.
Dorian danced suggestively with a larger-than-life (like a 10-foot tall) puppet during “Puppet”. I obviously wore my favorite Puppets & Puppets red leather snakeskin pants with front and back cutouts in full support of this spectacle.
Dorian played a piano version of “Career Boy”, which thematically paralleled my fav Lady Gaga era: The Fame (2008). When they started playing, Dorian said something along the lines of, “Any Wall Street people here?” and I thought it was the funniest thing maybe anyone has ever said. It gave me great solace knowing there was not a single soul present who could ever be confused for a Wall Street worker. This is my fav music video of theirs and a song I could unfortunately, unironically relate to.
The costume change after Dorian was beheaded with an axe (apparently other tour dates had a guillotine) was intriguingly set to Pavarotti’s version of “Vesti la giubba” from the opera Pagliacci (aka. clowns). A pagliaccio, played by Dorian’s real-life dad, lamented with the severed head in hand. The makeup on the head prop was really well done btw! I did not have yell-sing ‘RIDIIII PAGLIACCIOOOO’ on my Bingo card. I like to think they were inspired by the Hey Arnold opera episode!!
There are two dance moves in the blasphemous, bratty “Sodom & Gomorrah” that channel Britney’s “I’m a Slave 4U” choreo. (Britney choreo also goes perfectly on beat with S&G FYI.) I firmly stand by my previous statement that S&G is a hornypop masterpiece, complete with a beatboxing section reminiscent of *NSYNCs “Pop”, heavy breathing à la Britney in “I’m a Slave 4U”, and the best vocalization of “la la la” since Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”.
Scream-singing “Freak Mode” was a fun and cathartic! I’m just glad they could Irish stepdance like in the music video but without the group of New England-coded normies. There is a strobe warning on the mv, but there should also be a frat/lax bro warning. Young men outfitted in preppy polos, button downs with bow ties, Nantucket pink shorts, Wayfarer sunglasses, backwards baseball hats, and boat shoes literally give me a jump scare.
Brooklyn Steel was a great venue. My friend noted that the audience was comprised of “All the people my pastor growing up said would be going to hell,” which is especially funny considering this was the best crowd with the kindest people I’ve ever seen at a concert. My favorite outfit I saw was a burgundy fawn fur jacket with a perfectly color-matched (I think) velvet maxi dress underneath. GLAM! The person in front of us was wearing assless chaps, which I thought were fun. The Gen Z attendant scanning our tickets upon entry said we looked cvnty, adding another year onto my life expectancy.
So yeah long story long I had a lot of fun! My favorite thing about Dorian is that they commit to the bit. Those who get it, get it. From making the bathrooms at their concerts not only gender neutral but species neutral – complete with a litter box, puppy pad, and fire hydrant – to squashing a potential beef with the Blue Man Group, their meta-ironic humor keeps people guessing and their fanfare keeps people entertained.¹
¹ Blue Man Group really does have an ominous undertone and slightly threatening presence. They’ve been performing for 30+ years and I still don’t know a single soul who’s seen BMG. How do they stay in business? Why are they blue? Do they speak? I have more questions than answers and personally consider *my* blue man group to be the Italian Eurodance trio Eiffel 65 of “I’m Blue” fame.
👛 What’s In My Bag
I am obsessed with all of internet-based performance artist
’s work, and her recent What’s In My Bag video is no exception. She did a typical YouTube influencer-style ‘what’s in my bag’ video, but instead of showcasing items in their physical form, bag contents were printed out on pieces of paper. My favorite items of hers were steel wool, a foldable mirror hairbrush, and a Beanie Baby. It reminded me of Vita Kari, a visual artist whose bit on TikTok is, “This isn’t [what it appears to be], I printed it out!” as well as that time in high school when my zebra print dELiA*s cardigan wasn’t going to arrive for Christmas in time so my Dad photoshopped a pic of me wearing it and my Mom had me open that instead. (Btw I found the exact sweater on Poshmark and now I might be legally obligated to buy it.)Molly also stopped by one of my favorite places on the internet, USURPATOR, to talk with Anna about visibility, performance, and presence online.
So here is what’s in my bag:
A water bottle. The great thing about it being printed on paper is that it can’t spill in my bag and ruin my green EnV flip phone.
My green EnV flip phone (which I did ruin by spilling lemon Vitamin Water on it in 2007; it has since been reincarnated as the cursor icon on nicoletremaglio.com)
Tropical Splash Barbie perfume
J14 Magazine
White glitter mirrored Fendi Paradeyes sunglasses
Various lip products: Palmers cocoa butter swivel stick, Burt’s Bees tinted lip balm in Rose, Lancôme Juicy Tubes, and DuWop Lip Venom
White foldable mirror hairbrush like the one I had (have?) from the American Girl fashion show I went to circa 1996
Hot pink dangly earrings in the shape of brick phones
Mood ring
Chill Tips
Vacation Classic Whip sunscreen
NOW That’s What I Call Music! Volume 7 on CD
Spice World: 10th Anniversary Edition on DVD
These are all basically the things that the Nic Barbie comes with. The only thing missing is my Limited Too squeezable, comb-able blue hair dye. In order for me to carry it, I would have to find a picture of it first 🥺
🌀 At Least Me & Regina George Know We’re Mean
I couldn’t stop thinking about
’s recent post, The Empty Snobbery of Filterworld. (I started following Matthew on X and Spotify maybe like 2 years ago because he’s the only person whose playlists I listen to aside from my own. That’s a big deal.) Filterworld is a new book by Kyle Chayka, a staff writer at The New Yorker. (He also cofounded Dirt, of which I’m a founding member.)I was surprised by this review at first, because what I primarily see now on the internet is that everyone either (1) has the same exact, tired take on something, thinking they’re special by contributing to “the discourse” and being terrified of disagreeing with anyone or (2) hates something and is mean about it. This was neither. It was a genuine critique.
The book is about algorithms shaping culture and how they made us all boring/the same. I’m not gonna lie – I’ve googled ‘hipster coffee shop [city I was in]’ many a time, but I personally feel like my taste is better-refined than ever!!!! The problem with journalists and the upper echelon of the creative class is they – generally, not this author specifically – think they have better taste than everyone else. In reality, they have shallow MVT (minimum viable taste…I just made this up…it’s not a thing) aka. they wait for others to actually create the culture and wade in as shallow waters as possible so they can write a story about it and move onto whatever the next ‘cool’ thing is. Then they go on Twitter and complain about the lack of ‘culture’, the bloated discourse, and the unfortunate state of their industry – the very one they shaped in the first place. A lot of writers seem to take themselves way too seriously.
This self-consciousness substituting self-awareness is like in Mean Girls when Janis Ian differentiates herself and Regina George vs. Cady Heron. “At least me and Regina George know we’re mean.” I know I have unhinged crate digging tendencies, hyper-fixate on random pop culture topics, and deep dive on shallow, vapid, and superficial topics. I know I sociologically analyze esoteric facets of popular culture when I really don’t need to and listen to mainstream genres of music that others might look down on. (I have been carrying the emotional burden of being Celine Dion’s #1 Millennial Fan since I was 7 years old.) I might have “bad taste”, but at least it’s mine. While the algorithms have undoubtedly had an impact on the arts, The incorrect assumption here is thinking everyone else had taste in the first place.
👰🏻♀️ Til A&F Do Us Part??
I was researching Abercrombie’s employee demographics over the last 20 years (as one does) the day that they announced their new bridal category. I thought this meant they would be selling wedding dresses, à la Anthropologie & BHLDN, but no. There are options for the best dressed guest, bride (like shower/party dresses), and bachelorette. I would personally love to see a floor length, white, piqué polo dress with a double popped collar. Imagine!
There have been countless articles about Abercrombie’s ability to successfully evolve and grow with their customer – I did a fun Nicstalgia episode in 2022 about their controversies and rebrand. Now, there is even a Purpose link in their main website navigation. CEO Fran Horowitz states, “We lead with purpose in all we do. That’s who we are now. That’s Abercrombie today.” A&F really does live up to its slogan, ‘Authentic American clothing since 1892’, as they match whatever ‘authentic’ happens to mean in American culture at the time. They had to evolve their employee demographic, legally, but also from an optics perspective. Their old way of doing things was very….2000s.
Abercrombie’s evolution has been on my mind because I’ve been working on a creative project about my career history. I realize my place in this toxic culture and can now more critically hold brands I shop at and employers I work for accountable for an inclusive culture. I worked at Gilly Hicks (A&F’s underwear store – RIP) after the $50M discrimination lawsuit was settled; I had no idea it existed. As I said in the episode, information was not disseminated on the internet in 2008 the way it is now. It was just every girl’s dream, mine included, to get asked to become a Model (that was the actual job title) as soon as she turned 18. The reality of being a girl in the 2000s was that if a very exclusionary industry like fashion put you in the box of what was ‘acceptable’ (skinny, pretty, white), you took the opportunity. It really was like America’s Next Top Model out there.
Speaking of the 2000s girl dream, I saw this video that said “How to tell if you were hott in the early 2000s”, and the gauge was that you were asked to work at an A&F brand. That includes Abercrombie & Fitch, Abercrombie kids, or Hollister, in order of hotness. I would argue that Gilly Hicks girls were the crème de la crème because many were actually pulled out of A&F to staff the new GH stores. They were also the most diverse, comparatively. I have also joked that, because Agnes’s song “Release Me” was on the Abercrombie in-store soundtrack (and it was her birthday last week btw lol), only hott people know or remember that song. Which led me to my next rabbit hole….
💎 I Know It’s Wrong…So Why Do I Keep Coming Back?
Agnes, the singer of “Release Me” (which is one of the best dance pop songs ever in history btw), was more well-known in the UK and her native Sweden than in America. She also did a cover of Mikaila’s “Emotional”, which IMHO is the best bubblegum pop song of all time. Beyond that, I didn’t know anything about her.
In 2021, she came out with her first album in nine years, wearing a yellow textured wig on the cover. In interviews, she referred to her inspirations: Stevie Wonder, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Destiny’s Child, Donna Summer, and Sun Ra, who she mentioned was “like my father from another world.” She has also expressed appreciation for vogueing, the style of dance originated in the Black queer community. Prior to that, I’d only seen her picture on the album cover for Dance Love Pop and incorrectly assumed (for the last 15 years) that she was a Black British artist. While I don’t think Agnes is in any way obligated to publicly announce or defend any aspect of her identity, people on the internet have very much noticed Agnes’s striking resemblance to Leona Lewis. They both rose to fame by winning TV talent shows – Agnes on Idol 2005 in Sweden and Leona on The X Factor in 2006.
I think it’s wonderful to appreciate, learn about, and be inspired by cultures and people both similar and different than your own race, ethnicity, or place of origin. But I was confused watching the “Release Me” music video and seeing someone who bore an uncanny resemblance not to Leona Lewis, but to the blonde girl from the A*Teens. To further complicate the matter, I realized there are actually TWO versions of the “Release Me” music video. I was watching the “new” one. The “old” one prominently featured Black female dancers, and Agnes’s hair was curly. The “new” one removed those scenes with Black dancers, switched out her friends for lighter-skinned ones, and replaced her curly hair with straight hair. As Cardi B says, “That’s suspicious. That’s weird.”
Often, artists look to the Black community for cultural currency and white-dominated mainstream institutions for monetary currency. Did Agnes’s team intentionally position her as an ‘exotic’ – aka. racially-ambiguous – beautiful girl to break into an international market outside of Sweden? Then once the song blew up, did they go on to whitewash her for broader exposure to a mass audience? Was the label controlling the image and likeness of yet another teenage girl, and she was just being told what to do? (À la the gifted then-13-year-old R&B singer Jojo.) I have done a little research about the racialization and deracialization of multiethnic and multiracial Swedes, but it’s obviously complex. The official boilerplate for her latest album also says it’s “a spiritual full body of work from the artist.” Like, we get it, you went to Thailand and do sound baths now. Idk, something is off for me.
While I don’t consider Agnes a culture vulture – which is much more intentional and has greater implications, especially in America – there is a great new video about the phenomenon by the amazing YouTube channel, Black Femininity TV: The Disappearance of 2010s Female Culture Vultures: controversies [that] led to their demise. The fact of the matter is that we are shaped by the culture we consume. Applying critical thinking to pop culture makes us more media literate, which I think helps tilt the scale from having tolerance for the entertainment industry’s smoke and mirrors to having compassion and empathy for real people of different backgrounds.
🏋🏻♀️ Richard’s Aerobique Social Strategy
Richard Simmons has been pretty active on X (formerly Twitter) since I became aware of his comeback last month. A series of previously unreleased songs, “Aerobique”, “I Pray”, and “Yo-yo Man”, were released seemingly out of left field. (“Aerobique” is a straight up Francophile club banger btw.) The question on your mind may be….why? The media and the public have not been kind to him for the last decade:
2014: Last time he was seen in public
2016: Closed his gym, where he taught fitness classes weekly for like 40 years, unexpectedly and unannounced
2017: Was subject to a wellness check by the LAPD and sued The National Enquirer
2018: Sued a private investigator who put a tracking device on his car
2022: Was obliged to give a statement to the New York Post in response to the TMZ documentary about him
2023: Did not approve or associate himself with a forthcoming biopic about him
I have always been extremely into fitness! Richard Simmons, along with Jack LaLanne, Billy Blanks of Taebo, and Darrin Henson of Darrin’s Dance Grooves, had a great impact on me as an energetic kid with a love for dance and movement. Richard has a bruised reputation and a legacy to salvage. I personally think his social media strategy is to put control of the narrative back in his own hands after having been scrutinized for falling off the face of the earth a decade ago. I did see the documentary, and my takeaway is that Richard is:
Fatigued by his own empathy and lack of boundaries
Terrified of aging (he’s 75) and doesn’t want to be remembered as anything less than his spritely, energetic self
Unable to continue practicing the aesthetic labor that his entire career authority and identity was built around (exercising, eating healthy, losing weight)
I’m fascinated by the role of X here, employing a layer of technology to distance himself between his audience. He’s been posting text-based updates on X and sharing unreleased songs with old cover pictures on YouTube, but he still hasn’t posted on Instagram in ten years. He is now considered ‘active’ on social without ever actually being seen publicly in person or through a screen. Where as most celebrities use social to foster parasocial relationships, Richard is actually using the screen as a boundary. He formed real friendships with his longtime students and fans; he would call them and talk on the phone for hours. Without having personal boundaries, he likely felt emotionally depleted, even if all he wanted to do was help other people. His empathy is a double-edged sword; he can tell resonant stories and hold space for millions of people around the world, but he can no longer pour from an empty cup.
🧨 Spice Up Your Life
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I’m a big Dorian fan so I was so stoked to see their tour front and center of this issue! (I interviewed them for their debut album for TIDAL back in 2019.) Just another piece of evidence our pop culture brains think alike, I loved your analysis calling back to eras of Gaga, Britney and *NSYNC!!