No full episode this week. We’re stepping away from the mic to touch grass, eat carbs, and avoid small talk. Back next week with more delightful dumpster fires.

Erica and Erin trace this phrase from its New Age roots to its Instagram glow-up, digging into how “the universe” became a rebranded higher power for people who’d rather not talk about God. What looks like faith might actually be a filter for avoidance, especially when it’s used to explain away failure or justify a $10K group program that never delivered.

From prosperity gospel to “trust the process” culture, they ask: Is this cliche (belief) helping people heal, or is it a cosmic cop-out?

You know that phrase, “Be your best self”? This episode rips it wide open: from its shiny, self-help packaging to the industrial shame complex underneath.

Erica and Erin are joined by media scholar Laurie Ouellette to break down how makeover reality shows (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, The Biggest Loser, Wife Swap, etc.) didn’t just make for good TV; they quietly rewired our ideas about help, worthiness, and personal responsibility. What we mistake for glow-ups, might be about control.

Find out more about Laurie Ouellette…

Buy one of her books: https://bookshop.org/contributors/laurie-ouellette

• Viewers Like You?: How Public TV Failed the People (2002)
• Better Living Through Reality TV: Television and Post-Welfare Citizenship (2008)
• Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture (2009)
• The Media Studies Reader (2012)
• A Companion to Reality Television (2014)
• Keywords for Media Studies (2017)
• Lifestyle TV (2016)

Read her work as Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal "Television and New Media:" https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/journal/television-new-media

Or as a Columnist at Film Quarterly: https://filmquarterly.org/tag/laurie-ouellette/