AppropriatorLou and her midlife crisis are two separate issues for me.
It wouldn’t matter how successful and put together someone’s life is, the cultural appropriation would still be problematic. Even if Bec Judd with her millions and her established brands and partnerships decided to suddenly adopt Melbourne’s African community as her own and was attending nothing but Beats events, cooking African food and calling it ‘so special’, had a whole new group of friends that were only African, put a South African flag in her bio (I’m pretty sure her dad is South African?!) despite being WHITE African, started attending local basketball matches of teams almost exclusively filled with young African men, ditched all other organised exercise in favour of African dance classes etc etc, it would be hugely questionable and you’d have to wonder what the fuck the intended outcome was. Not many influencers do things without financial incentive either, so you’d also have to wonder how this new obsession was improving her bottom line. And that’s all separate from AmyLou being a shithouse mother in the midst of a mid life crisis.
I’m sorry, what you say is 100% right, and serious, but I cannot get the image of Afrobeats Bec Judd out of my head!
“Bye for now”, Bec says from the middle of the dance floor at Beats, doing her signature two-handed scrunch/wave down the barrel, whilst attempting to copy some girls dancing next to her, with her jerky, hip-bone led dancing. The Postcards crew pack down their camera equipment, and Bec steps out of her J’aton of shit dress (#iykyk), and is left standing in her Jaggad one-piece leotard, a retro piece from their Australian ballet launch a couple of years ago. She gestures towards Nards, who slides over with a fresh plate. Then she looks around the room, bodies starting to glisten with sweat as they pick up the steps Bec saw all that time ago at the Port Melbourne pier.
Suddenly from out of almost nowhere, EmmyLou bursts through the crowd, resplendent in her baby blue bike pants with matching crop. She’d even gotten her latest pair of Nike Dunks customised in baby blue to match. “Here I am” giggled Lou at her party friend, tossing Bec a Zoe Moss 2023 classic, a striped shirt to tie up over her leotard. “Thanks” Bec said, as she shot Nards a pained look and gestured for some more plate. She was gonna need it to get through the night - only two more years of her Jaggad/EmmyLou partnership to go and it was really starting to drag. She’d only wanted to expand her market to the youth, get more of the Saturday 8am after the night before crowd, instead of the Saturday morning 8am kids sport drop off and Brighton Pilates crowd.
But how the fuck she ended up in a multi-year deal with EmmyLou one word, she had no idea. It was all that stupid bitch Lana Wilkinson’s fault. ‘She’s the Queen of the Beats’ Lana had screeched at her one night out. ‘They love her, she’s so influential’. Well Lana couldn’t have been more wrong, except of course when it came to her ill-fated shoe line and her insistence on still using see-through plastic on most of her creations. ‘Bloody Lana, she was wrong about clacky mules and she was wrong about EmmyLou and The Beats’ she thought angrily, as Lou sidled up, 4 cameras in hand, grabbing some selfies of her & Bec for the socials on each camera, before scurrying back to the side of the dance floor, hoping to get picked to dance on stage whilst she rotated through and posted happy snaps of the ‘besties’ across various channels.
Poor Bec, she could do nothing but take a big breath in, adjust her Zoe Moss, and plaster a smile on her face. With Nards trailing behind, ever faithful carrying the plates, Bec strode towards the dance floor purposefully, on the hunt for the next Brown Cardigan to take home and impale her, whilst her hubby Chris, once Australia’s most celebrated athlete, sat in the corner crying/masturbating at the sight of his wife being split in two.