July 1, 2024

note 03: the celebrity interview industrial complex ✨

when did celebrity interviews get so gimmicky?

🔥 a hot new format

The show Hot Ones, hosted by former Complex reporter Sean Evans, premiered on YouTube in March 2015, a project of niche food culture blog First We Feast, with an episode called “Tony Yayo Talks Shmoney Dance & Eminem’s Taco Habit While Eating Spicy Chicken Wings.” The concept was simple: Have celebrities answer ten questions while eating increasingly spicy chicken wings. The idea behind it was that dying over hot sauce was “a humanizing experience” and would strip away the artifice of celebrity PR training. And it was a perfect concept—ten well-crafted questions instead of a laundry list of generic press-kit handouts, plus the entertainment factor of watching celebrities be humbled by chicken wings, was both revealing and refreshing.

Nine years later, the show has featured everyone from A-listers like Natalie Portman, Matt Damon, Viola Davis, Paul Rudd, Dave Grohl, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, to superstar comics like Key & Peele and Kevin Hart, to culinary giants like Alton Brown and Gordon Ramsay (whose interview holds the title for most-viewed video on First We Feast’s channel with 126 million views), and it has become a legitimate stop on Hollywood press tours alongside press junkets and the late-night talk show circuit—along with its British chicken-themed-YouTube-interview counterpart Chicken Shop Date, Hot Ones recently successfully petitioned the Emmy Awards to be included in the Outstanding Talk Series category, competing against late-night veterans like Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Kimmel.

At a recent panel at the Paley Center for Media moderated by Meyers, Evans along with Hot Ones Co-Creator and Executive Producer Chris Schonberger and Executive Supervising Producer Dominique Burroughs, discussed the genesis and success of the show. Evans noted that Charlize Theron’s appearance on the show granted it legitimacy, with other celebrities citing her episode as a reason for them doing the show.

Hot Ones was YouTube catnip, a perfect alchemy of comedy, celebrity banter, and research deep cuts, but I’ve noticed that since then, almost every Serious Lifestyle Publication™ has created their version of a signature celebrity interview series. I’m referring to a very specific type of celebrity promotional interview, the ones predicated on some kind of gimmick—”The Stars of [TV show] Play Truth or Dare!” or “[Celebrity] Answers Questions While Being Waterboarded!” You get the idea.

Some of the most popular interviews:

• Vogue’s “Beauty Secrets” (2016)

• WIRED’s “Autocomplete Interview”(2016)

• Vanity Fair’s “Lie Detector Test” (2016)

• BuzzFeed’s “Puppy Interview” (2017)

• Glamour‘s “Friendship Test” (2017)

• GQ’s “10 Essentials” (2017)

All of these are a conscious departure from awkward red-carpet interviews and recycled press junket questions, which Margot Robbie likened to “tap dancing through a minefield” because “you’re so tired and you’ve done it for hours and hours ... You can say it right a thousand times, but you say it wrong once, you’re fucked” and are particularly heinous for famous women (the #AskHerMore campaign was created in 2014 to “call out sexist reporting and suggest ways to re-focus on women’s achievements,” begging red carpet reporters to ask women more interesting questions than “Who are you wearing?”). No matter how talented the actor, no matter how untouchable they appear, they suffer through the same workplace bullshit the rest of us do—insufferably generic small talk, overzealous coworkers. Celebs, they’re just like us! But these gimmick interviews are also a deliberate tactic to make celebrities feel more relatable and accessible while they’re promoting projects. “I know we’re pressing the song “Spicy Margarita” but, no joke, it is one of my favorite songs I have ever been a part of,” Michael Bublé says in an episode of Street Hearts with Jason Derulo, a TikTok dating show.

Some celebrities use these interviews as a kind of image rehabilitation, a way of signaling that they’re tapped into the zeitgeist: Gwyneth Paltrow, whose name is synonymous with “out of touch”—from referring to her divorce as a “conscious uncoupling” to her much-criticized psuedo-scientific lifestyle brand, Goop—appeared on Hot Ones earlier this year. Paltrow, known for her strict wellness regimen (she once claimed that she “would rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a can”), faced additional scrutiny last year after she was involved in a ski accident lawsuit, and was clearly going for a more relatable angle to promote her affordable beauty line, good.clean.goop (despite once declaring, “I am who I am. I can’t pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year.”). And it worked. “I know she’s kind of kooky and problematic at times, but she also seems fun and peaceful. I enjoyed watching this,” reads one comment.

Similarly, Robbie has strategically used Architectural Digest’s “Open Door” series twice in her career: to raise her profile as a film producer in 2019 with an office tour of her production company, LuckyChap Entertainment (rather than her home as was the custom at the time), and as promotion for the Barbie movie in 2023, giving viewers a tour of the Barbie Dreamhouse. Selena Gomez used her first-ever appearance on Vogue‘s “Beauty Secrets” series in 2020 to announce the launch of her cosmetics line, Rare Beauty, while demoing her products.

Gimmick interviews offer a peek behind the curtain; they offer more context into not only the celebrities themselves but the making of the project.

From writer Rayne Fisher-Quann’s Internet Princess newsletter:

Spend a month watching a great movie. Watch the director’s cut and the behind-the-scenes documentary and then watch the films that influenced it and read the director’s favorite book. Work to understand things, and not just the things themselves but the conditions that created them and the impact those things had on the world around them. Let those things become a part of you instead of a distraction from yourself. I think the act of loving something should be generative and consuming—it should add something to who you are and lead you to a new understanding of all the parts that were already there.

But beyond that, these gimmick interviews are proof of what executives and agents are beginning to understand: that the traditional channels of advertising projects (billboards, posters, magazine features) are not enough on their own anymore—sometimes the difference between a movie flopping or succeeding can be TikTok virality or, yes, gimmick interviews.

“Rote glamour shots and insipid interviews—ye olde studio publicity tools—don’t work on TikTok; users want behind-the-scenes “realness,” The New York Times wrote in a recent piece on TikTok’s influence on various facets of American culture. “Hence Oppenheimer stars goofing in a hotel hallway before a premiere, and pink-clad Barbie stars cavorting on the floor with puppies.”

📺 the content consequences of “pivot to video”

My investigation into the origins of the gimmick interview began when I was watching Channing Tatum’s Vanity Fair lie detector interview (which is a treat), and I thought to myself, How on earth did we get here? I opened my Notes app and wrote: “How has the advent and growth of social media (specifically YouTube) changed the press tour?”

My first guess was the popularity of BuzzFeed in the mid-2010s (which matched the timeline of all of these new kinds of interviews launching) and the subsequent BuzzFeedification of content and rise of “infotainment” (as a former journalist, I’m horrified by what passes for “journalism” and I resent the word “infotainment,” but as a cultural theorist, I love a gimmicky celebrity interview). I did some digging, and predictably, the answer is capitalism.

Since the advent of YouTube in 2005, publications have always had their own channels, but video remained a sort of nice-to-have for publications in the 2000s. A 2008 Vanity Fair video called “Behind the Scenes with Amy Adams” is reminiscent of MTV-style videos—quick cuts, weird camera angles—and is essentially a wordless behind-the-scenes clip of Adams’ cover shoot. But it doesn’t really tell you anything.

In the early 2010s, there were signs that video had potential, but no one really knew what it was (e.g. Twitter’s purchase of Vine in 2012 and its shutdown in 2017). Then, everything changed in January 2015, when Facebook issued a statement entitled “What the Shift to Video Means for Creators,” which claimed that Facebook had averaged 1 billion video views every day for the past six months.

Utter chaos ensued. The “pivot to video” craze caused a seismic shift in the publishing industry—the next couple of years saw publishers ruthlessly gutting editorial departments and betting heavily on video content.

Media companies, magazines, and newspapers all announced editorial layoffs. Digital video-journalism publisher NowThis announced that it would produce videos exclusively for social media platforms instead of its own homepage. Media giant Condé Nast announced in 2017 that it would cut 80 jobs, reduce the frequency of magazines like GQ, Glamour, Architectural Digest, and Allure, and shut down the print version of Teen Vogue, instead redirecting resources to its video production division. “In the next 24 months, I hope that video is half our business. It’s critical. It’s the macro trend of content consumption,” said Craig Kostelic, the Chief Business Officer of Condé Nast’s The Lifestyle Collection, which comprised Bon Appétit, Architectural Digest, Epicurious, Condé Nast Traveler, and Self. “Fire Writers, Make Videos Is Latest Web Recipe For Publishers,” an AdAge article declared in late 2017.

Despite pivot to video being exposed as a lie due to Facebook inflating its metrics, its announcement permanently altered the journalism landscape of journalism as we know it today.

...journalists and newsroom leaders across the country worked to cover an unprecedented presidential campaign in an information landscape that Facebook was constantly, and erratically, transforming. Even if, as Facebook argues, it did not knowingly inflate metrics, it set up new and fast-changing incentives for video that altered the online ad market as a whole. As media companies desperately tried to do what Facebook wanted, many made the disastrous decision to “pivot to video,” laying off reporters and editors by the dozen. And when views plunged and video’s poor return on investment became more apparent, some companies pivoted back, firing video producers by the dozens.

In 2017, Brian Feldman wrote in New York Magazine, ““Pivoting to video” has become a business strategy for digital publishers common enough in recent months to be a kind of cliché—a slick way to describe something else: layoffs.” The phrase “pivot to video” became gallows humor shorthand for death or cancellation:

Even Schonberger admitted that the original idea for Hot Ones came from necessity: “We were desperate for a concept to save the [First We Feast] brand—hot sauce breaking down celebrities sounded like a good concept; it was a disruptive thing to get celebrities out of their flight pattern.”

Most recently, Hot Ones released a special meta-episode, “Sean Evans Interviews Himself While Eating Spicy Wings,” which was essentially a 7-minute ad for the show’s new vodka partnership with New Amsterdam—Heat Check, a spicy hot pepper-flavored, chili-infused vodka. True to the groundbreaking nature of the show, it offered value in the form of insight into Evans’ interview process and techniques (“Can’t believe it took Hot Ones this long for Sean to interview such a legend,” one comment quipped) and featured in-jokes for fans, like (guest) Evans saying, “That’s a great question,” a popular response from guests on the show and “the real fans would say that the best plug is no plug at all, so let’s just enjoy these Heat Check cocktails and call it a wrap.”

At the time of publication, the video has over 653K views (and the fans are loving it: “Never watched a 7 minute commercial before in my life but I must say, “nicely done!””).

But the secret sauce of Hot Ones is not the chicken wings—it’s the storytelling. Schonberger explained in the panel that there was a deliberate decision to make Hot Ones not just compelling but artful: “The ways a lot of publishers were going was Facebook Video, this idea of “snackable videos,” he said. “And it’s not like we saw the writing on the wall, but we thought, People still like to watch things that are great and are well-crafted. We zagged, and look at us now.” He clarified that not only are Hot Ones episodes designed to tell a story, but each wing is a story, too—“and then you have a 2-3 minute video, and then you have a clip for social media, and then you have a meme.”

Gimmick interviews are usually short and fun and poppy (less than 10 minutes long). But there’s another category of interviews that pre-dates the pivot to video mania—we’ll call them craft interviews. Examples are Architectural Digest’s “Open Door” (2013), Variety’s “Actors on Actors” (2014), and The New York Times’ “Anatomy of a Scene” (2014). These interviews are significantly longer, and while there is technically a “gimmick” (an attention-grabbing mechanic of the interview that’s not just back-and-forth questioning), there’s a focus on artistry and intention that allows for more explanation, more depth. “Open Door” interviews feature celebrities walking through their homes, describing the rooms and objects that are meaningful to them—an exercise in curation and expression. “Actors on Actors” showcases the craft behind acting performance, and “Anatomy of a Scene” delves into the intricacies of filmmaking technique.

Hot Ones, true to its form, perhaps defies categorization, drawing in the audience with a gimmick but surprising with its craft. And because trends move in cycles, it’s ahead of the curve—in an era where TikTok reigns supreme, people are craving thoughtful, long-form content like in-depth video essays again. Also recovering from the pivot to video? Print media. announced its very first standalone print issue, NYLON is bringing back print after its 2017 transition to digital-only, Nike Women made a zine (kudos to Nikita Walia’s All Caught Up, which landed in my inbox at the perfect time), and Interview was famously revived in 2018 even after declaring bankruptcy.

Of course, all of this could have been avoided had publishers not been so quick to bend to Facebook. Whenever I hear about a hot new technology (NFTs, the metaverse, AI), my mind immediately goes to a passage in an article called, “All Aboard the Metaverse: Is the New Digital Frontier Unstoppable?” from The Walrus.

Lastly, no one in tech can risk not taking it seriously. The industry assumes that we live in a world of endless revolutions: venture capitalists invest in startups, they battle to build what Michael Lewis called “the New New Thing,” the winners become the new venture capitalists and tech execs while the previous generation’s behemoths fight to stay relevant in the new new world, repeat.

The moral of the story is to always lead with intention and follow with craft—there should always be a reason for entering a space, even if that space is a YouTube talk show eating spicy chicken wings (although it’s also worth noting that everything becomes a sacrifice at the altar of capitalism). When everyone would rather build something mediocre than risk being left out, everything becomes noise. The “Dead Internet Theory” (the idea that most of the internet now is just bots talking to bots because of the demand for AI-generated content) may be an alarmist exaggeration (for now), but the indicators are beginning to appear—case in point, reports of both job-seekers and hiring managers using AI to write and field resumes, or this take on that AI-generated Toys“R”Us ad:

The future of capitalism (and content) is here, and it’s mostly junk. Bots talking to bots. But thanks to two humans with some hot wings and a dream, the entertainment industry will never be the same.

A little gift for you 🎁: First access to my latest project from my cultural intelligence studio—an analysis of celebrity brands. Enjoy!

🔗 open tabs (recent reads)

• “Why I’m Resigning From The Intercept” (Ken Klippenstein): This was an absolutely brutal read and I respect him so much for it. Each line was like a takedown in a rap battle, mic drop after mic drop. So brutal, in fact, that my first thought was, Is this legal for him to say? As a longtime fan of The Intercept’s coverage, this was super disappointing—I had no idea about what was going on behind the scenes, and it just goes to show that truly reliable independent journalism is difficult to come by (and verify). But he makes an excellent point. Journalism pretends to be objective when it’s not, and it is disingenuous to report on an issue pretending that two sides are equal when they’re not. And as billionaires are increasingly collecting media outlets like Infinity Stones, it becomes more difficult to prioritize the public’s interests over their own self-interest.

• “Ghost in a Rhetorical Machine” (Reboot): I missed the initial +972 Magazine exposés on Gospel and Lavender but I read both to understand this essay, and they are predictably horrifying. But as the IOF continues its assault on Gaza and the ongoing struggle to contextualize AI in the cultural climate looms, Fang notes that the “reification” and deliberate abstraction of AI serves as a convenient distraction from the mass terror being inflicted upon Palestinian civilians: ”Many of those who have raised the initial alarm at these revelations have implicitly accepted the Israeli military’s own framing around their usage of AI systems, which is a diversion even as it grabs headlines, conveniently pushing the debate towards questions of “is the AI ‘smart’ or accurate enough” when the fidelity of the system is not just besides the point but actively obscures it ... By being preoccupied by the purported technical intricacies of automated war-making methods one fetishizes them, precluding any substantive critique or action.”

• “Why wear a mask to a protest?” (The Gauntlet): As COVID surges once again, I really can’t encourage people enough to reevaluate their levels of COVID-consciousness. I recently returned to stricter COVID mitigation techniques, which includes: wearing KN95s everywhere again (I was wearing cloth masks for a while), testing regularly, monitoring air quality, ensuring I’m up-to-date on vaccines, and only dining outdoors again. COVID is still an issue and if your thinking is, “Well, I’ve had it before and I’m fine,” or “I don’t see many people affected by it anymore,” I would remind you that vaccines do not prevent transmission—they simply mitigate the damage (reduce risk of hospitalization and Long COVID)—and that multiple infections dramatically and exponentially increase your risk of disease like cardiovascular, pulmonary, and kidney disease, as well as diabetes. Not to mention that “Long COVID” is still poorly defined, but all of these people with new mysterious ailments, all of these young people (under 50) having strokes or heart attacks or cancer...it is not normal. And if your government does not have COVID mitigation strategies and messaging, it does not care about your health, so unfortunately, it is up to you. This piece does a great job of explaining the link between ableism and fascism, and of reminding us that if you’re a part of a social movement (like Free Palestine) and you’re not masking, you are actively excluding disabled people from participating. Not to mention that masks are being criminalized in places like New York in large part because masking is not normalized anymore. I urge you not to fall prey to the same rhetoric that right-wingers were pushing in the early days of the pandemic. Take care of each other and wear a mask. If you’d like more resources about COVID, I’m happy to share.

• “THE SEMIOTICS OF WASTE” (Zoe Liu): I recently connected with a brilliant UK-based cultural strategist + semiotician because I was in awe of a project she made about the cultural landscape of waste and the way that brands, NGOs, and influencers talk about it and signal their feelings toward it. It’s a unique framing of an issue that’s currently everywhere—waste is inevitable, but waste messaging right now (i.e. “consume less”) is woefully ineffective. I was so impressed by the depth of this project and the cultural tensions she captured in it.

• “Confronting Opera as an “Inherently Colonialist Art Form,” Yuval Sharon Brings New Work to L.A.” (The Hollywood Reporter): Earlier this year, I watched a production of Carmen at Lincoln Center. I’d only been to the opera once, back in San Diego with my piano school, when I was maybe 10 years old. But I wanted to see this production in particular for a couple of reasons: First, I’d performed Carmen back in my youth symphony days, and despite absolutely dreading all of the oboe solos, I loved the music. And second, this version was directed by Carrie Cracknell and featured rising star Aigul Akhmetshina (the youngest-ever person to play Carmen!), and I was intrigued by the reportedly feminist approach to the story. Carmen is by definition a tragedy—she’s killed by her ex-lover in the end—but traditionally it’s portrayed almost as a romance, a crime of passion. The intention of this production was to question the glorification of violence and to reimagine Carmen as a character independent of her relationships with men. I love this revitalized approach to opera, because while it is inherently colonialist (and the audience tends to skew older and white), I think more people would enjoy if it were more accessible. Thanks to some generous patrons, The Met Opera is actually more affordable than most Broadway shows (tickets start at $30), and each seat in the house has a tiny seat-back screen with subtitles in multiple languages, so it’s very easy to follow. I also think it’s worth reexamining the classics and finding fresh and interesting ways of telling the stories, not just venerating them as untouchable and repeating them as written: “We should not be [performing] them just because they’re masterpieces. We should be doing them because we want to explore what they have to say to us right now. That’s a different attitude than how the institution of opera thinks about it.”

💎 little gems (recent favorites)

• Alex Jacques’ commentary on Charles Leclerc’s Monaco Grand Prix win: This is pure poetry, and an example of why good commentators are so important! Before you ask, I am a Tier 3 F1 fan, as in I’m not an OG and I didn’t finish Drive to Survive; I just Google post-race standings occasionally and watch TikToks for the memes (I’m sad to see the end of Charlos). But knowing Leclerc’s story and how meaningful this win was for him and for all of Monaco...this commentary makes me so emotional 🥺.

• Essence Cosmetics Lash Princess False Lash Effect Mascara Waterproof: I loved the regular Lash Princess mascara for years; I would layer it over a waterproof mascara (to hold the curl), and so I thought I’d try the waterproof version. For some reason, it didn’t work for me, and I put it in a drawer and forgot about it for probably two years (do not do this). I recently tried it again because I was in a pinch, and it worked beautifully and now it’s my holy grail. I have no idea why it didn’t work two years ago and it does now, but it’s perfect and now, for the first time in my life, I only have to wear one mascara. It’s the complete package: lengthening, thickening, smudge-proof(ish; I wouldn’t wear it swimming). The first time I wore it, my friend asked if I was wearing extensions. As a bonus, it’s cruelty-free (Essence is a French brand), and it’s like $5, which is absolutely unbeatable. The only downside is that because it’s French it’s a bit harder to find, at least in the U.S.; I get mine from my local CVS or from Ulta.

• Ozark Renegades (Stella Blackmon): I can’t remember how I found this! Beautifully shot, and what a fascinating look at rodeo trick-riding in the Ozarks. I could’ve watched a full-length documentary. It makes me miss This is Life with Lisa Ling/Our America with Lisa Ling (I recently discovered the latter is now on YouTube!), and really fantastic storytelling in subculture journalism. This is the beauty of art like this—it’s a window into an unfamiliar life that we would otherwise never have access to.

• PureZone™ Mini Portable Air Purifier: Speaking of community care and COVID mitigation techniques! Admittedly, I bought this one because it’s so cute and portable and it comes in fun colors (mine is Starlight Blue). It’s the size of a water bottle, and the carrying handle also doubles as a little stand. It uses a HEPA filter so I feel very good about it in spaces that don’t have good filtration (which is most places in New York City). I also think of it like I do a sunscreen—the best one is the one you use consistently, and this is the one I was most likely to carry around the city with me.

• Moulin Rouge! The Musical: [Al Pacino voice] Just when I thought I was out...anyway, this a very old favorite, and in fact is my most-watched musical on Broadway (and if I had an affiliate link, it probably would’ve made me a millionaire by now); the performers are always fantastic and the production is absolutely stunning, and it’s so much fun that I am willing to forgive deviations from the film. I had no plans to see it a 10th time, but I just found out last week that both Aaron Tveit and JoJo are returning for a limited run, and this was my exact reaction:

💖 jenny

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