Jia Tolentino

I had a couple books I wanted to bring.

Have you, did you ever read, um, Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino?

No. I've meant to.

It's, like, one of those that's been on my list forever, but I somehow just haven't made it there.

[cheers] [applause]

Our Plastic Surgery Nightmare is available to read at thenewyorker.com. Jia Tolentino.

This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT.

Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast.

Josh Johnson, everyone.

When we come back, Jia Tolentino will be joining the show.

Don't go away.

Yeah.

Welcome back to The Daily Show.

My guest tonight is a best-selling author and staff writer at The New Yorker whose latest piece is called Our Plastic Surgery Nightmare.

Please welcome Jia Tolentino.

[upbeat music] Welcome to the show.

But...

I just feel excited when people, and I do think everyone should read the Gia Tolentino Wrote a fabulous piece on, like, Instagram face and kind of plastic surgery and all this.

And she's, you know, I love her.

I haven't read that, but of course I've read.

Although, it's really interesting, like, The New Yorker wrote a piece about that summer, 2016.

It was Jia Tolentino, who's such a brilliant writer, who was talking about the moment that every song sounded like the Black Eyed Peas' Tonight's Gonna Be a Good Night.

Mm.

Which she describes as being kind of the final gasp of monoculture.

We have so dissolved the idea of a community, of an other, of a group, of society, really, that we aren't even naming it.

I think Gia Tolentino kind of started, called it Instagram face.

But I feel like we're beyond Instagram face.

I

And this is just one example of the explosion of online commentary surrounding Brian Thompson's murder.

Jia Tolentino, a staff writer at The New Yorker, says the reactions to Thompson's killing indicated at the time that many Americans believe the private healthcare system is a, quote, "large scale purveyor of death."

The CEO of a giant corporation gets shot on the street, and people celebrate it as if a violent, murderous dictator had just been taken out by a military team.

There were some messages expressing sympathy for Brian Thompson and his loved ones, but there were also jokes, sarcasm, and laughter.