The Year Of The 🍼Nepo Baby🍼
➕Bel Chimes In with a love letter to you 💌
You’re getting your weekly dose of Bel a day early this week because I WON’T BE PUBLISHING A NEWSY ON FRIDAY!!! Why?? Because it’s Christmas! And I’m back in my hometown! And it’s the day of our SYSCA Xmas party! And everyone is a worn-out woman at this time of year, so things are a little random around here!
I know you get it, and I don’t have to explain myself to you, but I will, because this pen-pal-style relashe is all about communicashe 💌
🔔Bel Chimes In: With a love letter… to you 💌
The Year Of The 🍼Nepo Baby🍼
Harvey Weinstein found guilty in second sex crimes trial
Jan. 6 Committee Refers Donald Trump to DOJ for Criminal Charges
🔔Bel Chimes In: With a love letter… to you 💌
This section is written by my crush, the refreshing-as-a-house-chardonnay-on-a-steamy-day, Bel Hawkins. You should check out more of her beautiful words here.
Mōrena friends,
Woosh, I can’t believe we’re here. The last Chime of the year! The final ring of the bell (lol, cringe, sorry, had to…) before we all get the hell out of our inboxes and go and suspend reality for a while.
Each week, I sit down to write these Chimes in the in-between hours of my life and have you in mind. What’s been circling in my world that I think would be helpful for you to hear? What’s something funny/painful/useful/distracting/relatable that might help you feel less alone out there?
But for this final ~ ring ~ I wanted to make it briefly about me. Well, more like me thanking YOU! I’m a gush, you know this about me already, so I just wanted to inflict that on you for a hot second.
I try not to talk too much about myself here cos that feeling reminds me of when you run into an acquaintance in the supermarket and they only talk about themselves for like 8 minutes straight and then turn their trolley down the next aisle without asking you how YOU are! Ugh.
BUT, today, in light of the above, all of this brings me to the cinematic moment of my life that ties all of this together:
I was walking home down the middle of my street the other evening, it was just past midnight, and the air was thick with Auckland’s December humidity. You could smell the white jasmine on the fence line that’d just been cut. See the summer moon. My over-the-road neighbour’s door was still open, letting the night through, and everything was very, very still. In that moment, I thought about how much of my life that doorway had looked onto this year:
me, mind-out-of-body racing to the sea every moment I could get over summer, standing on my balcony as a heartbroken skeleton looking out to the horizon like a forlorn cowboy, pashing a crush in their car after a date, crying on the phone to my sister, exhaustedly taking the recycling out in the rain like an over-committed, under-energied gal with too much on. Probably even sloshing chardonnay and hip hop dancing to Robyn with some of my friends on a Saturday night. In short: they’d seen the full movie of my life unfold.
I dunno — in that moment on my street in the night, I felt all the puzzle pieces of my life this year just kinda shift into place like each of those things had to happen to create the other, and finally, I could see the full picture.
Strangely, it made me think of you and this newsy, and this community we’re a part of and how lucky I feel to be a small star in the universe of your own life.
So thanks for letting me in. I love hearing about what's going on, what resonates and what you’d like to hear more of. I’ve been desperately saving money so I can outsource Christmas (LOL, massive grinch energy) by flying to Malaysia, where I’m meeting my long-distance bestie from Amsterdam I haven’t seen in three years in a hotel lobby in Kuala Lumpur like a 'move that bus moment' (Woosh, I feel emoshe just writing that!). Life’s a movie!
But mostly (and more importantly, back to you) have the most gorge break! Don’t feel bad about feeling or not having an Instagram Christmas or a complicated time of it! Protect your peace! Manifest phoenixing into the new year! Go gently. Send it safely. And, as Slam Dunc so affectionately quotes from Oprah — Be cute for you.
X0x0x
The Year Of The 🍼Nepo Baby🍼
Before the year’s end, Vulture has managed to sneak in one more absolutely 🪄 internet-breaking 🪄 piece of content - a deep dive into the world of nepo babies. Now - you might know what nepo babies are already (perhaps because you listened to Liv and I’s episode about it on Culture Vulture), but you probably haven’t seen it talked about to this degree. Here’s the intro so you know what a ‘nepo baby’ is:
In 2022, the internet uncovered a vast conspiracy: Hollywood was run on an invisible network of family ties — and everybody was in on it! Everyone is someone’s kid, but it was as if everybody were somebody’s kid. Euphoria, the buzziest show on television, was created by the son of a major director and co-starred the daughter of another. Actress Maya Hawke was not only born to two famous parents but looked like them, too. Half of Brooklyn’s indie artists had dads with IMDb pages. Even Succession’s Cousin Greg turned out to be the son of one of the guys who designed the Rolling Stones’ lips logo.
And here is a list of all the places you can (and should) read more about them:
I’m gonna be bold here and say… I don’t actually hate a nepo baby. Like yes, you’ve had access to different opportunities/ people / lives than all of us normies in the world, but I just don’t have it in me to be mad at that. Turns out some of my fave actors (and singers - hi Matty Healy) are nepo babies - and they’re fucking good entertainers! And where I grew up around real estate agents and teachers, they grew up around actors and singers - it kinda makes sense that they wanted to emulate what they were seeing when they were growing up??? They were kids!!! This definitely isn’t the hill I’m willing to die on - maybe I’m just choosing to let myself 💌enjoy things💌 this silly szn - but that’s my final nepo baby take for 2022.
Harvey Weinstein found guilty in second sex crimes trial
Content warning: Sexual assault
Merry Christmas to everyone except Harvey Weinstein, who’s been found guilty of “three counts of sexual assault, including rape, in Los Angeles.” He’s already serving 23 years in jail, after he was convicted of rape and sexual assault in New York two years ago, and now faces another 24 years in prison.
Jan. 6 Committee Refers Donald Trump to DOJ for Criminal Charges
They seek to hold Trump accountable for “a multi-part scheme” to overturn the 2020 US election and to “thwart” the peaceful takeover of power to President Biden. This referral comes after 18 months of investigation into the Capitol riots on Jan 6th, and was decided by a solid 9-0 vote.
And while the Department of Justice is under no obligation to act on the referral, isn’t it just (ice cold take incoming) WILD that the President of The United States has just been referred to the DOJ for “obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and incitement of an insurrection?????”
I would give anything to get one of these this Christmas
Science popped OFF this week! (The Shit Show Podcast)
The Biggest Pop Culture Moments of 2022 (Culture Vulture Podcast)
Amber Heard announced her decision to settle her defamation suit with Johnny Depp (The Hollywood Reporter)
Phoebe Bridgers, Matty Healy, Jack Antonoff, More Collab On Special Cover (iHeartRadio)
 | A guest post by
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Did you know even Jesus was a nepo baby? He's the son of God
The best of the best of years with SYSCA in my life. The Chimes. The Squishes. The Luce. The Liv. All of it a Slam Dunc. xx to holding the space through the end of 2022 that we all have worked to create for ourselves.