Capsule #118 ft. Alicia Kennedy

Hello hello,

Hope we are all well 🫶

This week’s issue feels quintessentially Capsule: pulling together a few recent moments in pop culture and looking at them through the lens of how we want to live: a little slower, more considered, and with a higher regard for art and creativity. I hope you enjoy it.

And a little update: I’ll be away for the next two weeks (my first time in Mexico!). In my absence, we’ll be taking one week off the newsletter (might I suggest you pick up one of these reads in its place), and for the following issue (31st) Circe will be here with some spooky Halloween stuff.

Thank you as ever for being here and reading. I’m really grateful for you all.

Holly x

This week, two tweets went viral on the exact same topic. Here they are:

Just in case you’d also like to free your Pinterest from AI slop, here’s how to do it:

With over 20 million views and counting on these posts, the sentiment is clear: we don’t want more content for the sake of it. We don’t want AI-generated stuff to populate our endless scroll experiences even further. We want good quality content, made by people with good taste and a sense of craft. This particularly matters when we’re on Pinterest, an app that feels markedly less toxic than the others. The place we head to feel inspired.

I often think about creating things and the time it takes to do so. The last time my mind was properly blown from the experience of witnessing an insane level of craft was at the Mayhem Ball a few weeks ago, the eighth Lady Gaga tour. The show was titled ‘The Art of Chaos,’ a narrative construct building on the themes of Mayhem the album while blending them with songs from older records. Within that, the show was divided into four acts, introduced in script and unfolding with costumes and characters, each segment more chaotic than the last. It’s hard to explain the level of detail that went into this show. Upon watching it, I thought about how difficult it is to learn a small bit of choreography for the chorus of a song and then saw a troop of dancers move in synchrony for 2.5 hours, pulling moves from the Born This Way archive while spinning into gothic expressions for the new era. Each costume was couture level; not just Gaga but her dancers too. At one point I noticed the whole gang in custom Balenciaga boots, and Gaga in gowns and corsets with layers upon layers of ribbon and lace. Not exactly the easiest thing to ditch during an outfit change, but there were no shortcuts here.

Within the stage structure were two castle turrets, filled with musicians and production equipment. Watching the people inside give it their all in Slash-style guitar solos while not even being the main event was incredibly moving. How cool to be part of something that sets you on fire? Speaking of which, out of those towers came flames, lasers, and a whole host of other pyrotechnics not saved for the final song but punctuated throughout the whole show. Every second was performed as if it were the last.

If you’d have ran this show concept through ChatGPT, it would have spat out a cleaner, more streamlined product. I bet the strange interlude featuring an even more ballady version of ‘Shallow’ from a dimly lit gondola would have been omitted, or replaced with a classic piano moment. I reckon Gaga’s performance of ‘Paparazzi,’ in crutches, a crash helmet and a dress with a train so long it dragged her backwards across the stage might have been nixed in favour of a direct copy of the iconic VMAs routine. And I imagine there would have been a more succinct explanation of ‘The Art of Chaos’ as a concept, the purpose of each act spelled out with more precision. But the joy of the show was of course in the mayhem of it all, and the knowledge that such a display could have only been created by an artist consistently trying to level up their craft.

Another recent, affecting example of an artist committed to their craft is Hayley Williams’s rollout of her third solo album, Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party. The album started out life as a series of 17 singles, uploaded to a retro HTML website accessible only via a code sent to fans who knew it was coming. This ‘iykyk’ approach was amplified with further, thoughtful flourishes: appearances on local radio stations at a time when so many are closing, features in magazines who share her politics, and updates on an Instagram account only fans know about. There are many ways to create and distribute art, but I am increasingly drawn to that which trusts that the right people will find it, and that’s enough.

Compare the Hayley rollout to The Life of a Showgirl — months of countdowns, countless (only slightly amended) versions to break vinyl records and produce more merch, and specific iterations manufactured for partners like Target and Amazon. The songs themselves are growing on me (bar a few unforgivable lyrics), but the ethos of the project feels less and less human. I hoped this album would uncover how it really feels to be on tour for so long, to mean so much to so many people, and where you derive your value at the end of all that. Those themes are touched upon slightly, and who am I to say what a Taylor Swift album should be about, but I think the project would have benefitted with some more time to sit. To allow the concept to breathe and return to it with a more deepened sense of what it’s trying to achieve. Showgirl is not terrible, but something is missing, and I think that could be time.

Let us not be afraid of the slow burn. In a recent newsletter, fashion influencer Brenda Weischer (@brendahashtag) pulled back the curtain on her Instagram metrics. Her learnings are as follows:

Again, this is a creative person committed to doing things her way: slowly, with intention, for the people who want it. That being said, Brenda posts almost daily, but her content is largely unedited, quick missives on whatever she’s up to that day. She admits that this is the only way that making content is a viable career for her. Playing algorithmic games is not only soul destroying but it positions you as disposable. As she says in her newsletter, the audience she wants to nurture will respect and enjoy the output she wants to produce. I think Brenda downplays her influence a little bit; to me, she is a truly distinct voice in the field and there’s no one else quite like her online at the moment. That’s another vote of confidence for leaning into your craft, showing the humanity in your creations, and trusting that the approach will resonate.

As the Mayhem Ball drew to a close, I took a photo of the credits rolling, ran to the bathroom after a big blowout performance of ‘Bad Romance’ and started thinking about how to get home from the O2. When I emerged from the toilets, my friend was waiting in the wings, frantically ushering me back in. It’s not over! She’s back on! For the final hurrah, a camera followed Gaga exiting the stage, navigating scaffolded tunnels underneath the set. We watched as she wiped off her makeup, removed her wig, and threw on an oversized jumper. Stripped back to the realest, rawest version of herself, Gaga appeared back on stage with her dancers to say thank you, celebrate the achievement that is the show, and bid us goodnight. At the end of the performance, we get to see clearly the thing we value the most: the real artist at the core of it all. That sort of recognition might take years to achieve and may be less efficient and less profitable than throwing more and more slop at the wall. But would we cherish all that anyway?

And finally…

• Things are looking up for LVMH

• Charli brought George to her Vanity Fair shoot

• The shock factor Skims products are just marketing

• Kylie Jenner has a song out

• Dua Lipa has passed her GCSE Spanish

• Lovely styling for Hailey Bieber’s WSJ cover

• Peep peep… military jacket already on Jenna Ortega

• Solange being cool af again

• The KNWLS x Nike collab is quite exciting

• Here is a thread of all the Victoria’s Secret looks if you care!

• And this clip of Ayo Edebiri on Jeremy Allen White: that gorgeous feeling of watching someone comment on your personality in a way that makes you feel seen 🥲

This week, Alicia Kennedy popped into Capsule to share what’s 🔥hot🔥 and what’s not 🙅‍♀️ …

Alicia is a writer from Long Island. She is the author of the best-selling No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating, and her memoir On Eating: The Making & Unmaking of My Appetites will be out in spring 2026. Her newsletter on food culture, politics, and media, From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, is read by over 30,000 people weekly.

📺 Watching: After the Hunt in the cinema. Plus the first episode of Passenger Princess, Amelia Dimoldenberg’s new show, Lucy Dacus performing ‘Best Guess’ on Jimmy Kimmel while legally marrying a bunch of queer couples (🥲), and this excellent installation of ‘A View From A Bridge’ with Little Simz on the power of saying no. Watch it!

📖 Reading: Gwyneth Paltrow’s British Vogue cover story, ‘Pop Enters It’s Wife Era,’ a Substack charting the engagements of a bunch of pop stars, and this piece exploring Diane Keaton’s life as a style icon.

🎧 Listening to: Voodoo, the unmatched D’Angelo album, From The Pyre, the new album from The Last Dinner Party, the ‘Abracadabra’ episode of Song Exploder, and this podcast in which Raven Smith shares his fatherhood journey.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear how you’re finding Capsule - let me know here. And if you have a friend who might like it, do refer them! 🥺

See you next week 💋

In some of the products we recommend, we may earn a small affiliate commission. We only ever recommend things we genuinely like and would buy, and this small revenue driver goes directly towards keeping Capsule going. Thank you for the support. 🫶