Olivia Nuzzi, Sugar Baby Careerist?
It was a weird week for women & justice/ethics
Thanks for being here! Please ❤️ or better yet comment —I’d love your thoughts on this possibly controversial take :)
The crazy bitch-ification of Olivia Nuzzi has begun.
But I think we’re all missing a more interesting story here.
“She went after him aggressively,” the source said Saturday. “She targeted him pretty hard. Bobby was blocking her continually. It was a little scary. She was obsessed with him. I think she still is.”
Maybe. Do sex addicts drunk on attention hide from attractive young journalists writing helpful pieces for them in between sexts? It’s possible. He’s the guy with years of journals about “mugging” women and documenting his sexual activities with a series of conquest codes. Of course, when he wasn’t busy decapitating whales or transporting roadkill to create whimsical tableaus in urban parks.
But I digress.
“Sleeping your way to the top” has been a time-honored cudgel to throw at, delegitimize and punish women (see MAGA attempts to do it to Kamala Harris) as well as something that frankly, many women in the past may have felt was their best option.
I say that without judgment.
Female espionage assets were famously honeypots. Using sex as a means to an end was always a tool, but one most would not want to use — or at minimum, would not want to admit to using.
But do modern young women see it only that way? I really wonder.
Sugar Baby Careerists?
Gen Z and Zennials have had a neo-Con trad feminity-meets-girlboss diet since college. With that in mind, did Nuzzi possibly see her actions in a different frame than earlier generations may have? And might some others of her demographic?
Nuzzi’s generation platformed the sugar baby phenomenon, the “stay at home girlfriend” and trad-wifery—all financial strategies and in some cases, ways to build your own lucrative social media or even coaching platform. It’s not just for trophy wife shopping trips anymore.
Sugar babying is discussed as a millennial money strategy in some circles. Tinder is reportedly pondering an official monetizing stream as it’s so rampant on the site. The affiliate codes would pay out far more than a monthly membership.
When Sex Isn’t In Person, Is it Sex? Or Just Sales?
Add to that the disembodied sex lives of the porn and app era. Even my friends (not currently in their nubile era) on dating apps get permanently sext-zoned into “relationships” that are mostly—or exclusively—text and sext with no real contact.
As both Nuzzi and RFK Jr’s camps say, it was never “physical.” It wasn’t really sex. It’s transactional—not unlike Only Fans, which made $6.6B last year with 70% female creators. And where much of the chats between creator and audience are actually conducted by bots or offshore chat proxies.
Once it was Pics or it didn’t happen. Is it now Pics and it didn’t happen?
When we blatantly monetize, democratize and de-humanize sex and turn it into a legitimatized financial strategy, are we surprised?
Lately I’ve been watching Industry, where sex is an equal opportunity tool with as many uses as a Swiss Army knife. The show feels unique in portraying more complex and ambiguous ways work-related sex is used —and really, has probably been used — beyond the typical narrative. What may shock some may feel rather familiar to others, depending on where you’ve worked.1
It’s more than possible that the ethical algebra in the mind of folks raised in this era is very different from those of the Indecent Proposal age - as long as it is consensual and freely entered by any and all parties.2
When Sex Isn’t In Person, Is it Sex? Or Just Sales?
I’m hoping some journalist will take this on: How might late-stage capitalism and the latest wave of Tiktok/IG feminism be affecting women’s thinking on sexting for career gains. Or for that matter, how may young men be using it, too?
Scarlet Letter? Or momentary blip?
It’s unlikely Nuzzi will tell us exactly what she was thinking - until her inevitable book comes out. Tracking the consequences longer term will be the most intriguing part of this story to me.
For men, it’s only a crime if you get caught—and often, you can get a comeback. See: Nuzzi’s ex.
Her ex-fiancee journalist Ryan Lizza (now age 50, whom she started dating in 2018) has a successful career at Politico after getting fired by the New Yorker for a sexual misconduct allegation in the height of me-too. However, the details of whatever he did are under wraps, unlike hers.
Will Nuzzi get a comeback? If she does, we’ve come a long (and weird and potentially problematic) way, baby.
No one said equity is always high-minded.
To be clear: I do not think it was OK
To be clear, sexting a source is clearly a complete violation of ethical standards. It was also gross, misguided and obviously, risky.
But I’m not her editor and I’m not litigating her ethics here as a journalist. I’m more interested in the thought process that may have been behind the scenes and wondering if more share it than we’ve talked about.
Honestly - I find her low-key propagandism for RFK Jr. and Trump far more objectionable than any pics she sent. That selling out is far more repulsive than sext-for-sourcing in my eyes.
But perhaps I’m getting as corrupted as everyone else by the internet brain/ethics rot.
Weird Week for Women & Justice
Funny how women are framed to get clicks when men commit crimes and behave unethically. And no, I don’t think the double meaning of framed is 100% off here.
1 - She’s Not the Rapist
In the notorious trial of Dominique Pelicot, he confessed that he raped his wife and clearly called out all the other 50+ men as guilty. Yet, who do we see on the photos?
There is a cognitive dissonance in seeing “I AM A RAPIST” and seeing the victim over and over—and even her two sons. The man himself was only highlighted in one news story when I scoured the feeds earlier this week, and that’s in a court sketch.
Mug shots, family photos and other shots of criminals—alleged, confessed or convicted—are common news fodder. So where is he and where are these other men? Public shaming is the least they can do.
2 - Just Freak Off
Very bad: Donald Trump reposting a fake photo meme and stating that Kamala Harris was involved in Sean Comb’s abusive criminal activity, which keep being called “parties.” 3
Bad: The internet (and tabloid news media) grasping to pull J Lo into the fray by randomly pushing photos of her in a soft implication that she was involved.
We know the disinformation corners of the internet follow orders to keep “keep it flowing.” When will libel and even revenge porn laws catch up to technology before the public mind accepts this as 100% normal?
Women Getting Funded! 🤑
Women-founded snack brand Daily Crunch closed a $4M series A this week. Noted in the coverage:
Translation: women-owned brands typically need women investors to fund us or it often does not happen.
Statistically, you also need a male co-founder to make it happen 🙋♀️. Their COO and co-founder is male.
But in this funding market, all kudos to them!
It’s also worth noting that Launch Tennessee is run by a woman. Many entrepreneurial- supporting orgs are, and they do the very hard work of educating, PR, fundraising and support for relatively small salaries and big workloads.
Lil Bucks, also female owned, raised $3M this week. Cheers!
Flamingo Estates Hand Cream and Huh?
Flamingo Estates hand cream launched this week and got a bit of heat for copying Rhode’s photography. (See above, hand cream confusingly called hand cream but shown on faces and other body parts).
It’s also a bit weird that the grainy CK-One style “basement VHS porn” video aesthetic4 ) uses people of color in a very white-vibing brand, but no one is talking about that.
This from Founder Richard Chrisitiansen in 2023. In fairness, he was talking about collabs for charity:
“This is a chance for me to pay for my sins in some way. I spent a long time selling people stuff they don’t need, and I have the chance now to do something meaningful.”
I think many of us can relate to sentiment on guilt of our industry 🙋♀️, but the hand cream is also $48 and does not go to charity.
Old Guy Lifestyle Gurus are here for the 1% who are afraid to die, also enjoy champagne
Two hotels by one dude got on my radar this week:
Enter The Estate
Nightclub/Hotel Gen Xer Sam Nazarian is paired with Tony Robbins (ugh) to create The Estate and “quickly become the largest ecosystem of preventable medicine and longevity in the world.”
Honestly, it sounds a lot like Miraval or Canyon Ranch but more legit because “Longevity.” That’s male thought leader for things called spa (La Prairie’s on board), med spa, wellness and woo-woo when women are doing it. But add in some MRI scans, glucose monitors and it’s man-legitimized.
They’re co-founded with an AI medical company called Fountain Life, who are planning to collect “data and insights into the human body.” Even the ultra wealthy are not immune to data harvesting. Tony Robbins is also on board with Fountain Life and surprise, it’s quietly owned by an insurance company. Their site makes it fairly impossible to understand what they actually do, but discretion has always been key in the longevity game.
The future is de-aged, White Lotus and Black Mirror.
2 “A smart lifestyle” brand aka Ace Hotel for GenZ
Sam claims to have invented “lifestyle luxury” with the SLS hotels in 2005.5. Now he is planning to convert old properties into Gen Z to “reinvent lifestyle again with Project HA, the first smart lifestyle hotel” and “headquarters” for nightlife, food and wellness.
Older men can continue to monetize on these institutional levels when female influencers and lifestyle gurus can only get product lines at Target and QVC.
Advertising for example.
In Industry, at least, it’s not always been two people.
And why was the post-debate heat this month all about cat-eating and barely about infanticide claims? 🤔
couldn’t find the clip, olds like me will remember it had an off-camera old guy talking to them with shaky cams and rough zooms
They are fabulous but by no means first in their class.
I actually think your take on Nuzzi is interesting, no one is talking about how the ethics of using sexual energy as transactional has changed. The more free sex becomes, the more it's viewed as a transaction.
I dove more into the Nuzzi story in my latest article too, if you're interested: https://substack.com/home/post/p-149298200?r=fwzqm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web