i'm sorry, julia fox
a retrospective on my sojourn into julia fox's orbit via the viral clip, "unca jahms"
sooo from 2019-2022 i led spotify’s podcast social strategy. i came in during the period of very real hype around their goal of legitimizing podcasts as entertainment, and left when— to bffr— i thought their business strategy for pods was a sinking ship. i also could not stomach working on the j*e r*gan experience anymore. (“j*e r*gan threw up at my birthday party” is another article i’m contemplating writing) (it’s a metaphor, he did not actually throw up at my birthday party)
when i talk about work, i usually avoid using titles or describing tasks; “social strategist” means something different depending on your role, or general willingness to see it as a legitimate field understanding of the space. saying “i make content” or “i manage social accounts” is like saying a chef boils noodles. boiling noodles is a tactic to make a meal, and like foodies who think that eating makes them good at making food (shoutout nicholas holt in “the menu"), everyone who uses social media for personal reasons thinks they can do it professionally. so i usually tell people:
my job is to manufacture circumstances that foster joy and attention to something that’s advantageous to a brand.
(i made the text there really big so you remember it, because it will be relevant later.)
the meals i make are not that serious. i’ve always worked in entertainment. entertainment and art are like squares and rectangles: art is always also entertainment; entertainment does not always have to be “art.” sometimes we just wanna eat a cheeseburger. a cheeseburger does not need to comfort the disturbed or disturb the comfortable (but shoutout anya taylor-joy in "the menu").
at spotify one of my boiling noodles, or whatever, was to scrape podcast episodes for clips that were either of broad cultural interest or relevant to a specific audience. one of my shows was alex cooper’s “call her daddy,” which amassed a major audience that led alex into a very fruitful exclusivity deal with spotify. alex is a legitimately talented interviewer, with a natural ability to pull candor from her guests; you’ll see a lot of “wow, i’ve never talked about this publicly before” lines from all ilk of celebrity in her social teaser clips, like this one from hailey bieber.
julia fox was a guest in february 2022. to bring us back: julia had been gaining notoriety for years in the new york art and fashion communities, and then perhaps most mainstream from her role in uncut jems in 2019. then in early 2022, she briefly dated kanye west. by now perhaps you know where we’re going with this. one of the noodles i boiled, or the cheeseburgers i cooked and ate or whatever!!!, was julia fox’s “unca jahms” soundbite. it became one of the most viral memes of 2022.
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even with my lil gab of “manufacturing circumstances” to some end, i did not think this clip would do what it did. (anyone who tells you they can acutely or routinely predict a degree of virality is a hack, and i stand by that!!!) the “unca jahms” sound amassed 60K sound uses on tiktok (those are just the ones i could track) started by pop culture microinfluencers, then evolved to mainstream celebrity use. someone edited julia’s wikipedia page. and it even inspired suburbia mom etsy merch, which imo is a true hallmark of mainstream virality.
i didn’t pick the clip for the “unca jahms” reference. it felt more like a garnish, to continue the shitty food metaphor. in the clip, julia is talking about “being a muse,” a concept i found interesting— and of course, it touches on the relevant thing at that time that i knew would draw attention: her relationship with kanye west. here’s what they actually talk about in the full clip:
alex cooper: would you consider yourself ye’s muse?
julia fox: yeah, a little, maybe.
alex: what is a muse?
julia: i mean, i was josh safdie’s muse when he made uncut jems (“unca jahms”). you know what i mean? it’s things like that. i think people make it seem a little more dramatic than it is, you know what i mean? it’s not like, a van gogh type of… he wants to dress me right now. i think that’s kind of what it is.
alex: is there anything you know that you’re inspiring him with?
julia: yeah. it’s very mutual. i’m definitely an ideas person. i always have, like, crazy out there ideas and so does he. and i love telling him my ideas. and you know, we get excited over each other’s like weird things. it’s definitely mutual.
i became a bit obsessed with the whole thing when it went viral, honestly, using it as a case study to understand how i contributed to its success and the many real ways i simply didn’t. i have a google doc with hundreds of links related to unca jahms and comments trying to understand how it went the way it did, which turned into case studies and internal memos and a ton of distracted conversation about its success. at the time it was the only clip of spotify’s that had gone truly viral on tiktok, and really the only “positive” viral podcast moment other than that man who threw up at my birthday party. (btw i quit spotify a week or so after the clip went viral 🤪✌️)
by all early accounts, julia was a good sport about it. her first public response was “omggggg I was stoned leave me alone!!!! hahahahahah” commented on a video of the clip on pagesix’s instagram. there are tiktoks of people spotting her on the street or at events and yelling “uncaaa jahmmms!” and julia either waving or yelling it back with a smile. but you don’t have to go far to see the sprawl of negative comments, many of them pointing towards julia as annoying in a way that couldn’t be placed, or that she takes herself too seriously, or that people have “no idea why she is famous.”
many women-identifying people have amassed powerful followings and businesses by “being a muse” to the public or a targeted group of individuals. aka… influencers, before we used that term to describe the access any person could become famous. to cis men, they have to embody unattainable characteristics of beauty while retaining the idea they said beauty is actually available to them. for them, women are sterilized into objects that inspire art, but cannot actually be artists. it is actually the same for women muse-ing to other women– but instead of selling the idea of access, they sell the promise of becoming. muses promise mens’ ownership of beauty, and womens’ ability to become it.
much of the treatment of julia seems to be surface-level misogyny coming from inside the house. most comments are from women– about her vocal fry; that she doesn’t know what a “muse” is and therefore is stupid; and other reasons to assume she is stupid. but more deeply i think many women also feel threatened by julia. by her own admission in the clip, she bagged a relationship with an artist ostensibly known as a “genius” (lolllllllllll) in which she is materially, creatively, and spiritually spoiled. most women aspire to simple reciprocation in their relationships. she is on another level– an artist being taken seriously by a fellow, male artist, and he views her not just as an accessible object, but one he can express his backwards ass pygmalionism on, because “he just wants to dress her right now.”
whether or not “celebrity” is a contract one willingly enters with the public (and is therefore openly subject to its whims), or the degree to which you feel sympathy for any given celebrity– is a personal moral decision. i’m not interested in swaying your opinion there. but the best celebrities also use their audience as muses while simultaneously muse-ing to them, and i have to say: as humanity, we really fucked up on that front. we have total access to some of the most incredible artisans in history, and we use it to… be mean to them.
julia’s first wave of mass cultural exposure wrought a wave of deep ~misolousy~ (this is my fake word for “misogyny+jealousy,” and also i like that it just sounds like “me so lousy,” because people who participate in mislousy ARE lousy). but is also set her on a path to become “un-woman’d” in time— her refusal to adhere to beauty standards and fashion as only a pleasing aesthetic concept, and her patent brand of authentic over-sharing, have endeared a new audience to her, reminiscent of early “girlboss” type of stanning. how much un-woman’d can a woman un-woman if they are not woman’d to begin with? i don’t exactly know if she would have inspired such profound reverence had she not been publicly lambasted by all that mislousy; and we never will.
julia fox and i do not know each other. we have never engaged outside of this brief, mutual participation in the celebrity or media or internet or whatever complex that benefits— and detracts— us both. we do have a few things in common now, though: i, too, have now had many girls (at bars and weddings, not red carpets) yell “uncaaaa jahhmhmmmsSS!”!”” at me, when i say i worked at spotify. funnily– morbidly?– enough, we have both made art about ourselves dying (mine is not as cool as hers). many people speculated that much of what julia does, including dating kanye, is to get attention— to celebritize herself. it is literally my job to do the same thing for a brand.
julia has a lot to say and is an incredibly interesting person if you pay attention. she was a member of the community of creators i represented as a podcast creator at spotify, and i tremendously exposed her to harm and negativity. as this clip continued to haunt me the last year, i promised myself to keep track of julia and get to know her beyond the clip (or the media’s coverage of her). i also just genuinely developed a parasocial relationship with her in which we do have a real, participatory thing in common. i watch her tiktoks, i read her comments responding to fans, i listen to her podcast. she is an incredibly cool person who just happened to say the name of a movie she starred in weirdly one time. there is a certain cohort of people who will always associate “unca jahms” with her, or got a first impression that she was a bit of a ditz, and that can never be undone.
so i’m sorry, julia, that i participated in this system that actively worked overtime to dehumanize you. i really like your art and your personhood (to the degree to which i can actually know it). i am now reticent to post, well, anything about anyone, and try to live the best-possible version of doing what i love (building communities) without accidentally hurting the people who are a part of them. you are definitely a muse to me, for the way you honor inclusivity, acknowledge mistakes, and try to better yourself and those you interact with. i hope i can be as cool as you one day.
