Ep 1343 | Reading Rant, Met Gala Ratings & a Game of Guess Who

A minority of students can read at or above their grade reading level. Literacy rates are going down in this country and that has huge implications. Not just for our future politically, but also for the state of our country spiritually. I am going to show you this viral video that shows sadly what this looks like in our high schools today, but I am going to talk about my solution to the reading crisis that we have in our country. Then we'll also have producer Bre on y'all. We're talking about the Met Gala and we have a really fun game for you at the end of today's episode. It's brought to you by our friends at The Last Stand. The Last Stand is an awesome pro-life conference where I will be on June 5th through 6th in Denver, Colorado. Frank Turrick, Seth Gruber, so many more speakers. If you go to TheLastDand.com, get your tickets, use my code ALI, you'll get a discount. TheLastDand.com code ALI. Hey y'all, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. We've got a full and fun show for you today, some much needed comedic relief with producer Bre at the end of this episode and some pop culture stuff. First, we got to talk about reading. Maybe that seems random, but this viral video showing high school kids that can't read pretty basic words has really disturbed me. So I am going to go on a bit of a rant about the importance of reading, not just practically, but also spiritually as Christian. And then I will also be giving my tips of just young kids, of what we've done to try to cultivate a love of reading in our home. And hopefully it's helpful for you, especially if you're a new mom. Before we get into all of that really important stuff, I do just want to tell you that we've got a Mother's Day sale going on for Share the Arrow. So Share the Arrow is our Christian Women's Conference. This is our third year to put it on. It's been incredible. Holy Spirit filled every year. I'm so excited about it. We can pull up the speakers so you can see. It's October 10th, Dallas, Texas. We've got Rosaria Butterfield. We've got Elisa Childers. We've got so many others. Shane and Shane is going to be leading worship. I am so excited. October 10th, Dallas, Texas. Share the arrows.com. Right now, we've got a Mother's Day sale going on. So you can enter promo code Mothersday20 and y'all Ticketmaster is just, it's just Ticketmaster. Like it makes things difficult. So to enter the promo code, you actually have to press the little filter button at the top of the page. Press the filter button and then you enter in Mothersday20 and then all of the prices that you see for the seats will be 20% off. So make sure you snag your ticket if you're a Christian woman and make your way there. You're not going to want to miss it. Also we are doing a giveaway. This is very important. We are doing a giveaway right now. We are giving away a gold VIP experience for two plus a $100 share the arrows merchant gift card. We've never done a giveaway like this before. So take advantage of it. You can do it whether you've already bought your ticket or not. Gold VIP members will be invited to an exclusive VIP dinner with me, the other speakers, gold members the night before. It was really incredible last year. And also you get a VIP lunch with a lot of amazing perks. Here is how you enter and you can see all of this at sharethearrows.com by the way. There's a little giveaway tab, but you follow all three Instagram accounts. So Ally B Stuckey or Latable with ABS share the arrows and then you either sign up for our newsletter or you go ahead and you buy the share the arrows ticket. If you've already bought the share the arrows ticket, when you enter in, you can enter your confirmation number in a little box there. Just go to sharethearrows.com, click the giveaway tab and you'll see all of that. So I just wanted to make sure that you knew. You've got share the arrows news and you got to come. You got to bring your friends. We had people from six countries last year. So there's no excuse ladies. I cannot wait just a few months away. All right, let's get into our first story of the day and that is about phonics. How many of y'all, especially like 80s, 90s kids, remember hooked on phonics? It was a game that taught you about the letter sounds and basically taught you how to read. We need to be hooked on phonics. We need to get re-hooked on phonics. There was this recent viral video on TikTok. I saw it on Instagram like a good millennial that shows high schoolers attempting to read and really struggling. And look, I don't want to shame these individual kids. That's not what this is about. This is really about a system as we will talk about that has not trained kids from an early age how to read. We have unfortunately abandoned the tried and true methods to teach kids phonics and we've relied on these new fangled strategies that really don't build lifelong readers. Plus, there is a deficit of parents reading to their kids. And so this is not about shame. I just want to show you the example of what I'm talking about. Sot 1. Hey, hand me a scarf for me. A suit, clothes that were... Who's this for? Extraordinary, but somewhat... Gertrude? Now explain what that means. I don't know. She wore a sa-hollet of clothes that were extra-duringly whatever, bro. But somewhat... What does that mean? She wore a lot... Wait, she wore... Bro, I don't know, bro. Okay, so it goes on and on like that. It's not just those two kids. They're trying to say the word silhouette and extraordinary. Silhouette and extraordinary. And those are, I guess, bigger words, but these kids are in high school. They're not little kids. The truth is, is that this is indicative of a bigger trend. That reading proficiency has been declining for years now from 2019 to 2025. And eighth graders are down about five points when it comes to their reading level and their literacy overall. Fewer than 35% of students are considered proficient. Fewer than 35 and record high numbers of students score below the basic reading level. Since around 2012, scores for younger students at ages nine and 13 have fallen by about five to seven points from the early 2010s. Okay, so we're not talking over the past 30 to 50 years. We're talking like in the past 10 to 15 years. These declines were already happening before 2020, pandemic and everything, the stay at home orders, which were just absolutely catastrophic for kids in their education. But it got worse after that and they're showing up across student groups. The problem is especially bad for high schoolers. Current test results show that the lowest reading levels in decades, that we've got the lowest reading levels in decades for 12th graders, about 10 points below where they were in 1992. Okay, along with the highest percentages ever of students falling below basic reading levels. Okay, basic reading levels. The majority of high school seniors today do not even have an eighth grade reading level. There are a large percentage of seniors today that don't have above a fourth grade reading level. There are middle schoolers and high schoolers, a huge number of middle schoolers and high schoolers in America today that have a kindergarten reading level. That's actually probably what we just saw there. That was literally probably kindergarten first, second grade reading level that we are seeing in high schoolers. The decline is because of a trend to teach kids to guess words. This is what I think anyway. And if you've watched the sold a story podcast, I really highly recommend the sold a story podcast. She talks about this strategy of teaching kids to guess words. So used to deductive reasoning rather than sounding them out based on a very pervasive but incorrect theory that's happened in the early 2000s where we switched from phonics to this deductive reasoning, sight words. And sight words became not just it or this or that or the or ah, but even longer words like weird or like beautiful. Those became sight words that kids were just supposed to memorize and never have really any understanding of why that word makes that sound. This is the whole language approach and it ditches phonics. It emphasizes immersion, so-called in language. There was a researcher named Marie Clay. She popularized these ideas in the mid 20th century with her reading recovery program and the popularity of this approach really rose in the 1970s, but it became super popular in the 1990s in the early 2000s. And the idea is that children are naturally going to learn to read just like they naturally learn to speak just by being immersed. So you just show them a bunch of words. So in this program, the kids are encouraged just to use context clues and the overall meaning of a text or pictures. There's even this example in this podcast of like a teacher would basically cover up all of the words on a book, show the picture and make the kids guess what the book says just based on the picture. And then they would reveal the words and that is how they would teach them how to read. Proponents of this view often emphasize just overall comprehension of a text that apparently that is more important and they believe that this facilitates a love of reading and stories. And all of that sounds good. It might even sound like it makes sense, but the results speak for themselves. It does not actually result in children being able to read well. And then there's another method that has also led to a lot of problems that we are seeing today, and it's really important for us to know this as parents, especially if your kids are in public school, just to watch out for how your kids are learning to read. Let me pause. Let me tell you about our first sponsor for the day first, and that is Adele Natural Cosmetics. I use Adele every day. I just used their face wash last night, as I always do. Their essential cleanser is oil based, so it's different than the sudsy kind of soap cleansers that you're probably used to. But once you get used to the texture, you realize this is actually a lot better for your skin. You don't have any of those fake chemicals, none of those fake indocrine disruptor fragrances. Everything is completely natural. It removes the makeup really well. Like even my thicker studio makeup is totally cleansed with Adele Natural Cosmetics and it leaves my skin feeling really bright and really moisturized. I just loved it. It's been a game changer for me. I also use their cosmetic products, their makeup, which is totally clean when I'm outside of the studio. I love their moisturizing foundation, for example. It's also good. Arlene and her family run this company. They make everything by hand in small batches. They're unapologetically Christian pro life. It's just a win all around. Go to AdeleNaturalCosmetics.com. Use code ALI for 25% off your first time purchase. AdeleNaturalCosmetics.com code ALI. So there's another approach, which I alluded to just a couple of minutes ago. And that is reading the sight word. That's the sight word method. So the sight word method teaches children just to recognize words instantly as whole units rather than sounding them out. And so this approach relies on repetition, exposure, visual memorization for children to learn new words. They, again, kind of like the other method we were talking about, they're taught to guess words based on context pictures and cues. And this is called three. It's a technique called three queuing. Okay. So they're looking at context clues. And there is some truth to this method because if you are a reader, whether you're just a good reader, as a child or you're reading as an adult, it is true that we do not sound out every word and you shouldn't. You actually do want to move beyond being able to just or having to sound out every word that you're reading. Like you want to be able to deduce what a word says based on the context, based on the words around it, based on some of the letters that you see, that makes you a quicker reader, but that is not how we teach reading to kids exclusively at a young age. Because if this is all that you're teaching kids, then they don't actually know how to approach unfamiliar words. Guessing based on context is not sufficient when there is no context. Students need a really firm grounding on phonics and phonics specifically so they can tackle unfamiliar words. That is actually in my opinion. And I think a lot of teachers out there would agree with me. The phonics are the foundation. And then you kind of graduate to the being able to deduce words. And honestly, I could see those happening at the same time, but any reading method that for goes phonics altogether is setting kids up for failure. So I've got to spiel. Okay. I've got to spiel on reading and just why reading is so important. Why did these statistics matter? I could go on and on just about how important it is for our intellect and for our formation as human beings to be able to read. I could go through all the statistics that show you the dismal reading levels for high school graduates and all the data that shows that this deductive reasoning is not good versus the phonics method. But I want to give you a bigger picture of why, because maybe you're a parent and you're like, look, my sixth grader doesn't like to read. It's too late. They're super into sports or they're super into science. It doesn't really matter. Or maybe you're an adult and you're like, I don't even like to read and I'm not going to push myself to read. And I just find it boring. I, there was a trend not too long ago that I saw on Instagram of parents saying confession. I don't like reading to my kids. I don't read to my kids. They don't want to listen to me read. Um, and it's boring and I don't like it. I'm tired at the end of the day. We're talking little kids and I saw this statistic that says 40, only 41% of children, 41% of children age zero to four are read to daily as of 2025. That is a nine point drop only since 2019. Only 55% a little over half of children age zero to five are read to at least five days a week. Okay. So about half of kids are probably never being read to, or maybe they're just being read to randomly. There are a lot of parents who are overstimulated. They're tired. They're distracted. It's really not about these kids having their own lack of discipline. It starts with a lack of discipline and bad priorities for parents, honestly. And that's not to dismiss the difficulty or the busyness of life, but it is to say our priorities are out of whack and we are exchanging. I believe difficulty for ourselves in reading to our kids for difficulty for them for the rest of their lives because we're just too tired or too busy. So let me give you my spiel, the why of reading to your kids and emphasizing the importance of reading to them. So here's my first reason. The comprehension of words is necessary for understanding the world. It is very difficult to be a diligent student and informed voter, a productive citizen, a helpful neighbor. If you do not understand words, how they are formed, what they mean. Understanding words is the basis for knowledge. It is the crux of communication. Words are necessary to convey ideas, to tell a story, to inspire courage, to form movements, to lead nations. None of these have ever been done purely through action. In fact, many acts of valor throughout history have been accompanied by a speech. Or we know about these heroic acts through stories, without words and the conveying of words throughout generations. We have no way to orient ourselves in human history. No way to understand how we got here or where the path leads. Now a person could have an understanding of the spoken word without reading. That has been the case in many eras throughout history in certain parts of the world, but not being able to read well severely limits your vocabulary. And that totally inhibits your access to the discovery of new words and thus new ideas. Plus it is the written word by which we have reliable, consistent renderings of ideas and events, which contain instruction, inspiration, warnings, et cetera. There is a reason why different groups throughout history have been barred specifically from reading like slaves. Why the Protestant Reformation boomed at the exact same time as the printing press and literacy rates, because reading liberates. It frees us of our own naivete. It unlocks potential in our brains that has proven to be very threatening to tyranny, spiritual tyranny, intellectual tyranny and political tyranny. It is so easy to think of the small picture when it comes to reading that, oh, it's boring. It's hard. It takes a long time. The minutiae, who cares? It's just putting words together. It's just a bunch of sounds that someone made, meaning fall through a linguistic construct. Maybe that's the more sophisticated way to say that reading doesn't really matter or just like the simple, it's boring or it's okay if my kid doesn't like reading or I don't like reading, but it'll be good at other things. They won't need it anyway. Wrong. Wrong. Reading is more important than soccer. It is more important than any extracurricular. Your child will need their brain to think far longer than they will use their legs to score goals, cultivate in your child a love of reading and a discipline of reading. My second reason is theological, specifically for the Christian. Unlike Buddhism, Christianity does not place a premium on silence or the emptying of the mind. Christianity is a word based faith. You go all the way back to the beginning. God spoke the universe into existence. He didn't have to. He could have used any mechanism or no mechanism at all to create the world, but he used words. He used language. He dictated all of creation, including the creation of man and woman who were made in his image. He spoke to Noah. He spoke to and through Moses as if appearing in a burning bush. Wasn't enough. God spoke to Moses as a burning bush through the burning bush. Then God not only gave Moses the law. He also said, I have written these things to you for your instruction. He wanted to pass them down through the reading and the telling and the memorization of the law. God spoke to and through all the prophets whose prophecies were written and read. He sent an angel to speak to Mary. And then what does the Bible, the entire biblical narrative lead up to? What is the fulfillment of God's eternal plan of redemption that's been unfolding every millisecond since before time began? His name is Word. Jesus, the light of the world, God made flesh. The Savior of his people is described in John 1 as the Word, the Logos. He had a ministry of deeds, yes, but also of preaching and teaching and correction and reproof to the priests and the leaders who accused him. He said very little. He was like a sheep being led to the slaughter. But on the cross, he echoed Psalm 22, which is Jewish audience knew because it had been written and because it had been read because it had been passed down. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He rises again on the third day and speaks to the witnesses. And his last charge is this, go there for and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. The acts of the apostles were written down to be read and heard. Paul wrote letters to the church to be read and to be heard. Revelation 21 5 says, and he who was seated on the throne said, behold, I am making all things new. And he said, write this down for these words are trustworthy and true. God ordained Christianity to be passed down through words, spoken and heard, written and read. God is a God of order. And from the beginning, we see that words, the ability to convey and comprehend them are used to bring order. In fact, the dysregulation of words and the confusion of language is a curse for the men who built the tower of Babel that tells us something, that there is something peace inducing about a shared understanding of words and the ability of a rational populace to be able to communicate with them, to debate with them, to build good things with them, to be able to read them fundamentally. And there's a lot that we could get into there about the pitfalls of multiculturalism, by the way. But for now, I want to focus on what I feel is an obligation of Christians to be the best thinkers, to be the best readers, the best communicators in the world. We have a history of that. Christians dominated academia in this country before giving it over to the liberals and the secularists over time. And now I think we have the opportunity to take the lead again. We have to. I mean, look at where we are. We have schools that are not teaching kids to read. We have people going to college and becoming lawyers and doctors with barely a high school reading level. We're scared of objective standards here in the US, standards of excellence, because of whom they might exclude. And all of us are going to suffer for that in so many ways. And that includes spiritually, just like the Reformation, just like the Great Awakening, we need great writing and communicating to effectively convey the word of God, not because God needs us, but because throughout history, he has chosen to use those means specifically to spread his good news. And so I truly believe it is a, not just a human responsibility and good for the flourishing of humankind, but that it is a Christian responsibility to be good readers. Y'all, the bar is so low. You want your kids to excel. You want your kids to stand out. Like I can tell you that now that I'm in the generation, the position of hiring people, the thing that I am looking for, are you a good communicator? Can you write well? Can you speak well? Can you convey ideas respectively and impressively, articulately? And if you can't, like I'm just not interested in working with people who can't, that all starts with reading. And if you're like, okay, well, I don't know how to do that. I don't know where to start. Um, I'll just tell you a little bit of like what my mom and grandmother did. And then what we have tried our best to do with our kids and the successes that we've seen, the struggles that we've seen in that, and then we'll get into the rest of the episode with Brie. Let me pause first, tell you about our next sponsor. It's WeHeart Nutrition. I get all my supplements from WeHeart Nutrition. I get my Omega threes, my prenatal vitamins. I get my iron, which is super important. I tend to be anemic and these iron supplements are just so good because my body absorbs them, responds to them. While that's true of all of their supplements, their probiotics, literally everything has been so good for my health. It's improved my blood work. And I'm just so, I'm just so grateful to be able to rely on a Christian pro-life company that donates 10% of every sale to a pregnancy center. They've donated over a million dollars to these pregnancy centers. Jacob and Christian, who started WeHeart Nutrition are the real deal. So it's just a win all around. Take it from me. I use these supplements every single day and love them. Go to weheartnutrition.com, use code ALI. You'll get 20% off when you use my code. That is weheartnutrition.com, code ALI. Okay. So my mom and my grandmother were both teachers. My grandmother lived with us until I was about 13 years old. And so I had, I had a privilege of being raised by educators. Also, I was just born liking words. And I understand not everyone is built that way. But I enjoyed from an early age, learning about letters and reading and words and how they go together in communication. But I don't think it's just innate. I also think it's because of how my family taught me from an early age. And the emphasis was always on phonics, how the letters sound. And so even before probably I just knew my ABCs. I knew the letter sounds and I don't show videos of my kids. And so I thought that you would enjoy this video from gosh, probably 1993. My mom says I was probably about 18 months here, maybe 19 months here, doing my, doing my letter sounds. So here's that. Apple. Baby. Cookie. Cuck, cuck, cuck. Darling. I won't play you the whole thing. She's got the video out there somewhere, but the, I learned the words associated with the letters and the sounds associated with the letters. As you can see, I wasn't even two there. And that was easy to memorize. The tune was easy to memorize. And that is something that we have also adopted and tried with our kids. Now, every kid is different. This worked really well for my oldest. My second has needed something a little bit different to help her memorize her letters and the sounds like that. But I can tell you what really worked with my oldest, because we think very similarly before I ever taught her her ABCs, before she could say the ABCs sound. We were teaching the letter sound. So this is what I would do. We had these little, little letter cards that we bought on Amazon and they had a little picture next to it. It really doesn't matter as long as it's got the capital letter in the lower case letter. I never taught her until much later that this is a, this is B, this is C. I said, this is a, this is B, this is C. And a little bit different. You're not supposed to put the a at the end of it, but you know what I mean. And then eventually, again, before she was two years old, way before she was two, I was able to lay out the letter cards and then out of order, I would be able to say go get mm, mm, mm, or go get puh, puh, puh, puh. And then she would be able to retrieve them and bring them to me. And she now, if I can just say this about her, she is an excellent reader. And yes, she has words memorized for sure, but her ability to sound out really big words the other day, she was reading something. Um, she was reading the instructions on the back of a box and one of the words was proficient and she didn't get it exactly. Right. I think she said like proficient or I don't remember exactly how she pronounced it, but it was really close. And I really believe it is because of this building block, this foundation of learning phonics before she was one. But then there's also, or before she was two rather. Um, but then there is also the memorization that I think comes from reading your kids and allowing them to look at the words as you are reading. I am a big fan, a big fan of Dr. Seuss. There's also been Dr. Seuss hate. There was like some politically correct criticism of Dr. Seuss a few years ago. And then again, you got the toxic mommy culture on acts being like, I don't like Dr. Seuss. I just don't enjoy them. And I'm like, you're not the target audience, Jessica. Okay. The book isn't for you. It's for your three year old. Okay. And it's fun. Fox and socks. If you just tell yourself that you're having a competition with all the moms in the world and you're trying to be the very best and never stumble over anything in Fox and socks, you can make it fun. And you don't have to read every single page when they're that little until they can figure out that you're skipping. But that was huge. I mean, we read Dr. Seuss and rhyming books like every day of her little life. She's also my COVID baby. And so we had like a ton of time at home and I know it's a little bit, a little bit different now, but that also helps. And I think the rhyming really helped with memorization because my opinion is that it's a combination of both. It's a combination of the memorization, the sight reading, the deductive reasoning, using the, uh, context and the phonics. I'm not saying this as an educational professional. Um, I'm not saying this as a mom of 50 years. I'm saying this as a mom of littles who also just like learned a lot from my own, from my own parents who were really good educators to me. Okay. Here is a video of me. I was probably, I think my mom says three and a half here. And this is an example of me having memorized it, but because I had kind of done both, I was able to deduce. She says it's a combination of my, of memory and her teaching me phonics. Okay. So I thought that she would, I thought that you would enjoy that because all credit really does go to them for that. But I can say that that is what set me up to do what I do now. Like that's why I love to write and I love to write all throughout school, all throughout college. I still do. I don't read as much as I want to. I wish I could say I'm one of those people that like reads a new book every two weeks. I just don't feel like I have time for that. I do read several books, fiction books a year, because I think fiction is also really important. Another tip that I would say that I have found works for us, especially with my oldest, we don't do this as much with my middle and youngest yet, but read books that are above their reading level. We read through Lion, the witch in the wardrobe multiple times. She's not reading those. I mean, I could sit there and let her try to figure out how to read them. We're just not doing that right now. And we are almost done with the second book in a little house on the prairie. And it takes us a while. Like we read a chapter, half of the chapter every night. It's definitely above her reading level, but, and she's not always paying attention. Like I don't make her sit still and ask questions. Like sometimes she's flipping through another book. She's laying there. She's playing with something as I'm reading, but I, I just believe I don't even have the statistics to back this up. I just believe there is something about that that stretches their minds and stretches their imaginations. That's good for them. My second learns totally differently. We have had to have totally different methods and helping her memorize her letters. It's a ton of repetition, a ton of visuals, a ton of even kinetic learning um, with her body. So I'm not saying that every child is the same. Obviously some children have dyslexia, special needs, things like that, but you as a parent are more equipped than you think it is more important than you think. Just because your child has dyslexia or dysgraphia or something, do not let people convince you that they're just never going to be able to read her. That it's not important. You figure out mom, what works for you and what works for your child, and that will pay off for the rest of their lives. Don't let your child be limited by the label that has been put on them. And educators who are doing this correctly, thank you so much. Thank you so much to the teachers who are teaching phonics and who aren't letting these children who maybe aren't read to at home, letting them just fall behind like, thank you so much for the good teachers out there that are, um, that are challenging us. This is a huge issue. This has to do with not just literacy, but biblical illiteracy, which has huge moral existential implications for our country. So read, make your children read, make it be fun. And I'm sure my mom would love to come on here and give some more tips for how she did that for us. All right. Okay. That's the serious stuff that I wanted to talk to you. Now we are going to get into a conversation with Bre about the Metcala and all kinds of fun stuff and a game at the end. Y'all, it got a little inappropriate, but it's fun. You're going to laugh. Okay. Let me just tell you about my next sponsor and then we'll get into that. That's Alliance Defending Freedom. Y'all know, I love my friends, my attorney friends at Alliance Defending Freedom. They are fighting on the front lines all over the world for our free speech rights, for our religious liberty rights, for the rights of women and girls to have safe sex, exclusive spaces in sports, sports teams and opportunities. They're also defending someone named Kathy McCord, a former Indiana school counselor. She was a counselor for 37 years. She refused to refer to students by opposite sex pronouns and she was fired for that. She was, so she was fired because she wouldn't go along with a compelled lie and she wouldn't violate her own religious beliefs. And ADF is defending her. These are the kind of people that they're defending every day. They go all the way to the Supreme court with cases like this and they make sure that you and I can exercise our rights and our children and our children's children will be able to as well. Go to joinadf.com slash Ali. Make your donation today. That's joinadf.com slash Ali. Producer Bree, welcome back. Hello. Thanks for having me again. Yes. Okay. You are our fashion connoisseur. You are our Hollywood liaison. You are our expert on everything Hollywood. Thank you for being here. And we've got the capital of Hollyweird at the Met Gala. Yep. And so tell us a little bit about what the Met Gala is and what the theme was this year just to give people some context. Yeah. So the Met Gala is a, I'm probably going to use the wrong words. So sorry if anyone really knows about the Met Gala, but it's a fundraising benefit for the Metropolitan Museum of Art Museum of Art. And the theme this year was fashion is art. Okay. Well, and then the dress code or the theme, sorry, they mixed them up. The theme was costume art. And then the dress code was fashion is art. I remember being confused because those weren't the same thing. But people took that to mean like taking inspiration from painting and like other forms of art and dressing that way. It's kind of up for interpretation. It is. Some people take it more literally. Some people will just dress in a pretty dress. Right? And I think that a lot of people who work with fashion houses, pick their outfits like a year in advance, so they don't even, they just kind of like make a story for it later and make it fit. So, and some people go all in. Some people go all in. We can't necessarily just judge the outfits that we're about to see by whether or not, well, we could, whether or not they're pretty or whether or not they fit the theme or whether or not they're cool. We could do that. Yes. The whole concept, I've explained this to people last night even, the whole concept is not like the Oscars where you're just trying to look really nice. The concept is you're supposed to look like really out there and like campy and it's supposed to be costuming. So the, I like to think of it like if you look like you're going to the Oscars, you've kind of failed the Met Gala because that's not the point of it. You know? And I think the theme one year was camp. Yeah, it was. And those were pretty crazy too. Also, one thing to know is it is invite only. You can't buy a ticket to it. And once you're invited, you have to pay $100,000 to go. So that's, that's the ticket to get in. Okay, I didn't know that. Yeah. That is interesting because didn't AOC go to the Met and she wore a gown that said eat the rich. Yes. And so that means did she also have to pay $100,000? She very well could have. I will say, I think there are some people who like if a fashion brand wants them to wear something, they'll pay for their ticket. But I don't remember what she was wearing. So it's very, very possible. She did. She paid $100,000 to wear a dress to a very elitist event. I know. Okay. So costume art, they say, well, examine the centrality of the dressed body. Of course. Okay. The centrality of the dressed body. I wonder if we could come up with a phrase like that. We are going to examine the periphery of the dawned face. And that has to do with glasses. I don't know if you know that or not and how people who wear glasses are continually marginalized and pushed to the outskirts of society. Did you like that? I love that. That's next year's Met Gala. That's next year's Met Gala. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I just know. So by interspersing garments and artwork to create pairings that not only illuminate the indivisible connection between clothing and the body, it's indivisible, but also the complex interplay between artistic representations of the body and fashion as an embodied art form. Okay. So they have to express their own relationship to fashion. The evening raised a record breaking $42 million for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What's that Kardashian quote? It's like people are starving Kim. That's how I feel about this. Starving. Yeah. People are starving Kim. But okay. Last year was $31 million. This year was $42 million. Wow. Well, they upped the price. Last year was $75,000 a ticket. Okay. So they were like, we didn't make enough money. You know, buy inflation. We're still dealing with it. I know. Okay. Let's get into our outfits. Okay. I'm going to change it up on us. Okay. No. One is the best. And our favorite. I knew you would go there. Okay. I know because last time, oh, and I think we didn't say this. This all happened on Monday, by the way. Okay. So we've got some voiceovers and we've got some pictures. So first we're going to play Emma Chamberlain and this is just a silent video where we're going to be watching her. Okay. It's not a silent video. It's just a picture. Yep. Okay. So she has, that's scary, but her dress is like a painting. Yes. So she obviously went with a theme. Yes. She did go with a theme. She was one of the first to arrive. Okay. And she's an influencer, coffee mogul. Yeah. I think she was like a YouTuber first. Yes. But yeah, she's a coffee company. Um, yeah. So the top is like, it's hard to see without being close up, but it's like acrylic paint and then it goes down and at the bottom, it's like watercolor effect, her sleeves are like dripping down like their paint. Yeah. Okay. I feel like, I kind of like that it fits the theme and it's pretty in a way. So I don't like her makeup and stuff always looks like that. She's a little odd. She's trying to be odd. Yep. Okay. I feel like it's pretty good. Like I'm probably going to go with like a three. One's the best. One's the best. I loved this. Actually, I would say two. Two. I loved it. I agree with the hair and makeup. That's her thing. And I wish it wasn't, but it's, yeah, she's very pretty. Yeah. She just likes to, she likes the odd looks and the washed out eyebrows. I will never understand Kylie Jenner had that too. We can't play Kylie Jenner's because I don't think we have her. It was inappropriate. Yeah. There were a few, but I don't understand the bleached eyebrows. That's been around for a while. I know. It doesn't look good on anyone. It looks good on no one, but I guess that's not the point. Yeah. Okay. Hudson Williams. Um, he is in that, uh, it's heated rivalry. I have never seen it or read it and I never will, but I feel like I see it on Instagram. Game hockey player show. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What do we think? Brie, I'll let you have the first word here. I mean, he looks like a gay matador, which I think is what he was going for. Yeah. So I don't know if we have a close up of his face, but his like eye makeup is insane. It's just color everywhere. Oh, it will swerve up close. If you zoom into his face, it looks worse. It actually looks better from far away. Yes. I saw someone say he looks like a crow that was converted into a human. Oh my gosh. What? I think he does look like that. Okay. I was going to say there's something about him. I think it's the eye makeup that looks like a Rufio from hook. Rufio, you know, I don't know that. Has everyone in here seen a hook with, okay. No, no, no, no, no, no. Like the, wow. Okay. Well, anyway, he just kind of looks like that with the eye makeup. That's the only thing that I thought of, but gay matador embodied crow. I like that better. I like that better than my take. Okay. Um, let's look at Heidi Klum. Ah, yes. Okay. Heidi. Yep. I'm impressed. Yes. I'm impressed for those of you who are listening. It's a, like she's a statue. Yeah. Which is, I have no idea what material she's wearing or how. Do you know about her Halloween costumes? Oh yeah. Cause she's like queen of Halloween. She always has the weirdest. Yeah. Craziest Halloween costumes. And so I think she just leaned into that here and I, I respect it. I respect it. I kind of respect it too. I mean, it's not like pretty, but I see what she's going for. So yeah, I'm going to give it a two and a half or maybe even a two just for being so like on theme, literal. I'm going to give it a three. I also respect that she didn't feel the necessity to make everyone know it was her. Yeah. I respect that about her, but everyone did. Everyone did. We didn't rate Hudson. Also, we didn't rate Hudson. Oh, but I give him a seven. Okay. I give him an eight one being the best. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Mound it or okay. Let's go to Sabrina Carpenter. Um, she looks really pretty. I don't understand. I don't know if it's art necessarily, but she looks really pretty. She was like a flapper kind of, I don't know if we have another angle of it. This was my favorite one of the whole night because her whole dress is made out of film strips. Oh, and when you look up close, it's all film strips from the movie Sabrina. And which I haven't seen, but, um, but I just thought it was so cool. It was such a cool play on like art and I guess I'm like a little just like narcissistic, but what I mean, what are my expecting? But I know, but it's the name. Um, it's not like I thought any different. Now I think she looks really pretty. I like the people that can accomplish going with the theme and looking really pretty. Yeah. And I think she nailed it. Okay. I love this. Please, please, please give me a rating. One. Okay. It's your favorite. Okay. I just have to, I feel like I can't, I want to reserve one for my very favorite. So I'm going to give it a tentative too. Okay. Just because I haven't seen the rest of them yet, but she looks really good. So good job, Sabrina. Good job, Sabrina. Quick pause to tell you about legacy box. Legacy box is an awesome service. If you've got a bunch of pictures and videos, like the ones that I showed you earlier and you want to see, I'm going to show you the pictures. You've got a bunch of pictures and videos, like the ones that I showed you earlier and you want to make sure that they're not lost. You want them to be digitized. And so you can get a cardboard box from legacy box. You can put all your home videos and your precious pictures into this box and it back to them. They will digitize these, send you the organized files, then send you back all the hard copies and you're good to go. This is such a great gift. Maybe for Father's Day, maybe for anyone or for yourself, for those in your life that you know, have all of these pictures and videos that you don't want to get ruined or just so hard to organize, just let legacy box do it. It's really an incredible service. If you go to legacybox.com slash alley, use my link to get 60% off legacybox.com slash alley. Okay. Connor story. I think this is the other person. The other hockey player. There's no heterosexual way for a man to wear a halter. So we know what he's going for. Yeah. We didn't need to be doing the halter top. Also he's got like pearl earrings in. So it looks gay, Maddador, gay grandma. They did lean into the, the theme of their show, I guess. Um, it looks like he just went to H&M before this though. It's, it's like not anything. Yeah. And I don't see the art. No. Behind it. Kind of like Patrick Swayze a little bit. Um, yeah, I don't like it at all. I'm going to go with like nine. Yeah. Nine and a half. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Bad. Don't like it. Okay. Travis Kelsey. I'm just kidding. It's Sam Smith. They're confused back there. They're like, um, okay. There was a tweet going around that said this was Travis Kelsey and honestly, I almost fell for it because I was like, it kind of looks like it does. But I was like, wait, why does Travis Kelsey look so gay? But it's not. It's Sam Smith and that makes a lot more sense. Makes complete sense. He looks like in the emperor's new groove, you know, the, um, put the pole, the lever, Cronk. Yeah. Yes. Yes. That's what he looks like. Okay. The big feather. Yeah. Um, you know, I appreciate that he's completely covered up. You know, he's not always when I see videos of his concerts and stuff. And he really does. He like, is an individual that makes me sad in a lot of ways. Cause I feel like he's just changed a lot. I just, I'm not going to, I'm not going to rate him very high. I'm also going to go with like a nine. I also don't see the relationship to the theme. No, I'm sure there's something that they made up, but, uh, I'm going to say seven. And he's basically wearing a dress. So yeah. Okay. Jordan Roth. I don't know who Jordan Roth is. Okay. This is also a man wearing a dress and he has a fake human, but on his back. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. He looks like a demon. I don't, I don't know what it's supposed to mean. I'm sure there's some meaning they came up with, but yeah, it's horrifying. Wearing high heels. Okay. We're going to go with a 10 on that one. Remember, I'm going to say eight just cause it's memorable. Okay. Uh, Hugh Jackman, please be normal. Please be normal. Please be normal. Oh, this is the hand poking him in the eye. Okay. Well, Hugh Jackman just looks like he is wearing a tux. And so I like that for him. Well, at the Met Gala. Oh, no, no, you don't think he gets a neutral five for that. I think. Okay. Fine. That's fine. But I don't, I don't like men wearing girls clothes. I'm not as okay with it as you are. I just think weird. Okay. Here's one that I think is masculine, but also maybe on theme. Okay. Uh, Patrick Schwarzenegger, please. Oh, Patrick. Now I don't understand the cane. Can you explain that? I can't explain that. I really can't. I've struggled with this one a little bit. Cause there were multiple canes. So I must be missing something. Yeah. I don't know. Some. Some piece of art. Some piece of art. Yeah. I don't really know what it has to do with the theme and maybe it doesn't. I feel like this is one that he maybe would have picked out a while ago. I think it looks nice. I think it looks nice. Like I'm probably going to give it a. Or. I don't love that. It looks like he's just wearing high-waisted pants in a crop, crop motor cycle jacket, but it is unique. Yeah. So I'll give him that. Okay. I guess. Sarah Paulson, an actress. I don't know who she is. Yes. She's got an ugly gray dress on. So much tool. Never seen more tool in my life. And then she's got like a dollar bill over her eyes. Yes. I don't know if she's trying to make a statement. She is. It's, uh, she's making a statement about the 1% it's a $1 bill. Um, of which she is a part of which she is a part. Yeah. And so is everyone there. Um, so a lot of people are saying it's ironic. Some people are saying, oh, she, she knows that she's playing into it. I don't know how she would not know that, but still, it's pretty good. I don't like it at all. The, the, the dress also is just awful. It's really bad. And it doesn't, it's not like it fits the theme. So I'm going to give this a 10 being the worst. Yeah, it's bad. Um, yeah. I give it a nine. Okay. Um, okay. I don't know if we can do all of these. Let's do Olivia Wilde unless you really want to do this person named Lisa. I don't know who Lisa is. Lisa's, I haven't seen this one actually. Olivia Wilde has like, um, one of those, what's, what's that thing called that they used to wear like back in the 1700s, like a, no, a what? No, none of y'all are correct. Um, it's the thing that they used to wear, like on the back of their dresses to like make it stick out and stick up. I forget what it's called. I don't know what it's called. Um, but anyway, it's like a basket on her behind and she's wearing a super loose ponytail. Don't like. No, no, I don't like anything about this. Like I'm also probably going to rate it a nine. She's pretty. The dress itself, I guess is fine, but doesn't fit the theme. What do you think? I think it's boring in all the wrong ways. Yeah. And interesting in all the wrong ways. So yeah, I see that. I'm going to say 10. Okay. Yeah. Let's do Eileen goo. The 04. She's the snowboarder. Oh, I was thinking the other girl that you posted. Alyssa Alyssa. Yeah. Yeah. This is the snowboarder who competed for China. Yes. I don't like her at all. And now she's here at our Met Gala. She looks really pretty. She's pretty. Her bubble, she's pretty. She's pretty. And her bubble dress is really cool. So yeah, but she should be competing for America. She should be a citizen of China. How about that? Pick pick one. Yeah. CCP pick me here at the Met Gala. Don't like you, but you are on. Okay. Katy Perry. Let's look at her. It's Justin Trudeau with her. Oh, I didn't see him. Interesting. She's got a mask on. I saw her open the mask at one point. Mm hmm. What do you think about this? She also has one glove that has six fingers on it. OK, so it's a statement, I guess, on AI. Because, you know, AI used to distort fingers. So that was a. Why the mask, you think? I don't know. It's faceless. You don't know. Robots. Like she almost looks like a fencer. She also kind of looks like a nun with like the black hair. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I don't know. The dress I think is kind of boring. And the dress is like torn in the back. See that? I was like, so it's going to be torn back there. I don't know. Don't like it. I'm getting grumpy. I'm going to give it a nine. All of them have been nine or 10. I'll give it a seven, I guess. Like she tried to do something. Yeah. OK, whatever. OK, this might be my personal favorite, even though I don't like this person as an artist. Bad button. I don't know why. I just think the commitment to the costume. You can't tell that that's him at all. No, you're right. It is a big commitment to the costume. And I do respect that again. Yeah. He wasn't asking anyone. Again. Oh, yeah. Well, this fits the bit. So it does. I don't know what it's for. Look, he even I think if you zoom in, they even made his hands look really old. Like that is commitment. If he would have worn this to the Super Bowl, I might have felt differently. Really? I don't know. It might have just been interesting performed in this. Yeah. OK, yeah, bad bunny. And how do people know who these people are? Are they like announced? I've seen a clip where reporters are calling the wrong name for people. So I don't know. I think it's up to the publicist that they're with if you want to tell people who they are, but. OK, overall, did you enjoy your Matt Gallo experience? I did. OK, I thought there were more. I think maybe I just like the theme because I appreciated more of the outfits than I normally do. OK, normally I feel like they're awful, all of them. OK, so I was entertained. OK, yeah, there we go. Well, thanks so much for your Matt Gallo insight. Of course. Last sponsor for the day is Good Ranchers. We've been eating Good Ranchers in our home for gosh, over five years now. We love it so much. We love supporting American farms and ranches. We love Ben and Corley. They are the God fearing America loving company of owners of this company, rather, and they are the real deal. They really care about this American industry and supporting our farmers. And I love the quality of the meat. They've got seed oil free chicken nuggets, which are amazing. We use the ground beef and the non-premarinated chicken breast almost every single night of the week. It's just all so good. Go to Good Ranchers dot com. Use code alley. You'll get $100 off your first three orders when you subscribe. Also, you can get $40 off your first order with my code. Good Ranchers dot com slash alley code alley. OK, we're back. We're doing a never before done. Anyone. Segment. Well, for our show, segment on this show to close out Wednesday's episode. OK. OK, so we have to ask and we have to figure out who is on our own forehead. And we only have time for a couple of rounds. Maybe we'll try to do some bonus and put it on social media. OK, Bree, would I want to hang out with this person? No. OK. Do I entertain people? Yes, living. Yes, you do. OK. OK. Do I? Do I, Ali, share this person's values? No. OK. Not one bit. OK. Do I am I a polarizing person politically? Yes, you are. You are. Am I a politician? No. OK. No, OK. Can't say more than that. OK. OK. Do I have? Have I been in the news recently? Yeah. Oh. Am I on television? Not like as your job. OK. Been on television. I've been on television, maybe not regularly. Yes. OK. OK. I don't know if we're thinking about it the same way. OK. I've seen you on television before. OK. OK. Do I would I be a guest on relatable? Yes, I would invite you. Ah, I would invite you. So would do. Am I a singer? Yes. I don't know why I had to think about that. Yes, you are. OK. You are. OK. If I were running for president, would I vote for me? Wait, what? If I were if I were running for president, would Brie vote for me? Well, it depends on who the other person was. Honestly, at this point, probably. Yes. Probably. Probably. Honestly, I have more to say, but I'm not. I'm not going to. I'm not going to say it. OK. Am I a woman? Yeah. OK. Do I act? No, you don't. But I'm an entertainer. Yes. OK. Am I young? Like, am I millennial? Gen Z? You're Gen Z. I think. Yeah. OK. Yeah. I think. Yeah. OK. Yeah. Am I Sabrina Carpenter? No. OK. You're not. OK. Close. OK. Close. Oh, gosh. The other person thinking about it, can't think about. Oh, I better know who it is. OK. Go. You can ask me a question. OK. OK. I'm a singer. Yes. Oh, that I would vote for because I have to. Yeah. I have to vote for this person. Am I Billie Eilish? No. Dang it. I really thought it was. That's a good guess. You're not. OK. Do I have like a distinct look about me? Yes. You do have a distinct look. OK. Am I that Olivia girl that is a skinny singer? Skinny singer. Gen Z. No. OK. Olivia Rodrigo. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a skin gen Z singer who I don't share any of these values. I am not Billie Eilish. I'm not Sabrina Carpenter. I'm not Olivia Rodrigo. No. Well, that covers it for me. So. It doesn't. You know this person. OK. I don't know if I could even give. I can't give you any hints. OK. Am I a man? No. No. Have I talked about this person on relatable? Yes. Yes. Have you talked about me on relatable? Yes. OK. OK. OK. It can't be Cynthia Arrivo because she's not Gen Z. Unless you're just wrong. Ariana. I'm not wrong. Ariana Grande is also not Gen Z. You've got it. You your first guest was so close. My first guest being Sabrina Carpenter was so close. Your first guest was so close. Yeah. Yeah, I was. Am I have no idea. OK. I'm going to have to ask more questions. Go ahead. Am I. Am I married to a woman? No. No. No. Definitely not. I don't know if you're married. I don't think you're married. Definitely not married to a woman. But you're definitely not married to a woman. Oh, no. As far as I know, you are very straight. Wait. Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah. OK. OK. I'm afraid to say what I want to say because I'm afraid of how it's going to be clipped. I'll say, am I an LGBTQ ally? You sure are. You sure are. I'm an LGBTQ myself. Yes. Very. You're very. Honestly, if you don't have it at this point, I don't know. I'm a woman. I don't know. An actual woman, I was born a woman. Yes. And I'm like Sabrina Carpenter. Yes. Are you sure I know who this person is? I've talked about them. You do. You do. Am I JoJo Siwa? You would not vote for JoJo Siwa. I can't think of one singer that I is it Taylor Swift. My Taylor Swift. No, I don't think you would vote for Taylor Swift. I wouldn't vote for Taylor Swift. Am I Taylor Swift? But again, close. She's a millennial, though. Yeah, she's a millennial. Yeah. OK. Ask me another question. OK. Do I vote for JoJo Siwa? OK. Do I? Gosh, I don't know. You've really got me all. I. Both of us are. So, OK, you ask more questions, though. There are more questions that you can ask about this person. You 100% know who this person is. OK. We can maybe start giving clues. Like recently has been very prominent. OK. That does not help me. OK. What? OK. This kind of pop singer. Yes. Pop. Yes. I don't know why I asked that. That narrows it down zero for me. Yeah, you already knew. You already, I feel like you already have all the clues, so I'm not. It's just. OK. I will say. I don't know how you haven't gotten yours yet. I will say your purse. This isn't going to help you. Your person was not at the Met Gala last night. Your person wasn't at the Met Gala either. But kind of dresses like she would always be. Am I Madonna? No. You wouldn't vote for Madonna. I keep forgetting that part. Think about, OK, what are the few singers who have caught. Am I Carrie Underwood? No. Good guess. Very good guess. Very good guess, but she doesn't have. I wouldn't say she has like a distinct Met Gala look. Oh, true. This person is a little bit bizarre. And I would vote for them because I had to. Yeah. I know I wouldn't vote for this person. This person also dresses like they are at the Met Gala. Sometimes they've got almost all the time. Not Lady Gaga. No. Close to Lady Gaga. The peanut gallery says. Yeah. You've got. You've. Miley Cyrus. No. No, I am. These are all really good guesses, though. Miley Cyrus is also a millennial. Yeah. Lady Gaga is my BGNX. That's. OK. I really, I have no idea. We're only going to be able to do one round. You've got to keep going. You've got to. OK. You haven't even asked what kind of music. Oh, and well. Am I a pop singer? No. You're not. I don't even know what kind of singer I am. If I tell you, you're going to know. I am. Oh, OK. Am I in a band? She has a song about snakes. She has a song about one snake. What is. Am I. Am I Nicki Minaj? Oh, it all makes sense now. That being the clue that. OK, give me another clue. That was good. OK, you're going to a song. Can you give me a hint about a song? Oh, OK. Alter Ego, she says she has a song about a horse. Chappell run. Oh, my gosh. I did know this person. You didn't get it after LGBTQ icon. No, I did not. Oh, my gosh. Wow. OK. I have to vote for Nicki Minaj. If you had to. You're right. That was her. Yeah. OK, y'all. That concludes today's full episode of Relatable. We'll be back here on Friday. See you next time.