The News Not Noise Letter: Social Media’s Saving Grace, with Paulina Porizkova
A candid conversation with supermodel Paulina Porizkova, plus that chemical spill in East Palestine has residents concerned about the water and Bezos’ megayacht hits the high seas.
Listen to the latest episode of the News Not Noise Podcast, where we speak with Paulina Porizkova about beauty standards, grief, and staying authentic in the public eye.
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Today’s headlines:
Contamination Worries in Ohio: Residents of East Palestine have been warned to stick to bottled water until officials can confirm the local supply is safe to drink. 11 days have passed since a train derailment rocked the small town, after crews deliberately burned at least six toxic chemicals from the train to avoid an uncontrolled explosion. Residents say a chemical odor still lingers in the air. Around 3,500 fish were killed in the chemical release and a “plume of pollution” is now heading down the Ohio River. There are local news reports of pets dying in East Palestine, possibly from chemical exposure. Residents are worried about their health after they were assured it was safe to return home.
Debt Default Clock is Ticking: A new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warns that the US is at risk of defaulting as early as this July if the debt limit is not raised or suspended. Reminder: A default could trigger a worldwide economic meltdown and will occur if lawmakers cannot agree on a debt limit solution.
There’s more. The CBO report projects that the government will add $19 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years if we stay on this path. Right now, the national debt is just over $31 trillion. The debt ceiling was suspended numerous times during the Obama and Trump administrations, and Republicans repeatedly raised that borrowing limit without objection when Trump was in office. The national debt grew $7.4 trillion in the four years he was president.
Bezos’ $500 Million Megayacht: Watch for yourself as Jeff Bezos’ 417-foot, $500 million megayacht Koru goes on its first sea trial. The boat, which was built in the Netherlands, will probably be the largest yacht in the world when it officially sets sail. It’s said to be modeled on this “technologically advanced” sailing yacht and, according to experts, those sails can help power it in an eco-friendly way. Powering a smaller yacht requires 132,086 gallons of fuel. If you have some free time, you can play around with the numbers on this helpful yacht fuel calculator! (Definitely worth a bookmark). Maybe it’s time to revive the Amazon charity program the company shut down last month, to help support the costs of Koru’s commute?
A conversation with Paulina Porizkova:
Earlier this week we wrote about teenage girls and spiking rates of depression. We asked if there’s a link between this crisis and social media. We’ll dive into more data on social media and teen depression in a future newsletter. It’s true that social media has its advantages, as well. The News Not Noise community exists because we found one another on Instagram. And the guest on this week’s podcast also found relief and community there.
Against this backdrop, I’m sharing this interview from the latest episode of the News Not Noise podcast with supermodel Paulina Porizkova. We discuss public image, anxiety, and her new book “No Filter: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful.” In it, she bravely shares stories of growing up on magazine covers, what it means to be a woman who dares to age, and the challenges (and unexpected benefits) of grieving on social media. She also offers advice for parents raising daughters and the joys of a purpose driven life. The conversation was recorded in late 2022.
Here’s some of what Porizkova had to say, edited for clarity:
Jessica Yellin: I’m interested in your comments about fame and depression. So much of the world wants to be famous right now – and you experienced it throughout your life. You write that when you were the most seen, that’s when you felt the least heard. Would you share that inner experience?
Paulina Porizkova: I have an essay in the book about fame and about how as a famous person you come kind of encased in a soap bubble. The soap bubble is translucent on the outside and it's reflective. So the first thing others see when they look at a famous person is actually yourself. It's your own assumptions, your desires, your wants, your needs. And I have been living in this bubble for my entire life where people always saw their reflection in me of what they wanted me to be.
I was this famous political refugee, so people wanted me to be this incredibly grateful little child that got to come to Sweden and start life reunited with my parents, without actually knowing that the full story was that I had been taken away from the only parent I knew, which was my grandmother. My parents split up the moment we arrived in Sweden. I was called a dirty communist in school. This was one of the periods of my life where I was suicidal. I was that sad. Then, becoming a model and having a “glamorous wonderful life” where [people assumed] everything was so easy for me because I was young and beautiful and rich. When, in fact, I was a teenager with daily panic attacks and I was terrified and work consisted as much of sexual harassment as it did actually making photos. All of those things are not immediately apparent when you just look at someone. So, yes. There were times in the 80s and 90s where I would have three covers out simultaneously on the newsstand. I was certainly seen but what was actually happening behind the covers was not heard at all.
JY: You write about your anxiety attacks. I bet a lot of people would be surprised and relieved to know someone with your level of success struggles with them too. When did you first start grappling with that kind of anxiety?
Paulina Porizkova: The first panic attack was at my father's house. It was in the middle of the night and I woke up and I thought I was going to die. I just thought I was dying. I thought I had some sort of a heart condition that was going to kill me because of the severity. When you're anxious about the anxiety, it just ratchets everything up a notch. I spent most of the night laying on the bathroom floor, gasping for breath and waiting to die. Obviously I didn't die, so things are okay, but the terror of being a child, being 10 and not having anywhere to go with this — it's like I didn't dare go and wake up my father to tell him that I might be dying because I already felt like he didn't like me. I was afraid that this was gonna make me even less desirable than I already was.
I lived with that well into my teens. My husband was actually the one who diagnosed me. He was like, “You know that thing that you feel where you feel so bad? That's actually called panic attacks and I have them too.” I went to a doctor and was medically diagnosed with “just anxiety.” It’s funny — “just anxiety” — how terrifying “just anxiety” can be.
JY: During the pandemic you started sharing on Instagram, often in a very vulnerable way. You talked about the unexpected death of your husband, the rockstar, Ric Ocasek. Why did you turn to social media to share your grief?
Paulina Porizkova: Well, I think we're culturally deprogrammed from being sensitive to pain and being sensitive to death. When I was at my very worst in really dark days, I saw how much grief terrifies people — people who are not in The Grief Club. It's like an infectious disease. It's like you have the plague. You either get distance or you get people trying to fix it. There are the platitudes,”Grief is love with nowhere to go” and “[He’s] in a better place.” Every time I heard that, I wanted to give the person the finger. Save your breath.
I just happened to be processing my loss in a worldwide pandemic. Because I was so isolated and so lonely and so desperate and you can’t even have your friends to hold you, I turned to social media and remarkably it held me back. It cradled me back. It saved me. I was not alone; I was not the only person suffering.
Paulina found relief and community on social media a few years ago. Many of you tell me that lately it feels like it’s changed. I feel it too, as though it’s constantly pushing you to compare your life unfavorably to others, then buy things (you don’t need) to make you feel better. There’s evidence it’s feeding depression and mental illness, especially in kids. We covered some of that in Monday’s newsletter and I’ll get into more data in an upcoming newsletter. Paulina addressed some of the larger social pressures she sees – especially around women, beauty and aging.
JY: Let’s talk about the beauty culture and the pressure to stay young looking.
Paulina Porizkova: Absolutely. In these amazing modern times we actually have a choice about what we look like. It’s really quite remarkable. And aging as a woman is almost seen as a disease because as you age, you are aging out of visibility and it's like something that can be fixed. And if it can be fixed, should it be fixed? You know, my grandmother didn't have a choice about whether she wanted to have wrinkles or not, but I do. So this is a really strange place to be….
We are nature and like nature, we change — yet, we’re supposed to stay the same, like a piece of art. I have lots of friends that do little tweaks and little things here and there when their husbands are out of town for business. Their husbands will never know and they will just think they're effortlessly beautiful. And you know, I understand it because there's so much shame. If you are a woman, there's shame if you do tweak or there’s shame for trying to remain the same, which society expects you to do — and then there's shame if you just let go. There's no way for us to win, really.
Do you think our culture's changing?
I think that the world is changing, and I think it's changing for the better. I think girls are no longer growing up being told that they need to be nice all the time, be nurturing, be sweet, be obliging. Now a lot of people are raising their girls to be tough. “Badass” is a fairly recent term. I have two boys, [aged] 29 and 24. Their ideal woman of beauty has nothing to do with the “giggly, obliging little girl.” They both really go for badass women. It is changing for the better. We have good reason to have hope here.
In the rest of the interview I ask Paulina her thoughts about filtered images and autotuning, the challenges facing girls in our culture, how her husband helped her manage her panic attacks, and her focus on a purpose driven life. She is wise, incisive, and extremely open.
For all that, listen out the latest episode of the News Not Noise podcast.
For regular updates, follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
A wonderful and important conversation with Paulina Porizkova. I’ve long appreciated her brave vulnerability, insight, thoughts on beauty and aging, and work connecting with her genuine self. I came away with a new insight that is very helpful with my own lifelong journey with anxiety and panic attacks. Thank you!