Author Carley Fortune's Three Things: Spring Fashion, Social Media, and Prince Edward Island

·1 hr 11 min·5 clips

Bad on Paper launches its first-ever merch line, including a sweatshirt with the phrase 'book club is better than nightclub'.

First, the merch lands. Becca gets to make the announcement, nervous and happy, because one of her goals for this year is finally real. The lineup feels very Bad on Paper: sweatshirts, t-shirts, notebooks, stickers, hats, tote bags, designs for book club people, and, yes, Terrence loyalists. Then the episode settles into the Three Things chat, which lets the conversation hop from spring fashion to social media without overexplaining every turn. Clothing sizes become the funny little pressure valve. Carly talks about ignoring the number and putting it aside. Olivia answers with an amen. It plays as a laugh, but it also gets at how tiring it is when clothes are allowed to carry that much emotional weight. Then Becca gently warns that the mood is about to get heavier. The topic is the internet. Carly brings up a Search Engine episode about whether there is a sane way to use it, with Ezra Klein, which found her through a literary agency newsletter. Nice and ordinary, really. Not a manifesto, just the kind of recommendation that moves through a bookish, online life. From there, the conversation gets personal quickly. Carly talks about deleting Twitter, her husband's move away from Instagram, and her own still-messy relationship with Instagram. Nobody pretends to have nailed it. That is the charm: smart people admitting they are still figuring out how to live with the apps they keep touching. By the end, Olivia and Becca are back in hangout mode, pointing listeners to the Facebook group, Geneva, Instagram, and the new merch, with fair warning that public merch sightings may call for a photo.

As heard by us

A warm, candid chat where clothing, social media, and fandom open into bigger reflections.

Bad on Paper turns a Three Things installment into a warm, slightly unruly conversation about clothing, online life, and the fun of shared enthusiasm for the show.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play when clothing anxiety and internet fatigue both deserve a warm, bookish group chat.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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