Balmain Barbie and Royalcore
Good morning, and happy 2022. I missed you — and I missed a lot of news, so let’s get into it. Barbie joins the Balmain army; Lil Uzi Vert is the face of Marc Jacobs’ collection; zoomer green is the new millennial pink; Edikted is Gen Z’s latest favorite brand; royalcore is the aesthetic catapulting TikTok into a regal fairytale; and a chat with the NYC student whose post about high school life under Omicron that went viral.
THE EXHAUSTING CONCEPT OF THE “2022 REBRAND”, vox
New Year’s resolutions meet Main Character Energy.
The trend’s participants are almost exclusively young women, as is typical for this sort of aesthetic self-improvement content; they share mood boards of toned stomachs and Chanel logos, Amazon hauls of Olaplex and Crest Whitestrips, tutorials, and list templates that include lines like “listen to inspiring podcasts” and “get a fake tan routine.” They “soft launch” their 2022 selves by waking up at the crack of dawn, doing yoga, taking bubble baths, journaling.
HYPE HOUSE: NETFLIX SERIES SHOWS THE DEPRESSING SIDE OF TIKTOK FAME, guardian
The Hype House, with its requirements of XYZ videos a month, comes off like a Faustian bargain: free living in exchange for control of your public persona.
SURVEY REVEALS A MAJORITY OF AMERICANS IDENTIFY AS CREATORS OR FREELANCERS, wwd
88 percent of Americans — and 93 percent of Gen Z — say they consider themselves to be a creator or freelancer. Further, more than a third of Americans started a new side hustle during the pandemic, and close to half say it has been profitable.
HOW ‘YELLOWJACKETS’ IS TEACHING GEN Z WHAT BEING A ‘LOST’ FAN WAS LIKE, dailybeast
Every Sunday, thousands of Yellowjackets fans gather on Twitter and Reddit to do exactly what Losties were doing in the mid-aughts: talk about that group of plane crash survivors in the remote wilds who are haunted by menacing, possibly supernatural occurrences.
TIKTOK’S BALACLAVA CRAZE, EXPLAINED, bof
I appreciate BOF’s reported explanation here, but if I may offer my own: have you been outside lately? It is so cold, who wouldn’t want to cover their skulls with warmth?
"DRY DATING" PREDICTED TO BE A POPULAR TREND IN 2022, hypebae
According to Bumble data.
↳ Related: Gen Z is driving demand for reduced-alcohol adult beverages.
INSTAGRAM INFLUENCERS TEST OUT NEW IN-APP AFFILIATE SHOPS, glossy
Shopping links shared on Instagram and other platforms by influencers such as [influencer Blair] Eadie have long meant big revenue for third-party networks. Now, after over a decade, Instagram has finally decided to take a cut.