Emma Corrin calls for gender-inclusive awards; an exhaustive breakdown of the Balenciaga controversy; chilling with Frost Children, the internet’s coolest band (and Missouri’s own, no less!); and apparently, Portland is the best place in America to live if you’re Gen Z.
BLACK FRIDAY WEEKEND GIVES RETAILERS HOPE, NO GUARANTEES ON DAYS AHEAD, wwd
Black Friday was huge on TikTok — #blackfridayhauls, especially — so it’s no surprise that the biggest shopping holiday of the year was by all measures a success. (I spent nearly six hours scrolling through the above hashtag, and I will publish at least some of my findings in this weekend’s newsletter…if my brain hasn’t atrophied too much by then.)
HOW STUDENT-LOAN DEBT, OR NOT HAVING IT, SHAPES LIVES, wsj
Now here’s a twist: Turns out graduates without student loans have it a whole lot easier!
Skyler McKinley, a 30-year-old in Denver, says he wouldn’t have been able to accept his first job working for $34,000 a year if he had graduated with debt. That job, deputy director of a state agency in charge of Colorado’s then-novel regulations on recreational-marijuana sales, was instrumental in launching his career, he says…Mr. McKinley says that being debt-free put him in a better position, financially and psychologically, to take out loans to buy a condo in Denver for about $300,000 in 2018 and a bar for a similar amount last year.
CHINA’S GENERATION Z ISN’T LYING FLAT ANYMORE, bloomberg
China’s Gen Z stopped lying flat and joined the protests targeting Covid lockdowns, marking an “abrupt shift for a cohort that, only a few months ago, was widely viewed as giving up and doing the bare minimum to get by as China's economy strained under the pandemic.”
ARE PORTIA’S OUTFITS ON THE WHITE LOTUS GOOD OR BAD?, vogue
A bit niche, but I’m obsessed with The White Lotus and, more specifically, Portia’s wardrobe, and I’ve been debating this question — good? so bad it’s good? just…bad??? — for weeks.
The outfits are chaotic and clearly algorithmically informed. Each piece looks like it came from a #sponsored post on TikTok, whether the beaded phone chain she sported in the last episode, or her chartreuse nail polish. “Bad hip California young person working a job they hate,” is how fashion writer André-Naquian Wheeler described her style.
THE FRENCH-GIRL FASHION MYTH HAS HIT THE TIKTOK GENERATION, fashionista
You didn’t think the “french girl” obsession (and it is an obsession) was going to die with millennials, did you? Au contraire! On TikTok, videos for "French-girl style" and "French beauty" have accrued 372 million and 15 billion (yes, billion) views, respectively, driven primarily by Gen Z.
HOW A GEN Z FOUNDED DIGITAL MARKETPLACE IS TRYING TO REACH COVETED YOUNG SHOPPERS, grocerydive
Consumerhaus is a slickly designed, “fully curated online market looking to become a central grocery shopping hub for Gen Z consumers.” So, Pop Up Grocer, except online, I guess? The platform is launching Jan. 3 with “over 700 products from more than 100 small brands that produce food and beverage products, health and wellness goods, pet supplies and personal care items,” all of which are hand-selected by founder Claire Spackman.
One last thought: