Girlboss Resurgence and Hagmaxxer Era
after school weekend edition
Welcome back to After School Weekend Edition, a weekly youth trends debrief for paid subscribers. Your support keeps this newsletter going! 💫
I hope you’re having a great Memorial Day. Unlike most of my TikTok feed, I am not in the Hamptons or Jersey Shore, but rather in Brooklyn, where I’ve had a nice long weekend of waterfront walks, some Battery Park putt-putt (very golfcore of me), and lots of sun.
Quite a bit of scrolling, too, so this letter is very long — I recommend viewing it in a browser.
I do not endorse G*ry V*e, but I feel I would be lying by omission if I did not tell you that I can’t stop thinking about a recent interview he gave to AdAge. I clicked on the headline (“Gary Vaynerchuk on The 'TikTokification' of Social Media”) anticipating a satisfying hate-read, but it’s actually a really interesting look into the state of media in 2024, so much so that I found myself…nodding along…to Gary Vaynerchuk? Please don’t unsubscribe.
Part of the reason the interview is so compelling is because reporter Gillian Follett is extremely well-versed in TikTok and influencer culture, so she asked good questions.
This one, in particular, stood out to me:
I often hear marketers talking about their struggle to keep up with the volume of content they need to be putting out on social media nowadays. How many posts would you say brands should be putting out to see success? Are there any metrics or goals they should keep in mind?
The official answer is as many [posts] as humanly possible. I think there are seven or so major platforms that everybody who does marketing for Fortune 500 brands should take seriously: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn and YouTube Shorts. And I think, if you’re a Fortune 500 brand, you should be posting two or three organic posts per platform per day. And the reality is that that should be incredibly easy, given how much money [these brands] spend on advertising. The problem is they don’t allocate enough dollars to creative social—and even if they do, they don’t operationalize it in an effective manner to maximize meaningful creative output.
His answer is “as many posts as humanly possible!” but his answer is also “two or three organic posts per platform per day” on seven platforms, which is between 14 and 21 posts a day.
I know a lot of social media experts who likely disagree with this stance — and it is not a sustainable strategy for many companies, because they simply do not have the infrastructure to support this kind of output — but one of the questions I hear often from brands is how to tap into social trends in a way that will resonate, and the answer is to engage as soon as possible.
If you aren’t equipped to do that, either because of budget constraints or because your small team is too busy to move fast, you’d be better off not engaging at all. Which means you miss out on a lot of opportunities to not only be part of the conversation but also to — sorry for being dramatic here — be the conversation.
(Btw, today’s newsletter is sponsored by Gary Vee.)
(I’m just kidding!!!)
I don’t know how Marc Jacobs does it, but the speed at which they engage with trends on TikTok should be studied by every brand.
Their TikTok strategy is basically: Track down the most niche-viral internet stars of the moment (and I do mean moment — their timing is astounding), put them in Marc Jacobs clothes, and let them do what they do best: go be funny on the internet.
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Their comments are filled with “they got [insert niche viral internet star here]!”
Marc Jacobs isn’t posting two or three organic posts per platform per day, as Gary Vee recommends, but I do think they are putting out “as many posts as humanly possible!” And because they understand their audience (and because their audience understands them), every single one of the posts hits.
Today we’re talking about:
Aura points
College lore
Girlboss resurgence
Fax, no printer
Triangle method of flirting
Laser hair skeptics
Victoria’s Secret’s return
Dupe culture
Department stores
Rare vs Rhode
The rise of Y3K
Are Dr Scholl’s really the shoe of the summer?
Plus everything else that happened this week in style, beauty, and culture and what I’m buying/reading/listening to. But first, my favorite TikTok of the week:
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THIS WEEK IN STYLE
Earlier this week, The Strategist published an impassioned piece declaring Dr. Scholl’s the sandal of the summer. Many of the comments were skeptical, but I saw two different Gen Zers wearing them casually — like you might wear flip-flops — this weekend, so maybe The Strategist is onto something.
Fwiw, I’ve been wearing Dr. Scholl’s on and off since I was a teen, back when I did anything teen magazines told me to. One summer, they told me I needed Dr. Scholl’s exercise sandals, so I tracked down a pair and clomp-clomped all season long. I haven’t worn mine in probably six years and I’m not sure I have the fortitude to wear them now, but they certainly look cooler than Birkenstocks.