Glow Downs and Matcha Babes
"everybody wants a chance to shine"
Good morning! I received a few emails and DMs (and texts and comments) — mostly from Gen Alpha parents, plus a few Gen Zs — wanting to make sure I understood the nuance of “dat bih gah.” I wrote yesterday that it translates to “that is good,” which isn’t completely true. The Kool-Aid pineapple kid says “dat bih gah,” which does mean that something is good, but the literal translation is “that bitch gas.” (He also mumbles “dat bih tuff,” which means “that bitch tough,” which also means something is good.) If you are over the age of, hm, 18, I would strongly suggest never, ever saying these words aloud or even typing them, but I did want to set the record straight nonetheless because language is important. Even language like dat bih gah. And if anyone wants to volunteer their tweens so I can fact-check this kind of thing in the future, please let me know. 🫶
MrBeast surpassed 500 million YouTube subscribers; Role Model interviewed Jake Shane; Alex Cooper is producing a Netflix adaptation of Hannah Grace’s Icebreaker; Anya Taylor-Joy joined the next Lord of the Rings movie; just in time for the World Cup, Reformation has teamed up with Umbro; and fans are comparing the latest Rhode pop-up to TanaCon, the disastrous convention hosted by YouTuber Tana Mongeau.
HOW EDIKTED BUILT A TEEN SENSATION ON CROP TOPS AND MINISKIRTS, wsj
The L.A.-based fast-fashion brand hit $460 million in gross sales last year by treating itself as “more like a data company than a fashion company,” dropping 300 new styles a month based on what shoppers — whom the brand calls “babes” — are searching, posting, and buying. Like Shein, manufacturing runs through Chinese third-party factories in batches of about 500, with hits reordered fast and misses killed off. “Last year’s barrel jeans? Bye bye,” said co-founder Dedy Shwartzberg, and crop tops, “crazy four years ago,” are now “dead.” The brand initially launched via nano-influencer seeding because, according to Shwartzberg, “the bigger influencers seem like billboards” while “the micro-influencers, they’re more like a sister.” Teenage girls routinely line up outside the brand’s pink, heart-festooned stores from New York to London; there are 15 now, with 10 more U.S. locations, and the newest, on Fifth Avenue, will have a matcha cafe and a weekend DJ.
STREAMER ISHOWSPEED IS GEN Z’S ESPN, wired
Ahead of the 2026 tournament, the 21-year-old streamer born Darren Watkins Jr. released “World Cup (Champions),” a track name-checking all 48 teams that hit 7 million YouTube views in 24 hours and got added to FIFA’s official album after fan demand. With nearly 55 million subscribers, Speed has effectively remade streaming by leaving the bedroom setup behind. Instead, he takes fans along on travelogues as he adventures his way through South Africa, the Philippines, Indonesia — where he hit 1 million concurrent live viewers — and next, World Cup host cities; at a game last week in New York, he sat next to Zohran Mamdani, whom he did not seem to recognize, though the mayor seemed to know who the streamer was. “I am part of the first generation of media streamers. We are the mainstream,” Speed told Wired. “People are still going to want that human connection that we were born with. We’re always going to return to that.”
THE YOUNG STREAMERS WHO ARE TRYING TO ‘MAKE IT BIG’ OFF KNICKS MANIA, nytimes
Young streamers — aspiring IShowSpeeds, if you will — flooded Midtown Manhattan to capitalize on Knicks Finals mania, armed with nothing but an iPhone and a dream. “One clip could change my whole life,” said Nicholas Gomes, a 20-year-old from North Jersey. Some kids were local; others had driven hundreds of miles to “clip farm” and bait fans into confrontations. (Like reality TV, moments of volatility tend to perform best on streaming platforms.) It was a particularly good week to be an aspiring streamer in the city: more than 1,000 people lined up Friday to audition for Kai Cenat’s Streamer University, a multiday creator boot camp, with some camping out for 16 hours in hopes of earning a spot in the school. “This is New York, everybody’s hungry,” said Angelica Campbell, 20. “Everybody wants a chance to shine — to make it big.”
‘YOU MAKE PEOPLE A BIT HAPPIER’: THE FOOTBALL APP BUILDING FRIENDSHIPS IN LONDON, theguardian
Footy Addicts, a popular app that lets amateur footballers drop into pickup games at short notice, has become a 323,000-member network across the UK, helping solve the loneliness crisis among young people. Organizer Raul-Julian Grelet, 28, calls it “a marvel to this community.” Jacob Jae Ellis, 23, found it after moving back to London post-university because, as he puts it, “I don’t mind the gym but I don’t think it’s very nice or particularly human.” He’s now attending the wedding of someone he met through the app. Stephanie Benelli, 33, who grew up playing in Brazil and hadn’t found a game in eight years after moving to London, says football “is the only thing that really takes me out of my house” when she’s struggling. “I don’t care if it’s drizzly, raining, if it’s snowing, I just go out and enjoy.”
THE GEN Z GLOW DOWN IS REAL, bustle
Young women are purportedly scaling back their elaborate beauty routines to manage costs. Sophie, 29, used to get a full blonde balayage three times a year, dip powder acrylics, and waxes every five weeks on $40,000 in Atlanta; after moving to NYC and paying $400 for one Manhattan hair appointment, she quit blonde entirely. Mikaela Wilson, a 26-year-old living in L.A., splurges on reusable tools like a $450 Current Body LED mask and a $119 Crown Affair brush but cuts everything else. “I’d rather go out with my friends and spend money on food. I hate when I feel like I need to maintain something,” she said. (It may be true that some young women are embracing this supposed “Gen Z glow down,” but I think it’s important to remember that others continue to spend more than ever on increasingly elaborate routines.)
One last thought:
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
maybe the gen z “glow down” isn’t about caring less, but refusing to let maintenance become a second rent on our lives.
They could just call "glow-down" low maintenance.