GRWM Confessionals and Beach Bacchanals

“the kids are busy playing TikTok”

A YouTuber pleaded guilty to crashing his plane for clicks; Gen Z is using cash more than ever in the face of inflation; Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny sitting courtside becomes a meme; and I want a t-shirt that says “the kids are busy playing TikTok” inspired by this out-of-touch billionaire.

WHEN DID ‘WHOLESOME’ BECOME A GEN Z COMPLIMENT?, nyt
Gen Z prefers wholesome meme accounts — like Wholesome Memes on Twitter, and Wholesome Games on TikTok — over “the satirical millennial memes of the early 2010s that were coated with dark humor and doused in irony.” They also prefer wholesome people, like Harry Styles; wholesome pastimes, like playing board games; and a wholesome lifestyle consisting of “healing eras” and “protecting your peace.”

HOW 'GET READY WITH ME' VIDEOS BECAME THE ULTIMATE CONFESSIONAL, wsj
Perfected by creators like Alix Earle, the art of the GRWM confessional is something to behold: TikTok users “may talk about starting antidepressants as a teenager, getting suspended in middle school for fighting or being bullied by colleagues at a venture-capital firm — all while filling in their brows, pressing pink gems to their faces or reapplying mascara.” Videos with the GRWM hashtag have been viewed more than 97 billion times worldwide, according to TikTok, with more than 72 billion views since last May.

HOW A MAKEUP BRAND MELTED DOWN TIKTOK, rollingstone
“We’ve had our share of mistakes and I definitely want to take responsibility for them,” Tarte founder and CEO Maureen Kelly said in response to racism allegations — while putting on Tarte concealer and curling her hair — GRWM-style — in a now-deleted TikTok. “But sometimes miscommunications happen.”

BRITAIN IS BEING BURIED UNDER AN AVALANCHE OF RETURNED CLOTHES – THANKS TO GEN Z INFLUENCERS, telegraph
Haul try-ons — in which TikTokers try on a bunch of clothes they’ve ordered from a retailer — are immensely popular, with the hashtag #KeepOrReturn pulling in more than 250 million views. But the trend is “putting pressure on retailers because of the costs involved with processing these returns and the dilemma of what to do with returned stock if it cannot be resold.” Asos said on Wednesday it had suffered a £100m hit to its profitability caused by shoppers buying up discounted clothes only to return most of them.

TIKTOK TURNS UP THE VOLUME ON ITS MUSIC PLAY WITH NEWMUSIC SEARCH FEATURE, techcrunch
TikTok has radically altered how consumers discover and consume music these days — and now, with the launch of a search feature called “NewMusic” — its long-term effort to build a business around that is getting a boost.

BACCHANAL ON THE BEACH: HOW MARIO CARBONE TURNED CARBONE BEACH INTO MIAMI’S MET GALA, highsnobiety
Attendance at the four-night exclusive and ritzy four-hundred person dinner was not just for basketball stars or fin-tech billionaires, but open to Amex Platinum Card members who could pay $3K for a seat or $24K per table at any of the four dinners for the opportunity to share arancini with the international elite. And pay they did.

In general, the crowd was as Miami as it gets. Tropicana-colored guests with big shiny watches and razor thin stilettos. Big, meaty hands shook other big meaty hands. “You catch the game today?” one important-looking guy said to another important-looking guy. Everyone seemed to know one another from the country club or the boardroom. Even in a room of 400, this was a family affair.

P.S. I’ve been doing recaps of the weekend edition on TikTok. Starting out a new platform is, um, humbling. Please follow me!

@caseymorrowlewisThis week in gen z trends: #mintymellon #dameliobrands #esprit #withjean #gryt #k18 #jeanshorts

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