

Discover more from After School by Casey Lewis
Kardashian Kolloquium and Nikon CoolPix
“buy the cheapest digital camera you find”
Rihanna dropped a new Savage x Fenty collection for the Super Bowl (now if she could just drop a new album…); meet the data experts analyzing the Kardashians; and how M3GAN star Violet McGraw channeled her love of American Girl dolls for the killer toy movie.
THE HOTTEST GEN Z GADGET IS A 20-YEAR-OLD DIGITAL CAMERA, nyt
I thought this trend had been sufficiently covered (see here and here), but this piece — written by an NYT reporting fellow, herself a Gen Zer — is super well reported and completely fascinating.
On TikTok, teenagers and young adults now show off cameras nearly as old as they are and explain how to achieve a “new aesthetic.” The cameras are not always well received. After the influencer Amalie Bladt posted a video on TikTok telling viewers to “buy the cheapest digital camera you find” for “the over exposure look,” some of the more than 900 commenters responded in horror.
BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA OF MEMES, wsj
Meet the extremely online team behind KnowYourMeme, which has “established itself as the ultimate authority on the jokes, turns of phrase and images that gain currency online”
WELCOME TO THE LIVE SHOPPING ERA, elle
As you probably know by now, I’m fascinated by live shopping (and, more specifically, the million-dollar question of will-it-or-won’t-it every break through in the U.S.). This piece makes me think it very much will, and it might happen sooner than later.
For the first few months, [Zoreen] Kabani was a spectator, tuning into livestreams and getting to know the streamers, before going live for the first time in June. In the months that followed, Kabani had sold an estimated 6,000 products, garnered a following of nearly 10,000, and made $12,000 in her first month alone, and, remarkably, $50,000 in the first three.
SEATTLE SCHOOLS SUE BIG TECH OVER YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS, bloomberg
Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., Snap Inc., and ByteDance Ltd., the owner of TikTok, are responsible for hooking young people on their platforms and creating a mental health crisis, according to the complaint filed late Friday in Seattle federal court. The district includes more than 100 schools and serves about 50,000 children.
FROM PENN STUDENT TO RECORD DEAL: HOW A 15-SECOND TIKTOK VIDEO CHANGED MY LIFE, inquirer
A fascinating op-ed written by a Wharton student who went unexpectedly viral and found herself being “taken out to fancy dinners around New York with top label executives, all of whom promised me the same thing: I’m going to make you a global pop star. (If you give me the rights to your music forever, for cheap.)”
It was unbelievable when that video hit 50,000 views, then 100,000, then 500,000, 1 million, and closed the day at 2.4 million views. I checked my phone every 15 minutes during ECON 234 to see how much bigger the number was getting, feeling overwhelming excitement and no small amount of insecurity. It’s clear from my unbrushed hair and pajama T-shirt that I did not intend for millions of people to see that video.
One last thought: