Mirror Selfies and Creator Drop-Outs
“chief vibes officer”
Beabadoobee is on the cover of Cosmopolitan UK; Smirnoff names Troye Sivan its new “Chief Vibes Officer”; and I’m still emotionally recovering watching Charli XCX host SNL IRL, ah! A highlight was seeing her perform “360” while wearing a Gucci Jackie bag. (I’m also still emotionally recovering from interviewing Emma Chamberlain — thank you forever, Warby Parker — which you can read here if you missed it.)
WHAT ARE WE?, slate
Gen Z's “endemic risk aversion” has led to a rise in situationships, the unlabeled, undefined romantic relationships plaguing single young people right now — or, as Urban Dictionary describes it, “emotional trauma in a gift box.” “People definitely now have this horrible habit of ironic distance, and not wanting to be the person to ‘catch feelings’ first, because that implies a level of vulnerability,” said Maria Pattison, 23. “If you just say, ‘Oh, well, we’re in a situationship,’ the responsibility of having to sort through your feelings…is completely waved away by this highly casual term.”
HOW VERA BRADLEY RODE NOSTALGIA TO A COMEBACK, elle
I loved talking to Véronique Hyland about how Vera Bradley’s patterned pieces have become “unexpected grails” on secondhand sites like Depop for cool Gen Zers. Véronique reports that the company launched a rebrand this summer, following 18 months of self-evaluation, though I think the self-evaluation should continue apace — the rebrand (bland, boring, and fronted by…Zooey Deschanel?) is everything the vintage grails (playful colors, heavily patterned, quirkily nostalgic) are not.
TIKTOK CONSIDERS QUIBI-STYLE MINIDRAMAS TO BROADEN APPEAL, theinformation
Undeterred by the spectacular $1.7B crash-and-burn of Quibi, TikTok is looking to experiment with “minidramas,” the kind of minuteslong TV-style shows that have proven to be a huge hit for Douyin, its sibling app in China. Executives see minidramas — “like a romantic comedy about an unexpected relationship with a billionaire or a zombie apocalypse thriller that also involves time travel” — as a way to widen the appeal of the app. Given the success of viral UGC minidramas like “Who TF Did I Marry?!?,” Reesa Teesa’s 50-part viral series, it’s not hard to see why TikTok would be bullish on this, Jeffrey Katzenberg be damned.
MORE PEOPLE ARE DROPPING OUT OF THE CREATOR ECONOMY, fortune
The percentage of Bank of America customers earning income as content creators has fallen three years in a row after peaking in 2021 and is now just 0.20% (a staggering stat when you consider that 57% of Gen Z want to be influencers). The average monthly income for content creators is just 20% of the average monthly income for a typical, full-time US employee, the note added. “In our view, this is partially due to the slowdown in paid partnerships (brands using content creators as ads) in the past year and the competitiveness in this space, as more paid partnerships are concentrated among the top creators,” BofA said.
THE MIRROR REFLECTING ROME’S TIKTOK VISITOR BOOM, theguardian
“I’m just here for the selfie,” said Noemy Timelli, a 20-year-old from Puglia. “We did a quick search on social media about what to see in Rome, and this was the most interesting thing that came up.” Tourists are flocking to former hidden gems — like Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola in Rome — just for photo ops; the church's management has capitalized on the trend by charging €1 for a mirror selfie. (While we’re talking about tourists and TikTok, I loved reading about how a terrible steakhouse chain — “London’s version of Applebee’s” — went viral after a bunch of locals who were fed-up that their favorite spots suddenly had lines launched a prank campaign on social media.)
One last thought:
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This Vera Bradley is coming back, what’s up with Lilly? In the squandering the opportunity like Kate Spade? Or should we see that rise coming soon?
The Bank of America of report is interesting because every other report indicates that the creator economy is growing...I've been saying for so long I think the creator economy is becoming oversaturated. But maybe like most industries, all the growth is going to the top :)