Pantene Conspiracies and Project Pan
after school NYE edition
Thank you for reading After School this year! I sent 247 letters over the last 365 days, which totaled up to 11,416,862 views, up from 5,979,621 views in 2023. There are now 61,222 of you, compared to 30,601 this time last year and 13,653 in 2022.
I quit my full-time job in March this past year and am now able to do this — this being the newsletter, but also related projects, like writing trend reports and speaking to brands — full-time.
I started After School three and a half years ago because I felt like I was seeing so many shifts and memes and moments without actually processing what they meant from a macro POV. (What’s funny is that I felt like I was seeing so many shifts and memes and moments in 2021, and now, in 2024, that number of shifts and memes and moments has, like, 10xed.)
I’ve always been fascinated by youth trends. In the early 2000s, I worked at Ypulse, a market research firm founded by Anastasia Goodstein — back then, “youth” meant Gen Y, which we now call millennials. Later, I joined The Intelligence Group, the marketing agency started by Jane Buckingham that was, for a time, owned by CAA. I also worked as a writer and editor at Teen Vogue and MTV in the 2010s.
But I was obsessed with youth trends even before that — when I was a teen, I blogged daily about the trends I was seeing both online and in my small town. A snippet of my riveting commentary from 2004 via Wayback Machine: “I’ve been seeing vests on celebs more than last season’s peasant skirt.” Also: “I did find a pair of pink suede Boston Birks — more versatile than pink Uggs, I'm thinking — and on sale at Nordies anniversary sale...to take the plunge or keep obsessing?” I did not “take the plunge,” though in hindsight I wish I had.
It’s funny that more than 20 years later I’m still contemplating Boston Birks and tracking the rise and fall of the peasant skirt on the internet.
A year ago, on the last day of 2023, I shared the below goals for After School in 2024:
more in-depth analysis, more interviews, more reporting.
Update: I didn’t do as much reporting for the newsletter as I wanted, but I did report/ write stories for The New York Times and The Cut, and I launched a podcast, which involved a ton of interviewing and was a blast but also way, way more work than I anticipated. I’m hoping season two might happen in 2025, but it’s so time- and energy-intensive that I’m not sure if the ROI is there. I learned that if you’re not Alex Cooper, it’s kind of hard to make — or even just not lose — money podcasting.
more short-form video. I finally got over my fear of a front-facing camera this year and yesterday, I had my first semi-viral TikTok — 1M views. I really wish I’d put on some mascara before recording this, but we’re leaving regrets in 2023.
Update: I’ve filmed a lot of TikToks, some of which have gone relatively viral, but most of which I’ve deleted because they were too bad to see the light of day.
fewer typos 🥴
Update: Yeah, no.
I did some things I couldn’t have anticipated a year ago. I had paid partnerships with brands like Fenty Beauty and Warby Parker. I hosted an event with Substack. I gave more than a dozen corporate talks about trends. I went live on CNBC every month and only embarrassed myself a few times. I hope to do more of all of that in 2025 (except maybe the embarrassment bit).
This year, my primary goal is to experiment more. Explore curiosities, go down rabbit holes, try new formats (maybe a zine???).