Popcorn Dresses and Gibberish Sh*tposts
Discover more from After School by Casey Lewis
Popcorn Dresses and Gibberish Sh*tposts
"the Mr. Big of..."
Vans gets the Collina Strada treatment; Instagram’s co-founders introduce a new social app…for news reading; Spotify’s test of a Friends tab on mobile hints at expanded social ambitions; and after Mophe’s bankruptcy, Ariana Grande is buying her beauty brand assets for $15 million.
Today’s letter is brought to you by Day One Agency
Wanna know what’s in store for 2023? My friends at Day One Agency just launched their 2023 Predictionary, a fun take on a trend report they’ve been publishing for three years running. Check out the full report here and learn more about some of my favorite words like “trendflation,” “re-conomy,” and “fratigue.”
NEUTROGENA’S TIKTOK REALITY DATING SHOW—INSIDE THE CREATOR-LED AD PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANTED TO WATCH, adage
I love this campaign so much, and I don’t even watch reality dating shows (for the most part; I had a weak moment with Love Is Blind — depths of the pandemic, etc. — but moving on…). Rather than partnering with skincare influencers to tout their products, Neutrogena tapped former dating show contestants to star in a made-for-TikTok reality dating series called “Hydro House.” The result? Entertaining, funny, and just fun.
THE OH-SO-POPULAR POPCORN DRESS, thecut
Allison P. Davis asking the big questions, as usual: “How did a dress born of a relic of the early aughts now found in dollar-store bins and late-night HSN collections become the 2020s ‘It’ dress?” One hunch c/o Vogue writer Emma Specter: “My theory about this dress is it’s like ‘the Mr. Big of dresses’ because it’s $200 too expensive, so we all idealize it…That said, I would sell my soul for one.” The unfortunate thing about these instantly recognizable items is that once the moment has passed, they’re out and you can kind of never wear them again. (I mean, you can, but people don’t!)
WHAT DO PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH MEAN TO GEN Z?, wsj
WSJ asked a handful of college students about their health, and their answers aren’t going to make you feel great.
My generation’s health is a smorgasbord of sedentarism, anxiety and excess sugar consumption. These sickly tendencies illustrate a series of bizarre paradoxes and unexpected events. Although less likely to drink or smoke, I have become more reclusive and antisocial. Although drilled with a lifetime of nutritionary facts, I consume more and more salt and sweets.
AFTER BANNING WEIGHT LOSS ADS, TIKTOK TOOK MILLIONS FROM BRAND CLAIMING YOU CAN LOSE 90 LBS IN 2 WEEKS, jezebel
TikTok reportedly took $4.3 million from a brand shilling weight loss products — including one laxative drink that it claimed could help you lose 90 pounds in two weeks — between last November and the first week of January. The move is in violation of its own policies; so much for TikTok's claims to support body positivity.
KANYE IS NOW A WHITE NATIONALIST MEME TO RECRUIT COLLEGE KIDS, vice
Another day, another story about white nationalist Nick Fuentes and his army of "groypers,” except this one involves Ye, too!
IS CORECORE RADICAL ART OR GIBBERISH SHITPOSTS?, nobells
A fascinating explainer that will absolutely make you feel 150 years old.
It’s tough to imagine corecore—and TikTok edits, in general—ever being effective tools for progressive organizing or disseminating radical thought. It feels like the people claiming the genre is politically potent have bought more into their own fantasy of what corecore can be than the videos as they are or were: drifting, tepid, feeble. The longer “philosophical” corecore videos may spark twinges of joy or gloom, but they don’t make me want to do anything beyond continue my endless scroll. They bore me, even.
One last thought (another thing that will make you feel old):
