Sephora Scavengers and McVulnerability

"support our troops"

Ray Liotta’s 26-year-old daughter just made her Sundance debut (never not on the nepo baby beat!); Amelia Dimoldenberg is returning as Oscars’ red carpet correspondent; Jake and Logan Paul are teasing a new reality series; and Beabadoobee is the new face of MAC.

KIDS ARE HAVING BIRTHDAY PARTIES AT SEPHORA NOW, businessoffashion
Brands like Sephora and Glossier are catering to skincare-obsessed tweens by hosting birthday parties complete with makeup tutorials and beauty sample-filled goodie bags. When Florida mom Jenni Schwartz’s daughter Mia turned 9 (!), she requested a Sephora birthday party, leading Schwartz to coordinate with staff to arrange a store-wide scavenger hunt.

THE MCVULNERABILITY TRAP, theatlantic
Social media platforms have turned vulnerability into a commodity, fostering a cycle where emotional connection is marketed alongside consumerism. (This piece was published mere hours before Selena Gomez’s crying post went viral on Instagram; uncanny timing!)

As people’s vulnerability proxies—podcasters, celebrities, crying YouTubers—pour out their heart while shilling for their favorite cashmere brands, consumerism becomes unconsciously tethered to the viewing or listening experience. Studies have found that when people spend more time on social-media platforms, they are more likely to buy more things and to do so impulsively—especially when they feel emotionally connected to the content they watch. This is, perhaps, one of the more insidious effects of McVulnerability: It helps encourage a self-perpetuating cycle of materialism and loneliness, in which one inevitably spawns the other.

GEN Z IS MORE FED UP WITH WORK THAN EVER, businessinsider
Every year, Gallup surveys tens of thousands of Americans about their jobs every year, and their latest analysis finds that only 31% were engaged at work last year. Morale is particularly low among those under 35, who are less engaged than their older colleagues, an inversion that hasn't happened since 2007.

EVERYONE IS HORNY NOW, dazed
”After a decade of prudishness and moral sanctimony,” Emma Garland writes, “there has been a pendulum swing not just towards sex, but towards deviance.” Public appetite for erotica has surged, and suddenly, “everyone is attracted to everyone, be they rat boys, muscle mommies or short kings.” (We need a follow-up on that 2023 study that found that Gen Z doesn’t want to see sex on TV or in movies — are they, too, horny now?)

OUR KIDS CANNOT LEARN ABOUT SEX JUST FROM SQUEAMISH GYM TEACHERS, nyt
Kids are somehow receiving less sex ed today than the titular character did in Judy Blume’s 1970 novel “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” Part of the reason, one mom learned, is that health classes are now mostly taught by gym teachers who are often uncomfortable and undertrained in discussing sex with middle schoolers, so they just…don’t, even though many state mandates require sex education. “Across the country, there is no clear guidance for young people on how to have healthy relationships and hookups, no collective understanding of what consent means,” she writes.

WELCOME, PODCASTERS! WHITE HOUSE WANTS NEW MEDIA AT THE PRESS BRIEFING, nyt
Karoline Leavitt, the youngest White House Press Secretary in history, announced plans to make room for "new media" in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, a space typically reserved for traditional news organizations. But just how meaningful is this kind of access? “We beg our reporters to never go to a White House press briefing,” Axios’s Jim VandeHei told Vanity Fair two weeks ago, suggesting that it has, at least historically, been a waste of time.

One last thought:

@nickygarofaloThe best season of the year #girlscoutcookies

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