Villain Eras and Corporate Baddies
after school weekend edition
Welcome back to After School ✨weekend edition✨, an extra long and extra opinionated youth culture digest for paid subscribers. Thank you for reading!
Today we’re talking:
TikTok: villain eras, vintage Nirvana, union busters, and Coachella
Style: China’s e-boys, it bags, Tory Burch’s Gen Z strategy, and Shein competitors
Startups and tech: metaverse malls, crypto Twitter, and the best OOH Gen Z campaign I’ve seen in ages
TikTok
Wellness is out; debaucherous young people (and, thus, TikTok — but isn’t it one and the same at this point?) are obsessed with martinis. “I watch these kids hammering martinis and I’m like, good Lord.” (When I was their age, I was drinking room temp Bud Lights.)
Everyone on TikTok is entering their villain era: Proliferated by TikToker @padzdey, the term 'villain era' isn't as dark or ominous as the name might suggest, but refers to a shift in a person's priorities as they reject the societal pressure to always play nice.
Speaking of villains: I’m not sure who had a worse weekend, the execs behind Coachella and Revolve Fest or the influencers who attended these events. A lot (too much) was written about this mess, but my favorite piece was “Won’t somebody think of the influencers?” by Roisin Lanigan:
“Coachella and Revolve have always been festivals where the focus is as much on looking good as on the music. But this year’s debacles feel like an indication that both have reached peak influencer, with attendees hiring celebrity stylists for outfits that feel built for social media engagement at the expense of utility (several creators wore puffa jackets or stiletto heels to the three-day event, which takes place almost entirely on grass with average temperatures at around 25 degrees celsius). What previously would have been seen as aspirational now seems blatant in its lack of authenticity – and Gen Zers, blessed with a more sensitive bullshit detector than previous generations could have hoped for, have again and again proven that they value the latter over the former.”
