Why ArticleTok Is the New BookTok
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That Barbie “Snub”
Despite receiving 8 Academy Award nominations last week, Barbie was left out in the Lead Actress and Best Director categories, leading to fan outrage and cries of sexism. The energy online has been…a lot! And honestly, I’m not sure that Margot Robbie’s all that mad at it–as a Saltburn producer, she knows all too well the value of a good controversy. But if Hillary Clinton defends you by invoking the 2016 election and the GirlBoss wonder years, it might be time to pack it in.
I feel like I hallucinated the majority of my life when it was commonly understood that Barbie was not a feminist icon, because suddenly the collective disassociation back into girlhood has flipped that sentiment entirely on its head. The overcorrection is such that now anything overtly feminine must seemingly be protected at all costs, including from critique:
The billion-dollar overcorrection into identifying with Barbie is particularly interesting given how little she represents onscreen. She has no inner monologue, no interiority, and very little autonomy in driving the action of the film, unlike her supporting counterparts.
Contrast Barbie with Julianne Moore’s portrayal of Gracie (sorry, Grathie) in May December, a woman so deep in her own self-infantilization that she lives each day wiped free of guilt and regret from the abuse she inflicts on others. Despite being one of the most compelling dissections of white womanhood I’ve seen onscreen this year, May December went largely unacknowledged by the Academy, only receiving a screenplay nom.
Ultimately, Margot Robbie will be fine, but I hope the other contenders who lost out this year start to receive the same energy as well. Greta Lee, you’ll always be the winner in my heart.
Why ArticleTok Is the New BookTok
Sharing article recommendations online isn’t new, but the proliferation of curated, aesthetic article round-ups has led to a new cottage industry known as ArticleTok. Offering a bite-sized way to quickly engage with new viewers, ArticleTok allows creators to signal both aesthetic and curatorial taste. It’s the TikTok equivalent of posting a Joan Didion cover on your Instagram stories, but does sharing the selfie negate the positive effect of reading the book?
ArticleTok videos aren’t easy to make–take it from me. Reading and vetting each piece before compiling it aesthetically is its own Sisyphian task, but I also believe that longform essay writing is valuable in itself and deserves recognition.
And sure, legacy media is a dumpster fire right now, and TikTok and Substack cannot (and should not!) replace the role of quality journalism. But they can contribute new readership. With our rapidly deteriorating cultural attention spans, should we not be cautiously optimistic that the TikTok generation could save the longform article, even if it’s only so they can post a headline from The Cut on their stories like my generation used to wear New Yorker totes to class?
In fact, I’m staking my claim right now: ArticleTok is the new BookTok. Give it a year or two, and soon The Cut will be paying influencers to share their newest trend piece first in their slideshow. One can only dream! The Cut editors, you know where to find me…
Mob Wife Aesthetica
Be prepared to keep hearing a lot about mob wives this year. Over on Instagram, Data But Make It Fashion is predicting a significant decrease on the Clean Girl front as we move into Mob Wife winter. I’ve seen the conspiracy theory that it’s all a marketing scheme drummed up by HBO for the 25th anniversary of The Sopranos, but I don’t buy it. I know we’re all suspicious about the origins of viral trends these days, but HBO doesn’t even know how to name a streaming service or release a movie without shelving it for tax purposes first. Mamma mia!
Regardless, proponents of the trend argue that it offers a turn towards boisterous female empowerment, and away from the girliffication of trends we saw in 2023. Still, current and former mob wives have taken to TikTok to call the trend appropriation, while others argue the trend makes light of negative Italian representation. If the tide really is turning on the “I’m just a girl” trend, then this one might stick around for awhile.
Emma Stone Sits Down
She was at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation last week for a career retrospective when her inner theater kid came out. We’ve all been there! Whether she wins her second Oscar for Poor Things remains to be seen, but she did win a spot on the bisexual couch that haunts my dreams with Parker Posey and Jacob Elordi. Another win for women.
User-Generated Content Bait Got Me Again
I feel prey to our corporate overlords this week when I laughed at this tweet about Michael Cera and scrolled past without thinking twice:
After a few days, however, the lotion longcon was revealed upon mounting evidence that Cerave had partnered with the notably private Cera for a (seemingly) grassroots publicity scheme. The nail in the coffin was a sponsored fake “Spotted” post from DeuxMoi about Cera.
The beauty of the whole ordeal was of course how unexpected the pairing was, so I suspect that companies will keep trying to orchestrate virality through increasingly absurd pairings so that the reveal of the campaign becomes a tongue-in-cheek part of the marketing itself rather than a betrayal of consumer confidence. But how long can that goodwill last?
Welcome to the Era of Pregnancy Hard-Launches
A friend of mine never posts on social media, though she still uses the platforms. We were joking recently that if she ever had a baby, she would either hard-launch the news or just never post about it at all. But hard-launching babies is becoming, dare I say, kind of chic?
The Washington Post reported on the trend recently, though they noted that in the American context, the decision about whether to share news about a pregnancy online is made within a fraught political context.
Still, I think we’re all witnessing a general exhaustion with sharing personal news online. So where does social media go from here? Consider publicist Kaitlin Phillips’ fantastic anti-blog, which can only be read on Google Docs. It has no metrics or audience, and no comment section. I can’t help but think it represents the future of ‘social’ media, that is, highly-specific niche content created through an anti-populist lens.
When Plastic Surgery Becomes Moralized
I find it odd that not only is celeb plastic surgery often categorized as either “good” or “bad,” but that those labels are then imparted onto the celebrities themselves. Case in point, the general public “gotcha” reaction whenever Kylie Jenner is caught in less-than-perfect lighting.
And look, not to Defend a Billionaire here but the nitpicking for bad angles is bordering on Ozempic-shaming levels of mania. Degrading the face of a famous woman because we disprove of her moral choices just feels like a slippery slope to me.
What Were the Husbands up to This Week?
If you didn’t already know, Pookie is looking absolutely fire.
Carl Andre passed away this week at the age of 88. If you have the chance, take the time to learn about Ana Mendieta’s powerful life and untimely death, which many believe to have been at the hands of her husband Carl Andre himself.
As you may also be aware, every few weeks TikTok anoints a new Husband Test as a way for women to surreptitiously film their husbands and upload their reactions for public consumption. As with the Roman Empire test and the Beckham Challenge after it, a new Husband Test has recently been crowned, and it’s called *drumroll please* the Ketchup Challenge, in which a woman squirts ketchup onto a counter and records her husband’s reaction. We’re due for a new challenge any day now, so husbands: stay on your toes, hide the condiments, and keep an eye out for hidden cameras.
On My Reading List This Weekend
Vulture had me at “two exes reunited” and “Juliette Binoche.” Can’t wait to dive into this one.
How Marvel got fans to root for both its superheroes and its business plan.
Mina Le’s 2024 trend report: sitcom culture revival in the form of weekly diner hangs with friends, and an end to “2023 lobotomy girlspeak.”
The worrying news about Taylor Swift deepfakes spreading across Twitter highlight how platforms have failed to moderate hateful content online.
A deep dive into the Paglia-ssance, a term I’m pretty sure I just coined.
Margaret Qualley comes out as a stoner.
Garden-path sentence: “a grammatically correct sentence that starts in such a way that a reader's most likely interpretation will be incorrect; the reader is lured into a parse that turns out to be a dead end or yields a clearly unintended meaning.”
This is so exciting! Congratulations on The Solitary Digest.
I always save your article recommendations!!!