A Weekend Getaway With The Good Links
This is not a contest email, the Good Links are simply late. Happy holidays!
Featuring Tik Tok, women who are suffering, and Baby Yoda.
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Millennials (Might Change This To “The Tik Tok Section”)
Pitchfork is trying to figure out what makes a viral TikTok video by dissecting the kind of song that gets popular on TikTok. Running on its own taste, songs that are popular on Tiktok are usually far from the mainstream. Independent female rappers top the charts, like Ashnikko and her TikTok hit “Stupid.” There’s a lot more involved in what makes a TikTok hit, including specific beats and voices, which the article explains better than me. Anyway, what the article is really about is the fact that brands are catching on to what’s happening and trying to reverse-engineer music so that it will become a TikTok hit. Le sigh!
#notmyTikTok
A More or Less Serious Item (How High Are the Pants?)
I hate high-waisted jeans. They look all fine and dandy when I stand, but then I sit and everything goes to hell. I’m being strangled by denim, and my bladder is screaming at me. But it seems the rest of the world is against me on this one, so please enjoy this fashion dive from Rachel Syme at The New Yorker on “How High Can High-Waisted Pants Go?”. She explores the misguided era of low-waisted pants (which I also hate, in a different way) and explains why the high-waisted pants are so in now.
This is literally live footage of me trying to put on my high-waisted jeans!!!! Literally!!
This Week’s Theme: None Of These Women Are OK
I certainly get micro-targeted for articles about women and trends, but this week I feel I hit a particular trifecta of “yikes” articles about what’s going on with women in the world. Run away with me!
First, we take a look at Molly Guy, a former wedding influencer (she got divorced!) turned writer turned probably divorce influencer. Is your neck okay from all those sharp turns we took in that last sentence? Mine’s not! Read this NYT article if you want it to get worse! Highlights include a very long Instagram caption about when she slammed her hand into a car door and she had to get her wedding ring surgically removed and the fact that Ms. Guy named her writing group “The Brooklyn Writers Collective.” More than that, I’m worried about all the women who follow this woman on Instagram, hoping she’ll answer all of their questions.
Then we turn to Jia Tolentino, writing for The New Yorker about Instagram Face, one of the more depressing phenomenons I’ve heard of in my young life. Women the world over are getting what are essentially micro plastic surgery procedures done on their faces regularly in pursuit of “Instagram Face” — what is essentially the way that Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner’s faces look. It’s hugely upsetting and tangled up in classism and the beauty-industrial complex.
The least “ok” woman this week is The Peloton Wife, who the internet blasted after a Peloton ad aired featuring a woman who seemed to be tortured by the Peloton her husband bought her. Read more about the Peloton ad and the actress who played her here.
Politics (What’s In a Word?)
Merriam-Webster has declared that the word of the year is “they”! Largely due to your parents googling “they” repeatedly in an effort to understand what’s going on with kids these days and the general concept of being non-binary. Which I think is great because the concepts of being non-binary and they-as-pronoun are not going away! Other notable searches include “quid pro quo” (how ~political~) and “crawdad” (I think because our parents were also all reading that book Where the Crawdad Sings).
P.S. If you’re on a genderbender, check out this NYer article about T**** misgendering a dog.
A Celebrity Thinger (Baby Yoda IS a Celebrity!)
I rather enjoyed this meditation on the meta-nature of the new Disney+ TV show The Mandalorian, which explains a little bit about the show itself, and a lot a bit about the internet’s obsession with Baby Yoda, which is far-reaching and, to be honest, quite great. Baby Yoda is the quintessential product of our time, baked in nostalgia and big eyes, the internet cannot stop meme-ing him and gif-ing him (which is highlighted in the article itself). And if you’re not on the Baby Yoda train, it’s time to get on it.
The Baby Yoda gif heard ‘round the world.
P.S. Baby Yoda trying to listen to Evanescence is my favorite of the Baby Yoda gif-ing and meme-ing.
Would You Rather? (This or That)
Would you rather blank or have Andrew Yang squirt whipped cream in your mouth or sunbathe your asshole for wellness?
A Recommendation (Rec rec rec)
Something from the ‘Flix, but try to get broader here — not just movies and television.
The Interactive Bits (Interact with me!)
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