no coachella content from me
plus sabrina carpenter: as seen on my timeline
Quick Hits
How fast fashion is driving land grabs and violence in Brazil
Vince Camuto names Ava Phillippe as global brand ambassador for fragrance line
‘Civil War’ movie brings in $25.7M on its first weekend, becoming A24’s biggest opening ever
Dua Lia is TIME100’s first Cover Star. She’s also my favourite kind celebrity- talented, hot, unproblematic, and cooly intellectual.
I am begging someone to bring Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolises to the big screen. Because as a girl who loves a good think piece, when people come out with statements like this or this, you know we as a society have struck gold. If JLO's “musical biopic” taught us anything, it’s that the world does need questionable art.
Mandy Moore recalls “a lot of teenage drama” on set of Vanity Fair’s “It’s Totally Raining Teens” cover. I called it. I might have only been 4 years old when this cover came out, but its cultural relevance thankfully stretched through time until as a Disney and Nickelodeon obsessed tween, I was old enough to appreciate it. Documentaries like Quiet on Set really make you think though…
While brands are all in on the corporate fetish, the US commercial real estate market is fumbling. To wit- one of St. Louis’s tallest office buildings and former AT&T office, was bought by Goldman Sachs for $3.5M- a 2% discount on its selling price just 2 years ago. The building is the second largest office building in the US to have been vacant since 2017, and is symptomatic of trending low office occupancy rates and high interest rates. The U.S. office vacancy rate was a record 13.6%, up from 9.4% at the end of 2019. That number is only going to climb higher. I’m all for hybrid work, a WFH society is bad for the economy.
Did you know Stormy Daniels was a Horsegirl? Me neither, but when the adult film star isn’t planning the comeuppance of Donald Trump, she’s stirring up some equestrian countryside drama. This one features four dead horses (sad), one that did not stay buried, and several lawsuits. Also, this is a very AirMail piece, no?
Wall Street finance bros are entering their American Psycho era. Most say they are doing it for their mental health, but I refuse to believe them.
New Yorker’s love a good book reading. Readings used to be at the bottom of most people's social calendars; events you could wander into at random, or would attend as a favor to a friend of a friend. These days, many of the bookstores, restaurants and bars that host these readings are requiring people to R.SV.P and selling tickets for as much as $30. This doesn’t surprise me. Literary culture is having a moment- lit fic authors are becoming mini celebrities, and people are obsessed with appearing cultured and having taste.
As the dawn of the Dumb Phone is upon us, so is that of the Dumb House. Many rich homeowners- particularly those who work in tech- are foregoing highly digitized homes for more Luddite-esque environments. Why? They want homes that age gracefully without needing frequent updates, and want their kids spending less time on screens. They are also scared of AI.
You’ll get no Coachella content from me, but I stand by everything Casey Lewis said. I’ll add that 1.) in line with everything Rhode Beauty does, their photo booth and lipgloss dispensary activation was HOT and 2.) Alix Earle wasn’t following Poppi until yesterday, trust me I checked.
Is Gen Z in its Crossword Era? Or are Crosswords in their Gen Z era? During the pandemic, many Gen Z highschoolers and college students discovered the joys of the Crossword puzzle (can personally attest to this), and now Crosswords are discovering the joys of Gen Z. Modern slang, internet speak, and pop culture references are now commonplace in the many crosswords, including those in the NYT. A new wave of Gen Z crossword constructors are now also (in typical Gen Z fashion), using Crosswords as a medium of self expression. Predictably, many older Crossword enthusiasts are less than thrilled- but hey, in the Generation Wars, there’s nothing new under the sun.
While the prevalence of choking has skyrocketed, rates of orgasm among young women have not increased. Are you mad yet? Choking used to be kinky and risque, but now it’s just anoher thing the kids are doing. “Nearly two-thirds of women in her most recent campus-representative survey of 5,000 students at an anonymized “major Midwestern university” said a partner had choked them during sex (one-third in their most recent encounter),” Dr Herbenick, one of the foremost researchers on American sexual behaviour told the NYT. “The rate of those women who said they were between the ages 12 and 17 the first time that happened had shot up to 40 percent from one in four.” My mom reads this newsletter so if you want to know what my thoughts are, shoot me an email.
Glossier is launching a reformulation of their sunscreen next week. Fans in the r/glossier subreddit (as usual) have some very strong opinions on the matter.
Startups still see a future in familiar foods made with weird ingredients. Over the past few years, companies creating regular foods from weird ingredients have raised billions of dollars- think plant based meat and alt milk. Yes, whole milk is cool again and Beyond Meat might be experiencing weak demand, but judging from the ranks of recently funded food startups, the alternative food dream is alive and well. “In the not-too-distant future, you might be spreading bread with fossil fuel-derived butter or alga-derived mayo. The bread itself, meanwhile, might be made with flour from coffee cherry pulp”. As I only eat real food, I will personally not be indulging, but a win for innovation (and the planet?) I guess.
Say hello to Bark Air, the new luxury airline providing a first class flight experience- for your dog. For the small price of $6000, you and your canine bestie can take a trip from NYC to London in style. We’re talking canine champagne, in-flight squirrel videos, and of course a belly-rub button at every seat. Bark, the pet services company also behind BarkBox, really wants you to know that this is not a joke. Sorry, but I’m going to have to see it to believe it.
Don’t say I never put you guys on: OG youth media darling and former (short lived) Gossip Girl, Tavi Genvison gifted us this Taylor Swift fan fiction zine. ICONIC. I urge you all to consider this REQUIRED pre reading before The Tortured Poets Department album drop. You’re welcome 🙂
SABRINA CARPENTER: AS SEEN ON MY TIMELINE a story about Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo
I’ve been thinking about Sabrina Carpenter a lot lately- she’s young, hot, and everywhere. What to make of her sudden ubiquity? She’s a pop star, yes- of the next gen Disney child star variety, but until now I think most of us best knew her as a recurring character in the stories of two much bigger stars. In one she’s cast as a rival; the classic blonde femme fatale. And in the other, an eager ingenue.
I thought it’ll be fun to chart Sabrina’s rise to pop culture relevance from my pov- I who have never listened to any of her songs, but who is chronically online.
I’m first introduced to Sabrina through Olivia Rodrigo’s drivers license as “that blond girl who always made me doubt”, and while as a society, we remain collectively unsure who “Becky with the good hair” is- this was one mystery that didn’t take long to unravel.
In classic rebuttal form, Sabrina release skin, her first song known to me. For internet users of a certain age, this is a chance to reenact the millennial wars of the Selena vs Hailey fandoms they’d only heard about.
Summer of 2021- that magical period when I was just out of college but hadn’t started my first ‘big girl job’ yet- blasting Olivia’s sour album from my janky speaker and dancing around a friend’s tiny plant filled living room where my soon to be roommate and I were crashing until our lease started. We belt out de ja vu and traitor, songs we’d only just started to memorise, wondering who this girl was that seemed to “totally get us” in a way only one other artist had before. Is she the next Taylor Swift we ask? Weren’t we all asking that?
Taylor herself seems to cosign the young artist. That is, until she claims 50% of the royalties on Olivia’s de ja vu. (I don’t care who I offend, Taylor will always be snaky to me). If they were ever friends, they’re certainly not anymore.
Taylor goes on tour, breaks up with Joe Alwyn, gets with Matty Healy, and then Travis Kelce. She literally takes over our lives. I love to hate it.
Guess who’s the opening act on Taylor’s Eras tour. Sabrina! That Sabrina?! That Sabrina. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, I guess. And no, I do not believe Taylor is above this. Queue Mastermind.
Whatever the motive, Sabrina seizes the day. She’s hot. She’s cool. She makes jokes. She makes headlines.
Olivia meanwhile, releases a second album (is vampire about Taylor? lacy about Sabrina?), goes on tour (where she made moms mad), and remains our resident pop culture starlet.
Saltburn happens and the internet falls in love with Irish men. We now know who Barry Keoghan is. Sabrina and Barry maybe a thing? Headlines, headlines.
Sabrina for SKIMS (umm this cool with Taylor?), Sabrina for Supergoop (low key the real winner here), Sabrina coffee? Not quite Erewhon but it’s a start.
Now, I won’t go as far as saying Olivia and Taylor made Sabrina Carpenter, but I’m sure you can see how a less generous soul could make that cognitive leap.
I still haven’t listen to a single Sabrina song though, so lets listen one together ;)