i. artifact

Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson is a historical millennial artifact.

Katy Perry represents the myth of the former popstar: a body optimized for output, shaped to meet the demands of a system that valued consistency over individuality. She worked hard and she worked fast. The work was polished, effective — always good, if not always great.

But that was never the point.

Katy Perry did not need to be exceptional. She needed to be believable.

She emerged alongside powerhouses — Britney, Christina, Gaga, Rihanna — women whose presence could carry imperfection through sheer force of personality. Katy was different. She was not selling herself as a singular force. She was selling a world.

She was hyper-engineered into teen pop perfection: a fully realized fantasy built for maximum cultural impact. And for a time, it worked. Not because she was irreplaceable, but because the system didn’t require her to be.

A good popstar is a myth. She is iconic, distant, impossible to fully read. You know only what she allows you to know.

Katy Perry existed within that distance. Albums arrived on schedule. Singles dominated radio. The visuals were bright enough to distract from the machinery underneath. There was no room for failure, because failure would expose the illusion.

ii. the old pop system

The youth crave the idea of monoculture.

The rise of the internet, streaming television, and music subscriptions have all weakened the shared cultural experiences that once made pop culture feel communal. We rarely experience anything together anymore. We consume privately, algorithmically, and constantly.

And don’t get me wrong — I love my Spotify account. I have playlist-making down to a science. But what does individualized media consumption do to a society? What happens to the institutions that once made culture a group activity?

They become obsolete.

Movie theaters aren’t “making money,” so why bother investing in them? Malls aren’t “necessary” because you can shop online and have something at your house the same day. You don’t need CDs, DVDs, magazines, or books because everything can be pulled up instantly with the tap of a finger.

It sounds convenient because it is convenient. But convenience removes the ritual.

The joy of picking out a CD or going to Blockbuster was not just the object itself. It was the walk there. The drive there. The conversation in the aisle. The cashier. The food court. The overheard song. The shared boredom. Even if you went to the mall just to sit for an hour and window shop, you still left your house.

That world is what made artists like Katy Perry so profitable.

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Twenty years ago, you knew almost nothing about the celebrity you loved. You had to flip open OK! or People magazine in the CVS checkout line for a status update. I remember being eight years old and begging my mother to buy me Teen Beat because there was a first look at The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and I just had to have it.

Now I follow IndieWire, Variety, Film Updates, and DiscussingFilm. I get every update on my phone while I’m at work or on the treadmill, alone, instead of standing next to other people in Barnes & Noble.

To become a myth, you had to surrender part of your identity to the machine.

iii. sugar, spice, and everything kinda nice

Not everyone knows this, but Katy Perry’s first album was not 2008’s One of the Boys.

It was Katy Hudson, a 2001 Christian rock album that sold roughly 200 copies before her label went bankrupt.

In 2005, she somehow landed on The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants soundtrack, sounding like an Alanis Morissette echo. Then, in 2008, she finally became Katy Perry and struck gold with “I Kissed a Girl.”

By 2010, she released Teenage Dream.

To understand the scale of Teenage Dream, you partially had to be there. From 2010 to 2012, there was not a pop radio station you could turn on without hearing one of its singles. It was everywhere: the mall, the car, the pregame, the school dance, the radio station playing quietly in a waiting room.

Critics called it hollow, and honestly? Sure. It was hollow. It was interchangeable pop music that almost any attractive mid-twenties woman with enough charisma could have sold.

But that was also why it worked.

The lyrics were generic enough to belong to everyone. The hooks were immediate. The beats were addictive. It was not unique, but it was perfect.

Teenage Dream was sugar, spice, glitter, sex, and EDM beats in a post-Obama election world. People wanted color. They wanted escape. They wanted to party. And “E.T.” by Katy Perry was absolutely getting played during your pregame.

The idea of Katy Perry was cohesive. She released albums quickly, toured constantly, recorded in between, and maintained the illusion of frictionless pop stardom.

And in the middle of all of this, I cannot tell you much about Katy Perry tabloid fodder. Russell Brand? Orlando Bloom? Sure. But the closest the façade came to visibly cracking was when Russell Brand divorced her by text minutes before she was due on stage.

Even then, the machine absorbed it. Critics called Katy Perry: Part of Me sharp brand management, not a true portrait of Katy the person.

That is the point.

Katy Perry was not built to be known. She was built to be consumed.

iv. the missing “toxic”

Katy Perry had hits. That’s not the issue.

The issue is that none of them ever became identity.

She never had a “Toxic.” Not just a hit, but a moment — something so specific, so inseparable from the person performing it, that it collapses the distance between the music and the artist.

“Toxic” doesn’t just belong to Britney Spears. It is Britney Spears. You can’t separate the two.

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Katy Perry’s music doesn’t work like that. But nothing fully attaches itself to her as a singular presence. The identity never locks in.

The world expands, but the person doesn’t. And that was fine — for a while. Because the system only required her to be convincing.

But once that system began to collapse, the limitations became visible.

In 2017, Katy Perry released Witness — a visible attempt to shift, to become something more legible as an “artist.” She cut her hair, went blonde, leaned into self-awareness. It didn’t land.

Not because the music was bad. Not because she wasn’t trying.

But because the version of Katy Perry that worked was never built for that kind of transformation.

She was built for saturation and not evolution.

So when the culture began to demand something more — more personality, more specificity, more presence — there was nothing for her to fall back on except the system she had already mastered.

And by then, it was gone.

That’s why her career feels strange in hindsight.

It’s massive. It’s undeniable. And somehow, it’s weightless.

And as monoculture disappeared, so did the conditions that created Katy Perry. Social media didn’t make her insincere. It made the performance visible.

And once the performance is visible, belief becomes optional.

I never thought I would see the day where the OnlyFans market would be oversaturated. It used to be risqué to show your body online. Now I just roll my eyes and keep scrolling.

Yes, another photo or video of someone masturbating or showing dick and balls on my timeline for no apparent reason. I don’t dabble in the sex economy, but Elon Musk’s Twitter algorithm seems to think I do.

And it’s not just oversaturation — it’s normalization.

i. the porn star as persona

Once upon a time, porn used to be a role.

You clocked in, had sex on camera for money, and then clocked out. Maybe you were good enough to win an award or ten. You had a stage name, the wider industry, and a separation of space between yourself and the consumer.

In fact, I had to do some light research to even write this essay. I’m not talking about the Mia Khalifas and Sasha Greys of the internet age — beautiful women with “stained” brands. The internet regularly reminds Mia Khalifa that they think she’s a slut. But even then, there was still a distinction. She was known for something she did, not something she was expected to be at all times.

In the 70s, 80s, and even early 90s, the emphasis was on performance, not identity. There are dozens of porn stars from the Golden Age who are either dead or successfully made a career pivot. They still work in adult entertainment in some capacity, became authors, or quietly disappeared from the public.

An example of this would be former adult film actress Stacy Valentine. According to Wikipedia, she was a hit in the 90s for about five years and retired quietly. She used the onset of her fame to escape her creepy husband. As I was reading, I still couldn’t help but wonder what the hell happened to all of these women. Stacy Valentine is pretty much absent from the internet. There’s no Instagram, TikTok, or even Facebook attached to her name. There is a lonely LinkedIn profile — for the past 20 years, she’s been the West Coast Creative Director for Penthouse.

There is a sort of half-interview from 2000 that I found. The interviewer more or less provides his personal opinion of Stacy rather than an actual interview. The ending is supposed to be hard-hitting, and it is, but from a man it feels less like cultural commentary and more like misogyny.

Where do we go from here?

Porn used to be story-driven productions that eventually ended in sex. They were even played in theaters. To me, it seems like it used to be a classy party.

Now, porn is everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

The goal is no longer to create something — it’s to produce as much as possible, as quickly as possible. Cut the costs, cut the production, go bigger and get better. Faster production means quicker money.

Therein lies the problem.

ii. the collapse into identity

Instagram has always been a way to promote your image. It’s essentially a shopping app with a social media function.

Twitter seems to be where the real money is, though. Every comment section is contaminated with porn bots. I’m not sure if these are real people that get paid, AI, or what. You can search “cupcakes” on Twitter and the first video will be someone shoving a cupcake up their ass.

That’s the point. Sexual content is no longer contained. It doesn’t live in its own category anymore. It bleeds into everything else.

Once that boundary disappears, so does the distinction between performance and identity. The porn star used to have a role. The influencer just has a feed. What used to be labor is now presented as personality.

Take Instagram — there’s the IG Baddie, and then there’s the woman who is more explicitly selling access to her body. But visually, the difference between the two is getting harder to locate. They use the same poses, the same lighting, the same language of desirability. One is called branding. The other is called sex work. Sometimes the only real difference is whether a paywall is involved.

There are plenty of women online whose feeds function as a kind of public advertisement — not always explicitly, but obviously enough. Music, modeling, reality television, influencing, and paid sexual access no longer feel like separate categories. They collapse into one another.

The performance is still there. It just no longer calls itself one. The market is built around male desire — constant, immediate, and frictionless. Almost zero input but maximum output. This trend extends beyond the digital and into everyday life. How much labor can be extracted from a woman with minimal effort?

iii. porn as lifestyle

We see it in the bodies of the women that spent thousands of dollars on themselves.

BBLs, filler, breast implants, liposuction. Nipping and tucking every detail into precision. It’s almost a caricature of what is feminine. And it dominates online spaces.

The women of Zeus Network’s Baddies franchise. Joseline Hernandez. Nicki Minaj. Kylie Jenner. Kim Kardashian. Blac Chyna. On and on and on.

Instagram culture sells the dream that porn used to. If you promote this brand, they’ll give you the clothes for free. If you go to this basketball game, you can sit courtside. If you get on this yacht, you’ll be famous. If you just have sex on camera this one time, we’ll give you $10k and you can finally run away from your abusive home.

We are so consumed by sex as a culture. It’s not a coincidence that red-pill content has become extremely popular over the last ten years. It’s also not hard to understand why Gen Z doesn’t want sexual content in their entertainment. We already see it doing something mundane like scrolling Instagram or Twitter. Occasionally on TikTok, you’ll scroll past a livestream of someone having sex. It’s so abundant that it feels practically automated.

iv. the end

Porn used to be a thing you consumed in private. Magazines. VHS tapes. It was “hard” to get and exciting when you could. The internet age made it constantly accessible all the time. And I think it’s hindered us as a society.

Sex used to be something you had to go out and seek. You had to learn how to function socially and talk to people like they were human. Sex is no longer “special” and I’m not sure it ever really has been. Sex is constant. Sex appeal. Sex acts. Followers. Money. Branding.

And for all of our supposed liberation, sex is still not neutral. Under patriarchy, it still operates unevenly. It still asks more of some people than others. That is part of why Gen Z’s avoidance makes perfect sense to me. If sex continues to function as labor — social, emotional, physical, aesthetic — then opting out stops looking like repression and starts looking like self-protection.

This is why women report bitterness about dating and why men complain of loneliness. Men get power. Women get stuck with the labor. The system isn’t producing connection — it’s producing imbalance. There’s those of us who are fucked and those who do the fucking.

And my point in all of this — and every single one of my essays — is wondering where this leaves women. I wonder where this leaves me.

If porn and sex become automated — shaped by the structure of patriarchy — how does this affect women?

Are we constantly expected to “put out” in this system? Are we expected to participate in our own objectification?

How do I approach intimacy?

Is the constant access to sexual content — and the “better,” or “other” woman — why I avoid it?

I don’t think I have an answer yet.

Butt stuff is for boys. But I digress.

The discourse has been hilarious, but also weirdly enlightening about the current state of feminism. Man, oh man, I think women are fucked.

I am always surprised by how many women still resist the idea that patriarchy oppresses all women. Because if patriarchy is real, then it doesn’t politely excuse individual men from participating in it. That is how the system works.

What really sent people into hysterics, though, was the implication that their sex lives might be shaped by it too. Emphasis on might, because obviously there are some freak hoes out there who genuinely enjoy butt sex.

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The issue isn’t really selling your body for money, taking it up the ass, or getting ejaculated on. It’s the refusal to acknowledge that these acts benefit men.

Because they do.

Within patriarchy, within power structures, within everything we claim to believe about how the world works, men benefit from women performing sexuality in ways that center them. That doesn’t suddenly stop being true because you personally enjoy it.

And you can like what you like. No one is breaking into your bedroom to stop you. Radical feminists are not hiding in your closet, waiting to confiscate your sex life.

They’re asking you a question.

Why do you like it?

And more importantly, would you like it the same way if you had never been taught to?

Which, apparently, is a radical and offensive question. Misogynistic, even. Somehow.

I thought it was just a question.

Ideologies force people to reckon with who they are. I can understand why so many women reject radical feminism: the scope of it. Many people can’t tolerate the implication that they may not be fully autonomous.

Think of it this way.

If your desire is shaped by external forces, then your identity is unstable.

If your identity is unstable, then the idea of choice becomes complicated.

If choice is complicated, then empowerment becomes complicated too.

And if you are a woman living under patriarchy, the implications of that can be soul-shattering. In a system as existentially crushing as this one, it inevitably raises the question of whether true freedom is even possible.

I think this is part of what explains choice feminism and its meteoric rise. If you choose to be degraded and disrespected, then at least it feels self-authored. And if it feels self-authored, it no longer feels like submission to power, but empowerment.

Where does this actually leave women?

Women are told that we’re free.

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. And yet, women are still told that we can choose. More than that, we’re told that we already have.

OnlyFans models are en vogue. Sugar daddies, findom, and 304Tok have all gone mainstream. On the other end, Ballerina Farm and Nara Smith have become popular “traditional wife” influencers. Women on both ends of the spectrum are loudly, publicly proclaiming their choices.

So when women hop into my comment sections and loudly proclaim their choice to be a wife and mother, I politely make it clear that I don’t really care.

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Choice feminism is a big ol’ nothing burger. You can’t “choose” to do what is already expected of you.

Men expect that you marry them and have their children. They expect that you come home, clean their house, have sex with them, and be agreeable.

And I know this to be true because women get online every single day and let us into the reality of married life.

I have yet to see a woman on TikTok who actually seems happy as a wife.

And we can agree that these structures exist. There’s tangible proof.

You can acknowledge things like the second shift—women clock out of work and then clock back into motherhood. That’s widely accepted.

So why were women dying on the hill of anal?

You can agree that patriarchy shapes labor, family structures, and expectations. But the idea that it might shape desire? Suddenly that’s absurd?

I can’t buy into that.

Women are asked to experience being adaptable, flexible, and moldable as empowerment.

The real issue isn’t whether patriarchy influences desire. It’s what it means if it does.

If patriarchy touches everything, then how does the individual woman decide where the conditioning stops? Can you even make that distinction?

The question even sends me into a spiral as I type this. This is why I’m so put off by dating. Everyone thinks I hate men or I’m anti-love, which isn’t true. I’m anti-patriarchy. Maybe that’s anti-men by design.

The truth is, I don’t know if I can love a man without wondering if he benefits more from the arrangement than I do.

By the standards of the system, he benefits from my emotional and physical labor. I’m his best friend, confidante, maid, nurse, nanny, cook, and sex puppet. That sounds really fucking exhausting. And women agree to do these things because at least they’re guaranteed a ring, or even the occasional I love you.

I don’t see that as a fair exchange. I’m not sure I ever will.

Radical feminism feels extreme because it refuses the comfort of choice feminism. It calls into question what’s sacred—love, romance, sex. In this system, those are the only things that are supposed to belong to women. And when we’re too busy dabbling in those things and arguing with each other, we run out of time to restructure society in a way that actually benefits us. In turn, this benefits men.

I understand why people reject the question. Because to take it seriously, even for a moment, is to risk realizing that the most intimate parts of your life might not be entirely your own.

And I’m not even saying they aren’t.

I’m just saying people refuse to find out.

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I should start a new series called “look at our women dawg we’re never making it out the patriarchy.”

In this series, I’ll give my opinion on random Internet topics involving women, because why not.

This week, it’s about Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, an American love story, and why the women of the Internet seem to hate it so much.

For the past month, women on TikTok and Twitter have been moaning and groaning about the influx of 20-somethings dressing like Carolyn Bessette. It’s your basic minimalist style from the 1990s — think Dakota Johnson or Zoë Kravitz today.

It’s a quick and easy style to mimic: a white tee, blue jeans that hang just right, and a simple gold chain. Or no jewelry at all, because that was the CBK way.

And to be clear — this style isn’t new. The Internet is acting like it appeared last week. I’ve had it pinned on my Pinterest boards for years.

So why is this suddenly such an issue for the women of the Internet?

Honestly — who cares?

Oh no. A million women want to have a uniform. The horror.

The real issue is this: we’re living in the golden age of “I’m not like other girls.”

You think by standing with the men and pointing and laughing at women, you’ve somehow transcended womanhood. Your interests are so niche, so refined, so intellectual that it disgusts you to see such basic bitches parading around the Internet.

I’ve seen dozens of videos of women telling the CBK look-alikes to “get a hobby” or “make some friends.” Your issue isn’t with women. It’s with the companies that are successfully marketing viral products to us all. Everything becomes a must-have item for the next It Girl, I’ll agree. But it’s not the fault of a bunch of 24-year-old influencers in New York City.

It’s Rhode, Fenty, Hollister, Victoria’s Secret, Madewell, Abercrombie, and now even Walmart’s fault. It’s the marketing department’s fault. It’s TikTok and the algorithm’s fault. It’s trendy to assimilate.

But here’s the thing with fashion.

Dressing well is a hobby.

Fashion has always been a shared language among women. Trends move through friend groups, magazines, Pinterest dashboards, and now TikTok feeds. Women copy each other constantly — and that’s not a failure of individuality. That’s literally how culture works.

The real irony is that the women complaining about “everyone dressing the same” are also dressed the same. They just picked a different uniform.

Because whether you’re wearing the Carolyn Bessette uniform, the thrift-store-maximalist uniform, or the “I’m cooler than this trend” uniform — you’re still participating in the same system.

I hope one day women collectively surpass this inner need to constantly view each other as competition. No one cares if you wear 100% cotton or only dress like Carrie Bradshaw. You’re still being a bitch. The system maintains itself because women actively participate in it. We choose to drag each other online because, oh god, the men are watching!

I can’t have Tom, Dick, or Harry thinking I’m a stupid bitch ruining the environment because my plain white T-shirt or tulle skirt is made from plastics!

While women participate in this online warfare, they’re simultaneously taking to the streets to cheer on JFK Jr. look-alike competitions. Why? I don’t know. I guess it’s only sweet and cute when men do it. There are women in comment sections actively praising men for their newfound sense of style. The men aren’t basic, corny, or lacking an individualized sense of self. They’re unique!

I’m also so curious about this phenomenon. Women can criticize and bully each other, but you can’t acknowledge it. Because women are perpetual victims with no agency. Or whatever.

Then women can poke, prod, and coddle men like they’re toddlers. And then when I bring up that some women are just obsessed with men and the male form, I’m the asshole.

Sigh. We’re never escaping the patriarchy.

And that’s really what this entire discourse is about.

Not Carolyn Bessette. Not white T-shirts. Not whether a pair of Levi’s makes you a basic bitch.

It’s about the strange cultural ritual where women perform individuality by humiliating other women. Every trend cycle now comes with a secondary trend: the women loudly announcing that they’re above the trend.

But the truth is much less glamorous.

Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy wasn’t a style icon because she was “unique.” She was a style icon because she understood something most people don’t: clothes become powerful when they’re simple enough for other people to copy.

That’s literally how fashion works.

One woman wears a white tee and jeans.

Then ten women do.

Then a million women do.

And suddenly the Internet decides it’s a moral failing.

My point, if it wasn’t already obvious, is that women constantly view each other as competition. As a result, we criticize and bully each other. Meanwhile, heterosexual women love men so much that they praise the exact behavior they ridicule other women for.

And then we wonder why men don’t take us seriously.

It’s because we don’t even take each other seriously.

Timothée Chalamet’s rise to fame over the last decade has been interesting, to say the least. I generally enjoy his performances. Dune: Part Two is one of my favorite films of 2024. I think it’s a career highlight for Chalamet, but unfortunately, that’s not saying much.

We can sit and argue whether or not he’s a good actor — in my opinion, he’s just okay — but that would be a waste of time. His offscreen persona is much more fun to dissect than his onscreen performance.

He doesn’t dominate tabloids because of his acting, but because of his girlfriend, Kylie Jenner. Oh, and his “desperation” to win an Oscar. I admire the level of honesty. I think it’s okay to be passionate about your craft, but there’s a certain arrogance. Especially if it is, quite certainly, not your time yet.

Ask anyone — or just Club Chalamet — and this is Kylie’s fault. Unfortunately, I think critics are onto something. But not quite for the reason everyone seems to think.

It’s because of cultural appropriation.

The KarJenner clan has spent the last fifteen or so years borrowing from black culture and building an empire off of it. Has this possibly redefined beauty standards and/or black womanhood? Probably.

Has it affected how Kylie Jenner is perceived by the public? Almost certainly.

“What does this have to do with Timothée Chalamet?”

Well, nothing. But it has everything to do with Kylie Jenner.

How we view the Kardashians as a culture is tied to how we view Black women and/or vice versa.

I’ll admit that when I first heard they were dating — it gave me pause. What was an androgynous, pretty-boy intellectual doing with a Kardashian?

“She’s not smart enough for him! She’s not his true type! What do they even talk about? She doesn’t know movies! That crowd doesn’t take her seriously!”

- Randoms on Twitter, probably

The bob-and-a-tote-bag crowd has been driven insane by this sudden revelation. Maybe Kylie Jenner is just hot and Timothée Chalamet isn’t as deep as you thought. Just because he kissed a boy on camera, it doesn’t mean he’s this free-thinking progressive. He’s no James Spader!

I think there’s a subtle racial undercurrent. The character assassination of Kylie Jenner has been relatively harmless, and it’s harmless because she’s white. Imagine the harassment if Kylie were actually Black.

We’ve seen how this goes. Think Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. FKA Twigs and Robert Pattinson.

And to be clear—I’m not saying any of these traits make someone Black. They don’t. That’s exactly the point.

I think it would be naive to deny that you probably unconsciously categorized her as such in your mind. I know I probably did. And maybe that’s by design.

It’s similar to when a designer brand becomes associated with Black consumers—Gucci, Louis Vuitton—and critics suddenly question whether it’s “losing its value.

As a result, there’s been some image and brand reshaping within the last few years. Gone are the days of long-haired, wind-swept intellectual Timothée. Say hello to #Wiggathe.

The marketing for his last two movies was humorous. Who doesn’t love some “white boy hanging out with Black people” social media marketing? He was hanging out with Druski, after all! Ha ha!

The Complete Unknown and Marty Supreme are two movies that have nothing to do with Black people. In fact, one is about Bob Dylan and the other about ping-pong. So why the sudden shift? Why not the Cannes Film Festival and Venice photocalls? Why not the suave, fashion-led, indie-darling looks?

Because Kylie Jenner doesn’t align with the concept of the indie darling. She doesn’t fit the indie-darling fantasy—not because of identity, but because of the aesthetics she embodies.

It’s also why part of me can’t stand it. It doesn’t read as genuine. It reads as damage control. It’s “I want to keep my career, my female audience that made me famous and also my girlfriend.” And I think that’s fine. He shouldn’t be penalized in the eyes of the public for loving a bad bitch.

But stop trying to sell your audience bullshit. Timothée Chalamet was not always “down.” He was a corny white kid that got his start by kissing Armie Hammer in a movie. Shoutout Guadagnino. He can evolve, but should that evolution come at the hands of your girlfriend? Your girlfriend that’s simultaneously adjusting her image to fit yours, nonetheless?

To close out Black History Month, maybe this essay is just about cultural appropriation and its evolution. Timothée Chalamet is still corny. Kylie Jenner is still a white woman. And the #wigga act is annoying. If the Recording Academy just now gave Beyoncé AOTY, you might lose that Oscar, Timothée. And the way your girlfriend is perceived might be part of the problem.

The backlash isn’t about Kylie Jenner. It’s about how we still rank women in proximity to prestige. And until that changes, no amount of marketing rebrand is going to save anyone’s Oscar campaign.

Try again next year!

Warning: I have a very odd sense of humor so you may or may not find the following essay funny.

i. the era of longing

If you operated a Tumblr blog between the years of 2012–2015, you should be entitled to financial compensation.

Tumblr was a cesspool of drama. Imagine the worst teenage girls you know sitting in a group discussing their depression, self-harm habits, eating disorders, and Superwholock. Then multiply that by three, and you’re at the beginning stages of trying to understand Tumblr’s power in its heyday.

Looking back, I think having access to that much information likely didn’t help as I was going through puberty. I was definitely saving photos of girls with self-harm scars on their legs to my tablet.

(If you’re worried, I never actually was a cutter because I tried one time and it hurt, so I stopped. I did scratch myself with pen caps for attention. No one cared.)

Oh, and those pro-ana diet graphics that I never actually remembered to try.

G-Eazy said it himself: “I’m in love with those Tumblr girls with skinny waists and drug habits.” See what I mean?

Music was a defining cultural landmark for the average Tumblr user. Your iTunes probably went as follows:

1. Blue Jeans by Lana Del Rey

2. Video Games by Lana Del Rey

3. Teen Idle by Marina and the Diamonds

4. Sweater Weather by The Neighbourhood (honorable mention)

5. New Americana by Halsey

Tumblr didn’t invent female fragility. It curated it. It was cool and different to be the sad girl obsessed with her boyfriend or some random guy in her English class.

Were you really online if you weren’t ruining your own morning before even making it to first period? Sigh.

By the time Lana Del Rey arrived, the aesthetic of beautiful suffering had already been rehearsed. She simply gave it production value.

ii. lana as archetype: the patron saint of beautiful suffering and romantic devotion

I often wonder if Lana’s image is very good marketing or if she’s just simply… like that.

Her meteoric rise is similar to Gaga’s; she just happened to hit the scene at the height of something. For Gaga, the Internet was really taking off when Just Dance started receiving radio play. With Lana Del Rey, Tumblr was on the steep climb toward… something. Her appearance solidified it for what it was.

It established this generational idea for young women that to be in love was to suffer. You are designed to orbit this one man and hopefully he gives you love back. Even if he smacks you around a bit or calls you names, you earned a sliver of happiness for your efforts.

submission as romance

In 2012, empowerment was loud. “Lean in” feminism promised ambition, corporate dominance, self-branding. Pop music echoed it — roar louder, shake it off, run the world. “Girlbossing” was one of many phrases used to describe the corporate woman of the time:

Basically, women wanted to freely be bitches in corporate settings like men get to be. Ironically, it became a joke term used to describe white women who buy monogrammed pillows from Target and listen to Taylor Swift.

Lana did the opposite. She longed.

Lana Del Rey’s aesthetic was this amalgamation of Lolita, Americana, and the 1950s. Her entire first album seems to even be dedicated to the idea of Marilyn Monroe and Jackie O, who are, in their own right, tragic figures.

“He hit me and it felt like a kiss…”
“It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you… everything I do…”
“Love is mean, and love hurts…”

Critics called it anti-feminist. Teenagers called it honest.

Lana explores this cinematic drama on her album Born to Die — and it became the exact theme she was criticized for. There was no space for a woman to sing about how painful her love life seemed to be. No adult woman wanted to listen to a woman singing about the exploitative parts of heterosexual relationships. Or fantasizing about being a stripper (Gods & Monsters). Especially because women were not at that point culturally. Relationships were all sunshine and rose petals in 2012, and to suggest otherwise was unheard of.

In a way, it’s not really vulnerability, is it? Her lyrics describe a type of individual who centers their partner in everything: his approval, his violence, his absence. She describes the women, characters, or herself as these wild, free spirits who know nothing and long for everything.

Her music mimicked the intensity of many teen relationships. You fall fast, fall hard, and it explodes into a million little pieces of pixie dust. And in a way, that’s why she was so impactful. I keep hitting this idea with a hammer, but Lana Del Rey’s music was for teenagers. How vulnerable can a teenager be? What depth do they truly possess? The antics of the lovesick and downtrodden are really only normal at fourteen, but when you reach thirty, it might be time to grow up.

iii. why it worked then

Many critics argued that Lana Del Rey was anti-feminist, and from her own mouth, she kinda was.

In 2014, she told The Fader, “For me, the issue of feminism is just not an interesting concept… I’m more interested in, you know, SpaceX and Tesla, what’s going to happen with our intergalactic possibilities. Whenever people bring up feminism, I’m like, god. I’m just not really that interested.”

She added that her idea of a feminist is a woman who can do what she wants. And, sure. We must have different definitions of the word.

You take a depressed woman in her mid-20s, layer in music about abusive relationships and claims that she doesn’t care for feminism… come on, you have a recipe for disaster.

For millennial women, adulthood still promised the good job, the good husband, the neat conclusion. Lana’s fatalism clashed with that optimism. Boyfriend culture was very much aspirational, and dating apps were just beginning their ascent. For millennial women, the goal was to get the good job, the good husband, and settle down.

Now, you have “The Other Woman” singing on a public platform about not caring for your lifestyle and that she loves being a mess.

And according to Pitchfork, the music wasn’t that good anyway (Born to Die has a 5.5 rating).

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iv. the cultural shift

A decade later, the romantic landscape looks different.

Within the last few months, two articles have gone viral based on the state of relationships:

Chanté Joseph’s Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?

Bindu Bansinath’s I Love My Husband (Who Hates Me)

We’ve reached a fever pitch in conversations about “decentering men.” Women are acknowledging that many of their romantic prospects are kind of awful. Young men are leaning into the manosphere. Women are focusing on their careers. And we have reached a gendered cultural divide.

Where many women are typically willing to settle, we get short-form content of men essentially bullying their wives and women “ha-ha-ing” along with it. We’re seeing the reality of the woman’s “biological destiny” — unhappiness and burnout masked as contentment.

As a result, these unhappy wives and mothers kick and scream at single or child-free women, when they should probably just ask their husbands to pick up their socks.

What was once controversial is now absorbed into the mainstream. Once Tumblr fizzled out, the cultural urgency around that archetype did too. If Lana thrived in an era where romantic devotion felt aspirational, she now exists in a moment where romantic detachment feels intelligent. Perhaps that explains her country music pivot.

Lana Del Rey captured an era when longing felt like destiny. She turned romantic suffering into spectacle, into sound, into something girls could wrap around themselves. The hunger has shifted. The girl who once ruined her morning to Blue Jeans now wonders whether she needs a man to ruin it at all.

It was a joke about the dozens of women in the comments performing verbal gymnastics to justify the fact that they got married young — as if anyone personally cares what Nicole from Utah is doing at 22.

What surprised me wasn’t the disagreement. It was the ferocity.

Dozens of women, teeth bared, ready to call me everything but my name — over a man. Over their marriage. As if I had attended the wedding. As if I knew them. As if I cared.

I did not realize implying that marriage is not a personality trait would be taken as a personal attack.

Instead of defending myself to teenagers on the internet, I’ll offer some big-sister advice. It won’t be gentle. It might be rude. But it’s honest.

Some women should be wives and mothers. Truly. Cook the dinners. Make the beds. Chase the kids. Do it at 18, 20, or 22 — I genuinely do not give a shit.

Get married. Go in the house. Live your life.

But the second you log onto the internet and start foaming at the mouth because other women chose differently, you’ve already told on yourself.

Don’t hate-share. Don’t send it to the “mommies!! <3” group chat with a prayer emoji and a passive-aggressive sigh. Don’t convince yourself that curiosity is bitterness or that independence is a threat.

Accept your choice as a choice — not a crown.

Because the moment you need strangers to validate it, you’ve admitted it wasn’t enough on its own.

I am exhausted by the internet’s fake “sisterhood of the traveling pants” bullshit. Women are not especially kind to one another. We are competitive, defensive, and deeply unserious about our own insecurity — especially when we feel locked into a life we can’t revise.

Any time someone so much as raises an eyebrow at your decisions, suddenly they’re “single and bitter.”

Who said I was single?

And what exactly am I bitter about?

If your life is so fulfilling, why does a stranger’s throwaway comment unsettle you this much?

Getting married at 22 doesn’t make you superior. It doesn’t make you wiser. It doesn’t make you evolved.

It makes you married.

And if that sentence alone makes you angry, maybe I’m not the problem.

I try not to sound like a misogynist. Or an ice-cold judgmental bitch. I’m not above criticism — trust me, I have my own issues. I avoid conflict. I’m lazy about dating. My self-esteem is a work in progress. I am not a finished product pretending to lecture the masses.

What I do dislike — strongly — are women who pedestalize their roles as wives and mothers and then use them as moral leverage over other women.

Do you know what I actually see when I look at these women?

I don’t see women I envy. I see women who traded curiosity for certainty too early. Women whose friendships quietly evaporated. Whose ambitions got folded into “someday.” Women who haven’t been asked what they want in so long that the question itself feels insulting.

I see lives that shrink instead of expand.

And yes — that terrifies them.

When your entire identity is “someone’s wife” or “someone’s mom,” every other woman becomes a threat. Of course you assume everyone wants what you have. Of course you interpret difference as judgment. An understimulated mind will invent competition just to feel alive.

I’m not saying love is stupid. I’m not saying partnership is pointless.

I’m daring the modern woman to interrogate her relationship with herself.

Because it can’t always be about Todd.

Who the fuck is Todd?

Who are you?

What do you like when no one is watching? What do you want that isn’t socially approved? What brings you joy? What scares you? What did you give up without realizing it?

Women are socialized to stop being curious about their interior lives the moment they are chosen. And that is devastating.

I don’t care that much about teenagers being mad that I said marrying your boyfriend young is boring.

I care that women would rather dismiss uncomfortable ideas than sit with the possibility that they built their entire identity around a role instead of a self.

Women don’t fail because they choose marriage or motherhood.

We fail when we confuse a role with a personality — and then attack anyone who reminds us there could have been more.

Gone are the days when making a fuck ton of money was the goal for women. I grew up wanting to be a journalist or a lawyer in New York City. I figured I would live in Tribeca and be decked out in designer. Very CBK, if you will.

I remember when it was all about being “fabulous,” and it was chic that you couldn’t keep a man. Now teenagers are hootin and hollerin about getting married young. Good lord, conservatism is back, y’all.

(The concept of Charli XCX’s Everything is Romantic playing in the trailer of a “Wuthering Heights” adaptation. )

This movie is a snooze. Like, aggressively boring.

I’m not even going to get into the novel because honestly, who cares. I’ve never actually read it. I’m judging what’s on screen. And what’s on screen is two people who’ve known each other their entire lives (and let’s be real, the half-sibling vibes are doing some heavy lifting) waiting until adulthood to suddenly start fucking like rabbits.

Why?

We’re told it’s class. Heathcliff is poor. Okay. But nobody said they had to get married. And that excuse immediately falls apart when the maid marries well and disappears halfway through the movie.

Nelly exists only to be mean and block communication. She burns letters, talks shit, keeps them apart — but why does Heathcliff just… accept this? He had no issue sleeping with Cathy while her husband was literally in the next room. But now suddenly he respects boundaries?

Also. Five miles. In England. On horseback. Is that not, like, an afternoon?

Isabella’s character is another mess. And that accent? Some weird “chav check” English thing that was so distracting I stopped paying attention. As an American, I don’t know regional accents — but I do know when something feels weirdly modern. It felt very 2026.

Margot Robbie is beautiful. She is also way too old to be playing Cathy. I’m sorry. Watching crow’s feet talk about souls and soulmates completely took me out. If Cathy reads as young on the page, then this performance just makes her seem immature and kind of silly.

They also have zero sexual chemistry. Honestly, zero chemistry at all. This is what I think Gen Z actually means when they complain about sexual content in media — not because it’s awkward or taboo, but because it sucks. Where is the eroticism? Instead, I spent two hours and sixteen minutes watching Jacob Elordi stick his fingers in Margot Robbie’s mouth with zero emotional payoff. Oh — and they don’t even take their clothes off. BOOOOOOOOO.

I’m also really tired of the industry force-feeding me “leading men” who can’t act. There is no Denzel or DiCaprio for Gen Z. You cannot convince me that Jacob Elordi or Timothée Chalamet fit that bill. Maybe that’s a longer essay about celebrity and constant accessibility — but still.

And yes, I hated Promising Young Woman and Saltburn. I find Emerald Fennell’s writing limited and oddly juvenile for an adult woman. Her understanding of interpersonal relationships feels shallow and lame.

This was “Wuthering Heights” the way it would be if you skimmed a SparkNotes summary.

(Also, I don’t know if they were doing BDSM in the 1800s…?)

2/5.

The 2 is for cinematography and costuming.

What a fucking snooze.

It took me six hours of starting and stopping this movie to finally finish it. I shoveled twice, washed my hair, made dinner and still had thirty agonizing minutes left to get through.

After the Hunt cannot seem to decide on its point. It refuses to make a decision about how it feels about the sexual assault. It attempts to criticize gender politics with many odd comments from supposed intellectuals.

All on the cushy, very-liberal campus of Yale University.

That’s why I find the plot confusion to be so odd. It feels as though the answer to the question is obvious and writer Nora Garrett has no interest in answering it.

The highlights of the film are the dedicated performances from Garfield and Roberts. Unfortunately, Ayo Edebiri is entirely too wooden to be taken seriously as a drama actor.

Her line delivery always annoys me — she delivers like she can’t still believe that she was somehow allowed on a film set. And neither can I.

I’m finishing this essay weeks later and I can’t tell you what the point of the movie was. I will say that Luca Guadagnino is reaching his limit, I fear.

Perhaps, it’s time for a break. Challengers was fine. I went into it expecting full-blown sexiness and got PG-13. I cut off Bones and All when she bit that poor girl’s finger off.

The last few movies of his were essentially two hour long Loewe advertisements. Roberts, Edebiri, and Garfield looked amazing. Hair included.

I find this to be the issue with a lot of films this past year — they want to say something, but fall short. Why? Is it a culture thing? Women’s rights? The “woke mob?”

Why are we so afraid of saying, “Rape is bad, and those Gen Z kids are annoying but also right?”

After the Hunt left a very sour taste in my mouth. I was bored, unconvinced, and unmoved. That’s the review.

I. Opening

Fame is built on desire.

The desire to be seen, to be chosen, to be forgiven when the culture inevitably turns. Most pop stars spend their entire careers either chasing that desire or bracing for its expiration date.

Beyoncé does neither.

She does not ask for relevance, nor does she fear irrelevance. Her work arrives complete—unbothered by reaction, immune to backlash. She exists in what I can only describe as the afterlife of fame: a space beyond audience approval, where success is no longer fragile and attention is no longer currency.

Pop superstardom requires accessibility.

In the early 2000s, that access was mediated—tabloid covers at the Walmart checkout lane, a carefully managed TRL appearance. Today, access is constant. With the click of an app, you can track your favorite celebrities in real time. Their thoughts, homes, relationships, and insecurities are all available. They are no longer aspirational. They are, in many ways, normal.

Famous women are expected to want the audience.

They thank us. They reassure us. “I wouldn’t be here without my fans.”

Famous women are expected to need forgiveness.

They apologize preemptively. They self-flagellate. I understand I’m a role model.

Famous women are expected to perform relatability—inviting fans into their homes, planting Easter eggs in their work, writing songs about high school heartbreak well into their mid-thirties, clinging to youth because the industry has taught them that relevance has an expiration date.

You are either young and on the cusp, or aging and expendable.

In an industry as cutthroat as entertainment, women are told they expire at thirty.

Beyoncé is the anomaly.

Not because she is more famous—but because we do not really know her. And that is not an accident. It is the design.

II. From Woman to Institution

After the release of BEYONCÉ in 2013, she largely ceased participating in the traditional celebrity economy. No confessional interviews. No explanatory press tours. No attempts to narrate her own image in real time.

In the age of Substack posts and TikTok captions, we are reminded daily how easily words are misinterpreted. You can say you like pancakes and someone will ask why you think people who enjoy waffles deserve to die.

Now imagine that impulse—misreading, projecting, demanding clarification—at a global scale.

How do you remain true to yourself in an industry built on misunderstanding?

You limit access.

In another reality, her career might have ended quietly after 4. After I Am… Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé was exhausted. She fired her father as her manager and retreated in search of creative clarity. The result was 4—a soul-driven return to classic R&B that many critics dismissed as underwhelming.

In 2011, the consensus was lukewarm. 4 was good, but not groundbreaking. Beyoncé sounded incredible—because of course she did—but the music felt out of step with its moment. The pop landscape was dominated by EDM maximalism: Avicii, Calvin Harris, Swedish House Mafia. The culture was partying. Club music ruled. Beyoncé’s restraint read as absence.

By 2011, Beyoncé the celebrity was beginning to fade.

By 2014, she would no longer be one.

When you occupy that level of cultural altitude, people begin waiting for you to fall.

Around Beyoncé, rumor doesn’t circulate—it metastasizes. Conspiracies fill the vacuum where access should be. She is accused of worshipping Satan. Of being part of the Illuminati. Of faking her first pregnancy. Of moving through the same shadowy social circles as disgraced men. The theories are often absurd, sometimes grotesque, and always revealing.

What matters is not that these rumors exist—but that she never corrects them.

She does not sit down for a clarifying interview. She does not rehabilitate her image in real time. She does not explain herself to Diane Sawyer or Dateline, the way Britney was once made to. She does not offer a carefully managed apology tour, the way Rihanna was forced to after 2009.

Instead, she withholds.

When Beyoncé finally offers access, it arrives years later, transmuted into art. You learn about her miscarriages long after the grief has been metabolized. You learn about the fractures in her marriage only after they’ve been reframed as myth, confession, and survival. Her interiority is never raw—it is processed, curated, and intentional.

Many artists today prefer you to suffer alongside them in real time.

Beyoncé insists on privacy until pain can be shaped into meaning.

That delay is not coldness.

It is authorship.

III. Scale, Distance, and the Evidence of Containment

Meanwhile, compare her to the pop stars of today. We live in an attention economy. I could open Instagram and scroll through dozens of photos of Dua Lipa on vacation. Sabrina Carpenter and her friends in Paris or spilling out of some NYC nightclub. Artists in their bedrooms, half-asleep, mid-workout, offering intimacy as proof of authenticity.

Accessibility has replaced mystique. Overexposure is framed as honesty.

By contrast, Beyoncé’s Instagram is curated and edited. You don’t catch her living her life in real time. When a photo surfaces of her on vacation, it doesn’t feel exciting—it feels like a violation. Even the phrase “Beyoncé in the wild” carries an instinctive sense of disrespect, as if the public has crossed a boundary it knows exists.

That boundary is not symbolic. It is logistical.

Beyoncé has spoken about arriving at events in disguises. There are documented moments of award shows pausing as lines form simply to meet her. She cannot attend public events without separation, security choreography, and containment—not as spectacle, but as necessity.

I could dedicate paragraphs to her cultural impact—how she reshaped album releases, redefined modern performance, and altered the visual language of pop. But that scale is precisely why comparisons become unavoidable.

This is why arguments erupt when she is placed alongside Taylor Swift. Why people reach for Michael Jackson when trying to contextualize her. Not because the careers are identical—but because the distance is.

Fame at that altitude stops functioning like celebrity and starts functioning like containment.

We don’t know Beyoncé because access to her has been structurally eliminated. Her life is sealed so her work can endure. In a culture that demands constant explanation, her refusal to explain herself has become the point.

She didn’t disappear.

She transcended the need to be known.

Introduction

It’s been a few weeks and I feel as though I can finally confess.

I really did not care for the Stranger Things ending.

Ten years of build-up for a forty-five minute epilogue that read like a first draft. And I saw it in theaters. If I had watched it at home, I would have turned it off.

The writing is one thing. The choice they make for Eleven is the bigger problem.

Female martyrdom is when a story treats a woman’s body as the receipt for everyone else’s closure. Her pain becomes a public resource. Her death becomes social repair.

And it ties into my previous essay, Sex, Survival and the Death of the Final Girl. The Final Girl is a myth now.

Eleven sacrifices herself with the lazy excuse that “it won’t end if I’m still alive,” which—due to the Duffer Brothers’ writing—may or may not even be true. But that’s almost beside the point. The point is that the story can’t imagine her living. It can only imagine her useful.

There are arguments against reading it this way—it’s not their moral responsibility, it’s fiction, people need to “grow up”—but I disagree.

The media we consume shapes how we understand the world. So why do so many stories keep reinforcing the same idea: that women don’t get bodily autonomy, they get narrative utility? That the first “choice” a powerful girl makes for herself is to end her life for the benefit of everyone else?

That’s not a twist. That’s a tragedy.

Eleven and Elphaba spend their narrative arcs being manipulated, lied to, and tortured by the people around them. And when they’re finally granted a sliver of autonomy, they use it to disappear.

Both endings are technically ambiguous, but the messaging is clear. You do not exist to be happy. You exist to teach everyone else resilience. You exist to make other people better. And then you vanish—quietly, conveniently—before anyone has to do the hard work of accountability.

As a girl, imagine how that lands in your chest. You spend two hours or ten years watching, hoping, cheering for this underdog—this girl who is bullied, misunderstood, treated like a monster—and you identify with her struggle, even if you don’t want to admit it.

And then she “chooses” death.

Everyone smiles, grateful they got to know you, grateful your suffering made them softer, wiser, redeemed. While you’re just gone. And no one has to apologize for not being a better friend. No one has to show up for you. Hell, we don’t even see anyone publicly mourn you.

That’s the function of female martyrdom: it lets the community feel cleansed without anyone changing.

Are women born wicked?

Neither Elphaba nor Eleven gets a normal childhood.

Elphaba is tormented for the color of her skin. She’s ostracized, and the onset of her powers doesn’t improve her life—it makes her easier to fear. She’s publicly humiliated by Glinda and her followers, who successfully turn the rest of the student body against her.

Her relief from misery is temporary. A few months after she finally makes friends, she fulfills her one true wish: she meets the Wizard. And the moment she refuses to sacrifice her autonomy—refuses to become a tool—she is immediately rebranded. Not complicated. Not human. Wicked.

She spends the remaining years of her life hiding and on the run. She never gives up her fight for Animal rights. And when the Wizard finally falls, Elphaba still cannot safely remain in Oz. The citizens still believe she’s a criminal—and despite Glinda offering to tell Oz the truth, Elphaba declines.

Glinda enjoys the glory of saving Oz, while Fiyero and Elphaba disappear together forever. Glinda is the only one who knows—and the only one who is devastated by it.

Stranger things have happened

Eleven spends her entire life being experimented on and manipulated. She experiences moments of joy with her friends, with Hopper—what it means to be truly a part of something good.

The choice to end her life didn’t belong to Eleven. She decides the horror won’t stop if she remains alive, and maybe that’s true. Maybe the military would have hunted her down, or the Upside Down would have made some dramatic reappearance—but how depressing is that as a moral?

The girl spends her life tormented and all she gets in the end is death. Not even a funeral. Hardly a thank you.

Meanwhile, Max—who was in a coma for two years—gets to graduate and walk again. Will and Dustin go off to college. Mike tells the story and becomes a writer.

Sure, Eleven’s death benefits the “greater good.” But she was still a person. She had an interior world. She had wants and dreams. And it all gets reduced to a conclusion that feels less like catharsis and more like convenience.

If you’re a survivor or a victim of bullying—don’t look to media to comfort you. Your favorite show might still insist your suffering only ends once you’re gone.

The third act problem

We see this standard in other films too: Promising Young Woman, Don’t Worry Darling.

There’s no longer an acceptable cultural ideal of a woman surviving—of a woman fighting for her right to her own life and actually getting to keep it. Triumph becomes an afterthought, or it’s withheld entirely.

Promising Young Woman lands on a sexually violent final act that ends with the lead character’s death. Her murderer is also the man who raped her best friend. Neither woman lives to see justice prevail. I remember finishing the movie and being left with a sour taste in my mouth—not because it was bleak, but because it felt like the story needed a dead woman to make the point stick.

Don’t Worry Darling spends its runtime following Alice as she tries to uncover the mystery behind the Victory Project. The movie ends ambiguously—the audience doesn’t get to see if she escapes the simulation or is simply recaptured. A woman has her autonomy stripped from her by her man-baby husband, and we don’t even get the dignity of watching her survive.

I believe media reflects our cultural ideals. We’re in politically trying times. Women’s rights are being stripped away as I type this. ICE is separating families and murdering civilians.

To watch our media lean so heavily into themes of death and lack of bodily autonomy is scary. It feels final. It feels reinforcing. It feels like some weird form of propaganda: make the masses comfortable with conformity and they will eventually comply.

Incels. Podcast culture. Neonazism. Fascism. We’re spinning around and around in a circle.

The rebellion of the nasty woman!

But on the flip side, there’s a rebellion occurring among women. We’re actively rejecting the ideal that keeps getting forced down our throats.

“Nasty, nasty bad pop girls” like Addison Rae and Charli XCX embracing vulnerability and the complexity of being a woman—not a girl, but a woman.

“Messy woman” literature—Ottessa Moshfegh, I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy, My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin—books that are curious about the female experience. It’s not perfect and that’s the point.

We have books and films about motherhood and postpartum psychosis, such as Die, My Love and Nightbitch. Women are waking up and saying—wait, I can want more? More life, more love, more sex, more silence? I’m not just a functioning vessel for everyone else to use for their own gain? And as a woman myself, I think that’s pretty fucking cool.

Hell hath no fury, as they say. The feminists of the 1970s had the Final Girl. Debate about how “feminist” the trope is is more than fair. But it was kick-ass for the sole survivor to be a female. Everyone else got sliced and diced, but the “weaker sex” lived on to tell the tale.

I think our radical, messy woman will do the same. I think women will do what we always do: we’ll grieve for each other, fight for each other, and make sure our ideas live on.

Introduction

The Final Girl was a staple character trope in the slasher genre. She survived despite the odds being stacked against her and successfully evaded her captor or outright killed him. As the slasher genre dies, so does the Final Girl. Where does that leave women in horror? It leaves women in an awkward in-between space of political correctness and poor storytelling.

The Final Girl survives, but not triumphantly.

Promising Young Woman, Don’t Worry Darling and Blink Twice will be used as examples of “new age” horror films or “social thrillers,” that feature final girls who do survive the omnipresent final boss (a misogyny/sexist/racist monster,) but at the cost of their sanity. These films highlight cultural fears of denial of bodily autonomy, which has been a consistent presence since the 2016 Presidential election and the eventual overturn of Roe v. Wade.

The Final Girl survived a period of cultural fears surrounding teen promiscuity and corruption of the youth from the 1970s into the late 2000s. Many argue that she does not have a place in feminism. Still, I say that the Final Girl and her status can be used to identify where America has landed culturally on feminist topics. Horror films of the 2020s have landed here -- women must accept that they live in a patriarchal society and if they refuse, violence will be the outcome.

The media that misses the point

Promising Young Woman, a social thriller released in 2020 was the feature directorial debut of Emerald Fennell. It starred Carey Mulligan as Cassandra, a woman who lost her best friend, Nina, to suicide after she was raped in college. Cassandra works in a coffee shop and spends her nights pretending to be publicly intoxicated and threatening anyone who attempts to take advantage of her sexually.

The film was marketed as a “revenge” film, where it was implied that Cassandra was murdering the men she was taking home. In the trailer, she even keeps a tally in a journal of her encounters. By the end of the movie, Cassandra discovers that Nina’s rapist is having his bachelor party at a remote cabin in the woods. She poses as a stripper, drugs the other men attending, and manages to tie up the rapist. The audience gets a monologue about rape culture and sexual assault, which amounts to nothing because Nina’s rapist breaks free and murders Cassandra.

As we near the end of the film with no conflict resolution, it’s revealed at the wedding reception (as police come to arrest everyone involved in Cassandra’s murder) that Cassandra notified people of her whereabouts and what likely happened to her. Nina’s story starts where it began, and Cassandra loses her life as a result with no justice for either party.

Don’t Worry Darling, a social thriller released in 2022, was the “sophomore slump” of Olivia Wilde’s directing career. It starred Florence Pugh and Harry Styles as a happily married couple living in a 1950s-Palm Springs-esque community where Pugh’s character realizes something is not quite “right.”

Our female lead discovers a world-shattering secret; her husband has placed her into a simulated 1950s reality. In the real world, she’s a doctor which keeps her from taking care of her husband and the home. In the spec script, she almost breaks free from the simulated reality. She kills her husband in the simulation and the real world but passes out and wakes up again in the simulation strapped to a hospital bed. It’s 1954, so she’s promptly locked away in a psych ward until an old friend visits her and points her toward a way out.  The motivations of the characters are fleshed out and less sympathetic; you actively hate the husbands from the very beginning. Her escape is also much more daring and violent; she sodomizes her husband to give herself enough time to reach the exit. The final film ending is much more ambiguous. She still murders her husband and is chased to the exit, but the screen cuts to black before confirming her escape.

Blink Twice, another social thriller released this past August marked Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut. It’s a film about a woman named Frida and her best friend, Jess who are both invited to travel to the island of tech-billionaire Slater King. The “twist” is revealed in the second act; the women on the island are being systematically drugged and raped every night. A second twist is revealed, Frida had already been to the island once before. Chaos ensues and people die, except the main perpetrator, Slater King is allowed to walk away with his life. Frida drugs King marries him and takes over his company in the name of “revenge,” but the viewer doesn’t get to see what happens beyond that.

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The cultural death of the Final Girl

A common thread throughout all three of these films is that the Final Girl doesn’t survive her ordeal triumphantly. She doesn’t sprint toward the last few minutes narrowly escaping, rather she’s knocked out cold and dragged back inside the haunted house.

In the 1970s with the burgeoning sexual revolution, the horror genre was used as a tool to remind women of the punishment that came with being a sexual being. In “Men, Women and Chainsaws” by Carol J. Clover, the Final Girl is described as, “the Girl Scout, the bookworm, the mechanic, and unlike her girlfriends, she is not sexually active.” The Final Girl doesn’t necessarily need to be a virginal damsel, but she does reject male attention in any form.

She is intelligent, resourceful, and even paranoid; she notices the things her friends seem to miss (pg. 39). In the 1970s when women were finally allowed the right to access safe and legal abortion, our media condemned the idea of the “morally loose” woman.

The audience quickly comes to understand that femininity ensures exploitation; masculinity ensures a fighting chance at survival.

In 2024, in an allegedly progressive, sexually-free cultural landscape that claims to admonish sexual predation, there has been a consistent theme in the media we consume. In the 2020s, the slasher genre has become irrelevant, and the social thriller has taken its place. Cassandra, Alice, and Frida are three beautiful women who have their sexuality displayed wantonly on screen. Cassandra uses her body and beauty to trick men into taking her home; Alice and Jack spend much of the film having non-penetrative sex in various parts of their simulated reality; and Frida desperately wants the power she assumes will come from having a relationship with Slater King. Sex is the central theme in each of these films as they highlight the power imbalances between the characters.

If Promising Young Woman had been released in the 1970s, it would have been the box office flop, I Spit on Your Grave. Promising Young Woman was intended to highlight the subtle evilness of your average drunk man in a bar.

I Spit on Your Grave violently positions the brutal rape front and center in the film. The audience understands that this is a woman that has been attacked and humiliated and she’s rising from the dead for revenge.

Promising Young Woman doesn’t explicitly say the word rape or even show the violence on screen, but once Cassandra discovers her best friend’s attack was recorded, you finally come to understand what happened as the viewer.

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In Don’t Worry Darling, Alice’s entire existence in the simulated reality denies her autonomy over her life. Alice and Jack don’t have penetrative sex in the film to reinforce the idea that the “power” belongs to Alice. An argument can be made that all the sex in the film is essentially rape; Alice never consented to be in that world to begin with.

In Blink Twice, Frida craves power and obsesses over her proximity to it. Within the first few minutes of the film, she conveniently winds up in the orbit of tech-billionaire Slater King.

They share laughs, they drink, and Frida is quickly invited to a getaway on his remote island. In a not-so-shocking twist, it is revealed that Slater King and the other men on the island have been drugging and raping the women every single night that they’ve been there.

Zoe Kravitz does an excellent job at creating a level of claustrophobic terror; Frida realizes something is amiss but isn’t quite sure what and ignores it. She even goes as far as to show the violence on screen, and it is a very anxiety-inducing few seconds. Women are running away and screaming in terror but are quickly caught and dragged back.

The women finally wake up from the drug-induced haze they’ve been under, and violence erupts. Everyone dies, but Frida goes out of her way to preserve Slater’s life. The film ends in a very confusing tone, Frida has been drugging Slater, marries him, and runs his company.

All three female leads present as the archetypal Final Girl. Cassandra and Frida are both cunning, cruel women and the real version of Alice is a strong career woman.

While the Final Girl isn’t designed to be a sexual being it can be argued it is because of the time the trope debuted in. The idea of the virginal Final Girl does not hold up because America is much less conservative than it was in the 1970s and even early 2000s. The consistent ambiguity in these films leaves the audience confused about its themes, thus continuing to perpetuate rape culture.

In Promising Young Woman, the audience is told that survivors of sexual assault can only receive justice in death. The filmmakers of Don’t Worry Darling seemingly struggled to find an appropriate way to conclude the story. Rather than highlight the fear of being denied bodily autonomy, Wilde’s directing preferred to highlight the open display of female pleasure. Blink Twice is another example of a film struggling to find a way to appropriately conclude its story. The audience is told that survivors will be unaffected by their trauma if they receive a big payday in return, which was a common argument made during the height of #MeToo.

Additionally, Blink Twice was originally titled Pussy Island, which tested poorly but would have been more fitting given the plot of the film. The consensus was that the word was too inappropriate and reduced women to only their bodies (which is almost the entire point.)

Culturally, horror films have always reflected what we were most afraid of. In a Vox article from 2016, the home invasion was a consistent theme in horror. That year was a presidential election year that highlighted the fears of many white Americans and claims spouted by the Republican party; nameless, faceless people of color invading their spaces. It is an easy metaphor for the fear of foreigners.

In June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Since then, we have gotten horror movies, such as Blink Twice, Immaculate, The Omen and so on that exemplify this cultural fear of unwanted pregnancy and motherhood.

Where are you going, where have you been?

It will be argued that the films mentioned above are a byproduct of a post-#MeToo world and rape culture. We claim to admonish sexual predation and believe survivors, but the ending of these films suggests otherwise culturally. Promising Young Woman only seeks justice for its survivors in death. Don’t Worry Darling does not allow the audience to see justice for the sole survivor at all. We’re not even told what happens to the other women still trapped. Blink Twice walks a thin line between empowerment and subjugation.

  Perhaps, there is no place for a Final Girl in our current political climate. There is no space where a woman can successfully overcome the killer in a social thriller because the killer is still at large and a being she cannot actively see. Rather, we do not allow her to harm the ones that work on behalf of the “killer,” but destroy her instead if she dares to survive.

I’m rewatching Sex and the City (as one does) and I’m finally realizing how much these women kind of suck.

I know Carrie writes a sex column and her relationships are her thing, but damn, does this bitch have a hobby that’s not Mr. Big or smoking? Like does she do Pilates? Does she read a book? Does she have a plant? A cause? Anything? The second time she breaks up with Big after he leaves for Paris, she spends weeks shit-talking him to her friends until they finally tell her to shut the hell up. Carrie thinks he’s so boring and so old and he has to be himself and she gets to be her and blah, blah, blah. The conversation was very reminiscent of a conversation I would have now with my friends at 23.

The most embarrassing scene in the second season is the finale when she catches Big after his engagement party and asks, “Why wasn’t it me?” THEN, she says, “Your girl is lovely, Hubbell,” and when Big responds with obvious confusion (as a man does) she responds, “You never did understand.”

Mind you, Carrie is in her early-30s. These are thoughts grown women should keep amongst their friends or in their heads, not say out loud like you’re auditioning for the role of Most Tortured Person Alive at a stranger’s engagement party.

And don’t get me wrong—this rewatch isn’t making me Team Big. If anything, it’s making me realize Big is exactly what men have always been: a guy who likes having a pretty, wild, funny woman around as long as he gets to feel smarter than her.

Even so, I don’t fully buy into the idea that Mr. Big never loved Carrie. He obviously cares for her and enjoys her company. However, there are subtle instances that make it clear he doesn’t really know her. In Season 2, Big buys Carrie that god-awful sparkly bird purse and claims, “It reminded me of you.” Like… okay. First of all, that purse should be tried at The Hague. Second of all, “it reminded me of you” is what men say when they don’t know anything about you besides “tiny” and “chaotic.”

During their arguments you can honestly tell he thinks she’s quite dumb or flat out naive. He talks down to her constantly and always dismisses her feelings. He tells her “you don’t understand” or “you don’t know what you’re talking about” and Carrie’s inner monologue is actually agreeing with him, which is insane. That dynamic is not sexy. It’s emotional hospice care.

Emotionally unavailable men breadcrumb you to death until you finally say I’m sick of this, and then they magically become the most present, devoted man on Earth the second you move on. When Big saw that Carrie moved on he immediately did what he could to ruin it.

He acted like his hands were tied when he decided to marry Natasha and all but shrugged his shoulders when Carrie found out. He knew Carrie wouldn’t be able to resist because maybe he would actually change this time for her. Maybe this time she’ll be worthy enough for him to establish their relationship.

Meanwhile he dismisses her feelings constantly—when she wants to meet his mother, when she says “I love you” and he doesn’t say it back, when she’s tired of him looking at other women. Big never did anything to reassure Carrie that he actually wanted to be with her.

But here’s the part that makes this show sting when you rewatch it with a frontal lobe: Carrie clearly had insecurities and inadequacies that surpassed anything Big was capable of fixing. Carrie very much needed therapy, but even ruins that in Season 2 by sleeping with an alcoholic she met in the office. Carrie is the type to go to therapy and treat it like a creative writing workshop.

There are so many instances where these women could have actually been happy. Carrie could have been very happy with Aidan, but she ruined it by cheating with Mr. Big—because Carrie herself is not emotionally available. From one avoidant to another, I recognize the signs.

Yes, Carrie is vocal about her feelings with Big, but she plays emotional mind games first. It’s a vulnerability fake-out. You share select things to ease that sense of detachment and loneliness, to feel as though you’re trying to connect, but you still get to stay emotionally safe. It’s minimizing risk and maintaining control. Miranda and Samantha do this too. In fact, Charlotte is the only character that ends up truly happy because she goes all in. She’s annoying sometimes, but she’s the only one who doesn’t treat intimacy like a hostage negotiation.

When Carrie has the opportunity to even be remotely happy she sabotages it because she feels emotionally unsafe. She knows what to expect with Mr. Big and deep down she knew he wouldn’t show up at the altar to marry her. She knew he wouldn’t want to move in with her. She chooses these things because I can guarantee it would hurt her a lot more if Aidan decided he suddenly didn’t want her, so she decides for him first. It’s “I can’t get left if I leave first” with a designer shoe budget.

As I rewatch shows I really had no business watching at 15, I realize how much these women actually suck. Miranda is a miserable, angry person, Carrie and Samantha are both insecure, male-identified women and Charlotte is the only one I actually like. Don’t even get me started on the women of Girls. They are such awful people and even shittier friends. Hannah Horvath is the entire reason I took a step back and finally realized my self-loathing comes across as narcissism. Self-obsession is only cool in your 20s and starts to get tacky in your 30s. Carrie Bradshaw the millennial, hipster nerd generation would have loved your newsletter.

If you know me personally, you know I’m a certified man-hater (you can trademark that). I even wrote an entire Substack post about it—but here’s the truth: I don’t actually hate men. I love the seemingly perfect ones that grace my screen and say the right things to win over the stubborn female lead. What can I say? I’m a hopeless romantic with a violent allergy to real-life dating.

As a little girl, you grow up believing Mr. Right will eventually come find you, sweep you off your feet, and take you far, far away from your boring life. Your life doesn’t really start until you meet him—and in the meantime, you just kind of wander around bumping into things.

Mr. Right is funny, smart, gainfully employed, takes you out on actual dates, and calls when he says he’s going to. He’s not cheating, not emotionally unavailable, and he’s weirdly obsessed with you—to the point of it being semi-annoying. As I get older, I realize either being stubborn isn’t “sexy” like it is in the movies, or Mr. Right is a myth. Considering I’m a woman and therefore always right, I’m going with the latter.

Oh dearly beloved, sweet Aidan Shaw. Carrie didn’t deserve you. Who wouldn’t want a 6’5” handsome man with an actual adult job who builds furniture and loves you? Carrie looked at a man who can sand wood and communicate and said, “No, actually, I’d prefer a guy who treats me like an optional subscription.”

Haters will say Edward Cullen is abusive, and maybe they have a point, but I disagree. You’re just not evolved like me, sorry. Who wouldn’t want pure love and devotion and a dramatic suicide attempt because he thought you died? (Kidding. Mostly.)

When I was fifteen, I watched Girls on HBO for the first time and thought it changed my life. Adam and Hannah seemed perfect for each other. He was attentive—most of the time—funny, and attractive in a strange, wounded-dog sort of way. But rewatching it now? He didn’t have a full-time job, pushed her boundaries constantly, and was flat-out selfish. Lena Dunham might be one of the most annoying white women on the planet, but she can write the hell out of a show. That one scene where Hannah says she’s tired of being self-aware and wants to be happy? Still hits.

As I rewatch shows like this, I can’t help but think about my own life and how much growing I still have left to do. Why do I find the always-angry, emotionally stunted men attractive? And what does it say about me?

I’ve never known love to be easy. I’ve never seen anyone close to me experience a relationship that didn’t come with cheating, lying, abuse, or just… silence. Eventually, the woman caves—not out of love, but out of fear of being alone. And the compromise always falls on her. It’s her career. Her time. Her money.

Love just always seemed like a punishment for women. So I never thought it was worth the effort.

I also just haven’t met anyone worth trying for. I don’t have the emotional capacity required for dating. I don’t think most men are that funny or that interesting. And I have no interest in sifting through garbage just to find a diamond.

As little girls, we’re told “wait for your knight in shining armor—he’ll come for you!” But what if he doesn’t? Or what if he does, and he’s just an asshole? Why should I wait for someone to save me from my allegedly boring, unfulfilled life?

I think the most important work any woman can do in her life is redirect her energy positively—so she can pick the Aidan Shaws and Seth Cohens of the world. You deserve someone who is sure about you the first time your eyes meet—not someone who just settles because they can’t seem to get rid of you.

Introduction

Pop music is no longer a genre — it’s a system. And I can feel the system working on my brain in real time.

This series has been an effort to show you how it used to function: you walked into the industry with moldable talent and a desire for fame, and emerged an icon.
Britney. Miley. Taylor. Rihanna. Ariana.

Labels used to manufacture icons; now the algorithm manufactures visibility — and we mistake visibility for iconhood. And fame is not the same thing as a popstar.

The popstar has mutated into something faster, closer, more participatory, more disposable: part musician, part meme, part brand, part ongoing livestream of a self.

the algorithmic accident

Coincidentally, that is exactly what happened to Addison Rae. She tapped into the feed long before she ever picked up a microphone.

If there’s a 2020s term for TikTok stars akin to the “Brat Pack” of the 1980s, that would be Addison’s claim to fame. She was your average pretty girl with an iPhone recording videos of herself dancing during the pandemic. There were at least a dozen copies of her at the time — same ring light, same choreography, same bedroom background — and most of them slowly faded into an abstract irrelevancy.

Addison didn’t. And it wasn’t because she was the most talented or the most interesting. It’s because she was willing to pivot — and embarrass herself in the process.

It reminds me of this quote from Beyoncé about artists being afraid to rehearse:

“This is why people don’t like to rehearse. You gotta be humble. You gotta be willing to look awkward and you gotta study. Be a student.”

The willingness to be vulnerable with your mediocrity — this is why Beyoncé is the greatest living performer of our time. Not that any of these women are mediocre, but none of us are masters of our crafts when we’re just beginning. The internet has just decided you should be. Immediately. On camera.

The TikTok algorithm swept Addison Rae up and she almost got lost in it. So she did what the new popstar is trained to do: she mutated. Quickly, she made her pivot into acting. He’s All That, Thanksgiving — the key to longevity is being hard to miss.

Her first foray into music spawned “Obsessed,” a dated TikTok clip-farming song about being obsessed with yourself. She followed it up with an EP that was openly mocked on Twitter and turned into a meme. Overall, it was terrible and her heart clearly wasn’t in it — but the bones for who Addison Rae is today were there.

After that, her projects continued to garner the same reviews: Addison Rae actually isn’t that bad. Her acting was okay and we’ve seen worse. Her singing was forgettable, but she’s a decent dancer. Which sounds like a drag, but in the algorithm era it’s basically a compliment. “Actually not that bad” is how you survive.

So she went back to the drawing board and completely reinvented herself. She overhauled from the pretty “baddie” Instagram aesthetic into this esoteric freak weird girl who’s obsessed with Britney and meditation. And somehow it worked. It worked so well that now I’m sitting here like: wait. Addison Rae is kind of an icon, actually.

Her appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon is what convinced me to take her seriously. She’s not the strongest singer, but she’s a performer. And I could feel her passion for her craft behind my iPhone screen.

The next day I listened to Addison in its entirety on my way to and from Pilates.

Addison Rae isn’t the best at any one thing, but she’s the most adaptable — and that’s the new definition of talent. She’s not chasing pop; she’s proving she can’t be deleted.

the algorithmic mutation

If Addison is the algorithm’s accident, Charli XCX is the algorithm’s mutation on purpose.

Charli dominated last summer. If TikTok and Twitter hadn’t joined forces within the last few years, Brat probably would have come and gone like her last few albums — beloved by the people who already love her, invisible to everyone else.

But Charli promoted Brat in a way that zeroed in on the meme-ability of the concept. After the cover went viral, she and Atlantic dropped a “Brat generator” website so anyone could make their own version. She turned the album into a language. Everyone wanted to be considered “brat.”

It meant you were cool, messy, and hedonistic but in a fun way. High fashion, but drugged out. You care about nothing, but everything all at once. It was an identity you could try on for the weekend — like a micro-era you didn’t have to earn.

And that’s the magic of Brat: underneath the chaos, there’s an undercurrent of honesty and insecurity laced throughout the record. “Sympathy is a Knife” is so deeply vulnerable. The brand works because it’s not just branding. It’s real. It’s performance, but it’s not hollow.

Charli successfully morphed Brat into a brand identity that feels authentic — and it catapulted her into the stratosphere of serious artistry. Not because she finally “proved” she can make good music. She’s been doing that. But because the system finally rewarded her for understanding it.

And it’s the same earnestness that has allowed Addison Rae into rooms she would have been previously banned from. Her branding is perfect for the freak weird girl that daydreams about some distant fantasy life.

Brat worked because it doesn’t beg to be liked — it assumes you’re already late.

finally, why now?

I’m bringing politics into this because it applies, unfortunately.

Women want to be seen as freaky and weird like we give men permission to be. We want to discuss our bodies, be loud, be ugly and off-putting. We want to be imperfect without judgment.

As women’s rights continuously get stripped — Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, after all — women are scared. Many young women don’t realize that this defiance — not shaving, or simply posting that “ugly” picture — is all in defense of “brat.”

Addison Rae appeared on Chicken Shop Date barefaced and makeup-free with a cute outfit. She was giggly and open and I thought it was so sincere.

Charli and her friends shoving food into their mouths at a nice restaurant. Charli singing about coke and sympathy feeling like a knife.

It’s why Gone Girl, Black Swan, and Ottessa Moshfegh have gotten so popular within the last few years. Women are exhausted.

Although that’s the irony of Addison, Brat, and existing in the online stratosphere: you’re still performing for someone.

The makeup is bad on purpose, the patterns on your clothes are distracting. You tell us your current reads — Moshfegh, Sontag, Didion. All in the name of being a “weird girl.”

Maybe it’s not mutation. Maybe it’s evolution. The idea of the girl — the woman — has evolved in the last few years, because it had to. The defiance is feminist even when it looks stupid. Even when it’s “just” not shaving. Even when it’s “just” posting the ugly photo. Even when it’s “just” calling yourself brat and acting like you don’t care.

Pop music is a system now. The popstar mutated to survive it. And maybe that’s why it hits so hard: because we did too.

fin. 🫶🏽

“Oh, I feel JUST like Carrie on Substack.”

Carrie Bradshaw at least had the nerve to be a terrible human being, which actually made her an interesting writer. She was a horrible friend and girlfriend — hence the column! It was from lived experience people!

Lately it seems that anyone with an iPhone and a stable Wi-Fi connection deems themselves the voice of Generation Z.

Substack seems to be a pseudo-intellectual dumping ground for clickbait essays on some 22-year-old’s opinion on life and love.

Which is fine — yet, a lot of these essays are written with the obvious intention of keeping the reader at arm’s length.

Okay, your boyfriend dumped you. Well, what did you learn? Did you weep? Did you not eat? Do you regret it? Do you feel silly? Do you not care?

What makes your experience so unique that you must use 800 words on it?

To be a writer, one must have lived experience worth sharing. One must be vulnerable. You cannot tell me about how love has failed you and not tell me how it made you feel. If it made you feel small and humiliated. Or larger than life itself.

In your 20s, the only experience you have is your vulnerability. What wisdom or authority do you have to pass down to someone your age or younger? You’re 23. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would I trust the judgement of a person that hasn’t learned the skill of vulnerability? Self-compassion? Your words are just noise. Noise that just floats into oblivion with everyone else’s noise.

The most human and mature thing an adult does — that makes them an authority on life — is accept that they are not the smartest person in the room. There’s always someone that has more knowledge. You can always be taught the same lesson by life over and over again.

I know I have.

I don’t write because I have answers. I write because I’m willing to admit I don’t.

I pray that twenty-something women spend time thinking about what they truly desire. Not performing their interests for a fake audience. Every thing that makes someone slightly interesting gets ran into the ground by individuals attempting to perform coolness rather than just embodying it.

Tik Tok after Tik Tok of young girls preaching how to maximize their lives. Listening to podcasts, reading Substack essays, collecting “physical media”. Just one more thing to add to the rotation. Every post is a curated information dump.

You aren’t good enough. Do these hobbies you have no interest in to prove that you are.

I’m not a human being. I’m a product. Purchase me for the low, low price of my identity and try me out.

There’s a 30 day return policy.

i. introduction

Truthfully, I was more of a Disney Channel girl than a Nickelodeon girl.

This was likely because my mother never wanted to pay Comcast extra so I could actually watch Nickelodeon — but that’s okay, I’ve gotten over it.

Drake Bell was my first crush. Beck from Victorious was my second (Avan Jogia, if you ever read this, I love you — tell Halsey I said hello). Naturally, I stopped watching Nickelodeon when Victorious was canceled, because I refused to watch The Thundermans.

The fascinating thing about being a child star is that not everyone survives the process. You are either mediocre — good enough and promptly forgotten — or excellent and punished for it through prolonged public humiliation.

Disney was simply better at the machine of child stardom. Record deals through their own label. Branded merchandise with your face in every mall in America. Television crossovers, DCOM cameos, morning show appearances. They did not play games with their talent.

If you wanted to be famous, you were going to work.

Disney Channel made stars. Nickelodeon did not. Trust me — they tried.

Miranda Cosgrove.
Jeanette McCurdy.
Victoria Justice.
Jamie Lynn Spears.

No one was rushing out to buy their latest record.

Nickelodeon, by contrast, was messier. Louder. Less polished. Its stars weren’t trained to scale — they were exaggerated, caricatured, and discarded once the joke wore thin. Which is why Ariana Grande never looked like a survivor of that system.

She looked like an accident.

Which is what made her so efficient.

ii. cat valentine and the safety of infantilization

Much of my writing is framed through the lens of a child who lived through these moments. To me, Ariana Grande was Cat Valentine — and for years, I didn’t understand why people cared so much about Cat from Victorious at all.

Even now, in her early thirties, Grande has never fully shaken the ditzy redhead image Nickelodeon stamped onto her. Her early brand existed as a kind of kaleidoscope: baby-faced ingénue, cartoonish femininity, and a Mariah Carey–esque voice that felt almost incongruent with her presentation.

The high ponytail. Puffy skirts. Crop tops and tights. She stood with one foot still wedged firmly in the Nickelodeon door and the other hovering just shy of legitimate pop stardom.

Her sexual appeal wasn’t threatening — because, in a sense, it didn’t really exist yet. There was no urgent need for handlers to panic over a chaotic Britney Spears– or Rihanna-level implosion. The public didn’t perceive her as volatile, dangerous, or even particularly adult.

She wasn’t a scandal waiting to happen. She was safe.

Her appeal, at the time, was closer to Christina Aguilera in theory — vocal talent first — but without the aggression, hunger, or visible rebellion. Grande’s image didn’t ask to be taken seriously.

To this day, the most persistent criticisms surrounding Grande are almost entirely about her body. In her early twenties, she was “too small,” “too thin,” “too childlike.”

As body image conversations shift toward neutrality and acceptance, Grande’s body continues to surface in online forums, dissected with an almost clinical familiarity. Rather than entertaining the possibility of chronic illness, stress, or lifelong struggle, the discourse defaults to blame. Control must be intentional. Discipline must be rewarded or punished.

What’s striking is not that her body remains a topic of conversation, but that the conversation never evolves. There is no scandal attached to it. Her body is not a site of rebellion or refusal — it is proof of maintenance.

And this is where the machine becomes visible.

Grande’s image is curated so meticulously that even transgression feels inert. Her romantic scandals register as background noise. There is no fall from grace because there is no grace to fall from — only consistency.

This is the paradox of Ariana Grande: her image management is so effective that it renders her almost boring and nonthreatening. Beyond her undeniable vocal talent, there is very little left to interrogate — because every potential point of intrigue has already been neutralized.

iii. the body as proof of discipline

The structure of any body-based mental illness — and any body-based performance — hinges on the idea of discipline. Maintenance requires consistency. Visibility requires control. To successfully sustain a body under constant public scrutiny is to signal obedience to routine, restraint, and labor.

A pop star is nothing if not disciplined. Rehearsals. Appearances. Paparazzi shots. Photoshoots. Meet-and-greets. Brand deals. Acting pursuits. Every output is another moving part in the machine of legibility. To show up repeatedly, polished and precise, is a form of work not everyone survives. Many break under it. Others disappear.

In 2013, Ariana Grande was labeled “too thin” — not because of widespread concern for her health, but because men no longer found her body desirable.

Strike one in the pop star playbook. If men don’t want you, you can’t sell fantasy to that market.

In 2025, she is thinner still, and the tone has shifted to outrage. Not care, exactly — but condemnation. Having an eating disorder is no longer culturally transgressive or romanticized the way it once was. Now, thinness reads as irresponsibility. The pop star turned actress becomes a threat to public health rather than an object of desire.

Women on the internet have spent the last several years dissecting Grande’s appearance with a fixation that feels less like concern and more like surveillance. The tone resembles that moment in a zombie movie when someone in the group has been bitten — and everyone knows it — but no one says anything outright. Instead, they watch and wait for proof.

The body becomes evidence. A future collapse is imagined, rehearsed, and almost desired. Not because the audience wants harm, but because pop culture is conditioned to expect consequence. A visible breaking point would confirm that the machine has limits.

iv. dangerous woman as a reframe

When Dangerous Woman was released in 2016, many critics noted its lack of cohesion. Caitlin White, writing for BKMAG, observed that it was “rather ironic” the lead single was titled Focus, because that’s exactly what the record lacked. The critique wasn’t about Grande’s ability — her voice was, as always, unimpeachable — but about credibility.

Quinn Moreland’s Pitchfork review pushed this idea further. Grande was praised for her technical skill but faulted for emotional distance. She remained guarded, withholding, difficult to access. What was meant to be a sexual pivot felt strangely safe — not because of prudishness, but because nothing about the album threatened her existing image.

This was not a rebellion. It was a resize.

The latex bunny ears, the monochrome visuals, the sultry production — all of it signaled adulthood without risk. Sexuality was introduced as aesthetic, not behavior. There was no public unraveling, no tabloid spiral, no visible loss of control to accompany the shift. Desire was presented carefully, as something to be looked at rather than lived through.

Critics struggled to believe the persona because belief requires exposure. Dangerous Woman asks the listener to accept intimacy without ever offering vulnerability. The album flirts with R&B — a genre that depends on emotional proximity — yet Grande keeps herself at a deliberate remove. The songs are technically excellent, often thrilling in isolation, but resistant to confession.

At the time of Dangerous Woman, Grande was still in transition: no longer Cat Valentine, not yet a figure capable of rupture. The album does not mark a break in her career, but a test of its elasticity. How much adulthood could be layered onto her image without destabilizing it?

The answer, it turns out, was quite a lot — as long as nothing actually changed.

Ariana was often viewed as a kind of Barbie doll — talented and pretty enough, styled in girlish outfits, but curiously hollow beneath the surface. She sings about sex with a sense of remove, marked by a limitation of lived experience rather than transgression.

Her albums are tonally fractured — oscillating between innocence and sensuality — yet consistently yield excellent singles. Grande is a master of surface-level precision, even when the interior world remains carefully sealed off.

Her voice performs exceptionally well under R&B instruction — Sweetener received an 8 from Pitchfork, after all — but R&B as a genre demands a certain intimacy, a willingness to be emotionally legible. The result is music that is technically impressive, often beautiful, but deliberately withholding.

v. desire without scandal

This is likely why her image registers as boring.

Even as fans spend years piecing together her relationship timelines and labeling her a homewrecker, no one ever really cares. It mostly lives online as a running joke. People would rather circle the conversation back to her body, or to the fact that they think Ethan Slater is ugly.

The narrative never sticks.

In an era of Notes app apologies, Ariana simply never acknowledges it. She and Ethan are rarely photographed together. She’s never publicly discussed him in any way that reads as romantic or intimate.

She doesn’t perform shame. She doesn’t engage in public self-flagellation. And without those things, the punishment never arrives.

Instead, she increases her output.

The brand of Ariana Grande is never interrupted. The machine keeps chugging along. If she existed fifteen years earlier, her face would have been plastered across every OK! magazine in the checkout aisle. She would have sat for a Good Morning America interview. There would have been a Diane Sawyer special.

Now, output rinses tabloid fodder out of the news cycle.

Singer transitions into beloved, Oscar-nominated actress.

R.E.M. Beauty.
Wicked.
Eternal Sunshine.
A world tour.

Two things she once swore she had no plans to do anytime soon. She made it clear — this tour is a last hurrah for what we understand to be the Ariana Grande brand.

In 2024, she appeared on The Zack Sang Show and said she had no intention of releasing an album during Wicked. She claimed the 2023 Writers’ Strike simply left her with extra time, and she “decided” to record new music.

Coincidentally, that was also the year news of her relationship with a married Ethan Slater broke.

Was her album Eternal Sunshine image control? What is there to criticize if Grande consistently and successfully proves her cultural value?

vi. outro

Ariana Grande didn’t escape the system that consumes women in pop culture. She learned how to survive it by never giving it what it wants most.

Sexuality, for women, only matters when it devastates you. Desire is only legible when it collapses your interior world. Tragedy only registers when it derails the machine entirely. Grande never lets it get that far.

Her body is maintained, not sacrificed. Her relationships are absorbed, not punished. Her sexuality is staged rather than lived through in public. Every potential rupture is redirected into output, and the machine keeps moving quietly and efficiently.

Ariana Grande remains intact because she never allows herself to become narratively interesting in the way pop culture demands of women. She has been able to do what Taylor Swift cannot. She has ruled her career with an iron fist that has transitioned her from good girl into an adult woman. She’ll get that Oscar one day and she’ll have rightfully earned it.

The pop machine didn’t break her.

It made her sustainable.

For a really long time, I always kind of nodded my head and filed my parents’ advice into the “I’ll cross that bridge when I get there” box. Most of it is reassurance—reminders to move at my own pace. What’s meant for me will find me. Vienna waits for you. Oh, mirror in the sky—what is love?

My parents are secretly very big softies, true to their Sagittarius natures. If you’ve been a reader of mine for the last six months, I’m sure it’s finally clicked into place.

A Gemini sun, Sagittarius moon, and Aquarius rising with two Sagittarius parents?!
I know. It explains the dazzling wit.

Anyway, these big softies have laid down some powerful knowledge over the years that finally started making sense in my brain this year. No more claiming “I’m just a girl.”
Nah. I’m a woman.

“Not everyone can come with you, not even me.”

I learned this lesson in the second half of this year. I don’t give up easily. I’ve always considered myself a bit of a clinger. Conversations could always be had. Things could always possibly improve.

But sometimes we just have to accept that we aren’t compatible with everyone.

Some people really are in your life for a season. And most things do happen for a reason. Not to be cryptic, but it’s fascinating how you blink and people can just be gone. My parents have had to remind me that my path is different—that I’m growing and changing. I’m not meant to live a small life. And in the pursuit of that life, sometimes people have to be left behind. Not out of malice, but out of necessity.

When you try to drag the perpetually unwilling along your journey, they become extra weight. You have to exert twice the effort—once to pull them forward, and once to make sure you don’t trip and fall trying to carry you both.

In my desire to grow, I have a habit of sharing my knowledge with others. It came as a shock to me when I was harshly shown that not everyone carries the same attitudes that I do. Not everyone was raised the same way. I’m not saying these are necessarily bad things—variety is the spice of life. I suppose cruelty will always shock me, though.

Our comfort zones are dangerous.

My comfort zone kept me around people who had no business having access to me. And not to be all “rah rah, I have opps” about my life, but I don’t think the people we keep closest even realize the power of their tongue.

I’ve spent decades surrounded by women who mirrored my earliest core wound—because it was familiar. Comfortable. It felt normal to be around women who secretly disliked me without even realizing it—women who questioned my character and eroded my self-esteem.

My ambition, my desire for self-improvement, and the assumption that I deserve to be happy trigger something in the insecure. It was genuinely shocking to me to discover that people are, in fact, jealous of me.

To escape this, I had to make the radical decision to choose myself—and to be “alone.” Not keeping friends around just to say I had them. As a result, I feel like I’ve been floating. I surprisingly care a lot less than I thought I would.

It’s disarming, but it’s also exciting. I’ve grown so much over the last five years—even this year alone. I’ve traveled across the world, lived away from my family, walked a red carpet, and saw Jennifer Lawrence in the flesh. I felt the chill of a Utah winter and genuinely thought I might lose my toes. I’ve had conversations with baristas, men on sidewalks, and the owners of production companies.

I took up my writing at a time when I felt my absolute lowest. Most importantly, I didn’t let negativity make me bitter. I used solitude as a period of reflection and self-knowledge. I’m so far out of my comfort zone that I don’t even know what it looks like anymore.

Harsh, but true: loser women do exist, and they walk among us.

Loser women aren’t insecure women. They aren’t women who are struggling or figuring themselves out. They’re women who refuse to build a self and instead try to live inside someone else.

There are women on this earth who would skin me alive and wear my flesh if they could. I have watched women quite literally steal my hobbies, dating preferences, lingo, personal style, hair color—anything—because they have no sense of self.

And instead of dealing with that, they take their anger out on me—because they could never be the original. Just a copy.

And you may ask: how do you know this for a fact?

Because.

I know me when I see me.

And I’m using a lot of word salad to skip over the point — if you have an inkling that your best friend is competing with you, don’t wait to cut them off like I did.

Trust. Self-trust. Compassion. Vulnerability.

I’m not ashamed. No one can make me feel shame. I’m a human being with wants and desires just like everyone else—and I’ve spent a very long time trying to accept that.

What I will not do anymore is apologize for existing. You will just have to be inconvenienced by my presence. You will hear me. You will see me. You may find me ugly, fat, annoying, or stupid—and I will not care.

I’ve finally realized that I have spent my life surrounded by unmotivated women that admire and resent me because they know they could never be me. As a result, they did their absolute best to make me as small as possible so they would look big in comparison.

These women will spend their entire lives seething at the thought that I never needed them, but chose them to be in my life. And for people who operate under a scarcity mindset? That’s terrifying.

I will trust myself to choose me. I will trust myself to extend compassion and grace toward myself, because I deserve it. I encourage you all to do the same.

Like Beyoncé said: “Goodbye to what has been.”

Goodbye, fair-weather friends.
Goodbye, self-doubt.
Goodbye, fear.
Goodbye, low self-esteem.

I would say it has been a pleasure to know you, but that would be a lie.

It’s been a long year. A beautiful, long year. I’m so grateful. I would never trade my life for anyone else’s.

Cheers to a new year. I’m not slowing down.

i. opening: the myth of rihanna

Oh, Rihanna.

The woman, the myth, the alternative popstar legend.

Rihanna gave us some of the greatest singles of the 2010s, but her story is one wrapped in an undercurrent of tragedy. When you become one of the most consumed women on the planet, the line between survival and self-reinvention gets blurry.

You probably read the title and thought, “Hm. She’s definitely about to talk about Fenty, the billionaire arc, and her seven-year musical disappearing act.”

But I’m not starting there. I’m zeroing in on 2009–2012 — the era where Rihanna didn’t just evolve; she had to save her own brand from public annihilation.

This was the period where she learned the choreography of “not caring.” Not because she naturally embodied that energy, but because the alternative — vulnerability, softness, public grief — would have gotten her crucified.

In those years, Rihanna wasn’t crafting a persona. She was performing emotional armor. She was building a version of herself the world couldn’t destroy so easily.

ii. 2009: the cultural violence of the chris brown incident

I was nine when I first saw those photos. Nine years old when I quietly learned that the world will always disrespect the Black woman.

The idea of going to the police in your darkest moment and having someone sell those photos to a tabloid. Turning your pain into content for a quick buck. It still sickens me.

It’s one thing to get your face beaten. It’s another to have the entire world pass it around like a spectacle. Yes, there was outrage when the images leaked — but the damage was already done. Her most private, horrifying moment was immediately absorbed into the entertainment cycle.

The official court documents describe the assault in detail. He beat her with his fists for roughly thirty minutes as he attempted to drive their rented car. For years, people tried to debate the “truth” of what happened — she kicked him, he claimed she spit on him — but the actual record states she kicked him only in an attempt to get away after he punched her repeatedly and put her in a headlock.

The public, of course, was ruthless.

Abuse victims are always trapped between a rock and a hard place. Both Rihanna and Brown went on their own image-rehabilitation tours, but Rihanna’s ABC interview with Diane Sawyer remains one of the most heartbreaking moments of her career.

Sawyer interrogates her, demanding to know why she went back, demanding she “explain herself” to young girls. The subtext is unmistakable:
justify your pain, or we will blame you for it.

How dare Diane Sawyer place the burden of abuse on the victim?

The public wanted a perfect victim. They still do.

iii. rated r and the reinvention of a survivor

Revisiting Rated R with this added context is upsetting.

Russian Roulette is an obvious nod to an abusive relationship. Hard is a young woman letting the world know they can’t break her. How heartbreaking is that? This young woman needed comfort but couldn’t receive it — because it would likely cost her career.

Rated R was recorded in March of 2009, mere weeks after the incident. Ne-Yo and Justin Timberlake helped her write a few songs. Speaking about the album, Ne-Yo told MTV:

“Rihanna is not in the same place mentally. She’s more comfortable in her skin now... it’s refreshing to watch.”

Ah yes. She’s assaulted, publicly humiliated, and forced to rebuild her entire persona — and the takeaway is that she’s “comfortable in her skin.”

In 2009, a survey of 200 teenagers in Boston found that 46% believed Rihanna was responsible for the violence inflicted on her. 52% believed “both parties” should be held accountable.

Notice how it’s never the man’s fault?

What makes all of this even more tragic is that Rihanna’s response — the hardness, the unbothered attitude, the bad-bitch armor — became the very thing the public celebrated her for. But that persona wasn’t rebellion. It was survival.

When the world decides you’re not the perfect victim, the only acceptable option is to be strong, silent, and untouchable.

Rihanna didn’t set out to embody the stereotype forced onto Black women. She was trying to protect herself from a culture that refused to see her humanity.

And the worst part? The more she performed strength, the more people pretended it was natural to her — as if she hadn’t been pushed into it.

As a recurring theme of this series, I’m trying to articulate how we force women in the spotlight to perform sexuality in order to signify maturity. Britney was sacrificed for doing it too early. Miley appropriated Black culture to make it palatable. Taylor Swift refuses to make the transition at all.

Maybe Rihanna would’ve reached Rated R on her own. She began exploring edgier music with Good Girl Gone Bad two years prior. But it’s no coincidence that this album was written weeks after the assault.

She had something to say.
And maybe the world wasn’t really listening.

iv. the machine keeps moving: jive records and industry complicity

In Toxic: Women, Fame, and the Tabloid 2000s, Sarah Ditum never outright names a villain. She doesn’t need to. Instead, she traces patterns — quietly, carefully — and allows the reader to sit with what keeps repeating.

One name keeps resurfacing (for myself as I write and research for these essays, anyway).

Jive Records.

And guess who was signed to the label?

Aaliyah and R. Kelly.

Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake.

Chris Brown.

Ditum doesn’t argue that Jive orchestrated abuse. What she implies is more unsettling than that: the label repeatedly positioned young women inside power dynamics that benefited male collaborators, romantic partners, or cultural foils — and then stepped back when those dynamics curdled into harm.

These women weren’t protected as people. They were managed as assets.

The relationships were branded as chemistry. Synergy. Storyline. When they produced hits, they were celebrated. When they produced damage, responsibility disappeared. No one person was at fault. No one intervened. The machine kept moving.

Because the industry’s real priority isn’t safety. It’s continuity.

Albums must be released. Tours must go on. Narratives must stay on track.

Grief is inconvenient. Trauma is disruptive. Abuse is only a problem when it interrupts profit.

And we have proof. Jive Records knew about R. Kelly’s behavior — at least by the late ’90s — and did nothing to stop it. He stayed with the label until 2011, when they were absorbed into RCA.

In 2018, the Washington Post published an article stating that executives at Jive were aware of Kelly’s actions for years but didn’t intervene because of how much money he was making the label. Larry Khan and Barry Weiss — both former Jive execs — even said on the record that his personal life wasn’t their responsibility.

So, is it really that absurd to assume Jive didn’t care about Chris Brown beating Rihanna?

Or about Justin Timberlake’s public humiliation ritual of Britney Spears? Janet Jackson?

R. Kelly earned Jive hundreds of millions of dollars over the years.

Britney did too — especially after being vilified in Cry Me a River, a music video that gave the public permission to treat her like a joke for the next twenty years.

And that makes Rihanna’s options pretty clear.

She could be the battered, empowered survivor. Or she could become irrelevant.

A punchline. A warning. Another cautionary tale like Britney.

When there’s no one willing to defend you — not your label, not the press, not even your own sex (Diane Sawyer, I’m looking at you) — what would you choose?

v. performance, pain, and the “perfect victim”

In that context, Rihanna’s experience begins to look less like a singular tragedy and more like a familiar outcome.

Once again, a young woman absorbs the fallout. Once again, the man’s career survives. Once again, the public asks her to be strong about it.

Once again, we ignore the functional reality of millions of victims. It’s proven that it takes seven tries to leave your abuser. Rihanna was in an on-and-off relationship with Brown until 2012.

Brown’s behavior wasn’t a one-off either. There are dozens of reports of violence perpetrated by Brown and main of those reports involve women.

Rihanna was a young woman that needed some form of guidance but received public scrutiny instead. She was antagonized by Diane Sawyer on national television, photos of her battered face were released for public consumption, and the common opinion is that she deserved it.

Rather than accept facts presented to us as they are, culturally, we prefer to jump through hoops to dismiss them.

The concept of the “perfect victim” is a sad one.

For your trauma to be justified, it must be horrific and violent. You must barely survive it and walk away with noticeable bodily injury. It must completely and visibly alter your individual state. It must change you permanently for the rest of your life. When the world looks at you, they must see a victim. Not a survivor.

Just ask Amber Heard.

During the Depp vs Heard trial, the conversations that were happening online were abhorrent. To watch someone be forced to testify in a case she technically already won in the U.K. and to have it aired live every single day — is dehumanizing.

Every tear, runny nose, readjustment, huff, eye rub was screenshotted and turned into a meme. Youtubers and podcasters made MILLIONS dissecting and disrespecting Amber Heard.

The photo evidence wasn’t enough. Previous testimony wasn’t enough. Her becoming emotional on the stand wasn’t enough.

In the minds of millions, especially women, she was a liar. A fake. A gold digger. She was a manipulative femme fatale that chose Depp as her victim. She wanted his money, his fame, his life. His alcoholism and drug use was all her fault. Despite dozens of reports that Hollywood was growing tired of Depp and his washed-up actor shenanigans, another beautiful woman was left hung out to dry.

And here’s the wildest part: the public eventually forgave Chris Brown.
He released hit singles, won awards, collaborated with every major artist. And in response? Rihanna forgave him too. Not for him — maybe for herself. Maybe for the sake of control. She knew the world wouldn’t let her linger in pain. So she got to work.

Between 2009 and 2012, she released four albums in three years.
She gave them bangers. She gave them fashion. She gave them “Unapologetic.” She tried to make them forget she was ever a victim. To see her as Rihanna again.

But the question is — did it work?
Or did she just become something else — a version of herself the world could stomach?

vi. the price of surviving

This is the trap.

If you’re not likable, no one believes you. If you’re not silent, you’re manipulative. If you’re not inspirational, you’re damaged. If you stay, you’re an idiot. If you leave, you’re a liar. If you cry, you’re hysterical. If you don’t, you must not be telling the truth.

We’ve made it impossible for victims to exist. So instead, we give them two options: disappear quietly or survive loudly enough to entertain us.

And Rihanna chose survival.

She left the music industry behind and ascended. Now she’s a businesswoman among the echelons of Beyonce and Jay-Z.

She appears publicly but never long enough to be consumed. And as the years pass and the people that exist online get younger, 2009 becomes a distant memory.

Untouchable. Powerful. Sexy. Unbothered. She walked away from the industry that consumed her and re-emerged on her own terms — as a billionaire, a mother, a mogul. A woman who said: you don’t get to watch me suffer anymore.

Not because the pain vanished. But because she finally had the power to protect herself from it.

That’s the triumph.

She didn’t just survive what the world did to her — she built something lasting out of it. And in doing so, she showed other women what’s possible when you stop asking for permission to heal.

Rihanna didn’t just become a brand. She became a boundary. She drew a line and said: this far, no further.

She became a blueprint.

And this time, the cost wasn’t her.

If you’re Black, there’s a 95% chance your parents or grandparents have said this to you after you came home crying because you were being bullied. Knowing people dislike me for reasons outside of my control just makes me paranoid. I never cared if they were supposed to motivate me to try harder — I just wished they would leave me alone.

As a dedicated Gossip Girl rewatcher, it was obvious the hatred Serena and Blair shared. Serena was clearly drowning in guilt, and Blair obviously felt overshadowed by Serena.

It doesn’t help that Serena is a statuesque blonde who quite literally towered over Blair and was loved by everyone. Blair projected her deeply rooted inadequacy onto everyone around her. Serena couldn’t put her ego aside to apologize until she was finally caught.

Not only does she have sex with Blair’s boyfriend, Nate — she takes his virginity, something Blair had been intent on making special between the two of them.

And when finally confronted about it, Serena has the nerve to seem shocked and play stupid. Then, in the following episode, she has the nerve to be mad at Nate for telling Blair.

Who wouldn’t hate her?

Blair wasn’t perfect, but most of her behavior was reactionary. Imagine the people closest to you going out of their way to gaslight you and make you feel insane because they can’t be honest.

My therapist once told me the reason I hate liars is because they want to avoid accountability. I never forgot that, especially because these are usually the same people that insist on it from you.

The first time I watched Girls, I was fifteen, maybe sixteen, and in the middle of the worst crisis of my teenage life. One of my close friends knew I liked a guy in our friend group — and apparently she did too, because they started dating. Everything feels apocalyptic at fifteen, but rewatching that moment at twenty-four makes me realize we weren’t even that close. We just shared the same peripheral orbit.

Around that same time, Season 5 and 6 of Girls were airing, and I was watching Hannah get blindsided and betrayed by her best friend, Jessa. Jessa starts a relationship with Adam, Hannah’s ex-boyfriend. To be fair, Adam borderline stalks Jessa into it — he harasses her until she finally tanks her friendship with Hannah and gives in. But still: the betrayal is the betrayal.

What hits harder now is the bigger realization I couldn’t see at fifteen:
Almost all of Hannah’s friends secretly dislike her.
Whether they admit it or not.

Marnie and Jessa, in particular, are obsessed with her in that jealous, slightly repulsed, “why does she get things I don’t?” kind of way. The insecurity oozes through their storylines. Marnie, who in the pilot had the most going for her — great boyfriend, great apartment, great job — slowly loses everything and never recovers. She’s judgmental, condescending, and constantly talking to Hannah like Hannah is beneath her, even while begging for Hannah’s emotional labor. Even at the end, when Marnie “offers” to help Hannah raise her baby, it’s not out of love. It’s because she thinks Hannah is incompetent and wants to supervise her like some kind of project.

Then there’s Jessa. When she and Adam finally end up together, she says, “I’ve wanted this for a long time.”
You wanted your friend’s boyfriend for a long time? Be serious.

Hannah is selfish and borderline narcissistic sometimes, absolutely — but what twenty-something isn’t? Underneath the chaos, she’s one of the only characters with an actual moral center. She shows up when it matters. She picks Jessa up from rehab. She visits Jessa’s grandmother. She supports Marnie through the world’s most delusional wedding. She’s messy, but she’s not cruel.

Jessa, on the other hand, is an addict in every sense: substances, attention, destruction, reinvention. When I was in high school, I thought she was so cool — the accent, the outfits, the careless beauty, the way she floated through the world like nothing stuck to her. Now, at twenty-four, it’s abundantly clear she’s borderline sociopathic. She has always hated Hannah. She loved Hannah’s attention, not Hannah herself. She needed Hannah to adore her so she could feel superior.

And the thing is: Jessa didn’t want Adam because she loved him.
She wanted Adam because Adam wanted Hannah.

She never understood why someone like him would choose someone like Hannah. Hannah had parents who loved her. Hannah had direction, ambition, a belief in her own writing ability. Hannah could be annoying, but she was accepted as she was. Hannah didn’t need to perform a personality to be loved. That made Jessa itch.

And within a few episodes, Jessa and Adam implode. Adam — a professional Captain-Save-A-Hoe — can’t deal with Jessa’s laziness and refusal to grow up. Jessa can’t stop bringing up Hannah, spiraling every time Adam doesn’t indulge the comparison. She needs Adam to reassure her that she “won,” but he doesn’t care. He’s annoyed. He’s moved on. Hannah isn’t performing heartbreak for him, and that makes Jessa feel even worse.

And that old essay fragment of mine keeps coming back:
Jessa feels guilty because Hannah is the only person who truly sees her and loved her anyway.
Adam is furious because Hannah is no longer playing the role he assigned her.
Everyone is jealous of Hannah because everything works out for her in a way that feels unfair.

When I look back at being fifteen — my “friend” swooping in on a boy she knew I liked, the weird competitiveness, the quiet undermining — it all makes sense now. It was never about the boy. It was about proximity, jealousy, attention, and who gets to be the center of someone else’s world.

Mind you, I’m too lazy to compete. You either see me or you don’t. And if you don’t? Y’all got it.

Girl drama is fun to watch but devastating to be a part of. Jealousy and envy make me paranoid, especially when the people dishing it out can’t accept it. I never positioned myself above anyone or decided I was bigger than some program. Life can humble you faster than you can blink.

I never thought I was the girl with “fake friends.” I give people far more grace than I ever give myself because I want to believe in the good of others. I don’t know — I never even considered myself worthy competition. I’m broke 85% of the time and I’m in serious debt. I just show up as myself and decide people either like it or they don’t.

I don’t put on a performance because I don’t even know you, so why would I care if you like me? Y’all aren’t very impressive to me either.

Apparently, this reads as self-righteous, but I can’t help that. Sorry.

There’s a specific kind of girl who gravitates toward confident people because she wants to absorb something from them. She’s drawn to the parts of you she secretly wishes she had — your ambition, your sense of direction, your ability to bounce back. She’ll praise those qualities while slowly resenting them. And because she doesn’t actually believe she deserves good things, she’ll convince herself you don’t deserve them either.

It’s a very Jessa energy:
I want what you have, but I also want you to think you don’t have anything at all.

Once you start paying attention, you notice the subtle digs, the weird tone shifts, the “be realistic” warnings delivered with a smile. You notice when someone only feels empowered if you’re insecure. You notice how quickly they become irritated when something finally works out for you.

And maybe Hannah’s biggest lesson — the one I didn’t understand at fifteen — is that not every friend you love is capable of loving you in the same way. Some girls need you to stay small so they can feel big. Some girls only understand intimacy through competition. Some girls can’t be happy for you because they think your happiness is an attack on their identity.

My favorite scene in the show is when Jessa attempts to reconnect with Hannah after finding out she’s pregnant. Hannah finally tells Jessa she doesn’t really care about her anymore. Jessa tearfully exclaims she can’t just cut her out. Hannah shrugs.

It’s funny how people finally show up once you’re done being devalued.

What I’m learning in my mid-twenties is that it’s not my job to convince anyone I’m worthy of basic respect. I don’t need to audition for friendship, and I don’t need to shrink so someone else can feel comfortable standing next to me. I can love people and still walk away once I realize their affection is conditional. I don’t have to wait around to be chosen. I can choose myself and let the rest fall away. Some endings aren’t betrayals — they’re clarity.

Editor’s Note -

Update: 9/2/25 11:44 P.M.

Rereading this now, I see how it comes across as cruel. My intention has always been to lay bare my personal truth — the irony of being me. The aggression, the frustration, it’s all directed at myself.

I use social media for a break. I want to see babies laughing and cats flying through tech-beat space, I want to see my daily Coop on the Stoop update — not my worst fear reflected back at me. It’s unhelpful to stumble across a thirty-something woman being fatalistic about her love life. Because then I spiral: maybe it won’t get better for me. Maybe I won’t ever meet someone who loves me. Maybe everyone else will leave. And how can I live with that?

Mind you, it’ll be Tuesday morning and I have to be at work in twenty minutes. Day-to-day is already hard enough. I want to be happy for my friends. I don’t want to absorb this chaotic way of being and then it spills all over everyone else. I also don’t want to read thousands of comments of lonely people stating that they don’t think they are worthy of love.

I believe I am worthy. I am training myself every day to believe this as fact.

What I cannot handle and will not feed into is self-hatred. When I wrote this, I was so so so frustrated and angry. How dare these women absorb my feed with Tik Tok after Tik Tok of them falling into despair? I realize now that triggered me so bad because that’s exactly how I feel. And someone was holding up a mirror and I didn’t like what I saw.

I wanted to post this again because I believe in the truth. I believe in accepting how I feel; negative and positive. I also realize this is the second time I’ve written a post like this and rewrote and added. I’m not perfect, unfortunately. But I am a human being. That’s all, my friends <3

Update 11/24 12:30 A.M

I was basically guilt-tripped into deleting this. I’m reposting it finally.

If I see one more woman sobbing because she is single, I am going to lose the little patience I have left.

Every day during my mindless scroll time, I come across a woman in her mid-to-late 20s hysterical that she doesn’t have a boyfriend. And then there are women in the comments stoking the flames of her misery.

It always begins with: I am no one’s priority. Who am I going to share moments of my life with?

I find this behavior and this language deplorable.

You have family. Friends. Yourself.

you’re not unworthy just because you’re single

I’ve accepted that I will never experience romantic love. What are we talking about right now?

You decided that because you choose not to actively date, you are completely unworthy and unlovable. Right. I can’t accept that. I can’t accept that there isn’t a lid for every pot. I can’t accept the idea that some stranger on the internet isn’t deserving of love.

I want to grab all of these lonely women by the shoulders and shake them. I want to tell them they are depressed and should seek medical help. I want to tell them that if they truly loved themselves, they wouldn’t be boohooing on the internet.

the cult of being chosen

You preach community and sisterhood, but none of you actually want it. You want your knight to come save you from the misery of being you. You don’t want to improve yourself. You don’t want to accomplish your goals. You don’t want to be a person. You want to belong to someone. You want someone to think for you and make moves for you. You want to take care of someone.

And that’s all fine and dandy—if some women would just admit it.

A lot of you do, in fact, need to get a man and go inside the house. And that’s FINE!

But I’m in enemy territory - get me with the adults, please!

romance your friends

To sit and whine about being single and “having no one” is the biggest fuck you to the people in your life. You have family and friends who would love to hear from you.

Besides physical intimacy, there is not a single thing you do with a boyfriend that you can’t do with a friend. You can romance your friends. Once we accept this as fact, a lot of people would realize a partner doesn’t make them special. You didn’t unlock some cheat code. You’re not a better person or a “real adult.” You’re just partnered.

The people in my life are not people who date. They’re just individuals who happen to have boyfriends. Someone shows interest, they decide they want a boyfriend, and that’s that. They don’t try new people out, they don’t explore, they don’t get to know themselves in the process. It’s a subconscious way of avoiding risk and rejection. Why would you want to be someone that lacks courage?

They just fall into these long-term situations that drag them farther from themselves. And when it fails, suddenly they need a friend again.

get a grip

I’m so sick and tired of those that refuse to let go and make everyone else suffer for it in the process. I do not subscribe to the scarcity mindset of the masses. People come and go, but I’m with me until the day I die.

I understand the duality of man, but a lot of women need to get a fucking grip. You can love someone—you should even crave it. But the primary recipient should be yourself.