The Weekly Roundup (week of 7.31)
this is turning into a weekly shit-on-threads roundup
1. The Algorithm Chose @SubwaySessions. We Asked Her Our Burning Questions
The Cut came through with a hard-hitting interview with the woman who took over all of our feeds and became a meme format for a few days. As is customary for any and all Twitter dialogue, the conversation then devolves into a nonsensical argument about privilege. Of course, though, people have to get mad at the fact that someone is getting more attention than they are and attribute that viral “success” to some kind of explanation that helps alleviate their own feelings of mediocrity or insecurity. I’m not entirely sure why people are getting upset at this woman’s viral fame when people seem to be laughing at her, not appreciating her outfits as some beacon of advanced style. Honestly reading this Q&A with her makes it seem like she knows how and why she provokes people.
Why do you think your looks have been so polarizing?
I think it’s like a car crash. There’s something wrong, and there’s something fascinating. It’s wrong, but it makes you feel something, like, What is it? You can’t put your finger on it, and I go with that. I don’t like to put on a beautiful dress and just be a beautiful girl, that’s too simple.
Keep it up @SubwaySessions, I’m rooting for you. Read here.
2. "Affordable" clothes are wack
Another provocative and profound piece from BlackBird Spyplane about the pitfalls and lameness of recommending “affordable” clothing. I agree wholeheartedly with his diagnosis here, which is not to say you can’t walk into a thrift store and come out looking fly. What this piece posits is that optimizing for affordability as your primary motivator is a swag-less loser’s mindset. Read here.
3. I Keep Writing the Same Poptimism Piece Because Nothing Ever Changes
A good piece here from Freddie DeBoer about the relentless moralizing around our consumption of contemporary culture. If you don’t like Taylor Swift you’re a bad person! If you didn’t like _______ then fuck you! Every piece of art you like or don’t like is a referendum on your goodness as a person!
And this ultimately is what poptimism really is, not the intellectualized poptimist ideal but poptimism as a social practice: a theocracy of taste. As much as they squawk about just wanting equal respect or being taken seriously by critics or whatever, lurking behind every poptimist take is resentment that other people like music they don’t. Scratch a poptimist and beneath the thin veneer of critical equality and artistic populism you’ll find someone who resents the possibility that there are other aesthetic values than their own. This resentment is driven by what I’ve been writing about for years - people who lack a sense of self and have mistaken their pop culture consumption for their personalities, and who thus cannot coexist comfortably with the notion that other tastes are equally valid. If you are what you like, other people’s tastes are terrifying. Read here.
4. Threads user count falls to new lows, highlighting retention challenges
Guys, I know, this is like the third week (maybe fourth?) in a row where I’ve shit on threads. What can I say, I am spending a lot of time on the app as well as Twitter, and the difference is literally night and day in terms of user experience. Twitter is still leading the conversation in a very big way. Subway girl went viral there. Those cringey band people went viral there, well really TikTok, but Twitter… sorry X is where everyone goes to talk about TikToks. Anyways, apparently, the user count is down 82% from the initial hype, and time spent on the app is at like 2.9 minutes 📉. Unless Threads incorporates the same exact features Twitter has, FAST, and also drives up the quality of content, they’re as good as dead. Read here.