Today’s most vital cultural forms are your identity, personality, and image. And in this new cultural paradigm, the artist’s performance of themself is often more important than the art they make. The persona is the message.

Earlier this year, Dirt contributor Michelle Santiago Cortés wrote about “yearnposting”, examining the trend of Instagram and TikTok content for people that “want to be devastated (in a good way).” These posts, “combine the warmth of a wholesome meme with the hope of a motivational post and the raw emotion of a trauma meme,” like a video by noted... See more