Molly

Boredom, for example, has become a collateral victim. It hasn’t disappeared — we’ve simply made it illegitimate. We erase it, fill it, scroll it away. At the slightest pause, we reach for our phones. It’s become a reflex. Boredom is seen as an error to correct, a glitch in the system.

And yet, it’s anything but useless. In philosophy, Heidegger saw ... See more

Hailey and her team took a page out of the well-trodden Trippin’ with Tarte-style brand trip playbook: create desire by limiting access. That strategy worked in the boom times of the last decade, but in our current era of economic anxiety and wealth inequality, it’s giving young people, to quote one Reddit commenter, “the absolute ick.”

Of course, Rhode’s beachside fantasy is far from an outlier. J.Crew’s recent Puglia activation and Reformation’s Ref-in-Residence getaways — as well as the booming resort pop-up economy that Bloomberg reported on last week — reflect how influencer marketing is evolving to be more immersive. Immersive, as a strategy, works! But against the backdrop ... See more

Hosting a lavish brand trip after raising prices, owing to tariffs and the “global supply chain,” is not a great look, and if Rhode thought their fanbase wouldn’t notice this, they don’t know the Gen Z consumer as well as they thought they did.

worry that the persecution complex that drives so much social-media discourse is robbing us of the ability to have productive discussions—about what it really means for a woman to be in control of her image or to “own” her sexuality. Is that even possible in this patriarchal, profit-obsessed society? Great art requires artists, of course, but it al... See more

In reality, though, with the exception of those who are slut-shaming Carpenter for blatantly misogynistic reasons, it is possible to have a nuanced debate on this topic. Social media encourages us to oversimplify issues—and express our angriest feelings—for engagement purposes, but there are legitimate views on different sides here, because no matt... See more

The lack of nuance between the two main camps—“yas kween!” and “stone her to death!”—was dispiriting. It reveals a worrying decline in media literacy in which social media encourages a flattened view, where moral righteousness and absolutism are projected onto complicated issues. If the purpose of art is to spark debate, Carpenter has certainly suc... See more