If I were 24 years old during this, I'm not sure I would have made it. I might have lasted a few months. But I'm afraid I would have cracked and partied eventually. Luckily I’m 34. I don’t need to party anymore. But I also don’t need to scold those who do by sharing viral videos with judgment attached. Because, as Jake Paul illustrated over the weekend, a culture of surveillance and shaming is pushing an entire generation of Zoomers to resent their cop-like elders. And I don’t want to push these kids into partying even more. In his first interview since videos went viral last month of a party he hosted at his house in Calabasas, Paul expressed the alienation and disillusionment that everyone under the age of 30 must be feeling."No one has answers, our leadership is failing us, and everyone kind of just doesn't know what to do,” Paul said. “But I personally am not the type of person who's gonna sit around and not live my life." He’s reacting to cultural failure as much as institutional failure. We’ve created a culture of narcing people out. And we shouldn’t be surprised when young people inevitably reject it.
The next front in the culture war will be between those of us on this side of narc culture, homebound and smug while disapprovingly sharing viral videos, and those kids on the other side of it, defiantly out partying because it enrages us. When we share and shame through viral party videos, we just push young people to party more. On July 21, a week after Paul's, the infamous Hype House threw another party filled with influencers and YouTubers. According to Insider in a separate post, “Guests included YouTubers Nikita Dragun, James Charles, Emma Chamberlain, and Tana Mongeau, along with TikTokers Charli and Dixie D'Amelio. The occasion was a birthday party for TikToker Larri Merritt (known online as Larray).”And just this past weekend, yet another group of TikTokers from yet another troublingly photogenic "collab house" called the Sway House threw a little get together among friends, where Bryce Hall was filmed playing beer pong. There was also a “massive secret rave” under the Kosciuszko Bridge in Greenpoint. All these parties caused a splash online and probably prolonged the pandemic.
But the longer the pandemic goes on, and the more eyeballs bad behavior generates, the bigger the wedge between the shamers and the partiers, the adults and the teens. Soon partying will be a political act. And Jake Paul will be an unlikely standard bearer for a new crop of culture warriors whose reactionary politics consist solely of partying. It will be fun to watch from home!
The shorter stuff
Jared Kushner incompetence porn is one of my favorite genres of journalism. (VF)
Michelle Obama is such a big name that Spotify figured they didn't need to waste any time on creative, I guess! (Image)
Leonardo DiCaprio joins A24 at Apple. Not too shabby, Apple. (Deadline)
You can tell the marketing expert who created the unwatchable Reagan-Trump rap battle video really gets culture when he says "rap lowers the viewers’ immune response so they are open to receiving information." You cannot make this shit up! (THR)
Special "Netflix Cultural Dominance" Section
Beyoncé's latest visual album made me miss HBO. Disney drowns it in IP. If it was made for Netflix it would hit harder without the giant corporate machine constantly reminding you that the movie is part of a web of global brand strategies. (Vulture)
Netflix released a documentary with fly-on-the-wall coverage of ICE yesterday. (CNN)
And "Moesha" is a big hit, brilliantly resurrected alongside seven other classic Black sitcoms. (Decider)
🌀Special "Only Read One TikTok Article" Section
The Taylor Lorenz roundup of the TikTok community in response to the ban scare is filled with details like:
"Last Wednesday, Triller, an app that functions similarly to TikTok, announced it had hired the 18-year-old TikTok star Josh Richards as the platform’s chief strategy officer."
"'TikTok is to Black Lives Matter what Twitter was to the Arab Spring,' said Kareem Rahma, 34, a TikTok creator with nearly 400,000 followers on the app."
"'For many kids, politics feel very distant,' said Eitan Bernath, 18, who has 1.2 million followers on TikTok. 'This might be the first time it hits home for a lot of kids.'" (NYT)
🌀Special Beauty Section
Emmys dress code is “come as you are, but make an effort!” (Variety)
Celebs are getting vlogging sets in their swag bags now. (VF)
And Marisa Meltzer explains why: the new primacy of the face. (VF)
Special Nerd Section
Told you the Facebook ad boycott was pure spectacle. (NYT)
Jill Lepore on the rudimentary data analytics firm that helped get JFK elected is catnip for me. (TNY)
Padma Lakshmi wouldn't fly to LA to meet with Hulu. (NYTMag)
James Murdoch announces his resignation from News Corp. in a classic Friday afternoon news dump, using Big Tech congressional hearings and TikTok Microsoft buyout rumors as cover. (CNN)
Ellen DeGeneres says she's sorry that her show's "happy" brand purpose was fake but an executive producer looks to be taking the fall as of now. (NYPost)
Dwayne Johnson is getting back to filming his Netflix movie with Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot. (Instagram)
Willy Staley at first appears to be working out one of his famous Twitter hobby horses, the Colin Jost obsession. But he's really expanding on a different, lesser known but related hobby horse of his, the notion that everyone we look up to and marvel at is really "just a guy." Very funny piece. (Slate)
Deadspin writers are launching subscription site Defector and I'm in. (NYT)