some writing of late!
where i've been all year slash checking in
Barely four months into the year and there is already enough news to last us a lifetime. Within just twelve weeks, Gypsy Rose Blanchard was released from prison, got yassified online, is now divorcing her husband, and got matching tattoos with her ex-boyfriend. Timothee Chalamet’s Wonka evolved into the deeply unserious Glasgow Willy Wonka experience. Just after Trisha Paytas announced a second pregnancy, King Charles was diagnosed with cancer, which caused a second round of memes about Trisha Paytas’ child being yet another royal family reincarnate. And then Kate Middleton announced she had cancer after a week of us swearing up and down she was getting a BBL. New York had an earthquake the Friday before Monday’s eclipse. Wild. Remember when Nara Smith started going viral? That was like, fourteen weeks ago.
I’m usually a lot better about sharing my coverage on this news as it happens, but I’ve frankly spent the past four months recalibrating my entire life once again after losing another job that was (and this is really the nicest way I can think to say it) deeply traumatic to me as a person and a journalist. I’m glad my prefrontal cortex is finally developing, because I think otherwise I’d be going through the kind of quarter-life crisis characterized by dying my hair every three days and dating the genre of man who reworks his exes’ voicemails into some truly appalling EDM mixes (we came close a few times, but have never actually crossed the line).
That being said, I have been writing a lot, and I’ve unlocked a few career goals that I’m very, very proud of. So, in case you’ve been missing some of my essay coverage, fear not. Over the course of this year it shall slowly return, once I release myself of the urge to box dye my entire head purple. This is a gigantic link drop! I cannot thank you enough for reading.
January:
I wrote my first in The Atlantic on an essay about the Chicago rat hole and these weird folk monuments that have existed for ages, and particularly, how that translates into the social media age.
In the wake of the “should we let tweens into Sephora?” coming out of “I’m a thirty-year-old teenage girl” discourse, I wrote an essay on the existential dichotomy between little girls wanting to be big and big girls wanting to be little for Condé Nast’s hot new newsletter platform, Mixed Feelings.
For my Fast Company debut, I reported on how “living alone” vloggers have cultural ripple effects on the housing market.
I appeared on the Digital Void podcast to talk about my ditty on the cancelled-to-conservative creator pipeline and how (as the term suggests) influencers who face controversy turn towards conservative value content.
February:
The month of the orange peel theory, ketchup counter challenge, Jett Puckett and Campbell (Pookie) Puckett inspired this reported feature I wrote for Glamour, on how Instagram husbands have stepped out from behind the camera to become props and supporting actors on screen.
If you get content about a weird orange alien plush who gets the living shit beat out of it on TikTok, I did some legwork for you, delving into the world of Pou for Fast Company, this alien who has been internet famous since the Doodle Jump days and is now a dropshipping sensation. I found the inventor of Pou, who is based in Lebanon. There is also an element of K-pop that comes into play. I love this story.
Universal Music Group pulled its music from TikTok, so I talked to content creators about what the move meant for them, in my Daily Beast debut. I’m such a fan of the Beast, so this was great.
I returned to Bustle after five years for dating coverage, which we know I love. I spoke to some truly incredible women about the world of dark feminine hypergamy influencers like TheWizardLiz and SheRaSeven, and how it’s changed their dating habits. Possibly my favorite interviews of the month.
Dipped my toes into the world of food journalism for Serious Eats, covering the importance of the slutty Lunar New Year party as a byproduct of Asian American culture, and finding new identity footholds in the diaspora.
After Temu ran three (three!) separate ads during the Super Bowl, I wrote an essay on the deep forbidden relationship between moms and Temu for Dwell magazine.
March:
My CNN debut! The Style team asked me to write about Merritt K’s newest photobook LAN Party, and I waxed a lot of poetic about millennium internet, which feels prehistoric and far more optimistic than now.
Back for Bustle doing the most serious journalism of my career — getting to the bottom of why sending a rose on Hinge is so embarrassing. I did have to get on Hinge for this story to source interviews. I did get promptly banned because I think someone reported me. But we got through.
Two pieces for Fast Company this month: one on this trend I’ve noticed on YouTube that I’m calling title negging (e.g. ‘congrats, you’ve ruined your face’), another exclusive on the new creators fund that Roblox launched.
My very first byline for Bon Appetit, unpacking the the tanghulu craze and subsequent controversy about some outlets calling the Chinese dessert a Korean dish. Asian America will never not love a debate about what is and isn’t authentic food. We’re like Jennifer Lopez’s bodega order, in that way.
Things I have greatly enjoyed over this past fiscal quarter (very nice things to consider):
My friend Delia Cai of Deez Links is hosting a pop-up newsletter on her platform for writers to anonymously share their most bitter, spiteful thoughts, entitled Hate Read. I am one of the writers. It’s already been shaking up legacy media Twitter heads. Have fun guessing which one’s mine.
I think there’s a multiverse of pregnant mom cooking TikTokers, and I would like to be the one to draw the map of it. There’s Nara Smith on one end, Mama C on the other, Mama Peach as the shadow of Mama C, Brittany Miller Mama C leaning but rather centralized, and now Emily Mariko on Nara-leaning side. Anyway, I am so charmed that these British pregnant cooking moms call them plate-ups. That’s so aggressively British and adorable. I didn’t know they called them that, and I was in the British education system for nearly five years.
Slime really didn’t do much for me the first time around, but now, my entire FYP is slime ASMR, and it has me by the throat and is throttling the life out of me.
I’ll space these out so we have more breathing room next time. I’M NOT GOING TO DYE MY HAIR UNLESS I THINK ABOUT IT REALLY HARD!!!!!!!!!!
xoxo,
-s
So impressive! So prolific! So diverse! What a fantastic body of work you've produced in the last few months. I'm looking forward to digging into the links!