Junes' Sad Rich Girl Salon dove into aging&beauty:

We talked about "fox eye" makeup and Frownies, and Clavicular and a plastic surgery procedure I had never heard of where they liposuction a 6-pack onto your stomach (insane). So much of our convo dealt with how one "learns" beauty standards and how to self-police that I made a game-time decision on the breakout question: What media diet would you want your daughter to have?

Suggested reading and media:

• 55 Brides on What They Spent to Look Their Best on the Big Day

• What Should a 30-Something Look Like? in The Cut

• Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman

• Actors OBSESSION With Aging Is KILLING Cinema… (12 min video)

• "Neck tape works"

• "Examining 'iPhone face' and the Art of Timeless Beauty" by Sophia Butsch (essay)

• Reddit For women choosing to age naturally—how do you resist comparing yourself to other women when cosmetic enhancements have become so normalized?

• Kris Jenner’s Facelift Is Apparently Now “Slipping”

• Gen Z soldiers' plastic surgeries strain Korea's military readiness in The Korea Times

• Feeling Old: 44 Is the First Big Aging Cliff for Millennials in The Cut

• Frownies (a product that I kept getting served ads for once I started looking at anti-aging content)

• Perception drift

• self-congratulatory "i'm not having work done" (parody) reel

I don't hate it yet, but I'm getting there.

I’ve been referring to the deliberately silly style of writing I feel pressured to adopt (so as to be above accusations of AI) as rococo because it’s stylized for the sake of being stylized. I’m using italics and underline and strikethrough and Capitalizing For Emphasis like never before. (Tons of parentheticals.) 

I’ve seen other people using double commas instead of em dashes. A comment on my IG post said, “I’m using commas instead of periods” (!!) Another referred to using “3 layers of nested parentheses”. Someone else wrote, “Sometimes if I find a typo, I just leave it.”

It's about respect

If I were writing for a major publication that was paying me $1/word, I wouldn’t turn in rococo writing because it would be disrespectful to my editor (it'd look like I didn't even do a cursory revision). But in the age of AI, I’m concerned about how AI usage is disrespectful to the reader. This comes down to my priorities: what would I rather risk? Seeming too polished and possibly AI? Or sound a little silly (sloppy) and ensure my readers’ trust? I choose the latter.

Who gets to call themselves a good writer these days?

Pre-AI, being a good writer was much less accessible because it required so much time. You had to read a ton and train for many years before you could call yourself a good writer. Being a good writer was a status that you earned. Now, get a Claude subscription and you can pass as a “good writer”. 

To understand how insane this is, extrapolate to piano. Imagine there's a way that I can simulate being a piano virtuoso even though I haven't learned to read music or spent even an hour practicing. All the suckers who devoted decades of their life studying their piano craft feel pretty dumb now, huh?

"Good" becomes bad when "good" is too easy

There used to be gatekeeping when it came to “good writing” but now it's within reach for any schmuck with internet access. It's a numbers+perception problem that is mangling writing: Too many people are “good writers”, and this is why the definition of “good” is warping before our eyes (or, we’re seeing what "good" really means).

Bourdieu discusses this phenomenon in Distinction: as soon as the lower classes get access to something, they essentially “ruin” it for the upper classes. This is what we’re seeing in the rejection of AI writing. 

It all comes back to TO HAVE AND HAVE MORE

Status and class and elitism are my favorite topics so this angle on AI is fascinating to me because we’re discovering that what was previously considered “quality writing” had less to do with the writing itself being ~*inherently*~ excellent than the fact that the average person could not produce it.

Writers think of themselves as talented and special because they can create something that a layman cannot. Now that laymen can generate polished and concise “good” prose with the click of a button, the definition of “good” must change.

Who will adapt and overcome?

(And who will go extinct?)I think some writers will hold on to the version of writing that they were taught and conditioned to believe was “good” (the kind of prose that AI was trained on, which it now replicates and has devalued in doing so) and reject pressure to write “weird” and “unpolished” because it feels like succumbing to bullying (from the forces of AI). To suddenly switch up your style (which you honed for years) and artificially inject weirdness into it might feel like a betrayal of your craft and education.

I bet a lot of writers feel as I do: It’s frustrating to consider “does this sound like AI?” every time I write a sentence. And it feels iNaUtHeNtiC to toss in some funky punctuation or an archaic word choice just to pre-empt AI accusations.

I find myself making flashy choices that (likely) distract from what I’m trying to say, but it’s a trade-off I make because it’s critical (to me) to be above suspicion. Especially in my writing here -- these essays on INTERROGATE-- because newsletters/substacks are plagued rife overrun disgustingggg with with AI slop.

(In contrast, when I'm working on a novel, I do not make this trade-off. I write with much less concern about AI.)

The Dilemma

The problem is in having 2 goals that are at odds 1) I don’t want to be accused of AI 2) I want to write as clearly and concisely as possible. But given the current landscape, I can’t always accomplish goal 2 when I am working towards goal 1. 

Watch: we'll stop calling it "sloppy" and start calling it "authentic"

And eventually it will be called “good”. 

We’re moving the goal posts on “good writing” just as we do with all things that are embodiments of so-called quality and taste. When something becomes available to the masses, it's replaced by something inaccessible. Take fast fashion: Once the hoi polloi can buy knock-offs at Zara, the elite trendsetters declare the trend over and create something new that the underclasses will chase. And the cycle goes on forever. 

What’s historically been considered “good writing” isn’t some objective truth. It’s the cultural elite giving their stamp of approval to a certain type of writing. Now that AI writing has been deemed bad (aka common), writers must scramble to distinguish their writing from AI. Whoever does this will be rewarded with the title of “good writing”.

Tastemakers define what’s “good” in opposition to what they disdain

(They disdain anything commonplace and accessible). We’ve operated under the illusion that great writing, truly literary writing, exists when, really, it's a construct (it's just a matter of taste). And now, thanks to AI, it's been revealed as a construct. How else could it be that AI writing, which was trained on stolen copies of the very best writing, is “bad”? Exclusivity and gatekeeping is a huge part of what deems something artistically (and culturally) respected. 

There hasn’t been a shake-up like this in literature before: where we have to examine what makes writing “literary” and high-brow. The fact that AI does a convincing job replicating “literary” writing is discomfiting to the writing world because it’s basically rendered the old guard of literary writing slop. This is an existential crisis as much as it is a writing crisis.

We (writers) thought a certain type of “literary” writing was untouchable but now that it’s the default writing style of Average Joes, we have to confront that, perhaps, what makes writing “good” is simply that it can’t be easily copied by normies. Good is not an intrinsic quality–it's something that can only be defined in relation to regular-people writing.

How to strategically alienate and be superior

My latest theory is that we’re going to see a lot of allusions soon: to the bible, to greek myth, to canonical poets. Part of the perception of good writing, we’re seeing, is exclusivity. There’s undeniably a snobbishness and elitism associated with “good” writing. Now that AI has taken away exclusivity from clean, pithy prose, people will look for other ways to be exclusive.

What’s more exclusive and human than allusions to Homer?

Allusions are peak-human because they draw on the author’s existing knowledge and apply something that is seemingly irrelevant to a totally different context. I don’t think AI can produce this (for now). For example, instead of saying that someone is on the verge of death, I’ll say he has an "imminent appointment with Charon". Even if I haven’t referenced anything mythological up to this point, I can count on (some) people to recognize the significance and understand what I mean. 

This type of allusion used to be ubiquitous until Ancient Greek enrollment dropped off in the 1920s, and Latin in the 1970s (in the US). Using allusions is akin to speaking in code that only a certain type of reader can understand. I flipped through Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel and saw this line: “In that month when Proserpine comes back, and Ceres’ dead heart rekindles” – do you know what month that is? Or what season?

I don’t think AI can write like this, which is motivation enough for me to start writing like this. 

I don't want to be accessible or relatable

Allusions necessarily make writing less accessible (unless you have the exact same cultural touchpoints as the writer). But I think anti-AI sentiment is forcing writing to head in a direction that is purposefully less accessible for stupid reasons. If I include an allusion to the Procne myth, I want it to be because that's my choice as an author. I don't want to feel compelled to include an allusion as some "prove you're human" checkbox in my own book.

Tastemakers gonna tastemake

I’d compare what’s shifting in writing to the evolution of fine dining. It used to be that European cuisine was considered bar none the best “quality” (which meant they could charge the highest prices). But over time, tastes (and prejudices) have evolved and there’s more respect for cuisines from other parts of the world that didn’t get the time of day, say, 20 years ago. 

There are so many examples of art that was dismissed as low-brow when it first arrived on the scene, later being apotheosized. My favorite book is an example: Henry Miller was considered obscene (and banned for 30ish yrs) when he pubbed Tropic of Cancer in 1934. Now it’s canon. 

Artists react to the world: Dada came out of WWI in a very clear cause-and-effect way. And in this AI age, we’re being forced to react to (and defend ourselves from?) technology that is infringing on the concept of art.

You can ask GPT to write you an essay about how awful AI is. It has no POV, beliefs, morals, or principles. It could gobble up this very essay and regurgitate it and someone else could take credit for my ideas. Being ripped off and exploited is fundamentally what it means to be an artist and it's looking grimmer than ever.

May's Sad Rich Girl Salon dove into taste--

I could honestly do 10+ Salons on taste. People had so much to say and the convos were fascinating. The central question I posed was: Who gets to claim good taste? Who is excluded from having it (even when they adopt all the "right" signals and symbols)?

The reading/media below was not required by any means, but I was pleasantly surprised by how many people dipped into it (2 people told me they watched The Square which is one of the best disturbing/uncomfortable movies about elitist art/culture professionals).

Suggested Reading & Media

• Tasteslop by Emily Segal

• Little Nolitas Everywhere in The Cut

• Tech Bros Have Just Discovered Taste (reel)

• "I Found It: The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America" in The Atlantic

• When Harry Met Sally wagon wheel coffee table scene

• American Dad! Season 10, Episode 2 “A Boy Named Michael” (on Hulu or Amazon Prime)

• Xavier’s Substack (he’s harsh & very funny. a lot of what he says is just saying the ugly parts of status/power out loud, which is uncomfortable to some people)

• T Magazine “How to be Cultured” (I hate this soooo much)

• “Bitches with taste” reddit

• Ruben Östlund's The Square (2017)

• Bourdieu’s 500 page tome Distinction (if you want to join my book club and read this with us, tell me but you have to take it seriously)

• David Brooks' Bobos in Paradise

• Chris Lehmann's Rich People Things

• Martha Stewart interview (full length, 1 min clipping on taste)

Discussion questions:

• Who was the first person that you thought had ‘good taste’?

• Can taste be faked?

• What are the typical metrics of good taste?

• What are the less-obvious, subtle signals of “good taste” that are used to gatekeep?

• What is taste really a euphemism for?

• Does taste look diff for women/men?

• What’s wrong with “learning” taste (if anything)?

• “Taste can’t be divorced from class, except when _________[fill in the blank]”

• What is it “pretentious” vs “tasteful”?

• Who in your life would you go to for recs about taste? (it could be yourself lol)

• Has "having taste" become more or less accessible?

If someone says, You have such good taste-- is that a compliment?

If someone "steals" your taste (aka buys the same armoire or wedding shoes or mejuri necklace), are you flattered or ticked off?

As any Brown (University) freshman knows: Taste is a social construct. I'll do you one better: All the adulation around tastemakers (the entire industry of lifestyle influencers, which are just walking catalogs)--is a psyop.

How proud should one be of having so-called "good taste"?

Taste is necessarily possessions-based. Taste is something that other people see with their eyes. Taste has to do with one's belongings. Taste can be photographed.

I don't think you should hang your hat on something that can be copied so easily. If someone can Amazon dupe your entire life, do you really have a life?

Some people absolutely have quantifiably better taste than others. Curation is a skill. Some people definitely have an eye. But people who have exquisite taste and inspire the admiration/envy of millions--what their followers&haters really want is that person's self-actualization.

You'll never be Martha Stewart

It's no coincidence that people with great taste often have a successful life to go with it.

You'll never be Martha Stewart unless you have her knowledge of botany. Her inventiveness. Her work ethic. I got her 1991 gardening book (from the thrift store in ACK) and though it looks like a chic coffee table book-- it's detailed instructions about how to plant shit and she's wearing a sweatsuit in most of the pictures. This book is neither aEsThEtiC nor is it aspirational (for me at least).

"I want her life"

The most adored tastemakers usually have a close circle of friends. They often have a loving partner. They have a dream job. They are constantly launching initiatives. They are daily turning their ideas into reality. They are supremely self-actualized and that's what people are actually drawn to, but they're too myopic to realize it. Internet folk obsess over the things they can acquire (decor+car+clothes+accessories) because it's the lowest-effort way to be like the self-actualized tastemaker.

Internet folk fail to understand that what's desirable in this person's life is the intangible. The relationships and "free will" and the deciding to do something and following through. Tastemakers provide fantasies. But the fantasy of just-so tablescapes and perfectly-arranged closets is just the tip of the iceberg. The real fantasy it's that they thought of something (I'm going to throw a turn-of-the-century themed dinner party) and then they did it. In today's lurking world, action is mind-boggling.

The "I want her life" reaction grosses me out because it's mistaking the objects in a life for the life itself. It's the dumbest metonymy conceivable.

It's not that you want her life, you want her effort

A lot of tastemaker types have money so the argument goes: their followers actually want the wealth/access/privilege/security--yeah sure. But the common wisdom is "money can't buy taste" and the poor, resourceful tastemakers are the most self-actualized of all. People who can plan a gorgeous microwedding on a shoestring budget.

Wedding dinner at PF Changs (not a joke)

Alignment > taste

As soon as you refer to someone's "taste"-- it's commodified. You're talking about things that are purchasable. Someone at Salon used the word "alignment" to describe when someone's values+vision+personality dovetail, and their wardrobe matches their interiors matches their book recs matches their worldview matches how they're raising their kids matches the poetry they write etc etc

When I like someone's "taste", it includes their opinions (which is why separating the artist from the art is not something I can do without effort). If a tradwife has a "beautiful" home, her values necessarily color how I perceive the house. Aesthetics are political and taste is aesthetic so if you don't have a POV--if you don't have beliefs and opinions--you don't have taste either.

The lives I envy

belong primarily to artists with creative freedom. When I salivate over someone's life, it's because they were able to publish a vanity project that is definitely losing money. They have enough social/cultural capital to tell their publisher that their next book is about a topic that no reader is interested in. The premise is not "hook-y" and they will not be going on tour to promote it. That's the stuff of dreams to me.

Prince. Linda Perry. Beastie Boys. I try to stay oriented to these north stars so I don't fall into the trap of making executive-approved art. If you're gonna bend the knee to beancounter execs, just stay corporate and be a normie and at least have health insurance, right?

Bourdieu plug

Bourdieu explains fake taste as follows: basically, if you have "real" taste (aka you're not just a derivative schmuck) you can apply your taste to anything. Most people can manage home design and clothing bc they ingest so much of it and they "know what they like when they see it" (aka pinterest)-- but what about other spheres of taste? Do you have opinions on dance and theater and music and sculpture? Can you extrapolate your taste or is it so shallow that it peters out the second you don't have a menu of aesthetics to select from?

You can have an opinion on art without having a deep knowledge of it. Guides like T Magazine's How to Be Cultured make it seem like there are prerequisites to being cultured: "books you should read", "essential animated films", "poems to memorize" (!!). How absurdly prescriptive and ...totally antithetical to art. They make it seem like culture is a series of horse pills to swallow, and taste is something you earn by keeping it all down.

People who know their art

It's great to have a conversation with someone who is informed ... sometimes. Usually, the more studied someone is, the more they need to shove it down your throat (which usually means regurgitating some NYT review).

Blowhards who consume all the art, just like people who buy all the trends -- they wear their fraudulence on their sleeve because you can shatter their illusion of taste by just asking what they think of something.

They need someone to tell them what they think in order to have thoughts.

At Sad Rich Girl Salon

earlier this week, I listened in on a bunch of different convos on taste and the same principles kept coming up:

1. taste is about curation

2. you can't buy taste

3. taste requires education (as in, you have to learn about design or fashion or whatever)

4. shortcuts to taste are in bad taste

I was pretty good about keeping my mouth shut and not monopolizing the conversation. But I had to say my piece about taste is a psyop. It's policing via shame ("you have bad taste," is a way to get people to self-police).

The genuine article

Someone brought up real-true-genuine taste--the type possessed by a visionary who is ahead of their time, who has a defined sensibility and won't be swayed even if that vision is rejected by everyone else--a Basquiat type. We all knew what she meant and agreed that it existed and is admirable.

I said, but that's not really taste. To call what Basquiat had "taste" is really diluting it (and that's when someone else brought up "alignment" as a better description). And that wasn't a controversial opinion--everyone agreed (to my face at least).

The thing that Basquiat had-- whether you call it alignment or artistic sensibility or vision--unlike taste, it cannot be photographed. It is not related to one's possessions.

Taste is at it's core about class, respectability politics, and proximity to whiteness. Taste is the greatest means of social control that exists.

A diet of bite-size, digestible, "accessible" content will rot your brain

Online, every piece of content is designed to be accessible and not challenge you. Ease (cousin of convenience) is critical in getting views. 'Difficult' subjects are dumbed down so content can just wash over the viewer, who doesn't have to use any brain power whatsoever🙃

How do you get your intellectual nourishment? Surely not on the internet.

Making something dumber isn't making it more accessible--

it's perverting it altogether. Removing nuance doesn't democratize a subject, it misinterprets it. To say Ross and Rachel were "on a break" is maddening because it makes it sound simple when it wasn't. This is how all info is being treated now. People are forgetting how to think (or, worse, people believe they are using their brains when they are not.)

There's a reason that, in school, your teacher makes you read actual Shakespeare. Not CliffsNotes. Not Shakespeare for Dummies. There are plenty of summaries and study guides but nothing compares to the source itself.

I don't want digestible hot takes

I want the real thing. That's why I'm reading Distinction with my friend Neeha (who I met at Sad Rich Girl Salon). Hot takes are fundamentally not rigorous because they are entertainment. Some people forget/don't know this. Some people think that mindlessly consuming 'intellectual' content is akin to reading a book when it's just brainrot masquerading as education. If a creator "breaks down" a complex topic in sub-2 minutes and you sincerely think you "get it", you have been scammed, my friend. No matter how smart someone else is they cannot do thinking for you. You must do it yourself.

Distinction is tough. It's dense and the reasoning feels circular and I have to re-read passages and still feel like I'm not totally understanding -- I love it. I miss this feeling. I don't think I've really had it since college (def did not have it in my MFA).

Wanna read Bourdieu with me?

This is not an "I'm reading it so you don't have to" deal. You read it, too. For no other reason than your own edification. You don't get "credit" for reading it, you just get the enjoyment of doing something challenging and following through. The sweetest pleasure of all.

It's not 100% enjoyable all the time. Some of Distinction is boring. Some of the graphs are inscrutable. But nothing worth learning is a walk in the park all the time. This is learning grammar so that you can enjoy the Aeneid. Don't you want that in your life? How are people living without the joy of doing difficult things? Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. That's what it's all about, baby (why else would I choose to be an author?).

I love homework

And even more than homework-- I freakin' love tests. I love an examination. But since no one is going to administer one, I am going to prepare a final project when I've had my fill of Distinction. Neeha and I are going to give a presentation (aka do an online Salon) when we're done reading.

We will debate Bourdieu's claims about taste and have a conversation that cites the text and refers you to specific pages so you know we're not BSing. We're going to do it live and broadcast it as one is wont to do.

Join us for an (online) conversation about TASTE

When? tbd. We're less than halfway done and it's 500 pages. Probably end of summer/early fall.

Where? Online.

Format? 30 min discussion followed by Q&A. (subject to change)

How do I attend? Sign up for updates on sadrichgirlsalon.com (You can opt in to just the online invitations so I don't spam you.)

Please note: I'm NOT encouraging you wait for my breakdown. I'm encouraging you to read it on your own because, even if you don't come to our conversation, you will be happier and smarter and better off for having read it. reading gratia reading

Shots from SRG happy hour on Tuesday💕

The mistake all my Ivy-bound clients make is admitting they lovvvvve like-minded people.

Every season, when I'm editing nepobaby college essays I have to tell them: "Stop writing that you're excited to meet like-minded people. Why would you announce that? You can't wait to meet other rich kids who went to prep school? I puh-romise you the admissions team already knows that, so you should be dispelling rather than confirming it. Literally, just announce you're racist why dontcha? Do you even want to go to Yale?!" (I like to yell at my clients every now and then so they know who's in charge😇)

One of my kids had never pondered the phrase "like-minded" before, and my tirade blew his mind.

Teenage boy: Wait. Woah. I thought 'like-minded' was, like, a positive thing ... but it doesn't make any sense. Why does everyone say it like it's a good thing?

Me: ...why does anyone say anything?

Teenage Boy: You're so smart.

It's great to work with kids. They're quick to change their minds when presented with new information. They rarely double down or dig their heels in because they don't have egos about their beliefs (yet). And when I answer with an evasive rhetorical question they assume I have Confucian wisdom.

But, boy oh boy, it sure is swell to hangout with like-minded people.

As long as your clique has some racial diversity, you can be as like-minded as you want- right?

If I'm being real

While I know pro-echo-chamber sentiments aren't a wise thing to advertise in a college essay, I can't say I'm a great role model for puncture-thy-own-echo-chamber. It's comfy cozy to be in an echo chamber and what's the idea anyway-- that I'm constantly surrounding myself with people whose values disgust me?

What's the FDA recommended dose of getting out of your echo chamber? Say your hometown and family are conservative and you are not (in this scenario, you have blue hair)and for one holiday weekend you have to go "home" and stew in the juices of that place you left for a reason-- is that good enough for the year? Is that sufficient to puncture your bubble? Or do you need to seek out your political foils once a quarter? Monthly? ... Weekly? DAILY?!

These efforts are for self-betterment and self-awareness. I'm deliberately exiting my echo chamber in order that I'm reminded that my way of thinking isn't intrinsically "better" than any others (but it is-- why else would I believe in it if that weren't the case? whatever, i'll table this for now). So, in theory, I can choose to take my medicine by spending time with the "apolitical" crowd. The people who take pride in not reading the news and who keep unscripted TV in business--I definitely don't have the same world view as they do.

The apolitical crowd = people who are voluntarily learning about this ^^ completely manufactured "feud"

I am a coastal elite

Even worse, I am a coastal media elite. I live in Manhattan AND I make art.

Who is more different from me: a) an "apolitical" person or b) a right-wing bigot?

Not rhetorical. I'm trying to assign a point system so I can do my echo-chamber homework efficiently. I want to the get maximum number of points while spending the least amount of time interacting with people whose views I find objectionable--but does that defeat the point?

I think "the point" is to sincerely, earnestly be open-minded when you speak with someone outside of your echo chamber. You can't just "agree to disagree" and check the box and pat yourself on the back. But let's imagine sincerely listening to an Andrew Tate acolyte. Picture this scenario-- someone is explaining "high value man" to you. Could you listen to this dross with a straight face? This is a waste of time-- this is not the thing that's going to heal a fragmented world.

If you are familiar with The Comments Section, you will understand why I think "engaging" with (majority of) people is futile. Xavier's substack essay (which quoted my essay lol this is becoming an ouroboros) perfectly explains why the idea of having a discourse with, let's call them, "the other side" is fatuous. "Other side" is not really political -- it's the "other side" of intelligence. When people say, You should listen to what they're saying, I want to be like: Have you been on the internet lately? Have you seen the staggering stupidity?

I feel like a WWI soldier returned from the trenches: you haven't been out there like i have. you don't know how bad it really is - what it's really like. thousand yard stare

To be online is to get un-educated

Let me show you 2 examples that are not even hate-filled (no name calling. no malintent. just people feeling so free to be so dumb). This is baseline idiocy of the average person, whose viewpoint i am supposed to be entertaining and taking seriously on my beyond-the-echo-chamber adventures.

Example 1:

Why reply "i don't know what [satire] is not gonna lie" when you can look up "satire"? it's not as if "satire" is a nebulous, zeitgeisty concept that you have to know to know. it's a word with a definition. But it gets worse because the explanation provided is not an accurate definition of satire [FMJ rifle gif] This is where we are: the uneducated educating the uneducated, amplifying and disseminating uneducation to the masses.

Example 2 (from this vid about Reese Witherspoon grifting for AI)

The commenter didn't watch the video but "had to" comment (FRAUD - 8th circle crime according to Alighieri). She thinks she's adding something but it's literally the main point of the video. the OP points this out. instead of just shutting up and realizing I'm stupid, the commenter has to justify her inanity by saying she was in "car line pick up" ... does one go deaf blind and dumb from being in car line pick-up? And the kicker is the self-awareness-but-zero-self-awareness of the final statement "i had to get my comment out" Had to. She had to, folks. But why? Why do so many people feel a NEED to broadcast their stupidity? It's a sickness.

I earn my points the old-fashioned way

As I'm typing this, I realize that by pursuing a career in the arts and having an Asian family, I am thrust unceremoniously out of my echo chamber every. single. time. I interact with someone I'm related to. They fundamentally believe work should be suffering and if you enjoy what you do, you are doing life wrong (more than therapy, I wish they'd read Bullshit Jobs).

In fact, if I add up all the familial browbeating I've endured over the years-- I'm confident that should put me above the Average Expected Lifetime Total of oustide-of-the-echo-chamber time. I've already paid my dues. I've frontloaded it all (not by choice but still) and, now, I can coast for the rest of my life. Thanks to the fam, I am WELL aware that some people believe "art is not a real job" and, also, some way more problematic things that I'm embarrassed to admit they espouse.

How much homogeneity is acceptable?

At what point are you being self-indulgent if all of your friends and co-workers and acquaintances agree with you on the important matters? (Is "self-indulgent" the right criticism?)

When I hosted the first Sad Rich Girl Salons (back when it was called Unemployed Girls Club and we met at the park on Tuesday afternoon) I was surprised--and thrilled--that we all had the same cultural touch points.

I loved that I didn't need to explain west village girl because everyone had read the essay. And knew who Jonathan Cheban was. And had seen The Bling Ring (which I don't recommend). These are not highbrow references or worth "learning" if you don't know them (my husband would not recognize any of these 3 things), and the world would not be a remotely better place if everyone was aware of these things -- but it allowed the conversation flow right off the bat between strangers.

As we discussed status seeking and social climbing and out-of-control destination weddings, we could reference Sofia Richie Grainge's Antibes ceremony and instantly knowing nods (also, You stole my f---ing wedding country). The shorthand is invaluable when we're talking about abstract topics like class and taste. If I have to explain Flamingo Estate to you, I'll just move on because it's not worth it. To be so on the same page when we had never met before almost felt miraculous.

The attendees at SRG Salon are diverse in many ways, but we do seem to consume the same media, as evidenced by the fact that we have tremendously overlapping cultural touch points -- does that make us homogenous? Does that make my Salon an echo chamber?

Echo chamber has a negative connotation

Echo chamber means delusional. (The meme that's like: 2 idiots telling each other 'exactly' to everything they say. Jerry sends me every single version of this)

A like-minded but open-minded group -- does that still constitute an echo chamber? (Is there a positive-connotation version of echo chamber?)

What does life look like if you're someone who spends majority of their time NOT in an echo chamber? Does the world then feel like a vicious and hostile place?

Everyone has a reason to defend their echo chamber or say it's "not as echo-y" as the worst types of echo chambers (manosphere etc). I can feel myself starting to write in that direction and I won't because it's terribly dull to hear someone defend something that is convenient for them to believe (all prejudices).

Fun

My previous essay was about friendship and how fun is an underrated metric of friendship. On Tuesday, I hosted a happy hour with 9 lovely people who've been to Salons and it was a wonderful, like-minded time. (And further proving our like-mindedness, there was a 0% no-show rate. Everyone who said they would come, came. This is how I know for certain these are my people. A+ no notes.)

I'm finding that the most like-minded thing about Salon attendees, the main thing that ties everyone together, is the desire for rigor. Even when it's a happy hour, we want a little rigor (and not pabulum). Nothing crazy (though I am reading Distinction with one of my Salon friends because we love homework), but also who else is showing up to a discussion group where the main topics (race/class/money) are things that most people are incapable of talking about maturely (if we're to go by internet intelligence), besides people who have rigorous minds?

I'm not praising myself for bringing together the Smartest People in NYC, nor am I saying that Salon is god's work, but it's a huge win to look at who is not coming to my discussion group. The crowd who always asks, "how do you dress old money? how do you masquerade your way into these groups?" in the comments -- mercifully, those people are not interested in interrogating😙 anything, and they stay away. Self-selection is a beautiful thing.

Rigor and a willingness to interrogate your own prejudices are the prerequisites to having any hope of existing outside of a bubble.

I know wayyy too many people who can’t stand a serious chunk of their social circle. I wonder if the only reason they continue to be friends with their friends is to have friends?

Perhaps they maintain friends for optics. They see friends as a conduit to status: how else do you get invited to parties? Or accessories: who else is gonna fill out your bridal party? Or maybe friends keep loserdom at bay (your mailman will judge you if you don’t receive any holiday cards).

friendship is a necessary nutrient

People who despise their friends yet continue to socialize with them are baffling because friendship is my primary source of joy. I rely on my friends to keep my life from feeling like drudgery. (I am a joyless, deeply discontent person aka a writer -- writing brings me meaning and fulfillment, not happiness.)

true friendship is taking selfies in the club bathroom while he pees

The peak of my March one of those special nights where you think, This is what life's all about. I was with an old friend (9 yrs friendship**), a newer friend (2 yrs friendship**), and a new friend (<1 year**). New didn’t know Old or Newer. Old&Newer are old friends themselves (that’s how I met Newer). I had no idea how the chemistry would shake out, but it was superb.

** I’m cracking up at typing the # of years I’ve known someone as if it’s their credentials. Sanibel (Penn, 10 yrs friendship). This feels like something that would go on a bridezilla’s wedding planner’s clipboard (“falling out in 2009, friendship re-established 2013 after intervention”).

Conversation 10/10

The socializing at that March dinner was so good that when I got home, I felt like I had accomplished something. The evening was gratifying akin to finishing a challenging book.

It’s impossible to capture this feeling without sounding cheesy: it’s when you’re in a cab going home and you’re so happy that it transforms into gratitude (which never lasts) and you’re like, Life is amazing. What an honor to exist. (It's the type of friendship Stegner paean-ed in Crossing to Safety.)

So why do so many people hate their friends?

The problem is accepting that social life plateaus as you get older. It’s normalized to resent your friends, and for friendship to become a chore. I’ve gotta see xyz person, ugh. Or so-and-so just asked me to get coffee 🙄. Part of the chore-like feeling, imo, is the bias toward old (as in, long duration) friendships. It’s seen as disloyal and ungrateful to end these. Which means many people are keeping friends out of inertia. Or nostalgia.

Nostalgia friendships

“What’s wrong with nostalgia?" was this woman’s comment on my tiktok about friendships that are dragging the bedraggled corpse of “we’ve been friends for 20 years,” death rattle, behind them.

If my friend were to say, “ours is a nostalgia friendship,” I would be deeply offended. This means that the only thing tethering us is something ancient, like the fact that our dads were college roommates. Or we happened to be enrolled in the same ice-skating class at 6yo. Be more hateful, please.

My reply to the idiotic comment is: what’s wrong with doing anything out of inertia is that YOU HAVE FREE WILL. What's wrong with being passive and letting life wash over you? Everything is wrong with that.

Nota bene: Deep meaningful friendships formed over many years are the most valuable. Full stop. “Old friends” sounds like a slur 😓 but old friends are absolutely the best genre of friend. I am not disparaging them whatsoever.

There's a difference between having friends and having friendship

If you're deep in an unsatisfying-comfort-zone-malaise of friends -- it's been the same stale circle for decades, with undercurrents of animosity and tension, lots of prickliness -- it's very possible you have friends but not friendship.

my new theory

is that the healthiest social life is one that exists in many stages of friendship at once. Both in the sense of a mixture of young and old (duration of friendship) friendships and also a mixture of friends whom you can imagine getting close to, and others whom you are content to remain at acquaintance+ level with.

Diversify your friend portfolio.

Has your social life stagnated?

Most people hit a social plateau because there are no longer new infusions of friends. My last infusion was grad school, which was 9 years ago. My MFA friends are now my “old” friends.

Until last year, I only had old friends. Thanks to my book coming out last April, I got introduced to a bunch of authors who were also debuting, and for the first time since grad school, I got a new crop of friends. It felt like college orientation. Or summer camp.

New blood is fun

do you remember this maybe fake, definitely performative kourtney/addison rae friendship?

We went to each others' book launches and stayed out late gossiping about our pub sagas. I went to DC to guest teach a class for a new friend who’s a professor at GW. The shared experience of First Book provided a pretext for all these new friendships—but as the year came to a close I realized there'd be no more book launches, and I couldn’t help but wonder: Would my new friendships fade alongside my debut novel?😙

What I actually couldn’t help but wonder was how to orchestrate regular infusions of new friends into my life.

i feel like i'm arguing for an open relationship

It’s not that I want to cheat on my old friends or replace them – it’s about social complacency. Variety is what makes you appreciate anything (if you’ve ever been a spoiled rich brat on vacation, you know the hell of eating at fine dining restaurants back to back to back when all you want is lamyun or mcdonalds).

Hosting my Salon and meeting so many people has reminded me how fun it is to connect with someone anew. Making new friends uses similar muscles to dating. If you’re married AND you have an established friend group, those muscles are bound to weaken.

SRG Salon is the best friend-making vehicle I could've dreamt up

Ask me to RFK an ideal friendship pyramid: I'd design it to be 60% long term friends, 20% people that are most likely becoming long term friends, and 20% new/casual friends. Call me an ethical friendship slut.

BTW

This is not a rah-rah “put yourself out there and make new friends” self-help post (because if you wanted to you would). This is, instead, a year of realizing post about how I unconsciously, unthinkingly resigned myself to the notion that these 20-or-so-people are my friends *fixed mindset* and that is that. This finite group (of wonderful people) are mine to hold on to (or not) for the rest of my life, lest I become one of those people whose only friend is their spouse.

It's not true. Plateaus are not permanent. This is a philippic against inertia 😇

If you want to be beyond reproach,

if you're scared of people accusing your writing of using AI, then write the opposite of AI. I've noticed a lot of writers doing this. Substacks are sounding more casual (since GPT has a tendency to write formal-stilted, like a commonapp essay that thinks more formal = smarter) and also more bizarre.

It's kind of fun to read expressly-not-AI style (I prefer a weird reading experience to a slop one) but as someone who is also adjusting their writing to avoid any suspicion of AI, it's annoying that I have to make a stylistic change because of an external force. If I change my style, I'd like that to be completely up to me--not because of paranoia that someone is gonna say, "a robot to write this."

The way (certain) writers are changing it up is in direct opposition to the hallmarks of AI writing. AI sands down all the edges, rounds all the corners. So the writers who are taking precautions are writing more byzantine--sort of eccentric. The posts where I never wonder "Is this AI?" sound faux-pretentious, if that makes sense. This anti-AI style is a little wordier than might have been acceptable a five years ago (because concision is an AI thing: the super short sentences). It often has wacky punctuation (I've been doing this a lot). It's kind of archaic (I see out of date phrases more and more) but also self-consciously affected (using "as it were" comes to mind), where it sounds like the writer is conscious of sounding a little silly, but going for it anyway.

AI is compelling (some of) us to write less direct to prove we are human

Less direct isn't always worse, but in this case it feels like artificial style. I thought of a metaphor that kind of works. Say I'm on a very tight budget for clothing and the only place I can afford to shop is a costume rental store. The exhausted pirate and disco and flapper girl costumes get discounted and I buy them for pennies. So I'm wearing these costumes as regular clothes and people think, "Wow she has such a distinct (and extreme) style," but it's not actually my style -- it's just what I can afford. AI is forcing my writing to don an extreme costume that I would not otherwise wear.

Tea at the plaza dressed as Mermaid Man. It was halloween.

It's tiresome to be looking over your shoulder and wondering if a sentence you just wrote sounds like AI might have written it. Because instead of focusing on: what is the best way for me to communicate this point? I'm distracted by also thinking about: how do I say this without looking like it was AI-assisted? These are two different objectives and making good on the latter can impede the former.

Also, you could absolutely train GPT or Claude or whatever to write in the semi-affected-dont-accuse-me-of-using-AI way. So I wouldn't be surprised if this intentionally-human style gets co-opted and then we have to find another new way to (try and) be unimpeachable.

I stopped reading 2 newsletters because the AI usage was bad-bad

In theory, I don't mind if you use AI, but if I can really tell (because whatever you're producing is worse for it) it's hard to recover reputationally. You, as an artist, are tainted.

To me the biggest tell of AI writing is when a text says nothing. It's 3 sentences in a row that don't do any work-- complete filler fluff-- and then I spot a word (or convention) that confirms it's AI 💥 Dunzo. Maybe the writer only used AI for that single section or paragraph--doesn't matter. You're now an "AI writer". Again, the reputational risk is just way too high - assuming you define yourself as a writer.

If you call yourself a writer and you're using AI in your newsletter that is promoting your writing-- what are you doing?? Just the threat of the accusation should be enough to keep you from being that lazy.

I see AI in everyone's content

For a lot of creators I follow, I don't care about the actual subject matter of their content. I like their hooks. And headlines. They are a masterclass in how to get/keep attention with microtechniques that i want to imitate.

I can see AI [I can see dead people voice] in all these peoples' posts. It's not that they're using AI to write/edit the entire video but I can tell (bc I've done it too) that they entered their top 5 best performing posts into GPT and told it: "Give me more like this." Sometimes the suggestions are pretty good.

I made a few videos based on a GPT idea and they performed average. Not better or worse than my organic brainchildren. But (I say this humbly) everything that was "good" in the idea GPT provided was a regurgitated thought OF MY OWN. (Nvm- scratch humble.)

It's like when someone says, "I love your purse, I have the same one," -- complimenting their own taste. What I liked in the AI generated idea, was the part that reflected my own opinions back to me (am I being redundant?)

"AI Accent"

is a term I read in Emma Alpern's article "I Am Not a Robot" in the print version of NYMag (here's the link- under a new title).

Alpern notes that many neurodivergent people who post on Reddit and chat on Discord using full sentences and proper grammar are getting accused of using AI.

The AI Accent is generic "good" writing imo. Pre-AI, if a student in high school could write like GPT we'd give them an A. It is clear and legible. There aren't (usually) any stylistic flourishes but it sounds "right".

I hate generic good writing. I find it to be very bad writing. It's how all the parents of my clients (that I help with college essays) write. When these parents edit an essay they 1) take ALL of the life out of it and 2) make their kid sound middle-aged.

When I say that AI Accent sounds "right"-- let me clarify-- it sounds right to the average (not that smart) person. I think I speak for pretty much all writers when I say we abhor the way AI writes. For some writers, it's def tangled up in their negative feelings/fear about AI- but I'm just talking about its style. No actual writer aspires to sound like AI. That is not the platonic ideal of writing. It's parent-who-thinks-they-sound-amazing type writing.

I have to share this bit of an essay that a student turned in that was 100% written by her mom:

When you have an immigrant parent, nothing about American life is taken for granted – everything is questioned, analyzed, and parsed to get at the deeper meaning and understanding of what it is to be American and to live in the United States. 

My dad is [Malaysian] and despite being a U.S. citizen for more than 20 years, there’s no escaping the impact of his three decades in [Asia] and the effect of that experience on my upbringing. I feel fortunate to have this influence because it helps me understand others. I can view our country from a slightly removed perspective, from the outside looking in.

Peak college essay. Peak parent parent writing. It's giving AI accent, no?

Not writing like AI isn't hard

That's a rough header. Writing unlike AI is easy. (Better?)

In some ways, it's fun to break rules that I wouldn't otherwise and dabble in bad writing habits. My fear is sounding sloppy- but I know that's part of what makes me sound more convincingly human. Would you rather read something that's a little sloppy but never makes you wonder "was this AI" or would you rather read clean, concise, neatly generated SLOP?

You know how there's a genre of comedy called anti-comedy? Norm Macdonald was sometimes classified as this. Mitch Hedburg, too. I feel like the style I'm developing in reaction to AI is anti-writing.

Reporting back after 2 weeks of going no-contact with IG and TikTok

First, I'll tell you the good news. I read a lot. I finished Didion's YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING and Rose Macaulay's KEEPING UP APPEARANCES and A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES (which I made a TikTok about today). And I'm almost done with part 2 of Henry IV. Plus, I knocked a bunch of books off my tbr (by deciding I didn't want to read them).

The main good news is hard to say in a clever way: I just felt way better without content in my life. Many times I thought, How was I living like that for so long?? But I also knew I'd go back to it.

The bad news

is that the terrible habit of mindless phone unlocking is so engrained that my pickup stat (the # of times I opened my phone) didn't go down at all. I'm still clocking 90-100 pickups per day, even without IG/TikTok on my phone.

In their absence, I was using apps I haven't used in ages.

I was a menace on poshmark the past 2 weeks. I wish I were joking. I sold 7 listings (I bought some stuff too.) I was at the post office practically every other day to ship them. (Sidebar: I love the post office. I mail a lot of stuff. I am very worried about the recent headlines.)

I am stalking individual pairs of shoes and sweaters on TheRealReal, which is something I haven't done in years.

I bought 6 pairs of shoes (2 pairs of Tod's heels, 1 pair of Tod's boots, 1 pair of rag&bone boots, 1 pair new balance sneakers, 1 pair hunter short rain boots) mostly at Nordstrom Rack (I downloaded the Nordstrom Rack app😳).

I got these silver david bowie-ish boots because they were $65 on clearance (they retail for $498). They're not really my taste but for 87% off I can cosplay Dorian Greene.

I'm not framing this as shopping addiction ("All I did was sub 1 vice with another!") Truth be told, I desperately needed to go shopping for a while. I was looking sha-bby. Also, I did really need to address my plantar fasciitis situation (I bought 4 diff kinds of orthotics).

So shopping a lot and averaging 2 hrs/screentime per day isn't exactly good but it's not bad either. If anything, it just shows that as soon as some free time opened up I finally attended to tasks that I'd been putting off. I took 2 pairs of boots to the cobbler. I got a haircut. I'm not calling this SeLf-CaRe - but some people would.

What's bad is that I couldn't stop reaching for my phone. And when I opened it and discovered no IG, most of the time I didn't do the right thing and just re-lock it. I opened other apps. I was browsing listings on Airbnb with absolutely no intention of going anywhere. This is mortifying behavior.

What a colossal waste of time that I know where to stay in Naples, FL and also Naples, Italy if someone wanted to take a trip next week.

Just stop

I had a compulsion to scroll: rental houses, jeans, platform sandals (that is a real shoe that I have my eye on). It sounds like it didn't matter what I was looking at because that was indeed the case. The unlocking/checking behavior was agnostic of any rational motivation.

Why did I keep looking at junk on my phone when I was sitting in front of work that needed to be done? This is the real question. This is the nexus of my problem.

Because I wasn't craving short-form content. It's not like i had to fight the urge to check my stats or look at TikTok in my browser. I wasn't jonesing for brain rot. Going on poshmark and airbnb wasn't a methadone thing-- it was an unthinking thing.

It was out of habit that I kept reaching for my phone when I was in the middle of working on my book or a pitch or a essay -- any time I came to a point where I needed to stop and think (pick the right word, figure out what I'm really trying to say, make a decision)-- before I could do that, I would open my phone and kill a few minutes.

I thought taking the apps off my phone would cure this self-sabotaging instinct but it didn't🙃

The unconsciousness of it

is what's bothering me. I wouldn't call it lack of self-control because when I thought ooh you're reaching for your phone again, I would stop myself. But mostly, I found myself looking at my phone already unlocked thinking, damn, it happened again... might as well see if there are any good listings in Paris on the weekend of my birthday. just for fun.

I wasn't on airbnb 3 hours a day, though. In this 2 week period, I did sit with my thoughts more. I brought my kindle with me every time I went out. I (mercifully) had fewer ideas/hooks for videos running through my mind. But what I'm mad at myself for is how I couldn't get rid of the automatic unlocking aka I am so addicted and not even getting any pleasure out of it.

"Successful People"

I'm always wary of so-called studies about "successful people" but I saw this thing (which seems to be attributed to Jeff Olson's The Slight Edge) that says successful people (whatever that means) don't have better willpower, they just create situations in which their willpower is not tested. They remove temptations rather than resisting them.

That feels legit to me because my screentime did decrease a ton (compare with the screenshot at the top) and I felt like I "got my life back" when I took the social apps off my phone.

I didn't screenshot my screentime before I deleted IG/TikTok so I can't show a precise before/after but pre-hiatus I was averaging 3hr16min without IG. So it must've been, what, at least 4 hours of daily screentime pre-hiatus?

I always think of this bit in 30Rock where Jack Donaghy is lying in a hospital bed, imagining he might die, and he says, "I have only one regret: I should have worked more."

I have only one regret: I should have scrolled more.

2 weeks

wasn't enough for me to change my habits. Gemini says it takes 66 days. I'm better smarter and more talented than the average person so I think I could make a dent in a month but alas - I just shot and edited a tiktok (in 7 minutes : this is not a brag. it's a warning to not waste your time watching it) in the middle of writing this.

Casual as this sounds, I am editing these posts. The formatting and punctuation is a little wonky because I want you to know it's written with love, not with AI (this is gonna be my next topic-- the way writing, esp on substack, is getting a weird because people are trying to make it clear they are not using AI). I do not subscribe to Kerouac's "first draft best draft" for anything except short form content.

I'm not going straight back to posting in full-throttle mode. I'm going back reluctantly with a healthy respect for how much I hate it and how mind-numbing (this is such a great phrase) content is. Great art isn't mind-numbing. Good art isn't mind-numbing. Even pop art isn't mind-numbing.

Anything that numbs your mind, takes you out of reality without giving you something to chew on, that's dangerous. That's soma.