The internet aesthetic romanticizing sleazy suburban glamor.
The Wednesday edition of the Goods newsletter is all about internet culture, brought to you by senior reporter Rebecca Jennings. The Wednesday edition of the Goods newsletter is all about internet culture, brought to you by senior reporter Rebecca Jennings. ð¬ The joy of having terrible taste ðï¸ âMoney talks, wealth whispersâ is a common, if a bit classist, phrase whose central idea has been observed as long as there have been [social critics]( to point it out. We are currently emerging from a roughly [decade-long aesthetic trend]( that reveres this kind of upscale subtlety: [Nordic minimalism](, sensible [direct-to-consumer basics](, dressed-down [business casual](, streetwear [so nondescript]( it is almost violent, [no-makeup makeup](, [bare-bones live-work spaces]( so indistinguishable from one another that you might be doing anything, anywhere in the world, and not know it. In the logic of 2010s corporate design geared toward (mostly) white, (mostly) hetero, (definitely at least) middle-class people, simple is good. Simple is clean. Simple whispers that it is better than you without having to say it. It was at the apex of this culture awash in muted millennial pink that I discovered a blog called [Very Famous Magazine](, which exemplified its polar opposite. The website â purposefully not optimized for mobile viewing â is a shade of cyan so bright it hurts your eyeballs, with bright purple headlines and decorative stock gifs of roses and glitter from the pre-social media internet. But to dismiss these aesthetic choices as merely nostalgia for the [GeoCities era]( or [Y2K âtrashionâ]( would be to miss the point. Under the section âWho Is Very Famous?â it describes itself thusly: - A hotel lobby.
- 7/11 candy.
- Watching Showgirls alone at midnight.
- The condensation from your frappuccino.
- The jet streams in your heart-shaped jacuzzi.
- A strip mall in the late afternoon.
- At the intersection of luxury and overdraft protection.
- The smell of motel air conditioning and sprinklers on St. Augustine grass.
- For terrible lifestyles. The reason I came across Very Famous Magazine also sort of fits in with the Very Famous aesthetic of glamor minus elegance: The founder is my boyfriendâs ex-girlfriend, Kelsey Lawrence, whoâs a freelance writer based in Texas and New York. (Itâs not weird! Weâre friends!) Kelsey launched Very Famous in 2018, while staring out the window overlooking her parentsâ apartment complex pool, becoming increasingly disillusioned with womenâs media and its refusal to publish anything truly off-kilter, as well as its stylistic loyalty to mainstream standards of âgood taste.â Itâs difficult to categorize the precise ethos of Very Famous, and internet culture has enough catchy little nicknames for niche aesthetics â âI get a little tired of hearing âsomething-hyphen-core,ââ Kelsey tells me â but I like her definition: âItâs sort of about the glamor of getting by each day, and finding those little moments of glitter, whether itâs a sparkly top from TJ Maxx or walking by a nail salon with roses in the window.â Iâm reminded of a phrase I read in the similarly weird, although more male-coded, newsletter Blackbird Spyplane, which [coined the term âUn-grammable Hang Zoneâ]( to describe places that feel welcoming, lived-in, and unpretentious but whose pleasant auras are impossible to capture on Instagram. Like the widely reported [return to âcasualâ posting]( or the end of the [âinfluencer aesthetic,â]( it should be noted that all of these phenomena are still performances, none more or less âauthenticâ than the other. To embrace tackiness, camp, or anything deemed declassé on the grounds of individual enjoyment is also to partake in a long lineage of writers and artists who have done the very same thing, often invoking scholarly works of media theory as a sort of paradoxical means of justifying it. It may not be new, but stereotypically âbad tasteâ is having a moment. A recent piece in [Time magazine]( lists the evidence: Selling Sunset, hyperpop, Pete Davidson, micro-miniskirts, [cocaine decor](, [revisionist retellings of maligned '90s women]( like Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears, and Monica Lewinsky. Writer Judy Berman posits that the renewed interest is possibly due to, like many things, Americansâ growing sense of doom. âNothing kills numbness like a sensory onslaught of color, sound, hedonism, melodrama, and sleaze,â she writes. There is something that feels very of-the-moment about the pursuit of lowbrow pleasure, particularly to women who have never seen themselves in the quiet, willowy millennials who go to barre classes, drink smoothies, and journal (a trope that, unfortunately, [continues to be repackaged and sold on TikTok](). In an essay on the [relation between tackiness and fatness](, writer Margaret Eby notes that âTacky is a way of saying, âThat is too much.â Itâs a way to say, 'Hush.' Youâre too loud, too bright, too attention-seeking. You take up too much space. Youâre too costume-y. Youâre too dramatic. Your excesses are not welcome here.â Rax King, the author of a collection of essays called Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer, covers the topic as it relates to sexual promiscuity, adding in her book, âTo my mind, every tacky loudmouth of a girl is behaving strategically. For a girl, a scream is a potent reclamation of space that cannot be claimed any other way. Everybody wants to sidle up to a pretty young girl all the time unless sheâs screaming.â The first time I visited Very Famous, I immediately thought of [the Dollz](. The Dollz, for those outside my precise age and gender demographic, were little Bratz-like digital avatars you could dress up in thigh-high boots, schoolgirl skirts, and cut-out crop tops, essentially all the clothes I could hardly fathom wearing myself as a then-12-year-old but liked to imagine I might someday. Needless to say, the Dollz were tacky as hell, and [I loved them](: They were everything that was antithetical to the culture I grew up in, which valued functional, sensible design that withstood the outdoors; athleticism; and granola self-reliance. Nobody wore Juicy Couture at my mid-aughts high school, so as the resident âprepâ who preferred polo shirts and wore too much makeup, if anyone embodied tackiness, it was me. When we talk about tackiness, what weâre often talking about is an excess of something deemed too feminine, too indulgent. But there seems to be a growing chorus suggesting that perhaps indulgence (at least the way normal people experience it, and not, like, billionaires) is not the human conditionâs most shameful sin. The world doesnât care that youâre wearing a scent from Bath & Body Works or that you ate a Lean Cuisine for dinner just because you like the taste. Our own individual choices, be they [stylistic]( or [financial]( or [even political](, seem to matter less than they ever have; most [trends move too fast]( to be even a little bit meaningful anymore. Just because somethingâs tacky today doesnât mean it will be tomorrow. Why even bother paying attention? [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Clickbait ð - Celebrities are ditching [their Bored Ape avatars](, lol.
- How Manhattan became [TikTokâs playground](.
- Oh look, Facebook is [copying another social app](!
- TikTok is full of [undisclosed ads]( â and also [health misinformation](, and also [Christian fascism](.
- Family vloggers are [in their flop era](.
- The dating app for the [emotionally mature (and the kinky](). One Last Thing ð Highly rec this TikToker who creates [extremely calming vibe slideshows]( (not sure if thatâs a term, but when you see it, youâll get it) of his life in New York. [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Manage your [email preferences]( or [unsubscribe](param=goods). If you value Voxâs unique explanatory journalism, support our work with a one-time or recurring [contribution](. View our [Privacy Policy]( and our [Terms of Service](. Vox Media, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Floor 12, Washington, DC 20036. Copyright © 2022. All rights reserved.