PicoBlog

Keep scrolling for the latest BookTok controversy (that you might actually want to miss, tbh).

This week’s edition of infinite scroll is brought to you by Coach Love, the new fruity, floral fragrance from Coach. To celebrate love in all its forms, Coach is hosting a consumer event in Sydney, where our readers can explore the fragrance, get their tarot cards read, and enjoy delicious canapes. Click here to learn more and reserve your spot (there are only 25!).

The bland allure of Hailey Bieber

In a new piece for Vox, Kyndall Cunningham breaks down the internet’s obsession with Hailey Bieber, AKA “Gen Z’s reigning beauty queen.”

• Beauty trends have come a long way since 2016, back when full glam reigned supreme. Nowadays, in the era of the 'Clean Girl,' Gen Z is all about embracing a more natural and minimal makeup approach.

  “From ‘glazed donut’ skin to ‘vanilla girl’ makeup to ‘latte girl’ makeup, Bieber has been attached to a slew of recent minimalist beauty trends,” Cunningham writes. “While Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner inspired millennials to embrace maximalism with their contouring and lip kits, Bieber is teaching Gen Z to look a lot more plain.”

• From her success in modelling to her marriage to Justin Bieber, she dominates Pinterest boards and the TikTok FYP. Bieber has truly solidified her status as a certified "it-girl" and a source of "fashion inspo."

  “Despite her presence across multiple platforms, Bieber isn’t exactly concerned with making herself knowable,” Cunningham notes. “She remains primarily a mood board, ready to project the consumerist desires of young, beauty-obsessed women. Not a persona, but an idea to aspire to.”

• Being a figure that Gen Z wishes to emulate has set the stage for Bieber's success in her beauty entrepreneur era — marked by the launch of Rhode Beauty.

  • Rhode Beauty's success echoes that of Glossier, according to Cunningham. Both brands share a focus on clear skin and minimal makeup while embracing "the direct-to-consumer route [and] bypassing brick-and-mortar stores."

  • The focus on minimalism has also allowed Rhode to tap into the perennial desire for women to look "authentically" and "naturally" beautiful.

    “In an age when makeup tutorials are accessible to anyone with an internet connection, cosmetics act as an equalizer,” Cunningham explains. “[But] being able to say “I woke up like this” — or at least look like you did — is therefore an automatic flex.”

• That being said, the beauty standards Bieber upholds come with a lot of “baggage” — most notably, the ongoing conversation around the exclusionary nature of trends like “vanilla girl,” “latte girl,” and “clean girl."

  “Not only does this evolution expose a level of disposability to Black aesthetics (and Black culture in general), the want for ‘pure,’ ‘plain’ beauty feels loaded,” Cunningham writes.

• It is not classist or racist to wear less makeup, the journalist concludes. However, the very nature of these aesthetics seems to replace any sense of individuality with "bland uniformity" — something that appears to be the very antithesis of what defines Gen Z.

Read the full story via Vox.

Why is there no Black Alix Earle?

With this sort of uniformity among the famous and influential, the digital space only tends to platform certain types of people. On TikTok, it's often young white women who grab the spotlight.

• TikTok creator @izzyeternal explores this phenomenon in a now-viral video, questioning why Black women struggle to find the same level of fame as influencers like Alix Earle.

  “The reason there is no Black Alix Earle is because Black women are not rewarded for mediocrity and almost exclusively rewarded for being exceptional,” he begins.

• That is not to say that Alix creates boring or ordinary content; rather, if a Black woman were doing the same thing, they wouldn't receive nearly the same amount of praise.

  “A lot of thought goes into their [Black female creators] video ideas, a lot of thought goes into their aesthetic,” Izzy continues. “When they do regular slice of life videos, those videos. Those videos do not get traction, not with any degree of consistency…[Alix Earle] goes viral for existing.”

• As for why this might be the case, Izzy lists several reasons. First, he notes that it may be an administrative issue, where TikTok just doesn’t boost creators of colour. He then offers an alternative explanation, suggesting that "a large number of fair-skinned consumers find it very difficult to empathise with a woman of colour."

  “They find it very difficult to project themself onto these women, which is why they don’t reward them for just existing with their attention,” he says.

• His video has accumulated over 2 million views, resonating with thousands of users in the comment section.

  • Many have provided examples of Black women creators who sit in the “Alix Earle” class of influence but haven't achieved the same level of mainstream recognition and internet fame.

  • Some notable mentions include Monet McMichael and Clarke.

Watch the full video via TikTok.

Hello horizontal video, goodbye trending audios

This week has been big for TikTok updates. The short-form video app is breaking ranks from Universal Music Group (UMG) and moving away from its origins as a vertical-first video platform.

• On January 30, UMG issued an open letter to TikTok, calling out the platform for “build[ing] a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music.”

  • The company, which controls approximately a third of the world's music, announced its decision to stop licensing content to TikTok once their contract expires on January 31. As a result, artists from Taylor Swift to Billie Eilish may no longer have their discographies available on the platform.

  • UMG cited problems with “compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users.”

• UMG's decision to withdraw its music catalog is bound to change how the viral world currently operates, especially with TikTok being the culture-defining app.

  “We've honestly never had a platform be this big and allow this much remixable audio. It would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago. Without that, everything changes,” Ryan Broderick, of the Garbage Day newsletter, writes.

• On top of this, TikTok is now boosting horizontal videos — a clear effort to compete with social media platforms such as YouTube.

  “The platform began sending alerts to a select group of creators in recent weeks, telling them that posts over a minute long in landscape — horizontal — mode would receive increased views,” Taylor Lorenz writes for The Washington Post.

• With the platform gradually extending the allowed video length (now reaching up to 30 minutes in specific markets), TikTok is striving to become the primary destination for both short and long-form content. But, as UMG distances itself from TikTok, the success of this pursuit is called into question.

Read more via Forbes and The Washington Post.

Anyone could be a victim of ‘deepfakes’. But there’s a reason Taylor Swift is a target

Taylor Swift is the latest high-profile woman to be the target of AI-generated pornography. For The Guardian, author and attorney Jill Filipovic explores how the recent right-wing hostility towards Swift animated the discussion around these deepfake images.

• Sexually explicit deepfake images of Swift spread on X on January 25th, racking up 47 million views before being removed a day later.

• Swifties came to the singer’s defense, mass-reporting the imagery and posting “Protect Taylor Swift” all over social media to drown out the searches.

• In response, several US senators have introduced a bill to criminalise the distribution of sexually explicit deepfake images.

  • At the moment, there are no federal laws in the U.S. that make it illegal to create non-consensual, AI-generated images.

• Filipovic notes that Swift’s new relationship with football player Travis Kelce seems to have set off a spiral of conspiracy theories about the singer.

  “The right is rife with Swift conspiracy theories, including that she’s a Pentagon asset, that she’s part of an election interference psy-op, that the Super Bowl is rigged, and that the Swift-Kelce relationship and his team’s recent victories are all a part of a broad plan to reinstate Joe Biden in office,” Filipovic writes.

• She theorises this hostility stems from Swift breaking out of the box she seemed likely to fit into— she’s a white, blonde, blue-eyed country singer who spent much of her early years in Tennessee and is now dating an American football star. But Swift is also a wildly successful 34-year-old unmarried woman with no children who (occasionally) speaks out about feminism and has publicly backed Democrats.

  “Those same conservatives are angry that the only way they can impose their unpopular views and values is by minority authoritarian rule, and seek to punish anyone whose liberalism has wider appeal. This, to circle way back, poses a significant threat to the urgent necessity of reining in deepfakes, pornographic and non-pornographic alike,” Filipvic explains.

• To put it simply, Swift is someone that many aim to “humiliate, degrade and punish” at the moment. And until legislation catches up with technology, women—not just famous women— will continue to be threatened and victimised by AI abuse.

Read the full story via The Guardian.

Author J.D. Barker’s ‘Racy’ Spon-Con Request Rankles BookTok

In a similar vein (unfortunately), BookTok-famous author J.D. Barker has found himself in the middle of controversy after asking women to make “racy” sponsored videos.

• TikTok user Siân Harper, who is known as @booksofaginger online, went viral after sharing an email she received to promote a “Spicy Thriller,”

  “Can authors not be f—ing creeps in 2024,” she begins. “I just got such a predatory email from an author wanting me to promote their book. They were even generous enough to give you some ideas of what you might like to do for them.”

• The creator went on to share Barker’s suggestions which included: answering questions like “Where is the most taboo place you’ve ever had sex?” or making a video using “the book to cover up your naughty bits.”

  • The email also provided rates for the promotional content, with the lowest offer being $100. It further mentioned that creators would be required to submit the video for approval first, prompting many to question why Barker should be “collecting” this “racy” content from young female creators.

• Soon, other BookTokers (with @marissaisbooked and @shereadsforfun among them) started speaking out against the author. Barker later sent a follow-up email and issued a statement on X.

  “We are working with influencers on multiple social media campaigns and while some of those influencers have suggested racier posts to tie in with the theme of the book, that is not the heart of the campaign” the email reads. “Had I seen this message before it went out, I would have stopped it.”

• Creators like Siân remain skeptical of Barker, pointing out that he was one of the co-founders of BestOfBookTok — the PR agency responsible for sending the email. She alleges that he probably knew the email's content and is now attempting to deflect blame.

Read the full story via The Cut.

ncG1vNJzZmiblaPBprrNopilr5%2BnuaV60q6ZrKyRmLhvr86mZqlnkZe8tsCMrZ%2Boq5ViwaLFy6ipZqunnrO1ecOenKmekaCytA%3D%3D