GQ Annie Hamilton Tavi Gevinson Taylor Swift essay. Let’s go.
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| The only first question I had when that GQ essay, I Finally Befriended My Idol Tavi Gevinson. Would It Fall Apart Over Taylor Swift? (which had me locked in with the first three words alone…and each subsequent one felt not unlike that brain expanding progression meme…) dropped yesterday was Wait, THAT Annie Hamilton?, which, apparently yes! ←I’ve read this 2022 feature on Annie at least three times and still have never totally understood her deal outside of the framework of, oh, okay, so there’s this generation of online-savvy personas who, like many creatives throughout history, adopt a kind of performance artist approach to life where everything is copy, plus the wonders of modern technology that allow you to pretty much will a degree fame into being, plus with the bonus modern nihilist posture that everything is unserious, so therefore you create a nice little den of plausible deniability as you visibly bumble through early adulthood like everyone else (ideally under the auspices of sponsors or a monetized followership), alternating between canny sophistry and relatable i’m-just-a-girl-ness to build up yourself up—or perhaps split yourself off—as a character, if not an actual bona fide celebrity, now that fame’s all flattened out anyway. I don’t think we should be surprised that this is the prevailing form of coolness now: one can’t really be earnest and exposed anymore, or else you’ll end up constantly over-explaining and over-sharing (what I believe happened to Taylor Swift that one time and probably Selena Gomez now and probably Taylor again very soon) and caring much too much about “public” (online) opinion.
ANYWAY. That’s what I was mulling over while reading the essay and then going through all the tweets of people being like, wait, is this a joke? Is she for real? Isn’t this a continuation of the bit that Tavi does herself re: Taylor in the fan zine? That confusion is more interesting to me than the like legal truth of the matter, which would require actually reading Gevinson’s zine and getting deeper into Hamilton’s oeuvre and spending way too much time thinking about this human centipede of white women parasociality (in which case, joke’s on you, dear reader, for playing yourself and taking the fatal discourse bait of caring too much. Not very chill haha it’s so unserious 2024 persona of you!). Being earnest/cringe is an admirable feat if not entirely revelatory anymore, so the only compelling strategy left online is to aim for all the usual receptors for deep body horror relatability, then mire the effort with a thin shadow of doubt. If people don’t get it, that’s because they’re not supposed to ha HA!
The other thought I had was that it seems like not that long ago when everyone was pronouncing the personal essay to be dead. We now know this is not true. Maybe yes people got kind of quiet for a time because everyone got confused on what you could be cancelled/“cancelled” for and what you couldn’t, but now that all the magazines are disintegrating (or have started enforcing “output goals” on writers), everyone is doing ye olde 2010s media math and remembering that essays cost a whole lot less than longform reported journalism. (RIP Longform, gone but never forgotten, especially not by all the media types who used the occasion of the podcast’s closure to tweet their episode out one! last! time!) (or worse, whined about not getting to be on it even though they were media’s goodest boy). Why shouldn’t GQ get a slice of the essay pie? I support it, though GQ may be hard-pressed to find a niche that feels both on-brand (stuff for the boys) that also gets the chief drivers of virality (generally not the boys) upset. The consultants staffed at Deez Links Media would advise them to not try to out-Cut The Cut and instead experiment with activating the sensy third chakras of menswear guys, an endeavour we’ve found to be highly fruitful.
Next week, I’ll start publishing classified ads in the free editions of Deez Links! You can promote your podcast/project/book/newsletter/sweet single self (what if??) in Deez Links for $200 a pop ($650 for a month-long run). We have 20,500 subscribers and a 51% open rate. What are you waiting for? As you can see, the content is only ever getting more unhinged………
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