on the economy of girl teen-ness

Really digging into this piece from New Republic today: Grow Up, a somewhat wandering takedown of the Carly Rae Jepsen phenomenon, AKA, the weirdness of being a grown-ass 31-year-old whose success has been made supposedly by acting & singing like a teen.

Bummer-inducing thoughts on ageism aside, it’s an interesting read in our post ~One Love Manchester/Ariana Grande 2020~ era, when we’re finally giving teen girls a little more cred when it comes to their tastes and influence—on our larger culture, and especially in the media. While they’re coining new words, defining social currency and generally being smarter than the world expects of them, we adults are busy trying to either talk down to them—or make money off them.

The most 🤔-provoking graf here:

“Every Instagram ad for anything—from sponcon to simple paid placement—functions off the back of young girls’ attention... Influencer marketing is entirely defined by young women and their looks, their bodies. Black teen words and images on Twitter and Instagram are especially consistently targeted for fetishization and its sister, corporate appropriation.”

LMK your thoughts, teens and non-teens.

Like Deez Links? Forward to a bummer-inducer.