I wonder how many people know that ‘influencer’ has been an advertising demographic term since at least the late 80s. They’ve always existed, the only difference now is that instead of blathering on in focus groups, they’re blathering on via YouTube.

I also feel like she’s the pre-cursor to today’s influencers, for better or for worse.

Paris Hilton cashed on a negative stereotypes of women. To over-generalize: most boys took her airheadedness at face value. Most girls I knew recognized that she was putting on a show. It wasn’t exactly innovative...I witnessed the same powerful currency of airheadedness in high school and college. You know, before…

Paris Hilton was an omen none of us heeded. 

I  mean, she’s not totally wrong. She did essentially help create reality TV (not single handedly, but it was a FORCE). And I think you can tell from any interview she does that her persona was, indeed, an act meant to entertain.

That sentence is confusing the Member code of ethics with requirements on Officers and Directors of the association.

WOW, you are your own follower - kind of self-indulgent.

I don’t know if you’re mixing Calloway up with one of the others - she didn’t really have any “marks” per se, she didn’t steal anybody’s money or con anyone. At most, she created a false identity while seeming authentic on instagram and tried to leverage it into career advancement, but well - that’s everybody on…

While she’s certainly not the first con artist to figure that out--hell, look at what’s crouching in the White House--I think a lot of her marks were doubly offended by somebody knowingly exploiting the knowledge that she’s seen as cute and harmless with money. It was like finding out your shelter kitten rescue has…

So after the big blow-up about her as a “scammer” I followed Calloway on instagram to get her side of the story, and one of the fascinating parts of her saga is that she actively exploited this trope. She knew that seeming rich would get her further - so she faked it, while actually coming from a fairly troubled and…

Wurtzel’s New York life, at the end, wasn’t as glamorous

NYMag/The Cut have published a few pretty white girls gone rogue stories in the last couple of years which were easily their most read stories. Elizabeth Holmes, Anna Delvey, Caroline Calloway are the manic pixie dream girls of the instagram/technology age.

There’s a reason the roles aren’t reversed. If the movie were called crazy/poor person, the plot would fall apart and the happy ending would most likely feel too far-fetched even for Hollywood.

Think about how “trade associations” typically function as they relate to businesses and the RWA’s behavior makes complete sense.

I’m a teen services librarian and we actually do have The Bell Jar in the YA section at my library. This is at least in part due to a huge classics assignment the local high school assigns every year, though, so it’s in company with the likes of Great Expectations, Pride and Prejudice, The Scarlet Letter, The Lottery,…

Confucius say, man who cannot take joke is like pee-pee in your coke.

I also blame the parents for all the reasons you’ve mentioned. Plus, no backwards Christian school like this could ever exist without parents sending their kids there. A parent can choose to remain willfully ignorant when schools like these offer an alternative to area public schools, but there is no doubt that you’re…

Yeah, the mother is clearly in some weird state of denial that is possible only in those southern communities where you’re either a Baptist or a godless heathen. She’s basically trying, ahem, to have her cake and eat it too here.

“The WA Administration has been made aware of a recent picture, posted on social media, which demonstrates a posture of morality and cultural acceptance contrary to that of Whitefield Academy’s beliefs”