30+ Links That I Promise Are Worth The Click
By Stacy Lee Kong
Image: instagram.com/superrrdani
I know it’s not technically a long weekend (I, for one, have a calendar full of meetings today), but the mid-week stat holiday does make it feel like one… and honestly, I did not plan my time in a way that allows me to actually write a full newsletter. But! We definitely have to talk about North West, at least a little bit. In case you missed it, the 13-year-old recently made her ‘solo Paris Fashion Week debut,’ which basically means she went to Paris with Dani Levi, her mother’s stylist, sat front row at Vetements’ Menswear Spring/Summer 2027 show and looked like nothing so much as a kid trying to be older than she is. This is a complicated one for me, because in the abstract, I tend to think experimenting with your style is a pretty normal 13-year-old thing to do, and I’m kind of allergic to the hand-wringing that happens around teenagers dying their hair or getting piercings because… is it really that big a deal? But in practice, there’s something disturbing about seeing North at an industry event without either parent, with quite a lot of piercings, and looking visibly uncomfortable with both paparazzi and overly friendly men. I’m definitely not the only one who noticed; in addition to many, many non-famous people on my X feed, U.K. rapper Skepta weighed in, saying, “the way grown men, complete strangers, try to use North makes me sick.” And agree! But also: where are her parents, for real? Because freedom to explore your own identity is one thing, and freedom to explore a different city a continent away with employees but no parent or guardian feels like something else entirely. As in: I’m not sure if anyone is actually taking care of this kid, and it’s beginning to feel like I’m watching the beginning of a story we’ve seen many times before.
In other Kar-Jenner news: MJ Korey of @kardashian_kolloquium on the sheer dystopian horror of Kylie’s Meta glasses, and this spot-on prediction.
And, this TikTok creator talking about the links between these glasses, Alex Reads Tarot quitting tarot because she’s religious now and the women who copyrighted ‘hot girl walk’ and ‘hot girls read,’ which she says are all examples of digital occupation.
This update on the subject of last week’s newsletter, Lumumba Vea, which is… kind of annoying, unfortunately.
All the tea on the Tay Tay/Travis Kelce wedding that is apparently happening at Madison Square Garden (???) today. I would like to offer snarky analysis, but unfortunately I have been struck speechless by the rampant overconsumption on display. And, okay, I’m curious about the logistics of throwing a massive celebrity wedding in the middle of New York City, during a holiday weekend. (Well… some snark: I’m sorry but Madison Square Garden? Why??? There are so many castles in the world, and you are so rich.)
An ode to Wayne Wonder’s “No Letting Go.”
This fun little moment of overintellectualizing, this time about Love Island.
The Reheat podcast on our lasting obsession with WAGs, and what that says about fame, gender and power.
@ArtButMakeItSports, the X account that pairs sports photography with compositionally similar art. I think I’ve shared this before, but between the NBA playoffs, the World Cup and all of the other sporty happenings over the past few weeks, they’ve been on my feed more and each post is so brilliant. (AND they don’t use AI, they just know a lot about art. It’s very impressive!) (Also 😭)
A new profile of Olympia Le-Tan, the creative director of Sukeban, the high-fashion Japanese women’s wrestling league.
The Cut’s feature about the former CEO who uses AI agents as household staff.
The rise of bare nails (or barely-there manicures) as a status symbol, which send an interesting but predictable message about what we currently perceive as elevated. Spoiler alert: this is all respectability politics, where proximity to whiteness = classy and proximity to Blackness = trashy. ALSO, I’d argue that prioritizing ‘natural’ and ‘effortless’ beauty is a little bit fascism.
The latest entry in the ‘we need more friction in our lives, actually’ pantheon of culture/tech reporting, this time from Vox and focused on literal friction, as in the physical sensations we’ve largely lost thanks to touchscreens.
ProPublica’s excellent investigation into Anthony Broadwater’s wrongful conviction for the brutal sexual assault of author Alice Sebold, and how authorities could ignore the existence of an actual serial rapist (or several serial rapists) for years.
A harsh but not un-true statement from singer Durand Bernard.
This New Yorker long read about the death of Kerstin Gurtner, an Austrian woman whose boyfriend left her alone on Grossglockner, the country’s tallest mountain. He was found guilty of gross negligent manslaughter in February—which is what sparked all of those conversations about ‘alpine divorce.’
Writer Sarah Hagi’s profile of filmmaker Boots Riley for Hammer and Hope.
This new website where you can explore The Criterion Closet.
The Los Angeles Review of Books’ review of Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground, a memoir by Zayd Ayers Dohrn, whose parents were founding members of the Weather Underground, a group of Marxist militants that were active in the ‘70s and were expressly trying to overthrow the U.S. government. Dohrn’s big question is, was his parents’ political violence ‘worth it.’ The reviewer, essayist Emmett Rensin, very powerfully upends the notion of worth—and Dohrn’s definition of political violence.
This perfectly accurate reaction.
A women’s only housing development in London that seems pretty idyllic, tbh.
(P.S., if you enjoy these recommendations, a reminder that paid subscribers get access to curated list of the most interesting things on the internet at the end of every newsletter. Upgrade here!)
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