Yellowface and the 'looking glass self'
Plus, a Barbie essay, a podcast and an article on functional fragrances.
The American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley once coined a concept called the ‘looking glass self’. He argued that individuals develop their sense of self by observing how they are perceived by others. It is perhaps summed up best by his quote: “I am not who you think I am. I am not who I think I am. I am who I think you think I am.”
I have been thinking about these lines from Charles Horton Cooley because I have been reading Yellowface. The book, which has become a New York Times bestseller, is about a young, struggling writer, June Hayward, who steals the manuscript of her much more successful friend, Athena Liu, when Athena suddenly dies. June then publishes the manuscript as her own. It is a satirical commentary on the fickle nature of the publishing industry, cultural appropriation and racism. Above all, it is a story about the extreme steps someone will take to obtain success and keep it.
While the storyline contains an urgency that makes it hard to put the book down, it is the voice of the protagonist that I have found most compelling. In an age where most of us are obsessed with presenting the most desirable version of ourselves — constantly surveying how the world interacts with us — it’s refreshing to see someone’s worst self and darkest thoughts laid out on the page. While June Hayward’s life revolves entirely around how she is perceived by the public, we are given access to her private thoughts that reveal someone who is envious, frustrated, desperate, messy, evil and entirely human.
Some other recommendations:
This article on the rise of ‘functional fragrances’
I loved this DAZED article by Isabelle Truman on the rise of ‘functional fragrances’. The piece explores how perfumers are using scent to manipulate people’s moods and emotions. Emotionally-charged beauty — or ‘emo-beauty’ — is an expanding market and, if we aren’t already, many of use will soon be purchasing fragrances to increase focus, happiness or to create a feeling of calm.
This podcast about a Yale fertility clinic — and what went wrong
The New York Times and Serial have recently released a five-part podcast series about the shocking events that unfolded at a Yale fertility clinic. The Retrievals is a narrative series that tells every side of the story, from the patients who experienced excruciating pain while having their eggs retrieved, to the nurse at the centre of the crime. It reveals, above all, the incredible capacity women have to understand one another.
This New Yorker essay on Barbie, punishment and perfection
I almost didn’t recommend this essay due to Barbie fatigue, but it is written by the brilliant Leslie Jamison. The essay, titled ‘Why Barbie Must Be Punished’, is about women’s enduring obsession with unrealistic beauty standards. Jamison writes about the universal behaviour among young girls to mess up their own Barbies and the intention behind it: “I wanted to become Barbie, and I wanted to destroy her. I wanted her perfection, but I also wanted to punish her for being more perfect than I’d ever be.”
This article from The Cut about gatekeeping
I loved this article from Ann Friedman in The Cut about the history of gatekeeping and the rise of the term on the internet. Gatekeepers were once people in the corridors of power but today anyone can gatekeep — a cheap beauty product, a pair of vintage jeans, their favourite bar. As Friedman wrote: ‘The term has undergone a rapid expansion since it found new prominence as the middle of the 2021 neoliberal-feminist cocktail “gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss.” Now gatekeeping — Vogue’s 2022 “word of the year” — has come to refer to anyone holding back any information, even if that info is of dubious or microniche value.’
These three tracks from Saint Levant
My friend recently played ‘FaceTime’, a track by Saint Levant, which sent me down a Saint Levant rabbit hole. The Palestinian-Algerian-French-Serbian musician was born in Jerusalem and raised in Gaza. He now lives in California and fuses English, French and Arabic in his music — predominantly rap — which went viral last year. I’d highly recommend giving ‘FaceTime’, ‘Very Few Friends’ and ‘I Guess’ a spin.
