004. On hype, dupes, and memes

a reflection on my Master’s thesis, the embrace of counterfeits, and meme-ified ecomm.

Hi friends! Longtime, no email.

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I have been feeling uninspired and a little shy! Publishing your thoughts requires a lot more courage than I was willing to embrace in the last few weeks. Nevertheless, I am back and willing to be perceived. Enjoy today’s peak into my brain! **please note I’ve been writing this for at least 3 weeks, so markers of time may be a little off**

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It is graduation season. Which means I am officially one-year post grad and two years removed from my undergraduate studies. While this time of year is more than enough to get me feeling nostalgic, an explicit reminder of my Master’s research sent me down the path of full-throttle reminiscence. Earlier this month,

miss sophie

of les anti modernes wrote: 

“The online influencer chatter about “Is the Row Margaux the next Birkin?” is a great example of this breathless hype campaign. If you repeat something often enough, people begin to believe it even after an initial phase of skepticism.” (via to all the trends we've loved before)

There are a million and one identical examples. There is no better place to explore breathless hype, spoken into existence, and then sold than the fashion industry. While the Birkin-ness of the Row’s Margaux tote is currently of interest, at the time of writing my MA thesis, the Metaverse and Web3 and NFTs were inescapable (when the Meta Birkin was the new Birkin).