Weekend Reads #253

Weekend Reads #253

I booked a multigenerational vacation to bring my mom and kids closer and, wow, did it backfire. (Insider)

Jenna Lyons, the famously stylish former president of J. Crew has joined the rebooted “Real Housewives of New York City.” Why? (New York Times – gift article)

A year after the repeal of Roe v. Wade, a nonprofit and menstruation brand are driving their way towards period equity and equality. (PRWeek)

One year in a post-Roe America. (Jill Filipovic)

Parker Posey doesn't know if she can live here. (Vulture)

Loved seeing what Virginia Sole-Smith wore on her book tour. (Burnt Toast)

Chinese fast fashion giant Shein's success story is unrivalled, but at what cost? Iman Amrani investigates the famously secretive business, as hidden cameras go inside factories for the first time. (47-minute documentary movie via Channel Four)

National Geographic magazine has laid off the last of its staff writers. (CNN)

AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born. (The Verge)

In 2019, Maria and her family were in a car accident. Her father and brother, sitting in the front seat, were fine. Maria and her mother, sitting in the back seat, were both badly injured. Why? (Ladyparts)

The website Goodreads has become an essential avenue for building readership, but the same features that help generate excitement can also backfire. (New York Times – gift article)

The toxic chemical sneaking into our clothes. (Back Row)

Miss Benny is glamorous-and transgender. (Time)

See/Hear/Read

Glamorous

It is so funny to see how drastically different my Netflix profile is from my daughter's as is from my husband's. My daughter gets YA series, historical romances, and anime. My husband will get war movies, documentaries, and investigative series about murderers, scam artists, and cults. I get recommended, Glamorous, a series starring Kim Cattrall as a former supermodel turned makeup mogul. Netflix knows me so well.

Glamorous also stars Miss Benny, a gender non-confirming queer Latinx who gets the career chance of a lifetime and with it, a new community and new challenges. Miss Benny is vulnerable, sweet, naive, brave, young and foolish, yet utterly adorable as Marco, who as a makeup artist at a counter in a department store, had a chance encounter with the owner of the makeup brand.

That owner is Madolyn, played by Kim Cattrall. One part Melora Hardin's character on The Bold Type and one part Samantha without the sex drive, Madolyn Addison is glamorous, smart, independent, but vulnerable and open to change and growth. Each time Cattrall's character starts falling into some over-50 power woman trope, she reels it back. I appreciate she is the only person that seems to be over 30 in her office, yet there aren't a bunch of “Okay, Boomer” level-jokes and bits about being an older means being out of touch or unrelatable.

This show is totally cheesy, but how effing REFRESHING to have a colorful, fun to watch, cheesy series that stars queer actors who aren't having to be a stereotype, a challenge, or expected to be the voice for a generation. It's a classic workplace sitcom like Ugly Betty, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, or WKRP but for modern times and modern audiences. Do know, as much as any other Netflix or Max series, there is discussion of sex, drug usage, and you do see bare butts. But this show is a delightful distraction for a lazy summer afternoon.

Swipe up for More!

So I finished Swipe up for More!, a book on influencers by Stephanie McNeal. I read a little more than half of it last week and wasn't sure how I felt about the book. The book ends strong, and I finished with a more positive view though I still feel it's a bit too fangirly and could have possibly been condensed into a series of a few articles on a site and then it won't date so quickly. I mean, we don't even swipe up anymore on Instagram!

But it's clear McNeal respects influencing as a job and doesn't see the “influencer bubble” popping any time soon. I appreciate those who realize that. If you think I started blogging in 2005 and I was following in the footsteps of thousands who started before me, it's not like influencing is a passing fancy. Those who dismiss it as just a vanity project don't realize that it's just the evolution of knowing what face cream that star of the silver screen wore, or Cindy Crawford drinking a Pepsi.

If this world intrigues you, you may enjoy Swipe Up for More! But maybe borrow it from the library or from a friend instead of buying your own copy (or buy the copy you pass around your friend circle). Because within a year, what's in this book will be obsolete. There will be new Instagram darlings, or a new platform that has taken over Instagram, or swiping up which got replaced by tapping links will become something else completely.