Coming out as "performative"
Life is a stage and I am its biggest clown
I am in the Union Squire Barnes & Noble, hunting for a new puzzle piece to add to my SS26 persona. I decided I will avoid the books that are marketed directly to girls like me: a writer in her 20s quits her corporate girlboss dreams to do something crazy (move to London, work at a restaurant, let a questionable guy treat her badly). Hence, I am in the Walmart of book stores, and not The Strand or McNally. Hence, I am walking past the stacks of a buzzy memoir and a rich divorcée tell-all, arranged neatly on the best seller tables on the ground floor to the three flights of escalators.
I try on the classics — my brain has been starving for vocab that hasn’t been infected by the internet. I insert myself in between self-serious young men in a wild assortment of shorts in Music, Film, and History. It dawns on me: what about that book about English football hooligans (Among the Thugs) that’s been in my Goodreads forever? I picture myself holding up a cover with a bold Brit chewing on a cig at a classy French bistro in the summer. I hear myself work it into a convo with a guy who looks British but is born and raised in New York as he takes a sip of cold beer. I feel the energy on the other end of a work call shift when they see a quote from a rancid 80s football fan on my screen. Yea, that’s perfect. I beeline to Sports.
Is this performative? Of course, I am intrigued by the premise: an outsider, whose curiosity wins over survival instincts, throws himself into the world of drunk and reckless lads to figure out the cause of the horrifying violence and chaos they bring everywhere they go. Getting piss drunk and beat up for a story? Real journalism! But the game day decision to drop twenty bucks on admittedly subpar writing rather than some Steinbeck, was made because I thought it’d be unexpected for a kind of snobby young woman, like me, to randomly know a lot about the gross 80s football mob.
Be authentic. Be you. Well, this is me, and my brain is full of tiny, hyperspecific fragments of a life I want to live, a person I dream of being, the people I want to surround myself with, and they don’t always match my reality. Now that I am getting into doors I dreamt about when I started writing this newsletter, both socially and professionally, I feel the pressure to impress. I want to be a clever writer and a smooth conversationalist. I want to look more put together and interesting. I want my ideas to be simple and precise. But I also don’t want to feel like I have to try hard for any of it.
My working theory is that the key to having “effortless” swag, “genius” ideas, and “dream” career is less about strategy and moodboards, and more about an open and curious mind and arranging your life in a way that bring you to the right people and places intuitively. The same crowd that rolls their eyes at the bros who shop Bode, compliment my The Row-presenting loafers that I came across in Spain, guided by a paparazzi photo of Harry Styles I had imprinted in my brain, even though both of us are performing, just for a different crowd and with a different level of precision and mystic.
I am getting back into the habit of making up stupid side quests and picking up weird little hobbies because of course, that’s what makes life fun, but also because it gives me an arsenal of stories, connections, and skills necessary to entertain interesting people and opportunities. I respect the hustle and discipline it takes to send a daily newsletter or post three videos a week and I understand the value of visibility and status these things can get you, but I also know that isn’t how I want to spend my time and I am feeling more confident I can figure out a different way to make my thoughts and ideas visible. Instead of replicating what cool or successful people do in hopes of becoming one of them, I try to imagine what I would do with my time and money if I were 10 percent cooler and more successful, and then I go do it.
“I just don’t think it’s you” my friend responds to a picture of me in a pair of loose capris from a fitting room that resembles a construction site. “It’s not me!” I gasp as if she caught me redhanded trying to be someone I am not for attention. Thankfully, that is precisely what I was there (a Catalan Chicslop store) to do — trying to be a girl I made up in my head for the summer who wears loose capris and a fun heel, and works a room of strangers like it’s nothing. She doesn’t sweat about locking the keys inside her sublet or half of her suitcase getting jammed inside a washing machine in foreign county because she is confident she will figure it out (she always does). My fantasy isn’t about owning something from that specific brand or those specific capris, but about the way I would stand, walk, and talk if I wore something like that — you attract what you project, baby! The one thing my friend managed to convince me of is that I shouldn’t be paying $200 for polyester.
A young, cool crowd that surrounds me because of what I do for work nods in accepting unison as I reluctantly confess that I can’t get over the burn in my throat from the pack of supermodel cigs I bought trying to look hot on a spring work trip. Having established that trust, I tell them about the night I leaned out of the window onto the same fire escape I climbed to get back into my sublet the week prior, and accidentally made eye contact with a guy my age living out his fire escape fantasy across the backyard. A couple of amateur drags into my cig, I heard him pull out a guitar and start singing a ballad — a live reenactment of “u r not a vibe bro” meme, I couldn’t believe it. Now, that is performative I thought, and without even looking at him, put out my barely started cig and shut my window. What is this? That Jessa-Adam scene from Girls? It ruined my Kate Moss fantasy.
IN THE MARGINS
Had a bit of a hopecore moment, listening to Adam Faze who produced Boy Room and had been overall known for that “TikTok is the future of TV” take, reflect honestly on making short-form content and talk about getting back into long-form on The Internet Is Dead podcast.
One of my favorite designers who I’ve been trying to work with for months just did the visual identity for Olivia Rodrigo’s music festival. Sophie Becker, who for scheduling reasons, sadly couldn’t perform at one of the Perfectly Imperfect events I worked on this spring, just did these charming videos for the opening of Paloma Wool’s LA store. Feeling so validated, but also let me help you spot cool people early and get them paid in exchange for street credit: viktoriia @ perfectlyimperfect.fyi 📧
I love watching how Trevor Gorji at Fugazi is moving. This video is what I mean when I say I want my ideas to be simple but precise. They just did their first big collab with Vans and gave out free mismatched shoes in Paris.
Fascinated by the backlash around the new Meta glasses. Creative directors are getting killed for taking a Meta sponsorship even though doing something like this was seemingly okay just a year ago? Anyways, I’ve written about art and surveillance tech already.
Panopticon Chic
Barely anything that truly makes me pause on the internet is shot using traditional, modern camera tech. I appreciate the grainy texture of film photos and the fast, smooth zoom of a shitty camcorder, but more than anything, I love an artist who has the guts to throw something completely different at their audience. I love those
This made me laugh, but it also made me think.
I like the idea that some of what we call “performative” is really just trying on a version of ourselves before we fully know whether it fits. A book, an outfit, a hobby, a side quest — sometimes they are props, yes, but sometimes they are also experiments in becoming.
The line about not wanting to simply replicate what cool or successful people do felt honest. There is a difference between copying a life and arranging your own life in a way that makes you more curious, more awake, and more available to interesting people and ideas.
Also, deeply agree that nobody should pay $200 for polyester.
I fully support this endeavor. Inhabit all those micro realms and sub outlets. Your life will be wildly interesting.
Also, what a good, wise friend to save you from that $200 polyester. Disaster averted.