Over vacation, I started playing a game with some friends I invented . It’s fun. It’s not perfect. The game came to me when I realized Sprinkles cupcakes had quietly disappeared. Did I love the red velvet cupcakes? Eh. But they were iconic office birthday cupcakes. Especially the vending machine. One day they were everywhere. The next day, gone. Which made me wonder. Was that a fad? Or did we all just collectively move on without announcing it?
That’s the game.
You throw out something cultural and decide which bucket it belongs in. No Googling. No defending your answer. Just whether it still shows up in real life.
Dubai chocolate feels like a fad. But could it be the new salted caramel? Cottage cheese is the future, not because it’s exciting but because it’s endured. Same with matcha. Same with Birkenstocks. GLP-1s are the future. Oat milk. You tell me. Still here. Still polarizing or normalizing?
Someone said bagels were a fad, which remains incorrect and offensive. But they are having a moment. And moments either sail into the future or crash out. Crocs are forever, unfortunately. Natural wine depends entirely on who you’re talking to and where you live.
And then there are failures. Clean ones.
Quibi.
Juicero.
Clubhouse.
NFT’s
I like this game because it’s not about being right. It’s about noticing. What people think will last says a lot about what they value.
It might become an ongoing series here. Or it might be a fad. We’ll see.
Substack itself. Fad or future. Honestly. Close call.
FAD ☐ FUTURE ☐ FAIL ☐
What I’ve Been Watching
Veronica Mars is on Netflix now, so I’m a first-timer. It’s strangely comforting. I fully thought it was supernatural at first. Mars. The name. The implication of something cosmic. It isn’t. It’s procedural. It’s teaching me patience. Things unfold slowly. Clues stack. No magic. I like that it doesn’t rush to resolve itself. It’s also something I can just live inside without committing to. I’m loving how many episodes there are. Great cameos too. Adam Scott. Paris Hilton. Leighton Meister. I can already feel myself heading in a The Good Wife direction next
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Tell Me Lies (Hulu) This season is less sex and more stress. No spoilers, but I can’t seem to quit. Steven has crossed some invisible line for me. He went from hot toxic to genuinely frightening. Not suddenly. Slowly. And yet. I’m still watching.
Industry. Not watching, but I respect that it’s good. I also know, culturally, that everyone liked the second episode more than the first. Real finance guys think it’s a joke. Regular people love the finance. That’s my drunk history recap of Industry.
Things I’m Reading and Recommending
(Including Books I Haven’t Read Yet)
Belle Burden, Strangers
I haven’t read it yet, but it’s the book everyone is passing around, casually labeled “rich porn,” which feels both accurate and lazy. The appeal isn’t sex or scandal. It’s proximity to money, power, and emotional collapse. Watching an ultra-privileged life come apart in real time. People are hooked. My friend Caroline read it in one sitting. This doesn’t feel like a bedside-table book. This is a read-right-away book.
A rich-porn book I have read and loved was The End of Normal by Stephanie Madoff Mack, which my friend Emily recommended to me years ago. All I’ll say is this. Bernie Madoff’s wife is the real toxic mom. Same genre, less glamour, much darker psychology
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One of my favorite writers, Lili Anolik, wrote a piece for Vanity Fair about Dorothy Stratten, and it’s been sitting with me. Dorothy was a small-town Canadian teenager discovered at a Dairy Queen, pushed into Playboy by an older, controlling boyfriend, quickly turned into a Playmate, then Playmate of the Year. She was trying to become a real actress. She was twenty. And then she was brutally murdered by the same man who had built his life around her success.
What makes this piece land is that Dorothy’s family is still alive, and they approved it. It finally feels like her story, not everyone else’s mythology. Lili places it exactly where it belongs culturally. The rise of Hugh Hefner. Power disguised as taste. Ego disguised as empathy.
It touches on Playboy and Chippendales. How unsexy does that sound today? What a world. One I’m very happy not to be in, but deeply interested in reading about. link here
Takes I Heard on Podcasts
(These Takes Are Not Mine, but I Co-Sign)
On The Toast, sisters Claudia Oshry and Jackie Oshry discussed the Beckham post heard around the world, and their take has had me giggling all week. “It’s giving Spare.” Accurate.
They’re both boy moms and happily admit they would absolutely be the toxic mother. They are sickened by this realization. Same. The memes were funny but also kind of sad. Like, how does Victoria Beckham recover from her son calling her a perv on the internet? You don’t.
I always see both sides. I could be the bitch wife. I also have brothers who feel like my sons. I could absolutely be the toxic mom. That’s why this story works. It’s family drama, but it’s also fun. A cultural pressure valve.
Update
I waited until the end to say this, because I know it sounds insane, but I’m still recovering. Week five. At this point, my friends and family are understandably exhausted by it, but TikTok strangers seem to recognize the pain immediately, which is both comforting and alarming.
I have a sinus infection, which somehow makes pneumonia feel simple. Silly, even. Pneumonia was linear. You get sick, you recover. A sinus infection is psychological warfare. It lingers. It lies. It convinces you you’ll never know peace again.
When the ENT told me I didn’t have a deviated septum, I was genuinely devastated. I said, so… no nose job? When I told a friend this later, she said, “You can still get the nose job.” This is why you keep real friends around.
Anyway, sinus infections are brutal, and I’m here for anyone going through one. Me personally, if this ever happens again, I will be put under. I don’t need details. Just lights out.
Drunk history: fad, fail or future?