How lip gloss became the answer to Gen Z’s problems

“I suggest that the death drive has something to do with it,” the piece reads. “Our aesthetic and behavior are certainly shaped by a sense of doom. There’s a nihilism to the way people dress and party; our heels get higher the closer we inch to death. It’s why people are smoking again, so says the New York Times.”

Right now the most valuable currency in the aspiration economy is newness, novelty and youth. Marketing and advertising, especially across fashion, is all about selling a lifestyle and image for your current self. Future chronological chapters of your life are deemed irrelevant. But these partnerships challenge that assumption. They sell the idea t... See more

If a dagger transfers its power and charms to its user, the pebble’s owner intends to take on the object’s cuteness and infantilization. If a dagger is an admission of intention and visible beauty labor, the pebble represents a sense of absolution from overconsumption. How could the adoptive mother of a Glossier solid perfume, 7 Owala thermoses, an... See more

If we imagine a future where the majority of people have smoothed their wrinkles away with Botox, plumped up their lips with filler, sucked out their cheeks with buccal fat removal and straightened their teeth with veneers, will it become desirable to have the natural features that are becoming increasingly rare; the crooked teeth, the smile lines

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