"what's in my bag?"
postcard 40: on the aestheticization & commodification of identity, end of year shopping, and consumerism-ish
I see the sun, and if I don't see the sun, I know it's there. And there's a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there.
[This post gets cut off on the email, so read it in the app or on your desktop! I really do strongly recommend downloading the app]
prelude
Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.
—Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
During my trip to the US last month,
and I went to the Glossier store in Georgetown, and spent an exorbitant amount of money there. We walked into the store, looked at each other, and went, “oh god, we’re going to spend money here, aren’t we?” My self control slips away whenever I enter a store—perhaps it’s the inner 2017 high school senior in me that could not buy it with my allowance, but as an adult with disposable income, I find myself morphing into a monster every time I see a new edition of a balm dotcom.As much as I try to save money, at the end of the day, I am a spender. This is why I temporarily put 90% of my money in my checking account into a two month time deposit as soon as I begin to feel the first lethargic and moody wisps of seasonal depression floating around in the air (right now). I love buying my friends and family gifts and knowing exactly what to buy them, because I am not really a physically affectionate person, neither am I usually good at expressing it through words. I love window shopping, I love buying tiny trinkets for myself, and most of all, I go insane for Diptyque candles, which I scatter all around my apartment.
In high school, I used to save up all of my allowance and earnings for months and go to an outlet mall at 9pm after loading myself up on at least five plates of Thanksgiving food and powering up on a two hour tryptophan induced food coma. This was during the years of 2014-2018, when Black Friday was still an in person thing, and videos of people fist fighting on the linoleum floor at a Best Buy would go viral annually on the last Friday of November.
Teenage Elle was extremely talented at finding the last good items at an outlet store, which is why I have a few crazy stories of grown adults fighting me for various items. This including a middle aged woman biting fourteen year old me on the hand in 2014 when I snagged the last Abercrombie puffer jacket for 85% off, and a lady screaming so loudly at me at an American Eagle outlet store in Woodbury, that she got escorted out in 2015. In 2016, a woman threatened to break my bones when I got the last pair of US 7 Stan Smiths at the large Adidas store at the Jersey Shore outlet (if you are a US 7, you know how much of a difficult feat this is because every shoe is sold out in our size). Thankfully, this did not happen, but the threat was real and there.
These days, the magical and anxiety inducing thrill of Black Friday sales has waned into a maybe, but maybe not casual perusing around on a website during the last week of November. I no longer feel the imperative urge to bundle up and drag myself out to an outlet mall on late Thursday night, aggressively vying for the few coveted items that never go on sale other than at this time. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up and stopped spending every last bit of my money at Forever 21 on a floral print sweater that inevitably disintegrates in my hands around month 4. Or maybe it’s because I’ve mostly found my style and collect individual, good quality pieces sparingly year round. Whatever the reason, I no longer love and look forward to Black Friday with bated breath the way I used to.
This past week, surprisingly but in the same vein, I made zero purchases for myself, which is highly uncharacteristic of me. I’m not sure if this is indicative of me finally not being a reckless spender, or that deals have slowly become so bad enough that I’d rather think about it more and buy it later. Either way, I ended up buying a few things for my friends and family. I feel like maybe shopping has become so saturated and on demand that even Black Friday has lost its charm.
Anyway, Sarah and I took the D.C. Glossier store, designed like the inside of an airplane, by storm, and I bought many things, including: the 3 for $30 balm dotcoms, the limited edition chrome makeup bag, and the pink Timothée Chalamet hoodie. I would have probably bought more had there not been the ominous threat of the extra baggage charge at the airport, which ranges from $100 to $200 based on destination, looming over my head. The store put all of my purchases in a shamefully large shopping bag in a deeply recognizable shade of pink, and handed it to me. Only then did I realize my colossal mistake.
If you have bought anything from a Glossier store, you know that the bag is made in a way where the handle eats into the skin of your fingers when you hold it, which I told Sarah feels like a low grade torture tactic. By the time we crossed the street, I felt like a thousand paper cuts scattered my left palm like a mutation of a constellation. On top of that, I felt very aware that the volume and size of the hoodie crammed inside this ludicrously capacious shopping bag made me look like I had robbed the store. “This is so deeply embarrassing,” I told Sarah while pulling the sleeve of my sweater over my hand to try and stop the cardboard from biting into my skin. “It looks like I spent my entire life savings at Glossier.”
Thankfully, my dilemma was resolved when we walked into the Reformation across the street and met Sarah’s friend, who kindly transferred all of my Glossier purchases into a Reformation shopping bag. Suddenly, I no longer had a pink paper Glossier bag, but a black Reformation tote bag. For a lack of better way of putting it, it felt like I had suddenly become a different person. I did not buy a single thing from Reformation that day (mainly because the quality is devastating for the insane price tag), but it looked like I had. I was no longer someone who had shopped at Glossier, but at Reformation. There is no real tangible difference, but a deeper examination reveals that there is an imperceptible one. As much as I hate to admit it, it felt like a minute identity shift.
One of my favorite things to watch is the what’s in my bag videos that Vogue does of celebrities. They are more often than not an array of products from whatever designer brand they are ambassadors of, but I still find them so interesting (along with the what’s in my bag Tiktoks). I do feel like, despite the whole point of this essay, the contents of someone’s bag can be revealing of what they value and find important. More often than not, I try to harmonize the image of the products in their bag with their public image, and then find myself shaking my head at how ridiculous it is to be doing so. I’ve been buying a lot of Christmas presents for my friends and family, and the act of Christmas shopping in itself, in a very stripped down and jaded light, is doing exactly this. I realized this while adding an array of things to my cart on various online shopping sites.
I knew exactly what most of my friends wanted, whether that be a book they mentioned a few months ago, a top they sent me a link of a few weeks back with the text please tell me I don’t need this, or a screenplay of their favorite movie (although Faith unfortunately already owned this—see below—sometimes surprises are not good). But for those who I had no idea what to get for them, I was taking an educated guess based on the things that they had been talking about to me. Doing so does come from a place of love, but wasn’t I doing the exact same thing that I was doing while watching the Vogue videos, in a way? Buying presents is never a true blind shot because like I said, I’m good at giving gifts, but the act of assuming and calculating what material goods someone would like based on their identity and personality seems like the reverse of what I’ve been talking about in this essay.
If I told someone that I prefer the Glossier lip balms over the Summer Friday ones, what would that tell you about me? What about carrying around a Moleskine journal along with a Clarice Lispector book? Having a subscription to The Paris Review over The New Yorker? What about having a gray iPhone over a white one? Or a mini monogrammed Officine Universelle Buly hairbrush? How about if I was carrying a New York Review Book edition of a classic instead of a black Penguin Classic one? These words and brands (and editions) are meaningless in theory, but they have somehow formed a sense of social currency, and by extension, identity. Identity has always been inextricably related to community, and in the age of late stage capitalism, we are all linked by things we buy and consume.
This may be why brands have been trying to personify their image, giving personality the way an author would to a tabula rasa of a character. Each brand is hyper-focused on creating a unique identity based on what who they want their consumers to be, and by extension, how they want to project themselves into the market. Brand personality has become paramount and of the utmost importance when it comes to marketing. Some brands are easily recognizable, even without a logo, just by the mood and aura (Miu Miu is currently a big one, Reformation is also another). Its social media accounts also largely impact this, as the photography and aesthetic of Instagram feeds fortify brand personalities.
In a sense, people are becoming brands and brands are becoming people. Like the what’s in my bag video, we are often judged on what we buy as a massive part of our identity. It is foolish to think that this is a recent thing, as identity and self expression, to some extent, has always been about what you buy to put in spaces you think are yours—whether that is your house or your body. But recently, with the proliferation of social media and consumerism (influencers saying, “you have to buy this, this changed my entire life!”—criticism of this in itself worthy of a whole other post), it seems like the degree and scale of this has avalanched, especially as I’ve felt it definitively bleed into forms of art.
A few months ago, I wrote a post about how this aestheticization of identity has bled into how people view and tropify literature. A book can’t just be about the melancholic struggles and aimlessness of being in your twenties, it has to be a “sad girl lit fic”, or worse, an “unhinged woman lit fic”. You can’t read War and Peace or a lengthy classic without seeing “thought daughter books” on a Goodreads list. Reading becoming a ‘cool girl’ thing to do has arrived at society’s doorstep, camouflaged as double edged sword: reading is now cool, but reading has suddenly become a way to brand and curate your image.
I thought about this as I looked at a flatlay of books I bought at an assembly of my favorite independent bookstores in LA (although I made
lug most of the books back to his apartment during my subsequent stop in Chicago because I live in fear of the insane extra baggage charge at the airport). In idle moments, I sometimes wonder what people think of me when they see one of my flatlays on my bookstagram, and then immediately try to jettison that thought from my brain because it will ultimately cause me to spiral.If I took a picture of the books laid out on the duvet of my hotel bed—Bluets by Maggie Nelson, Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson, The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, Beautiful World Where Are You by Sally Rooney, the limited hardcover edition of Beach Read (a present for my sweet real life January Andrews
when I saw her in San Francisco), Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky—what would that tell people about me, about my literary preferences, and by extension, my personality?
Last year, I did an interview for a podcast where I was asked what I think of people accusing book-related social media accounts “curating an image” instead of “actually reading”, and if I was doing that. In hindsight, it did feel like a bizarre and half-loaded question, but I answered honestly that I don’t have enough free time in my day to be thinking of curating a certain aesthetic and thinking about fifty different ways I may be perceived. This specifically applies to literature for me. I try not to pigeonhole myself into a certain niche or genre, because I do think the joy of reading comes from the diversity and breadth of books that have existed throughout time. But the fact that this was even a question shows how normal the aestheticization of literature has become, enough for it to be automatically assumed and asked during an interview.
The aestheticization of, basically anything, has even bled into simple actions in our day to day lives. In a Q&A on my Instagram a year or so back, I talked in depth about the importance of having routines for me, specifically having a set morning routine. I like having a set of habits that I can autopilot myself on without thinking much in the morning (because I can’t function properly for the first hour after I wake up). By the time I’m awake, I’ll have accomplished a small litany of tasks that already sets me up for the potential of having a good day. In my answer to someone asking me what my morning routine consists of, I answered: making my bed, stretching / yoga, drinking lots of water, journaling, reading, a 30 minute workout or a 5k run, and skincare in that order. Someone then asked me a subsequent question, of why I am trying so hard to adhere to the that girl aesthetic, that this made me feel inauthentic.
Mind you, this was in late 2022 and the that girl craze was going on—the one where everyone got up and drank lemon water, put on a baby pink workout set to follow a 10 minute ab workout Youtube video, filled out a page of the Five Minute Journal, ate a slice of avocado toast with a matcha latte, and then did a Drunk Elephant skincare routine. I think all of these stripped down to the simple action of it—whether that’s drinking water in the morning or working out—all have merits and positive reasons to do so. However, aestheticizing it, particularly in the way that social media does it, has placed the spotlight on the products used, because it no longer becomes about the action but the materialistic vehicle used to do so. Once again, identity and actions and habits become reduced to something that has to have a brand or tag to achieve its ‘ideal form’.
I recently told a friend that I think we are an amalgamation of everyone we’ve ever loved and been loved by, but in this society, in a cynical light, we have also become also a haphazard stockpile of the things we consume and buy. And it is becoming increasingly difficult to tune this out and truly focus on the things we love. Society (online culture, in particular) has an inability to let things be their own things, and the incessant need to categorize and group something into a curated aesthetic. Perhaps this is symptomatic of everyone’s need to belong to something and be a part of a group, the easiest method being buying what everyone else is buying.
I think this is slightly extraneous or tangential to the overconsumption-underconsumption discourse, as you can still try to seek identity in material goods without ‘over-consuming’. But I do think that placing so much of your identity and value in the products you own almost always leads to overconsumption. How do we battle this? I have no idea, to be honest. I’m absolutely complicit in buying certain things just because other people have them. I’ve bought (and hated) various viral makeup products, books, and clothes, just because I saw it on Tiktok or Instagram. A few trial and errors of this has made me realize that no product will truly change anyone’s identity, and thinking so is myopic.
Inevitably, much like everything else, this thought and essay will still get lost in the haze of sale signs and flickering billboard ads and brand emails you will never open but also never unsubscribe to.
interlude i: what i read this week
After years and years, I’ve finally decided to tackle War and Peace. One of my fun facts, or maybe a bad fact, is that I reread Anna Karenina every winter, but I’ve replaced that for the other Tolstoy book. War and Peace is a 1000+ page monster, and I’ve tried to tackle it and failed over the years, but this time I am so determined to finish it so I can finally mark it as complete. 150 pages in currently, and there’s barely a dent (buddy reading this has definitely given me the discipline that I apparently sorely lack for getting through big classics though). Very excited to become insufferable after I finish in 90 days!
Nothing much has happened other than the usual Tolstoyan hustle and bustle and battle of the Russian aristocracy as they move their children like chess pieces, using marriages and connections as weaponry to protect themselves in a ruthless society. I did notice that the dialogue in Anna Karenina is much better, while the authorial narration is much smoother in War and Peace. I forgot how much I loved Tolstoy’s use of language and the way he makes these characters come alive on the page.
(this is most likely going to be my only book for the next three months, so I’m sorry in advance)
Here are twelve articles (and Substack posts) I really loved this week:
Could Humans Hibernate? by Vladyslav Vyazovskiy
Hibernation allows many animals to time-travel from difficult times to plenty. Could humans learn how to do it too?
You’re Not an Introvert, Actually by
“If you felt relieved when the word ‘introvert’ explained that, I’m afraid it didn’t. You’re probably just a person who wants to be at home sometimes.”
The Sofa by Cynthia Zarvin
“In the months in which death swooped down on my father, circling on some days, and on others, its talons gripping the bars of the hospital bed where he lay dwindling, I found myself caught, as if on a Möbius tarmac strip, driving between Manhattan, where I live, New Haven, where I was teaching, and Long Island, where my father was dying.”
Me Versus Myself by Eliane Glaser
I work against myself through procrastination, distraction and addiction. Why do I consistently sabotage my own life?
Anyway, Don’t Be A Stranger by
On falling out and letting people leave your life as easily as they walked into it.
Interstellar Marked the Turning Point in Christopher Nolan’s Career by Sam Adams
Ten years later, the polarizing sci-fi epic is still a hot ticket at movie theaters. It’s easier now to see why.
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On the fine line between love and obsession.
A Refuge for the Soul: How to Build a Library, According to Montaigne by Andrew Hui
The Innumerable Benefits of a Philosophical Room of One’s Own.
Victoria’s Secret: How a Teenage Girl Became the Queen of England by Anne Somerset
Princess Victoria and the Scandalous Chaos of Nineteenth-Century British Politics.
Damages by Rae Nudson
An ob-gyn in Virginia performed unnecessary surgeries on patients for decades. When his victims learned the truth, they fought back.
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Unfortunately, in terms of direct messaging and dating apps, the medium is the message.
A Place of Both Solitude and Belonging: In Praise of the Park Bench by Edwin Heathcote
The “Most Archetypal” Piece of Furniture.
interlude ii: what i watched this week
To mark the start of winter, I watched my two essential winter movies: I’m Thinking of Ending Things and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Both are such fantastic movies and they’re always the movies I kick off winter with. For more winter movies, check out my winter guide for books, movies, and playlists!
Video essay wise, I’m still listening to the documentary on Henry VIII and his six wives, which is so good to listen to while doing chores or mindlessly cleaning around your house.
postlude
things i love: quiet christmas music, my bianco latte perfume, sunny winter days, tiramisu espresso martinis, navy sweaters, classic books over 500 pages
I loved this 💗 reading your postcards is one of my favorite things these days. This made me think about how, on this side of the world, all of this influence from the "first world" translates in a consumerism fueled by this pressure of being like all of these celebrities you see online and people with just so much money it's unthinkable for you but you torture yourself because you're not like them and can't have what they have, while maybe you're struggling to keep some basic needs due to the economical/social context you're in. It's always been so weird to me how all that influence can make teenage girls lost sight of who they are and where they come from in order to transform themselves into some lookalike of someone they see on the internet and think that's everything they can aspire to be, and that of course includes shopping and consuming and just buying things for the sake of that aspiration alone even when you just can't possibly have the amount of money required for that level of consumption, sometimes not even for what you truly need.
Loved reading this piece!