19 Aug 2016

Weekly Reading: Glossier, Gloriavale and M.I.A.

9:37 am on 19 August 2016

Our weekly recap highlighting the best feature stories from around the internet.

 

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Photo: Twitter

How Glossier Harnessed The Myth Of Cool Girl Makeup – by Haley Mlotek, The Fader

“By contrast, Kelli, 30, an editor for a digital women’s lifestyle magazine, called Glossier products “very well-marketed” but ultimately “mediocre.” The lipsticks are “incredibly shitty, and I think anyone being honest with themselves will agree,” she said. “They’re so well-marketed that you want to believe, because the idea of minimalist makeup that encourages you to be in your own skin is so appealing.””

Gloriavale: The Other Side, From The Inside – by Melissa Harrison, The Pantograph Punch

“For the casual viewer, there’s no denying that the subject matter is fascinating, and at times comical - but the way Gloriavale is being presented for our consumption now is exploitative and negligent. As a piece of television, its makers are satisfied to deliver us our LOLs in a steady stream of sound bites and sight gags, and it satisfies our voyeuristic longings for the strange; all with no critical engagement, no history, no varied perspectives.”

Chuck D: 'Black Lives Matter Is A Defensive Movement' – by David Ma, The Guardian

“I’ve never seen so many 40-year-old teenagers in my life. You can be youthful and full of youth, but don’t be a fool for youth; this society tries to make you hang onto your youth by any means necessary. But in doing so you forgo responsibilities and accountabilities of what makes you an elder.”

Women Have Been Boxing in the Shadows for Too Long – by Jaime Lowe, The New York Times Magazine

“It’s a violent sport. If she were a man, that bloodlust, that taste for combat, would be courted. It would be used as a selling point to hype fights, as it always has. But for a woman to admit that she likes aggression, relishes controlled rage, thrives on ferocity and enjoys the feeling of gut-punches, well, that is unfathomable, or it seemed so to the Team U.S.A. reps.”

Out Of Cite – by Laur M. Jackson, The Awl

“This is why writers have editors: to skirt around a splattered mess of emotional attachments and see what’s on the page for what it really is. To help a writer see that topic similarity is not akin to redundancy. That two people can observe the same trend differently, yet also inform each other. That’s how you have a conversation. What’s more important, to be mythically “first” or advance conversation about a subject matter in the richest way possible?”

M.I.A.: The Permanent Revolution of Pop's Most Fascinating Radical – by Lizzy Goodman, Rolling Stone

“Our tour of East London takes us close to the Christ Church Spitalfields youth center, where Maya hung out as a teen. A worker there once pulled her aside with a warning: “He said, ‘You need to get the fuck out of here. If you do stay with this, you're going to end up in a council flat with six kids before you're 21.’” Her response? “’That sounds amazing. Who wouldn't want that? I could be dead.’””