It’s been a bad week to be on the internet. Kim Kardashian’s Skims has launched a new line of shapewear… for your face. Sydney Sweeney fronted a controversial campaign for American Eagle, igniting debate about race and Western beauty standards. Then there’s Bonnie Blue’s latest documentary and the dark underbelly of sex as spectacle. Oh, and to add to the Black Mirror-ness of it all, Gwyneth Paltrow cosplayed as the new CEO of Astronomer, Donald Trump Jr shared an AI-generated image of Donald Trump in double denim parodying the aforementioned ad, and the White House released a deportation video captioned, “When ICE books you a one-way Jet2 holiday to deportation… Nothing beats it!” overlaid with the infamous Jess Glynne track.
So, what does all this tell us—aside from the fact we’re all going to hell in a handbasket? Though face shapewear, a woefully tone-deaf advert (if we’re being generous), and OnlyFans might seem unrelated, in many ways, they all point to the alarming direction social media is headed (hint: backwards).
