The essay anchorsTrick Mirror, casting a critical eye on the commercial mechanisms still defining its 30-year-old authors generation.
Tolentino writes, for instance, that increasingly ubiquitous (and expensive) athleisure wear eroticizes capital.
She argues that the internet has built an ecosystem that runs on exploiting attention and monetizing the self.
Random House; Simon & Schuster
By the time, more than halfway into the book, she gets to scamming?
Youre left to nod helplessly at her crushing insight into how the con has become core to our identity.
It would be better, of course, to do things morally, Tolentino writes.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images
But who these days has the ability or the time?
One such victim, formerVanity Fairphoto editor Rachel DeLoache Williams, had befriended Anna Delvey (a.k.a.
(Tolentino calls this the retrospective, vicarious thrill of watching the scammer take people for a ride.)
(HBO has acquired the rights;Shonda Rhimes is adaptinga different Delvey chronicle for Netflix.)
Im embarrassed to say how much I enjoyed it.
Williams writes to gain sympathy, recalling anxiety attacks and a fear of losing her job.
But shes bizarrely neutral about the gaudy lifestyle Anna had shown off.
Anna comes off like an assortment of ugly cliches aTrick Mirrorcutout.
Shes obsessed with Instagram and its influencers.
She lures Rachel into a near-daily fitness routine, complete with (of course!)
So how did Rachel fall for it?
I guess part of me aspired to be more like her.
Dear God, were in trouble.
