Hi there, Do I seem distracted? Sorry — the only things I can think about are the glistening bodies and weirdly deep emotion of Netflix's Physical: 100. The Korean reality show has a simple premise, almost laughably so: 100 very strong people compete to see who's strongest. But it's not just for muscleheads (although the word "sport" is uttered many, many times). Collegial sparring creates strong bonds between the contestants, who include Olympians, influencers, and bodybuilders, and the strenuous challenges can be surprisingly moving. Maybe it's something you'd like? Venessa Wong reviewed it here. Speaking of sports, in this edition of Cleanse the Timeline, Albert Samaha wonders why critics of the NBA's recent All-Star Weekend dunk contest have such old-school expectations for the ever-evolving event. Stephanie McNeal zeroes in on the "deinfluencing" trend, calling it out for what it is: uh, influencing. And culture editor Tomi Obaro went to Dakar recently, so she's recommending the work of Senegalese author Ousmane Sembène. Take good care, Estelle Tang, deputy culture editor |
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Hi, and welcome to Like and Subscribe, Stephanie McNeal's column about the accounts and trends she just can't stop following on social media. |
BuzzFeed News; alyssastephanie via TikTok |
Sorry, But The "Deinfluencing Trend" Is Just ... Influencing In a video posted last month, TikToker Alyssa Stephanie made a declaration. Hands clasped in front of her, she proclaimed: "I love the deinfluencing trend!" "Here are all the things I will deinfluence you from buying," she said in her video, which now has more than 5.5 million views. Her recommendations? Skip the $600 Dyson Airwrap; ditch the pricey hair oils and Supergoop sunscreen. They aren't worth it, she says. Alyssa is one of the countless influencers who have hopped on the "deinfluencing" trend. "Influencers are doing something very un-influencer-like: Telling followers 'don't buy this!'" HuffPost proclaimed. "Gen Z and millennials are rejecting consumer culture on TikTok and 'de-influencing' to protect their money," Fortune reported. "Forget influencers. 'Deinfluencing' is now a thing," CNN said. But while these influencers are hashtagging their videos #deinfluencing, what they're actually doing is just…influencing. Let's go back to Alyssa's video. Yes, she tells her followers to skip the $600 Airwrap, but right after that? She tells them to buy a different product instead. "Save your money, go on Amazon, spend $30. You're welcome," she said, showing off the Conair roller set she uses on her hair to get shiny waves. This is not a knock on Alyssa; her video is great. But she's still influencing. There's nothing "de" about it. Influencers are meant to be the "smart friend in your pocket," who have the best tips and tricks for living your best life. The best influencers have always talked about things they liked or disliked: That's literally what influencing is! I can hear the critics now: But influencers all shill the same products because of sponcon, and deinfluencing is fighting back against that. Sure, some influencers do just sell anything for a buck. And many products do become cult favorites on TikTok or Instagram because of heavy promotion by influencers. But does that mean those popular social media products reach that status because all the influencers involved are being paid to promote them, and don't actually like them? No, it does not. Let's take the Stanley cup, a travel tumbler that many deinfluencing videos use as an example of an overpriced, social media–famous product that you don't need to buy. The Stanley cup actually became a viral sensation organically. As I reported back in 2021, its popularity stemmed from one of the women behind a recommendation account called the Buy Guide, who plucked this utilitarian, no-name item from obscurity and turned it into a status symbol. The company had to scramble to catch up with demand. Some influencers love the Stanley cup and some don't; some think it's overpriced. Whatever they think, telling their followers their opinion is, again, influencing. In fact, sharing their genuine thoughts is why so many influencers are able to build their careers and maintain them. I follow several influencers who have never steered me wrong: If they recommend something, I buy it. If they say skip, I know to stay away. Deinfluencing is a fun trend and TikTok buzzword, but the media's embrace of the term illustrates some misconceptions about influencers. It doesn't spell the end of the industry at all — it's just another version of the same thing. Just check out Alyssa's comments section, which is full of people begging for links to the items she mentions in the #deinfluencing video. As one commenter wrote: "Now I will buy everything." —Stephanie McNeal |
Welcome to Read This, where we recommend something old or new to add to your ever-growing book pile. |
God's Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembène trans. by Francis Price Since spending a week in Dakar last month, I've been on a Sembène kick. The famed film director was also a prolific writer; he only turned to film when he realized he could reach a wider audience through that medium. I started with Xala, his 1973 novella which he later adapted for the screen, about an entrepreneur who eventually goes bankrupt trying to find a cure for his xala, or impotence. It's a stirring class critique and modern fable all in one. I followed that up with 1960's God's Bits of Wood, or Les bouts de bois de Dieu, considered by some critics to be his best work. The 1947 Dakar Niger railway strike is the focus of this richly observed novel, which shifts points of view over and over again without sacrificing detailed characterization. For six months, railway workers from Dakar to Bamako went on strike, asking French management for family allowances, pay raises, and work breaks, among other demands. Sembène takes readers through those months with an omniscient eye, as he depicts the strike's ongoing toil on the people. There's Niakoro, an old Bambara woman who remembers the first strikes in 1938. She lost both her husband and her son to the violence that erupted as a result. There's Niakoro's remaining son, union leader Bakayoko, and his adopted daughter, Ad'jibid'ji; free spirit Penda; Ramatoulaye, wife of a striker and a matriarch who takes matters into her hands when her brother's beloved ram ransacks their compound, spilling precious bags of rice; and even Isnard, a white Frenchman who is full of racist condescension toward Black Senegalese people. At some point, briefly, gruesomely, Sembène inhabits the point of view of a rat. Sembène doesn't gloss over the violence of French soldiers and police officers, nor the hunger and thirst families experienced once the French cut off access to their water supply. Sembène was a committed socialist in real life, but he avoids didacticism or an overly polemical tone. The result is an engrossing, epic story that clocks in at only 248 pages. Well worth the read. —Tomi Obaro |
This is Keeping Score, where Albert Samaha dissects the juiciest dramas of the sports world. |
BuzzFeed News; Getty Images; UPI / Alamy Stock Photo |
Critics Wish The NBA's Dunk Contest Had More Star Power. They're Wrong. Every year, midway through the season, the NBA hosts its All-Star Weekend festivities featuring a slate of low-stakes competitions. The most polarizing is the dunk contest, in which a handful of players try to impress a judging panel with aerial acrobatics — basically like Olympic diving that ends with a ball in a hoop instead of a splash in a pool. The winner of this year's dunk contest, which took place last Saturday, was Mac McClung. Not familiar with McClung? Neither were the many NBA fans who don't follow high school basketball. McClung, who reached mild internet virality thanks to his gravity-defying dunks as a teenager in 2017 and 2018, is now a fringe player who has spent much of his pro career in the NBA's minor leagues. Not long ago, players like McClung wouldn't have been invited to the contest, which used to be reserved for bigger names. But times have changed, to the chagrin of a certain kind of old-school hoops fan. One of them, ESPN's Stephen A. Smith, said this week that LeBron James, the NBA's biggest star, had "ruined" the dunk contest. James has infamously never participated, despite once saying he would. By Smith's reasoning, other stars have followed James's lead. Even the league's best current dunker, the explosive Ja Morant of the Memphis Grizzlies, has said he has no plans to participate in the contest. For those NBA fans, this reluctance to compete in a meaningless spectacle embodies all that is wrong with the league: allegedly entitled athletes who lack the unquenchable competitive spirit of the game's most unimpeachable icon, Michael Jordan. You see, Jordan competed in the dunk contest three times, winning twice. In 1988, he went head to head against fellow star Dominique Wilkins in a memorable showdown widely considered to be the greatest dunk contest of all time. The lore of that event casts a shadow from which no high-flying NBA superstar can escape. But it's an unfair standard. The dunk contest had only been around since 1976, and nobody was regularly soaring for dunks in basketball games until Elgin Baylor did it in the 1960s. The dunks Jordan amazed people with in 1988? They were original and beautiful, but anyone who executed them today would draw yawns, like if Thomas Edison set up a meeting with Google engineers to show them his lightbulb. The dunk contest gets harder every year because we viewers grow numb to each advancement of the craft. Innovations come fewer and further between. In 2000, Vince Carter put together the greatest dunk contest performance of all time with a series of jams featuring never before seen spins and tricks, including one in which he jumped so high that he dipped his forearm into the net and hung from the rim by his elbow — Jordan himself called it "the most amazing dunk" he had ever seen. This year, when Jericho Sims of the New York Knicks hung from the rim by two elbows, the crowd barely cheered. Standing out in the dunk contest requires an increasing level of creativity and a corresponding amount of thought and time. Do Lakers fans really want James spending hours each week choreographing a high-flying act outlandish enough to awaken our jaded souls? Instead, why not let the McClungs of the world earn their way to the spotlight by honing their aerial art while the bigger stars cheer them on? "He solidified himself," James said of McClung in a press conference on Sunday, "as one of the greatest slam dunk competitors we've ever had." —Albert Samaha | |
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