read most of a book called sleveless by someone called natasha staff today. the closest point of reference i have for it is genuinely the brooklyn culture mafia thread. it's basically a kind of very loose commentary on....well on what it's like to be in the fashion and the media in america i guess. there are a few good bits, where she's pretty much just telling you what her life is like, the autobiographical bits, but there are also a lot of very long bits which are basically cultural analysis of things like influencer culture.
i've read a few things like this recently, where writers are trying to pick apart modern america in a way which combines quite freeform cultural theory, their own experiences, and a kind of experimental literary style. my overriding impression is that being a young middle-class american woman must be an incredibly contradictory experience, and quite a bleak one. in lots of ways but particularly in terms of ideas about what's right, wrong, and what they think they're supposed to be doing. they all seem so confused and unsure about anything (well the three books i've read in this vein are anyway). this natasha staff one has her working in the media and copywriting etc, but also ripping it apart, acknowledging this contradiction in the text, but also throwing out a load of status symbol, quite self-branding, conscious markers of her coolness as well. 'well then we went to clandestinos'. 'i was hanging out with this artist the other day'. i guess i get slightly wound up by some of this stuff, but then, i have just read almost the whole thing in one sitting, and that's probably not ideal.