TikTok

Beauty

Decoding Uncanny Valley make-up, Tikok’s creepiest beauty trend

Something unsettling is taking place on our faces

Beauty

Nov 27, 2023

Hatti Rex

Life & Culture

Prey mode: why girls are pretending to be cute animals online

From Bambis and bunnies to the viral ‘canthal tilt’ Tiktok filter, predator vs prey discourse is everywhere – here’s how we can use ‘girl theory’ to unpack it

Life & Culture

Nov 20, 2023

Alex Quicho

Life & Culture

No, young people are not stanning Osama Bin Laden

The idea that a significant amount of Gen Z are embracing the views of Bin Laden is just another made-up media panic about TikTok

Life & Culture

Nov 17, 2023

James Greig

Life & Culture

Why do so many conservatives want to ban TikTok?

According to the app’s right-wing critics, TikTok is threatening national security by spreading ‘woke’ ideology

Life & Culture

Nov 16, 2023

James Greig

Fashion

Bella Hadid Photography Marc Piasecki / GC Images

Why are all the fashion girlies reclaiming frumpy aesthetics?

From Bella Hadid and Gabbriette’s nerdy librarian glasses to Iris Law’s grandma cardis and rat tails, we unpack one of the biggest – and most surprising – trends of the year so far

Fashion

Nov 10, 2023

Hannah Bertolino

Life & Culture

The Girl Codex: a complete guide to everything girl-coded online

Because we’re living in a girl’s world!

Life & Culture

Oct 26, 2023

Günseli Yalcinkaya

Film & TV

lost-in-translation-scarlett-johansson-and-bill-mu

Lost in Translation at 20: why the film resonates now more than ever

Sofia Coppola’s 2003 polemic against individualism is striking a chord with Gen Z, the loneliest living generation

Film & TV

Oct 24, 2023

Isabella Guarnieri

Life & Culture

Blessed and emoji-pilled: why language online is so absurd

Whether you’re sticking out your gyatt for the rizzler or you’re cuh dey board, online communication is spiralling into the surreal faster than you can say skibidi

Life & Culture

Oct 23, 2023

Günseli Yalcinkaya

Life & Culture

Marriage language: why couples develop their own dialects

A recent TikTok trend has highlighted how partners, families and close friends often develop their own personal slang

Life & Culture

Oct 19, 2023

Serena Smith

Life & Culture

Hieronymous Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, c.1500

How neurodivergence became a subculture

In recent years, social media has allowed neurodivergent people to find community online – but is there a darker side to the ‘subculturalification’ of mental health conditions?

Life & Culture

Oct 18, 2023

Rhianne Patent

Beauty

TikTok yearbook challenge before and after

The yearbook challenge and the reason we love watching people age

From Boyhood and the Up series to TBT posts and TikTok’s yearbook challenge, there’s something compelling about watching people transform and the passage of time itself

Beauty

Oct 03, 2023

Kleigh Balugo

Life & Culture

AfroGames: inside world’s first favela e-sports collective

From Rio to São Paulo, online gaming is a way of life for millions of kids in Brazil. Now, with the world’s first favela e-sports organisation, it can be a way to make a living – and foster hope for the future among those shut out from society

Life & Culture

Oct 03, 2023

Felipe Maia

Life & Culture

Is the golden age of posting over?

Social media algorithms and top-down trend cycles have ruined memes as we know it, but perhaps we’re approaching a new posting epoch

Life & Culture

Sep 29, 2023

Günseli Yalcinkaya

Life & Culture

Madeline Argy is ‘young, hot and free’

Tackling Gen-Z problems from the front seat of a banged-up Vauxhall Astra, Madeline Argy’s unfiltered TikTok posts are a tonic for the anxious and online – she speaks out on relationship soft-launches and her summer of fun

Life & Culture

Sep 28, 2023

Anna Cafolla

Life & Culture