The best trolls are based in truth, even if exaggerated, and ideally express something that everyone sort of knows but few have put into words. Earlier this month, I declared that Sydney Sweeney’s breasts on SNL had ended wokeness. The original tweet now has over 61 million views, the follow up about the GLAAD awards is closing in on 20 million, and the idea has inspired multiple think pieces in addition to two pages on Know Your Meme.
Of course, I know wokeness isn’t dead simply because we saw boobs on TV. But the idea that how women look, act, and dress is irrelevant to the culture wars is just as ridiculous of a position.
This is not a paywall. The rest of this article is available to free subscribers of the newsletter. Just leave your email below to continue reading.
Smart, funny, and original piece that connects many things I’d never thought about but makes perfect sense. One thing to add: there is a race angle to this story too. During 2014-2021 you had female rappers being extremely sexual in a masculine way (bragging about sex, aggressively alpha), and this was widely celebrated as progressive and good. You also had a culture that seemed to feign or at least exaggerate the attractiveness of fat black women (Megan thee stallion, to some extent even Lizzo). Sweeney is the opposite of all these trends - sweet, soft, feminine, and conventionally beautiful.
Now, this is the Hanania content I'm here for.