NYT OPINION: The Enduring, Invisible Power of Blond
By Tressie McMillan Cottom
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: January 19, 2023 at 02:00AM
That was my lesson over the holiday break.
I took a few weeks off into the new year to fight pneumonia and prepare for the semester. Complete bed rest meant that my administrative work fell by the wayside. Instead, I zoned out to “Masterpiece Theater,” browsed through the stack of magazines I had collected during busier times, and occasionally logged into social media.
That’s how I ended up running afoul of the Blondes.
You see, part of my convalescence involved watching TikTok videos, or TikToks. The app’s users skew younger than me, and yet I joined last summer, in part, because I teach a graduate seminar called “Social Problems in the Information Society.” TikTok’s algorithm makes it easy to love. It ruthlessly surfaces the latent constructs of our personalities. We may say we are serious people who want to consume content about ancient Mesopotamia, but how we actually allocate our attention reveals that we want cats, a little soft-core porn and more cats. My TikTok algorithm served up a lot of middle-aged women playing with fashion and experts explaining their niche subject area.
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By Tressie McMillan Cottom
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: January 19, 2023 at 02:00AM
Blond is more than just a hair color.
If you are ever trapped between a hungry bear and a blonde with an attitude, fight the bear.That was my lesson over the holiday break.
I took a few weeks off into the new year to fight pneumonia and prepare for the semester. Complete bed rest meant that my administrative work fell by the wayside. Instead, I zoned out to “Masterpiece Theater,” browsed through the stack of magazines I had collected during busier times, and occasionally logged into social media.
That’s how I ended up running afoul of the Blondes.
You see, part of my convalescence involved watching TikTok videos, or TikToks. The app’s users skew younger than me, and yet I joined last summer, in part, because I teach a graduate seminar called “Social Problems in the Information Society.” TikTok’s algorithm makes it easy to love. It ruthlessly surfaces the latent constructs of our personalities. We may say we are serious people who want to consume content about ancient Mesopotamia, but how we actually allocate our attention reveals that we want cats, a little soft-core porn and more cats. My TikTok algorithm served up a lot of middle-aged women playing with fashion and experts explaining their niche subject area.
Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/19/opinion/the-enduring-invisible-power-of-blond.html
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