Oh my god, I am totally buggin'
MILF Manor, The Scar Girl Controversy, and NY Mag's new rules.
I’m proud to say that after watching the most recent episode of The Last of Us, I would not have become an original zombie on the day of infection on account of not eating carbs. Me, having cereal for breakfast? Unheard of. Pancakes? Out of the question.
If everyone had just been on Atkins, the apocalypse could have been much more contained. It wasn’t fungi that destroyed the world, it was Wonder Bread.
The Low-Brow Lowdown
Marie Kondo has given up on cleaning. In her recent webinar, the queen of tidying up admitted that her house is a mess after becoming a mom and reprioritizing. Alison Roman is rolling in her grave!
VIP is always better. One day I’ll stop talking about Anna Delvey, but unfortunately for you, that day is not today. Over the weekend, Anna celebrated a heavily sponsored 32nd birthday with friends in her East Village apartment. The presenting sponsor was Profanity Paraffins, the maker of the Vogue-approved profanity-laden candles.
According to Page Six, attendees of the official after-party had to provide their SSN and sign an NDA — basically the equivalent of the exclusive secret sleepover after your 14th birthday party at Claire’s.
JoBros receive their Hollywood star. On Monday, the group of wife guys was honored with a collective star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
TikTokker Chris Olsen is launching a coffee company. We don’t need more “celebrity” coffee brands! Tom Hanks I will allow because he’s a national treasure and it’s for the troops, but guess what: we all like coffee. I think we all sing. It can’t be a business endeavor for every single quirky influencer the internet births.
The falsies that shook the nation. This scandal has taken over my For You Page, but I really don’t think it’s worth a whole feature segment. Basically, beauty TikTokker Mikayla Nogueira did a partner video for Maybelline Mascara, probably misrepresented the finished look with false lashes, doubled down that she didn’t in the comments, and won’t address it beyond that. People are reeeeaaaallly pressed, so much so that it caused a radioactive energy wave to wake up Jeffree Star from his supervillain slumber.
Welcome to MILF Manor
The New Yorker has called it reality tv’s “rock bottom” which means it’s probably my apex mountain. I watched the first two episodes of the new television travesty MILF Manor and am reporting for duty.
The logline: Eight saucy moms head to paradise in search of a younger man who can keep up with their “extreme libidos.” The twist?! The dating pool is made up of their collective 23-year-old sons.
What else? I know. Let’s pick our jaws up off the floor and keep moving.
Your mind probably immediately goes to some Oedipal territory, but the sons seem more normal than the moms — for starters, Kelle, the Christine Quinn of the show, divulges in a confessional that her son was “thirsty” for breast milk as an infant, immediately tries to have sex with the first guy she sees, and has a mental breakdown when other participants elect to have conversations together in Spanish.
The MILFs are all classic Boy Moms™. They think their sons are such charming little scamps, and in some ways, they’re refreshingly open about discussing one another’s sex lives. But in other ways, I don’t think anyone should be subjected to hearing the details of contracting conjunctivitis via eating ass.
Outside of Kelle, it’s clear no one really wants to be doing this, and without the royalty-free pop music, it would look like the PTA was chaperoning an 8th-grade dance at a boys’ prep school. The guys haven’t been harboring repressed fantasies about their mothers and there’s minimal angst to exploit — they’re just regular old attractive dudes who wanted to go to Mexico, take their shirts off on TV, and maybe get some new TikTok followers.
In a harrowing opening challenge, the boys stand shirtless in a line, and the blindfolded moms are tasked with feeling up the guys’ chests before making a guess at which one is their son. Not to be that guy who’s like, “if the genders were reversed” but if the GENDERS WERE REVERSED this show would be yeeting off of TLC and straight onto PornHub, or maybe even the dark web.
The rest of the ongoings are standard and formulaic — paddle board dates, drunk arguments, cock-blocking your mom. . .all in a day’s work.
I’m gonna wager a bet that this show gets canceled after its one season, but if it doesn’t, here’s my audition to be a producer on season two. As a caveat, none of these are innuendos, they are all literal interpretations:
Make the boys guess between their mom’s casserole and their love interests’. Again, not an innuendo. They literally have to make a casserole.
Let’s bring in the dads/ex-husbands at some point. If a woman is interested in a guy, she goes on a 2x1 date with him and his dad.
Get two boys to date each others’ moms and make the four of them go to family therapy.
TL;DR: This is actually a lot more entertaining than Netflix’s recent disaster Dated & Related, but you will get served ads for V8 juice and butt deodorant, so enter at your own risk.
Do we need another Scarface reboot?
That was clickbait. This is not about the Al Pacino film, it’s about TikTok. Fooled you!
Like many Americans, I spent last weekend trying to determine whether or not a college freshman’s facial scar — which looks like it was hastily scrawled with a magic marker and changes shape and size from video to video — is the true result of a chemical burn as she claims, or a Machiavellian grab at internet fame.
Annie Bonelli, now known to the TikTok community as “Scar Girl,” has spent the past few years sending her innocent lip-sync videos into the TikTok ether, but only recently managed to catch the algorithm in her french-tipped clutches.
While Annie’s scar is rarely mentioned in the content itself, its legitimacy dominates her comments section, thereby boosting her overall engagement and virality. It’s like the equivalent of filming an innocuous Get Ready with Me video where shirtless Harry Styles silently flips a newspaper in the background — no one’s going to end up talking about your Maybelline mascara.
Here’s an overview of what we know so far:
The Original Scar versus the Current Scar
Annie won’t share the source of her original scar which she received in March 2020, citing her personal privacy. But, as you can see, it looks like a standard wound.
The updated scar is a completely different animal, like Squirtle evolved into Wartortle. Annie explained that the current scar is actually the result of a chemical burn, caused by the sloppy application of a topical scar-fading treatment that she ended up having a negative reaction to.
The Evidence
Annie has created a few videos to try to prove her case by wiping her face with makeup remover towelettes and Q-tips drenched in rubbing alcohol.
But I’ve gotta say. . .they’re giving Millie Bobby Brown’s infamous skincare tutorial. It’s impossible to tell whether the materials are actually touching her face.
She told NBC News that she is currently attending dermatology appointments to treat the scar, but she declined to share records of the appointments.
Casual internet sleuths and dermatologists alike have weighed in, with in-depth videos documenting how the scar changes from video to video, or whether a scar like that is even possible on a skin tone as fair as Annie’s.
The Endgame
In an awkward interview with the BFFs Podcast, in response to host Dave Portnoy’s skepticism, Annie sarcastically remarked that she’s a calculated mastermind who’s five steps ahead of everyone else.
She was nonchalant and cavalier — the hate doesn’t bother her, she understands people’s curiosity, she’s in on the joke. . .possible, but if you truly had had a traumatic event happen to you followed by a chemical burn, would you be so forgiving of the public for harassing you? I’m not sure. I think you might take the offensive, decrying your haters for their callous cyberbullying during an incredibly vulnerable time in your life.
In the interview, Annie speaks vaguely about using her platform for good — by being proud of her scar and not covering it with makeup, she’s creating a safe haven of scar representation. . .if I can just make a difference for one little girl out there scrolling TikTok, I’ll have done my job. (She didn’t actually say that, that’s just my reenactment.)
The platform rings empty and desultory, like something she’s supposed to say versus something she means. And the host even pointed out, the girl is too hot to be the face of the visible scar movement, so what’s the play?
I can’t wait to see how this all shakes out. If it ends up the scar is fake after all, does she gleefully gloat that she played us, laughing all the way to the bank? Would she join the ranks of the Caroline Calloways of the world as a sometimes reviled yet ironically beloved scammer sister?
Or will she spend the rest of her life smearing Ben Nye stage makeup on her cheek?
Worst case scenario, the scar is real, and we’ve all been complicit in bullying this chick, which is the least fun outcome.
You’ve seen the evidence — weigh in!
I got new rules, I count ‘em
New York Magazine just put out 140 rules for functioning in society in 2023. They seem hyper-fixated on the fact that you either know celebrities or will be interacting with them (e.g. nickname-dropping is worse than regular name-dropping), so I picked out some of the more relatable ones for discussion.
Hot gossip goes only in the voice memo, never in text. I see the appeal here but it’s like our parents going from emailing to texting. . .not as intuitive as one would think.
It’s okay to ghost after one date. No one owes anyone anything at that point, especially if you split the bill.
Don’t address two or more women as “ladies.” The writer calls this “oddly creepy” when it comes from a man, which I don’t really agree with, but in Corporate America I despise getting Slack messages from a higher-up that say “hi, ladies.” It feels so condescending, like they’re trying to be your troop leader at Girl Scouts.
It’s okay to email, text, or DM anyone at any hour. They meant this in a work context, and this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Schedule send that shit, a 2:30AM Slack message makes you look like a psycho.
Never ask anyone what their job is. They say this is classist and to broach three other topics first. What are the topics then???? Would love to see this in action before I buy in cause I’m doubtful.
Straight people can use the word partner only when they’re trying to get something out of it. This x10000. Unless you’re 47 years old and have been dating your SO for 10+ years, why are you saying partner?? You’re too good to call Mike from Hinge your boyfriend? Your love is more powerful than that? Give me a break.
Prekend Wrapped
Watching: Poker Face (Peacock)
Reading: “The Best and Worst Media TikTok Accounts” (Gawker)
Listening: George Santos’ Karaoke Performances
I have a lot of thought on those rules but the one that stands out is it being alright to send messages whenever you like - no it is not!!! I don't want your Slack fever dreams in my inbox when I log on at a normal time.