are you materially interested?

when I first started creating videos on tiktok, a follower on instagram dm’d me the following: “i didn’t know you were smart.” i remember laughing out loud and showing my husband - this is what’s wrong with social media today, is what i said. because i suppose if you only knew me from instagram, you may think me vapid or materialistic, and frankly I’m probably a bit of both - but that doesn’t preclude me from other interests and explorations into less shallow forms of materiality. hence this substack!!

something I loved about tiktok is that it allowed (allows?) us to share multiple facets of our personality, without necessarily being dinged by the algorithm. where instagram is optimized for curation and beauty, in losing tiktok, we’re losing the platform that celebrates our quirks, our depth and individualism. it’s news to no one - not a single soul - that there are few forums to really, effectively showcase and celebrate all of one’s interests and learnings, but my hope is that substack can fill that void for me. for us.

i am under no delusion that all of my musings will be of interest to you individually, but between regular brand and business case studies, trend reports, market remarks, curated hauls, product recommendations, and personal updates, my hope is that there will be a little something for everyone here. because i believe that you can be equally obsessed with The RealReal as you are with Axios Pro Rata, simultaneously enjoy books by Sarah J Maas and Ray Dalio, and walk into Sephora like you know where you’re going while also knowing how to participate in an SPV. in fact, I argue that doing both makes us the crème de la crème of society (and consumerism iykyk).

and so material interest will cover all material interests… from material goods to material ownership and even materiality in art. my aim is to explore the broader cultural interest in these spaces and more.