‘Not ugly, just poor’: how the beauty industry is widening the class divide (Dazed & Confused)
BY ELLEN ATLANTA
Botox, fillers and plastic surgery are becoming increasingly necessary to live up to contemporary beauty standards, creating a beauty tax that is pricing many people out
Adhering to the beauty standard requires a privilege, but also generates privilege, creating a vicious cycle in which those without the economic freedom to participate are heavily penalised, financially and socially. ‘Poorly groomed’ women stand to earn 40 per cent less than their beautified counterparts, while attractive people are over 20 per cent more likely to be called back for a job interview, and are perceived to be more socially skilled, trustworthy, confident and competent. “If you’re white, middle class and you’ve got a good job, you don’t need these things as much,” says Ruth Holliday, professor in Gender and Culture at the University of Leeds. “It’s when you’re marginalised that this beauty work becomes so much more important.”
WHAT’S GOING ON WITH SWEATERS? (NYLON)
BY LAURA PITCHER
Exploring the great knitwear decline of 2023.
According to Latorre [who works at the Spanish brand Paloma Wool], fast fashion is the culprit behind many sweaters becoming less cozy and long-lasting. “I think that explains a lot of decline in a lot of things,” she says. Today’s fast fashion model, of course, means quality in the production of sweaters is often compromised to make things trend-focused, cheaper, and faster to make at scale. It also impacts how people care for their clothing. “You’re not gonna care for a sweater that much through fast fashion because you can consume so much of it that it loses its value,” she says.
The Biggest Questions: What is death? (MIT Technology Review)
BY RACHEL NUWER
New neuroscience is challenging our understanding of the dying process—bringing opportunities for the living.
Everyone, of course, does eventually have to die and will someday be beyond saving. But a more exact understanding of the dying process could enable doctors to save some previously healthy people who meet an unexpected early end and whose bodies are still relatively intact. Examples could include people who suffer heart attacks, succumb to a deadly loss of blood, or choke or drown. The fact that many of these people die and stay dead simply reflects “a lack of proper resource allocation, medical knowledge, or sufficient advancement to bring them back,” Parnia says.
FCC moves to help domestic violence victims with new rules around cellphones (NBC News)
BY NOAH PRANSKY
Advocates for victims of domestic violence have pointed to the crucial role phones can play for people seeking to separate from partners and start their lives over.
“When I took over the Federal Communications Commission, these are not the things I thought I would be doing,” Jessica Rosenworcel, who in 2021 became the first woman confirmed to lead the FCC, told NBC News. “But if you’re trying to separate from someone who’s abusing you, one of the things you want to do is securely get off that family plan and set up your own communications.”
According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, a nonprofit group that fields calls and texts from more than 1 million people each year, financial abuse exists in 98% of relationships in which there’s domestic violence. The organization’s CEO, Katie Ray-Jones, said cellphones are a frequently-used tool of control and manipulation.
The best place for product reviews is … Reddit? (Vox)
BY ADAM CLARK ESTES
The hive mind of the internet is good, for once.
So in an absence of authenticity and authority, where does an industrious internet user turn? Reddit, of course.
Sometimes known by its old slogan “the front page of the internet,” Reddit is most valuable for the knowledge collected in its very specific, often obsessive communities called subreddits. This is where you’ll find lots of real people with helpful things to say about the stuff you’re thinking about buying or the bagels you’re considering eating. And it doesn’t take much to tap into the Reddit hivemind. Just try tacking “reddit” onto the end of a Google query (e.g., “best white noise machine reddit”). You’ll quickly find quite a few other internet users with the same question, dealing with the same set of frustrations over the lack of reliable information in the traditional product reviews ecosystem.
An oil executive is leading the UN climate summit. It’s going as well as you’d expect. (Vox)
BY LI ZHOU
The head of COP28 is facing widespread backlash for his comments on fossil fuels.
“Al Jaber’s comments are absurd and troubling, betraying both an ignorance about the science and a dismissiveness about the need for rapid decarbonization, which is at the very center of the proceedings over which he is in principle presiding as COP28 president,” University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann told Vox.
Jaber’s comments also directly conflict with statements made by many world leaders, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said on Friday: “The science is clear: The 1.5C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce, not abate. Phase out, with a clear timeframe.”
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