Welcome to the first instalment of a weekly life and relationships column by Iris Owen, aka Nectarine Girl – the reigning queen of Depop, fame-hungry wordsmith, and author of the wackiest newsletter in London, Nectarine News. Juicy. When it comes to friends, I always want more. I love meeting new people and thoroughly enjoy talking to […]
Tumblr’s death knell sounded back in 2018, when the site infamously banned adult content. “There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content,” CEO Jeff D’Onofrio said at the time. The site’s popularity quickly tanked: in the three months following the platform lost 30 per cent of its monthly page views. […]
In the early days of internet fame, the world was run by characters. MirandaSings, Fred, even Shane Dawson’s early content — in the late 2000s and early 2010s, being famous online generally meant playing a role or providing a distinct service (skits, product reviews, parodies, reporting the news). The audience knew that these characters weren’t […]
My friend Daisy asked for some help with setting up her Hinge profile the other week. “Are there too many pictures of me with a drink – do I look like an alcoholic?”, she asked, sliding her phone over to me and our other friend, Holly. “No,” Holly said, wrinkling her nose. “But it’s too […]
Once, when I was around 21, I had an eye-opening conversation over lunch with someone who had worked for years in managerial positions at charities. While my mind was occupied with graduate opportunities and starting salaries, his was elsewhere. “There are some people we probably don’t need anymore,” he said of his organisation as we […]
As an increasingly storied genre of short film, the coming out video has a long history online in much the same way as the YouTube apology video, or one of the platform’s arguably more infamous diss tracks. In the past decade or so, notable works within the medium have included “I’m Gay”, an expertly choreographed […]
If you’ve gone on TikTok even one single time over the past few months, it’s inevitable that you’ve seen creators renaming and redefining doing the bare minimum required in your job as “quiet quitting”. The now ubiquitous term immediately went viral, inspiring conversations around work “not being your life” and even being “quiet fired”. While […]
You might remember the newspaper headlines about the Mardini sisters’ story. Professional swimmer Yusra escaped war-ravaged Syria with her sibling Sara and went on to become an Olympic athlete. As part of a desperate journey, the 17 and 20-year-olds became stranded in the middle of the Aegean sea on a sinking dinghy, before courageously pulling the boat […]
TikTokers, Instagram influencers, and other online content creators now have a new way to unionise, via SAG-AFTRA’s “Influencer Agreement”. As Hollywood’s top union, the catchily-named Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists will allow those that earn money through advertising on social media to reap the same benefits as A-list actors. “The Influencer Agreement was created in response […]
The NBA, this country’s savviest professional sports conglomerate, knows how to make a buck. When it introduced the “City Edition” uniform in 2017—a fourth jersey alternate meant to highlight the most granular shibboleths of each franchise’s home—it was a conceptual triumph. It not only flattered fans, for whom local pride is often more consequential than […]