Dirt: Over the influence

M3GAN, "Hood Midcentury Modern," and baguettes.

17 Jan

Terry Nguyen, Dirt’s senior staff writer, on TikTok "uninfluencers," streaming news, and good links from the Dirtyverse.

TikTok is full of commodity fetishists—influencers hawking gimmicky, must-have products, from kitchen organizers to facial serums. The latest trend, however, appears to be the antithesis of this mindless consumerism: “uninfluencing,” in which people share items they regret purchasing or offer low-budget alternatives to expensive products. The honesty (you do not need to buy anything you see online) is refreshing, even if it proves to be short-lived.

I suspect the swelling anti-consumerist tide is related to current economic circumstances. “Buy now, pay later” loan services like Afterpay, often praised by TikTokers for making luxury goods more accessible, are also falling out of favor. When a carton of eggs is averaging $7 in New York City, it’s harder to convince people to buy into gimmicks, lest you risk sounding like Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development: “It’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost, ten dollars?”

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PLAYBACK

Snippets of streaming news — and what we’re streaming.

  • M3GAN, the creepy doll horror film, is beating box office predictions. Naturally, Universal Pictures is already fast-tracking a sequel.

    • The NYT interviewed the M3GAN costume designers on crafting the killer doll’s signature look: Gucci kids’ dresses were an inspiration, as well as fabrics from the ‘60s.

  • How Netflix’s Single’s Inferno can fill the Bachelor-sized hole in our streaming hearts. (Polygon)

  • Network crime & cop shows like “Criminal Minds,” “NCIS,” “Bones,” and “The Blacklist” are still big hits on streamers. (NYT)

  • Missing, the standalone sequel to Searching (2018), is set entirely on screens, but the technologically-forward premise does little to improve a stunted plot, writes The Atlantic’s Shirley Li: “The result is a film that is slickly made but buggy in execution, like a premature software update … Missing rarely tries to imagine what an 18-year-old’s screen might reveal besides TikTok videos being watched, Instagram stories being uploaded, and alarms being snoozed.”

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MIXTAPE

Good links from the Dirtyverse.