RIP Roland Barthes, you would have loved ChatGPT.

Art world pomposity, hot men in leather, and ambivalent attitudes towards botox

ChatGPT had me in a chokehold, and I only just made it out alive. It started off totally innocent. A friend of mine asked it to come up with a caption for Instagram in the style of my writing. So then I also started asking it to come up with captions in the style of my writing. Then I asked it to write a thank you letter for a wedding I’d just been at, a quote about the state of fashion a journalist had asked for, answers for an interview I was doing, and finally, an entire article I was commissioned to write. All in the style of my writing. Suddenly, I was staring down the barrel of my future; a life full of lies, laziness and deceit. I obviously rewrote everything myself (all in the style of my writing) and handed that in instead. But it got me spiralling over ideas about authorship and authenticity. If I’m authorising an algorithm to mimic my writing, can it ever truly count as mine? If I’m just copying myself, am I still a plagiarist? Is ChatGPT the best thing ever invented or literally the death of culture and creativity? RIP Roland Barthes, you would have loved ChatGPT.

In other news I got called into the teacher’s office for having a reprobate son, got solicited on TikTok by a potential sugar daddy, and, told I didn’t have “positive vibe face” on Instagram by a woman whose name means ruler in Turkish.

What I saw

I went to the Serpentine Summer party on Tuesday for its annual art world tit wank. This year the pavilion was designed by Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum. Shaped like a giant (time) capsule, and inspired by Shamiyana tents and south Asian awnings, Tabassum’s work is essentially a meditation on the ephemerality of the serpentine pavilion itself, a great beast of a structure with a lifespan of a British summer. In the context of botched filler (!) and bad dresses (!!) its translucent facade had a very calming effect. But I actually felt more at home in the Play Pavillion next door, by Sir Peter Cook, sire of A.G. Cook, which sits at the intersection between Childcare and Culture. It’s basically a very colourful dome that you can go and sit in and play with lego, which is much more my speed.

What I bought

I want to have a ditsy chick slut girl summer and i’m going to have it in All-In. I bought an itsy bitchy vulva skimming mini skirt from the boys behind Charli’s Party 4 U look and it’s everything i wanted it to be. Its cute and girly but also chaotic and fucked up. A deconstructed nightie with an irregular hem and with the straps falling down, its giving frazzled party girl who just woke up and was halfway through getting (un)dressed but decided to leave the house anyway.

What I watched

I can’t believe it’s taken me this long, but I finally watched Empire Records. It’s highly camp and utterly ridiculous - an essay in 90s cheese, a lesson in Roquefort, a treatise in Mont d’OR, but perfectly captures that quintessential teenage disillusionment with the world, the system, the man. “Don't let the man get you down” says Rory Cochrane’s turtleneck wearing Lucas . But everyone in this film is down. Way down. Liv Tyler with her speed addiction and virginal obsession with aging pop flop Rex Manning - happy Rex Manning Day! Renee Zellwegger who obviously has raging daddy issues and sleeps with everyone in sight, and depressed Debra (Robin Tunney) who attacks herself with a pink razor and shaves her head to a song by the Martinis, because she can’t stand being so invisible. Miraculously it all ends in a big street party where everyone is drinking beer from red cups and making out.. The agony and the ecstasy of adolescence.

ACTUAL EVIDENCE OF ME READING

What I read

I’m currently reading Tom Wolfe’s The Painted Word and loving every bit of it. A pioneer of New Journalism, an experimental style of writing in the 1960s, Wolfe’s approach to journalism not only fully immerses you in the world he’s describing but gives the sense that he’s literally in the room with you, sitting on your shoulder and whispering sweet, salty nothings in your ear as the action plays out around you. Like your own personal, private guide, a journalistic Jiminy Cricket, his presence is everywhere, guffawing at the madness of it all, which in this case is the art world pomposity. His whole point being that modern art is secondary to Theory and that the artist is caught in this tango whereby he/she must suck the teet of the bourgeoisie while also violently railing against it. Which reminds me of working at independent fashion magazines, only its the brands not the bourgeosie. Or maybe the brands are the new bourgeoisie.

WET DOGS IN PARIS

What I did

On Wednesday, I went to Paris to see the Wales Bonner show, which zaddy was styling. The heat was rancid. People were sliding off their seats from sweat which made watching a bunch of beautifully tailored clothes feel weirdly perverse. Fast-forward an hour and it was a full-on deluge; thunder and lightning, very very frightening. A fireball of monstrous male fury, which perfectly encapsulates the state of mens fashion rn. Whether it's Brad Pitt’s midlife crisis style era or Aleksander Skarsgard and Aaron Taylor Johnson leather daddy moments, or the impending tyranny of JDub’s Dior Homme, the men aren’t playing.

ME

What I had done

I was meant to be getting some botox this week, but I actually ended up deciding against it. I read somewhere that the children of people with subzero faces have a higher chance of being psychopaths bc they don't know how to emote. And TBH that checks out. I’m also finding it ironically quite aging. I keep seeing the same shiny 30-something faces petrified in this weird temporal stalemate. Not young, but not old either, an echo chamber of the same frigid features. And honestly it’s been freaking me out.

So, after years of permafrosting my forehead (people who tell you they get baby botox bc they want to sound more laissez faire are full of shit, they’re getting a grande, venti order to go) I’m finally leaning into a bit of movement. The polar ice caps are melting, and my expressions are starting to align with what I’m actually trying to express. Shock, fear, happiness (!), confusion, repulsion, revulsion, responding appropriately to whatever crazy, unhinged thing you just told me. I can’t promise it’s forever, but certainly for the time being the ice age is over.

OMW to @Gucci

Best meal

I went to the new(ish) restaurant at Claridges for a dinner hosted by Gucci in honour of Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner. There was a smattering of male actors in attendance and so lots of men in silky shirts and shiny shoes gesturing wildly. The food was really yummy, but I was too busy yapping that I had to come home and polish off some of the kids' pesto pasta in bed. Between that and my melted Kit Kat Chunky at the Eurostar, it’s been a glutinous week, but a good one.

Quote of the week

“I did just cook myself lunch and ironed my own shirt, which was kinda fun and hot.” Melzy

Random thoughts of the week

Love is my husband paying for my Substack

ChatGBT is better at being me than I am

Shrieking on the phone in public while on loudspeaker should be made illegal