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Ainsley Harris's avatar

Great piece. What does it even mean to gentrify a place that is as much a geotag as it is a neighborhood on a map? In any case, I lived through the original SATC days in NYC, when women in packs of four would be roving Zagat-approved restaurants and ordering cosmos. This too shall pass.

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Naomi Kanakia's avatar

I am impressed that all these TikTokers read the Cut! There is a journal that's really gonna survive into the next generation (i.e. five years)

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Teddy (T.M.) Brown's avatar

To be fair it doesn’t seem like all of them actually *read* the article lol

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Gabriel Gomez's avatar

Great piece, Teddy. The ironic thing about most of these [often white] TikTok virtue signalers/commentators is that their mere existence in this city IS gentrification. They ARE gentrification. They have no skin in the game and they’re wearing complex sociopolitical discourse like a t-shirt they got off Depop. It’s wild 😭

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Lilly Drury's avatar

I really enjoyed this, particularly this idea that we no longer value expertise or education on a topic as an important aspect of someone’s opinion. I see this reflected in all the insane discourse about Sabrina Carpenter where they want her to be some political activist who understands the nuances of gender roles— she isn’t an expert and that isn’t something she is knowledgeable about. I would love to see a return to trusting and respecting those who are educated in a topic, but it’s a strange situation where we think every influencer is qualified to comment on the state of the world. Great piece!

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Michael Patrick Brady's avatar

“ok all these 24 year old wealth white women are wearing straight jeans and white tees?” — based on past assessments of urban clothing trends from conservative media, i believe it’s so these girls can easily blend into the crowd when being chased by police

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