My Internet: Casey Lewis
The After School writer feeds her TikTok like a Tamagotchi.
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
Most weeks, we quiz a “very online” person for their essential guide to what’s good on the internet.
Today we welcome Casey Lewis, who writes After School, the go-to newsletter for Gen Z shopping and culture trends. Casey wanted to die a little after posting her first Reel, had TikTok commenters come for her over her correct pronunciation of “Veja,” and found her dog through Keith Olbermann’s rescue dog account. —Nick
EMBEDDED: What’s a recent meme or post that made you laugh?
CASEY LEWIS: The Kate Middleton memes gave me a laugh. I have zero interest in the Royal Family but I had tears running down my face imagining that Kate may secretly be performing on The Masked Singer, or gearing up for Celebrity Big Brother, or recovering from a BBL.
EMBEDDED: What shows up on your TikTok For You page?
CASEY LEWIS: This is the first time I’ve admitted this to anyone, but I think about scrolling on TikTok in the same way I used to think about feeding my Tamagotchi when I was a kid. If I give it the attention, it will continue to provide for me.
Another way I think about it—and another analogy, sorry—is that it’s kind of like weeding a garden (I don’t have a garden). I’m pretty obsessive about liking and bookmarking the TikToks that I want to see more of and manually punching the “not interested” button on things that I don’t want to see. As a result, my feed is very tailored to my professional interests. For example, I love dogs, but I do not want to see dogs on my TikTok feed. I want to see shopping hauls and GRWMs and young people talking about what they’re into right now.
Lately, I’ve been fed lots of Spring Break (Punta Cana seems popular?) and St. Patrick’s Day (whoever said Gen Z doesn’t party hasn’t seen my FYP!), and I’ve also started to spot prom popping up here and there, which is a thrill.
EMBEDDED: Do you make TikToks? What format works best for you?
CASEY LEWIS: Begrudgingly. I’m much more comfortable writing than orating, and I don’t like being in front of the camera, but because I spend a lot of time on TikTok and it plays a big role in the work that I do, I thought it was important to experience making content on there. It took me months to get comfortable recording and editing myself—it’s an incredibly humbling experience, or it was for me at least—but I finally got to a place where I’m not too precious with it. I do have to channel the whole “embrace the cringe” mentality to be OK with putting myself out there in this way, but I’ve seen it pay off in the form of newsletter subscriptions, which feels worthwhile. I’ve gotten lucky with a few viral TikToks, but I haven’t posted enough to unlock a formula.
EMBEDDED: Have you found any good alternatives to Twitter? Do you have on opinion on Threads?
CASEY LEWIS: Until Elon took over, my Twitter feed routinely made me laugh out loud. Then the platform got so bad—actively depressing instead of amusing or outright hilarious—that I started scrolling on TikTok instead. TikTok doesn’t make me laugh as hard, but it’s just so entertaining. I still scroll Twitter here and there, mostly because of a deep-seated compulsion to open an app I’ve been on since 2007. Because Twitter doesn’t rely on sound the same way TikTok does, it’s easier to stealthily scroll during Zoom meetings or when I’m watching TV.
EMBEDDED: Do you still tweet? Why?
CASEY LEWIS: I do still tweet, mostly to share work, but it often feels like yelling into the void. I’ve tried all of the Twitter replacements, but none of them have stuck for me. The one I like the most is Substack’s Chat feature, weirdly. Substack is far from a perfect platform, as many of us know, but I’ve found that a lot of nice newsletters have nice communities, and right now many of those communities live on Substack Chat.
EMBEDDED: What do you use Instagram for?
CASEY LEWIS: Right now, not a whole lot. I open the app once or twice a day, click through a few Stories, and then switch over to TikTok. I’ve been posting on Instagram since 2010, and most of my followers are friends from college, so I’ve struggled to figure out how much professional stuff to share there. They don’t necessarily care about my Stanley Tumbler theories or Fishwife investigations, nor should they. I posted my first Instagram Reel a few weeks ago and I wanted to die a little bit.
I have a burner to follow brands for After School-related research, because I know I should pay attention to social strategies across all platforms, but I find so many brands’ day-to-day Instagram presences to be unbearably boring that I hardly ever look at it.
EMBEDDED: Where do you tend to get your news?
CASEY LEWIS: I love WSJ’s daily newsletter that they send around midnight. It’s super concise, just headlines, but it’s a good macro view into what’s happening. I also visit the homepages of The New York Times and New York magazine every day. Is that incredibly antiquated behavior to go directly to the homepage? I have to imagine it is, but I’ve been doing it forever. When it comes to social media, I purposefully do not get any news from TikTok or Instagram, but I do think Twitter is still pretty good for news, probably because I follow a lot of smart writers and not Elon Musk.
EMBEDDED: What are your favorite Substack or other independent newsletters?
CASEY LEWIS: Where to begin! I love starting my day with Media Star. I open Public Announcement as soon as it arrives. For fashion, I read Line Sheet, Magasin, Shop Rat by Emilia Petrarca, Selleb, and Earl Earl by Laurel Pantin. For food, I read Snaxshot, FOUND, This Needs Hot Sauce, Sifted, and Bangers & Jams. For culture, I read Link in Bio, [SIC] Daily , Garbage Day, Feed Me, and Hung Up—and Embedded, ofc!
EMBEDDED: Do you have any favorite media company newsletters?
CASEY LEWIS: I like how experimental New York magazine is with their newsletter strategy. I don’t totally understand it—is it just me, or does it feel like some of the franchises are sent completely at random?—but it’s a good surprise-and-delight experience. Their “Secret Strategist” newsletter is especially great.
EMBEDDED: Are you into any podcasts right now? How and when do you usually listen?
CASEY LEWIS: There are a bunch of podcasts that I love and listen to here and there, but How Long Gone is the only podcast I’m religious about. I started listening to it on long walks during the pandemic and it’s a weird comfort thing for me now.
EMBEDDED: Have you had posts go viral? What is that experience like?
CASEY LEWIS: I’ve had a few posts go viral on a few different platforms, but let me tell you about my most traumatic experience: One of my first viral TikToks was about the evolution of the cool-girl sneaker. I mentioned Veja as being at one point a status shoe for a certain kind of woman, but now being a shoe relegated to tourists in Soho. I got skewered for putting down tourists, which is totally fair, but worse, they came for me for my absolutely correct pronunciation of “Veja.” (It’s Vay-ja – hard j – versus Vay-ha.) I do tend to mispronounce words, so this is already an insecurity of mine, but I looked up the correct pronunciation of Veja before recording this video, so I knew was right. Still, no one believed me and I couldn’t take the hate, so I deleted the video and didn’t post another TikTok for months.
Now I just follow the golden rule of the internet: Never read the comments.
EMBEDDED: Which big celebrity has your favorite internet presence, and why?
CASEY LEWIS: I don’t really follow celebrities on social media, not because I’m above celebrity culture, but because so few of them run their own platforms, so their online presences are completely devoid of personality. And I get it. If I was rich and famous … well, if I was rich and famous, I would probably still post, but I understand that the average rich and famous person doesn’t care to wade into the discourse. They simply don’t need to! They can tell their friends or their staff their stupid little jokes or theories instead of needlessly opening themselves up for criticism on the internet.
One exception is Kim and North’s TikTok. It feels super authentic (which is not a descriptor often associated with the Kardashians!) and playful. I’m sure there are concerns about a 10-year-old having a platform on TikTok, but I like that they have the comments off, which removes lots of potential toxicity
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EMBEDDED: What’s a playlist, song, album, or style of music you’ve listened to a lot lately?
CASEY LEWIS: Lately, I’ve been listening “Young Thug’s Hardest” on repeat. I’m a huge Young Thug fan, to the extent that he’s been my most listened to artist on Spotify for the last six years. I also listen to a Spotify playlist called “Frontline” a lot—it’s, like, 21 Savage and Schoolboy Q mixed with Japanese hip-hop. And when in doubt, I put on my After School mix, which I update weekly.
EMBEDDED: What’s your favorite non-social media app?
CASEY LEWIS: Uber Eats. Months ago, I accidentally got myself banned from the app after both my Apple Pay and primary credit card failed, and, unbeknownst to me, my back-up credit card was … not my number? I think it may have been a credit card from a previous job or an ex-boyfriend? Anyway, I was flagged for fraud and banned with no recourse. I called. I emailed. I begged. They ignored my pleas. Before this happened, I was pretty ambivalent about Uber Eats—and Uber, for that matter—but after I was unceremoniously banned, the app was all I could think about. How much better my life was when I had it! Then, a kind Uber employee who subscribes to my newsletter helped me out. Order restored! Financially, I would have been much better off had I remained banned but emotionally, I’m thriving.
EMBEDDED: What’s the most basic internet thing that you love?
CASEY LEWIS: I love NYPL.org, the New York Public Library’s site. Did you know you can get a library card from the comfort of your couch? Their vast collection of (free!) literary fiction is obviously great, but I’m especially obsessed with their research catalog. They have a ton of digitized publications (I love teen magazines so much that I used to run an Instagram account devoted to them), which are fun to browse, but it’s also an excellent resource for researching trends.
EMBEDDED: Is there any content you want but can’t seem to find anywhere online?
CASEY LEWIS: I miss blogs! Sometimes I’ll read Gawker and The Awl on the Wayback Machine.
EMBEDDED: Do you regularly use eBay, Depop, or other shopping platforms? What’s a recent thing you’ve bought or sold?
CASEY LEWIS: I get hyper fixations with certain pieces of clothing, like an old wool J. Crew sweater or a discontinued pair of jeans in a specific wash, and I’ll set alerts for the SKUs. I bought a pair of sold-out 501s for $50 this week that I’d been trying to track down for months.
EMBEDDED: What’s the last thing that brought you joy online?
CASEY LEWIS: My husband follows Keith Olbermann’s rescue dog account and came across a dog who was scheduled to be killed the next day. We got him pulled from the TBK list and now we’re fostering him, which is pure joy and has been a nice reminder that the internet (and Twitter, even!) can be good. Not to end on a downer note, but perfect dogs are killed every single day, not because of behavior or health issues, but simply because of overcrowding.
Thanks Casey! Subscribe to her newsletter.
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Casey! I love her Substack