Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
Me rn I fear. —Kate
There are lots of valid complaints about what TikTok has done to culture (Stellan Skarsgård certainly has one). But I’d argue that these are outweighed by the effectiveness of TikTok as a catalyst for—at the risk of being dramatic—global awakening. Now that average people can get a bird’s-eye view of society just by scrolling their phone, anyone is capable of seeing an unjust world for what it is.
Someone who is privileged may be chastened by images of suffering, and those who are marginalized may be radicalized by witnessing just how luxuriously the one percent lives. Whichever side you fall on, the status quo likely seems less and less tenable. Imagine, amidst the spread of videos exposing starvation and violence, coming across a group of influencers in matching sweatsuits flying to Bora Bora on private jets. That’s exactly what Tarte showed us this weekend.
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