Who Gets to Be Messy on the Internet? Kelly Clarkson vs. a $15,000 Bird
Kelly Clarkson, a Brooklyn Curiosity Shop & a $15,000 bird named “Molly” sounds like the beginning of an incomprehensible joke. Instead, it has become the internet's latest drama around customer service, celebrity privilege, and the (perhaps unintended) consequences of taking a grievance public. I mean, really, Clarkson's ongoing dispute with the Brooklyn boutique, Art of Play, has all the markings of any absurd viral moment of the past few years. It has everything — Twitter rants, internet dogpiling and a Pretty Woman reference. But the crazy price tag and the competing accounts of what really happened leave a less amusing inference: who has permission to be messy on the internet, and who has to live with the consequences?
The spat started with Clarkson tweeting about her trip into Brooklyn to visit Art of Play, a self-described “modern wonder emporium embracing the power of curiosity”. Amongst its collection of curiosities lived “Molly”, a mechanical singing bird with a (reported) $15,000 price tag. Clarkson alleged that she had been made to feel as though she couldn't afford the piece, drawing a comparison to the iconic Julia Roberts shopping scene from Pretty Woman. Naturally, Art of Play disputed Clarkson's account & challenged the high-profile callout, dubbed by Art of Play as an “attack”, maintaining that Molly was a display piece rather than an item available to purchase, and that an alternative bird had been offered.
Kate King, eVal, a Random Swede and the Pleasure of an Ordinary Life
There is something strangely difficult to explain about Kate King. On paper, there is very little about her that should make her an internet phenomenon. She is 27 years old, lives in Aylesbury with her parents, spends a considerable amount of time with people older than herself, has worked relatively little, has never had the conventional dating life that tends to form the backbone of contemporary social media and has built much of her online presence around things as thrilling as the weekly food shop. She is not particularly interested in performing the version of 27 that the internet has taught us to expect. There are no endless nights out, career announcements, couples holidays, gym transformations or carefully constructed declarations of having “figured it all out.” There is Costa. There is bowls. There is radio. There is her mum, Val. There is Mick. There are grocery hauls and meal plans and an extraordinary amount of conversation about what is happening next. And somehow, millions of people have found this completely captivating.
The Romance Economy: Pink Pill Culture & Dating Strategy
A few months ago, I realised I had become, at least in part, what the internet now calls "pink-pilled".
Not because I wanted to marry a millionaire or because I believed women should manipulate men into paying for their lifestyles, but because, after years of hearing women apologise for wanting more, something about the rhetoric felt refreshing. My TikTok feed became increasingly populated with videos about "high-value men", "provider mindsets" and Shera Seven's now infamous phrase, "sprinkle sprinkle". I found myself agreeing with more of it than I expected. After all, what was so controversial about believing women deserved better?
What I Learned About Living From Cookie Mueller
Last week, while sitting beside a pool in Lefkada, Greece, on a girls’ holiday, I started reading Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black by Cookie Mueller. I picked it up at a time when I felt unusually uncertain about where my life was heading. After one of the most turbulent years I have experienced, I found myself questioning everything: my family, my relationships, my ambitions, and the person I was trying so hard to be.
I realised something uncomfortable about myself while reading this book: how much of my life has been shaped by wanting to be seen. I want to be perceived as successful, as the overachiever, as pretty, as interesting, as someone people talk about and admire. And while those qualities are genuinely part of me, I hope. I started to wonder how much energy I had spent performing a version of myself rather than simply living.
Cookie Mueller’s writing arrived at exactly the right moment.
Too Close for Comfort: Heated Rivalry and Parasocial Culture
“Parasocial” was named Cambridge University Press & Assessment’s Word of the Year in 2025. It’s a term whose relevance seeps through the cracks of the internet. According to Cambridge, it means “involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know.” If you have your finger on the pulse of social media, this definition likely feels familiar. Within fandom spaces especially, parasocial relationships are increasingly prevalent. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with feeling connected to a piece of media, its characters, or even the actors who portray them — but sometimes an invisible line is crossed. With the rise of the hit TV show Heated Rivalry, those blurred lines have become more visible. Can we consume media and love it without becoming too involved? Of course. But when does admiration become too much?
Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and the Closest Thing America Has to a Royal Wedding
When Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got engaged, the news didn’t just land as a pop star marrying a football player; it was treated like history. Headlines declared it “the closest thing to an American royal wedding,” as though an engagement could double as a coronation. People magazine even called it “our answer to a royal wedding,” complete with balcony-kiss comparisons to Charles and Diana. TikToks flooded timelines, NFL dads shrugged in amusement, Swifties wept, and for one surreal moment, America behaved as if it finally had royals.