Newsletter #14: Crying Over Sydney Sweeney's Bath Water, A Failed Book Read, and Gathering
What do Sydney Sweeney and book about American Girl dolls have in common? They both annoyed me this week.
One of the biggest lessons I learned in college to protect my debilitating mental health was to stop news notifications from coming to my phone and instead, actively seek out news. However, that has gotten harder with TikTok and Instagram because we’re not relying on the Apple News app to tell us what it thinks we should care about. I’ve been guilty of creating an echo chamber of my own beliefs with the news channels I follow, which has led me to explore news channels that lean in the other direction. This method isn’t foolproof either, because my blood pressure definitely still rises when exploring “the opposing side”.
The two news topics I never have to seek out too much are pop culture and advertising. Based on the news that gets hand-delivered to me via TikTok, X, Instagram, newsletter, or word-of-mouth, you could think of me as Peggy from Mad Men and the owner of a One Direction fan account if they were one person. That’s why this week—job rejection emails aside—Sydney Sweeney and the book The Dolls of Our Lives pissed me off.
Selling your bath water is only okay if you’re Sydney Sweeney, I guess?
I am blessed that I have surrounded myself with enough men who defend women and stick up for their rights, yet I am realistic and know the reality of the world we live in today. Yesterday, Sydney Sweeney announced her collab with Dr. Squatch—a soap brand that I can only describe as making soap manly enough so your boyfriend washes his ass—to release her own soap called “Sydney’s Bathwater Bliss”. This was after hearing the desperate cries from her fans who commented, “I would drink your bathwater!” on her last campaign with the brand. As Rolling Stone reported, the trend of selling bath water isn’t new. Gamer Bella Delphine did it over 5 years ago. It’s been in song lyrics. Women have also been doing it online for years now. So why is a big celebrity selling hers?
GQ has said that instead of trying to control the narrative about her body, Sydney is now “in on the joke.” I think this would be great if the audience also realized that she thinks how she is portrayed is lewd and generally not okay. They don’t. Despite it probably discrediting me as a journalist, I stumbled upon this Reddit thread about Bella Delphine’s bath water pursuits, where user Thoperthallid discussed how buying bath water was an indicator of male loneliness and lack of companionship and gave advice on how to combat it. It pointed out the big picture of: men do not know how to view certain women outside of a sexual lens. Sydney Sweeney came onto the scene with incredible talent and beauty, and her beauty came to the forefront in quite a negative way for her before she decided to mastermind the joke of it all.
“I honestly think it's a really fun, full-circle moment, because fans always joke about wanting my bath water…I was like, This is just such a cool way to have a conversation with the audience and give them what they want,” Sweeney told GQ. “But then also hopefully encourage them to take care of themselves in a healthy way.”
Hopefully, we will carry this same energy for other women selling their bath water and other homemade commodities in the future, since we are giving this to Sydney. If she’s ‘in on the joke’, I hope she laughs all the way to the bank and supports other women doing the same thing as her. However, I think it represents a dark turn in marketing back to the days of ‘my stupid wife burnt the casserole, thank god I have alcohol’ ads that appeal to ‘the working man’.
Am I that ‘overly woke friend’ meme enough for you?
The Dolls of Our Lives book wasn’t for me.
I admit I got bamboozled by the title and the very pretty cover of The Dolls of Our Lives by Mary Mahoney and Allison Horrocks. I was also being brave and did not look up reviews before shelling out almost $30 on a book while I’m not working.
What I thought was going to be a walk down memory lane in American Girl doll land and a nice escape into nostalgia was kind of that, mixed with the stories of two women whom I didn’t know that well. For me, the book was messy and all over the place. It focused on Molly (our WW2 era gal) too much. Then I read the reviews to see if it was my short attention span or the book. That’s when I saw that the authors had a Jon Benet Ramsey-themed birthday party and immediately got weirded out. I also found out I wasn’t alone in feeling like points were missed, stories were all over the place, and their stance on capitalism got lost in the sauce while discussing the privilege of owning an American Girl doll.
Mostly, I’m mad I pre-ordered it from the bookstore, delayed reading another book, and spent $30. We live and we learn.
Final Thoughts
The Garden Party candle from Trader Joe’s needs to stay on shelves forever. My whole apartment smells like it long after it’s done burning.
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