Hello All.
After many moons and a lot of test taking, I'm back. Also I was home in LA collecting fodder for this blog post. Also I saw Timothee and Kylie at a coffee shop lol.
New York City has, for the past years, been what I would call the premier TikTok city, at least in the United States. I think this is fairly obvious if you've spent too much time on the internet, seeing as that is where much of the highly popular man-on-the-street style interview content emerges from. Figures like New York Nico, Isaac Hindin-Miller, Caleb Simpson and a million other day in the lifers seek to record and broadcast nearly every facet of life in the Big Apple, to widespread internet appeal. It's not just visible on the internet, New York has never been a more expensive place to live. It feels like the buzz around the city has never been more national. Like why did I know what Dimes Square was in 2019 when I was in high school across the country... I don't even listen to Red Scare!
All this being said... the pendulum always swings back the other way. For this reason I am now looking to present my case for why LA is going to become more in vogue again, and why that fact will not be publicized in exactly the same fashion.
This idea all started when I saw the Balenciaga Fall 24 show a month or so ago. In a surprise move, Demna marched a series of athleisure clad fit-freaks down a beautiful Windsor Square street. While I didn't adore the show— I'm a bit tired of the whole "I'm pranking the establishment, but they're sort of in on it and also still buying it," shtick— I found its existence to be somewhat poignant. Celebrity-centric stan culture is at a peak right now, and all the big names, like the Kardashians, were in attendance.
Having said this, I think that the primary reason that LA is going to come back into the spotlight is for one of the reasons that so many celebrities choose to live here: the selectively private nature of LA life. Of course you can choose to get around NYC in a car, but often times when you arrive at your destination you're gonna have to touch sidewalk. LA, with its numerous back alleys and houses ready to entertain privately, effectively guarantees that if you don't want to be seen you don't have to be. Apart from doing hikes, most transport is happening behind the tinted windows of a Cadillac Escalade. The most key detail for me is that this level anonymity is available to anyone who wants it, not just celebrities.
The reason I think that democratized privacy is going to be so key is that I think we are going to hit a breaking point as it pertains to social anxieties around being recorded. When walking around any of the boroughs of New York City, the chance that you will get street styled or jumped by a phone with a mic attached are always higher than zero. Of course this will always appeal to the would-be-famous crowd, but it's not for everyone. Until someone invents a way to hack the Tesla dashboard and interview people who are inside locked cars, I think that the convenience of private transportation is going to be majorly important to LA's success as a hub for the """""Creative Class""""" and its many disciples.
This argument also hinges on something I heard (or read, I don't remember) Dean Kissick say, which is that in the current digital era, we, individually, are the culture. I think that this instagram-illy encouraged cult of self encourages people to celebrify themselves, which in turn leads to a desire to copy the things that celebrities do. This, I think, will lead to a sort of PR representative style approach to social media. People will be more interested in purposeful appearances, which LA allows you to be selective about. Showing up to an event vs. you just left your house to go to work and there's a microphone in your face. Also think to the existence of no-phone-camera policies like at the San Vicente Bungalows, and everything sort of falls into place for me.
The fun part about this idea is that if it comes to fruition, I don't think it will be publicized in the way that the mass migration to NYC was and is. We'll see more event coverage and Emma Chamberlain style vlogging from the driver's seat, the same way we did at the start of her career. Perhaps a sort of red carpet style interview but featuring random people who wear Drew House and Alo at Community Goods.
Just my thoughts on the matter.
Bye!
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