Like Lainey, I am in disbelief that it is actually 2024 and will spend the next few weeks marking my documents “2023” until our site manager Emily gently tells me “it’s 2024” and resists the urge to call me a dumbass.
The calendar says 2024 but my body says 2023! For the celebrities who publicly celebrate new year, it was less about resolutions and more about in/out lists. Mindy Kaling wrote one and I’d crossover with a few of her ins/outs.
Speaking of in/out – is social media out? MSN (via the WSJ) has a really interesting story by journalist Cordilia James on the decline of social media. For many, social media is now a messaging network and anecdotally, I can totally see that. Something that I maybe would have posted on Twitter (I’m never saying X!) is now messaged directly to friends. Social media is too combative, filled with too many bots and trolls and overall, just not fun anymore. Celebrities are a canary in the coal mine with these kind of social experiments and to me, it’s clear that most of them don’t even look at their social media anymore, let alone post their own captions. Post-COVID, Instagram is all about brand promotion. Every drop of it. Very few people make use of Twitter anymore and Facebook is where people go to read snarky comments from people they went to high school with. TikTok is so chaotic (mainly because of the volume) that it’s jarring to doomscroll for those who don’t like videos. Reddit is massive but I would argue it lacks socialness as it is mostly anonymous and as of right now, doesn’t attract celebrities (in Hollywood, K-pop, sports) to post as themselves. If they were to ever change the format, it would lose its Redditness.
So to piggyback on Mindy’s list: is social media out for 2024? I don’t think a photo like this even warrants a pause anymore.
There are glimmers of hope on social media, like the Beckhams. David is so freaking pleased with his joke, as he should be.
Moving on from resolutions, let’s make some gossip predictions: will Kate Hudson release an album in 2024? I think so.
Will The Rock finally make his politics known in 2024? Will he actually run for office? Over the holidays he got caught in a white lie about In-N-Out. How we interpret this lie says everything about how we see The Rock. Innocent fub or cynical “everyman” ploy gone wrong? Look, I think The Rock is generally a harmless celebrity and person but there is no way he didn’t remember trying In-N-Out, considering how much he posts about food. Also, he had someone filming him. And then edit the video. Maybe he’s researching his role as politician.
I spent half my first column of 2023 grousing about the end of social media but we can’t quit it just yet: Sofia Coppola is posting real photos. Using Instagram the way everyone else used in 2010, blissfully unaware of ins/outs/algorithms/trolls and bots. Like the Olsens, she is unintendedly an influencer.
