Jia Tolentino’s The Age of the Instagram Face is only a few weeks old, but it’s already a reference point for me. It’s about women (mostly) who reverse engineer their features to look like a filtered version of themselves, with a strong celebrity influence (think the Kardashians, Chrissy Teigen, Bella Hadid). What makes Jia’s work so interesting is that she isn’t dismissive of the want for “the face,” or the ways in which women go about it (it’s a consultation and credit card charge away), but rather the why. She writes, “How had I been changed by an era in which ordinary humans receive daily metrics that appear to quantify how our personalities and our physical selves are performing on the market?” This decade has been marked by the rise of “the face” – but where can this aesthetic go from here?

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A post shared by Iggy Azalea (@thenewclassic) on Dec 20, 2019 at 6:27am PST

Justin Bieber has posted this several times today. 

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A post shared by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Dec 20, 2019 at 8:59am PST

Freddie Prinze Jr. knows not of what he speaks. The pants are fantastic. 

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A post shared by Sarah Michelle (@sarahmgellar) on Dec 18, 2019 at 2:23pm PST

How are we feeling about these word hair clips? Just starting or over?

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A post shared by @postmalone on Dec 17, 2019 at 2:12pm PST

Pretty rude of Derek Blasberg to attach “years” to a photo of Mimi when everyone knows that she doesn’t acknowledge time. 

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A post shared by Derek Blasberg (@derekblasberg) on Dec 20, 2019 at 9:48am PST

Zach Braff and Florence Pugh are still together, right? Last thing I found on them was the Marriage Story premiere in November (they walked the carpet separately). 

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A post shared by Zach Braff (@zachbraff) on Dec 19, 2019 at 12:56pm PST

This is an atypical post for JLo because she doesn’t look back a lot. She has so much forward momentum, all the time. But could this be related to an Oscar nomination?

She included George Clooney and Sean Penn in her album, both men who have a lot of prestige with Academy voters. (She also included Richard Gere, more low-key, and the late Bob Hoskins.) This could also be her making an argument for her overall film career. 

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A post shared by Jennifer Lopez (@jlo) on Dec 19, 2019 at 2:21pm PST

This morning, Prem wrote about Camila Cabello’s apology with nuance and thoughtfulness. But I’m immature so I saw this and screamed. Blue knew!!!!!

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A post shared by 𝔅 | Fanpage (@yoncehomecoming) on Dec 19, 2019 at 11:17am PST


 

Photo credits: SMXRF/ Star Max/ Getty Images

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