Welcome back to my column! While everyone else was talking about the first 100 days of President Trump 2.0, I was thinking about the obvious: how Melania Trump never really wanted to be the First Lady, let alone twice. Which really got everyone talking! Here’s what else has been stuck in my craw.
Let Them Eat TikToks!
Imagine you were heading to your friend’s gold-themed birthday party in a designer beaded minidress and vintage slingback heels. To complete the ensemble: Do you opt for your bedazzled Lady Dior handbag, or a metallic quilted Chanel purse in the shape of a star?
These are the big questions that animate the insanely popular TikTok account of 25-year-old Becca Bloom—real name: Rebecca Ma. The University of Southern California grad, who grew up in the Bay Area, posted her first video four months ago, in January, and she now has 2.7 million followers. She regularly gets over five million views on videos with titles such as “What I Wore Last Summer in Cannes” (a Burberry bikini) and the apparently unironic “Plate my cat’s breakfast with me.” (Oscar, the cat, had sushi-grade salmon sashimi, a chef-made tuna bone broth blend, soft-boiled quail eggs, freeze-dried codfish, and salmon roe caviar, “for seasoning.”)
Becca is not especially charismatic, or daring, or funny. She is not a hustler. Her money comes from her father having started a big tech firm in China. But she typifies the kind of content creator that ordinary people in America have recently become obsessed with: megawealthy young women who post intimate videos showing off their ultra-high-end lifestyles.