Earlier this month, Charli XCX released the 360 music video starring many of the internet's favorite ladies. Julia fox, Chloe Sevigny, Rachel Sennot, Chloe Cherry, and the like. These are the ‘cool girls’ that your local cool girl thinks are cool. When this music video dropped, my first instinct was to be gagged. My dream girl-blunt rotation all in one video? What’s not to like? A week later, after that sweet taste of getting fed by them, I started to taste something sour. Charli starts appearing on talk shows, podcasts, tik toks, IG reels, dropping an album, and the like. Slowly but surely, my beating heart starts to break. Where was my nonchalant mysterious queen? The Charli of my heart would never appear on some overplayed podcast just to promote her album. In the 360 music video, an it girl is eloquently described as being “known, but at the same time, unknowable.” So… is it shocking that after the last few weeks of Charli content… I’m starting to feel seeds of doubt sprout within me? Maybe I’m being unfair. I mean, Julia Fox talks all the time and it just makes her cooler. But that’s her thing. She’s naturally outspoken and is usually talking from the safety of her own book or her own tiktok. While Charli is obviously forcing it. Does she really think Jake Shane is funny? You can ask the tiktok body language analyzer, but I don’t think so. I mean, they just met and have nothing in common. And I know he’s the new hot interviewer on the block, but I really don’t think Charli should be on the same show that produced the infamous Jake x Camilla Cabello Lexapro Prozac clip. In fact, I don’t think Charli should go anywhere Camilla cabello is allowed. It’s simply not to taste. I may write a separate piece on how deeply unfortunate I think that clip was and how deeply unfortunate I think Camilla’s rebrand is, but I probably won’t. (Camilla will never be Cunt and I will never forgive her for tainting Brutalismus30000) Alas, I find myself simultaneously knowing too much and too little about Charli. Leaving me in a place where I am questioning both myself and her. After all, the way we see our idols is directly correlated with how we see ourselves, and how we imagine who we want to be.
I was left scrambling when I happened upon Azealia Banks’ late night rant about how Charli is a bad singer, brat is an awful album, and she is an ungrateful wretch with bad hair. I do hate to see my girls fighting. It hurt me. I have to tell myself Azealia (one of the greatest lyricists and musicians of our time) is crazy and is incorrect. And she probably is, but her late night manic episode still stirred something deep inside me. Is Brat subpar? Can Charli even sing? Does she even need to be a good singer? Am I a little puppet being controlled by women who are hotter richer and more talented than I? Is it even possible to serve cunt under modern day capitalism?
I have to forge ahead and think it is. For if it is not then I will have no way forward. Exhibit A. Rachel Sennot. I would live and die for her. Julia Fox, again, could do no wrong. Chloe sevigny- out of the question. There isn’t much dividing charli from the motherquake being caused by her fellow it girls. Charli sucks in front of a camera, her music is not as cool as it needs to be, and honestly it’s a bit painful putting her in the same category as legends like that. I really hate myself for feeling this way. I want to think the best of Charli. I would do anything to get like 7 tickets to the Troy Sivan Charli “Sweat” tour. But watching her stoop down to Camilla Cabellos level made me realize that I don’t know her at all. There’s a pretty high chance I would think she sucks if we tried to be friends. Maybe Rachel Sennot sucks too. Maybe I just don’t like feeling like my penchant for cunt monsters like them is being exploited to generate money for big music. I know I’m a little rat in their maze. Maybe I should have pity because Charli is a rat in that same maze, just a bigger one. Maybe Charli’s music video is more real than we thought, and people are having meetings deciding who I will like next, because I’m dumb and I need that. But for a second there, I really thought we were being given what we always wanted. Mother had felt pity on us and our famine was ending. But it was like when I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II at the Hollywood Bowl alone on a Saturday night. Too much chocolate cake and too much ketamine.
I ended up riding back home in the back of an Uber, stuffed full of Trader Joe’s dark chocolate ganache cake, topo Chico seltzers, and questioning my existence due to the ketamine my Boeing rocket scientist twink North Hollywood drug dealer had sold me earlier that day. I guess Charli XCX and Charlotte Aitchinson may not be the same person. And maybe I need to be ok with that. A hot girl has still got to eat. Right now I’m still licking my wounds after being hit with the most depressing wall of disillusionment I’ve ever experienced, but one day I hope to forgive miss Charli. Even as a self proclaimed 9.0 motherquake on the ricunter scale, I need a mother too.
And honestly they’re leaning into the whole “cool” thing too much. Like in theory, I should be doing tricks on it. In reality, the moment Charli sang “I’m so Julia” I knew it was over. Yes obviously my animal brain likes it. Ooh ooh yayyy cool baddie cuntathon! All the cool girls are friends yayyy you said my trigger word and now I love you! Yay we are all girls and we can all be cool!
But they’re being so obvious now. Sigh… it’s really so sad. I never felt represented by women in media until the day I discovered Alana and Abby in Broad City. Truly a stepping stone in modern feminism. since then, my discovery of Girls has led me to my discovery of myself in Hannah(mainly), Shoshanna, Jessa, and even Adam. And when gen z started showing up in films like in “Bottoms” (2023), I felt like I could finally see myself in media. Gone were the days of polished one dimensional female leads who made me question my validity as a woman. Now was the era of the real girl. That hasn’t changed. But I’m just sad that it might not all be real. Maybe Lena Dunham is just a weird creep. Maybe Ilana Glazer isnt really Ilana Glazer. Maybe I’m all alone.
Maybe the real it girls are the ones in real life. That girl in high school who runs a popular bakery but is still a size 0 and probably only works for the aesthetic of it. The most beautiful girl you’ve ever met who has a quirky job selling weird children’s books to hot French people. The girl in the Miaou lookbook whose brother was a frenemy in high school and whose best friends are lily rose depp and one of the coolest stylists in the game who you also happened to know from summer camp but who probably doesn’t remember who you are. Known yet unknowable. Hot, but in a scary way. Maybe, the it girls were the friends we made along the way. Or maybe, the it girls are whomever we are still able to project our deepest desires and insecurities onto before they become three dimensional.
PS I love and respect Jake and I love his internet presence but I had to say this. No shade to him.