internet bedroom newsletter issue #111: i think i like this little life
going down the drain in Dollz Palace is my little life
discussed:
Julia Fox as audiobook narrator
9/11 on Dollz Palace
~*this lil life*~
hair accessories
Happy New Year, gorls! I’m so happy you’re here, back in our Internet Bedroom.
I love the New Year because I gave up making actual resolutions a long time ago. Instead, I make what I call “stupid bitch resolutions.” Rather than glowing up and changing my whole life, stupid bitch resolutions allow me to play a game with the universe. I make one minor, seemingly stupid, self-indulgent change in my life and see what happens.
Stupid bitch resolutions of years past have included:
Don’t smell bad things
Buy more clothes (this was last year’s)
Order what you want at Taco Bell
I’ve actually been shocked by how these seemingly small changes can impact things on a bigger scale (for instance, the year I resolved not to smell bad things I broke up with a skateboarder! It was great!), so I whole-heartedly endorse making a stupid bitch resolution.
This year, I have resolved to send more mail. Internet newsletters count, right?
reading: Down the Drain (audiobook only)
Like any other girl living on the Internet I, too, remember when Julia Fox announced that her first book was going to be a masterpiece. I also floated the conspiracy theory that she was ripping up and DIYing new outfits from the wardrobe Kanye had bought her to a few friends over DM around this time.
So needless to say, I was in line to borrow the audiobook of Down the Drain from my local library months in advance. And it was everything I could have ever wanted in a celebrity memoir and more. The audiobook really does feel like sitting in the corner of a house party while Julia Fox chain smokes and tells you all about the time she was reprimanded at the Pope’s funeral, or her controlling coked-out high school boyfriend, Ace, who kept landing himself in Rikers.
A testament to how far delusion, self-indulgence, boldness, and severe vocal fry can take you, Down the Drain remains one of my most memorable and favorite reads of 2023.
remembering: Dollz Palace
If you want to know what it was really like to be a girl in the 2000s, you have to recreate the very specific experience of getting on the family computer (which was usually crammed into a corner of the living room or, in my family’s case, the basement), queuing up Evanescence, and spending hours creating Dollz.
Dollz were originally created as customizable avatars for a chat room called The Palace but they soon spread across the 2000s Internet on proto-social media platforms like MySpace, Xanga, and DeviantArt. I’m not exactly sure who was coding all of this material, but Dollz came with extensive options for customization and fit (or, maybe, fed) the millennial girl pastime of dividing ourselves into cliques (preps, goths, divas, emos, thugz, etc.).
For my part, I decided to be a Raver (despite living in the country and never having been to an actual rave) before I settled on my true expression as an Emo. I also have extremely vivid memories of creating 9/11 tribute Dollz but, sadly, I can find absolutely no visual evidence of this. Never forget.
For many years, I thought Dollz had been a fever dream, but, lucky for me, this Internet historian has not only written a solid history of Dollz and Dolling (did you know there were Dollz zines?), but has also curated a collection of still-active dollmakers if you want to try your hand at this lost Internet art form. When I tell you I spent hours on Little Amara’s goth doll maker, I am not lying.
girls critique: i think i like this little life this little life
“Little Life” is a lilting ode to embracing mundanity that, at 4 minutes and 30 seconds, is sonically spearheading the softer side of the 2014 indie sleaze revival. You probably haven’t heard it. But you certainly have heard the chorus in which the mononymous singer-songwriter Cordelia whispers that, I think I like this little life / this little life.
The snippet has been used to soundtrack about a million little lives on TikTok, and what began as a way to celebrate the quotidian, (think softly lit photo carousels depicting baked goods, iced coffees, morning light, and nooks of girls’ apartments cluttered with books and candles), quickly spiraled. Influencers going on brand-sponsored trips to Turks and Caicos or dancing around their mansions were, apparently, also living their own little lives.
Of course, the girls took notice.
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The backlash against this little life-ing has become a meme in itself. Often, these girls present a bastardized version of the song — the profession of liking one’s little life becoming a strangled, airless gasp — while pointing out the dissonance between the humility of the sentiment and the lives actually being depicted.
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And honestly, I get it. In sentiment, celebrating the smaller pleasures and joys of living within one’s means is not an inherently bad thing. But I suspect the criticism of this trend is not just about how cringe and out of touch influencer culture feels in the year of our lord 2024.
The backlash against putting one’s “little life” on display allows girls a multivalent critique: against the inauthentic performativity that seems to be the price to play on social media; against the idea that girls and women should have little lives; against singing like one is slowly being deprived of air. Deep down, we’re all trying to figure out how to keep living and celebrating life in the face of ongoing genocide, war, and the constant, continual devaluation of human life on nearly every front.
A little life just isn’ it.
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obsessing: Over her Shrek hair clip.
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Honestly the entire fit. And the Boa/Cranberries mashup. Goddess bless.
xxx r.m.
If you enjoy Internet Bedroom and want to help me spread the word about this little corner of the digital world, why not…
Coming up:
Next (special) issue of internet bedroom asks, what if the girls did exactly what they want? by examining the cases of Bella Baxter and Amy Carlson
Paid subscribers: my essay on Prozac Nation, psychosomatic makeovers, and cult life is slowly coming along. My goal is to have it in your inboxes by February <3