In many ways, the internet has become more like a fifth element than a technological advancement. The question of what it’s for is almost redundant; it’s for everything, and nothing, and a bunch of things we haven’t figured out yet, and it is also sort of alive. What a lot of people know on a certain level but often forget is that it’s an ecosystem. You build it around you, intentionally or not, and then you use it to reinforce whatever it is you’re trying to build into your life, almost like a form of self-brainwashing. We know how the simulacrum forms: at some point, people figured out that if they can show you what you want regularly enough, you’ll keep coming back, and they’ll get paid for it. In the same way that you might take a vitamin for shiny hair or drink coffee for energy, you use the online world to supplement a specific atmosphere, idea, or image. To this effect, the internet is a tool. The powerful agent for change and destruction becomes a vibe top-up machine.

‘Romanticisation’ is a term that’s embedded itself into our lexicons, but I’d suggest that what we’re talking about most of the time is aestheticisation. Internetification, Pinterestification, picture in a small window on our phone-ification. Flattening your day-to-day, internalising the gaze of a real or imaginary audience who would see your life through social media, weighing up whether they would find it aspirational based on the visuals, and adjusting accordingly. This can be an instrument of expression, and also a death knell.

Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection encapsulates this insightfully. In it, a millennial couple, initially based in Berlin (later turning pilgrims to Lisbon and Sicily when the scene evades them) seek to create a perfect world together. From their beautiful apartment to their echo-chamber friendship groups, their whole lives are constructed of signifiers, trapping them in an endless cycle of presentation. When you spend your life casually in pursuit of the vibe you want to embody, surrounding yourself with it, not necessarily meticulously but decidedly so, your humanity is starved. This becomes a paradox- so too can minimalism and nomadism leave you a victim of the same feeling, depending on your intention. It’s a trap that activates as soon as you realise you’re in it.

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In a world centring around social media, film, and television, it’s almost impossible not to aestheticise. We can only live through these narratives. When I help my friend move, when I cry on the kitchen floor, when I meet your gaze from across the room, I am living out the narrative. As a woman, who is therefore both the centre of and subjected to various aesthetic pursuits, this is heightened further still.

When I was in my final year of university, I desperately needed motivation to drag myself through every day. Somewhat counterintuitively, I did what had got me there in the first place, and turned to Pinterest. There are hordes of young people (again, particularly women), who use the aestheticisation of studying to propel them through it, via fictional characters or embodying specific looks. I distinctly remember performing some rookie search like ‘study aesthetic’, and finding that one of the first images that came up was a sepia filtered photo of the university bedroom I was sitting in, in my dressing gown, cradling a cup of tea. The weight of that moment hung in the air around me as it unfolded, Truman show-like, dissociative, and imbued with a slight shame. It felt as though the walls of the set were falling down around me. The post had hundreds of likes.

I’m not someone who struggles with gratitude. If anything, I’m the opposite: I count my blessings so often that it likely becomes annoying. I’m so appreciative of every little detail of life that I’m aware it gets on people’s nerves, but it brings me a lot of joy. This moment wasn’t the universe showing me that I needed to be more appreciative of what I had- it felt more jarring than something so simple.

That others were using my exact situation to motivate themselves to do the thing I could not, that they wanted to be in my position so badly that it got them out of bed, made me question my own inability to get things done. How could looking at a photo of my life inspire more action for someone else than living it did for me? Therein lies the contradiction: if we learn to live and create via seeking to replicate symbols, we leave little substance to experience. Everyone is holding up a mirror, and no one is creating something to hold up a mirror to. What I want to suggest that if you have ‘romanticise’ something to make yourself do it, then you don’t want to do it, but I know that this isn’t quite the point, nor is it true.

There’s an idea that the writer’s aesthetic births the writer. This is precisely the narrative Donna Tartt wrote a 640-page manifesto against, but many still insist upon misinterpreting The Secret History as a blueprint. It’s often seen and enjoyed as another iteration of mood board writing, an aspirational list of items and activities and connections to be replicated. The more it is coveted, the more the fable’s original message is reinforced: aesthetics are fickle, and shallow, and will lead you astray if you live and die by them.

To me, writing looks like making a shitty oat flat white last all afternoon, because it was a stretch to buy it in the first place. It looks like opening a document on the cracked screen of my phone while walking on the treadmill, because it’s the only distraction-free time I’ll have that day. It looks like chewing a protein bar on the bus to the reading, and getting changed for it in the pub bathroom, fit-to-bursting day bag precariously balanced on my shoulder. It looks like forcing myself to get up in the middle of the night to write down that thought before I lose it, but resisting the urge to stay up, because I have work in the morning. It looks like thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of words of unpaid writing, where financial compensation was never the goal. It was all in pursuit of skill, of connection, of ‘someone has to write this piece, so I’ll do it’, of “we write to taste life twice”, of ‘the only way to write the thing is to write it’. I’ve always suspected that you win when you play for the love of the game. We’ll just have to see.

Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit (1960s) was a series of instructions for performance, some abstract, some physical, some metaphorical. One read, in typewriter print:

Knots and knows, Some NOT’s & NO’s about art-

1. The subject of a work is not its content.

2. A work’s meaning is not necessarily the same as the ‘intention’ or ‘purpose’ of the artist.

3. There is no distinction between ‘reading’ images and reading texts.

It’s here that vibe-based writing and aesthetics-based promotion lose their edge, but it does reinforce that the relationship between images and words is inextricable.

This brings us onto the recent bout of Internet Discourse about the ‘hot girl writer’- the validity of that label, whether you can be both a good writer and a ‘hot girl writer’, a good writer and a hot girl, and how we otherwise reckon with the cats’ cradle of feminism we’re all tied up in. I read and write a lot about women in art, many of whom chose to use their image and their bodies in their work as an act of defiance because, at certain points, it inherently was. I see a lot of extrapolation that any use of the female image is therefore empowering to the subject and audience, when in fact I don’t think seeing attractive/thin/white women is particularly getting us very far in 2026, politically speaking.

“I am both image and image-maker” - Carolee Schneemann on her piece Eye Body, in 1963

(WHICH WAS SEVERAL WAVES OF FEMINISM AND THE WHOLE INTERNET AGO, I MIGHT ADD)

As is archetypal of internet discourse, everyone appears to be arguing about different things. One key point is that identifying with phrases like ‘hot girl writer’ more than we identify with our writing is probably not making any of us very fulfilled. This sort of thinking is disconnected from whether or not the subject is, in fact, hot, but is more about the emptiness of reducing yourself down to buzzwords. It serves as a reminder that if you’re going to have a personal brand, it’s supposed to support your writing, not the other way around. Conversely, some participants in the discussion seemed to be genuinely weighing up the intellectual and literary contributions of women they can imagine people wanting to fuck, and coming up empty. If you’re tempted to feel this way, it’s undoubtedly a you problem.

My view is that a lot of things are true at once:

• Some people will give your writing more attention if you’re a hot woman,

• Some people will think it’s better because of that,

• Some people will think it’s worse,

• It’s understandable that some people feel hurt they can’t access that privilege,

• It’s shit that women have ended up in this position,

• Playing into it doesn’t get us out of this position,

• I could try to work against it by resisting the urge to appear both attractive and talented at writing,

• Some people will inevitably think I’m neither,

• I want people to read my writing and think it’s good,

• I don’t want that just to be because I use my image.

It all speaks to the idea that the success of your writing should come down only to the merit of the writing itself, which is rarely a reality. In practice, it’s a combination of money, social capital, timing, money, zeitgeist, and money. It’s also about the aesthetics you invoke- not just of your own face and body, but of the world around you. ‘No plot, just vibes’ writing can be just as powerful if it captures the right kind of mood. We would be, and in fact are, surprised when a writer chooses to leave all of these tools unused, so should we necessarily expect a woman whose appearance might get her further not to use that?

This has far more clarity when it’s framed within the dynamics of race and class: if we want to talk about the white woman writer who floats about being an artist and curates her look by virtue of financial abundance, then I can really get into it. The way aesthetics have been tied to morals and societal value (reading is sexy, ‘this is how you age when you’re unproblematic’, the phrase ‘hot girl’ being as embedded as a compulsion into our vocabularies), particularly over the past few years, is part-symptom, part-tool for perpetuation of some very nasty systems.

Across not only art forms, but also societal positions and day jobs, some people wouldn’t be where they are if it weren’t for their appearance. This operates along all the usual lines of marginalisation, particularly when you can pay to change your appearance. We’re all hypocritical creatures in our own ways, especially when it comes to the internet and clout and aesthetics. It feels good to be closer to the standard for the same reasons that we should work towards breaking the standard. Some of the hottest people I’ve encountered are some of the best writers, and some of the best writers are people whose faces I’ve never seen. Anyone who isn’t able to feel the same in either direction is missing out. I don’t mean to sound like my feminism is five to ten years out of date, but at the end of the day, men’s appearances don’t factor into how their writing is assessed anywhere near as much. They’re often taken more seriously regardless.

The industry and the culture suffer when we prioritise aestheticisation over substance, but your motivation for not doing so is that you too suffer. You lose out on whatever brought you here to begin with. Images will always be useful devices of bolstering your life, your work, your movement towards your aspiration, but perhaps they should be just that.

things I did this month that made me feel like a writer

• Set up an interview with an artist I’ve loved for nearly a decade (!!!)

• Finally figured out that I have to give all of my projects actual deadlines, preferably with external parties, if I’m going to finish them, because there’s never enough time until time is even scarce.

• Felt guilty and scared about the fact that I haven’t written any of my novel in a while. As above, I work much better with deadlines and even pressure, and it’s particularly hard when a piece is so sprawling. If this weren’t true, everyone would write a novel, I tell myself.

• Contributed to ’s The art of a good party (happy summer).

• Wrote for ’s ‘sent from my iphone’, one of my faves <3 (This required me to share a mirror selfie IN THE MIDDLE of the writer aesthetics discourse. Scary.)

• Planned the next COY Collective reading for June 1st!! Proper announcement to come soon, but keep up on Instagram or Substack if you’re interested.

• And talked to friends about how expensive tickets to readings are getting in this faithless city (never mine, I promise xo).

• Missed the deadlines I set myself 2 weeks in a row because life got in the way. We’ll claw it back next month!

• Listened to Lena Dunham’s Famesick in maybe 4 days. Would have been quicker if I didn’t have a job getting in the way. I have a million things to say about it, but mostly that when artists tell their story, there’s always that very special chapter where you can see them start to make it, and everything clicks into place. I have read countless memoirs over the years just for that exact moment, and Famesick captured it beautifully. I’m wishing for all of us that we get to experience it firsthand.

what I’ve written this month:

• An essay on the artist Eva Hesse, why nothing must be eternal, and where we go wrong when we obsess over figures from the past more than our own lives (huge theme for me, and I’m not done exploring it).

• My interview with Kiosk Radio is out! I love Kiosk and I loved chatting with Jim. I think this conversation offered a really useful insight into the values at the heart of music and venue culture, particularly when it’s so under threat.

• Reviewed Puppy Teeth’s show at The Elephant’s Head

I’m loving adding in this new format and the freedom it’s allowed me in experimenting with voice and ideas. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make time for the many writing projects I feel called to work on, and the realistic answer is that I can’t, but there’s no harm (or, hopefully, not too much harm) in trying.

Talk soon x

Welcome to TYPE FACE! This is a new monthly segment of about the pursuit of a writer identity, what it means for the practice of writing, and how I’m navigating it all.

A lot of disagreements occur on Substack because writers believe their way of using the platform is not just the right one, but the only one. To some, it’s all about their craft, whether that’s is poetry, fiction, confessional essays, or some combination, and so the host website becomes special to them as a facilitator of this. To others, it’s purely a newsletter platform where they can host their roundups and listicles, give tips for living and recommend products and practices. There’s a lot of posting that functions much like an Instagram post or a TikTok: an insight into a person’s thought process or lifestyle. This is designed, in my mind, to top up a vibe for readers, whatever that may be (motivation, inspiration, hedonism, nihilism). If the enjoyment and fulfilment we get from reading something is the currency, then in theory, all of these forms of posting are equal.

The conflict comes when some share strategies for growing your listicle, and the fiction writers assume there’s an implication that this applies to them. Others suggest that long-form writers would benefit from an editor, and the newsletter purists don’t see the relevance. We’re all using different words (blog, newsletter, Substack) with no standardised meaning, because the popularity of the site is still very new and its parameters are a little hazy. It’s a very simple miscommunication, but the whole platform tends to weigh in every so often (machine in the garden controversy of 2024, anyone?). I’d suggest that for users and writers, the place Substack has in our lives varies more from person to person than the average social media platform, which makes it a difficult thing to navigate unless you fully commit to writing exactly what you want to write, regardless of reception.

To me, it’s always been a sandbox. At first, it was a way to get out the thoughts that were rattling around in my head, then a place to develop a practice, then an avenue to connect with other writers. Taking writing seriously became an option to me, and I grew more and more integrated into real-life literary spaces. These felt at odds with the Substack sphere, and suddenly writing for the internet didn’t feel prestigious enough- my writing didn’t feel good enough.

I felt that an idea of the ‘Substack writer’ had developed, and though I love to read many of them, I didn’t want to become trapped in that label myself. I was afraid to write anything too earnest, too optimistic or too emotional. Plus, I was convinced that any style of writing would be taken as an attempt at literary greatness, and so if I wrote something more straightforward (like this), I’d be judged on it alone. Then again, pitching and submitting is a cutthroat game, and literary circles can be intimidating, so I wasn’t doing a huge amount of that either. It seemed like there was no freedom in any of my options, because each avenue had such a defined identity that came with it, and prescribed expectations are something I have an urge to avoid at all costs.

I became paralysed. Having previously thought myself lucky to have joined Substack when I did, I started to feel trapped by the stagnation. I was writing often, but in a scattered, unintentional way. It seemed like honing in on any idea that felt good enough to share was a rarity, and when life circumstances offered an excuse for a hiatus last year, I dropped most of it.

Returning to a place where writing is a huge part of my life again has felt like going back to an exercise I hadn’t done in a while: it took some time and effort, but equally, felt like a familiar flexing of muscles. It’s as though I’m following in my own footsteps, taking a path I’ve tested before. I find embracing personal seasons to be the easiest way to direct my energy where it needs to be, rather than forcing things and burning out. To do this, I tend to find a spark and lean in, occasionally adjusting for progression and intentionality. Suddenly, writing the odd thought down in a notes page looks like working on an essay every day, or adding a few thousand words to a novel each week. The key is momentum, otherwise you’ll stay trapped in the moodboarding and researching stage forever.

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Now I’m back to writing most days again, balancing a myriad of different projects. I always have something to chip away at (too many things, probably). I’m constantly thinking of new ideas, not just of essays, but of short stories, novels, and articles. I haul my laptop around so much, squashed into suitcases and shoulder bags, that it’s begun to creak when I use it, endearing like the floorboards of a childhood home. It’s clear to me that if I want this to last, I might have to do things a little differently.

Resolving to give myself more freedom in what I write has left me more motivated and inspired than I’ve been in a long time. Ideas and words seem to be flowing easily, in a way that feels more sustainable than before, rather than operating in short bursts. I hope to continue to share personal and cultural essays, but I don’t want all of these to have to be so all-encompassing. The pressure to disclaim every possible criticism and leave no stone unturned has been holding me back. This won’t be at the cost of quality of artistic integrity, it’ll just bring down the walls a little. Something that gives me perspective is the fact that over two years of writing, it’s never gotten easier to share. I used to see this as a weakness, but I think in a way it’s an indicator that I’m doing something I truly care about.

I’m also introducing TYPE FACE, released at the end of each month, where I’ll write about writing and being a writer- or at least about wanting to be one. It’s not because I’m trying to create a public image or be aspirational (a big part of why I’ve shrunk away from Substack is because I don’t enjoy what feels like more classic social media posting), it’s because I don’t want to erase the steps between writing a couple of pieces for Substack, and figuring out how to translate that into the wider writing world. The two seem so disconnected, and I want to bring them closer together.

Much of what I do, including running readings (COY Collective), is based on the fact that getting to identify as an artist is something a lot of people don’t feel able to do, and I think that’s unacceptable. I’ve always felt like I’d have to fight for it, or to be crowned by some supreme authority. It seems like I might have done it the wrong way around, starting online and then turning to the real world, but this is where we are now, and there wasn’t a different path for me. If it weren’t for the people who read angelic dissent and have encouraged my writing, I would feel absolutely no claim at all to being a writer. Somehow, I’ve reached a point where I introduce myself as a writer at parties without feeling like a fraud.

Writing and literary spaces, both online and in real life, feel more exciting than they’ve been in a while, and also more precarious. Without wishing to be too vague, it feels as though a lot is going unsaid within these communities. My goal is to create a space where this isn’t the case, because to me, that’s how we get more people connecting with artist identities. I have a feeling this will give me less control over how I’m viewed and the place my writing has in people’s lives, which will likely be good for me.

I guess this is a form of reboot. With the spring equinox having just passed and the days holding onto their light for a little longer, it feels like the perfect time to renew my connection to writing and reassess its place in my world. I really hope that we can both find our way through these seasons with that sense of inspiration and connectedness.

(And if this style of writing isn’t for you, you can choose which of my pieces find their way to your inbox)

everything I’ve written this month

I’m excited to be in a place now where my writing is featured in different spaces, so I thought it would be good to have a way to collate it monthly :)

• On Substack

  • the dissociation essay- disappearing, as told by Clarice Lispector and Chris Kraus

  • whose flag is this?- britpop aesthetics and the rise of the right

  • I wote for The Guest List about a topic close to my heart: being a Type A Party Girl. This piece is a real insight into my life in a more zoomed-out sense that I don’t think I often give, so writing it was a reflective process in a different way to usual, but it seems to have resonated with people!

• Several pieces on music <3

  • I reviewed Grace Ives’ stunning new album, Girlfriend, for Still Listening (I think a lot of you would like it if you haven’t listened already),

  • Reviewed Pollyfromthedirt’s new EP, ‘The dirt, pt. 2’ for Hard of Hearing,

  • Reviewed the new Slow Dance Records Compilation (which I’m still buzzing about, because they’re UK underground royalty), also for Hard of Hearing

  • And worked on a couple more cool things that will come out next month! I’m getting to delve into music journalism (which is an absolute dream) partly because of the space and confidence Substack has given me, so thank you :)

• Finally got to work on a short story I’ve had on the back burner forever with the intention of submitting it somewhere, but half-accidentally missed the deadline because I got sick of my own tone. Still, I’m glad it has a backbone I can return to at some point.

• And I managed to (kind of) get back into novel writing, having shoved back my end-date goal as far away as I possibly could. Now I’m playing catch-up with myself, but at least I’m back to it.

You can also keep up with the things I write via Instagram :)

things that made me feel like a writer this month

If I’ve learned anything about artist identities, it’s that no one’s going to give it to you, and it’s all a kind of game. In that sense, I’m still just making choices that allow me to feel like a writer on any given day, hoping they’ll stick.

• Went to TWO incredible reading by Re-Enchantment. Particularly great work this month- the event in early March was truly one of the best readings I’ve ever been to, and I spent the night convinced that if I listened intently enough, I could soak up a shred of the talent (which I genuinely think is how readings work, to an extent). Re-Enchantment feels like one of those semi-regular parties where you know half of the crowd who’ll be there, and get excited to meet the other half. I really respect how the team always take the time to talk about the political context we’re all sharing, or maybe are unaware of, which can be a rarity in these spaces ( spoke wonderfully as always!).

• Got glasses so I can write without getting a headache every single day. Optician was in love with me (not up for debate). I look more like a writer now (thank god) but still unclear as to whether the glasses work.

• Submitted to ’s veryexciting verycool project- she’s creating a zine compiling pages from peoples diaries. I’ve shared this with all of the beautiful, introspective journal-havers in my life (blessed with many of these), and I can’t wait to see it come together. You should also submit! I’m told reliably that ALL topics, lengths, and tones are very welcome.

• Added a surname to my Substack after TWO YEARS. Big moves. I think I was convinced that writing might disappear from my life at any moment so I never really thought to be anything more than ‘eve’, but unfortunately, it’s too generic a name to Zendaya it.

• Was invited to an event about alternative publishing routes chaired by . Very flattered to be there, met some very lovely and impressive people, felt massive imposter syndrome so had a second/third glass of wine, got to thinking about how difficult it is to feel hopeful about being a writer when so many of the people who’ve been doing it for decades say they’re jaded and seem to have little hope. Decided I’ll get by as I have from the start: with great delusion and low expectations.

Thank you for bearing with me while I figure out what to do with this platform. I definitely haven’t managed it yet and probably won’t for a while, but I’m hoping that’s what you like about my writing (please say it is).

talk soon,

eve x