HTSI editor’s letter: how to get your viral kicks – from Topjaw to Oaxaca
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
I’ve lately been considering a new column idea where we ask people what’s on their “For You” page. As the algorithms of social media increasingly feed our strange obsessions, “For You” is a rare glimpse into the darker reaches of our souls.
My TikTok feed, for example, delivers a near constant flow of people tending to cow’s hooves: I cannot tell you why. But I’m addicted to watching farrier content in which various individuals scrape and file away the bovine ailments that they find. I also find myself watching lots of pimple-popping. Or chiropractors cracking people’s backs.
I’m sorry. That’s kind of disgusting. I don’t even know where this gross fixation began. I’m just one of those people who finds watching videos about stress relief a compelling way to decompress.
Other people prefer more wholesome matters: cat videos, giant farmyard animals, babies saying naughty words. Then there are those who study beauty/laundry/cleaning hacks. Or Scarlett Johansson videos. My husband is one of the many whose feed is composed almost entirely of food content, and one of his primary distractions are the Topjaw videos. Conceived by friends Will Warr and Jesse Burgess, the brand offers a buffet of food material, but their most popular videos are those in which they ask chefs, food critics and publicans to nominate their favourite eats. Jesse, a former model with outsized enthusiasm, has gained a huge following with his hot takes. In doing so, the pair have transformed the dining landscape in London, turning hitherto quiet and gentle establishments into scorching viral hits. The food-fluencer trend is only growing, and with it, a whole new generation is investigating novel cuisines. Rosanna Dodds finds out what makes the Topjaw boys so compelling, as well as what the plan is next.
Manchester has been a scorching viral destination since the Roman ages, boasting a history that takes in a great sweep of British industry, social change, science, culture, and much more in between. I visited last December for a Chanel Métiers d’Art show, an event that was considered odd by some. They sniffed at the location: what would a couture house from Paris want with a northern city famed for football and Coronation Street?
As the clothes from that collection now come to stores, the novelist Jeanette Winterson explores the city on which the show was based. “Manchester people love dazzle,” she says of her birthplace. “And it’s not about cash… The brand paid tribute to the city’s textile history, and to the skill of those who wove and sewed cloth to the highest standards.” Moreover, the show “sang to the spirit of the place at its most practical and its most extravagant. As Mark Radcliffe puts it: ‘Manchester is a city that thinks a table is for dancing on.’”
Oaxaca is another dazzling destination, as featured in our cover story. The fashion road trip was photographed by Vivek Vadoliya who, you may remember, shot a beautiful Mumbai cover story for HTSI last year. This time he collaborated with the New York stylist Esther Matilla, who grew up visiting her grandparents in Mexico and for whom this was a homecoming of sorts. In an accompanying essay, the writer Javier Arredondo, who lives in Mexico City, describes what makes Oaxaca so special. “When someone asks why I love it so much, I have two answers,” he writes. “Its blue skies, and its clear light.”
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