It was when I was researching a story on that I realized there truly was no escape from the influencer industry. If business bros with corporate jobs in tech and finance — stable, high-paying careers with cushy benefits! — felt the need to supplement their status (and possibly their income) by becoming influencers, what hope was there for the rest of us?
LAST SUMMER, five months into lockdown and two hours past midnight, I found myself glaring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror with five drops of Bertolli extra virgin olive oil drizzling down my nose. After an evening spent picking at my pores, I had found a buried Reddit thread suggesting I massage my skin with oil to rid it of the tiny grey spots that dotted its surface. These little nuisances—or “sebaceous filaments”—are not acne but passages that carry oil from the pores to the skin’s outer layer. Everyone has them, and they are not visible to the human eye except from an intimate distance. But, under lockdown, with the distance between my visage and the mirror shrinking with each passing day, I’d become obsessed with purging my face of these invaders.
