5 Things to Read: Week of August 16
A lot of really good ones this week — trust me!
This one’s a little meatier than the usual 5 Things, but I read some really, really good stuff this week — from a deep dive into the darker sides of #RushTok to the latest celebrity spat involving everyone’s favorite (or not so favorite?) Serena van der Woodsen.
Last August, I became entranced by the world of #BamaRush. I had zero interest in joining Greek life in college but became, years later, fascinated by the rush process at the University of Alabama, a majority-white school with a fraught history with racism, after learning about it through culture writer Anne Helen Petersen (I even wrote a story about Bama Rush and its segregationist history). This week, she published an incredibly in-depth five-part series on the UA Greek system and what it reveals about society, power, and the performance of femininity — I would highly recommend giving it a read.
Debunking the stigma that only children are lonely weirdos.
I’ve been down a TikTok rabbit hole about the rumored feud between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, but now I’m wondering if the real news here is their widely-differing approaches to PR for It Ends With Us. So much drama!
A deeply personal and thoughtful essay by Mary H.K. Choi about being diagnosed with autism in her 40s. As a fellow Korean who grew up in Hong Kong, I wasn’t expecting to read about how she weaves her upbringing as a third-culture Asian kid (specifically, the unquenchable need to observe and fit in) into her self-interrogation of her own mental health years later.
In fairly unsurprising news, Shen Yun faces abuse allegations from its dancers.