This is the dead salmon hat of a killer, Bella
Happy Sunday!
I’m popping into your inbox one last time before the holidays to address something near and dear to my heart: Orcas wearing dead salmon hats.
‘Tis the season, after all.
Behold Blackberry, your new fave influencer.
He is a risk taker.
A trendsetter.
An all-around silly little ginormous guy.
If you weren’t aware, Blackberry is single-handedly (fin-dedly?) bringing back a fashion statement not seen since 1987 when a whale pod started draping dead fish across their foreheads.
aka the aquatic mammal equivalent of the ‘A Flock Of Seagulls’ haircut.
Scientists aren’t sure what sparked the craze in the 80s. They are even less sure about its resurgence.
At 32, Blackberry wasn’t alive to witness the original hat fad.
There is no ‘Life in Looks‘ archive for the orca population (as far as we know).
2023’s sardine-core likely did not make it into the ocean zeitgeist.
And yet!
There he is in all his dead-salmon-hat-wearing glory.
Several other whale trends have come and gone over the years:
Shooting kelp out of the water (cute)
More dead salmon, but over fins (less impactful, imo)
Sinking boats (remember that headline from the spring!??)
There’s speculation that these behaviours are socialization tactics. When whales have a surplus of fish, they become more playful.
This is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in action.
The less there is to do, the more time is left to don carcasses or capsize boats for sport.
First comes safety.
Then comes trend-setting.
But what does it mean?
Oh, okay. I see.
You think this has nothing to do with you.
You… go to your closet, and you select… I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back, but what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean…
Or, in this case, salmon.
A color/fish/state of mind pre-selected by the designers, shoppers, algorithms, and (apparently) whales that control the industry.
Blackberry is not an innovator, but a cog in the much larger trend cycle machine.
Today it’s hats, but who knows what tomorrow’s beauty standards will bring.
Blowhole jewelry?
Seashell grills?
The goalpost moves as quickly as brands can invent new qualities to be insecure about (see also: butthole bleaching, blephs, Moo Deng makeup etc, etc etc.)
Each of us is Sisyphus, pushing our desire to be attractive up the insurmountable hill of public approval, already forgetting how in vogue it was to drown sailors in May or what the hell “Mob Wife Aesthetic” was in January.
Just when we figure it out — hit the summit on “Clean Girl” or “Eclectic Grandpa” — a whale with a dead fish on his head lets us know we are behind the times.
The trend cycle has caught us in its undertow, and we are waterboarded with the harsh reality that you are never safe.
A 20 to 30-year-old fashion trend will always come back the second you get comfortable.
Like zombie Cillian Murphy in ‘28 Years Later.’
These cycles aren’t limited to fashion.
The 1980s are back with a vengeance — not just with killer whales, but killers in general.
Luigi Mangione, the assassin turned internet heartthrob, is our social media salmon hat.
Sifting through the hordes of fan edit videos and “I can fix him” tweets calls to mind another infamous criminal.
One with groupies known to send letters with nude photos and marriage proposals.
One who had women coming to his trial with dyed brown hair to look more like his victims.
One who was recently portrayed by Zac Efron, igniting a whole new generation of online admirers over 30 years after his death.
I’m talking, of course, about Ted Bundy.
I know, I know, I know.
Luigi Mangione is different.
He’s the people’s murderer.
A vigilante hero.
His online footprint has shown us that he reads books, listens to Charli xcx, is possibly bi-sexual, and is undeniably shredded.
His notoriety has yielded incredible memes such as:
And
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And wild compilations like these:
As jazzed as I am that Criminal by Britney Spears is getting more air time, I am morally conflicted.
This man murdered a 50-year-old father of two.
According to the internet, that only makes him more attractive.
Y’all know I am never one to censor a meme, but I am continually shocked that hybristophilia routinely comes back in fashion.
It may even be more powerful than lycra….
But it’s definitely less powerful than the trend cycle!
By next week the whales will be hatless and we’ll be on to something new:
Maybe (hopefully) another Justin Timberlake tour cancellation.
More likely, the newest plastic surgery to make your full-coverage-no-makeup-makeup look even more natural.
Or the most unrelatable nepo baby Christmas hauls.
Or, worse yet, the “Jay-Z as loving father” media arc built to distract from the child rape allegations. (As a reminder, his alleged victim was 13 and his daughter is currently 12).
ANYWAY!!!!
We might live in a hellscape designed by beauty industry marketing budgets and teenage-run TikTok accounts, but I am so thankful to giggle about it with all of you.
See Sea you after Christmas!