Hello! This letter comes to you as my feet sit in a bowl of cold water. Needs must as Britain experiences its fifth heatwave of the year. I never thought I’d say this but I just want it to rain. It’s been so hot that when I land in Los Angeles tomorrow I’ll experience cooler temperatures - make that make sense.
Today we’re taking a look at:
The outrage over $20,000 college dorm makeovers
Teen girls taking their parent’s Ozempic
Whether woke 1 was crazy
The 16-year-old on her way to being a TikTok queen
The Gen Z gypsy ripping up the rulebook
What the under 30s really buy and why
Paid subscribers get the full buffet, free subscribers get a small plate. Let’s jump in…
Going viral
Ellie Ellis… Five days ago a British 16-year-old had just six followers on TikTok, today she’s got over 600k after her first post went mega viral and been viewed more than 13 million times.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Ellie Ellis’ blow up is astonishing even by TikTok standards, and is reminiscent of how Becca Bloom got over one million followers in less than two weeks and how Katie Fang had a meteoric rise after posting a video of her crying because she didn’t want to go to work.
Indeed Ellis’ explosive growth is so extreme I’m surprised that no one is shouting “industry plant” yet. My suspicions were piqued that there may be more to this than meets the eye when I saw that she already has representation with the agency Cowshed Collective. Maybe they were quick and signed her after she went viral, or maybe they’ve been working with her all along? I’ve asked them. But didn’t get a response before I hit publish.
It is, of course, entirely possible that the algorithm, and the TikTok audience just liked what they saw. Ellis is young, white, pretty and confident in front of the camera. But that too seemed like a red flag given that it was her endearing nervousness in the first few moments of her debut post that likely hooked viewers in. On the flip side her videos are refreshingly unedited and she’s not deploying the tricks - rage bait, purposeful mistakes, being extreme - that other big creators lean into. And it’s working. Almost every one of the 12 videos she’s posted have got millions of views…
Whatever her origin story, Ellie’s dreams are coming true. She’s getting the PR packages she hoped for and brands are all over her comments section. She said she was planning to go to beauty college in September, but it looks like TikTok has other plans for her.
So hot right now
Trewley Precious… She was already a big deal on TikTok after bagging more than a million followers but after landing her own reality show on British TV, Trewley Precious is fast gaining icon status.
The Secret Lives of Gypsy Wives follows Trewley and her family, who live in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, England. The show hones in on the tension that comes from her ambition to “build an empire,” while rejecting the expectation that she’ll marry and have children in line with gypsy tradition.
The end result is a laugh-a-minute show, with Trewley delighting in describing her family as the “broke, fat and on benefits” version of the Kardashians. And one that asks serious questions about how modern traveller girls should live. Oh and if you need another reason to watch then Trewley’s gay best friend James V is TV gold.
Brits can catch the show on Channel 4 and for everyone else it’s on YouTube.
Caro Claire Burke… after her debut novel Yesteryear sold over 1.4 million copies and spent seventeen straight weeks on The New York Times’ best seller list.
The book, about a tradwife influencer who wakes up in 1855 and is forced to live the lifestyle she pushed online, has prompted fierce debate. It’s also sparked rumours that Burke based the protagonist on high profile creators like Hannah Neeleman and Nara Smith. The irony is that Yesteryear will likely outsell Smith’s cook book, which is out in October.
Live shopping… after Whatnot got valued at $20/£15 billion - nearly doubling in less than a year. The platform, which allows sellers to flog items QVC-style, claims that they’ve grossed more than $8/£6 billion in the first six months of 2026 and that they’ve increased the number of buyers by 100 per cent in last 12 months. But while everything is going up and to the right business-wise, some say that Whatnot is more like a casino than a shop and that countdown auctions got them hooked and left them broke.
Trends, trends and even more trends
Posting less on social media... New data shows that the majority of Americans are rowing back from apps like TikTok and Instagram after:
55 per cent admitted that they post less than they did five years ago
53 per cent have limited who can see their posts
47 per cent deleted an app because of stress or anxiety
The research comes from Incogni and chimes with other research from last year which showed that globally time spent on social media peaked in 2022.
Gen Z’s little treat obsession… has been written about endlessly but finally there is data to back up the trend. Research from Bank of America has found that the under 30s are cutting down on nights out and instead leaning into smaller purchases that offer instant gratification like coffee or beauty products. The bank also found that Gen Z have the lowest savings-to-spending ratio of any generation.
RELATED The $20 burrito has become the new avocado toast after a right winger tweeted about a student’s experience and riled up other conservatives...
Andrew Kolvet’s original post has been viewed more than three million times and gave many the chance to moan about Gen Z’s spending habits… again.
ALSO RELATED More than half of under 30s say they’ve bet on sports with cash that they’d earmarked for investing in the past year, according to research from Betterment.
Everyone’s talking about
$20k dorm room makeovers… The fact this blew up this week is a little odd as it’s been happening for years, but the internet works in mysterious ways and after Will Tjernlund posted about it on Twitter/X it sparked outrage.
