I Don't Want a Labubu. I Want Mia Thermopolis's Fire Station Loft.
Finding my 31-year-old self in early 2000s teen romcom bedrooms.
A few weeks ago, I requested The Princess Diaries for our Sunday night movie. This requires no further explanation, because it is my belief that The Princess Diaries is a cultural touchstone for women aged 28 - 37, regardless of socio-economic status, political leaning, or general taste.
This is apparently not the case for men from Dublin aged 28 - 37 because my husband had never seen The Princess Diaries.
“Did you want to be like Anne Hathaway when you first saw this movie?” he asked, somewhere before green soup and Genovian pear & mint sorbet, but after the quintessential makeover. (He meant Mia Thermopolis, but we can forgive him, reader).
“Yes. But not because she was a secret princess,” I answered.
“I wanted to be like her because I thought her room was so cool.”
If you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about, and it’s not just the curved wrought-iron staircase that leads to Mia’s loft, or the fireman’s pole she slides down to breakfast (yes, the Thermopolises live in a refurbished fire station). It’s the band posters. The string lights. The lava lamps and flower-power stickers. It’s Mia’s whole vibe, as presented via her bedroom.
A few runner-ups:
Juno MacGuff’s proto-hipster art-fun-house room with hamburger telephone (Juno, 2007)
Sabrina’s wicked whimsi-goth bedchamber (Sabrina the Teenage Witch, 1996 - 2003)
Blair Waldorf’s elegant Louis XVI-inspired abode (Gossip Girl, 2007 - 2012)
Anna’s punk-rock-girlie-pop room (Freaky Friday, 2003)
(okay, but really that folk art duvet cover is gorge.)
From the ages of 8 - 14, I was obsessed with bedrooms, especially the bedrooms of slightly older teenage girls.
Bedrooms were a treasure trove, entirely private and completely transparent at the same time, because the teenage bedroom is the only space the teenage girl has to express herself, fully. What photos of which friends she’s opted to print out and frame, what ancient bottle of Clinique Happy or DKNY Be Delicious she’s displayed on a desk-cum-vanity, what coins and movie ticket stubs and Claire’s punch cards are spilling from her monogrammed pleather wallet.
Think about it: when you’re growing up, all you have is your bedroom. The rest of the house is shared property, managed by the adults who pick what cereal brands go in the pantry, what style of loveseat rests on the porch.
The teenage bedroom, on the other hand, is one of the cleanest, clearest expressions of individuality you can find. Even in cases where a parent still picks out the bedspread and the furniture set (from P.B. Teen if you were lucky), you’ll still find elements of singular personhood here and there: a stuffed rabbit on the bed, a Converse sneaker covered in Sharpie doodles. The draw isn’t the furniture — it’s the elements of living in / around said furniture that make the bedroom so captivating, and the messy, gathered quality of these elements.
Not knowing much of myself as a young girl, sneaking through someone else’s bedroom was like personality window shopping. Like the first time I saw string lights wound around a bed frame. Mood lighting? Count me the fuck in. (See also: the silky handkerchief I draped over a desk lamp a-la any number of teen flicks that my father had to remove and subsequently, warn me about house fires.)
To a degree, I’m still bedroom-happy. Except now, we call it lifestyle content.
A clarification: lifestyle content is different from interior design content. It’s not about the space itself, but how one interacts with the space. For example, a bedroom is a bedroom. A nighttime routine, complete with specific tea recommendations and links to a stainless steel gua sha, is lifestyle.
Good lifestyle content — like an intriguing bedroom — should feel uniquely individual and slightly aspirational, but ultimately attainable. There are endless vlogs, blogs, and Instagram accounts that cover “aspirational” and “attainable”. “Uniquely individual” however…well, let’s just say your chances of discovering you’re heir to a small European principality are only slightly higher that curating a feed of interesting and varied creators with something special to share (“I’m an influencer, SHUTUP”).
Contemporary lifestyle content lacks individuality. Or rather - the algorithm rewards conformity, as does sponcon from companies with enough dough to put behind brand deals. My feed is littered with matching sweat sets, karate-chop accent pillows, Poppi, and spa headbands. It’s not just about the featured products, either. Creativity has left the building when it comes to editing style. If I see one more ASMR-inspired GRWM where a set of gel nails tippy-tap-taps on a tube of Hello toothpaste…I’m going to fucking scream.
Think I’m just engaging with the wrong stuff? As if. I have an Alfred A. Knopf tote bag, babes. Yes, I follow a significant number of Mormon mommy accounts, but an equal number of art girls who live in New York or Portland, and guess what. They’re all doing the same thing, too. Long skirt + pop-of-color-sock + little hair clips + martini.
A prime example? Labubus, the monster bag charm (is that what we’re calling keychains now?) that began as a signature item, has now become Beanie Baby 2.0. Once a marker of individual expression, now a token for Being Online. I don’t have one because they freak me out, but also if I’m putting any fuzzy animal on my purse, it’s going to be one of these:
What can I say? I’m a purist.
I come to the Internet for a lot of reasons. Notably, to doomscroll. But also, for inspiration. Some days, that’s how to style my overalls. Others, a dinner recipe. The world outside the web feels fragmented, expensive, and on fire. The world inside is greige, coastal grandmother, and girl dinner.
We want - and should want - to change, to evolve. Cultivating individuality is a never-ending process. It’s another reason why the teenage bedroom is so fascinating to me. Elements of girlhood blend with early notes of womanhood - a NIN poster hanging above a shabby-chic floral duvet, Lincoln Park After Dark nail polish staining a lavender desk.
This constant cultivation and reinvention is why lifestyle content works so well - we are always looking to become ourselves / someone else / both at the same time. Often, we don’t quite know who that person is, but that they’re maybe a little like so-and-so.
The scope of the Internet makes it feel like we have open access to the kind of inspiration magazines or travel used to bring us: ways to style bangs, mocktail recipes, gallery wall formulas, straight-to-cart glassware. Whatever you want, you can find it online. Even better, whatever you didn’t know you needed, you can find that, too.
The issue is not digital lifestyle content in itself, although I try to diversify the elements of my own lifestyle I want to cultivate through media and travel and analog living. The issue is the algorithmic feedback loop that reinforces a few small, similar was to live.
Maybe this doesn’t seem like a big issue to you when it comes to what soda you buy at the grocery store, but our world is becoming increasingly inaccessible, both on and offline. AI output is accelerating a terrifying pace and the pay-to-play model is the standard for any kind of reach. If this year has proven anything it’s that big decisions can quickly be taken out of our hands - where we choose live, what our careers look like, how we engage with our bodies & heath care.
Individuality has never been more important, because living for ourselves has never been more at risk - and yes, that includes the little things, like what bedding color you like best or what books you read. Personally, a life aligned with who you are and what you value is more rewarding. Collectively, we can all benefit from more difference and vibrancy - whether we have a firehouse loft or not.
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