Happy Thursday!

This is the last Thursday newsletter. In case you missed it, I announced that Yap Year is switching to a weekly schedule, publishing only on Mondays. Starting in August, I will be paywalling longform work including essays, interviews and reported pieces. You can expect at least one longform piece on the last Monday of each month moving forward.

Today, I had a lot of thoughts swirling in my head based on a few different controversies I saw pop up over the summer. More on that below.

Throughout the summer, there have been numerous events that have laid bare the obvious push to get women on board with socially damaging trends. This leads me to reevaluate the question that I debated on ICYMI earlier this year: What is the point of an influencer? 

When I think about Kylie Jenner collaborating with Meta to create her own discreet Meta glasses or about Kalshi aggressively promoting Love Island USA bets on TikTok or about Paige Lorenze fighting with Nantucket business owners about her right to film content in their stores, it’s clear to me how integral women are in the promotion of unsavory behaviors.

Without the cultural cache of young women, who are typically the ones setting trends and dictating what is cool, brands miss out on being relevant. Influencers—most of whom are young women—are a major tool in positioning a product or service or action as aspirational.

As such, influencers are increasingly being tapped to help normalize—even glamorize—some of the most nefarious trends in our current culture. From bolstering the surveillance state to promoting gambling, female influencers are lending their clout to tech companies looking to attract more women to their services.