I was ready to consign Michaela Coel’s new tome Misfits: a Personal Manifesto to the same pile, but for one reason: turns out, it is startlingly good. Harvested tweets, transcribed TikToks, collected Instagram natterings: there is nothing that cannot be rendered for consumption. Our abiding fascination with these gilded people-who are often, gallingly, to be heard referring to themselves as ‘creatives’, a debased designation-may be seen in publishers’ willingness to scrape together every paltry utterance that spills from them. They have a tendency to pop up in saccharine TED Talks, po-faced consultancies, and the guest-staff lists of neophiliac colleges and universities. These elevated subjects of idolatry can be found in every genre-the Phoebes (Waller-Bridge or Bridgers, take your pick), the Zadies and Sallys (main acts and many pale imitators)-and they all have as their unifying characteristic a giddying youthful cleverness and a zesty magazine-friendly aesthetic that expresses itself in witty don’t-you-wish-they-were-your-friend banter. This anointing takes advantage of the common faith, a faith without proof, that everything exceptional can be taught or made relatable. The vast ugly machinery of celebrity conspires with regularity to anoint a new set of celebrities who, we are told, are the faces of intelligent feelings.
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