It’s been four months since Love Story premiered, but if I had a dollar for every “How to Dress Like Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy” video that still crosses my feed, I could afford every authentic piece from CBK’s actual wardrobe.
Everywhere we look, someone is teaching us exactly how to become someone else. How to dress like Carolyn. How to decorate like Nancy Meyers. How to host like Ina Garten. How to build a Ralph Lauren-inspired home. How to order Nobu like a regular.
To be clear, I’m absolutely not immune. My Pinterest boards are as full as yours. My TikTok feed is a curated stream of “how to get the look,” “where to buy the look” and “five items you absolutely need to create the look” videos.
And in all fairness, people have always pulled inspiration from outside sources: magazines, pop culture and even the people around them. I’m talking long before “Get Ready With Me” videos took over, if we can even remember that far back. The difference is that previous generations were given juuust enough inspiration. We, on the other hand, are given full-blown blueprints.
Meaning, there used to be space between seeing something you loved and recreating it. Space to interpret it, make it your own and add your own personality. Now, we’re handed exact outfit links, products, paint colors, restaurant orders and routines. It’s like the internet became one giant answer key. Instead of inspiring us, it’s prescribing us, and it makes me wonder if somewhere along the way we stopped developing our own taste.
A few weeks ago, we talked about the difference between building a life and performing one. About whether you’d still wake up early to run, write, volunteer, train or pursue the thing if nobody was watching. This feels like the natural next question: When was the last time you discovered something before someone recommended it to you?
Just the other day, I had to stop myself before swiping my card for an expen$ive handbag (emphasis on the $) and ask myself if I loved it or if I’ve just seen it so many times that my brain eventually surrendered to it. And while we’re at it, do I genuinely like this couch, or has my algorithm just shown it to me seventeen times a day for the last six months?
I obviously believe that the things we gravitate toward reflect our taste to some degree. But, maybe the better question is: What would we choose if people on social media didn’t choose it first? What would your wardrobe look like if there weren’t a million videos warning you that your skinny jeans and ankle socks are outdated? What would your home look like if you couldn’t search “Old Money Coastal Grandmillennial Nancy Meyers Ralph Lauren Summer House”? Would you still buy art from Anthropologie, or would you hang a watercolor painting you bought in Prague because it reminds you of a magical week you’ll never forget?
And before anyone points out the obvious: businesses in Los Angeles are practically built on recommendations (like ours). But the problem with imitation is that eventually everybody ends up eating at the same places, wearing the same things, decorating with the same inspiration pics and taking the same trips.
This is why we’ve never been about just handing you another instruction manual. Yes, we recommend a lot of things on here. Restaurants. Hotels. The occasional Neutrogena product. But we’re a Friend sharing only what works for us, not a formula for you to follow.
Our hope is to give you interesting places to start based on experiences we’d share on our Friends’ couches over Love Island. The rest—the places you return to or skip, the hidden gems you find on your own, and opinions you form—that part belongs to you. We want our recommendations to spark curiosity, not replace it.
Which is why a Friend’s recommendations hold so much value over online influence. One tells you what you should love, while we say “I think you’ll like this”, then let you decide for yourself.
Because recommendations were never meant to replace your own taste. They’re an invitation to help you discover it. And thank the Erewhon angels for that, because how boring would it be if we all liked exactly the same things?
And while super well-intentioned, I’ve even found that our attempts to become more interesting have become formulaic. Our Friend Tinx famously encourages her followers to read articles. Not self-help books or blogs. Real magazine features...op-eds...long-form journalism, current events...stories outside our own lives. Her explanation is simple: reading widely gives you more to think about and more to talk about. And she’s right, but some of the responses she’s shared have both amused and terrified me. There’s a lot of: “Love this! What topics am I supposed to be looking for?”
Even curiosity has become something we want instructions for. Becoming a more interesting person has become another “aesthetic” to optimize with a checklist. (Read these five publications + Consume each day = Become interesting).
But that’s not really how interesting people become interesting. They don’t read because somebody told them it would improve their social skills. They read because something catches their attention and they’re genuinely curious.
Becoming more interesting is just a side effect.
In a world of endless influence, we’ve lost some of our ability to sit quietly with our own curiosity. So the challenge becomes figuring out how to become more yourself. How to cultivate preferences and opinions that didn’t come from an algorithm. How to buy art because it moved you and get dressed without consulting online trends.
Even longtime style influencer, Arielle Charnas joined the Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy style conversation with valuable insight rather than another outfit breakdown: her style worked because she wasn’t chasing an aesthetic or outfit formula, she was simply wearing what made her feel confident with pieces she naturally loved to move through her days in.
I think that’s actually the thing worth copying: the confidence to decide for yourself.
And as for spots in Los Angeles that are genuinely great (not just currently popular)? Don’t worry, we’ve always got you covered there.
And if you’ve caught us saying a place was just okay lately... also intentional. We’d rather be the Friend who tells you our truth than add to the internet noise insisting every meal was life-changing.
And, of course, the final verdict is always yours.
— Your Friend
