This Is Your Artisanal Reality
445 cc, moderate profile, half under the muscle!!!!! silicone!!! garth fisher!!!
Celebrities disclosing the work they’ve had done is strategic.
Kylie Jenner recently disclosed the exact details of her boob job to a round of applause. Barbara Corcoran disclosed every procedure she’s ever had in a sunny instagram post. Lindsay Lohan credits her youthfulness to juicing. Nothing about this is particularly revelatory. And it’s not being presented in a defensive or confessional way, or with the implied ‘don’t judge me,’ or ‘this makes me brave’ tone. It’s presented about as casually as talking about the weather. This is a new posture that I’m calling artisanal reality.
Artisanal Reality
A deliberately constructed form of reality designed to read as human in an increasingly optimized visual culture. Artisanal reality relies on intentional imperfection: admissions of cosmetic procedures, grainy textures, visible pores, typos, unflattering angles—not to reveal vulnerability, but to reassert human credibility and control. It is not anti-aesthetic. It is anti-synthetic. It is a calculated rejection of the frictionless, over-produced image in favor of something that registers as real, without actually being real itself.
Artisanal reality emerges both as a survival tactic and as a status play. A way for public figures and brands to maintain their authority by narrating their distortions, curating their flaws, and staging believability. It is a form of authorship.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the performance of authenticity cycle through beauty culture. In the 2010s, it was the “no-makeup selfie,” the messy bun, the Glossier era of effortlessness as aspiration. Then we moved into high-performance relatability: thirty-step routines, skincare fridge content, crystal rollers and red light therapy. You could be aspirational as long as you showed your tools.
But now, with AI-generated influencers, next-level FaceTune, and this collapse of reality, even those rituals (hello morning shed!) feel suspect. Anyone who is chronically online doubts the image. Faces don’t look bad anymore—they look unverifiable in reality. They’re no longer just enhanced, they’re simply faked.
For a celebrity to post their enhancements is to control the narrative. They’re not necessarily revealing a truth but constructing a fiction. Proof of procedure is a receipt. If you’re going to look unreal then you have to post the paper trail.
This shift serves two cultural functions:
1. Proof-of-life.
In an increasingly AI-generated visual culture where sameness is the new uncanny valley, the celebrity body has to reassert its physicality. The message isn’t “I’m natural.” It’s “I’m not synthetic.” Even if I’ve been lifted, tweaked, lasered, sculpted: that process happened offline. A human doctor. A private clinic. Indignities, drains, scar tissue, pain. This is the new way to say I’m still real, by proudly claiming one’s artifice.
2. Status recalibration.
As cosmetic work becomes cheaper and more available, the old markers of beauty as capital stop working. Everyone has Botox now. Everyone has filler. Artisanal reality reestablishes hierarchy.
It says: you can buy a version of this look, but not this process. The surgical timeline (who can take time off to recover from procedures!), the personalized team, the $50K recovery protocol—those remain exclusive. What looks like a deliberate disclosure is actually a way to create difference and distance.
Ultimately, this doesn’t narrow the distance between celebrity and audience—it only reinforces it.
Side note!
Elliot and I presented our take on branding as mapping at Future Commerce’s VISIONS this week. If you’d like to set up a presentation for your team on the material, reach out by responding to this newsletter or by DM’ing me on LinkedIn.
Hope you saw it IRL :)
This week's picks include Etsy witches, Coca-Cola’s record label and recycled Chanel.
Christina’s weekly scroll—
Sarah Burton’s first Givenchy campaign is here.
Chanel is getting into the recycling business.
Ferragamo sent Tanner Leatherstein a Soft Hug bag to review. Genius, tbh.
Iris Law and Gabbriette are Thirteen for Heaven. Feels like a huge miss to lean into this creative direction without dropping actual Thirteen merch.
New York is the first state to track if layoffs are due to AI.
In love? Feeling lost? Looking for a sign? There’s an Etsy witch for that.
The medium is the message, and that’s why Christians looooove AI slop.
Cannot stop thinking about this AI-generated influencer video. ENOUGH!!!
L’Oréal x NVIDIA is about to go CRAZY.
"Make FPS Great Again" and its Splitgate, lol.
Coca-Cola launched a record label in partnership with UMG.
Warner Bros. Discovery is splitting into two companies again, lol.
Human sexuality will always outsmart prudish algorithms — that’s why everything online is sexually suggestive now.
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Nikita’s weekly scroll—
Mayhaps the lipstick effect is no longer sticking. The beauty market seems to be cooling in the face of impending economic turmoil. On the other end, we’re still spending on wellness!
Burberry is doing a fun festival campaign right now. There will never be another Alexa Chung.
- was/is correct as always. If you want to create a monocultural event, start a war. BOF takes on the art of trash talk marketing.
Niche jewelry brands are winning, despite the overall turbulent market. This is due to (1) smart operations and supply chain and (2) offering real novelty.
No notes.
TYB has raised a series A.
Nostalgia now goes in two ways.
Old bitches winning. Everything millennial is cool again!!!!
I love basketball and I love the internet, and so I enjoyed this piece about how young NBA players are somewhat knowingly molding the media presence of the league (and their personal brands) — because they have grown up hyperaware of social media.
Timbaland’s new artist is… an AI-generated Asian woman. I just want him to make something that only Nelly Furtado’s Promiscuous can make me feel. Can we work on that instead?
“I’m not just producing tracks anymore,” Timbaland said in a statement. “I’m producing systems, stories, and stars from scratch. [TaTa] is not an avatar. She is not a character. TaTa is a living, learning, autonomous music artist built with AI. TaTa is the start of something bigger. She’s the first artist of a new generation. A-Pop is the next cultural evolution, and TaTa is its first icon.”
A creator caucus has launched in Congress, with support from Patreon and YouTube.
With sales of the Stanley cup cooling, things are getting existential over there. Their revival and future is hinging on a Post Malone campaign, which as much as it’s not for me, worked for Crocs. Insider baseball: much of the team behind the Crocs revival has now moved to Stanley.
Singles using AI for dating have increased 300% year over year. The future scares me, sorry to be a Luddite with it. Relatedly/unrelatedly, Hinge is working with Esther Perel to reimagine their prompts.
Disney and Universal are suing Midjourney.
Hate us all you want, but
and I stand on the fact that brands being gross and weird on the internet has lead to the current state of things. Deeply unserious. I do not want memes from my government.Harris Dickinson for Rhode is giving SKIMS social strategy. I’m also seeing a fresh crop of “skincare for men” brands pop up again, so what’s all that about?
˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ Little Treat Corner ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
Christina’s weekly report:
READING:
EATING: Caesar salad with buffalo chickpeas! And mango!
PLAYING:
OBSESSING: Over launching
.RECOMMENDING: Let your phone die.
TREATING: Extremely overdue for a manicure.
Nikita’s weekly report:
READING: The room.
EATING: Soft-boiled eggs with Chili Crisp.
PLAYING: The VO of my talk earlier this week in my head, over and over again.
OBSESSING: Over all the fun projects I’m working on.
RECOMMENDING: Ice cream.
TREATING: A manicure.
If you want to share a link, a tip, or just chat, leave a comment or email us at hello@blankprojects.co.
This is a perfect update thank u v much
ugh.. truly a perfect amalgamation of Fun and Weird Internet Things ty for this xx<3