Scroll Art 11/27/23-12/2/23

art from tiktok and instagram reels that i liked

posted by TikTok user lara_cosima on Nov 28 (link) 

I reposted a TikTok by Lara Cosima von Dommersmarck six months ago, where she talks about feeling underdressed for a ball. It fueled a minor Twitter moment, with people talking about her generational wealth in pretty negative ways but also attempting to expose her family’s nonexistent Nazi connections. It got to a point where Lara had to make a public video explaining that her family does not have Nazi connections, which she still has as her pinned TikTok. The fun part is that her father is a very famous filmmaker, Florian Henckel von Dommersmarck, director of The Lives of Others, and he never received the old money European with shadowy fascist connections allegations that his daughter did. 

But in defense of the haters, Lara indisputably leans into her old money European connections as part of her TikTok brand. She’s playful about showing it off because it does well algorithmically. This TikTok I think illustrates that well, as she’s posed in front of a wall impossibly ornate for the American continent. She claims to have “befriended her security detail” but he's barely in the frame of the screenshot. I actually screenshot the frame of the video where he’s most visible. The irony of the security guy barely being in frame and him being used for content obviously calls into question the legitimacy of their supposed friendship, but I think Lara intends that irony that as part of her art. It’s funny to act like European elite so out of touch that she centers herself in a fancy outfit while claiming to make content about the security guard. 

While sometimes she’s making ironic posts like this, a good percentage of her posts really are about her status as an elite, always with her aristocratic walls in the background. She’s acting like an over-the-top version of herself. Many of the comments on her posts, not just on Twitter but also on TikTok, are rage and resentment about her elite status. But from the perspective of the algorithm, resentment towards someone else having nicer things than is the same gentler aspiration towards those nicer things. 

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posted by Instagram Reels user emilystravelguides on Nov 25 (link)

Aperol spritz is a funny drink to me. Matty Healy sings about it in the self-titled “The 1975” track on their 2022 album Being Funny In A Foreign Langauge “it’s cynical, this adderall, this vitriol, and young people drinking Aperol”. It’s a distinctly European drink, but as the  internet democratizes access to global culture it’s known by everyone, especially young people who spend more time on the computer. Instagram travel influencers post about Aperol as a symbol of Europe, but their American audience can understand them, and can order the drink if they go to a nice bar in a city or during their study abroad. 

I liked this post because a giant plastic bucket of Aperol spritz takes some of the European fruity but bitter dignity and sacrifices it for American excess. 

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posted by TikTok user aidasolta on Nov 15 (link) 

Oftentimes people who don't spend time on TikTok get distracted by the way TikTok users say “POV”. There is no point of view here even a little bit. It’s a video of the creator in the middle of the situation she’s describing. POV is used like the 4chan “tfw”, as a vocal filler to set up a story without just launching it immediately. If it has any relation at all to its original acronym, it’s that the creator is asking you to empathize with them and see things from their point of view. 

I tried, and I don't want to be too mean, but this time I don’t see it from her point of view. The idea of healing and awakening being a totally internal process completely unnoticeable by people around you, while simultaneously being something you want them to notice, like a new haircut or a new tattoo, is sort of sad. If you really healed and awoke why do you care what they think?  

Because I’m not being mean I won’t talk about Bali as Instagram girl vacation capital or how the way she’s screaming while the Bali lady holds her forehead reminds me of Midsommar. I think White Lotus Season 3 will address the Americans in southeast Asia question much more thoroughly without having to be mean to specific real people, so I’ll wait for that. 

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posted by Instagram Reels user polina_didun (link)

I moved to New York City yesterday, so I keep really loving posts like this. I’ve written a lot about New York lately and don't have anything more to say but yeah so true.

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Other TikToks I screenshot this week: