The Cut - We’re All Shopping Addicts Now

I came to the internet for the shopping hauls. For post-recession tweens like me, every day could feel like Christmas morning if you knew who to follow on YouTube.

Early YouTubers like DulceCandy, who started her channel in 2008 at 20 years old and fresh out of the U.S. Army, built entire careers on shopping hauls. There was also college undergrad Elle Fowler (AllThatGlitters21), who joined YouTube in 2008, bringing along her sister Blair (JuicyStar07), still a high-schooler. Neither of these women were professional makeup artists, but, as part of the platform’s budding beauty community, they called themselves makeup “gurus.” DulceCandy, AllThatGlitters21, and JuicyStar07 were just girls, online, who loved to shop. They had every Urban Decay Naked palette (back when there were only three sets to choose from), every EOS lip balm, and every Essie color. They sat in their rooms, posed with crinkly shopping bags, and went over their finds, one by one, to show and tell us what they got from Lush, Sephora, Forever21, and Bath & Body Works.

There was always a reason to do a haul: Even after JuicyStar07 was done with school, she still posted back-to-school hauls. Is it Black Friday? Halloween? Spring? Christmas candle season? Fret not; no occasion was too small for a haul.

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She was simply the best. The surgeon general issued an advisory on the potential dangers of social media for children. Target caved to bigots. The EU is set to ban the destruction of unsold clothing as part of waste-reduction efforts. Springtime means lots of new baby animals in the wild, but you should not interfere with them (even if you’re worried they’ve been abandoned). We have questions about the Taylor Swift–Ice Spice collaboration. Many of us vastly overestimate the good that comes from plastic recycling. More summer-reading recommendations, this time from LitHub. Someone’s gotta find this guy and marry him. If you’re traveling this summer, here’s how not to be that guy on the plane. And it was nice while it lasted.

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