March 21, 2025

By Laura Pitcher

Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos: Getty

“I think all my hair is falling out” is how Beth, 26, recounts multiple phone calls to her mom through 2021 and 2022. “I’m going crazy.” She had experienced some post-COVID-related shedding and was seeing baldness everywhere. “I hadn’t thought about all my hair falling out until my phone started giving me targeted ads,” she says. “Then my whole feed became people doing Pilates, people brushing their hair obsessively, and people oiling their scalp.” Because Beth’s immune system was at “super-low” after having COVID, she says she was more vulnerable to the message that something was fundamentally wrong and her (perfectly normal) shedding was a signal for something deeper. She grew fearful of washing her hair and began obsessively asking her partner, friends, family, hairdresser, and even a doctor. “Am I balding?” They all resoundingly said "no," but her algorithm said otherwise.

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images

By Madame Clairevoyant

ADVERTISER CONTENT

Every product is independently selected by editors. If you buy something through our links, New York may earn an affiliate commission. For more shopping advice, sign up to get the Cut Shop newsletter every Friday.

Without the DOE, Trump says the Small Business Administration will take on handling student loans. At the same time, the SBA is cutting staff by over 40 percent. What could go wrong? Meanwhile, as big law rolls over for the administration, at least one Skadden associate has had enough. Yeah. The internet's not very fun anymore. But it still has its moments. TGIF.

ADVERTISER CONTENT

A biweekly newsletter interrogating modern family life, written by Kathryn Jezer-Morton.