CAMPS

Corporate Milestones

There is a certain internet celebrity whose “blog” I “follow.” While she fawns over headbands, giggles about boys, and has 3-hour phone chats with her parents — to name a few things I haven’t done in a very long time — I find myself compelled to read on.

It’s because she is approaching a milestone that I have reached but have not yet admitted it to myself.

It’s called The End of Cute.

The End of Cute is marked by several realizations:

1. You can no longer get through life on your cuteness alone. Yes, perhaps you have other positive attributes (actual talent, brains, sense of humor, etc.). Even so, it’s likely you held on to your own cuteness as a backup strategy. Even if you failed, you still had your innate cuteness to get you through the hard times. It was a given.

2. Cuteness no longer trumps all. There were things you did — sleeping through the night with your eye makeup on, having a little too much to drink, not returning an email for several days for no good reason — that, considered through the lens of cuteness, made them seem acceptable. The End of Cute means that the sugar-coated veneer of your life is gone. It’s not cute to have bad hygiene, make an ass of yourself, and not get back to people. Considered in the harsh light of day, it’s just bad form. Grow up.

3. Related to #2, there are more important things than cuteness. Cuteness just isn’t even fun anymore. It’s empty, like eating too many pixie stix. Why would you do that to your body? You know it makes you feel terrible. Just have some protein and steamed vegetables. You have real shit to take care of now. Being cute is a vapid pursuit. Choosing to hang on to cuteness past its prime is a desperate move. Others will see it before you do. This is not good.

I turned 32 on Wednesday. I should have stayed home, had a simple dinner, drank a glass of anti-oxidant rich red wine, played parcheesi and kissed my children to bed. Except I don’t know how to play parcheesi, I don’t have any kids, and I live in a third-floor rental walkup in Brooklyn. So I blew my hair out and sang karaoke until 3am and took a cab home.

I woke up this morning feeling relatively frisky but knew when I looked in the mirror that The End of Cute had officially arrived.

So what do I do now? It’s confusing. I’m not sure what happens after The End of Cute. The Trough of Despair? I need to check my Gartner Hype Cycle.

Alumnae Weekend: Why the Internet is Broken

1. Email arrives from alumnae director of my high school.

2. “Click on this link to see photos from alumnae weekend!”

3. The URL is nameofmyhighschool.org/site16.php. Really?

4. The page is the alumnae page of the school website. In the middle of some jibber-jabber text, there is a link (same size as body copy) that says “Click on this link to see photos from alumnae weekend!”

5. The link pops a 8.9 MB PDF with photos embedded in it. The document name contains the words “Slide Show.”

WHAT JUST HAPPENED???

Updated 5:19pm Wait, here’s the clincher! I didn’t read carefully enough. The body of the email (entirely written in cursive) includes these instructions in place of #2 above: “Copy and paste the address below to view some photos from Alumnae Weekend 2009.” ???????