July 14, 2025

[FIRST LOOK] In This Economy?: Armchair Economics, Recession Indicators, and the Politics of Desire and Consumption 💄

chat, are we cooked?

💫 a quick note on availability

I am once again open for new projects! Reach out if you’ve got something exciting coming up, or if you need some cultural insight into how to navigate marketing in a recession 👀

I promised that a perk of being a subscriber to this newsletter was first access to new projects, so here’s your first one! Presenting: In This Economy?: Armchair Economics, Recession Indicators, and the Politics of Desire and Consumption.

I always like to say that in the simplest terms, the four stages of a meme in culture tend to be:

1. Origin: TikTok or 4Chan (and, formerly, Twitter)

2. Dissemination: Gains traction on Reddit, perhaps warrants a BuzzFeed listicle

3. Mainstream Internet: Reposted to Facebook and Instagram

4. Legacy Media: The Wall Street Journal writes a think piece about it two months after its original conception

So even if you’re not very online like I am, you’ve probably seen the “recession indicator” trend, which is painted as yet another quirky Gen Z-ism by the WSJ, but I think reveals a lot about how the average person interprets economic signals. And what I learned from this project is that even economists struggle to reach a consensus about what a recession is. Which doesn’t mean that recessions are only about vibes, but that vibes affect how people spend money, and that’s essentially what the economy is.

In this project, I wanted to explore what “recession indicators” reveal about consumer priorities under financial pressure (even if the economy is actually fine and the pressure is self-imposed), because, like all memes, I really do think it’s that deep!

Almost all images in this project are oil paintings by Noah Verrier (many of them for sale!)—I found his work on Twitter years ago and was immediately captivated by it. I love seeing beloved junk foods juxtaposed with high art; I feel like it’s a great metaphor for the distance between public and private taste, and also a perfect visual representation of my approach to studying culture.

The final version goes live on LinkedIn tomorrow, so give it a like or comment a “💄” to let me know you’ve seen it. Enjoy!

Read it here.

💖 jenny

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