Kardashians

Last July, Albert and Anthony Saniger filed a lawsuit against a high-end California fertility clinic after their dreams of having a second boy were destroyed when their surrogate gave birth to a baby daughter. After already choosing male names and Gmail accounts for their future son, the couple had explicitly made clear that no female embryos were to be transferred into the body of their surrogate, who had experienced two failed cycles of in vitro fertilization before a successful pregnancy in 2020. To add to the trauma of being forced to live with a healthy baby girl instead of a male, the Sanigers were now forced to spend “staggering” amounts of money raising the two boys they wanted and a girl, all bought via costly fertility clinic services.

If you ask anybody under twenty about their life plan, social media will likely play some part in the answer. A friend’s nine-year-old son has just launched his own YouTube channel. My prepubescent cousins are telling their parents that TikTok is “the key to financial freedom.” When I was their age, my entrepreneurial skills went as far as selling single cigarettes to my classmates for loose change. The appeal of the influencer life isn’t hard to understand. Over the last decade, it’s been touted as the sexy, well-paid, democratic career of the future. A 2019 Morning Consult survey found that one in ten young people consider themselves “influencers.” But now these micro-celebrities are trading in their tripods and ring-lights for real jobs.

I’ve never been one for doing what I’m told. My first cigarette came soon after a family member voiced his disgust at “cancer sticks.” I have a DIY tattoo on my finger, which came after giving one to my friend with the same needle. In high school, the uniform code included “natural hair,” so obviously I dyed mine blue. My defense — “it’s the color of the sky!” — only led to harsher punishment. So, naturally, after being told not to get a nose job, that’s exactly what I did. I’ve never understood why those who have had nose jobs are so shy about it. They’re noticeable, painful, life-changing and fairly expensive.