News You Can’t Make Up, Unless You are Facebook

Stock Catalog, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Scrolling through the “News” section of Facebook section (yeah, I know), just killing time before the emails come rolling in and the first of my five conference calls starts, in between which I’ll be doing laundry and other light household chores and returning a call from my struggling 5th grader’s teacher (separate piece to follow on that, probably), I came across the following headline:

“Don’t Stress, There’s A Dupe for Clinique’s Black Honey Viral Lipstick.”

The f—?

Granted, this headline is from Harper’s Bazaar, not The Atlantic. But this link was situated among stories about General Milley’s Afghanistan testimony and R.Kelly’s Sex Trafficking conviction, sandwiched right in between an update on the Gabby Petito case and a Bloomberg piece on the “Debt-Limit Showdown.” It was presented as actual news. It is not news. It is not a timely bit of information about important current events; it’s a beauty and fashion article. (Also: “viral lipstick” sounds like something people should avoid.)

I could simply scroll on past rather than get irritated and write a whole rant about it, sure. Maybe I am just in a bad mood today, but I can’t wrap my head around a fully functional adult stressing about the availability of a particular lipstick. In my youngest, shallowest, most carefree and frivolous days, I can’t imagine a sold-out cosmetic causing me more than a moment of irritation, let alone “stress.”

I have stress, let me tell ya. I have the head of an entire sector of a very large state government currently breathing down my back at work. I have a fifth grader who lacks the most basic organization and time management skills and is struggling in school because of it. I have a kid with a broken foot, a dog with a nasty rash, and a husband with the worst case of plantar fasciitis any human being has ever suffered. I have bills, I have taxes, I have a house sale to get through. What I don’t have is time to stress about sold out lipstick.

It turns out this particular shade of lipstick got real popular because it was revealed that Liv Tyler wore it in some Lord of The Rings movie or something. I know this because I opened the link and read the damn thing. Now it is nowhere to be found and people are getting on waiting lists to be able to buy it. Enter Harper’s Bizarre to the rescue with a list of “dupes”, products supposedly similar enough to pass for the real thing.  Thank goodness for this kind of courageous problem solving.

Listen, I’m not saying I’m above make up and beauty products. I love them, even though I rarely have reason to wear them these days, since I work from home. I will put on an entire face of makeup just to go the grocery store, because that’s about the only place I go. But even when I wore it every day, I can’t recall a single time that I stressed about the availability of a cosmetic. Blessed is my life, that I don’t suffer so.

OK, so I’m being too harsh. This “article”, which is really a thinly veiled advertisement for the alternate products listed, serves its purpose for a specific demographic, no doubt. And there is a problem these days in which things many women enjoy are mocked as frivolous and stupid (like pumpkin spice lattes and “live laugh love” décor). I don’t mean to add to that. But this was the news tab, for Zuck’s sake.

I know that Facebook targets users with advertisements and other items that match their interests. I once wandered silently through the Star Wars Lego section of Toys ‘R Us and immediately had ads for them in my Facebook feed. But I can’t for the life of me figure out which of my online activities have led FB to think I am so stressed about lipstick (or that anyone would be) that I would consider that a news story. It says too much about the average Facebook user, or at least Facebook’s opinion of the average user.

I don’t care about this bullshit. Fix your algorithm, Zuckerberg.

UPDATE: The lipstick is back in stock! We can all heave a collective sigh of relief.