Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Like Charli xcx, Lizzo, Rosalía, and many others, Troye Sivan has officially joined the fray on Substack, the internet’s hottest newsletter platform (that seems more and more like a good ol' fashioned social media platform these days… but I digress).
In his inaugural post, Sivan reflects on the realities of aging. It may be an eye-roll inducing topic — given the fact that Sivan is 30 and generally modelesque — but one can understand the intensity of beauty standards for the famous. In the piece he cites one “random sicko fucko plastic surgeon” who detailed all of his many supposed flaws in an unhinged Instagram Reel.
The entry is written in a tone that is either artfully slapdash or a touch amateur depending on how you look at it and your own writerly capabilities, with creative grammar and post-modern capitalization deployed throughout. But what stands out most is its earnestness and sense of play.
"I’m historically famously skinny, and i’m not THAT skinny anymore," Sivan writes. "I’m historically famously twinky (I am still the google search result image for ‘twink’), and i’m not THAT twinky anymore. Oy vey." I let out a small laugh; my para-social heart fluttered.
Sivan's writing has some personality and flavor! And it aligns with his lyric writing which particularly shined on 2023's Something To Give Each Other ("One Of Your Girls" still has some of the strongest pop bars of the 2020s).
As the pop star/Substacker trend undoubtedly continues, I find such moments of written candor a relief from the eerie spectatorship of TikTok GRWMs and boringly casual livestreams. So let us honor it when it's charming. Troye Sivan, I'm charmed, and subscribed!
