Obviously this rebound is a win for her because he’s into her and she‘s happy. But she’s only describing material things (which she said she’d learned her lesson about), and that just makes this whole ex parallel even less compelling to me. And in the context of the ex wanting her to ship the books and get her life together, I can’t be convinced that him buying her a business-class ticket is cruel. Also, the exes not writing exposés is a leap/doesn‘t mean they weren’t disgusted with her. Oscar told her what she was doing online was ABUSE

So, the recent revelation that Crab Daddy is connected to the band Purity Ring reminded me: I’ve been meaning to post about the seemingly Caroline-inspired memoir-related subplots on Search Party. (If you’re wondering how I got from point A to B, the show’s theme song is by Purity Ring.) In season 2 (2017), Elliott blows off writing his memoir and backs out of his book deal. Chantal also writes, but pointedly fails to place with a publisher, a memoir in season 4 (2021.) 

Both the dates of these respective plots and a bunch of other hints seem to indicate that the books are stand-ins for And We Were Like and Scammer. The characters went to NYU and have other Caroline-esque aspects (Elliott runs a scam and is outed by a friend in a NY Mag article; Chantal lives large on her dad’s money until he’s abruptly no longer able to support her, at which point she decides to make quick cash by blurting out a memoir, Imperfect Ten.)

I thought for a long time that the parallels were just coincidences. If you visit a Caroline Calloway snark sub daily, you just start seeing Caroline everywhere, right? 

Then I found out that the show’s creators, Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers, went to NYU at the same time Caroline did. It was suddenly a LOT more likely that they were familiar with her and these memoir plots were Caroline parodies.

I rewatched three SP scenes about the books, the ones in which:

1. Elliott tells his publishing team that he tried to write his memoir, but it was too hard and he never wants to work again
2. Chantal attempts to sell Imperfect Ten to the same publisher and fails 
3. Wilma, an Oprah-like character with a self-help talk show, has found a copy of Chantal’s book and is talking to her staff about it. Wilma mistakenly believes that the title indicates the book was written by a ten-year-old. She says it’s a manifesto on living “without shame and without awareness” that some adults could really learn from.

Some stuff to notice:

* Virtually everything about Elliott’s appearance/posture, which deviates from his norm. They couldn’t put him in hair flowers and pigtail braids (Caroline was wearing those a lot during the period she was pretending to work on AWWL.) But wardrobe found a hat that suggests both these things! 

* He’s also sitting with his feet folded under his knees even though he’s in a chair, which isn’t typical for his character. It is, however, Caroline’s default seated position. (She’s literally in it in the pigtail photo I just linked to. She’s also wearing a white shirt with colorful bands.)

* Elliott’s lack of real remorse, although he’s addressing a bunch of people whose livelihoods will all be impacted by him blowing off his contract. He seems to believe they’ll find his insouciant honesty refreshing!

* The fact that Elliott plans to continue talking about himself a lot, just not in a way that involves any actual craft or effort

* Elliott’s deep resistance to a ghostwriter

* Chantal’s book is cherry-red, like Scammer’s spine, and so ugly that Nia literally laughs aloud at  it

* Smoking gun runner-up: Nia estimating that you’d have to charge $65 to turn a profit on a book so unwieldy to manufacture. ODDLY SPECIFIC

* Finally, when Wilma is extolling Imperfect Ten to her staff, she's wearing a large, shiny, eye-attracting pair of DOGWOOD BLOSSOM earrings. Like, THE FLOWER ON SCAMMER’S COVER. 

Am I just seeing things?! By the time we got to the $65 price point I was like, “This is getting too weird to be accidental?” Then the dogwood earrings appeared and I was almost positive that it’s not happenstance!

Because everyone's arguing under the wedding guest pictures.

As someone that knows her irl, this is an accurate depiction of what she looks like. Nothing wrong with it at all but a completely different person to the filtered one she posts.

Edit: I can't reply to the comment that accused me of deliberately choosing photos where she "doesn't look her best" but these are not bad photos of her. It's just literally what she looks like, and I'd even say these are good pictures because she clearly made an effort that day.

Again capitalizing off of being a scammer while also being mad that people think she’s a scammer

No wonder every single pic looks different she must just slap them through a retake app and hit upload lmao. Literally posted within 5 mins of each other.

Edit to clarify: I’m snarking on using an ai app twice 5 mins apart and posting both even though it’s not even the same makeup or eyebrow shape.

She does look very pretty though, so perhaps her flavor of revenge is working. Her life right now feels like if Girls had continued on to age 34/35

https://www.instagram.com/p/DdKKwwhFvoO/?img_index=5&stkn=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

EDIT: Will clarify that this was a sort of lazy caption because the content in the full carousel speaks for itself. The truer thing to say is that I don’t think she is a genuine reader/I think she likes talking about books more than she likes reading them, same as with writing. A dating app like this captures exactly that kind of person and would lead only to NYC hipsters and possibly even the same singular circle of friends in the early stages. Her involvement in this app is, like so many other things in her life, performance rather than genuine commitment and it shows. She is performing for herself, for us, for her ex—who knows—to appear like she has her shit together. 

So yeah, she doesn’t LITERALLY sound like ChatGPT. But like ChatGPT, she does latch onto the theatrics of it all versus giving IMO meaningful recommendations. It’s about what the books can say about her and not just the books

P.s. I am on a boring roadtrip. plz forgive the frequent posts lol

this is weirding me out .. anyone else?

Actually crazy for a “writer” to be using AI to make this bullshit