Moon

It is time to address the elephant in the room and to acknowledge, with clarity and honesty, that denying the resurgence of extreme thinness as a dominant beauty standard—and the growing normalization of self-starvation to the point of visible emaciation, whether facilitated by substances like Ozempic or other means—is, in itself, a form of complicity in the misogynistic system that produces it.

We are living in an era marked by increasingly authoritarian dynamics, where discrimination, racism, homophobia, sexism, and misogyny are not only persistent but, in many contexts, intensifying. Alongside this, there has been a tangible regression in hard-won rights and fundamental human protections. Within such a climate, the re-emergence of extreme thinness as an ideal is neither coincidental nor benign. The growing number of female celebrities conforming to—and embodying—this standard is not an isolated phenomenon. It reflects both the pressures of an industry rooted in competition and the structural demands placed upon women to mold themselves into ever-narrower definitions of acceptability in order to remain visible, relevant, and employable.

Yet beyond this surface-level explanation lies a more insidious function. The idealization of extreme thinness operates as a mechanism of control over women’s bodies—one that not only seeks to discipline but also to weaken. A body deprived is a body diminished, and a person consumed by an eating disorder is often rendered physically and psychologically fragile. It becomes profoundly difficult to assert oneself, to resist, or even to protect one’s own rights when one’s mental and physical energy is monopolized by survival, by obsessive fears of weight gain, and by the relentless internalization of unattainable standards. When the simple act of eating becomes a source of anxiety, guilt, and panic, the capacity to engage with the world beyond that struggle is inevitably compromised.

I speak from lived experience. I have been suffering from a restrictive eating disorder for nearly a decade, most notably Anorexia Nervosa. In 2019–2020, at the age of twenty-two, I weighed only 48 kilograms at a height of 1.68 meters. I had become a mere shadow of myself, both physically diminished and psychologically depleted. I was enduring a severe and profound depression, and one of my most consuming fears—indeed, my central obsession—was the possibility of gaining weight if I allowed myself to eat more than one meal a day.

Even the act of eating twice in a day would trigger overwhelming guilt, often spiraling into intense anxiety attacks. What might appear, from the outside, as a matter of discipline or control was, in reality, a relentless internal battle governed by fear, distortion, and compulsion. This illness is profoundly complex and insidious in the way it embeds itself into both mind and body. Above all, it renders those who suffer from it deeply vulnerable—stripping away not only physical strength, but also emotional stability and the capacity to feel safe within one’s own body.

This is not an abstract observation, but a lived reality. Restrictive eating disorders are deeply complex and insidious conditions that progressively erode both body and mind. They foster an environment in which vulnerability is not incidental but systemic—where individuals are pushed to their limits, physically weakened, emotionally destabilized, and trapped in cycles of control and self-denial that can persist for years. Such states do not empower; they exhaust, isolate, and endanger.

The cultural implications extend far beyond those directly affected. These standards are not merely imposed upon women within the entertainment industry; they are disseminated to a global audience, shaping perceptions and expectations on a massive scale. Young girls, adolescents, and women in the process of forming their identities are particularly susceptible to these influences. Confronted with images that equate extreme thinness with beauty, success, and desirability, many internalize these ideals, often at the cost of their own well-being. The result is a cycle in which harmful standards are continuously reproduced, normalized, and pursued—even when doing so entails significant risk to one’s health and life.

It is crucial to understand that such standards are, by design, unattainable without harm. They function not only to regulate bodies within elite industries but to extend that regulation outward, affecting as many women as possible through the quiet yet pervasive force of aesthetic expectation. The timing of this resurgence is not accidental. Cultural trends do not exist in a vacuum; they are shaped by broader social and political currents. In this sense, the normalization of extreme thinness must be recognized as part of a larger system in which control—particularly over women’s bodies—remains a central objective. Everything, in this regard, is political.

Equally concerning is the discourse that has emerged in response to these visible changes. Over recent years, attempts to raise concern about the alarming thinness of public figures—such as Ariana Grande—have often been dismissed under the guise of opposing “body shaming.” While the intention to avoid harmful commentary is valid, the silencing of legitimate concern creates a dangerous paradox: it prevents meaningful discussion about behaviors and standards that may be life-threatening. Similarly, claims that only a negligible percentage of individuals with anorexia die, or that deaths are predominantly due to suicide, are not only inaccurate but contribute to the minimization of a serious and often fatal condition.

To perpetuate such narratives is to participate—actively or passively—in the normalization of a trend that endangers both the individuals who embody it and the countless others who are influenced by it. It is to obscure the reality of eating disorders, to undermine efforts of awareness, and ultimately, to reinforce the very structures that sustain these harmful ideals. Silence, denial, and minimization do not protect; they enable.

Recognizing the danger of this moment requires both critical awareness and collective responsibility. The glorification of extreme thinness is not a neutral aesthetic shift—it is a reflection of deeper systems of control, and its consequences are real, measurable, and, too often, devastating.

The claim that eating disorders, particularly Anorexia Nervosa, rarely lead to death by starvation and are primarily dangerous only through suicide is not only factually incorrect, but also reveals a profound misunderstanding of their medical and societal gravity. Anorexia is consistently identified as one of the most lethal psychiatric illnesses, with mortality rates significantly exceeding those of the general population. These deaths are not confined to isolated or exceptional cases; they arise both from suicide and from the direct physiological consequences of prolonged starvation. To suggest otherwise is to deny the biological reality of what sustained malnutrition does to the human body.

This phenomenon cannot be understood without acknowledging its medical severity. From a strictly medical standpoint, starvation is not an abstract concept but a progressive and measurable process of systemic failure. The human body, deprived of essential nutrients, does not simply weaken—it undergoes a progressive process of systemic failure. The body, deprived of essential nutrients, begins to consume its own reserves, first depleting fat stores and eventually breaking down muscle tissue, including the heart. The heart, in particular, becomes dangerously vulnerable, as electrolyte imbalances can trigger fatal arrhythmias without warning. Organs gradually lose their capacity to function, the immune system weakens to the point where minor infections become life-threatening, and the brain itself undergoes structural and chemical changes. In this context, starvation is not a metaphor but a biological reality that can and does lead to death. Death, in such cases, is not sudden in appearance but is the inevitable culmination of a body pushed beyond its limits. To claim that individuals with anorexia “do not starve to death” is therefore a denial of well-established medical evidence.

Psychologically, anorexia cannot be reduced to a superficial desire for thinness. Reducing anorexia to a matter of personal choice or superficial vanity also ignores its profound psychological dimension. It is a complex and severe disorder characterized by distorted body perception, obsessive patterns of control, and an intense, often debilitating fear of weight gain. These cognitive distortions are not easily overridden by logic or external reassurance; they are deeply ingrained and self-reinforcing. The illness frequently becomes chronic, trapping individuals in cycles of restriction that progressively endanger their lives. In this sense, the high mortality rate is not incidental but intrinsically linked to the nature of the disorder itself.

Yet to fully understand the prevalence and severity of eating disorders, one must move beyond the individual and examine the broader sociocultural context in which they emerge. Contemporary beauty standards, particularly within industries such as Hollywood, fashion, and entertainment, have normalized an aesthetic of extreme thinness that often borders on visible undernourishment. The entertainment, fashion, and beauty industries play a central role in shaping collective perceptions of what is considered desirable. When public figures—especially women—are celebrated, rewarded, and idealized for bodies that reflect deprivation rather than health, they inadvertently reinforce a dangerous equation: that thinness is synonymous with beauty, success, and worth. This messaging does not remain confined to the screen; it permeates social consciousness and shapes the self-perception of those who consume it. This dynamic sends a powerful and often unspoken message: that thinness is not merely an aesthetic preference, but a measure of worth, discipline, and achievement.

Young girls and women, in particular, are exposed to these ideals at formative stages of identity development. The internalization of such standards has been consistently linked to body dissatisfaction, a well-documented risk factor for the development of disordered eating behaviors. Decades of research have established a clear link between media exposure, body dissatisfaction, and the development of disordered eating behaviors. What begins as comparison can evolve into restriction, as individuals attempt to align themselves with bodies that are, in many cases, maintained through extreme and unsustainable practices. And what is initially framed as self-improvement can gradually become self-destruction. The consequences are neither abstract nor rare; they manifest in rising rates of eating disorders and in the normalization of harmful attitudes toward food and the body.

Historically, the valorization of thinness has intensified alongside broader societal shifts, particularly from the late twentieth century onward. This trend is not neutral. It intersects with longstanding gender dynamics that position the female body as an object to be evaluated, disciplined, and controlled. Women are implicitly encouraged to take up less space, to equate self-worth with appearance, and to demonstrate virtue through restraint. Within this framework, eating disorders can be understood as an extreme manifestation of these pressures—a point at which societal expectations of discipline and desirability converge into self-destructive behavior.

This dynamic is further amplified in globalized entertainment industries such as K-pop, where rigid beauty standards are enforced with striking visibility. Idols are often subjected to intense scrutiny regarding their weight (are often subjected to intense pressure to maintain extremely low body weights) with extreme restrictive dieting practices openly acknowledged or implicitly encouraged and public scrutiny forming part of their professional reality. These images circulate internationally, shaping the aspirations and insecurities of a vast audience. The result is a feedback loop in which unrealistic and often unhealthy bodies are both produced and consumed, reinforcing the very standards that sustain them.

To minimize the lethality of eating disorders (or silencing concerns when a celebrity is visibly struggling with it), therefore is not merely a factual error; it is a form of complicity in a broader cultural system that trivializes suffering and obscures its causes. Eating disorders kill not only through the physiological consequences of starvation or the psychological toll of despair, but also through the social environments that normalize, reward, and perpetuate them. Any discourse that seeks to diminish their severity ultimately contributes to the conditions that allow them to persist.

What emerges from this analysis is a deeply concerning picture: one in which a deadly illness is not only misunderstood, but indirectly sustained by the very systems that shape cultural ideals. Eating disorders do not exist in isolation. They are fueled by a convergence of biological vulnerability, psychological distress, and social influence. To overlook their lethality—or to minimize their causes—is to ignore the structural forces that continue to place individuals, particularly young women, at risk.

In an era where images travel faster than ever and standards are more visible than ever before, the responsibility to question and challenge these norms becomes increasingly urgent. The normalization of extreme thinness is not a harmless trend. It is a public health concern, a cultural issue, and, ultimately, a matter of life and death.

If my post resonated with you and prompted reflection, I encourage you to explore the following videos, which examine this issue with even greater depth and clarity than I have been able to convey here :

I watched your Petal music video.

I struggled to make it through. And not because of the music.

In the video, you play Pepper, a young woman moving from one audition to the next, standing before men in suits whose predatory eyes dissect every inch of her body.

On your casting sheet, it reads: "Beautiful voice. Not attractive enough. She could stand to lose a few pounds." "Not good enough."

You wrote this scene. You are calling out an industry that objectified you.

Are you condemning it?

Undoubtedly. But while you place yourself at the center of that story, your body carries the weight of its message.

Your collarbones look as though they could pierce your skin. Your enormous eyes seem to swallow your tiny face, framed by sharply defined cheekbones.

Dear Ariana,

I'm not here to diagnose you. I'm here to say that what I see twists my stomach into knots. And that concern is not the same thing as stigma.

This is the trap of naming and shame. To name something is to risk reducing someone to it. But to remain silent is to normalize it.

Ariana, your body belongs to you. But you are a global pop star. That emaciated body is scrutinized by millions of teenage girls who are still learning how to see their own.

Your fans rush to defend you. A form of blindness disguised as loyalty. Anyone who expresses concern is immediately dismissed as a hater, a traitor to sisterhood. But standing up for someone doesn't mean refusing to see them. Sometimes, it means doing precisely the opposite.

I grew up in the 2000s—the era of heroin chic. When emaciated bodies were held up as ideals. When pro-ana blogs became places where young women suffering from eating disorders encouraged one another not to recover. We thought those days were behind us.

But Ariana, you're not the only one disappearing before our eyes. For the past two years, red carpets have been filled with increasingly fragile silhouettes, bodies so slight that their ankles look as though they could snap.

Today, algorithms do what our deliberate Google searches once did. Fifteen years ago, we had to seek this content out. Now, extreme thinness is imprinted directly onto our retinas through feeds saturated with hunger.

According to experts, the number of young women affected by eating disorders has quadrupled in just five years. The audience for Wicked is made up of little girls. Your image is what many of them aspire to become.

Dear Ariana,

I don't know what you're going through. No one truly does. But I refuse to pretend I don't see what is right in front of me.

This is what was done to you. It is what your creative team continues to do by dressing you in skin-tight tops with necklines that leave your rib cage impossible to ignore. And it is what we continue to allow to become the norm.

To raise the alarm is not to condemn someone. It is to say: I see you.

And I would rather see you differently.

It is to say that I am afraid for today's teenage girls, just as I was afraid for those growing up in the early 2010s—for myself, and for my friends.

For three years, pro-Palestinian activists have been ending up in police custody or on welfare for denouncing the absolute horror of the genocide in Gaza. Barbara Butch, Alain Chabat, Eva Ilouz. These people didn't even have the courage to sign an open letter for Palestine, for fear of losing funding. And yet, they lecture us on anti-racism. Really?

For three years, fascism has been on the rise; citizens and collectives have been organizing the struggle and solidarity, taking to the streets against the genocide in Gaza, police violence, and structural racism, sheltering Gazans, and boarding flotillas at the risk of their lives.

Remind me: where was this ruling class while the resistance was gathering steam—aside from Cannes or Cap Ferret?

The level of disconnection among this wealthy class is such that I hardly know where to begin. Perhaps with their abject sense of hierarchy and priorities? We haven't seen them express outrage even once in three years over a crime against humanity, yet suddenly they are up in arms when a privileged artist is boycotted.

Barbara Butch went to spin records in a genocidal state, just 200 km away from a genocide. At what point did that become a mere historical footnote to be sidelined? For whom? Certainly not for the Palestinian and Lebanese families whose loved ones were having their skulls smashed in while Barbara Butch sipped champagne with those supporting their extermination.

But who actually cares about colonized and bombed peoples in that Libération op-ed?

And as for the usual inversions: claiming anti-racists are the racists, or the distorted accusation of antisemitism. It is interesting to see that this "progressive" clique no longer even hides its use of far-right propaganda tactics that criminalize dissent. Pinkwashing, femonationalism: never have our struggles been so trampled upon and co-opted to defend systems of domination.

They will stop at nothing to conceal the fact that, perhaps, they turned a blind eye to apartheid for years. Their guilt is transforming them into everything they claim to denounce.

Our pro-Palestinian movements are largely composed of Jewish and queer people. In our ranks, the LGBTQIA+ flag proudly flies alongside the Palestinian flag and the "watermelon kippah." These celebrities would know this if they had come to protest alongside us even once. But they were too busy in Cannes, serving the interests of Bolloré.

While Barbara Butch was DJing for the powerful, Jewish activists for Palestine were chaining themselves to monuments in protest and burning their military conscription papers. Holocaust survivors, decolonial rabbis, writers, and Israeli activists—people who, instead of propping up power, were arrested for opposing it. Where was this charming crowd when it came to expressing outrage over that?

Their stances always target activists, never the powerful. For their indignation serves only one purpose: power and their own class interests.

This country is falling apart, and no one seems able to stop them.

We vote, and they disregard the outcome of our elections. We take to the streets, and they beat us and kill us. We sign petitions, and they ignore them, tossing them straight into the trash.

They force through laws that undermine our most fundamental rights, our freedoms, and our health, and nothing seems capable of stopping them.

How am I supposed to hold on to hope? How am I supposed to keep going?

I'm so scared...

Please... I'm begging you. Someone, please give me a reason to hold on, a reason to keep going.

"You're not like other girls."

It is remarkable how a single sentence can become a house one unknowingly spends years inhabiting.

A boy wrote those words to me on Facebook in 2013. I was sixteen.

The conversation itself has long since dissolved into the fog of memory, but the feeling those words awakened has remained almost untouched by time. It was pride—pure, exhilarating pride. The kind that rises through the body before thought has the chance to question it. Even now, if I linger long enough on that moment, I can almost feel it again.

For years, whenever a boy repeated those words, I accepted them as though they were a distinction, almost a title. Never once did I stop to wonder who these mysterious "other girls" were. More importantly, I never questioned the hidden assumption beneath the compliment itself: why had resembling them become the greatest disqualification of all?

Looking back, I realize the sentence functioned less as praise than as initiation.

It invited me into an invisible hierarchy.

Every society teaches its children how to belong. Sometimes through laws. Sometimes through rituals. More often through stories.

Mine taught girls that womanhood was divided into two opposing archetypes.

There were the girls who wore pink, spent time getting ready, talked endlessly about boys, cried too easily, loved makeup, embraced softness without apology.

And then there were the girls worthy of admiration. The girls who climbed trees. Who laughed louder than they cried. Who ate hamburgers without gaining weight. Who played Call of Duty. Who rolled their eyes at romance. Who insisted they preferred male company because "girls are too much drama." Above all, they possessed one sacred quality: they never inconvenienced men.

The distinction appeared harmless. It never was.

Culture has always excelled at disguising ideology as personality.

The "Cool Girl" was never simply a fictional character. She became a cultural aspiration, repeated so consistently across films, television, magazines and romantic comedies that an entire generation mistook performance for authenticity. She embodied a femininity that existed only insofar as it remained comfortable for men—a woman who was beautiful without seeming to try, intelligent without threatening authority, desirable without demanding reciprocity, emotional enough to appear human but never enough to require care.

She was, in many ways, masculinity's most elegant fantasy: a woman relieved of everything patriarchy had first condemned women for possessing.

And like all myths, she survived because enough people believed her to be real.

So I learned the lesson. No makeup. No nail polish. Sneakers instead of heels. Video games instead of beauty tutorials.

I believed I had discovered freedom. In reality, I had simply exchanged one costume for another.

Perhaps this is one of patriarchy's most subtle triumphs. It rarely asks women to reject themselves outright. It merely persuades them that only certain versions of themselves deserve affection.

Sociologists describe this process as internalized misogyny—the gradual absorption of a worldview in which women become both the subjects and the guardians of their own hierarchy. Systems of domination rarely sustain themselves through force alone. They endure because the oppressed eventually begin reproducing the rules themselves.

History repeats this pattern with unsettling consistency. Empires survive by convincing neighboring peoples that they are rivals. Authoritarian regimes fracture solidarity before they suppress dissent. Economic systems flourish by transforming colleagues into competitors. The logic remains unchanged. Isolation is easier to govern than unity.

Women were never merely taught to seek male approval. They were taught that approval was scarce. Scarcity changes everything. When dignity is imagined as a limited resource, another woman's existence begins to feel like subtraction rather than companionship.

By high school—and even more so afterward—I found myself surrounded almost exclusively by boys. I was the only girl. At the time, I mistook that solitude for significance. Whenever another girl entered our circle, something inside me tightened before I had words for it.

Fear.

Not because I disliked her. Because I recognized what she represented.

Comparison.

Who would they laugh with more? Who would they notice first? Who would they remember after the night was over? Every new woman arrived not as a stranger, but as evidence that my place could disappear. And fear has always been a remarkably persuasive teacher.

So I began participating in the ritual. I mocked girls who wore too much makeup. I called sexually confident women "easy." I dismissed girls who cried over boys as dramatic. I proudly repeated the sentence that countless women before me had learned to say:

"I just get along better with guys."

It sounded like confidence. It was survival.

What I understand now is that misogyny does not always emerge from contempt. Sometimes it grows from hunger. The hunger to be chosen. The hunger to become indispensable. The hunger to believe that love can be earned through distinction rather than received through mutual recognition.

Then came the winter of 2017. One ordinary evening. One unlocked apartment door. One conversation I was never meant to hear. The boys I considered my closest friends were speaking about me. Not about my thoughts. Not about my loyalty. Not about my humor.

My body. One after another, they admitted they had wanted to sleep with me. Someone laughed that I was "too hot not to stare at." The sentence itself mattered less than what it destroyed.

Entire identities sometimes collapse not because something new is revealed, but because an old illusion can no longer survive reality. After years of trying to distinguish myself from other women... After years of carefully sculpting an identity built around being different... I discovered I had never ceased belonging to the category I had spent so long trying to escape. To them, I was not an exception. I was simply another woman. Another body. Another fantasy. Another girl discussed after leaving the room.

The tragedy was never that they desired me. The tragedy was realizing I had spent years chasing admission into a place that had never existed. There had never been a seat waiting for me among them. Only a pedestal. And pedestals are simply cages built at a greater height.

That, perhaps, is the deepest misunderstanding surrounding the phenomenon we now call the Pick Me. People often imagine a woman who despises other women. But hatred was never the emotion that governed me. It was fear. Fear that another woman might reveal I was ordinary. Fear that I could be replaced. Fear that my worth depended upon remaining exceptional.

Psychology reminds us that we not only fear those who are different from us. We fear those who resemble us. Because resemblance dissolves the illusion of uniqueness. And if our value has been built upon being "the exception," every other woman becomes an existential threat.

The cruel irony is that I spent years believing other women were my competition, when in truth we had all inherited the very same wound. Each of us had simply learned different strategies for surviving it. Today, I hear "You're not like other girls" very differently. No longer as a compliment. But as a sentence that quietly asks a woman to accept the humiliation of her own sex in exchange for temporary approval. It is an invitation to exile disguised as affection. The greatest freedom I have ever found did not come from becoming unlike other women. It came from recognizing myself within them. Because forests are never made magnificent by producing a single exceptional tree. They become magnificent when every tree is allowed to reach toward the same sky without first needing another to fall.

What strikes me most, when I look back on those years, is that boys did not spend their lives trying to prove that they were unlike other boys. I have never heard a man proudly declare, "I only get along with girls; men are too much drama."I have never seen a boy glow with pride because a girl told him, "You’re not like the others."

Yet I have heard countless women say exactly that about themselves.

Why?

Because, unlike us, most men were not raised with the belief that their value depended on being chosen. They were raised with the belief that they were the ones who would choose.

This is not a criticism of individual men; it is an observation about the architecture of our socialization. From childhood, girls are often taught—through fairy tales, films, advertisements, magazines, and even the subtle expectations of family life—that love is a destination they must earn. The princess is selected. The heroine is noticed. The beautiful woman is rewarded with attention. Boys, meanwhile, are more often encouraged to act, pursue, decide, and evaluate. One is trained to become desirable; the other is trained to become the desirer.

The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu wrote about how societies inscribe power into our habits, gestures, and desires until those desires feel natural. Patriarchy is not only a set of laws or institutions; it is also a choreography of the imagination. It plants seeds so deeply that we sometimes mistake them for our own voice.

And I know exactly how seductive those seeds can be.

I know the feeling of superiority that comes with hearing, "You’re different." I know the small dopamine rush that arrives when a boy looks at you as though you have escaped the ordinary category of womanhood. I know the thrill of being the only girl invited to a party, the intoxicating sensation of being the chosen one, as if a spotlight had suddenly found you in a crowded room.

For a long time, I mistook that spotlight for love.

The older I become, the more I feel the need to apologize—to the girls I judged, to the women I dismissed, to those I silently looked down upon because they loved makeup, high heels, or simply their femininity without shame. I once believed that rejecting those things made me freer, more intelligent, more worthy of male respect. In reality, I was measuring myself with a ruler that had never been designed by me.

But I would also like to apologize to my younger self.

Because in my desperate attempt to be different from other women, I spent years depriving myself of their company, their solidarity, and sometimes even their tenderness. I stood outside the house of sisterhood, convinced that entering it would make me less valuable. I spent years trying to be chosen by men, and in doing so, I forgot to choose myself.

My twenties became a long process of dismantling inherited ideas—about internalized misogyny, feminism, patriarchy, and the ways women are taught to compete with one another for validation. I learned that feminism is not a magical purification ritual; it does not erase decades of conditioning overnight. You can understand patriarchal mechanisms intellectually and still discover their fingerprints on your desires.

That realization came back to me with startling clarity last week. I was in Toulouse visiting my best friend, a 33-year-old psychologist whom I have known for about eleven years. We were talking about eating disorders, something I have struggled with for a long time, when he said something that stopped me in my tracks. He told me that my obsession with thinness, my fear of weight gain, and the episodes of body dysmorphia I experience are deeply connected to the male gaze.

My first reaction was immediate denial. No, I thought, I’m a feminist. I know better than that.

And then he answered with a gentleness that made the truth impossible to avoid: "Every time you have a dysmorphia crisis or a panic attack related to food and your body, the first thing you tell me is: ‘I’m going to end up alone.’"

It felt like an earthquake beneath a floor I thought was stable.

He was right.

Even after years of reading feminist theory, after years of political commitment and personal deconstruction, a part of me still equated thinness with being lovable, and being lovable with being chosen by a man. My trauma history undoubtedly plays a major role in this, but that conversation was a profound awakening. It forced me to recognize that the need for male validation had not disappeared; it had simply changed shape. The difference is that I no longer direct that insecurity against other women.

Today, I am twenty-nine years old. My nails are done. I wear heels regularly. I give myself immaculate blowouts. I can spend three hours on the phone with my girlfriends talking about life, heartbreak, work, and yes, sometimes boys. I cry during romantic films, and I have absolutely asked a friend, "Does this skirt make my butt look good?"

In other words, I have become exactly what the 2013 version of me would have called "other girls."

And I think it is one of the most beautiful things that has ever happened to me.

Because I have discovered that femininity is not a prison when it is chosen freely. Softness is not weakness. Wanting to feel beautiful is not a betrayal of feminism. Loving fashion, makeup, or romantic stories does not make a woman shallow any more than loving football makes a man profound. The problem was never femininity itself; the problem was believing that femininity had value only when it was performed for male approval.

I still have work to do. I still want to uproot the old seeds that whisper, "If you are not thin enough, no man will want you." Those whispers were planted long before I had the language to challenge them, and healing is rarely the dramatic burning of a field. More often, it is the patient work of a gardener who returns, day after day, to remove what no longer deserves to grow.

The difference is that I am no longer doing that work alone. I now have women around me who reassure me when dysmorphia distorts my reflection, who remind me that my worth cannot be measured by a number on a scale, and who love me in ways that are not conditional upon my attractiveness.

For years, I believed that being chosen by men would save me from loneliness. Ironically, it was when I stopped building my identity around that pursuit that I finally found the companionship I had been starving for all along.

The younger me thought that becoming unlike other women was the path to freedom. The woman I am now has learned something far more liberating: I was never meant to stand above other women, nor apart from them. I was meant to stand among them—without competition, without performance, and without having to earn my humanity by being exceptional.

If you have been following the World Cup, chances are you were just as exasperated as everyone else watching the France–Paraguay match. Paraguay's relentlessly aggressive style of play, combined with an appallingly inconsistent refereeing performance, made for an infuriating spectacle. Yet the controversy did not end with the final whistle. Unable to accept defeat, some Paraguayan supporters chose to vent their frustration through racism.

Following Paraguay's elimination, Senator Celeste Amarilla posted a series of openly racist remarks targeting Kylian Mbappé on X. Among her statements were: "This idiot never even learned how to write. Instead of drinking his mother's milk, he drank coconut milk, and the most educated beings he ever listened to were chimpanzees. A Cameroonian born from colonisation desperately trying to pass himself off as French—resentful, nouveau riche, arrogant, and ugly. He spent the entire match terrified, just like the rest of his team. They didn't even score a goal; they only won through sheer luck."

There is no ambiguity here. These remarks are profoundly racist. It is worth reiterating an essential principle: racism is not an opinion. It is a criminal offence under French law. This was rightly underscored by French Minister for Sports Marina Ferrari, who publicly expressed her support for Kylian Mbappé and the entire French national team. Unfortunately, this is far from an isolated incident. Since the beginning of the tournament, the French squad has been subjected to a relentless stream of racist abuse online, originating not only from certain foreign supporters but also from segments of the French far right. One far-right influencer even declared that she would rather see France lose the World Cup than witness the French people celebrating what she described as the "benefits" of immigration.

As a native French citizen, I sincerely hope France wins this World Cup—and, in doing so, leaves Thaïs and her far-right allies seething.

Mbappé himself eventually responded on X, describing the senator as "a despicable woman unworthy of the office she holds." At the same time, he made a point of paying tribute to the Paraguayan people and congratulating their national team for what had been an admirable and historic World Cup campaign. He concluded with a powerful observation: "Through your recklessness and your unapologetic racism, the entire world has already forgotten the remarkable journey and historic achievement of your players throughout this World Cup."

But Celeste Amarilla was not finished.

Faced with Mbappé's response, she reached for her final line of defence: accusations of misogyny—and, in many respects, a textbook display of what is commonly referred to as white tears.

In a lengthy statement, she claimed that Mbappé's response amounted to "pure and blatant gender-based violence," portraying him as contemptuous and disrespectful toward Paraguayan players throughout the match—a version of events that bears little resemblance to what millions of viewers actually witnessed.

What makes this particularly striking is the complete inversion of roles. A Black man who responded to explicit racist abuse was suddenly recast as the aggressor, while the individual responsible for the racist attacks attempted to occupy the moral position of the victim. This dynamic closely resembles what scholars and activists have described as white tears: the tendency for racially privileged individuals to portray themselves as victims when confronted over their own racist behaviour, thereby deflecting accountability instead of engaging in self-reflection. Amarilla even threatened legal action against Mbappé on the grounds of misogyny—an extraordinary display of audacity.

It should also be noted that Celeste Amarilla has publicly described herself as being of mixed ancestry, with both Indigenous and Spanish heritage. That fact, however, does not negate the reality that she is widely perceived as white and benefits from white-passing privilege. Nor does it exempt her from reproducing racist discourse. The two are not mutually exclusive. In much of South America, long-standing systems of pigmentocracy continue to shape social hierarchies, with lighter skin generally conferring greater social privilege.

Ultimately, this episode illustrates a broader truth: gender does not grant moral immunity.

Women are fully capable of perpetuating racism, abusing power, and weaponising social justice language for self-preservation. When someone who occupies racial and political privilege invokes misogyny not to expose genuine sexism but to shield themselves from accountability for racist conduct, feminism is not being defended—it is being instrumentalised.

Being a woman does not erase privilege. Nor does it absolve prejudice.

A white, heterosexual woman will often occupy a significantly more privileged social position than a racialised man. Oppressions intersect; they do not cancel one another out. To acknowledge sexism should never require us to ignore racism, just as condemning racism should never entail dismissing sexism. Justice demands that we recognise both simultaneously, without allowing either to become a rhetorical shield against responsibility.

In many respects, Celeste Amarilla embodies the archetype commonly associated with a "Karen": someone who instinctively weaponises their own perceived vulnerability, reframes accountability as victimhood, and attempts to silence legitimate criticism by portraying themselves as the injured party.

Being a woman is not, and never will be, an excuse for being racist.

This episode inevitably brings to mind the Central Park incident of May 2020, better known as the Cooper case. Christian Cooper, a Black comic book writer and avid birdwatcher, politely asked a white woman to leash her dog in an area where doing so was mandatory to protect local wildlife. Rather than complying, she called the police while deliberately performing fear, falsely claiming that an African American man was threatening her.

In that case, the truth prevailed because the encounter had been recorded.

History, however, reminds us that such stories have not always ended without tragedy.

One of the most infamous examples remains the murder of Emmett Till in 1955. At just fourteen years old, the Black teenager was abducted, brutally tortured and murdered after being falsely accused of sexual misconduct by a white woman, who would later admit that her allegations had been fabricated. His killers were acquitted. Their impunity became one of the defining symbols of racial injustice in the United States and helped galvanise the modern Civil Rights Movement.

Returning to the present controversy, Senator Celeste Amarilla's open letter is little more than a confused collection of contradictions. She professes her love for France—although, judging by her own words, that affection appears to extend primarily to Saint-Tropez and Courchevel rather than to ordinary French people. She even argues that France, as a supposed "nation of knights," ought to be ashamed of the conduct of its star striker.

Such rhetoric feels less like historical analysis than an idealised national myth. It romanticises an imagined France while conveniently overlooking the realities of colonialism, overseas territories, migration, and the complex history that explains why the French national team reflects such remarkable diversity today. To praise France while rejecting the very historical processes that shaped contemporary French society is not patriotism; it is selective memory.

This controversy stands as a revealing illustration of how brazen racism has become in 2026. It also demonstrates how, in certain circumstances, gender can be cynically invoked as a shield against accountability. Intersectionality teaches us that systems of oppression overlap, interact and accumulate; it does not teach that belonging to one marginalised group automatically absolves someone of prejudice toward another.

Too often, some white women invoke sexism as a means of deflecting criticism for racist behaviour. Feminism should never become a refuge from accountability, nor should gender solidarity be exploited to excuse racial hostility.

That is precisely what Celeste Amarilla attempts to do. After publicly attacking a Black man through language steeped in colonial racist tropes, she now seeks to reframe herself as the victim by appealing to feminist solidarity. Yet solidarity cannot be unconditional. It cannot be demanded while simultaneously denying justice to others.

There can be no solidarity with racism.

Standing against sexism and standing against racism are not competing commitments. They are inseparable moral principles. One cannot credibly invoke the language of equality while reproducing racial dehumanisation.

And as for the World Cup, I sincerely hope France lifts the trophy.

There is also a striking irony in watching far-right women invoke feminism as a shield whenever they are held accountable for racist behaviour, while simultaneously being among the first to unleash online harassment against women whose politics they despise.

One need only read the replies beneath some of their posts.

I am reminded of an incident in which a far-right influencer shared a photograph of a left-wing Member of Parliament asleep on an aeroplane. It was an utterly ordinary moment—someone exhausted enough to fall asleep during a flight. Yet the torrent of comments that followed was staggering in its cruelty. The MP was mocked, dehumanised, ridiculed for her appearance, her weight, her body, and even her basic worth as a human being.

This is worth reflecting upon.

When you vote for the far right, you are not merely endorsing a political programme. You are also contributing to a political climate. A climate in which a simple photograph of a sleeping woman becomes collective permission to humiliate her. A climate in which political disagreement effortlessly gives way to personal degradation. A climate in which a woman's body becomes more worthy of discussion than her ideas.

And yet these same voices so often present themselves as defenders of women.

But defending women does not mean instrumentalising women's rights only when they can be weaponised against Muslims, immigrants, political opponents, or other convenient targets. Nor does it mean abandoning every principle of dignity the moment a woman belongs to the "wrong" political camp.

At that point, there is no political criticism left.

No engagement with ideas.

No intellectual disagreement.

No substantive argument whatsoever.

Only her face. Her body. Her weight. Her appearance. Gratuitous humiliation replacing democratic debate.

This is not an isolated excess committed by a handful of individuals. It reflects a recurring pattern visible across parts of this political ecosystem. Whenever a woman is perceived as ideologically undesirable—whether because she is left-wing, feminist, Muslim, racialised, overweight, poor, or simply unwilling to conform—the same instinct repeatedly emerges: attack her appearance rather than answer her arguments.

Contempt becomes a substitute for reasoning.

Dehumanisation becomes easier than debate.

This is the social climate cultivated by an obsession with "leftists," "woke people," supporters of the left, women who refuse ideological conformity, bodies deemed unacceptable, and individuals considered socially or culturally inferior.

At some point, those who support the far right should ask themselves not only what policies they endorse, but also what political culture they are willing to normalise.

Do not look solely at polished campaign posters.

Do not listen only to carefully rehearsed speeches.

Do not judge exclusively by tailored suits, television appearances, or election slogans.

Look instead at the activist base.

Read the comment sections.

Observe how some people behave when they believe they are speaking only among themselves, free from public scrutiny.

A political movement must ultimately be judged not only by what it proclaims, but also by what it consistently tolerates.

When a movement allows the dehumanisation of a woman over nothing more than a photograph of her asleep on an aeroplane, it forfeits any moral authority to lecture others about respect, civilisation, feminism, or traditional values.

Pay close attention to the company a political movement keeps.

Some victories are won with the legs. Others are won with the soul.

France's match against Paraguay offered more than a footballing triumph; it revealed one of the highest virtues of leadership: composure.

For the French team did not win only once that evening.

They defeated an opponent.

But more importantly, they defeated that quieter, more insidious adversary that lives within us all—the impulse of wounded pride, the instinct that, under pressure, tempts us to become smaller than ourselves.

Provocation is never merely a reckless challenge, a careless insult, or an unnecessary foul. It is an attempt at exile. It seeks to uproot us from our own center, to force us out of the territory that truly matters: our inner ground.

To provoke another is to whisper, "I will decide the face you wear. I will make you impatient. I will make you violent. I will make you betray yourself."

This is why composure is such a profound virtue.

Not because it renders us incapable of feeling offense, but because, in the very heart of conflict, it preserves what is most deeply human: the freedom not to obey our first instinct.

The player who remains calm does not feel less than everyone else.

If anything, they often feel more.

They feel the injustice.

They feel the humiliation.

They feel the burning desire to retaliate.

But alongside emotion, they awaken another faculty—the quiet intelligence of discernment.

We often mistake strength of character for immediacy: responding instantly, striking back harder, refusing to let anything pass unanswered.

Yet there exists a greater strength, one that rarely demands applause.

It is the strength to refuse to let offense become the author of our actions.

Self-restraint is not surrender.

It is sovereignty.

It is the quiet act of reclaiming ownership over oneself when someone else is trying to seize it.

Against Paraguay, France did not merely protect a lead on the scoreboard.

They protected something infinitely more precious: a way of inhabiting the world.

They refused the moral defeat that consists of becoming the very person another hoped to create through anger.

Character is not measured solely by what we dare to do.

It is measured just as profoundly by what we refuse to become.

On that night, France demonstrated that true champions are not simply those who know how to win.

They are those who remain faithful to themselves when every provocation invites them to abandon who they are.

Because greatness is never defined only by victory.

It is defined by the dignity with which victory is pursued.

And France showed that it possesses that rarest quality of all: character.

Also, your point about people wanting to hate on a person so much that they disregard any apology or growth in said person is so true, and it's sad to see that this has happened with Noah. But it is good seeing him living his life now, glad he has friends and family helping to support him during that tough time.

The few people who are still trying to grab at straws are realising it is pointless and will hopefully give up soon and let Noah live his life.

Thank you so much for your kind words.

I think one of the saddest things about internet culture today is that many people no longer know the difference between accountability and eternal condemnation. They are not the same thing.

Historically, every healthy justice system, every philosophy of moral growth, and every educational model has been built on the same principle: a person must face the consequences of their actions, but they must also be allowed the possibility of learning from them. Without accountability, there is no growth. Without the possibility of growth, there is no justice—only punishment for punishment’s sake.

What has always struck me about Noah's situation is that many people seem completely uninterested in the very thing they claim to want: reflection, education, and change.

When someone doubles down, refuses to listen, mocks the people they hurt, and continues harmful behavior, criticism is not only justified but necessary. However, when someone apologizes, acknowledges their mistake, publicly clarifies their position, and demonstrates through their actions a willingness to learn, yet still receives years of harassment, mockery, death threats, homophobia, and constant attempts to dehumanize them, then we have moved far beyond accountability. At that point, the conversation is no longer about justice. It becomes something else.

There is a psychological phenomenon in which a person becomes a symbolic vessel onto which people project their frustrations, anger, fears, and moral anxieties. The individual ceases to be viewed as a human being and instead becomes a screen upon which everyone projects whatever they wish to fight. I believe Noah has often been treated this way.

What also gives me hope, however, is exactly what you mentioned: he appears to be living his life. He has friends. He has family. He continues to work. He continues to laugh. He continues to show up. And that matters more than many people realize.

Human beings do not heal through public approval. They heal through connection. Through friendship. Through love. Through the quiet certainty that they are more than the worst thing strangers have ever said about them.

The internet often resembles a storm: loud, chaotic, and convinced of its own permanence. Yet storms are deceptive. They make us believe the sky has always been dark and always will be. Then one day, almost without noticing, the clouds move on.

That is why I rarely worry about those still desperately searching for new reasons to hate him. Their arguments become weaker because they are no longer responding to who Noah is today. They are fighting a frozen image of someone they decided he was years ago.

Meanwhile, real life keeps moving. People grow. Careers evolve. New projects emerge. New audiences arrive. The world continues to turn.

And in the end, history tends to remember those who kept building their lives far more than those who spent years trying to tear someone else's down.

So yes, I sincerely hope those people eventually move on. Not only for Noah's sake. But for their own.

Once again, thank you for your very insightful response. Not gonna lie, I came back to this a lot over the past weeks every time foahs pissed me off lol (and the last time was just hours ago, I’m afraid).

I particularly love the way you worded these (and many more, too):

“Over time, the emotional excitement of the theory becomes more important than reality itself.” “The issue is when real individuals lose the right to exist outside the interpretive machinery of the ship itself. When every independent action becomes absorbed into a romantic narrative, personhood quietly starts dissolving into symbolism.” “And sociologically, this often happens when one figure becomes unconsciously positioned as the emotional axis of a fandom conflict. People stop reacting proportionally to behaviors and instead react symbolically to what that person represents within the larger narrative war.” “Many people are not merely attached to the idea of a relationship itself; they are attached to what the relationship emotionally represents for them. Hope. Validation. Identification. Fantasy. Healing. Visibility. Desire. Sometimes even proof that their interpretation of the world was “correct.”

And thank you for all the compliments you gave me. Though, to be frank, I also don’t really know what to do with compliments. It did feel good, but a part of me immediately went “well, i’m scorpio sun virgo moon and whatever so that’s probably why i guess it’s nothing special no need to talk about it.” It’s like I’m way too used to my dark side to see whatever bright things people may point out. And if there is, then it must be something outside of me; it’s not inherent, and I have no control over it. At least, that’s what it feels like. It’s always so easy to admit that I’m self-absorbed or obsessive, rather than some nice qualities that people praise me for.

Speaking of control, I find what you said about uncertainty and ambiguity really resonating.

Recently, I saw quite a lot of strawpages where Noah fans were kinda fretting about his projects and all that jazz. One person even dramatically announced their “departure” or something like that over this issue (I don’t know what else to call that lol). Like sure, I got it, I got what they felt and why they are so worried about it. This phase of uncertainty and being in the dark is very uncomfortable, especially with all the scrutiny and mocking. But as I said, introspection helps a lot. This time last year, people were making fun of that “RUN” scene in the date announcement teaser all over social media, and voilà, it turned out to be one of the few highlights of the whole season. Five months ago, I received a futureme letter that I wrote in January 2024, when filming just started. Part of that letter didn’t age quite well (past me was optimistic about byler and wiseone lol), but the part about Noah did, like beyond my humble expectations at the time. So maybe in one year, we will all have something to celebrate and cheer over, and the current anxiety will seem so silly.

Also, I think people’s perception of time can be messed up a bit when they spend way too much time on social media, ‘cause mine sure did. I remember Noah said something about “there is good stuff coming, but I can’t say what” at the Paris con, and when I realized that was just about 2 months ago, I was taken aback. ‘Cause somehow, after all the discourses and people dooming all over the place, my brain registered that comment as something of a distant past. But things move differently in real time, don’t they?

When I saw people ask “how do you guys deal with all the hate?”, there is nothing I want to say more than “Just be patient. Only time can tell.” It is one of the three sayings that I try to live by; the others are “Life is too short for this shit” (when I feel like fighting on the internet) and “The only thing I’m certain about life is that it’s full of surprises.” The first two may sound a bit contradictory, but at the end of the day, it’s all about learning to sit with the knowledge that there are so many things beyond my grasp, and I just gotta control what I can control, aka my enjoyment. But that’s still an ongoing endeavor.

That being said, I spent the entire yesterday afternoon pulling tarot cards about Noah’s projects, and it was fun lol. I’m new to this, so I can only stick to the cards’ basic meanings on Google. Even if it doesn’t feel as good or certain as reading the letter from past me, it offers a bit of temporary comfort and conviction. Of course, there are a lot of external factors, like what you said about Hollywood. However, at the risk of sounding way too idealistic and hopeful, I think he’ll be more than fine. He has the qualities to thrive through all this, especially that endearing competitiveness. As long as we have the drive to move forward, to improve our best qualities and hone our skills, life can take some pleasantly surprising turns.

Hope you will have a great week ahead!

Dear Anon,

First of all, I am truly sorry for taking so long to reply to your message. Because your ask was so thoughtful and substantial, I wanted to give it the time and attention it deserved rather than answering hastily. Life has simply been very full lately—work, moving, intensive therapy, and all the unpredictable highs and lows that come with being human. There were days when I simply was not in the right emotional or mental space to sit down and engage with your words properly. But here I am at last, and I am genuinely glad to be responding now.

I am also very touched that my previous response stayed with you over the past weeks. Knowing that something I wrote offered even a small amount of comfort, perspective, or companionship during moments of frustration means more to me than you probably realize. Those words came from a place of sincerity, reflection, and lived experience.

As for astrology, I must confess that I am probably the wrong person to ask. When you wrote, “well, i’m scorpio sun virgo moon and whatever so that’s probably why i guess it’s nothing special no need to talk about it.” I smiled because I genuinely have no idea what any of that means. I know I am a Pisces and that is essentially where my astrological expertise begins and ends. The whole sun, moon, rising, constellation of cosmic paperwork remains a complete mystery to me.

What I do understand, however, is the tendency to dismiss our own strengths while effortlessly recognizing our flaws.

Psychologically speaking, many people find it far easier to identify their wounds than their virtues. We become familiar with our insecurities because we carry them every day. They sit beside us like old roommates. Our strengths, meanwhile, often feel invisible because we inhabit them constantly. We assume they are ordinary simply because they belong to us.

A compassionate person rarely wakes up thinking, "How remarkable that I am compassionate." An insightful person rarely marvels at their own insight. The qualities that come naturally to us often appear mundane from the inside. That is why compliments can feel so strange. When someone points out something beautiful in us, our instinct is often to explain it away, attribute it to circumstance, luck, upbringing, astrology, or anything else that prevents us from accepting the possibility that perhaps those qualities genuinely belong to us. And yet sometimes the most difficult form of humility is not criticizing ourselves. It is accepting that there may be something good within us.

I also deeply relate to what you said about uncertainty and control. If there is one lesson therapy has been trying to teach me for years, it is that uncertainty is not a problem to solve but a condition of existence. Human beings are storytellers by nature. Our brains are prediction machines. We constantly try to transform the unknown into something knowable because uncertainty feels like standing in a dark forest without a map. The problem is that life has never promised us a map. Most of the suffering we experience does not come from uncertainty itself. It comes from our desperate attempts to eliminate it.

That is why your reflection about Noah's future resonated with me so much. To be completely honest, I do not understand why so many people are panicking about his career. The reality is that he has just come out of one of the largest promotional periods of his life with Stranger Things. He finished university, attended graduation ceremonies, participated in interviews, conventions, industry events, fashion appearances, and public engagements. People often forget that being a public figure is itself a full-time job.

More importantly, acting careers do not operate on internet timelines.

Social media has distorted our perception of time so severely that two months can feel like two years.

A film that begins shooting next year may have been discussed behind closed doors for months already. An actor can be preparing for a role long before the public knows it exists. Auditions happen privately. Negotiations happen privately. Training happens privately.

The audience only sees the final chapter of a story whose first chapters were written in silence.

And silence is not inactivity. Silence is often preparation.

I think part of the anxiety comes from comparisons with his former co-stars. But comparison is one of the least reliable ways to measure success because every actor wants different things.

Some actors pursue blockbusters.

Some pursue prestige projects.

Some pursue independent cinema.

Some pursue artistic fulfillment.

Some pursue financial security.

Some pursue all of the above.

We have absolutely no idea what Noah's personal ambitions are beyond the fragments he chooses to share publicly.

Personally, I have never gotten the impression that he is solely chasing visibility. If anything, he strikes me as someone who wants to be taken seriously as an actor. That often means making choices that are less immediately visible but potentially more meaningful in the long term.

The entertainment industry is filled with examples of actors whose careers looked quiet for a year or two before suddenly exploding in unexpected directions.

History is littered with careers that seemed stalled right before they flourished. Life has a peculiar habit of growing roots underground before producing flowers above the surface.

That is why I smiled when you mentioned the infamous "RUN" discourse. It is such a perfect example. People mocked it relentlessly. Months later, many of those same people praised it.

The internet often behaves like a courtroom where verdicts are announced before the evidence has even arrived.

Patience rarely goes viral. Reaction does. Outrage does. Mockery does. But reality moves at a different pace than social media. Reality is slower. Reality is quieter. Reality usually gets the last word.

As for the people constantly mocking Noah, I honestly find it difficult to take them seriously.

Most people who spend their days obsessively monitoring someone they dislike are not demonstrating strength. They are demonstrating fixation.

Psychologically, that kind of behavior often says more about the observer than the observed.

A fulfilled person generally does not wake up every morning wondering how to dedicate more energy to someone they claim not to care about.

The people building something meaningful in their lives are usually too busy living to spend all day policing the existence of strangers.

Which brings me to the sayings you mentioned.

I absolutely love them.

"Only time can tell."

"Life is too short for this shit."

"The only thing I'm certain about life is that it's full of surprises."

To me, they are not contradictory at all. In fact, they seem to express the same philosophy from different angles.

One teaches patience.

One teaches perspective.

One teaches humility.

Together they remind us that life is far too unpredictable to spend all our energy trying to control every outcome.

My father used to tell me something very similar whenever I was anxious:

"Fear does not prevent danger."

And the older I get, the more I realize how true that is. Worrying about tomorrow does not grant us mastery over tomorrow. It only steals pieces of today. That does not mean we should stop caring. It means we should learn the difference between caring and carrying. One nourishes us. The other exhausts us.

As for the tarot cards, I cannot say I personally put much faith in them. I had a rather unpleasant experience years ago that left me skeptical. But I understand why people find comfort in symbolic practices.

Humans have always searched for meaning in uncertainty. Whether through religion, philosophy, literature, astrology, tarot, art, or storytelling, we are constantly trying to illuminate the darkness ahead with whatever lantern we have available. And sometimes the value is not in predicting the future. Sometimes the value is simply creating a space to reflect upon it.

For what it is worth, I still stand by what I told you before. Noah is young. He is talented. He has already demonstrated remarkable emotional depth as an actor. Millions of people around the world have seen that. Directors have seen that. Producers have seen that. Casting directors have seen that. And perhaps most importantly, he has something that cannot be taught: genuine passion for his craft.

Talent opens doors. Hard work keeps them open. Passion makes people keep walking through them.

None of us can know exactly what the future holds for him. But if there is one thing life has taught me, it is that reality is often far more surprising than our fears. So perhaps, a year from now, we will look back at this period of uncertainty the same way you looked back at that old FutureMe letter—with a smile, a little embarrassment at how worried we were, and the realization that life was quietly preparing something we could not yet see.

Thank you again for your message, Anon.