TY - BOOK AU - King,Rax TI - Tacky: love letters to the worst culture we have to offer SN - 9780593312728 PY - 2021/// CY - New York PB - Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC KW - King, Rax. KW - Popular culture KW - United States KW - 21st century KW - Young women KW - Anecdotes KW - lcgft KW - Essays N1 - "A Vintage Books original"--Title page verso; Six feet from the edge -- Ode to warm vanilla sugar -- Vignettes from hot topic -- Never fall in love at the Jersey Shore -- You wanna be on top? -- Loss of the American shopping mall -- Three small worlds -- The burial of Samantha Jones -- Exactly as much spinach-and-cheese dip -- On sexting -- Whatever it takes, I know I can make it through -- The Sims and the heart-shaped bed -- Love, peace and taco grease -- It's time to let meat loaf into your embarrassing little heart N2 - "TACKY is about the power of pop culture -- like any art, low or high -- to imprint itself on our lives and shape our experiences, no matter one's commitment to "good" taste. These fifteen essays are a nostalgia-soaked antidote to the millennial generation's obsession with irony, putting the aesthetics we've learned to hate to love -- frosted tips and glosses, Sex and the City, The Cheesecake Factory -- into kinder and sharper perspective. Each essay revolves around a different maligned (and yet, Rax would argue, vital) cultural artifact and its entwinement with Rax's millennial coming-of-age: an essay about the gym-tan-laundry exuberance of Jersey Shore morphs into an excavation of grief over the death of her father, who loved the show; in another, Guy Fieri helps her heal from an abusive relationship. The result is a collection that captures a personal and generational experience with clarity, humor, and heartfelt honesty"-- ER -