The other day I was talking to a friend and realized that I actually almost always compare character traits of myself and other women to a character from Sex and the City. And I’ve been doing this for years. If I meet a woman who’s a bit more traditional, I quickly link her to Charlotte. If there’s a more dominant woman in my life, she’s almost automatically a Samantha to me. It’s become a kind of personal shorthand I use so I can understand people better.

2 years ago I read the book Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson, and I immediately recognized the same logic. The book is based on the DISC model and divides human behavior into four colors: Red, Yellow, Green and Blue. Each color stands for a different way of communicating, deciding and reacting. Red is dominant and results-driven, Yellow is social, creative and enthusiastic, Green is stable and keeps the peace, and Blue is analytical and a bit of a perfectionist.

And when I read that, I immediately thought of my SATC system!

I’ll fully work out my pairing of Sex and the City and Surrounded by Idiots below, but first I also recommend watching this video. Here the book Surrounded by Idiots gets explained in a interesting and funny way using relatable examples. And now onto the case study. As I said, the DISC model from Surrounded by Idiots consists of four colors. In Surrounded by Idiots Erikson introduces this model in an accessible and humorous way. The model consists of the following colors:

• Red (Dominant): decisive, direct, results-driven

• Yellow (Inspiring): social, enthusiastic, creative

• Green (Stable): friendly, loyal, reliable

• Blue (Correct): analytical, meticulous, critical

And I’ve paired Samantha, Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda with those colors:

Samantha = Red according to Erikson, red personalities are the natural leaders: direct, decisive, not very interested in small talk and sometimes pretty blunt, but always results-driven. That’s Samantha in a nutshell. She knows what she wants, she says it out loud, and she doesn’t wait for permission. Where the other three women in the show are constantly doubting, negotiating or adapting, Samantha never does. She’s the PR woman who runs her own business, who knows exactly what she wants in bed, and who doesn’t apologize for a second for who she is. Typical Red behavior. She hates the feeling of being controlled, and you see that reflected in almost every choice she makes.

Carrie = Yellow yellow personalities are the social butterflies: enthusiastic, talkative, creative, full of ideas, and as Erikson honestly admits sometimes a bit scattered and easily distracted. This is Carrie through and through. She talks (literally, through her column) constantly about her own life, she’s optimistic to the point of almost naive, and she has a tendency to pull every conversation back to herself without meaning any harm by it. She’s the hub of the friend group, the one who connects everyone to each other, but also the one who’s least consistent in her choices especially when it comes to Mr. Big. Yellow types easily lose focus, and Carrie is living proof of that.

Miranda = Blue blue personalities are analytical, critical and perfectionist, they spot problems faster than anyone, but don’t always come with a solution, which can make them come across as negative even though they experience it themselves as being helpful. this is typically Miranda. as a lawyer she’s trained to analyze every scenario down to the bone, and that behavior doesn’t stop the moment she leaves the courtroom. she’s the first to see through a relationship before the rest of the friend group even notices the problem, she’s skeptical, direct, and sometimes pretty harsh in her judgment exactly the kind of sharpness that characterizes blue personalities.

Charlotte = Green green personalities move calmly and value stability enormously, change is often the hardest thing for them. Charlotte is the friend who prefers to hold on to tradition: marriage, the house, the family, proper manners. She’s the peacemaker of the group, the one who prefers to smooth over conflicts rather than stir them up, and the one for whom a deviation from the plan, a divorce, a miscarriage, a life that looks different than expected, is hardest to process.

Why this combination of characters works so well (and why that’s no coincidence)

What strikes me most is how seamlessly these two systems fit together, even though they were created completely independently of each other, but that’s also exactly the genius of SATC. The writer, Candace Bushnell, whether by accident or on purpose, created four women who literally cover every quadrant of the human personality. There’s no overlap, no double Miranda, no second Charlotte. Four women, four completely different ways of going through life. And there are some psychological processes that explain why this works:

Psychologists call this character identification: the ability to experience a story as if you are the character yourself, instead of just watching them. The more relatable a character is, the easier that identification happens and with four completely different personalities at the table, the odds are huge that there’s at least one you recognize yourself in.

This kind of identification also feeds what researchers call a parasocial relationship: a one-sided, but very real-feeling bond with a character you’ve never met and who also never knows you exist. We feel emotionally connected to Carrie’s bad decisions as if they were our own texts with an ex. And the more different personalities a show offers, the greater the chance that such a bond forms.

And then there’s likeability, probably the most underrated reason why SATC works. Each of the four women is, in her own way, both irritating and irresistible. Samantha is too blunt, but you wish you could be that blunt. Carrie is chaotic with money and men, but you forgive her instantly. That’s no coincidence! A character who is perfect is boring and unrelatable, but a character with just enough flaws feels like a friend. Erikson essentially says the same thing about his colors: no color is “perfect or the best,” they all have their own pitfalls, and that’s exactly why we all recognize them in ourselves, to varying degrees.

Thank you sm for reading this article! This was my mini case study on the four main characters in SATC. I’m very curious what you all think about this!!! <3

The video above is an example of the term intermediality: the process in which different media become intertwined and influence one another. In that one Vogue piece, a video format, a media figure with a reach of millions, a physical fashion magazine, and the world of literature all come together, all within the same few minutes of footage. And that connects to something bigger: the rise of a social reading culture, in which reading is made increasingly visible, shared more and more often, and in doing so contributes to how we present ourselves to the outside world.

I saw that same intermediality at Copenhagen Fashion Week. Not just on the runway itself, but in everything surrounding it: the livestreams where you can see exactly who’s sitting where, the street interviews where influencers explain their outfits, and the endless string of influencer Instagram posts. It’s never a single medium telling the story. It’s a magazine article, a photo of an influencer, a video clip of the show itself, and a street interview, all at once, feeding and reinforcing each other. And within that whole media circus, cultural capital at fashion shows is never just the clothing. It’s also, for instance, who’s sitting front row.

For example, last year at the Celine Womenswear Spring/Summer show in Paris, authors Ottessa Moshfegh and Miranda July sat front row. And that brings me to my next point: fashion and literature are no longer two separate worlds. The fashion world has discovered literature (again).

Jonathan Anderson, for instance, designed a series of bags for Dior featuring covers of classics like Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Dracula on them, the latter now often carried by Rihanna. Coach did a collaboration with Penguin and made tiny book charms that, oddly enough, you can actually read. Elle Fanning was photographed with a mini edition of Sense and Sensibility. Prada had Ottessa Moshfegh write ten short stories for its spring/summer campaign.

Earlier I mentioned “again,” and that’s accurate. It might seem like this is something completely new, but it isn’t. This has existed for decades. In the twentieth century, Harper’s Bazaar already published short stories by Virginia Woolf and Joan Didion, and Truman Capote wrote pieces there before breaking through with Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It’s really just an old affair that’s now simply being reignited, just with better lighting and a bigger reach.

And that affair is no coincidence. Fashion magazines borrow their cultural status from books, and literature, in turn, borrows from fashion something it sometimes badly needs: the image that it, too, can be sexy, current, and trendy. Showing yourself with a book in your hand has, historically speaking, always been a form of self-development, something that goes back to the Victorian era, when people actively engaged in “reading up” to improve their social standing. We’re doing exactly the same thing now.

And then there’s also a feminist angle. When Marilyn Monroe had herself photographed at the edge of a swimming pool in 1955 with James Joyce’s Ulysses, not exactly light beach reading, people seriously doubted whether that was real, as if a woman with that face and that body couldn’t possibly be intelligent. Seventy years later we see Kendall Jenner with an obscure essay collection, and within 24 hours it’s sold out and it changes the life of a writer almost nobody knew before that. It’s still the same story, except, and this is the beautiful part, the power now runs the other way. When these kinds of images appear, the question is no longer “can she even read,” but “she decides what gets read.” Beauty and intellect that get to coexist without it being a surprise. This also ties back to one of my earlier articles on Substack: intelligence is the new sexy.

The advantage I see in this whole development is that reading is no longer something you do alone and keep hidden. It’s no longer that nerdy activity, the thing that wasn’t cool enough to talk about. Reading is now something you actually want to be seen doing. And that’s exactly why the book, unlike any item that has ever walked the runway, will never go out of style. So, please girls bring that book outside! Go read and be proud!!! <3

I’m very curious how you all see this development and what your opinion is!

I went into it with high expectations. Everyone calls it a classic, a romcom

And it was fine. I just expected more. Maybe because it’s so short. Everyone talks about it as a romcom but honestly it felt more like an episode of a comedy series.

In the book we follow Holly through the eyes of her neighbor. Something I find an interesting narrative perspective. Actually we only see Holly as a projection of how her neighbor sees her. From a distance she is unreachable, because ‘Never love a wild thing’ is a phrase that plays a big role in the story.

You can only give it what it needs until it flies away again. That sums up Holly perfectly I think, and maybe also why no one can really hold on to her.

That also brings us right to the next theme, namely loneliness. The book contains a beautiful passage where Holly talks about how she sees this. This passage also explains the title of the book right away. In this passage Holly says she belongs to no one, just like her cat. This is, I think, the core of the book. Holly has a cat without a name, because she feels she has no right to give a name to something that isn’t hers anyway. She doesn’t want to own anything, manage anything, until she’s found a place where she feels at home. She doesn’t know yet where that place is. But she does know it has to feel like Tiffany’s.

And that’s the part that struck me most, when she’s anxious, she goes to Tiffany’s. Nothing bad can happen to her there. All those men in suits, the smell of silver and leather wallets. She feels safe there.

Then there’s another theme that plays a very big role in the book, maybe even the leading role, and that is: love as strategy.

Something I kept thinking about after reading. Holly trains herself to love older rich men and calls that herself the smartest thing she’s ever done. She sees love as something you consciously construct, based on what brings you comfort, money, and security.

And that immediately made me think of the film Materialists. That film is exactly about that dilemma: do you choose the partner who offers financial security and status, or the unpredictable, less “sensible” feeling that comes with love. The film presents love as a business deal, what do you bring each other?

Holly does basically the same thing in the ’40s. She surrounds herself with rich men, she calculates, she stays in control. Except for her it feels more like a survival mechanism. Something I find pretty dark.

Still, I find it a interesting theme: how much of “choosing the right partner” is actually feeling, and how much is a calculation we don’t always want to admit out loud? And does that change anything about how genuine that love still is?

Curious how you all see this, let me know in the comments.

And I’m also very curious about your opinion on Breakfast at Tiffany’s <3

I almost don’t dare admit it, but this was actually the first time I read The Bell Jar. Of course I’d heard about it plenty and seen countless quotes float by. And yet I only just now read the book. Where I normally fly through a book quickly, I spent over a month on this one, which in this case I see as a good thing. I lingered more on the story and the sometimes-relatable thoughts of the main character. Because of that, I could also enjoy Sylvia Plath’s poetic writing style, full of metaphors, even more.

What struck me right away while reading is how different the book felt from the image surrounding it. Sylvia Plath is often positioned as THE symbol of the oppressed woman, trapped in a marriage, broken by the expectations of her time. And yes, that certainly comes through in the book. But The Bell Jar is far more personal, messier, more honest, and somehow more modern than I had expected.

In the book we follow Esther Greenwood, a young woman who gets an incredibly prestigious opportunity in New York, but feels completely lost there. From the very first page you already sense a kind of alienation you can’t quite place. Everything seems to be going well, but it doesn’t feel that way from the start. We follow her wild social life, full of parties and fancy dinners, which she combines with her internship at the office of a major fashion magazine. Everything is described in detail and without filter.

What Sylvia Plath does exceptionally well is how she depicts Esther’s mental deterioration. Not dramatically or exaggeratedly, but subtly. Esther slips away almost unnoticed. Time becomes vague, choices become impossible, and the world feels increasingly far away.

At the start I did have to get used to Plath’s writing style. It feels very poetic, which made it a bit distant or even pretentious to me at first. But that quickly fades. This is because there are also moments in the book that are almost funny in an absurd way. Suddenly, in the middle of a thought about death, meaninglessness, or identity, Esther can say something completely dry, unfiltered, or unexpected something random. Not to make it less serious, but rather to make it more human. That combination of deep despair and almost nonchalant humor is what makes the book so pure.

What also makes the book so special, in my opinion, is that the themes are still so relevant. Depression, loneliness, expectations around femininity it doesn’t feel like a story from the sixties at all, more like something that could have been written today (aside from a few parts, of course). Maybe that’s exactly why this book is still so relevant: it names things people still find hard to talk about.

I also want to dedicate a moment to the metaphors in The Bell Jar.

The fig tree
Of course I had already heard about the fig tree metaphor before, but it was only once I read it myself that I really started thinking about it. Esther sees her life as a tree full of figs, where each fig represents a different future. Everything she could become lies before her, but that’s exactly what makes choosing impossible. But while she hesitates, the figs rot and fall away one by one. An overabundance of options can cause you to keep thinking for so long that you end up left with nothing. This is sometimes painfully recognizable: the idea that you want everything and, because of that, get stuck.

The Bell Jar
Then there’s the Bell Jar itself. For Esther it feels as though she’s trapped beneath it. Everything becomes heavy and slightly distorted, and the world outside no longer really reaches her the way it should, as if something is constantly sitting between her and the rest of her life.

What makes it extra intense is that the Bell Jar isn’t always there. Sometimes it seems to lift for a moment and everything feels normal again, but it can just as easily fall back down.

So it’s not just a metaphor for depression, but more for the feeling of being somewhere physically while not really being there mentally.

What ultimately makes The Bell Jar so powerful is that it never tries to be pretty or neat. It’s raw, personal, and heavy, but never without light.

In short, I found The Bell Jar much more personal and nuanced than I expected. It’s heavy and confronting, but that exact combination with dry, unexpected humor makes it feel very real. It struck me especially in how relatable it sometimes is. The doubt, the pressure, the big city, getting stuck inside your own head. A book that isn’t necessarily easy, but that truly, truly stays with you.

I’m very curious about Sylvia Plath’s other books now. Any recommendations, anyone?

Being an it girl used to be about attention. Now it’s about having a mind people can’t ignore.

For a long time, the formula was simple. Look good, dress well, be in the right places, know the right people. And to be fair it worked. Attention came easily when everything on the outside was curated. But something shifted.

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Because now? Everyone looks good. Style is accessible. Beauty is optimized. Aesthetic is everywhere. Social media made sure of that. And when everyone looks impressive, it stops meaning anything.

Pretty isn’t rare anymore, intelligence is. That’s the difference.

I started noticing it in the kind of women who actually stood out. Not the loudest. Not the most visible. But the ones who made you pause when they spoke. The ones who had something behind the image.

They didn’t just look good. They thought well. And that’s where the new it girl emerges

Beauty is no longer a differentiator, it’s the baseline. If everyone can play that game, then it stops being a game worth winning. So naturally, the standard shifts.

Smart is becoming the new status symbol.

Not in a forced, performative way. But real intelligence. The kind you notice in how someone thinks, how they articulate ideas, how they see patterns others miss. That kind of presence is rare. And because it’s rare, it’s powerful. Most people consume endlessly but reflect rarely. They read, scroll, watch but nothing really sticks. There’s no shift. No depth. Just more input. And that’s exactly where the intelligent It Girl separates herself. She’s selective.

She doesn’t just consume, she chooses. What she reads, what she listens to, what she gives her attention to. She understands that attention is currency, and she spends it carefully.

Because she’s not building an image. She’s building a mind. And that changes everything. She’s less interested in instant validation. Less reactive. Less dependent on being constantly seen. Because what she’s building doesn’t disappear when attention does. It compounds. Her perspective sharpens. Her taste evolves. Her thinking deepens. And over time, that becomes her identity. Not just how she looks, but how she thinks. And ironically, that’s what makes her stand out again. Because when everyone is optimizing for attention, the one who optimizes for depth becomes impossible to ignore.

If you want to move in that direction, it doesn’t start with a complete life reset. It starts smaller. Read something that actually challenges you. Think about it. Write about it. Apply one idea. That’s enough to begin.

Because becoming the intelligent It Girl isn’t about doing everything. It’s about doing a few things differently and actually letting them change you.

Intelligence is becoming the new status symbol. Quietly, but undeniably. And the women who understand that early? They’re the ones who will stand out long-term.

On this account, I’ll be sharing essays like this, along with weekly book recommendations and reviews, curated short lists and other articles.

So if you want to stay ahead of it, subscribe and stay close. So tell me Do you think intelligence is becoming more attractive than beauty?

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