“Prettiness is Not a Rent You Pay…” by Erin McKean
YES.
AND ALSO: I’ve seen this quote floating around on Instagram, usually attributed in error to Diana Vreeland.
In fact Erin McKean, the founder of the not-for-profit Wordnik.com, “the world’s biggest online dictionary” wrote this in 2006.
It’s from McKean’s “You Don’t Have to Be Pretty” post, which you can find here:
Let’s take a moment to check our citations because referencing where our ideas come from, even and especially on social media, is a culture-making practice.
[It’s also a way we interrupt the online marketing practice of creating faux-authority vested in one person we should apparently obey (and buy from).]
In other words: thank you, Erin McKean.
And thank you to writer Molly Mulshine for noting the syntax was too recent to be Vreeland’s and tracking down the origin of the quote in this piece.
—
picture credit of Erin McKean: CC-BY Joseph Gerharz
