🎈look mom, we made it
our first anniversary!
Calling all members of the High Tea family 📣. Is the kettle on? Cup and saucer at the ready? Tea leaves primed for a ~bad bleep~ deep dive? Perfect, drink up. 🐸☕️
Here we are at dispatch #43, exactly one whole year to the day (we’ve got the receipts, sis) since we published our very first High Tea 🐸☕️🎉. Back in September 2019, we were two VeryOnline™ Bath gals (still are at ❤️ tbh), who bit the bullet and decided to share our little corner of the internet with the world. Though separated by sea, time zone and a decided lack of the double double from Timmies (Alice 🇬🇧 is distraught), we’ve dragged ourselves through this shite show of a year to deliver our steaming brews straight to your inboxes.
Since a celebratory high tea (like, literally) at The Ritz is off the cards rn bc of ms. rona, we thought we’d pull back the curtain on the past 365 and use this tea party to honor our lessons learned, gossip spilled and, most importantly, thank all of you phrogs for sticking around for a whole year. Time flies when the tea is piping hot, right?
Guess who’s who. That’s a secret we’ll never tell. xoxo
our favorite brews
A year of spilling the tea from opposite corners of the globe means that we’ve covered everything from the hard hitters to the downright ridiculous, all at the epicentre of the zoomer zeitgeist. We kicked off with talk of popcorn lungs (remember the teen juuling epidemic?!), AI filters for unsolicited 🍆pics and BigKlit (we told you not to sleep on BK). What a time that was. Since then, we’ve left no stone unturned when it comes to the influencer economy; dropping dispatches on David Dobrik’s secret sauce and Charli D’Amelio’s first ever meet and greet (back when she had a mere 8.5M TikTok followers, lol) – not to mention the rise and fall of Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star (bye, how are ya 🌟) and the addictive trials and salacious scams of Caroline Calloway and Anna Delvey.
Not so long ago, when we could leave our houses without a care in the world (remember that?!), we were busy writing love letters to the infamous notes app apology, obsessing over the continued growth of the MrBeast money tree and getting our grubby mits on the blueprint for the city of the future. Not forgetting those two weeks of quarantine where we were all bopping around in Houseparty and hosting Zoom BYOBs (thank god that phase of lockdown is over), to venmo etiquette, the monumental rise of audio only hangs (Clubhouse, we’re looking @ u) and the small joys that came from our Club Penguin rediscovery.
More recently, the pandemic has accelerated many things in the High Tea orbit – including the reach and relevance of our favorite virtual beings (Miquela and Bermuda, obv), the adoption and acceptance of music discovery on TikTok and the Quibi that never was (brb, pouring one out for Quibi’s investors). We couldn’t possibly pick a top 3, but if we had to choose some of our favorite pop culture tidbits from over the year (and who have seen significant post-feature success), it has to be these:
❣️WNRS: Who would have thought a physical card game could get so much clout in 2020. We’re Not Really Strangers (from #20: love is in the airpods) has grown from strength to strength since February, bringing out expansion packs faster than you can say ‘empowering meaningful connection.’ Since the death of George Floyd, the team released a free digital expansion pack dedicated to ‘Race and Privilege’, which serves as great prompts to galvinize those much needed sit-down conversations.
💃Addison Rae: We need a bad bleep. How can we leave out Addison, who first burst on the scene with the Hype House in January (#18: i would do anything for monica). Now with 60.2M followers on TikTok (#38: i need a bad bitch), to making acting debuts, to starting her own beauty line ITEM, to majorly hinting about a reality show (well, now that explains KUWTK timely exit), we think Addison is asserting herself as a top tier celebrity. Oh, and all this within 9 months. Bleep better have her money.
🖕Avenue Beat: Since launching their pandemic anthem (#39: tiktok on the clock), F2020 has been a chart-topping staple with even the 🐐 Will Smith recording a lil somethin’ to their track. Lest we forget, this year TikTok has been hella big for music, and Avenue Beat’s followers have supported their every $ move. Watch this space for more big mood music from this trio. After all, they only sing what we’re all thinking. Authentic is in, over-produced is out (Derulo, we’re looking at you).
needless to say, you’ve all made our year
*Jay Z voice* if we do say so ourselves, you’re a talented bunch. Our home brewed community of thirsty subscribers, avid readers and everything in between (lurkers anonymous, we love you too!) are truly the best gang on the internet. We’re biased, but it’s true 🚫🧢. The High Tea rat pack of VCs, founders, thinkbois, product people, designers, journalists, artists, media moguls, schemers, crypto traders, and, ofc, our family and friends have kept us afloat this past year – esp since our favorite hobby is, well, losing our heads. Special thanks to our early supporters; Hunter, Andy, Shweta and Sara for being our day ones.
Last but not least, it’s thanks to you all that we’re sitting at a calm 52% average open rate...and, well, the only way is up. Cheers to that. 🐸☕️
Okay you made it. Now you can go back to finally launching that *thing* you’ve been meaning to start. You know, that project on the back burner...the billion dollar idea stuck in your notes app. Take this tea as your sign: the time is now.
You’ll thank yourself a year from today.