What are steps to take that you can figure out what repair is healthy and when it's probably not something to repair and something to step away from?

Yeah, I mean, I think about there are a lot of ways to fight.

There's various levels of fighting dirty.

There's various levels of dirtiness in fighting.

There's various levels of like sort of limits that we hold ourselves to or lines that we do cross, like how much we're trying to inflict pain.

I think those things are kind of important to notice if it's feeling like that's needed to do for it to work.

Because then the repair looks a little bit different if someone's kind of like you're unleashing yourself on each other in a certain way.

Mm-hmm.

And could you explain to our listeners what the deal is?

So I co-founded Smith & Taylor Classics as an imprint of Unnamed Press.

They're located here in L.A., And I started it with Brandon Taylor.

He's the author of Filthy Animals or most recently was Minor Black Figures.

And we were working as editors for Unnamed Press, acquiring titles and having meetings and kind of, you know, doing editor publishing stuff.

And we would continually kind of hijack the staff meetings with our continual, you know, just passionate discussions of all of the classic novels that we love reading.

Brandon's kind of known for being a Mansfield Park stan, like really loving Anna Karenina.

yeah

And that can change from Tuesday to Wednesday.

Right.

The exchange is not about, like, accomplishing a certain thing.

It's just, like, of the trying of it all.

Like, it's the Legos of it all.

Like, you put a piece, I put a piece.

Like, who knows if this ends up as a cup or not.

And how do I pivot and move the needle so they're moving in a more healthy direction? This can be overwhelming, but what are some like small things that people can start to do?

and we're taking you home

I don't even know where I would go at that point and so eyes, whatever.

And so I'm in there and I know that this is my last shot.

I haven't talked with this girl.

Like she's probably not going to talk to me, but like if I could get through to her in any way, if it causes the slightest hesitation.

And so I do the same thing.

I try to humanize myself.

do you think it constantly happens to you?

So is there a reason for that? And what, uh, what are, what other categories do you feel like are standing out right now that are doing well? I know food is another one that I, I'm hearing a lot about these days.

Yeah.

So I think impulsivity and price point both have a lot to do with it.

You already pointed out that beauty and personal care, um, are really the winning categories on TikTok Shop, and there's a few reasons for that.

One, they just tend to be a lower price point, and they're also really well suited for an impulse purchase.

You know, if I'm a consumer on the TikTok app and I see an influencer I follow who I admire telling me about this new product, and maybe she has the same skin concerns with me or what have you, um, then I, I just might impulsively click on that, that link and, and buy that product for myself because, again, it's not a big price commitment.

And, um, I think that's really well reflected, too, in the fact that recently, two really big retailers joined TikTok Shop and opened their own storefronts on the platform, and that is Ulta Beauty, Beauty and Sally Beauty.

this was their home turf for a long time.