Reading HRH Collection Through the Lens of Susan Sontag

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The infamous YouTuber and influencer HRH Collection (real name Alexandra Pierce) is known for her controversial and impassioned takes on just about everything. From food to hairstyles, she covers nearly every aspect of modern day consumerism through an almost purely emotional perspective - something that most people have been conditioned to not do, as we are used to trying to stay analytical. Her inflammatory anger at the most banal topics and her dichotomous reactions are truly a pure response to the world around her.

Her responses mimic the teachings of a seminal essay written by the essayist Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation, of which the thesis reads “in place of hermeneutics we need an erotics of art” - meaning that we need to approach art through our sensibilities and not through logic and reasoning. Sontag goes on to explain how ever since the ancient Greek philosophers, western culture seems far more preoccupied with the content of an artwork over its form. We are too used to asking ‘What does it mean?’ as opposed to ‘What do I feel about it?’. 

While HRH Collection’s responses aren’t regarding fine art, in many ways a lot of the aspects of consumerism - food, makeup, clothing - have begun to mimic art: the marketing team is in charge of creating an almost artistic rapport with the consumer. Fashion and beauty are quite obvious examples of this as they have been highly commodified while still being considered creative. Arguably, food and fragrance can also be considered art as they rely on our senses and demand a certain craft for their conception.

HRH Collection is one of the only people on the Internet - and arguably the most prolific - that has hugely emotional reactions before interpreting the subject at hand, if she even does attempt rationalising. She realises the value in such beliefs and lays out a new sensibility, one that cannot be defined by language and one that relies on unapologetic, passionate responses. A new sensibility that can be argued as heavily influenced by the Susan Sontag essay. 
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One of Pierce’s most famous quotes is “If you get it, you get it. If you don’t, you don’t.” She implies an innate understanding of the world through a shared emotive sensibility. But here, HRH Collection is unable to explain why she has such intense feelings towards something -  she is interpreting the form and not the content. She doubles down by saying “I’m the kind of person, that what I say is what I say. I’m not ever gonna take back what I say”. In this quote she expands on the idea of her sensibility by saying that she will not apologise for her gut reactions. She takes the idea of emotional reactions to an extreme by giving it value above the perhaps overly logical interpretations of others. In a hierarchy of thoughts, Pierce’s feelings are on top as they are some of the purest reactions.  

“HRH Collection is one of the only people on the Internet - and arguably the most prolific - that has hugely emotional reactions before interpreting the subject at hand, if she even does attempt rationalising. She realises the value in such beliefs and lays out a new sensibility.”

In her now TikTok-famous statement about beachy waves, she is able to spot her learned instinct to analyse, but she restrains herself from doing so in order to reinterpret the fad through her emotional sensibility. “Do you think people in, like, France are doing beachy waves? It’s not the vibe, STOP!” - Pierce starts off her statement by seemingly intellectualising the hairstyle; She gives an example of a country where it is out of style but she isn’t interpreting the hairstyle, instead simply giving context. HRH Collection recognises that her sensibilities are anchored in a history of beauty and fashion and in the interactions she is able to perceive in our current society. 

She however tries to distance herself in the second part of the statement in which she announces “it’s not the vibe”. We see this recurring theme where she describes her sensibility as a ‘vibe’. She is aware of her strong emotional connection or rejection to art/life and favours it over logical arguments, it’s this statement that she exclaims “STOP”, desperate for a communal partage of beauty, defined by her. Just as in part two of Against Interpretation, HRH recognises the forced interpretative nuance she is made to bring due to her education in western civilisation, However, just as suggested by Sontag, she tries to distance herself and remains set in a sensitive approach to everything.

HRH Collection has whole-heartedly internalised her philosophy to the point that she is almost unable to interpret things through an analytical sense. To show that her emotions trump logic, even when trying to stay rational, the example of her potato rant immediately comes to mind. “To me it’s sinful to make fun of food (...) I’m sure someone out there would love to have a fucking potato!”. In this statement she expressed disdain for the people who critiqued her love of a baked potato, she tried to be rational by explaining that food is almost sacred in its scarcity. But as she goes on to describe her love of baked potatoes she loses her ability to rationalise it. 

She states “Not only does it fill me up, it’s like a potato”, giving potatoes an inherent value just in their being. As she realises she has no real arguments for her adoration, she resorts to trying to dig into her psyche to find the origin of this love, settling on calling it primal, primitive. She follows Susan Sontag’s words, who says “we must recover our senses” and in a certain sense urges us to go back to these primal urges. But what truly shows that HRH Collection does not follow any logical reasoning behind her sensibility is that in the same breath as stating that “it’s sinful to make fun of food”, she also states “go and have your nasty processed food”. Pierce makes fun of her critics through their consumption of food, and as collateral, makes fun of food. What she may not realise is that she is directly contradicting herself and proving to us, the audience, that her opinions are decided purely based on her emotionally charged sensibility. 

Although it’s arguably improbably that HRH Collection has ever read Sontag’s essay, we can easily see the links between both of these women’s philosophies. As much as HRH collection is a controversial figure, her influence and entertainment value is undeniable, and if we can learn some philosophical lifestyle tips from her, there can be something of value to take away. 

Words: Seamus Promayon