👜🧾 what's in my bag 💖📁

purse as performance

Keys, green thumb drive, blue thumb drive, small tube of Aquaphor, large tube of Aquaphor, Tarte Maracuja Juicy Cream Blush in the shade “Big Ego,” sparkly pink hair clip, sparkly silver hair clip, a once sparkly blue hair clip (the sparkles have mostly come off), Nars Velvet Matte lip pencil in an unknown red shade, 5ml perfume decant of Lacrima by Liquides Imaginaires (down to its last few sprays), black pen, four bobby pins, Nalgene bottle, red leather wallet, Kaja Cushy Vibe high pigment lip stain in the shade “02 velvet” (discontinued), Avene Cicalfate restorative protective cream, green pen, pink highlighter, floss, two pennies

These are not the lyrics to that one Kim Gordon song, but rather the current contents of my tote bag. I could film a video talking about them, take a meticulously composed picture of everything arranged on a flat surface, or, for a more spontaneous image, just dump the bag out onto the floor and capture that.

Our purses have been sites for performance since the dawn of the social Internet. Searching for the hashtag #whatsinmybag on TikTok reveals 181.3k posts and counting. 50 “What’s In My Bag” videos have been posted to YouTube alone in the past 24 hours. The oldest one I could find on the platform was uploaded on October 20, 2006 by the user pink17nikkie. Photo sharing websites like Flickr house emptied purse images that go back as far as the website’s inception 20 years ago. 

K. Bynum on Flickr (2008)

In her video, pink17nikkie mentions that she had just gotten back from hanging out at a friend’s house where they had been watching Oprah. “Oprah showed what was in her purse, so I thought it would be funny to show what was in my purse.” 

“What’s In My Bag” is performed by civilians, influencers, and actual celebrities alike. I’m just as likely to know what’s in a woman named Monika’s bag (269 views) as I am what’s in Madison Beer’s bag (594k views, Refinery29) or Kate Moss’s bag (872k views, British Vogue) or the bags of 3 Parisian girls (103k views, ParisianVibe). Often, these videos are filmed over and over again; they are updated as contents shift or get swapped out, consumer trends evolve, or celebrities have new projects (or brands) to promote. 

The “What’s In My Bag” video’s aspirational nature functions as an equalizer. Not only do those of us with 500 views aspire to have bags and view counts as high as those of celebrities, but celebrities themselves perform relatability through revealing what they carry around with them. It’s charming to see Isabelle Adjani pull out a bulb of garlic from her Dior bag. When she ends the video by pulling out a piece of the Berlin wall and referencing Lacan it feels downright surreal.

Earlier this month, I came across a tweet by the user @femaleweezerfan that reads,

hate when girls do those incredibly staged “what’s in my bag” pictures like they’re carrying around a full bottle of tom ford lost cherry and a didion paperback at all times

It has 6,000 likes and over a thousand retweets. Some users respond by insisting that they really do carry a book and a full sized bottle of perfume around with them at all times. Others go on to describe the state of disarray their own purses are in (realistic). 

At the start of her video, pink17nikkie makes a point to mention that it is not “set up” and that she really did just get home and spontaneously turn her webcam on. Even in 2006, the need to represent “reality” dominated. In Madison Beer’s “What’s In My Bag” video from 2023, she watches back an older “What’s In My Bag” video she shot with Refinery29 in 2018. As she plays the video on her phone, she reacts to her past self, confessing, “You did not read that book. Stop lying to everybody.” Beer’s admission to the staged nature of her previous video aids in the staging of the current one. 

Whether or not the contents of one's bag are being adequately “used” or not, they still act as sites for wish fulfillment. The purse is yet another vision board. Artist Yoona Bang plays with the format, almost meme-ifying it via experimental Instagram stories. The contents of her imagined bag include a rat (a friend in case I get bored), a selfie (a reminder of what I look like), moss, shells (money), sheet music, a spare tooth, Advil, an empty headstone, and some luck (invisible).

As a child, my sister and I would roll imaginary shopping carts down the aisles while out on errands with our parents. We’d survey the merchandise, stopping to symbolically place items into our carts, making comments along the way about what we were picking out. This playfulness is embodied in the bag-as-vision-board. My approach lies somewhere between Adjani’s bulb of garlic and Bang’s empty headstone.

In keeping in line with my current vision boarding practice—this is #3 (#1, #2)—I decided to create my own “What’s In My Bag” performance using printed images instead of objects. This allowed me to move beyond the items I had on hand or could afford to purchase (a la imaginary shopping cart). I could incorporate something that wouldn’t normally fit into my purse (a pile of rocks) or include viral “What’s In My Bag” staples (Touchland hand sanitizer, Dior Lip Glow Oil). I’ve never owned a Glossier product, but I could print out the Balm Dotcom flavor I put on my lips every time I visit a Sephora. I made sure to include some bobby pins, napkins, and old receipts—the picture of the Chase ATM receipt I used states that I have $1,200,749.29 in my checking account—to simulate a spontaneous, untampered-with aura. 

Blending the whimsical, the aspirational, and the actual, I pull the items out of my bag, one by one, commenting on some while quickly glossing over others. I pull out a picture of a Kindle I downloaded off of Pinterest, lamenting that it’s not as aesthetically pleasing as an actual book. I really do carry a Kindle with me, but I don’t use wired headphones, though I insist that I prefer them in the video.