Love! It’s all around! It’s in the water table! It’s floating somewhere in the airspace over Montana! You can’t escape it, don’t even try, because it’s Valentine’s Day, and no matter where you are with regard to that loving feeling—betrothed, single, in a situationship, post-relationship, full of the platonic version for friends or a pet or whomever—it’s as good a time as any to assess and reset on the state of one’s romantic life. Kind of like a love colonic.
Here’s a prompt to ease you in: Eric André, comedian, a man of enormous lung capacity, and new friend of model and author Emily Ratajkowski, did a post on February 14. It’s a big post! In it, André is naked with an emoji heart that has an arrow through it protecting his modesty (I posted it down below, so if you don’t wish to see it, stop scrolling and get off the internet for 48 hours!). In a mirror behind him, there’s Ratajkowski, also apparently naked, taking the photo. For fans of either, this isn’t necessarily new. The two have been publicly in various states of undress multiple times each. But it’s still high cupid-core. They’re naked together. It’s flirty! It’s unexpected!
But what does it mean? Is it a “hard launch”? That is, is it the traditional method of making one’s relationship public, i.e., a big announcement to family, friends, and—in this particular case involving two public people—international media that they are a couple? This would make sense. Paparazzi have photographed them on vacation, lunching at Via Carota, and most recently, courtside at the Knicks game, one of the most romantic places one can be seen in New York City. The logical next step would be a shared post on social media announcing themselves as a pair.
Or are they doing something new and interesting with the form? With these two, anything is possible. Ratajkowski has said that after her divorce from her husband and the father of her child, Sebastian Bear-McClard, she’s dating casually. She’s not tied down seriously to anyone, she’s said in the past, and she’s been seen on dates or something like dates with a few other notable names. What makes a a relationship is up to those who are in it and nobody really knows generally, but especially so with these two celebrities, ones who challenged what it means to be public or private. No post—not even one so explicit—can really confirm that much.
Could this post, one in which we have two naked celebs apparently sharing a bottle of wine, be something less than a hard launch, but more than a soft launch? It seems to say, “Be less precious! Post liberally together on the feed, whatever stage of play you’re in! Mess up the line between things!”
It should also be noted that all of this is happening during a big workweek for Ratajkowski. It’s NYFW, and only yesterday did she walk in the Tory Burch show before going to the Knicks game. What can we take from all this? Maybe, in no particular order: Work hard, play hard, love freely, post naked-ish on main, and root for the Knickerbockers. They generally need all the help they can get.
