She's Nice Though

Mia Mercado, a cultural critic and essayist, turns her attention to words like polite, agreeable, and nice. She asks whether kindness is a real trait or a role people play because they think it is expected. Her essays also cover the appeal of the so-called bad bitch, why women make up so much of the ASMR audience, her dog, which she finds adorably strange, and how to tell whether you are shy.

Other pieces look at the performance behind good intentions: the social media apology, the way men are praised for doing the bare minimum, and the odd trust we place in a Midwesterner to watch our belongings while we step away to use the bathroom. Mercado also reflects on her identity as an Asian woman and on what it means to be nice, and whether anyone should want to be.

Her references range from guilty-pleasure reality shows to the New York Times Sunday crossword. Her goal is to bring out odd, long-overlooked truths about human weakness and inconsistency, and she presents them as things to celebrate rather than things to be ashamed of. The collection moves between the trivial and the serious, examining how people behave when they believe no one is watching.