Text by Biz Sherbert Photography by Avery Norman Posted April 23, 2021 The model reflects on his unlikely origin story and life as an early internet icon I first came across Yuri Pleskun’s busted-up face on Tumblr in the early 2010s. Photos of him were everywhere online and endlessly reposted—particularly the ones where he looked like he’d just left a fight, with a crescent moon black eye, bruises across his cheekbones, a bloody nose, a split lip, or a face full of little cuts sealed with white butterfly bandages. He developed a cult following through these images—blogs were born with the express purpose of eulogizing Pleskun’s face and aura (also the subject of much fan art earnestly rendered in colored pencils). Pleskun was like a readymade for soft grunge, a youth culture that originated on Tumblr around 2010, peaked in 2014, and is now making an expedited comeback. Soft grunge was a faded bubblegum take on textbook ‘90s grunge—its community (of mostly teenage girls) shared a love for paleness (often complemented by bruises), cigarettes, dirty pastel hair, and bad boys who seemed kind of sensitive. Yuri hit all the notes—he was pale with an impish lilt to his face, likely…
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Yuri Pleskun is a cult classic for the Tumblr generation
