actually Camila XCX is good 🤭

Looking at why the Baltimore bridge collapse spiked conspiracies and at what the new Camila Cabello song says about the state of culture.

What We Know About ISIS-K
This was my major bad for not including last week, as I emailed it to myself but then didn’t migrate the story over: the ISIS attack on Moscow is huge. Something to keep an eye on.

BlackRock's Fink sees Social Security crisis
And this is how they (The rich.) will try to keep you working until you die, as if you weren’t already going to have to do that.

Fossil-Fuel Chiefs Unite
To do what? To slam Biden after a ban on LNG, which was a baller pro-environment move. Pocket Report’s explainer on this is great.

​Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’
A fascinating look at school absenteeism across the country and across demographics, which gets at an interesting something: Covid made “physically” being in school both fact and fiction, in so many ways.

US changes how it categorizes people by race
Wild it took 27 years for this to happen.

Fascism has changed, but it is not dead
I am obsessed with this idea: “History does not repeat itself. But it rhymes. It is rhyming now. Do not be complacent.”

Scientific Journals Publishing Papers With AI Text
Don’t worry! Just lots of scientists using ChatGPT to make their papers “better.”

Google starts testing AI overviews
Google's AI Search Threatens Publishers
This isn’t new but we’re going to be hearing a lot about SGE given Google’s shift to AI search results in May. Here’s a good breakdown of what this looks like via Marketing with Sam.

Nailed to a cross for the 35th time
Philippines' Catholic devotees nailed to crosses
Did you know that in the Philippines they literally crucify people to crosses during reenactments of Christ’s death? I had to read multiple stories to find that, yes, this is a literal — not figurative — nailing.

The Business Of Monkeys Picking Coconuts
I learned about “monkey slavery” this week and…is this slavery? Very complicated question.

Light at Night May Raise Stroke Risk
Just another reminder to reduce artificial light (and air pollution) exposure!

Why Is My Apartment So Dusty?
I love stories about air quality so you know I love this story on apartment dust.

Gas is seeping out of US landfills
Don’t like this. Maybe we should…reduce how much we consume?

The biggest story of the week is the tragic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore as a result of a container ship collision due to a loss of power.

There’s a lot to say about this, but I want to spend time on how this inspired a right-wing spiral into conspiracy, which was largely based in DEI (??) connections (which inspired jokes about how such conspiracies form). This happened in tandem with conspiracies bubbling up in relationship to the raiding of Diddy's home and the Quiet On The Set documentary about Nickelodeon, which collide into years and years of conspiracy after conspiracy after conspiracy, from Claudine Gay to Taylor Swift to Nikki Haley to Kate Middleton in 2024 alone.

What’s interesting about all of these is that they all are a petting of the soft brain, of our inability to process massive ideas, things that don’t make sense or that “go against” your preconceived notions, largely about power. The ship’s crashing and the bridge’s collapse is an awful tragedy but connecting it to open borders and rampant capitalism is both lazy and myopic: the reality is the ship is fucking huge, which meant a little malfunction rippled into catastrophe. Why is the ship so big anyway? As a great Times story explains, “Giant ships have played a central role in the fueling of the modern economy, as global demand for electronics, clothes and other consumer goods continues to grow.” This fits into a trend of giant ship and shipping malfunctions this decade, like in the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal and the Chesapeake. While ships are one of the greener forms of shipping, shipping continues is so in demand that the industry hit all time highs, which runs on very poor labour conditions and questionable practices. This is to say: lil you in your lil house ordering some lil treat from across the world has a fingerprint on all these ships — and we’re coasting toward a collapse, less of the industry and more in the regards of ecosystems, waste, and consumption. You, me, and Jeff “Prime” Bezos had a hand in pushing that ship.

But the conspiracies! It’s harder to say “I’m going to stop shopping to not support precarious industries.” than it is to say “Capitalism or DEI are to blame!” because it offers a smooth-brained answer that allows you to escape culpability — or the reality of what’s happening. When Nikki Haley or Claudine Gay rise high, shots go off that they’re not qualified and only being elevated because of gender or race instead of people interrogating their misogyny, racism, or intersectional insecurities. When Diddy and Nickelodeon producers take (sexual) advantage of people, it’s easier to say “EPSTEIN!!” than it is to realize that this fits into almost a century of Hollywood’s using and abusing people and animals and the environment for profit. When Kate Middleton goes missing? We point to Russia, body-doubles, and literal stupid shit instead of falling dynasty obfuscating truth. Even something as simple and stupid as the PUSSY IN BIO memes are shrugged off as bots when it’s rooted in an economy of international workers scraping by pennies to survive. The rise in stray scary clips for months about Appalachian horror? Diverse ecosystems, likely colliding with drug addictions and exploitation.

Telling stories will always be more fun than the truth. Gossip is always sexier than reality. Our tendency in situations like this to theorize before digging deeper, which is only complicated due to matters like climate change and gender lacking specific, concrete explanations or “room for debate.” When our channels of communication are clogged, our personal levies break to let in the absurd. It always brings me back to what Mark Fisher said in 2009’s Capitalist Realism: “It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”

Living With Muscular Dystrophy at 50
I will read any essay about death and this one from Alice Wong is lovely.

Why Are Restaurants Filling Up With Fake Flowers?
I almost mentioned this in my Paris post as this has been a thing in Paris since at least 2022. The only reason why I didn’t share that is because New York wrote about this in 2023!

50 Terrible Movies by Great Directors
This list went very viral and I want you to know it’s whack, a la: a lot of these movies are not-bad. Alien 3? Look Who’s Talking?? Death Becomes Her??? Come on. Art house cinema, no. Camp classics? Yes. Was there not a gay person in the house?

Alessandro Michele is the new creative director of Valentino
Cannot say I’m surprised, although I thought Pierpaolo Piccioli’s reign was one of the more inspired design leaders in some time. He is a genius with color!

Kim Kardashian Is Being Sued Over Tables
“Kim is being sued”
"The Whitney shading"
“one of my Tweets being cited”
The best drama of the week — maybe even a drama of the year — is artist Donald Judd against Kim Kardashian. Get her, Jade.

Range Rider, James Turrell & Lalique 2022
My birthday is coming up and I’d love for someone to get me the €25K James Turrell fragrance.

Getting their home off fossil fuels
I love this story on decarbonizing your home and the realities of green energy. Both exciting and overwhelming!

A Bronx Teacher Asked. Tommy Orange Answered.
I meant to share this last week but forgot. Stories like this remind that there is hope in the world, and especially hope for young people based in literature! I love Tommy Orange.

Gaming executive poisoning of billionaire Netflix producer
“Crazy story of the week”
I have been 3 Body Problem curious but this story overshadows the show, if you ask me.

Kristen Stewart: Marvel Sounds Like a Nightmare
What’s not computing, Hollywood? All your stars hate AI and how algorithmic and business oriented you are.

"First short films made using  #Sora by  @OpenAI . "
“can you send a computer to director jail”
See above.

“Brad Mondo announces he’s straight”
“When beautiful girls have gay boyfriends”
“You might be dumb.”
“When gays meet a fine stud”
“To all my women out there”
“You’re always doing the most romantic”
“Anything Steve Madden”
“They hate femininity.”
The Brad Mondo thing is probably fake but I’ve been collecting videos that support my everyone-will-be-queer theory. Mark down in the records that “little gay boyfriend” is going to pick up in the way that “dad bod” did.

"Bestie I'm srry"
“I don’t know what it’s giving”
Keeping tabs of Gen A, these two items capture how brain rot is trickling down.

Lynda! Barry!
I love this story about the icon Lynda Barry by

Mitchell Volk

, which is a great build on this week’s paid post on creativity. Which reminds me…

📝🎭🎺 how to be a creative 🧵🎨🎬
Paid people got a full primer on how to be a creative as a part of a new series!! If you got it and have anything to add, please share your own advice! Share the wealth of knowledge, angels!!

This week the new Camila Cabello song dropped. “I LUV IT” features Playboi Carti and is a 2 minutes and 55 seconds capturing of what the 2020s are and will be remembered as. It has been rambled about for weeks as a ripoff of Charli XCX, which inspired a will-they-won’t-they faux beef that cranked Camila’s PR machine into overdrive — but to call it Diet Charli is an oversimplification and, in many ways, obfuscates how much of bellwether it is.

Produced by El Guincho, a Spanish producer behind such “alt” songs like “Malamente,” “Ovule,” and “Tears In The Club,” the song feels like a trap rap echo of a Troye Sivan or Lorde song, made out of bargain basement Ableton samples grabbed as an afterthought during a Black Friday sale. To be specific, the song feels like you merged the chorus of Troye Sivan’s “My My My!” from six years ago with the ending of Lorde’s “Green Light” from seven years ago and multiplied it by Charli’s 2017 Number 1 Angel and Gucci Mane from 2009, which is to say: it’s a pastiche of people with taste, specifically their late aughts to mid-2010s taste. Playboi Carti provides a soundtrack of grunts that builds to a climax of bars so awful and so unintelligible that it threatens to slip the song down a slide of slobber to exit down the drain of culture — but it’s also the most captivating part of the song, or at least the best part in terms of production? Camila spends the song squeaking and half-selling the phrase “Oh my god!” effectively in sonic drag, trying to conjure her best Dimes Square NPC in the process. Then there’s the video: directed by Nicolás Méndez of CANADA, it feels like if A24 did a Disney movie, Good Time but make it The Lizzy McGuire Movie. Like her singing, Camila barely carries the video as she keeps breaking character, giggling despite the clear going hard-ness of the song, which again works down to her cheesy finger guns and shooting up a bed as she barely ekes out a smize: it’s as if she too knows this is ridiculous, that she has nothing to do with what’s happening around her, that she’s not one of these better artists that she, like you and I, is doing a job. She’s flying on auto-pilot, saying yes to the factory that produces the world around her, accepting the cross of carrying alt into the mainstream. As Pitchfork observed, “it’s nice to just hear some good ol’ fashioned expensive nonsense.”

And they’re right: there’s something joyous about the song, a so-bad-it’s-good dog whistle that opened a sleeper cell within me. I’ve listened to the song more times than I will ever admit because it makes me feel like it’s ten years ago and it’s 3AM and I’m at a friend I hate’s house on the West side and I’ve been wanting to go home for two hours and I just caught my fourth wind because I took a shot of tequila and I know everyone is about to run down the street screaming until we reach the beach. I’ve not seen Spring Breakers, I’ve not seen Bodies Bodies Bodies, I’ve never been to Miami, I’ve not been on a motorcycle, but I have listened to “I Luv It.” I wish we could talk to Carles from Hipster Runoff about this.

So why are we talking about this? Why does it matter that Camila Cabello created a mid-alt craft project with the backing of Interscope? There’s something interesting about a former reality star turned the Zayn of Fifth Harmony who went on to shill “I’m really latina!!!” for three albums to now go “WAIT!! I’M ALT NOW!!!!!! lol” But the Charli connection is also what’s interesting, because there’s something so, like, lazy and bitter to just say “Camila is copying Charli!!!” Why? Charli — while incredible, while tastemake-y, while cool — is on the same level as Camila now: Charli, like Rosalía and like Lana Del Rey and like SZA and like Billie Eilish, are a part of the vanguard of mainstream alt. If you’re headlining winning Grammys, if you’re doing an international tour, you are no longer “underground.” They are musical Urban Outfitters, which Camila bought a great outfit from.

(Very quickly, compare this whole situation to that of Julia Fox’s supposed single drop: she did so at Charli’s Boiler Room, isn’t talking about it, and the song hits all the hyperpop — or whatever — hallmarks of near non-sense lyrics to elastic-plastic beats.) (Also: anyone “venerating” hyperpop as some sort of upper echelon of music…maybe needs to log off and go look at some clouds. This isn’t deep, nor is that a sacred genre. Now the music of Sophie…that’s singular — but let’s not mistake this for that.)

Camila copying Charli or whomever is the wrong lede here: the story is that “I LUV IT” took a sledgehammer to what no one wants to admit, that what so many have claiming to be “alt” is no longer “that.” The song is A24core: it’s Charli XCX, it’s Rachel Sennott, it’s

Blackbird Spyplane

, it’s Jeremy O. Harris, it’s Nathan For You, it’s Rosalía, it’s Frank Ocean, it’s Online Ceramics, it’s Jeremy Allen White, it’s Euphoria, it’s Troye Sivan, it’s Timothée Chalamet, it’s Zendaya, it’s Lorde — it’s a time capsule of the 2010s delivered as an echo, which is full of very cool people who have risen to the top, to craft culture, to become mainstream. To hold that as sacred is crazy at this point. That “era,” the gestures and visuals and sounds that are best summed up by the A24 cinematic universe, this post-hipster something that has become what the hipster was: a variety of cool that was handed down from one generation to the next, in this case being Millennials gifting to Gen Z and Gen A, a passing of the torch as the young enter the old. It’s a Frankenstein of everything cool that you can think of, expressed via authentic or bought taste.

What concerns me isn’t Camila but the fact that this has already happened before in myriad ways: the El Guincho and Nicolás Méndez of it all is what gets me, as it feels very similar to when the Ways & Means crew went big and did things like St. Vincent’s “Los Angeles”, or when Danny L. Harle worked with Carly Rae Jepsen or when Sophie worked with Madonna — which happened last decade. It’s Chris Maggio working with Balenciaga. It’s Petra Collins working with Olivia Rodrigo. We have been here before and very little in “this” is new, meaning Camila performing alt is an echo of an echo because the output is the same. And it’s not alt! None of it. That’s a problem, less because it’s popular but that — for whatever reason, in this age of the internet — we still cling to ideas that culture items framed as high brow from A24 or Greta Gerwig or The Weeknd are “indie” and somehow more “authentic.” You can’t headline Coachella and produce a Barbie movie and have a deal with Apple and be “indie,” angels: that is just what the mainstream looks like now, with upgraded sensibilities to sweep up left-leaning, creatively oriented, discerning eyes across generations. We have been stuck in a cultural holding pattern going on two decades, as none of this is that different from the touchstones that Charli speaks of, from the Uffies to the Robyns to the Grimes. We are deeply stuck in a cultural compost heap.

I’ve been wondering “what’s next” for a few weeks now, specifically with A24 and this universe that they have created. It’s a question that is impossible to answer as the internet seems to have created a love of recycling without sources along with a collapsing of time that enables you to feel like you’re in the minority when you’re basically at hipster Disney. You get the same feeling with coffee shops and with the latest runway shows that you do with this Camila Cabello song. You can also say that The Cut’s tendency to produce an internet-halting story every month is also an example of this, as they’re filling the void between the loss of Buzzfeed’s (then-)progressive journalism and a languishing creative (literary) class. You hit a point in consumerism, in creation-as-product, where you’re just muttering to yourself in a corner and pretending that it’s new, it’s interesting, it’s different when it’s all the same. Camila, then, is actually on trend: she’s doing what everyone else is doing. It’s shocking it took this long to happen.

Want more on this? Tuesday’s dispatch I’m going to attempt to predict “what’s next.” Wish me luck.

“at the last supper”
“get his ass”
“Can’t believe he’s dead”
Good Easter posts. He is risen or whatever, btw!!

“Papyrus and natural wine”
It’s more likely than you think.

“When you have rich parents”
I love Dakota, but I also have a special place in my heart for Sydney. This is a joke but it’s also very true.

“My painting of Lena Dunham”
See above. Been thinking about this painting all week.

“Caught mine in 4K”
Dying to watch the Freaknik documentary to revisit my 2000s time in Georgia and this continues to sell me.

“most insane slideshows”
This is exactly what I want to watch as I eat.

“Teaching your mom what LGBTQ means”
This dad is not only an ally but he is also correct.

“Season 16 queens as Vines”
These are so good. Each one: perfect. I would love every series and movie to have a supplemental Vine commentary.

“been ugly laughing”
Me too. Been thinking about this for days and days and weeks and weeks.

“Set me up with her 37 year old friend”
This is so ugly. I love it, Caleb.

“Cats and dogs”
I’ll never love cats and they smug asses.

“Mr. Durag”
Michèle Lamy, you wild.

“No Chick-Fil-A sauce?!”
My favorite post of the week.

And, finally, what it feels like to write this newsletter (and what it feels like to get it).

---

Give a tip & subscribe to The Fox Is Black.