beyond the deinfluence 💚

A look at a few things that seem to say "log off" and a temperature check of this platform.

Feb 12, 2023

Death Toll, Injuries, Relief Efforts
survivors' choice - danger inside or freezing outside
Death Toll in Turkey and Syria Rises
The Turkey earthquake this week was so unfathomably sad. An absolutely overwhelming tragedy (which you can donate to help with).

At least 24 dead in Chile as wildfires spread
Meanwhile, some severe fires in Chile.

Residents can return home after derailed tanker cars
"why the Ohio railroad disaster occurred"
This was a bit overlooked this week which, while bad for many reasons, seems to relate to another issue: cutting corners and not listening to unions, which may have contributed to this happening. Some are pointing out that this could be a Chernobyl situation.

"The Deadly Trek To The U.S. Through The Darién Gap"
I need everyone to watch this TikTok about how many people from South America walk through muddy jungles for ten days to make it to the United States, many of whom expire.

“some key moments”
Tech Needs Washington's Parental Oversight
“I’ll give you a copy of the proposal”
"masks at the state of the union"
Romney and Santos in tense State of Union exchange
Your State of the Union roundup, which all seemed like a reality show at points.

"White House tried to get Twitter to take down tweets"
"I…oh my god"
This is some great Trump content and begs the question: is Chrissy Teigen going to have a Twitter comeback?

Half of US Public School Students Lag
Hundreds Of Thousands Never Returned To School
Oy. I’m surprised English is such a problem subject, given how kids see more “language” now (a la, online) (granted, literacy of all sorts seems to be nonexistent).

BP: Making Lots of Money on Oil, so Screw the Climate
Exxon smashes Western oil majors' profits
hey yo fuck oil

Google AI chatbot Bard flubs answer in ad
Google Shows Off AI Advancements
Could be cool – but woof. Thoughts and prayers to the marketing and social team who didn’t fact check this AI, which is a reminder that…the promise of AI is flimsy at best.

Fake meat fad hits the chopping block
I mentioned this a few weeks ago but the fake meet roosters are coming to roost.

There is something in the air and I’m not sure what it is. I have evidence of it! But I don’t have proof that they are connected – but I know they are. These are multiple trends that are circling around a specific feeling or mood that I’m not sure I have a name for yet. Maybe you have an idea?

We’ll theorize on it in a moment but let’s look at the symptoms of our current psychology.

Deinfluencing: This is the most obvious symptom, as it had a breakout moment this week, seeing the hashtag yield very viral content telling you to stop buying shit. This is an anti-capitalist, anti-consumption trend to get you to stop mindlessly getting shit which we’re going to hear about exhaustively all year (or at least the next two months), which people will theorize will bring down Amazon Prime and Shein. We can dream! (See also: the dupe.)
Panopticontent: We talked about this two weeks ago but “panopticontent,” going viral without consent because people are watching you, is all the rage right now. This dovetails into (hyperbolic) theories that younger generations are trying to avoid the “trauma” of going viral, since there are no returns on the phenomena.
Borgs: “The teens” are bringing their own drinks in jugs to tailgates. They’re called borgs. This is a great trend, as it reclaims autonomy and places limits on drinking.
Lip-Reading: We saw it with Ben and J.Lo, we saw it with George and Mitt, and we saw it with AOC and Matt along with Kendall and Rihanna before this year: lip-reading is in, a sort of pseudo-science that exposes secrets in open public. In a world of deepfakes, lip-reading speaks truth – or attempts to.
Rockhounding: I keep seeing and seeing and seeing talk about rock collecting. This is a bit timeless and distinctly unrelated to crystal culture, building on earlier viral items and various reportage and Reddit threads, but it’s popping right now.
The Fleishman Effect: This is a distinctly New York item but the show and the idea get at something related to aging, class, and living in a city. I think this TikTok from a few weeks back explains the concept best.
Caveating: Have you noticed that everyone is adding caveats to what they say? This is a means of checking privilege while escaping cancellation, deflecting crucifixion by the panopticon. It’s the new silly head of the white-people-talking-about-white-people phenomena (an essay I meant to write about months and months ago, about the hollowness of white persons pointing out white antics while participating in the same white antics).
The TikTok Tia: Sonia Mara is the latest super viral dancing TikTok Tia. Every few months, an older latina goes viral for a dance that they do again and again. Previously it was Cristobal Leyva, known for wobbling to Tejano music. Related but different are geriatric influencers like Lilian Droniak, Mama Lulu, the Old Gays, and Retirement House.

Do you see what I’m seeing? I see something here, perhaps the connective tissue being –

A new anti-capitalist chapter. We know anti-capitalism has been brewing for some time, and we know this “issue” isn’t going to disappear overnight. Rhese things get at tearing down institutions, trying to work around systems, and normalizing normalcy.
A turning off of the TV. These all get at recognizing that we live in an advertisement and that we can choose to look away, to find rewards outside of traditional programming in media.
A new age of autonomy. You’ll notice that, while talk about AI is all the rage right now, none of these things are directly about tech: they’re about recolonizing yourself for yourself. These all say “I will make my own decisions – not you.”
A Covid hangover. While we, as a society, seemed to have “forgotten” about Covid, the past three years have been brutal – and the machine of life has yet to slow for us to catch our breath. These all express fatigue and a desire to take a moment to be human.

It is probably all of these and none of these. I will note that this is not just a “Gen Z thing” but seems to hit across all of culture, at least all of urban and those-on-social culture. This is also to say: it’s going to be harder for brands and businesses to “do their job.” The people are coming for you. What do you think?

Viola Davis earns coveted EGOT with Grammy for audiobook
Huge!!

Penn boy becomes one of the youngest high school graduates
I want to meet this kid!!

Ancient Pompeii site installs 'invisible' solar panels
These solar panels look like stone and are very cool!!

YouTube Gave Me Everything. Then I Grew Up.
This is a very good read that says a lot about “creating now.” I’ve worked with Elle and she is a peach. She also very much gets at what everyone sort of got grossed out by with the Mr. Beast unblinding thing. (This also seems to…emphasize the items in the essay above: even the creators are tired of “it.”)

"caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny"
"The world is threatened by my power"
"girl fuck your mom"
I’m team Madonna. Does she look different? Is she aging? Yes and yes. Are misogyny and ageism creating toxic conversation around her? Yes. People are so hateful and critical of women aging. Get a life. Sicko shit, which is most certainly an extension of conservative respectability politics.

"not the first trans woman ever to win a Grammy"
Congrats to Kim Petras on being the first trans artist to win in that specific category, but also shout out to Wendy Carlos, electronic queen and queer icon who was the first trans person to win a Grammy.

But was his first wife Black?
A very, very interesting story about Johnny Cash’s first wife and people thinking she was Black. But was she actually Black? I’ll let you explore yourself for yourself.

'@midnight' to Replace 'The Late Late Show With James Corden'
A vindication for a very good show, which says a lot about Hollywood now. (a la: “more fans of the shows are watching them via social-media clips and digital extensions” which, when combined with CBS’ synergy machine, makes sense instead of attempting to start something totally new.)

Pedro Pascal is in his daddy era
"losing my mind over Pedro’s answers"
Pedro is that girl right now. He is going to come out one day and people are going to lose their damn minds.

How personal injury lawyers took over the LA skyline
This story is for all my LA people, and is surprising this hasn’t been written before in this way. (Related and not is this short story I wrote inspired by these signs.)

Let’s talk about Substack. For years now, the story has been that this platform is the place disrupting the attention economy. Substack has gotten a Vanity Fair profile and a deep look via New York Times, while being seen as a journalism alternative by the Columbia Journalism Review, a place for Twitter’s refuse by Observer, a playground for the deplatformed by Wired, and both post-buzz (by Insider) and still abuzz (by The New Statesman). This is all to say: Substack is still very much “on trend.”

But what does that mean for, say, writers and readers? If you look around the site's recommendations, you may notice some patterns: in Culture, the top posts are from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anne Helen Petersen with top accounts being Roxane Gay, Hunter Harris, and Bad Manners; in Politics, top posts are from (Bari Weiss’) The Free Press and Popular Information with top accounts being Dan Rather’s Steady, Glenn Greenwald, and Robert Reich; for Music, the top posts are from (Jeff Tweedy’s) Starship Casual and Macie Stewart with top accounts being Patti Smith, Tegan and Sara, and Neko Case.

Do you notice any similarities here? Some of these require a bit of industry knowledge but, by and large, none of these are “normal.” None of them are people who, say, bootstrapped themselves up through Substack trenches to rise to the top. The majority are celebrities who are now on-platform or journalists and writers who built audiences within a publication, leaving to do their own thing. The latter is objectively good, as the world of media and publishing is a precarious bog, but the optics inside and out are that Substack is just like the rest of social media, if not worse: you can only succeed here if you already have an audience, that there is no way to cut through the noise without help, making this place an accurate reflection of American privileges (a la, the generational wealth gained elsewhere applies here).

None of this is bad or wrong, as the Substack reader wins. If all you ever wanted a running feed of the things Max Read – a former editor of Gawker and New York – then you are gonna love his newsletter. Hungry for more thoughts from MSNBC’s Joyce Vance? She’s giving legal knowledge and political analysis in her newsletter! But for writers hoping to start from the ground up? You find that this machine works like all machines work, that you will get ahead if you have a place in the New York journalism echo chamber, Hollywood celebrity system, or DC political factory.

This also means that, like Instagram and Twitter, where people feel like no one is seeing their posts, the same thing is starting to happen in this verdant newsletter world. The Fox Is Black spoke about this in a recent post, pointing out something that is felt by this reader and writer too: Substack does a great job at highlighting those that we all know – but not a great job of amplifying the little people. Paired with both newsletters like Chaoyang Trap ending their run and a seeming rise in spam as Lit Mag News points out (and which I have seen trickling into this Trend™ oasis), you can start to smell a stink.

Do I care about this? Should you care about this? I don’t actually know. But there is this growing feeling that we’re all opera singing to an empty house, that participating in any venture in this online or offline economy is ultimately a form of digital carcinisation: every “social site” functions the same, no matter how they spin their benevolence. Doing better has to go beyond simply saying you’re better.

DONKS
Feels weird saying this but: this is a really cool YouTube video.

"this generation finally has their “Debbie Downer at Disneyland”"
You win this round, SNL.

"this tweet has 26927 characters"
"screamed in terror when I opened"
“a cry for help”
Exhausted by these realllllly long Tweets. This will not help Twitter at all!!

"would bust out laughing if i saw these in person"
"American Psycho"
"How the HELL do I mute these"
Also exhausted by these awful deflated balloon shoes.

Strays | Official Trailer
From one good video to a really bad one: this Will Ferrell dog movie seems very AI generated or, as I like to call it, a kids-movie-for-adults. (That said, as this Tweet says, at least Universal is putting out original content unlike others.)

"william basinski on 9/11"
"sky ferreira signing to capitol records"
Two very good, very niche music memes.

“obsessed with Jennifer Coolidge”
She’s so me.

"had to see"
"Deepfakes are going exactly as far as they need to"
Some funny things vaguely related to sandwiches.

“rip @beyonce”
Don’t fall for her tricks!!

"Oh no"
I like this version of basketball and I would like a shirt that says this!

"Nah bro what"
Kids not in school but they…doing this??

"It's not easy being green"
Best conspiracy theory of the week is that Kermit and Miss Piggy are actually the same species.

And, finally, a look at me enjoying my breakfast.

Give a tip & subscribe to The Fox Is Black.