JOE BIDEN PLEASE READ THIS!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately we have to talk about the debate and the confusing of audience, community, followers, and friends.

If you love The Trend Report™ then…your friends and co-workers and neighbors may too! Share (or be cursed with five years of bad taste in memes).

Anti-tax protesters storm Kenya's parliament
A story of the week, which is based on inequality and rising costs of living.

Barcelona to ban apartment rentals to tourists
Related to the above, specifically to correct rising costs of living. This feels like the first major shot across the bow as far as curbing invasive “holiday” tech (Ahem, Airbnb.) along with overtourism. Expect more of this!

Bolivian General Arrested After Coup Attempt
What’s wild is that this is called a “coup” and January 6 wasn’t.

Where millions of immigrants came from and live
A look at where immigrants to the United States are coming from and going, which are largely Mexican and Latin American persons going to the coasts.

Court Poised to Allow Emergency Abortions
I feel like the past few years the Supreme Court has been leaking things left and right. Really makes me confident in their abilities to sensibly do their jobs! Beyond this, they ruled on anti-corruption (which basically says politicians can take money “as a gift”), on an opioid settlement (bad for the Sacklers, also bad for combating the epidemic), on homelessness (a major loss for the unhoused and poor), obstruction laws (which will help Jan 6 assholes), and on executive branch’s ability to interpret laws (a major loss, as this will mean agencies and appointees will have more difficulties doing their job). By the way: Alito has been missing in action (and lying).

Texas Is US ‘Weather Battleground’
Weather in Texas stresses me the fuck out because it’s growing more and more volatile. Certified climate change hot spot!

The Maldives Were Vanishing. Science Tells Another Story.
One of the more fascinating reads of the week, in that it looks at how places like the Maldives were expected to sink due to climate change — but they’re actually growing. I don’t know what to make of this!

"A candidate in the Tokyo gubernatorial race"
"True commitment to the bit here."
If anything, all the world elections have been wild.

AriZona Iced Tea CEO won't raise price
Okay, Horatio Alger!! Watch part of the interview here.

Summer wave of Covid has arrived
I was just telling someone that I know four people who have had Covid in the past month. Stay safe out there!!

“Are you going to stay up and watch?” a man asked me at a dinner Thursday night, around 10PM local time, 4PM east coast time. “Are you worried?”

I weighed the question, which wasn’t the first time I’ve been asked about American politics nor will it be the last time. I’ve been in many heated discussions on the matter, trying to explain the complexities of this election, of all elections. I told him I wasn’t going to watch. I’d catch it in the morning and figure out what I thought before looking at any analysis. Biden just needs to look good, I told him. The biggest thing on our minds shouldn’t be worrying that he’s going to fumble shit.

“It’s worrying,” he said. “Because it affects so much of the world.”

I don’t need to tell you about the debate. It was one of the more literally stunning events in my American life. It revealed less about America and more about the state of American politics: it was old, mean, and deeply detached from reality. It was cause for one party to scramble as the other licked their knife. Or was it the Democrats who had the knife the whole time, using it to disembowel themselves? Does it matter?

The debate devalued itself, becoming meaningless as the biggest takeaway was less about policy or the immediate future as it devolved into a wellness check, the search for a pulse. It said as much about ourselves as it did our candidates. It brought me back to a question that I’ve been struggling to answer week after week, to the point that I’ve almost contacted marketing strategist friends to brainstorm answers to share in this newsletter: what is the Democrats’ version of Project 2025? What is the strategy here? The Republicans are the revolutionaries, fighting loudly to be heard, as we more progressive sit and bicker in comments, protest against each other, weakening ourselves as the more backwards move forward by parading plans to degrade our lives. For years, Project 2025 has been a clear oppositional boogeyman, an unsubtle and direct means of deconstructing freedoms via a Trump trojan horse. Why isn’t there a Democrat equivalent? Does one exist and we’re too dissatisfied by it? The right would argue that extreme leftism — queerness, abortions, “critical race theory,” police defunding — are “it” but the reality is that there isn’t such organized thought, unity, an ability to come together to move toward change. It’s more a language of the wind as equality, intersectionality, and progressivism trend toward the plural, the uncentered — which means nothing can be pinned down, concretized.

This is the background of our current disasterscape: a party that cannot meet each other on matters like Palestine, which is colliding with a voting block who are largely concerned with showmanship and who see a single person as the party. There is a deep cynicism that has been growing in the American mind, one that is disinterested in critical thought yet is knee deep in identity pride that either puts trees before forest (On the left.) or turns you into a complete sheep (On the right.). Wishy washy or false prophecies, heaped with gerontocracy: pick your poison.

The upshot — Somehow! — is it appears that Thursday’s bottom falling out was a wake-up call. Not because there was substance but because we were given a mirror, to see how deeply embarrassing this moment is, that life is a group project and we’ve been content to bicker in the back of the classroom. Replace Biden, sure, but he is also somehow the only option, the one to sympathize for and with, to reflect the true American dream: you can fall — and people will help you back up. Pair this with aggressive, anti-progressive Supreme Court rulings immediately following the debate and you have many people who have zipped through the stages of grief toward action. Gone are the woes of Jamaal Bowman: the future has eclipsed the past. We have to do something. We — the left, progressives, Democrats, Americans concerned with the health of this country — may not have a Project 2025 but an unlikely refrain that has been building for months is coming into focus: you are voting for a cohort, you are voting for ideas, a quiet new deal — not just a person. Is the person perfect? Is the party? No — but no party, no person is. That’s why we have to work together on this.

America is great. It might not always feel like that but the diversity, the openness, the possibilities are absolutely unrivaled. And its influence? Unparalleled. “Whatever happens there comes here,” the man said to me at Thursday’s dinner, a reminder of the responsibility that comes with being on top, being the country that everyone looks to for an understanding of the future. Europe, the world, has become an echo of the United States. The grass is always greener — which means we have to do our jobs to keep fertilizing the soil.

Against ‘Women’s Writing’
I did not read all of this review of Rachel Cusk’s new book Parade but, let me tell you, this piece got me buzzing. I write this, staring at my copy of the book on the table, eager to eat it up. But first: All Fours has to be completed. Also: this is an Andrea Long Chu joint. The genius that she is 😍

Law Roach Has No Fear
Your weekly creative inspiration read, as Law was interviewed by the Mickalene Thomas. Also he has a book coming out in September? (But do I want the Law Roach acting experience? Not really. Him saying he’s taking improv classes is one of the most unsettling things I’ve read in a while.)

MTV News Website Goes Dark
This is something we’ve talked about before, having experienced this a few times already this year: we’re entering an era where entire legacies and “works” of writers, artists, and creatives — Not to mention history! — are being completely eliminated as businesses cut cost or edit the archive. Who will be the Marion Marguerite Stokes of 2010s internet writing? Wayback Machine isn’t enough!

‘I’m Your Venus’: A Poignant Doc
I need to see this documentary, which effectively sounds like a coda to Paris Is Burning. It’s also produced by thee Dominique Jackson!

AI took their jobs. Now they make it sound human
McDonald's scraps AI drive-through
AI-designed purse is tearing apart this community
“the Baggu, Colina Strada AI controversy”
Some lol AI things. The Baggu item is a bellwether. Way overblown, but it captures the public imagination regarding the tech. Paired with the environmental toll, you can see a viable path for a non-AI future.

“Some questions are easier than others.”
This clip from the Celine Dion documentary will probably make you cry. It made me cry! I could write a whole book about “Strange, isn’t it?”

A new SOPHIE album announced
Yes, the new song is good — arguably her best work, as it fulfills the promise of her pop-crossover potential and the power of a dance music. It’s a dark, earworming bumper. But, as I noted on Twitter, something about it feels capitalized. It’s hard to pinpoint but, paired with “So I” and the conversation around it, there’s an odd texture to this roll out. That said, getting to hear the tracks from the Heaven set will be transcendent. Pee Girl, if you’re reading this, will we get the full “Take Me To Dubai” cut?

🖼️🎭🎶 how to write about art 🎶🎭🖼️
girl, so confusing (The Trend Report™ remix)
I forgot to share the last two most recent paid posts: the first is a guide for writing about art, the second is a meditation on friendships.

Hiking groups, running clubs, pickleball, bouldering.
Paint and sip, puff and paint, paint each other, paint the town.
LiveIn, Locket, BeReal, Find My Friends.
Are you in an audience? Are you in a community? Are you a follower? Are you a friend?

Every other week we talk about relationships and one thing that hasn’t been covered as much is how these ideas — audience, community, follower, friend — seem to circle each other, emphasized by our cultural expressions: athletic groups and athletic clubs, apps that peek into the interior lives of others, interactive activities based on the self while being with others. Non-team sports conducted in groups. Being one voice in a crowd, a comment in the replies. I watch you. I run after you. We paint each other. We follow each other’s tracks. Are these things the same? Are they different? Is being a voice in a chorus a form of communication? What does it mean to be in conversation anymore?

Everyone is in an audience now. Whether or not this audience is a fandom doesn’t quite matter as any viewer can be transformed into an unthinking group who passively “work together” in the moment. The best capturing of this are the once-every-few-months occurrences of persons on social media “solving” a supposed crime, which is typically a supposedly adulterous husband. This week saw another explosion of this phenomena, which builds on it happening in March, last August, and last June: it’s a genre of audience behavior that puts the pursuit of entertainment over privacy. It fits into a larger picture of panoptic relationships — I watch you, I follow you, I chase you. — where relationships only extend as far as a “Gotcha!” will allow. Relationships become one-dimensional and our treatment of each other becomes flattened to the screen: highs of the moment cloud real life, as you become an antagonist who thought they were the hero.

In contrast and in parallel is an increasing realization that some people’s ideas of community and friendship have dissolved because of audience participation. We’ve talked about this void-making but the idea keeps coming up: Are you in a friend group? Or a curation of similar shoppers? Are you sidelining a friendship because of aesthetic parameters? While there are very real ways to participate in friendships and community — gardening, fitness, spiritual collectives, etc. other expressions — being in a follower or in an audience in and of itself is not that. And yet the clock keeps striking this same time, that you can be in parasocial relationships with very real people in your life.

Why? You know the answer: brands continue to poison culture by confusing relationships and or trying to equate relationships to money spent. Despite what thinkpieces about brand behavior say, having similar shopping patterns, using the same products, and or following/commenting on branded items is not the same as having friends. As illustrator Laura Knetzger pointed out on Twitter recently, this is the same thing as confusing making a product for making art. These things are not the same.

This brings us to our growing disenchantment with internet communities (Or digital chatter, really.) because they confuse and disrupt actual life. As we started discussing in 2022, one of the biggest storylines of the 2020s is this confusion and tension between real and full relationships and flimsy, surface level chatter relationships. Standing together in a crowd or adding to a comment section doesn’t mean anything until you step outside, face-to-face, in a separate chat to meaningfully connect instead of following, consume. Again and again and again and again and again this pops up because it’s easy to be confused in the buzz of work and politics and general “noise” of the world, because we no longer have organized outlets for communing. Thus the running together. Thus the painting and sipping. Thus the finding my friends.

“We look the same”
“I’m assembling a team”
“This debate apparently”
“The bill from Schoolhouse Rock”
”Cheer up”
“Biden should”
“Kamala, Gavin, and Gretchen”
“Me after Russia drops the A-bomb”
My favorite debate posts. (If you want a good Jack Schlossberg thinkpiece, watch this TikTok.)

“The emotion that always”
“New emotion”
“Me if I were in Inside Out”
Inside Out 2 memes are very in vogue.

“my for you page”
Girl, so confusing indeed!!

“I’m the one with the shitty ass”
This is exactly what I think whenever I see posts like this.

"The patriarchy hurts us all"
Patti Harrison for president!!

“goodie two shoes”
For all my Brat girlies.

“That plane”
Happy end of Pride, fam.

“Ignore his bits”
It took me a minute to notice.

"a fat Africa"
I had no thoughts about Lithuania but now I will always have this thought about Lithuania.

"Men are rawdogging"
"Follow your dreams"
This week in “Are men okay?” I don’t care if the second one is a parody!

“completely insane post”
We gotta do something about Eloncels.

“I’m Kayleigh Grace”
This is actually a documentary about people in the South.

"These have human remains"
I have my doubts that this is real but, woo wee, what a story.

And, finally, a look at the average Trend Report™ reader.

---

Subscribe to The Fox Is Black and gift a paid subscription today.