LOG OFF.

The biggest lesson in the election is that online life isn't real. What does that mean? It's time to start doing something.

Times are shitty — and you should get offline. Don’t worry though: I’ll watch the internet for you. Share with someone who needs to log the fuck off too 📵

I don’t need to tell you the bad news: you already know it. In the name of realistic optimism, let’s look at a few good things that also came of Tuesday.
Most states that considered abortion approved them
Washington voters uphold landmark climate law
“Rashida won in a state Kamala lost”
Paid leave on the ballot. Voters approved.
Some Actually Good News From Election Night

So…how did we get here? Let’s look at a few storylines of culture we’ve mapped in previous Reports™, to elucidate “what happened.” Links in bold are previous dispatches.

• The “Men are misogynists! Gen Z men are red pilled!” thread goes into the “Men love church because they’re followers” story which, to me, is the smoking gun that we’ll speak about in a moment. (Enter the (US) 4B movement, which leaps out from a context we mused over in May.)

• There’s obviously the racism of it all which ties into the death of diversity and the false promise of bootstrapping and billionaires, that money can save whiteness. See also: the lack of credibility of the biracial American.

• The “Gen Z are actually very conservative!” goes into Gen Z’s off, neo-fasc aura, a long tail of neo-con behavior we’ve long documented.

• The problem of Democratic talking points is best exemplified by Biden's bad debate. This relates to the longing for an easy life, as deep capitalism poisoning rocked the vote.

• Then there’s our great, ongoing illiteracy problem, which is less about not understanding social posts and more about the degradation and loss of “import” when it comes to reading, journalism, critical thinking, etc. not to mention media being bad at its job. A doozy of a double whammy.

I’m not going to say much on this but, while it wasn’t perfect, I do think Kamala deserves credit for entering a race halfway and narrowing the playing field — and now having this fall pinned to her for life. The strategy didn’t work but I’m glad someone did something, even if it ultimately was a historic reckoning with money questions attached. Watch her concession speech if you haven’t.

What Project 2025 Means
Now that that’s out of the way, start studying.

Exit Right
Hold the Democratic Elite Responsible
Democrats can’t blame anyone but themselves
What the Democrats misread about America
Then study these. Hasan was right!

Palestinians will not be allowed to return
And just like that: emboldened genocide.

A Rosy Spin on U.S. History
“some of the changes”
A phenomena that will define this decade, which Trump will further.

The Oligarch Election
Levi Strauss Heir to Win SF Mayor’s Race
Obviously this is the other thing that will define this decade.

Deadly Fungal Outbreaks Are on the Rise
In other news: what in the Last of Us…?

At some point this summer, between Joe Biden’s brain fog and Kamala “Brat” Harris’ rise, something shifted in left-leaning politics: we were doing something. The best strategists in the world and a team of ace TikTokers led a neon green charge into the future. It inspired so much laughing and clapping, cheering at the screen with which the message was transmitted. The keys to the White House were in Kamala’s hands! JD Vance fucked a couch! Did you just fall out of a coconut tree? Beyoncé! Gaga! Ann Selzer! We are not! Going! Back!

We should have recognized the digital mirage when “brat” explainers dropped: there was a wide chasm between the real world and our imagined world, between social lives and social media, that there was a group living and a group experiencing a mass hallucination. That’s the promise of the internet: seeing is believing, the timeline as culture itself instead of a reflection, a facsimile, a place that makes it difficult to discern fact and fiction. A distraction! Sure, sure: media problems, billionaires buying the election, Democrat finger pointing — but this too is noise. That “is” real life but the chatter framing it is not real life. I have no money. My bills are too high. I’m drowning in taxes. My whiteness is fragile and I don’t know where to direct my anger. Things aren’t fair and I’m mad: as we examine the body, this is what is clear — and has been obvious for years, as desperation is the horse that racism and misogyny rode upon. Talking about “the economy” is very different than talking about how much your milk costs at the store yesterday, today, tomorrow: the tangible is more real than the intangible, the thing in front of me will always be more important than the thing defining an entire generation. What my friend says, in person, matters more than some Tweet I saw.

This was an election — and we have officially entered a time — where real life is informed by the internet versus the internet informing real life. This was an election where we realized that Gen Z (men) swing right from internet poisoning, that calling someone “garbage” enables visually appealing stunts to happen in real life, both of which are superpowers offline that last longer and have greater meaning than the social posts about it: what happens in the void doesn’t matter unless it translates to real life action. That is the lesson: plant seeds online then grow them in the real world. Use the internet as a tool, as a source of ideas and information, instead of the main event. (An example, which I realized via some right wing post that I’m not going to link to: look at this clip from Kamala’s Call Her Daddy episode on YouTube versus the full episode of Trump on Joe Rogan on YouTube. Look at the view count. Look at the comments. What do you notice?)

We still haven’t learned the lesson that the internet will not save people: people save people. From the false promise of friendship apps to the initial confusion of if Kamala was breaking through or if it was just our algorithms, the internet and social media are the most unreliable narrators of our time — yet we of-the-internet love to indulge the magical thinking that it can change us, as face filters all the way up to pollsters we doubt replace the real with the imaginary. When we talk about missing the computer room we’re talking about how there was a time when we realized what happened on screen was life with many a grain of salt: real life is real life — and many of us have been tricked into still thinking that what we see is online true, is reality, is fact, is life. In that sense, isn’t all news fake news then? Every post a fiction of some sort, a yarn to be pulled? We cling to our online lives to distract us from work, from the world ending — but the internet doesn’t matter. We’re living in the debris of a failed project, fooled once, twice, more than three times by tech bros who we further empower by believing that the escape is reality. Noise is nothing but nonsense.

I’m not a doomer about this because I know the solution, which has to do with the nuts and bolts of coalition building: our problem — as progressive people, as non-normative people, as Democrats and or those aligned in the not-Trump world, as non-winners — is a failure to organize toward a shared goal in real life. Our greatest values are being able to compromise, to hear all sides, to respect and research. But this also means we give up clear direction, losing what we cannot see: a movement tricked by our struggle with object permanence. Think about universities, think about sports, think about churches. What do they have in common? People are in a place, sharing space, working together without financial incentive because they share a common goal: we need to graduate, we need to win, we need to go to heaven. As we lost religion, we — the secular, the atheist, the former believers, the progressive — also lost the ability to get together and work. Third spaces and the loneliness epidemic are false flags because they’re neither the solution nor the problem: these are all issues of working together and being together. We the progressive have willingly — And understandably! — divorced ourselves from each other in the name of being independent, of overcoming our pasts, of coming together in digital unity. That’s beautiful until we think about the matter critically: the right organizes well because everything stems from the mechanics of the church, everything emerging from a centuries old macro-information system that has wired people to believe they can be themselves within the collective, that their selective listening can be action, can be salvation — and this approach continues to be a winning vehicle, particularly for fascism. What is the “liberal” equivalent of this? Is it run clubs, where people get together and run somewhere but don’t have a shared goal other than heading in the same direction, hoping for a kiss? Is it “singing collectives” where people get together to sing songs without looking at each other, playacting creative higher callings, rehearsing for a show that will never happen? What is the point of this, if we’re just going to get together for no other reason than to get together? No wonder we can’t get our shit together: we’re together, alone, while the other side is marching in unison.

Magazines are coming back. People have returned to office. Being offline is the ultimate luxury. The signs are all there, the lesson of this decade defined: social media and tech isn’t just killing itself but it has killed us. Enroll in a university, join a team sport, start going to church: know what being part of a community actually means because a community is nothing without clear goals, whose success is incumbent upon working with others for free. Do things offline too. This isn’t to say that these things aren’t already happening, that people aren’t doing the work, on the street bringing people together, but it can’t always be “the work”: real change happens by having people always on, always together, always gathering on a massive scale. Since leaving school, organized sports, and church, we’ve lost this skill, this muscle, as politics alone isn’t the cohesion needed for change. Maybe it’s theater or concerts, maybe it’s volunteering and non-profits: it has to be something.

“Find your safe network of people,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained in the final minutes of a near-hour debrief on the election. “We have to do a lot of community building. And by that I don’t just mean ‘organizing’ politically: I mean active, community building.” Now close your computer, put away your phone, turn off your television, and walk somewhere. Talk to a person, preferably someone you don’t know. The Trend Report™ will be here when you get back: I will always recap the online world for you but, like you, I have to live life offline in order to create the world I want to live in.

Can Kehinde Wiley Survive Assault Accusations?
A fascinating story that “hears both sides” of a cancellation. This feels like…some sort of new benchmark in the framing of (Male!) persons whose careers have been declared over. A sign of things to come, in the next stage of Trump world?

AI Can Authenticate Sneakers by Smell
AI out here sniffing.

"Theres one named SLEIGHBELLE yall"
Brenda Lee's classic gets AI-Spanish version
Amazon debuts virtual holiday shop
We will never have a normal holiday again as they will now permanently be slopidays. AI may not kill the world directly but it is certainly consumerism’s handmaiden, where any shitty idea can take up what was otherwise sacred space.

‘Heretic’ Directors Warn Hollywood About AI
"our passionate position on generative AI"
Slay.

'Saw' Boom Operator Discusses Viral Fame
A dose of cinema history.

Vanishing Culture
This is a huge piece (a la, over a hundred pages) but a brilliant explanation and survey of how so much of culture (digital and not) is being lost as the modern internet deletes itself. The last essay by JD Shadel has a lil Trend Report™ shout out too! Going to be microdosing this little by little but so much good stuff in here, which ties into the history item in the first section.

“Ted’s always ready for a Facetime”
I talked a bit about this in Tuesday’s paid post but…some people deserve success, thanks to their hard work and their being a good person. Let Quinta Brunson offer some wind beneath your wings!

10-Minute Challenge: ‘Manhattan Bridge Loop’
Cute! It’s a series, which I hadn’t encountered before and was…a lot harder than I thought it would be. It reminded me that I need to start meditating again. That helped eight years ago and will come in handy in these times!

Listen to Molina’s “Navel.”
In the silence, when I mourn alone, without anything but me: I don’t feel the time move. The sun comes up, the sun goes down. The moon appears in the daytime and I don’t know what to make of it. “You are going to make it through,” Santa Solina read on TikTok. “Your fear is legitimate and I share it…I am with you and you are with me. Have you seen all the other people that are with us?” She was reading a note written this summer to her friends, as France faced a vote against fascism. The days are all the same but the days are all different. It’s like walking into a room and the furniture has been rearranged: it’s the same room, the same things, but somehow it’s all not-the-same. My friend David texted on Wednesday, asking for happiness. “we’ve done this before,” I told him. We have been in this room. I don’t feel the time move, but then I look down, upon my body, and I know that’s not true, that there are tree rings within me, that I’ve grown smarter, more loving, more full of life.

Listen to Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s “Ever New.”
It’s a warm fall, ironic as this is a time of fading. Heat, it seems, the false promise of an endless summer, offers a charmless smile. Winter is coming, so is the cold, the dark. But then comes something else: the spring, the rain. We will welcome the buds, the blooms, the young and the old. Who will I see in the future? Who will I meet? I’ve done this before. I know the story, I know history. So do you. “We’re here to celebrate radical and personal love,” a character in Janet Planet said of the community he created. “That’s the deepest source of political and spiritual resistance.” They had problems — but why is it always that love is so hard, that seeing the same way is so difficult? “These are the same exact questions people were asking,” Hasan Piker said on a live. “Rely on your neighbor, rely on your friends, rely on people in your orbit to protect one another.” 

Listen to Laurie Anderson’s “My Eyes.”
How do you imagine change? I want a dyke for president. I want a person with AIDS for president. I want someone with no health insurance in charge. If I were president, queen for a day, all of us ugly people would get money. Wheel of fortune, wheel of fate: how will it turn? Every day grows dark. Then comes night. Every night has stars, even if the lights or the clouds or you own eyes do not let you see them. They are there, waiting, if you take the time to see them. “Social activism seemed way more pervasive, even people who occupied liberal spaces but were avoidant of those kinds of things were more inclined to get involved,” musician Zay Lewis said on TikTok, speaking of a handful of years ago. How do you imagine change? How do you imagine the future? Write that down then work backwards.

Listen to Hannah Diamond’s “Lip Sync.”
Sometimes you have to make it up as you go — but you have to start, working in some way. Maybe you can preserve history? Solve big and small problems locally? Meet up with others, have some fun but also share goals. Do something more than donate money, than signing a petition. Daydream, then make a plan. Why not run for office? Start an action committee? Talk to people more, see yourself and the world from a new perspective. Sip on a mangonada and smile. Repeat affirmations. Do what you can to believe in change — then make it. Get uncomfortable, face your fears, but don’t do anything alone. “Tomorrow you will be alive,” the comic artist Haus of Decline wrote. “You will bleed through honor and discipline. And you will become so strong that they may never threaten you. You are going to do this.”

Listen to Whitney Houston’s “Love Will Save The Day.”
Start a group chat with others, a space to vent and reminisce. What will keep your lights on? “I met thousands of young women,” Jack Schlossberg said in a Vogue video. “So excited, so enthusiastic, so engaged…none of those people would have gotten involved.” Some problems wear you down but there are always solutions. Don’t fall for the empty promise of conspiracy, of delusion. Practice realism instead of cynicism. Practice practicality instead of toxic positivity or its opposite, alarmism. “Have you seen this Tweet?” someone asked on TikTok. “Haha, what a wicked and ironic comment bro,” the Tweet read. “Now try saying something true and beautiful.”

Listen to DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ’s “Invincible.”
Hold onto change for the rest of your life — and start today. Women on strike, people taking action, organizing for healthcare, queer rights, immigration, those of difference, international safety: hope is meaningless without action, without creative solutions. “When the unexpected happens, great people and amazing movements emerge,” Sophie Walker wrote on LinkedIn. Imagine the possibilities, imagine the infinity of what can be. “It is not over, because we never go away,” civil rights activist Maya Wiley told the New York Times. I’m tired, you’re tired, but we can be tired together. “Anytime I’m stressed, anytime I’m scared, the best thing for me is to just start working,” chef Sohla El-Waylly said on TikTok. “Let’s just start working, you know? One sprinkle at a time.” Something to hold onto. Something.

"do our own January 6th"
“Transition meeting”
“my tl”
“fucking dipshit”
“Ik she’s happy”
“Neo Nazi candidate”
”What do you do?”
“I’ll misread the ballot”
“Ima keep it real”
“Is Moo Deng just”
“practice my straight voice”
“serving japanese citypop”
“why is the green party”
“TIRED”
“Happy Election Day everyone”
Hopefully this is the last week we have a round up of political lols because I am so fucking tired of talking and looking at election stuff. This was not specifically about the election but this was my favorite Tweet this week.

“Vroom, vroom”
“Evil reinvents itself”
No one is allowed to come into my house and speak the name of the beast EVER AGAIN. I don’t give a shit about no Grammy noms!!

"everyone finding out about my girl"
“Can’t find a single chair”
The genre of Mega Dumper Kink Creator™ is such an out-in-the-open freak fest that I always have to stop and watch. What’s even more interesting is, when you zoom out, you’ll find that for every “crossover” creator like Gracie there are countless aspiring Mega Dumper Kink Creators™ serving mega ass to slobbering incels. Related and not: this “Walmart level” post.

"scared to put ‘29’ on your cake"
“doing it to yourself”
I’ve talked about it for years and I’m going to talk about it no more. But: Gen Z…what’s up? The neo-con-to-self-hate pipeline is bad for you. Are we learning in real time that internet poisoning is worse than lead poisoning? Anyway, I’m with her.

“What are Saturdays for?”
If you don’t get this, please study history.

"his baby is on the roof"
his baby is on the roof

“how small talk sounds”
How it feels trying to make new friends in your thirties.

“the ethics of that”
See above.

"RON'S BEEN SPLINCHED"
I am the opposite of an Ariana Grande fan but this video…I have watched too many times, despite her pronunciation of “vocal fry” making me want to boil my eardrums.

And, finally, how it felt as an American this week.

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