losing weight (AND OUR MINDS 🤪)

Looking at the steep rise in anti-body positive, anti-fat discourse and the friction of these changing times.

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CBS poll finds Trump starts on positive note
Dismissal of Federal Cases Against Trump
I AM LOSING MY MIND!!!!!!

Trump vows tariffs on Mexico, Canada, China
Trump's deportation vow alarms
And just like that people are freaking out because things are going to cost more in lots of places as “legal” slave labor becomes harder to come by. As Jamelle Bouie explained, those are the “Black jobs” Trump was talking about.

Elon wants to ‘make games great again’
With AI. Fucking loser.

The Invisible Man
A must read of the week (Year?) that offers a very honest look at homelessness. You can put money on there being multiple agents and or publishing houses fighting to turn this into a book.

AU’s Social Media Ban for Under 16s to Become Law
This is good!

More preschoolers are getting suspended
This relates to a larger story (that I may or may not write) but the thesis is: Boomers were the last disciplinary generation, which is why Millennials are so great. But Gen X and Millennials — as parents and teachers — have lost the art of disciplining because they’ve shaped culture around their own trauma which, when paired with everything a kid has access to (Toys! Videos! Food!) being on autoplay, means a child no longer knows what “no” means.

From the ER to your house
The future of healthcare is definitely at home. But at what cost? Who can afford this? Where can’t it work, as this is primed for cities and not suburbs?

Dining Sheds Changed N.Y.C., Disappear
Same thing is happening where I am. (Or happened.) From people-first to business-first. Sigh.

Pilgrims Were Refugees
For anyone who loved the interview with my mom, here she is on a local podcast, talking about immigration and Thanksgiving. Icon!

“Podcast was a COMEDY not a TRAGEDY,” new wave Democrat and new wave Kennedy Jack Schlossberg declared on Twitter this week. “Absolutely no grace or humility. No accountability. No CLUE. Truly insulting.“ He was talking about the leaders of the Harris-Walz campaign making their first post-loss appearance on Pod Save America this week, an exclusive interview where Dan Pfeiffer — who was a special advisor to Barack Obama and a part of this “crooked” collective, all of whom worked in the 44th president’s White House — allowed the team to prattle on without question. “I think you need a permanent vacation :)” Schlossberg continued in a different Tweet, quoting the other Obama whisperer and other Jon Favreau. If there was any question about what Schlossberg was saying, his posts on Stories and to Threads made it clear: “Pod save my LIMP DICK.”

This has been the theme of the past near month of progressive defeat: a battle for the soul, the old against the new, the forward thinking against the establishment, the burn-it-all-down against the hold-steady-state. It’s not quite messy but it’s not not messy, as it’s a negotiation with — and proof — of something we talked about two weeks ago: death by over-chatter, all complicated by delusion. (Made all the more interesting/uninteresting by this trend cycle collapsing, repeating in weeks instead of months, quarters, years. What more proof do we need of mass hysteria?) It’s also proving a very obvious other conversation: what is a donkey if not an elephant in disguise? What is a Pod Save America if not a lesser, left wing Theo Von?

As we review the evidence, an ongoing conversation is coming into focus as it’s all related and not, all signals transmitting the same frequencies — and we’ve entered an even more absurdist now. Why did Kamala release that comeback video? Why did they do Pod Save America? Why did they admit to a Hot Ones strategy? Can Hasan Piker save us? Will we really penetrate the manosphere? “Buckle up and pack a lunch,” John Fetterman said, trending toward sanity. Are you holding space? Or just making shit up? Why can’t you use a phone in a movie theater? Does law school really take seven years? Brat green? Wicked green? Barbie pink? Wicked pink? Why not both, to represent capitalism? Did you see the show where people compete against hamsters? Shapeshifters are taking over American talent! Not just Talking Talk Tuah but Talking Talking Talk Tuah. Does this qualify as a lookalike contest? Do Trump supporters deserve basic human rights? I LIKE MY SOOTCASE!!

This is exhausting and — arguably — has been the internet every week since 2015. What’s different is the sense of mania, the splash zone widening as the darkness we grasp at becomes less bright, as meaning dissolves in more places. I’d say this is an online thing but there’s an argument to be made that we’re already over the rainbow: the quaint 2020s “Memes are an absurdist, dadaist expression!” thinking is built on the 2010s’ plunging into the depths of irony, metastasizing in the ridiculous, the “unreal” as resting state — which is complicating everything. Nothing matters but so does everything. The internet — which is our lives — is fake but it’s also very real but also, like money, is a construct, just like gender. It’s all intangible! Not real. Then, on the other hand, in the real world, the unreal has been mad material via chaos packaging, nonsense brand names, self-sabotaging movie marketing, performative robotics, the mainstreaming and physicalizing of AI aesthetics, purses as keychains as wannabe Birkins, meat that isn’t meat and cakes that aren’t cakes, the ongoing transformation of fake news, kids and adults talking in skibidi sigma ohio water solo poly this and yap behind you: yes, fafo, and, sure, internet poisoning and too much stuff — but I’d say something in the machine is breaking down as our coping mechanisms are exhausted and most under 45 are brain fried without a way to flush their mental toilet, reflecting our own faults or the world that misshaped us. Right is wrong and wrong is right and we’re having trouble untangling these ironic, meta, self-aware problems given our eyes are crossed. Post-truth reality, steeped in illegibility, complicated by illiteracy. No wonder the system is overwhelmed!

Some people are calling this a “timeline shift,” that a (political) reality is emerging for some while others live in another, which is saying what we’ve been saying all month, for the whole of this decade: those who are too online speak one language while normies speak another — and we’re experiencing more friction in this instability, as “online” is becoming a catchall for media at large. This is a battle for our soul as the plane of life is folded, where the gestures of the internet, the cathode inclined collide with real life. These are the growing pains in our attempt to log off — or so I hope. “We are no longer sitting in a restaurant, ordering our own meal,“ Alexandra Hildreth explained of the this tension materializing in fashion, of those who are dressed “by” the algorithm versus those who are informed by other inputs. The same can be said of ideologies, of approaches to the world. “We are at an all you can eat sushi conveyor belt, where we are picking things up off of the rotating belt that we are not super interested in but we are stuffing ourselves with it anyways.” The woman was too stunned to speak core.

100 Notable Books of 2024
NPR : Books We Love
The Best Jokes of 2024
Best Movies of 2024
More 2024 best ofs!!! We can expect these to go into overdrive this upcoming week. Peep Sarah Labrie’s appearance on the Times list, then catch my interview with her here.

Writer Lili Anolik on total commitment
A fabulous interview with a writer of a huge “it” book, by my dear friend Lindsay!!

Crypto boss eats banana he bought for $6.2m
It’s like…they’re missing the point. See also: this.

The 10 Highest-Grossing of 2024 Are Sequels
For the first time ever. SO COOKED.

An I.V.F. Mix-Up
DRAMA OF THE WEEK!!!

The influencer lawsuit that could change the industry
ANOTHER DRAMA OF THE WEEK!!!! “It’s judges playing art critic” will go down as a line of the year.

Bernard Arnault summoned to court
YET ANOTHER DRAMA!!!!!!

Scientists Prove Animals Can Breathe Assholes
“breathe through their buttholes”
Guess the future is breathing out the ass.

“Clearest view of Mars”
NASA releases clearest view of Mars
I can’t tell you why this made me emotional. I guess because it’s a place that hasn’t been ruined? Can you imagine? I wasn’t prepared to encounter that sort of existentialism until I noticed the Rover tracks and went, “Ruined again.”

"To Bert"
Bodhi, the ‘Menswear Dog,’ Dies
Every obituary for a celebrity dog is worse than the last, which reminds me that every time I watch a movie over ten years old, all I can think about is that the dogs in the movie are long dead. Toto? A genealogical memory somewhere in a dog far, far away from Kansas. RIP Bert The Pom! RIP Menswear Dog!! RIP ALL DOGS!!! ENJOY HEAVEN, ANGELS 😭

“I’m done. I’m so tired of my old fan base,” she concludes. “I don’t give a fuck about your identity politics. I voted for Trump. And” — she adds, inexplicably — “I hate fat people!”

These are some of the opening lines from a Cut story that came out just after the election, about creators pivoting right. The video in question is from November 10, the Sunday — five days — after the election. The video has over 70K likes, over 370K views.

Six days later, a creator who goes by “Slim Kim” posted a video that more accurately reads the temperature. “My favorite thing to be is skinny,” she said, slowly blinking and sucking her lips in. “And I fear you cannot say that out loud but it is my favorite thing to be and it is my favorite fear to not be.” As of this writing, the video has over 175K likes, over two million views. This inspired many videos of equal attention affirming the sentiment and an entire “Slim Kim” conversation dissecting this point of view (and its racial implications).

Then — eleven days later, this past Wednesday — the sequel to a cinematic event teased in July dropped: the debut of actress Barbie Ferreira’s “insane transformation,” her dramatic (“dramatic”) weight loss. For the unfamiliar, Barbie is known for playing a character in Euphoria who reclaimed her body, taking pride in being “fat.” “My whole life all I tried to do is try to take up less space,” her character Kat said in a now iconic scene from season one. “I spent my whole life afraid people were going to find out I was fat. But, honestly, who gives a shit? There’s nothing more powerful than a fat girl who doesn’t give a fuck.” She went on to represent what body positivity can look like, not to mention getting opportunities like an inclusive Levi’s collab, thus blurring the line between her character’s beliefs and her role (“role”) as a public figure. Accordingly, this “reveal” inspired a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of takes.

This isn’t a difficult pattern to see, not that Barbie or anyone’s weight loss willingly is participating in it — but Barbie’s presence, her “reveal,” clarifies what’s happening, at the intersection having a body in a panoptic world: just like the anti-queer, xenophobic gloves coming off, another type of policing is taking out their batons. Just like identity politics being given the thumbs down, movements like body positivity, fat acceptance, and generally “being larger” are being kneecapped, that a bygone, gross ideology that fat people must “change,” that their bodies are owned by the world around them, that they can — and should — become non-minorities, the skinny, the beloved. Now, with weight loss technology advances, to be fat is “a choice” that the Western world will direct it’s perma-glare at. A week ago, we saw a tease of this as being fat is now a disposable identity — and those who remain not-thin will be cast off with the not-white, not-straight to the counter cultural realm beneath the “winners,” those who are writing the history books. Yes, these cultures will continue to exist, with content by and for those championing difference — but those differences are being voiced against in big and small ways, recently emboldened by this ideological pivot. The slurs, the name calling will be had, pairing poorly with the rise in R-word use, casual homophobia, anti-semitism: brace yourselves as anti non-normativity has arrived. The Uno reverse card has been placed, kicking out the BBL for thigh gaps. But hasn’t that always been the case?

This brings us to the obvious other spirit in the room with us: fascistic aesthetics, of the body and otherwise. I’m not saying literal fascism, nor am I libbing out in hysteria to say the world is collapsing, but something between the Wicked press tour and the rise of RFK Jr. has ignited a movement adjacent to the transphobic “A woman is a woman.” movement. This crashes into so many other identity purism conversations happening — the disappearance of bald men, (post-Wicked) joking ableism, there’s only one way to do drag, simping for the 2000s, babies only like pretty people, woke video games, whatever Gladiator II was, the blatant AI pro-nazi rage bait, “Loving your wife is gay” discourse — which is all to reiterate the above conversation about continuing shifts and noise: we are within the swing of the pendulum and shit is going to be getting ugly. Not violent, not hateful (but not not those things) but a decade of pent up rage is splitting open, as first exemplified by fashion’s two year phasing out inclusivity. “We are not mentally prepared for the shift to conservatism,” one person said. “it’s completely linked to an upswell of fascism,” another said. “You are not immune to propaganda,” someone else said. “What we’re seeing is how escapism wins,” I said in this newsletter two weeks ago. “Those chunkos have had it too good for too long,” the actor and writer Ryan Ken said. “Embrace tradition, reject modernity,” we joke and we joke and we joke when, really, some aren’t hearing these words as ironic but literal. (Again: see the first essay. Uno reverse card culture!)

“The late 1940s, when television was new, had been — however briefly — a bonanza for female creators,” Emily Nussbaum reflected on entertainment and reality television in Cue The Sun!, which eerily reflects the 2010s, of social media. Then, in the 1950s, the hammer fell, as it’s doing right now in the 2020s: “a stifling conservatism descended” and “the media ideal narrowed.” “The networks rolled out sitcoms glamorizing stay at home mothers [...] happily vacuuming in pearls and heels,” Nussbaum says. “Other women — single or divorced, ethnic, fat, sick, homely, or poor — were reduced to comic relief.” We’re in the 1950s era of our own making — or at least so says TikTok, so says Ozempic.

"Musical theatre accurate"
“during Wicked”
“a student at 36”
“The leads in musicals”
Good news! No political silly posts. Bad news? We’ve got Wicked posts! I am very Wicked curious but I am going to wait and watching it on a phone, as was intended <3

"Constantly juggling a beautiful diva"
“no dripping”
“Black Friday is Thursday”
"thanksgiving dinner with my family"
“your aunt starts at a 10”
“Florida’s sickest child”
“your wedding photos”
“LIBERAL THANKSGIVING”
"LIBERAL Christmas Songs"
“wanted to put him there”
“what happens inside my mother’s brain”
Best Thanksgiving posts! (Also, for better or worse, I’m that aunt.)

“potato salad or”
I watched both Smile movies recently and…I really feel like the world is sleeping on this? Engrossing practical effects, thrilling performances, and a story that is like an updated Final Destination? What’s not to love??

"They already have this as a show"
“new levels of delusion”
More signs of the Hollywood collapse (or the don’t-take-me-seriously-ness of it all).

"how they photoshopped her fingers"
No one can ever say Swifties don’t have hard skills.

“Rose decides to throw away”

“AI remastered I Love Lucy”
Time to turn off these old shows, gramps.

"Atlanta was closer to Canada"
Another reason to hate Florida. (Related: the “Dallas Airport is huge” post which was another entry into the liberal culture performance theater.)

"Ina Garten Contest"
The only lookalike contest that I will allow.

“Know what they call The Rizzler in France?”
The quote post is good enough — but the real masterpiece is the original post.

"pinball machine belongs in the Smithsonian."
This and Love Lies Bleeding.

"let's go lesbians"
My sister and I were texting that this may either be 1.) proximity to (straight) maleness or the pursuit of such a performance or 2.) the admirable tendency to put yourself on the line for beliefs. No one said these crimes weren’t politically motivated! Anyway, another fascinating stat based in gay male non-monogamy.

“clearly built that obstacle”
Best take on that one hamster show.

“on a flatbed”
Don’t cry because it’s over: smile because the dogs found love <3

“came for the vibes”
Beautiful performance art, similar performers as the post immediately above.

“FLUSHES 7”
And how many balls does your poop aquarium take? Anyway, watch this toilet experiment from the Times.

“Should we go back in?”
Best cake fail in a while.

"Thought Daughter"
If you’re reading this newsletter, this is you because It’s me too.

“I’d rather smoke crack”
YOU HEAR THAT MARK ZUCKERBERG

And, finally, how I’m feeling after having Thanksgiving on Saturday.

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