mama, a class consciousness behind you 💜

What Luigi Mangione says about a collective psyche and offering a way of looking at cities as generational-ideological expressions.

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Trump details changes he’ll carry out
Here we go, Time person of the year or whatever.

Immigration Largest in U.S. History
This decade rival that of the 1850s. Something missed in this story is — like in the late nineteenth century — this is a reflection of demand, stability, and economic opportunity: many immigrate for safety, yes, but lots move to make some money. It’s easy to forget that, but is very apparent from the outside looking in.

How Much Harris Campaign Was a Scam?
Woo wee: this is vicious (but something we mused about at the time). (I cut-for-time a larger bit on this party-changing story, all to say: the do-nothing feeling is rippling.)

Mitch McConnell recovers from fall
Nancy Pelosi hospitalized after injury
Godspeed to our gerontocratics. Hopefully this doesn’t empower their opposites 😏

Mysterious drone sightings in New Jersey
“#dronedelivery”
These are cops but, regardless, we’re beyond the soft-launch of the all-drone future, which will be shitty. (This probably isn’t true but I like this theory.)

Supreme Court likely to narrow environmental reviews
Judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion
TOMATO TOMATO TOMATO (Meanwhile, Ketanji Brown Jackson doing this 🙃)

Finland marks St Lucia Day
“Finland’s First Brown Lucia”
Racism against this year's Lucia
Daniela Owusu became Finland’s first Lucia of color, evolving a centuries old tradition honoring a local role model selected by the public. Major! But: racism, xenophobia, etc. (The last item is in Swedish, which you’ll have to translate but is insightful.)

A Search in Syria for the Disappeared
“Syria is free.”
A look at the atrocities Assad committed.

AI companion suggested he kill his parents
And the mom is suing. How many stories like these have to happen?

FDA moves to ban red food dye
End of an era? My mom texted me this, as I was a “hyperactive kid” who wasn’t allowed anything red due to the reaction I had.

Could Cats Become a Vector for Bird Flu?
Dogs may be able to communicate by pressing buttons
Kitties spreading bird flu, dogs out here talking with buttons (because of TikTok).

There’s an Instagram account I occasionally visit, one that former co-workers tipped me off to: Are You Underpaid? The account offers transparency in the advertising industry, specifically to elucidate the goings on of some of the world’s most respected agencies by making income disparities known and tracing shady, generally unethical practices that dehumanize and take advantage of workers. “i’m sure the way the healthcare CEOs feel about Luigi is how leadership at agencies feel about AreYouUnderpaid,” I said in the chat, which is likely true having been in many an agency and or company all-hands where executives sit in houses in Santa Barbara, in marble kitchens and guest house, talking about all their hard work as people they’ve never bothered to meet or give face time to are laid off so that work can be offshored or simply consolidated, forcing people into financial and psychological holding patterns that corner them into being overworked, underpaid, and unfulfilled. But, yes, the weather in Santa Barbara looks beautiful, queen!

It is this glimpse into one corner of the (American) working world’s reality that tells you exactly how and why Luigi Mangione stormed the capital of our hearts and minds, 3D-printed gun in hand, Monopoly money on his back, bullets offering a three-word manifesto: he introduced us all to the modern guillotine. This has earned him colloquial sainthood, inspiring wanted signs for CEOs to appear, why graffiti for more dead CEOs are emerging, why people want to pay his legal fees and why public opinion is in his favor: it’s the experience we’ve all had with American healthcare forcing us to pay to be alive but also a symbol of larger (economic) systems beyond health, of injustices allowed to linger for decade upon decade upon decade. Lines are crossing that have not been crossed in our lifetime, in ways that Occupy Wall Street aspired to and that movements around injustice like the racial inequality marches of 2020 (or even the Women’s March) weren’t given such intersectional access: this moment has brought together the overworked and underpaid; the unionized and non-unionized; the Republican and Democrat; the incel and sexually frustrated; the disabled; the girls and the gays (and bi guys); Pokémon and Nintendo lovers; the school shooter generation; the jailed and incarcerated; the conspiracy theorists; SNL watchers; the astrology girlies; and basically anyone else online — even some famous people, even “CEO” grifters. “You can only push people so far…then they start taking matters into their own hands,” Elizabeth Warren said. “All of that pain that people have experienced is being concentrated on this event,” AOC said. “Commoditized health monopolized fraud,” goes the viral diddy about the situation. “They should start buying graves to sell us when we’re all dead.” Violence as predictable outcome.

And this is just a slice of the context which, as top Twitter storylines show, Luigi Mangione’s murder is the first cherry on a sundae that the masses have long been salivating for, as the non-rich, those under the boot salivate for blood, for justice, for some sort of lasting karmic retribution: there was Ocean Gate; the orcas (and others) sinking yachts; the private jet trackers; “Let them eat cereal”; the Met Gala boycott; “No one wants to work” and essential workers and stimulus checks; a billionaire winning the White House (Twice!) with the help of other billionaires; the return of the 1980s; Elon hitting $400B; whistleblowers “dying by suicide” newsrooms bristling against corporate ownership; the fast and slow decline of media and their propping up billionaires in this moment; Peter Thiel literally sweating; the failure of panopticism despite taking more aggressive forms; falling growth rates (“People feel miserable”); the false promise of AI and crypto and whatever other tech bullshit to turn paupers into princes, while stealing creative jobs instead of CEO jobs; and — umm — the TikTok ban.

This is a 21st century theme that is coalescing into a 2020s theme. The writer Lydia Millet posed this in her eco-memoir We Loved It All, that there is an imbalance to what is alive in today’s society, that governments are doing what they can to support the squishing of the masses. “Personhood isn’t only for people in the United States,” she writes. “For the awarding of personhood to corporate entities that do not feel pain and which we don’t hold responsible for criminal acts like we do people — except for slap-on-the-wrist fines, when executives get caught — is a done deal.” The writer Emily Witt came back to this again and again in Health and Safety, that the system has long been poisoned and is trained to continue poisoning itself, that the tables are less unbalanced and more a prison of mimetic behavior with minimal — If any! — returns: people have been taught to pull up their bootstraps as they’ve been refashioned into nooses. “Why were we surprised that such a society would come to be led by someone who’s entire identity is advertising and branding and the endless repetition of his own name? Isn’t a leader only a manifestation of a collective logic?” she asks. “There is no longer a reality: there is only the avatar.” See also: people misunderstanding who elites actually are; Evan Osnos’ “Rules for the Ruling Class”; The Grapes of Wrath; MMA fighter Bryce Mitchell explaining of Elon this week: “He’s the wealthiest man in this country and he wastes it on fucking rockets, man. He could help people with that money but he doesn’t give a shit about you.”

“To the privileged, equality seems like oppression,” people say, as an old regime falls, as our Arch Duke Ferdinand has been revealed, as some attempt to compare the death of a single CEO to the ongoing systematic killing of generations through .pdf files: eyes are opening in a way that feels different because of its unification. Was it due to the weaponizing of the American privileges that come with being a pretty little rich white boy in this country? Unsure. But to debate if people’s fawning over him is right or wrong is not meeting the moment for what it is: a turning point, an ideological shift. Placed in comparison to the allowance of Daniel Penny to go free after killing Jordan Neely because he was “not normal” (and rewarding him with a Trump/Vance meeting) or allowing Kyle Rittenhouse to kill protestors standing up for racial equality says it all: who is allowed to kill and be killed in this country? And what, then, are “respectable” killings? If someone dies from overwork, if someone dies from being denied care, and you memorialize them with a .gif of a dove in a company-wide email, does that not make those upstairs the killers? This moment is like the famed My Wife and My Mother-in-Law illusion: what you see says a lot about which side of history you will be on.

As Briana Boston’s story rises, what has to happen — and is likely may not happen — is a movement coalescing that goes beyond the feeds and siloed chatter. This is a test of what online chatter means but also of what lasting structural change looks like. (Not that this means “murder more” — but you know what I mean.) What has been presented to us this year — from Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation to German activists storming runways — is that activism and change doesn’t come from working in the system but in seeking to break it, to put your life on the line, matching medium to message: radical bravery and radical action are needed to meet a radical moment. Yes, escapism. Yes, class war. But the bigger need now is to push this moment beyond comments and to get people who, um, want Kim Kardashian to be Luigi Mangione’s lawyer to realize that Kim Kardashian — And every other entertainer-as-business! — is a healthcare CEO in their own worlds, with much more sex appeal, whose harm may not impact you but impact all attached to their supply chains. The ingredients for a revolution are here: now is the question of if anything will actually happen, lest we fall into a one-dimensional brat trap again.

(A frightening coda to consider: if a certain incoming billionaire president acts on gun violence, healthcare, and taxing the rich, to “solve” this issue — while resurrecting TikTok — a certain other party will be buried within the center of the earth. I doubt this will happen but imagine. Imagine.)

Year in Search 2024
If you read earlier this week, you know I love Pinterest Predicts — but I also love Year In Search. It’s a fascinating zoom out of the year, one that revealed what people were actually talking about. For example!! Shocked that there were little-to-no Charli XCX/“brat” searches, meaning…that moment really did happen in a silo, within a culture, etc. — and somehow that was “all of culture,” enough to hitch part of a presidential campaign to. Jokes’ on us! (One exception: “brat aesthetic” was the fourth most searched aesthetic and number nine trend meaning in America.) Also quite shocked (Impressed?) that Imane Khelif trended in so many places! And Elon? Not in many places, another barometer of culture.

Kylie Kelce has top podcast, dethroning Joe Rogan.
"a whole world out there"
To the above: this helps to show how many bubbles they are.

The Best Movies of 2024, to John Waters
101 Things That Happened in 2024
“2024 wrapped”
“wrapped pt. 2”
Best Ofs! The John Waters got a lot of attention and the Pitchfork item is genius. Whoever came up with that concept…a kiss on the forehead for you!

Chanel: Matthieu Blazy As Artistic Director
Not at all who I was expecting but inspired nevertheless! But, as one star rises, another fades: Galiano is leaving Margiela.

Women-only art installation reopens
Glad this queen is keeping the show on the road.

Venice's increased tourist tax, unlikely to control crowds
Well intentioned but any monetary “Scram!” efforts can be bought out by foreign travellers. Local cities make money, sure — but at what cost?

Tokyo plans 4-day week to boost births
Watch this space. Is the key to getting people to work harder and work less and fuck and have lives…the four day work week?

Dominique Brown dies after medical emergency
"Dominique you deserved so much better"
A very sad reminder of how serious allergies are and how, say, the trendification of something like “gluten free” minimizes the realities of those who have real medical conditions (and aren’t simply “on a diet”).

"I want to talk to you"
There’s a way this ties into the above essay but the trend of top creators “taking a break” (as we see here with Drew Afualo going dark on TikTok, Trixie Mattel taking a sabbatical, even Chappell Roan speaking up for herself) is what it really looks like to ascend class, that these things take a toll on people without support systems. This is the counterpoint to, say, “Brian Thompson is a working class hero.” narratives because, while true, you’re comparing a giant orange to crab apples.

“Todd Oldham: Muchness”
Your creative inspo this week is Todd Oldham talking about creative process and making a robe for André Leon Talley. Two kings 😩

Blawan - NPCs Making Hot Dinner
Sky Ferreira - Leash
The first is the soundtrack of me going one more week of Trend Report™ before I take my annual EOY sabbatical from posting. The second is a time travel experience for anyone who lived in LA from 2008 through 2015, as it transported me to a very specific time and place, of grabbing tacos at Malo before a night out at The Echo, before an after party at someone’s house off Micheltorena. I’d be lying if it didn’t make me a bit emotional (Nostalgic?) for something I didn’t know I longed for 🥲

“People just aren’t nice there,” so many people have told me when I tell them how much I love Paris. “It’s a rude city.” This, obviously, is a stereotype, one that I’ve not experienced in my adult life of visiting and visiting and visiting the city for myriad reasons: there’s a comfort to the city found in a similar way of seeing life and the world that just “clicks” for me. It’s the reason why I moved to Europe, after visiting France so much in the early 2010s that Bobby and I made a pact in the latter 2010s to move there, to save and work and figure out a life in the city of our dreams. All these years later, more or less on the other side of a dream, we’re currently not there but a train’s ride away (which we barely get to take, sadly). But we’re a step closer, the potential of this hope being realized a hopeful breath away.

I have this conversation again and again about Paris, that I love it but others don’t seem to “get it.” Early this summer, a friend from college who I hadn’t seen since college was in town. We grabbed dinner, where the subject of the city arose and I explained how it’s so innovative, that it has an unrivaled energy because of its openness. They didn’t necessarily agree, having studied abroad there in the mid-aughts. When they found themself in the city earlier this fall, they sent a note. “It really is so cool,” they texted. “It’s gotten cooler and queerer…I remember you saying it’s the place to be now.” Bobby and I had a similar chat with another friend here in Spain, who said they too found the city to be old-fashioned, uncharming, something not-for-them. We assured things had changed, which they’d see upon next visit as we’d offer recommendations to ensure a great time. A few weeks ago, they visited for a reason independent of us. “Forgot how cute and cool it is,” they texted. “I will visit you ALL the time when you move there ;)”

So…what’s this about? In talking to these friends and people of an international persuasion, I hatched a working theory over drinks a few weekends back, as I sought to scrub away the rosy clouds of vacation brain in pursuit of objectivity: Paris is a great example of what a Millennial city is. Less the ideology of “walkable cities” or that Millennials are in charge there — and certainly influenced by a certain expression of taste — but the spirit of the city is like that of the Millennial: forward-thinking, open, excited by/with/for novelty, seeking equality and expansiveness, generally looking ahead with knowledge of the past with the intention of improvement, whether that be possible or not. As I experience with every trip in my adult life since 2012, visiting Paris is like visiting a place where trends and thoughts come together in expressions like progressive wine bars on every block, novel lifestyle concepts that turn inklings of thought into direct action, and the feeling that anyone and everyone can and will be beautiful. It’s a unique feeling — but it’s not the only city that “has this feeling.” (And this isn’t to say issues like, say, class, racism, xenophobia, etc. and bureaucratic nightmares don’t exist: this, again, is a sweeping theory based around vibes.)

Zooming out, I get this feeling from other places, all locations I was drawn to because they had “it”: Los Angeles — my American home, the place I lived longest in my life (15 years) — is very clearly a Zillennial, the same always-down-ness with a dash of tear-it-all-apart-ness that comes with being radically forward thinking, a way of looking that intentionally erases (or un-considers) the past for the future; Seattle is squarely Millennial in it being both so progressive and so behind, a city built upon a hill that has a little bit of everything, that perfects its older vibe sibling’s approach to the world that defined the past decade (the undeniably Gen X Portland); maybe London, a more Xillennial playground that is fighting its own ability to truly launch itself forward, clinging backwards while understanding that the future is making a more equitable city; maybe Atlanta, where I lived for a handful of years and am overdue for a visit, which is perhaps solidly Gen Z, defining itself (within the Perimeter) whilst still under the umbrella of a clearly Boomer shadow (outside of the Perimeter) thanks to a raw punk energy and counter-cultural manner that few other places still have authentic expressions of. Manhattan is older Gen X while Brooklyn is classically Millennial while Queens is somewhere between the two. DC is somehow ancient and a teen — both so set in its ways while constantly exploding said ways — in a similar way to Marseille (and I suspect Detroit too). Chicago very likely is Millennial but I haven’t visited in adulthood while Barcelona, where I live now, is so squarely boomer, ten years behind and focused on glory days, in a similar way to Milan (although Milan has a touch more youth). Dubai and Vegas and Miami are probably the most Gen Z (Perhaps even Gen A!) cities while San Francisco is so clearly Gen X. Seoul — I suspect — is the Xillennial final boss which Berlin and Mexico City may rival for the title. Lagos and Hong Kong are somewhere beyond, somewhere in the young Gen A realm of the future.

Places are a reflection of people, which are a reflection of culture, which future cities of the world represent by capturing the zeitgeist. In seeing a place as aligned with generations or ways of thinking, it’s easier to describe them as livable places, as if languages that one can communicate with and within (independent of literal obstacles like, say, native languages, economics, governments, etc.). Places change, they grow and they shift like each of us — or they remain stuck, where you change and you come to see it as something beyond what it is (or what it really is), just like that one friend from university who somehow is “still the same” (for better or worse). It’s useful for those of us still settling, for planning on where we will land and for where “our people are”: cities aren’t a place but a people, a thought process or pattern. And, like people, it takes a good one to know a goo done. This isn’t to say having a shared way of looking makes it easier or harder to navigate: like people, we are what we are. We all have vibe passports to different destinations, if you will.

"officer frye patrolling"
“visited by three ghosts”
“historians need to study”
“he’s wearing”
“someBODY”
“main circle isn’t discussing”
“RULING CLASS BE LIKE”
“rfk jr seeing pictures of luigi”
“GOODBYE-”
Best Luigi Mangioni posts.

“LED xmas light lovers”
“banana-na-na”
“Guess where I am?”
“Just thought of this”
“DJ’d a kids Christmas party”
Pingu's The Thing
Holiday items! The last one is old, but I saw it at a meme workshop (lol) I attended this week. The song choices at the kids Christmas party are fascinating.

"james blake in a meta/rayban ad"
This feels like a creative state of the union.

"I wish Iraqi journalist"
Thinking of you Muntadhar al-Zaidi 🫶

“the moss”
And been thinking about this Mary J. Blige post for days too.

“pounded in the butt”
Perhaps the best ad to read Chuck Tingle (who I will never read).

“Covid 19 Park”
Anyone wanna go on this trip with me?

“1.5 sandwich”
I would eat it. I would!

“dad accidentally sent my mom a voice note”
As someone said in the comments, this is “dad themed ASMR.”

“girl guess”
Crying at this abuelita trying to say “Well, yes!”

“Demi in white”
"Gay men recreating"
Love girl and gay stan brain rot.

“These AI Sounds”
The AI scary story trend is silly, but I do love this account born of it.

“wasn’t even that drunk”
The only AI story that mattered this week.

And, finally, how it feels to talk about Trend Report™ in real life.

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