my disaster made me famous ✌️😘📸

On disasters as (social) entertainment and understanding why AI always co-opts the aesthetics of fashion.

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Lebanon death toll over 2K
One year of war in Israel and Gaza
“Joe Biden walked into a trap”
Monday marks one year of this situation, which has only gotten more brutal. Unfathomable. There are many contexts and “bigger pictures” that bring us here but one that I’m thinking about is how such conflicts are propelled, stoked, etc. by the American war machine — and we all know which presidential candidate will benefit from this.

Trump suggested ‘one really violent day’
See above but: incredible. Unserious! Psychotic.

No clear winner in VP debate
“A damning non-answer.”
It was boring, Vance did well, but no one will give a shit. See also: new Jan 6 stuff. Who cares? No one who should, that is.

Dockworkers at ports go on strike
Dockworkers Back to Work, Talks Extended to Jan
That was fast. (Related: the banana shortage isn’t connected to the port strikes because it’s not real, as reported by “Giacomo Bologna.”)

Zuckerberg now world's second-richest person
As a wise woman once said, “Death to all of them.”

California bans legacy admissions
Biden to move forward with student loan forgiveness
Some good news!

Nike withdraws full-year guidance ahead of CEO transition
Oh, someone is scared.

What happens to 23andMe’s DNA data?
If you did 23andMe, your genetics might be up for sale. Also remember when 23andMe and similar technology was “the future”? How adorable a time that was!

Mexico City Restricts Airbnb Rentals
To curb “gentrification.” I been telling y’all that the overtourism-to-gentrification pipeline is a talking point of this decade! Subtle techno colonialism!!

We may have passed peak obesity
I feel like…this is a huge deal! Not even Michelle Obama could do this!! Maybe this is Ozempic? Maybe not? But also: the decline was seen between 2020 and 2023. Hmm. What else happened then? Mass death — but people got to live a little. Hmm. Hmm.

A person walks on sand, up a slight angle and into a room. The ground rises up to meet a television mounted on a wall then a kitchen counter, an impact that pushed the refrigerator back in shock. “What even — ” the person filming says, stopping themself. “Oh my god.” 25 million views.

“Come along with us as we take a two mile walk through the end of times,” a person says, offering a view of a suburban street blocked by downed trees and standing water. American flags hang from split trunks. A man holding a baby treads through knee-high water. The front of a car is unwrapped, its hood a snarl, its motor full of branches and sticks, so many things stuck in its teeth. “We didn’t expect to have hurricane issues in this town.” A million views.

A home has welcomed the ocean to its front door, brown waters flowing under a picture window, beneath a second floor porch that has a giant red, white, and blue banner that reads “VOTE”: 800K views. A view of a city street, red brick buildings and a bridge, a colorful mural of people running, a billboard for the VP debate is half-complete, only JD Vance’s face visible, held up by a kudzu-covered pole that descends into chocolatey waters: a million views. A sweeping shot from a bridge, an intersection with a strip mall and a Walgreens, the streets disappearing, torn apart to make space for open pools of water: 5 million views.

These are scenes from Hurricane Helene, where well over 200 people have died, with many still unaccounted for. “The deadliest mainland storm since Katrina in 2005,” the BBC reported. “While many climate models suggest that storms will gain strength more quickly as the Earth heats up, it’s still unclear whether that trend is already underway,” NPR said of storms today, that they will accelerate faster due to warmer ocean water. What became Helene formed Tuesday, September 24, as a tropical storm. “Areas 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the Georgia-Florida line can expect hurricane conditions,” AP reported days later, on September 26. By October 1, it was fully a hurricane — and the path of destruction was 500 miles, from Florida to the Southern Appalachians.

These are disasters, which we all know well, which we have experienced personally but also within the cultural context of watching and waiting for these disasters to debut or disappear. They aren’t isolated and, for many of us, they track us down to make themselves known: flooding and landslides in Nepal killed almost 200; hundreds of thousands of hectares have burned from forest fires in South America; a capsized ship of migrants off Spain’s Canary Island have killed and sent missing more than 50, a passenger ferry in the Democratic Republic of Congo capsized, drowning almost 80, a school bus fire in Thailand kills twenty children; a BioLab fire in Conyers, Georgia had a city sheltering in place; 2000 people in Lebanon killed in two weeks by Israel. From persons in war zones sobbing in airports on TikTok to persons in bomb shelters posting to LinkedIn, my sharing these tragedies aren’t to bring you down but to go beyond the push notifications, the news banners, to first hand accounts you get on social media. There are always disasters, everywhere and every day — but now you get to watch them live, shaking your head at home, saying what a shame it is, storing these tragedies away within yourself, whether you need to or not.

Like the first few scenes of Hurricane Helene’s devastations and the context with which we view them, something is happening that is multiplied by the lens of platforms like TikTok and Twitter: the further push of disaster toward “entertainment,” which takes traditional, literal forms but also more abstract, sideways turns, all of which we ingest with every other information input we’re constantly chewing on (messages from family and friends, work emails, pop culture, the weather, etc.). “Officials' grim request for those riding out Helene in Florida,” NBC News wrote, knowing exactly what they were doing with this headline. “Mark your bodies so we can ID you.” “Heartbreaking final photo shows NC grandparents trapped on roof before they were swept away by floodwaters along with grandson,” the New York Post shared similarly. Then there are the those who laugh to keep from crying: a kid fighting to walk through hurricane winds and flooding sidewalks to carry a bright pink Crumbl Cookie box home; “I’m so god damned tired of living through history, bitch,” a person says, taking a drag from a cigarette, talking about bombs in the sky above them; police block the entrance to a supermarket in a town swept away by Helene, to which someone replies with the meme of a cop blocking food from starving persons; “I’m going to go explore,” a person says, pointing toward a stilted house that stands in crashing waters, finding a slowly undressed suburban home that has been returned to nature. “We are so unserious,” different people say in the replies. Cue Donald Trump telling people that disaster relief isn’t coming because it was spent on illegal immigrants. The greatest show on earth!

Of course none of this is new, as modern media has always thrived on such on-the-ground reporting and sensationalism — but there is something so strikingly now to both the multiplicity and variety of genres we get to disaster media, that posting is the only logical response to any fucked up situation. Maybe people pray, perhaps some are taking concrete actions to prevent such disasters in their area, but the posting of it all further divorces us — Viewers. — from the reality that is unfolding. A decade ago, working in social justice oriented news rooms, we wrote stories about climate change in ways to scare people into action, to hit home in whatever way we could. Your coffee will taste bad! Avocados may disappear! Ten years later we know those tactics didn’t work — and neither will these. Bearing witness is a great tool but its success isn’t measured in action but in likes, in views. Our great resignation has turned to entertainment, our screens jaded. A coping mechanism? Sure! Life is a lot now, as all these problems are tied to systems beyond our control. So we continue info dumping, approaching politics like social media because that’s somehow all we know now. “You don’t need to weigh in,” Franchesca Ramsey said this week — and yet everyone does, booting up their little television stations to broadcast their disaster. Even though everything will continue to burn, continue to flood, we’ll post through it. Perhaps we’ll even get a viral celebrity or two out of this? Just depends on if the person can match — and exceed — the breathtaking disaster set behind them.

MacArthur Foundation Announces 2024 ‘Geniuses’
The other Christmas was this week! Ling Ma! Justin Vivian Bond! Alice Wong! Wendy Red Star! Ebony G. Patterson! An inspired list.

"The Recipe of a Successful Post Presidency"
Obama…you need to watch this video about Jimmy Carter.

Childhood Best Friends Have a Podcast, Sell Out Radio City
Look. Have I watched or listened to a single The Basement Yard podcast? Nope. But do I watch every single TikTok with these boys? You know it.

"never see a more insanely confrontational interview"
"Stewart and Coates discuss Coates's trip to Palestine"
"Coates responds that it won't be anything"
I just started reading it and you know it’s going to be essential. Sadly timely, the work.

The Elite Students Who Can’t Read Books
Bosses are firing Gen Z grads
“Inability to use a computer”
Hey, my Gen Z angles…are we okay? Reading will not kill you!

A Woman's Battles and Transformations
Yes, this was quoted last week — but I finished it. If you are a gay man who is a mama’s boy or had a somewhat frictional relationship, you must read this. You should probably buy this book for your mom too! It feels like an essential item in the canon of queer mother-and-child relationships, all of which hinges on coming out as your best self. Gift it to your mother! (Mom, if you’re reading this, you’re getting this for Christmas!!)

The Lost Promises of Hyperpoptimism
This is a very smart piece. We talked about this in March but the issue is that hyperpop was nothing more than an aesthetic — and a flimsy one at that, since it simply evolved to TikTok background music. I would argue that Sophie set the bar so high that no one came close and that their names will fade in the history books. Hers will barely be present — but it will be there.

Tarantula mating season gets under way
Some people are SICK. Complete SICKOS. (It is kinda interesting that “male tarantulas take around seven years to reach reproductive readiness” though.) (But still: SICK.)

Somewhere Near Marseilles ― LIVE at Sea Paradise
I feel very much like a moron as it took me two years and a Pitchfork decade-in-review post to listen to Hikaru Utada’s “Somewhere Near Marseille.” This feels like the definitive Mediterranean song of the 2020s. Since Roísín has died, perhaps Utada and Floating Points should take the balearic crown.

RA.956 S-candalo
I saw S-candalo last year and it was one of the best sets I saw live. This mix doesn’t disappoint and, like their Fact mix from last year, is a tour of warped house, ballroom blasts, and playful pop interpretations. What’s not to love?

What is it about fashion and AI? Why is that specific industry so appealing a target when it comes to media generation? Yeah, yeah, animated corpses, sure, but why is it that fashion is always the target of extreme fascination and foolery when it comes to AI hijinx?

Some examples! The first major breakout was Spring 2023’s Balenciaga pop culture runway videos, with franchises from Harry Potter to Breaking Bad being fashioned in the French brand’s look. This yielded many a think piece on the matter which was strong enough on its own — but then the damn broke, thanks to another AI fashion moment: Balenciaga Pope, which fooled many people into believing it was real, illustrating that clothing has the power to invoke cultural connections and create associations with just a(n unreal) picture. A year later, the 2024 Met Gala was ground zero for fabricated imagery which were, in ways, more interesting and more attention grabbing than the actual red carpet, capturing the imagination of fashion’s promise and potential — and its current premise as ephemeral entertainment. Katy Perry’s summer of woes may have started here as she was hit hardest in this debacle, getting press for having to explain to her mother that she wasn’t in attendance at this year’s fête. Always ones to pine for attention, billionaires had to get in on this too: Elon Musk shared world leaders strutting down a streetwear runway while Mark Zuckerberg has pivoted his entire image in the vein of one viral fake image of himself.

The latest in this two year run of fashion AI foolery is infecting mothers across the globe: runway shows featuring children wearing food. Not in a “You got sauce on your face, you cutie!” way but in a “Damn, that drip is made of literal meatballs.” way as videos like this and this and this and this are taking over TikTok, injecting Facebook aesthetics that are capturing the hearts and minds of Boomers. This is all fine because…who cares? Does it matter if brain rotted MeeMaw and PeePaw get fooled by the creature feature aesthetics on unhuman babies and their paddle-like hands and feet as they march down runways dressed as sushi? Is anyone actually suffering? Excuse me: is anyone actually suffering besides the planet and the vulnerable communities that Open AI, Google, etc. are siphoning resources just so some bifocaled the fuck out gran can push repost on their iPad? Maybe not.

This is of a kind — restaurants using AI images to court customers, politicians posting AI pictures of children in disaster scenarios — but really captures an industry that is the most unlikely bedfellow of this technotainment tool: fashion. Yes, there is a lot of griping about AI and the movie industry but it’s fashion that seems to be carrying the technology forward in both softening culture’s palate to the tech while destroying creativity in the process. This is because fashion isn’t necessarily about the art of “fashion” anymore but instead entertainment as wearable souvenir, taste as points of sale: from Balenciaga collaborating with The Simpsons to Jacquemus turning purses into cars to creators like Wisdom Kaye using fashion as a cosplay point of departure to LVMH selling off Off-White to a private equity firm, this is an industry that is less about clothes and more about entertaining profits. Like so much of the arts, fashion is dying and selling itself to anyone interested in investing. The AI situation is particularly frustrating and concerning as fashion is quietly toying in a sort of self-harming ideation that we’re having to deal with more and more: the Collina Strada x Baggu AI drama, brands from Etro to Mango tapping AI for models (which is a larger industry-wide issue), the CFDA teaming up with an AI startup to develop strategies for using the tech, fast fashion brands like SHEIN using AI to crank out more clothing from shitty materials that further propels overconsumption.

It’s interesting that fashion has shifted from being a fabled creative space to becoming a destination for the sell out. It’s Pharrell at Louis Vuitton, sure, and Jeff Bezos’ step son walking for Dolce & Gabbana, yes, but also Coperni at Disney, all of which is shaped and propelled by these AI fashion-as-entertainment crossovers, that the gestures of high fashion are now (Willingly!) material to be consumed by machines: the industry is in the early stages of what consumed Hollywood a decade ago, that tech (streaming, etc.) will save the industry from itself. We know how this ends.

As was discussed a few weeks back, fashion somehow still has the public imagination captured. It represents the fantasy of a better you via tangible goods, that you can be hotter and richer and more everlasting thanks to a good pair of a brand’s pants. Its relationship to AI is unsurprising because this sell-out culture is inevitable, a match made in planetary doom given that fashion and AI are two of the worst industries for the environment. Again: this is the point. By centering you and your imagined future hot self, you don’t see the disasters that are emerging, you don’t see how divorced you are becoming from other people, from resources and reality. You just see the giggling babies, how cool Zuckerberg looks, the surprising way Katy Perry carries herself on the red carpet — and you think that you too could be happy just like them, that you too could be beautiful. Nevermind the cost! You too can have a body like mine.

"what? what? what? what?"
“worst thing i’ve seen”
“came out looking snatched”
" the vibe JD is always giving off"
"I will turn JD into a progressively apple cheeked baby"
"Some suprising answers tonight"
"a comment ❤️"
“There is a war going on”
Best political posts, all but the last two are about JD Vance’s face. Speaking of…

"a sitting congressman just yassified jd vance"
"photoshopping your preferred candidate”
"Republicans sharing this fake photo of JD Vance"
"job they did on JD Vance's jawline"
Logging it here for history but a Republican congressman yassified (or shared a yassified image) of JD Vance serving chad.

"IM FUCKING CRYING"
‘Unhinged’ werewolf won Michigan’s election season
If you are voting in Michigan, please send me a picture of your sticker.

"Of course he invented the iron Dome."
The single best Tweet about Israel’s warmongering this week was from Azealia Banks.

“There are films that are bad”
"Megalopolis is a lot of things"
"ill just have to watch it again and again"
"Marriage is scary"
"ill just have to watch it again and again"
Do I actually want to see Megalopolis? No. But is it going to become the new Morphious and deserves a double feature with Madame Web? Yes. Happy Megajokalis!

@mrhalloweenjunkie
“Goofiest animatronics”
Don’t ask how or why this account was served to me but I am obsessed with this guy who reviews Spirit animatronics. There are some legit freak ass lawn ornaments! I was going to write an essay on the Disneylandification of yards via such items but I kinda did that two years ago. Still interesting!

"never seen so much of myself in an image"
So what if this isn’t me and you and most people reading this newsletter?

"they hate it when"
"daily motivation"
Two items of inspiration, both of which I resemble and you probably do too.

"sentence that transcends language barriers"
"Funniest language"
“hohoho”
Are you also fluent in these languages? I am! So is Eddie Monsoon!

"You guys IT'S HERE"
Solidarity to all y’all who also have bizarre concealed carry dads.

"a picture of Elon Musk next to his bed"
You’ll never guess who this is who has this pic next to his bed. Speaking of, look up the memes about Elon at Trump’s rally yesterday.

“YMCA but the vocals are a tone off”
idk but it kinda works

And, finally, me showing off my writing to you all.

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