November 2022: I can’t keep up, can you?
Musk we talk about it?
It’s hard NOT to! There have been four major developments on Twitter since I started writing this newsletter. Probably two more since you began to read it. I’m not saying anything new or unique so here are my favorite takes:
- Garbage Day: He wants to turn Twitter into an airport lounge
- Horrific/Terrific: How this is revealing the fundamental lie of Web 2.0
- The Verge: Free speech is a political problem not a technical one
All I have to add is that it’s funny that my first instinct to hearing that Twitter is burning down is to go to Twitter itself. It’s a weird car crash of a moment, which I really hope doesn’t end in extinction.
Happy wife happy life
This month I learnt a) Who the Try Guys are b) how popular they are and c ) that one of them cheated on his wife. Over the course of a humble 24 hours, I was bombarded with opinions and reactions to a “beloved” internet personality outed for having an affair with a coworker. But this wasn’t just any Youtuber. This guy centered his whole personality (therefore, his monetised online presence) on being a wife guy — the type of man who’s digital existence is about how great he is at being a husband. Let’s be honest, he only exists because the bar for hetro men is so low that society fawns and elevates any man who offers to clean the dishes without being asked. Omg what an ally xx
It was only early this year that another wife guy, Adam Levine fell to the internet when sexts to his mistress were leakd, outing him to be a very boring adulterer. (Let’s be honest, no one writes good sexts). And last year we had John Mulaney, public good guy, who left his wife and almost immediately had a baby with Olivia Munn.
All this prompted a lot of discussion about how men curate their social media presence and how eager we are to fit them into a “type”. On one hand — we simply know this much about people. Someone’s marital issues shouldn’t be up for public dissection. But they have also created a career out of it. They sold their reality TV pitch of being the perfect husband and invited us in to be part of their family. But they failed to live up to it when the camera turned off. Now they’ve committed the worst digital crime of all. They’ve lost their authenticity. So we let them go. And move on until we can consume the next packaged.
You cry I AI
Have you ever misread the room? A text message? Thought someone was wearing a costume but it is their teeth and you are incredibly embarrassed? It’s a human mistake — to misread someone’s emotions. Which is why it makes absolutely no sense that people think an AI can do it any better! It’s technology that will not and will never work. Thankfully the Information Commissioner Officer has come out with a firm warning against this pseudoscience tech.
