Monday Links
How many of you are paying creators directly? This is obviously a business model that’s been on the rise for a while now, between Patreon, Substack and and other amount of tipping apps, and I certainly subscribe to both. I believe strongly in paying for media, whether that’s through taxes and fees for public systems and private donations generally, and I have found myself much more willing to financing journalists whose beats I feel particularly passionate or curious about.
And so, for this first proper links dump of 2023, keep an eye out for links to individual creators via their paid-for sites (but all are free to read) and if they pique your interest, do check out their other stuff.
As always, please share your favourite reads or watches with me in the comments. And before we dive in, meet the puppy mentioned in my last video post!
With family members going through a separation, this article caught my eye and caused me to think a lot what middle and later age is going to look like for some of my nearest and dearest.
Decadent Nationals (formerly of the great Small Dog Tribe) LOVE an archaeology story.
Fascinating social experiment.
Raise your hand if you have been personally victimised by Regina George holiday air travel.
This month in Mormon news, setting shifting religious belief is well-documented and oft-cited, but YouGov released something closer to a popularity poll which I find absolutely fascinating.
This week in Mormon news, the absolutely disgraceful community response to a man who killed his entire family and what it says about entrenched patriarchal assumptions - in this case seeming to care more about the murderer’s reputation than his heinous violence. Whenever stories like this happen, there is always a flood from the community to say, “Don’t associate the rest of us with this person, they don’t represent us, they aren’t indicative of our values,” etc. etc.. I find this annoying and pernicious in many cases. And in the case of religious communities, all the more so. Gabrielle Blair articulates righteous anger about this in a way that resonated particularly with me.
Not Mormon but for me very Mormon-adjacent when it comes to concepts like modesty and how women “should” dress. Missouri was Lyz Lenz’s “Dingus of the Week” for good reason!
Olivia Nuzzi’s latest profile for NY Mag is on President Trump and the weird status he currently occupies in politics and the zeitgeist. He’s always played big while actually being a small, sad man but his world has shrunk dramatically of late and from the grip he once held (and we were forced to accept as the leader of the free world) on our attention is clearly shrinking and getting to him. My disdain for him as a person is known, but even I thought the NFT trading card launch was pathetic and a new low. As Fave of the Blog McKay Coppins recently opined on Twitter:
A US Supreme Court case to watch.
And a UK law to keep an eye on.
More punctures to the myth of the tech/billionaire genius/company. Also, can this man be held responsible for his bad business decisions yet? (The latest episode of Hard Fork dives into the tech news of the week, including this one, and is worth a listen. And yes, Casey Newton has a Substack newsletter.)
Huh. The world’s richest people, the literal 1%, own two thirds of all the new wealth created in the last two years. Higher taxes. No loopholes. Now.
