Weekend Links
Hi kittens, welcome to hell.
Not to be overly alarmist, but the oligarchs are solidifying power (mostly in stupid ways but we don’t seem to be able to stop them), there is a hot war in Europe, the theocratic extremists are legislating for us now, and the planet is on fire.
This profile on Glossier and Weiss is fascinating.
I have been thinking about this piece by Lyz Lenz ever since it dropped, and I still haven’t worked through all my feelings about it.
Okay, fine, I’ve also had these two Lenz pieces bookmarked since they dropped because…DUH. This was always the plan (Roe v. Wade) and the issue is bad capitalism in which they only value people serve is as units of product or consumers (baby formula).
Listen to a prophetess. She literally wrote the book. Because the idea that they will stop at abortion is actually laughable.
One issue combines the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the extremist invasion of women’s bodies in a really specific way, and this piece on that issue is an intense read.
Truly we live in a golden age of grift.
SPEAKING OF, the whole collapse of crypto has both filled me with malicious glee and also made me unspeakably glum. Crypto is an MLM for men and people who think they are too smart to fall for MLMs. And thus it preys on the very people who feel betrayed by systems (capitalism, patriarchy, online culture) and are the most likely to fall prey to cultlike leaders and thinking. And I know I’ve ranted about it before, but a lot of people who lose faith in systems and get whipped up into anger and resentment…well…look around us. (I shared this video a long time ago, but rewatch it. Seriously.)
While I’m ranting about cults and cultish leaders…Elon Musk.
A magnificent public access project!
Wut.
This is an adaptation of one of my favourite novels in recent memory and I have no idea if they are going to make it work or not. Cue nailbiting.
Having gone through the Brexit angst of what colour passports British people will have once they break with Europe and how it will apparently heal some kind of trauma that I was oblivious to, I accept that this is a bigger deal than I originally thought.
The centre of our galaxy is…memeable.
A sobering read, not least of all to me because I have a close family member who is a drone pilot. It’s a complicated new era of war and comes with a very different kind of trauma for both its perpetrators and victims. PTSD at a distance is still PTSD.
RIP to one of my (former) favourite brands. Their rebrand and pivot away from their hero products and beloved formulas was a serious mistake.
I am too old for TikTok for a lot of reasons, but the absolutely lunatic pace of “trends” these days, and its symbiotic relationship with being extremely online, is worth understanding. It’s broken our brains.
