Never News: making a mess
Helloooooooo everyone! Welcome to Never News, the every-two-weekly newsletter that I, the elusive chanteuse known as Producer Georgia, write to you with my two gorgeous hands.
Hark! We are offering an amazing Independent Media Collective subscription bundle, where you can subscribe to us, Aftermath, Rogue, and Rascal all at once for a sweet, sweet deal — 30 days, complete member access to all four platforms, for $12. It's a wealth of amazing work from a bunch of incredible, interesting people. So why not get in here and enjoy??
And now, on to the news!
A couple of years ago, I made a piece for the show about Are We Dating The Same Guy?, the Facebook group(s) that allow users to offer up "red flags and tea" about men they've dated in the hopes of helping other people avoid their same fate. In part, I made that segment because of Nikko D'Ambrosio, a man who had been, shall we say, a very prominent subject among women in one of these groups (they called Nikko "clingy" and "psycho" – gee, I can't imagine why). Nikko tried to sue 27 women, one man, and multiple platforms for this, and failed spectacularly. Not only did he basically get laughed out of court, but the attention that these failed suits gave him resulted in Nikko being sentenced to a year of jail time for tax fraud. And now, turns out the lawyer who was representing him is also in hot water for filing AI-generated citations during those suits. I really don't have much else to say here other than the fact that indulging in schadenfreude this delectable and multi-layered is a rare delicacy that we all must savor.
WIRED: Cocaine, the latest drug to get the cultural glow-up
I've been very interested watching the way that different addictive substances – weed, psychedelic mushrooms, cigarettes – are being presented to the culture of today online. Weed was, of course, the first big one. It's old news that you can readily expect to be able to buy weed legally at a storefront that looks identical to an Apple store. More recently, mushrooms were also given a similar sheen of branded coolness. Cigs are being talked about as a kind of nihilistic celebration of the void. And now cocaine, as this Wired article claims, is the latest drug to be treated to this kind of makeover, albeit through more...implicit means. IG ads have been cropping up advertising accessories like small leather pouches with magnetic closures, shown in photos to be the perfect way to store a small amount of white powder...which the brand explains is your to-go dose of electrolytes, apparently. It only takes a peek at the comments of these posts to see what's really (and obviously) going on. A lot of these vagaries help brands get around Instagram's anti-drug policies for ads. But I am very intrigued by this, especially since all of this is happening at the same time as young folks make a mass exodus away from drinking alcohol.
CROSS PROMO: Rogue has what you want!
I am thrilled to get to tell you once more about the joy that is the gaming culture/news site Rogue. The folks who put Rogue together did so after Polygon's layoffs left a group of extremely talented, passionate folks out of a job and wanting to make something new, better, and exciting. Rogue is exactly that – independently run, free of ads, and without the boot of corporate interests pressing down on writers' necks. It's full of thoughtful, interesting coverage that really only comes from a place that can operate outside of Big Tech's wrathful will. They, like us, need your support to keep things running. So if you like what you see, then I strongly encourage you to subscribe to them and keep this kind of amazing work a-rolling.
THE NEW YORKER: Long live the tween!!!
Ever since the first episode of Never Post, I've been talking about how the tween demographic has largely disappeared. Tweens – especially tween girls – aren't really a marketable age group anymore, and many girls in that 9-12 range are more interested in trends that are agnostic to age at best, and aged up at worst. So imagine my surprise when I saw that apparently, the tween age group still seems to exist as its own culture, though admittedly in a very different way than in its heyday of the late 90's/early 2000's. There are comments here about how young girls look like they were "dressed by their moms," along with very interesting anecdotes about the role of technology in their daily lives. But it's very sweet to see how, of course, so much of that awkward age is still present with these girls. I found it very comforting to read this.
Alright, that's enough from me today. Got my first sunburn of the season yesterday despite my desperate re-application of SPF. Such is life! Either way, I say go get some soft serve and enjoy the weather. I know I certainly will.
Here's a lovely little song for biking at dusk or driving around with the windows down.