Never News: a recession-indicating newsletter
Hello to you beautiful beauties! The time has come once again for me, Producer Georgia, to bring you Never News, the every-two-weekly newsletter than I pen with my very elaborate quill. If you'd like to become a member and get access to our bonus content I mention below, you can do so easily by going to neverpo.st and hit "become a member" at the top of the page. So fly, my fools! Get the hence! And then return here, of course, to read what offerings I've brought this week.
Some Internet aperitifs...
The alarming power of TikTok edits on politics. Elsewhere, AI slop is being used to spread misinformation about the LA I.C.E. protests. Since we're on the subject, Newgrounds posted a tool to help people better detect the use of AI on its audio portal. Coming back to TikTok, an unsettling trend of sexualizing the facial characteristics of Down Syndrome through (sigh) the use of AI filters. An interesting examination of why academics are moving from Twitter to Bluesky. A basic breakdown of what's been going on at the LA protests, and here's a list of resources on how to help protestors.
And now, for the main courses...
THE NEW YORKER: Are robots good, evil, or a secret third thing?
It seems to be an inherently human attribute to believe that robots — or AI, or any other kind of digital "intelligence" — are either mindless automatons or our future evil overlords. This is something I've noticed a lot recently throughout this ongoing rollout of AI chat bots and assistants, with people deciding that these models are somehow smarter, more objective, and alltogether better than us humans. And of course, the opposite is true — I'm always alarmed by anyone who is rude to Siri, barking demands with an overinflated impatience that I struggle to understand. This piece in the New Yorker explores both of these perspectives, and offers a possible middle ground between them.
SHOW NEWS: A beautiful, gorgeous mailbag!
Now in the feed: we've got a brand new, and dare I say fabulous, mailbag episode for you! This time, we answer your questions and respond to your comments about tactility, the endless presence of cameras, the joy of muting over blocking, and more! There is also, of course, an installment in the episode of the ongoing "weird graffiti" submissions which includes a Chicago-based tag involving Wayne Gretzky and someone's doomed uncle. And finally, undeniably the hardest, most hardcore final tweet to ever exist. I shan't say more! Tune in and discover the episode's many tantalizing secrets.
404 MEDIA: John Deer's lawsuit and the right to repair
I was so glad to see this piece come up on my feed. In my conversation with Boone Ashworth, a staff writer at Wired, he mentioned specifically how John Deer is in the midst of a suit about the right to repair. To put it briefly: farmers are fed up with having to buy entirely new tractors and other large scale machinery rather than having the option to repair their pre-existing models. It's outrageously expensive, and feels like a move by John Deer to cash in on planned obsolescence. This piece dives into this suit and how important repairability is across the board.
VOX: How can pop music predict a recession, anyway?
"This is a recession indicator!" is something I am constantly seeing decried across my feeds. And as this piece in Vox points out, it feels like virtually anything can be deemed as such — fashion trends, the way we talk about culture, or, more often than not, music. "Recession pop" has become the term to refer to the pop music around 2008, filled with the kind of far that, say, the Cataracts or Kesha or Teenage Dream-era Katy Perry had to offer the radio waves. But overall, I think this is an interesting idea, the idea that pop music has the power to flag the approach of an economic recession. There's also much to be said here about nostalgia farming, and the cannibalization of culture in favor of the whitewashed version of a previous style (Y2K, McBling, or any other recently-crowned style of the last few decades). What's being changed, what's being re-used, and what's being erased? All things I'm interested in thinking about further.
And that's all from me on this installment of Never News. Be sure to wear your sunscreen, something that I have paid the lobster-tinged price for forgetting to do far too many times. Until next time, stay cool, stay breezy, and don't talk to the cops.