Never News: All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go
Hello and bonjour to all! It's Producer Georgia reporting to you on a sweltering, outrageously humid day here in beautiful Chicago, Illinois with the newsletter you crave. I refuse to complain about the heat - my skin is hydrated, my curls are hydrated, there's water, water everywhere. I love it! Anyway, time for the news.
NEW YORK MAGAZINE: The latest influencer trend is...loneliness?
NY Mag does a lot of articles like this, decreeing that a new crop of influencers are out here slinging something more incredulous than before. But this one was genuinely very intriguing to me. The article's title basically spells it all out – a group of women are creating a new online community of influencers whose clout comes in the form of peddling a life of loneliness. But I think "isolation" would be the better term here. Contradictions abound in this world. The women who make this content are quick to say that their posts are more about the enjoyment of being alone rather than feeling lonely, but also make sure to include the fact that they "have no friends" in their videos and never go out or do anything, ever. These women often refer to their lifestyle as "an introvert's dream," though I would hesitate to agree that introversion is synonymous with abject friendlessness. No, something else is happening here. As writer Rachel Pick points out up top, influencers are meant to present aspirational lives. And here, isolation is the thing being romanticized. It reminds me a lot of this article from The Cut about miserable women sharing their dating horror stories on TikTok - something that might at first feel commiserative and comforting, but quickly turned into a kind of frothy-mouthed cynicism I usually associate with the black pilled among us. I see in the loneliness influencers a similar trap being laid, again, for women. Undeniably spooky stuff here, but I can't help but be curious to see where else this conversation crops up.
CROSS PROMO SPOTLIGHT: You Rascal, You!
This month, I am delighted to sing the praises of another member of our Worker Owned Collective: Rascal, an independent, reader-supported outlet for journalism about tabletop roleplaying games and the people who make them. Founded by veterans of Polygon, Dicebreaker, and Gizmodo, Rascal provides a home for interesting, exciting, and honest coverage that simply wouldn't find a home anywhere else. And in a very bleak, very scary journalistic landscape, I am grateful that Rascal exists. If you are into TTRPG's, then Rascal is for you. And if you like what you see, why not offer them your support by subscribing to them? They also offer the option of making one-time donations, too.
WIRED: The surveillance state goes to the World Cup
I don't think anyone reading this newsletter will be surprised to hear that there will be facial recognition technology used on people who attend this year's World Cup. And furthermore, I don't think you'd be surprised to year that this country's administration is deploying surveillance tech under the guise of national security in order to mask its broader, far more nefarious use. The omniscient presence of surveillance technology – especially at large scale events – is one of the miseries of contemporary life these days. But I chose this piece discussing the way it's being used in the World Cup because it does a good job of breaking down the sheer variety of kinds of surveillance that will be used. Drones, counter-drones (?), AI powered surveillance, etc. etc. There's also good info in here about how organizations are trying to work against the use of this tech. I've been interested in the mediation of sport a lot recently, but the mediation of our viewing of the mediation of sport is another matryoshka doll entirely.
THEM: Patagonia vs. Pattie Gonia
I have been a fan of Pattie Gonia – the environmentalist drag queen – for years. And as such, I've now been following her posts about the lawsuits that the wilderness clothing brand Patagonia have filed against her with growing frustration. The gist is this: Patagonia is suing Pattie for copyright infringement, not just for using her pun-y name, but of selling merch, organizing environmentalist events, and promoting sustainability under that name. Pattie has herself pointed out that she chose her drag name after the Patagonia region of South America, which has predated the brand Patagonia by, oh, a bazillion gazillion years. But she's also pointed out the abject hypocrisy of the brand for using its sizable stores of money to go after her – someone who is actively promoting the very same message that Patagonia the brand claims to uphold. This piece does a solid breakdown of what's going on here, and I think it's worth knowing about it. I know I'll be following this.
Alright, that's all from me today. Stay breezy, stay sleazy, and hey, go have a popsicle on me.