Never News: the ghost in the machine
Hello hello one and all! Producer Georgia here on May 1st to deliver you the newsletter you crave. BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE, a crucial declaration: we're currently running 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!
DAZED: girls, it's time to build a cyberdeck
I must confess that I shared this article in part as an excuse to post this photo from Oceans 8. But also, this is a sentiment I've been hearing on the periphery of my digital life for a little while, which I meet with a mix of curiosity and terror. Beyond my youthful phase as a novice HTML-er in the Myspace days, the concept of interacting with tech in a generative, creative way was not something I had on my personal vision board of life (because I am very bad at it). But as this article presents, taking a DIY approach to your personal tech is a great way to say "fuck you" to the broligarch class who have dictated virtually everything in this realm of life for multiple decades. Enter: cyberdecks, which this piece defines as "custom-built, portable computers usually designed around the builder's taste, workflow, and imagination." As someone who's ever-pining for the days of digital customization, I mean, that sounds pretty good to me.
For the month of May, I am delighted to sing the praises of another member of our worker owned collective, Rogue. Rogue is a subscription-based, ad-free video game news site comprised of the best of the best. The founders of Rogue created the site after a massive layoff sent the majority of Polygon's staff packing. And instead of falling in line with the kind of profit-driven approach to business that ignores the quality of the content it creates, Rogue is dedicated to bringing journalism that is made by humans, for humans. Their site says it plainly: "all we’ve ever wanted to do is share our passion for all things nerdy with an audience that shares the same passions. Moreover, we don’t want those passions to be dictated by a search algorithm." I mean, what more could you hope for? So take a peek at their latest coverage, and if you like what you see, then consider supporting them.
NEW YORKER: the "creepy neighbor" of AI in schools
None of my friends have children old enough to be dealing with the presence of AI in schools. At least, not yet. But my partner is a teacher, and we talk a lot about this very thing all the time. The sudden presence of AI in elementary schools – or the encouragement of children to know how to use it – feels, I mean, sudden, at least to me. So in a way I was comforted reading this piece in The New Yorker, which likens the encroachment of AI in schools as a creepy neighbor hanging out with your kid all day. I'm curious if those of you with young children feel this way, or how you feel about this in general. But from where I'm standing, I don't see how you can see AI's presence in the lives of kids as a universal good. At best, it seems like a naive celebration of a tech that has very little guardrails in place, and more than enough info out there to show that using it all the time isn't, I mean, good for you. At worst...I mean, there's enough scary news to point to.
NPR, The Cut: On Giving Up and Numbing Out
This is a bit different than the normal news bites I offer you. Instead of one source, I have a couple articles to compile for you about a topic I'm seeing discussed a lot online in weird ways. First, it was this article in The Cut about "numbing out," and how it's become a common reaction for folks trying to follow political content in Trump 2.0. Then, it was the emergence of something called (ugh) "lobotomy chic," a new aesthetic/lifestyle/what have you characterized by Chloe Cherry's xanned-out visage and other celebs doing what this site called a "dissociative pout" (oh how the children of today would love Effy from Skins). And now, this newer piece in The Cut musing nostalgically about smoking cigarettes as a kind of celebration of the void. Across the board, I've seen more and more of this kind of talk, where celebrating a mindless, medically-induced numbing as the logical reaction to the state of things. I have a lot of thoughts about this as a kind of nihilistic sequel to "I'm just a girl" coupled with the frozen face of the heavily Botox'd becoming the norm. But that's for another kind of post.
Annnnnnd that's all from me. Go have a beautiful spring day wherever you are. Take your allergy meds!
I have been listening to the album Switcheroo by Gelli Haha constantly this week. Here's one of my favorite songs from it.