Never News: The "No Fun" Era Begins
GOOD DAY TO ALL and welcome to Never News, the every-two-weekly newsletter I, Producer Georgia, make for you beautiful people who live in my computer. In case you missed our news, WE WON A WEBBY! But more on that later. First, it is time as always........FOR NEWS! GIRD YOUR LOINS!
Some Internet aperitifs...
Time to delete Duolingo, divas — the owl has decided to be an "AI first" company and all I choose to hear is a chorus of booing. You wouldn't steal the "you wouldn't steal a car" font...or would you? AI learned from human language, and now it looks like the tides are shifting in the opposite direction. An in-depth break down of the discourse swirling around the podcast The Telepathy Tapes. And finally, enjoy this fabulous website that honors burnt food.
And now, for the main courses...
WIRED: ChatGPT comes for search
In truly wild, "this is going to change everything" news, ChatGPT has introduced shopping as a feature, allowing people to use the service to, say, figure out what espresso machine to buy, or what's the best office chair. You can't check out through ChatGPT...yet...but this is a clear and direct "screw you" to Google. For an AI service that, according to this article, are currently running over a billion web searches per day, it makes sense for this to be the next step. But just...yeesh. I'm still left with a weird taste in my mouth. This is a great time to remind you that in one day, ChatGPT uses about the same amount of energy as 118,000 households in the U.S and one conversation on ChatGPT uses up about a plastic bottle's-worth of water.
SHOW NEWS: We won a Webby AND we have a bonus episode!
The rumors are true! We won the juried Webby Award for Best Podcast Live Recording for our live show at XOXO Fest last summer. Amazing!! Unreal!! Incredible!!! Needless to say, a lot of my text messages following the news have been utilizing a lot of exclamation points. But that is NOT ALL! In the feed, we've got a special bonus episode in which Mike, Hans, Jason, and I discuss how to remain sane on an Internet that often feels like a bespoke madness-inducing machine. Do we solve the problem of existing online and render the Internet a joyful place to exist once and for all? Only YOU can find out!
THE NEW YORKER: Even Zuck says social media is dead
Framed around the ongoing antitrust lawsuits against Meta, this piece by Kyle Chayka pokes at a question that I think many of us are grappling with in one way or another: is social media kind of...over? It's less likely than ever to actually see content from your own friends on any given platform — we're instead berated with AI slop, celebrity content, ads, and random viral videos that are irrelevant to us. The "social" component of a social network seems like a faraway dream of yesteryear. I think this is a great point to remember as we move through the ongoing changes of being online — I'll be curious where things go.
VOX: the club is no longer jumpin, jumpin
For a while, my feed has been pockmarked by videos of people lamenting the state of the club, decrying that nobody dances anymore. And turns out, that's genuinely a real problem. Instead of grooving on the dancefloor, people go to the club to stand around and talk or take selfies and scroll on their phones. I'm not here to do a "kids these days" on you all. But this makes me think of the piece I included in the last newsletter, about people feeling weird about going to the gym out of fear of being recorded and posted online. Clearly this is a conversation in the culture, and one I'll be interested to watch unfold.
Alright folks! That's all for this week's Never News. I hope wherever you are, that April's showers have indeed brought May's flowers for you to enjoy. Farewell for now!