Too Uncool for Media Parties, Too Hot for SNL

Apr 06, 2024

Chappell Roan’s new single Good Luck, Babe!
Oh to be a French woman guiding ducks safely across the street
Delia Cai
’s Hate Read series—especially this week’s issue on media parties—which is quickly becoming The Cut of Substack (complimentary). Very funny to watch the discourse from afar in the far-off land of Canada (see also: earthquake FOMO, courtesy of
Clara
)
Pre-eminent celeb scholar
Hunter Harris
dissects the latest divorce announcement, but some of us still haven’t moved on from the Club Chalamet betrayal (“wicked fabrications” indeed!)
Our April issue over at paloma magazine, including a short story about a burning woman that took my breath away

Taylor Swift’s billionaire privilege as the last girlboss on earth beyond critique. On the one hand, as friends-of-the-newsletter
shit you should care about
note, we’re supposed to think it’s cool she built her wealth on only her music (rather than lifestyle brands, etc). On the other hand, we’re not supposed to think critically about her vast real estate holdings, the environmental impact of her music production empire, or the very fake-sounding carbon credits she uses to justify her exorbitant private jet usage. Hmm!
Twitter finds out what David Foster Wallace looked like, while TikTok asks: “Can funny women also be hot?” The original video appears to be gone but you can still watch it here, if you dare. Obviously it’s redundant to just list off all the hot women who’ve ever been on SNL (aka all of them), just as it is to ask “Why does being hot even matter!” So instead I’ll just leave you with Carol Burnett on male comedians.

Welcome to the world of uplifting Ring camera content!!!!! See also: definitely no reason to worry whatsoever.
Those “Just Walk Out” stores from Amazon that claimed to rely on “automated” cameras to track peoples’ carts before it was revealed that they were actually just outsourcing the labour real workers in India. Meanwhile: The California city training AI to spot homeless encampments.
A thread on Twitter about a woman whose date sent her recordings he’d taken of her using hidden camera glasses, which I can’t find now! Still, new nightmare fuel unlocked—and Ray-Ban x Meta are just getting started.

It’s Not What the World Needs Right Now (The Baffler): “I have the ugly feeling that an Artforum feature, institutional acquisitions, and another lap around the art world circuit would cure this sense of lack.”
The Secret Shame of Smoking Moms (The Cut): “When I walk down the street in Park Slope smoking a cigarette, I feel almost like I’m shooting heroin.”
What is really going on with Gen Alpha boys? (Dazed)
There Is No Point in My Being Other Than Honest with You: On Toni Morrison’s Rejection Letters (LARB)
So You Think You’ve Been Gaslit (The New Yorker)
Humanity erased: are veneers ruining Hollywood? (A Rabbit’s Foot)
Scientists devise a new, relatable measure of climate change: “outdoor days” (Anthropocene): “Climate change will bring more days of pleasant weather to the Global North while subtracting from the tally of nice days in the Global South.”
Ozempic Pregnancies, Meet Abortion Bans (Jezebel)
What If You Hadn’t Frozen Your Eggs? (The Cut)