#698: Synthetic memories and industry plants
Plus, proof we can still log out and look up -- if only through silly paper glasses
I have said this about very few things in my life — Japanese convenience stores and Hydro Boost lotion come first to mind — but last Monday’s eclipse ABSOLUTELY lived up to the considerable hype. I didn’t realize how dark and cool it would get at its peak, like an unsettling, fast-motion dusk; I definitely didn’t realize how silent the assembled crowds would be, their murmurs growing slowly to shouts and applause.
According to Cloudflare, the web security provider, total internet traffic dropped by double digits along the path of the eclipse. It seems too small a figure (did so many people RESIST the aforementioned hype?) but still reassuringly solid. It’s proof we *can* log out and look up, if only through our silly paper glasses. Reader, I will admit, in the safety of your inbox: I looked around at all the people craning upwards toward the sky and I did indeed choke up a little bit.
If you read anything this weekend
“What is ‘Substackism’ and Where Does Wellness Fit In?,” by Max Read for
. I somehow avoided conscious knowledge of Substack’s largest newsletter until a disgruntled NPR editor used it to air a bunch of aging white man grievances. Since then, I’ve felt very indebted to Max Read’s recent theory of The Free Press and the “still-cohering strain of political conservatism” it represents. The outlet, founded by Bari Weiss and staffed by a fascinating grab bag of people (former New York Times reporters! venture capitalists! the Westboro Baptist Church daughter who got out!), appears to be building a reflexively anti-woke but still respectable-looking coalition, united around the primacy of ~doing one’s own research~ and a shared distaste for mainstream institutions. Read dubs the movement “Substackism,” and I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from it. This does nothing for my Substack ambivalence.“The Cleanfluencers Who Declutter, Haul, Restock, Repeat,” by Charlotte Barnett for The Cut. “Cleanliness” suggests labor, chores, some sweaty, hard-won freedom from dirt or grime or mess. But the fascinating world of restocking influencers is very much a leisure space, populated by people who create their own messes by buying too much shit. They then organize that shit into some illusion of … what? Not cleanliness, really. But order. Empowerment! You walk away with the impression that everyone involved would benefit from seeing a therapist.
Two reads on AI and memory. Early reviews of Humane’s “AI Pin” have universally been … poor! But that’s unlikely to stop the onslaught of new devices and technologies that can record our lives and feed them back to us, in some form. In MIT Technology Review, Will Douglas Heaven reports on a Spanish project that helps elders, refugees and migrants “recreate” scenes from their lives that were never photographed. (These “synethic memories” — all smudged and ghostly and crowded with obvious AI artifacts — look absolutely nightmarish to me, despite the project’s good intentions.) In Wired, meanwhile, Boone Ashworth previews the benefits and risks of AI assistants that retain the names, dates, faces and myriad other details we naturally forget. And in case these stories trigger a vague memory for you: Yes, there was a Black Mirror episode about all of this!
“Super Cute Please Like,” by Nicole Lipman for n+1. An essay on the rise of Shein and the chaotic, overstimulating hyper-abundance of shopping on the platform. But I was most taken by passages like this one, that chart larger parallels between Shein’s emergence and larger changes in culture:
For years I remained a loyal reader of the blogs. Then the bloggers moved to Instagram. The internet was changing, consolidating; social media had become the dominant mode. I followed the bloggers across platforms, but their content was more muted: carousels of photos whose sparse captions offered only an occasional glimpse of the charm of the old blogs. Their outfits became harder to distinguish from one another as their focus moved toward trending looks and stores. The fashion girls I loved were becoming more like advertisers …
“The Kid Behind America's Most Bizarre Conspiracy Theory Just Found the Perfect Second Act,” by Alexandra Marvar for Slate. Peter McIndoe, the Gen Z parodist/provocateur who previously brought you “Birds Aren’t Real,” is back with a book and fledgling (heh) consultancy aimed at energizing young voters and activists. His grand theory of American political division (loneliness, disconnection, a lack of empathy) does seem a little … facile? But he has gotten approximately a zillion kids involved in politics, so what the hell do I know.
In case you missed it
The most-clicked link from last Saturday's round-up was this Bustle piece on “fake email jobs.” Lots of you telling on yourselves with that one! Wednesday's edition was a visual essay on the color of the internet, which is probably blue but could also be green, under certain circumstances.
If the comments on that edition had a color, it would surely be gold. Thank you to Kristoffer for linking to Laura Schwulst’s lovely remembrance of her “Decade in Internet” colors and to Arabelle for sending this excellent short essay on the origin/influence of “terminal green.” Jenny wrote that she’d heard Facebook is blue because Mark Zuckerberg is colorblind. That sounds apocryphal but IS true, actually!
Postscripts
Glycine girlies. Industry plants. The history of LAN parties and “posture panics.” Why prestige TV has gotten so blurry and why San Francisco’s subway still uses floppy disks. Activism as online performance. The most popular streaming service is not what you’d expect. On an “influencer tour” of the October 7 sites: “The battle being waged online is important.”
The coming wave of terrible AI gadgets. A very comprehensive guide to the girl internet. “Link Lauren” sounds like a preppy comic book villain, and … there might be a bit of truth to that? U.S. schools have no idea how to confront deepfake nudes. Policymakers don’t seem a whole lot better. “We’re not meant to be looking at something that is emitting light that isn’t reflecting light. That’s the stars, that’s fire.”
Until next week! Warmest virtual regards,
Caitlin
I want to hear more about Japanese convenience stores and Hydro Boost lotion!
That Substackism piece by Max Read is great … he points in the direction for what’s going on without being able to precisely define it, and that’s just perfect. Myself, I’m occasionally drawn to an FP piece, but sometimes I feel like I’m being led in a direction I don’t want to go … but that’s politics these days, isn’t it?