#699: Online astrology and accidental poets

NBC is posting through it

If your Spotify connection seemed, well, a bit spotty on Friday between midnight and 1 a.m., you can go ahead and blame the one-woman economic stimulus package¹ that is Taylor Swift. Her new album, THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT — while not *universally* adored by tortured poets themselves — prompted intermittent outages as fans stampeded the platform for all-night, record-breaking listening sessions.

Those fans did not include yours truly, because I am almost 35 years old, and I do not stay awake past 11 p.m. unless stimulants are involved. But I did listen to the album in full yesterday and I think it’s phenomenal. Not phenomenally great, necessarily — “Florida!!!” is a banger, some Sufjan vibes there — but I kinda love that Swift has so exceeded the bounds of normal human celebrity that workaday concerns like good reviews, media coverage, self-restraint, etc. have all become irrelevant.

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If you read anything this weekend

“Love, Hate or Fear It, TikTok Has Changed America,” by Sapna Maheshwari (et al) for The New York Times. The Times assembled an impressive and eclectic ensemble cast to author this wide-ranging package, which chronicles — in a series of 20 short essays, explainers and illustrations — the impact that TikTok has had on subjects from shopping and cooking to elections. If you read this newsletter, then I very much doubt that “TikTok changed America” feels like a HUGE revelation. But it’s striking — dare I say soothing?? — to see the sprawling, many-tentacled cultural beast wrestled into a single narrative.

“The Cloud Under the Sea,” by Josh Dzieza for The Verge. There is something deeply and unexpectedly poetic about the submarine cable repair industry: We live with the presumption of constant, virtual connection, but that connection is actually both precarious and completely dependent on physical events we almost never see. “Submarine cables” … I know! I already lost you! But Dzieza’s writing is wonderful, as always (“in the family tree of professions, submarine cable work occupies a lonely branch somewhere between heavy construction and neurosurgery”) and the details of this weird, esoteric industry are truly incredible: Just *22* ships maintain the 800,000 miles of underseas cables that transmit 99% of the world’s data.

“Sextortion Scams Are Driving Teen Boys to Suicide,” by Olivia Carville for Bloomberg. I teared up twice while reading this — so open at your own risk, I guess. But wow, I was not prepared for the latest iteration of Nigerian romance scams. Unlike the cons you might be more familiar with, which often target older people and play out over months or years, this fast-growing scam tricks teenage boys into sharing nude pictures and then exploits their shame and vulnerability. Some boys have died within hours of receiving the first text, which, like — you think you’ve read it all, but that chilled me. Worse: The scammers, who aren’t much older than their victims, then go on to taunt the children’s friends and families.

“Does It Matter That AI Doesn’t Work?,” by David Roth for Defector. A lot of writing on AI falls into the eat-your-vegetables category for me: I realize I should read it, in order to (SIGH) “be informed” and “do my job,” but it’s so, so tedious and boring. Here, at last, is a unified take — make that takedown? — that’s compulsively readable. I’m not totally in agreement with Roth’s argument that AI does nothing useful — ChatGPT was useful to me just yesterday, as I attempted to decipher an insurance statement written entirely in medical codes — but that usefulness falls short of the techno-political propaganda. (For a more measured/vegetal read on this same question, see also Molly White: “AI Isn't Useless. But Is It Worth It?”)

Three pieces on the triumphs and tribulations of modern dating. Dating apps are purportedly broken, and singles are searching for fixes. Some are nostalgic for the era of the “meet cute,” though they lack the confidence or social skills to approach strangers themselves. Others — wealthy others! — turn to matchmakers like Maria Avgitidis, who reminds me of Patti Stanger if she weren't offensive. Finally, you have a crew of older folks getting picky on the apps; I love the idea that women in their 60s and 70s enjoy online dating because they just have no fucks left.

(Lest you guys think these reader polls are PURELY rhetorical, a previous poll brought you last month’s post on performative hydration.)

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In case you missed it

The most-clicked link from last Saturday's round-up was this awe-inducing guide to the girl internet. Wednesday’s edition was an interview with Margaret O’Mara, a historian whose work on Silicon Valley and gender helps explain why shit like “AI beauty pageants” and deepfake porn exists. In the comments, Nicole recommended Max Fisher’s The Chaos Machine for more on “misanthropic geek types” and algorithmic biases. Have not read it, but I think Max Fisher is brilliant so it’s going to the top of my queue on Libby.

'AI beauty pageants' are not the future we wanted

In other news, I wrote a bit several months ago about the so-called “Google Effect”: the tendency to forget, or to never learn, information we can access through online services. It was an undisguised rant about Jason’s sense of direction, which — to put it politely and succinctly — does not exist! There was a fascinating story out in Knowable last week on this very phenomenon: People who use GPS a lot do experience declines in their wayfinding skills. But those skills are also tied to a lot of other, offline factors.

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Postscripts

“A Sartre for the age of screens.” “A profit excavator dressed as a service.” Further proof that AI news farms and election fakes should make you pretty nervous. The fall of ghost kitchens and Bon Appétit. The case for “rewilding” the internet. Emotional refuges for world-weary millennials: internet astrology, Neopets.

The future of TV and the future of movies: Both fueled by AI, thus uncanny and bad. What really happens to your trade-in iPhone. Stop trying to make social audio happen. How Airbnb reshaped Miami’s skyline. What our phones distract us from. “Belief” vs. “belief in” — with lessons for fighting misinformation. The digital museum of secrets. Shaming culture nears some kind of peak. Last but not least, maybe ~the youth~ are having less sex because the sex has gotten … too kinky.

Until next week! Warmest virtual regards,

Caitlin

P.S. I have jury duty next week, and if I’m actually called there’s unlikely to be a Wednesday edition. We’ll all be waiting in suspense!! I am, however, sending out the first IRL on Monday — a collection of writing I did in Georgia last month, and something of a follow-up to the essay I wrote in January about miscarriage. Reminder that if you want to receive that email, you have to sign up through your Substack settings OR, if you don’t have a Substack account, email me directly. Thanks!!

1. In all seriousness, have mainstream news orgs spun up live blog teams for any prior T Swift album? Props to NBC for maintaining the bit — they’ve been posting, as of this writing, for 25 hours.