#733: Digital packrats and AI inspo

Plus, how the internet ruined shopping in IRL stores

Hi, hello!, and happy weekend. Did y’all see the story about this Australian couple that was seated with a corpse on a long-haul flight? One minute you’re browsing shitty movies and pounding free shooters; the next minute: MORTALITY!! (Yikes.)

But it’s been a long-flight-with-a-corpse kind of week. For instance: The Washington Post is now flying with the corpse of its vaunted opinion section. The White House is flying with the corpse of America’s free press. Instagram was briefly flying with footage of literal corpses, which gives new meaning to the phrase “dead internet.”

To quote the Australian couple who kicked this all off: “It wasn’t nice.” At all! I would like, at a minimum, one (1) bag of tiny pretzels and $100.

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If you read anything this weekend

“Don’t Fall for Candace Owens’s Rebrand,” by E.J. Dickson for The Cut ($). If you’re looking for a map to the sociocultural devolution of the past 10+ years, look no further than the switchbacks and pivots and second comings in Candace Owens’s impressive career. She first emerged as an anti-cyberbullying advocate in the aftermath of Gamergate. She then presumably realized that bullies do often win and became a far-right pundit spouting all manner of -isms and conspiracies. Now that such views have grown normalized — you might say our culture is flying with the corpse of decency — Owens is “rebranding,” once again, as a more general-purpose influencer for the just-asking-questions ladies.

This is all enormously fascinating/frightening to me, and not only because I’ve been there from the literal beginning … if you want to get a sense of where the culture is headed, Owens has proved a good weather vane (!). Honestly, I’d love to write about this more but I’m still low-key scared of her. So thanks to E.J. Dickson, Taylor Lorenz et al for doing the Lord’s work.

“The Digital Packrat Manifesto,” by Janus Rose for 404 Media. Under Kindle’s terms of service, you no longer own any ebooks you may “buy” through Amazon; instead, you own the license to an ebook that Amazon owns, with all the rights and privileges that entails. (Or doesn’t.) It’s just the latest indication of how much culture we’ve ceded to major corporations, turning digital media from an asset (e.g., a thing you own) to a “utility” (a thing you merely access). Rose advocates for an alternative she dubs “digital packratting” — the practice of intentionally curating digital objects like DRM-free ebooks, movies and MP3s. This also feels like a corollary to the physical media nostalgia discourse that’s cropped up in recent weeks; feeling like a bit of an idiot for recently donating a big ole box of aged CDs.

“AI ‘Inspo’ Is Everywhere. It’s Driving Your Hairstylist Crazy,” by Tatum Hunter for The Washington Post ($). This clever trend story immediately reminded me of a common criticism of online p*rn: that it warps expectations so dramatically that some consumers can’t appreciate real sex anymore. When it comes to AI-generated hairstyles (… or wedding dresses or home designs or plastic surgeries), the phenomenon is similar: “When [clients] want something, reality itself gets erased from their brains,” one exasperated hairstylist told Hunter. In separate, related news, Futurism reports that Pinterest has been overrun by AI inspo.

“The Anonymous YouTubers Street-Racing Through New York,” by Jessica Lucas for Wired ($). If you also live in an area where you are regularly MENACED by drivers wearing GoPros and racing past you at 80 mph, you will know why I clicked this link faster than a teenage street-racer desperately trying to go viral.

“Day 1,509 in the Big Brother House,” by Gary Grimes for The Fence. A preteen Big Brother stan grows up, makes good and reconnects with several of the little online friends he last spoke to 13+ years ago … low-stakes, nostalgic and mildly adorable.

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In case you missed it

The most-clicked link from last week’s newsletter was this BBC report on the risks of noise-cancelling headphones.

#732: Online accents and fast fashion frontiers

For the last weekday edition, I made a visual essay about the tension between “absorbing” and “capturing” experiences.

The endless internal struggle of phone photography

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Postscripts

• Poetry memorization and monastic life as reactions to “society’s constant din” (NYT $, Cosmopolitan)

• How the internet ruined in-store shopping (WSJ)

• How fast-food apps became ubiquitous (Eater)

• On the luxury Airbnb listings in the West Bank (The Guardian)

• On the Telegram channels seeking revenge against “Are We Dating the Same Guy” groups (Wired)

• The rise of #AltGov accounts on BlueSky and anonymous blogs by federal workers (The Guardian, We The Builders)

• Google came for the gift-guide industrial complex (WSJ)

• It’s been 10 years since The Dress, and all downhill from there (Slate)

• The online and offline spectacle of Luigi Mangione’s court proceedings (The Verge)

• “The man trying to capture the internet before it disappears” (Today Explained)

• The future of community in a post-social era (The Verge, via Web Curios)

• The “cosmopolitan flow” of viral content (How To Do Things With Memes)

• Can a linguist in the audience please explain this alleged “phonetic overlap” between “Trump” and “racist”?? (NYT)

• How to make yourself less valuable to Meta (via John Oliver)

• Why MAGA embraced Andrew Tate (The Atlantic)

• Oscar winners thank God in 4% of acceptance speeches (Stephen Follows)

• “Boom boom makes it harder to tell the difference between a nice man in a nice suit and a man who believes there are only two genders.” (The Cut)

• “The internet’s favorite sex researcher” is a libertarian rationalist OnlyFans star with no real research credentials. Hm! (The Atlantic)

Below the paywall, paid supporters can find additional viewing recommendations and unlocked links from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic.

That’s it for this week! Until the next one. Warmest virtual regards,

Caitlin