The calamari guy isn’t voting for Biden
In this week's edition: Co-Star, crooked teeth, family vloggers, rotisserie chicken and romance novels
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I am a crier by nature, which made this week’s DNC Convention surprisingly hard to watch. Roll call: tears. Ady Barkan speech: tears. Brayden Harrington: honest-to-god sobs.
I have developed this self-conscious tic where I exaggerate my TV crying in front of Jason — comical “awwwws” and “WAAAHs” — to signal it’s a joke (?) or, if not a joke, that I too realize I cry at TV a lot. Anyway, the frequency of my DNC crying was such that, even after the deployment of this usual trick, Jason was like “what is WRONG with you” and I could only choke out “this is VERY effective propaganda!!”
It wasn’t just the messaging, either. It’s something about the *format.* See, for instance, the three zillion Twitter jokes about making the roll call into some kind of recurring (and longer-running!!) program.
I, too, would watch many more minutes of random Americans posing near quirky landmarks and hawking fried foods. It’s like the perfect marriage of the ethos/aesthetics of UGC with ~big media’s~ slick production values. And really, have we seen that before? It seems like a genre with lots of potential. Potential to make me cry, at least. But I’m self-aware about that.
P.S. The Rhode Island calamari guy isn’t even voting for Biden.
If you read anything this weekend
This illuminating take on what internet astrology ~means~ to us right now. Horoscopes-as-therapy goes a long way toward explaining what all the fuss is about. (Also: Did you know Co-Star is venture-backed to the tune of like $6 million dollars?!) [The Walrus]
This profile of the fascinating, forgotten woman behind the modern romance novel. Vivian Stephens debated with Barbara Jordan, worked for Gloria Steinem and repped Black romance authors at a time when bookstores put them in a separate section. I have read exactly one (1) contemporary romance novel in my lifetime, but now sort of feel like I should read more?? Or even better, maybe Stephens will write a memoir… [Texas Monthly]
This unflattering portrait of the quack orthodontists newly beloved by the “manosphere.” I feel sort of bad for these deeply desperate men who just wanna be more attractive. But not that bad!! (See: the pseudoscience, the “sexual hierarchy,” general hatred of women.) [NYT mag]
This second look at the YouTubers who gave up their son, and the larger internet world they inhabit. Walked away from this thinking family vlogging has to be one of the internet’s most toxic subcultures, which is quite a superlative. [The Cut]
This encounter with the unhappy man behind @nyttypos. The story doesn’t explicitly SAY he’s unhappy, but … y’know. [The Ringer]
And now for something completely different
Postscripts
A history of rotisserie chicken. The return of the QR code. Respectfully, this strawberry dress has no business being so popular. Museums have a docent problem. GoFundMe has a “white savior” one. V. unsettled by this dive into how “domestic aesthetics” sell QAnon.
The long and troubling legacy of one biased data set. Tulsa’s desperate, meme-fueled ploy to lure Elon Musk. A good explainer on The Lincoln Project (… and its habit of stealing other people’s stuff.) The search for the next “lipstick index.” What boredom does to us. Last but not least, filed under “of course”: The word “bitch” only got popular after women’s suffrage.
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My understanding is that both Interface and First Draft are written by teams of highly skilled people, whereas Links is written by me, alone in my pajamas and without any coffee, a day after I was supposed to send it. So this tweet marks the first time I have questioned Alexios’s judgment, though he is otherwise a very authoritative Twitter follow on news, misinformation and fact-checking projects. THANK YOU to Alexios & everyone else who shares this newsletter. Until next week!
— Caitlin