The sweltering heat of the discourse
Vibe shifts, Bitcoin bumblers, fake song lyrics, quint Axels, high-fives and #RamRanchResistance
Hi friends. Today is February 18, 2022.
And today’s edition will be a short one: just three big reads (sorry!!) and no intro. But even as you read this, Jason and I are probably in the midst of an escalating quarrel re: why we didn’t leave for the airport sooner and who was supposed to grab the iPhone chargers. It’s him, for the record — I packed all the other bags! — but let’s put that aside and quickly review some pre-vacation articles …
If you read anything this weekend
“How a Young Couple Failed to Launder Billions of Dollars in Stolen Bitcoin,” by Ed Caesar in The New Yorker *and* “The Rabbit Hole Beneath the Crypto Couple Is Endless,” by a whole bunch of people in Vice. Rarely does the universe grant us such compelling characters, so — they’re worth reading about twice. The New Yorker has more details on Bitcoin laundering (it’s hard!) and Vice has more details on their eccentric, multi-hyphenate lives.
"A Vibe Shift Is Coming,” by Allison P. Davis in The Cut. I’m alarmed to learn of this new vibe shift, since I’m pretty sure I missed the last two. (In *this* house, ahem, it’s never not been peak Arcade Fire.) Still, this is funny and clever and a little unsettling, in the way that the passage of time always is? “You can feel people flocking to a new thing. You can see that he’s right; something has shifted.”
“Their Bionic Eyes are Now Obsolete and Unsupported,” by Eliza Strickland and Mark Harris in IEEE Spectrum. IEEE is not a household name, so you could be forgiven for assuming this is fiction. But more than 350 blind people *really did* lose the aid of cutting-edge “brain tech” when its maker stopped supporting it.
👉 ICYMI: The most-clicked link from last week’s newsletter was this deep dive into on-screen dicks. This was predictable and I’m not mad about it.
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Postscripts
DeathTok. DementiaTok. Anna Delvey speaks. How fake song lyrics ended up on Spotify and why Europeans hate Hersheys. “A social networking app for fishermen.” The price of growing up with porn. “Silicon Valley robber-barons are getting rich off yeoman cranks, who till the posting fields in the sweltering heat of the discourse.”
#RamRanchResistance. Educational entrapment. Wordle, but for geography nerds. How Facebook moderates Meta (it doesn’t) and what happens to your Shein returns. The crypto divorce. The elusive quint Axel. The love story behind Wikipedia’s high five photos. Finally, this week in “nah, thanks”: Disney sub-developments, GPS trackers and the crypto-trading lady’s “no-bro zone.”
That’s it for this week! Until the next one. Warmest virtual regards.
— Caitlin