I can fix it (No really I can) // What's Good: Apr. 19, 2024
Reservations, coffee tables, and free speech.
Hello, good evening, happy Thursday. Listen, I promise we will get to fix this distortion in the time space continuum, eventually, seriously. We will get back to being on a regular schedule with regular timing and I will not be six days late to file what is ostensibly a weekly newsletter. But you have to let me keep the streak, okay? Okay. Anyway today is actually April 25th, so here is your obligatory meme.
Now let’s get to some content shall we?
Sometimes a market is not the solution
Capitalism is often a hammer in search of a nail:
Everyone needs to eat somewhere, and in New York City that place is often a restaurant. New York is a city of long hours, tiny kitchens, cramped apartments—and dining out, a lot. There is, improbably, always an occasion: date night, working late, friends in town, New Year’s Eve, too tired to cook, in-laws, layoff, anniversary, breakup. But getting a decent dinner reservation here is a challenge. Any well-reviewed Italian joint? You’d better have one. Gourmet burger place? Good luck. The new French-Korean fried-chicken spot? Booked solid for months.
Free speech but nowhere to speak
Yes, right, of course:
President Joe Biden signed the bill this week that could ban TikTok from the U.S. if its parent company ByteDance doesn’t sell the platform. According to young political content creators, the ban could decimate Gen Z’s access to political news and information.
“An unfortunately large amount of 18- to 24-year-olds find out information about local elections from TikTok, so my heart is breaking,” Emma Mont, a political content creator, told TechCrunch. According to the Pew Research Center, about a third of American adults between ages 18 and 29 regularly get their news from TikTok.
“I think it’s going to have an impact not only on the people who provide information, but also the people who receive that information,” Mont said. “Part of the reason I make the content I do is that I know there’s someone who’s watching and this is the first time they’re ever gonna learn about Roe v. Wade, or whatever I’m talking about.”
I mean this is exactly right - you can be skeptical of a platform, but if every platform starts getting shut down or censoring political speech, where is the speech supposed to exist?
Wings fall apart
And other things, too:
The sight of Bill Boeing was a familiar one on the factory floor. His office was in the building next to the converted boatyard where workers lathed the wood, sewed the fabric wings, and fixed the control wires of the Boeing Model C airplane. there is no authority except facts. facts are obtained by accurate observation read a plaque affixed outside the door. And what could need closer observation than the process of his aircraft being built? One day in 1916, Boeing spotted an imperfectly cut wing rib, dropped it to the floor, and slowly stomped it to bits. “I, for one, will close up shop rather than send out work of this kind,” he declared.
Solidarity
You have to respect what young people are willing to do for a cause they believe in, and also specifically maybe it’s a good idea to remember that trying to repress them by sending in cops and soldiers has not been kind in the history books:
College students have been at the forefront of the movement for a ceasefire in Palestine since Israel's ongoing incursion of Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attack. As soon as organizing for that movement began, there was backlash against it, including doxxing and harassment at Harvard, attempted state-level bans of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters in Florida, and also the banning of protests and SJP chapters at other universities. In Vermont, Palestinian college students on a walk, wearing kuffiyehs, were shot at during Thanksgiving break. (The reported shooter, who has pleaded not guilty to attempted second-degree murder, remains in jail as the case proceeds.)
Not so attractive
Trends bite back:
Like anyone living in a New York City apartment with limited space for furniture, I sometimes scan Facebook Marketplace just to feel something. That passive shopping habit recently led to the late-night purchase of a half-off Castlery dresser and a Turkish rug, so naturally, I decided my Target coffee table needed an upgrade too.
On a recent weekend scrolling the platform, I noticed a listing for the West Elm Industrial Storage Coffee Table, priced around $200. Then I saw another. And another. I quickly realized Facebook Marketplace was overrun. Like the Peggy Sofa before it, the Industrial Storage Coffee Table seems to have gone from must-have to must-get-rid-of overnight.
The internet is saved, maybe
Or at least a very good part of it:
G/O Media announced on Thursday that it had sold The Onion, a satirical news site, to a group of digital media veterans.
The Onion, which started in 1988 in Wisconsin as a weekly satirical newspaper and later became a website, is known for its parodies of current events. For the last decade, it has republished the same headline after nearly every mass shooting: “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”
In an email to G/O Media staff that was obtained by The New York Times, Jim Spanfeller, the chief executive, said the company was “undergoing an extensive review of our portfolio with the intention of coring down to our leading sites in terms of audience and revenues.” He said G/O Media had agreed to sell to “a new Chicago-based firm called Global Tetrahedron.”
Ben Collins is the fucking CEO! This is amazing!!! Also: Give Us $1 Or ‘The Onion’ Disappears Forever. I gave them the dollar.
You deserve some good animal content
https://twitter.com/ServalEveryHr/status/1783639528852382088
https://twitter.com/RedPandaEveryHr/status/1783639354767732761
https://twitter.com/twaniimals/status/1783607208644583661
https://twitter.com/raccoonhourly/status/1783579250680832389
https://twitter.com/OregonZoo/status/1783540715122995235
https://twitter.com/GatorsDaily/status/1782797075328954507
https://twitter.com/weirdlilguys/status/1783511035384590682
Have a good weekend.
Addendums
Anne Hathaway is a secret Gooner and now her reinvention is complete. Stellar Blade and the Male Gaze. “This Would Have Been a Peaceful Gathering”: Behind the Scenes of the UT Protest. Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan are pop stars in the making. A $100,000 salary no longer buys you a middle-class lifestyle. Here’s why it costs so much more now. Net Neutrality Returns to a Very Different Internet. The Dada Era of Internet Memes.