Edition 67
Obedient girlfriends, lip filler accent, how to be more whimsical and a pair of pants I really can't recommend more highly
My week:
I popped in to my favourite Sydney venue, ACO on the Pier (I think Iâve mentioned this before but their childrenâs performances are incredible for anyone keen to expose their kids to slightly more culture than the Sleepytime episode of Bluey) to celebrate Camilla Franksâ collaboration inspired by The Met collection in NY. She is truly a force.
That same night I went to the Opera House, anotherâwell, the mostâspectacular Sydney venue (say what you want about this city, but she sure is pretty), to celebrate 50 years of tech behemoth Apple. They marked the occasion by working with the Opera House to project onto its sails the digital artworks of 11 emerging Australian artists and six members of the public made using Procreate, a popular art studio app made in Tasmania. The show was set to a score composed and performed live on the Opera House steps by 22 year-old classical pianist and TikTok sensation Bailey Pickles. It was a magical, balmy, perfectly still Sydney evening on the steps; the same time the next day we were experiencing an Antarctic blast and the most lightning in a single night in recorded history, which is testament, I think, to the power of Apple.
I was all about a cult hair product in my youth (Terax Crema conditioner, Kevin Murphy Beach Hair etc) and Sebastian Professional Potion 9 was right up there on the list. Little did I know the leave-in styling cream has been around this whole time and these days actually has a whole range built around it, now available at Mecca. I had a blowdry by their Global Artistic Director Shay Dempsey using the products and can confirm the results in terms of softness and moisture were as good as I remember.
I am truly terrible at taking mirror selfies (my inner voice every time I try: âHow do I make the hand holding the phone not look like a claw? What face am I meant to pull? Iâm too old for this shitâ etc) and in the end I got the pants in a different size to the ones in the picture, but I needed to share regardless, because if youâre someone like me who is always looking for an alternative to jeans, you probably need these Nili Lotan Shon pants too. You may already have them as apparently they sell like hotcakes despite the not-so-cheap price tag ($690), but it is justifiable as I plan to wear nothing but these all winter. The cut through the leg and the rise height is so, so flattering, even if you have itty bitty legs like me. You can get them in Australia at DJs Elizabeth St.
On to the linksâŚ.
Do you have lip filler accent (without the filler)?
In the 80s there was the Valley Girl accent with her up-talking and frequent âlikesâ, then the Internet Accent with itâs vocal fry and neutral vowel sounds killing off more distinctive regional accents around the world, and now thereâs Lip Filler Accent, âa noticeable pursing of the lips that creates more open space between the teeth and lips, constraining the shapes vowels take and compressing the soundâ. Even if you donât have lip filler thereâs a chance you could pick it up through memetic transfer (social learning) just by watching enough influencers. From Defector:
I consider Lip Filler Accent a subcategory of the lifestyle influencer accent: a nonchalant, pouty type of pillow talk that makes more sense in the context of the contrived intimacy between a person and their smartphone, but less sense if you imagine addressing a large group of people. I wanted to be sure that there wasnât another explanation for the accent, so I double-checked with [speech-language pathologist] Pierotti, who said that aside from one having had a stroke or a head injury, âthereâs no physiological reasonâ to speak that way.
Betting on the future of the world
One of my many hyperfixations at the moment is prediction markets âthose relatively new betting sites that allow people to bet on real world events like geopolitics, Traylorâs wedding details etc. Personally, I feel like the negative consequences of this weird new addition to modern life cannot be overplayed. If you want to understand how it all works and how itâs all just a disaster waiting to happen (or probably already happening) so you can also lose sleep at night over something you canât control, Derek Thompson lays it all out in We Havenât Seen the Worst of What Gambling and Prediction Markets Will Do to America (by which of course he means the world):
Is it really so unbelievable that a politician might tip off a friend, or assuage an enemy, by giving them inside information that would allow them to profit on betting markets? Is it really so incredible to believe that a government official would try to align policy with a betting position that stood to earn them, or an allied group, hundreds of thousands of dollars? That is what a ârigged pitchâ in politics would look like. Itâs not just wagering on a policy outcome that you suspect will happen. Itâs changing policy outcomes based on what can be wagered.
Whimsy is the word of the moment
Inside Hook argues that being whimsical has replaced yearning as the dominant sensibility of the moment, an attempt to âescape day-to-day stressors with playful innocence.â
This could include everything from learning embroidery, taking showers with the lights off and candles on, journaling at a bar, putting sprinkles on everything, crafting and hosting dinner parties with brand-new recipes. Itâs all about refining everyday habits in a way that adds a little bit more of a cutesy energy. Store makeup in a wicker basket instead of in the drawer of a vanity. Basically, become as close to a character out of a childhood storybook as you simply can.
Similarly, in Funmaxxing: Should we all be playing more?, Dazed makes the argument that the solution to our current emotional malaise might lie in making space for more play and silliness. They use the example of a company called Grown Kid, that organises nights like wrestling speed-dating and another where exes fight it out in an LA gym at something called an Evil Situationship Boxing Rave. âFounded off the back of a youth loneliness crisis, the New York-based group is on a mission to help adults to combat âdoomerismâ through play.â
On the other hand, Kareem Rahma (he of @SubwayTakes and @KeeptheMeterRunning) wants everyone to grow up:
Brands and corporations treat us like children, and we buy into it. As a result, we feel increasingly incapable of doing adult things like buying a house, getting married, having kids, or starting businesses. Yes, I know these things are hard. I know that the economy sucks. I know that AI is taking our jobs. I know that there are other factors at play. I know that some of you donât want any of these things at all! I know weâve been dealt the wrong hand. But I feel like participating in the Branded Content Adult Spelling Bee is not helping.
I feel like we should be doing something else like maybe revolting?
Heâs not wrong, but also, wrestling speed-dating sounds funny.
Donât attempt to cook the AI slop
Until I read this story in The Cut, I donât think I quite realised just how many recipes online these days are AI (resulting in literal AI slop, all too often made with cottage cheese, when you attempt to cook them). Is that naive of me? Anyway, the whole articleâwith lines like âAll assembled, the dish almost looked like chicken Alfredo, except the chicken was pineappleââ could be read as a wonderful advertisement for the return of beautiful, physical, researched, real cook books. Also this: âIn 2023, a New Zealand grocery chainâs AI mealbot spat out a recipe for âaromatic water mixâ when given the ingredients water, bleach, and ammonia. âAromatic waterâ is certainly a gentler way to describe what this mix actually makes: deadly chlorine gas.â
My Week of Eating Literal AI Slop, The Cut
Trying and failing to understand the obedient girlfriend
Following the recent study that showed that more Gen Z men and women believe in traditional gender roles than boomers do, which is WILD, Bustle talked to some young women who are happy to play the submissive girlfriend role. Lines like âItâs not that I would submit to any man. Iâm submitting to my man â the specific person that I vetted, chose, and deeply respectâ are just very hard for this old bird to get my head around. We need fifth wave feminism to kick in post stat.
The Complicated Rise Of The Obedient Girlfriend, Bustle
I love writing this newsletter and helping busy people keep up to date on whatâs going on in the world beyond the headlines. If you love receiving it, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Paying readers make it possible for me to keep doing this even when my real job/s makes it challenging to find the time or energy to do so (i.e. all the time). And donât forget, if youâre a single mum, drop me a line and Iâll comp you a year long paid subscription.
Below the paywall:
Should you try to write a novel with AI? (Spoiler: no.)
A lot of younger people suddenly want to be Catholic (i.e is mass where all the single men are?)
Career paths for an AI-proof (ish) future
CEOs with a lot to do and kids who donât want to have to group chat their parents are all making personalised AI agents to do those things for them
A girl in the US was awarded USD$6million after suing the Instagram and YouTube for knowingly making her addicted to the platforms as a child. Can we all expect a payday soon?
Young men are obsessed with fertility and spermmaxxing. This canât end well
Would you get a BBL with fat donated from a dead body?
Young people are keen to move in with their families to get a leg up in the housing market, but the fams are not equally keen
Aura reading is a thing again
Doing weights might not stunt kidsâ growth after all
An tip for how to finish the things you start
