Light Phones and Blind Dating
Light Phones and Blind Dating
"neoliberal shill bracket"
Gen Z secured its first us house seat with Maxwell Frost’s win; Condé Nast is suing Drake and 21 Savage for releasing fake Vogue covers (gotta pay the bills somehow, I guess); Cult Gaia celebrates 21 years of Bratz; and Partiful — "Facebook Events for hot people" — just closed a Series A led by a16z.
CAN THESE GEN Z AND MILLENNIAL WONKS MAKE NEOLIBERALISM COOL AGAIN?, wapo
The DC New Liberals at the Progressive Policy Institute is a moderate-left think tank whose Center for New Liberalism has established more than 80 chapters claiming over 10,000 members around the world; its “Neoliberal Podcast” has more than a million downloads and its Twitter account (@ne0liberal) that has more than 79,000 followers.
Karl Nielsen, a 24-year-old aerospace engineer who leads the D.C. chapter, told me his brother turned him on to this neoliberal community a few years ago, and he was immediately smitten: “I was like, ‘Dude, this is it. This is where we belong.’ The memes were fantastic. They were doing a ‘Neoliberal Shill Bracket,’ which is a Twitter tournament where you vote to determine who’s the ‘Chief Neoliberal Shill.’ That was really easy to get excited about, so I jumped right in.”
HOW THE WASHINGTON POST IS USING POLITICS TO FIND YOUNGER AUDIENCES ON TIKTOK, adweek
Speaking of WaPo, the Post’s “Next Generation Initiative” is taking a “social-first” approach by having reporters publish on-ground reporting on their personal social accounts. Congressional reporter Camila DeChalus, for example, has 10,000 followers on TikTok — which, as far as TikTok goes, is not that many, but it’s also not nothing! — where she shares political content; “a recent 46-second TikTok video recapping the Michigan governor debate had over 106,000 views and over 550 comments at the time of writing.”
IN A POST-ROE WORLD, HERE’S WHAT FIRST-TIME VOTERS ARE FIGHTING FOR, r29
"Before I recently turned 18 and couldn't vote, I did feel really powerless…I was a minor who had a job and no choice but to pay taxes, which you're forced to pay but then you don't get a vote. Isn't that taxation without representation?"
THIS SCHOOL TOOK AWAY SMARTPHONES. THE KIDS DON’T MIND., wsj
The school allows Light Phones, a device that has basic call and text functioning but no internet browser, camera or apps. Texting is designed to be clunky, and many students say it’s so slow that they don’t bother texting more than a few words at a time.
STOP SWIPING, START TALKING: THE RISE AND RISE OF THE BLIND DATING APP, theguardian
Blindlee hosts three-minute blurred video calls between users who match each other’s criteria. In-app popups offer ice-breaker prompts and, as time goes on, the option to gradually unblur the video image. After three minutes, the app asks participants if they want to continue the conversation – if they both say yes, only then will it create a match and conversation can continue.
One last thought:
Omg. If I were Teen Vogue I’d be so embarrassed of my mom. 🥸 Suing Drake!