Hi friends!
In very exciting news (for me), I’ve summoned almost 20,000 words from my first draft, the archives of this newsletter, and the great beyond, let them flow through my lil typing fingers into a google doc, and I’m now so so so so close to finishing a new draft of my book proposal that I can’t fucking believe it. If you’re having a huge crash out about something, remind yourself, this too shall pass, and then allow it to provide great fodder for your blog. A win is a win.
I have known for years that freaking out is part of my process. It’s not usually as protracted an experience as what I was crying about at the beginning of this summer, but the freak out potential is always there, ready to ruin at least one good day and probably the next while I recover from visiting a hell of my own creation and ask myself important questions like, “Who invented the concept of productivity, anyway?”1
And then, once I’m done with my freak out, if I procrastinated for quite some time, and in this case it was about, oh, half a year, I have to avoid getting trapped in what I like to call, “the enchanted forest of ideas,” which is where organizing the ten million ideas I came up with while I procrastinated the work that overwhelmed me is too overwhelming, so I just come up with more ideas and then follow them back to grandma’s house instead of finishing what I started.
Having too many ideas is a bit of a champagne problem, I get that. It’s my blessing, yes, but also my curse. This whole process with my book proposal taught me a valuable lesson in dealing with myself, though, because once I figured out how to contain and contextualize my ideas, I realized there was space for them all. Structure, what a cure!
I told you all of that for two reasons:
After seeing Weapons at the end of last week, I had an idea (make it stop) that is too transcendently ridiculous not to share even though I’m now procrastinating by writing this. Oh well!
Today, we will be revisiting an old form of this newsletter, one that I loved but got bored of for literally no good reason other than I HAD TOO MANY OTHER IDEAS. At some point during our last weird summer (not this one, the one before), I started counting down the top five moments in cultural madness like the host of a demented hit parade. And now I’d like to do that again …
So, without further ado, the Burn It All Down Hot 5™ is back and we’re counting down the biggest hits in crazy shit!
At number 5, we have: legends never care
Denzel Washington is ostensibly on a press tour to promote his latest film, but what he’s really doing, I think, is teaching a masterclass in straight-shooting.
Take this exchange he had with Complex, in which he was asked if he’s scared of cancel culture while sitting next to a mostly silent and very bemused Spike Lee:
Denzel: What does that mean, to be canceled?
Interviewer: It means you lose public support.
Denzel: Who cares? What made public support so important to begin with?
Interviewer: I guess because followers now are currency.
Denzel: I don’t care who’s following who. You can’t lead and follow at the same time, and you can’t follow and lead at the same time. I don’t follow anybody. I follow the heavenly spirit. I follow god, I don’t follow man. I have faith in god. I have hope in man, but look around, it ain’t working out so well. You can’t be canceled if you haven’t signed up. Don’t sign up.
His press tours are always a good time, but this one minted him a prophet in the Age of Unhingement™, officially decreed by the Order of the Rotten Brain after our new Prophet Washington talked to Sports Illustrated and coined the perfect word to describe the yappy masses who have no material experience and too many opinions they can’t stop spouting: “We live in a world of opinionaires. That’s what I call ‘em, opinionaires.”
He was calling out the talking heads who talk a lot of shit about sports even though they’re old and out of shape and have never played the game, but opinionaires are everywhere. And in my opinion (I’m an opinionista, not an opinionaire), they must be stopped. I am passionate about this because I have a Substack (no shit), and even though I keep deleting the app, it always finds its way back on my phone like a digital cucaracha. When I fall prey to clicking a random link on there, more often than not, after one to three paragraphs, I yell “who cares,” then I have to flush my phone down the toilet and go for a walk around the block.
It’s getting expensive.
At number 4, we have: no one drinks anymore
A recent poll found that nearly half of Americans are now abstaining from alcohol, the lowest number of drinkers reported in 90 years. Correct. We have moved on to a cocktail of prescription drugs.
At number 3, we have: too far gone
Nothing says “2025” quite like researchers using AI to test whether social media’s cataclysmic impact on politics can be reversed. And to, like, no one’s surprise, the answer is no. They tried six different models to see if there was a way to save us from the licking flames of political hell, and none of them worked, not even throwing it back to a chronological feed.
In an interview with Ars Technica, Petter Törnberg, one of the social scientists behind the study from the University of Amsterdam, confirmed a few of my long-held suspicions:
Social media is skewing how we view other people’s politics. As Törnberg said, “People seem a little bit crazier than they really are.“ And that’s because the triggering content posted by camera-ready reactionaries and the awful news that gets turned into sharable, provocative Instagram graphics is what gets our attention. When we repost that content based on emotion, it not only spreads the information, it shapes the structure of our networks and how we are perceived. We love to blame algorithms for everything, but we also need to pay our respects to their partners in crime: human beings.
Politics were reshaped by the politicians who are better at capturing our attention on social media. Shall we get our Ouija board out and summon the ghost of Neil Postman?
AI is going to make everything worse. No shit. It already has. And since media literacy is about as common as a chill news day, AI can create misinformation specifically engineered to polarize and engage and most users will be unable to spot what’s fake.
Even though the study has yet to be peer reviewed, I’m thrilled to have some data on all of this, as vibes scholarship is still not considered a valid form of research.2 As I said at the end of 2023, “The hatred and misguided fervency happening on social media amidst so much loss and turmoil makes a case for trashing the whole apparatus.”
I was talking about people losing their shit over a Zara ad, but it stands as an evergreen statement.
The opinionaires, of course, have a lot to say about this, but I think ingesting the constant opining posted on the thing that is fueling the opinions is making us more insane. We are past the point of return and should start dreaming up what’s next. A global network of tin cans and string, perhaps?
I know, I know, who has the energy to build instead of sulk? But, if we get a good group of us together under a full moon, we can smoke some peyote, lick a couple of toads, do a technopagan ritual, and ask the great spirit of technology (the holy ghost in the machine) what should be next. Because, my god, what was meant to connect us and encourage self-expression, including the kind of political dialogue that strengthens democracy, has turned into something so very unholy. And we can’t trust any of the sociopathic dorks who got us here to get us on a better path. In the immortal words of Prophet Washington, “I have hope in man, but look around, it ain’t working out so well.”
At number 2, we have: tell him, daddy
Speaking of hope and men, Daddy California is back where he belongs, looking great in the spotlight while taunting Donald Trump. One crazy thing about Gavin Newsom is that he has a bit of a Gotham City vibe (the hair is giving the smooth half of Two Face), but he is also extremely Californian — it’s like he was created in a lab to give press conferences that soothe the liberal, coastal elites.
Daddy might be willing to fight fire with fire while ICE stands outside for no reason, but I have a hard time believing he is the next president of this country. There’s a better chance of aliens landing and appointing themselves our new leaders than America returning to any form of political status quo. Daddy is very much the status quo. And his Trump trolling shitposting won’t beat the inventor of the form. Please see above.
At number 1, we have: I totally get it now
At the end of last week, I did something very unusual for a little scaredy baby like me, I went to see a horror movie. My dear friend Amy invited me to see Weapons, said she would get my ticket, and since I will pretty much do anything with anyone I enjoy spending time with if they take care of the logistics, how could I say no?
I spent a solid 20 mins of the movie covering my eyes to avoid seeing gore or another jump scare (I shrieked at least twice), but I was thoroughly entertained, loved the movie, and left with a new obsession — the demented diva who gave life to everyone in the audience while taking it from those onscreen, Aunt Gladys.
The next day, while discussing Weapons in one chat, the topic of Trump meeting with Putin was brought up in another, to which I responded, “Sorry, the only villain I’m willing to discuss today is Gladys.”
And then, after so many years of not understanding what people see in Trump, it hit me — he is THEIR Aunt Gladys, a reprehensible, ailing villain whose dominant color is orange.
If you haven’t seen Weapons yet, and intend to, this is your warning to stop scrolling and come back to read this once you’ve seen it because I’m about to spoil the ending.
And if you haven’t seen it and don’t intend to, scroll on to feel culturally relevant without subjecting yourself to any jump scares or instantly iconic clown witch ladies who will haunt you after for better or worse!
Weapons is about the mystery of a group of missing children, who ran out of their houses at the exact same time, moved by an unseen force in the middle of the night. We don’t meet Aunt Gladys until the second half of the movie, but she steals every scene she’s in and was the one who stole the children, duh. She did some bad magic with twigs and water and objects and locks of hair, lured them to her house, and kept them in the basement so she could ingest their youthful life force and heal her old, sick body.
The similarities between Gladys and Trump are many: the wrong shade of foundation, mind control, late-stage illness, shame about baldness, bad wigs, constant chaos, and disrespect of the gays. Gladys took the town by surprise and had to use witchcraft, but voters knew what they were getting into when they re-elected Trump; they chose to support his evil ass, follow him blindly, and do his violent bidding as he drains the life force from the rest of us.
I’ve tried to make sense of Trump supporters for so long, but I had it all wrong until I met and fell in love with Gladys. I totally get it now: His supporters love him not in spite of how heinous he is, but because of it. He’s their beloved villain. And that’s why we’re stuck living in the abject horror of politics meeting reality television.
Trump isn’t a campy villain doing dark magic to control a town and live longer, he’s a sitting president, with cankles even the life force of 17 children couldn’t cure, who has an aversion to any constraint on what he sees as his limitless power.
The news this summer has brought enough horror to send us all over the edge. So, just like when I watched Weapons in the theater, I shield my eyes when I need to and give myself permission to dip out if I get too scared. I don’t see that as avoiding reality, I see it as self-preservation when platforms profit off of us being enraged, frozen, and motivated by fear.
What’s left of our sanity is worth protecting because the jump scares and gory scenes will always be there. And I, for one, need to make it to Halloween to appreciate the millions of Aunt Gladys clones set to haunt us with their wig-forward terror.
Less Lessons More Blessin’s™
Liz
Patriarchy, I assume.
If any social scientists are reading this and need IDEAS, hit me up!
Liz, you might be my new favourite writer/opinionista.
I miss the semi-good ol' days when you could "poke" someone on Facebook and no one knew what the hell it meant, not even Cluckerberg.