5/6 - krill is the new caviar
Tuesday’s Newsletter: gummy worm gardens, dancing cars, and technicolor incense
I loved seeing your beautiful faces yesterday and I’m grateful you chose to brave the weather 🫶
I decided on the tart + nutella yogurt with sprinkles and graham cracker crumbs. Transparently, I could have been more daring but I wasn’t sure if I had outgrown the order I used to get in high school and thought I should try something different. After seeing everyone else’s creations, I know that I will not be shackled by fear the next time I come face to face with a 16 Handles.
Don’t worry if you weren’t able to make it! I’m throwing another froyo meetup in two weeks, May 19th, 6 pm - RSVP!
I want to touch on two hot trends, although I think calling them trends makes them sound more serious than they are. They’re more like cultural observations:
Krill is back on the menu, boys: Angela and Abigail told me about this mass of krill floating off the antarctic that somebody decided to tin and sell to protein-crazed gym bros. You can buy it on Amazon and it features 15g of protein for only 67 calories. Angela tried some for herself and while she didn’t offer the strongest endorsement, we could all imagine a world where restaurants are serving potato chips with a side of krill. Here’s a fun activity: try to spot the krill in this picture.
Vanity glasses are all the rage: I went to Fcukers at Warsaw last Friday and the amount of club-friendly business casual wear wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was the amount of horn-rimmed vanity glasses in the audience. There were easily 20+ gals sporting the office siren aesthetic with their faux spectacles. I kept thinking about it over the weekend and I can’t bring myself to sport those glasses because I’ve lived through the era of punched out 3D glasses. I can’t go back.
: )
Thought Starters
Ads and dystopia go hand in hand
*article*
Sarah Wynn-Williams in her new tell-all memoir, Careless People, describes how Facebook used ad-targeting to serve beauty brands to vulnerable young users. This article provides a quick summary into data sharing and targeted ads, both industries that were remade by Facebook’s algorithm and culture-altering app.
“The evolution of these metrics is important to understanding the all-consuming nature of surveillance capitalism — even a scathing rant about surveillance capitalism becomes fodder for the machine, as you can clearly see with the ads on this page. When deep-pocketed advertisers are involved, positive and negative traits alike become dollar signs; search terms to be probed, analyzed, and used for profit.”
“Though Facebook's ad algorithms are notoriously opaque, in 2017 The Australian alleged that the company had crafted a pitch deck for advertisers bragging that it could exploit ‘moments of psychological vulnerability’ in its users by targeting terms like ‘worthless,’ ‘insecure,’ ‘stressed,’ ‘defeated,’ ‘anxious,’ ‘stupid,’ ‘useless,’ and ‘like a failure.’ The social media company likewise tracked when adolescent girls deleted selfies, ‘so it can serve a beauty ad to them at that moment,’ according to Wynn-Williams.”
“We want to make cars dance”
*article*
This photo series of Tokyo’s underground drift car scene is so cool. I know nothing about the community other than it’s the setting for the best Fast and the Furious movie. People are often fascinated by the secret clubs, the underground, the hard-to-access spaces where you “need to know a guy.” With our propensity to expose these communities for TikTok clout, they’ve become more and more rarified. I found this piece interesting without being exploitative and there were some beautiful quotes pulled from Tory, the drifter highlighted in this story.
“The scene operates on the fringes of legality—high speeds, customized cars, open roads. But despite the risks involved, he’s not going to stop. ‘I’ve never thought about giving it up. I am defined by drifting,’ he says.”
“Tory's part of a tight-knit race crew called DANCER—the words impressed on his car in a large holographic lettering. The name was chosen for simple reasons—‘we want to make the cars dance,’ he says.”
Things to do
Tenement Talk: Qian Julie Wang
When: May 28, 6:30 - 9 pm
Where: Tenement Museum, 103 Orchard Street
What: Qian Julie Wang’s memoir focuses on her childhood and growing up as an undocumented immigrant in the US. This conversation, moderated by the museum president, will dive into her story and surely draw parallels to what we are experiencing today.
Brands
Orika
*incense*
You can’t go wrong with any of their scents and Orika’s vibrant colors and decorative packaging means it will add to your space even when you aren’t burning it. Fancy incense is the perfect housewarming or “I was thinking of you” gift.
What is it? Kimono Cocktails
How much? $38