Follow Friday (the newsletter) is back!
Follow Friday (the newsletter) is back!
Here we go again! I missed y'all.
Hey friends, welcome back to Follow Friday! This week, we’re talking about dating apps, Jeff Goldblum, Shakespeare, and more. But first, here are some AI-generated ducks, navigating the transition from summer to fall:
Scroll down to the bottom to see the prompts I used and ChatGPT’s first attempt at this.
🏃 What I’ve been doing
I decided last November to take a break from newslettering, and have been pretty busy since then! A few highlights: I returned to the Bay Area’s annual Dickens Fair, finally rode Rise of the Resistance at Disneyland, saw Laci Mosley aka the Scam Goddess live on stage, visited India for the first time and ate like a king, hooted and hollered at Dune: Part 2 in IMAX, marveled at the total eclipse in Dallas, got really into Eurovision (especially the songs by Ukraine and Ireland), hiked on an honest-to-goodness glacier in Iceland, ditched my glasses thanks to LASIK, sang along to Young the Giant at Outside Lands, and started working on some new podcasts that I cannot wait to tell you about, once the time is right.
Phew.
Somewhere in there, I also got back in the habit of reading news & newsletters every day and saving the best links that I wanted to share with you. Here’s what’s been on my clipboard this week …
📰 What I’m reading
The rise of brown: “It’s become culturally associated with craftsmanship and heritage, concepts that have grown in value as technology becomes more omnipresent.”
The perfect toy lightsaber?: “In 2020, Shilo shipped Hasbro a wooden wine box containing a white plastic prototype with a red motorized blade. He says Hasbro was more than happy — they told him he’d finally cracked the code. They told him it’d be the ‘biggest toy ever.’”
The burning of the Library of Alexandria for fandoms: “The absence of Brazilian stan twitter will undoubtedly create a noticeable gap in the pop culture landscape. Brazilian stans are hyper-engaged, creative, and frequently amplify voices from the Global South. Removing such an influential group of users will lead to a less diverse and vibrant culture on Twitter.”
The original dating app: “‘What troubles me about this computer jazz,’ one sophomore woman told Look magazine, ‘is my feeling that boys don’t level when they fill in their questionnaires. I was honest with mine, but I wonder if some guys fill theirs out to see if they can get a first-nighter.’”
A looming cat-astrophe in London: “‘I think Larry is quite territorial,’ says Justin Ng, a freelance photographer who has taken pictures of Larry outside No. 10 since 2014. ‘It’s Larry’s domain, he’ll feel he’s been threatened with another cat coming in.’” (via NextDraft)
🎧 What I’m listening to
If you’re not into Jeff Goldblum’s whole thing, you should probably skip this one. But if you already like him, you’ll love his appearance on Wild Card with Rachel Martin. He sings, he flirts, and he quotes George Bernard Shaw from memory like an escaped Aaron Sorkin character.
I’m a longtime fan of Jamie Loftus — her book Raw Dog made me laugh til I choked — so I’m not surprised that her internetty podcast Sixteenth Minute (Of Fame) is a lot smarter and deeper and more empathetic than it may seem. I loved this episode about “left shark,” aka Bryan Gaw, and I look forward to diving into the archives.
And finally, I edited this: Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe on Grit, talking with Joubin Mirzadegan about his mission to help make 100% of the world’s cars electric, and the pressure he feels to not screw things up for his workers.
🙏 Hey, thanks!
Thank you all so much for staying subscribed after I put this newsletter on pause. And if a friend forwarded this to you, please consider subscribing for more!
If you or your business/school/organization are looking for help starting a podcast or leveling up an existing show, please get in touch with me at LightningPod. All experience levels are welcome!
💯 The single best thing I’ve seen online this week
is this conversation with ChatGPT. (click through to see it all)
🍿 What I’m watching
The Long Dumb Road (2018) - ★★★ - I love the two leads of this movie, which makes it especially disappointing that they weren’t set up with a more effective script. Jason Mantzoukas got a couple big laughs out of me, but I suspect at least one of those was just him improvising because the jokes don’t really connect to a bigger theme. And apart from a quickly-discarded notion of seeing “the real America,” Tony Revolori’s character doesn’t have much to do besides surviving the roadtrip. This had potential, but it’s not quite there. Available to rent/buy on digital.
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) - ★★★★½ - Holy shit, what a perfect cast. Missed this when it came out, glad I found my way back to it. Denzel, Frances McDormand, and Corey Hawkins bring the source material alive in a way so many filmed Shakespeare adaptations struggle to do, and they make it look easy. Streaming on Apple TV+.
The Terminator (1984) - ★★★★ - A masterclass in how to repeatedly dangle hope in front of the audience, and then snatch it away. Linda Hamilton is great, Arnold Schwarzenegger is terrifying, and Michael Biehn is also there. The love story may not convince, but almost everything else soars. Available to rent/buy on digital, and streaming on AMC+.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) - ★★★½ - The second-best movie featuring a former Disney Channel star with sandworms in it this year. It’s familiar fare for fans of the first one, but I was grinning throughout if not always laughing. Michael Keaton seems to be having a great time, and a post-Schitt's Creek Catherine O’Hara steals several scenes while reprising her role from the original. The biggest star, as with that film, is the production design — Sets! Animatronics! Stop motion! I’m so glad they resisted the urge to CGI-ify this world. In theaters.
Follow me on Letterboxd for more reviews as-they-happen!
▶️ What I’m YouTubing
The parents who took their kids to see Alien (1979):
In just four days, 32,000 game designers made more than 7,000 games around the theme “built to scale.” Here are the 20 best ones:
💀 What I’m TikTok-ing
Light banter with Mr. Brightside
When podcasts run out of true crimes
The kids are also on the phone
🦆 About the Ducks
You may remember I opened my last newsletter with a kinda crappy AI-generated illustration of ducks waiting a crosswalk, so I decided to see how much better generative tools have gotten since November. And, um, wow, right?
Initially I asked ChatGPT to, “draw a colorful picture, with a landscape aspect ratio, of two ducks. one of them is wearing sunglasses and a swimsuit, while the other is wearing a burgundy cardigan and holding a starbucks cup in its wing.” Here’s what I got:
That was already pretty impressive (big lol at the cardigan/Starbucks-branded swimsuit combo on the right), but it wasn’t quite what I pictured. So I said: “the ducks should be facing each other, and the background should be different between the two sides of the image. behind the duck with sunglasses, there should be a beach scene like the one here. but behind the duck with the starbucks cup, there should be a tree with leaves turning brown for autumn.”