You've got red on you
Pro-layoff propaganda, a “Disney shark blood pact,” pinball Olympics, and more.
Hey friends, welcome back to Follow Friday! Here are some AI-generated ducks planning their Shaun of the Dead-themed Halloween costumes.
Speaking of which, an early happy Halloween to all, except for the people who (as of OCTOBER THE TWENTIETH) already decorated my nearest IKEA for Christmas. What are we even doing here?
📰 What I’m reading
Dehumanization and the internet: “Digital technology always promised the possibility of improving our reality and our ability to connect with each other by re-creating reality and consequentially adding more value to it. But has the opposite happened? Perhaps the dissociative and aspirational nature of technology is only adept at keeping us in a state of perpetual and spinning longing and desire, making it hard to care about anyone beyond ourselves because all we notice is the perceived lack within ourselves.”
Now I hate campaign texts even more: “Deceptive political fundraisers have victimized hundreds of elderly Americans and misled those battling dementia or other cognitive impairments into giving away millions of dollars — far more than they ever intended. Some unintentionally joined the ranks of the top grassroots political donors in the country as they tapped into retirement savings and went into debt, contributing six-figure sums through thousands of transactions.”
CCPuns: “China’s online spaces are strictly monitored and censored. Some sensitive topics and terms are strictly banned, such as references to the Tiananmen massacre, or criticism of President Xi Jinping. Insulting individuals or China generally is also frowned upon. In response, users have adapted, using funny or obscure references and in-jokes to get around the censorship. Many rely on homophones, using phrases that sound very similar in Mandarin, but were written with different Chinese characters, such as the word for “paratrooper” (sǎn bīng) instead of “idiot” (shǎ bī).”
America’s strangest tourist destination: “We were not allowed to go joyriding through all 3,200 square miles of White Sands. We had to follow a prescribed route past concrete structures that explosives had reduced to rubble and tangled rebar. We saw a progression of signs that formed a dark poem when read in sequence: Warning: Entering active missile range / Beware of eagles eating on the road. / Caution: Radioactive materials. The lettering on one had faded entirely, leaving only a crisply drawn rattlesnake.”
Hug faster, dammit! ““It’s hard to say goodbye so make it quick. 3 minutes max,” one of a series of signs at Dunedin Airport on the country's South Island says. “Max hug time three minutes” another reads. Those seeking “fonder farewells” should “use the car park” where a generous 15-minute window is allowed, a third says.”
I also just finished reading A Disturbance in the Force: How and Why the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened by Steve Kozak. As a chronicle of a filmmaking fiasco, it doesn’t have as many jaw-dropping anecdotes as, say, The Disaster Artist. But Kozak writes with passion about the people involved in the notorious special who were earnestly trying to make something good. I think to get the most out of the book, you ought to have already watched the Holiday Special, which is easy to find and difficult to finish. But for superfans of Star Wars and/or weird pop culture, it’s a good read.
🎧 What I’m listening to
Flightless Bird is an exploration of American culture through the eyes of a New Zealand-born journalist, David Farrier. And in the most recent episode, he visited the most American thing: A huge chain restaurant loosely themed around another country’s foods! As a poor excuse for an American, I’ve never actually eaten at an Olive Garden, but it’s quite fun to hear David talk to superfans who have OG-related tattoos, nicknames, and even weddings. Also, you know what? He’s right. Loading up on bread right before a meal is weird.
I was vaguely aware that there’s a book called “Who Moved My Cheese?” and I probably wouldn’t have looked too closely had I encountered it in the wild. On the surface, this bestseller is about adapting to change … but as Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri explain on If Books Could Kill, it’s actually a “demonic” bit of pro-layoff propaganda. What’s more, it’s terribly written and centered on a metaphor that is both too simple and too convoluted, making it perfect fodder for their podcast.
On their podcast One Song, Diallo Riddle and Blake "LUXXURY" Robin discuss the history and analyze the “stems” of popular songs, and I can only imagine how impatient they must have felt, waiting until spooky season to cover Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Even if you already love this song (and who doesn’t?), this episode will make you appreciate just how musically inspired it is. I also love the fact that, as DJs, the hosts appreciate all the different musicians who made this song great, not just MJ.
I edited this: On Lock and Code, the ACLU’s senior policy council Cody Vetzke talks with David Ruiz about the data broker industry, which knows a lot more about you than you probably realize. And that matters for more than just advertising; your hidden data profile can be used to deny you a job, a house, or admission to a university.
I also edited this: Loom CEO Joe Thomas spoke with Kleiner Perkins’ Joubin Mirzadegan and Ilya Fushman on the latest episode of Grit, reflecting on his company’s $975 million acquisition by Atlassian. They recount the ups and downs of Loom’s path to an exit before pivoting to its rollout of AI products, the acquisition landscape, and what it’s like going from independent founder to acquired employee.
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💯 The single best thing I’ve seen online this week
is this headline in the San Francisco Standard. Who isn’t going to click on that? And it’s accurate, too!
🍿 What I’m watching
Shaun of the Dead (2004) - ★★★★ ½ - It really clicked for me on this viewing just how much work the first act has to do to make the rest so entertaining. We spend so much time with Shaun, Ed, Liz, and the gang that even though the movie is often silly and cartoonishly violent, the emotional beats still WORK. I think the jokes are funnier in Hot Fuzz and the action is more impressive in Baby Driver, but I’m so impressed by what the creative team was able to accomplish here.
Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) - ★★★ ½ - A charmingly zany wartime comedy about a man trying to hide from the truth, who winds up ensnared in a much bigger lie. Eddie Bracken plays the impeccably named Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith, who returns to his hometown a war hero — even though he never went to war. The story beats are a little predictable, but there are more than a few great jokes, and I love the depth afforded to some characters who easily could have been neglected.
Follow me on Letterboxd for more reviews as-they-happen!
💀 What I’m TikTok-ing
This guy’s laugh could cure diseases
🦆 About the Ducks
ChatGPT really struggled with this one. As I found last week with my sleepy duck trying to tune out the world, the AI seems to want to add a lot more stuff than I really asked for, hence the giant ducks in the clouds (???). But the first draft was even more chaotic:
The prompt here was “draw a colorful picture, with a landscape aspect ratio, of two ducks facing each other. one of them is dressed in a white button-down shirt with a red tie, and is holding a cricket bat. the other duck has been turned into a zombie!”
Thanks ChatGPT for haunting my nightmares with that first zombie. I had to tell it to tone down the horror to get the winning art.
I also tried Canva’s new AI image-generation tools this week, in several different styles, and there were some pretty good options, but the “landscape aspect ratio” instruction didn’t get through:
Oh no, who gave the zombie-duck a bat?