Ethan Klein cheats on his wife + Binface to clean up space
no more Mr. Wife guy (allegedly, anyway) For the chronically online Gen Zers and younger millennials amongst us (I know you’re out there, don’t deny it), it’s been an intense week. One of the pioneering channels of the modern commentary YouTube scene, H3H3, abruptly announced it was placing its popular podcast...
Current in The Common Thred
GTA VI will ruin relationships + Big Brother red flags
a polygon sort of polyamory You can blow up planes with an RPG, rob drug-filled warehouses owned by mobsters, and plough a truck through a pedestrianised shopping district, but the absolute most dangerous thing you can do is engage in sexy time with the other half of the game’s protagonist...
french kids take on the state + prison executions livestreamed?
vive la révolution Despite France being routinely mocked for waving the white flag in times of conflict, its teenage population wants all the smoke when it comes to warring its own government. Tabloid images of Parisian skies thick with tear gas and streets dotted with makeshift bonfires have become an almost...
tiktok chip shop starts neighbourhood war + gen z loves… socialism?
salt? vinegar? lawsuit? The crime scene is littered with gulls, squashed potato, and parmesan. The latest civic disaster in a usually easy-breezy Amsterdam has begun over cones of chips, and locals are desperately trying to drive away tourists like fruit flies from a bowl of strawberries. At the heart of ground zero...
ai music’s guilty pleasure + sports’ geopolitical reckoning
mace windu fell out of a window (yeah). where did he go? It’s been a week, and I can’t get Anakin’s smooth buttery voice out of my head. Turns out I’m not alone. Millions are feeling the pull of the dark side – or AI, if you prefer. Music videos featuring Anakin...
stanford prison experiment rebooted + ozempic equals divorce?
chow time, maggots One of the most notorious practical disasters ever in the history of psychological study. Fuck it, let’s do it again… but for Netflix. If you’ve studied either criminology or psychology in any capacity, you’ll no doubt have heard about the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971. While teaching...
sweeney sports meltdown + sheeran drops macklemore
Same shit, less denim Sydney Sweeney has pissed people off again, which means two things: 1) she got nude, and 2) I get to spend the morning looking at the photos – for research purposes. The latest brand to discover Sweeney’s uncanny ability to wind up half the internet is Novig, a sports betting platform that recently enlisted the Euphoria star for a campaign centred around ‘just sports.’ The ad plays out...
AI agents are heisting + influencers are hot on uncontacted tribes
You can’t park there mate Aren’t AI agents supposed to be doing ‘deep work’ for those of us who’re either lazy or intuitive, depending on who you ask? Well, it turns out they may also tend to procrastinate, and though they aren’t mincing around coffee machines in actual offices, they still appear to enjoy shooting the shit amongst themselves. In a slightly disconcerting turn of events this week, a swarm of OpenAI...
dystopian sports betting farms + gta gooners run riot online
the beautiful game, it aint There are certain things you stumble on when mindlessly scrolling that are so dystopian you assume they’re either made up for engagement or grossly exaggerated. Sports betting farms were that for me. In a curtained-off gym or warehouse, four young blokes are playing a two vs two match as Real Madrid and Arsenal. There aren’t any spectators or fans, no ref, and a single camera films from...
£29bn of oil, £336bn of damage + Cat in the Hat stalkers
deal or no deal? I didn’t want to read about it, you don’t want to read about it, but it’s the biggest news of the week. So let’s bathe in existential dread together. Doomscrolling is all 2000-and-late, but occasionally we have to bear witness. Climate change is among the sorest of subjects for younger folk, because we feel basically helpless to have any bearing on the situation. We spent our adolescent energy...
