ballroom bunkers & dating ai bobbleheads
never waste an assassination attempt. Trump has had more attempts on his life than Jason Bourne, and he’s determined to turn the latest into a major dub. Following the recent assassination attempt in the Washington Hilton hotel, heated questions are raging about competence, systems, and how a man strapped to the...
Current in The Common Thred
death of posting + catholicmaxxing
when something dies, the flies come out Plenty of people still reckon that bots will drive people offline. The Dead Internet Theory truly sprouted legs with the mainstream explosion of AI, and the suggestion that bots will soon account for more online activity than those born of meat and bone isn’t...
zero backlash for trump + bieber’s laptop sesh
genocide is one thing, but ai slop?! Can we circle back real quick? I wasn’t somehow duped by AI? Perhaps I dropped off and had an obscure dream that sunny Tuesday lunchtime? Nope. I just triple checked, and Trump did proclaim that ‘an entire civilisation will die tonight’ on his Truth Social....
big tech is guilty + kanye is… forgiven?
rage against the machine! Silicon Valley is reeling and the future suddenly looks marginally less dystopian. Kudos to the jury who just delivered the huge verdict at an LA court. We’ve seen Zuckerberg coast through court cases too numerous to recite, but the latest proceedings will have drudged up that pit...
ai on a leash + gen z’s age gap paranoia
get your own sh*t! Try to distinguish between a genuine Studio Ghibli image and something thrown together in 30 seconds on ChatGPT, we dare you. Generative AI platforms have become so fast, polished, and culturally omnivorous that any visual style can now be coopted. It’s good clean fun when making crude...
social media is toxic for clicks + banksy revealed
what? Nah I never knew that, never knew that The BBC must be terrified of whistleblowers at this point. But the latest exposé hasn’t come at its expense… it actually gets the honours of spilling the tea on someone else. Canaries have come to the BBC with a case concerning Meta...
why the obsession with gen z + viral auramax just dropped
lady, hear me tonight! 🎶 ‘Why you so obsessed with me?’ asked Gen Z. ‘How long you got?’ the Guardian replied. The news outlet recently wrote a comprehensive story outlining why people, particularly from the commercial world, are so obsessed with Gen Z. ‘Is there something different about people born between 1997 and 2012, or is it all just marketing nonsense and hysteria,’ the intro reads. Let’s see what expert analysis they came up...
war again + what’s with jim carrey’s face
well, that escalated quickly. That ceasefire the US apparently brokered in Gaza never materialised, and now both the US and Israel are escalating their military operations elsewhere. This week, Trump ordered pre-emptive attacks on Iran upon hearing that Israel was preparing an imminent attack on the nation. The president feared the US allyship with Israel would inevitably prompt retaliation, so opted to go on the offensive and blunt the military...
social media’s landmark addiction case + first major arrest for sexual deepfakes
can they prove what we all know? The sun rises and falls, the rivers flow, and every other month Zuckerberg enters the defendant’s dock to commence lengthy court proceedings. The Meta owner has had several major run-ins with the law since Cambridge Analytica, mostly over a lax company attitude towards user privacy. However, the ongoing case now has major ramifications that could extend beyond putting the tycoon the odd billion...
where ICE agents gossip online + the creeps who set beauty standards
sorry, no good vibes today Welcome back, or hello and welcome if this is your first time with us at the common thred 💌 At first, this week’s edition might seem a bit all over the place: thirst traps on LinkedIn, therapy-inspired dating approaches, beauty standards shaped by the world’s biggest creeps, ICE agents in online forums bitching about their jobs, and medical evidence of state violence that’s impossible to look away from....
