0 comments
i’m looking for a man in… bookstores
Well, hello darling. 💞 Welcome back to our weekly newsletter!
Today we’re exploring the latest news in culture, including the gossip coming out of the Paris Olympics and what men are really reading these days. We’ll also get up to speed on what’s going on with our planet (Brazilian cocaine sharks?) and the prison sentences being handed to those fighting for its wellbeing.
🛋️ 💭 Culture corner
Are Olympic athletes seriously *that* horny? – Hypebae
The Paris Olympics announced that it will be lifting its ‘sex and intimacy’ ban, then promptly handed out 20,000 free condoms to competing athletes. Are high-performance athletes seriously that thirsty for one another? Well, if previous Olympics are anything to go by, the answer is yes. Still, the ‘anti-sex beds’ installed on the event’s campus were apparently just a rumour that stemmed from their sustainably-made cardboard bed frames.
That said, the provided mattresses have been compared to Scrub Daddy material, which doesn’t sound appealing – whether you’re sleeping alone or not.
Why don’t straight men read novels? – DAZED
Of course, sweeping generalisations do favours for no one. However, studies show that men aren’t reading that much, and when they do, they’re more likely to pick up non-fiction material. Women made up 80 percent of book sales in the US, UK, and Canada last year, meaning ‘the bookish man is becoming a rare species’.
Andrew Tate may be fuelling the extinction of the fiction-reading man further, tweeting that ‘Reading books is for losers who are afraid to learn from life.’ My eyes have never rolled harder. Market data indicates that when men did reach for books, they accounted for 55% of non-fiction book sales. Is a global masculinity crisis combined with a cultural obsession with self-improvement causing men to stray from fiction novels, which are known to help us exercise imagination, empathy, and escapism?
Kamala Harris is having a brat summer – Sky News
Bye, bye, Biden. Hello, Kamala ‘Brat’ Harris. No I’m just kidding, but like, Kamala Harris is referencing Charli xcx’s new album all over her online campaign? The already heavily-meme’d Vice President is showing off just how tapped in she is to popular culture in what appears to be an attempt to appeal to young voters. Given that the concept around Charli’s wildly successful album is all about embracing the unexpected and uplifting the chaotic underdog, Harris (or her PR team) may have hit the mark with this one. Even Charli herself agrees.
🌎 💬 Planet talk
Sharks in Brazil are testing positive cocaine – Indy100
With the global demand for cocaine reaching record levels last year, authorities everywhere have been on high alert. This has caused smugglers to get inventive when transporting their goods, with one group using buoys to transport 81 bales of the drug (worth £230 million) across the ocean. However, it appears that these parcels are not air-tight, leaking their contents into the ecosystem during the journey. As a result, sharks in Brazil are now testing positive for the drug, with concentrations 100x higher than ever reported in other aquatic life. With research still ‘very limited,’ it’s unclear how cocaine affects the sharks and other marine animals. Maybe ‘brat summer’ is going a little too far.
Prison sentences for Just Stop Oil activists shock the UK – thred.
A group of Just Stop Oil activists have been given to the harshest prison sentences ever given for a non-violent protest in the UK. In a case that addressed protestors who blocked the M25 motorway back in the winter of 2022, five activists sentenced to five to four years of prison time for ‘intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance’. More than half of Brits surveyed said these sentences were too harsh, with the UN’s Michel Forst declaring that we should be concerned for our civic rights and freedoms. Oh, great!
Are you satisfied yet? – Totally Recommend
This excellent piece on consumerism and the quality of the goods we buy today has been wildly popular on Substack during the last week. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, now is the time! It questions what drives us to impulse buy items that we know are made through exploitation (social and environmental) and won’t last us longer than a year. Is it the constant bombardment of advertising? The desire to be as ‘cool’ as our favourite influencers? The urge to keep up with trends, to feel Instagram-worthy? The answer may come in the form of a bigger beast that combines of all of the above, Total Rec says. Putting an end to this behaviour is also not as simple as it seems. Queue another round of buyer’s remorse.
🎧 Recommendations
This episode of ‘time alone’ podcast by Siobhan Lauren has stuck with me since I listened to it a few months back. It’s a great one for anyone who is trying to appreciate kick the sometimes unhealthy habit of looking at the past with rose-coloured glasses in order to appreciate the present moment!
🤭 Leaving you with a little laugh
View this post on Instagram
