I'm on X

Internet round-up for the week of July 24, 2023

Hey friends! Happy Friday!

It’s been a bit of a week over here — as you may recall, I was laid off from my job in January. Well, through a series of unfortunate events, my husband is now also unemployed. Yes, that’s right — we moved halfway across the country for a new job/promotion, respectively, and are now both just…chillin. 😎 It is absolutely a less than ideal situation, but we’re trying to remain calm and make the best of it.

I’m not going to talk about this much other than to say: I am done with 2023 and its antics. I will be reaching out to the Catholic church to recommend we roll into 2024 immediately rather than waiting until January 1st.

In other news, I decided to take advantage of my unemployed status to go wait in line for Taylor Swift Eras Tour merch yesterday. I’m not like, a die-hard Swiftie or anything, but I am a fan. Just not a big enough fan to fight Ticketmaster to the death or pay $1000 for secondhand tickets.

I am, however, an extremely huge fan of the mineral washed gray-blue tour crewnecks (as is everyone else)! My hope was that I’d be able to grab one for myself and one to toss on eBay, since you’re limited to 2. Unfortunately, after about 2 hours of waiting in line, they sold out when I was just a couple hundred people away from the front. 😭 Guess everybody else had the same idea.

Even though I couldn’t get what I wanted (and I know it probably sounds like pure hell waiting in line outside in the sun for 3 hours), it ended up being surprisingly fun.

I quickly bonded with a few folks in line near me and we stayed together as a group throughout the day, only losing one member who had to be at work at 12:30. We shared sunscreen and saved each other’s spots. We commiserated when the crowd let out a collective, disappointed sigh after they announced the crewnecks were sold out over a bullhorn.

The teenage gals behind us were having the time of their lives — sharing friendship bracelets, playing games, and shrieking. A local news crew came in and interviewed them, which made them shriek even more. They kept screaming, “What if Taylor sees this?!” Truly adorable. One girl told the reporter she’d gotten a summer job at Great America “just for this,” which made the reporter laugh. Then, after the crew left, her friend was like, “you said you worked at Great America — didn’t you call in sick today?!” and she replied “Well I guess it’s okay if they fire me, I already got enough money for the show.” I loved them.

I ended up getting a t-shirt and a really soft hoodie, and making a friend who is going to the show on Saturday who offered to pick me up a crewneck if she sees one. Plus, I managed to only get a tiny sunburn on the tip of my nose, one earlobe, and a spot on my neck. Love finding out just how good I am at knowing where I put on sunscreen. 😬

Afterward, I got too hyped from all the girlie energy — yes, even after all my grousing about movie theaters last week — and decided to go see Barbie.

The movie was great! So funny. And also I was reminded why I hate going to the movies, because the row of teenage boys in front of us watched TikToks for the entire second half of the film, plus talked through America Ferrera’s big monologue. I really am not sure why they went at all?? Maybe they were just trying to get ideas for their own Mojo Dojo Casa House.

Even with everything going on this week, I still managed to get my personal essay submitted and spend some time online. So! Here’s what I’ve got for ya:

Sorry, I Didn’t Catch That — I’m On X

Every time I bring him up, I tell you I’m going to stop talking about him, and then…well, here we are again. As you may know, my old favorite website Twitter (RIP) has gone through a rebrand to “X” this week. As with everything Elon Musk does, it’s been a complete disaster. I’ve got a few X (I will not continue to call it that) links here for your information/amusement.

What does this even mean

A user who had owned the account @x for 16+ years had it unceremoniously revoked, with only an offer of some swag and a meeting with management; there will never be an X Japan because they don’t own the trademark, nor do they own the trademark for social media (Meta does, lol); X-related crypto scams are already popping up (verified, no less); and since there hadn’t really been a plan, the company scrambled to remove Twitter logos throughout the building and change their conference room names¹ , plus got the SFPD called on them when taking down the Twitter sign on the outside of the building. And also: a brief history of Elon and the name “X”.

Apropos of nothing, here’s an Article from The Atlantic in 2017 titled Power Causes Brain Damage. (And here’s a secondary link if you’ve hit your article limit for the month.)

Welcome, Aliens

This week in a congressional hearing about UFOs, former intelligence official David Grusch testified under oath that he was aware of a “crash retrieval” and “reverse engineering program”, as well as that he had interviewed officials with knowledge of aircraft with “nonhuman” origins and recovered “biologics” (bodies?!).

Probably no one has ever felt this vindicated

I really want to be excited about this but I’m not sure that’s possible unless I am allowed to contact the aliens and ask them to remove me from this planet.

Can a bitch get a vacation to Risa? I’ve lived enough years on Earth to deserve shore leave.

AI Reporting For Duty 🫡

From The Intercept this week:

This seems to make a lot of sense, tbh, because they don’t have money to pay striking workers. It’s Good Business™.

Look, I don’t know if an AI actually wrote this, but — if they didn’t, whoever did may be very mechanically inclined.

I feel like I’ve been seeing more and more AI fodder as responses to things I Google, to the point that I’m starting to have to sift through them just to get something written by a human. It makes me wonder if our way of speaking/writing will actually evolve and change over time to feel more mechanical, or if AI will pick up on enough of our jargon/shorthand to make itself even harder to detect.

Normal, cool, etc etc.

Anyway.

The main takeaway here is that this is great and I’m so excited for computers to get writing and journalism jobs!! They have wanted them for so long and honestly have put in so much work and effort to get where they are today. I love seeing robots’ dreams come true!

Randomly Selected Animal Cutie

@thechattylabWhy is Copper worried? #dogtok #talkingdogsoftiktok #smartdog

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I adore this dog, and I love the talking-button-things. But I will tell you right now — I could not cope with this. I would love to get a dog and teach it how to communicate, but it is not getting a “worried” button. I have enough anxiety about myself and separately about my dog. Now I’m supposed to have anxiety about my dog’s anxiety about me? It’s too much. My dog can have buttons for “outside”, “play”, “hungry”, etc etc. Oh, and “love you.”

All right, that’s it from me this week. They’ve just started jackhammering the floor nearby (you will not be surprised to learn that they are “replacing flooring in a unit near me” 💀) so I’m going to try to go to the pool or something to GTFO. Send good vibes for my escape, and have a great weekend!
K

1. If I had to have a meeting with one of my male coworkers in a conference room called s3xy I would literally die.

I mean it. I would rather meet on top of a moving train. I would rather meet outside in Arizona right now. I would rather meet on one of the garbage piles nyc_kb films for RatTok.