Snitch Fix
All things must pass, even the Eras Tour and Luigimania
Hello again,
Take it slow, or dive right in? It's the question I grapple with each week.
Many of my favorite newsletters spend time on the set up - glimpses of the author's week, allusions to coffees and dinners, revealing little personal moments. Some know just how to set the mood, others try too hard and kill the vibe. Yet it's become almost mandatory in the weekly newsletter format.
I think we might be reaching a breaking point. I’m not saying there won’t always be a place for autobiographical writing as part of the newsletter mix, just that it feels like we’re at a similar inflection point to blogging circa 2004ish, when the majority of the medium moved from “navel-gazing” about one’s own life to crafting narrative around specific topics, fandoms, etc.
As I see this shift play out across Substack (and the rest of the newsletter/blog 2.0 space, from Beehiiv to Ghost), my current inclination is to weave any personal storytelling into the topics we cover here, vs needing to carve out a space upfront for an update on what’s happening in my world. Of course, I say all of this having just done exactly that.
What’s your take? Do you want your newsletter authors (me, in this case) to take their time with these weekly check-ins, or should we skip right to the good stuff?
And now, on with the show…
First things first
Luigi got got. The man who allegedly shot UnitedHealthcare’s CEO was located in Pennsylvania1, thanks to a tipster who saw him at the McDonald’s in Altoona.
I would add more detail about this story–from the manifesto and accounts from what would appear to be every person who ever passed him on the street to the endless font of memes and horny mythologizing that have exploded all over the internet since Luigi Mangione got his post-arrest close-up–if it were possible to share anything you haven’t already seen, or to say anything that hasn’t been blown out into a million words of thinkpieces and hot take threads already.
More on Luigi to come, but for now prayers up to the crisis team at Nintendo who’s having to game theory out what they do if Luigi Mangione does linger in culture as some sort of vigilante folk hero.
The Eras is over. 54 cities, 149 shows, one Super Bowl champ boyfriend, and more than $2 billion later, the billionaire popstar declared a ceasefire against parents’ wallets and closed out her record-setting tour in Vancouver2.
The truth is out there. Reports out of New Jersey and Maryland of mysterious drones hovering over various locations have people spooked. Between this story and the aforementioned Luigi storyline, conspiracy theory Twitter is buzzing like the Sunday Bunch intern after a Tropical Vibe Celsius.
Related: How to Produce a Kamikaze Drone
Reading the vibes
Are Social Media Platforms the Next Dying Malls?‘
It’s game over for facts’: how vibes came to rule everything from pop to politics
This isn’t really about work anymore. It’s about the performance of work. These tools don’t exist to help you do your job better; they exist to create the illusion of progress. The endless tracking, updating, and syncing isn’t for your benefit — it’s for your manager, or your manager’s manager, or some faceless stakeholder who insists on seeing colorful progress bars that inch forward even when nothing is actually happening. The tools create data, and the data creates reports, and the reports create a sense of momentum, even if that momentum is just you running in circles inside an endless hamster wheel of productivity software.
Joan Westerberg,
Modern Work Fucking Sucks
Deep in the heart
Texas Stock Exchange to Open Temporary Home in Dallas Next Year
Michael Dell Spent 40 Years Preparing for an AI Boom No One Expected
'Interstellar's IMAX Box Office Returns Are Out of This World
New Braunfels ranks No. 2 in US for largest population increase; 4 Texas cities in top 10
The revenge of the company town: Elon Musk, the new Baron of Bastrop
Sunday Bunch wants to get you off that SaaS hamster wheel...This is a good place to make a statement about growth and sharing and word of mouth...Consumerish
Universal Music’s New Hotel Brand Banks on Trend in Live Tourism
Japan launches drinkable mayo for fans that just can’t get enough
‘Everybody Is Drinking Guinness.’ We Know Why.
Hollywood Embraces the Noodle Boys, Ditching the Muscly Look3
The Business of Sport
Scottie Pippen and the heady rise of the athlete turned crypto bro
As the article notes, the athlete-to-crypto pipeline is nothing new, but Scottie is really doubling down in this new role, with the engagement baiting and HEAVY use of Grok-generated images to push his new project:
…a new cryptocurrency that attempts to tokenize the basketball the Bulls used to beat the Lakers for the first of their six championships. “I think the game 5 ball that I have is very recognizable to some degree,” he told TMZ Sports, “and what we’re trying to do is make it a real-world asset.”
Do yourself a favor and make sure you watch some of this unfold in real time. It’s wild.
Bill Belichick reached out to Jets about vacancy before taking UNC job
I’m sure whoever they end up with will be just as good.
Ishbia Sports Empire Targets Minnesota Twins for Portfolio
The Phoenix Suns’ bros want to be the next in the multi-sport mogul arena.
Whitecaps Owners Retain Goldman Sachs to Sell MLS Franchise
At this point, how does Ryan Reynolds not buy the football club in his hometown?
Humanity, etc.
Google Says It Appears to Have Accessed Parallel Universes
The small metal plate that reshaped American neighborhoods.
Tripping on psilocybin helped traumatized and depressed COVID-19 frontline healthcare workers
What Did Roman Emperors Do All Day?4
And finally…
A little reminder that a lot can happen in two years:
Approximately 90 minutes’ drive from the year’s other big assassination attempt, if you’re scoring at home.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, just pointing out that they got Luigi the morning after the Eras Tour ended? Coincidence? Yes, probably. But still worth looking into.
I’m sorry, I feel like this is kind of an old narrative, but I couldn’t help with this headline. “Noodle boys” is cold-blooded.
Having just seen Gladiator II, I think the answer might involve pet monkeys but probably better to do some academic research to validate that assumption.