I've been quiet lately, mostly because the last few days whenever I read my morning newsletter the only response I can muster is incoherent screaming and tearing my hair out.

it is quite telling that the anti-choice crowd is OVERWHELMINGLY male. really makes it clear what they're actually after.

first of all, Trump's "opposition" to a national ban is purely opportunistic. he doesn't have any actual principles other than amassing power & money.

2nd, WHY ARE YOU LEGITIMIZING THE ANTI-ABORTION MOVEMENT? WHY ARE YOU PUBLISHING THAT NAUSEATING, CYNICAL, DECEITFUL MISOGYNIST TRIPE? there is nothing moderate about the anti-abortion agenda. and to say "yeah they just need to pretend to be ok with legal abortion so they win elections THEN ban it nationwide" GO FUCK YOURSELF ASSHOLE

it's reminiscent of Beto's senate run... except Beto's not related to any legendary political activists. it sure would be nice if Gandhi wins, but the pull of authoritarianism is strong right now ☹️

"cracked down on homeless encampments" by housing them, right? no? just tossed them in jail or chased them off like rats with no concern for the fact they're human beings who are homeless because THEY HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO GO?

I hope they win that Supreme Court case

if this is the same lady that said there's "no substantial benefit" to gender-affirming care for minors, she didn't have courage and she didn't follow the evidence. fuck her and fuck David Brooks.

also "tiktok has turned to nuns, veterans, and ranchers to argue that it's a force for good," so they've turned to groups of people with no tech experience and no psychology background to lie to people.

one of the blurbs was like "political debate is rife on tiktok, but few politicians have a substantial presence there." well yeah, it's hard to have substantial political discourse in 15-second clips. it's like asking why politicians don't have a presence in dive bars, why would they bother with idiots who just want to vomit their shitty opinion & continue pulverizing their neurotransmitters?

then there's the food trends. there's no time to actually post a recipe, you just watch someone chuck mystery ingredients into a bowl and microwave it for ??? minutes and magically produce some fun-looking thing. the fact that long-form content creators with actual food science degrees have to spend their time debunking these "viral hacks" is depressing as shit.

and 14% of americans get their news from TIKTOK?! FROM TIKTOK. from whatever batshit-insane conspiracy-addled whackjob points a camera at her own face to tell you birth control is a deep state plot to render women infertile and eradicate white people. that ANYONE thinks they're getting "news" from TIKTOK is a travesty and a serious threat, i'd even call it a crisis.

then there's the narcissism. i frankly don't understand the desire so many people have to be in front of a camera, to be the center of attention, to have millions of people watching what they do. if facebook & instagram introduced the plague of selfies, tiktok turned selfies into thermonuclear narcissism machines. EVERYONE is self-obsessed.

tiktok destroyed our attention spans. gen alpha can't focus on anything longer than 15 seconds anymore. longform social platforms have upended their formats to try and imitate tiktok. i don't want reddit to look like tiktok, i don't want youtube to work like tiktok!

and on top of the ADHD-brain bite-sized content format, it's promoting an addiction to endless scrolling. i used to be able to open up my sm of choice, read whatever had been posted since the last time i looked at it, and be done.

i don't like tiktok. i don't have a tiktok account, i avoid it wherever possible. i feel like tiktok has destroyed so much, and it's all at the behest of a country that does NOT have our best interests in mind. i'm not going to give a chinese authoritarian algorithm control over my dopamine receptors.

alright, let's talk about tiktok, since that's what yesterday's main NYT story was about. still too tired to go through screenshotting it piece by piece, but i have enough to say regardless.

tiktok is a threat to national security, but it's also a threat to public health. i would like to see politicians arguing more for the latter than the former, but at the same time we don't have a great track record of banning things that are bad for us.

moving to one of the highest COL areas, and specifically one known for its hilly landscape and narrow, multistory Victorian houses, expecting to find a place with no stairs and lots of space is some peak boomer shit

THAT'S WHY HE'S RUNNING, HOW DOES NO ONE GET THIS

when I have half an hour and plenty of opinions on the morning news, but not the spoons to actually write it all up... 😓

a succinct description of how corrupt and pro-autocracy Republicans are

should've had the balls to charge them all with insurrection, since that's what they actually did.