A B C D E F My Life
Mōrena lil shits!!
One of the best things about this newsletter is that I learn so much new shit from you all every day. Like in the US a biscuit (not the one you eat, but the inflatable thing you tow behind a boat) is simply a tube or an inner tube, in Quebec, it’s a beigne (donut) and in Bolivia, they’re called ‘flotadores’ - the more you know, right??
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In today’s newsletter:
The true (and kinda disappointing) story behind that ABCDEFU song
We need to talk about Cryptoland
Culture Vulture is BACK with a Succession Special
Pokémon Go: Police fired for chasing Snorlax instead of robbers
Magawa, the landmine-sniffing hero rat, dies aged eight
MUNDANE POLL RESULTS
The true (and kinda disappointing) story behind that ABCDEFU song
So I’m sure by now, whether you’re a TikTok user or not (the song has certainly made its way off the platform) you’ve heard that song that goes
🎶 A B C D E F U and your mom and your sister and your job
and your broke-ass car and that shit you call art 🎶
Anyway, we all thought that it was this wholesome story about a girl (GAYLE) who wrote a catchy hook on TikTok after being asked a question by a random user saying “can you write a breakup song using only the alphabet??” and GAYLE wrote this.
Then, the song blew up - and rightly so, the hook does its job! One user, @danielswall, however, alleges that it’s not quite as simple as that. After looking into the person who left the comment asking her to write the alphabet song @danielswall posted this video with their findings.
“If we look at the comment we see this account name (nancy_berman) and if we go to this account we’ll see it’s private,” Wall says.
“But if we look her up on Google we see her on LinkedIn. In fact, we see her as a Digital Marketing Manager at Atlantic Records.
The plot thickens.
The user's Linkedin bio says she’s been a Digital Marketing Manager at Atlantic since October 2021, and before that she was a Coordinator of Pop/Rock Digital Marketing Operations from March 2020.
And GAYLE actually signed with Atlantic in May 2020.
So people are saying she’s an “industry plant” but this shit has happened before. Lorde was accused of a similar thing when people found out that she was signed to Universal Music a while before The Love Club EP was released - but she actually had a development deal with them - so it’s not unusual to be signed before you’re massive. The unusual thing (and low key the genius thing) here is the marketing! Damn, if this is true, they really harnessed the energy and native response of Gen Z and used it to their advantage - so I ain’t mad! I’m taking notes!
Note: there is a chance that none of this is true and it’s all just one huge coincidence, but if the shoe fits….
We need to talk about Cryptoland
I saw this in a few newsletters I read over the summer and wasn’t going to talk about it but fuck it - since I’m still seeing quite a bit about it - HAVE YOU ALL SEEN CRYPTOLAND?
The idea is that a bunch of crypto bros will buy an island in Fiji and all live there to escape the rules of the state (and I guess the consequences of their environmental degradation??? But ya’ll aren’t ready to have that conversation yet). The 10-minute video I posted above is a creepy as fuck animated advertisement where a giant Bitcoin shows you around the three main areas:
Cryptoland Bay: An area consisting of workspaces, bars, and a resort.
The House of Dao: An incubator for crypto startups.
The Blockchain Hills: 60 parcels of lands the project’s creators plan on selling to people.
Here’s what Ryan Broderick from Garbage Day said about it:
“It’s a story as old as time. A group of financially independent young men find each other on the internet. They realize they all have similar libertarian beliefs and decide they should start their own nation. They then convince a bunch of other men, usually ones who aren’t so financially independent, to buy into this scheme to support their dream of building the perfect libertarian state. And it doesn’t even matter what kind of internet community of men we’re talking about. This will happen anywhere.
Twelve years ago, Redditors tried to organize Reddit Island and then last year did it again! You put enough men together in a chatroom, they will try and build their own sovereign state. “
So kinda like Consitution DAO - the people who wanted to buy a copy of the US constitution - the people behind Cryptoland have set up a Discord server to arrange everything they need to buy the island Nananu-i-cake in Fiji. In fact, on the Cryptoland Discord, the people behind the project claimed they have already secured the island with a purchase agreement. Except, Nananu-i-cake is still listed as available on at least two different real estate sites (for $12M) and call me a non-believer but I don’t reckon they’re gonna make 12mil by selling silly lil NFTS. Oh yeah, did I mention that that’s how they’re gonna raise the money? By selling NFTs of this creepy lil guy:
It kinda feels like a Fyre Fest type scam, but I’m also kinda like… let them do it. Like, how interesting would that be for a social experiment/ reality TV show? If you wanna read about how fucked up this really is (and why it has even less of a chance of working out than Fyre festival did) you should definitely read this Twitter thread:
Also, just reiterating that it does not seem like somewhere you want to go:
CULTURE VULTURE IS BACK FOR 2022!
A Succession Special! - Culture Vulture — open.spotify.com
This week Luce is joined by Succession superfan and Kendall Roy lookalike Duncan Greive to discuss all things Succession, and it's just a RIDE. From accidental dick pics, to the unravelling of a dinosaur media company, this show is literally the best thing on TV. Listen up!
Police fired for chasing Snorlax instead of robbers
Just a brilliant headline. This one’s pretty self-explanatory, but two LA cops have been fired after they chased Pokémon instead of fleeing robbers. The two cops were called to respond to a shop robbery, but can instead be seen talking about - and then going on a 20 minute mission - to catch Snorlax (who is apparently pretty rare and you can NOT just let a Snorlax get away from you. Not even if there are robbers!)
After ignoring a radio call for back-up, "for approximately the next 20 minutes, [video] captured [the] petitioners discussing Pokémon as they drove to different locations where the virtual creatures apparently appeared on their mobile phones."
"Officer Mitchell alerted Lozano that 'Snorlax... just popped up [at] 46th and Leimert'", the documents say.
The pair then left in that direction to embark on a 20-minute gaming session and discussion.
They could be heard talking about the successful capture of Snorlax and how difficult the battle with Togetic - another Pokémon - was.
"The guys are going to be so jealous," Officer Mitchell said.
Apparently, the cops can be heard discussing the call and deciding not to respond, so that feels like pretty fair grounds to fire them. Maybe they should create Twitch accounts instead.
Magawa, the landmine-sniffing hero rat, dies aged eight
I, until today, had not heard of a landmine-sniffing rat (naive of me, I know.) Magawa - who is actually pretty famous (he was even awarded a gold medal for his heroism after sniffing out over 100 landmines and other explosives in Cambodia) has died at the age of eight.
Magawa, who had previously retired and lived the rest of his days relaxing, was trained to sniff out a chemical compound within the explosives. He weighed 1.2kg (2.6lb) and was 70cm (28in) long which was small enough and light enough that he did not trigger mines if he walked over them. He was also capable of searching a field the size of a tennis court in just 20 minutes - something that would take a person with a metal detector between one and four days!
I’ve been to Cambodia twice and both times I learnt about the terrifying consequences of the landmines which are still scattered across the country from the Vietnam war and the Khmer Rouge (around five million are estimated to still remain and Cambodia has one of the highest numbers of amputees caused by unwittingly standing on them.) Laos faces the same issue (I actually visited COPE in Laos, who create prosthetics and assistive devices for people who have been injured by landmines) but it’s a HUGE problem that not many people know about, and for decades brave people (and rats!) have been tasked with clearing the landmines.
Rest well Magawa, you legend.
A mundane poll and a less mundane poll
It’s good to know that most of you understand basic grammar (only 10% of you thought it was “teenaged boy” while the other 90% knew it was “teenage boy.”) It’s ALSO good to know that only 17% of you were on Novac’s side about the whole “let him play tennis” situation.
And for anyone that’s new here, I do a cheeky mundane poll on our Instagram Stories every day, so if you ever want to vote, that’s where you can find them!
How A Stranger’s Arby’s Memes Are Helping One Man Tackle Sobriety
The Associated Press is launching an NFT photography marketplace
You can listen to us talk about Sex & The City & Josh Bassett on Culture Vulture, about THE WORLD on The Shit Show or watch us explain the internet on Extremely Online.
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LOVE YOU THE MOST, LUCE XX
