💞Fuck The Supreme Court💞
+ Twitter is limiting how many tweets you can read per day, and we wanna help you start a podcast!!
Wowowow - first order of business - welcome to all the new besties who’ve found their way to the cutest part of the internet!!!! I think a lot of you have come from TikTik and I looooove that you’re wanting more nuance behind the headlines I’ve been posting - hell yeah!!! I’m obsessed with the fact that you’re here, and feel like I owe you a lil intro (apols if you’ve seen this before, but I’m just doing my #job!!)
By way of intro, I’m Luce - I write this newsletter for ALL OF YOU on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and in it, you can expect a round-up of pop culture, headlines from around the world, internet-y things, and whoever I’m crushing on at the moment.
You can also expect to hear from Bel, who ‘Chimes In’ every Wednesday with softcore philosophy and cute musings on life, and Laura, who writes our ‘Shit You Should Cook About’ column every Friday and helps people who hate cooking (me) actually do it (and even enjoy it.)
And if you’ve decided to pay for the media you love and become a SYSCA supporter, you can also expect:
Membership to our monthly book club 📚Shit You Should Read About📚
Access to our Close Friends stories on Instagram (very chaotic and lots of behind-the-scenes stuff)
Bel’s Sunday newsy 💌No News Is Good News💌 where she talks about all the cute things in this world that AREN’T news
Access to supporter-only competitions (we’ve given away Niall Horan tickets, Rupi Kaur tickets, SZA vinyl’s a signed Lorde poster, a box of Harry Styles goodies…) and have more competitions to come each month!
Other cute subscriber-only chats
The knowledge you're keeping the SYSCA Universe alive 🥺
And now I’ll REALLY quickly fill you in on my weekend!!! Saturday was spent catching up with my besties (one of whom I’m already having to say goodbye to which makes the move to Portugal feel VERY real!) The next thing that makes moving to Portugal feel very real is the hours I spent with Bel at a cafe scheming over our ✨secret project✨ and dreaming of our new life over there. I also went out for a ‘drink’ but have I mentioned to you all that I’m doing Dry July??? Not for any reason except for the fact that my hangxiety is SO bad right now and I’m sick of putting myself through that, so I need you all to keep me accountable (and in the same breath, if you see me slip up… no you didn’t.)
On Sunday I truly spent the ENTIRE DAY editing together the interview I did with the boys from “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and after getting over the initial cringe of having to spend 12 hours listening to myself try to make them love me, I can promise the videos turned out REALLY GOOD! They’re all under embargo right now, but you get em on Friday besties!!!
Hope your weekend was cute, forehead kisses from me xxxx
Situationships? More like situationSHITS
We want to help you start a podcast!
Fuuuuck the Supreme Court
Twitter is limiting how many tweets you can read per day
Today’s mundane poll: Do you call it a number plate or a license plate?
Situationships? More like situationSHITS
Angels! We’re back with some fresh episodes of Own The Feels - the podcast series that exists to help us break up better!!! For this next part of the season, we are joined by Bel, who you all know and love, and for our first episode we’re talking about the dreaded ‘Situationship.’
Ironically, for a concept that literally relies on you NOT having a label, there are a few different labels for what a ‘situationship’ is, so here are a few:
From Urban Dictionary: “Let’s just chill, have sex, and be confused on the fact that we are not together but have official emotions for each other”
And now a bit more of an ofish definish: Jess Carbino, PhD, former sociologist for Tinder and Bumble says that: "situationships can be defined as a romantic relationship that lacks commitment and the associated norms and expectation."
And TIME say: “Somewhere between great love and no strings attached lies a category of relationship that needs a bit more defining. It’s emotionally connected, but without commitment or future planning. The labels “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” don’t really apply, but it’s way beyond a casual hookup. It includes going on dates, having sex, and building intimacy without a clear objective in mind. Enter “situationship.”
Why are situationships so common these days???
Unsurprisingly, pop culture has had a bit of a role to play here! Think about it - we’ve grown up seeing movies like ‘Friends with Benefits’ or ‘no strings attached’ where they SWEAR they’re too busy for a relationship, or they’re seeing each other “purely for convenience,” and then they end up falling in love and it’s all really confusing (but also hella predictable.)
We also grew up in an age of online dating, where finding someone to hook up with is as easy as a couple of swipes left or right. And, with this ABUNDANCE of people at our fingertips, comes this ‘paradox of choice.’
A paradox of choice is when there are TOO many options to make a decision. It’s like if you really needed jam, and you went to the supermarket, and there were only two options - blackberry or strawberry. It’s pretty easy to make a decision because you’ll simply lean one way or the other. But, if you go to the supermarket and there is blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, mixed berry, apricot - the list goes on - you could be standing there for EVER - or you might pick two or three to bring home because you CAN’T DECIDE.
When it comes to relationships, this paradox of choice means that we are finding it harder and harder to commit to ONE person, because when they go to the bathroom, we can just swipe” or we feel like someone better might be out there for us.
We go WAY deeper into the prevalence of situationships, and into ALL your situations stories (there were a FEW for this one I tell ya!) in this week's episode of Own The Feels.
And if you want more of this type of content, you can head here for a bunch more resources on how to break-up better, and listen to this episode in our Culture Vulture feed, wherever you get your podcasts!
Speaking of podcasts - we want to help you start one!
We’ve got some never-before-used podcast gear that we want to give away before I head overseas - so we want you to have it!! We’re giving away:
1 x RØDECaster Pro Podcast Production Studio
1x RØDE Podcast Mic!!
This is only for people who live up in Auckland (sorry - we just have to get it to you really quickly) and all you have to do is respond to this newsletter via email with:
the idea for the podcast you’d make with this equipment (or one you already make but want to level up)
your name, age and suburb!
That’s it! Happy podding!
Fuuuuuck the Supreme Court
This weekend we saw quite a few fucked up decisions outta the Supreme Court, so naturally, I’m gonna talk about them! But before I do, some things to remember about the Supreme Court:
It’s made up of nine Supreme Court justices
Supreme Court justices serve for life and are only replaced when they die or step down
They’re appointed by Presidents - Donald Trump got to appoint THREE! OUT OF NINE!
It’s a conservative majority 🙃
The Supreme Court decides if laws and government actions are constitutional (and therefore outlines the breadth and limits of the government) and this weekend they made some pretty big decisions.
They overturned affirmative action
Affirmative action - or policies aimed at increasing workplace and educational opportunities for people who are underrepresented in various areas of our society - has just been overturned by the Supreme Court, meaning that race will no longer be considered a factor in university administrations.
Note: affirmative action is how Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson got to college AND it’s how Justice Clarence Thomas got into Yale Law School - two of the literal justices.
They ruled a website designer can refuse to serve same-sex couples
Another day, another dangerous precedent set! The court ruled that Lorie Smith - a website designer from Colorado - wouldn’t have to serve same-sex couples because of her Christian faith. And classic - all six of the conservative justices sided with the designer, while the court's three liberals dissented.
Note: there have been questions as to whether this request even existed, or whether this was a hypothetical scenario brought forward by Smith who is an “evangelical Christian who has said she believes marriage is only between a man and a woman.”
This sets a super dangerous precedent, as it literally allows the LGBTQ+ community to be discriminated against because of their identity.
They blocked Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan
In another 6-3 ruling the US Supreme Court has struck down Biden's proposal to wipe out billions in student debt.
Ugh honestly I’m too pissed off to even continue explaining this, but more on this story here!
Twitter is limiting how many tweets you can read per day
Does $44billion mean anything to Elon Musk?? It appears not because just seems to want to do everything in his power to kill this company. The latest? A temporary block on how many tweets you can read.
In an apparent crackdown on “AI companies scraping vast amounts of data” the temporary new Twitter limits are:
If you’re a normal (free) user you can see only 600 posts per day
If you’re a NEW free user you can see only 300 posts per day
If you’re a Twitter Blue (paid) user you can see 6000 posts per day (EVEN PAYING PEOPLE HAVE LIMITS)
Musk has since tweeted that the rate limits would increase to 8,000 tweets for verified users, 800 for unverified, and 400 for new unverified accounts, but if this isn’t biting the hand that feeds you then idk what is.
Good to see Twitter is reacting in the most Twitter way possible tho:
I love Olivia Rodrigo’s new song
I’m a pop girlie thru and thru and this HITS for me. HBU??
Today’s mundane poll:
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god, i have OPINIONS on this latest twitter thing. see in my mind, i think certain limits on the endless scroll function most social medias have could be a good thing- it could really help kids or people struggling to regulate their phone addictions.
it would be fantastic if that was the kind of good intentions behind the change. but obviously it’s elon, so that won’t be it. i feel like this sort of limit thing could be great in a way similar to how the screen time limits on iphone work, users get to decide how big or small they want their limit to be. i think people would eat that up!!
but obviously twitter doesn’t have peoples mental health or healthy social media usage in mind, and the whole paying to see more tweets thing just shows what a money grab it is. musk is literally burning down twitter it’s insane
(sorry, long ass comment i just have Thoughts)
hate the Supreme Court + love vampire 🥲