I went to the metaverse 👾
Mōrena lil shits!!
Yesterday I went to the metaverse for the first time (don’t worry, I documented it below for you in great detail), but back in here in the real world, SYSCA was spotted in the wild in a few places!! Here’s an article that Cosmopolitan UK wrote about ‘the people behind your favourite meme accounts’ (as much as I hate being labelled a meme account, the piece is pretty good!) You all already know me, but you can read it here for some more of my musings about social media in general if you want!!
Some of you also sent me this TikTok where a bunch of students were reading out titles of papers they’d written at their ‘small liberal arts college’ and one of them was “Shit You Should Care About: Tracking movements for human rights through human waste patterns in diasporic patterns.” So many of you sent me this video to show me that our name/ brand/ what we do is being spotted in some random places (like a cool liberal arts college) and I just think that’s SICK! Please, if you ever see SYSCA in the wild, send it my way - it's my fave thing ever!
PS! We’ve nearly got 50k besties/pen pals subscribed to the daily newsy - which is BEYOND wild considering I only started this last September!!! I reckon to get us across that 50k mark you should forward this/ recommend us to everyone you know, and I’ll love you/ them forever 🥺🥺
And, to our angel paying subscribers who really see the value in paying for the media you love (and in this case, directly paying the person you love!!! At least I hope u love me) - LOVE YOU THE MOST! If you wanna join the party and get a lil star by your name (makes sense - you are superstars after all) you can chuck me $5 a month here. Or! If you want to do a one-off donation of more or less than that, you can do it here! I love you!
If u love me plz support me 🥺 — www.getrevue.co
Subscribe to this newsletter for $5 a month because u love meeeeee (and coz you'll get bonus book lists and other fun stuff!)
In today’s newsletter (it's a HUGE edish today):
I went to the metaverse
An update on Russia/ Ukraine
Roblox’s female creators are building virtual empires
Don't ignore your spam folder. It's how this woman learned she won $3 million
New episode of The Shit Show!
A TikToker found Kevin’s chili recipe from ‘The Office’ in some terms and conditions
Vogue spent 24 hours with Jacob Elordi
Thick cut or thin cut chips?
✨ PPS!! I've had a few people reaching out wanting to advertise in the newsy - if you or the organisation you work for is interested in renting some space to chat to 50k of the coolest humans on the planet, hit us up (or just reply to this email!) ✨
I went to the metaverse
So my flatmate got an Oculus Quest 2 (aka the metaverse contraption) and let me run wild on it for a while yesterday and honest opinion - it was kinda siiiick. Like it’s definitely gimmicky/ it’s still such a novelty/ it hurt my head a little, but it was actually so fun! Espesh the Netflix experience! You can incorporate your space and your couch etc so when you sit down it’s like you’ve got a full cinema size screen in front of you, and when you look out the window it’s LITERALLY LIKE THE SWISS ALPS OUTSIDE. We also did a dance game, some zero-gravity stuff, and had an extremely idyllic fishing experience.
Through and through tho, we all felt like the coolest part of it wasn’t the games or the experiences, but it was actually the scenery and just the weird otherworldliness of the whole thing!!
Then, last night I spent about an hour in VR chat world where I met:
Mickey mouse with a gun
Freaky Michael Jackson
King Julian from Madagascar
A huge flying trollface
Sonic the hedgehog
And just so many other odd things
I started talking to everyone, and most of the people were SO nice, until someone realised I was a girl and said “there’s a woman in here? You’re meant to be in the kitchen” and literally EVERYONE jumped to my defence - it was actually so cute. The same dude said “women are just accessories,” “women are created to respond when I speak to them” and then yelled “fuck you cancel culture peasants!” which is just classic trolly behaviour. I do have to say that the troll was so outweighed by all the dudes that came to my defence straight away that there was something kinda lovely about it. It does make you think tho... if I was on here for less than an hour - in a tiny chat room - and this already happened - how the hell are they planning on moderating this thing???
Other highlights - there’s a game where you just punch people in the head for as long as you want and there are also NSFW areas that I’m scared and excited to explore.
Your daily lesson from Luce 👩🏫
Today’s lesson - which will be the last of our context and background lessons (what a week it’s been!) - is actually brought to you by Corinne Seals for The Spinoff, and it’s about words! It’s not going to be a big lesson - but I wanted to share with you two things she wrote about:
It’s not “the Ukraine”
First, when referring to the country of Ukraine, there is no “the”. It is not “the Ukraine”; it is “Ukraine”. Referring to “the Ukraine” is like saying “the New Zealand”. The misplaced article at the beginning (“the”) is left over from Soviet times and is how Ukraine is referred to in Russian grammar, not in Ukrainian. Ukrainian and Russian are not the same language. They come from the same language family (similar to English and German both being Germanic), but Ukrainian is its own language with a history going back to the 17th century (the same as modern English) and has over 45 million speakers.
It’s also not “KIEV”
Additionally, the capital of Ukraine is Kyiv (pronounced often in English as KEEV), not Kiev (pronounced as KEY-ev). “Kyiv” is how the capital’s name is spelled following Ukrainian transliteration, while “Kiev” is how it’s spelled following Russian transliteration. While everyone should refer to Ukrainian norms when discussing Ukrainian language issues anyway, right now is an especially good time to learn.
AS USUAL, YOU SHOULD GO AND READ THIS WHOLE PIECE!
And now, an update on the situation:
Here’s your daily summary from the BBC:
More than one million people have fled Ukraine since the invasion began
Ukraine's President Zelensky has asked Vladimir Putin for one-to-one talks, saying this is the only way to end the war
He also appealed to the West to "give me planes" to fight invasion
Meanwhile Putin insists the war is "going to plan", despite taking only one major city
In Mariupol, a southern port near Ukraine's border with Russia, civilians are trapped by intense shelling
Russian forces have taken control of Kherson, also in the south
If Russia captures more southern cities, Ukrainian forces could be cut off from the sea
Kyiv remains in government control and a large Russian armoured convoy is some distance away
And here’s the latest from The Kyiv Independent:
Russia's Invasion of Ukraine: Explained - The Shit Show — open.spotify.com
Everything you've been wondering about what's going on in Russia/Ukraine right now, in words you ACTUALLY understand.
Roblox’s female creators are building virtual empires
Ok hear me out. You know how I’m constantly banging on about how I first learnt how to write/ edit/ photoshop/ build an audience by being in the One Direction fandom, yet it took me like 10 years to get over my cringe and realise those skills were valid??? Kids who are on Roblox right now - learning how to code/build/develop - are this generation's version of that.
Take Jennifer Towne - she’s been designing Roblox worlds since she was 13 years old!! The difference between her & the 1D stans making websites though, is that she has been taken seriously:
“Jennifer Towne, aka JennyBean, is a freelance environmental and 3D artist who designs virtual and video game environments. She’s also a level designer and has been developing worlds in Roblox since she was 13 years old. Towne was first known for her involvement with Roblox High School, which got over 560 million plays and won a Bloxy Award (which is basically Roblox’s version of the Oscars).
Besides the Roblox Studio and its tools, Towne’s also proficient with game developer tools like Unreal Engine and Blender. Towne’s freelance work led to an internship at Roblox and a contracted role as an environmental artist at Roblox, where she developed Hallows Eve: A Tale of Lost Souls.”
Or look at user cSapphire another Roblox creator who started on the platform around age 12.
“She makes virtual clothing items for Roblox avatars and has sold over 2.5 million virtual clothing items on her Roblox store. In December 2020, cSapphire even collaborated with Gucci to make 7 exclusive outfits.”
Or Anne Shoemaker, aka Myzta, who also started creating content on Roblox at the age of 12.
“Now in her 20s, she has a company called Fullflower Studio LLC which makes Roblox experiences and items. Over the years, she’s gone from being a self-described hobbyist to a fully-fledged entrepreneur, running a business within the larger Roblox ecosystem.”
Honestly, I think this is cool as hell, and I loooove to see young people 1) being allowed to flourish in what they’re interested in and 2) being taken seriously for it! MORE OF THIS!
NEW EPISODE OF THE SHIT SHOW!
WHY IS MY BENTLEY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN? - The Shit Show — open.spotify.com
We've got a Russia/Ukraine update, a Hank the Tank update, some floods in Australia, Florida passing a stupid bill, and a BIG SUNK SHIP on the agenda today! Tune in wherever you get your pods!
Don't ignore your spam folder. It's how this woman learned she won $3 million
WASN’T IT JUST LAST WEEK I WAS TELLING YOU WHY YOU SHOULD CHECK UR SPAM FOLDERS???
Well, if you don’t trust me, you should trust the Michigan woman who won $3 million dollars in lotto by checking her spam.
“Laura Spears, 55, found out she won the lottery earlier this month while digging for a missing email in her junk folder. Spears says she purchased the winning ticket seeing an ad on Facebook for the Mega Millions jackpot. Just a few days later, she stumbled on the victorious message.”
"I couldn't believe what I was reading," Spears told the Michigan Lottery. "It's all still so shocking to me that I really won $3 million!"
So, to the 40% of you who told me you don’t check it… don’t come crying to me when you’re $3m out of pocket!
A TikToker found Kevin’s chili recipe from ‘The Office’ in some terms and conditions
Um, if you haven’t watched our episode of Extremely Online all about fucked up terms and conditions then you really should - so many people sneak things into their T's and C's (like signing away your FIRST BORN CHILD) because they know we don’t read them.
In a more harmless instance, this TikToker stumbled upon the recipe for Kevin’s chili from The Office, hidden (in plain sight tbh) in the T’s and C’s for Peacock (this isn’t the first time Peacock has pulled something like this. When the platform first launched in 2020, the terms and conditions included a recipe for chocolate cake.)
Love it when corporations are quirky! (This sounds sarcastic, but… I actually do.)
Vogue spent 24 hours with Jacob Elordi
And good Elordi he is charming. Elordi, Elordi me is he sexy. Praise the Eloridi.
Also, when he first moved to LA he used to go to the cinema every day to watch a movie because he didn’t know anybody, and just like that I have fallen hook line and sinker for the Jacob Elorordi PR machine. I’m not even mad about it.
Thick or thin cut fries?
32% of you said thicc
68% said thin
A LOT of you said waffle. That was not an option. Shoestring for the win!
WHY IS MY BENTLEY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN? (The Shit Show)
Meet the people behind your favourite Instagram meme accounts (Cosmopolitan)
Fan edits are the internet's love language (Mashable)
Kim Kardashian declared legally single from Kanye West (Page Six)
Memeing our way through the war in Ukraine (The Spinoff)
Lizzo, Britney & the death of the RomCom? (Culture Vulture)
Russia's Invasion of Ukraine: Explained (The Shit Show)
GET A 14 DAY FREE TRIAL TO WATCH EUPHORIA OR YELLOWJACKETS! (Neon)
You can listen to us talk about all things pop culture on Culture Vulture, about THE WORLD on The Shit Show or watch us explain the internet on Extremely Online.
If you liked this PLEASE send it to your mates and get them to subscribe.
You can support us by becoming a paid member for $5!
Or, if you want to do a one-off donation, you can ‘shout us a coffee’ here.
And if you’re a brand that wants to work with us, hit us up.
LOVE YOU THE MOST, LUCE XX
