I'm just gonna say it: Google and Apple are total simps
+ Buzzfeed is launching its own social media platform, and is the duolingo owl... DEAD????
Hi babies!!! First of all I can happily report that I have successfully moved cities (after moving my travel arrangements 7 TIMES WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT???) I’m now in the beautiful Te Whanganui a Tara (Wellington) living with my besties and my little brother Ben, & couldn’t be more jazzed about it!
Anyway if u live in Welly and have any cool events you wanna invite me to I am now taking bookings xxxxxx
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Google and Apple have renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America for US users
A stripey-faced fish has been named after warrior princess San
This is timely because I only just watched my first ever Studio Ghibli movie the other day (it was Spirited Away and no surprises, I fucking loved it!!) Anyway, this deepwater fish has been named after San (the warrior princess from Princess Mononoke) because of its facial markings:
More details on the actual fish here if ur into that stuff xxxx
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Is the Duolingo owl… dead?
I literally wish I had more context for you about this. Just good marketing probs.
Buzzfeed is launching its own social media platform
Because that’s exactly what the world needs right now! The new platform, called ‘Buzzfeed Island’ is currently only available via waitlist, but is “designed as an oasis from algorithm-driven doomscrolling” and will “introduce quirky, weird, and joyful experiences to make the internet fun again.”
Sooooo, Neopets?
In a blog post, Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti writes about why they’re doing this:
Content creators exaggerate stakes to make their content urgent and existential. They manufacture novelty and spin their content as unprecedented and unique. They manipulate anger to drive engagement via outrage. They hack retention by withholding information and promising a payoff at the end of a video. And they provoke fear to make people focus with urgency on their content.
I appreciate the sentiment, but didn’t Buzzfeed kinda invent/ capitalise massively over this type of clickbait in the 2010s???
So many of us have grown up having everything available and accessible to us all the time - which is AMAZING for so many reasons, but there is a cost to free things - even if you can’t see it.
In a world that feels more mystifying by the day, where journalists are constantly being laid off, and misinformation spreads faster than a leaked Harry Styles song, finding media that you trust, understand and actually want to read is so important.
I know you value what I do - so many of you email me saying how much you love the newsletter, thanking me for explaining topics you might not have heard of, and telling me how much it means to you that you’ve got a friend on the other side of this thing (🥺🥺🥺) If you believe in paying for the media (or the person???) you love, then please consider becoming a supporter.
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Now might be a good time for US peeps to switch to an Open Streets Map! The app I use is Organic Street Maps. Not only is it open-source, but because users can have input, it's really great for things like public toilet locations, walking trails, and bike racks.
I went to the link to report inaccurate data.