Let’s Talk About Book Bans 📚
Mōrena lil shits!!
Happy Friday!!! Yesterday I was having coffee with some pals and thought I was hilarious by saying that my job title was CFO... Chilling the Fuck Out (for the record it’s my job title is NOT CFO and I am NOT chillin.) Anyway, I sent myself an email that said “CFO chillin the fuck out” so that I’d remember to write it in here (apparently I thought it was that funny) but now I’m embarrassed because it’s really NOT AT ALL and sounds like something a wine mom would put on a t-shirt. I guess karma got me because then I lost my phone and was not Chilling the Fuck Out because that’s kinda important for my job!! I deserved that. I deserved it all.
Anyway, we’ve got a fresh new episode of The Shit Show for your ears today, along with some more stupid NFT news and horoscopes too! Yay!
Help pay my rent?? 🥺 — 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:
Books are being banned left right and centre
Where does the phrase ‘lion’s share’ come from?
Coachella Announces NFT Sale Featuring Lifetime Festival Passes
New episode of The Shit Show
Who Gives A Crap?
If you drop some ice in the kitchen do you pick it up or do you kick it under the fridge?
Horoscopes
Let’s talk about book bans
I was reading some stories in The Atlantic when I came across a piece titled: “Read The Books That Schools Want To Ban,” and I clicked it, thinking it would be a niche array of highly controversial books that I probably hadn’t heard of. Much to my surprise (you guys know I’m never wrong) this list included books like:
Looking for Alaska, John Green
The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
And a bunch more. But I was shocked - Looking for Alaska??? The Hate U Give?? Some of these books formed (or at least informed) part of my childhood/teenhood and in a very chill (and non-radical) way - and now they’re on a list to be banned??
Book banning isn’t new, but it is back.
“Texas State Representative Matt Krause recently put more than 800 books on a watch list, many of them dealing with race and LGBTQ issues. Then an Oklahoma state senator filed a bill to ban books that address “sexual perversion,” among other things, from school libraries. The school board of McMinn County, Tennessee, just banned Maus, Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize–winning graphic memoir about the Holocaust.”
Books about racism, gender, sexual exploration - all the shit we need to learn (and preferably not on TikTok) are the ones constantly being targeted, and kids (especially those who are struggling with their identity, who need to escape from their real life for a little while, or who just want to learn) are the ones losing out when fragile adults on school boards or legislators decide to take them away.
This next section is brought to you by our mates at Who Gives A Crap!! Go show them some luv besties!!!!
Who Gives A Crap?
I do! Especially after my morning coffee… But that’s not really what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to talk about something much more exciting - toilet paper.
Do you know what’s crap? Literally billions of people don’t have access to a toilet. In fact, more people have cell phones than toilets - but the good people at Who Gives A Crap are changing that. Their toilet paper is 100% recycled, they donate 50% of their profits to help build toilets and improve sanitation in developing countries - and a bonus? They have fucking cool packaging!
If your New Year's resolution was to be more conscious with what you spend your money on, I reckon toilet paper is a pretty good place to start. It’s time to sit down for the things that you believe in (get it?)
Show that you give a crap here!!
Where does the phrase ‘lion’s share’ come from?
You all know that it’s my job (or at least I’ve made it my job) to question weird things and find out the answers for you. Well, yesterday I read the term ‘X is the lion’s share of X’s profit’ or something like that, and I was like… “where the fuck does this phrase come from???” So I looked into it. According to Grammerist.com, the lion’s share is “the largest part, the greatest and most desirable portion of something.” We knew that. But where did it COME from? Well, it was first used in 1701 in a fable written by Aesop, where:
“the lion goes hunting with three other beasts. When it’s time to divide the spoils, the lion takes one portion for his title as king of the forest, another portion because he is a partner, another portion because he is the strongest and the last portion because an accident will befall anyone who lays a paw upon it.”
So the lion's share was the whole amount of something, but today the lion’s share simply refers to the biggest and best portion. Anyway, as usual, you didn’t ask, but now you know.
New episode of The Shit Show!
Wordle, Wild Pigs, & WTF is happening with the stock market? - The Shit Show — open.spotify.com
Nick and I are on ONE this week. From an explanation on how the stock market works, to pigs running wild in the U.S, to MORE BORIS JOHNSON PARTIES and Wordle being bought by the NYT - it's just... a lot.
Coachella Announces NFT Sale Featuring Lifetime Festival Passes
Nick (Squish) spoke about this on The Shit Show, but it was too good not to talk about here too. So Coachella is selling lifetime festival passes, but here’s the catch - they’re selling them as NFT’s, and there are only 10. Which meeeeans that probably they’re not even going to go to someone who actually wants to use them to go to Coachella, but likely to someone who’s gonna buy it and resell it for some stupid amount. And the money from these is probs just going to the people who run Coachella, so who are NFT’s actually benefitting again? Are they just another way for big companies to make money?
Also Duran Duran is releasing a New Zealand based ‘NFTree’ project????
If you drop some ice in the kitchen do you pick it up or do you kick it under the fridge?
THE OVERWHELMING RESPONSE TO THIS WAS “I CALL MY DOG OVER TO EAT IT.” I guess I’m not a dog owner so I’ve never experienced what seems to be the great joy/ frequent occurrence of letting your dog eat the floor ice. But as for the rest of you:
61% of you pick it up
39% kick it under the fridge
Horoscopes!!
I’m giving you these as a prize for goin & clicking on our Who Gives A Crap link and doing good things for mother nature (and us!!!) Ur only allowed to read ur horoscope when you’ve done that (I’m trusting you.)
YOUR DAILY HOROSCOPE!
THE STOCK MARKET, EXPLAINED (The Shit Show)
‘My jaw dropped!’: How it feels seeing Paris Hilton flaunt your old ape on TV (Input)
Bored Ape Yacht Club finally responds to neo-Nazism accusations (Input)
Potato milk??? (Forbes)
Young women are making up to $1,700 per month by holding study sessions on Twitch (Insider)
Hollywood Discovers the Middle-Aged Woman (The Atlantic)
Facebook is shrinking (Vox)
Sydney Sweeney, Jay-Z, & Spotify's Podcast Politics (Culture Vulture)
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.