The Personal Brand Is Dead
My literal angels - last week you all blew us away with your generosity to KidsCan's $15 for the 15% appeal. Right now the SYSCA community has provided breakfast and lunch for 366 kids for a whole week - and that is AMAZING!
With winter having well and truly set in, there are thousands of other kids who need our help - so please, it would mean the absolute world to us if you could spare $15 to help feed a Kiwi kid today.
I'm in a really good mood today! Maybe it's because I got to ride my bike to work for the first time in months yesterday, maybe it's because Love Island is really heating up (and we've just dropped a new ep of our debrief), maybe it's because you're all such wonderful angels and you're helping us feed Kiwi kids?
Whatever it is, I'm rolling with it, and I'm manifesting this mood for all of you today. You deserve it, just for living through these hellish times 💘
PS: I had to share this sign that was spotted by Eva in Ōhaupō, because it makes me feel validated in shortening 'important' to 'imp':
Kiwi kids are going without
A new episode of our Love Island debrief
The Personal Brand Is Dead
Speaking of personal brands, Emma Chamberlain went on Jimmy Fallon
Abortion resources
Do you brush your teeth the same way each day?
Kiwi kids are going without
This is probably one of the most important partnerships we’ve ever done here at SYSCA, and one that we’re incredibly proud to be working on!! We’ve teamed up with KidsCan - an Aotearoa based charity dedicated to helping Kiwi kids affected by poverty - to see how our community can help to support kids who are currently going without.
Last week I explained New Zealand’s cost of living crisis - that when life gets more expensive, the first to suffer are the tamariki already living in poverty. Today I thought we’d hear from some of the people who are seeing first-hand how much these kids need our help - their stories are deeply moving, and deeply true, so I encourage you to read through them.
From a principal:
“Whānau are at breaking point... no water for weeks, no power, no petrol to bring their children to school. We have not had 100% attendance all year. Luckily there’s KidsCan and lunch in schools because for many of them, that's their main source of kai,” one principal wrote.
From one early childhood centre:
"Families are choosing whether or not to come each day, whether or not they can afford the gas. That's one big thing that is crippling a lot of people. And so we're trying to support our families by offering a van service when that's needed, to enable them to be able to still bring their children because consistency is really important.”
Another KidsCan early childhood centre teacher said:
“It’s priceless to see our kids well fed and know that it’s quality food. Every day they look forward to sitting down and having those meals together. It’s so emotional because finally they are getting what all kids deserve.”
KidsCan’s impact:
"Help from charities like KidsCan have taken some of the tough choices away from our kids. We used to have siblings missing school because it “wasn’t their turn” to wear the only pair of shoes. Now we have shoes we can give out, and warm jackets, and snacks that the kids can help themselves too in the classroom without feeling whakamā (shame), or food they can line up to get at the canteen, like anyone else who is purchasing things.”
How we can help:
KidsCan have just launched an urgent $15 for 15% appeal, where with a $15 donation we can provide a child with breakfast and morning tea for a whole week. 15% of kids in Aotearoa don’t always know where their next meal is coming from, so if we just give up one bought lunch (or a couple of oat milk flat whites) we can help provide a child with food for a whole week!
KidsCan currently feeds 44,000 kids per day, but so many more need help (and you don’t even have to be living in New Zealand to give your support) - let’s see how our community can help them!!
Help feed a Kiwi kid here!!
The Personal Brand Is Dead
I can’t put into words how much I relate to this piece. It’s all about how Gen Z would rather be anonymous online. It starts off like this:
“When I was 21, the cool thing to be was famous on Instagram. Now the cooler thing to be is a mystery. Anonymity is in.”
Growing up, even for me, it felt like the dream was to be a famous Youtuber or influencer. We grew up watching people like Zoella and Tanya Burr (where is her dog?), and then later, Emma Chamberlain. We all thought we wanted to be part of the Vlog Squad (that aged badly), and we basically thought the best thing ever would be to be paid to travel and post clothing hauls and do brand deals. Then, most of us realised… that would kinda suck (or at least lack a lot of meaning.)
Luckily for Rubes Liv and I, we came to that realisation before we started Shit You Should Care About. From the get-go we knew we were building a media company of sorts (though we didn’t call it that for years), and we knew, for privacy, legitimacy, and safety reasons, we would never be attributing our faces to the thing. And that’s not because we aren’t proud as hell of our baby - we just don’t think that’s the point - and we aren’t out here to get ‘famous’ we’re here to help make sense of the world - to do our jobs.
The idea that young people are heading to places like Discord where you’d never use your full name, and even back to Tumblr (apparently), sorta backs up the idea that we’d prefer to be anonymous these days, than be constantly building our ‘personal brand.’ I mean, in the description for our new favourite app 'BeReal' it literally says "BeReal won't make you famous. If you want to become an influencer you can stay on TikTok and Instagram" - that's not because you're anon on the app, you're just not broadcasting yourself to anyone except a few mates - bliss.
And the whole concept of Web3 and crypto (though, these concepts are less of a Gen Z thing and more of an older Gen thing) relies on anonymity - it’s the in thing right now!
“Anonymity can also be ideological. Crypto culture, now known as Web3 culture, was founded on the idea that transactions can be made online without the exchange of personally identifying information. It also has a newer norm of replacing one’s human face with a cartoon.”
But that’s not to say that anonymity is for everybody - I mean look at TikTok! The whole damn platform relies on your phone, your face, and you telling a good story - but I still don’t think that most people are making TikToks to be ✨famous✨ I think most people are doing it for a laugh, or to express themselves.
I know this has all been a bit of a ramble, but I want to leave you with Kaitlyn’s musings about whether, as a journalist, she thinks this shift to anonymity is a good thing or not:
“As a person who loves the internet, this all makes sense to me. Why should everyone have to live and write and think publicly at all times? Why should they be limited in that way? As a journalist who reports about the internet, I’ve found it frustrating too. In the past few years, more and more sources have been asking for anonymity on principle—not because they are afraid of specific or likely consequences, but because being named just doesn’t seem worth it. I can’t help but see this as unwillingness to say something and really mean it—and the portent of a sort of sad, slightly paranoid near future, in which everyone is cool, very cool, and impossible to pin down.”
Speaking of personal brands, Emma Chamberlain went on Jimmy Fallon
I love it when social media creators have a seamless transish into legit mainstream celebrity (not many do it well - David Dobrik had a chance until… all of that stuff.) Here’s Emma being as cute and endearing as ever:
A new episode of our Love Island debrief
Jay Isn't On The Same Paige - Culture Vulture — open.spotify.com
Luce and Liv debrief episode 13-19 of Love Island!
Abortion resources
Here’s a HUGE doc (being updated 24/7) about all the ways you can help/ donate + any questions you might have
Here’s where you can locally donate
Show up where you can!! Here's a thread of protests!
These US companies will cover travel costs for employees who need an abortion
Do you brush your teeth they exact same way each day?
58% of you do it the same way each time
42% of you do it differently each time
Help to feed a Kiwi kid for a week, for only $15! (Our partnership with KidsCan)
Introducing peecycling: how human urine could be the sustainable answer to healthier crops (Screenshot)
The Rise of the 0.5 Selfie (The New York Times)
Our Love Island Debrief (Culture Vulture)
SYSCA playlist (✨Supporters only✨)
Our HUGE SYSCA reading list! (✨Supporters only✨)