The Queen Has Covid 👑
Mōrena lil shits!!
This weekend was wholesome and busy and I did a LOT and also nothing. We had a new flattie move in and a bestie move out 🥺, which meant the weekend consisted of a LOT of cleaning/ organising (I swept a shit tonne of leaves off the path that leads to the door and honestly it’s the most satisfying thing I’ve done in such a long time), and in an attempt to try and calm my chaotic mind I bought… a lot of beads.
It was actually very calming to separate all the colours out and now I have to actually attempt to make a damn thing (I’m the most unpractical/ rip-shit and bust person you’ll ever meet) so naturally I’ll keep you in the loop.
Also, I thought I’d give you all a few songs I’m loving right now because… idk it’s kinda what I do here???
Naked in Manhatten, Chappel Roan
Left Outside Alone, Anastasia
God Is A Freak (THIS CHORUS!!!!), Peach PRC
Pink Convertable, MARINA
Industry Baby, Noga Erez
Hard Drive Gold, alt-J
Lastly (but not at all because you have a whole newsletter to read) ANOTHER HI TO ALL OUR NEW MEMBERS! I have a bunch of new stars by your names because you’ve generously decided to immerse yourself further into the community (and into my heart) and I love you for it!!! Please come & join us/ support us if you have the means my angels!!
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In today’s newsletter:
The Queen has Covid-19
Their Bionic Eyes Are Now Obsolete And Unsupported
A new Harry Styles Album (???)
Have you heard of DeathTok?
An Olivia Rodrigo movie??
How do you put your cutlery in the dishwasher?
Do you use the same starting word for Wordle each day?
The Queen has Covid-19
Oh no! Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t reaallllly give a shit about the royals. The Queen tho? She cute. So this morning when I woke up to a breaking news bulletin that she had Covid-19 I did have a brief moment of 🥺.
Right now she’s apparently experiencing "mild cold-like symptoms" but expects to continue "light duties" at Windsor over the coming week, the palace said.
And in case you were wondering, she’d been in contact with her eldest son and heir, the Prince of Wales, who tested positive last week.
Their Bionic Eyes Are Now Obsolete And Unsupported
“Barbara Campbell was walking through a New York City subway station during rush hour when her world abruptly went dark. For four years, Campbell had been using a high-tech implant in her left eye that gave her a crude kind of bionic vision, partially compensating for the genetic disease that had rendered her completely blind in her 30s. “I remember exactly where I was: I was switching from the 6 train to the F train,” Campbell tells IEEE Spectrum. “I was about to go down the stairs, and all of a sudden I heard a little ‘beep, beep, beep’ sound.”
It wasn’t her phone battery running out. It was her Argus II retinal implant system powering down. The patches of light and dark that she’d been able to see with the implant’s help vanished.”
Imagine if you’d been given the gift of sight via a breakthrough in technology, and then the tech company abandons it because they’re going bankrupt. What happens to your implants? What happens to you? Well, it’s kinda like an iPhone that Apple no longer creates updates for. You keep using it for as long as you can until something goes wrong - except with Apple, you have the option of upgrading your device. With Second Sight that’s not the case. You could simply be living with dead hardware.
Second Sight “develops groundbreaking prosthetic systems to provide functional vision to the visually impaired” and has done so for 350+ people who are now living with prosthetic devices that are no longer being worked on. In February 2020, “the senior director of implant R&D left the company, swiftly followed by its CEO, and by March 2020, Second Sight laid off the majority of its remaining employees and announced its “ intention to wind down operations,” citing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its ability to secure financing.
“More than 350 other blind people around the world with Second Sight’s implants in their eyes, find themselves in a world in which the technology that transformed their lives is just another obsolete gadget. One technical hiccup, one broken wire, and they lose their artificial vision, possibly forever.”
This is something that I hadn’t thought about before with all this emerging technology - particularly in the health sector. The side-effects/ cautions of undergoing procedures or receiving implants that could be life-changing don’t just stop at health - you also kinda have to look at the company behind it, because if it goes bust, then you’re left, well in this case… in the dark.
Go and read this brilliant investigation for more!
A new Harry Styles… Something (???)
Ok so we all saw those pictures of Harry Styles rolling around on a giant bed round London, right?? Well now, via a very un-trustworthy source by the name of Deux Moi we have something else, an anon tip saying that ‘something is happening with Harry Styles the second week of March. Musicians were just told to clear that week for press appearances and performances.”
I don’t really know what they mean about “musicians” needing to clear that week? Other musicians? To stay out of his lane? His musicians that play in his band? Idk. Anyway, I tweeted into the abyss, asking what we make of it and Deux Moi actually replied saying that they believe their source (good to know since they did in fact, post about it):
I’m actually so keen for some new music so I legit hope it’s an album!!
Have you heard of DeathTok?
Content warning… death.
It’s not as dark as it sounds - and as someone who has an interesting relationship with death (don’t we all) I went into this not knowing whether it was going to make me feel queasy, upset, or… better? Despite the grim name, Deathtok is a space on TikTok where “some unlikely influencers: hospice workers, morticians, and funeral directors… hope that their comedic takes on mortality will help people who find death hard to discuss.”
“DeathTok, as it’s called, is a corner of the platform where skits about end-of-life care, funeral arrangements, and death-worker mishaps bring comfort to those suffering through grief and loss, and clarity to those who are curious about an oft-avoided topic.’
I’ll be honest, after reading about it, and all the ways it provides relief and education to people who are grieving, people who are sick, or people that just haven’t considered a lot of the aspects of death, DeathTok seemed like something I wanted to go and look at - for research purpose - I’m always interested in the niche spaces of the web. And yes - a lot of the content is wonderful, and I can totally see how it makes death a bit easier to talk about - but it’s probably more for those who are further along in their journey of grief than me, or maybe hadn’t been as close to some of those end of life decisions. Just keeping it real with you all, I don’t think I’ll be going back any time soon, but I see what they're doing!
Prince Andrew, Avocado Bans & Scomo's Singing - The Shit Show — open.spotify.com
Come for the news updates, stay to hear Scomo butcher 'April Sun In Cuba'
The best explanation on the Russia/ Ukraine situation I’ve read
I’m just gonna link you to it coz u should read it
An Olivia Rodrigo movie??? Driving home 2 u (a SOUR film)
How do you put your cutlery in the dishwasher?
I think a lot of you were told horror stories about children tripping and falling into the dishwasher while the knives were poking up, because SO many of you said that you put the cutlery in the lil holder facing upwards EXCEPT for the knives. 68% if you, however, did vote that you put them upwards and 32% said downwards.
Do you use the same starting word for Wordle each day?
41% say yes
59% say no
Disney to build a branded community promising “magic” in the California desert (The Guardian)
What Happened After Margaret Atwood Tweeted at Me (The Atlantic)
Why in the year of our lord 2022 am I still getting robocalls??? (Recode)
A Vibe Shift Is Coming Will any of us survive it? (Putting this in here again bc everyone is still talking about it)
How Long Covid Exhausts the Body (The New York Times)
The Kanye You Thought You Knew (Vulture)
Prince Andrew, Avocado Bans & Scomo's Singing (The Shit Show)
Lovebombing, "The Ick," & WTF is Ye up to? (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.
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