🏳️⚧️Transgender Rights & TikTok Wrongs 🤳
+ No I do not want to talk about Harry Styles and Emrata 💀
Good morning lovers!!! It’s 7:30am on a Monday, I’m sitting at the cute cafe in my local park, Alanis Morrisette is playing overhead… something tells me it’s going to be a good week! How was your weekend? If you’re a Close Friend then you would have seen a bit of mine (including Hayden’s chaotic smashburger recipe which I’ve saved as a highlight so you can see it FOREVER!!!)
Aside from smashburgers, I went out for a celebratory dinner with my band (the ones I never shut up about who I won Battle Of The Bands with (Close Friends might also get to hear a lil preview of the band if that’s something you’d be into…), celebrated Flo’s birthday, and had a total of only one hangover - success!
For reasons stated below in this newsy, I was also incredibly proud to be from Aotearoa this weekend - the way we stood up to/ chased out hatred? Unmatched.
Slay the week besties xoxox
We’ve got a brand new podcast series all about ❤️🩹break-ups❤️🩹 and we’re kicking it off with a dose of revenge
Aotearoa stood up for transgender rights 🏳️⚧️
TikTok took the stand… and I saw it all… on TikTok
SPOILER AHEAD: Taylor Jenkins Reid posted the OG ending to Daisy Jones and The Six
No I do not want to talk about Harry Styles and Emrata
We’ve got a brand new podcast series all about ❤️🩹break-ups❤️🩹 and we’re kicking it off with a dose of revenge
“I met up with them and we talked, we went on a couple of dates and I told them that we could finally make it official again. Then I never texted or called them back and moved to Sydney.”
Taylor Swift no longer sings her song ‘Better Than Revenge’ - why? Because just like us, when she got a little bit older, she realised that revenge is NOT the best way to deal with an ex (no matter how John Mayer/ Jake Gylenhaal-ish they are.) BUT, it’s often one of the most common ways we react to a break-up. And this makes sense because:
We grew up watching movies like ‘John Tucker Must Die’ so how the hell else were we meant to feel?? And
Revenge can often feel like an easier response to a break-up than that deep, bone-crushing sadness
But we want to change this, and help own and FEEL more productive things than the need to ‘get even.’
For our very first episode of Own The Feels, we talk about being better than revenge (with the help of every single one of you who shared how revenge has affected you) and we try our best to give you some healthy alternatives (like putting your energy into YOU bestie!!)
Head to https://www.vice.com/en/topic/love-better for a bunch more resources on how to break-up better, and listen to this episode in our Culture Vulture feed, wherever you get your podcasts!
Aotearoa stood up for trans rights 🏳️⚧️
“At 11am on Saturday morning the anti-trans activist Posie Parker (real name Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull) was scheduled to speak at the rotunda in Auckland’s Albert Park. By 11.30am she’d been bundled out, having abandoned her plans in the face of a counter-protest led by the city’s rainbow community.” - The Bulletin
In case you missed it, this weekend there were protests across New Zealand against anti-trans campaigner ‘Posie Parker’ (who attracted neo-nazis at her Melbourne rally.) Parker was scheduled to speak at the rotunda in Albert Park (in Auckland) but was forced out before she even got a word in✌️but not before she was covered in tomato juice 🥫.
The outpouring of people who came out in support of our trans community also meant she cancelled her Wellington appearance and flew right home to the UK. If that doesn’t tell you that hate isn’t welcome here then idk what will!
PS, people still turned up to protest in Wellington to show their love & support:
Rather than re-writing all the things that one publication in particular (The Spinoff) did so beautifully, I’m going to leave you all the links here so you can support them!!!!!
Further reading (these are all from The Spinoff, because duh):
What you need to know about the anti-trans campaigner heading to New Zealand
Anti-trans activism is extremely harmful. It’s also a confusingly wasteful use of time
TikTok took the stand and I saw it all… on TikTok
I know I know I KNOW, most of you are well and truly across the ‘TikTok might get banned’ story, but I feel like I would be doing a massive disservice to that one person in this audience that hasn’t heard about it if I didn’t mention it in here (espesh as Shou Zi Chew thirst traps are taking over my FYP.)
At the end of last week, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified for the first time before a House committee and it was as stupid and interesting as I expected (I’m sure by now you’ve all seen the video of a congressman seemingly asking how…. wifi works?)
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
First, why do US lawmakers want to ban TikTok?
Fears that the app (which is a Chinese owned/based app) is collecting individual private data (just like uhhhh every social media other app in existence)
Fears that that data could then be used against us in propaganda/ agenda setting efforts (just like uhhhh every social media other app in existence)
Fears for child safety on the app (just like uhhhh every social media other app in existence)
🎶I think I’ve seen this film before🎶
This type of congressional grilling isn’t new to us, and Casey Newton from Platformer put it best:
“It is a ritual previously endured by Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Sundar Pichai, and Jack Dorsey, among others. And while each of them faced withering questions, in the end withering questions is all that Congress really gave them. Hearings like these are often framed as a precursor to stringent regulation, but in the United States they are a substitute for them. Congress yells at social media companies — posting clips of their sickest burns on the very companies they criticize — and then fails to pass a single piece of legislation.”
What makes this one different (and quite obviously different when you see the way Shou Zi Chew was questioned) is that this isn’t an American company, so the US really want rid of (or control over) it - and this makes sense considering the CCP don’t have a good track record with…. basically anything.
But as we all know (and as Chew referred to on the stand), the US doesn’t exactly have a good track record when it comes to handling user data either (remember the Cambridge Analytica sitch?) And let’s also not forget that Facebook incited a literal genocide in Myanmar (wow - why do we let any of these apps exist actually??)
Waaaaay more goes into making a decision like this than what I’ve gone into above, so here are some key takeaways for you:
My key takeaway:
I’ll keep you in the loop as to whether it gets banned or not (I’m not here to make predictions) but for the meantime, here’s what you WANT to happen:
SPOILER AHEAD: Taylor Jenkins Reid posted the OG ending to Daisy Jones and The Six
And I’m emo about it:
PS I do NOT want to talk about Harry Styles and Emrata
To get my Friday diary entry, a whole bunch of links and recommendations, and Bel’s Sunday morning newsy ‘No News Is Good News’ become a paying supporter 💌
As a Melburnian horrified by Neo Nazi's coming out into the public I'm so so so happy Aotearoa put a stop to Parker before she could attract more of them!! Amazing to see!
Great work. Seeing the protests and voice against hate was awesome. Makes me love Aeteora (spelling) even more!