WE MET HARRY STYLES
Mōrena lil shits!!
Damn, I am that annoying 🤡April Fools’🤡 person. And I kinda get two days of it since I’m in NZ and a bunch of you won’t be hitting April 1st til ✨tomorrow.✨ BUT I DO HAVE THE MOST AMAZING STORY ABOUT HOW I PRANKED MY SCHOOL WHILE I WAS HEAD GIRL AND IF U SCROLL DOWN U CAN READ IT (it deserves its own section, trust me.)
First, I just wanted to give you a Normy update - I can confirm that one week on from his big mishap, he has arrived safe and sound to his lads holiday (and he even found his driver's license!)
🎶ALSO we are getting a new Harry single today 🎶
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In today’s newsletter:
THE TIME I PRANKED MY ENTIRE SCHOOL
How did April Fools’ Day begin?
Meta (Facebook) just did something that I wish was a prank
New Episode of The Shit Show!!
Lizzo is launching her own shapewear brand!!
Robot dog called in to help manage Pompeii
AI hospital forecasting to reduce NHS waiting lists
Do you always accompany your food with a beverage?
✨ PS!! I’ve had a few people reaching out wanting to advertise in the newsy - if you or the organisation you work for is interested in renting some space to chat to over 50k of the coolest humans on the planet, hit us up (or just reply to this email!) ✨
THE TIME I PRANKED MY ENTIRE SCHOOL
Here’s a lil story about April Fool's day for ya (damn, why do I have a story for everything???)
Back in 2015, I was the Head Girl of my high school, and one of the things (for whatever reason) I really wanted to do was make a big deal out of April Fools' Day (ya girl loves a prank - ok?) The prefects and I had three things in mind. Two were simple and one was elaborate.
The first prank consisted of breaking into the senior management corridor before school and filling the deputy principal's office with balloons. It sounds harmless, but the balloons were literally top to bottom, and he had to pop his way through them to get to his desk. The next prank was telling everyone at our full school assembly that the year 12/13 formal was cancelled (damn we were brave - that event was the only thing keeping half of us in school!) I will admit, no one really bought that one (maybe they knew that there is NO world where I would cancel a party?)
The third prank was fooling everyone into thinking that we had a real-life celebrity band coming to perform on the quad at morning tea.
To lay the foundations of the prank, the prefects and I started a rumour on YikYak (remember YikYak? The anonymous app where you could literally say anything you wanted and everyone in your location could view it and vote on it?) About a week in advance of April Fools' Day, we started posting messages like “I hear something big is happening at MGC next week” or “omg, I just found out a celeb is coming to school and I can’t tell anyone.”
WE EVEN GOT THE LOCAL RADIO STATION INVOLVED, WHO SAID ON AIR THAT THEY’D SEEN A PRIVATE JET LANDING IN OUR SMALL TOWN. (I’m starting to think that maybe I single-handedly started this whole fake news business…)
Anyway, with the rumour well and truly started, we had to actually execute the prank. We gathered the four male teachers in the school at the time, and for some reason, they agreed to be our celebrities. We named them ‘Two Direction’ and had them learn “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys (they got to pick the song.) After about a week of rehearsals, they were ready.
Before first period on the big day, we set up four microphones on a stage in the quad, so the school could start chatting. YikYak was POPPING OFF (by this point we didn’t even have to post anymore, other people had just bandwagonned) with people saying things like “omg I just saw a black car with tinted windows driving through town - must be coming to MGC!”
When the time came, and the quad was packed with girls, the car we’d borrowed (it was one of the teacher's cars with tinted black windows - yes we really did think of it all) drove the ‘celebrities’ through the school to the stage. When they got out, they were met with the most wholesome mix of disappointment (we’d all been pranked!) and laughter (why do our teachers have wigs on?), but Two Direction performed their song, got their standing ovation, and it was just a great time.
Here’s a newspaper article that was written about it (yes, I did contact the local media, no, I can’t believe it either) but let me give you some excerpts:
“The promised arrival of mystery celebrity musicians at Marlborough Girls' College had hundreds of screaming students packed into the school quad for possibly the biggest April Fool's Day prank in Marlborough.
College head girl Lucy Blakiston said she and the prefects at the Blenheim school had been working on the prank for about two weeks; spreading rumours that famous musicians would be visiting the school towards the end of the term.
The ruse seemed to work, with social media abuzz about a possible visit by indie-pop duo Broods or reggae group Six60.”
More FM also got involved and fuelled the gossip fire by broadcasting that a private jet had been seen landing at Marlborough Airport, and an unidentified group of people had been whisked away in a car with blacked out windows.”
The prank came together when all the students were told to meet at the school quad during their first break this morning to see the celebrities.
Once they had been whipped into a frenzy a black SUV pulled up and the "band" 2 Direction – made up of four MGC teachers – appeared, much to the delight of the students.
Assistant principal and 2 Direction "lead singer" Julian Adamson said he and the other teacher-band members were really pleased with how well the prank had gone.
"They put so much effort into it and did really well to do something exciting that also didn't upset anyone," he said.
Lucy was equally pleased.
"It went as well as we could have hoped for," she said.
I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS STORY HAS ONLY JUST COME BACK TO ME AND NOW I GET TO SHARE IT WITH YOU. This just goes to show that I have always been the exact same weirdo who loves social media & loves to prank. Though, I can’t help but wonder what Two Direction are doing now…
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How did April Fools’ Day begin?
After writing that whole section I realised that I had no idea how this day of hijinks even originated! Here’s what USA Today have to say about its history:
While there are similar holidays in ancient Rome and Britain, the eldest – and tidiest – historical reference comes in a Flemish poem from 1561 in which a nobleman sends his servant on "fool's errands" on April 1.
Roughly the same era in France, people slow to adopt the change of calendar from the last week of March to January 1 – due to the move from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, decreed in the Council of Trent – were called "April fools," and were played tricks on.
I’ve also just gone to the Wikipedia page for more answers and… there are actually quite a few more theories out there. I guess there’s not one solid answer for we celebrate April Fools’ Day - maybe it was started as a prank??
New Episode of The Shit Show!
Russia’s ‘eased’ attacks & Will Smith’s slaps — open.spotify.com
Lynching becomes a federal hate crime (finally), Russia say they'll ease up on their attacks in a few cities (we'll believe it when we see it) Mackenzie Scott (formerly Bezos) has been busy donating a shit tonne of money, and yes, we briefly touch on... The Slap. Listen in!
Meta (Facebook) just did something that I wish was a prank
Yesterday it was made public that Facebook are running a ‘secret campaign’ against TikTok, where they pay Republican operatives to promote the message that TikTok is harmful to children and society.
Taylor Lorenz and Drew Harwell broke the story in the Washington Post, where they described how “Meta is paying one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country [Targeted Vitory] to orchestrate a nationwide campaign seeking to turn the public against TikTok.”
“The campaign includes placing op-eds and letters to the editor in major regional news outlets, promoting dubious stories about alleged TikTok trends that actually originated on Facebook, and pushing to draw political reporters and local politicians into helping take down its biggest competitor.
These bare-knuckle tactics, long commonplace in the world of politics, have become increasingly noticeable within a tech industry where companies vie for cultural relevance and come at a time when Facebook is under pressure to win back young users.”
Look at what a director of the firm wrote in an email in Feb!!!
“Targeted Victory needs to “get the message out that while Meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat especially as a foreign owned app that is #1 in sharing data that young teens are using.”
Another staffer wrote:
“Bonus point if we can fit this into a broader message that the current bills/proposals aren’t where [state attorneys general] or members of Congress should be focused.”
Something to note: it looks like some of the emails targeting TikTok were sent back in February, which is shortly after Meta announced that Facebook had lost users for the first time in its 18-year history 👀
The obvious goal from Meta is to make themselves look better by making TikTok look worse - and to do that they’re paying people to help stain TikTok’s reputation. To do this, Targeted Victory have Google docs to collect ‘bad TikTok clips,’ in order to get media coverage on them, they have helped produce false ‘letters to the editor’ about TikTok’s impact on children's mental health - basically, they're trying to manufacture the type of bad press that Meta have no issues getting all on their own :P
As mentioned earlier, it’s like the dirty tactics you see in politics but it’s being used by these mega-corporations, and it’s gross as hell but THAT’S WHY IT’S SO IMPORTANT TO HAVE JOURNOS COVERING THIS BEAT!
I love this tweet so much
Lizzo is launching her own shapewear brand!!
Meet Yitty, Lizzo’s new “no-shame, smile-inducing,” shapewear brand, designed for every body. In its kinda-launch on TikTok, Lizzo discussed the battle she’s always had with her body. She wore shapewear when she was young (as young as 6th grade!) and uncomfortable with her body, but as she grew into loving herself and her shape, she sorta ‘rebelled’ against it. Then, when she started really getting into fashion she decided that she would start embracing shapewear again, but as a way of enhancing her shape, not hiding it. The only problem? She could never find any that was vibey or comfy.
“I was tired of seeing this sad, restrictive shapewear that literally no one wanted to wear. I had an epiphany like, ‘who can actually do something about this?’ I decided to take on the challenge of allowing women to feel unapologetically good about themselves again,” she said.
Honestly, at this point - between her music, her new reality show, a top tier TikTok presence & now a shapewear brand?? It really is Lizzo’s world and we’re just living in it (and happily.)
Two quick tech stories:
Robot dog called in to help manage Pompeii
Meet Spot, a four-legged robot dog, who (I shouldn’t be referring to it as ‘who’ but rather as ‘that’ but it’s so hard not to humanise… dog-ise??? a dog-bot) is being used in Pompeii to find “structural and safety issues while delving underground to inspect tunnels dug by relic thieves.”
Spot is probably great - I have nothing against it - and it’s first of its kind tech when it comes to archaeology, but there would be something kinda jarring about seeing a super modern robot dog in amongst an incredibly historic site, wouldn’t there?
AI hospital forecasting to reduce NHS waiting lists
“Hospitals will be able to predict daily A&E admissions weeks in advance using artificial intelligence software that analyses data including 111 calls and the weather.”
Right now this method is being introduced in 100 NHS hospitals, after trials showed it had an “impressive” ability to forecast daily admissions, broken down by age, up to three weeks in advance. The software also takes into account big events where there could be higher admissions - like New Year's Eve. Though artificial, there is no denying this intelligence.
I’m not gonna lie, when I first saw this headline I thought it was wild, but the more I think about it, the more I’m taken back to our episode of Extremely Online where we spoke about how artificial intelligence works. At its crux it’s all about predicting the future based on the data we’ve got from the past and present, so dare I say this… kinda makes sense?
Do you always accompany your food with a beverage?
I personally do not - unless I’m out for dinner and get a glass of wine or have some water or something! One of my pet peeves, actually, is when I’m at a cafe and I haven’t finished drinking my coffee and then my food comes out - I CAN’T DRINK BOTH AT ONCE BECAUSE I HATE THE MIX OF FLAVOURS IN MY MOUTH! I also ✨hate✨ the idea of using a drink to ‘wash down’ your food - like when people can take a sip of their drink while they’re STILL CHEWING and it all merges??? EW! But I think that’s a different poll altogether. Anyway for this one:
63% of you always accompany your food with a bevvy
37% don’t
Listen to Harry :P
Please 🥺 — shityoushouldcareabout.memberful.com
Russia's 'eased' attacks, and Will Smith's slaps (The Shit Show)
That Girl vs Goblin Mode (Culture Vulture)
Have you heard of BeReal? (Dirt)
Are You ‘Mask Fishing’? (The New York Times)
TikTok is testing a ‘Watch History’ so you can finally find that video you saw (The Verge)
Netflix and Robert Rodriguez are officially bringing back Spy Kids (Entertainment Weekly)
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LOVE YOU THE MOST, LUCE XX
