Welcome to the 'Permaweird'
+ The Scream VII saga, a BIG week of podcasts, & WTF is going on with Matt Rife? 𓆩♡𓆪
First of all hi to all the new angels joining us this week!!! I’m not gonna lie I’m feeling really anxious at the moment - trying to do all the ✨things✨ that are meant to help, but you know when they just aren’t?? Anyway, if the vibes seem a lil off in this newsy that’s why! But we shall persist because we have news to talk about and comedians to take DOWN!
Also if you want to hear me talk about things I’m SURE you’ve already heard me talk about (like SYSCA and its origins) I went on a podcast earlier this week with Mike who runs our pod studio, and you should check it out if you want 🥺
Ok so some HUGE updates for our supporters:
ONE is that we can now post to Close Friends on our Instagram FEED which is really fun and hilar (I put a vlog of Squish and I recording The Shit Show up yesterday on there which was fun.)
The next is that we’re having a couple of catch-ups to hang out with you!!! If you’re a paid supporter and want to come have a cute drink/ hang/ online catch up, plz register here!!
If you want to support the media you love, please consider becoming a SYSCA supporter - we really need you!
What's going on with Matt Rife?
This week in podcasts
Culture Vulture: Let Women Have Interests
The Shit Show: Open AI is a Shit Show
Bel Chimes In: Welcome to ~ the permaweird ~
Some things for you to read this weekend!
What's going on with Matt Rife?
Yikes! Why can’t we ever just have a normal male comedian? If your algorithm hasn’t served you up the latest on Matt Rife, (TikTok’s ex-favourite comedian) he recently released his Netflix special, which started with a joke about… domestic violence. As per Variety:
At the beginning of Rife’s “Natural Selection,” he tells a story about being in a “ratchet” Baltimore restaurant with a friend and noticing their female server has a black eye. They wonder why the restaurant wouldn’t have the server work solely in the kitchen so that customers wouldn’t see her black eye. Rife jokes, “Yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye.”
A domestic violence joke in 2023 (or at any time) is in incredibly bad taste, but what he did to ‘apologise’ is kinda beyond me. On his Instagram story, Rife posted: “If you’ve ever been offended by a joke I’ve told, here’s a link to my official apology,” with a link which took followers to a website where they could purchase ‘special needs’ helmets.
You all know I hate cancel culture, but what I hate even more is when people make jokes at the expense of the women who got them where they are in order to fit into the ‘boys club’- which feels like what’s happening here. Rife’s TikTok following (where he has over 18 million followers) is primarily women, but in the week before his special went out he told Variety that this special wasn’t for them:
“One thing that I wanted to tackle in this special was showing people that, like, despite what you think about me online, I don’t pander my career to women. I would argue this special is way more for guys.”
Maybe this story cut deep because I’m always thinking about how young women’s interests are shat on or not taken seriously (even though our cultural impact/ dedication to bands/ movies/ people is SO strong that teenage girls literally run the internet) and because Bel and I LITERALLY JUST RECORDED AN EPISODE OF CULTURE VULTURE ABOUT THIS - but I’d love to know what you all make of it!!
That above screenshot is from
and this feels like a REALLY good time to tell you how much I love her/ her newsy 𓆩♡𓆪
Culture Vulture: Let Women Have Interests
Bel and I in the studio together for the first time in Lisbon!!!!! This week we chat about Taylor Swift’s Rio shows, Dylan Mulvaney being named Woman of the Year, and why the HELL we can’t just let women have interests in peace! I think you’re gonna love this ep - we did!!!
We also have a little farewell for London Laura in this episode, so if you’re missing her on the mic, you’ll get to (kinda) say bye!
The Shit Show: Open AI is a Shit Show
This week on The Shit Show (our weekly news podcast) Squish and I have a big week of news updates for you, including updating you on:
Tech-mogul Bryan Johnson who's undergone shock therapy on his penis to get ‘erections of an 18-year-old’
George Santos allegedly spending his campaign funds on Botox and OnlyFans
Argentina's news far-right president Javier Milei
Binance CEO pleading guilty to money laundering charges
The crazy week Sam Altman and AI have had
Updates on Israel-Palestine for you!
This section is written by my crush, the refreshing-as-a-house-chardonnay-on-a-steamy-day, Bel Hawkins. She also writes our Sunday newsletter ‘No News is Good News’ which all our paying supporters receive. Upgrade your plan to get her newsy here!
Bel Chimes In: Welcome to ~ the permaweird ~
Hello crushes 🌹
Fucked up that we have less than 40 days left of this year? Gonna keep leading my Chimes with these kinds of neighbourly Boomer greetings until you get sick of them, but also thought this was poignant as I've been thinking about time a lot lately, especially with what's going on in the world at the moment and how quickly things can change.
Which brings me to this — a new word (you know I j'adore them) — which I learned from a talk I went to a couple of months ago led by a bunch of futurists / people who somehow get paid to think about the future all day. Anyway, they were talking about our obsession with naming things and phases as a way to understand what's happening in the world - Enter: The permaweird.
Last year Luce and I wrote and podded about the permacrisis as a way to explain how messed up we feel with things entering a permanent state of chaos - but what’s Permawerid?
It's the perpetual state of frustrated urgency that makes us feel there's nothing to do and nowhere to go. The longer it goes on, the more we begin to feel like maybe this is just it now - a constant state of inability to predict what happens next.
I don't want to be emo and leave you with no resolve here. Or be like 'cool that's it! We're forever in chaos!' But don't you find it helpful that there's a concept behind the kind of panic we're always experiencing? Does that make you feel a bit more... OK? And then make you want to eat a piece of fruit and take a nap in the sun to replenish your cortisol? We're all just out here in the permaweird, trying to move with it. And when we can and when feels right — against it. Hopefully that helps make sense of those turning feelings anyway.
See you this weekend for No News Is Good News!
Ily, as per. But you already knew that. xo
Where to get trusted information on Israel-Palestine:
It’s so important that we keep reading the journalists out there who are covering this horrifying situation in-depth (and often risking their lives to do so), so here are some live updates I recommend:
Some things for you to read this weekend!
Because I’m never gonna leave you high and dry am I?
100 Notable Books of 2023 (The New York Times)
The Taylor Swift Info War (Garbage Day)
Gen Z is worried they're going to raise a generation of iPad kids (Business Insider)
Uh oh, a rat plague (BBC)
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Permacrisis, permaweird, unfortunately I have my own personal version of it permaillness better known as chronic illness pain and fatigue. Plus I’m a news & social media junky with dozens of followers (there are dozens of DOZENS! Arrested Development ref 😬).