Tik tok

Friday

Cockburn

PETA comes for Punxsutawney Phil

The ever-joyful People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have put the nail in their no-fun coffin by announcing a new target: the bizarre and beloved Pennsylvania-Dutch tradition of pulling a groundhog out of his burrow to predict the weather.  On this Groundhog Day morning, Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early spring, but PETA had to go and rain on everyone’s parade by reminding us that Phil “is not a meteorologist.”  PETA branded the celebration “a cruel holiday display” because groundhogs are “naturally shy, sensitive prey animals who react poorly when handled in front of raucous crowds.

Friday

Cockburn

Kari Lake razes the Arizona GOP

Cockburn was sad to scratch out the AZGOP Freedom Fest from his calendar, which was due to take place tonight and be headlined by former president Donald Trump. “Regrettably, the AZGOP Freedom Fest 2024 has been canceled as President @realDonaldTrump is required to attend to court obligations.”  He was hoping to see the nation’s most self-immolating state party up close, in a week where their top Senate candidate Kari Lake leaked a private recording she had made of a conversation with Arizona GOP chair Jeff DeWit. In the recording DeWit appears to be offering to pay Lake to drop out of the Senate race and run for governor again in two years instead.

Friday

Ross Anderson

Lil Nas X is getting boring

After a long break, Lil Nas X announced he would be releasing a new single. As usual, the song would get hyped, the publicity would be multifaceted and designed to cause controversy — and it would climax with a hit music video that would turn the song platinum. It worked before, with the devil lap dance video for "Call Me By Your Name," and for "Industry Baby" and its prison video (tied to Nike’s legal action against his collaborative Mschf shoes). Why shouldn’t it now? His new single is titled "J Christ" — and the music video has over a million views on YouTube in under twenty-four hours. And yet, it feels empty. The music video is exactly what you’d think it would be, showing Lil Nas X dressing up as various Christian figures, from Moses to Jesus.

lil nas x

Wednesday

Bridget Phetasy

Bowling Alone reads like a nostalgic look at the good ol’ days

In the Phetasy.com book club, we recently read the famous social science tome, Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam. In it he examines the decline of social capital across various facets of American life. Based on his 1995 essay of the same title, the book was groundbreaking when it appeared in 2000. Putnam had noticed a trend: Americans were spending more and more time alone. His book analyzed the data and contemplated what it meant for our democracy and humanity. Although his observations were a harbinger of the oft-cited “epidemic of loneliness” we are currently living through, in our post-Trump, post-pandemic pre-maggedon reality, Bowling Alone reads like a nostalgic look at the good ol’ days. Days when people still interacted at all.

bowling alone

Tuesday

Ross Anderson

Defending Matthew Williams’s Givenchy

Matthew Williams, the tattooed American fashion designer and creative director at Givenchy, will soon be evicted from the famous house. Givenchy announced on December 1 that Williams would leave his job at the end of the year. Nobody is particularly surprised. His three-year tenure has been controversial and highly disliked by many, and also hasn’t produced any viral products. It was obvious Williams’s publicists knew his time was up too. Late last year, he was profiled by Jessica Testa in the New York Times; an article built around the fact that designer contracts typically only last three years, and that his time at Givenchy wasn't producing hits. Diesel, Vetements, Loewe and Balenciaga have all spun controversy into sales. The best Givenchy achieved was disappointment, if that.

matthew williams givenchy

Tuesday

Spectator Editorial

The fight ahead

If there could ever be a positive that comes out of the horrific terrorist attacks in Israel in October, it’s this — the battle lines have never been clearer. That may seem obvious in the context of Israel versus Hamas, but for Americans, watching the drawing of the fault lines has been extremely clarifying. In the hours that followed the atrocities, the people who reject any sort of nuance in politics wanted to “put into context” the murders of 1,400 Jews — including elderly Holocaust survivors, women and children. The Manhattan chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez remains a member, tweeted support of Palestine and its intention of holding a rally in Times Square.

editorial cover
horrors
Bridget Phetasy

The year’s horrors have left me speechless

I’ve started and stopped three articles, written 1,500 words and hated every single one. This column was due days ago and I’ve been stuck. Completely blocked. I’m not sure if it’s one thing or many things — and sometimes the only way through writer’s block is to sit down and write all the jumbled, disconnected thoughts that are jamming me up. So I will start this piece and end this year with an apology to my editor and to you, dear reader. There is the thought that stands in the way of every other thought — and because I refuse to put horrifically graphic images in your head while you sip your coffee, I’ll let you fill in the blanks yourself. But the thought goes something like: “Hamas did X and Y and Z and I’m supposed to write or care about anything else?

Friday

Cockburn

Greta Thunberg, milkshake duck

Is Peter Thiel a fed? Peter Thiel made billions of dollars working closely with the federal government, selling technologies like Palantir at massive profits. Now, there’s the suggestion that Thiel’s ties to the government may be a lot closer than previously thought — a bombshell report in Business Insider alleges that Thiel has worked as a confidential human source for the FBI starting in 2021, likely about foreign involvement in Silicon Valley. Per Insider, Thiel was recruited by controversial far-right activist Charles Johnson.Thiel’s political involvement has scaled back in recent months; in 2022, he batted 0.500 in getting his former employees elected to the United States Senate, helping get J.D.

allison bornstein
Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore

Slow down, shop less and style more: lessons from Allison Bornstein

That Allison Bornstein’s family all operate in care is no surprise. True, Bornstein, thirty-five, a stylist and rising social media star based out of New York and Los Angeles, is the odd one out. Her father and brother are doctors, her grandfather is a psychoanalyst and her mother was once a therapist. But the services she offers are not so different from the shrink’s couch. Bornstein has created a dedicated following on TikTok and Instagram for her tips and scripted reels, in which she implores us all to craft self-love around our clothes. To slow down, shop less, and style more. And in the world of stylists and influencers, who make careers out of telling people to consume, consume, consume, Bornstein is quietly radical.

Tuesday

John Mac Ghlionn

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s descent into ‘woke’ madness

Neil deGrasse Tyson is famous for many things, including his rather fetching mustache and his rather hideous wardrobe. Behind the chuckles and the wacky attire, however, lies a slightly darker side. The man who famously said that he was “proud to be part of a species where a subset of its members willingly put their lives at risk to push the boundaries of our existence” is now pushing the boundaries of our patience. Over the years, deGrasse Tyson has become increasingly condescending, rude and arrogant. He has veered from the area of astrophysics into other avenues, including, most recently, the trans debate. More specifically, trans women competing in actual women’s sports.

neil degrasse tyson

Friday

Cockburn

Donald Trump, the new King David

Jann Wenner: my feelings don’t care about your facts Sometimes it takes a dishonest newspaper to put a lying magazine in its place.   On Friday, the New York Times published an interview with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner — and the Gray Lady did not hold back. Interviewer David Marchese asked Wenner to defend the magazine’s now discredited University of Virginia rape story, accusing the publication of putting a “juicy story” ahead of the truth.   Wenner was not all too concerned with the accusations. “The University of Virginia story was not a failure of intent, or an attempt to be loose with the facts.

trump king david vivek

Wednesday

Josie Cox

The rise of the lazy-girl job

To anyone who’s ever dismissed Gen Z as a cluster of feckless snowflakes, or shunned them as gritless, superficial posers raised on instant gratification and social-media filters; to anyone who thinks this juvenile rabble will never amount to more than bitter complainers about rising house prices and corrupt capitalism — I implore you! Take a moment to consider that these zoomers, these mini millennials, these whiny warriors of wokeland, have just instigated the labor market trend we didn’t know we needed: the rise of the lazy-girl job. If you instinctively recoil at any new phrase with “girl” in it — “hot girl summer,” “girlboss” — I’m right there with you.

Tuesday

Stephen L. Miller

Who will be the next great Climate Teen?

Now that truant Greta Thunberg is all grown up and aging out of her usefulness, progressive groups and our media are on the hunt, American Idol-style, for the next great Climate Teen. Just as the left puts teenagers on the frontline for gun control, and the Biden administration uses rosy-cheeked heartthrobs (much like Hamas does with human shields) to yell at people on TikTok, the media is desperately thirsty for a new batch of young climate activists with the charisma of boy band stars and the backing of thousands of lawyers and parents with political ambitions — they just won’t tell you that last part. Take the case of Badge and Lander Busse from Montana.

climate

Wednesday

Amber Duke

TikTok trends are ruining fashion

There are plenty of reasons to despise TikTok, the most downloaded app in the world and certainly the most popular among teen girls and young women. It poses a national security threat to the US due to its connection to the Chinese Communist Party, which uses it as both spyware and a means of socially engineering our youth. In a previous edition of this newsletter, I discussed the devastating effects that social media use can have on young women, from screen addiction to body image issues and deeper mental health problems.Photo and video-based apps such as TikTok and Instagram provide young women with more reasons to hate themselves than ever before.

Thursday

Amber Duke

Social media is killing our girls

America’s girls are in a serious crisis. Mental health maladies are becoming more common among all teens, but the problem is particularly acute for young women. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that almost 60 percent of US girls said they felt persistently sad or hopeless. More than twice as many girls as boys reported experiencing poor mental health in the past thirty days. And 30 percent of high school girls in America said they were seriously considering suicide, while 13 percent have already made an attempt on their life, almost twice the rate of boys.

girls social media

Monday

Cockburn

Dancing weathermen are the best argument for the climate apocalypse yet

Gone are the days when local news anchors and weathermen went viral for unfortunate slips of the tongue or medical emergencies. Now these local TV staples are dancing and singing their way through their on-air reports, supposedly with the goal of making the news more "fun." Of course, these silly moments also coincidentally help these news anchors build their followings on TikTok. Nick Kosir, a former meteorologist for a local Fox affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina was one of the first local anchors to enjoy viral fame. He first garnered headlines by posting copycat versions of NFL quarterback Cam Newton's wildest fashion moments on his social media accounts, then exploded after nailing a dance challenge while wearing a business suit.

dancing weathermen viral

Wednesday

Katherine Dee

Welcome to the weird world of transfishing

A woman behind a popular Instagram meme account, @manicpixie.transgirl, with 34,900 followers, this week admitted that she had been “transfishing.” In other words: she was a cis woman who had been lying the whole time about being trans. Welcome to the other side of the coin of the very similar, controversial “transtrending”: when people pretend to be transgender without altering their appearance. For example, a gender-conforming man who claims he is a transgender woman for attention or pity may be a “transtrender,” where a natal woman who purposefully dresses or speaks in a particular way and claims she is trans is a “transfisher.

transfishing

Tuesday

Cockburn

Topless trans guests reveal systemic inequality at the White House

The White House lawn became the latest battleground in the “Free the Nipple” fight this weekend.  A shocking display of inequality was captured on video when TikTok influencer and trans woman Rose Montoya filmed herself topless in front of the White House, flaunting her breasts during a Pride event. Montoya was joined by two trans male activists who were also shirtless. Yet only Montoya — whether out of a sense of decency or internalized social pressures — censored her nipples with her hands. For all the White House's moral posturing, Cockburn is shocked they would tolerate such brazen inequality.

Rose Montoya takes her shirt off on the White House lawn (Rose Montoya/TikTok)

Thursday

Matthew Foldi

Republicans urge DoJ probe of TikTok CEO for ‘lying’ to Congress

Just as TikTok looked as though it had weathered the storm following a murky congressional hearing, a group of Republicans are demanding that the Department of Justice investigate its CEO for allegedly lying to Congress. Thirteen House Republicans, led by Representative Tim Walberg, wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, in a letter obtained by The Spectator, demanding that the DoJ look into what they claim are critical lies told to Congress by TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, while he was testifying under oath. “It is imperative that we hold Chew and TikTok accountable for his false statements regarding crucial facts of the company’s operations,” the Republicans wrote. The signatories are all members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which grilled Chew earlier this year.

tiktok

Friday

Katherine Dee

Bama Rush fails as anti-Greek life propaganda

Nobody liked Bama Rush: not the viewers, not the sorority sisters at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa (where the film is set), not TikTokkers. It is a remarkably unlikable film that ostensibly attempts to position itself as a “shocking” inside look at sorority recruitment at the University of Alabama. Meandering, self-absorbed and lazy, it somehow even manages to fail as anti-Greek life propaganda. Props to director Rachel Fleit for that though: it might be the film’s only achievement in a climate where people are frothing at the mouth to vilify anything resembling a uniquely American and time-honored tradition. (HBO Max/YouTube screenshot) Bama Rush is first and foremost a transparent attempt to cash in on the 2021 viral success of #RushTok.

bama rush