Monica Sobchak

Monica Sobchak is a New York-based writer who hosts The Temple of Friendship podcast on Patreon.

Today

Monica Sobchak

The insanity of the Lindsay Clancy sympathizers

From our US edition

In 2023, Lindsay Clancy, a former labor-and-delivery nurse from Duxbury, Massachusetts, strangled her three children to death with exercise resistance bands in the basement of the family home. She then cut her wrists and neck and jumped from a second-story window, an act that left her paralyzed from the waist down. Her murder trial opened in Plymouth Superior Court in July and is expected to run for six to eight weeks.  Both sides agree Clancy killed five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan. What is contested is whether she should be held responsible.

Tuesday

Monica Sobchak

How Clavicular’s ‘looksmaxxing’ took over New York Fashion Week

From our US edition

Elena Velez’s F/W 2026-27 New York Fashion Week show centered on “looksmaxxing”: the internet-inspired pursuit of physical perfection at any cost. The runway presentation examined a generation raised under fluorescent ring lights and the judgment of the social-media algorithm. And she capped the night off with a feature from Clavicular, one of the X algorithm’s current favorite characters. Velez, still in her early thirties, stands out as one of the few designers fluent in the language of the internet. The cultural current is dominated by self-optimization taken to its logical extreme. Faces are flattened into grids, bodies are dissected by comment sections, desirability is quantified in followers, likes and engagement rate. Looks run the show, now more than ever.

elena velez clavicular

Tuesday

Monica Sobchak

In conversation with Nick Land, the ‘father of accelerationism’

From our US edition

Within Silicon Valley, Nick Land is seen almost as a mythic figure. Tech pioneer Marc Andreessen, an official advisor to the White House, lists him as a “patron saint” of his thinking. You may have heard him described as a founding member of the “Dark Enlightenment,” a movement of online right-wingers skeptical of liberal democracy. Land’s name comes up in academic circles, online mythology and Valley folklore. For some, he’s a prophet; for others something more sinister. “He’s really into demons,” explained Conrad Flynn on a recent Tucker Carlson Show episode about the occult. “Land will talk about being in communication with Satan… the legend around Land is he had been possessed by at least three or four demons.

Land