5K Subscribers! + Facebook Marketplace + ATN's Newest Anchor + SOTU Influencers + A TikTok Ban (Again?) + Oscar Stuff + Leo's Messy Bun + Gisele's FTX Amnesia + Gap's Prison Issue Linen

5,000 subscribers! 🥳

I love to celebrate a little milestone, so post is free for all! Thank you all for subscribing over the last year. Even the haters who I know have snuck in here to lurk, *muah.*

As an added thank you, I’m also opening up all archives until Thurs, which means free subscribers can read back through nearly a year of posts.

Anyway, life updates? Move updates? I decided to phase out all of my West Elm, Target, and CB2, and try to re-design my apartment using exclusively vintage furniture. That means I’ll be spending today just like I’ve spent every day this week, driving to meet some stranger from Facebook Marketplace and hoping they don’t kill ya girl. Yes, I can order teak lounge chairs off of Wayfair, but that’s just not as fun as digging a free pair of ant infested ones out of some strange man’s backyard in the Valley. And, also not as fun as probably having to buy a Bug Bomb for my car. And, also not a fun as having whatever termites that are left in the cracks crawl out to eat through my walls in a few weeks. I promise you it’s rewarding.

I did, though, lose the chair of my dreams to this week’s Meta and Instagram #SuperTuesday hack, and for that, I’ll never forgive Russia, or China.

• Introducing Katie Britt, ATN’s Latest Star (More SOTU below)

• Former Twitter Execs Sue For $128M Unpaid Severance (Reuters)

• Boeing, again (culturework)

• LA Mag Makes Zionist Propaganda Queen Noa Tishby A #Covergirl (TikTok)

• Did The #Illuminati Get To Ryan Garcia? (USA Today)

• RIP: Rooster Teeth Is Shut Down After 21 Years (PC Gamer)

• First Warner, Then Atlantic, and Now Universal Music Music Layoffs (Variety)

“If you feel half as stupid as you should, you will remember this lesson for the rest of your life.” - @PRBLYNotChris

This week, the White House invited 70 social media creators and publishers to attend various briefings, events, luncheons and other shit leading up to Thursday’s State of the Union address. Less than 24 hours later, President Biden pledged his signature of support should the current effort to ban TikTok, the app responsible for those very creators’ celebrity and livelihoods, get passed by Congress.

Creator @PRBLYNotChris sums up just exactly how those creators should feel.

@probably_n0t_christhis is unbelievable/Twitter: prblynotchris #greenscreen

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The most recent congressional effort to ban TikTok has been gaining momentum of late, unanimously advancing out of the The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday and heading to a house vote next week. Tiktok has begun their counter offensive, launching in app calls-to-action urging users to contact their reps. The bill seeks to ban downloads of Bytedance apps, including Tiktok, or force the firm to sell them to a US company within 180 days.

More news:

Instead of just allowing Gazan aid in via Rafah, Biden wants to build a pier

“Accountability for thee, but not for me” - AOC

What exactly is the US currently doing to Haiti?

LA’s Measure HLA Passes

Starving Palestinians Prepare for Ramadan

Why is LA Mayor Karen Bass scared of an audit?

Been there, done that.

The Oscars — Will I be watching? Probably, but probably not. The Academy Awards are just one of a million things that became less important after 2020. The 2021 decision to press on with a slimmed down show at Union Station, which displaced dozens of unhoused people sheltering nearby and disrupted the city’s most accessible Covid testing site, all but turned me off completely.

Anyway on to real Oscar news….Leonardo DiCaprio’s tape-ins:

• They survived slim-budget filming at Sacramento’s La Superior Mercado.

• They survived the Super Bowl.

• They’ve survived multiple late nights prowling Hollywood for women born after 2002.

• They’ve even had their tracks shifted back into place by Teyana Taylor.

How they’ve survived the tension of that lil bun, I’ll never know. The roots gottaaaaa be sliding at this point.

Anyway, if you’re planning on protesting the Oscars today, I recommend you hang out closer to Highland Ave, and not far down near the Cinerama dome. Arrivals route up Highland starting at Sunset (Hollywood High, Chic-Fil-A), pass a few checkpoints before Hollywood Blvd. Usually finished by 430PM. Black cars then go on to Hollywood Bowl lots, where they hang out until they’re dispatched for pickup. Not saying y’all should hang around the open streets that arrivals and departures are dependent on, or anything.

Climbing The …. Pyramid? — Robin, let’s bring back journalism. I don’t want to hear about Gisele’s annus horribilis and the cookbooks, breathwork, and yoga flows that are getting her through it if we’re going to exclude its root cause: the, like, billion dollar ponzi scheme that collapsed the company she partnered in and promoted. A company she held an executive role in, whose advertising she featured in, whose $1B charitable budget she may even have had disbursement oversight of, and whose collapse is rumored to be the cause of her very famous divorce.

Don’t believe me? Revisit the iconic @culturework FTX Timeline here.

Are we watching the same ad? — We would never let Zara get away with this. A minute and twenty seconds? We don’t even let Zara get a photo up before we start discussing the blurry photography and contorted poses that make their silhouettes and quality issues impossible to see.

All it took was a famous singer dancing to a song from another famous singer, alongside the dancers of that other famous singer, and we’re using phrases like “marketing genius.” All Gap needed to do was disguise poorly-made prison issue garb behind flat stomachs and famous faces? Help.

I say this as someone who is old, who remembers when Gap clothing lasted forever, when their Gap Body camisoles were actually lined with a lil shelf bra and not made out of whatever loose mesh pantyhose they’re using now. The clothing in store doesn’t even qualify as “basics” at this point, and the linen does not indeed move.

This is it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!