12.30 | and then it was december

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.
   – Benjamin Franklin

✉️ letter #38

2022 is now basically over, but that's not quite what got me interested in finally sending out a new newsletter. Actually, funnily enough, it was this:

I was helping my company set up an account on a new anti-Twitter social platform (you know, around the time that Elon Musk was kicking journalists off), which required me to set up my own account as well. And since I had now created two accounts, I figured I might as well poke around and see what functions they had.

And then I came across an article from Vox on there which triggered the need to write a long thing culturally critiquing a cultural critique on "millennial cringe." I figured, in previous months, this random essay would have gone into this newsletter. So I might as well put it in this newsletter, and also let you guys know that I'm on post.news. And I am here to defend my generation.

Stop being so obsessed with us.

I honestly don't know how active I'm going to be on there. The internet is littered with various social media platforms that have come and gone - I hear people are still trying to make Mastodon happen (and it's still a mess).

But also, I guess with having been a new media journalist kid, and then a website managing editor, and then a digital advertising professional... trying out every new internet thing to come along comes with the territory.

I'm on BeReal now too. I swear not because of the SNL sketch:

Honestly though, did BeReal pay for this?

🌱 newsreel for a different world

• Earlier this week there was apparently a "planet parade" - basically a moment in which every planet in the solar system is lined up and visible from Earth. I live in a major city, which means major light pollution, which means there is absolutely no way I would've been able to catch it, but hopefully someone did! Since I didn't catch it though, here's something just as fun and space-y: Gizmodo rounded up some of the best space images captured this year, like this one of the Southern Ring Nebula.

• Did you know there used to be jaguars in North America? I had no clue! The last known female was shot near the border as late as 1963. A conservation group is now working to try and reintroduce them to the USA.
• Apparently we're debating whether to include climate impact on fast food. A study found that, if given the chance, the public would make "better environmental choices" with their meals if they knew about them. Look, as much as I'd love to believe that, we've already tried this with calories and nobody cared. I really REALLY doubt that anyone who didn't alreadyworry about the environment enough to lessen their red meat intake would suddenly be dissuaded by some numbers on a wrapper.
• Something about finding out that Barnes & Nobles was able to turn around its dwindling fortunes by refocusing on the love of books made tears come to my eyes. I love paper books, and I love that bookstores can and do thrive when they lean into how much people actually do want to read good things.
• Bill McKibben at the New Yorker is surprisingly optimistic about how the Inflation Reduction Act might actually offer a chance for widespread change on climate issues. It's a long read about the IRA's billions of dollars earmarked to reduce USA emissions, and very interesting food for thought.
• Ending with something a little more global, let's talk about the power of videogames to change perceptions on climate change - something it's been proved to do, but "the difficulty lies in visually representing the gradual, incremental nature of the problem, which is largely caused by an invisible gas, developers say."

🎵 song of my week

My Spotify Wrapped was, as always, a list of songs that I hyperfixated on rather than what I would probably actually call my favorite songs of the year. It's always a little embarassing when that happens, because it's kind of like - no, I don't know why I suddenly needed to listen to one specific song by Elvis on repeat for two weeks, but I did and now that's my third most played song of 2022 (not to say that If I Can Dream isn't a musical masterpiece, it's just not indicative of what I normally listen to).

Right after Wrapped came out in early December, I found a tune that I would probably put in both my hyperfixation and my "oh I actually really do think this is great" list.

Mr Little Jeans - Forgetter (Sofi Tukker Remix) makes me miss going to raves.

✨enjoying: one final piece of pop culture fun

Those who know will know that this recent season of anime has probably been one of the best in the last decade. We had an almost unprecedented selection of absolutely gorgeous, fantastically directed, banger storylines - SpyXFamily, Chainsaw Man, The Witch From Mercury, Cyberpunk Edgerunners ... and this one, that probably hit me the deepest:

Bocchi The Rock is about a girl with such intense social anxiety that she has spent all her school years thus far completely alone and mostly ignored by anyone not in her immediate family. One day, she catches an interview of a musician who talks about how he too was a massive introvert who couldn't talk to people, but becoming a rock star saved his life. She commits herself to learning the guitar in order to finally make friends... only to realize that nobody's going to talk to her just because she walks around with a guitar.

And then one day someone DOES in fact see her walking around with a guitar, drags her to be a stand-in for a bandmate that ghosted, and a cute high school girl rock band anime ensues, with scenes like this as main character Bocchi is now pushed to do the kind of social things she never had the guts for.

Anyway, it's probably the sweetest portrait of navigating intrusive thoughts and growing confidence in interacting with people that I've seen.

I was a very introverted, pretty shy kid that... well, was kind of forced to pretend to not be one in ways that probably are the reason I drink too much today. And watching Bocchi's struggles and self doubt and need to seriously recharge after every social interaction through episode after episode is both hilarious and sometimes a little too real.

Also though, the musicianship in this anime is astounding. It might seem cartoony from the clip above, but somehow whenever it gets to people playing actual instruments, the way their hands move and their rhythm is probably the most realistic I've seen in any music anime.

I highly recommend checking it out on Crunchyroll.

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