Now remove everyone from the list who is objectively upper middle class — if this leaves your list as only the barista, congratulations and fuck you. Moving on: what about any of your cars stands out?

Perhaps one or two are in interesting colors — one of the writers is obsessed with capturing photos of unique-colored cars. Anything else? Shape, style, features, anything recognizable at all? Most critically, if you debadged these cars of their logos and put them together like in a police lineup, how many people would be able to identify the brands?

Probably a small smattering of car enthusiasts among the general population know the intricate details of these cars well enough to be able to tell them apart, and few of them care about Toyotas and Nissans and Chevys as much as they enjoy Land Rovers and Porsches and Audis. Even Teslas, the once eye-catching cars of choice for the optimistic middle-class coastal driver who just got a job where they could max out their retirement contributions if they wanted to, are now ubiquitous enough to be insipidly omnipresent. They may not fade into the background, but you won’t look twice at one unless it’s puke-green or decked with Christmas lights.

You’ve got your basic sedans, your basic coupes, your typical hatchbacks and minivans and massive lifted trucks with enough space between the rims and the ground to fit a basic sedan (or coupe). Apart from the typical white/black/red/blue/silver, there has been a rise in putty-like matte colorways like sage green and burnt sienna and concrete grey.

The sameness doesn’t stop in the automotive world. Tried to go work in a coffee shop lately? No matter where you are in the world, the best place for a unique $7 latte probably comes in one of three flavors: industrial chic with exposed beams that make you wonder if it was mildly inspired by Severance, wholesome farm-to-table “gathering places” that moonlight as yoga studios and offer seven different types of low-carbon milk (don’t mind the G-Wagons in the parking lot), or plant nursery that happens to occasionally sell a coffee. Cat cafes are the exception, and they will always be appreciated for that.

How many times have you been to a bookstore or library in the last year? If the answer was less than 2, feel free to skip this paragraph. Hello, sophisticate: is it just us, or do most book covers for the typical metropolitan adult novel look completely unmemorable? It’s like the publishers thought, Color! That’ll be good, except they all thought it all at once like some sort of radio frequency that was transmitted to the entire city of New York and only infected the people with loose printer paper in their apartments.

Even classic novels and old-school gritty stories are now being republished with this modernist design lean - the original cover for Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn is a far cry from the cover one of the authors just saw on their coworker’s desk.

Many of the storylines have also become familiar enough to evoke a recurring feeling of déjà vu. Maybe there isn’t anything new under the sun — but the number of instances where we’ve picked up a book, read the synopsis, and put it down thinking it sounded like another book we’ve already read is worrying; and while we may seem like prolific readers (read: nerds), our annual reading goals are respectable and we spend at least as much time on articles as we do on books. We score two and four respectively on the “likes memoirs” scale, but we imagine even those more keen on the genre can only handle so many iterations of “member of minority group grows up and processes trauma” or “quirky relatable memoir by recently-famous actor or comedian.”

Mainstream perfumes are now the same general varieties of flavored water: flower, green, sandalwood, musk, and if-vanilla-punched-you-in-the-face. One clothing brand makes an interesting top, and two days later its knockoffs are plastered over TikTok Shop and the Shein home page. Makeup and lifestyle brands cannot come up with many more ways to differentiate themselves, so all their advertising blurs in our memories into a vague conception of sans-serif fonts and either neutral or bright colors (depending on what kind of personality they want to convey to buyers).

There have always been, and will always be, people who like to go to the same Starbucks and read the same type of classic mystery novel, listen to a formulaic true-crime podcast, and drive a functional-but-boring car to work and back — people for whom this routine is specifically what makes them happy. The final item in the list makes both of the authors happy, in fact. But we believe that what has led us down this asymptote to the median and mediocre is excessive optimization: basically, people see that something works, and they use it to be similarly successful, leaving much of their originality out of the equation in an attempt to maximize the probability of profit.

Not only that, but we have so many options today: who to date, where to travel, what beverage to consume, what concert to attend, which Korean sunscreen to trust and which influencer’s lipstick performs the best. Having little to truly distinguish between these unexceptional options exacerbates choice fatigue and decision paralysis, with product loyalty as an unintended consequence — this brand’s product works, so I’m going to keep using it rather than fall into the research-and-comparison trap involved in finding a new version. If the brands don’t care enough to stand out, why should we care? One of the authors (you can guess which one) has used the same drugstore-brand 2-for-$5 eyeliner since high school and is now old enough to require their own insurance plan in America.

There’s nothing fundamentally new about the drive to optimize for consumer adoption; to the contrary, competing producers converging on the ideal form of a product or service is the idealized outcome of successful capitalism. However, technological advancements allowing data to be collected, processed, and analyzed at previously unimaginable scales have intensified the process to the point that even the slightest “inefficiency” has been almost universally cast aside. Features as innocuous as unique aesthetic features on cars, electronic products and accessories that are not black or white or grey, and restaurant menus items not approved by Instagram all seem to be disappearing in the name of maximum appeal and resaleability.

Advancements run in parallels: as tech has improved, so has medicine (and you can take “improved” as a euphemism in both cases). Specifically, cosmetic medicine — plastic surgery and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures; just as we endeavor to optimize the world, we undertake the optimizing of our bodies. Plastic surgery is much less socially taboo than it once was, which is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself — but the nonsurgical “enhancements” have exploded in popularity by way of medspas and similar clinic-adjacent environments that offer body contouring, fat reduction, skin lightening/tightening/resurfacing, and the ubiquitous injectables that are colloquially and offhandedly referred to as fillers. From a macro perspective, the idea that we are on the asymptote of normalizing taking fat out of a part of the body and putting it elsewhere for cosmetic reasons is rather sobering; we try to avoid catastrophizing and moralizing here, but for the love of all that is good — it’s still fucking crazy, right? The time, money, resources, expertise, and pain that are spent here feels, to us, criminal to waste on trivial matters like chubby ankles and imperfect jawlines and short femurs and hip dips and full cheeks and —

Anyway.

People are starting to look the same, to chase the same “optimal” features, converging on a few limited ideas of what’s considered attractive and desirable. Social media has not helped the situation (when has it ever?). We see beautiful people everywhere, and we want to be beautiful too — but our perception of beauty has been algorithmically distorted. This line of inquiry houses many opportunities to be casually sexist, but we can wax poetic about duck lips and broccoli hair alike.

We used to have diversity of options across a spectrum, and there was a likelihood that one option ticked most of the boxes of each person’s individual needs. Everyone was an amalgamation of different choices on the spectrum, having extreme or unique tastes in some categories and basic requirements in others — you chose which things to care about and which were not so important. Now, in an age of specialized consumer data collection, companies have optimized the available options to fit each extreme niche and largely cut out the middle — consumers that don’t fit a neat trend line of opinions are not served as completely by the options that are left. We are forced to choose between extremes or make no choice at all; usually the former occurs, and companies retain their profits with less effort, reinforcing the decision to cut out the middle. The modern world has allowed new brands to market to the masses, but the design landscape has made these brands virtually indistinguishable from each other.

Maybe the world would be a little uglier if we brought back boxy cars, translucent pink iMacs, and Silence-of-the-Lambs-level weird book covers. But it would be worth it, so as not to become a planet full of basic bit—

[transmission ended abruptly]

7 + 2 = __ + 6

If reports are to be believed, a quarter of new STEM freshmen in remedial math courses at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), which consistently ranks in the top five to ten public universities in the nation, were unable to solve this problem.

This feels like a hoax. And in the current era, that’s really saying something — because our collective Overton window is so far out of whack already.

The authors, despite their nerdiness, have never exhibited any delusions of intellectual grandeur. There’s plenty of smart people everywhere, even if they’re not read-Wikipedia-for-fun types. We include this unusual fourth-wall note to assure you that we are not inclined to catastrophize falling test scores compared to China or rising social media addiction — like most other problems, a data snapshot of this sort does not indicate the end of Western supremacy or anything like that. What the current data and anecdotes do show is a decline in academic and intellectual capability unlike anything we’ve seen before in the era of widespread public education, identified nearly universally by educators from middle school teachers to upper-level university course instructors.

Something bad is actually happening this time, and it’s not just vibes.

If you have talked to any teachers or professors lately about the gripes of their jobs, apart from the criminally-normal underpayment of their professions, the most common complaint today is often the related pair of student behavior and student capabilities. Obviously students being able to outsource their assignments to artificial intelligence tools made this issue worse, as did the pandemic, but the issue was present for some time before those phenomena. This decline is attributed to many factors — pick your poison! Smartphones and social media, the dethroning of phonics, disengaged parents, new math, better disability diagnostics, the end of single-income households, lower standards, microplastics, No Child Left Behind, overflowing extracurricular schedules, decreased funding, and of course the aforementioned global event and viral efficiency tool. Some downplay the issue, criticizing standardized testing as an institution. Others retort that testing is the best evaluation instrument we have and that attempts to eliminate it are at fault. This reading of the issue suggests that well-meaning policies aimed at fostering inclusion of students with disabilities have been continuously expanded to a point where practically every student in a modern high school or university with the knowledge of how to game the system and the financial wherewithal to get diagnosed with anxiety is entitled to extended homework deadlines or extra time on exams, resulting in chronically underprepared graduates.

The unfortunate truth is that it’s probably a confluence of most of these factors — unfortunate because it means it will take more than one switch-flip or policy bill to reverse this trend, not to mention years or decades spent undoing the damage (to the extent that it’s even possible). There are already millions of parents who have been turned off to public education and have resolved to pay sometimes monumental fees for their child(ren)’s private education; another huge swathe fighting for charter schools and school choice and voucher programs without any nuance or background into the havoc this could wreak; and an uncountable demographic who are eschewing traditional education altogether and turning to homeschooling. The former two groups, as they grow, can reduce the amount of resources going to already-underfunded public schools in their districts and create a vicious cycle of diminishing quality. But the latter takes place in an environment without sufficient guardrails to ensure standards are met and can even put them in danger; children who are out of the reach of adults who could spot issues at home and at least try to fight to protect them have no other recourse or resources. Suffice to say, the consequences of this self-fulfilling sequence can be far-reaching and permanent.

While educators may disagree over the cause (and there’s practically nobody left in education who hasn’t remarked on the problem), few would deny that today’s students are the least prepared and capable they’ve been in recent memory. If you don’t like anecdotal evidence, you can take your pick of bleak statistics of how many students can read, write, or problem solve at grade level.

The obvious culprit is… obvious (obviously). Babies have iPads, kids have TikTok, and parents are too busy with the vagaries of modern life and the increasing effort it takes to remain financially solvent to distract their kids with anything more intellectually stimulating than a device — they obviously have little time or motivation to monitor their internet use, and thus the algorithmic brain-rot begins. By the time they realize, it’s too difficult to reverse, and peer pressure makes it insanely difficult for even the conscientious parents to opt out of this spiral. Once you could walk five miles uphill each way across a superhighway, past an unsecured quarry, and over a bridge that hobos lived underneath, alone, to get home from school — now parents are reported to the police for allowing middle-schoolers to bike a few blocks to the park on a Sunday afternoon without scrupulous supervision, and thus phones are made necessary. The need to be simultaneously a gentle-helicopter-tiger parent while making enough to support 2.1 kids in a good neighborhood with good schools that can give your kids Chromebooks strains credulity.

Speaking of Chromebooks: even at school, kids cannot escape screens. Helpful though they can be for students with disabilities related to reading and writing, whole classes spending time on laptops in class is both empirically unhelpful for knowledge retention and visually demoralizing for anyone with a rose-colored memory of elementary school classes when the stakes were lower and the problems simpler; it’s enough to make the kids who spent all of class doodling genitalia on desks seem somewhat nostalgic.

When underdeveloped minds without self-disciplined impulse control have to make a choice between the glut of entertainment available on a convenient portable device versus doing their own essays or math problems, it’s no wonder the former will almost always win. There isn’t even an opportunity to be bored enough to pick up a book and get unexpectedly and joyfully lost in the story, much less experience the satisfaction of correctly answering how many watermelons Susan has. But this boredom and the quest to defeat it is precisely what leads one to develop the innate curiosity and desire to learn for learning’s sake which make someone interested and interesting enough to critically engage with the world around them. Children who have never known boredom grow into adults who have never known self-reflection or original thought, because their phone was always there to fill the gap.

Decreasing curiosity and intellectual self-sufficiency isn’t only a problem for knowledge work and abstract academic pursuits. Being unable to independently problem-solve makes everyday life worse in practically every context: if you don’t know how to learn to maintain and repair the tools your everyday life depends on, you’re at the mercy of those who can and stand to make a profit off of it, whether it’s by changing your oil for you at inflated prices or telling you all hope for your cracked laptop screen is lost and your only option is to drop $2000 on the new model.

And the problem doesn’t stop at the individual level. As fewer and fewer customers consider reparability when making a purchase, manufacturers lose any incentive they ever had to prioritize it in their product designs. We end up in a vicious cycle where people lacking the willingness to learn about maintaining things ends with products actually becoming unmaintainable. The planning part of planned obsolescence gets easier for corporations every time someone gives up on reviving their old computer because ChatGPT told them it wasn’t worth it.

Hobbies are suffering too, both social and solo endeavors. Money is certainly a factor, with the excessive commercialization of things people do for fun and the hustle-culture mentality around crafting and artistic pursuits; but even beyond those factors, general social participation in local groups seems to be on the decline. How many of us know someone in their age group who go bird-watching, fly-fishing, or train-hopping? Even the people who are involved in these unique pursuits seem to tie the extent of their involvement to their TikTok fame, rather than focusing on the sheer pleasure of an individually interesting activity. The souvenir shot glass industry must be feeling the pain of this “just-’cause” decline.

Instead, the time we used to spend in the pursuit of the weird things that made each of us uniquely interesting is now filled with a lot of… bullshit.

Less than a few decades ago, there were fewer ways to last-minute flake out on social plans — your friends were already on the way and if they didn’t answer the landline, you had to show up or leave them high and dry. A technological advance as seemingly mundane as texting has enabled us not only to be more considerate of others, but also to have more opportunities to be inconsiderate. If you tallied up the amount of time we now spend sending and receiving “where r u”, “5 min away”, “almost there”, “leaving now”, “what should I wear”, “who’s coming again”, etc. texts, we can see how easy it is for this hobby-less time to evaporate into insubstantial garbage communication that is not meaningfully important or beneficial to our lives. Obviously it’s good to let others know what is happening when you have plans together — that’s not the point. The point is that the sum of bullshit like bullshit texts, memes, reels, stories, fake LinkedIn stories, AI-generated Reddit posts, and the like is sapping away our lives piece by piece.

And none of it is exactly conducive to developing a better understanding of the world, either. We put up with this bullshit, and we learn nothing from it that we couldn’t have learned from the same concept in a physical mode of delivery. We are replacing the things that interest us with things that only occupy us, counting down the time until we optimize every second of free time with another nothingburger of content.

Next time you’re in line at the DMV — who are we kidding, that’s what Candy Crush was made for. But next time you are faced with the option of pulling your phone out to occupy a miniscule amount of time or remaining briefly bored, ask yourself: what am I missing out on?

An admirable and understandable sentiment though it may be, this line of thinking has an uncanny capacity to spiral into conspiracy, fanaticism, and even the very health challenges that proponents seek to avoid. It starts with more broccoli, and high-fives all around if that’s where it stops; but for many, energized and encouraged by “the algorithm”, they start getting into raw milk and fruitarianism and three-day cleanses and blanket chemophobia.

Suddenly the ability of your mouth to form the right shape to pronounce a long scientific name of an ingredient on the first try is the first critical fortification against the evil companies trying to make you sick and docile. No more brassica oleracea var. italica in the diet, I suppose.

Psyche. That’s the scientific name for broccoli.

Let’s start with the undisputable facts: we as a society are more health conscious than ever, thanks in large part to the free exchange of information over the internet, and the subsequent free exchange of photos of all of us that probably make everyone more self-conscious. Gen Z is widely known to drink less alcohol than prior generations; a variety of factors are thought to explain this, but the most commonly accepted reasons include consideration for personal health and wellness, along with financial constraints (looking at you, twenty-five-dollar basic cocktails) and increased visibility of sober lifestyles. Post-pandemic, as we would expect, people are more aware of their personal health and report healthfulness as a factor when making choices, perhaps unsurprising given the virus both put those with existing health challenges at risk and triggered lockdowns that reinforced already bleak trends in physical fitness and social isolation. On the other hand, cigarettes are apparently cool again, independent of the switch to vaping (somehow). Maybe the real obsession is contrarianism — just about the only thing that smoking and taking weird supplements have in common is that your doctor doesn’t recommend it.

Whatever the reason behind the Western world’s current health and wellness obsession, you’ve probably already seen its most widespread form in your neighborhood — namely, an explosion of trendy shops selling dietary supplements. The supplement industry has boomed in recent years, with government surveys finding that a significant majority of Americans now take at least one regularly, with particularly high increases among millennials and Gen Z. Supplement makers have been accused of taking advantage of their weak regulatory environment (unlike prescription or over-the-counter medication, supplements are not subject to FDA approval for safety or effectiveness) to make fanciful claims about their products’ effectiveness against ills as varied as fatigue, high blood pressure, baldness, and erectile dysfunction. Unfortunately, vanishingly few of these products’ claims are substantiated by reputable scientific research, with the rest acting at best as expensive placebos - in many cases, recommended supplement doses are so high that only a tiny proportion of the allegedly beneficial substance is even absorbed by the body, while the rest is passed with no effect — hopefully. Unluckier users have suffered side effects ranging from stomach issues to liver damage, and studies regularly find concerning levels of heavy metals in products sold as Ayurvedic supplements.

Juice cleanses are another case of going too far, and the name itself is a clear signifier of the bullshit in the phenomenon: there is no “cleanse” occurring whatsoever. Sticking to a liquid diet for the typical length of time promoted by fad diet companies can cause rapid weight loss (but mostly of water weight), muscle loss, slowing of metabolism, the loss of beneficial bacteria and an increase in bacteria linked to inflammation and digestive issues, and it can generally interfere with normal bodily functions that already have evolved to conduct any necessary detoxification we may need. While periods of acute or chronic illness may impair these organs, fruit-and-vegetable-water does nothing to enhance it — and the concurrent loss of carbs, proteins, fats, fiber, and some vitamins certainly doesn’t help.

For the love of god, at least skip the draining of solids and make it a smoothie instead of a juice.

Then we get into the demonization of processed and ultra-processed foods. We all know the balanced take: in general, try to focus your diet on fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, etc. and consume foods with high levels of added salt, sugar, sweeteners, preservatives, oils, and fats in moderation. But what counts as processed?

Technically, fruits and veggies are “processed” by peeling, slicing, sterilizing, pasteurizing, fermenting, pickling, drying, freezing, canning, milling, and fortifying. Few of these steps change the general nutritional profile of the foods they affect, and yet we somehow have created a universe where many think pasteurized milk poses similar health risks to a diet of Doritos. A combination of canned veggies and frozen fruits and milk that has been processed [insert aghastness here] into yogurt or cheese is better than a non-diverse palette of only fresh foods that are so unprocessed that they spoil quickly.

The same is true of the disparagement of seed oils, which contain a polyunsaturated fat called omega-6 (no doubt you’ve heard praise of its more famous cousin, omega-3, the latter of which prompts the unquestioned advice to eat more fish with little mention of its fishy husband mercury). Omega-6 fatty acids help the body reduce bad cholesterol, just not as well as omega-3 — not a good enough critique to cook a stir fry in olive oil.

Unless someone is doing a seed oil cleanse and downing sunflower oil like a tiny bottle of whiskey on a delayed flight from San Diego to North Dakota in the middle of winter, we’re all gonna be okay.

The current presidential administration is also claiming that over-the-counter medicines pose terrible health risks, especially for the group of constituents that is most valuable to them: pregnant women fetuses. While these drugs definitely can be abused, their side effects are well known and extensively studied. After the thalidomide scandal in the mid-20th century, drugs are given especially strict scrutiny before being approved for use by those who are, might be, or are planning to become pregnant (hence the pee test you have to take before the doctor deigns to do anything to you).

Now that we’ve covered the forms of health obsession that people ingest, we must regrettably take a step over into the wacky world of injectables. IV rejuvenation, a co-opting of medical intravenous therapy, has become popular as a vague “wellness” treatment offered by so-called boutiques that promote its effectiveness as a hangover cure, an anti-aging routine, and a technique to improve general health for anyone from athletes to nightclub survivors to warm bodies that can afford to throw money away when they’re feeling a little off. It’s ridiculous to stoop to such lengths when a Gatorade and a little self-control will do; and when the party is too good (self-control be damned), a little suffering the next day is just part of the human experience.

But don’t confuse injectables with injections — we’ve reached the anti-vaxxers. Not so long ago, in the naïve and hopeful era known as “pre-COVID”, you’d be forgiven for believing this was an issue of the past, a vague memory of early 2000s crunchy granola moms refusing to vaccinate their Waldorf-schooled children because of a retracted article claiming an association between the MMR vaccine and autism. Unfortunately, the pandemic and the ensuing wave of social media disinformation has brought anti-vaccination sentiment back to the forefront. This time their arguments are as varied as they are nonsensical, everything from the vaccines making you infertile to changing your DNA to containing microchips that track you with 5G. And incredibly, they’re doing better than ever this time - longtime anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr was appointed as American Health Secretary in 2024, giving the conspiracy nuts a significant say in American healthcare policy. Meanwhile, the share of US kindergarteners vaccinated against polio and whooping cough peaked in 2019 and has been declining since, while Canada recently lost its measles-free status due to outbreaks among unvaccinated children.

All of this seems to stem partly from a longing for the good old days of drinking from backyard hoses and walking uphill both ways to get an education, but the iron lung is a relic that needs to remain in the past — we seem to have forgotten about that in the midst of such madness.

The topicals are our next destination. The conspiratorial side of the internet, which is increasingly becoming indistinguishable from the internet at large, is embracing 47-step skincare routines even as it grows skeptical of the best thing to come out of skincare-mania: increased use of sunscreen. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that sunscreens on the market are tested for safety, that vitamin D levels are hardly affected by sunscreen use (if at all), and most importantly, that skin cancer is obviously goddamn worse for people than taking a supplement for vitamin D or switching to fortified milk or cereal.

And in case it needs to be stated, the skin can only absorb so many gels, serums, oils, moisturizers, toners, and creams after being sapped of its natural state of being by masks, cleansers, and exfoliators before it’s basically like dipping a sponge into soapy water without wringing out the dirty water first.

It’s critical to understand and fascinating to behold how these health concerns manifest by gender. On the feminine side, weight loss and aesthetic appearance has always been on the forefront, with infertility as an accompanying specter especially as the average maternal age has increased (partly due to a clearly commendable decrease in teen pregnancy rates) and medical intervention in childbearing has risen. On the masculine side, focus has been placed on two sides with significant overlap: productivity culture is the provenance of the biohacking side of wellness culture, with optimization as the goal, while hypermasculinity is the source of fads like the raw meat diet and of a general suspicion of scientific developments writ large.

For both sides, the modern limelight is centered on purity, and from here things start to go awry: E. coli is pure and poison ivy is natural and sliced apples are processed — which one keeps the doctor away again?

This article isn’t trying to scare you out of caring about your health. Pretty much everyone in the Western world could do with more exercise, and god knows the Standard American Diet is a disaster. But doing better really isn’t all that complicated: eat mostly plants in reasonable amounts, maintain an active hobby or two, don’t drink too much, and keep your vaccinations up to date. The boring advice your doctor has been giving you all your life will go way further than whatever last came out of the weirdest corners of the Internet; and not stressing about this ever-changing rolodex of advice is probably better for your health anyhow.

Probably both.

Scammers call you pretending to be a beloved grandchild, an authority figure with a warrant, or a concerned bank employee. Now they’re able to spoof numbers and emails, use AI to mimic real people’s voices (or even magick up fake videos of them), and play psychological tricks to get you to inadvertently give up your information - and once you’ve provided it, there are very few safeguards left to stop them doing whatever they want with it.

While some inexperienced internet users may still be susceptible to Nigerian prince messages, scams have evolved as fast as the tech landscape and we should all be aware of the signs. The few obvious phishing attempts the typical person still occasionally receives seem halfhearted, routed immediately to Junk folders with warning banners across the top and easily identified by seeing that they come from jmalxyz005629@mjcr0soft.com — modern attempts are vastly more sophisticated. Even people who would describe themselves as far too discerning to fall for Internet scams are at risk, a point recently driven home by a piece at The Cut describing the author’s gradual fall for an Amazon scam and ending with her handing a shoebox containing $50,000 to a stranger through her driver’s side window.

We’ll go over some of the most common new scams and tell you what to do — but the real answer is, often, do nothing. Doing nothing is the best way to stay safe, but if you must do something, we’ll tell you what things.

In this social engineering scam, a scammer contacts you while impersonating a relative such as a grandchild or nephew. They claim they’re in some sort of emergency (perhaps entwined in legal trouble or trapped in a broken-down vehicle) and urgently need to be transferred a large sum of money.

Older relatives are typically targeted (hence the name) as it is assumed they are less likely to be in frequent contact with more distant relatives, making it harder for them to catch on to the impersonation.

Scammers typically harvest relatives’ details, such as names, ages, workplaces, or locations, from social media profiles. In recent years they have also made use of generative AI vocal tools, allowing relatives’ voices to be impersonated extremely convincingly if online recordings of them speaking are available.

The grandparent transfers money wherever the caller tells them to, only for the money to be lost forever and the caller turning out to be a stranger; the grandchild being impersonated is safe, often at home, completely unaware that their likeness was used to scare their grandparents into paying what essentially amounts to a ransom (and not even a real one).

The scammer claims to have overpaid or incorrectly paid funds to the recipient and asks for an amount to be returned. Since banks often reflect deposits prior to clearing of payment, the victim believes the scammer’s story and agrees to return funds in good faith or out of guilt, often via an instant transfer method like Zelle that generally cannot be reversed.

At some point during the bank’s holding period, the original payment from the scammer will be invalidated (e.g., the cheque will bounce) and the bank will report the correct balance -- no legitimate payments from the scammer, but now the victim has also lost the funds they “returned” to the scammer.

Sometimes this scam occurs in the context of tech support scams (someone remoting into your computer edits the webpage UI on your bank portal to make it look like you have been paid funds), business payment scams (you pay to “upgrade” your account to access funds, or send out an item you are selling only to have their payment reversed), rental scams (you pay a deposit to a “landlord” with a fake listing), or recruiting scams (the “employer” sends you a cheque to purchase equipment for the job and asks you to return overpayment, plus you “buy” equipment from a website they control and the equipment never arrives).

Timeshares themselves are questionable investments; John Oliver explains this in Last Week Tonight more entertainingly than we ever could.

Let’s set up the scenario: you own a timeshare that you do not want, but no one wants to buy it from you because it’s not a great investment and it’s very hard to even utilize the features it promised. You may be contacted by a timeshare resale or timeshare exit company, promising they can offload your “investment” onto a new party -- for a price. Once you pay them, they disappear.

Following that, you may be contacted by “lawyers” who can represent you in a lawsuit against the resale/exit company -- for a price. Once you pay them…

Following that, you may be contacted by a “government agency” going after the fraudsters to request your cooperation in their investigation, or claiming that your initial payments were linked to criminal enterprises and requiring you to send funds to avoid prosecution. Once you -- well, you get it.

This type of scam originated in China as a regional phenomenon, but is now worldwide. The scammer contacts you first: sometimes they meet you via a dating website and quickly suggest switching communication to a platform like Telegram where phone numbers are obscured; other times, you may get an unsolicited “Hello, is this Megan?” style text message, and upon informing the sender that they have the wrong number, they apologize profusely and continue to engage you in conversation that you are too polite to ignore. Notably, social standards seem to indicate that men are more susceptible to the first method and women to the second.

Once you have established a light (and often flirty or friendly) rapport with the scammer, they inform you of the heaps of money they have made via a reliable and too-good-to-be-true investment opportunity, and oh, do you want to try? FOMO takes over; but you are a smart investor, and you start small. The investment is often related to cryptocurrency, given it is pseudonymous and difficult to recover or even trace, since it can cross borders without the know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering policies required of banks.

You invest and get back a sum that exceeds your initial investment, more than any traditional investment vehicle; you keep investing with them, increasing the money in the pot each time, but one day the money never comes back around - your new investment advisor has disappeared, never to be located again. Basically it’s a Ponzi scheme for the modern era: with cryptocurrency.

While each of these scams has its own signature strategy, there are a few common themes we can identify here. Scammers prey on stress and fear: a key component of all these scams is social engineering establishing some sort of urgency, rushing the victim to send over the requested money right now to either avoid dire consequences or obtain great rewards for themselves or loved ones. Scammers also try to identify victims who may be particularly easy to victimize, with elderly adults unfamiliar with technology and immigrants with limited proficiency in English both commonly targeted groups — many seemingly “obvious” scam emails or phone calls are intentionally poorly crafted so that recipients savvy enough to catch on will be filtered out before wasting the perpetrators’ time.

Luckily, the same few rules are also effective in avoiding falling victim to most scams: don’t believe any promises that seem too good to be true, because they certainly are. Verify any calls or messages you receive that ask you to give them personal information or take financial actions; call the relative back, or contact the bank’s phone number on the back of your credit card. Reputable government agencies will never send threatening messages online or by phone; have any of them ever been so unbureaucratic? Just breathe, think about what’s being asked of you, and act calmly.

The outside world is a scary place full of potentially bad actors; you should remain vigilant to protect yourself. Never open emails you don’t recognize. Turn off your cell phone when you go to bed. Hang dreamcatchers in your bedroom to filter out the government-sponsored nightmares. Unplug the computer - right now, like, now.

Maybe just throw your computer out the window and return to 1985. Pay only in cash and gold. Or Bitcoin, of course, if you have a backup to the computer you just unplugged and threw away I suppose. Trust nobody, they’re all out to get you. You can never get scammed if you never talk to anyone, right?

Right‽

Even though we’ve just started, we already feel like broken records saying “social media” — not only is it everywhere, but everyone talks about it everywhere: its drawbacks, its effects on “the youth”, and how it’s changing and launching and killing whole industries. It also feels nebulous to say “social media” as though the intricacies of each particular platform can be summarized in such a broad term. 

What used to be a free tool of distraction and connection enabled by the ever-improving technological capabilities of seemingly-virtuous Silicon Valley companies is now a cesspool of targeted ads, sponsored and suggested content, and AI-generated trash and propaganda. Now it feels like every company wants to leverage social media, if not become it (we’re looking at you, LinkedIn). Maybe we’re just naysayers, but there’s a sense in the world that everyone is just tired, yet unable to close the app. Whether it’s apathy, addiction, or a desire for inclusion and escapism, it doesn’t seem likely that these platforms are going anywhere or changing their diabolical strategies unless some legislative reforms with actual teeth overhaul the whole dichotomy — in other words, unlikely at least in North America.

On the plus side, the rampant and universal proliferation of these apps and websites have democratized fame to an extent no one could have predicted even a decade ago. Anyone is capable of generating their personal fifteen minutes of fame, and even leveraging that into further and more long-term opportunities — very demure and mindful of them. And of course, the original promoted benefit of social media: it’s easier to stay in touch with friends, embodied perfectly by our grandparents finding old classmates on Facebook and culminating in a decades-late meet-up to reminisce about the good ol’ days. As a counterpoint, it’s worth considering if you really, really, care what that one guy from history class in grade nine is up to these days — let’s be honest, you have better things to do.

Unfortunately, we’re writing this article because it’s possible that social media is not a net positive to society — it’s not a purely beneficial enterprise. At this point it’s almost cliché to describe how much these benefits are outweighed by social media’s harms. 

We give up our privacy and our time, more of it than we would need to in real life. We become susceptible to the traps of parasocial relationships with celebrities and influencers to whom we are just metrics to market to, potentially forgoing real friendships (and even the money in our accounts) along the way. 

There’s also the issue of feeling observed — previously, we would feel this way in the locker rooms before gym class, or in front of the class while doing a presentation. But social media has made it so every moment that you are not alone and in a non-public setting is an opportunity (or a threat) for publishable content. How many people end up in the backgrounds of gym selfies, comedic Instagram reels, and Karen-of-the-week videos? 

In addition to a lack of privacy, we feel that we have to be up to date on every meme and moment and trend in order to fit in — who has the time (or money) for such a ridiculous endeavor? We believe that everyone cares what we think, even if our opinion is a copy-paste of someone else’s, which floods the internet repository with people tweeting (x’ing?) about political candidates and reviewing trivial phenomena like this week’s Crumbl cookie flavors. 

The issues with social media and body image (and comparison in general) have been covered in mainstream media ad nauseum, but it’s still worth saying here: while plenty of paper and digital media impacted people’s insecurities about themselves and their opinions of others’ appearances and wealth before social media existed, it was easier to close the magazine, turn off the movie, or otherwise escape from the source of the problem before it was compartmentalized into a pocket rectangle that also housed many other features that we can’t avoid interacting with daily: phones, calendars, grocery lists, GPS, even apps that track insulin and measure the speed and elevation of your run. The idea that you can’t see your high school classmate’s engagement photos without also being attacked by Shein hauls, forty-step skincare routines, and home decor DIYs that look like they belong on Architectural Digest is novel, but it has become normalized — we just accept it as part of the whole package.

A few other trends that belong on the above list: walk-in closet tours that only contain luxury handbags, strategically angled workout videos to show off the assets, and montages of identically-beautiful Santorini trips. A trend that does not belong: “look at this funny thing my dog/cat/kid did,” which will always be appreciated and enjoyed like we used to on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Among the most discussed of these cons is the ease with which social media has enabled radicalization and conspiratorial beliefs. When pretty much every belief — no matter how implausible or factually incorrect — has a dedicated social media community dedicated to promoting it and denouncing skeptics as heretics, attempts at deradicalization or re-establishing shared truths become increasingly futile. Even comparatively apolitical niche communities can foster harmful delusions and groupthink — perhaps most famously, there exists a “pro-anorexia” subculture on platforms such as Twitter and Tumblr essentially dedicated to maintaining participants’ disordered eating behavior. 

The issue is that social media is not a utility, but a product — capitalist goals drive the project forward, and it took us too long to collectively realize there is no such thing as a free lunch. Either we pay, or they harvest data about us and sell the real estate on our webpages to advertisers — increasingly, the latter is occurring even alongside the former. And this system puts us all at risk, but especially kids growing up in a world where they can’t escape technology.

The amount of digital access that children today have is exponentially greater than only a decade or less ago. Since as long as we have had this technology, people have wrung their hands about the negative impact on children, and while their arguments had merit, they were probably somewhat exaggerated. TV and video games are not good for kids in large doses; but the physical limitations of these devices and well as a prior cultural remnant of “go outside and play with the neighborhood kids, be back by dinner” practically and necessarily limited the time children could spend on them. Handheld devices changed all that — an iPad, a Nintendo Switch, or even a parent’s smartphone with Netflix or Disney+ or YouTube Kids queued up undoubtedly made it easier for parents juggling a wriggly kid in a shopping cart at Target, but it also started the dependence and routine of personal device use early in the child’s life. A dopamine rush from a colorful and nonsensical video will almost always win out over a trip to the playground, both for kids and for parents living in an increasingly stressful environment without inexpensive child-care options, family help, or the ability to make a good life on a single income. 

It also seems safer to let kids play on a tablet than play out on suburban streets with cars that are getting so large that they cannot even see a child over the hood, creating a massive blind zone that is already increasing pedestrian accidents in North America; or an urban environment with media-fueled prevalence of random violence and kidnappings; or rural areas where a misstep in a field can lead to a tetanus infection (can you tell we’re not country folk?). But social media and devices in general are not safer, they’re just different. Predators have migrated to every app that kids and teens use, from Facebook and Snapchat to even Roblox and, perhaps most worryingly, the Instagram accounts of young children whose parents want to become influencers-by-proxy. Without the media literacy that millennials acquired through experience (read: trial and error plus a lot of online encounters that were freaky in retrospect), children today are at risk of their naïveté being exploited; stranger danger is a less likely scenario than being groomed online by someone who you mistakenly trust to handle details about your real life as an adolescent. 

Physical safety isn’t the only thread that social media poses to children. Online platforms’ financial desires to increase user “engagement”, typically measured in terms of quantity of posts interacted with, incentivize them to promote content that uses behavioral tricks designed to obtain as many clicks as possible. This typically takes the form of short, attention-grabbing videos presented in an infinitely scrollable user interface, allowing users to easily and mindlessly watch “just one more.” Psychological research is increasingly finding the effects on attention spans to be devastating, and anecdotal reports from teachers about students increasingly incapable of engaging with even simple novels seem to justify the concern — but there’s a reason a flurry of anecdotes is called anecdata. 

We’ve spent most of an article discussing societal harms caused by various negative aspects of social media’s astronomical growth, mainly focusing on issues with certain types of content. But even if we somehow managed to magically wipe the entire Internet of every piece of misinformation and inoculate everyone’s attention span against infinite scroll videos, there’s a deeper harm being done by the sheer amount of content social media platforms force users to contend with. In simpler times, artistic media such as songs, movies, or novels typically became popular through curators — every field had some group of influential figures and publications that up-and-coming artists knew they could, informally or informally, try to appeal to to achieve positive press coverage and eventual commercial success. In the social media age, the function of curators has largely been taken up by algorithms, which are both more opaque (few if any people outside Facebook truly understand how to get a post to go viral) and less stable (Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter was followed by dramatic changes in the service’s recommendation algorithm) than their human predecessors: while upstart artists of the past could at least get a somewhat accurate sense of how to impress trendy galleries or literary magazines, satisfying the algorithm in the same way is significantly harder. This decreases the amount of quality, original art the average person is exposed to, which likely contributes to declining media literacy — and now we’re back at our point about misinformation.

This has been a lot — the writers have exhausted themselves just thinking about all these points. While it’s accurate to say that none of us can change the system, we can at least look out for ourselves and our people. We can take a break from constant content overload, leave the phone in the next room, conveniently forget it in the car while on a date, save the iPad only for road trips with cranky kids, make a nice meal and keep it to ourselves, and just care a little bit less what everyone is up to unless they are sitting right in front of us or have space in our hearts (I felt a little cringe writing that but it’s true). It’s good to remind ourselves that not only is comparison the thief of joy, but our lives are meaningful even if no one else sees them via carefully curated squares and rectangles. 

A recent study indicated that a majority of Gen Z users would quit social media if their friends did first — nothing is stopping us from being the first. Even if we downsize our time commitment instead of quitting entirely, life would look less bland compared to a filtered, oversaturated TikTok video.

We hate to start an article like a teenager beginning their research paper at 11pm the day before the due date, but these statistics are sobering enough to deserve primacy. 

Recent controversies about the academic track records of a series of distinguished researchers at highly illustrious universities have undoubtedly worsened the situation, especially with it all entangled in oppositions to campus-wide responses to the Israel-Palestine conflict and subsequent student protests. In an attempt to not overextend our expertise and maintain some semblance of readership, we’ll avoid stepping too far into that minefield — but suffice to say, it’s barely the tip of the iceberg of questionable behavior in academia. Trust in science has been declining for years before the current news cycle, with Pew Research surveys consistently reporting declines in respondents’ evaluation of science’s impact on society since at least 2016. 

But why? Why is public trust in the most venerated experts in their fields so low in a high income, highly educated country known for producing a large plurality of the research that guides humanity forward?

Because they are fallible — this alone is not surprising, as they are only human, and until the AI monster comes for their jobs (and probably even beyond), they will continue to be. But the system of checks and balances we have in academia is failing; and combined with social forces that go against the very essence of the scientific process, the house of cards is beginning to topple, hard. 

Following allegations published in the university’s own student newspaper by an undergraduate student, former Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne was investigated and subsequently cleared of academic misconduct; still, he resigned in 2023, facing the investigation’s conclusion that his lab produced data that failed standards of scientific rigor — in other words, it was not intentional malfeasance, but negligence. Former Harvard president Claudine Gay resigned in early 2024 following accusations (by conservative commentators, it deserves to be noted, considering Gay’s status as a prominent researcher on the intersection of gender, race, and public policy as well as a strong driver of the DEI movement) of plagiarism — the opinion of the writers is that these accusations, which having light merit in the form of insufficient citation and duplicative prose, has more political motives than just the preservation of academic integrity. 

A more serious situation arises in the recent case of Francesca Gino, a prominent behavioral science researcher at Harvard who, last year, was found in a 1300-page investigative report conducted by the university to have “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly” falsified data in her research (on honesty — the irony is lost on no one), She was then placed on unpaid administrative leave by the university and responded by filing a lawsuit against Harvard as well as Data Colada, a blog run by a team of three academics who investigate faculty research and originally uncovered her allegedly faulty research; the suit is ongoing. She was also recently accused of plagiarism in multiple works; jury’s still out on that one, but suffice to say, it doesn’t look good. Another Harvard celebrity, neuroscientist Khalid Shah, is accused of data falsification and image plagiarism/manipulation across a score of papers by Elisabeth M. Bik, a data manipulation expert who has been instrumental in outing many high-profile researchers for purported falsification and fraud in recent years. 

While surely the prestige of these universities has played a role in how high-profile these cases have been, it’s difficult to ignore that even the highest caliber academic institutions are not immune to falsification and integrity issues — much in the same way we all wondered about these schools after Operation Varsity Blues. We would not be remiss to wonder if the ultra-competitive nature of academia, especially at Ivy League levels, may even be part of the problem: if it’s publish or perish, and if no one is going to pay attention to important research that confirms our current understanding or does not provide groundbreaking new ideas, it’s easy to see why researchers fudge the numbers to meet their quotas and establish their reputations. Their research probably won’t be verified (until now, with the advent of more sophisticated tools and the efforts of independent fact-checkers) because replication is decidedly unsexy, and they might not make tenure unless and until they publish something revolutionary. 

It also creates an avoidable structural and cultural problem when we so unequally venerate institutions like Stanford and Harvard — not only does it incentivize people to do anything they can to “make it” to this level, but it pushes the message that only “the best and brightest” are capable of producing important, high-quality research when this is completely false and utterly ridiculous. Researchers at all kinds of universities can discover something worthwhile, and results are a function of luck as much as they are about asking the right questions — if we only reward the innovative, we risk only bothering to find an answer to small minority of possible research questions.

It would be hard to discuss this topic while completely avoiding its political aspects. One of the more peculiar results of the ongoing polarization of American society into firmly conservative and progressive camps has been an increasingly firm association between higher education and the progressive side, particularly among conservatives: those Pew Research studies we mentioned earlier consistently show that the decline in trust in science is starkest among self-described conservatives, and Republican lawmakers in several states have made large productions out of “eradicating liberal bias on campuses.” There’s no doubt that some proportion of misconduct accusations made against high-profile academic figures are politically motivated — as alluded to earlier, this article was in part inspired by Claudine Gay’s recent predicament at Harvard — but we don’t think this should detract from instances of misconduct if the allegations later turn out to be substantiated. The potential consequences of shoddy research are simply too high to be offended by conservatives gleefully dunking on the “liberal intelligentsia.” The prototypical example may be disgraced former physician Andrew Wakefield’s since-retracted 1998 Lancet article claiming a link between MMR vaccines and autism — although the research was entirely discredited shortly after publication, the myth remains persistent, with vaccination rates in some regions still below the levels they were at prior to the publication of the paper. 

Once bad science is out in the world, correcting the misconceptions it generates can be a lot more difficult than simply “taking it back”. With the way mainstream media reports on scientific research, even relatively mild discoveries can be blown out of proportion to create an attractive headline, and many people either don’t read the full article or only retain a distorted snapshot of the facts; with research that is fully misleading, the consequences can be much worse. Between word of mouth and news of retractions not spreading nearly as far as the original headline, people can hold on to incorrect information for a lifetime. And when the institution of science is part of the problem, people can hold fiercely to beliefs that have since been discredited — it’s human nature to be reluctant to admit wrongness, even if it wasn’t your fault. 

Too many of our current solvable problems in the world stem from this sort of bad science, not to mention the real harm it can cause in fields like medicine. Academia needs an overhaul, or trust in the scientific process may fade for good. 

Founded and overseen by the nonprofit U.S.-based Green Building Council, LEED (an acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) maintains a collection of standards for performance on various green building metrics such as energy efficiency, renewable electricity use, and waste diversion. By providing verifiable estimates of these metrics and providing verifiable proof of achieving the relevant standards, a building can attain LEED certification, demonstrating a commitment to sustainability to potential tenants and in many jurisdictions becoming eligible for monetary incentives for their development projects.

LEED has received praise from within the design and construction industry, and some jurisdictions even require all new construction to attain certain green standards that may align with LEED metrics. However, the program has faced criticism and allegations of greenwashing. A recurring critique is the fact that certification is mostly based on modeling rather than actual performance: certification is achieved by providing predictions of the metrics a building will achieve, and there has historically been no requirement to subsequently report actual performance to maintain approval. While these predictions must be made using rigorous estimation techniques, they are still imperfect, and provide no guarantee that the promised benefits will actually materialize. LEED has been receptive to this criticism, and more recent codes officially establish a requirement for performance reports, but actual consequences in cases where buildings failed to measure up have been lacking — to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no building has ever had a certification revoked for failing to achieve a promised standard. LEED’s application to a building in isolation has also been described as myopic: in 2007, the US EPA itself sold off a longstanding building in downtown Kansas City and relocated to a LEED-certified building 20 miles away, in the suburb of Lenexa. While the new building itself performed far more sustainably than the old headquarters, the move forced most of the 627 employees newly relocated there into significantly longer commutes. With little public transit access out to the suburb, the newly extended car commutes almost certainly offset some of the environmental advantages of the new headquarters. On this issue as well, LEED has shown some signs of action, with the award of certifications now taking into account the expected impacts on indirect emissions from sources such as employee commutes. Nevertheless, these factors still receive significantly less weight in assessment than emissions directly attributable to a building, and LEED has no way to take into account future tenancy changes that may increase commuting distance for employees of a different enterprise.

Aside from occasional criticism from contrarian-minded authors, most of the journalistic work in this space that is not solely for the consumption of industry professionals is meant to be flashy and eye-catching for the layperson, full of eccentric techno-modernist facades as well as accolades and certifications of esoteric jargon. It’s tempting to sum up the environmental superiority of a building with a phrase like “LEED Platinum” that the majority of readers will just take at face-value to be an impressive feat, but we believe such shortcuts underestimate people who have enough interest in the topic to be reading about it in the first place. Sure, it’s an easy ad-revenue-generator to intersperse a lazy listicle with photos of majestic curvilinear museums and luscious roof gardens in the richest parts of giant urban centers — but if we want real change, we have to resist the urge to be hyperbolic and spend real mental energy on what is real and what is practical. 

So what is practical? How can we avoid the pitfalls of certifications like LEED and actually build sites that are sustainable and practical for the people who live or work there?

Well first of all, the easiest solution is to just not build at all — it’s obvious that building nothing is better for the planet than building something that falls under the category of “green.” Even structures that have net-zero energy use have to be made out of raw materials, and overwhelmingly the harvesting of these raw materials is not great for the earth. Forests are shrinking, and cutting down, processing, and transporting wood requires energy; the same principles apply to stone, brick, aluminum, concrete, steel, ceramic, glass, drywall, insulation, paint, piping (whether made of alloy or plastic), and anything else that is required in construction and beautification. Utilizing existing structures or being conscious of adding more square footage in places where space is limited and natural resources must be imported is critical to creating a sustainable future; let’s not pretend that bulldozing an old building to build a whole new one (often one that is unaffordable for most of the people who occupy the neighborhood) is sustainable just because you offset the energy consumption with a rooftop garden that nobody even uses — though this consideration must be made by taking into account urban versus suburban builds that change reliance on cars and prevent or reduce sprawl. On this topic as well, LEED is making improvements: LEED for Operations and Maintenance (O+M) allows existing buildings and indoor spaces to certify their sustainability progress.

Another critical piece is to pay less heed to aesthetic — the amount of resistance that projects like wind and solar farms, large-scale public transportation, and multi-story housing units face from NIMBYs (NIMBY stands for “not in my backyard,” and its use in modern vernacular parallels the usage of “Karen” or “dependa”) frequently slows down or halts development completely. The push for neighborhoods to remain the way they have always been (or the way they were when the NIMBYs bought their homes) is detrimental to sustainable development as a whole and its impact will never be overshadowed by even the most exciting of environmental certifications. Frequently, this is an attitude of older homeowners who feel that their property values must be preserved above all else; but if we no longer believe that the value of living somewhere should be a function of its “desirability” but rather of its amenities, diversity, and long-term future as a community, then this concern will be null. 

Third: we must stop taking certifications like LEED at face value and then neglecting to substantially follow up on the performance of buildings that have been termed “sustainable.” The idea that a building that houses actual humans will perform exactly as predicted at the time of its construction is laughable; if humans behave differently than expected (either because the expected behavior is unintuitive or because they are unaware of the efficient behaviors), we can improve the building’s performance by continuing to track sustainability metrics in the years after the fancy headlines have faded into obscurity. That is, if we actually care about the environmental impact and not simply the publicity and profitability that come with certification. As an example: while occupancy-based cooling and heating systems seem like a good idea, the amount of time it takes a whole office building to heat up or cool down is not negligible; it detracts from the comfort of early-comers to the office and passes up the efficiency of changing temperatures at non-peak hours. While a building is slowly arriving at a more reasonable temperature, people may utilize inefficient devices like fans and space heaters or even open windows in the summer, which reduces the impact of measures that were originally undertaken to be more sustainable.

Let’s discuss some sustainable “trends” that are less exciting but more effective than what we’ve detailed above.

Firstly, there is a new wave of building alongside nature rather than the extremer alternatives of either building in opposition to nature or cordoning off natural spaces. For example, wildlife crossings have become a popular way of connecting natural spaces that have been impeded by construction; through the use of tunnels or bridges that cross over highways and major roads, humans have been combating habitat fragmentations that force animals into smaller and smaller spaces. Allowing animals to safely cross into other spaces also reduces vehicular collisions that may injure both passengers and animals, in addition to causing property damage (especially with regard to large predators and ungulates, which cannot be easily written off as “just roadkill”). Similar structures include fish ladders that follow migration routes, canopy bridges that connect trees on opposite sides of roadways, and living roofs that cater to birds and butterflies. Bird-safe architecture is also a growing movement: double-paned glass was meant to insulate better and conserve energy, but it had the additional effect of being so reflective that birds could not tell that there was an obstacle in their flight path. Now many designers are rethinking clear glass facades on large urban skyscrapers in favor of irregular shapes, opaque exteriors, and fritted glass (which has a visible ceramic pattern on it and actually keeps buildings cooler) or UV-printed patterned glass (which maintains the transparency of glass to humans but is detectable by birds) that reduce collisions and fatalities. 

These nature-oriented changes are not limited to fauna; solar panels, wind farms, and hydro-dams use the existing flow of sunshine, wind, and water to create energy. And not only is energy creation optimized by working alongside nature, but biomimicry in design reduces energy use: in Japan, the noses of bullet trains were redesigned to copy the beaks of kingfishers, which are able to dive into the water to catch fish while barely making a splash. For examples in architecture, see: The Gherkin, a lattice-inspired British skyscraper with a shape that mimics the Venus Flower Basket Sponge to facilitate natural ventilation; and the Zimbabwean Eastgate Centre, an office and shopping complex that is constructed to utilize the natural cooling systems of a termite mound, with air entering at the lower levels and exiting above; among many other structures around the world. 

Then there are the actions individual people and households can take, if they are self-aware enough to not use “no ethical consumption under capitalism” and “corporations are responsible for the majority of issues that exacerbate climate change” to shirk all responsibility for creating a less wasteful and unsustainable society. We can reduce (ideal), reuse (underrated), and recycle (not really as helpful as advertising has made it out to be, considering for example that only two of the seven types of plastic are easily recyclable). We can adhere to local and state guidelines about water use; utilize sweaters instead of central heating and fans instead of central cooling; buy smaller cars that are hybrid or electric, or even e-bikes; stop buying cheap plastic crap on the internet. The bragging rights for these small actions may not be as impressive as a fancy plaque you glance at every morning on your way to the elevator, but it will probably be more meaningful. In terms of our buildings, the homes we live in are where we can have the most impact; undertaking fewer renovations that are solely for beautification is definitely good for the planet’s reserves of natural resources. Where we may have less power is size; single family homes are getting bigger, especially in parts of the world that are not yet saturated with residences. Bigger homes means less efficient use of space, more time and materials spent cleaning, more energy spent heating and cooling, and a whole host of other consequences. In addition, fewer older people are downsizing their residences as they become empty-nesters, which leaves many rooms of many houses empty (in addition to making homes less affordable and accessible to the next generation). Few other parts of the world culturally dictate that humans need this much space: it’s not just a Western concept, but solely an American one. 

For the love of god, let’s give up the McMansions. 

Green certifications and sustainable building practices are a step in the right direction, but they only treat the symptoms; the cause is cultural, and a cure is not as easy to implement (even if we could come up with one). If we ditch the complacency and take steps ourselves, at least we can say we tried to give the world a little while longer before it all goes to hell in a handcart. 

Extravagant weddings are nothing new, and stories of lavish ceremonies for the rich and wealthy likely date back as far as the institution of marriage itself. But in the age of Instagram and easy credit card signups, marketers have had great success convincing the 99% that they too should spare no expense on their special day, financial responsibility be damned. And from a certain point of view, it’s hard to blame people. Ostensibly, nobody wants to get married more than once, so this is their one and only chance to splurge on things that no ordinary person will ever buy again — fancy letterpress invitations, an abundance of flowers, centerpieces that look oh-so-adorable on Pinterest, catering to match the dietary requirements and preferences of everyone they know, and all the accoutrements they deem necessary to never forget that they are the specialist people ever on that day. And these couples have been swamped in a popular culture that tells them (almost from birth) that skimping out on a wedding day means you aren’t taking your relationship seriously: look no further than the perennial success of Say Yes to the Dress and its endless spinoffs.

Social media glamor aside, does spending more on the big day actually lead to a better marriage? Perhaps unsurprisingly to regular Pacific Dispatch readers, most evidence points to the contrary. While peer-reviewed research on the subject is somewhat hard to come by (it seems economics departments have better things to study what you should spend on your guests’ open bar), a handful of studies do exist. None find that couples who reported more expensive weddings tended to stay married longer or report higher satisfaction in their relationship. One even finds a significant negative correlation between spending and relationship metrics. Perhaps high spending can be a way to mask insecurity about the strength of the marriage? Alternatively, many see weddings as a goalpost to check off the life to-do list and may go into it with the wrong partner because the idea of having a wedding sounds like fun.

Marriage is the most significant commitment that most people will make in their lives, and if things do go south to the point one or both parties want out, it’s no longer as simple as breaking up. Legal costs of divorce and estate battles can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars, not to mention the increased cost of living alone after the fact. It’s little wonder that couples insecure about their future post marriage might try to assuage their worries with lavish spending on weddings and rings. A quick look at some statistics about divorce, however, put this strategy into serious doubt: between 40 and 50 percent of marriages in the U.S. are estimated to end in divorce, and financial problems were ranked within the top five in a NIH 2013 study of the causes of divorce, alongside issues such as substance abuse and infidelity. The statistics make overspending before a marriage has even begun seem like a recipe for disaster. We’re confident in saying that you shouldn’t feel bad if you don’t feel like burning tens of thousands of dollars on your wedding day.

Given the somewhat morose picture that this article has already painted of the expenses, stress, and consequences of marriage, some readers may be wondering why they should be getting married in the first place. It’s a fair question, and we should acknowledge off the bat that a significant driver of marriage has historically been social pressure. A classic anthropological textbook attempts to provide a cross-cultural definition of marriage as a union which allows the children of those within it to be acknowledged as legitimate in society. More broadly, married couples tend to have their relationship taken more seriously than those who are “only” dating or common-law: legal rights such as inheritance and hospital visitation, as well as spousal support after a separation, are often denied to or limited for unmarried couples. 

This difference in rights was and continues to be a significant driver in the fight for same-sex marriage — in countries where the practice is not legal, same-sex couples are denied not only social recognition of the validity of their relationships, but also crucial material rights. Even the vocabulary used around relationships reinforces this hierarchy of seriousness: a divorce signifies a much more onerous and final process than a simple breakup. Similarly, we have the words widow and widower for those whose spouse has passed away, but there is no similar term if the deceased was a boyfriend, girlfriend, or life partner. And of course, not every reason to get married is purely practical or externally imposed: at the end of the day, marriage is a way to symbolize commitment to and care for the person you love. There’s nothing wrong with having your dream wedding. Just make sure it’s actually what you want, not what marketers and social media have convinced you you need.

If we’re going to talk about extravagance and excess in weddings, we should also talk about the phenomenon of the engagement ring. Before the iconic De Beers slogan, “A Diamond is Forever”, named “The Slogan of the Century”, the stone had been diminishing in popularity due to the Great Depression. That’s not considering De Beers’ monopoly and strategic manipulation of diamond supplies to make them seem rare, but that’s a whole nother article. By likening the strength and resilience of a diamond (which can cut through metal, stone, glass, concrete, and tooth enamel) to the longevity of a relationship, copywriter Frances Gerety changed the public perception of both diamonds and engagement rings in general; from this cultural shift also came the common belief that an engagement ring should cost as much as three months of the proposer’s income. 

While the discourse around unethically sourced gemstones (e.g. “blood diamonds”) and the rise of lab-grown diamonds and diamond substitutes like moissanite has diminished the near-complete dominance of the diamond, words like cut, color, clarity, and carat are only used by the average person when wedding bells are on the horizon. And as a side-note, many people who buy expensive rings don’t insure them; of people with five to ten thousand dollar rings, about a third did not have jewelry-specific insurance coverage in 2020 (while renters’ and homeowners’ insurance can pay out for jewelry, there is typically a cap on how much they pay out unless an exception is negotiated ahead of time; and the very act of making a claim can raise your future rates the same way car accidents can make auto insurance more expensive).

Furthermore, drama around engagement and wedding rings deserves at least a brief mention: for example, who gets to keep an engagement ring if the engagement ends? In some states, the ring is considered a gift and belongs to the giftee; in others, it’s a conditional gift that must be returned if the condition is not met, i.e. if the marriage does not occur. Still others ask who was responsible for the relationship ending when deciding the fate of the expensive rock (though that could get into some murky territory). And what if the ring was a family heirloom? If there are multiple siblings who each want the heirloom ring, who gets it? Primogeniture has so few relics of its glory remaining in modern society but it does seem like a shaky premise upon which to base the bestowing of a treasured item. If the proposer whose family the heirloom ring comes from passes away, is the fiancé/e or spouse morally obligated to return it?

Speaking of families: they’re a huge part of the picture when it comes to weddings. This seems obvious when looking back at a time where marriage was either a representation of alliances or a tool to improve one’s socioeconomic status; but in modern times it can come as a shock just how many distant relations are suddenly part of the obligatory guest list. Reciprocity and exhibitionism (for lack of a better word) are the reasons why Cousin Freddie who saw you once when you were five absolutely must be invited; and if you have to disinvite your dear college friend who held your hair back as you threw up after a frat party, then so be it. In many cultures, marriage is still a tool of alliance, even as the default setting: for example, in India, “marriage” implies “arranged” and you have to specify a “love marriage.” Take a look at the Netflix show Indian Matchmaking (with a huge grain of salt, since it is a reality show after all) to understand a bit of the societal perspective. In most modern examples, an arranged marriage is not forced, but is sort of like having your partner put through the “meet the parents” test before they ever meet you.

Single men in your area, pre-approved by your parents! How romantic.

But there is a reason it persists. While many conservatives spout off about gay marriage ruining some sort of imagined “sanctity,” let’s be clear that there was never any real sanctity or romance to the endeavor throughout history. When matrimony was not a tool for alliance and social climbing among the elite with the byproduct of the suppression of the rights of women (see: dowry, coverture, bride kidnapping, and the permissibility of marital violence), it was frequently a topic of conversation with regard to interfaith, intercaste, interethnic, and interracial unions. There is evidence in history for the criminalization of premarital and extramarital sexual relations and the prevalance of child marriage, polygamy (usually polygyny), cousin marriage (even today, an estimated ten percent of marriages occur between first or second cousins), and even sibling marriage in rare cases. Marriage between blood relatives was not uncommon among royalty as a way to preserve bloodlines, often with disastrous genetic consequences (ever heard of the Habsburg jaw?). 

One last fascinating point that we can’t find anywhere to smoothly slot in: primae noctis was a supposedly-legal-but-possibly-made-up right of medieval lords to basically call dibs on the first night with a woman after her wedding — you know, to get to know her (...biblically). 

Without getting too much into the weeds of history, love marriage as the default is a relatively newish concept, and marriage itself is newish in the context of human history. It’s not surprising, then, that as one of the few social rituals that is still regarded as important and impactful (combined with the commercialization of love), marriages and by extension weddings become an opportunity to spend a shit-ton of money to achieve customized perfection.

Enter the bridezilla: a behemoth manifestation of cultural expectations, social and financial stress, and unrealistic expectations of champagne tastes on a beer budget. The archetype of the bride who becomes an unpleasant, ungrateful, demanding, and even objectively awful person in the lead-up to “the most important day of their life” is not without evidence (though of course the majority of brides do not behave in this manner and even in the throes of angst and worry are able to recognize their humanity and treat others with respect). Lots of money is at stake, lots of expectations from their social circle hang in the balance, and society places a lot of importance on this event for women in particular: cracking under pressure is understandable. One of the few meager upsides of the pandemic is that many couples realized they didn’t really care for an insanely expensive glorified party and didn’t need it to recognize and celebrate their relationship; ideally this trend will continue. 

But in some cases, of course, the bridezilla designation is justified: child-free weddings have become increasingly common in recent years, and are a great way to enjoy the party without worrying about kids (for both the couple and the guests) — but an RSVP no by someone who can’t or won’t leave their children home with a babysitter or alternate caregiver is a reasonable response and should be accepted with grace. The same applies to people who cannot afford to go to (or justify using vacation days for) a destination wedding. But many couples become enraged at the idea that no one but themselves and perhaps their families think of them as the most important people of the day(s). Even without those limitations, costs for guests can include travel, childcare, dinner, outfits, and a registry gift (which can be outrageously expensive). A member of the bridal party may also be expected to shell out for bridesmaids dresses/groomsmen tuxedos or suits, hairdos, makeup, jewelry, matching shoes, bridal showers, bachelor/ette parties, and contributions to all of these costs for the bride or groom as well — not to mention that the choice of a particular theme may mean that they will never be able to rewear the outfit for another occasion. 

Who pays for the wedding is another element that varies across cultures; but in modern Western society, it can range from being funded by the couple, funded by their parents, funded by donations by the guests (hopefully instead of a registry rather than supplementing a registry), or anywhere in between; the honeymoon falls into much the same category. When couples want more than they or their benefactors can realistically afford, or choose to spend on one day rather than save for more monumental purchases, things can get ugly. Add on the “wedding tax,” an extra charge by vendors for all events related to weddings for the drama and stress that usually comes with them, and suddenly the “buy the happy couple a drink!” Venmo stickers we see on the backs of cars don’t seem quite so outrageous — though they’re still tacky.

This manifesto has been our long-winded way of decrying the social expectations and subsequent financial decisions around weddings. Have the party you want or no party at all if that’s what you fancy — but expect things to go off plan, don’t freak out, and don’t fill a time of joy and anticipation with stress and debt. After all: it’s only one day (or maybe seven). 

The first versions of rewards programs in North America were stamp and boxtop redemption coupons in the late nineteenth century (does anyone remember cutting out cardboard ten-cent Box Top coupons to take to school?); the first modern variation is airline frequent flyer programs, which began in the ’80s. The programs are particularly appealing to vendors in markets with little differentiation between brands - you probably don’t care all that much if you fly with Air Canada or WestJet (just not Flair, please not Flair…), so points programs that reward customers monetarily for sticking with one brand are an important way to build customer loyalty. For our American audience, think American Airlines versus United (just not Spirit…) — either way, you’re going to have a profoundly uncomfortable journey and mild back pain no matter the airline. But if you can take a free trip to Hawaii after meticulously taking only Delta flights for the past five years, that’s gotta be worth something, right?

The combination of 70’s-era airline deregulation and the boom of self-book travel websites (which made travel agents obsolete) caused a boom in travel because it was so cheap. To compete when prices fell, airlines introduced loyalty programs, starting with AAdvantage from American Airlines and followed summarily by the other airlines; by giving away a few free seats here and there which otherwise would have remained empty anyway, the airlines made their “lost revenue” back hand over fist in repeat business from loyal customers. Over time, these points have become more valuable sources of consistent income than the flights themselves, and today, most companies award “miles” based on how much money you spend rather than miles actually traveled. In the early 2010s, one airline after another “modernized” their rewards programs, devaluing miles by typically either increasing the amount required to redeem a flight or excluding certain types of flight from being purchased with miles. Recently, Delta was met by such furious backlash for again devaluing points to the extent that they walked back some of the changes; but many once-loyal customers had already switched over to JetBlue and Alaska, which offered status-matching programs in the wake of the chaos. 

The essential issue with the old system was that points were accrued as literal miles traveled; when thrifty travelers began to game the system to get more points (including having other people buy tickets under their name, in the bygone era before the TSA), airlines realized that they would have to start giving away seats that would otherwise have been sold for cash. The Economist estimated in 2005 that the value of unspent miles was higher than the value of all the one-dollar bills in circulation. 

In search of a way to offload burdensome points without having to lose money on flights or anger customers, the airlines started selling the points to banks — and thus an enduring alliance was born. 

Credit card rewards programs, including those associated with airlines, are ubiquitous and have some of the greatest uptake of all brand loyalty programs on the market. Although the details vary between cards and can be extremely convoluted, the general principle is that cardholders receive a small percentage of the cost every purchase they make as reward points or cash-back credits. These can then be applied to pay off a portion of the cardholder’s balance, or redeemed in exchange for various other rewards. The appeal to the customer is obvious, and the benefit to the issuing bank is twofold: generous loyalty programs are effective in encouraging signups, and also act as a psychological trick, subconsciously inciting cardholders to spend more because “at least I’ll get cash back.” 

This may seem to be a win-win for any cardholders with enough self-control not to fall into the obvious trap, but rewards programs have become the source of some controversy among economic journalists: some argue that because wealthier customers overwhelmingly use credit cards and lower-income customers are more likely to be underbanked and use cash, debit cards, and credit cards with less enticing perks, the latter are subsidizing the former in a sort of regressive wealth transfer. This is because credit cards charge fees to merchants as a small percentage of the overall transaction cost, which is how they fund rewards; these fees are passed on to customers in the form of higher prices, which affect all customers, not just those who will go on to obtain those rewards by redeeming points (some credit cards, like American Express, charge higher fees, which is why you may have seen merchants who do not take AmEx cards at checkout). But there are many counterarguments to this point: low- and high-income earners buy different types of goods (Aldi’s versus Whole Foods, Nordstrom Rack versus Bergdorf Goodman); wealthier customers spend more overall, offsetting their rewards earning; low-income customers do benefit from rewards cards as being approved for one is a matter of credit score (except in the case of annual fees); and in fact, low-income customers are more likely to pay attention to and take advantage of rewards, since their disposable income is lower and any rewards earned are more valuable. The Chase Sapphire Reserve card, one of the most successful and coveted rewards cards on the market, lost JP Morgan Chase two-hundred million dollars in 2019, bringing their Q4 profits down forty percent; it would take years for them to break even on the card (much less become profitable, which might entail less valuable rewards), showing that rewards are in fact a transfer from banks to customers (at least until their policies and offerings change). 

Now, let’s talk about some examples of rewards programs that are either unconventional or particularly memorable in the public sphere. The case Leonard v. Pepsico, Inc. at the turn of the century concerned Pepsi’s refusal to honor a tongue-in-cheek advertisement in which seven million Pepsi points (obtainable through purchases of Pepsi or at a cost of ten cents per point) could be redeemed for an AV-8 Harrier II jet. The rewards program was meant to encourage sales and award customers with typical merchandise like branded clothing, baseball hats, and duffel bags; but John Leonard, a 21-year old business students, convinced five investors to pool $700,000 (and a few extra dollars for postage) to purchase the points for cash in order to redeem the jet; after a lawsuit, a countersuit, a Pentagon declaration that the jet could not be sold as it had not been demilitarized, and an adjusted Pepsi commercial with a higher redemption threshold for the jet (and a “Just Kidding” to really drive home the point), a judge in the Southern District of New York ruled in favor of Pepsi, chiefly on the basis that a legally valid offer was not made, a contract was not formed, and the ad constituted puffery. Alas, John Leonard would not get his jet — in any case, Pepsi never cashed his $700,000 check. 

Pepsi had another run in with rewards fiascos in the Philippines, where a promotional contest went wrong: in 1992, the company announced that Pepsi bottle caps would have numbers printed on them for a limited time. The caps could be exchanged for cash prizes, the amount depending on the number - the majority of caps were worth roughly US$4, with rarer numbers worth larger amounts. The grand prize, worth roughly US$40,000, was associated with the number 349, intended to be printed on two bottle caps. Unfortunately, a miscommunication at a bottling plant resulted in 800,000 more bottle caps being printed with that number. Riots ensued when Pepsi refused to pay out the grand prize for these caps (the company claimed they were missing a required security code), eventually resulting in at least five deaths. 

The modern day has seen a rise in rewards programs that fall outside the realm of traditional points-per-dollar-spent. Some examples are things like Panera Bread’s Unlimited Sip (which is basically a coffee subscription service) and Taco Bell’s recent “Taco-a-Day” promotion in which customers could pay ten dollars to get one taco “free” per day for the entire month of October. This writer admits to taking part in the latter promo, and redeemed eight tacos in one month. Then there’s Starbucks: its app is the most popular of all fast food apps, in part because you can store money on your Starbucks card and earn double the rewards on your order by using it to buy. In 2019, over forty percent of customers used funds from the app to buy their drinks, and users held a collective balance of $1.5B in the app — that’s more money than over eighty percent of banks in the United States. Not only that, but 1) Starbucks can use this “loaned” money however it wishes, earning interest through investments and not having to pass any on to customers, 2) it doesn’t have liquidity requirements like a bank, and doesn’t have to hold cash on hand for customers to make “withdrawals”, and 3) given the ubiquity of Starbucks gift cards as a less tacky version of a cash gift, around ten percent of funds purchased are forgotten and never used (this is known as “breakage”), essentially giving the company free money. 

Then there are hotel rewards, which have also been around for a long time — travelers can chose to stay at one of the five major global hotel chains (Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Wyndham, or IHG) to maximize their rewards and earn complimentary perks and upgrades when there’s availability; this type of reward capitalizes on the same idea that airlines once did, giving valued customers an upgrade when a nicer room is available and empty just to make them feel good, at little extra cost to the company. These programs have also become less enticing in recent years, especially since the brand offering the points does not usually own the hotel itself; the owners of hotels are essentially franchisees of the brand, and they hate cutting into their bottom line by actually allowing travelers to redeem their points on free breakfast, upgrades, and the like. Combine that with more flexible and valuable rewards offered by credit card companies and the huge commissions taken by third-party booking sites (which is why hotels are so unfriendly and unyielding to people who book with Expedia, Kayak, Travelocity, etc.), and hotel currency is worth a fraction of what it once was. Interestingly, AirBnB has no rewards program; it has been suggested that since business travelers are unlikely to book an AirBnB over a hotel, there isn’t much of a market for repeat business by frequent fliers. 

The writers had a spirited debate on whether Costco memberships and Amazon Prime subscriptions could be considered rewards programs; for those to believe so, the rewards are access to bulk goods and good prices for the former and availability of fast, free shipping for the latter (though, there’s really no such thing as free shipping; see our very first Pacific Dispatch publication for more on this). For those who do not, they are essentially just access fees, like you would pay for cable or Netflix or Spotify. We also discussed Apple, and agreed that it’s proprietary features and incompatibility with other systems, software, apps, and devices could possibly be referred to as a hostile rewards program: in exchange for eschewing access to tons of free, developing, and globally-compatible programs to use only their offerings, you get a streamlined experience free of any critical thinking or thoughtful consideration of options; perhaps they set out to defeat the paradox of choice.

In any case, the landscape of rewards is changing: customers want more flexibility and less hassle, and with easy access to information, companies will have to get creative with their generous offerings to entice people to participate in any sort of brand loyalty. The founder of Eater and Resy recently launched Blackbird, a loyalty app for independent restaurants that allows them to connect with customers on a level similar to chain restaurants but with personalized perks and invitations in the manner of a maître d’. The growing Bay Area chain Sports Basement allows customers to pay a small one-time fee to sign up for their rewards program, which gives them a discount on every purchase, including sale items and excluding rentals and shop labor; the small fee discourages one-time shoppers looking for a discount from clogging up the list of “members” and the good deal encourages dedicated shoppers to return, as does knowing that ten percent of profits are donated to local charities. Successful brands will think outside the box when designing programs for the modern consumer; and we hope consumers know that loyalty shouldn’t be a one-way street.

The body-positive attitude to obesity always rang somewhat hollow. While it became impolite in more progressive circles to openly signal admiration for thinness or a desire to lose weight, the eternal fascination with the latest and greatest innovations in “wellness” — Crossfit, hot yoga, pilates studios, and trendy spin classes — in those same progressive circles made it hard to believe that their inhabitants had actually given up their desire to become or stay thin. 

The tug-of-war between fat acceptance and liberal “wellness” is in full swing today, but a new entrant into the space has changed the paradigm in a heretofore unseen way: drugs formulated to treat diabetes that happen to have a huge positive effect on weight loss. Suddenly, a decades-old promise associated with shady supplements and dangerous pills — weight loss without diet, exercise, or lifestyle changes — seems to some to have been brought into reality by modern science. 

Three drugs — Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro — as well as other similar drugs becoming household names have upended the weight loss industry as we know it. Originally formulated to treat type 2 diabetes, the first two of these drugs, both developed by Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, slow the passing of food out of the stomach and into the intestines. This makes you feel full longer, which reduces your appetite, thus leading to lower calorie intake and subsequent weight loss. The mechanism is fairly simple, but it comes with side effects and complications that have had a terrible impact on the lives of some users of the drugs. Mounjaro, formulated by American company Eli Lilly and awaiting FDA approval to treat weight loss, has an additional mechanism that has the same effect at a higher intensity and could therefore have the same detrimental effect on the unlucky patient. While these drugs have been a godsend for many, the social, medical, and financial implications of their effectiveness and rocketing popularity throughout the world and especially in the West shouldn’t be ignored. 

Let’s start with the social effects: for one thing, many celebrities openly admit to using the drug to lose weight, which, while it may perpetuate problematic beliefs about the moral value of thinness, is at least a step in the right direction. Celebrities being honest about the steps they take to pursue modern ideals of beauty, which the average person does not have the financial means to go through with, will hopefully encourage people to correctly see them as extravagant luxuries rather than goals attainable for the average person (to be clear: we are not saying weight loss is unachievable for the average person, but that a face and figure like a Barbie doll or GQ model take time, effort, and money to maintain and these are in short supply for most). From svelte figures to small noses, expensive procedures and regimens like cosmetic surgery, personal trainers, and now off-label prescriptions for weight-loss drugs are largely responsible for the perceived beauty gap between the celebrity and the average layperson. Without insurance, a one-month supply of Ozempic, Wegovy, or Mounjaro costs about $900. Considering that these drugs must generally be taken indefinitely for weight loss to be maintained, a drug-assisted weight loss regime can easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars over a person’s lifetime. 

Although private insurance can help bring these costs down, not all plans are willing to cover use for weight loss, particularly off-label use of Ozempic (which is technically meant to aid with type 2 diabetes). And in countries where prescription drug costs are publicly paid, the huge demand for drug-assisted weight loss is threatening to wreak havoc on healthcare finances: massive demand for newly available weight loss drugs was nearly single-handedly responsible for a 10% increase in prescription costs for the United Kingdom’s NHS in the 2022/23 fiscal year, and Canadian authorities were forced to ban export of the drug after a wave of Americans seeking to order the drug at cheaper Canadian prices (roughly C$300 per month’s supply) contributed to local shortages. Denmark, on the other hand, has had its economy boosted by these drugs — its GDP grew by almost two percent in the first quarter of 2023. This was almost single-handedly due to Novo Nordisk, which is expected to have a 37 percent increase in profits this year; without the pharmaceutical sector, the Danish economy would have shrunk almost half a percent. 

There are side effects of these drugs: the most common is gastroparesis, which is the delay or halting of food passing from your stomach into your bowels. While to some extent this is the intended effect of these drugs, it can become too intense for some, causing them to suffer from nausea and acid reflux, vomiting of food eaten hours earlier that remains undigested, inability to eat because of the blockage in their stomach, abdominal pain and constipation, and weight loss more extreme than is healthy to endure in a short time with the consequent malnutrition that occurs from understandable loss of appetite. This can mess with blood sugar levels, which is especially dangerous for those who are suffering from diabetes and are taking the drugs for their originally formulated purpose. There is also hair loss, known as telogen effluvium, which is not necessarily a side effect of taking these drugs but of the rapid weight loss that results; sudden weight loss is a stress on the body, which can cause all your hair to go into resting phase at once rather than the usual varied cycling of resting and growing. A very small number of patients have reported suicidal thoughts after beginning their semaglutide/dulaglutide regimen, though this has not been reported in clinical trials and may be related to comorbidities. 

These comorbidities are hard to put numbers on — some of the same conditions that may be directly treated by these drugs may also benefit from them indirectly by way of weight loss. Excess weight puts pressure on organs and joints, and indicates a less-than-ideal diet and exercise regimen, which impacts overall health in multiple ways. If weight is lost through reduced calorie intake alone, it may be the case that patients taking Ozempic and similar drugs without altering their lifestyle are still unhealthy.

That’s something we agree with the fat activists on — that being thin does not mean you are healthy. On everything else, we disagree: the success of these drugs for weight loss proves that simply eating less (whether from willpower and intention or from chemical suppressors of appetite) is enough to lose weight. Yes, it’s biology; but biology is not fate. Now, not having the fortitude to “just eat less calories” on one's own is not a moral failing; but clearly, even if 95 percent of all diets fail, it is people who are responsible for their own health and their own weight.

Maybe it was written in long, sans serif quirky freehand on a mug that ostensibly is full of either coffee or wine at any given moment. (A mug that, for some reason, might fetch hundreds of dollars from collectors on eBay).

Now, for the person you imagine holding this so-cringy-it’s-almost-funny-again mug: is it a blond white Midwestern mom with a minivan and a Stanley Cup (to replace a recently deceased Hydroflask)? We realize Pacific Dispatch is historically unfair towards this demographic (see our articles about parenthood, Disney adults, astrology, and the suburbs) but this group is a very good microcosm of the nuances and quirks of modern American culture — and we respect them for *puts on Gen Z voice* living their best lives. 

So let’s get into the meat and potatoes: we’re going to talk about wine moms and Rae Dunn fans. The Venn diagram between these two demographics is startlingly circular, and while the origins behind the phenomena are similar, the results are very different. 

Rae Dunn: a style that can best be described as simple playful quirky inoffensive farmhouse. Synonyms: “live laugh love”, “TJMaxx deluxe”, “cottagecore Airbnb”. 

If you live in North America, there’s an 82% chance you know the Rae Dunn aesthetic (don’t check our sources, but if you’re in doubt, run a Google Image search on the name). The brand originally started out as a ceramic company founded by artist-of-various-mediums Rae Dunn, a California native who currently lives in San Francisco. She gravitated toward slightly uneven and imperfect shapes (in the Japanese wabi-sabi style) with unsubtle messages, such as a milk pitcher with “milk” scrawled across the front. Whatever one may say about its artistic merits, the line has become a smashing success, spreading like wildfire through middle class and middle class-adjacent suburbia.

The line is sold exclusively at TJX stores, like TJMaxx, Home Goods, and Marshalls. There are videos out there of women fighting over the stuff, because only a certain amount of items go to each store; and if for some reason an item is considered “rare,” there are many clamoring to get ahold of it, either for their personal collection or to resell. Employees of TJX stores have reported being warned about the “Rae Dunn women” and seeing some come into the store up to five times a day to scope out merchandise, even going so far as to track new shipments on Facebook groups. 

One wonders whether a mass-produced retail home decor item sold in fixed quantities possesses any qualities that make it rare — but clearly some don’t wonder that. It’s a mystery which items resell for ten-fold or more times their original sale price; a pig-shaped cookie jar with the word OINK on the side can reportedly fetch hundreds of dollars on eBay, despite selling for under twenty dollars when it was on the TJMaxx shelves. A seller on Mercari has put up an item called “Rae Dunn Very Large Pear” for $1,134 while a different seller posted “ RAE DUNN MEDIUM PEAR” for $949. Just some ceramic pears, not even a jar or mug. We’re as confused as you are, so let’s move on. 

We’d like to avoid fueling the unfair criticism of hobbies enjoyed by women rather than men; after all, collecting ceramics is not so inherently different from collecting coins or sports memorabilia. But we can’t help but think that the underlying motivation behind the collecting of ceramics says something specific about American women — we’ll get to that shortly.

And though we can’t be absolutely sure, it seems like the same women bidding on a pig-shaped cookie jar on eBay are also those buying “Wine gets better with age, I get better with wine” signs from the nearby TJMaxx shelf. 

Although funny-bordering-on-worrying jokes about drinking are nothing new to American society — think of every keychain or fridge magnet you’ve seen declaring alcohol “both the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems” — the growth and normalization of “wine mom” culture, particularly since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, is reaching concerning levels in the eyes of many. It’s impossible to enter a big-box store without passing by racks upon racks of cutesy home decor items inscribed with odes to the joys of drinking wine.

Alcoholism among women, particularly women ages 18 to 44, is rising, as are the health effects of prolonged alcohol use disorder like liver cirrhosis, heart disease, and cancer. An NPR article from June 2021, during both the throes and the burgeoning aftermath of the pandemic, declared that Women Now Drink As Much As Men — Not So Much For Pleasure, But To Cope. More context makes the statistic even more concerning: drinking among young adults is down overall, but among women rates are falling more slowly and binge-drinking is increasing. In women over 26, alcohol consumption is rising more quickly than it is among men and is associated with anxiety, stress, and trauma, putting them at higher risk of substance abuse disorders; health consequences strike men and women unequally, with women facing risks at lower levels and time-periods of consumption. The stereotype of an alcoholic being a gaunt and haggard deadbeat with a brown-bagged bottle and a five-o’clock shadow is no longer representative of the disease in America.

Perhaps the trend is unsurprising given the ever-amplifying pressures to which mothers are increasingly subjected: not only do women have to deal with rising childcare costs and comparisons to “perfect mothers” on social media, they increasingly have to handle these along with the stress of a full-time professional life and career ambitions. No one is immune: stay-at-home mothers are judged and thought of as uneducated, often having to balance precarious finances in a world where even two working parents can’t buy a house together; mothers who work suffer from guilt from being away from their children or are shamed for wanting things outside motherhood; and child-free or childless women are judged as cold and unfeminine for eschewing, either by choice or circumstance, a life with children. All this on top of the glass ceiling, the unequal mental load, and general financial instability makes it very difficult to survive, much less thrive. 

While there’s clearly a fine line between genuine concern and the sexism that would culturally differentiate “wine moms” and “beer dads,” there’s no question that wine mom culture has taken a dangerous turn towards being normalized and joked about despite its detrimental effects on American women. The circumstances that have created this phenomenon don’t have easy answers, but if we want to preserve the already-compromised sanity and already-unprioritized health of overworked and underpaid mothers, it’s imperative we do something about it. 

So why did we choose to look at these two topics together? One so lighthearted, even amusing, and the other representative of a deeper, darker set of issues?

Because we think there is something tying the two together. In North American culture, women face a crisis of identity. Even if it never develops into a full-fledged visible crisis, it occurs in the subconscious in every choice and every decision you make throughout the course of your life. For a more complete picture, check out the monologue in Barbie, but essentially, there is never a right way to just be. And for mothers in America, that identity is constant pressure and never permanent: you have to work a full-time job that pays enough and be a mother and manage a household with varying levels of burden-sharing and be a complete person with your own identity and you drink just to cope with all of that, and collecting little ceramics is the one little escape you have. And then eventually your kids grow up and don’t need you as much as they used to and then who even are you anymore? What do you even do with all the free time that was once filled with parenthood and the money spent on kids’ clothes and school supplies and karate classes? Society doesn’t provide a blueprint, and it becomes increasingly difficult to feel understood by popular media, perpetually obsessed with youth and appearance. Thus, both substance abuse and consumerist collecting hobbies, both specifically advertising to middle-aged women as a target demographic, often emerge to fill the void.

The answer to all of this is not easy or simple. It’s always an interesting exercise to think about whether it’s even worth considering large structural, societal, cultural changes — whether they are implementable with enough time or whether they are too lofty to be at all practical solutions. If attitudes about motherhood have a long way to go, it’s only as long as feminism has to go too, because they are inextricably linked. And maybe tacky porcelain houseware really isn’t the foremost crisis of our time, but if our hypothesis is correct, it’s symbolic of bigger problems upon which we should focus our ongoing fight for the betterment of society. 

P.S. We couldn’t resist buying some stupid shit and calling it research, so we have purchased two Rae Dunn items off Poshmark Canada: a holographic bottle that says “Magic Potion” and a simple white mug with the label “Rise & Grind.” They’re pretty solid; we recommend (but only if you agree that a single household does not need more than fifteen mugs).

Between rapid advances in payment technology and higher-than-average inflation in recent years, the use of paper money and especially smaller denominations like coins has drastically gone down, with reported use of cash payments in the UK falling from 55% of all transactions in 2011 to 15% a decade later. Coins are so hated that a waste management company estimated that Americans threw away $62 million in change per year — yes, literally threw units of legal currency into the garbage. And that was in 2016, before the spread of tap payments in the US (Canada adopted it many years before that — incidentally, they also ceased production of the penny in 2013), mobile payments, and COVID-19. The latter felt like the nail in the coffin for physical currency, which was regarded as dirty and potentially contaminable. 

What do we even pay for with such small denominations these days, especially with inflation as it is today? It feels like everything costs at least five dollars these days (the get off my lawn vibes are evident). 

But there are some places where three crisp dollar bills or even a few quarters can pay for an item (or an experience): let’s take a look. 

Your typical cash depository that is less unseemly than a dustbin: the tip jar. Full of crumpled dollar bills and enough metal to replace a broken hip, this is where we drop off unwanted coins after that awkward moment when the cashier hands you your change where you think, “Ugh, now what am I gonna do with these goddamn coins?” Increasingly, point-of-sale systems in places like coffee shops, Subway, and even a particularly bold Vancouver liquor store also have the option to tip on the iPad after using your card to pay — but that’s a whole nother debate for the writers, both of whom adamantly refuse to be impulsively guilted into tipping a dollar for a muffin. “Round up your purchase to donate to charity” schemes are similar, making people feel heartless in front of the line of customers behind them if they say no; but to dispel an oft-repeated myth, grocery stores engaging in checkout charity programs cannot deduct the donated amount from their taxable income — unless the store donates a portion of their own sales, your forty-seven cents make no impact on their taxes. In fact, the donator can claim the write-off (though no one ever does — who wants to keep a grocery store receipt until tax season?). Shit, we’re getting off topic — anyway, true physical tip jars are probably the best way to rid yourself of small denominations, especially when inflation makes them less valuable; but if coins are that objectionable, it may be worth switching exclusively to credit cards (just sayin’). 

Then there’s the industry where small purchases are the lifeblood of the whole enterprise: mobile games. It’s difficult to tell whether inflation has affected mobile game prices, but there are plenty of other problems worth discussing. While lots of people stick to ad-clogged free versions, there are many who can become almost addicted to the ninety-nine cent purchases of digital coins, unlocked avatars, costumes and weapons and upgrades for their avatars, and the like. A fearfully large number of online stories feature people going into debt through tiny purchases that can be easily justified in the moment, but may get out of hand if they aren’t monitored or controlled in some way. The writers freely admit to having spent marginal sums on good apps to support creators (the key to this being one-time purchases, not subscriptions) but not everyone has enough self-control to avoid a slew of small in-app purchases on a single credit card statement. And that’s without mentioning the countless news stories of children who have unknowingly (at least we hope so) spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars on in-app purchases while playing on their parents’ devices. Buddy, no one needs that many Robux.

We also spend tiny amounts in tourism (souvenir coin machines and small beachside tchotchkes are often enough to calm a grumpy child on vacation), convenience stores (“I need to eat something right now and this shitty pizza will do”), public transportation (no complaints — praise be to the metro system), and parking meters (you’ll be so surprised to hear that the writers also feel strongly about parking, considering we met in a sustainable urban design class and one of us wrote a final paper about free parking). While inflation has affected these industries, the reality is that those who want it will pay for it. On vacation it’s easier to space a few bucks; you need calories one way or the other; and no one is immune from having to go places. 

There’s the oasis of the starving office worker: the break room vending machine. Although a few machines in trendy spaces have been retrofitted with credit card tap readers, a large majority remain cash-only, making them a convenient place to use up spare change. Offerings are no longer limited to stale snacks and sugary drinks, either, with newer machines sometimes selling everything from painkillers to SD cards to live crabs. Nowadays the crumpled spare change from your bag is somehow never enough to buy the small bag of chips, at least without the machine rejecting the bills because the corner is folded with sweat and cocaine residue. Though rejection isn’t the only thing this machine loves to dispense; each time the snack gets stuck in the revolving circle thingy, the machine dispenses frustration and disappointment. The vending machine industry has become, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic, an oft-recommended place for young entrepreneurs (yes, we still hate that word) to create a side-hustle (hate that one too) or another semi-passive income stream (blech). It’s the proto-”buy a house in a growing city and get rental/Airbnb income” for the underdogs who have less capital to invest. It’s one of the few industries remaining in the country that is still dominated by independent sellers rather than a franchise or a megacorp, which means there is at least one article from every major news network in the vein of How this 26 year old made $400K from his side-hustle: ‘I only work 5 hours a week’. These days, those five hours are usually spent on a laptop monitoring the machines and buying stock online where twenty years ago it would require visiting each machine and collecting money throughout the week and maintaining a log of things each machine needed. If a machine broke in those days, it would have taken longer to realize and even longer to fix, which meant loss of profit; but current technology keeps machine owners updated and reduces downtime. As vending machine purchases are typically small and made on impulse, they’re relatively resilient to retail pressures from inflation and online shopping: try to remember the last time you bought a chocolate bar online, or walked away from a vending machine because you noticed the price had increased by twenty cents. Machines are specifically placed in areas with high foot traffic and few good food options within walking distance (and remember: Americans’ ideas about a reasonable walking distance do not usually extend beyond the bounds of a Costco parking lot).

And last but not least, the machine every parent dreads because they know that not only will their kids beg them for money to use the machine, they will keep “needing” more quarters because they haven’t clued in yet to the statistical improbability of a win: the clawwww. Proto-claw machines have been around since the 1920s, when “digger” machines would scoop candy out for the player in exchange for a few cents; they weren’t very profitable, but they were popular attractions. When the Nickel Digger, which used an electric motor, was invented and rented out to carnivals beginning in 1932, it made the founder a shitload of money. The 1951 Johnson Act regulated gambling and dampened the popularity of digger machines, but the law was abandoned in the 70s and the claw machine as we know it today became popular. Filled with anything from bulk keychains and plushies to electronics like iPhones and gaming consoles to even Visa gift cards, it’s understandable why such a game draws kids in so effectively — but adults tend to feel like the machines are rigged against you to the point that no amount of skill can overcome it. And we’re right: modern machines allow the operator to choose the grip strength and win percentage of the machine; they can even calibrate how often the machine picks up a toy and then drops it before you reach the release chute — hell, they can input their desired profit and the machine can calculate it for you. Each failed attempt appears as the result of user error or bad luck — and once that kid sees their toy fall back into the machine, it’s no wonder they are filled with the compulsive desire to try again (and again). Again, because vending machines are located in high-traffic areas and especially in places that are already somewhere you go to spend money (pizza places, boba shops, arcades, etc.), many parents give in and begrudge their children some bills or change. 

So why did we give you this disjointed run down of unrelated machines? Just because it was fun?

Well, yes, it actually was fun — but that’s besides the point. The phenomena that have affected these mini-industries are nuanced and interesting: on one hand, because cash is decreasing in use in many parts of the world, spare change and small bills are not as common to have on hand. But also, as the value of small denominations decreases due to inflation (and as many of these machines become card-friendly), spending in these areas becomes more common as people shrug and say, “My grocery bill is already $300 per week, why not spend a dollar?” These purchases can quickly get out of hand, especially when you add kids (and general existential ennui) into the mix. But someone who holds off on all purchases of this kind on principle is probably leading a controlled life without a lot of fun.

So here’s our conclusion: spend knowingly. Don’t be tricked into thinking that the tap of your credit card is as meaningless as a nickel on the sidewalk; but also, don’t trip over a pound to pick up a penny — buy that Twix bar if it’ll make you happy. In the grand scheme of things, you won’t miss that one purchase of $2.35 [price data sourced from my friendly neighborhood vending machine].

Car salesman: *slaps roof of business idea*

“This bad boy can fit so many terrible decisions in it.”

Business fraud and failure cases feel like a dime a dozen these days. They grace the front pages and seem to attract more attention than even the second and third largest bank failures in American history. Despite the nicheness and relative obscurity of their industries, the downfall of Frank and the impending petering out of Nikola, for example, have been major social talking points in the days after news broke.

Then there are the big cases — the ones that inspire social and psychological commentary, limited-run podcasts, and Netflix documentaries. Headlines about trendy millennial startup ventures collapsing from within after their borderline (or actually) fraudulent marketing claims come to light have become nearly constant in recent years, leading one to wonder whether they share anything in common.

There’s a name for people obsessed with real-life horror stories (true-crime fans), a name for people who are obsessed with gross childhood stories (Redditors), and even a name for people who watch other people’s lives falling apart to feel better about themselves (reality TV fans); but there isn’t a name for people intensely fascinated with financial fraud cases. And it’s a shame, because these writers would embody that moniker. Charismatic founders with wild ideas and fuck-you money being publicly brought down are our bread and butter, and we’re ready to admit it. But we can’t help but notice that many, if not most, of these disgraced founders have been millennials. Is this a trend, or just an embodiment of millennials getting to the age where they actually have some influence in the world (including the power to screw up royally)? Let’s find out. 

Some of the biggest cases of the past decade have revolved around a founder born before the turn of the century who was in the right place at the right time: technology was the next big thing, and with it came the big ideas and convincing sales pitches that only twenty-something dropouts from Harvard and Stanford could give. And the sales pitches certainly came: an elite celebrity-filled music festival on a private Bahamian island; beautiful co-working spaces with beer taps and wild campus parties; fast and convenient blood tests requiring only a finger prick of blood; and a legitimate exchange platform for the powerful new monetary unit that promised to take over the world. They came in every sector and appealed to consumers and investors looking for unique and exciting opportunities to improve their lives, make money, and have fun doing it. 

These cases have been documented in pop culture and media so thoroughly that yet another lengthy explanation of their history is akin to plagiarism; instead, we’re going to give a brief summary and then look at what ties these stories and their subjects together to see if there really is a troubling trend of millennial fraudsters. 

Let’s begin with Billy McFarland: he and his celebrity sidekick Ja Rule originally rose to fame (and infamy) with Magnises, the “millennial Black Card,” a club membership that promised access to exclusive perks at unbelievably low prices. While it did not crash and burn with the same media attention as Fyre (we’ll get to that), the company was retroactively described as its own kind of scam for failing to deliver on its promises to users — despite marketing which clearly aimed to draw parallels to Amex’s famously exclusive Centurion Card, Magnises was not even a functioning credit card, depending on existing Bank of America or Wells Fargo accounts to actually provide credit and process payments. Fyre Festival originated with an employee of Fyre Media (a booking platform for consumers to hire famous musicians for events) who came up with the idea of a concert for industry professionals to see what the company was all about. But McFarland, always one to jump on an idea, spun it into an aspirational Coachella-level music festival with ads featuring supermodels and jet skis on the idyllic shores of Pablo Escobar’s private island. After the flashy ads and celebrity Instagram posts resulted in a sold-out experience, they began actually developing this festival only months before its debut, dealing with challenges of liability coverage, lack of residences, and toilet and waste management infrastructure amid a growing balance sheet of expenses. To cut a long story short, it infamously crashed on the first day of festivities when attendees arrived in the Bahamas to find that they were meant to be living in leftover hurricane shelter tents erected on what was basically a construction site, among a host of other shocking letdowns considering the thousands they spent to attend the supposedly exclusive event.

McFarland himself appears on camera in documentaries and news reels as a sort of overgrown frat boy persona, a dreamer who doesn’t appear to have the business acumen to follow through on his ideas (though he’s certainly convincing enough to hide that fact for a long time as the money rolls in). While social media FOMO seems to have carried him to at least initial success, generating enough popularity and market demand to reel in investors who otherwise wouldn’t have taken him seriously, the house of cards collapsed in spectacular fashion during the Fyre Festival — Magnises also declared bankruptcy and disappeared in the aftermath, and McFarland served over four years in prison on fraud charges. He’s now out and planning a Broadway musical and a two-point-o rendition of the festival.

We’ll be sure to secure tickets to that hot mess.

Next is WeWork: founded in 2008 to capitalize on the Internet-enabled boom in working away from the office, the company pioneered the business of co-working spaces, essentially open-plan offices that remote workers who were tired of their apartments could use in exchange for a daily, monthly, or longer-term rate. Founders Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey, from Israel and Oregon respectively, had both grown up for at least part of their childhoods in communes — and they wanted to bring the same energy to the workplace as an antidote to cubicle-ism. But despite essentially being a real estate company that leased out offices, they wanted to operate (and grow) with the same vigor and vibes as a tech startup; they hosted elaborate parties and retreats, opened up apartments for office renters (cult much?), and pitched charismatic stories about “the future of work” to investors — and they bought it. After a series of investments from players like J.P. Morgan and SoftBank as their valuation climbed to ludicrously high levels, the company was forced to reckon with Neumann’s unethical business practices in advance of their planned IPO. For just a sample of his ineptitude: he sold the trademark for “We” to his own company for six million dollars of company stock, an arrangement that was unraveled in 2019 and pointed to as an example of questionable corporate governance. 

Eventually, after weeks of bad press, the IPO was canned and Neumann was forced to step down; but WeWork never recovered its valuation, which dropped from its all-time high of $47 billion to under a billion dollars today. While the departure of Neumann (who faced no prosecution, we might add) lacks the spectacle of Billy McFarland’s federal charges, jail sentence, and restitution order, it still allowed the company to regain some stability and rise from being a laughingstock to being a forgotten bullet point in the annals of financial history. Neumann won people, especially investors, over with his charisma and big ideas (Masayoshi Son of SoftBank even encouraged Neumann to dream bigger at one point in time), but his inability to follow through on these ideas or realize their impracticability in the face of reality brought him down. As of today, Neumann is still wealthy and has recently announced his new real estate company Flow, which was backed by $350m from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) — will they ever learn?

*deep breath* Anyway. I’m just glad I never heard back on my a16z job application.

Theranos is our next can of worms, and boy is it full of worms. Legendary founder Elizabeth Holmes, once proclaimed the first self-made female billionaire by Forbes, dropped out of Stanford to start the company in 2003 to mixed reactions from former professors. While she was an exceptionally talented, intelligent, and charismatic student, she was just a student at that time — perhaps the Dunning-Krueger effect is responsible for this whole debacle. Her idea was to create a blood-testing device that could run the gamut of necessary tests with only a finger prick of blood rather than a full vial, not only making it easier for people who underwent frequent testing, but also to empower everyone to learn more about their health status. The problem was, this wasn’t physically or medically possible (and if it was, it’s very likely that an established company would already have been on it). Holmes opened offices in Palo Alto, hired good people and poached some others, and convinced investors of the revolutionary nature of her idea with a combination of half-truths, embellishments, and straight-up lies (though when deposed about these facts by the Securities and Exchange Commission, she frequently “didn’t know,” “didn’t remember,” or “couldn’t recall” these details). In public, she was an inspiration, a visionary, the CEO of a Silicon Valley unicorn. But behind the scenes, there was a culture of fear, intimidation, and willful ignorance by Holmes and her COO and former boyfriend Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. And their “proprietary” device, nicknamed The Edison, was never able to run more than twelve tests (and never at the speed, blood quantity, or accuracy that was promised in their marketing — there were even some devastatingly incorrect results that put people’s health in danger). 

After a deal with Walgreens on fraudulent terms that injected some much-needed capital into the company, an explosive article in the Wall Street Journal by investigative reporter John Carreyrou began its unraveling. While Silicon Valley’s “fake it till you make it” culture worked out successfully for many, including Homles’s mentor Larry Ellison, medicine is a strict and stringent industry for a reason — you can’t just play games of chance when people’s lives are on the line. For that matter, Holmes recently reported to federal prison to begin her eleven year term for defrauding investors, while Balwani is in the process of appealing his thirteen year sentence. Theranos is dead in the water, and it’s unlikely that the money invested in the company will ever be recovered. Despite her reverence of iconic Apple founder Steve Jobs, Holmes will certainly not be remembered in the same way he is — and perhaps her lasting image will be in an orange jumpsuit instead of a black turtleneck. 

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Lest you think that the trendy topic of cryptocurrency would be left out of this conversation, let us disabuse you of that notion: founded concurrently in 2017 by MIT graduate and League of Legends aficionado Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX and Alameda Research offered cryptocurrency trading and hedge fund services, promising spectacular returns on clients’ invested funds. Aside from some minor hiccups (Bankman-Fried was scolded by FDIC for falsely claiming to provide deposit insurance, and admitted that “Alameda Research” engaged in no research and was named in such a manner purely to attract venture capital interest), the operation appeared to run smoothly until September 2022, when Bloomberg began to report on the unusually close relationship between the two companies. Suspicions arose that the firms’ relationship — which would have been blocked by regulators in a non-cryptocurrency situation — was structured in a way that could lead Alameda to profit if the value of FTX clients’ cryptocurrency investments declined. 

While FTX initially survived these revelations, the resulting suspicion was enough to convince major cryptocurrency investor Changpeng Zhao to sell his multi-billion dollar holdings of FTT, a coin developed by and associated with FTX. Due to the relatively low trading volume of FTT, this sale significantly decreased the token’s price. The ensuing crisis at Alameda Research revealed that the firm held a significant amount of its assets in FTT, and more concerningly, that these funds were those of FTX investors, loaned to Alameda by Bankman-Fried without investors’ knowledge or consent. Unable to pay back its fraudulent loans to Alameda, FTX suspended withdrawals and declared bankruptcy, leaving the fate of billions of dollars of investor funds hanging in the balance while awaiting legal proceedings. Bankman-Fried is currently under house arrest in his childhood home in California, and the aftermath of the collapse has not been kind to him: he admitted while unknowingly texting a Vox reporter that his work in the effective altruism movement, which aims to maximize the positive impact of charitable giving and is trendy among the nouveau riche of the tech industry, was “mostly a front,” and was revealed to often be playing League of Legends — and poorly, at that — during important Zoom meetings with investors.

Funny how quickly the quirks of a nerdy founder can become a retrospective red flag.

Now that we’ve reviewed ancient history (lol), let’s talk about what these founders had in common, and whether their millennial-ness had anything to do with their story. Every one of them, in the face of evidence contrary to their big inventive plans, ignored problems and pushed forward out of either ignorance or overconfidence. They managed to convince investors and participants (with lies, sure, but they still got away with it for a while) that their idea would be the greatest thing since sliced bread and would return their investment many-fold. Once big names got involved, employees and outsiders who had doubts about the venture were bound to second-guess themselves and their criticisms: if BigName McMoneyBags believes in this, who am I to dissent? But while we might expect that those famous investors with credibility are at a level of intelligence far beyond the average person, able to analyze the merit of a company and only invest if it makes sense, they very often rely on their own instinct; perhaps they are right more often than they are wrong, but the risk is always present — and sometimes the coin toss doesn’t go their way. If that wasn’t enough to maintain public belief in these companies, the founders certainly had the charisma to carry it home; it wasn’t always the same sort of charisma, mind you. Billy McFarland had his adolescent white-boy charm and an air of serial entrepreneurism; Adam Neumann had a hippy-esque accented suaveness with a proclivity for turning a boring business into a flashy enterprise; Elizabeth Holmes had a deep, manufactured voice that seemed to betray a serious business acumen alongside a feminine authenticity that engrossed you in her vision; and Sam Bankman-Fried had the careless demeanor of a classic tech nerd who one could defer to in matters of discernment and understanding. When you don’t know what you don’t know, it’s all too easy to believe the people who are already seen as experts and changemakers. Three out of four of these founders have been featured on the cover of Forbes at one point in time — if that doesn’t solidify you as a reliable source of information, what does? Maybe we just can’t trust anything anymore.

Deceptive advertising, overpromises, and straight up fraud are nothing new in the business world — in the early 1920s Charles Ponzi lent his name to providing unreasonably high-return investment schemes by paying clients with others’ “investments” (the origin of “robbing Peter to pay Paul”), and Bernie Madoff perfected the technique in the 1990s at his hedge fund company, eventually defrauding supposed investors of between twelve and twenty billion. He was caught during the 2008 financial crisis when fervent withdrawal requests overwhelmed his ability to pay out, eventually resulting in a combined 150 years in prison sentences. In that sense, the fraud these founders have engaged in is nothing new. Nevertheless, the ease of marketing and fundraising enabled by the Internet and social media seems to have made scams — or at least, initially successful ones — easier to pull off in the millennial generation: you no longer need to start by convincing established investors or advertisers to believe in you. Just generate buzz on Instagram or Reddit, reach out directly to a random celebrity or two, and let things snowball from there. If that’s not enough, tap into an established social or financial movement (the rise of entrepreneurship and “being your own boss” or the craze about cryptocurrency) and turn it into a business that excites people. If neither of these options are relevant, there’s always the fast and loose Silicon Valley game to fall back on for funding — as if that hasn’t failed yet. 

So while there’s nothing apparently inherent to millennial founders that makes them more likely to or more capable of committing fraud, the landscape they are operating in is substantially different — in some ways it’s easy to detect simple fraud, with the universal accessibility of information, but that environment also allows falsehoods and false promises and false hopes to spread quickly and easily. Our advice hasn’t changed from what people have been saying for hundreds of years: if something is too good to be true, it probably isn’t. 

Bonus: some fun facts about these companies and founders that didn’t fit elsewhere in the article.

Fyre Festival’s famous original promotional shoot, you know, the one featuring internationally-renowned supermodels? It was basically just a giant days-long party on the beach, with jet skis and drones and pigs and beer. Billy McFarland once fell asleep on the beach in broad daylight (and there is footage of it). 

Adam Neumann forced employees to eat plant-based meals “for the environment” but purchased a private jet with company money — as two vegetarians, this is not the way. 

WeWork released some non-GAAP accounting metrics ahead of its IPO-that-never-was, including the well-mocked “Community-Adjusted EBITDA,” which failed to exclude rent, utilities, internet, and building staff salaries — its largest category of expenses.

Cringeworthy text messages between Holmes and Balwani during their relationship were revealed in court: 

Holmes: “You are the breeze in desert for me. My water. And ocean. Meant to be only together tiger.” 

Balwani: “OK.”

Last but certainly not least: when Sam Bankman-Fried met co-conspirator Caroline Ellison, she was dressed as a “sultry wood nymph” on her way to a live action roleplaying event. He offered her a job on the spot.

“So, I’ve been having a really tough time these days. My grandpa passed away recently.”

“The circle of life.”

“And my dad and his siblings are still in a state of shock over the whole thing.”

“Poor unfortunate souls.”

“He left them a lot of inheritance and it’s emotionally confusing for them, because all they ever saw was a man living a humble life.”

“The bare necessities.”

“Yeah, and I can’t go to them to talk about anything I’m feeling about the whole thing, because they were his actual kids and they have it worse than me.”

“You’ve got a friend in me.”

“Thanks, man. I just don’t know how to deal with life continuing on around me, ya know?”

“Let it go.”

“Wha— let it go?! What kind of advice is that?”

“Do you wanna build a snowman?”

End scene. 

Case closed: the problem with Disney Adults is that right there. Alright, alright, we jest; but in all seriousness, there’s still more to say on the matter. While there’s no harm in enjoying a nostalgic or well-written movie from time to time, Disney’s franchises of children’s movies have gathered near-religious devotion from a surprisingly large contingent of older fans. So-called “Disney adults” have made their fandom into a core part of their identity, turning every vacation into an opportunity to visit the parks (including solo), buying merchandise and costumes with near-cosplay levels of intricacy (and associated prices), and accumulating obscure bits of trivia that have no practicality outside this one corporate niche. While the phenomenon isn’t limited to Disney — the Harry Potter franchise, for instance, has famously elicited similar levels of obsession well above the age bracket it was written for — Disney adults seem to have become the archetype for adult fixation with children’s media.

Others who have criticized the phenomenon have been called out for the underlying sexism in their animosity, so we’d like to make it clear — the issue the writers have is not with Disney in particular, but any display of fanaticism for a single topic to the point of excessive consumerism and monomania. Vehement sports fans deserve our skepticism in the same way, because obsession with a single interest or hobby leaves a whole universe of knowledge untouched. Many are quick to denounce it, but there is a reason schools teach and offer a variety of topics from STEM to to sports and gym class to humanities, languages, art, and music, even after many students have decided they will never take a job that requires algebra or involves drawing bowls of fruit: not only are there benefits to being a well-rounded person with a range of skillsets, but it’s always good to have a backup plan. Not all college athletes will play in the major or even minor leagues, and even if they do, they might need another job option after they finish; employers are generally more likely to hire an engineer who can speak and write well over one who has better grades but is extremely antisocial. Life skills are not only those which command the highest earning potential — and even those who are wealthy enough to outsource “menial” everyday tasks are one unfortunate life event away from being helpless — like the momma’s boys who go straight from living with parents to living with a partner without ever learning to cook and do laundry only to have their partner leave or pass away; or professional athletes who suffer mental breakdowns when faced with a career-ending injury.

We believe the same to be true about interests and hobbies — while there’s nothing wrong with having a lot of passion for a particular subject, the online portrayal of Disney adults as having no curiosity or enthusiasm for other media franchises, much less other hobbies (for fuck’s sake, just take a pottery class or something) presents a worrying picture for viewers, young and old, who may let themselves get consumed by an ultimate passion and come across to others as someone with no ability to communicate with others except on their infatuation of choice. 

Aside from Disney adults being rather dull to interact with, it’s worth asking what the spread of the phenomenon says about the level of literature and media appreciation in society. While Disney stories are undoubtedly well written, the vast majority are essentially formulaic examples of the hero’s journey: a protagonist sets off on an adventure, faces some sort of adversity, learns a lesson, and comes home transformed. Deviations from the formula are rare, and despite the creativity of the journey, there’s always a happy ending. Many of the movies that come to mind as even slight contradictions of that idea are actually, on second thought, Pixar movies instead of Disney movies (and while the distinction may be pedantic, it’s worth noting that we don’t see Disney adults get up in arms about Monsters, Inc. the way they do about The Little Mermaid). The same can be said of Marvel Studios, which was acquired by Disney rather than originating with them (and Marvel fatigue is a whole different topic altogether). 

Then there’s the other matter of representation — many Disney movies have a troubling history of racism, nationalism, and other problematic -isms, and though they’ve endeavored to improve the problem in recent years, its difficult to ignore that it was for the sake of making more money: when racial discrimination went out of vogue, the company conveniently changed their messaging to align with the populace. The same thing is happening today with queer representation: as Tom Haynes wrote in The Tab, “Disney adults will hail [a background scene of two guys holding hands] as a landmark moment in LGBT representation, homophobic countries will cut the scene out, and people with brain cells are left scratching their heads at just how low the bar has been set”.

Disney is an interesting case study on the seemingly contradictory intersection of capitalism and “wokeness,” for lack of a better word. To call it progressivism would be incorrect, as many have called out corporate practices like greenwashing and commodity activism for their inauthenticity and blatant appeals to left-leaning consumers. But it seems like even “faux wokeness” is enough to anger many right-leaning voters and their political mouthpieces, as evidenced by Disney’s ongoing feud with Florida governor and presidential-hopeful Ron DeSantis, who hails from a historically pro-corporate political party. As the company continues to occupy the unenviable position of trying to appeal to the most people, shifting with the tide of public opinion while risking the wrath of at least one vocal majority, and never being able to escape the drone of “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism,” their actions will remain under more scrutiny than ever — all the while, Disney adults will continue to insist that critics not “yuck their yum” by pointing out any issue with devoting most of their free time, discretionary capital, and precious brainspace to “the most magical place in the world.”

For better or worse, Disney seems to be fully prepared to take advantage of this unexpected demographic of diehard fans. The company’s theme parks, which seem to act almost as religious pilgrimage sites to some Disney superfans, have been particularly well-positioned to capitalize on the pent up demand for live entertainment following the end of COVID-related travel restrictions: with fans foaming at the mouth to go back, Disney clearly saw an opportunity and raised the price of annual passes at Disney World and Disneyland (after originally deciding to stop issuing them altogether in order to allow tourists and their reliably higher rates of additional expenditure to visit the parks in place of local fans who already possess a customary pair of Mickey Mouse ears). Nevertheless, visitors have shown no hesitation in returning — the call of Disney seems strong enough to overcome the pressures of inflation. In the meantime, we hope that Disney adults endeavor to try out Legoland, Six Flags, or Universal Studios — at least, if they can’t bring themselves to pick up cross-stitch. 

Welcome (or welcome back) to Season 2 of Pacific Dispatch! A whole host of interesting articles are on the horizon, but if you’re impatient, check out the ten articles in Season 1 — we promise they’re worth your time. Hope to see you back here soon!

I’m sorry, what? When did that become okay to say?

It’s clear that astrology is coming into vogue again, predominantly among Gen Z and late millennials — and for a pair of generations that overwhelming believe in climate change, vaccines, and the like, it’s a puzzling contradiction that they should revert to a system of belief that came into existence even before the creation of some major religions. But the shift is undeniable, and it seems to go beyond the realm of harmless fun. A 2019 survey found that 49% of Canadian millennials profess a belief in astrology, and iPhone apps providing horoscopes and star charts are regulars among the App Store’s most downloaded. Even dating apps now allow users to filter potential matches based on astrological compatibility, turning your star sign into as valid of a dealbreaker as your sexuality. 

The rise in interest and popularity has taken place first on YouTube and recently (as well as more intensely) on TikTok. Comprised of pithy titles, a smattering of graphics or photos that range the full spectrum from intricate to ugly, and the infamous computer-generated female voice (though I admit that may be a personal irritant), these videos are clickbaity and easy to understand, requiring very little background and providing no sources. 

“The Most Dangerous Signs”

“Zodiac Pairings You Should Be Afraid Of”

“The Fire Signs Texting Their Bestie Like: [and then one of those skits where the same person plays multiple characters; if I say it’s reminiscent of Vine, does that make me sound old?]”

So why exactly is this ancient precursor to psychology returning to inhabit the zeitgeist (often in the form of zodiac listicles, like if Buzzfeed went to an ashram in India and came back smelling of patchouli)? 

The cohort that has been most involved in astrology in recent years has grown up in an era of economic and political turmoil and uncertainty about the future, not to mention a depressing state of affairs on the environmental and ecological front that seems to be edging forward like a train with no real chance of derailment. Our lives are inextricably linked with science and technology, and hyperrationalism has made the chasm between the provably factual and the faithfully unknown even greater; it’s more comforting, perhaps, to exist in the grey, eschewing the polarization of choosing one side. With this background in mind, astrology can seem like a comforting retreat into a simpler, more innocent time, when it was socially acceptable to attribute successes and misfortunes alike to supernatural forces rather than one’s own circumstances.

While the authors are sympathetic to the stresses that may have spurred astrology’s revival, the tendency of this method of thinking to be a slippery slope to more radical and concerning ideology cannot be ignored. The dangers of Internet-mediated radicalization hopefully need no introduction in a post-QAnon world, but the popularization of astrology has brought with it more subtle concerns. Scrolling through TikTok, one gets the impression that astrology is commonly used as an excuse to avoid responsibility for character flaws, which are instead blamed on a sign — while many of these clips are certainly intended ironically, it does perpetuate a harmful idea about people needing to accept everything about you, as toxic as certain traits may be. 

“If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best” had its time in the limelight, but while the principle may be sound, abandoning self-improvement seems like the wrong takeaway. Issues of character development aside, the endless astrology TikToks are consistently overproduced, with titles, graphics, and garishly loud music dwarfed by the presence of elaborate makeup looks that belong on a magazine cover — one wonders how much of the resurgence in astrology is an excuse to advertise cosmetics.

And that’s another thing: astrology’s return to grace is overwhelmingly a female phenomenon, as it always had been, with the recent addition of the queer community. There are almost twice as many women who believe in the merits of astrology compared to men. The reasons for this are varied, but they all boil down to the fact that self-reflection, including aspects of temperament, emotion, and stress, is something women have always been more expected to engage with. Spirituality increases during times of stress, as we spoke of earlier; and straight men have always had less reasons for stress and less permission to speak about them where they do exist. 

[Insert “the patriarchy” joke here].

Historically, the dichotomy between objectivity and subjectivity, practicality and emotion, the empirical and the anecdotal has been assigned masculine and feminine persuasions. While we know now that this is not inherent, it still permeates society and affects real people and their willingness to indulge in anything deemed irrational. Generally, women are more open to existing in either camp, but men still remain confined to one — unless they begin to break the mold by identifying with the queer community and find themselves more able to explore further away from the status quo. 

Meanwhile, most straight men are either not interested in the idea (a perfectly acceptable solution to which the authors themselves subscribe) or are actively dismissive. But it’s not like debunking will convince anyone who believes in astrology metaphorically to repent, nor will it head off astrological evangelism at the pass; finding comfort in the clichés, truisms, and reassurances that readings and horoscopes provide is largely harmless, and it has a low barrier to entry for those in stress or distress. Fewer people make fun of participation in the lottery, which is a more male phenomenon, because taking solace or enjoyment from something with a small probability — even if said probability is so small as to be almost negligible — is understandable. So long as the pipeline to more radical ideas remains empty, astrology is simply a language with adequate vocabulary to discuss life’s challenges and hardships, much in the same way as therapy and self-help books. 

Speaking of which: astrology books are topping the charts, written by popular online creators and widely-anticipated by fans prior to their release; love, Vedic, and natal categories receive the most attention. The market also generates revenue through ad revenue and sponsorships on YouTube and TikTok videos. And for the most loyal (and wealthy) devotees, there are subscriptions to astrology apps and personal readings, which the popularity of video conferencing has made much more accessible. 

It’s hard not to notice a certain irony permeating the whole narrative of astrology resurging as an escape from hyperrationality and Internet fatigue: the resurgence has been mediated almost completely by social media, with modern astrology mostly (and, as covered above, somewhat unfortunately) living on TikTok reels, #relatable Instagram meme accounts, and advertisement-laden iPhone apps that promise to compile your birth chart and provide exclusive daily readings in exchange for a wealth of personal information. Perhaps the best interpretation of the phenomenon is as a sort of third position on the Internet, situated between the extremes of skeptic rationality and blind rejection of science. We, two famously skeptic rationalists, decided to open our minds and test our theory: by trying out an astrology app called The Pattern. 

After first creating our birth chart using a different service (and finding that we share more than a sun sign — our Jupiters are in Gemini and our Plutos are in Sagittarius #justiceforpluto), we filled out the brief questionnaire on the app, reluctantly noting down the exact dates and times of our birth (and, because they’re clearly crucial to the calculation, our email addresses). We were led to a page with a veritable cornucopia of insights on everything from personality traits — in categories like instinct, growth, and destiny, the latter of which is not a personality trait — to important dates in our lives, and an engine to test the strengths and weaknesses of our friendship and relationship bonds. Being generous, about half of the generated insights were at least mildly insightful, though the accuracy was questionable; it seemed vague enough to not be totally off base, which may be a calculated choice. The rest was the sort of emotional support you can expect from real-life relationships with family, friends, and colleagues. In particular, the app seemed to read deeply into areas that were actually quite simple and in no need of specific analysis. The most exciting content, as expected, was locked behind a paywall (though it was fun to test the relationship compatibility between Donald Trump and Elon Musk without spending a dime). 

The app did not improve our opinion on astrology — in fact, it almost moved us away from thinking of it as “harmless fun” back into the realm of ridicule, but we steadied that ship. It’s difficult to imagine that anyone would need the sort of heavy-handed reassurance the app tries to provide, but loneliness is endemic in a hyperrational and increasingly online world. Perhaps astrology’s renewed spotlight should be interpreted as a canary in the coal mine — have interpersonal relationships and the social fabric that connects us degraded so much that this is what people are turning to for validation? This lurking undercurrent needs to be addressed, because taking comfort in the stars will not be the solution for everyone, and more serious problems will require more drastic solutions — even for the most devoted followers. 

But in the meantime, filtering our Bumble matches by star sign in hopes it will help us find The One will have to do. This too, shall pass. 

PayPal Honey (formerly Honey) is a free browser extension designed to automatically test different discount codes that have been recently used all over the internet on an individual order, potentially allowing you to save money without manually searching out and testing codes. It was founded in 2012 and went viral after having a prototype leaked to Reddit; in 2020, PayPal bought the company for four billion dollars. Honey is well-known for advertising in less conventional ways; in particular, it is one of the largest and most famous sponsors of YouTube creators. 

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) represents a concept employed by multiple companies on the market; the most famous of these are Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay. When purchasing online, you can use one of these services (whichever one is offered by the retailer) to buy: your product will be promptly delivered, because the BNPL service has already paid the retailer full price. You then pay the service back in installments, allowing you to soften the blow of money leaving your account or getting charged to your credit card. These companies are known for charging no interest on these micro-loans, provided you pay them back within a short time frame (generally in four installments over a six to eight weeks). 

Though at initial glance it’s difficult to understand how these services can be profitable, understanding the mechanics of online marketing and purchasing leads us to the answer. For one thing, both Honey and BNPL services receive commissions from retailers when a consumer follows through on a purchase and uses their service during the transactions; this is similar to the percentage fee that credit card companies charge merchants (though it can be substantially higher). Controversy exists over whether this is Honey’s only source of funding — while the service claims to be “pro data protection” and collect only the minimum required consumer data, independent analyses have revealed the extension collects far more data than the company admits, raising concerns as to whether consumer behavior information is being sold for marketing purposes. And BNPL services have, in addition to these retailer fees, some combination of interest fees (for purchases split into more than four payments or over a longer period of time) and late fees. 

Still, the ultra-high valuations of these companies are hard to stomach. Some part of it is likely the inflated valuations of all kinds of tech startups, in the vein of Uber, Airbnb, DoorDash, and the like; they are all lauded as “disrupting the marketplace” and they receive swathes of investment. 

The feverish excitement does wear off eventually, though, and with it goes the endless supply of VC money, forcing the Sand Hill Road darlings to revise their business models in ways that actually produce revenue. Uber introduced demand pricing, Airbnb introduced enough extra fees that its prices are now comparable to hotels (with none of the perks, like not having to clean the rooms yourself), and DoorDash started adding mandatory “service charges” comparable to tips expected at a sit-down restaurant. Prices rise and profitability (if there was ever any to begin with) plateaus.

Honey is no exception here, monetizing in the form of commissions collected from the retailers. The service’s “How does Honey make money?” FAQ page explains that in exchange for being featured in the extension, Honey charges retailers a minimum 3% commission on every purchase made through it, part of which is used to fund the discounts the service provides to users. The specifics of the commission received depend on each company’s agreement with Honey: retailers can choose to pay the company between 0.5% and 20% of each Honey-generated sale, with higher payments corresponding to better brand placements in the Honey app. Though this may seem like a relatively inoffensive approach to monetization compared to soaring Uber fares, one does wonder whether better deals at smaller retailers are being buried by their inability to purchase prime ad real estate. 

Honey’s revenue streams also throw into question how committed the extension’s creators are to their stated purpose. While the extension’s goal is ostensibly to save money for its users, the fact that its funding depends on it being an effective advertising platform essentially makes its true goal to increase users’ spending. This makes it difficult not to be cynical about Honey’s mission, especially given that many of the most frequently featured coupons and deals are perks such as free shipping and cashback which have been devised specifically psychological tricks that encourage potential buyers to commit (for more on this, see this blog’s first ever article). How much faith can one really have in a money-saving app that relies on advertising and consumerism to continue existing?

Unfortunately, Honey’s potential ethical issues are dwarfed by those associated with Buy Now/Pay Later services. BNPL’s popularity is highest among young millennial and Gen Z consumers, not least because they’ve seen the effects of the 2008 financial crisis and many have watched their parents deal with snowballing credit card debt. In an overcompensatory swing in the other direction, credit cards have been demonized for lots of these young consumers; and thirty-second financial literacy tips from “debt-free at 23” influencers on social media have not adequately filled in the gaps. People in our generation are often extremely wary of acquiring and using credit cards, which results in deficient credit histories and delays many financial privileges that rely on credit scores. 

Researchers have found, however, that this skepticism does not extend to BNPL programs, possibly due to their “interest-free” advertising and accessibility for the underbanked. From TVs to Pelotons to $10 lunches, no one hesitates when offered the chance to pay over four installments, the opposite of delayed gratification: delayed financial outlay, for lack of a snappier term. This style of payment, though a fraction of a small percentage of credit card usage, grew one thousand percent from 2019 to 2021 (to $24 billion). Having tested one of the leading BNPL providers ourselves, it’s quite obvious why: enabling Klarna on an online purchase from Canada’s MEC required literally two taps, one to select the option and one to allow Chrome to provide a phone number. No further ID is requested, and the user never leaves the retailer’s website. The process is almost completely effortless, and it’s easy to see how someone who was just planning to browse and make a wish-list could be nudged into following through on a purchase. Furthermore, though every source we’ve read speaks about a verification (however cursory) of credit history before extending a micro-loan, we were able to purchase using BNPL with nothing of the sort. 

Setting that aside, one of the chief criticisms of BNPL is that while their users appear as credit-worthy as those who use traditional banking systems, they are more likely to become delinquent. Beyond that, BNPL tends to lead to more unnecessary retail spending, is not explicitly covered by critical legislation regulating lending, and does not actually, as some TikTok influencers claim, “free up money to be invested.” Unless someone is part of the lucky few who were caught up in the GameStop fiasco and made it out fruitfully, the likelihood of making a substantial profit on investments of a few weeks is laughably low. And of course, the delayed payments are still charged to a credit card, so the promises of zero interest rates only apply if payments are made on time. Otherwise, the feared 19.99% APR still applies.

Edited to add (Jan 2024): as retailers like Walmart introduce BNPL services when using self-checkout in stores, capped out in the thousands of dollars, federal agencies are warning that incomplete reporting of these micro-loans to credit reporting agencies could prevent lenders from knowing the full extent of borrowers’ debt obligations before approving new lines of credit.

Honey and BNPL services both advertise themselves as tools that understand many millennials’ tough financial position and can help out. A deeper look, though, reveals these services do not necessarily live up to their lofty goals: both have business models that seem to revolve around encouraging the kind of frivolous spending that leads to financial difficulties in the first place. One is left wondering if Honey and BNPL create more problems than they solve, by leading to more excessive spending than otherwise would have occurred. Spend wisely, and remember that life will go on without that Model X Smart Home Indoor Rowing Machine in Matte Black. 

And names aren’t the only hot topic: Montessori-style toys, gender reveal parties, and changing attitudes and beliefs about safety, technology use, and children in general have become established areas of focus for parents who use the internet. Let’s start with names.

I hope you all remember the uber-viral meme: a pretty blonde mom-to-be wearing an absolutely 2004 frilly pastel top is standing in front of a chalkboard with the potential names of her new daughter: “Lakynn” is circled (she and her husband ended up going with Laikynn). The good-natured blogger took her viral fame in stride, posting a second version of the photo for her son Tatum and a final one for her dog Maverick (though Pup Tart and Chewbarka were strong contenders). The popularity of these photos is indicative of a trend in baby-naming, where parents eschew the name-books and top-100 lists in favor of old-fashioned revivals and “quirky” variations. 

“This is my daughter Neveah — diD yOu kNoW iT’s heAvEn sPellEd bAckWarDs???”

Haley becomes Haileigh, Jack becomes Jaxxon, and the online shaming begins. Parents don’t want their child to be one of five other Emmas in the classroom, so they can sometimes swing in the opposite direction. Without the internet, it’s unlikely any of them would even know how popular a name was, nor would names be so strongly and universally associated with elements of meme culture e.g. Karen: an entitled middle-aged white woman who wants to speak to your manager.

We could continue ad nauseam with Chad, Brad, Stacy, Tracy, Sharon, Susan, Becky, Kevin, and Felicia — you get it, they’re memes. It’s understandable that people would want to steer far away from the possibility of their child being saddled with stereotypes and subsequent ridicule; but “McKinsleigh” is not the answer, nor is “Braedyn.” Furthermore, these hyper-unique names have become memes in and of themselves, as testified by online communities such as Reddit’s /r/namenerdcirclejerk, dedicated to mocking gratuitous -eigh suffixes and arbitrarily chosen nouns as names (there are apparently huge swaths of kids named Juniper Wren). We’d be doing you a disservice by neglecting to mention the appearance of a “Ratleen” on this forum; and of course, the title of this post pays homage to the cringeworthy “Renesmee,” brainchild of Stephanie Meyer for the only daughter of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan in Twilight.

There is, of course, a race element when it comes to our inherited monikers: after many childhood instances of bullying for “unusual” names, non-white commentators have pointed out the schadenfreude they feel now that the commonness of traditional white names has been turned on its head. There are no universal Mohammed stereotypes, despite it being one of the world’s most popular and historically timeless names. Marijuana Pepsi Vandyck wrote her Ph. D. dissertation on uncommon African-American names in the classroom; such names are not only joked about relentlessly, but profiled in many ways. Job applications with “black names” like Tyrone and Latonya get less callbacks than applications with “white names,” even with the same resume experience and credentials listed. 

All this to say, it seems hard to believe that such Reddit favorites as Ratleen and Candida (yes, like the yeast infection) would have arisen without the influence of social media. 

Another notable parenting trend out of social media is an obsession with supposedly all-natural and holistic toys reminiscent of pre-electricity eras. This movement implicitly demonizes anything in bright primary colors and Fisher-Price plastic, and especially shifts away from battery-operated toys to be replaced by various handmade wooden creations in colors as wide-ranging as “porridge” and “brown lunch bag.” The philosophy behind this is the Montessori approach to parenting, which is basically unschooling-lite — childrens’ own interests should be honored, independence should be encouraged, and paradigms of parental structure, control, and punishment will not create an environment in which they can thrive. In theory these all sound like perfectly reasonable ideas, but when it comes to how they have proliferated social media feeds (specifically Instagram and TikTok) with a nod toward aesthetics over the wellbeing and development of children, there are various other underlying motivations. 

For one, the displaced toys are indicated as analogous to cheap, tacky distractions given to children by lazy, technology-addicted parents; the Montessori-style toys, on the other hand, evoke the tidy home of an upper-middle class white mom who has the resources to spend sixty dollars on the Olli Ella Kids Mushroom Basket from Anthropologie for her beautiful, well-dressed child who never spits up on their immaculate fit. From BPA-free stacking cups to cottage-core dolls, it’s perfectly curated for social media and makes viewers envious. The colors are all matte, muted earth tones and neutrals that give the feeling of being eco-conscious, but are just as disposable as the seven-dollar Walmart variety.

Whether children actually enjoy playing with these boring greenwashed toys often seems to be an afterthought — TikTok star @sadbeigelady, played by Hayley DeRoche, has gone viral mocking the craze in a German accent to pay tribute to stony documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog. In particular, she refers to the children in the advertisements for these toys: they all look somber, pensive, almost Dickensian — certainly, they contain multitudes. To paraphrase DeRoche in her interview with writer and sociologist Kathryn Jezer-Morton (whose witty reporting we’ve relied on for this section), these advertised children embody the tragedy of plenty, the ennui of having everything. 

And of course, there’s the distinction between “girl toys” and “boy toys.” While one might hope this dichotomy has become obsolete, a quick glance through the feed proves that outdated attitudes about gender and sex still prevail: girls are largely still saddled with dollhouses and tiaras, while boys are more often seen with trucks and LEGOs. The apparent lack of progress is disheartening, but perhaps unsurprising given that spending on, attention to, and hand-wringing about gender reveal parties has famously skyrocketed in the social media age.

We’ll get to the funny, alarming, and/or eyebrow-raising examples shortly — to cut to the chase, these parties seem like the imposition of a ritual onto lives that have become largely secular, with little need for religious or spiritual ceremonies that mark the passing of time or the importance of fleeting moments except for holidays, birthdays, weddings, and funerals. In other words, an excuse for not just a party, but to feel like part of a larger community and to feel like you (with your partner) are permanently impacting the fabric of the universe. All of this sounds very flowery, but for many, this sort of gravitas for big life events is missing and they need a way to commemorate them. 

Religious ceremonies are not the only area where people feel loss; in today’s fast-paced society (not to sound like I’m writing a corny college essay), we are less likely to stick around for the majority of our lives in one place long enough to develop the sort of community relationships that allow for the continued relevance of state fairs and street parties, scouting troops and bake sales, cotillions and quinceañeras. Perhaps gender reveal parties have arisen as a sort of half-baked substitute, attempting to infuse commercialized significance into a void left by the decline of more authentic rituals.

These parties often require delivering a note containing the sex of the future baby straight from the doctor’s notepad to the local bakery, lest pink or blue cupcakes not delight party guests. Sometimes, a trusted family friend purchases pink or blue balloons, or puts streamers inside a black balloon for the expecting couple to pop. In rare cases, these parties can be dangerous: in 2020, a California couple’s insistence on using blue firecrackers to announce to guests that they were having a boy-unless-indicated-otherwise famously resulted in them setting off the El Dorado wildfire, which burned across wide swaths of Southern California (over thirty-five square miles in nearly two months) and claimed a firefighter’s life. We hope the potential Instagram likes were worth it. 

All of these are examples of changing attitudes (and aesthetics) about parenting that have been severely influenced by the internet. Wanting your child to be unique, educated, and celebrated is not a bad instinct, and certainly these issues on an individual level are much less problematic than certain attitudes from prior generations; but nonetheless we shouldn’t take “better than the Boomers” as high praise. 

There are other areas of change; for example, we’ve largely moved past the two extremes of completely free-range parents and completely obsessive tiger moms to a narrower spectrum ranging from reasonable freedom to helicopter parenting (inflated fears about stranger danger and secret pedophile rings have hindered progress, despite the reality that any dangers to children are usually from people within their parents’ social circle; see: Catholic church child sexual abuse scandals). Millennials, jaded by accusations of being a “participation trophy” generation — ironically from the very generation who raised them — seem to have struck a balance between not moralizing normal childhood failures and not letting setbacks discourage their kids from getting up and trying again. 

Two issues on which modern parents are more polarized than ever, technology use and safety, are often intertwined. What is the correct response to the social necessity of smartphones: instituting “no-TV-till-three” rules or teaching children about the possible pitfalls and dangers of unfettered internet access as early as possible? Should we go back to free-birthing babies in tubs and sleeping with them in our beds, or put our faith in a for-profit medical system and keep constantly up to date on how to arrange a baby in their crib to mitigate the risk of SIDs? These are difficult questions that we and our antecedent generation are or will be wrestling with, and the answer isn’t as easy as “somewhere in the middle” when the wellbeing and safety of our children is at stake. 

It would be easy to wave off these disagreements as “we’re all just doing the best we can.” This is often true, and at least somewhat comforting, but when it comes to kids, people have understandably strong opinions. But as the world changes, so will our attitudes, and the eternal forces of the functional past and the evolving future will always be in contention. All we can do is keep caring enough to fight the good fight (and stop further uses of atrocities like “Ratleen”).

Alright, we’ll stop, don’t leave. 

If you can perfectly visualize this type of place, you’re not the only one. The archetypal American suburb has become a recognizable feature in the landscape of almost any town with more than 50,000 people. Naturally, it has bled into Canada, another country with vastly varied population density and enough space to theoretically build full houses for every nuclear family, blended family, and set of grandparents in the nation. For kids who grow up in a place like that, it can feel sheltered and boring, fulfilling every item on their parents’ checklist (good schools, lots of parks, low crime) but offering nothing to inspire or excite anyone under the age of 30. These kids grow up, get their driver’s licenses and drive as far away as possible for whole days, go to college in a new and interesting town, move around for work, and then often settle in the exact same kind of place where they grew up to raise their own kids — the cycle is well-documented.

As someone who grew up in exactly such a place, I sometimes catch myself in the throes of an internal argument: I could MAYBE move back home, but only after ten years away versus I will never subject my kids to the horror of beige. 

Since we the authors met in an urban planning class, this topic is high-stakes for us. We’ve had to reign in our innate desire to explore every rabbithole of the topic even more than usual (which is saying something). But it’s difficult to overstate how strongly we believe that while the phenomenon of archetypal suburbia has an immediate and obvious aesthetic effect on any viewer, there are much deeper motivations and implications in the realms of such important topics as politics, culture, and even the American psyche. 

First, we should try to overcome our own biases and admit that suburban living is clearly attractive to many North Americans, as they continue to leave both rural towns and large cities to “settle down.” Many see suburbs as providing a better quality of life, allowing the upper-middle class to afford large detached residences in areas with little perceived crime and excellent schools while remaining close to large urban centers with strong economies. While it’s difficult to deny that these advantages are easier to come by in suburbia than in other types of communities, they often come at the expense of strong social ties, community trust, and individuality.

The history of suburban settlement is fundamentally tied to fears of crime — the initial wave of post-WWII suburbanization consisted largely of “white flight” (enabled by the then-recent spread of the automobile) from inner cities to more distant communities that were considered safer, particularly for children. Even though most suburbs live up to their reputation for low crime rates, the concentration of residents concerned about the issue has given much of suburbia a perception that crime is a rampant issue outside of their own safe haven — a perception compounded by the twenty-four hour news cycles’ obsessive coverage of FloridaMan-esque shenanigans.  The result of this seems to be a certain “fortress mentality,” exemplified by expensive private security systems and devices like Ring doorbells. Aside from the privacy implications of essentially streaming entire neighborhoods over CCTV to private companies with questionable security protocols, constantly anxious suburbanites have produced communities where the slightest unusual observation is considered a potential transgression, leading at best to private shaming on NextDoor groups and at worst to potentially violent encounters with law enforcement. It’s often the case that behaviors exhibited by people in extreme poverty are viewed by suburbanites as intentional and sinister; sleeping in one’s car is a good example. This paranoia is well-captured in two phenomena linked almost exclusively to suburbs: HOAs and NIMBY.

If these acronyms are foreign to you, count yourself lucky. An HOA is a homeowners’ association: if you believe the subreddit r/fuckHOA, this neighborhood organization is comprised solely of middle-class tyrants living a life of tedium who foam at the mouth at any opportunity to tell you that your fence is eggshell white instead of WonderBread white and fine you $200 for every week it’s not resolved. While they are also the ones who uphold standards like not keeping trash on your front lawn or not parking a dilapidated old RV (and potential meth lab) in your driveway for all time, they can transform easily into rigid and trigger-happy rulekeepers who punish infractions unequally and enforce complete homogeneity within a neighborhood.

NIMBY is a mentality, a mindset, a lifestyle: Not In My BackYard. It explains the hypocrisy of a suburbanite saying “Of course we should give those homeless people a place to live! But can’t we do it somewhere else? What if my kid gets attacked by a heroin needle-wielding vagabond?” Based on what we know about the exponential power of paranoia, this thought process is understandable to an extent, but becomes impractical when thoughtfully considered and verges on income-based discrimination. 

The suburbs also allow for the unnatural convergence of political identities. When your entire street is flying Confederate flags alongside their red, white, and blue, standing out can be unwise. You can try to make a statement with a donkey-clad lawn sign or a Black Lives Matter flag, but you might risk putting a target on your back. So people, reasonably so, either keep quiet about their political beliefs and try to ignore the racist grandpa across the street at the community barbeque, or marginalize themselves: the former reinforces the perceived political homogeneity, and the latter can make neighbors hateful, which is not a good environment to live in. To be absolutely clear, this is also true when you reverse the political beliefs, though it’s arguably much rarer. 

Whichever direction it happens in, this political convergence is only one example of the broader trend of suburban homogeneity: rigidity and monotony manifest themselves not only in architecture, but begin to permeate the community’s social fabric. Individuality becomes a flaw rather than a virtue, singling one out as a poor fit for the “perfect community” — a disturbing reminder of suburbia’s origins as a post-WWII white racial project to maintain islands of segregation away from increasingly wealthy and educated people of color.

No discussion of suburbia would be complete without mentioning the much-maligned “McMansion.” The archetypical homes are mass-produced with the goal of providing the American upper-middle class with the largest possible house at the lowest possible price, build quality and sustainability be damned. Famously lampooned by Kate Wagner’s blog McMansion Hell, these houses are often some of the ugliest in existence, with Scottish-castle-esque dark conglomerate stone and medieval-fantasy-novel turrets. The McMansion appeals not to the desire for tasteful architecture or carpentry that will last a lifetime, but to raw consumerism: what’s important is having enough room to store the endlessly accumulating kitchen appliances, backyard and boating accessories, and weekend “toys,” which themselves seem to require a legion of sold-separately accessories. How many of the items currently collecting dust in your garage can you remember buying, or even name? The plentiful space in suburban homes begs to be filled, continuing the cycle of consumerism that led to buying such an oversized house in the first place. Ratty sleeping bags, too-small winter coats, and discarded ice cream makers received at a bridal shower — they are never thrown away or garage-sold until cabinets are too full to properly close.

One of the contributing factors to this aggrandizing cycle is the so-called “American dream”; we’ve all heard it. White picket fence, big grassy backyard, a dog, and 2.5 kids. The imagery that has become a shorthand for middle-class prosperity was the product of the Colonial Revival design movement in the late 1800s. Then, after the Cold War, the popularity of the structure faded as its symbolism remained: a reminder of the “good old days” when people still talked to their (white) neighbors and barricaded children and pets away from (not-white) dangers. The larger phenomenon of homeownership culture carries the same implication: owning your home means that you have “made it,” that your hard work has paid off and your bootstraps are solid. It’s what you show off to friends and family, an implicit message about your status and wealth. People don’t buy McMansions for aesthetics, but to loudly whisper over a glass of wine how ever so much they paid for it (without mentioning the terrible interest rate and monumental loans). 

Ah, suburbia. It can be a love-hate relationship — I definitely experience the whiplash from time to time. The appeal of large, affordable homes in supposedly idyllic neighborhoods is easy to understand, and so too is the whole concept fueled by a history of otherism and consumerism that continues to color our perceptions today. There isn’t a clean or easy answer, but we believe it’s possible to preserve many of the benefits of suburbia while distancing from its problematic roots. Suburban homogeneity shouldn’t be about everyone looking the same, working the same kind of jobs, and believing the same things; it should unite those who just want to look out their window and see a peaceful, uniform neighborhood that goes dark at 9:30 PM.

Okay, now we’ve gotten that cringe out of our systems. But how could something as simple as a font evoke such a strong and specific reaction? 

Fonts can have a distinct and subconscious psychological effect on us; while it’s usually subtle, when the font is misaligned with the message it conveys, that effect can be more pronounced. Think of those horrid internet blogs that haven’t been updated since the 90s, but somehow still lurk in the obscure corners of the internet. When they were made, the accessibility of a varied range of fonts to the public was still in its infancy, no longer the exclusive forte of marketing agents and publishing houses. We had moved past the era where nontraditional fonts were only used in logos and advertisements, and people who were excited to express themselves with Jokerman and Wingdings and Blackadder ITC may have gone a little overboard, understandably so. 

Nowadays, if you are familiar with the internet and social media, you probably have a general understanding of what fonts are appropriate for different use cases. It’s not inherent, but learned: quirky teenagers change the display font on their iPhones to be cutesy and whimsical, professors pray to receive essay submissions in Times New Roman, and audiences of middle school PowerPoint presentations politely ignore the terrible and inconsistent font choices (and useless gradient animations) resulting from students putting too much effort into the wrong features. Some hapless teenagers may at one time have purchased Abercrombie & Fitch shirts with “ethnic typefaces” ranging from nonsensical faux Cyrillic to offensive wonton fonts. As we mature, we focus on (or default to) fonts that are simple and readable for our emails, resumes, and contracts. But while we may know which of the most popular fonts are suitable for the most common use cases, these days we also consume (and create) an endless slew of content designed to make us click, share, or add to cart; and it’s interesting to think about all the work that goes into optimizing a conversion rate. 

Firstly, there is a difference between typefaces and fonts: the latter is a subset of the former. Typefaces include serif and sans serif; a popular serif font is Times New Roman (with those little strokes attached to each letter) and the default sans serif font is often Calibri (which contains none of these attachments). Other typefaces include slab serif (thicker letterforms), modern sans serif (think of the current Google logo), script (those curly romantic fonts on wedding invitations), and novelty (basically everything else). Each of these are meant to evoke different reactions. The reason these fonts matter is the picture superiority effect, which is a fancy way of saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Since appearance and first impressions are more important to memorability and impact than the content of the message itself, designers use different fonts to appeal to a certain audience or convey a particular tone. This is true not only in advertising — like when a startup uses a modern sans serif font to convey both innovation and professionalism (for the second time on Pacific Dispatch, I’ll reference the mattress startup Casper) — but also in casual content like memes. Think of your typical top text bottom text meme: the font is universal, bold and all-caps and readable and above all, impactful. The font is called Impact, after all.

The tones evoked by the six basic typefaces are generally consistent. Serif fonts are stable, dependable, intellectual, authoritative — used by respectable institutions of heritage and grandeur like banks, law firms, and newspapers. Sans serif fonts are more friendly and approachable because they point to progressiveness and informality, which is especially applicable to startups. Slab serif fonts are bold, masculine, and perhaps even aggressive or confrontational, reminiscent of some car companies and electronics manufacturers. Modern sans serif fonts are like their “unmodern” counterpart but more unique to the situation, with the capability of seeming playful, elegant, futuristic, or minimalist. Script fonts can be naïve and romantic (like childlike cursive writing) or sophisticated and formal (like wedding invitations in unreadable calligraphy). And novelty fonts are an indication of uniqueness and individuality, a way to be decidedly anti-conformist (or at least, as anti-conformist as you can possibly be with a typeface). 

Fonts take brands from unremarkable to instantly recognizable. Google went from a traditional serif font to a modern sans serif font for their logo in 2015; we have speculated that the change was an long-overdue indication of the shift in identity from aspiring to emulate established heritage companies to embracing their Silicon Valley tech startup roots, especially as one of the first and definitely the most well-known company to emerge from that ongoing era. Slab serif fonts can be difficult to recall, but when you hear “Sony,” the thick letterform logo springs to mind immediately. Except for a one-year period in 1890, Coca-Cola has had the same unique script font logo since its inception, invoking both a nostalgic and heritage quality; Disney also has a distinct and distinguishable script font logo, being instead childlike and magical. And possibly the most famous example of a novelty font logo is that of NASA, specifically its red, white, and blue logo incorporating stars, an orbit, and an aeronautic spacecraft wing, the whole of which is colloquially referred to as “the meatball” (a detail we could not in good conscience keep to ourselves). 

Corporate branding strategies have changed a lot since the days when new iPhones actually came with new features, and the shift hasn’t been limited to fonts.

In their infancy, smartphone operating systems developed and strongly adhered to skeuomorphism, a design language in which apps such as clocks, notebooks, and messengers are made to visually resemble their real-life counterparts. This was seen to make navigating then-unfamiliar devices and applications easier for the user — unsurprisingly, famously user-friendly iPhones were a major habitué of skeuomorphism, using it for all of their apps, backgrounds, and even the home screen dock. Six years after the style was debuted, Apple apparently decided users had had enough time to get the hang of things, and iOS 7 brought a major redesign to a flat, simple, uncluttered style. This was the beginning of the end for skeuomorphism, with other apps and websites quickly following Apple’s lead. Flat design became dominant, focusing on efficiency and raw functionality. 

This trend later yielded the art style known as Corporate Memphis (or our favorite variation, “humanist blandcore”), characterized by flat, geometric images suited for a multitude of things, with specific designs loosely originating from the Memphis Group — a sort of postmodern architecture collective originating in Italy that was known for their colorful, abstract, asymmetrical designs. Corporate Memphis is the visual version of lorem ipsum dolor, used when creativity is thrown to the wind and the same thing is reused by everyone. The style is characterized by people with pastel or primary-color skin tones, unnatural and exaggerated body proportions, small heads with minimal facial features, and most notably, long bendy arms (like the sausage fingers in Everything Everywhere All at Once, but for the entire person). These people are often in motion, dancing and jumping and doing cartwheels and reaching on their tiptoes to retrieve sticky notes. It’s simple, cartoony, playful, and most importantly, ubiquitous and deliberately humanistic to the point of saccharine weirdness. It’s as if companies think that we will forget data breaches, labor law violations, environmental issues, and general corporate drudgery because of these cutesy, nostalgic illustrations; they’re trying too hard, and it shows. 

The world is not as uncomplicated as a colorful collection of half-opaque shapes constructed to form a blue person, nor is displaying races of primary-colored people a nod toward diversity in advertising. In trying to appeal to the so-called millennial aesthetic, companies have oversaturated social media, print, and billboard/subway advertising with this uninteresting style made up of inoffensive colors like millennial pink and Instagrammable-houseplant green. Combined with startup-sans-serif fonts, the results are casual and mobile-friendly, but utterly indistinguishable from each other and rather soulless. Employed by Facebook (in the form Alegria, judged summarily on r/fuckalegriaart), LinkedIn, Hinge, Salesforce, Robin Hood, Spotify, and the California Department of Motor Vehicles, the once-quirky style’s zeitgeist is coming to an end. Slack had perhaps the least weird version of Corporate Memphis, with a more intimate feel and warm tones, unafraid to portray its characters in shades of brown instead of blue; but even still, it seems that the moment is over, save for a meme critique of the style portraying “Saturn devouring his son” in familiar geometric shapes that is enjoyable to this day. 

But back to fonts (we just needed to vent about Corporate Memphis). 

Our discussion of typography wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the business side of the type industry. While U.S. law does not provide for typefaces — the sets of characters designed according to a certain style — to be protected by copyright, it does extend copyright protection to computer fonts — the software representation and packaging of typefaces for digital use. This legal quirk means that digital creative professionals such as graphic designers and web developers must navigate a minefield of licensing issues to use many popular fonts in their work: while some fonts are licenced so that a single purchase allows unlimited use (known as the desktop model), the more common web font licensing charges per number of page views, with costs for popular sites sometimes reaching tens of thousands of dollars or more. The design and printing service Zazzle recently learned this lesson first-hand when it was sued by the author of the Blooming Elegant font: Zazzle used Blooming Elegant as the default font for many of its premade designs, making it ubiquitous across social media, but only purchased a single-user license though a senior network engineer’s account. The font’s author determined that a proper license for corporate offering would have cost the company seventeen dollars per use, and accordingly sued for hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue. 

Fed up with these high costs and complicated rules, some creators have teamed up with the free software movement to produce open-source alternatives such as Liberation (which is simply a redraw of Times New Roman indistinguishable from the original, allowed because typefaces themselves can’t be copyrighted) and Ubuntu — these can be used, modified, and distributed royalty-free, allowing them to be packaged with free operating systems such as GNU/Linux as well as used in independent projects.

There is an ongoing conflict (not just in fonts either) between allowing people to freely access images, designs, and various typefaces to maximize creativity and the right of designers to be fairly paid for their work. However the war is settled, we’ve hopefully conveyed that the choice of font is important enough to make or break something as critical and significant as a company’s brand identity.

We all dread this question, unless we are one of those TLC Freaky Eaters whose diet consists only of mac and cheese. The options are endless, and nowadays we also feel compelled to check the Yelp reviews of each one. Mexican, Indian, Japanese? What about that place that only serves miniscule vegan burgers with lettuce instead of buns for $13 apiece? It wasn’t always so difficult (hashtag first world problems). 

We think of America as a melting pot (and Canada, alternatively, as a mosaic, though the end result has largely been the same). This mentality as well as related ideas about assimilation resulted in enormous culinary adaptations by the earliest immigrants to America. Faced with the need to survive on new and different ingredients, a larger bounty than was available to the poorest back home, the ingenuity needed to make food attractive to new people, and even industrialization — food evolved. 

Italians, for whom meat was a luxury and tomatoes were stigmatized (their high acidity leached lead from pewter dishes, and the resulting affliction was wrongly attributed to the fruit), were able to serve meat with every meal and developed the iconic spaghetti and meatballs with marinara sauce. Germans were the source of the all-American hamburger and hot dog, both of which became so ingrained in our culture that they no longer hold any connection in our minds to Germany (except maybe when we remember the city of Hamburg). General Tso’s and kung pao chicken are purely Chinese-American in origin, the latter based on the illegality of Sichuan pepper imports into the United States until 2005. Sushi is a Japanese fixture, but the California roll was invented in either Los Angeles or Vancouver and is now a standard offering. Chicken tikka masala, a British invention, is now one of the most recognizable “Indian” dishes in North America. American hard-shell tacos stuffed full of meat, veggies, sour cream, and shredded cheese bear little resemblance to the Mexican original, and Greek diners were unlikely to serve only familiar fares like dolmades and spanakopitas for a long while in this country. Many people back home turned their noses up at this new food, considering any variation to be nothing short of bastardization. 

Some foods got away relatively unscathed and unadulterated, like the ever-popular Jewish bagel or French croissant — suffering only being stuffed full of new ingredients, sweet and savory alike, but able to be enjoyed in their original form. Besides the collegiate proliferation of instant noodles, ramen is currently enjoyed largely the way it is properly prepared in Japan, as is boba (or bubble tea for you Canadians), the milk tea full of squishy tapioca balls that themselves would not exist without the South American cassava root.  

Not all evolutions were so steeped in free and creative inspiration, nor were all traditions able to be preserved. There’s no such thing as soul food in any African country — but ingredients like pork, okra, rice, and beans have strong ties to Africa. Still, it is unlikely that the entire diaspora would be referred to with such a vague term as African-American without the transatlantic slave trade; we also wouldn’t have Cajun gumbo and jambalaya without it. The forced displacement of Native American and Indigenous peoples from their habitancy on this continent is what gave rise to fry bread, a dish which remains controversial within Indigenous communities — some consider it an authentic element of Native cuisine, while others consider it a symbol of the displacement from traditional lands and resources inflicted on Indigenous peoples by European colonizers.

But in recent years, things have been changing. While these adaptations are still a large part of what is considered either American or Somewhere-American fare, consumers have been looking for more authentic and diverse meals and begun to learn about the subtleties and variations in cuisine that used to be thought of as just “African” or “Indian.” Mongolian mutton and Korean kimchi; Brazilian feijoada and Peruvian ceviche; Ethiopian injera and Maghrebi shakshuka; Bangladeshi kebabs and Nepalese momo. New formulations like Korean barbeque and poke bowls with local ingredients are popping up with ravenous reception by the American public. 

Food trucks have been a large part of this phenomenon; once thought of as the poor man’s restaurant, American opinions of food trucks have evolved as quickly as the food itself. Along with taco trucks and gyro trucks, we now see young ambitious chefs using trucks to serve at farmer’s markets and festivals, easily cater large events, or test the consumer interest before investing in a restaurant. While a food truck has yet to make the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, twenty-one on that list are located outside Europe (Tokyo and Lima being especially well-represented). It’s not much, but it’s a good start. And to be fair, fine dining is not the only place for good food; you won’t see the little Ramen Danbo on West 4th Ave in Vancouver make the list, but damn if they don’t make a great broth. 

Not only that, but important questions about sustainability are being raised, and they go beyond Beyond Burgers. We are beginning to understand that the way things used to be done, the way that preceded our meat-forward tendencies because of the expense, may have been better. It began with the idolization of the Mediterranean diet and has recently come upon something actually American: Indigenous food.

Slowly but surely, across North America people have started to understand Native cuisine; not only how it used to be (taking cues from natural resource availability rather than changing nature), but what was lost, what has evolved, and how the old attitudes can take us into the future. Modern mass farming practices are universally known to be detrimental to the environment and inefficient in the long run; when you plant crops that are not native to a particular place with no regard for soil nutrient loss, deforestation, seasonality, and the like, you set yourself and your society up for myriad future problems. The sheer quantity of the current human population has been no help, and nor has our insistence on meat with every meal. 

Indigenous tribes varied in their culinary traditions, but they were generally united in their respect for the plant and animal species that existed in their environment. Whether salmon and seal in the Pacific Northwest, rabbit and turkey in the Southeast, or elk and bison in the Plains, people relied upon that which was native to the region. Indigenous restaurants (in North Vancouver, Berkeley, Denver, Minneapolis, Bangor, and more) are now trying to preserve native foodways by using largely or entirely precolonial ingredients. They’re bringing back acorns, cranberries, chanterelles, and the “three sisters” (corn, beans, and squash). Specialty butchers are offering a diverse selection of meats — in our rudimentary search, we’ve come across goose, bison, elk, boar, caribou, kangaroo, hare, emu, ostrich, camel, seal, crocodile, alligator (though of course, some of these are not culturally significant and are merely novelties). New respect for native foodways has also been renewed elsewhere, including Hawai’i and Singapore. In other sustainability news, we the writers have encountered crickets (sold as snacks in the university bookstore) and catfish jerky (to rid the seas of an invasive species). The foundation for this emerging cultural addition is that the return to the old ways, with a continued respect for new local availability that is compatible with the native environment, is a sustainable way to move forward. With this also comes the idea that authenticity is not a quality inherent to food, but a construct; perhaps it does not mean enjoying only replicas of how a dish was once made in a different land, but knowing the old and new ways, and appreciating both in their respective contexts.

Moral questions around food go beyond symbols of Indigenous repression. There has been much discussion in recent years of cultural appropriation in the culinary industry: white chefs take dishes brought to the US by immigrants, modify them to better suit American tastes, then sell them at outrageous prices in chic, Instagram-friendly urban restaurants. Members of immigrant communities are, understandably, not always thrilled. While few first-generation immigrants are unhappy to see others enjoying the food of their homeland, second-generationers with existing identity crises (one of us included) are understandably irked by those who would peddle these foods without any knowledge or respect for the food’s history or the bullying suffered by many who had to bring foreign foods for lunch at school. At the very least, proper linguistic and culinary training and an attempt at broader cultural understanding would go a long way in giving credibility and curbing defensiveness. 

The North American culinary landscape has been blending influences from around the globe for nearly six hundred years, when European settlers first imported their native cuisines and began to adopt foods native to their new continent. But European settlers were also famous for raping nations in the quest to acquire their foods, flavors, and lands — and the attitude of greed and gluttony should not continue. This tradition of integrating and adapting foreign influences continues today, with a slowly growing focus on health, sustainability, societal impacts, and past harms that echo today. While nobody can predict with any certainty where we’ll go from here, it seems clear that an interesting future and many future debates lie ahead for North American food.

So next time you’re despairing about where to go for dinner, despair more: there’s no such thing as just Indian food.