Single and ready to mingle? Just pull up one of 972 dating apps. And while you’re at it, why go to the gym when you can use a fitness app from the comfort of home? Not too long ago, you used to have to actually go out and interact with humans to do all this stuff. Now, everything can be done from your couch. It’s gotten to the point where people are out here spending $15 to order in a single scoop of ice cream. Like, what? Sure, all these apps make life easier. But is anyone thinking about what it’s doing to society as a whole? [Read more]

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

Take a deep breath… now let’s talk about OnlyFans (I know, its early.) It’s crazy how even the most taboo corners of the internet eventually get folded into polite, VC-backed infrastructure - even OnlyFans, the platform that effectively modernised adult content and made sex work look like a subscription SaaS product.

It’s reportedly in talks to sell a 60% stake to a San Francisco investment firm. The platform that once sat in the cultural margins now looks more like any other tech asset class: optimised, de-risked, and ready for institutional money. Adult content but make it boardroom-friendly.

Speaking of all things raw, that’s just how tradwives like it - their milk, I mean. The CDC has been saying “please don’t do that, you will literally die” for years, but the unpasteurised crowd remains loyal, with Hannah Neeleman (aka Ballerina Farm) positioned as their linen-clad patron saint of pastoral living.

Unfortunately, her milk just failed two safety tests. Which is maybe a sign that being an influencer does not automatically make you food-safe certified. Raw milk can carry E. coli, salmonella, listeria, campylobacter, even avian influenza. At a certain point, the aesthetic isn’t worth the bacteria. Please just be normal. Your kidneys will thank you.

And because the universe loves tonal whiplash, A24 has now acquired the rights to reboot The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Yes, the prestige indie studio is heading back into chainsaws, blood, and rural horror. Which honestly feels narratively consistent with the week we’re having.

Between platforms getting corporatised, wellness trends getting people sick, and horror franchises being resurrected for cultural IP farming, everything is being rebooted, repackaged, and resold. The only thing that isn’t getting a reboot is our collective nervous system.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

Let that sink in for a second. The vast majority of restaurant food is now consumed anywhere BUT the restaurant. On couches, at desks, alone in bedrooms.

The social ritual of dining out - one of humanity's oldest and most fundamental communal activities - has almost been dismantled in less than a decade.

And food delivery is just the tip of the iceberg.

Five. Thousand. Dollars. For the mere privilege of not having to leave the house.

But it's not really about the food, is it? It's about the erosion of friction. Every app, every service, every piece of technology is designed to remove one more tiny inconvenience from your life. To optimise. To live smarter. Easier.

Except what we're actually doing is trading culture for convenience. And most of us don't even realise it's happening until it's already done.

Sometimes the meal is actually secondary to the experience of being somewhere, dimly lit, with someone. Just the art of doing something together.

Now it kind of feels like now we just tap a button and food appears.

You eat it in front of Netflix. Or in bed. Alone. It’s efficient. Frictionless. And void of any kind of ritual at all.

Every aspect of human life that CAN be turned into an app-based transaction IS being turned into one.

Dating? There's an app (or 5) for that. You no longer don't meet people organically. Instead, you swipe through a catalogue of faces from your couch.

Shopping? An app (or 5 million.) You no longer browse stores and stumble onto things - you scroll algorithmic feeds that show you exactly what you're statistically likely to buy.

Entertainment? An app. Fitness? An app. Socialising? Increasingly, also an app.

We're watching the systematic digitisation of experiences that used to require showing up somewhere, interacting with strangers, navigating uncertainty, being present in a physical space. And we're doing it willingly because it's easier this way.

The death of the "third place" - that space that isn't home and isn't work - has been talked about for years. But delivery culture is accelerating it dramatically. Why go to a café when coffee comes to you? Why go to a restaurant when the food arrives at your door? Why go anywhere when literally everything can come to you?

We're losing spontaneity, the chance encounter, the unplanned conversation with a stranger – and then we wonder why we’re so freaking lonely.

We’re losing the experience of just existing somewhere without an agenda. Just roaming around, free to find your feet.

We're also losing embodied experiences. Being somewhere physically, with all your senses engaged, is fundamentally different from having things delivered to your bubble. Think about the smell of a restaurant, the energy and sounds of other diners, the act of moving through the world instead of having the world funnelled to you through a f*cking screen.

And maybe most importantly, we're losing the skill of dealing with minor inconveniences. These things are important. They’re the texture of life. Waiting, planning, coordinating with other humans in real-time. These aren't bugs, they're features of being a social species. But we're systematically designing them out of existence and it makes me kind of sad.

The people paying $5,000 a year for delivery convenience and the people doing the delivering exist in completely different economic realities.

One group gets to retreat from public life entirely. The other group has to navigate public spaces constantly, in all weather, for sh*tty wages, so that the first group never has to leave their apartment. It's a system that quite literally pays some people to shield others from experiencing the world.

And we've normalised this (of course.) We've turned it into background infrastructure that nobody questions anymore.

Look, I'm not suggesting we all delete our delivery apps and return to some idealised past. That's not realistic and honestly, not the point.

But I do think we need to be honest about the trade-offs we're making.

Every time you choose convenience over showing up somewhere, you're making a choice about what kind of life you want to live. About how isolated or connected you want to be. About whether your daily existence involves other humans or just transactions with them.

Rewiring our social habits, budgets, and sense of what's normal.

And it's doing it so freaking smoothly, so efficiently, that most people haven't even noticed the shift.

Technology has proven it can reach into the deepest, oldest parts of human culture - breaking bread together, gathering in shared spaces, the spontaneous social encounters that used to just be part of existing in the world - and completely restructure them in less than a decade.

The question is no longer about what's happening.

But whether we're okay with where this is taking us.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

We’ve all been there, diva: those moments where we’ve had to force a laugh or two. Especially when we’re trying to make a good impression. Now toss in trying to score a prezzy or a paid nail appointment from your partner or bestie? And you’ve got some funny ass content that’s easy to shape to your own personal brand or niche.

This trend didn’t come from a TV show or movie. It’s pure internet behaviour with the concept making numbers on TikTok. Creators leaned into that very specific social reflex of laughing at someone’s joke, not because it’s funny. But because… you kinda have to. 

People are taking real life situations and using them in these skits. Think “when his joke wasn’t that funny but you wanna go out with the girls” kinda vibe. You can apply it to situations with clients, people leaving weird comments on your content, the world is your oyster. 

Simply film a video of someone telling you a joke for your first clip with you giggling along. Cut to you hiding your face and bouncing your shoulders so it looks like you’re cracking up, but the whole time your face is deadpan. Not a single laugh in sight, ma’am. Overlay with the sound that compliments the trend, add your onscreen text and bam. You’re a comedic queen. 

A few ideas to get you started:

-Tyla Browne, Videographer

😂Yap’s funniest home videos: “He don’t bite”
❤How wholesome: bless his heart
🎧Soooo tingly: ASMR wax cracking peach rings
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight: Taco loaded potato bowl

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.