Otherwise I can squeeze you in between back-to-back meetings if you want to make it a quick 9-minute call instead. I mean, seriously, making plans these days makes it seem like we’re coordinating a multi-national sporting event rather than just arranging a casual get together. And don’t get me started on making it work when you want to (heaven forbid) see more than one friend at once. So, how did we go from community-centred humans to people who have to shoehorn relationships into the (very limited) leftover minutes of our lives? [Read more]

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

It's something that hasn’t been seen since the Philly Eagles Super Bowl win in 2018 (the police department had to paint the city's lampposts with Crisco and hydraulic grease to stop people from climbing them, and it didn’t even work, look it up, I’m serious).

New York Knicks just clinched a spot in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999, and the city reactions are absolute, beautiful chaos. We are talking about people screaming on subway platforms, bars completely erupting, and grown adults weeping in the streets over a 27-year drought finally ending. The internet is going equally as berzerk. Honestly, the pure, unhinged joy is almost enough to make me care about basketball. Almost. If you want a quick dose of dopamine, go watch the fan videos immediately.

Ok second story, which I’m as full of joy as a Knicks fan about, if you use Gmail for work, get ready for your inbox to look a lot more like a group chat. Google is pushing hard for us to use default emoji reactions in work emails. Because apparently, typing "Thanks, looks good!" takes too much emotional labour. So now we can just hit our boss with a casual thumbs up or a crying-laughing face (depending on the email, obv).

Business insiders are genuinely arguing this will "humanise" corporate communication. But let’s be real, y’all, it’s mostly just going to lead to passive-aggressive emoji warfare during budget reviews. 🤡

Speaking of trying too hard to look human at work, this is peak comedy. Or dystopia. Or dystopian comedy. Since everyone and their mother is using AI to write their emails now, corporate messages have become aggressively robotic and bot-ish. Sooo welcome the brilliant new Chrome plugin called "Sinceerly."

I am not joking. It is literally an anti-Grammarly tool that intentionally injects typos and casual, clumsy errors back into your AI-generated emails. Because nothing says "I definitely wrote this myself and didn't copy-paste from ChatGPT" quite like misspelling the word "tomorrow" or forgetting a period. We have officially gone full circle. From AI that helped clean up our spelling to AI that helps us f*ck it up. While we just get lazier and lazier. Insanity. 

-Sophie Randell, Writer

Written by Pranav Jain, the piece captured the invisible funeral of adult relationships and the way we slowly, silently lose access to the people who once knew our inner lives so intimately. Not because of any like, dramatic fight, or fall out. But because of unattended accumulation. Postponed calls due to exhausting jobs, different sleep schedules, the intimacy of proximity slipping through the fingers.

The internet shared it aggressively. Because it named the ghost we are all running from: nobody is truly happy right now, and everyone is completely exhausted.

But we need to stop pretending this is just a personal failure. It’s a structural one. We have corporatised our existence, turning ourselves into shift workers in a giant tech factory instead of real people living real lives.

We don't call out of the blue anymore because "we don't want to overstep." Instead, we text to ask for permission to speak. We coordinate digital calendars weeks in advance just to grab a twenty-minute coffee. We talk about our emotional bandwidth like it’s a fkn data plan and evaluate our loved ones through an invisible cost-benefit analysis.

“Who texted first? Who is draining my energy? What have they done for me recently? What is the ROI on this interaction?”

Lord.

When we apply the efficiency logic of the workplace to our private sanctuaries, something vital and very f*cking important dies. We stop seeing people as souls and start seeing them as tasks to be managed.

When your entire day is spent optimising, networking, and protecting your peace, the boundary between the office and the real-world dissolves. Everyone in your feed starts looking like a coworker. And when everyone is a coworker, you become your only remaining friend.

We maintain an ambient awareness of each other’s lives. I know where my college friends went to brunch today. I know when my old roommate got a promotion because LinkedIn emailed me about it.

But I have absolutely no idea what the emotional weather of their life looks like right now. And that is just so devastating to me.

It’s efficient, sure. But efficiency is the natural enemy of intimacy. Intimacy requires not only a magnificent, irrational willingness to waste time together, but also great sacrifice, and selflessness. It requires showing up. Even when you really don’t have the energy to.

F*ck “protecting your peace.” Soon you look around and you’ve protected yourself into a lonely abyss.

Friendship is the only relationship we have left that isn't bound by systemic duty. Family is blood. Marriage is a legal institution. Work is utility.

Friendship only exists because two people continuously, stubbornly look at each other and say, "I choose you."

In a world that demands you monetise your hobbies, curate your identity, and maximise your output, choosing to waste three hours on a Tuesday evening sitting on a kitchen floor talking about absolutely nothing is genuinely a radical act of rebellion.

We have to stop showing up to our lives as the polished, bullet-pointed versions of our résumés. We have to be willing to be tired together, to drop the professional armour, and to risk being a little bit inconvenient to the people we love.

The next time you think of someone, don't send a meme. Don't reply to their story.

Break the factory rules. Call them. I beg of you. Pick up the damn phone and call them.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

One of the greatest pieces of music you'll ever hear is Mozart's "Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331: III. Alla Turca." (It's a mouthful, but trust me you've def heard it before). It's a universally beloved slice of audio, which is why TikTokers are using it to represent how amazingly particular noises sound to particular people.

Whether you listen to Kendrick as an English major, Megan Thee Stallion as a manhater or your unproductive thoughts as someone in a relationship, everyone's got a favourite sound that speaks to their soul and theirs alone.

Take this sound, put the camera on yourself and film yourself playing the air piano (literally just twiddling your fingers) to Mozart's masterpiece. Then, add onscreen text describing how a certain song, sound or idea registers with a very specific type of person.

A few ideas to get you started:

-Devin Pike, Copywriter

😲WTF - "I run this city"
❤How wholesome - Two Girls
😊Soooo satisfying - Dog Dancing
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight - Crispy Rice Salad

Hi Barrett,

You need to create a content strategy rather than just posting randomly! Otherwise, your message will be totally muddled and your audience will be confused. So ask yourself who you're speaking to. What you want to say to them. And why you want to get that message across to them.

Once you know that, now you've got your core message. And you should only create content in line with that. Don't worry about sounding repetitive. You want to become known for a consistent message, and the only way to do that is to keep posting about it.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

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.