BESTOF: April
THE BESTOF’S
Enjoy.
BEST IN SHOW
I stumbled on this and initially took it for another example of language like ‘food freedom’ and ‘anti-diet’ and other Leftfield-esque sounding ideas that are anything but.
And it is. But so much more.
Have you ever been reading something and begun to doubt your sanity? Suddenly wondered if you were lucid dreaming, or got lost between open tabs and hadn’t realised you were reading The Onion.
Standby.
An article that absolutely nails the prevailing zeitgeist. Which is to say it’s one absurdity after the other. I was going to hit the wavetops here but every point and quote is straight out of Monty Python. And then I got it. The penny dropped. I figured it out.
Everyone is high. Obviously. That’s the only thing that can explain it.
I mean you’d have to be to fall for a #sponsored social media post telling you something so obviously absurd.
And you’d have to be able to sacrifice whatever professional credibility you might have to post something so obviously absurd. And so obviously paid for.
And you’d have to be to think that anybody would believe your interest was not selling candy for breakfast but was really a community service to ‘derail the cycle of shame’. Because people need to ‘feel heard and seen.’
And, sure enough, I was right. There was cold, hard proof.
Next to Camp PepsiCo - the beverage giant’s summer camp-themed booth - dietitians waited in line to climb a giant yellow General Mills cereal box and slide into a bowl of plushie Cheerios.
I’m leaving Camp PepsiCo alone but want to draw your attention to dieticians. Not their kids. Dieticians. Click the link, there’s a picture of what can only be said dietician on a pretty miserly— maybe 10-foot-long— sad-looking slide that can only be testament to the fact that insurance law is a million times more effective than any food-specific ones when it comes to your well-being.
Now, I’m no stick in the mud. I’ll let my hair down and get crazy now and again but when it comes to climbing a (not really) giant (and budget-looking) box to slide into a bowl of plushie anything, you can put me down for hard no.
And, pardon the language, but sometimes there’s only one word for it — if your age is anything beyond 20— and that’s being super generous— you need to be some sort of champion fuckwit to go on a slide at a food and nutrition expo.
Coming in a close second— and only because our champion proved the concept— is whoever came up with the idea.
So what are we going with for the expo this year… Any ideas?
I know! Let’s make a big cereal box! Oooo Ooo! And we’ll have a slide coming out of it! OOOOOOOO!!!! A slide INTO A BOWL OF PLUSHIE CHEERIOS!
… Are you high?
Seth Godin with what should now be a prerequisite for every university course: expertise and firmly held beliefs don’t always go together.
Alas, social media has elevated the foolish. People possessing little in the way of expertise, and generally unwilling to change their assertions or goals.
https://seths.blog/2024/04/the-grid-of-inquiry/
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…bad games form a feedback loop: they distract us from pursuing the things that will bring us lasting contentment, and without this lasting contentment, we become ever more dependent on false, transient metrics like scores and leaderboards to imbue our lives with meaning.
Dr Rhonda Patrick on exercise intensity. Lots of good info and all timecoded for easy access.
MISCELLANEOUS
Recommendations reflect what I’ve been reading/listening to/watching/using recently but, in most instances, and especially where music is concerned, will not have been released in the past month.
MUSIC
BOOKS
TV
Of Money and Blood (SBS)
APP
CLIP
Have a great weekend.
- OLI