Morning Comrades! I am happy to announce that this weekends very special collaboration with RHEK from Cold World Frozen Goods is now available through to Sunday, or as long as stocks last. The above illustrations are available both on a Long Sleeve, that is limited to 20 pieces and a black Short Sleeved T-Shirt. Clicking the above will take you directly to the online store. As always, I am grateful for your unwavering support and interest and if you have any questions please do drop me a line, either here or via email.
Instagram, rather quietly, rolled out a new “feature” on Thursday called “Sensitive Content Control” and I am struggling to put my disdain for this bullshit into words at this point. Technically, or rather officially, this limits what you seen on your Explore page. Instagram defines sensitive content as those that “don’t necessarily break our rules but could potentially be upsetting to some people.” These posts include content that may be sexually suggestive or violent. Instagram also adds a disclaimer for sensitive content on the app but this feature will help reduce it for users who may not want to see such content. Granted, IG stopped being fun years ago when Zuck bought it, introduced the non-linear “curated” feed and monetized the fuck out of it to the point where unpaying accounts like myself get shown to around 3% of their followers but rest assured, it has been a steady decline into the whitetech man’s hellish version of “cool” ever since then.
Obviously, aside from not wanting to help bring in cash to Zuck, there are plenty of other reasons why I have been trying to divert your attention this place and now in addition to this newsletter, the Telegram Channel that you can join here. I find the fumbling of Zuck partly amusing as he destroys the worlds largest social media platforms and turns them into cesspools for boomer fascism & racism but the real world implications of this greedy power hungry robot are all too well known. It is an ongoing debate, a futile one if you ask me, whether to remain on the platform and fight the system from within or to just let it rot from the inside out. You know where I stand on the subject and whilst we are here, thank you all for joining this as an alternative, seriously. I try my best to make this as informative and worthy of your time as I can. If you enjoy this newsletter, I would greatly appreciate it for you to share this with as many people as you know, the more the better in my opinion.
The point remains, however, that this continous slide into a white-tech washed version of fake news and paid for commercial content does nothing but make Zuck richer at the expanse of total societal destruction, which applies to all social media platforms. We have all seen the Cambridge Analytica documentaries and experienced the negative effects these platforms produce, foster and exploit. The above “Sensitive Content Control” will essentially drive off 99% of the content creators on IG that made the platform what it was, similar to what happened to Tumblr once Yahoo bought it. Online exploitation of creators to gentrify their space and sell off to the highest bidders, the parallels to reality are uncanny. Of course this “Control” will not only be used on the explore page, we all know that is bullshit, but it will essentially block any and all creators on the site that a) don’t pay and b) fulfill the 1950s Madison Avenue advertising reality of a wholesome white America. Which just makes me want to burn it all down. Anyway, again, share this space, join the telegram channel, and genuinely re-think the entirety of the so called communal online space we call IG.
As per usual I have chosen a few programs for your weekend infotainment outside of the propagandized brain rot the usual streaming platforms offer. Some real gems in there that I can only suggest getting into but that I’ll present, mostly, without comment this week.
There is however, surprisingly, a-ok documentary on Cuban History over on Netflix, one that doesn’t entirely fall into the Western Proto-Capitalist Revisionist Bullshit they usually spew, and here is the link for it:
To finish the section on two highlights, there is a new track & video from BADBADNOTGOOD and you know I just have to share that one with you.
Lastly, and a big shout out to Chris for bringing me this absolute insanity to my attention, Little Big from Russia. I can’t really wrap my head around any of this other than it being some of the most brilliant, off-beat, creative chaos I have witnessed in ages. By all means, watch the rest of their videos, but this one takes the cake for all the obvious, ahem, reasons:
Let’s see how many hot shots I can still fit into this email today, there’s some good ones, whatever doesn’t fit in here will be shared over on the Telegram Channel.