3/23/2023
The 33 Project
I’ve finally emerged from my illness and wow does it feel great to not be sick! What a messed up 10 or so days that was. I’m so grateful for my health and for Susannah.
I’ve had time since recovering to dive into many open tabs and it’s been such a pleasure to do so. Let’s get into the recommendations for this week:
1/ One truly undesirable side effect of being sick was consuming a constant stream of tiktok videos. Healthy it was not. But I did come across this interesting take on why there are so many “day-in-the-life” videos on tiktok and what it all means.
Perhaps that’s the reason why so many “day in the life” videos, no matter how aspirational or ostentatious, share a quiet melancholy. Here is a person who just wants to be seen when they are by themselves, when nobody else is around. Maybe they’re looking for some kind of meaning, maybe their lives feel small, or maybe they feel so big that they can’t help but want to share it. It’s why I think the best “day in my life” videos are the ones that give voice to all the anxieties and self-consciousness that come with being a person who spends a lot of time thinking about how they present to the world.
2/ I found this profile of Ben Affleck far more interesting than expected. You can’t deny that he’s, in his own way, thoughtful on his work and on the movie business. I appreciated his candor. I love an authentic subject.
3/ The ozempic craze has gone mainstream, and as such, we’ve been blessed with a stellar piece by Jia Tolentino for the New Yorker diving into it all.
In the actual universe that we inhabit, the people who most need semaglutide often struggle to get it, and its arrival seems to have prompted less a public consideration of what it means to be fat than a renewed fixation on being thin.
That’s all for this week. Thank you as always for reading this newsletter. If you want a little more, considering upgrading to the premium crew. You’ll get more recs and musings and love from me. Have a great week.