In my favourite movie, Truth or Dare (In Bed with Madonna) there’s a scene in which Madonna is being treated by a doctor for her throat while on tour, and her then-boyfriend Warren Beatty is in the background. He can’t understand why she wants to do this, talking to her doctor about a serious medical issue, on camera. “Does no-one talk about this?” he asks. “The insanity of doing all this on a documentary?”

Madonna’s response: “Why should I stop here?”

I’ve been thinking about that scene this week in the context of a bunch of disconnected but deeply related stories about family vloggers. Tread carefully with this one, it’s a minefield of content warnings about child abuse.

First off, hello to the new subscribers here from Culture Vulture! It’s so nice to see you. For the rest of you, I wrote a piece for Luce’s great pop culture newsletter on my lifetime hatred-affair with high heels: Emma Thompson told me she’s never wearing heels again. Me neither.

Second, yes I was hit by a tornado last night, but I’m fine. I lost a tree and my BBQ cover, but my house is in one piece. Do not recommend.

roll your own

In the aftermath of the inauguration, it’s become even clearer that the owners of our online social infrastructure are all from the bad place.

what does a mandalorian look like?

In November, I was working with my friend Adam at the Supanova cons in Australia (think ComicCon or Armageddon). Convention culture hasn’t historically been part of my fandom experience, until Adam invited me to cosplay with him at New York ComicCon a couple of years back. But it meant that the day after the US election, when I would ordinarily have felt extremely depressed, I instead got to spend the whole day surrounded by thousands of fans who were so excited to meet their faves, to show off the incredible things they’d created, and to share in the uninhibited joy of being a fan.

One of the things that struck me as a very casual Star Wars fan was the incredible array of Mandalorian armour on display. Cosplayers weren’t just recreating Boba Fett’s or Din Djarin’s costumes — they were making their own amazing variations. I saw a Mountain Dew Mando, and these amazing Micky and Minnie Mandos:

I’d love to say happy new year, internet friends, but 2025 is getting off to a rocky start, between the war crimes and wildfires, maga nonsense and our own brand of political bs here in Aoteaoroa. But none of that is what prompted me to write to you, you can get enough of the doom and gloom literally everywhere else.

No, instead it was Zuck’s mask-off reveal that Meta’s products would circle the drain like everything else, unlocking a slur pack and chasing a more “masculine energy” for his company.

Anyway, you don’t need me to tell you that these platforms are rotten — I’ve been talking about it since Webstock in 2019. You can read great writing on this loads of places (Cory Doctorow calls it “enshittification”, Ed Zitron calls it the “rot economy”).

When I asked you to give me your email address, it was just as twitter was starting to circle the drain. I promised you I wasn’t starting a newsletter, so much as finding a way to continue to share what I was thinking and reading and writing about once that platform no longer existed. It’s certainly true that twitter still (technically) exists, but it doesn’t work in any meaningful way anymore – no tweet achieves any kind of reach, and the bots and nazis make it a horrible place to visit even briefly. 

Honestly I’m still grieving that on some level. Yes, I can discover new things on TikTok and share my Eras Tour costume on Instagram and (shudder) network on LinkedIn. But nothing has replaced the learning and discovery and serendipity and fun. Where am I supposed to do my annual announcement that it’s marshmallow egg season?

Anyway, as promised – here are the things I’ve written lately that you might enjoy reading:

Public Passions/Private Spaces for The Pantograph Punch’s Carving Space issue – thinking about how we make thriving neighbourhoods online.