Amazon controls everything, literature is culturally irrelevant outside of the Tiktok subgenres of Dark Academia Dark Romance Dark Fantasy, the industry is still going through corporate consolidation, etc etc. Jessa and Nico get into the terrible state of publishing, and what happens to an industry wholly dependent on the university system when the university system goes into crisis.

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What's an Arts District without any art? Mostly condo buildings named after composers, restaurants with a $200 seafood tower, and Madam Butterfly as muzak. And what's a literary community without any literature? It's spending tens of thousands of dollars on an MFA so you can teach creativity workshops online. Jessa and Nico assess the wreckage left by Philadelphia's shocking University of the Arts closure, the rise of the creativity coach, and the monoculture of elite overproduction.

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If the masculinity influencers like Tate and Huberman are our society's surrogate daddies, who are the women giving mother? Are the makeup YouTube tutorials, home cooking TikToks, and parasocial substitutes a baby bottle replacement for the nurturance and care women feel like they lack? What is the divide between the metaphorical mother and the literal human woman? Can you self-care your way through late capitalism and environmental collapse, yes or no. Plus: Lauren Southern renounces tradwife life, Jurgen Klopp is once again the ideal father, and more.

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It's not a great time to be a fan. The hooligan, the violent and illogical fanatic who will commit crimes to defend their faves, is no longer found only in sports. The hooligan can be found worshipping pop stars, politicians, Netflix shows, and comic book characters. There they are, issuing death threats to those who dare to criticize a singer-songwriter. They are in your mentions, swarming you for not liking a video game. Jessa and Nico take the moment of Jürgen Klopp's departure from Liverpool FC to think about the state of fandom, what it gives and what it takes and what it requires from us.

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Jessa and Nico return from their week off to discover nothing has really changed. We're still talking about campus protests (instead of what they are protesting), technology is still celebrating the destruction of things that are handmade and skillful and good, people are still trying to declare who art is "for" and who is allowed to have opinions about it, and American fascists are still nostalgic about the Austro Hungarian empire. From Eurovision to Kendrick v Drake to Germany's memory culture.

Americans are being warned by their government that before they leave the country they need to check their luggage for any "stray ammo" or weaponry that they might have stashed in there. Is the world getting sick of America's nonsense? Europe is ending its golden visa program, Turks & Caicos has Americans under arrest for trying to bring guns etc on vacation, and Venice is now charging entry fees for disembarking from the foul cruise ships. Jessa and Nico contemplate the American "the world is my oyster" entitlement. Also: campus protests, the cruise ship essay, Salman Rushdie got stabbed by a guy from Jersey, and more.

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Civil War is a hit! Both blue states and red states agree that watching a movie that lets you fantasize about the half of the country you don't agree with being buried in a shallow mass grave is a great time. Could it happen here? Probably. Jessa and Nico get into why so many people want it to. And what a film, devoid of any insight into political polarization or who is paying for those Western Forces helicopters, by Alex Garland has to say to us now.

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The Dept of Health and Human Services ruled that hospitals could no longer do pelvic exams on unconscious women without their consent, in the year of 2024. Nico and Jessa get into the horror of having a human body right now, with telehealth companies selling drugs to cure baldness that have been linked to psychosis to abortion laws that change every day to the rise of entrepreneurial and hedge-fund ruled health care.

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