If you can’t remember the last time you *actually* took a lunch break, you need to read Anne Helen Peterson’s case for lunch [“But eating at one’s desk is still hazardous. It normalises a form of “grazing” productivity culture in which workers program themselves to always be working in some form, but rarely actually achieving any form of concentration or deep work.”]
Why we need rituals, not routines
Emma Thompson is on the media circuit for her new film Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, and this essay that she’s penned for Vogue about sex and middle-aged woman proves she’s just as good at making us cry on the internet as she is on screen. Honourable mention goes to this meaty profile in the New York Times, in which she talks about her decision to disrobe onscreen at 63, the dieting industrial complex and the absurdities and the intricacies of female pleasure
Couldn’t stop reading this article about Polish people roleplaying “the broken American dream” as everyday people living in a trailer park in Ohio celebrating the 4th of July 🤯
In tech news: A leaked memo has revealed that Facebook is changing its algorithm to take on TikTok, Meta is adding more Reels creation options in Facebook and Instagram, Tiktok is testing a feature that lets you see which of your followers are viewing your posts, Snapchat is developing a paid subscription service, Adobe’s new AI-powered filter instantly restores old photos, Internet Explorer is officially dead (RIP 🙏🏼), Pinterest has launched new ad tools in a bid to improve product discovery, soon you’ll be able to buy virtual Balenciaga and Prada for your Meta avatar, LinkedIn is simplifying its reposting functionality, what’s likely to happen in the next 3-18 months in the tech startup world, and humans finding ‘signs of sentience’ in AI is a self-fulfilling prophecy, while in actuality, we have no idea what true AI sentience may look like
The enduring cultural appeal of Tumblr and how it’s carved out its own unique little space on social media
Things you might say instead
Still confused about the Assange case after all these years? Here’s a good explainer
In Vogue UK, novelist Nell Stevens writes evocatively about being a queer late bloomer, mistimed proposals, and what it feels like to fall in love with the person you’re meant to be with [“In December 2017, I told a man I didn’t want to marry him. He was someone I had, for several years, wanted to marry. By the time he told me he felt the same way, we hadn’t spoken in months and I’d met someone else, a woman, and fallen in love with her.”]
What your book organisation system says about you
Compulsory reading for anyone in the midst of any form of heartbreak [“Self-love sounds wank, and a lot of it is. But I understand now that it’s not just a way for skincare companies to sell you sheet masks. Prioritise your own pleasure. Make intricate meals that involve laborious steps. Know you’re worth the time to make that meal even if it’s eaten in minutes. Light candles before you masturbate even if it makes you feel weird. Spend whole days in bed reading, not answering your phone, because – let’s be honest – you’re probably not that capable in a crisis anyway.”]
On marrying the wrong person
A team of scientists has developed a biodegradable (and antimicrobial) food packaging solution that could FINALLY put an end to plastic packaging
And in other news: Excel single-handedly keeping our egos in check, audiobooks for road trips (scroll down to the comments), this news is a bit meh but the writing is wild, don’t we all wish that we could mute America, Drake wrote an album of IG captions, Beyonce is selling invisible merch, this unusually wholesome reddit post will warm your heart, questions that feel like a hug, a brilliant list of things we can all fight for to make sport fair, the most popular websites since 1993, the little things were the big things all along, not keen for the future of double decker air travel, obsessed with all the wood in this Brooklyn townhouse and the boisterous use of colour in this New York farmhouse compound
