But I Sold My Prized Pocket Watch to Launch This Website

An architect named Rex Heuermann was arrested and charged with a series of murders on Long Island in 2009 and 2010, and in a darkly refreshing reversal of the cliché his neighbors were like: yeah makes sense, that guy totally had serial killer vibes. In a literal quote to The New York Times:

Anyone who had the slightest contact with him is currently reaping an about dot me attention bonanza, such as the recipient of this absolutely normal voicemail that the New York Post was legally required by the Tabloid Code to describe as a “cReEpY vOiCeMail!” It’s very depressing to think that someone could be a serial killer but also feel compelled to perform Professional Networking.

In other depressing but unsurprising news, Donald Trump is planning to go full dictator if he’s reëlected. Or as New York Times headline writers phrased it: “Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025.”

It’s a real O. Henry style twist of fate that Joshua Topolsky is the all-time greatest at convincing rich people to give him money to start websites, but not actually very good at running websites. Semafor’s Max Tani posted one slide from Topolsky’s deck for his forthcoming Robinhood content marketing venture Sherwood:

I wanted to goof on this grid by placing The Outline on it, but to appear on an “Authoritative” to “Untrustworthy” spectrum the site would have to have been about something.

Also Today in Media: Four months after buying Grid News, The Messenger has managed to grow to the size of Grid News, but remains invisible to Google, according to Joshua Benton. Fifty million dollars and Neetzan Zimmerman are still getting their asses handed to them by the local newspaper for Madisonville and Hopkins County, Kentucky.

Bluesky developers, speed-running the narrative arc of every small-team community website in history, have reached the “getting yelled at all the time” stage, and the guy whose mother-in-law bought cursed artifact The Dress (+10 viral, social media managers take an extra 1d12 exhaustion damage) has been charged with trying to kill his wife. But there is still good on the internet! The Tiktok teens are chucking soft-serve at each other (mmmm ice cream so good. gang gang). Annie “Depths of Wikipedia” Rauwerda is making perpetual stew in Bushwick. Cohost just achieved a milestone with its first good post. And Tumblr is still out there breaking news:

If you need customer assistance from an airline, don’t call the phone number you find on Google Maps. “Over 100 people trapped for several hours in mystery writer Agatha Christie’s former home.” This has never happened before, but it still feels oddly familiar. Freelance Kapie on the Palantir stock fandom (followed by a full-on Deloitte sponcon post, because irony still pays Fast Company’s bills). Ohio political ad goes extremely hard. (Turn the sound up loud before playing this at work.)

Finally: “Now that everyone understands Uri Geller was lying for fifty years we can finally agree… that he was right all along” is the baffling framing of this David Segal article about the spoon-bending con man.

Nope! 🥰

Today’s Song: oOoOO, “Seaww”

Music Intern Sam loves to give me songs where I can’t tell which is the artist and which is the track name. Today in Tabs is brought to you today by the summer doldrums, an AQI of 75 and rising, and a wet-bulb temp of 78. I also post on Bluesky @rusty.todayintabs.com and, regrettably, Twitter @fka_tabs. Bell-oon. Pop pop pop pop pop pop. bsky-social-l7efb-q3evz