Media Twitter Declared Federal Disaster Area in the Wake of Hurricane Bad Art Friend

Hurricane Bad Art Friend made landfall on the east coast of Media Twitter yesterday and a discourse storm that looked at first like it might peter out because no one involved was famous or likable instead found conditions ripe for explosive growth. Everyone had an opinion, including me and probably you, but none of them are necessary. Go ahead and have whatever opinion you want! Matt Levine even made it a story about “the discovery of private electronic communications in litigation.” It’s low-stakes mess that we can all can stick both hands in and have a good squeeze, like the tub of sperm in Moby Dick (a book that is definitely about whales). But there are a few useful lessons we can all take from this disaster:

1. If you suddenly find yourself the subject of a lot of attention, make sure people can find your product. Sonya Larson has a prominent link to the anthology that contains “The Kindest” on her website now, so if you want to read the story, you can (for only $14.74). She’d be smart to make it a Kindle Single if her rights allow it.

2. Get ready for your texts and chats to be published. There’s nothing you can really do about it, but in The Cut Claire Lampen rightly observes that “Hell Is The New York Times Publishing Your Group Chat.” It will happen to all of us, so remember that when you’re judging someone else’s bitchy Slack messages.

3. “Don’t Ever Pitch a Story About Yourself What the Fuck.” Olivia Craighead wrote the new Gawker’s first good post about the fact that Dawn Dorland, overwhelmingly judged the villain here, was the one who caused the Times story to exist. Don’t do that.

4. If you write fiction, don’t forget to make stuff up. It’s literally the whole job! Sonya Larson and “Cat Person” Kristen Roupenian could have both saved themselves a lot of trouble if they’d just changed some details.

5. If you want to donate a kidney, that’s great. But spend some time meditating on this first:

Also Today in Lit’rature: Alex Shephard handicaps the contenders for the Nobel Prize in Literature in The New Republic. There are many excellent highbrow burns. (Sally Rooney mentions: 4). Constance Grady says the new Franzen is very good. (Sally Rooney mentions: a restrained 0). Scaachi Koul profiled and reassessed the influence of twenty-teens alt-lit condemnation magnet Marie Calloway for Buzzfeed. (Sally Rooney mentions: 1, justifiable). Gary Shteyngart has trouble with his peen, in a New Yorker-ey way. (Sally Rooney mentions: 0, thank God).

“Evolved Apes” is the latest NFT rug-pull, reports Motherboard’s Ekin Genç. The primary developer walked away with $2.7 million, leaving NFT holders with nothing but the dumb jpegs they bought in the first place. But hey, if you’ve proven yourself to be the kind of sucker that will dump money into a scam, plenty of other projects are ready to welcome you with open wallets. You know what else is hot in the NFT space right now? Hitler. Also Today in Tech: Matt Novak points out that “Mark Zuckerberg's Latest Defense of Facebook Doesn't Make Any Sense,” and in Input, Chris Stokel-Walker wondered why Facebook’s PR strategy seems to be “send Andy Stone out to be a smarmy dick to reporters online.” It’s a bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for ‘em. Twitch has been comprehensively hacked. And Microsoft gave away free Windows 11 “Bloomberry” ice cream at Mikey Likes It in NYC yesterday. If you make a novelty promotional ice cream, I will always mention it, that’s just the deal. This one looks good, and according to Ryo on YouTube, it was good. In MIT Tech Review, Cat Ferguson tells the tale of Infoseek founder Steve Kirsch spiraling from an apparently well-intentioned search for Covid therapies into full anti-vaxxerhood. And Molly Young wrote about the eternal battle of planes vs. wildlife for no news-related reason that I could determine, but it’s a good post.

Reuters’s John Shiffman reports that America’s Trumpiest news channel One America News was founded at the suggestion of, and is 90% funded by, AT&T. With the runaway success of nü Gawker and the demise of its competitor Ozy in the inessential leftish lifestyle-news space, this is the perfect time for Bustle Digital to relaunch Mic:

No thanks!

And finally: A fresh vegetable has been sighted in the U.K., and Haverfordwest residents are sproutraged.

Today’s Song: Petey, “Don’t Tell the Boys”

~ in that inexpressible tab, I washed my hands and my heart of it; ~

Traditionally no one really reads Tabs on Wednesday. Hit reply and tell me what you’re doing today, so we can both feel less alone. We probably need a little break from Twitter anyway, right?