Sir This Is The Whole Internet

You might think the headline “90 Day Fiance star who made £38,000 a week selling farts in a jar hospitalised: ‘I thought it was a stroke’” doesn’t leave much room for surprise in the article, but if you survive that headline, and the fact that “at one point, demand was so high for Stephanie’s wind that she was producing up to 50 jars worth of farts a week,” and the paragraph about protein shakes and bean soup, you will eventually make it to the Aristotelian “surprising, yet inevitable1” ending:

Of course. And speaking of farts on the blockchain, courtesy of Molly White (who is not to blame for any of this) here is the pitch video for Cryptoland, a Fiji-based “physical crypto island” project that answers the question “what if the Fyre Festival never had to end?” Also there’s a talking animated Bitcoin. And a musical number. Horrible rumors in the Tabs Discord speak of the Macarena but I didn’t make it that far.

Here’s the white paper. Roll 6d10 psychic damage.

In other upsetting demo video news, BuzzFeed’s Richard Nieva reports that “One Of The Creators Of Google Glass Is Experimenting With A Smart Retainer For Texting With Your Tongue.” And you won’t believe how comfortable and natural it looks!

Meanwhile, in the metaverse (or, “Second Life”):

St Francois County, Missouri adopted a new county seal, and I think it’s very clear what St. Francois County, Missouri’s passion is.

Important Pizza News:

Domino’s Taiwan introduced a “‘Buddha Jumps Over the Wall’ pizza. It includes abalone, scallops, sea cucumbers, garlic short-ribs, fish skin, quail eggs, taro, dried bamboo shoots, and cabbage.” I’d eat it. After the Cryptoland video I’d eat anything. I’d drink lead paint just to forget the things I’ve seen today.

Anatomy of a Cancel Culture Hustle

Yesterday we were left with the puzzle of why, other than being a world-class messy bitch, Michael Wolff would try to whip up a cancel culture controversy about Norman Mailer, who was permanently cancelled by death back in 2007. The New Republic’s Alex Shephard reported that Mailer’s sales have been weak, even compared to his cohort of overrated 20th century white American dick-lit authors. The AP’s Hillel Italie added the information that “the family, along with Mailer biographer J. Michael Lennon, ‘put together a proposal for a collection of political essays on democracy which they liked,’” presumably to squeeze a little more cash from their ancestor’s literary corpus, and that the project was picked up by publisher of last resort Skyhorse. Both the AP and the New York Times also mentioned that the literary agent for Mailer’s estate is Andrew Wylie, who happens to be Michael Wolff’s agent, which Wolff confirmed in a tweet that led to this already-classic exchange:

So, in summary: wily Wylie wooed Wolff with Michael Mailer at Michael’s to create cancel culture controversy and seduce Skyhorse into salvaging a sinking submission. That’s just Hollywoo, baby.

What have we learned about the Smiths Dot News? Not much! in The New Yorker, Clare Malone gave Ben Smith the space to demonstrate his world class talent at refusing to answer questions. New York Magazine’s Shawn McCreesh got this perfectly shady Timesian quote from Carolyn Ryan:

In Axios, reliable stenographer Sara Fischer reported that the Smiths’ media startup has 37 million newsletter subscribers and has been profitable for the last 5 quarters, and also posted Justin Smith’s two page project memo, which says “we have no idea what we’re going to do but I sure love Michael Bloomberg a lot. Like… a lot a lot.” And in Puck, which is what happens when the jerk-off hand motion raises a $7 million Series A, “the dumbest media reporter alive2” Dylan Byers had a premature liquidity event.

In summary, we don’t know anything we didn’t know yesterday, but at least everyone had a lot of fun.

Hero Dog Tinsley Saves Two Lives. “Volger Semen Center, We’re Pretty Handy.” Farhad Says: Relax.

Today’s Song: Wet Leg, “Too Late Now”

~ sir this is tabs ~

Yesterday I forgot to credit Senior Contributing Editor for Graphics Alison Headley for the WIRED “Technology is great?” graphic and now I think the Tabs graphics department is unionizing. It’ll be Today in Scabs around here pretty soon. Find me in cyberspace @fka_tabs and @TodayinTabs.