This is not the first time I've had to re-learn how to make friends. About four years ago I left a job with tons of friends and started something demanding and little bit isolating. At night, instead of partying with dozens of acquaintances as I used to, I dove into an unlikely and, honestly, embarrassing new group of friends.I spent a lot of time watching and interacting with an ingeniously funny Twitch stream called Go Off Kings. I was so convinced I had stumbled upon the future of friendship that I actually wrote about it for Ad Age. But really I had just forgotten how to be normal, how to hang, so that just watching something with other people and laughing along was like some sort of nearly tear-inducing emotional warm bath. It's excruciatingly embarrassing now! But I had, at the time, just forgotten that this is what normal people do, they watch stuff together. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stream last week and became the latest Twitch crossover star, it was treated as a stroke of genius. At that moment I realized a lot of us are very disconnected from the current methods of hanging. Maybe we're out of practice or maybe we're out of the loop.
"Among Us" is how kids hang out right now. It's insanely popular, having been downloaded 100 million times. Is it an innovative campaign stunt or just the natural thing for a 31-year-old to do with her friends? The latter. "Among Us" and Twitch are not for those older than AOC, though. For the rest of us, hanging can be a bit more forced, like we're social novices again. The show that best captures the unsocialized, feral desperation of wandering outside after eight months of lockdown trying to connect with people again is "How To With John Wilson" on HBO. In it, the innocently curious narrator treats the very idea of interacting with people like it's something brand new again, which, for me, it is. It was by far the most heartwarming and hard-hitting thing I watched in a weekend with several excellent new pieces of content, like Tim Heidecker's fucking hilarious stand-up special and Dave Chappelle's sobering interview with David Letterman. Watch it and then let's go meet for coffee when you're comfortable with that sort of thing (you know where to find me). By then, hopefully, I'll know how to make small talk again.
The shorter stuff
Moxie Marlinspike is the laughably pretentious tech guy you need to know about this week. (TNY)
Kanye called himself "Deadpool for God" and we're just going to not really talk much about that, I guess. (Spotify)
Travis Scott referenced the extremely iconic Maxell ad "Blown-Away Guy" in his Playstation collaboration launch video. (Hypebeast)
Jared Kushner's friend who he hired to run the New York Observer is accused of being a real scumbag. (NYT)
There's a company that allows you to pay to be "Close Friends" with celebrities on Instagram. (So Close)
Shonda Rhimes left ABC for Netflix partly over free passes to Disneyland. (THR)
David Fincher describes a script that his father wrote as "amazing marrow out of which to grow red blood cells needed for this story." (Vulture)
Why has Jim Carrey's "SNL" Joe Biden been such a disaster? (The Ringer)
I love this description by a socialite of Ted Sarandos' house: "It's old guard L.A., very Buffy Chandler...It's not one of these McMansions on the hill." (T&C)
Jonah Engel Bromwich and Ezra Marcus on the wellness influencer who won't pay her rent in Montauk. (NYT)
Is the Lincoln Project the only brand on Earth that can build hype for its upcoming ads? (Twitter)
Spotify is running an ad for Joe Rogan's podcast that cuts out all the parts where he claims vitamins will prevent coronavirus. (Twitter)
Jeffrey Katzenberg told Quibi staffers to listen to the song from the movie "Trolls" for a little pick-me-up after losing their jobs. Whoops. (Daily Mail)