Vol. 2, Issue 36 | Thursday, September 3rd, 2026

Another huge loss for our world this week with the death of Gloria Steinem. I rarely go a day on TikTok without scrolling past a young woman sharing how excited she is that her boyfriend has “retired” her from her job. Typically, we’re talking about a person who can’t be younger than 20 or 25, yet is now reliant on the whims of a similarly aged man (although let’s not leave out those age-gap relationships!) for her economic stability and prosperity. I don’t mean to sound old, but we’ve come so far that it’s clear to me that a lot of young women, and people of all genders, don’t know how good we have it. Ladies, want a credit card? Thank a feminist like Gloria Steinem. Feel like divorcing your shitty husband? The same note of gratitude applies.

In this week’s Traffic Report, the latest in techno-fascism, Zohran Mamdani’s Signal problems, and the death of Lake Ontario. In TL;DR, the real Joe Rogan of the left, Gina Hinojosa’s creator connections, and George Clooney’s wishes for the afterlife.

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Our weekly Traffic Report segment covers top tracks and tunes at the corner of politics and the Internet.

DHH-Gate

Where do I start… OK. David Heinemeier Hansson is a tech entrepreneur (and amateur racecar driver, FWIW) who founded Basecamp, a project management system like Asana or Trello. He’s also an advocate for the ethnic cleansing of Europe. Hansson, or “DHH,” as he’s known in the online developer community, recently launched a new company: Omarchy. Omarchy is what my Nontoxic co-founder, Dexter, described as an ‘agentic Linux distribution.’

Linux is an operating system, like Mac OS or Windows. Omarchy, in being an ‘agentic Linux distribution,’ means that it builds AI features directly into that existing operating system. In our AI-First world, it’s a hot commodity — DHH has been collecting million-dollar checks left and right to fund Omarchy’s work, from the CEOs of companies like Shopify, Cloudflare, Dell Technologies, Dropbox, and even $300,000 from 1Password. He’s also found time to blog about his far-right beliefs.

In a post titled “Wolves, sheep, and gypsies” published in July, DHH compared an overrun of wolves in Denmark to that of the Romani people — pejoratively known as Gypsies. “When wolves get out of control, you shoot them,” Hansson writes. In another, he railed against “industrial-scale sexual atrocities” allegedly committed by Pakistani Muslims against “mostly White British girls” in the U.K. He’s not trying to hide his beliefs.

As a 1Password user with a team of people using its vault system across our client accounts, I’m now in the process of selecting a new password management platform thanks to the company’s hefty contribution to Omarchy. My requirements for the replacement are pretty simple: “Doesn’t fund far-right whackos.” If you’re similarly displeased, you can do the same with any of the companies whose leadership has recently cut Hansson a check: the protest power of the pocketbook is well-documented.

To Signal or not to Signal

I can’t remember exactly when Signal became ubiquitous with political work. By the time I was working in Ohio in 2018, if you weren’t using an encrypted-messaging app to shoot the shit with your coworkers, you were doing something wrong. On the other hand, if you’re not annoying and you have a life, you may have never heard of or used the app yourself. Unless you’re old enough to remember when Pete Hegseth made war plans in a Signal chat.

Which brings us to NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration, under fire this week for its use of the app to communicate with content creators. A Signal group that spawned from the Creators4Zohran chat that helped launch Mayor Mamdani and his message of affordability into Gracie Mansion is now raising questions about whether City Hall is keeping the appropriate records of messages related to city business.

The Mayor’s team uses the app to send what might have been more traditional press releases three or four years ago — succinct communications about the latest policies and rollouts from the administration — to the creators they’d like to see speak about them online. The main issue at play is that Signal has an optional setting to auto-delete messages after a certain time — a day, a week, etc — causing concerns about proper record-keeping of official city communications. It’s also worth noting another key difference between these messages and a press release: This is a relatively friendly audience. Creators aren’t journalists. (I said what I said.)

I don’t know if the Mamdani administration is deleting messages, so I don’t have an easy response here. I personally prefer a one-week expiration on my Signal chats, but I don’t work in government. Since this criticism is also mostly coming from the political right of Mr. Mamdani, it feels like an excuse to create faux-outrage at an administration that is, for the most part, doing a fantastic job of running the city. So, let’s go back to the beginning of this segment… shall we all try getting a life?

Lake America :(

I miss the days when the names of major bodies of water weren’t subject to the whims of an 80-year-old dictator-wannabe. Professionalism clearly aside, I’m feeling touchy on the subject of our President today. Something about his tariff-war-fueled temper tantrum this week that resulted in the “renaming” of Lake Ontario — from the Iroquoian word Oniatarí:io or Kaniatarí:io, in use since 1639 — has been particularly depressing to me. It also caused a ruckus in my family group chat with the Canadian side of our clan, aptly named “NAFTA 3.0.”

If you ask Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini today, “What is the Great Lake north of New York?” It will tell you “Lake Ontario.” As I said in a video about the topic yesterday, how quaint. That’s not because of some small act of resistance on the part of Anthropic or OpenAI; Large Language Models rely on historical sources that, until very recently, only knew the lake by its original name. When you ask the models to verify that information by checking with the U.S. Geological Survey data, they quickly catch on to this week’s news.

All is not lost, however, for those of us who wander. While Google and Apple Maps have already capitulated to the Trump administration’s redesignation of the Lake, MapQuest (yup, it’s still around) has now hit #1 on the App Store after refusing to rename Lake Ontario. As my friend Katie and others discovered upon downloading the app, you can self-select your vehicle to appear as a unicorn or other magical creature. So, that’s something.

As a young sociology major, I learned the term ‘anomie’ — the norm of normlessness. It’s an unmoored lawlessness caused by a breakdown of norms in a society. Increasingly, its belligerent spread through our culture feels like a pet pursuit of our President. C’est la guerre. I think I’ll sign off to go for a swim in the Gulf of Mexico now.

TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

Will the real Joe Rogan please stand up? — In a new video, Joe Rogan asks, “What if there’s no more poverty?” It prompted users, including Hasan Piker, to say that perhaps we’ve finally found the Joe Rogan of the left — in Joe Rogan.

“Only feels appropriate to pay homage to Beth” — 92-year-old Iowan Republican Senator Chuck Grassley joined TikTok this week with a commemoration of his late vacuum.

“I would like to avoid being in a tampon commercial 20 years after I’m dead.” — George Clooney is worried about what AI will mean for the movie industry.

“Paid actors, AI writing” — A new investigation by Semafor shows the rise of “ghost creators” online.

“How can anyone not love the Minnesota State Fair? 🧑‍🚒🔥” — Minnesota Senator Tina Smith continues the tradition of er, enjoying the sights of the Minnesota State Fair.

“Content Creator Exclusive” — Progressive writer Kyle Tharp showed the postcards that Governor Josh Shapiro is mailing out to creators to tout policy wins by the administration.

“Sip and Spill” — Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa is visiting with content creators across Texas.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 35 | Thursday, August 27th, 2026

I grieved alongside the rest of the world when we lost Dolly this week. As a Warren 2020er, “9 to 5” is baked into nearly every memory of our numerous treks to events across the state — Senator Warren running on stage, arms outstretched, as “Tumble out of bed and I stumble to the kitchen” blared across the rooms of eagerly waiting audiences. I rolled my eyes, too, at the insufferable leftists (sorry) online who somehow found it in themselves to criticize Parton for, *checks notes,* not living in poverty as a successful recording artist, or failing to give enough comprehensive healthcare and paid college tuition to the people she employed at Dollywood. There are some battles you truly cannot win.

In this week’s Traffic Report, Meta’s landmark settlement with dozens of states, Cory Booker’s endearing online tendencies, and more about golf than I’ve ever cared to say regarding the sport in my entire life. In TL;DR, OpenAI is rebranding, the Department of Education (proudly, mind you) compares Trump to Hitler, and a possible comeback for Twitter.

Have a lovely evening, and a great weekend.

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Our weekly Traffic Report segment covers top tracks and tunes at the corner of politics and the Internet.

Meta Settles Their Debt

This week, a group of bipartisan attorneys general and Meta announced that the company had settled a case alleging that it improperly represented the extent of the mental health harms caused by Facebook and Instagram to children. While we stated a figure of $18 billion in a video posted yesterday, the true amount of the settlement is actually $16.7 billion — the additional amount is related to the Cambridge Analytica data breach. The money will go to states involved in the case, to be used for expansions of existing youth crisis hotlines, mental health programming, and training for medical providers focused on the interactions between media and body dysmorphia.

This is a landmark dollar figure in terms of previous tech settlements in history, and it comes with a few catches. Meta must also now implement a bevy of new restrictions for kids on its platforms, including nighttime blocks, daily usage limits, school modes to limit notifications, turning off “like” counts and “extreme” beauty filters. Notably, the tech giant only has to pay out 70% of the settlement over the next ten years — the remaining 30% is triggered if and when its competitors YouTube and TikTok stand up similar restrictions.

Online, the reviews have been, well, mixed. The advocates and families who have sued Meta themselves are celebrating the settlement as a win that puts in place important safeguards for children and teens. Self-declared free speech enthusiasts, like tech opinionist Taylor Lorenz, are using up X’s character counts left and right to warn of the forthcoming apocalypse of government-led censorship and surveillance that this settlement will apparently bring forth. I think she couldn’t be more wrong. An untold number of young people have lost their lives to the scourge of Meta’s algorithms. If young Bobby can’t stream to rage against the machine from midnight to 6 a.m. anymore, the world will be a better place. I’m already hoping these restrictions are rolled out for 31-year teenagers like me, too.

Cory Booker is a Facebook Mom

You heard me. I’ve been saving this topic for a rainy day, and a thunderstorm woke me up this morning. The senior Senator from the Garden State has a passion for — how do I put this? — extremely corny content on his social media. For reference, I’d define a “Facebook Mom” as someone who reshares content along the lines of, “Look at this video of a dog helping an elderly woman across the street,” or “Love can be found everywhere, even in the darkest of times,” overlaid on a photo of an oil-covered baby duckling being cleaned with Dawn dish soap. I hope you get my point.

A few recent posts:

Each of these saccharine, heartfelt messages was accompanied by a video much like those I jokingly laid out above — strangers helping another or a deed of particularly moving sportsmanship. I’m not sharing these to criticize the Senator; it’s a rare breed of politician who has not had this kind of wide-eyed tenderness squished out of them simply by waking up and going to work. If anything, I think it’s sweet. Back in the days of the 2020 Iowa Caucus, a staffer-friend confirmed to me that Booker was the one posting many of his own “Tweets.” From this endearing cache alone, I’d be willing to bet that this is still the case.

Carry on, Senator. I’m sorry the rest of us have eaten too much cynic-pie to see the world as you do. Now I’m off to find an elderly neighbor to do a favor for.

A swing and a miss from Callaway

I take it as a point of personal pride that I know nothing, and I mean, nothing about golf. The closest I’ve gotten to actually watching a tournament was my recent viewing of Will Ferrell’s streaming series The Hawk. That said, I do know utter douchebaggery when I see it. So does the rest of my side of the Internet. An ad from the golf media company Good Good, promoting their new driver co-branded with the equipment company Callaway, made waves this week — for the worst reasons possible.

The ad shows a woman, professional golfer and Good Good employee Alexis Miestowski, approaching a golf bag, hand outstretched toward the driver. One of the co-founders of Good Good, Garrett Clark, rushes towards her and pushes her forcibly to the ground, saying “Do not touch my new driver.” She yelps on the way down. The music underlying the ad is creepy, and after this disconcerting scene, it continues with another man seemingly becoming possessed as he picks up the Callaway Quantum driver.

The backlash against both companies was instant. I read a few articles that posed this as “a clash between the old and new guards of golf,” but it’s more like a clash between people who think violence against women — or anybody — makes for a good ad, and those who don’t. The ad was taken down but not before it swirled across social media, with both companies raking in criticism from golfers of all genders and ages. Even the PGA Tour, a deeply buttoned-up organization (as I learned from The Hawk), issued a statement condemning the ad.

Clark, in apologizing for his role in the video, also attempted to salvage his reputation by explaining that the idea behind the ad was to evoke a narrative like that of the hit indie horror movie Obsession. OK. And that helps, how? I’ve already returned the Callaway drivers I got all of you for Christmas.

TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

Well, that was awkward — Does TikTok keep sending videos you’re watching to people you don’t intend to? You’re not alone.

“Trust us” — OpenAI leadership says they’re rebranding and rebooting.

Oops — AOC re-enrolls in DSA membership after an accidental 7-year lapse.

Operation Bluebird — A new startup is trying to revive the Twitter brand, arguing that it was abandoned to fair use by Elon Musk.

Deeply sick, deeply disturbing — A federal appeals court judge ruled this week that the First Amendment protects the right to possess images of child sexual abuse created using AI if it does not depict a real person.

“This isn’t news, this is standard” — A reporter is being (lightly) ridiculed online for her exposé about the standard campaign practice of ‘redboxing.’

Do I have to spell this out? — “The official U.S. Department of Education account posted, then deleted, a video positively comparing Trump to Hitler.”

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 34 | Thursday, August 20th, 2026

Another week in paradise. There was plenty I could have included in this week’s newsletter, and didn’t. Like Harry and Meghan’s return to the U.K. after six years (I give it 6 months before they announce they’re returning to royal duties). The whole Natalie Harp of it all – Trump’s “Human Printer.” Or maybe the alleged automated response from Flock Safety’s media team when asked for comment on the privacy concerns increasingly raised across the country: “Unlike our cameras, we can’t work 24/7, so we’ll get back to you when we’ve had a snack and regained the ability to form coherent sentences.” Right. And the award for failing to read the room goes to…

In this week’s Traffic Report, those devastating courtroom comment sections, Jason Kelce tells us to send our pee to data centers, and the Secretary of Transportation slaps his wife on the butt on YouTube. In TL;DR, the TikTok series that reminded me why I’ve always been #TeamEdward, Google’s new policy for political fundraising emails, and a push by OnlyFans creators to raise awareness about climate change.

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Hatred of data centers goes mainstream

As the GOP privately warns AI companies that data centers are “politically radioactive,” a new video shows just how mainstream the pushback against these centers has become. Jason Kelce, former center for the Philadelphia Eagles (or as I know him, Taylor Swift’s brother-in-law), stars in a new ad from two beverage companies telling the audience they “want your pee” to cool data centers. It’s the first time I’ve seen a celebrity as er, conventional, as Kelce take a stance on a topic (data centers, not pee) that I don’t go a day without discussing here in Louisiana.

On the campaign trail, data centers are becoming an increasing litmus test for Democratic and Republican candidates alike. The effects of the centers, which include health concerns, rising electricity bills, disruption to local infrastructure, and more, are creating a coalition of concerned voters that crosses party lines. Gregg Abbott, GOP Texas Governor, rolled out a directive to halt 1,800 data centers. Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro is implementing strict restrictions on development. Our President has not yet gotten the memo.

Trump said earlier this month that “it’s a mistake” to go against data centers. Yesterday, he said that “many of them are designed in a very beautiful way.” Meanwhile, a new poll shows 7 in 10 Americans oppose a data center being built near them. Online, it’s also been pointed out that there’s some hypocrisy at play, a la this X user, “If you are against data centers: you should immediately cease: online banking, streaming shows, using social media,” etc. I agree, honestly. That still doesn’t mean we should abandon the rare opportunity to harness collective, bipartisan concern for the physical manifestations of corporate greed and environmental waste. But maybe we should keep our pee at home?

The tragedy of Lindsay Clancy, online

In October of 2024, I was morosely captivated by a profile I read of a man named Patrick Clancy. It told the story of a husband whose wife had strangled their three young children and then jumped out of a window, paralyzing herself from the waist down while experiencing postpartum psychosis. Two years later, as Lindsay Clancy’s trial finally began, the Internet has watched along in pain and horror.

I’ve watched clip after clip of Lindsay sobbing in the courtroom as details of the day she killed her children emerge. As these details come to life, so have other truths. That in the weeks before the event, she was prescribed more than a dozen psychiatric medications by as many providers. That she begged for help. That her husband ultimately left her alone on the day she hurt her children. Since the day of her arraignment, a horde of women, many of them mothers, have come to her defense online.

Comment sections below these videos are full of people railing against a medical system that failed Lindsay, the lack of responsibility Patrick himself has been held to — even finding evidence of a new relationship he entered perhaps weeks after the death of his children. Online sleuths have assembled completely unsubstantiated clues they feel prove that Patrick himself is responsible for the murders. The case has reached the political side of the Internet, with even Ben Shapiro rebuking comments from others on the right alleging that women who suffer from postpartum psychosis are simply selfish and lazy.

As court cases like these are increasingly broadcast online, so is the trauma of those who have actually lived these tragedies. I hold deep empathy for Patrick Clancy’s experience, but thanks to the advocates who have fought to tell Lindsay’s story in greater detail, greater still for a woman who was apparently let down by the people — and systems — around her.

“To love America is to see America”

You’re welcome, everyone. I watched the first episode of Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy’s “Great American Road Trip” so you didn’t have to. It was both better and worse than I imagined. First of all, call me old-school, but I didn’t want to see the bare feet of the Secretary’s wife — Fox and Friends Weekend co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy — anywhere, let alone tucked up underneath her on a couch as they did a reality-TV intro interview. Neither did I want to see the Secretary smack Campos-Duffy on the butt, either, but that also happened later in the episode.

The Secretary — who first rose to fame on The Real World: Boston — explained this week that the show’s delayed premiere, months after the original date, was due to “compliance with all of the ethics rules.” Ugh, those pesky ethics. The show has been mired in controversy since it was announced, probably because it was ethically dubious from the beginning. It was produced by a nonprofit with corporate sponsors like Boeing, Toyota, Shell, Lyft, and Google — notably, many companies that are regulated by the department that Secretary Duffy leads.

The first episode started with the Duffys stopping by the White House for a visit with President Trump, before the family and most of their nine children headed to Philadelphia. They ate Philly cheesesteaks, saw the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, and even ran up the “Rocky” steps. It could have been almost charming, if most Americans weren’t struggling to afford gas and groceries while the Duffys galavant across the country on a corporate dime. Maybe I’m being too harsh. After all, this is the reality-TV administration. I’ve got the next episode queued up, so, whatever. Boston, here we come…

TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

#ThrowbackThursday — These instructions provide users with the ability to turn off Google’s AI overview functionality, returning you to the bliss of Google search a few years back.

“You better hold on tight, spidermonkey” — I laughed all week long at the series of TikToks a friend group made recreating scenes (to incredible degrees of accuracy) of Twilight. It’s almost time for my yearly rewatch…

Slack Code — The communication platform rolled out a new option for humans and AI agents to work together in real time.

Don’t ask me what I think about this; I’m still deciding — Google introduced a new update that will make it easier for political campaigns and PACs to bypass the spam filter.

Don’t put Polymarket in the corner — President Trump left prediction market executives out of a meeting with tech and cryptocurrency leaders.

A new day dawns — Some colleges and universities will begin allowing families and students to pay tuition through Venmo or PayPal.

‘Headline Newds’ — A group of OnlyFans creators are using their platforms to draw attention to the issue of climate change.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 33 | Thursday, August 13th, 2026

Greetings, all.

Is it just me, or has this been a long week? Maybe it was yesterday’s trip to the laundromat thanks to our broken dryer, or the persistent drip from a ceiling vent soaking overnight into an upstairs daybed (thanks, NOLA humidity), but I’m ready for the weekend. It’s also been an extremely busy few weeks on The June Group front, in my other job as a political consultant working with candidates like the Democratic challengers to Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise. Yes, tall order as it may be, there are strong and persistent advocates running to be thorns in the sides of the #1 and #2 GOP members of the House. (You can learn more about Conrad and Lauren on their websites).

I digress. In this week’s Traffic Report, AOC takes us along for the ride online as she prepares to freeze her eggs, Claude’s new watermarking of AI-generated content, and Taylor Swift snaps back at Trump’s use of her music. In TL;DR, the daughter of Bill Gates is in trouble, new viruses created by AI, and Palantir’s gig surveilling USA Today readers.

Happy Friday-eve.

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Our weekly Traffic Report segment covers top tracks and tunes at the corner of politics and the Internet.

“Don’t be weird about this”

AOC knows the Internet. Why else would she start a series about sharing her journey freezing her eggs by telling her audience not to be weird about the process as she injected herself with medication? The Internet, per usual, did not comply. Things got rolling when Rep. Ocasio-Cortez launched a series of posts this week announcing that she had decided to freeze her eggs to “feel more in control of my life.” As perhaps the most “online” politician we’ve been lucky enough to see in our time, it makes sense for Ocasio-Cortez to share the process publicly.

On the left-leaning side of the aisle, women who have also chosen to freeze their eggs celebrated Ocasio-Cortez for her transparency. It resulted in some choosing to share their own fertility stories for the first time. On the right, it was a much more mixed bag. Conservative commentator Matt Walsh and others bemoaned the fact that a woman would choose to have children later in life, let alone take action to control the circumstances around it. An op-ed in The Free Press railed, “Must Egg Freezing Be ‘Normalized’ by AOC?’” (The pro-family White House distanced itself from the criticism).

At the risk of dabbling in Hill gossip, I’ll note that TMZ was the first to report this week that Ocasio-Cortez and her fiancé had previously split, prior to her decision to freeze her eggs. In one post this week, AOC said that “men who say women should have kids early are creating hysteria because they want to rush you into a relationship with a loser.” She hasn’t confirmed or denied the split. Regardless of her reason why, it continues to be incredibly cool for her to share her story. It’s also not helping her with the 2028 rumors. Who needs a baby when you can be president?

Society, beware — you might have to start using your brains again

Frequent AI-users were shaking in their boots this week when Anthropic announced it would begin placing a watermark on all content generated using their models. It’s a little more complicated, and a little less daunting, than these reactions at face value.

Anthropic is complying with a new regulation in the EU that requires transparency for AI-generated content. As is often the case with EU regulations, those complying with this policy are doing so worldwide. Here’s what this means for users:

The change affects all output of Claude models. Not just copy generated from scratch, but also original writing that has been pasted into a model for copyediting. For generated copy, the watermarking is composed of a statistical pattern that biases the word choices of the model in a way that can be later picked up by machine learning. So, this isn’t something you can remove by copying and pasting, but it is something you can remove through a heavy rewrite of your content. Change the words you use from those Claude wrote for you, and the statistical pattern is broken.

Regardless of whether you used Claude to draft something from scratch or gave the model your own essay to proofread, the words that come out will have a pattern indicating it was processed by AI. The machine learning system that will be able to detect this sign of AI-generation doesn’t exist yet, but that’s just a matter of time. Right off the bat, I have a few ways to combat this. First, do your own writing. There are plenty of responsible and interesting ways to use AI that don’t involve handing your cerebral power over to an LLM. Second, ask a friend, family member, or coworker to help with copyediting. You might be surprised at how smart and capable the people around you still are, even in the age of AI.

Taylor trounces Trump

In bad news for people who spend their days trying to convince me that Taylor Swift is MAGA, the mega-star dealt a series of silent blows to Donald Trump and his White House administration this week. I’m not here to overly fawn over what some people call “the bare minimum,” but after multiple uses of Swift’s music by the official White House account and the president’s official campaign account, the artist responded by muting the sound in each of the videos. Beyond the political statement, a soundless post typically tanks in engagement.

As reported by Rolling Stone, Taylor isn’t the first artist to take this approach. Another global star, Bad Bunny, responded by muting his song ‘La Mudanza’ when it was used by the White House account to celebrate how many people Trump has deported — completely sickening, BTW. Trump’s team seems intent on antagonizing Swift, with captions like “I’m sure Taylor Swift is going to be super excited we used her song,” under a video using this month’s musical anthem of ‘August.’

After Taylor took steps to remove the sounds this week, some users online reacted by saying that she had made the move by forcing TikTok to formally change its policy to allow artists to remove their songs from use by accounts that they don’t politically align with. There doesn’t seem to have been this kind of official change in policy; rather, Swift and Bad Bunny have likely worked with the platform on each occasion to request their song’s removal. I’d end this segment with a pan about “shaking it off,” were it not my least favorite of Swift’s discography. Back to ‘Champagne problems’ for me.

TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

Great, new fear unlocked — Scientists have used AI to “create new kinds of viruses” for the first time.

In burger news — One McDonald’s visitor found that the company has been keeping a 500+ page dossier on his trips to the popular fast food chain.

Digital cookies, real consequences — Daughter of Bill Gates, Phoebe, has been accused of knowingly engaging in a “cookie stuffing” scheme with her online shopping startup.

Carrier Pidge — A new app delivers text messages at the speed of a carrier pigeon, with a .2% chance of your bird dying before it reaches its destination.

Pilates Plot — An Australian tech executive deployed an AI agent to bypass the waitlist for a workout class.

Can’t we just read the newspaper? — USA Today is partnering with software and surveillance company Palantir to ID and analyze readers across the country.

“Congress’s newest staffer” — This piece by the Washington Post covers how chatbots are taking over the day-to-day drudgery of Congress.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 32 | Thursday, August 6th, 2026

Happy Thursday, everyone.

It’s a gray day in New Orleans, but I’ve been in a pretty good mood the last 24 hours. Why, you ask? Because the dreadful Michigan Democratic Senate Primary is finally over. After months of Democrats at each other’s throats (uhhh, what about that Big Tent?) and more than 60 million dollars spent against progressive Dr. Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, El-Sayed eked out a victory against AIPAC-backed Congresswoman Haley Stevens. I’m using El-Sayed’s full name here because my friends in the right-wing news media seem intent on doing the same. The difference here is that I’m not a racist xenophobe. Hope this helps.

I’m truly relieved to have this race over, and was genuinely heartened by Steven’s immediate concession and gracious statement of support for El-Sayed. The millions in attack ads spent, relentless party-infighting, and at-times nauseating online discourse have come to a close. It’s enough of a reprieve to make me forget for a moment that the presidential primaries of 2028 are right around the corner. But the 2020 primary was so chill, right? I’m sure this next round is going to be just fine…

In today’s Traffic Report, YouTuber Hank Green admits he’s been using AI, the DeFlock movement is spreading across the country, and Google Earth’s big miscalculation. In TL;DR, Marjorie Taylor Greene joins Cameo, Josh Shapiro’s pop culture moment, and Clavicular’s next hire.

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Our weekly Traffic Report segment covers top tracks and tunes at the corner of politics and the Internet.

Hank Green cancels himself

If you’re not familiar with Hank Green, he can be thought of as a professionally curious person who has made a career as a YouTuber, comedian, and author. He’s the younger brother of John Green, fellow YouTuber and author of best-selling novels like The Fault in Our Stars. Hank and his brother have amassed a cult following of fellow-minded curious people dubbed ‘nerdfighters.’ This week, Hank “canceled” himself. In a video posted on his Compexly channel on July 29th, Green — from here, you can assume I’m referencing Hank — used the phrase, “I appreciate the pushback.” This phrasing is apparently a common one used by AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini when a user catches it “hallucinating” an answer.

Green’s audience, built over almost two decades of posting well-researched educational videos on every topic under the sun, reacted swiftly. They suggested that he had used AI to write the video’s script and neglected to remove the line. While Green said that the line was an ad lib in response to a guest with whom he’d had an earlier disagreement, he also used the moment to out himself as a regular user of ChatGPT. First, in a since-deleted post on X and then in a longer note on Reddit, he said that he has been “relying too heavily on AI as a research aid.”

The situation ignited a debate among Green’s followers. Some went scorched Earth on the YouTuber for ever opening an AI chatbot in the first place. Others, including those outside his fanbase, feel that both the initial reaction and his apologies were an overreaction to the use of an increasingly commonplace research tool. Green has promised to pull back on his use of the technology and, in turn, produce videos at a slower pace without it. Readers, I’m honestly curious — what’s your opinion about this? Reply to this email or comment on our Substack post with your thoughts!

The DeFlock movement takes flight

We live in a mass-surveillance state. I honestly think that statement is inarguable, given the number of ways our lives and data are monitored. From browser caches to Meta’s Ray-Bans to license plate readers, Big Brother and his many sisters are always watching. It’s the latter that’s been in the news lately. Automated License Plate Readers are AI-powered cameras — including drones — that take images of vehicles as they drive by, storing a host of information about them in their servers. A specific company, Flock, has expanded contracts to roll out the cameras in hundreds of cities and municipalities across the country, especially for use by police agencies.

There’s been misuse of the technology from the start. Flock offers a tool called Freeform that lets users, such as law enforcement officers, “use natural language prompts to find the investigative lead you’re looking for.” Recently, that included a police chief in Kansas who used it to track an ex-partner, a Texas cop who used the Flock network to look for a woman who had allegedly had an abortion, and a bevy of allegations that the technology is being used for racial profiling.

A strong movement in opposition to the surveillance has taken flight (sorry), with an app that can be used to report the cameras as well as drive around them. Anti-Flock advocates are showing up to city council meetings to protest new and existing contracts, or wrapping plastic bags around cameras to block their view of the street. From the first essay I wrote as a sociology major in college about the modern panopticon to now, I like to think that I’ve had a cynical, if not realistic, perspective on the access that governments and mega-corporations have to our everyday lives. That said, Flock has creeped me out to a new level. I’m DeFlocking the next camera I see. I hope my neighbors have my back.

Maps Misinformation

“Have you ever looked at an empty lot in your neighborhood and imagined a community garden, or wondered what your city looked like a century ago?” That’s the question Google posed in a blog post announcing it was incorporating its Nano Banana AI image-generation tool into Google Earth. If only humanity were so innocent.

Nano Banana is a tool that, like most AI chatbots, can produce an output from a simple prompt. In this case, users were able to use the tool inside Google Earth, tapping real satellite imagery as the first layer for the prompts they generated. After users began self-reporting the types of images they were able to create — hyper-realistic pictures of a nuclear power plant in Iran and a bomb crater in Gaza (both fake) — the BBC and NPR went a step farther to show how the technology could be abused as they created images of an underwater Washington, D.C., and the Eiffel Tower collapsing.

It’s hard to imagine how Google didn’t predict this exact outcome: a greater proliferation of deepfakes. Even with “safeguards” in place of a coded-in watermark and the fact that the images didn’t appear in the public interface of Google Earth, the damage was done. Just 24 hours after the rollout, the company announced they were removing the feature. Reversal or not, Google also hasn’t ruled out bringing the tool back in the future. I’ve been saying that the genie is out of the bottle on AI for a long time. I’d use one of my three wishes to stuff these uses of it back in.

TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

They come from above — a new article in Time outlines how the government is “finally” taking UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena, formerly UFOs) seriously.

Do you think they’re having fun? — AI models from Meta, Anthropic, and OpenAI just can’t seem to stop breaking into other companies.

The gig economy comes for us all — After resigning from Congress, former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined the video platform Cameo, selling personalized content for $149 a pop.

I mean, why not? — Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro appeared in rapper Meek Miller’s latest music video.

MySpace will return — The founders of the original social media platform confirmed that they’re just “waiting for the right time to do it.”

“Skip Ahead” — Spotify is testing a feature that would let paying subscribers skip through the ad breaks on their favorite listens, igniting concern from the whiniest of the podcasting community.

Not enough money in the world — Looksmaxxing influencer Clavicular is hiring an Executive Assistant.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 31 | Thursday, July 30th, 2026

Does anyone have some peptides I could try? I’ll be the first to admit that I had absolutely no idea what people were talking about when this term came up. Peptides… that’s like, face cream, right? Yes and no. Peptides are a common ingredient in many skincare products. That’s why I’ve been increasingly confused as I’ve seen more and more creators reference “taking” peptides as part of their wellness routine. Last time I checked, moisturizer doesn’t go down the hatchet too easily.

Thanks to an interview I listened to this morning with celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels on The Fox News Rundown, I now have a much better understanding. Peptides are, firstly, an important component in GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide. These are notably FDA-approved. After that, we get into grayer territory. Another range of peptides is advertised as crucial for “recovery” and “longevity,” targeting inflammation, muscle growth, and anti-aging, and taken by mouth or injection. They’re also mostly untested on humans. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a supporter of peptide therapies (surprise, surprise), and has backed efforts to loosen restrictions on the treatments.

Ms. Michaels herself explained that she purchased a round of peptides from Austria and had them shipped back to the U.S. to try and combat a future Parkinson’s diagnosis. While a grifter must grift, I have to say I appreciated how doggedly she then discouraged listeners of the segment from trying something similar. It seems clear that the era of peptides is likely only really beginning.

I think I’ll stick to the tub of Vanicream in my bathroom cabinet.

In today’s Traffic Report, a deep dive on what happened to Hugging Face, the massive destruction of old and rare books to train AI models, and whether influencers are always going to end up pandering to a conservative audience. In TL;DR, Alex Jones’ surprising demand, what Hasan Piker’s birthday could mean for our country, and the new AI chatbot making it easier for your boyfriend to forget your anniversary.

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Saving (Hugging) Face

Last week we mentioned in a TL;DR that an OpenAI agent had autonomously hacked into a machine learning company’s servers from a closed testing environment. It’s worth a closer look.

Hugging Face is a company that can be thought of as a workshop and public library for AI models. Researchers and users of AI models can upload their models to the platform for widespread use. On July 16th, they announced they had been hit by an autonomous attack. Later in the month, the company released a joint statement with OpenAI detailing the event more thoroughly.

The statement explained that OpenAI was running a cyber-capability test using an agent built on its models. The agent was confined to a sandbox — a closed testing environment — without direct access to the Internet. The agent had been instructed to complete a series of tests. Instead of working its way through the answers on its own, the agent decided to go looking for the answer key. The agent was able to break out of the Internet-less sandbox through a “package proxy” (a server that functions as a middleman). The agent inferred it might find the answer to its test in a library like Hugging Face’s, and headed straight for the company’s servers.

Once inside, the agent stayed there for four days, launching more than 17,000 attacks to find what it was looking for. It reached almost total control of Hugging Face’s internal systems, even making copies of itself across eleven machines, so that killing one version wouldn’t affect the others. The discovery of and fallout from the attack have been widespread, cueing HAL 9000 levels of AI-hysteria about this autonomous agent that found a way to break out of an Internet-less testing environment and into the server of another company.

The reality is a little less terrifying. The AI agent was, ultimately, just following a prompt provided by its owners. It did so to an extreme degree, but it wasn’t acting on its own. It was trying to complete an exam and decided to cheat to do it. Experts say that the weaknesses the agent exploited were the same that a human hacker would have. The difference here is the speed and volume that the agent was able to execute. Another notable takeaway: Hugging Face tried to use Claude’s Opus and Fable models to conduct a forensic reconstruction of the attack, but the models refused because they couldn’t distinguish between creating this reconstruction and being told to launch an attack of their own. It speaks to the limitations in place in most of these flagship models that make it difficult to prepare for scenarios like this in the future.

We at Nontoxic have always advised not to give LLMs system-level access, to always use privacy-protecting ad blockers, and to keep your AI agents out of others’ sandboxes of ALL kinds.

We’re losing thousands of books a day, thanks to AI

Speaking of AI, Anthropic is going to hell. Or at least that’s where I’d send them if I had any say in the matter. Headlines have recently been circulating about the company’s “Project Panama” — an effort that, as described in court filings, has the meager goal of scanning all the books in the world for AI training. Specifically, books published before 2023 are mostly free of AI-generated text (oh, those were the days) and of particular interest for training these models. To the horror of many, let alone the use of millennia of human effort to train a computer; this effort destroys the books it scans.

Anthropic was previously slapped with a $1.5 billion copyright infringement settlement for using pirated books for AI training — and was criticized in particular for maintaining copies of more than seven million of these books. Project Panama was part of Anthropic’s response. The company hired the former head of Google Books to purchase books in bulk, use a high-powered machine to cut the bindings, scan each page, and destroy what’s left. This allows Anthropic to bypass copyright infringement in what a court ruled as “transformative fair use.” Translation: If you’re doing something that can be counted as entirely new with the original copy, you’re not violating copyright law. Such as destroying the original copy.

Anthropic isn’t the only company buying books to destroy them. Meta and other AI companies have followed suit, using middlemen purchasers to scoop up thousands of rare and antique books around the world. Most horrifying is the reality that there is no good way to track whether a book destroyed through this process is potentially the only copy left. In essence, we can’t tell how many works of literary art, narrative personal and cultural histories, and plain old good books will be entirely lost to time.

When in doubt, MAGA it out

In one of the first issues of Al Gore’s Internet published last spring, we detailed the tale of running influencer Kate Mackz’s fall from liberal grace after she interviewed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. To recap: After Mackz’s October 2024 interview with Minnesota Governor and former Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz had done numbers for her on the platform, her followers implicitly decided she was liberal. In the hours after the April 2025 Leavitt interview, that same audience reacted in shock and horror with an overwhelming effort to “cancel” the creator. Mackz needn’t have worried. After the Leavitt controversy made its way to the conservative Washington Examiner, the right quickly flocked to her aid.

In the year-plus since the fallout, it seems like Mackz’s reputation remains intact — interviews with former Olympians, CEOs, and comedians now litter her still very active TikTok feed. When the Leavitt story broke, I posited that Mackz likely knew she would receive criticism for the choice to platform Leavitt. I’d say now that she may actually have been counting on it. Why?

Well, it turns out that over the last year, new kinds of creators have also increasingly aligned themselves with a MAGA or right-leaning audience to build their personal followship: OnlyFans models. In a new piece from The Bulwark today, Will Sommer argues that they’re doing so to harness what has become a “symbiotic relationship” between right-wing media and OnlyFans.

For creators of all kinds, aligning yourself with conservative values tends to bring a doggedly supportive group of viewers quickly to your command. (For the record, we imply no correlation between Kate Mackz and OnlyFans models like Savanna Cannon, who seemingly turned to making content tuned for a MAGA audience to build her personal platform.) Want more subscribers on your OnlyFans? Start espousing MAGA principles. Tired of a pesky liberal audience that thinks you voted for Kamala Harris? Interview Karoline Leavitt.

Cannon has more than a million subscribers across her platforms, with over 627,000 on Instagram alone. It’s days like this when we wonder if this is just the natural course of an influencer lifecycle: In the search for massive capital returns on your content, you cynically pursue an audience that is historically far more forgiving — and lucrative — than that of mainstream liberals. From OnlyFans to #RunTok, the results seem to speak for themselves.

TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

“Hell hath frozen over” — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has called for the “immediate impeachment” of President Donald Trump.

Is this supposed to be a bad thing? — Newly minted Maine Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson previously ran a burner account trolling Republicans online.

LemonLimed — The CEO of a tech startup has apologized after attendees of a party were given the “opportunity” to get a tattoo of the company’s logo in exchange for a job interview.

“Maybe telling people would be a good idea” — Elon Musk casually announced that X is no longer algorithmically penalizing posts with links in them, a welcome change to a longstanding rule of the platform.

Happy birthday, Mr. Piker — Leftist streamer and commentator Hasan Piker turned 35 this week, officially entering the “can legally run for President” age bracket.

“I wish I could know everything, but I don’t know everything” — South Carolina House Rep. Jim Clyburn said that he had only learned what ChatGPT was “last week,” quickly earning widespread criticism given Congress’ role in AI regulation and oversight.

“wayyyyyy ahead of you” — an ad for a new AI chatbot assistant was flamed online for depicting the tool’s role in helping save the day for a boyfriend who forgot an anniversary with his partner.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Share Al Gore's Internet: Politics. Online.

Vol. 2, Issue 30 | Thursday, July 23rd, 2026

The other day someone asked me, “Why is your newsletter called Al Gore’s Internet?” — and in responding to them, I realized that a refresher might be helpful here as well.

Al Gore did not, himself, invent the technology that would create our modern-day interwebs. Instead, his comment in a 1999 interview — “I took the initiative in creating the Internet”— was instantly taken out of context, making him an early victim of online misinformation and ridicule. To us, Al Gore’s Internet represents the ways that our experience of the Internet has become inextricable from our perception of the political moment.

AGI is just that: Our (mostly) good-humored, culture-forward indictment of the political and online milieu. It’s written by me, a progressive political strategist — never AI! — for everyone from my fellow politicos to my offline uncle or your very online aunt. This work is framed as a nod and a wink to a long-misunderstood progressive figure whom we here at Nontoxic Media deeply admire.

Each week, we provide our “Traffic Report” — in-depth assessments of three topics or stories. In TL;DR (as we explain below, Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”), we provide quick breakdowns of the topics and trends we’re seeing online. With relative frequency, we also provide longer-form content analysis using our video and audio transcription tool, Sonar. One report in April broke down the differences and similarities in Hasan Piker and Joe Rogan’s content.

In this week’s Traffic Report, a reflection on BeReal’s rise and fall from popularity, the disturbing content I’m tired of seeing on my For You Page, and the mathematical leaps and bounds being achieved by LLMs. In TL;DR, Katie Porter’s new career, OpenAI’s big oopsie, and Hunter Biden’s gloves continue to come off — this time in Jake Tapper’s direction.

Happy newsletter Thursday.

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Can a (bunch of) computers win the Fields medal?

This week, we put out a short explainer about the Jacobian conjecture, an 87-year-old open math problem that Claude proved false during the World Cup final on Sunday. Since then, LLMs have been pointed at a bevy of additional problems. From disproving the Dinitz-Garg-Goemans conjecture (a ~30-year-old problem in graph theory) to potentially solving six open Erdős problems in five days (a claim my technical co-founder is deeply skeptical of), AI is showing us all of the ways it reasons differently than the best human thinkers in mathematics. Earlier this year, an OpenAI model disproved yet another Erdős problem — presenting a counterexample for the planar unit distance problem.

What’s interesting is that LLMs are constructing counterexamples, not proofs — that so far they have been very good at finding why something is false, but haven’t (yet) written a proof for something that’s true.

Here at Nontoxic, we’re updating our priors about the kinds of problems that LLMs can actually solve, beyond just translating our emails into Minionese. Now back to my math lessons…

Revenge of the Pregnant Seahorse

While not strictly garden-variety “politics and the Internet” material, I simply can’t go another week without talking about this. Is anyone else’s TikTok For You Page filled with AI-generated soap operas of overtly sexualized fruits and, occasionally, sea horses? For several months, it’s seemed like every eighth or ninth post I scroll past is 30-60 seconds of one of these visually assaulting, emotionally disturbing storylines. These mini-episodes are made up of strawberries cheating on each other with peaches, or male seahorses getting revenge on their philandering female partners for refusing to put their eggs in his pouch. I’m afraid to say that I’ve clicked “watch next in series” more than once, if for no other reason than a truly slack-jawed, morbid curiosity.

In that sense, I’ve brought this continued onslaught on myself; rewarding the content with my views and reluctant engagement. I have no idea who is making these videos, but it doesn’t stop at fruits and seahorses — another series features a cheating shark (there’s a common theme of infidelity) that looks eerily similar to Finding Nemo’s Bruce. There’s a lot of AI slop out there. These are some of the strangest I’ve yet to come across. For the safety of yourself and any young children around you, please, do not look these up. I can’t protect you from the rage of Mr. Pomegranate.

What the f*ck happened to BeReal?

There was just something about the summer of 2022. We’d all been vaccinated for a year. Life felt a little more normal. One of my best friends got married. I left D.C. for Western North Carolina. Every bit of it was documented on BeReal. If you weren’t one of the 73.5 million active users that year, I don’t blame you. The app skyrocketed to prominence almost as quickly as it would later fade from the zeitgeist. BeReal was based on a simple premise: When it was time to “BeReal” (a different moment each day), you were prompted to pick up your phone and take a picture of yourself doing whatever you were doing. The selfie camera and front camera captured a photo at the same time. No matter what you were doing.

In the middle of a work call? BeReal. On a run? BeReal. Contemplating your existence with your cats on the couch? You guessed it—BeReal. The memories still stored in the app show that I was a pretty dedicated user from August to February. Then I started ignoring those BeReal notifications more and more often. I wasn’t alone; by that time, usage was down 48% from its October 2022 peak. My disinterest in the platform crescendoed with the gimmicks its owners began implementing to keep users interested: “Elite” teams of only your closest friends, or self-defeating opportunities to post multiple times a day. Finally, ads. That was it for me— I didn’t feel like seeing Walmart’s BeReal any more than I cared to post my own.

BeReal is still trying to win me back, with daily notifications that rival those from Duolingo, the language-learning app, in their incessant, aggressive nature— but it was likely doomed from the start. A social media platform founded with a purpose of encouraging people to be authentic and honest about their lives? There was no way it could’ve lasted. Still, some users, like my friend Abby, persist — diligently opening the app each time she’s prompted like it’s still the summer of ‘22. While in her company last night, I threw BeReal a bone by actually responding when the notification started pinging me. We’ll see how much longer I let the platform take up space on my phone. There’s just something about those pesky memories…

TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

FaceHarmony — Looksmaxxing influencer ‘Clavicular’ has launched a new AI-powered app to provide ratings for users eager for his assessment of their appearance.

Saving Hugging Face — OpenAI announced that one of its models had autonomously hacked into a machine learning company’s servers from a closed testing environment.

Shifting the blame — Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial hopeful David Crowley alleged that a now-deceased friend was the author of offensive posts that had been linked to the candidate, instead of himself.

@KatiePorterTurnsThePage — former U.S. Rep Katie Porter announced that she was leaving politics to begin a new venture as a book influencer. We plan to stay out of her shot.

“I think Jake Tapper is a complete and utter asshole” — Hunter Biden tells us how he really feels about the journalist, author of a book deeply critical of his father’s cogency and legacy and longtime haranguer of Hunter himself.

Somehow, I’m already annoyed by this — Crooked Media announced a new show focused on the political complexities of the South.

“I can’t think of a better person to represent us in Congress” — A co-founder of the Sunrise Movement and current Democratic Michigan U.S. House candidate sent a fundraising text authored by his high-school prom date.

We’ve been doing our best to post more content in between these issues, like our breakdown of Elon Musk’s recent travel between billionaire and trillionaire status. For more, follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 29 | Thursday, July 16th, 2026

O-H! …

Anything? Anybody?

Fine, I guess we’re not doing a call and response—greetings from the Buckeye State. I’m writing from my hometown of Columbus, OH, where I’ve come to visit family and make frequent quips about how much cooler the weather feels here than in New Orleans. On the latter, I’m serious. My phone doesn’t fog up with moisture every time I walk outside of my parents’ house. I simply can’t say the same for my beloved Louisiana swamp.

In this week’s Traffic Report: proof of life from Mitch McConnell, the Department of War’s new testosterone policy, and the end of Google Search. In TL;DR, George Santos’ next reality TV moment, an apparent physical altercation between Hunter Biden and Nick Fuentes, and Dario Amodei’s $1 million bid for pro-AI regulation.

Now, back to playing Uno (KPop Demon Hunters edition, obviously) with the youngest members of my family. Enjoy today’s newsletter.

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Our weekly Traffic Report segment covers top tracks and tunes at the corner of politics and the Internet.

Google’s nail in the coffin

I’ve been saying it for years — Google Search is so dead. Remember Cloudflare — the web services company whose new bot “toll” we previously covered? Well, they told Google that beginning in September, they’ll begin automatically blocking crawlers that scrape websites for Google Search unless the site specifically opts back in.

Here’s what that means: Websites no longer feel the need to appear in Google Search results, and Cloudflare is no longer requiring them to. Now that users researching a topic are given the answers they’re looking for by the AI summaries powered by Google’s Gemini (or another AI chatbot), no one is bothering to scroll down to read websites or articles.

When I first started working in digital politics, being relevant meant being at the top of Google’s search page. Cloudflare’s decision indicates a profound shift in how people use the Internet — relevance now means going viral by being good at the algorithm, or implementing LLM optimization strategies — the new “SEO.” It also reflects a change in Google’s own strategy, leading users away from the wide-open landscape of Al Gore’s Internet and towards a walled garden like TikTok or Instagram.

Buy one, get one free: Death of U.S. Senators Edition

This week brought two major milestones for the GOP Senate Majority. First, an attempt by Mitch McConnell’s staff to prove that he isn’t dead following weeks of reports about his ill health and absence from public view. Second, the actual death of 71-year-old Lindsey Graham. In response to both, the political side of the Internet exploded. From “mitch mcconnell showing up to work tomorrow with a big frankenstein scar on his forehead and a much gayer voice than before” to “lindsey graham deathmogging mitch mcconnell,” weeks like these are exactly why I can never give up on X.

While the jokes were funny, I found the photo and statement that Mitch McConnell’s office put out on Sunday more ridiculous than anything else. Commenters quickly honed in on details of the photo that just didn’t look quite right — including the newspaper McConnell is holding in the photo. When a photo is run through an AI program, it often renders text illegible, making it look like some strange Klingon language. Unfortunately for those of us with our tin-foil hats on, that conspiracy looks as if it’s been debunked. Is this our generation’s “Paul is dead?”

New from the Department of War: Gender affirming care

Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth announced in a video this week that the Department of War would begin annually screening the testosterone of service members and offer testosterone replacement therapy to troops with low levels. (You might also know Hegseth as the U.S. Secretary of War.) The hypocrisy is, per usual for this administration, off the charts. Since retaking office in January of last year, President Trump has led an onslaught against access to hormone therapies for trans Americans, from removing coverage for the treatments (including testosterone replacement therapy) from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program to cutting off Medicaid and Medicare funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.

But sure. I wonder how much of the $350 billion that the Pentagon just requested to “fight communism on our own shores” will go to hormone replacement for service members battling the scourge of their own toxic masculinity…

TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

More Kalshi chaos — The longtime operator of Trump’s teleprompter allegedly made more than $100,000 on bets based on the president’s State of the Union speech.

Special forces, indeed — Disgraced former U.S. Rep George Santos is set to appear in the Fox reality TV show “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test.”

“No-off-limits topics” — Hunter Biden and alt-right streamer Nick Fuentes apparently almost came to blows during a recent interview.

An editorial overhaul — Business Insider is making a concerted effort to move from operating as a news aggregator to becoming a breaking news organization.

A boost for Public First — Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, has made a personal $1 million donation to a pro-AI regulation PAC.

“...is it mad mogul Mr Musk?” — Elon Musk gets a mention in a new album from the Rolling Stones.

Evil company is evil — Meta has been sued for allegedly using AI to target employees with medical conditions for layoffs.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 28 | Thursday, July 9th, 2026

This week’s issue of Al Gore’s Internet is both shorter and longer than usual. I’ve dropped our typical three Traffic Report segments for a longer reflection on the 48 hours since Democrats across the political spectrum began calling for Graham Platner to drop out of the Maine Senate race. If you’re hungry for more typical AGI content, you can scroll right over to our Instagram or TikTok for a breakdown of a recent announcement by the web services platform Cloudflare that they’ll begin implementing a “toll” for agentic bots visiting their websites.

Please take care while reading. This issue includes discussion of sexual violence.

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Our weekly Traffic Report segment covers top tracks and tunes at the corner of politics and the Internet.

Goodbye Graham

“I learned about this through press inquiries, with no time to truly respond, no time for investigations before a corporate media system and the political establishment got to act as judge, jury and executioner.”

Man, I hate it when I can’t blame my Nazi tattoo, troubling Reddit posts, and acts of alleged sexual violence on the political establishment whose shadowy campaign against me is the reason I’m suspending my Senate campaign. *EYEROLL OF THE CENTURY*.

In a strange and meandering 11-minute video posted yesterday, Graham Platner announced that he was suspending his campaign for the Maine Democratic Senate seat. Two days prior, he had been publicly accused of rape by Jenny Racicot, a former girlfriend who said that Platner drunkenly entered her house and forced himself upon her in 2021. In the video, he was combative and conspiratorial, blaming the fall of his campaign on a political establishment that was “taking the structures away” that would make it possible for his campaign to continue. Platner repeatedly reiterated that the allegations were completely false.

This accusation of rape follows allegations of “unsettling” behavior toward former female partners reported by the New York Times last month. Also in June, we learned from the Wall Street Journal that Platner had sent sexually explicit messages to multiple women during the early days of his marriage. In October of last year, CNN uncovered deleted Reddit posts containing racist, sexist, and homophobic comments — including disparaging remarks about survivors of sexual assault. Around the same time, Platner himself revealed during an interview with Pod Save America that he had a tattoo of an image resembling a Totenkopf, a symbol used by the Nazi unit that guarded concentration camps, on his chest.

Throughout the video posted yesterday, he stifled several burps and absentmindedly preened his mustache. As Platner moaned that he and his wife were just “regular people” who were “not looking to get into politics,” pundit upon pundit rolled out their postmortem of the Platner campaign, an operation that apparently had less than $100,000 in cash on hand at the time it was suspended. Many of those pieces have focused on an apparent dream team of young political strategists who plucked Platner from obscurity last summer.

Dan Moraff and Leanne Fan, two progressive campaigners who have each worked on a handful of races, initially recruited Platner to run for the seat. They were soon joined by Morris Katz — known for his role as a top advisor to NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The campaign launched in August of last year with a splashy, high-production video that rocketed Platner into the national conversation and kick-started impressive grassroots fundraising numbers. The $30,000-$40,000 that the team likely spent on the video could, and should have, been spent on a far more thorough “self-oppo book,” a prepared report containing as much potentially damaging information about your own candidate that could come to light. For Platner, his team’s $6,000 vetting process turned up some of his old social media posts, but apparently didn’t include any interviews with the candidate himself.

Before and after Platner posted yesterday’s video, potential replacements for the U.S. Senate bid were already throwing their hat in the ring. Of these, an immediate front-runner is Troy Jackson, a Platner ally, former Maine State Senator, and previous candidate for Governor — who I received a fundraising text from while writing this paragraph. I’m slightly more interested in following the goings-on of Dan Kleban, the owner of Maine Beer Company and another contender who previously ran for the Democratic nomination before dropping out to endorse Janet Mills. Perhaps Kleban is capable of eating Susan Collins’ lunch. As of this writing, Platner has yet to actually file the paperwork to drop out of the race, indicating to staff that he plans to wait until Monday’s deadline to do so — a last, fittingly selfish act.

Much will continue to be written about “what this means for the Democratic establishment” and “what really went wrong on the Platner campaign”, but the truth is innately simple. A man with a caustic online track record and a reported history of violence against women lied about who he was and what he had done because a set of arrogant and inexperienced individuals convinced him he was the next Bernie Sanders. We should hold these people equally accountable — Katz, Moraff, Fan, and the other strategists, staffers, and backers who stood by Graham Platner long after the point of no return. Katz is the only one of the three who has so far broken their silence on the matter. My thoughts now are with Jenny Racicot and his other alleged victims, known and unknown. May this be a lesson for us all.

TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

Meta’s Muse — With the rollout of its new image-generation model, Instagram is now allowing users to create AI-generated images using content from public accounts.

I’m never flying again — Visitors flying into Palm Beach will soon see the airport’s name change to President Donald J. Trump International Airport.

OK moneybags — Texas Democrat and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico raised an astounding $30 million in the most recent quarter of fundraising, bringing the campaign’s total haul to more than $70 million.

Don’t mess with Mbappé — French soccer star Kylian Mbappé shot back against the racist online commentary of a Paraguayan senator, who then accused him of committing gender-based violence in response. (Can I put an eyeroll twice in one newsletter?)

The rise of Count Binface — A comedian sporting a trash can on his head will now be the main challenger against Nigel Farage, the British right-wing populist politician.

What grassroots donors want — A new analysis of 280,000 political fundraising emails shows an increase of anti-billionaire, anti-AI rhetoric.

Willy Wonker — Mega-creator Mr. Beast revealed in an interview that he had hidden GoPro cameras in Walmart stores to find out why his brand’s chocolate bars were breaking.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 27 | Thursday, July 2nd, 2026

Let me get ahead of this: As a verified Swiftie, yes, I think it’s corny, gauche, and likely inconveniencing a lot of regular working people that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are getting married at Madison Square Garden over a major holiday weekend. Here’s the good news: They know we think so. Or so I’m guessing, after an announcement today that the couple has donated $26 million to at least 20 charities ahead of the wedding that no one is allowed to admit is happening. Taylor might be a cheugy millennial (which I’d like to remind everyone is not a slur), but hey — you can’t say she’s not a generous one.

I’m gonna stick with the rumor that MSG is a decoy for the real location. Otherwise, if you’re wondering why anyone would build an entire castle inside an arena, you clearly never went to the Eras Tour.

In today’s Traffic Report, Trump is getting rich while he makes life harder for working people, 2028 hopefuls are calling Zohran, and OpenAI is trying to give his company to the government. In TL;DR, Kroger’s purchase of Giant Eagle, the schism of St. Pius, and the hot couple who climbed to the top of the Empire State Building.

Happy Thursday!

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Trump is getting richer, if anyone cares

I don’t have to tell you that Trump gets away with a lot. Take this year, for example — in addition to kidnapping a head of state (and his wife) and launching a war with Iran, he’s also:

• Slashed a unit of the Justice Department that oversaw prosecution of corrupt public officials

• Granted clemency to 1600+ people involved in the January 6th riot

• Forced out Fed Chair Jerome Powell

• Bombed Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen

• Put a UFC arena on the south lawn of the White House.

He’s also been getting richer by the second.

The chart above shows individual stock trades by presidents since 1990 during their term. There’s an obvious trend; Trump traded $212 million to $695 million in assets during the first three months of this year alone. If that weren’t enough, another disclosure released yesterday showed that the President took in an estimated $1.2-2 billion from crypto ventures — much of it joint with members of his family — in 2025. This information will, sadly, last about another 2 hours on the news cycle. I plan to never get over it. Thank God Jimmy Carter gave up his peanut farm.

Tis the season to court Zohran

As a wave of wins for Democratic socialists continued across the country this week, it was reported that both Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris have been in recent touch with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Kamala’s conversation with Mamdani comes as she holds closed-door meetings with several pro-Palestine activists and other progressive leaders, likely attempting a path to reconciliation ahead of a potential 2028 run. It will be interesting to see what role Zohran chooses to play in the presidential cycle — but I would bet more than $200 in Monopoly money on Polymarket that it won’t be to endorse Newsom or Harris. I’m seeing supporters online guess he’ll play his cards closer to home.

OpenAI wants Trump to own their company

OpenAI has proposed giving the U.S. government a 5% stake in the company — worth $42.6 billion — to ease growing scrutiny of the technology in Washington. While Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed a plan for a 50% government stake in companies like OpenAI, this proposal would more closely mirror the 9.9% deal that Trump made last year with Intel. CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, made the argument that the “best way” to share the upside of AI is to give the public a financial interest in the company — as both OpenAI and Anthropic, its largest competitor, have had the upcoming release of new models held up by the federal government. We’ll see if 5% is enough to sweeten the pot. We’ve already heard enough about Trump’s money-handling for one newsletter…

TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

“I can’t be the poster boy for AI” — 5x Grammy winner Weird Al Yankovic revealed he recently turned down an ad for an AI company.

Big grocery news for this Midwesterner — Kroger is set to purchase Giant Eagle for $1.65 billion.

‘ARTIFICIAL’ — Luca Guadagnino’s movie about Sam Altman and OpenAI has found a new production home after Amazon MGM Studios dropped the film.

“Abdul El-Sayed is the strongest candidate to keep this seat in November” — Congresswoman Alexandria O’Casio-Cortez endorsed El-Sayed in Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary.

The schism of St. Pius — The Vatican has excommunicated a fringe group that recently consecrated bishops without the consent of the pope, warning its thousands of followers not to attend their masses.

Goosed — A new gay dating app appears to have been using fake AI profiles to invite users onto the platform.

"We love New York" — The daredevil couple who climbed to the top of the Empire State Building (where they got engaged) were still all smiles after being charged with reckless endangerment and burglary. With some intense footwear.

Have a great weekend, and many returns to Taylor and Travis. Happy 250th, America — remember, Republicans don’t have a monopoly on loving your country.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 26 | Thursday, June 25th, 2026

“We are so back,” I whispered to myself. This morning, I was finally sitting at my desk again after it, and most of my belongings, had escaped back from storage into a new home. Connected to this setup, most importantly, is my monitor. After staring only at my laptop screen since January, let’s just say this week’s Al Gore’s Internet was written with a fresh perspective.

Between the Traffic Report and TL;DR, a standard AGI generally provides coverage of about 10 pieces of news, content, and (occasional) Internet gossip. Some weeks I have plenty of content to mine, sometimes I barely have enough players on the bench— a reference I’m making after watching 2001’s Hardball with Keanu Reeves this week. Today, I had more than 40 potential topics to pull from. I’ll be sharing more of what I had to cut later this week on @nontoxicmedia’s TikTok and Instagram accounts, as well as our Al Gore’s Internet subreddit — a platform we’ll be posting on more regularly.

In today’s Traffic Report, the love that international soccer fans are showing for the U.S. online, a great night for Hasan Piker in NYC, and Kylie Jenner’s new Meta Glasses. In TL;DR, the “Mini Mamdanis” scaring Speaker Mike Johnson, the use of Claude to prepare federal legislation, and the return of Michael Caine.

Happy newsletter Thursday.

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“I can get bread, milk, and an air rifle”

International fans in the U.S. for the 2026 World Cup are trying everything in America—and loving it. From eating Texas BBQ and Chick-fil-a to drinking a BuzzBall, fans in the United States have been sharing an overwhelmingly positive experience online. Our visitors are gagged at our Costcos and Walmarts, and flummoxed by the sizes of our portions. Up in Boston, Scottish fans have been literally drinking taps dry — brewery Samuel Adams had to order an emergency delivery last weekend to keep up with the crowds. It’s about time the U.S. had a few weeks of good PR on the global stage. Welcome to America, y’all.

Hasan Piker’s Good Night

This week, leftist political commentator Hasan Piker celebrated the wins of nine of his endorsed candidates in New York City’s congressional and state races. It was a strong indicator of the potential of a Piker Effect, with his successfully endorsed slate of Claire Valdez in NY-7 and Darializa Avila Chevalier in NY-13, and State Senate and State Assembly candidates downballot. While celebrating the election results, Hasan told a camera, “After tonight, my price went up; you have to be a Democratic Socialist if you want some of this f*cking shine.” I wonder if he still doesn’t think he’s a kingmaker?

Kylie for Meta

A Kardashian has stepped in to help market Meta’s latest release of smart glasses. The glasses primarily allow users to record their surroundings with very little indication to the outside world, other than a small blinking light. Kylie Jenner, the youngest of the Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, has reportedly been working on her partnership with the company for more than three years, which includes the option to have her voice as the glasses AI-assistant. There’s nothing like a celebrity to help humanize a mass surveillance device. It’s a much-needed hot girl revamp for the product.

Earlier this year, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Meta, alleging that the company was transmitting videos taken on users’ smart glasses to third-party contractors for human review without disclosure to users. Nairobi-based contractors say they were reviewing content of people having sex, going to the bathroom, and looking at banking information — while watching the clips as part of an AI training pipeline. Thankfully for the company, they’ve made their new line trendy enough that users are still not likely to care. In case I have to say it, please don’t get me the Meta x Kyle glasses for Christmas in July.

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TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

Um, duh? — “Moderate Democrats fear they’re on the verge of losing the party’s ideological civil war to progressives.”

“I’ve got to address a very sobering reality this morning” — Speaker Mike Johnson on the “mini Mamdanis” popping up around the country after this week’s progressive electoral victories.

“Claude responded:” — Florida U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina defended her staff’s use of AI chatbot Claude to “summarize” an amendment to a Defense bill.

What was I saying about mass surveillance? — Nancy Pelosi is apparently an Oura ring user.

Welcome to the Arena — Meta is building a prediction market to rival industry giants Polymarket and Kalshi.

“Tulsi Gabbard Had a Very Strange Childhood” — More than 25,000 pages of documents show that former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard received, and followed, directives from a new age cult leader throughout her career.

Against all that is Holy — Michael Caine’s voice has been recreated using AI to narrate a new 13-hour audiobook of “The Odyssey.”

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 25 | Thursday, June 18th, 2026

Al Gore’s Internet has a new set of stars: Me and my cat Theo. That’s a rip-rolling joke, of course — given the handful of views that my account on TikTok has racked up since I started posting more regularly in the last week. I’m doing so as a cautious experiment: as someone who writes and thinks about content creation incessantly for this newsletter and other ventures, I have remained free of the creator economy. I decided it was time to dip my toes into the water.

These days, it feels like the only way to accomplish anything is to record videos of yourself. Talking about what you know. Or what you don’t know. Videos of what you think, what you cook, what you wear, how you take your coffee, or how you fell in love. Most of these videos are ultimately peddling something — a downloadable e-booklet, a dating app, a newsletter subscription (👀) or a political ideology. South Park said it first: Everything is an ad, and in my case, I’m peddling plenty. The joys of having a cat, this newsletter, a chia pudding recipe, and my work with candidates through The June Group.

You can follow Theo and me on almost all platforms at @emmajwh and on TikTok at @emmajunewh (if someone can get the current TikTok @emmajwh to give her handle up, please LMK). More importantly, you can follow @nontoxicmedia on all platforms.

Maybe next week’s personal essay will be focused on why it feels so much worse to post on Instagram than on TikTok.

Enjoy today’s newsletter.

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“Australia-plus”

The UK announced that its full social media ban for children 16 and under would take effect in spring 2027. The ban includes Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook and X. It’s a near replica of the model that Australia implemented last year, after the UK government conducted a public consultation that found a majority of people supported a ban like this one. The government’s Fact Sheet on the policy says it’s “about reducing harm, improving wellbeing and giving young people more time for a healthier childhood.”

Beyond the concern that total forced abstinence may not be the most effective policy, critics of the ban and proposals like it take issue with how users above 16 will be asked to verify their ages, including biometrics or uploading of IDs. I think social media is addictive and deadly, especially for young people, but I also question how enforceable the ban is. Either way, after the recent ban on cigarette sales to people born after 2008, it’s tough to be a 16-year-old kid in the UK right now.

Thiel-ageddon

Now is probably a good time to apologize to the person in your life who has been telling you that a cabal of evil billionaires runs the planet. A hacker has uncovered the membership and attendance list of Dialog, an exclusive, invitation-only secret society founded 20 years ago by Peter Thiel. Thiel, a billionaire tech entrepreneur and dogged conservative ally, convenes the group of high-ranking government officials, fellow billionaires, actors, and politicians for a yearly summit. The group’s activity and membership have been highly shrouded until now.

This year’s retreat, planned for Dublin, Ireland, features a variety of panel sessions: “Build-a-cult,” “Bring Back Nuclear,” and “Navigating WWIII.” Affiliates named in the leaked records include: Senator Ted Cruz (I mean…sure?), Senator Cory Booker (woof), and actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt (this hurts me personally). and Josh Brolin (no comment). More names worth mentioning: General Alexus Grynkewich, Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent; and Maryland Democratic Governor Wes Moore. Just remember, kids: Democrats can be evil, too. Just kidding. I could never forget that :)

“Today, you’re both f*cked”

New favorite content unlocked: Women stealing men’s segment crowns on Strava. I’m not sure what year I started using Strava, the exercise-tracking-turned-social-media feed for people who need others to know how much they’re working out. Since I logged my first run on the app, I too have struggled with the desire for my efforts to be seen versus the personal satisfaction of an unsung accomplishment. That’s all to say, there’s a psychological aspect to the platform.

Cue this week’s scrolling on TikTok, when I came across not one, but two women who have set out on a mission to take down the “Strava crowns” that users earn when they hold the fastest time on a given loop or segment around a neighborhood or trail. In this case, they’re going out to (successfully) take the records away from men. I think this trend is funny, let alone harmless — check out a few of the videos for yourself.

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TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

‘Caus this is cringey, cringey, yeah’ — Sherrod Brown’s Republican opponent in the U.S. Senate primary is out with a new Michael-Jackson-inspired AI-generated video.

“It’s ElectJon.com” — Users online are hailing Jon Ossoff’s media-trained response to TMZ’s question about President Trump’s new kickname for the Georgia Democrat.

“This is not Rome.” — Hunter Biden’s would-be response to Joe Rogan after the podcaster’s appearance at the UFC Fight on the White House’s South Lawn (a sentence I’m depressed to write).

“1) all souls is for 2-4 year olds, “2) multiple voters will be swayed by him going to all souls — Jack Schlossberg’s campaign literature lists his NYC preschool alongside Harvard pedigrees.

“C-boring and middle aged” — A user on X created a tier of the 119th Congress based on attractiveness.

#Peace — The Pope continues to weigh in on current affairs through his graceful posts.

“The Quiet Part Out Loud” — Former South Carolina Representative Joe Cunningham has released a new Substack poll for Democrats.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 24 | Thursday, June 11th, 2026

Good evening.

Summer is in full swing here in New Orleans. My favorite local blooms, crepe myrtles, are quickly popping up throughout my Uptown neighborhood. On the other hand, we’ve again reached the point of the year where it’s 95+ degrees outside and feels like 55 degrees inside everywhere I go. I’m all for air-conditioning (I don’t know how Europe does it) — I just wish my phone would stop sweating when I get in and out of the car.

Thankfully for all of you, this is a newsletter about politics and the Internet, not the weather in Louisiana.

In today’s Traffic Report, a new investigation by Politico reveals more than $2.5 million was paid to influencers to promote Polymarket through a private PayPal account, the deepfakes making the rounds this week, and Anthropic’s fabled missteps in the past few days. In TL;DR, a chicken coup at the U.S. Naval Observatory, a one-year moratorium on new data centers in Seattle, and the new — deeply dystopian — bounty hunter marketplace.

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Polymarket’s Secret PayPal

If you spend any time on X, I’m guessing you’ll have heard of Polymarket. The presence of the prediction betting market has, to me, become almost ubiquitous with what it means to exist on Elon’s platform. Everywhere I scroll, it’s @Polymarket, a la “BREAKING: POPE DOES 6-7 AGAIN.” Kidding, sort of, although the Pope did do the gesture again recently. Polymarket’s accounts churn out “breaking news” all day, every day. Now we know what happens next.

Thank you to Maya Kaufman, my Kenyon College classmate turned Politico reporter, and her colleagues; we all now have a much better understanding of how Polymarket has built much of its online influence. Turns out, it’s through a personal PayPal account.

Politico’s investigation found that Polymarket’s Chief Marketing Officer, Matthew Modabber, sent more than $2.5 million to 800 people over 14 months from a personal PayPal account. Modabber paid far-right influencers like Nick Shirley, sore loser Riley Gaines, and even progressives like creator Brian Krassenstein to promote Polymarket to their audiences by wearing merch and pushing out posts. Most of these partnerships were completely undisclosed.

When “breaking news” strikes, an army of these paid — still mostly undisclosed — promoters goes to work for Polymarket, sending their posts soaring through the algorithms. In turn, the Internet reifies their credibility as a “news” organization. As the daughter of a journalist, I couldn’t hate this more. Polymarket is not a news organization. You should not interact with them as if they are. If I hadn’t just read a great piece of investigative reporting, I’d be groaning about the death of journalism again. It’s been on life support since my Dad retired from the AP. Read the full article here.

Deepfake Roundup

Because we live in hell, political AI deepfakes are the new frontier of campaigning—and heckling. Elon Musk himself reposted a video that an organization made using xAI’s Grok, depicting a simulation of “what would happen if AOC was forced to learn economics.” Cue a dark living room, a frightened-and AI-generated-looking AOC, and an Intro to Basic Economics textbook that’s haunting her around the apartment. Occasionally, I can give points for creativity. This is not one of those times.

Another video created by the pro-Trump PAC Citizens for Sanity shows James Talarico, the Democratic nominee in Texas’ closely watched Senate race. The former State Rep is shown in a very Sound of Music-looking dress, singing a version of “A Few of My Favorite Things” with original lyrics swapped for lines such as, “boys in white dresses with blue satin sashes” and “girls stuffed with hormones til they grow mustaches,” “changing the gender of all your offspring, these are a few of my favorite things.” Now what would Julie Andrews think…

Fabled Downfall

Two days ago, the AI company Anthropic released a new model—Fable, a part of its Mythos class of AI. Developers got mad. Here’s what happened.

Last week, Anthropic warned about the dangers of an AI arms race. Anthropic’s models are the best in the market, and they’re concerned about other AI companies using them to train their models (I learned today that’s called distillation).

So, Anthropic added a trap. Unlike other safeguards, such as those around bioweapon development and the details of nuclear weapons, when Fable thinks a user is trying to use Fable to write AI code, it will silently use an older, less capable model. To put it more simply, it dumbed itself down to avoid giving users a competitive advantage.

The ploy had developers up in arms immediately. Users argued that it was anti-competitive for a platform meant for software development. More argued that it affected the overall trustworthiness of Anthropic’s AI. For example: Is your AI giving the wrong answer because it doesn’t know? Or is it giving a bad answer because its owners trained it to shut up when someone asks for the code to the safe? In Anthropic’s case, the immediate pushback caused a nearly simultaneous change in policy in the last 24 hours. Now, if Fable detects an attempt to copy its models, it will warn the user directly and let them know they’re switching back to a slower, dumber model.

So, you still can’t copy them, but at least they’re being honest. TBH, are we all that surprised that a giant corporate entity wanted to protect itself from competition? Dario Amodei still has that arms race to win.

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TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

“Chicken Coup” — Vice President J.D. Vance has installed a chicken coop at his residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory. Do you think that’s why his Chief of Staff quit?

“Influence Operators” — Research from OpenAI points to a China-backed online influencer campaign designed to sway opinions about AI in the U.S.

Amazon-city, who? — The city of Seattle passed a one-year moratorium on the construction of new data centers.

“My mayor’s still Muslim, my bagels still Jewish, the Pope’s on our side, Knicks in Five” — The hilarious and varied versions of this chant will live in my head forever (Go Knicks).

Black Mirror lookalike — A new platform allows users to pay people bounties of cryptocurrency to perform almost any real-world task.

“Motocross Meets Wall Street” — this simple web game allows users to ride a mountain bike up and down a chosen stock chart.

For District 36 — take a look at some of now-NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign literature from his first run for State Assemblyman.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 23 | Thursday, June 4th, 2026

Happy newsletter Thursday.

In today’s issue, Traffic Report covers Hunter Biden’s takeover of X, Shrek’s absurd appearance in Ohio politics, and Graham Platner’s Teflon coat—or is it? In TL;DR this week, Joe Rogan’s (potential) new gig, Pattie vs. Patagonia, and the breakdown in use of AI by Republican and Democratic political professionals.

Race you there.

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Hunter Biden Logs On

Last month, the prodigal son arrived on X. On May 19th, Hunter Biden put out his first post on the platform: “I’m Hunter Biden. You’ve never actually heard from me.” In the few weeks since, his truly-DGAF approach to the platform has had him winning over conservatives and cracking up those of us watching on the left. One heckler wrote, “Ur paintings?” (sales of his work have been previously criticized), “Who gives a fuck. I wanna know how much coke u snorted before posting this tweet.”

Biden clapped back within 5 minutes, writing, “Man, if you’re going to be mean at least get it right. I smoked crack. I would never have wasted coke on snorting it.” As I wrote last week about Biden’s appearance on Candace Owens’ podcast, I’m still getting used to this level of candor and transparency from any Biden—let alone the son of the former president. I’ll leave you with the campaign slogan he posted himself: “Let’s take another crack with a Biden.”

“What would Donkey do?”

Live from Ohio—it’s my fellow Midwestern politicos being f*cking weird. “The Rooster,” a leftist/anti-establishment political blogger based in the state’s capital of Columbus (and my hometown), was arrested and jailed for sending a cartoon image of Shrek’s penis to a Republican State Senator. I’m going to wait a few seconds for you to re-read that. D.J. Byrnes, the man known as The Rooster, has built a reputation for having “a knack of crawling under the skin of the politicians he writes about and creating little burrows they can’t excavate, though they scratch and scratch.” Ew. Anyway.

I haven’t found any record of *why* Byrnes sent the photo to State Senator Jerry Cirino (if there is one), but I’m guessing that the legislator’s conservative record could have something to do with it. He is the chief sponsor of the Ohio Higher Education Enhancement Act, which would, among other Republican priorities, eliminate DEI spending. Based on the research I did for this segment, I’m not likely to agree with much of The Rooster’s confrontational tendencies, but you’ll have to find someone else to feel sorry for Senator Cirino. Now to get the image of Shrek’s cartoon tidy parts out of my mind…

Platner Problems

An investigation by The New York Times published earlier this afternoon outlines the experience of three women who dated Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner in the past, describing his behavior towards them as “volatile,” “toxic”, “unsettling,” and “emotionally wrenching.” The campaign had already been in defense mode this week after a former staffer revealed that Platner, a Democrat, had exchanged sexual text messages with several women while married to his wife, Amy Gertner.

Notably, one of the women who has come forward to accuse Platner is a conservative political operative and activist. Lyndsey Fifield, who dated the candidate from 2013-2015, acknowledged the elephant in the room — “I know it looks like a bitter ex-girlfriend Republican trying to take down a Democrat [...], she said. “If he was running as a Republican, I would be doing this exact same thing.” You can read the full story here — with a content warning for discussions of physical violence and rape (Platner is not currently accused of the latter).

We’ll have to see how the next 48 hours play out for the embattled Mainer. Even with the Nazi tattoo, his past Reddit comments, those text messages, his Kik account, and these new allegations, the populist oyster farmer has shown an almost Teflon-like ability to survive the kind of scandals and embarrassments that have elsewhere ended entire political careers. That armor may be cracking.

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TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

“Buff Mike Rogers” — Accounts connected to Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican U.S. Senate candidate, have been posting a series of bizarre AI-generated images and videos of a bulked-up Rogers in superhero-like scenes.

Meet the CREATOR Act — A bipartisan effort to protect creators and artists from “unauthorized exploitation of their unique and creative artistic styles in the age of artificial intelligence (AI).”

U up? It’s Israel — An AI-persuasion text program operated by Trump’s former campaign manager asks voters in Arizona’s 4th congressional district what they think about the U.S.’s relationship with Israel.

Pattie vs Patagonia — Trademark attorneys across the Internet are weighing in against Patagonia’s lawsuit against drag queen Pattie Gonia (and their perspectives are not looking good for the performer).

Just what we need — After Anderson Cooper departed CBS last month, executives are allegedly eying podcaster Joe Rogan as his replacement.

Survey: What 68 campaign professionals said about AI in politics — A new report shows the partisan breakdown in use of new technologies between Republican and Democratic operatives.

“There’s something about a man in uniform” — The successful Democratic nominee for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, Adam Hamaway, was propelled to victory by an unconventional campaign — including a PAC’s backing on Grindr.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 22 | Thursday, May 28th, 2026

This week, I had three new experiences. First, I drank a Yoo-hoo for the first time. Surprisingly…delicious, though concerningly watery before shaking. Then, I watched the 1999 film Dogma, whose depiction of Alanis Morissette as God I won’t easily get over. Lastly, I went for a walk around New Orleans’ Audubon Park and listened to Candace Owens’ interview with Hunter Biden.

Every once in a while, I like to skip the Sonar transcription and go straight for the good stuff. A full episode of the alt (or leaning) right content. I’m not a total masochist, so I usually listen at 1.5 speed. OK. Sometimes 2x. A few weeks ago, it was Joe Rogan’s interview with Michael Pollan. (Yes, that Michael Pollan.) This week? Candace and Hunter.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it was a totally personable conversation. At one point, Candace even apologized to Hunter for the role she played in the media ecosystem that skewered him over his addiction and personal issues. Referencing him in the third person, she said, “I just didn’t even consider he’s a crackhead.” Nice. Still, I found it hard to believe at times that the son of the former president of the United States of America was sitting down with an online conspiracy theorist who has previously claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was involved in the killing of Charlie Kirk.

Anyway. Here’s one of my favorite posts of the week. Ready for a newsletter?

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Our weekly Traffic Report segment covers top tracks and tunes at the corner of politics and the Internet.

Everybody Loves Mamdani

Twelve billion-dollar deficit eliminated. One thousand $50 tickets to the World Cup in New York City. A website that guides New Yorkers to free summer activities. A city-owned grocery store. One hundred thousand potholes filled. Thousands of daycare seats for low-income residents. I mean, come on. As summer blooms around the corner, the love shown online for New York City’s first Muslim mayor feels like it’s reaching another peak. For good reason.

“You might be the second coming of Christ twin”, wrote one user in response to a post about the city’s new nyc.gov/summer website, detailing free or reduced-price activities around the city. I don’t hide the fact that New York has never been my favorite city (I’m more of a Des Moines, Iowa type-gal), but Mamdani’s unrelentingly effective overhaul of the Big Apple is making me really happy for my friends and the millions of other people who live there.

To add to the well-deserved and at times hilarious hype, Mayor Mamdani showed up to yesterday’s Eid al-Adha services in an Arsenal (yes, the newly crowned Premier League-winning soccer team) printed kurta. Conservatives are, obviously, losing their minds. To top it all off, the Mayor announced the formation of his COGE Commission — an efficiency-focused group (and nod to Elon Musk’s DOGE). Enjoy your golden Mamdani summer, NYC.

“Glad to see 'when they go low we go high' is over”

The Democratic National Committee’s official account on X replied to a transphobic post by Trump advisor Stephen Miller with, and I’m quoting here, “shut up you ugly fuck.” My side of X filled up with responses: Democratic politicos cheering on the sass, people telling the DNC to ‘promote the intern’ (we are begging you to believe that full-grown people are running these accounts), and Republicans whining about civility.

Fantastic. It’s about time we took the gloves off. Sort of. Am I totally convinced of the effectiveness of this tactic? No. Do I endorse it anyway? Also no. In a moment like this, I often think to myself — how much of the electorate is going to see this online interaction? Is that amount persuadable, or is the post falling into bubbles on both sides of the aisle? Are we going to win or lose an election because the DNC told one of Trump’s death-eaters to ‘shut up, you ugly fuck’? Sorry. A lot of questions today. On the last one — that’s a third no.

“We’re retiring breaking news”

News creator Aaron Parnas grew his following of more than 5 million TikTok followers with a familiar format. Every video started with some version of “Breaking news”, or “We’ve got breaking news.” Earlier this week, Parnas put out a video saying that viewers may have noticed a shift in his intros. “We’re retiring ‘breaking news,’ because honestly, the news is broken,” the creator said. “When everything is breaking, nothing is.”

This comes as creators and strategists on the left alike have been in discussion about new ways to more effectively share content, including adopting clipping tactics, and — yes, improving their video intros (h/t Max Levy). Everyone, say bye-bye to ‘breaking news.’

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TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

Just kill me now — The Associated Press announced that it is licensing its election data to OpenAI through the 2028 election.

Have we settled on how we feel about him yet? Maine U.S. Senate Democratic candidate Graham Platner’s campaign gave out decorated oyster shells instead of campaign pins at a recent rally.

Not on my bingo card — The White House shared a post on X commemorating 10 years since the death of the gorilla Harambe.

Why didn’t I think of this? — The website of a Democratic candidate in Utah lets users toggle the colors depending on whether they want to see him as a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or Libertarian.

“Idiocracy was a shockingly accurate documentary.” — A user online compared President Trump’s White House UFC arena to the 2006 film.

For the last time, can we stop using gay as an insult? — A TikTok posted by The Democrats implied that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump are lovers.

“Does it matter?” — In a recent interview, the frontrunner of the Republican Colorado gubernatorial primary refused to say how many people he’s killed.

I’m off to finish another glass of Yoo-hoo and make you guys a TikTok. It’s been real. Have a great weekend.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 21 | Thursday, May 21st, 2026

For brevity’s sake, I can only include so much in each week’s newsletter. Some weeks, when things are a bit slower, that feels like a blessing. Some weeks, there are a few tidbits I wish I could still tell you about. Like how President Trump bought stock in a conveyor belt sushi chain because he thought it was a different company. Or the completely insane merch that Tucker Carlson is selling on his website (☝🏻). Or maybe I wanted to show you this campaign ad, which depicts an AI chatbot telling a voter which candidate to support. Too bad. Maybe I’ll be able to cram those in next time.

It’s gray and stormy in New Orleans, and it kind of feels the same way on the Internet. In this week’s Traffic Report, one Democratic candidate’s proposed “castration processing center for pedophiles,” Trump Mobile’s ongoing woes, and Minnesota’s ban on prediction markets. Down in TL;DR, the DNC’s autopsy, the Malcolm X park fountains are back on, and the Pope does ‘6-7.’

We’re continuing to publish our Content Digest, a thrice-weekly summary of content posted by the Internet’s most influential voices. If you haven’t yet, check it out here.

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Our weekly Traffic Report segment covers top tracks and tunes at the corner of politics and the Internet.

This Democratic candidate has plans for an ‘internment camp.’

As a runoff in Texas approaches, the Democratic frontrunner for District 35 posted a statement saying that she would “convert ICE detention center in Karnes County into an internment camp for ‘American Zionists.” Maureen Galindo, a sex therapist turned candidate, also said, “It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles, which will probably be most of the Zionists.” Where do I even begin?

Democrats are quickly disavowing Galindo while also accusing Republicans of funding the PAC that has backed her efforts in the district to the tune of $428,000. In the days since Galindo’s comments, ActBlue has turned off her online fundraising. Even Hasan Piker has spoken out against her. Her comments are, of course, abhorrent. As a digital strategist, my contribution to this discourse is that her website might be worse: www.maureenforuscongress.com.

You Used to Call Me On My Trump Phone

That asterisk is probably doing a lot of work. Thousands of people paid a $100 deposit for the T1 phone from Trump Mobile — an Android phone with a metallic gold shell cover. Truth Social is, of course, pre-downloaded, with a mobile network all its own. The phone is set to retail for $499. According to CNN, it just so happens to resemble a Chinese-made phone sold at Walmart for $127.99.

The release of the phones, already delayed nine months, has hit another roadblock. A flaw in Trump Mobile’s website has apparently made it possible for its customer records to be easily accessed online, including full names and addresses. Grifters gonna grift. In this situation, I can’t say I’m grieving for the consumer or the seller.

Minnesota says no to prediction markets

We’ve closely followed the emergence of prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi. Now, Minnesota has become the first state to ban them. While we follow them most closely for political bets, more than 90% of the activity on Kalshi’s site is for sports betting.

A co-author of the public safety bill that Governor Tim Walz signed earlier this week said, “It’s important that the state of Minnesota put a marker in the sand and say that the Legislature should be able to debate and look at what forms of gambling we want to legalize.”

Immediately following the signing of the bill, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a lawsuit aimed at preventing it from taking effect. A total ban may not be the right answer, but I’d like to see regulation on these trading markets. Fast. An estimated 2.5 million adults in America “could be diagnosed with severe gambling addiction.” Even scarier: Another study showed that mobile sports betting “further increased the chance of a spike in intimate partner violence.”

Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket are only speeding up the growth of these numbers.

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TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

“6-7!” — Pope Leo partakes in the global language of this fading trend.

The Piker effect continues — Dr. Abdul El-Sayed raised more than $1 million after his rally with Hasan.

“I’ve heard he’s a big MAGA person” — President Trump endorsed Spencer Pratt in the LA mayoral race.

“I am not proud of this product” — DNC Chair Ken Martin issues the release of the much-discussed DNC 2024 autopsy.

After seven years, the Malcolm X fountains are back on — As a former D.C. resident who lived VERY close to this beautiful park, I was glad to see that the fountains have finally been turned on. I won’t, however, be thanking the Trump administration.

“The AI models learn from watching really smart people do things” — As he prepares to lay off thousands at Meta, Mark Zuckerberg is training AI models on his employees’ work.

“Talk with the people” — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani launches a new Twitch series.

-

Now and in the future, we’d like to hear from you. Are you curious about a topic you’d like us to explore with Sonar? Have you seen a TikTok trend you don’t understand and would rather not Google yourself? Does your little cousin keep Snapchatting you letters and numbers that look more like hieroglyphics than human language? Write to us at hotline@nontoxicmedia.com with your questions, curiosities, and Polymarket predictions (unless you live in Minnesota).

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 20 | Thursday, May 14th, 2026

It’s the rare few weeks here during New Orleans’ spring where the sunny days have yet to give way to our soon-to-be sweltering summer. It’s been so nice, in fact, that my cat has been enjoying plenty of (leashed) time out on the patio. In return, it seems like he screams at us a little less — until it comes to going outside again.

In today’s Traffic Report, the increased cost of campaigning on today’s Internet, the return of Charli D’Amelio amidst Hantavirus concerns, and staff mudslinging in the Michigan senate primary. In TL;DR, the Transportation Secretary recorded a reality TV show, more about that missing DNC autopsy, and how Americans are feeling about data centers.

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Our weekly Traffic Report segment covers top tracks and tunes at the corner of politics and the Internet.

Today’s Pay-to-Play

Two California candidates are reminding us this week of the costs of doing business on today’s Internet. Spencer Pratt’s insurgent mayoral campaign is hiring “clippers” — people paid to clip and share content from longer videos of the candidate at debates and on TV. Clipping is all the rage these days—and last week, we shared Max Levy’s quick look at why Democrats aren’t yet using it effectively. (He may be running for mayor of the liberal stronghold of Los Angeles, but Pratt is a registered Republican, so his efforts don’t count.)

The Sacramento Bee covered payments by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer, including $10,000 to an influencer whose content is typically about sports and pop culture. The article raised existing concerns about a lack of transparency behind paid creator content, citing the lack of federal guidelines for disclosures, like those required of other political ads. Friend of the newsletter and Steyer campaign spokesman Kevin Liao told the outlet, “The campaign believes in compensating people for their time and work product and has paid creators to generate content.” He also said, “Payments for creator content are disclosed in campaign finance reports.” Whether it’s for clip farms or creator posts, the costs — and rules — of engagement are changing.

“Ohhh, what a time to be alive”

If the lyrics (and their accompanying diddy) above don’t send a shiver running down your spine, it’s possible you weren’t on TikTok in March of 2020. The collective fever dream that was our Internet consciousness in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a lot of strange hours online. Whipped instant coffee recipes, lip-sync dance videos, and at-home workouts. Like a ghost of Christmas past this week, some of the biggest creators from peak TikTok began to show up on my feed. Charli D’Amelio — an early TikTok dancing sensation — and her ex-boyfriend, Huddy. (Don’t get me started on that twisted tale of young love.)

It turns out that even the algorithm has a sense of humor — as fears about the Hantavirus grow, TikTok began to serve up videos from these digital faces of the first pandemic. Charli D’Amelio might have been in on the joke; in her new posts, she uses the same viral sounds she danced to more than 6 years ago.

I can assure everyone that my several thorough Google searches have confirmed that Hantavirus is not the next COVID. Regardless, given the meteoric success experienced by those COVID-era TikTokers, some users joked online that they would “try making the dancing videos this time around.”

Knives Out — Michigan Primary Edition

I read somewhere this week that if anyone wants a taste of the 2028 presidential primary, they need look no further than Michigan. The Senate Democratic primary has drawn major talent — and infighting — to the state. Fights exploded between staffers this week online, as the Mallory McMorrow camp tried to attack Abdul El-Sayed’s credentials as a medical doctor. In response, posts were made, for some reason, ridiculing the appearance of McMorrow’s staffers, and the communication directors for both campaigns posted directly about the conflict.

I didn’t sharpen my teeth on the same dumb rocks that some of my fellow politicos seemed to, but my typical rule of thumb here is: It’s your candidate’s job to make the news, not yours. Your job is to cower behind the podium while you try to fundraise off it. I’m so glad we can only look forward to more of this nastiness in the presidential cycle.

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TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

“Must be the product of human creativity and craft” — New York Times issues stern guidance on AI to freelance writers.

“The Great American Road Trip” — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has recorded a reality-TV show to celebrate our country’s 250th year.

“This is one of the most pathetic things I have ever seen.” — Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice dissed California gubernatorial candidate (and her former colleague) Xavier Becerra by resharing a post calling him pathetic.

“Here’s What I Told the DNC Autopsy” — The Bulwark is out with an ex-Biden aide’s frank and cohesive look back at the campaign, and what went wrong.

“More Americans would rather live near a nuclear power plant.” — 7 in 10 Americans oppose a data center being built in their community.

“I think there are a lot of people who smoke cannabis in Congress,” — Representative Ilhan Omar (and co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus) caught up with TMZ this week.

“Get ready” — Another congressional candidate, this time, a Democrat from Utah, confirmed that they plan to stream with leftist commentator Hasan Piker, a move that has typically resulted in increased fundraising and attention.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Share Al Gore's Internet: Politics. Online.

Vol. 2, Issue 19 | Thursday, May 7th, 2026

Most of the last week has still been, for me, consumed with the continued fallout from the Supreme Court’s April 29 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais. Last week, I wrote that the House candidates I work with here in the state had just learned that their primary — in which votes had already been cast — had been suspended. Now, those same candidates are plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit challenging the Governor’s actions. My side of politics and the Internet has been more localized, filled with rapid-response graphics, fundraising asks (some of which come from my candidates), and voter education — posts and videos encouraging Louisianans to still vote in other races and on statewide amendments.

The rest of the Internet has mostly moved on. In today’s Traffic Report, Nick Fuentes’ endorsement in the Ohio Governor’s race, AOC’s new vlogs, and a look behind the scenes of the Artemis II digital team. In TL;DR, more political insider trading — this time by campaign staffers, the question of clips, and Barack Obama’s tan suit.

P.S.: Check out the new video Lauren Jewett — a June Group candidate running against Steve Scalise — just put out: “Pop Quiz.”

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Our weekly Traffic Report segment covers top tracks and tunes at the corner of politics and the Internet.

“I’m so proud now to be a Democrat in 2026.”

Checking in on my home state … Far-right (or is it left now?) streamer Nick Fuentes has officially endorsed Amy Acton for Ohio governor. Acton, a Democrat, is best known (to me and to the world) as the former Director of the Ohio Department of Health, whose calm and science-focused daily briefings during the early days of COVID-19 kept my parents and me from totally losing our minds. Six years later, she’s now vying for the governorship against billionaire Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, who recently lent his campaign a cool 25 million dollars.

Fuentes’ endorsement of Acton came alongside predictably racist comments about Ramaswamy by the streamer, saying that when it comes to a choice between the two in November, “We’re gonna have to hold our noses and we’re gonna have to vote Democrat.” The chronically outspoken Fuentes also commented this week that he’s “so proud now to be a Democrat in 2026.”

“We’re just going to start vlogging a little bit more.”

AOC has never been behind the times—and the Congresswoman isn’t starting now. This week, she posted a video of her trip to a local Girl Scout troop (represent!) with a back-seat, YouTuber-style intro on the way to the event — telling the audience she would be vlogging more. After posting, Rep. Alexandria O’Casio-Cortez wrote in her caption, “I thought I was editing this in vertical and now I’m back at work and can’t go back 😂 [sic] Let me know what you think!” I did a double-take at this — is AOC editing her own DITL (day-in-the-life) vlogs like any other burgeoning content creator? If so, I clearly need to step up my content creation game. What can’t the Congresswoman do…

3,270 posts in 10 days.

“We watched with tears in our eyes and feelings of disbelief that after so many years of so many people working on this mission, everything had finally culminated in this beautiful moment of blinding light and earth-shattering sound.” (Thalia Patrinos)

I loved every bit of Rachel Karten’s interview with Patrinos, the strategist leading NASA’s digital communications for all Artemis missions. As someone who was, like Karten, attached to her phone for the entirety of the recent 10-day mission, I’ve wondered if we might get a behind-the-scenes look at the digital team that kept us deep in our feels. Karten, author of the wildly popular Link In Bio newsletter, rarely disappoints. Patrinos shared what it was like working with the astronauts (“becoming an influencer is not top of mind!”) and how many times the team posted as the trip was ongoing (3,270, not counting replies, reposts, or comments). More of this, please. You can read the rest of the interview here.

TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

“It’s almost foolish not to bet on it before it’s made public” — Babe…that’s why it’s called insider trading. NPR has reported that campaign staffers in a statewide race in the South made thousands betting on their own candidates.

3.5 million pages — A library of books made up entirely of the Epstein files has opened in New York City.

“From monuments to john-uments” — the “Drain the Swamp Toilets” account on X rates bathrooms on Capitol Hill.

“Why aren’t Democrats clipping?” — A valuable look by strategist Max Levy at the concept of “clipping” streams and videos to widen their reach, and the failure by Democrats (sigh) to properly use the tactic.

“Fly.” — Barack Obama looks back at the tan suit incident in a new interview with Stephen Colbert.

Domination by Fox News — Take a look at “the 50 most-viewed political adjacent, partisan-leaning YouTube channels last month.”

“You better not turn the Abdul and Bernie rally into a Wes Anderson film…” — Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s team is out with a great new video.

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See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 18 | Thursday, April 30th, 2026

Another day, another crisis. Yesterday’s Louisiana v. Callais ruling by the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act and set a dangerous precedent for Republican redistricting efforts ahead of this year’s midterm elections. For those of us working in Louisiana politics, the effects are immediate and widespread. First, news broke last night that GOP Governor Jeff Landry was preparing to suspend the primaries set to be held for congressional seats in a little more than two weeks. Less than 24 hours later, the primaries have been officially suspended—but only for the House races, leaving statewide amendments and other candidates on the ballot. There’s not yet a clear answer about when or how the election for Louisiana’s House races will now be held.

Today’s news has resulted in a lot of fun (that’s sarcasm, by the way), frustration, and confusion for me and the candidates I work with—in Louisiana’s 1st, 3rd, and 4th districts. For those counting, those seats are currently occupied by Steve Scalise, Clay Higgins, and Speaker Mike Johnson. Woof. Anyway. I don’t have a roundup of “The Internet’s reactions to Louisiana V. Callais” because—honestly—we’re still reacting here on the ground. There’s plenty else to cover in today’s Traffic Report, with Mallory McMorrow’s resurfaced Tweets, the end of Jerome Powell’s era as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Congress’s condemnation of Hasan Piker. In TL;DR, Amazon’s new podcast, Chonkers, the 2000lb sea lion, and a royal loo break.

About a million other things are going on here in Louisiana, so let’s get into it. Happy newsletter Thursday.

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Our weekly Traffic Report segment covers top tracks and tunes at the corner of politics and the Internet.

“Aaaand it’s snowing. Screw you, Michigan.”

Mallory McMorrow isn’t having a great week. Since-deleted posts on X, formerly Twitter, show the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan’s hotly contested primary making fun of Middle America and complaining about the weather in the wintry state. In response, a campaign spokesperson said, “Mallory grew up in the social media era and like most normal people she engages in self-deprecating humor,” the statement continued. “These are normal tweets by a normal person.” Originally from New Jersey, McMorrow lived and worked in New York City and Los Angeles before moving to Michigan. While she has previously described her move to the Midwest as beginning in 2014 and ending in 2016, the re-surfaced posts include her proudly declaring that she would continue to vote in California as an absentee voter.

McMorrow has also recently taken to social media to defend herself against allegations of financial connections to data centers and whether she takes contributions from AIPAC (she denies both). The videos, posted on April 17th and 28th, show her in an almost identical setup — direct to camera, in a prim home office — “clearing up” another set of allegations. This reminds me of a political truism that I carry with me every day: “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

“Thank you very much, everyone. I won’t see you next time.”

We’ve assembled a few of our favorite moments from Jerome Powell’s last day as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. We’re starting with my favorite, with Powell’s answer to a reporter’s question about how he’ll keep a low profile as he stays on as a governor of the Reserve. In response, Powell ducked down a few inches behind the podium. SNL, who? Another post on X included an AI-generated version of Powell in the “Jon Hamm Dancing In the Club” meme, captioned with, “Jerome Powell leaving rates unchanged in his final FOMC meeting after Trump begged him everyday to lower them.” Know Your Meme—a great resource for anyone trying to understand the wiles of today’s Internet humor—describes the blue-lit meme as “as a way of representing similar feelings of joy or nostalgia.” (FOMC stands for Federal Open Market Committee. You can watch the video here).

As the former Chairman was leaving the room during his final briefing, he said, “Thank you very much, everyone. I won’t see you next time.” I’ll miss Powell’s steady leadership, Dad jokes, and calm refusal to cave to President Trump’s demands to lower interest rates. It might be a while before there’s another adult like him in the room.

Whereas, this is dumb.

In one of the most egregious wastes of political time and energy I’ve seen recently (and you know that’s saying something), a Democrat and a Republican in the House have banded together to introduce a resolution condemning leftist streamer Hasan Piker and conservative podcaster Candace Owens for antisemitism. It’s nice to see we can all still find some common ground. Just kidding. For f*ck’s sake — while millions of Americans can’t afford healthcare and have to choose between putting groceries on the table or gas in the tank, moderate whackos on both sides of the aisle have now spent months attacking Piker for past comments made about Israel and Hamas.

It’s not the first time Congress has made a similar move. Only last year, Senate Democrats introduced a resolution that condemned conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson and far-right streamer Nick Fuentes. I’m no alt-right apologist, but I’m just wondering — would our brave members of Congress mind spending more time fighting for basic civil and human rights, and a little less censoring private citizens? Keep watching for this season’s finale. I’m sure we’ll all be disappointed.

TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

Is this Black Mirror? — Amazon has launched a new “AI podcast,” where two “hosts” discuss the merits of products for potential customers — like this diaper rash ointment.

“From the streets of Tehran, to the avenues of D.C.” — The latest in Iranian state-affiliated media’s ongoing Lego propaganda campaign appeals directly to Americans.

Team Chonkers — The Internet has fallen in love with a 2000lb sea lion who made an appearance on the docks of San Francisco.

“The Royal Loo Break” — Politico Playbook reported that an advance party was sent to identify a suitable spot for a bathroom break as King Charles III and Queen Camilla road tripped from D.C. to Front Royal, VA.

Political Gains — Man-of-the-moment Hasan Piker and New York City Council Member Chi Osse, both Democratic Socialists, met up this week to stream and weight lift together. Is the manosphere finally becoming bipartisan?

“Ask your democracy if Saikat Chakrabarti is right for you.” — A Democratic candidate, and former Chief of Staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (who has declined to endorse him), released a new campaign spot in the format of a prescription drug ad.

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As always, we’ll be back in a week.

See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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Vol. 2, Issue 17 | Thursday, April 23rd, 2026

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me—err, I guess that was yesterday. Today’s newsletter is brought to you by a special combination of the effects of a COVID booster with the bug I picked up at dinner last night. Fingers crossed you’ll forgive me if we keep it brief today.

In this week’s Traffic Report, Virginia Democrats’ redistricting victory, insider trading on Kalshi by candidates, and the Zohran lookalikes popping up around the world. In TL;DR, Trump-themed bibles, Cleveland.com’s disappointing AI slop, and Kevin Becerra’s not-so slam-dunk of an ad.

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Our weekly Traffic Report segment covers top tracks and tunes at the corner of politics and the Internet.

“You all started it, and we f—king finished it.”

The Internet was ablaze this week with reactions to the results of an election in Virginia that allowed Democrats in the state to favorably redraw congressional maps ahead of this fall’s midterm elections. Virginia Senate Pro Tempore Louise Lucas raked in praise online—the State Senator is known for spicy shitposts and a take-no-prisoners political mentality. As The Bulwark wrote, “Although the Dark Brandon meme felt cringe by the end of the Biden administration, the beaming red laser eyes somehow work for Lucas. She’s shown remarkable fluency in internet slang—from “cuck” to “OOMF”—especially for someone who was born before D-Day.” Age is truly just a number. In this case, it’s 10-1 likely Democratic seats in Virginia. The Senator’s latest post yesterday depicted the cohort of the Republican U.S. Representatives in Virginia set to lose their seats in the redistricting effort as workers at McDonald’s, with Lucas writing, “Thank you McDonalds [sic] for hiring those facing federal job losses. Every family deserves to earn a living and that’s why we raised our minimum wage in Virginia to $15 an hour.” Touche, madam.

“I wanted to get caught”

The prediction market Kalshi announced yesterday that it was suspending the accounts of three candidates who had bet on their own races. The three men include Republican Ezekiel Enriquez in Texas, Democratic candidates Matt Klein in Minnesota, and Independent Mark Moran in Virginia. Moran published a long statement online alleging that he “wanted to get caught” — to “highlight how this company is destroying young men.” I’ve come across Moran’s campaign content before—a self-described “Internet Cavalier”. I couldn’t put my finger on what about the blonde-haired politician bothered me, but the answer was quickly revealed with a Google Search. Before launching his race, Moran was an investment banker, author of a banking-industry meme account, and a reality TV star. Here’s where I’d usually make a quip about making room for the first-time candidate in the Democrats’ “big tent”, but the prediction markets bet against ending this segment on a joke.

The Mamdani Effect Goes Global

A user on X wisecracked, “Prepare for an onslaught of Canadian leftists cosplaying as Zohran Mamdani in all their campaign videos. They were commenting on a video of a Toronto city council candidate who, true to form, appeared to copy almost cut-for-cut various aspects of the style and tone of New York City Mayor Mamdani’s video strategy. That’s not to say that Mamdani has a patent on the content, aesthetic, and organic social media program that contributed to his election, but it is (almost) humorous to see it play out in real life. Across the pond, the Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales recently met with members of the team who led Mamdani’s campaign to learn how they could potentially employ similarly effective tactics. I guess we all wish we could be Zohran Mamdani—except for right now, while he’s being blamed for the Mets’ longest losing streak since 2002. You think you can bottle that kind of influence?

TL;DR—Internet slang for “Too long, didn’t read”. In TL;DR, I share short clips, quick news hits, and trends to keep an eye on.

Are we supposed to be surprised? — New research finds that “Addiction to short-form videos is associated with reduction of brain activity in the frontal lobe and weakened focus.”

I mean, sure, I guess you could do that — California gubernatorial candidate and current frontrunner Xavier Becerra shared an odd campaign ad online this week, with videos of him speaking cut with clips of professional athletes making a dunk or a ski jump. Given that Becerra has no association with any of these athletes, it was a strange choice.

Have I not been telling you that journalism is dead? — Cleveland.com was railed at online for its choice to use AI to create a cartoon version of two reporters relaying a story.

Should we give it a try? An AI-generated video shows Andrew Tate and Clavicular attacking the Strait of Hormuz to bring an end to the blockade.

“The Holy Babble” — An art exhibit in New York is displaying a Trump-themed church, exploring “Trumpism as a modern belief system through a satirical, Trump-themed Bible.”

In AI news — Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders invited four AI researchers to join a panel on international cooperation and the existential risks of AI at the Capitol.

“Very good news!” — President Trump begged Iran in a series of posts to save the lives of eight women allegedly set to be executed by the regime. The photos of the women are thought to be AI.

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See you on the Internet,

Emma June

Cancelled in advance

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