Thanks again all for voting and for reading, and welcome to the new subscribers!

One side benefit I’ve noticed from this newsletter is that friends have been hitting me up and texting me more often, which is great. I appreciate the feedback and support. Except for Francis, you can shut the hell up.

It’s been a busy week for me so apologies for the late release. I like the idea of getting these out on Friday mornings so hopefully I will return to regularly scheduled programming soon.

Lastly, see here for next week’s survey, also linked down below.

Onto the round-up.

Survey Answers

Q1: Mr. Beast - approve or disapprove?

Survey Results

Highlighted Free Responses

• “people hate that the top of every field is just some turbo autistic giga nerd. but yeah he's the GOAT of youtube, suck it”

• “…seems pretty harmless compared to other YouTube shitheads”

• “Does one really need a chocolate bar, a lunchable, a tv, show, and an energy drink?”

• “I don't know if I've ever actually watched one of his videos, but seeing his smile in the thumbnail assures me I never will.”

• “I heard he gave this really cool guy one thousand bones and a month’s supply of beef jerky and chocolate. Seems like a great fellow to me.”

• “Feel out of the loop on this but I heard he was a billionaire just from YouTube and that feels kind of whack”

Commentary:

Like many of you, I also admit to finding Mr. Beast kind of distasteful but I don’t really have a great explanation as to why.

After reading through the responses, I think I’ve settled on a few main reasons.

First: his face and his general vibe.

I think this one speaks for itself. Just look at any of his thumbnails.

He looks like a vacant, plastic, uncanny valley facsimile of a human being.

Second: his maximization of YouTube as a content platform and money machine.

Many of you, like myself, do not fully identify as Gen-Z. The YouTube we grew up with was much more innocent and less optimized than the Infinite Dopamine Algorithm it is now.

Remember when we used to get one viral video a month, and we all watched it a dozen times?

Now YouTube is bigger than TV itself, and Mr. Beast has squeezed and gamed it for every cent that it’s worth.

I know he’s not solely to blame for the way things are, and I know he’s not the only one — but as the “GOAT of YouTube”, Mr. Beast is to me the poster child of the corporatization and enshittification¹ of the idyllic vision of the internet I grew up with.

Third: the absurdist, late-stage-capitalist nature of his videos and stunts.

The fact that he did a real life Squid Games after the release of Squid Games the TV show feels like something out of RoboCop.

I know he does a lot of charitable stuff and gives away a lot of money, which is ostensibly good.² But when it feels so optimized for clicks and engagement, it makes it hard to call him a saint.

Although we’ve seen that a lot of you don’t give away money at all so maybe we shouldn’t be judging Mr. Donaldson on this front.

Fourth: his forays into doing exploitative capitalism the old-school way — with financial products and Saudi money.

But maybe his burger is good, in which case I approve.

Q2: How often do you get food delivered?

Results:

Highlighted Free Responses:

• “Ordering Thai food so you don’t need to cook right after you get back from a long trip hits insanely different”

• “Only justifiable when critically hungover. Support your local restaurants and get takeout, you animals”

• “Respectfully some bias might be showing in the response options as I know several people who order food more than once a day.”

• “I’m a little offended that 1x a week is often but sometimes it’s just convenient and easy after a long day 🤣”

• “I’ve never gotten food delivered before. Feels unethical living in the food mecca of the US where I can throw a rock and hit a decent food spot.”

• “Double negative bad for the wallet and your body”

Commentary

Yeah I definitely underestimated this one.

Food delivery seems to be a more polarizing topic, especially amongst a certain type of judgmental, self-righteous, moralistic, elitist.

I’m personally opposed to delivery in my own life for mainly health and financial reasons, but I also maintain that some things just aren’t well suited for delivery. I won’t knock the classics like pizza or Chinese food. Food like fries or burgers or soup, however, are just not meant to be shuttled in a plastic deli container for half an hour in some guy’s moped.

I’m on the “rarely” side of delivery, and I’ll get it a few times a year. I think it’s fine to get it every so often, but I can’t help but judge people who get like, one coffee and a donut delivered to their apartment at 10am on a Monday. Like, damn you didn’t even try to have a good week.

The proliferation of food delivery is also one of several things in modern society that makes us more atomized, reduces our friction, and compels us to stay in more. Which is fine on an individual level, but seems bad to me on an aggregate, societal level.

Maybe there’s an argument to be made that, actually, delivery is a good thing. It employs a lot of gig workers, is a vital source of income for restaurants, and redistributes money from lazy time-constrained white-collar workers towards the food industry.

Or maybe you guys are just fat and lazy and can’t cook.

Q3: Have you ever gotten any value, no matter how marginal or temporary, out of reading a self-help book?

Results

Highlighted Free Responses

• “i read something that said like "self help books are valuable because you get a snapshot in the author's brain" and something about that really stuck with me.

  a lot of the time, it's less about the substance of the book but it's like someone had the same problem you did and you get to live in their solution.”

• “it’s hard to definitively say no because surely some component of whatever wisdom I posses could be attributed to insights originating in some self help book I haven’t read.”

• “There’s probably a couple legit ones but i think most of them are grift”

• “More so when I was younger, college aged. I think that there’s the immediate pseudo motivation, but there’s lasting impact in the combined realization of understanding there’s no “secret”. As all of those just say the same thing over and over.”

• “I’ve never read a self-help book in my life. I respond better to corporal punishment.”

• “Models by Manson helped me find my husband”

Commentary

This question was inspired by someone who I live with, who shall remain nameless, making fun of me for still owning a copy of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Honestly, not an unfair barb — it is kind of cringe to have that book in your home. But that book did have a positive effect on me in my formative years as a growing boy.

Now that I’m older, I can recognize that yeah, a lot of these books are repetitive and are mostly just re-contextualizing a lot of the same lessons for different audiences and time periods.

And similar to last week’s topic about books not always being the right format for things — a lot of the core lessons from these books could probably fit into a podcast or TED Talk or something. (Remember TED Talks?)

In defense of the books though, I think there is some kind of “motivation-high” you get from the experience of actually reading them. Committing to reading the book is a materially different experience than just reading the Cliffnotes. It’s not unlike the “God-high” you get from going to Bible Camp or a good church service, for all my monotheists out there.

I don’t think that’s worth nothing, even if its fleeting. Even if you just made your life 1% better for two weeks, that’s still better than 0% for no weeks.

And I won’t ever knock someone for trying to actively improve themselves. Besides Tom Brady, who is an evil freak.

Q4: Have you recently watched any reality TV programs?

Results

Highlighted Free Responses:

• “the ability to monetize your reality TV career on social media ruined reality TV and it will never be as good as it was in the early 2000s.”

• “Look, I am a hater. But if Real Housewives of SLC or Vanderpump Rules are on the living room TV I’m getting sucked in because it’s impossible to look away from those train wrecks”

• “Traitors, Survivor, American Idol, Love Island Games good impression generally because of the discourse and community watching them can inspire”

• “Some reality tv is incredible from an anthropological level. Most is hot trash full of fame-seekers”

• “Singles Inferno single handedly changed my view on reality tv.”

Commentary

I used to think reality TV was like the junk food of media consumption and therefore not worth my time. But guess what? Junk food is awesome.

Reality TV sometimes gets labeled by men as woman-coded, but that is silly considering sports is often times much sillier and more full of drama than reality TV.

I tend to agree with some of the respondents that a lot of reality TV is full of opportunistic fame-seekers now, although maybe that actually works well for the “trashier” shows like Real Housewives or Vanderpump? Shows that pretend to be more genuine like The Bachelor do seem to suffer more from this issue.

I do feel like Survivor has managed to generally avoid this — people have too much respect for the game. Although there are some exceptions.

Q5: When you wear a sweater, do you always wear a t-shirt or undershirt underneath?

Results

Highlighted Free Responses

• “Free the nip!!! Only t shirt under if its chilly”

• “It’s called layering, ever hear of it you peons.”

• “I think this is generational. It does help prevent smells and put stains though”

• “What is generational about not wanting to feel itchy wool on my nipples”

• “why would you rawdog that”

Commentary:

This question was suggested by one of my subscribers, accompanied with the following Instagram Reel.

Content Warning — Heavy Millennial Energy Below:

Between this and the top-sheet thing maybe Gen-Z just hates extraneous fabrics.

Before I watched this, I would have definitely been on the side of always t-shirt underneath. But this Ryan Reynolds-wannabe has annoyed me enough to the extent where I think it’s actually fine.

Fashion changes, so what. In my lifetime cargo shorts have gone both out of style and then back in, Crocs cost $80 now, jeans went from being low and skinny to high and wide to maybe back to slim now? Highkirkuinely let the kids raw-dog their sweaters. I am almost 30 years old.

Q6: Have you heard any songs from Charli XCX's 2024 album BRAT?

Results

Highlighted Free Responses

• “Kamala is BRAT”

• "I very much enjoyed BRAT during “its” summer, but the record being so temporally bound has led me to return to it less than I might have otherwise.”

• “i'm a lil sick of brat-slop at this point”

• “I thought it was cool that Charli became the center of culture for a minute there, but BRAT itself as a musical work and as an idea probably suffers from overexposure at this point.”

• “Brat is fun but hyperpop isn’t really my bag”

Commentary

I was honestly expecting to see more nos here. I had a hypothesis that despite being a cultural phenomenon amongst urban youths, BRAT had not actually permeated the American consciousness that much. After all, one of my good friends had no idea who Chappelle Roan was as of last summer.³

Turns out I was wrong! Or maybe we’re all just in the same bubble.⁴

I’ve been thinking more about the fragmentation of American popular music. This came more into focus as I was downloading some music for my dad so he could update the playlist at one of his nail salons that had been previously been playing Christmas music for months. As any good son would do.

When looking at some of the top songs from the 2000s, I was like ok yeah I know most of these:

But for some of the top songs of 2026 I really could not even tell you who a lot of these people are:

And as it turns out, the clientele at my dad’s nail salon in West Virginia loves the 2026 playlist! I bet they would hate BRAT. Maybe I should get them on this newsletter…

Survey #4

See here for Survey #4.

Since we’re a little off schedule, I’m going to try just closing this by Thursday morning, and aim to get the round-up out on Friday morning again. I’ll send a reminder note on Wednesday.

Programming Notes

• I tried to skew this week’s questions towards the less controversial since I thought last week came off a little testy. Turns out this has made it harder to come up with interesting things to say! Maybe you can tell. I’m still experimenting with this newsletter and the right types of questions to ask so thanks for bearing with me through some trial and error.

• I also felt that last week’s round-up was a little long, so I’m trying to keep my commentary a little shorter. I’ve also reduced this next survey to 5 questions instead of 6. Let me know if you have thoughts — do you enjoy seeing more questions and responses? Longer commentary? More Simpsons clips? I don’t guarantee I will incorporate your feedback but I welcome it nonetheless.