~*The Sunshine In*~

Media Critic/Rabble Rouser/Nobody at all

Life news: Just got back in to school? My old school? Bout to become the HOW DO YOU DO FELLOW KIDS 5000 bot.

What makes us want to try again? What makes us keep going, or forget?

Will we get a chance to start over with the same chips, or like so many others, find them cashed? I hope you get another chance.

This SUMMER (my fav season as a March birthday bb) we’re not turning away from what’s hard. For fuck’s sake, the summer of Get Lucky was TEN YEARS AGO. Like we update our music libraries, let’s update our app libraries—cutting the excess.

With newsletters, we can skip the AI selection, the algorithms, the nonsense, and support creatives we want to listen to, see, or share directly. It’s kind of scary how we’re letting things choose for us to this degree, but it often feels choiceless.

The links this week are POTENT with more of the convo I started in May: AI, algorithms, media complacency, and how we’re now (been)serving billionaires with our eyeballs. Even if you don’t care (we’re all fucking tired) it’s important to at least start to look at the puzzle pieces in front of you.

Take back the tiny cues and inside jokes and outrage from the jaws of commerce one bit at a time with DTC media like newsies—though the grain of salt is that these platforms are also often VC backed and just cooking until they can find a way to shake us down in the future to enrich the C-Suite and board. YAY!

PLUS: There’s lots of cute events to check out in June in cannabis, for pride, plus new residencies from great DJ’s, learning opportunities to grow your activism, and a tangible way to support a family in Palestine— RIGHT NOW!

LATEST WORK: BOP FINDER📡

One of my really favorite things is how musical all the kids in my life are, just like I was before…whatever 😂. A friend’s bb loves Kokomo by The Beach Boys, a core memory song for me, so I decided to get the core memories going up to like 1995ish? There’s no real theme other than songs I liked as a little kid, and maybe a little kid you know will like them, too. Pass on the nostalgia 📠.

INFLUENCED: Buying Insights 📲 Beverage Beaut

Culture Pop Soda Black Cherry

Lurking is one of my favorite NYC activities. It was decent lurks in the Bay too, with Dolores Park or Downtown Oakland wine bars bearing prime people (and sick classic car) watching, but nothing hits like NYC and/or SoHo watching.

It’s like this: you have 2 hours to kill in between things. Shopping or sit down dining means either a hefty budget, dropping a benj, getting drunk too early or by accident, or carrying around some shit you bought to whatever your plans are.

Instead, I lurk. Nearest good-selection bodega (or legal weed shop for Ayrlooms!) and a fiver will get you some little treat, like this label that I GRILLED for mentions of alt sugar while trying not to bump into skinny suited men and the stock guy with milkcrates stacked to the sky.

Spring street usually has what you need. Sometimes I even sweetgreen (all lowercase because marketing) and slowly chew an entire salad for all 99 years of it’s length to kill time at lurker triangle (IYKYK) or on Grand somewhere near all my secret pee spots (shop bathrooms, thank you very much).

Anyway THIS DRINK: mild sweetness, tart cherry, hefty fizz. Hella good, semi chuggable, or good for washing down too many bites of kale while you look at blogger fits, Pomeranians in strollers, cursed influencer shoots, fellow potheads and co-lurkers, and all of the other types of humanity New York always has to offer.

$2.99 for 12oz can at Spring Natural

7/10 🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒

EEEEvents

Check out these fun events in NYC, California, and beyond!

Network with industry leaders, explore innovative cannatech and sustainable solutions, and enjoy a relaxed evening with like-minded professionals. Don't miss out on this opportunity to connect, learn, and grow in the cannabis technology space.

📅 Date: June 8th 

📍 Location: Dazed Cannabis | 33 Union Square W, New York, NY 10003

⏰ Time: 5:30-730p

RSVP today and be part of the future of Cannatech!

Links to Love 💕 or Hate 🫀

This is a pretty great precursor to the second google-gate that popped up last week—and died just as quickly. I thought I’d read dozens of hot takes on how SEO information leaked and what it’s meant for the internet we use today, how it’s shaped media companies. Once again we let the tendrils of VC choke out a new innovation to an inevitably arrested development, one that funnels now our waking existence into the service of capital in new and scarier ways.

I work in the service journalism sector— so I can say that this has SUCKED. We can’t write stories now unless they SELL STUFF. Stuff we don’t always get to try personally, because ~*commerce*~. While I like doing intentional and well developed service journalism, yet another vital source of consumer info has become a race to the bottom. 🫥

Remember when I said it helped ruin the internet😅? The scandal of Google’s control over business via SEO and ads did not make the wave that I thought it did. Maybe it has something to do with an orange conviction. Either way, it’s astounding how much corporate deception we tolerate as a society. Just talking about it is seen as either an inevitability of capitalism or an inane conspiracy theory from a crunchlord or redpilled jerk. But this is real shit—and it has real consequences. Modern corp cap is like a raging river, every time a new piece of the banks break off, the water is already there to take its place.🫣

The Find My era is DEFINITELY going to be studied. Did it help, did it hurt, did it make people into vigilantes, private detectives, or stalkers? Did it help you Find Your, or did you watch as the person who scored (or stole) your lost phone drove off into the sunset? This read pulls the curtain back a bit on the stolen phone economy, and how the security measures work anecdotally. Insurance is still a must, apparently,🆗!

DJ Schedule (yes, I DJ live and IRL now 😇)

• Follow me on Twitch - @realdanhell

• Playing a quickie at IZZY ROSE June 15th! 😎

• ROOFTOP PARTY IN THE WORKS for hot summer days 🌿

• Book me for your event by REPLYING to this email💋

Ciao amici 😘😘